Where You're Going

John Liddle:

What is up? Welcome into the Where You’re Going Podcast. I’m your host, John Liddle. It is not about where you’ve been. It’s not about where you are right now. It is about where you’re going and who you are becoming. And one of the great authors, speakers, and just advice givers in our world is on the show today. Dr. John Delony about his new book, Building a Non Anxious Life. And I love how much doctor Delony opens up about his experiences whether it be to write this book or any of the ones that he’s written before.

He knows that being honest about where he’s been helps not only him get to where he wants to be, but helps others do it as well. And that is what he’s done through this book. I’ve already read it cover to cover. It is outstanding. I can’t recommend it enough, and I am so pleased to introduce you to Dr. John Delony. 

Dr. John Delony:

I’m really, really, honored that you had me back, so thank you.

John Liddle:

Oh, of course. And many, many more times hopefully after this as well. But, one thing that you do say in this book toward the end is this is the toughest book, toughest writing assignment, basically. Why was this so difficult?

Dr. John Delony:

I was not prepared to come face to face with the fact that I wasn’t doing these things that I knew were so important for me and my wife and my kids and the people that I cared about the most. As I wrote this, I started out on my high horse talking at people. Like, “I’m so smart, and I’ve done all this stuff, and I’ve sat with all these people, so I’m gonna tell you what to do.” And as I got about halfway through it, I ended up…I left my family. I went to a hotel for an extended stay and wrote and just tried to unwind what was happening. It was me coming face to face with the fact that, dude, you’re living a very anxious life, and I’ve been down this road before when everything fell apart, and yeah…I am on a fast track back to that place. And so it quickly went from me telling you what to do to me pulling up a seat at the table and saying “Pass the queso, man. We gotta talk about this together because I’m on this ride with you.”

John Liddle:

Well, I definitely get that sense when you say early on in the book. Man, this first chapter feels really, really heavy, and I promise that there is hope. And you know there’s hope because you’ve been through it. Right? You’ve lived the anxious life, and then, by using some of these principles, and we’ll get into them here in a moment, you’ve been able to get yourself to a more non-anxious point. What were the specific things as you wrote this that you’re, like, man, I gotta get a hold of  these 3 or 4 things here that they’re kinda getting out of whack.

Dr. John Delony:

Well, I wrote a book last year that far exceeded what anybody’s expectations were, which was awesome. It was awesome financially. It was awesome to be on the road and be speaking all over the place, And if you were to ask me, what’s the one thing I do best? If you can listen to my show, my podcast, I’m not great. I’m not great on air. But I think my thing I’m best at is being on stage. And so then you get this instant feedback, and that felt so good. And my wife and I grew up with not a lot, so everything was new to us, and it was so amazing. And then all of a sudden, I looked up and realized my closest buddies that I talked to once a week, turned into once a month, turned into I haven’t talked to those dudes, like, in 8 or 9 months. And I’m always preaching, you gotta have a crew, you gotta have friends, you gotta go meet with people. And…I’ve been on the road. I haven’t been to my home church in 6 months. Right?

And so these things started adding up, and then I start not sleeping that well, and then I start mainlining junk food, and then I skip this workout, and I’ll make it up tomorrow, and then I’ll make it up the next day. And then my wife and I go from a real, I would call an intense closeness. She’s, like, not my right hand person. She is my right hand. To, “Hey. Make sure you get this, and I’ll get this, and so we become great co-managers of our house.” And it all just happens not not in one fell swoop. Right? And I think this is the tragedy that we don’t talk about very much because this is the point in the show where I tell you that I cheated on my wife in this big spectacle. Or like, I stole a bunch of money from Dave Ramsey, and we had like, that’s not most of us. That makes for great headlines.

Most of us, as they say, end up living quiet lives of desperation. Right? So, we just slowly tuned down and tuned down and tuned down. And that was the part I was unprepared for coming face to face with. Really me sitting with a pen and a paper and a keyboard saying, “Oh, no. I’m headed towards a pretty gnarly trajectory.”

John Liddle:

Well, it is a slippery slope, because we don’t want to be too hard on ourselves. We wanna give ourselves a little bit of grace, you know. At the same time all the things you’re talking about aren’t necessarily bad things. Having a successful book and stuff like that, but it’s so hard in our society…and you talk about this in different ways to know kinda when to say when. You know? To know when is too much?

