Speaker 1 00:00:08 What's up, everyone. Welcome to the finance for physicians podcast. I'm your host, Daniel Raimi. Join me as we dig into what it looks like for physicians to begin using their finances as a tool to live better lives. You can learn more about our
[email protected] let's. Jump into today's episode. Hey guys, hope you're having a great day. I'm excited to share my conversation today with Dr. Matthew sleep. Matthew is a, he's a very, um, successful guy who had a career in medicine and was in the business of saving lives. Like many of you guys, he worked in the emergency room for a while and then was eventually a chief of a hospital medical staff. But now he has transitioned out of medicine and, um, he teaches and preaches and writes about what I would consider some of the big, serious topics of faith. And today we're going to be talking about his recent book called hope.
Speaker 1 00:01:07 Always this book is all about how you can be a force for life in a culture of suicide. So that's, uh, a big time topic. Not a lot of people are talking about, but it's definitely all over the place. We all know people struggling with depression and, and probably know people who have attempted suicide or maybe even committed suicide. I know I have, but like I said, it's just, it's just one of those topics people are not talking about, but Matthew is different. He's tackling it head on. And I think what's is especially interesting about him is he's, he's taking a very unique approach, a culturally unique approach to addressing it and, um, and dealing with the problem. You'll find out more about the approach he's taking and what that looks like, uh, in our conversation today. But I'll give you a hand. It's probably something you've, you've never really heard before.
Speaker 1 00:02:07 So without further ado, we'll jump into our conversation. What's up everyone. I'm excited to have my guests, Dr. Matthew sleep on today, particularly because of his background. He, as you'll hear in a, in a moment, came up as a emergency room physician and has a lot of experience and stories around that. But in particular, some of his, uh, new projects that he's been working on, I'm super excited to get into those and, um, and, and talk through those. But, um, before we jump into that, I was hoping, well, first of all, Matthew, I really appreciate you coming on. My pleasure. I'm especially interested in just kind of hearing a little bit about kind of your, uh, career path, um, particularly, you know, the, the, the medicine part of it, and kind of, you know, what that looked like and kind of how you've progressed. You know,
Speaker 2 00:02:59 I, I got to medical school in the weirdest way. I had, uh, married into a Jewish family. I wasn't born Jewish. And I tell people that if you're married into a Jewish family and you want to get on the good side of your in-laws, there's only one surefire way I know to do it. And it isn't to convert it's to go to medical school.
Speaker 1 00:03:23 So
Speaker 2 00:03:25 Yeah, it pretty much worked. And so, uh, but the problem with that was that I had flunked out of high school and had been a terrible student. I never had chemistry, biology, how algebra, nothing. I mean, and so I talked to an uncle of mine and he said, I will get you into undergraduate school. I've been a carpenter for seven years and I'll get you into undergraduate school. You'll have a semester. And the rest is up to you. And so I, uh, started undergraduate school and, uh, two and a half years later, I was accepted to multiple med schools without an undergraduate degree. So it all shows you what you can do if you're motivated and you're married to my wife.
Speaker 1 00:04:12 That's always good. Yeah. So, so you, you went med med school, went into emergency, I guess. W what was your training like in, in, in the middle?
Speaker 2 00:04:23 Actually, I did a residency in family practice. I knew that I wanted to do emergency medicine. And at that time about half the family, half of the ER slots were filled by family practice doctors. There's only two resonancies that take all commerce and that's family practice and ER, and, uh, so it was pretty common when I did it to do either, like I could have done it, ER, residency, but I knew I wanted to be in a more rural area. And so I did it, I did a family practice residency, but I never did anything other than emergency medicine.
Speaker 1 00:04:57 And you did emergency medicine the whole way through. Yeah. And you got into the administrative side, is that
Speaker 2 00:05:02 Yeah, I was an ER director and then became chief of staff, uh, at the hospital that happens to you. If you don't show up for me, you get elected.
Speaker 1 00:05:15 Nice. That's funny. So I know you are now, I don't know. I guess if you would call it retired from medicine, you're not practicing at all now, correct.
