JOHN DELONY | Overcome Your Stories Before They Destroy You (Ep. 300)

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0:57 This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson.

1:21 Let's get into it.

1:22 Hi, guys. Today, I've got another special guest on the podcast. His name is John Deloney.

1:25 So he is an author, mental health expert. He actually has two PhDs, one in counselor,

1:30 education and supervision, and the other in higher education administration.

1:32 And he is the host of the John Deloney show. So in 2020, he joined Ramsey Solutions.

1:37 So that's financial commentator and radio show host Dave Ramsey's company.

1:40 That same year, he released the book Redefining Anxiety, what it is, what it isn't, and how to get

1:45 your life back. And today on this podcast, we spend a lot of time talking about his new book

1:49 that is out this week. If you're listening to this on time, it's called own your past,

1:53 change your future. Now, I know some of you guys are going to hear that title, own your past,

1:57 change your future and be like, Kyle is a self-help guy. I thought you weren't going to have these

2:00 self-help guys on the show. It goes way deeper than that. So we'll get into the book and we'll

2:05 get into why he wrote it and why he wrote the way that he did and some of the things in the book.

2:08 But the thing that I love about this interview is even off air beforehand, he and I are giving

2:12 each other crap or razzing each other. And you just know that he's comfortable with himself.

2:16 I'm comfortable with myself. And we disagreed several times throughout this podcast interview.

2:20 And it went totally fine because both of us came to the disagreement, wanting to get our

2:24 point across, but also being curious as to the other person's position and how they got there.

2:28 Now, this was about an hour long interview. So it wasn't like we were sitting down over

2:32 scotch in a cigar for three or four hours really hashing these things out. So you can't really

2:35 do that. So some of you guys are going to be screaming at me throughout this podcast like,

2:38 why didn't you ask this? And why did you follow up on that? Guys, we didn't have time. I didn't

2:41 really get to half of the questions I wanted to ask him because we kept having these interesting

2:45 things come up. And I just kind of weaved to this question and weaved to that question.

2:48 But we did have a little dust up toward the end. And I use that term very, very nicely.

2:51 It wasn't a, it wasn't a mean thing. But we got into the subject of truth.

2:54 Because I think he and I have a fundamental disagreement on what that means and how that

2:59 basically allows us to operate in the world that we're in. So if that doesn't sell you on the fact

3:03 that you should listen to this interview all the way through the end, I can't help you any further,

3:06 but guys, I'm not going to keep him from you any longer. So without further ado, let's get into it.

3:11 John Deloney, welcome down to the life of man's podcast. What's up, brother? How are we doing?

3:16 I'm doing good. I got to say, I thought about yelling my intro because you seem to yell a lot,

3:20 which I like because it gets me all fired up. But I just don't have the pipes for it. Like,

3:24 I mean, is that my wife tells me, John, you're a lot, you're a lot. So yeah, I think I don't mean

3:30 to yell. I just get excited about things, man. Oh, the funny thing as well as I've had people

3:34 talk to me before and they can't exactly get the words out there like, huh, you're like a lot

3:38 of people at once and I don't really know what to do. So I think we're going to get along just fine.

3:43 But right from the beginning, I want to talk about what you call your line. Okay, so your line

3:48 is I'm a mental health expert. But let's say I don't believe you and you have to prove it to me

3:53 and I don't even know who you are. So how do you prove to me that you are a mental health expert?

3:57 One of the great gifts of this part of my life is I don't have to prove anything to anybody.

4:04 I got two kids that like me on most days, my wife likes me three days, four days out of seven.

4:09 And so man, I'm good. And I got a paycheck that deposits when I do good work. So yeah, if if if

4:16 if I had to prove it when I would tell you is it's a combination of three things. One, I've made

4:22 the walk myself to I've got the academic credentials and we're in this weird world where the more

4:28 knowledge you have not, I read a bunch of Instagram posts and or I listened to a couple of podcasts,

4:33 but right, you've done intense training academically over the last five, 10, 15 years. And

4:40 I've sat with with I've done the work, right? I've seen people I've walked alongside people in the

4:49 most insane situations, the most catastrophic situations, the wheels of completely coming off

4:54 their life. And so it's that combination of experience and actual knowledge. And I've walked

4:59 the walk myself that would say, Hey, I can, I've earned a seat at the table.

5:04 Well, the interesting thing about that, John, is for you, like you've actually experienced real life

5:10 crises and you kind of alluded to it a second ago and we'll get way more into it whenever we

5:13 get into your book. But you've dealt with like actual life and death situations, whereas most of

5:17 us, a crisis is like, Oh, I broke a nail on the way to work or I left my iPad at home. It's not like

5:22 a real life stuff. So kind of take us through that a little bit. Because I think it really

5:24 doesn't form a lot of the stuff and a lot of the advice that you give out, right? Well, yeah, so

5:29 the last two decades have spent as a dean of students type professional and colleges and universities.

5:35 And so with that job, you spend a lot of time in hospitals, you spend a lot of time making phone

5:41 calls to parents letting them know, Hey, your kids and ICU, your kids in a psych ward, your kid has

5:44 passed away. And we need you to come to town ASAP, right? Or you're dealing with a student who's

5:50 so in toxic, like their blood alcohol levels, 0.45 and they're vomiting everywhere and they're

5:55 bleeding everywhere and you got to deal with the students and then their friends, right? So that's

5:59 part of it, right? Where I got into what I would call life changing work was I joined a former

6:06 professor of mine. And what he did was he's a mental health professional who served as a crisis

6:10 responder victim services. And so we had a patrol car, we had a team that would drive out with police

6:16 officers. And when a police officer shows up to a scene where someone has passed away, they start

6:22 that scene homicide back, right? What's the worst thing that could have happened here? We need to

6:25 take all the evidence and we're going to work it back. That doesn't help a mother whose two-year-old

6:29 has just died. No, right. That's hard for a 75 year old woman whose husband just had a heart attack,

6:35 whose 14 year old son just committed suicide, right? So they would bring us in to help with

6:41 the death notifications to sit there and hug the mothers. I've spent clean brains off of walls

6:46 before before a mom got there to a seat, right? So you see the worst of the worst of the worst and

6:50 more importantly than the worst of the worst, you're dealing in the hearts and minds of people who

6:56 the unimaginable has happened, right? So it was my job to let the police officers do their job

7:02 and to point people to resources in the community and take care of people. So yeah,

7:06 I'm not a big, I don't compare crisis, like depending on where you grew up and what's happened to

7:11 you in your life, big things are a big deal to you. But yeah, I've seen some stuff. And my dad was

7:16 a homicide detective and a SWAT hostage negotiator growing up. So I grew up with, I had very different

7:21 dinner table stories growing up than most kids. Absolutely. And I wasn't planning on asking this,

7:26 but you kind of brought it up. So at Undaunted Life, our mission is equipping men to push back

7:29 darkness. A lot of men are very uncomfortable with darkness. They don't even want to see it,

7:33 so they can't push back against it. But something that I feel like is weird with my personality,

7:37 I don't know if it's concerning or not, is that I'm kind of attracted to darkness a little bit

7:42 so that I can see where it is so that I can push it back, not because I'm like, you know, dancing

7:46 with the devil as it were. It kind of seems like you have a little bit of that in your personality

7:50 as well. Do you think that's virtue of your wiring, kind of the wiring that God gave you to be

7:55 kind of comfortable in those dark situations? Is it just because it's old hat because of the

7:59 conversations you had around the dinner table with your dad and the stuff that you've seen?

8:02 It's probably both and I do believe that when you come on a scene and you see a dead body,

8:10 there's usually one of two reactions. You lean in a little bit closer or your brain takes over,

8:17 you physically close your eyes and you turn away. And I happen to be, I remember calling my dad

8:22 after the first time I had to deal with a live scene, right? It was a mess and I called my dad

8:27 and I was like, man, here's what just happened. And he said, you leaned in, didn't you? And I said,

8:32 yep. And he goes, welcome to the right. And so it was something I stumbled into. But yeah,

8:37 I also am not going to discount the stories I grew up with back then that there was no

8:43 way for police officers for milk. There was no place to process. And so I was a safe place for

8:48 my dad to tell stories and talk about, Hey, this happened and that happened. And I experienced

8:52 this this weekend. So a lot of that downloaded too. So it's probably some both and yeah, I think

8:56 the lean in, once you recognize that you have that lean in personality, you should probably

9:00 lean into that a little bit further because I think God has wired you to deal with some of the

9:03 darkness that some of his children can't. And so let's kind of come out of the world of darkness

9:08 and go to the world of light. Let's talk about Ramsey solutions. So you joined up with Dave

9:12 Ramsey and his crew back in 2020, I believe. And so just take us through how all that went down

9:16 because before that you're working, you know, as a counselor, you're doing the higher education

9:19 administration stuff. So it's not exactly a straight line to the guy that cuts up credit cards.

