Ultimately, [Music] relationships that are successful, they start with all this incredible passion. But by the end of a couple of years, where you want to get is from passionate love to what we call companion love. What about the reverse when somebody says we were friends for a long time, friend zone, the love zone, very rare. Usually what happens is that one is in love and the other isn't. [Music] What in the world is going on? Hope you are doing well. I'm not going to lie, dude. It is bonkers out there. And where is out there? Everywhere. Everywhere in the club. But I'm super glad that you are with us. And man, it just it it makes my heart full every time. Um hop on here. And we have so many listeners joining us from all over the world. It's amazing. Thank you so much for being with us. All right, this is super exciting. Last year, one of my top shows of the year was when we had a good friend of mine and guest, Dr. Arthur Brooks. He is the happiness goat. He's written a book with with Oprah. He has a weekly column in the Atlantic. He teaches at Harvard. He's an amazing guy. And it was one of the top shows of the year. And so I asked him to come back and we take a swan dive into things like happiness and fitness and marriage and a whole bunch of other stuff I don't really even understand cuz he's super super smart. Just kidding. I kind of understood it but also kind of not. He literally is um one of the the best guys you will meet and one of the smartest minds out there today in the public sphere. and he is back and we talk about just a million different things and I can't wait for you to be a fly on the wall. Actually, don't be a fly on the wall. Just pull up a seat. Pull up a seat to this conversation. It's one you're gonna want to listen to a couple of times. There's so much good stuff from this. And let me just say this. Um, I mentioned this in the show, but I want you all to know after my first show with Arthur, um, I made some significant changes in my life when it comes to nutrition, when it comes to my spiritual life, when it comes to just some daily practices. And I'm going to be honest, I've lost a lot of weight. Um, my spiritual life is better than it's been in years. My marriage is great. Like, I implemented some of the things that we talked about, and this conversation was very similar. Like I had some great takeaways, not just to think about. I did have those, but things I can do differently in my life. So, I can't wait for you to hear round two of my conversation with my great friend, the one and only Dr. Arthur Brooks. Help me with this question. Why do we keep gravitating towards this thing, this thing called marriage? Right? We are a pair bonded species. We're pair bonded species. We're like woodstos, you know, and and it's we wouldn't necessarily have to be a parab bonded species. Tell me what pair bonded. Pair bonded means that right for me in crayon that that a a couple gets together and they they want to be faithful to each other naturally. Okay. They naturally want to be one to one and they want it to last and they their dream is for that's the person you're looking at as you're taking your dying breath. That's how humans are wired. Okay. Now, not every culture has done that. Not every society has been successful in that. But that's the natural proclivity of homo sapiens. I think that's the I mean there's all this stuff about polyamory and that's all nonsense. I mean there are certain people who are different than the norm. There are certain people who have different psychology and maybe even different biology when it comes to that. But the vast majority of people are onetoone pair bonded and they wanted to actually last. That is wired into us as a species. That is also I believe metaphysically a a matter of natural law. And so even by the way an offshoot of this is that 97% of people including young people who are the most emancipated progressive people morally you can imagine 97% say that adultery is morally wrong all the time. Now that's way higher than the number of people who say that prostitution is wrong. Right? So people believe that you know people want to be one to one and they believe that cheating's wrong is the bottom line and they believe those things so strongly that they want to memorialize that union that's called marriage now there's one step that goes further that I think that people have a natural sense of the metaphysical because again the prefrontal cortex the the the the wiring of the brain is very interesting if you interviewed Lisa Miller at Colombia so she's the best psychologist neuroscientist neurosychologist ologist on faith experiences. She talks about what actually happens in the brain with faith experiences. We have a sense of the divine. We just do. There are no according to anthropologists. There are no organized civilizations that we've ever had any evidence of in human history that didn't worship. We didn't all worship the same thing the same in the same way. But we're made to worship. And one of the things that people feel about their marriage, they want it to be magic. Now love is a right hemisphere thing where all the ineffable mystical things happen in our brains and one of the things that we feel is that that pair bond that union is is an antenna to the divine and that's what you and I believe as Christian men by the way because we believe that that that the reason that divorce is unnatural is because you're pulling apart you're you're you're tearing apart the ability your completion with your wife is the way that she understands God's love and You understand God's love. God's love for you is transmitted visav your wife. Correct. That's how people feel about even if they don't have the theology behind it. That's the that's Genesis that's Genesis 2. You know, that's the the the Yahwistic understanding of God is that man is made to be with woman and vice versa. And they're one flesh and it's his rib. Yeah. You know, and that that's that's real stuff. is actually kind of and that's that's a visceral metaphor for actually how we see it and we only understand God when we have this holy vocation and most people that's how we feel. So the point is that we're for whatever reason if you're religious you're not religious people are wired to feel that and they want to make that as official as they possibly can whether they're religious or not. Okay. Yeah. And that's just the natural state of being for homo sapiens for the vast majority of homo sapiens. And there's anomalous stuff. I mean, we in my in my church, we have priests that are celibate and and there's some people who believe that they can, but that idea is I'm going to sacrifice this thing. It's a sacrifice, right? That's a sacrifice. And then there and then there are some people who believe you can be in love with, you know, you know, 15 people in a bicycle at the same I don't know, whatever, right? But