Hump Day Podcast | Episode 3 – Authenticity and Living from Inside Out

➡ In the third episode of their podcast, Ron Partain, Dr. John King, and Vinnie G discuss the importance of authenticity and overcoming trauma. They highlight the Phoenix Collective, a platform for honest conversations about trauma and recovery. They share a story of a listener who found hope through their show, emphasizing the power of open dialogue about trauma. They also discuss the concept of time, encouraging listeners to focus on the present and their potential, rather than dwelling on past traumas or future fears.
➡ The text discusses the importance of living authentically and making choices based on personal desires rather than societal expectations. It emphasizes the need to understand oneself and make decisions that align with personal values and interests. The text also highlights the dangers of risky behavior, using the example of a near-fatal boating accident to illustrate the consequences of seeking external validation and adrenaline rushes. The journey towards authenticity and self-understanding is described as challenging but crucial for personal growth and satisfaction.
➡ A World War I hero, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor, struggled with the trauma of war. He found solace in working for a British company and hunting dangerous game, pushing himself to the edge to feel alive. This story relates to dealing with trauma, where people often push themselves to extreme limits to feel alive, not aiming for death but to overcome it. The discussion also touches on the concept of ‘black fatigue’, suggesting that it’s not exclusive to the black community but applies to anyone stuck in a negative cycle, and the importance of self-awareness and responsibility for personal growth.
➡ The speaker discusses the importance of controlling what we consume, both physically and mentally, to improve our overall well-being. They argue that society often encourages a victim mentality, which can be harmful. They suggest that by focusing on positive content, maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, and eating a healthy diet, we can overcome many mental health issues. They also emphasize the importance of listening and exercising empathy with wisdom in our interactions with others.
➡ The text discusses the struggle of overcoming past traumas and fears in order to build healthy relationships. It emphasizes the difference between ignorance and stupidity, and highlights the importance of not letting past experiences dictate future actions. The speakers share personal experiences of self-sabotage and how they learned to trust and grow in their relationships, despite their fears and past experiences. They stress the need to rewire one’s thinking and not let the inner voice of fear lead to self-destruction.
➡ The text discusses the importance of trust, discipline, and consistency in overcoming personal struggles. It highlights the power of emotional intelligence and the ability to detect subtle changes in situations. The speaker also emphasizes the role of physical exercise in maintaining mental health and suggests that engaging in competitive sports or personal fitness can positively impact one’s mindset. Lastly, the speaker encourages open conversations about personal experiences to help others.
➡ The hosts of the “Hump Day Deal with it” podcast are planning to involve their audience more by taking questions and comments during their weekly show, which airs every Wednesday at 2:30pm Eastern Time. They encourage listeners to send in their queries or topics, even anonymously if preferred, to their email. They aim to help their audience by addressing these questions and connecting them with the right resources if needed. The hosts appreciate their audience’s participation and look forward to the next episode.

All righty. Welcome, everybody. This is Ron Partain, and I am joined by Dr. John King and Vinnie G. As we discuss the. The. The weekly Hump Day Posk Deal with it podcast. So this worship, we’re still relatively new. This is only episode three. So it’s trying to, you know, get to the hang of it and say things correctly. But. But in any event, today we’re going to be. Today we’re going to be discussing authenticity and living from the inside out. And of course, our good friend Dr. John King will be kind of leading the. The charge here.

He. He’s the expert in trauma and overcoming trauma and whatnot. And. Well, before. Before we jump in here real quick, John, why don’t you give us a little. Not a sales pitch, but just kind of just. Just what you’re doing there with your. With your program. Yeah, man, I don’t know if I’m an expert. I’m just a bloody stubborn, I suppose. Like, I. I had to. I had to survive trauma and I had to learn how to overcome it. It was either that or. Or you’re checking out early. So we’ve started something called the Phoenix Collective, which is a collection of.

It’s a place where you can have real and honest conversations with real and honest people and get better. Because most people who experience trauma, regardless of where it starts, they have trouble with trust because they don’t gather well. And the sort of people they end up talking to are people that have either no idea or they end up just wanting to sit in their muck and their mess and not graduated from it. So the aim of the Phoenix Collective is to actually give people a place, a space and steps to graduate, to turn this shit into fertilizer.

It’s like a big bucket. Well, and, you know, you said you sent me an actually really cool message that we’re not going to mention any names, but there was an individual who had seen are one of our. One of our. Our shows. The. The. One of the. I don’t know which. Which. Which one it was, if it was the first one or the second one, but that. That he reached out to you and that he was on the precipice. Yeah, it was really doing it tough. And he reached out and he. What was interesting I found was that I think what he heard was that it’s okay to be at the end of yourself because there is hope.

And I think a lot of people who are at the end of themselves don’t realize you get to that place, there’s just nothing. So they Let go of the rope and so you don’t have to do that. So it was really encouraging, mate. Like, we stepped out there, we started this. We wanted to talk about, you know, how trauma of all kinds, you know, be it from sexual childhood abuse, being trafficked, be it ptsd, military, police, or life in general, people being caught in a fire, watching your parents get murdered, whatever it is. And this guy was at the end of his tether and he heard the show and he connected.

And I think one of the strong connections that I took away is he connected with a couple of men being prepared to talk about stuff. And that connection is strong. That connection is not beta. That connection is you’re not weak. If you struggle the weaknesses in giving up, we can all fall forward, fail forward together. So, I mean, I was just so encouraged by that. I know you were too. Yeah, well, when you told me that, it’s just like, because, you know, we just started this. So this isn’t. This is something. This is something brand new and it’s completely foreign to what I do, you know, on a consistent basis.

