Why Do I Compare Myself to Other Men?
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Yo, yo, yo, Cyber Monday deals are here and fan favorite questions for humans. Conversation cards are on sale for just 12 bucks. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash store and grab yours right now. I am trying to improve my life with bed therapy, psychiatry, and all the work. I'm on Zola. I take Risperidone, Lamictal, Klonopin, Gavapentin. Good God. Okay, so... Yes, a lot. I won't get into your psychiatrists. That's a lot.

What up? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, taking your calls about your life, your mental and emotional health, your relationships, whatever you got going on. Here's my promise. I'm going to sit with you and we're going to figure out what's the next right move. There's a lot of tough stuff going on in people's lives these days, from their relationships, their kids, their partners, to that person they see in the mirror every day.

their mental emotional health whatever you got going on give me a buzz for the last 20 plus years i've been sitting with hurting people and i'd love to sit down with you give me a call 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask a-s-k let's go to grand rapids i love grand rapids talk to chris what's up chris hey dr john how are you i'm good brother what's up man

Well, I emailed in about a week ago and I got a good question for you. All right, let's do it. I'm trying to improve my life a bit. I'm definitely doing that through therapy, psychiatry and all the works. But I find something I'm running into kind of a roadblock is that I compare myself to other people, specifically men, but it can be anyone. So take me back, man. How'd you end up in a psychiatrist office?

So this was about a decade ago, actually. My parents, my dad got a job with Nissan in Tennessee, right by you, actually. And he moved down to start the job when I was a junior. My mom stayed with me to finish high school in Michigan. And then when I graduated, she moved down with her. My senior year was just a mess, a complete disaster of jobs.

mental health, emotional health, the whole thing was just a disaster for everyone involved. I got really depressed. I started going to therapy, psychiatry, and just doing whatever I could. And so it's just been a continuing road from there. How old are you now, brother? 28. 28. So about 10 years, man. So what did they label you with? What did they diagnose you with back when you were 18?

Well, when I was 18, it was a major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety and a few other anxiety disorders. This last year, though, about a year and a half ago, they diagnosed me with bipolar type 2. Okay. Why'd they do that? What was the presenting behaviors is the nerd way to say that.

Yeah. So I was on a medication, Klonopin, um, which is obviously, as you know, a suppressant, a depressant. Um, and I came off of it just to see, like, you know, I think my anxiety will be okay, which it was, but then I started to see an increase in episodes of just feeling really, really good. Um,

like so good to the point where I was like, man, I feel like I'm almost on cocaine or something. Like I feel so good. Um, and this happened on a repeated basis about once a month. And I ended up finding a pattern and presented it to my doctors. And they said, wow, there really is a huge pattern here. It happens on the regular once a month, just like expected. Um, so they kind of diagnosed me with it. Was there a problem with feeling really good once a month?

Yeah, because I was making mistakes and I was not catching myself and just overall being a bit destructive in my life. I also spend a lot of money when I'm kind of in that high space. So what do you like? One time I spent $500. I mean, I spent $500 yesterday, but that's because it's deer season. I don't make great choices in deer season. What are you taking right now?

Quite a bit. I'm on Zoloft. I take Risperidone, Lamictal, Klonopin, and I'm missing one, Gabapentin. Good God. Okay, so... Yep, a lot. Yeah, but you're taking an antipsychotic and you're taking Gabapentin? You don't drink, do you? No, not anymore. I'm four and a half years sober. Good for you, brother. Congratulations. Okay. Thank you.

I won't get into your psychiatrist. That's a lot. Like that tells me that you are either struggling mightily with major depressive disorder still, plus psychotic features, plus anxiety on top of it, and you're struggling to sleep. Is that right? Struggling to sleep. I don't have psychotic features officially. I've never really dealt with those. We usually use the psychotics mostly for mania when it hits. So is it as needed?