9:23 So so help me kind of figure that out. Oh, dude, there is no, not only is there no straight line,

9:28 there's no dotted line, there's no connected tissue at all. I spent my entire life, especially

9:34 the last 15 years trying to disappear from the internet. I didn't want to exist. In fact,

9:39 two universities ago, my boss called me after four years of working there and she said,

9:43 I have to put you on the website that you work here. Looks like we have no Dina students and so

9:47 I was fine. So my goal was always to be the guy behind the guy. I wanted to when the wheels fall

9:54 off, I wanted to be the guy that showed up in the middle of the night that could sit with you in the

9:58 ugliest, bleakest, bloodiest moments, point you to resources, circle back and and not exist,

10:04 right? That's that was always the goal. I had these fantasies of having a business where I didn't

10:08 have any any, there's no way to get ahold of me unless you knew somebody who'd had my number,

10:12 right? And that's not real. That's not how the world works. I've watched too many movies,

10:14 but it sounded good. And then I gave a presentation to about 1000 students and their parents and

10:22 Dave Ramsey's executive VP was in the audience and she said, I'm going to hire that guy.

10:26 Dave's been saying for 20 years, money, man, your debt problems, what your inability to talk

10:32 to your spouse about, dude, this is that's 20% math. It is 80% psychology, 80% relational. You got

10:40 problems. It's revealing of who you are, what's going on inside of you. And see, finally, he said,

10:45 I'm just going to hire my own. I've been referring people out for years. I'm just going to hire my

10:48 own. So I my wife and I took a wild left turn in our lives and jumped ship. And here we are.

10:54 Yeah, it's quite the circuitous route, but it makes a whole lot of sense because I have a lot of

10:58 background and kind of financial planning and things like that. And I have a lot of friends that are

11:02 very, very close friends that deal with that. It may be 95 five in terms of the psychological

11:07 part because think about it. Something is basic is like term life insurance with, you know,

11:10 which Dave talks about constantly. People can't get that through their heads because they can't

11:14 touch it. It's not like a phone or a microphone or something like that. They can't, they can't

11:18 touch it. But the thing about it is, is it's not about them. It's about the people that they,

11:23 you know, purport to care about that, you know, would be taken care of in the event of their

11:27 untimely demise. But they just can't get it through their head, you know, psychologically.

11:31 Well, I did, I used to, I used to, when I was seeing counseling clients in my practicum,

11:36 do within two or three sessions, I would know all about their sex lives, the things they were into,

11:41 not into number of partner, all that stuff. They would not talk about how much money they owed.

11:47 No, it's crazy. A level of shame. And I think it's because there's a metric to it.

11:53 That it says there's a, we've distilled all of our relationships and vacations we did or didn't go

12:00 on all the courses we did or didn't take the colleges we did and all that. We distill it all

12:05 down into a number and we ask each other, Hey, what are you worth? And it's a number. And for most

12:10 people in America, it's a negative number when it comes to equity. And so the answer to what are

12:15 you worth is not very much. And so we can't even, we can't even say the word out loud. I'd rather tell

12:21 you all the weird sex stuff I'm into than tell you, Hey, man, I owe $22,000 credit card debt.

12:27 Right. And that's where we are. It just, when it comes to layer and shame on people,

12:31 I've literally told people that that people are more open to talking about their sex lives out

12:35 loud than their money. And people look at me like I've got a boob on the top of my head. It's like,

12:39 no, that that's literally what it is. Like it is a crazy situation. And there's a lot that goes

12:44 into that. Maybe we'll kind of back into that with some other parts of our conversation.

12:47 But you know, as part of with, with Ramsey solutions, you have the Dr. John Deloney show,

12:51 aptly named because that is your name after all. And on this show,

12:54 boring title. Hey, but it gets the worst man. It's the worst man. It gets to the point,

12:59 John's a strong name. All right. Just embrace it. But it's like you give people life advice on

13:03 this. And you know, some people might be like, you know, who's this guy give me advice, this young

13:06 whipper snapper type thing. But the thing about it is, I know a lot of these conversations can really

13:11 put you on tilt because some of these people that call in, they're crazy towns or their

13:16 situation is just completely bonkers. So do you have any stories that are especially crazy that

13:22 maybe stick out in your brain? A people that called in and said this out of the other thing,

13:26 you had to try to weave your way to try to help them. Yeah, I I'll reframe that a bit. So

13:33 one of my favorite things about walking alongside people and just just being a human being, man,

13:39 trying to make my way through life on this rock hurtling through space, right, is the complex

13:47 interaction between our genetics and the pictures we got growing up, what our dads did or didn't do

13:52 if they were there or not there, what our granddads did, what our moms did, and then what we saw in

13:57 media and then what we experienced at schools and whatever, and how that all coalesces into a

14:03 response to something. And man, for years, I was like, that dude's crazy. What are you doing?

14:09 Why in the world would you get rid of all of your kids for that drug, right? Why would you,

14:14 what in the world would lead you to hit that part, right? I couldn't wrap my head around it

14:19 until it was Dr. Gabor Mott to help me reframe the question. And here's the way I will pass

14:26 this along. If I'm walking down the street and I see this nice dog and I reach down to pet that

14:31 dog and that dog growls at me and bites me. My first thought out of my mind is, dude, your owner sucks.

14:38 Somebody didn't love this dog and honor this dog and give this dog boundaries and feed this dog

14:43 and teach this dog that people are safe. Somebody hurt this dog. But if I'm walking on the street

14:48 and I see somebody and I look at him and I'm like, hey, and they mouthed off to me. My first thought is,

14:52 what's the matter with you? And the way I've reframed it over the last 10 or 15 years is,

14:58 what happened to you, man? What did you experience that led, what hurt so bad in your heart that

15:05 heroin makes that go away for a minute, that a bottle of pills makes that go away, that another

15:09 drink and another drink, or that another 15 hours at the office helps you hide from? What is that

15:16 extra $25,000? Yeah, it's cool, man. It can get you a shiny thing. What do you have? So that's

15:22 changed my question. When it comes to the show, so all I have to say is, nothing really surprises

15:27 me anymore. I think there's one or two times I've called it out on my show. I've been like,

15:30 well, I never heard that one before, but usually I've heard this stuff before dealing with people.

15:35 Yeah, before you get into that crazy thing, you brought up something that I feel like is really

15:38 important because you're talking to an audience that is really big on personal responsibility.

15:42 That's kind of their thing. And so as you're saying how you're reframing that question,

15:47 I totally get it. It makes cognitive sense. But at the same time, there's that dissonance in

15:51 my personality to where it doesn't that take some of the personal responsibility off of that

15:55 person because it's not their dad's fault that they're doing heroin. They're choosing to do that.

16:01 Now, again, that's I'm painting with an incredibly broad question.

16:04 I love that a little bit. I think yeah. And so here's the, my response to that would be this.

16:09 I have a, he's now turned 12 yesterday, my son. And he's working through math, math's hard, right?

16:17 Especially when your mom and dad are reading nerds, right? We're reading and writing nerds,

16:20 both of us. And so he's excellent in reading and writing math is just more of a struggle this year.

16:25 If he sits down and looks at algebra and I even, I can even say, hey, it's all right there.

16:31 Just read the book and it tells you how to do algebra. And I stand over him and every time you

16:36 makes the minus sign, I hit him with a stick or I, or worse, worse than hitting with a stick.

16:41 I say, get out of my presence. You are not welcome in my house until you figure this algebra out.

16:46 And I sit under the chicken coop to go sleep where our chickens are. The chances of him learning

16:52 algebra diminish the further I push him away from relationship. And that's what we've done

16:57 when it comes to people who are hurting. Now on the other side, when we turn the lights on,

17:02 you've got a choice. When I teach you algebra, and I also more importantly teach you what it's

17:08 going to take for you to be successful in algebra, which is more studying than any of your friends,

17:12 meaning less video game time, meaning less this time, meaning more time with your nose in this

17:17 book doing something you hate because it pains you because you fail over and over at it.

