The School of Greatness - Mental Health Expert on The Real Reason You Stay Anxious All Day | Dr. John Delony

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

Dr. John Delony is a bestselling author, mental health expert and host of The Dr. John Delony Show. John has two PhDs and over two decades of experience in counseling, crisis response and higher education. He is the author of the bestselling books Own Your Past, Change Your Future and Redefining Anxiety. His new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, will release in October 2023. John has appeared on Fox News and Fox Business and been featured in Real Simple magazine, Fast Company, The Today Show, and HuffPost. He has been a guest on The Minimalist Podcast, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast and the Mind Pump Podcast. John’s goal is to help people navigate tough decisions, improve their relationships, and believe they’re worth being well. Follow John on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Twitter.Order his book, Building a Non-Anxious LifeIn this episode you will learn,The importance of believing in something bigger than oneself for a non-anxious life, and how the lack of this belief can contribute to anxiety and discover strategies to cultivate it in your own life.Why many people struggle to believe in their own worth. The positive changes in one's life after successfully choosing to build a non-anxious life.How daily anxiety affects our relationships. Strategies for shifting your focus away from material success and external validation.For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1509For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]More SOG episodes on Radical Self Love & Acceptance:Jason Derulo – https://link.chtbl.com/1460-podKaramo Brown – https://link.chtbl.com/1457-podPokimane – https://link.chtbl.com/1443-pod

My friend, I am such a big believer that your mindset is everything. It can really dictate if your life has meaning, has value, and you feel fulfilled, or if you feel exhausted, drained, and like you're never going to be enough. Our brand new book, The Greatness Mindset, just hit the New York Times bestseller back to back weeks. And I'm so excited to hear from so many of you who've bought the book, who've read it and finished it already, and are getting incredible results from the lessons in the book. If you haven't got a copy yet, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful

exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book I wish I had when I was 20, struggling, trying to figure out life. 10 years ago, at 30, trying to figure out transitions in my life and the book I'm glad I have today for myself. Make sure to get a copy at lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get your copy today. Again lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get a copy today. Also, the book is on Audible now so you can get it on audiobook as well. And don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode. If you're anxious, it often means your body's working perfectly. It's letting you know. I've identified something in the ecosystem or a

number of things that you're not safe, you're not okay. And in our culture, we're so uncomfortable with that alarm system that we race up, we climb up, we pull the batteries out, and it gets quiet. And we go, ah. We numb it, distract. We run away from it. And then our house burns down around us. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person

or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Dr. John Deloney in the house. Good to see you, sir. Thank you. everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Dr. John Deloney in the house. Good to see you, sir. Thank you. Welcome to the show. You are a double PhD and a mental health expert who works with a lot of people who are struggling.

People are hurting, suffering, and struggling with things they're aware of or things they're not even aware of, but they know something is stuck inside of them and you help them really understand the anxiety, the suffering and the struggle or the stuckness in them. You help them be aware of it and you help them have steps on how to break free of it. So I'm so excited that you're here. You've got an amazing new book out called Building a Non-Anxious Life. It's available right now. And I'm curious, what do you think is the root of anxiety for people? Is it a societal thing? Is it a family history thing? Is it they have too many options? Is it that they have no options in their life? Is it that they have bad self-talk? What is the root of anxiety? And how can we be aware of that so that we're not thinking that we are bad or wrong

but this is actually something that a lot of people deal with so the true honest answer to your question is yes yes anxiety is simply a smoke alarm in your kitchen letting you know that something's on fire and it can be your back bedroom could be on fire your bathroom could be on fire your couch could be on fire it's just letting you know there's smoke in the house and so i love that you how you answer ask that question because if you're anxious it's often means it if you're anxious it often means your body's working perfectly it's letting you know i've identified something in the ecosystem or a number of things that you're not safe, you're not okay. And in our culture, we're so uncomfortable with that alarm system that we race up, we climb up, we pull the batteries out, and it gets quiet.

And we go, ah. We numb it, distract. We run away from it. And then our house burns down around us. Interesting. interesting and so i'm i there's a there's a a new conversation happening in mental health circles which is we spent 150 years telling people that their bodies are broken their minds don't work right what if their minds are working perfectly and the world we're constructing around each other is telling our bodies you're not all right anymore and so i i think anxiety could be like dr winnie suzuki says it can can be a friend. It can be a loud and annoying friend and a crippling friend, but somebody trying to get

your attention for the good. When someone is feeling a sense of overwhelm and their anxiety is heightened throughout the day, or they feel like I can't get any sleep because I'm anxious about something. I feel like something's off and it's almost becoming chronic now. It's happening for weeks, months, years. How do they get out of that? I know there's lots of different tools, but how do they eventually get free of anxiety? Or do we always have some level of anxiety? So what I don't want to do is live in a house without a smoke detector. I don't want to be in that home. It's not safe.

And so I'm not going to go to war with anxiety. What I'm going to begin to ask myself is this. Why does my body keep identifying things in my ecosystem, in my environment, in my relationships that tell me I'm not safe? And that's the question we've got to answer. So I'll say it this way, and it's a little dramatic and a little bold. we've got to answer. So I'll say it this way, and it's a little dramatic and a little bold. If your body has identified you're lonely, if your body has identified, and you know, the great Bessel van der Kolk, body keeps the score. If your body is letting you know that,

I think you're about to get fired. If your body's letting you know, hey, you got six figures of student loans and a mortgage and two car payments, it would be failing you if it let you sleep all night. It would be failing you if it let you sit fully present in an intimate moment with your romantic partner. It'd be failing you because death is at the door. And so instead of, I need to figure out some hacks to sleep throughout the night. No, you're waking up at 2.30 in the morning because your body's doing its job. You're not safe. The goal is to try to figure out, okay, what's my body identifying that's not safe? That's the work. Because you'll sleep. You'll sleep.

You will be able to wake up without coffee or have coffee because you want it, not because you have to have it. Right. Your body will take care of itself most of the time. There's some outliers, right? There's some medical conditions. There's some outliers. Most of the time there's some outliers right there's some medical conditions there's mallards most of the time if you solve for a healthy environment if you solve for a healthy you your body won't sound the smoke alarms because there's nothing on fire right would you say that

addictions in our world are highly linked to anxiety i think addiction is like so going back to the uh analogy about the smoke detector addiction is getting up on a ladder and duct taping a pillow over that alarm. Numbing it. I can't hear it very loud. Numbing it. That's right. I'm going to Netflix my way through it. I'm going to drink my way through it.

I'm going to pornography my way through it. I'm going to text somebody I'm not married to to feel that aliveness. I'm going to go around it. I'm going to distract myself from, what is that alarm trying to tell me because it's often easier to i don't say easier it is a safer path sometimes especially in the beginning to just have another drink than to sit down with your wife and say i think we have to rebuild this thing or it's over why is it so much easier to drink, sleep with multiple people, chase work accomplishments and work longer hours, smoke, do drugs. Why is it easier to do that than to have a vulnerable conversation?

When anytime we have a vulnerable, courageous conversation, it's almost like it doesn't fully go away, but we feel a lot better and a lot more safe when we do that one action over years, some people do, of addiction to numb and anxious thought. I don't think we have a picture of what you just said looks like. I don't think most people, particularly men, don't have a picture of another man in their life sitting down and saying the words, I was wrong. Wow. Or saying, I hate that you're going through this. I'm not going to try to solve it but can i hold your hand son can hold your hand daughter can hold your hand spouse can hold your hand we don't have a picture of that we do have a picture of the man at the bar having a drink we have the man on the motorcycle the man

shooting up the we have those images and so i think there's a default setting that says okay i feel this way i don't have a picture for it that's why men who learn how to be vulnerable that's why women who have been through especially women who've been through abusive situations who are willing to tread into scary territory and be vulnerable again and potentially get hurt again right and open their hearts again yeah it's hard but that's a powerful brave move because there's no model for it the only models run the only models flex. The only models achieve. Get that dollar amount. And that's the picture we got. And so I don't fault anybody for going to it. I used to when I was younger, like, why are you drinking?

