Off the Record With Will Guidara

📋 Get on the same page before the week begins. Download Dr. John Delony’s free weekly marriage check-in. On today’s episode, John talks with Will Guidara about how to build a strong marriage that lasts. Next Steps: 📚 Read Unreasonable Hospitality 📷 Follow Will Guidara on Instagram 🌐 Find Out More About Will Guidara 🔥 Microhabits for a Better Marriage: ⁠https://ter.li/l3b369p1⁠ ❤️Join Dr. John Delony at Money & Marriage Getaway 📞 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 Connect With Our Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. Go to Capstone Wellness to learn more. Get up to 20% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Visit Hallow for a 90-day free trial. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! Go to Joi + Blokes and get 65% off labs and 20% off products. Working knives for working people—go to Montana Knife Company to see what’s available now! Explore Poncho Outdoors! Get 25% off your order at Thorne. Visit Zander Insurance or call 1-800-356-4282 for your free instant quote today. Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💰 George Kamel 📈 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.

• 0:05Dr. John Delony?

  When it comes to the things you would do in restaurants, they were big and sometimes spectacular. But the things that have always caught my attention were the teeny tiny little things. They will tell that story for the rest of their life. When I talk to couples and they're thinking about rebuilding their marriage, they're reimagining it. They got two kids all of a sudden and they're married. They're different people. Their marriage is different. And they think in terms of Super Bowl.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Years ago, when I was getting married, the best piece of advice I got was...

• 0:37Dr. John Delony?

  What up? What up? Welcome to Off the Record.

• 0:43Dr. John Delony?

  Dude, I'm so glad you showed up on a Saturday morning, whenever this show dropped or whenever you happen to be getting it in your feed. This is when I sit down with some of my favorite people in the world, folks I've never met, but I'm fascinated by, or experts on a topic that I am desperate personally to learn more about, and I know y'all are too. Today's guest is literally one of the greatest people on the planet. And I don't say that lightly.

• 1:10Dr. John Delony?

  He wrote a book called Unreasonable Hospitality that has had a second, a third, and fourth life. He was one of the creators of the show The Bear. He's also a great friend and one of the greatest human beings ever, just behind closed doors. His name is Will Guidara. You've seen him everywhere. He is, was originally known as being, I think, the only restaurant in the United States to win the restaurant of the globe, right? The number one restaurant in the world twice. And he did it through unreasonable hospitality. They had amazing food, amazing service, amazing whatever, but they took it the next level and said,

• 1:53Dr. John Delony?

  "We're going to give people an experience that they'll never forget." And what's beautiful about Will is that's how he lives his life. That's how he treats just his buddies. That's, I've been, I've been on the road with him. We've, we've done events together. I've shared meals with him. That's how he treats everyone. And it's such an impact to me. So I had him on the show. He's got a new field guide, like a how to implement unreasonable hospitality in your life and in your home. And we spent a ton of time in this episode. One of my favorite conversations, I left a different man after having this conversation with Will about how we can be people that our spouses, that our kids, that our neighbors exhale when they think about us.

• 2:37Dr. John Delony?

  How do we shift that pendulum and become unreasonably hospitable to those around us so we can share kindness, grace, love, and also get stuff done? So buckle up or un, you know what? Unbuckle. This is an unbuckle conversation. This isn't a buckle up. Enjoy my conversation with one of the greatest men in the world, Will Guidara.

• 3:03Dr. John Delony?

  Here's the big picture question. I know I want to drill down into some like specifics.

• 3:10Dr. John Delony?

  Your restaurant is super successful and it becomes number one in the world once, and then it becomes number one twice. And then you've got this reputation of hospitality that's just maddening, right? Not maddening, it's extraordinary. It's over the top. He writes this book that it goes on to become a phenomenon. And now you're helping businesses all across the world, literally. Like reimagine how they love and serve their customers. Ever since I met you just as a person, and then we've hung out, and then I read your book, and I've always thought to myself, "This is how my home needs to feel too."

• 3:54Dr. John Delony?

  And if I, if I, as a guy who has a bunch of small businesses that I'm a part of, how dare I think about my customers, the people I'm trying to help, more so than my wife, or than my kids, or than my parents? Yes. What a weird energy swap. And so how, the inertia to push through that and say, "Why does my wife get my thirds and fourths and fifths, and the people I'm trying to help get my firsts and my seconds?" Yeah.

• 4:30Dr. John Delony?

  That's been a two or three year slog through literature, through all therapy, through all sorts of like, how did we all get here to where the people closest to us get our, get the least of us, right? Get our short, snappy, "I'll be there whenever, what about me's?" And then we go here to somebody else's mission, right? To make other people feel good. And that stumped me. It's been a wild thing. And the biggest picture, the biggest, one of the biggest ahas I've had over the last couple of years of this project of, "Is marriage still worth it? And if it is, how do you do it?"

• 5:08Dr. John Delony?

  Is this idea that we have to celebrate each other? And the, every time I bring that up to a group, to individuals, everyone looks down. And almost to a person, it's like, yeah, I don't remember the last time I told him, "I'm proud of him." I don't remember the last time I told her, "Hey, stop, stop, stop. You are beautiful." Or, "I saw what happened last night with our daughter, and you did a great job with that. I just want you to know, I saw that." We don't do that. And it's almost, I can't do, people feel like they're losing, right? And so I was like, dude, I gotta talk to Will. I gotta figure out how to take this thing that has, is turning the business world over on its head globally, and say, "How do I bring this to my house, right?

• 5:52Dr. John Delony?

  How do I honor my spouse with this? How do I honor my dad with this? My mom with this? My kids with this? In a way that they leave knowing that guy loves me and cares about me."

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Dude, it's so funny. It's actually been something I've been spending a lot of time thinking about recently. I just wrote the bonus chapter for the field guide.

• 6:12Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  We hid this wild game inside of that book. And for those that find it and play it and win it, you get the bonus chapter. And then of the people that get there, there's another game. And the one person who wins that gets an all expense paid trip to the welcome conference next year in New York City. So it's been really fun. But a bonus chapter is normally like a throwaway thing. And I wanted to use it as an opportunity just to challenge my own thinking and just write about something the same, but new. And it's about bringing unreasonable hospitality into life. The final quote in the field guide is,

• 6:54Speaker 01

  "Hospitality is being creative and intentional in pursuit of relationships." I think that is for me, the best definition of the word hospitality. And by the way, it requires both creativity and intention. It's one thing to be intentional, to choose to pursue a relationship, but that only gets you so far absent thinking about the person as an individual and figuring out what is the most creative way to make them feel seen, or loved, or appreciated.

• 7:24Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  It requires both.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Now, on the side, or somewhat related, years ago when I was getting married, the best piece of advice I got was from older friends who said, "You need to wake up every day and make the choice to pursue your wife." Right? We were just talking about this before we pressed record, how marriage is a wild thing.

• 7:47Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  You change, they change, and if you're not careful...

• 7:51Dr. John Delony?

  Always changing.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  It's like persistent change. Both people need to be pursuing one another to not lose each other in the process. Now, in work, it's easy to be intentional and creative in pursuit of something because we come into work, we have however many hours a day, we have people around us, there's brainstorming, there's persistent thinking, like this show.

