The Fear That’s Secretly Hurting Your Relationship with Dr. John Delony

Welcome to the Jefferson Fisher Podcast, where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything. If you feel like this looks a little bit different, because it is a little bit different. My family's up here around Nashville checking out the area, saying hi to some friends. And while I was up here, I contacted one of my very best friends, said, hey, why don't I just come and talk to you in your own studio? It is the one, the only, Dr. John Delony. What's going on, man?

Have you ever been on this side of the chair? This is fantastic.

Yeah, this is awesome. So we're recording in the Dr. John Delony Show studio, which is way cooler than mine. I gotta say, I really, really like it. Your team's incredible. So it's been great to sit here and be with everybody. In case you're not familiar with Dr. John Delony, not only is he a very good friend, he is somebody with two, not just one PhD, two PhDs. He is a bestselling author. He is a mental health expert.

You're, I would say—

It's kind of a stretch.

Well, I'd say expertise in crisis response.

There you go.

And all things related to navigating anxiety. How'd I do there?

Yeah, man.

Awesome.

Yeah.

You rattled that off better than I did.

Yeah. Well, man, thank you so much for just sitting down with me for a little bit and having a conversation. So biggest thing that you know in my podcast and my whole area is communication. So one of the things I'm most curious about are what are some of the things that we do in communication that make our anxiety worse or better?

Ooh, good question. Probably we don't communicate at all.

We hold it.

And then we imagine a thing happens.

I get inside your head and decide why you did what you just did, or why you didn't do what you, what you should have done, what I think you should have done. And I have an imaginary interaction with you, and then I have a physiological response to that fight or that discussion we just had that we didn't have, right?

And so As I've traveled across the country, I hear this the most, that people have that imaginary conversation in the shower.

It's the only time there's no phone, there's no nothing, and they're in there and the hot water's shooting down their back and they think to themselves, man, Jefferson didn't even call. He's like, that dude never calls.

And he—

and then I'm off to the races. And so I have this imaginary communication that I never have. And then you're just out there having coffee and I walk out and I am halfway through a fight that we did not even know we were in. Yeah, you're like, hey and I'm like, don't hate me, and it's all off to the races, right?

I definitely— I have those conversations in the car. Mine are in the car. If it's quiet in the car, you kind of just have that argument out in your head, and you're like, oh, and all of a sudden you kind of get worked up about how you're going to respond.

That's the thing I didn't know, is your body doesn't know the difference whether we're having a real fight or an imaginary one.

It just starts to respond. And so you get to work and you're fired up, and then maybe your wife will text you and be like, have a great day.

And you're like, oh, have a great—

right, you're already off to the off to it.

Yeah.

Do you find that when people are having anxiety, like in that moment when they're coming to you and they're like, I just feel— I mean, your book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you wrote all about this. It's a wonderful book for anybody who has not listened to that. I grabbed it. You need to get it. When I first had my— I've shared when I first had my panic attack, you were one of the first people that I reached out to of like, what is this? What is this feeling? I don't know what's going on. Of that in communication, especially what I have found that builds a lot of anxiety is when we not only, like you said, have these assumptions of we're doing the thinking for them, we're already assuming, but also it's the fear of the unknown of I don't know what's going to happen. I'm doing everything wrong. What do you find in your expertise and the people that have come to you that when they're in that state of anxiety, what's the number one thing that's on their mind? Like, what do they need fixed?

Hmm. So I think I'll answer it this way. I don't think—

outside of a bell curve, right?

There's way over here and way over here.

But I think most people assume that if I'm anxious, there's something wrong with me. And I don't operate that way. I think usually your body's right.

To answer that question at the deepest level, um, whenever we do a marriage retreat, one of the things I always do halfway through the thing is to have everybody look directly at their spouse and say the words. I say, only say this if you mean it: I will never leave. And beneath, like, the how to fight and how to, how to repair relationships and sex and money, all those things—

I'll never leave. Without fail, it's just a room of sobbing people, because I think beneath that that layer is, my boss is going to fire me, my son is going to turn his head and walk away, my wife is— if she knew, she's gonna leave. And so all this theater and all this buildup is, there's gonna be a breaking of a relationship that we can't come back from.

And so there's something powerful about having a stake in the ground.

I'm never gonna leave.

And when you're tethered that way, when your boss is like, I'm never gonna fire you, when you're tethered in, now we can actually do that thing.

Right, which is have that interaction.

Because the, the stake in the ground, that's, that's where their mind goes in the anxiety.

That's where your body is solving for. If you say what you really need, if you say what you want, if you say what you're really frustrated about, they're gonna go.

Because maybe dad did when you were a kid, or maybe mom did, or maybe mom was there but she just scrolled the day away.

Yeah. And so she was present but she was gone. And there's this sense of they're gonna leave and I think anxiety at its root is a fear of you're all—

you're gonna be all by yourself, and if they're gone, they're gone. And so we create all this stuff. Yeah, all this theater around that to protect that, to protect that, to really stop from being alone. Right.

And I find that in conversation, a lot of times when people, um, especially in relationships, it could be a surface-level little conversation, a little argument but it's very deeply rooted in a trigger and insecurity that has to do with abandonment. It has to do with I'm not enough. It has to do with they're going to leave. In their mind, even though their body's saying the very worst possible outcome, which is being alone, but that's not what their mind is saying in that moment. Their mind is saying, this is all your fault, this is all that's happening to you. Do you find— I mean, does that resonate with what you see?

Well, and Yeah, if you're a kid and mom is scrolling, the biology is your body's trying to solve what's more— why is that thing more beautiful than me?

Why does that thing have more value than me?

That's great.

I remember when Hank, um, my son, when I moved to Nashville, the one gift I bought myself was a Major League ticket to watch the Astros.

Lifelong Houston Astros fan, obsessive. That's the one thing I bought myself.

And I would get home from my new job and it was too much, and it was just—

I'd never been the chief officer at a place. Let that be. I was—

get home and I would collapse. And so we went from being in Texas, we played baseball all the time, him and I were always playing catch, whatever, to watching it. Yeah.

And one day, he's 5 or 6, there's no manipulation here at all, he just said, Dad, do you love me as much as the Astros? And I just went— turned it off.

Like, that's it.

Because he was just asking, we used to do these things together, we're not.

Yes.

I wonder, what is this awesome Why is this awesome?

