The Dr. John Delony Show - The Balance Between Hospitality & Healthy Boundaries

Episode Date: May 17, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode   My transgender sister came out to my wife and 6-year-old daughter recently. It traumatized my daughter. How do I talk to her and my sister about this? I'm a 27-years-old diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease. How do I plan for a future family knowing I can pass this along? I'm 53-years-old, single, and 2 kids out of wedlock. I grew up poor and on government assistance. I finally have a good job but the same mentality. How do I break out of this? Lyrics of the Day: "To Be With You" - Mr. Big   As heard on this episode:  BetterHelp Redefining Anxiety   tags: sexuality/intimacy, parenting, boundaries, trauma/PTSD, kids, sickness/illness, fear, money, goals/life planning   These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.`

On today's show, we talk about kids and phobias and family. We talk about being diagnosed with a terminal illness and what to do next. And we talk to an incredible 53-year-old woman who's got a great job and is ready to change her family tree. Stay tuned. Hey, what's up? What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show.

I hope everybody's doing well. Everybody's staying dry, staying warm. I don't know, I guess it's almost summer now, so hopefully you're not cold. How about that? And I hope that, man, the spring's being good to you and your family it's beautiful here in Nashville and man things are starting to wake back up the trees and the flowers it's good it looks good things are not good around the world

but we're going to continue to look for beauty hey if you want to be on this show we talk about relationships mental health everything anything you can think of give me a shout at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291. Or you can go to www. I'm just kidding, sorry.

You can go to johndeloney.com slash show. Fill out the form. It goes to Kelly. Her ratio, I don't even know. I was going to make a Kelly joke, but she's staring directly above that camera, and it burned my rods and cones in my eyes. And so I'm going to take that joke back and say, Kelly's beautiful and smart, and she will take all of your calls.

So send them to her johndeloney.com slash show. Hey, and this happened the other day, and this isn't me even being funny. This is kind of a serious thing um so i wanted to give some some behind the curtain stuff on just how my wife and i make decisions how we live like in the real world right not just thinking through stuff so we're meeting with our my son's teachers he's um going to be moving schools and we were having some conversations about what he's going to be studying next year and what he's going to be learning. And it hit me while we were having this conversation that we do approach this a little bit differently. I got a PhD in education.

My wife is a thousand times smarter than me. And I'm not one of those guys that's like, no, dude. She really is a thousand times smarter a thousand x smarter than me and she's got a phd in education she actually used to teach teachers we've both taught graduate education courses so we've taught not only teachers but graduate students and when our my son's teachers we had all these different people we're on a zoom call and we're talking to each one of them about you know his scores and this is and that's and The questions we kept coming back to for these folks, number one, they didn't know anything about our degrees. We didn't have any reason to tell them. There's no flexing that

needs to go on. The most important thing for my son's learning environment is how we can support the teachers who are going to be teaching him. Not making sure that these teachers are doing what I think is, that's of no good because then the teachers have to walk some kind of weird line between the state curriculum and the national curriculum and what the county says they have to do, plus their own training. And my son's going to absorb all that disconnect and all that tension. So the thing that my wife and I kept asking is, hey, are there some books that you all have read that help students like mine, like our son? What are some ways that we can, on our own, gather the language that you're going to use in his classroom, gather some of the experiences that you're going to pass along to him, so we can do

that at home? Our goal as parents, not as research nerds, not as dorks who went to a lot of college, but our goal as parents is to help support and reinforce what's going on in his classroom. So it's a big deal to us to never talk crap about his teachers, even if we think, oh, I would not have done it like that. I would have done it like this. Well, then cool. Then our job is to help bridge that gap. And that may mean I've got to not watch a Netflix episode. Normally it falls on my wife because I'm here at the office, but she's going to not do X, Y, and Z. She's going to help reinforce some math stuff.