Dr. John Delony:

Well, I think two things have become very, very clear to me over the last year in this process. Number 1: as much as I preach against this, John, I really truly believe that if I just earned x enough dollars, I would finally be able to whisper to myself those things that I always wished my coaches and my dad and other people would have whispered to me. And I just thought that if I just make this much money, my wife will like me this much more, and my kids will be so connected. And if I just get this accolade and get on this stage and get on this podcast and so for whatever it’s worth, it’s just a cliche as old as time, but whatever you do that’s great, never forget, you go with you. And so when we were in that car, in Dallas, Texas, and the head of publishing handed me his cell phone, and it said, you’ve reached number 1 on the bestseller list. I celebrated like I was me. The guy still doesn’t like himself very much. 

And that’s the first thing. The second thing is for some reason, I fell into the second trap, which, again, I tell people all the time. There is no you that will ever be so clear of depression and anxiety and shame, these things that haunt you…that you reach a place where you can quit working on it. It’s like having a workout that is so great on Monday that you never have to work out again for the rest of the month, that day doesn’t exist. Or brushing your teeth so good on a Tuesday morning that you don’t have to brush them for the rest of the week. That’s not right. And so it really became crystal clear in a way that was peaceful to me. This will be a part of the rest of your life, being intentional about these things. And so that really shaped the direction of the book.

If I could hand somebody a road map, what are a few things that people can focus on for the rest of their life, that will help build this context that’s gonna change your life? Here’s the deal. We’ve created a life that our bodies can’t live in, and I say that over and over in the book. And so, really, trying to figure out how to run faster in an aquarium filled with poisonous gas, that’s dumb. I’m getting out of the aquarium. I’m just checking out the matrix, and I’m trying to rebuild something out here.

John Liddle:

And it is like you say, it’s something you’ve got to do consistently. And you even call these choices DAILY choices. Right? It’s something that we’ve got to try to do on a daily basis, not a weekly basis or check-in yearly on this stuff. It’s to try to add that in on a daily basis. And you do have ways to do that, but, I think they’re kinda different for all of us. But again, the 6 choices: reality, connection, freedom, mindfulness, health and healing, and belief. First off, why is just choosing reality so important? Why is that the starting point?

Dr. John Delony:

I frame anxiety as I think the way we talk about it, it’s all wrong. Anxiety, chronic stress burnout, all that is a smoke alarm in your kitchen. It’s just your body trying to get your attention that there’s some things in your life where you’re not safe, you’re not connected, your body loneliness, etc. Your health is off. And so when we are answering these questions in the popular media, we’re answering these questions in the magazine at the airport, or answering these questions. During our YOLO, I’m gonna drink 42 drinks tonight, pedal tavern down whatever main street you live on. What we’re trying to do is solve a particular feeling right now, and we are not dealing with the honest truth of where we happen to be. So really what that choosing reality is there it’s like you you can’t just If if you’re at a track meet, then you can’t just go, everybody go, and you just run your race and then you just there has to be a starting line.

So choosing reality is: “Okay. Yes. I’m anxious. Yes. I’m not sleeping. Yes. I’ve put on 20 pounds, and I didn’t mean to. Yes. My kids don’t like me.”

Whatever. Let’s not solve those problems right out of the gate. Let’s start with reality. What’s the state of your marriage? What’s the state of the job you get up and go to every day? What is the state of your bank account? How much money do you actually owe to other people? What’s the state of your relationship with your mom and dad who are elderly, and one of them is driving you crazy and one of them is on hospice. And so let’s start there because if your marriage is a mess and you owe six figures in student loans, your body would be broken if it wasn’t screaming at you all day long with anxiety. It would not be doing its job telling you you’re not safe because you’re not.

So let’s choose reality. I think everybody’s gonna start at the same starting line, and then we can begin mapping out where to go next.

John Liddle:

I just wanna point out though that I feel like a lot of people avoid reality because they have a fear it’s going to make them more anxious. Like, if I actually looked at the checking account, or if I actually did a budget. Or if I actually climbed on to the scale, then that’s going to make me more anxious or more depressed. But you say, no. That’s exactly why we’ve gotta get in there. So for those of us that have things that we’re avoiding, and I’m raising my hand, and I’m sure a lot of people are raising their hand right now, Why do they need to stare that in the face to start here?

