How I Almost Lost My Marriage (With Sean Cannell)
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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'll find a way to make money. And then the drive, because of course in this influencer YouTube culture, which is so weird, you know, people are chasing money and fame and influence and prestige. And I'll admit, I mean, I could see drive for those things myself. But the core motivation was like, I'm trying to fight for my family.

What up, what up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. So glad that you are with us. Real people going through real challenges. Talking about your mental and emotional health, your marriages, your relationships, your workplace, whatever you got going on in your life. Today we have a special show. So if you've been following this show for any period of time, you know, A, I'm super awkward at this. Because I spent my whole career, all of my life, trying to not exist on the internets.

And now I'm a YouTuber and I'm a podcaster. So there's this guy who is known as the podcast, not really podcast, but as the YouTube whisperer. His name is Sean Candle. He's a bestselling author. He is a YouTube guru and he is a coach for people who create stuff.

And so if you're listening to the show and you're a content creator, if you're a stay-at-home mom and who has a side hustle, if you're in the creation business, Sean's pretty amazing. And like all of us, he tried to solve it with work. His wife got very, very sick. His insecurity, self-awareness became all of it. So we have, I asked him to be on the show to talk through how do you navigate friendships in this transactional world? How do you navigate your own anxiety? How do you navigate friendships?

When the thing that you wanted so badly to work starts working. How do you navigate when someone you love is sick and your faith goes out the window? Like, how do you navigate these things? And we have a... Go down some pretty deep rabbit holes. Some of you may not be familiar with Sean. In the YouTuber world, he's kind of like...

Like one of the Mount Rushmore guys. And so it was a great conversation. It's well worth your listen. Check out my conversation with my buddy, Sean Cannell. The folks who tune into this show know I've got this weird relationship with technology and how it works and how it pays all my bills and how I spent my entire life avoiding it. Like not only avoiding it, like actively shunning it.

One of the last universities I worked at, my dean called me in and she was like, I have to put you on the website that you work here. I look like I'm an incompetent leader. And I was like, ugh. And so I've got so many existential questions. And as I've been dropped into this creator world, it's really difficult.

winding me up and so i'm grateful that you're joining me as like the youtube guru like the epic guy and a guy that's been pretty open about your own adventures and journeys in life and addiction and faith all that stuff um but letting me be a sparring partner with you as i as you help me figure out what in the world i'm doing and where we're all going i'm here for it that's awesome grateful and so you you uh well i just want to ask a great guest you i

I mean, I wanted to pull this up on your show because on page 34 of your book, great book, by the way, you know, building a non-anxious life. But I just have – I actually have some really good news for you. Okay. Because you said, you know, you referenced cargo pants and you said in the footnote, I will never, never give up my cargo shorts. My wife threw them out. Yeah.

Who knows? I might need to go on an archaeological dig or Limp Bizkit might need to play guitar for their comeback tour. There's two things that are happening right now. Number one, Limp Bizkit is back. They're back. And number two, cargo shorts and cargo pants are in in a major way right now. I need, A, everyone watching this to know I'm always right. And B, if you are a cargo short creator –

I will give you the greatest publicity you could ever have. My wife, I remember the day I opened the drawer. It was as though she had abandoned me. Yeah. I was like, where's my shorts? She's like, it was time. Well, it's funny because the thing I struggle with the most in here is the clutter, maybe a little bit of hoarding or not getting rid of stuff. But man...

She gave those cargo shorts away. Because the question, how long should you have held them? Forever. You should have held them. Because they were a part of me. Because there's also a cycle. Always. Jeans go from skinny and now they're getting baggier and then they'll go back to skinny. So perhaps if you have good storage and organization, lowering your anxiety, you're just ready so you don't, you know. Thank you. Total money makeover. You're saving money macro. Thank you. Dude, we are, we are.

we are brothers from another mother dude we've got this figured out and you're about to go be with uh my buddy george campbell and you're never going to see tighter genes on a human than you will see in that room yeah it's astounding well yeah i hope it i hope it's not affecting his circulation it affects every everything yeah okay so let's go to um i want to walk through this so i took some notes here i'm going to tell a piece of your story and

Then I'll, I'll hand you the baton. Is that cool? Sure. Cause there's some places where you and I are, our stories overlap. Young married guys whose wife has some sort of medical crisis and you're sitting there in the waiting room sometimes with people, sometimes by yourself wondering, is my wife going to make it in and around peripherally or right in the middle of some sort of church community and a leader does something horrific and blows it up. Um,

This idea that if I just do all of the right things, and if you grew up in the particular faith context, if I just do all the Jesus-y things, it works out in the end. And not only does it work out in the end, it's amazing. It's better than the other way, right? Whatever this other way is, right? So take me back to this lonely night because I've got these moments emblazoned in my nervous system. You don't have any money. Your church just blew up. You're asking all those faith questions that just burn a hole through everything. Your wife may or may not make it.

And am I, we're going to be able to have kids now? Like all those existential questions come. Take me back to that night when you're just like, what am I going to do next? Yeah, that's 2009. Okay. And my wife had been not diagnosed yet. We did not know why she had been thrown up 10 to 15 times a day. Doctors even had said, we're kind of in a rural community. And so local hospitals and whatnot, one doctor said, why don't you just stop being bulimic and eat a burger?

