Order of Man - JOHN DELONY ｜ Own Your Past

00:00:00.000 Men, every single one of us has past baggage and trauma, but what separates us is the ability

00:00:05.540 to internalize and learn from and move past what may have previously hindered us. Embracing

00:00:11.900 the past and then also the lessons learned is the only way to move forward productively

00:00:17.160 and effectively. My guest today is Dr. John Deloney. He is a bestselling author and has

00:00:22.900 two PhDs with over two decades of experience in counseling and crisis response. Now, today

00:00:29.140 we talk about dealing with past trauma in all of its forms, working with incentive structures

00:00:34.340 that produce positive results, overcoming stress and addiction and loneliness, fighting against

00:00:40.680 the ease of modernity, and ultimately how to own your past.

00:00:44.780 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart

00:00:49.660 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You

00:00:55.240 are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This

00:01:01.500 is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said

00:01:06.540 and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:09.640 Men, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler. I'm the host and the founder of the

00:01:13.660 Order of Man podcast and movement. I want to welcome you here and welcome you back. And

00:01:18.540 also thank you. We have had the highest daily download numbers that we've ever had since

00:01:25.400 we started podcasting over seven years ago. So I just want to thank you for listening,

00:01:31.000 for sharing, for promoting, and then ultimately for implementing the stuff that we're teaching

00:01:36.900 into your life. That's why we're doing this, because I want to bridge the gap between what

00:01:42.100 we know and what we're actually doing. So you guys are going out there, you're securing

00:01:47.620 promotions, you're connecting with your wife, you're building relationships with your kids,

00:01:52.420 you're losing weight, you're getting in shape, you're doing so much that's helping you become

00:01:56.520 a better man, which will inevitably help the world become a better place. And that's actually

00:02:00.860 what we're going to talk about on Friday for our Friday field notes. So make sure you're

00:02:04.640 subscribed so you never miss a podcast. I've got John Deloney on the podcast today. I was

00:02:11.280 on his podcast a couple of months ago now and wanted to run this one back because we

00:02:17.260 had such a powerful conversation. Before I introduce you to John and get into the conversation

00:02:23.160 very quickly, want to let you know that the Iron Council, our exclusive brotherhood is

00:02:28.040 officially open for a little over a week left on that. So if you want the camaraderie, the

00:02:34.500 brotherhood, the accountability that comes with our exclusive band of brothers, go to order

00:02:39.700 of man.com slash iron council. That's order of man.com slash iron council. All right, guys,

00:02:46.380 let me introduce you to John Deloney. He is the host of the Dr. John Deloney show, which

00:02:52.400 is part of the Ramsey solutions network. I know you, a lot of you guys listen to my podcast

00:02:56.640 with Dave Ramsey several months ago. He's a PhD. He has decades of experience in individual

00:03:02.480 counseling, crisis management, higher education, but he's also the author of a book called redefining

00:03:09.600 anxiety and his latest book on the past change your future, which is a very, very good read.

00:03:15.980 That's what we talk about today. Again, I was recently a guest on his show and I'm glad to be

00:03:20.980 able to bring you part two of our discussion together. John, what's up, man? Great to see

00:03:26.880 you again. It hasn't been that long, but man, I am glad to see you. What's up, Nick? How are we

00:03:30.820 doing, man? I'm good. I'm good. Life is good. I'm sure it's good for you as well. You guys are

00:03:37.500 killing it. And the fact that you've got the new, I didn't even know that you didn't even tell me.

00:03:40.960 I don't think when we talked what a month ago that you had a new book coming out.

00:03:45.520 Is there anything worse than somebody who has a book out and they just flex all day about it.

00:03:50.260 It just drives me crazy, man. So now it's good. I don't think that's wrong though. I think you

00:03:55.720 should flex because nobody's going to flex for you. That's true. That's true. I have a hard time.

00:04:01.040 I'm still learning how to sell stuff. I have a hard time with it. Um, and, but it is what it is.

00:04:06.300 You got to make a living. So I need to get better about it. Yeah. I think, I think, um,

00:04:11.000 the disconnect could come from, and I'm not saying this about you at all, but a lack of

00:04:16.560 integrity or conviction about what you believe. I know I felt that way when I was in my financial

00:04:22.400 planning practice, I actually had a really hard time initially asking for the sale, but I got over

00:04:28.900 that because I really believed in what I was doing and I believe in capitalism. And I don't think those

00:04:35.460 two things are at odds with each other. I don't either. And I'll tell you this. Um,

00:04:40.140 I have been, and it's been a, it's been an existential struggle, man. I've been faced with

00:04:45.100 since I, when you hit submit on that last document and then it goes to the copy editor,

00:04:50.240 you lose control of it, man. Totally. And on a book. And I have not faced this level of

00:04:56.880 self-doubt. I don't know ever. And it just goes out into the world, man. And I feel good about it.

00:05:03.000 And hearing the, over the last few months, hearing the feedback has been incredible. And so, yeah,

00:05:08.780 I'm gaining confidence that I wish I hadn't, I wish I had not, uh, exported my confidence to

00:05:14.900 external people that I know that's always a recipe for disaster. Um, but this is my, my, uh,

00:05:20.680 yeah, I just being honest. So put it out there. I feel good about it now. Now, now I like coming

00:05:24.140 on people's podcasts and telling everybody to get it, get it, get it, buy it. Come on now.

00:05:27.920 That's right. That's right. Um, yeah, I, I get that. I just, I just finished the first manuscript

00:05:32.560 of my next book. And this one, I worked with a traditional publisher and I just sent a message

00:05:38.620 today. I'm like, okay, I sent this in a month ago. I haven't heard a peep. Do you hate it? Do

00:05:44.420 you love it? Are you indifferent to it? Like, like help me out here. Give me some, give me some

00:05:48.780 direction. Give me some feedback. But you said you haven't had as much self-doubt around,

00:05:54.340 around anything else relative to this. Why is it this? Why is it the book? Cause you've written

00:06:00.480 other books, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I've been doing academic writing for years. The, the,

00:06:05.780 here's the thing when you're doing academic writing, um, or you're writing for other nerds,

00:06:10.560 it's, it's science, it's iron sharpens iron, right? It's all peer review. So I'm putting out

00:06:14.580 what I think with the understanding that you're going to think something different and we're going

00:06:18.220 to battle it back and forth. When you put your face on a book and you put your name on it. Um,

00:06:22.760 I tell people all the time I've had students for years, ask me for, Hey, will you write

00:06:26.420 me a recommendation for this? Or will you, uh, you know, employees write me a recommendation

00:06:29.800 this. And I tell them, Hey man, I gave my son two things, my last name, and he looks exactly

00:06:35.420 like me. And so all I, I, I, I got cloned. And so I have to protect that, the integrity of

00:06:42.360 that last name. And so unfortunately I can't write you this letter or I don't know you well

00:06:46.480 enough to vouch for, for a future employer for you. Right? So same thing here is there's

00:06:51.900 nowhere to hide, right? I put what I think is wrong with what we see in the mirror with,

00:06:57.600 with the country, with everything in between. And here's what I think the, the, the resolution

00:07:02.420 to that is the path forward is, and man, there's nowhere to hide. And so you, you put your best

00:07:08.060 foot forward and I think I'm right. And I think I've, um, got the experience and the credentials

00:07:12.580 to back it up, but man, um, it's, it's exposing, right? It's exposing. And I've thought I was right

00:07:17.800 before. And then my wife just shakes her head and she's like, you're an idiot. And you know, 1.00

00:07:21.140 she was right. So, so it's, um, you put it out there and then you go from there, man.

00:07:25.200 But what, what, what, what message would I be sending to my kids? If you don't do hard things,

00:07:31.760 right? If you don't put yourself out there and say, this is what I think is right. And I think

00:07:35.680 I've earned the stripes to say it. Um, and Hey, let's be honest. There's so much nonsense. There's

00:07:40.620 so many charlatans out there right now, pumping their five steps to the next thing. And, um,

00:07:47.120 and I, I, I don't want to get lumped into that crew. And so you got to go forward with the best

00:07:51.720 you got and it's exposing and it's nervous and do it anyway. Right. Do it anyways. I like that.

00:07:58.180 Yeah. Because people need to do that. You know, there's so many, I, I, I don't know that I've ever

00:08:03.300 met a human being who didn't have some sort of goal or ambition to varying degrees. Right.

00:08:09.020 Uh, but didn't have some sort of goal or ambition for life. And it seems to me that a common

00:08:15.420 denominator is, is fear. And you're not saying you don't feel the fear. You do feel the fear,

00:08:21.000 but you go anyway. Do it anyways. Right. Yeah. My old, my old male is a SWAT hostage negotiator,

00:08:25.920 man. I grew up with it. And then I did work with cops and SWAT guys. Yeah. Everybody's scared.

00:08:30.360 And you go anyway. That's what we trained for, right. For this exact moment. Or, you know,

00:08:33.920 your jujitsu guy, I mean, when you're on the mats, man, like that guy's standing across the,

00:08:38.220 across the mats, I I've saw him kick the bag almost off the chain. And now it's my sparring

00:08:44.920 session. Like, so what am I going to do? Am I, am I going to curl up and just get beat on for three

00:08:48.580 minutes? Or are you going to, I mean, I'm here. You might as well go for it. Right.

00:08:53.020 There's a couple of guys that I train with the jujitsu that I am perpetually not, I wouldn't say

00:08:58.180 afraid because you can always tap and they're good people. They're not going to demolish you. You know,

00:09:02.580 if you tap, but I don't particularly enjoy training with them because they kick my ass, 1.00

00:09:09.640 you know? And I used to avoid eye contact and like, try not to see them and like train with the people 0.98

00:09:16.460 I was comfortable with. And I made a conscious decision about a month or so ago, maybe a little

00:09:20.400 longer that I'm going to roll with those guys first. Like, I know it's going to suck. I know 0.96

00:09:25.840 it's going to be miserable. I know they're going to run circles literally around me, but like,

00:09:29.820 I'm going to roll with those guys first. And then I'll do the other stuff if I can get to it,

00:09:33.840 but I'm picking the hardest thing first. Every, I learned that when I was training MMA back in the

00:09:38.460 day, like every, the only time you leave the gym better is when you've worked with somebody who's

00:09:44.720 ahead of you and hopefully you get gracious partners. Every gym's got a couple of knuckleheads

00:09:49.600 that just need to get some kind of childhood, something out of their system every day. But man,

00:09:55.720 that might be me. Cause I don't, I don't, I don't see that in our gym. So I'm like,

00:09:59.080 maybe that's me. Maybe I'm that guy. Cause I don't see anybody else.

