The Dr. John Delony Show - My Mother-in-Law Picks Favorites

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

On this episode, we hear about: -       A mom wondering if she should confront her mother-in-law -       A man unsure how to support his family financially -       A husband struggling with a lack of motivation in life Next Steps 💸 Get tickets to Dave Ramsey’s Investing Essentials. 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or click here. 📚 Get Building a Non-Anxious Life. 📝 Take the Anxiety Test. 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future  ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards  💭 John's Free Guided Meditation   Offers From Today's Sponsors ·      10% off your first month of therapy at BetterHelp   ·      3 free months of Hallow  ·      25% off Thorne orders  ·      20% off on Organifi products   Listen to More From Ramsey Network   🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. How should I deal with other people showing favoritism towards one of my kids? Who is treating them unfairly? My mother-in-law. Oh, yikes. I heard her say she told me this outside that her favorite is the eldest one what up what up what up this is John with the Dr. John Deloney show talking about your marriage your psychology your mental health your whatever you got going on

health so glad that you are with us hey listen the in the last i don't know six months the show has just exploded and it used to be fun to talk about the og 17 for those of y'all who are still with us the original 17 listeners and i can't even say that anymore it's out of control and um the guy on our team that runs youtube said, hey, I heard about this once from a professor. I've never seen this and the growth. And so thank you to every one of you who are joining us in the episodes around. It just it's kind of mind boggling. More importantly, I'm so glad that you're with us.

I'm so glad you're invested in being a different kind of dad, different kind of mom, brother, sister, kid, everybody in on this. Thank you so, so much. If you want to be on this show, real people going through real stuff in real time, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291, 1-844-693-3291, or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. Now, Kelly, we talked like to get right to the calls, but I have to address this

and you can edit it out if you think it's one of those things going to give me more trouble than not. Is that cool? So nervous right now. You should be.

So this is like a couple of days ago. So by the time this comes out, this will be a month from now. So I am doom scrolling Instagram and I see a post that makes me die laughing. And I texted our, the Lauren who runs social media for me

and said, hey, I want to do this post. Now you and I both know that I work with and surrounded by conspiracy theorists everywhere. Yes. All, like, people who think the earth is flat and the moon's not real and Elon Musk is a simulation and the most, like, the Bigfoot is running around

and they talk about it in the Bible, just crazy stuff. Zach Hinden and Andrew. And so like there's, it's everywhere, right? And so the latest conspiracy theory that set me off was the obsession with people making up stories about what was happening to- Kate Middleton kate middleton

yeah oh i have strong feelings on this let whatever's going on they clearly don't want to talk about it with you and let her do her thing let the poor lady live like do her thing so if you remember a couple years ago the bernie sanders post with him at the inauguration and i asked the social media guy hey cut a picture of bernie sanders and just sit him on the desk right next to me that was hilarious so i reached out to lauren say hey cut a picture of kate middleton put her right next to me on on my desk here like a bad do a bad cut and paste job and then just write in the caption look everybody she's here it's all good you can go somewhere else the next day kate middleton comes out that she's i guess got

cancer i haven't read it but that she has like she's very sick and in my attempt to mock conspiracy theorists like andrew it came across as though I was mocking this sweet woman who's very sick and trying to live a private life in a very un-private world. Kelly, the direct messages I got about how they were so vile. And by the way, I took it down. It was like, oh, no, no, no. No, it wasn't about her. It was about you morons who are making up stories.

Holy smokes. Wasn't great. I'm so uncomfortable right now. I can only imagine how bad it was because I didn't know this happened. And wow. One time last year, I was doing some gardening in our back, back field.

And I stepped on, I learned that in Tennessee, there's these things called ground hornets and I stepped on them and they came firing out, man. And my foot got stung a bunch. I was stung all over. It was, I didn't, they just attacked me from the ground. Wasps come from, I have that one, right? It felt like that.

Like I was just bebopping through the world and I stepped on a nest of hornets on behalf of everybody. And here's, can I say this? This is the part that got me. You've always faked being compassionate and caring about people now the real you is out or that's not fair people well i hear it's like it's like you see me interact with

people in their worst moments for several years now thousands of people have called and that one it's like the benefit of the doubt's gone, right? So on behalf of just me, never would I mock somebody who's sick or dying of cancer. I will mock those people who are conspiracy theorists to the death. I kind of am one too. Shout out, Andrew. And because we deserve to be laughed at because we create really distorted stories and have wild

imaginations to avoid reality but never in a million years would i make fun of somebody who's sick or somebody who's trying to have privacy that's this whole show right and i wish i could run a multi-year con on being compassionate but i just i don't have that kind of energy i just really care about people and I want them to be all right. And I also think butt crack jokes are funny. And I'm old now

and I probably shouldn't, but I do. Is that all? I see you wincing, Kelly. I don't know what else to say. No. Well, I mean, for those that don't,

for those that think that, there's, that you've run this con, there's nothing you can do. I mean, that people are going to think what they want to think. It's not true.

John is one of the most compassionate people I know. And that was just bad timing. Could you imagine worse timing? No, not really. Literally within 24 hours. Yeah, that's pretty bad timing. And I did,

you know what? I still didn't even get it. It was, it was Cody, my manager, who was like, hey, that needs to come down. And I was like, why? I'm not even talking about it. He's like, bro manager, who was like, hey, that needs to come down.

And I was like, why? I'm not even talking about it. He's like, bro, do you understand? I was like, no, no, no, no. What happened? And I get it now. I get it now. I get it now.

