On today's show, we're going to talk about a fear of failure during a job transition. We're going to talk to an exhausted mother of four who needs her husband to step up. And we're going to talk about what happens when someone you love did things in the past that are affecting you in the present. Stay tuned.

What's up? I'm John and this is the Dr. John Villone show, where we take your calls about your life, the things going on in your world, in your hearts and your minds. We're talking about relationships, your relational I.Q., mental health, your physical health, marriage. We might even talk about people who continue to take Zoome meetings from their bed. We just as a group need to just say we're done with that. It's weird. Makes me uncomfortable and it's hard to make me uncomfortable.

I'm just a guy that doesn't have discomfort. But when I'm in a zoo meeting and Timmy pops up in the washing machine room because that's where he's converted an office, I think. Good job, man. Washing machine room. That's not even a thing. 1840 to the laundry room and Timmy shows up in the laundry room where he's made a converted office. I think he's awesome. I was like, way to go, dude. That's that's pretty cool.

And then Ken shows up and his kid is kids room. And that's where they're they're meeting, I think, where to go, man.

And then James shows up in bed, in bed. He just pops up on the screen and he's got pillows around in a weird ratty graphic tee and a sideways hat. And he's like, hey guys, ready for the meeting? And I just think that's just weird. It's gross. Just I don't I just don't need those things in my head. And so let's just all as a team say we're not going to do zoo meetings from beds anymore. We're not going to do church services from beds.

That's happening Sunday. School teachers don't teach from your bed. I don't know. Yoga instructors go to the outside, go to the garage, whatever. Let's just get out of our beds and some calls and we're going to talk about that and more on the show. We're going to be talking about anything and everything in your heart and mind of the universe. So give me a call. One eight four four six nine three thirty two ninety one. That's one eight four four six nine three thirty two ninety one.

Or you can always email me and ask John at Ramsey Solutions Dotcom that's ask John Ramsey Solutions Dotcom.

The emails are flowing in and they are coming from all over the world, literally super cool. So glad to be connecting with everybody. Thank you so much. Let's just go straight to it. Let's go to Kara in Bellevue, Washington. Kara, good morning. How are you?

Good morning, Dr. Drew. I'm great. How are you? Good, good, good. How can I help you this morning?

I am having a for the first time in my life, a little career dilemma I need some advice on. All right. Bring it on. What's going on?

So I've been at the same company. I've been in the dental field for about thirteen years now. I'm with the same practice for the full thirteen years.

Are you are you a dentist or a dental hygienist? What do you do in there? I was a dental assistant. Now I'm kind of like a. Patient care coordinator, office manager type position, very cool, and just as an aside, you see some crazy stuff in a dentist's office, don't you? Yes, we do.

I always think that a dentist like, I don't know, like a dentist in a proctologist, those to know like. I can tell you about yourself, right? Like everyone else can be lied to, but all those two doctors, I mean, you get to see it all. So much evidence of God bless you, man.

Yeah, that's a whole other conversation about dental hygiene. But all right. So go go ahead. You're thinking about change and change in plans.

Yes, I I'm at the point. So my husband, I just became debt free. Congratulations.

Awesome. Thank you.

And I'm wanting to change professions. I have never changed the profession before, this is my whole working career and I've been with the same doctor and I'm just I have a. You can almost call it a crippling fear of failure and disappointing people. So I just don't really know how to go about the transition without disappointing. Pretty much everybody involved, when's the last time you saw super super fail, that something like you just rocket diarrhea everywhere in a big box of farts?

When's the last time you did that? Honestly, I don't remember exactly when's the last time you were in a situation where you just mass disappointed everyone in your sphere. He probably never probably. So what is it about this transition that suddenly makes those things that have never happened before? They're not a part of you at all. They're going to suddenly happen this time. Probably because there's more people involved. You know, I have a husband and a two year old daughter and, you know, you just kind of feel like people are not wanting you to fail, but you just kind of because you haven't had such a big failure in life.

I feel like I'm doomed for it.

Okay. All right. So then waiting for life to just hit me right in my head. Yes.

