The True Limiting Factors in Your Life (With Tom Bilyeu)

In this episode, John sits down with Impact Theory’s Tom Bilyeu to discuss the idea of “choice” and why there’s freedom in being wrong. Next Steps: Follow Tom Bilyeu on Instagram @tombilyeu and X @TomBilyeu. Subscribe to Tom Bilyeu’s YouTube channel @TomBilyeu. Learn more about Impact Theory. 📞 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 T-Shirts Connect With Our Sponsors: 🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. 🌿 Get up to 40% off at Cozy Earth with code DELONY. 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. 😇 Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. 💤 Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! 💪 Get 25% off your order at Thorne. 🥤 Get 20% off at Organifi with code DELONY. 🏔️ Use code DELONY at Poncho Outdoors. Listen to More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/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

  People confuse positive thinking with empowerment. Positive thinking is about optimizing your life for things that make you feel expansive. But that is not going to help you build a better life. What will help you build a better life is empowerment. Empowerment is approaching your life like an engineer. You need to first understand how the world actually works.

• 0:28Dr. John Delony?

  What up? What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so glad that you are here.

• 0:37Dr. John Delony?

  So glad that you're here. I hope your relationships are doing okay. I hope your mental and emotional health is okay. Not that we have an election going on or... Kelly, is the election over by the time we're putting this out?

• 0:48Speaker 02

  Yes, the election is over. We know, well, maybe we know.

• 0:51Dr. John Delony?

  Maybe we know.

• 0:52Speaker 02

  Maybe we don't.

• 0:53Dr. John Delony?

  Who knows? Who knows? Or maybe we are but a speck of dust.

• 0:58Speaker 02

  I hope not. That's, well, I don't know. Maybe I hope so.

• 1:01Dr. John Delony?

  I hope not, but we won't know.

• 1:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04Dr. John Delony?

  So alas, future us's. I hope that you are doing well in this wild season. Hey, we're continuing our interview series with a guy that many of you have probably seen. Maybe you've never even heard of this guy. But he is a massive internet presence. He's a massive, he speaks all over the world. His name is Tom Bilyeu. And if you ever eat protein bars and you've seen Quest bars, that's this dude. He made them up like in his house, like in his garage. And they got bigger and bigger and bigger. And he sold the company for a billion dollars. And then he has gone on to become a massive influencer in the, in his YouTube channel, Impact Theory. And here's the deal.

• 1:47Dr. John Delony?

  Him and I see the world very differently. He is a tech founder. He's into AI. He is a filmmaker. He is a into tons of animes. We just approached the world very, very differently. And between my show and I ended up doing an episode on his show, man, we cover the gamut, talking about all kinds of amazing things. So if you're interested in somebody who just sees the world differently than me, I'm always telling people, get off your screens and go outside and, you know, X, Y. And he lives a very different life and it made for a fascinating, fascinating conversation. So turn it up a little bit.

• 2:25Dr. John Delony?

  Is that what you say when you're like about to rock and roll or something?

• 2:28Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 2:29Dr. John Delony?

  If it's too loud, you're too old.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think you turn it up a little bit. I think we turned it up to 11.

• 2:34Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, my gosh, that was incredible. That's hey, in case you're wondering, that's how Kelly produces this show. Let's turn it turn it up to 11. Is that?

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Nice job. For those that don't know, spinal tap.

• 2:45Dr. John Delony?

  It's cool. Hashtag Kelly is old and her influence is just trickling down like Reagan economics. Hey, turn it up and check out my great conversation with Tom Bilyeu. So you know, when you're starting to stumble into a new idea, you start hearing it in pockets and you read it and suddenly it's starting to make its way into a new mental model for yourself. The word that has been circling for me the last 24, 36 months, over and over and over again, is this idea of choice. And the one thing, as I worked in academics for 20 years and as I have transitioned out academics,

• 3:20Dr. John Delony?

  I recognize that I was a part of a system that I know internally, I know me and the teams that worked for me, deeply loved people and deeply tried to take care of people. And at the same time, we told a whole generation of human being, because of this or this or this or this, you'll never be fully enough. And so y'all go over into the corner and we'll pat you on the head and we'll take care of it for you. I realized how pervasive that is, that the that the metacultural narrative is there's something wrong with you, not enough, and we'll save you. Just you go into the corner, we'll pat you on the head. And this idea, almost this, this, this cutting the chains culturally is this word choice, like, no, no, you can make a choice. And I don't think we have a psychology for that.

• 4:04Speaker 00

  Well, we certainly don't enjoy being told that we have agency over our own lives.

• 4:11Dr. John Delony?

  Why? That feels like it's the most freeing thing.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, so it comes down. So everybody has what I call a frame of reference.

• 4:17Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  Your frame of reference is your biology, your beliefs and your values.

• 4:22Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  People think that they simply believe the truth. So, Tom, why are you even talking about beliefs? And the reality is that beliefs are chosen because even physics, people don't actually know how all of this works. And so we're trying to approximate and in the approximation, we confuse that for objective truth. And people don't realize that they have just completely shaped their sense of what the world is. This is why.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  A lot of people, I think, underestimate the importance of like the first three to five years of your life. Because that's locking in all these beliefs about how the world works. And you never realize, oh, that was a three-year-old's mind doing its best to approximate like, how do I get safe? Not realizing, as you get older, some of those beliefs may not actually be useful anymore. And if you updated the belief, then you could approach the world in a new way. So anyway, you get this frame of reference. You don't even realize you have it, but it is a, it's like wearing a pair of glasses that distort the world. But you don't realize you're wearing glasses. And you certainly don't realize you can actually shape the distortion so that you can see a slightly different variant of the world that may be more useful, even if it's not any more accurate. It's more useful.

• 5:32Dr. John Delony?

  There you go, okay.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Pushing you towards your goals. And so, one, you have to know what your goals are. You have to understand your own biases and distortions that you live under. I've heard you talk a lot about this. You know that you have a tendency towards anxiety.

• 5:44Dr. John Delony?

  Of course.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  So it's like, okay, I have to think about that.

• 5:46Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  As I decide how to interpret the world. Because I'm not going to interpret it perfectly. I'm gonna have this-

• 5:52Dr. John Delony?

  I'm gonna interpret it wrong. Yeah, wrong.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  And that will make life much easier for you. So if you already know that, then the frame of reference that you have allows you to take in new information. If you have a frame of reference that says, I am valuable because I'm better, smarter, faster, stronger, then it's like when somebody's like, actually, no, you're wrong about this thing, your whole worldview then destabilizes.

• 6:13Dr. John Delony?

  Gotcha.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  And people will do anything to restabilize their worldview.

• 6:18Dr. John Delony?

  There is what I would call an educated middle. A group of people who read well, who have great morning routines, who listen to all the right podcasts, et cetera. Okay? When I think back over the last 20 years of the folks who spent 25, 30 years of their life studying a thing, people who I'd call true subject matter experts, maybe not application experts, but they know this thing really well. And then I sit with people like you, who have been at the top of business, who are putting their relationships on display in certain way, like it's out there, right?

• 6:46Speaker 00

  No doubt.

• 6:48Dr. John Delony?

  That group of people, they cannot wait to have their mental models disrupted. There's, there's, there is a, there is a, I don't say joy, but there is a revelation in being wrong. Or having someone be like, no, no, no, look at it this way. And you, you, it's, it's like, yes, it's right. It's like, I got another plate on the bar. Yet this, this middle, this educated middle feels like, no, no, I've got to get this answer so I can lock into it and never let go of it.