Dr. John Delony:

So the way anxiety works…your body makes you anxious about a particular threat so that you avoid that threat. You miss that threat. If there’s a bear at the front of the cave, if there’s infidelity in your home, your body doesn’t want you dealing with that. It’s not safe because of the ramifications. So what anxiety does is it helps you avoid. And when you avoid, strangely, it makes the anxiety stronger because your body got exactly what it was looking for, which is you to avoid that threat.

And so it goes, “Oh, man. That worked last time. Let’s double click on that, and let’s double click again.” And so you’re actually right. If you are scared about how much money you actually owe and the thought of pulling your three credit reports just makes your heartbeat tick off…go actually do it. You will be more anxious. You’re because your body will go, “Woah! Woah!” 

It’s doing what it’s supposed to, and the only way to feel less burned out, less chronically stressed, less anxious is to head directly into that storm. And I’ll be the first to say, often, I cannot go alone. I don’t have the strength to go alone.

I get overwhelmed. That’s why you gotta have people to go with you, whether that’s a licensed professional counselor, whether that’s a pastor, whether that’s a close couple of buddies that you trust, but you gotta have somebody go with you. But now I’ve been doing this so long, when I start getting anxious, I know exactly I can just head right in. It’s almost like another fist fight, like, “Alright. I can fight this guy.” But at the beginning, man, I had to have a couple buddies fight with me. Right? I wasn’t strong enough.

John Liddle:

Absolutely. You had to. And that’s why connection is so important. And, certainly, for me, I have to have that connection. I’ve got to have those guys around me that, keep me accountable, that make sure to check up on me and me on them. But that is becoming something that is really, really rare in today’s society, and you talk a little bit about why.

Dr. John Delony:

Yeah. Going back to the question you asked before, the challenge with choosing reality, we have what some would call “The Attention Economy.” I would call it “The Distraction Economy.” The whole economy is built on getting you to look over here. And it used to be with a billboard, and so you could only look over there if you’re driving down a particular highway. Now they pump that distraction into our heads 247, 365. They put it in our pockets on buzz.

They put it on our watches. They put it everywhere. And so you really have to wade through billions and billions of dollars and countless neuropsychological researchers who have created systems to keep you distracted. You have to wade through that to find the starting line. It’s insane. Right? Then you put on top of that, trying to find time for a real human in a real conversation in a real world application. It’s become, yeah, it’s become a unicorn moment. Right? So, again, you have to make a choice. I’m opting out of this insanity.

I’m opting out of seven days a week of travel sports. I’m opting out of all these different games and Netflix shows. I’m gonna have to opt out of all of these things and opt into, I’ve gotta have friends. I’ve gotta have friends. We’re the loneliest generation in human history.

What we are doing right now is an experiment that has never been done before. This idea that I can just do life by myself, and I don’t need anybody. And I talk about this in the book, so think about this. How rad is it that I have a cell phone? I could text my wife. I could Marco Polo my wife. I could video myself 100 times a day to tell my wife I love her. I love her. I love her.

That’s amazing. But in the neurological sense, I’ve just sent her data. I have not given her nervous system that peace that comes when I walk through the door and she sees my shoulders drop and the crinkles in my eyes and my arms do this, and I pick up my underwear off the floor for god’s sake. Right? All these things and I just help with bedtime. Right? All these things that let her body exhale and know she’s loved. All that’s out the window because I told you a 100 times today I loved you. I texted you.

I had a button on an app, and somebody sent you flowers for me. You know how much I love you. And so what we’re doing is we are giving everybody a lot of data, and our bodies are starving for true connection.

John Liddle:

And when we choose connection or we choose any one of these things that you talk about, we’re also, to pick something out of your last answer, going to have to say no probably to some other things, maybe tangible things. You talk in the book about how you kinda tried to hack anxiety at one point in your life. You’re like, alright. I’m gonna just help myself be nonanxious about figuring out all these things to do with the systems in my brain, and I’m gonna know what button to push and everything’s going to be okay. But it doesn’t work like that. And as much as we fear simplifying our lives or fear giving up that travel ball for our kid or fear giving up these volunteer opportunities or fear giving up that overtime at work that makes us look like a really good employee to our boss. It’s giving those things up that will eventually lead to freedom.