And she's like, you know, I can't control this. That's not what this is about. Eventually, we discovered she has what's called gastroparesis, paralysis of the stomach, slow digestion. But in the meantime, she dropped to 82 pounds and had to have a feeding tube in her nose. Gosh.

And so then then you're like in in real time you're watching the person you love the most on the planet that you said I do in sickness and in health disappear yeah, just get Weaker and weaker more frail and she was also the primary breadwinner. I'm waiting tables trying to grow this video production business quarter time at the church before it fell apart just very make it a few dollars and

She believes in that vision, kind of ministry, what are we doing? And so she's working three jobs. And she was working at this time a front desk at a hair salon. And she was going in with a feeding tube in her nose. And it also led to her being fired. And you would hope that it's that front desk position and whatnot. You'd hope there wouldn't be those types of things in an employment situation. But those...

So eventually that was just to get her stabilized. They installed the feeding tube, J Junum, and we went home, all of these medical equipment, we got it checked out of the hospital. Like the thing that's kind of like an IV drip with the machine that'll drip the food in there and then boxes with cans of all the liquid that would go into her intestine. And so first night it's already, it's the whole situation is so heavy, you know,

Like, is this now the new daily routine and what's, what is happening? And so we turn on the first time ever of now running this machine with the liquid going into her intestine. And all of a sudden she starts to panic. She's like, Sean, I don't know what's wrong. My body's like on fire. Something's really, really wrong. So we turn it off and we put her into our Honda Civic and rush to-

Yeah, it wasn't going into her intestine. It was going into her body cavity, which will suffocate your organs and kill you quick. So she gets stabilized at the ER in Everett, Washington, and then they put her in an ambulance to get her to a better facility in Seattle. So it was dark Seattle, rainy night, and I was following the ambulance to the hospital. And then once they got her there, they had to cut her open to clean out around her organs, a big incision, and we were there for six days in recovery.

And at that point, we had friends, family that stopped by, but I just stayed by her side during that time, sleep in the hospital room. And this, I mean, talk about a rollercoaster of emotions. I mean, overwhelm and discouragement and fear what's gonna happen, what...

You know, what are we going to do? And a lot of time to process and pray, but worry, you know. Just worry, yeah. Just worrying and like saying that it was very life transformational because it gave me time to think about where are we at? That big short was happening. So we were losing our house in the big short. Oh, yeah, because why not lose your house too, yeah? The church was already falling apart. Right. And I'm thinking about finances, thinking about medical bills. And so— Well, back up real quick if it's okay. Okay.

I'm thinking of the time when my wife was an elementary school teacher and I was trying to make a go of a thing. I carried so much like shame that she was carrying the house. And I think back like there. How did you carry that? Because you're carrying a church falling apart. You're carrying the faith questions. You're carrying the health stuff you're carrying. I have this vision for this business.

that clearly has panned out over time, but there's that season. And my wife is putting in a feeding tube to go, like just waking up every day as this husband. That's a weight, right? Huge weight. I mean, I think no doubt by this time, I'm so grateful for the anchor of my faith. Okay. You know, faith being an anchor.

Of kind of facing the brutal facts. And I feel like by God's grace, I am wired maybe as a leader to be a problem solver. Okay. To not stay in despair for too long. Yeah. Because I just also maybe practically I don't see how that's going to be helpful. Yeah. I wish I had that. Yeah.

That's fantastic. And so even in the hospital, I started thinking, okay, and maybe processing issues. Like there's, I can make a long list of all the bad things here, but what are the good things? You know, I'm still healthy. I can fight for my family. What are the possibilities? You know, I heard a quote that was hidden in every obstacle is a seed of equal or greater opportunity. Okay.

So just, God, what could happen? How could this be used? And it was those six days in the hospital where I did feel challenged, like, Sean, like, prayerfully, like God speaking, not audibly or anything, but, like, you got to man up. You got to step up. I got to make some money. I got to make some money. You're even – especially we were unified in our vision for –

ministry, but as that was also falling apart, I remember back all the way to when my wife first married me, we got married at 21 and I took her dad out to a teriyaki to get his blessing. And now like fast forward, if we look to them giving that stamp of approval, like, Hey, I want to marry this guy. He's in ministry. So we'll probably like never have money. He's a college dropout. He

I think he's really creative and I think he's got some potential, but there wasn't even a lot of signs that this was like, I don't know. And so feeling though that way, like, okay, I need to, whatever it takes, fight, figure out a way to support my family. And then started thinking about

I've been doing this YouTube stuff and I've been studying these things and perhaps, again, this being a major obstacle, but what could we do in the midst of this? And then it lit a fire. I've heard of a thing, and you know maybe more about this, also called mortality motivation. Mm-hmm.

And so we are so young to have all this happen compared to maybe most, you know, we're 27 as this is happening. And so to even also see my wife on death's door was a very sobering at a young age. And I think that's an opportunity to grow in wisdom. One of the most shocking things I heard my wife say in the last couple of years was she said, you know what, Sean, as I look back on everything that's happened to me and to us, I wouldn't change it.

