Shawn Ryan Answers “Is There Still Hope for America?”
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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. Look at the confidence that young males have today. They have no confidence. You know why they don't have any confidence? Because it's, I don't want to listen to you cry. I don't want to listen to you moan. Here's a phone. Look at that. When you give your kid a phone, you're not giving them access to the world. You're giving the world access to your kid.

Yo, yo, yo, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, a show about your mental and emotional health, your relationships, your marriage, the good stuff, the scary stuff, the bads to all of it. How do we make sense of a world that has gone sideways? And more importantly, how do two people sit down and have a conversation with each other who both love each other, who want the best for each other, and who may disagree on things?

That leads me to one of my favorite guests of all time ever, ever. And a good buddy here. He's one of my neighbors here in Nashville and he's,

I'm excited today for you to listen to a conversation between me and my good friend. He was a former Navy SEAL, CIA operator, a Blackwater employee, and now he has got his own famous fancy pants YouTube and podcast show. His name is Sean Ryan. And if you haven't heard of him, man, he is all over the place. One of the largest shows on the planet, talking about everything from

Military stuff and secrets and secret energy and UFOs and psychedelic, the whole, all the stuff that they just don't want you to know about. And if you ever listen to this show for a second, I'm always talking about like, all right, that's why I love this guy. We have lunch together here in town. We always have interesting discussions and he is a, as real as they come.

On this show, we talk about how's a civilian supposed to treat a veteran? Like I'm just, I'm kind of over just saying like, thank you for your service and then going on, you know, buying my stuff at Walmart. What am I supposed to do? We talk about his mental health journey that does include psychedelics. And we also get into some hard, deep water talking about what is he optimistic about moving forward into the future and what terrifies him? What keeps a former Navy SEAL CIA operator up at night?

Somebody who has seen the worst of the worst of the worst now I want to make this super clear going into this You will disagree with some part of this show period This show's not for kids You will have disagreements with things that I say or don't say you'll have disagreements with things that sean says or doesn't say you will Be have your feathers ruffled and I love that

because I'm on your team. And hopefully you're listening to the show, you're on our team. And I would be there for Sean in a heartbeat. I know he'd be there for me in a heartbeat. And when we go to lunch, we're like, I'm like, I don't know about that, dude. He's like, no, for real. And then he'll say, I think you're wrong on that. And that's how we get to the truth. Iron sharpens iron. And so on this special Memorial Day release, I'm excited for you to hear my conversation with my good friend and just a guy who's committed his whole life to service, Sean Ryan.

Check it out. Some of the things I want to talk to you about today are just personal questions I've had. And you can shed some light on. You're going to speak on behalf of the entire community for some of these groups, which people love to do, right? Oh, boy. And then the second thing is you and I are in kind of similar stages. And so I'm going to ask just your wisdom on some things because you have some experiences that I don't have and you've got some.

I've made some mistakes along the way and I'm looking back going, "Oh dude, what I do now?" And then that's where you are because your kids are younger than mine. So broad picture, OG Navy SEAL teams, CIA operator stuff, like you've been all over the world.

For our listeners, real quick, how would you parse off the difference between like Navy SEALs versus then we went and did CIA operation stuff. Then I worked for some private. Like what's a quick way to just say here's the difference between those things? Well, here's the difference between the SEALs and the agency. Right. And then private stuff. Well, so kind of like my –

My evolution into the agency was I was a SEAL for six years. That's basically kicking doors and sniper stuff, direct action, you know, kind of the just first guys in special operations stuff. And then from there I went to –

I got into the private stuff, but the private stuff was still the agency stuff. So you got to think of it like this. Like there was all these companies, Blackwater, SOC, Triple Canopy, MVM, DynCorp, right? And so that would be –

We're called contractors, government contractors. So it's really not any different than like if you have a contractor to build a house. I was going to say when I think of contractor, I think of a sheetrock guy. You go to a general contractor and then he gets the guy that's going to do the bathroom and he gets the plumber and the electrician and the roof and the windows and all these different people, right? And so when the government needs things done –

They go to a contractor like Blackwater and the Blackwater under the umbrella at Blackwater or DynCorp or MVM or any of these places. It's what do you need done? What kind of guys are you looking for? Do you want law enforcement type guys? Do you want regular infantry type guys? Do you want DEA guys? Do you want FBI guys? Do you want special operations guys? What do you want?

What's the job? What kind of clearance do they need to have? And so the agency needs special ops guys with a high clearance level. And so that's kind of how I got my foot in the door. And so it started at Blackwater and then moved over to some other companies. And then I left, did some anti-piracy stuff off the coast of Yemen and Somalia,

Did that for not very much time at all, two pumps. As a civilian, why would the entity I pay my taxes to need to go outsource what I would consider one of their chief jobs, which is to keep us safe?

Why would they need to outsource that? Is it a manpower thing? Is it a we can't do it because of our laws and we need somebody else to just take care of it? Like why would they outsource that? I mean it's a little bit of everything. One, I mean your tax dollars, it's actually cheaper to get government contractors in because then they're not paying for –

benefits, retirements, any of that stuff. Oh, so it's cheaper for me if I go hire my own drywall guy, my own roofer guy, versus just hiring a GC and saying, I'll give you 10%, just take care of all of it. Yeah, because we're not an employee.

