The Essayist: Louis Profeta, MD

Louis M. Profeta is a nationally recognized, award-winning writer and Emergency Physician at St. Vincent Hospital of Indianapolis. He is clinical instructor of Emergency Medicine at Indiana University and Marian University Schools of Medicine. A graduate of Indiana University and its School of Medicine, Dr. Profeta completed his post-graduate training in Emergency Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.  He is a dynamic and sought-after public speaker and writer as well as a frequent guest on TV and radio who has gained critical acclaim for his essays on topics such as his eye-opening look at our national preparedness for influenza pandemics in What Scares Me More than Ebola.

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Louis M. Profeta, MD

In 2015, 2016 and again in 2017 he was named LinkedIn Top Voice for readership in health care. In 2020 he was recognized by LinkedIn as one of the Top Voices In Health Care related to Covid-19. The Society of Professional Journalism honored his scathingly sarcastic but passionate essay, Your Kid and My Kid Aren’t Playing in the Pros, as one of the best articles on sports in 2014. In 2018 he was honored by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists for his contributions to online media. 

Dr. Profeta’s best-selling book, The Patient in Room Nine Says He’s God, continues to earn critical acclaim as a poignant and passionate look at society, God and life through the eyes of an ER doctor. His essay  I Know You Love Me–Now Let Me Die has been read more than five million times on LinkedIn, the Huffington Post and NPR and has sparked a whole new debate on end-of-life care. His 2017 essays, When the Lion Kills Your Child ,  A Sunday Talk on Sex, Drugs, Drinking and Dying with the Frat Boys  and I’ll Look at Your Facebook Profile Before I tell Your Mother You’re Dead, are three of the most read and shared articles ever on LinkedIn, exposing the disastrous consequences of the opiate epidemic, drug and alcohol abuse, and sexual assaults on college campuses.  He is quickly becoming one of the most widely read opinion essayists in America.

Dr. Profeta and his wife Sheryl are parents of three grown sons. They currently live in Indianapolis, Indiana, with their Maltese dog Mimi (that he claims to hate but really loves).

Dr. Profeta’s Prescription for Success:

Number 1: Expand your sphere of influence.

Number 2: See beauty in the everyday.

Number 3: Every tragedy in your life hides a miracle.

Connect with Dr. Profeta

Website: Louisprofeta.com
LinkedIn: Louis M. Profeta, MD
Dr. Profeta’s TED Talk: On YouTube
Dr. Profeta’s book: The Patient in Room Nine says he’s God

Notable quotes from Dr. Profeta’s interview:

We highly overvalue compassion and empathy, and undervalue action.

Act when you see something that you can fix. Do it yourself. Get out there and be active.

I tell them: ‘Listen, I want you to have a dream one day, and that dream is that you are going to look down at your own kid, and you are going to realize at that moment what love is, and you are going to look back at this moment, of this discussion, and you are going to say ‘Oh my God, I get it.”

I’ll forget your face five minutes after I zip up that body bag, but I’ll remember the screams of your parents for the rest of my life.

The worst thing I have ever seen is the look on your mom and dad’s face when I tell them you’re dead.

Access the Show Transcript Here

Transcript

 

[0:00] When I wrote the book when I wrote the patient remained since its God I was really right and something for my kids way of saying this is who Daddy is.
This is my life this is why I’m sometimes in the piss-poor mood and why I miss some of your ball games and can’t do stuff and maybe I’m not it’s you know interactive it’s like as I could be as a father it was something that I wanted to lead to my kids.

[0:28] Paging dr. cook paging dr. cook dr. cook you’re wanted in the o.r. dr. Koh.

[0:35] Music.

[0:58] Hello everyone and welcome to prescriptions for Success I’m dr. Randy cook your host for the podcast.
Which is a production of the MD coaches providing leadership and Executive coaching for Physicians by physicians to overcome burnout transition your career.
Develop as a leader or whatever your goal might be visit MD coaches on the web at my MD coaches.com because you’re not in this alone.

[1:28] My guest today is not only a highly respected Emergency Physician he’s also a prolific essayist and author and an uncommonly effective public speaker as well.