17:22 But this is what it's going to take for you to learn algebra. Now that the lights are on

17:25 and the path is lit, now I can say you're choosing to not do that. And I'm walking alongside you,

17:30 right? So I would say, yes, when I look at people who are hurting and say, hey, if you keep hurting

17:36 like that, I'm going to start hitting you. I'm going to the thing you need the most, which is

17:40 human connection. I'm going to weaponize that. Then I think then the personal personal responsibility,

17:46 I don't buy it. When I invite you in and say, Hey, here's what this looks like. Here's what health

17:49 looks like. Here's what wholeness looks like. Here's a path forward for you and your path's going to

17:54 suck because of the abuse you've suffered, you grew up in poverty, your dad bailed all the things,

17:58 right? But here's what that path looks like. And here's the people that'll walk with you.

18:02 Now personal responsibility plays a major, major role. And it's then that I'll hold people accountable

18:07 and say, whoa, brother, that's why the book I just wrote, I divided up in the haves, right? The first

18:12 half is, Hey, I'm going to turn the lights on. The second half is now what? What are you going to do?

18:17 Right? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a great time to really get into the new book.

18:21 So I really appreciate you and your team send in this my way. It's own your past, change your

18:24 future forward by the one and only Dave Ramsey. And so the thing is, is you do break this up into

18:30 two parts. And I want you to kind of give me your own synopsis of the books I was like hearing from

18:33 the author, what the book is about. Well, let's maybe just start there. So in your own words as

18:37 generically as possible, what is this book about, you know, kind of give us a 30,000 foot view?

18:42 If we all just stop for a minute and look around, everything's off the rails, we know that, right?

18:47 We know that we know that in the mirror, when we look at ourselves, we don't like what we look like,

18:50 we don't like how our lives are, we don't like our sex lives, we don't like our marriages,

18:53 we don't like our the money we're making, we don't like any of the stuff. And we have an

18:58 entire culture built around distraction, built about running built on achievement. Like if you

19:03 will just get the next shiny thing, this will all be okay. And so the first half of this book is

19:08 turning the lights on. Here's what's here's what has shifted underneath us in the last 25 or 30 or

19:13 40 years that we call normal that our bodies are not designed to live within, right? We are we've

19:18 created a universe overnight that our bodies are not designed to live in. And the second half is

19:24 that's where most of the second half is is what you do, right? So most of us get to the

19:29 I'm only going to be the worst thing that ever happened to me. I'm always just going to be a

19:34 survivor, I'm always just going to be the worst thing I've ever done, right? I built a thousand

19:39 bridges and I sat by my wife, why her dad died of cancer, and I sat by her through three kids,

19:46 but I cheated once and I'll always be a cheater. And that's it, I'm out, right? So we have a culture

19:51 that defines us by the worst thing that's ever happened, the worst thing we've ever done. You'll

19:53 always be a cancer survivor and abusive about feeling the blame. And what I'm pushing back on is

19:58 you're right, you have to own those stories, period. If you ignore those stuff or like,

20:03 uh, bros, just flex past it, your body will solve those forever and it will kill you through heart

20:08 attacks, through strokes. There's a reason men die miserable, tired, lonely lives because they

20:15 don't acknowledge what happened. And though, and all these things happen to you. You were born and

20:21 you were the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood. You were all that stuff is true. It's all real.

20:25 And I'll fight anybody who says it's not. And I have to look in the mirror every morning and say,

20:30 so now what? Who am I going to become now? What am I going to do now? What is healing and wellness

20:36 for my legacy, for my generation? How do I change that family tree? What awful work do I have to do

20:42 to stare down this forest fire? I'm going to be scarred up. I'm going to be burned. I'm going to

20:45 lose a limb, but my grandkids are going to have different lives because of the work I put in,

20:50 right? And the work me and my community put in, right? And so that's the point of the book.

20:54 We've given, dude, brother, we've been given two paths and this drives me crazy. Path one is,

20:59 you'll all you'll ever be is the worst thing that ever happened, right? And when you're a victim

21:05 forever, you have to have some sort of entity come save you. You've got to have a government

21:09 come in and gift wrap your life for you because you clearly can't do it because your dad left you

21:15 because you had this experience. You have these diagnostics as a kid. The other path, though,

21:19 is the crush it, drag it, kill it. Yeah, Terminator two, right? If you have a feeling,

21:25 it's some sort of character defect. It's cowardice, it's weakness. And I'm calling bull crap on that

21:30 one too. And so really, this book is the new third way. It's both and I have to acknowledge

21:36 the stuff. And then, dude, I got to be about living a different life. Yeah, it's funny. The

21:40 latter thing that you described there, I described as caricature masculinity, because when I've been

21:44 on other people's podcasts, maybe even on debate shows, I'm always kind of typecasted as the drag

21:49 the L through the woods. Like I'm typecast as that guy. And I just reject it entirely. I'm like,

21:54 that is not a tender warrior. That's just warrior, right? And that's dumb warrior. Like,

21:58 it's a completely different thing. But I do like in part one of your book, and this made me laugh

22:02 from the very beginning. I'm like, okay, John and I are going to get along. But you talk about how

22:06 stories are the problem, right? Stories about the world, about ourselves, about relationships,

22:10 stories we're told, and that happened in stories that we tell ourselves. That's a lot of stuff,

22:14 but everybody gets it. But then you say this in the book, the path to being well and changing

22:19 your life is simple. Just five steps repeated over and over and over again. The five steps are

22:24 number one, own your stories. Number two, acknowledge reality. Number three, get connected. Number four,

22:29 change your thoughts. Number five, change your actions. Now, John, what's funny about that is

22:34 as soon as I read that list, I immediately rolled my eyes and wrote in the like in the margin,

22:40 wamp, wamp. And then literally the very next sentences, you say this, that's it. I know I know,

22:46 don't roll your eyes. Don't move on yet. Yes, these steps sound simplistic. They are simple,

22:53 but this path is hard to walk incredibly hard. So the reason that I rolled my eyes,

22:57 I was kind of my knee jerk reaction is because that list felt like every other five steps to

23:02 getting your life back that I've ever read and seen. And I'm sure as soon as I read that list,

23:07 it hit the ears of my audience a little bit of scant. So the worst, I know. So pitch us,

23:13 pitch all of us Neanderthals on how those steps that you lay out in your book, that it's not just

23:18 another generic vanilla self-help book. I love it, man. So actually, when anyone on all the

23:23 interviews with someone says, all right, let's talk about the five steps. I always stop them

23:26 and say, I'm gonna stop you right there. Hold on. So I will say this, I turned in a finished manuscript

23:31 of this book and it was the editor. Her name is Jennifer. She's extraordinary. It was the editor

23:38 who called one day and said, you realize there's a path woven through this? And I said, nope,

23:42 because I reject paths. I think they're lame. And that's not how the world works.

23:45 Dave Ramsey has come up with a path and he is the only one who I've ever seen works and that's

23:51 just getting out of debt. And that's just simple math, right? And she said, I'm sorry to tell you,

23:56 but there's a path through here and I'll show it to you. So here's my, there is no five simple

24:02 steps to better abs. Well, I guess there actually is workout, diet and exercise, tada. There's only

24:07 two, right? And three, be consistent and do it over and over for the rest of your life. And right,

24:12 right. But yeah, there's, dude, there's not five steps to being well. The moment you wake up and

24:17 you're like, Oh, dude, things are great. That's when mom calls and says, I got cancer. That's when

24:21 they call that your buddy from your childhood calls you and says, Hey, I need to let you know

24:26 your dad just had a heart attack, you need to come home. Right. So there is no, or that's when

24:29 Russia invades you create like it just happens, right? So they're not five steps in order that

24:35 you're going to be the rest of your life. What they are are five principles that you can etch

24:39 in your heart because life comes at you and life sucks. It's hard. It's a grind. And right when you

24:46 got to figure out your wife's like, you know what I think we should do? And now it's going to all

24:49 be different. Or right when you figure it out, your kid goes to sixth grade and all hell breaks loose.

24:54 And then your daughter tells you, you know, dad, I wish you never existed. And she's five. And I don't

25:00 even know. Right. So all of it's changing all the time, all the time, all the time. And if you don't

25:07 own the stories, your body will solve for that forever. What does that mean? That sounds cheesy.

25:11 That means if you were four years old and you were running through the living room and you banged

25:18 your head on the cabinet and it bled and your dad looked at you and said, that doesn't hurt.

