[INTRODUCTION]

Hal Elrod: Hello, my friends, welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod. And my guest today wrote a post in the Miracle Morning Community, and I read the post and I invited him to be on the podcast. I’m going to read you that post right now before I officially introduce Rob Stein. So, the post was June 5th, 2025. As of this recording, it’s July 9th, so a little over a month ago. And here’s what it read.

And by the way, Rob is a regular poster in the Miracle Morning Community Facebook group. So, I’m used to seeing his posts. They’re usually very vulnerable and authentic and usually adding value and sharing what he’s doing with his Miracle Morning or how he’s using his SAVERS. But this one struck a chord with me. So, here’s what he wrote.

A while back, my son shared something that shattered me. He was having suicidal thoughts. Nothing prepares you for that as a parent, I felt like I had already lost him. The guilt hit hard. Where did I go wrong? What signs did I miss? I couldn’t eat, couldn’t think. I was drowning in fear and shame. But in the middle of that storm, I felt a quiet nudge. Get back to your foundation. So, I did. Not to be productive, not to perform, but to survive. I leaned into my Miracle Morning routine. Each morning, I sat in stillness. I focused each of the SAVERS on my faith and spiritual growth. It didn’t change everything overnight, but it grounded me. It helped me to go on and support my son while still function in my career and lead my family.

Over time, I became the steady presence my son needed. Our conversations got deeper. His light started to come back. We begin healing together. I share this not for sympathy, but for someone out there who feels helpless, who thinks it’s too late, who’s on the verge of breaking. Don’t give up. Start with one morning. Sit in silence. Speak life. Let God meet you there. The Miracle Morning didn’t just help me build better habits. It helped me show up for the person who needed me most. If you’re struggling, keep showing up. You’re not alone and your story’s not over.

My guest today is a purpose-driven leader, coach, and founder of Fathers In Christ as well as Elevate YOUniversity. He is a leader, as I mentioned, in the Miracle Morning Community. He’s a fellow Front Row Dad. Again, his name is Rob Stein, and he empowers men to lead with faith, to live with integrity, and to build lasting legacies. Committed to eliminating the fatherless home, he equips high performers to align purpose, systems, and mindset for impact at home, in business and beyond.

And in today’s episode, Rob’s going to share his story. I invite him to share what that was like, that time in his life, how he got through it as a father, how his son got through it, how his son is doing now. We touched later in the episode on the side effects of pharmaceutical drugs, which I did not expect to touch on. But he shared something that his son experienced with suicidal thoughts that helped me, reminded me of something that I experienced when nothing in life was wrong, circumstances were great, yet something we were taking might have been affecting our mental health and emotional wellbeing.

I asked Rob what to do if you’re feeling like you’re failing as a parent, as he felt that he was two years ago when this happened, and how he’s gotten through that, and ultimately asked him what to do if you are feeling overwhelmed in life, in general. There’s a lot of nuggets, a lot of vulnerability, a lot of heart and soul in this episode. And I hope you enjoy this conversation with Rob as much as I did. Enjoy.

[INTERVIEW]

Hal Elrod: Rob, my brother, it is great to see you.

Rob Stein: Great to see you too.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. You and I were just talking, and I thanked you for your leadership in the Miracle Morning Community. I was looking for, it was a post that you put up a few weeks ago, maybe a month or so ago, that I read about your son, and him coming to you and saying he was suicidal when he was 19. I went today to look for that post to read it again, just to refresh my memory and I was reminded of your leadership. I went, wow, on a daily basis. And for those that don’t know, the Miracle Morning Community is a 350,000-person Facebook group, I’m sure you’d agree, one of the most inspiring positive groups, and you’re one of the most inspiring positive leaders in that group. You post on an almost daily basis, sometimes multiple times a day. And your posts are vulnerable. They are real. They are adding value. You are a leader in your own community. You’re a leader for fellow fathers and parents.

And I want to start with that post that you put up about your son. Take us back to the moment that your son opened up about his suicidal thoughts. What was going on through your heart and your mind as a father?

Rob Stein: Yeah. So, first thank you very much for the kind words about my leadership and the consistent posting, and that’s really what I want to try to do is help provide value. So, I really appreciate that you acknowledged that.

Hal Elrod: You got it, man.

Rob Stein: So, to answer your question, it was February 15th, 2023. My son was away for the weekend off at college on the other side of the state with his girlfriend, visiting her for Valentine’s Day. It was a day after Valentine’s Day, he came home, pretty much went straight to his room. And then a little while later, I got a text message from my wife, hey, come to his room. I didn’t see it. So, then I get a yell from my wife, “Hey, get in here.” So, of course I did what all good husbands do, and I came running. And she sat me down and she shared with me what was going on. And he had shared that on his drive home, he had this overwhelming thought from his brain, that if he just drives into oncoming traffic, it’ll all be over and he won’t be suffering anymore.

