WEBVTT - Avoiding Anxiety Makes It Stronger | John Delony 0:00:04.290 --> 0:00:06.970 All right, John Deloney, we're good friends, but I feel 0:00:06.990 --> 0:00:09.190 like I got to give your rap sheet to listeners. 0:00:09.770 --> 0:00:12.910 You got two PhDs from Texas Tech, spent two decades 0:00:13.110 --> 0:00:16.480 at a university, being a student, working with kids, working 0:00:16.500 --> 0:00:20.620 with kids in crisis. Since 2020, you've been at Ramsey Solution. 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.360 You co-host the show, which is giant. You got your 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:28.880 own show, Dr. John Deloney Show. You've written three national bestsellers, 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:31.240 one of which we're going to get into, building it 0:00:31.300 --> 0:00:35.199 on anxious life. Now, first of all, I love you, man. 0:00:36.100 --> 0:00:37.820 And also with you. Yes. 0:00:38.540 --> 0:00:41.800 Two, the thing that I find most interesting is that 0:00:41.860 --> 0:00:46.260 you got a call show. Strangers call you up and 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.140 they talk to you about their problems and they tell 0:00:49.180 --> 0:00:51.190 you things they never tell anyone. So I want to 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:53.489 start there. What are some of your most memorable calls? 0:00:54.250 --> 0:00:56.650 Man, I'll tell you when I first started this thing. 0:00:56.870 --> 0:01:00.190 So like I had, I didn't, the only thing in 0:01:00.230 --> 0:01:02.970 media I ever wanted to do was be a punk 0:01:03.010 --> 0:01:05.660 rock singer. And that, That was pretty much what I 0:01:05.700 --> 0:01:08.920 thought I was going to do until I realized you 0:01:08.940 --> 0:01:10.339 have to be talented in that area and I'm not 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.470 very good at it. So I didn't have any illusions 0:01:13.530 --> 0:01:15.430 of wanting to be a media person. So when I 0:01:16.030 --> 0:01:19.209 left the university world and I came to do this job, 0:01:20.450 --> 0:01:24.410 the first four or five episodes, and I would always 0:01:24.569 --> 0:01:26.250 ask when someone would call and say they were going 0:01:26.270 --> 0:01:29.530 through some struggle, it was a reflexive question. I'd always say, 0:01:29.569 --> 0:01:33.360 why are you calling me? And to a person, every 0:01:33.420 --> 0:01:36.700 answer I got was, I've got nobody to call. And 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.140 that was the first time I realized, like, I've heard 0:01:39.180 --> 0:01:40.899 about the loneliness stuff and. 0:01:40.819 --> 0:01:42.020 The challenges we all had. 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:44.360 And this is, this is coming right in the thick 0:01:44.420 --> 0:01:47.500 of COVID, but it became really like, Oh, you have 0:01:47.660 --> 0:01:48.640 nobody to call. 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:49.860 You're calling a stranger. 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:54.520 And so I think that that ethos has stuck with me, man. 0:01:54.540 --> 0:01:57.680 There's been the wild, you know, Jerry Springer S calls. 0:01:57.940 --> 0:02:01.380 Like I had a one night stand with my mother-in-law 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:03.420 and can I fix my marriage? 0:02:03.610 --> 0:02:04.530 And it's like, Nope. 0:02:05.330 --> 0:02:08.450 And, um, those are ones, um, usually the ones that 0:02:08.470 --> 0:02:11.169 I mess up on that, uh, we have a, almost 0:02:11.210 --> 0:02:14.070 a recurring segment where I'll call somebody back and tell them, Hey, 0:02:14.110 --> 0:02:15.549 this is where I messed up in this call. 0:02:15.610 --> 0:02:17.900 And I wish I had taken a different track or, 0:02:18.530 --> 0:02:19.340 you know, noted something. 