that's not the norm. That's just not the way people are wired. This is natural. This is natural law. This is how people are meant to be. most people. That's a much more complex yet a much simpler answer than I was thinking. Yeah, there's just a gravitational pull towards this thing. This is human anthropology. This is basic human anthropology is that we're not we're not supposed to be alone. We're not supposed to we're not lone wolves. We're wired to complete each other and we're wired for love. And if you're going to pull apart a culture, a society, it would be to question that very architecture. You go after. That's what you very architecture. If you if you want to reorder everything, you start with you start with couples. Yeah. Pull them apart. You pull them apart. You you attack romantic love. You attack marital love. That's how you do it. Okay. But there's also the other side of that. So, um gosh, I and I've lost the author's name, but I was recently reading, um basically an anthrop anthropological account of marriage, and I think that the title of the chapter was when love ruined marriage. And it was this sense of that's Eli Finkel, right? Posi. That probably is Eli. It was a but it was a what my takeaway was this. There are things you have to do to fuel this thing and to keep this thing going, right? And if you just rely on how this thing feels, especially in a world that we've dropped humans into that we're not designed to live in, um this world of over stimulation, overabundance, there is some uh left brain things you've got to do. I've got to I've got to attune to this thing and pay attention to it. Totally. It's not all romance. And so Eli Finkel wrote The All or Nothing Marriage, right? and uh his stuff is great. His stuff is is really really interesting and really good. And and here's the interesting thing about how marriage is supposed to work fundamentally. There is an ignition process for falling in love, right? And it starts with sex hormones. That's why people want to be attractive to each other like like sexually dimorphically attractive to each other like red lips and and not not you. That's right. and and and biceps and why why I mean it's completely anacronistic the reason is because that is has a a bi that elicits a biological response in the potential mate that then quickly goes into the a neurochemistry a a stimulation of catakolamines in the brain most notably norepinephrine and dopamine for euphoria and anticipation of reward and that's when you know I I guess I think her text I think I just got a text from her. It's like it's a text, but that anticipation reward has to do with dopamine and norepinephrine. I skipped the final once because I thought the woman who's who is now my wife was going to be walking across campus at a certain time and I thought, I bet I can get to that final 30 minutes late. I'm going to go I want to cross that's it. That's it. Because you were basically the norepinephrine in your brain was giving you a sense of euphoria at the thought from the dopamine of the ant anticipated reward. Right? And that's step two. Except three is a big drop in serotonin and this happens a few weeks into a relationship typically. And that the reason for that is because it and it looks like depression by the way because depression is associated with with you know ruminative sadness is associated with low serotonin levels because you need to ruminate on the other person. This is how you bond and that's like that's when you send 100 text messages like a [ __ ] and like guys who are 70 years old will will exhibit this adolescent behavior because their serotonin levels are in the tank. The vententralal prefrontal cortex is highly stimulated because you're ruminating the other person. And you what you want to do I've never done this. Me neither. Never. Never. And and then and then the last step is true bonding to the other person. And that's associated with vasopressin and oxytocin. Right. That's when it's like you're my kin. I'll defend you. You're my only person. Yeah. That's and that's where you want to get and that's where that's this bonding. Ultimately, relationships that are successful, they start with all this incredible passion, this heat, this heat. But, but by the end of a couple of years or certainly five, where you want to get is from passionate love to what we call companionate love. Yeah. Companionate love is best friendship. Not only friendship, but it's best friendship. That's tons of oxy. And by the way, there's still sex and there's still passion. They're still fighting. But Oh, yeah. Well, that's I mean like marry a Spaniard, man. I'll show you fighting. It's like 10,000 fights later, still love each other. And but but that's really important to keep in mind because if you don't have that, if you don't do the work to actually get to companion love, you'll break up and hate each other. Why? Because you were never even friends. You were never even friends. And so you realize you love each other, but you don't like each other. And so the goal is is to have loving plus liking. And liking really comes later cuz that's your friend. That's your mate. That's your That's your What about the reverse when somebody says we were friends for a long time, friends? But then we become I guess it's very rare. It's very rare in the literature. It's very rare. And usually what happens is that one is in love and the other isn't. It's an asymmetric thing. And typically a a man is in love with a woman and the woman's not in love with the man, but she likes the guy cuz he's awesome and he brings her a latte and he's sturdy and stable and and he listens to her troubles about all her, you know, the jerks that she's dating and and you know what that is is an asymmetric love relationship and he's pining away hoping to get out of the friend zone. Sorry, it's very difficult to get out of the friend zone and part of the reason is because you're not going to run the neurochemical cascade in reverse, right? It doesn't work that way. You're not going to suddenly, you know, I was like, "Oh, wow. I went to step one after knowing each other for four years." Very unusual. That right there is the biochemical reason I think dating apps ultimately fall themselves because you never get those moments. Well, you're not courting is not intended to to work that way. You know, you're not supposed to adjudicate your or or to to curate your relationships. Yeah. for on the basis of if they like Trump, right, and they think, you know, NBA basketball is okay and they like Sriracha and want to move to Austin. I mean, that's these are not these are, you know, they're not the criteria for actual. The other thing is, by the way, that on the dating apps, it's so shallow and superficial what you get about a person that 10% of the guys get all the action, right? Because the guys that I mean, women find 80% of men disgusting, men find 20% of women unattractive, right? And so that asymmetry per se means that 10% of guys get turned into dark triad narcissists because they get all the action. They got a roster of women that they're getting and the other 90% are going dry because they can't have there's no questions. There's no personality. There's no depth. There's no reason to fall in love with a guy if he doesn't pass the looks good on the dating. You're this tall, you make this much money and Exactly. Right. This is why this is how it's messing up dating and courting in so many fundamental ways. That's why, by the way, that relationships that start on the apps, some of them are great, but on average, when marriages occur pursuant to meeting on an app, they tend to be less stable and they feature less attraction. Because they're less likely to actually go through the cascade in the right direction, go to passionate, companionate, best friendship. It's a problem. It's a problem. When you mediate any relationships electronically, you're going to have trouble. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You are because we're made to be in person. That's why, you know, you and I could do this electronic. We could do this virtually. It wouldn't be as good because we're getting oxytocin right now through the eye contact and touch. That's how you get eye contact and touch. How you get how you get true human human connection with your friends and and especially with your family. All right, it's cozy earth time. 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And the rest of culture, workforce, love, relationships, houses of faith, all these ideals are supposed to bend around whatever path you feel like going on. The challenge is, as we all have seen around us in the last couple years, that isn't traffic in reality. And so one of the meta ideas I've taken from your work is this idea of going to war with ourselves is not helpful. And neither is li living hyonically living just how you feel, right? I don't feel like working on. Well, then don't. I don't feel like this relationship anymore. Well, then end it. Right? So, how do you explain this idea of managing yourself to a culture that's been taught you do whatever you want and the world should bend to you. The world's lying to you. and the world's lying to you because we've gotten into the we we're listening to the the big lie that mother nature tells us. Now, there's here's the the mistake that people make. I have natural urges and I want to be happy. So, if I follow my natural urges, I'll be happy. That's wrong. That's what every major philosophy and religious tradition has always taught that you actually have to stand up to your natural tendencies. Mother nature has only two goals for John Deloney and Arthur Brooks and everybody watching us. Pass on your genes and survive another day. That's all mother nature wants. Happiness, well-being, love. These are divine goals and they require that you understand your natural proclivities and not fall prey to them. Look, if we act like animals, we'll live like animals. That's the bottom line. You can live like your dog. You can live well like like a golden retriever. Somebody puts something tasty in front of you, you just eat it. Okay. What about the other side of that though, which is I just heard a great um uh debate on the other side of this, which is if we we have these natural proclivities, but we can just dream them away. We can't do that either, right? You have to be have to you have to recognize the fact that these things exist and they exist for a reason. That you're hungry because you need nutrition and that will help keep you alive. that you're attracted to your wife because in evolutionary times you need to have an attraction to your wife. You need to have a sexual urge such that you'll propagate the genes. I got that. The whole point is understanding when it's healthy and when it doesn't serve you and when it doesn't serve society and wasn't when it doesn't serve the the meta not the physical truth, the metaphysical truth. Because we are I mean this is the most amazing thing. We're the only creature I mean even if you're not religious you recognize that we have a prefrontal cortex the part of our brain the seauite of our brain right behind our forehead that's 30% of your brain by weight that's the magic of the human brain that makes you different than every other creature and it gives you factor right that that's the that gives you divine knowledge and here's divine knowledge even if you don't believe in God this is metaphysical knowledge you're going to die you're alive and you're going to die to exist well that's the funny thing about it because you know you're going to die, but you can't conceive of the sessation of existence. That's this weird thing. And that's why people freak out all the time. That's why a lot of scientists believe we invented religion so that we could solve that conundrum. Yeah, I'm going to die, but I'm not going to cease existing cuz I'm going to go to heaven, right? I happen to believe that's truth. But the whole thing about that is that we have a we have an antenna to the metaphysical. That's what our brain is actually attuned to do. And that being the case means that we can also understand our urges and understand when they don't serve us and know that we want more happiness and love by standing up to our urges and that's self-management. And that's an incredible source of empowerment for for human beings. And that to me the if there's been one word is I've tried to step back now that I'm not um teaching anymore and I'm in this new ecosystem. I've tried to come up with the word of I know I know of of the of a cultural moment and the only word I can come up with is disempowerment. It's this idea that either you can't just go over in the corner and pat you on the head. We'll take care of you because you're whatever you've done, whatever's happened to you. Whatever whatever variables we want to stick on you, you're not going to be able to, we'll take care of it for you. Or the other side is like there is no breaks to freedom. just run as fast as you can. And if there's a wall in front of you, we're gonna blame the wall. Just keep going and it's madness on both sides. But at the end of the day, it's it's disempowering. Yeah. That's the reason, by the way, there's there's a rebellion forming. Why so many young guys are reading the Stoics? Yeah. That's why Ryan Holidayiday's stuff is so popular right now. I mean, Ryan Holiday is like a cult figure. And what is he doing? He's he's talking about Marcus Aurelius. He's like this new crazy thing. It's called Senica. Senica the Elder. I mean, it's a, you know, Epictitus and and all this. He's bringing back these Greeks and Romans from, you know, 2,2500 years ago. Um, and and people are eating it up. Why? Because they know it's a lie. They know the modern currency is totally