Is Marriage Still Worth It? (With Dr. Arthur Brooks)

On today’s episode: - John talks with happiness expert and Harvard professor Dr. Arthur Brooks about marriage, cursing and the three things he requires of his children. Next Steps: 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John’s Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch 💭 Teaching the Science of Happiness 📝 Arthur Brooks’ Instagram Connect With Our Sponsors: Need to talk to someone? BetterHelp is virtual therapy when it’s convenient for you. Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. These are the BEST sheets and towels in the world. Get up to 40% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. Getting lots of spam calls? DeleteMe can clean up your online presence for you. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Find peace every day. Hallow is the simplest way to slow down and get your head right for the day. Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. I have Helix Midnight mattresses in EVERY bedroom in my house. Get 20% off when you visit Helix Sleep and take the sleep quiz to see what you need! I took Thorne supplements way before I worked at Ramsey. Stoked that we can work together now! Get 25% off for LIFE at Thorne. Head over to Poncho Outdoors to try the best outdoor performance shirt for yourself! Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Ultimately, relationships that are successful, they start with all this incredible passion. But by the end of a couple of years, where you want to get is from passionate love to what we call companion in love.

• 0:14Dr. John Delony?

  What about the reverse? When somebody says, "We were friends for a long time."

• 0:17Speaker 00

  Friend zone to love zone? Very rare. Usually what happens is that one is in love and the other isn't.

• 0:29Dr. John Delony?

  What in the world is going on? Hope you are doing well.

• 0:35Dr. John Delony?

  I'm not gonna lie, dude. It is bonkers out there. And where is out there? Everywhere. Everywhere in the club. But I'm super glad that you are with us. And man, it just, it makes my heart full every time. Um, hop on here. And we have so many listeners joining us from all over the world. It's amazing. Thank you so much for being with us. All right, this is super exciting. Last year, one of my top shows of the year was when we had a good friend of mine and guest, Dr. Arthur Brooks. He is the happiness goat. He's written a book with Oprah. He has a weekly column in The Atlantic. He teaches at Harvard. He's an amazing guy. And it's one of the top shows of the year. And so I asked him to come back.

• 1:18Dr. John Delony?

  And we take a swan dive into things like happiness and fitness and marriage and a whole bunch of other stuff I don't really even understand because he's super, super smart. Just kidding, I kind of understood it, but also kind of not. He literally is one of the best guys you will meet and one of the smartest minds out there today in the public sphere. And he is back. And we talk about just a million different things. And I can't wait for you to be a fly on the wall. Actually, don't be a fly on the wall. Just pull up a seat. Pull up a seat to this conversation. It's one you're gonna want to listen to a couple of times. There's so much good stuff from this. And let me just say this. Um, I mentioned this in the show, but I want you all to know, after my first show with Arthur,

• 2:02Dr. John Delony?

  um, I made some significant changes in my life when it comes to nutrition, when it comes to my spiritual life, when it comes to just some daily practices. And... I'm gonna be honest, I've lost a lot of weight. My spiritual life is better than it's been in years. My marriage is great. Like, I implemented some of the things that we talked about, and this conversation was very similar. Like, I had some great takeaways. Not just to think about, I did have those, but things I can do differently in my life. So, I can't wait for you to hear round two of my conversation with my great friend, the one and only Dr. Arthur Brooks.

• 2:39Dr. John Delony?

  Help me with this question. Why do we keep gravitating towards this thing? This thing called marriage?

• 2:45Speaker 00

  Right. We are a pair bonded species. We're a pair bonded species. We're like woodstorks. You know, and it's, we wouldn't necessarily have to be a pair bonded species.

• 2:55Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me what pair bond is for, right for me and crayon?

• 2:58Speaker 00

  That a couple gets together and they, they want to be faithful to each other naturally. They naturally want to be one to one, and they want it to last, and their dream is for, that's the person you're looking at as you're taking your dying breath. That's how humans are wired.

• 3:15Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  Now, not every culture has done that.

• 3:17Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  Not every society has been successful in that. But that's the natural proclivity of Homo sapiens. I think that's the, I mean, there's all this stuff about polyamory, and that's all nonsense. I mean, there are certain people who are different than the norm. There are certain people who have different psychology, and maybe even different biology when it comes to that. But the vast majority of people are one to one pair bonded, and they want it to actually last. That is wired into us as a species. That is also, I believe, metaphysically, a matter of natural law. And so, even, by the way, and an offshoot of this, is that 97% of people, including young people, who are the most emancipated, progressive people morally you can imagine, 97% say that adultery is morally wrong all the time.

• 4:04Speaker 00

  Now, that's way higher than the number of people who say that prostitution is wrong.

• 4:08Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 4:08Speaker 00

  So, people believe that, you know, people want to be one to one, and they believe that cheating's wrong.

• 4:15Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  Is the bottom line. And they believe those things so strongly that they want to memorialize that union. That's called marriage. Now, there's one step that goes further that I think that people have a natural sense of the metaphysical. Because again, the prefrontal cortex, the wiring of the brain is very interesting. If you interviewed Lisa Miller at Columbia, so she's the best psychologist, neuroscientist, neuropsychologist on faith experiences. She talks about what actually happens in the brain with faith experiences. We have a sense of the divine, we just do. There are no, according to anthropologists, there are no organized civilizations that we've ever had any evidence of in human history that didn't worship. We didn't all worship the same thing, in the same way. But we're made to worship.

• 4:58Speaker 00

  And one of the things that people feel about their marriage, they want it to be magic. Now, love is a right hemisphere thing where all the ineffable mystical things happen in our brains. And one of the things that we feel is that that pair bond, that union is an intended of the divine. And that's what you and I believe as Christian men, by the way. Because we believe that the reason that divorce is unnatural is because you're pulling apart, you're tearing apart the ability. Your completion with your wife is the way that she understands God's love and you understand God's love. God's love for you is transmitted vis a vis your wife.

• 5:36Dr. John Delony?

  Correct.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  That's how people feel about it, even if they don't have the theology behind it. That's Genesis 2. You know, that's the Yahawistic understanding of God. Is that man is made to be with woman and vice versa. And they're one flesh and it's his rib. You know, and that's real stuff. It's actually kind of, and that's a visceral metaphor for actually how we see it. And we only understand God when we have this holy vocation. And most people, that's how we feel. So the point is that we're, for whatever reason, if you're religious, you're not religious, people are wired to feel that. And they want to make that as official as they possibly can, whether they're religious or not.

• 6:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, and that's just the natural state of being for Homo sapiens. For the vast majority of Homo sapiens, and there's anomalous stuff. I mean, we, in my church, we have priests that are celibate.

• 6:31Dr. John Delony?

  Of course, yeah.

• 6:32Speaker 00

  And there's some people who believe that they can be-

• 6:33Dr. John Delony?