[1:39] He was good enough to sit down and chat with me about life in the emergency room and elsewhere so let’s hear my conversation with dr. Louis profeta.

[1:48] Music.

[1:54] Great pleasure it is for me today too.
Welcome dr. Louis profeta to prescription for Success I’ve been looking forward to this interview since.
Seeing a YouTube video that he became even more famous for he’d been famous for quite a while even before the YouTube I think but Lewis thank you so much for being here I’m really looking forward to this thank you very much I’m glad you’re with you.
Well let’s get right down to business our regular listeners will
already know that I like to talk about the story of your life beginning with the origin story and I gotta say,
your particular origin story is a little bit unusual I know that in your early teens.
Life as a physician was not really part of the plan but that changed with a rather catastrophic event so why don’t you just go ahead and.

[2:48] Take it from there give us all the details about where the idea came from.
I was born and you know a middle class family and Indianapolis didn’t have a whole lot but you know we never went hungry certainly and worked all my life and I had
aspirations of becoming some sort of great athlete actually it’s a gymnast believe it or not and
so you know I really didn’t give much I didn’t pay much attention to school at all I got was not a good student I was not one of those kids was on honor roll.
Or that other countries would say hey why can’t you get an A in algebra like you Lewis prophetic dead and that wasn’t me I was just sort of skirting through
School barely getting C’s and D’s just enough to be able to compete and that kind of stuff and I had aspirations maybe even go to the Olympics one day.
In gymnastics it’s never going to happen.

[3:41] Back then can’t tell that to a 14 15 year-old nothing wrong with a dream no not at all not at all and I ended up suffering a fall during practice and broke my neck.

[3:51] It was critically injured
brief period of time I could move the neck down and I ended up in the hospital on a Stryker bed
still screws and tongs drilled into my skull and in I literally had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life an Olympic gymnast Ron Gallimore is one of the first African American Olympic gymnast
reached out to me and give me some words of encouragement and I literally decide hey I think I’ll be a doctor.
And watch TV I think Indiana University was playing Purdue University in basketball my dad goes what you want to do about college I said I don’t care whoever wins this game I go there.
Indiana once I showed up and I you decided I was going to become a doctor my folks thought I was crazy because it was such a bad student.
He suggested I take General Studies classes
business classes and stuff like that but I said I help with that I’m going to become a doctor and I just channeled all that energy into studying and I had to go back and take a lot of remedial classes because I wasn’t one of those kids was in all the advanced science and biology and all that stuff so
and we’re going to medical school.

[5:00] I’d like to go back to that that broken neck event if you will I mean you just sail through it as if it wasn’t that much of a big deal.
But if you can just think back to what was going through your head when you relying on that gym floor and you couldn’t.

[5:15] Move anything you couldn’t feel anything and even over the next few weeks what was that like for a teenager.
Well it’s the beginning of a thousand I the mean the pain and in the labor how hard it was to breathe I mean I thought it was going to die and then after a couple days or on realize I was going to probably recover my Movement by arms and legs.
Then I was sort of left with you know that was my identity I mean you know this this athlete demand that’s who I was and I was gone I mean it was like gone and instant and.

[5:47] I just you know I got some words of encouragement for people that care about and.
I said well you know this is what I was telling this is the hand I was dealt and I gotta you know but I think I was more concerned about the fact I had no real skills
I mean I was actually thinking about this it is 17 I didn’t have any other dreams or aspirations not the really had crossed my mind about what I wanted to be in life.
Pencil suddenly I was sort of hit with this prospect that I wasn’t going to go to where I thought I might go after college and certainly wasn’t going to go to the Olympics I’m gonna be a gymnast so.
What was I gonna do in I had always been a little bit enamored with the biology biological sciences and in medicine a little bit.
But never crossed my mind as a career choice and so I said you know it’s time to refocus too
take that energy that I have and just try to put it in something else and that’s what I did I said Dan and I’m going to do something else it sounds like and I want you to really correct me if I’m wrong but it sounds as if.