• 8:17Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  The amount of creativity and intention that you put into making this show great, and it happens outside of the time you're actually having these conversations, I'm sure, right? You and your team are, "How do we make the podcast better? And that applies to everything you do." There's a math problem where, I have a three year old and a five year old. I'm at work, I have all of these meetings, these deep thinking sessions, then I go home and it's chaos until the moment I go to bed. There's no time to think.

• 8:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  And what I've learned, for me...

• 8:48Speaker 01

  It boils down to systems. It's one of the paradigm shifts of all of my work is that hospitality is not just surrounding yourself with bubbly people and saying, go be kind. It's a practice, it's a muscle, and it's strengthened through systems. The same is true in how we bring it to our lives. And so I'll tell you about some of the systems I've developed that have helped me pursue the people that I care about more consistently.

• 9:17Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, before we do that, why do I have? So whenever I tell couples who have two young kids,

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:23Dr. John Delony?

  you're not gonna like this, but y'all, every week, I want you all to get together, look at your calendar for the upcoming week, just be honest about what's coming your way, and put sex on the calendar. And they're like, ah, I mean, like, but that's not. It just isn't is right now.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:39Dr. John Delony?

  Just plan for it, and that will actually prove that you value this thing and that you're intentional about it. And they always go, eh. I have that innate feeling when you say you need to put systems in your house. And I know you're right. Why do I have that?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Well, because you're.

• 9:57Dr. John Delony?

  Does that make sense? Is that, has that, have I been over Hollywood?

• 9:59Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no, that's totally, that's totally reasonable. You put a system to something, it makes it feel less authentic.

• 10:05Dr. John Delony?

  It demystifies it, yeah.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Yet I don't believe that to be true.

• 10:08Dr. John Delony?

  It's not true at all. It actually, it's like.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  It ensures that it happens more consistently.

• 10:13Dr. John Delony?

  If, if, if all of your band plays in key or in the same, in the same chord structure, now y'all can write a great song, right? Otherwise, it's just noise. But there's something about like, structure.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  But I'll give you an example. So my dad, my dad is so unbelievably important.

• 10:27Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  And my dad and I used to talk all the time. I'm saying like, once a day, once every two days at least. And then I had kids. We can talk about my wife in a second, but my dad, that was the first to drop because there's no time, right? And I didn't like that. Now, I happen to be in a season where I travel a lot. I'm on a lot of planes right now. And so my system with my dad is every time I am waiting to board a plane, I call my dad. It's just become rote.

• 11:01Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Now, does that less thoughtful? It feels less authentic, but it's not.

• 11:09Dr. John Delony?

  It maybe feels less authentic, but it feels actually more thoughtful because you've, you've been intentional.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  And by the way, the conversations are still organic.

• 11:17Dr. John Delony?

  Of course.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  And thoughtful and spontaneous. But it means that on certain weeks, I'm talking to my dad 12 times a week.

• 11:25Dr. John Delony?

  Which is way more than.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Than it would have been before.

• 11:27Dr. John Delony?

  Waiting for spontaneous, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  It's the same thing when I'm, sometimes my wife is away for work. I'll put the kids down and I'll go downstairs and I'll have a glass of wine and doing whatever I do. And if I ever catch myself scrolling through Instagram, I'll close it. And in my notes app, I have a list of like 15 friends that I'm just looking to catch up. I'll start calling them all, one at a time.

• 11:50Dr. John Delony?

  So one picks up.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  And, and, and when I get their voicemail, I'll be like, don't call me back. You missed your window, but I love you. And then I just move on to the next person. Like, there's these little systems that we can bake into our lives just to make sure that we are reminded to reach out to the people that we love the most. Now, the other thing I've learned.

• 12:12Dr. John Delony?

  Dude, I'd love that.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Is, we used to say this in the restaurant. It was built around this culture of collaboration where I wanted everyone's ideas. It was my decision ultimately, it was my point of view, but it was a collaborative process to get there. And it was not uncommon for someone on my team to say, I'm just not that creative. And I think that's BS. I think everyone's creative, like hospitality, it's a practice. The more creative you are, the more creative you become. People who misunderstand creativity think of it as like a lightning bolt that strikes you. That's not true. Like, if you wanna, did you ever see, what was the Beatles documentary?

• 12:54Dr. John Delony?

  I haven't watched it. I need to spend a whole, I know. Everyone who knows I love music, it's like, what are you doing, man?

• 12:59Speaker 01

  They didn't have an album. They sat in a studio for a week, they had an album. Like, they, they, they forced creativity.

• 13:04Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  And so with certain things, I will just book an hour in the middle of my workday to think about the things that are coming up in life. Because what I realized is I had an inability to bring hospitality into my life because I didn't have any margin to think about how to be creative and how I was bringing it. A birthday.

• 13:25Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Or an anniversary, or how I wanted to change how Christmas worked.

• 13:31Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  With my kids, whatever it was, like, these things don't just happen. You need to decide that you're going to invest the time to make them happen. And we all have margin.

• 13:41Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  It's just a matter of what we do with it.

• 13:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I've heard that there's been some breakdowns of, I don't have time to work out, I don't have time to go see a counselor. And then it's like, let's pull up your Netflix log and your scrolling log. That was four hours yesterday.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:57Dr. John Delony?

  Like, you got time. Yeah.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  But.

• 14:02Dr. John Delony?

  I've been intentional about using that time.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  This morning, I, I have a trainer that I work with on Zoom because I'm always all over the place. That's the system that works for me. And I worked out with him for 45 minutes this morning. Had I not had that on my calendar, I probably would have wasted some time on Instagram.

• 14:22Dr. John Delony?

  Of course.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Over coffee.

• 14:23Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  The more I can systemize doing the things that I know I want to do.

• 14:30Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  The less I'm gonna do the things I don't want to do and the more consistently I'm gonna be moving towards the person I want to become.

• 14:38Dr. John Delony?

  So it's almost, it's the, I think at some point we have to, as a culture, say it's a fallacy that we're just gonna stumble into it.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:45Dr. John Delony?

  Like, whether it's relationships, being a good parent, or, I remember my, being frustrated, I didn't understand. It shocked my wife, and then it shocked me that it shocked her, that when we had our son, I'd never put a diaper on a kid before. I didn't know it worked. There was a new technology for me. And I kept getting the tape, I put it on backwards, I put it wrong. I had duct tape for a while.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  I love the idea of using actual tape.

• 15:09Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I mean, I was, I used, it held way better than that stupid stuff on there. But I finally, quickly, would see her disappointment, see my son's discomfort, and I said the words, I don't know how to do this. Right?

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:24Dr. John Delony?

  And she would say, I'll, I'll, let me just do it. And years later, when we're deciding if we're gonna stay married, those kind of things came up. And she was like, this was the same guy that I saw you agree to play a song for, with a band, that you did not know, you weren't, not only did you not know how to play it, you weren't good enough to play it yet. And I watched you learn to get good enough to then learn how to play that song. And then to perform it in front of a thousand people. I, I know that guy. And so when you gave up on this, and she was right. Like, I had decided, this isn't worth figuring out. I'll just let you do that. And I think for me, there was so much disappointment around it, embarrassment, shame, all that. I let all that just be like, you know what, I don't know how to do it.

• 16:08Dr. John Delony?

  But it's, it's, at the end of the day, as much as I wanna be all woo woo and mental health, it was a choice. It was a choice to say like, you know what, I don't know how to do this thing. I have to figure out how to do this thing. Because I wanna be this kind of dad who, right? And that goes across the board. So if I, if you've never spent an hour thinking, how can I overly love my spouse well?