All right, let's go out to Mary in Detroit. Save me from myself, Mary. Let's see here. Hey, Mary, let's go out to Mary in Detroit Save me from myself, Mary Let's see here Hey, Mary, what's up? Nothing much Just hiding in my basement to make this call I wish I was there with you Not to be weird, but because the internet people are after me

And so I wish I was hiding too No, I feel bad for you Because you know, like, oh, you're an idiot. No, I mean, we all make some sort of mistakes. And you're, what's the word? Your audience is just too big. It is what it is. I did it.

I did it. So, all right. So how can I help you, Mary? What's up? So my original question was about how should I deal with other people showing favoritism towards one of my kids? Tell me more. I'm already dealing with jealousy and competitiveness with my kids. Like among each, among, well, between my eldest and my middle child. And how old are they?

So my oldest five, my middle is three. So my youngest is eight months. I would let that competitiveness and that, is this fair? And what about, let, let that roll. That's developmentally appropriate. That's okay. Okay. Don't go to war over those kind of things.

Like they need to learn how to be disappointed, but a three-year-old is not going to understand five-year-olds twice their size so they get more food. Or the making every, like you get two Skittles, I get two Skittles. That's just how they're processing the world and the adult explanations don't register in their minds. Okay. So don't lose sleep over that.

Who is treating them unfairly? My mother-in-law. Oh, yikes. I mean, she's not mean to the other kids, but I think, so if I can give you a little bit of a backstory. Um, so when I was pregnant with my middle child, my eldest became really attached to my, my husband because in a way I was neglecting him because my pregnancy was rough. Um, let's rephrase that. You weren't neglecting him.

You were surviving. Yeah. So I feel like we didn't have the bond that we could have had if I weren't pregnant. So there are times when he would be crying in the middle of the night. I would go to his room and he would say, I don't want you. I want daddy. And I would just tell him, I know you want daddy, but here I am. I'm here. I want to help you. I'm trying to let daddy sleep. And I would just stay with him. And that breaks my heart to hear, you know, to hear my kids say, I don't want you.

Right. Dude. Hey, hold on. I want you to. Jeez. Yes, I do. I know that very, very well. Very well. That's been my. Kids feel safe with certain parents. And sometimes I can go back and say, man, if you weren't writing a dissertation, maybe you would have been around a little bit more when your daughter was one and a half to two, when her neural development was really cooking. But I wasn't, right? And so I'm glad. That's why two parent households,

those kids statistically have advantages because they've got somebody, right? Instead of nobody. And so I know it's hard in those moments when your kid's like, no, I don't want you. I want dad. Or I don't want you. I want mom.

Or when you're bouncing them and trying to get them to quit crying and they just are screaming and then you hand them to the other parent and they instantly go, ah, right? It's easy to take that personal, but at the same time, if we can stand in that and exhale and say, I'm glad I got my, whoever it is, husband, wife, baby dad, like whoever, whoever the other partner is, thank God we got somebody. You see what I'm saying? And I know you want it to be you, but thank goodness he's connected to his dad. So how does mother-in-law factor into this?

Well, I'm just saying that, um, so my relationship with the eldest is like that. And I feel like, um, I was making it up to him right and I feel like at the same time I felt like I was neglecting the middle child because of this now um so it's a whole balancing act and then I got the third kid most of the time I forget the third kid that makes you normal Mary I don't know but then when I see my mother-in-law, again, she's not mean to the other kids, but I heard her say, she told me this outright, that her favorite is the eldest one. And my father-in-law and I tried to tell her, like, don't do that. Don't say things, you know, don't, we have preferences. He has, you know, that's just how it is, but don't say that out loud and don't treat the kids unfairly. But then I would see her,

you know, just spending more time with him, talking to him more often. And I feel, I just, I think I'm hyper aware of that because of how I'm dealing with the kids inside the house. Yeah. I think you need to cut Mary some slack. Because you're walking around 24-7, 365, always in a state of, I should be doing something different and I'm failing at this.

And then that, yes, you're, I mean, in a perfect world, our in-laws would never say stuff like that, but our in-laws do say stuff like that. And the first grandkid, is this the first grandkid? Yes. Yeah. So the first grandkid is the golden child, right? Until the second grandkid comes along and does something more spectacular. And yeah, like it's just kind of the, and then the baby's so cute and still young and ah and so some of that shifts and

moves if there is a if there is a clear one kid gets a christmas present and the other ones don't or one kid gets a very special gift and the other two would get a high five, then your husband would need to talk to his mother and say, hey, if this is going to be how this goes, then I'm not going to do this to my other kids because I don't want them to come to your house understanding they're going to get a real-life lesson in how they're not enough or how you love somebody else more than them because those little kids are going to internalize it as they're the problem.

They're going to try to fix it and that's not their job but that would be a conversation for your husband to have with his mom not for you hopefully he would be um the of the caliber of character of a man who would do that yeah um one other thing too like with my kids just their personalities, right? My middle child is more reserved compared to the other two. And I think just looking forward, just the whole, the middle child getting neglected and all that stuff. Like that's one of my- Let me like neglect. Do all your kids get to eat?

Yeah. Do all your kids know that their mom loves them? Yeah. Yeah, do all their kids have, like, a bed to sleep in and toys? Mm-hmm. Okay, quit with that language. It's not true. Okay.

Are you taking one to the store? I'm sorry, are we taking one to, like, Chuck E. Cheese while the other one is at home eating cat food? No. Okay. Or do you have one that you're like, no, this is mommy

in our private time and you go in the room and play really engaging games and you just hand the other one an iPad and rot their brain out? No. Okay.