The nerd word for that is catastrophizing. Oh, it's this sense of I've had my good run in life is a mix of good stuff and bad stuff. So I've had a good job. My husband and I love each other. We've worked really hard to accomplish this mega goal, which is to be debt free. I've got a beautiful two year old who is healthy and fat and fun and mushy and huggy. So any day now somebody is getting cancer.

Any day now, the car wheels are going to fall off while we're driving and we're going to go head over heels into the whatever. Right. That's just this looming sense. And then when you decide to be the one who pulls the trigger metaphorically, right. You're the one who decides I'm just going to leave this profession. I'm tired of digging into people's faces. It's it's grossing me out. Nobody flosses. They all lie to me. And if everyone keeps drinking all these drinks with sugar in them, their teeth are going to fall out of there.

You're just sick of it.

And now you're going to build a story that makes you the reason your family falls apart. Everybody fails and everyone's disappointed in you, right?

One hundred percent.

OK, so what I want you to do is two things. Number one, I want you to stay on the line. Kelly, Daniel is going to give you my friend Ken Coleman's book, The Proximity Principle. It's a it's a not a huge book. It's a short book, but it is just a couple of key steps on what to do when you're thinking of making a major transition. OK, and he's a buddy of mine.

He lives in that how to find work that makes your heart full and passionate world. That's his that's his universe. The second thing is I'm just going to tell you what just happened with me. I spent most of my professional career working up to a place where I was going to be a senior leader at a college, at a fancy college. And I accomplished that. And it was all the colleges I worked at were excellent. The people I worked with were awesome at all of those colleges.

I learned awesome things and I finally, quote unquote, made it. I got to where I was going to get. And then one day I gave a speech and Dave Ramsey is executive vice president, sat in that audience. She was dropping her child off and she said, I'm going to hire that guy. And that started a eighteen month courting process.

And I quit every single thing I know to come sit in this room right here and talk to some cameras and to talk to people across the country that I'll probably never meet in person. And it was a radical departure. I'm a dude who did not want to be on the Internet. I didn't want to I didn't want to be a public. I just had no desire for that. I wanted to just stay at a small little college and take care of my students and their families and to occasionally work with crisis folks outside.

And so I want to tell you, this is just terrifying to make this move. Yep, I just did it. Is it? Could it go catastrophically wrong for sure? For sure it could, right, Kyra, could it so you don't go so far. OK, but here's the thing. If I look around my life and find out the last time I catastrophically failed, except for this thing, I did it battle the bands the other day, it was dreadful.

I totally screwed up this band's performance. I did get up in front of, like one or two thousand people and mess up. And I did do that. But what I'm talking about, like professionally, that I just really just burn the house down. It hasn't happened yet and it hasn't happened with you either.

So I want you to look at the your past performance, your past history as a good predictor of what's going to happen next. OK. What you are dealing with is a natural thing called resistance. It's brilliantly outlined in Steven Pressfield book The War of Art. She probably grabbed that book. It's really small. It is remarkable. Steven Pressfield, the war of art, but it talks about it personifies this resistance, this thing that emerges, this shadowy, ghostly figure that emerges any time we want to make a major life change, we want to make major life change and push forward and do things that are different.

And the resistance shows up and blocks us, it blames us, it says, oh, you're probably going to fail. You should probably just stay stagnant and keep doing what you're doing. And it gives you some good strategies for pushing through it at the end of the day.

I think you're going to do awesome. I think you should jump. I think you should follow Ken. Steps of getting with the right people, making sure you know where you're going. Don't jump too soon before you have another boat in the harbor. Otherwise you're just going to be treading water for a while, get a good game plan for where you want to go. But, man, I say go for it. I say absolutely go for it.

You've put yourself in a position financially. I want your daughter or your son, your two year old, to grow up in a home where mom is totally fulfilled, where she is joyful, where her she laughs loud, where she loves her husband and her kids recklessly, and that she every day she goes to work with a sense of purpose, a sense of, you know, of passion. That's what I want for your kids. That's what I want for your husband.

