Episode #22 - Writing To Bring Hope: An Interview With Charlie Liebert

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Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

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determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

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This is Speaking From The Heart.

Joshua: 00:00:11

Welcome back to episode 22 of Speaking From the Heart.

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Today we have a interesting guest, Charlie Liebert.

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Now I'm going to give you a disclosure and a warning that this episode does

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talk about suicide, depression, drug overdose, all these different vices

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that often create havoc for us.

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If you are going through a crisis, I cannot stress enough that you

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should go and seek help wherever that might be so that they can get you in

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touch with professional resources.

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There is a number that you can call, 988, and that is the National Suicide Hotline,

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especially if you have those thoughts.

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I will put a link in the episode notes in case you need to check out more

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information, but this is a warning that if that is a trigger for you,

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please stop listening to this episode.

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Nevertheless, Charlie has had a unique career spanning several decades.

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He retired from a 33 year career in the chemical industry in 1994 in

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which he took up speaking, teaching and writing, and since 1994, he's

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conducted over 100 workshops and seminars for children and adults about

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science and Christian apologetics.

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He's been able to speak about Answers For Genesis, which is a collection

Joshua: 00:01:34

of works that he had talked about in this episode, and in 1998, for over

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a decade, he produced a one hour weekly TV show in Greensboro, North

Joshua: 00:01:43

Carolina with seminars that are called the Creation Foundation Explanation.

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He's taught with Davidson County Community College for over 14 years.

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He had stopped doing that in 2018.

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He was a charter member of Carolina Christian Toastmasters, that was founded

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in 2013 in Greensboro, and at the age of 70, he started his writing career in 2012.

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As of this recording, he has published 16 paperback books and has 19 eBooks

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on Amazon and Kindle, which we talk a little bit about during the

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episode, and he has published 15 different books for other authors.

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Charlie and his wife Terry, live locally near me in Carlisle,

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Pennsylvania, and he has a deceased son, Keith, which we do talk about

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in this episode, and a daughter, Melanie, along with five grandchildren.

Joshua: 00:02:36

I will say that this was one of those episodes that will forever give me more

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context and more clarity as it relates to not only suicide, but how we can

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take steps to prevent all of this from ever happening in the first place.

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With that, let's go to the episode.

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I'm here with Charlie Lebert.

Joshua: 00:02:56

Charlie, thanks for speaking from the heart with us today.

Charlie: 00:02:59

Thanks.

Charlie: 00:03:00

Great to be here.

Joshua: 00:03:01

Absolutely.

Joshua: 00:03:02

Full disclosure, again, for my audience, Charlie is a Toastmaster that I've

Joshua: 00:03:06

known for many years and I've been fortunate enough to know him through that

Joshua: 00:03:10

organization, which for many of you that have been listening to this for a while,

Joshua: 00:03:15

you know that I'm going to put again in the show notes about Toastmasters,

Joshua: 00:03:18

which is a great organization and we'll probably get into some of that

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in a little bit, but Charlie, my first question to you, because of all the

Joshua: 00:03:26

things that you do, I really love that you're really involved with being an

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author, and I'm just curious, because the audience heard a little bit about your

Joshua: 00:03:35

background, knowing that you worked in the chemical industry for over 33 years.

Joshua: 00:03:40

What turned you into being an author?

Charlie: 00:03:42

I've always loved teaching.

Charlie: 00:03:45

In fact, I taught for 15 years as an adjunct at a school in North

Charlie: 00:03:48

Carolina, and teaching springs into creativity and wanting to write.

Charlie: 00:03:55

I wrote a short story back in the eighties, but it never went anywhere; it

Charlie: 00:03:59

was a little Christmas story, and then when I turned 70, I decided I wanted to

Charlie: 00:04:04

start my 14th career, it was 13th before this; 14th career, and I said, I want to

Charlie: 00:04:10

be an author, and then about six months later, I want to be a publisher, because

Charlie: 00:04:15

I found out that you can publish your own book for free using Amazon's KDP

Charlie: 00:04:20

program, and I do that now for myself.

Charlie: 00:04:23

I've got 23 items on Amazon and I publish 15 for other authors, so I've

Charlie: 00:04:29

done a lot of publication in that sense.

Charlie: 00:04:31

I love the part of the authoring that's most exciting is the creativity.

Charlie: 00:04:36

About one third of my books about my family, all kinds of events

Charlie: 00:04:41

that happened to my family.

Charlie: 00:04:43

This one novel, and then there's about the other one third is the novel and some

Charlie: 00:04:47

of the other fiction stuff, and then the other third is a Christian perspective.

Joshua: 00:04:52

For those that are interested in being an author, can you walk us

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through the process that you did with Amazon to get published officially?

Joshua: 00:04:59

Is it very difficult process?

Charlie: 00:05:01

No, it's very simple process.

You need two things: 00:05:03

you need to file that you could create a PDF from for

You need two things: 00:05:07

the cover, front and back cover; I use PowerPoint to do that, and then

You need two things: 00:05:13

you need a document, a .Doc document or a PDF, most people want to edit

You need two things: 00:05:18

in DOC, and then that's all you need.

You need two things: 00:05:22

You create an account on KDP and you start to work, fill out the form, you

You need two things: 00:05:26

got to fill out keywords and the title and author, all those other things you

You need two things: 00:05:30

got to do related to the book, and then you put it up and preview it, and when

You need two things: 00:05:34

you satisfy the preview, you publish.

You need two things: 00:05:36

It goes to paperback, ebook, or hardback, any of the three.

Joshua: 00:05:41

It's incredible that even when I was a kid, you would still have to go

Joshua: 00:05:46

to the bookstore to just be able to have a paperback or a hard cover, and even to

Joshua: 00:05:50

find some of the readings that I would find, which were mostly from Franklin W.

Joshua: 00:05:55

Dixon, because I really loved his writing, although that was a surname

Joshua: 00:05:58

in itself, thinking specifically of the Hardy Boys and things of the nature, I

Joshua: 00:06:03

grew up with that as a kid, so I have to thank my parents for that, but Charlie,

Joshua: 00:06:07

I'm kind of curious with being an author, especially, I know that you have

Joshua: 00:06:12

a specific genre that you write about.