• 7:19Dr. John Delony?

  How do you teach a group of people to say, no, no, no, there's actually freedom in being wrong? Cause that's, that's, you get closer to the truth. There's not freedom in finding this right answer and dying on every hill. Cause that feels like what we're, what we've done, right? And using your glasses analogy, it's like we're so afraid to take off our glasses that we're just looking for someone to say, no, you're looking at it the right way. Come be on our team. Does that make sense?

• 7:42Speaker 00

  It does. Uh, so how do I teach it? What I try to get people to focus on is what I call the only belief that matters.

• 7:50Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 7:50Speaker 00

  So the only belief that matters is if you put time and energy into getting better at something, you will actually get better at that thing. So.

• 7:58Dr. John Delony?

  That's such, that's so amazing.

• 8:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:01Dr. John Delony?

  How simple it is.

• 8:02Speaker 00

  Very simple. And if you actually believe that, like if I'm actually right about that, then how you spend your time becomes a spiritual consideration.

• 8:11Dr. John Delony?

  Correct.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Because you are not locked into who you are today. It's all a question of who you want to become and the price you're willing to pay to get there. Because acquiring those skills is not going to be easy, but it's like, wait, you're telling me I can be so good at guitar that Metallica would call when they go on tour.

• 8:29Dr. John Delony?

  That call's coming.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  Uh, hey, if you put in enough time and energy, it really could. That's the thing. Like no, no wink, wink, nudge, nudge, like actually, because they have a set of goals and that set of goals is to touch as many people with their music as humanly possible, to have a group of people that they want to be around, right? That honestly would probably be the hardest thing you'd bump up against, which is they have a clique of guys that they know and love and they've toured with and they've gone through all of that hardship together. So something would have to happen where that would break. Now they're open again. They have a need. And if you have the skill set and the personality, you really could fill it. Now people that live their life in that way, like the craziest dream that I have is actually within reach. If I put enough time and energy into it, those people have the only belief that matters.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  And now all of a sudden, they know what their goal is. They're working their butt off to get there. They encounter somebody who's like, let me show you how to do this a little bit differently. It'll be a little more efficient and you're more likely to achieve your goal. Now that person's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me more. Like I want to know what to do.

• 9:30Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 9:31Speaker 00

  So I consider myself a filtering mechanism.

• 9:34Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  What I tell people is I'm throwing the bat symbol into the sky.

• 9:37Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 9:37Speaker 00

  And only Batman are gonna respond. Now, when you get here, I'm gonna give you ideas that I have seen in my own life are super efficient at getting you towards your goals. And I hope that I'm constantly learning from other people as well, so I'm updating it. And I am testing my ideas against the real world. And so if I can get people to buy into that, you can close your eyes, imagine a world better than this one, open your eyes, and acquire the skills necessary to actually make that happen. I just sent this out in a tweet. I never know how they're gonna respond. Here, the following statement is true. People confuse positive thinking with empowerment. Positive thinking is about optimizing your life for things that make you feel expansive. That's wonderful. I want that for people.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  I want people to be able to on command make themselves feel expansive versus contracting down, shrinking, feeling like they're in fight or flight mode.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  But that is not going to help you build a better life. What will help you build a better life is empowerment. Empowerment is approaching your life like an engineer. You need to first understand how the world actually works. And that's where people go wrong. They don't understand their own psychology. They don't understand the psychology of others. They don't understand culture. They don't understand politics. So there's just a lot of things that they don't understand. And therefore, you're being manipulated by forces. It could be as simple as your microbiome is manipulating you to eat more Oreos. Right, right, right. But if you understand, "Oh, like, I have this strong impulse to eat this stuff because of my microbiome." It's crazy. Like, who would've thought? So, understand how the world works. Understand where you actually are. So what are you good at? What are you not good at?

• 11:14Speaker 00

  And then understand, the only belief that matters, that you can get good at a thing that matters to you and allows you to help other people, which becomes a really important part of my whole life philosophy. But, once you understand that, you put yourself in the driver's seat. But there's so many layers to peel back, to get people to be emotionally safe enough that they'll actually do it. Because you will, if your world is predicated on, "I'm good, I'm smart, I'm talented", and then somebody says there's a better way, that's super destabilizing.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  You have to first shift your worldview to something that isn't destabilized when it's challenged. If your worldview goes, grows stronger when it's challenged, I think I've heard you talk about this. So Nassim Suleyman wrote a book called Anti-Fragile.

• 12:03Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, extraordinary.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  So you want a worldview that's anti-fragile, meaning the harder people attack it, the stronger it becomes.

• 12:09Dr. John Delony?

  Right. And the harder your life gets, the harder the external circumstances, the more robust you become.

• 12:15Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 12:15Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, which is, which is extraordinary. How many people think they want a thing when they actually want something else? Here's what I mean. I liked the idea of imagining that James Hetfield calls and says, "Hey, John, we've heard about you and we want to invite you out on tour." By the way, I'm not that good. I spent way more time playing in front of the mirror, like with what I would look like than actually sitting down and learning how to play. Let's say that call came. Here's what that would cost me. I have a 14-year-old who's a freshman and I have an eight-year-old who's a third grader. It would cost me all of their games. It would cost me the nighttime wrestling matches with my daughter.

• 12:59Dr. John Delony?

  And lately she, I come, I come home and she says, "Do you want to dance or do you want to fight?" And she's this little bitty hurricane. She's amazing. It would cost me walks with my wife. Like it would come at a cost. And so it's been important for me to peel back, what's underneath the, "I want to be the guitarist of Metallica." I want people to think I'm capable and I'm good. And the deeper the layers go, I really want my wife to say, "I'm proud of you." I really want my dad to call out of the blue, my old grizzled cop dad and be like, "I haven't said this enough. I'm really proud of you," right?

• 13:34Dr. John Delony?

  It has nothing to do with playing guitar. And so for me, getting to, "What are you really chasing here and for what?" That's been an important lesson for me because I thought that it was about being a number one, being a this and this. And the deeper I've gone, it's, no, I want my wife to be really proud of me. I want my kids to, when they grow up, to say, "My dad, my dad loved us. He loved us a lot." And in a weird way, the more I've gotten there and anchored in, the freer I've become to go. Now I don't feel bad about leaving for a week because my kids know, right? Or I have two weeks or whatever we're doing. But have you found that most people think they want a thing, but really they're trying to duct tape and wallpaper over some other challenges?

• 14:15Speaker 00

  Yes and no. So, yes, I think people confuse the external things which are awesome and really do have a thing. And the reason that people will forever want their version of being the guitarist in Metallica is it has utility and there really is a massive upside.

• 14:30Dr. John Delony?

  It's awesome.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  And so, people need to understand, okay, there's a reason that that will be pursued forever until the end of time. But what they fail to understand is that ultimately, the only thing that matters is your neurochemical state.

• 14:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yep.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  So, I don't know how many billionaires have to commit suicide before people go, oh, money's not the answer. There's something else going on. And I'll shorthand it to, you have to earn your own respect. If you have your own respect,

• 14:56Dr. John Delony?

  I like that a lot.

• 14:57Speaker 00

  People can attack you and you'll still be like, okay, maybe there's some things in there I can really improve, whatever. But you're still gonna be like, I have a value system, I live up to my value system and that's why I respect myself. And so, I'm here to update my value system for sure, but I said these are the things that I was gonna do and I have done them and I really respect myself for that.