She's still got gastroparesis right now. She's got a gastric stimulator that's connected to her vagus nerve. Still dealing with challenges like today. Were you like, I would. Yeah, I know. I'm like, I would. But so much deep respect for her because, I mean, I know the chronic illness

you it really increases your chances of divorce it increases every every malady we have right yeah and but it it really drove us closer together okay um and it it this this whole event i mean i get to tell my story a lot and it resonates with people it's kind of like your your pain and your trauma and the things you've been through

you start realizing like everyone's carrying something. Everyone's carrying it, yeah. And then that becomes, it could be an encouragement point and it's that chance for you to, the things that you've overcome, how did you overcome it? And so-

Yeah, I was talking to Donald Miller who was talking about how man were you always kind of maybe wired more like a leader because a leader again back to I what are we gonna do sit in despair here or start to get into problem-solving so I started thinking we're gonna look for medical solutions we're gonna pray we're gonna rally with our family I'll start I'll find a way to make money and and then the drive because of course in this influencer YouTube culture which is so weird and

If you really think about your motivations, you know, people are chasing money and fame and influence and prestige and I'll admit I mean I could see drive for those things myself but but the core motivation was like I'm trying to fight for my family and the Possibility of being able to work from home make passive income online when you are fighting for like like I really believe that reasons come first results come second and

And so my reasons got so strong that I was like, I will and tell. I'm going to figure out this YouTube thing. I'm going to figure out. I see it's possible. I see other people doing it. But now it's not just a motivation to, oh, that's like, it'd be cool to have followers and like fill a father wound or something because I didn't get that there. Which maybe is probably all kinds of different motivations. But that lit my fire and the fire hasn't stopped.

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your search, like, man, you have like an ability to just say, okay, here's a problem. Here's a puzzle. I'm going to solve that puzzle. And it's, it reminded me of sitting with people over the last 20 years who had net worth that I can never wrap my head around. Right. And they had support and cool stuff that I can never have. But the thing that I feel like is in our culture and the thing that I felt in your story, I kept asking myself this one question,

Like for what? It's become my belief that at the end of the day, our bodies just are pretty smart, that we're built pretty well. And somebody struggling with chronic pain, somebody who's just going through thing after thing after thing, their body's trying to say, do we got to stop? And now we have this world, this biohacker world, right? We can just kind of go around it all and we can like try to jump over it and do this and that.

What is that push for you to it almost feels like it's a overriding the system and I'm speaking to you But I'm speaking to myself because I've got my own Dude, I sit in front of my red light all morning and have a special relationship with a chiropractor all that stuff Yeah, it feels like our bodies globally. We've like we've created a world our bodies can't live in and Instead of stopping and going alright, dude Like we're doing a thing that we're not designed to do or in environments that are artificial like

let's reverse engineer that. It's like, no, no, no. Hey guys, I found a new bridge to get over this problem. Let's skip over this. And I heard one story where you're talking about you had braces on every part of your body just to continue to YouTube, right? And as the guy read it, I was like, just stop. You're worth being loved, man. Just stop. So walk me through that. Yeah. Well, I...

One, I'm here to be reverse engineered and I would love to do some deep work. My wife and I are back to do a two-day marriage intensive that will be going more to our childhood. Best of luck on that adventure. Thank you so much. It's gnarly. We did those too. I think self-awareness is a superpower. And I can say with integrity and authenticity that I can live in like –

into tensions. Okay. Like so many tensions. I think it was Craig Groeschel that said, there's so many things that we try to make black or white, but they're not problems to solve. They're tensions to be managed. There you go. So it's kind of like, as a business owner or something, is it greed or is it generosity? That's a tension. Am I slipping into greed? Well, I should probably give and be generous and start, you know,

Or some CEOs give as a way to control, right? Sure. And it's, yeah. It's tensions. It's just all tensions. Yeah. And is it selfish ambition or godly ambition or positive ambition and these different tensions? So I think on the one hand –

Like we have core values at our company, purpose-driven, Bible is our blueprint. I would actually say my theology is anchored in be fruitful and multiply. Like why we're on the earth, steward what you have. If I've been given a company, grow it. If I've been given a family, grow it. As well as time is short. Like I'm thinking of Bible verses. Like time is short, it's urgent. And there's a mission behind our company. So I feel an urgency there.

I think any successful, if you feel no urgency in business, like you're done. 100%. And it's also a tension of like, you know, you're reading John Mark Homer, Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. And then David Goggins over here. And then David Goggins or the CEO of Intel who wrote a book, Only the Paranoid Survive. I feel like in my soul, I got peace. And then I'm paranoid every day as an entrepreneur. Gotcha. So tensions. So on the one hand, I think there's this purpose-driven, mission-driven. On the other hand,

I think it's crippling insecurity, chip on my shoulder, trying to win my dad's approval, trying to prove others wrong. I heard somebody say that elements of the successful is like high insecurity, some trying to prove somebody wrong, and then also impulse control.

So, because if you don't have impulse control, you're not going to be able to be disciplined. And like the combination of those things. Oh, yeah. It's a tox – it's like – it's a poison, but it's a poison that's like also jet fuel, right? Sure, yeah. So, is that just the price to pay? I mean, is that the price to get in the arena? Because I'm wrestling with that personally. Yeah. And it's not just guys like us who have –

millions of views on it's sick the single mom who scrolls through Instagram is like oh I'm not doing enough sure or it's the dad who's like trying to get have a good job trying to be a good husband and

The coach is saying, "If your kid doesn't play this sport, then you're crushing his childhood." And there's always seems to be, all right, the finish line keeps moving. Maybe that's the best way to say it. And our bodies are shutting us down and we're like, "No, keep going, keep going." - And by the way, to your point, I do think I look back and people would be like, "You're insane." You had financial margin. You have a team around you who could support you. Now, I think one of the things though, with this whole weird personal brand thing, and we've worked with other content creators and whatnot,

But you feel like if you stop pedaling the bicycle – so there's the tension of having this courage and fear or faith and then the tension of also having fear. Like what if I stop pedaling the bike? Like what if and who does that affect? But you and I both know what happens. Somebody else fills that gap, especially in these platforms. It happens fast.

