Off the Record With T.K. Coleman

🔥 Microhabits for a Better Marriage. Download the Together app. On today’s episode, John talks with minimalist T. K. Coleman about addiction, loneliness and emotional clutter. Next Steps: ❤️ Get away with your spouse today! 📞 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! 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.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  If you want to understand more about why people have such a hard time admitting that they're wrong, just look at how terrible people are when they're right. We're now in a world where this is normalized and people are so much more isolated.

• 0:16Dr. John Delony?

  We're creating fake relationship machines now.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  How do you even move the needle back in the direction of overcoming the isolationism and being a community again and forging relationships?

• 0:29Dr. John Delony?

  And the only thing I can come up with is...

• 0:37Dr. John Delony?

  Yo, welcome to another episode installment, whatever you want to call it, of Off the Record with John Deloney. These are conversations I have with people that I am just fascinated by, people I'm kind of obsessed with, or great friends, sometimes all three at the same time. Today, we talk to one of my favorite people on the planet. He's a great friend. He's been my friend for years. He is a philosopher. He is a brilliant spiritual thinker. He's just one of my wise, wise friends. He's also a member of the Minimalists, talking about the great TK Coleman. This conversation, man, we go all over the place as conversations with me and my friends usually do. We talk about addiction, we talk about loneliness, we talk about space for God and what that

• 1:22Dr. John Delony?

  even means at a high, high level. If you've ever wondered, what's it like to have dinner with Deloney when he's with one of his thinking friends? I do have some great friends, they're not all thinking friends. This is it. So pull up a seat and listen to my conversation with a really great friend of mine, TK Coleman.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  Man, you really put something on my mind when we were talking about scrolling and how we have these two conversations about addiction. One is the scientific kind of standardized conversation where things are officially documented and catalogued as addictions. We have years of research behind it, so we know that heroin is an addiction. But then there are all these things that are so new that we haven't had a lot of time to see what they're doing to our brains. We haven't had multiple generations go through it. But people are self-reporting a lack of control. They're self-reporting like experiences that sound like addiction, like scrolling, or like one of the ones we talked about, fast food,

• 2:31Speaker 00

  which has been around for a longer period of time. And we don't know what to do with those things because it's like, well, they're not addictions in the traditional way, but they're playing such a huge part of our lives, you know? And they're kind of sinking us and really creating a lot of complexities for us that are kind of getting in the way of like that that sense of wholeness that we're seeking. So I don't know, that's just something that you really made me think about, like, how do we talk about addictions that have not yet earned the right to be called addictions? And that are very socially acceptable?

• 3:07Dr. John Delony?

  I think we are coming out of, and it's a very bumpy exit, like an ugly exit, of

• 3:18Dr. John Delony?

  everything that is real must be

• 3:23Dr. John Delony?

  shown from a double-blind randomized control trial. And I'm a scientist, that's my background. I spent my whole career with scientists. Like, I believe in that. And we've come so like up against like there's scientist by scientist running up against the end of science and going, I studied this thing for 20 years and we just made a new discovery that I have to exhale and say there's something bigger than me going along, going at the same time also, right? But yeah, there's a tension when it comes to Is this real? It's new. Well, it's not in this, it's not in this symptom cluster, so we can't count it.

• 4:06Dr. John Delony?

  Or we can't measure it in the, we don't have the instrument to measure it in the exact way. Well, it's not real then. And I think that's messy. Cause it, both sides of that get weaponized, right?

• 4:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:16Dr. John Delony?

  Um, if you can't measure it, it's not real. Sorta. And, um, and in fact, I'll reject that sometimes. And also, um, man, sometimes you can, you can measure stuff and it's too easy nowadays to be like, nah, fake, that's fake.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:34Dr. John Delony?

  I don't like the way, I don't like the outcome of that, so I'm just gonna pretend it's not real.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:38Dr. John Delony?

  And we're just, it's a weird, bumpy figuring out what comes next. I, I've almost shifted, I've been like haunted by the word addiction the last few years. And I had a, I had a memory of one of my counseling professors and I can't believe I didn't, it's one of those things that just gets lodged away and then just appears. But we were doing a case study in class one time and I finally blurted out in my arrogant know-it-all-ness, wearing my suit and tie, like, I was like, why doesn't this guy just stop drinking? And she said, don't ever ask that question. A, it's not compassionate and B, it's not instructive. And I was like, what do you mean? And she's like, alcohol works for this guy.

• 5:18Dr. John Delony?

  She said, the question to ask is, what has happened to this guy's life that this is the best way he's figured out how to get through it? And if you wanna help this person with drinking, help this person with their marriage, that's the question to ask, that's the answer that he needs. And so when I think of scrolling on a, on a small level, what is it about my wife and kids running around making noise that I feel like I need to hide from? In my, in my bedroom, inside my bathroom, inside my closet, on the floor? Like what am I, like, I'm sitting in the driveway of my own house, in my car. What is it about what's about to go on in there that I feel like I gotta hide here? That to me is, makes the thing my addiction of choice.

• 6:03Dr. John Delony?

  Whether I'm listening to politics and getting enraged, or whether I'm scrolling, or whether I'm smoking a joint in the park, like whatever. What is the thing I'm doing? Not the thing I'm doing, but what is the feeling I'm trying to escape from? And so addiction is almost just what is your numbing divisive choice? And it can be for me, I'm a workaholic, man. I love working. And it allows me the sense of I'm taking care of my family without being with my family, right? Or without the shame and awkwardness and discomfort, all that stuff that comes along with real relationships. So I don't know, it's a it's it's it's messy. Fast food does that, right?

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, I I like that lesson about, you know, how it's not instructive and it's not compassionate to just say, why doesn't he do that? You know, I've always thought that the statement, I will never understand people who do X is so often presented as a virtue and it makes us feel noble when we say that, right? Like, man, I will never understand how someone could, you know, talk to their kids like that. I can never, I will never understand how someone would be disrespectful in that way. It's well, okay. It's morally permissible for you to be in a position where you don't understand that.

• 7:18Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 7:19Speaker 00

  But that's not a strength. That's a weakness.

• 7:24Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  It's morally permissible for you to be in a position where you have that weakness. But to ever look at another human being's dysfunction and say, I will never understand that is a weakness because it's always a better version of ourselves to look at that and say, yeah, I get it. I get it. I see how that guy could lose it.

• 7:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  I see how she could have snapped like that. I see how that person could have thrown it all away for that pleasure or for that convenience. Yeah, I can see how they could have sold out. I totally can understand how they could have lied. And I'm not perfect. I can't do that. There are things I still look at and say, I don't understand how someone could do that. But I try to recognize that as a weakness. And I seek the grace to understand.

• 8:07Dr. John Delony?

  Or even if I don't understand how someone could have done that, can I understand there's gotta be a story behind that? Right? And not immediately dump to your character flaw or morally bankrupt, right? But there's gotta be a story that I would say in the top two or three things that my dad gave me as a homicide detective. From a young age, he constantly was reminding me.

• 8:33Dr. John Delony?

  The worst part of his job was not the blood and the guts and the horrible scenes you see in the movies that he had to go see in real life. It was sitting at a table and doing with someone he knew had killed somebody, hearing that story and how A plus B plus C led to Z and him sitting back in that chair saying, man, but like three things, I'm that guy. And we think of like murder, like a big blinking neon sign, but my old man being like, no, man, if this happens and this happens and this happens and my dad had done that to me when I was a kid, I can see that. And it was just baked into us a humility. You better walk gently through

• 9:15Dr. John Delony?

  the world because everybody's at war with something you can't see. And it's such a,

• 9:21Dr. John Delony?

  you know what I mean? It's just, it's just, it's a more graceful way to do life.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  You know, it's, it's essential too, to be able to prevent further happenings or to protect you and your family from those happenings.

