The Dr. John Delony Show - We’ve Been Married Six Years & Still Live With My In-Laws

Episode Date: October 29, 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 We've been married six years & still live with my in-laws I'm employed by my in-laws but want to leave for a better job Started a new job and my anxiety is through the roof Lyrics of the Day: "A Thousand Miles" - Vanessa Carlton   As heard on this episode:  BetterHelp dreamcloudsleep.com/delony Conversation Starters Redefining Anxiety John's Free Guided Meditation Ramsey+   tags: marriage, boundaries, family, abuse, workplace/career, anxiety   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 in-laws. Should we be living with them after eight years? Should I keep working for my father-in-law? No. And we also talk to an awesome guy who just got a new job and his anxiety is through the roof. Stay tuned. Hey-o! It's John with the Dr. John Deloney Show.

We're taking your calls on life and love and happiness and parenting, misery, sadness, all the things. Man, if you want to be on the show, give me a call at 1-844-693-3291 that's 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask and by the way while you're there go to johndeloney.com scroll down and sign up for the newsletter it is dope on a rope. Nope. Not dope. It is I don't know. Neat in a seat. What are we going to say here? It is too cool for school. It's turning into a Dr. Seuss book. It is turning into a Dr. Seuss book.

That's not great. And we're not even allowed to We can't even talk about it. Why'd you have to bring Dr. Seuss up, James? Jeez Louise, man. Did he get canceled? I haven't. For sure. Okay. I haven't heard that. Real cool, James. Just, we had a nice show going and it just got dark all of a sudden.

So let's just back that thing up and go to johndeloney.com and sign up for our newsletter. And new thing. So I make jokes all the time about this show only having like, you know, five people listening to it, whatever That's not true It's blown up underneath us And I want to get it out there even more So here's what I'm going to ask you to do If you're listening to this podcast today Go back to your favorite episode

It may not be this one This one I made or something so great It may be this one Go back to your favorite episode. It may not be this one. This one I made or something so great. It may be this one. Go back to your favorite episode and send it to one person. Just send it to one person. Say, hey, this made me think of you. If it made you think of them, awesome. If you think they would like it, great.

If it's about bad in-laws, send it to your mother-in-law. That will help with Thanksgiving. But send it to one person. Let's get the word out. I'm so grateful for the thousands and thousands and thousands of people that are listening. It's just really humbling and it's cool. And let's get it out there more. Let's get it out there more.

Send it to somebody that you care about. I had this. Somebody slid into my DMs. I just, I can't say that. It's just so gross. It gives me the heebs. This dude reached out on the internet. How about that?

And he said, this is just what he wrote. Dude, the silent eye contact, physical touch and gratitude lists not only improve things between my wife and I, but one thing led to another and my entire world has been revolutionized i've begun sponsoring an aa started brazilian jiu-jitsu i enjoy playing music again and on and on can't thank you enough dude i'm not gonna give call your name out because

um i didn't i didn't ask your permission here but i get notes like this all the time that say people are listening. They're putting these little things into practice, these little bitty things, like asking your wife, what's your picture of today? Like writing a note to your son saying, hey, I love you, man. Like getting a morning routine, whether it's big or it's little. I just quit eating sugar. Whether it's deciding to call your mom once a week, whatever it is, people are implementing these little bitty behaviors,

these little bitty changes, and they're doing them over and over, and they're seeing massive changes in their life. Thank you so, so much for these notes that you send. Thanks for joining us on the show, for listening and listening and listening. I'm so grateful. All right, let's go to Joe in Orlando.

Let's get to Orlando. How are you laying on Orlando? Orlando, Joe in Orlando. Wouldn't you know? What's up, man? Hi, John. Thank you for having me on the show. I'm a big fan.

You got it, man. I'm a big fan of you. What's up? So, to keep it short, I'm 26, married, and I'm having troubles with my in-laws. What kind of troubles? Me and my wife have been living with my in-laws ever since we got married due to going to school, going to work, and all that. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Back that thing up. How long have you all been married? 2015. So it's going to be about eight years in November. And you've been living with them all this time? Yes.

I don't even know what you're about to say. And I will tell you, yes, you probably have problems with your in-laws. My guess is, and I went to a lot of grad school and I'm a genius. My guess is if you live with your in-laws. My guess is, and I went to a lot of grad school, and I'm a genius,

my guess is if you live with your in-laws for the better part of a decade in a new young marriage, you're probably going to have problems with your in-laws. Why are you living at home with your in-laws? So initially,

it was an agreement between me and my wife while we finished school. Did you hug married real young? We got married in our second year of college. I had just turned 21. Oh, my gosh. I know that sounded like a good idea.

That was probably even a worse idea. So you, at 21, you were a junior in college, I guess? Second year. Second year, sophomore. And what year was she? Sophomore as well. We're the same age. Oh, man.

And is there like an apartment or a back house, or are you just like down the hall? Down the hall. Oh, gosh. So let me just back up here. Yeah. Sophomore's in college. Daughter comes home and says, I found my husband. I'm going to marry him soon. And we're going to move back into my old high school bedroom. Is that right? No. So when we got married, we had moved from Puerto Rico here to Orlando.

