EPISODE SUMMARY
GUEST: Tony Martin
Tony Martin currently works in the office products industry. He is very friendly and outgoing and knows a lot of people. He has a philosophy and way of life of helping others ahead of himself.
Most of his life he has been full of energy and excitement until in his 40s all of a sudden he wasn’t feeling well and was unable to function or go to work. At first he thought he had the flu. He had no idea what was wrong until he was diagnosed with depression. It was to the point that he wanted to end it all.
It took a little while, but he did get his hope back.
Tony found his way to complete healing, and now his passion is to help others the way he has been helped.
Listen to his captivating story and share with a friend or family member that you know is suffering from depression.
To Contact Tony Martin:
tmartin@ascendantofficesolutions.com
Phone number (806) 438-6530.
To contact Ruth:
806-747-2735
ruth@blairclinic.com
Transcript
Welcome, welcome, welcome to what pain in the neck. I am Ruth Elder, your host. And today I am talking with one of my newest friends, Mr. Tony Martin. Tony, welcome.
Thank you. I'm so glad to be here.
And we just recently met. I don't think I've even known you for a month yet. It might be three weeks, I think.
I was gonna say about three weeks.
Yeah. And we know each other through a local business referral group. And for those, if you're not familiar with how a business referral group works -well, Tony, why don't you describe how a referral group works?
Well, I'm a brand new member. I love it. And to me, it's a way to get to know different people in different industries that are looking for people or companies that they can help sell their products and services to.
So to me, it's getting to know the people in the group, educating them on what I do. I've been in the office products business for many years. I'm looking for companies that need office products, commercial copiers.
And so I get to educate what I do, since I'm so passionate about it, to people that are not doing what I'm doing, but may know people that need my products or my services.
And then in return, do the same thing. And I go out and I talk and meet people all the time and learn what types of products and services. The people I know need that might fit the category of somebody that I've met within the referral group.
Yeah. So that's how a referral group works. We're a bunch of professionals, just one professional per category. So that means nobody else except you can sell office products in the group or represent an office supply company. We're the only chiropractor that will be allowed in the group and so forth. And this is a health podcast and we'll get into that in a little bit.
One of the main reasons - actually two purposes, the reasons I wanted to have you on the show today. Number one is a lot of times in business. Competition can be fierce. It can be difficult to make it in business. And so it can be a struggle, but you just had a really refreshing view on it that I really resonated with because you were talking about giving. It's all about giving and helping people. That's what we are wanting to do is wanting to make the world a better place. We'll talk a little bit about that.
But the main reason I wanted to talk to you is because of some things that you went through and how you overcame it, because that's really the main purpose of this podcast is overcoming and learning to find solutions to some serious problems. You were very open when you shared it with me, and we both agreed that you sharing your story on this podcast can help somebody else.
That's the goal. That's exciting.
Yes. And so I think, you know, when we're talking about solution from suffering, suffering is difficult. It's a dark place. It's terrible in every way, which is why I'm wanting to hear the story of what helped. But also one thing I've noticed now that we're more than 70 episodes in is that people that have gone through suffering and found the solution usually are very generous to offer it to other people and very passionate about talking about it, and possibly having someone else avoid suffering altogether, or if they are in that place, shorten the time it takes from suffering to hope, to actually seeing some resolution. And I think when it comes to your story, you said you were in a dark place and you didn't have any hope. And then all of a sudden you had hope.
It took a little while. But I did get my hope back. But you know what's interesting, Ruth? As a youngster, growing up I always was excited about life. I was always energized and excited and imagined what I might be when I grew up and then I got older and what have you and just excited about life.
And that's actually one of the reasons why I want to have conversations about solution to suffering, because that's the real you. You're a fun guy, full of excitement. And then something stopped you in your tracks. And now you're back to being that guy again.
Yeah, I'm a changed guy.
So continue on. So you're full of excitement, full of passion for life. And then what happened?