So it’s, you know, I’m kind of. I’m kind of stepping outside of my comfort zone with this and. But, you know, I. That said, I, you know, I feel like I’ve got enough life experience that I can. That I can contribute, but it was just not. It was. It was like it was confirming that, hey, you know what, we’re doing something good here, even, you know, and you know, what if we never reach anybody again? Yeah, we won already. Yeah, we’ve already won. Yeah, I. I absolutely agree, mate. There’s a quote by a guy called George Eliot.

It says it’s never too late to become what you might have been. And I think that’s a great quote for today. There is so much ahead of us. I’ve been dealing with this issue of time and its paradigm and if it actually exists. So I know it’s a little bit esoteric for a Wednesday afternoon, but if you think about it, yesterday doesn’t exist. It’s a collection of neuro memories that we’ve got together. And even the future doesn’t exist. The only real aspect of time is now. And time is a construct that we have together to try and understand this eternal plane that we skate on.

And I think people get so caught up in what I have or haven’t done and scared about what I could or couldn’t do, that they forget that right at this moment they’ve got all the potential in the world to become who they’re supposed to become and do what they really want to do. That’s exactly it. You know, we’re always taught to always everyone from birth, you know, look to the future. Look the future and, and remember. Well, in reality, all we have is awareness and entropy. Awareness and entropy. And you’re somewhere in, in that, that mess is the human mind trying to make sense of it all.

And the, the fact the reality is yesterday is dead and gone. Yeah. And it only exists in the fashion in your mind that you allow it to because you’re not, you’re not going deeper. You’re not, you’re not dissecting it and then throwing it in the garbage where it belongs and retaining what is valuable and golden in that whatever it is horrible or a wonderful experience. Too many, too many people get locked in that loop. And the reality is yesterday is gone forever. Tomorrow isn’t even here. You’re not even guaranteed that none of us are. Yeah. And immediate meteorite could fall through the roof, hit me on the head.

Hey, I’m gone. See you guys. Everything that I’m sitting here thinking of doing and completing and working on, I guess I’m missing the words on, on that part of it. But the most important thing I. I would say about what you just said, John, was, yeah, the past is gone. Now if you’re going to give it life and you’re going to give it energy and you’re going to have a spectator view of it, and then that story is never going to change. And if it’s negative and traumatic, it’s going to grow and grow. Yeah. Strength and intensity.

Rather than seeing it for what it is and saying, reliving that again and again and again and saying each time, but it can’t affect me now. Yeah, it has no effect on me. And you have the power to say that to yourself and to make that a reality. Yeah. Not to let it affect me. I’ve thought of it like this, like in our 20s. I don’t know what you guys remember your 20s like, but I always felt like I was building. When I look back on it, I was building my career based on the expectations of others while other people told me I was supposed to have or do or what college I was supposed to go to.

But then in my 30s, I was already entrenched in this space and it was like I was heading down this path and I went down the path of least resistance. But then when I hit my 40s and 50s, I remember I had to make a decision. I was either going to re. Examine and refocus my life or was going to remain, spend my remaining days being inflicted by this thing that I’d inherited. And I think until we actually stop long enough and pause, like you were saying, Vinnie, and understand that this is neurologically something that doesn’t exist, existentially doesn’t exist and in reality doesn’t exist anymore.

And wonder who I am today and can I get to peace with that? And I think that’s what I mean when I talk about living from the inside out. Yeah. Yeah. Because it, you know, trauma of the past, it compounds if you don’t. If you don’t take a point in your life. And I, I Basically, in my 20s, I started looking at it at trauma that had already been. There’s childhood trauma there. I, you know, you know of it, but I don’t tell the world. But if you. What I realized then is with all of the negative things that had continued to happen that were because of a bad decision or not even of my making, they compounded.

Yeah. They built. And that energy, that, that. That ball of energy seemed to grow and even solidify of this blackness, this negativeness. And I came to a point where it was a very simple. I said the choice. I said the choices on this. And many things in life are so fundamentally simple. Yeah. Clear. The static. What do I want? Do I want to live like this or do I want to blossom into something that brings mystery and good things? And it was that a very simple choice, but it’s one that you have to understand. You have the power to do that.

And it’s not a matter of believing. It’s a matter of commitment and discipline to it. Well, John, you know what, you know, obviously the, the. The title today is Living from the Inside out, right? Well, no, so, so what is the difference between inside in and inside out? Well, it would be inside out and outside in and living. Or that’s what I. Excuse me, I’m. I misspoke. No, brother, I was just covering you. You know what I mean? I was making you look smart. That’s what, that’s what we do for each other. So outside in is all these external pressures, all these things that, that these social norms that everybody else tells us we’re supposed to have and believe and do and adhere to and try and obtain to, as opposed to, well, who am I? And being authentic to myself and that being authentic to yourself and understanding who you are is probably the hardest work that anyone will ever do.

Is like, who am I? What do I really like? Even Ask even that question, what do I really like? When you put in a situation, you go to a restaurant or you go out with friends, or you go and do something, and something someone asks, what do you want to do? Very rarely do we stop and say, well, I want to eat this or do this. We’ll go that. We actually end up internally. If, you know, if you’re not a narcissistic sociopath, you end up saying, okay, what does everybody else want? And I’m going to try.

Then why is Vinnie on the. On the podcast then? Because we’re not narcissistic sociopaths. So he ended up going external to everything and trying to. Trying to balance this sense of cohesion. Now, the question wasn’t. Was, wasn’t, okay, where do we all want to go and eat? And let’s get a consensus. The question was, where would you like to go and eat and what would you prefer? So it’s like that. They’re two very subtly different questions. And we often have a challenge going, man, you know what? I just. I don’t want to go. I know it’s my 60th birthday, but I don’t want to go to a steakhouse.