And his body's asking, why is that more important to your father than to me? Because a thousand years ago, that meant you're on your own, and kids can't be on their own. And I have, I have taken that with me all the way till I'm 40 years old, 50 years old, 60 years old.

Yeah.

Is that if there's a fracture in relationship, it's because I'm unlovable, I did a thing, or I'm not as good as. And man, I will fight you for that.

I will cuddle up next to you. I will squash myself for 30 years. Any of wants and desires, whatever.

I'll squash all that just to be in a relationship with you, and eventually it explodes.

And counseling, we call that leakage.

It will find a way out. And usually it's—

can you define that for the listeners, what leakage is?

Yeah, it's this sense— it's your body will have to exhale all that stuff you shove down. And so if you're scared about finances, it will come out yelling at somebody for leaving the cereal bowl out. Pick up your stuff!

Like, right, it's nothing to do with or it will build and build.

Um, I'm gonna overgeneralize it here, but it's often the wife of 35 years who worked a full-time job and took care of 100% of the housework. And every time husband came home from 8 hours at the golf course and was like, hey, I'm gonna move all of our money out of this 401k into this investment my buddy's got—

like, all that comes out in this.

Yeah. And then he's like, what What, what are you so mad about?

All right, the shoes are by the door and it's like, you never— and it all comes out.

Yeah. And so if you will be diligent about checking in once a week, if you do those things to have exit strategy—

I mean, I think of it like a steam engine. Like, if you have those check-in points, if you have those connection points, um, it doesn't build and build and build, but it will come out, right?

Yeah, it'll come out in addiction, it will come out some way.

I can definitely see that. Like, my my own mom, she was the type that her mother didn't give her anything. She's the type that if her mother lent her $1.92, she better come back with $1.92. You know, where are my pennies?

Right.

And so she would have 2 to 3 jobs. She paid for her own wedding, her own wedding dress. I mean, she did everything. And so I can see that now as an adult, like that comes out in so many different ways of, Managing, always having to be very, I would say she would agree that sometimes it would be overbearing. It was always very tight to keep that. So that resonates with me on this element of leakage of never feeling like she was getting support.

And it comes out in weird ways.

Yeah, in very weird ways that I didn't appreciate back then, but now I do. I'm curious with, I wanna talk about parents now, like adults. Our parents to where, how do you feel that we communicate? Let me rephrase this. How does our relationship with our parents impact how we communicate now, for better or for worse? And let's take it in the worst category. If you don't have a good relationship with your father, for example, there might be somebody listening who didn't have a good relationship or didn't really have a father or a bad relationship with their mother, really didn't have a mother. How do you find that that now, when you're talking to them and they come to you and they have those kind of— what would they say— the mom issues or the dad issues, how do you find that that resonates in their life?

I mean, it ricochets through every square inch of their life. Um, you go looking for a maternal figure or a father figure in all kinds of ways, and really underneath that, you try to find people to plug that gap that you can anchor into.

And so Now, um, I say this flippantly, but it's— it's— I say it because I have to, because it's—

it's devastating. We've created the loneliest generation in human history. We all connect like that. That's a big— like, that's why I call you, or I'm like, hey, let's see each other in person, because otherwise it can get real quick that we just text. That's it. And that's just our life.

And so your body will anchor into a political party now.

Your body will anchor into a sports team. Your body will anchor into anything Desperately seeking that one, that one call. Um, hey John, I just want to let you know I'm really proud of you.

Yeah, I had, uh, there's a psychiatrist— I was at a business event and she was—

she had managed to stay open during COVID and she basically gobbled up all the other business. And so when COVID lifted, she had like— her practice was crushing and she had hired several new people and she was Well, then a few years later she said, hey, we're making more money than we know what to do with, and, um, we've got this.

I've hired this many new psychiatrists, we're crushing this way.

And I just interrupted her, and I'm gonna be honest with you, I was throwing spaghetti at the wall just to guess, right? It's not like I'm a savant. But I said, he hadn't called yet, has he? She looked at me and I said, your dad has not called and said, hey, I'm really proud of you. And she just started sobbing.

And it was this, this engine chasing this thing.

Right?

And the thing that we don't do well as a culture is grieve.

Like, put a period at the end of that relationship. We don't do that well. And so we will chase it and chase it and chase it in all kinds of ways, or we'll stay angry about it and frustrated about it.

How many times—

I won't ask you this, I'll tell you—

how many times have I shown up to Thanksgiving thinking this is going to be the different one, right?

This one will be different, right? Every year it's the same. Right, it's the same exact—

the dynamic is the same, the exchanges are the same, my mom ending up in tears is the same, me and my sister making inappropriate jokes, and my brother trying to—

it always is the same. And so 25 to 30% of every call that comes into my show is about fractured adult relationship.

We cut our parents off, they've cut us off. That's, that's—

it's, it's wild to me.

And also, you—

we, we talk a lot about the that boomer generation that's starting to age pretty quickly, they've accumulated all this stuff. They don't want to hang out with us, right?

They don't want to be a part of this life. And to their credit, like, this world doesn't make sense, right?

You have to attach this device to your car so that you can get to it. The whole thing is just too much.

And so it's easier just to stay and to surround yourself.

And then everything is pumped into their mind is it's all coming down, you're gonna die, you're gonna die, you're gonna die, right?

So I get that.

But there's just this wild fracture. And so for me, for the people I talk to, it's often making peace with— this is your parents, or lack of, and you have to put a period at the end of that, and you have to be sad for a while. And then you have to go do the hard work and say, who is going to fill—

what person?

Yeah, not group that you're trying to anchor into.

What person?

What people are going to fill that for you?

Is that a local church?

Is that your neighbor? Um, I live 17 hours away from my parents now. I've got a couple of surrogate older men in my life that serve that for me, right?

And, uh, surrogate older women in my life. They're never gonna be my mom or my dad.

I don't want them to be. But man, I gotta have some presence, right, that will say you did a good job on that.

Yeah, I definitely— in my own life, I have one set of grandparents that they'll never come visit you.

No.

If you want to spend time with them, you got to go.

That's right.