counterfeit. They know that it's not in their interest and they're being sold out. Why? By whom? By people that want to productize them. That's it. When somebody's trying to make you into a libertine because they want you not to have control over your appetites. And when you don't have a control over your appetites, you're going to spend 14 hours frittering it away on social media. You're not going to have the courage to ask a girl out on a date. You're going to just do this on an app. Are you going to spend money you don't have? You're not going to make progress. You're going to pretend that gaming is real progress as opposed to real progress in life. Now, don't kill me. I know gaming is fun within limits, but 10% of gamers, by the way, have have a a chronic uh set of behaviors that is inhibiting their ability to function, which is no joke. Well, take that away. put put like hey Arthur there's a game on let's I'll give you five bucks if they win has turned into Yeah exactly so gambling catastrophic gambling is taking the place of playing sports right and so what we find is that we have a society where we are being productized visav our neurochemistry and what it's doing is it's turning us into beings that cannot stand up to our own urges people think that by the way interesting for the first time since we've been keeping data on this young men are now more likely to be religious than young women. So, that being the case, then I think that what you and I have a an opportunity to serve as our apostlate, you evangelical guys like to say mission. Catholics say aposttoate because it's a harder word. You know, it's like screw up everything, make everything more complex. Our apostlate is to get the spirit of rebellion against that with more young women today because they need to stop being productized. M they need to stand up to that and their their brains are being productized by the tech world and the people who say that they're victims. They're not victims. Are you kidding? They're the domesticating. They're the civilizing force in our society. Right. Right. They're the heartbeat of the whole. Who would you and I be? Yeah. Without our wives. Oh, nothing. We'd be Are you kidding? We'd be like out in a ditch drinking together right now or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing. But that's the point. That's the point. Women need to understand the empowerment that they deserve to feel and they they deserve to have relationships where they're not used, where they're adored, where a guy would fight a tiger for them, elevated. Yeah. That's that's what that's what they deserve is the whole point. And they're not getting it because they've been monetized by predators as men have. Yeah. And that's that's the other thing that I've I've come into the last 24 months is this sense of um no one's writing blogs about it and it's not it's uncouthed to say I don't know a father absent maybe you that thinks they're doing a great job. I don't know a father I don't know a husband that thinks like I'm getting this thing down. None of us. I mean, look, you're going dayto-day and it's it's it's it's mono mono. And so, none of us, even though that that objectively has kids who are doing well, we're still like, "Ah, I screwed it up again." Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It's actually probably pretty healthy. If you think you're a great father, I'm I'm suspicious. Well, that and that's, you know, it's it's um I I spoke at a at a large church recently for Father's Day, and the pastor before I went up said, "Hey, every Mother's Day, pastors across the country get up and go, "Mothers, y'all are crushing it. Y'all are overburdened." And then every Father's Day is like, "Dad, you suck. You all need to step it up." He's like, "Please don't do that." And um but it was just a sense of I don't know that anybody looks around objectively and says, "We're doing a good job." I think that my grandparents thought they were doing with the best they had with what they had. And that tells me there has been a commoditization of of individual people and groups of people that if I can make you feel bad, then I can sell you something. Yeah. Well, I I don't think my dad ever asked himself if he was being a good dad. And I think that's a good thing. I think that he just did what needed to be done. He loved me and he was a great example, right? He did he he fathers being a good father, a lot of it is showing up and being a good man. It's really interesting. I mean, you know, the greatest service you can give your sons as a dad, you know, and and and you'll say, I've heard you say this, so you know this, but love their mom really well. Love their mom really well. Yeah. It's just you want to know the number one job being a dad, love their mom, be the best spouse possible. Yeah. It's it's amazing. And so and so the result is that it's kind of easy to discount that. But the truth of the matter and and by the way, number two is have your kids see you on your knees in prayer. Mhm. See it like like my dad's really strong. He would never be on his knees in front of a man. No, he But there's something bigger than my dad. Yeah. And said that he will submit to something greater. He will love abundantly one person faithfully every day. Right. And and when you talk trash about mom, he's like, "Don't talk about mom that way." That's right. That's right. That's my wife, dude. This is like team parents against team Rugrats. That's right. And and he submits to the master. Those are the two greatest gifts. And so, okay. Yeah. So, maybe in church, they're they're not valorizing that in the same way because you don't see the service in the same way. But guys, that's the service. That's it. Those are your two core competencies. And if you do that, it's okay if you die. The other day, um, my son and I were running. He's a cross country stud and I'm not. I'm an old man now. And so I'm trying to keep up. And you're old man. You're like I'm trying, dude. I'm trying. You're like be president of United States. I know. It's good. It's a toupe. So u we were running real hard and we're at the point where he's kind of talking with his head turned and I'm I'm in dad mode. Like I know this is going to cost me three or four days of my life after this, but I'm gonna get this time. And out of nowhere, this woodchuckucky beaver squirrel thing shoots out of the road. Barment. Yeah. And I let one fly. Mhm. A swear word fly. Is an Fbomb. No. All right. All right. It wasn't the mother load. That's right. Um I got back and so this is the disclosure. I have a terrible mouth. But it's conversational. When I when I get angry, I never swear. I get real calm. Um 99% of the time when I get scared, I never do. This thing just jumped out. Yeah. Yeah. We got back and my son were all sweaty and hot and exhausted and he had his hands on his knees and he stood up and he said, "Dad, I've