So, in that moment, he was just away. Just for context, he was away again at his girlfriend’s dorm, who’s now his fiancée. So, just some context there. And he had shared with us that he was having these suicidal thoughts on the way home. We didn’t know that there was any background of this. There was nothing going on before that. So, my initial thought was, what happened this weekend? What happened? Did you guys break up? Did you guys get in a fight? That was where my head naturally went at first. Obviously, when he was telling us that he was having those thoughts, I was like, okay, this is like, this is not him. This is pretty serious.

And then., so we got some clarity on that and he’s like, “No, everything’s great. My girlfriend loves me. I have great mom and dad. My brothers and my sister are amazing. My family, my life, everything is good. I don’t understand what’s going on.”

Hal Elrod: Wow.

Rob Stein: That was when I realized like, oh, this is for real. It’s not just a little event that happened that he’s overreacting to or anything like that. So, just kind of that’s what initially happened and what was kind of in my head and heart at the time. So, as soon as I heard that, it was like, okay, jump into action. He already had a counselor that he was seeing for some anxiety and stress with different school and sports-related things. So, I texted the counselor right away, let her know, “Hey, this is what’s going on.” She said, “I can see him tomorrow morning.” I think it was like 11 o’clock or something like that.

And then about an hour later, she called me to give me a preview of how the next couple of days might go because there are obviously suicidal thoughts. There’s certain protocols that she has to follow. And as being involved with her for a long time, she also knows him very closely and he has a special place in her heart as well. So, during that, she kind of told me like, “Hey, if I don’t like what I’m hearing and I’m at fear that he is going to hurt himself, I will very likely send him to the hospital.” Because then, they can watch him 24/7, they can give him any kind of meds, any kind of support that he needs. Just be prepared for that, and that’s not a worst-case scenario, that’s not a bad thing if it happens, but just be ready.

Hal Elrod: It’s a proactive thing, yeah.

Rob Stein: Yep. Yeah. So, next day he goes, about 20 minutes after the appointment starts. I get a call from my wife because I was still trying to function and work and at that point, he was having the thoughts, but I didn’t know how severe things were. My wife didn’t work at the time, so I’m like, okay, I’m going to try to work and do my thing until I need to do something different. So, about 20 minutes after, I get a call from my wife and she said that they’re on their way to the hospital. And Hal, I tell you, that hit me like a ton of bricks that I might lose my son. And I knew he was headed to where he was going to get help, but at that moment, it almost felt like he was already gone. And it was hard to breathe. Even though I knew he was going to where he was going to get help, it was hard to breathe. Like my world came crashing in because my kids mean everything to me. So, I’ll pause there. So, if you have any other questions on it.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. So, he was 19 years old. And he’s 21 now, right? So, two years ago?

Rob Stein: Yes, two years ago, it was 2023. And actually, so he would’ve been 18, almost 19.

Hal Elrod: Okay, got it. Yeah, as a dad, a fellow father, I can only imagine what you were going through. What was your approach as a dad, because certain things, right, if your child has cancer, for example, you kind of go, well, I mean, I’m helpless. I can get him to a doctor. And so, now, he’s in the hospital. He’s getting the help that he needs. As a dad, and I know you’re a very proactive person, I know you’re a Miracle Morning daily practitioner. How long have you done the Miracle Morning? When did you start that?

Rob Stein: It’s about seven years now, I think 2018-ish.

Hal Elrod: Oh, so like five years before this happened. So, what was your approach? Two parts to that question, what was your approach in terms of your self-care? And then was there anything that you did proactively, like, that you did or that you felt you could do to help him? Or was it just, hey, I’m doing what I can by turning him over to, getting him the help that he needs. Or was there anything as a dad that you personally took on for you to do? So, what did you do proactively for yourself, for your self-care, and then for him?

Rob Stein: Yeah. So, I’ll give a little quick context between when he went into the hospital until when things got really bad for me personally, and then when the self-care really kicked in. So, that was on Thursday that he went and saw the counselor, and the counselor said, “Nope, he needs to go to the hospital.” Thursday, he went to the emergency room. We stayed with him as long as we were allowed to. Basically, also, when you go into the emergency room for that, like no belts, no drawstrings, no phones. You get nothing even as the guest because they don’t want the risks. Friday, I basically said, “I’m going to be at the hospital all day. I need to be there when all of the people come in, so I know what’s going on.”

Then, the hardest next step was when they took him from emergency room into the ambulance to take him to an inpatient psychiatric hospital. It was another one of those very heavy moments as a dad where I couldn’t breathe. I felt, again, like I was saying goodbye and may never see him again. So, you go to bed, you wake up Saturday morning, and your kid’s not there and you have no idea how he’s doing. You don’t even know if the ambulance made it at that point.

