Hey, on today's show, we talked to a young man whose wife has bipolar disorder and he wants to know some things he can do to help her out. We also talked to a woman whose dad announced to her younger sister, mom's been cheating on me and she wants to know what she can do. And finally, we talked to a young woman who's trapped in the middle of a family business and the family drama that goes with it. And by the way, we may talk about whether Santa Claus is real or not.

So if you want this to be the moment for your kids, have everybody stay tuned.

Dude, I'm Deloney and welcome to the Dr. John Delonas show. This show is about you, your lives, the good, the bad, the ugly, why you ain't got no alibi when things are smelling like roses and when things are smelling like a giant box of farts. I've been walking alongside folks just like you for two decades, whether your life is just doing great or you're sitting in the ashes of a burned out mess. I've been there, I've seen it, and I'm here to walk alongside.

You have committed my life.

I've committed my life trying to figure out what going on in my life and my marriage and my home and my kids and how I can help you walk alongside the people that you love, the people you interact with, the people you don't like, and feel how we can learn how to be people again and especially be OK with that angry, sad, frustrated or just overjoyed person that we see in the mirror.

So if you're new to our band of ninjas, we talk about everything on the show from mental health challenges to your marriage, to parenting, to what you eat, relational IQ questions, schooling, education, everything. And sometimes, like today, we've got to pause and say enough is freakin enough with the new twenty twenty one planers in all of these stupid ribbon's in all of the day. Planers, people enough. I saw a new day planner. It had seven hundred and eleven different colored ribbons in it.

One for the new goal for the day. And then you go back to the next one and then you flip the other ribbon around and then you braid them and then you slap it up, flip it, rub it down. Oh no. All these ribbons.

So there's another one and then another one and then another one. All of them have too many ribbons. Look good folks. You mean ribbons are in this yellow pad zero or on a no card zero. My friend Kristy write her journal zero. You can make a rad, super productive, good annual journal with the zero ribbons or maybe one if you just want to know where you're going to be. They used to call that a bookmark. That's back in the old days when we had just books with one ribbon in it, one ribbon, let's call it.

Good. So whatever's going on in your life, give me a call at one eight four four six nine three thirty to ninety one. That's one eight four four six nine three thirty to ninety one. Or you can go to John Deloney dot com show.

And seriously, if you're making journals you're already thinking about the journal for twenty twenty two. Enough with the ribbons, I'm going to keep going back to that. Enough with the ribbons. All right, let's go. Let's see here. Let's just go right to the phones. Let's do that. Let's go to Ben in Niagara Falls in Ontario. Ben, what's up, brother? How are we doing? Oh, my. How are you? I'm doing so good, how is Niagara Falls?

It's zero degrees and pretty good, it's about zero degrees. It is just under 50 here in Nashville, in the city shut down. They pretty much think it's over here and that they were lied to.

Hell is actually frozen and it is upon us. Right. Zero degrees.

So that's why I'll tell you guys call it thirty two, I we'll play it.

I see what you did there. That was good. I support that joke. It was good. And you're on the beautiful side of Niagara Falls, is that right. Yeah, we call it the beautiful side. Yeah, I do, too. I went up there when I was a young child. There's the sad, lonely side and there's the beautiful, stunning, the Vegas side. So that's where you are. So that's very cool. So, Brother Ben, how can I help, man?

Well, my my wife has she's diagnosed with bipolar type one. And so she has some problems like overspending with groceries and stuff like that, even when she has a list.

Hmm. So we've been trying to do cash. I don't want it. And we explain it to family that I'm holding on to a debit card. I don't want it to come off as controlling.

So, like, I kind of balance those two out like that.

I mean, that's a great question. So let's do this for the listeners. I get a lot of questions and a lot of calls about bipolar disorder. And so there's type one, right, which is what we think of the traditional manic depressive. Real high highs can do anything in two or three days. That takes most of us a couple of weeks to do and then really low lows, not getting out of bed for days and weeks at a time and making decisions when folks are manic, when they're in a depressed state that normally they wouldn't make.