But also we're going to spend some time reading on our own to learn the perspective and the lenses that my son's teachers are using so that we can use some of that language. So that we can point some of that stuff out when we're fishing or we're hiking or hunting. Hey, this is that math thing she was talking about. So he can begin to get a fuller picture of what education looks like. So why am I telling you all this? Two reasons. Number one, being a teacher this year has been a nightmare and we're staring as a country, we're staring down the barrel of a group of people who are going to say, I'm out. I can just go make this kind of money doing way different things that are not so stressful, that don't have this many people yelling at me, that doesn't start at 6.30 in the morning and end at seven o'clock at night. And then I'm going to eat dinner and help with bedtime. Then I'm

going to go back to grading papers, whatever. So I want to shift this focus where we've blamed and yelled and fought and kicked and whined about teachers and educate. I'm going to stop that. We're all going to stop that. We're not going to be a part of that anymore. We're going to say, how can we support these teachers? And that means we're going to have to help at home. It's going to be some both and.

And I think a lot of us learned, you know, it's easy to blame teachers. A lot of us had to homeschool this last year. Millions and millions and millions of us. I think we learned, maybe my kid's not an angel or a saint. A lot of us had to homeschool this last year. Millions and millions and millions of us. I think we learned, maybe my kid's not an angel or a saint. Maybe it wasn't always the fill in the blank. Now, schools aren't perfect. There's a lot broken with the system.

But most teachers are doing the best they can, and they're real good. Or they're really good in the circumstances that they are in. So I want to support them, number one. I'm not going to talk bad about them. And then number two, how can I as a parent bridge that connective gap between what my kid's learning in the classroom versus their life at home? So I just wanted to pass that along. Here's how we're actually doing it in our house. We're a bunch of nerds and I'm not going to pass any of that nerddom on to my son's teachers, to that son's school. That's not their job. Their job is to teach my kid within the system that they've got. My job is to be an adjunct to that.

It's to support him, to lift him, and to be a positive voice about his. I want him to love learning. I want him to love making connections across a bunch of different platforms. So anyway, that's my thought on that. Let's get right to the phones. We've got some action-packed calls today, I'm assuming. Let's go to Mark in San Diego, California. What's up, Mark? How we doing? Two words, John. Seasonal allergies.

Brother, I've got them too, man. You can hear it in my voice. Man, well, I hope you're rocking it up, man. So, hey, how can I help, dude? What's up? So, January of 2020, my mom came to my house, and unbeknownst to us, my younger brother was in tow. Turns out that was his 10 years younger than me. So, at the time, he was probably 21-ish. All right, cool. than me so at the time he was probably 21 ish okay all right cool um so he used that opportunity to come out to me and my family as transgender okay and that in and of itself i support him however that experience traumatized my daughter and she had just turned six at the time. And so it was a surprise to us. There was no prep work. We didn't have the opportunity between my wife and I to talk about if she was old enough, mature enough to learn about something like that. Okay. Um, fast forward about two weeks ago, I,

I hadn't talked about this with my sister and I had a conversation with them and I expressed to him my concerns and how it traumatized my daughter. She had nightmares for six months about it and he laughed it off. So, or she laughed it off. My question is really, how do I, my daughter's doing better now, but how do I talk to her really about this now that I'm behind the eight ball on the subject. And I can't move forward with a relationship with my sister until there's some type of acknowledgement that there was, but the conversation that I want to have with her is not the fact that she came out because that's how she took it. She took it as me attacking the fact that she's transgender. When my issue was really, look, man, you kind of took a parenting aspect away from my

wife and I and exposed our daughter to a facet of society that she was not mentally ready to handle. And her appearance at the time scared her. Like, completely scared her. So, walk me through this trauma, because here's the thing. Kids are incredibly malleable because they don't have all of the pictures that you and I might have, right? As 20, 30, and 40-year-olds. And so they can be infinitely more flexible on, oh, okay, and they just go about their day because they don't have these decades

of these other pictures. When you say trauma with a 6-year-old, that to me is somebody screamed at them or yelled at them or scared them to death and they had nightmares. My initial thought is she absorbed y'all's reaction to what happened and that scared her because she had never seen mom and dad and grandma scared to death unless i'm missing something i've never heard what you're what you're explaining i've never heard of this so walk me through the trauma. Correct. So my daughter has been terrified of people in costumes and masks and face paint since as young as we can remember. We've never taken her to Disneyland.