Up to them. And kids can only be around for a little bit, and it's just— that's, that's it. That's the way it was. And I look at his life and he was sent off to a boarding school when he was like 8 and hardly saw his parents and he just never really had that. And you can see even now, he never really grew up with a lot of that father figure stuff. And so he didn't pass that down and that's where it went. But what I find in communication, a lot of the questions that I get, that same type of thing where somebody, it's usually a spouse, will put the other spouse on like a pedestal to where they want, how they wanted their dad or their mom to be. And then when they communicate, they're almost talking to the parent.

Always.

To their parent, not really to the spouse. It's them. They have like this gold standard that their spouse can never meet, could never, doesn't even matter.

'Cause that's not real.

Exactly. And it's all in their head of what they wanted their dad to be or their mom to be.

It's in their nervous system. It's called— the old marriage counseling phrase is you marry your unfinished business. And say that again. You marry your unfinished business. And it's not an adult in your head kind of thing.

It is a 9-year-old kid saying, what was it about me that was less important than your job? What was it about me that was less important than your beauty regimen or whatever?

Or And it can be as benign as this. And we way overuse the word trauma, so I don't want to do that.

But if you were 9 years old during the low-fat era, right, when the only thing that mattered was that you were skinny, that was it, right? That was it.

And Jane Fonda and the leggings and the cardio for 20 minutes.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Everyone was on a diet. 24/7.

My mom had all the tapes.

Oh, God. Never watched them. Videos, tapes, the Walkman, right? Everything.

Tab, diet tab, all that stuff.

But you're a 9-year-old girl and you walk down the stairs and your mom just looks at you and goes, oh honey, you look pudgy in that shirt, let's go change that shirt, right?

We want the boys to like us, we want the boys to think you're cute, right?

And you're 9 and you're like, yeah. Then boom, at that moment I learned that my beauty is extrinsic. Somebody else, somebody else gets to judge that and pass it on to me. And that just becomes a thing you chase. And what you end up doing is you marry somebody who is like You can wear that, right? And you want that 9-year-old girl to—

that's someone to look at her and go, you are the most beautiful person I've ever seen. And you, you'll never find it, right?

Because you expect that person— and by the way, you got to say it in a way that makes me quote unquote feel, and nobody will feel that, right?

And so you're chasing this feeling, this feeling, and nobody, like you said, nobody can ever match that. And so it's about exhaling and saying, this is the person I'm This is the person I married. They can't fill that gap. I gotta go do that work and let that little 9-year-old girl go play, for God's sakes, wear whatever shirt she wants to wear.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, you were at my house last night. My daughter has worn the same sequin shirt for probably 17 straight days. Yeah. And she wears it backwards. She wears it backwards.

I love it. I mean, my daughter does the same thing. My daughter's 5.

And I— we're in a restaurant the other night and the waitress was awesome. And I go, man, will you solve something? Me and my daughter on a date.

And I said, is that shirt on backwards?

And I saw the— it ticking, and she said, is there a tag? And my daughter looked, and she looked up and smiled. There was a tag.

Yeah.

And I was like, you know what, you can wear that shirt backwards all you want. And she was like, yeah.

And you know, it was like this awesome victory.

But right, that could have been the moment where like, nobody's gonna like you if you wear your shirts backwards.

Yeah.

I said, dude, you're 9. Yeah. Wear your shirt however you want to wear it.

However you want. For my daughter, it's her Frozen— she has these Frozen slippers, these shoes. She— every outfit she wears, all of this is like, hey, does it work? Absolutely, it works.

And that's it. And, and I think the difference between how we're parenting and how we are parented is, we will—

that's, that's not a hill I'm going to die on.

Yeah.

Right.

Before we keep going, this episode is brought to you by Cozy Earth. One thing that I love about Cozy Earth is their bedsheets and their bath towels. I am officially at the age where I really care about that kind of stuff.

I care a lot about what I'm sleeping in and when I'm traveling, it's— there's nothing worse than knowing that that's not your bed. It's not how it feels. The sheets aren't great.

I've never had to worry about that with Cozy Earth. Once we put them on our bed sheets at home, on every single bed, it's been a game changer.

So if you're like me and you enjoy having cool cozy sheets, I'm going to encourage you to go to cozyearth.com/Jefferson for 40% off. That's an entire 40% off, y'all. Cozyearth.com/Jefferson, use the code Jefferson.

That's the key, use the code Jefferson for 40% off.

They have a 100-night Risk-free trial.

So what's stopping you?

Go to Cozy Earth. How do you see the fear of abandonment come up in communication, or at least manifest? I know we talked about leakage, how it spreads throughout everything. Specifically, the fear of abandonment. I see that a lot in emails that I get of people saying, I want to argue, I want to have a conversation, but they're always— that they make this conversation feel like this is the very last one they're ever going to have, and they feel like this is either life or death kind of conversation. And it prevents me from having the difficult talks with them because they feel like if, if there's any kind of struggle, any kind of conflict, they want to avoid it.

Why?

Because if we actually talk about it, he's gone, she's gone. Yeah.

Well, and I think one of my core tenets is you have to choose reality. If that's true, if they're actually going to leave, then y'all need to have that conversation because they're already gone.

Yeah, they've already left you.

They're just staying on the couch, right?

Most of the time we end up having a lot of proxy wars. You don't make enough money. I don't like the way you dress. You're always on playing video games. Those are all proxy wars, and we fight at that surface level and never get to the actual issue.

Define proxy wars.

Um, it's a— it's a proxy war in a household is— I mean, it's—

they happen at the global level too, right?

But it's a battle over here. China and the US, if they got in a fight everybody dies. So they're gonna fund this little country to fight that little country. They're going to check out each other's technology. They're going to see what are y'all doing, how do y'all respond to this.

But we're not gonna fight you because that fight is too costly.

Little battles.

That's little battles all over the place about silly things or dumb things or even big things, right? Um, but most of the time those things are fought over here. There's a little tiny— there's, there's peace, and then we go on about our life. And so if you really think honestly, if you're honest with yourself—

and I suggest people write this stuff down, get that out of your head— because Most of the time you write down like, he's not gonna leave, she's not gonna actually leave. If she will, then she's already gone and y'all need to have that conversation. You don't want to, but y'all need to have that conversation.

And there's a real cost economically, there's a real cost, um, relationally, there's a real cost spiritually.

That's real, but you're having it anyway. The other side of it is sit down and actually have the true conversation.

And you know this better than me, but almost not 99.9% of the time whatever you're about to enter into, start with I statements.