And then there's the type two, which is the hypomania. The highs aren't quite as high. Lows aren't quite as low, depending on where you may fall in that trajectory.

And there's some literature that suggests type one is is like schizophrenia. It's a true mental health disorder. And and bipolar two is more of a learned response of behavior. But but they're still arguing about that up in their laboratories.

And so I'd love for you to just walk through for the average listener. What's it like being married to somebody with diagnosed type one? Well, it's it's it's hard to keep track of sometimes, but it's it's like we've been trying to get on the on the Dave Ramsey program and it's just if I give her a debit card, then sometimes I go to Costco for like maybe like 150 dollars and stuff, and she'll come back with four hundred dollars saying, well, we need this, this and this.

And it sort of makes sense.

Yeah, it sort of makes sense, the argument that she's making. But it's not necessary. It sort of makes sense, David.

So let's I want to talk not about money for just a second. I want to know what it's like being married to someone with bipolar disorder outside of the money. Walk through somebody who wouldn't wouldn't have the first they wouldn't know the first thing about being married to somebody who's just lives on that up and down so-called.

What's what's that like? What's your marriage like? What is your dating life?

What is it like when things are good? It's it's fantastic. But like when things are bad, it's like it's like war is going on, you know.

And what's the thing that's bad? Give us an example. So like if she gets into a and everything will fall off, like we were having breakfast the other day and she was just she's kind of feeling a little, but she wasn't sure if she was like in a in a right down depressive low. We were having breakfast, we were having eggs and she dropped one of the eggs, which isn't that big of a deal because, like, we can just clean it up to some problem.

And she just started to cry. And that like that was just the end of her day. And it was like it was nine thirty in the morning. We're just having breakfast and the day was over. Right. And so stuff like that. And you just like I try to, you know, kind of just be like, OK, calm down. Like everything's OK. It's just an egg.

Never say those words ever again as long as you live OK. That's between you and me. You don't even call for that. Never say the words. Can't calm down right now, but I don't physically say it.

But I just like try to like help us through it. Right. You know, I ask her, I like what's going on. Are you feeling well? You know, we try to just bring your situation to like a normal like a level playing field. It's that sort of makes sense. So it sounds like.

She won the lottery because she married somebody who loves her, regardless of the challenges that she faces before, she's got a guy who is devoted his life to her and he's working to figure that out. Is that fair? Well, I mean, I went through my own depression and suicide stint for a couple of years and she's stuck with me through that as well. Well, I'm doing better now. Hold on.

I'm trying to say something nice about you, Ben Affleck. OK, can I say something nice about you? Sure. All right. Sounds like she married a guy who loves her and is doing his best to support her and care for her. Is that fair? Yes. All right, so all the way from Nashville to Ontario, brother, I want to high five of you and tell you that I wish there were more guys like you out in the world.

And I'm glad that you're I'm glad that you are walking alongside her during a tough season and you were leaning in investing in helping her be whole. So good for you, brother.

So as it comes to the reason why you're called talking about debit cards, has has her family actually told you, hey, we think this is nonsense, this controlling behavior, or is this stuff that you're imagining into the future might happen someday?

Well, yeah, I think I'm imagining it like nobody's come right out and told me. But what she's told me that she kind of feels like a child was that as well. So that's what I don't really know how to approach it. Sure. So, yeah.

So when you came up with the debit card, so it's just for folks listening, folks, especially with type one, bipolar spending is it's a great dopamine release. It's a common thing that folks do in their manic. They will take their money. They will actually earn a lot of money. They do well. And then they go just spend it like mad.

Or if they don't have money, they will charge up obscene amounts of money during a manic state and then they will begin to get these bills in. And that will help facilitate a fall into a depressive state once they realize the shame and they experience this in really deep ways.

So one of the things that we when we're talking to them with bipolar is they've got to set up, especially if they're going to be taking getting counseling, if they are going to be taking medication and they're going to be actively involved in getting better, they've got to set up some really high hurdles for themselves, some strong roadblocks for getting well. Somebody who overspends is going to give away their ability to spend in their more lucid state when they are well and whole.