Joshua: 00:06:14

I was wondering if you could share that with the audience and tell

Joshua: 00:06:17

us a little bit about how you got yourself into that genre specifically.

Charlie: 00:06:20

Actually, I work in three genres, okay?

Joshua: 00:06:22

Oh, oh, oh.

Joshua: 00:06:22

I didn't know that.

Joshua: 00:06:23

That's great.

Joshua: 00:06:23

So yeah, tell us about-

Charlie: 00:06:24

I work in fiction, I work in basically Christian genre, and

Charlie: 00:06:29

I work in the basically it's called creative historical nonfictions.

Charlie: 00:06:35

You basically take historical events that are known, in this case,

Charlie: 00:06:39

events in my family, and elaborate on them with creating fictional

Charlie: 00:06:43

backgrounds to tell the story.

Charlie: 00:06:45

The story's true, but the actual details are fabricated.

Charlie: 00:06:51

For example, one of the things I wrote is I wrote my aunt's

Charlie: 00:06:54

Survival of the Holocaust.

Charlie: 00:06:56

She's a double Jew.

Charlie: 00:06:57

She's her father's Jewish, and she married a Jew, and she's living in

Charlie: 00:07:01

Europe in the time of the Nazis, and her survival is a story that I

Charlie: 00:07:05

had to create a lot of stuff for it.

Charlie: 00:07:06

I had some notes from her, but not much, so I had to create the story

Charlie: 00:07:10

and it's pretty compelling actually.

Joshua: 00:07:12

Yeah, it sounds like it too, especially with the wide variety, and

Joshua: 00:07:16

thanks for educating me, I had no idea that you wrote in three different genres.

Joshua: 00:07:20

That's incredible.

Joshua: 00:07:21

Do you prefer particular genre over another, and if

Joshua: 00:07:25

so, why that particular genre?

Charlie: 00:07:27

I work in the Christian and the creative, genres, but

Charlie: 00:07:32

I really love the fiction genre.

Charlie: 00:07:35

You create characters, you create people, and I have one character

Charlie: 00:07:39

I'll tell you about, okay, which I think is really interesting.

Charlie: 00:07:42

The couple involved, this is Yellowstone's Child is the name of the book, couple

Charlie: 00:07:46

involved lose their 10 year olds of brain cancer, but Yellowstone National Park to

Charlie: 00:07:51

recover kidnap a girl who has amnesia and take her home as their daughter.

Charlie: 00:07:58

During the course of those events, later on, they become rich through an

Charlie: 00:08:01

inheritance and they go to Cayman Islands to pick up the inheritance, which is

Charlie: 00:08:05

a bag of diamonds and a couple million dollars, and when they're there, they

Charlie: 00:08:11

meet the bank Vice President, which is a tall, beautiful, blonde woman.

Charlie: 00:08:15

Looks like a classical Scandinavian, but, she was brought up by her parents,

Charlie: 00:08:22

who were Swedish missionaries in the ghetto in Grand Cayman, so she speaks

Charlie: 00:08:29

like a Jamaican, but she looks like, looks like a, a northern European,

Charlie: 00:08:35

so I'd love to create that character because I could just imagine if it ever

Charlie: 00:08:38

goes on film, it'll be great, okay?

Joshua: 00:08:40

I'm thinking of this and visualizing it in my head, I'm thinking,

Joshua: 00:08:43

"That would be really cool to see a film adaptation of something like that."

Charlie: 00:08:48

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:08:49

That's what I love about fiction too, is that it allows you to go into

Joshua: 00:08:52

worlds that normally aren't possible in the realistic realm, and makes you

Joshua: 00:08:57

think about maybe the possible, maybe the impossible becoming the possible

Joshua: 00:09:02

too at some point, but, not to draw on authors and what you've done.

Joshua: 00:09:07

I know that you've had some television experience and I'm wondering if

Joshua: 00:09:11

you could elaborate a little bit about what you did for 10 years.

Joshua: 00:09:15

I love that you did this and I'm not going to spill the beans.

Joshua: 00:09:19

I kind of did already with letting the audience know, but I want you to kind of

Joshua: 00:09:22

go in depth a little bit about it for us.

Charlie: 00:09:25

I retired at age 53; I'm 80 today; I've been retired all 30

Charlie: 00:09:30

years anyway, but when I retired, I went to work for Ansys and Genesis,

Charlie: 00:09:35

which is a ministry, for about a year, and then I went off on my own

Charlie: 00:09:39

doing my own workshops and seminars.

Charlie: 00:09:42

I did workshops and seminars on Bible and science all over the southeastern US

Charlie: 00:09:46

for homeschool groups and churches and Christian schools, and when I did that, I

Charlie: 00:09:50

took video cameras with me, two cameras, and filmed everything I was doing.

Charlie: 00:09:55

Then what I would do is I came back to Greensboro and then each week I would

Charlie: 00:09:59

produce, take some of the video that I produced, from the last couple times I was

Charlie: 00:10:03

out, and put together a one hour TV show.

Charlie: 00:10:07

I produced and directed it myself, and I was the, so not the sole

Charlie: 00:10:10

actor, there's all kinds of people in the, in the workshops, but there

Charlie: 00:10:13

was showing that, and I learned a lot about television production.

Charlie: 00:10:17

It's not as simple as you think it is.

Charlie: 00:10:19

Trust me, it's not.

Joshua: 00:10:21

I don't think it's changed in the last 30 years, especially

Joshua: 00:10:23

since you were doing it too.

Joshua: 00:10:24

I think it's still just as complicated.

Charlie: 00:10:27

Yeah.

Charlie: 00:10:28

It's the old, when you're done, fade the black.

Joshua: 00:10:31

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:10:31

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:10:31

It is.

Joshua: 00:10:32

That's still the try and true method.

Joshua: 00:10:35

When you were in Greensboro, North Carolina, the audience knows that you

Joshua: 00:10:39

are in Carlisle now, you're literally right down the road from me where we're

Joshua: 00:10:42

recording this, but I'm wondering, do you see a significant difference from

Joshua: 00:10:48

when you grew up in Greensboro to where you are now as part of the cultural

Joshua: 00:10:52

differences, like have you seen a big shift, maybe just from a locality

Joshua: 00:10:56

perspective or a national perspective?