00:10:03.020 Then that's you. That means you have a well-run gym, man. I mean, you got great coaches that

00:10:06.540 don't put up with that kind of idiot. And back in the day, 15 years ago was way worse. There's 1.00

00:10:11.420 a lot of flexing going on. I'm sure. But, uh, man, the, the, yeah, I'm going to pick the hardest

00:10:16.240 one and we're going to go get it. And let's, let's, let's go there and get it.

00:10:19.860 One of the things that's always helped me too, is, uh, especially when it comes to putting out

00:10:23.960 a podcast or a book or your opinions or your thoughts into the world is not being so consumed

00:10:30.280 with, Oh, well, what if people don't like it? I know people aren't going to like it.

00:10:34.420 Like I own that thousand percent. Yes. And so if I just own it, I'm like, yeah, cool. I just

00:10:39.620 deflated anybody who could potentially hate this book. Cause I already knew there was going to be

00:10:44.320 hundreds, if not thousands of people hate what I do and say.

00:10:48.560 That's right. All day long, all day long. The, uh, I, if my, my kryptonite is, um, I don't want

00:10:56.300 people to like me, but I love the idea of sitting down with anybody and having a beer. And so I,

00:11:01.660 for my whole career, depending on where I was, um, I've either been the guy like, Oh, Hey,

00:11:07.080 there's Deloney. He's our obnoxiously conservative friend. And then I'd moved to another university

00:11:11.540 and he'd be like, Oh, there's Deloney. He's our crazy liberal friend. I've always loved that. Um,

00:11:16.340 being able to sit down with anybody and have a drink and say, Hey, let's, let's laugh and figure

00:11:20.660 life out. I love that. When you put doctor in front of your name and you write a book on mental

00:11:26.020 health, you don't have that rip cord anymore to pull and be like, nah, we're just hanging out.

00:11:29.760 Like I'm putting a stamp on it and saying, let's move forward. Um, but Hey, the stakes are too high

00:11:34.200 right now, man. You got little kids. I got little kids. If some of us don't get in the middle of this

00:11:37.940 mess and at least take a swing at it, man, we're going to work. I mean, we all see where it's,

00:11:42.580 where it's going. Right. Well, but we also live in a, in a time where, uh, you know,

00:11:48.200 people can't exercise any, and I'm just speaking broad generalities here. Can't exercise any sort

00:11:54.240 of, you know, discernment, uh, between, for example, like I don't have to preface every

00:12:00.540 single thing that I say is this is my opinion. Like you should just be able to recognize and

00:12:05.260 acknowledge that what I'm saying is an opinion. Like it isn't fact. Now I might speak boldly or

00:12:11.060 frankly about it, but I don't think it's a fact. I, why are you, why do you think it's a fact?

00:12:15.960 Why do I have to say, this is my opinion? Like we all have opinions and we should all share them

00:12:20.320 more. And, and I think I should use my words to articulate my opinions more effectively.

00:12:26.100 And I think I should give you the space, even a disagreement to be able to articulate your words

00:12:32.760 and either solidify what you're doing or maybe even hang yourself a little bit. But, but I think

00:12:37.400 like having these conversations is crucial. And it seems to me that nobody wants to have

00:12:41.480 these conversations anymore. Well, I go back to when my parents were in school, debate was a

00:12:48.300 required class. And then by the time I got to school, debate was a strongly encouraged elective.

00:12:53.580 I don't even know if they offer it anymore. It may be an extracurricular activity. You can sign up for

00:12:57.360 like, you know, pole vaulting or something, but it used to be part of the educated mind was to be able

00:13:03.060 to hold arguments and to respond with arguments and to think critically through things. I think,

00:13:08.980 honestly, it's a skill we've lost. And anytime there's a skill we've lost, we, you just get,

00:13:14.840 you wait to get handed, you know, if you don't know how to hunt and take care of your own food,

00:13:19.260 the only thing you know to do is to go to the grocery store and wait for somebody to hand you

00:13:22.040 something in a package. And if you don't know how to drive, the only thing you can do is sit there

00:13:26.980 and wait for a cab until somebody pulls over and takes you where you need to go. And so I think

00:13:30.680 debate's the same way. And we've just become intellectually uncomfortable, intellectually

00:13:34.880 lazy, intellectually bored. And we just wait for someone to hand us our prepackaged thoughts.

00:13:39.380 And then we don't know what to do when somebody has different ones. And so we just throw grenades

00:13:42.300 at them. That's the only thing. So, yeah. I would say, yeah, I think there's some intellectual 0.65

00:13:47.840 deficiencies there, but I also think there's an emotional lack of resilience. So for example,

00:13:55.600 like if you and I disagreed about something and you said, well, Ryan, I don't agree with that

00:13:59.320 because of X, Y, and Z. And I said, well, I don't agree with you because A, B, and C.

00:14:02.880 I don't think either of us would not be friends anymore.

00:14:07.380 Like, no, I still want your kids to do well, right?

00:14:09.420 Right.

00:14:09.820 I still want you to have a great marriage.

00:14:11.480 Exactly. And I wouldn't be personally offended by that. In fact, it'd be like, oh, you know,

00:14:14.640 I actually respect John because he stood his ground. I don't agree with him, but you know,

00:14:19.200 at least he has the balls to stand by his convictions, but that's two emotionally mature people.

00:14:24.900 And it seems like a lot of people anymore, you know, if you disagree with me, well, then, 0.97

00:14:29.460 you know, you hate me. And like you said, you want my kids to fail and you want me to die a tragic

00:14:33.880 death. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, I'm just saying, I don't agree with your perspective on

00:14:39.300 religion. Like, I still want the best for you.

00:14:42.280 Exactly. Yeah. And it's, it's the educated mind that can hold both of those, right? The resilient,

00:14:46.680 even the resilient character that can hold both. And I, I, I wasn't for a season. I'm pretty

00:14:53.980 optimistic about it. The, when you're living in the nonsense, I think the last five, 10, 15 years

00:14:59.980 has been like you three minutes in with one of those guys you're rolling with. Like, it's a bad

00:15:04.820 way. It's a bad way. And, but it's making you stronger and it's stress testing you, it's stress

00:15:10.360 testing the system and you come out strong on the other side. That's, that's, I mean, that's the,

00:15:14.900 I get to choose that optimistic view and I'm going to take that one and work, run with it.

00:15:19.340 Well, and one of the things that you talk about in your new book is, is you really go into depth

00:15:23.340 into stories and I want to get into that in a minute here, but I think there is a story and

00:15:29.020 it, and even a subconscious story. And I, and I fallen into the trap, you know, when I see somebody

00:15:34.200 disagree with me on social media, I think subconsciously I paint the story about how

00:15:39.700 horrible this person is or how bad they hate me or, or, or why they are hostile towards, you know,

00:15:44.860 what I'm sharing. And I'm like, well, I, you know, now that I'm trying to be a little bit more

00:15:47.980 mature about it. And that is a decision. I think, well, maybe, maybe that's actually not the case.

00:15:54.180 Maybe, uh, they just aren't great at delivery or maybe they are good at delivery, but I read it

00:16:00.260 wrong and I misinterpreted what was being said, but it all revolves around stories of our past and our

00:16:05.960 experiences and our childhood and the, uh, conversations and the relationships we've had with

00:16:11.220 other people. So I think we're in a weird world where we've attached our identity to our ideas.

00:16:18.980 And when you attach identity to your ideas, I, I, and I think we've over moralized what, what comes

00:16:24.740 next. We've over characterized, if you will, what comes next. If I attach my identity to my idea and

00:16:30.180 you say that idea is dumb, literally my fight or flight gets activated. I am now out of community

00:16:36.760 with you. And if 10,000 years ago, if I woke up on the planes and my tribe had left me, I was

00:16:42.200 probably going to die. My body's got a built-in system to reconnect me with other people. And if

00:16:47.620 you and I are in disagreement and I have hitched my identity to a set of ideas, not to a set of

00:16:54.940 principles, right? My principle is I always want to learn new stuff, not that these three things are

00:16:59.680 always right. And there's a big difference there. And so I always want to learn new stuff. And so when

00:17:04.340 Michler tells me something that I've never thought of before, the challenge is a core belief. And it

00:17:08.080 makes me parent differently. I win being wrong helped me win. Right. So I get to learn something

00:17:13.260 new, but if my identity is hitched to the idea or my identity is, is hitched to me being right.

00:17:19.240 And somebody challenges that it's a, it's a primitive response. It's not poor moral character that like,

00:17:25.380 I got my feelings hurt. Oh, dude, my body said run or my body said fight. And that's when I've got

00:17:31.160 to say, Nope, I'm going to check that right there. I attached myself who I am to the wrong thing.

00:17:36.720 Yeah. That's a good point. And I think this is where the concept of tribalism comes into play,

00:17:41.100 right? You take that to the extreme and look, so people will often criticize me about creating an

00:17:46.920 echo chamber. And I'm like, you're damn right. That's what I'm doing. Like I want, I want to be 0.70

00:17:51.440 around highly successful people who I can hold accountable and who will hold me accountable.

00:17:56.640 And we're all marching to the beat of the same drum. So yeah, in absolutely in that way,

00:18:03.100 I'm creating an echo chamber a hundred percent. I think where it becomes an issue is where it becomes

00:18:08.340 tribal and we reject or we're repulsed by any sort of outside perspective that might threaten our

00:18:18.000 ideology. And that's where it becomes an issue. There you go. And I think what's the old, um,

00:18:24.140 again, I don't know how much of this is myth and how much is this true, but that Kodak discovered

00:18:29.120 the, I mean, their scientists discovered the digital camera and they brought it to them and

00:18:34.600 they said, nah, I think, uh, I don't think so. Right. It's, it's, it's not, it's this, it's when

00:18:40.020 your echo chamber becomes not about the echo chamber, but about like, we're going to die on

00:18:45.760 this Hill and there is no new information that can come to us. And whether it's from within,

00:18:50.740 like, like a Kodak or from without, and instead of saying, we got a group of people that's going

00:18:55.680 to hold each other accountable. We love new info and new data, new, why read a book? Why read a

00:19:02.100 book? If you're not interested in changing your mind, that's a, that's a waste of your time, man.