Yeah.

Instead of you, because the moment you say the word you, we're at war.

Yeah.

And I have to defend myself, right?

Yep. Every time.

Every time.

When you hear somebody say— you ask them how they are and they say, I'm fine, I'm fine. Now with your two PhDs, how do you see that situation when they say I'm fine, but they're anything but fine?

I have two— well, it depends on if I'm in a close relationship with somebody.

Let's say it is. Let's say you're in a—

If I saw you and we were hanging out, I was like, you doing good? And you're like, I'm fine.

I would know, no, you're not. And so I would have a good enough relationship with you that I would say, dude, you're not. We don't have to talk about it, but you're not. And if you want to talk about it, we can.

Well, that's an important point though, of not forcing the conversation. But just knowing—

I see and the door's open.

I'm not going to drag you through that door.

And I think especially in romantic relationships, one partner tries to just drag the other person through that door. We're talking right now. You never want it— it's the worst, right?

So I'm not gonna do that, but I would need you to know I see that.

Okay.

If I don't know you, I almost never ask the question, how are you? Because that's such a—

you don't want to know, right, that my mom's got cancer.

You don't want to know that I might lose my job, right? So I try not to put somebody in that position. The same as my dad was a homicide detective, right? So when I'd get in trouble as a kid, come home late, It was like, so tell me about last night, right? Like, it was—

we were sitting in an interrogation room, right? And it was on, right?

And now it's me versus my dad.

If I can beat my dad, I'm pretty good, right?

Right.

I don't do that to people.

Like, if I have an employee and I know they stole something, I'll say, hey, there's $500 missing and you're the last person that had that.

We can't steal at this company. And so—

and I'm not going to be like, so did you take the— I'm not going to do that. And so same with those kind of questions, like How are you? How are things going? Almost it— when I ask you, how are you doing? It puts me in a lifeguard stand above you. And I tried— I tried to—

breathing.

Yeah.

If it— well, it adds a power hierarchy. Like, how are you? You know, I mean, it—

yeah.

If you don't know the person, I don't know you.

Like, how are you?

Yeah.

And so I like to— and I don't know somebody, and this sounds strange— I like to get underneath that power hierarchy, give you the—

like, lift you up.

You tell me about your day, man. Yeah, like, you look fantastic. I want to elevate you the best I can.

Yeah.

And let you know I'm with you.

I'm not trying to— well, how are you? Well, how are you?

Right, right. I think that's right.

The—

what we've talked about too is you try to use phrases that instead of our evaluation, like, how are you?

It's a very Jefferson way.

Yeah, yeah.

Using more action.

What's going on? What's happening this weekend? What are you excited about? Things that You don't have to get on the subsurface of tell me all your wants and fears and dreams.

That's it.

You know, let's just talk about the—

because that one person, there's always that one annoying person that's like, do you really want to know? Yeah, yeah, I've got raging hemorrhoids, right? And you're like, no, you don't want to know.

Yeah, like, I'm like, I don't want to put you in that position if I don't know you.

Yeah, I know. I think that's, I think that's right. With your, um, experience in crisis response, I want to go there for a little bit. What have you seen shake out, or for our listeners, if there's something that they could take away of when you've gone into these crisis situations, communication-wise, what is kind of your first priority when you're dealing with crisis management? When you're dealing with— there's— this is a bad situation. How do you, how do you start to break this apart? How do you start to break it down? What are you really looking for?

Um, for me, the, the most important line I was ever given by the guy who trained me, Dr.

Young trained me, calm is contagious.

If I'm showing up to a scene or to a situation and I go running and I'm like, what's going on?

I've just brought my crazy to this madness, right?

And so one of the rules was, if at all possible, walk, walk to the scene, um, and bring a calm presence.

And it just has a contagion effect to everybody exhales.

And then maybe the one person isn't exhaling, and that's the person you want to go sit with.

Can you— I want to make sure the that my audience understands the significance of the things that you're walking into. So can you define for them, when I say your crisis management, your trauma, that kind of—

I walked into an active shooter situation at a college, at your school.

I mean, that we were both at, right? I've walked into rooms where somebody has a child who's passed away in the next room, right there.

I mean, this is—

it's bad, right? I've walked into a room where there is blood and guts, and it's been wild stuff. And there may be police officers in there who aren't, who aren't breathing, or EMS folks who are like got their hands on their knees, right?

So it's not just the victims, and it's not just the—

it's a mess, right?

And if I walk in and I don't bring the temperature of that room down as much as possible, I just bring more—

everybody just tenses up.

So you, you get brought in to solve the, the what, to help just lower the elevation? When you say I go in as I'm part of the crisis management, is the goal to get everybody to kind of lower down, or are you solving for a particular equation?

It's falling for my job usually in those, and when I was doing that with the police department, was I—

it was my job to make sure a parent did not go into that room where their kid was.

No, it was my job to make sure, um, because here's what happens. You have a 6-year-old who passed away, or a 19-year-old that just died by suicide in that room, and you're gonna go in there, hug your kid, right? And you can't. It's against the law.

You can't touch a body.

And now the policeman's got to get in between you because it's a crime scene until it's not, right?

You know that.

So police will show up and work at homicide back. That's just, that's just the training. And so you can't, you can't go in there, touch anything. Well, if I walk into a house and my 6-year-old's in there, uh, I'm going in that room, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And so what happens is police officer has to get in front, and then somebody's going to hit a police officer. Yes, that's my kid, correct? And they're doing it better than all of us.

Better bring more than two, right?

Yeah. And nobody wants to arrest, right? So my job was to meet somebody in the front yard or to meet somebody in the living room, okay, and compassionately say, geez, you don't go in that room. And it would be a heavy, oh, right?

Or it would be Talking to a college student who's like, I want to be dead tonight. Yeah. And say, we're not going to do that.

And there's a presence. I'm not going to let you do that. And so you knowing that's not going to happen, even if you think it is, there's a steadiness and a calmness to that's not—

that's off the table, right?

So now what we're solving for is not that.

We're solving for what's the best place you can go get the help and care that you need.

Yeah.

And most people in that situation need to want something to anchor into. And so there's a calm and a steadiness, right?

I don't think as many people know about that part of you as I wish there were. I think more people need to hear of your experience there, just as any of the stuff that you put out. Yeah, I think you really need— that kind of stuff is huge.