Now, man, it is pulling up a seat and saying, man, what happened in your life that the best way your body's figured out to get through every day is that? Let's solve that. Wow. And that's a different approach. You've been doing this work for what a couple of decades now right from academic you know research side to actual clinical working with people sitting down the dean of students and so i was a professor i was also a dean of students so i was sitting with people all day every day yeah from students you work with adults now as well you work with single people couples people have been married a long time, people who've been married and divorced a lot of time. What do you feel like is the biggest thing

causing people to be anxious today at this time? Is it around money issues? Is it around purpose? Is it around the fear of like the world is crumbling or war? What is the biggest cause of anxiety today? I would have to have to i mean if i'm being honest to be cool to get a get a good clickbait answer i think there's two or three things one of them is you've heard that we're in the attention economy i think that's a very flowery way of saying that we're in the um distraction economy yes don't look don't look at reality don't don't own reality and um and don't take ownership for your life right and but your body's always solving for reality your body knows that your marriage is

falling apart it knows it feels it intuitively it knows you are two inches on that couch but 2 000 miles away from oh my god it knows it and i can be on my ipad and my wife can be on on her phone and we can be scrolling and we, and my wife can be on her phone, and we can be scrolling, and we're married, and we're this close, but our bodies know that gulf is a thousand miles. Wow. Our body knows if your boss has started to send projects to that guy. Your body knows, hey, this isn't looking good, right? Your body knows that every four years you get one vote.

You get one ping-p toss that's it that's it and so it realizes how little control you have no matter how much news i consume and how much i i i comment on things your body knows you don't have a lot of control and so i think we don't we don't choose reality the second thing is we've constructed the loneliest generation in human history and again your body would be failing you if it let you sleep with as lonely of a world as we've constructed wow you got nobody watching your this side nobody watching this side nobody watching the kids nobody getting food it's all on you and our bodies are not designed for that exhaust hasn't evolved over bajillions of years to get to

right here so it's probably exhausting and draining at all the same time. But you know, it sounds like society has created an environment for us to step into that lonely environment. But also we have an opportunity as individuals to create community and to be courageous and reach out. Even if we might get burned or people reject us or whatever, we've got to keep building that community within ourselves and around us isn't that right that's that is our mission of today my my granddad he passed away a few years ago but he was born in the early 1900s they gave him cigarettes when he was a kid because cigarettes calm kids down right and then they realized i think we're gonna kill all the kids right and there was um you know if you go back and look at this at the 70s and 80s there was this big wide um stop smoking stop smoking stop smoking that was the hey y'all are all smoking quit smoking right i think that's where

we are we handed all these little kids devices oh man we handed all these little kids screens we hit all these kids 24 hours a day of great programming it's not bad it's good stuff there's good stuff out there um and then they we we quietly created a group of kids that don't know how to interact with each other yeah i remember growing up i'm 40 now so i grew up in the 80s i was born in 83 and i remember growing up and it was like video games was the devil right it was like back then it was like you got a nintendo you're gonna be like brain dead right you're just on this and it was like you spent an hour a day on there and parents were like freaking out about an hour a day sitting in front of playing mario brothers right or duck hunt or something whatever it was back then duck hunt yeah duck hunt mario

brothers and my street fighter it was like mike tyson's punch up the greatest game of all time right it was like oh my gosh you're gonna like be brain it was like oh Tyson's punch out the greatest game of all time right it was like oh my gosh you're gonna like be brain it was like oh this is horrible for kids right and that was very little I feel like you know I had I got my first cell phone when I was 17 and I was like the first kid in my high school to get it right but it was like the you had to push three buttons just to get a letter out it was no smartphone it. It was like, you're just calling people. You're not actually like on a screen scrolling and going through stuff. So I feel like I kind of missed, you know, I got lucky because I was outside playing sports after school all day until eight, nine, 10 o'clock whenever my mom would call me in.

So I got a lot of outdoor physical activity, but I also felt very alone because I was lonely most of my childhood. So there would have been some comfort in having online friends or some type of groups online that would have helped me feel more seen and heard. So I see the benefit there. But how have you seen with the parents you're working with and maybe their children, how have you seen the struggles of parents and kids with the use of devices where it's probably harder and harder to pull a device away from a child now? What have you seen? That's been the biggest struggle with that,

with the family dynamic parents and kids on screen so much. I think, I think the device conversation has actually become a distraction what's the real conversation two things one our parents trusted the news all right they trusted the news local news wasn't a publicly traded company they trusted that man or woman in that seat to say here's what's going on in your community. Real journalism. Right? Yeah. And so that same nervous system wiring has been hijacked by news that is infotainment that's designed to freak you out, get you to stay and not turn away. And so what I think kids are responding to, to be honest with you,

you know this, like you do interviews all the time too. It's very rare that you or I get surprised. Like, wasn't expecting that question. I was doing an interview during the middle of covid and somebody asked me a question a lot of people are worried about masks and kits is it going to hurt them is it going to help them is it is it helping whether it's hurting all that and i was surprised by the way somebody asked a question it's one of those things that when you're live you're live right and so my my rule is if i get surprised i'm just gonna i'm gonna answer the truth i'm gonna go with my gut and we'll figure out what happened right and so um somebody said is this a hundred year problem have we destroyed a generation of kids by making them wear masks and i said kids are resilient but here's where my my gut answer

came from and afterwards i think said i think i'm right i think what has destroyed a generation of kids is the rage and anger and out of controlness of a generation of parents kids absorb tension in their home kids understand that mom and dad would rather scroll than talk to them they would rather stare at their phones at the little league game instead of cheering them on they'd rather go to war against that high school kid who's a ref in the game right what are we doing right and so i think this has become a um sanctioned xanax for children that's what the because let me tell you this a connected parent will win almost every time if a kid a kid a child has to choose between some and a dad on the floor eye to eye listening connecting yeah yeah that's a that's a tough

that's a tough thing to beat but kids know when you'd rather be doing something else right and so I think that the device is a bad is I'm I'm pathological in my house my kids are look are out of the conversation with cell phones so I'm gonna have cellphones no how old are your kids I have a 13 year old who's in fifth grade he was the only one right and so the only one without a song so he's getting he's feeling like am I missing out we've had some hard conversations like, dad, I'm being left out. And he's right. And I've made some friends are texting each other. They can't text me.

You know, and I've made some concessions. And when his friends come over, every one of them hands my wife their phone and their parents are like, they love it. Right. And so it's both. It's both. Yeah. Right. But I've told my son, you're right.