Uh-huh. So we had found initially an apartment just for us. But then her family came along and we decided to group into a larger apartment. Her mother-in-law and father-in-law had some issues. So they split up. We changed to a new apartment where we are now, which is a lot smaller. So the space is very uncomfortable. But tensions between my mother-in-law and myself keep growing throughout the years.

And I can't find a way of convincing my wife that it's time to move out. Especially now, since my mother-in-law due to COVID lost her job. So technically we're paying for the majority of expenses. Brother. And I'm not trying to paint that she's a terrible person. You don't have to, you don't have to. I love my mom.

I love my mother-in-law. I could not live in an apartment with her for a decade, either of them. Yeah, and so... You can't either. Oh, no. Your mother-in-law cannot respect you because you still live in her apartment. As the man who married her daughter, and this isn't like a gendered thing, like a paternal thing. This is, you promised to take care of my daughter and still living in my apartment. Oh, she doesn't want us to leave.

That's the issue. I know. It's a catch-22 dance you're in. She can't respect you, and she doesn't want you to leave. And your wife is stuck. Dude, I don't know. I don't say it's you got to move.

And I know that you know that, but there's no amount. This is eight years is a decade. There's no amount of gentle conversations. Y'all may have to help pay for rent for a season or your mother-in-law's got to get a job. There is no easy way out, but you've got to move and you've got to move ASAP. I know that.

I just don't know how to let my wife know. Cause every time we bring the conversation up, she just tells me she can't because she has agreed to help her mom out. Then you have to hear that for what it is. Your wife is choosing her mother over you. Your wife is saying, I don't want to be married to you anymore. I want to be my mother's, I just want to live at home with my mom. And so you have to... Do what? Don't be afraid of it. It's happened. It's not a might.

It's an is. But sometimes my guess is you beat around the bush a little bit and you say, well, I just really think it's about time. I think you've got to be bold and you've got to say, it's time to move out. 60 days, we're out of here. You're going on a decade, man. How old are you? I'm 26. What do you do for a living? I just graduated at the end of the summer, and I started a job at a software engineering company.

Okay. How much money do you make? Right now, it's my first year as an intern, so $50,000 a year. First year as an intern? Like an intern position, and then after the first year, if I qualify, like they hire you as an intern for your first year, and then afterwards, if you make the cut, you go up to 70. Man, that's a, I don't know a lot of $50,000 intern jobs. That's pretty great pay, man.

So does your wife work too? She works at a Walmart. Okay. While she's still finishing school. Are y'all going to grad school or something? What's taking so long? Because she's helping pay and we didn't qualify for financial aid or anything. We've been paying out of pocket for college.

So you didn't go into a bunch of debt? Well, I had debt, stupid debt, before the marriage with my wife. That's not. Okay, good for you guys for figuring it out, man. Yeah, here's what has to happen, ASAP. Let me ask you this. You mentioned you moved from Puerto Rico. Is there cultural challenges here, too?

Not for me, but for her and her family, yes. Okay, is she from Puerto Rico? No, they're from another place and her family, yes. Okay. Is she from Puerto Rico? No, they're from another place. They're from Colombia. Okay. They struggle a lot more. Well, I don't say it's a struggle. There's some, I want to honor the cultural differences where you don't just, a lot of Western culture says, suck it up, mom, you're on your own.

And there's other cultures that say, no, you're part of our family, you're going to move in. So at some point you got to, ASAP, you're about to lose your marriage, what's about to happen. You're sick of it. You're getting sick of your wife

and you're about to implode. Is that fair? I already imploded on my mother-in-law. So yeah, I'm pretty close on But My temper is getting out of hand Hold on, hold on You're choosing that, brother You don't make that choice

You got it? Okay Don't say it's getting out of hand As though it's some other thing That's you making choices Okay If you need to go get a hotel room Because your mother-in-law is yelling at you Don't say it's getting out of hand as though it's some other thing. That's you making choices. If you need to go get a hotel room because your mother-in-law is yelling at you or whatever, do that. Be a person of character.

But don't blow up and say it's because of it. It's not. You choose that. Take ownership of your feelings and your emotions and your thoughts, and then take ownership of your actions. Don't let this situation take your character from you. Y'all have to, let me ask you one more question, though, before I start telling you what I think you should do. Do you have your eye on somebody else?

No. No? No. The only people I interact with is my wife and my best friend, who's a guy. Other than that, no other social circle. Okay. You've got to get one, by the way. This thing is, it's suffocating you and you know that. Yeah. The time for the conversation is now where you need to take your wife out to dinner and say, we've talked about this. We've thought about this. We have to move out of this apartment.

It could be that you rent a small house and your mother-in-law lives in your house under your rules, under y'all's, your family values of this young family. Y'all have not left. Y'all are still children. Y'all are weird romantic brother and sister living in this house. You have to get your own place with your own values, begin creating your own. Here's for me and my house. And your mother-in-law is welcome to live there.