• 15:15Dr. John Delony?

  Nobody does that. Nobody respects themselves.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  I won't say nobody, but I think that-

• 15:19Dr. John Delony?

  It's very rare culturally.

• 15:20Speaker 00

  We don't think about it.

• 15:22Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  And so, the reality is that we are both the shout and the echo.

• 15:27Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  And what I mean by that is, you are the things you do, the shout, and the echo, what people say about the things that you do.

• 15:35Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  We are a social creature and there is no way to detach yourself from that. You will, you will actually break psychologically.

• 15:44Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  This is why the ultimate form of punishment is isolation.

• 15:47Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  Okay, so you just, you have to understand, I'm nested in a, a brain, first of all, that is designed for social interaction. And so, there's no way to remove myself from, I do a thing and people respond.

• 16:00Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  So, you're gonna, you're gonna have to deal with both of those. But ultimately, in the combination of those two things, you will either have or not have respect for yourself. The problem is, people over-index on the, the echo. I did a thing and a wave came back at me. Now, the wave you don't want to try to overcome is your own sense of what you're doing. You need to have resilience against simply being a puppet of the echo.

• 16:27Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 16:27Speaker 00

  Because the echo isn't always in alignment with what's gonna make you feel fulfilled. We may have to define that.

• 16:33Dr. John Delony?

  That's a whole, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  The ultimate punchline of life is fulfillment. It is the only stable psychological state. Meaning, you cannot be happy and grieving at the same time.

• 16:43Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  But you can be fulfilled and grieving at the same time.

• 16:46Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 16:47Speaker 00

  Fulfillment has a recipe, for lack of a better word. You must work really hard, that's a part of it, to gain a set of skills that matter to you, for whatever reason, that allow you to serve yourself and others in pursuit of an honorable goal. So, if you do that, you will trigger all the right algorithms in your brain. And when you're by yourself, you will feel good about yourself.

• 17:12Dr. John Delony?

  And that's like when you meet a third grade teacher who makes forty-one thousand bucks a year, who drives an old Corolla. And you can't get that smile off her face, even when she's exhausted, right? She's fulfilled. And then you've got the others that are chasing and chasing and chasing, right? The billionaires who jump off a building. It's that sense of, no, I've got this goal, and I'm, this is what I, this is what I want to do. And make peace with all of it. I love that.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 17:37Dr. John Delony?

  I love that. What I know about me when I get anxious is I don't see the world right. And the only hedge that I've found against my inability to experience the world as it truly is when I get set off is two things. One, restrict the number of times I get set off. Whether that's dietary, whether that's sleep, whether that is saying yes to too many things, etc. Like, there's a, there's an ecosystem I build for myself, or I allow to be built around me, that I know now is gonna set this off. The other thing is a group of, for me, a group of men and women that I outsource that to, who have a different pair of glasses that see the world.

• 18:20Dr. John Delony?

  And I can call them and say, hey dude, my wife said this, and I said this. And my buddy would be like, that's the stupidest thing you could have possibly said, right? And he's a banker in Texas, right? Has no, like, no day-to-day contact with me, but we know each other, I've got thirty years. Do you have a group of men and women that, beyond the, hey, what's your advice? What's this, that are just?

• 18:41Dr. John Delony?

  Tom's people that you can call and be like, I'm not doing all right. Or that, hey, my wife said this and I don't know how to say this, but it hurt. And am I seeing this right?

• 18:51Speaker 00

  Not really. So I'm, I am very close with my family.

• 18:55Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, okay.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  Uh, but the reality is that there is a weakness in my game.

• 19:01Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  That I am so obsessed with my wife.

• 19:04Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  And I do everything with my wife.

• 19:05Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 19:06Speaker 00

  My wife is my best friend. So I have one person. I have this incredibly fragile strategy.

• 19:12Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 19:12Speaker 00

  Because if something happens to her, and look, we've been together. We've been married for 22 years, to give people an idea. This is like, it's not like, yeah, I met her when I was, uh, you know, six years ago or something. And this is wholly untested, but, um, I don't know that that's a wise strategy. I just know that it matches my personality.

• 19:29Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  So, um, I wondered if you would ask me that question.

• 19:34Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  Because I know that you ask a lot of people that.

• 19:37Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  Uh, and I don't have it. I would encourage people to build that into their life because it seems less fragile than the system that I have, which is you have one linchpin, and if anything happens there, you're toast.

• 19:48Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:49Speaker 00

  Again, I'm very close to my family, so it's not like I'm isolated. But my wife, Lisa, is the only person that I reach out to when something goes wrong. Now, the great news is that we have established a form of communication where even if we're the problem, the friction is between us, that we can still go into that, be vulnerable and say like, hey, I'm worried I'm not handling this right. I think that this insecurity triggered this whole breakdown and I want to talk through it. And we'll have to take like little breaks every now and then where it's like, to be honest, I don't, but my wife does. She'll be like, I need to walk away right now.

• 20:23Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  So, um, but it's never been more than a few hours where we needed that kind of separation. So.

• 20:29Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, you're better than me. Sometimes it's a day or two for us, but.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  Hey, fair, whatever it takes.

• 20:34Dr. John Delony?

  Here's the, I'm seeking advice from you. You kind of like sitting down with somebody who's had a near death experience.

• 20:43Dr. John Delony?

  Like you did it, right? You had a passion project and you created a thing and then it exploded. And then it cosmically exploded, right? They could see the supernova from space. And then someone wrote you the magic check that's supposed to solve everything.

• 21:00Dr. John Delony?

  In, in, in like multiple standard deviations away. I was raised by policemen and my wife was raised by schoolteachers. In the last few years, our lives have dramatically changed. And something I did not expect was a constriction of social circle. It gets harder and harder to say hello because someone's like, hello. Hey, and why I got you, right? And it turns into a thing and it felt very transactional, very fast. Even with older friends and it wasn't a bad thing. It was them realizing, oh, I didn't realize you had this skill or this talent. Hey, well, I got you. My marriage is or like whatever's going on. And it just gets easier to not pick up the phone and it gets easier just to hang out with my wife.

• 21:42Dr. John Delony?

  And suddenly you look up and it's been two, three years and you're like, oh dude, I don't have any friends. I got my 30 year old friends I can call, but we don't live by each other. And so is this how you've always just kind of been? Or is this a function of no, the bigger the thing got?

• 21:59Speaker 00

  I've always been this guy.

• 22:00Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, okay.

• 22:01Speaker 00

  Literally. So.

• 22:03Dr. John Delony?

  I mean, that's almost scratching a lottery ticket running to Lisa and y'all building this, this tether together.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  If we hadn't worked so consciously at it, I would say it was a lottery ticket that she walked in the room.

• 22:15Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. All right.

• 22:16Speaker 00

  Everything else after that.

• 22:17Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  I've just been so aware of human relationships from the time I was very young because I was bad with women. Like epically bad with women and I started.

• 22:27Dr. John Delony?

  Same team, man.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  I started reading Cosmopolitan magazine.

• 22:30Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Because it felt like I was going behind enemy lines.

• 22:33Dr. John Delony?

  Bro, same.

• 22:34Speaker 00

  Dude.

• 22:35Dr. John Delony?

  I used to hide. I used to hide it because I wanted to know.

• 22:37Speaker 00

  Think about how long your marriages lasted.

• 22:39Dr. John Delony?

  And I had an older sister, those two things.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  Same thing.

