I Got What I Wanted and Now I’m Miserable
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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. I graduated college. I got my marketing job and I cried myself to sleep almost every night because I hated it so much. I didn't like how I could so easily lie and I feel like that guilt kind of caught up to me. And then also, you know, the work was not the most fun. So I've been kind of soul searching and I just haven't found anything. I feel kind of lost.

My, oh my, oh my, this is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. We are making internet magic or podcast magic depending on how you're consuming this show. I'm so glad that you're with us talking about your mental and emotional health, your relationships, real people going through real challenges in their real lives. And I'm so glad that you've joined us. I'm so glad for the bravery and the vulnerability of the people who call. And I'm glad that people all over the world

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All right, let's go out to Atlanta, Georgia and talk to Josh who has been patiently, patiently waiting. Josh, what's up brother? What's up? Thanks for having me on. How are you? Well, just a little inside baseball. I was recording ads before this and Josh was on hold before the show started. And my ad reading today was a little bit of disaster pants. It was not good. It was not good. Kelly,

She's still weeping over here. She was laughing so hard. I just didn't do a great job. It wasn't good. And my reading skills, my writing skills, one of the ads was like 17 minutes long. I don't know what's wrong with me. Listen, Josh, you are a patient, good man. So good for you. You don't even have to go to church this week. You've already done your thing this week. You're squared. All right. So what's up, brother? How can I help? First of all, I had a lot of fun listening in. I bet you did. I bet you did.

Oh, man. So I'm calling because I graduated college in December. And with marketing, I had a good GPA. I worked hard, stayed out of debt. But then I got my marketing job and I cried myself to sleep almost every night because I hated it so much. And it only lasted a little over two months.

And it's been about three months and I've been kind of soul searching and I just haven't found anything. I feel kind of lost and directionless. That's scary, huh? It's not great. Yeah. Did you get fired? Did you quit? No, I quit. What was the soul sucking about it? Um, well, first I didn't feel like what we were doing was totally ethical. Um, so I couldn't lie to people every day and kind of put on two faces. Uh, and, uh,

The people, the coworkers were fun, but I just, I didn't like who I was and I didn't like how I could so easily lie. And I feel like that guilt kind of caught up to me. And then also, you know, the work was not the most fun either. Okay. So are you, there's a couple of different avenues we can take. Are you having a moment? How old did you say you were? 24? 24. So is this your first moment of realizing that,

And I remember specifically mine when I realized, oh, adults lie and cheat too. Right? And I was in the workforce and it was unmooring. It kind of freaked me. I was like, oh, y'all are, this is for real. Like people, like I read about this kind of stuff, but so is it that, is it that your foundation or your faith in adulthood, right? Or humanity has been shaken? Or did you end up with a four-year degree and you got into the job and you're like, I can't do this the rest of my life. I hate this.

What is it? Both, for sure. Tell me about that. Well, I wanted to get into psychology, and I kind of got tucked out of it because I thought at the time I didn't want to get a master's. But...

So I kind of thought marketing was the psychology of business. But pretty early on, I kind of realized this wasn't my passion or anything I really cared about. But I did well in school and I was happy enough, so I did it. But actually getting there, doing the work, I was like, ooh, I'm so bored right now. I'm just so not into this. And then the other thing was, yeah, I definitely was taken aback many times with just how easily people could lie to themselves and other people. Yeah.

It's, it's, um, yeah. Unmooring is the only way I could say it. It's like somebody pulled the, the, like the floor out from under me when it first happened. Like this, this person I look up to as a professional, um, like a pillar in the place that I worked. It was just,

super dishonest they just didn't tell the truth and it had such powerful ripple effects and i couldn't believe it and the more you you know you bang your head up against it the the the more terrifying it becomes like oh you're you don't have any truth in you right and so yeah that's a scary scary place to be um so you're 24 um what stops you from enrolling in a psychology course tomorrow

I've talked to a few master's programs in social work, even music therapy. But just following the passions, it seems like I could really want to do it one day. And then the next week, I'm all about, no, I want to join the Peace Corps. Or, no, I want to do movies or I want to be a PA. It seems like every day is a whole different life direction. That's cool. So where are you working right now?

Right now I'm not, but I saved up a pretty decent nest egg to where I don't really need to do that. And I also have some kind of music royalties that are coming in to where it's like I don't necessarily need. You need to work not for the money, but for the psychological stability. You're a balloon and the string has been cut. You need to get a job today or tomorrow. And preferably, and this is going to sound bananas,

preferably a job that is manual in nature, a job at Walmart, throwing boxes and commit to six months. Like you don't need the job financially, but your body is spinning out. It's unspooling inside of you and you feel it. Right.