But you can't live in her apartment that you pay for anymore. Okay. And you've got to have a hard conversation with your wife. And if she says, I'm not leaving my mom, then you need to be bold and say, are you choosing to not be married to me anymore and you're choosing to live with your mother instead? You've got to be very clear,

very, very clear about this. And hopefully she'll say, well, no, I want both. And you say, awesome, I accept both. I understand that when I married you, I also married into your heart and into your culture. And I married into the idea that we don't put our parents in homes, they live with us, excellent.

But they live with us, not us with them. And that sounds like, oh, it's just semantics. It's a big difference. And then you and your wife need to have conversations and discussions. Who are we going to be? What is our future vision for this thing? What kind of house are we going to have? Are we going to have a joyful house, a dancing house, a serious house?

Where are we going to live? What kind of town do we want to be? Where are we going to be? Those are conversations that y'all two have together. And mother-in-law can come live with you. And by the way, mother-in-law has to get a job soon. That means you and your wife have to have a budget. Here's what it's going to cost to live.

Here's what it's going to cost to buy food and home. All those things you have to be very serious about creating a home. Conversations y'all should have had eight years ago. You didn't. Cool. Period. At the end't. Cool. Period. At the end of that sentence. Period.

At the end of that sentence. Now what's next? Now what's next? But yeah, Joe, you got to get out of that house. Holy smokes, you got to get out of that house. And I hope your wife wants to be married to you. Bring your mother-in-law along. It's in your house.

We'll be right back on the Dr. Don DeLoney Show. All right, we're back. Let's go to Mandy in Raleigh, North Carolina. What's up, Mandy? Hi, Don. How are you doing today? I am dancing like I've never danced before. I'm dancing on the ceiling. What's up? I feel you. I'm the same. I have just received a really awesome job offer. Very cool. Higher pay, actual benefits compared to what I have now. And I'm excited about it. It's tentative.

They're probably going to give me a firm offer. Not sure yet. Dude, you are. Oh, man. I just asked a girl out and she said, yes, we're... Oh, man. I just asked a girl out, and she said, yes, we're going to get married. I just haven't fully said yes yet, but she said she would respond to my text tomorrow.

I haven't really even asked yet, but I'm thinking about it. It's going to be so good. Well, in this context with the type of job it is, the tentative means I'll get it if I pass background checks. And I don't have any skeletons in my closet, but I know of. Have you ever been to jail? I sure have not.

So thank goodness. Oh, what a boring life. Just kidding. Good for you, Mandy. Good for you. Okay, so you're getting this job offer. We're celebrating here. Everybody, let's all cheer back there in the booth.

Cheer. Woo! Can't hear them, but all right. So we're all excited for you, but this sounds like there's a wah, wah. What is it? There's a but. Currently, I work for a family firm. I am one of two professionals in this firm.

Uh-oh. And I nurture a ton of client relationships. I manage a ton of highly billable projects, and I handle crisis situations for my boss slash family member pretty frequently. So very valuable in this firm. You know, it's two professionals in it, me and my family member. Uh-oh. And this is a significant pay raise.

This is super great benefit. I cannot say no to this offer, but I am going to let down my family like there's no tomorrow. Who's your family member? My in-laws. I work for my in-laws. Oh, no. Yep. What's the- We just talked about an in-law situation before this.

Yes. Y'all don't live in the same apartment, do you? Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. Okay, good. Absolutely not. That would have made this call so much more awesome. What's the business? What's the firm? I am a professional accountant.

I'm a CPA. Kapow. All right. So you are a CPA in a family tax firm, an accounting firm. Do they make more money and they just not pay you? Or is this just as much as they make? We don't really talk about it. I'm an employee. That's it. I'm an employee on a salary. That's it. I love it, dude. So great. So you're not a partner at this accounting firm or anything? No, absolutely not. Oh, I'm so happy. Who's the

other accountant? Please say your father-in-law. Yes. Oh, sweet. Dude. So two cool things are going to happen. Number one, you're going to make a jillion more dollars and get benefits, and you don't have Christmas plans this year. That's so great. Hey, let's have more fun. Do you have kids? Yes. Yes.

How many? One. One. Is it? Please tell me it's the only grandkid please please please yes oh yes

you're gonna ruin everything Mandy I know everything oh I'm so happy listen I don't get these kind of calls very often

they're all sad and depressing you're gonna blow up your whole family and I'm so excited okay so obviously I'm so excited. Okay, so obviously I'm laughing because you know you have to do this. Yes. Does your family have any idea?

No. None? Not this side of the family, no. My mom knows about it, but that's it. And my husband, obviously. Okay, that's what I was going to ask. Has he been keeping this from his parents? Yes.

Yes. Yikes. So that's where I think this is going to get dicey. Because they've treated you like an employee, you are an employee on a salary. Mm-hmm. You get to make grown-up employee choices for your employee self. You're not a partner. You do a lot for that business, and they pay you for what you do, right?