• 22:41Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  Same thing. So, uh, and my mom gave me the greatest piece of relationship advice ever. This still makes me laugh that this, this was the dime dropped. I was like, wait, what? And yeah, my mom was like, uh, almost as a throwaway comment. She goes, oh, for women to have an orgasm, they have to trust you. And I was like, what?

• 23:03Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hold up, hold up.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  I just need like a place. Like, what do you mean trust?

• 23:08Dr. John Delony?

  Your mom gave you that?

• 23:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. It was so disconnected from my sexuality that I was like.

• 23:13Dr. John Delony?

  You and your mom are way cooler than. Mom, where were you on that one, right?

• 23:17Speaker 00

  It was earth shattering.

• 23:18Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  I realized, oh, women are like an alien species. And if I think of them, as I think of myself, they are eternally confusing.

• 23:26Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  If I grow to understand how women work, how they think, how they see the world, now all of a sudden, oh, cool, I can figure this out.

• 23:34Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  But it, it took a lot of years. So anyway, I start reading Cosmo to get behind the lines. You have to start understanding that magazines are trying to sell magazines.

• 23:42Dr. John Delony?

  Garbage too.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  So it's not a lot, but it was just so different.

• 23:45Dr. John Delony?

  It's like reading Italian.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Exactly. And so I became fluent in Italian.

• 23:49Dr. John Delony?

  There you go.

• 23:49Speaker 00

  Uh, and finally realized what it took to be good with women. But like, having gone on that journey certainly does, um, open something up. But anyway, bringing it back to the initial point was, I, I have always been somebody who collapses inside of himself. So my identity is that of the writer. I think of myself as a writer.

• 24:13Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  It's not what the world knows me for.

• 24:15Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 24:15Speaker 00

  But I got into business so that I could build my own studio and control the art. And my first identity is very much as a writer.

• 24:24Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  And so when I am alone, I have a hyper vivid imagination.

• 24:29Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  And because of that, I may be too entertained when I'm alone. And so I don't have the same sense of, oh, I'm bored that other people get that pushes them out of their comfort zone to go meet people.

• 24:43Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  And dude, I'm actually really awkward at the beginning of an exchange. So when I first, when I first meet somebody.

• 24:50Dr. John Delony?

  I'm so awkward, man.

• 24:51Speaker 00

  Dude, people expect, because I do an interview show, that like, oh, like, hey, opening a conversation is easy. I'm like, the beginning of this is the worst. I am so weird. I don't understand. So.

• 25:02Dr. John Delony?

  I feel like I've met my log loss brother and I've got a brother. Yes.

• 25:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:06Dr. John Delony?

  So awkward.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  So awkward.

• 25:08Dr. John Delony?

  Do you fight it or you just accept it? Make peace with it?

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Um.

• 25:10Dr. John Delony?

  Cause I don't want, I don't want to be, cause I know what my awkward does to other people.

• 25:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:14Dr. John Delony?

  I know my awkward makes other people.

• 25:18Dr. John Delony?

  Exponentially awkward, right? And I don't want to be.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  Yup.

• 25:22Dr. John Delony?

  And yet.

• 25:22Speaker 00

  I hear it. I hear it. So I had, look, I know how to push my personality into a room.

• 25:28Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 25:28Speaker 00

  And so I've just had to remind myself, because I used to be really good at it. I was not awkward in my teenage years. Ironically. That was when I was so unself-aware that, ah, like I was just me and a total goofball. And, uh, but as I got older and became more self-aware and took myself more seriously, my success went way up.

• 25:47Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 25:48Speaker 00

  But all the sort of anxiety of how might I be perceived in this moment, like that just came crashing in. And so I've really had to find ways to get out of my head and just be in the moment and push my personality into the room.

• 26:04Dr. John Delony?

  Is some of that, um, I wonder if some of that's nervous system, like your body trying to take care of you. You've entered, we were talking, we were talking before we started, you, you entered into, I mean, you could sit down and have conversations about the Gaza conflict. You could have conversations about in Ireland, you could have all the hard religious conversations and it's not as bad as the dietary zealots, right? And you built this world.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  That, that's a fun statement.

• 26:30Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Until you start touching on Israel Gaza.

• 26:33Dr. John Delony?

  I'm overstating it.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  I'll take people and talk about food.

• 26:37Dr. John Delony?

  Let's talk about vegans, right? Alright, yeah. I'm overstating it, obviously, but, but I can't imagine how much shrapnel you've taken over the years.

• 26:46Speaker 00

  Don't read the comments.

• 26:47Dr. John Delony?

  Well.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  That really is lesson number one. So yes, has there been shrapnel? Of course.

• 26:51Dr. John Delony?

  But like, but here's the thing, like as a guy, but I'm thinking 10 years ago, as a guy who stumbled into this weird world where I didn't feel good and I was also on the road a lot. And dude, if I could walk into a gas station and get something remotely that I could read the back of the ingredients, like Quest was a gift, right? And to think that that becomes an, like a, like an epicenter of contention, right? When you look around and it's like, it's Twinkies or it's chimichangas that have been there seven days or this. How can anybody with any shred of self-worths go after that? Does that make sense? Like it's such a gift. And to think you were at the middle of it.

• 27:35Dr. John Delony?

  And I, I just wrap my head around, I'm trying to make the world a better place. And all I do 24/7, 365 is get beat up for it. I, on my limited scale, right? I just want people to have better marriages and have, like, love their kids. And the amount of grenades that you take, it makes you just wanna be like, I'm just gonna go home. Right? I get that, like, the impulse to just shut my, shut my door and just drive home and listen to old punk rock and call it, right?

• 28:03Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about building a, a marriage worth, worth fighting for. That is a, I'd say, I'd say marriage is an act of rebellion in the 21st century.

• 28:12Speaker 00

  That's interesting. You're probably right. Uh, it, life has nothing better to offer you than reciprocated love. So I became very accepting of that truth at a very early age. Now, admittedly, I, when I met my wife, I assumed I was never going to get married.

• 28:34Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 28:35Speaker 00

  And when I met her, I was like, oh, actually, I'm either never getting married or I'm marrying her.

• 28:39Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  So I was like, okay, got it.

• 28:41Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  And I, for me, proposing was a big deal.

• 28:46Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 28:46Speaker 00

  But once I proposed, I was like, I'm already committed. So there was no difference really between where I was post-proposal and getting married. Uh, so I wasn't nervous.

• 28:56Dr. John Delony?

  So once you proposed...

• 28:57Speaker 00

  That was it. I was like, don't ask if that's not what you actually want.

• 29:00Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, the covenant, we called it.

• 29:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, I really debated that.

• 29:03Dr. John Delony?

  What pushed you over the edge? Because that's, because it's not a, it's not an algorithm that, that makes sense on paper.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  It's interesting. That doesn't feel true to me.

• 29:15Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 29:15Speaker 00

  Um...

• 29:16Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about that.

• 29:18Speaker 00

  Well, it's interesting. So my brain is cycling through, the internet is going to agree with your statement.

• 29:23Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  And I will first acknowledge the internet.

• 29:27Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  That...

• 29:29Dr. John Delony?

  Is this amorphous, like, whoosh?

• 29:31Speaker 00

  Well, things have changed.

• 29:32Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 29:32Speaker 00

  And so that is a very fair criticism of when I found my wife and now.

• 29:38Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 29:39Speaker 00

  Now, having said that, if I, God forbid, found myself single all of a sudden, it, it would not be difficult for a man with my skills

• 29:50Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  to find somebody else.