Well, I appreciate that. But also, like, the— it's now— I don't run around police officers in the middle of the night anymore, but now it's um, hey, we just found out our 4-year-old has a terminal brain cancer, she's not gonna live to see 5. And in that moment, you have two parents or one parent who are just—

every tether to reality just got clipped.

Yeah.

And so I'm gonna come here and be as present as I can, right, and give them something to hang on to so that we can get to the reality of here's what's— here's what the next year is going to be like.

Yeah.

And I'll be here.

Calm is contagious.

I love that. And the next one is facts are your friends.

Facts are your friends.

And so tell us about that. That would be showing up to a door and there was just a car wreck and a husband passed away, right?

And you got to go tell—

we got to go tell mom, we got to go tell his wife. And we show up to the door and there'd be some fumbling, some, ma'am, it was raining, and right, so she opens the door and there's somebody in a full uniform or 3 guys.

What's happened?

It was raining outside. You open that door and They already know, ma'am, there's a car wreck and your husband has died.

I'm gonna say that, and then we will— I'll be here sturdy to catch that jet blast. And usually there's 2 or 3, like somebody collapses, somebody starts screaming, somebody says no, no, it didn't, right?

Yeah.

And whatever their problem solving is, is separate, right? But there's that phone call you make, um, your son has passed away. Yeah, right.

And or your son's on life support, your daughter's on life support, I need you to get on a plane tonight.

And get here as soon as you possibly can.

What?

What? Your daughter's on life support. I need you to get here as soon as you possibly can. When you arrive, I'll clue you in.

Um, or when I would call parents in the middle of the night—

I've probably done this, gosh, 100 times, 200 times—

call a parent and say, this is Dr. John Deloney from whatever university. Your child is living and they are safe.

That's how I would start that conversation, because that's what they want. And now they're in prison, or they have been in a wreck and they've broken both legs, and you'll need to make your way here. You can get here tomorrow. But, but it's always the facts are your friends. I'm to tell you the truth.

And so take that out of that wild situation to a marriage.

Yes.

Like, I'm considering leaving this marriage.

Not any of this dancing around. And I've reached a point where you've cheated on me for the last time. I've contacted an attorney.

I'm planning on leaving this marriage. That the, the music stopped, the lights are on, there's no more dancing, right?

Um, it's getting to that—

what's that thing?

And usually for people in a marriage to get at that level of clarity, you either have to spend some significant time journaling and writing this stuff out so you know, you filter through all the feelings, all the— yeah, all the— you're, you're trying to solve it all.

Here's what I want, here's what I know to be true. Or you got to go spend some time with a therapist to help distill that down. Where are you?

Those are hard, man.

Before we keep going, I want to take a second to tell you about a sponsor of this podcast called Peak, P-I-Q. U-E, and they make some of the best teas I've ever had. I'm not a tea guy in this part of my life. Sparkling water and carbonation just does not go well with me, and so I like flavor in my water. And here comes Peak. The reason I like it so much is because their flavors, the way they do it, it's not like I have to have a tea bag and it's hot. I can just rip them off, they're tea crystals, and you can pour it into your water whether it's hot or cold. And so it's really easy for me when I'm on the go, and each one of their flavors has some kind of additional health benefit, whether it's for your, your digestive or for your gut, whether it's for calm, maybe it's for energy, or maybe even your face. It has all these additional health benefits, um, and prebiotics. There's all kinds of antioxidants. And so it's, it's not only that it tastes good, I know it's also good for me. And right now Peak is giving my listeners 20% off for life, plus this free electric frother— that's really cool— and a glass beaker when you grab their tea bundle. It's backed by a 90-day guarantee, which pretty cool. So go to peaklife.com. Remember, that's P-I-Q-U-E life.com/Jefferson and get 20% off for life. Clear gut, clear head, clear conversations.

And now back to the episode, man. Yeah, I don't think enough people know of just the tools that you just talked about right there. A lot of the stuff I know, you know, it's an 8. Yeah, it was the, the Calm is contagious, right? If you can walk—

but that's your master— that's what makes you such a great attorney, is the other side's whole job is to get you stirred up.

Sure. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's all they ever want.

You can't have that.

Yeah, no, you can't.

Yeah.

And the same thing, the facts are your, your friends. When you open that door, be as direct as you can be.

Why?

If you open that door and go, uh, well, okay, we need to talk, it's over. It's over. Same thing in a text message, same thing with a phone call. If you have the hard news to deliver, if you have something sensitive to talk about, the last thing that you want to do is send the "we need to talk." I mean, that's just not going to happen. And so that's the same thing in, of course, not near as significant and deep as the things you're having to deal with. But the truth is still the same. When you can get very direct, it's also very kind. It would be unkind of you.

Clear is kind.

That's right. It would be unkind of you to open that door and the mother see you with the two police officers and you're just like, hey, you doing good?

How's everything? Yeah, how's the day going?

This weather's crazy, right? Yeah, they didn't say it was gonna rain.

And that's if you're a boss and you call somebody on Friday afternoon at 4 o'clock and you're like, hey man, so do I like those shoes? And the person you just brought in, their heartbeat is at 175.

Like, they're not listening to a word you're saying.

They want to know Am I fired? Am I fired?

Am I fired? Am I fired?

And honestly, like talking about anxiety, that's why it's such a big deal to me to take care of on a day-to-day basis all that other stuff, right?

All your life stuff.

You can have that conversation, which I've had with a boss.

If you swear at me again, I walk out that door and I don't come back.

Mm-hmm.

But I can only say that if I don't owe anybody any money.

That's true, right?

Yeah.

I can only say that if me and my wife chose to live in a 900-square-foot rental house for a long, long time, and we drove comically hilarious, cheap, ridiculous cars that barely started for years. So that—

because it's cool to act all like tough, like, bottom line, right?

Yeah.

And there's some data on when women just draw the line and they leave, his net worth goes up and hers falls off a cliff for a season, right? And so there's a—

there's realities to it that make it cool when I'm like, you just need to All right, man, there's a cost to that, and your body would be failing you if it let you sleep all night knowing that's the cliff, right? And so anxiety is like— can, can be a great, um, it's just the lights on your dashboard, man.

It's the smoke alarm in your kitchen.

It is a way to get your attention to say, hey, I'm recognizing here that you're not stable, you're not okay.