  But that idea is, I'm gonna sacrifice this thing.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  It's a sacrifice.

• 6:37Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 6:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a sacrifice, right? And then there, and then there's some people who believe you can be in love with, you know, you know, fifteen people in a bicycle at the same, I don't know, whatever, right? But that's not the norm.

• 6:47Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  That's just not the way people are wired. This is natural. This is natural law. This is how people are meant to be, most people.

• 6:55Dr. John Delony?

  That's a much more complex, yet a much simpler answer than I was thinking.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:00Dr. John Delony?

  There's just a gravitational pull towards this thing.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  This is human anthropology.

• 7:04Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  This is basic human anthropology, is that we're not, we're not supposed to be alone. We're not supposed to, we're not lone wolves. We're wired to complete each other. And we're wired for love.

• 7:16Dr. John Delony?

  And if you're going to pull apart a culture, a society, it would be to question that very architecture.

• 7:25Speaker 00

  That's what you go after.

• 7:26Dr. John Delony?

  That very architecture.

• 7:27Speaker 00

  If you, if you want to reorder everything, you start with, you start with couples.

• 7:33Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, pull them apart.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  You pull them apart. You, you attack romantic love. You attack marital love. That's how you do it.

• 7:40Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, but there's also the other side of that, so, um, gosh, and I've lost the author's name, but I was recently reading, um, basically an anthropological account of marriage, and I think that the title of the chapter was, "When Love Ruined Marriage." And it was the sense of-

• 7:57Speaker 00

  That's Eli Finkel, right?

• 7:59Dr. John Delony?

  Possibly, that may be Eli. Yeah, that probably is Eli.

• 8:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:02Dr. John Delony?

  It was a, but it was a, what my takeaway was this, there are things you have to do to fuel this thing and to keep this thing going.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:12Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And if you just rely on how this thing feels, especially in a world that we've dropped humans into, that we're not designed to live in.

• 8:19Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:19Dr. John Delony?

  Um, this world of overstimulation, overabundance, there is some left-wing things you've gotta do. I've got to, I've got to attune to this thing and pay attention to it through action.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  Totally. It's not all romance. And so Eli Finkel wrote The All or Nothing Marriage.

• 8:34Dr. John Delony?

  That's it, yeah.

• 8:35Speaker 00

  Right? And his stuff is great. His stuff is really, really interesting and really good. And, and here's the interesting thing about how marriage is supposed to work fundamentally. There is an ignition process for falling in love, right? And it starts with sex hormones. That's why people want to be attractive to each other. Like sexually, dimorphically attractive to each other. Like red lips and not you. And biceps. And why? Why? I mean, it's completely anachronistic. The reason is because that is has a biologic- that elicits a biological response in the potential mate. That then quickly goes into the neurochemistry, a stimulation of catecholamines in the brain,

• 9:19Speaker 00

  most notably norepinephrine and dopamine for euphoria and anticipation of reward. And that's when, you know, I guess, I think her text, I think I just got a text from her. It's like, it's a text! But that anticipation of reward has to do with dopamine and norepinephrine.

• 9:34Dr. John Delony?

  I skipped the final once because I thought the woman who's now my wife was gonna be walking across campus at a certain time. And I thought, I bet I can get to that final 30 minutes late. I'm gonna go.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  That's it. That's it. Because you were basically the norepinephrine in your brain was giving you a sense of euphoria at the thought from the dopamine of the anticipated reward.

• 9:54Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  And that's step two. Step three is a big drop in serotonin. And this happens a few weeks into a relationship typically. And that the reason for that is because it- and it looks like depression, by the way. Because depression is associated with, you know, ruminative sadness is associated with low serotonin levels. Because you need to ruminate on the other person. This is how you bond. And that's what's like, that's when you send 100 text messages like a moron. And like, guys who are 70 years old will exhibit this adolescent behavior because their serotonin levels are in the tank. The ventralateral prefrontal cortex is highly stimulated because you're ruminating the other person. And you want to-

• 10:28Dr. John Delony?

  I've never done this.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  Me neither, never.

• 10:30Dr. John Delony?

  Never, never.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  And then, and then the last step- Is true bonding to the other person and that's associated with vasopressin and oxytocin. Right? That's when it's like, you're my kin, I'll defend you, you're my only person. Yeah. That's, and that's where you want to get, and that's where, that's this bonding. Ultimately, relationships that are successful, they start with all this incredible passion, this heat, this heat, but, but by the end of a couple of years, or certainly five, where you want to get is from passionate love to what we call companionate love. Yeah. Companion love is best friendship. Yep. Not only friendship, but it's best friendship that's tons of oxytocin. And by the way, there's still sex. And there's still passion. There's still fighting. But, oh yeah, well that's, I mean, like, marry a Spaniard, man.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  It's also your fighting. It's like 10,000 fights later, still love each other. And, but, but that's really important to keep in mind because if you don't have that, if you don't do the work to actually get to companionate love, you'll break up and hate each other. Why? Because you were never even friends. You were never even friends. And so you realize you love each other, but you don't like each other. And so the goal is, is to have loving plus liking and liking really comes later. Cause that's your friend, that's your mate, that's your, that's your. What about the reverse when somebody says, we were friends for a long time? Friend zone, the love zone. But then we become, I guess, eh. It's very rare. Yeah. It's very rare in the literature. It's very rare. And usually what happens is that one is in love and the other isn't.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  It's an asymmetric thing. And typically, a man is in love with a woman and the woman's not in love with the man. But she likes the guy because he's awesome and he brings her a latte. And he's sturdy and stable and all the time. And he listens to her troubles about all her, you know, the jerks that she's dating. And, and what that is, is an asymmetric love relationship and he's pining away, hoping to get out of the friend zone. Sorry. It's very difficult to get out of the friend zone. And one of the reasons is because you're not going to run the neurochemical cascade in reverse. Right. It doesn't work that way. You're not going to suddenly, you know, like, wow, I went to step one after knowing each other for four years. Very unusual.

• 12:35Dr. John Delony?

  That right there is the biochemical reason I think dating apps ultimately fall themselves because you never get those moments.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  Well, you're not courting is not intended to work that way. You know, you're not supposed to adjudicate your or to curate your relationships for on the basis of if they like Trump.

• 12:54Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  And they think, you know, NBA basketball is okay and they like Sriracha and want to move to Austin. I mean, that's, these are not, these are, you know, they're not the criteria for actual. The other thing is, by the way, that on the dating apps, it's so shallow and superficial what you get about a person that 10% of the guys get all the action.

• 13:12Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  Because the guys that, I mean, women find 80% of men disgusting. Men find 20% of women unattractive. And so that asymmetry per se means that 10% of guys get turned into dark triad narcissists because they get all the action. They got a roster of women that they're getting and the other 90% are going dry because they can't have, there's no questions, there's no personality, there's no depth, there's no reason to fall in love with a guy if he doesn't pass the looks good on the dating

• 13:43Dr. John Delony?