And so I'm going to, I'm going to figure out some ways we can connect. But I can't give you the whole world. I can't let every company and predator. I can't give them access to your bedroom. Wow. And so there's that. But I think the bigger picture is that means I have to parent. That means I've got to go to counseling and deal with my anger and my anxiety and my rage

so that I can sit with my 13-year-old and say, how's your day? And he's not trying to prop me up. That's a different level of work, man. That's another game. It's a different game. And you're, you're in the mental health, you know, teaching and training world. Yeah. But it doesn't mean you're exempt from having to do the work yourself. It means I got to be first in line. Right. If you're gonna be a person of integrity. Sure. Yeah. What was the biggest thing that you had to face internally over the last few years, once

you started to realize this, as your kids are getting older and you're like, oh, you know, I need to step up in a different way. What was that thing that you needed to face within yourself? I mean, um, sitting down, there was a moment, my wife and i had a confrontation in my little basement gym and i left the house and checked into a hotel when i was writing this latest book really like a like an argument or some type of yeah the the way it went down was um i've worked in education for 20 years which means i've worked for non-profits for 20 years and i've been on salary and working on call 24 7 365 hospitals all, hospitals all night. You get up the next

morning, you go back to work. That's just the job and you get a paycheck. This whole, if you write another book, you'll get paid again. If you go do the speaking gig, this is a whole new world. And it was exciting and wild. And I didn't have an off switch. I didn't know what that meant, but I did know that that kid who grew up pretty poor with the dad who was a police officer and a minister like we're gonna have groceries all the time and so you hit the gas and you start looking for a steam and book sales and all these things it's an old cliche um and what happened i my manager called and said hey we got these two speaking gigs you really want it and I was cheering in my basement, cheering.

Like, yeah. My wife came downstairs. She says, what are you cheering? She was smiling. Like, what are you cheering about? And I said, I got this one gig and I'm pretty sure we got the other one. And her way of dealing with conflict, she's very wise. And she usually will step back.

And plus I'm a lot, right? She'll step back and we'll circle back and she'll say, hey, I want to talk about what happened yesterday. She didn't do that this time. She stepped into my space, which is rare. And she said. Your gym is kind of your sanctuary. You're like, we're safe space. You kind of.

You're man cave. I'm super excited. I'm all sweaty. I'm cheering. And she said, I'm watching my husband die. Oh. And she said, the pie piece for how much I love you and the pie piece for how much money you make is full.

And then she said, you could take these speaking gigs. Great, I'm not gonna hold you back. But do not say this is for me or for the kids or for our legacy. This is for your ego. Wow. And then she said something that was, it floored me. She said, John, we have enough. And Louis, I didn't have a psychology for that word. legacy this is for your ego wow and then she said something that was it floored me she said john we

have enough and lewis i didn't have a psychology for that word i didn't know what that meant i was a poor kid who was trying to prove myself and i don't have two phds because i'm just super smart no it's because you wanted to prove yourself i'm trying to prove myself my sister was smart my little brother was smart i was a dumb jock i'll show you what right and so you just keep going and it's never enough. And so I went chucked into a hotel with this manuscript. And as I went through it, it was like, you're not living this. You're not living this.

Your book manuscript that you wrote. That's right. I was halfway through. You were writing it. And so it came, it quickly turned from a, here's what you need to do, to me getting a bar stool and pulling up and being like, hey guys, I'll order one too. Let's figure this out. And so that was hard because it was a matter of like, you got to go see. And you and I, like we talked off air. I had to go, you challenged me privately and I had to go see a trauma counselor

and have some conversations I had never had. When was this? This is within the last year, year and a half. I mean, this isn't long ago. And I'm here, right? We have the book. I've got the radio show. I've got the stuff. And it's almost like the floor keeps like, okay, now you're ready for the next level. And now you're not ready for the next level. If you're willing to put the work in, I think the paths open themselves up.

Where were you most anxious in your life during that time what was that anxiety running to your head um that i'm not enough even if my wife says we have enough or what was the well it was one of those so i preach all the time about connection and friendship i preach all the time about reality i preach preach all the time about health and healing like dealing with your old traumas and all this and do that a number one best-selling book lewis all my dreams came true and then you hit the road and then you're doing a podcast and you go to this meeting and you got this interview and you do this and this yeah you're on the road and I looked up and I remember I was in a in a

in an SUV when the head of publishing had a cell phone we're going to a book signing and he handed it back behind and that handed it to me and it said number one this is my last book he pulled over i feel good it was awesome we pulled over um dave ramsey calls me first call and he's like screaming all right i called my mom i'm gonna call my wife and then we pulled over at to a liquor store and we got some champagne and we had it in plastic cups in the car went to the book signing and then I went home and I waited for all my buddies to call and they didn't call they didn't know and I felt weird because I was like oh I haven't talked to you guys in nine months he's my best friends on the planet I skipped all of our monthly meetings I skipped our phone calls I because I was on the road I was doing this and I realized I had gone back into old patterns of

isolation and loneliness and trying to think my way through things i'd started skipping workouts i'd started i put the extra fries on there and it was slow right and i started reading a lot of comments and internalizing that stuff right and you keep going down that path and suddenly your body quietly starts sounding the alarms and i found myself an anxious mess and it was my wife who had been down the road with me before it was like man i remember this guy because her body starts saying you remember last time yeah yeah and so i think it was all of it man and i think anybody that's that wants to snake oil it and say it's just this one thing or just

this one thing i think that's um too reductionistic we've created a chaotic life and we try to call it normal and um and then we're out there playing whack-a-mole with symptoms right and so um i think it's tackling it head on walking into the anxiety and saying all right i'm going towards the alarms what's on fire let's figure that out well what was the conversations you've had with your wife since then since that moment where you went to the hotel and kind of started doing that work what commitment have you made and she made to support you guys over the last year and a half since then so i'm actually busier now than i was but it's an intentional busy with the finish line and it's and the seasonality to it right right

when you if we were to go into winter and the meteorologists were like we'll let you know when warm's coming it would be a disaster or that crazy heat wave we've had this last summer um it's different when you know like come march yeah the sun comes back out right and so in july of this year we knew there's a book coming out and book comes out this fall i'm gonna be on the road i'm gonna be busy let's start putting relational deposits in the account now let's be fully present with kids let's not be on the road for the next two months that means we're gonna sacrifice some money that means we're gonna sacrifice some x and some y and some z i want you to come home a little bit early i'm gonna pick the kids up from school when i can it's these little bitty things that are not the big flashy things um it's not instagrammable moments

it's not highlights it's not it is leaning over with my seven-year-old daughter and saying you'll play dominoes i'm gonna dominate you and she says bring it old man wow she's seven and we play dominoes there's no instagram story there right but there's a a hug right before she goes to bed that says right and that is what will buy me three months on the road we people still have to go get deployed people still have to go do crazy things they have to go build businesses look at the world we need that but you have to know we got to do it in seasons i got to do with intentionality and we have to we have to stay connected to other people i love the idea of seasons because as an athlete that's how i lived my life for so many years and it's how i've tried to design my life in the business world as well it's like around

big seasonal moments we just had a big event this last weekend. Which looked amazing, by the way. It was amazing, yeah, you know, of the time we filmed this. And there was a ramp-up period. And I remember telling my team, you know, I'm sure they're listening out there, for two months leading up to it, I go, this is the playoffs, guys. This is our Super Bowl. And it's going to be a little bit more time right now, and it's going to be intense. And, you know, leading up to the week of, it's going to be intense and you know leading up to the week of it's going to be less sleep so make sure you get rest now we got you know we give fridays off every other

week leading up to it to make sure you've taken time to recover you're working hard but it's like all right let's make sure we're we're dialed in and know that then it's going to be a lot for a week yeah and then there'll be a come down and a recalibration and things like that but it's going to be a lot for a week. Yeah. And then there'll be a come down and a recalibration and things like that. But I think it's important to have that seasonal mindset. And the interesting thing is, your wife said to you, we have enough. Is that what she said?

Something around, we have enough. And this will be for you wanting to make more, you wanting to have your ego or being on stage or whatever it might be. That's interesting because a lot of people don't think they have enough. What made your wife say or believe that you as a family have enough financially? And whether you did or not, what made her believe that? And why do you think she said that? A couple of things. We both grew up with not a lot.

