TRUE Word, Faith for LIFE! with Dr. Shawn Greener

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Welcome to Topsail Insider, where you can hear all about the businesses and events in the beautiful coastal towns in the greater Topsail area of North Carolina.

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Coming up, I have the honor and privilege of speaking with Dr Reverend Sean Greener.

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He's a man who was pronounced dead at the scene of a horrific car accident and, although he lives with a life-threatening condition as a result, he has defied all odds.

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His journey has been nothing short of miraculous.

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From serving in the US Navy and law enforcement to founding an elite executive protection firm, dr Greener's life took an unimaginable turn.

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Yet today he continues to inspire and impact lives through his books, podcast and public speaking.

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You don't want to miss this extraordinary, profound tale of survival and strength on today's episode of experience.

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Hello everyone and welcome to Topsail Insider.

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My name is Krista and I am your host.

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Today we are talking to Dr Reverend Sean Greener, a resident of Hampstead.

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He is the host of True Word, faith for Life podcast and author of two books Excellence Killed the Church how Mediocrity is Destroying America.

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That was in 2012.

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And he's also written the Bible Summary for Real People.

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Welcome, dr Greener.

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Thank you for joining me today.

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Well, thanks for inviting me.

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I've been waiting for this for a long time, actually, because how I met you and I'll be brief with this I met Dr Greener when I was starting this podcast and I was looking for some equipment and he posted on Marketplace.

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So I asked him, because I was looking for some equipment and he posted on Marketplace.

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So I asked him because I was being nosy.

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I was like, well, why are you giving up podcasting?

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And he did inform me at that time that he was very ill and I got the feeling that I just needed to stop asking questions.

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And so he told me that he had some more podcast equipment coming up.

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So I was following him, I was looking to see what else he might be selling and, lo and behold, I noticed he has a podcast up.

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I'm like you did not quit podcasting, what's going on?

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And so I reached back out and I'm so glad to have you at this table today.

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Thank you so much.

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Oh, it's my pleasure.

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You were military law enforcement and a private protection firm, which I find completely fascinating, and I know that I can't ask you any questions about it.

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I'm going to ask a little bit.

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And you can tell me what you're allowed to say.

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You are a disabled US Navy veteran and a former Newcastle County police officer and an expert on terrorism, counterterrorism, personal protection, survival and high-level threat assessment.

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Fascinating.

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I sound like somebody, don't I?

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Yeah, that's a pretty exciting life.

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What led you to join the Navy first of all, and can you just talk about the progression to law enforcement and to eventually founding your company, the Executive Protection Team?

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First of all, thank you very much for having me.

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I'm honored to be here and I'm excited for this podcast what a cool podcast.

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And your reasons in our conversation before, your reasons for doing this.

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I love them.

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I love your motivation.

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I love your why.

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You know the Navy.

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My uncles had all been in World War II and my favorite uncle.

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They're all deceased, but my favorite uncle was in the entire World War II, except for 30 some days the whole war and he spoke with such love about his service and his why.

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And he had a rough upbringing.

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He was a really tough upbringing.

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Why?

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And he had a rough upbringing.

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He was really tough upbringing and he married my mother's eldest sister and he came from really the wrong side of the tracks, if you will, but he served heroically, just with great honor and valor, and no big deal to him.

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He thought, well, this is what you do.

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And so I looked at that as a model and I thought, okay, my older brother, who was two years ahead of me.

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He went into the Navy and for me I had scholarship officers.

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I had three full scholarship officers.

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I played soccer, I did art and martial arts, and so I had options, but one day it was maybe 6, 6.30 in the morning and my parents were early risers and I was an early riser because I ran.

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I would do a lot of the fitness training and all these things.

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I was still in high school, but I would do a lot of that stuff early in the morning.

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There was no sleeping in at my house, that wasn't a thing, and so at that time the pans were 150 years old.

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Big old cast iron pans were 150 years old.

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Big old cast iron pan 150 years old.

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I'm just standing there and I'm looking like what is my life about?

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What is my contribution?

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And this was in my junior year and I was just thinking to myself okay, what am I going to do here?

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Because I knew that I could play soccer at really great division North Carolina was one of them.

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I knew that I could go to art school, to really great schools, and I knew I had options that maybe other people in my family hadn't had.

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But I looked at what am I contributing?

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Where am I making my mark?

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And I'm saying, okay, this is my country, but what have I done for it?

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And then I made the connection okay, my physical body will never be more fit than it is now.

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And the Navy said hold my beer.

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Oh, is that correct?

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Was that what you think?

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So I just decided, right there standing there, I walked into my parents.

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They were sitting on the porch and I said I'm joining the Navy.

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And my dad said is that a question or a statement?

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What?

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What are you telling me here?

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I said I need somebody to sign for me because I was young.

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They said, okay, what are you going to do?

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I said I'm not sure, I don't know.

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But you knew it was the Navy.

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I knew it was the Navy.

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The reason I knew it was the Navy was because several of my uncles were in the Navy.

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Now my favorite uncle was in the Army, but I knew that the ASVABs.

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I had aced the ASVAB.

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The ASVAB test is the test that everybody takes to see what your level of intelligence, your employability, Specifically for the Navy or across all military branches?

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For all military, but it's basically an assessment, but I took it and I aced it.

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I don't know how.

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It's not something that I know of that you could study for.

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I don't know how.

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I just had a weird brain then that I could.

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Well, you were a literal genius, am I right?

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You were a literal genius, am I?

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Am.

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I right, you were.

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Okay, We'll get.

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I want to talk about that a little more.

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My wife will say not anymore.

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We're going to get Colleen here one day she's going to give you all the dirt.

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So you were saying you passed that test, so I had to take it again, because if you, if everything, if it's, I guess, the way way they measure it 100%, they say okay, well, what's the deal with this guy?

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Something went wrong, something's fishy here, and so I had to take it again with a proctor as close as you and I are sitting.

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Oh, interesting yeah.

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So I took it again and I had seen it and I had this brain where, if I would look at something just for a second, like, for instance, a book, and this is nothing I taught myself, it's a gift, it was a gift and I didn't appreciate it, and I guess as we go on, we'll see just how much I didn't realize the gift that I had until I lost it.

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Would you say it's a photographic memory?

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Photographic is about the third level down from the memory that I had.

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Yeah, so so I would goodness.

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Yeah, it was a weird situation.

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I could actually read.

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This is this was a fun party trick.

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My wife didn't believe I could do it until she goes.

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Okay, fine, so I could read two different books side by side at the same time really you could quiz me about it.

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so my wife goes you know we're, we were dating at the time, show me, and I you could quiz me about it.

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So my wife goes you know we were dating at the time, show me.

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And I did it.

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And she was like, oh okay.

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That's incredible, that's kind of weird, yeah, but I didn't know.

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I thought everybody.

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I literally grew up thinking everybody had the brain I had Incredible.

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And everybody had the eyesight I had.

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Oh wait, what about your eyesight?

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I?

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had crazy eyesight Really.

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Yeah, the best they could measure it was 25.

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They didn't go any higher than that.

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When you go in and your doctor's office, you stand on line read the lowest line you can read.

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Well, I could read the copyright at the bottom yeah, oh, my gosh, yeah.

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But so the thing is I had all these assets that I didn't.

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First of all, I didn't realize that everybody didn't have.

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I knew some people didn't utilize their capacity, they didn't go to capacity, but in my case I had teachers on my case all the time.

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I had my English lit teacher, god bless him.

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He actually cussed me out after class one day and he said you are wasting a gift that, trust me, not even 1%.

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So your teachers were aware of this gift and they knew that you were not utilizing it fully.

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Some were what kind of student were you?

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I was okay.

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I was okay.

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Were you bored.

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Very bored.

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Yeah, I felt like it was a lot of wasted time.

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I didn't have the capacity to deal with the people talking back, the people interrupting the people.

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The other students just weren't paying attention, yeah, and I figured we're only here for this little bit of time Now.

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I hadn't put together the whole idea of put this is your career, this is your high school career, then it's going to be your college career, right, I didn't look at it that way.

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I was into sports and art.

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You said soccer, any other sports besides?

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soccer In high school, only soccer.

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I only played soccer, but I did martial arts.

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What style of martial arts did you do?

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Well, that's what's interesting.

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I started with Aikido, which is really a flowing, was designed to disarm swordsmen when you don't have a sword and then I think my husband took that yeah, no good yeah, it's not a popular.

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It's not a popular style it's more about mindset, uh and exchange of energy transferring yes so there's a lot of rolling and all that, and I was I was really really good at that, but I was also very, very good at striking, so I fought competitively in full contact karate.

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Okay.

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And so I excelled in that area, but I was a really skinny kid, but I was really really fast and I was very strong, and so my thought was okay, I don't think my body's, my capacity, my strength, my quickness, any of those things, I don't think I'm going to be better and faster, and my mental acuity?

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it's never going to be better than now as a young man, and so I just I made the decision while I was making.

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I still remember what I was making.

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I can't remember what I ate this morning, but I remember I was making scrambled eggs in a 150-year-old pan, that's really cool.

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So for the Navy, when you go to boot camp, I had never been on a plane, except for recruiting.

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So no college.

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You went straight from high school to Navy.

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Much to the chagrin of a lot of my teachers.

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Right, yeah, I bet yeah.

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I think I would have wasted the scholarship money in fairness In the military a lot of the schools, depending on what you do.

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I had a very nondescript job really, but I was fascinated by the military training and as I progressed I had opportunities presented to me because different people saw capabilities and I loved the Navy.

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So I was married.

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I got married young and this is my second marriage 21 years.

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Oh that's right my second marriage, but my first marriage I was too young.

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I was too young and I was far less of, probably far less of a husband and definitely far less of a father than I could have been and should have been.

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So, that being said, I didn't stay in the navy.

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I had been recruited by the agency the agency oh really so I was recruited twice and on two separate kind of two areas of attack they flanked me okay, but you're gonna have to go back.

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So what were they seeing that they're like.

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We need you on our team.

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At the time I didn't know I was being recruited.

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First of all I had no idea.

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And let's just dispense of the movies portray.

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Hollywood portrays that kind of life romantically.

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You know, that's what I'm tapping into right now.

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Yeah, it's really not.

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It's super, super hard.

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It's a hard life.

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You lie to everyone, including your family, all the people that are closest to you.

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My parents didn't know until shortly before my father died I shared it with him Really and my mother.

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After my father had died, I ended up protecting some very high profile people.

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Father had died.

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I ended up protecting some very high profile people and we were on CNN and usually if you're on a protection team, your objective is to stay out of the camera shot, and that was always my goal.

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But in these particular cases there was so much press around these people that you could.

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There was no way to effectively protect them, and so I would get calls when the wee hours of the morning my mother she would be up late.

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Sean, I'm watching television and I'm seeing you on television and you're with this person and she knew who they would be and it looks like you're a bodyguard.

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Is this you, or is this someone who looks like you?

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And a lot of my friends and different people who had no idea they were seeing it.

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They were seeing it too.

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So all of a sudden I'm getting these calls and so finally I said oh no, mom, that's just a doppelganger.

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People have said that before because I didn't want her to worry, obviously, and so there's an element of you protect your family by lying to them.

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There is a truth to that, because when you share certain things that are very difficult to hear, the darkness that exists in the world is too dark for most people to handle.

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Right, I can see that.

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It's just like with combat.

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Combat is there's a very high level.

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It's not just an adrenaline rush, but you're competing at the highest level life or death, life or death.

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And so there is a.

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I'm going to use the word thrill, but really thrill has a negative connotation in this space, but in reality it's the challenge, it's the ultimate challenge, and you lose when you die.

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The challenge is live and win or die, which is not the case really.

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There are lots of heroic men and women who have died in combat and they died heroes not just because they died, but they died doing heroic things beyond our imagination.

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But that world is extremely dark, and when you enter into the space of international intelligence in the clandestine I was in the clandestine service you see an experience and are privy to things that are sickeningly terrible and evil, and so at the same time, as a younger person, it's thrilling.

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Right, I get it, I totally get it.

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So it challenges your intellect, challenges your physical abilities, challenges your ability to think on your feet.

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And the problem is, stress is good.

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Dr Jim Lohr in his book Stress for Success a book was out, I don't know, 20 years ago.

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It's still the best book on using stress to your advantage, and he talks about linear stress versus oscillating stress.

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Oscillating stress is okay.

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I'm going into this really difficult situation, and so then you ramp up, ramp up, ramp up, and that loop is going higher and higher and higher.

00:18:00.684 --> 00:18:21.534
And that pinnacle is that moment where higher and higher and higher, and that pinnacle is that moment where, whatever it is you're dealing with, whatever you're engaging, coming out victorious and then taking that deep breath on the downside of it and catching your breath and letting all that adrenaline flow out of you.

00:18:21.534 --> 00:18:24.265
And so that's oscillating stress and that's good for us.

00:18:24.265 --> 00:18:26.431
Just like lifting weights right?

00:18:26.431 --> 00:18:30.602
If you lifted a weight and you just held it up all the time, that's linear stress on your body.

00:18:30.602 --> 00:18:38.634
Lifting weights, weight-resistant training, is really the fountain of youth, but if you do it every day, all day, it's going to wreck you.

00:18:38.634 --> 00:18:46.894
So you have to oscillate, you have to rest, and so that's the way the stress is, for whatever reason, I had an uncanny ability.

00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:48.286
I was recruited for several reasons.

00:18:48.286 --> 00:18:52.210
My eyesight was off the charts, literally off the charts.

00:18:52.210 --> 00:18:57.951
I could see no kidding, as long as it was within the line of sight.

00:18:57.951 --> 00:19:00.656
I could read street signs from almost a mile away.

00:19:00.656 --> 00:19:01.038
That's incredible.

00:19:01.038 --> 00:19:01.318
It was insane.

00:19:01.318 --> 00:19:01.920
From almost a mile away.

00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:02.961
That's incredible.

00:19:02.980 --> 00:19:14.291
Well, here's what I learned is, that's great, but the issue that made that good and bad was my perception of everything.

00:19:14.291 --> 00:19:19.890
Was on fire, so I was seeing little movements and I had a.

00:19:19.890 --> 00:19:26.951
My peripheral vision was greater than normal, so I could see very clearly what's way out here.

00:19:28.281 --> 00:19:29.926
So this is a hyper-stimulation.

00:19:29.926 --> 00:19:32.086
It is it's hyper-awareness.

00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:36.971
Great for executive protection in areas where you're, you know, great for that.

00:19:36.971 --> 00:19:37.551
But guess what?

00:19:37.551 --> 00:19:38.805
That doesn't shut off.

00:19:38.805 --> 00:19:40.602
And so what?

00:19:40.602 --> 00:19:41.962
A lot of people with that?

00:19:41.962 --> 00:19:50.934
There aren't many people with that, but the people that have it among that group they tend to drink or do drugs to try to shut that off.

00:19:50.934 --> 00:19:51.556
Yeah, yeah.

00:19:51.779 --> 00:19:56.372
Because, it's exasperating because you hear and you see everything, all the movement.

00:19:56.372 --> 00:19:57.967
You're always paying close attention to it.

00:19:57.967 --> 00:20:00.464
So all of that either eyesight.

00:20:00.464 --> 00:20:04.773
But what became evident was my ability to accept pain.

00:20:04.773 --> 00:20:09.203
Now people will use a word or a phrase called pain tolerance.

00:20:09.203 --> 00:20:12.132
Pain tolerance and pain acceptance are two different things.

00:20:12.132 --> 00:20:23.045
So pain acceptance is the ability to feel pain, intense, terrible pain, and still function at an optimal level.

00:20:23.045 --> 00:20:25.050
Mental acuity is still high.

00:20:25.050 --> 00:20:30.333
Physical ability is still high despite severe pain impairment.

00:20:30.640 --> 00:20:32.825
Did you have that naturally?

00:20:32.924 --> 00:20:33.246
or is that?

00:20:33.266 --> 00:20:34.107
something you trained?

00:20:34.107 --> 00:20:35.451
No, you had it naturally.

00:20:35.612 --> 00:20:36.333
Very naturally.

00:20:37.019 --> 00:20:38.202
Because I figured in the military.

00:20:38.202 --> 00:20:42.413
They would probably train you to accept pain to some degree.

00:20:42.579 --> 00:20:53.912
They do some of it and then, as training advanced in my post-military life, it becomes more of a psychological study of okay, this is a real situation.

00:20:53.912 --> 00:20:58.826
You may be hurt very badly, but pain is a feeling.

00:20:58.826 --> 00:21:03.323
And you either pay a lot of attention to it or you segment it.

00:21:03.323 --> 00:21:07.584
You fragment it, you compartmentalize it, you put it over here and you say okay.

00:21:07.584 --> 00:21:10.791
I'm feeling pain, but I still have something to do.

00:21:10.791 --> 00:21:17.032
Okay, and if I don't do that something, if I succumb to this pain, then I get killed.

00:21:17.519 --> 00:21:23.691
Okay, you know or or tortured or whatever the case may be, or that may be, part of the process of pain.

00:21:23.691 --> 00:21:25.815
The cause of the pain might be torture.

00:21:27.942 --> 00:21:34.273
So you were naturally built already to do the CIA type work right.

00:21:34.493 --> 00:21:35.301
Yeah, and it was.

00:21:35.301 --> 00:21:42.951
I will tell you it wasn't a lovely existence, but the other part of I think I failed Spanish in high school.

00:21:42.951 --> 00:21:44.786
I think her name was mrs huff.

00:21:44.786 --> 00:21:50.902
God rest her soul.

00:21:50.902 --> 00:21:51.663
She was old when she was.

00:21:51.663 --> 00:21:52.405
She was good land.

00:21:52.405 --> 00:21:56.636
She was really really old when she was our teacher, but I don't know were you not applying yourself?

00:21:57.178 --> 00:21:59.343
because how many languages did you end up picking up?

00:21:59.503 --> 00:22:02.450
five, I spoke five, I could go into the country.

00:22:02.450 --> 00:22:11.513
And here's the interesting thing if you just learn a language because you want to go visit and you want to be able to talk to people, that's one form of language learning.

00:22:11.513 --> 00:22:15.636
I was a polyglot so I could speak.

00:22:15.636 --> 00:22:18.567
For whatever reasons, I could learn other languages really quickly.

00:22:18.941 --> 00:22:21.746
And I don't know why, it was just my weird brain.

00:22:21.746 --> 00:22:26.510
I could pick it up, but my fascination wasn't just with that.

00:22:26.510 --> 00:22:28.183
Like I said, that's great.

00:22:28.183 --> 00:22:31.763
If you want to go visit the country, you can converse, you can order a pastry.

00:22:32.125 --> 00:22:33.028
Where's the bathroom?

00:22:33.028 --> 00:22:33.951
You know type of deal.

00:22:35.119 --> 00:22:46.982
But my fascination was the deeper level, which was the cultural appropriation Understanding how they wear their belts in this country, how they button their shirts.

00:22:46.982 --> 00:22:50.150
Do they button from the bottom up or the top down?

00:22:50.150 --> 00:22:51.621
How do they wear their watch?

00:22:51.621 --> 00:22:52.663
Do they wear their watch?

00:22:52.663 --> 00:22:53.605
Do they wear watches?

00:22:53.605 --> 00:22:56.131
How do they count?

00:22:56.131 --> 00:22:59.586
There's a great movie, Inglourious Bastards.

00:22:59.586 --> 00:23:00.730
I don't know if you've ever heard of it.

00:23:00.890 --> 00:23:02.342
I've heard of it, but I have not seen it.

00:23:02.422 --> 00:23:18.792
There's a scene in that movie which it's going to totally wreck the movie for people who haven't seen it but there's a scene in it where one of the undercover, pretending to be German soldiers, he holds up his fingers to show I think it was three, the number three.