Saturday was pretty rough. Sunday got worse with my own mental health of, well, basically, if I can’t, if there’s a chance I’m going to lose one of my kids, I don’t know if I can go on. And I had some of my own dark thoughts on Sunday. And then there was a moment where I just heard this, like, if you do that, you can’t help your kid, period. If you do what you’re thinking right now, you’re pretty much signing the end for him as well. And it was kind of at that moment, I thought a couple of things first was, okay, well, I don’t want to do that.

Second was, I need to grow in my spiritual journey because I don’t think I can do this alone. I know I can’t do it alone. Because at that point, I couldn’t even breathe or think about it without being difficult to breathe or difficult to talk about it. And this conversation right here, Hal, would’ve never happened even a year after. I wasn’t at a point yet where I could easily talk about it.

And then I’m like, okay, well, how do I grow in my spiritual journey? And then, something popped into my head of like, hey, I have the Miracle Morning structure because I don’t know what I’m doing right now. I’m lost. The Miracle Morning, I can now do what Hal talks about all the time of like laser focus in on what’s the most important thing in your life. Well, I wasn’t going to get a medical degree or a psychology degree to be able to help my son directly. So, I was like, okay, if I lean into my spiritual journey, that’s all I can do. I have no control over this.

And you talk about that all the time. What do we have control over versus what do we have influence over and we have to accept it and then move on. So, I’ve said, you know what? Tomorrow morning, I’m going to dive in laser focused on my spiritual growth into the Miracle Morning, and that’s going to be my plan. And that’s what I did. I went to bed early that night basically so I’d stopped thinking about the thoughts I was having and just to kind of numb things. Like if I’m sleeping, I’m not thinking about it. And I can wake up tomorrow morning and I know this is going to help, and it did.

Hal Elrod: So, the Miracle Morning is something I can control and I can utilize the SAVERS practices to help my spiritual journey. A lot of people use routines for productivity. You use the SAVERS, it sounds like, really to survive, to heal, to grow spiritually. Can you walk us through how each component, each of the practices helped you to process and lead you through the pain and the feelings of helplessness you were experiencing?

Rob Stein: Yeah. So, the previous five years of that was all about productivity and achieving goals like you talked about. And in that moment, it switched and I didn’t care if I achieved any other goal ever again in life as long as I was there for my kid. So, as you can imagine, the first few days, like I said, were brutal from the time that this happened until the time I realized, hey, I have the tools already here to help me structure and focus. So, silence is really about prayer. That’s what I did. I didn’t do a normal meditation, normal, trying to clear my mind. It was 100% a conversation with God. God, I need you. I need you to help me through this. I need you to protect my son. I need you to help his heart, help his mind, help him know that he is needed and he is wanted.

And then affirmations, it was really about two main affirmations. One was, I’m 100% committed with unwavering faith and an extraordinary effort to growing closer to God spiritually. And then the other one was, I’m 100% committed to whatever my son needs right now. Obviously, there was more to it. I don’t remember it all off the top of my head. But those were the two primary affirmations. And then visualization, dove into visualization, I was really diving into one, me growing closer to God spiritually. I posted on my social media, it was like, when you pray, I did this recently, it wasn’t back then, but it’s relevant and popped into my head. When we pray as believers in Jesus, when we pray, we’re here like this, but on the other side of us looking at us and they’re holding our hand with us is Jesus. That’s what I visualized then is God being with me.

I also visualized my son and his future, that he had a future, that he was going to go and enjoy life, that he was going to get past this. And that gave me some hope because I was seeing, I don’t see a lot of very– visualization at that point was really hard for me. But I started to see things that I normally wouldn’t imagine. So, it was really a powerful exercise. I’d listen to either a sermon from a pastor or whatever, trying to grow spiritually. I would do exercise while listening to it.

And then reading, 100% about reading the Bible, reading scripture, studying, doing as much as I could to grow in my faith and know the hope that the Bible has for us, the hope that being a believer has for us. And then the scribing, brother, I got to tell you, that’s when I fell in love with journaling. You’ve seen some of the posts that is my favorite of the SAVERS. It’s something that I do often, I do multiple times a day. And I find that as the one when you can’t talk about something. Or when you can’t even really think about it without being overwhelmed emotionally, you can still write it down, and that lowers the emotional level for me to where I can get it out and I can start to process. So, it was all about journaling whatever I was learning, scribing whatever I was learning, in my reading, scribing my prayers, scribing those out, what I was visualizing, journaling that out, whatever I could do to keep getting all of that pain out so that I could be prepared for whatever comes next. And that’s kind of the process I took, and I’ll say way more important than when I was trying to use Miracle Morning to achieve my goals, which I used Miracle Morning for years to achieve my goals. This was like, in my mind was life or death.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Well, and it became the goal, right? It’s the goal was now to take care of your mental health and to grow in your faith and to enhance and amplify your spirituality and your connection to God in service of your family and your son, right? So, you’re still achieving your goals. It’s just that instead of monetary goals and trying to achieve success in your business, now, the goal’s become spiritual. It’s like when I had cancer, all of my SAVERS, my Miracle Morning, the goal was now, oh, I have to beat cancer. That’s the only goal that matters because if that goal doesn’t get accomplished, none of the other goals are even a thing.