[6:47] You really never had a period of feeling sorry for yourself you just wanted to figure out what the next step was going to be am I misreading that.
Yeah no that’s accurate I mean I mean I felt sad that I lost what I lost but I mean I grew up Jewish on the east side of Indianapolis and not very you know not very hospitable area the only Jewish kid in school.
Yeah and so yes used to be announcing beaten up a beaten down a little bit so I certainly wasn’t gonna let this stop me.

[7:17] And when I came out of generational in generation way from the Holocaust was just a broken neck so
and I hid it was one of those things in I guess maybe your cultural upbringing it said I wasn’t planning on being a.
A slump for the rest of my life I was gonna do something I just didn’t know what I was going to do I hadn’t really thought about that cultural or ethnic.

[7:42] Attitude that might have been a part of your upbringing but it certainly sounds like that might have made a difference do you think so no absolutely did.
I mean it’s sort of ingrained in your DNA that average isn’t acceptable it doesn’t have to be just average in terms of grades it’s issue you need to be a good and somewhat I guess may be exceptional
personal try to keep the bar moving north kind of
kind of speaking so that’s what I want to do I want to make my folks proud I want to meet my friends proud I felt like I had a responsibility to my religion and for the people that.
But before me and I was going to sit around and feel sorry for myself and say okay my life’s over you know you give up I’ll go find something else to do yeah.

[8:26] That sounds that’s a great story and I appreciate you sharing it with us the other thing I’d like to ask is that you mentioned that you were not
particularly scholastically dedicated certainly you were not stupid
but you were not Scholastics was not something that you really felt was there for you two to be The Driver
and I’m thinking that once you began to think about medical school obviously that changed and I wonder if you have any way to describe how you made that turn around how you began to.
Get into the mindset of acquiring and sustaining.
Huge quantities of information in the classroom was that a struggle at all well it wasn’t the beginning we had to learn how to learn I swear to tell people you know I didn’t have the benefit of really haven’t done homework I’m not.
Bait turned in the bare minimum,
to get by in school so I was really behind I had some good sort of mentors around me that sort of gave me suggestions on how to process information and study and I thought that out but also you know with like sports.

[9:34] I was really driven to succeed in this one area and all I did was just Channel that I mean it was no big deal for me to go and practice or six hours and certainly wasn’t a big deal to go sit in the library for six and eight hours but to have that
I had a singular Focus okay here’s where I want to be you know for years I want to be in medical school so I knew that everything every
waking moment that I had I had to be studying I sort of the top this mindset that every time I wasn’t studying somebody else was.
So I mean I got books on my own I read them before I even started the you know like physics books and calculus books before I even took the classes I was going through the books and.
And having friends sort of showing me how to do stuff and and I got better be 18 became like five days next thing you know I’m getting straight A’s and once you start to get that confidence that you can do it
you know it just snowballs becomes easier and easier and you adopt these skill sets and I think it works for 1000 things of life.
So it sounds like it nowhere along the way was failure ever on option for you you were going to push through regardless the job was there to be done and there was just no turning back is that.

[10:42] Yeah I think that’s accurate but I also knew that even if I did fail I’d still be keep going so I’m going to tell them a lot of things your personal things a whole bunch of stuff but I don’t know
but yeah but what a great what a great educator tough failures man it’s highly
undervalued and Matt learn more Life by getting a door slammed in my face and my teeth knocked out that I ever got Pike deep pint in the trophy
I mean it sounds like that this turned out to be more of a really interesting challenge for you rather than a struggle which is.

[11:18] Good thing but then I know also from reading some of your published material that toward the.

[11:26] The end of your third year in medical school.
There was another to say the least catastrophic event in your life that had an impact on your future plans and I’d like for you to.
To go ahead and tell us about that are you talking about the Kmart incident I’m talking about the Kmart engine well we I was a I was a third-year medical
didn’t and it was interesting I had during my third year I thought I was going to become a hand surgeon I really enjoyed
in fact he’s a scrub in with the stock or Jim Strickland who was it
pretty famous hand guy and I thought I was gonna be hand surgery but I would come out of the operating Suite with his horrible neck pain and
neurosurgeon friend of me he said listen you’re Wired from your stem your stomach on your neck because there is no way you’re going to be able to hunker down over over an operating table for hours on end you’re going to be a crippled by the time you’re 50.