Joshua: 00:10:59

I'm just kind of curious, has that had any influence for you

Joshua: 00:11:02

in any of your writings too?

Charlie: 00:11:05

I grew up in Long Island actually.

Joshua: 00:11:07

Oh, okay.

Charlie: 00:11:07

I went to North Carolina after I was married and had two children; we

Charlie: 00:11:10

moved to North Carolina, we're there for more than 30 years, but, yeah, the south

Charlie: 00:11:14

and the north are different cultures.

Charlie: 00:11:16

There's no question about that.

Charlie: 00:11:18

I guess the most amazing thing to me was the fact that even though the cultures

Charlie: 00:11:22

are different, because I'm a Christian, the transition wasn't nearly as big as it

Charlie: 00:11:29

would be for someone who was not, because the church is kind of the same worldwide.

Charlie: 00:11:35

It doesn't vary that much, so it's pretty much the same, but the culture was

Charlie: 00:11:39

different; oh yeah definitely different.

Charlie: 00:11:42

You'd go to the supermarket and everybody talks to you.

Charlie: 00:11:44

In New York, you talk to someone, they think you're

Charlie: 00:11:46

trying to do something to 'em.

Joshua: 00:11:49

Has that had any influence on your writings whatsoever?

Charlie: 00:11:53

I don't think so, because most of my writing has been outside

Charlie: 00:11:57

of my own personal experience.

Charlie: 00:11:58

Other than the book about my son, it's all other people's lives, not mine.

Joshua: 00:12:03

Yeah, yeah.

Joshua: 00:12:04

I know that for many people they get the influences from basically any

Joshua: 00:12:09

personal experience, might have been some sort of adaptation or things of

Joshua: 00:12:13

that nature, but nevertheless, Charlie, I know that you have really laid out

Joshua: 00:12:20

a lot with your Christianity and being able to stay firm with that, especially

Joshua: 00:12:25

with the things that you have worked on, and I'm wondering, could you tell

Joshua: 00:12:29

us a little bit of how you became one?

Charlie: 00:12:31

Yeah, sure.

Charlie: 00:12:32

I went to a Methodist church with my parents all through my youth, .At about

Charlie: 00:12:36

16, I was sitting in the Methodist church listening to a sermon on the

Charlie: 00:12:40

evils of alcohol, and I sat there, looked around me, everyone around me

Charlie: 00:12:45

had been to the yacht club the night before and consumed huge quantities,

Charlie: 00:12:48

and I said, "This is nonsense.

Charlie: 00:12:50

Makes no sense to me at all."

Charlie: 00:12:51

I walked out.

Charlie: 00:12:52

By the time I was in my early twenties, I was a hardcore atheist.

Charlie: 00:12:55

I would sit in a bar and argue what, and what not, could be a God,

Charlie: 00:12:59

and one of the reasons for that is because I had a best friend.

Charlie: 00:13:03

His girlfriend died of cerebral hemorrhage, and he took his own life.

Joshua: 00:13:06

Wow.

Charlie: 00:13:07

That kind of blew me out.

Charlie: 00:13:08

That was, that was it.

Charlie: 00:13:09

When Dorothy died, I just kind of gave up entirely on any religious aspect at all.

Charlie: 00:13:14

Okay.

Charlie: 00:13:15

Get married, two children, moved to North Carolina.

Charlie: 00:13:18

Everybody goes to church.

Charlie: 00:13:19

My wife, who is ex-Catholic, now a Protestant, but she says, "I'm

Charlie: 00:13:24

going to church.", so she goes to the Episcopal church in town.

Charlie: 00:13:27

I decided, "Well, why not?

Charlie: 00:13:28

I'll go with her.", and it was fun.

Charlie: 00:13:30

There were honest to good social events, and I didn't pay much

Charlie: 00:13:33

attention what was happening.

Charlie: 00:13:35

Then, one of my friends, whose life was quite different, and I know now

Charlie: 00:13:40

why I didn't know then, but, Frank said, "I'm taking on treatment weekend.

Charlie: 00:13:45

We're going to go away with a bunch of men for a weekend."

Charlie: 00:13:48

It started on Thursday, Friday morning, we went out Thursday night, Friday morning,

Charlie: 00:13:52

the guy came out and gave a little talk.

Three questions: 00:13:55

what's your purpose in life?

Three questions: 00:13:57

What does life mean, and where you're going?

Three questions: 00:14:00

I couldn't answer those questions, and I knew I couldn't answer those questions.

Three questions: 00:14:05

I wrestled with that all weekend, troubled to the point almost of

Three questions: 00:14:09

becoming, in a sense, depressed.

Three questions: 00:14:10

It was just like, "I can't answer those questions", and with my aggressive

Three questions: 00:14:14

personality, you want to answer them.

Three questions: 00:14:18

I went in the chapel on Saturday night, March 20th, 1977, got down on my knees and

Three questions: 00:14:23

said, "God, if you're real, I surrender.", and God, true to His word, took my life.

Three questions: 00:14:30

I came back to Greensboro.

Three questions: 00:14:31

My wife looked at me as I walked into the room with her and she

Three questions: 00:14:34

said, "What happened to you?"

Three questions: 00:14:36

It was a visible difference.

Three questions: 00:14:37

I have no idea what it was, and she can't describe it, but she said,

Three questions: 00:14:40

"I knew something had happened."

Three questions: 00:14:42

Three months later, she would be converted also.

Joshua: 00:14:45

Wow.

Charlie: 00:14:45

And that would begin to change everything.

Joshua: 00:14:48

When you see people even today that are struggling with their faith,

Joshua: 00:14:53

or struggling with purpose, especially when it comes to who is in control

Joshua: 00:14:59

of all of this, what do you say to somebody that is going through that?

Joshua: 00:15:03

In other words, what's your advice to somebody that might be having

Joshua: 00:15:07

those questions similar to what you did before you found Christianity?

Charlie: 00:15:10

Okay.

Charlie: 00:15:11

The question is universal in that sense.

Charlie: 00:15:14

Everyone wants to know what's the purpose and the the big deal is

Charlie: 00:15:19

we're all going to die someday.

Charlie: 00:15:22

We know that inside.