Dr. John Delony:

In the ‘Choose Freedom’ chapter, I discuss the idea of wiping your calendar clean. Just clear everything off the table and ask yourself one important question: What kind of life do I truly want to live? This realization hit me when I got my first job in higher education at the age of 26. I was probably a decade too young for the position, but it put me in rooms with incredibly wise men and women from diverse backgrounds. I was always the youngest person in the room for 20 years.

Initially, I aspired to become a college president. However, working closely with college presidents and having them as friends made me reconsider my goals. One day, driving home, I thought, ‘I don’t want that life.’ I didn’t want the pressure, complaints, or negativity that came with it. So, I decided to clear my calendar and rethink my aspirations.

A valuable exercise is to envision what you want your home life to feel like. Do you want it filled with tension and chaos, or do you want to walk in the door laughing and feeling warm? I wanted the latter. I wanted my daughter to greet me with excitement, not because of obligations but because we were having a playful sword fight.

To achieve this vision, I had to reverse engineer my life. I couldn’t create that atmosphere if I was drowning in debt or having relationship issues. Everything had to align with the life I desired. We often find ourselves living up to others’ expectations, like the soccer coach dictating our family’s schedule based on fear and unnecessary worries about scholarships and college expenses. It’s all nonsense. We need to break free from these constraints and design lives that truly reflect our desires and values.

John Liddle:

Absolutely. Dr. John Delony is our guest. We’re talking about his new book where we’re building a non-anxious life, and you talk about freedom there in that chapter, and there are a lot of different types of freedom. We’re talking about financial freedom, freedom in our schedules, freedom from clutter as well. That was kind of inspiring to think about. But there is a lot of freedom that we can gain in a lot of different areas of our lives. We’re not just talking about, you know, an eagle and waving an American flag.

Dr. John Delony:

Right. So, I am a quasi prepper. My dad was a homicide detective there in Houston, so, I mean, any day it could all go down. Right? And I think “prepper” is a very elevated fancy way of saying “hoarder.” And so, I was talking to my friend. Her name is Dawn Madsen. She’s a minimalist writer.

She’s very, very, very smart. And she talked to me about this Japanese philosopher, this Japanese minimalist. I think his name was Sasaki, and he man, it totally wrecked me. He talks about every inanimate object in your home constantly having a conversation with you whether you know it or not.

John Liddle:

Yes. This has meant a lot to me. Oh, yes.

Dr. John Delony:

This is so dumb to me. It sounded dumb. I was like, okay, Don. Whatever. Then I went home, And I have in my basement, I’ve got all my hunting gear, all my guitars, my amplifiers, my whole library, two PhDs worth of books everywhere. Right? And I’ve got a little foosball table thing for me and my kids. And I walked in there, and those books were like, “Oh, are you just done reading us? You’re just gonna be stupid forever? You don’t even remember what we said.” 

I was like, “No. No. I’ll get you guys.” And then the guitars were like, “Are you just gonna let the arts go? Are you too cool for your old rock and roll days? Remember we were gonna be something together?” And that foosball table is like “You’re one of those dads who just reads a book instead of hanging out with his kids.” And then I went upstairs, and the dishes in the sink were like, “Oh, you’re one of those crappy husbands that doesn’t even help their wife out with stuff. What a jerk!” And I realized, oh my gosh. All the stuff is screaming at me. Clothes in the closet. “Oh, you’re just gonna you’re just gonna quit working out, You’re just gonna be fat, John, now? That’s that’s cool.”

They just didn’t stop. And so I had to deal with those voices and all of these outside influences, and I had to really take control of that. And B…I dug into the psychology of clutter and realized that the more voices come and the more stuff you’re surrounded by, the louder your alarms are gonna get. Your body lets you know you’re not alright. So I’ve started a slow, slow process of just not becoming a monk and not becoming a minimalist, if you will, but truly, truly decluttering quite a bit, and I’m moving from room to room slowly, slowly, slowly. My house is a disaster right now, but I’m slowly pulling it all apart. And I’m just seeking this home. What I want it to feel like when I walk home.

I don’t want a bunch of books screaming at me that I’m stupid. If I need to read a book, I’ll go get that book. If I need it, I’ll get it. But I don’t want a book on the shelf telling my friends, look how smart this guy is. What a terrible way to live. Right? It’s a facade. It’s fake. So, yeah, clutter, chaos.