She's so scared that at her school, when Sparky, the fire dog, the firefighter, like comes in to greet the kids because they're going to do a fire alarm, the teachers know to take her to another classroom because she's utterly mortified. She's got a phobia of a person behind a person. She wants to see someone's face. There you go okay so then a person that she knows showed up to her house and in her head those phobias converged right this is somebody i know now they look differently and they're acting the same but it looks a little bit different maybe wearing makeup now or different clothes and then so it's less about the transgender coming out and more about

if he had shown up dressed like a clown or shown up dressed like a like Chewbacca or something it would have terrified your daughter yes okay yeah so that's that's that's number one what I want to make sure we don't conflate the two okay so that did your sister sister know this? Yes, she did. Okay. Because a year or two prior, we'd gone to a renaissance fair. It was her idea at the time. Yeah. And I had to carry my daughter on my shoulders the whole time. She had her head buried like in the back of my neck. And I could hear her saying, dad, I want to see that person's face. Can you ask them to take their mask off? And we ended up leaving early.

Gosh, has COVID been a nightmare for her? I can't even imagine. I guess maybe she could see eyes, right? Yes, she can see eyes. And she's also wearing a mask. So it's kind of everybody's doing it. Yeah, okay. Exactly. So yeah i i shouldn't have led with the transgender it should have been more the costume and the mask but it he he she showed up

dressed very goth okay and all the dark clothes the black lipstick and all that it just it scared her sure so there's there's all of this to me all this conversation distills down to a single word and that's that's hospitality kindness right and so when somebody shows up in a way knowing that, and I want to take transgender off because it's the third rail right now, showing up with any sort of anything that is going to put a child in a position of fear even if it's

quote unquote me expressing myself. Here's a good example I'll use in my house. I've got one of my kids that hates being touched by strangers until they know them. And then they're comically over, like they just, they'll be all over them. But if somebody comes in my house and knows that, remembers that from last time, and they immediately grab my kid and won't, and they're, and my kid starts shrieking and yelling and that, you know, that how kids tense up and won't put the kid down.

Yeah, dude, that is a, that is a major violation of a child, right? The regulation of a child. And so I forget the transgender stuff. I will say, if your sibling knew that, that's not cool. And that is the approach for me, right? That's the conversation you have with any kid about any issue, anytime, anywhere, right? That's number one. Number two, when it comes to the transgender thing, it sounds like you're being incredibly hospitable. You are leaning into who your sister says she is, and that's a shift for everyone in every family. The approach I take on this is mutual respect and mutual hospitality. If somebody says, hey, this is how I'm going to express myself and this is who I am,

then in my house, at the Deloney house, in my family, in my community, we're going to be super hospitable. Come on over. Let's grab a beer and hang out. I got to hear about this, right? And so I don't get caught up in the politics of it all. I like talking to human beings at my kitchen table. The other side of that is if somebody has been known for a long time, I want them and expect them and need them to be graceful during this time, right? Like you have done on this call, you knew, quote unquote, brother for 20 something years, and you are doing your best to, okay, yeah, you asked me to call you this, but I'm going to stumble over it. I'm going to trip on it. Know that my heart's good and I'm getting there, right? Know that when you're around my kid, I need you to overly say, hey, hey,

and get down on a knee, get down and look at him in the eye so we can take some of that fear hierarchy away. Does that make sense? So basically what I'm telling you is I want to affirm both sides of what you're trying to do. You're trying to be a hospitable big brother, and I'm grateful to you for that, right?

That is going to communicate a lot to your kid about less, again, six-year-olds don't understand the politics. It's, they don't understand any of the nonsense going on. They're watching mom and dad. How does mom and dad treat people, right? And you guys are, look, sounds like you're doing great. You do have a right to take, again,

take the transgender stuff off. You do have a right as a parent to say, I can't have you scaring my kid, and this particular thing terrifies my child. If you're going to be around my kid, I need you to be hospitable to my child. And I think as mom and dad, this is going to be a lifelong thing. I'd recommend working with a play therapist. This can be – this type of phobia can often be healed, if you will. I don't want to say cured, but it can be healed in relatively short order.

