Harvard Psychologist Reveals How THEY Keep You BROKE, Miserable, And Lazy | Dr. John Delony

having a dollar amount is not going to solve this. And I only know that because I've sat and hugged multi-millionaires while their wife is dead in the next room. None of their money can fix that. I think that answer the question, "What are you worth?" is never a number. If it ever is, you cannot have that life and not be anxious, period. Most adults will have four or five deep, powerful, passionate loves in their lifetime. And if they work really hard, it can be with the same person. I'm going to give them a map that works 100% of the time. I really stopped asking like why all the bad stuff. That happens. What's more important for me is So, first of all, we have to say we are so appreciative of everyone at Ramsey Solutions. We're back with John Delony. Really appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Dude, thanks for your hospitality. Let me hang out with you guys. Absolutely. So, what do you say to people who ask what you do? This is such a weird diversion for what I was doing for the last couple of decades that I still haven't fully wrapped my head around what it all is. And so, I just tell people I'm a mental health guy. So, what did you do the last few decades? I was a dean of students at different universities and a professor. I was just a nerd and an academic nerd and then I would sit with people when their world had exploded. Um and I just did student conduct stuff. So, I was the guy that was like, "Hey, you can't sell drugs." Or I was the guy investigating sexual assaults. Or I was the guy calling parents and saying, "Hey, your kid's not going to make it through the night. You need to come." So, most of my job There was a There was a front-facing component where you You talk and do all that, but most of it was sitting with people just like this. So, the term for that, I believe, is crisis management. Yeah. That's where I lived. And then I worked in the police department doing that, too. Yeah. But, what would that often entail? So, people come to you when they when they have a crisis and you calm them down or you walk them through that Um that that crisis? So, if I showed up So, one of my responsibilities with the police department was I'd get a text on my phone and it would just say 10-87 and an address. So, 10-87 was the police code in that area for someone has died. And uh sometimes it was a 4-year-old, sometimes it was a 22-year-old that had taken their life, sometimes it was a 98-year-old that had that had just passed away. And you show up and sometimes my job was to meet mom in the in the driveway and they would say, "She cannot come in this house and see her kid like this." And but if a mom came in and started screaming and yelling and hitting police officers, now we got a whole other issue. So, my job was to sit with mom and say, "You don't want to go in there. Let's go this way." And to be real honest, your kid has died. And here's what's about to happen. So, some of it was very direct, some of it was sitting with somebody just I mean, their their whole world has exploded, right? Sometimes it was trying to walk people through what has happened. It was It was all over the place. How do you gauge what to do and how to feel out that situation versus, you know, being really gentle with someone or being very matter-of-fact? How do you differentiate the two and how do you decide which route to take to help somebody? That's a good question. I Um one of the cornerstones I was trained with and I did this terribly in my in my higher ed world the first probably five or 10 years I did it. Um was facts are your friends. Cuz Cuz what we want to do is like Like I know Let's pretend I know your 13-year-old son is is dead in that room. Yeah. And you can show up and I'll be like, "Hey, listen, there's been a really tough, you know, heart." And she sees the lights. You know, you're the dad, you see the lights, you see people coming and going, you see everybody kind of looking at the floor. You know. And then they're looking at me and I'm like, "Well, you know, so like there was a It was a dark and stormy night." There's something about saying, "I need you to come over here with me. I need you to hold my hand." And looking you in the eye and saying, "Your son has died. He's inside that room. He's died by died. And this is what's about to happen." Then, once we have the information out there, then starts the your body goes through natural set of processes and And then we circle back with them 1 week, 2 week, 3 weeks later. Sometimes they had no money, they had no resources. Sometimes some a loved one had died and they had no dollars. And so, they don't know where they're going to be buried. I mean, they don't even know How tough is that on you? It got heavy. It gets heavy. Um it's it's something I've done for so long that it got heavy, but also I've got a It's my responsibility as as like a mental health guy and a crisis guy that I've got a routine and a a set of practices that keep me whole so I can keep going back in. How did you get into doing that? Were you always just like the the the crisis guy growing up that people might come to you for their problems I mean, a little bit, but not really. My dad was He was a homicide detective in Houston, so for a massive big company I mean, a big a big city. And he was a SWAT hostage negotiator. So, if someone was going to Wow. had a bomb in a building or if somebody was going to jump off a building or had hostage, they'd call my dad. So, I just grew up in that world. And I grew up knowing like whenever there was something going on downtown or something was on the news, I just have these very vivid memories of my dad put on his bulletproof vest and put on his like on his little button-up flannel and he had a little smile and say, "I'm I'm going to head out." So, I just have a very distinct when things get sideways, you go in. You said that you have certain practices that you employ to keep yourself grounded and sane in a pretty insane job, an insane environment. What were those practices? I don't have any proof to back this up. I think there's a wiring issue. Um we used to watch our colleagues. You walk into a house and see a somebody has died, right? There are people who will just instantly like They They just recoil. That's a great word. And then there's those that instantly like lean in, right? And so, I I don't know where that comes from. I'm sure there's some nature, nurture, something or other, but I think there's that's a component. The second one is um I Like I said, like I just watched. I just grew up with people My dad also participated in our big our giant local church. And so, people were always coming to the house at late at night, calling late at night to help my dad. My dad would help them walk through whatever wild situation. So, I just grew up knowing You know, when you when you see your dad, like that's just what every dad does. More of a stoic. And well, it's not even a stoic. It's just like you enter in and you provide calm. You get to be You get to go bananas later, but right now And so, for me, when things get bananas, I get real still. And I I I I wish I knew how that happened. The burden is if you do that day after day, night after night, you can't hold that, right? It starts coming out on your kids, it comes out on your family, you become a jerk at work. Um you treat the lady at the cash register like you're a real real jerk. You think you're suppressing some of that just to eventually be uncapped even like later? What we still in counseling, we call it leakage. Like it will find a way out. You can manage the release of it or it will come out. And usually it comes out at a real inopportune moment. I'm curious if you ever had to tell somebody that a loved one had passed away and they just had no reaction at all. Mhm. Yeah. Every Every That's like the some of the frustrating things with the political dis- discourse. Like if somebody comes in, I'm going to do You have no idea. Like I've stumbled I stumbled into an active shooter situation at a at a university. I walked into I had heard something was going on. I walked into the university. It was one of where I worked. I walked in, texted the one of the guys on that was involved live. And I was like, "Hey, man, like where's sit?" And I was kind of smiling. And I got an up all caps, bold uh all caps response, "This scene is live." I'm in I just walked straight in the middle of the school. I didn't know where this was. Some of my students that were in my particular part of the school, some of them were hiding. I was saying, "Hey, this is Delony. Everybody, it's okay." They didn't come out. They didn't know. They might have been me. Yeah. Right? And I'm thinking, "I'm the the guy that they trust." And they're like, "I don't I'm trusting you." Like I just got a text. And then some people are like walking out in the hallways up So, responds differently to crisis. Everybody responds differently. You tell somebody to go catatonic, sometimes they just start crying, sometimes they're like, "No, they don't." Like they just Like everybody's the the reality of the situation. Do you get that as well? Yeah, they just can't because we don't have a picture of your life without your child, right? You don't have your picture of your life without your spouse or writer or whatever. Yeah. How do you find a way to relate to those people in that moment if they're having a hard time processing the information that you're telling them? How do you ease them into that? I don't know that I don't know that easing is the goal. I think the goal is I need you to stay with me. So, some of the things we would do is um sometimes I would often touch is real important because it brings you right here, right? Sometimes there's hand-holding. One time somebody's having a panic attack in these parking lots here. It was not related to anybody had died, but they were having a panic attack. And I drove up and there was seven or eight people leaning in the car. They tried They were trying to be loving and kind and help out. And I just asked them all to move and I asked the person to come out and I took her hand and I said, "I'm going to hold your hand. Um We put your hand on my chest." And she did. We just walked around the parking lot. And we counted lines in the parking lot. And all I'm trying to do is get her limbic system to re- like get her frontal lobe to re-engage, right? All the stuff just happened, but you're here now and you're okay. What just Your world is not, but you're okay. So, sometimes in the middle of the night, we're walking on the sidewalk counting cracks, sometimes we're counting trees. It's just trying to bring somebody into We're okay right now. How does that affect your outlook to see so much I don't want to say negativity, but let's just say loss Yeah. so often? How does that affect your outlook? I've really wrestled with that. So, there's a there's a funny story. It's not so funny, but kind of funny. So, one time when I was a little kid, I was maybe 10 or 11. I had a little league practice and my dad took me to little league practice. And I was running out the back door. I I jumped in his car and we drove to practice and we came home. And I lived in this little suburb. I mean, it was like Pleasantville. And we pull up into down a long We had a long driveway. We pulled in the driveway. And dude, I'd left the back door wide open. And it We have a fence and then but the door is open. And my dad looked at me, said, "Did you leave that door open?" And I was like, I was a kid and he goes, "I knew it." And he opens his jacket and gets a gun out and clears the house. Now, he was a licensed peace officer. This was his job. But I remember being young going, that feels like a lot, right? But 100% of his day was dealing with things that never happened, right? You and I walk down an alley after a concert, we'll do that a thousand times in our life. His day was spent that one time somebody comes out with a hatchet and kills us all, right? And so it does skew your bell curve. Strangely for me, knowing that growing up, I've tried to hit the pendulum so far the other way that um I really stopped asking like why all the bad stuff. I think we can look around and and we're not taking care of each other. We're not like that happens. What's more important for me is are people showing up in other people's mess to help. And I just keep seeing people show up. And so like I'm pretty optimistic about it. By the way, guys, we traveled all the way to Nashville to be able to make this episode and stuff like that can be incredibly expensive. So shout out to NetSuite for sponsoring this podcast to make stuff like that possible. Because I'm sure you guys are aware, running a business could be very challenging and trying to keep it organized with different softwares could be a waste of time and energy. Thankfully though, with today's sponsor NetSuite, all you have to do is remember three numbers: 37,025 and one. 37,000 because that's how many companies have switched to NetSuite and stop doing things like manual data entry and searching through scattered information. 