• 9:32Dr. John Delony?

  That's the thing that I wish people would grasp is that's a power that I didn't know was being instilled in me as a young kid, which is the power to see a story unfolding and stop it before it gets there.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 9:44Dr. John Delony?

  Or see a set of behaviors in myself that are starting to push a ball down a hill. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to get there because I, I understand how that could end up there. Instead of being like, I would never buckle up, man. You know what I mean?

• 9:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. And even recognizing that distinction, there, there's a difference between me saying I would never do that and, and being able to say, but someone else would.

• 10:06Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 10:07Speaker 00

  And, and I, and I can see why they would. Why, why do I lock the door to my home at night? Why do I click that car alarm when I walk away from it? Because I can see how someone can feel comfortable taking something that doesn't belong to them, entering into and exploring spaces that they have no right to be in. It just makes sense. Would I do that? I hope not. But I can imagine scenarios where I would be more tempted than not to do such a thing. And it's that understanding, that, that kind of ability to relate to the unrelatable that helps you guard your heart with more diligence.

• 10:43Dr. John Delony?

  That's right. That's right. And backing out just a few rings, right? Like if I'm hungry, I would never go rob somebody. Okay. If your wife's hungry?

• 10:53Dr. John Delony?

  Nah. Your kids are hungry?

• 10:57Dr. John Delony?

  Probably not. Your daughter's hungry, right? Like, you can get yourself just two or three or four things away and you go, right? And it doesn't make it okay, it doesn't make it wrong, and there's gotta be accountability. All stuff's right, but it's just a more open-handed way to do life, which then keeps me out of cardiac events, right? It keeps me out of strokes and things like that, you know? So, um, yeah, I appreciate that, dude. Hmm.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  That's a, that's a great burden because that, that brings us into a relationship to truth that makes us responsible. And right now, we're caught up in the cultural momentum of truth as a weapon, which is why all the videos are like, this guy owns that guy. You know, I'm off the set. If you wanna understand more about why people have such a hard time admitting that they're wrong, just look at how terrible people are when they're right.

• 11:51Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? Like, we're not just bad at being wrong, we're bad at being right. You know, we're arrogant, we're prideful, we're self-righteous, we're cruel. We, we don't wanna leave room to change minds, we wanna hold it over your head. Yeah, it makes sense why people are so afraid of being wrong because we raise the cost, you know? It's not enough for you to say you were wrong. I need to put this video of me owning you on YouTube and I need to punish you forever. But, but the way you're talking puts us in a relationship with truth where we have to say, look, it's, it's not a means by which I own another person. It's a means by which I liberate another person.

• 12:32Dr. John Delony?

  That's exactly right. And I, I myself stay liberated at all times.

• 12:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:36Dr. John Delony?

  I nev-, I never thought about that, man. How the, the Michael Jordan poster shifted from, look how great, to look how, look how weak, right?

• 12:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:49Dr. John Delony?

  The Michael Jordan poster is no longer about Michael Jordan anymore. It's about the guy he's dunking over. That's the photo now.

• 12:56Speaker 00

  Right, right, yeah.

• 12:57Dr. John Delony?

  And that becomes the, ooh, look at that guy.

• 13:00Speaker 00

  You got dunked on.

• 13:01Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, and it's not about the, the internet debate of, man, I had not thought about that. And I'm gonna go home and consider treating my kids differently now. It is, woo, that guy got smoked! And then I'm scrolling onto the next one, right?

• 13:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:18Dr. John Delony?

  It's, yeah, it's humiliation at sport, or I'm right.

• 13:23Dr. John Delony?

  Not out of virtue, or not a truth, or not as we can all collectively go do something different with this new knowledge we got.

• 13:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:31Dr. John Delony?

  I got you. What an exhausting way to live, though.

• 13:35Speaker 00

  It's so tiring, yeah. It incentivizes a different type of behavior too, right? So, we've all had experiences like, I don't know, something small happens, you're like sixth grade and you're in class and maybe a classmate has some bubble gum and you're like, hey, can I have a piece of that gum? And they're like, no. And it's just some small little thing. But this particular time, the whole class hears the conversation. And you say, can I have a piece of that bubble gum? And they go, no. And everybody's like, oh, dang, ooh! And now, this thing that you wouldn't have had any trouble getting over has just become so weighty.

• 14:10Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  Right? It's so embarrassing. And it's powerful enough to ruin your day and make you enemies with this person. That's what it does, right? When we celebrate wrongness, rather than the discovery of how I could be, how I could think better in the future.

• 14:27Dr. John Delony?

  Or it robs you of what I think our culture has a big allergy to, of just being sad.

• 14:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:35Dr. John Delony?

  I wanted my buddy to get a piece of gum. He said, no. We don't have a psychology for that. We're like, I wanted something to be away and it's not. And now it has to... Dude, I was a high school teacher for two years. The number of students that I would run up on about to fight or fighting, neither of them wanted to be there. You know what I mean? They didn't want to be there. It was the, ooh, and he said, and you gotta, you're gonna let... And it amps, okay. You know what I mean?

• 15:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:04Dr. John Delony?

  The one kid that was like, no, I want to fight. Hey, you didn't want to tangle that guy. It's probably sociop... Like, they got stuff going on, right? But it just, yeah, instead of, man, my girlfriend kissed somebody else. Sad. You know what I mean?

• 15:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:19Dr. John Delony?

  Grief, heartbreak. And when you're 13, it's going to last forever. You know what I mean? Like, we don't have a psychology for that of my son coming home and me being like, dude, I'll sit here with you. That just stinks. You know what I mean? Like, that's a bummer. Instead, it's like, what are we gonna do? You know what I mean? Like, it's just a, it's an exhausting culture that we live in. And I wish, I wish, going back to addiction...

• 15:45Dr. John Delony?

  I wish rage or anger or constant amp wasn't the numbing device that we were all being fed.

• 15:56Dr. John Delony?

  I wish we all had permission to sit like, like my grandmother would sit by me and just be like, well.

• 16:05Dr. John Delony?

  And that's what my grandmother would say, well. And in that, like, presence was just, I didn't make the team and well.

• 16:15Dr. John Delony?

  She'll sit there with me, you know what I mean?

• 16:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:17Dr. John Delony?

  And then I can go on and do the next thing. I don't know, it's an exhausting culture.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  Do you think our addiction to some of the, the pain numbing things, like scrolling, for instance? Do you think that's the cause of our isolation or the effect of it? It's kind of a chicken and ant question for me.

• 16:36Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I feel like it's on a loop. I feel, it's a, it's a figure eight, it's a dance and.

• 16:43Dr. John Delony?

  Like each one of those things amps the other one, I think.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:46Dr. John Delony?

  Um, if I was to trace it all the way back, I, I think.

• 16:51Dr. John Delony?

  I think lonely probably is the.

• 16:55Dr. John Delony?

  I'm, I'm working on a, on a marriage project now and. One thing is certain anthropologically as the craziest experiment of all time was what we did right in the fifties and sixties. Which is you take two people and two to three to five kids. And one person leaves and you leave another isolated adult in a home in a box with these children. With no other human interaction, we call that normal. That's never happened in human history. And so with no cousins and no aunts and no grandparents, just boom, boom, boom. And we'll put you in a suburb, in a street away from everybody and.