never heard you say that word before. I've never heard you say a bad word." And I was like, "Well, oops. Here you go, man. My streak is I made it 15 years." And he laughed. I laughed. And anyway, you have an excellent article in here about mindful cursing. Yeah. And when I was a kid, um, my my diet of what I would call mind food consisted of mostly punk bands and Panta and, um, scary movies. And I remember one time my dad heard me swearing and he said, you know, kind of read me the read me the riot act and I said, "I can't help it, Dad." And he said, "I've never heard you swear in front of your grandmother. I've never heard you swear at church." That's not true. You can. If you choose to, you can. I remember exhaling it like a 14-year-old, and I was like, actually, that's fair. All right. So, you write this. Swearing is negative, negatively correlated with conscientiousness and agreeableness. People don't want to be around it. Researchers have found that doctors who curse in front of patients are seen as less trustworthy and less experts than those who don't. But profanity was associated with less lying and deception. So, people hear somebody swear and we immediately assume that's probably trustworthy. Think like Joe Ro like like I believe that guy or comedians like I believe them because because they're swearing. Research shows that swearing alleviates discomfort of social stress. Yeah. There's a guy who works really hard to not swear all the time. It's conversational. I I told you my wife can tell what generation I friend I'm speaking to. It's like calling a friend from from Mexico and you just start speaking Spanish. My wife's like, "Oh, I know who those friends are." Just cuz it comes out without thinking. talk me through mindful swearing and I guess as a as a guy of a person of faith and a person of intellect. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's sound like a buffoon. If you have a policy, if you're going to have a policy, have a policy against cursing. Okay. And and the reason for that is that it it it never really helps very much and it can actually hurt a lot. And and people are funny because they're making a decision to swear usually a couple of seconds before. Am I going to say that cuss word? Am I going to say that cuss word? I say that and and then it comes out. But it's also very interesting that you know that neurohysiologically it's a phenomenon um that that cursing that's involuntary. So this voluntary cursing you decide to curse and you're going to put it for a form of expression in a conversation or there's involuntary cursing and most people do both. Okay. Involuntary cursing is actually not produced in the same hemisphere of the brain as voluntary cursing. A neural problem that not a problem necessarily jumped out. Well yeah for well yeah for sure. So, interestingly, you'll find that, you know, some people who suffer from Tourett syndrome. That's a that's a a phenomenon that's occurring in the right hemisphere of the brain and and some people they'll curse involuntarily when they have Tourett and and your involuntary cursing will come basically from the same part of your brain as a tick. And so, that's a different kettle of fish and that's a different issue, you know, trying to discipline that then just don't make the decision. What is it? It's um where is this? Romans 13:11. I I can't it's somebody's going to correct me because look, I'm Catholic. I outsource my Bible reading to professionals that the um don't don't make plans to sin. Yeah. Just and and you know, okay, stuff happens, right? But don't make plans to sin. It's also very interesting when people fall off the they're alcoholic and they stop drinking and then they fall off the wagon. They almost, according to the data, you've seen this too, they almost always plan to fall off the wagon. There's a plan Friday after work. When people and people say, "I don't know what happened, honey. I just kind of had an affair." No, you didn't. You planned it. You planned. So, it's the same thing with little things. And I'm not saying that cursing is like having an affair. Obviously not. I mean, these are different in nature and magnitude. Don't plan to sin. Just don't plan to do it is what it comes down to. And that's that's basically the right policy to that'll stand you the best. Poncho is back as a supporter of this show. And I'm super jazzed about it. If you've seen me on this show or on stages across the country, I'm almost always wearing poncho shirts. I got one on right now. I wear poncho when I'm fishing in the Gulf. 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New customers get 10 bucks off your first purchase when you sign up with your email. That's $10 off at ponchooutdoors.com/deloney. Poncho is the best. go check them out. So, I had this moment with my son where it was in sixth grade, maybe seventh grade. He came in and he called a family meeting and I was like, "Oh my gosh, are you for real?" Oh, no. Um, but he sat down, me and my wife, literally we sat down and and he said, "Um, he big, I would like to not play baseball this spring and instead I'd like to audition for the school play." And of course, we were like, I did theater in college. We were like, "Yes, absolutely. This is amazing." And we high-fived him. Full support. It's awesome. But when he laughed, I looked at my wife and I said, "But Delhan's play baseball in the spring." And it was this weird I was so proud of him, excited, of course, man, be awesome. Go go go go go to theater. And also, I did not realize that I was going to have this little twinge of my granddad played baseball in the spring, my dad did, I did. And so, is there is there any sort of like you're a full professor at Harvard? Yeah. and a musician to boot. And then it was and then your kids come out and they say, "Hey, I want to go farm. I want to go do the military and I'll work in construction." Obviously, as a dad, you're like, "Yes, go be successful and be great." But also kind of the Brooks, we go to college, right? Is is that is it is that there? Not really. It's weird. I would have thought that it was. So, not only am I a college professor, my dad was a college professor and his dad was a college professor. And so this is an eps an epigenetic expression you know it's academia right I mean this is and so so I would have thought you know you're not going to call we worked hard for this but but what happens it's a really funny thing as your kids are going to adolescence you need to think we all think and this is the kind of thing that you advise people call in every day well you tell them but it's yeah but you think to yourself what what is success what does success actually look like and I remember there was a time when you my son Carlos my middle son who is a Marine, um, who didn't go to college when he was he was screwing up in high school and he was not motivated and every day was