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

35:05It 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 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?

35:40No 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 um 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's saying i hear you and i see you and i still love wow right 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 um 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 delaney way before me i'm working with kids and my daughter wouldn't hug me lewis she wouldn't hug you nope four or five six year old she'd 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 oh she would hug and i'd come in and i'd kiss her on the head and she'd throw a big little 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 And my wife, one day, in her very calm, quiet way, as she does, she's so wise.

37:44She 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. I don't. 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 going to 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 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.

38:56He was goofball. He was kind of out there, but I loved him. Because 15 or 20 years ago, 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 like after two decades 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 needed 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 have to put these on credit card so we can travel 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 for you, old man.

40:24And then she puts a double five domino down and it's game on, right? What if we 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 need to change, everything needs to change to fit my feelings and protect my feelings.

41:07Why do you think that is happening more so? We've clipped the strings. esther talks eloquently about this we've clipped all of the the common strings that bind us together with a common story for just for however long you think the earl how 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's real guys if it can't be randomized control 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 the supreme ruler of your world your center of the universe you're a 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 all right let's do that let's go to the moon and what if we said how can I love you today instead of this is just 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 like 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 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 all right 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, uh, you know, going to the moon, whatever it is, believing in something and others and giving to them.

43:42Yeah. 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 as much as possible? And it was very unconscious. It wasn't like I was conscious of it. That's your body playing defense. It was survival mechanism. 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 shaped 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.

44:27and 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 um 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 brought me much more meaning and fulfillment it. 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. Not my body responded and you did this. I need to deal with that.

45:08Or I've got some hard choices to make. You did it. You did it. It's me over us. I think, and 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 um 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 i 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 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 what you had is over.

46:08And 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. We're used to going to bed at nine o 'clock. I ain't doing that anymore because I got to pick them up. So we have a new marriage. And if you keep saying, I just want to get back to the way it was 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 can show up for what we're building new.

46:59On your show, the Dr. John Deloney show, you have a lot of call-in aspects as well, where people are calling you, 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 terry 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 what how's the world changing for men and women today in relationships that you're hearing about?

48:22I 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, 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 go 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 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 this 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 and so opinion here's my belief 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 right right so it was this it was them learning together they've been married 50 something years and i got a ringside seats 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.

50:09She 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're a you got to be beautiful until you're 90 because we're going to be have be sexually active until we're a thousand years old you got to be we have to believe the exact same things about this whole list of things 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?

51:31Like, have you been reading on that? I read this book because 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 because they're real smart and they think this way too. Let'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.

52:11Can 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 what that we value we believe in like we value faith why in the world would you read a book if you weren't open 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.

52:53And 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 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 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.

53:29Now they've got to sit down and figure that out. I don't value family like I did. 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.

54:10Is 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 going to make it up. COVID kicks off and bam. We think, I'm making up a number. We think 35 million people are going to die. Every scientist I knew, and most of the scientists I didn't know, that were epidemiologists, that were modelers, that were virologists, They said, awesome, game on.

54:45And 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. system 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 yeah dude we got new information interesting because we value truth we don't value being right.

55:41We don't value being first. 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 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. You know I'm wrong, right? Wow. What a different world that is. It's a different way of approaching the world. So I celebrate literally when my wife comes in and goes, I just have been praying over this.

56:16I've read something new. I sat with a counselor the 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 be 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 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 i'm this is 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 or 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 in I have a, like, next year I'll have a ninth grader.

58:36Ninth grade for me was a magic year. High school? Uh-huh. Ninth grade for my wife was not. Right. We will have a different marriage because our bodies will have 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, oh, right? And so it's going to be a new marriage. It's fantastic, man. And so I think having a group of outside people. The second one is I would love to see couples 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.

59:12And 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 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 going to do money who's going to do the money who's going to do this that sounds fine and good until it's like they don't like tyson And everyone's got a plan to get hit in the mouth, right?

59:54So let's plan. We're going to get hit. Then what do we do? I'm going to make sure I listen to coach when I'm dazed. I'm going to make sure I go back to my training. I'm going to make sure I back up. Like, what have we done here? Do you have a framework for how we're going to deal with challenges when they come? I love these three things. My buddy Jay Shetty 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 framework for 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.

1:00:32We didn't say something we're going to regret. It's like we learned how to fight in a loving way. Right. We learned 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. They do. 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.

1:01:01She'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. There's no screaming ever. I don't care 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 it never 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. So if you're hurt by something I did or didn't do, be curious about it first.

1:01:39And 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 yeah and to love you and to support you it's not to hurt you yeah and so but but what you're saying there is i'm gonna 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 that way you're service to me that way, us will always be, always win. Absolutely. Yeah. I've got a few, a few more questions about relationships before we wrap up.

1:02:14Um, you've got your book, building a non-anxious life that is available. You've got, uh, 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 Colin's show talking about all of these different things. you've got amazing stuff on social media, John, John Deloney everywhere on social media as well. Uh, but I want people to get your book because it's, 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.

1:02:57So 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 a relationship under chaos over the next three to five years versus more and more breakup, more and more cheating, more and more divorce?

1:03:47Man, that's a great question. 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 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 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 going to 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 us 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 forgiven i don't care i'm out yeah i'm doing 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 antifrauders how do you stand tall and there's lots 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.

1:05:51We'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. We just have enough money to 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 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 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 going to start that now because i know in a year in four years and six years something's coming it is i'll 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?

1:07:03I 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 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.

1:07:51I'm going to tell everybody. Yeah, 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 this is unjust and unfair and this is going to be absurd i'm going to be of service to ending this and you can do that without things taking you and making you feel so overwhelmed that you are fragile yeah because a fragile person is unable to take action effectively, in my opinion. And your nervous system is going to get wired up. So you're going to get...

1:08:28It won't be effective action. You won't be effective, right? And you're going to be more exhausted. You're going to 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 going to get killed walking across that bridge. 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 down 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 it took on a life of its Really?

1:09:41I 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 know, 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 seats saying, oh yeah, you don't get a vote.

1:10:22I 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 takes you off your course off your vision you know something might affect you and make you be like I don't like this let's make 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 some there's there's four men in my wife five men in my wife who I've said if you see me from afar if you hear me in your room yeah you stop the 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 um if you see a train coming at me and i'm just singing right right shove me out of the way yeah exactly but other than that right right opinions yeah yeah it's a politician man it's a company trying to make money yeah um the news is those are publicly traded companies their job is to give me truth their job is to get clicks i i'm not going to give you yeah man i need that for my daughter i need that for my son.

1:11:36I need that for my neighbors. Right. Yeah. I 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 show on the Ramsey network. You got a lot of great stuff. I read your other book, which was, um, your past change of 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 this. Hey, can we say that though? You don't do this very much and I know you'll probably edit this out.

1:12:04please 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 be on somebody's show and buy their book with your own money i would have mailed you 50 of them if you'd asked 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 because i don't think i'd already i hadn't gotten this book yet i was like hey it's here i'm gonna 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.

1:13:03It'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'd never have done before with your wife, with your family, to your 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.

1:13:47And 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. 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 gonna 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 excuse you pick up a machete you head into the jungle and you 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.

1:16:15And 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 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 it takes both of you to do that you know it can't just be one but man that's 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 that's good 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?

1:17:34That's greatness. Am I a safe place for my loved ones to land?

1:17:57If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts 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.

1:18:32And now it's time to go out there and do something great.