Yeah, kind of. I take it daily, but it really could be as needed. Okay. How long did it take them to diagnose you with bipolar II? Eight years. When they started the diagnostic, did they do it right in one meeting? Because here's the thing, bipolar II, I want someone to track you and follow you and you come back and you come back. And that's something that they look at over time.

Oh, yes. I've been seeing the same psychiatrist for three years now. And so there's definitely been check-ins once a month or so, if not more, just to kind of see my progress and how I'm doing. Okay. All right. And even she wasn't convinced at first. Yeah. All right. So I'm not a medical doctor, so I'm going to keep my mouth shut on my opinions there. Here's the bigger thing. How do you feel right now, man?

Um, in this literal moment, a bit tense cause I'm on a podcast. Dude, nobody listens to this thing, Chris. Nobody listens to this. Um, all right. So you're, you're on a podcast. Yep. Um, overall I'm feeling good. I'm a little stressed about work, but I think that's a healthy amount, you know, normal work stress. Um, so what does your activity level look like?

You're getting outside. Are you able to go exercise? You're on a lot of stuff that would suggest you're probably put on some weight. You probably feel pretty lethargic sometimes. I feel pretty lethargic. I actually just put on weight and then lost it. I measured myself this morning, and I'm 20 pounds down, which is not saying a lot for me. Chris, that's saying a lot for anybody, brother. That's a lot. That's excellent, man. So are you overweight now? Would you be classified as overweight?

No, I've never been classified as overweight, even when I was the heaviest I ever was. Okay, so you're very, very thin? Very thin all of my whole life. I have the biggest gut right now I've ever had, which is, again, not saying much. Okay, so where did 20 pounds go? I can cheer you on, but that may have been unhealthy 20 pounds.

Um, no, actually it was a healthy 20 pounds. I went from 148, which is what I was last year, which was very unhealthy. Couldn't gain weight. And then I put on like 40 pounds, 50 pounds, got to 200. And I was like, okay, I got a bit of a beer belly and I don't drink beer anymore. So time to do something about that. I call that the gummy bear belly. All right. So, um,

Tell me how I can help. It sounds like you've got the, you've got professional care and it sounds like you are, I mean, you're staying in a pretty narrow window of behavior and like, uh, your physiology sounds like you're like, like, you know, all of us fluctuate and go up and down. You've got a ton of medication and that makes it tough and you're able to still power through that, which is amazing. How can I help man? Yeah.

Yeah, well, I was just hoping we could talk about how I constantly compare myself to others, whether that be through looking at, you know, I have a friend who owns a house. He's about the same age as me, and I'm sitting in my apartment right now that I can't even afford 100% by myself. I still get a little bit of help from my parents. What kind of work do you do? There's definitely an aspect of that. I'm an insurance. I'm a property and casualty licensed customer service representative. So it's your job to tell people no?

Unfortunately, I don't like telling people no, but yeah. So, um, see how to approach this. Cause, cause as far as I'm concerned, few people could hold a candle to your bravery. Thank you. And few people will ever know who interact with you on a day-to-day basis. Few people will know the hell you walked through for the last 10 years and the struggles you maintain and,

on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. I mean, it's impressive. Thank you. And you're, I say this like with a smile on my face, if you were here, you'd see this. And so this isn't a grenade I'm throwing, but you're pretty narked up. You got a lot going on. A lot. I don't like all the medication for sure. Pharmacologically. Yeah. So here's the thing, you getting up and looking and saying, hey, I still got to go do some things and you're going to get those things done. Dude, that's amazing. I'm impressed. Yeah.

The bigger question is, it sounds like you, for the last 10 years, you may have been wandering through, just going through the motions to make sure that you trust the next step you take. Yeah, I would say that's fair. Because if you don't trust yourself to spend money when you're up, you've found yourself in a place where you don't even trust yourself when you feel good. Yeah. Oh, wow. I never thought of it that way. And your baseline is, I'm probably always feeling worse than the average person.