Yeah, for sure. And what I want you to do is give yourself some time to think and to consider and to explore while also having two feet firmly planted in quote unquote, the real world.

Working and working and working. And you, you work, you write songs, you work with people, you work in ideas. Marketing is about telling stories. A lot of that is really powerful, but if you're around great storytellers, they either have a ritualized grounding process, they're gardeners or they're hunters or they are woodworkers also like they're very grounded or they go crazy.

Right? Very few people can just get up and write songs. And if those that can are some of the wellest, most amazing people, I'm thinking of a couple of guys I know right now who are able just to disconnect and they just write songs as though they're bricklayers and then they go home. But that's few and far between. But you have a lot of dreams and a lot of ideas. I want to tell you right now, if anybody told you to follow your passion, they told you wrong. That's moronic advice. Do not do that.

By following your passion, you're going to end up right where you are because you like a lot of things and you're interested in a lot of things and you can even get yourself worked up and passionate about some things. But I'll just tell you, being a PA is amazing work and there's seasons when it is an absolute grind and you're a PA and your head doctor just decides to quit and you get a new head doctor who's the worst. Or being a therapist is one of the most rewarding, amazing jobs and day in and day out, it is a grind.

Being a songwriter is incredible and it's also filled with rejection and a lot of grinding work and sitting in a room with four people and everybody's just strumming their guitar, staring at each other because the lead guy, what he's in there to write with won't come up, right? You see what I'm saying? Every job's going to have a big suck factor to it. And so just trying to chase your passion, you're going to end up chasing feelings and you're never going to be centered and whole.

You're just going to move from thing to thing, to thing, to thing, to thing. I think it's the great curse of your generation. Y'all were all told to follow your passion. It's terrible advice. I want you to follow what, um, makes sense right now. And you sound like you're pretty smart guy. Is that right? It's all relative. No, don't do that. Are you a smart guy? I can't answer that without feeling arrogant. Okay. We'll feel arrogant for a second. Are you a smart guy? Sure. Why not? Okay. Yeah. Can you get into grad school?

Yeah. Okay, good. So don't go to graduate school unless you're sure why you want to go to graduate school. But I do think you need to get up and get to work, get to doing something. And it might be the things that you mentioned are all people adjacent. So I'm going to take back my suggestion to go through the boxes. I suggest you get a job at a behavioral health center or get a job at a children's home.

Or get a job, a children's one would be amazing actually because you get to see it all there. Or an adoption intake. But I guarantee you, you can find that kind of work in Atlanta and it doesn't pay super well at all. But you will get in and get a feel for here's what this is.

Here's the late nights, the early mornings, I poured everything into this family and they just got up and walked out. All in the successes, the kid that gets to the family and gets into school. But if you want to go into mental health or social work or PA work, get a job working around people where you got to get up and be on the move and going and you're not just living in the world of stories. Does that make sense? Yeah, for sure. I tend to stew in my own thoughts. There you go. Definitely going out and doing it is...

So obvious, but it's something I just haven't done. Okay. What's keeping you from just getting up and doing that today? What are you nervous about? Cause you're, you're apprehensive about something. What is it? That's a great question. Um, I actually did the last couple of days when I actually made the call to be on your show, it kind of got me journaling and thinking, and I have been making calls to nonprofits. Um, but yeah,

You know, the fear is that I just choose the wrong thing and then I'm stuck just similar to what I did with marketing that I spent four years doing something, you know, I end up there and then I don't like it. And now I'm onto the next thing. All right. Let me, can I run you through my world real quick? Sure. Hang on to your hat. Here it is. I go to college to be a writer, to be a journalism major.

I quickly changed, I think, to either to be a minister and that lasted about four days. And then I moved over to a business major. And then I ran through the business major and then this was dumb and I went back to trying to be an English something or other. And then I went and saw Good Will Hunting and I saw Robin Williams' character and I was like, I want to be that. I want to be the guy behind the guy who's a college professor but who helps people.