[12:22] And he said look for some other area in medicine and meantime I had been working as a is a like a medical student scribe kind of thing in the ER and just fell in love with it
in all right so I had been doing hands and emergency medicine and I had met my
future wife we actually met at a Jewish singles party my mom said if I didn’t go she wouldn’t give me any more money for medical school
so I went to this party and you go to meet anybody I said yeah I met I saw Cheryl five months you remember her and she put that RVs and she said anytime you want to take her out to dinner I’ll pay for it so but I had a plan.
Ain’t that the truth so we decided we were going to go on this sort of pre-marriage kind of test.
Trip to Canada and we were shopping for some fishing and camping gear in a Kmart and this nice couple the Bowers walked in front of us pushing two little girls in a car.

[13:18] And I was standing over by the fishing aisle and I looked down the aisle and I see.

[13:23] Kevin pushing the grocery cart in his one daughter standing in the aisle behind him and she’s holding on to something.

[13:31] And I turned to say something to my wife and all the sudden there was an explosion and I turned back and her clothes are on fire in her hand was gone
and it was a bomb she had picked up a pipe bomb off the somebody had planted a bomb in the Kmart
and we ran over we put up the Flames we try to keep her into the screams and the parents were yelling and it was just a catastrophe or not you say we who all is involved in the week.
Well my wife was there myself and then an off-duty firefighter John Moriarty showed up.
He helped to and we did what we could to try to calm the situation down and then
we had to be driven home by the police because they wouldn’t let us take her car’s out it was a it was a big National story it was a not the ATF was involved as a young man who sort of the Disturbed who committed suicide and Uncle shortly thereafter he had planted a bomb has a
maybe a practical joke and it and that’s what ended up happening and so I went home and.
Yeah not really forgot about it but I mean we went home you’re like oh my gosh wouldn’t believe what happened and then I woke up in the next morning.
Go to medical school and there’s all these TV cameras at the medical school
I’m walking to my psych rotation I’m looking at all the cameras it’s a man will do what happened at the Medscape centers that I’ve got me out of the psych rotation.

[14:57] We got a bunch of did something happen last time they held up a newspaper said Indiana University Medical students say it’s Girl’s Life in a bomb explosion like oh my God.

[15:07] And so.
It became a national news story but then I also realize I probably should get out and go do my residency in another state this way if I don’t screw up and wants a Kmart hero to miss
this is all I really wanted you to talk about that a little bit more because I have you know I’ve predigested some of the information.

[15:30] From your book and it really had a huge effect on you that did not all this unwanted publicity
yeah it did it was it caught me off-guard I you know it’s amazing it’s amazing how when I go back I read a chapter like that realized I wrote that years ago
how our world is we need heroes and villains don’t we.
I mean we always do somebody’s got to be the hero Somebody’s gotta be the villain and it’s amazing how quick the tide can turn so you know I just wanted a sort of.
Move away and be somewhere else and because everywhere we went I mean everybody knew
who we were and we couldn’t go to a restaurant or do anything exempting the story and by that time to I’d started the interview Trail for emergency medicine and did fall in love with maybe going pit and upon UPMC.

[16:24] Hi I’m Rhonda Crow founder and CEO Forum D coaches here on RX for Success we interview a lot of great medical professionals on how they grew their careers how they overcame challenges.
And how they handle day-to-day work I really hope you’re getting a lot of great information.
But if you’re looking for an answer to a specific problem management or Administration challenge.
Or if you’re feeling just a bit burnt out like maybe you chose the wrong career.
Well then there’s a faster way to get the help you need now it’s not counseling it’s coaching.
RX for success is produced by MD coaches a team of Physicians who have been where you are.
I know you’re used to going it alone but you don’t have to get the support you need today,
visit us at my MD coaches.com to schedule your complimentary consultation again that’s my MD coaches.com.

[17:21] Because you’re not in this alone.