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:30Dr. John Delony?

  Then you plan that hour, and it's gonna be awkward and weird, right?

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:33Dr. John Delony?

  For a while, until something, you know what I mean?

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's like anything, nothing happens all at once.

• 16:40Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  But I guarantee you, any, we'll talk husband to wife. If you're a husband and you're just kind of like coasting through life, there's a birthday five months away, and you're like, gosh, I gotta think about what to get for her, and da, da, da, da, da. I guarantee you, if you just sit down for an hour and actually actively think about something, you're gonna have a better idea than you would have had you not spent that hour.

• 17:03Dr. John Delony?

  Then you wait till the day before.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  It might not like come out of you super easily, but it's going to be productive or effective. Like, with my kids, like, Christmas, the first two years, they just ripped through their presents in five minutes, and we were frustrated about it. And we're like, this isn't what Christmas is supposed to feel like.

• 17:22Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  If you don't actually think about how to make it better, it's not going to change. It's not their fault.

• 17:31Dr. John Delony?

  Right, they're kids.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Right, they're kids.

• 17:32Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  And so I booked an hour on my calendar, literally 10 months away. On Christmas morning last year, like, so two Christmases ago, I put an hour on my calendar in October, I was like, figure out how, figure out Christmas. And then in October, I was like, oh my gosh, Wednesday, I have to figure out Christmas today. And I just started Googling around and like searching and called a couple people and ended up coming with the most fun idea. My kids were two and four at the time. I literally created a series of scavenger hunts for every single present. And the scavenger hunts were simple. I just took pictures of stuff all around my house in the neighborhood and just printed out just a picture of a gallon of milk, a picture of a mailbox. Christmas was so much more fun.

• 18:19Dr. John Delony?

  It was magical, yeah.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  And it took hours, and the kids were running around, and they, by the way, the last gift were bicycles for each one of them. They could have cared less about the bicycles.

• 18:27Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  They were having so much fun playing the game that got them there.

• 18:30Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  The point is, like, I didn't know what was gonna come out of the hour. The real point is this, anytime we are facing an issue at work, we look at it as a creative opportunity, something that we can solve, a problem that we can navigate through, and we dedicate the required time and resources and energy in order to solve that problem. We just need to be as disciplined and as intentional and as creative in pursuit of those same things in life.

• 19:02Dr. John Delony?

  We don't do those, yeah, we don't do that. I don't know. I've wrestled with it if, because it's quote unquote, I have to when we get fired. And I look at the divorce rates. I'm like, you can get fired from that too, right? Or

• 19:16Speaker 01

  And by the way, getting fired from that

• 19:17Dr. John Delony?

  Is infinitely. Yeah.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Sucks more. It's more expensive. You lose a lot of people and things.

• 19:24Dr. John Delony?

  Destructive. Yeah.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Destructive. You can get a new job easily.

• 19:28Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 19:30Dr. John Delony?

  Or I wonder sometimes, going back to the celebration, I do, I remember when my son was really young.

• 19:40Dr. John Delony?

  And we waited for a long time to have kids, some on purpose and some just didn't happen. And I remember thinking, the greatest gift I could give my wife and this new baby is to not be here. I don't want to be that guy. So I'm going to go work more and make sure at least the checking account's full.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:59Dr. John Delony?

  And what I found really quickly is work gave me a scorecard and I didn't have one here. It gave me a raise, my, you know, my annual review, my promotion, like there was a, a series of small wins that I could see, small finish lines I could see, and they became pathology. I chased them with everything I had to the, to the detriment of the things I cared about. But I wonder if there's a way to, when it comes to these systems, is it the daily micro habit of celebrating your spouse? Or is it the, my wife and I now, we take an annual retreat and we honestly sit back and we're like,

• 20:37Dr. John Delony?

  I want to tell you how I experienced you this year. And this was pretty incredible. And those conversations buy us permission to say, this year you felt exhausted.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:46Dr. John Delony?

  Or this year you were gone this much. But if we start with that, then I'm, I'm on defense and so then I'm going to have to lob the grenades back over the wall, right? But if I start with, hey, here's how I experienced you this year in the positive. It gives us both, in a weird way, I don't say a scorecard, but it gives us a, a, we know we're moving down the path.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's a safe space. I mean, like, by the way, you talk about like how when I said systemized the

• 21:10Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  And it does feel icky until you actually spend time thinking about it.

• 21:13Dr. John Delony?

  No, it's, it's the exact right thing. I'm just curious as to why I react that way.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  No, no, no, but I, it's, it's natural to react that way. And yet what you're talking about is effectively a check in, right?

• 21:22Dr. John Delony?

  And any, I'm, no, my whole life is a system now.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Any marriage counselor would say like, do check ins.

• 21:26Dr. John Delony?

  It's a daily, weekly, monthly, annual thing. Yes.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  And check ins are one of the most powerful things a couple can do because you're saying, okay, this matters.

• 21:35Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  By the way, in work, I would say to my team, like, when we schedule something, that is my way of signaling to you that it matters. When I make something mandatory, it's me saying very clearly to everyone in this company, this is important to me and by definition it needs to be important to you. Mandatory gets a bad rep. I actually think it's one of the most powerful things you can do. When you make something mandatory, you're saying, this is real. This is important. The same thing is true when you schedule, I mean, type of things that at first blush feel terrible. Scheduling connection with your person.

• 22:08Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  And yet it means that connection happens more consistently. When you have young kids, scheduling sex means that you have sex more consistently.

• 22:17Dr. John Delony?

  Infinitely more, right?

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Which by the way, like

• 22:20Dr. John Delony?

  Everybody wins.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  More frequent scheduled sex than non-existent unscheduled sex.

• 22:26Dr. John Delony?

  That's always the question. Like, do you want none?

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:28Dr. John Delony?

  Or do you want more often on the calendar?

• 22:30Speaker 01

  And I, and I, and I also think when you schedule something like a check in, you're also almost like building a wall around that time to say, this is a safe space.

• 22:39Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  And so the check in is one that we hear about and it's like, kind of in the, the culture of, of marriages. I'm just saying, take the idea of scheduling that kind of conversation and stretch it so much further.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Because there are so many more opportunities.

• 22:57Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Like,

• 23:00Speaker 01

  if you just think about, there's all these like books and marriage books and self-help books. And by the way, some of them are amazing.

• 23:06Dr. John Delony?

  Most of them are nonsense.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Most of them are nonsense. And I think a lot of people are constantly trying to learn how to be a better person. When I think everyone has the tools innately inside of them, it's just about saying, today I am going to try.

• 23:22Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  There's this quote by Teller of Penn and Teller. Sometimes magic is just being willing to invest more energy into an idea than anyone else would deem reasonable. Like, we have it in us. Just be the one that cares a little bit more and is willing to try a little bit harder. I think we all have it.

• 23:46Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  And the more systems you can build, the more set up for success you are in actually winning.

• 23:58Dr. John Delony?

  Where

• 24:04Dr. John Delony?

  where does the

• 24:08Dr. John Delony?

  it's in the ethos. And I've tried to pin it down, but I'd love to get your opinion on it. Where does the notion?

• 24:16Dr. John Delony?

  Let me say it this way. With every new system and every new theory and every new, oh, this is the right diet, or this is the right modality, or this is the right, whatever.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:28Dr. John Delony?