And so then I went back to change my major to psychology and they were like, good God, man, you've changed your major so many times. You've got so many credits. I can, we can get you a liberal arts degree with an emphasis in psychology. So my degree actually says humanities on it and slash psychology. Okay. And then I went to grad school. I mean, then I went to become a high school teacher and I did that for a few years and I loved it. And I love my, my athletes. I love my students. I loved it. And then I left and then I got a job at a university and,

And then I loved that. And then I had to race and get a master's degree. So I got a master's degree in higher education administration. And then I kept going. I got a PhD in higher education administration. I did that for what? Almost 20 years.

And while I was doing that, I did everything from work with people who were hurting to student conduct, to investigations, to sexual assault stuff, to showing up in rape crisis, to learning how to do death notifications and run budgets. And then I was running housing and then I was running intramural sports. You kept going and going and going and medical clinics and security departments. And the whole time I was just learning, never wasting anything.

And then my students started shifting and they started having more and more mental health crisis. And then I went bananas. And then I was not showing up for my wife and showing up for my kid and then my other kid. And so then I got another doctorate in counseling. And while I was doing that, I was working at a law school and I learned how these young men and women think and how they approach problems. And it was life altering.

And now I'm a YouTuber for God's sakes, Josh. Okay. So listen, I didn't get this job until I was 40. You're you just started. You just started. My first job in higher ed was at 26, maybe 25, very young. You haven't started yet. Nothing you've done is going to be wasted unless you throw it away.

The time you put in learning how to tell stories, learning how to be concise, learning how to put marketing copy together, all of that will help you in every step you take. And when you have to sit down with a young person at a local adoption clinic because that's where you're working and you have to tell them the story of what's going to happen next, you'll be able to communicate that a little bit better than somebody who just went straight through. All of those things will be gifts if you use them.

See what I'm saying? The skills I learned to tell somebody that their child had died, I also used to tell somebody that, hey, I have to let you go because we have to do budget cuts. And I also used that skill to sit down and tell my wife, hey, I'm not being the husband that I want to be. All that is the same skill. You just apply it differently. You're just getting started. The question I want you to wrestle with is why are you so hard on Josh? Who's being so hard on Josh? Where's his voice coming from? That's another great question. Um,

I've always had pretty high standards for myself. Yeah, but those came from somewhere. Who gave them to you? Probably my dad, but I think it was well-intentioned. And also, I think I did a lot of things out of maybe spite of others because I used to have...

you know, IEPs, um, uh, tension deficit disorders. And people didn't think I'd be able to kind of do things until maybe high school, but I was kind of labeled as the dumb kid. Okay. You just heard me cut ads on this show. You more than anybody got a ringside seat to what ADHD looks like in the working world. Right? Right. Right. It was chaos and it was madhouse and it was all over the place. And we have a great team of editors who are going to make it sound amazing. And you have a team.

But I want you to begin to believe in Josh. And here's the thing I want you to keep in mind. Do the next right thing. Keep your high standards, but also don't destroy yourself when you don't reach them every single time because you're not going to. It's failure. You're going to fail. You're going to stumble. You're going to fall. That's the path. The choice is are you going to get back up and are you going to say this isn't for me? And so I look at you going into two weeks or two months of your new job and seeing, whoa, this is highly unethical. I don't like this.

All right, cool. Now I know I'm a person of character. I'll walk out the front door rather than take money and become part of a machine that cheats people. Good on you. You've learned something powerful. You've also struggled ADHD and you've had IEPs and you've had ARD meetings your whole life and you made it. You graduated college. Nobody thought that was coming, did they? No. No. And you did it. And now you're going to go to grad school. You know who else saw that coming? Nobody.

Not even me. Not even you. But listen, if your whole life is about proving other people wrong, dude, that's a jet fuel that burns real hot, but it burns out real fast. It's not sustainable. Don't go on to the next thing because you'll show them. That's a lame way to live your life. Go on to the next thing because Josh has something to offer the world. Right. And take your marketing skills and move on to be a mental health practitioner and be a mental health practitioner that actually knows how to run a business, actually knows how to tell their story so they can get great clients.

or go on to the next thing and continue to write songs and act if you want to, cut commercials if you want to, and show up every day and work really hard for the people that you've signed up to work for. But I want you to get a job like ASAP. And don't just apply to nonprofits. Apply everywhere to positions where you're going to have to get up and move and work directly with people and commit, I will stay here for six months unless it's unethical again.

I'm going to stay here for six months. I'm going to stay here for two years and I'll be 26. And then I'll be just old enough like Deloney when he started going to grad school. You're just getting started, brother. You are just getting started. And I'm proud that you learned early on. I'm a person of integrity and character and I will walk out that front door. And by the way, you said it, you built a financial life for yourself. You saved money so that I can walk out that door in the moment I'm asked to do something unethical or something that violates my core values. Good on you, Josh. Good on you.

