Pain to Purpose with Dr. Craig Thayer

george grombacher 0:02
Craig Thayer is a general surgeon, he is a speaker, a radio host, and he is the author of saved. Welcome to the show, Craig.

Dr. Craig Thayer 0:12
Thank you so much. I’m honored to be here.

george grombacher 0:13
I’m excited to have you on. Tell us a little about your personal lives more about your work and what motivated you to put pen to paper and write the book.

Speaker 1 0:23
Well married five kids blessed to be a trauma, old school general surgeon. So back in the day, we were kind of like general contractors. So we were trained to be vascular thoracic oncologic been robotically trained, and been able to lead so strong Medical Director for 20 years. And then Chief of Staff and a lot of other positions within the hospital. And then, more recently, motivational speaker, my grandmother was the one that really pushed me to write this book for 15 years or so. She’s the only adult that lived through my life, and really pushed me to do this because of the adversity I had been through to try and inspire other people that, you know, just don’t give up. Don’t whatever it takes, just keep going. Keep your eyes on the goal. And so she was there for my mom’s death. High school graduation, college, med school, residency, marriage, three kids divorce, marriage, two more, you know, going all the way through pretty much my life and then she passed away a couple of years ago. And we’re really writing the book and get done until she passed because she left two other miracles behind, which were pretty impressive. She died at 1031 at night, and she had this special clock that almost didn’t get repaired for her to have kind of the final chime at 1030. For her to hear. And then about two days after she passed away, the clock stopped at 1031. Out. And then and then I’m looking I would I lived in the house for the last two weeks with her. There was a stool next to the sink that I would shave that and and there was a book that she clearly had opened and had a bookmark in it at her her glasses on it. So she had planned to come back. But the title of the book was gone missing. So I thought that was you know, a final statement.

george grombacher 2:44
Yeah. So do you think she’d be happy with the book?

Speaker 1 2:52
She did she you know, the the creation of the book was another miracle. I mean, I gone to a business meeting, Grant cardones 10x conference in like 15,000 people and like for those that don’t even know me, people that were at the conference, and you need to be on that stage, and write your book. And then we met someone at a restaurant, he was a guitarist and singer. And he invited us to meet with his wife who’s going to the conference. And at that meeting, there was another one of his friends who’s writing a book. And so he referred me to this editor, Hilary Cestrum. And then she hooked me up with an app called Rev where you can just dictate into the phone and then five minutes later for a really cheap cost. You’ve got a dictated transcribed copy that you can load to word and then edit. So so it took about a year and a half to write. But those those all these, these things that would have been hurdles to me would have were eliminated by doing all these things. So yeah, but she got to read the drafts. So she would read those to her caregiver. And they would deal with what’s the next chapter, what’s next chapter, so she got to read most of it. Nice.

george grombacher 4:15
So for the audience, you you were adopted, you live and continue to live with with with with a reading disorder. You’ve you’ve gotten missions all over the world and helped. Tell us a bit about the reading disorder.

Speaker 1 4:35
Well, I always knew I read slowly in at first grade, Craig needs to read more second grade report card, Gregory needs to read more. And then third grade. Now looking back, I only look back because my youngest son was having difficulties in school. And you know, he kind of did what I did, which was the class clown, and then you know, inhibit the class and then gets sent to the principal’s office. And so we homeschooled for like the last 10 years now so, but he was tested and he’s ADHD like we which is not a big deal, I think most males are hyperactive anyways. So, but he has dyslexia, so and then reading the symptoms of what he had skipping lines reminded me of third grade, when I walked into the classroom, dimly lit and screen was down, and there was this projector that look like the beginning of Star Wars with, you know, land far away a long time ago, and I’m like, Oh, God, I’m gonna have to read in front of the class, start to sweat. And then, you know, four girls got up and just kick butt and then I get up. And I’m skipping lines and going backwards. And it’s, you know, clearly, now in retrospect, I have dyslexia and, and it’s been a challenge. It’s not, I don’t think it’s a disability, I can process faster, the Dyslexic brain doesn’t use the cortex to read. So which our cortex only processes at about 250 characters a minute, but if you use more central brain, it’s almost infinite. So. So when it comes to me, like I Trauma challenge, and I need to make decisions quickly, it’s easier for me to do. But reading is slow. So and and it’s been a challenge only in that I have to take, like numerous tests every year still for Continuing Medical Education. So I look at the number of questions and the length of time and figure out how much time for question, and I’m gonna worry about that more than the exam. So it’s distracting. But I’ve obviously gotten around it, because I’ve already am. Right? No,

george grombacher 6:51
getting around things. It’s, we all have our lived experience. And we try to be empathetic and walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes and see life through their eyes. For people that pick up your book and read it go, Oh, my goodness, all the adversity that this guy has faced over and over again in his life, yet you’ve kept moving, where maybe other people would have stopped or or resigned themselves to maybe not having the things that you that they want. Do you feel like you were pulled towards the future that you wanted? Or you didn’t care about the limitations? Like, talk to? I don’t know, if you understand what the question trying to ask, yeah,