Speaker 2 00:05:26 Clinical medicine. The thing that happened was, uh, for me is that I met the Lord and, um, I had been an atheist and just a number of things started going wrong in our life, starting with my, my wife's brother ground in front of my children. She got depressed. She wouldn't get treated just one after it was kind of like dominoes going down. And I started looking for, what is the, what is, where does the good on this planet come from? And, and if you you've ever been at a trauma code of a John or Jane DOE, you know, somebody who was hit and they don't have their wallet with them, let's say they're out jogging and you're running that code and you step back and you look, and there may be anywhere from 10 to 15 people, you know, in a trauma room with hundreds of years of combined experience, all trying to save somebody who doesn't even have a name.
Speaker 2 00:06:23 Well, there's something beautiful about that. And there's something absolutely good. And so I said, you know, if there's evil on this planet, where does the good come from it, by the way, evil and good are our spiritual concepts. They're not, they don't fit into an atheist, atheistic, scientific. I only believe in if I could measure it and reproduce it kind of paradigm. And, uh, and that culminated in, oh, I read the Rami on the biography of the Koran, but it culminated in me picking up a Bible and, um, and reading it and, and meeting Christ and it's been a real adventure. So in that sense, then I wish that God had called me into some kind of clinical medicine because I love doing it. Um, but God calls us into what he wants to call us into our job is to go, you know, so,
Speaker 1 00:07:16 So the conversion into your faith started to change the trajectory of your career,
Speaker 2 00:07:22 You know, and, uh, you know, up until that point, our religion had really been the American dream and the American dream is to live in the best house that you can accumulate as much money and things, as you can send your kids to the best school that you can. And the underlying thought behind that is that somehow you're going to get out of this life alive. And, um, and you just never really faced that. And, and of course, believing in Christ is, is completely about belief. And that, there's more that this is just the, the very entrance of, of what life is about, that it goes for thousands, millions of years, that sort of thing, that the soul is a moral.
Speaker 1 00:08:11 You said before we were starting to record a good friend of yours, had some hard conversations or said some, um, I don't remember the wording. You use some, uh, hard to hear things. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:08:23 I was talking about a, uh, friend that was a physician who was the first Christian Guy. I knew by the way, the first hospital, the hospital, where I was, as I became a Christian, I wanted to know somebody else who was a Christian. And I wanted desperately to discuss, you know, what I'm reading and scripture. And, uh, we probably, we weren't a big hospital. We weren't a small hospital. We probably had 350 docs on staff. And I couldn't find one that went to church at Christmas time. And this was on the coast of me. Uh, so I was telling you about the first doc I met, who was a believer. And I remember he said hard things to me. We started going to a small group that he ran and he, every is small groups would go and split and split. They, they had to do like stock splits every yeah.
Speaker 2 00:09:18 And, and I, uh, we came a few times and as a family, and then we didn't come and he called me, he said, what what's going on? I said, well, you know, you've got some, you've got some real characters there that I just don't have a whole lot in common with, and I'm not getting a whole lot out of it. And there was a moment of quiet. He said, Matthew, D do you really think you're here to get you, your, your God has brought you into the church to give that kind of, so God sent me a Saint to teach, to begin with.
Speaker 1 00:09:53 Yeah. So those sort of experiences, and, you know, the career progression started to change. What did that look like? Was it like a snap of the finger you're out?
Speaker 2 00:10:02 It wasn't a snap of the finger. I went to the hospital board and told them I was resigning. Their first reaction was, oh, you're going to brand X bigger hospital because, you know, to make more money, I'm like, no, I I'm, I'm quitting. And I, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to follow God. And, uh, and so I would do some moonlighting. If you're an ER doc, you can always win like that kind of moonlighting for a couple of years, as I began studying scripture. And then I wrote my first book and, uh, then there was sort of no turning back. I, I, I realized that you can't have two masters and as much as I love medicine, that God wanted me in ministry full time.
Speaker 1 00:10:43 And so today I know, um, part of the reason we connected is kind of, I, you know, one of your areas that you're focusing on is in, uh, depression and suicide and, and ways to, um, manage that. That's a, that's a tough topic. Um, and that, it seems like nobody wants to talk about it's taboo. Um, what, what made you start going down? I have a feeling, I know what the answer is to this, uh, that path of, of getting into that sort of taboo topic.