Charlie: 00:15:23

We don't really know that for real, because we never think about it.

Charlie: 00:15:29

I found that's one of the most effective ways to promote a person,

Charlie: 00:15:31

to look for the answers, to say, recognize your own moral mortality.

Joshua: 00:15:38

I know for me, trying to figure that out is sometimes even a struggle

Joshua: 00:15:43

for myself and I've let my audience know in previous episodes about that struggle

Joshua: 00:15:48

and knowing that finding that purpose sometimes means being able to understand

Joshua: 00:15:53

first who you are, but you know that there's also other opportunities out there

Joshua: 00:15:59

if you're willing to accept that too.

Joshua: 00:16:02

For many people, Christianity is that, and I totally respect that, Charlie,

Joshua: 00:16:06

and I really resonate with that because I want to go into something

Joshua: 00:16:09

that's really personal, and I know we talked about before this episode that

Joshua: 00:16:13

I know has probably had a profound impact and test you with that.

Joshua: 00:16:16

For my audience, Charlie's son had passed away a few years ago, Keith,

Joshua: 00:16:21

and Charlie, could you tell us a little bit about the circumstances

Joshua: 00:16:26

surrounding Keith's passing away?

Charlie: 00:16:28

Let me just talk a little about my son.

Joshua: 00:16:30

Sure.

Charlie: 00:16:31

He was 51 when he died, and his life was a series of bad

Charlie: 00:16:36

decisions and missteps, if you will.

Charlie: 00:16:42

He was married three times, none of which, were successful.

Charlie: 00:16:45

He was in adulterous relationships in all those cases.

Charlie: 00:16:49

In high school, he was bullied and we had to deal with that to some extent.

Charlie: 00:16:53

There was all kinds of issues there, so his personality was such

Charlie: 00:16:57

that he was somewhat depressive.

Charlie: 00:16:59

He went in the military.

Charlie: 00:17:00

He was in the military for 19 and a half years.

Joshua: 00:17:02

Wow.

Charlie: 00:17:03

He was in the Coast Guard first, and then later on in the Utah

Charlie: 00:17:05

National Guard and, a year ago March, which is almost 18 months, the two

Charlie: 00:17:11

policemen showed up in my office, in my home at 6:30 in the morning, and

Charlie: 00:17:16

asked to come in and then told us that my son had taken his own life.

Joshua: 00:17:20

Oh, I'm sorry.

Charlie: 00:17:21

The third marriage was coming to an end and he was having an affair

Charlie: 00:17:25

with, if you will, a 19 year old.

Joshua: 00:17:27

Wow.

Charlie: 00:17:27

And he was 51 years old.

Charlie: 00:17:30

In my Christian faith, what do you do with that?

Charlie: 00:17:32

I mean that's a big deal.

Joshua: 00:17:34

Mm-hmm.

Charlie: 00:17:35

And I recognized immediately, and this is the spirit's prompting

Charlie: 00:17:39

now, I recognized immediately, I had the Job decision to make.

You got two choices here: 00:17:43

run to God and seek his his help, or curse

You got two choices here: 00:17:48

God and die, which was Job's wife's advice was, and I decided to run to

You got two choices here: 00:17:53

God, so I did, and as a result of that, my wife and I wrote the book.

You got two choices here: 00:17:58

The book is called Suicide's Aftermath: Three Griefs More, and the subtitle

You got two choices here: 00:18:03

is Christian Couple's Compounded Grief: Her Loved One's Suicide, and

You got two choices here: 00:18:07

the reason it's called Loved One and not my son is because my son's wife

You got two choices here: 00:18:12

hates our religion so much that she refused to let me use his name in print.

Joshua: 00:18:17

Wow.

Charlie: 00:18:18

And since she is the inheritor of the rights to the name, just like

Charlie: 00:18:26

him, she could refuse to do that, so the book is entirely about suicide

Charlie: 00:18:30

and it has two great examples in it, but my son's never mentioned.

Joshua: 00:18:34

Wow.

Charlie: 00:18:35

Now I have two other examples in there of death that I use because the

Charlie: 00:18:40

three griefs more is suddenness of death.

Charlie: 00:18:44

Someone dies suddenly; you don't expect it.

Charlie: 00:18:46

That adds more grief.

Charlie: 00:18:48

Then suicide adds a grief because for the first time,

Charlie: 00:18:50

you're asking the why question.

Charlie: 00:18:53

You don't ask why when somebody dies of a disease or an accident, they

Charlie: 00:18:56

died, but suicide, you want to know why because it's self-motivated, and

Charlie: 00:19:01

then the third one, of course, is from my pre-Christian perspective,

Charlie: 00:19:03

is what's his eternal destiny.

Charlie: 00:19:06

"Is it Heaven or is it Hell?", and I can't answer that.

Charlie: 00:19:09

I refuse to answer that question because that puts me in a position

Charlie: 00:19:12

where I have to make that decision, and that's God's decision, not mine.

Joshua: 00:19:16

You're right, and I have let my audience know early on when I started

Joshua: 00:19:21

this podcast about my own suicide attempt, and thank God I didn't finish it because

Joshua: 00:19:28

I wouldn't have been able to meet people like you, Charlie, that have grieved

Joshua: 00:19:33

and have been able to redeem that grief through works like that, and I just want

Joshua: 00:19:38

the audience to know in the show notes, I'm going to put a link specifically

Joshua: 00:19:42

to Suicide's Aftermath, so that if you like to purchase it, feel free to do so,

Joshua: 00:19:47

because I think that it's really important to understand this and pay some attention

Joshua: 00:19:52

to it, especially if you don't know, especially the signs that relate to it,

Joshua: 00:19:57

for those that are curious and need to know more information, there is a national

Joshua: 00:20:02

hotline, 988, which I have publicized before with a previous guest that has

Joshua: 00:20:07

talked about this, and I will also put that information in the show notes too.

Joshua: 00:20:11

Charlie, I really am touch by the fact that you've taken this and

Joshua: 00:20:17

you have made work out of this that other people can read and understand.

Joshua: 00:20:23

What made you motivated to do that?

Charlie: 00:20:25

Okay.

Charlie: 00:20:26

Well, when it first happened, we were broken by the grief.