0:02:20.130 --> 0:02:23.140 Um, probably the one that sticks in my soul the 0:02:23.180 --> 0:02:25.739 most was there was an engineer who had five kids 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:28.660 and he was from Houston, Texas. I remember where he's 0:02:28.700 --> 0:02:30.679 from cause that's where I grew up, but he was 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.720 just at the end of, As I was talking to him, 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:39.600 I realized, oh, you're thinking about taking the final step here. 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:45.210 And it was just this compounding exhaustion, frustration. My home 0:02:45.230 --> 0:02:46.730 feels like I don't feel like I'm a good husband. 0:02:46.750 --> 0:02:48.470 I don't feel like I'm good at my job. My 0:02:48.490 --> 0:02:49.850 job's going to go away. I don't feel like I'm 0:02:49.870 --> 0:02:52.730 a good parent. And that sat with me because I 0:02:53.070 --> 0:02:54.450 felt similarly before. 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.500 When you get a call like that, what do you do? 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:00.300 Do you guys vet calls? 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:00.389 Yes. 0:03:00.820 --> 0:03:02.940 Or where does your mindset go? Like, what are the 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.240 second steps? Because they're calling into a radio show and 0:03:05.260 --> 0:03:08.540 this is a really complex thing. At the same time, 0:03:08.970 --> 0:03:10.220 you're the only person they're calling. 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:11.269 Right. 0:03:11.570 --> 0:03:13.290 So how do you handle it? 0:03:13.530 --> 0:03:14.709 There's a vetting process. 0:03:14.830 --> 0:03:18.710 And over the last three or four years, as the 0:03:18.730 --> 0:03:23.430 show's kind of done its thing, I've increasingly withdrawn from 0:03:23.490 --> 0:03:26.990 knowing what's coming. Early on, I was super nervous and 0:03:27.010 --> 0:03:28.730 I wanted to make sure everything was perfect, you know, 0:03:28.810 --> 0:03:33.150 clinically and diagnostically and all that. Um, now I'm much 0:03:33.250 --> 0:03:37.170 more interested in what I, what I think my skill 0:03:37.190 --> 0:03:39.030 set in the real world, if you will, is, and 0:03:39.050 --> 0:03:42.210 that's just sitting with folks and not being afraid of 0:03:42.330 --> 0:03:45.220 whatever scary big thing they're experiencing and feeling. 0:03:45.570 --> 0:03:46.530 I'll sit in that with you. 0:03:47.140 --> 0:03:48.740 And I don't have a lot of skills in the world, 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:54.180 but I'm, I feel confident sitting with folks when, just 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.660 like my work with the police departments, like when, like 0:03:57.700 --> 0:04:00.160 when somebody's child was, had passed away and they were 0:04:00.180 --> 0:04:02.370 in the next room. Like I'll sit here on the 0:04:02.410 --> 0:04:04.070 couch with you, mom, or I'll sit here on the 0:04:04.110 --> 0:04:06.250 couch with your dad and you can't go in there, 0:04:06.310 --> 0:04:07.130 but I'll sit here with you. 0:04:07.350 --> 0:04:11.120 And, um, it's just a, so that's, what's going. 0:04:11.020 --> 0:04:13.240 Through my head when somebody calls and it's, and we 0:04:13.260 --> 0:04:16.560 start unpacking it and start unwinding it is just this 0:04:16.620 --> 0:04:18.600 sense of I'll sit here with. 0:04:18.500 --> 0:04:20.099 You and we'll figure it out together. 0:04:20.500 --> 0:04:24.270 Does not preparing for those calls. Is that make you 0:04:24.290 --> 0:04:26.469 more present or what's the purpose of that? Does that 0:04:26.510 --> 0:04:27.390 help the calls in that way? 0:04:28.350 --> 0:04:31.330 Yeah, I mean, originally the show was set up to 0:04:31.350 --> 0:04:35.130 kind of be, it was very focused on mental health. 0:04:35.570 --> 0:04:40.360 And I, through my insecurity, was so desperate to appear smart. 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.120 I wanted to make sure if somebody had an. 