I know that's really boring, right? That's probably not the answer you're looking for. I was hoping you'd be like, yeah. I always just wondered, why do we have all these contracts and why do we pay all these things? It's very similar. I like that analogy. It's like buying a house or building a house. There's a lot of reasons. That is

is probably the number one reason that, you know, it's like from a broad spectrum, you know, of all government contracting. But then, you know, there's also plausible deniability with things like CIA. There is a lot of red tape that the government can't get around, but a contract, a civilian contracting company can get around that. And so, you know, there's, there are

Look, the US military can't do certain things. Central Intelligence Agency doesn't want to pay credit for certain things. And so government contractors is kind of how that kind of stuff can be done. My career was in colleges, universities, and there was a trickle of students coming in that were veterans. And then over the last 20 years –

Obviously, more and more combat veterans have come in who are rolling off, more and more National Guard folks are rolling in. And then it became en masse as people started coming in. I noticed two things happen. One is it boggles my mind, again, as a taxpayer. When I think of the taxes I write every year, I just paid my taxes recently, just filed all the paperwork.

These men and women who go and put the two most important things in their world on the line for me, which is their time, right? Like they take four years out of their life, their earning potential, all this stuff, and they put it over here, right, for service. And then the potential that you can get killed doing that, right? Then to come back and we've seen like an influx of like special ops guys who like starting businesses and trying to do this and do this with that training they got.

As a taxpayer, my first thought is, why in the world are those guys having to go make money? They've done their thing. Like if I, as a taxpayer, have one thing I would like to put on the table, it would be, you get a house, at least for God's sake, right? Or you get insurance for crying out loud. You get a salary. You've done the thing, right? You've done six years, a decade or whatever it is.

And so am I wrong that you get off and you get a high five and like, go get them. And then it's your, I mean, it's out in the wild. Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't think you're,

I mean, look, there's two sides of this. If you just hand them everything too, then you are victimizing an entire demographic of people. Okay. So not saying, okay, now you have to continue to go earn. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that's kind of my thought. I mean, I think they're – with the same caveat to that is that the assistance that you do get is complete garbage. Yeah, it's silly. I mean, you can't – you got guys – I've had guys that I know that are missing limbs –

You know, missing their leg, missing their arm, maybe both, you know, and they don't even have full medical benefits, you know. And then you get a guy who sat behind a desk for four years and maybe went to Afghanistan and maybe heard a rocket explode somewhere.

five miles away, you know, and they're getting full benefits. So it's kind of just a mismatch. Yeah, I mean, it kind of comes down. A lot of the times, the way it works out, unfortunately, is the guys that sit behind the desk or the guys that are not in a combat MOS are really good at working the system. You know, just like when you go, I mean, everybody complains about government employees, the post office, the DMV,

Law enforcement, I mean, where it's really hard to fire a government employee and they learn how to work the system. Guys that are actually out there fighting, they don't have time to...

to work the system, to learn the system. They don't want to be in the system. They're not the turds that are going to medical, building a medical record so that they can get a retirement. And so what happens is you'll get these guys that, like I said, the desk jockeys and they'll build these and not all of them. I'm not saying that about all of them, of course, but they'll build a file. They'll build a case. They'll spend four years, you know, oh man, I fell down the stairs. Oh, I bumped my head on a filing cabinet. I mean, they'll do...

Like this. And then guys like myself who are in special ops, we don't want to go to medical. We don't even want to report any injuries because that might get you pulled off of an op, which the whole reason you joined is to go on ops. And that costs you down the road, right? Oh, yeah. Whenever you're circling back, well, you should have filed that then. Yep, exactly. Wow. So one thing that has begun to frustrate me over the years is –

it's kind of like the high five is the phrase thank you for your service and so it becomes like a like here you go that way i can it's like a nod right you nod to somebody um as a civilian do you have a couple of ideas of ways i can love and be a good community member to folks coming back and it can be as simple as the guy with the still wearing the you know the

the Vietnam vet hat, the real tall one, like at the Walmart, right? Yeah. Where I can acknowledge that guy all the way to one of my coworkers just gets hired and I find out we're having lunch that they were deployed a couple of times. What are ways I can, as a civilian, not just say, thank you for your service and then go about my day? Yeah. I mean, just find different words to say. You know what I mean? Like the Vietnam generation. Am I wrong on that? No, you're not. Okay. But, you know, speaking for the veteran community too, though, I mean,

You're only going to get so much. It was a voluntary program. Nobody twisted your arm, you know, to go in there unless maybe you're in the Vietnam generation. But, you know, the big saying with the Vietnam generation, what was it? It was welcome home. Right. So when you see that guy, you know, instead of saying thank you for your service, which isn't bad, nobody says it, you know.

barely anybody actually just says it. I don't know why. Okay, okay. But, you know, just go up to them like, hey, you know, welcome home, man. Appreciate what you did. Or, you know, the newer generation coming back from the GWAT, you know, just,

hey, I just want you to know I really appreciate what you did over there. So acknowledgement still – Acknowledgement is great. That's all you can ask. And as a veteran, for all veterans, that's all you can ask. Is it embarrassing or annoying if somebody picks up somebody's tab? No, I think it's great. Okay, all right. It just shows appreciation. And I think that's – other than all the psychological problems and –

Stuff like traumatic brain injury and the stuff that you see, I think a lot of vets, that's what they feel. They carry a lot of resentment because they don't feel appreciated, you know, and I think a lot of them don't feel appreciated enough.