It doesn't have to go on forever. You can get a great play therapist that can walk through some things and gently connect some dots for your child. And it's pretty remarkable what they can do. And I'd start there. But you are well within your right to have that conversation with your sister about, hey, you can quote unquote be you, and I don't care who be you is, but here's how we're going to have to deal with my kid because my kid has a particular challenge here, right? And it's with people who dress up, with masks, with people who don't look the same as they

used to. And now that you are transitioning and don't look the same as you used to, we've got to be graceful here. And if your sister's a jerk about it, then they don't have to have access to your child. Does that make sense? It does. And that's kind of where that conversation that I had with him, her, went. I spoke to her about how much the costume and the makeup had terrified her and she laughed. Now, I don't know if that was a laugh out of fear or anxiety. Cause like I'll make self deprecating jokes when I'm nervous. I don't know that, but it, so I was accused of, yeah, here's your job as big brother.

Okay. Um, I, it sounds like you're trying hard, and you're a good model for a big brother these days. You're trying to love your sibling the best you can. I love that. And if somebody starts lobbing untrue accusations, understand how hard this is also for your sister. And so the immediate, anytime there's some sort of discomfort on a receiving end of a relationship, boom, walls go up. And so your job as big brother is to stay calm

and to stay collected and push back and say, nope, we're not doing that. The challenge here is you showed up to my house dressed in goth whatever, right? And I had friends who were goth whatever, right? And I'm, I had friends who were goth back in high school, so that's the only picture I've got. I have no idea what that means to you.

But I want you to create a pathway back for that relationship between your sister and your child. And that's going to start with the adults being the adults in the room, not forcing a six-year-old to instantly get over the phobias or to lob some sort of social accusations against a six-year-old to instantly get over the phobias or to lob some sort of social accusations against a six-year-old. That's nonsensical. It's insane. It's ugly. It's

rude, right? Your job is to paint a path back. And I think the hard work for you and your wife is going to be, what does a path back look like? What is a way that we can introduce our child who struggles with phobias, like you say, at parks, at events, at things like that? What are ways we can create, you know, pave a brick road towards this relationship? But it's going to be the adults who've got to walk that, right? So, I'd be gracious with your sister. I would also, yeah, I'd put a stop to any sort of that nonsensical, you're just, nope, I'm not. I'm not. This is how you showed up at my house and scared my daughter.

We're not going to laugh about scaring six-year-olds. We're just not. We're not. And this has nothing to do with transgender stuff. This has to do with how you showed up at my house. If we're going to announce things to my six-year-old, please let me know, right? Because they may have all sorts of things going on. But that's going to be the hard work on this, and I know this is a difficult journey that you're walking as a family, and I appreciate your hospitality looking at it.

And so what I would tell you, the way I would end this call is both and. when there's some specific phobias that she's wrestling with. And you have a right to expect other people to respect your kid and continue to double down on hospitality, man. You're a good big brother and I'm grateful for you. All right, let's take a quick break. We're going to pay some bills and we'll be right back here on the Dr. John Deloney Show. The world has become more and more chaotic and uncertain and loud. And it seems that everyone has anxiety. I've been there and so have you.

It's why I wrote this small, direct, and personal book called Redefining Anxiety. In this book, I discuss what anxiety is, what it's not, and how you can get back on the road of being whole and well. Listen, you are not broken. And I'm living proof that you can get your life back. I wrote this book so everyone could read it, not just science nerds like me and my friends, and I priced it at $10 so that everyone can afford it. This little book landed on the bestseller list and is now being purchased by The Case

and given away in counseling offices, universities, churches, and homes across the country. I don't care if you're a teenager or an executive or a 75-year-old grandmother, this book is for everyone. So go to johndeloney.com and get your copy of Redefining Anxiety today. Hey, what's up? This is Dr. John Deloney's show, and we are back. Let's go to Kate in Madison, Wisconsin.

Kate, what's going on? Hi, thank you for taking my call. Hey, thank you for calling. Thank you for calling. It's exciting. What's up? So just a little bit of background. I'm 27 years old and just a little over a year ago, I found out that I'm a gene carrier

for Huntington's disease. Huntington's is neurological. It's like ALS, dementia, Alzheimer's wrapped into one. So it's been a little, it's been something. Um, and just according to what statistics I have, uh, because this comes from my birth family, I'm adopted. So I haven't actually seen it. I don't know. Um, but statistically speaking, um, one out of two, right? I probably won't make it. Yes. Yeah. Oh, you're talking about passing along. Do you, have you started showing symptoms?

