“You have cancer.”
My wife and I heard those dreaded words 1 year ago this month after she discovered a lump on her breast. Her persistence, willingness to trust her gut and swift action are why she is alive today. Her mammogram came back clear, but she pushed for more tests…something just didn’t feel right. The biopsy she advocated for last June brought us those dreadful words on June 26th. After a year of abruptly relocating back to California from living abroad, transitioning our children back into the US school system, hoping for a milder form of breast cancer only to discover she had hit the jackpot on one of the most aggressive types around, and watching the love of my life and mother of our children lose her hair, undergo chemo, lose her strength, barely be able to get out of bed during certain patches, I stand here grounded in gratitude.
Today, Lisa is Cancer free.
The journey has been wrought with many tears, presence, faith, love, great people, resiliency and lessons that can last a lifetime. The year has brought deep transformation to us individually and to us as a family. My children are stronger and more resilient than I could have ever imagined. My wife is a beacon of excellence, unwavering determination, love and strength that have grown me into a better human being. One year later, I am here today as a deeply transformed human being. While walking this path, I have refrained from sharing any of the story here on LinkedIn, but as we approach the year, I felt compelled to share some of the nuggets that have carried me along the way that just may lift or shift a perspective for whoever needs to read this or hear this today. I share this as I have personally learned that many of these nuggets that came from a journey that I wish on nobody can benefit somebody in life, career and business.
I may write a little series on this as the insights keep pouring out and many have found them incredibly insightful for life in business and the business of life. I invite you to be the judge and share any nuggets. Please let me know in the comments as well if more of this will be beneficial for any of you, and anything that resonates for you. I am following my wife’s lead which was really simple: she shared her story and journey publicly over the past year because she felt if it could help one person to get a screening that they had been putting off…it would be worth it.
I will share 3 nuggets of many that carried me over the past year.
1.) Find Joy in the Journey: Those words were uttered to me by my friend and 34 Strong, Inc. co-founder Brandon Millerthe day I shared the news with him. That reminder has carried me daily over the past year. Despite how hard the road was over the past year…Hope is a path…and keeping it even on the darkest of days allowed me to still see joy in life. Hope allowed me to smile and make my wife and children laugh when it felt like we should be crawling into a cave. In our work life…no matter how challenging the road is…never stop looking for joy or thinking of ways you can create it for others. Bringing joy to others in my darkest personal journey brought joy back to my home when it was needed most.
2.) Play to your Strengths: Really honing in on what I could do well in the supporting spouse role was critical early in the process. It created clarity for me to transform and perform for my family in the ways that I needed to AND in my role as COO at 34 Strong. It allowed me to accept where ,my own gaps are and would be and where those complementary partnerships for support and help would be needed. It allowed me to LET GO and let in. My journey created leadership growth opportunities for others. Playing to our strengths is also about acknowledging our gap areas. It helped me let go of the small things. In so doing I could see where help was needed and more importantly ACCEPT it. I don’t know about you, but for me sometimes accepting help can be difficult. Accepting help from others in a challenging time is a chance to allow others to share their gifts. If you are like me, I imagine that it feels good when asked for help and when you can help. That is a gift we can deprive others of when we don’t accept it. ON this journey I HAD to accept the help. It was humbling, it was growing, it was empowering to me and others.
3.) Take it one day at a time:Worrying about tomorrow does not remove the problems of tomorrow, but drains us of our strengths today. This became our family motto. Long term planning at times felt like a few hours into the future depending on how my wife was feeling and what her symptoms may be for the day. Winston Churchill said: “When you are going through Hell, keep on going!” As we walked through the most challenging of days, all we knew was take it one day at a time, one step at a time, and focus on being present. This mindset helped remind us as a family and me personally each day: We are human beings, NOT human doings. Being present, and taking the time to sit in my own thoughts and feelings daily gave me the opportunity to experience them and work through them, as I am continuing to do. It allowed me personally to remove the cloak of false resilience, putting on a good exterior show, while crumbling on the inside. Interestingly enough in so doing, it created a path toward me being far more resilient in reality. This process allowed me to transform on a daily basis so I could perform on a daily basis. It was an atomic Habit that I had to build for the season I was entering.
If you have made it to here…I thank you. Chat GPT did not write this, and won’t be writing any of the future shares that I have on this topic moving forward. If something resonated here and you believe that more nuggets would be beneficial, please drop a “share more,” in the comments section. Thank you for reading along!