I mean, you see the news cycle, you see the social programs that are benefiting people that aren't even citizens of the country. And it's like, well, what, like, what, can I just, I don't know, maybe I could get a new prosthetic, like leg, maybe, no. Okay, I'll go find a nonprofit to do it.

But I don't have a prosthetic leg. No, I know. But yeah, you know, and that – it'll carry a lot of – you know, it causes a lot of resentment. But for any vets that are listening, I mean, it's not getting any better. So –

There's lots of other avenues. Well, and for me, that becomes an important thing to communicate to our neighbors, right? Or to the civilian neighbors, of which there's way more civilian neighbors than there are not, right? Which is, you know, take the time. Like if you walk into a restaurant and see somebody with a hat on, pick up their meal. Like do that, right? That's not a lot. And if you have a neighbor, make sure you reach out and say, hey, just –

have your kids say thank you right like little things like that man even if it's just on the right days exactly you know memorial day that's a big one for anybody who fought and lost buddies you know or families who have lost loved ones you know that that's that's a big one just hey i just want to let you know i'm thinking about you today veterans day i mean veterans day will come and i'll probably get like a text

I don't know what it is. I don't know why people don't just say it. But that's the kind of shit that makes you feel unappreciated. Well, you deal with the – you have to file this much paperwork just so, hey, I'm starting to have headaches again. And it feels like you're just pushing upstream to live.

And then your wife gets pregnant and your body has an anxiety response. Like, well, I'm going to have a kid, man. Can I go talk to somebody? No, you didn't file it. So it feels like every day is against you. Just say thank you on the mic, right? We've all had that birthday that nobody texted or one old friend did. And it just feels like, can you just say happy birthday for God's sake? You know what I mean? And that feels like not very much, but...

I appreciate you sharing that. And nobody wants to walk around their neighborhood and be like, will you just say thank you? Nobody wants to say that guy either, right? Yeah. And so I know that puts you in an awkward situation, but I appreciate that. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

So my wife and I were meeting the other day about the back-to-school madness that is about to be on us. We've got my travel schedule, her work schedule, our daughter's new school and clothes and forms to fill out and all these online portals and my son's sports schedule and he's got to have shoes every two weeks because his feet won't stop growing and how are we going to pay for all this and on and on and on.

And when we step back and look at our schedule, it's so packed and we haven't even put in the things like exercise, date nights, counseling appointments, church and holiday trips and big home projects. And these are the things that make life worth living. And I listened to y'all. This is your life too. And here's what I've learned. When it comes to taking care of me, my family and my work, I have to begin with the things that matter most and the things that keep me well and whole so I can wade into the chaos and be sturdy and present and strong.

you too. So as you're planning your upcoming end of summer and fall plans, make sure you don't skip date nights, don't skip regular exercise, and don't skip your regular therapy appointments. Yes, therapy can be hard work, but can also help make the rest of your life possible.

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I can't wrap my head around training, going overseas, not even going overseas, being a part of a gang in the way that military folks are. And then you get out and then you just like move to a neighborhood. And then your neighbor is like, well, you move your garbage kit, right? Or that becomes your buddy. Maybe their neighbor is really nice to you.

But you know, like in your nervous system, what it's like to have a group of men and women who will die for you. And then to try to recreate friends, recreate community in the civilian world feels like that would make somebody crazy because you know what it could be and it's not. And you never get that sense of how much is the return, the rise of PTSD, the –

Just the frustration, how much of that is finding yourself in a neighborhood with a family and still feeling I'm totally alone?

I mean, that's, I'm kind of over that now. Okay. You know, but, I mean, I still have my quirks, you know. For those of you who don't know, Sean, that may be the understatement of the century. I got a quirk. I go from zero to 100 in about 0.2 seconds. But, you know, you got to, people aren't going to change. You know,

You know what I mean? They're not going to quit bitching about your trash being out earlier or whatever we're talking about. People are people, dude. And so if you want anything to change, you got to start looking internally because people are just going to let you down every single day. If you're expecting them to fix you, right? Yeah. They're not going to. And they're just not. And so it takes –

Unfortunately, like it just takes a lot of work. Like you have to – like it's kind of like addiction, right? Like you're not just going to get better. You have to want to get better. Nobody else is going to make you better. You can bitch, moan, cry, isolate, do all that stuff. But in the end, you're just prolonging it all. And so – Just not choosing reality. I'm going to head right into it. Yeah. I don't have any friends. I'm going to go find some friends. Exactly. It feels like another –

And this is life, right? This is life. It feels like yet another job I have to go do. When you make that decision, things will start to get better. Right. They will. But a lot of people don't want to make that decision. They get comfortable with where they're at. They want to hate everybody. They want to, you know, they want to, I think, I'm tough on the veteran community now. You know, especially now. Like, you know, not to be old back when I got out, but back when I got out, there wasn't any of this stuff. There wasn't.