No, I haven't. Okay. But because of it, I've gone back to school to become a social worker. I started my own business. Awesome. And I've just been kind of trying to plan for the future because I won't be able to work for between five and 20 years. And then I'll probably pass on sometime in my 60s. So it's a lot.

So you've gone to scorched earth, right? Pretty much. Good for you. I was thinking when you said you are a carrier, I was thinking that you were going to ask about having kids. And the last I looked, and it's been a minute, the last I looked, it was a 50% chance of passing it on, I think. So I thought that's where this call is going. You're talking about you're a carrier and you're worried at some point this switch gets flipped. And so you were planning for, you just found out that your neighbors have nukes.

And so you are just going to start building bomb shelters just in case right well part of it is having kids because i want a family but also i don't know how to plan for my future if i choose to have children whether i adopt and like how do i prepare myself as well as my family for that because I have no idea. So, number one, that sucks. I wish I had something fancy to tell you right now. I'm trying to put myself in your position. And just so you know, I'm laughing because I would have done the exact same thing. I would have started writing up my eulogy and I would have called all my friends together.

And they would have thought I was going to be dead by the weekend. And it would have taken a while for them to be like, oh, this is a maybe, and it's 30 to 40 years. What? And I would have been like, I know, God. So, Kate, I'm you, and so we're in this together. I wish there was a fancy thing I could tell you that would make it go away, and it's not, right? That's a scary, scary. The only thing I could think that would make it go away, and it's not, right? That's a scary, scary... The only thing I could think that would be scary, right, is to actually feel that first tremor or that first, you know, take that first misstep, and then your heart just sings because you know, right? And then you've got to go to the doctor.

Oh, yeah. When the doctor... And, of course, if you're like me, do you just walk through every second of every day looking for it? Um, no. Oh, you're better than me, dude. I would be. Oh, man oh man i mean i have moments i

have some really bad moments yeah but otherwise i'm like okay it's not your time you still have between 20 and 30 years you're good and i pray that science will catch up and apparently science might catch up but i don't know i don't know i know but you don't have it, right? Currently, I do not. Okay. But I will develop it. I want to start there. Okay?

You don't have it. Yeah. So here's what I don't want you to do. I'm going to oversimplify this, and I'm going to get mean cards and letters from the Huntington's community and you're worth it, okay? A hundred percent of us don't get out of this thing alive, right? Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah.

One of my favorite psychologists on the planet, he's a psychiatrist, I guess, is Irvin Yalom. And he came up with the idea of existential psychology. The reason that all of us are crazy and we build empires and families and religions, this is his thinking, is all distilled down into one thing. Because the moment we reach conscious awareness, we know that we're going to die. And so we build all this banana stuff, like whether it's grocery stores and roads and we build like all kinds of things to prop up and lean up against this one thing. And that's, we're not going to make it out of here. And so, I don't, what you are experiencing is that 100x, right? Because you have a path now. Most of us don't know.

We don't know. We just go through our day thinking it's going to be around 85. Really, in our heads, we think it's going to be about 106. But we can look at the data. You've got a different picture in front of you. So I want to back out, and I want to start with this premise. Don't let tomorrow's future pain steal your joy from today. And you have a different level than most of us, right?

So I'm not, I want to minimize what you're experiencing. At the same time, every joyful second is precious to you, right? Yes, it is. And the more you run out into the future and pick up cinder blocks to run back into the present and carry with you around every day, the more you're just going to suck the soul out of these precious moments that you do have. And so there is a real need for you to plan financially, right? A real need. There is a real need for you to, you're going to have some hard roads to hoe with life insurance and with any sort of insurance and things like that, right? So instead of opening your own business, you may work for a company that's going to have great health insurance

because you know down the road, those are the kind of decisions that I want you to get with a doctor, not the internet. For God's sake, never go on the internet again, Kate, ever, right? There's a phenomenal doctor here in Madison, so I'm all connected with that. I want you to have a doctor that's going to walk with you. I want you to find a Huntington's community. And that may actually have to be on the internets. But people who have walked this line with you and are going to humanize the internet drama. And they will be real people.