- It happens fast. - And even, yeah, in these platforms too, the momentum of it, 'cause there is something about momentum. And if you then get into, there's deep conversations about this. There was this whole wave of articles that came out about creators are burning out, YouTubers are burning out. One of the biggest creators, PewDiePie, opens up about a drinking problem. Creators are, they're burning out. The algorithm is causing it. The way the social media algorithms are for creators

are getting you kind of in this trap where even what it's doing to your brain and, but also how fragile your career is. The upside of cracking success as a content creator is so high, but yet you feel like constantly like tomorrow's not guaranteed. And that any, so I kind of want to milk this why I can, and perhaps the finances are really like crazy good this year.

but maybe my career is over next year. And so then even thinking about that, having a long-term perspective that, of course, manage your money well and realizing if in the good times you're smart, then in famine you're prepared. So I think there's, yeah, there's, you know, driving through. As I started to get into chronic pain and some stuff and issues because I worked so hard from 32 to,

or through my 20s to 32, and 32 is when it started to really kick in and have embraces. I also started to shift into building a team, and the work became different. I was able to hire a video editor, and the actual computer work itself, so much typing and mouse work became delegated. Nevertheless, even some of the most minimal things

typing could trigger repetitive strain injury, RSI. - Was it RSI or was it psychosomatic or both? - Probably both. I've studied like Sarno's work about the psychosomatic side of it, as well as nerve entrapment. I think it's, yes, the nerve entrapment, right shoulder, the nerves go under here. - My wife was just telling me that last night, and she was just talking about the last six years and we were laying in bed. She was just like, man, six years ago versus six years ago before that.

And when I got to Nashville, my neck was so jacked up. And she just real quick, she's like, man, just think six years ago, our marriage is almost over. We had a two-year-old. We packed up and moved away from all of our family across the country for this crazy. And she just rattled it all off. I was like,

Oh, well, of course my body was storing that somewhere. Of course it was. Yeah. And it would have been crazy for it not to have been. Yeah. Right. And so, yeah, there's that, that it holds it and it holds it and holds it. Um,

And maybe there's just not a great answer right now. Well, one of the things that came up, tracking back to the question I feel like you asked, but something to definitely share, is I really believe self-awareness is a superpower. And here's what I've seen, especially in this industry for me. I started to get exposed to like different individuals that are like –

On social media, you'd call it, there'd be a, what's your, get that grind set on. That hustle culture. Yes, yes, yes. And that also is like, you know, build more and more. And then you can see these different extremes. And I had a mentor. I was on a business planning workshop.

And a guy named Patrick David asked me a question. I did the VIP and he asked me a question. I was so profound. And it was talking about our company's doing multiple million. And, but he was like, let me ask you this. Would you want to work 80 hour weeks so you could get to 10 million a year in the next 12 months? Or would you be willing to, or would you rather work 20 hour weeks and get to 10 million in the next five years?

And so even just kind of laying out that scenario, here was my answer was, well, self-awareness is I don't want to work 20-hour weeks. I love what I do. I want to – I'm not actually chasing money. I'm chasing impact. So for the – whatever I feel like God has put in my hand to do right now, I want to put my hand to the plow. I'm not trying to solve for Tim Ferriss' four-hour work week. Right.

But I also don't want the ambition to get so crazy. I want to be done at five and I take my kids on a walk. And I do. The other day I was thinking my mom, who was able to recently and stepdad move one, two minutes walking distance from us. That's awesome. And one of the reasons, even it would be better for our business to stay in Las Vegas. Now we're more in Seattle.

for growth, ambition, and all that kind of stuff, but for family, getting kids around the grandparents. So which were we solving for? Well, I wanted to make the decision, even if it meant the business grew slower, to be around family and trying to keep my mom healthy and keep her moving.

I'm like, mom, here is what winning looks like. At least three nights a week, five o'clock, we're going on a walk. We're putting the two boys in our Thule jogging stroller. We're going to the park. You're coming with me. She's just getting moving, just getting back into that routine. And as we're out walking and processing the day or just being, you know, in the trees, I think to myself, I'm like, this is success. Walking with my mom. This is what they'll talk about at your funeral.

Not how big your business was that one time, but remember all those walks we used to take with grandma. The walks we used to take with grandma. So, but I still want to get up and I'm a grind set day. I want to get out. I'll cold plunge, you know, against Fred or red light therapy. And so, but self-awareness. And I felt you can just get pulled. I think there's so many good things to learn. And a lot of times we go to these extremes. Culture is so extremes right now. And so-

That's one of the reasons why I love Ramsey Solutions is Dave, when we had him on our podcast, was talking about keep chopping wood. You got to have the work ethic. You got to have the work ethic. You put in the work. He also talked about there's seasons of sacrifice, but it's not going to be sustainable. So we go to these extremes. It's like sometimes we're trying to say like anti-hustle culture. Well, that shouldn't be the culture, but you need to hustle.