Speaker 2 00:11:18 I, the, the answer is that I think God has called me to speak to the church in areas that are not popular, that they don't want to hear, but that is fundamental to the faith. And so areas like, um, that I've written and spoken about, like Sabbath, again, not, not a popular topic, but fundamental to the faith really. And suicide is, uh, an area that first of all, it, it just a secular level. It is grown by 2% every year for the last couple of decades and shows no signs of slowing down or abating and, um, the, uh, secular world and the, and the mental health professionals have no way of dealing with this worsening crisis other than to do more of what they've been doing, which hasn't been working. And so, you know, I went to scripture where I think, you know, we find the answers to everything and, um, found that only the Bible.
Speaker 2 00:12:25 So far as I know, the Bible is the only sacred text of the planet that says where suicide comes from and there on the first page, you have Adam and Eve in paradise being told you can't do this one thing. And if you do it, you will surely die. You'll be committing suicide. Your, your, your, your life will end and they not only did it, um, but they had help. There's a character called Satan there that is urging them on. And it's interesting because in the way that suicide is approach, now, you, we approach people as a combination of mind and body in the way suicide has traditionally been approached in the Western world. You are mind body and soul. And so the, just approaching it as mind and body is not working. It gets worse every year.
Speaker 1 00:13:17 Can you tell me a little bit about the statistics I thought were, um, I'd never heard it expressed the way you did and how those have changed over time and how there's a lot of misleading or, you know, you got to peel back the layers to understand what's really happening.
Speaker 2 00:13:31 Yeah. You have to be, I don't think there's any, um, you know, malfeasance in this, but to, um, uh, peel back the layers suicide is measured in the number per a hundred thousand per year. And that's so we can compare one time to another or one population to another one country to another. And right now in the United States where it's 14 and a half suicides, per hundred thousand people per year, well, what does that mean? It it's just a number and it's, and, and frankly, it's humans don't respond that great to numbers. Um, you know, I didn't marry my wife because the numbers were right.
Speaker 1 00:14:11 Although I've heard that happen. Probably not a good idea.
Speaker 2 00:14:13 Yeah. Probably not a good idea, but, and so 14 and a half per hundred thousand per year does tie the all time high in our society, um, in the United States that was experienced during the depression. But then I wanted to kind of look at that a little more closely. And when you look at it with a little bit more of a sophisticated eye, as it were, or, you know, a probing, I, you find that, that, that number really means almost nothing because in 1930, it was much easier to kill yourself in 1930, if you overdosed on something and somebody wanted to call an ambulance. Well, good luck. The majority of the homes in the United States didn't have a phone, but let's say you had a phone and you pick it up. Well, the majority of towns in the United States in 1930, didn't have an ambulance service, but okay.
Speaker 2 00:15:03 Let's say they did. You get to a hospital. The majority of hospitals didn't have emergency departments in 1930, and they have casually words. So let's say you got all that. Well, if you've overdosed on narcotics, there's nothing you can do to reverse them. If you've overdosed on, you know, uh, uh, uh, a poison of fertilizer, let's say, which was a common thing, uh, there's no way to identify it. There's no way to reverse it. The most common thing that happens really in lethal overdoses is to knock out the respiratory dry in 1930, your dad today, we put people in mechanical ventilators and get them over that. And so that if you had to take the one and a half million people that will be seen in the coming year for suicide, uh, seen in emergency departments and transport them back to 1930, uh, we would have a suicide rate somewhere between two and 300 per a hundred thousand, but then it gets worse in 1930, there nothing to treat depression with.
Speaker 2 00:16:08 I don't even believe that insulin shock therapy was used yet. It's probably the late thirties that that came in. And so, um, and so there's nothing to treat depression with in 20 21, 1 in eight Americans, adults are permanently on an antidepressant, but then it gets worse because we count things differently. In 1930, if you were found on the ground with dead, with a heroin syringe, uh, beside you, that was counted as a suicide today, unless there is a suicide note in an overdose that's counted as an accident, even if you just took the overdose deaths and added them back into suicide, the way they would be, the suicide rate would quadruple. And so, in fact, we're at a, a place that no society's ever been, and it's simply technology, that's saving nine out of 10 of the people that are attempting suicide.