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.180 ADHD call, I could pull apart all the ADHDs and 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:50.700 the different idiosyncrasies of different diagnostics and make sure. And 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:55.089 early on, there was a YouTube analyst who said, hey, 0:04:55.270 --> 0:04:59.060 just for what it's worth, none of those calls do well. 0:04:59.380 --> 0:05:01.580 Nobody cares. And I was like, well, why is the 0:05:01.620 --> 0:05:03.860 show doing so well? And he said, because no one 0:05:03.900 --> 0:05:07.300 has ever seen a big, loud tattooed Texan like you 0:05:07.500 --> 0:05:10.109 sit with somebody who just blew their marriage up or who, 0:05:10.730 --> 0:05:12.190 whose kids got terminal cancer. 0:05:12.210 --> 0:05:13.610 They've never seen that interaction. 0:05:13.890 --> 0:05:16.150 And that was the light bulb for me was to 0:05:16.210 --> 0:05:19.710 get over my insecurity about, you know, that's the, the, the, 0:05:20.029 --> 0:05:21.450 my older sister's a savant. 0:05:21.490 --> 0:05:22.310 She's brilliant. 0:05:22.350 --> 0:05:24.609 My younger brother missed like one question on the ACT 0:05:24.930 --> 0:05:27.960 and I was the dumb, Texas high school football player kid. 0:05:27.980 --> 0:05:32.460 So I've always had this nagging desperation to prove like, 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:35.020 you think I'm smart now? That's why I have two PhDs, Michael. 0:05:35.230 --> 0:05:39.250 It's all insecurity, man. But it's like, and so it 0:05:39.290 --> 0:05:41.530 was me like, hey, put your ego away and sit 0:05:41.570 --> 0:05:42.230 with hurting people. 0:05:42.250 --> 0:05:43.190 That's what you're best at. 0:05:43.490 --> 0:05:46.109 And so, so yeah, it helps me stay present and 0:05:46.170 --> 0:05:50.180 not try to over-diagnose or over-label or over, I've got a, 0:05:50.210 --> 0:05:51.409 I've got a seven-step path. 0:05:51.690 --> 0:05:54.730 Nah, man, people want you, they just need presence, man. 0:05:55.330 --> 0:05:57.320 Do you think that The way we treat mental health 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:01.630 has become too formal for some people. And so people 0:06:01.650 --> 0:06:04.390 come to you because they're like, I identify with that guy. 0:06:05.230 --> 0:06:07.990 It's like the nice, I don't know, if it's older brother, 0:06:08.270 --> 0:06:10.450 friend I had, whatever it might be. And then that 0:06:10.490 --> 0:06:13.520 gives people a pathway who maybe feel like the whole 0:06:13.620 --> 0:06:17.460 world of mental health and therapists and ties and suits 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:19.010 is a little scary. Is that what's going on? 0:06:19.540 --> 0:06:21.740 It's funny you say that the, the greatest compliment I 0:06:21.779 --> 0:06:25.160 remember ever was somebody leaned over during, like I was 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.180 signing their book at a signing line somewhere. And she said, 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:29.780 you know, you're the big brother that none of us 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.440 ever had. And I remember looking at her and thinking 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.580 that's the greatest compliment I've received in this job. Cause 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:37.979 that's the ethos I want to bring to it. But man, 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:40.230 if you want to go down this rabbit hole, yeah, I, I, 0:06:40.700 --> 0:06:43.890 I've worked in and around ADA and 504 and, and, 0:06:45.700 --> 0:06:49.520 educational outcomes and student mental health and adult mental health. 0:06:49.580 --> 0:06:51.560 I've had my own mental health issues. 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:55.789 And the light bulb for me was one simple question 0:06:55.870 --> 0:06:59.390 years ago when I was wrestling with anxiety and wrestling 0:06:59.410 --> 0:07:01.610 with all sorts of my own OCD, all, all stuff. 0:07:02.470 --> 0:07:04.610 And the question was this, what if my body's right? 