And so that's all good. I'm minimizing this. This is going to be a big thing where I think this is going to be a challenge is if I'm them, I would ask, why didn't you tell us you felt underpaid? Why didn't you at least come talk to us about this? What about this? I have. Oh, you have?

Okay, so tell me about those conversations. We don't do performance-based. It's mostly salary. My opinion is I have really high billable hours. The opinion of the partner, my father-in-law, is I don't. Cool. That's great. So here's, this is, this is, I'm so happy.

Will you promise before I tell you anything else, you promise you'll call me back and let me know how this goes? Please, please, please. I will. I got to know how this goes. Even if next time you're crying and you're like, they hate us and whatever. I just got to know how this thing ends. Um, one time I was just flipping channels. I love standup comedy. I'm kind of obsessed with it. And I don't remember the name of this comedian, but I just stopped by and this comedian was talking about driving down the street and it was like on a telephone pole. And he saw one of those

signs that said, call this number and ask me how I lost weight. And he called it and he said, hey, I'm just calling to ask you how you lost weight. And then instead of it being some advertisement, the joke was the guy just said, diet and exercise. Thanks. And hung up. So that made me laugh. And I thought that was a hilarious joke. And so I'm telling you the same thing. This is simple advice that's impossible. It's so hard. But you know you got to do it. And that is you need to tell your father-in-law, hey, we need to have a hard conversation about work. And can we schedule that?

And he'll probably say, well, let's just do it right now. So you may want to send him an email. You may want to, I hate to say this, we may let's just do it right now. So you may want to send him an email. You may want to, I hate to say this, but you may want to even shoot him a text. But my guess is he loves you and he cares about you and he's your boss. And he's going to want to have that conversation right then. Do y'all have, I'm sure y'all have one-on-one meetings or anything like that, huh? I mean, it's small.

I mean, we sit and talk, you know, just him and I a lot. I mean, so we have pretty open conversation between us. It's just gotten a little tense in the past few months. Over this work situation? Okay. Well, how come? I'm ready to grow. Yeah. I'm ready to do more. Okay. But I'm still treated. I mean, I've been practicing for almost half a decade. And I'm still treated as an intern.

How old are you? Even though I'm 26. Oh, you just said that like a 26-year-old. I've been doing this for half a decade or five years. You said that like in the most maximum way. I've been doing this a better part of a decade, which is like five years in one day. Yeah, so you've got five years of

experience. That's cool. How long has he been doing this? 30. Okay, so let's be honest about the whole thing. He's got way more experience than you. Is that fair? Oh, yeah. He's been doing this a than you. Is that fair? Oh, yeah. Been doing this a long time. Is that fair? Yes. And this is

his business. That's fair? Yes. Yes. He can do whatever he wants, and he's got to treat you with dignity. He can do whatever he wants. And you can, too. You can, too. I needed that, John. Well, you can. I mean, you're a grown-up, and this is a weird situation. I don't like,

I don't like this. The only group I've ever seen do it really well is Dave Ramsey and his kids and his in-laws. Everybody works in the business. Not all of them, but many of them work in the business, and they are super clear. They call him Dave at work. They call him Dad at home. They don't talk about work at home. They leave all the stuff here. Very clear job descriptions, very clear performance metrics. And that's the way you got to do it. You got to be

overly clear when you mix family and business. You don't have that and that's great and cool. Man, you want to go back to just being daughter-in-law where he can dote on you and dote on your kids and y'all can make jokes about your husband together and y'all do whatever at the holidays. Yeah. Yeah, it's time for you to grow. So you just need to have a grown-up, been doing this for half a decade conversation, which is going to be hard, uncomfortable.

Here's a couple of tips for that. Say less than you think. Okay. All right. Are you going to write this down? I am. I'm a note taker. Of course you are. You're an accountant.

Say less than you think. You don't need to go into a bunch of explanations. I've been asking for this. You don't need to do that. You need to say, I've accepted another position at another tax firm. It's a significant pay increase. It's just a different level of responsibility. I'm so grateful that you got me off the ground. I'm grateful for the experience I've had and for learning here, but I need to grow.

No, no, no, no, no, no. You don't even have to say that. Okay, okay. Don't say all that stuff because then if he is any kind of boss, he's going to say, I'll help you grow. He'll start backfilling your reasons. You don't need to give him those. Your reasons are your reasons. All you owe him is the dignity of a face-to-face conversation, not leaving him like, if you've got all these clients, not just walking out of there in 10 days.

Like say, I will commit to, I will leave with integrity. Not leaving him like, if you've got all these clients, not just walking out of there in 10 days. Like say, I will commit to, I will leave with integrity. I will transfer these relationships, et cetera. But here's my end date. And I look forward to just being your daughter-in-law and going from there. And then he, here's the thing. He has the responsibility to be the adult in this situation. Be an adult also, not the, be an adult too.

Hear me very carefully. Write this down and put stars around it and circle it. Okay. You are not responsible for his response. Okay. Your job isn't to make it okay for him. Your job isn't to make sure his little heart is not sad. He gets to choose to be angry.