• 29:52Dr. John Delony?

  Correct.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  Now, look, the money, people are gonna think, like, that's the win. No, that will get a lot of crazy people in the door.

• 29:59Dr. John Delony?

  Correct.

• 29:59Speaker 00

  And so now I'm gonna have to filter a lot more people.

• 30:02Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 30:02Speaker 00

  But over the last... Twenty plus years at this point, I've run a lot of experiments on this person interviewed for a job and I hired or didn't hire and how did that play out?

• 30:13Dr. John Delony?

  Ah, okay.

• 30:14Speaker 00

  So I'm pretty good, nobody's perfect.

• 30:16Dr. John Delony?

  Right, right.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  Very clear about that. Uh, but I'm pretty good at knowing who to bring in and who not to bring in.

• 30:21Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  Uh, and then if you're in a relationship with somebody, it becomes very easy, very fast to tell like who's sincere, who's really in this, who by the way can deal with their own insecurities and all that stuff. Um, so, but going back to the initial question, it was very obvious to me that I was getting an emotional response out of being with somebody that I had never gotten anywhere else in my life. And another banger from my mom, she said, you'll know you're in love, you'll know you're in love when you think there's no way two people in history have ever felt the way that my wife and I feel, or my girlfriend and I at the time.

• 31:01Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  And that ended up being super true. I was like, there's no way the world would just stop. Like I'm a drug addict, like I just wanna be around her.

• 31:08Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 31:09Speaker 00

  And so, but I'd read enough to understand that that phase was gonna wear off. And so even in the height of sort of that cocaine part of the relationship, we were both like, this phase, we should enjoy it, but it is going to morph into something else and we need to be ready for that and we need to understand how to surf that. And so we've been very, very thoughtful at understanding that you move through phases in life. So just sharing your life with somebody is, is a tremendous joy. And I understood that at a deep evolutionary level and so wanted to invest in that. I understand communication very well. I actually have a slightly feminine temperament. So I find communication easy, I find admitting insecurities easy. And so getting into it and really navigating those waters.

• 31:53Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  Uh, was interesting. And so the thing I had to learn was to be tough and to be manly and to understand what that means. And so certainly my journey as an entrepreneur has been that.

• 32:03Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 32:03Speaker 00

  And that has had a massive positive impact on my marriage.

• 32:08Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm going back to the statement about reading Cosmo because I had an older sister and I paid close attention to the people she dated. And how did, who lit her up? And when she'd come home, just overjoyed, like, what'd y'all do? Right, I was just, I was four years younger. And then those, and she'd come home sobbing. And she would occasionally leak out, like, don't ever say this. Or, and I just put a GPS pin in that one because I remember, right? But I also remember the other side, which is, I don't, like, my dad was a Texas homicide detective and I played Texas high school football, like, but I remember dudes banging their heads on the locker. And I was like, what are we doing? What are we doing? We're playing a game. All like, and I love it, it's fun. But I remember reading Men's Health for the opposite. Like, what are we doing?

• 32:51Dr. John Delony?

  Like, what's this, almost, not enemy lines, but if this is the team I'm on, what are we, what am I missing here? So it was that learning, what does that even feel like? And I'm, I'm so new into entrepreneurship. When I go, go back, when I say it's an act of rebellion, or that it doesn't make sense.

• 33:08Dr. John Delony?

  The, the algorithm that I run is, the only way this works is if you truly know me. And if you truly know me, then you can hurt me. And that is something that has, I've tried to shield myself against forever.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  Can I throw an idea out? I'm very curious to see. So you are going to run into that.

• 33:30Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  The way that it happened to me was, I was in a very loose relationship with somebody. And they were overzealous from where I was sitting. And so, in the end, I pulled back. And they went from like, overzealous, I'd do anything for you, to, oh, now I'm going to try to hurt you.

• 33:51Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 33:52Speaker 00

  And I was like, interesting. And so, immediately, I approached life as an engineer. So I'm not freaking out about, life shouldn't be this way. I'm like, okay, there is at least, maybe it's a small percentage, but there is some percentage of women that will now use my vulnerabilities against me. And so I don't like this. I don't like the way this feels. So, one, my response to that was, uh, this person just flipped A to B like that. So when somebody's hurling abuse at me, one, they're gonna pick something real, by the way. They're gonna pick something they know will actually hurt me. So that's really interesting information to know.

• 34:34Speaker 00

  And two, I can't let it hurt me because nine seconds before I broke up with her, she would've done anything. Gotcha. So she was able to hold the things in my head that she knew I didn't like about myself. And maybe she also hated them, but it was so overwhelmed by the things that she did like. I'm like, okay, cool. Just in totality, I need to be worth it. So there are gonna be things about me that are negatives. Yeah. There're gonna be things about me that are positives. And depending on that person's relationship with themselves and with me, they determine whether they're gonna try to beat me to death with this or not. So it's good to know about they're in a dark place when they're coming at me. Okay. They're also coming at me with something real, so if it's addressable, address it. There you go. And if it's not, well, then don't worry about it. Right.

• 35:17Speaker 00

  And having that framework was really useful. And it also pushed me to say, I, there's a great quote, boys and girls, pay attention to this one. It'll serve you coming and going. You do not divorce the same person you marry. Correct. Now, that's what I was experiencing. We weren't married, but you don't break up with the same person you got together with. And so in that moment, I realized, oh, I wanna be high integrity. So I'm gonna treat somebody, even if they treat me badly, I'm gonna say I value being the same person, whether things are going well or they're going poorly. Right. And so I have lived that out in romantic relationships, in business, and that is one of the key pillars of respecting myself. Yeah.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  It's like, how do you react when everything's gone to hell in a handbasket? The other person is actively trying to hurt you, like, what do you do? Obviously, I don't let people slap me around, so we're gonna draw boundaries, not a punching bag. Right. Uh, if the only way I can survive that encounter is to throw a punch back, I will throw a punch. Sure. But I'm, I'm going to be myself through this whole thing. If ever I post a list of this is what you have to do to be successful, I can guarantee people are gonna come after me.

• 36:27Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  And I'm just like, okay.

• 36:29Dr. John Delony?

  It's fine, it's fine.

• 36:30Speaker 00

  Feel free to ignore it if you would like. Uh, I'm gonna keep using it, but uh, because it's all about like the things you have to do, things you have to give up and all that. And people are like, where's the fun, bro and all that? And I'm like, that's just a different list.

• 36:43Dr. John Delony?

  It's true.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  Like, if you want a list on fulfillment, bro, I'll do you a list on fulfillment. But the reality is

• 36:49Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 36:49Speaker 00

  that success has a set of physics and you can fight against it. But it's like, everybody understands if you wanna be uh, an NBA champion or a football champion, great. Do you think that guy is goofing off on the offseason? No, you don't. You know that the guy that really becomes a Hall of Famer, they're grinding, they're working hard, they're taking a thousand catches a day, whatever it is that their position requires. Like, we all know that and we celebrate that in athletes. But the second I, as a business guy, am like, you have to do the same things.

• 37:18Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 37:18Speaker 00

  Just in a business context. People lose their minds. And it's like, I'm talking about greatness, kids. If you wanna be great, those are the physics.

• 37:27Dr. John Delony?