Be really graceful with yourself. Nothing is wasted and you're not even close to being behind. Not even close. And if you don't know which direction you're going, welcome to the party, dude. I'm working in a business, in a field, in a technology that did not exist when I was 24. Who knows what the world's going to look like when you're 40. Just do the next right amazing thing. You got this, Josh. Thanks for the call. We'll be right back.

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My question is, should I tell my significant other about my expunged DUI? Why wouldn't you? It's just something I have a lot of shame and embarrassment about. Tell me about your significant other. I've been with him for about a year and a half. We are actually planning on getting engaged in the next four months and then hopefully get married in the next three. But he's a wonderful guy. He works in sales. Is he going to leave you? No.

I don't think so. There's got to be something deeper than this. What's deeper than this? I guess I just don't want to look bad in front of him or bad to him. I feel like I've been just about very successful in every other part of my life except for this one incident. And you're hinging a lot on this. What happened with the DUI? Tell me about it. It was right after I turned 21. Essentially just got margaritas with friends and was speeding through town.

town and got pulled over. But it costed thousands of dollars and it put a lot of strain on my job as well because you can't really get a DUI and work in healthcare. Right. Did you let go from your job or did you get let go from your job or did they keep you on? No, they kept me on, but I was on like a very high probation. Okay. Have you drank and drive? Have you been drinking and driving since?

No, I don't really drink anymore. Okay. How old are you now? 27. Okay. Yeah, for whatever reason, I feel like just giving you a high five right now. Or if you were here, I'd ask you if I could give you a hug. It feels like there's something more to this, but I'm going to trust you that there's not. I need you to forgive Sky and get on about your life. Are you embarrassed about this? Yeah. Are you ashamed about this? Yeah. Do you feel guilty about it? Something...

It's something that has killed, you know, millions or thousands of people. Yeah. And you're a 21-year-old moron, right? Yep. I was too. Everyone I know was not very wise at 21. Did you kill anybody? No. Did you learn your lesson? Yes. Okay. I want you to, tonight, I want you to write Sky, 21-year-old Sky, a letter and tell her you forgive her. Because you're still beating up that kid. Yes, that kid's an adult. And by the way, yes, drinking and driving is terrible, awful. We all know that.

But you got to forgive that 21-year-old kid because your disdain for that kid, your disgust and shame and anger at that 21-year-old is wreaking havoc on your 27-year-old life. It's going to cause an issue in the relationship that might be your last romantic relationship of your lifetime, right? Potentially, yes. Yeah. I think you write 21-year-old Skye a letter and tell her, I'm forgiving you and I'm moving on.

And then I think, yes, I absolutely believe with all my heart that secrets destroy relationships and that you go like a deep, deep shame that you're carrying around. The person you love can feel that. And often they blame themselves for it. If they wonder why they what they're doing wrong, that they can't get close. And.

So yes, I absolutely think you should tell him. And I think you should tell him exactly what you told me. I'm embarrassed. I haven't told you this stuff because I'm so ashamed about it and I'm working on forgiving myself, but it's time. That sounds like a good plan. Is there anything else that you're hiding from him? No. Tell me about the emotion you're feeling. I mean, it's mostly just embarrassment. Do you know the difference between guilt and shame?

No. Have you heard me talk about it? I don't believe so. Guilt is, and I've got this from the great Brene Brown, guilt is the sentiment, the idea that I feel bad for something I did. Shame is, I am bad. And one of those is like carrying, like when you got arrested for DUI and you had to go to court, you had to pay 10,000 bucks or whatever it is was at the time for you. And

You had to sit down with your boss and go through the whole story and they were embarrassed and ashamed for you and angry and put you on a performance plan and at 21 you're living under a performance plan, almost lost your job, almost cost you everything. And then the realization, oh, you could have killed somebody. That's like the world, you put out your arms and the world stacked three cinder blocks across your hands and you're struggling to carry them. That's guilt. That feeling, that weight.

Shame is you taking those bricks and putting them in a backpack and deciding, I'm going to carry these for the rest of my life because this is now who I am. Are you a good friend now? Yeah, I am. What do you do for a living? I'm a nurse. Are you a good nurse? I try my best. What kind of setting are you a nurse in? Emergency trauma. Is this guy that shows up and sits with hurting moms and dads and this guy who shows up and gets covered in blood and other junk while trying to save somebody's life?