Charlie: 00:20:29

That's the first reaction, okay?

Charlie: 00:20:31

You're broken.

Charlie: 00:20:32

I would wake up at two o'clock in the morning, sit on the

Charlie: 00:20:34

sit side of my bed and cry.

Charlie: 00:20:36

I'd weep.

Charlie: 00:20:37

I decided I had to deal with that, and the book has it inside.

Charlie: 00:20:41

I developed what I call my music therapy and I basically picked six,

Charlie: 00:20:47

seven songs that progressively move toward the redemption that's in Christ.

Charlie: 00:20:54

It starts off with something he'll really be shocked at, okay.?

Charlie: 00:20:57

Starts off with the layman's song, Minister of the House.

Charlie: 00:21:01

You know that song?

Joshua: 00:21:03

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:21:03

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:21:03

I've heard.

Joshua: 00:21:04

It's been a long time.

Charlie: 00:21:05

The reason I chose that one first is because I

Charlie: 00:21:08

wanted to recognize my position.

Charlie: 00:21:11

I have no position with God in that sense.

Charlie: 00:21:13

It's hit by His grace alone.

Joshua: 00:21:15

Hmm.

Charlie: 00:21:16

It starts there and it is finished by the Gaither and it ends

Charlie: 00:21:18

with Because He Lives, because he lives like to face tomorrow,

Charlie: 00:21:23

because He lives all fear is gone.

Charlie: 00:21:27

That's where the faith came back powerfully, and then the book that's out

Charlie: 00:21:31

today has one chapter added a year later.

Charlie: 00:21:36

I wrote a chapter a year later, which I had one more piece of music I added to

Charlie: 00:21:38

it, because I found that was very helpful.

Charlie: 00:21:41

I'd sit on the bed and weep for a couple minutes, and then I'd put on

Charlie: 00:21:44

my headphones, pick up my iPhone, and just play through that series of

Charlie: 00:21:49

songs, and by the time I was done, I'd have the strength to go back to sleep

Charlie: 00:21:54

and know that God's still in control.

Joshua: 00:21:57

First off, I know I said it earlier, but I grieve with you knowing

Joshua: 00:22:01

that even if Keith was, well, I shouldn't say if, what I should say is that I know

Joshua: 00:22:09

that for some people struggling with addiction and different things that are

Joshua: 00:22:13

vices in our lives can often be precursors to some of the things that we often act

Joshua: 00:22:19

on that might be even more egregious in nature, so to pivot on this, I know you

Joshua: 00:22:25

have been in Toastmasters since 2013.

Joshua: 00:22:29

You had started in North Carolina with that and have taken that

Joshua: 00:22:34

journey up here in Pennsylvania.

My question to you is this: 00:22:36

Knowing now what you have been through and the

My question to you is this: 00:22:41

audience hearing a lot more about what your journey has been like through

My question to you is this: 00:22:46

the latter part after retirement-

Charlie: 00:22:49

Right.

Joshua: 00:22:49

What have you learned and what have you used from Toastmasters to

Joshua: 00:22:53

help you with this process that you have just talked about, what you have

Joshua: 00:22:58

helped yourself with getting to this point in your authorship, your career

Joshua: 00:23:02

of speaking, things of that nature?

Charlie: 00:23:05

Being an author is much like being a speaker.

Charlie: 00:23:09

You're creating in your mind what you're going to say.

Charlie: 00:23:13

You're going to say it orderly, if you're going to be in Toastmasters, or

Charlie: 00:23:16

you're going to say it on the typewriter.

Charlie: 00:23:19

Typewriter-

Joshua: 00:23:21

No, I know what you meant, and I think there's some people out there that

Joshua: 00:23:23

know what you just meant by a typewriter.

Joshua: 00:23:25

I know it, I'm validating you, Charlie.

Charlie: 00:23:29

In the process, but the process is quite similar, because you're

Charlie: 00:23:33

formulating stuff in your brain and then bringing it out in some form.

Charlie: 00:23:38

It's quite similar.

Charlie: 00:23:39

Toastmasters has helped me a lot, particularly with the flow.

Charlie: 00:23:43

If you read, particularly, my fictional writing, most of the people that read it

Charlie: 00:23:48

get caught up in it emotionally because I've learned how to play that in a sense.

Charlie: 00:23:56

For example, in Yellowstone's Child, the last scene is the family reunion

Charlie: 00:24:02

15 years after when she reveals she's not dead, she's alive, and of course

Charlie: 00:24:07

that breaks up the whole audience.

Charlie: 00:24:09

The approach to that is a series of events approach to that, and I'm not going to

Charlie: 00:24:12

go into the detail, but the, that build up the tension where most of my readers

Charlie: 00:24:17

that I've had write reviews have said basically, well, my original beta reader,

Charlie: 00:24:23

Kelly said, " You made me cry four times: twice for joy and twice for sorrow."

Charlie: 00:24:30

If an author can do that, evoke emotions to the point of

Charlie: 00:24:33

reaction, that's powerful stuff.

Joshua: 00:24:37

I tell my clients that when they're going through public speaking,

Joshua: 00:24:40

especially through my business, I say that it's important to have the

Joshua: 00:24:44

emotion with it showing not only the authenticity of yourself, but also

Joshua: 00:24:49

creating that value for the audience to take away as to the connections that we

Joshua: 00:24:54

were trying to make through our points-

Charlie: 00:24:56

Right.

Joshua: 00:24:56

-What the purpose is, and storytelling is not all that much

Joshua: 00:25:00

different when it comes to that.

Joshua: 00:25:01

It just has different, not just different terminology, but the same premise like

Joshua: 00:25:06

you just described, is truly important.

Joshua: 00:25:08

With that said, when we're looking at the authors that are doing something similar

Joshua: 00:25:15

as you are, what would you say makes you distinctive from those other authors?

Joshua: 00:25:20

In other words, why should I go and pick up a book from

Joshua: 00:25:22

you as opposed to other books?

Charlie: 00:25:25

I've written a bunch of stuff myself, but the last one I did was

Charlie: 00:25:29

an autobiography of another person, and I contributed a large part of

Charlie: 00:25:34

the approach that the book takes.

Charlie: 00:25:36

The book takes the, the approach of assembling a puzzle.