Well, and this happened about 13, 14 years ago, as you know, as we indicated earlier on that, I've been in the office products business and got very passionate about it, got very good at it, went to work for a company. We did a lot of things and helped that company grow. And I was doing just all the things I always wanted to do. And I got to the point where all of a sudden I wasn't feeling well, I just wasn't feeling myself. You know, I was tired and just, I just didn't feel right. And when you don't feel well, what's the first thing you do?
Well, I might have a cold. I might have the flu. I might have this. I might have that. Well, when it doesn't get better, you're like, “well, I probably need to go see the doctor.” So, guess what I did, like anybody else. I went to go see the doctor. “Hey, doc. I'm having this. I'm having that. I'm not able to sleep well. I'm not sleeping well at all.” And it progressively got worse and worse. And worse, and I went to the doctor again, nothing wrong with me, everything's good, they take tests, they do all the stuff, doctors are great.
Okay, yes.
They're awesome, thank God for them. But they may not always have all the answers at the time. And so, I started, literally, falling apart. I was so weak, my mind was not clear. I was afraid to go to sleep. I would stay up all night, want to sleep during the day. Well, that's not good for the body because the rhythm, your body's rhythm is off. I didn't want to eat. I wasn't excited or passionate about anything.
And I remember this very, very clearly as I was seeking to try to find answers. And I couldn't find them. And I don't know if you've ever been through a situation like this where you don't feel well. You expect to go to the doctor, say doctor, “this is my problem”. “Okay, here's a pill, or here's a treatment, this will make you feel better.” And you don't get that result. And you do that over and over and over with many different doctors. And I went to many different doctors. And I was diagnosed with all kinds of stuff that I really didn't have. But I didn't feel well. And they couldn't find a thing wrong with me.
So this affects your job?
Oh, yeah. I mean, I couldn't even go to work.
And so you went from being super excited and gung ho in your career to not being able to work at all.
Yeah. I was a sales manager at the organization that I worked for. I was very good at what I did. The good Lord gave me that gift. But I had salespeople I was responsible for. I was the driver. We helped this company go from a million and a half to ten million dollars in seven years. That's how much action and energy. Took a lot of people to get that done. But I was the instigator.
Anyway, all of a sudden, I don't want to go to work. All of a sudden I get into environments like going to Christmas programs for my kids. They were, I don't know, middle school age. And you got three or four or five hundred people in an auditorium. And all the people talking. And it's bombarding my mind to where I just cannot handle it. I wanted to get up and run out of that building and scream.
My anxiety got higher and higher, and I got more and more depressed, and I didn't know what that was. I'd never been depressed. I was excited all my life.
And I felt bad, and I kept going to the doctor, and I couldn't get any answers. And you know what happened? I lost hope.
Yeah, that's a common story when you are suffering and you can't find answers.
So here you are in a different place. So what happened? So you lost hope and somewhere along the way you found it.
I did. Thank goodness because of the good Lord. I promise you that's where the credit comes from.
Okay, so tell us exactly how this came about what happened.
But this is what I learned through my journey and I was in the most darkest place ever. I had no idea it even existed. In fact, I got so low that I almost committed suicide and I knew there was a problem when that emotion came across to me and said, “you need to end this suffering cause that ain't going to end.” I mean, that's, that was the message I was getting. And I thought, “Oh no.” I remember jumping out of bed at one o'clock in the afternoon. Supposed to be at work, get my clothes on, don't even comb my hair, I'm not even shaving. And I tried to run from that emotion. And went to work. Trying to get away from myself. You can't get away from yourself. You ever try to figure that? You ever try to do that? That don’t happen.
Yeah, wherever I go, there I am.
Yeah. And then the other issues I was having, I was so weak, I felt like a hundred year old man. Now, I'm 61. This happened when I was in my mid 40s. I was pretty young, I thought Fairly in good shape. Not good. So, I thought, “something is really, really wrong here. I'm having these thoughts of ending my life. That's not good.”