[17:26] We’ll get back to our interview in just a moment but right now I want to tell you a little bit about physician Outlook
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at checkout that’s a really great deal on this stunning publication and now let’s get back to today’s interview and I know that.
Sort of coincidentally you you came in contact with another individual.

[18:43] Who had had a similar life event and I’m talking about Richard Jewell.
Who was a suspect in the Atlanta Olympics yeah strange you want to talk about that at all well I’m real proud of a small community North of our city in the Carmel Indiana it’s a little.
Suburban enclaves north of where I live and.

[19:05] You know when Richard Jewell was wrongfully accused of the Olympic Park bombing for Crime you know that Eric Rudolph ended up knowing that you still in jail right
for yeah I felt really bad for that guy I mean I chose it to me it reminded me of like the Dreyfus Affair I mean it had that kind of impact on me emotionally
in Carmel reached out to Richard Jewell and asked him if he would be in the parade to lead for like the Fourth of July parade and I was like.
Blown Away by that and I and I remember talking to him he thought it was a joke he thought that some people are trying to punk him and and
that nobody had ever really reached out and thanked him in to watch those all those people in Carmel get really standing ovations and applaud him and cheer him man even now I mean it kills me it tears me up inside him and I was really emotional but they asked me if I would myself my kids would ride in the parade too
sort of as a time for what had happened years early I’m like yeah okay sure
and and we did was it my kids didn’t even know anything about it they’re like why are we in this parade but
man what that was just that was the thing that was a seminal moment in my life meeting somebody like that I mean in and I think the movie captured it
great about you know you take a simple guy and you you make him into a into a villain when this guy save countless lives mean what a tragedy for our country.

[20:30] It’s really a stain on our and you know it’s probably the downfall of media could be pointed to the Richard Jewell event better than anything else I was just going to say I think it’s.
A significant statement on how news gets made and and it sounds like.
On at least a smaller scale that kind of over-height had
an effect on you I mean you lived your entire life and educated your entire life right there in Indiana.

[21:04] And at this point you decided to take it someplace else and I think I heard you say that particular event had.

[21:12] Something to do with that.
Decision am I correct about that yeah yeah without a doubt we thought you know we need to move on get away from it for a while get away from it and then.
But even now I mean I’m 57 years old I’ve been practicing for three decades in the emergency department and people will hear my name
on occasion and say hey we want you in the Kmart bombing but now I’m a word more often it’s oh I read this article you wrote on LinkedIn or read that and read your book
you know I’m on television a lot here hapless areas so both of the people have either
forgotten about that event forgot my the my name is tied to it and I’m fine with that I don’t I don’t think about it that much to be honest mr. monk had a lot more.
Horrible things in my life or seen a lot more horrible things than that but I was pretty bad that’s for damn sure well I’m glad to hear that there’s been some good progress in their regard and and that brings me to.
The next thing that I really wanted to talk about and that is for
our listeners who are not familiar you really are a prolific writer you have a ton of essays on LinkedIn you have a great book called the,
what is it the patient in room bedroom 9 says guy died yeah what a great title thank you hi and the writing is just absolutely terrific.

[22:34] And the thing that I like the most about it is it’s there for everybody this is not just for medical people.
This is the stories of the lives in the souls.

[22:49] Behind those two events in the emergency room.
Hi and you’re very rare in that regard in terms of the people that were in the medical profession that right.
About what happens.
While they’re on the clock if you got any idea what Drew you to that avocation was it a way to blow off the steam or did you just want people to know what’s the story.

[23:14] Well you know what I forgot when I wrote the book when I wrote the patient room and says he’s got I was really right and something for my kids way of saying this is who daddy is this is my life
this is why I’m sometime to the piss-poor mood and why Miss some of your ball games and can’t do stuff and maybe I’m not it’s
interactive it’s like is I could be as a father it was something that I wanted to leave the my kids and I had written a book
it had done okay it’s self-published I think I sent one query letter out nothing happened and I just said to Hell Without self publish it because I had no expectations of it anyways and next thing I know it started selling and then it got picked up by mainstream publishing house we had a few more chapters
I mean it’s been a best-seller I mean it’s crazy and it’s a great one that’s kind you and.
I I think that I had hone my skill and social media I don’t it actually on a even before Facebook on a.
Blog site called sermo which was like the early doctor social media site and one of my good friends started that started that site and I had started.