So you walk around every day with something that most people take for granted, which is you don't trust your own body. You don't trust your brain. That's a scary place to be, right? Oh, yeah. That's terrifying. So while the rest of us are walking down the road every day, you're walking on a tightrope. And the fact that you're remotely keeping up with everybody is staggering. Yeah.

It's awesome. Thank you. And I, you know, on the show, I'll tell you the truth, man. I would, I would clown you. And, but I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm thoroughly impressed. An antipsychotic. I wrote down here. You're just a Lamictal too. Yeah. And Gabapentin. Yep. And Klonopin.

And Klonopin. I'm trying to get away from Klonopin eventually. I'm trying to find something to substitute it because I've been on it so long. Yeah, that one's pretty tough. But here's the thing. You getting up every day and getting after it, I mean, it's amazing. The bigger question I want to ask you is this. After 10 years of, like, I'm just picturing a tightrope between buildings and your arms are out and you're trying to stabilize yourself, right?

Yeah, totally. After 10 years of that, I wonder if instead of surviving, you've never asked yourself, what do I actually want to do? Because I didn't hear in your voice that you want to be, let's say, like an insurance adjuster. Yeah, no, it's not a passion I have in life. What do you want to go do, man?

You're asking me tough questions. Shoot. You thought about it. You thought about it. When you were like, man, I wish my brain worked like everybody else's. And yours doesn't. So here we are, right? Mine doesn't either. Right. When you ask yourself that, what would you do? What's your fantasy? What would you want to go do?

You know what? If I could do anything, I would love to be a Hollywood actor. Okay. Um, I think that'd be a ton of fun. I went to film school out here in Grand Rapids, um, took some acting courses actually wasn't, you know, wasn't the most amazing at it, but I was good. Okay. Um, so I just think it'd be something fun to do. The hours would be tough, but. So do you reach out to local shoots there in Grand Rapids or in local theater and just to, just to act because it brings you joy?

I don't do local theater. I don't like getting up on stage in front of people. Okay. Um, from a social anxiety perspective or just because you just, you just don't like it. Um, both. Cause if it's, cause here's the thing, if it's about anxiousness, I would love to see you try. Yeah. I would love to see you experience that anxiousness and don't let your body's fear of what happens next. Rob you of a thing that you might love. Yeah.

Okay, for sure. You've pathologized, not in a bad way, it's to keep you safe, but you've pathologized feeling good. Okay. Meaning? Meaning like I would love to be, I would love to open up the Michigan trades and see what commercials or local like whatever's or even a small film that's shooting in within a two or three hour radius of me. That brings you a lot of anxiety, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Um, not as much as the stage. Okay. Yeah. Well, I, I, I have a, I have a tendency and I want you to run this by your doctor, but I have a, I have a bias towards if there is something in the vicinity of things that I love, I want to head into that problem. Can I tell you, can I give you a lame example that has nothing to do with what you're talking about? I am sure it won't be lame. I'm terrified of heights. Like in a, like in a comic way, I don't like getting on a ladder.

Very few things in the world scare me. Getting like heights scare me. And I love, love, love getting out in the woods and hunting all fall. And I have missed out on a lot of pretty neat opportunities because most hunting where I live is done in tree stands. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. And so this year, this year, after years and years and years of being out in the woods, I decided I'm going to get over that.

And so I've taken some additional safety precautions, but also I've pushed myself. And here's the thing. I'm settling in already. Like I feel it. I put my fist in my chest and I feel that I'm nervous. And then I say, okay, I'm tied in here. So if I do fall out, I'm just going to dangle from the tree because I'm tied in. And so then I begin to exhale through it. And now I am finding peace. But it just took like finding the thing that I was anxious about and going right into it.

Okay. And you may be in a psychological state that you need somebody to walk with you. That's great, man. That's great. But here's the thing. I want you to begin to ask yourself, what do you want to do? So the idea of packing up from Grand Rapids and moving to Hollywood, that's probably not going to happen, right, at this stage of your life. Fair. No, and I've built a life here, so I don't want to leave it. Okay. When it comes to performing, talking, thinking of people, what would you want to do?