Any of this stuff, you know, now just nonprofit support, church groups, whatever. Yeah. None of it. You know, nobody knew what PTSD was. Nobody knew what traumatic brain injury was. Nobody knew any of that stuff. It was just send them out. You want out? Okay. Get out.

And now, I mean, look, we're talking about it right here. Everybody's talking about it. You know, there's all these avenues that you can do, you can take to go get better. And if that one doesn't work, then try this one and try this one. And there's funding. And, you know, so, you know, we're back to talking about, oh, I don't feel appreciated. And, you know, I need a pat on the back every time I walk out my front door because I went to war or

man, the pat on the backs are all over the place. You just got to find, you just got to find them, you know, and, um, and, uh, it takes work. You got to do research. And so that brings me to you. So I've never told you this. So if you want me to edit this out, I will, when it's over, you and I met up in the, in one of the green rooms upstairs the very first time several years ago.

And my publicist at the time arranged for us a meeting and we met and had lunch together and then I had to go run do something. And most of my career has been spent walking into a room and you get 10 seconds, five seconds to feel that room real fast and know not as are we safe, but know like here's the avenue forward.

And when I went into that room, you had an energy that was truly, it was a, I don't call it a dark energy, but it was a, and I remember telling the person who was my PR person at the time, like, a dude's not all right. Like, there's something not okay between us. Like, and I didn't know what it was, whatever. The next time we met, maybe a year later,

everything about you is different. Like your whole essence was different. And you've talked at length, and we won't go into detail here, but you've talked at length on your show in pretty, I would say, brave and vulnerable ways about your journey with psychedelics, your journey with counseling. You're doing all this stuff, your faith journey, all that, which has been amazing. But it's a palpable transformation, right? Like walking into a room and like, that's a different human.

The question I have for you is upstream at some point you had to say, I need this to be different. What was that push? Look, I didn't think I had a problem with alcoholism. I mean, I did –

i've done a bunch of steps john you know i did therapy for i think three two and a half or three and a half years twice a week you know phenomenal you know got me off drinking look when i got out of the agency if you jumped in my car i would open the glove box and about 50 many bottles of vodka would fall out and i'd offer you one and then i'd take a couple and

I would drink many bottles all day. And then I'd go home, pull a bottle of fifth of vodka out of the freezer and polish that off and maybe get, maybe get hour and a half of sleep, get up, do it all over again. And, um, it

It ruined all my family relationships. Anyways, I quit drinking vodka after a suicide attempt, right? Oh, I see. I didn't even know about that. Yeah. I quit drinking vodka after a suicide attempt. I started drinking wine, which I didn't really feel like I had a problem once I did that. And then let's fast forward. What you're talking about is psychedelics. When are you back in – like so you quit drinking when?

to about two years ago, a little over. So that's when we met. Quit drinking altogether. When you start processing it. Yeah. I quit drinking wine and not strong alcohol to about two years ago. Okay. But before that, you quit drinking vodka how long ago before that?

Maybe five years. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The transformation that you're talking about or what you saw was psychedelics. And what got me there was, you know, it was a lot of things, man. It was a lot, you know, I'm sure I have some traumatic brain injuries from being blown up. But what really got me was I was not ever in the moment with my family, you know, ever.

I couldn't, you know, I had a six-month-old son and I would just look at him and all these other thoughts are going on in my head. And I would have discussions with my wife and my brain is in a completely different world. Like in a protective world or in a... No, just, I mean, it could be anything, you know, but a lot of it was business stress, to be honest with you. Yeah. You know, which I'm sure you can relate to that, right? Yeah. And then is...

businesses grow and your name grows, then people start coming out of the woodworks and they want all this from you for free. And Hey, did it into Dell? Like they think that it just showed up and it got really hard for me to say no to people, you know? And it's, it's,

I mean, for the first over five years of my business, I was giving everything away. All of it. Advertising. Everything. And I would see everybody just passing me up, you know? And... But it was... So it was combat stress. It was TBI. It was business stress. It was anxiety. It was not being in the moment. A new kid. A new kid. And that's what really sparked it, though, was I was like, man, I...

feel enraged all the time and I'm never in the moment and, and I just knew I needed something, you know? And, uh, I, I,

been researching psychedelic therapy. And so I went down and did it. I didn't even go down to quit drinking, you know, that's, that was not even on the radar. Cause you knew what you weren't doing that drinking anymore, right? Yeah. I was coming home and having a half bottle to a bottle of wine a night, which, you know, isn't good, but it wasn't, it wasn't me and my wife weren't arguing, you know, I think alcohol, you know,

Plays a big part in a lot of divorces and arguments and stuff, but it wasn't anything like that. It was a decompression...

ritual maybe, you know, and that I fell into a cycle that I just couldn't break. But I didn't want to break it. That's not, like I said, that's not why I went down. So I came out of that one week and everything changed. I was in the moment. I was, for some reason, it got real easy for me to say no and put my family first instead of people that I don't even know. Like I probably sound like an ass. No, no, no. I remember asking you,