They are going to say, I understand that I'm not capable of controlling myself during the season. I'm going to give that away. They've got to come up with different behaviors and someone who loves them is going to hold them accountable. Whether it's a friend, it's a husband like you is going to take their debit card and hang on to it. Then there's going to be low seasons where they come after you or super high seasons where they come after you.

I feel like a baby. You're treating me like I'm a child or whatever. And that's when someone who loves somebody with bipolar has to hang on to weather that storm. My guess is, Ben, if you told her family that you all had talked through this and you were working together and that this is one of the strategies you came up with, they would celebrate you. Is there a chance that would happen that they would think, oh, that's awesome, Benway, way to go, or are they going to they're going to side with her and say, you're a jerk trying to control her daughter?

No, I think they I think they might they might agree with it because they've seen our spending behaviors as well. There you go.

So, I mean, I think you're in a win here and I think you're projecting a potential negative outcome out in the into the future. Here's what I'd recommend, man. If your wife is cool with it, as you'll cocreator when I say create, I mean, you're making this plan together because she's got to be invested in getting well and doing all the things well. That's exercise, whether that is a accountability routine, that she is super, super low, that someone is going to walk in and you are going to go for a walk together where she's really high.

Someone's going to say, hey, we're clocking out of work today, whatever that looks like, we're going to eat, we're going to change our diet so that these guys aren't maybe aren't quite so high, aren't quite so low in conjunction with medication that some folks with Type one have to be on forever.

That's a part of a total wellness plan that you and her and a doctor are going to work together on. But if she's amenable to it, get her family involved, too. There can't be too many people as in in a helping circle for somebody who's struggling with bipolar, unless that family was a part of the original problem in the first place. And so is her family has been abusive or obnoxious or idiots or destructive over the course of her life, then, of course, don't bring them in.

And here's the final thing, brother. If you and your wife are working together, you create a life where you can both be will both be whole.

Who cares what her parents say?

When you got married, their voice went to number two or sometimes way down to the bottom of that list. I don't care what they have to say. If it's working for you and your wife, then it's working for you and your wife. And so good for you for being a husband who cares whatever that the behaviors have to have to be.

I've I've read or discussed with folks who have to take every shred of alcohol out of the house, have to take cash out of the house, have to take their their partner debit card, have to take car keys.

There's all sorts of behaviors when someone is learning new coping behaviors and sometimes with bipolar takes a season to do that in a season, it can be six months, could be a year, could be two years. It could be several years.

You've got to you sometimes have to be extreme. And then those who play accountability, you've got to weather that storm because they're going to come after you, because that's that's the nature of this beast. And you've got to stand strong. So good for you.

All right. Let's go to Kelly in Nashville. Kelly, what's going on in Nashville? How are you?

Hi, Dr. John. I'm doing good. How are you? Good.

I just said, like, how's Nashville? Like, it's really far away. It's I'm I'm down the street from you. Probably some shape, form or fashion, but. So are you enjoying the snow, is this wild or what? Well, I'm originally from Ohio, so I came down here to get away from the snow.

This is like mid August for you. So that's cool. All right. All right. So what's going on? How can I help?

Well, so almost 10 years ago, we found out that my mom had been having an affair with a man in the neighborhood. And obviously things are tense for a little bit. But my parents decided to stay together and work things out since that time. Neither of them, from my excuse me point of view, have really made any significant changes or efforts towards a healthier marriage. So I guess flash forward, a couple of days before Christmas, I got a call from my sister saying that my dad had found more emails that my mom had sent to this man.

And my sister felt the pressure kind of not to say anything to me, but really to either, well, my other sibling. So but she couldn't really carry it all by herself. So she was obviously telling me. And since that time, she's admitted to my dad that she did tell me. And so she was kind of pulled in as a mediator at the moment.

And I you and so then I was the support for the mediator and secret. What a mess.

Hey, so, so real quick. Real quick. So does your mom kick back up this affair with this dude or did your dad find stuff from 10 years ago? No, it's back OK, in the way you said it, the dude in the neighborhood, so the dude in the neighborhood still is in the neighborhood. And so he's he's back in action.