another crisis and and and I was heranging him by doing his homework constantly and and finally I thought to myself, what am I spending 95% of my time talking about with Carlos? Stuff I actually don't care about, but is a proxy for the things that I do care about. The proxy is I think that these represent his success in some other realm. So, I'm talking about the thing one or two steps removed. I thought, I bet he doesn't understand that. I bet he actually thinks I care about his homework. Like, I give a rip about his math homework. Right. No, no, no, no. I want him to be a successful person and grow up and graduate from high school so he'll have opportunities and and he'll have a good family. He'll be a happy person and and a and a productive member of society. That's what I want. I thought to myself, what do I care about? What do I actually care about? I want a son who's honest with himself and others. I want a son who's compassionate with other people. and I want a son who's a Christian. That's what I want. Yeah. And so I sat down with him and said, "Look, I'm hassling you about your homework, but I'm making a mistake. I'm making a mistake here because you probably think I care about your homework." He's like, "Yeah, obviously, Dad, you care about my homework." No, I care about three things. And if these three things happen, everything else is gravy. Yeah. I literally don't care about I want you to be good and love other people in the world. I want you to be honest with yourself and other people and I want you to love the Lord. That's what I want. And then because you know what? Everything's going to fall into place if you a plus b a plus e will be hon. And again, you you and I as Christian men sometimes screw up and the whole thing, but there's always a way when you're compassionate, honest, and faithful to get back to what you actually want. and he visibly relaxed and and and it's our our relationship changed when I finally told him what I no when I finally told myself what I truly want with my son and then told him I dude I had the same my son was coming down shirt was always on backwards or he had have different colored socks on whatever and it was my wife that pointed it out but 95% of our conversations were hey fix your collar have you washed your hair fix your shirt what and had the very similar I could care dude I I'm an old punk rock kid I could care less what you're wearing I'm more worried worried about how other people are going to think, you know what, I'm wasting my time. And I I sat him down. I told him, I'm going to I'm releasing you to the middle school wolves. Like, they will self-correct your clothing choices. I'm not going to lose my relationship with you over this. And and as you said, I I think the the the practice of telling him, "I've done this wrong." Right. Was way more impactful than anything else. And then I remember telling his his friends a couple years later, "Y'all failed me." Cuz they didn't change nothing. They were like the guy. Yeah, man. Which is awesome. Which is awesome. That's actually part of his actually. It's like kind of who he is as a person. And I I realized they want to be around somebody who loves well and is a is a a young growing man of faith and who cares for people. They don't care what his socks look like. And that's my baggage, right? I know. I know. And then and then of course, you know, somebody watching us right now is going to ask, "So, what would you do if he did he wasn't one of those things, one of the big three?" And I don't know. I mean, that's a that's a good question, too, because you're going to love your child no matter what. my well not no matter what because I mean the first gosh the first 20 years of my career working as a dean of students was these kids coming to my office saying I can't go home for various reasons my mom and dad won't let me sit at the at the at the kitchen table but I'm going to love my son no matter what I'm going to love my son if my son robs a bank I'm still going to love my son that doesn't mean I'm going to I'll sit by you while you get sentenced but I'll sit with you but I'm going to love you no matter what it's going to take in including and it's interesting because there's all this research on the the schism between parents and children which is really really important for people watching us to understand. Schisms are almost schisms by which I mean parents and adult children not speaking. 11% of mothers with adult children are not speaking to at least one of their kids. 25 to 30% of the calls that come into this show are about one or the other have cut each other off. Completely heartbreaking. Completely heartbreaking. The number one reason for that is not what people think, which is behavioral differences. M so you know you come home from college and you say this I'm not going to church anymore. It's like I'm not going to church anymore. That's that doesn't do it. You come home and say I think I'm gay. That doesn't do it. I'm voting for Trump or not Trump whatever. Right. That doesn't do it. The problem is when the adult children reject the values of the parents. So they say I'm not only am I not going to church going to church that thing that you think is stupid and you shouldn't go to church either. That's what leads to a schism. Gotcha. And so the whole point is for parents and their adult children, live your life. Let other people live their lives. Don't reject their values. Yeah. Hang on. That that turns out to be and you'll you're going to be okay. You're not going to like it that your kid's not going to church, but you'll be able to live with it and you'll still have a loving relationship and you'll still have good laughs on Thanksgiving and it's going to be okay. But the minute that the kid says, "No, no, no, no. I your whole way of thinking is wrong, right?" That's when schism starts to vice versa or vice versa. Yeah. Yeah, it's basically rejecting the person as opposed to disapproving of the behavior. Fundamental difference. And that's hard in this current culture when parents have the only identifying like their only report card anymore is this thing called net worth and the performance of my child a lot. And so if my adult child is not performing right, voting the correct way, loving the correct way, living the correct way, then if I've outsourced my self-worth to their performance, then it's a it's it's a it's a declaration of failure on my part and I have to die on that hill. Right. Yeah. And that that's the personalization of the performance of your kids and that's not true love. Yeah. That's not authentic love. It's a huge problem. You know, do you love your kid? Not you're using your kid as a Xanax thing, right? Yeah. Well, you're also projecting your own autobiography onto the blank screen of your kid, and that's just not the right thing to do. Yeah, we Uncle Rico, our kids, right? Uncle Roan Dynamite