25:23 Suck it up. Quit whining. That for yes, there's something about being tough and there's something

25:29 about stop crying. I get that. I'm gross born and raised in Texas. I get it. But here's the meta

25:34 there that four year old boy quickly recognizes that does hurt. I can feel it. But that guy's really

25:41 smart and he's big. I trust him. The person I can no longer trust is me. Instead of the dad saying,

25:48 Hey man, I could tell that hurt. I stand up tall, stand up tall. I know that hurt. I know that hurt.

25:53 And hugging that young boy because he's freaking four. And that kid is then going to have an entire

26:00 life where he doesn't trust himself because that's going to show up and show up and show up and show

26:05 up. And then that's the kid that some young woman gives him boundaries and he doesn't trust him like,

26:10 Nah, it doesn't matter. And then that turns into when he's 28 years old and the boss says, Hey,

26:16 I think you're going to be the guy who. Okay, even though he's having to hate this job,

26:21 it's accounting and budgeting. I'm not put on earth for accounting and budgeting, but they boss it,

26:24 right? So you have a lifetime of not believing yourself, not trusting yourself. And your body

26:29 has a chemical cascade. It will fill you up with cortisol and adrenaline when you get in a situation

26:33 where you can't trust yourself. It's biochemical, dude. And so what I'm saying is you got to own

26:38 your stories. You got to own look in the mirror and say, I don't trust myself. I don't follow

26:44 boundaries. I don't respect other people. Because here's where I'm I don't respect myself. And then

26:48 you got to acknowledge reality, dude, you got to look in the mirror and say, I wanted this life.

26:52 And here's what I got. I'm 100 pounds overweight. I'm $40,000 in debt because I can't control

26:58 myself because I keep thinking that car is going to make me whole. This car is going to help me

27:02 get that girl. These shoes are going to make my wife like me a little more. And really all she

27:06 wants you to do is do the dishes again and again and again, help out around you, right? You have

27:11 to acknowledge reality. And only then when you turn on those sterile lights and you look in the

27:15 mirror and say, this is where we are, that then you can be about healing and about changing this

27:20 thing moving forward. And dude, this is going to happen again and again and again, where you're

27:25 on the path and then something happens, you're going to have to stop. I'm going to have to own

27:29 the story, acknowledge it, and then move on and it happens quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick.

27:32 But that's the rest of our lives, man. Right. Well, the again and again and again thing,

27:36 it goes back to what you're talking about in terms of consistently. So those steps like, okay,

27:40 do these steps over and over. Yeah, it might seem too simple or too, whatever. But but I have

27:44 people ask me all the time, like, how can I be in better shape? I'm like, work out all the time.

27:48 Exercise. Yeah, exercise like every day. Oh, but I really want to get better pull ups. Well,

27:52 I'm going to blow your mind with this. You should probably do pull ups, do pull up, like, and then

27:56 do more pull ups after you've kind of rested and recovered. And it's just like these steps,

28:00 like it's not the steps that are hard. It's doing it. That is hard. I was talking to a guy the other

28:04 day. He sent a long series of texts, him, this wife are separating and it's a heartbreaking

28:13 situation. But he said, Hey, I'm going to do this, this and this. And I said, no, no, no, don't do that.

28:16 Your wife doesn't want your help. And he wrote back and said, how do you know? And I said,

28:20 because she hasn't asked for it. And his response was, Oh, right. It's like, that's where we are.

28:26 And that's okay. But it's acknowledging these stories, man, and inserting ourselves into all

28:30 these situations and like, what about this? I'm going to try that. Dude, just work out. Just

28:34 work out every day. Just do something. Yeah, it's just be consistent because there are people that

28:38 are just waiting for, you know, the genie of motivation to like strike them in the tip of their

28:44 face and be like, yeah, today's the day that we're going to work out. It's like, I never,

28:47 I never motivated to work out ever. It's what's required of me. It is owed of me, right? And we

28:54 can go into a lot of philosophies there. We may, we can talk about it. But I'm with you. I'm with

28:57 you, man. Well, I want to talk about some stuff from chapter three, because I think in a lot of

29:01 ways, chapter three, maybe kind of the hinge point of your entire philosophy to a degree. So you

29:06 talk about a particular story, you talk about, you know, specifically the story that we're told

29:10 about technology and innovation and how it'll save us. But let me read this quote back to you.

29:14 The stories told us to believe that our smarts and technology would make everything better,

29:19 that just the right program or algorithm would solve sadness, loneliness, that's a big one for

29:23 men, and mental health issues. But then I look at the global mental health crisis,

29:27 disastrous physical and psychological health in advanced countries, global debt, decreased

29:31 life spans in the United States and the existential crises around or surrounding some of the most

29:36 important societal pillars, education, faith, and government. Things are not as they should be.

29:42 I mean, John, earlier in this podcast, you talked about how things are not as they should be.

29:45 Now, my contention with all of that is that we as a people group have innovated and invented

29:53 and, you know, invested our way to being our own God. We can control our entire environment.

30:00 We have thermostats that will turn on when we walk in the room to make sure that we personally

30:07 are feeling good. We get in particular cars and everything in the car adjust because it recognizes

30:12 our weight and our bony butt structure. Like we can control everything in our environment.

30:17 And yet we are sicker and sadder and worse often than we've ever been. Help me understand.

30:22 So we, if you go back to the history of time, we've been solving for comfort, for ease, right?

30:30 Let's make a cleaner plow, a sharper plow. Let's be able to run these grain fields a little bit

30:36 easier. Let's get a better harness for our horse. Let's get a, let's breed horses together to make

30:40 them bigger so they can stronger. They can pull more. They can do more acreage, right?

30:43 And that's great. And that's wonderful. And in the last 100 years, 150, maybe 200 years now,

30:50 that pace of progress accelerated. And we were still solving for comfort. And I'm okay with that.

30:56 I love leather seats. I love my air conditioner. I love all that stuff, right? But in the process

31:02 of solving for comfort, what's happened that's new is we have pathologized discomfort.

31:06 We have made the enemy being uncomfortable. And why is that scary? Because we've taken normal

31:14 responses like sadness and frustration and boredom and loneliness. And we've created hacks for them.

31:20 We've created a pill or a distraction or a band-aid for these things. And these are core biological

31:26 issues. Sleep has become a burden, right? Dude, why sleep when you can, dude, I got a brighter

31:32 light for you. Take this, use that. And we were taking all these things that our bodies need

31:37 to exist and run well. And we have, I thought we've made them, we've made them wrong.

31:43 And so, yes, dude, we've got all this cool stuff that caters to our whims. But our bodies aren't

31:51 designed for 72, 72, 72 life, where we go from a 72 degree house to a 72 degree car in a workplace.

31:57 And then we just reverse engineer that back home. It's designed. Now we have cold tubs for God's

32:01 sake, dude. And we have saunas. You know what we used to have for that? Weather. We used to have

32:06 the outdoors. You know what I mean? So we're, we're biohacking our way into insanity when really

32:14 what our body is craving is human connection, hard things, really strenuous tasks that we fail

32:20 out regularly, and a community to grieve with us, to mourn with us, to celebrate with us,

32:26 and to do all that over and over and over again. And that's it, man. And we've just way over-complicated

32:32 this thing. Well, and that's the thing. It's like we've educated ourselves into imbecility.

32:36 A really, really smart guy said that quote a long time ago, and the smart guy was not me. So,

32:40 you know, give that person credit where credit is due. But you're talking about something I really

32:43 wanted to get into because throughout the book, you mentioned the need for a gang of sorts. So,

32:48 that could be a gang or a group or your tribe or your people. And on Dante Life, we call that a

32:53 foxhole. And a foxhole is, you know, a group of guys that are constantly pushing each other

32:58 to be spiritually mentally and physically resilient on a daily basis. And what's funny about it is

33:02 I talk about three AM friends and saying, so do you and your podcast, because we've got a lot of

33:07 six PM friends that if you need to move a fridge, or you need to ask a question about your taxes,

33:12 or you need to build a fence, they're good until about six PM. And then they're just not available

33:16 to you. Whereas that three AM friend, if you call them at three AM, as soon as I answer the phone,

33:22 you hear them putting their pants on, they're putting their boots on, you know, they're putting

33:25 their pistol in the appendix carry position. And they're grabbing a shovel because they're

33:28 assuming we're burying a body. That's the only reason why this guy's calling me at this this hour.

33:32 But we don't have that. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna get it even more granular men don't have that,

33:37 because we lost it when we left the police academy, or we lost it when we left the military, or we

33:42 lost it, you know, after we graduated from college and we were no longer paying for friends at our

33:46 fraternity whoops. But like that, that's one of those things that it becomes a major issue for men.