• 17:42Dr. John Delony?

  By the way, you send the other half of that partnership off to an office somewhere to work making somebody else wealthy and then you come home and there's lonely and then there's lonely and then you get kids growing up in a electrified air, right? And then if I, I mean, I just look downstream and again, I always am hesitant for anybody to be like, this is the reason. But man, if I go back and pull the thread to right there, you got a bunch of World War II vets that came home and were not allowed to talk about anything. And they got, they got to work because that's what they knew to do and they had spouses locked in a box.

• 18:22Dr. John Delony?

  And I, that feels, it feels harrowing to think of it that way. Um, and we've normed, you know, if like, we've normed lack of sleep and we've normed, like you and I talk all the time, like about buying a ton of stuff that you don't need, like you, you're just scratching and clawing at some sort of thing to make this thing go away. That if I look back over human history, A, we didn't have the, we didn't have the privilege of having our own place with nobody else could come inside of it. But B, um, like every faith tradition in human history has a gathering part, has the dance, has the confession part, has the exhale, has the grieving communally.

• 19:06Dr. John Delony?

  And we just have extracted that and have to think that so much of our downstream pain. I mean, we're creating fake relationship machines now, right? Like, and I keep going, for what? And it's just downstream of this lonely on top of lonely on top of lonely.

• 19:24Speaker 00

  You're making me think of that poignant moment on your show where the woman calls in. She caught her husband talking with the AI companion.

• 19:34Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  Not.

• 19:38Speaker 00

  Talking on the phone with another woman having an inappropriate conversation, which is still a problem, but it's just another level now, right? The fake relationship infidelity. And not just in marriage, but even infidelity to our authentic selves as well. You know, seeking something without that that's meant to be found at home within.

• 20:03Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. And it's an extension of, right? There's fake strength behind a keyboard. And there's fake compassion behind a keyboard. Thoughts and prayers, really? Like, now I'm onto the next thing. You know what I mean? It's a, just a distancing of that discomfort that's sitting right in front of us.

• 20:20Speaker 00

  Okay, so if we had a time machine, we could go back to these moments where we could identify, you know, when these things spawned and maybe change history. But we're now in a world where this is normalized and people are so much more isolated. We're intrinsically communal beings, but we're experiencing reality in a totally different way. And now you have these powerful arguments like, hey, I don't want my child to be the only one at school that can't access the website where they get their homework and upload their papers or whatever it may be. Or I don't want to be the only parent who can't track my child to make sure I know they're safe.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  Or now you could say, I had a buddy say, a lot of the advice that my parents gave me, that was very good advice. It just feels like it doesn't even apply sometimes to my kids. So that they would say, if they saw me glued to the video game, get outside. But he could go outside and that would work because there's always somebody out there playing wiffle ball or playing basketball or playing tag. But he's like, now, tell your kids to go outside. You're pulling them away from their friends because all their friends are on the computer, playing the games on the computer. And it's like, what, I'm just gonna go outside and be there by myself? How do you even move the needle back in the direction of overcoming the isolationism and being a community again and forging relationships?

• 21:42Speaker 00

  Do you embrace this and say, hey, this is how we do relationship? This is how we do relationship now? We're just gonna go. We're just gonna do it online? Or do you try to move the needle back? And if so, how do you do that?

• 21:55Dr. John Delony?

  I've, man, I've, I've got two young kids. I've wrestled with this exact thing for a decade.

• 22:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:01Dr. John Delony?

  And the only thing I can come up with is go first and be weird. That's literally the operating strategy my wife and I have adopted is every parent is sitting there saying, but I don't want my kid to be the only one. And so then my parenting philosophy is gonna be, we'll be the only one. And that means if I pull my kid off, he, he actually is right. My kid, uh, my oldest, my son, he gave us a present. Talk about a nerd raised by nerds, right? My son gave me and my wife a presentation, Christmas of his eighth grade year, about why he needed at least some sort of device to communicate. And he came back and said, at least you had a phone on the wall with that little spirally cord on it when you were a kid.

• 22:44Dr. John Delony?

  When I walk in this door, I'm disconnected. I miss every birthday. I miss every inside joke and I'm showing up to school and an entire world is going, and he was right.

• 22:53Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 22:54Dr. John Delony?

  He was right. And that was on me, cuz I'd pulled him out. I'd kicked his crutch out and not replaced it with something else. And so that meant me and my wife are like, A, he's right. So what type of, if we're gonna have to enter into this world, then we gotta be responsible for draconian safety measures. And B, what must be true in our lives, me and her, so that that gap can be filled in a human way? Cuz if we're gonna talk trash philosophically, then we gotta live it out.

• 23:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:24Dr. John Delony?

  And so that means, man, we're gonna have to get off, we have to have TV off all the time. We do. And we gotta put our phones away. And we gotta have this house full of middle school kids at all times, which means we gotta create an environment that middle school kids are wanna hang out here. And so what does that mean? That means we're gonna spend money differently and we're gonna do entertainment, the two of us, we're gonna do entertainment differently. And so it does, it, but I brought him into the world. That responsibility lies on me to curate a world. And what I'm, what I found is we'd have middle school kids over all the time and every phone goes in a basket. And I didn't know this was going on the time. My wife circled back to every one of those parents and said, your kid's not gonna have their phone.

• 24:09Dr. John Delony?

  If you need him, text me or text the phone. And your kid can go to the basket and check it. But I don't want kids running amok out in the woods or upstairs or whatever with the phones. And what we found in real short order was all the parents were in. The kids got to a point where they'd come to the house and they couldn't wait to get that stupid cancer out of their hand. And it was a, can we come to your house, can we come to your house, can we come to your house? And it, but it was just somebody had to go first. And you gotta go be weird, man. It is weird for your middle school mom to call your kids. I mean, your buddy's parents. That's weird. And you might get some social, like it might come back on you socially at school, your mom called my mom.

• 24:52Dr. John Delony?

  I get that. And I hate that for you, dude. I do. And I am living proof of a mind that can't get things out of it that were implanted when I was a child. And I cannot in good conscience put that in your head. And so it's, both things are true. There's a tension there. And so the only thing I, only thing I've found is go first and be weird. And I wish it was more complex than that. You know what I mean?

• 25:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. I, I, I wanna make an objection to it and then I wanna resolve it. And, and the, the objection represents my inner skeptic and, and perhaps in some ways my sensitivity to other people's skepticism. You know, that's great for you, John. That's great, right? You, you have the perhaps charm or community or a living location where other kids are around. And you can have them over. Or, or maybe you have the kind of space that could accommodate guests. And you and I can easily come up with some scenarios where maybe the type of space you live in, the type of neighborhood, the school you go to, you don't want the kids over, you can't have them over, or they're just not around. What I wanna say in response to that objection is that

• 26:02Speaker 00

  the goal of every success story is not to emulate the other person's success, but to emulate the weird that led to it.

• 26:10Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 26:11Speaker 00

  And we can all find our own way to take risks. Our own way to think outside the box, our own way to be creative. And you didn't follow a roadmap that said, well, logically what I'm supposed to do is X, Y, Z.

• 26:24Dr. John Delony?

  You make it up in real time.

• 26:25Speaker 00

  You make it up in real time. And you didn't know it would work.

• 26:27Dr. John Delony?