Speaker 1 7:37
no, I think, you know, I definitely now being older. And then, you know, you mentioned I do medical missions. So I’m Christian, a part of my adoption was that I’d be mandatorily raised Catholic. And so my natural mom was in Michigan, my, my, my current wife is like a private investigator. So she found my family, I connected and found a lot of things, which is fun and great family. So but the, I think, you know, knowing God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit early in my life, but also being that the ultimate scholars, the ultimate skeptic, so I was a believer, but not a follower. And looking back, it’s clear that God was acting in my life. You know, I grew up in Providence court, which means, you know, God’s looking over me. All these subtle things that if you don’t look, you don’t see and if you don’t listen, you don’t hear. So I’m just the things you know, twisted and tested my junior year that I’d already decided what I wanted to do by a physiology anatomy physiology class. So I knew that I love to help people. So these gifts that I were given, personally, I wear a passion to use so and then got fine tuned when I was in med school to choose what path I wanted to take, which was general surgery. So by again, more experiences that, you know, God, I would say, put in front of me to make these choices. So I think I was pulled, you know, and not that I physically felt that but it just the passion and drive. I mean, back when I went through residency that there was no 80 Hour Work Week limit. It was I worked 160 hours and a few weeks where you got eight hours off, but I loved it, you know, and you learned kind of like boot camp, I think that you can survive on a 15 minute power nap somewhere and continue for another 24 hours and then 15 minute power nap and you know, when you’re doing something where you’re not moving like sitting in a lecture. Yeah, that’s when you may fall asleep, but if you’re operating or you’re writing orders, or your adrenaline’s going and you still think straight.

george grombacher 10:02
So, you’re in a physiology class and the light goes on. Tell me a little bit about that. Like, I’m fascinated. I, for me, it’s like I still, I’m 45 years old. I’m like, Okay, I really love what I’m doing. People search their whole lives to find out kind of find the thing. So fascinating when when people find it early.

Speaker 1 10:24
Yeah, so I mean, it just was so incredible. The, the anatomy and moreso the physiology of just, I mean, look at when, when we have a tubular system that’s under pressure that’s delivering oxygen and nutrients and energy to cells in organs and not clot, you know, and, but then have to be able because it’s a tube, if it develops a leak, it’s gonna stop the leak. Just the blood clotting system is in now the immune system is crazy. We’re looking at monoclonal antibodies, and how we’ve determined that there’s an inflammatory side. So that’s like rheumatoid arthritis and eczema, seborrhea, psoriasis, those things. And then there’s the tumor killing side, which is, you know, for melanoma, that’s been the biggest advancement in melanoma in the last 50 years is this, this map, which is another miracle, because a friend of mine one time, did a study with me Bible study. And he called me early in one morning and said, Hey, I just had this dream about la que, what is that? And he was about to have the CT scan to stage him, cuz he had been disease free, and then I look it up, and it’s the first monoclonal antibody that was ever invented. And I go, Well, we’ve got one now for melanoma. So the good news is, we got something the bad news is, I don’t like where you’re going with possibly your CT. Cuz, you know, why would you need to know that. And sure enough, a CT showed he had brain Mets, he had lung Mets he had, and then he got put on a monoclonal and he’s now cancer free. So. So just the complexity. And then interestingly, you know, again, when you look back, it’s like, okay, I wrote a paper on the eye. And Darwin, Darwin didn’t even approach the eye. There’s no evolution of the eye. It just was there. So and he, you know, in his book, he had two other things that the bees and ants have in fertile females that he apologize for, because he has no other than herd survival. But if survival of the fittest, it doesn’t fit that because those females can’t pass on their genes. So why are there worker bees and worker ants within a colony? So the I just did I love science. It’s just you know, how do you explain these things?

george grombacher 12:53
Yeah, those are those are really interesting. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. So going 160 hours in a week. And it’s no big deal. Because it’s, it’s in service of the work you want to be doing. And you know, that that needs to be done. And then the mission, the mission trips, I’d love to hear a little bit about that.