Then you're not neglecting your kids. Quit using that language. Stop talking to Mary like that because it's not true. Okay. Okay? You are balancing

a five-year-old, a three-year-old a three-year-old and now how old your new one eight months good god almighty you don't even know what day it is right now i kept checking the calendar i was like i know because you're in the middle of a hurricane you are in a hurricane and you're like oh my gosh I should have cleaned these carpets nicer than this oh this board is out of place and literally outside cars and trees are flying by your windows the greatest gift you can give your kids right now

is you honestly looking in the mirror and saying I'm doing a great job and like all parents there's something we can be doing a little bit more a little bit different cool then I'm going to work around the edges there. Is somebody telling you that you're failing at this? Or are you just creating these stories and living them out?

Let's just say that my mother-in-law can be critical. That may be the deeper issue here. Mm-hmm. I was trying not to touch that topic. Well, that topic is way more insidious to your family unit and to your kids than mother-in-law saying, I favor the oldest. Big deal on that one my sister was brilliant and an amazing pianist like of course people are gonna be and she's hilarious me i was a loudmouth jock that didn't bathe very regularly of course they would favor her that makes perfect sense right and so And so that's just life.

I want to know what your mother-in-law is saying to you. She can be very passive-aggressive. You know, and I think I'm just, I can be very sensitive about things too. You know, like sometimes we have a hospital stay and she, I think this is like one of the stories that stays on my mind when our middle child was, he had to stay in the hospital and we came back home

and she basically just yelled at my husband for not taking care of my, our kid. And she was saying like, you didn't do what I told you to do. And my husband actually said, we did what you told us to do. And we still ended up in the hospital and stuff like that. Why is your husband allowing his mother to still be the parent of both him and your marriage he's working on it that's unacceptable not a good answer it's been five years plus however long y'all were together before your first time was born yeah no, there's a pressure.

And you know this. I'm just going to speak it out loud. Every time you'll go to visit, you feel it building up. That you're going to be on a stage, a Miss America pageant, and you're going to be wearing hardly anything in the bathing suit competition,

and the whole world's going to be judging everything. That's how you feel every time you see your in-laws and you don't deserve to live like that and if nobody's drawing her any boundaries and if mother speaks and son and company do whatever she says she's going to keep doing what she's doing. So nobody's held any boundaries to her. I don't blame her. Your husband has to stand up and say, this is my wife. This is my wife. Her and I will decide the best care for our kids. Her and I will decide what's best when it comes to schools and homes and is she going to work or not work that will be our decision and mom and dad if y'all want to be a part of our life then that's going to

be great and yes moms and dads like grandparents they're supposed to lob advice at you all day that's what they do that's how they show love i'm not like there is kind of a movement right on the internets to be like if you say one thing of advice, I'm out. That's dumb. But this woman is speaking into you at a deep level. And it's causing you to doubt every bit of your sanity, your maternal instinct, and you doing the things you have to do to keep your kids well and whole. And I think it's time to sit down and tell your husband she can't speak into our home anymore because here's the secret Mary this is your home and this is his home not her home that's a lot how does that land I mean I've heard you have this conversation with other people and like I had a conversation with my husband maybe a week ago telling him how I feel about his mom.

And I did it when I wasn't emotional about it. I just said, I know one day we'll end up having her in our house. And to be honest, my relationship with her is not getting any better. And I tried so hard not to like accuse him of anything. And because he tends to get defensive and then we don't get anywhere. But he didn't really give me an answer like how he's going to deal with it.

Because he's not going to, he never has. Correct. And so I think the fair path forward is this. We need to have an adult conversation. And when we have had adult conversations in the past, you get very defensive and you leave. I'm going to ask you to not leave. I'm going to ask you to stay with me here. I got to say some hard things. And if he can't do it or won't do it, then that's a, your marriage has bigger issues than just mother-in-law. But my guess is he's never had a day in his life not run by that person, by that woman. And she doesn't, has never had somebody like lean up against that boundary. I hate this for you because I know it's hard.

And mama's boys are really hard. And overbearing mother-in-laws. Thank God I got an amazing one. That's not a lived experience for me. But I know they can be tough. But here's what I also know. This is your home. You and your husband are co-creating this home.

And if he's going to be a baby and check out every time you'll have to have a hard conversation, y'all need to deal with that. If he can't hear criticism, he won't stand up to his mommy. Y'all need to deal with that because that's a much bigger issue. And I know it sounds pie in the sky, but he needs some action steps. He needs a roadmap. And is that ridiculous? Yes.

But he's gotten every inch of his life planned out for him by his mommy his whole life. And I think it's time for him to get a new roadmap. Part of that roadmap is you need him to learn how to lead a family, learn how to co-create this thing with you. He doesn't know how to do that. He knows how to do what mommy says. And when mommy gets mad, he knows how to just go,

and you're left fending for everybody. I hate that for you, Mary. I don't want that for you and your marriage. I want y'all to both stand up tall and say, this is our home. We love it when mom and dad-in-laws visit. It's great, but it's our home. Let me know how that conversation goes. That one's going to be a tough one. I'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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All right, let's go out to Oklahoma City and talk to Wesley. Hey, Wesley, what's up, man? Hey, Dr. John, how are you? I'm good, brother. How are you, man? I'm doing good. I just really quickly wanted to say thank you for using your gifts and insight to serve us listeners. How you do, man? I honor it. Well, I appreciate that a lot, man. I've been getting bombarded lately, so I appreciate that. I needed that today, so thanks.

I love that. What's up? Um, I have, I saw, I talked to Taylor, but I have the worst time trying to figure out how to frame this question. Cause every time I frame it, I always feel like it comes back to like character defects and me. Um, just don't put it all on the table. We'll sort it out. Okay. So 10, 15 second backstory is I grew up super poor, small town, very broken family. I got like three moms in my life, all this crazy stuff. Again, very broke, very poor, no direction type of family. Anyways, fast forward to I'm 19, I get saved. Then I get like a pretty nice job and kind of now I have an amazing family, wife, two kids, doing financially pretty well and just emotionally, mentally doing really well.