25 because NetSuite has spent 25 years helping businesses drive down their costs. And one because NetSuite is an all-in-one solution that allows you to manage all of your KPIs or key performance indicators with one efficient system. NetSuite can help reduce the mistakes from manual data entry and if you've ever done that, you know there will always be mistakes and help prevent the busy work from scaling with your business. So get a full picture of your business and help make better decisions faster. Right now, download NetSuite's popular KPIs checklist for free at netsuite.com/iced. Again, that's netsuite.com/iced, iced, i c e d, to get your free KPIs checklist. It's completely free at netsuite.com/iced. Thank you so much NetSuite and back to the episode. How did you mix finance then with crisis management? Where did the overlap even begin? I don't think I've gotten into finance. I I mean, my story to end up here was I was at Belmont University as the chief student affairs guy and I was giving a talk to parents and students and Dave Ramsey's executive vice president was in the audience and she said, I'm hiring that guy. And so for almost two years, 18 months, we sat in rooms and we're like, we don't have like a mental health or marriage thing, but we know that personal finance has very little to do with math. And I kept looking at it going, yeah, dude, you're asking people math questions. Like this is a physiology question or this is a relationship issue. And Dave's like internally, he's like, you know, I've been telling people to go see see a counselor for 30 years. I'm just going to hire one. And so that's that's where the partnership came. My frustration and I've circled back to my graduate school professors was now learning how much how how much couples fall apart with money issues on across the board, dealing with their parents' issues or is my grandma going to move in? We can't afford that or I don't want a credit card. I do. Separate checking accounts. All those different arguments. I not only did I not have a course on that in grad school, I didn't have a single three-hour class on the importance of personal finance and mental health. It just didn't exist. Nobody even thought to talk about it. That's insane. That's madness. And so what I'm trying to do now is bridge like personal finance is one of many challenges that we that we face and that we have enough numbing agents to not have to deal with it. When you're studying mental health in college, I hear that they don't really reinforce, like you said, financial issues and how that can cause mental instability in the same way that diet and exercise and getting sunlight and being social can do the exact same thing. Like all of those are extremely important for mental health. Yet a lot of the times they talk about like the different, you know, cortisol levels and these medical things. Well, and in like so take what Huberman does, right? I mean, he's a Stanford Medical School professor and he knows the interplay between dopamine and that stuff's super important and it's it's especially for scientists or people who want to take a deep dive. What I've come to find out after leaving higher ed, and this is something Dave really instilled in me, which I am grateful for. Um let's let's leave the deep dive economic stuff to those who are really interested in it. 99% of Americans are can't breathe cuz they they don't have enough financial margin in their life at all. They don't know what to do. I'm going to give them a plan that works 100% of the time even if somebody wants to draw like loop-de-loops around and be like, well, you know, you can do this works for the truck driver who just has three kids and is just trying to be a better dad and his dad left and he has no picture of what that looks like. I'm going to give him a map that works 100% of the time and it's going to suck because getting out of debt, not owing people any money, being free, that sucks. It's hard. But I'm going to give that dude a map. And so I think for me, dude, I spent years in grad school studying neurochemistry. It's great. It's awesome. It's fun. I'm going to concede that. I'm going to let some minds who are so dude, Peter Attia and Andrew Huberman, those guys are so much more than I'll ever be. Great. That's awesome. I'm so glad their voice is out there. I'm going to channel my energy into this single mom with three kids and she's like, I don't know what to do. I don't know where to turn. I got you. I'll I'll show up and I'll sit here and we'll figure that out. And I think both are valuable. I think what happens is this person who can't breathe maybe goes to this to try to figure that out. The same as y'all meet the a 22-year-old who has a hundred grand in student loan debt and has a new car they just bought cuz they got a new job. They're making 62,000 and their dad made 40, so they think they're a millionaire at 22. And then they're asking you guys like, all right, so if I buy an apartment complex and then I flip it and roll it on a and you're like, all right, let's slow down, right? Like you're you're going to the wrong people for the the challenge that you have that faces you right now. Yeah, so how much of finance is behavioral? I don't have any data on it, but I think I would say 80 to 90%. I don't think finance is that hard. And what are the steps what are the what's the map that you give that truck driver that you would give to anybody? For me, the I approach it psychologically then. So I've sat there and listened to Dave walk through bond rate derivatives and I'm like, my head falls off. I'm like, oh, that dude's a savant. And then he sits down and says, hey, here's get out of debt, right? So for me, I'm going to tell that truck driver, I'm going to want you to consider something you never considered and that's choose choosing freedom. If your body, if your amygdala knows, the part of your brain that is always scanning for fear, right? I'm way oversimplifying it, but it's always getting 24/7, 365. Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? If it knows here that if you get fired from your job, they're going to take your cars, your house, your kids will have no food. If you think on like through evolutionary psychology, if your brain let you sleep at night, it would be failing you because the the threshold between you losing your home is so thin. It's dependent on that crazy boss you have. That's that's the that person who tells you, you will show up on this day. You'll work on Saturdays. That's the person that decides whether you have a home or not. That's madness when you think on what we're asking our brains to do for us. And then you dump in buying depreciating assets on 70 months, you know, at 7% and like your brain does the math. It knows, oh dude, if this doesn't work, they take our cars. And so it your brain would be failing you if you don't have any friends. If you're lonely and it detects that you're lonely, you got nobody in your gang. It would be failing you if it let you sleep all night. If it let you have a deep intimate moment with your romantic partner because it's trying to not die cuz it's designed, okay, you're going to watch over the hill, you got the kids, I'll go get food. That's how we're wired. We grew up in tribes. And all of a sudden like we're all just by ourselves in our suburban home or in our apartments. And so um when I'm going to sit down with that guy, I'm going to say, hey dude, what if we did this? What if you chose freedom? What if you owed nobody anything? Nobody can take your house. Let's start there. Nobody can take your truck. Let's start there. And that concept is madness. They're like, what? Like, yeah. You can't even imagine a world where that that can't happen. And so most people want to hammer this side of the teeter-totter. And I think this side is fun, dude. I think this side like wealth accumulation is a blast. It's it's fun to figure out. But I think for 99% of it not that's probably an overstatement, but for mass amount of Americans, dude, let's just be free first. Like the inflation, if you don't owe anybody money, it's annoying. It's annoying. You know what I mean? And I say this after 15 years of me and my wife working through this. When our air conditioner went out, the biggest fight we had was who had to call. You know what I mean? Like you call him, dude. Like, no, I'm not calling. Like, oh, you call. Like, I hate calling him. You call. That was it was not like face in hands, somebody weeping, what are we going to do? Like we got three kids or two kids. It was the phone call, right? And so that's freedom. All right. So is that just about getting them to realize that they just need to start? Cuz I I have a feeling a lot of people know what they should be doing, but they're choosing not to do it or they keep postponing. See, I don't I don't think they know. I don't think people have a psychology for not having a house payment. I don't think people have a psychology for not having a car payment. do think that people know they should spend less than they make. They should eat less food if they want to lose weight. They should go to the gym. They should do these very basic things. And in terms of spending less than you make, I think everyone can agree objectively, you should spend less than you make right on even a monthly basis. Every six months. So why don't people do that? Um I think we've been put in an environment we've created I don't know if we've been put in it we've created an environment that our bodies weren't designed to live in. Our neurochemistry is based on you get cherries once a year for a couple of weeks. And so, the dopamine system is designed for anticipate, anticipate, anticipate. Oh, there it is. There it is. It just doesn't have a road map for. You can get cherries 365 You can get it delivered to your house all day, every day. Why why would you have cherries when you can have gummy cherries, right? And similar to I can't afford My granddad couldn't afford My parents had My parents shared a car. My dad had a police cruiser, but my parents shared a car cuz that's what they could afford. And they knew less than because anything other wasn't an option. Well, now it's like, "What are you driving that for? It's not safe. It's not smart. That's not even who you are. You don't identify with those people. You don't