  What I feel like we've done to people is we've created this huge culture of disempowerment. The meta messages, you can't unless you. And it can be jarring to folks. I get a lot of pushback when someone's like, hey, I keep yelling at my kids and so I'm going to go to therapy. I'm going to figure out. I'm like, you should do that and you should, it's going to be a valuable exercise to go back through time and figure out why your body responds to feeling powerless by yelling. That's a good, that's a worthy endeavor. And stop yelling at your kids today.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:02Dr. John Delony?

  Because you don't yell at your grandmother. You don't yell at the old lady at church. You don't yell at your boss. You can, you've proven to yourself repeatedly you can not yell. So don't yell again.

• 25:14Dr. John Delony?

  And there's an instant like, oh yeah, I can. Does that make sense? But there's this culture of you can't. And I don't know how to, I don't, I don't have the skills. I don't have the, I don't, I don't know how to push back anymore against that.

• 25:31Dr. John Delony?

  Cause I feel like most of my job now has become, you can. I believe that you can.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  When I was a kid, you know, like when you turn a certain age and you start saying, I can't.

• 25:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Like right now, my kids are three and five. They believe that they could jump in a single leap across a highway, correct? They think they can do everything.

• 25:51Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  My daughter thinks that she is stronger than I am. She's like, daddy, I'm stronger than you. Let's be honest.

• 25:59Dr. John Delony?

  And you're like, dude, I, I, I train on Zoom. You can't touch this.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  I have a Zoom trainer.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  But and then you get to a certain age and suddenly crisis of confidence, you can't.

• 26:12Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  I remember when I, my dad was so intentional in how he raised me. And confidence was his biggest thing because my mom got sick and he just didn't want me to like lose confidence. So when I started saying, I can't, he literally printed up these little fortune cookie sized pieces of paper that said, success comes in cans. Failure comes in cans. And literally had, they had like a thousand of them over my entire life. Like I'd be like putting on my underwear and I'm like seven and there's like, that was intense. It was a little much. And yet I believe that to be true.

• 26:44Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Here's the thing though. The people who push back on it, it's easy for me to believe that because I grew up with a dad who constantly reassured me that I could.

• 26:56Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  And I think the

• 26:59Dr. John Delony?

  Most people don't have that.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so I don't think it's about pushing back on it. I think it's just about being the first person to say, hey, I don't think that you think you can. Because not enough people have told you that you can.

• 27:15Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  I don't even know you. You're a voice on the other end of a phone. And I know that you can.

• 27:22Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  And maybe the first thing that you can and should do is start to surround yourself with other people who believe in you as much as a stranger does.

• 27:32Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Because I think we're all capable of so much more than we think, but it's hard to know that if you don't have other people reminding you of it.

• 27:44Dr. John Delony?

  I think that may be the most important,

• 27:48Dr. John Delony?

  the most important walk away I've had the last five, 10 years is none of this matters without people.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:55Dr. John Delony?

  And to a large extent, you can get lucky. You can white knuckle your way through a lot, but none of it works long-term without other people.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  But you

• 28:06Speaker 01

  You put in the time to learn that song and get up on that stage and play with that band. Because you are tenacious and persistent and you believe in yourself, but really because they believed in you enough to ask you to play with them and you did not want to prove them wrong.

• 28:22Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  You wanted to prove them right.

• 28:24Dr. John Delony?

  I had a delusional confidence about that thing.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:27Dr. John Delony?

  I knew that. You know what I mean?

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:29Dr. John Delony?

  Like I can, I'll hit that guy.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  But I'm saying their confidence, their confidence in you made you more confident in yourself.

• 28:34Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they picked me.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  But I, the point I'm, I was making before, which I think you've, you've also made is

• 28:47Speaker 01

  people need to stop waiting for some like magic recipe to figure out these things out and rather just believe enough in yourself that if you decide to do something, you will be able to do it. By the way, when you say just stop yelling at your kids now,

• 29:02Speaker 01

  that doesn't mean you're never going to yell at your kids.

• 29:04Dr. John Delony?

  Of course not.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  You're gonna mess up in the same way that you're gonna have that first blush reaction. Wait, what about me?

• 29:09Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  But it's what happens when you think that, or what happens when you yell the next time. And whether you're able to say, I'm not a bad person. I did it. I'm working on it. I've gotten so much better. And also kids.

• 29:20Dr. John Delony?

  I was wrong.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  I'm sorry that I yelled at you.

• 29:22Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  I'm actually not sorry about the message I was delivering.

• 29:25Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't do that.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  But I am sorry about the way in which I delivered it.

• 29:28Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Which by the way, only somewhat related. I think that is such an important caveat to how you apologize when you yell.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  I am not apologizing for the message. I meant that. I'm really sorry how I delivered it. That was not okay.

• 29:45Dr. John Delony?

  Gotcha. Yeah, yeah.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  That's at least for me, by the way, in parenting and in leadership.

• 29:50Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Because suddenly you apologize for yelling and now people think it's okay to do the thing that they were yelled at.

• 29:55Dr. John Delony?

  To be late for five, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:59Dr. John Delony?

  How do you, how have you worked?

• 30:04Dr. John Delony?

  So I think a failure of, I would call my people, which is the mental health community over the last, especially a hundred years, but especially the last 50 years.

• 30:13Dr. John Delony?

  This idea of mental wellness, mental health is if I can get all of the right thoughts in the right order, then I'm going to be okay. And I think what's been divorced in a pretty powerful way from that is you gotta go do something different. You gotta go act. How did you take these fun, exciting, I just have this imagination and I'm sure it's not real, but New York, it's awesome. You've got a bunch of 5,000 star chefs and they're making delicious food. Y'all have wine going. And these creativity sessions.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:47Dr. John Delony?

  So fun. But at some point, everybody had to put their apron on and go fill their pitcher up and start like serving customers and start cooking, right? And like, how do you make that shift from the exhausted, that's the word I hear more than anything. The exhausted dad, the exhausted mom, the exhausted wife, the exhausted husband, who, all right, I put an hour on the calendar to think of a cool thing I can do for my husband. I'm pretty sure he's gonna be like, what are you doing? He's not gonna receive it in the, with, with the way I'm telling myself, he's gonna receive it, or I want him to. But it's still the right thing to do. How do you take that hour and then

• 31:33Dr. John Delony?

  set it into motion?

• 31:35Speaker 01

  So I think there's a, there's a couple of things at play here. One.

• 31:38Dr. John Delony?

  It's, it's from creativity to action. How do you get there?

• 31:40Speaker 01

  But you, you talked about like the exhausted part and I think there's something worth noting, at least in my perspective of the world. There's certain exertions of energy that are depleting and there are those that are re-energizing. I'll use the restaurant as the metaphor.

• 31:54Dr. John Delony?

  God, it's so true.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Like our pursuit of excellence. And by the way, I love, I'm a perfectionist. I crave nailing every single detail. It brings me joy. And yet, that is depleting.

• 32:08Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, it's exhausting.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  The investments I made to do crazy things for other people, that was never depleting. It was always energizing. In fact, it was that energy, it was that exertion of energy that gave me the energy to invest in the excellence.

• 32:22Dr. John Delony?

  Gotcha.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  And so I think it's, you can spend energy doing different things. Some will leave you exhausted. Some will actually start to fill your tank back up.

• 32:32Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  And understanding which fall into which category for every individual is important. Now, I believe that the creativity, the hospitality, the fun, the magic in a marriage is actually what makes it worth living.