33:50 They just feel like, Oh, I don't need to do this friend thing anymore. I'll just do me. I will just

33:55 do Netflix. I'll just do video games, but it's absolutely choking us out. So go a little bit deeper

34:01 on all of our need for a gang or a foxhole, if you will. Well, usually when I talk to tough guys,

34:06 which my wife, she says I struggle from tough guy complex quite a bit. She's more colorful in her

34:15 language, but I start with the data. The data is super clear, man. In 2019, the study, the

34:22 Journal of American Medical Association put out a study that I thought was going to shake America

34:27 at its core. And then COVID kicked off and it really got buried. But in 2019, it marked the third

34:35 year in a row that Americans are living shorter lives. Right. Again, in America, where we spend a

34:41 budget, billions of dollars, and we have the greatest resources and the greatest university,

34:45 we know. And they call them diseases of despair. Loneliness marked by organ disease failure,

34:53 addiction, and suicide, and organ disease failure being heart attacks, stomach cancers,

35:00 right? My lungs quitting on me. And we are lonely in ourselves to death. And you've probably

35:06 talked about the research on this podcast about it's when our body recognizes that it's alone.

35:12 So back up and say 2000 years ago, we woke up on the plains in Nebraska and our tribe had left us.

35:17 Our bodies knew we were going to die. We were going to get eaten by something. We were going to be

35:21 exposed to the elements. And we're going to run out of water. We're going to die. And it had it's

35:26 pulsed through fight or flight, man, you better get on your horse and find your people now,

35:30 or you better get ready to fight off a bear because it's common, right? And we live like that 24/7,

35:35 365 year after year after year. And just like Drano, man, if you have a hair clog and you can

35:40 dump Drano in there once every two or three years, it'll eat the clog out fine. If you woke up every

35:44 morning and just dump Drano down your kitchen sink, it's going to eat through the pipes. And that's

35:48 the adrenaline in the cortisol. It's running day after day after day after day. All of that points

35:54 back to you cannot do life alone. It's more devastating to your body biochemically than cigarettes.

36:01 It's killing you. Get over yourself. And just was talking, just working through an active seal.

36:10 And I asked him, this is a strange question. I said, brother, when you were on mission,

36:15 when you are, no, your families don't know where you are. Everybody said, would you say you loved

36:21 those men? And that he said his response was heavy. His response was a deep and unique and

36:28 resounding love. And I can't imagine what it would be like to be connected in thought and breath

36:35 and mind and spirit for all those years of training, all those years of mission, all those years where

36:40 you look at each other and with one eyebrow move, you know, I'm going, you take flank.

36:43 And we can't talk about any of the stuff that happened ever. And then all of a sudden it

36:48 be shipped off out of San Diego out of Virginia. All right, you're free. Good to go. Go be a good

36:53 citizen and make good choices, right? That's a body screaming for connection. And you walk that

36:59 back to police officers, you walk that back to guys who just got off their high school baseball

37:03 team. That's why so many dudes are stuck in a college in high school. Yeah, bro, and I was

37:07 playing high school football because that's the last moment our brains were whole. And we were

37:12 beating on but we're bashing them against each other. That's when our brains were whole because

37:15 we had a gang. We had a team. We had a common mission. And until you get that and it cannot be your

37:20 wife and God help you. It can't be your kids. Stop dumping your relationships on children. They can't

37:26 carry that weight. But dude, you've got to get a group of men to do life with. And you have to get

37:30 a group of men that you love and who love you back. And if you're truly strong, you're truly a person

37:36 of character. You'll say it out loud. And it's fun now to start getting old. And most of my friends

37:42 are five, ten years older than me. And now I got guys who are empty nesters who we hang up the phone

37:47 and dude, I love fighting. I love it. And I wouldn't fight them. I got tougher than I am. And they say,

37:53 hey, I love you. Take care of your wife and hug your kids. It goes quick and they hang up the phone.

37:58 And it's become more and more common. Find a group of guys to love. And if you're rolling

38:02 your eyes right now, I'm specifically talking to you because you're going to die miserable,

38:07 quiet, lonely life and you're going to take everybody down with you.

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38:36 at prolonlife.com/now. Right. And it's going to it's going to eat you away from the inside.

38:42 And I'm glad you just as a side note, I'm glad you mentioned the not dumping our relationships

38:46 and burdens on our children. That was a section of the book that I loved. But I don't think it

38:51 really warrants any further, further delving into for a conversation today because you made the

38:56 point there. But you're absolutely right. The guys that I trained you just with on Sundays,

39:00 that's specifically a group of guys where we get together. We were all reading the same book.

39:03 We talk about it. I usually lead people through an especially brutal workout. And then we train

39:07 jujitsu. Half the guys in the room have done jujitsu for several years. The other half

39:11 don't even have an athletic background. They're just guys that are wanting to get in there and

39:14 mix it up and get after it. And so it's not just hanging out in a group. And it's not like this

39:18 this modern men's ministry thing where it's like, oh, you showed up. You're just a you're just a

39:21 warm body. Well, here's a group of seven or eight men. Go and be vulnerable. Right. It's like, no, no,

39:25 no, you have to earn vulnerability. That's right. Like I wouldn't spoke to a group and they never

39:30 invited me back shock of all shocks. But that's that was their model to just stick people in a group.

39:36 And I literally out loud to everybody and go, what did y'all do to earn that group? What did y'all

39:40 do to prove yourself to that group that you're not going to take those things that these these

39:44 burns that these guys are laying on you and use it against them later? Those guys don't trust you.

39:48 That's why when men accomplish things shoulder to shoulder, then they're able to accomplish things

39:53 in a circle where they can tell each other that they love them that I'm going to be here for you.

39:57 And they're the same guys that will grab you by the scruffier shirt. If they hear you say something

40:02 biting to your wife over dinner that embarrassed her because not only does he love you, he loves

40:06 your entire family tree. And most guys aren't even worried about it. But I'm going to take myself

40:11 back a little bit. This is this is my show, but it's an interview. Let's get back into the book

40:15 here in chapter eight. I thought this was a very interesting section. You were talking about bricks

40:20 in your backpack and the burdens that we're carrying. It's a very weighted type of movement

40:24 type of thing. But I wanted to get a little bit more insight on a very specific section.

40:28 So you have a section header titled, "We're not a society of weak wimps." And literally right after

40:35 reading this heading, I wrote in the margin, yes, we are. And I say this because of what's

40:41 underneath the heading, we'll get into that. I'll read it here. All this talk of stories and

40:45 bricks and trauma can sound woo woo. Like just another example of how we've all become a weak

40:49 society full of wimps and wusses, as if we're not tough as tough as we used to be. This narrative

40:55 is false. And so I got to tell you, John, I completely disagree with this narrative,

40:59 because I don't, I don't believe that we've gotten to this current degradation of our culture.

41:04 And you know, the American spirit in the American way, because a bunch of strong,

41:08 able, willing, smart dudes made a bunch of great decisions and moves in succession.

41:13 Right? I think we have gotten soft as a people. We are looking elsewhere as a victim would to see

41:20 who has caused this horrible thing to have befallen me. And so when I look out on humanity, John,

41:25 especially in America, I see this tremendous lack of resilience. And you actually mentioned

41:29 resilience early on in your book, and I freaking love that. It's like my favorite word in the

41:33 English lexicon. But I think part of the reason for that is because we spend so much time focusing

41:37 on our story and not just nutting up and fixing the crap that we've messed up or are going to get

41:43 our lives back. We navel gaze and we don't actually do anything. Am I crazy? Am I off?

41:48 So here's where my here's my pushback on that is

41:52 most people. So you and I have been there too. So this is the pot talking to kettle here.

42:00 We've seen it. We've been behind closed doors in the neighborhoods at 2 30 in the morning when

42:04 everybody in that neighborhood is asleep. We know. We know how this ends. Right. And we know

42:10 what could happen. Right. We've seen it. And very few people have, but those who have no.

42:14 What I've learned over the last couple of decades doing that kind of work is this.

42:20 Most people, this is I believe this to my core. Most people

42:25 want to be doing better. Most people want to live different lives. And most people have

42:33 absolutely zero none. No picture of what that looks like. And they have no model for this. And so

42:40 they can read all the books in there in that they want. But if you haven't seen it, if you don't

42:45 know what it looks like, then Jocko looks insane to you. Like, okay, cool. Let's say they see a great

42:50 man. I'm I'm glad that those guys are out protecting our country, but I don't know what that is.