Speaker 1 00:17:12 Yeah. And I, I heard, you know, the, that breakdown to me was in some ways shocking, but then in other ways, I kind of, I've read a lot about the, um, you know, depression being such a big issue in our culture and society, which is, I guess, culturally kind of counterintuitive because you're like, well, people think of happiness tying to wealth or whatever, and we're the wealthiest country ever. And, and you know, why do, why are we unhappy
Speaker 2 00:17:41 The great depression? They knew why they were depressed. The, the stock market had collapsed. The banking system had collapsed. Those are two separate things. The economy collapsed. A quarter of all working adults were out of whore and the environment had collapsed. That's the era of the dust bowl. And there's millions of people losing their farms and, and way of life. So they knew why they were depressed. I think if you asked the average American today, why they're depressed, they be hard pressed to give you an answer.
Speaker 1 00:18:18 Why is that? That we don't have an answer it's
Speaker 2 00:18:21 Well, I think because we've denied the fact that we're not only mind and body, but that we're also, uh, spiritual
Speaker 1 00:18:30 As well. So we're completely avoiding that part
Speaker 2 00:18:33 Of, you know, we've morphed ourselves from the anchor of God and the concept that we are not just animals. And the interesting thing by the way, is no animal commit suicide. There's no animal model that you can study suicide with. And for, for seventy-five years, psychologists have ever tried to, uh, come up with, you know, an animal model and they've tortured a lot of rats and monkeys, but in fact, they've, they've come up with, with nothing. And so, um, just because no, you know, we are unique in the animal kingdom for ending our lives for being attracted to the things that kill us.
Speaker 1 00:19:18 Yeah. And we have an awareness of this greater purpose, or what is our purpose?
Speaker 2 00:19:23 Yeah. What is our, what is our purpose? Modern thinking is secular thinking is that we are an accident and that, uh, when we die, that's it. And therefore, you know, nothing, nothing matters really. So it's not a very satisfying worldview.
Speaker 1 00:19:47 Right. You told a or so I read your book, um, hope always. And there was a story you shared about sitting next to someone on an airplane. And I think, I think it was a female started to describe their experience with their child sharing suicidal thoughts. Is that right?
Speaker 2 00:20:09 Yeah. It was flying back into Lexington. So little, little commuter Jack, two seats, aisle, and two seats. And, uh, I was sitting by the window and there was a woman sitting next to me. And then her two sons, uh, were sitting across the aisle. And I think there were 13 and 10, 13, 11, something like that. And they were jetting back from a, uh, sports engagement. And, um, she and her husband took these kids all over the country to camps, to games, et cetera, et cetera. And that's what they were coming back from. And she talked and talked and really, as we were getting close to Lexington, she finally said, well, what do you do for a living? And I, and I said, well, I'm a writer and kind of left it at that. And she said, well, what, what are you writing about? I said, well, my, my latest book is about suicide.
Speaker 2 00:21:07 She got very, very quiet. And she said, just last week, my son, my 13 year old said he didn't want to live anymore. And I said, how did, how did you respond? And she said, I, I told him, that's, that's crazy. Look at all the things that your parents do for you and all the opportunities that you have, but he was expressing that his life was miserable, um, to him. And so I think that was a mom who didn't mean any harm. She obviously was doing what she thought was being a super parent. And yet he was at a very, very different place. And what I would have said, if she'd asked me what she should do is to say, why do you feel that way? And even, even more, why do you, uh, do you have a plan for that in our, our city?
Speaker 2 00:22:00 And I know you have listeners everywhere, but in our, uh, our city of Lexington, Kentucky in a three month period of time, we had a 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old, 13, 14 year old commit suicide. This is B becoming a disease of young people, uh, to an extent that it, that it wasn't before. And you've got to engage and you've got to actually get there before the express it, the first time there have been studies that have shown that, uh, teenagers, by the way, the number one killer of 13 year olds in the United States is suicide. It's not even accidents anymore that they may have as little as 30 minutes between their first thought about suicide and actually attempting it. And so we, we've got to be there with these young people before the subject comes up and doing the things that prevent it. One of those things is this is not your thought. This is a thought from outside yourself. That means you harm and evil and recoil from that, that thought, and then tell somebody who can help.