I'd love to be in front of the camera. That would be the best thing, which actually my boss just a week or so ago gave me a local talent agency that I didn't know about. So definitely something I want to explore. But being in front of the camera would be my number one thing. Getting the chance to screw up over and over again until we get it right, because then it's so safe. Don't do that. Unless Kelly is your producer and it's never safe. It's never safe, Chris.

I'm going to do this. I'm going to send you a copy of my buddy Ken Coleman's book, The Work You're Wired to Do. And it's got a – it's got inside of it, it has – I'm going to send it to you for free. But it's got like an assessment. It's called a Get Clear Assessment. It's what he calls it. But it runs you through a – it takes a while, about 15, 20 minutes. But it runs you through a whole bunch of things, and it points out some things you might be interested in.

And the beautiful thing about actors, I think everybody on planet Earth, in high school and in college, should have to take at least one theater course and one counseling course. Because a counseling course would teach you empathy and how to sit with people. And a theater course would teach you how to stand in front of people and become people.

Dot, dot, dot, right? And that will help you in sales. That will help you in any number of positions of having to give people bad news and deny claims or to say yes to claims or whatever your job happens to be. It helps you embody something else. And so if you love acting, Chris, I want you to spend some time acting.

I would love that for you. If you don't like being an insurance adjuster, being an actor may not pay your bills in a way that you can go buy a house and deal with some of those deeper core issues. I would love to see you get on some sort of exercise program. So the next time you see your doctor, I want you to say, I'm going to start an exercise program.

How can I get started? And dude, there's a thousand. I want you to check out my buddies, mindpump.com. Mindpumpfitness.com, that's the ones I use. Or Jordan Syatt, S-Y-A-T-T. They've all got great, great programs that you can use to work out with. But when it comes to comparison, here's the thing. It's hard because you see an outside shell of somebody. You see the world that you think they're living. And they see the world they think you're living. And they don't know how hard it is for you on a day-to-day basis, on a week-by-week, month-by-month basis. And so...

You may not have a home yet, even though you're 28. You may not have a six pack, even though you're 28 and you're a male and whatever. You may not be dating anyone yet, whatever. But dude, you've got more bravery and strength than most. You've been going through it for a long, long time. And so I want you to sit down with your doctor and say, okay, we've been playing defense for a long time, 10 years. I want to start playing offense. I want to see what it looks like to begin to work through, walk right through some of these things that I'm anxious about.

And it's just exposure. I want to start walking through some of this stuff. I want to begin to get on the market and start dating. I want to get on the market and potentially get another job that might bring me a little more peace. And I'm going to start doing some acting stuff because I'm not married to anybody. I've got all the time in the world. After hours, I'm going to get after it. So, Chris, here's one last thing. I want you to write Chris, 35-year-old Chris, a letter.

Talk about how good you're going to feel. Maybe one or two projects you've been a part of or four or five projects you've been a part of. How you're going to go to the local talent agency and just start slowly dipping your toes in that stuff. Maybe join a local theater. Maybe start an exercise program. I want you to write a letter to 35-year-old you and make a commitment. You've been fighting hard for a decade, and I want you to start living. I'm so proud of you, man. I'm proud of you. And honestly, honestly, I can't wait to see what happens next.

Cheer your friends on. When you see a buddy with a house, cheer him on. When you see a buddy with a six pack, cheer him on. That's the antidote to gratitude, like celebration. That's the antidote to comparison, I think. But dude, I'm proud of you, brother. It's an honor that I got to talk to you. Call me anytime. We'll be right back. I'm a founding member of the Get Off The Internet and Go Outside Club. And yet I, like all of you, find myself at work and in my personal life basically living on the internets these days.