  But that's, but that's, that's not the, that's not the Bill of Sale culture gives us. The Bill of Sale is you can do it all, you can have all of it right now. And it's not true. It's just not true. Meaning you can have, you can never miss a Little League game and you can have the perfect house and you can make meals every night for your family or eat, like, there is no cost to greatness. And when you're around truly great people, you realize, oh, it costs everything. It costs everything. And that's, I think that's the tension that people feel, oh, I have to choose. Or I've gotta make some, something, the center can't hold on all of this. And I don't think people have a psychology for it. Does that make sense? It comes at a cost.

• 38:08Speaker 00

  It, it does come at a cost. I think that people have mental models that cause them a lot of problems. And the, like, the thing I wanna be known for is there is something I call the physics of progress.

• 38:21Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 38:22Speaker 00

  Now, why is it the physics of progress? I really believe, and look, of course I will update if I get closer to the real answer. But I really believe that it is, uh, it's a loop. It's effectively the scientific method repurposed for general life.

• 38:36Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 38:36Speaker 00

  And There is nothing below that. There's, there's, as far as I can tell, it's just ground truth.

• 38:42Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 38:43Speaker 00

  So you can think of it as thinking from first principles.

• 38:46Dr. John Delony?

  Love it.

• 38:46Speaker 00

  So I know where I'm trying to get to. And what experiments do I have to run in order to actually make progress towards that thing? Now, once you understand that there are physics to progress, that you can progress towards anything, right? This is the only belief that matters again. Uh, oh, I can put time and energy into being a better parent. I can actually become a better parent. Word. I can put time and energy into building businesses and I can actually get good, good at that. Word. Like whatever it is that you want to do, you can get better at it. Now you may not ever be able to become the best. Like 50% of us roughly is hardwired. And so you may have limitations that you're just not going to overcome. Stephen Hawking, for as brilliant as he was, was never going to dominate the NFL.

• 39:26Dr. John Delony?

  Correct. That's right. That's right.

• 39:28Speaker 00

  Uh, so it just is what it is. But there are avenues, many avenues, that remained open to him, even though he had, I think it was ALS. So it's like, you just have to find that path and then just really, really, really invest. But if that isn't your worldview, if you don't think that you can get better and you think this is just about, I've been dealt a hand and now I've got to bluff a lot to get through this game. And someone's calling me out. And it's like, oh God, like I, I, I have to push back on that person. I have to go in on them.

• 39:57Dr. John Delony?

  All I can do is blame the dealer. That's my whole life is blaming the dealer.

• 40:01Speaker 00

  Bluff, tap out, whatever. Versus, oh, I'd like some new cards.

• 40:05Dr. John Delony?

  Is that time and energy, um, finite?

• 40:08Speaker 00

  Of course. Of course. All of us are going to.

• 40:12Dr. John Delony?

  That, that to me is, is the secret sauce, is you gotta choose.

• 40:15Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:16Dr. John Delony?

  In this particular season.

• 40:18Speaker 00

  You can be anything you want, but not everything.

• 40:20Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  And so you're gonna have to pick. Now that haunts me more than just about anything haunts any human being.

• 40:26Dr. John Delony?

  For the sunk cost. Like what are you gonna lose?

• 40:28Speaker 00

  No, it, it is that.

• 40:30Dr. John Delony?

  The lost cost opportunity.

• 40:31Speaker 00

  Some people don't have a passion.

• 40:34Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 40:34Speaker 00

  The great news is I can teach you how to build one.

• 40:35Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 40:36Speaker 00

  Other people have a lot of passions. I'm that guy.

• 40:40Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 40:40Speaker 00

  So there are more things that I'm passionate about, let alone extremely interested in.

• 40:45Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  That I will ever have time to pursue. And by quirk of genetics, I really have a hard time not pursuing something I'm passionate about. Like a really hard time.

• 40:57Dr. John Delony?

  Like it haunts you.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. To, to the point of dysfunction.

• 41:00Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  Hey, I'm well aware of it. So, uh, like when I'm teaching business.

• 41:06Speaker 00

  I will tell people, there's virtually nothing that I will tell you to do that I'm not actively doing myself.

• 41:12Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 41:12Speaker 00

  There is one thing, no. And that is, don't divide your energy.

• 41:17Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 41:17Speaker 00

  Pick one thing and be a sociopath. Just go deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep into one thing and do it forever. And I'm in the Dave Ramsey complex because he just picked a thing.

• 41:28Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 41:28Speaker 00

  And he went insanely deep. Now, there is a cruel twist of fate. I can't do it, man. I can't do it.

• 41:34Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 41:35Speaker 00

  I could not spend the next forty years talking about one thing that I care about.

• 41:38Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  It's gotta be a multitude. There are just too many things to light me up.

• 41:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 41:43Speaker 00

  So anyway, terrible for business, great for, I love it.

• 41:46Dr. John Delony?

  Right, right.

• 41:47Speaker 00

  My life is amazing.

• 41:48Dr. John Delony?

  But you did, you did that one thing and that gave you a foundation from which you could repel off of.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  But here's the thing, because in that period, I was just broke, broke, broke. I didn't have a choice. So I didn't have the great facilitator of money. So the great irony is, it's actually harder to be disciplined and build only one thing and have the kind of outsized success now because I have success. In fact, when you were talking about, you know, I was raised by a guy that was a cop in Texas and they were raised by schoolteachers, it's like, bro, that's probably better.

• 42:24Dr. John Delony?

  That's the soil. Yes.

• 42:25Speaker 00

  If you, if you wanna give birth to a kid that's successful, you, because you're successful, have to worry about your kids

• 42:31Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 42:31Speaker 00

  in a way that your parents didn't because there was just a little bit of hardship in your life.

• 42:35Dr. John Delony?

  It was a lot.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  And it's good.

• 42:36Dr. John Delony?

  And here we go. That's right.

• 42:37Speaker 00

  Which is one of, if not, it, it may be the main reason I chose not to have kids.

• 42:43Dr. John Delony?

  Hmm.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  Is that I didn't know if I could watch them struggle. And I had so much money.

• 42:49Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 42:49Speaker 00

  That I was like, it'd be way too easy to like, I would find myself fantasizing about, okay, could I pay three or four people that my kids don't know are on payroll? And their only job is to make problems go away without the kid realizing that they're making problems go away. And I was like, oh, God.

• 43:04Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  Like, my kid is gonna be the kid that's like strung out on heroin.

• 43:08Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:08Speaker 00

  By twelve.

• 43:09Dr. John Delony?

  Yep, yep.

• 43:10Speaker 00

  Because I'm just making all these problems go away because I'm, I am, I have such a hard time emotionally watching people struggle.

• 43:16Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Know thyself. I just wasn't sure. And so I was like, oh, God, I'm not, we're all gonna damage our kids in some way.

• 43:22Dr. John Delony?

  Of course, yeah.

• 43:23Speaker 00

  But I just had real nightmares about damaging them in ways that are not good.

• 43:28Dr. John Delony?

  I love an engineering approach to life, but I love it because it creates some mental models and it really takes a lot of the, we're all just on a leaf floating down the river. This passive life just happens, right? Or there's a buddy of mine, he went to me, looked at me, he's like, I reject the statement, it is what it is. That's not true. There is a lot that we can control.

• 43:52Dr. John Delony?

  There has to be a moment when, or maybe it's a series, or maybe it's the context, like Lisa knows you.

• 44:02Dr. John Delony?

  And she also knows where the knives are that could get through the armor and she chooses to not.

• 44:09Dr. John Delony?