[24:19] Posting just a ton of stuff at the actually at his request at the beginning and I got a feeling for what resonates with people what does resonate with people how you get stuff to sort of go viral how you get people to too
to read your material and I just sort of found that Niche and realized that I had a little bit of a gift
to be able to tell stories and keep the audience in mind and I think that you for the hit on I think it’s one of the reasons why some people sort of fail in terms of writing and terms of position writing because they Forget Their audience and you when you said you know.

[24:56] Speaks to everybody I think that’s what you’re seeing there
here it really does and I have enjoyed the part of it that I’ve read up to now and look forward to finishing it and I certainly.
Want to recommend it to our audience how I hope you’ll write another one I bet you’ve got another book in there somewhere well I mean I’ve written some I’ve written so many essays now on LinkedIn let me to go to Louis prophetic.com and some of those.

[25:22] Does say is like if you look at one of the
one of the essays called I look your Facebook profile before I tell your mother you’re dead you’re talking about something that’s been read 30 million times and some of those essays
on there are 45 million reads then there’s the manga stuff number of reads there in magazines all over the world and been republished everywhere and
I’m just as content putting it out like that I don’t need it on my bookshelf but I’ve been asked to write for so many newspapers and magazines about you had a last few years but
I like being able to ride on my own and I can put whatever the hell I want on paper without anybody telling me I got to edit these works out of that works out and I don’t need the money so what do I care I’ll do it on my own.
I like that attitude yeah I want to ask you about one other thing that.

[26:12] The really caught my attention you are clearly somebody who wants to has a compulsion to.
Give back to make a contribution and I know that you are affiliated you’re part of I guess you would say the faculty of an organization called.
Greek University yeah would you tell us a little bit about what that organization does and what your connection with it is
well Greek University it’s just sort of the speaking bureau I had written an article called
Sunday talk on sex drugs drinking and dying with the Frat Boys and I have to give you a little back story I don’t know if you know about this we almost lost our oldest son Max my first born to leukemia he had saw everything
yeah he had fallen ill when he was in college he was at College in York City I literally picked up and drove the minute the ER doc called and told me his blood count I drove.

[27:09] As fast as I could to New York City pounded and screaming all the way there and I slept in a chair for seven months next to his bed while he was in the ICU think of that every day my
my kid will die and that’s cool the school of New York you Shiva.
Donated so much blood to him and thank God he’s in he’s in remission he’s done great but it was during that time that
chip cutter who would be at that time was the executive editor one of the editors of LinkedIn
reached out to me and asked me if I’d write an article about ebola for LinkedIn and Linkedin was sort of fledgling at that time.
And I said my life had changed I was in New York and my son had cancer and I didn’t know if he’s going to live and I don’t know if I’ll ever write again and he apologized for oh my God I did not know I wouldn’t have bothered you but we’re in the Empire State Building is there anything that I can do.

[28:00] To help I said yeah donate blood so he comes
from LinkedIn and bring some other people and they donate blood to my child makes it I’ll bring the article and so I wrote an article about what scares me more in a bowline that was in 2014 about how we were not ready for a viral pandemic.
And I mapped out how I thought a million Americans would die because of influenza pandemic that we run
prepared for whatever you like medic yeah you’re not kidding Linda and it’s exactly
so that article blew up it was published in magazines all over the world and they took LinkedIn took me out to dinner they said listen anything you write will promote and I followed it up with an article about and the life
care called I know you love me and let me die the don’t deals with Annalise care for the most read articles ever on end-of-life care and.
So with my youngest son was moving into his fraternity
it Indiana I was like really sort of Shell Shocked about the whole thing because I almost lost a son already I was still reeling from that and I was telling you know avoid this like that he goes dad you just want to talk to our pledge class and I said would you let me.