0:07:05.830 --> 0:07:09.750 What if our bodies are right? What if anxiety is 0:07:09.850 --> 0:07:13.650 not something that we need to obviously pathological anxiety where 0:07:13.690 --> 0:07:18.500 it's crippling and it's, it's like, But what if depression 0:07:18.540 --> 0:07:22.080 was right? What if our bodies on a loop, our 0:07:22.100 --> 0:07:25.820 brains trying to solve something isn't, the answer is not 0:07:26.260 --> 0:07:31.010 breaking down what neuromodulators are doing what when, but what 0:07:31.030 --> 0:07:34.210 if their minds are just trying to solve an unsolvable 0:07:34.270 --> 0:07:36.270 problem because we've created a world that our bodies were 0:07:36.290 --> 0:07:39.130 not designed to live in. And for me, that was 0:07:39.170 --> 0:07:43.230 this new path of it's similar to sitting with somebody 0:07:43.250 --> 0:07:47.020 in recovery. Like, Hey, alcohol works. It works great until 0:07:47.060 --> 0:07:51.780 it kills you. Um, and so cocaine works. Like I'd 0:07:51.820 --> 0:07:53.340 say like that, man, you can probably edit that out, 0:07:53.380 --> 0:07:57.750 but like cocaine works until your septum is gone and 0:07:57.790 --> 0:08:00.870 it takes everything from you. Right. So instead of trying 0:08:00.930 --> 0:08:04.790 to just play whack-a-mole with symptomologies and playing whack-a-mole with 0:08:05.830 --> 0:08:10.290 avoiding uncomfortable feelings, What if we did the harder thing, 0:08:10.390 --> 0:08:12.470 I think, which is to back up and say, what 0:08:12.510 --> 0:08:15.250 in your life is so out of control? What in 0:08:15.300 --> 0:08:17.360 your life is unsafe? What in your life is your 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:21.980 body signaling? Let's deal with that, man. That seems to 0:08:22.020 --> 0:08:25.420 be the deeper issue. So yeah, as a guy in 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.560 the mental health world, I've developed all kinds of frustrations 0:08:28.620 --> 0:08:28.900 with it. 0:08:29.380 --> 0:08:30.940 Well, I can identify with that. I mean, you and 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.760 I have talked about how I've been sober for 10, 11, 0:08:33.750 --> 0:08:38.770 12 years, something like that. And for me, alcohol is 0:08:38.809 --> 0:08:40.829 always the solution. You know, people say it's a problem. 0:08:40.870 --> 0:08:43.410 It's like, no, because if I have any problem in 0:08:43.450 --> 0:08:45.230 my life that I'm trying to deal with, I can 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.940 guarantee if I go to a bar and have one drink, 0:08:49.900 --> 0:08:52.980 there goes that problem. Things are great in my life again. 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.660 And if you have two, then you have social connection 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:00.720 and you have laughter and you meet this, the bartender's name, 0:09:00.780 --> 0:09:02.610 you hear his story and that feels good, right? 0:09:02.730 --> 0:09:05.630 I mean, for a while it, it, It. 0:09:05.670 --> 0:09:09.150 Solves a lot more problems than it seems to create, right? 0:09:09.190 --> 0:09:13.050 Yeah. And the problem is, is that you go, oh, wow, 0:09:13.090 --> 0:09:16.810 two is better than one. Three is better than two. Now, 0:09:17.270 --> 0:09:20.930 what happens after, you know, at 14, it's not, oh, 0:09:20.990 --> 0:09:23.270 I was able to connect with the bartender more. It was, 0:09:23.670 --> 0:09:26.840 why is my car on my front lawn? And look 0:09:26.890 --> 0:09:29.080 at these text messages I send. And then the problem 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.939 comes back. And then you're going, how do I solve 0:09:31.980 --> 0:09:34.390 this again? Oh, I have a good idea. Last time 0:09:34.410 --> 0:09:35.429 I had a problem, I went to the bar. And 0:09:35.450 --> 0:09:37.709 so it's this cycle. How do you see that same 0:09:37.770 --> 0:09:40.910 thing manifest in other issues that people call in about? 0:09:41.929 --> 0:09:43.440 Well, I mean, take something simple like anxiety. 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.740 I remember the great researcher, Jud Brewer. I think he's 0:09:46.780 --> 0:09:48.250 out of Yale. I don't know where he's still at, 0:09:48.260 --> 0:09:49.780 but I think he used to have a lab at Yale. 