All-In Friendship

Good morning my friend, I hope you're doing well. It is August 9th, 2023.

We are coming up on halfway through all in August and I'm excited to hear from you.

Speakpipe.com slash Dr. Lee Warren. We've got lots of folks calling in to let us know that they are all in.

Today I'm really excited. I don't have a new episode for you this morning.

Harvey and Lewis have gotten up early again. They have literally been in my lap all morning.

They are incredibly needy.

They've been really sick lately and we'd appreciate a little prayer if you're the

kind of person who prays for dogs, but they're sick, there's something going on.

We think they may have been poisoned. The farmers have kind of go for poisoning out in the fields and Harvey and Louis have

been sick now for several weeks and we're worried about them.

So anyway, they're incredibly clingy, they're not sleeping well and they get up and they

want to sit in your lap and anyhow, just been kind of one of those mornings where I've

two, you know, 80-pound dogs that want to sit in my lap like they're Shar Peis or

something. So the bottom line of that is you're going to get all-in friendship

from last year. This is an episode that I have played two years in a row now for

All in August. I think it's important. It's the idea that we're supposed to

have relationships in our lives that make a difference, to make an impact. Not

the superficial kinds of social things, but deep, meaningful relationships.

And that's what this episode is about. And I hope that you find those relationships in your life, even in this community.

We have the prayer wall, WLU1MD.com, slash prayer. You can always comment.

There are people actually connecting in the comments and getting to know one another,

and we've had people visit each other in the hospital because of this community, and we

love it and feel like it's a great way to honor Mitch and the work that we've been doing

since we lost him to try to build community here, and really grateful for you being along

for the ride with us.

And if you're new around here, my new book, Hope is the First Dose, may be the way that

We found the podcast and we hope that it's been helpful to you and make sure you get

the newsletter, drleewarren.substack.com.

We have every Sunday now for, well, 10 years, we've had the Cell Brain Surgery newsletter

that just kind of ideas that we talk about how to become healthier and feel better and

be happier through harnessing the power of neuroscience, added in with our faith in the

midst of all these hard things that give us doubt and raise questions, and how do we find

the beauty in the midst of all that.

And so that's what this work is all about, and I hope that it's been helpful to you.

If you came to us from MindBodyGreen or from Randy Alcorn or any of Jesus Calling or any of the….

New media outlets that have been promoting the new book and we're grateful to have you and love to hear from you

We'd love to hear from listeners and readers around the world and know where you are we had downloads in 117 countries last week and so folks are.

Joining the crowd and we're glad to have you on this journey to become healthier and feel better and be happier

So I'm gonna give you all in friendship this morning

We got a little voicemail from Dave in South Carolina to let us know that he's all in and working on something special for you

I've got one of my bucket list interviews that I've always wanted to have this particular

author on the podcast and this afternoon I'm sitting down to record with Erwin Raphael.

McManus who wrote the incredible book The Last Arrow that I read several years ago and

then last year I read his book The Genius of Jesus and that's when I reached out to

try to get him on the podcast.

It's taken almost a year to get it done and he has a brand new book coming out I think

in October called Mind Shift and it's amazing to me that it's taken so long to get him on

the show and when I finally do, he's got a book that's right in line with all the

things that we talk about here about Mind Change Monday and Self-Brain Surgery Saturday

and you can't change your life until you change your mind and he's written an incredible book.

I have an advanced copy of it, Mind Shift, and it is going to blow you away.

So we're going to record that interview today.

Probably won't hear it until closer to his book launch, but I'm just so grateful that

the podcast has given me an opportunity to introduce you to so many writers and thinkers

And along those lines, we have a live event on September 7th coming with Max Locato from

San Antonio that we're going to have an opportunity for you to send in some questions and ask

me and Max, you know, really America's favorite pastor, Max and I will be talking about hope

and the difference between optimism and hope and self-brain surgery and ideas from my book

and how you can find hope even in the midst of your massive thing.

So pretty soon, stay tuned for an opportunity to submit questions and some of those questions

will end up being discussed on the show with me and Max on September 7th, and I'm very

excited and grateful that Max has agreed to do that.