  Well, and, and all, all caveat. Your objection, we lived in a rural, we lived out in the woods. And so my wife took it on herself to make an hour trip, round trip to go pick up kids to bring them to our house.

• 26:41Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 26:42Dr. John Delony?

  Now, were we fortunate enough that she wasn't working three jobs and I wasn't working three jobs? Yep, that's true. That's right. But we had to say, if our, if our values are this, and our other value is, I don't like neighbors all that much, and so I want to live out in the woods, then geography can't be a barrier to my son's social development. And so that meant my wife took one for the team and was in a, she'd go 30 minutes and pick up these kids and bring them to the house and they'd play for hours and 30 minutes back to drop them off. Cause some of those kids' parents were working their second job. And it was like, so it is, and it's what am I supposed to do? Drive and what?

• 27:24Dr. John Delony?

  Maybe. What am I supposed to do? Come home and just let? Maybe, right? And it's, it's, it goes back to, you know, I've had this conversation forever.

• 27:35Dr. John Delony?

  At the end, it, it, so much of our deal, of us are dealing with, not by our hand, but in our lap. You and I did not borrow $38 trillion. And it's increasingly looked like we're going to have to pay it back with whatever that means. Or at the very least, my kids are. You and I didn't bomb anybody. You and I didn't fill in the blank. And yet here we are, and I can sit here and say, but I didn't, but I didn't, but I didn't. Or I can say, my tree fell down across my driveway and I gotta get to work. So that means I gotta figure out how to get that tree off the driveway. And it's gonna be uncomfortable. I'm gonna get scrapes. It's gonna be awful. I'm gonna hurt my back. I gotta get that tree off the driveway.

• 28:19Dr. John Delony?

  And if we started looking at our problems emotionally, if we start. Started saying, okay, what can I do to solve this? Not, not, not while also solving for comfort, while also solving for convenience, but solving for what is right here. I think you open up a whole different culture, both in your marriage, in your home, in your community, and then across the country.

• 28:46Dr. John Delony?

  But that's hard, man. And I get, it goes back to that, to great Michael Easter. It's like, being 200 pounds overweight is hard. It's hard. And losing 200 pounds is a nightmare. It's not as though one is easier than the other. And so it's just choose the hard that you want on the other end of this discomfort. Like eating fast food, I drove through Chick-fil-A on the way up here. That was easy.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:14Dr. John Delony?

  And it will cost me for the rest of the day. Not because Chick-fil-A is bad or whatever, but when I start my day with fast food, it just never fully takes off, right? And so it would have been hard to come here hungry. And it will be hard dealing with the aftermath of starting my day like that. Both of those are hard, right? And so do you choose the hard most often? That's going to get you where you want to actually be. Which as a kid that learns at 18, your mind is yours. And you are not a pawn in the creation of your, your extraction, right? You're not a pawn in what somebody else's thoughts are going to be. Your mind will be yours. And what do I have to do to reverse engineer that?

• 29:56Dr. John Delony?

  And God help me if I default to, yeah, but the Eagles are on, man. I gotta catch the game, right? God help me, right?

• 30:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:03Dr. John Delony?

  And also, dude, I get home, going back to our original, like, I'm tired, man. And I get wanting to just lay on the couch and watch the Eagles. Cause I, I don't want to watch the Eagles. I don't watch Eagles. But like, I want to just scroll out. I get, I mean, I, I'm there, I do it, right? It happens.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Watch Eagles highlights.

• 30:22Dr. John Delony?

  I mean, that's the thing now, they've contracted the game for like 30 seconds for us. So tell me this, how do you?

• 30:30Dr. John Delony?

  You've written on this and thought on this deeply. How do you?

• 30:36Dr. John Delony?

  We're talking a lot about actions. I want to talk about the shoulds and have tos and, but I can't. Those, um, you phrased it emotional clutter, which I love. Just a head. Full of stuff that in a strange way becomes an incapacitating identity.

• 31:02Dr. John Delony?

  I am what I think and my thoughts are heavy and my thoughts are dark, which means I can't and I won't. Right. Talk to me about that. Talk to me about emotional clutter.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, one thing I do want to say is we see, we see some emotionally emotional decluttering going on in the approach you took. What I love about your story is you gave yourself permission to do something that can't work for everyone.

• 31:31Dr. John Delony?

  Absolutely.

• 31:31Speaker 00

  That's pivotal. That's necessary. Now, it's easy to scandalize something like that. Well, your solution doesn't work for everyone. But, but that's true of most of the best kinds of solutions. Because the, the thing about, you know, self-help or, or, you know, watching podcasts and taking in life wisdom and insights about life is that it all sounds great in theory. But then, you know, you, you read some communications book or some conflict resolution book and then you go home with your kids and your wife. You go to, to, to your job, you know, with your coworkers or your husband or your friends. And it's like, oh, my friends might tease me in a way that the book didn't account for. Or my, my difficult coworkers might challenge me in a way that the book didn't account for.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  And so it often feels like when you're a kid and you go to math class and the teacher says, today we're going to learn arithmetic. All right. Yeah. Two plus two equals four. All right. I got three apples plus two apples, five. Okay. Now go do your homework. And then you get home and it's like negative two point three. Minus one point one. It's the same principles.

• 32:36Dr. John Delony?

  And mom screaming at dad, little brother's beating up your sister.

• 32:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:42Dr. John Delony?

  And the dog is peeing everywhere.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:44Dr. John Delony?

  Do it.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  Do it.

• 32:46Dr. John Delony?

  Right. You're a different. Environment, different contexts.

• 32:48Speaker 00

  And I gave you the principles in the classroom too. So you should be able to drive and you just kind of feel hoodwinked. It's like, uh, this ain't it. And so part of what we have to learn how to do with life is say, how do I get these ideas to work for the life that is mine? Because the other kids may not have the dog peeing around the house and the little brother getting picked on. And some people, you know, can figure out this a lot more quickly than I do. How do I figure out what works for me? And you learn little cheat codes that can get you through life, that can help you learn things and, you know, maybe you have to turn everything into a song or whatever it may be. And not everybody has musicality, so they can't do that. But you've got to figure out what works for you.

• 33:31Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, can I? I don't want to miss that because that may be one of the most important things that's said on this, these microphones in this calendar year. Because that rests on a very countercultural bedrock, which is you have to do something. We're at a place where we got to do something. And this idea that like, well, I can't afford the houses. Housing is too expensive. I can't afford it. So I'm going to take a 50 year mortgage now. That's what I heard Florida the other day. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna, I'm math. I don't like math. It's inconvenient.

• 34:15Dr. John Delony?

  Math breaks and demolishes this picture out of my life. So I'm just going to go around it. Or I said I do to this woman at the altar in front of God and our families.

• 34:29Dr. John Delony?

  She's had some health issues now. And so it's just, you know, I'm, and it's like, no, no, no. Stay in the principle of.

• 34:39Dr. John Delony?

  You've gotta do right. And what does right look like? What does integrity look like? What does math look like? The rules don't bend and move. How do I do that in a way that works in this context, in this environment? And I think we're at a place where either people have just collapsed and said, I'm out. This is the way this is gonna be. Or the rules don't apply. And when you get enough people saying the rules don't apply, then the whole thing falls over.

• 35:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:10Dr. John Delony?

  You get what I'm saying?

• 35:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying. There's a certain sense in which the rules don't apply. What I mean by that is, we all might have universal aims. Like, hey, we wanna be the healthiest version of ourselves. And maybe we both can sit here and say, we can make some improvements with our diet. But we've got different strengths and weaknesses, different temptations, different circumstances.