Is that sky pretty amazing? I would say so. I think so. But I want you to start believing that. I want you to take, I want you to actually go with your boyfriend after you tell him and say, Hey, this goofball on the radio, on the podcast told me that I needed to do this exercise. Will you come with me? And I want you guys to go on a hike and I want you to go get a block, a cinder block or a brick or something heavy. And you can go to home Depot or Lowe's and buy it. And I want you to put a piece of duct tape on it. And I want you to write in a Sharpie on that duct tape and,

The time I got a DUI, and I want you to carry it around for a while on the walk together until it's so heavy you can't carry it anymore. And then I want you to throw it on the ground and leave it and tear off that tape, wad the tape up and throw it in the nearest trash can and never pick that thing up again. And when it pops into your head, when it pops into your chest, I want you to say to yourself out loud, I set that down. And you're just going to have to practice over the next couple of years when it tries to get your attention and rattle your cage a little bit. Oh yeah, I remember. Oh yeah, I remember.

And you'll probably have a licensure exam or you'll probably have another job application that you'll have to fill out and it will come up again. You can look at that question. Have you ever been convicted? And you'll have to say, I set that down. Yes, I have. Did this, this, and this. And then we're moving on. Either that or you're going to decide, nope, I'm going to keep carrying all this stuff, all these bricks, and I'm going to go ahead and ruin every relationship. And I'm going to ruin my own health and emotional well-being for the foreseeable future because I just can't set this stuff down.

You tired of carrying it? Yeah, I am. Yeah, let's be done. It's not your identity. You're a 21-year-old knucklehead that made a mistake. And thank God nobody got hurt. And unlike most 21-year-olds, you seem to have learned from it incredibly and gone on to make an amazing life for yourself and an amazing life for yourself in the service of other people. Good for you. I'm proud of you. Thank you. Before we leave, can you just say, I'm proud of Sky, too? I'm proud of Sky, too. And I'm going to set this down.

And I'm going to set this down. Good for you. I'm so proud of you. Thank you so much for calling. I know I made it sound super simple. And in a way, it's not. But in a way, it really is. It's a choice. I'm not going to carry this anymore because carrying it will do nothing. It will not go back and undo the DUI. And let's say you'd hit somebody. Carrying it right now wouldn't go back and undo that. You would just have to live into the future and say, okay, what am I going to be about moving forward now?

In light of what I have done in the past. And to answer your original question for everybody listening, secrets will kill your relationships. They'll kill your marriages. They'll kill your workplace. They'll just kill you. So if it's at all appropriate, yeah, tell people. Especially tell people you love. You don't want to meet people like, oh, hi, I'm so-and-so, I'm so-and-so. Guess what? I got to do you. Don't lead like that. But it's time. It's long past time. And I think you know that. But it's time to sit down and say, I'm ashamed.

I screwed up when I was 21. I'm embarrassed and I've been embarrassed to tell you. But one time I got a deal. He's probably going to be so stunned because of the person you've become. He'll be like, what? And he might say, hey, I feel like you lied to me. And you could say, I didn't lie to you, but man, I sure was embarrassed to tell you. I've kept it from you. So you're right on that. But he may say what I would say, which is, man, I'm glad you're okay. Glad you didn't hurt anybody. And that makes a lot of sense now as to why you're such a careful driver and why you don't drink anymore. Good for you.

Sky, hang on the line. I'm going to send you a copy of Own Your Past, Change Your Future. It's my book about healing from some of those past mistakes, those things that happened to us, those things that we did, and how to navigate that track moving forward. You're on the right path, but today is your first day of freedom. I'm not carrying this anymore. Thanks for the call, Sky. You're awesome. We'll be right back.

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All of it. Invest in yourself with Organifi. All right, let's go out to Omaha, Nebraska and talk to Royce. Hey Royce, what's up? Hey John, happy late father's day. Thank you so much, man. I'm really grateful. Appreciate you. What's up? Absolutely. Hey, so I don't, I don't know if I have a succinct question, but I just feel like I really need some advice. My, my,

Family owns and runs a small company, a small corporation, and my dad and my uncles own it. My brother and I and my cousin are working our way up the ladder. Needless to say, between my extended family and my immediate family, which is my wife and my children, I spend a lot of time working and collaborating with my extended family at work. And sometimes...