identify with them." I've heard people from stage say, "I watch to see who drives in the parking lot for a job interview and if they're driving a bad car, we won't hire them." Right? And so, that's the messaging that goes out and then somebody comes up with a 72-month payment plan on a depreciating asset. It it it would be stupid It feels like it could be stupid not to do that. And so, when it wasn't an option, you didn't. When you ate oranges once a year cuz that's they're on the tree, that was awesome. And then now, you get oranges all the time. So, there's just So, you think it's just temptation? That it's so easy and they make it so easy. temptation sounds almost characterological like like I think it's deeper than that. I think the system is is been hacked. I think part of it's consequences. I don't think we have stronger consequences. We do. You can just you're able to punt them. To avert them? Our country owes $32 trillion. Right, but who's suffering? There are no consequences. Yet. It's just a Right. And so, we've lived in this window where for the last 10 or 15 years, we've accumulated more wealth than ever before in human history and now we're saying, "Oh, we know how to do this." And it's like, "Bro." You know what I mean? It's like uh we just happen to be in this sliver of history when there was this this a bailout and a fix and what do they call it? The Soft landing. Soft landing, right. It's very illusory. But also for losing weight and other things that people could be doing on a daily basis to improve their life cuz the benefit, the yield, and the consequence, they're so far out in the future that you can't realize it, I think. And they're incredibly boring. Yeah. Yeah. Like you want to lose weight? Like on a consistent basis, eat less than eat calories in, calories out. And I know like the Dude, you're going to get hate on that just for that one statement. But like and exercise. Yeah. Tada! You know what I mean? But the thing is, once you start seeing progress when you're exercising similar to Kyle Forgeard, whatever, because he Oh, that was an incredible transformation. He did a 120-day challenge where every day for 120 days, he ate less, went to the gym. It was 6 days a week. 6 days a week and it transformed him completely. Completely. It's so inspirational. It makes me want to start it immediately. Okay, but but but but but the thing is, he said in the description of that, he's like, "It really was hard until I saw progress. Now I'm addicted to it." So, it's like you got to push to the point of seeing the actual consequence of your actions and once you see that, then it's okay. And I think I think we're so aesthetically focused, I don't stop to ask myself and this is another neurochemical thing. We lose all the good stuff, right? Y'all can put out an episode and 99.9% of the comments are like, "This is amazing. Awesome. Awesome." And one dude's like, "This is terrible. A, you guys suck. B, why'd you do your hair like that? C, Why are you wearing that jacket like that? Your math was wrong, right?" That is the comment that just stews and stews. And so, I think we're focused on how do we look? How do we look? How do we look? What transformed me when it comes to exercise was I started asking myself, "How do I feel? How do I feel the next day after I work out? Kind of sore, kind of awesome, right?" And that was the transforming cuz I was reflective on it. I wasn't just looking for this this uh like how do I look, right? What's the aesthetic? But before we go into that, I know we've said this before, but the equipment that we use here at The Iced Coffee Hour is insanely expensive. And when we went to Ramsey Solutions to film this episode, it was mind-blowing. The cameras that they used are like four times the size of ours. But thankfully, if you want to get into content creation similar to this, you don't have to spend an arm and a leg to get started, all thanks to our sponsor, StreamYard. For those unaware, StreamYard is a high-quality streaming and recording service that allows you to get started right from your browser with just the click of a button. We've actually been using their software for years now and have been blown away by everything they have to offer. So, when they reached out to sponsor our episode, obviously we're going to say yes because we're truly a fan of what they do. They also have a really cool feature called multistream, which basically means you can live stream yourself and they put that live stream on every single platform all at the same time. That means that you're going to be able to maximize the organic growth and trust me when I say this, if you're not on every single social media site, you're missing out and you're holding yourself back. So guys, let StreamYard help you out with that and click the link down below to try them out for completely free. Graham, how much does it cost? $0. Free. It's completely free to try out. Click the link down below. Thank you so much, StreamYard, and back to the episode. Why do we focus on that one negative comment? Why does that happen? It's again, it's a quirk in how our our bodies have evolved, but if there's a like a twig snapping in the woods, your body's better off overreacting to a negative stimuli. So, it will jump and it's a frog. And then and it jumps and it's a bird. The time it doesn't and it's a bear, you're done, right? So, wired into us is you look for the bad stuff and you avoid it and you think about it and avoid it and avoid it and avoid it because bad stuff got you killed. Now, there's so much bad stuff coming at us all the time forever in every direction that our brains are just a constant soup of stress chemicals. So, one thing that's been going on on the Instagram algorithm is uh they that you even know that. I mean, it's it's it's horrible. They they show you like gore videos, like very violent videos and there used to be these sensitivity things that would pop up and be like, "Are you sure you want to watch this reel?" Okay. And you click yes and then it could be somebody getting ran over by a car, something horrible happening to like a dog. It's and and this stuff has like millions and millions and millions of views. Mhm. And I'm sure so much of the audience Graham, he curates his reels so he doesn't see any of it. is wholesome. Exactly. But for a lot of people viewing this, they know exactly what I'm talking about. What does that do to the human brain to be exposed to that stuff? That's what you're talking about. Like so, my dad, it shifted his bell curve as to what was normal. And it shifted to if you go down an alley, you're going to get killed. Even though statistically speaking, But it's distant on Instagram. It's kind of just seeing random people and But it begins to send So, it's the same way the media started saying, "Hey, we're going to report on the murders in Houston where I grew up." to Oh, when there's a murder, everybody stops. So, they're doing it like watch. And so, all these media outlets are publicly traded. So, they have a vested financial interest not in telling you the truth, but in getting you to watch, getting your attention, getting you click on something. And so, they create rules. You will You will report a murder every episode, period. If you look sometimes, it's like, you know, so-and-so killed in Ohio and you're in southern Arizona, right? They're going to report it. So, I think what it has is a twofold a dampening effect. Like th- things don't outrage us anymore. They don't scare us to like we're like, "Ugh, oh well." And you go on to the next thing and um you've you've heard the title from the great Bessel van der Kolk book, The Body Keeps the Score. Intellectually, we're like, "Oh, yeah, that happens. Guy's hit by a car. Ooh, want to see another one." Here, your body begins putting GPS pins in cars and television shows and people that don't look like you and people that don't think like you cuz your body's still catching keeping the threat log, right? Mhm. And so, you get this really tiny circle of what's safe and who's safe. And when your body gets scared, it instantly divides the world up into us and them. Who's in my tribe and who's not? And dude, so you watch that steadily, it shifts your bell curve on how the world works cuz it's not true, right? And um your threat system is running all the time. It's not good for you. It's why like murder podcasts, dude, they're so captivating and they're not good for you. Is it better to be ignorant of what's going on and be very selective in terms of the information that you that you get? Um I wrestle with that cuz my solution for me has been to opt out. Me, too. And I don't think that's If everybody opts out, society collapses, right? Or tyranny happens. People are allowed to do what they want to do. So, I do think it's important to opt out for a season and I also think you can opt out totally or you can opt out specifically. Like I'm just going to check this for news. This is where I'm going to go. And I'm not going to go to infotainment or the sensationalist. I'm just not going to do that. Some of it is turning your phone turning the colors off on your phone. Some of it is turning the colors off on your television set so you don't see the shock. And all that stuff is is We've done a few podcasts with people who purposely make their phone black and white. go. Right. It doesn't trigger your brain. Correct. So, some of that some of that is yeah, you know, here or there. I just don't find a lot of value in the shock and awe. I much prefer to look at the data and what I know is when my brain goes into fight or flight, it shuts off the critical thinking part of what comes next. I'm not able to assess the situation because biologically, my brain didn't want me asking, "Is that a Is that a sweet tiger? Is that the nicest It wants me to get out of there or to get a stick and fight it, right? Fight or flight. And so, I know that if news alert, dun dun dun, murder in I'm out. I'm not critically thinking. Is this even my neighborhood? How pervasive is this? Is this the overreporting of murders when actually they're going down except in a couple of selects. I can't do that cuz my body's my body's in it. Do you think it would be possible for a news outlet to succeed if it's only good information? I don't know. I I would hope my succeed in the marketplace right now, probably not. I think that's a greater conversation we need to have about a public good. I remember when I first went to college, it was in a democratic society. Everybody needs to have a foundational layer of information. We need to know how the country started. We need to know how the country works. Everyone needs to read the Constitution. We need to have some of these core understandings together. Yeah. That way somebody can't come and say, "Hey, this is the truth." cuz we'll be like, "No, it's not." Yeah. And then and colleges did it to themselves, a study came out and it said, "If you go to college, you're more likely to make more money over this period of time." Well, now we turned it into an individual good. And then states started deregulating tuition and they can charge you whatever. And then it got out of control because then it became about you. And now it's like, I don't even need to I don't need to learn anything. I can get on YouTube, right? And so you're we're drowning in shallow water right now. I would tend to agree with that. I would even uh you know, I got really into the YouTube algorithm for years. And in 2020 through 2023, I'd post three videos every week. Okay. And I would know the video performance and how it would do ahead of time based on whether the market was up or down. If the market was up 1%, I knew that the video would perform probably 20 to 30% worse than if the market's