And so the quick story is my dad was a homicide detective and a SWAT hostage negotiator. He was an awesome guy who spent his whole life serving the community. He'd put on his bulletproof vest when there was a hostage or when there was a bomb threat, and he'd go in. But he wasn't making much, probably. And there was also seasons we didn't have enough groceries. He would put the debit card in, and there was no hostage or when there was a bomb threat, he'd go in. But he wasn't making much, probably. And there was also seasons where he didn't have enough groceries, right?

He would put the debit card in and there was no money in the account. He was just hoping that he could pay the late fee so his kids could eat, right? That memory is like burning your psyche. I will not. If that's what the public thinks of public service, I'm out.

Right. I'm going to go be safe through titles and money. I'm going to go get it, right? But then you can have a teacher, though, so. That's right. That'm going to go get it. But then you have a teacher, though. That's right. But Dean of Students made good money. So I got taken care of there. And we ran and we ran and we ran.

And we started following the, what if we got to decide what we do tomorrow, not the bank? And so for years, I drove a $3,000 F-150. That's great. At 94. That's awesome. It was wild.

My wife drove a used Corolla forever. It wouldn't die, Lewis. Dude. My first five years in LA, I drove a $4,000 car. That's right. 1991. Yep. And I rode it and i was like i

don't need some flashy car out here it's mine you know yeah i own this thing right so you expand that out to what if we just didn't if we can't afford it let's don't buy it we don't credit cards and what if we bought a house that the mortgage person laughed at us and said but you qualify for this and it's like i'd rather get this sucker off. And so you look around and you don't owe anybody anything. Then enough changes, right? The algorithm for enough is different. And beyond that, you know this, there's, they call it mailbox money in our world, but you set up some things so that we're going to be okay.

Right. Some residuals coming in, some stuff. There's some things on the calendar. We're going to be okay. And that's coming in some stuff there's some things on the calendar we're going to be okay and that's for any job that's a paycheck coming in that's a sales cycle that they pick something up and i don't think what she was referring to with enough was a dollar amount though i think it was i'm watching you try to prove to me that you're worthy of being loved me that you're worthy of being loved and it's not over there it's right wow and john your kids don't love you because of the stages you're on they love you because you're their old man and they just want it they want you because you're playing dominoes for an hour a night or you're you're

going to a baseball game you're present it's not because you're traveling that weekend my buddy invites me to some fancy deer hunt and i say i'll go but my son comes with me right he's 12 right right that's cool so um i think the enough thing was way less about ambition my wife knows who she married and she knows that hey you're driven you and i like being in the middle of the mess of course um she uh it wasn't about a dollar it was about love is right in front of you and you're doing everything you can to avoid this on a scale of one to ten how much do you believe you are enough ten being the fullest amount one being zero so this is about six months ago i haven't told this one publicly you ready for this so about six months ago my same counselor i've been working with she's magic and i work in the mental health world and she's incredible and

um she said i want you to make a fist i want you to put in your chest and i want you to say the words i love this guy louis i couldn't say it really it wasn't it was wild i was like i'm not saying that at first it was i ain't doing that and then it was like i can't do that wow i was like dude i'm a grown man with a show i can say whatever i want i couldn't say it couldn't say i love myself i love this guy this guy right um and our mutual friend sal the stephan with mind pump i remember in private conversation he said john you can't hate yourself into better shape you can't go to the gym every day because you hate your body and expect that to be something you can sustain you go to the gym every day because you value you enough that you're worth an hour wow you're such a good steward you're going to invest in that in

that body not that you're so disgusting that I'm going to work this off. And so similarly, you can't heal your marriage, you can't heal your relationship with your kids by hating yourself into it. You have to say, I'm worth being loved. And so six months ago, I would have given you a zero.

Come on. A zero? I didn't believe it. You didn't believe you were enough? I'd never ask that question. I thought I could do a bunch of things't believe it you didn't believe you were enough I'd never asked that question wow I thought I could do a bunch of things pretty cool right you could play guitar I can do well yeah yeah I can write a book I'm not enough wow yeah can I sit with somebody without I I bought into the lie which is a common male lie that my only value is utility what can you do what advice can you give me and my wife was like will you just sit with me will you just sit here right and so now i tell you it's nine out of ten

i think i've got value i think i'm worth being loved i'm still figuring out what that means and how to do that but i know it's true wow six months ago yeah that was quick how old are you now i'm 45 45 two kids married for how long 21 years 21 years and great parents who are still married they're 50 something years i mean i got a friend career but you didn't have the the skill set the tools or the ability to say i love this guy well and beneath that and and you and i both we've talked about this privately trauma disconnect this disconnects you from yourself right it does and that's what it does so childhood abuse does that's what emotional abuse does that's what sexual abuse poverty does it's it it it subtracts you from

yourself wow and so you could do all the stuff you can have all the metrics and still not feel lovable but you know you're not yeah you know you're not because that wouldn't happen if you were and so you connect that thought and you heal that and then it's somebody asking that question you say oh man i need to get some new skills because that's i know that to be true the interesting thing when i when i learned how to truly believe that i am enough because i think one of the the root causes of anxiety for me and self-doubt and insecurity was believing that I was not enough for a lot of time. A lot of my life, it didn't hold me back from being driven

to prove I was enough, like you said, but I still didn't believe it. It's almost like when I would accomplish things, I would get angrier the next day because I still didn't believe I was enough. Didn't solve it. Didn't solve it. So I was like, I need the bigger goal, the bigger thing. Let me go prove more that I can do something. And maybe then I'll feel loved.

And it really wasn't until the last few years when I started to heal those memories of the past that caused me to think and believe that I wasn't enough. When I started to heal and integrate my whole self with my, the emptiness inside of me and integrate them. So I was feeling whole. So I was feeling worthy and deserving of love from me and others. But really, if we don't learn to love ourselves, it's hard to fully love from others as well. So when I was able to love the different parts of me not saying i'm perfect or i have it all figured out i make mistakes still but like accept the different parts of me and love them and not shame and make them wrong i felt more peace and i revalued my entire life internally

my body started to relax you know and it took time to integrate that it didn't happen overnight it was like it would relapse and i'd feel triggered and anxious but then it's like okay let me keep integrating and i did that for a few years and it's been the most peace i've ever felt and i want the world to feel this peace it doesn't mean i i don't have challenges and stress in pressure-filled moments but i have the awareness to, to give back to safety internally. And that is a, it's one of the greatest gifts I've ever given myself. And I want everyone to have that gift. Yeah. What do you think it will take for people to fully believe they are enough, no matter the mistakes they've made, the challenges they've been through, the trauma they've had, the breakups they went through, the bad things they've seen or done? How can they truly get to

a place of, I am enough? I think saying the words out loud, I don't think I'm enough. And we don't say that out loud. And I think there's a reason why every major faith tradition throughout human history has a confession component. And we've taken confession to mean say the things you did bad. That's not the original intent. The original intent was, here's me. Do you still love me? Wow.

And somebody saying, I hear you and I see you and I still love you. Wow. That's the intention. And so it's starting with telling somebody, oh, I can't even say that. That was the day, man. That was the day. And if I back up, you're talking about that feeling, that feeling. Here's what healing was for me. I remember a few months out, my counselor asking me, how have you felt? And I said, I know this not to be true, but I feel a season of depression. I feel low. And she smiled and said, this is what normal feels like this is what well feels like

you've been so spun up for so long so at war with yourself and everybody here's how this played out in my house so here was my big dirty secret i have a mental health show i've got two phds my wife has a phd she was dr deloney way before me I'm working with kids and my daughter wouldn't hug me Lewis wouldn't hug you nope four five six year old she'd play at first it was fun it was a funny little game that we would play she's like no dad no hugs but it became a thing where she would like go hug your your wife and I'd come in and I'd kiss her on the head and she'd throw a big stop don't really yeah and you gotta understand like i don't yell i don't beat my kid i mean i

don't swear in my house i mean it's i'm a pretty boring laid-back guy and at first it was funny and then it was like i need to figure this out and then it started to really bother me and my wife one day in her very calm quiet way as she does she wise. She said, you're always preaching about neuroception. That scanner that's always scanning your environment. Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? She said, what if that teeny tiny six-year-old little girl, her body for some reason is saying, you're not safe. Wow.