I just really want to have hot dogs and cold beer on the front lawn. That’s all I really want. You know, we. We feel we’ve got to do these different array of things, whereas living from the inside out is having a sense of who you are, of authenticity in comparison to social judgment. And even with that, it’s even comparison to social judgment. You have to be careful there, because often that is an outside in premise. It’s just really being settled with who you are and comfortable with who you are. Well, I mean, didn’t and I did that kind of arise out of the epiphany that you had after your accident? After I nearly killed my wife.

You mean that? The. That accident? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks. Hey, thanks. That was a great segue, bro. Yeah, I’d love to wear that. We’re just having a discussion, brother. Yeah, yeah, right. I didn’t. I didn’t know. I didn’t. Forgive me. I didn’t know you had almost killed your wife. You really need to have her. We need to have her on the show and ask her her version of the story, because it’s probably not a little more true, but a little more impactful. So risky behavior, it’s a classic mark of post traumatic stress. And it doesn’t matter what it is.

You know, I did a series of things that were really stupid from as young as I can remember. And I never really put it together till I decided my life was boring and I wanted to go buy a boat because we need lived near an oak. Now I didn’t go and buy a little dinghy. I went and bought a racing catamaran. Now I used to, I used to sail. Racing cats, but you know, racing cats. Racing catamarans. You said cats and you got me all excited. I didn’t race cats, herd cats every now, so, so I used to race them as a kid.

And that was, you know, 40 years ago, 45 years ago. And so I went and brought an 18 foot champion racing catamaran. And I took it out and I didn’t go out on a calm day. I took it out in the middle of a gale and I needed crew and I took Melissa and so she got, she got whacked in the head. I got whacked in the head and she ended up getting cast, thrown out. So there’s a series of things that happened. There was the, the feeling of there wasn’t enough. It’s not Russia adrenaline. I think with risky behavior, what you’re trying to do is feel alive.

Yeah. And I didn’t. I hadn’t felt something for a while. I, I’d stopped risky sexual behavior because I’d found the love of my life. I, I wasn’t a big drinker and at that stage I was trying to really regulate alcohol because it wasn’t good to me. I wasn’t involved in martial arts anymore because of too many concussions. So these, these list of things that I wasn’t doing that here I am and I needed something to feel alive, that I was valuable, that I was in touch to get that rush. So hence this thing. So when that happened, there was a series of other things that happened after that.

Number one, I’m in the middle of this lake and I had to get her to pick her up to put her back on the boat. So she’s treading water for probably 20 or 30 minutes. She’s. She had a vest on. I finally got her on, dropped the boom, dropped the mask, got her on, got her on the boat and was hit in the head again a second time. So now I’m severely concussed getting her on there. Well, did at least knock some sense into you? No, brother, they did about three days later. So then the Marshall turns up and wants to make sure we’re okay because the boat’s been capsized a couple of times.

I said gave her, I handed him Melissa over to him and I told him I was going to take the boat back myself because it wasn’t going to beat me. Got hit in the head a third time. So I made these series of choices and I’m lying in bed in a blacked out room with a splitting concussion, having had not only a near death experience, but killed the woman of my dreams. And I asked myself this question. The question that I was struck with was, was not how is Melissa? I didn’t once ask myself that question.

What I asked myself was, I hope Mel didn’t tell anyone I was sailing. How am I going to explain this to people? I need to sell this boat without anybody else finding out and I’m in the middle of having this. And then I was struck with, why the fuck are you even thinking this way? I’m worried about everybody else’s opinion of who I am and what I’m going through as opposed to how my, my soon to be wife is. And, and how am I, and how. What did I do to get here? So that’s really when my journey towards understanding and embracing authenticity began.

I realized at that moment, lying in the dark, two things I was wondering was, number one, could the dognet dogneck, short door shut the fuck up because it was giving me a blinding headache. And, and two, where do I start reversing this? And I’ve got to tell you that that is probably the single hardest journey that I’ve made in my life. You said something really interesting though about like, like risky behavior, like, like near death, approaching death or something like that. You know, I, I. Did you, have you ever seen the, the, the series that, oh, what’s his name? The guy, the guy who wrote the, the, the show Yellowstone? Drawing a blank on his name right now.

But I mean there’s a fantastic job, it’s written so much, but there’s, there’s a, there’s a real quick scene that I want to, I want to play here. Just, just. It’s very, very, very. You’ll never convince her that you just killed the man eating leopards of at Saswa. You’re famous, in case you were unaware. I was unaware. Well, you are. It said you killed one with your bare hands. Leave everything here. I knew what I wanted to be true. Why would you want that to be true? For the romance of it. There’s no romance in it.

Then why do you do it? Because dying is the most alive you’ll ever feel. You don’t see the romance in that. And that’s quite enough. The reason that I wanted to show that is because in that particular series, what he’s doing is he, he was a Congressional Medal in the, in the story, he was a Congressional Medal of Honor winner in World War I and in, in France. And he, he couldn’t take all of the pressure of what he had to deal with from World War I. And so what he did was he took that and he went down and he worked for, he, he worked for the, for the British government or British, some sort of a British company.

And he was doing, he was doing hunting a big game that was attacking people who were down there, like on, either on holiday or on safari or, or whatnot. And, and she was asking him, why do you, why are you killing all these big animals? And, and, and, and he said, and he said, to your point, because dying is the most alive you’ll ever feel. And I think there’s a correlation with what that, that particular scene was, with what you were talking about in terms of dealing with trauma is you push yourself to the edge, to the point, to the point of near death experience to feel alive.