So, what I've learned through that was, the good Lord, And I'm a believer. I'm a very strong believer. The good Lord wanted me to know some things and understand some things that He had been wanting me to understand for a very, very long time, and I was pushing it to the side.
So what were some of those things?
One thing was, “Tony-”, and I scoffed at this at first when I was told this. So I believe in what's called the Holy Spirit. The messenger that the good Lord gave us when he went up in the heavens. And I was given a message that said, “Tony, you need to be the spiritual leader of your family.” And I laughed at that. Because I was never the spiritual leader of my family. Yeah, we went to church, and yeah, I read my kids Bible stories. But I thought, they're not going to listen to me. So that was one thing I was told.
Another thing I was told was you need to rely on me and I'll take care of this. I'm like, “well, I need you to take care of it today because this is bad.”
I know another lesson that you learned that you told me about last week when we had coffee together. You said you scoffed at people who were depressed and I think you said something like “Oh, this is depression. I didn't know the brain could do this.” And so being in that place, did it make you a more empathetic person or what did you learn about life in general, from going through this?
You're right. I used to see people on television that would talk about depression and. And how it was a problem, and how it was affecting their life. And I used to scoff and laugh at them, going, “what is wrong with those people? I never experienced that.” Depression, anxiety, you can't explain to somebody - you can't truly say, “hey, I know how you feel,” if you've never been through it. You can't. It's impossible. My poor wife, she's in the medical field. She was like, “I don't know what's wrong with him. I don't know what I can do for him.” Family members can't do anything, and the doctors don't have a magic pill to fix you. So yes, I scoffed at that. Bad move. Because it's real. It's really real. And I was in a very, very dark place.
And it can happen to anyone at any period of life, because it sounded like it happened to you despite things actually going pretty well in your life.
Everything was going well.
Yes. So it has not necessarily anything to do with that.
No, no. So I went through a journey to experience that. So, I knew what it was like. I knew what it felt like. I knew how when I would go out and walk to try to feel better that my legs felt a hundred thousand pounds. How I didn't want to talk to anybody. How I didn't want to interact. All the things that I was excited about life was gone. My appetite was gone. When you don't have an appetite, you don't enjoy eating. And if I understand this, and of course, you probably know this better than I do, when you eat, the body produces a chemical in the brain and it gives you kind of an euphoria feeling when you eat. When you have this, what I had, what I was going through, the body didn't do that. I didn't want to eat, so I started losing weight, then I couldn't sleep at night, so my body wasn't healing. So it was awful.
Food, both nutrition and rest is really important for healing.
So you've done a little bit of describing what you went through, but this is a show about solutions. Yeah, so what happened?
So I was at my very very bottom and I was laying on the couch one day in the middle of the afternoon and I turned on a Christian radio station and there was a show called It Is Written and there was a gentleman on there being interviewed. His name is Neil Nedley, he's a doctor. He's an endocrinologist out of Oklahoma. And the reason he was being interviewed was that he created a program that would actually help people reverse depression and anxiety. Now keep in mind, I had no hope. Every professional I went to that told me I had some label of some sickness or some whatever, never could tell me, Hey, you're going to get better from this.
Nobody told you you could get better?
No, they would give me medicines that they were told that might help, but they never could tell me, “hey, you're going to get better”. I lost it. I mean, I was like, I was desperate. And I saw this interview and I listened to it and it just so happened that the good Lord put me on that couch that day in that condition and had me turn that particular channel on at the exact time for me to see that interview. So I thought, “wow, there's a program that actually reverses this? Are you kidding me? The world needs to know this.” Because I had done a lot of studies about how many people are affected by depression and anxiety.
So they had a phone number on the screen. Well, what do you think I did? I called that phone number. I talked to a nice lady and she told me that they had a program I could buy and I could do it in my house And it might work. And then she told me that they had a program and they call a residential program that was held in California. Longmire, California. It was a two week program and it was very - it wasn't cheap, let's put it that way. And I would attend there and I would learn how to get better. And I'm like, hmm. And I got to thinking, “you know what, I probably need to go to that residential program because I really want to get better. I don't know what I'm going to learn, but I'm going there with expectations. I'm going to learn something that's going to help me get better.” And I did. I went.