00:19:06.560 That's why you read to learn new stuff. And so it's holding that stuff really loosely,

00:19:10.440 but hanging onto those core values. That's exactly right.

00:19:13.760 Yeah. I think another great example of that would be the blockbuster Netflix story,

00:19:17.480 right? She's like, nah, we don't need net. What are you talking? Digital streaming boxes

00:19:22.420 on every corner. Nah, we don't need that. And then obviously you see where Netflix is now and

00:19:26.800 who, who that was, you know, born in the last 15 years, even knows what a blockbuster is.

00:19:32.440 Well, I, you know what I, there's the technology, you know, the, Hey, this new thing is coming.

00:19:37.260 That's a great, that's a great warning sign for all businesses. But I think the, the bigger

00:19:41.940 lesson there that all of us can learn all of us, political podcasters, uh, people running a plumbing

00:19:48.460 business is ultimately blockbuster success was based on their customers. Failure blockbuster

00:19:56.580 made their money. When you forgot to return your movies and they find the crap out of Netflix

00:20:02.080 business was winning. I'm just going to send it to your house to make your life a little less

00:20:06.980 tactic. And that's something I've learned from Ramsey here from Dave is my job. If you help

00:20:13.900 enough people, money takes care of itself, man. My job is to lift other people up, whether you're

00:20:18.580 a single mom, whether you're a truck driver, just trying to make ends meet, whether you're a CEO of

00:20:22.520 some big fancy thing, my job is to make your life better. Money takes care of itself. And if your job

00:20:27.320 is built on remember old ATM fees, like if your job is based on your customer failing, you will go away

00:20:33.620 period. If your character is based on somebody being less than you, you will at some point go

00:20:39.540 away because, because the world ultimately will eat you because that that's not a sustainable way

00:20:44.000 of doing life. That's interesting. And look, so I'm, I'm thinking about the Dave Ramsey team,

00:20:48.780 which is obviously, you know, the entire crew and you, and you know, let's, let's, let's be really

00:20:53.860 honest about this. Like you guys aren't teaching new financial information.

00:20:58.540 No, Hey, nothing in my book is new. It's about 4,000 years old.

00:21:03.540 That's right.

00:21:04.460 Right. But you're, but what you guys are doing very well is you're making it consumable,

00:21:10.260 accessible and actionable to literally at this point, millions and millions of people.

00:21:16.700 That's right.

00:21:17.280 And that's why you're important. That's why you're, you're, you're, you're valued. And what you guys do

00:21:21.960 is so critical.

00:21:23.140 Maybe the most, well, I appreciate that. Probably the most humbling lesson I've learned over the last few

00:21:27.100 years after, you know, spent almost two decades working in colleges and universities is make no

00:21:33.200 mistake. There are some of the most extraordinary hearts and minds in the academic system. Right.

00:21:39.580 Right. I mean, our, our world is, is, as benefited from the, those hearts and minds, people who really

00:21:46.240 want to solve hard problems. But what happens is what I realized happened is I spent the last 20 years

00:21:52.340 talking to other academics and we had lots of theories and lots of ideas and lots of ways that

00:21:57.780 we thought things could happen. And we talked to one another, we helped each other's kids,

00:22:02.760 we helped each other's communities, great, fine and good. And then I got here and I realized

00:22:07.220 none of that information was making it down to that single mom with three kids, just trying to get 1.00

00:22:12.080 through the day. And I realized, Oh, we have way, way overcomplicated mental health. We have way

00:22:18.720 overcomplicated what living a good, peaceful, kind, prepared life looks like we've way overcomplicated

00:22:25.060 parenting 10,000 times. Right. And we have these big, huge, thick books that have huge words in them

00:22:30.820 that nobody can read. And when I look at the financial information, same, very similar, right?

00:22:36.820 We've got all this data and this and tickers and ups and downs and all that. And then you got Dave

00:22:41.580 saying, just do these simple things on a long-term scale and your money will take care of it. So if

00:22:48.360 you ask any, any personal trainer these days, Hey, what's the best workout I can do to a person,

00:22:54.160 they'll tell you whatever you'll do consistency every day for the rest of your life. Right. Just

00:22:58.180 crawl around in your neighborhood. I don't care what you do. Just do something every day for the rest of

00:23:03.080 your life. And on, on a long enough trend line for most of us, that'll work out for you. And so,

00:23:08.740 yeah, there's nothing original. It's just putting it all together in a way that people can digest it

00:23:12.300 and get on with their lives. I mean, I think the same thing, even with this podcast, like if guys

00:23:16.440 knew, and I posted a video this morning, I showed my studio, which is like a fifth of what your guys'

00:23:23.940 is less than that, a percent of what your guys' studio is and everything else.

00:23:29.480 And I showed them this. Dude, yours is dope, man. Yours is so rad. Look at that.

00:23:33.580 This, this is cool. Like if, if you saw everything else, you'd be like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. I'm not going

00:23:41.020 on that podcast. It's this little window, this little box that I can let people look into my life

00:23:46.100 through. That's right. It's like this morning, I took a picture of my home gym and put us on

00:23:50.140 Instagram and I made sure the heaviest kettlebell was first. That's right. I made sure the deadlift

00:23:54.600 were, yeah, it was just right. And, uh, I tried to cut out my daughter's little pink 0.98

00:23:58.620 weights in the background. Cause they weren't hardcore. Like, you know, Jocko wouldn't prove,

00:24:02.020 right? So yeah, we get to curate these little images here. Um, but Hey, let's be super clear.

00:24:08.120 Your studio looks so much cooler than the one I'm sitting in. I appreciate that. It looks incredible.

00:24:14.140 We'll talk with the team. We'll get you dialed in, man, dude. I'm going to get some like blood red

00:24:18.100 lights and some, that's right. Yeah. I got to start with my game here, dude. I was going through

00:24:23.320 the book and there was a few like red flags for me that, that came up when I, when I was going

00:24:29.140 through it initially. And there, there was two words in particular. There was, uh, one was

00:24:35.000 vulnerability. Oh yeah. And the other one was trauma. Ooh. And I was like, okay, here, here we go.

00:24:45.580 So let's be vulnerable. Let's, let's go through all of our traumatic experiences that probably

00:24:50.680 really aren't traumatic experiences in the grand scheme of things. And I was, I was a little

00:24:55.720 skeptical. I got up straight on that. Uh, but I did see a chapter in there where you were talking

00:25:01.040 about big T versus little T and I was like, okay, all right, here's what I got to dive into. Cause I

00:25:06.060 got to know what he means by trauma, like what really is and is not trauma. I love it. All right.

00:25:11.240 So here's what the research tells me trauma is anytime my body is responding in the present

00:25:17.500 to things that happened in the past. And what we have done, I think as a culture,

00:25:22.540 I got to stop you right there. I got to stop you right there. I want to hear what you're saying

00:25:25.940 and maybe you're going to get into it. So maybe I'm stopping you a little prematurely here, but

00:25:28.740 sure. Uh, I mean, that could be anything like I'm responding to what you're saying right now,

00:25:34.440 but I'm not being traumatized. There you go. So let me back out and paint a broader picture and

00:25:41.200 then we'll walk through it. So the broader picture is this, we've got a culture that's

00:25:45.180 basically divided up our ability to respond in two ways. Either you're the worst thing that's ever 0.68

00:25:52.160 happened to you. You're the worst thing you ever said. You're the worst thing you grew up in the 1.00

00:25:57.360 wrong neighborhood. You were the wrong color. You were sexually assaulted. That's all you will ever 1.00

00:26:01.340 be. And somebody has got to come rescue you, whether it's a government program or somebody's

00:26:06.280 got to come get you because that happened. Or you said something, you traumatized other people

00:26:11.480 and no matter you've built a thousand bridges, but you stole when you were a kid. So you're a thief 0.99

00:26:16.700 forever, right? That's, that's number one. The other response we've got has been hitting that 0.97

00:26:22.700 pendulum all the way to the other side, which is your no amount of feeling matters. The more you feel,

00:26:29.000 the more of a coward and a weakling you are crush it, kill it, drag it, get over yourself and move 1.00

00:26:33.540 on with your life. And that sounds awesome. And I'm again, I'm the son of a homicide detective and 1.00

00:26:39.060 a SWAT guy that that sounds right. What the neuroscience tells us is our bodies don't operate

00:26:45.080 that way. It's I was just on the phone with a, uh, uh, gosh, this sounds like a name. I was on the

00:26:50.620 phone with an active seal walking into this interview and hung up the phone, walking through his

00:26:55.160 medical discharges. He's, he's, you know, on, on the process of leaving and you're coaching him.

00:27:00.240 Is that what you're doing? I'll just, I'll just leave it at we're on the phone. Yeah. Just walking

00:27:04.460 through. Yeah. But, um, but here's the thing, here's the way I describe trauma. We are all born

00:27:11.240 with a backpack, right? And let's say you get called out of a class when you're in seventh grade and the

00:27:16.440 school counselor walks you down the hallway and you walk into her office and the principal's in there,

00:27:20.400 your mom's there and she's crying and she sits you down and says, your daddy had a heart attack and he

00:27:24.680 has passed away. He's now dead. That's a cinder block in that backpack. If you walk downstairs

00:27:31.040 and you have both parents and you're 11 year old little girl and you walk downstairs and your mom

00:27:36.740 looks at you and you're on your way to school and she says, Oh, Oh, Oh, honey, honey, honey, honey.

00:27:41.480 Ooh, that shirt that makes you look pudgy. You want the boys to think you're, you want the boys to

00:27:46.380 like you, right? And you're 11 and you say, yeah. Oh, honey, let's, let's go change that shirt. Um,

00:27:52.540 that just doesn't look good. That's a pebble in that backpack that says my looks determine whether

00:28:00.460 I'm loved. I, my mom doesn't think I'm pretty. Doesn't think I'm enough. My mom has equated this,

00:28:07.140 right? So that's a pebble. Here's what happens. And this was a transformative moment for me in the,

00:28:11.780 in the literature, in the psychology trauma is cumulative. It adds up over time. So we like to

00:28:17.760 think trauma is this big event. It's the car crash. It's the murder. It's the, I, when I was

00:28:21.940 working with cops behind closed doors and I'd go in and see, you know, really violent scenes and be

00:28:26.540 brains on the wall. We have to clean up whatever we're going through that's trauma. What I've come

00:28:30.500 to learn is that there is a cumulative trauma that adds up over time. And so if we think about

00:28:35.600 that backpack analogy, your dad can smack you around when you're a kid and tell you to suck it up.