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.590 But I remember him kind of breaking down the physiology 0:09:54.650 --> 0:09:58.250 of it. And the light bulb for me was, if 0:09:58.290 --> 0:10:01.230 your body is signaling that something might kill you, right. 0:10:01.350 --> 0:10:04.900 That is scared of something. And you avoid that thing. 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:09.940 If you go around it, then your body has actually won. 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.920 It reinforces, Oh, when we do this, when we start 0:10:13.980 --> 0:10:17.510 looping thoughts, when we start racing heart rates, he will 0:10:17.570 --> 0:10:18.390 avoid this thing. 0:10:18.690 --> 0:10:19.270 Plane ride. 0:10:19.309 --> 0:10:22.300 He'll avoid this conversation with his wife. He'll avoid this 0:10:22.340 --> 0:10:24.540 conversation with his boss, this confrontation with his boss. 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.079 And it didn't kill us. We won. So it reinforces it. 0:10:28.100 --> 0:10:29.040 It makes it stronger. 0:10:29.059 --> 0:10:33.000 Right. And so the path is not to continually go 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:38.449 around and have this low grade, horrible life. It's to 0:10:38.950 --> 0:10:41.790 get with the right professional or the right team or 0:10:41.809 --> 0:10:45.470 the right community and have a really high grade season 0:10:45.510 --> 0:10:47.880 of discomfort and And then this thing's, and then you're 0:10:47.900 --> 0:10:48.590 through it, right? 0:10:48.929 --> 0:10:50.650 It's the only path is through it is the old saying. 0:10:51.309 --> 0:10:53.650 And so the call, most of the calls I get, um, 0:10:55.150 --> 0:10:58.430 on the show are people that I think routinely kind 0:10:58.470 --> 0:11:01.610 of know what I'm going to say. There's something powerful 0:11:01.710 --> 0:11:04.730 about sharing grief. Um, as the great David Kessler once said, 0:11:04.750 --> 0:11:06.929 there's something about sharing it. Um, I think that's why 0:11:07.010 --> 0:11:09.990 every major religious tradition throughout human history has some sort 0:11:10.030 --> 0:11:14.609 of something called confession or sharing or disclosure. There's something, um, 0:11:16.929 --> 0:11:20.770 healing about somebody sitting across from you and saying like, yeah, 0:11:21.070 --> 0:11:21.460 I get it. 0:11:21.530 --> 0:11:21.910 Me too. 0:11:22.250 --> 0:11:24.850 Yeah. And you see the same thing. You say, see 0:11:24.870 --> 0:11:26.710 the same thing in 12 step programs. 0:11:26.950 --> 0:11:29.050 That's exactly right. That's exactly why I think they're so effective. 0:11:29.070 --> 0:11:31.600 It only works with a group. That's it. You got 0:11:31.620 --> 0:11:32.340 to have other people. 0:11:32.460 --> 0:11:35.580 And so I think the, our whole culture, and this 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:37.640 is why, where you and I connected years ago with 0:11:38.179 --> 0:11:43.660 our whole culture is about avoidance of uncomfortable feelings, uncomfortable relationships, 0:11:43.700 --> 0:11:48.449 uncomfortable emotions. And that's just, It's not reality, number one, 0:11:48.490 --> 0:11:51.970 but more importantly, it robs us of the strength of 0:11:52.050 --> 0:11:54.050 dealing with hard stuff so that we can get to 0:11:54.070 --> 0:11:54.970 the really good stuff. 0:11:55.010 --> 0:11:57.939 Yeah. What are the most common things people are calling 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:00.300 in about? A lot of it's relationships, I know, but 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:02.500 what else is going on? And sort of what's the 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.560 underlying thing going there? If we say, okay, there's this 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:08.500 underlying discomfort that people are trying to go around, work around. 