Boundaries become really, really difficult to hold and respect with my extended family because I run into issues of being able to... That balance of, am I going to be able to provide...

for my family by doing my work, which I'm in sales, so stressful enough. But being able to provide and collaborate with my extended family, who are also my coworkers, holding those boundaries with them, but not so harshly that it inhibits my ability to work. And also at the same time,

being that rock and that foundation and the protector of the boundaries of my family's time, space, everything. And, you know, like when you spend enough time together with your extended family, they're going to poke and prod at your boundaries. And I, I think I'm, I feel like I walk a tight rope and it's really stressful on me. And I feel a lot of guilt in, uh,

letting my family down when I let something like, you know, get swept under the rug that probably maybe shouldn't. And then I also feel like I can't provide when I hold a firm boundary and it's maybe offensive to my extended family. And then I can't talk to them at work or they don't really like, you know, I'm not able to collaborate and work and provide. And it's

It's hard. It's really hard on me and I'm not entirely sure what to do because my job is wonderful and my family is wonderful and I love them both, but balancing the two is very stressful on me and I wish I was stronger. How much do you make at your job, Royce? What's your annual salary? Before taxes? Yeah. About $120,000 to $130,000. How old are you? I'm

- 36. I know that if I continue down this path, that I will make substantially more owning and running the company. And there's a lot of good perks to my job that I get a lot of PTO as much as I see fit. - Hey, Royce. - And I'm able to spend a lot of time. - Hey, Royce, your job is killing you. It's killing you. And it's starting to sever the most important artery you have, which is your family. And I don't think this is about you being weak.

or not being strong enough. It's about being sent up to bat in a baseball game and all they'll hand you is a branch they took off a tree. You can swing as perfectly as you want and hit the ball square, but if it's just a weak little branch, the ball's not going to go anywhere. Family business has to be well thought out, not in the war room, but around the table. Here's who we're going to be at home. No one's allowed to talk about business at home.

And here's who we're going to be in the office. In the office, I'm not calling you dad. I'm not calling you uncle. I'm calling you Dan. I'm calling you Bill. I'm calling you Susan. Just like you would if we were coworkers because we got a job to do. And we get home, we'll circle back and we'll let our guard down. We'll be silly. We'll be goofy again. And it's very hard. Yeah. If you don't have that kind of boundary and if your family won't play, won't participate in that kind of boundary, I'm telling you right now, it's not going to work. You're not going to have much of a company left to run because it will eat itself.

And I think the reason why it's still running is because my family does not, they sweep a lot of stuff under the rug. You know, a lot of these things that normally would be addressed. Like what? Tell me what? You know, you know, any type of boundary, social boundary is not brought up. Tell me specifically. You're using very general words like boundaries and social. Like tell me specifically, what are they doing? Something happened that you picked up the phone and called. What happened?

I have some family members that have hurt my wife and we've had conversations about it and sat down and held those boundaries firm. How'd they hurt your wife? How'd they hurt your wife? Talking unkindly to her and making her feel isolated. And, you know, it's one of those things that they're making. In certain instances, they would make her feel like she's not part of the family.

And, um, we would, we would address it. And, uh, and then it would be, you know, difficult to talk at work for months. And I feared, you know, that, that got in the way of work. And, um, Royce take, take your parents out of this or family out of this. If you worked at a place that was disrespectful of your wife and spoke poorly of your wife or to your wife and your presence, what would you do?

I'd tell him to stop. I'm going to leave. You would leave just like I would. I'd walk out the door. I don't care what the future earning potential is. I don't want to be at a place that disrespects my wife. And just because you're my dad or my uncle or my cousin, that doesn't give you like some sort of extra cushion to talk bad about my wife or to make it an unhospitable place for her to reside. And if I'm your wife, Royce, I'm looking at you and saying, like, what am I worth?

I think the thing you've got to wrestle with is grief here. Because I don't think you would want to, why would you want to even run this company? I wouldn't want to run a company that swept everything under the rug and everyone kind of thought they could say whatever they wanted to say and treat people however crappy they want to treat them just because we're family. It should be the opposite of that. I guess I feel like I can change it. You can't, are you?

I mean, I'm not running the company right now, so I can't change things, but I can try to hold boundaries and encourage others to do the same. I don't know. And maybe I'm in denial. I think you are. I mean, how do you know you're going to be running this company? We've been told it, you know. Who's we? My brother and I. We're the only ones that are putting enough effort in, and we've been, you know, not clearly and succinctly on paper told, but...