Right? We come addicted chemically to chaos. A lot of us grew up in chaotic households, and we recreated them as adults. It’s because it’s what makes our bodies feel not safe, not whole, but it feels normal. Right? It feels comfortable. That’s what we know. And so we have to learn to live in a different way.

John Liddle:

Wow. Dr. John Delony, our guest. And I wanted to make sure to get to this. So hopefully, this is a good time. But anxiety is just an alarm, and you alluded to it a little bit. But we become addicted to the alarms, you say. And what are we doing instead of actually battling the blaze. What’s an example of just attacking those alarms in our life rather than what’s actually going on?

Dr. John Delony:

To fully address this, let’s step back and examine some common narratives about anxiety. We’ve been told it’s a disease, something that descends upon our bodies like catching COVID, or a genetic disorder, akin to having brown hair. It becomes ingrained in our identity. When faced with social situations, the alarm bells ring because ‘I have social anxiety,’ creating a self-imposed barrier to connections and experiences.

Over time, this identification becomes dangerous. There’s discourse in psychological literature about whether we become addicted to stress hormones like Cortisol and Nepinephrine. I tend to agree with Dr. Brewer, who suggests our bodies crave the coping mechanisms we adopt, whether it’s alcohol, illicit texting, intense workouts, or binge-watching. We become addicted to chaos.

I recall a conversation with a counselor after trauma therapy. When asked how I felt, I said ‘depressed.’ She smiled and explained that it was me feeling normal for the first time. It’s like driving at 100 miles per hour, then suddenly dropping to the speed limit of 70. The slower pace feels unnaturally calm because we’re used to the chaos. Our bodies might even manufacture stress to maintain that heightened state.

We need to learn how to live at a more regulated, balanced state, recognizing that this calmer state is the true normalcy we should embrace

John Liddle:

And when we slow down a little bit and we start living at that more regulated state, it seems like that’s where mindfulness can kind of finally get in.And I do appreciate that you put mindfulness after connection and freedom. Not that it has to be in that order, but I I do think that when you’re able to give some stuff up and you’re able to declutter your brain and everything around you, then you can start to look at “Why do I do the things that I do?” And that’s what mindfulness is all about, just trying to get your mind around that.

Dr. John Delony:

Yeah, it’s, well, whenever—I wish I had another word for it—because when I think of mindfulness, I picture some old dude with a beard sitting crisscross on a cloud, you know, just a little bit of a cliché right now. Yeah, mm-hmm. And that’s not what I mean at all. Mindfulness is just about creating a gap between that feeling and what I do next. Right? I feel this, and what am I going to do about it?

For example, if I’m driving at 95 miles an hour on the highway and some driver in a square Kia, it’s always a square Kia, cuts me off blaring house music with the windows down, I instantly get enraged. My body is so heightened, trying not to die at the ridiculous speed I’m driving, weaving in and out of traffic. When someone cuts me off, I immediately think, ‘Oh, that guy’s on drugs, he’s trying to kill me, stupid millennial,’ and I start rattling off stereotypes. But if I’m driving at the speed limit, say 65 or 70, and someone gets in front of me, I have some space. I can make one of two choices. I can rev up and go to war with this person, who can’t hear me, can’t see me, and has no interest in my existence, or I can exhale and think, ‘I hope he makes it to the hospital before his wife passes. I hope he gets there.’ I get to choose which story I follow, which rabbit trail I go down. But I can only do that if I’ve created space, and meditation is a practice of that space.

If I repeatedly practice creating this gap, like noticing a towel on the floor and remembering my wife and I talked about it, I have two paths to choose from. One is better for my marriage, my physiology, my sleep. The other path leads to war. It’s about slowing down, even if it’s just for a microsecond, before I say that thing, do that thing, grab that donut, take a swing at someone, or yell at my kid. Take a moment to ask, ‘Is this really what I’m fired up about?

John Liddle:

Right. Absolutely. Because so often, it’s not.

Dr. John Delony:

It’s almost never. Yeah. It’s almost never.

John Liddle:

I try to look at it from other people’s perspective as well and say, “Why are they doing that annoying thing? I love that perspective that guy must be on the way to the hospital. Their mind’s just not here because they just found out that their aunt died something like that.

Dr. John Delony:

Or something little. Like, think how wild their diarrhea must be for them to…I get to make up whatever story I want. And so what if I made up stories that left me a little more peaceful, a little more kind at the end of the day?