And I said, I don't yell. She goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that nuclear reactor in your chest is alive and well and that was that in combination with our conversation was i'm gonna talk to somebody and i said a sentence a few weeks ago that i had never said before which was will you get off me because now i'm her jungle gym okay so healing my house i'm still learning kind of like being on a boat all day and you get on the land and it's kind of wobbly i'm still figuring out what that feels like 45 years man of a firefight but my daughter feels it and and she's all in and her body says that guy's safe

he's my home base now right and so i'm with you i wish everybody could feel that i could feel that and let me tell you this too um you mentioned this doesn't solve the world's issues it doesn't i had a cousin who passed away suddenly several months ago and somebody i loved he was goofball he was kind of out there but i loved him because 15 or 20 years ago my my wife and I said, Hey, we both grew up with not a lot. Let's do the work. Let's become a Corolla family so that we don't owe anybody any money. It's going to be awful. We're going to have to forego vacations. We're going to have to forego fancy things. Just last year, she said, Hey, could we get furniture in the house that matches? And I was like, after two decades, it's time, right? So what if we created a world we didn't owe anybody thing my cousin dies i bought two plane tickets not because i'm rich because we don't owe anybody we've worked hard

we flew out of houston i got to go up to his casket when the room was empty and i got to say what i need to say and i got to cry and i had the privilege of being heartbroken and sad but i wasn't anxious i wasn't anxious about it well we got to travel this funeral and i don't know i can't afford to take the time off of work and how are we gonna i don't have any money we gotta put these on credit card so we can try out i had the privilege of not being anxious but just being really sad and i think in our culture we pathologize life normal things you're supposed to be heartbroken if you get dumped you're supposed to be brokenhearted if someone you love passes away that's life but what if we create a world that wasn't anxious

so that we could fully experience this tough stuff and we could fully experience my seven-year-old girl leaning across the table and goes i'm coming coming for you, old man. And then she puts a double five domino down and it's game on, right? Wow. What if it could fully be there? That's the non-anxious life. Wow. Why do you think is the, you mentioned this about people caring more about their feelings and wanting the world to evolve around their feelings, something around that.

I can't remember if that's exactly what you said, but why do you think, feel, or see that there seems to be a trend of narcissism, self-interest, and my feelings and my beliefs are the things that matter most. So you need to change, this system needs to change, everything needs to change to fit my feelings and protect my feelings. Why do you think that is happening more so? We don't know. We've clipped the strings.

Esther talks eloquently about this. We've clipped all of the common strings that bind us together with a common story. For however long you think the earth has been around our relationship to our gods told us what we're going to wear what your role is what whose job is what job what what our values are what you do and don't do there's been tons

of oppression i'm not saying it's all great i'm just saying that's the way it works and then we cut all the strings none of that that's real, guys. If it can't be randomized, controlled, double-blind studied, it's not real. It doesn't exist. And so as beings created to worship, whether you're an atheist or not, as beings created to be in service of something, if there's nothing to be in service of other than the self, then you are the supreme ruler of your world. You're Pharaoh.

You're Pharaoh. You will bow before me. And we have a whole generation of people saying, no, you bow before me. No, no, no, you bow before me. Then you get chaos, which is what we have. Instead of saying, what if we all just went to the moon? Can we figure that out? Let's do that.

Let's go to the moon. And what if we said said how can i love you today instead of this is how i'm wired i give answers one of those ways you're going to end up sleeping outside by yourself one of those ways creates warmth in your home right and so what do you want like what do you want this thing to feel like what are you doing right and i often ask this question does that feel good like a great quippy response like great grenade sarcasm you know cynicism good job that feel good yeah did it is that what you're going for today do you feel powerful for a minute like what are you what are we doing or do you want to be connected and you want to be whole yes you get to pick man connection wholeness peace i i believe comes from service and i believe first comes from service to

self in creating wholeness not neglecting self and being empty all the time and just only serving others and and you know deflecting all of your needs to feeling peaceful and whole and healthy. But then in that journey, giving to others, helping others, being of service, contributing to something greater than self, a mission, a vision, a family, a community, a goal, you know, going to the moon, whatever it is, believing in something and others and giving to them. and it's something for me that has really flipped in the last 10 years 10 years ago prior to 10 years ago i was more about how do i look good how do i win how do i succeed how do i you know be right yeah as much as possible and it was very unconscious it wasn't like i was conscious of it it was just your body playing defense it was

survival that's right mechanism right it was like. That's right. Mechanism, right? It was like, I need to win. I need to be right. I need to make more. I need to look good. I need to have this image and ego, you know, shape the way I want it. And I just realized that wasn't a happy life for me.

Maybe some moments that seemed happy, but it wasn't really fulfilling. Until I said, it's got to be collaboration over competition. And I can still compete in certain ways, but it can't be for someone to be less than. Yeah, yeah. It needs to be for me to compete to get better. Yeah. And serve better.

Yeah. But collaboration over competition, service over self, that is what's brought me a lot more fulfillment. It doesn't mean it's always easy. There's challenges, but it's probably much more meaning and fulfillment. What do you think is the biggest cause of pain in relationships today? Me over us. Really? Yeah. Me over us. How I feel right now or how you made me feel. over us how i feel right now or how you made me feel not my body responded when you did this i need to deal with that or i've got some hard choices to make you did it you did it it's me over us i think um and this this would go back to the question you asked earlier um it was a watershed moment when i heard estelle pearl talk about um the 9-11 towers analogy.

She was talking to a couple who had experienced infidelity. And she said one of the greatest challenges couples experience is they want to, they just want to get back to the way things were. And she likened it to you couldn't go on September 12th and sweep up all that dust and glass and steel and rebuild those towers with that stuff. They fell. Wow. You have two choices. You can walk steel and rebuild those towers with that stuff. They fell. Wow. You have two choices.

You can walk away and let nature take it back over, and it will. Or you can hire some experts. You can excavate that. You can design, build, grieve, come together and build something beautiful, a nod to the past, but something going this away that's hopefully stronger right those are your two choices but you what you had is over and so i've taken that into my own home my wife and i right now we've never been parents of an eighth grader and a second grader this is a new marriage and so we can build something new it'll have a lot of the features of the old one but this is new

because eighth graders stay out later than second graders right right we're used to going to bed at nine o'clock i ain't doing that anymore because i gotta pick him up right so we have a new marriage and if you keep saying i just want to get back to the way it was i just want to get back um you end up dragging each other back and so if we put we said i do then us becomes number one wow and that's a that's not a popular thing but i know i gotta exercise i gotta eat right i gotta get some sleep so that i can show up for us right so it sounds self-serving but it's not i gotta do these things i can be whole so i could show up for what we're building new on your on your show uh the dr Deloney show, you have a lot of call-in aspects as well.

People are calling you. It's all call-in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're coaching. They're telling you their challenges. You've been doing this for the last few years now. What is the big reasons for struggle in relationships or causes of divorce that you're seeing lately? I know kind of historically what that is.