So go for care. Hey, call me back when you do it. Call me back when you when you quit and you go to the next day and call me back and let me know. All right. Let's go to the next call. Let's go to Carrie in Lubbock, Texas.

Carrie, how in the world are you doing? Dr. Jillani, how are you?

I am having a blast today. So No. One, how is my old stomping grounds? Is things going OK in Lubbock, Texas? It's windy and cold. Sounds like business as usual. All right, so how can I help you this morning?

Me and my husband have been married for 20 years, OK? There's no communication about our finances and I'm just feeling very lost and don't know what to do. All right.

My guess is if there's no communication about finances, there's no communication about much other than college football, is that probably fair and structure animals fair share for those not from West Texas?

We're having some playing some insider baseball here.

When's the last time you had a good values based conversation about where your marriage was going, about kids, about who you guys wanted to be when you grew up? When's the last time you had that conversation or have you ever. We haven't ever he won't sit down and talk to me, and the other day I asked him if he wanted to do something and I said, you know what I want to do? I want to sit down and have a real conversation about our finances and what we need to do.

We just recently sold our home and we moved back up here to where he's from in Lubbock. And we have this big dream of building a house and trying to get everything together. And he tells me he's busy. He doesn't have time. And so what is it about having a conversation that scares him? I'm not sure, I'm not sure. And so let me ask you a harder question, what is it about having a conversation with you that scares him?

And. I feel like he may be bailed out of the 20 years we've been married, he's only worked eight of those. OK, I have my own business and he has helped me, but. When we first got married, he worked all the time when I was going to college and we had our first daughter and. It's like you just quit. He comes to me and he he wants something and I'll tell him, no, we can't afford that.

And he gets upset and mad at me and tells me I just need to work harder.

OK. And then what does she do on on the days that you're at work, do you sit at home? Yes.

Does he always have a game plan? I'm just waiting on this phone call to come in or this is going to happen soon as is it that kind of situation. Now, he recently started working, and so he has been going to work for the last week and he's hoping it becomes something good. And I've always been the breadwinner in the family, but like my mother in law, he lives right next to us, called my daughter when she came down from college this weekend that I made enough money and that my husband just needed to stay at home and watch the boys, OK.

Is that an arrangement you'll have that happens all over the country? But usually it's something that people plan together doesn't just inorganically happen or do you not want to work anymore? Well, I mean, I'm I'm tired, I do I do a lot, I've had my own business for 15 years. We have four children. I do everything with their education because he he he was not very good in school. But commonsense wise, I mean, he's a good ol farm boy and he is really good at outside things and that everything else I do.

And so it's just it's just starting to wear on me after 15 years of doing that and completely basically on my own. And I just you know, I just wish that he would sit down and talk to me about things instead of telling me he's busy or he's got he basically just doesn't want to carry because I challenge you on something.

And I think you've been tired for a long, long time.

I think you've been exhausted for a long, long time. And so what I want to know from you is why now?

Because you would have been exhausted. I've got two kids and I've got a wife who is an absolute gangster rock star and I'm tired. I mean, for right, plus a full time gig plus. A husband who's part child two, you've been tired for a long, long time. And what has kept you from having that conversation for five years, 10 years? Just the fact that I guess I feel. A lot of my soul feels ashamed of me because I feel like I have failed.

What did you feel, Kerry? Like, our our love for each other is great, but our relationship is not.

What does that even mean? That every morning he tells me he loves me and I say, I love you too, and at night we say I love you, but we have no communication and can't talk to each other about things.

Well, yeah, but I can wake up I could wake up with my wife every morning and say, honey, I'm a dragon. And she could say I'm a carton of milk. And that wouldn't make either of those things real. Right. It's just going through the motions and repeating the words doesn't mean much of anything. I just I feel like I get mad and angry. You should get mad and angry. You should be frustrated, OK? I want to do.

You should be. And here's what anger is, all anger is is a it is a signal pointing you towards something that you care about. Anger's a good thing. Anger lets you know I really care about this guy. And I need him to go work, I need him to go be a provider for this family or I need him to be a full time stay at home dad and take some of this relational burden off me, some of the cooking and cleaning and the CEO of the house roll from me.