[29:06] And he goes yeah and I and.
I started talking to him and it just didn’t seem like it was resonate okay they didn’t get it and then I got that question you know that question you get it.
Dr. Kurt that questioned every yard Doc is what what’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen it go and I looked at him and I said the worst thing I ever have ever seen as look on your Mom and Dad’s face when I tell him you’re dead.
And they all got real quiet I looked around the room I said you have any fucking idea how selfish that it was of you.

[29:36] I said your parents will never acquire all they did and I love I just lit I mean I lost my shit I mean I look into them
yeah and I said your parents will never be happy again I was screaming at him and and they all just
Seth Aaron shook I saw that’s what it takes that’s the problem is it it’s not that you guys do
I think this will happen to use that you guys have no concept of what love really is I mean young people think they know what it is but they think it’s such a superficial level that they don’t understand the depth of love a parent has for their own kid
United I went home and I wrote a Sunday talk on sex drugs drink
drinking and dying with the Frat Boys Mount think of been published for 24 hours before I got my first call from University since hey we got a problem could you come to our school and talk for our people
so I next thing you know I’m getting calls from all over the country going hey would you come to this University we come that Universe we talked to my kids for Trinity we come to my I did I said I wasn’t gonna do it I said you know I hit during when Max had gotten sick
play it taken care of two young upper-middle-class wealthy family kids who died of heroin and Fentanyl
overdoses while my own kid the same age it’s languishing and I see you in Sloan-Kettering and I said damn and I’m going to.

[30:49] I’m going to get out there I’m going to do what I can do and so I did so that’s what I’ve been doing for Greek University handles those those speaking gigs for me.
But they came to me in the say hey can we help you out your bit I suggest please,
that is so perceptive of you and I don’t think I overstate when I say that it was brilliant table you to to pick on to pick up on what you had discovered because we’ve all.
In there I mean my Lord I’m more than a half-century out of college and I remember those people that used to come by and tell us.
You know that we were going to be sorry if we didn’t straighten up and fly right all that kind of crap.
But they don’t really tell it in the language that gets the attention of an eighteen-year-old do they.
Yeah what you heard was a fraction of what I suggest and yeah and you have to you have to get down into them and they have to see your vulnerability and they have to they have to see the world different they have to see it through eyes of their parents and they just
their adult bodies with juvenile Minds based on what they understand of the world and
and I tell them I said listen I want you to have a dream one day and that dream was still look down drunk kid
and you’re going to realize at that moment what love is and you’re going to look back at this moment of this discussion you’re going to go oh my God I get it.

[32:13] Because the world looks looks one way when you’re by yourself or when you’re married or but it’s man it takes on a whole new meaning when you’ve got when you’ve got a baby when you’ve got a child and then Magill it darkness when you.
Our pays for the prospect of losing your child and I just decided you know I tell them I said I’ll forget your face five minutes after I zip up that body bag but I’ll remember the screen with your parents for the rest of my life yeah I think what you picked up on is that
historically we have tried to speak to them sort of in their language and talk about how bad you’re going to feel if you let your fraternity brother.

[32:50] Aspirate and die and you know it’s a fraternity party or something like that.

[32:56] Yeah but we’ve also we’ve also done a shitty job as doctors of getting out there I mean we think that our sphere of influence ends at the ambulance doors and there could not be farther from the truth.
Okay and that’s one of the things I’ll talk about later is that sort of expanding your sphere of influence.
All of that and and and and that Brilliance that you had to force them to see what the world looks like Through The Eyes of an adult who is invested in your future
was incredibly brilliant of you,
thank you that’s kind of damage done well I got I welcome you to come maybe going to Alabama in the near future so I hope you’ll let me know come and come and watch and you’ll see you’ll see.