That's a good point to make, that the— and I remember you telling me this when I was having my you know, my introduction to it. Anxiety is not an inherently bad thing. It is— it can be very much the signals on the dashboard of letting you know your meters of how— it's just a reflection of how your body's doing, right?

So think about this, like, if we just back up and go 1,000 years. If you are a successful husband, father, and tradesman, a professional, right?

Whether you're making shoes or you're you're an attorney, or you're a roofer, and suddenly 2 million people are bombing you with all sorts of— your body would be failing you if it let you sleep all night because that's not normal, right?

And I think our— the current ecosystem is let's shut down that body as soon as possible so we can get on to whatever we want to do.

And you can do that for a season, but eventually your body will say, okay, you're not getting that message, I quit, right? I'm out.

And I think for me, I want people to go as far upriver as you can. That's why, dude, I'm past—

I've been married forever. I'm past like trying to look like Brad Pitt. That's not gonna happen.

I mean, if I squint—

I mean, that's right, that's right, in the dark. Um, I exercise now, um, so that I can hang out with my kids and they're active.

And so one day if I have grandkids, I'll be able to roll around with them.

Yeah.

And so if the day comes I have a a heart issue or I get cancer, I've given my body the best chance it can to recover, right? And it's the same as, you know what, I'm gonna drive this crummy car so that I'm gonna—

I am going to not have a house full of clutter so I can give my space, my brain space to breathe, so that when my parents are like, come get all your crap from high school, and they drop it off, right, we got some closet space, right?

It's, it's— I'm gonna give my life some margin.

And right now in our culture, I think margin is seen as insanity.

Yeah, it's just— you're—

it's insane if you have margin.

When you are in conversation with somebody, I'm just curious of your take on what are some ways that we can inherently hurt the trust that somebody puts in us. Is it really the words that can drive it? Sometimes you find it's the actions. There are people who say actions speak louder than words kind of thing. I'm just curious of your take on, are there certain things that we might say in conversation that have the tendency to break someone's trust? Is it promises that you've kept and didn't keep?

Man, that's a great question.

Um, just curious on your, your take on trust, trust in a relationship when you, when you have the people who call into your show. Yeah, Dr. Don, Dr. John Deloney. So it's great, it's great the way you handle people.

The hours and the professional people, like the brilliant minds that—

the months we spent in a room to come up with that was the title of the show, right? Dude, it was good.

Wow.

Um, yeah, I think a core tenet for me is behavior is a language.

And that's a good one. Like, I—

it doesn't matter what you say.

If you're like, I love you though, and every time I walk in a room you flip your phone over.

Yeah.

And we've been married for 4 years, or before 15 years and we have 3 kids together and I don't know the password on your phone, right? It's clear.

Yeah. What are you doing?

Like, yeah, right? And so, um, I'm a big advocate, and I know this will make everybody—

this is like the ultimate trigger.

If we're married and we have created humans together, yeah, and we don't share a checking account, there's trust issues that we need to talk about.

Like, no, this is my money.

That's for good or for bad. There are trust issues.

Let's have a conversation, right?

And it may be, yeah, that your dad took money out of your account when you were a kid, or you were in a previous relationship and it was very financially abusive, and the only way I can breathe is knowing that I've got this safety.

They can have good motives and good reasons. Always. That doesn't mean it's not a trust issue.

That's it, that's it.

And I think the— what I have to wrestle with, and this has been my demon for years, is, um, I have an older sister who's a savant, like comically smart.

Yeah.

My little brother missed 2 questions on the ACT.

2. And I played Texas high school football, right? And so for my whole childhood, I've been desperate for people.

I don't have 2 PhDs because I'm smart. I was a desperate attempt.

Seriously, like, am I smart now, Mom?

Right?

And she's like, I was Dr. Delaney before you.

That's cute, right? Yeah. And so it's been a desperate attempt. Well, how does that play out? Every time I would—

for years, when I was on a new diet, I was the guy that ruined every party.

Like somebody would be like, oh, uh, let's get some, let's get some bread for the table. Well, you know, man, and just— but it came from a desperation for people to walk away, be like, that guy's really smart.

And it came away, it came off as, I don't hang out with that dude, he's so annoying, he won't shut up, right? It was a desperate attempt to, but to, to be liked, to be loved, to connect.

And it wasn't until I learned to begin to unhook that from—

I don't need that I've got a core crew that's like, yeah, if you blow your life up, you can come stay at our house, right? We're gonna laugh at you.

Yeah, like, we'll sit with you in court if you blow it up. But, but, um, but once I unhooked from all that, then it's a—

it's this freeing thing.

Yeah, it's a— it's a spirit of freedom. Now I can sit here when you're like having whatever you're eating at dinner, and I can be glad that you enjoy it, and I could know it's probably killing you. And I can also know I'm probably wrong because I've been wrong every time I've like come up with the diet or the workout plan or the—

yeah, whatever.

Eggs, it's a human good, the better.

That's right, man.

What am I doing? I don't know.

Yeah.

And so it's a—

there's a humility to it.

Um, and I think when you meet somebody for the first time— um, last night I ran over to the local comedy club, did 10 minutes on a showcase night. There was 15 comedians crammed in this little bitty room. It's hard not to like kind of size people up and what have you done and who you Yeah, what are you doing? Yeah. And there's this— if I walk in that room and know that those 100 people, those 200 people in the audience, like, they don't get a vote in my life, right? Like, I'm not gonna— I'm not gonna hand them my identity and self-worth and say, do I value— do I value? And these new folks I have, I don't— they don't like me, and it's fine. Like, I've got— my wife likes me, my kids usually like me, my friends do. Like, and so that frees me to just say, hi, my name is John. And what I found is it's a presence that people flock to like a moth to a flame.

They're so desperate for a sturdy, stable person who's not so desperate, like grabbing this— what do you think? What do you think, man? Do you like my hair? Like, it's like, hey man, what's up?

You know what I mean?

No, I do. No, I'm right there with you.

And there I go saying, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, do you like me still? Am I smart?

Am I smart? And you are smart. I've known you long enough to know you're very smart.