down. Anytime the market's down or it's more of a negative uh you know, day, let's just say, viewership goes up. Consistently. Okay, so people are more attracted to the loss. Imagine if you're the head of a hedge fund and you determine that. Or you're the head of If things are great, who watches the news? Mhm. If things are bad. And so if I have a giant uh fund portfolio and I'm going to need to jack these advertising rates up to make my quarterly I'm going to tell my news people y'all got to y'all got to get some more eyes. And what's the way to get somebody's eyes somebody's eyes? You're going to die, right? I want to hear that story, right? And so it becomes not real real quick. But I think it also goes the same with loss aversion. I I think it was I'm going to butcher this, but if you have a dollar, the pain of losing 20 cents was equivalent to the pleasure you would get of gaining another dollar. So it was heavily skewed that a little bit of loss is more painful than the joy you get from doubling your money. Yeah, I think that was Connonman did some extraordinary work on that and I don't remember the exact but I remember there was we're terrified of loss aversion and we don't think of gain aversion, right? We don't think we only calculate if I take this risk and I lose. We don't think, "Dude, what could you gain?" Right? We don't have that calculation. Why is that? Because one got us killed 10,000 years ago and one just got us more berries. And evolutionarily, more berries is cool right now. This ends the gene pool for you, right? So we're just so heavily weighted on loss. In crisis, you say truth is like the one thing and just the cold, hard truth that brings that person back down to earth and keeps them grounded. Do you think that also in less critical situations, just like dealing with small issues and stuff like that, like there is never a time really to be to be white lying to somebody? Let's say your wife doesn't look great in a dress, you tell her, "Hey, yeah, you don't look great in the dress." You should always be honest. Yeah. Yeah, I I I'm I'm running out of reasons. I'm running out of like ways that that makes any sense. Where I think we um cash out is that takes a level of relationship investment that happens over the course of time. For her to be able to trust me, if my wife says, "Hey, do I look beautiful in this?" be like, "Hey, you're always beautiful. I probably wouldn't wear that." For her to not go her body immediately flood with cortisol and adrenaline, "Oh, he's going to leave me. Oh, he hates me. He doesn't think I'm beautiful. I knew it." and it validates some story she her dad may have told her and her granddad may She's able to go, "Dude, that dude loves me. Awesome." And she goes and changes, right? So it takes a lot of work to get there. Most of us either A don't know how to do that work or it's so painful we don't do it. And so then we get to this point and it's like it's easier just to be like, "Yeah, you look great." But that's unhealthy. I think any secrets, especially in a senior employment relationship or secrets in a romantic relationship, ultimately kill you. Yeah. They're just not good. How did you meet your wife? Her brother introduced us and he said, "Hey, I think you're going to marry my sister." What? So he knew you? We went to college together and she was a year younger. So she came up on a high school visit when I was a freshman in college. And he's like, "Hey, you need to meet my sister." And I had long hair and I I was so desperate. I wanted to be in a metal band so bad. And she was like a West Texas farm girl, had like a braided belt and we looked at each other and I may have shaved my head by this time. Dude, I was a mess. And I looked at her and I was like, "Yeah, no." And she looked at me and she's like, "No." And then she came to the university there the next year and then we dated for 5 years. We've been together 21 and 1/2. So why how do you get this this phase? A lot of people they go through phases in their life where they just like shave their head, they get a tattoo, they grow their hair out long, they start wearing like, you know, crazy studded jeans. It's like why does that even I don't understand that. I've never feel like I've I've went through a phase. You haven't ever gone through a phase, I don't think. Not not to that degree. I had longer hair, but not Yeah, but it's not crazy. It's affiliation. But why is there a common theme in college where like some people will go through a phase where they're like experimenting with certain parts of their lives and I think everybody does it. Y'all do. I just maybe mine hasn't been visual, you know? That's exactly right. That's exactly I it's it's about affiliation and it's where do I fit and where do I belong and who will who will accept me. And so we we try on these like, "I'm going to be this guy." I remember I was wearing like a Pantera shirt, long shorts that were like cut off at my shins. I had black socks and black Converse. I remember this. And I went to pick up my buddy at a giant research university and I was a sophomore in college like he's a sophomore. And I was sitting in the lobby and some just college bros walked by and one guy looked at me. He didn't say anything. He didn't even give me an ugly face and I remember going looking at him being like, "I look stupid." You know what I mean? I just like I was but I was trying it on. I was trying it on. I was like, "Okay, this is stupid." But he was important. It wasn't me. I was it was wearing a costume. It wasn't me. And so I think I think those things are valuable and important. Um most I'll say most many people are not allowed to do that. You will wear what your mom and dad say you wear. You will wear like what your football coach says you will wear. Like and so like in my football coach we he used to pull us it was Texas like If you've seen Friday Night Lights, that's real. He would pull our hair down and if it went below our our eyebrows, we couldn't play. Like we had to get a haircut. And so when you go to college, the first thing you do is like grow out your hair out dog and then you realize, "Uh he's probably kind of right. Not not totally, but I get it." So I think I think practicing those things, but it might be um I know everything about a thing. I know everything about personal finance. I know everything about this. I know how all of it and that's where your community is. And I think one difference How old are you? 33. Okay, so I do think there's a generational difference. I'm 45. Where we had to do that in person. We had to try these things on in person. The generation right be like so year two, y'all get to try that online. So I get to try to be this. I get to think these jokes are funny. I get to respond to these things and then you're like, "That's stupid. This is kind of cool. These people like so I think everybody's trying stuff on all the time. I think there's some I think there's some I think it can be healthy. It's when it becomes when we adopt a group think innately we know that's not us. It's not that's when it becomes really not healthy. Yeah. So when you met your now wife you said that you guys were like Instantly no. Yeah, but then how did you cross that bridge? When did you first showering. That was a huge that was a big thing. Um here's what it was. Um she grew up in West Texas. Her dad was a worked in rodeo, was a pro bass fisherman and a teacher. And her mom was a teacher. She had and they lived outside of town on 6 acres. And so she had this particular view of the world like inside of how the world worked. My school had 4,000 students in it. I was in a big city. I played in punk clubs in Houston. Like I I was my world and I was a starter on the varsity football team. So I have this world. I didn't know that every football game doesn't have 8,000 people at it. I didn't that was I didn't know. I was 18. I didn't know that everyone didn't know people in punk bands. That was all I knew, right? And so she saw me at a freshman event like a like a fish camp kind of thing like where freshman go. And I was playing guitar and singing and she was like, "I think I love that guy." right? And that was a new thing she had ever seen. And I had I had a picture of of people who dress like that and listen to that kind of music are like that. And then we had a conversation. I was like, "Oh, she's not like that at all." That was me being 18 and the beauty the reason I love college so much is you get to like this is how you do Christmas and that's how your family did it. Until you meet your roommate and they're like, "Y'all open presents the day before?" And then you realize, "Oh, there's a billion different ways to do Christmas. There you don't even have to do Christmas." And then my neighbor is Jewish and do Hanukkah. Like, "What?" And so you realize, "Oh, that's how the world like there's so many different pictures." And so we started talking and then realized we had a lot in common. She just had a lot like we she was this version in this place and I was this version. And then we got to decide we want to create a new version together. So what did her brother see in you? How did he know this before you guys met? know. I've asked him that before and he's like, "I don't know. I just don't." He's he works for the railroad. He's got a master's degree in education. Yeah, he's brilliant. Um and he works with his hands and he just is like, "I don't know. I just I knew you'd be a good man for my for my sister." And the interesting he was awesome. Right when we started dating he goes, "Hey, I can't I can't be your friend anymore." And I was like, "Why?" And he goes, "You're dating my sister." And it was so pragmatic. And he was right. And he's like, "Okay." And then a couple years later when we got serious then we were friends again. I I don't get it I don't get He sets you up with her and then says we can't be friends. I I I don't understand the lack of the friendship. want to hear stories about the guy dating my sister. it could be just like don't tell me about what's going on with her. Just keep that contained. I see but I don't want a friend that it's going to have to hedge. I don't want that. I don't want that. He didn't want that. So it worked out. In a practical sense. It worked out perfect. And then how long did it take when you were dating her to know that okay 5 years. So that's how long it took to know you could spend the rest of your life with her. Yeah, cuz I was a immature coward. What happened then? When Did she Did she civilize you? Um no. I don't think that was it. I think I went through a natural maturation process. I grew up. And there's only so much like I grew up. And I had a picture of what growing up looked like. Um my favorite one of my favorite mental health quotes of all time is from Esther Perel and she says, "Most adults will have four or five deep powerful passionate loves in their lifetime." And if they work really hard it can be with the same person. And so I think when I met her when I was 18 and I married her when I was what 24 I was a different human. Hopefully I went through college. I started I would have 2 years as a public high school teacher. I hope I'm different. And then from 24 to 30 my god I was a train wreck. And I hope I'm different after 30. Why read a book? Why listen to a podcast if you're not going to become different on the back end? And then 35 a whole different guy. And then 40 So think about the 18-year-old who wants to be in a metal band with long hair doesn't bathe who then shaves his head and is like, "I'm going to" Then I became student body president of my university. And then she's married to the dean of students of a university right of a billion-dollar university here. And now she's married to a