Hopefully it could be people you could meet with in person. You could go have coffee with some folks and meet with their family. I want you to not carry any heavier brick than you've got to. Does that make sense? And the internet has a vested interest in making these bricks as heavy as possible. So you'll keep clicking. I want you to actually go make eye contact with people. Even if you've got to fly somewhere, make eye contact with folks who've experienced this, who are experiencing it, family members, and really get a real picture on it. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And then you're going to have to have some hard conversations with your current family, with your significant other, right, on what family is going to look like. Do you adopt? Do you want to roll the dice and have kids? No one can tell you that but you. And so you're in it dice and have kids. No one can tell you that but you. And so you're in it and it sucks. And your moments, your seconds, your relationships got a thousand times more precious.

And so do your best to get facts and data. Do your best to not live way into the future. And those are going to happen. They're like lightning bolts. They shoot into your mind and you go, nope, that's later. That's a problem for future Kate. Because today Kate is going to burn all the tread off these tires, right? Is going to have as many fun adventures, is going to do incredible meaningful work, is going to sit with folks, do the things that bring you joy and begin to make meaning of this thing. But none of us get out of here. And I hope your story, Kate,

is a magical story for everybody because none of us know, right? None of us know. Life is a mist and a vapor and it goes so fast. So, so fast. So, so fast. Every second's precious. Every second's precious.

Kate, thank you for that call. I know that's tough. I know that's tough. I know that's tough. And we'll be thinking about you. Get connected with your doctor, community, people, and live in the present. Thank you so much.

Let's go to Diane in Charlotte. Diane, what's going on? Hi. How you guys doing? We are having the time of our life. How about you? Not quite so. That's why I'm so glad I was in contact with you guys.

Hey, I'm so glad you called. So what's up? How can I help? I'm 53 years old. I'm single. I grew up very poor. Okay. Two girls out of wedlock, they're grown now. Okay. I was on government assistance for years. Okay. I'm trying to calm down. I want to pass out on the phone. Hey, you are doing incredible. You're doing incredible. I did not have any guidance,

no self-confidence, no self-esteem, you name it. I've come upon a great job with benefits. And I'm just so overwhelmed. I'm so gracious for having this job. Yeah.

Again, I never had any guidance of how to handle money. I trusted this coworker to tell me how to go about to getting more money. That was the worst mistake I've made in my life. I'm so sorry. Does co-workers steal from you or give you some kind of scheme or something like that? It was a scheme and I ran with it. And now I'm in debt. Okay. Hey, Diane.

Yes. I've done the same thing. No. Yes, ma'am. 100% of the people listening to this I've done the same thing. No. Yes, ma'am. 100% of the people listening to this show have done the same thing. Whether the scheme was a leased car or stupid credit cards or, hey, give me $100 and I'll turn it into $1,000 or give me $10,000 and I'll turn it into $100. I do not know a person who hasn't made mistakes with money. And I want you to know you're not by yourself on this one, okay? Okay.

All right. All right. So keep going. So you did something dumb. Now you got debt, okay? Now, like I said, I have a car that I had. It was 21 years old. And so working this job, I was able to purchase a 2015 model car. Look at you, man. Hey, my car's a 20. Mine's a 2006, Diane. You're crushing it. I'm going to buy your car from you.

All right, so you got a new used car. Yeah, a new used car. I'm still paying on it. Okay. I went into my retirement savings to try to catch up with the bills that I owe to try to reduce that amount of what I'm in debt in. Mm-hmm. And so it seems like I'm piling more and more money into that instead of... Okay, hey, hey, hey.

I just made a mess. You did, you did. Okay I just made a mess. You did, you did. Okay, you made a mess and you called the cleanup crew. All right? You hear me? Yes. Tell me about this job you got. You said you just stumbled upon it.

I don't believe that for a second. I think you're an incredible worker and they are lucky as all get out to have you. Yes, they are. Yeah, they are. See? In my younger days, I played softball, and I knew about the job. They had Lance and Continental Tires, the people that I'll play softball with, but I didn't have a computer. I didn't know how to get into the job. But now I'm with the post office. Yeah, look at that. Hey, you guys saved our lives during COVID.