  Are you this tall, you make this much money?

• 13:45Speaker 00

  Exactly right. This is why, this is how it's messing up dating and courting in so many fundamental ways. That's why, by the way, that relationships that start on the apps, some of them are great. But on average, when marriages occur pursuant to meeting on an app, they tend to be less stable and they feature less attraction. Because they're less likely to actually go through the cascade in the right direction, go to passionate, companionate, best friendship. It's a problem. It's a problem. When you mediate any relationships electronically, you're going to have trouble.

• 14:16Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  You are, because we're made to be in person. That's why, you know, you and I could do this electronic, we could do this virtually. It wouldn't be as good because we're getting oxytocin right now through the eye contact

• 14:24Dr. John Delony?

  Right, right, right.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  That's how you get eye contact and touch, how you get, how you get true human, human connection with your friends and especially with your family.

• 14:35Dr. John Delony?

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• 15:19Dr. John Delony?

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• 16:03Dr. John Delony?

  That's cozylearth.com/deloney and use code DELONY to save 40% off your entire purchase. Sleep cooler, lounge lighter, stay cozy.

• 16:15Dr. John Delony?

  All right, so I want to talk about a couple of these controversial ideas you put out. All right. You have a controversial idea, and I usually don't read from these, but... I got it and we're talking about this new book. Yeah, yeah. Controversial idea of managing yourself. So here's what I wrote. Past 25, but more like past 50 years, the cultural ethos is you do you. And the rest of culture, workforce, love, relationships, houses of faith, all these ideals are supposed to bend around whatever path you feel like going on.

• 16:48Dr. John Delony?

  The challenge is, as we all have seen around us in the last couple of years, that isn't trafficking reality. And so, one of the meta ideas I've taken from your work is this idea of going to war with ourselves is not helpful. And neither is living hedonically, living just how you feel, right? I don't feel like working out. Well, then don't. I don't feel like this relationship anymore. Well, then end it, right? So, how do you explain this idea of managing yourself to a culture that's been taught, you do whatever you want and the world should bend to you?

• 17:16Speaker 00

  The world's lying to you. And the world's lying to you because we've gotten into the, we're listening to the big lie that Mother Nature tells us. Now, there's, here's the mistake that people make. I have natural urges and I want to be happy. So if I follow my natural urges, I'll be happy. That's wrong. That's what every major philosophy and religious tradition has always taught, that you actually have to stand up to your natural tendencies. Mother Nature has only two goals for John Delony and Arthur Brooks and everybody watching us. Pass on your genes and survive another day. That's all Mother Nature wants. Happiness, well-being, love, these are divine goals. And they require that you understand your natural proclivities and not fall prey to them. Look, if we act like animals, we'll live like animals. That's the bottom line.

• 18:01Speaker 00

  You can live like your dog. You can live like a golden retriever. Somebody puts something tasty in front of you, you just eat it.

• 18:08Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, what about the other side of that, though, which is, I just heard a great, um, uh, debate on the other side of this, which is, if we, we have these natural proclivities, but we can just dream them away. You can't do that either, right?

• 18:25Speaker 00

  No, you have to be, you have to recognize the fact that these things exist and they exist for a reason. That you're hungry because you need nutrition and that will help keep you alive. That you're attracted to your wife because in evolutionary times, you need to have an attraction to your wife. You need to have a sexual urge such that you'll propagate the genes. I got that. The whole point is understanding when it's healthy and when it doesn't serve you and when it doesn't serve society and when it doesn't serve the meta, not the physical truth, the metaphysical truth.

• 18:54Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 18:55Speaker 00

  Because we are, I mean, this is the most amazing thing. Only creature, I mean, even if you're not religious, you recognize that we have a prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain, the C suite of our brain right behind our forehead. That's thirty percent of your brain by weight. That's the magic of the human brain that makes you different than every other creature.

• 19:11Dr. John Delony?

  That's the differentiating factor, right?

• 19:12Speaker 00

  That's that. That gives you divine knowledge. And here's divine knowledge, even if you don't believe in God. This is metaphysical knowledge. You're gonna die. You're alive and you're gonna die.

• 19:23Dr. John Delony?

  You'll cease to exist here.

• 19:24Speaker 00

  Well, that's the funny thing about it. Because you know you're gonna die, but you can't conceive of the cessation of existence. That's this weird thing, and that's why people freak out all the time. That's why a lot of scientists believe we invented religion so that we could solve that conundrum. Yeah, I'm gonna die, but I'm not gonna cease existing because I'm gonna go to heaven, right? I happen to believe that's truth. But the whole thing about that is that we have a, we have an antenna to the metaphysical. That's what our brain is actually attuned to do. And that being the case means that we can also understand our urges and understand when they don't serve us. And know that we want more happiness and love by standing up to our urges. And that's self-management. And that's an incredible source of empowerment for, for human beings.

• 20:07Dr. John Delony?

  And that to me, the, if there's been one word, is I've tried to step back now that I'm not teaching anymore and I'm in this new ecosystem. I've tried to come up with the word of, of the, of a cultural moment. And the only word I can come up with is disempowerment.

• 20:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, totally.

• 20:26Dr. John Delony?

  It's this idea that either you can't, just go over in the corner and pat you on the head, we'll take care of you. Because you're, whatever you've done, whatever's happened to you, whatever variables we want to stick on you, you're not gonna be able to, we'll take care of it for you. Or the other side is like, there is no brakes to freedom. Just run as fast as you can. And if there's a wall in front of you, we're gonna blame the wall. Just keep going. And it's madness on both sides. But at the end of the day, it's, it's disempowering.

• 20:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's the reason, by the way, there's a rebellion forming why so many young guys are reading the Stoics. Yeah, that's why Ryan Holiday's stuff is so popular right now. I mean, Ryan Holiday is like a cult figure. And what is he doing? He's talking about Marcus Aurelius. He's like, get out of this new crazy thing. It's called Seneca, Seneca the Elder. I mean, it's a, you know, Epictetus. And all this, he's bringing back these Greeks and Romans from, you know, 2,000, 2,500 years ago. And people are eating it up. Why? Because they know it's a lie. They know the modern currency is totally counterfeit. They know that it's not in their interest and they're being sold out. Why? By whom? By people that want to productize them. That's it. When somebody's trying to make you into a libertine because they want you not to have

• 21:39Speaker 00

  control of your appetites. And when you don't have a control of your appetites, you're going to spend 14 hours frittering it away on social media. You're not going to have the courage to ask a girl out on a date. You're going to just do this on an app. Are you going to spend money you don't have? You're not going to make progress. You're going to pretend that gaming is real progress, is most of real progress in life. Now, don't kill me. I know gaming is fun within limits, but 10% of gamers, by the way, have, have a chronic set of behaviors that is inhibiting their ability to function, which is no joke. Well, take that away. Put, put like, hey, Arthur, there's a game on. Let's, I'll give you five bucks if they win, has turned into. Exactly. So gambling. Catastrophic. Gambling is taking the place of playing sports. That's right. And so what we find is that we have a society where we are being productized vis a

• 22:24Speaker 00

  vis our neurochemistry. And what it's doing is it's turning us into beings that cannot stand up to our own urges. That's why people think, that, by the way, interesting, for the first time since we've been keeping data on this, young men are now more likely to be religious than young women. So that being the case, then I think that what you and I have, an opportunity to serve as our apostolate, you evangelical guys, like I say, mission.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  Catholics say apostolate because it's a harder word, you know, it's like.