I love you walking us through that. The scribing practice you mentioned it’s your favorite of the SAVERS. I’d love for you to just– I want to say some follow-up questions for people because I think that a lot of folks journaling is, everybody has certain SAVERS that come easy to them, and then there are certain ones that they struggle with, that they go blank, that they don’t resonate with. They’re not sure what to write, for example, with scribing.

So, you mentioned that, it sounds like there’s a variety, it’s like sometimes you’re writing down the things that you’re stressed about, your fears, your worries. Sometimes you’re writing, you’re recapping what you’re reading, what you’re learning, you’re writing your prayers down. Is there any kind of, like, so if you start at a blank page and do you journal digitally with your thumbs or your fingers on the keyboard? Or do you write by hand?

Rob Stein: I’ve done both. Right now, I’m doing digitally on my iPad with Goodnotes and Apple Pencil. Goodnotes is awesome. I can actually search on handwritten text if I want to go back and search for something. It even does spell check and it will fix my chicken scratch handwriting for me.

Hal Elrod: Wow.

Rob Stein: It’s an awesome tool.

Hal Elrod: So, that’s the journaling. So, you’re writing by hand, though, with the Apple pencil?

Rob Stein: Correct.

Hal Elrod: Got it, okay. And so, when you’re staring at a blank screen, this is the question I really want to ask for folks that are like, I just don’t know what to write about. Do you have any kind of process to get the writing started? Is it just closing your eyes and going, what is on my mind right now? What’s the first thing that comes to me? How do you go from blank page to moving that pencil?

Rob Stein: So, it really depends on what it is, in that moment, or actually, I’m going to go back a little bit before when I really started to be okay with the idea of scribing, especially as a dude. I always thought journaling was like, dear diary for my daughter, not for me.

Hal Elrod: Got it.

Rob Stein: So, not picking on that at all, just saying that’s what I was feeling. So, I was seeing a counselor and I was struggling through some stuff with a person that I care deeply about and their alcohol, and it was hurting other people that I love. And my counselor shared with me, like, “Write that person a letter.” You don’t ever have to send it to them. You don’t ever have to read it to them or anything like that. So, I wrote a letter and it was really hard at first, but then it started flowing and I couldn’t stop. I wrote pages. And I don’t handwrite normally. I wrote pages. And I felt like, wow, that was a huge relief. So, I got some value out of that.

So, then fast forward to like how I do journaling now, two different ways. So, if it’s really a journal about something going on in my life right now, I ask myself some type of a journal prompt. Like I ask myself a question. How might I overcome this challenge, whatever it might be? I’ll use ChatGPT for a journal prompt. I also sign up for different journal prompts that I get emails on, and I go back and I look at them later. And it’s like, start with that question and then answer it. And normally the answer will be very surface level. And then I follow up with a deeper question.

And then, when I feel like I can’t write anymore, I’ll follow up with another deeper question because I really want the growth out of it. I’m not just going through it to check a box. Like, if I’m not either moved or emotional or inspired after a journaling session, I probably didn’t do it right. So, that’s one way is I’ll use some prompts. Another way, if I’m like, everything’s pretty good. I think I heard you talk about this on one of your Instagram videos or something. I start with what are the three things I need to let go of? So, what’s weighing on me right now? And then I will process that. I won’t take very much time, but I’ll at least like, okay, I can’t change that and I move on.

Then I go into gratitude. What am I grateful for right now? I try to limit that to three things because I could be there all day if I really am truly honest on what I’m grateful for at that moment. And then what are the three things that I need to focus on today to move the needle towards whatever my goal is? That’s one way I do that one. I would say I probably do that one like 30%, 40% of the time if I was throwing a rough number out there.

And then the last one that I try to do at least once a quarter, sometimes once a month, is from my future self. I’m journaling from today’s date, one year from now, three years from now, five years from now, in the mindset of what do I want to have accomplished by that future date? So, it’s really like a fast forward to, what’s today’s date, the 9th? Fast forward to July 9th, 2026, what do I want to be sitting there on the front porch or the back porch or whatever, looking out over the beautiful view? And what do I want to be celebrating? What do I want my three things of gratitude to be?