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:10.670 They kind of know that in their head. They call you. 0:12:10.950 --> 0:12:13.830 They offload it. But what are those commonalities you see? 0:12:14.570 --> 0:12:18.430 Commonality number one is I know I need to do 0:12:18.470 --> 0:12:21.819 this thing. I need to tell my wife I cheated 0:12:21.860 --> 0:12:23.240 on her. I need to tell my husband I cheated 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:24.980 on him. I need to do these things. Or I 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.020 need to tell my mom we can't make it to 0:12:27.059 --> 0:12:31.360 Christmas this year because we don't have any money. And 0:12:32.059 --> 0:12:34.480 the dissonance is, but I don't want to feel bad. 0:12:34.700 --> 0:12:36.599 I don't want them to feel bad. How do I 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.160 say this and them not get mad? And so I 0:12:39.210 --> 0:12:44.170 think a lot of it is looping people back to– 0:12:45.260 --> 0:12:47.080 You can control what you can control and that's you. 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.319 And there's an empowerment to that and there's also a 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:54.300 powerlessness to that. It's tough when someone's trying to heal 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:56.760 their marriage and I tell them the only thing you 0:12:56.780 --> 0:12:59.439 could control is who you show up as, how you 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:03.370 show up. And you have to just hope with arms 0:13:03.470 --> 0:13:05.550 wide open that your spouse reciprocates that. 0:13:06.110 --> 0:13:07.910 And that's a scary feeling, right? That's lonely. 0:13:07.970 --> 0:13:10.470 That's the word that we all hate to use, but 0:13:10.510 --> 0:13:13.150 it's vulnerable, man, because you can get your heart stomped 0:13:13.230 --> 0:13:15.780 on if you're open, right? And that's the only way 0:13:15.820 --> 0:13:20.140 that technology works. And so I mostly it's I have 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:22.589 to do this hard thing. I've got to tell my 0:13:22.590 --> 0:13:24.680 10 year old. No, I've got to tell my 17 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:24.990 year old. 0:13:25.050 --> 0:13:25.290 No. 0:13:25.890 --> 0:13:27.530 And I don't want them to hate me or I 0:13:27.570 --> 0:13:31.070 don't want them to not like me. And sometimes it's 0:13:31.090 --> 0:13:33.310 just norming. Kids are supposed to not like you for 0:13:33.350 --> 0:13:36.809 a season. And sometimes it's empowering people or asking, like, 0:13:37.510 --> 0:13:39.990 why did you outsource your self-worth to a 10 year old? 0:13:40.030 --> 0:13:40.209 Right. 0:13:40.770 --> 0:13:43.209 Or to an old boss that you don't even have 0:13:43.290 --> 0:13:46.110 or to an ex that. you still haven't blocked, right? 0:13:46.150 --> 0:13:48.630 So some of it's just kind of peeling back those layers, 0:13:48.650 --> 0:13:51.540 but it's almost often the tension between I need to 0:13:51.580 --> 0:13:54.459 do a thing or a series of things. And I 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:57.900 don't want to deal with the feelings that may come 0:13:57.940 --> 0:13:58.260 with that. 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.969 So you get two PhDs, spend a lot of time 0:14:02.010 --> 0:14:05.890 in school. You work at a university. How useful is 0:14:05.950 --> 0:14:09.590 the academic background you have when you're actually sitting down 0:14:09.630 --> 0:14:10.330 and talking to people? 0:14:11.150 --> 0:14:14.920 I think hands down the most valuable thing part of 0:14:14.980 --> 0:14:17.219 being in the university system was I just, I mean, 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.860 my life was just sitting with young adults and their 0:14:20.900 --> 0:14:24.500 families hour after hour, after hour, after hour, and then 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.270 dealing with complex personnel issues and things like that and 0:14:27.290 --> 0:14:30.570 getting to deal with those types of dynamics. I think the, 0:14:30.590 --> 0:14:35.180 what I, Where I think the modern media landscape is 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:38.900 lacking is I think there's like three– it's a three-legged stool, 0:14:39.300 --> 0:14:41.460 and I invented this. You should push back on it 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:43.220 if I'm wrong because