• 22:55Dr. John Delony?

  Screw up everything, make it even more complex.

• 22:58Speaker 00

  Our apostolate is to get the spirit of rebellion against that with more young women today. Because they need to stop being productized. They need to stand up to that. And their, their brains are being productized by the tech world. And the people who say that they're victims, they're not victims, are you kidding? They're the domesticating, they're the civilizing force in our society.

• 23:19Dr. John Delony?

  Right, right. They're the heartbeat of the whole.

• 23:21Speaker 00

  Who would, who would you and I be?

• 23:22Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:23Speaker 00

  Without our wives?

• 23:24Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, nothing.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  We'd be, are you kidding? We'd be like out in a ditch drinking together right now or something.

• 23:28Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, nothing, nothing.

• 23:30Speaker 00

  But that's the point. That's the point. Women need to understand the empowerment that they deserve to feel. And they, they deserve to have relationships where they're not used, where they're adored. Where a guy would fight a tiger for them.

• 23:42Dr. John Delony?

  Elevated, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:43Speaker 00

  That's, that's what, that's what they deserve is the whole point. And they're not getting it because they've been monetized by predators. As men have.

• 23:54Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, and that's, that's the other thing that I've, I've come into the last 24 months is this sense of,

• 24:04Dr. John Delony?

  no one's writing blogs about it. And it's not, it's uncouth to say, I don't know a father, absent maybe you, that thinks they're doing a great job.

• 24:15Dr. John Delony?

  I don't know a fa- I don't know a husband that thinks like, I'm getting this thing down.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  None of us, I mean, look, you, you go on data day and it's, it's.

• 24:21Dr. John Delony?

  You know what I mean?

• 24:22Speaker 00

  It's mono a mono. And so none of us, even though that, that objectively has kids who are doing well, we're still like, ah, I screwed it up again.

• 24:29Dr. John Delony?

  Exactly, exactly, yeah.

• 24:31Speaker 00

  It's actually probably pretty healthy. If you think you're a great father, I'm, I'm suspicious.

• 24:35Dr. John Delony?

  Well, that, and that's, you know, it's, it's, um, I, I spoke at a, at a large church recently for Father's Day. And the pastor right before I went up said, hey. Every Mother's Day pastors across the country get up and go, "Mothers, y'all are crushing it. Y'all are overburdened." And then every Father's Day is like, "Dads, you suck. Y'all need to step it up."

• 24:51Speaker 00

  I know.

• 24:52Dr. John Delony?

  Please don't do that. And, um, but it was just a sense of, I don't know that anybody looks around objectively and says, "We're doing a good job."

• 24:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:00Dr. John Delony?

  I think that my grandparents thought they were doing what the best they had of what they had.

• 25:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:04Dr. John Delony?

  And that tells me there has been a commoditization of, of individual people and groups of people.

• 25:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:11Dr. John Delony?

  That if I can make you feel bad, then I can sell you something.

• 25:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I don't think my dad ever asked himself if he was being a good dad. And I think that's a good thing. I think that he just did what needed to be done. He loved me and he was a great example.

• 25:23Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  He did, he, he, fathers, being a good father, a lot of it is showing up and being a good man. It's sort of, it's really interesting. I mean, you know, the greatest service you can give your sons as a dad? You know, and, and, and you'll say, I've heard you say this, you know, but I'm making sure.

• 25:39Dr. John Delony?

  Love their mom really well.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  Love their mom really well.

• 25:41Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  It's just, you, you wanted the number one job, being a dad, love their mom.

• 25:45Dr. John Delony?

  Be the best spouse possible, yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 00

  It's, it's amazing. And so, and so the result is that it's kind of easy to discount that. But the truth of the matter, and, and by the way, number two, is have your kids see you on your knees in prayer. See it. Like, like my dad's really strong. He would never be on his knees in front of a man.

• 26:01Dr. John Delony?

  No, he submits.

• 26:01Speaker 00

  But there's something bigger than his dad.

• 26:03Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 26:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, and said that he will submit to something greater. He will love abundantly one person faithfully every day, right? And, and when you talk trash about mom, he's like, "Don't talk about mom that way."

• 26:15Dr. John Delony?

  That's right, that's right. That's my wife, dude. Yeah, yeah.

• 26:17Speaker 00

  This is like team parents against team Rugrats.

• 26:20Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 26:20Speaker 00

  And, and he submits to the master.

• 26:23Dr. John Delony?

  Hmm.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  Those are the two greatest gifts. And so, okay, yeah, so maybe in church they're, they're not valorizing that in the same way because you don't see the service in the same way. But guys, that's the service.

• 26:33Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  That's it. Those are your two core competencies. And if you do that, it's okay if you die.

• 26:38Dr. John Delony?

  The other day, um, My son and I were running. He's a cross-country stud and I'm not. I'm an old man now and so I'm trying to keep up and You're an old man, you're like I'm trying dude, I'm trying. Hair like you'd be president of the United States. I know, it's good. It's a toupee. So, uh, we were running real hard and we were at the point where he's kinda talking and with his head turned and I'm I'm in dad mode. Like, I know this is gonna cost me three or four days of my life after this, but I'm gonna get this time. And out of nowhere, this woodchucky beaver squirrel thing shoots out of the road. Barmint. Yeah. And I let one fly. Uh huh. A swear word fly. An F-bomb? No. Alright, alright, could've been worse. It wasn't the mother lode, that's right. Um, I got back and so, and this is the disclosure, I have a terrible mouth.

• 27:22Dr. John Delony?