I think I invited your family over for something. And you just wrote back like, and there was not even an excuse. And you wrote, not going to be able to make these things for the invite. And I remember going like this. Like, I was like, yes, like he's there. You know what I'm saying? Like it was a-

dude, you don't owe me anything. You know what I mean? Like they're the most important. And I trust that if you can make it and y'all want to come, cool. And if you don't, cool. But it was this sense of, I remember going like, yeah, there, you know what I'm saying? Like it is now it's here. Yeah. Like I don't owe you anything, man. Yeah. And that, and that allows me to love you when I can. Yeah. All in. Right. Yeah. It's, it's, yeah. I, I try to, when I say no, I don't, I really try not to

offer any excuses because yeah right you could try it by going to the i mean you just don't owe anybody excuses if you go return something that you watch the return aisle was the last time you went all right i gotta return this coffee mug because this and this like why are you just volunteering in from like you don't like it return it get just practice that yeah you know and and uh and then

Yeah, just say no. Like, you don't have to. Dude, I was the worst. You know, I blame my wife back in the day. And I remember feeling like it was a singer-songwriter in East Nashville called me out on it. Because I was like, you know, I got to go return this, you know, because my wife. And he's like, really? You're going to blame her? Yeah. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I am such a coward. Yeah. What a clown, right? What a clown. And by the way, even if she had said, I don't really like X, Y, or Z, which she didn't, will you take this back?

They don't need to know that. I'm the grown man walking this thing back in. They don't need to know anything about her, right? And yeah, just this sense of freedom. But your whole essence is different, man.

Let's talk about Organifi. I just got home from a week in the woods with family and friends and a few hundred high school kids at a summer camp. And as you can imagine, I ate camp food for a week, I didn't sleep great, and high schoolers aren't the most hygienic creatures in the world. And now that I'm home...

And now that you're home for whatever you've been doing this summer, and we're both beginning to settle back into the rhythms of the end of summer, start of school, it's critical that both you and me get back into our wellness routines. And for me, Organifi is a cornerstone of my wellness routine.

I blend the red and green powders together almost every morning, and I keep talking about them. I love my happy drops, and I've revolutionized my sleep with Harmony and Gold Juice Medley. I blend them together and drink them down right before bed, and I sleep like a baby. Organifi helps me with energy and gut health with my sleep and with my mood.

Here's the deal. I take Organifi every single day. And my friends and my family are always stealing my stuff because it's the best of the best. And if it's good enough for me and my friends and my family, it's worth you trying it out. Go to Organifi.com slash Deloney or use promo code Deloney at checkout. That's Organifi.com, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com slash Deloney. And they're going to hook you up with 20% off everything.

All of it. Invest in yourself with Organifi. What is being well now with a couple of kids? I mean, you've won the top shows on planet Earth and a pretty amazing wife. What's being well look like now?

Man, being well looks like putting family first, you know, and figuring out the balance between business and family, which is still extremely hard to do. But, I mean, it's kind of with everything in life, nothing changes unless you're

you start to make the change. You know, nothing's going to happen. Quit putting it off. Oh, I got to get this and that, you know, and, or I'll do it next month. It doesn't change unless you start to take the steps to make a change. And so, you know, with, with,

I mean, I see my son, you know, he's two and a half now. He's getting older, you know, but I see his development, you know, and he's starting to want to get out of the woods. And he needs dad around more. And so I had to take the steps to do that.

push things aside deals you know big deals big deals are going to come all the time you know they're never going to stop and so it's it's it's being able to just push this aside and say hey cool yeah you want to do a big deal with me okay cool let's talk about that in six months because i don't have time right now you know and and and and you help me you know the

Like for me, like a big step was a relinquishing control as well to, to an assistant that can help me manage my schedule and, and, and help me manage people. And, and that's hard to give up, but I was, you know, I just got desperate again, even after the psychedelic treatment. And, uh, and, uh, and that has been like a tremendous life-changing move that I made, you know, and, and,

And my team, you know, my team, like I've really let my team start to run things and they'll still come to me even this weekend, you know, is, hey, we got three versions of this six hour podcast that were released on Monday. And I think the words are a little not, you know, maybe the timing's a little off on some of these scenes. And I'm like, look, you're the production manager. That's why I made you the production manager. You make the decision. That's why we're paying you, you know, and yeah.

Three months ago, I would have watched all... Six hours. Yeah, six hours. I would have found the parts and dove in and put my family aside, and that would have been my Saturday. And that's what you do now. And if you can't do it, then I'll...

Yeah. I'll have to find somebody that can, but that's not for you. Yeah. I mean, it takes a while to get there. Oh, it's hard. But like I said, it's not going to happen over us. That's trust, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just not going to happen overnight. You have to start with baby steps and build it up and be willing to relinquish some control. Whether you're building a business, building a family, trying to make changes in your personal life, trying to become a better dad, better husband, better wife, whatever. That may...