Right.

And how old how old are you? I'm twenty nine. OK, and how old your little sister?

Twenty six.

OK, so we're all adults except for your parents, but go ahead.

Well, right. Well, and so my sister since admitted to my dad that she told me so, you know, my dad followed up with me and kind of got, I guess, my thoughts on the situation. I don't know if anyone has told my brother or not. I did also end up reaching out to my mom to just to let her know that I still love her and I still support her. But really, my question today, I'm trying to figure out what is my responsibility in this situation to my family as a whole and then what's my responsibility to my mom, my dad and my brother and my sister, each as individuals?

That's a great question. And just for the record, I hate that you got drawn into this. I hate that your dad did that to your sister and triangulated her in that way. He should have some friends and some confidence and or a counselor or a place where he can go and talk to grown ups about these challenges. But and I hate that for your sister and your poor brother.

How old is he? He's twenty seven. Yeah, leave it to the brother, just like, hey, everybody, what you're doing right has no idea, just be bumping along, right. So here's my thought. Hmm hmm.

Thought no one is secrets destroy families, period. And my guess is, if there has been 10 years absence here and there's been no reconnection, and I would tell you as much as you think you know and you can see you probably know twenty five to thirty five percent of what actually goes on behind closed doors with your mom and dad.

And so what I would challenge you with is staying out of the you all didn't do any work, the judge, the judgment part of what went on behind closed doors, because that's going to make you nuts and it's going to make your parents have to fight their kids and don't do that to them. Unfortunately, you're forced to be the adult here.

If I'm you and I've got a sister and a brother, I would call them. We'd have a three way talk and we would talk it out and let everybody be on the same page, because I'm not going to hold secrets from my brother and sister because I'm an adult.

And if my dad were to call me and burden me with that, I would let him know I'm going to let my brother and sister know because I'm not your therapist and I'm not bound by confidentiality and I'm not going to go tell the neighborhood. Right. But I am not going to hold secrets so that we're all together and we're all on different pages and different stories. I think what you did for your mom is to let her know that you love her is noble.

I think that's good. She's going to need some support. I also think it's good for you to let your dad know that you love him.

What I would do is send them both a something in writing your mom and your dad at the same time that says we all know we're not going to get involved in your marriage. I don't. And you can feel free to say what's on your heart, in your mind, but let them know we are not going to be triangulated into this mess. They are responsible for dealing with their marriage and they're responsible for dealing with their relationship with each other and the dude in the neighborhood and whoever else and whatever else.

But you can't solve that. You can't get in the middle of it. And all you're going to do is wage war with your brother and sister and your family.

And at this point, you've got to be the grown up in that deal.

I and no, I'm telling you to do something hard, which is to not get right down in the middle of that mud, because that's tempting, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

Are you angry with any any one of them or. Both of them are heartbroken.

What are you feeling. My sister kept telling me she thought that I was kind of emotionally disconnected from the situation because I think 10 years ago when it happened, I kind of came to terms, well, maybe I didn't.

Maybe I just repressed it. But I felt like I've kind of come to terms with maybe they'll say together, maybe they will. But I think the thing that kind of kept me going was knowing that regardless, God was still faithful in my life, regardless of what happened. So that was kind of my anchor. And in my mind, I was real close with both of them growing up. I think my dad and I in the past year or so have kind of had sometimes a little.

So there's part of me that's angry with him because I've seen some of the ways that he's hurt my mom. And like you said, I've probably not seen all of it. And obviously it goes both ways so that in some degrees has made me angry at him with my mom. I've been angry No. One, because she's so good at being sneaky. And, you know, I and I never knew how sneaky she was. And so just seeing that and realizing that now.

But can I tell you something? You maybe didn't know how sneaky she was, but I promise the 16 year old Kelly absorbed it. You knew it, and my guess is if you go back to 12 year old Kelly, an 11 year old, Kelly, where things just rosy and wonderful at the house and they were I had the perfect family growing up.