  That to me is the magic and that to me is the, is the, has become culturally inappropriate. Don't get in a place where somebody could ever get you. And what I have found over time, when my wife and I sat across the table and like, are we gonna keep being married? Because we can't, we're not doing this anymore. Are we done? Are we calling it? Or did we make a covenant? We're gonna have to build something totally new. That's when that chest got opened up and it was like, here it all is. And we've been together 15 years when we did that, right? Here it all is.

• 44:42Dr. John Delony?

  There's all the guns. Are you gonna shoot me? Here's all the knives. Are you gonna cut me? Or are we going to use those tools and build something amazing? How do you navigate that?

• 44:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I would say there is no point where you want to set down the engineering.

• 44:53Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 44:54Speaker 00

  But what you do want to do is understand your tools.

• 44:57Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  So an engineer is somebody that goes, within the realm of physics.

• 45:02Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  So we know what gravity is.

• 45:03Dr. John Delony?

  Reality.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 45:04Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 45:04Speaker 00

  We know tensile strength of a material. We know material science and what materials are coming on board and all that. We know all the manufacturing and the, the systems that are required to get product from where it was made to the, the build, you know, all that. They're living within that reality. And so if you have an engineering mindset, you're not saying, I'm going to exit humanity. Humanity is the point. The very thing that I want on my tombstone is you're having a biological experience. All right, why do I want people to understand that? Whether your biology was given to you by God or evolution, I don't care. You have it.

• 45:45Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 45:46Speaker 00

  And now that you have your biology, how do you take it into account? And so, love is a describable, shockingly repeatable neurochemical setup. And so I'm like, okay, cool. So this is a game, ultimately a brain manipulation. When I'm with my wife, I want to feel a certain way and I want her to feel a certain way. And so when I'm opening the kimono and I'm revealing all the insecurities and all that, it's like, I'm doing this because I believe it will put us in a situation where we can be good for each other, where we can get from the love, the unity that we have, what we want to get out of it, what will make it worth the compromises.

• 46:29Dr. John Delony?

  So it's always an ROI?

• 46:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, when you use words like that, you're gonna turn people off.

• 46:34Dr. John Delony?

  Sure, but, but it's intentionality. It's intentionality.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 46:37Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 46:38Speaker 00

  You are, you, this isn't an ephemeral plane where things are happening by magic.

• 46:44Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  This is a, uh, human is designed to get safety. And yet, there's tension between too much safety and eroticism.

• 46:54Dr. John Delony?

  And desire, right?

• 46:55Speaker 00

  Right, so now you're in this weird place of like, okay, we have to figure out this really weird dance. But that is what it is.

• 47:03Dr. John Delony?

  That's it, that's it.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  And so what Lisa and I do is, it's just full disclosure. So we are constantly talking in insecurities. That's one of our big rules. Talk to me in insecurities. So if you're getting emotionally triggered, the odds that you have touched on an insecurity border on a hundred percent. So it's like, okay, cool. What am I insecure about that's making this moment weird? So I'll give you my favorite example from our marriage.

• 47:27Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 47:27Speaker 00

  Uh, I had a belief that women were only attracted to men that were better than them at everything. And I didn't realize I had that belief. It was just running in the back of my mind.

• 47:39Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 47:39Speaker 00

  And so my then-girlfriend and I, who is now my wife, but we were playing a game of pool. And I had an opportunity to win by getting the eight ball. And thinking, my wife will find me attractive if I beat her at pool. And she will find me unattractive if I lose at pool.

• 47:58Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 47:59Speaker 00

  And so she comes up and she whispers something really hot in my ear.

• 48:03Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 48:03Speaker 00

  Right? To try to get me to miss. And miss I did. And instead of being like, oh, we're doing that tonight. I got mad.

• 48:11Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 48:12Speaker 00

  Because I was like, she's not gonna be able to find me attractive if I lose this. Now, that's all subconscious. I'm just mad. Now, at the time, I don't know why I'm mad. I'm just mad. So I'm like, why'd you make me miss that shot? That's cheating. That's BS. We end up like just completely derailing. The night is not fun at all.

• 48:30Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 48:31Speaker 00

  And at some point, I'm like, huh. My neurochemistry is changing. That now all feels like a waste of time. What actually just happened? And how do I avoid that happening in the future? And I had seen a movie called Daryl. And I suddenly had this flash of, the whole thing is Daryl's an android.

• 48:48Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 48:49Speaker 00

  He's being raised by human parents. And the mother is, is having a really hard time. And Daryl can't understand why. And the dad has to come in and go, Daryl, you're perfect in every way. But your mom actually needs to be needed. And so if you weren't perfect, oddly enough, your relationship would be better. I have the chills now.

• 49:08Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 49:08Speaker 00

  So remembering like, wait, why would anyone wanna be in a relationship with somebody that's better than them at everything?

• 49:15Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 49:15Speaker 00

  Now all of a sudden, they're always gonna be in second place. That's super lame.

• 49:19Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 49:19Speaker 00

  And so I was like, okay, what if we figured out the things I'm better at? The things she's better at? And we start celebrating that? And so I was like, word. But I need to go confess that the reason I got mad was because I believe that you won't find me attractive if I'm not better than you at those things. And she was like, what? She's like, that's not true. I find you attractive for all these reasons. I have nothing to do with this. Like, and I was like, okay. That doesn't feel real yet, because I have had this belief for so long. But I'm gonna start acting as if that belief were real. And if that moves me in a better direction, then I will adopt it and it'll become a real belief. And of course, it becomes a real belief. And I realize now, you wanna find the things, one of you's gonna be better at some things. One of you's gonna be better at the others. Map those out, figure out what they are.

• 50:05Speaker 00

  And then you can be good, but it started with the ability to say, I was insecure that you wouldn't be able to find me attractive if I lost. That's why I got mad. And then it was like she could hold that space for me and extend the love or the assurance, whatever I needed in that moment. And we have a rule in our marriage. You never weaponize the other person's insecurities against them.

• 50:31Dr. John Delony?

  Awesome.

• 50:31Speaker 00

  So there will be times where I know I can win this argument just by reminding her of this insecurity and it will shut things down just like that. But when people say there are things you say that you can never take back, what they mean is you just weaponize their insecurity against them.

• 50:44Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 50:44Speaker 00

  And now they're not going to want to be, they won't want to admit their insecurities to you in the future.

• 50:48Dr. John Delony?

  That's right. The cabinet stays closed. And you, before we leave, you said something that has become a hot button for me. And where I think our, and there's multiple ways, but in our, in our current, what I would call the mental health industrial complex, there's this idea that you think your way to emotional health, or mental health, for lack of better terms. And you said something really important. I recognize this, and I knew that I was feeling this way, but I began to act this way. Because the idea is, mental health is not all the right thoughts in the right order. You have to go act, you have

• 51:30Dr. John Delony?

  to go do. And there's that reciprocal, it works together, right? My actions become, and it's important to say, I love that I feel this way. Okay, it's not working. I'm gonna go, the, the, the light on my dashboard is telling me my transmission's broken. It's not. The car's running great. I'm gonna go this way. And ultimately, that's where you find that connect. I love that. That's amazing. That takes a, an extraordinary amount of self-awareness.

• 51:56Speaker 00

  Yes. Which is a double edged sword, but yes.

• 51:59Dr. John Delony?

  It is. Last thing.

• 52:02Dr. John Delony?

  You mentioned a couple of times, um, already, just with the few things you've mentioned, your mom sounds like the coolest person ever.

• 52:08Speaker 00

  Oh, that's pretty dope.

• 52:10Dr. John Delony?

  What, what is some advice you would give to moms on who are raising boys who are trying to figure the world out?