00:28:41.180 And you say that didn't hurt. And you're four and you think, no, that, that did hurt,

00:28:45.780 but he's smarter and bigger than me. And I trust him. And so now I've learned to not trust myself.

00:28:50.580 I'm going to spend the rest of my life, peacekeeping the rest of my life, outsourcing my feelings to

00:28:54.520 a boss, to a government, to a whatever. I'd never learned how to own my autonomy because that guy

00:29:01.100 said, my thoughts and feelings are wrong, but they don't count. And those things add up, add up. And if

00:29:05.880 you get to see, see a teacher who's been a teacher for 40 years, they walk hunched over. It's,

00:29:11.780 it's pebble by pebble by pebble, that weight of that backpack's the same.

00:29:14.860 And so there's big T and little T. And what most of us do is we go through our lives and say,

00:29:19.100 man, both my parents are still alive. I'm they're both my parents just celebrated 50 years. They've

00:29:23.480 been married 50 years. I got nothing. I'm fine. And yet my knees hurt and my neck hurts and my body

00:29:29.360 hurts. And I'm raged out, angry at everything. And what I've come to learn is, as Vander Kolk says,

00:29:34.080 the body keeps the score, dude, the body's keeping the tally of all that crap over and over and over and 0.98

00:29:38.940 over. And that's where not that feelings are on the show. You got to identify them. You got to own 0.92

00:29:45.060 them. And then here's where we get stuck as a culture. We just, we just go, okay, you're,

00:29:49.840 how do you feel? How do you feel? How do you feel? You got to own that crap. And then you got to be

00:29:54.000 about what I do next. And that's where there's a new third way here. And we all get trapped on either

00:29:58.400 side of that equation. I think I want to dive into the third way thing because, so I'll give you a

00:30:03.580 little bit of a, just a little, uh, anecdote here. So you talk about your dad having a heart attack

00:30:09.260 and that young child having to deal with that. Right. My dad, three or four years ago had a heart

00:30:13.540 attack. He died. Uh, I, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah. Well, thank you. Um, I've been to war and

00:30:19.420 I've quite literally seen people die right there, you know? So, um, and there's other things just

00:30:25.780 like we all have, like everybody has stuff. I don't feel traumatized actually by either of those

00:30:30.420 events. I think what we do as a culture is we make things more dramatic than they need to.

00:30:38.700 Like, I don't feel traumatized. I feel like, Oh, my dad died. And, and I'm not devoid of any emotion

00:30:44.880 about that. I like the other day I was crying about that in the, like at night, you know, everybody was

00:30:49.380 in bed and I was like, man, I was having a moment. I don't feel traumatized. I miss him, not traumatized.

00:30:54.900 You know, or I think about somebody who lost their life on the battlefield, who isn't going to be able to

00:30:58.600 return home and see his wife or have kids or live his life. And his mom and dad, like horrific, horrible

00:31:05.400 situations, but I don't feel like I need to blow it out of proportion. And it seems like me that people

00:31:11.440 have weaponized trauma to get something, whether it's attention or notoriety or cloud on social media.

00:31:19.640 And so I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I just have a hard time because everybody, everybody says

00:31:24.240 everything is trauma when I really don't think that's the case. Yeah. And I think what I would,

00:31:29.420 my pushback would be is two things. One is some of it's semantic, right? So I would bet that

00:31:37.120 when you, next time you go to the, if you, it's like you start having chest pain,

00:31:42.780 you, your body would remember that story. Oh, I remember this happens. Or I don't know the,

00:31:48.240 the situation where like where you were in combat and you saw somebody get shot.

00:31:54.880 There will come a day when you're walking down the sidewalk and somebody's walking on the other

00:31:58.460 side of that sidewalk and they happen to have just the same cadence as somebody running at your team.

00:32:03.480 Right. Your body remembers that story. Your heart will beat your, whatever the way you do it. Right.

00:32:09.420 I, I have a downshift when somebody's coming at me. I, my body slows way, way down. And,

00:32:15.220 and my dad has told me that's a, that's a gift. It's just a, it slows way down. It's tomorrow or

00:32:21.220 that evening when I'm laying in bed after cleaning up a scene with some police officers that I go.

00:32:26.580 Whoa. Right. And so when I say trauma, all I'm saying is your body is taking over. Right. And some

00:32:32.660 of us take over and it slows down. Some of us take over and it speeds up where I think we've

00:32:36.820 gotten out of whack is some folks have clinical, like their body is out of whack to the point that they

00:32:43.300 can't function. I agree with that. I see that most of us can grind it out. And what I am pressing on

00:32:50.300 is I think there's a gap between all of us having to grind out every second of our day. And there's

00:32:56.480 some, there's ways you can think back to your dad. If you went through some basic exercises,

00:33:01.640 there's some ways you can, you can think about your dad and your body responds favorably.

00:33:05.700 It's a, it's a gift. It's not a heart racing or it's a, not a shutting everything down or

00:33:12.520 shut up kids, get out of here. Or Hey honey, get out. Like I'm sleeping in here tonight. You go sleep 0.96

00:33:16.960 out there. There's ways that we can process some of those memories so that our bodies don't take

00:33:22.180 off on us again. So I, I think some of it's semantics. Some of it is you're right. I think

00:33:26.460 everybody's looking for an excuse to not an excuse, but looking for a way. How can I be special?

00:33:31.900 How can I get recognition? And our currency culturally has been victimization. What's the

00:33:36.880 worst thing that's happened to me and how can I put that on the table? And that keeps some people

00:33:42.040 from getting help. That keeps some people from getting the care they need. And it keeps some

00:33:45.460 people stuck in this endless cycle of it's just the way this is just the way this is. And man,

00:33:50.060 what I want to offer people is, you know what you can, you can have a great marriage with 0.90

00:33:54.580 really incredible sex. And you can also have disagreements that don't end up in blowups and

00:33:59.120 you can just go to bed at night and fall asleep. You can just go to sleep, man. And that is the

00:34:03.840 part of life that I think we've thrown away that we've just bypassed. We just say, no, you get older,

00:34:08.440 you get fatter, you stop sleeping with each other. You just dads yell at their kids. I I'm calling

00:34:13.100 bull crap on that. I think there's a, a different way we can live our lives. And also this morning, 0.97

00:34:18.840 the last thing I want to do is go have a kettlebell session with a weight vest. And you got it.

00:34:24.340 I got after it, man, because I've never had a workout that didn't help. Right. So it all works

00:34:28.120 in a big loop. Like, yeah, I look, I can, I, I, I like what you're saying about these,

00:34:32.780 these incentive structures in society to be victimized. That's what I get so frustrated

00:34:37.900 with. That's one of my biggest frustrations is I don't like, even within our organization.

00:34:43.120 And I would say this about what you guys are doing as well. I'm not trying to create a bunch

00:34:47.860 of victims. I'm not trying to tell you that society is out to get you, that everybody hates you as a

00:34:52.880 man. And I mean, some of that stuff might hold some weight, but at the same time, the story is

00:34:58.080 more about what are you going to do? Yeah. What do you, that's the whole point of the book. What

00:35:01.660 do you do now? Like, yes, you were, uh, assaulted as a kid. Yes. You were the wrong color in the 1.00

00:35:07.920 wrong neighborhood growing up. And my, my heart is broken for you. Yes. You're treated differently

00:35:12.300 because the way you look absolutely. That's true. You grew up in, you didn't know your dad and your

00:35:17.640 mom was working three jobs and you never saw her and you're broke. Absolutely. And that stuff pays

00:35:21.840 that, that pays dividends on your health. There's some, a lot of research about ACEs,

00:35:26.120 the adverse childhood experiences. You will actually live longer and be more likely to have

00:35:29.960 strokes and cancer and things like that. If you experience some of these things, especially when

00:35:33.860 you're young, all that's true. And now what? And that's where I think we've lost as a culture.

00:35:39.740 Um, I'm, I'm not, I think it's both in Ryan. I think there is absolutely some victimization.

00:35:45.380 People have had some brutal stuff happen to them. And I think, of course, around little 0.99

00:35:49.280 stuff. And as a culture, we have to say, and now what, like what comes next? And it's not,

00:35:55.860 um, run and hide. It is, man, get the help you need, reach out, do these things so that your life

00:36:02.700 can be better than it is now. And especially so your kids' lives and their kids' lives. Cause we

00:36:07.040 know this stuff is, is intergenerational. Now let's do the hard work now to change our family tree.

00:36:12.000 That's, that's the goal here, man. Man, let me hit the pause button very, very quickly. And then

00:36:17.840 we're getting, get back to it with, with John. I have really great news. The iron council is

00:36:22.960 officially open and accepting new members. Now, when I started the iron council six years ago,

00:36:28.600 it was my goal to bring together hundreds and hundreds of men in order to work together in

00:36:33.100 accomplishing our individual goals and objectives. And it has exceeded our wildest expectations. Now,

00:36:39.640 when you band with us, you're going to find over 1200 other motivated and ambitious men all working

00:36:45.300 together to create the life that you and they have always wanted to. Uh, if you want to connect with

00:36:50.640 me and the other men and finally build in some accountability into your life, then join us now

00:36:58.860 because we're closing it down very, very quickly. The end of this month, you can join us at

00:37:03.860 order of man.com slash iron council. Again, that's order of man.com slash iron council.

00:37:09.180 We've got a quick intro video to explain what we're doing. If you have any questions,

00:37:12.740 you can follow up with me, but it's order of man.com slash iron council. Do that right after

00:37:18.600 the show. So you don't miss that window, but for now we'll get back to it with John.

00:37:22.100 How does somebody determine if they're using past negative experiences? I don't know what you'd call

00:37:31.900 it. I'll just, I'll just use that term past negative experiences as, as like a destructive

00:37:37.400 force in their life. And, and, and how do they begin to acknowledge? Cause part of the book,

00:37:42.300 a big part of the book is owning your past, right? Like, like really trying to identify where some of

00:37:48.860 your stories and your thought processes and the way that you live life now comes from.