• 35:35Dr. John Delony?

  Different gut microbiomes that let you eat something, right? We got different, it's different.

• 35:40Speaker 00

  Exactly. And so there's always that part of the equation where I've gotta, I've gotta, that's gotta be my input, right? In order to get it to work, the missing piece is, okay, TK, what's that thing you're going to do that no one else can do because they're not in your precise situation? Like, what's your input here? And it's not just effort, it's not just time, it's not just energy. It's like, what's my way of being creative and betting on myself? And so, yeah, sometimes it really does feel like life is crushing you and like, there's no way out and there are no solutions.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  But this is where we have to reaffirm some degree of faith in ourselves. And maybe even beyond the level of faith, just, I often tell people, hey, I'm not asking you to believe anything. I'm just asking you to be willing to try something different. To be willing to try something new. Don't put pressure on yourself to believe that there's gonna be a positive outcome. I don't think when, you know, when a lion shows up and there's a deer and that deer takes off, I don't think the deer is being a positive thinker. You know what I mean?

• 36:53Dr. John Delony?

  But we're doing, he's doing the next right thing, which is run.

• 36:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, he, but, but he, but he isn't running because he has a belief that it's more probable he will escape than not. He, he might know that it's highly unlikely that he will escape, but what else are you gonna do?

• 37:09Dr. John Delony?

  It's a hundred percent certainty that staying where he's at.

• 37:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:13Dr. John Delony?

  It's over.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's running out of necessity. He's running out of this is the only option that gives me a remote possibility of surviving. It's not an expression of optimism. And so we don't have to burden ourselves to, to do everything we do as an expression of optimism. Sometimes there's just the willingness to experiment, the willingness to explore, the willingness to say, hey, man, I don't feel like I have some compelling reason to keep going, but I know what's gonna happen if I don't keep going. Many people have been in my situation before, so let me just try something new. I, I love this advice from Peter Daniels where he says, over the course of your lifetime, read a thousand biographies, because in doing so, you'll build a vast vocabulary for overcoming incredible odds.

• 37:59Speaker 00

  Now, I don't think you need to take that literally. You don't need to read a thousand biographies, but by familiarizing yourself with other people's stories for how they've overcome odds and learning to listen to other people's stories, not through the lens of, yeah, but I can't do that, yeah, but I can't, can't do that. Learning to listen to it through the lens of, hmm, but I can emulate that. So for instance, if you tell me the Michael Jordan story, again, cut from his high school team, locking himself in his room, crying and all that kind of stuff, I can be like, yeah, but that was the eighties. Now we got AU ball and everybody's good by the age of seven, so I can't apply that anymore. You can always do that. You can always say, yeah, but that was a different time. Now it's more competitive today, whatever, whatever. But you wanna listen to those stories by saying, okay, but what can I emulate from that? I can emulate.

• 38:45Speaker 00

  The sense of using other people's rejection of me as a personal challenge. I can emulate the the concept that even though my ceiling might be different from other people's ceilings, it's probably never true that I've reached mine. And so even though I can practice boxing all day and never be as good as Muhammad Ali, I can practice every day and be way better than me.

• 39:10Dr. John Delony?

  Than I was, that's right.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, but me rhymed.

• 39:18Speaker 00

  That's the that's the black preacher song, I mean.

• 39:21Dr. John Delony?

  It's good.

• 39:21Speaker 00

  But but yeah, so and and and this goes back to like you you giving yourself permission. Uh, because sometimes what happens, you know, when we hear stories like this, we say, but everybody can't do that. And and and that's very important for me to speak to. And I want to say, first of all, somebody can. Somebody can do that. Like, your solution, as particular as it was, there's somebody that's listening that's like, that's what I need to do. Right? 999 people might be like, well, I can't do that, John. But there's one person that's like, OK, that's my solution. If it doesn't work for everybody, still allow it to work for someone. If it doesn't work for you, still celebrate it as something that works for somebody.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  Don't allow what doesn't work for you to get in someone else's way. Don't use the fact that this doesn't work for everybody as a basis for arguing against it or fighting against it. Say, you know what? That worked for Dr. Deloney. That is so awesome, and I hope it works for somebody else. And now you're practicing a way of thinking where you're just looking for the possibilities. You're developing your vocabulary of possibilities. And if you learn to look at stories in that way, listen to stories in that way, your own vocabulary for how to see possibility and look for and see those opportunities in your own life will expand. Does that make sense?

• 40:38Dr. John Delony?

  Totally. How much is that is aided by having some absolute no goes?

• 40:46Speaker 00

  What do you mean?

• 40:46Dr. John Delony?

  And I've actually learned that in the last four or five years, which is,

• 40:52Dr. John Delony?

  I remember back when I was 21, I went to this event, ended up getting an acting manager and I was like, bro, I'm gonna go Hollywood, right? It was a whole thing. Like, I'm gonna go do this. And I was going out to Los Angeles for a couple of meetings and I told the person that I was meeting with, the first group I was meeting with, the agency group, and I said, they're like, when can you move here? And I said, I graduate with college, my college degree in May. As soon as I graduate, I think it was probably February, as soon as I graduate, I'm gonna move out here. I'll never forget, one of them said, if you have a backup plan in this industry, you will use it.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 41:30Dr. John Delony?

  And I remember thinking, I don't know if I want it that bad. You know what I mean?

• 41:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:35Dr. John Delony?

  And so, but it was a good, and you hear the story of Matt Damon being like a semester short of graduating Harvard and crossing the, A, I'm not Matt Damon, but B, I was like, actually, I want to do this degree. I want to get that. And that was a way to separate the, my priorities. So if I, my wife and I shake hands and say, in this house, we do not ever borrow money.

• 42:02Dr. John Delony?

  And then we're faced with this situation. Then I go back to what you just said, and I've got 50 options of, this is how Deloney does it, this is how Coleman does it, this is how, this is how, this is how. But I'm resting on a foundation of, of a line we won't cross.

• 42:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:17Dr. John Delony?

  I will not cheat on my wife. Okay? So she's got a major medical issue. You struggling with X, Y, or Z. Y'all aren't talking anymore. You have a backstop. You almost, you're almost anchored into bedrock in this principle that will then say, okay, then we gotta come up with something. Or I will not get into, I'm just making up stuff, but like, I will not physically hit another person. Okay? Then what does that mean for your, your set of choices? And I almost feel like in our current culture, we've just wiped the map with whatever you feel like's the next right move.

• 42:55Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 42:55Dr. John Delony?

  And we have this, it goes back to like that choice psychology, like when you walk into a grocery store and there's 900 salad dressings, it doesn't matter which one you pick. You'll be haunted all day. You should have got the bacon flavor. Flavor Ranch, man. You should have got the, the, you know, the cilantro bacon flavor. Like, you can't exhale. And so there's something powerful about having some. As for this house, we've drawn this line, or I'm by myself in my apartment, working two jobs. Like, as for me in the center of my chest, here's my no goes. Which then gives, actually, it's almost like having a budget. Like, it then gives me freedom to run like crazy inside this, these parameters. And we don't like this, but I think we're designed for some sort of boundary.

• 43:40Dr. John Delony?

  And we're living in a limitless, like, moment in history, and it's unmooring, right?

• 43:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, we're talking about creativity with problem solving. And, you know, when you think about it in, in music, there can be no improvisation without a structure.

• 43:58Dr. John Delony?