There you go. OK. And so you absorb that and. Yeah, man, that's tough to unwind, and so when you were 19 in this came out that it's blow your mind. Oh, yeah, definitely. How'd you find out? So my. So the guy that she cheated with asked to meet my dad at a McDonald's in the area.

Oh, dude, that's a brave guy. Well, no, I'm sorry, it was his wife that told my dad, and so I knew he was going. And when you came back, you know, obviously something was wrong. I had no idea it was.

So the dude in the neighborhoods, I feel like I'm like we're middle schoolers now. So the dude in the neighborhood, the dude in the neighborhood called your dad the dude, the neighborhood's wife calls your dad to meet at the diabetes factory. And they met there and that's where they told them. Yeah, from from my recollection that that's how I do that is so 10 years ago, because right now he would just text. That's it. So good for them.

My dad probably suspected.

Sure. Sure. He just didn't have the proof. And this other guy's wife brought the proof.

OK, so, so fast forward to now. I can get distracted pretty easily with that story because that just sounds like there's layer after layer after layer, that one. Here's the deal.

You hear me say this all the time. You're going to have to grieve that story. And you had a perfect family and they weren't perfect. There is no perfect family.

And your dad made some decisions. Your mom made some decisions that the neighbor, the dude in the neighborhood, his wife at the McDonnel, everybody made decisions here. And are you married now?

Yes. OK, you're going to have to have some honest conversations with your husband. You're going to have to have some honest conversations with your brothers and sisters. And again, going back to my original thing, I would put in writing to my mom and dad. Here's we all know we are all we love you. We are not getting in the middle of this mess. And if y'all don't act like adults and deal with this mess in a way that is whole for everybody, then y'all are opting out of Thanksgiving because we're all getting together and y'all are opting out of Christmas.

Get together because we're all getting together and we're going to mourn the loss of the family that we thought we had.

But we're not going to get sucked into this thing. And so, Dad, you're not calling little sister to gossip about mom and mom, you're not calling middle brother to talk about if your dad had only we're not doing that or not playing that game.

And the reason I tell you to write a letter is that way they can go back to it over and over and over again. And when people are having a hard conversations with one another, especially family members, old roles pop up, old stories pop up, old defense mechanisms pop up, and we start hearing only what we want to hear. And there's something about having a letter that you can go back to and go back to and go back to, OK?

And it will probably be a heavy thing for them to read. And they'll read it two, three, four times and they may text you and say who the crap you think you are. And you can tell them I'm your oldest daughter and I love you guys and you can just sit with that. But I'll tell you, you are going to have to go through your own grieving process here. And you may have everybody grieves differently. Your brother may break down on of like just be comatose, weeping.

And you may say that really sucks. I'm pissed at my mom. Pissed at my dad, you moron. She blew up something great. And I hope you're all happy. And I'm moving on about my life because my marriage is good to. That may be awesome. Maybe good. Or you may find sneaky tendencies in yourself and you may find that you slowly start to feel X or Y or Z or you may find yourself starting to respond to problems between you and your husband or challenges that we all have.

Kind of like your dad, maybe a little loud, a little aggressive, a little angry. And when you have those seasons, you've got to commit now to making sure that you don't repeat that cycle with your husband and then be open to your brother and sister man. Make sure that they've got a place to call, which can be you, and make sure you love them. But that just sucks. I hate that for you. And again, I say this all the time.

Parents out there don't treat your kids like your therapist, man. It's not what they're for. Don't treat.

It drives me crazy when people say, you know, my son is fourteen. We're best friends, I'm best friends with my dad. I was like, what's so weird, dude?

Have friends your own age. If I was to go out in the neighborhood and be like, Hey, is my best friend, he's fourteen, I'd go to jail because that's my problem, go to jail.

But that's just weird, right? Have friends your own age.

And if you've been cheating on your spouse, don't make the first call to your twenty one year old daughter. Talk to a pastor, talk to a friend, talk to your husband would be a good person. Talk to talk to a counselor, but talk to people who are equipped with this. Don't dump that type of nonsense onto your children. And that's so much.