[33:44] What it really is all about you’ll be amazed about the questions that I get it’s all right either way there are shattering I will look forward to the to the invitation.
We know what Louis I could carry on a conversation with you for I forget how many essays you’ve written but they go a long long way and I could pick your brain about all of them.
Well reach out and do it again all right there’s no reason why we can’t do a part 2 3 4 88 so I appreciate you volunteering for that but at the risk of
losing my tiny little audience I’m going to step out of the way here and give you an opportunity to to give us what my audience usually comes from and I’m going to close my mic and dr. Lewis profeta,
will give us his personal prescriptions for Success well goodness okay so my personal prescription for success
I think you break it down I’ve actually talked about this before some corporate events any you I think my philosophy is you break it down to three components number one
is that notion of expanding your sphere of influence I think that we highly over value compassion and empathy and really undervalue action what I mean by that is if
there’s a problem happening what’s happening with an area which where you have some semblance of control your first response you’re not be of empathy and compassion needs to be one of action
we got to be more active so.

[35:12] Act when you when you see something that you can fix or if you have that skill set and if you don’t then you find it but.
Overtime expand that sphere of influence you have and the more areas that you can start to address instead of just yelling for somebody to pick up the garbage go pick up the garbage.
Do it yourself okay get out there and be active.
Number two would be nothing number two is seed Beauty and in the everyday and
there’s a there’s an interesting prayer and Judaism call the shehecheyanu which is essentially blessed art thou O Lord Our God ruler of the universe that brought us to this day and
prayer is designed I think in a lot of ways to get you to stop and appreciate the beauty that you see in nature whether you’re looking at a rainbow whether you looking them up.

[35:57] Beautiful sunset or something like that but there’s a tremendous amount of beauty that passes Us by every single day whether it’s you know the the rustling of your kids I need easiness at the piano recital or or the wry smile that you
kidney give when they’re sliding into second base for about a thousand different things in people’s faces that you see on a daily basis
but you know you’re not going to be able to see that if you got your face buried in the cell phone all the time so yeah I have to be up they have to be looking at different Beauties around you on a daily basis and if you do that we tell you it’s going to calm your soul it’s going to
Brenda a sense of peace and accomplishment and bright the day and.
Instead of the dinginess of the you know little iPhone screen so.
Keep your head up okay take those moments in pause them and try to take those visions and.
Sort of embedded into your into your soul and a third part and I think we sort of touched on it a little bit every tragedy in your life
I don’t care how small or great it is hides a miracle it really does.
Yeah it may take you years to see it there’s a chapter in my book about how some girls accidentally dumped a charcoal grill on my head.

[37:12] Back in the in the 80s and how 15 years later that led to a young boy getting the first intestinal transplant.
In Indiana so there’s a lot of bad things that happen to you for example my son having leukemia I’m an infinitely better father now.
After my son’s illness and I was before I’m an infinitely better human being I think so too,
yeah there’s a lot of bad things that happen but it’s amazing how many doors open up.
Through some of the negative things and give things a chance to play themselves out in time you’ll understand it better.
Don’t dwell on the negative always move forward and take whatever bad things happen yeah in realize there’s a mystical reason and there’s a beauty in it.

[37:56] You just have to be strong enough to find it and I think those would probably be my lessons for success.
Louis that is every bit as profound as I expected and I am absolutely not surprised and I appreciate you being here to share that with us
I appreciate you asking me let’s we love it when people like you show up and before you go I want to give you an opportunity
to tell us where people can find you where they can contact you and anything else that you’d like to share
but you can you can find me at Louis prophetic.com Lalu is PR o Fe t a.com or connect with me on LinkedIn
and you can go and take a look at my book if you want the patient room nine says he’s God and there’s a TED talk I’ve done.

[38:46] Feel free to reach out to me and if you want me at your kids college campus talk to your school about vitamin E or.
Expand your sphere of influence you get a bunch of parents and half and pay a fourth themselves I’ll be glad to come out but I’m it’s it’s an in-your-face brutal.
Discussion it’s not for the faint of heart by any stretch of the imagination but I’ll bet it’s worth the price of admission it’s interesting,
dr. Louis profeta thanks again for being on prescription for Success my absolute pleasure thank you for having me.

[39:22] Thank you so much for joining us today as always we really appreciate a review from you and a five-star rating helps us a lot.
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[40:03] As always special thanks to Ryan Jones who created Aunt performs our theme music for the show and remember be sure and fill your prescription for success with my next episode.

[40:15] Music.