But my whole family kind of isn't. And so I get, I have trouble, I guess. It's not your job. It's not your job. It's not your job. Hey, listen to me. You've tried. You've tried to buy it. You've tried to teach it.

And they're not having it. No. And you feel like you just aren't doing it right. But one day you could teach them, show them, buy them. And I'd tell you right now, you can't. And I hate that for you because you want everyone to experience the peace you have,

both spiritually, financially, emotionally, as a family. You want everyone you love to have that and they look at you and they go, I don't want that. Or I don't care to do the work that it would take to get that. By the way, can I have a thousand bucks?

Why you got to be such, why you got to be such an ass dude? Like give me a thousand bucks. Like, are you serious right now? You're just going to turn your back on your family? Yeah, it's weird. Cause then I just, then I struggle with like, so that's, I mean, you hit almost all the, all the nails on the head. I've had the advice talks, the money talks.

And again, I've given money, I've given advice, but obviously none of it. I don't care, man. And so it's, so now it's, it's at the point where I'm like, how do I, how do I, because obviously I love them. So I asked Taylor the question of like, how do I, how do I love them to, how do I love them? Well, I feel like I love them, but I'm like, how do I, how do I love them to, how do I love them? Well, I feel like I love them,

but I'm like, how do I have relationships with them? Like that? I don't feel like I'm like judging or I don't feel like bad or like your relationship, your relationship will look very different. It'll look very different because you and your new life have boundaries. You can't show up to family stuff.

Hi, you can't be here. Are you serious? Yep. You can't show up to family stuff high or you can't be here. Are you serious? Yep, you can't. You can't bring strange men around my daughters. No, no, you don't understand. No, no, I'm serious. I don't give money or loan money to family members. Period.

And if a condition of our brotherhood or sister to brother or mom and dad to son is conditional on a financial transaction, that's all you need to know, Wesley, about what they think of you. And here's the deal.

One day, one of them will call. And it will be a great day for you. But until then, until they want it, you trying to give it to them, it's a recipe for heartbreak. So you might have to limit the interactions you have every year with them.

You might limit the interaction your kids have with them. That's okay. If it's not safe or if it's different than your values or whatever. Have you heard me say, I've said it probably a thousand times, and it didn't originate with me, I think it's a Brene Brown quote, but you got to choose guilt over resentment. Yeah. If you don't do that, you're going to hate your mom, and that's not fair.

Because she's not well. Or you're going to hate your brother or your sister, and that not fair it's because you didn't put up boundaries can i can i ask one specific question you can ask anything dude yeah okay cool so my dad was pretty much i say i have three moms but my dad was pretty much single dad my whole life um he had it rough, obviously. Um, where am I going with this question? Basically now fast forward. Um, again, we're doing financially pretty well. And part of what I do for fun, I don't like, I don't rely on this income or anything as I day trade some. Okay. Um, and one kind of thing I did to help him out was I was like, Hey, if I ever make any money day trading, like you can have like 10% of it.

Cause like, why, why, why would you do that? Because you feel guilty. Stop, stop, stop. Like, what's that? What was that percentage come from? I mean, you know what I'm saying? It's just like, I don't know something like. Like, he came out yesterday to see us and the twins, and he was like, can you spare like $30 for gas? I'm like, of course. Of course I can. And maybe you decide, you and your wife decide, when they come out, I'll fill their car up with gas.

Okay. Or maybe, but here's the deal. If you don't have that limit, if you don't have that boundary already in place, you're going to end up writing a check for $500 after you've just filled up the car. And then on the way home, they're going to ask like, oh yeah, dude, hey, I totally forgot this thing. Can you Venmo me another thousand bucks? And by that time you've, you're underwater.

They've already dragged you underwater. So how do you frame those conversations that, that, that have been going on for, you know, these types of transactions have been going on for so long. Excellent. Here's the deal. How many kids do you have? Two and one on the way. Okay. How long have you been married? She wouldn't know. Two and a half years. Yeah, that's a number you want to know off the top of your head.

Always, always. You're going to want to just keep that one pretty close. Earlier in the call, you said, like, you're just worried about character defects. I don't think you have any character defects except that one. You have to know that date. I was playing with you. How old are you?

24. Cool. All right. I think with your dad, it's going to be a direct conversation. It's going to be challenging. It's going to be probably the hardest direct-to-direct man-to-man conversation you've ever had. I promise you it won't be the last one because somebody's going to be challenging. It's going to be probably the hardest direct-direct man-to-man conversation you've ever had.

And I promise you it won't be the last one because somebody's going to hurt your kid one day. Somebody's going to hit your car one day. Someone's going to break your window one day.

Someone's going to fire you someday or they're going to put you in a position where you've got to fire somebody someday. So this hard conversation will just escalate, get harder as you get older. Okay? so if you

learn to do it now awesome here's the conversation dad you and I have to have a direct man-to-man conversation cool dad over text nope no no not over text good grief freakin millennial in person face to, over a meal, and say, dad, I'm coming to you as also a dad of two, about to be three, and of a young married man. I have to start investing in my kids' future. What does that mean? That means over the last three to five years, I've been able to help with bills, help with whatever.

I'm starting college funds for these kids. I'm starting a home fund because I want to purchase our own home and have it paid off. I don't want to live by credit cards. I want to be an autonomous family. And so from this point forward, I'm not going to, I'm making a boundary in my house. I'm making a rule in my house that I'm not going to loan or give money to family members outside of these kids. And then you get real quiet. Or when you come to visit me, I will always fill your car up with gas. But that's going to be the extent of it. I just want to put that out on the table so everybody's on the same page. I love you. And I'm going to start looking at changing this family tree financially.