He gets to choose to be sad. He gets to choose to have any kind of response. He may breathe a sigh of relief and say, oh, thank God. I just, I didn't, we were kind of here now and I didn't know what was next. Probably not, but maybe. You cannot own his response.

It will be fair, I think, for him to feel like y'all hid this from him. And it will be fair for him to understand there wasn't a lot of, I mean, if you'd come to him and said, Hey, I'm looking for another job. That would have been weird too. Yeah. A lot of it.

It's a high pressure. I mean, it's always high pressure where we are. October 15th is our biggest deadline. Yeah. You know, with the personal tax extension. So I've been waiting until after this date to talk to him and I haven't

gotten the firm offer yet, but I am not, it's a 99% chance I will. So I might not even have this conversation if it's 1%. Yeah. If it's not just bring donuts and be like, here we are. And then back to working with excellence, but talk less. Say, Hey, I need 30 minutes of your time. I need 15 minutes of your time. Don't start backpedaling. Don't start getting into I just need a chance to grow it. This is a great opportunity financially.

This is a great opportunity for you and your family. This is a it's got some neat new responsibilities and you are so grateful for the opportunity they gave you. Period. End of that sentence. Here is let silence be your friend, not your enemy in this conversation.

Yep, I'm somebody who talks too much. The past year I've been learning the value of silence. I'm going to spend my word. When I worked with lawyers, I learned this statement, the power in the pause. He who speaks first loses. Yep. That's lawyer talk for how they engage one another. He who speaks first loses.

There's power in the pause. And a lot of that talking, talking, talking, talking comes from a lack of self-confidence. Yep. From insecurity. You've been doing this for half a decade. Half a decade. Or five years. It's just the most millennial

way to say something. I've been doing this for like a thousand days. Oh, you mean two and a half years? Yes, or three and a half years. Own your decision. Own your choice. It is going to cause some challenges. Hopefully he responds maturely.

What do you think? You think he's going to respond maturely or no? Honestly, I don't know. You do. You've been working with him for half a decade. Okay. There's two different ways he could respond. One could be, okay, great.

Go take the opportunity. This is going to be great. Cause he thinks that I don't have enough fillable hours anyways, even though I have data to prove otherwise. But he might just be like, okay, cool, awesome. And then after I leave, he's going to be like, oh, crap. Or he'll say, well, what can I do to match it? What can I do to match it?

What can I do to keep you because we need you? Those are probably two of his responses. Either one, taking it gracefully, saying, cool, awesome, go, we'll transition you out. Or what can I do to match it? What can I do to match it? Like, like very frantic. Okay. So have you run that scenario in your mind? I'm just going to tell them the decisions made. If I'm you, I would say I'm ready to go just be your daughter-in-law. Yeah. I'm to go just be your daughter-in-law. Yeah, I'm ready to go be your daughter-in-law. I like that.

Okay. I'm ready just to be the mom of your grandkid and the wife of your husband and a competitor in your community. And we're going to run you out of business, old man. Prepare to be crushed. You can say that too, but I wouldn't. But that'd be awesome. Well, I won't be a competitor. So it's a different kind of job. Great.

A different kind of job. So yeah, I'm ready to go back to being your daughter-in-law. And I'm so grateful for you. And in that sentence, and then power in the pause, you don't have anything else to say. All right. That helps. And you promised in front of America and even some listeners in Germany and Russia, because evidently we got those now too, that you're going to call me back and let me know how this conversation goes. And let me know.

Call me about a week into your first new job, okay? Okay. Gotcha. Hey, congratulations. We are cheering you on. And if you end up with no Thanksgiving and Christmas plans, Nashville is an awesome place to visit. Congratulations, Mandy. Talk less.

Be direct. Be honest. You've worked for half a decade. You've got the rest of your life for this guy to be your father-in-law. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Deloney Show. 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, we are back. All right. Hey, John. Yes, ma'am. Did you know we've been doing this show for just over one-tenth of a decade? I just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention. We've been doing this for one-tenth of a decade, a little more than.

I could have sworn it was about 8,000 hours, but I guess that sounds right. Ish, right? We've been doing this for a little more than a tenth of a decade. Feels like forever. Kind of has been. We should be getting paid a lot more. Never mind. All right, cool.

Let's go to Kyle in Indiana. That was hilarious. Way to go. Kyle in Indianapolis. What's up, Kyle? Hey, John, how you doing? Remarkable. What's up? Well, Hey, I got a little bit of a story and question for you. So I recently switched jobs. Um, I was in a good job. I liked it. Um, obviously certain issues, but overall good place place. Ended up getting an offer for almost double the salary. So obviously, that made the decision pretty easy and took that job offer. However, now that I've been in the role for about a little over three months or so, I have been fighting with anxiety like crazy from the moment that I got the job offer and had to tell my boss all the way to now worrying if I'm good enough to do the tasks at hand or if I'm like meeting expectations that aren't necessarily set

and it's been eating into like my mornings feel terrible until I actually get started I feel myself procrastinating stuff during the day and then I also end up dragging it home with me after work and talking to my wife about it for like three hours running in circles of my my worries and it's been hurting that relationship as well even though she's incredibly supportive of it so just looking to get your suggestions how to make this transition easier man i'm i'm really grateful that you called dude so what is the anxiety alarms? Like when you feel your body, what are they telling you? Yeah. So like the biggest thing that I feel is like basically not in my stomach physically. And pretty much any time that happens, my brain just starts running in circles about like, well, what am I worried about?