Charlie: 00:25:40

This particular person has a disastrous life.

Charlie: 00:25:43

Three failed marriages, burned out once, flooded out three times, mental

Charlie: 00:25:48

breakdown, collapse, hospitalization, or everything you'd ever want to imagine

Charlie: 00:25:53

going wrong, went wrong in Liz's life.

The reason for that is simple: 00:25:56

God is preparing her for a work that only

The reason for that is simple: 00:26:00

she could do because she suffered from addiction from 16 years old.

The reason for that is simple: 00:26:05

She was addicted to alcohol from the very beginning, so she went through all those

The reason for that is simple: 00:26:09

processes, and then in her fifties, her late teen's son committed suicide because

The reason for that is simple: 00:26:17

of video game, and because of Liz's life experience and her work experience

The reason for that is simple: 00:26:23

in technology, she was able to found a ministry called Online Gamers Anonymous,

The reason for that is simple: 00:26:29

which helps people that are addicted to video games recover, and her story

The reason for that is simple: 00:26:33

is now in the book we just finished.

The reason for that is simple: 00:26:35

It's an amazing story, and it's assembled like a puzzle.

The reason for that is simple: 00:26:38

In fact, the front covers of a stack of puzzle pieces.

Joshua: 00:26:42

That sounds like something I would want to assemble myself.

Charlie: 00:26:45

She is Roman Catholic to almost all the experience.

Charlie: 00:26:51

At the very end, after the ministry is founded, she starts to see success.

Charlie: 00:26:54

She actually comes to Christ, she becomes a Christian.

Charlie: 00:26:57

It's kind of an amazing story, and her point and mine in working with her is

Charlie: 00:27:02

God's hand was there from the beginning.

Charlie: 00:27:04

Although you couldn't see where he was going, He knew where he was going,

Charlie: 00:27:08

and your life is shaped that way.

Charlie: 00:27:12

Now, my presbyterianism is coming out now.

Joshua: 00:27:15

Don't worry, I'm not judging you.

Charlie: 00:27:18

Oh, I'm just saying that, you know that God is in control.

Charlie: 00:27:21

When the news of my son's death came to me, I went through that Job

decision: 00:27:24

run to God or flee from God, and everyone has to make that

decision: 00:27:30

decision ultimately, because that's going to determine your eternal destiny.

Joshua: 00:27:35

I think that's so important because we do have two choices.

Charlie: 00:27:39

Yes.

Joshua: 00:27:40

We could either accept it for what it is, meaning that, "Yeah, I'm going

Joshua: 00:27:45

to live with this the rest of my life.

Joshua: 00:27:47

I'm not going to take any action with it, but I'm going to have to take a

Joshua: 00:27:50

big step back and let this consume me", or, "I can do something about it.

Joshua: 00:27:55

I can take it like a bull by the horns and know that I can create some value

Joshua: 00:28:00

from it", and you've done that, Charlie, you've even proven that even with this

Joshua: 00:28:04

conversation that we've been having, which leads me to this question, which

Joshua: 00:28:08

is going to be my final question as we're getting closer to the end of time here.

Joshua: 00:28:13

You have lived a very rich career, not only in the professional realm for 33

Joshua: 00:28:17

years within the chemical industry, but also being able to teach, being able

Joshua: 00:28:23

to be an author, to be a speaker, to go through all these life's obstacles

Joshua: 00:28:29

with your wife Terry, your daughter Melanie, the five grandchildren

Joshua: 00:28:33

that you have, even losing Keith.

Joshua: 00:28:36

What would you say has been the most defining moment in your life and why?

Charlie: 00:28:43

The most defining moment in my life is in Asheville, North Carolina on

Charlie: 00:28:48

Saturday, March 20th, when I got down on my knees and I said in my heart, "God,

Charlie: 00:28:54

if you're real, I surrender", because that defines everything that comes after.

Charlie: 00:29:00

My wife would do it three months later and God would take a marriage

Charlie: 00:29:04

that was absolutely going to fail and put it back together.

Charlie: 00:29:08

That's the one of the most amazing things.

Charlie: 00:29:11

We still have conflict.

Charlie: 00:29:12

That's not surprising.

Charlie: 00:29:14

Anyone that's married knows that, knows that story, but

Charlie: 00:29:18

that's the most defining moment.

Charlie: 00:29:19

Now, one of the things that I share when I went to, at my

Charlie: 00:29:22

age now, is the bucket list.

Charlie: 00:29:27

I have only one thing left on my bucket list.

Charlie: 00:29:30

It's one thing I haven't done that I still want to do and I probably won't ever get

Charlie: 00:29:34

to do it, and that's hot air balloon.

Charlie: 00:29:37

I've jumped out of an airplane.

Charlie: 00:29:38

I've done the scuba diving.

Charlie: 00:29:39

I've done all the stuff in those areas, but I've not done that, and that's the

Charlie: 00:29:43

one thing that's still on my bucket list.

Joshua: 00:29:45

All right, listeners, listen up.

Joshua: 00:29:47

Charlie has one last item on his bucket list.

Joshua: 00:29:50

Let's get him on a hot air balloon ride so that he can cross that off finally.

Joshua: 00:29:54

I know there has to be somebody that's listening to this that's

Joshua: 00:29:57

going to help you, Charlie.

Joshua: 00:29:59

That's my promise.

Charlie: 00:30:00

I'd love to do that.

Charlie: 00:30:00

I'd love to do that.

Joshua: 00:30:01

Charlie, I want to give you-

Charlie: 00:30:02

I know my wife will go though.

Joshua: 00:30:04

No, no.

Joshua: 00:30:04

We won't say anything.

Joshua: 00:30:06

It just stays between you and I and, okay, my listeners.

Charlie: 00:30:10

We're good.

Joshua: 00:30:11

Charlie, I want to give you a few moments.

Joshua: 00:30:12

How can we reach out to you and also find all these incredible books that you

Joshua: 00:30:16

have written, and even to maybe schedule some time with you if they want to

Joshua: 00:30:20

learn a little bit more about you too?

Charlie: 00:30:22

Okay.

Charlie: 00:30:22

Sure.

Charlie: 00:30:23

The easiest way to do it is to go to my website.