42:54 Right. I'm just a single mom with two kids trying to figure out what day it is. Right.

42:58 Or I'm 24 years old. And I followed the path was laid out for me. I made relatively good grades.

43:05 I didn't smoke weed. I got well that nobody knows about. And I didn't go to jail. And then I went to

43:11 college. I owe $111,000 for my bachelor's degree now. And I'm a programmer in a debt. I just did

43:19 what you all told me to do. And so when I when I think of the trauma metaphor as a backpack full

43:25 of bricks or full of rocks that we're carrying this crap around. What I find is that when people

43:32 figure out that they are carrying this stuff around, that that person who hurt you this many

43:36 years ago, that that person who did these things, that life of poverty you were born into that

43:41 that was the air you breathe can be different. And they set those bricks down. Dude, I don't I

43:47 don't mean this in a negative way. When they take those backpacks off, they're stronger than me and

43:51 you. They are powerful. That's resilience. And so it's really shifting a mindset from if you can

44:00 literally sit down on a couch for nine hours and play a video game without moving. I can't do that.

44:07 You have something in your brain that is stronger and more powerful than me. Let me channel that

44:12 into actually changing the society for the better, changing your family tree, family changing your

44:17 unit. And you try to get off that couch and you suck in your loser. And that's all you'll ever be.

44:23 And mom will take care of all your crap for you. And nobody showed you how to get up and do a squat

44:27 and nobody even know what a burpee is. You think that's what happens when you eat too many Cheetos.

44:31 Like if somebody will give another picture for that person, dude, they are stronger than us.

44:38 I worked at a Hispanic serving university for a season there in Texas. It was an extraordinary

44:43 school. And to see some of my students who grew up, whose parents were uneducated, they were working

44:51 really hard as day laborers. And they took that work ethic. And they looked their kids in the eye

44:55 and said, Oh, oh, make no mistake, you're going to med school, right? And those students use that

45:00 work ethic and that drive and that power. And then they learn how the game works, the university

45:05 game works. Dude, they're 10x smarter than me, right? They're running laps around me. And they had way

45:12 further to go. And they were carrying a lot more crap in their bag. Right. So that's what I mean.

45:15 It's a statement of empowerment. It's not an excuse. And yes, if we look at bench press and we look

45:21 at like physical fitness metrics, dude, we're all dying from being overweight. Yeah, we can't do

45:26 pull ups or pushups. All that's true. Right. All that's true. But this is more of an innate

45:31 cycle. Dude, if you can do some of these things, you're pulling off all day every day. If we can

45:36 teach you how to be unleashed, man, it is, it is no holds barred. It is hell's breaking loose.

45:40 Right. It's, and it's also, and you said it there, it's calling them to something higher.

45:45 Right. So that's why I love watching like second gym or generation immigrants,

45:50 just get after it. Because like their parents from Korea or India or somewhere like that, and they're

45:55 like, Oh, you don't want to study. You don't want. Oh, okay. Well, let's just go with your once, dear.

46:00 No, they say you're going to study and you're going to get after and some people like, Oh,

46:03 that's pathological. And that's terrible. It's like, no, it's not. That person is going to get

46:07 after it for the rest of their life. But also you're calling them into another story, just a quick

46:11 story that I had. I used to be on this scholarship committee that we would pick people for one of

46:15 the biggest scholarships in the state of Oklahoma. And there was this kid that came in. He was like,

46:19 34 on his ACT, captain of the football team and basketball team. And like, he was Mr. Everything,

46:24 right? Comes to the university in his first semester, his grade point average was zero, zero.

46:31 And we're like, something must be wrong in the computer system. So we have some chats with this

46:35 kid and it's like, oh, you know, he's just trying to figure himself out, blah, blah, blah. Very

46:38 next semester, grade point average, zero fails out of college, right? What we found out about this

46:44 kid is his entire life was regimented by his mother. His mother told him when to wake up. She told him

46:48 what to eat for breakfast. She told him when he had to leave. She told him when he had to study. She

46:52 told him when he had to go to practice when his games were what he should do after the game. And

46:55 when he got to college, he's like, wait a minute, I can just bathe when I want to. I can go eat,

47:00 win and however much I want to. So the kid literally sat in his room and played World of Warcraft

47:05 for two semesters. And I have no idea where the kid is now. I hope he's doing fine.

47:08 But it's because he had been told his calling, but he was not welcomed into a calling.

47:13 His mom stole from him, right? His mom robbed him, right? That is the exact way.

47:17 And here's what sucks. This is the world. And it's, it's the way that it is.

47:20 He bears the, he bears the generational curse of his mother, who got her self-esteem,

47:29 who got her, who got her purpose in life by running his. And he's the one that we stare at and go,

47:36 you screwed this up. You got a golden ticket. You're a failure. You're a loser. And he's going,

47:41 I'll do it. I don't have the tools. And then I know enough about neuroscience to know his brain

47:47 is beating a drum inside of his head of, of all sorts of neurochemicals saying,

47:55 get up, go. You're a failure. You're a shame. You're a piece of crap. You're never going to.

47:58 And he knows it. And he knows it. And he knows it. And he knows it. And he knows it in the shame

48:01 cycle doesn't stop. It doesn't stop. It doesn't stop until flunks out of college kisses a beautiful

48:06 thing goodbye. And is that an excuse? No, it's a context. It's a context, not an excuse. Yeah,

48:10 that dude didn't go to class. He didn't go say, I need this something better. And, right, do I

48:15 give up on that kid? Do I call him a loser and weak? No, he clearly has the skills. What he needs

48:19 is a different set of tools in his toolkit. And that's, that's, I mean, go back to my show. That's

48:24 what we do, man. I'm just giving people different tools, man. Most people want to build the house.

48:28 All they have is a screwdriver and a, and a hammer, right? Yeah, get us all in a, in a couple others

48:34 in a level. It works way better, man. Well, some of these people, they go to a job site and all

48:38 they realize they have is a squirt gun. And so it's like, this is literally good for nothing,

48:42 except for [inaudible] off everybody that's on the work side. I have to actually get an after it.

48:45 Well, the last thing I want to talk about in your book, and guys, the book will be in the show

48:48 notes so you can go and get it yourself. Check it out. It is out. If you're listening to this on time,

48:51 it is out this week. So get those first week sales. Y'all get it towards the end of the book.

48:55 You take us through a story about you interacting with one of your classmates. I believe this was

48:59 during one of your PhD programs because you have two PhDs. But you talk about this quote

49:05 that this woman said to you that changed your life. And I absolutely love this quote. Her quote

49:09 to you was this, your clients don't get that type of access to you. They don't have permission to hurt

49:15 you. You decide who gets to hurt your feelings, John. And so, you know, I didn't tee it up super

49:21 properly, but you were talking about how, you know, you were being affected by some of the stories

49:25 of your clients and it was, you know, giving you the sads and all these different things.

49:28 But I love that quote. You decide who gets to hurt your feelings. We live in an era. I know this is

49:33 breaking news to you, John. We live in an era where there's no such thing as capital T truth.

49:37 There's your truth and my truth and their truth, right? There's no such thing as reality. There's

49:41 whatever I want to make me feel good. And then I get to change how you refer to me. I get to change

49:47 how society operates around me. And guess what? If you step out, lie outside of that line, even a

49:52 little bit, even if it's a microaggression, no way, you've hurt my feelings and now you must pay.

49:57 You must bow down before me, prostrate yourself before the king and the king is me at all times.

50:01 So help me understand how you've taken that quote. You decide who gets to hurt your feelings, John,

50:06 and kind of weaved it into this philosophy about how to lead a better life and not being such a

50:10 voice. So I would say the way you rattled it off, it's not all mutually exclusive that way.

50:20 So I would say two things guide my life. Number one, I have decided the six people who have

50:26 access to my inner being. Six people who I trust implicitly, I trust, I love implicitly, I value

50:37 their families and their kids, as you mentioned earlier, and they value mine. And so in like,

50:41 funny examples, I posted something on Instagram. I thought it was hilarious. And my buddy called

50:47 and said, Hey, dude, that was awesome. Take that down. And I was like, what in this guy, he's,

50:53 dude, he, I have a pretty foul mouth and he makes me blush. Like it's, it's, it's a special thing.