I know. And, boy, we worked our behinds off for you guys. You had to get your mail and prescriptions. I had to get prescription. I had to get my books. I had to get food. I had to get everything. And plus all the other stuff that we bought just because it made us feel good, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's do this. I want to get everything. Plus all the other stuff that we bought just because it made us feel good, right? Yeah. Yes. Let's do this. I want to back out a second. Okay. Let's pull this apart and we'll do it pretty quickly. How much money do you make a year? It varies. Give me a ballpark. I can make from

$50,000 to $100,000 if I wanted to by doing overtime. All right. Okay, how much debt do you have? If you took every single penny you owe somebody else, how much is that? $132,000. All right. So here's the way we like to – I work here at Ramsey Solutions.

My boss is Dave Ramsey. Here's the language that he uses that I love. You got a big hole, right? You got $132,000 hole. And you work like bananas for two years. You work like somebody that I know you can. You've been working hard your whole life. You got a big shovel too, right? And you can dig out of this hole in relatively short fashion. And along the way,

you're going to stand up taller. You're going to learn a whole bunch of new things. So the next time some knucklehead coworker comes to you, you're going to laugh at him and go, ha ha, idiot, ain't getting my money, right? Or you're going to take him out to coffee because I would say, idiot, you're more compassionate and kind than me. You take them out to coffee and you're going to say, hey, you're doing this sideways, okay? Okay.

But listen, it feels like a lot right now, and it is. And you are in a great position to crush it. And not only crush it, but I know, I know, I know, Diane, at your office, you're the kind of person that people come ask for things, aren't they? Yes. Yep. You are a strong, brilliant, powerful person who's been through a lot in life. And my guess is the piece that you walk through a room at work, people gravitate towards you.

Yes. Because you know and you're still positive. Am I right? Yes. Okay. So true. So this is just another one. You're not going to beat yourself up over it.

Hey, I'll just tell you. Mine was about 100, I think it was 117,000 was how big my hole was. Okay. I had to dig out. Dave's was millions. Okay? Wow. So if you're sitting next to old man Dave Ramsey, he's going to laugh at the size of your hole.

Yours isn't that big. Okay? Okay. Now, here's what this means. You're going to have to get on a plan. You're going to have to get a budget. You're going to have to be on a plan. You're going to have to get a budget. You're going to have to be on a plan. You're going to have to get a group of people around you that are going to hold you accountable and walk alongside you.

And most importantly, you're going to have to change your entire psychology around money, around Diane, around who you are. Okay? Yes. Got it? You are strong and powerful, and you just need some new information, and you're going to be off to the races. Okay? Okay. So here's what I'm going to do for you.

Number one, I'm going to give you for free, I'm going to give you my book. It's called Redefining Anxiety. In someone in your situation, this idea of I screwed up, this idea of my past traumas, this idea of money makes me nervous. Now people coming to you with schemes going to make you nervous. Your heart takes off on you, right? Your heart starts beating fast or you get that stomach drops, that warm feeling in your belly like I failed something. I'm going to give you this book and I'm going to give it to you for free. That's number one.

Number two, I'm going to send you a copy of Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover book for free. Okay? And that's going to walk you through everything. Hey, I'm not done yet. I'm going to send you Ramsey Plus for a year. It's our subscription service. Here's what it is. It's got Financial Peace University, the gentle step-by-step course.

It's nine lessons. They're digital lessons.-by-step course. It's nine lessons. They're digital lessons. You can get online and watch them in your house, invite your friends over. They're entertaining. They're fun. But they are lessons on why we do what we do step-by-step-by-step. It also comes with a community, whether that's in-person classes or online classes, where you can talk through people's journeys.

You can watch all these things. And it comes with the app, the most important app. It's what I use in my house. It tracks my money. It connects to my bank. My wife and I can use it together, all of it together. I want you to invite your daughters in on this because I want this to be a moment for your home.

That's what I was just telling them. I don't want them to make the same mistake that mama did. And listen, you know what that word is? Legacy. You're going to change your family tree and it's not too late. And your grandkids are going to live different lives because you put a stick in the ground

at 53 years old and said, no more for my family. You know what I'm saying? I'm crying. And listen, then you're going to get all, you're going to go berserker about it. And then people at your church are going to be like, why are you suddenly six foot six tall? Why you got all these fancy new clothes that you're paying for in cash? And you're going to say, I'm going to run a class at my church on my own.