Speaker 1 00:23:11 Yeah. And you mentioned, um, secular thinking or the, the culture maybe as a whole kind of adopts this philosophy that, um, you're an accident. And so if you throw that into the mix, it's like, I'm sure that amps it up, even, you know, it makes it worse. It's like,
Speaker 2 00:23:28 Yeah, it's, it's what, what does it matter? And, and we see that being reflected in, in the law of the land around the world, uh, Canada has, what's called the maid law. It's the medical assistance in dying. And that law has, was amended this year so that somebody can go into a physician and demand to be put, to sleep. Even if they don't have a terminal disease, even if their only diagnosis is mental illness. And that's going to be extended to make a 10, 11 year old emancipated minor. Once they come to that decision to give an example of how deeply this has spread into society. I wrote a editorial for the Lexington Herald leader in a last line. I said, I'm going to paraphrase, but it's time that we started thinking about things like concepts, like God and faith in preventing suicide. And even the concept that suicide is a moral wrong. And the Lexington Herald leader rejected that line in an op-ed please. I am no longer allowed to even have an opinion that suicide is wrong. And that's in Lexington, Kentucky, you know, the buckle of the Bible belt it's um, so we're, we're, we're going to be in a place, you know, in a year or so, where a 10 year old can go to their pediatrician and demand to be put to sleep without the parents being notified.
Speaker 1 00:25:05 You also told a story. I think it was maybe you're a grandmother or something she told you that stuck with you about,
Speaker 2 00:25:13 Yeah, it was, it, it was, uh, a great, great agent who, uh, w uh, I'll tell you how old she was. Uh, one time she grabbed me by the shoulders and she said it, and I was, you know, she'd do that occasionally and really get money turned. She said, Matthew, now I'm getting too old. I'm not going to be able to tell you later, let me tell you about being a child in the civil war. And, uh, you know, in, in 1960, she was, you know, relating what happened, uh, you know, a little bit over a hundred years before. And, uh, so anyways, uh, she grabbed me by the shoulders and she said, uh, you are, she said, you're a rascal starting there loves you. And he puts you here for a purpose, and he loves you so much. And you're such a rascal. He had to assign two angels to you.
Speaker 2 00:26:03 You look back over my shoulders. I swear she saw or whatever and winked up. But what she was saying to me is that I wasn't an accident that, that God loved me enough, by the way, they assigned me to eight or whatever. And I don't think a lot of kids are hearing that they're hearing over and over again. We love you, but not enough to stay married. And so you're going to spend weekends with dad and we, you know, you're just hearing these things that in fact, there's nothing that they can count on. And, uh, and that that's, that's not a worldview that's going to work for them.
Speaker 1 00:26:42 I'm curious what your thoughts are on, um, medicine and physicians in particular. And I have my understanding is there,
Speaker 2 00:26:49 Uh, the rate of suicide within that profession is even a tick higher than, than, uh, yeah. Yeah. So there have been studies that show physicians have a aha and dentists have a high suicide rate. And I think one of the things is they know how to kill themselves. They know how to be successful at that. So I don't know that there's more attempts or whatever. That's where those numbers get hard to assess. And they have the, the means and the access, uh, to, uh, you know, drugs that, that are lethal. And so they, they tend to be successful when they, when they try suicide. And just in general, uh, women try suicide four time, uh, excuse me, twice as much as men, but men are four times more successful. And that's simply because men reach for firearms more often than that. It's a more lethal, uh, means in my clinical career. I didn't really see that I saw women doing just as lethal a things and killing themselves really at the same rate as men, but that's the stats.