So we'll have more details for you there if you don't have the book yet Hope is the first dose is available everywhere books are sold on my website

There's a list of vendors and Baker book house is hosting the event with me and Max

And so if you wanted to support them as a way to thank them for.

Providing this incredible opportunity for Max and I to sit down and talk about hope then you could purchase a book from them,

But I just want to encourage you read the book ahead of that conversation with me and Max so you'd be more prepared

prepared to get the most out of it.

And we are going to have a virtual book club for the paid subscribers.

I think next Saturday I'll be giving you an exact time and date on that in the next episode or two.

And then we'll do some book clubs. If you've got a book club with 10 or more members and you let me know that you've all

purchased the book, then we'll be able to provide you with an opportunity to have a

virtual book club with me and probably me and Lisa as well.

And so we're grateful for that. We had Tata back on the show yesterday and I heard from people all over the world how

how grateful they were that Tata's back, and we are too.

So today, Harvey and Lewis are back, they're at the door, ready to come back in.

So I'm gonna give you an all-in friendship as a kind of a throwback wildcard Wednesday,

and we'll be back with something new for you tomorrow. God bless you, friend.

Remember, hey, you can't change your life until you change your mind.

The good news is, my friend, you can start today. Hi, Dr. Warren, Lisa, and Tata.

This is David from Greenville, South Carolina.

Just wanted to say thank you for all the encouragement and reminding us of the hope we have.

I am all in.

Hey, are you ready to change your life? If the answer is yes, there's only one rule.

You have to change your mind first.

And my friend, there's a place where the neuroscience of how your mind works smashes together with faith

and everything starts to make sense.

That place is called self-brain surgery. You can learn it and it will help you become healthier,

feel better and be happier. And the good news is, you can start today.

Thanks, Lisa. Hey, so glad to have you listening today. I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and I live in Nebraska

in the United States of America with my incredible wife, Lisa,

my father-in-law, Tata, and the super pups, Harvey and Louis.

I'm a neurosurgeon and an author, and I'm here to help you harness neuroscience,

the power of your brain, faith, the power of your spirit, and good old common sense to help you lead a healthier,

better, happier life.

Listen, friend, you can't change your life until you change your mind,

and I'm here to help you learn the art of self brain surgery to get it done.

If you like the show, please subscribe so you never miss an episode and tell your friends about it.

If you tell two or three friends this podcast was helpful to you,

imagine how much good we can all do around the world together.

I'm Dr. Lee Warren and I'm here to help you change your mind so you can change your life. Let's get after it.

Good morning, my friend. Hope you're doing well. We're getting close to halfway through all in August,

I'd love to hear a check-in from you. I would love to hear sorry my squirt in my chair

It's a little squeaky this morning. I would love to hear,

Speak pipe comm slash dr. Lee Warren speak pipe comm slash dr Lee Warren would be a great place for you to leave me a quick voice message

Just just click on it as soon as we're done listening to this episode and send us a little shout out how you're doing

and how all in August is going.

Maybe you haven't started yet. Maybe it's time to start today and just get after it.

Like there's some part of your life that you feel like you've been holding back

or you haven't been performing well or you've never really allowed God into that place

or you've never really believed that you could achieve a certain thing or stop doing something

or that there may be some place in your life that you need to go all in and you've been kind of on the periphery.

You've been listening to these podcasts or thinking about it a little bit and now it's time.

And one way to go all in is to have a circle of friends, or sometimes even just one friend,

or one person who you can be accountable to, who you can really talk to and really know and be known by.

There's a verse in the Bible that has meant a lot to me in my life.

Proverbs 18, 24, a man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Not every great relationship has to be born of blood and genetics, right?

There are good relationships and friends, really, who've become family.

And Lisa and I have talked about it for a long time. Both of us have something in common that,

I don't know how common it is or how usual it is, but it's true for us.

Like, we don't do superficial relationships. We don't like to socialize superficially very much.

We don't like spending three hours in a room with a hundred people going, you know, how are you?

I'm fine, how are you? I'm fine.