podcast right? So it's the whole thing keeps shifting. I think that we hold on to who you were versus dude how awesome is this we get to grow and create this new thing together on an ongoing basis. So one thing that Jack brought up that I think would be an interesting discussion is I very much have a scarcity mentality when it comes to money business. I'm very conservative on all fronts and since the very beginning on YouTube and even since my career in real estate. In real estate I budgeted everything that if I closed a deal I think that's the last deal I'm ever going to close in my life and I think I have this much how can I make it last for the rest of my life? That's me dude. Good. Well, I don't know if I don't know if it's good. But same with YouTube. Whatever I would do I would say this is the last video I'm ever going to post. I'm just going to every day I assume tomorrow's going to go zero. And so I budget based off that. And then what I have I say, "Okay, how can I spread this out to make sure it's got the highest chance of lasting and that I have to live off whatever I have today. So I'm going to be unable to work. I can't make any more money. Everything goes to zero." Where does that story come from? I don't know. I I think I've just I've intrinsically been like that. I I think you know people ask me where I got an interest in personal finance from. It was at 4 years old and I remember collecting old rare coins cuz my grandpa had a coin collection. I thought that was so it was so cool. So I'd collect coins and and then yeah. come from a picture. Something we've seen or experienced. Like for me my dad was a public servant all right. He was a policeman. And then he became a minister. And there were times he'd go put his It was a new device a new technology called an a debit card. It didn't exist before. And I don't know if you all remember the season I don't remember when it stopped but it was a 50/50. You didn't know if there was no money in the account sometimes they would let you have it and they would just charge you this outrageous fee for for buying something without the money in the account. And then sometimes they would deny it. And there were times my dad went to the grocery store cuz he had three little kids and he knew there was no money in there but he had to get groceries. And so he was saying, "I'll pay the $40 fee or $35 fee but I got to feed my family." And so I watched that. And so I remember I remember his face. I remember the weight of the car. I remember the our home. Man, he was trying hard. And I actually intentionally decided I'm not If that's what the public thinks of public servants I'm out. I'm going to try to make money because I don't want my house to feel like that. And dude my dad was working so hard. And so for me that scarcity mindset comes from No, I know what it feels like to not have enough. And so then I overcorrected and it was like then I'll never not have enough. And there was even a thing with my son one time said I was just asking me he was little and he was like, "Dad, I'm I want Let's go get a Burger King or let's go to Chick-fil-A whatever." And I was like, "No no no." And I heard him say it to his mom to my wife and he goes, "I'm just so hungry." Dude, it was like I'll pull over right now. We'll find anything. And my wife's like, "You're going to fall for that?" All right. Her PhD is in working with kids. And she's like, "You don't fall for that." I'm like, "That sentence was such a trigger for me." And so that's where it comes from for me. You don't have like a picture of it for you? I think it started before any sort of picture would even take place. Because both of my parents worked very much paycheck to paycheck. But I think I started like collecting coins and stuff like that before I came to a realization that that was a you know even a thing. So I think it maybe I had a a a fix a fixation with it before. But maybe I don't know when a scarcity mentality took place. Okay. So what makes you think this all goes away? Uh I would say because I've seen it as a very common occurrence on YouTube especially. Cuz it will right? Yeah. I'm think you reverse engineer it. Irvin Yalom and Rollo May like talking about existential psychology. They they would suggest that the reason people build religious structures and banks and put their statues in front they're trying to hedge against this one terrifying thing that makes the human animal unique. We know we're going to die. And so we all know we have this finish line. We don't know when it is. And so we create these big intricate structures to prop up this thing and try to slow down this thing that's it's coming. What it could have been actually I had this this brief stint. It was 6 weeks where I worked doing data entry. And it was right at this weird time where I had just like just graduated high school but like before I was figuring out like if I was going to get my real estate license or not like a weird 2 months. And I hated that job so much. And before then I think I just always had a fascination with with saving money investing. I just found it interesting but I think the scarcity mindset came from after the first week I dreaded that job. And I got I've never been like thoroughly depressed in my life but that made me so sad every single day to wake up. I just hated it and I thought is this really what it is? Is this like 60 years I'm just going to have to like do a job like this that I hate? When did you get your real estate license? When I was 18 years old. What year was it? Uh 2008. So I started at like the peak of the real estate market. But this was doing data entry. I know I know but like Yeah. So if you and I were hanging out or you had hired me to be your personal coach I would tell you you're at the height. And you watch it all go away. Well, I don't think it was that cuz I loved real estate. I know. But your body kept the score. Your body heard all of the people around you going the housing market is collapsing. Nobody's buying houses. Nobody can sell houses. And you have a hustler and you're like, "I'll go back to work. I'll go get it." But you seen you experienced firsthand that this can all go away. Even something as robust as houses. People be like, "I'm not buying that." Right? perhaps it was very subconscious. I think the conscious part of me thought I never want to work a job like that where I'm forced to go in every single day doing something I absolutely hate doing. And so I'll do anything to avoid that same experience that I got before it you know I I ended up quitting. But that 6 weeks for me it was like I never want that. Got you. So if I can save everything What does that give you? Freedom. Freedom? I think it's the freedom to make the decisions every day to do what you want and to do the things that you enjoy the most. Not every day is going to be enjoyable but at least I'm consciously choosing I'm doing this cuz I want to do it and I have fun doing it and I could do it my way in the way that that I decide is best for me. And I think the challenge is you and I do things for freedom. And scarcity is a form of slavery. And so we think we're free but we're actually running. Does that make sense? It does. And so it's it's a conscious uncoupling from that scarce Like I'm going to practice. Is it Is it worth uncoupling from scarcity? Because I would say it's like it it's in a way it's a benefit knowing that there's there's a bit of a fallback there's a cushion there's a foundation that you build up that's not going away. Isn't that a good thing? There's some great conversations I've had with people who study when like this when the grid goes down. And they'll tell you the number one hedge against it all going down is to have really great relationships with your neighbors. So that y'all can say, "Okay, we're good. Everybody trust everybody. Like I'll help with the Let's go help with water. Let's figure out the food thing." It is circling up. And so for me I I just go back and think World War was eight Was it 80 years ago? Wasn't that long ago? World War I is not that long ago. Like so this this hedge Like I'm going to have a bunch of apartments. We can go to some places right now that the folks had apartments you know 6 months ago and they're gone right? And so I think for me I'm going to do the things the best I can. I have a deep freezer. I got two of them. And I hunt a lot right? So I have that. But I also know that the core hedge against the scarcity mindset is insane madhouse generosity. And so I'm going to continually I'm going to do the next right thing to take care of me and my family. And I'm going to hold it all real loosely because it's it's it's just a it's just a it's just it You know what I mean? It's an illusion. It's never lasted through history. And so I think there's this I'm going to do the next right thing, the next right thing, and I'm going to make sure I'm giving it away. And that keeps me untethered to the scarcity mindset. Mhm. But it's But it's hard. It's a It's a daily Yeah, that's something I really not wanted to give up cuz in a way I think the scarcity mentality is an asset because I'm very protective of certain things. Yeah. It is a It is a numbing agent for a life well lived. Sure. And um It's kind of like scarcity is a different It's It's differently when it comes to your money, but it's very similar to I'm just not going to tell her that while we're dating cuz she might not like me. Mhm. And then you get married, and then I'm not going to tell her that. She didn't know that. And her body feels the gap. She doesn't know you're not telling You're not really lying. You're just not bringing that up. You're not bringing up the stuff that happened when you were a kid or whatever. But she knows she can't get to you. And so she creates the things that her keep her safe. I'm going to go exercise a lot. I'm going to start this. I'm going to go over this way. And you feel her pull away. And so then you create your right? And it's all of this gap. And it's that lack of vulnerability. So what would be your map to me in that situation? Like you'd give to a truck driver, here's your map, here's where you could start. What would you say to someone like me? I would I would pressure you in a in a coaching scenario like give me a number. What's a number that says I'm This is as safe as I can I can be. Um Let's say $50 million. Okay. Where does that come from? Um I think 20 million would be the point where I would have such a surplus and I would want to double that in case everything splits in half by 50% long term or we don't see any growth for the next you know 30 years in the United States. And I'd want a little bit more on top of that as a buffer as these are unexpected life events that just seem to come up. So here's what's beautiful. That's what I That's what I feel weren't things. Yeah, sure. 100%. Yeah. I have no doubt in my mind if you got $50 million that number would become 100. Sure. Instantly. Okay. And it would The finish line keeps moving cuz it's not based It's not anchored in reality. It's based on this well then if this doubled and this halved Grant said a little bit more and that's $10 million. So Yeah, but in context a little bit in context of 40 to 50 in their whole life in three generations. It's in context. But there's no context. the It It's And that's what makes it a zen, right? It's a It's a way to numb out I don't have control what I think I control. I remember when I was super like I was clinically anxious, clinically OCD. I was I was this a madhouse. Spinning spinning spinning. And a buddy of mine is a bank executive a big fancy pants and he's one of my best friends on planet Earth. Brilliant man. And we were sitting like this. And dude I I had it. I was laying this and this and this and what if the dollar devalues here and if the yen does I mean and I'm not a dumb guy. We were back and forth and back and forth. Yeah. And finally he smiled. And he said something that changed my life. He said, "John, I don't have a meteorite plan." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And he said, "Dude, I buy real estate. I don't owe anybody anything. I've paid my house off. I put money in my retirement. And I give away money like crazy." And he said, "Most people picture the dollar going away, right? Like the BRICS thing actually works, which it Like that happens. The dollar goes away and you're like, "Okay, cool. I got $50 million over here. If the dollar goes away, the world is so indifferent. We imagine ourselves filling up our cars, going to our jobs with whatever new currency. It will be anarchy, right? People will be shooting your dog for food, right? So we have We like to see the apocalypse or if the market goes in half and then in half again, Mhm. things will be so different that whatever you think you saved will be of no value. It will be so chaotic. And so we imagine our life just with the stock market 1/10 of what it is right now. We don't picture what actually would be and it'd be It'd be a madhouse, right? So it was his his his point was if we get hit by a meteorite, dude, I'm going to deal with that then. I am going to like not be captive to this Mhm. because then I go insane, right? And then I start imagining scenarios and try to solve for scenarios that are probably not going to happen, but I'll be the guy that I have them ready. And then I'm going to solve for that scenario. And then your friends are like, "Hey bro, you're kind of like And then you find yourself with a smaller smaller community smaller community. And then you sleep a little less. And then you try to solve the sleep. And then you only crap every 4 days and you go to the doctor and try to solve that. It's a longer issue of this magic George talking like it's just it's peace. So where do you start? What do you mean? In terms of getting over that and embracing uh I guess more of an abundance mentality. I think it's making peace with how little I actually control. Just accepting it. And how do you start about accepting it? How often do you journal yourself? Uh I have never journaled. I've I've meditated. I enjoy meditation, but I've never done a journal and just I'm still like meditation's helpful for me and I I still do it regularly. I'm beginning to wonder if meditation as it was originally designed. Like one of the guys I credit with saving my life was a monk. He was He was a bioethics professor and the soon as the school year was out, he went to a monastery, right? Meditation was an integral part of a life. And I think as Westerners were like, "What can we take apart and sell?" Right? And so we pulled this piece out, but it was also silence. And it was also no possessions. And it was also everybody had a job and everybody had a purpose and everybody had community and everybody talked and everybody prayed something bigger than themselves. So it's a piece of it. So my the broader thing is making peace not just intellectually, but physiologically. I'm going to die. All right. So I know this. I got two kids and I'm married. Okay. So I got a great robust life insurance plan. If I die, I want to make sure that cuz I've hugged widows who will look at me and go, "I don't know what to do." Cuz their husband's dead in the next room, right? My wife will not have to ask that question. She will get to grieve for as long as she wants to grieve cuz the bills will be paid. And we don't owe anybody anything, right? Mhm. Was that the best like ROI on my No. I cuz of my interest rate was so low on my house I could have put in a high yield savings account and made more money. But I sleep, dude. It's a sleep tax. I sleep like a baby because I know if I die in my sleep, no one's going to take my house from my wife. Her house. And she's going to have bills and until the apocalypse comes, right? So I'm going to solve for peace first. I'm not going to solve for ROI first on every penny I have. Once I solve for peace, then I begin to have joy and fun with it. And it begins with what can I give away? And what can I How can I watch somebody else bloom because I got to water whatever seed they'd planted, right? That becomes this You become to disentangle yourself from this And so I'd ask you like knowing 50 million's not a real number. Like that you won't feel safe with that because it's not It's It's just It's just thicker wallpaper on an underlying lie. Sure. That's fair. Right? Yeah. And so I would challenge you like do you have a group of two or three guys that you go have coffee with once a week and y'all just talk crap? Not about personal finance, just crap. No. No. No. No. Well, I think Jack and I have a good relationship like that, but yeah. No. I would say we're we're nearly best friends. I mean equally But but yes, he does not do that. He doesn't unwind. Okay. No. And so I would say your body would be failing you if it wasn't constantly ginning up a story that you needed to solve. Because it doesn't have And I think that's the ecosystem. Um if I can solve for peace Do you Are you a Are you a minimalist guy? Are you a clutter Do you got stuff everywhere? Do you collect things? collecting, but I wouldn't say I'm out of a clutterer, but I love the aspect of putting together a collection. Okay. So there was some I I just wrote a book on there's some fascinating research about clutter and anxiety. And when I say clutter, we immediately go to like hoarding, right? Yeah. But our bodies are designed for scarcity. We've never had enough in human history. And now we have so much excess that we can buy shiny things and just stack them up all in the right order. And our brains aren't designed for this. So there's a Japanese minimalist um I lost the name. We'll figure it out. But he says that all of our inanimate objects have a conversation with us every day. And I was like, "Okay. Okay." It sounded super hokey. And I walked into my basement and I just got quiet. So I'm an academic guy. So I got walls of books. And also I've been playing guitar since I was a little kid. So I've got a wall of guitars. I'm also a huge hunter. So I've got my cases over here. And I just sat there. I was like, "Okay. They're still talking to me." And then I started pretending like, "Ooh, the books say And then it was like, "Oh, are you always going to be stupid? You're not going to read us?" Remember when you used to know all this stuff in this chemistry book and this biochem book and you don't know any of that crap anymore. You don't know any of it. There's a whole shelf you haven't even read yet. You're just going to be stupid? And then my guitars were like, "Yeah, you don't even play us anymore. Remember when you were going to be cool? You're just going to be an old Oh, you're going to be that old loser." I was like, "Holy crap, dude." And the hunting stuff was like, "Oh, you're that guy now? Like Mr." Then I went upstairs and the dishes in the sink. And I looked at them and they're like, "Oh, you're that husband? You just don't even help. You don't care about your wife." I'm like, "No. No. No. I just got home." "Oh, yeah. You just And I realized all our crap is talking all the time. And so instead of trying to solve the next thing and solve the next thing. It's cool to have things that we love and all that. Make no mistake. But it was just me being conscious of what am I allowing to speak into my life? And I was allowing this room full of inanimate objects to talk to me, particularly the guitars I don't have. I've got enough guitars for the next And by the way, Metallica is not calling. They're just not going to call. Like I've made people Green Day announced their tour and I did not get a message, right? It's not happening, right? And I still love to play in my basement, but do I need seven? Right? Do I need 10? Or is two fine? Or is three fine? So, it began to And there's It's not a moral issue. It's a solve for freedom issue, right? What does my calendar look like? Does my calendar If I miss a meeting on on Monday morning at 9:00 and I'm 15 minutes late, does it domino my whole week? Cuz the answer for me is yes. It becomes a cat a cascade of drama, right? Or do I have Do I build in margin so that I can breathe and actually think and grow? All famous writers that are that are still in the canon had periods of intense writing and periods of intense long walks. They're just walking walking walking walking walking walking. We don't have that. Here we go from our work to our make the video to cut the video to post the video already researching for the next video. And there's no capacity for your brain to go, "How does this all work together? What if this is even right anymore?" And it still it spins and spins and it comes out in these weird ways that we try to solve with $50 or for me with more another deep freezer and more meat and more acres or whatever and you're like more hair product. I'm just kidding, but it becomes this like what are we going to solve versus I'm good. And I really know my neighbors and I do have food. I got a big garden. And so, I'm also not going to fight my body. I know, kind of like you, I'm a little bit of a it could all come down. It could. I've read history, it could all come down. And let's be honest, at some point it will. It will. I got a garden, a huge garden out here in Middle Tennessee. I hunt a lot. I got a lot of meat in my freezer. That's true. And also, a couple of times a month I take meat to my neighbors as a as a spiritual exercise as much as they're they don't have the resources that I've got and it's just part of being a good neighbor. And my neighbor is 70-something years old and grades my gravel driveway with his tractor cuz he's amazing, right? And so, and he found out how much I paid one time to have somebody come out and do it and he's like, "You're my neighbor. You'll never No, you don't pay for that crap." And so, he does it. So, I give him eggs and food from our chickens and But, it becomes this cuz I'm not solving for ROI. Now, my wife and I are saving for our next big investment and the one after that. So, it's not like I'm impervious to that and I do want to build wealth. I know that building having a dollar amount is not going to solve this. And I only know that because I've sat and hugged multimillionaires while their wife is dead in the next room. And none of their money can fix that, right? Or I'm hug I'm calling them and saying, "I hate to be the one to have to call you. Your son is is passed away. They're Your son has died." And you hear it on the other line. You hear the screaming on the phone and say, "You need to come to town." There's not a dollar amount on that. And so, I knew, "Okay, that can't be that can't be the solution." Is it helpful? Yeah. And so, I always want to ask people like, "What is the What's the money for? What's it for?" And if it's not um I say this and it sounds kind of trite, but it's not. In our In the Western world, we we have an answer to the question, "What are you worth?" And it's a number. And I think that answer to the question, "What are you worth?" is never a number. If it ever is, your life is you cannot have that life and not be anxious, period. I I don't believe that. The answer to the question, "What is your What are you worth?" is who do you love and who loves you, period. If you have money and you can take all your buddies to the game, that's awesome, right? Have you Have you read the book Die with Zero? Yes, I have actually. masterpiece. Spend the money, right? Like insure yourself and spend your money and enjoy your friends and it if like that one buddy that