We're the only ones that are bearing a large weight of operations of the company. And the talking around the table at the office always revolves around how this is going to go and in the future that we're going to be taking the reins at some point. How old is the leader of this company? My uncle is 68, 69.

How old's the next few rows of leaders? A couple of years between each one of them. There's my oldest uncle, my dad, and the youngest uncle. And each one of them's, you know, maybe a couple of years between them. They're all in their mid to late 60s. Here's my heartbreak, brother. Like, my heart's breaking for you. The kind of people who will talk bad about their nephew's wife...

or ostracize and split up family members or not listen to boundaries. Now, I'm not talking about obnoxious, like what I would call like wimpy. Like you can't be like, not that kind of stuff. I don't go to work until eight o'clock on Tuesday. Like not that that's not talking about boundaries. I'm talking about like, Hey, you don't talk about my wife, that kind of boundary. You know what I mean? Um, they also are of a character that someone's going to swoop in and be like, dude, I'll give you $2 million for that business right now. And you've got nothing in writing. Um,

You got a bunch of dudes hem-hawing around a table. You have no guarantee. You have no satisfaction. And the chances of you waking up and being 45 and them selling this out from underneath you is very high. You know how I know? Because I deal with this every day of my life.

I guess I'm putting a lot of trust into them not doing that. I know, but those are the same guys who won't listen to you when you say, please stop talking about my wife like that, who, if you do draw a boundary, they act like six-year-olds and just ignore you? Are we 12? What are we doing here? You know what I mean? Like, let's block him. Except they don't have social media, right? So they're blocking you in person. Let's just don't talk to him. Yeah. He's not going to tell us we can't talk to him.

That kind of immaturity doesn't lend itself to handshake deals down the road. And my fear is you're going to have squashed yourself for so long and you're going to squash an untapped earning potential. Like you're clearly a good salesman and you're clearly good at navigating. But if I'm your wife, I'm going to go, how long, how long? That's what she says. How long, how long am I going to be second place or third place? And I,

This comes up in family business a lot is that it's just like nobody ever questions that I'm not going to take over this business and nobody ever questions that, well, I'm not going to be next in line. And I've seen firsthand how one older brother's like, no, we're doing this now. And it just happens. And the other brothers are not interested. It just happens. An entire generation's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It's gone. It's gone.

I think it would be worth you having quiet conversations with other people in the area on particular sales jobs just to test the waters. It's not undercutting. You're just acting like an employee, and that's all you are right now. They don't have a succession plan. Dude, our two presidential candidates are about to be in their 80s, dude. This could go on another 15 years. Yeah. I...

I guess I'm just really scared to jump off a ladder that I'm so high on already. I know, but that ladder's an illusion, dude. It's wobbly. Or you're going to look down at your wife and she's going to be gone. Because at some point, wives get tired of being second place. Yeah. I just cut you off. You're about to ask something. What are you going to say?

No, no, you're fine. I just, so, so do I. Here's the deal. If your dad was a person, he would be the one I talked to because somebody in this group is not mature, but if somebody was there, it's their spouses that are not treating my wife kindly and we keep them at arm's length so that I can still deal with them in business. But getting together with family occasion stuff is really hard. Okay. And it's always hard.

We found healthy, in air quotes, happy medium of we don't do much with them outside of work. And my siblings and I, specific siblings, are able to at least talk at work. But when it comes to stuff where it's like Christmas...

Family gatherings and stuff like that, they want us to be there. The whole family wants us to be there, and it's always really stressful and it's really hard on us. And something always comes up between their spouses and my wife, and it's always really hard. Social stuff is always really hard. And with family business, unfortunately, it's all wound together. Exactly. And so at the end of the day, you have a choice to make.

I think you're selling yourself short on the open market. If this is all you've known for a long time, I think you're selling yourself short. I think sitting down and having cups of coffee with some friends or maybe one person removed or somebody who's a lead salesman on a particular product. I don't know. A buddy of mine just got a job selling conveyor belts, man. And he's amazing guy of high character and he's great sales. I never even occurred to me that someone sells conveyor belts. You can sell, you can do any job. You can work anywhere on the planet if you're a salesman.

But I think you're selling yourself short because if you've got the chops to run this business, you've got the chops to run the neighboring business and another business and another business and another business. And the time you put in on this business is not wasted. But family business is messy, messy unless everybody's super clear and super compassionate and super kind. And if three wives want to just make it their life's mission to destroy your wife's life, then you have a choice to make.