At certain times. And so a lot of it's been self-awareness. And I think as we grow, thinking about, okay, you know, pushing for that, you know, more views, more subscribers, more money, whatever. What is that kind of tipping point? And then maybe having...

checks and balances to know if something's on fire and if there's smoke. And so if I'm, if walks are happening with grandma, then things are good. If, if we're hitting date nights or we have some margin and things, and if, if we don't, we back it up a little bit. And talking to Patrick, but David about that, he was talking about he, he, his self-awareness and at some point,

sitting down with his wife when they got married. He went through this book with 100 questions, knew exactly what his vision was, exactly how much he wanted to work, exactly what he wanted to build. We got married at 21. We didn't even know what we'd be doing. So I even think about honoring my wife for what did she sign up for and letting that be a conversation as opposed to like, well, you either get on the bus or you're... I was like, no, we're building this thing together. So yeah, if actually we...

I really think that it's important we capture vision from God, but sometimes the clarity of the timeline is uncertain and we might be a little too hasty on it. Yeah, there's that one of my favorite quotes in relationship world is that the average adult has four to five great loves in their lifetime. And if you work really hard, it can be with the same person. And I love the fact that my wife is married to a radically different husband now than she is.

Was it 24 or 23 when she walked down the aisle? Thank God. That guy was an idiot, right? And I'm sure in 10 years, I'll be like, that dude was a loony tune. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest...

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Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash deloney. Man, this is probably a harder question. I have really come to believe that loneliness is killing us. How do you navigate just friendships in this wild quasi-vulnerable, quasi-transactional, quasi-

uh transparent world we found ourselves in i think i mean i just turned 40. i'm terrible at it by the way yeah just making friends i think i think i'm awful at it well actually yeah i think making new friends i i just think of my own situation so i just i just turned 40 i would say i mainly feel like i have not been a great friend saying that i just had my 40th birthday and one of the

I feel coolest things was having Anthony Jesse and Spencer Hurst and my friend, Kevin Davidson has been dealing with some health issues. We wanted to be there and having Jeff Moores. So these guys, this is high school, you know, and Jeff Moores was my youth pastor that got me into video in 2003. And I think we went, we went from like mentor student relationship to,

to kind of like we did a collaborative project together to kind of like, I'd say we're now more peers to now he's planted this incredible church he's doing and we will exchange kind of leadership stuff, but we've been through, we've done life together and we've stayed connected. And I think we've at least enough nurtured those relationships. I think about Benji Travis, the co-author of our book, YouTube Secrets. I think we met transactionally, good values, good culture, always those alignment.

I worked for them. We eventually wrote a book together. We started this 50-50 kind of side business together. We also went through an incredibly deep dispute, fight, and like, I don't know if this, you know, if this relationship will ever heal. I think the fact of on both sides, it always takes two sides.

That now together we're working out together in like established that we kind of like fought and split maybe because of the overlap of how business partnerships can work and different opinions. But as the dust settled and as if we both humbled ourselves, we've come back together and now can relate over families, got five daughters, relate, talk about faith, loves to cook, work out.

So I'm mainly humbled and grateful. Like I just feel blessed like to be able to mention these individuals that can span all the way back to sophomore year or in just the last few years and whether it's ministry, friendships, I've heard. And so that's what I think about. But I will say I did hear some good advice about label.

relationships correctly and don't call everybody a friend. Like actually use words like maybe acquaintance, associate, team member. Colleague, yeah. And colleague. And one of we made, I feel like we made a mistake because the way we're going to treat our team is we want to treat our team like family. In fact, we want to treat our community from online that meets in person. We want to treat them like family. But

a few years ago, we were almost like saying you are family. Big difference, right? It's messy. Yeah. Because we're not, right? Because we're not actually family. And not to blur those. So trying to, a lot of it's been, I think, making mistakes. And I'm grateful for getting through that. And I do think, to your point, the networking, the social, I think, yeah, to define things properly. Like those...

Great synergistic business relationships with people who you can laugh with and that feels like family. But knowing, yeah, it's not the people you're going to call in the middle of the night. My high school buddies, I mean, they're the greatest friends in the world. And now it turns into 20 and 30-year relationships, which is amazing. What I've found the trajectory in my own life is –

It was graduate college and you try to recoup those and then it turns into let's go play basketball, which turns into let's get together once a month, which turns into, oh, did you hear that dude's having a baby, which turns into did you hear they got divorced? And now 25 years later, it's just a really hilarious long text thread full of memes. But my body knows I'm not okay. I'm not safe right here in Nashville by myself. And I could be driving and I can call anybody anytime.

And it's me using that as like a pass. And so it's just, I guess it's just calling out. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard. And I don't know that...

The work is same as like you, like the hard part about, you know, sitting with somebody and their mental or emotional challenges is I might tell a CEO who's like, I got three kids. I'm doing this. I'm also doing this. I just started a side business. I'm about to run a triathlon. I might tell them, you got to stop working out. Stop. And then the next person comes in and I, they tell me what's going on. Like you got to start exercising. And so it's knowing, like you said, self-awareness, it's knowing which side of the, of the grinder sit I'm on. Yeah.