00:37:54.000 But I think a lot of us have probably just shut a lot of that off or haven't thought about it for

00:37:57.420 maybe even decades. Yeah. How do you revisit that? Why do you revisit that? What's a positive way as

00:38:03.900 opposed to a destructive way to revisit that so that you can tell the real story with some objective

00:38:10.380 reality. You talk about reality in the book as well so that we can paint, you know, a more meaningful

00:38:15.260 life moving forward. For me, it started with, um, man, for me, it started with writing down some of

00:38:21.340 these stories and they come from, I found myself angry at a little league game. How absurd. Why,

00:38:27.400 why in, why in all of the earth would I be mad at a group of kids playing t-ball? What, like what in

00:38:35.480 the world? And if a kid gets thrown, like why, why am I getting raged out about this? Or I'm driving

00:38:40.440 down the road and somebody cuts me off. And I think my truck's bigger than that car. I I'm,

00:38:45.760 you know what I mean? Like I I'm going to handle this, that why in the world would I get mad? Or

00:38:49.580 if I'm walking on the sidewalk and someone's like, look out, bro. Why is that the moment to, to like,

00:38:55.120 well, I got to show him. I started responding to things in a way. Why am I not sleeping? Sleeping

00:39:01.620 is a core biological function that hasn't been evolved out of our bodies. Why am I angry at my four

00:39:08.440 year old? Why am I, why would I rather watch Netflix than sleep with my wife? Like, why am I

00:39:14.620 doing these things that make no sense and beginning to walk backwards from some of these current

00:39:20.540 behaviors? Why can't I get out of bed in the morning? Why am I so anxious? Why can I not

00:39:25.640 have breakfast without scrolling my phone? Why do I look at my phone more than my wife? What it's,

00:39:32.760 it's stopping and looking, being really true, being really honest about what are you doing?

00:39:38.500 How's your life working out for you? And then beginning to pull the thread on something. Where

00:39:42.320 did I get that? So somebody called my show absolutely just yesterday. And they said, Hey,

00:39:46.280 I've never had any childhood issues. And, um, I'm really worried about being resilient. If something

00:39:52.260 happens to me, I said, who taught, who taught you that? And I just kept asking that question. She

00:39:57.320 would give me another thing. Who taught you that? And we kept walking backwards. Turns out her dad

00:40:01.480 pretty rough on her growing up, uh, abusively. So, and dad had some anger issues. And so she learned

00:40:07.580 that when that car pulled into the driveway, her heart would start beating and that she knew that

00:40:11.320 I got to get real small, real fast. And I got to get out of dad's way so that right. And here she 0.99

00:40:15.720 is waiting for the next shoe to drop. So let me take that example. So, you know, some, she's talking

00:40:21.160 about being resilient in life and making sure she's taken care of and set in case something goes down,

00:40:25.800 um, or acknowledging threats. There's a, there's, that's actually part of that is healthy,

00:40:31.900 super healthy, super healthy. That's right. So like, where do you find the line between, Hey,

00:40:36.720 this is a healthy behavior. Like I got to observe my surroundings. I got to, you know, stock up for a

00:40:41.960 rainy day. Yep. And this is becoming obsessive and controlling every aspect of my life.

00:40:47.580 Love it. So two things, one that goes back to that, that T word that you love trauma.

00:40:51.560 Now, if my bot, if I can think about, um, so I live out in the country, I'll have a way out in

00:40:56.640 the sticks, man, out in the woods. And my water comes from a, from a spring. Like, like I live in

00:41:02.100 the sticks and if the power goes out, then I don't get water to my house. Right. So I learned that the

00:41:08.580 hard way. When I first moved out there, I was a city kid, moved out to the sticks, man. I didn't

00:41:11.700 know my welded pump didn't work and I was out. So how come the water faucet is not, I don't get it.

00:41:16.540 No water is coming from this thing. That's right. And, uh, it was a hard reality for a

00:41:21.280 suburban kid. Right. So what I have is I've got water. Now I've got water in a number of bins to

00:41:27.660 take care of myself. If the power goes out, which it does once or twice a year. I can think about

00:41:32.440 that. That first weekend that the water went out, we were out of water for three days, dude,

00:41:36.420 my heart was racing. I've made a terrible financial decision. I've just bankrupt my family. Cause I

00:41:41.400 bought this big, nice place out here. We don't have any water. My kids are going to, I can't flush the

00:41:45.020 toilet. I'm a shameful guy. All this stuff came flooding over me. Now I can think about being 0.93

00:41:51.120 prepared without it being a, an addiction, without it being a psychosis, without my heart racing on

00:41:56.760 me. I think I need to make sure I got firewood and I'm not, it's not frantic. I don't sit there

00:42:01.320 and scroll social media or Amazon at night trying to buy the next prepper tool, the next knife and

00:42:05.780 the cool knife or the rip cords, whatever. I've got what I need. And so I want people to listen to

00:42:10.660 their body. If you, if you are trying to be prepared, sprinting away from the impending apocalyptic

00:42:17.400 doom, whatever that snake oil. If you look around and say, Hey man, oil's about to be $150 a gallon

00:42:24.300 because we're about to have a European crisis. I need to make sure that fill in the blank that I've

00:42:29.140 got my credit cards paid off because I don't owe anybody any money. I need to make sure that I've

00:42:32.920 got water and I've got gas and I've got, that's just common sense, man. And I can do that stuff

00:42:38.540 without my body taking off on me. The second thing is so many of us walk through life waiting for the

00:42:43.880 next shoe to drop. I'm waiting for the next bad thing so much that I missed the present thing.

00:42:49.800 And if you were walking through life, waiting for the next shoe to drop, that is a sign that

00:42:55.080 your amygdala is overactive, that you're being run with your limbic system, not with your frontal

00:43:00.740 loop. You're not thinking critically. So when I'm around people like that, that fight or flight,

00:43:06.340 I'm just surviving early way that we've, we've evolved, right. That early part of the brain,

00:43:11.460 the more, the older part of the brain, the more primitive part of the brain. Okay. Got it.

00:43:16.320 That's right. You're in fight or flight, man. I'm constantly waiting. And that's where I

00:43:20.160 threaded with that young woman. She's brave, she's strong and she's smart. But what she had

00:43:26.100 never realized was, oh, dude, I was, since I was four, I've been trained. You better watch out

00:43:33.320 because the one man on planet earth that was supposed to love you is a bear that comes home to a

00:43:38.980 cave every day. And you have learned that security and love can also get you hurt. And so you are

00:43:45.340 constantly looking over your shoulder. And that means your heart rate is elevated. You got extra

00:43:49.740 cortisol and adrenaline pulsing through your veins and cortisol and adrenaline brother. It's like,

00:43:54.400 uh, if, if, you know, if you're got a clog there at the farm in your sink and you dump some

00:43:59.400 drain oil in it once every couple of years, that's fine. If you just wake up every day and dump

00:44:03.680 drain oil down your drain, eventually it's going to eat through your pipes. That's what cortisol and

00:44:07.380 adrenaline is. It's designed to, for a fist fight or a sprint for survival. It's not designed for

00:44:13.940 every click and every ding on your cell phone and emails. And oh my God, it's coming down. And

00:44:19.080 what's the news say? It's not designed for that, man. And that's just pulsing through our veins all

00:44:23.680 day. And we actually were addicted to it and chemically, that's what I'm talking about. This

00:44:28.040 traumatic response that our body's always fighting, always running, always fighting, always running to

00:44:32.160 the point that we don't even know what's sitting down with a, in, in preparation, in joy. I even

00:44:39.300 hesitate to use this word in love. We don't even know what that means anymore because it's all about

00:44:43.380 to the next thing. And man, I'm all about the next thing. You need to learn how to fight. You need to

00:44:47.700 learn how to hunt and take care of your family. You need to learn how to be prepared. You need to

00:44:51.100 make sure you got water storage and you also need to learn how to laugh until you can't breathe.

00:44:55.400 And you need to learn how to go to sleep at night and how to go to the bathroom without

00:44:59.060 medication, right? How to have sex without medication. You need to learn how to do these 0.89

00:45:03.160 things. And that's an deactivated, you know, that's getting your parasympathetic system back

00:45:08.940 up and running. Do you think somebody who's trapped in these cycles, for lack of a better term,

00:45:15.040 can recognize it on their own? Or do they need somebody to say, hey, bro, like what you're doing,

00:45:23.840 this is not the way I'd word it. This is the way I would personally word it. Maybe not the way you,

00:45:29.780 as a clinically trained, you know, would word it. But I'd be like, hey, bro, like that's not

00:45:35.920 like, that's not right. That's not healthy. That's crazy.

00:45:41.600 You may disagree with me on this, or we may be in concert on this. I don't know. I'd love to get

00:45:46.000 your thoughts on it. I am convinced from the literature and from my own experience, there is

00:45:50.960 none, zero. There is no long-term healthy life transition without other people in your life,

00:45:59.480 without a gang, a tribe, a community, a band. I agree with that. I think I can grind it out and lose

00:46:05.160 40 pounds and by myself in that 40 pounds will come back. I think you can do it for sure.

00:46:11.340 You can do it. Yes. And, um, I can fight and grind it, but long-term I got to have other people

00:46:17.820 in my life. So I know this about myself. I am not always great at looking in the mirror and being

00:46:23.840 honest with myself. And this is both up and down. Um, recording the audio book. I had four different,

00:46:29.720 I had three engineers and just an assistant, um, who was helping with the production. Pull me aside.

00:46:36.240 One of the assistant was a green performer, green beret. I mean, these guys were great guys,

00:46:41.100 tough guy, pull me aside and said, dude, you've got to stop it with the self-talk. I was like,

00:46:45.660 what are you talking about? Kumbaya? You want to sit in a circle and light candles? What are you

00:46:48.740 talking about? And they said, dude, you talk to yourself so bad. And I was like, what do you

00:46:54.640 mean? And it was just, I would do a take on something and I would get it wrong. I'd be like,

00:46:58.660 I would just mumble to myself. And I would do it again. I'm like, come on, dude. And they said,

00:47:04.580 the self-talk was so brutal and I didn't even hear it. And I went and asked my wife about it. And she said,

00:47:09.660 you know, one of the great, uh, uh, things that in my whole life that, that sucks the most. And I 0.95

00:47:15.820 was like, what is it? She said, the man I love the most of anybody on planet earth talks to himself

00:47:21.820 so poorly, always, always has. And that sat with me. Right. And I know this from the reason Ethan

00:47:28.480 Cross's work, that negative self chatter, it causes, here we go. We're kicking up the fight or flight

00:47:34.120 again. When I identify a problem in myself, here comes the adrenaline. Here comes the cortisol. Let's

00:47:38.720 solve this problem. And when you're your own problem, when you become your own tiger at the

00:47:43.280 front of your cave, man, that stuff just loops and loops and cycles and cycles and cycles.