And as a society, we're creating more and more online accounts all of the time. We're signing up for promos, giving away our emails and personal numbers, and buying everything with our phones. I get hundreds of emails to my personal account, my business accounts. Every business wants to survey me and become my friend. And everyone everywhere is trying to sell me all kinds of stuff, and it drives me nuts. And with all of our online activity, do we really know where our data is and who has it?

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Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm doing great. How about you? Doing well. I just want to say thank you to your team so much for everything you guys do. You really impacted me a lot and I know so many others. Well, I appreciate that. It's mostly, it's probably like mostly me, but I'll thank them too. Leah, I literally do nothing. They run this whole thing. They're amazing. Yes, especially Kelly. All right.

All right. We're going to go to the next caller. I love her. I love you. So my question is... I can't believe you said especially Kelly. You're out of your mind. All right. So what's up? Is it worth the financial burden to move closer to family? No. And I can give more context. No. Okay. And I can tell by your call, you don't want to. Why don't you want to... Forget the money part. You don't want to live by them. I can tell by how you asked that question.

I feel like there's so much that goes into it, but basically my husband and I have been married for a couple of years and we want to start a family soon. And we like the area that we're in now, but my family is hundreds of miles away in a higher cost living area that we don't necessarily like as much, but we would have so much more help with kids. And so it's just a lot, because I don't know if it's better for me to sacrifice my own time so I can do

So I would have to work more so I could afford it. But I also just hear constantly how difficult it is. And so it's just been going on in my mind. And my husband has the same thoughts of not knowing what's best for our family. Okay. You've made this about money, but I don't think it is. Yeah, I think it goes beyond that. Tell me about the great beyond.

I don't know. I think I love the area that I'm in again, but I feel... Stop. Tell me about your family. You don't want us talking about it. It's so great. Tell me about your family. My family's awesome. Like, yes, they're definitely not perfect, but I don't think there's these fundamental big issues that would prevent me from being around them. If you could pick them up and drop them in your current neighborhood, would you do that?

Yes, 100%. Okay. All right. That's helpful. Yeah. Like I have no family like trauma or anything from my childhood that I can remember that would prevent me from moving. Okay. But I also feel like it's important for my husband and I to kind of have our own thing away from them and to grow without them, but also feeling on the other side that it's going to be way too difficult and it ruins marriages, having kids and all these things. Uh, yeah.

I mean, it's not having kids that ruins marriages. It's a lack of intentionality. And honestly, loneliness is tough. So tell me about your friends and where you live right now.

Yeah, so we've been here for a couple of years and I would say we've made a ton of effort to make really great friends and we do have a good community down here. Do you have a community? So here's the thing I saw in real time. I've heard about this, but I saw it and it was amazing. When my wife got pregnant with Hank, she texted three of her friends, three amazing women who already had kids. And she said,

I'm going to text y'all at 2 a.m., 8 a.m., whenever. Y'all are like my help-me-outs. Y'all are my come-overs any time. And I'm telling you what, they were amazing. And, like, they would show up. They would take the kid. They would do all – like, it was about intentionality.

Yeah. And so I got to see that ringside that was pretty amazing. It was less so when Josephine came around because there weren't all those like, how do we do this questions? Or is this rash normal kind of questions? Um, and it was, it was more challenging because I think it was less about the question answering and more about, you've heard me say this a million times, like, um,

The idea that a woman's supposed to come home from the hospital and just sit at her house for two months or four months or six months or forever if she chooses to stay at home all alone by herself is insane, right? And not sleep and not eat and not have human contact. Like that's madness. We just made that up here in this culture, and it's insane. And so finding people intentionally that you're going to be around – I think it just comes down to intentionality and you choosing to go be weird.

Okay. Yeah, because I feel like I've heard from you a couple of times, like a woman shouldn't be alone with a crying baby. And to me, I'm like, oh, well, I don't have my family here to help me, but it doesn't have to be family. You can meet other people. But I think it's hard for me to ask for help. That's what I was going to ask you.