you're telling me. 0:14:43.260 --> 0:14:44.950 Hey, John, you didn't think that through all the way. 0:14:45.830 --> 0:14:50.890 I think there is– to earn the space to sit 0:14:50.930 --> 0:14:52.870 down with somebody, A, you have to have a core 0:14:52.910 --> 0:14:54.650 academic knowledge. You have to know what you're talking about, 0:14:55.050 --> 0:14:57.950 and that's important. And I think you have to have 0:14:58.250 --> 0:15:01.990 a lived experience. It's very helpful to have been there before, 0:15:02.070 --> 0:15:06.630 wherever there is. And also I think the missing piece 0:15:06.650 --> 0:15:07.910 that I hear a lot, I hear a lot of 0:15:07.950 --> 0:15:09.729 folks who've got a lot of letters after their names, 0:15:10.290 --> 0:15:13.290 but they've never sat with hurting people. They've, they can 0:15:13.390 --> 0:15:16.420 tell you, you know, they're, they're, they've got a PhD 0:15:16.460 --> 0:15:18.980 in journalism, but, or an MFA in journalism, but they've 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:20.460 never written a published piece. 0:15:20.540 --> 0:15:23.170 Right. Um, so there's that aspect to it. 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:25.700 And then there's a whole bunch of men and you 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.800 border on charlatan territory who have a singular personal experience 0:15:29.940 --> 0:15:32.180 and they want to extrapolate that out on the whole world. 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:32.680 Right. 0:15:33.380 --> 0:15:34.640 I lost weight doing this diet. 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.130 So everybody should do this diet and I'm going to 0:15:37.190 --> 0:15:41.830 reverse engineer to my pleasure, biology and science to fit 0:15:41.930 --> 0:15:45.480 my little weird world. And, that's what everybody should do. 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:48.750 And then the third one is, have you sat with 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:50.950 a whole bunch of other people? Have you done this 0:15:51.010 --> 0:15:53.530 in a whole bunch of other contexts? And so a 0:15:53.570 --> 0:15:55.910 reason why I trust you is you've got the academic 0:15:55.930 --> 0:15:58.650 knowledge as a journalist, you've been a journalist for years, 0:15:58.690 --> 0:16:01.870 and you've put yourself in true journalistic situations, and you've 0:16:01.890 --> 0:16:05.230 written for a number of different publications, different editors, different bosses, 0:16:05.250 --> 0:16:07.750 different deadlines. And so you have what I would call 0:16:07.770 --> 0:16:11.000 an expertise. And so if I have a question about writing, 0:16:11.030 --> 0:16:13.530 which God help you, you get a lot of those 0:16:13.580 --> 0:16:15.180 text messages early in the morning. 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:16.440 Or late at night. I love them, I love them 0:16:16.460 --> 0:16:16.780 every time. 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.620 But like, you're a true expert in a thing, right? 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.160 And so that's what I look for. So I think 0:16:23.180 --> 0:16:25.980 the academic knowledge is important, but it can't be the, 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.040 it's not the skillset, right? It's the foundation that then 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:31.600 you anchor into and then you go learn how to 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.780 do this craft, whatever your craft is, whether you're an engineer, architect, 0:16:34.820 --> 0:16:37.740 or a therapist, you go learn that craft really, really well. 0:16:37.860 --> 0:16:38.900 And that just comes from reps. 