And here's the deal. He may tell you to screw off. How dare you talk to me like this? And the challenge, especially when you're 24, but I'm going to tell you, when I'm being 44, you still have that same sense, right? 54, 64. Is if I have a conversation like that with him,

I may lose him. And I want to tell you, if you lose him over a conversation like that, he's already long gone. Yeah. Right. What do you think you would say to that conversation? It's weird. I feel like it's weird that I,

I don't know. Like, I feel like, cause I think the, the perspective has always been, cause we don't make, like don't know. Like, I feel like, cause I think the, the perspective has always been because we don't make like, we make pretty good money, like four or 500,000 range, which is a lot from coming from, you know, a super small town. That's a lot for a physician, dude. What do you do? It's hard to explain what I do. Um, I work with a YouTuber breaking down. Yeah, that

too. No. Um, I work with a YouTuber and Breaking Bad? Yeah, that too. No. I work with a YouTuber and he basically has a bunch of other businesses with mentorship and random stuff. And I basically am like his go-to secondhand guy. Okay. I too am a YouTuber. I too. Yeah. I'm definitely not paying Kelly $400,000 so well done Wesley well done thank you I got on a revenue sharing plan and so that was a good deal I made four years ago so let me tell you this

that money will fluctuate over time yes YouTube as a way to make that kind of money didn't exist seven years ago and so my expectation as a guy who's a YouTuber who's doing well is it won't exist in seven years ago. And so my expectation as a guy who's a YouTuber who's doing well is it won't exist

in seven years also. Here's why I'm telling you that. It's really good now and it feels like I can just give 10,000 bucks here. I can just give 20,000 bucks here. But I want you to prepare for a world where

you're back to making $100,000 someday. Is that reality? Hopefully not. Hopefully not. I hope you make this and continue to escalate it forever and ever and ever. I'm in. Yeah.

Right? But it's easy to be 24 and think this is going to be this way forever. Yeah. And so what does that mean? I want three kids with a fully funded college fund. I want at least $100,000 in the bank for each of them. I want my house to be fully paid off. I don't want to have any bills, and I want to have a six-month emergency fund.

So if something happens to one of my kids, we'll break an arm because you got kids and you're in Oklahoma. That's just what happens because you still raise kids right out there. And your roof's going to fall, or you're going going to leak or you're going to need an air conditioner. And so I want to have, I want to be my own bank. And so it may be two years and you take care of all that stuff, man. You make a million dollars over a couple of years and you pay for a nice house and you get it paid off and you get your kid's college fund built up. Then maybe you sit down with your dad and say, hey, I see your car doesn't run anymore. I'm going to pick you up a used car.

But that's a different conversation than the slow just drip where it feels like molasses on you. Yeah. It's just hard. I just like. I know. I know. Sacrificed half his life, you know.

I know. For me. I know. I know hard I know I know I know but he wasn't doing it as a college investment I mean and I say college investment you were not a 401k for him you were his son and his job was to love you

and provide for you and care for you now taking care of you all me and great if you guys come back and say hey we're going to pay your rent for the next year, awesome. But what I'm saying is you have to put some boundaries on it. You have to say, and then there is a period. Because it's the dot, dot, dot. It's the ellipsis that makes everybody crazy. It makes him feel ashamed every time he has to ask you.

It makes you feel pissed off every time you give it. And think, my God, dude, you're just like, can you get a job? Like whatever your challenges are. Be as generous as you want to be, but make sure you and your wife have talked about it, and you'll have a period at the end of that sentence. And make sure you don't spite your current family trying to bring people along into a world that don't really want to go along in that world. They just want the spoils of that world. They don't want to do the hard work that you have to do every day. I know the work Kelly and that team puts in every day.

It's a lot, right? Uh-huh. Or the worst part of – I remember being young. I was like 28 or 27, and I got really mad that one of my supervisors was making like triple what I was making. And then he asked me to come spend a week with him, like going to meetings and stuff. And I remember at the end of that week thinking, oh crap, he earns that money, all of it. Right. So it's really easy to be like, I make 400 grand as a YouTuber.

You're working hard. I know you are. I know the world. I know that business. You're working very, very hard. And whenever you start to change that generational curse, when you pick up your family tree and you plant it somewhere else and it starts to really flourish, you want to go tell everybody you love and care about,

guys, look, this soil is amazing over here. And they look at you and say, we don't want to. We want to stay in the desert. And they get to do that. And it's not a matter of looking down on them. It's not a matter of passing judgment on them. It's just a matter of saying, man, I'm heartbroken because I wish y'all would come with me.

They don't want to. Choose guilt over resentment every time, my brother. And the word no does not make you a bad person, an ungrateful son, a terrible brother. It makes you a stable father and husband. And that's an important thing that we all need more of around here. Thanks for the call, brother. Congratulations on your success. Keep working hard.

And be present with those kids. We'll be right back. I'm so proud that Thorne Supplements, my favorite supplements on the planet, have continued to partner with me and our show listeners for health, longevity, and just feeling good. Thorne is one of our longest standing partners on this show, and it's because I trust them, I use them, I read their research papers, and I know their products are great and that my fans will love them too. Here's the deal with supplements. There's so, so much garbage out in the marketplace. And other than my admitted gummy candy problem, I'm pretty freakish about what I put in my body.

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on out forever. It's that easy. Go to thorn.com slash you slash Deloney. That's Thorne, T-H-O-R-N-E dot com slash the letter U slash Deloney for 25% off everything in the store. I trust Thorne. My family trusts Thorne. And you can trust Thorne too. All right, let's go out to Phoenix, Arizona and talk to Brian. Hey, Brian, what's up, man? Hey, Dr. John, how are you? Partying, dude.