And I think it's that same self-awareness. I'm just thinking out loud. That same self-awareness must be like, no, I've got friends that I know really well. I've known for a long time. Yeah. I got to meet my neighbors. Like, I got to start hanging out. 2003 was the worst year in our marriage. Mm-hmm. And... From a relationship or just health and I'm going to lose somebody? In December, Sonia told me she thought we were going to get divorced. Okay. And...

there's many reasons we can unpack but one of the things i think about that had happened is just all of the momentum of life and over commitments one of those things being i was committed to like three business groups and i also kind of default that like if i if i do it then like then each of the events go on the calendar it all goes on the calendar i'm going to show up to and and and then you add on top of that business and then you add on top of that the kids

And all these different things. And my wife felt very clearly like she wanted to be home and not traveling with the kids in that season because there's opportunity for us to go together. And we could afford a nanny or something, but that was her clarity. And so I went anyways, and that was one of many things. But even to that point,

I am that type. I have a friend named Gabe Perez in Vegas, and he's like, dude, sign up for the Las Vegas Marathon. I've done a couple halves. Maybe we'll do. Self-awareness is that also lifting right now is healing my body. Absolutely. Lifting heavy. Running is not. Running is actually beating me up. But if I also put a marathon on the calendar, what is the second order of consequences? Well, all that training. And so in response to Sonia saying that in December, the biggest thing was

disunity over some important decisions she's felt so clear about and I really wasn't listening to but then it was also it was changed the schedule drop out of these groups I don't need to be a part of three scale back you know lean into virtual stuff you can say off the road but also even those different decisions and to your point that's where I feel like I think I've overcrowded I think I've definitely overcrowded my calendar and

with things very out of balance. You know, is there a margin for, is there a margin for friendships? Not really. When I'm barely able to be there for my wife and kids because I've been doing this many business things and this much stuff. So, that was, this year I told, because I wrote three books in three consecutive years and I told my wife, I'm going to take the next year off. And when her response to me was so instructive, she said, um,

that's the best way you could love me this year. And I didn't realize, because it's easy for me to be like, no, I'm writing a book for us, because it's going to make us this much money, we're going to be able to do this, we're going to be able to do this. And it's been hard for me to wrestle with, oh, you just want me, and not some accolade and not some billboard. You just want this guy sucks. You don't want that guy. You want the stuff that I could do. And I'm still reconciling with that.

oh she just said i do like to me back when i was a 23 year old 24 year old moron right and she she'll tell you like i bought really low she goes you're a stock i bought real low i was hoping it would it would mature and it did but like that sense of i'm still trying to prove it to her and like i got this and i got this and i got this it was ryan holiday that said uh

Every yes has a cascade of no's that accompany it. Yes, I'm going to go speak here. Not going to the play, not going out to lunch with my son, not going to this, not doing this. And it all adds up. How do you – okay, let's shift gears here. These platforms have given everybody a voice, which I think is powerful because voices have been squashed over centuries, right? But as everybody has got a voice, everyone has begun to –

stand up and consider themselves an expert and the number of times people have stopped me at a book signing or pull me aside or sent me DMs that said hey I blew up my marriage and we decided to stay together and

And now, going back to that word, we have to use this. And so we're going to write a book on how to have the perfect marriage. And I'm going, no, you have an experience. You have a story. And it's cool. And that can be a beacon for folks. But the same thing with this particular diet healed everything in the world. So this is the only diet in the world. And here's my platform for that. There doesn't seem to be any checks and balances. And there doesn't seem to be any nuance whatsoever.

And my fear as a guy that's been sitting with hurting people for 20 years, you can hurt people real bad with this flood of info. How do you navigate teaching people, here's all the nuts and bolts, with what I believe is a moral responsibility too. Dude, if you're going to get in front of a camera, you have to know what you're talking about because you can hurt people in the way that the algorithm will just spin this stuff up and spit it out. Yeah, I mean, I think there's many things that come to mind. I think the first is that

The internet, of course, I believe is really amoral. Money is amoral. It's how you use it. But they're amplifiers. Does money change people? No, it just amplifies who you already are. And then what does the internet do? Does it actually – has it made a new problem? I think it's probably the same problem, but it's amplified. There's always been charlatans. Always. On the street corner, right? Yeah. There's always been people who –

Shouldn't have been writing books that are or that had one barely successful business that mostly failed or top line look good But bottom line was horrible. They still called himself a business expert. So that's just gonna get amplified by the internet I think the way a couple of ways to do this with integrity is to think about Sequencing and to stay in your lane. Of course, the joke online is 20 year old life coach. I

Right. I was just in Los Angeles, and the number of people who were working at Smoothie King last week are now doing ayahuasca trips as a shaman. You're like, what are you doing? You know what I mean? It's bananas. You leveled up your shaman game quick. Real quick, yeah. Or you go to a—

essential oil seminar and you're like, oh, I know how to solve cancer. You're like, bro, dial it back. Yeah, so I mean, that's, I think that maps to human nature, but the thing is, yes, 20-year-old life coaches, I think is a, should not be happening, but it doesn't mean the 20-year-old can't create content. Okay, tell me about that because there's a tension there for me. Well, so like one of the things we help people do is, like there's like a big opportunity right now to, you can make YouTube videos, you can even make