  But it's conversational. When I, when I get angry, never swear. I get real calm. Um, 99% of the time when I get scared, I never do. This thing just jumped out. Yeah, yeah. We got back and my son, we're all sweaty and hot and exhausted and he had his hands on his knees and he stood up and he said, "Dad, I've never heard you say that word before. I've never heard you say a bad word." And I was like, "Well, here you go, man." My streak is I made it 15 years. And he laughed, I laughed, and anyway. You have an excellent article in here about mindful cursing. Yeah. And when I was a kid, um, my, my diet of what I would call mind food consisted of mostly punk bands and Pantera and

• 28:07Dr. John Delony?

  um, scary movies. And I remember one time my dad heard me swear and he said, you know, kinda read me the riot, read me the riot act and I said, "I can't help it, Dad." And he said, "I've never heard you swear in front of your grandmother. I've never heard you swear at church. That's not true. You can. If you choose to, you can." I remember exhaling like a 14-year-old and I was like, "Actually, that's fair." Alright, so you write this, "Swearing is negatively correlated with conscientiousness and agreeableness. People don't wanna be around it. Researchers have found that doctors who curse in front of patients are seen as less trustworthy and less experts than those who don't." But profanity was associated with less lying and deception, so people hear somebody swear and we immediately assume that's probably trustworthy.

• 28:49Dr. John Delony?

  Think like Joe Rogan, right? Like, uh, I believe that guy. Our comedians, like, I believe them, cuz, cuz they're swearing. "Research shows that swearing alleviates discomfort of social stress." Yeah.

• 29:00Dr. John Delony?

  There's a guy who works really hard to not swear all the time. It's conversational. I told you, my wife can tell what generation friend I'm speaking to. It's like calling a friend from Mexico and you just start speaking Spanish. My wife's like, oh, I know who those friends are, just because it comes out without thinking. Talk me through mindful swearing and I guess as a guy of, a person of faith and a person of intellect.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's.

• 29:25Dr. John Delony?

  I'm not gonna sound like a buffoon either.

• 29:26Speaker 00

  If you have a policy, if you're gonna have a policy, have a policy against cursing.

• 29:30Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  And the reason for that is that it never really helps very much and it can actually hurt a lot. And people are funny because they're making a decision to swear usually a couple of seconds before. Am I gonna say that cuss word?

• 29:45Speaker 00

  And then it comes out.

• 29:46Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 29:46Speaker 00

  But it's also very interesting that neurophysiologically, it's a phenomenon that cursing that's involuntary. So it's voluntary cursing, you decide to curse and you're gonna put it for a form of expression in a conversation. Or there's involuntary cursing and most people do both.

• 30:02Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 30:03Speaker 00

  Involuntary cursing is actually not produced in the same hemisphere of the brain as voluntary cursing.

• 30:08Dr. John Delony?

  So it was a neural problem when that.

• 30:10Speaker 00

  It's not a problem necessarily.

• 30:12Dr. John Delony?

  Beaver jumped out at him.

• 30:12Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, for, well, yeah, for sure. So interestingly, you find that, you know, some people who suffer from Tourette's syndrome. That's a phenomenon that's occurring in the right hemisphere of the brain. And some people, they'll curse involuntarily when they have Tourette's. And your involuntary cursing will come basically from the same part of your brain as a tick. And so that's a different kettle of fish and that's a different issue, you know, trying to discipline that. Then just don't make the decision. What is it? It's, um, where is this? Romans 1311? I can't, somebody's gonna correct me because, look, I'm Catholic. I outsource my Bible reading to professionals that the, um, don't, don't make plans to sin.

• 30:54Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 30:54Speaker 00

  Just, and, and, you know, okay, stuff happens, right? But don't make plans to sin. It's also very interesting when people fall off the, where they're alcoholic and they stop drinking and then they fall off the wagon. They almost, according to data, you've seen this too, they almost always plan to fall off the wagon. There's a plan behind it.

• 31:10Dr. John Delony?

  Friday after work, I'm gonna go.

• 31:10Speaker 00

  When people, and people say, I don't know what happened, honey. I just kinda had an affair. No, you didn't. You planned it. You planned, so it's the same thing with little things. And I'm not saying that cursing is like having an affair. Obviously not. I mean, these are. Different in nature and magnitude, don't plan to sin. Just don't plan to do it is what it comes down to. And that's, that's basically the right policy to, that'll stand you the best out.

• 31:35Dr. John Delony?

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• 32:18Dr. John Delony?

  my day brings, everything from travel to being up to my chest fishing in the surf or doing outside labor. These shirts move with you, not against you, and they dry fast and they don't cling or bunch up and they come in slim or regular fits, so you don't look like a circus tent or a sausage link. Now, here's what I want you to do. Head over to ponchooutdoors.com/daloni right now and check out the selection of my favorite shirts like the Laramie and the Buffalo. Right now, new customers get 10 bucks off your first purchase when you sign up with your email. That's $10 off at ponchooutdoors.com/daloni. Poncho is the best. Go check them out.

• 33:01Dr. John Delony?

  So I had this moment with my son where it was in sixth grade, maybe seventh grade. He came in and he called a family meeting. And I was like, oh my gosh, he for real?

• 33:10Speaker 00

  Oh no.

• 33:12Dr. John Delony?

  But he sat down, me and my wife, literally, we sat down and, and he said,

• 33:18Dr. John Delony?

  He, he's like, I would like to not play baseball this spring and instead I'd like to audition for the school play. And of course, we were like, I did theater in college. We're like, yes, absolutely. This is amazing. And we high-fived him, full support's awesome. But when he left, I looked at my wife, I said, but Delony's play baseball in the spring? And it was this weird, I was so proud of him, excited, of course, man, it'd be awesome. Go to theater. And also, I did not realize that I was gonna have this little twinge of, my granddad played baseball in the spring, my dad did, I did. And so is there, is there any sort of, like, you're a full professor at Harvard?

• 33:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:57Dr. John Delony?

  And a musician to boot.

• 33:58Speaker 00

  Was.

• 33:59Dr. John Delony?

  And then your, it was. And then your kids come out and they say, hey, I wanna go farm, I wanna go to the military and I'll work in construction.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:05Dr. John Delony?

  Obviously, as a dad, you're like, yes, go be successful and be great. But also, kinda the Brooks, we go to college, right? Is that, is it, is that there?

• 34:13Speaker 00

  Not really, it's weird. I would've thought that it was. So, not only in my college professor, my dad was a college professor, and his dad was a college professor.

• 34:21Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  And so, this is an-

• 34:23Dr. John Delony?

  This is what the Brooks do.

• 34:24Speaker 00

  An epigenetic expression.

• 34:25Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 34:26Speaker 00

  You know, it's academia, right? I mean, this is, and so, so I would've thought, you know, you're not gonna call, we worked hard for this. But, but what happens, it's a really funny thing, is your kids are going to adolescence. You need to think, we all think, and this is the kinda thing that you advise people calling in every day.

• 34:42Dr. John Delony?

  Well, you tell them, but it's your kids.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, but then, but you think to yourself, what is success? What does success actually look like? And I remember, there was a time when, you know, my son Carlos, my middle son, who is a Marine, who didn't go to college, when he was, he was screwing up in high school, and he was not motivated, and, oh, every day was another crisis. And, and I was haranguing him by doing his homework, constantly. And, and finally, I thought to myself, what am I spending 95% of my time talking about with Carlos? Stuff I actually don't care about, but is a proxy for the things that I do care about. The proxy is, I think that these represent his success in some other realms. So I'm talking about the thing one or two steps removed. I thought, I bet he doesn't understand that. I bet he actually thinks I care about his homework. Like, I give a rip about his math homework.