What are you up to? I'm just giving you a call. I want to say we saw you about a year ago in Phoenix and you and Ken and Dave and Rachel were fantastic, man. So thanks for doing what you do. We love listening to you. You're amazing. I appreciate that. I remember that particular trip. That was were fantastic, man. So thanks for doing what you do. We love listening to you. You're amazing. I appreciate that.

I remember that particular trip. That was a blast, man. That was fun. Yeah. I remember one particular man. He got up and close and personal. He came off the stage and talked to him. And it was powerful, brother.

It was awesome. I appreciate that, man. Thank you so much. So what's up? How can I help you? Well, the long and short of it is my wife and i've been working dave's plan and uh we've been doing it since 2013 and let's say that let's say just for people who are listening who don't know what that is so y'all have been working to get out of debt and pay all your pay

all of your debts off so that y'all could not owe anybody anything for since 2013, right? Okay. Awesome. Yes, correct. So, so, you know, credit cards, student loans, card payments, all that stuff. And we've been working like crazy. And, uh, now we finally made it to a spot where we're debt free. We got three months of an emergency fund in the bank. We're investing just a little bit over 15% into retirement. We got some good money going there. And then in the last, uh, you know, two, three years at 39, 40, 41, and all of a sudden it was like, I don't know, man, like we, like we've, I have this, I feel like we've like arrived and then all of a sudden I just lost motivation. Of course, man, you're exhausted. It's like,

it's like what's next. And then all of a sudden everything, I motivation. Of course, man, you're exhausted. It's like, it's like what's next. And then all of a sudden everything, I don't know. That makes sense. Yeah, totally. Here's, yes. What you are feeling is what people feel when they walk across the stage with their PhD. What they want when they run their first marathon. When they get married in the day after the day after the honeymoon

assuming that all went well right like yeah right you get to this thing and it's that terrible um in counseling we call it the tyranny of accomplishing all your goals because the worst part about getting out of debt for your family is y'all are still your family and what we do is we have these goals like i'm gonna run a marathon i'm gonna go to med school part about getting out of debt for your family is y'all are still your family. And what we do is we have these goals. I'm going to run a marathon. I'm going to go to med school. I'm going to go to law school. I'm going to whatever.

Pay off all my debts. It's going to take me 10 years to do it. And here's the deal. We attach that completion of that goal with a perceived feeling. What we think it's going to feel like. Yeah, I literally, in my mind, I think back, I think like it's just going to be Shangri-La. It's going to be, I never thought of like what it's going to be like when we're there. And then I looked at my wife the other day and I said, I think someday is now. And then it's just been this weird, I can't describe it. That's it. Hey, like the day

after my first book went to number one on the wall street journalist, you know what happened? Nothing. I thought like a million dollars would just show up in my account. I don't know where that, I don't know. I just made up all like, this is what this is going to be like. And it didn't, I just got a text like from my wife, like, Hey, what time are you going to be home tonight? Um, when's your flight get in? I was like, okay, I'll do it. It was just all very like back to normal. And it was a sense of like, what did I do all this for?

Yes. Cause I thought, I thought it would feel different. Okay. Here is, um, here's the beautiful thing. You're not crazy.

And your body going, ah, is exactly right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Here's the next step. How long you been married? 15 wonderful years, my friend.

That's awesome. Usually when people say wonderful, it's been kind of rough and y'all are in a good patch. My wife and I have an inside joke. So we just always say that. No, it's been great. Okay. It's fantastic. It's been so good. No, no's been great, but it's been fantastic. It's been so good.

Yeah, no, no. No, 15 great years. I totally believe you. Okay, so 15 years. Y'all got any kids? Four. Four. Amazing.

All right, here's what I want you to do. I want you to surprise your wife within the next 45 days with either a two-day, but at least a one-day, hey, we're going to go out to dinner. I don't want you to arrange this with the kids. And if they're of the age that you need to get a babysitter or something, cool.

And I want you to, instead of taking her to dinner, I want you to take her to a nice hotel that also has a nice restaurant. And I want you to hand her a journal that is brand new, not written in, that's really nice, that she'll like. And I want you to, inside the front cover,

write at the top who we are going to be for the next 15 years. And here's what I want y'all to reverse engineer for the first time in your life you're not running for your life if you give fired tomorrow it will be annoying it won't be catastrophic if one of your kids gets very very sick it will be y'all can be all hands on deck. It won't be you getting text messages between shifts at work because you can't not be there. And it's fully looking your wife in the eye, y'all sitting at a table and there is no kids. There's no other responsibilities in this little one tiny moment.

And you both breathing into, we are free and now we can do anything. And that feeling is terrifying. And you begin to build, all right, what if we lived here? What if we planned this? For my wife and I, we reverse engineered it in this way. What do we want it to feel like when you walk in the door? What do we want? And I was like, I want it to be this. I want it to be this. I want it to feel like when you walk in the door? What do we want? And I was like, I want it to be this. I want it to be this. I want it to be this. And she was like, cool. Well, here's what's got to be different then. And vice versa. I did the same thing. We want to take one trip a year, just the two of us on a cruise. Cool. We want to make sure all four kids have a college

fund. Cool. Whatever that is, you begin to just write it down um you you've been to plan crystal clear you don't have a pool in that house and by the way it won't play out like this but y'all now have something to go towards right and it's almost like living into a fantasy like what do we get to create anything we want yeah this, you know, the ultimate freedom that we feel right now and then it's just like this blank slate. It's weird and it's like I need a goal, man. I need something. I need, yeah.