00:23:18.792 --> 00:23:22.144
And there are many ways to show three, there's three, three, three.

00:23:22.144 --> 00:23:23.287
To show three, there's three, three, three.

00:23:23.287 --> 00:23:27.394
There's so many different ways that you can show that.

00:23:27.394 --> 00:23:38.828
Well, in the movie, this officer, this actual german officer, could tell that, okay, this is not, this is.

00:23:38.848 --> 00:23:39.733
It was a small thing, it was so insignificant.

00:23:39.733 --> 00:23:44.464
But little things don't mean a lot, they mean everything, and so they can cost you your life and and in that movie they did.

00:23:44.464 --> 00:23:49.292
So I enjoyed learning those things and I would go in and come out.

00:23:49.292 --> 00:23:53.867
I didn't go in and stay, I would go in, do what needed to be done and come out.

00:23:53.867 --> 00:23:56.781
So that that was a great advantage for me.

00:23:56.781 --> 00:23:59.488
And again, 90% of my family had no idea.

00:23:59.488 --> 00:24:07.413
Most of my friends, except for two, two really good friends they knew that they were good for it because they had top secret clearances anyway because of what they did yeah.

00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:10.930
And so, anyway, I did that for a time.

00:24:11.820 --> 00:24:13.146
When did you become a police officer?

00:24:13.941 --> 00:24:18.079
Well, I said you know what, I think I'm done with the Navy, so I'm going to go be a police officer.

00:24:18.079 --> 00:24:25.490
And so there was a time frame in between Navy agency and there was wedged in.

00:24:25.490 --> 00:24:30.588
There was time to become a police officer, so I applied for it in the state.

00:24:30.700 --> 00:24:31.664
How did you like that work?

00:24:31.664 --> 00:24:34.346
Well, you didn't stay in it very long, did you?

00:24:34.346 --> 00:24:36.263
Five or six years.

00:24:36.263 --> 00:24:37.528
I think that's a good length.

00:24:39.824 --> 00:24:47.989
And this was the early days of anti-police, the anti-police attitude Early days of it.

00:24:48.780 --> 00:24:53.425
I loved most of the people that I worked with and for I worked for some great people.

00:24:53.425 --> 00:25:07.141
It was a very restricted job, so you knew what needed to be done, but you couldn't do that, and the only reason you couldn't do that was because of perception I don't think we had.

00:25:07.141 --> 00:25:09.445
We didn't have any body cameras or anything like that.

00:25:09.445 --> 00:25:11.730
Maybe dash cams were coming in.

00:25:11.730 --> 00:25:12.961
I doubt it, though.

00:25:12.961 --> 00:25:15.230
I don't have any recollection of that part at all.

00:25:15.230 --> 00:25:18.340
But what I do know is it just felt very restricted.

00:25:18.340 --> 00:25:33.502
It felt stupidly restricted, very politically driven, and it was a large police department and served a huge county, much of which was urban and suburban, so it wasn't like the county that we're in, where everything is spread out.

00:25:33.502 --> 00:25:34.548
It was a lot of people.

00:25:35.412 --> 00:25:37.339
And it just was exasperating.

00:25:37.721 --> 00:25:46.028
Maybe because I'm from small towns, I can't imagine it being as adrenaline rush oriented as what you were doing prior.

00:25:46.680 --> 00:25:48.006
Yeah, it's a tricky business.

00:25:49.142 --> 00:25:50.607
I mean, I almost feel like you would be bored.

00:25:51.401 --> 00:26:01.229
I was a little bored, but the reason I left was I had gotten hurt a couple of times and we didn't know this then.

00:26:01.229 --> 00:26:02.505
Obviously we know this now.

00:26:02.505 --> 00:26:07.352
But I had what was called arterial venal malformation, AVM.

00:26:07.352 --> 00:26:23.811
I had an AVM and so I passed out, you know, and they put me in the hospital for a week, lost a ton of blood internally, and so they put me in the hospital and they say, hey, you've got a massive tumor and that's frightening.

00:26:23.811 --> 00:26:24.753
You're going to check out.

00:26:24.753 --> 00:26:25.943
This is bad deal here.

00:26:25.963 --> 00:26:26.907
Oh, my goodness yeah.

00:26:27.059 --> 00:26:28.286
So yeah, it was crazy.

00:26:28.286 --> 00:26:31.950
But then they did doctor, medicine, surgery, stuff.

00:26:31.950 --> 00:26:34.612
They said, ok, what this is this calcification?

00:26:34.612 --> 00:26:36.359
It's not actually a tumor.

00:26:36.359 --> 00:26:39.931
It looks like a tumor on imaging but it's not actually a tumor.

00:26:39.931 --> 00:26:41.902
So they used sound, which is fascinating, to break it up.

00:26:41.922 --> 00:26:43.483
So they used sound, which is fascinating to break it up.

00:26:43.483 --> 00:26:44.204
I've heard of that.

00:26:44.204 --> 00:26:45.366
That's really cool.

00:26:45.366 --> 00:26:46.228
It was wild.

00:26:46.327 --> 00:26:47.750
And it's wild to experience it.

00:26:47.750 --> 00:26:51.693
But during the course of all that they said look, you have an AVM.

00:26:52.015 --> 00:26:52.796
What is that?

00:26:54.519 --> 00:26:55.722
Arterial, venal malformation.

00:26:55.722 --> 00:27:03.780
Think of it as the intersection of your arteries and your veins, where they come together.

00:27:03.780 --> 00:27:06.903
There's a weakness and it bulges and becomes an aneurysm.

00:27:06.903 --> 00:27:10.946
Oh Well, you know, fast forwarding all the way to today.

00:27:10.946 --> 00:27:12.788
Right, I now have a massive aneurysm.

00:27:12.788 --> 00:27:13.269
Right.

00:27:13.269 --> 00:27:19.335
And of all the things that are trying to take my life, the aneurysm is the worst thing, because I now have an aortic.

00:27:20.055 --> 00:27:22.196
Descending correct Descending aortic aneurysm yeah.

00:27:25.759 --> 00:27:27.604
And so the cardiologists all say it's in the worst possible place.

00:27:27.624 --> 00:27:29.027
It's bad and there's nothing we can do for you.

00:27:29.027 --> 00:27:30.810
So anyway, that is what it is.

00:27:30.810 --> 00:27:33.803
So I have to get out of that, create a new life.

00:27:33.803 --> 00:27:49.666
Well then, I you know, there were opportunities to work as a I use the word contractor, it's overused, but as a consultant really and then, in essence, a contractor getting to go and do jobs because of my past and I did and I liked it.

00:27:49.666 --> 00:27:50.169
It was fun.

00:27:50.169 --> 00:27:54.791
But one of the things that I liked more than anything else was hostile repatriation.

00:27:56.763 --> 00:27:58.308
And I like hostile repatriation.

00:27:58.619 --> 00:28:00.183
So what that is?

00:28:00.183 --> 00:28:03.471
Someone is somewhere they don't want to be Hiding.

00:28:03.471 --> 00:28:06.384
They're not there of their own volition, oh gotcha.

00:28:07.099 --> 00:28:11.125
They're being held, they're taken, they're being held Okay and interest Okay.

00:28:11.125 --> 00:28:17.316
Of our government says, hey, we need those people back for myriad reasons.

00:28:17.316 --> 00:28:19.445
Who knows what the reasons are.

00:28:19.445 --> 00:28:21.050
Those were never my.

00:28:21.050 --> 00:28:23.557
I didn't have to really think about what the reasons were.

00:28:23.557 --> 00:28:30.467
The government, the agency, couldn't go get them themselves, so they needed a private contractor to do that.

00:28:30.467 --> 00:28:31.387
I loved it.

00:28:31.387 --> 00:28:47.673
I had a team of guys who range from SEALs, delta guys, secret Service, cia protection group Great, great people, extraordinarily capable people, and so periodically we would have these jobs and no one would ever hear about it.

00:28:47.673 --> 00:29:09.568
They just get reunited with their families and a liaison would say, hey, we've got them, they're safe, we're bringing them back to wherever the meeting point would be, which usually would be either the United States, or, if they had bad medical issues, they would go to the next best place that were friendly to us, get well enough to travel the United States and continue healing.

00:29:09.588 --> 00:29:09.950
Gotcha.

00:29:10.130 --> 00:29:10.912
So I like that.

00:29:10.912 --> 00:29:15.451
And then I also really loved very high risk executive production.

00:29:15.451 --> 00:29:17.096
Loved it, loved it, loved it.

00:29:17.164 --> 00:29:18.410
You are a thrill seeker.

00:29:18.932 --> 00:29:26.330
You know what I never really thought of myself, but the whole notion of jumping out of an airplane never bothered me, it never crossed my mind.

00:29:26.330 --> 00:29:28.917
I thought to myself yeah, okay, when can we go?

00:29:28.917 --> 00:29:29.501
Can we go now?

00:29:29.501 --> 00:29:29.943
That's amazing.

00:29:29.943 --> 00:29:32.667
Can you teach me on the way up how to do it?

00:29:32.667 --> 00:29:35.691
Maybe jump out, be next to me and just tell me what to do on the way?

00:29:35.691 --> 00:29:36.711
I loved it.

00:29:36.951 --> 00:29:38.433
I absolutely loved it no fear.

00:29:38.993 --> 00:29:40.115
Well, I don't know that.

00:29:40.115 --> 00:29:41.938
It's no fear, but it's just.

00:29:42.278 --> 00:29:53.913
I had life in a different perspective then, which maybe wasn't the best perspective quite honestly, because I beat my body to death doing these things, and so I loved it.

00:29:53.913 --> 00:29:57.982
I really, really loved, I loved serving.

00:29:57.982 --> 00:30:05.157
My thrill was looking somebody in the eye and saying we're here to help you, we're going to help you.

00:30:05.157 --> 00:30:15.069
That's the thing that thrilled me was being able to change somebody's worst day or worst experience into one of the greatest experiences they've ever had.

00:30:15.069 --> 00:30:19.717
I love that, and I felt like there's a certain type of person who is to be in that role.

00:30:19.717 --> 00:30:25.818
Now I want to go back to law enforcement and just say that I don't demean what they do.

00:30:25.818 --> 00:30:37.131
Their jobs are so different now than even the little bit of time that I served, and so for me I greatly appreciate great law enforcement.

00:30:37.131 --> 00:30:49.419
In fact, I do counseling now high trauma counseling, which is acute situations, usually with people that can't go to a normal psychiatrist or psychologist or therapist or counselor.

00:30:49.419 --> 00:30:51.410
They can't do it because of their job.

00:30:51.410 --> 00:31:13.712
They do that, they lose their job, and so helping people through this acute situation to get them through and my wife can tell you if she ever comes on there are, there have been phone calls at 3 30 in the morning where there's gunfire in the background and so this person is locked up, for whatever reason, their brain is not moving forward and yeah, I

00:31:13.752 --> 00:31:17.405
get calls from the weirdest numbers, and so I love helping in that regard.

00:31:17.405 --> 00:31:20.010
So for me, the thrill is really that.

00:31:20.010 --> 00:31:23.479
But law enforcement, now they really have it tough.

00:31:23.479 --> 00:31:30.707
In the case of police officers now suiting up and going out, there's all this extra gear that they have to carry.

00:31:30.707 --> 00:31:38.556
I mean, in addition to this big vest, which I encourage every police officer out there, wear your body armor, wear your body armor.

00:31:38.556 --> 00:31:48.252
I know it's hot, but I'd rather sweat than bleed, but they've got to wear all this other gear which is designed for nothing other than to minimize litigation against the police department.

00:31:48.252 --> 00:31:52.228
That's what it's for, and you may have comments that say, well, you know, I've run into more bad cops than I have good cops.

00:31:52.228 --> 00:31:55.332
Comments that say, well, you know, I've run into more bad cops than I have good cops.

00:31:55.332 --> 00:32:11.419
Look, I've talked to literally tens of thousands of police officers all across this country and I can tell you, the amount of bad cops is minuscule.

00:32:11.499 --> 00:32:12.625
It's minuscule by comparison.

00:32:12.625 --> 00:32:12.785
They are.

00:32:12.785 --> 00:32:13.507
They're up against it.

00:32:13.507 --> 00:32:24.573
The recruiting went through a phase where they stopped looking for ex-military men and women and they started looking for well, we just want a college graduate, maybe with humanities or criminal justice or whatever.

00:32:24.573 --> 00:32:26.189
That's not the.

00:32:26.189 --> 00:32:30.472
It's not a bad thing to have, but if that's all you have, you're in trouble.

00:32:30.653 --> 00:32:30.835
Yeah.

00:32:31.305 --> 00:32:35.848
Because if you've never been punched in the face, everybody's got a big plan until they get punched in the face.

00:32:35.848 --> 00:32:38.211
Because if you've never been punched in the face, everybody's got a big plan until they get punched in the face.

00:32:38.211 --> 00:32:43.236
And if you are fighting for your life and you've never fought for your life it's way different than people realize.

00:32:43.236 --> 00:32:49.761
I guess to sum it up is I have great empathy for law enforcement out there.

00:32:49.761 --> 00:33:03.252
The whole desire to help people was always strong there and what I learned was you spend 90% of your time dealing with the same people over and over and over.

00:33:03.693 --> 00:33:06.446
And so you don't get the opportunity to really really help people.

00:33:06.446 --> 00:33:10.334
My prior life was very specific.

00:33:10.334 --> 00:33:14.951
Here is the problem you develop a plan to solve the problem, go do it.

00:33:14.951 --> 00:33:19.051
We don't really care how you do it, but go do it and try to bring them back.

00:33:19.051 --> 00:33:26.477
And in the case of executive protection, when I formed executive protection team, our tagline was when it's your life, we're your team.

00:33:26.477 --> 00:33:32.798
We were actually, we were hired when the Navy SEALs were outed for the bin Laden raid.

00:33:33.125 --> 00:33:33.688
Oh, that's right.

00:33:33.708 --> 00:33:55.637
I remember that was a lot of a lot of navy seals and military people speaking up while their lives were at risk significant risk right well, we were the company that was hired to protect them wow, okay, not all of them, just a few of them, and so we always make a joke of that, like when the navy seals need somebody to protect them, we're the ones that get called, and so that's a very specific thing.

00:33:55.718 --> 00:33:58.769
So you can see, you can help with that, and I enjoy that.

00:33:58.769 --> 00:34:01.094
That, to me, is the mission.

00:34:01.094 --> 00:34:02.016
Is it clear?

00:34:02.016 --> 00:34:07.275
And I know we didn't plan on getting into this whole mission creep and all that stuff, but it is.

00:34:07.275 --> 00:34:08.317
It's that way in life.

00:34:08.317 --> 00:34:09.748
People have a mission.

00:34:09.748 --> 00:34:15.931
They start off with this thing you can talk about weight loss, you can talk about I want to learn to do this, I'm going to learn to do this, I'm going to learn to do that.

00:34:15.931 --> 00:34:21.371
And then you're all hyped up, you get all the tools, you get all the stuff, and then it's not as easy.

00:34:21.371 --> 00:34:21.833
Yeah.

00:34:22.204 --> 00:34:26.983
It's not as easy as you thought it was going to be Right, wow, maybe I won't do that anymore.

00:34:26.983 --> 00:34:28.449
You just don't do it anymore.

00:34:28.449 --> 00:34:38.706
You stop doing it, saying that I haven't because I have.

00:34:38.766 --> 00:34:39.367
Yeah for sure.

00:34:39.367 --> 00:34:41.126
But then the crash.

00:34:41.126 --> 00:34:50.931
Okay, you have multiple theology degrees, you have an undergrad in biblical counseling, but you do counseling now, right, I do some, some.

00:34:50.931 --> 00:34:54.153
You have a master's in theology Hebrew worldview.

00:34:54.153 --> 00:35:02.478
You've got a doctorate in theology Hebrew worldview as well, and a doctorate in practical theology, Timeline-wise.

00:35:02.478 --> 00:35:08.400
So you've got this incredible life of intrigue.

00:35:08.400 --> 00:35:12.362
When did you fit in all of this theology education?

00:35:13.764 --> 00:35:14.226
That's a great question.

00:35:14.226 --> 00:35:18.047
I may have been a really intelligent guy at one point in time, but really stupid.

00:35:18.047 --> 00:35:34.775
I had an opportunity to go to many great schools for free and instead I decided well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to be in a business and I'm going to go to school in all this spare time that I allegedly have, and I'm going to pay for it all myself.

00:35:34.775 --> 00:35:35.958
You know why not?

00:35:35.958 --> 00:35:45.018
And so I did that, and I was a person who I wanted to be part of the family, so I set up my desk in the living room.

00:35:45.018 --> 00:35:54.690
What was weird is, before the crash, that television could be on, but I could be focused on my schoolwork, no problem.

00:35:55.211 --> 00:35:56.534
So you're no longer doing.

00:35:56.534 --> 00:35:59.059
This is after the protection.

00:35:59.059 --> 00:36:00.869
Oh no, I was still doing some of it.

00:36:00.909 --> 00:36:08.239
I had another business, but because that business doesn't come in regularly enough to provide it.

00:36:08.619 --> 00:36:16.655
So I had another little business and I was doing that and working crazy hours and really hard, but I still was capable of learning.

00:36:16.655 --> 00:36:21.911
I had a high interest in learning and the topics were fascinating to me.

00:36:21.911 --> 00:36:25.679
So what I did was just total immersion.

00:36:25.679 --> 00:36:31.103
Great professors, great admin staff just they were the most wonderful people.

00:36:31.103 --> 00:36:37.181
They were fantastic and they kind of saw how I was and who I was.

00:36:37.181 --> 00:36:39.586
So they let me go at a higher rate of speed.

00:36:39.586 --> 00:36:41.152
I think, than others.

00:36:42.054 --> 00:36:49.572
So the undergrad, grad and one doctorate was prior to the crash, and yeah, then everything changed.

00:36:49.833 --> 00:36:52.038
Well, you grew up in the church, am I?

00:36:52.077 --> 00:36:52.806
right, I did.

00:36:52.806 --> 00:37:00.811
I grew up in an independent fundamental right haircut, right clothing, right shoes, kjv only.

00:37:00.811 --> 00:37:03.498
Nothing against the KJV, only crowd not throwing rocks.

00:37:03.498 --> 00:37:08.224
I'm just saying it was the authorized version because Jesus, that's the one Jesus carried.

00:37:08.224 --> 00:37:10.530
That was their thought and that's how they operated.

00:37:10.530 --> 00:37:14.947
And so very, very strict, very incongruent upbringing.

00:37:14.947 --> 00:37:22.251
My dad was not a person of faith for much of my childhood, most of my childhood.

00:37:22.751 --> 00:37:24.516
Your mom taking you to and from church?

00:37:24.764 --> 00:37:28.576
Yeah, but he always supported that, and they're both been gone a little while now.

00:37:28.784 --> 00:37:29.588
Did you have siblings?

00:37:29.989 --> 00:37:30.230
I did.

00:37:30.230 --> 00:37:31.784
I'm the youngest of five, youngest of five.

00:37:31.804 --> 00:37:32.925
Okay, and all five were taken to church every Sunday.

00:37:32.925 --> 00:37:35.188
Youngest of five, okay, and all five were taken to church every Sunday.

00:37:35.907 --> 00:37:37.708
We had a drug problem in our family.

00:37:37.708 --> 00:37:42.211
Mom drug us to church on Sunday night.

00:37:42.211 --> 00:37:44.014
She drug us to a WANA.

00:37:44.014 --> 00:37:46.635
She drug us to Wednesday prayer meeting.

00:37:47.215 --> 00:37:48.177
Oh yeah, that's funny.

00:37:48.177 --> 00:37:49.597
That was our drug problem.