Or what is my next struggle that I'm going to be facing tomorrow? Or my brain likes to go even farther out of like, oh man, that I'm going to be facing tomorrow? Or my brain likes to go even farther out of like, oh man, what am I going to do three months from now? And basically worrying about meeting expectations for things that I'm not sure I'm capable of doing. And not that I'm probably not, but- Are you doing a good job at this new career? This new job? Yeah. Luckily the job is basically the same job I had before, just a different company. So- Okay. so you know what you're doing, right? Yeah, I do. It's a programming role.

So I've done programming in the past, and I'm doing it on new technology, so it's obviously a little bit of a learning curve. But in general, I am capable of the job. So, it's going to sound like a left-field question. How much is this new salary? Yeah, it's 160. Okay. Um, how did you grow up financially? Uh, middle-class, I would say nothing. We didn't starve or for anything, but we weren't, um, well off per se. Okay. That was my, that, man, I should do this for a living. So you've heard of imposter syndrome? Oh yes.

Okay. So imposter syndrome is about identity. It's not about what you can or can't do, but it's about who you think you are. Okay? Clara, I think it's, is it Claire? Claire Josa, she says, imposter syndrome is the fears of others judging ourselves the same way we judge ourselves.

It's the fear that others are going to judge you as bad as you're judging you. And when you grow up middle class, not well off, okay, nobody missed a meal. We didn't worry about stuff, but really there was some worry. When you grow up like that, you have a picture of what people look like who make that kind of money that you now make. So this is not about can you do this job because you know you can. This is about, oh, i'm one of them now and thems don't have i thought everything was going to be okay when i became a them

i thought my marriage would be fine i thought the car would be great i thought the house would fix i thought all this stuff would happen and this feeling in this in your body i don't belong in this room because i'm not one of them, has nothing to do with the job capabilities. Hear what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. I've made this jump myself. I did not grow up with a lot. My dad and my mom, they worked their butts off.

We didn't have a lot. In fact, there were some seasons when things were real hard growing up. And I have had some major identity issues because I knew folks who did have a lot. I knew them. They were my friends. I loved them. And I had fantasies about how their lives were all great and perfect and wonderful and this and that. And they had these vacations and these cars, et cetera, et cetera.

And the more I've worked with those folks behind closed doors for the last 5, 10, 15, 20 years. I've realized, oh, their marriages fall apart too. And they may not be starving for food, but they're starving for connection. They've got challenges X and Y and Z. I also learned that the more money you make, the more people expect you to do. Like people, you earn that money, right? Yeah, that is very true. And I didn't know that. I thought that when you just got a certain job, everybody high f money, right? Yeah, that is very true. And I didn't know that. I thought that when you just got a certain job, everybody high fives and they're like, all right, you're here.

Here's this new salary. You're the associate vice president or you're the vice president. You made it. Welcome. Grab a cigar. Here's your salary. I didn't realize that when you became a vice president, oh, man, things got real hard. Like they pay you for that.

And they may not pay you to paint, but they pay you to make sure there's paint in the warehouse and the whole business doesn't fall over. And so it may not be a physical exhaustion on your shoulders, but that weight keeps you awake at night because the whole building is resting on your back. You know what I mean? Yeah, and it's totally true because, like, for example, we have a project coming up that, uh, the one good thing about this company that almost hurts me in this conversation is they're a lot faster moving than my other place. And we were given a lot more flexibility to solve the problems in our own way rather than being told how to do them. And that leaves a lot of, uh, thoughts in my brain, even during the day, obviously, but even after work of like, how will I go about doing it? And will that be the way that is good or they want to? And

yeah, that extra money makes me feel like it's a... Yeah. Listen, it's a totally different job, even though you're doing the same thing. It's easy to make 80 grand doing a thing that somebody else tells you to do. Because if that thing doesn't work or you make it and it's good, but it doesn't succeed in the marketplace or it doesn't make your customer happy, you point at the person that told you. It's a lot harder when you make $160,000

and it's up to you to come up with that client's gonna want and execute it and see it done. Then that whole project rests on you. And so if the project fails, you fail, right? Yeah. So it feels like the same job. It's not. It's heavier and it's harder and they're paying you for it. They're paying you really well for it. But this is not about can you. By the way, you'll get better at that. You'll learn to carry that weight. You'll get stronger. Think of it like you're three months in to a double your salary job.

I used to call it getting in shape. You've got to get in a different kind of shape to run at that level, and you will. So you feel underwater right now. What I want you to do is feel your body. Don't run from it. Be curious about it. When it takes off on you, don't go, oh, no, what am I?