• 32:49Dr. John Delony?

  Correct.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  And absent that, if you are married and you have kids and you have a job, the whole thing is exhausting.

• 32:58Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  So you need to spend time investing in things that actually energize you. Like anyone who's ever gone to the gym when they're hungover, understands this. You have nothing left to give and you go and you leave feeling better than when you walked in the door.

• 33:14Dr. John Delony?

  Absolutely.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  And so this is where I think this comes into play. Now, the other thing you said is I'm gonna give it to him and he's not even gonna appreciate it. Do you know, do you know the guy Ryan Holiday?

• 33:25Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Extraordinary. Yeah.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  I was on his podcast and I.

• 33:31Dr. John Delony?

  If, if, that's a bigger deal than being on my show.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  By the way, like, you know.

• 33:34Dr. John Delony?

  He's a big deal.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  It's good to come back to.

• 33:36Dr. John Delony?

  He hasn't, he hasn't had me on, so it's cool.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  No, but I, one of the things I say is there are few things more energizing than the feeling I have when I see the look on someone else's face, when they receive a gift, I'm responsible for giving them.

• 33:50Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  So I go into his podcast, I'm like, hey, how does that line up with stoicism? Am I wrong? Because his whole thing, like being a stoic means.

• 34:02Dr. John Delony?

  You should do it regardless of the outcome.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  And, and by the way, so we had this whole conversation. It's like, no, no, no, it is totally, it's totally okay for you to be filled up by the reaction. And yet, if that's the reason you're doing it, that's not okay.

• 34:18Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. Cause then you're using your spouse.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 34:22Dr. John Delony?

  They become a Xanax for you. Yeah.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  The giving needs to be the thing that fills you up regardless of the reaction you get. And yeah, if you never do anything cool for your person, the first time you do something for them, they're gonna be like, what is happening?

• 34:35Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. What do you want?

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. But if you do it often enough, like, like anything, they're gonna be like, hey, there's no catch here.

• 34:42Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  This is awesome.

• 34:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. Well, and it's, it, for me, it's been an identity shift, which is not, how can I make her in a better mood? How can I make her not mad to, I'm a guy who, and by

• 34:58Dr. John Delony?

  telling myself the story, I'm a guy who shows up no matter what.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:03Dr. John Delony?

  That has given more energy, cause now I'm working towards this identity. I'm not chasing this whack a mole game of. Does that make, uh, yeah, make sense?

• 35:11Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 35:12Dr. John Delony?

  You said something important. The, some things give us energy and some take from us. One of the most common things I hear from couples is my spouse says they just need some time to, on their phone. I can't think of a more depleting use of time. It's not a recovery tool. A walk is, an exercise is, I'll tell you what, like, I don't watch a ton of TV

• 35:41Dr. John Delony?

  and I'm 10 years late to it, but my son and I started on episode one of Stranger Things.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:47Dr. John Delony?

  And we would get done with an episode and I was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was magic for me all the way through it. And I know people like, I like this, he's the whole thing. And I was sharing it with him and so there is some time and there's energy there, but almost every time, I, I guess what I would say is.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  A TV screen and a phone screen are very different.

• 36:06Dr. John Delony?

  Very different.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Especially if you're watching the right, cause you're, you're with.

• 36:09Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, your people.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  You're with your people and you're having this moment.

• 36:12Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  It's beautiful.

• 36:14Dr. John Delony?

  But that

• 36:17Dr. John Delony?

  just unplugging is often not benign. It, it, it's cancerous. It takes from you. It's malignant.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  By the way, like, and I've had situations like this in my life in the past. So I'm like, I need some time to look at my phone and I judge them.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  Right? And yet, like, especially if it's your wife, that's not the case with mine, but like, the next step is not telling them why that is not the best way to. The best way is to say, awesome, I need some time to do this. Like we can inspire people through our actions. Like my wife, there was a season where I was on my phone and Christina would be like, I'm gonna go for a walk. And then she'd leave to go for a walk and I'm on my phone. I'm like, I, how did I end up being a loser?

• 37:04Speaker 01

  And then she never judged me for it. But then I'd be like, hey, can I go on a walk with you or awesome, I'm gonna go on a walk myself as well.

• 37:13Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  I think like the one coda I want to put on the conversation from before. Do you have a to do list for work? Right? Everyone does. I think anyone who's doing anything of significance in the world has a to do list. These are the things and like when we have a moment of pause in our day, at least this is how I manage my, my work. There's these moments, right? Like we're not, some days I'm scheduled back to back to back to back to back. There's other days where I have 30 minutes.

• 37:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  And I'll sit down and I'll open up the to do list and say, is there anything here I want to think about? Not action on, like maybe I'm sitting down to have lunch. What do I want to think about? Obviously I also have a to do list for life. And the to do list for life isn't, I mean, gutters might be on it.

• 38:03Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  But that's not the only thing that's on it. Like anniversary or my dad's 80th birthday is next year. I don't know what we're gonna do, but I've now spent three or four hours thinking about it and I have like a whole list on thinking about all sorts of different stuff. Like if you don't have a to do list for life, and I'm not talking about the chores, but like the things about life that makes life great. What are things that you want to be thinking about now so that three, six, nine, 12 months from now, when those things happen, they are spectacular? Anyone who ever gets to the weekend and has nothing to do because they never planned what they wanted to do on the weekend can relate to this.

• 38:42Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Your weekends are better if you spend 20 minutes during the week deciding how you want to spend them. This is how you bring hospitality into your life. Just be a bit more creative and a bit more intentional.

• 38:56Dr. John Delony?

  I, we, obviously we have tons of to do list. The thing that was a game changer for me was a to do for. And what's, was the thing, and this was inspired by, I, I was listening to Esther Perel counsel somebody and they're going back and forth. And this woman was incredibly critical of her husband, just he doesn't do this, he doesn't do this, he doesn't do this. And Estelle, in her very New York, thick, French, beautiful accent, she just said, when's the last time you made him a cup of tea? And that woman just got silent. It was like all this criticism, all this criticism and much of it's probably warranted.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:33Dr. John Delony?

  When's the last time you just headed in with something kind? And I thought, what a powerful thing. And so just making a to do for.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  To do for.

• 39:42Dr. John Delony?

  Like, what's a thing I can go do? And part of it was inspired, I have a 14 year old son and I was like, hey, I'm gonna not tell you very much how to treat a girlfriend as you're getting into dating and treat a future spouse someday. Like, you're gonna have a very lived experience. So Sunday night, get in the car, dude, what are we doing there? We're gonna go fill up mom's car. So she has gas all week. And that's a thing, because I know she hates going to the gas station. And like, what's a, what's a thing? And what it's done over time for me is I just walk in the house with my eyes open a little bit wider. It takes, because I've counted.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  The way those simple things.

• 40:20Dr. John Delony?

  It's, that's it. It's 28 seconds. I've counted 28 seconds to walk by and see the dryer and washer not moving and to move one to the other.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:31Dr. John Delony?

  It does take three or four minutes to fold whatever's in the dryer. That's a long time. So.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  By the way, I mean, if you're.

• 40:35Dr. John Delony?

  Give me 20 seconds.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  By the way, if you commit to helping with the laundry and you're the one that gets there when the dryer is dry, it's a hard moment.

• 40:42Dr. John Delony?

  It's the worst.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  It's the worst. Like, I don't want a shirt going in. It's those moments you're like, ugh.