Speaker 1 00:27:56 So the other part about being a physician is you have this, um, you're going to interact with a lot more of the scenarios with other people showing signs of suicidal thoughts, or, you know, deep depression or whatnot, and not everybody is a psychiatrist, or even, I'm not sure even what their training is, but on this, but what, what sort of things, um, are there suggestions you have for, you know, those that are, maybe they resonate with the idea of what we're talking about, and, but haven't quite approached it from this angle and they're using more of the, you know, prescribed methodology, um, any suggestions for how to kind of reach this soft subject. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:28:40 I, first of all, I wrote hope always, uh, there's, uh, to be part of an answer, not, not an exploration of why things are wrong. And we often in our society go to people who are complete failure, that stuff and ask, how do you become a success? As an example, when I wrote my first book, the two most popular books on relationships, how to have a good relationship with the opposite sex was men are from Mars. Women are from Venus and making relationships work. And that's, uh, Stephen Gray and Barbara de Angela where the were, the authors of those are, are the authors of those books. And the interesting thing is there's a relationship between those that's his fifth wife and that's her third husband.
Speaker 2 00:29:34 And so I didn't want to hope always to be like that, an exploration of why things are wrong. I wanted to know why are committed Christians four to six times less likely to take their lives than an atheist. I wanted to know what got people over those hard times and why we have people in the church who, uh, suffered with depression and at a time before medicines, and yet they didn't kill themselves. People like George Frederick Handel on CS Lewis said Henry now, and, and mother Teresa and so on and so on. And I wanted to know what kept them alive. And I think by the way, we should use everything that works. And so if medicines work for somebody spectacular, you know, I I'm all for that. I and I plead with people in the book, never stop a medicine without a prescribers say so, but the number one reason that people gave why they came to the brink of suicide and backed away was fear of the Lord fear of what would happen afterwards.
Speaker 2 00:30:43 Fear of the consequences that it wasn't all over. And scripture says that the fear of the Lord is the foundation of wisdom to understand that there's something much, much bigger than a much, much more powerful is the beginning of wisdom. And the second reason that they backed away was concern over the effect of those left behind and suicide is a devastating thing for your listeners who had a family member commit suicide. They can tell you, they, they don't stop hurting in a couple of months or a year, or even a couple of years sticks, sticks with them forever. And, but again, we see that those people that backed away, um, because of concern for others, well, that that's the model of Christ's life is to be more concerned to, to make yourself less and to make others more. And so for those who are interested, I would say, you know, get hope always I have a, your listeners are physicians, so I'll probably go by their own copy, but my standard offered.
Speaker 2 00:32:02 And you may have some listeners who are not physicians in residency and fellowship and residency. You, they can get ahold of me and I'll send them a copy. I just want people to have this as a tool. And we already, you know, it's been out, uh, several months, but we already have the feedback that this has save lives, that this, this different approach is, is saving lives. And you don't know until you write a book until it's out there, what the results are going to be. Um, but I would say that if, if somebody wants to explore a different way of approaching this and viewing it and, and getting, you know, through their own dark nights, by the book, hope always, if you can't afford it, you get ahold of me and I'll send you one.
Speaker 1 00:32:48 I appreciate that. Going out that offer. I know it's, uh, I, I took them up on the offer. Well, I paid, I gave a donation for the, a book and, um, and it was definitely a great read. And I, you know, what really got me thinking about it is every, we have interactions with lots of people and it's kinda like having CPR training. It's I feel like it's my duty to at minimum, understand the high level of how this works. Not exactly, but like, at least enough to say, you know, kind of help point people in different directions. And, and this is we have, I have immediate people in my family and relatives and that sort of thing that I know have then in this realm of suicidal thoughts and air, and very many people that I know of that have been in deeper depression.
Speaker 1 00:33:43 And so, um, I feel like this is a big problem and, and, and is, seems to be getting worse. And it's, it's just feels like such a good thing in the tool belt to have that, uh, ability to kind of, cause I have no idea. I don't, I don't, and nobody's talked about it. It's so that's why, you know, it's such a good thing to, um, I think those sorts of topics, nobody talks about sometimes there's some of the best topics to kind of jump head in into, especially in, um, when it's affecting you in or gonna affect you in young people. Um, I think it's gonna get worse. Um, and you know, that's going to be one of the challenges we face,
Speaker 2 00:34:22 You know, it's an unbelievably rewarding thing to save a life. It's just, uh, if it floated my boat as an Ihara talk, my, my son is a one-man baby safe and machine. And, uh, in, uh, in admissions hospital and in Africa, it there's just, it's the most rewarding work, but you don't have to go to medical school for this one. All you have to do is, you know, read a book like this or a similar book and just have a few tools in your tool belt whole out. And in the one thing that you do, uh, learn in this book, in every other, like it is that that silence is not the way to approach the topic that you have to be willing to extend yourself enough to ask a question, have you been thinking about harming yourself and then the fall at the answer is yes.