Speaker 1 13:14
Yeah, so again, so being a believer or not a follower wasn’t really until my oldest daughter who played volleyball and club team, so it was multiple high schools. And they got together and had this Bible study, and then they were going to a church. And my oldest said, you should come this the pastor’s, he was a professor out of Santa Clara University in California, and then started a church in a gym, and then that grew to, to, like a 20,000 seat church. And I did and I love that context. So he could frame something in the Bible with, like, the Good Samaritan, you know, they were really hated people and, and then the rabbis that walked by the injured person, they had come through a trail into Jerusalem to purify themselves, and then they have to go back and not touch anybody. And so otherwise, they would have to go back for a weekend just kind of knowing those contextual things was, you know, educational to me, so. So in that church, they had two mission trips, actually three within one year that I and my wife went on. The first one was to Honduras. And this couple out of Pennsylvania, had started a surgery center there, which is outpatient. And so I actually got to use my talents. And so I do lumps and bumps, kind of Pimple Popper stuff, the first years and then that’s grown into the last two years where I’ll do a third of what I do in one year. I did 44 hernias and four laparoscopic gallbladder surgeries in four and a half days. which is, you know, that’s team, you know, I heard one of your podcasts about, you know, forget her name, but it was, you know, understanding the team and the personalities behind it. And, you know, if people didn’t help me clean the instruments or, you know, get the patient in anesthesia to start an IV or, you know, anesthesia getting them off the table quickly, because they’re putting them under anesthesia. So, yeah, it was just the team was incredible. So couldn’t have done it without it. But so from from that, and then we went to Haiti, which was another story in the book, that’s just crazy, because the TSA had just started a new checking program. And there were 62 of us. And so we had three hours, but that was not going to happen. And we’re gonna go from San Francisco to Dallas and Dallas, had thunderstorms, which stopped the grid for us to go. So gave us four more extra hours. So everybody got through. So yeah, and then, I mean, just going to serve and help people. You know, I mean, I if you’re not a faith that that’s okay. I’m not, you know, Christians are here not to judge. Unfortunately, it seems like some do. But, you know, the classic one I mentioned is if you’re in a car, and you’re in line at Starbucks, just see how you feel when you buy the coffee for the person mind. They don’t know who you are, they’ll never see you because you’re gonna drive off. And you just did something nice for somebody. See how that makes you feel?

george grombacher 16:43
Yeah, that’s a that’s certainly a very, very small microcosm for, for the experience that you had fixing. How many? How many hernias in three days? 4444. Okay. Nice. That’s incredible. Yeah. When When, when you? Do you ever say Woe is me? You ever say why is this? Why does this stuff keep happening to me? Or if you do, how long do you wallow in it?

Speaker 1 17:16
So well, like for my mom and dad’s death, and my now my grandmother’s, I really do think it’s important to memorialize those people, because, you know, I mean, they were here, and then they’re gone. And then, you know, what did they leave behind? And so to take some time to kind of wallow, I guess, in that is important. But as far as the challenges and the adversity, I think I’ve just always been, you know, probably part of part of that’s pride, you know, I’m, I’m not gonna give up, I’m not going to show like freshman year, when my mom passed away, I was in an all male dorm. And they’d said, which I didn’t learn until the next year that he’s not going to finish. In Davis, UC Davis is where I went. And that was a quarter system. So it’s 10 weeks. And then you have finals. So by the second week, you’re already taking a midterm, it’s it’s quarters, or you miss even three or four days, it’s hard to catch up. And, you know, I went back for my mom’s memorial service and was with my dad for a while, and then came back and finished. And so, in sophomore year, I’m coming around the corner and I’m on the wrong side of the road. So it’s my fault. And this girl pulls out in front of me and her bicycle in my mind, and I break my head by jackknifing, my front wheel, so I didn’t hit her. And then, you know, went over, checked her and then sit in the curb, I guess, because the next thing I remember sitting there was an ambulance in front of me. And it got spinal fluid coming out of my ear, which I didn’t discover till the next day, but then junior year with my dad, having lung cancer in a magical, old school phone line, because long distance calls were a charge, that the charge wasn’t going anywhere. So it wasn’t going to our room. It wasn’t going to the the off campus dorms. So it was just a free line that I can call them every day serious tone. But yeah, so you know, and I think I’ve learned what I call paying the purpose, you know, all these things. If you really have faith in God, and you know, and God’s and then do you think God’s purposeful, even now? Then the question is K Why so and I think, you know, he puts people through adversity to test and train, and then to use what you went through as an empathic person or whatever the training was, to help minister to to help heal, to help, you know, get through what they’re going through.

george grombacher 19:56
I appreciate that. I appreciate the perspective and the grateful for everything that you do and all the people that to help. So thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more? Where can they get their copy of saved?

Speaker 1 20:12
Amazon is probably the simplest way just my name Craig cre IG, Thayer, tz Tom ha ye are, and then saved, it should pull it up as a book. And then, and then the simplest, I believe its simplicity. You can find me on my website, which just Craig feiyr.net And you’ll find my LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, etc. And then what I’m doing and where I’m going, all that stuff will be right there on that webpage on the on the website. Excellent.

george grombacher 20:43
Well, if you enjoyed as much as I did show, Craig, your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas. Go to Craig feiyr.net To see our ai gthayer.net. And check out all things, Dr. Craig, and then pick up your copy of saved on Amazon and just type in Craig there and saved and you shall find your way to it. Thanks again, Craig.

Unknown Speaker 21:11
Thank you, George. Awesome. Thank you.

george grombacher 21:13
Till next time, remember, do your part by doing your best

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.