How's it going? Great, how are you? The weather's nice.

You know, we just don't, we don't relate to that very much.

We don't have the emotional bandwidth in our lives to be superficial.

So we have always kind of collected a small group of friends who are really in our lives

and we're really in their lives. Hans and Lisa van der Aden in Auburn,

our first real best friends as a married couple.

Hans and Lisa are those people who we could not see them for five years and

then we could walk into a room and it would be like, hey, tell me what's going

on. How you doing? I can see it in your eyes. Something's going on. Like we

would just be right where we left off. My friend burn Warner from Pittsburgh burn and I.

Often don't see each other for years at a time with just our lives have gone in different directions

But if he called me today and said Lee I need you to come to Nashville I'd be there and same thing he would come to North Platte when the drop of a hat and,

We would be just like we never spent a day apart Burns that kind of friend when we when we talk the talk doesn't sort of bubble around the superficial

We really get deep and we talk about important things and it's just kind of a reminder to me how important

and real friendship is, and that verse about a friend that sticks closer than a brother, I know this to be true.

Like, Al of Genitone would take a bullet for me, or any of my kids, or for Lisa,

he would step in front of the fire, so would Kristen, and I would do that for them.

And Dale and Joe Margarets are the kind of people that we talk about how we became family,

because we've been through the loss of a child together, not together, but we've experienced that,

We understand each other when we have conversations that relate to that type of grief, when we

meet with each other, when we spend time with each other.

We understand the little looks in the eyes, the little innuendo of when you say certain

things or when a certain day happens.

For us, it's coming up. August 20th is the day we lost Mitch, and we don't go around talking about it a whole

lot in our day-to-day world.

Nobody will hear about it that day from us, but there are a few people.

Who are going to look at us and give us a little nod or just a little squeeze on the shoulder,

and and they'll know and they'll be with us and that's all that you need to say.

Right So all i'm saying is when you're trying to to really break through something in your life,

You need some other people or at least another person to come alongside you

This community is doing that for a lot of people the prayer wall is doing that for a lot of people but but you need,

Somebody to help you understand that you're really not alone in this world,

I got an email, a voicemail actually, from a woman who asked to be anonymous and asked

me not to play her clip.

But she was crying when she left the voicemail. And she said, how do you find hope in this life?

Every time I try to find hope in this life, I just get disappointed.

I just get hurt. And she said, I'm a believer and I have hope for the resurrection, I have hope for the

future, but how do I find hope for today?

How do I find some way to get through today? Well, one of the ways is you always kind of focus on gratitude and try to find something

to be grateful for.

And as my friend John Swanson says, even if it's just, Hey, I was able to take a breath

in that moment, you start peeling back all the things that aren't happening right or aren't going well.

And you start saying, well, my heartbeat that second, my, I was able to take a breath.

I'm grateful for the oxygen in the air and literally you can make yourself find something to give thanks for.

And that will start to lift your mood a little bit. And you can start to see with your eyes around you that there are still other things despite what it is

It's disappointing you so much. There are still other things that are worthy of.

Hoping for and that sounds so trite, but one of the ways you do that is to get somebody else's perspective

You need a friend who won't say hey, you know, you don't worry about that. That's not important

Don't be don't be disappointed by that or let me fix that for you. That's not what you want

You need somebody's gonna put their hand on your shoulder and say man that really is hard. I,

I understand I'm with you. I agree with you. It's hard,

When I was thinking about these things this morning, thinking about all in and trying to be that kind of friend

for other people, I thought about a chapter in a book that Lisa and I love and we used to read to each other.

We were dating and we would send each other little snippets of this book, The Prophet by Cahil Gibran.

It's a great old story about this prophet that the people would come and ask him questions

and he would answer and the language is kind of

old style Middle Eastern, so the language a little bit outdated, but he'll write this chapter

about friendship. Let me just read it to you, it's pretty short.

And a youth said, speak to us of friendship. And he answered saying, your friend is your needs answered.

He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.

And he is your board and your fireside, for you come to him with your hunger

and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind, you fear not the nay in your own mind,

nor do you withhold the eye.