00:47:47.280 And the other side of it is, dude, I'll sit there and look at the best grass fed meats and the right

00:47:53.000 butters and the right, whatever for my wife won't go shopping with me. Cause I'll spend an hour in 0.97

00:47:57.440 there and then I'll grab four bags of gummy candy on the way out the door. Right. I'll sit there and

00:48:01.300 read labels for 45 minutes. And so I'm not always great at either up or down. That's why I've got to

00:48:08.300 have men in my life that I look at and say, Hey, is this a good choice? Before I quit being a

00:48:12.680 professor, Dean of students. And I took this job, I actually flew to Texas, met with two guys who've

00:48:17.040 been in my life for 20, 30 years. And I said, walk through this with me because the, the job with

00:48:22.260 Ramsey's sexy, the money's going to be sexy. They're getting on the, you know, flying all over the

00:48:25.720 country and speaking is going to be cool. Is this wise? And they were able to, they had established

00:48:30.520 trust in my life. And one of them runs an HVAC company and the other's a banker. It couldn't be

00:48:35.040 more different. And I listened to their wisdom because they were a better reflection of me in

00:48:39.940 this, in the emotions I was in. Right. I got to have other people. But what do you say to somebody

00:48:44.160 who thinks they have it all figured out or says to themselves, like even, even me, I say to myself,

00:48:50.520 I'm good. Like now, granted, I have a band of brothers. I have people in my life and maybe that's

00:48:55.300 why I'm good. But I think, right. But I think there's a lot of other people out there who be like,

00:48:59.940 I don't, I don't need that. Like I'm solid. I'm making good money. You know, my marriage is good.

00:49:04.540 Kids are good. Life's pretty decent. Like I don't, I don't need any of that.

00:49:09.840 And what I would tell that person is Jocko has a jujitsu coach. And I would tell him Michael Jordan

00:49:14.660 had, Mike Tyson had, right. Muhammad Ali had George St. Pierre as a dietician and a jujitsu coach

00:49:22.220 and a head coach and a wrestling coach and the Olympic workout coach. There is no greatness without

00:49:27.480 other people speaking into your life, period. And if you find yourself on an Island, that's where

00:49:32.060 people get dangerous. That's where you start believing your own height and you start up or

00:49:37.320 down. And that's when I think people make foolish mistakes. 0.99

00:49:42.480 How does a guy who, let's say somebody acknowledges what you're saying there were,

00:49:47.460 because I have a lot of people who message me were like, Hey man, I'm trying to build up a band

00:49:50.500 of brothers in my area. And I'm trying to get together with other guys. You know, how do they begin to

00:49:55.500 tear down their own wall a little bit and let people speak to them in a way that maybe they

00:50:02.660 would never otherwise have let them speak to them? Oh man. Um, can I give you a church example

00:50:08.440 in my own life? Of course. Yeah. So, um, I grew up in a church in Houston and we went every week for,

00:50:15.200 for my whole childhood and some of those men in my life. Um, my dad was wise enough to know I've got

00:50:20.540 this high profile job and then it's, he would always, he would help, you know, help out with

00:50:24.800 youth in the community. And he was wise enough. And I didn't realize how wise he was until years

00:50:28.540 later, but he said, you're going to have a hard time hearing me because of my job. I want you to

00:50:34.240 make sure you've got other men in your life that connect. So find some people in this building that

00:50:38.740 you trust, that you can reach out to, make sure you've got people to talk to. And so when I, my son

00:50:44.940 was born, when my daughter was born, these guys who are 60, 70 years old, I remember sending them

00:50:49.600 emails. I wrote a couple of them, handwritten letters. Cause I didn't even have their email

00:50:52.260 address. I had their home address just to say, Hey, I've had a kid and I want you to know the

00:50:56.320 influence you've had on my life was important to me. And I'm grateful for that. Then fast forward.

00:51:01.320 I'm an academic, I'm a nerd. I know everything. And every time I'd go to Sunday school, I was always

00:51:06.560 whining about their theology was stupid or his God's not even real. And Oh, let's sing another song 1.00

00:51:12.000 and repeat the same verse 400. Ooh, here comes the fog machine. I was always whining and moaning and

00:51:17.180 complaining about everything. And so every six months I was moving to a new building and to a

00:51:21.200 new book. I'm not going to that. It's stupid. And my wife's like, all right, well, where do you want

00:51:24.640 to go now? And what I realized when we moved from Texas to Tennessee, my son had none of that because

00:51:33.020 of his old man's ego, his old man running his mouth, his old man having to be right and flexing.

00:51:38.320 And really it all came down to ego. It came down to risk. I was too shallow. And so to answer your

00:51:43.420 question, you know what you got to do, get over yourself and ask a couple of guys to go grab a

00:51:47.960 drink, ask a couple of guys to go shooting with you, ask a couple of guys to go fishing or just

00:51:51.360 come over to be hospitable, man. Go first. Here's the big thing. I used to make other the invitation

00:51:59.160 to other people when they would say, no, I took that personally. Why? I don't know what they got

00:52:03.860 going on in their life. Their marriage may be a mess. They may have five kids. They want to hang

00:52:07.400 out with more than my stupid, but I don't, you know, whatever. So I'm going to invite you over to my 0.99

00:52:12.240 house. We're going to have three or four guys over to watch the fights. We're going to have three or

00:52:15.460 four dudes over to play dominant. I don't care. I'm going to have four or five guys to help me 1.00

00:52:19.160 cut some trees down in my place. Awesome. And if two of them can't make it, I'm not going to take

00:52:24.520 that personal, but I'm going to go first. I'm going to risk all relationships of risk. I'm going to go

00:52:30.440 first. I'm going to be hospitable. I'm going to pick up the tab the first time, even if I can't afford

00:52:34.460 it, that go around, I'm just going to go for it. And we will go for it in business. We will go for it in,

00:52:40.020 you know, romantic ways. We'll go for it on social media. When we're real keyboard warriors,

00:52:45.180 we'll go for it in the military, but we won't go for it by asking a couple of three or four guys out,

00:52:49.960 you know, Hey, let's go hang out guys. Or Hey, I'm going to throw axes this weekend. I want you to

00:52:53.120 come. We got to suck it up, man. Cause the, here's what the research says, brother. If you are lonely,

00:52:58.360 it's more dangerous than smoking cigarettes to your physiological, your biochemistry in your body,

00:53:03.540 your body recognizes you have no tribe. You are not safe and it will sound the alarms. It will

00:53:09.640 spin those chemicals through your body until you reconnect with somebody and a cheap substitute

00:53:14.560 for reconnection, booze, a cheap reconnection for substitution, sex, another affair, another girl, 0.85

00:53:20.660 another date, another date, a cheap substitute for having a tribe is numbing out. Just scrolling,

00:53:27.700 scrolling, scrolling. Rage is a cheap, it's all chemicals, man. And if you will just connect with

00:53:32.400 a group of guys, like you said, I think I'm pretty good, but I got a gang. And my first thought is

00:53:36.400 absolutely right. Other people are your emergency fund for life. You got to have people who will

00:53:41.040 show up at 2am for you. And we don't have that in our culture anymore, especially men. We just let

00:53:46.640 it go. That's powerful. It's really powerful. The most common thing I hear from, from people who get

00:53:51.780 out of the service is they lost their gang. Of course. Right. You lose your mission, which is,

00:53:56.540 which is important. Somebody has been telling you what you're going to do and where you're going to go

00:53:59.380 and how you're going to eat for the last four, eight years. And that's disorienting. But all of a sudden,

00:54:03.920 man, you've had somebody that's had your right and left link for the last however many years and

00:54:07.580 you got, they're gone. Right. And that's right. That is untethering. Right.

00:54:12.840 Let's talk about, uh, about vulnerability. Yes. Let's do it, man. When you were on my show,

00:54:18.460 we talked about, I was like, Oh, let's put a pin in this one. We'll go get it. Let's do it.

00:54:21.920 I don't like your favorite word. You love that word. I love it. It's everybody who listens to this

00:54:27.440 knows I use it way more than I ought to because of how much I just absolutely love it. You showed me the big

00:54:32.240 tattoo on your chest that said, be vulnerable. I saw it. You showed it to me. Yeah. Uh, no,

00:54:37.600 that wasn't on my chest. I think that was on my ass actually. Yeah. It was on your, like, 1.00

00:54:41.100 it was like, it was your sunshine on your lower back. That's right. That's right.

00:54:46.920 An old, old English lettering. Be vulnerable. Yes, bro. I can't even, I can't even think about

00:54:54.640 where I was going with this now. Um, I'm thinking about vulnerable. Yeah. Vulnerable. Uh,

00:55:00.340 yeah, I don't like it. I don't like it because vulnerable. Well, here's why I don't like it

00:55:04.380 because everybody, it seems to me that more and more people are using it as an excuse to 0.89

00:55:09.280 bitch and moan and complain. There you go. And it's like, well, I'm just, I'm just trying to be 0.99

00:55:13.920 vulnerable. Why? Well, because I want people to know my feelings. Why? Oh, because I think it's

00:55:18.680 important. Why? Like nobody can give me a reason. I actually think there's a reason to be vulnerable

00:55:24.580 at times, but to me, it has to be directed towards an outcome. And it seems to me that most people in

00:55:30.620 society now, what they don't have any outcome. They're just like, Oh, I'm supposed to like share

00:55:35.480 my feelings. So like everybody knows, but they don't really know why they're doing it.

00:55:40.520 Well, I'll tell you why they're doing it. There's a, and God, I just, just left me. There's a,

00:55:44.160 there's a psychological term for it, but I can take over a room with my size and force. I'm a big guy.

00:55:50.540 I could take over a room with my muscles. Oh, that's what it's a one-up position. Right. And so

00:55:55.600 men often show depression. They express depression through one up. I get really loud. I, I, I yell.

00:56:03.740 Right. And this, of course, this is, this is genderized and generalized. You know, I'm just

00:56:08.800 speaking broadly here because men do it and women do it opposite. And women often take over a room in 1.00

00:56:14.380 the one down position, the, Oh, well, I guess, I guess nobody cares where I eat. So I guess just

00:56:21.220 what it, right. And it's become increasingly men do this too. Now, well, I just got to know how I feel

00:56:27.280 and I feel like, right. And it's this expression, but it's not an expression. That's not vulnerability.