You went and you learned and you got better.
I did. I went. I learned how to eat right. I learned how to exercise. I learned how to put myself in environments that were better for my mind.
Okay. So when you say put yourself in environments that were better for your mind, describe that.
Like, for instance not be in a environment where there was lots of constantly flashing lights or very loud noises. Let the mind heal. Let it rest. Don't trigger those things. He taught that there, if you can imagine, a wheel. Or a circle. And he had it broken out into different sections. And he said, if you have these things, any of these things, that you can attach to yourself as your lifestyle, if you have more than three or four of them, you're probably going to get hit with depression.
He had many, many years of knowledge and expertise that he had put this together. And I started looking at this material and sure enough, I had some of those things. You know, it's caused by a lot of different things, environment, addiction, imbalance, you know, there's all kinds of - trauma. I mean, there's all, all kinds of things.
Yeah, genetics is in there.
Genetics as well.
But anyways, so I go to this program, I stayed two weeks. I learned a lot of very positive things. I'm around 40 people from all over the world in a very nice forestry environment. But I wasn't completely better when I left.
It seems like it takes longer than two weeks to heal.
You would think. I was also on medication. Yeah. And he took me completely off of it. And the physicians here locally said don't ever get off of that medication. I didn't know.
So anyways, I come back. I'm not completely healed, but what the program gave me, the hope that I could get better. And the whole time the good Lord is working on me, teaching me and sharing things with me to be compassionate, to be helpful, to help others, to take my eyes off of myself and to focus on others. Do you know, In the Bible, the Job story?
Yes.
You know, the experts say that was a nine month period that Job went through his problems. About nine months. It wasn't a lifetime of a season. It was just a season. But do you know that when Job started praying for his friends? He got better.
And I thought “wow”, so, you know what I started doing. I started helping anybody and everybody I could on anything. I bought some guy that was homeless a pair of tennis shoes. Whenever I was prompted, I would do something. Now, you're not supposed to scoff while you help somebody, but I'm just saying these are things I just looked to try to do. Yeah. To try to help someone.
Yeah, and then what you're saying is by forcing yourself to think about others instead of thinking of your own problems that was part of your healing process. Kind of like choices that you made that facilitated healing.
I want to express when you were talking about how you found you left there with hope. And so it sounds like that was the foundational thing that I could build off of that made everything else happen. But it sounds like you also came away with a bunch of tools. So it's the hope that allowed you to implement the other things that you learned. Am I understanding that correctly?
Absolutely. Hope and expectation. And yes, I learned how to eat right. And yes, I started exercising more. And yes, I was very intentional about what I was putting, what I was putting in my mind to let it heal. Yes, I was going to bed at an early hour. Yes, I was getting on a rhythm. Yes, I used the blue light at five o'clock in the morning when I was exhausted to get serotonin through my brain. I did all the stuff that they taught me. But, I distracted myself - literally, this is what happened, I distracted myself by getting up every morning and asking the good Lord to give me an opportunity to help somebody with something.
Yeah, and then you were intentional and go out looking for it.
And over time - and it didn't happen overnight. It did not happen overnight, and there were days I was just like - and one of the conditions I dealt with was my eyes were burning so bad, I had a dry eye condition and didn't know it. And I couldn't see. I went from 20/20 vision to all of a sudden blurry vision. I thought I was losing my eyesight and my eyes were burning so bad because they weren't watering properly. And through a series of talking to enough people and finding out conditions and people and what they dealt with, I found out that I could do some things, use some soaps and that kind of thing to clean my eyes and I actually started wearing contacts. I'd never worn contacts, so I could actually see - because I scraped my corneas because of the roughness.
But today, my eyes rarely ever hurt now. I can see, and let me tell you, I am a grateful individual, because by me going through this journey, I did get on the other side. I call it the other side.