00:37:49.597 --> 00:37:50.117
I like it.

00:37:50.358 --> 00:37:59.567
So, yeah, that was really a strong influence, but it took with me, it didn't take with the others, not everyone it really took with me.

00:37:59.586 --> 00:38:03.376
What was it that made you decide when you were going to get an education?

00:38:03.376 --> 00:38:05.472
What made you decide theology?

00:38:05.472 --> 00:38:06.690
What was the spark there?

00:38:08.045 --> 00:38:21.047
So, okay, what had happened was I and I try to get through this without crying I was.

00:38:21.047 --> 00:38:26.338
I had a high school problems of democracy civics teacher.

00:38:26.338 --> 00:38:28.490
He was my favorite teacher of all.

00:38:28.490 --> 00:38:53.231
My whole life he's been my favorite teacher and he used to go away to all these far-flung countries every summer and he would take all of these amazing photos and record these little videos and a lot of what we would do is study those countries where he went and he would explain to us about their systems of government and the upside, the downside and and all of these things, the difference in the people.

00:38:53.231 --> 00:38:54.313
Oh, wonderful.

00:38:54.753 --> 00:38:57.920
Until he got to teaching about the Holocaust.

00:38:57.920 --> 00:39:04.358
When he taught about the Holocaust, I couldn't believe my ears.

00:39:04.358 --> 00:39:06.612
I was appalled.

00:39:06.612 --> 00:39:11.190
I just couldn't understand it and I'd always been fascinated.

00:39:11.190 --> 00:39:17.333
Why did God have jesus yeshua?

00:39:17.333 --> 00:39:25.324
Why did he plop him down in the hebrew land among the hebrew people?

00:39:25.324 --> 00:39:26.005
Why did that happen?

00:39:26.005 --> 00:39:27.530
That was always a fascination.

00:39:27.530 --> 00:39:30.496
As a little kid, I know I read weird books.

00:39:30.496 --> 00:39:31.565
Grown-up books.

00:39:31.565 --> 00:39:35.112
When I was just a little kid uh, I would read books that were.

00:39:35.112 --> 00:39:38.706
You know, I read the PDR, I think.

00:39:38.766 --> 00:39:40.871
I was physician's desk reference.

00:39:40.871 --> 00:39:53.996
Okay, my mom would go to yard sales and she'd give me a budget and I'd spend it all on books grownup books like a physician was retiring and originally my thought in my head was you know, I want to be the doctor that cures cancer.

00:39:53.996 --> 00:39:55.425
And so how your brain?

00:39:55.360 --> 00:39:55.659
works.

00:39:55.659 --> 00:39:55.864
It was weird.

00:39:55.864 --> 00:39:55.809
I was a.

00:39:55.809 --> 00:39:57.085
Be the doctor that cures cancer, and so how your brain works.

00:39:57.021 --> 00:39:58.815
It was weird, I was a weird kid, let me tell you.

00:39:58.815 --> 00:40:02.335
And but the thing is is I didn't say any of this stuff out loud.

00:40:02.335 --> 00:40:07.295
It was all going in in my head because I thought people are going to think I'm weird, which they did.

00:40:07.295 --> 00:40:08.338
I find out in retrospect.

00:40:08.338 --> 00:40:18.092
And so, when it came to the Holocaust, I said why the Jews?

00:40:18.092 --> 00:40:18.876
How did this happen?

00:40:18.936 --> 00:40:20.121
And I started really, really studying it.

00:40:20.121 --> 00:40:20.965
It's a wonderful question, yeah.

00:40:21.766 --> 00:40:23.327
And what became?

00:40:23.327 --> 00:40:32.239
As a young adult, I had the idea of writing a PhD dissertation on the Holocaust.

00:40:32.239 --> 00:40:40.586
What it really was, how exactly did it happen, and can it happen again?

00:40:40.606 --> 00:40:41.168
And how do we stop it?

00:40:41.168 --> 00:40:47.070
That was going to be my thing and I said, well, I've got to go and talk to the people, I don't want to just read about it.

00:40:47.070 --> 00:40:51.527
So I had the opportunity to travel to five of the concentration camps.

00:40:51.527 --> 00:40:54.695
I was able to secure private tours, and so it was horrible.

00:40:54.695 --> 00:40:55.418
It was.

00:40:55.418 --> 00:40:58.987
It was I'd seen a lot of evil in my lifetime.

00:40:58.987 --> 00:41:01.632
I'm telling you that broke my soul.

00:41:01.632 --> 00:41:10.418
It, it, it violated, and and I, you know, even at that point in my life I had little faith in the humanity of man.

00:41:10.418 --> 00:41:13.632
I thought, oh, we're in deep trouble more and more and more.

00:41:13.632 --> 00:41:16.056
I really just didn't love it.

00:41:16.056 --> 00:41:19.889
But then, when I was there, it broke your soul.

00:41:19.990 --> 00:41:21.195
Broke my soul, that's so.

00:41:21.195 --> 00:41:22.289
It literally broke my soul.

00:41:23.507 --> 00:41:27.838
So you were just saying, I'm just intrigued by what you're talking about.

00:41:27.838 --> 00:41:36.019
So, looking upon mankind, you were disheartened about what we are as a species.

00:41:40.045 --> 00:41:41.226
Just not the best creatures.

00:41:41.226 --> 00:41:49.579
How depraved, how utterly horrible one segment of humanity could be toward a specific segment.

00:41:49.579 --> 00:42:00.231
Now it wasn't just the jews, it was anybody handicapped, it was any down syndrome, all of that, and they were killed immediately unless there was some scientific benefit they could find.

00:42:00.231 --> 00:42:07.873
But when I went to auschwitz I the part that got me was again I.

00:42:07.873 --> 00:42:24.476
I was because of my background, I was, I had some back channels and I could get private tours oh, right, yeah so there was a one-on-one with an interpreter and as we come out at the end of the day, I was devastated.

00:42:24.777 --> 00:42:25.257
I wept.

00:42:25.257 --> 00:43:02.456
Even now I wept harder than I've wept my entire life and I looked out at the people that were going through these different exhibits and displays and then seeing the horrific things and the remnants of them, and everybody was pretty quiet but I could see they didn't quite get it and I remember walking out of there and as I came out there was these two tiny elderly people and I'd always had a heart for the elderly.

00:43:02.976 --> 00:43:03.498
Same yeah.

00:43:03.905 --> 00:43:14.876
I love old folks, and we didn't speak the same language, by the way, wasn't one of the languages that I knew but they saw me and they said, come, come, come.

00:43:14.876 --> 00:43:17.159
And so I was there.

00:43:17.159 --> 00:43:18.987
They took me to their little.

00:43:18.987 --> 00:43:23.655
Their whole house, I kid you not, was maybe slightly larger than this room.

00:43:24.056 --> 00:43:24.416
Oh, wow.

00:43:24.597 --> 00:43:25.719
Okay, yeah, it was small.

00:43:25.824 --> 00:43:27.150
They invited you into their home.

00:43:27.445 --> 00:43:28.449
Brought me right into their house.

00:43:28.449 --> 00:43:31.932
Yeah, crazy, and they didn't know me at all.

00:43:32.746 --> 00:43:33.871
What did they want to show you?

00:43:33.871 --> 00:43:35.327
What were they inviting you to?

00:43:35.327 --> 00:43:36.248
They saw me hurt.

00:43:36.588 --> 00:43:40.693
They saw the hurt in my soul and they and they wanted to invite me in.

00:43:40.693 --> 00:43:57.135
So I don't know if you know, but Polish people make their own liquor and they did and and we drank that and we communicated and it ended up being a whole evening into the next morning.

00:43:57.135 --> 00:44:04.005
Oh wow, but that whole time, I said because they would explain different things to me and it was difficult.

00:44:04.005 --> 00:44:08.217
But I always say let your sincerity be your own best interpreter.

00:44:08.217 --> 00:44:10.813
So they're sincerely trying to communicate with you.

00:44:10.813 --> 00:44:12.492
I'm sincerely trying to connect with them.

00:44:12.492 --> 00:44:16.490
You'll work it out, you'll work it out You'll work it out, and so we did.

00:44:17.085 --> 00:44:27.878
And at the end, when I was getting ready to leave and I gave them hugs, they tried to give me food and I remember I forgot to ask how did you two meet?

00:44:27.878 --> 00:44:29.788
How did you two?

00:44:29.788 --> 00:44:30.771
How did you meet?

00:44:30.771 --> 00:44:31.208
How did you?

00:44:31.208 --> 00:44:31.936
Do you have family?

00:44:31.936 --> 00:44:32.016
How?

00:44:32.016 --> 00:44:32.380
Did you meet?

00:44:32.380 --> 00:44:35.538
Do you have family?

00:44:35.538 --> 00:44:41.610
I didn't even ask because the questions were all, and so they do the come back in sign.

00:44:41.610 --> 00:44:46.115
I go back in and we sit down and they pull their sleeves up.

00:44:46.476 --> 00:44:49.219
Oh, yeah, they met in a camp.

00:44:49.880 --> 00:44:50.561
They met in a camp.

00:44:50.561 --> 00:44:52.007
They didn't know each other.

00:44:52.007 --> 00:44:53.273
They met in a camp as they met in a camp.

00:44:53.273 --> 00:44:53.896
They didn't know each other.

00:44:53.896 --> 00:44:55.505
They actually they met in a camp as they were being liberated Okay.

00:44:55.505 --> 00:44:59.175
His family, his entire family, died in that camp.

00:44:59.175 --> 00:45:07.693
Every single person in his lineage that was alive died in that camp, almost all but one of her family.

00:45:07.693 --> 00:45:10.052
They didn't know each other outside of there.

00:45:10.425 --> 00:45:11.891
They had no connection whatsoever.

00:45:11.891 --> 00:45:19.536
And she was slightly younger than him and as they're being liberated, you know they were young, they were very, very young.

00:45:19.536 --> 00:45:33.077
They kind of clung to one another and then through medical care and different things they would bump into each other and eventually they were married very, very young, extremely young, probably legally way too young.

00:45:33.077 --> 00:45:37.855
But they both survived the camp and none of their family did, and that bonded them.

00:45:38.135 --> 00:45:39.559
So sad yeah, yeah.

00:45:39.744 --> 00:45:45.467
Sort of thick and in the process of thinking about writing that dissertation I thought, well, I'm not doing this.

00:45:45.809 --> 00:45:46.771
I can't do this justice.

00:45:46.771 --> 00:45:47.795
Oh, you chose not to.

00:45:48.565 --> 00:45:54.498
No, I wrote 120 pages and then I just said whether I would fancy myself to be a good writer or not.

00:45:54.498 --> 00:45:57.764
There is no way I can do this topic justice.

00:45:57.764 --> 00:46:19.893
No way, and there were so many PhD dissertations out there where they touched on the Holocaust or different aspects of it, my approach was going to be a different way, through a more personal way, and I'd even talked to he wasn't a guard, but he was a policeman at one of the camps- yeah yeah, how did you?

00:46:20.894 --> 00:46:22.036
how do you justify this?

00:46:22.036 --> 00:46:23.385
Why aren't you in jail?

00:46:23.385 --> 00:46:24.668
I was real in his family.

00:46:24.688 --> 00:46:30.344
Bold yes and we have all the discussion about well, what did the families know?

00:46:30.344 --> 00:46:41.490
I, I held a great animus towards Germany and Austria for a very, very long time because I thought how could you have allowed this to happen, how could you have allowed this to happen?

00:46:41.490 --> 00:46:43.657
And I still, to a great degree, that generation.

00:46:43.657 --> 00:46:48.355
I don't excuse it, I don't give them a pass, because those officers came home.

00:46:48.355 --> 00:46:57.688
They came home at night, they had families, so their families knew what was going on, just like when the atom bomb was being created.

00:46:57.688 --> 00:47:03.067
Everybody's there and they have families and then they go home.

00:47:04.389 --> 00:47:07.157
Well, do we think that they didn't have conversations with their wives?

00:47:07.157 --> 00:47:23.152
Come on, that's unrealistic and we've found through research that, yeah, that did in fact happen and many of them wanted it to happen, and many of them don't express any regret at all, no remorse at all, even until their death.

00:47:23.284 --> 00:47:27.144
Are you talking now about the making of the atomic bomb, or are you talking about Auschwitz?

00:47:27.365 --> 00:47:36.038
No, no, I'm talking about the Holocaust Right, okay, yeah, the families were like that's how it was, that's what happened, it's okay.

00:47:36.784 --> 00:47:46.760
I do think that the generations that followed they still, probably to this day, feel a great amount of guilt on some level for what happened.

00:47:47.445 --> 00:47:50.612
I think there is some, but it's making a nasty resurgence.

00:47:50.612 --> 00:47:51.514
Is it really?

00:47:51.514 --> 00:47:51.914
It is?

00:47:51.914 --> 00:47:53.217
Yeah, it really is.

00:47:53.217 --> 00:47:54.751
It's a huge movement.

00:47:54.751 --> 00:48:00.208
It started very much as an underground movement, but now it's pretty bold Because people know.

00:48:00.208 --> 00:48:01.572
Now I can say what I want to say.

00:48:01.572 --> 00:48:04.152
I'll say what I want to say and I'll do what I want to do.

00:48:04.324 --> 00:48:19.413
I did not know that, yeah it's big, it's unfortunate and what's interesting is I rode BMW motorcycles for many years and I struggled with the choice of brand because of that.

00:48:19.413 --> 00:48:23.876
They were a supplier to the third rank and there were a lot of companies.

00:48:23.876 --> 00:48:31.561
Where I learned to let go of that was I learned the United States had a lot of complicity.

00:48:31.561 --> 00:48:36.503
Before we really connected with what was happening, we had a lot of complicity.

00:48:36.623 --> 00:48:38.344
Before we really connected with what was happening.

00:48:38.344 --> 00:48:47.311
We had a lot of complicity and a lot of the stolen art, the antiquities, the massive wealth still sits in bank vaults in the United States.

00:48:47.311 --> 00:48:55.146
Much of it has never been given back, and so I don't know that we can say that we've taken the high road.

00:48:55.146 --> 00:49:03.067
And given my past, I can tell you that many times we have not taken the high road, we have not done the best.

00:49:07.974 --> 00:49:10.557
So let's go ahead and get to that accident.

00:49:10.958 --> 00:49:15.612
All of the different things that have tried to kill me over the years, the life that I had led.

00:49:15.612 --> 00:49:35.958
One would never think that a 19-year-old high school senior in a borrowed car with state minimum insurance, with his other high school senior buddies, would be driving 109 miles an hour, lose control, jump a 40-something foot median and hit me head-on at 92 miles per hour.

00:49:35.958 --> 00:49:38.773
Nobody would think that that's how I would go out.

00:49:39.686 --> 00:49:42.195
It's an unbelievable story.

00:49:42.195 --> 00:49:46.416
If you don't mind and I know you've done this before- yeah, it doesn't bother me.

00:49:46.416 --> 00:49:49.675
Would you please just take us through that day.

00:49:50.706 --> 00:49:53.706
It was a relatively normal day, were you at work?

00:49:53.706 --> 00:49:58.431
Well, so I'm pretty much always at work doing different things.

00:49:58.431 --> 00:50:19.380
I had so many different things going, but one of the protection vehicles that we used was a Suburban and I was to protect two very prominent people who, for whatever reason, people wanted to kill them and they had very, very significant and actionable threats on their lives.

00:50:19.380 --> 00:50:29.119
And what ends up happening is I dropped the vehicle off at the detailer because I had a specific detailer who I knew was trustworthy to be in the car Just cleaning the car.

00:50:29.525 --> 00:50:31.112
Make it like brand new.

00:50:31.112 --> 00:50:34.213
Okay, that's always how I rolled was brand new.

00:50:34.364 --> 00:50:38.195
And you're traveling with high level dignitaries and so forth.

00:50:38.344 --> 00:50:40.373
Everything's set up three different newspapers.

00:50:40.373 --> 00:50:41.889
They would have drinks.

00:50:41.889 --> 00:50:46.704
I wasn't their chauffeur, I was their protector, but I liked everything to be top shelf.

00:50:46.704 --> 00:51:02.905
Anyway, headed home, looking forward to dinner, and I was crossing a bridge and it was down to one lane and on the south side of the bridge was only maybe six minutes from my house where is in delaware?

00:51:03.085 --> 00:51:08.677
delaware, okay, middletown delaware and on the downside of the bridge it goes back to two lanes.

00:51:08.677 --> 00:51:17.019
So I went from the left lane, which was the only lane I could do on the bridge, over to the right lane and I was going around 51 miles per hour at impact.

00:51:17.019 --> 00:51:21.157
There's a start of a big double loop curve.

00:51:21.157 --> 00:51:23.523
You would call it an S curve, but it was huge.

00:51:23.523 --> 00:51:27.894
It was a huge curve and they were, like I said, they had spent the day.

00:51:27.894 --> 00:51:29.945
The driver had borrowed his uncle's car.

00:51:29.945 --> 00:51:38.320
It was a big SUV and these guys were all friends of his from the high school which, ironically, my son went to the high school.

00:51:39.786 --> 00:51:41.090
How many were in the vehicle with him?

00:51:41.130 --> 00:51:50.291
I think five, oh my gosh, I think five total in the vehicle, four occupants, and I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure that was the number and it was four or five.

00:51:50.505 --> 00:51:51.445
Were they drinking or on drugs?

00:51:51.485 --> 00:51:53.708
Nope, there the number and it was four or five.

00:51:53.708 --> 00:51:55.009
Were they drinking or on drugs?

00:51:55.009 --> 00:51:55.309
Nope.

00:51:55.329 --> 00:51:58.132
There was no drinking, no drugs, I was just speeding speeding all day long.

00:51:58.452 --> 00:52:06.481
He was driving like a crazy person all day long and in fact the one fellow that died turns out the fellow that died I knew very well.

00:52:06.601 --> 00:52:07.041
Oh no.

00:52:08.184 --> 00:52:11.246
In fact my son was his backup on the football team.

00:52:11.246 --> 00:52:13.889
They used to go to a football practice together a lot.

00:52:13.889 --> 00:52:18.213
They would sometimes get rides home because he was our neighbor.

00:52:19.014 --> 00:52:19.853
Oh yeah.

00:52:19.853 --> 00:52:20.594
I'm sorry.

00:52:21.114 --> 00:52:22.155
Thank you, it was horrible.

00:52:22.155 --> 00:52:24.358
It happened so fast.

00:52:24.378 --> 00:52:27.039
I can't even believe that Amazing.

00:52:27.579 --> 00:52:34.516
Not next door, but just across the fairway there this house was, and a lovely guy, we know him well, smiling Andre.

00:52:34.516 --> 00:52:36.110
He was amazing.

00:52:36.110 --> 00:52:41.197
What's interesting is I've had the best training in the world.

00:52:41.197 --> 00:52:55.197
My driving training is extraordinary and I knew once I came to realize anything, I knew, wow, if I couldn't avoid this, this was high speed.

00:52:55.197 --> 00:52:57.572
I knew that I was in terrible pain.

00:52:57.572 --> 00:52:59.291
I knew that I was struggling to breathe.

00:52:59.291 --> 00:53:03.554
I knew that I couldn't move.

00:53:03.554 --> 00:53:08.255
Those were all imminent reality.

00:53:08.255 --> 00:53:10.512
I mean, it was right there, acutely in my face.

00:53:10.512 --> 00:53:11.871
So I said three prayers.

00:53:11.871 --> 00:53:16.672
When I air quotes came to, I said three prayers and I'll explain why the air quotes here in a second.

00:53:16.672 --> 00:53:19.434
When I came to, I prayed three prayers.