John Liddle:

I love that. So as we move on…health and healing, this is just a such a challenging one for me…Dr. Delony, because it’s just something I’ve battled up and down, and it seems like with my moods and just depending on whether or not I’m just feeling it. You know? There were times in my life where I’ve been a warrior out there running, you know, 30 miles a week or something like that, and then there are times where I’m just sedentary as a rock sitting here. But it really does make a difference to get out there and move.

Dr. John Delony:

In the past six months, there has been a global clarion call. Study after study emerges, suggesting a frontline approach: exercise. Feeling anxious or depressed? Move your body because it’s just as effective as any medication. We weren’t designed to sit in a chair for 14 hours a day, letting our brains race endlessly. However, there’s a distinction between exercise and movement, and the pressure to look like a CrossFit athlete. This book acknowledges that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for exercise, and that’s perfectly fine.

Sometimes, it’s crucial to clear your Instagram feed of fitness enthusiasts who don’t resonate with your reality. Another critical aspect is not letting our feelings dictate our actions. Many of our emotions are misleading. There’s a book titled ‘Don’t Believe Everything You Think,’ and I’d add, ‘Don’t Believe Everything You Feel.’ Take this morning, for instance. I felt exhausted, didn’t want to work out, especially with a long drive and a speaking engagement ahead. However, I recognized the importance of the workout for my day and the event tomorrow, so I pushed through.

This mindset has evolved through counseling and conversations with experts. It’s a balance. Some choices are easy; for me, exercising is one of them. Others, like believing in something bigger than myself, are more challenging. It’s about finding what works for you. Health and healing encompass various actions, from daily walks with loved ones to seeking trauma therapy or counseling. It’s recognizing that taking care of our bodies should be as fundamental as maintaining a car. At the very least, we should treat ourselves as well as we do our vehicles—fill it with fuel, change the oil, and give it the care it deserves.

John Liddle:

And so, Dr. Delony, we get to the final piece, which you kind of, save it for last because you know that for some people, it’s gonna be really tough to wrap their brains around. You talk about people’s lack of belief in something bigger than themselves and how harmful that is. Why is it so harmful to us?

Dr. John Delony:

This chapter was undoubtedly the most challenging for me to write. I knew it would make both my beloved science-minded friends and my fellow Christians uncomfortable. I am a lifelong Christian, and I sensed I was unsettling my community as well. Throughout history, people have looked up to the sky, praying for rain to ensure their children’s survival. Every civilization had gods or higher beings guiding their actions, telling them how to live, what to wear, and when to move. However, in the last 150 to 200 years, we severed these connections, declaring ourselves self-sufficient. We’ve solved numerous problems, becoming increasingly arrogant, yet our bodies remain untethered, lacking connection to something greater.

I reflect on psychological theories that advocate self-actualization, the idea that by fulfilling our desires, we become the center of the universe. Yet, observing our generation, which seemingly has it all, I realize we crumble under this weight. We resort to numbing methods, attempting to support ourselves. What I suggest is that the human body craves connection to something bigger. For me, it’s my Christian faith; for others, different faiths or beliefs may serve this purpose. Even my atheist friends, who believe in the cycle of life and death, recognize the need to submit to a greater existence, acknowledging their place in something larger than themselves. This belief is not about holding tight but about letting go, finding rest in something profound. I recall the story I share in the book about skydiving, an experience where belief for me meant surrendering and resulted in a profoundly transformative moment.

We cannot continue navigating the world, unanchored and untethered from something grander than ourselves. We need this connection, a source of transcendence, to find meaning and purpose in our lives.

John Liddle:

One of my favorite lines in the book, basically, is that, make no mistake…we all worship! Whatever our attention is focused on…we worship. So we take that word, worship, and we think, “Oh, you’ve got to mean God. You gotta mean whatever your deity is.” Like you said, we start worshiping ourselves. We’re gonna let ourselves down.

Dr. John Delony:

I included the entire quote from the great David Foster Wallace, who delivered that iconic speech at Kenyan College (2005). Even as an atheist, he emphasized that everyone worships; denying it is embarrassing. He pointed out that if you worship beauty, you’ll always feel less beautiful than others. If you worship money or achievement, you’ll perpetually chase after the next possession or accomplishment. If you worship accomplishment, you’ll remain bitter about someone breaking your record. The concept revolves around anchoring oneself in something larger, an inherent part of human nature.