And then they're going to, it's going to sell out. And you're going to look people in the eye who are feeling just like you are right now. And you're going to help them stand up tall, and you're going to hug them tight, and you're going to say, you've got a big hole, but you're going to get a big shovel, and we're going to work our way through this. Right? Okay. But I'm such an honest person. Let me tell you this. Okay.

I went on Mr. Ramsey's site, and I saw that he had the trial. And I've already, he told me I'm already on step two. Yep. Which I didn't know. You know, at least I have the thousand saved. There you go. See? You only got seven more to go.

Seven more to go. And listen, hey, you don't need the trial anymore. I'm going to give it to you for a year, okay? No more trials. I'm going to give it to go. And listen, hey, you don't need the trial anymore. I'm going to give it to you for a year, okay? No more trials. I'm going to give it to you. But listen, you are going to have to work hard for two years. Probably two and a half, maybe even three. I thought it was going to be longer, but it's only going to be two years. Hey, it's a math problem.

That means you're going to have to be on rice and beans. Ain't going to be no more Diane going partying every night. I know you don't do that anyway. I grew up poor, so this won't do nothing. That's what I'm saying. And you're going to pick up every overtime shift you got. You're going to embarrass those 26-year-olds when they say the words, I'm so tired.

You're going to look at them and go, come on now. And then you're going to say, well, cool, give me your shift because I'm going to get paid. I'm going to get paid. I'm going to get paid. And you're going to have something to work towards, work towards, work towards. Diane, I want you to say this out loud. I'm going to change my family tree. I'm going to change my family tree.

Starting today. Starting today. And here's the thing, Diane. Here's what happens when you make that decision. There's millions of people listening to this right now are going to be driving okay millions is probably a little bit of an overstatement maybe 38 people listen to this podcast

right they're driving down the road they're mowing their yard they're vacuuming their house they're going for a run, whatever they're doing they just stopped and they said Diane They're mowing their yard. They're vacuuming their house. They are going for a run, whatever they're doing. They just stopped. And they said, Diane, she can change your family tree.

I'm going to also. And it starts with getting control of your money, your thoughts, your actions, getting in relationships with other people who are good for you, aren't going to steal from you, aren't going to sucker you into something. And you're going to have some generational traumas you're going to work through, Diane. This is going to be a whole process, but you're going to start with, now you're on baby step two. You're going to lay out all those debts. You're going to follow a plan.

You're going to take it a little step and a little step and a little step. You're going to bring your kids with you. You're going to bring your friends with you. You're going to talk about an entire new legacy. You're going to take those bricks out of your backpack, and you're going to pave a new road that your grandkids are going to walk on, and they're going to take those bricks out of your backpack and you're going to pave a new road that your grandkids are going to walk on and they're going to remember about Grandma Diane and how she said no more at 53, changed it all. I'm so proud of you for making this call. I'm proud of you for saying no more, for being vulnerable and saying, hey, I finally,

after 50 years, I got me a great job and then I went and stepped in cha-cha again. That's cool. We're going to hose our boots off and we're going to keep going. I'm so proud of you, Diane. Man, this is why I love this show because I hang up the phone and I'm motivated. I get motivated to continue to work those little tiny, tiny steps, tiny steps, tiny steps towards changing my family tree. Thank you so much, Diane, for this call. All right, as we wrap up today's show, man, I know what we're going with. We're going with the 1991 acoustic love ballad.

Because why not? Because Paul Gilbert was a shred master, but on this particular song paulie g picks up an acoustic guitar and him and the rest of the of the group unfortunately titled mr big come on guys y'all were all really good players y'all could have done better than that but 1991 on the album lean into it you dropped this classic called to be with you and it goes like this. Hold on, little girl.

Show me what he's done to you. Stand up, little girl. A broken heart can't be that bad. When it's through, it's through. Fate will twist the both of you. So come on, baby. Come on over. Let me be the one to show you.

I'm the one who wants to be with you. Deep inside, I hope you feel it too. I waited on a line of greens and blues. I don't even know what that line means. I've wondered what that line means since middle school. Just to be the next to be with you. America, we're all waiting on a line of greens and blues. Maybe it's talking about salad bars or something. Just to be the next to be with you.

This has been the dr john deloney show