can't pay, dude, bring him on because you want the it you're going to want to have had that memory, not the $1,500 you couldn't spend on the lake house or whatever. So, if money is a tool for serving your community, for having the time of your life and inviting brain peo That's awesome, man. Throwing your daughter the greatest wedding you can That's That's amazing. If it is for the sake of some imaginary hedge against some imaginary thing that finish I'm just going to move and move and move and move and then someone's going to diagnose you with something, right? That's fair. See, I love that you enforce like this just peace and calmness and how often do you go get coffee with your friends and like not think about all these things? Because that's something I've been trying to hopefully push Graham in that direction for such I mean like honestly working, though. Yeah. That's my problem. I love I love work. I love it. So, that's why I don't like to be too like dogmatic about it. We recently had a psychiatrist on our podcast and he was like what I said to Graham, which was something to the tune of like, I it's hard for me to believe that you're happy when I see you so stressed all the time living your life. I said, "Well, you don't you're not in his shoes, you know, you don't know how happy he is." And that's true. But, I do think just overall for every human, even the weird ones like Graham, it's good to just go and have coffee, to go and try something new, to go for a walk, to play pickleball. That's something I like to do a couple of times a week that doesn't have anything to do with my business. No productivity or anything. It's senseless. It just is, you know, a game. But, I think that that type of stuff could be very productive. And I do think, although this shouldn't be a part of the argument, there's probably some business ROI to that as well. Always. And that's the part that I You don't want to enforce or reinforce it because it's not you know, So, if you're talking to somebody who's struggling with bipolar, right? It's very hard because the highs feel so good. And you feel like if I lose the high part, then I lose me. I lose all the productivity. I lose all the advantage I have. And so, I'm not going to take my meds cuz and I'll deal with the lows, which are abysmal, because I don't want to lose this part. It's the same as the old like the old in the '80s and '90s, the rock and roll guys like, "If I get sober, I lose what makes me me." And all the research says that's not true. It actually is not true at all. And so, what I had to do, cuz my problem is I love work. I love it. I love thinking of problems. I like trying to solve a new thing. One of my favorite things about transitioning like careers in my 40s, like dude, I've trans like I went to a new planet, right? I was in higher ed for 20 years in the academy and now I'm doing I don't even know what this is, right? I write books for a living and speak all over the country. Um I love it. And you know what else I love? Being around a campfire and someone's like, "Dude, you know what? I got cigarettes." I love that, too, right? And I don't even smoke. I'm like, "Yep, I love it." And you know what else I love? Dude, if you put like a fish bowl of jelly bellies right here on this table and this show is not brought to you by Jelly Belly. Just I'd eat the whole thing. I would love that. You know what else I love? I've started watching Homeland from start to finish. It's so good. It came out 2010, right? But, if I could just sit on the couch and watch that for 19 straight days, all eight seasons or however many, I love that. And so, I have to put a gap between what I love and what's going to kill me. And I don't think we do a good job because in our culture, we seek pleasure. And I think we seek pleasure because we got so much technology so fast that we were able to take away things that were uncomfortable. You know what sucks? Riding on a wooden like wooden wheels on a wooden platform pulled by a horse. Well, dude, we got a car now. And now we're all the way to leather seats. That's amazing. But now we think if we sit in somebody's vinyl seats, there's something wrong with that car, right? It's like something wrong. It's amazing. Vinyl's like a cushion. It's great. Over time, solving for discomfort, solving for discomfort, now we've made discomfort evil. It's something wrong. And so, similarly, we've made something if it's comfortable, it must be right. And so, I'm not going to go to the gym because that's uncomfortable. It sucks. Well, you're going to pay a price. I don't want to like watch what I eat because that's uncomfortable. You're going to pay a price. I want to work all the time cuz I love it. You're going to pay a price. I don't want to have to deal with relationships or you're going to pay a price, right? And so, for me, I love all those things. They're going to kill me. And so, I have to put in barriers and hurdles so that I don't go off the go off my own cliff, right? Yeah. Yeah. What are the biggest money problems you see in most relationships or marriages? Financial infidelity and secrets. Now, when you mean financial infidelity, could you describe what that is? Yeah, I think fidelity like we've pigeonholed that into who had sex with who, right? I think fidelity, especially in marriage, is so much broader than that. When I stand before God and my family and another person and say, "I do forever, through sickness and in health." Then fidelity, I can cheat on my wife with my job. If I give my best parts of my life to my work and she gets whatever's left, I'm cheating on her with not a mistress, not a another person, not another person, but with my job or with a golf course or with a fishing pole or with my hunting rifle or whatever the thing is. Um with my device, right? And so, similarly, if I'm spending money and she doesn't know about it, if I've put some money in some stocks that haven't done well, and so now I'm trying to like circle back around and and find some other things because I've lost some money or if I'm running up I know a couple that ran up like massive amounts of credit card debt and the other person didn't know. Just didn't know. And then the person starts getting scared and starts trying to solve it, right? And it gets worse and worse and worse. And so, this idea of fidelity, like I'm all in, has no room for I'm all in, but I'm going to do this over here. We do We make these decisions together, right? And so, when somebody feels unsafe in their house because how their partner's spending money, that's what we see a lot. Or they just won't talk about it. And I guess a third one is Your parents did money like this, my parents did money like this. So, we're going to do it my way, right? We're going to do it my way, right? And there's not the tools to say, we get to we get to invent whatever we want. This is our marriage. This is our home. This is our house. Yeah, but my dad says renting is stupid. Well, your dad doesn't get a vote. He's not married to us. We're married now, right? And I think a lot of new especially new couples bring in, but my mom says that like they shouldn't get a vote anymore. Like we're we're in this. Yeah. And there's just not enough. They don't have the tools. How important would you say financial compatibility is between partners? Um dig into that question a little bit more. say one is more of a saver, one is more of a spender, one says we should live in the moment today, really enjoy life. The other person says, "No, I think we should save it so we could make sure that we live well in the future." I think that those people desperately need each other. Desperate. If you get two people who are both savers, you're going to have a whole bunch of money and a very empty um a very empty photo album. And if you have two like woo like YOLO's, you're going to run out of money real You don't think either side might start to feel resentful for the other? Like the one Not if you're having conversations. Not if you choose guilt over resentment. If I choose to hedge my conversation I don't want to do that cuz it's going to make her uncomfortable. I don't want to have this conversation to make her mad. That is a recipe for resentment cuz it builds and it builds and it builds. If we work on our relationship to say, "Hey, And here's what often And in that conversation it starts with, "You're spending money like XYZ." A much better way to start that conversation is, "I'm so scared about our financial situation I can't breathe." Cuz if I come after you, "Hey dude, the way you're doing you instantly have to fight back, right?" I'm attacking you. Yeah. Um you either have to run like or you have to you have to hit me back. If I sit down vulnerably and say, "I don't If you die tomorrow, I don't know where any of anything is. Will you please sit down and say where what money we have, what the accounts are, please? Um I'm scared to death." "I'm not going to die. I'll quit your whining." Okay, I please. That's a different conversation, right? And that And I think we're so obsessed with these labels like, "Oh, I'm a I'm a spender. I'm a saver." Shut up. We agreed on a thing, right? I'm an eater. I still have the same physiology as you guys do. My wife is not. She can walk through a house full of snacks and she just doesn't grab them. I eat all of them all the way to the end of the snack line. I think the challenge is not to find someone just like you. I think we're obsessed with compatibility. I think the deeper question is, "Do we agree to work on problems together cuz we both have similar places we want to go. We have similar values." Yeah. That makes sense? It does. I'll even go this far. Yeah. I think couples are obsessed with having the same beliefs and I think that's nonsense. You have to have the same values. What I mean by that is my wife and I believe different things when it comes to spirituality. Our We have very similar values. We both believe in God. We're both Christians. But we have gone through different ebbs and flows and all sorts of And so, I read a book and I believe something different than she does. And then she reads that book and she's like comes to a totally different conclusion. That's amazing. But one of our values is curiosity. One of our values is honesty. One of our values is, "Let's talk this through." And so when I go, "I don't think I believe this particular political opinion anymore." Her instant response isn't judgment. Yeah. "How dare you?" It's "Huh, tell me more about that." Because our core value is this. All the beliefs Otherwise, it's whack-a-mole. So, at what point then would it be a deal breaker? Or at what point would something have to have to break or split? Is it Is it when conversations aren't happening? If you won't commit to what we committed to. If you don't commit to the covenant that you made, which is for sickness and health we're going to figure this out. It doesn't matter what your impulse is. It matters what you do. And that's hard. For me, money I came from money was the devil. And my wife didn't they just didn't have a lot. They were both school teachers, right? They didn't have a lot. And so, it never occurred to her to have a million dollars. And she lived on the outskirts of town. I grew up in the suburbs of Houston right when the oil chemical boom hit Houston. You know who had a million dollars? My buddies at school. I had a picture of what that looked like. I wanted that cuz I knew what I felt at home. So, I had a different I had a different Money was something differently wired into my nervous system than it was her. We had to I always had a scheme when we got married like, "We're going to do this. We're going to do this. Let's do this." And she was like, "I just love my Corolla and I'm