Oh, good. Good. That's why I was so wanting to lead the conversation, so thank you for that.
The other side. But the journey I went through, this is what I learned. That was my test, and now it's become my testimony.
Oh, okay. That's beautiful.
Our tests in life, I've learned, become our testimonial. Testimony to share with other people. And do you know, since then, I have met people I never met in my entire life that will come up off the street in a restaurant and start talking to me about, they're either dealing with depression, anxiety, they have a loved one that's dealing with depression and anxiety, and I'm like, “Where did these people come from?”
And my job, or my obedience that I've learned because of the good Lord is to share what I went through. This is what I've also learned. When we go through something, we don't hoard it. We share it. That's why it was given to us in the first place. He wants us not to hoard things, you know, the whole giving concept. That's what it's all about.
So, somehow you found purpose in giving and being a generous person. And that's kind of where we started this interview. I think we met and talked about business and I was thinking about office products for our clinic. But then you also, in your generosity, were saying, “okay, you're offering health care and I know some people and how can I help you?” I remember those were your words. “How can I help you?”
So now, you're using all this pain that you went through. It's permeating your life that you want to be generous. You, you're a very giving, generous, helpful person in every aspect of this business and in every aspect of your life. Then also you're wanting to - right now you people are opening up to you and so you're, you're helping people, but you have some plans to do this on a larger scale.
Yes, I do. And I'm excited about it. My wife is in the medical field and she worked with a lady that we got to know very well and her husband and her little boy. She was a nurse manager. Beautiful lady. Beautiful lady, beautiful family, and apparently she got hit with depression too. And I found out about it, and I felt so drawn that I needed to reach out and at least extend my hand and maybe share my story. And I attempted to do that, I contacted her many different times, and I almost got that going with her. And then she committed suicide. And I thought, you know, I went through a program that gave me hope and I'm fortunate and other people need to know about this program that I went through, But I need to know where maybe those resources are where they could find out about it. So I started looking up the organization that I actually contacted many
Why don't you say the name of this organization because then people can find it.
Nedley Health. Nedley Health is the organization that puts this program on as well, and they still do the resident programs in Longmire, California as well. But they also have an in-home program. They call it a community residential program. And I contacted them and said, “hey, listen, I'm a graduate of your program.” We did stuff. We do stuff called hydrotherapy. I don't know if you know what that is, Ruth, but that's interesting.
So why don't you say what hydrotherapy is?
So they put us in a hot tub, nice, warm, hot water. Oh man, it felt so good. They'd get us all heated up and then they'd have us jump out and get into an ice bath for two minutes. Oh my gosh. That took my breath away.
It's like the ancient Scandinavians. Using sauna and then rolling in the snow and then back in the sauna.
I mean, two weeks solid. We did that twice a day. But it's proven, through studies, even pro athletes do it to where it accelerates healing.
So anyways, we did that type of stuff too. But anyways, I found out that I could become a director. I have to do 16 hours worth of training and I'm in the process of doing that right now. Once that's done, I am gonna be able to legitimately bring that residential program.
So the residential program, is it kind of like a support group?
It's a class. It's an eight week course that people can sign up for. They have materials. They have resources. And they can learn the same things and do the same things that I did in Longmire, California. And the statistics that back this up are off the chart for recovery. And I am blown away that this opportunity has popped up. So I called the company and they go, “hey, since you're a graduate, we have a special that you can get involved because you went through the program and you did this and did that. And we want you to have it in Lubbock, Texas or whatever community is open to it.” And I said, “okay.” So I went ahead and got it sent to me and now we're in the process of getting set up so we can bring it to the local community, and this is my way of giving back because it was my test, I passed the test, and now it becomes my testimony.
Yeah, it's kind of a similar thing to what we're doing here. We're helping people with Upper Cervical care because I was sick and that's what was helping us. And we, we just wanted to make it more available to people and my husband is providing the care and I'm providing the awareness I guess through this program here.
That's exciting. That's so exciting.
So when are you thinking that you are going to start this program here?