reference. You guys got to play football cuz I would have Yeah. And and it's a very very easy thing to do. And I I made that when my first son um he was in college. My first son went to college and and and was a really really good student, really smart, and and applied and and he was struggling with this thing and struggling with this thing. And I say I said to him at one point I said, "Do you realize how much we've sacrificed for you to go to college?" And I thought, "What did I just say?" And that came out like I'm a behavioral scientist. Fortunately, I listen to myself when it comes out of my mouth. I can actually do a little bit of analysis, get myself on the couch, but I thought, you know, it's like it's his college. It's his life for Pete's sake. And it's going to be fine. Of course it was. Of course it was. All right. So, I I I this time I I've got a an advanced copy of the Happiness Files, which is a compilation of articles you've written over the last few years. Yeah. Um and a just your ability to write is so well to take very complex things and make them digestible for a simpleton is such a blessing. That's what you're doing every day, man. Well, it's like, but I can do it conversationally. The the art of the of writing the way you do is gosh, it's master. It's all reps. I appreciate it. Normally, I would leave this at the end, but I don't want to I don't want to leave it because I don't want to run out of time. After our last meeting together, and we've had a couple phone calls, you know, I need you to know um you can see it. We talked about in the green room because of your personal influence on me, it caused me to exhale a little bit and just be reflective. I'm down a chunk of weight. Good. I have re-engaged with faith in a way that's been profound. your interaction with me and your influence on me has been profound and it's it's helping my wife and my kids and my neighbors. So, it's great to hear that's I mean that's a gift guide to God. Well, that's a gift to me that you would tell me that and you know you and I both are followers of the master. Yeah. And that's who's influencing both of us and it's like iron sharpens iron man. I mean this is this is really what we're trying to do. And it's funny because it was 10 minutes ago that I was your age. And and uh and it's funny how your brain changes. I mean, in 15 years when you're my age, there's a John Deloney that you're going to be talking to who's the next really great leader in this. And and and we have to reinforce each other because the truth of the matter is that you can't do this on your own. Absolutely. You can't. And and you help me, I help you. You help somebody else. And let's hold each other up. It's awesome. Because the truth is the truth. And we have this sacred mission to help other people. But to do that, we have to be strong. That's right. And I think the illusion that I even found myself falling for is that strength comes alone. That strength is found by myself and that's just false. Right? That's not right. I mean that we are we are aspen trees and we there's an illusion of our individuality of the strength and beauty and solitary um of of uh the the notion that the tree itself by I mean it's like a he is like a a a tree planted by streams of water that prospers in all that he does. It's like the first psalm but the aspen tree is connected to every other aspen tree by a root system. That's right. The individuality is an illusion. There's an illusion of my individuality separate from you, John, right? And you from your kids and all of us from each other. And until we strengthen our roots, and the way that I strengthen my roots is by talking to you and appreciate that. Well, and vice versa. But it's it's important to know just for people watching and listening like um you and I could spend all day talking academics. I don't get to do that anymore. And so it's fun for me and talking like the gymnastics of it all. But I left our interaction with home and changed my behavior, which is awesome. That's and I can't get up at 400 every morning like you do. 43 4 0 4:30 4:30. I'll give it a shot. But all I have to say is uh thank you for that. Thank you for that. That's great. I'm glad to hear it. Tell me about the um the the the journey of uh your physical fitness. Um I mean I've I've been physical fitness guy my whole life. Your whole life. Right. And so it's been a just a way of being. And so it's one of those things that almost I take for granted that like you just wake up and work out. Um and then I had some great profound run-ins with um folks that are friends of mine like Lane Norton and Jaco and some of those guys that hey take it one step further. Yeah. And then that became that became a way of not dealing with other issues, right? Is I'm just going to get a workout that's going to solve all my it's going to solve my marriage problems, my spiritual using workout. It became a Xanax, right? And then just I got on the road and I got sloppy. I got lazy about how I how I am a good steward of my body when it comes to what I consume. And I'm in my I'm heading into my late 40s now. And so I used it's like the I used to be able to outspend my budget because I could out earn it. And well things change catching up with things change. Yeah. Absolutely. So I mean and the reason I ask that is because you know people might be might be wondering. I'm a professor of happiness and I'm super into fitness and people ask what's the relationship? So, so John's getting back into really good shape. Arthur is, you know, serious about working out every day for an hour. What's the connection to happiness and well-being? And the answer to that is that people who have very high levels of negative affect and that means intense negative mood, which is a quarter of the population is above average in positive affect and above average in negative affect. High affect people. John Deloney is a high affected person. You're a classic mad scientist. That's right. And and the result of that is that you actually don't need to do that much to hike up your happiness. You need to manage your unhappiness. That's exactly right. And your unhappiness is a gift. That high negative a effect is a gift because it makes you take a bite out of absolutely everything. And you can actually connect with the people who call into the show. You're like, "No, no, no, no, no." And you're animated and you're interesting to watch and that's one of the reasons you're successful, but you suffer. It's got a morose side to it. Yeah. So the there are good ways to manage your negative affect and there are bad ways to manage your negative a effect. Lots of people watching us right now and they watch your show because they're trying to help manage their negative a effect. The two worst ways to manage your negative a effect are drugs and alcohol that numb you and workcoholism which distracts you. And that's been