Removing the idea of something greater leaves one worshiping oneself, a situation we find ourselves in, especially in this post-reality world. Phrases like ‘my truth’ have become prevalent, which, in my opinion, is madness. While personal experiences and feelings are undoubtedly valid, the notion of inventing one’s own reality is unsustainable. Settling into the acceptance that there’s something beyond oneself is daunting and challenging, yet crucial.

John Liddle:

For some people, it’s a little bit easier. Like we keep saying, you may have that one absolutely down. There may be others that you have trouble wrapping your brain around, that’s where you’re gonna spend most of your time when it comes to this book…and it’s a fantastic book. I’ve got a couple of off the wall questions for you if you’re up to it?

Dr. John Delony:

Let’s do it, man.

John Liddle:

I wanted to ask, how will this tour and your approach to promoting the book differ, especially considering the relatable situation you describe? We’ve all faced moments of disappointment with our kids, and I’m not suggesting it’s solely your responsibility. In the book, there’s a mention of your 5-year-old expressing frustration, likely due to your absence while you were out pursuing your goals and trying to improve your lives. Reflecting on your past tour, what insights have you gained, and how do you plan to approach this one differently?

Dr. John Delony:

I think the first time around for me, and I’m an introvert, which I’m like a public facing person, and I can talk anyone’s ear off, but at the end of the day, man, I love my private time in my basement with my guitars. So the first time through, it kinda felt like the first time you go water skiing and the boat starts to pull you, and it’s that jet blast of water in your face and you think, “Aah!!” And it’s only when you persevere through that that you stand up and everything gets real smooth. Right? And so that first time through felt like that, and I didn’t know enough to stand up. So I just took on about 30 gallons of water. This time though, I was really intentional. Me and my manager and the team that I work with, I really shut down the system for the last 60 days, the last two months really, and spent more time over the top time with kids and also letting them know, I’m about to hit the road, and my wife and I have planned thoroughly.

When I worked in higher education, we used to have a date in the middle of August where we would say goodbye to each other because I had move in and then I had parents and all the drama with the first month of school. And then we have another date at the end of September where we would re-meet each other again. And it was symbolic more than anything, but, hey, the next, you know, the next 60 days are gonna be madhouse, And that was part of our schedule routine. I didn’t do that last time. This time, we have. The other thing that I think is more important, those are all external things. It was important for me to unhook my feelings about how I am as a dad, the truth, and the reality from a 5-year-old.

She’s now 7. There is a like…we don’t let 7-year-olds smoke or drink or buy guns because they’re 7! Why in the world would I outsource my parenting judgment to a 7-year-old? Alright. So a lot of it was me growing up too and saying, there are just gonna be seasons when my 13-year-old son doesn’t like his old man. And that doesn’t mean I’m failing. That doesn’t mean he’s a bad kid. In fact, he’s amazing. Doesn’t mean I’m terrible or anything.

That just means I live with a 13-year-old. And if anyone knows that, it’s a guy that studied, you know, adolescent development. I should know this. A 7-year-old kid’s feelings and emotions are a blender without a top on. And they’re just all over the place. Why in the world would I anchor myself to that? So a lot of the work going into this season, which I actually think that this book is, is already much bigger than the last one already just with presale stuff. And so I think I’ll be even busier this season, But because I’ve done the work on the front end, things are gonna be great. And, by the way, this book is not an antidote to sadness, and it’s not an antidote to heartbreak, and it’s not an antidote to tragedy.

Really, what I’m trying to do is, I think one of the most poignant stories in the book is here’s why you don’t owe people money. Because one of my favorite cousins passed away suddenly out of nowhere. And I don’t owe anybody any money, and so my wife and I got to buy a couple of plane tickets and travel to my hometown, and I got the privilege of just spending a few days being super, super sad. Building a non-anxious life didn’t prevent my loved one from passing away, but it did allow me to grieve. And so all this stuff, your mom’s still gonna get cancer. Your wife is still gonna leave you. Life is still gonna come and hit you right in the mouth. What I’m trying to do with this book is to give people an ability to live a life so when those days come, I have the psychological, the emotional, the spiritual, the community resources to handle those challenges, and I’m not just knocked away and I can’t recover. Right? That’s the purpose here. So life’s still gonna come, man. There’s still gonna be challenges on the road. I’m gonna say the wrong thing. I’m gonna do the wrong thing. I’m gonna get in trouble. I mean, that’s gonna happen.