51:01 There's a special group of sailors that would revere this guy. And so I'm thinking in my head,

51:06 what do you mean? Tell, take it down. That's hilarious. And he goes, it is. And that's not who

51:11 you are. Take that down. And here's what I did. I took it down. I was kind of [inaudible], but I trust

51:17 him and I've given him permission to speak into my life. He's 10 years older than me. He's wiser

51:21 than me. He's seen more of the world than I have. And he knows as an outside reader, here's how I

51:26 took this. You sounded like an ass. And that's not who you are. And more importantly, that's not

51:31 who you're trying to be. Right. So I get to own that. And I also, the second operating strategy I have

51:37 is one of hospitality and kindness. You want me to call you Dan? I'll call you Dan. Like, I'm not

51:42 going to, I refuse to lose sleep over issues of hospitality. Right. The way I described that is

51:49 I had a colleague years ago saying, um, you know, this, this, just what they want us to, to say this,

51:56 I'm not going to say that. That's ridiculous. I'm doing the best I can. I love them. And they

52:01 just need to like accept it. Man, I'm working hard. And my response was, Hey, you've got a daughter,

52:07 I've got a daughter. She's on a date. And she's with the star quarterback and he's a handsome fella.

52:12 And he leans over and kisses her. Pretty hard. It's kind of his thing. And it's kind of cool that

52:19 the quarterback just kissed her daughter that she thinks. And also like, I can hurt. And he leans

52:24 in to do it again. And she stops and says, Hey, that hurts. Um, can we do it gently? And he said,

52:31 Nope, I'm going to love you all how I want to love you. I could care less how you want to be

52:36 loved. I'm going to be love you because I'm bigger than you. And there's more of me here than there is

52:40 of you. And he's like, Oh, no. And then he looked at me and his eyes got big and he goes, ah, see what

52:46 you just did there. Right. So my, I am not going to carry somebody else's negative energy. I'm just

52:53 not right. If you believe that, man, I need to put masks on all of my kids and my pets and my family.

53:01 Or you believe that masks are the sign of end times. And it's the, it's the slippery slope to

53:06 nuclear war. Great. You're all welcome at my house. I'll cook. Right. And you bring whatever half

53:13 bottle of whatever you got and I'll cook. Right. That's, that's been my philosophy. I'm going to

53:17 hold it really loosely. Why? I've sat with too many people whose kid, whose child is dead in the next

53:22 room. And I realized, dude, it goes fast, it goes fast. And so I'm going to hold it as loosely as

53:28 possible. And my values of which I've got about 10, they are etched in stone. Right. And so if we

53:36 cross those values, yeah, I'm going to stand up. If you come into my home, then I'm going to ask

53:41 you to be hospitable because it's my house. Right. If we're going to sit down and have a hard

53:45 discussion, then I'm going to ask you to say, I'm sorry, because I'm going to say, I'm sorry,

53:48 I'm going to ask you to be forgiving because I'm forgiving. I'm asking you to give grace because

53:52 I'm going to give grace. And then we're going to say past the roles. Right. And is that a pie in

53:56 the sky? Can you do that with world leaders who are just bent on blowing things up? Nope.

54:00 There's a time. That's why we train. Right. There's a time when those times when are so few and

54:05 far between usually it's, Hey, man, I'm sorry, I bumped you in this bar. I'm going to buy you a

54:10 drink and have a great night. Do I got to protect my met? No, dude, I have to protect anything. Why?

54:15 Because I'm a good husband. I'm a good dad. I'm a good community member. I got an emergency fund.

54:19 I don't own anybody any money. Life is pretty good. And this guy's obviously struggling with

54:23 something that I'm not. I'm going to buy him a drink. I'm going to move on with my day.

54:26 Right. And that's my ethos towards the world and all the internet trolls and all of the like,

54:32 Oh my gosh, I can't believe you go hunting with your kid. You murder. That's great, man. And I'm

54:36 sorry that you don't do that. It's a pretty special experience that I have and I love it.

54:40 And I also honor the fact that you don't. How about this? You don't have to write on my Instagram.

54:44 Like that's cool. Let's, let's, we can be friends. And I promise I'm not going to come to your,

54:49 to your vegan site and throw bombs at you because I've got vegans in my life who I love. And I mock

54:54 their carrots the same way they mock my steak. And then we all our kids play together and we laugh.

54:58 Right. So I'm going to hold it so, so loosely in the things I got to hold tight are going to be

55:02 very few and far between including other people's opinions of life. Well, and you can also take

55:08 those opinions that other people have and do this. Oh, I just put my phone down and I'm not

55:12 looking at it. I know there's this incredible thing. I didn't know it was on this. It's called an

55:16 off button. I'm just turning it off. Look at it. You don't have to leave it on for the two years

55:21 until you get your new one. But I do want to do two couple follow ups on the thing that you just

55:25 talked about. So when another guy in your life corrects you, you need to really, and I'm saying

55:31 this generally not to you, John, you got a really war night deal with that in the most

55:37 masculine and mature way possible. I had a guy years ago, he was with a bunch of dudes at a bar

55:44 and he's an accountant and he's not like, you know, this really, really bad dude. And they were all

55:48 flipping off the camera. And so he gives the double birds to the camera. I see the picture,

55:52 he posted online and I call him and I go, Hey, man, I saw that you're hanging out with those guys.

55:56 I love those guys. You should probably take that picture down because who is that for?

56:01 Is that for your CPA audience? Is that for it? For the people that you're going to be filing

56:05 their taxes? Who exactly is that for? And he flipped. He was ready to go. He's ready to fight,

56:10 right? With me. And he tells his dad later about what happened and his dad very calmly said,

56:15 well, did you take it down? And was that the right thing to do? And he's like, well, yeah.

56:21 And so it was like, but he immediately wanted to like, no, you're not going to challenge my

56:24 masculinity. I make all the right decisions here and all that. So I just wanted to kind of read

56:28 it. Can we can I lean into that real quick? Yes. Here's what's important. If you will be

56:33 curious about your body's response to things, that's the answer. Be curious about your body.

56:39 If your friend calls you and says, Hey, bro, cute, you still part your hair the same way you did when

56:45 your mom did it for you and you're an accountant, take down the double bird photo. If you instantly

56:50 go to rage, stop and don't get be curious. Why is my body trying to protect me right now? What's

56:56 it protecting me of? And I guarantee you, it's going to be a story that this is what this looks

57:01 like. You're not allowed to do this. You've been told this is the right way to live your life.

57:05 And this is my life I can do. Right. And then you got to look in the mirror and own reality,

57:10 acknowledge it. Dude, I'm going to, I'm an accountant. Right. That's what I do. And I'm really not a

57:15 double bird kind of guy. I could be that guy. I'm going to have fewer clients. And it's going to

57:19 be weird. I'm going to end up with a sleeve tattoo that my other buddies are like, all right, cool,

57:23 man. Did you get the pie symbol tattooed on your right? Cool. Whatever. You're going to end up there

57:28 and congratulations. We'll golf club for you and we'll all buy chips in case. So but

57:32 like, what are you doing? Right. Follow your body back. And it always comes back to you. You got

57:35 to own the store. Why am I mad? Right. When that guy cut me off in the highway, why am I mad?

57:39 That guy has nothing to do with me. Why am I mad? Oh, it's because I don't want my kids to grow up

57:45 without a dad. And my dad didn't show up for me. And I, my body remembers this story and that

57:51 guy's trying to take it away from me because he's texting and thriving. That's why I'm [inaudible] off.

57:54 I'm going to take my foot off the gas and slow down a little bit, right? Because that's what I can

57:57 control. So man, I love that. Thank you for bringing that up. Well, that's a great thing,

58:01 because this is a guy that I love and respect and love his family. And you know, he came full

58:04 circle with it. And I can't talk trash on him. Like the number of times that I have been like

58:10 level 10 through the roof angry about stuff that doesn't even have anything to do with me. The

58:14 number of times I've let sports ruin my night, like I refuse. I'm in my mid 30s. And it's like,

58:19 I'm never, I'm never ever going to let sports ruin my night ever, ever again. But there was

58:24 another thing that you brought up. I'm just going to blow up the rest of my interview because we're

58:26 running out of time. I had all these really cute questions. I want to ask you, you're really really

58:30 smart. But this is something I think is it is incredibly important because you talked about

58:34 things that are etched in stone. This is etched in stone for me. And that is truth,

58:37 capital T truth that there is truth. So you brought something up earlier. So like,

58:41 if somebody says I want to be called Dan, then call them Dan. So if I've known this person,

58:45 their entire life is Darla. And then one day they come to me and say, Kyle, I've changed my name to

58:50 Dan. Fair enough. I'll call you your new name. You can even you don't even have to show me your

58:54 driver's license. That's great. But if Darla tries to tell me that not only is she Dan now, but she

59:02 is now also a he and that we should change society around he she they, you know, sir, whatever,

59:09 that's where I'm like, no, I'm not going to go with you down this path where I'm feeding into your

59:16 delusion. If you are, if you said you were a ficus, I wouldn't water you. If you said you were a dog,

59:21 I'm not going to take you for a walk. I'm not going to do that because capital T truth,

59:24 like a name is a name. I don't care what your name is, right? Your hair color, your piercings,

59:29 none of that matters to me. But I do care about truth. And the moment you start saying that the,

59:34 you know, gender binary, we're getting into, you know, really, really tough subjects here. And I

59:38 know you got to kind of toe the line because of who you work for. But that's, that's the thing

59:41 that is so I don't toe lines very well. So yeah, let's go. I don't like toe and lines either.