Yeah. It's like my family's the one group of people where I don't care what I'm asking them because I know I would do anything for them, but I also would do anything for my friends here too. So I just need to get past that. Well, I, and I love, are you pregnant now? No. Okay. I would love when you find out that you're pregnant, I would love for you to take out a group of three to five or six women. You pay for coffee or you pay for brunch and just announce it. And then

I don't know. I don't want to be cheesy, but like hand them each a handwritten card or something. Okay. It's like from this moment forward, you're my ride or die. You can opt out, but I'm going to lean on you. Y'all are my family here in North Carolina. Yeah. And every Tuesday we're getting together. Every Thursday afternoon we're getting together and I'm going to text you at 2 a.m., at 4 p.m., at 1 a.m. Like I'm going to need you guys and I'll always be there for y'all. Are y'all in? Are we all in?

And if you do that with five people, four of them will say yes, one of them will say no. Or actually they'll all say yes because peer pressure and then one of them just won't respond to your text. But that will be about them, not you. And that's okay. They get to do that because their life might be bonkers. Who knows? But yes, you're going to have to choose to ask for help and support and relationships and friends. And then I would love for you and your husband to practice on the front end to begin to like build together relationships

away like every once a week every Sunday night we get together we talk about our calendar we talk about our budget and we ask each other like two or three like how are we doing how are we doing in fact hang on the line I'm going to send you a copy I'm going to send you questions for humans intimacy deck and questions for humans three the brand new couples deck only just to keep those go through a couple of them

every Sunday night right now when you don't have kids when you're not pregnant you get in the rhythm of this is how we come back to the table and we come back to the table and we come back to the table it's just a part of our life and so that when you have kids your first baby and you go through pregnancy there's gonna be things you don't even think to tell him or that you're just experiencing and you don't realize he's not experiencing them either or vice versa and it's just the rhythm of y'all talking is gonna already be there the rhythm of you going up through the week is gonna be there the rhythm of you guys being honest with each other is gonna be there and

Man, that's the part that blows up marriages. The marriages I see that get even deeper and more connected are those that talk and co-experience this thing together. And they understand, okay, what we had is completely over now. And here's the other thing, Liam. I'd recommend if you love where you live, you'll have great jobs, you're doing well, and you're establishing yourself.

You can always, six months in, look at your husband and be like, dude, we got to get out of here. We got to go home. I got to go back to wherever my family lives. And y'all can always do that. It would be harder to move to your family and then...

six months and be like, yeah, we made a mistake. Forget you guys were out of here. So you can always move afterwards. Um, but if you love where you live and it's, it's better for you all financially, I think younger couples all across the country are having to make that call right now. We want to live in these established cities with our families where they've lived for 20 years, 30 years, 50 years. We can't afford it. So we're having to move to other places across the country. Beautiful, wonderful, like newly established places. Um,

It's just the way of the world right now because things got real, real, real expensive, especially in some of these major metropolitan areas. And so you all do what's best for you guys financially. You do what's best for you guys with your community. And you, sister, get over the – I don't like to ask for help. You're about to bring a human into the world. You're going to need all the help you can get, my sister. Hey, thanks for the call. We'll be right back.

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Hi, Dr. John. What's up, dude? I'm doing great. Well, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on trying to make friends at 44 when everything seems really good in your life. But I think 40 middle, mid-age is kind of a hard time to make new friends. Paul, it's the worst. It's the worst.

I'm surprised to hear you say that. You kind of strike me as a very extroverted type of guy. Dude, I am introverted as the dead. Dude, I am... Oh, okay. Listen, like, I'm in the studio by myself talking to a camera. I can see Kelly's, like, mean glare out the corner of my eye where she's just, like, totally disapproving of everything I do and say. But other than that, like...

Yeah, dude, it's making friends in your 40s. It's one of the most challenging things I think a person can do. I really do. You're not crazy. You're not alone. I'm going through the same thing right now. Okay. I hear you. I just discovered your show a couple months ago, and I hear you saying you have all sorts of wild, adventurous people over to your house all the time.