Is it more financial burden? Is it more, um, is there infidelity or people wanting more to like sneak around? Is it a lack of intimacy? Is it family dynamics of the other families? What is the main cause of friction in relationships or marriages today? I think if I'm looking at symptoms it's going to be money and infidelity really some scale of infidelity yeah some version of and people are calling in and telling you about this stuff right wild stuff yeah um underneath it i think it's a broader picture terrier real talks about this beautifully um the world changed and men um just want things to go back to the way they were

and women want men to do new things without new a new set of tools give me an example and so you've got um how's the world changing for men and women today in in relationships that you're hearing about um i watched it in my house. It was growing up. I'll give you this good example. So my dad's a homicide detective. He's a bad dude. He's a smart man. He's very fair and very kind and also a good guy.

But he's also right a lot. You don't win arguments with a hostage negotiator. He's got a good, he knows how to build a case. He can build the evidence around a case. So my mom grew up in this culture that Christian women had no business going to college. You have a job and a role, and this is it. At 41 or 42, she went back and took her first, and she didn't go back. She went, took her first community college class.

Wow. And my dad, everybody had been supporting her. You should go, you should go. She finally did it. Then the next semester, she took another one. And then she had one professor say, you're real smart. No one ever said that she went again at 57 she graduated with her phd at 63 she got tenured at a university and this past summer at 70 something she was did her last summer at oxford okay so it's just wild

back half that's awesome but in my house in real time i watched somebody who hadn't gone to college, who didn't know she had a voice, who was reading this literature for the first time and being like, hey, wait a minute. I think you're wrong. I have an opinion. Here's my belief. Here's my thought.

And I think I'm right. Well, that changed the dynamic of our home, right? And my dad is a super forward-thinking guy. He's like, okay, I know you're smart, but this feels like this way. And Texas homicide detectives don't have feelings, right? And so it was them learning together. They've been married 50-something years.

And I got a ringside seat to, you better learn some new tools, man, because she's in a world where her voice matters now. She's in a world. And think of this. In 1970, when my mom got married, she was not allowed to get a mortgage without my dad's signature. She couldn't get a bank account without my dad's signature. We think that was a thousand years ago. That's my mom. And so to grow up in a world where you got to go have your husband sign for you to get a checking account,

to all of a sudden you're teaching at Oxford and you're in London by yourself in your seventies. That's a big arc. And it's easy to go, yeah, I should just be that way. There's a lot of relationship like, okay, I want to, I so badly want to love you right now. I don't know how I'm out of tools. The tools I have were from the old era when I had to show up and sign for you. Can we learn together? Right. and there's a humility there and there's an empathy there and let's figure it out and so i think in a world now where um we expect everybody to be everything you're a co-earner you're a co-parent you're a co-manager co-lover you gotta be beautiful until you're 90 because we're gonna be have be sexually active until we're a thousand years old you gotta be we have to believe the exact same things about this whole list of things it's a lot nobody can carry that that's a lot

right and so the world shifts and so if we can always remember us comes first what does that mean that means sometimes i tell my wife i don't know if i believe this anymore i don't know if i believe this particular thing about our faith tradition. And she doesn't go, she goes, man, tell me more about that. And she asks me in a month, Hey, what do you think about that? Like, have you been reading on that? I read this book. Cause you told me about that. And I want to walk with you.

I read this book. Have you read, let's invite this couple over. Cause they're real smart. And they think this way too. Let's hear what they have to say. That's a different path. Cause it's about us. It's not about being right.

It's not about me. Not about my discomfort. It's about us. You can keep that in mind. That's hear what they have to say. That's a different path because it's about us. It's not about being right. It's not about me, not about my discomfort. It's about us. You can keep that in mind. That's big. When people change their beliefs in a relationship around politics, money, religion, parenting, family, whatever these things are, does that hurt a lot of relationships long-term when you have the similar beliefs when you first got together the first few years, but five, 10, 15 years down the line, we've got some different beliefs that we don't believe anymore. Can you still make a relationship or marriage work with a lot of different beliefs? Yeah. We confuse values and beliefs.

What's the difference? Values are what we anchor into. This is who we are. We value everybody's welcome at our table, period. We value curiosity. I just read this thing and this is wild. Let's figure that out. We value community. We believe in fill in the blank. We value faith. Why in the world would you read a book if you weren't open to having your beliefs changed? That's why you read. That's why you listen to this podcast because you believed that cupcakes were the best food for you. And then you get a diet expert on here and they're like, that's going to kill you. And you go, my beliefs are different. My values of I want to live a healthy life and be a good steward of my body we both value that cool we were both told

that um endless amounts of cardio was the best way to be healthy we value being a good steward of our body hey i learned a new belief we got to do squats now oh my gosh interesting and so i think couples don't make enough space for i want i want my wife's beliefs to change. I want mine to change. Our values, that's where you get when I don't value hospitality anymore. Now they've got to sit down and figure that out. I don't value family like I did. And we need to talk about that. And so if couples say, here's who we're going to be. Let's put that on a wall in the house.

Boom, we're going to anchor into this. And then our beliefs, man, I hope those change over time. If I still believed what I believed when I was 18, God help us all, man. You know what I mean? Why do you think this is fascinating? I really like this concept of values over beliefs and really allowing your beliefs to be flexible or open-minded beliefs. But it sounds like a lot more stronger foundation of values,

but loose, but flexible beliefs. Is that what I'm hearing you say? It's like be open-minded to your beliefs being shifted or evolving. Yeah. I saw this in a way that was really transcendent during COVID. So I grew up the last 20 years, my professional life, I grew up, if you will, in the university setting. So I don't remember who it was i think it was king's college i'm gonna make it up covid kicks off and bam we think i'm making up a number we think 35 million people are gonna die every scientist i knew and most of the scientists i didn't know they were epidemiologists that were modelers that were virologists they They said, awesome, game on. And they go to their model with their data and the new data and the new data. And then within a

couple of weeks, someone goes, boom, we think it's 12 million. And the scientific community cheers. We're less wrong. We are 35 minus 12 million people safer. Hooray. And I had just left the university and gone to a media company. And I was exposed to that whole ecosystem. And I realized politicians and many media outlets don't have a, oh, thank God we were wrong. Thank God.

We've got new information now. No. If you state it, you got to die on it. If you put a belief out there, it's the end of time. You've etched it in concrete. The value should be, we're going to find the right answer. We value truth. I believe this is true today. If I get some new information tomorrow, I should come out with trumpets. Dude, we got new information. Interesting. Because we value truth. We don't value being

right. We don't value being first. Wow. That's a wow that's a big difference and so with my now there's problems in the scientific community there's a lot of people sold out there's there's issues but by and large the picture was when you do a scientific study you reject the null right like i want to be less wrong i want to find out if i'm wrong or not not i will go to the ends of the earth to make sure you know i was right yeah i'm wrong right wow what a different world that is it's a different it's a different way of approaching the world so i celebrate literally when my wife comes in and goes and just have been praying over this i've read something new i sat with the counselor last four months i think i believe this right now

the homeostasis of our home isn't threatened by that. In fact, it's celebrated because we are building us. I might have to say, we need to build a new marriage around that because it's new, but we value curiosity. We value belief in one another. We value our marriage. We value our kids. And so let's figure that out. But we can't grab onto those beliefs. They'll kill us. They'll drown us. They'll pull you into water. It sounds like most people that get into a dating relationship or a marriage don't have a true value system that they communicate with each other. They're not clear on it. They're not clear on the vision of their relationship. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like a lot of people, and this'm, I mean, this was my whole history, get together based on chemistry, chemicals, feelings, and it's harder to talk

about values. Um, what are three things that you think every marriage should do before they get married to set themselves up for the most success possible. Not saying the least amount of challenges, but the most amount of peaceful experience of a relationship they could have. Diminishing, you know, lessening some of the challenges that would come later if they didn't do. I think the first one is you have to have a group of people outside this marriage