That may be it because the challenges I've had with like exercise programs or nutrition, I heard this. I heard a guy once say the worst part, I think it's Rich Mullins, the worst part of being a Christian

is that it's every single day and you can never memorize all the books on a Monday and you're good for the rest of the month. You still have to treat the waitress right and you still have to honor your wife and you still have to be a good neighbor and let the guy, like you still have to do this stuff every day. Same with a workout program. You can't lift so great on a Monday that you're done for the rest of the month. You got to go in the next day, right? And that makes it awful, right? And

I think I'm such a quick fix guy that I don't want it to take. I don't want my friend to have to go, yeah, you just started a journey. It's going to take you about seven years to get baseline. And that's just so you can make hard decisions like firing employees and hiring people. Yeah. Like I don't want, I don't even have to do that. I don't want anyone to have to do that. Yet almost the theme of this conversation has been, you got to choose reality. It's not going to change. Yeah.

it's just going to be what it's going to be until you start taking stuff you can't look externally you can look around and say everybody's screwed up man i'm doing great with the language by the way oh you're really trying her but uh but uh but uh you can look around and look externally and know if this wouldn't happen if that person would change and he did this to me and he and i fall into that still too you know but really like you have to look internally like

It is. You have to look internally because you're the only thing that you can change. You can't change any of this other, you know. What does it look like? What does being well look like to you? I used to think it was how do I stay on the horse? And I don't think that's it anymore. Like how do I become such a good rider of this horse that I never fall off? And I think what that made me was neurotic and anxious and hard to be around because I became a control freak. I think now being well looks like

just continuing to get back up. My wife called me this morning. I stepped out of my first meeting of the day, and I said something to my daughter this morning that no dad should say. It was wrong, right? I told my daughter laughingly, hey, let your mom know I resigned. I'm clearly not doing a good job as your dad, and we've had a hard couple of days, my daughter and I. She's eight. And I said, I want you to know I resigned, and mom's going to find you a good dad. And we're laughing, carrying on.

No dad should say that to his daughter. I was scummy. Like, dude, that violates every principle I have. I was trying to laugh. I was trying to be fun. And I was trying to lift the mood up because last night was a really tough night. The day before was really tough. And my wife called me and she appropriately said, can't do that. And she was right. You can't do that, right? And so...

Being well isn't being perfect anymore. Being well is I'm going to knock off today early. I'm going to pick my daughter up and we're going to go spend some time together. Right. That's what being well looks like is being like, God almighty, dude, I fall off the horse again. I got to get back up. I had to make a choice, different choices this morning. Right. Which means I'm going to be in a grumpy, headachy mood for the rest of the day because of what I did yesterday. But it's just about getting back up and getting back up and getting back up. Right. Yeah.

And when I demand perfection for myself, that's when I'm gonna wreck something. But it's when I choose, it's almost, it's a form of not being a coward. It's easy just to sit in the dirt and be like, well, if she would do this and 'cause of this, I'm dead, dude. It's my job to get back up. So that's what wellness looks like for me. - Good. - What are a couple of things that as a dad keep you up at night? And what are a couple of things that you're still pretty optimistic about?

Because you've got a two-and-a-half-year-old and a, what, two- or three-month-old, right? I mean, little bitty. What are some things you're pretty optimistic about? Oh, man. Optimistic about, like, in the country? Is that where we're going? I'm just saying the future. Even if it's pitch black, we have to have the night scope to be able to see some path forward. Look, I'll tell you what I'm optimistic about because I don't like the way this place is going. Right. And I think anybody who's paying attention has a lot of fear.

including myself, what is the world going to look like that your children are going to grow up in? It's not looking good. Like, it's just, it's not. I don't see a lot of hope. But, you know, I think you know this. I recently came to faith about a year ago, right? Had an incredible experience where I believed that God was speaking to me.

And it happened three times, bam, bam, bam, like within 15 minutes. And that triggered me to start looking into the Bible and what people call the truth and Jesus and everything that's happening now. And now I look at a lot of it that's happening is symbolism. And in a weird way, we were told this was all going to happen.

Or it's been happening for centuries, right? Yeah. Not in my lifetime. Not like this. I guess that's – yeah, I'm thinking of more like historical context. It makes my faith stronger because it's been told. These are the things that are going to start happening. Gotcha. And so that may not be what you want to hear. No, you say this is your – That's the positivity that I see, man, is things are coming to light. Okay. And –

Evil is being exposed. Corruption is being, whatever you want to call it, man, it's being exposed. You know, there is a light on it. And, and, you know, now what we do with that, I don't know, but this story has already been written. So that we all know how it ends. There you go. Yeah. You know, and so that's, that's.

That's the positivity I can give you for today for putting me on this spot. No, I love the sense of the story's been written. Yeah. Right? And yeah, I like you. Well, maybe different than you. I've always been this cosmic optimist, like unhealthy. Like it'll be all right. We'll figure it out.

And this has been the first season where I'm starting to wonder, like, I don't like it. Yeah. Like something doesn't feel right. And my experience has always been when you shine the light on stuff, things get hard before they get better. Right. And when you get the cancer diagnosis...