• 35:29Dr. John Delony?

  Right, right.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no. I want him to be a successful person and grow up and graduate from high school, so he'll have opportunities, and he'll have a good family, he'll be a happy person, and, and a productive member of society. That's what I want. I thought to myself, what do I care about? What do I actually care about? I want a son who's honest with himself and others. I want a son who's compassionate with other people. And I want a son who's a Christian. That's what I want. And so I sat down with him and said, look, I'm hassling you about your homework, but I'm making a mistake. I'm making a mistake here. Because you probably think I care about your homework. He's like, yeah, obviously, Dad, you care about my homework. No, I care about three things. And if these three things happen, everything else is gravy. I literally don't care.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  I want you to be good and love other people in the world. I want you to be honest with yourself and other people. And I want you to love the Lord. That's what I want. And then, because you know what? Everything's gonna fall into place.

• 36:27Dr. John Delony?

  That's right, yeah, yeah. A plus B, A plus E will lead to D.

• 36:30Speaker 00

  And again, you and I, as Christian men, sometimes screw up and the whole thing. But there's always a way, when you're compassionate, honest, and faithful, to get back to what you actually want. And he visibly relaxed. And it's our relationship changed. When I finally told him, no, when I finally told myself what I truly want with my son, and then told him.

• 36:47Dr. John Delony?

  Dude, I had the same, my son was coming down. Shirt was always on backwards, or he'd have different colored socks on, whatever. And it was my wife that pointed it out. But 95% of our conversations were, hey, fix your collar. Have you washed your hair? Fix your shirt. And had a very similar, I could care, dude, I'm an old punk rock. I could care less what you're wearing. I'm more worried about how other people are gonna think. You know what? I'm wasting my time. And I sat him down, I told him, I'm releasing you to the middle school wolves. Like, they will self-correct your clothing choices. I'm not gonna lose my relationship with you over this. And as you said, I think the practice of telling him, I've done this wrong, was way more impactful than anything else. And then I remember telling his friends, a couple of years later,

• 37:31Dr. John Delony?

  y'all failed me, because they didn't change nothing. They were like, no, we love the guy. Yeah, man, which is awesome, which is awesome.

• 37:37Speaker 00

  That's actually part of his shtick, actually. It's like, who he is as a person.

• 37:40Dr. John Delony?

  I realized, they wanna be around somebody who loves well, and is a young, growing man of faith, and who cares for people. They don't care what his socks look like. And that's my baggage, right?

• 37:51Speaker 00

  I know, I know. And then, of course, you know, somebody watching us right now is gonna ask. So what would you do if he did, he wasn't one of those things? One of the big three, and I don't know. I mean, that's a, that's a good question too, because you're gonna love your child no matter what.

• 38:04Dr. John Delony?

  Well, not no matter what, because, I mean, the first, gosh, the first 20 years of my career working as a dean of students was kids coming to my office saying, "I can't go home for various reasons. My mom and dad won't let me sit at the kitchen table."

• 38:17Speaker 00

  But I'm gonna love my son no matter what. I'm gonna love my son. If my son robs a bank, I'm still gonna love my son. I don't mean I'm gonna-

• 38:23Dr. John Delony?

  I'll sit by you while you get sentenced, but I'll sit with you.

• 38:25Speaker 00

  But I'm gonna love you no matter what. There's nothing that's gonna take that. Including, and it's interesting, because there's all this research on the schism between parents and children. Which is really, really important for people watching us to understand. Schisms are almost, schisms by which I mean, parents and adult children not speaking. 11% of mothers with adult children are not speaking to at least one of their kids.

• 38:47Dr. John Delony?

  25 to 30% of the calls that come into this show are about, "One or the other have cut each other off."

• 38:53Speaker 00

  Completely heartbreaking. Completely heartbreaking. The number one reason for that is not what people think, which is behavioral differences. So, you know, you come home from college and you say, "This, I'm not going to church anymore." It's like, "I'm not going to church anymore." That doesn't do it. You come home and say, "I think I'm gay." That doesn't do it.

• 39:09Dr. John Delony?

  I'm voting for-

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Trump. Or not Trump, whatever, right? That doesn't do it. The problem is when the adult children reject the values of the parents. So they say, "Not only am I not going to church, going to church, that thing that you think is stupid, and you shouldn't go to church either." That's what leads to a schism. And so the whole point is for parents and their adult children, live your life. Let other people live their lives. Don't reject their values.

• 39:35Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, hang on.

• 39:36Speaker 00

  That, that turns out to be, and you'll, you're gonna be okay. You're not gonna like it, that your kid's not going to church, but you'll be able to live with it, and you'll still have a loving relationship, and you'll still have good laughs on Thanksgiving, and it's gonna be okay. But the minute that the kid says, "No, no, no, no, I, your whole way of thinking is wrong." That's when schism starts to occur.

• 39:56Dr. John Delony?

  Declaration of war. Or vice versa, yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  It's basically rejecting the person, as opposed to disapproving of the behavior.

• 40:04Speaker 00

  Fundamental difference.

• 40:06Dr. John Delony?

  And that's hard in this current culture when parents have the only identify, like their only report card anymore is this thing called net worth and the performance of my child.

• 40:18Speaker 00

  A lot.

• 40:18Dr. John Delony?

  And so if my adult child is not performing.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  Right.

• 40:21Dr. John Delony?

  Voting the correct way, loving the correct way, living the correct way, then if I've outsourced my self-worth to their performance, then it's a, it's, it's a, it's a declaration of failure on my part and I have to die on that hill.

• 40:34Speaker 00

  Right. Yeah, and that, that's the personalization of the performance of your kids and that's not true love.

• 40:38Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 40:39Speaker 00

  That's not authentic love.

• 40:40Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  It's a huge problem, you know, do you love your kid?

• 40:42Dr. John Delony?

  You're using your kid as a Xanax there.

• 40:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Well, you're also projecting your own autobiography onto the blank screen of your kid and that's just not the right thing to do.

• 40:51Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, we Uncle Rico our kids, right?

• 40:52Speaker 00

  Like, Uncle Rico, that's a good, Napoleon Dynamite reference.

• 40:55Dr. John Delony?

  You guys, you guys gotta play football, cause I would have, yeah.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  And it's a very, very easy thing to do and I made that one with my first son, um, he was in college, my first son went to college and, and, and is a really, really good student and really, really smart and, and applied and, and he was struggling with this thing and struggling with this thing and I say, I said to him at one point, I said, do you realize how much we sacrificed for you to go to college? And I thought, what did I just say?