So, I journal as if they already happened. And then I’ll use that and I’ll go back and I’ll read that along the way over the course of the year, kind of as a checkpoint of how am I doing on this? Do I even still care about this stuff? And it helps me to stay motivated in some of those things.

Hal Elrod: I love that. So, you’re creating the future in the moment, right? As if it had already happened. I love that. What I love is that you just shared, like there was a quick master– like a mini masterclass in scribing, in journaling in different ways. And I think it also is great because I think a lot of people think you have to do things a certain way or they get into a structure where, like the three prompts that you gave, that’s the formula that I use a lot, three things I need to let go of, three things that I’m grateful for, and the three most important things to move the needle today. And it’s like, but people will get into where they think that’s the only way to do it.

And what I like is that you’re very fluid in your approach with all of the SAVERS and specifically, in this case, with scribing and that you’re utilizing it in different ways on different days. And there’s no pressure on yourself. It’s like what– I love Brianna Greenspan one of the Miracle Morning co-authors of the Art of Affirmations Coloring Book. She starts her Miracle Morning a lot by putting her hand on her heart, closing her eyes, and just asking, what do I need from my Miracle Morning today? Which SAVERS do I feel that I need? Which one do I want to start with, right? Like, she just lets it come to her and she’ll go, you know what? I’m going to start reading a book. I’m going to like, literally just go straight to the R in SAVERS and I’m going to start reading that book. Or she’s like, I need to pray. It’s letting it come to you.

So, in terms of your– what’s the impact? You were at a really dark place, you were scared, you were going to lose your son, and then the SAVERS became your solution. I’m going to go to bed early, I’m going to wake up tomorrow, I’m going to do these SAVERS. How did that play out for you over the coming weeks and months and beyond, in terms of what did that do for your mental health, your mental healing, and then transitioning to how did that allow you to show up for your son?

Rob Stein: So, great question. And I would say the consistency was huge of the focusing in, laser focusing in. You talk about the Wheel of Life before on some of your podcast episodes. My counselor has talked about the Wheel of Life. It’s like, what’s the thing? And even in Front Row Dads, we have pillars that we go through and it’s like that is typically an indicator of where we need to focus on when that number goes down. So, spiritual was the thing I decided to focus on. And having that consistency really helped, helped me to heal so that I could show up better in the fact that I was a lot more, I don’t want to say calm, I was more at peace. I can’t control the outcome. I hate it, but I’ve accepted that one day I may get that phone call and have to hear what every parent fears.

I mean, he lived with us, and so, every day I was seeing a little bit of improvement in him, then a little bit of a step back, then more improvement. In this whole time, I’m digging deeper because I know it’s a rocky journey and it could end the way none of us want it to end. So, fast forward to August of the same year, we took him to college. He’s there two days, and we’re like, okay, this is kind of cool. Things are feeling decent. And then we dropped him off on Wednesday. On Friday night, Friday evening, we got a call. My wife picked up the phone, put it on speaker phone. We just thought he was calling to check in and he told us he was having the thoughts again.

Hal Elrod: Oh, wow.

Rob Stein: Now, mind you, he is a two-and-a-half-hour drive away on the other side of the state. He’s in a dorm room with people he doesn’t know. He’s very shy, doesn’t like talking with people. So, I’m like, okay. So, I asked a couple of questions just to get a situational awareness of have you tried anything? Like, how long have these thoughts, did it just happen when we dropped you off? Did it just happen an hour ago? Has it never stopped? What’s going on? He shared with us. So, I said, “Okay, I’m going to go call your girlfriend.” And so, I jumped into action there, calling girlfriend, getting her over from her apartment to his dorm so that we had eyes on the ground, so to speak, and shared…

Hal Elrod: So, he hadn’t called her ahead of time. He called y’all first before…

Rob Stein: He called us first.

Hal Elrod: Okay.

Rob Stein: So, thanks for that clarifying because I think that’s a testament to the psychological safety that we’ve been able to build with our kids. And that’s super important. So, I stayed on the phone with her as she was coming over and she had already been through this. At that point, she was dating him for at least a year, I think, at that point. So, she knew what was going on. It wasn’t a surprise that he was having those thoughts again.

So, I stayed on the phone with her until she got to his dorm. They talked a little bit, and I said, okay, I’m going to go figure out if I’m going to drive over to that side of town tonight. I want to see you and make sure that you’re okay. I’m not going to ask to stay at your dorm room or anything. I’ll get a hotel, whatever. I tell his girlfriend keep me posted on what’s going on. Before you guys go to bed, I want an update. Go into putting a go bag together, so to speak, and kind of looking at some hotel rooms. I get a text message. Is it okay if he just comes and stays at my apartment for the night? Like, absolutely. I think that’s probably a good thing. A few minutes later I get a text message, we’re headed to the hospital. He just tried.