that you both are committed to helping carry the weight that you bring into the world really what does that look like um that means there are seasons when my wife i get home from being on the road and she said are you going to watch the fights this weekend with your with your buddies because she knows i need to go sit with a group of guys and laugh and be goofy and tell jokes and eat nachos even though i'm trying to you know take care of my nutrition she also knows she can't carry all of my am i enough and what about the bills and hey what about the kids and all of it i've got to have a group of guys that i can lean on and she's got to have a group of women that she goes and sits with on a regular basis and they go do whatever it is they do we have to

have a counselor that i call on and say i need some healing hey by the way i'm i have an like next year i'll have a ninth grader ninth grade for me was a magic year high school ninth grade for my wife was not right we will have a different marriage because our bodies will put a gps pin in ninth grade and it will be hey i'm getting my locker and i'll go oh yeah and she'll go right and so it's gonna be a new marriage it's fantastic man and so um i think having a group of outside people the second one is i would love to see a couple sit down and say what do we value i would love to see a couple sit down and say what do we value not what we believe what we believe what do we value what's important to us and the third thing is having some sort of framework and by the way this framework will change probably a bunch but what's a framework for how we will solve problems you've heard people say like we do it naked we have you know people who we sit on the

same side of the table and we solve this problem we put the problem in the i don't care what the framework is um i think that the the data on most of them is if you do them they work right it doesn't matter we go to a counselor great we go to a pastor great can we agree before we get into traffic how we're going to get out of traffic interesting and and because you try to you try to how are you gonna do money who's gonna do the money who's gonna do this that sounds fine and good until it's like that old mike tyson everyone's got a plan to get hit in the mouth right so let's plan we're gonna get hit then what do we do i'm gonna make sure i listen to coach when i'm dazed i'm gonna make sure i go back to my training i'm gonna make sure i back up like what

what have we done here do you have a framework for how you're going to deal with challenges well i love these three things my buddy jay shitty talks about you know a key to a successful marriage or relationship is how well you fight and argue yeah it's like learning how to have your parent right how do you come back yeah an argument so it's not a painful argument where it really hurts you but it's like all right we were able to manage conflict in a semi-conscious healthy way, even though we reacted, but we didn't scream at each other. We didn't say something we're going to regret. It's like, we learned how to fight in a loving way. Right. We'll learn how to just manage conflict. We agreed on the rules, right? Yes. There's a lot of UFC fighters going into boxing and they do jujitsu tournaments

and they do kickboxing. All those have different rules. We all agree. Here's a lot of UFC fighters going into boxing and they do jujitsu tournaments and they do kickboxing. All those have different rules. We all agree. Here's the rules of engagement. Cool. Now we can get in there and go for it. Agreements have been one of the best things that have helped me in my relationship with Martha is us creating agreements early on about what works and what doesn't work and what type of relationship we'd like to create together.

She's gotten certain things that she wants me to do. I've got certain things that I'm like, hey, this is just off the table. Like there's no screaming ever. Yeah. I don't care if you're, if I did something so horrible, you can never scream at me and I can never scream at you. We can get tense and raise our voices, but there's never, it should be a screaming match. That just, that means we've gone unconscious. That means we're allowing our egos, our fear to take over as opposed to curiosity, which is one of our values. Okay.

My goal is never to intend to hurt you. Yeah. So if you're hurt by something I did or didn't do, be curious about it first. And if I did something really bad out of integrity and you want to yell at me, okay, then I broke the agreement. Right?

I broke the agreement. Then you can do whatever you want. Right? It's like fair. But my intention is to be good man and to love you and to support you. It's not to hurt you. Yeah. And so.

But what you're saying there is I'm going to do everything I can for us. Yes. And I'm asking you, will you bring everything to? Absolutely. And if I can be in service to you and you're in service your service to me that way, us will always be the always win. Also, absolutely. Yeah. I've got a few, a few more questions about relations before we wrap up. You've got your book building a non-anxious life that is available. You've got a Dr. John Deloney show that people can check out on the Ramsey Network, which is, you know,

all the shows are amazing over there, but your show is great. It's a call-in show talking about all these different things. You've got amazing stuff on social media. John Deloney everywhere on social media as well. But I want people to get your book because it's going to be really powerful. It's got some great stories, lessons, and frameworks to help people be less stressed and less anxious. And I believe when people have less anxiety and more peace, they can make better conscious decisions in intimacy and relationships, career, and everyday life. So I want people to get a copy of that book. I feel like the world has shifted over the last few years, obviously, in a lot of different ways. But there seems to be more uncertainty coming over the next two, four, five years.

How can people set themselves up for better love and relationships with all the uncertainty of the economy potentially crashing in the next year of presidential elections that come and go of roles continually shifting and dynamic shifting in relationships how can we set ourselves up for peace and harmony in relationship under chaos over the next three to five years versus more and more breakup more more cheating more divorce man that's a great question um out of the gate i would suggest two things one come to terms with the person in the mirror be a person that other people can love well and instead of saying how do i keep from everybody breaking how keep us from breaking up am i a person that people don't want to break up with uh interesting and so um how can

i make my life to you know great sim to love like how can i make my life any fragile what can i do how can i make my life anti-fragile anti--fragile. When things fall down, how can I have created a world where I can stand up? If you don't owe anybody any money and interest rates go up, that's annoying. If you have margin in your financial life and inflation hits you hard, it's really annoying. if you have an emergency fund without a credit card and you just put some money in a bank account not for if but when something goes sideways and your air conditioner breaks the most annoying thing is who's got a call not how are we gonna do this right and I

know that sounds madness like madness with the the apartment rent rents for what they are the um how expensive everything is i know it sounds wild but every day day after day call after call i've had the privilege of the last three years to listen to folks who just said i'm out of the system i'm out of the matrix i'm not going to go to a restaurant for the next three years i'm going to pay my student loans off so you know what i don't care about what the next headline is about student loans forgiveness they're not forgiving i don't care i'm out yeah i'm doing it i'm out right i'm not playing the game anymore and you lose control over me right for me and my household right now so um antifragile how do you stand tall and there's

lots of of discussions about folks who had cash in 2009 and they were able to just knock on doors and say, Hey, I can help you get out of this house. We'll go to the bank and do a short sale. I'll write you a check for it. And now that real estate is worth a lot, right? But they were in a position. Most of us will not be in that position that we just have enough money to just go knock on doors in my houses. but how can we do that at the micro level do i have enough money that if there's um a big recession do i have a pocket where i can still tip really well and take care of my waiter at waffle house because i know he's struggling can i do that do i have um can i just create a long standing what if i started right now with every monday night we have a couple of families that show up at our house and

it's the clean out your fridge night I'm not cleaning my house for you I love y'all you bring whatever casseroles and half a bottle of wine whatever you got come to my house we're gonna start that now because I know in a year and four years and six years something's coming it is stop pretending it might not it will whatever it is your mom will get sick the economy will fall apart uh somebody will get elected that you hate whatever it's coming what if i had a core group of people already in a rhythm that this is who we are and this is who we're about this is what we do what if right so it's creating that world not if but when something goes sideways what would that look like i love this concept because I feel like this anti-fragile life, I feel like more now than ever, people take every little thing so personally.

Yeah. Very thin skin. Yeah. Everything is an offense. Everything is a bothering. Everything is hurting their feelings or offending them in some way. And maybe it's justified. Maybe it is offensive, but allowing that person to trigger you that much means they have power over you in

some way in that moment. You're giving them power. You're giving them your emotions and your reactions and you're pulling your energy away from a vision, away from service, away from service away from health away from friends and family into this offends me and i'm going to let it consume my energy for the rest of the day i'm going to tell everybody yeah and i'm going to and i'm going to infect gossip and this and that into other people about what is personally triggering me and there's a difference between taking action on something that is um unjust and saying i'm going to act on this that is unjust and saying, I'm going to act on this. This is unjust and unfair. And this is going to be of service.