00:53:19.434 --> 00:53:32.451
I prayed a prayer of contrition because I said, if I couldn't avoid this very high speed, I know the pain that I'm in, I know that I'm not breathing.

00:53:32.451 --> 00:53:35.572
Well, I'm probably not going to make it out of this.

00:53:35.572 --> 00:53:40.277
So asking for forgiveness of my sins my hurts habits and hangups.

00:53:40.864 --> 00:53:45.898
Then I prayed a prayer of petition for whoever's in the other vehicle.

00:53:45.898 --> 00:53:48.831
They're probably in as bad a shape.

00:53:48.831 --> 00:53:52.956
Little did I know that most of them, other than the one boy that was killed.

00:53:52.956 --> 00:53:55.050
The worst injury was a broken arm.

00:53:55.811 --> 00:53:56.974
Okay, okay, that's amazing.

00:53:56.974 --> 00:53:59.688
It is amazing, I mean, I did not expect to hear that.

00:53:59.829 --> 00:54:23.693
I'm sorry, go ahead so then I prayed a prayer of petition for them and then I prayed a prayer of gratitude that neither my dog, who was my shadow everybody knew me me and buckeye rode together always, but because I was getting it detailed, she was a blonde dog, so she wasn't allowed in the black car when daddy gets a detail so but she was always my companion and so-.

00:54:24.748 --> 00:54:27.000
You were just thankful that she wasn't with you at that time.

00:54:27.144 --> 00:54:28.728
My family wasn't in the car.

00:54:28.728 --> 00:54:34.878
I prayed for that and I felt like, oh, it's my time, I was convinced of it.

00:54:35.105 --> 00:54:36.592
This car was going how fast.

00:54:37.264 --> 00:54:37.927
At impact.

00:54:37.927 --> 00:54:41.534
Well, when they crossed the median, they were going 109.

00:54:41.534 --> 00:54:44.047
When they hit me, they were going 92.

00:54:44.047 --> 00:54:45.871
And I was going 51 head on.

00:54:45.871 --> 00:54:47.336
Driver's side head on.

00:54:50.065 --> 00:54:50.947
Did you ever find out?

00:54:50.947 --> 00:54:58.396
I mean, it could have been just the speed that he was going and he lost control of the vehicle, or was there something more to it that made him lose control?

00:54:59.244 --> 00:55:00.748
Well, the crazy part of the story.

00:55:00.748 --> 00:55:03.436
I mean there's about nine different crazy parts to this story.

00:55:03.436 --> 00:55:04.650
But they had borrowed this car.

00:55:04.650 --> 00:55:10.867
It was a particularly warm day for spring break and they'd gone down to the beach, rode with the beach.

00:55:10.867 --> 00:55:12.489
They'd had a great day.

00:55:12.489 --> 00:55:15.090
But he had been driving crazy all day long.

00:55:15.090 --> 00:55:27.076
Just he was showing out for his buddies and trying to be cool and he had just been stopped just a couple minutes, literally a couple minutes before.

00:55:27.536 --> 00:55:29.036
For speeding, for reckless driving.

00:55:30.197 --> 00:55:36.860
He received a ticket for reckless driving and passing on the right and something else I can't remember.

00:55:36.860 --> 00:55:51.817
I think it was two or three tickets, just literally a minute and a half, two minutes before, and it didn't slow him down, they had texted, just got stopped, not texted, tweeted, just got stopped by a racist white cop for DWB Driving while black.

00:55:51.817 --> 00:55:54.572
That wasn't what happened at all.

00:55:54.572 --> 00:55:57.855
The guy was, he was driving crazy.

00:55:57.855 --> 00:56:09.588
And this particular police officer who felt terrible about what happened to me because I knew him, you know, if I had delayed him a little longer, who knows?

00:56:09.588 --> 00:56:17.576
But he didn't learn anything because he ran, I think, nine cars off the road Once the police officer got out of view, just drove crazy again.

00:56:17.576 --> 00:56:27.771
And none of the boys had the cojones to say, hey, stop this car, stop this car, stop driving like an idiot.

00:56:27.771 --> 00:56:29.972
And they regretted it later.

00:56:30.965 --> 00:56:33.554
But, andre, they had stopped at his house.

00:56:33.554 --> 00:56:42.177
His little brother was in the car for the whole first part of the day and he said, hey, they had to go on to another place to drop the other guys off.

00:56:42.177 --> 00:56:44.532
Hey, drop off my little brother.

00:56:44.532 --> 00:56:46.987
And the reason.

00:56:46.987 --> 00:56:52.914
And his little brother said I want to go, I want to go, I want to go and he was like no, no, get out of the car.

00:56:52.914 --> 00:56:54.987
And he's like no, no, get out of the car.

00:56:54.987 --> 00:56:56.190
And he saved his life yes.

00:56:56.590 --> 00:56:58.074
Saved his life, oh my goodness.

00:56:58.074 --> 00:57:05.038
Yeah, and what was also crazy is we were the only me and Andre were the only two believers in the crash.

00:57:05.038 --> 00:57:11.637
Yeah, so what happened in the crash was it was astounding.

00:57:11.637 --> 00:57:16.586
Crash was it was astounding.

00:57:16.586 --> 00:57:20.173
We didn't know for two years later that I had died in the crash, until we talked to the head paramedic, or head.

00:57:20.193 --> 00:57:31.059
EMT and EMT fireman, and him and his buddy, who was his deputy, had both run my vitals and marked me dead and walked away from the car.

00:57:31.059 --> 00:57:34.552
And so I remember I don't have any.

00:57:34.552 --> 00:57:38.737
I didn't have a near-death experience that I can recall, which is interesting.

00:57:38.737 --> 00:57:43.271
I'm a person of faith, you would think, but I did not have that experience.

00:57:43.271 --> 00:57:54.039
I remember I didn't realize it at the time that I was trapped, but I remember being in intense pain and I had experienced horrific pain in my life.

00:57:54.039 --> 00:57:56.150
This was the worst.

00:57:56.150 --> 00:57:58.793
This was easily the worst pain that I felt.

00:57:58.793 --> 00:58:03.434
My left side was shattered, my face was wrecked.

00:58:03.434 --> 00:58:06.856
You're probably good thing it's not a video audience.

00:58:06.856 --> 00:58:08.949
They'd be saying, well, why didn't they fix it?

00:58:08.949 --> 00:58:10.795
It lands.

00:58:11.365 --> 00:58:12.891
There's nothing wrong with his face.

00:58:14.128 --> 00:58:16.074
They can do things with plastic surgery.

00:58:16.074 --> 00:58:19.268
These days I have to say, like on True Word, faith for Life.

00:58:19.268 --> 00:58:24.318
My YouTube channel I always joke and I tell people I said my half a year probably watching out of pity.

00:58:24.318 --> 00:58:32.204
But the fact of the matter of it is I knew I was not breathing.

00:58:32.204 --> 00:58:40.411
I mean I was just taking like that little sips of air, were you actively trying to get a breath.

00:58:40.431 --> 00:58:41.313
Oh yeah, you were forcing it.

00:58:41.313 --> 00:58:44.179
I couldn't breathe in, I could not breathe in, I could not breathe out.

00:58:45.585 --> 00:58:50.954
I had massive thoracic damage, and so I just couldn't breathe.

00:58:50.954 --> 00:58:53.353
I could not breathe and I said okay.

00:58:53.585 --> 00:58:54.951
So they walked away from you.

00:58:54.951 --> 00:58:57.472
This man is no longer with us.

00:58:57.472 --> 00:59:00.273
Let's go take care of the other car.

00:59:01.126 --> 00:59:04.829
So the other car was on fire and so the fire department was.

00:59:04.829 --> 00:59:08.777
They'd gotten everybody out of the car including Andre.

00:59:08.777 --> 00:59:11.974
But they were actively trying to put the fire out.

00:59:11.974 --> 00:59:12.666
And it was.

00:59:12.666 --> 00:59:19.717
The car burnt to the rails, but I was so close to it that I had red on my arm.

00:59:19.717 --> 00:59:21.811
I could feel the heat of the fire.

00:59:21.811 --> 00:59:22.574
It was intense.

00:59:22.744 --> 00:59:26.115
And no one is there taking care of you, trying to remove you from the vehicle.

00:59:26.264 --> 00:59:31.086
No, they figured he's gone, and so we didn't learn this until two years later, when he comes in and goes.

00:59:31.086 --> 00:59:32.947
He was a friend of my daughter's.

00:59:32.947 --> 00:59:39.612
We were at my daughter's birthday party and he said I thought I was going to have to tell your daughter that your dad was gone.

00:59:39.612 --> 00:59:44.115
And so, yeah, we were like what, excuse me, my son.

00:59:44.195 --> 00:59:46.336
That was your first time hearing it two years later.

00:59:46.336 --> 00:59:47.637
Yeah, two years, okay.

00:59:47.818 --> 00:59:50.579
Yeah, crazy, crazy, crazy.

00:59:50.579 --> 00:59:51.079
And I was nuts.

00:59:51.079 --> 00:59:52.961
He said did you not know that?

00:59:52.961 --> 00:59:54.643
I said no, we had no idea.

00:59:54.643 --> 01:00:01.686
No one told us, so we didn't know.

01:00:01.686 --> 01:00:06.235
And so I remember being in the car and I said those three prayers and I said it's okay, it's okay, God, I'm already with it.

01:00:06.235 --> 01:00:20.936
You've given me a way better life than I've ever deserved, truthfully, truthfully, and I was very thankful and I was very thankful that my family and my dog wasn't in the car and I just, I just remember thinking.

01:00:20.936 --> 01:00:29.018
Once I came to they did tell me it was a bunch of high school boys and I said are they?

01:00:29.018 --> 01:00:30.929
Because the helicopter was coming in?

01:00:30.929 --> 01:00:35.978
And I said to the lady working on me heroic, heroic, paramedic.

01:00:35.978 --> 01:00:38.132
She was an advanced life support paramedic.

01:00:38.132 --> 01:00:49.739
She had climbed through the back, they had peeled open the door and she had climbed through metal and glass and everything to work in between the front seats to work on me.

01:00:51.085 --> 01:00:53.173
Well, when did they realize that you were not dead?

01:00:53.173 --> 01:00:55.369
Well at some point.

01:00:55.369 --> 01:00:56.327
How long were you lying there?

01:00:56.327 --> 01:00:56.708
I don't know.

01:00:58.146 --> 01:01:02.775
I don't know what the time frame was, but I know that the roof had collapsed, and on my head.

01:01:02.775 --> 01:01:10.092
Now I'm six foot four, and so my spine was in an S shape and my head was crushed down.

01:01:10.092 --> 01:01:16.893
It actually crushed down the headrest, if you can imagine how low a headrest is.

01:01:16.893 --> 01:01:21.650
It had actually crushed the headrest down and so oh, my goodness yeah it was brutal.

01:01:22.166 --> 01:01:23.932
It was a gruesome position to be in.

01:01:23.932 --> 01:01:29.353
My feet were facing the door, my knees were facing the passenger side door.

01:01:29.353 --> 01:01:32.253
My gosh, I was trapped in eight inches of space front to back.

01:01:32.253 --> 01:01:38.014
This body Now I was in way better shape then, but this body was trapped in that kind of space.

01:01:38.273 --> 01:01:39.195
I just can't imagine.

01:01:39.336 --> 01:01:40.398
It was gruesome yeah.

01:01:41.105 --> 01:01:45.394
Tell me about how your body physically altered the vehicle.

01:01:45.394 --> 01:01:46.456
Your body.

01:01:46.998 --> 01:01:49.291
Yeah, I bent the steering wheel with my mouth.

01:01:49.291 --> 01:01:52.414
I broke the windshield.

01:01:52.414 --> 01:02:03.726
What they tell me is my mouth, just below my bottom lip, hit the steering wheel, bent it and glanced up and my forehead hit the windshield.

01:02:03.726 --> 01:02:06.731
The seatbelt stretched eight inches.

01:02:06.731 --> 01:02:09.436
The metal tang stretched.

01:02:09.436 --> 01:02:14.775
They're designed to stretch just a micro amount because it helped.

01:02:15.016 --> 01:02:16.025
I didn't even know they could.

01:02:16.106 --> 01:02:19.615
Yeah, honestly and all the engineers that have looked at the car since.

01:02:19.615 --> 01:02:22.070
They said there's no way anybody survived this.

01:02:22.070 --> 01:02:27.822
The airbags they did deploy, but what use are they?

01:02:27.822 --> 01:02:32.652
They deployed and then blew out right instantaneously the.

01:02:32.652 --> 01:02:38.755
The impact speed was just so great and so who discovered that you were indeed alive.

01:02:38.965 --> 01:02:51.018
There was a young lady I describe her this way, the way I remember her she had long, straight, mid-length, maybe to the just below her shoulders in the back.

01:02:51.018 --> 01:03:03.489
She was slender, she had a little diamond stud in her nose, she had beautiful eyes, she was crying profusely and she had walked up.

01:03:03.489 --> 01:03:15.835
And I remembered and I don't know if she actually had on a white top, but what I saw was a white top and she had walked up and she was walking to like a three-quarter view of me.

01:03:15.835 --> 01:03:23.532
And then I remember and I opened my eyes because periodically I was closing my eyes because they hurt, they hurt.

01:03:24.001 --> 01:03:38.652
They physically hurt, and I just was able to open my eyes and look this way to the left with my perfect, because I couldn't move my head, and she starts screaming oh my God, oh my God, this guy's alive, this guy's alive.

01:03:38.652 --> 01:03:43.144
And so that's when they started working on me and that's when the lady went crawling through the back.

01:03:43.226 --> 01:03:46.012
The advanced life support person got there and she crawled through.

01:03:46.012 --> 01:03:51.168
She immediately started speaking with me and they did an assessment.

01:03:51.168 --> 01:03:52.030
I was real familiar.

01:03:52.030 --> 01:03:55.045
She could see and it's too bad I didn't have it on.

01:03:55.045 --> 01:03:56.565
It would have been great if I had it on.

01:03:56.565 --> 01:04:04.068
But body armor helps to attenuate chest trauma, so it would have been great if I'd had that on but, I didn't.

01:04:04.469 --> 01:04:05.190
You were headed home.

01:04:05.251 --> 01:04:05.771
I was headed home.

01:04:05.771 --> 01:04:08.068
So that was in the back.

01:04:08.068 --> 01:04:11.809
She could see firearms-related things.

01:04:11.809 --> 01:04:18.971
She could see that I was wearing a firearm, so she says it's a black SUV.

01:04:18.971 --> 01:04:21.427
She asked me are you Secret Service?

01:04:21.427 --> 01:04:24.148
And I said no, ma'am, but I do work with them.

01:04:24.760 --> 01:04:24.880
Okay.

01:04:24.880 --> 01:04:26.786
So she wasn't frightened by what she was seeing.

01:04:26.786 --> 01:04:28.170
She was already familiar with it.

01:04:28.170 --> 01:04:29.806
She made the connection.

01:04:30.260 --> 01:04:38.902
And I said if you're worried about my firearm, I can't move my arm, but if I can tell you how to take it out, I can make it safe she goes.

01:04:38.902 --> 01:04:40.965
No, for now, let's leave it there.

01:04:40.965 --> 01:04:42.288
Let's just keep it there.

01:04:42.768 --> 01:04:47.775
And in fact the, the medic or the police officer at the hospital, the trauma center.

01:04:47.775 --> 01:04:49.827
He's the one that took it out.

01:04:49.827 --> 01:04:57.005
I heard the helicopter and I knew by having been a police officer and having different experiences in my life.

01:04:57.005 --> 01:05:08.846
I said, look, if that helicopter is for me, I've lived a good life, god's been better than me and I deserve Take whoever's hurt worse in that vehicle because they're young.

01:05:08.846 --> 01:05:13.983
And she said to me distinctly you don't get to make that decision, we make that decision.

01:05:13.983 --> 01:05:15.847
I was like, okay, yes, ma'am.

01:05:18.291 --> 01:05:19.353
Was it still the same lady?

01:05:19.353 --> 01:05:20.181
Who was Same lady?

01:05:20.201 --> 01:05:30.476
She was with me in the car the whole time and in fact, a man had walked up and you could tell he was a person, carried himself like military.

01:05:30.476 --> 01:05:40.403
And he had walked up and he stood right in front of the car and he said I want you to look at this point on your windshield, don't try to turn your head.

01:05:40.403 --> 01:05:45.481
I'm going to come around to your passenger side and I'm going to talk to you.

01:05:45.481 --> 01:05:47.003
Don't turn your head.

01:05:47.003 --> 01:05:53.344
Okay, so he comes around to my passenger side and he says listen, mr, you're hurt real bad.

01:05:53.344 --> 01:05:55.688
Is there anybody I can call for you?

01:05:55.688 --> 01:06:07.528
And I said, yes, I explained that my wife, she, doesn't like the phone, so you're going to have to keep calling and keep calling and keep calling, because if she sees your number she barely answers for me.

01:06:07.528 --> 01:06:09.860
You're going to have to keep on calling.

01:06:09.860 --> 01:06:11.547
And so he did.

01:06:11.547 --> 01:06:18.748
And she was on a treadmill at our house and my son says Mom, you've got to answer this phone.

01:06:18.748 --> 01:06:21.706
They keep calling, and sure enough, you know.

01:06:21.706 --> 01:06:24.068
So they were able to get to the scene.

01:06:24.960 --> 01:06:26.186
While you were still in the car.

01:06:26.400 --> 01:06:27.806
Yeah, they were cutting me out of the car.

01:06:27.806 --> 01:06:33.327
Took them 40 minutes to cut me out of the car, but that's traumatic in itself.

01:06:33.327 --> 01:06:33.788
Yeah.

01:06:34.340 --> 01:06:37.150
Walking up and seeing you in that state.

01:06:37.619 --> 01:06:41.851
I had been training, as you might imagine, I had been training my family for years, with my background.

01:06:41.851 --> 01:06:44.565
I trained, trained, trained, train, practice, practice, practice.

01:06:44.565 --> 01:06:52.286
And one thing I drilled into them is losing your composure in a traumatic event makes it worse.

01:06:52.286 --> 01:07:03.289
Be calm, take deep breaths, think things through TTT, think things through, survive the next 30, 30 seconds, 30 minutes, 30 hours, 30 days.

01:07:03.289 --> 01:07:06.775
Just keep surviving, keep in that mode.

01:07:06.775 --> 01:07:08.905
And so they were very calm.

01:07:08.905 --> 01:07:09.588
They did great.

01:07:09.588 --> 01:07:10.469
They did great.

01:07:11.121 --> 01:07:12.768
I feel like I need to start training my children.

01:07:14.240 --> 01:07:14.922
You know it's.

01:07:14.922 --> 01:07:19.070
You always hope people say, oh, you're so paranoid.

01:07:19.070 --> 01:07:20.740
I'm not the least bit paranoid.

01:07:20.740 --> 01:07:24.150
I'm still, to this day, armed wherever I go.

01:07:24.150 --> 01:07:32.668
Still, to this day, I teach people how to survive terrible things, and it comes when you least expect it.

01:07:32.668 --> 01:07:38.072
It's that event, that life-changing event, comes when you least expect it.

01:07:38.072 --> 01:07:43.231
Now, the problem for us was I was 90% of the income self-employed.

01:07:43.802 --> 01:07:44.525
I'm the business.

01:07:46.623 --> 01:07:47.547
Which is not to demean my wife.

01:07:47.547 --> 01:07:51.670
She worked very, very hard, but she worked in a business that didn't generate and we were buying over the business.

01:07:51.690 --> 01:07:52.612
She was working at the time.

01:07:52.612 --> 01:07:54.567
She wasn't a stay-at-home mom, she was working.

01:07:54.567 --> 01:07:54.807
No, no.