00:56:32.380 That's whining and complaining. Right. That is, I'm trying to take over a room and I don't feel secure

00:56:37.680 enough to be heard. I don't believe that I deserve this space. I don't believe that the thoughts in my

00:56:42.680 mind are worth being heard. So I'm going to take the room over by whining about stuff,

00:56:47.820 by being the biggest victim in the room. I can now victim you, Ryan. Oh yeah. You got a beard.

00:56:52.220 Well, I can't grow one, man. I haven't shaved like in 11 months, Ryan. This is all I got. This is it.

00:56:56.800 This is it. And it's not fair. Right. And so that's not vulnerability. That's whining.

00:57:01.180 And we've got a culture of whiners and complainers. That's enough is enough is enough because here's what

00:57:06.380 happens. The whining and complaining it, the chorus of whining and complaining drowns out

00:57:12.680 actual need, actual hurt, actual true stuff that's going on in people's lives.

00:57:18.040 And so vulnerability is simply me taking a knee and saying, I need some help. Vulnerability is

00:57:25.860 saying, I was wrong. How can I help be a part of this? And if I hurt you, you get to be a part.

00:57:31.820 You get to let me know how I can help make that right. How do I come together here? That's

00:57:37.060 vulnerability. Vulnerability says, I can't be in relationship with somebody and coming over

00:57:42.640 the top. I've got to come underneath. And that's what great leaders flip their whole hierarchy

00:57:48.040 down. I don't get to the top of the ladder. I carry the weight of this organization. I'm at the

00:57:52.800 bottom of this sucker. Right. And it's when you see Ramsey out here, Dave, with his hundreds and 0.99

00:57:57.960 hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollar net worth, his name's on the building. He's out here

00:58:01.160 moving chairs at 630 in the morning before an event. Then you go, oh, that's leadership. That's

00:58:07.720 vulnerability. None of us are too big. That's what that is. It's not whining and complaining.

00:58:11.460 I think, I think you're right. I think the word's been co-opted and, um, but I, I still

00:58:16.380 think it's necessary. What I, you use the word humility, which I think gets at it pretty, pretty

00:58:22.440 dang close, which is I'm coming before you and saying I was wrong. I screwed this up. How can

00:58:27.640 I help make this right? Um, I need you to whoever I, Hey, band of brothers, I need you in

00:58:32.760 my life. Hey guys on the front lines of me, I need you. That's me telling you vulnerability

00:58:37.160 is when you have a higher position and you look to your, the grunts and you say, man,

00:58:42.420 I'm not seeing something. What are you guys seeing that? I'm not seeing right. Decentralized

00:58:45.760 leadership. That's vulnerability. Right. And it's, it's, it's a co-opted word, but that's

00:58:50.200 what I'm talking about. Yeah. I think you and I are probably pretty much in alignment

00:58:53.440 with that. And so maybe it is just semantics, but this is why these conversations are crucial

00:58:57.760 because it's the same concept as toxic masculinity. You know, somebody might throw it out there. 1.00

00:59:04.060 You know, one person might mean that it's when you take masculine characteristics and, uh, you

00:59:10.700 use it to exploit people and harm people emotionally or mentally or physically. And then the other

00:59:16.320 person right next to him might mean that masculinity in and of itself is inherently toxic. Like,

00:59:21.000 whoa, whoa, whoa. Like I don't, when you say that, I don't know what you're talking about.

00:59:24.440 Like when you say vulnerability, are you just bitching and moaning or are you trying to,

00:59:29.400 I think about it in leadership, going to somebody and saying, even within our organization, you know,

00:59:34.280 I am the leader of the organization. I created it. I'm trying to be the front facing person.

00:59:38.180 I'm the leader of the organization, but I also have people in, in our organization who I say, I don't,

00:59:44.200 I don't know the answer to this. You're better suited for this. So what do you think? I need to know

00:59:48.780 what you think, because that's why you're part of this, what we're doing here.

00:59:52.240 And just look at the response that, and again, we don't, I don't want to go down to this rabbit

00:59:57.240 hole, but the response that Rogan got for his apology, there was a group of people who came

01:00:04.800 out and said, you never should have said the words, I'm sorry. That shows weakness. And that

01:00:09.320 shows, um, that cowardice never apologize. And then you got a guy saying, no, no, no. My friends

01:00:16.580 called me instead that hurt. And if I hurt my friends, whether I intended to or not, I must say,

01:00:20.960 I'm sorry, that's vulnerability, right? That to me is the ultimate display of strength is

01:00:26.740 to say, as a leader of your small organization, Ryan, I don't know. Saying those words is the

01:00:33.180 quintessential leadership, quintessential vulnerability. I don't know. Cowardice. And

01:00:38.500 I think, um, inflated nonsense is the buffoonery leadership. I call it is leaders who just make

01:00:46.680 up answers, make up, Oh, it's just this man. It's just that. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. And, um,

01:00:51.980 no, man, we've got to get past that. I got to say, I'm sorry. I got to say I was wrong. I got to say,

01:00:55.380 how can I be a part of the solution here? And let's move on with our day. What comes next? Right.

01:00:59.100 Yeah. No, I get it. Look on a public apology thing. I I'm, I'm more of the camp of like,

01:01:04.320 don't apologize publicly publicly because you didn't hurt people publicly. Like if I offended you.

01:01:11.240 So here's a great example. You're going to call me. Let's say, let's say,

01:01:14.020 you may have even done something. I didn't even know if you, did you, you may have spoke out

01:01:16.960 publicly about this. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I may, I talk about this quite often. Like,

01:01:22.360 but if I, but if I offended you personally, like I said something about you or behind your back,

01:01:28.620 or I threw you under the bus or whatever, like I don't owe Joe Schmo an apology for doing that.

01:01:33.320 Like I owe you an apology for doing that. That's where I take issue with the public apologies. Like

01:01:38.000 who have you wronged? Like, who are you apologizing to? You didn't, you didn't hurt anybody else,

01:01:42.940 but everybody wants to be offended. And so we think that when people are offended,

01:01:47.160 that we owe them an apology. Like I don't owe you an apology. If you're offended about something I

01:01:52.320 believe in, I do owe you an apology individually. If I hurt harmed you or hurt you in some way

01:01:59.600 specifically, right. Just because I took offense to what I said. I look at, um, an apology. I think

01:02:06.960 when it comes to words and discourse, I look at, I go back to a door. Like if I'm walking,

01:02:13.440 busting, like there's a studio door here. If I bust out of that door and hit somebody in the face, 0.99

01:02:17.260 absolutely 1000% didn't mean to had no attention, but dude, I'll be the first guy to pick up your 0.77

01:02:23.880 bag. But dude, I'm so sorry. Right. And if there's three or four people walk through the door and I

01:02:28.420 open that door and it just smacks him in the face, dude, I will be the first to say, I'm sorry. I'll,

01:02:32.960 I'll get the ice packs. Right. That to me is, I think like I didn't mean to, so I'm not apologizing.

01:02:38.820 I didn't even mean to do it. That's beside the point. If I hurt you, I'm sorry. And I'll, I don't,

01:02:44.680 that to me, isn't a hill, not only is a hill I'm going to die on. I think modeling that is good.

01:02:50.140 I think you're right. If where I, where I differ with you on that one is if I have a public platform,

01:02:55.040 then I have to, I know I'm putting this out there and people I will never meet, know,

01:03:00.320 understand are going to get impacted by what I say. And so there will be people out there.

01:03:05.260 There'll be people behind that door that I hit in the face. I didn't even know I hit them.

01:03:08.100 So I will say, Hey, everybody, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt anybody here. I don't,

01:03:11.980 that doesn't bother me at all. I think that's the right thing to do, but it's, it is the

01:03:15.320 performative apology. I'm making this, I'm going out on the, on the steps of the courthouse to say,

01:03:21.780 hear thee, hear thee. And I'm trying to, to, to, to not take a knee, but I'm trying to get more power.

01:03:27.800 You know, it's right. That's not an apology. Active theater. No, it's bullcrap, dude. And

01:03:32.280 everybody can see right through that. Everybody can see right through that.

01:03:35.140 I think where, you know, just cause we're talking about the Joe Rogan thing. I think where,

01:03:38.960 where I, what the way that I read it is that he was expressing some regret for some things that

01:03:45.000 he'd done in the past. And I, I think it's completely feasible and, and encouraged to

01:03:53.020 have some remorse and regret over things that you've said in the past, but you can do that

01:03:58.480 without being sorry to people who haven't been slighted by the things that you've said in the

01:04:01.940 past. You know, like I know if you go back and please don't do this, please don't, I know you

01:04:06.520 will notice it. But if you go back, I mean, you're going to find all kinds of stuff that I said that

01:04:11.380 would be questionable. And I can regret that and say, yeah, I actually didn't. Or maybe, you know what,

01:04:16.800 at the time I did think that, and now I evolved and I actually don't think that anymore.

01:04:20.960 I still don't owe you an apology about it though.

01:04:24.180 Why, why, why? So what, what's that? What's that? So I agree. And I have a question for you. So

01:04:31.060 why I, one thing about our culture, if the one thing I can't wrap my head around,

01:04:37.040 there's one or two things. One big one is the whole point of reading, discussing, growing,

01:04:43.700 going to school, having experiences is to become different than the person I used to be.

01:04:49.480 That's the whole point. Totally. And so for me, when I see something, like when I see my child

01:04:56.840 used to go to the bathroom, they used to poop in their pants and now they don't, I don't go

01:05:03.780 to my 12 year old son and hold him by a shirt and say, you know what you used to do?

01:05:08.520 You are not allowed to go to the bathroom in this home. No, I, I, I, I honor him. I'm excited

01:05:14.480 that he doesn't do that anymore. That's incredible. And so for me, when I see, and this is my years of

01:05:20.600 working with college students, when I see a kid graduate, walk across the stage who is saying

01:05:25.500 different things and thinking more broadly on topics and has his own or her own concrete sense

01:05:31.360 of who they are, it's different than they were 17 or 18 when they first moved in. Dude, I, I celebrate

01:05:37.300 that. And so my, my hope for our culture is that, yeah, we're going to find out some things

01:05:42.380 Mickler said 10 years ago. And we're going to think, dude, look how far that guy's come,

01:05:47.220 man. He's grown up, man. Versus, well, he's not gonna be able to make a living for his family.