going to be a teacher." And you've probably heard that Dave talk about the millionaire study that number three is teachers. If you make peace with a Corolla life, you'll end up a millionaire. It's the teacher who makes 48,000 and also has to have a Yukon and also has to have this house and also has to go on vacation here. That's when you get yourself into problems. She'd already solved the problem. I was the one that had the issues. Because we So, it was a fidelity issue on my part. "Will you commit to stand on a budget with me? Like will you commit to being honest about money in our house? Will you commit to a plan?" Like in our plan is let's not owe anybody. Let's make that plan first. Okay. And so, I think it's the commitment to the commitment. Okay. And finally, what do you think about shared accounts? Cuz that's something I think you and Graham are going to have wildly different perspectives on. I I It comes back to what we were talking about earlier with with secrets. And I I And not even secrets as much as can be aware. Your partner can be aware of exactly how much you have, but as far as one central thing where the card swipes it pulls from that. I I don't see any any way you wouldn't have a shared account. You think that it is a necessity of marriage? Why is that? Um because it tethers you in a pretty profound way. Um Let me say it like this. Um You and I Not you and I, but me and my wife joined together. We made a human. We went to a bank and we said, "Hey, can we borrow enough money to have a home?" And we both signed our name on it. It's an illusion that by keeping separate accounts we're somehow that's mine and that's yours. Right? It's not real. It only serves as a as a as a division as a dividing. It's It's It's not real. Couldn't it be though a sense of independence between the two people? That they're both that they're both individuals. Part of the ancient marriage rites where two become one. And we're building something new. So, it would be like if y'all two made money and y'all had two separate Ice Coffee Hour Mhm. business accounts. You'd be like, "Well, I want to buy a microphone." Like uh That that doesn't make sense, right? You would have Y'all would discuss the business and y'all have a infrastructure account and a savings account and maybe if you're running your real estate underneath this thing you'd have this, too. Or if you created a separate LLC you'd have that. of those are for tax purposes. So, logistically it makes sense that you have to do it under a certain structure for tax It's deductions. Yeah, yeah. I mean So, the the independence would be a wild illusion. So, at what point would it be okay? In what situations for couples to have separate finances? Or do you say under any circumstances they should always have one shared account and that's it? Or are we talking about having a shared account but separate accounts as well? Is that different for you or should everything always be in one? I want to ask a harder question, which is if you can't trust somebody if you feel like you still need to have part independence, don't get married. But I think it's important to have your sense of self in a marriage and not is critical. Sense Sense of self is perfect. But do I have to fund that? Separate and apart from our shared vision together. point. Is your self derived from finances? His is. I'm just kidding. Mine's from hair gel. Yeah, yours is from good looks. But like I It's It's all It's all such an illusion. And so, if you like, "Well, I don't trust him." then don't marry him. I don't think it's necessarily trust. I think it's talking trust. Or the most common complaint I heard is, "I've been burned before. I'm not going to get burned again." I 1,000% believe and agree with that. But don't get married. Because if you're not going to go all in, this marriage isn't going to work either. It's not. Or it's going to be a shell of what it could be. And then when y'all get faced with true adversity, you've already got a foot out. You already have an account over here, right? And so, if you're going to go all in, you got to go all in. And the data is clear. A bad marriage makes your life exponentially worse. So, you don't think there's any situation Give me one. Uh let's say one partner has a billion dollars, the other is completely broke. One is you know, I'm taking to to an extreme. Okay. 80-year-old man uh 20-year-old wife. Okay. 80-year-old guy has a billion dollars, 20-year-old wife has nothing. Okay. The question there is as like A, no. I But I would enter that for with a pre-nup, but not for the relationship. I would enter that with a pre-nup for the kids that are going to come out of the woods, right? The cousins and the aunts and the uncles that are going to melt the estate in through legal channels for the next 25 years. That's what I would protect the nest egg. But if I marry you, I married you. But otherwise, why? Why would I marry you? That's a good point. I think marriage is really important because it creates another really strong obstacle that stands between you and divorce and breaking up. You know, in the same way that getting a dog or having kids, it's more obstacles and the family unit is the foundation of America. I don't want the marriage to stay together because there are obstacles in the way. because the obstacle will just force a different path, which is overcoming adversity, But you should want to do that regardless of the obstacle. Like I think if you're in a relationship, it should be as easy as possible for the person to leave. And I know that's a uh engaged. Okay. But easy as possible. I want her to be with me and because she's with me is vice versa. Sure. Not because I don't want to go through the hassle of having to sell a house and split the accounts and going through this. Like, that to me would be so sad that you have to stay with someone because of obstacles in the way that makes it harder. I want someone to stay with you Yes. because they want to. And if they want to up and leave, Mhm. they could, but you trust them enough that hey, we're going to have these discussions, we're going to work through it, but with that. but it's not because of these obstacles. I agree with that. Yeah. So, let's move obstacle over here. I I think the challenge is in an in an effort to smooth out all the obstacles, it's really easy to say, "Hey, this got real hard." There's in in the in the faith circles, there was a lot of conversation back in the '80s about don't fight in front of the kids. Go in the back room if you have a discussion, if you have got to fight, go do that. You're going to scare your kids, right? And what they did with with good intentions is they robbed kids of seeing their parents, two people married, fight and make up and stay together. And so, what happened was they would get in a fight or disagreement, and they were like, "Oh, this is over." Cuz they had no picture of what two people disagreeing, one of them storming off, one of them going to get a hotel and then coming back. Oh, they don't just leave, right? And so, my concern with I'm I'm with I don't want my wife to stay because it's going to be a pain in the butt to put the house on the market. I don't want that. But I also don't want us to believe that there's not going to be long seasons when things are uncomfortable, right? Similarly, I don't go to the gym and take all the weight off the bar and just spray paint 500 lb on each side of the bar and say I'm lifting 1,000 lb. I'm not. I go to the gym and put as much as I can lift on there. It's hard and it sucks and it hurts, and that makes us stronger. That makes me stronger, right? And so, there's been several times in my 21 years, plus the 5 years we dated, when we've sat across the table and said, like, "We're going to be adults. Is this it? Are we both done?" And every time we've said, "No." And so, we have to say, "Okay, here's the analogy that Esther Perel gives, um and it's just so great. She said, um if the Twin Towers fell, right? They they they fell. She's talking to a couple that had experienced infidelity. Somebody cheated on them. They fell. She said, "You could never sweep up all the glass and steel and wood and rebuild those Twin Towers with that original material. They fell. It's over. You can do one of two things. You can walk away and let nature take that back over, or you can excavate the whole thing, get some architects and some engineers and some professionals and design something arguably stronger, maybe even more beautiful, a little bit of a testament a monument to the past, but let's build something incredible going forward. But you got to build something completely new. So, I think this idea that it's just going to be smooth and frictionless is an illusion. I think that's melting modern marriage. It's just too hard. And I want to go, "Yes, that's what makes it so valuable." Because if you go through the hard, you're on the back end is it's it's staggering. And that's where the question of what about separate accounts? For me, after 21 years, like, dude, we've gone through some gnarly health scares, and we've had I've got the names of three babies that we miscarried tattooed on my body, and we've buried grandparents, and we've had cancer, and we've had we've had these things that we've had to do together, and it's been hard, and we've had seasons when it's like, "Hey, I think this is it. And I can't keep being married to you like this." And her saying, "I can't even like, so are we done? Are we going to build something completely new?" Cuz we build it from new, we build it from scratch, we got to start over. Cool. Here we go, right? The idea of well, should we have separate It just feels so sophomoric, right? It It seems like such a question not even worth Of course we're going to share money. You see what I'm saying? I see your perspective, and I do think I I think it's really nice that you're normalizing some of the difficulties in a relationship and not just pretending ah, it's always great and this is always perfect. I think it's really great that you're talking openly about that that that you encountered such difficulty throughout your marriage and have still come out on the other side. And mine's a pretty good one. Right. Right. It's pretty simple. It's pretty It's pretty It's pretty It's pretty It's pretty low, But I mean, there's no like drug addiction, there's nobody cheating on each other. Like, Yeah. It's pretty It's The waves are pretty pretty pretty low, right? And it's still tough. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate you talking about that. No, it's good, man. And I you can call me whenever you're like, "Hey, can we got to we got to share accounts? How do we do this?" I'll I'll help you out. I'll help you out. We'll see. I'm just kidding. So, I think that's yeah, we got to we got to wrap up. Thank you so much, production team. Thank you very much. Hey, Ramsey and the Spurs and John, of course. This has been great. We'll link to your info down below in the description. Thank you to the whole Ramsey team for putting this on. Really appreciate it. Didn't you become like something Building an anxious life. There it is. I have I have that in the bedroom. Oh, yeah? Yeah, it's on the nightstand. I I'm not ready yet, but it's sitting there and I'm going to get to it. Very cool. Very cool, man. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. really grateful for you guys having me on. It's awesome. Next time I'm in Vegas, we'll hang out. I can easily do another hour. So, if you're in Vegas, we'll eat. All you can eat sushi. Oh, not on Graham, of course, but on Jack. Thanks, man. Yeah, with the shared account. That's right. Shared account. Till next time. Thanks, guys. Great. Thank you. I dude, I so enjoyed this.