  Without, without your guitar being tuned, right?

• 44:00Speaker 00

  And I gotta know what song you're playing.

• 44:02Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  Right? You're, you're playing My Favorite Things. That's how I know you're riffing.

• 44:06Dr. John Delony?

  Right, right, right.

• 44:07Speaker 00

  But if all you're doing is riffing, it's like, there's no song, and now it's just noise.

• 44:11Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 00

  But, but it's, it's that ability to have a structure in place that makes improvisation possible. And so it is with life. I know for me, so I, I had a day. This was, man, like, a year or two ago now, where my stomach was hurting so bad.

• 44:30Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, you were sick last time I saw you.

• 44:31Speaker 00

  I was sick super bad, man. And, uh, and I couldn't stop throwing up. And after a while, it's like, you know, I couldn't take anything. Every time I drink water, I thought it was food poison or something like that. Um, but I couldn't take anything. And so I, I eventually just, you know, called a doctor. And she said, you need to go to the emergency room right now. It sounds to me like you have an intestinal obstruction. And so I go to the ER, and I did. And it was, it was linked back to a surgery that I had over a decade ago, where those adhesions form, and it's possible as a, as a consequence, with varying degrees of probability, ranging from person to person, for the small intestines to kind of get.

• 45:15Speaker 00

  Tied up, so to speak, and things can't pass through. And so fortunately, we were able to get through that situation without having a surgery. They kind of put the tube up my nose, down there. By the way, soon as that tube goes up my nose and down to my stomach, I'm like, "Okay, I'm all right now. That felt so bad." I'm like, "I'd just rather have the pain." Yeah, yeah, yeah. It felt so bad. And they were able to, you know, get the obstruction to pass through, you know, get everything to uncoil, and I was good. It happened again, like, three weeks later. And I'm back in the hospital, and this time, I'm just demoralized. The first time, it's like, this is all new, but now I'm demoralized. I felt so defeated.

• 45:58Speaker 00

  And the doctor says to me, "I can't promise you that you'll never end up in here again for this." I've had someone who was here eight months, eight times. It's kind of random. She says, "But I can tell you one thing that you can control, and if you control this, your probability of coming back here can be pretty low." And she laid out for me a low-fiber diet, and says, "If you eliminate these things, and you just don't fool with them,

• 46:31Speaker 00

  you can really lower the odds of you being back here." John, all the things that I needed to eliminate, I loved them all. Favorite things, that's right. I loved them all. And you better believe that I did not do the logical thing and say, "All right, I'm just gonna do what the doctor says and stay out of the hospital." I kind of intended and wanted to, but human weakness is the thing. I had some moments. I had some moments where I go, "Ohhhhh", and I pull up through the drive-thru, and I get the thing, because I can get away with it, I think, and I did get away with it. And that was dangerous. Because once I got away with it, I was like, "Oh, I can probably do it again." It's not that big of a deal. And...

• 47:12Speaker 00

  It did come roaring back. I didn't have to go to the hospital because I got lucky. But I felt that like my stomach is like a bomb that's gonna explode. And, and that was kind of like the wake up call for me like, alright, man. She didn't even ask you to eat healthy, bro. You know what I mean? She didn't even say you can't have ice cream or something, right? She just said you can't have this, right? And so at that point, I was like, okay. I've got to establish some guardrails. There are certain things I just can't do. Now, once those guardrails are established, you know what happens? You start noticing food labels.

• 47:48Dr. John Delony?

  You can eat everything. It's not that.

• 47:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, like you start noticing the variety of foods that are out there. Because when you have this option of I can eat whatever I want, you just stick with what's familiar. But then you start saying, wow. There are a lot of different types of foods. There are actually a lot of different types of fruits.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  And, and you develop that vocabulary. So to your point. It's not until you have something that says, this is a no go for me. You, you treat it like I'm gonna die. Or my dreams are gonna die if I go in that direction. And when you have that, even if you don't know how you're gonna move forward. It's amazing how smart you become. And identifying possible solutions when you don't give yourself that backup plan. Of doing the thing you know you don't want to do anyway.

• 48:34Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, that's, that's where I found a lot of value in my house with my wife and I. Backing up and saying, just establishing a set of values. Here's who we are. And when I was here, when I first took this job out of the university and. I was in these branding meetings. Like, what's the brand gonna be? And I finally snapped one day. I was like, yo, I'm not doing it. I don't want a brand. I'm not that guy. I don't want to do that. And I remember a guy who works here, a brilliant man named Tim Newton, who said. Hey, all a brand is, is who you are when you're not in that room.

• 49:11Dr. John Delony?

  What a people feel about you when you're not in there. And I was like. Oh, so we all have that.

• 49:18Dr. John Delony?

  And I took that question home to my wife and I was like, what if we asked the question, who are the Delones?

• 49:25Dr. John Delony?

  When we're here and who are the Delones when we're not here? And we created a list of this is who we are. The Delones are people who allow everyone to come to their kitchen table. The Delones are people who, and we established that list. And it really, in a strange way, was establishing by saying who we are. It clearly establishes our no goes. Right? And then you're allowed to just run wild with freedom. Cause it, it takes all that drama off, right? Cause we just don't go there. It's just not a thing. And we're human, so we do go there all the time. And when you get electrocuted, you're like, I know exactly why that, you know what I mean? It's not a shock or a surprise. It's you, we went dance with the devil on that one. And we'd already established us.

• 50:07Dr. John Delony?

  So there's something powerful about that exhale of who are we gonna be? I'm a guy that tries to be a good steward of my body. Well, for me, that means if I eat this in the morning, I'm gonna, it's gonna cost me all day. For you, you can't have apples anymore, like whatever the thing is, right? But it's asking that, who are you gonna be? Which defines my no go list. Which then, man, is such a place of freedom.

• 50:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:32Dr. John Delony?

  And it almost, yeah, culturally feeling like,

• 50:37Dr. John Delony?

  it's like we have an allergy to that. It's just we have an allergy to reality, right? We have an allergy to reality.

• 50:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and I, I think you're, you're establishing something that's so much more important than defining things like calling, purpose and identity in terms of your career or your job. You're, you're, you're establishing it as how you will orient yourself towards the world.

• 51:02Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 51:02Speaker 00

  And I think that's such a-

• 51:03Dr. John Delony?

  That to me is the call.

• 51:05Speaker 00

  That's the call.

• 51:05Dr. John Delony?

  That's calling.

• 51:06Speaker 00

  That's the call.

• 51:06Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 51:07Speaker 00

  Because you know, for anyone that's ever, for anyone that ever goes down the calling rabbit hole, where you experience anxiety, what am I supposed to do? You, you find that-

• 51:18Speaker 00

  It's disappointing how uninterested God seems in whether or not I ever work at a grocery store or as a plumber.

• 51:30Dr. John Delony?

  In your job title.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, it seems that whatever it is I'm called to do, God is certainly not above having me do something else for a job, either on my road to that thing or while I'm serving in that way. There doesn't seem to be any evidence. Like, I was like, no, I can't allow John to ever bake a cake, you know? It's like, you might find yourself baking a cake. Yeah, exactly. And when we get wedded to these ideas that like, well, my calling is to only bake cakes and to do anything other than that is beneath me. And I must know my calling because I'm, you know, really afraid of wasting my time. And it's like, well, it's a little bit more of how you're oriented towards the world.