I desperately need some help. And some of that's about him needing to grow up. And some of that, quite honestly, is I'm going to guess, is part of the greater plague on men across the country, which is they don't know what to do anymore. Especially guys who work outside who have been told working outside is for idiots, for second rate losers, that work is getting harder and harder to come by as the farms get bought up and as water gets more and more scarce, the whole industry is turning over.

And there's a whole swath of guys who don't know what to do next. And and then there's equally a swath of women caught right in the middle of that mess. And so my dream and hope for you, Kerry, is that he would be able to come in and sit with you and say, listen. Since I was about six, I've been posturing, I've been playing and I'm exhausted and I want to love my wife the right way and I don't know how can we go learn how to do this together.

I love how Esther Perel says most adults have three or four great loves in their life. And if people work really hard and if they're lucky, it's with the same person and I believe he can come around. But I also believe he's not going to be the one who who has that conversation first. Right, what I want you to do is to go spend some time gathering your thoughts with probably with a counselor by this point, 15 years of this is relatively traumatic.

It's not relatively 15 years of this is traumatic. It's exhausting and it's heartbreaking. But I believe you that you still love this dude and I believe you that when you tell me he's still worth it. But this is a conversation you've got to have now, because here's why you got four kids you're modeling this for you got to see it.

That's right. And more than they see it, they feel it.

If they actually come in, they're like, Mom, it's OK. Yeah. Here's the deal.

You know, kids have no business trying to make sure their parents are OK. That's not their job, right? Right. It's not their job. At the end of the day, all you can control is you. And whether that's by modeling what this is going to look like, which is, honey, I'm going to start seeing a counselor now. I would love for you to come with me. There are some awesome counselors and marriage therapists in Lubbock, Texas.

I know him personally. That's where I was trained. There are some extraordinary people there in that community that can walk alongside you and they can walk alongside your husband. But it's also about you not waiting till you're exhausted and frustrated and fed up before you go have that conversation, because the worst thing you can do to a guy that's feeling beaten down, the guy is feeling like he's failed for 10 years, is to run at him when you're angry, but to have a safe place where you can have a good conversation.

And here's the other deal, Carrie. The reality is some guys never get it. Some wives never get it either. And I think the hard part for you right now is you recognize that may be you. It may never come together for you. But all of the wishing and the I don't knows and the imaginary conversations you have in your head with him, that never happened in real life, the things that you think that he's not doing these things because of all of those things are poisoning you and weighing you down.

And they're starting to leak out on your kids. So can I get a commitment from you that beginning today you're going to start taking care of yourself, that you'll go through and find someone to talk to today, make an appointment today before the day is over? Yes, OK.

And I want you to tell him, your husband, I love you. And we're going to schedule a meeting, just a State of the Union. How's our marriage? How's our kids? How's our future? We're going to schedule a meeting and I want you to plan it for a week in advance or two weeks in advance. And there are some cooler breakfast places in Lubbock, Texas.

And I want you to plan it for a place where you can get up on a Saturday morning and go talk to one another. And I want you to have a list of things written out. And I want you to make sure he knows he's loved. I want you to make sure that he knows that he's valued. But I also want him to know that you're exhausted. And that you are interested in completely rebuilding your relationship from the floor up, but it's going to take his full participation in that.

And guys, if you're listening to this is never too late to go talk to your wife. It is never too late to go talk to your girlfriend, to someone you're interested in, to any significant other, to your parents, to your friend. It's never too late, guys, to go in there and say. It's been five years, it's been 10 years, and I don't like the trajectory of where I'm going, I don't like it.

I want to start over. Can we rebuild this thing up from the floor up? And I'm going to need some lessons. I'm going to need to learn how to do this. I don't even know what I feel anymore. I'm ready to go back to community college. I'm going to need to go fill in the blanks. Guys, it's never too late to have that conversation. Women. It's never too late to have that conversation either. You don't need to wait to New Year's Eve, you can start today, start today.