59:46 Let's jump right into it. But that's the thing for me is it's like capital T truth. We can't go

59:50 beyond that. That does not give me license to hate you. That does not give me license to treat

59:55 you as less than. But I believe that you were born in the image of God, male and female. He

59:59 created them, right? And so I want to call you in to a higher place of being where you embrace

1:00:05 who God created you to be, regardless of your name, regardless of your hair color. So that's

1:00:10 very, very important to me. What's say you to that? So I think two things are important there.

1:00:16 One is perspective of truth. And throughout history, millions and millions and millions

1:00:25 and millions of people, here's another hot button issue. We're told that the world is flat. And so

1:00:30 they didn't take their boats out too far. And they didn't venture and they didn't start new things

1:00:34 until they learned something different until somebody had the audacity to say, I'll go to Mars

1:00:39 and I'm not coming home, right? And all of a sudden they found out the thing was round. And so

1:00:44 there's a perspective on truth that we sit in, regardless of what it is. And so what you just said,

1:00:49 I am made in the image of God and I want to call people into that truth. I've got very dear friends

1:00:56 who are and I happen to be a, I believe in God, I've got friends who are dear friends and our kids

1:01:03 have played together for years and they are stone atheist and they would call me into their truth.

1:01:09 And let's, so truth is a matter of perspective and there's a bedrock of truth, right? That we

1:01:15 sit on like four plus fours is just eight, man. I almost said four plus four six and that would

1:01:20 have been awesome. It's eight. So it's here's the thing, it's navigating. When is this in stone

1:01:26 and when is this a truth that we've known for a long time? And you said it at the very end there,

1:01:30 what we tend to do is just to draw lines and say, absolutely not. I refuse to fill in the blank.

1:01:38 I refuse to hang out with this group. I refuse to say those words. I refuse to go to this particular

1:01:42 place. I refuse to put on that mask. I refuse to get this shot, whatever the thing is, right?

1:01:46 What I want to do is to call people around a table, have a conversation,

1:01:50 invite people into your house, who you believe share different truths than you,

1:01:57 if it's safe, right? And that to me is where I'm going to learn a different perspective around

1:02:01 an issue. It may not change it, but it's going to humanize the issue and what we often lose in the

1:02:06 truth conversations is the human beings. We killed Galileo, right? We killed them. We killed Jesus.

1:02:12 We killed these folks who said, Hey, there's another way to do this because it was outside the norm.

1:02:16 It was quote, unquote, not truth. And so I always want to hold that very loosely. And at the same

1:02:21 time etch into stone, here's what I firmly believe. And if I run up against somebody who believes

1:02:25 something different, not not has different thoughts or different feelings, but no, this is truth,

1:02:31 then bro, that's the first I smile big and say, dude, grab some hot dogs and come over, man,

1:02:36 let's figure this out. Let's have a good time with this. And those have become some of my deepest,

1:02:39 closest friends because, man, I've got no interest in going to war with people because it just ends

1:02:45 up in piles of bodies. Well, John, like, I agree with some of those sentiments. Like, I love having

1:02:50 conversations with people that disagree with me vehemently than people that agree with me

1:02:54 vehemently, because that can only go so many places when everybody just agrees. It's like, Oh,

1:02:57 we love all the same music movies and people. Great. Let's be bored for the next 45 minutes.

1:03:02 But when you're talking with somebody and you're actually sparring and engaging with them,

1:03:04 the difference is is whenever you invite someone to a conversation, which is like 2022 speak for,

1:03:09 you know, we're not going to have a anyway, I'll leave that alone. I was going to say some kind of

1:03:13 read. But like, when you bring it, let's do it. Let's do it. Well, eventually, we have to get to

1:03:18 what is true. Because if you so so your friends that are atheists, right, or agnostics or whatever,

1:03:24 right, you both can't be right. They can't believe that God doesn't exist and you believe that God

1:03:30 does exist and you're both right. Only one of you can be right. My friend who is in the special

1:03:35 operations force that, you know, ask me, God, why the F do you care if I believe in God? Why do you

1:03:39 care so much? I was like, brother, because if you're wrong, it's your eternity. If I'm wrong,

1:03:44 we both end up as worm food. It doesn't matter. I wasted all this time and effort and money going

1:03:49 to church and trying to bless people. But it's all fake. We can't both be true. We can't both be

1:03:54 right. You know what I mean? And I don't let those people access to going back to the previous

1:03:59 conversation. They don't get a vote in my life, right? It's when you say, you're no longer allowed

1:04:06 to do this. You're no longer allowed to go to a house of worship. You're no longer allowed to go

1:04:11 to a gym. You're not allowed to eat meat anymore. We've decided meat is murder and we've thrown out

1:04:16 biochemistry and all the things like we've decided these things. Once your truth then is imposed on

1:04:24 what I think is not what I think, what I feel and believe and know and have studied, etc.

1:04:28 That it's going to inform different actions that I got to take. Yeah, then I'm going to it's going

1:04:33 to run up against one of my values, right? But until then, yeah, man, the let's have a conversation

1:04:39 about it is usually, yeah, it's code for we're going to end up doing what I want to do, right?

1:04:46 That's exactly. And it's because we're obsessed with I got to please everybody. And dude, I just

1:04:54 I'm I just don't have that energy anymore. I just spent 30 years with my hands clenched so tight

1:05:01 looking for the next fight. I just couldn't I couldn't wait to find the next fight, whether it was

1:05:06 academic or intellectual or physical, I couldn't wait. And dude, what a waste. What a waste. What

1:05:13 an absolute waste. And so I'm spending way more energy on love and hospitality than I am on

1:05:18 anything else until you say, Hey, you have to have to do this. And then I'm going to really

1:05:25 lean up against. Let's have another conversation because this one's different. Well, I got to tell

1:05:32 you, I feel like we left about 45 minutes on the bone on this interview. So that just means we're

1:05:37 going to have to do it again, man, let's do it again show or your show. We'll figure it out with

1:05:40 the world needs to keep this conversation going. But as of now, that's all for me. Is there anything

1:05:44 else you want to get off your chest? I'm grateful for your brother. Thank you so much for your

1:05:48 hospitality and for that cool lion face behind your head. Hey, I do my best. John Deloney,

1:05:52 thank you for coming on Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. Thanks, brother.

1:05:55 There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with John Deloney. But before we let you go,

1:05:59 we are going to do a quick resilience boost at Undaunted Life. Our mission is equipping

1:06:02 men to push back darkness with content that for just spiritual, mental and physical resilience.

1:06:06 So here are the links I've got for you today. I got a link to the book that we talked about

1:06:09 mainly on the podcast, which is own your past, change your future and also his other book he

1:06:13 released in 2020 called redefining anxiety, what it is, what it isn't and how to get your life back.

1:06:17 I've also got links to the Ramsey Solutions page so you can get a little bit more information on

1:06:21 John Deloney and some of the things that he's doing. But also I've got a link to his YouTube

1:06:25 show and his podcast show so you can check that out as well. All right, guys. Thanks so much for

1:06:28 listening to this show. We do appreciate it. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe,

1:06:32 rate and leave us a positive five star review. If you want to come speak live at your event or

1:06:35 on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@undaunted.life. That's iNFO@undaunted.life. You can follow us on

1:06:41 Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to

1:06:44 donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undaunted.life and we

1:06:50 want to also thank the band August Burns Red for allowing us to use their music for our content.

1:06:54 The music on this podcast is our song cutting the ties, which is off their 10th anniversary

1:06:57 re-recording of their album Leveler. The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.

1:07:03 Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.

1:07:09 Keep seeking the lion of Judah.

1:07:39 [Music]