What you have to do, and this is something you gotta practice, and nobody tells you this. You have to practice being the person now that sets the goal for you. Because you followed somebody else's plan through this whole thing. True. Now you get to decide what's next.

And you're going to ask yourself, what if I decide wrong? Maybe. Maybe. Right? But probably not. Or if it is wrong, you'll both end up at the wrong place together. And that's kind of cool. We're doing it together.

That's right and you'll find when 15 years from now and y'all been married 30 years you're gonna look back and be in a totally different place and y'all drew up or my wife and i did this six years ago and we bizarrely bizarrely ended up in a financial place in a place, with some of the things we had written down and put into motion. Like, strangely. And I didn't know anything about the YouTubes. I didn't even know there were YouTube channels. I didn't know anything about the job I have now, podcast.

But we put some things in motion about this is the kind of people that we want to become. What'd that feel like? To look back and be six years, be like exactly where you thought you'd be. It's, can I tell you that? Well, cause I'm a natural,

like want, want kind of guy. Um, right. I, my first thought, um, my wife found a journal from 2018 or 2017,

2018. Cause we were coming up on like, are we still going to be married? Like the whole thing was a mess. And it, she was like, man, we've hit almost every one of these metrics we didn't even know it was possible and my first thought was man i should have dreamed bigger right i shouldn't have hedged my bets i should have gone even i should have gone even more all in and i kept like a few toes out of the boat just in case case. And so I'll tell you,

that freedom you're feeling is terrifying and it's real. We don't talk about it very often being as scary as it is. Like, what can you do right now? Anything. Ah, right? Just give me another plan. Give me another plan. And now you're at the place where there's not one.

And the scary part is, John, that when you're in this situation, when you can do anything, it's the scary thing of like, I can do anything and I don't have any guardrail, so to speak. You know what I mean?

Yep, you can drive the whole ship off the highway. That's why having great friends now, a group of men you meet with regularly. That's what I need, brother. That's really having great friends now, a group of men you meet with regularly. That's what I need. That's what I need, brother. That's really what I need, I think. Well, so listen, so I've talked about on the show, but I'll repeat myself here.

So what we talked about, how do you want this house to feel? And I said, I want to walk in the house and I want it to be fulfilled with laughter and warmth. And my 13-year-old acting like a 13- old and my eight year old acting like an eight year old. I want you and I to walk in and be happy that each other's there. And so to reverse engineer that, John, you got to go get some friends then. Cause when you're not around friends, you're tough to be around and all your conspiracy theories and complaining and blah, blah, blah. The world's all good. My wife says, I can't carry all of that.

And she's right. John, if you want that. I'm a lot like me right now, John. I know it is. I know it is. Because you thought it was going to feel a certain way. And it doesn't. Yeah.

Or you thought freedom was going to feel better than it did. And what most people don't understand about freedom is it comes with a crap ton of responsibility. That's hard. Yeah. And once you kind of get, it's like a squat bar. Once you get underneath it and get settled, it feels awesome. It's like, oh, dude, yeah. I got this. Yeah, this is right. It's right.

Of all people, the other day, so John Mayer started a channel like on SiriusXM or something Oh for real? Yeah and it's By the way It's my plug for that channel It is all the songs I grew up with

It's an amazing Like List of songs That he runs through his channel And I know people don't like that dude But he is a savant And everyone just needs to get over it because he's more talented than most but he said something the other day that has caught me

stopped me in my tracks and this is him he's doing interview on his own channel and he said that his fantasy used to be about dating and yada yada yada and meeting the movie stars blah blah he said his biggest fantasy right now is being married to somebody and having something happen. And she says, somebody called John, he'll know what to do. And I thought in that moment,

that sounds right. You know what I mean? Yeah. So how do I put myself in the position that when things go sideways, people think that guy's secure enough. He's stable enough. He's informed enough. He's not so arrogant that he's just going to throw out the wrong answer. But if he doesn't know, he'll go get somebody who does. He's already done his exercise. He's got a group of men in his life that he can call on.

He has a plan for our next home and a retirement account and the college kids college fund. He started talking to his dad about the will and how, um, what their aging process is going to look like. Call that guy. I trust him. I trust that guy. Can you imagine that dish that responsibility, but also that just feels right. Yeah. And it feels like how all men should be that's right that's right and most men will not most men many men will get in your situation and they will take their wives out and they will tell them what we're going to do for the next 10 years don't be that guy okay i'll tell you what with my wife i don't think it's going to happen that way she would not it's a very cool and here's what we're going to do right um and so we like you've heard me talk about we live out in

the woods my wife and i had this conversation for the first time several years ago hey we're we're free for the first time in our lives ever and she said her first like i want to move and i was like oh come on really like really we just got here And she then went on to say that picture. We both want the house to feel like. I'm in the car three and a half hours a day because we live out in the middle of nowhere. So when I go to the grocery store, it's 45 minutes. When I take the kids in, it's an hour round trip.

When I go to the doctor, take the kids to the orthodontist or whatever, I thought, whoa, that's a tough, that's not the life that we want. We're moving. See what I'm saying? And so we started a two-year project on figuring out a place to go and can we afford it

and what's that gonna look like and all that. All that to say is that started from a conversation of both fear and excitement of we are free now. What does this look like for us? When you can do anything, you can do anything. And as you said, you gotta be responsible for what happens when you do anything. So we're going to do it with a wise counsel, with informed people, et cetera, et cetera.

I will give you this one bonus. Since you're a Dave fan, I want you to hang on the line. And my buddy, my boss, everything all mixed into one. Dave Ramsey is doing a two-night investment live stream. And I think it may be out by the time this episode airs, but it's two nights. It's $199. Do you know when it is off the top of your head?