Speaker 2 00:35:22 The follow-up question is, do you have a plan? And I know that, uh, my wife called me from a home a few years ago and they had a 10 year old son who was having a difficult time acclimating to the American scene. He was from Africa and, uh, my wife was worried about him and she called me and said, what do I do? And I said, you gotta ask that question. And that was hard for her, but she asked it and he said, yes, I have been. And then she said, Valois cause he have a plan. He had a plan. He knew exactly which knife he was going to get out of the kitchen drawer. And when he was going to do it, when the family was asleep and he was going to slice his wrist and he was, and she said, now, what do I do?
Speaker 2 00:36:14 I said, now you go to the hospital, um, which, which they did. And, uh, but here, uh, two, three years later that that fellow is alive and doing well. But if you don't go through that uncomfortable moment of asking, are you thinking about harming yourself, you giving up the opportunity to be the most profound influence that somebody can be on someone else's life and that's saving it. And sometimes you do these things and you don't even know we, because of this book, we had a woman contact us and she said, you probably don't remember me. Um, but I've, I've, I've read this book now. And when I was 19 years old, uh, your family just asked me to go on a picnic. You didn't know me really. You just asked, would I go on a family picnic? She said I was ready to kill myself. And so I think, you know, with these younger people, particularly having gone through COVID this so isolated that we need to be getting into their lives and say, Hey, can I meet you for breakfast? Hey, you know, can we get together on a regular basis and go for a walk, et cetera.
Speaker 1 00:37:27 Yeah. One last question. Before we jump off here, I was hoping you would, uh, share the story about the radio show you were doing with, uh, I think it was a church group or some guys, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:37:42 The book had just come out and, uh, I went to do, uh, it was it's called solid steps radio. And the two pastors run this and I'd been on the show a number of times before really enjoy them and their audience and everything. And so they took me out to lunch beforehand. And then one of them said, uh, Matthew got a favor to ask you. There's somebody I knew decades ago, who are I haven't had contact with, who's gotten in touch with me and he's not a Christian. And he has lost two sons to suicide and a son-in-law and he has a gun and a plan to use it on himself. Uh, would you mind if he sat in while we did the show? And so he did, and at the end of the show, the three of us just laid our hands on him and prayed for him.
Speaker 2 00:38:30 That was on a Thursday on Sunday. I was sent a picture of him being baptized. And, uh, when I came to his church three months later, which was Southeast Christian in or Juguna church and that's not even mega that's <inaudible> yeah, he was there and just, just beaming and happy to be alive and, and that sort of thing. And it's just the, just the illustration that when the church says we're here, don't kill yourself. People respond to it, but the church has been completely quiet on this. Um, so particularly for your listeners who are involved in the, in the Christian faith, I would say arm yourself, and get out there and make a difference, a literally a life and death difference in your colleagues lives, your friend's lives, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 00:39:26 Yeah. It's a big deal. Absolutely. Well, Matthew, I really didn't enjoy talking through this and I appreciate you coming on to share.
Speaker 2 00:39:34 Likewise, Daniel, it's been an honor
Speaker 1 00:39:36 As always. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you found this valuable, please give us a review on iTunes and share with a friend. Also check out our website at finance, for physicians.co for all sorts of additional content. See you next time. Finance for physicians is not an investment tax legal or financial advisor. All content included in this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial tax or legal advice. Material presented is believed to be from reliable sources and no representations are made by finance for physicians as to another party's informational accuracy or completeness, all information or ideas provided should be discussed in detail with an advisor accountant or legal counsel prior to the implementation. If you don't have an advisor or like a second opinion, feel free to check out our website for recommended advisors.