• 40:48Dr. John Delony?

  Just last night, the, the, I opened the trash to put something in the trash and that sack was so overfull and my wife was right here and we both just looked at it just to see, are you gonna, you know, when you have an infant the first time and you hear that baby crying or whatever and you're both kind of half asleep, but not, and then both of you stop breathing just to see, like, I'm being more quiet than you, like, you both now. But that leads to the, like, to me, the power of just go first.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  This quote, I was doing a, I was signing books after a talk months ago. And one of the guys that came up, he said, gosh, your talk reminded me of this, this saying we have in our family, like from his parents, and I think it went back always. Never let a gracious impulse pass.

• 41:36Dr. John Delony?

  Hmm.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  And by the way, I, I get chills repeating it. Because if you can actually commit to living life that way, which I don't think it's possible for anyone to do it 100% of the time, but at least to aspire towards that.

• 41:52Dr. John Delony?

  I'm writing that down.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Like, the number of times I'd see something and have an idea of something I wanted to do with that thing for someone in my life and be like, man, that'd be so cool. I'm just too busy right now.

• 42:08Dr. John Delony?

  Well, I think that excuse is gone now because you can pretty much do anything with your phone now.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:12Dr. John Delony?

  You know what I mean?

• 42:13Speaker 01

  But even some of this, like, I'll give you an example. I was.

• 42:16Dr. John Delony?

  Like I can send, like, I can give my wife some flowers. I can do that in two seconds.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yes. But like, for example, this one requires like marginally more work.

• 42:24Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  My kids call the thrift stores treasure stores. That's, that's how we branded them.

• 42:30Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  And like, we have this whole tradition when they get a bunch of new toys, they have to bring some to the treasure store and then they get one additional new toy after that and this whole thing. We were at the treasure store, me and my kids. Christina was out of town, so we were in a burning daylight on a weekend day. And one of my buddies, a kid that I've known since preschool, is a huge Sublime fan.

• 42:51Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Loved, loved Sublime. Like he used to busk in the streets of Europe, playing Sublime. And he's a medium. I know he has a medium shirt and I see an old Sublime shirt in medium. And I'm like, man, I should just buy this and send it to Andy. And I took it off and I put it back in the thing. I was like, I don't want it. I'm gonna have to go home and find a box. And then it was literally two weeks after I heard never let a gracious impulse pass. And I turned around, picked it up, found the time that weekend, brought the kids to the, whatever. I got a note from him two weeks later. He's like, dude, it just feels so nice that you thought of it.

• 43:26Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  The silliest, simplest thing and how close I was to not doing it, what it cost me eight bucks between like the $2 shirt and whatever the shipping was.

• 43:36Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  In our marriages, with our kids, with our friends. I'd say like over the last 10 years, I've probably let 50% of my gracious impulses pass. Now, I have a lot of them, so it works.

• 43:48Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  But in marriage, above all else, if we can be more determined to never let a single one pass, that one thing, we all have the ideas, it's just a matter of actioning them.

• 44:02Dr. John Delony?

  That's, I'm gonna take that on as a challenge.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  If you try to, even like for a week.

• 44:06Dr. John Delony?

  I'm gonna go 30 days. Now I'm gonna put it in. I'm gonna go 30 days and I'll keep track. But I would like to not, no matter what the impulse is, I'm gonna see it through. I like that.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  That's fun.

• 44:19Dr. John Delony?

  That could be really fun.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  I actually love it as a challenge. Like there's all these challenges.

• 44:26Dr. John Delony?

  It reorients, like.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Generosity.

• 44:30Dr. John Delony?

  It reorients generosity, but it reorients the most important relationship in my life back to top of mind.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:35Dr. John Delony?

  Not behind work numbers and schedules and doctor appointments for kids and all that. It pulls, it's kind of like when you're working with, with your business, it's like, what makes you so, so successful, which, which makes my boss Dave so successful is what I'll call a pathological obsession with the end user.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 44:56Dr. John Delony?

  Right? Like, I've been doing a lot of stand up here over at Zany's and like, there's comics who come through and you can feel it. I've worked really hard on an hour. Y'all owe me these laughs.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Huh.

• 45:10Dr. John Delony?

  Versus.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:12Dr. John Delony?

  I've met with some, I mean, just been in the green room with some made, big time comics who are like, the crowd's tough. And they see it as I owe them a break from their life. I'm gonna go out there and work extra hard to give them, right? Like I, I want to, it's hospitality, right? It's just the way I see it. But the most important person I should be thinking about that is not a room full of strangers or a customer. It's, how do I bring that to my wife? And I like that. That's a good challenge for me. Don't let a gracious impulse pass.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Do you know, what you're talking about with comedians, it exists across every business.

• 45:45Dr. John Delony?

  Every business.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  After I sold my company and before COVID, in that two months, I like had a complete identity crisis. I was like, who am I without restaurants? And started frantically raising money and putting together a team to open more restaurants. And when COVID hit, I was one week away from signing three restaurant leases in New York. COVID gave me the gift.

• 46:05Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Of choosing what I wanted to do next as opposed to doing what I'd always done.

• 46:10Dr. John Delony?

  Huh.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  But the name of my hospitality company that I'd set up for those restaurants was called Thank You.

• 46:16Dr. John Delony?

  Hmm.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  And it was because I looked at so many of the successful restaurants in New York. And when you walked in the doors of those restaurants, it was almost like the energy you were receiving was, you're welcome.

• 46:30Dr. John Delony?

  Ex, yes.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  Do you know what I mean?

• 46:33Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  And I was like, hold on.

• 46:35Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  I don't care if I have the best restaurant in the world or a random restaurant in.

• 46:39Dr. John Delony?

  Y'all don't exist without them.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Like, I am grateful that you are here.

• 46:44Dr. John Delony?

  Because we don't exist without you.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. And also like, even if you're the busiest place ever and you could be mean to a bunch of people and you're still gonna do great, like, they're choosing to invest their time with you like that for, not on a business level, but simply like ask yourself what right looks like.

• 47:04Dr. John Delony?

  A human level, yeah.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Right means feeling grateful for that.

• 47:07Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  But it's wild to me. Like, and by the way, the thing that frustrates me, I'm like, where is karma?

• 47:14Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Like, how are these people still so busy when this is the way they're leading? Or some of those comics, I'm sure are very sick.

• 47:20Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah. But it comes.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  It'll come.

• 47:22Dr. John Delony?

  It comes. And I've, I've, yeah, it comes. Yeah. You, it, it comes when, and you see it when there's a spectacular fall publicly and there's a ground swell of, no, no, no, I know her. Like, don't talk bad about her. You might have this perception or I know that guy.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:41Dr. John Delony?

  Behind closed doors, I know that guy. This, this, this conversation's over, right? And you see people survive those versus the other, which is a thing comes up and everyone's like, yeah, yeah.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Doesn't surprise me.

• 47:53Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah. And it's, that's a, it's a haunting, right? Um.

• 48:00Dr. John Delony?

  I've heard you speak several times and you know, I've had conversations about this. Well, the, when it comes to the things you would do in restaurants, they were big and, and sometimes spectacular. But the things that have always caught my attention were the teeny tiny little things. And when I talk to married couples, the teeny tiny things that people will tell forever. They will tell that story for the rest of their life. When I talk to couples and they're thinking about rebuilding their marriage or reimagining it. They got two kids all of a sudden and they're married, they're different people, their marriage is different. And they think in terms of Superbowl. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, make each other a cup of coffee. Like just start washing the towels, man. And then you won't get crazy, put the liner back in the trash after you take it out.