We'll put a link to the show notes. It's in May. Okay. Yeah. But a lot of people give Dave a hard time. They say he gives dinosaur advice, and he's too old and out of touch, and yada, yada, yada.

And his returns continue to come back right. And he continues to call and say, mark this message because it's going to prove right. And it just does over and over and over. And so he's doing his personal kind of opening the books up. Here's how he invests. Here's why he invests this way. And here's what the market's doing. Here's what experts are saying it's going to do. Here's what I think it's going to do. And so I'm going to hook you up and you can be my guest to that live stream event. It's a two night live stream event. I think it's 199 bucks.

We'll link to it in the show notes if anyone else wants to, but I'm going to hook you up and that can be a conversation for you and your wife about, okay, what does investing look like for us moving forward? What are some dreams we want to have? Do we want to buy a rental house? Do we want to get a bunch of crypto and beanie babies?

Don't do any of those things. But what is the future going to look like? And you can at least get started on the investment side of things as my gift. Thanks for your call, brother. For everybody there, if you build your world around a goal, when you cross that finish line, it will feel both awesome and hollow because you will still be the one who crossed that finish line. You go with you. If you create an identity, I am a guy who continues to challenge myself and do hard things. This hard season is going to be a marathon. This hard season is going to be 10 years of getting out of debt and paying off my house. This hard season is going to be fixing my marriage. Then when you do that hard thing, it just is a part of your identity

and you go right onto the next hard thing. And sometimes the next hard thing is rest. The next hard thing is just reading a book for a month and not snapping into a Slim Jim. Create your identity and then put your goals there. Your identity is going to be who you are. Your goals are just what you do. Thanks for the call, Brian. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here.

Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, Kelly, get back on the mic as though

we were running MC. Okay, listen. Yes. I just said get back on the mic as though we were run dmc Okay, listen Yes, I just said get back on the mic like I was trying to act like an old dj But it sounded kind of like I was telling you what to do if anyone's listening to the show I don't tell you what to do. Let's be super clear Um, I was trying to do like a cool old rap lyric and it came out really not great. Uh, all right, so Can I rant on something for a second? Sure.

This is just me being Johnny Dramatic. Your name's on the show. It's right back there. Yeah, I think we all know. Yeah, we do, but sure. It's The Kelly Show with special guest John Delaney. I like to pretend. Exactly.

Don't we all? Yes, feel free. So I haven't read the legislation, so I don't want to oversell it, but a bill was passed last night, or at least put signed, and so everyone's going to, I don't want to oversell it. But a bill was passed last night or at least put signed. And so it's going to have to, everyone's going to sue everybody. Like everybody does everything nowadays.

But it was, I think it was 14 years old. A state governor signed into law that kids under the age of 14 were banned off social media. 14 and 15 year olds had to get parent permission until they turned 16. And 16 was going to be the new cutoff to get social media. 14 and 15-year-olds had to get parent permission until they turned 16, and 16 was going to be the new cutoff to get social media. Correct. So if anyone's listening to this show for more than two seconds,

you know the data is crystal clear that social media is adversely impacting childhood mental health. What does that mean? It is ruining our kids. Period. End of story. I'm going to go one step further and say,

I believe the data is leaning heavily towards handing a kid a smartphone. The entire internet, both they get access to the internet, or as my friend Sean says, also the entire world gets access to your kid. Equally, kids never unplugging, always having sensory input 24-7, 365 from text and music and videos and repeat and repeat and repeat. It's not good.

What I don't like is that we live in a world now where we have so quit on our responsibilities as parents, as citizens, that the government has to come in and make these laws. I think the law is right, but I wish the law didn't have to happen. I wish there didn't have to be a law that said you have to wear a seatbelt. I wish people put on their seatbelt because they had common sense. But now it's going to be a law on the books. And now it's going to be a jillion taxpayer dollars suing each other, companies with financial interests suing each other, fighting this thing. Who's going to police it? How's it going to be? What are the workarounds? And we never had to get here. We never had to get here. If parents would simply go, no, I'm not giving my children meth.

I'm not giving my kids social media until at least they're old enough to drive. But probably until they're old enough to buy a lottery ticket and cigarettes. But we don't. We haven't. And so we hand our kids smartphones. We hand our kids social media and go, ah, they're just kids. It's not, it's not. It's destroying our children. And because of our parental inactivity, now the government's going to step in and make a bunch of rules.

And so this is both good for the government. I haven't read it again, so I don't want, it may be a terrible piece of legislation, but the idea of it, I fully stand behind. I don't think kids should have social media until a minimum of 16. My preference would be older. But if we're going to hand them keys to a car, then might as well hand them keys to all of humanity to poison their minds. That's terrible logic. But I want us all, as we get more and more upset about a big government, about government doing this and government doing this, government fills vacuums most of the time. They fill vacuums. If there's not a group of people feeding the homeless and the government's going to have to

feed the homeless. If there's not a group of people taking care of the least of these, then the government's going to make a policy to fill up, to take the least of these. If a group of parents or parents in mass decide, ah, those rich kids are fine. And the government says, no, we can't afford to deal with all these mental health issues and the teen suicides and the thises and the thises and the thises and the depression and the anxiety. I guess we have to make it under law.

And so if we in our homes are on our kitchen table and we in our local churches and in our neighborhoods and we in our local churches and in our neighborhoods and we in our local schools decide, let's make this a place where we take care of our kids, where we take care of each other. Then there's no space to fill. Then when the government decides

we're going to intrude on that, then we all get involved there. Don't let your kids have social media, please. On behalf of all of our kids. And like my friend Nathan says, give your kids the gift of a screen-free childhood. Or a mostly screen-free child. Give them a shot. Thank y'all for being with us.

I'll see y'all next time. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Bye.