If you have six year old kids, don't talk about your marriage problems, your six year old kids. Why? Because they're six and dragons are still may be kind of real and so is Santa. And they don't need to know about dad or they don't don't do that to your children, OK? Get people who are grown ups you can be vulnerable with.

And what I find often is that it's hard for grown ups to be vulnerable.

You owe it to your kids to not dump this crap onto them. OK, and that brings me to this. I get this question a lot because I say this probably too much. I say the phrase not by your hand, but in your lap. I say that all the time.

People always like, what do you mean James and Kelly then? And they'd be like, Yeah, you say that all the freaking time. We're super annoyed by it. And then Zach's just thumbs up in me all this. Awesome. Here's what I mean by not by your hand, but in your lap. I mean, we all go through life. Trying to do the best we can with the tools we got and not every once in a while, but often a politician does something stupid, a somebody backs into your car, you eat a salad, and the lettuce in that salad has E.

coli on it. And now you've got rocket diarrhea. You didn't do that on purpose. It happened. And we are so obsessed in this culture, so obsessed with blame and blame and blame and who's fault and who's this? And some things are direct. Sometimes the guy backed up and hit your car because he's a moron. He's just an idiot, and he wasn't paying attention. And sometimes it just rains really hard in your house. Floods, right.

Or sometimes you just go get a salad. And I promise you, the company wasn't trying to make you sick. Hopefully they're following the rules and it just happened. So what I mean is not by your hand, but in your lap, meaning you didn't cause it, but it just is. And what are you going to do about it?

And so much of the time in our culture, in our lives and our personal lives, in our homes, somebody does something, whether intentional or unintentional, and it happens to us and then we just go home.

I just can't believe that happened to we did that.

And then we just sit there. And what I am constantly telling myself, constantly telling people I love and you.

Is great, solve the problem. Like my son, if he's pouring milk and accidentally drops the milk jug and I just falls. The tendency is to sit there and watch it fall. Nobody's mad, nobody's upset, but we've got to solve that problem. And right now, the milk is spilling everywhere. Let's just get that up, right. The house is flooding. Well, it could be because of this. And those developers do. The house is flooding.

Let's solve that problem and then we'll get to the other stuff later.

OK, so what I mean by this is if you're a twenty six year old and you're about to go to Christmas, you have been through twenty, twenty one and it sucks.

And I mean twenty twenty point twenty, twenty one is not just launching out of the gates really great.

But you can't wait for the holidays and then your dad calls and he's like, guess what I found. That's not by your hand but in your lap. You didn't need to get that email or that phone call from your dad.

You did. And now you've got to deal with that. And you've got to be the adult in this situation. And you can join in by gossiping. You can join them by talking crap about mom.

You can join them by being dramatic or you can be the adult. You can draw the boundary line and say that's between you and mom were super. Not cool with both of you right now is as frustrating, as annoying. I'm going to talk to my brother and sister because I'm not keeping secrets in this family. I refuse to do that. And we're going to be the grown ups here. And we love you both, but you only to get your crap together.

And we're going to talk about alternative Thanksgivings and Christmases until y'all to decide to be grown ups. And that's what I mean by not by your hand, but in your lap. Stop with the blame first, solve the problems first, and then we'll get back to the blame. Now, there's some things we can't. I get it, but most of the time, solve the problem, solve it, and then we'll move on, OK?

All right. Let's go to Liz in San Luis Obispo, California. Liz, what's going on?

Hello, Dr. D. How are you? Thank you. I'm great. I have a quick question. Really? Oh, sure.

Oh, No. One, you're about to say something nice. Thank you for calling.

I was just going to say thank you so. Well, I'm saying thank you to you and quick quiz. My favorite UFC fighter of all time is from San Luis Obispo. Who is it? If you get this, I'm going to send you an autographed copy of this book. Who is it? I have no idea. So Chocolate Del. Check it out. Oh, my gosh, you're a genius. Liz, congratulations on the line up this call.

And Kelly, we'll get your books into your genius and it's making my whole day to talk to you. Congratulations is awesome. OK, so what's going on? How can I help?