Hal Elrod: Oh, wow.

Rob Stein: He just tried to kill himself. At this point, I didn’t know how, I didn’t know much of anything. I had an initial reaction of more– the reaction was a curse word that I won’t say, and then it was calm, as calm as you can be as a parent. I told my wife, like, here’s what’s going on. I’m getting in the car. Do you want to go or do you want me to go? One of us needs to stay here with our three other kids. One needs to go. She’s like, you can go. I don’t know that I could talk to people. Okay? So, I grab a couple of things. I get in the car, I go fill up with gas, and I call and talk to them and walk them through.

I found out that he had tried to take a bunch of over-the-counter pills, a significant amount. Didn’t know how much at that time. And he’s like, “Immediately, I regretted doing it. I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to go to the hospital.” “Okay, well, you’re either going when I get there or you’re going now, you’re going because you just said you don’t want to die and we don’t know how much you took.” “Oh, it was just a handful. It’s not a big deal.” “Well, dude, you got big hands. We can’t quantify that. You need to go.” He’s like, “Okay, I’ll go.”

His girlfriend said, “I made him throw up.” And I said, “Okay, this is going to sound really gross. Go take a picture of what he threw up. Go back in the dorm room, collect the bottle, and count how many are left,” because we knew it was a brand-new bottle because we had dropped him off with it.

Hal Elrod: Okay.

Rob Stein: So, she told us, “Well, he took 17.” 17 pills, I don’t remember the dose of the Tylenol, but it was 8,500 milligrams total.

Hal Elrod: Oh wow.

Rob Stein: It’s like, no, dude, you need to go to the hospital because they need to make sure that you’re okay. Probably not going to die from it, but you could cause permanent damage to your liver. Just go. So, the whole point of this part of the story, Hal, is because of the Miracle Morning, because of all the hard work at the most difficult time, the more difficult time came when my son had actually attempted it and the real risk and the real fear was there, I was able to stay calm because I had put in the hard work with the scribing and with the visualization and all that, and I had prepared myself for the worst case, which allowed me to stay calm when it happened.

Hal Elrod: You had mentally rehearsed the worst-case scenario and responding in the most proactive way, so that when it happened in real time, you were able to act upon the preparation you did.

Rob Stein: That, and you’ve talked about this a number of times, I accepted that that’s a reality that might happen. And there’s nothing I can do to change it. All I can do is how do I react in the moment.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I call it accept life before it happens, right? Which is accept that there’s going to be all sorts of things in your life and it can be a general acceptance. Like, for me, it was general. So, the day I was diagnosed with cancer, I was like, “Oh, okay.” I’ve already accepted it. I’ve already accepted whatever’s going to happen. It can be a general acceptance or in your case it was an actual, I’m dealing with this right now. This is the worst-case scenario specific to this situation. I’m going to realize that if that happens, I can’t change that it happened. Now, I’m at peace with it before it happens. Okay, now I can operate free from that fear of the unknown future.

So, he went to the hospital that night, and then let’s kind of bring us to today. It’s been a couple of years since that time. How is he now? The help that he got, did that get him to a better place? Yeah, bring us up to speed.

Rob Stein: Yeah. So, obviously, there’s some medication, there’s a chemical imbalance. He does still have thoughts occasionally, but overall, the meds that he was on helped him be able to, in his words, shoo them away fairly quickly when they would happen. He’s had a couple of incidents where it’s like, okay, I can’t get rid of the thought. We have an action plan in place of, if you’re feeling or your brain is telling you, you can’t come to us, let someone you know that cares about you know what’s going on. They’ll contact us and we’ll jump into action to get the counselor, to get whoever we need to involve.

And this recently happened a couple of weeks ago. Honestly, it was actually after that post. And you had mentioned that you wanted to interview me. I thought there was a potential. We were having a completely different conversation today. But he shared with his fiancée. His fiancée called us. I immediately texted the counselor. Counselor was able to make arrangements and get him in the next morning at the first appointment. And I went with him that time and his fiancée went with him. And we sat in the room for a few minutes and then we left.

He shared with her the thoughts he was having. She shared with us with him in the room after, and it was like, “Nope.” The thoughts are back, definitely. They’re very graphic and it’s hard for him to get rid of them. He needs to see the psychiatrist or he needs to go to the hospital right away. He didn’t want to go back to the hospital and basically, got a hold of the psychiatrist, changed the meds. Everything seems to be pretty good now. He just had his follow-up yesterday.

Hal Elrod: What came up for me, and I’m no expert in this regard, but I’ve read enough about it, which is that side effects of antidepressants can be suicidal thoughts and suicidal ideation. Was he on antidepressants when the first occurrence happened the first time?