Yeah, death is not the ultimate aim. It’s beating death. It’s the ultimate aim. You know, one of the other things I caught myself doing, I think I mentioned this last week, was riding at 100, 120 on a motorcycle in the rain, no helmet, wearing singlets and shorts. Until I realized what I was doing. It was, how far can I push this and get back from it? How close can I get? And it’s that feeling which comes right at the edge, whether it’s jumping over a cliff or, you know, gunplay or whatever it is, how far can I go that makes you feel alive? Because the, one of the challenges with trauma is that you’re so dead on the inside and so not open to sensuous things in a positive way anymore.

And often because of adrenal fatigue as well. It takes a lot to wind up the engine. Trust me. I, I feel now I am, I’m not a, I don’t think I’m a victim of trauma, but man, I understand that adrenal fatigue, I really do. I really, I really, really do. You know, but, but I think, you know, kind of what you’re talking about though, is, is it, is. It’s kind of like a mind game though, is it not? It’s actually a chemical game as well. It is a mind game in the sense that everything resides in the brain, but some of it’s neurological and chemical adrenal fatigue is one of it.

One of it’s an inactive or inappropriately active frontal lobe. It’s the fight and flight response that goes on or the inability to be able to get into parasympathetic rest and restore because you’re always just on and that gets dulled. And you know that if that gets dulled, then you’re not going to be on. You, you get used to being at orange all the time and just needing to go to red. You get, you want to live on that space where you’re always prepared. And when you find yourself lagging back, you’ve got to do something else to get up there.

All of that’s neurological. And so it is a thing in your head, Very much so. And it’s being able to rewire and rebalance that. And one of the biggest challenges is being able to come to peace with not being on all the time. And that’s a massive relearning curve. Now I, you know, I was, I’m, I’m hearkening back to your book. You talked about the magical number seven. Does that apply to, to this particular, to what we’re talking about right here? I, I think so, because the magic number seven was a very simple study that was done by a gentleman.

And he, he, what he was doing was focusing on the brain’s ability to be able to, to compute things and exercise those things, will be able to walk into a positive mindset. And what he realized is that the brain could handle five plus or two things and those plus or two things. If you’re in a positive frame of mind, then you could actually cope with dealing with productively seven things. If you’re in a negative frame of mind, then you could only really handle processing three things. So if you’re negative and depressed and in a bad mindset and you’re trying to find a way out, What Miller said was you will only be able to cope with three things.

That’s why people who end up in a negative situation and focus on that negative situation, they can’t find their way out. Whereas a positive minding person could hag of a negative situation and be able to come up with two or three solutions out of it or alternatives to it. So in a situation where you’re wanting to wind yourself up to feel alive, you’re probably in that case in a negative thing. And one of the very few ways you know how to get out of that is by doing something innately stupid or dangerous. And that as opposed to being able to sit back, reflect on your life, be comfortable.

Who with you are and thinking, you know what? I got lots of ways I can be fulfilled. Trying to kill my wife in a boating accident or myself on a highway in the rain does not have to fall within those parameters. It’s still there, but it doesn’t have to. There’s other things at the other end of the scale that I could concentrate on. So, so what you’re kind of saying is, is that really, really what happens is, is that you. People who dwell on their negative circumstances, it essentially consumes them and that’s all that they, that’s that it doesn’t allow for any positivity or anything to come into their brain because they shut everything else out.

Yeah. Like even a simple body exercise, if you find yourself being negative, just have a look at how you’re sitting. Most likely you’re sitting and you’re looking down at the floor, whereas if you’re feeling good, you’re probably going to be sitting back and looking up, just even that body length. So learning those signals within yourself. And you’re right. And that ties in with what we were talking about last week. Anyone who focuses solely on being a victim, being a victim is all that they will see. Anyone who focuses on being an overcomer, they, they understand that maybe things in their life that others might define as them being a victim of something.

But then there’s all this other possibility that could occur. And all of that happens in here, as you said. Is it a neurological thing? Is it something in your head? Well, if it is, it’s in your head and in your heart. You know, it’s, it’s interesting. In the country right now, we are, you know, and I don’t really want to get too deep into this, but I think that it’s, it’s apropos for, for this particular conversation is I think that we are, you know, the term, the term black fatigue has, has been really in the media lately so significantly.

And it’s, you know, I mean, and it’s not necessarily. I, I think it’s incorrect to apply it to exclusively to the black community because I think there’s a lot of people out there that are acting like, just call it thugs. Right. Just kind of like a thug mindset or, or just, or, or just a, a ghetto or, or, or, you know, low life, whatever, deranged. Somebody who’s just causing problems and can’t get out of that, that vicious cycle that just keeps them in a spot, in a downward spiral. But we had someone in the comments call it retarded behavior, fatigue.

Yeah. And that is Probably a much more accurate representation. It just so happens that a lot of the black community are the ones that are kind of guilty of that, which is why it’s being called black fatigue. And, and, and again, I’m not, I’m not, I, I don’t necessarily see that per se personally, but I understand, you know, we, I understand what, what people are talking about more than people would know if you don’t know me. So, but you know, how do you, you know, are there any like, are there any physical disciplines or, I mean, are there any, is there any things that you can do to kind of alter that or get, or, I mean, how do you fix that? I, because that’s a, that is a complicated question because I, in my humble opinion, it’s like, it’s one of those things, it’s almost like alcoholism where you have to admit that there’s a problem and if you don’t want to admit that there’s a problem, then you can’t fix what you don’t believe is an issue.

Am I wrong in saying that I think self awareness is the beginning of, of growth? It’s always, you’ve got to become self aware in order. Being self aware and holding yourself responsible is, is the start of all self improvement and growth. You’ve got to be introspective. I, I don’t, I don’t think it’s, I, I understand people want to label these things. I think there’s, I think one of the major fatigues that are going on is, is like white, college educated moronic fatigue is the one I’ve got at the moment. Amen to that. So I, I, I, you know, I, I, I find that more challenging than anything.