Just go to your like pantry or your garage make just use your smartphone film yourself Reviewing the socket set that you've been using for the past couple weeks right that you just bought off Amazon upload that to Amazon directly if You're the last if a percentage of that video is watched you actually get a commission if you

you're the last watch video on that purchase of that product. I've got multiple friends and people in our community earning thousands of dollars a month, uploading videos directly to Amazon about stuff around their house that they're actually using. That's not a problem for me. If you bought it, you used it, you go, "Yeah, I bought this other one." - Here's my opinion. - Here's my opinion. It worked. Like, this is what it looks like. This is how it fits with this style of hips.

this shape of body. This is so strange. I get it. It's like, because I would have asked the person like at the gym or the church, like, hey, I heard you got this vacuum. Do you like it? Like, oh, I love it. A hundred percent. But if you're actually on Amazon, there's those videos right there. You can just scroll through them. You like watch one. You're like, oh yeah, she has a body that shape like mine. So I stay in your lane. Like there's so much opportunity for people, but you don't have to be like a life coach or a marriage expert. And you have to step in all these expertise. Is there an incentive to-

sensationalized because one thing we struggle with here is the number of calls you know we can sit down with the youtube team here and they're like guys give us more of found out my dad was a priest like and with 23 me or give me the the one like my my granddaughter thinks she's a fox or whatever give me some more of those yeah

And it's real easy to get real Jerry Springer real fast because it drives this. And it's actually a discipline here to say, no, no, no. Like, here's who's listening to the show. We're going to keep chopping wood. That's having clarity of your brand, your integrity long term. And not, I don't think being overly critical of yourself if you drift into the more clickbait or you lean heavy. Sure.

It's course correct. So if you've got your values written out, you kind of know, then you're like, oh, we're drifting a little bit from purpose. Let's come back. I think the other big opportunity for people right now is there's this opportunity to be like a knowledge broker, a reporter, and then the expert. And so- Who break those down? If you're wanting to help and build marriages and write a book someday-

then first, become a protege. You could become a knowledge broker. You could start a podcast where you're like, listen, all we know is our marriage is jacked up, so we're going to have guests on that can help us. There you go. And that's, you're a broker of other people's knowledge. Okay. And this idea, I'm going to write my own book or create my own marriage curriculum. Knowledge broker can show

share other people's curriculum. I mean, people share financial peace. They could become a coach. You didn't really crack this, but you can get to this level where you're an extension. You're not that like all-time OG expert Ramsey, but you could be at that knowledge broker. Reporter kind of ties into that as well. If you think about this, you know,

one of the most famous personal development books of all time, Think and Grow Rich, was not from an individual who built the big companies. He interviewed Andrew Carnegie, and there's actually even some speculation of whether that's true or not. But nevertheless, the idea of packaging those that are proven experts with proven track records, what's cool about that is when you take the knowledge broker path and the reporter path and then –

all of the life lessons that come around that can then help you even get to the expert level.

true expertise with actual depth in the proper order. But in the content creation arena, I think that's an integrous way to get there. You're getting there in a way where you're learning, you're getting to be a student, and you're just not getting ahead of yourself where you're saying, come alongside me as opposed to positioning yourself as this experienced expert. And that would be a lack of integrity if that's not true. So there's a... I like that. So that means...

You blow your marriage up, you all repair it, and you keep pretty close tabs on how that repair process went. And I'm an old qualitative researcher, so that story is important. Tell that story. Yeah.

And tell that story as our story. So one of the things as a qualitative research, I always had to say, this is not generalizable. This is those people right there. This is this story. This is not everybody. And so to say like, here's how me and my wife healed this marriage. Not we were the Gottmans, right? We've sat with 50,000 couples and we've put heart monitors on them. We studied them. We know we're talking about. Yeah. I like that. I think also that there's a humility in that though.

I think that there is a humility in that. And I think that we're seeing an unfortunate thing happening. We're seeing that probably certain personality types that are wired to want the spotlight and have the social media influence are chasing that and fixated on the views and on that feedback loop. Meanwhile, one of my messages would be there are so many –

millennials, Gen X, and baby boomers who need to be on social media because this wisdom needs to be shared. There's a channel called Dad How Do I? I love that, yeah. Because a lot of people didn't have the dad showing them how to fix this stuff around the house. So you're right. It would be awesome if you have a relationship with your neighbors and that is its own issue and challenge. But also think about the power and the impact that you actually are having that connection

at some level, but you're actually, he's solving problems. He's helping you, but that's some real wisdom. He's fixed stuff around the house. So I would say to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, what's wild is there's something like eight out of 10 Baby Boomers in the US are watching YouTube and there's a massive move of content creators, Gen X, Baby Boomers. They have so much wisdom. Sometimes there's a tech gap. Like, it's sort of like, you know, are we going to curse the darkness? We need to light a lamp. We need to light a match. So, and part of my

One of the things from my perspective that I feel blessed with is you and I are digital immigrants. And there's this whole generation that's digital natives. We have a blessing to be digital immigrants. I grew up on six acres climbing trees.

playing outside pre-internet. I remember when I got the AOL CD disc. Ooh, two hours free. Ooh, another eight hours game. Start another email. Free internet. In fact, we have phone cards to call long distance. And you have the switch over. It would go through, pause the internet, so a call would come through on your one line. If you had two lines, you're like, oh, we're balling. We have an internet line, 56.6. We didn't have that kind of money, Sean. Two phone lines. And so if you think about

I think it's biblical. I think about these heroes of mine like King David who just had so much time fighting lions and tigers and bears that prepared him for Goliath. Samuel comes and anoints him. So he also gets this vision of

oh, wow, like I'm maybe called to prominence and influence. Clearly, like that has been affirmed, but then like over a decade passes before he even reaches being king. We're in such a rush in today's world where on the one hand, I'm like this social media opportunity for good, for supporting your family, creating side income, making a difference in people's lives. But also we don't have to be in that much of a rush. And this is a tension to be managed. If you...