I want to take a moment to tell you about a sponsor of this podcast I'm really excited about.. And that is Momentous. I'm excited because I use them every single day. I use them long before this podcast. They are not just a supplement company. They are a better health and life company. They make supplements and vitamins and things that you can put in your body that you're not going to get, probably most likely if you're like me, in a traditional breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My, my life with kids in the stage that I'm in, we're running a gun. All the time, picking up kids, dropping off soccer, traveling, all that stuff. And so what do I need? I need to make sure that my nutrition is always in check. And that's where Momentous comes in. The lineup that they have is awesome. I take their magnesium L-threonate, I take their creatine, I take their whey protein, I take their omegas. I, I have a whole sleep stack that they have that, that helps me go to sleep, and I know that it's good for me.. And the best thing about it is that it's third-party tested, NSF certified, and it's designed for people who actually care about what goes in their body. And I know that's you, and if not, it's about time that you do. I don't have time to overthink supplements, and that's why Momentous makes it really easy. And their stuff is clean. I know it's good.

I know it's trustworthy.

There's a million supplements out there, and Momentous is truly the, the real stuff. Go to livemomentous.com and use the code Jefferson and get 35% off your first subscription. That's Live Momentous, code Jefferson, and get 35% off Momentous. When your moment matters, make it count.

And now let's get back to the episode. I want my listeners to hear something they probably have never heard. Now, I have made a video about my panic attack. And again, you were one of the first people I was like, hey, something's not right. Yeah. I had a panic attack really about 2 years ago. And since then, I wouldn't say at all I've battled with anxiety. I'll have these peak moments of, it's like alarms in my body of, I can feel a lot of tension, I'm not able to release it. Or all of a sudden I can tell, and I know anybody who's had a panic attack can know this feeling of like, you feel like you're about to go down the roller coaster and it's about to all get, loose. I'm curious, just between me, no cameras, just between me and you. So I had my panic attack on when I was really starting to get a lot of followers on social media. I make these in my car. I'm from a small town. I'm not used to all this. And so I'm very curious. This is selfish for me, Jon, of how do you, when you hear that kind of thing, You've written a book, "Building the Non-Anxious Life." What caused that for me? For me, I would say it's a place of feeling like I was alone, I guess, is something you said a moment ago that resonated with me of nobody in my small town could relate to what's going on. It happened when my panic attack happened when I was at like 1:00 AM alone at the— for whatever reason, nighttime is worse. I don't really get 'em in the day, but at night, They're terrible.

Yeah.

And I don't—

what do you— just hearing that from me, what kind of comes to mind? Because I'm going to take this in as help for me. Yeah, this is, this is my unsolicited session.

I mean, probably the—

yeah, one is your body knows you're all you got.

And when you— when it starts— when it happens real fast, yeah, it feels real good.

It feels awesome. And it, it, it's easy to— and I've had the same experience, man. I had no social media 5 years ago, right?

Right.

And I had nothing.

I had none.

And so it feels good.

When you say it, this— people saying I like you. Oh yes, okay. Or you're really good looking, or you're the husband or the brother I didn't have.

You're talking about when you're gaining the—

when it's happening. Yeah, it feels so good. Yeah. And if you're like me, I don't know, but like my wife and I have a routine, and that my wife would die for me, and she doesn't tell me I'm great and wonderful every day. And now I have 5 million people telling me I'm great.

It's also your biggest critic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because she also sees— correct, bro, she's been gone for 5 days. This is true.

Yes.

Did you know this morning I, I dried my underwear with a blow dryer because I—

oh my gosh, I needed clean clothes.

Yeah, right. And we have a very egalitarian marriage, like, but it's— it just was a thing and a thing, and I don't Can I have a snack? Hey, what are we having for breakfast? Hey, Dad, you don't have any coffee? Like, yeah. And here I am.

And your wife's incredible.

She's amazing. Yeah, yeah. And I'm not a bumbling, like, husband, like, where's my son?

That's not our marriage at all. No, I know that.

But here I was, right?

Yeah.

And so, A, it feels good. And this is a personal belief of mine, it's divorced from reality. Your body knows those aren't—

there's a thing we have right now.

Yeah, right. You can feel me in this room, right?

On electronically, it's divorced from reality. And the other thing that I think is true is there's always this question: am I right?

Am I good enough for this?

Yeah, like, I'm pretty good, but I'm not worth 5 million people, right?

Um, who am I?

And there's the assumption that these, like, other successful people feel a certain way, and they don't.

They're just as insecure. That's a great point, right? And Oprah's talked about this, that everybody from a president to famous authors to like world leaders, whatever, as soon as their interview's over, they go, is that good?

Is that good?

Like last night there was comedians that are great comedians that walked back and were like, they're just looking like, was that good? You know what I mean? Oh yeah. To a room full of— yeah, yeah, yeah. It's this innate sense of, am I enough? Yeah. And when you're getting that, especially electronically, but you get that anywhere. Um, I grew up with not very much money.

Like, money was a huge thing in our house. And the first time I crossed a financial threshold, I didn't realize this, but growing up, my family culture was, those people have that.

And now suddenly, am I one of those people? I'm not one of those people. Oh, um, you know what I mean?

Are you living in the, the perceptions of what you've always thought?

Right. And so now, but it's just loss of identity, and your body just says, I'm sounding the alarms, let's go back to where it's safe. Yeah. And so anybody that makes a leap professionally, personally, um, this can be that moment when you're like, oh, I'm falling in love.

And your body knows, hey, we remember love.

Mom left. Yeah, sound the alarm, go back to where it's safe.

And we've all broke up with somebody and you go home, you're driving home after the breakup, you're like, why don't I just do that? Yeah, but it's like, I feel comfortable here.

Your body's always solving for homeostasis. And the moment, even if it's great and wonderful and good, when you break homeostasis, you lose 30 pounds, you'll put 40 back on. Your body is comfortable where it's comfortable at. And so, man, it's, it's just knowing this is part of the ride. This is the, this is the ride I'm on. And the moment I stop trying to go to war with my body, the moment some of those panic attacks start to—

yeah, you gave me the recommendation, uh, The Body Keeps the Score.

Yeah, it's a great book.

That was the recommendation that you, you're like, you need to go.

And I also have given that recommendation a lot, and then I reread it recently and it's like This is a really dense science book. It's not super helpful.

Yeah, I mean, let me be honest, I got through the first like few chapters and I went and looked at the summary.

Well, that's right, I need to quit doing that. Like, it was good though. Read these 7 articles, that's so nerdy. But I think there's a— it's not going to work on my own body.