Sorry, honey. Suck it up. Look how high I am on this ladder. Or, dude, I'm out. I'm out. I love you guys. We're going to come to Christmas. By the way, Christmas might still be miserable, but maybe you won't have to see everybody on Monday through Friday. My dream would be that you could sit down with your dad and say, Dad, I'm about to walk. I'm about to be out. I've got nothing in writing. I'm a few years away from being 40. I've got no guarantees. I've got nothing in writing. We have no succession plan. And we can't come to family functions because...

My aunts or my cousins keep beating up on my wife. I just can't have it, dad. I'm about to walk out the door. You can't walk. I can. You raised me to be a tough, independent man. I can't walk. I need some security. I need some help with these boundaries. I'm going to have to protect my family and go somewhere else. And I know it's unpleasant. I know it's scary. But man, at some point, your wife, you said it. She's going to keep asking you, how long am I going to be second? How long am I going to be second? I'm telling you right now, she's not going to ask that question forever.

You're just going to find yourself all by yourself. So it's time to make a move at some point. Sit down with your dad, begin making an exit strategy, or tell your wife, honey, this is just going to be the way this is. And every year it's going to be awkward for a few months. And then we're going to go about our lives. And it's going to be worth it in the long run because maybe one day, hopefully, these three guys that we don't really care about or care for are going to hand me and my brother this job in a perfect transition. That sounds scary. Holler, let me know what you do, brother. We'll be right back.

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Alright, we are back and it is story time with John. So Kelly, because she is, I don't know, producer of the century, you know, I like to read and I encourage the team to read a lot. Mental health books, medical journals, things like that just to help expand our understanding of what we're doing here. Kelly went to McKay's, which is roundly known as the greatest used bookstore on the planet. And it's in Nashville.

She picked up a lot of Winnie the Pooh books. And her favorite was Pooh on the Move. Is that what you called it? Which sounds like a laxative commercial. No. Want to get that Pooh on the Move?

That's awesome. Anyway. Poo on the what? It's called poo goes visiting. Poo goes visiting. And you have messed up this whole like, no, none of that happened. All right. So a couple of weeks ago, I was talking about a buddy of mine who, when I was in the hospital, hoping my wife was okay and she was pregnant. So I was hoping the baby's okay. He came and just sat with me. Didn't say anything, just sat with me. And, um,

Kelly found this Winnie the Pooh book and Pooh Goes Visiting. And there's a scene in this that she said reminded her of it. And it's a pretty heavy scene. It's just beautiful. So I'm going to end today's show by reading you this straight from the book. It's printed out on a piece of paper, but it's from the book. The song's called, I mean, the song's called, the show, the book is Pooh Goes Visiting.

It occurred to Pooh and Piglet that they hadn't heard from Eeyore for several days. So they put on their hats and coats and trotted across the hundred acre wood to Eeyore's stick house. Inside the house was Eeyore. Hello, Eeyore, said Pooh. Hello, Pooh. Hello, Pignet. Hello, Piglet, said Eeyore in a glum sounding voice. We just thought we'd check in on you, said Piglet, because we hadn't heard from you. And so we wanted to know if you were okay. Eeyore was silent for a moment. Am I okay? He asked.

Well, I don't know, to be honest. Are any of us really okay? That's what I ask myself. All I can tell you, poo and piglet, is that right now I feel really rather sad and alone and not much fun to be around at all, which is why I haven't bothered you, because you wouldn't want to waste your time hanging out with someone who is sad and alone and not much fun to be around at all, would you now?

Pooh looked at Piglet, and Piglet looked at Pooh, and they both sat down, one on either side of Eeyore in his stick house. Eeyore looked at them in surprise. What are you doing? We're sitting with you, said Pooh, because we are your friends. And true friends don't care if someone is feeling sad or alone or not much fun to be around at all. True friends are there for you anyway. And so, here we are. Oh, said Eeyore. Oh.

And all three of them sat there in silence. And while Pooh and Piglet said nothing at all, somehow, almost imperceptibly, Eeyore started to feel a very tiny little bit better because Pooh and Piglet were there. No more and no less. That was good, Kelly. I thought it was wonderful. That's excellent. Life Lessons by Winnie the Pooh. Life Lessons by Winnie the Pooh. Pooh on the move. Not so much. That was awesome.

And for you, everybody, thanks for listening to the show. Really, really grateful for you. Stay in school, don't do drugs, and be kind to each other. See you soon.