01:07:55.280 --> 01:07:58.130
She had her own business and did that and she did great at it.

01:07:58.130 --> 01:08:02.648
She did a great job, job, but all of a sudden the income stops that's why.

01:08:02.648 --> 01:08:16.250
I tell people you have absolutely got to get disability insurance, get as much as you can afford, because I will tell you it took years, years for the disability to come in many years.

01:08:16.250 --> 01:08:21.463
I was stubborn when I got home from the hospital how long were you in the hospital?

01:08:21.463 --> 01:08:25.322
A day, basically yeah basically a day.

01:08:25.983 --> 01:08:26.625
Yeah, I was crazy.

01:08:26.625 --> 01:08:38.206
I got sent home with a shattered left side, massive thoracic injury, twisted aorta which turns out it was not a twisted a order, it was an aneurysm.

01:08:38.206 --> 01:08:41.939
Yeah, it was a mess, but I did not receive the best care.

01:08:41.939 --> 01:08:45.667
And so things we started to learn as time went on.

01:08:45.667 --> 01:08:50.920
Going to different specialists, they were like why, why in the world you should have been left there in the hospital.

01:08:50.960 --> 01:08:53.368
Was your facial bones crushed.

01:08:54.000 --> 01:08:54.925
I broke 10 teeth.

01:08:54.925 --> 01:08:57.729
My jaw moved back up into my skull.

01:08:58.220 --> 01:09:00.926
Is that the brain injury and the brain injury yeah, or was it just a collision with?

01:09:00.926 --> 01:09:01.167
The.

01:09:04.479 --> 01:09:05.280
That was just a physical trauma.

01:09:05.280 --> 01:09:05.721
Yeah, the brain injury.

01:09:05.721 --> 01:09:10.871
We started to realize that I had a substantial brain injury.

01:09:10.871 --> 01:09:16.113
I couldn't remember anything, in fact, I didn't know that I spoke multiple languages.

01:09:16.132 --> 01:09:19.923
I had no after the accident you had no idea, no recollection of it at all.

01:09:20.565 --> 01:09:24.520
and people they were, they were very nice, they came over and would read to me.

01:09:24.520 --> 01:09:28.851
They asked my wife, what can we do to help you other than bring food, what can we do to help you?

01:09:28.851 --> 01:09:32.671
And so she would say well, sean loves to read, but he can't read right now.

01:09:32.880 --> 01:09:34.546
You had quite the library too, right?

01:09:34.546 --> 01:09:35.027
Yes, yeah.

01:09:35.167 --> 01:09:36.051
Thousands of books.

01:09:36.051 --> 01:09:42.224
Yeah, yeah, I love books, much to my wife's chagrin.

01:09:42.344 --> 01:09:42.704
Wait a minute.

01:09:42.704 --> 01:09:45.186
How many times did you read the Bible front to back?

01:09:45.667 --> 01:09:49.569
At that point it was 33 and three quarters times.

01:09:49.569 --> 01:09:50.390
That's incredible.

01:09:50.430 --> 01:09:53.313
I'm at 38 now and I learn something new every time.

01:09:53.313 --> 01:09:55.073
I bet Honestly every time.

01:09:55.073 --> 01:09:56.055
Okay.

01:09:56.055 --> 01:09:59.717
So, avid reader, you're in there and your friends are coming over to read for you.

01:10:04.039 --> 01:10:04.521
Sorry, I interrupt a lot.

01:10:04.521 --> 01:10:11.707
So she comes over and she was dear and sweet and wonderful and I still remember the lady's husband was one of my dearest friends and so she's like, well, what would you like me to read?

01:10:11.707 --> 01:10:13.315
I said, just pick something off the bookshelf.

01:10:13.315 --> 01:10:16.087
And everything was gobbledygook to her.

01:10:16.087 --> 01:10:24.271
And so finally she pulls something off and then there's a handwritten notebook next to it, spiral bound notebook, and I said what's that you have there?

01:10:24.271 --> 01:10:27.587
And she shows it to me and I was like what's that?

01:10:27.587 --> 01:10:34.158
And she goes it's your handwriting and it looks like Hebrew, Hebrew or Russian, I can't remember which.

01:10:34.198 --> 01:10:36.060
It was you spoke both Hebrew and Russian.

01:10:36.121 --> 01:10:36.322
Yes.

01:10:36.622 --> 01:10:37.221
Wow Okay.

01:10:37.221 --> 01:10:41.305
Yeah, yeah, I don't think we talked about these specific languages that you did know.

01:10:41.445 --> 01:10:52.054
Yeah, the primaries were Hebrew, Russian, arabic and different dialects within that, so related dialects that you would be proximal.

01:10:52.054 --> 01:10:54.195
Those areas that would be proximal, you have to learn those.

01:10:54.195 --> 01:10:58.944
So it was one of those languages and I said well, whose handwriting is that?

01:10:58.944 --> 01:11:00.109
She told me it's your handwriting.

01:11:00.109 --> 01:11:11.072
She thought I was kidding, she thought I was joking, because she pulled it around in front of the hospital bed and showed it to me and I was like that's really nice handwriting in a weird sort of language.

01:11:11.072 --> 01:11:13.488
I kind of had an idea it might be Hebrew.

01:11:13.488 --> 01:11:20.712
And she goes you don't remember that you speak these and write these.

01:11:20.712 --> 01:11:23.421
And I'm like nope, I didn't know that at all.

01:11:23.421 --> 01:11:24.402
How long after the accident was this realization?

01:11:24.421 --> 01:11:26.244
don't remember that you speak these and write these and I'm like I didn't know that at all.

01:11:26.244 --> 01:11:28.688
How, how, how long after the accident was this realization?

01:11:29.529 --> 01:11:30.730
Probably two or three weeks.

01:11:31.351 --> 01:11:32.113
Okay, yeah.

01:11:32.233 --> 01:11:33.855
Okay, two or three weeks, maybe a little more.

01:11:33.855 --> 01:11:41.462
I had a surgery that I had to have two, I think about two weeks.

01:11:41.462 --> 01:11:43.305
They said the reason they couldn't do the surgery is the inflammation was just so massive.

01:11:43.305 --> 01:11:56.333
And when they did the surgery to put my shoulder back together, they found pieces of my collarbone was completely shattered and they found pieces of it inside at the bottom of where my rib cage was, at the bottom rib.

01:11:56.699 --> 01:11:59.189
Which blows my mind, because they sent you home.

01:11:59.189 --> 01:12:02.846
Yeah, the pain that you must have been in.

01:12:03.148 --> 01:12:03.649
It was brutal.

01:12:03.649 --> 01:12:06.261
I can tell you it was awful.

01:12:06.261 --> 01:12:06.962
It, yeah, it was a, it was a.

01:12:06.962 --> 01:12:07.423
You must've been in.

01:12:07.423 --> 01:12:08.145
It was brutal it was.

01:12:08.145 --> 01:12:12.661
I can tell you it was awful, it was horrific, never ending pain and it was the worst pain that I've ever experienced.

01:12:12.680 --> 01:12:14.970
What kind of pain do you experience today?

01:12:14.970 --> 01:12:17.841
I would imagine there's so it's intractable pain.

01:12:17.940 --> 01:12:19.582
It's there's no really for it.

01:12:19.582 --> 01:12:21.787
I could take drugs for it.

01:12:21.787 --> 01:12:27.335
I'm offered you name it the Veterans Administration in Wilmington.

01:12:27.335 --> 01:12:29.384
I cannot sing their praises enough.

01:12:29.384 --> 01:12:30.345
I love them.

01:12:30.345 --> 01:12:31.127
That's so good to hear.

01:12:31.127 --> 01:12:33.172
Oh my gosh, these are the best people.

01:12:33.172 --> 01:12:53.041
The physical therapist, dr Walker, dr Jude Miller, my audiologists, dr Oster, my neurologist all of them, all of the ones, the specialists that take care of every part of my body, are utterly amazing people, and there are so many there.

01:12:53.041 --> 01:13:00.301
I know I'm forgetting names and I feel bad about that, but I'm going to tell you they were and they are.

01:13:00.301 --> 01:13:03.292
I'm there between one and three times a week.

01:13:03.292 --> 01:13:07.326
Four years I'm there and I still go.

01:13:07.466 --> 01:13:10.314
I just came from one of the off-site treatment centers.

01:13:10.314 --> 01:13:12.061
They're angels on earth, in my opinion.

01:13:12.061 --> 01:13:15.810
I understand that not every va is that way.

01:13:15.810 --> 01:13:19.739
Mine is, and I'm blessed beyond deserving.

01:13:19.739 --> 01:13:21.969
So they work on me all the time.

01:13:21.969 --> 01:13:27.706
Oh, and dr and Dr Fountain and her people, all the nurses also that take care of me Unreal.

01:13:27.706 --> 01:13:29.229
They're just beautiful people.

01:13:29.229 --> 01:13:32.805
It's probably I don't know that it ever goes below a six.

01:13:32.805 --> 01:13:34.913
They say the one to 10 scale?

01:13:35.114 --> 01:13:36.841
I don't know that it ever goes below a six.

01:13:36.841 --> 01:13:38.421
It's brutal.

01:13:39.262 --> 01:13:40.845
But you don't wear it.

01:13:41.645 --> 01:13:43.068
I try not to, and I'll tell you why.

01:13:43.068 --> 01:13:52.083
One thing I taught my family is that your pain and your suffering is no one else's problem, no matter what the cause of it is.

01:13:52.083 --> 01:13:55.072
You can't think of it as someone else's problem.

01:13:55.072 --> 01:13:56.907
You can't make it about them.

01:13:56.907 --> 01:13:58.864
I'm totally handicapped now.

01:13:58.864 --> 01:14:00.029
I'm 100% disabled.

01:14:00.029 --> 01:14:04.792
I will tell you that I've learned some very interesting things.

01:14:04.792 --> 01:14:06.641
I remember when I was a police officer.

01:14:06.641 --> 01:14:16.615
One of the things that I would do is if I drove by and saw a car with non-handicapped tags and no hang tag, I would wait for the driver.

01:14:16.615 --> 01:14:20.030
The driver would come out and I'd ask them hey, are you handicapped?

01:14:20.030 --> 01:14:21.606
No, no, I was just going in there for a minute.

01:14:21.606 --> 01:14:23.185
No, no, no, are you handicapped?

01:14:23.185 --> 01:14:27.721
They go, no, I was just going in there for a minute.

01:14:27.721 --> 01:14:28.764
No, no, no, are you handicapped?

01:14:28.764 --> 01:14:28.923
They go?

01:14:28.923 --> 01:14:29.605
No, would you like to be?

01:14:29.626 --> 01:14:41.935
It ticked me off worse than anything, so I had a sensitivity toward handicapped, accessibility, just what they have to deal with, what people, blind, people, amputees, all of these things.

01:14:41.935 --> 01:14:44.688
I had a real heart for them and then I became one.

01:14:44.688 --> 01:14:47.643
It's mind boggling.

01:14:47.643 --> 01:14:56.006
And so people who go into that career, where that's who they deal with, what angels on earth they are.

01:14:56.006 --> 01:15:06.322
So I would say, yeah, I'm in a pretty substantial pain and the system because of my brain injury, injury the systems of my body aren't working properly.

01:15:06.322 --> 01:15:10.291
So you have an autonomic system and a parasympathetic system.

01:15:10.291 --> 01:15:16.560
They do things like blink your eyes, right, you blink your eyes, you don't even think about it, it's just a well, I have to think about it.

01:15:16.560 --> 01:15:24.055
The the process of breathing, the all of the different body processes, organs.

01:15:24.055 --> 01:15:26.608
I'm now insulin-dependent diabetic.

01:15:27.622 --> 01:15:29.429
You were not prior to that, no.

01:15:29.659 --> 01:15:31.404
I was in phenomenal health.

01:15:31.404 --> 01:15:36.229
Phenomenal health, Great eyesight All of this now I wear corrective lenses.

01:15:36.229 --> 01:15:40.502
I use a cane, a walker and crutches.

01:15:40.502 --> 01:15:43.185
That's what I do, that's my life now, in fact, the cane to my right, that's my life now.

01:15:43.185 --> 01:15:49.429
Yeah, In fact, the cane to my right was made by my dear friend Doug Allen.

01:15:50.170 --> 01:15:51.610
It is a beautiful cane by the way.

01:15:51.610 --> 01:15:54.113
I noticed it as soon as I saw you at the front door.

01:15:54.512 --> 01:15:57.034
Handmade from a branch that fell off a tree in his yard.

01:15:57.194 --> 01:15:59.417
Incredible Yep and he made it to the perfect time.

01:15:59.476 --> 01:16:00.097
Oh, he's amazing.

01:16:00.097 --> 01:16:16.161
He's amazing.

01:16:16.161 --> 01:16:16.440
He's amazing.

01:16:16.440 --> 01:16:17.122
I'm telling you that.

01:16:17.122 --> 01:16:19.105
The church family that I have, grace Community, topsail I've spoken all across.

01:16:19.105 --> 01:16:28.469
When I did my book tour it became this big thing Five months and speaking and doing that, be on the radio and people say you need to have your own radio show Because I was much better then physically and mentally.

01:16:28.469 --> 01:16:33.306
My mental acuity then was much better than that it is now and it will get worse.

01:16:33.306 --> 01:16:35.152
Everything will continue to degrade.

01:16:39.780 --> 01:16:45.220
So you've had the accident, you are in a state of recovery, you're learning things about yourself.

01:16:45.220 --> 01:16:49.725
Now tell me how you got into radio and where were you living now?

01:16:49.725 --> 01:16:50.783
Are you still in Delaware?

01:16:50.783 --> 01:16:52.269
At this time yeah, we were in Delaware.

01:16:52.269 --> 01:17:00.490
So what made you decide you want to do a radio show and reach out to someone in Texas Like how, tell me about how that came to fruition?

01:17:01.981 --> 01:17:08.494
So I was on a bunch of different radio and all over the country and then some TV shows.

01:17:09.081 --> 01:17:10.206
Speaking about your book.

01:17:10.206 --> 01:17:15.658
Yeah, I wrote the book mostly before the crash it was like almost 90% done, right?

01:17:15.658 --> 01:17:17.025
Yeah, it was almost 90% finished.

01:17:17.025 --> 01:17:23.828
So after the accident you do use some technology to help you finish the book, the last 10% of the book, Something called Dragon.

01:17:23.828 --> 01:17:25.805
Yeah Right, so if you buy that book.

01:17:25.904 --> 01:17:26.729
Excellence Killed the Church.

01:17:26.729 --> 01:17:31.427
If you buy that book, it's not great because it's brain injury.

01:17:31.427 --> 01:17:37.469
Boy trying to talk into a microphone that's converting to speech which is really not where it is now.

01:17:37.588 --> 01:17:39.993
Right, this was back in 2012.

01:17:40.014 --> 01:17:40.859
2012, right.

01:17:41.060 --> 01:17:42.024
So you finished the book.

01:17:42.024 --> 01:17:44.989
It's now published and it's getting some publicity.

01:17:44.989 --> 01:17:47.845
Yes, well, I hired a publicist.

01:17:47.845 --> 01:17:48.266
You did.

01:17:48.426 --> 01:17:49.710
So here's my bright idea.

01:17:49.710 --> 01:17:50.712
This is advice.

01:17:50.712 --> 01:17:51.842
This is free.

01:17:51.842 --> 01:17:54.094
You're listeners, you don't have to pay anything for this.

01:17:54.094 --> 01:17:55.720
But think of the money you'll save.

01:17:55.720 --> 01:18:01.509
Unless you write a bestseller, you're not going to make a ton of money selling books.

01:18:01.509 --> 01:18:13.552
So I wrote a book I was a prolific writer prior to the crash a book of over 120 poems that I wrote songs, hymns, you name it.

01:18:13.592 --> 01:18:14.213
I didn't know that.

01:18:14.279 --> 01:18:15.202
Yeah, yeah, a whole bunch.

01:18:15.202 --> 01:18:23.206
I have another book, a novel, that I'm working on that I'm hoping that I can finish it and publish it.

01:18:23.206 --> 01:18:26.932
So I'd written an awful lot, but I wasn't finished with this book.

01:18:26.932 --> 01:18:28.523
Excellence Killed the Church.

01:18:28.523 --> 01:18:30.489
How Mediocrity is Destroying America.

01:18:30.489 --> 01:18:36.632
But it was such a controversial book I thought, wow, I'll hire a publicist and we'll do all this.

01:18:36.632 --> 01:18:40.029
So we took the money, thinking I'm going to go back to work.

01:18:40.029 --> 01:18:43.466
This is Sean Greener thinking here In my mind oh, I'm go back to work.

01:18:43.466 --> 01:18:45.078
This is Sean Greener thinking here In my mind oh, I'm going back to work.

01:18:45.078 --> 01:18:53.948
I've been hurt, real bad, lots of times before I'm going back to work, okay, and I'm going to make the money and so we live, thank God.

01:18:54.087 --> 01:19:11.877
We put food away, my wife, I remember she was always great about it and I went to her one day I said, look, we need to be putting food back prior to the crash and we had whole big things of food that we did, thank God, and people didn't know it until years after the crash, that's what we ate.

01:19:13.462 --> 01:19:18.432
Okay, because the income it had completely stopped, and so now you were just relying on what you'd stored away.

01:19:18.920 --> 01:19:30.867
I had no concept in my head, even though once we started receiving the appropriate medical care, the doctors all would say you are never going to get better, you're only going to get worse.

01:19:30.867 --> 01:19:39.574
And it was only until Dr Hopwood, a neuropsychologist, tested me for two straight days solid.

01:19:39.574 --> 01:19:41.846
They're the hardest two days of my life.

01:19:41.846 --> 01:19:44.054
I've had lots of very tough training.

01:19:44.054 --> 01:19:46.203
I've been through lots of tough experiences.

01:19:46.203 --> 01:19:59.414
I was literally sweating trying to put together a children's puzzle of the United States where it says what the state is, the shape, the color, all those things.

01:19:59.414 --> 01:20:01.002
And I still couldn't do it.

01:20:01.462 --> 01:20:04.606
Did you realize, while you were taking the test, that it was not going well?

01:20:04.606 --> 01:20:05.908
Yeah, you did.

01:20:06.168 --> 01:20:12.429
Yeah, yeah, it was awful Cause I was in a total state of delusion up until those moments.

01:20:12.429 --> 01:20:14.819
I told my wife after the first day I don't know, I'm not going back.

01:20:14.819 --> 01:20:16.923
And she said no, you're going back.

01:20:16.923 --> 01:20:23.975
People need to understand how bad this is, because I had always been a workaround guy.

01:20:23.975 --> 01:20:33.190
My process of thinking and doing was keep moving the next 30, survive, the next 30, keep moving, keep adapting.

01:20:33.190 --> 01:20:36.502
All of these things were great for my life.

01:20:36.502 --> 01:20:38.987
The problem was it wasn't great Like when doctors would ask me how are you doing?

01:20:38.987 --> 01:20:39.667
How are you feeling Great?

01:20:39.667 --> 01:20:43.876
I'm doing great Because in my mind, I wasn't great, like when doctors would ask me how are you doing?

01:20:43.876 --> 01:20:44.756
How are you feeling Great?

01:20:44.756 --> 01:20:47.466
I'm doing great Because in my mind, I am doing great.

01:20:47.466 --> 01:20:51.199
My benchmark of great is way different than most people's great.

01:20:51.860 --> 01:20:55.791
And so, yes, I'm in terrible pain, but you know what I'm blessed?

01:20:55.791 --> 01:21:01.988
I'm blessed to be here, and that was the worst thing I could do, because they couldn't, they hadn't experienced anybody like me.

01:21:01.988 --> 01:21:04.673
It's just not what you.