Well, my question has to do with my relationship with my co-workers. And I am an independent contractor and have found myself to be the middleman between the author and founder of the program and her daughter, who is the CEO.

Oh, Lord. On a stick in a box. She's got great. You probably can tell where I'm going with this, so I feel like this show is brought to you by days of our lives. This has been awesome. The whole show, the go ahead or Dawson's Creek, which is the best. Go ahead.

I so I was hired by the CTA, by the CEO to help her move the company and the product forward with technology, social media, et cetera. All the kinds of stuff that the author either doesn't understand, doesn't want or doesn't or wants to do it her own exact way.

So throw in a very strange mother daughter relationship and it's a recipe for anxiety for me. Yeah, especially especially when I talk to the CEO because she reminds me so much of my mom, who I also have a strange relationship with. That's just a side note. So.

Well, I would actually flip it around. My guess is your anxiety comes from that fractured relationship that this one reflects, not vice versa, but that's a whole other show. So continue.

So they both talk openly about conflicts and feelings that they have regarding the other person and that the author gets pretty mad when I disagree with her about something and wants me to basically follow blindly her directions even when they go against what the CEO has told me.

So the reason I contacted you is to see if you could help me with setting better boundaries with both of them without being rude. First of all, and keeping my job because I like my job a lot and I just I want to get out of the triangle. I don't know how to do it.

It's such a great question. And just one more thing. The author still really wants to be involved in the day to day, of course, but she really needs to step back. Right. So.

It sounds like you have a good relationship with her daughter. Is that fair? Mm hmm.

So what would it look like for you to go out for coffee or. I don't know what you're allowed to do in California, but to to.

I don't I really don't have a zoom call to talk to her and just say, hey, starting off twenty, twenty one, I'm caught in the middle of this Warnke relationship with the all too. I love love this job. I love love you. It's getting weird. Can you give me some guidance if you just approach it head on direct like that in a humble, kind way, what would she say? It's getting weird. I like that or attack, and here's why I don't want you to go.

I don't I don't want you if you use words like this sucks or this is bad or this is wrong, all three may be true, but you're talking about her mom.

Right. And she can talk about about her mom, but probably you can't.

Right? Correct. And also, she gets weird.

She knows it's weird. And if you call it out in a gentle, humble way, then that's different than an attack. Right. And then somebody can hear a gentle, humble, like you're asking her for advice. You're not saying that her mom's an idiot. Right. Right. And yeah, I think you're right. I would get out of this triangulation at some point. This comes down and you're the fall guy, just so you know. OK, a hundred percent chance this ends badly and you're the one that ends the worst four because mom's not going to fire daughter or she is just going to be your fault and you're going to get blamed for it or vice versa.

Daughter who's running the company is going to get rid of the original author. Right, because that's mom. And so you become the weak link of this triangle and the whole thing implodes on you.

And you have to be the natural fall guy because our fall gal here, because they may bicker about each other and not like each other, but that's still mom and that's still daughter.

And you will never be that. Right.

And so here's here's an ugly reality check. You may not want to not have this job. It may be awesome. And it may not be in the cards for you to have it much longer.

And that's not cool or not fun, but that may just be straight up reality. I guess I could see that happening by your silence, it sounds like, you know, this is inevitable, right?

Well, not really. I mean, it makes sense that you say and I I totally I trust your knowledge and this type of stuff for sure. But we have had conversations, the CEO and I, about where we both want to see this company going and how to get there and. But if mom is still driving, if mom is the author originator, she owns the patent, she is the governor here and we can have all the dreams you and I super want next year to million dollars.

I want that so bad and I want to pony that can fly because my daughter would think I ruled. And if I could have like a life sized Lego thing for my son would be like an X wing, one of the Star Wars machine things that goes to be awesome to my wife would like a husband with way more abs and all that would be awesome. But then there's that reality part, right. And so, yeah, I do those dreaming conversations with the CEO or so.

Great. And here's what we could do if mom would just get out of the way.