I think the fatigue we have is with a generation of people that just aren’t thinking and aren’t engaged and aren’t self aware. And I want to hand, I don’t know what it is, but the nation, as I think in the world, is fatigued by a range of different things. But even that, even this conversation, even these things, we can focus on those and we will lose sight automatically of everything else. And you notice in yourself you’ll start to think on these things or see it on, on, on Twitter or on Instagram. And it all comes down to this because the algorithm will feed it in of itself and it’s a deliberate discipline to be able to grow and move and change over to the other direction.

And I look, I do it deliberately in my feeds. I will go and I will go and select stoic philosophy, motivational quotes. Because I. I naturally want to find out what’s in the news, but the news algorithm is always very, very negative, and so are the commentators. But I just don’t want to do that. If I’m going to spend one of my 15 to 20 minutes a day on social media, which I try and allot myself to, then I want to be feeding myself something other than that crap. And I think that’s decisional. And if you’re in that space and are there things you can do to get out? Yeah, there are.

I think physical exercises are key. I think eating breakfast first thing in the morning is a key. Going to bed at the same time, getting up at the same time. And we do this within the Phoenix Collective with our biohacking trauma program, just by getting up at the same time every day, going to bed at the same time every day, and then eating a breakfast of high fat, high protein, low starchy carbs that cures about 70% of psychotic problems. And the other. That’s so interesting that you say that. You know, I was there. There are several people on YouTube that I follow that are just.

Just kind of like motivational. You know, I don’t want to say mentors, because I don’t know them personally, but. But mentors from afar, you know, people that you watch who are successful and they, you know, and, and they’re just. They’re trying to do their part to. To, you know, impart their wisdom, you know, for your success with. Within. On. On the. On a. On a platform that’s free, you know, and it’s there. That’s their little, you know, helping of humanity to, hey, you know, to offer the hand up as opposed to the hand out. And this, and one of this.

This guy says, like, control the controllables. Control what you can put it. Control what you put in your mouth. Control what you put in your brain. Control what you put, you know, control the controllables. And, And I think that is a very. Because if you, if you begin to part. If you begin to feed your brain things that are that. That aren’t part of this, like this victimhood mentality, if you start to feed things about, hey, do this. And this is a key point, or this is, you know, you know, instead of. Instead of it being negative, it’s being positive, you can start to change the way that you think, and you can start.

And then those. As you begin to change the way that you think, the, Your behaviors will manifest out of that. Yeah, very much so. But I think that’s very Much how it has to be, they have to manifest. And it’s based on the decision on where you want to live, where you want to put your focus and what you want to be content with. I think that’s, and that’s part of the decision. People get very comfortable being a victim because societally we will feed that and we will actually encourage a victim mentality. And everyone wants to celebrate how they’ve got this disorder or these things or there’s something that they’re overcoming as opposed to the fact that they’re, you know, if you just live a normal, good, healthy, wonderful, fulfilling life, man, dude, you’ll never get a following on social media.

Even on social media, you’ve got to make your normal, good, boring, healthy, wonderful life. You’ve somehow got to exaggerate it because no one wants to hear that. I don’t understand why, you know, I, I don’t understand why. You know, it’s, it’s interesting. I, the, the reason that I talk about this specifically from the victimhood mentality is, is that I, I’ve got a very close friend who, who happens to be black and she is, you know, I, I truly believe that she’s kind of stuck in this victimhood mentality from a long time. And you know, I, I, I, I went into, to chat GPT the other day and I don’t know if I read this before, but I just, it just, this was really, really interesting.

I, I kind of fed the, the, I, I fed the AI A, you know, just kind of a, a list of things on both sides. You know, from my perspective, from what I believe her perspective is. And, and this is what it spit out to me. And I, I was like, oh, this is, this, this was actually really, really good. It’s like, let’s see here where I was at the wrong section here. Here we are. Okay, so it’s like, you know, he says, and I’m not going to read the whole thing, but, but I’ll just start with this.

This is, I’m not denying that racism exists. I know you face it. I believe you. But every injustice, every offhand comment, every article you show me, every time something happens to somebody black, it’s like it lands on your shoulders personally. It’s like you, it’s like you’ve been taught to gather pain as proof that the system is still killing you. But what if the real trap is that you’re still looking for chains they don’t even have to put on you anymore because they’ve convinced you that they’re still there. What if the system isn’t just racist, but it’s strategic? It feeds you a constant drip of outrage to keep you angry, exhausted and divided.

And it works. You say it’s systemic, but I say, what system? The one selling you your own trauma on loop. The one telling you you’re still broken even while you’re winning. And I’ll just stop it there, but I thought that I was blown away at what. What AI actually gave me to say. It’s. If you take the question of race out, that applies to everybody. Exactly 100%. It applies to people with sexual childhood abuse. It applies to people in the military or the police, nurses, doctors. It applies to anybody. And sometimes we. We will edify, raise up or promote levels of trauma, things that have happened.

And there’s a societal congratulations if you’ve got particular types of trauma and you get your self esteem and validation from being in those. One of those particular acceptable pods of trauma. As opposed to being able to celebrate the fact that, yeah, maybe something happened, but now these things don’t affect me anymore. I’ve grown past that. But anyway, at the end of the day, and again, I’m not trying to focus on. I wasn’t trying to focus on race. That’s just my experience in this particular situation. And. And I think that it brings in something valuable that we can, you know, to discuss.

But anyway, I just. I was kind of baffled. That was actually kind of used. Yeah. Let’s see here. Okay, you know what? I. I don’t know what happened to you there, Vinnie, but you, apparently, you. You. You removed yourself. But I brought you back. No, no, no, no, I didn’t. It’s. Something happened and I just. I was here. Oh, well, I did. I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to tell you that I didn’t want you to participate, so I just muted you. Oh, well, it’s all right, Vinny. I wanted to make two points.