• 48:44Dr. John Delony?

  Like it's these little things. Am I crazy? It feels like hospitality, feels like this generous, this generous generosity impulses. Man, they happen at the micro level, way more than the spectacular, the fireworks show.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Sometimes like when I go to speak to a group of financial advisors or any business who works with the same customer over the course of years or months or years. It's a question I get like, hey, it was easy for you to do unreasonable hospitality because you had people for one night. I see them all the time.

• 49:22Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Like, yeah. By the way, I'm envious of that.

• 49:26Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, you get to know them.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  You get to walk through life with these people. Now, to the point of like the big gestures, anyone listening who has no idea who I am, like at the restaurant, we do crazy stuff.

• 49:37Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Send people sledding or beach scenes, we do wild, wild things.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  When I think about my relationship with my wife, that's what it looked like in the beginning. Right? Like crazy, over the top day, it's this, that, the other thing.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  If I did the big, over the top things for her all the time now, she would just be annoyed. Right? Like we live life together. Like, and, and by the way, it's like any song, a song is not good if it's all crescendos. A tasting menu is no good if it's all beef dishes, right? Like you need in a song, you need the bridge and the verse and the solo. Like it's all about how these things balance together. But when you're in relationship with someone, you now know them so unbelievably well that it's those micro gestures that matter more than anything because anyone can do something over the top.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  Only someone that knows them so intimately well, understands the little things that will make them tick.

• 50:44Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  In my marriage, when Christina sets up the coffee machine at night so that when I walk downstairs, all I need to do is press a button. I mean,

• 50:56Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  That's better than buying me a new car. Right? Like that means so much to me because she knows that in the morning before coffee, I'm barely functional.

• 51:07Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  And so that one thing takes her probably 28 seconds. And there's other things in, in the other direction.

• 51:16Dr. John Delony?

  How important is it? So let me set this up. I

• 51:24Dr. John Delony?

  have my big moment over at the comedy club.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:28Dr. John Delony?

  Right? So I do my first big headlining night and I set up some surprise guests who are infinitely better and more famous than me and they're fun just to show up.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Wait, congratulations.

• 51:41Dr. John Delony?

  No, it was a blast. It was fun.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  That's incredible.

• 51:43Dr. John Delony?

  The room sells out here in Nashville. It's a whole, that's how me and my dad connected when I was a kid, like all of this stuff happens at once. And my wife doesn't think I'm funny at all. At all. I'm hilarious, but she doesn't, very similar to Kelly, doesn't think I'm funny at all.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:04Dr. John Delony?

  Great. And the secret thing is, is anytime she comes and watches me do a thing, whether I'm speaking somewhere or whatever,

• 52:14Dr. John Delony?

  half the time people are looking over her, what's her reaction? What do you think? Do you think this is funny? Are you crying too? Like, right? And so she hates the spotlight. She likes working behind closed doors. And so coming out for her is a, is a thing. She came to the show and at one point, the lights are real, real bright in those rooms.

• 52:35Dr. John Delony?

  I saw her like with her head back laughing.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 52:39Dr. John Delony?

  And dude, it was just like every other laugh went away. It's like, boom, there it is.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  Like Dave Chappelle and Nate Bargatze could have been laughing and it would have had no.

• 52:47Dr. John Delony?

  Didn't matter. Didn't matter.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:48Dr. John Delony?

  Boom, right there.

• 52:50Dr. John Delony?

  One of my favorite things about hanging out at comedy clubs, hanging out with other comics in the green room. There's just kind of no filter and no rules and it's awesome. Everybody's like on the same team. I left early. I was like, guys, it's awesome. Thank you all for coming and being a part of this with me. It was pretty special for, for me. I was racing home to get that second standing ovation.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:08Dr. John Delony?

  Couldn't wait, could not wait. So I left early, I drive up.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  I'm like excited and nervous.

• 53:14Dr. John Delony?

  I have this thing. It's like, I'm going to walk in and she's going to be like, oh my gosh, I was so. So I, there's one single light on in our kitchen, which is kind of a signal, kids are in bed. She's still awake. When that light goes off, I know she's already gone to bed. I cut home early, walk up the stairs, get into the house and she goes, hey. And I was like, kind of wait, I was kind of waiting for it, man.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  You're like, go.

• 53:35Dr. John Delony?

  And she goes, hey, is there any way you could take our son to school in the morning? Cause I forgot our daughter has a doctor appointment. Is there any way you could get him there? I was like, yeah. And she goes, oh God, thank you. And she came over and kissed me goodnight and said, goodnight, I love you. And she went to bed.

• 53:55Dr. John Delony?

  And homie,

• 53:58Dr. John Delony?

  what I, the, the event I had made up in my mind.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:05Dr. John Delony?

  Colliding with reality.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:07Dr. John Delony?

  And so there was the instant part of me, if that had happened five or 10 years ago, it would have been, I would have supernovated, right? You don't love me, you don't care about me.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Full crash.

• 54:16Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Like why, why everyone else thinks I'm so great? Like you're the only one.

• 54:21Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. And instead I laughed. I was like, who, that didn't go like I thought it was going to. And a couple of days later, I was like, hey, this is embarrassing for me as a loud six foot two Texan, but can I just say this? If I ever go do, she calls them hanging out with my friends, go do that thing with your friends.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:40Dr. John Delony?

  If I ever go do that and I come home, it would, it means a big deal to me if you would just ask me, what's one joke that went great?

• 54:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:45Dr. John Delony?

  Which is one?

• 54:46Speaker 01

  Or if you come and I did a good job, that you just like throw a ticker tape.

• 54:51Dr. John Delony?

  Yes. Yeah. When I went in the door, will you be obnoxious for me? And here's what was wild. In her hearing that, of course she heard it great. She's like, yes, of course. But the way she read it back to me was, John, the whole month was a celebration of you. Because you were on, do, you were running jokes three nights a week. You were gone and I was creating space here, I was creating space here. I took the kids care, I took all the stuff off, like you, you thought the kids weren't doing anything. I was doing all of it, driving everybody everywhere because I wanted you to have this. And so for her, that it had been a month long celebration. The fact that I got so, so uncomfortable and I went for you. I thought that was the parade, right?

• 55:35Dr. John Delony?

  But there was this, and I tell you the whole story to distill it down and say, again, almost like coming up with a, with a structure, a system.

• 55:45Dr. John Delony?

  I can't expect her to be a mind reader, right? And so there's something about asking, will you love me like this? And I'm embarrassed that I have, that I have these like, hey, when I'm stressed, will you just put your hand on my arm? It just makes it all go away. I know that's weird. Would you just do that? It feels unsexy and unromantic and un-Hollywood, but I think it might be an act of super graciousness, giving you a path. Here's how you can love me really well. Does that make sense?

• 56:11Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 56:12Dr. John Delony?

  Instead of,

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Like it just,

• 56:15Dr. John Delony?

  like I, I feel like the conversation about hospitality, like if someone's be like, I gotta, I'm just gonna like, like I'm going to be like 007. I'm going to be like, you know, Sherlock Holmes and try to figure it out. It really helps if I can just give you a path.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  It's not a test. Like just give the other person the answers.

• 56:32Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Like it's very important to my wife that we just walk slowly with no purpose sometimes.