I hope to have the classification or the directorship done in the next couple of months. All right.
And then you need a location or?
Yeah, I have talked to a couple of people that have some churches and I've asked them if they would be willing to not necessarily host it, but at least give us a place to hold it. And there's a couple of places here in town that are very open. I will tell you this, that once we start this at some location, there are going to be a lot of people that are going to find out about this. I promise you, I was in a desperate, desperate, desperate mode in my journey. And I would have done, I would have spent whatever I would have needed to spend to figure out how to get out. And you know what's interesting? The healing, ultimately, came from the good Lord.
One thing that actually is a little bit puzzling with, or maybe not puzzling, but seems a little unusual to me about your story of being so severely depressed that despite being so dark in such a dark place, you still had the drive to get better, where I think one of the really insidious parts about depression is that it kills your drive.
Oh, it did. It was awful.
But you still had the drive to help.
Well, here's what I also learned. And this is credit to the good Lord. I learned in the program, I learned this. Dr. Nedley, and I got to know him real well. He's a great guy. And he's got a video out, there's like a 25 minute video he puts out on the program. That I actually have a copy of that could be sent out. People could maybe get access to that.
Okay, you share the link with me and I'll post it in the show notes.
It's an awesome video. It really is.
I'll post a link to it.
But he says, Don't ever say you can't handle what you're going through.
Because the good Lord never puts more on you than you can handle. Never. And there were times where I was like, “oh man, Lord, I think you made a mistake. I think you put too much on me.” Because it was hard. It was the hardest thing I'd ever experienced. But now it's time for me to give back. And since then, my sister called me. Months and months, two or three years ago, and said that she had been diagnosed with, and I was much better than, diagnosed with breast cancer. I went immediately to prayer and I said, “Lord, I need my sister to have your healing hand on her and I know she's going to be going through a whole process, but I need to know and be sure that she's going to be okay. Please let me know.” And I called her up and I said, “Tracy, I know the diagnosis you got.” And I said, “I know you're scared right now and I know you're going to go through a lot of process and treatments. You don't know what's going to happen and you, the unknown.” But I said, “I'm telling you here right now, okay, you're going to get on the other side. And when you do, he's going to want you to tell everybody how good he was to you.” And you know what? That's exactly what happened. She started a podcast. She started a blog. I mean, she started talking to women's groups.
Okay. Why don't you give us her name and then we'll link to her information as well.
Yeah.
Tracy Castella. And she's got a blog out there. It's called Tracy's journey. And she documented all the stuff that she had gone through and she still has people going to that all the time. And it's helped an immense number of people.
So that's another way that in the short amount of time I've known you, it's what I've seen you do; just whatever resources that somebody might need, you just share it freely. So that's really beautiful. That's what you do in business here in Lubbock with office products. So if people need office products, they need help with depression and anxiety and they want to talk to you about that or they need something else. How do people get ahold of you?
I've got an email address. I've got a phone number. And I'd be glad to talk to anybody that I could help. My email address is tmartin@ascendantofficesolutions.com. And my phone number is (806) 438-6530.
I will post your contact information in the show notes.
Sounds good.
Tony, before we wrap up, is there anything else important that I have missed to ask you that you would like to share.
But I do want to get all the credit to the good Lord for the healing. I've learned that doctors are incredibly important and they give us treatments, they give us, they help us heal faster sometimes with what they have available to them. But here's what I do know, Lord has the final say and he says he will restore health on upon me and you, if we believe it. And I always go back to my favorite scripture and it's Mark 11:24. And it says, if we go to him, he promises to hear us. He promises to do what we ask him. If we believe it has taken place at the time that we ask, and then we just got to keep thanking him for it. And he may not do it right then. He may not do it for 10 years, but you keep believing. And keep thanking him for it, and it'll come to pass.
You know, thank you for sharing that. It's been a theme throughout the majority of my episodes, and I don't think you've listened to any of them. But the theme has been, there's always hope, and when you don't give up hope, there'll be a solution.
Amen.