01:05:53.380 I, I, I, if we have a culture that is unable to forgive, my question for you is this, what,

01:05:59.520 what is the, what's the harm in saying, like, seriously, if I hurt you, I'm sorry. What, where,

01:06:05.400 where that seems to be like, where there's, there's a slippery slope. I feel like you're

01:06:08.660 identifying that I'm missing. What, what is it? Well, what you just said, Hey, I hurt you. I'm

01:06:12.720 sorry. I don't take issue with that. Like if I hurt you specifically, well, no, that's not even

01:06:18.660 entirely true. If you're offended, if you're hurt by the words that I said, but I believe them,

01:06:22.540 I don't owe you an apology. I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry that I said something that I believe.

01:06:27.820 Absolutely. That's totally, okay. That's different. So if, so, um,

01:06:31.720 what if I harmed you, let's, let me give you a different example. Let's say that, um, uh,

01:06:37.620 I don't know. Let's say I stole money from you or I swindled you out of something. Right.

01:06:42.680 Right. And, and then I expressed, and I had regret for that because what, okay. Then I owe you, look,

01:06:47.680 I'm sorry. I did that to you. I should not have done that. And let me give you the thousand dollars

01:06:52.040 that I owe you. Right. Like, or if you and I 10 years ago, I'm going to do that.

01:06:55.700 Are making jokes about X. And then 10 years later, I've learned, man, that, that, that hurts

01:07:04.760 people. I'm done with that. I'm not, that's not who I am. That's not who I was that they's like, man,

01:07:08.700 I'm, I'm glad that I'm grown up there. I'm going to make sure my kids don't ever think that's okay.

01:07:14.280 Um, that is different than no brother. Like I think inherently nineties country is terrible music.

01:07:22.400 And if that hurts your feelings because you just love Brooks and done deal with it. Sorry. I'm not

01:07:27.700 apologizing for that. Right. It's just right. I'm talking about facts and truth. So yeah,

01:07:31.880 why would you choose Brooks and done? Why would you choose Brooks and done, bro? Come on.

01:07:35.360 I just picked him up, man. No, let's say that you and I were joking about women 10 years ago in college

01:07:41.020 or it had been 20 years ago, but let's say we're joking about women. And now we're like, you know,

01:07:47.600 that was really inappropriate. Like, well, I'm not going to apologize. I don't, I didn't wrong you.

01:07:51.420 And I'm not going to apologize to women broadly. I didn't wrong any woman specifically. I'm just

01:07:56.660 going to regret it and say, you know, I'm going to do better. Like, and I would go to say is I I've

01:08:01.500 had to look at awake the wake of my life and I've been a loud mouth, brash idiot for most of it. 0.98

01:08:06.780 And I've had to circle back and say, man, I put people in situations where I was running my mouth 0.98

01:08:13.160 in a context where I took, I took their voice away. I'm sorry that that's, that's, that's kind of my,

01:08:19.000 my, uh, what do you call it? My stance through the world is, and if, if, if I hurt you, I I'll own

01:08:24.680 that. I'm sorry. I didn't sure. Didn't intend to. Um, I was an immature moron and I'm trying to get

01:08:29.340 better. Yeah. I don't look, I don't, I don't think, why do you hate America? I don't think that's 0.99

01:08:35.740 wrong. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just, it's not America. It's Americans mostly. Um, I guess here's

01:08:45.120 what I would say is sometimes I think the mob apology, like we got off on a whole other tangent,

01:08:49.460 the mob apology is, um, it's not, it's not an honest call for an apology. And there's,

01:08:59.420 there's nothing intellectually honest about it. Like if you go back and you listen to a podcast I did

01:09:03.600 seven years ago and you're like, this guy is misogynist. He's a racist. He's a homophobe. 0.98

01:09:08.520 He's this, he's that. And we call for his head or he'll have to apologize. I don't believe that you 0.98

01:09:14.840 actually want an apology. And I don't believe that even if I offered an apology that you would

01:09:19.680 accept it because that's not really what you're after. Therefore, I'm not going to give you any

01:09:24.660 ammunition that you can use against me or think that you've outdone me or use even further to throw

01:09:32.000 me under the bus. And that's the issue is, is that it's not a, it's not an honest call for an

01:09:38.480 apology. It's something else cloaked in. Well, you should just apologize. That's not really the issue.

01:09:44.520 It's a, uh, let me see here. So it's a, it's, it's, it's common decency being weaponized,

01:09:52.260 right? Or it's, it is not even common decency. It's basic human interaction being weaponized

01:09:57.480 to take it away. So, uh, uh, we, we can talk, I'll just leave this and we can talk about something

01:10:03.080 else. The, a posture I, I started taking years ago, um, was this I spent, it's called, um,

01:10:12.000 how I'll think of the psychological term here in a minute. Um, the idea is I'm getting into,

01:10:18.300 why did I just lose that, that term? It's when I get into your head and I decide why you did what

01:10:25.480 you just did. Fundamental attribution error. That's what it's called. I get inside your head

01:10:29.840 and I decide why you just did what you did or said what you said. And then I get angry about it.

01:10:35.100 We do this with our spouses a lot. He left those shoes here because he doesn't care about me because

01:10:40.580 he, because he hates me and my work and he hates my cooking. Right. Right. So we do this all the time 0.97

01:10:45.320 or, or especially when we're driving, somebody cuts us off. What I learned a long time ago that has

01:10:50.960 made my life, my heartbeat slower and my pulse rate and it makes my sleep deeper is I stopped

01:10:58.160 getting inside other people's heads. That's an exercise in futility. I it's a waste of my time.

01:11:04.400 And so if I say something, um, and it happens almost every podcast I put out somebody, I put

01:11:11.320 out three a week, somebody will email me and say, I can't believe you said this or whatever,

01:11:14.860 or you didn't say this, right? Whatever. I'm not, I don't know what's going on in your life.

01:11:19.400 I don't know what's going on in your heart and head. I know it was in my heart and head

01:11:21.520 and I'll say, man, I'm sorry for hurting you. And here's a, here's some pizza and I hope you

01:11:26.320 have a good day. And I I'm going to stop getting inside people's heads and trying to, if I hurt

01:11:30.980 you, I hurt you. I'm going to move on. It's just given me a more peaceful life. If I, that crosses

01:11:36.940 a couple of core values of me, I walk away. I walk away until you bring that to my house or to my

01:11:42.700 front door, my proverbial front door. I'm a, I'm a, that's fine. I'm a walk away. I'm not going to

01:11:47.900 apologize for that because this is a core to who I am. Right. And I'm going to, I'm going to walk

01:11:52.200 away, but that fundamental attribution error, I'm going to get out of other people's heads. And I

01:11:55.080 didn't realize how much I was living in, in my, my, my three-year-old's head. He just did that

01:12:01.780 because he's trying to, dude, he's three. He's three. Come on, bro. He's three. Like I don't,

01:12:07.700 the guy on the other side of the country who emails me and says, Hey, you said this. And it was

01:12:11.780 really what man I did. I'm sorry. I didn't, I had no intention of doing that. And, uh, I don't know

01:12:17.200 what's in your head and I'm not going to even go there. I'm going to let you know that I care about

01:12:20.480 you and I hope you have a great day. I hope your kids are healthy. Your family's good. I'm moving

01:12:23.840 on with my life. Right. So that's just a posture I've taken in life. And, um, I like that. I like

01:12:29.380 that posture. Generally, the only difference is I would say is, okay, well, I don't care. Toughen up.

01:12:34.180 Then both of us will drive on with our lives. There you go. That's right. That's right. I don't,

01:12:37.580 but I think we're on the very much the same page. Well, John, I appreciate you, brother. I think, um,

01:12:41.400 I don't want to cut this conversation short, but today I have to, uh, I think we probably need to

01:12:45.760 do another podcast because we got so much to talk about. I know, man, it's good. And I enjoy our

01:12:50.640 conversations, man. Uh, tell the guys how to pick up a copy of the book. I've got this one here.

01:12:55.520 You guys can't get this one. Cause this is an advanced reader's copy. You can get the better,

01:13:00.820 the better one. Uh, it's got all the edits and whatnot. Uh, how do they get the book? How do they

01:13:05.440 connect with you? They can go to a John Deloney.com D E L O N Y. It's like baloney with a D pretty, 0.99

01:13:10.940 pretty, uh, rough childhood there. Um, you go to John Deloney.com or, uh, yeah. And you can pick

01:13:16.440 up the copy and it's in presale now, so you can pick it up and this comes with all kinds of stuff.

01:13:20.380 You can, it comes with a presale there, 20 bucks and pretty good deal. Right on brother. We'll sync

01:13:25.500 it all up. I appreciate our conversations looking forward to another one. And, uh, maybe we can get

01:13:29.640 some matching, I don't know, tattoos or something about be vulnerable. Some, some, gosh, my lower back

01:13:34.780 is already filled with, I got it like rows of flowers and sunshines down there. So I'll get some,

01:13:39.140 uh, not really. I'll, I'll get, be vulnerable on my, I'll get on my forearm and, uh, right here on

01:13:44.640 my wrist. Yeah. I like it on your, send me one of those, uh, vulnerable. I need one of those,

01:13:49.800 uh, order man hats, man. I'll get you on. All right. Let's hook that up. All right,

01:13:54.300 brother. Thanks a lot, man. See ya. All right, guys, there you go. My conversation with the one

01:13:59.520 and only jock, jock, jock doctor. If I can say that Dr. John Deloney, uh, he is the author of,

01:14:07.460 again, own the past, change your future. So make sure to pick up a copy of that book,

01:14:13.620 connect with him on the socials, connect with me on the socials. Let us both know what you thought

01:14:17.940 about the conversation in the show. And then ultimately this is very important, how you're

01:14:22.400 implementing what we talked about in your life. Cause this isn't just about information. This is

01:14:27.100 about applying that information in a practical way. That's going to improve you and your life and

01:14:33.140 the lives of the people that you care about. So pick up a copy of the book, connect with us on

01:14:37.260 socials. And then also make sure you check out the iron council. You can check it out at

01:14:42.600 order of man.com slash iron council. That's our exclusive brotherhood that we'll be closing down,

01:14:47.340 uh, the end of next week. So get on it very, very quickly again, order of man.com slash iron

01:14:54.420 council. All right, guys, we'll be back tomorrow until then go out there, take action and become the

01:15:00.420 man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take

01:15:05.560 charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order

01:15:10.200 order of man.com.

Order of Man - March 22, 2022

JOHN DELONY ｜ Own Your Past

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