But set up some time to go have that conversation and start taking care of you. Kerry, after that conversation, I want you to call me back, I want you to let me know how it goes and if you need some some folks in that area that I trust get with Kelly and then I will connect you to somebody that is some folks that I know and love and trust there in that community.

We'll be thinking about you, Kerry, and get to work on you, get to work on you and get to work on that marriage. All right. Appreciate you. Let's go to one more call. Let's go to Tia in Phoenix, Arizona. Tia, how are we doing this morning?

Good, Dr. Stevens, for taking my call. Thank you so much for calling in. How can I help?

I'm really struggling with trying to maintain a relationship with my dad.

OK, once I get back up and talk directly into the phone, they're. How is that perfect? Excellent. All right, go for it. I'm really struggling with trying to have a relationship with my dad. We just bicker constantly over any and everything. And I really struggle with liking him. I love him because he's my dad. And I just want to know what I can do to be a better daughter, I guess, and to make the relationship work without so much conflict.

Why is there conflict? Where's this? Where's the stem from?

So my dad my parents were married for twenty five years and my dad had affairs throughout that entire time. This affair he had was when my mom was going through breast cancer and then 15 years later my dad has married this woman. And so I just struggle with his life choices. Sure. And the decisions that he's made and I guess who he is as a man. But I do want to have a relationship with him.

Why do you want a relationship with him? Why do you want a relationship with a guy that you disagree with when it comes to values that hurt your mom over a quarter of a century and then you feel like rubbed your nose in it by marrying the woman that he was with while your mom was going through breast cancer surgery? OK, what about that guy? Do you want a relationship with. Well, I guess because my little brother died, my only sibling about a year and a half ago, and I just don't want to lose my family.

Yeah, if I don't have a place with my dad, it's one more person I'd be losing. Yeah.

I'm sorry about your brother. Thank you. That shouldn't happen. I hate that for you to. I'm sorry. Thank you. Is your mom still around? Oh, yes. I talked to my mom 10 times a day. I was curious, what does she think about this?

This. But your old man. But this ex-husband of hers. You know, she is still friends with him. So they maintain a very healthy relationship, I guess, for the sake of my brother's kids, their grandkids. And so my mom doesn't like to talk down about him. She understands where I'm coming from. She understands why I'm hurt, but she doesn't. She tells me I need to do what's best for me. She doesn't like to advise me to go one way or another when it comes to my dad.

So you're you're. Well, let me ask you one more question. Has your dad ever violated your boundaries? Has he been ugly to you as you've been supportive of you?

Forget what he did to your mom. Has he been a good dad? Financially, yes, emotionally, I would say no. Yeah, but financially, I mean, that ends up being people wallpaper with that. I mean. That's right. I mean, that's that's just like fancy Twizzlers for grown ups. People who just throw money at problems. Yeah.

Has he what I'm saying emotionally abusive to you? Does he tell you you're a piece of crap and why did you do that or is he just not shown up throughout your life?

Well, I would say a little bit of both. OK. And so have you ever talked to him about how he makes you feel, how you feel about his new wife, how you feel about what he did to your mom for twenty five years, have you ever had that conversation or is it just leak out in and he complains to you and you complain back? And this little death by B.B. gun situation. A little bit of both, but when I've had when I've tried to address the issues, I'll bring up the infidelities, he'll say that those aren't those are my issues that my mother, my mom's issues have nothing to do with me.

So he'll shut that conversation down.

You know, that's a gigantic wooden box of dog crap, right? Yes, absolutely. OK, that's 100 percent not accurate. Right. Yes, I do know that because I watched it happen my whole childhood, I was directly affected.

So you called me, so I'm going to be real honest with you, OK? And then I'll give you the first thing that popped into my head. At some point, you're going to have to. How old are you? Thirty nine, thirty nine. OK, exhale real quick, big exhale. I can feel your shoulders tense through the phone all the way here in Nashville, Tennessee.