• 41:18Dr. John Delony?

  That came out.

• 41:19Speaker 00

  I'm a behavioral scientist. Fortunately, I listen to myself when it comes out of my mouth and I can actually and do a little bit of analysis, get myself on the couch. But I thought, you know, it's like, it's his college, it's his life for Pete's sake.

• 41:32Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 41:32Speaker 00

  And it's gonna be fine, of course it was.

• 41:34Dr. John Delony?

  Of course it was. All right, so I,

• 41:38Dr. John Delony?

  I, I, this time, I, I've got a, an advanced copy of Happiness Files, which is a compilation of articles you've written over the last few years.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:47Dr. John Delony?

  And A, just your ability to write is so well, to think very complex things and make them digestible for a simpleton is such a blessing.

• 41:53Speaker 00

  That's what you're doing every day, man.

• 41:54Dr. John Delony?

  Well, but I can do it conversationally, the, the art of the, of writing, the way you do is, gosh, it's masterful, man.

• 42:01Speaker 00

  It's all reps, I appreciate it.

• 42:02Dr. John Delony?

  Normally I would leave this at the end, but I don't wanna, I don't wanna leave it, cause I don't wanna run out of time.

• 42:07Dr. John Delony?

  After our last meeting together, and we've had a couple of phone calls, you know, I need you to know, um, you can see it, we talked about in the green room. Because of your personal influence on me, it caused me to exhale a little bit and just be reflective. I'm down a chunk of weight.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  Good.

• 42:24Dr. John Delony?

  I have re-engaged with faith in a way that's been profound. Your interaction with me and your influence on me has been profound and it's just, it's helping my wife and my kids and my neighbors, so.

• 42:35Speaker 00

  That's crazy, that's, I mean, that's a gift.

• 42:37Dr. John Delony?

  Just got to guy.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  Well, that's a gift to me that you would tell me that. And, you know, you and I both are followers of the Master.

• 42:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  And that's who's influencing both of us. And it's like iron sharpens iron, man. I mean, this is, this is really what we're trying to do. And it's funny because it was 10 minutes ago that I was your age.

• 42:53Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, right.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  And, and, uh, and it's funny how your brain changes. I mean, in 15 years, when you're my age, there's a John Deloney that you're gonna be talking to, who's the next really great leader in this. And, and, and we have to reinforce each other because the truth of the matter is that you can't do this on your own.

• 43:12Dr. John Delony?

  Absolutely.

• 43:12Speaker 00

  You can't. And, and you help me, I help you, you help somebody else and let's hold each other up.

• 43:17Dr. John Delony?

  It's awesome.

• 43:18Speaker 00

  Because the truth is the truth.

• 43:19Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 43:20Speaker 00

  And we have this sacred mission to help other people. But to do that, we have to be strong.

• 43:26Dr. John Delony?

  That's right. And I think the illusion that I even found myself falling for is that strength comes alone. That strength is found by myself.

• 43:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:38Dr. John Delony?

  And that's just false.

• 43:39Speaker 00

  Right. That's not right. I mean, that we are, we are aspen trees and there's an illusion of our individuality, of the strength and beauty and solitary, um, of, of, uh, the, the notion that the tree itself by, I mean, it's like a, he is like a, a tree planted by streams of water that prospers in all that he does. It's like the first Psalm.

• 44:02Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  But the aspen tree is connected to every other aspen tree by a root system.

• 44:07Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 44:07Speaker 00

  The individuality is an illusion. There's an illusion of my individuality separate from you, John.

• 44:13Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 44:13Speaker 00

  And you from your kids and all of us from each other. And until we strengthen our roots, and the way that I strengthen my roots is by talking to you.

• 44:20Dr. John Delony?

  Well, I appreciate that. Well, and vice versa, but it's, it's important to know, just for people watching and listening, like, um,

• 44:27Dr. John Delony?

  You and I could spend all day talking academics. I don't get to do that anymore. And so it's fun for me and talking like the gymnastics of it all. But I left our interaction home changed my behavior, which is awesome.

• 44:37Speaker 00

  That's where we are.

• 44:39Dr. John Delony?

  Can't get up at four zero zero every morning like you do.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  Four three, all four thirty.

• 44:44Dr. John Delony?

  But I gave it a shot. But all I'd say is, uh, thank you for that.

• 44:47Speaker 00

  That's great. I'm glad to hear it. Tell me about the, um, the, the, the journey of, uh, your physical fitness.

• 44:54Dr. John Delony?

  Um, I mean, I've, I've been a physical fitness guy my whole life.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  Your whole life, right?

• 44:58Dr. John Delony?

  So it's been a, just a way of being. And so it's one of those things that almost I take for granted that you just wake up and work out. Um, and then I had some great profound run ins with, um, folks that are friends of mine, like Lane Norton and Jaco and some of those guys that, hey, take it one step further.

• 45:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:16Dr. John Delony?

  And then that became,

• 45:20Dr. John Delony?

  that became a way of not dealing with other issues, right? It's gonna get workout. That's gonna solve all my, it's gonna solve my marriage problems, my spiritual problems.

• 45:29Speaker 00

  Using workout for that.

• 45:30Dr. John Delony?

  It became Xanax, right?

• 45:31Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 45:31Dr. John Delony?

  And then just I got on the road and I got sloppy. I got lazy about how I, how I am a good steward of my body when it comes to what I consume. And I'm in my, I'm heading into my late forties now. And so I used, it's like the, I, I used to be able to outspend my budget because I could out earn it and.

• 45:51Speaker 00

  Well, things change.

• 45:51Dr. John Delony?

  Catching up.

• 45:52Speaker 00

  Things change. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, and the reason I ask that is because, you know, people might be, might be wondering. I'm a professor of happiness and I'm super into fitness. And people ask, what's the relationship? So, so John's getting back into really good shape. Arthur's, you know, serious about working out every day for an hour. What's the connection to happiness and wellbeing? And the answer to that is that people who have very high levels of negative affect. And that means intense negative mood, which is a quarter of the population is above average in positive affect and above average in negative affect, high affect people. John Deloney is a high affect person. You're a classic mad scientist.

• 46:29Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 46:29Speaker 00

  And, and the result of that is that you actually don't need to do that much to hike up your happiness. You need to manage your unhappiness.

• 46:35Dr. John Delony?

  Exactly right.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  Your unhappiness is a gift. That high negative affect is a gift because it makes you take a bite out of absolutely everything. And you can actually connect with the people who call into the show. You're like, no, no, no, no, no. And you're animated and you're interesting to watch. And that's one of the reasons you're successful, but you suffer. It's got a morose side to it. So there are good ways to manage your negative affect and there are bad ways to manage your negative affect. Lots of people watching us right now and they watch your show because they're trying to help manage their negative affect. The two worst ways to manage your negative affect are drugs and alcohol that numb you and workaholism, which distracts you. And that's been my cocaine for years. Right behind it now is internet use, is abusive internet use.