You know, human suffering, number one, is profitable. Period. Yes. A thousand percent. Yeah. And the other thing is people are now with their virtue signaling use, using these. Using empathy as the basis for that. Well, that all sounds very noble, but very. They’re exercising empathy without wisdom. Empathy without wisdom says you’re a fiend to a friend. You’re not a friend. You could. Oh, you support them no matter what. No, A friend says, hey, you’re up. Stop. I care about you. That’s empathy with wisdom. And there’s a. They. There’s a huge disconnect with the concept of empathy and empathy with wisdom and you know, a sensitivity to what is really going on.

That’s really good. Yeah. Because you know, when you’re having conversations with most people, they’re not really listening. They’re thinking about what they’re going to say next. And again, if you’re trying to be empathetic, the skill of listening, the art of listening is something that most people need to really work on. And it makes things a lot easier and, and a goal much smoother when, when you have that. But suffering is a. Suffering on all fronts if you’re ill. Okay. Look at the crap food we have out there. Yeah. This is not by accident, any of it.

Nope. Look at the, the breakdown of the nuclear family. And not by accident. Not by accident, none of it. Because chaos and suffering and all the way up to warfare, kinetic warfare is profitable. And you know, we need to start connecting things that, that don’t appear connected. There is a massive engineering over centuries that have led us to this point. Yeah. And there is no there a lot of it. Just by people’s ignorance, and I don’t mean stupidity, I mean ignorance of all of this. How would you, how would you differentiate those two statements though? What would you, how would you differentiate stupidity and ignorance? Ignorance is the, the true definition of ignorance is simply not knowing.

I’m ignorant of the facts. I’m ignorant of the conditions of some of an incident, say because I wasn’t there. Stupidity is. I, I’ve got the facts and I’m, I’m not doing anything constructive with them. So stupidity essentially is, is almost a willful act. Yeah, it’s a willful act of choosing to. I’d agree with that. That’s a good definition. Okay. That’s how I differentiate those two in a nutshell. Well, you know, and again, I’m, I’m just kind of looking, I’m kind of remembering the, the chapter of your book here and I remember you talk about, you know, the kind of like the supervillain super villain and the self sabotage.

Yeah. Does that. And I’m, I’m trying to be, I’m, I’m trying to, to provide good things that are sequential. Does that kind of fit into where we’re going here? Yeah, for sure, mate. Like I think that the supervillain and self sabotage is. The question is why do we want to destroy those things that we’ve actually come to love and value? Like self sabotage is misguided survival mechanism. And I think it comes because your body’s programmed to be lazy and protective. It Wants to stay away from things where it’s been hurt before. I’ve got into this relationship and it didn’t work out.

I tried this new thing and it didn’t work out. I tried to give up drinking and it didn’t work out. I tried to exercise and it didn’t work out. So, so when I make these decisions to stop drinking, stop being risky, stay in a good relationship, there’s an aspect of me which goes, man, you can’t be in this relationship because it’s really just gonna fuck up on you. So what you need to do is just be a total asshole and drive this person away because that’s how it always ends up anyway. And so we do that through a range of things.

And that’s. The inner super villain is this, this person who you think is your inner voice and your friend is actually not. Like I, I really had to deal with this with Melissa when we first, when we first started to connect strongly is I was expecting her to be like, like my, the previous administration that I was married to and then any other because my sexual abuse came from females growing up. And so like any other woman that I’d encountered that had been, you know, abused with as a kid, that and the last abusive relationship was in.

It’s like everything was stacked against Melissa. And I remember my epiphany was. Hang on, hang on. Let’s. Let’s make a list of everybody in the world who did you wrong and is female. And it was a list of like, you know, half a dozen people, whatever. And then the number of people in the earth is like 4.5 million females. That females that did you wrong was only a short number. Well, it was, you know, whatever it is who had sexually abused me or whatever it was. So that was obviously a joke. So, but, but you know, but I did make the list and the accusation that all women are bitches is a little bit like all men are bastards.

Well, not all men are bastards because you haven’t experienced them all. Not all women are manipulative bitches. Maybe the ones that you’ve encountered up to this point have been even if the 100% of everybody. But here I am with Melissa and doesn’t she deserve the opportunity to not be that person? And she hasn’t done anything to earn being classified as that. So I was making these decisions about am I prepared to trust and go forward. And it was like, well, actually the choice was, was not that. The choice was am I going to allow the voice in my head to, to self sabotage Me, because based on my experience and my decision was no so.

But that’s where the work starts, brother. Because at that point you have to rewire everything. Every argument, every disagreement, every decision, every conversation, every attempt at intimacy, everything has to be rewired totally different. And eventually over time you grow, but then you come back and you sabotage again and it just moves up. You know, that’s, that’s almost exactly the experience I had when I met my wife 10 years ago. I had been so taken advantage of by a number of women that I was and, and, and severely hurt that for about 20 years I rarely dated.

And then I said I’m, I, I had gotten to a point where I said I’m going to accept this, not all this ridiculous crap that’s out on the Internet now where these men and women are talking about relationships and, and the idiocy that’s coming from them. It’s just astounding. I was in a hyper vigilant, defensive mode. Number one, from severe ptsd, five by five in all cat, all five categories. Number one. Number two, I hid that very well from the world. You didn’t know it unless you got close to me, but you, it was very difficult for anyone to get within that 10 meter circle of me.