And it got me thinking, I should do something like that, but I don't even know where to start. I, you know, I've been married for 19 years, great marriage with my wife, got three kids, they're all super busy and they're all doing great and focused on my career a lot for my 20s and 30s and doing really well in work and then suddenly I had a good friend who

who a couple of months ago moved away for, uh, for work. And, uh, I'm kind of alone. I don't really have too many close friends, uh, certainly not in the area. And so, um, I think maybe part of it is I, I don't prioritize it cause I'm thinking about my career. I'm thinking about my family. I'm thinking about my wife. And, and then suddenly, uh, I'm also introverted like you. And I,

I sometimes feel like I don't have the energy to do it, but maybe I just need to prioritize it more is what I'm thinking. I mean, I would hug you if you're sitting right here. You are so far ahead of where I would say 95% of mid 40 year old men are right now. Like you were the, the fact that you're thinking about this and feeling it and you're bummed that your buddy left and you're able to verbalize it. I mean, you are so far ahead of the game.

Because most men in your situation would have grabbed an extra drink, would have played an extra hour of Fortnite or sat in front of the computer and watched another hour of pornography or just like gone back to office reruns until they just fade out. And I can't tell you how impressive I am. I'm impressed with you. I am. So you've identified it early on. What I have found for me is I'll just be as honest as I can. Um,

if I get the courage to ask somebody to a thing, um, and they say, no, I don't know why. I just feel like I'm 10 again. Like it just, it, it's like, Oh, you're going to be by yourself again. Yeah. Um, and I, I, I've started a thing. I started about three years ago. Um,

I started – when I buy a concert ticket, I would just buy two. Or I might buy three or whatever, depending on how expensive they are. And then I would just invite people to come. And if they could pay for them, cool. If they couldn't, cool. I just like going to concerts, and I know it's not always the best to go by yourself. And the other night I had an extra ticket, and I was calling around, and nobody could come. By the way, it was an insane band, right? Nobody in their right mind would want to go to this show. And –

It was like two days out and it was late. It was like a weekday. So you're gonna have to get up and go to work tomorrow. But still, I just have this weird thing. I take it personal. So here's the only way I figured out is creating a context. So I would recommend you and your wife having a once a month or once every two weeks. Once every two weeks is probably a lot. But once a month, we have a potluck over at Paul's. And dude, we do that with Easter. We do that with some holidays. We do that kind of randomly. And I invite everybody.

Like, and when I invite 40 people and 10 of them come, I don't feel bad. I think it's pretty amazing. Yeah. Yeah. But I invite like my amazing Kate, my tattoo artist and her family came. I've got songwriters, like, like low key songwriters and college administrators and marketing people and like lawn care guy. Like they're just random people at the house.

They all vote all over the place. We even have this. I have, I always set up the guest room and I make a big announcement. If you're here and you don't want to be here and you just want to go to bed, you can go up to the guest room. I've made the bed up and you can go to sleep. Just go shut the door and go to bed. Right? Like, um, here's a TV is on with video games or stuff going on outside. And so we have a random assortment of people over at any given time. Um,

My eight-year-old was like, hey, you know what would be fun? A dog birthday. And I was like, no, we're not those people. But my wife threw a dog birthday and had random people over. And so it's finding ridiculous things to gather around a table. And I'll just tell you this, man. There's not an easy way to do it. You just got to go first and you got to be weird.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So anybody in our life, like parents of other kids on my kids' sports teams and people I know from work and people from church. It's a great place to start. Great place to start is right there.

Okay. Great place to start is there's four or five people. A couple of my closest friends I met when my son was in fifth grade and we had just moved to a new town here in Nashville. We moved outside to another city, like a rural town. And my son's coach, his name was David, was just a great guy, just a hospitable guy. Our lives are very, very different now.