Rob Stein: No. No, he wasn’t. He was on another medication. I don’t remember the name of it and I wouldn’t want to say it, just in case I’m wrong, and I don’t want to freak anybody out, but some of the side effects from that could have been suicidal thoughts.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. And I can share my personal experience when I was sucked into the medical community, if you will, or that’s not the right way to put it, but basically, into pharmaceuticals, right? When I had my cancer journey and they had me on more pharmaceuticals than I can count, couldn’t even keep track. And it was a slippery slope. I started out saying, I don’t want to do any, and then it was like, well, you need to take this. And it’s like, oh. And then I got used to that and I’m like, before I knew it, like my paradigm had changed where like, oh, I’m just listening to my doctor doing whatever he says.

Well, in 2019, I started with suicidal thoughts and to what you said, very similar. And this makes me wish I had some experts on the call with us right now to be able to speak to this because we’re just speaking in generalities. But I was on pharmaceutical drugs, and all of a sudden, I wanted to kill myself. And you had said when your son first brought that to you, you asked him what’s wrong? And he said, nothing, right? My friends are great. My life is great. Yet he was on a pharmaceutical drug and he was having these vivid thoughts telling him to kill himself. That’s exactly what I went through.

And it wasn’t until I got off of 100%, against my doctor’s orders, he said, “Oh, if you get off the drugs, your cancer could come back and you could die.” And he said, “I want you to stay on them as long as you can tolerate it.” I said, “Well, I want to kill myself every day.” So, I’m going to say that I can’t tolerate it anymore. And again, but just to me, it’s like, as a sidebar, but such a relevant sidebar is what are these side effects of the pharmaceutical drugs, right? That I don’t know. I know there’s explanation. There was no circumstantial reason that I wanted to die every day. My life was great, yet I did. And your son, it sounds like the same thing. Is that something, do you have any perspective on that?

Rob Stein: Well, I mean you watch any commercial. So, I remember when I was growing up and I think you and I are roughly the same age. When we were growing up, you…

Hal Elrod: I think I know where you’re going with this.

Rob Stein: There were no commercials about alcohol. There were no commercials about smoking. There were no commercials about medications. Now, that’s the majority of the commercials.

And you listen to any one of these commercials about a medication, a lot of them have good intentions with helping with diabetes, helping with whatever the health issue is. They do make an impact there, but then they read off the side effects. And the side effects are worse than the thing that you’re trying to treat in a lot of cases.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Totally.

Rob Stein: So, I think there’s some potential truth to that. And I think, one, I give you a ton of credit for having the courage to completely get off of all the medications when the doctors are saying you will die if you do that. That couldn’t have been easy, but obviously you’re here. So, it was the right choice,

Hal Elrod: And it was a spiritual decision, by the way. It was, A, how tormented I was, how terrible I was feeling. And then it was literally when I would pray, and it had been for like six months prior. I kept getting the message through prayer, “Hal, your cancer is gone. And stop poisoning your body with these pharmaceutical drugs.” That’s the message I got. But then I would go to my doctor and I would say, “Hey, I’d like to get off,” and he’d go, “No, no, no.” I go, “But the cancer’s gone.” He goes, “Yeah, but we never know. It could be hiding in this nook or cranny, and you got to just keep taking it.” Right? And then I would reach out to my family, and they would go, “We don’t know. Just listen to your doctors, I guess. We don’t know what else to do.”

It was such a hard thing, but it’s like I kept getting this message, this intuitive feeling. Every fiber of my being was like, “Stop taking these chemicals.” And it took me a lot longer than I wish it would’ve, you know? It is what it is. But, yeah, thank you for the acknowledgement. When I finally got off… And I don’t look at my healing journey the day that I was told by doctors, “Your cancer’s in remission.” I look at my healing journey the day that I stopped putting these chemicals in my body and I started completely nurturing my body with things from earth, organic whole foods, and sunlight, and that kind of thing. So, yeah.

What would you share with somebody that is listening right now that is… How do I say this? What would you say to the parent who feels like their child, maybe they’ve failed their child, or it’s too late, or their child is suffering, and they don’t know what to do? What would you say to that parent?

Rob Stein: Hal, it’s a really great question, and it’s a question that I asked myself a lot early on, and I still ask myself of, “Was there anything I could have done different?” Sure. Would the outcome be different? Maybe. But I took the actions that I took, and that was the path that we went down. As far as, did I miss something? Of course, we missed something. I look at it like this, and this is what I told myself. I came to the conclusion at some point. It was, I look back at when my kids were newborns and I traveled for work. I’d come home after a week trip, and I’d be like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t even know,” because I have twins, “I don’t know which one’s which.”

Hal Elrod: Yeah, sure.