And when he is silent, your heart ceases not to listen to his heart.

For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and

shared with joy that is unclaimed.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not, for that which you love most in him may

be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love, but a net

cast forth, and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.

For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?

Seek him always with hours to live.

For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness. And in the sweetness of friendship,

let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures.

For in the dew of little things, the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

That's beautiful, powerful example of friendship. And Lisa was really the first person in my life

that I had that kind of level of friendship with as an adult, and I had just that understanding

that when we weren't together, we were still together.

Does that make sense? And this idea that when you part,

don't grieve because you know that you're still together. And that when

you're away, you see the mountain even more clearly when you're close. When

you're with that person, you don't even see them quite as clearly

as when you're not with them. That kind of friendship that persists across time and space. And I love the idea, if you're gonna go all in with being a

better friend, you have to decide that your friend is not somebody to pastime with, but to live with, like to really explore and enjoy your life with

and share the hard parts and the good parts. And don't have this idea that

you seek just trying to understand your own life or have a sounding board for

your own problems, but rather that you cast forth this net to really just live

life and have some other people who experience it and go through it with you.

There's a lot of scripture about friendship.

Always start my podcast every day with hey my friend Because I want you to just have a friendly voice in your head even if we never meet in the flesh

I want you to know that there are people out there who do care about you, but there's lots of scripture

You know starting you know Proverbs 18 24 again a man of many companions may come to ruin

But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

In Proverbs 17 17 a friend loves at all times.

Proverbs 7-9 oil and perfume make the heart glad and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel,

Just like Gibran said if you have a real friend, they're the ones who are gonna tell you the truth,

They're not gonna beat you up. They're not gonna judge you but they're gonna tell you the truth,

We sat on the riverbank last night Kimber and Lisa and I and watched the incredible,

Sturgeon moon come up over the river was unbelievable.

I wish you could have seen it.

It looked like the whole sky was full of the moon. It was shining down the river like a laser beam.

It was just incredible. And the weather was a little cool.

And we talked about some deep stuff. Now Kimber's our kid, obviously.

But you know, when your kids are grown, you can talk about real life without having to try to parent them.

And we had an amazing talk.

We talked for two hours. It was just powerful.

But the power in a real relationship doesn't come from chatting about the Knicks game,

you know, chatting about something superficial.

The power comes from earnest conversation, from real ability to kind of pick the scabs off,

difficult things and go deep into them and be there for each other, to really know somebody.

That's where the power comes from. Proverbs 27, six says it like this.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

There are people who will just kiss you, just give you the pats on the back

or the attaboys that you want, but a real friend will help explore the wound with you,

help pick the shrapnel out of that wound and help you heal, right?

That's what I'm getting at, it's just we had this great day yesterday with good friends, and it just kind of made me

think about that, and then as we talked on the Riverbank last night, I was just thinking about you.

And one of the things that keeps us from going all in is isolation, like the enemy wants you to think

that there's nobody else, and especially he'll want you to think that even Jesus won't really wanna know you.

Like yeah, maybe he loves everybody, and maybe he saved me, but my heart is too, I've done this bad thing,

or I never succeeded this, or I know I'm gonna fail and Jesus won't wanna deal with me until I clean that up.

And I don't really wanna have a friend because they won't accept me, they're gonna reject me.

But you need to know, Proverbs 27, 17, iron sharpens iron, and one man,

one person sharpens another. You can't really be who you're supposed to be.

You can't really see the mountain of your own life until you get some distance from it.

And one way to do that is to have some friends.

Counselor some somebody come alongside you who can help you see the places and the ways in which you can go all in,

It just makes sense right you need to you need to have some,

Sharpening in your life, and you need to be willing to have an examined life to have some other people who really know you,

To really let the guard down and really know who you are.

That's what you need I'm just writing a prescription for you because you need it I remember

when I was in Iraq we led worship and me and my worship team would start

this song by Tommy Walker called, When All Is Said And Done. And it's just a

simple little song. When all is said and done and every one is gone, Lord you're,

really all I want. When the best the world has just leaves me feeling numb,

Lord you're really all I want. All that I long for, all that I hope for, is just one

touch of your loving hand. When all is said and done, Lord you're all I want. And.