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:41.650 Yeah, and I think, getting out in the world and 0:16:41.970 --> 0:16:45.170 working with a wide variety of people, I think it 0:16:45.250 --> 0:16:48.979 teaches you how to read the person, sort of the 0:16:49.060 --> 0:16:52.280 subtext than the actual text of what they're saying. I 0:16:52.900 --> 0:16:55.260 had a guy who helped me get sober who said, 0:16:55.820 --> 0:16:57.340 you know, some people need a pat on the back. 0:16:57.780 --> 0:17:00.840 Others need a kick in the ass. And like he 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.160 had the ability to figure out which one I needed 0:17:04.220 --> 0:17:06.350 at the time. Sometimes it was, Hey man, you're going 0:17:06.369 --> 0:17:08.150 to be okay. I understand where you did what you did. 0:17:08.630 --> 0:17:10.950 Other times it was, Hey, do you ever think you're 0:17:10.970 --> 0:17:12.000 too damn sensitive? 0:17:12.020 --> 0:17:13.580 Maybe you should just. 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:15.459 Not worry about this. Like, oh, didn't think about that. 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:16.860 That's exactly right. Yeah. 0:17:17.020 --> 0:17:17.359 Yeah. 0:17:17.740 --> 0:17:20.960 And as a, as a mentor, being able to hold 0:17:21.020 --> 0:17:25.419 loosely when, when you decide, ah, I'm kicking this one 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:27.380 and they look at you and say, why'd you kick me? 0:17:27.420 --> 0:17:29.040 And then they start sobbing. You're like, ah, that was 0:17:29.060 --> 0:17:30.780 the wrong, that was the wrong move there. I'm sorry. 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:31.470 I messed that up. 0:17:31.540 --> 0:17:31.720 Right. 0:17:32.340 --> 0:17:34.070 There's just a, there's just a humility to it. 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:37.680 Right. Yeah. So you left, you leave the university. Why'd 0:17:37.700 --> 0:17:38.480 you leave the university? 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:43.230 It was just a wild opportunity. It was a, I 0:17:43.270 --> 0:17:47.650 wish I had some thought out thing. It was just 0:17:47.710 --> 0:17:53.350 a pretty wild opportunity to go do something wild. If 0:17:53.530 --> 0:17:56.330 I'm the, you know what? I've never said this publicly. 0:17:56.369 --> 0:17:59.770 I'll tell you one of the honest, truthful things beneath 0:17:59.830 --> 0:18:03.980 it all. As silly as this might sound is I, 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:08.960 It felt like 2017, 2018, 2019, the world was starting 0:18:08.980 --> 0:18:13.620 to unspool. And I had spent the last several years 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:19.050 in academic settings, which there's tons of philosophizing about issues 0:18:19.130 --> 0:18:23.030 and writing about issues and conferences about issues. But I 0:18:23.090 --> 0:18:28.170 wasn't doing anything other than sitting with individuals to make 0:18:28.190 --> 0:18:30.429 that better. And there was a part of me that 0:18:30.470 --> 0:18:34.480 this opportunity came up. that I thought, you know what? 0:18:35.180 --> 0:18:37.859 I've never, I've never done media. I've never been on, 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.020 I've never even been on a podcast, much less have 0:18:40.060 --> 0:18:42.760 my own. I don't even know what this world is. Um, 0:18:44.020 --> 0:18:45.340 but I want to be able to look my kids 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.040 in the eye and say, when things started unspooling, your 0:18:48.060 --> 0:18:49.860 dad laced up his gloves and got in the ring. 0:18:50.660 --> 0:18:53.679 And I have, my dad was a hostage negotiator, um, 0:18:53.940 --> 0:18:55.600 in Houston growing up on the SWAT team. 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:57.800 And I just have these very vivid. 0:18:57.500 --> 0:19:00.919 Memories of my dad putting on his bulletproof vest, And 0:19:00.980 --> 0:19:03.400 he had this very particular grin that he would get. 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:05.960 It was like not a full smile, not a joyful smile, 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:06.739 but it was one of those like. 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:07.460 Ah, here we go. 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.740 And I remember thinking, oh, everybody's running out and my 0:19:10.780 --> 0:19:13.350 old man's running in. And there was something about that 0:19:13.420 --> 0:19:17.240