But, man, I’ve got the capacity now, Spread out between me and my community, my wife, my kids. I’ve got the capacity to handle what comes. Right?

John Liddle:

Absolutely. And a final question for you. You know, I just appreciate, you know, you saying that we’re not broken and anxiety is not a disease. But, with so many people wearing anxiety as a badge of honor or probably as a scarlet letter. And so that they’re either the victim or the hero based on their belief there. How much pushback do you get from saying, basically, that anxiety isn’t a disease? Not that you’re not saying it’s not serious and maybe there’s some intervention necessary for some people. How much pushback do you get there? And how is that playing out as you rock the boat a little bit in that community?

Dr. John Delony:

I mean, the pushback there is very, very minimal, And I think when it comes to the disease factor, I’ve got, you know, I’ve got just the medical science on my side. Where I do get pushback, and I 100% understand it because I would have been first in line to kick and scream, is and I was intentional about this, not in a provoking way, but I was intentional in an empowering way by calling these things choices. And if I was still just riddled with anxiety like I was for years. If I was still struggling with depression, some of these OCD, some of those things, I’d be the first in line to go, “Oh, really? I’m choosing this? Seriously?” And so I think that’s a great question. “Who do you think you are telling me I choose this? Do you think I’m choosing poverty? Do you think I’m choosing for my husband to cheat on me?” And so the challenge is if you follow that line of thinking all the way down, you end up where we are culturally, which is this: Because these things have happened to you, you are broken. You are less than, and somebody has to come rescue you because you can’t do it.

Whether it’s a government, whether it’s a school program, whether it’s a workplace thing that has to come fix you. And what I’m pushing back on is that. And the book is the opposite. I wanna look at every person who can’t breathe and say, “I believe in you even when you can’t.” So it’s a book about hope and empowerment, which is to say your body is screaming at you to get your attention. And it might mean that it’s time to leave that abusive marriage. And I’ve done my homework. I know what this means for your safety and your net worth.

It might be two years of living in a shelter, which is akin to living in hell. I get that. And you’re worth more than getting hit every time you walk in the front door. And so nobody, I don’t believe, is choosing to be anxious. They’re choosing to have their bodies’ alarms ring off the hook like they are. I do choose to go hammer four bags of gummy candies, or to spend recklessly without a budget, and then suddenly, I didn’t make my credit card payment last month. I did choose to not work three jobs and get myself out of my stupid student loan. We do have choices

And what I wanna put back in people’s hands is yes, you’re gonna have to choose to skip dates. You’re gonna have to choose to not eat out. You’re gonna have to choose to even solo it for a while. You’re gonna have to choose to be so busy you can’t see straight. You have to choose for two years to miss all the tee ball games. All of them. And that choice is gonna give you a peaceful home that’s gonna change your family tree is gonna change generational legacy because somebody said, I don’t know how to build a house where there’s not abuse, but I’m it starts with me. It happened to me, happened to my mom, happened to my grandma, and it ends now.

Terry Reel, he writes under the name Terrence Reel. But he says, in effect, family generational trauma rolls downhill like a forest fire through generation after generation until one brave soul turns and stares it down and says enough. And that person brings peace to grandkids and great grandkids that they may never meet because they said enough. And when you turn and stare down a forest fire, you get burned, you get smoke inhalation, it hurts. And you’re giving peace to yourself and everyone that comes after you. So this book is that. It’s an empowerment. And so if you hear it and go, how dare you? I would love for you to also say, “But maybe maybe I can. Maybe I can.”

And that’s the hope of this book is I believe in you even if you don’t.

John Liddle:

Well, if I was gonna give it a review, I would just say you say it’s a book with hope. Absolutely. It is. But it’s also a book where you’re extremely honest about how you’ve lived it, extremely sober about how it really can impact our lives. It is not something to be trifled with, And, you give us some actionable steps. So if you wanna plan, if you want a way to take back control of your life, this is an excellent, excellent book to start with, and I so appreciate your time, Dr. Delony. I really appreciate it!

Dr. John Delony:

Dude, I mean, I’m super humbled by that, and thank you so much. I was afraid you were gonna say, So my honest review is, 2 stars. Yeah. Okay. That would have been awesome. You know? I’m really grateful for you, just thank you so much for your hospitality.