And we would see these soldiers come in, and you could tell they'd been out on convoys

and they had IEDs blowing up,

and they'd been shot at or been mortared or been scared, and they were wearing body armor, and they were carrying their weapons,

and they would kind of filter into the chapel, and they would all stand at the back.

And I had this one picture in my mind of this really big guy.

He was probably 6'5", 6'6", Marines, African-American guy, just peak of fitness.

He was in really good shape. in and he had a M16 with the, I think it's M204 grenade launcher on it.

He had a big, big weapon that was strapped to him, a Kevlar, and his helmet was at

his side. And this guy would come in and stand at the back and have his arms

folded real tight across his chest like he'd been carrying some stuff, like not

just the gear, but some emotional stuff. And he would stand there and I could see

him was right in my eyes, line of sight.

And we would sing that song, and as the verse would go by, he would start to soften, like his shoulders

would start to droop, and his hands would finally fall to his side.

And then as we got to the chorus, all that I long for, all that I hope for,

is just one touch from your loving hand.

He would finally take his body armor off and set it down beside him and lay his rifle

down on the ground in front of him.

And he would start to then kind of loosen up and lift his hands, and by the end of the song,

he was raising his hands and worshiping and relaxing in the Spirit and just letting the Lord

just kind of salve those wounds and letting that the ministry of worship kind of wash over him and he would and he would relax and he was doing that in.

The presence of a room full of people who weren't judging him for whatever he

had to do out there who weren't judging him for being scared or judging him for

being you know nervous and wrapped up in the fear and the pain and all that but

they were just there worshiping with them they were they were focusing vertically on somebody greater than them and that room full of accepting people

was important to him.

He needed that few minutes of just staying in worship and staying around some other folks,

and not the isolation of being out there alone, going, you know, maybe he had to shoot somebody,

or maybe he didn't stand up and wasn't as brave

as he should have been, or maybe he was really, really terrified and hid under a bunker

when the bombs went off, and maybe he's feeling guilty about that, who knows what the deal was.

Or maybe it was just really, really terrifying.

Maybe he really excelled in the battle, and maybe he did some things that he was grappling with

afterwards that he had to pull the trigger.

You never know what it was.

But whatever it was, he needed some other people around him to help him see that he could get through that moment.

He needed some friends, and you do too, my friend. If you wanna go all in this month,

if you wanna take the next 19 days or however many days it is left that we have in this month,

then you need, trust me, you need to go all in.

And you need some people around you to help you do that. And if you need us, hit us up on the prayer wall,

wlewarrnmd.com slash prayer.

And if you want to send me a voicemail, speakpipe.com slash Dr. Lee Warren.

If you're not getting the newsletter, the prescriptions that we send out,

the cell brain surgery letter, and this community of people all over the world,

then hit me up, drleewarren.substack.com.

These are ways to connect with some people. It may not be in your physical world,

but we do love you and care about you.

And there's a group of people who will come alongside you, but we just need to know.

Are you all in and we just need to know are you ready to start today? Hey, thanks for listening

Please subscribe to the show so you automatically get every episode and if you like the show,

You'll love my weekly letter. Check out my writing at dr. Lee warren. Substack.com. Dr

Lee warren. Substack.com get the free newsletter every week for my best prescriptions for becoming healthier feeling better and being happier through the power of faith and

neuroscience smashing together via self-brain-serving dr

I'm Dr. Lee Warren, I'll talk to you soon.

God bless you, friend. Have a great day.

And if you need prayer, go to the prayer wall at wlewarrenmd.com.

The theme music for the show is Make Us One by Tommy Walker, graciously provided for free

by the great folks over at TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

Check it out and consider supporting them. TommyWalkerMinistries.org.

Remember, you can't change your life until you change your mind, and the good news is

you can start today. I'm Dr. Lee Warren, I'll talk to you soon.

God bless you, friend. Have a great day.

We'll see you next time. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. and God bless you, friend. Have a great day.