I think have humility and are obsessed with real depth and real Cal Newport, you know, be so good you can't be ignored. Like real depth, like really putting in 10,000 hours, like really putting in

the expertise and becoming a true subject matter expert, at some level, it's going to take time and volume. And I think the tension is, the whole thing on the 10,000-hour rule was that's got to be five to 10 years. But we are also living, Malcolm Gladwell just updated that. He's like, it's actually a little bit different now because we do have more access to information. We can get good information faster. We can have deliberate practice

in a more concentrated way right now. The bright spots of the internet and of YouTube is that we could accelerate our learning. We're gonna need experience, but maybe, I know it's maybe leaders, the old mentality, maybe in a toxic church culture, business culture is like, you know, we'll hold you down. And we have this maybe idea where,

Stay humble, you know, serve for 30 years before you'll be promoted or whatever. Okay. Don't promote somebody too soon, but also it also could be too long. Crazy tension to be managed. How long until someone's ready? It's a good question. What are the signs and seeing their character, seeing their discipline, seeing their humility, think about yourself, you know,

And so there certainly is a too fast, but there also could maybe be a too slow. And I think we wrestle with that. And we usually drift to extremes like, oh, man, YouTube or social media. I don't know if I want to get into that. What could happen? But then there's all these people with wisdom that should be sharing that do have expertise that are –

in fear or stuck behind a learning curve they're not willing to get over. Too many people are writing marriage books when there's people who should be right now who've maybe buried their talent. They need to dig that thing up because that thing needs to be multiplied. And that is probably the ultimate tension for me. You mentioned, what is it, how to be a dad? Dad, how do I? Dad, how do I? Okay.

A great channel. And that guy's got the videos on how to clean the back of your fridge and how to tie a tie and all those. And I remember seeing that the first time and I was like, what an amazing gift to humanity. Yeah, right. And I guess the tension is, and I'll leave us with this. I remember at, my dad was a SWAT hostage negotiator growing up and he got called away to a big SWAT thing.

And it was the night of like a Valentine's dance and I'd wear a tie. I didn't know how to tie it. And I had to run down the street and get my neighbor named Mike Stewart, who was my buddy's dad, to tie this tie. And he came out smiling and laughing and he's like, you don't have a tie, tie. Oh my gosh. And he tied it for me and he put it on me and he's like, you look good. Like, I remember that. And then just a few years ago when I launched my first book,

Mike and Kathy showed up in Dallas, Texas to the book thing and it was this long arc of I knew when my dad was out of town if I was gonna get in trouble Mike was watching you know what I mean and so it's that it's that both and that I guess maybe I'm old now and nostalgic for like being you gotta know your neighbors for just that moment and also

People don't and so what do you do in that gap? Yeah, you get online and teach people Hey, there's gonna be some seventh graders whose dad just got called to work and you know a tie tie I was gonna be that dad who just was it 60% of homes don't have two parents fatherlessness is all time So I'm gonna step in that gap and maybe we have to maybe as content creators we have to admit Okay, it's not the same. It's not but nothing is better than something. Yeah or something's better than nothing Yeah, and so we're gonna put that out there and hope that we can be a light there um

Yeah, it's a tension. I wrestle with it hard, man. I feel it. I think if we stopped wrestling with it, we're in trouble. Yeah, maybe that's the best way to say it. The tension's to be managed, just what leaders would do. It's not problems to be solved, tension's to be managed. Yeah. Well, dude, I appreciate your honesty and vulnerability and letting me ask hard questions that just haunt me in this new era.

this new world. So I'm grateful for you, man. I'm grateful to be here. Love the work you're doing. It's so needed and appreciate you. It's awesome. I'm so proud that Thorne Supplements, my favorite supplements on the planet, have continued to partner with me and our show listeners for health, longevity, and just feeling good.

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All right. That was my conversation with my friend, Sean Cannell. If you're thinking about, man, I've always wanted to start a YouTube page or you started putting up videos and you realize it's hard. I don't know how to do this. I don't even know how the cameras work. Or if you're a police officer, a stato mom, a granddad who just wants to interact with his kids. You're like, man, I want to put this on YouTube. We've linked to all of Sean's stuff in the show notes. And he is just a treasure trove of great information. And

If anything in this show just struck you, like I need to sit down with my wife or my husband and just start telling the truth. I'm struggling with anxiety. I have gotten really busy with work and my life has turned transactional all of a sudden. Or I need to listen to my body because I've got this dream job. I'm doing this dream thing and my body keeps shutting me down. I'm going to be honest about it. I want to encourage you. Make the phone call. Make the phone call. Take somebody out for coffee or for lunch.

Look him in the eye across the small table in a cafe and just tell him the truth. Or go for a walk if you're struggling with money. Just go for a walk and tell somebody the truth. You're worth that. We'll see you next time. I'm so glad that you give us your most precious resource, your time. See you all soon right here on the Dr. John Deloney Show. Peace out.