• 47:16Speaker 00

  Okay, so the two best ways to do it are prayer, meditation, spirituality. And number two is physical fitness. And it's especially helpful first thing in the morning. Because that's when your negative affect is the highest. You wake up and you're like, oh. You know, all those people are like, it's a great day. It's like, they're so annoying. Not me, man. So I wake up, I'm like, right, here we go again. And it's into the gym. And you hit it and that manages negative affect as effectively as everything else. And then that's when, the great thing about being Catholic, by the way, John, is that's when I go to mass. I work out for an hour. So I go from 4:45 to 5:45 in the gym. I take a shower and mass is 6:30 to 7:00.

• 47:58Speaker 00

  And then, and only then, do I actually administer the psychostimulants. AKA, I drink caffeine. I'm not smoking meth. And then you get maximum dopamine. So I can get maximum, I can get four hours of clean focus, attention, creativity by going through that particular protocol, which also manages my negative affect. And that's a really important thing for people to understand. If you go to that teeter totter, you stomp that anticipatory.

• 48:27Dr. John Delony?

  I don't want to get too nerdy.

• 48:28Speaker 00

  We're talking about dopamine now, folks.

• 48:30Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, you, you hold, hold, hold before you, you earn all of it before you let it rip.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 48:37Dr. John Delony?

  Which is awesome.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  Well, there's a theory about that that's contested in the neuroscience literature about why you should wait two hours before you drink caffeine. So Huberman talks about this a little bit. It's about the, the circulating adenosine in the brain. It's an inhibitory neurotransmitter, neuromodulator in the brain. It keeps you, so your excitatory inhibitory neurochemicals, they keep you up and down and they keep you in equilibrium.

• 48:59Dr. John Delony?

  They try to balance it.

• 49:00Speaker 00

  They try to balance you. So you get up too hyped up and you get, it brings you down a little bit. Now, the molecule for adenosine, which is supposed to inhibit you and make you sleepy and make you a little bit tired. It looks just like the molecule for caffeine. And so what happens is when you've got adenosine in your brain, it's got parking spots it goes into. And if you substitute caffeine for those parking spots, the adenosine doesn't go in there. So caffeine doesn't pep you up. It makes you unable to go down.

• 49:25Dr. John Delony?

  It blocks your body's understanding how tired you are.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  And so, so some neuroscientists believe that you have a ton of it when you first wake up in the morning. It's still circulating. It's why you're groggy in the morning. And so you try to, you try to substitute for all that with the caffeine first thing. But it's still circulating, looking for a parking space, which is why you crash at two o'clock in the afternoon if you have your caffeine too early.

• 49:45Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  Let it metabolize, let it go away in the first two hours that you're working out, then have your caffeine. It will be the cleanest buzz you can get and there's no crash.

• 49:55Dr. John Delony?

  I still love morning caffeine.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  I know.

• 49:57Dr. John Delony?

  I love it.

• 49:57Speaker 00

  I know, I know. See, we got, we just nerded out on neurochemistry.

• 50:00Dr. John Delony?

  Sorry.

• 50:01Speaker 00

  Let's go back to love and faith.

• 50:02Dr. John Delony?

  There you go. Well, dude, they're telling me you got a heart out.

• 50:07Speaker 00

  I said many words. Thank you.

• 50:09Dr. John Delony?

  No, it's awesome, man.

• 50:10Speaker 00

  I love being with you.

• 50:11Dr. John Delony?

  Thank you for being my friend.

• 50:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, likewise.

• 50:13Dr. John Delony?

  And I've called you a few times. Thank you for helping me. Always, this door's always open for you.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  I love it.

• 50:20Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm super grateful for you.

• 50:21Speaker 00

  Thank you for the service that you're doing for all of your viewers. I'm one of them.

• 50:24Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, well, and like you're, I read this book by this guy, I don't know if you've heard of it, it's called Strength to Strength. And I'll link to it. It's a masterpiece that he wrote. But this is, this can be a time.

• 50:39Dr. John Delony?

  At the stage of your career when you begin to put your feet up on the couch a little bit more, lean back a little bit more and just kind of survey the grass you've planted. And you're not doing that, you're hitting the gas. And so it's impressive to watch.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  I appreciate it, you know, I'll go where, where the, um, it's funny, you know, in the, in the beginning of the holy week, um, Jesus comes into Jerusalem. And he says to his disciples, um, "Go get a cult," right? And like where, "Just go to this house and get a cult." And they're gonna be like, he's, he's gonna ask what we're doing with the cult, right? And he says, "Just say this, the master has need of it." I'm the cult.

• 51:22Dr. John Delony?

  You're a donkey.

• 51:24Speaker 00

  Just the cult, right? It was the donkey. "The master has need of it," is the whole point. "The master has need of you too."

• 51:29Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 51:29Speaker 00

  "Thank you for doing it."

• 51:30Dr. John Delony?

  Well, I like being a donkey.

• 51:32Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 51:32Dr. John Delony?

  It's good. Appreciate you.

• 51:33Speaker 00

  Donkeys unite.

• 51:34Dr. John Delony?

  That's right. All right, it's time for a quick word about Delete Me. Do you feel like your digital footprints, you know, your text messages, your emails, your maps in your car are starting to feel more like digital trails leading bad guys right back to you? Right now, scammers are using phishing attacks, that's phishing with a P H, and they try to trick you into giving them something like your information by pretending to know you. You might get an email, a text, or a phone call, and the person or the AI bot on the other end sounds like someone who's looking out for you and trying to help you out, but they're not. With all of these new technological advancements coming at us a million miles an hour, no one is really safe. So what are we supposed to do? We can start controlling what we can.

• 52:18Dr. John Delony?

  We can learn how to be careful online and offline, and we can all sign up with Delete Me. I use and recommend Delete Me because they work in the background to reduce my online presence. I don't have to worry about creepy data brokers having my data and trying to sell it behind my back. Delete Me has reviewed tens of thousands of sites for me, and when they found stuff, they've removed data from hundreds of the sites, which has saved me countless hours and a ton of stress. Stop phishing attacks, harassment, and other online threats before they even start, and take control of your digital privacy with Delete Me. Go to joindelete.me/deloney today for 20% off your annual plan. That comes out to less than nine bucks a month. That's joindelete.me/deloney.

• 53:07Dr. John Delony?

  All right. Thank you so much for joining me and my friend Arthur Brooks for round two. I guarantee you, you're smarter than you were before you started this. And if you're like me, you gotta go back and listen to it a couple more times. Thank you so much for being with us. Be kind to each other. Take care of your spiritual life. Take care of your family. Take care of your marriage. Take care of your bodies. And go make the world a better place. I love you guys. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. And that especially includes you, Kelly. Bye.