I got to just smile and say, oh, my body's trying to take care of me again. This weight we're lifting, this is heavier than I've ever lifted before. Think of it like bench press or squats. You can do it. They wouldn't be giving you $160,000 if they didn't think that you could do it. They think you're going to make them $2,000, $10,000, $20,000, $100,000 X that, or they wouldn't pay it to you. So they think you're worth it, right? Yeah, I mean, that's exactly it.

Even some more context, a lot of people on my team have 10 plus years of experience, and I have two and a half. Doesn't matter. Yeah, doesn't matter. That's another thing that plays into it. This is not about skill. This is about identity. You don't think you belong in that room. Yeah, I can definitely see that.

All right. So anxiety is three things. It's one thing. It's an alarm system looking for three things. Am I safe? Can I control my destiny? Do I have any sort of say into what's coming next? And am I connected? And so let's just reverse engineer that real quick. You got friends? Yeah, I absolutely do. Not in your business that you go hang out and have a drink with? Y'all play dominoes or whatever, call of whatever. I don't know what's going on.

Y'all get together? Hold on, hold on one second take a break Why y'all laughing at me Domino's I love Domino's I was thinking of Call of Catan I don't know I like Domino's Kyle Y'all too whatever

We just played Catan yesterday with that friend So you're right on track How you like them apples suckers Kelly and James drinking the Haderade back there. So, by the way, I'm coming out, I just decided at just this moment, with Deloney Domino's, and they're going to be incredible.

I'm going to make a million dollars. I'm not going to share it. I'll share it with y'all two, Sarah and Connor, not y'all two. Alright, back to you, Kyle. I will not make any money off Deloney Domino's, by the way. But, okay, so you've got some friends that you connect with on the regs. You got them together? Yeah. Okay, cool. So are you safe? Are you about to get fired? No, far from it. My company is strongly against firing

people, so I really need to screw up to get fired. Okay. Are you going to screw up? I sure don't plan on it. All right. Does your, well, I don't think any of us do. Does your wife support this move? Yeah. She's the biggest proponent, the biggest helper of it. Okay. Can you do the job? I believe I can. Nope. Back that thing up. Can you do the job? Yes. Okay. So you're safe. Can you you can, are you in control of what happens next? That's a loaded question. It is. Okay. So, so, hey, so there you go. So there you go. I think your brain doesn't register you as safe right now because it knows those people and you're not one of those people.

And it is identifying those people as not yours. You have left tribes. You are out of a community. Your body is saying you're not safe. And what you've got to do now, did you lie on your resume? No, my skills line up very well with the time. Great. The only time you're an imposter is if you lie.

If you say you can do something and you can't, so you're not an imposter. What you have to do is to begin to see yourself as one of them. You're somebody that makes $160,000 now. And you're still the same good guy. And you still are giving and charitable and kind, and you treat your wife right. And do you have kids? I do not. Okay. If you ever have kids, you're going to be a great dad. You are one of them now. And by the way, there is no thems. We're all just figuring out what's next for us, right? This idea that I know those people, that's just such nonsense, but our heads do it at trying to find a gang.

Here's what I want you to do. I want you to, and I've done this in my life and it's been extraordinary. I've reached out to people at new places where I've worked, new companies and said, I wanna watch how you level up here. You're in meetings that I've never seen. You have conversations on a scale, at a pace. And can we just have coffee once a month and I'll learn?

Don't go to somebody and be like, hey, may we be my mentor? Don't do that. But ask somebody in another department who's been there 10 years, five years, take out a couple of guys once a month that you work with that have been there 10 years and just say, hey, tell me about this business. How are things? And what you'll do is you'll learn their jokes and their conversations. You'll learn to speak their language

and your brain will begin to settle in because you'll realize they're just like me. They wanna be good dads or they're terrible dads or they're goofy or they laugh at stupid stuff or they think this movie was dumb or funny. They've got car trouble too. They're just like me. They're worried about the future and the economy and the bills.

They're just like me. And your brain over time will say, okay, these are my people. This is my gang. Does that make sense? That's true. Yeah, absolutely it does. Okay. And when it comes to are you in control of what's next,

tell me why that's hard for you. Why is that a double-edged sword? So my job falls very highly on that. I get a ticket that says, go implement X. And then I go do that for however many days or two days. Okay. The issue is, is in my previous job, there was a whole backlog of, once I finish this, I'll work on that. After that, I'll do this. So I knew what my next two, three weeks were going to look like. The new job, I know what I'm working on tomorrow most of the time,

but there's a good chance I do not know what I'm going to do after that. And I'm a major planner, as Dave would say. I'm the nerd of the group. And so when I don't know what's coming up tomorrow morning, case in point, even today, I feel extremely out of control in that regard. I love it. All right.