He's a veteran who works in IT. He's an amazing guy. And his wife became one of our close friends. Like they just became cool. But yeah, that was a great place. And with that community, we've found a few new more friends and a few more friends. And so it's become a fun group. We don't have a lot in common professionally, but it's been a blast.

Yeah. Yeah. I do. I can't tell you how proud of you I am, man. Good for you. Thanks. And your wife, is she introverted too? So part of the struggle we have is it's kind of draining for both of us to have like a lot of people over. But, um, but I mean, you just sort of say, Hey, we need to do this. Cause, uh,

We want to have friends. We want to have a network of people that we can call on when times are good and times are hard, right? That's kind of what they're looking for. Yeah, I want somebody just I can laugh with. Life's too short. Or a life somebody I can see a couple weeks later and be like, yeah, you remember when? Or that was awesome that one time, right? It just becomes...

Yeah, it's just doing life with – my wife is very – she's more introverted than me, but where she excels is she's really – she took on about 10 or 15 years ago the idea of hospitality as a spiritual practice. Yeah, sure. And it became like both of our default setting is just to be alone.

So we face down in her, especially I'm going to, I'm going to walk through my tendency to want to be alone and I'm going to open up my house. And so she's like, she has done everything from learn how to garden. So she's got fresh stuff and she went and learned how to make sourdough. She's done all this wild stuff so that she can really excel at the art of hospitality. And now we have people coming and staying at our house from all over the country. If they need two days just to reset their marriage or whatever, but it's, that's, that's all her.

Yeah. Just creating a quiet, safe place for people to come. But here's the thing. She's become the master at the one-on-one. She goes and has lunches with one person, and she's got some deep, rich friendships that, quite frankly, I'm jealous of. But here's the thing. Everybody does it differently. There's not a right or wrong way.

Yeah. Well, being introverted, doing the one-on-one thing is a lot less, uh, I don't know, draining than going to big group settings. So maybe invite two people over or three people over three couples over, just know that one of them you're going to have a good connection with. One of them is going to be weird. And one of them will make butt crack jokes all the time. Like I do. It'll be fine. Sure. So yeah, I'm all, I'm all in for your brother. I'm proud of you, dude.

All right. Hey, congratulations, man. Hey, send me a picture the first time you get a bunch of gang together and then just put an arrow over the one that you're like, yeah, I'm not inviting this guy back over. He's weird. Just kidding. Don't do that. That would be the Kelly photo. Hey, thanks for the call, brother. We'll be right back. The budgeting and spending app that I love and I personally use is EveryDollar, and it's the greatest budgeting and planning app on planet Earth.

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All right, as we wrap up this show today, listen, I've been talking about this a lot. We're about to hit a major milestone, so if you will just stop what you're doing because I'm about to ruin. Listen, if you'll stop what you're doing and hit subscribe on the YouTube channel, it makes a humongous difference, and we're getting really close to the million mark, and it would just mean a lot to me. And we're filming this on Halloween today, and it comes out when? Early December?

This episode comes out on December 6th. And so I see that you came as a mean, mean old lady. It's a great costume. I see as you came as something too, but it's not appropriate to mention. On time. That's what I came as today. Which I will... Hold, stop. We recorded this episode way earlier than we normally do. We normally record, start recording at like 9.30 a.m. And this one was at 8.15 a.m.

So. I came as on time for Halloween. You came as on time and I should be Halloween every day. Scared everybody to death. I was very impressed, especially considering last night I got a note saying we have an 815 recording. And I thought, oh, no. Well, I was hunting in the woods last night, chasing a deers. And I happened to look. A deers? Listen, last night I had quite the adventure. I'm still recovering from it.

I may or may not have slept last night, but I'm where he came is on time. You did. I like this. It's a once in a year. I like this Halloween costume on you. You might get it for Christmas, too. But that's it. Hey, love you guys. Stay in school. If you're trick or treating tonight, make good choices. And this episode comes out after the election. So hopefully we're all still alive. Love you guys. Take care. Bye.