And when I met this woman who was different from any woman I’d ever met before and there was an immediate chemistry that I can’t even describe. It was okay, I’ve got to, I’ve got to back off. I’ve got to put all this stuff aside. I’ve got to listen to her, I’ve got to, I’ve got to let her be her. And I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta stop this being terrified of being burned because I fell hard for her and she fell hard for me. And you know what the opposite of that is. And when I realized this woman is never going to betray me, she is never going to lie to me, she is never going to hurt me intentionally, and she hasn’t even really hurt me unintentionally in 10 years.

And we, we, we don’t argue. It’s. Wait a minute, what’s going on here? Let’s talk about this lasts about three to five minutes. And the biggest argument that we have. And, and I’m, I’m so thankful and grateful for this. To God, to just to. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s what’s kept me going this last 10 years because I would, I was at the point to where, okay, you know, I saw her phone and there’s these old conversations and they’re with guys and I. My. My nature is, well, I need to know all the intel. Let me go through this.

And I went, wait a minute. When I stopped this, she had a life before me. She’ll tell me what she wants to when she wants to, because I. I trust her. But there was still an aspect inside of me that was so hyper vigilant against being hurt again. Yeah. That I actually recoiled or I. You know, one time I went and drank a whole bottle of that. Oh, that got. That made me so sick, that American honey. Even though it’s distraction. I drank a whole bottle of that. Started speaking in a different language. Oh, dude. I was.

I was curled up in the bathroom in my underwear speaking a different language, saying they. They’ve been after me for 10,000 years. I total breakdown and that. And I was like the next morning, I was so blown away that I let myself get to that point. And that was in like the first six months. You know, we married. We were. We were married two weeks later. I mean, we met about six months prior to that, but then we were around each other for about a month or so. And then it was, wait a minute. I know what’s here.

You know what’s here. Let’s not. Let’s not waste time. And we didn’t. And yet, still in that safe environment, I relapsed into a total. I mean. Yeah. If anybody would have seen me, they would have said, call the guys with the. Call the nice young men in their. Their nice white suits. And yeah, he’s gotta go. And that was a turning point for me. That’s good, brother. Where I realized I can’t ever let. I can’t let myself let things get to that point. Point. Yeah. Ever again. And it hasn’t been a struggle. It was a decision.

Yeah. And I trusted her and I trusted the decision. And it’s been bliss. Yeah. That’s great. And. And. And. But you can’t. That’s how the past still. Even if you work hard at it, you’ve got to be. You’ve still got to be diligent in. Okay, I’m slipping. Or. There’s no reason to feel depressed. Come on. You know that there’s no reason to feel. I’ll say that to myself. Because there isn’t. And it becomes easier and easier and easier to keep that demon at bay. You know, I don’t think you ever really get rid of. Still has a face and a.

A presence. But that presence is not right within your Three foot circle. It’s, it’s, it’s thousand miles down range and you leave it there. You leave it there and you don’t feed it, ever. Feed it anything. So fear, just drop it. You have to. You have to. There’s a time when you have to, when you have to trust and trust life, trust God, trust the situation, trust it, trust it all. Because you’ll know when things are starting to go in the direction that they shouldn’t. And so I people, I don’t want people to ever think that they get the sense that, yeah, one day I’m going to be so happy and fulfilled in this.

Yes, you will be. But at the same time, how you’ll get there is discipline, choice. Yep. Constant consistency and knowing that, yeah, all that stuff, that demon’s still out there, but it’s got no effect on me anymore. Can’t even come close. Yep. And otherwise you will fall into, you’ll, you’ll sabotage something that, that could be beautiful for the rest of your life. Yeah, that’s good, brother. You know, very good. Well, I’m going, you know, again, I’m just kind of going through some of the notes that I took. You know, I, I think, you know, we’re, we’re coming up.

We got about seven minutes left. And you know, in the final portion of this of your chapter that you talk about, you know, the stuff that we’re talking about, you have rebuilding your identity and superpower. Yeah. Why don’t you talk about that a little bit? Because I think that’s actually probably that, that, that is, is probably one of the most significant parts parts of this. I mean, how do you, how, how do you. Because, because essentially what you’re talking about is overcoming it. Yeah. And yeah, we can start by unpacking that a lot more next week, I think, because.

So as a kid, because I was abused as a kid, what I would do is I developed emotional intelligence. And what I would do is when I walked into a room where people came to the house, I would have the ability to make a decision on. I knew I was going to get abused, but I could pick who was going to abuse me the nicest and I would befriend that person. So there’s a book called Left of Bang which talks about micro splicing and the US Marines recruitment of urban, lower to lower middle class young men into their forces because they could walk around an urban area and see graffitis and posters and signs and know what was safe and what wasn’t safe, what they noticed when they were out in the sand was, was that those young men had a greater ability to be able to detect possible insurgency attacks by looking at graffiti and signs and rubble and stuff on the ground.

Even though it was in a foreign place, in a foreign language, there was something about their brain’s innate ability to micro slice within a fraction of a second and go, hey, whoa, something’s not right here. Gut intuition. And I was in a business meeting and I was in the end of this build. It had gone very, very well. And this person I was negotiating with, it was three other colleagues. Two other colleagues. She crossed her legs and looked a particular way. And what I ended up doing was being able to say, hey, listen, this whole deal is about to go sideways.

And I said that to them when we left the meeting. And nothing had been done overtly, but what I’d had is the ability to pick up these micro slicing, these little bits of information and be able to put it together. So what I was able to do with, with PDS was be able to see it as a strength and a superpower as opposed to a witness or a disease or a disorder. I understood that I’d been given some things, an area of my personal growth that other people hadn’t because I’d actually experienced things that other people hadn’t gone through.