So we've just pointed our finger at two of the main drivers for your alarm systems going off. So here's another thing I want you to be highly intentional about, okay? Okay. Practicing ambiguity. They're paying you for the ambiguity. They're paying you for your flexibility. You are a professional pinch hitter. You are, no, you're not a pinch hitter because you're in the game. You're a relief pitcher. You're a closer. You don't ever know when you're coming into the

game. You know what the score is going to be, what batter's going to be up. But when you get called in, it's game on. You don't get to like a starting pitcher who knows five days in advance who they're playing, who the batters are, what the rotation, none of that. You just got to come in, warm up. You got 15 more pitches and you're on. This is just about learning to be okay with ambiguity. And what I'll tell you is that's something you can practice. How do you practice it? Keep a small journal with you at all times. And when you start feeling like,

I don't know what I'm doing today, I don't know what I'm doing today, I want you to write that stuff down. Get it out of your head and get it out of your body. All right? Okay. Write down, I don't know what project I'll be working on today. My body is trying to, my body is looking for stability and continuity,

and I don't have it in this new job. And they pay me an extra $80,000 a year to have things a little bit shaky. That's what I accepted. But I know this, when I get there, I will crush that thing because I have the skills and the talents. And if I don't, I'm going to say, and hold on to your hats here, Kyle. I don't know, but I'm going to find out. That's okay to say that. Right? Yeah, that totally makes sense. So can I tell you one last thing before we go? Absolutely. You're totally normal, man.

Three months in, you are totally normal. You snow globed your life. You shook it all up. You got a new job, a new place. You're a new money. You got a new identity. You think you do, but you don't. Everything's new. You got a new job.

Y'all are running twice as fast as your old job. You're doing the same job, but it's actually kind of different. Man, you don't know the rules. Your body's alarms are going off and that's okay. I want you to make sure you're doing the things that are going to keep you well, that you're sleeping, that you're staying connected to your buddies. You're playing dominoes or a call of Catan or whatever i don't know weird games you people play i want you to make sure you exercise and make sure you're eating right make sure you and your wife are connecting and talking and that you aren't keeping secrets from her and she's not keeping secrets do those things that keep your body well and then be really intentional about noticing

ambiguity be really intentionally about noticing ambiguity, be really intentionally about noticing safety, be intentional about developing relationships at work. And dude, I'm telling you, my guess is in a short season, your body will level up. You'll begin to squat this heavier weight or bench press this heavier weight, and you'll be off to the races. And there's a tiny, tiny, tiny chance that you won't.

And if you find yourself six, not six months, that's a year, two years, three years, and the anxiety is just killing you, then you have an honest conversation with your wife or the counselor that maybe this isn't the firm for you. Maybe this isn't the job for you. Maybe you need a little more structure and the ambiguity. It's not for you. What we can't wrap our heads around in this culture is $160,000 jobs. The stress and the burden and the speed for some $160,000 jobs isn't for everybody. Not everyone can handle that. There's some $160,000, I can't handle it. There's some half a million dollar jobs that I can handle just fine. It just depends on what the job is, what the place is, what the role is.

But that comes with an extra burden and it may not be for you. And that's okay. That is super okay. But have that conversation later, right? Same team? Yeah, that makes total sense. So take a deep, deep breath as deep as you can. Hold it.

Do another one and hold it. Nope. Now let it out. I can tell on the phone. Drop your shoulders all the way down. Pull them down. It's like you're watching me. Pull them all the way down, man.

You're not an imposter. You belong. You can watching me. Pull them all the way down, man. You're not an imposter. You belong. You can do this. It's just heavier weight, man. Got it? I got it. Thanks so much, John. I'm so grateful for you, Kyle.

Thank you so much for the call. Everybody out there, if you're going back to work, you've been off for a year, you've been off for two years, you're taking, I mean, this was a great resignation. People are changing jobs, moving, going all over the place. Expect anxiety. Expect to not feel safe. Expect your body saying, hey, this is, we're, this aren't our people. They are your people, man. Everybody's the same. We're all trying to figure it out. Whether you make a lot of money or a little more, I mean, everybody's working hard, doing the best they can, but it does make sense. If you've never seen, quote unquote, those people up close before, your body's going to say, hey, not us, not us, not us.

It is. You'll get there. You'll get there. Be graceful with yourself. Stay connected to people. And buy some dominoes. Unbelievable. All right, as we wrap up today's show, man,

it's one of my favorite songs of all time. I'm playing. I love this song. I love, love this song. Probably shouldn't play piano with the old mouth. I'm sorry. With the old face. Kelly's just shaking her head in this mixture of don't do that and shame and sadness.

Songs by Vanessa Carlton. If you don't know this song, stop what you're doing because I'm about to ruin everything. Go get on the internets and find this song. It's by Vanessa Carlton. It's called A Thousand Miles. It goes like this.

Making my way downtown, walking fast, faces past and I'm homebound. Staring blankly ahead, just making my way, making a way through the crowd. And I need you. I miss you.

And now I wonder, I don't know what this means, but if I could fall into the sky, do you think time would pass me by? What? Because you know, I'd walk a thousand miles if I could just see you tonight. I'm going to repeat that. That's how profound that was. If I could fall into the sky, do you think time would pass me by?

I don't know what that means. Because you know I'd walk a thousand miles if I could just see you tonight. Hey, America, I'm not walking a thousand miles to see you because you can just download this. Download it right here at the Dr. John Deloney Show.