Rob Stein: My wife who was there every day was like, “They haven’t changed at all.” And I go and I look at what I’m seeing. I’m seeing one week ago, and I’m seeing now, totally different because I’m not there. I wasn’t there in every moment, every day. My wife was like, “They look exactly like they did when you left.” That was because she was there all the time. So, it’s the lens that you’re looking through, and you’re in that moment every day with your kids. So, you’re going to miss things. No matter how present you are, you’re going to miss things, especially when they’re not visual, like a mental health thing. It’s like if your kid’s starting to gain weight, you’re going to notice. And you’re not going to notice on day one that they gained a half a pound. You’re not going to notice that. But over time, you’re going to notice it.

When it’s what’s going on up here, in their head, you have to know that you’re even looking for something. So, most of us are going to miss it. What I would say is don’t beat yourself up about it. What you do from that point on when your kid’s going through this or you’re struggling with it is it’s how you react and how you move forward. Put together a plan of when things fall off the rails, on how you can jump into action. Put in the work of a morning routine that can help you grow in the areas that you need to grow. Put in the work for yourself, accepting that the outcome may not be what you want. And that’s the hardest one and was the hardest one for me is as a parent, that one, it stings.

Until today, that one still is hard, but I know I don’t have control over it. I only have influence. My youngest son is about to leave for Marine boot camp next week. I have no control over what happens from this point forward. I don’t even have influence anymore. And he’s going into a part of the service where he’s not going to have a cushy desk job flying drones. He could be out in the line of fire, and I’ve accepted that. I may get that knock on the door. Because if not, I’m going to live in fear every day. I can still live in a place of acknowledgement and understanding and knowing that that could happen, but I don’t have to be in fear of it happening.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I love this underlying theme that you’ve woven throughout this story, which is just acceptance, that you, from the beginning in your Miracle Morning, it’s, “I’m going to accept the worst case scenario.” And again, personally, I think back to like when I was in my car accident and told I would never walk again, I go, “Okay. So, the worst-case scenario is that I’m in a wheelchair the rest of my life. I’m 20 years old. I do not want to be. I love basketball. I want to walk. I mean, I want to date. I don’t know what that would be like in a wheelchair. I don’t want to be in a wheelchair the rest of my life. However, if I’m in a wheelchair the rest of my life, if the worst case scenario comes to be, you know what? I’m going to be the happiest, most grateful person anyone has ever seen in a wheelchair.”

And when I’m speaking sometimes on stages, I’ll just share that story and go, “What’s your wheelchair? What’s the experience in your life that you allow to cause you emotional pain or that you’re afraid of in the future, that you’ve decided will cause you emotional pain because you do not want it to happen versus just accepting whatever happens in life?” So, I love that you’ve shared that. Any last thoughts? Or let’s close this out. For anybody right now that is struggling in life, whether it’s as a parent, whether they’re feeling helpless, I see your leadership in the Miracle Morning community. It’s not just around parenting. It’s this very well-rounded, like you have a lot of life experience and a lot of wisdom.

So, if someone right now is feeling helpless or overwhelmed or they are struggling, what would you encourage them to do? What would you say to them to be helpful?

Rob Stein: I would say the first thing that I would do is take a deep breath. Like, breath work has been very helpful for me. It’s been very helpful for my son. Take a deep breath because that’s going to slow things down and it’s going to slow our mind down. And there’s another podcast that I listen to. He explains the science behind it. I’m not even going to try to repeat it because I’ll mess it up. But it works. And then, personally, I would lean into some prayer, ask God to be there with me as He will, and be there with my kid, whoever it is, whichever kid it is, or all of them. And I would put together an action plan. Even if you’re not going through this right now, mental health in the world is growing as an issue.

Be prepared before you need it, and then it’s not so hard. And I would say I’m willing to, if anybody’s going through it right now, I don’t know, Hal, if you put email contact or anything in the show notes. I can give you my email address, and they can email me and I can…

Hal Elrod: You can give it now, and anybody can email you that wants to, yeah.

Rob Stein: Yeah. So, it’s robert.stein@fathersinchristministry.org.

Hal Elrod: Robert dot Stein, S-T-E-I-N @ say the last part again.

Rob Stein: Fathersinchristministry.org.

Hal Elrod: Robert.stein@fathersinchristministry.org. Y’all, not a lot of my guests give their email addresses out. And I’m telling you, Rob is one of the sweetest, kindest, most thoughtful and wise human beings that I know, and generous. And so, Rob, thank you, man. I appreciate you so much, brother.

Rob Stein: Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, it’s been an honor, man. Thanks for being vulnerable and open and sharing. And if you want to connect with Rob, you can email him. You can also join the Miracle Morning Community Facebook group, where he posts almost every single day and adds value. And goal achievers, thank you for tuning in today. Thank you for listening with an open mind and an open heart. And I hope this conversation was as affirming and helpful and valuable for you as it was for me. I love you so much, and I will talk to you next week.

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