01:21:06.480 --> 01:21:07.324
Were you fooling them?

01:21:08.480 --> 01:21:10.162
I think some of them I was Some of them.

01:21:10.162 --> 01:21:12.569
They're busy and they weren't engaged.

01:21:12.569 --> 01:21:14.765
But there was no fooling Dr Hopwood.

01:21:14.765 --> 01:21:17.988
Let me tell you what she was amazing.

01:21:17.988 --> 01:21:20.108
She was a godsend.

01:21:20.108 --> 01:21:27.734
She had talked to professors of mine, the president of my seminary, dr Ford.

01:21:27.734 --> 01:21:31.835
She had talked to these people because she wanted to get an idea, okay, what was before like.

01:21:31.835 --> 01:21:34.622
And she talked to my wife and all this.

01:21:34.622 --> 01:21:36.507
But you know, wives they're biased, hopefully.

01:21:36.507 --> 01:21:39.881
And so she wanted to get a broader view.

01:21:39.881 --> 01:21:50.788
She was amazing, and at different points in time I could see tears coming down her face because I was so frustrated.

01:21:51.289 --> 01:21:53.573
Why can't I do this stupid simple thing?

01:21:53.573 --> 01:21:55.663
Why can't I tie my shoes?

01:21:55.663 --> 01:21:58.368
Why can't I button my shirt?

01:21:58.368 --> 01:22:00.814
What's going on here?

01:22:00.814 --> 01:22:07.702
How come I can hold a conversation with you but I can't do stupid simple things?

01:22:07.702 --> 01:22:09.265
How come I can't remember anything?

01:22:09.265 --> 01:22:13.514
My memory was shot and all of these things.

01:22:13.514 --> 01:22:18.470
I knew that I had to have lived a better life than I had remembered.

01:22:18.470 --> 01:22:42.792
And so she looked me right in the eye the second day we're about to finish up and she said Dr Greener, I am sorry to tell you you are not only never going to get better, you are going to get a lot worse and it's going to be a hard road for you, and she had a conversation with me and my wife about getting our affairs in order.

01:22:43.780 --> 01:22:50.149
Several doctors had that same conversation and then you were even on hospice at one point were you not.

01:22:50.409 --> 01:22:54.865
Yeah, yeah yeah, I could still be on it now if I wanted to be.

01:22:54.865 --> 01:23:01.467
But that's why I'm back in the podcasting, because I had at a certain point I couldn't do it anymore.

01:23:01.467 --> 01:23:03.853
I couldn't sit up anymore.

01:23:03.853 --> 01:23:08.631
I have a special what's called a TLSO brace and it helps hold me up.

01:23:08.631 --> 01:23:12.911
It's got a metal bar and a padding system here.

01:23:12.911 --> 01:23:16.911
It comes down and it mounts at my waist and that helps me.

01:23:16.911 --> 01:23:18.605
But you can't wear that all the time.

01:23:18.746 --> 01:23:18.926
Yeah.

01:23:19.199 --> 01:23:28.890
Because if you do wear it all the time, you won't be able to hold yourself up at all, except for when you have that on, and even then it won't work anymore.

01:23:29.109 --> 01:23:31.653
Tell me about the aortic aneurysm.

01:23:31.653 --> 01:23:35.697
And this is a life-threatening condition that you live with now, correct?

01:23:36.979 --> 01:23:37.479
Yep, yep, yep, yep.

01:23:37.479 --> 01:23:38.900
So it's called a 5+, so it's 5 or bigger.

01:23:38.900 --> 01:23:40.561
So it's five or bigger.

01:23:40.561 --> 01:23:44.484
The risk of MRIs for me seems.

01:23:44.484 --> 01:23:50.186
I had 30 some MRIs prior to developing this massive claustrophobia.

01:23:50.186 --> 01:24:02.012
I was never claustrophobic before and I didn't know that I was claustrophobic, until they're pushing me into the thing and it's like, yeah, this is.

01:24:02.012 --> 01:24:03.974
She was like you said you've had these before.

01:24:03.974 --> 01:24:06.255
I said, yeah, I have, and I loved them.

01:24:06.255 --> 01:24:07.315
They were great.

01:24:07.456 --> 01:24:09.277
But you were compacted in that car.

01:24:09.277 --> 01:24:11.278
Is that triggered this whole?

01:24:11.278 --> 01:24:11.837
It was yeah.

01:24:12.579 --> 01:24:20.654
Different psychologists have said that they think probably that subconscious event where you don't want to be trapped in there Because I could not move.

01:24:20.654 --> 01:24:23.347
There was no moving in that car at all.

01:24:23.860 --> 01:24:29.770
I had no option to move and I didn't have the concept of being able to move.

01:24:29.770 --> 01:24:35.453
It was not even in my head, because everything was collapsed around me.

01:24:35.453 --> 01:24:44.765
When you're in that position for such a long period of time, you can't move Mind-bending Involuntarily.

01:24:44.765 --> 01:24:50.150
Now, if you're sitting still because you're trying to avoid getting shot or being detected, that's one thing.

01:24:50.150 --> 01:24:51.592
You're doing that voluntarily.

01:24:51.672 --> 01:24:56.056
Still not easy, but I just can't imagine Crazy.

01:24:56.256 --> 01:24:56.556
I can't.

01:24:56.556 --> 01:25:01.682
So she told me.

01:25:01.682 --> 01:25:03.411
She said you need to apply for disability right away.

01:25:03.411 --> 01:25:04.274
And I still fought it.

01:25:04.274 --> 01:25:08.206
I want to say it was four years before we ever applied or looked into it.

01:25:08.206 --> 01:25:10.552
I left there saying I will prove you wrong.

01:25:10.552 --> 01:25:14.944
I have defeated everything in my life the odds.

01:25:14.944 --> 01:25:16.527
I was two and a half months premature.

01:25:16.527 --> 01:25:18.350
I was 2.6 pounds at birth.

01:25:18.350 --> 01:25:21.222
Oh my goodness, at that point in time I was the youngest.

01:25:21.222 --> 01:25:25.252
I was the smallest baby in my state to have ever survived.

01:25:25.252 --> 01:25:26.173
Wow yeah.

01:25:26.300 --> 01:25:29.945
And I said I've been overcoming my whole life long, I am not going to stop now.

01:25:29.945 --> 01:25:33.970
And so went a considerable period longer.

01:25:33.970 --> 01:25:35.033
Of course, what does that do?

01:25:35.033 --> 01:25:36.234
That drains your finances.

01:25:36.234 --> 01:25:36.619
Yeah.

01:25:36.619 --> 01:25:41.693
So we had spent everything that we had saved in our marriage up until that point.

01:25:41.693 --> 01:25:47.024
Every dime was all gone in our marriage up until that point every dime was all gone.

01:25:47.045 --> 01:25:51.039
Most of our credit cards were charged up because I'm being forceful with my wife and saying no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:25:51.039 --> 01:25:53.587
We're where I'm going back to work.

01:25:53.587 --> 01:25:58.747
I knew what kind of money I could make and I'll make up for lost time and all of this.

01:25:58.747 --> 01:26:02.682
And it cost us and that's that's on me, now, what I've learned.

01:26:02.682 --> 01:26:09.336
You have a brain injury, like, for instance, the trauma doctors said did you ever lose consciousness?

01:26:09.336 --> 01:26:12.444
As I'm being wheeled into trauma, did you ever lose consciousness?

01:26:12.444 --> 01:26:15.212
Well, that question in and of itself is malpractice.

01:26:15.212 --> 01:26:19.395
We've learned this, since when you're unconscious, guess what?

01:26:19.395 --> 01:26:24.210
You don't know that you were unconscious, that you were unconscious, and so, yeah, they were.

01:26:24.210 --> 01:26:28.150
They kept asking me and I kept going nope, nope, sure wasn't, which hurt us.

01:26:28.592 --> 01:26:29.716
It hurt us in the long run.

01:26:29.716 --> 01:26:33.667
Yeah, it was an assessment that you desperately needed to be correct.

01:26:34.007 --> 01:26:43.087
Yeah, and it wasn't yeah, exactly okay so suffice it to say brutal, brutal reality hit us.

01:26:43.087 --> 01:26:49.355
When one day I just said to my wife, I said I don't think I can do it.

01:26:49.355 --> 01:26:52.188
I tried several times.

01:26:52.188 --> 01:27:03.587
I passed out in people's homes, fell down basement steps, broke out in a sweat and passed out when they were there bringing me.

01:27:03.587 --> 01:27:06.140
They knew who I was locally.

01:27:06.140 --> 01:27:08.228
They knew who I was because it was national news.

01:27:08.228 --> 01:27:15.063
The crash was national news and um, I just remember saying I don't think I can do it.

01:27:15.082 --> 01:27:17.570
Um, I'm going to step back.

01:27:17.570 --> 01:27:21.246
The aortic aneurysm you talk to what?

01:27:21.246 --> 01:27:25.162
Five or six different surgeons and they're like we're not touching this right.

01:27:25.162 --> 01:27:27.327
It is what it is and it's what it's going to be.

01:27:27.747 --> 01:27:35.774
So my, my wonderful, wonderful, I love him, my, my cardiologist, now unbelievable guy.

01:27:35.774 --> 01:27:36.737
I asked him.

01:27:36.737 --> 01:27:43.810
I said, after he looked at all my records and all my imaging and everything, I said, so, okay, so what, what would you do?

01:27:43.810 --> 01:27:46.354
What would you do?

01:27:46.354 --> 01:27:52.271
And he goes well, if you were my father and I'm like, whoa, hey, why do we have to go to father?

01:27:52.271 --> 01:27:53.461
Why can't I be your?

01:27:53.480 --> 01:27:54.023
brother.

01:27:54.283 --> 01:27:55.988
How about your distinguished older brother?

01:27:55.988 --> 01:27:56.710
Maybe that?

01:27:56.710 --> 01:27:57.612
How about your?

01:27:57.612 --> 01:27:58.801
I mean your dad?

01:27:58.801 --> 01:28:02.806
I got to be your dad all of a sudden, and so we had a good laugh about that.

01:28:02.806 --> 01:28:11.485
And then he said look, if you're my dad, if you present it to me at the ER and I'm just, I've got to try to save your life.

01:28:11.485 --> 01:28:14.653
I'm going to try, but you'll be dead in three minutes.

01:28:14.653 --> 01:28:19.088
He said I have a great team, our team is phenomenal, but I'm not operating on you.

01:28:19.088 --> 01:28:24.972
And he was in a long line of cardiologists that said oh no, okay, yeah.

01:28:25.720 --> 01:28:29.890
So this is what you live with on the daily, or do you just pretend it's a non-issue?

01:28:29.890 --> 01:28:35.136
At this point, you appear to be living your life with not much thought to that.

01:28:35.136 --> 01:28:36.380
That's the outside appearance.

01:28:36.380 --> 01:28:38.167
What's going on in your head and your heart?

01:28:39.960 --> 01:28:42.305
So my faith is.

01:28:42.305 --> 01:28:46.033
I remember we'll go back to the Navy for just a minute.

01:28:46.033 --> 01:28:54.470
I remember getting back from this long trip back to the States I'd been in the air for a gazillion hours.

01:28:54.470 --> 01:28:58.604
I hadn't slept in a gazillion hours, so I slept.

01:28:58.604 --> 01:29:06.747
I mean, I don't know how long I slept, it was a long time and I was staying on a military base.

01:29:07.149 --> 01:29:22.447
I woke up I realized it's Easter Sunday and I had kind of fallen not fallen away from my faith, but I wasn't really practicing it because I was focusing on all this darkness in the world, you know, and I was like Easter Sunday and I'm not in church.

01:29:22.447 --> 01:29:22.913
What's wrong with me?

01:29:22.913 --> 01:29:23.988
And I put that Easter Sunday and I'm not in church, what's wrong with me?

01:29:23.988 --> 01:29:31.166
And I put that quickly out of my head, say hey, buddy, you're super tired, you've got to do your laundry, you've, you know?

01:29:31.166 --> 01:29:31.747
Blah, blah, blah.

01:29:31.747 --> 01:29:41.751
So I put it out of my head, walked to the chow hall and I saw this God awful ugly, hand-painted, look like blue and white bus, with this little tiny.

01:29:41.751 --> 01:29:55.774
It was all at the far end of the parking lot of the chow hall, this dear little old man doing this, the come here sign, come here, come here.

01:29:55.774 --> 01:29:57.567
So he started walking toward me.

01:29:57.567 --> 01:29:58.885
I started walking towards him.

01:29:58.885 --> 01:30:01.085
We met in the middle and he told me.

01:30:01.085 --> 01:30:03.110
He said hey, my name is Jewel Martin.

01:30:03.110 --> 01:30:04.542
This is in Memphis, tennessee.

01:30:04.542 --> 01:30:10.426
And he commenced to tell me he's from church and he said you know how do you like to go to church with us today?

01:30:10.426 --> 01:30:11.789
We'll carry you there and carry you back.

01:30:12.739 --> 01:30:16.164
I said, well, sir, I certainly appreciate that invitation Absolutely.

01:30:16.164 --> 01:30:20.451
But I said no, I got to get in here and eat, I don't want to miss chow.

01:30:20.451 --> 01:30:27.537
And then you know, I've got to eat lunch, I've got to come back here for chow, and then I've got a bunch of duties to do later this afternoon.

01:30:27.537 --> 01:30:29.398
So I do appreciate it Absolutely.

01:30:29.398 --> 01:30:31.980
But no, thank you, I appreciate it, he goes.

01:30:31.980 --> 01:30:33.025
Well, guess what we have?

01:30:33.025 --> 01:30:37.492
We have a full kitchen and Southern ladies and they know how to cook.

01:30:37.492 --> 01:30:40.911
We have a whole kitchen, a dining area.

01:30:43.880 --> 01:30:47.809
I said, well, sir, I appreciate that, that sounds really good, but I've got to work out, I have to stay very fit.

01:30:47.809 --> 01:30:49.512
And he said well, guess what we have.

01:30:49.512 --> 01:31:03.304
We have a big old gym with a full-size basketball court and we got glass backboards and we got volleyball and we got all kinds of people your age and there's other military fellows that are in there eating breakfast right now.

01:31:03.304 --> 01:31:04.829
You won't go in there and eat breakfast.

01:31:04.829 --> 01:31:06.787
You'd come right on out after you're done in breakfast.

01:31:06.787 --> 01:31:08.886
I'll carry you right on in there, carry you right back.

01:31:08.886 --> 01:31:17.969
You'll get here in time for chow this evening, if not before, but in the meantime we'll feed you a good lunch, you can do your exercises and all that.

01:31:17.969 --> 01:31:21.703
And I said okay, well, he's got me, he's got me.

01:31:21.722 --> 01:31:24.666
You were not getting out of that I got no more and dear.

01:31:25.166 --> 01:31:26.686
he's long since gone to his reward.

01:31:26.686 --> 01:31:29.609
But I went to church and I was very moved by the church.

01:31:29.609 --> 01:31:31.992
I was also under massive conviction.

01:31:31.992 --> 01:31:37.496
Why did I not even think of church, especially on Easter?

01:31:37.496 --> 01:31:37.976
What am?

01:31:37.976 --> 01:31:46.573
I thinking so yes, that got me back into going to church and that's actually where I met my first wife and who gave me a beautiful, amazing daughter.

01:31:47.300 --> 01:31:52.180
That's who got you back into church and back into religion, joel.

01:31:52.201 --> 01:31:55.207
Martin did when I was in the Navy, yeah, but I had stayed with it.

01:31:55.207 --> 01:31:59.087
I had stayed with it after that and I was always fascinated with it.

01:31:59.087 --> 01:32:04.827
The scriptures fascinated me and I thought, wouldn't it be neat if I could read these in the original language?

01:32:05.127 --> 01:32:06.990
Wouldn't that be a fun thing?

01:32:06.990 --> 01:32:08.514
That's why you went to Hebrew.

01:32:08.779 --> 01:32:11.046
Yeah, I did Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

01:32:11.185 --> 01:32:13.612
Can you still read those languages at all?

01:32:13.612 --> 01:32:14.921
I can do some Some.

01:32:14.921 --> 01:32:20.033
You had a great many, a large part of the scripture memorized in your head.

01:32:20.033 --> 01:32:22.326
You could recite them without the Bible in front of you.

01:32:22.326 --> 01:32:23.007
Is that right?

01:32:23.007 --> 01:32:23.869
Am I getting that right?

01:32:24.511 --> 01:32:28.061
Yeah, and that was the weird thing, I didn't realize other people couldn't do that.

01:32:28.061 --> 01:32:36.488
I used to like to do these dramatic readings act out what was happening, make it dramatic and exciting and make it come to life.

01:32:36.488 --> 01:32:45.854
And so I did that and it was just easy peasy for me to remember entire books of the Bible and gone.

01:32:50.820 --> 01:32:52.104
Tell me about the radio show.

01:32:52.104 --> 01:32:56.922
This was a very popular radio show that you were doing the radio thing was crazy.

01:32:57.163 --> 01:33:03.970
I contacted this company that produces radio shows because somebody kept giving me their names, like call these people.

01:33:03.970 --> 01:33:12.020
And so I took money from our savings and I didn't know the first thing about monetizing.

01:33:12.020 --> 01:33:17.313
And within a short period of time we debuted at 114,000 listeners.

01:33:17.313 --> 01:33:30.213
And when I get a call right after the show ends, I get a call from Texas, from the CEO of this company, and he says well, hey, dr Sean, listen, I'm just calling you up to congratulate you 114.

01:33:30.213 --> 01:33:33.809
He said we've never had that, we've never hit that number on a debut.

01:33:33.809 --> 01:33:41.764
He says, man, you must know a lot of people and I said that probably counts for my family, maybe, and some friends and some people.

01:33:41.764 --> 01:33:45.301
In pity, I don't think I have 114 people that would listen.

01:33:45.301 --> 01:33:49.168
He says no, 114,000.

01:33:50.471 --> 01:33:52.944
This was your debut, my debut, yeah, first time.

01:33:52.944 --> 01:33:54.287
I didn't know anything about it.

01:33:54.287 --> 01:33:56.773
So they produced the show for a year.

01:33:56.773 --> 01:33:58.564
They were wonderful, yeah 5.

01:33:58.564 --> 01:34:03.662
Some million subscribers to my website at that time, and I loved it, though.

01:34:03.662 --> 01:34:05.943
I love teaching God and Country.

01:34:05.943 --> 01:34:08.069
The Collision of Faith and Politics was the name of the show.

01:34:08.069 --> 01:34:09.884
Eventually it was carried on multiple platforms.

01:34:10.003 --> 01:34:11.087
You're doing this radio show.

01:34:11.087 --> 01:34:13.802
It Is Religion and Politics Colliding.

01:34:13.802 --> 01:34:20.240
So to get that kind of reaction from the public listening to you, what do you attribute that to?

01:34:20.240 --> 01:34:25.952
Because usually mixing religion and politics does not work, you know what's funny is I hear that a lot.

01:34:26.172 --> 01:34:30.127
I hear that a lot and my show True Word, faith for Life.

01:34:30.127 --> 01:34:42.974
What I'm doing now much less in the area of politics, maybe one-tenth of one percent, but I can tell you that they are inexorably connected religion and politics.

01:34:42.974 --> 01:34:54.100
Because if you don't pay attention to politics, you will lose your religion, your ability to practice your faith with freedom and the liberty as intended, as the founders intended.

01:34:54.100 --> 01:35:05.412
You'll lose it because it's on the chopping block at any given time, and so I tried to illustrate active applied civics.

01:35:05.412 --> 01:35:17.112
A dear friend of mine, mark Herr, founded Center for Self-Governance and it's an applied civics project really, and it teaches people how to get involved in government and to be plugged in.