my Yeah, that's been my right behind it now is internet use is is abusive internet use. Okay. So the two best ways to do it are prayer, meditation, spirituality and number two is physical fitness and and it's especially helpful first thing in the morning because that's when your negative affect is the highest. You wake up, you're like, you know, all those people are like, it's a great day. It's like they're so annoying. Not me, man. So I wake up, I'm like, right, here we go again. And it's into the gym and you hit it and that manages negative affect as effectively as everything else. And then that's when the great thing about being Catholic, by the way, John, that's when I go to mass. I I work out for an hour. Yeah. So I go from 4:45 to 5:45 in the gym. I take a shower and mass is 6:30 to 7. Okay. And then and only then do I actually administer to the psycho stimulants. Aka I drink caffeine. I'm not I'm not smoking meth. And um and then you get maximum dopamine. So I can get maximum I can get I can get four hours of clean focus, attention, creativity by going through that particular protocol which also manages my negative a effect. And that's a really important thing for people to understand. But if you go to that teeter totter, you stomp that that anticipatory I don't want to get too nerdy. You we're talking about dopamine now, folks. You you hold hold before you you earn all of it before you let it rip. Totally. So, and awesome. Well, there's a theory about that that's contested in the neuroscience literature about why you should wait 2 hours before you drink caffeine. So, Huberman talks about this a little bit. It's about the the circulating adenosine in the brain. It's when inhibitory neurotransmitter neurom modulator in the brain. It keeps you so your excitatory and inhibitory neurochemicals. They keep you up and down and they keep you in equilibrium. They try to balance it. They try to balance you. So, you get up too hyped up and you get it brings you down a little bit. Now the molecule for adenosine which is supposed to inhibit you and make you sleepy and make you a little bit tired. It looks just like the molecule for caffeine. And so what happens is when you've got adenosine in your brain, it's got parking spots it goes into. And if you substitute caffeine for those parking spots, the adenosine doesn't go in there. So caffeine doesn't pep you up. It makes you unable to go down. It blocks your body's understanding how tired you are. And so so some neuroscientists believe that you have a ton of it when you first wake up in the morning. It's still circulating. It's why you're groggy in the morning. And so you try to you try to substitute for all that with the caffeine first thing. But it's still circulating looking for a parking space, which is why you crash at 2 o'clock in the afternoon if you have your caffeine too early. Let it metabolize. Let it go away in the first two hours that you're working out. Then have your caffeine. It will be the cleanest buzz you can get. And there's no crash. I still love morning caffeine. I know. I love it. I know. I know. See, we got we just nerded out on neurochemistry now. Let's go back to love and faith. There you go. Faith, man. Well, dude, you they they're telling me you got a heart out. I said many words. Thank you. That's awesome, man. I love being with you. Thank you for being my friend for real. And I've called you a few times. Thank you for helping me. Um, always this door is always open for you. I love it. And I'm super grateful for you. Thank you for the service that you're doing for all of your viewers. I'm one of them. Well, and like you're I read this book by this guy. I don't know if you heard of it. It's called Strength to Strength. and um I'll link to it. It's a masterpiece that he wrote. Um but this is this can be a time at the stage of your career when you begin to put your feet up on the couch a little bit more and lean back a little bit more and just kind of survey the the grass you've you've planted and you're not doing that. You're hitting the gas. And so it's it's impressive to watch. I appreciate it. you know, I'll go where where the um it's funny, you know, in the in at the beginning of the Holy Week, um Jesus comes into Jerusalem and he says to his disciples, um go get a cult. Mhm. Right. And like where go to this house and get a cult. And they're going to be like he's he's going to ask what we're doing with the cult, right? And he says just say this, the master has need of it. Mhm. I'm the cult. You're a donkey? Yeah. Just the cult, right? He's the donkey. The master has need of it is the whole point. And the master has need of you, too. Yeah. Thank you for doing it. Well, I like being a donkey. Oh, man. That's good. Appreciate you. Donkeys unite. That's right. All right. It's time for a quick word about delete me. Do you feel like your digital footprints, you know, your text messages, your emails, your maps in your car are starting to feel more like digital trails leading bad guys right back to you right now. Scammers are using fishing attacks. That's fishing with a ph. And they try to trick you into giving them something like your information by pretending to know you. You might get an email, a text, or a phone call, and the person or the AI bot on the other end sounds like someone who's looking out for you and trying to help you out, but they're not. With all of these new technological advancements coming at us a million miles an hour, no one is really safe. So, what are we supposed to do? We can start controlling what we can. We can learn how to be careful online and offline. And we can all sign up with Delete Me. I use and recommend Delete Me because they work in the background to reduce my online presence. I don't have to worry about creepy data brokers having my data and trying to sell it behind my back. Delete Me has reviewed tens of thousands of sites for me. And when they found stuff, they've removed data from hundreds of the sites, which has saved me countless hours and a ton of stress. Stop fishing attacks, harassment, and other online threats before they even start. And take control of your digital privacy with Delete Me. Go to joindeleteme.com/deloney today for 20% off your annual plan. That comes out to less than 9 bucks a month. That's jointdeleteme.com/deloney. All right, thank you so much for joining me and my friend Arthur Brooks for round two. I guarantee you, you're smarter than you were before you started this. And if you're like me, you got to go back and listen to it a couple more times. Thank you so much for being with us. Be kind to each other. Take care of your spiritual life. Take care of your family. Take care of your marriage. Take care of your bodies. And go make the world a better place. I love you guys. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. That especially includes you, Kelly. Bye. [Applause] [Music]