• 52:17Speaker 00

  Hmm. Okay, so, one, boys are not little girls. So, they're gonna come at the world very differently. And if you're a mom, they're gonna seem like little maniacs to you. And you're not going to understand. You're gonna think that something is wrong with them. And the default assumption, in the beginning, because it really might be something wrong with them, but the default assumption should just be that they have a different set of gears than I have or that my daughters have. And so, understanding that, you're gonna be in a much better position. They are probably going to be far more aggressive. They're going to like to break things. They are going to meet the world at a physical level. They are going to resolve things physically. Um, and to understand that women come to the world with a, uh, we need cohesion, we

• 53:01Speaker 00

  need tribes, they get hierarchy through reputation damage. Uh, boys don't. Boys get that through physicality. Who's faster, stronger, uh, and better at leading. And so, that different dynamic, I think, can really sketch women out hard. Uh, so they need to be thoughtful about that. And then, whether you're raising a boy or you're raising a girl, you need to get them into certain loops very, very quickly. And one of the loops is just how the world works. You set a goal. Now, you're gonna have to get good at that thing in order to get there. And to run that loop, you have got to get them to, this is Carol Dweck all day.

• 53:42Speaker 00

  You've got to get them to focus on a growth mindset, which is very simply, the understanding that your talent and intelligence are not fixed traits. They can be improved. And so, now, it becomes a question of how do you get them to improve on the things that matter to them? And so, hey, you're not good at that thing, don't worry about it. You can spend time and energy getting good at that thing. And, um, One, I want to say you have to be super careful of bullying. I've heard you talk about this as well. Bullying scares the life out of me.

• 54:14Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 54:14Speaker 00

  And because it will, it will set neurological patterns up that will last for a lifetime.

• 54:19Dr. John Delony?

  A lifetime, yeah.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  But at the same time, like you've got to build resilience in that person. They have to be able to take knocks and keep going.

• 54:26Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 54:26Speaker 00

  Now, the thing that I wish somebody had told me when I was younger is very simply, it's supposed to hurt.

• 54:33Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 54:34Speaker 00

  So, like I said, my journey has been one of getting stronger. Because as a kid, if something hurt, I would whine and cry about it. And people would just be like, oh my God, you're gonna be okay.

• 54:43Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 54:44Speaker 00

  And I really wish they had said, oh man, you're gonna get hate comments for this, but this is really true to what I believe, within reason. Because there are things where that person needs to be taken to a hospital, whatever. But I wish my parents had done a better job of recognizing when you get hit on the leg in the morning with a soccer ball, because it's very cold, that's gonna hurt a lot. You're not damaged.

• 55:09Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 55:10Speaker 00

  You're just fine, and you need to get tougher.

• 55:13Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 55:13Speaker 00

  And you need to value being tough.

• 55:16Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 55:16Speaker 00

  And that as a man, I am gonna sound so old right now. Again, these are things I believe. As a man, you need to have the full range of emotion. Don't hide your emotions and all that. But at the same time, we gotta be context specific.

• 55:30Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 55:31Speaker 00

  So for instance, if you are on the soccer field and that ball hit your leg, and it's cold and it hurts, I don't care.

• 55:37Dr. John Delony?

  Keep going.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  You're going to suck it up, you're going to keep playing. Now, I got my thumb broken on the soccer field. And they kept telling me, you're fine, you're fine. Because everything, I cried about, whined about, and I would always get my way.

• 55:52Dr. John Delony?

  Gotcha.

• 55:52Speaker 00

  And so, there was no difference in how I would behave with a ball bouncing off my cold leg versus, no for real, this time I actually broke my thumb.

• 56:01Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 56:01Speaker 00

  And so, getting the kid to understand the difference, that there are gonna be things in life that hurt, and by pushing through those, you actually get to where you want to go.

• 56:10Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 56:10Speaker 00

  Now, that has to be in the context of love.

• 56:12Dr. John Delony?

  I get that, yeah, yeah.

• 56:13Speaker 00

  And so, when you're a single mom, this is hard, because that's really what the guy should be for. The kid should be able to retreat back to mom, when dad being tough and telling me to push forward and push through it is getting overwhelming. You want someone that you can retreat to, but if you're by yourself, you either have to get somebody in this kid's life, big brothering, coach, get him in jujitsu.

• 56:33Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, right, right.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  Something where they learn to control themselves. They learn to engage with the world in a physical manner. Where they learn what pain is bad and what pain is good and should be pushed through. All of those things are incredibly important. And then you're gonna have to read the situation. Is your kid more prone to empathy or more prone to domination?

• 56:52Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 56:53Speaker 00

  If your kid is more prone to domination, you don't wanna say that's bad. But you wanna be like, hey, if you wanna be a good leader, you can't just dominate people. They will look for ways to take you down in groups.

• 57:03Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 57:03Speaker 00

  So you wanna understand, if you really can dominate, now's the time where you pick people up and pull them towards you. Why? Because you'll get what you want out of life.

• 57:11Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 57:11Speaker 00

  This is leadership. So awesome, be the best, be better than everybody. But Michael Jordan didn't start winning championships until he understood, I also have to be a good leader. He won scoring titles, but he didn't win championships. And you, as a son of mine, are going to win championships. And to do that, you have to be a team player. And to do that, yeah, be better than everybody else. But you wanna lift them up and help them get as good as humanly possible.

• 57:36Dr. John Delony?

  A, I 100% track with you. And we don't talk about it. And you're right, we'll get mean comments that there's, there's an importance to teaching our kids to be tougher. Where I have found, I, I, I had a buddy of mine who's a mental health professional. He's astonishing, but it's 20 years ago. He said, we're gonna, we're gonna have hell to pay. And I said, why? And he said, because we're removing every bully from every situation.

• 58:01Dr. John Delony?

  We're not teaching kids how to handle it and how to deal with it. And that we believe that they are strong enough with us walking alongside them to weather some of these things. What we're telling them implicitly is you'll never be strong enough. The world's got a clear. And he said, there will be a bully at some point that comes through that wipes out the competition. And then there's a whole generation of kid that has, that doesn't even believe I'm strong enough or that I have the toughness. What I found in my house is. When kids start seeking adult attention through whining and hurting, it's always because I'm not closing the loop somewhere else. If that's the only way they get me is when they go, "Oh, I'm hurt."

• 58:44Dr. John Delony?

  That's a signal to me that I'm not communicating that I see you and I care about you and I love you and that you're safe in this house. Now get back on the field, right? Go. Yes, you got bonked with a ball. Go, right? And I love that. Like, we're teaching kids. It's all the same pain and it's not. It's not. And there is a difference between a broken thumb and a... And, "Yeah, you got kicked in the shit and that hurt. That one hurt bad. Oh, man. I think you can get back out there." I love that, man. Well, dude, thanks for your time. It was an honor, man. Thank you, man. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, it was an honor. You're a gift. Appreciate you, brother. My pleasure. All right, that was my conversation with Tom Bilyeu. Check out all of his cool stuff in the show notes. His show, his linked impact theory, his courses, all of his stuff will be there.

• 59:29Dr. John Delony?

  Thank you so much for joining us. I hope you guys have a great, great week. Be kind. No matter what kind of chaos is going on right now, and I'm just assuming there'll be chaos. Maybe it would just be insane amounts of peace. But whatever chaos is going on right now, you can always choose kind. Thank you so much. I love you guys. Stay in school and don't do drugs. Peace out.