I'm going to be of service to ending this. And you can do that without things taking you, making you feel so overwhelmed that you are fragile. Yeah. Because a fragile person is unable to take action effectively. Right. In my opinion. Yes. And your nervous system is unable to take action effectively right in my opinion yes and your nervous system is gonna get wired up so you're gonna get it will be effective action you won't be effective right and you'll be more exhausted you're gonna be more tired all these

things let's be honest too when martin was dr king was walking across that bridge he was told with no uncertain terms you're gonna get killed and he walked across a bridge we don't have a reference point for justice if you take a stand for that now that is let's cascade crap on everybody so we can take you down at arm's length you want to get involved go get involved but you're going to get hit in the mouth because true justice walking and sitting with hurting people you leave some blood on the floor too that's what that means and so minimize how many hills you want to die on right and be ready to die on that hill when it's time and that doesn't mean go with your you know with your big emotions you go with your training and your data and your years of experience so that you can show up and be effective.

Absolutely. That's a different world. So that story I told about my wife saying there's enough. I told that on another podcast. And it spun up. What do you mean? It took on a life of its own. Really?

I was stunned by it. I was like, what in the world? I didn't post this. Another podcast posted it it took off and then the comments started pouring in about my wife how dare she she better back off just like a woman keeping a guy down i mean it got ugly and it was at first i got pissed it was instant and then you don't get a vote right i gave my wife a vote i asked her when you see me drowning will you reach in and help and when i see you i'll reach in and grab you too and she saw her husband drowning

she said i'm watching you die and so all of the people from the nickel seat saying oh yeah you can vote i didn't give you a vote right and you can say what you're gonna say man yeah, you don't get a vote. I didn't give you a vote. Right. And you can say what you're going to say, man. Yeah. But you know who I know is in my corner? My wife. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, one of the four agreements, which is one of the best-selling books of the last,

I don't know, a few decades, is don't take anything personally, right? And I think what I take away from that is don't let things affect you so much that it takes you off your course, off your vision. You know, something might affect you and make you be like, oh, I don't like this. Let's make a change with it. But don't let it ruin your day.

And also, I've given four or five people access. Yeah. There's four men in my life, five men in my life who I've said, if you see me from afar, if you hear me in a room, you stop the music and you turn the lights up. And you say, that's not who we are. Right. I've given you permission. Call me out. Give me that feedback.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. If you see a train coming at me and I'm just singing a hit song, shove me out of the way. Yeah, exactly. But other than that, right? All these opinions, yeah. Yeah. It's a politician, man.

It's a company trying to make money. Yeah. The news is those are publicly traded companies. Their job is to give me truth. Their job is to get clicks. I'm not going to give you. Yeah, man. I need that for my daughter.

I need that for my son. I need that for my neighbors. Right? You don't get that. Building a non-anxious life. I want people to get a copy of that. They can check out that. They can follow you on social media. They can check out your show john deloney uh show on the ramsey network

you got a lot of great stuff i read your other book which was um your past change your future man that's powerful thank you i read that right before i went on your show yeah yeah and i was like man this is really powerful i really like it you've got hey can we say that though you don't do this very much and i know you probably edit this out please don't people don't know that about you like that you have people on your show and they don't know that you're the guy that will go beyond somebody's show and buy their book with your own money i would have mailed you 50 of them if you'd ask for them and you bought with your own money and you read it as you walked into my house they don't know that about you that's what makes you special and unique that's hospitality right that is i see you and i'm gonna come sit with you we'll figure this out right of course

that's not a man coming to war that's a man coming to say let's break bread and figure this out absolutely man dude that's who you are that's awesome i appreciate that's awesome yeah i mean i got this little book at the barnes and noble i saw this your face was right there on the thing i was like man i gotta get this book too Cause I don't think I'd already, I hadn't gotten this book yet. And I was like, Hey, it's here. I'm going to support you. This one's great as well. Uh, redefining anxiety. Um, but a lot of great stuff you're doing, man. I really acknowledge you for getting uncomfortable because it's easy to give advice to people. It's hard to take your own advice. It's harder to do the work yourself than it is to give advice to people. It's hard to take your own advice.

It's harder to do the work yourself than it is to give the advice. And I know you came from an academic background as a Dean and, you know, double PhD. And you could say, I've got all these things figured out, but for you to have the courage to, to step into your emotions in a different way and process them in a way you never have done before with your wife,

with your family, to, to your daughter, daughter you know essentially resisting you at arm's length kisses and hugs for years to now her jumping all over you speaks a lot about the work you're doing on yourself speaks a lot about the inner world that no one will ever see you know from your show and the books and all these different things because there's a lot of people that can write a great book, but isn't a great human being and you're doing both. So I acknowledge you for showing up and it's not perfect and you've got bad days here and there, I'm sure me, but you're showing up and you're doing the work and that's a beautiful thing,

man. That's what we can all ask for. So I want people to get that. I acknowledge you for that. I've got two final questions. This is called the three truths. It's a hypothetical question. Imagine you get to live as long as you want to live, but it's the last day on earth for you and you get to accomplish and experience and live beautifully all the things you want to do. But for whatever reason, on this last day, you have to take all of your work with you.

This book is gone. The content you've created is gone. This interview, it's gone from our world. Um, but you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. This is all we would have to remember you by. I call it three truths. What would be those three truths? Wow, Lewis, that's a great question. Um, I'm going to, so the three truths that I, two of them i got from home and one of them i got from my wife the first one i got from my dad when it's on fire you go in when everybody's running out you go in the second one is from my mom there is no such thing as i can't there's no

such thing as too old there's no such thing as too far on the margins there's no such thing as i can't there's no such thing as too old there's no such thing as too far on the margins there's no such thing as excuse you pick up a machete you head into the jungle and you start carving a path and i watched her do it the third one actually is this um it's not from my wife it's from a buddy of mine who's a mentor a spiritual mentor and a psychologist i went to him once with us with a student problem and the university wanted to separate the student from the university and i said no it's my call the student stays the university said no and i went to him as a spiritual mentor and said hey here's the situation and he listened and he said you're right and he

said if this is where you draw the line you're free to go i want you to know your spirit's going to be light because what they're doing to this young man's wrong you're free to go and i felt all good and he said but never never forget if you leave and walk out that door all the other students just like him will still be here if everybody runs if everybody cancels, if everybody shuts off, everybody leaves the crowds, instead of walking to the crowds and whispering, I'm with you, then nothing gets better. And so what if we lived our lives

as though we can never move? What conversations would I have? What challenges would I have? So the question or the truth i would i would ask is the truth i would leave is it's often better to stay even when it's hard let's figure it out probably good relationship advice also huh almost always yeah unless there's abuse right of course outside of abuse infidelity abuse lies all that stuff yeah of course you don't want any of that but man what if we stayed figured it out yeah what if we both reinvented obviously

takes both of you to do that you know it can't just be one but man that's some beautiful truth i love all three of those um what a great question man thank you i'll think about that one all the way home final question for you it's been powerful i appreciate you coming on and opening up final question what is your definition of greatness for me right now my definition of greatness is my kids want to come home my definition of greatness is my wife and my daughter and my son can't wait to get home because dad's a safe landing spot after a wild day. And so all of this other stuff is in service to, can I be at peace at my house? That's greatness. Am I a safe place for my loved ones to land? I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcast

and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter

and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.