Charlie: 00:30:27

It's called sixdaycreation.com.

Charlie: 00:30:30

It's all one word, sixdaycreation.com.

Charlie: 00:30:33

All my books are listed there and all the books I published for other authors.

Charlie: 00:30:36

Everything is there.

Charlie: 00:30:38

You just go through it and look for whatever you want.

Charlie: 00:30:39

Search the site.

Charlie: 00:30:40

The site is very rich.

Charlie: 00:30:41

It has all my YouTube, but, I've got about 40 items on YouTube,

Charlie: 00:30:46

visual things from my seminars.

Charlie: 00:30:48

It has a bunch of responses to questions, so my books that answer questions too.

Charlie: 00:30:53

I blog for three years.

Charlie: 00:30:54

That's in the book.

Charlie: 00:30:55

I mean, there's all kinds of stuff out there to look at, but if someone has

Charlie: 00:30:59

a question, okay, the best thing to do is to contact me directly by email

Charlie: 00:31:04

and that's Charlie@sixdaycreation.com.

Charlie: 00:31:08

It's CHARLIE Charlie.

Joshua: 00:31:11

Awesome, and I'll make sure, I'll put all that in the show notes so

Joshua: 00:31:15

that anybody wants to access the website or even wants to email you directly,

Joshua: 00:31:19

I'll make sure that they can do that.

Charlie: 00:31:21

I deal with everyone, okay?

Charlie: 00:31:22

I mean, I have atheists coming to me all the time on, in the old days I don't do

Charlie: 00:31:25

it anymore because I don't do a lot of promotion anymore, but, I had 'em coming

Charlie: 00:31:29

all the time and always frustrated him.

Joshua: 00:31:31

Open invitation for everybody.

Joshua: 00:31:34

Charlie, thank you for speaking from the heart with us today, and my heart goes

Joshua: 00:31:40

out to you even after all these years knowing about Keith's passing, and I

Joshua: 00:31:45

just want you to know that this episode's dedicated to him and all the things

Joshua: 00:31:49

that he has gone through, knowing that there's people out there that might be

Joshua: 00:31:54

struggling, but there is hope and you have given that hope, and especially with our

Joshua: 00:31:58

conversation today, so thank you so much.

Charlie: 00:32:01

Thank you, Josh.

Charlie: 00:32:01

It's been a pleasure.

Joshua: 00:32:03

This was a very insightful interview with Charlie, and I've gotten

Joshua: 00:32:06

to know him over the last several years, and especially the realm of Toastmasters

Joshua: 00:32:12

and even being able to learn a lot about what he's been able to do in the realm

Joshua: 00:32:17

of being an author was something that I followed very lightly, but after having

Joshua: 00:32:24

some of the questions answered that I did, it was really a great surprise to

Joshua: 00:32:29

me about not only the things that he's been doing throughout his retirement,

Joshua: 00:32:34

which has spanned amongst a longer career than even other things that he's done,

Joshua: 00:32:40

but it's also been a reminder for me that we're never done with the work that we

Joshua: 00:32:46

can potentially do, no matter what kinds of things stand in our way, or things

Joshua: 00:32:52

that we think that we are done with and we need to continue to do in another

Joshua: 00:32:56

way, or we reinvent ourselves completely, and Charlie was one of those individuals

Joshua: 00:33:03

that I didn't even get a chance to talk to him about even his 33 years in which

Joshua: 00:33:07

he had a professional career, because the second career, the 14th career,

Joshua: 00:33:14

in other words, that he has been able to have, has been something that has

Joshua: 00:33:18

been really interesting to just digest.

Joshua: 00:33:22

There are a lot of things that when I listened to Charlie's story, I had to

Joshua: 00:33:28

take a step back from the microphone and even pause to think about what I wanted

Joshua: 00:33:32

to truly say, because Charlie's life has been one of those lives in which, I feel

Joshua: 00:33:38

even at my young age, I continue to work through, and I continue to try to develop

Joshua: 00:33:43

value, not only for myself, but even for the people that are around me: my friends,

Joshua: 00:33:49

my family, even my coworkers that I have at my full-time job, along with the people

Joshua: 00:33:55

that I get to interact with, with Your Speaking Voice, and the biggest thing

Joshua: 00:34:00

that I could think of when I was pondering about this was just about Keith's passing.

Joshua: 00:34:07

We often don't know what somebody is going through, especially

Joshua: 00:34:11

when we are living our own lives.

Joshua: 00:34:14

We're thinking that especially somebody that's older and going through some of

Joshua: 00:34:18

the things that that they're processing in their lives are something of value

Joshua: 00:34:23

for themselves that we don't need to necessarily step in, and usually that

Joshua: 00:34:27

is the thought process that we have, especially when it comes to family, that

Joshua: 00:34:33

they are doing something for themselves.

Joshua: 00:34:35

They are taking care of the business.

Joshua: 00:34:37

They are going through things that we often don't want to lean on

Joshua: 00:34:41

them for, because we know that they are going through a lot of things,

Joshua: 00:34:46

especially with raising a family.

Joshua: 00:34:48

Keeps passing reminds me a little bit of the choices that I could have

Joshua: 00:34:52

made three years ago in my own life.

Joshua: 00:34:55

There was a lot of things even up in the air back then as to how the content of

Joshua: 00:34:59

my character was going to be evaluated amongst a lot of different people.

Joshua: 00:35:05

I freely have admitted in previous episodes about my own

Joshua: 00:35:09

struggles, my own setbacks, my own things that have been barriers.

Joshua: 00:35:14

Keith's story, when Charlie was talking about it, reminded me so much

Joshua: 00:35:20

of the things that stood in my way.

Joshua: 00:35:23

No, it wasn't drugs.

Joshua: 00:35:25

No, it wasn't things that were happening in my own life that were

Joshua: 00:35:29

creating those disconnections.

Joshua: 00:35:33

I did have problems with messing around with other people.

Joshua: 00:35:36

I did have problems with feeling like I was worthy.

Joshua: 00:35:40

I did have problems with living with the ghosts of my past, standing

Joshua: 00:35:44

around me, ridiculing me, thinking that I would never be good enough.