That's day one of a long, awful journey, right, of chemo and jobs. And, I mean, it becomes a mess, right? Or the day you say, I need to quit drinking. That's not the hard day. The hard day is, right? It's coming, right? So shine the light on that. It's tough, and at the same time, that's where healing is, right? Yeah, yeah. And I love the – you see, like, the end –

The end of the story is written. I heard a guy one time, like there's a preacher got up and said, hey, for everybody out in the audience that was just fretting about everything. He said, your little groups may be threatened. Your plans may be threatened. Your home values, blah, blah, blah. He went on. He had a whole list. He said, the kingdom of God is never in trouble. He's like –

So if you can't sleep, maybe you've built your house on a different foundation. But he goes, this kingdom's not in trouble. It may look terrifying, but it's not. There was some peace there. Yeah. You know, and then the other positivity is I'm not the only one that's thinking this. I mean, there is a wave. Yeah. Because everything you're looking at now is a lie. Now it's to the point where –

is it AI? Right. It's not even a joke. It's I'm being serious. No, it's, it's, I mean, it's, it's, you don't know what's real anymore. The only thing that's real is what's right in front of you. And I think we've lost, we've lost concept of that, you know, through, through the years of the progression of social media. And we've, you know, I think that the,

The baby boomer generation is having a really hard time understanding that the media is a full-blown propaganda machine now. I had a conversation with my parents about that. My dad, like Walter Cronkite told the truth. Yeah. Even Dan Rather, like the perception was Dan Rather told the truth. Maybe. Maybe, right? But the perception was what I see at 6 o'clock is what's going on. Yeah. And they can't – it's a challenge to make the turn to that's – those guys –

that sense doesn't exist. This isn't to tell you the truth. That's not the goal. The goal is to get you riled up. Yep. And so, but anyways, there's a wave of people looking for the truth. I mean, you see all these celebrities coming out of nowhere, getting baptized, talking about it. You see, I mean,

and because there is only one truth right and so that i think there's positivity in that because there's strength in numbers and you're seeing this wave and it's it's happening because people don't know where to turn anymore where are they where are you going to turn yeah you know i remember i think it was i think it was neil degrasse tyson of all people said he smiled about ai in one of the interviews and he's like i'm not worried about him it's gonna it'll end the internet what do you mean he said once code can start writing code

it will spin itself up so fast that you'll have one place to turn, your neighbor. And it was what you just said. Like the only thing I know is true is I can call Sean and he'll come over and help. Or Sean knows he can call me and I'll come over and help. Or we can go have breakfast and just say, being a dad's exhausting, right? And you can go, yep, let me high five and go on, right? Which I don't think is a bad thing. I think that's a gift.

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You talk to a lot of folks all over, of all different backgrounds, of all... My favorite part's about your show, man, is I never know who we're going to get, and it's so rad. And...

What are a couple of things that make you nervous? One thing that really worries me, and I know people, I don't think they get the full grasp, but you saw the thing that just happened in Russia, right? Yeah. Those ISIS guys. Yeah. We don't even have a border right now. And I'm having a CIA targeter come on beginning of April.

And what she's saying is that all of these terrorist organizations who were against each other, right, are now forming an alliance with one common goal, and that is us. Yeah. You know, and yeah, these people might come from caves. They're not stupid. Yeah. You know, we were over there for 20 years and lost. Yeah.

And now we're here. I think the thing that scares me more than anything is the suppression of facts. You know, that if you can control how people speak, then you can control how they think. And that's happening right now. So what's the antidote? This? I think the, you know, I think, yeah, I think it's getting to a point where

It can't just be about business anymore. You got to be a good example. You have to... I mean, the youth don't even know where to turn. Right. You know? And they're so confused. But yeah, I think it's powerful voices, you know, being a good example to the youth. And you see them, man. I mean, I think there is a lot... I think young men are looking for masculinity. What does it mean to be a man? I mean...

Everywhere you go, we've lost it, man. That was one of my questions for you. What's a good dad? What's a good dad? Yeah. What's a good dad? I think a good dad is a lot of things, but I think it's being a good example, not a friend. A good example, you know, and— I literally walked across—I was with a group of parents picking up our kids, and my son's in eighth grade, and they were doing a little get-together. And I heard one dad look at his daughter.

And say, no, I am not your best friend. I am your dad. And I literally stopped the conversation I was in and walked across the room and high-fived him. And he's like, what are you – and I said, that's the best parenting I've heard today. Like, well, well done, man. His daughter is amazing. He's – but it was that, no, I'm not your best friend. Look at the confidence that young males have today. Go to –

Any department store, go to Home Depot, ask somebody where a section is or ask them a question about a power tool. They can't even look you in the eye probably, I don't know, 75% of the time. They have no confidence. You know why they don't have any confidence? Because it's, here, I don't want to listen to you cry. I don't want to listen to you moan. Here's a phone. Look at that. Put the play button on.

I heard one guy- That nobody's present with their kids anymore. I heard recently, stop blaming the kids. Yeah. Kids are the same as they've always been. It's the parents that have changed. It is, man. And we've just outsourced it to these little boxes. Yep. If I get grief for one thing, I get grief for a lot, but if I get grief for one thing, it's my stance on no phones for kids.