01:35:17.112 --> 01:35:22.292
One of the crossovers is our founders were people of faith.

01:35:22.292 --> 01:35:28.233
They can diminish them all they want because that's within their agenda.

01:35:28.233 --> 01:35:35.453
Hey, I don't want to believe that Judeo-Christian values were at the center of our founding.

01:35:36.581 --> 01:35:37.805
But that's the case.

01:35:37.966 --> 01:35:38.328
They were.

01:35:38.328 --> 01:35:40.060
That's a whole show in and of itself.

01:35:40.060 --> 01:35:43.050
But I had a unique perspective.

01:35:43.050 --> 01:35:44.645
I taught a class.

01:35:44.645 --> 01:35:51.966
I had started teaching the class before the crash at a church that I was attending and we were bursting at the seams.

01:35:51.966 --> 01:35:53.947
The people were really interested in this.

01:35:53.947 --> 01:35:57.810
So every week I would come back and we'd have to put chairs outside the room.

01:35:57.810 --> 01:36:06.106
And there were chairs outside and people were leaning in and standing looking through the two windows, and it just grew and grew and grew because people were hungry for that kind of knowledge.

01:36:06.106 --> 01:36:20.086
And when I came back from the crash which it was a, it was a while and it was tough I thought I could do it a lot easier than I could, but I was sweating profusely from just so much pain.

01:36:20.105 --> 01:36:23.010
You never be, in that kind of pain where you're just drenched with sweat.

01:36:23.010 --> 01:36:29.378
But when we did the show it was the radio show.

01:36:29.378 --> 01:36:31.788
The radio show God and Country Collision of Faith and Politics.

01:36:31.788 --> 01:36:39.765
When I did that, people were looking for somebody to explain to them what's really happening happen.

01:36:39.765 --> 01:36:53.756
Somebody that knows, somebody that has friends that he can call and say, hey, person in the administration or a person at high levels of agency and otherwise.

01:36:53.756 --> 01:37:00.934
Would you be on my show and they would explain what was happening and I could explain things that were happening.

01:37:00.953 --> 01:37:01.256
I have access.

01:37:01.256 --> 01:37:01.960
Then they were guests on your show.

01:37:02.702 --> 01:37:04.467
Some of them were Okay, the ones that could.

01:37:04.689 --> 01:37:04.949
Yeah.

01:37:05.520 --> 01:37:22.666
But I had access to information and I was still kind of in touch with that community and so as a result of that I don't know, it just was crazy it took off and I was doing, I think, three hours a week and then eventually, what did the numbers grow to?

01:37:22.666 --> 01:37:26.492
5.6 million, yeah, yeah.

01:37:26.492 --> 01:37:26.939
If, if.

01:37:26.939 --> 01:37:32.372
I converted all of those subscribers to my website that came from the radio show.

01:37:32.372 --> 01:37:34.765
If I can was if I had a business head.

01:37:34.765 --> 01:37:38.980
I could have converted them and would have made millions of dollars.

01:37:39.180 --> 01:37:42.889
But as it was, what did you make from the radio show?

01:37:42.889 --> 01:37:43.350
I mean?

01:37:43.550 --> 01:37:45.613
Zero, zero, yeah, not a dime.

01:37:45.613 --> 01:37:54.453
And so on Sundays, the class had grown to such an extent where we needed more space.

01:37:54.453 --> 01:38:02.765
So, there were some deer folks, the Stableys, and they had a room that could accommodate a hundred people in their house.

01:38:03.087 --> 01:38:03.829
That's a big house.

01:38:05.261 --> 01:38:06.546
The room was pretty amazing.

01:38:06.828 --> 01:38:07.168
Oh really.

01:38:07.380 --> 01:38:09.264
And yeah, it was pretty amazing.

01:38:09.264 --> 01:38:32.060
And I had this idea of kehalah, which in Greek, ekklesia, a lot of pastors will refer to church as ekklesia, the Greek word ekklesia but really it doesn't have a religious connotation, it's a gathering, it's more secular than it is anything else, whereas Kehalah is Hebrew and it is.

01:38:32.060 --> 01:38:46.706
It's the gather, it's like the home church, right Meeting in people's homes, and you meet, you have a meal, you worship, you do music and then you do the learning, you learn have a meal, you worship, you do music and then you do the learning, you learn.

01:38:46.706 --> 01:38:55.193
And so I had a thought of doing that, and so I talked to Mr and Mrs Stabley Mrs Stabley has gone on to her reward, but they welcomed all of us crazy people into their home and that grew and grew and grew.

01:38:55.193 --> 01:38:58.890
So they said, how about doing a broadcast on Sundays, sundays with Dr Sean?

01:38:58.890 --> 01:39:00.402
So I did, and that grew.

01:39:00.662 --> 01:39:02.149
That's also a radio show.

01:39:02.149 --> 01:39:03.555
Are you podcasting at this point?

01:39:03.615 --> 01:39:13.201
it was a radio and facebook live okay video at facebook live and a couple other places, and it went all around the world.

01:39:13.201 --> 01:39:17.430
And what here's what's crazy is you don't know who's listening.

01:39:17.430 --> 01:39:47.895
You have no idea who's hearing the message, and what I tried to do on sundays was try to teach the Bible and the character and nature of God, what being a follower of the way means and what Yeshua was all about and what he is all about, and my goal always was to teach in such a way that seconds after you go out the door you can apply the things that I taught.

01:39:47.895 --> 01:39:52.904
And I wanted to be in a very real way, real life, and so that grew.

01:39:52.904 --> 01:40:00.952
In fact, we had a group of ladies from Belgium who they were an atheist book group.

01:40:01.493 --> 01:40:01.872
Really.

01:40:02.474 --> 01:40:04.846
Atheist, Actually atheist, we say it.

01:40:04.846 --> 01:40:05.850
We say it incorrectly.

01:40:05.850 --> 01:40:10.331
It's atheist, which literally means against God.

01:40:10.551 --> 01:40:10.832
Okay.

01:40:11.421 --> 01:40:15.431
And so they were an atheist book group, all ladies.

01:40:15.431 --> 01:40:19.168
Somehow they got a copy of my book.

01:40:19.168 --> 01:40:22.364
I remember back then the company that sold the books.

01:40:22.364 --> 01:40:28.114
I went on the website and I found I could see that all these books went to Belgium.

01:40:28.114 --> 01:40:29.865
I thought, well, that's interesting.

01:40:29.865 --> 01:40:36.872
And they started listening to the show because I had embedded links to the show.

01:40:36.872 --> 01:40:45.447
So this group of ladies it gets me every time One by one came to Christ.

01:40:45.447 --> 01:40:56.007
One by one, they placed their faith in Christ, yep, and then they became a Christian book club.

01:40:56.007 --> 01:40:56.970
Really.

01:40:57.270 --> 01:41:02.069
Yeah, yeah, if I do nothing else in my life that made it worth it.

01:41:02.069 --> 01:41:03.967
That made it worth it.

01:41:03.988 --> 01:41:04.637
That made it worth it.

01:41:04.637 --> 01:41:10.846
That's why you survived that crash 13 people, I guess.

01:41:10.846 --> 01:41:12.805
I would imagine it's more.

01:41:13.286 --> 01:41:13.688
Who knows?

01:41:14.229 --> 01:41:14.730
Who knows?

01:41:15.060 --> 01:41:19.565
Yeah, but it's, all of us have this mission in life and I was so moved by it.

01:41:19.565 --> 01:41:20.228
I couldn't believe it.

01:41:20.228 --> 01:41:26.907
I couldn't believe it when they started writing to me and they say we all listen to your show.

01:41:26.907 --> 01:41:40.430
We gather at this weird hour here and we listen to your show and they subscribe to do all the different things and they were listening it blew my mind, it was wonderful that's something to be so proud of well it's.

01:41:40.891 --> 01:41:43.765
That's a god thing, that's not me, that's somehow or another.

01:41:43.765 --> 01:42:00.592
They saw through this goofiness and somehow another could connect with god, and so that's what my goal was for that, and this is the first book, correct, first book, yeah, okay which was nothing great by the way.

01:42:00.592 --> 01:42:01.234
This is.

01:42:01.234 --> 01:42:02.402
This is not a great book.

01:42:02.402 --> 01:42:03.603
If you buy my book.

01:42:04.524 --> 01:42:06.506
I did it is bold, it's real bold.

01:42:06.506 --> 01:42:13.216
You don't mince words in this book Did you have negative feedback where people were like you are wrong.

01:42:14.859 --> 01:42:15.561
I will tell you a story about that.

01:42:15.561 --> 01:42:17.686
What's interesting you asked about was the book well received?

01:42:17.686 --> 01:42:28.425
Yes, but in some cases, yes, very much so, and a lot of times I would hear well, I'm glad somebody finally said it, which I appreciated.

01:42:28.425 --> 01:42:50.358
I appreciate all that, but my wife and my son and I were in Ocala, florida, and there was a chance that I was going to be senior pastor of a huge church there and we were in the early talking phases of it, so much so that my family, we went and looked at houses and neighborhood and looked at building.

01:42:50.358 --> 01:42:53.342
What kind of house do we want to build?

01:42:53.342 --> 01:42:57.323
We met with the builder and figured out which exact one we wanted it was.

01:42:57.845 --> 01:43:11.225
At that point, I have to tell you, we were having dinner and in walks this very famous and I'm not going to say his name because it wouldn't be fair to him, but he walks in with his posse.

01:43:11.225 --> 01:43:19.805
He's famous Big time preacher, tv guy, author, and I pointed out to my wife and son.

01:43:19.805 --> 01:43:20.828
I said man, can you believe that?

01:43:20.828 --> 01:43:24.068
Look at that, he's in here and I happen to have an extra copy of my book.

01:43:24.068 --> 01:43:32.813
So I autographed the book and wrote an inscription to him and thank you for all you do and for the great work in the kingdom and all this stuff.

01:43:32.813 --> 01:43:38.672
I'd only known the work that he had done and what appeared to be the fruits of it.

01:43:38.672 --> 01:43:46.373
So I walk over to him and I say, listen, I don't want to interrupt you, I just want to give you this book as a gift from me to you.

01:43:46.373 --> 01:43:49.985
I appreciate what you do and I don't want to interrupt.

01:43:49.985 --> 01:43:51.225
I just want to give you this book.

01:43:52.341 --> 01:43:55.150
He looked at the book and goes excellence, killed the church.

01:43:55.150 --> 01:43:58.922
He didn't even read the second part of it, which is how mediocrity is destroying America.

01:43:58.922 --> 01:44:03.345
And he looked at that and he threw the book at me, threw the book literally at me.

01:44:03.345 --> 01:44:06.769
He goes the church ain't dead, I don't need this book.

01:44:06.769 --> 01:44:08.550
I said, oh okay.

01:44:08.550 --> 01:44:09.871
I said, well, here's the thing.

01:44:09.871 --> 01:44:15.175
What I always tell people is the book is either for you or it's about you.

01:44:15.175 --> 01:44:17.697
This one, apparently, is about you.

01:44:17.697 --> 01:44:18.797
Oh, my goodness yeah.

01:44:20.779 --> 01:44:22.966
I was so glad that I thought of it so pre-crash.

01:44:22.966 --> 01:44:30.509
I would have never had a problem thinking of that, but I was so glad that post-crash came right to mind and I don't think it had any effect on him because he's still doing what he's doing.

01:44:30.509 --> 01:44:33.890
And I went back to the table and they were like what happened and I explained.

01:44:33.890 --> 01:44:35.283
They were like well that's disappointing.

01:44:36.207 --> 01:44:39.842
So yeah, but the point of it is is how he received it received it.

01:44:39.842 --> 01:44:43.467
He just looked at the cover and read the first part of the title.

01:44:43.467 --> 01:44:47.274
Yeah, yeah so yeah, it's an unfortunate thing.

01:44:47.274 --> 01:44:48.775
That's how the world is.

01:44:54.979 --> 01:44:55.944
Okay, yeah, you have a second book.

01:44:55.944 --> 01:44:57.208
Actually, there's two others I want to mention.

01:44:57.208 --> 01:44:58.172
You have the Bible Summary for Real People.

01:44:58.172 --> 01:44:58.996
How did that one go?

01:45:00.039 --> 01:45:00.921
That one went well.

01:45:00.921 --> 01:45:06.333
Unfortunately, I signed up with a publisher who took all of the royalties.

01:45:06.333 --> 01:45:17.108
I didn't get a dime from that, yeah, and where most people buy their books I'm not saying the name because I don't want to give them any press.

01:45:17.108 --> 01:45:19.773
It took years to get them to take the book down.

01:45:19.773 --> 01:45:25.208
I said these people are ripping me off, they're taking the money, they're not paying me and that book sold well.

01:45:25.208 --> 01:45:29.604
That book outsold the first book by a long shot, not a dime, not a dime.

01:45:29.625 --> 01:45:31.530
Still not gotten a dime to this day, and I never will.

01:45:31.819 --> 01:45:33.988
Well, I mean, can you republish it?

01:45:34.060 --> 01:45:34.761
I'm rewriting it.

01:45:34.761 --> 01:45:37.006
I'm almost finished.

01:45:37.006 --> 01:45:40.052
I'm about 98% finished that book.

01:45:40.279 --> 01:45:41.881
These are some expensive lessons.

01:45:41.881 --> 01:45:44.243
They are that you've learned over the years.

01:45:44.243 --> 01:45:45.104
You know what I'm not good at.

01:45:45.545 --> 01:45:45.845
Business.

01:45:45.845 --> 01:45:47.987
I am not a good business person.

01:45:47.987 --> 01:45:53.011
I'm not a good tech person, not a good tech person and I'm not a good business person.

01:45:53.292 --> 01:45:55.734
I gotcha, I'll admit it, all right.

01:45:55.734 --> 01:45:58.037
So what is the name of this podcast?

01:45:58.037 --> 01:45:58.961
You said it before.

01:45:58.980 --> 01:46:02.432
I just want to drive it home the True Word Faith for Life with Dr Sean.

01:46:02.432 --> 01:46:03.778
It's on YouTube.

01:46:03.778 --> 01:46:06.266
It's a video podcast, so I apologize in advance.

01:46:06.868 --> 01:46:11.747
I have been, I watched it and it's very good, and you're doing it live, which is impressive.

01:46:11.806 --> 01:46:13.353
It's something I'm not brave enough to do.

01:46:13.353 --> 01:46:14.738
Most of it is live.

01:46:14.738 --> 01:46:18.122
I tell you, I like doing that because it's kind of like having church.

01:46:18.122 --> 01:46:20.225
It's very small, we just got started.

01:46:20.225 --> 01:46:24.871
And how that started was a friend of mine that I've known almost all of his life.

01:46:24.871 --> 01:46:31.402
He and a guy he knew founded a podcast and it was very successful very quickly.

01:46:31.402 --> 01:46:32.184
And he asked me.

01:46:32.184 --> 01:46:36.313
He said, hey, would you mind being a guest on our show?

01:46:36.313 --> 01:46:39.850
And I said sure, so I was a guest on the show.

01:46:40.161 --> 01:46:41.083
Oh, this is watchful.

01:46:41.083 --> 01:46:42.028
Is this watchful?

01:46:42.319 --> 01:46:43.604
Watchful and Christopher yeah.

01:46:43.845 --> 01:46:45.363
Okay, yeah, I saw that one.

01:46:45.564 --> 01:46:48.770
Yeah, so that episode was particularly successful, I guess.

01:46:48.770 --> 01:46:52.247
And they said hey, how'd you like to come back and be a regular guest?

01:46:52.546 --> 01:46:53.609
on our show Like every week.

01:46:54.251 --> 01:46:55.353
Every week, Every week.

01:46:55.353 --> 01:47:07.801
So every Monday at 10, I'm on their show, but that's a much bigger show than mine.

01:47:07.801 --> 01:47:09.747
But the reason that I'm back doing podcasting was I figured I'm not dead yet.

01:47:09.747 --> 01:47:17.770
I was supposed to be dead a long time ago and they always remind us hey, listen, you got to understand because there's a lot of other stuff wrong Advanced heart failure.

01:47:18.520 --> 01:47:22.331
Oh, beyond the aortic aneurysm, there's other things happening, okay.

01:47:22.880 --> 01:47:24.265
Way, way more than that.

01:47:24.265 --> 01:47:32.498
I presented at the emergency room with a thousand blood sugar and 12, 12 A1C maybe a little higher than that.

01:47:32.498 --> 01:47:32.920
Yeah.

01:47:33.060 --> 01:47:36.175
So I was lucky to have survived that because my pancreas is failing.

01:47:36.175 --> 01:47:41.649
So, as I said, the different things just stop working and sometimes they just turn off like a switch, and that's how it is.

01:47:41.649 --> 01:47:45.791
My doctors in Delaware refer to it as a cliff death.

01:47:45.791 --> 01:47:54.724
So one minute you're alive, animated, next minute you're off, just like that, depending on how I die.

01:47:54.724 --> 01:47:56.270
Which system fails first.

01:47:56.270 --> 01:48:00.671
To give you an idea of where we are with it we've already met with the undertaker.

01:48:00.671 --> 01:48:02.166
We've already got everything laid out On my phone.

01:48:02.166 --> 01:48:02.685
Everybody that's super important to me.

01:48:02.685 --> 01:48:02.869
That's going to be a part of it.

01:48:02.869 --> 01:48:03.467
We've already met with the undertaker.

01:48:03.467 --> 01:48:04.117
We've already got everything laid out on my phone.

01:48:04.117 --> 01:48:06.648
Everybody that's super important to me.

01:48:06.648 --> 01:48:07.972
That's going to be a part of it.

01:48:08.975 --> 01:48:12.164
My funeral is planned out to when this song is played.

01:48:12.164 --> 01:48:15.452
When that song is played, what type of message do I want?

01:48:15.452 --> 01:48:25.835
I want it to be a very strong, evangelical, positive event and I want it to be uplifting and I want it to be a home going.

01:48:25.835 --> 01:48:29.069
So you know, we met right up the road.

01:48:29.069 --> 01:48:37.480
Yeah, is the people is going to lay me out, and I felt like I've tried to do as much of the planning in advance as I can, because I don't want my family to have to do that.

01:48:37.501 --> 01:48:40.506
That's why I always say have a trust, have an estate plan.

01:48:40.506 --> 01:48:42.069
It's not just for wealthy people.

01:48:42.069 --> 01:48:44.734
Have all of your important documents together.

01:48:44.734 --> 01:48:47.288
If you have life insurance, have it all together.

01:48:47.288 --> 01:48:51.270
If you have any insurance at all, have it together.

01:48:51.270 --> 01:49:03.764
You have to make it as easy for your family as you possibly can, because when the time comes, it's going to be a devastating thing, a devastating thing, and so you don't want to put them through that, so help them with it.

01:49:03.764 --> 01:49:04.953
And so you don't want to put them through that, so help them with it.

01:49:04.953 --> 01:49:09.186
And so we did that, and periodically we modify it.

01:49:09.186 --> 01:49:10.069
It's three pages.

01:49:10.069 --> 01:49:14.967
My funeral, it's a three-page event, but it's not going to be long.

01:49:14.967 --> 01:49:24.233
It's not going to be super long because my pastor at Grace Community, topsail, is going to be the one preaching it, and I've already said hey, man, don't make people squirm in their seats.

01:49:24.233 --> 01:49:27.764
Make them squirm in their seats from conviction.

01:49:27.804 --> 01:49:29.688
But don't make them squirm in their seats from sitting in there.

01:49:29.688 --> 01:49:32.273
That's funny, but anyway, no, he's a great guy, he'll do a great job.

01:49:32.713 --> 01:49:32.974
All right.