The problem is mom's not get out the way. At least not of an accord, right? And, man, you want to see you guys have had a lot of fires in your area this year, you want to see a big one, watch the daughter CEO fight, fire her mom, who is the original author of this thing.

No, thanks. Right, yeah, so again, I'm playing nuclear option here, but I think this whole thing starts with an honest hey, this thing just feels weird and it feels like it's getting weirder. Can you help me? And I love your mom. I love you. I love, love this job. And I love the mission of this company. I love where we're headed. But this is starting to get super weird for me and I don't know what to do next and let her coach you.

And at some point, if it gets super gnarly with mom, then you're able to say, I'm just simply doing I mean, and CEO talked through this. And so we came up with a game plan here. And at that point you are redirecting to the CEO or that those kind of challenges go anyway.

Is that fair? Yes, that's fair. So you do me a humongous I'm having it, I confess I'm having a hard time believing you.

What's that? Believe me, I don't want to. Oh, yeah. I do want to be the fall guy.

I want to not believe me that I'm going to have two million dollars next year. I'm going have to sell a lot of these ten dollar books to get two million dollars next year. I've got a lot of them. Right. So all that say it's not going to happen for me.

Maybe you're going to be the one you're not. I'm just trying to be all nice and kind. You're not you will be the fall guy 100 percent.

And if you feel comfortable enough with the CEO in that conversation, tell her I don't want to be the fall guy in this deal. I don't want this when this is going to go south and I don't see a way where it's not. I'm stuck in the middle here and I love you both and I love this job, and I don't want to be the person that ends up on fire here when this thing crashes. And hopefully this is as a leader and a woman of character and she's going to see this and be like, oh, my gosh, we have drawn you into our drama.

And it's been a mess since we were little. I was a little kid is still a mess. This is not your fight. I'm so sorry. I'm going to do a better job of getting you out of the direct fire here. And by the way, Lizz, free advice you didn't call for. That's what we do on this show. Free advice worth the price that you pay for it. Maybe lean in and start figuring out ways you can heal the relationship with your mom, at least you're part of it.

She may not have any interest in wanting to reconnect or to heal a lifetime of a messed up relationship. But, man, that give you some peace moving forward in your life to have that that tether reconnected there with your mom. I'd love to see that happen.

But, Liz, please, please, after you have that conversation with the CEO, call me back. If you have that conversation and you get fired one that'll suck.

I'll be sorry about that. But two, I'll send you another book and you can just you can read them at the same time. That's all I can really offer you. But hang on. The line is going to get you a book for guessing chocolate. Chuck Liddell, my favorite UFC fighter of all time.

And as you wrap up the show, hey, listen, this happened the other day. So my buddy, my oldest friend, best friends in the world, the name's Todd. He calls me on the phone and he's. Old man golfball laughing like from his guts, laughing right when I answer it, and I knew it's going to be awesome. I was like, What's so funny?

And he goes, I just listened to one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. And I was like, Oh, what is this? Oh, that YouTube clip. He said, it was your amay episode where you talked about meditating. And I was like, What do you mean that stupid?

You're stupid. And he is laughing. He's like, I've known you for almost 30 years. You don't meditate. You told all those people, you meditate.

And I was like, what are you talking? I do every day? And I snapped a picture of I was down in my basement. I snapped a picture where it had my little bell and the pillow that I sit on all the stuff, my little Kumbaya journal, my gratitude to all that. And I sent it to him and he's laughing even harder. And he's like, are you are being serious? He thought I was just lying to everybody on the podcast.

And I was like, You're serious, man. That's why I'm so much better life than you are. And everything you touch is disaster. And everything that I'm a part of is good because I'm calm and cool because I meditate all the time. And so he's laughing and he's like, I can't wrap my head around my hyper obnoxious, still only friend sitting down and being calm and still. So that leads me to this good folks, Todd and everybody, the song of the Day.

One of the greatest songs ever, and it's from the 70s and by 70s, I mean 15 70s, it's called Sub to Presidium, comma Anthony Mode seven, it's a Gregorian chant and it goes like this. That's the end of the show. I don't know. Uh uh oh.