Joshua: 00:35:49

Something clicked with me when Charlie said that he was saved back in the 1970s,

Joshua: 00:35:55

in which he was talking about what that experience was, especially as Terry, his

Joshua: 00:36:00

wife, was commenting on the ways in which Charlie could make his own mark in this

Joshua: 00:36:06

world, and I have to say that we all write our sheets of music, and if you caught on

Joshua: 00:36:13

to what Charlie was saying about even some of the things that he was writing about

Joshua: 00:36:17

and incorporating some of that music as it relates to those various passages of time,

Joshua: 00:36:23

I feel that we all have our own sheet of music that we are composing for ourselves.

Joshua: 00:36:30

Are some of the tunes out of tune?

Joshua: 00:36:32

Yes.

Joshua: 00:36:33

Are some of the lyrics that we write up not make any sense whatsoever?

Joshua: 00:36:38

Yes.

Joshua: 00:36:39

Do we always have to go back and make sure that we have a seamless

Joshua: 00:36:42

composition in which we can create value for each other and for ourselves?

Joshua: 00:36:47

Yes.

Joshua: 00:36:49

The biggest commonality in all of that is the ability to say, "This is mine.

Joshua: 00:36:54

This is my opportunity.", and I know that for many of us,

Joshua: 00:36:59

maybe you're not religious.

Joshua: 00:37:01

Maybe you're going through the same process Charlie did before he found

Joshua: 00:37:04

Christianity, or maybe whatever religion of choice that you have, but we all

Joshua: 00:37:09

find something that we can provide that support, and being that I'm an agnostic

Joshua: 00:37:16

myself, going through some of those processes and thinking about what people

Joshua: 00:37:21

can help me to become if I just believe and put trust in that higher power, I know

Joshua: 00:37:27

that sometimes it can be very tough, but when I work with my clients, I don't ever

Joshua: 00:37:33

assume, and I don't want to assume either.

Joshua: 00:37:37

The reason for all of that is because we all come from different walks of life.

Joshua: 00:37:42

We all have different pieces of music that we're putting together.

Joshua: 00:37:45

In other words, we are assembling that puzzle of life in front of us with the

Joshua: 00:37:50

millions of pieces that often have to be combined into other pieces so that

Joshua: 00:37:55

we're able to create that wonderful picture that is on the front of the box,

Joshua: 00:38:01

but sometimes that box that we often think that we can look at is not there.

Joshua: 00:38:07

It's gone.

Joshua: 00:38:09

I think Charlie had that experience when Keith passed away, but he found something

Joshua: 00:38:14

that gave me hope in my own life when it came to dealing with even the things

Joshua: 00:38:19

that I have lost, and that is to bring awareness to be able to start something

Joshua: 00:38:25

that you can truly believe in and that there is redemption through sin, through

Joshua: 00:38:31

whatever vice that you've had, or even the things that you're doing right now,

Joshua: 00:38:37

you can find a way in which to overcome.

Joshua: 00:38:41

When I hit stop on the recording, Charlie and I talked a bit more about what some

Joshua: 00:38:47

of the things are in his book, Suicide's Aftermath, and without getting into

Joshua: 00:38:52

more detail, because I encourage all of you to go pick up that book, and I

Joshua: 00:38:55

said to him, "I would myself," because I was really interested in learning

Joshua: 00:38:59

more about the various stories that he has and the various things that he

Joshua: 00:39:04

wrote about, he mentioned a story about someone in the book that sometimes

Joshua: 00:39:09

even when you have help, sometimes when that help is on the way, sometimes

Joshua: 00:39:14

even then, that can be too late.

Joshua: 00:39:17

It's never too late though.

Joshua: 00:39:20

You have to find it in your heart.

Joshua: 00:39:22

You have to find it in the strength of the things that

Joshua: 00:39:25

you do to keep pushing forward.

Joshua: 00:39:28

It's sometimes not the easiest path to walk on, and I know that for

Joshua: 00:39:32

many of us, we want to give up.

Joshua: 00:39:35

There isn't a time, time again in which I wanted to give up in my own life, maybe

Joshua: 00:39:39

even give up on some of the things that I have been working on, even on a personal

Joshua: 00:39:43

and professional level, but there's always been something deep inside of me that

Joshua: 00:39:48

has told me, "Joshua, you can do this.

Joshua: 00:39:52

Don't quit."

Joshua: 00:39:54

I don't know what that voice sounds like for you, and I don't know what that is

Joshua: 00:39:58

that's in the back of your mind that's always pushing you and persevering you.

Joshua: 00:40:03

I don't know what your motivation might be, but I know this much: whenever we

Joshua: 00:40:08

have the ability to make apples into apple pie, whenever we're able to make

Joshua: 00:40:15

grapes into wine, whenever we are able to make hops and barley into beer, and

Joshua: 00:40:22

all the different things that we have on this Earth, it all takes time to

Joshua: 00:40:28

make that final product of ourselves.

Joshua: 00:40:31

It doesn't happen overnight.

Joshua: 00:40:32

It doesn't happen the next day after that.

Joshua: 00:40:35

It takes a process in which you can be whatever you want to be in your first

Joshua: 00:40:41

iteration of your life, but it's never too late to go back to another part of

Joshua: 00:40:45

your life, even if there's 14 tries to do it and counting, and I think Charlie

Joshua: 00:40:52

has reminded all of us that no matter what it is, alcohol, sex, drugs, whatever

Joshua: 00:40:58

the things are that are throwing you down into that depressive state, you

Joshua: 00:41:03

know that you have it inside of you, and I know that there will be people

Joshua: 00:41:08

waiting for you, just like me, on the other side, extending their hand, ready

Joshua: 00:41:14

to help you no matter where you go, because in this world, there is hope.

Joshua: 00:41:20

Thanks for listening to episode 22 of Speaking From the Heart,

Joshua: 00:41:24

and I look forward to hearing from your heart very soon.

Outro: 00:41:27

Thanks for listening.

Outro: 00:41:29

For more information about our podcast and future shows, search for Speaking From

Outro: 00:41:33

The Heart to subscribe and be notified wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Outro: 00:41:38

Visit us at www.yourspeakingvoice.biz for more information about potential

Outro: 00:41:44

services that can help you create the best version of yourself.