01:49:32.974 --> 01:49:34.104
Well, we're going to wrap this up.

01:49:34.104 --> 01:49:34.365
Now.

01:49:34.365 --> 01:49:37.469
Let's talk about future plans.

01:49:44.122 --> 01:49:45.609
There was a novel that you were working on, or did you complete that?

01:49:45.609 --> 01:49:47.340
I mean, it's a good ways along, but I need there's a lot of work.

01:49:47.340 --> 01:49:54.293
There's probably, if I have a year of life left in me, there's a year of getting it where it needs to be.

01:49:54.293 --> 01:50:02.765
My biggest thing is rewriting the Bible summary for real people, and I've added about 85% content.

01:50:02.765 --> 01:50:03.586
I need a publisher.

01:50:03.586 --> 01:50:05.429
Okay, and I'm not going to publish it.

01:50:05.429 --> 01:50:07.292
I'll end up giving it away.

01:50:07.292 --> 01:50:08.333
Self-publish.

01:50:13.840 --> 01:50:15.104
Well, you got to understand self-publishing is very expensive.

01:50:15.104 --> 01:50:19.621
So I could go to that company that I mentioned, that I don't give them any business because they're not really ethical people.

01:50:19.621 --> 01:50:26.152
I could go to that big company where everybody buys books and you can do a self-publishing thing right through them for very little money.

01:50:26.773 --> 01:50:30.264
I could do that route, but that really and truly is.

01:50:30.264 --> 01:50:32.529
Your book will never be seen.

01:50:32.529 --> 01:50:35.841
It's a way for them to make money, it's not a way for you.

01:50:35.841 --> 01:50:39.930
So I'm on a very small fixed income.

01:50:39.930 --> 01:50:41.393
It's a very fixed income.

01:50:41.393 --> 01:50:44.985
So the resources that I used to have I don't have anymore.

01:50:44.985 --> 01:50:48.572
So it has to and I don't need an advance.

01:50:48.572 --> 01:50:50.560
I just need them to cover all the costs.

01:50:50.560 --> 01:51:04.051
I can't pay six or seven or eight or $10,000 anymore to do the hybrid publishing or shared publishing, whatever they have, all kinds of buzzwords for it.

01:51:04.500 --> 01:51:06.003
It has to be a traditional publisher.

01:51:06.003 --> 01:51:16.033
I prefer a Christian publishing company just because they'll, they'll get it, they get it, but I just don't have the money to co-publish it.

01:51:16.220 --> 01:51:39.805
Right, I do know that there are some people in our community that have published their own books, so if there's anyone out there listening who can guide Dr Greener in a way to get that thing published where he can actually make money off of it this time that'd be great information to have I contacted a company that turns completed manuscripts into eBooks?

01:51:40.287 --> 01:51:40.447
And.

01:51:40.447 --> 01:51:54.326
I thought, if there was a way now it's costly, it's very costly to do If there was a way to do that, have it converted into an eBook for a download and then you pay what you can If you can pay, great.

01:51:54.326 --> 01:52:01.747
If you can't, that's okay, and if maybe you can afford to pay for three or four other people's books, pay it forward that would be okay with me.

01:52:02.189 --> 01:52:08.087
I'm almost to that point, because if I die before it gets published, then it just sits.

01:52:08.087 --> 01:52:10.591
Nobody's getting anything from it.

01:52:10.591 --> 01:52:13.083
That one is the one I'm most proud of.

01:52:13.083 --> 01:52:14.729
That one is the one that's-.

01:52:14.960 --> 01:52:16.265
The Bible summary for real people.

01:52:16.520 --> 01:52:18.490
I'm not sure what I'm going to call this version.

01:52:18.490 --> 01:52:22.425
It's not going to be a second edition, even though I own the copyright to the first edition.

01:52:22.425 --> 01:52:26.073
It's so much more of a book now.

01:52:26.073 --> 01:52:31.239
Okay, I'm super proud of that one and I would love for that to be in people's hands.

01:52:31.239 --> 01:52:38.054
If you think my first book, excellence, killed the Church, if you think that is gritty, oof.

01:52:38.054 --> 01:52:39.277
Oh really.

01:52:39.277 --> 01:52:40.800
Oh yeah, this one's much more.

01:52:40.819 --> 01:52:42.346
Oh see, I didn't expect that at all.

01:52:43.939 --> 01:52:44.381
Much more in your face.

01:52:44.381 --> 01:52:48.692
Okay, Because when you have a death sentence, when you're told hey, don't buy any green bananas.

01:52:48.692 --> 01:52:51.283
That's one thing I've learned.

01:52:51.283 --> 01:52:57.875
Being terminally ill is that whole thing of the what do they call it Filter.

01:52:57.875 --> 01:52:59.583
I didn't get one.

01:52:59.583 --> 01:53:00.427
You didn't get one.

01:53:00.680 --> 01:53:03.800
Yeah, or it broke in the crash, because I don't have it anymore.

01:53:03.800 --> 01:53:08.226
I figure I've only got a certain amount of time to tell people about.

01:53:08.226 --> 01:53:10.511
Jesus, the real story about Jesus.

01:53:10.511 --> 01:53:13.414
The real story about God, the real story about faith.

01:53:13.414 --> 01:53:26.595
I've only got a certain amount of time to help people understand how all these moving pieces in the world work and why it's critical that you get it, and you get it quickly.

01:53:27.261 --> 01:53:29.688
You don't need a couple doctorates in theology.

01:53:29.688 --> 01:53:33.106
You don't need that, not with the resources that are available today.

01:53:33.106 --> 01:53:38.011
But in that book I really get gritty to the faith.

01:53:38.159 --> 01:53:41.009
Well, I do hope you get that book published.

01:53:41.009 --> 01:53:41.610
I really do.

01:53:41.610 --> 01:53:44.868
I would love to read the new edition of that book.

01:53:45.430 --> 01:53:45.692
Yeah.

01:53:45.819 --> 01:53:47.404
The genre of the Other, the novel.

01:53:47.404 --> 01:53:49.050
What's the genre of that book?

01:53:50.082 --> 01:54:03.780
So that was intended to be the first in a series of books somewhat based loosely on my life and the like other life, the other life, the intrigue yeah there's pieces of that, but that one is probably.

01:54:03.780 --> 01:54:07.922
I've been told by test readers and they said this is the book that's going to.

01:54:07.922 --> 01:54:08.823
This is the one.

01:54:08.823 --> 01:54:09.804
Publish this one.

01:54:10.024 --> 01:54:11.444
Well, I hope you get that one published too.

01:54:11.623 --> 01:54:15.886
But I thought that one's not going to bring anybody to Christ, that's not going to change anybody's life.

01:54:15.985 --> 01:54:17.386
Probably not.

01:54:17.407 --> 01:54:31.072
And it's a book that really it's gritty, but it's a book of you could be maybe 10th grade and up.

01:54:31.072 --> 01:54:34.993
You don't want your young kids reading it because it's really gritty.

01:54:35.453 --> 01:54:36.274
Okay.

01:54:36.673 --> 01:54:40.155
But it's clean, where there's not a bunch of profanity.

01:54:40.155 --> 01:54:51.940
My goal was to create which look, hey look, I was a sailor, the mouth came along with it, and anybody that knows me.

01:54:51.940 --> 01:55:01.954
I'm not a perfect man by any stretch, but I wanted to have a book, a novel, an exciting thing to read, where there weren't things in it that you wouldn't feel comfortable giving your older teen.

01:55:01.954 --> 01:55:11.970
I want them to be able to read that, and so that's how it was written, and I've got substantially more to do on it, just because of the times have changed.

01:55:11.970 --> 01:55:13.813
There've been a lot of changes, but it's a man.

01:55:14.054 --> 01:55:17.506
Yeah, it's a murder mystery and it's gritty.

01:55:17.506 --> 01:55:23.427
It is gritty and it touches on some very, very third rail issues.

01:55:23.769 --> 01:55:26.345
Okay, I'll be a test reader for you.

01:55:26.425 --> 01:55:27.587
There you go.

01:55:28.390 --> 01:55:30.988
All right, let's finish up here with some final thoughts.

01:55:30.988 --> 01:55:35.859
What is the final message that you want the listeners to take away from this conversation today?

01:55:36.280 --> 01:55:45.932
You know, I know it's easy for people to think I have held the hand of people as they were breathing their last.

01:55:45.932 --> 01:55:53.353
I've literally, as a police officer, I've watched the car crash.

01:55:53.353 --> 01:55:58.729
I was that close to it and gotten to the car as they were.

01:55:58.729 --> 01:56:02.710
I remember one lady said, one young lady said she was 23 years old.

01:56:02.710 --> 01:56:06.050
She said, mister, am I going to die?

01:56:06.050 --> 01:56:11.371
And they always train you to say no, you're going to be fine, Hang with me, Stay with me.

01:56:11.430 --> 01:56:11.931
Stay with me.

01:56:12.780 --> 01:56:21.524
But I refused to do that and I said to her yes, you are going to die, you're not going to make it through this.

01:56:21.524 --> 01:56:25.427
And I felt like honesty at that point.

01:56:25.427 --> 01:56:26.331
What's the objective?

01:56:26.331 --> 01:56:28.146
Well, they'll give up on living.

01:56:28.146 --> 01:56:29.505
No, no, she knew she was dying.

01:56:29.505 --> 01:56:34.171
Her chest cavity was wrapped around her steering wheel.

01:56:34.171 --> 01:56:36.868
She was most assuredly dying.

01:56:36.868 --> 01:56:38.766
But I've been with other people who were shot.

01:56:38.766 --> 01:56:44.289
I've been with other people who were different experiences in their life where it's bad.

01:56:44.430 --> 01:56:46.453
It's a bad situation and, yes, we're sick.

01:56:46.453 --> 01:56:50.331
I've been with lots of people who asked me am I going to die?

01:56:50.331 --> 01:56:57.765
And there have been times where I said I have a dear friend named Pam who she asked me if she was going to die and I said no, you're going to make it.

01:56:57.765 --> 01:56:58.829
You're going to live and not die.

01:56:58.829 --> 01:57:01.588
You're going to go through hell to get there.

01:57:01.588 --> 01:57:08.225
It you're going to go through hell to get there.

01:57:08.225 --> 01:57:08.975
It's going to be super, super tough, but you're the one to do it.

01:57:08.975 --> 01:57:10.275
You're going to do this and you're going to have a family and you're going to.

01:57:10.275 --> 01:57:12.462
You're going to look back on this and you're going to wow, holy moly, that happened.

01:57:12.462 --> 01:57:16.212
But then there were others where you don't and we, you never know.

01:57:16.212 --> 01:57:20.407
You never really know, even the terribly sick people.

01:57:21.028 --> 01:57:25.967
I always hear this term, people say it a lot at funerals Somebody had cancer or some dreaded disease.

01:57:25.967 --> 01:57:28.426
Well, they were a fighter, they fought.

01:57:28.426 --> 01:57:30.105
They fought so hard.

01:57:30.105 --> 01:57:33.064
As a believer, what am I fighting against?

01:57:33.064 --> 01:57:34.850
I'm trying to live.

01:57:34.850 --> 01:57:39.649
I have a grandbaby, I have a wonderful daughter and son.

01:57:39.649 --> 01:57:40.692
I adore them.

01:57:40.692 --> 01:57:58.703
I have a great son-in-law, an amazing son-in-law and, by the way, I have an amazing, unbelievably cool and great grandson, who is amazing and awesome and sweet and I want to see as much of his life as God wills me to see.

01:57:58.722 --> 01:57:59.283
Of course, of course.

01:57:59.283 --> 01:58:12.573
But we all are functioning within life with this notion that that picky thing, that dumb thing that we're fussing about, that thing we cannot change.

01:58:12.573 --> 01:58:15.395
We can't change how other people live their lives.

01:58:15.395 --> 01:58:18.176
But we get all spooled up, all jacked up over it.

01:58:18.176 --> 01:58:26.324
That thing that's going on at work, that thing that's fix your family, fix it.

01:58:26.324 --> 01:58:27.648
Those are the only people you got.

01:58:27.648 --> 01:58:28.671
Fix it.

01:58:28.671 --> 01:58:32.143
If you're the problem, fix you.

01:58:32.143 --> 01:58:33.045
There's resources.

01:58:33.045 --> 01:58:35.730
There's no reason to be all jacked up in.

01:58:35.730 --> 01:58:43.033
Today you say, well, it's a tough way to live and everything is so bad and all of these things.

01:58:43.033 --> 01:58:43.978
I say all the more reason to get it together.

01:58:43.997 --> 01:58:52.860
Jack or Jill or Schmuckatelli whichever your last name is, I don't know Get it together because tick-tock, tick-tock.

01:58:52.860 --> 01:58:58.372
The clock is ticking and this beating heart inside you one day will stop.

01:58:58.372 --> 01:59:02.104
Get right with God, get it figured out.

01:59:02.104 --> 01:59:05.600
You don't have to know all the answers, you do not have to know.

01:59:05.600 --> 01:59:16.887
Look, I have decades of doctorate level theological work in the biblical languages and all of these things and I don't have it all figured out.

01:59:17.349 --> 01:59:26.485
But I'm going to tell you this I know in whom I have believed and I know he's able, and I know that when I placed my faith in him, I was not guaranteed an easy life.

01:59:26.485 --> 01:59:30.636
Exhibit A my busted up, broken up body.

01:59:30.636 --> 01:59:43.429
But I can tell you this you will never be happier than when you're loving Jesus and you're letting Jesus love you.

01:59:43.429 --> 01:59:47.811
Your mama may not have loved you, your daddy may not have loved you.

01:59:47.811 --> 01:59:54.978
You may have had terrible things happen in your life, in your own family, maybe in your own community.

01:59:54.978 --> 01:59:58.984
All of those things can absolutely be true, but you know what?

01:59:58.984 --> 02:00:01.207
God isn't them.

02:00:01.207 --> 02:00:09.533
Jesus wants to change your life and he can and will do it if you let him.

02:00:09.533 --> 02:00:13.104
It's so much simpler than people make it.

02:00:13.104 --> 02:00:34.907
But don't wait around, don't sit on the fence, because I'm telling you, as a guy who knows I have been at death's door so many times, you, as a guy who knows I have been at death's door so many times, so many times I mean, call the family in type of deal you don't know.

02:00:34.907 --> 02:00:47.895
You don't know when it's going to be, and not only for that reason it's not an insurance policy, but also, don't you want to live knowing who the creator is?

02:00:47.895 --> 02:00:50.082
Don't you want to know him?

02:00:50.082 --> 02:00:53.109
Don't you want to know why you're here?

02:00:53.109 --> 02:00:56.400
It's not just to take up space or time.

02:00:56.400 --> 02:01:00.163
I love ice cream too, but I'm not here just to eat ice cream.

02:01:01.585 --> 02:01:16.157
And the fact of the matter of it is that I think if I could encourage anybody is don't look at churches or the people in churches and say, oh well, those people, I don't go there because those people are hypocrites.

02:01:16.157 --> 02:01:20.543
We are all hypocrites, from the pastor on down.

02:01:20.543 --> 02:01:23.841
Hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite, sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner, hurt.

02:01:23.841 --> 02:01:25.613
Have it hang up, hurt, hypocrite, sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner, hurt habit.

02:01:25.613 --> 02:01:26.560
Hang up, hurt, habit, hang up, I have them.

02:01:26.560 --> 02:01:31.765
I'm as jacked up as anybody you'll ever see in your life, but God loves me.

02:01:31.765 --> 02:01:38.613
It took me almost a lifetime to figure that out and to accept it.

02:01:38.613 --> 02:01:40.444
It's time you start accepting it.

02:01:40.966 --> 02:01:41.951
Thank you so much.

02:01:42.594 --> 02:01:43.155
The honor is mine.

02:01:43.360 --> 02:01:44.284
I don't know how to thank you.

02:01:44.284 --> 02:01:59.056
It just means the world to me that you're coming here and you're so open and you're willing to share your story and your life with us and to share your love for Christ and trying to lead people to Christ, like those Belgian women.

02:01:59.358 --> 02:01:59.997
Ain't that something?

02:01:59.997 --> 02:02:01.359
Yes, ain't that something.

02:02:01.359 --> 02:02:02.622
I can't imagine Blessing of a something.

02:02:02.622 --> 02:02:06.070
Yes, ain't that something Well, I can't imagine Blessing of a lifetime.

02:02:06.752 --> 02:02:08.587
Okay, let's give out your contact information.

02:02:08.587 --> 02:02:18.511
So, listeners, you know that I will have all of the links and the socials in the show notes and there'll be hot links that you can click on for easy access.

02:02:18.720 --> 02:02:23.712
The easiest way to get a hold of me is smgreener at gmailcom.

02:02:23.712 --> 02:02:25.726
S as in Sean M as in Michael.

02:02:25.726 --> 02:02:27.484
Greener as in the grass is always greener.

02:02:27.484 --> 02:02:29.230
Okay, at gmailcom.

02:02:29.230 --> 02:02:31.988
Or contact me through the show on YouTube.

02:02:31.988 --> 02:02:34.328
You can leave messages there.

02:02:34.328 --> 02:02:38.527
I'm on Quora Q-U-O-R-A.

02:02:38.527 --> 02:02:40.792
4.1 million views.

02:02:41.172 --> 02:02:41.654
Amazing.

02:02:41.654 --> 02:02:43.030
Yeah, I do see you on Quora a lot.

02:02:43.030 --> 02:02:43.636
Yeah, I do see you on Quora.

02:02:43.636 --> 02:02:43.979
It's crazy yeah.

02:02:44.761 --> 02:02:48.511
I write about certain specific things on there, but there's a messaging platform there.

02:02:48.511 --> 02:02:52.010
Facebook is an easy way to get me Facebook Messenger.

02:02:52.010 --> 02:02:56.840
Those are probably the easiest ways to get me Okay.

02:02:56.840 --> 02:02:59.587
I almost never check my Instagram messages.

02:02:59.668 --> 02:03:02.967
Oh, really Okay, which is terrible, because I forget that they have messages.

02:03:02.967 --> 02:03:03.449
Yeah.

02:03:04.340 --> 02:03:07.846
But whatever way works for you, that I'm on, feel free, okay.

02:03:09.149 --> 02:03:09.390
All right.

02:03:09.390 --> 02:03:11.661
Thank you, listeners, for joining us today.

02:03:11.661 --> 02:03:15.087
I just hope that you enjoyed that as much as as I have.

02:03:15.087 --> 02:03:23.783
And thank you, dr Greener, for being on Topsail Insider and sharing your story with your Topsail friends and neighbors on Topsail Insider and sharing your story with your Topsail friends and neighbors.

02:03:24.123 --> 02:03:27.407
This is the prettiest studio I've ever been in.

02:03:27.407 --> 02:03:28.466
You win.

02:03:29.127 --> 02:03:29.887
Thank you so much.

02:03:29.887 --> 02:03:31.729
It's just my converted dining room.

02:03:31.789 --> 02:03:33.671
Wow, it's lovely we're going to work on it some more.

02:03:33.671 --> 02:03:35.072
We got a ways to go.

02:03:35.072 --> 02:03:36.193
All right.

02:03:36.193 --> 02:03:37.132
Thank you, you bet.

02:03:37.132 --> 02:03:46.319
Hey, if you enjoyed today's episode of Topsail Insider, please show your support by clicking the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform.

02:03:46.319 --> 02:03:51.171
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02:03:51.171 --> 02:03:58.226
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02:03:58.226 --> 02:04:07.146
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02:04:07.146 --> 02:04:16.372
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02:04:16.372 --> 02:04:21.898
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02:04:21.898 --> 02:04:28.851
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02:04:28.851 --> 02:04:30.904
I'll see you around Topsail.