OK, now listen to at some point you're going to have to let the fantasy go. Your dad sucks. OK. That does not mean he's not worthy of a relationship. That doesn't mean that he's not somebody that should be in your life. But the your dream of having this perfect dad is not real and you got to let it go because it's wearing you out, not him. OK. It's exhausting you, it's keeping that low level hum of anxiety in your heart all the time.

And after thirty nine years of this, it's becoming if it hasn't already. It's starting to depress the way you see the world, the way you interact with people that you love. Absolutely, constantly having imaginary conversations in your head to him, right, that are never going to happen and those get you worked up and those get you fired up and those get you all pissed off.

Here's the thing. Your dad sucks, man. He cheated on your mom for a quarter century when he needed her most. He wasn't there. The thing you have in your corner. Is an absolute rock star ninja mom. And here's what she's giving you, she's given you a model.

Of I'm not going to let somebody else's poison kill me. Right now, it truly is my mom, there's that old saying in AA, hating somebody is like poisoning yourself and hoping they die and your mom knows that. And so I'ma talk good about that guy that absolutely devastated me for a quarter century. Yeah, they broke up our family. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, your mom's been through enough. She's not going to let him to continue to do that to her.

Right.

And so the earlier you can I mean, the faster you can get to a place where this is who my dad is, he doesn't tell the truth. He's deceitful. He's not honest. He hurts people around him, that's just who he is, once you get to that in your heart and you stop asking him to be something that he's never going to be. Then you can approach him on his turf, then you can make honest decisions and assessments about do you want him around your kids?

Do you want him around your relationships? Do you want to be in his life, when and how? And so the one thing that popped into my mind, as you were saying this was at some point it'll probably do you good to approach him like an adult.

And and that's not a slight at you. That came out was like I was I was clowning on you. I'm saying to adults, not father daughter, but to adults, sit down and say, Dad, I want to have a relationship with you.

Here's my history with you. Here's how I have absorbed this for the last 40 years. But I love you because you're my dad. And I'm interested in moving forward, here's my boundaries, I need you to be there for me. I need you to be there for your grandkids. I need you to be honest with me. I need you to stop saying the following four or five hurtful things. I need you for whatever time we've got left. To step up.

And my hope, honestly, is that he will fall over on whatever table you are eating it and he will weep and say, I'm sorry, will you forgive me? He's probably not going to. And so I would be prepared to go into that meeting, ready to forgive him and look him in the eye and say that I forgive you. Because I'm not carrying your weight anymore, I'm not. I forgive you. But I'd love you to be in my life under my terms, inside of my boundaries, and if you're willing, I'd love to have you.

And then listen, you do have a small family, your brother, unfortunately passed away, I recognize you don't want to lose somebody else. But recognize that hanging onto somebody else sometimes means you're going to drown. And like the the stewardess on the airline says, you've got to put on your oxygen mask first or everyone around you goes down. Everyone around you goes down to tier. Let me know how that conversation goes with him if you decide to have it.

But you're going to have to put the fantasy down, your dad is who he is. And any amount of wishing and begging and yelling and fighting isn't going to change him at this point to put it down. Thank you so, so much for that call to you. All right, so as we transition out, who's been a heavy calls today, man, as we transition out? I want to thank everybody for sticking with us and continue to listen for continuing to join us on the show.

Oh, man, I'm glad we're ending on this song. This is the greatest song ever written. This is a shout out to my boyhood friends Chris and Ryan and Caleb song that we used to listen to when we were little kids. And we'd always dream of whoever she was going to be, whenever she was going to be, wherever she showed up.

It was a song written. By five dudes who are pretty awesome in a band called Skid Row. It was released in November of nineteen eighty nine as the third single from their debut record, the song As I Remember You. And it goes like this, I woke up to the sound of pouring rain. The wind would whisper and I'd think of you and all the tears you cry. That called my name. And when you needed me, I came through.

Oh, my darling, I love you. I remember yesterday walking hand in hand love letters in the sand. I remember you through the sleepless nights, through every endless day. I'd want to hear you say I remember you. What a song.

Pynes guys, what a song. This is the Dr. John Deloney show.