• 56:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  It's very important to me that when the kids and I are watching a movie at the end of the night, she doesn't need to watch the whole thing.

• 56:50Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  But just come up and sit with us for 10 minutes.

• 56:53Dr. John Delony?

  Yep.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  And by the way, if her body is touching my body a little bit, oh.

• 56:58Dr. John Delony?

  My nervous system goes.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  I will fall asleep. I will, I literally will just fall asleep at the moment that happens.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  And I told her that I was like, hey, I know that at the end of the night, when the kids and I want to watch a movie, that is the last thing you want to do. If you could ever find like five minutes just to come and sit with us, like that would just mean a lot to me. And it's like, hey, it's not the last thing I want to do. It's like, that actually sounds lovely. I don't want to watch a whole movie. I have others. Like, that's when she goes through her, she likes to cross things off her list. And I think giving the answers is a beautiful thing. I also think to the point of like, because I've been there before. I went and did a big talk and Christina and the kids were with me. And the organizer said to Christina, hey, like, do you want to see it? And she goes, no, I'm good.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  And in the beginning, I'm like, oh, she doesn't even want to come see me do my thing.

• 57:54Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 57:56Speaker 01

  Sometimes I think we expect our person to play too many different roles. They're meant to be our best friend and our partner and our lover and our co-parent and our biggest fan.

• 58:16Dr. John Delony?

  And our co-earner.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:17Dr. John Delony?

  And our co-manager. Yeah.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  What are we doing here? Like, there are plenty of people out in the world that are going to be impressed with me.

• 58:24Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  I don't need my wife to be like, giving me a standing ovation. If I'm not careful, I really want it because I seek validation from her. But I already got the most validating thing I could ever have gotten from her, which was the commitment to spend her entire life with me.

• 58:43Dr. John Delony?

  I won.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  She gave it to me.

• 58:45Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  And so like, I've had to work on that as well. Because sometimes like, even just at a house party in our house, I'll like tell a couple of jokes and everyone's laughing. I look over and she's just not laughing. I'm like, ah.

• 58:59Dr. John Delony?

  Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yes. And vice versa, I had to explain to her, I don't know why. But when we are all on the couch, all four of us, and even one of these idiot dogs I have, I instantly go to sleep and she thought it was because I was bored. And like, I wasn't engaged. And they said, I don't know how to describe this other than that's one of the only times in my world when my body goes, we're all okay.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:30Dr. John Delony?

  And like, all my chickens are here.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  For absolutely nothing, I can.

• 59:35Dr. John Delony?

  I'm out.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  I can turn off.

• 59:37Dr. John Delony?

  And it's my, it's, it's not good for my sleep. It's my favorite thing is in a dark room with some mindless show on.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  The people that you love the most.

• 59:45Dr. John Delony?

  All the kids are there and my body goes, and now we're good. Yeah. And she was like, oh, I thought you were super bored and want to be doing something else. And so you just nodded off. And I was like, no, no, no, no. This is when I'm like, ah.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I invited a friend of mine and his kid, this is a year ago, to, it was like a Friday. And I had a light day and we were on, we were working on a project together. So we were on a Zoom in the morning, me and him and a bunch of people from our teams. And I was like, hey, before we go, do you want to just go see a movie? Let's take our kids and let's go see a movie today. You know? Well, we don't do screen time with our kids. I was like, okay, bro.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  I get it. Principally, I get it. I was like, do me a favor. Get your entire family, sit on the couch, watch any movie with a bowl of popcorn and circle back to me. It is one of life's absolute great pleasures.

• 1:00:32Dr. John Delony?

  Yes. I'm neurotic about screens and me and my daughter saw three movies last week. And we had, it got progressively more fun and progressively more silly and progressively more ridiculous.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  Movie night is different than every other relationship at the screen.

• 1:00:48Dr. John Delony?

  And I think. And even going back to the theater is so fun.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Back to, I mean.

• 1:00:51Dr. John Delony?

  It's magic.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  The movie theater experience, it's a shame that it's like kind of losing as much as it is. Because I, one of my dad's quotes that I love is the secret to happiness is always having something to look forward to.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  And I love taking my kids to the movies in the morning on a weekend.

• 1:01:10Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Like literally popcorn for breakfast. And we do it once every couple of months. But we will talk about it for the entire week.

• 1:01:17Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  I'll be like, guys, Saturday morning, popcorn for breakfast. That's, that's what we call it. And I think like, we need these things, not just for our kids, but just for ourselves. These little moments to look forward to.

• 1:01:33Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. And again, that's so small. It's not Disneyland. It's not a camping trip. It's not, let's go eat popcorn for breakfast.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:44Dr. John Delony?

  It's gonna be ridiculous.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  Popcorn for breakfast.

• 1:01:45Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, it's gonna be silly.

• 1:01:49Dr. John Delony?

  And I've written it down. I'm, I'm beginning today. Never let a gracious impulse pass.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  What's the thing, the whole 30?

• 1:01:58Dr. John Delony?

  The whole 30. Yeah.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  Like.

• 1:02:00Dr. John Delony?

  It's gonna be the gracious 30.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying. Like, actually, things, I've never thought about it as like a month long challenge. And so I'm inspired back by that. Like these ideas of, so all the challenges revolve around working out,

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  drinking and what we eat.

• 1:02:19Dr. John Delony?

  They revolve around me.

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:21Dr. John Delony?

  This challenge revolves around my wife.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  And by the way, this is one of the greatest investments in you. Have you read any stuff by Bob Waldenker for the Harvard study of longevity and happiness?

• 1:02:37Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  I've started spending a bunch of time.

• 1:02:39Dr. John Delony?

  Relationship.

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  He is amazing. He is amazing. And the number one thing, basically, how strong are your thigh muscles?

• 1:02:48Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  So that you don't stop walking later in life and you can stay social. But the depth and quality of your relationships leads to you living longer than any element of your diet or your workout routine or how much you drink or any other. Because relationships.

• 1:03:04Dr. John Delony?

  That's it.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Are what make life worth living. And so, yeah, if that is the case, it's irresponsible to not imbue them with a little bit of magic. And that is, well, everything that we've been talking about.

• 1:03:15Dr. John Delony?

  And magic, I love how you've distilled it down. It's intentionality.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, just being creative and intentional in pursuit of the people you care for.

• 1:03:24Dr. John Delony?

  Which is really frustrating because that means at the end of the day, I look in the mirror and I get to choose. Am I going to be for her or for me?

• 1:03:35Dr. John Delony?

  And by the way, when I'm for her, it's way for me too.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's the most selfish pleasure.

• 1:03:41Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, dude, it's the best.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  It really is. Like, there are very, very few people that I've ever met who like giving, who like receiving gifts at Christmas more than they like giving them.

• 1:03:52Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, dude, it's the best.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  It's so much more fun.

• 1:03:54Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  The look on someone's face and they unwrap it, they see that.

• 1:03:58Dr. John Delony?

  Especially a thoughtful one.

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you're, and like, when you get that look, you're like, oh, I nailed it.

• 1:04:03Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  That, I mean, and that same idea can be transposed across everything.

• 1:04:10Dr. John Delony?

  Thanks for being my friend.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:04:12Dr. John Delony?

  Enjoy all your time, man. You're traveling the world here soon, so be safe.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  I'll see you on the other side.

• 1:04:16Dr. John Delony?

  I'll still be here.