• 52:14Speaker 00

  It's a little bit more along the lines of the character and the virtue, because these are things that can be manifest through different job types. They can be manifest in different relationships and in different places, you know? I think about this time where I was taking this night class at college. And the professor, the late Quinton Smith, he was a philosophy professor, brilliant man. And I loved his classes and I never wanted to miss them. They were one night a week. And one day I'm in my dorm room and I take a nap and I oversleep. And I wake up and it's like 6:30 and the class is at 6:30. And I freak out because I gotta run across campus to get there. And so I take off and I'm like sprinting, heading to class.

• 52:56Speaker 00

  And I see in the distance Quinton Smith, who was also running late. And as soon as I see him, I slow down and I start to walk with him. And now we're walking together. And I'm no longer stressed. I'm no longer worried about missing out on anything because I'm walking with the professor. And so much of the anxiety around calling comes from this place of, I'm afraid I'm gonna miss out on what I'm supposed to do. I'm afraid I'm gonna miss out on who I'm supposed to be. And my identity is tied to that. Maybe I'm meant to be an actor or a baseball player and I'm gonna miss out. And it's like, man. We were created to walk with God. You know, and if you're doing that, there's an interior sense in which you slow down.

• 53:41Speaker 00

  And you get into the rhythm of that walk because you know that you can't miss out on anything that is yours. Because of that walk.

• 53:52Dr. John Delony?

  When you're with the professor.

• 53:53Speaker 00

  When you're with the professor, yeah.

• 53:54Dr. John Delony?

  So I heard, I was in a ton of angst as a young man over a job. Should I take it? Should I not? Should I take it? Should I not? And just a season of stress, anxiousness, like looking for the, looking for like the tree bark would turn a certain way. Be like, oh, that's it. That's the message, right? Like whatever that means. And I remember a powerful mentor of mine named Dr. Day. I mean, we were sitting out one night late and I was like, I'm wrestling and wrestling. And tell me if this passes your smell test. I'm not theologically astute enough, but it made such an important.

• 54:36Dr. John Delony?

  It was such, it was one of those before and after conversations that we all have in our lives. Like I'm different after that conversation. But he said, has it ever occurred to you that God doesn't care what you do? He cares who you are on whatever it is you're going. And if he wants your attention, he'll get it.

• 54:58Dr. John Delony?

  But it was this, and we went on to talk further, like, hey, there's a ton.

• 55:04Dr. John Delony?

  Billions of starving children and dads wringing their hand across this planet. And you think they're out there being like, man, God really wants me to, like, or is it? Who am I gonna be today trying to get my kids fed? Who, who, who am I gonna be in service of this job or baking cakes? Or the bakery closes and I gotta go deliver pizzas to keep food on my table? Who am I gonna be when I'm doing that? And that felt like a infinitely powerful, more powerful call than. How do I get this job title and make this dollar amount so I can get this car?

• 55:46Dr. John Delony?

  So I can buy this house with this many square footage in it versus?

• 55:52Dr. John Delony?

  That if you're the guy getting up before your day job and Ubering all day, all morning, and then going to work a full shift and then doing Uber Eats at night so that your kids have a warm place to sleep this winter. I cannot help but think that God's not in that passenger seat of that car.

• 56:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:10Dr. John Delony?

  Right there with you. Like, it's who are you gonna be? Are you still gonna walk up to that door and treat that exhausted mom who just Uber Eats? Are you gonna treat her with dignity when she stiffs you because you don't have any money either? Are you gonna exhale and say a quick prayer on the way to work when you drop off a businessman at the airport? Like, who are you gonna be wherever it is you're going? And for whatever reason, that felt right. It felt right. And it was a shift in an obsession with destination. And it's an obsession on how am I gonna treat that person in front of me?

• 56:39Speaker 00

  That's so good.

• 56:39Dr. John Delony?

  And it just felt.

• 56:42Dr. John Delony?

  I don't know. I don't know. It took the drama out of my life. Does that make sense? And I'm a dramatic guy, so I've got enough as is.

• 56:50Speaker 00

  That makes a ton of sense on so many levels. First of all, perhaps it is true that there are specific projects that God wants us to work on, specific places that he wants us to be. That doesn't mean we need to reduce it to an intellectual puzzle that we can fail to solve because we're not smart enough. Right? You look at the life of Joseph, who has this God-inspired dream. And in the end, he fulfills that dream. But it's not clear at any point along the way that he knew exactly how it was going to be fulfilled. It was God's dream, right? And what I love about your question is, how am I gonna show up for the people that are in front of me?

• 57:35Speaker 00

  Is this isn't just a perspective that increases our sense of personal peace? Because yes, there is a difference between being passionate about my calling and being anxious about making a mistake. Those are two different things, and they often get confused. But it also allows us to be more humane towards others. So again, think of Joseph. He's in jail. And he's there because a lie has been told about him.

• 57:59Speaker 00

  Man, and if you read with imagination, things get really interesting. You don't have to put anything in there that's not there. But can you imagine if you had a job?

• 58:10Speaker 00

  And you're so good at your job that the guy you work for puts you in charge of watching over other people, okay? And then all of a sudden, you stop showing up to work. Because you're in jail because of a lie somebody told about you. Is anybody asking questions? Does anybody notice? Right? Is anybody talking about him? Is anybody wondering whatever happened to him? Do any stories get told? That's kind of an interesting thing to ask. But here he is in a place that he doesn't belong. He's there because of a lie. He's there against his own will. His dreams are so much bigger than that jail. And yet, he finds himself by providence before two men that are disturbed by their dreams. And guess who's there with them?

• 58:54Speaker 00

  A man that has been given the gift to interpret dreams. And it's like, you know, God cares about your dream, Joseph. But he also cares about those two guys in jail who belong there because they did something that makes them deserve to be there. And you can complain about being somewhere that's beneath you, that you don't deserve to be in. Or you can say, this is where I am.

• 59:21Dr. John Delony?

  Who am I gonna be now that I'm here?

• 59:22Speaker 00

  Who am I gonna be in this place? And perhaps there is more for me. Yeah, maybe there is more for me. But right now, I'm gonna use what has been placed within me to serve anyone. You know, I often say, before you quit your day job, please stop despising yourself for having one. Because, man, if you see yourself as a loser for working at Burger King, then how in the world are you gonna treat the people that work there? You know what I mean?

• 59:51Dr. John Delony?

  They're coworkers.

• 59:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, you wanna fix that. You wanna get that right. You know what I mean? You wanna pursue whatever you pursue from a place of self-respect. Like, hey, Burger King is your first investment. It's an expression of your creative power. Like, you've got something that you wanna do with your life, and you took some action steps to get that job and prove yourself. And now you're creating value for other people, making some things happen, man. Like, respect yourself for doing that and respect the people that surround you. That's a place of power that allows you to be more humane, you know?

• 1:00:21Dr. John Delony?

  Did you know I worked at Burger King for four years?

• 1:00:22Speaker 00

  I didn't know that.

• 1:00:23Dr. John Delony?

  Did you know this? Did you know the seeds of the job I do now were planted at the age of 16? When I would work the lunch, rush, rush at the register and I would see the, you know, the movie ticket lines of people just waiting to get up in order. And this is before phones. And so there was just a haze over every person's face that would come up to the thing. And I remember learning at 16, if I said, not, can I take your order, please? But how are you doing? It would, it was a, like a switch came back on and just

• 1:01:03Dr. John Delony?

  simply say, I'm glad you're here, man. What can I get for you? Was a, it's just what your face, it's just, you can't help it. You're just like, oh, hey, can I get, you know what I mean? Can I get a waffle cheese? But I learned that there that you have about 10 seconds to make someone's day or to destroy it. And that is, that, all that trend line, I believe nothing's wasted. That line goes all the way to somebody calls my show and I'm like, hey, I'm glad that you called. What's up? Like that same is exactly the same. And that's from sitting at a Burger King register for four years. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:01:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Dr. John Delony?