Yeah, interesting. That’s. That’s incredibly important. Yes. Stress to strength, post traumatic growth. Maybe we can start, start there next week and we can unpack some of that. Because I think you’ve probably got some stories in that area, Vinnie. Well, you know, you, you also. Yeah, Vinny, Vinnie has lots of stories. But, you know, one of the things that you, you talked about in here, though, was exercising. Yeah. Physical exercise for me has been my saving grace when I was really trying to get my head into getting well, I took up bodybuilding because it was all consuming.

It was every meal, every day for probably five years. And anyone who’s got the ability to get themselves up every morning and into the gym, if they just do that for 30 days, it’ll change their life. They’ll achieve what most people can’t do. And that’s not a commentary on society or personality. It’s just a commentary on discipline and exercise and physical exercise. And with bodybuilding, I couldn’t drink too much, I couldn’t eat bad things. I had to be focused and consumed with an activity and I wasn’t allowed in my head. So I think any competitive sport or a sport where you’re putting yourself in competition with yourself, even if it’s just going to the gym and working out and getting physical fit.

All of that helps feed the engine in a very positive way. Right. Well, I think that, you know, I mean if you can’t. If, if you’re struggling with the things from a mental standpoint and you, but you can control the physical component. Yep. It’s like the physical component will ultimately lead to being able to control the physical component because. Or the mental component because the physical will stimulate the mental. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Well said. So. All right, well, we are, we’re right about that hour. Mark any, any, any final words you want to have for, for the audience for today.

And before we, we, we kill it for today and then jump and, and we’ll. We’ll kind of pick up the conversation next week. I’d like to know if there’s people out there who’d like to get our. Get Melissa on and Mrs. Ghost on @ some point and have a, an online argument with like what it’s really like. We’re living with us because both Ghost and I know we’re exceptional human beings and very easy to get on with. Non opinionated and very accommodating to, to the women that we love. And I would just like to have a forum where they can just affirm us as we so deserve.

I think that’d be a great idea. I think that’d be a wonderful idea. Don’t you think, Ron? You could like a referee. Hey, I, that, that would be, that, that would be fun. I, I just wonder how that would. I, I mean, I hope it wouldn’t be like a cat fight. Be tag team Worldwide wrestling. It’s all real. Yeah, true. Very true. We’d all have to wear bling and leotards. Well, that’s just Ghost tonight. Very true. Yeah, well, he likes to barbecue like you said in the beginning. Only problem is he likes to barbecue naked. I can’t figure this out.

Come on. Come on. Don’t you bring your sausage into this. All right. Keep your sausage out of this, big guy. All right. I think, I think the. I think, I think both our wives would be able to give a perspective that I think I, I would thoroughly enjoy hearing it. You know, both of our wives, even if we weren’t on it. Ron playing referee and we have to give him. I don’t know if I’d have to play referee. I think it would just be, it would just. It would just be one just. I mean back and forth actually.

It’d be fun. Yeah. Yeah. So, so anyway, that’s just A thought. Now, look, this has been great, Maiden. And look, if we can help if you’re out there and you want to connect with us on social media, I know Ron’s got some social. I’ve got some social. And enter into a conversation like I’m on Instagram or x on. @DrJohna King and be in a space or drop on. Be a part of the Phoenix Collective community. Phoenix Collective app. And let’s have conversations, because I’d really like to hear how we’ve been able to help people. And that’s our aim.

And we got so encouraged with that first person that came in. I think it would be great to be able to do that. And someone in the chat just said, then it’ll be great to be able to get other members of the audience to pop in. Maybe we could take some questions and we could take them up and. And read to the comments or something like that. Be good. Yeah, yeah, sounds good. I agree. I think that’d be. I think that’d be. That. That’d be fantastic. All right. Level of life to the whole conversation, I think when, you know, we.

We say what we say and then there comes a time. Yeah. Definitely involve the audience also. Yeah. This kind of thing really calls for it in a sense. Yeah. Agreed. Well, on. On that note, gentlemen, I guess this edition of the Hump Day Deal with it podcast is come to a conclusion, and we will see you all again next week. And the schedule is pretty much going to be 2:30pm on Eastern Time every. Every Wednesday, every Hump day. And Hump Day was chosen strategically because the Hump is. The is. Is. Is kind of what a lot of people are trying to get over.

Yeah. So. So. So. So anyway, lot. Lot. Lots of, you know, this. This wasn’t. This isn’t an accident of why. Why we’re doing it on Wednesdays. So hopefully, if you guys are able to catch us live, that’s great. Otherwise, if you. If you’re able to catch us after the fact, that’s fine, too. And if you have things that you want to talk about that you have questions or whatever, put them in the comment section. And, you know, maybe what we’ll start doing is addressing some of those comments and questions at the beginning of the next week.

Yeah, that’s a great idea, bro. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. And. And. And you don’t have to, you know, you don’t. You don’t. If. If you want to do it anonymously, you can. You can figure out a way to do it anonymously. To where you can do that, or if you want to do something and you want to ask a question, you can always send it to the My it’s it’s Untold History Channel at Gmail and just put in their question for, for Hump Day podcast or something like that. And then you, we, we can answer, answer, ask or address your, your topic of question or whatever without, you know, without revealing your, your information.

So we’re, we’re, we genuinely want to help people. That is our objective here. It’s not, we don’t, we don’t want to humiliate anybody. And if anybody is actually struggling, you know, we genuinely want to help if we possibly can. And if we don’t have the answers, then we can probably put you in touch with those who can get you the answer. So, yeah, for sure. So yeah. So. All right, guys, on that note, appreciate you taking time out of this, out of your busy schedule to join us on this Hump Day. Thank you there, Dr. John and Vinny.

Mr. Gambini, thank you for your presence as well and look forward to seeing you all next week. Everybody have a great day. Cheerio. God bless.
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