And you posted something recently, or you said recently, hey, dude, you're not giving the world to your kids. You're giving your kids to the world. Yeah. When you give your kid a phone, you're not giving them access to the world. You're giving the world access to your kid. Right. And there is, I mean, just look around, man. There's hell to pay for it. Yeah. The world is not a good place. And that means we have to turn the phones off, which means, I told a parent recently, for every...

Punish their kid got in trouble. They're like I'm gonna take away this I'm gonna take away this okay, but you have to backfill that Mm-hmm right you have to be present then you can't if you if you cut your kid off from everything Then you've got to be show up. You gotta take him out to breakfast. You take him to lunch You got a go be a part of their life. You can't just sit in front of TV doing this hollered at him, right? You got to go be present and that's hard and exhausting and that's what we signed up for right and

You are your kid's biggest role model. Yeah. You know, you just are. And so spend time with them and discipline them and, you know, all just think about what values, you know, are more most important to you and pass that along. You know, standing up for what's right, standing up for yourself. And that means being able to do the things that you need to do to be able to stand up for yourself, right? Yeah, maybe.

Supporting the underdog. Right. That's a big one. That's one of my, like, top core values is always go for the underdog. Always, yeah. You know? And, yeah, man, but I think that's what being a good parent is to me. What about being a good husband? What's that mean? Being a good husband is, I mean, it's a lot of the same. It's being present. It's appreciating your wife and, you know, it's easy to fall in to, you know,

We struggle with it right now. We have a two-and-a-half-year-old and a four-month-old. You don't even know what day it is, man. It's hard. It's hard to spice it up a little bit. It's hard not to get home from work, have dinner.

give the kids a bath and then we're both exhausted you know it's it's it's carving out the time to worship your wife man treat her like the the the woman that she was when you first got married because she's still that woman you know and and and let her know how much you love her how much you appreciate her especially during this season when

Just chaos. Yeah. Yeah, it's chaos, man. It's awesome. Yeah. Well, I'll end with this. And I kept this – it was a private exchange between us, but I think it's fair to say out loud. I haven't had many moments of like, dude, I screwed that up. Like I did when you – I was so convicted when you spoke publicly about like, hey, I've been sitting on this for a while, but I have –

I found faith and I'm going all in on this. I'm going to learn about it. And you've, you've pushed back on people when you, cause when you sign up for that, you get everybody's opinion from all over the planet about how you're doing it wrong and all that. But, um, and as I listened to you talk about it, it was this parade of men in your life who had shown up and just kind of this progression. And like, as you laid that out, I was like, wow.

I was in the middle of that and I said nothing. I kept my mouth shut. And as your friend, and I told you this privately, but I think it's fair to say, I remember an atheist talking about it. And he said, I'll never get upset with somebody talking about their faith with me because if a truck was coming down the road and they ran and pushed me out of the way of that truck to save my life, I'd be grateful. And if you think a truck is barreling down the road, whether I think there's one coming or not,

Please push me out of the way, right? And in that same sense, and not like a push out of the way, but an invitation. I owe you. Like, I'm sorry for keeping my mouth shut. I have been inspired from that moment to start keeping my mouth shut. When I see somebody hurting, I see somebody reaching, somebody like, hey, what do you think about something? Not being like, ah, you know.

Now, if the time presents itself, we're going to have a conversation. You don't have to go with me on it. That's all good. But I let you down on that, man, and I'm sorry about that. But know this. From that moment forward, it's been a cool shift. And like you said, my kids will get to see a different dad, and my wife gets to see a different husband, and hopefully my friends will experience a different guy. So I appreciate that. I appreciate your willingness to stand up like, I've learned something new, and I'm going to be pretty vocal about it.

It's awesome. Thank you. Here we are. It's all good. Here we are. It's all good. I'm grateful for you. You too. Good luck raising the two little ones. Hey, I'm going to need it. Yeah. But I need a lot more than that. Thanks for having me on, John. Appreciate you, brother. Appreciate it. All right, man.

All right. That was my conversation with my friend, Sean Ryan. We're going to link to his show and the show notes. He's been at this for a while and he's got a lot of incredible episodes. We're going to go check him out. They tend to be long, like two hours, three hours, six hours. He goes deep with, with his, with his guests. Also, I want to throw this out there. Um,

I don't I get a lot of questions about psychedelics I've never used them I have read a lot of the maps research and I've talked to a number of people who have experienced that do not run out and do psychedelics that's that's not the point of anybody's conversation anybody's journey Sean in particular but everybody has a who does it the right way is under the care of a number of trained practitioners and medical professionals so

If you have more questions about that, he talks at length on his show about his adventures using this stuff and finding healing in some pretty remarkable ways. I'm not at a place where I can advocate for it, A, because I haven't gone down the rabbit hole myself. I also have not gone all the way to the end of the research there. This jury's still out for me, but I do know this. I've got close friends who tell me that their whole lives and their marriages and their families and their ability to be a mom or a dad has been transformed.

And I'm always going to stand by those people who find peace. So thank you so much for being with us. We look forward to seeing you next time right here on the Dr. John Deloney Show.