  And at 16, I was like, I'm above, you know, I mean, of course, I was an arrogant idiot, whatever. But it's like going back and looking like, man, if you're in a spot that you don't want to be at emotionally, physically, psychologically, relationally. Okay, who are you going to be now? Right? And then I promise you, if you'll continue to scratch and claw towards that next right step, you'll look back and say, this was a, doesn't have to be a good, I wouldn't wish that on you to go back and get sick, right? You don't want to go back in that pain. You don't, you don't want to lionize that pain. It was such a good refining. No, it was terrible. It was awful. But now you got five foods that I'm not going to put in my body anymore so that I can go, right? There's something that I can take that's going

• 1:02:26Dr. John Delony?

  to help me in this, in this path moving forward.

• 1:02:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:29Dr. John Delony?

  I don't want it.

• 1:02:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:31Dr. John Delony?

  But we got it and we're going to do with it now.

• 1:02:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:34Dr. John Delony?

  It's like a healthy move.

• 1:02:36Speaker 00

  Can we say one more thing about the fear of missing out on a call?

• 1:02:39Dr. John Delony?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:40Speaker 00

  Can I?

• 1:02:40Dr. John Delony?

  We'll close with this, yeah.

• 1:02:41Speaker 00

  Okay. And by the way, this is a roundabout way of getting to the heart of what emotional clutter is about, right? It's, hey, I work at Burger King, therefore I'm a loser. I'm not where I want to be, therefore I'm a loser. Therefore, I'm a bad person. Therefore, I'm less than this person. I don't have what they have, therefore I'm in a wrong place. You know? It's all of the ways in which we use our circumstances and conditions, much of which we don't control, as a basis for incriminating ourselves. And...

• 1:03:20Dr. John Delony?

  Is it, what about incriminating others too? Like the must be nice?

• 1:03:24Speaker 00

  It's because we do it to ourselves that we do it to others. Because if you don't respect yourself, you can't fool me. You don't respect other people. You can pretend like you do. You can put on a face to avoid troublesome consequences. But if you don't respect yourself, you don't respect other people. And if you don't love yourself, you don't love other people. Right? And so, the ability to be, it's why when people have an easy time being merciful, an easy time being forgiving, it's because they've learned to be gracious. They've often, they often know what it's like to fail in their own lives, to go through hard times, to do stupid things. It's usually that person's like, man, you know, I put my foot in my mouth before too, man. Don't worry about it.

• 1:04:09Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? But Jonah, here's a guy who knew what he was called to do. He's got the details that people want, or at least think they want. You're gonna go to a specific place, and you're gonna give a specific message to specific people. And he feels the weight of that and runs in the opposite direction. Right? And the circumstances and conditions of his life get troubled because God's trying to call him to wake up and come back to his calling. He wants nothing to do with it. But God arranges for that big fish to take him in, and it's in that darkness that he comes to know the truth.

• 1:04:54Speaker 00

  The truth that he knew, right? But he comes to know the truth that allows him to follow the truth that he knows, and he goes and he does what he's supposed to do.

• 1:05:04Speaker 00

  My question is this. If God can so arrange the circumstances and conditions of Jonah's life to ensure that he's in the place where he needs him to be, in spite of the fact that Jonah was actively running away from it, how much more can he do that for those who sincerely seek him?

• 1:05:27Speaker 00

  We never have to worry about God's ability to situate us where we need to be to do the work that he's called us to do, to use the gifts that are within us.

• 1:05:41Speaker 00

  The real question, the real hard part is, how can I be the most loving, compassionate, generous, saint-like being that I can be in this moment? And that's the hard work. Because it's so much easier to be a saint if you give me different circumstances. I love that story. I'd be a saint if you gave me different circumstances. I'd be real generous if you gave me a different bank account. It's being generous, it's being good as the person I am with the life that I have. That's the hard part, but that's really the only work.

• 1:06:18Dr. John Delony?

  And I guess it's the tale as old as time. I'm confident you've experienced it too, but you and I were both just like teachers. We're educators. And now we found ourselves in this world. And I'll tell you what, man.

• 1:06:35Dr. John Delony?

  I went with me.

• 1:06:38Dr. John Delony?

  Those same... You think you're insecure, getting ready to go to work? Wait till you're insecure in front of... You know what I mean? Or you think your teeth don't look right? Wait till that many people see them. Or you think you have a secret you don't want nobody to know about? In your friend group? Wait till you... Right, so it's that... Yeah, it's that tale as old as time, man. It's that Jim Carrey quote, man. I just wish everyone could just get a million dollars deposited in their account and you could all get an Oscar so you could realize it doesn't heal you. But deciding I'm gonna live a life of mercy and grace and I'm gonna be the kindest version of myself as I can and all the way full circle of this conversation like I'm gonna see somebody in front of me doing something I don't like or saying something

• 1:07:23Dr. John Delony?

  I don't like and I'm gonna not default to a character assassination, a character judgment. Like I'm gonna exhale and say, my God, the story behind that must be wild. Cause I got stories behind my stuff too. And if I want to change that person's mind, A, they didn't ask me, but if they, if I do, is a frontal assault the best way to do that? Or is, hey, come over to my house, bring some nachos, let's figure this out, right? Is that not an easier way, way to do life, right? Or even not even trying to convince you nothing. I was gonna make sure that guy's fed too, right? It's easier to make better decisions on a full stomach, right?

• 1:08:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, man.

• 1:08:03Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. Well, dude, you're one of my, you're one of the first guys I met in this crazy world that we're in now. So thank you for being my friend all these years, man.

• 1:08:11Speaker 00

  Oh, likewise, man. You're, you're an inspiring, inspiring person for me. And by the way, I'm always impressed with the, the heavy questions that you can bring perspective to. Well, you know, we're on the minimalist, man. And if people are like, hey, uh, I have this typewriter that I don't want, what do I do? We're like, all right, let's dive into this a little bit.

• 1:08:32Dr. John Delony?

  No, Josh is always sitting to me screenshots. He's like, what is he, what are you doing, man? That always cheers me up, man.

• 1:08:39Speaker 00

  Your questions, they have so much weight, but like, I, I, I respect not just your compassion, but I, I respect your, your willingness to be truthful. Because sometimes it can, it can be very tempting to just affirm the parts that should be affirmed and then leave it at that. But I see you every day sacrifice yet another opportunity to be liked for the sake of telling people what they need to hear. And a lot of people like you for it, but I, but, but, but there's a real consideration of cost that has to go into telling somebody, hey, man, that ain't right. Hey, man, you, you, you need to talk to your wife about that or you, you need to be honest with yourself.

• 1:09:19Dr. John Delony?

  Well, and you did the exact same thing, like, hey, this is my great, great grandfather's typewriter. And it's like, man, your grandfather's not in that typewriter and you let that thing go. And that's a hard, that's a hard conversation. And by the way, y'all are reducing, you guys cry well of like to the center of the earth of thoughtfulness and depth. And so I appreciate that. Thanks for being my friend, man.

• 1:09:44Speaker 00

  Hey, likewise, brother. Much love.