And then I've got to go back and ask, am I using this as a proxy for how's my marriage? Yeah, how's my relationship with my friends?

Do I have any friends? Right. Have I tied all of my net—

my self-worth to my net worth?

Have I— that's another, like, yeah, bro, like, in our culture we answer that question, what are you worth?

We end up with a number. That's insane, right?

It's pretty wild. It's insane.

It's not— I don't think that's why we were put on this earth.

No. Yeah, like, the answer to the question, what are you worth, is who do you love and who loves you, not, yeah, how many vacations did you not take, right? Right.

So how are you serving? That's a much better measure, right?

Right.

Who are you helping?

Yeah. And so the, the The, the question, if anyone's feeling anxious, if anyone's feeling— starting on that, man, and panic attack is scary because it feels like you're being betrayed by your own body.

I went to the ER that night.

That's it.

I mean, I, I thought I was dying because I was like, when they asked, like, do you have stress or anxiety? And I was like, no, I don't have anxiety.

That's for the weirdos.

I just have 3 million people checking on me every day of my life, right? Yeah. And commenting on my car, my hair, my clothes, my You don't look happy today.

You're like, right, right.

All of it, all the same, all in one minute, right?

In this little phone of like, it's just a pixel on a screen of— so I've always had a healthy relationship with it. I've always— I don't feel like I've ever taken what they say as my word. Sure. But in terms of, I think, the amount of eyeballs at once when you never expected this, you never wanted this, I think that made me feel very— my body was like, nah, something's not right with how you're processing this.

Well, and you had people, and we won't put them on on the show, but you had very famous people reaching out. Yes.

And suddenly I've had this feeling I don't belong at that table.

Oh yeah, I don't need to be in this room. I remember I walked into a speaking event and they had speaker gifts for everybody lined out, and there were, there were these really insanely nice, like, leather bags.

They were awesome, but they had the names on them.

And I walk in and it was Coach Saban was one. Oh my God, Jocko.

Jay Leno, Dave Ramsey, John Delony. And I was like, I'm leaving. Like, you know what I mean?

I was like, I don't—

I'm—

no, yeah, no. Best coach ever, right?

Best comedian of all time.

I'm out. I'm a Navy SEAL for God. I'm out. Like, and so there's this sense like I don't belong at this table. And what's fun for me is when you sit down with not all of them but many of them, nobody feels like they belong at that table.

That's the big scam of it all.

And if you do, you're like, this is my table. You put in to see somebody, right?

Yeah, because everybody's just a person.

That's right, man. And that sounds so trite and silly, but it—

but it's, it's, it's, it's very much the truth because you, you expect like, oh, how, how's that person doing it? How? Because they look so cool, they look so free.

Take it off of real famous people. Yeah, I had that same exact thing when I was assistant dean and yeah, my supervisor was like, hey, we're gonna go have a dean's meeting, you can come with the big deans, the real ones. Oh, the big— and I'm like Yeah, I'm walking into this room, or you're the assistant director of the mail room and suddenly you get to go to the leader of the communication meeting and you're like, I don't belong. And you know, and every alarm—

I remember sitting in my first partner's meeting at a law firm. Yeah, it couldn't have been any cooler. And then you sit in, you're like, this is not nearly as cool as I thought it was.

Or if you get together with a mom's group and you've just had your first kid and everyone's on kid 2 or 3, it's easy to be like, I I don't fit in here. I don't belong here.

And it goes back to that original, like, I don't believe I have a right to sit at this table.

So let's pull it back for our listeners. Let's put some takeaways with it. One, everybody's trying to figure stuff out.

Yeah.

Two, very few people believe that they are worth sitting in the seat that they're sitting in.

Yeah, I think that's almost everybody in a marriage, in with your kids, with at church, at your job, at whatever.

Very few people believe they're worth sitting where they're sitting. I think that's—

yeah, that's really well said. I too, I want to end with the calm is contagious. That I really liked.

3 is—

it was this great line that you, um, you said it's kind of a principle of therapy of you marry your unfinished business. Yeah, yeah. Or really, you even get into relationships with your unfinished business.

Almost always.

You take jobs that solve your unfinished business.

Um, you— we, we—

I always want people to go back to and just sit with, like—

and this is an exercise I have people do all the time.

Yeah.

Just close your eyes and sit in a chair and give yourself 30 minutes.

If you can't find 30 minutes, that in and of itself is an issue.

But Find 30 minutes and close your eyes and imagine your 9-year-old self or your 16-year-old self right in front of you.

Yeah, what would you tell her without— yeah, can you— I don't know if anybody could do that without crying.

I often will tell people, write, write that kid a letter. And your 16, 17, 18-year-old self who was drinking, give that kid a high five and a hug because that kid was doing whatever he could to survive. If the 16, 17, 18-year-old you that slept around too much, that like you're ashamed.

Dude, give her a hug because she's trying to find somebody that said, I see you, even if it's for 3 minutes, you know what I mean?

Like, I see you.

And it's, it's being compassionate with the decisions you made when you're a kid and treating yourself, that former self, with respect and dignity. And then the hard work is, all right, now I gotta go do the next right thing, which is I gotta find some people, I gotta go get counseling if I need it. Dude, I see a therapist and I do this for a living. I see somebody and just the last session I was in, I was like, dude, how did I miss that one for my whole life, right?

And so you're always uncovering things. And then there's those daily principles of I gotta treat my—

I gotta be a good steward of my body, I gotta be a good steward of my wife, I gotta be a good steward of my kids, of my job.

And it just unhooks all this extrinsic stuff.

So good, man.

Thanks for sitting down with me.

No, thanks for—

in your own studio. Thanks for inviting me to my own house.

Yeah, first time in your other chair. Yeah, I know. I feel like I have— I'm sitting in like your favorite lounge in the living room saying, go sit on the couch.

No, I'm just— I'm just glad you texted me and said, hey, let's wear the same shirt, bro. You like that?

Yeah, it was good.

Black's always—

you can— if you never know what to wear for guys, we always wear black. So why?

It always works because it covers up all of our insecurities.

Yeah, all of our problems.

So we're gonna go get tattoos before you leave?

Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna get some sleeves.

You're in?

Yes. Yeah, I'll have to ask a few people, but yes.

A few people.