Passion Struck with John R. Miles - 6-Time Cancer Survivor Bill Potts on How to Beat Cancer by Being Your Own Best Advocate EP 264

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

Being diagnosed with cancer can be a daunting and life-altering experience for many individuals. Today, I'm interviewing my friend Bill Potts, who has been battling cancer for the past two decades. In his latest book, "Up for the Fight," he shares all the valuable lessons he has learned and highlights the importance of self-advocacy for those fighting cancer. In This Episode, Bill Potts And I Discuss His Book "Up For the Fight." In our interview, Bill Potts shares his personal cancer story and those of others, outlining everything you need to know to take on this fight. With empathy and honesty, Potts explains precisely what to expect and shares lessons and essential tips you can put into action from diagnosis, and treatment, to remission to cure--and how to face setbacks on your road to recovery. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/bill-potts-beat-cancer-be-your-own-best-advocate/  Want to learn more about fighting pancreatic cancer treatment? Brought to you by Green Chef. Use code passionstruck60 to get $60 off, plus free shipping!” Brought to you by Indeed. Head to https://www.indeed.com/passionstruck, where you can receive a $75 credit to attract, interview, and hire in one place. --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Prefer to watch this interview: https://youtu.be/BsBoiLdbdVw  --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Want to hear my best interviews from 2022? Check out episode 233 on intentional greatness and episode 234 on intentional behavior change. ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m  Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/ 

Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast. To help ground yourself, you need to make sure that you own your own journey. There's nothing like reducing some of the anxiety and the stress is to take charge of it yourself. A lot of people think that the cancer journey is owned by the medical care team, but it's really owned by you. And so once you decide that it's my journey, I'm going to own it. It changes your perspective and so that you can come up with them with your plan, but it helps so much in the mental aspect of grounding yourself

because now it's mine, not anybody else's. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guest ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators,

scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 264 of PassionStruck. Recently ranked by Feedspot is one of the 50 most inspirational podcasts of 2022. And thank you to each and every one of you

who come back weekly to listen and learn, how to live better, be better, and impact the world. And if you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here or you simply wanna introduce this to a friend or family member, we now have episode stutter packs, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that we organize into convenient topics to give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Just go to passionstruck.com slash stutterpacks were Spotify to get started.

And in case you missed it, earlier this week I interviewed Fighter Pilot and retired Air Force Colonel Kim Campbell, and we launched her brand new book, Flying in the Face of Fear, Lessons Unleading with Courage. I also wanted to say thank you so much to the community for your continued support of the show and your ratings and reviews which go such a long way and helping increase the popularity, but more importantly bringing more people into this ever-expanding community where we can give them weekly doses of inspiration, hope, connection, and meaning. And I know our guests also appreciate seeing your reviews and hearing your comments about

the episodes. Now let's talk about today's episode. Every year, 18 million people worldwide are diagnosed with cancer. If you or loved one is one of them, you know exactly how overwhelming, scary, and confusing it is to navigate this journey through diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and all their accompanying emotions. Entrepreneur, business leader, Ironman Triathlete, and six-time cancer survivor Bill C. Potts has waged a 20-year battle against the disease. In today's episode, we will discuss his book Up for the Fight, how to advocate for yourself as you battle cancer. In our interview, Bill shares his personal cancer story and those of others,

outlining everything that you need to know, take up this fight, with empathy and honesty. Fox explains exactly what to expect and shares lessons and important tips that you can put into action all the way from diagnosis, to treatment, to remission, to cure, and how to face setbacks on your road to recovery. You'll learn how to advocate for yourself, how to pick and manage your care team, and how to care for yourself emotionally and mentally. You'll find out how to make your treatment days

more comfortable, manage side effects, and understand test results. You'll also find important information on diet, exercise, wellness, and staying active, as well as insights on how treatment and disease affect your immune system. I also want to bring to your attention another episode we did, episode 225 on pancreatic cancer with Dr. Michael Pishvin. It's another great resource if you or your loved one is suffering. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin.

I am so excited today to welcome Bill Potts to the PassionStruck podcast. Welcome, Bill. Oh, John, thank you for having me on your great tip podcast. Throughout today's interview, we're gonna be discussing your book up for the fight, which I have right here in front of me. We'll make sure we put it on YouTube in a bigger way. But before I get into the book, I'd like to allow the listeners to get to know the interview we a little bit better.

And a question I like to ask is, we all have moments that define who we become down the line. You have had a long career in marketing. What are some of the things that led you there maybe either purposefully or unpurposefully that have created this career that you've had? Yeah, thank you, John. That's a great question.

My career has really been a zigzag career. That's not been linear at all. I started off working for the world's largest corporation at the time, which was Exxon. I always had a passion for an interest in marketing, but after six years there, I think the thing that's defined my career is the desire to always learn something new

and the desire to work in new industries. And so the best thing I've done is being open-minded to opportunities when they've come to me. So I've worked for the world's largest company. I've also worked for the world's smallest company, a startup software company that started with no revenue. So I've had a wide range of opportunities in my career literally by just wanting to learn new things. I wound up at Iron Man Triathlon back when it was very small. And this was an industry I didn't know much about, but was fortunate enough to be part of the team

that really ramped that business up and winded up selling it. But that was really, really started the purpose driven type work that has taken me on the next leg of my career. And what I liked about Ironman is that I define that, yes, it's a swim, a bike, and a run. But what Ironman really is in the dream fulfillment business is showing that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

So I traveled all over the world and I would be watching these athletes finishing between nine and midnight, they've started at 7 a.m. and it was a thrill that I just couldn't believe that regular people could do something so special if they applied their minds to it. Then I wound up in the nonprofit world, the Clearwater Rhenocquarie, I made famous by the Dolphin Tail movies And what that really was about rescue rehab release of marine life, but the next level of it was, which was so inspiring to me, which is how the story of winter, the dolphin impacted both kids

and adults alike through their struggles. If winter can, I can, and the countless days, I spent time with kids and adults missing limbs, cancer patients that were inspired by winter the dolphin, it was like drinking from a fire hose every day, watching these people be impacted by an animal. It was remarkable. Yes, well, I have been close to an aquarium myself

because my mother was the second employee at the Tennessee aquarium and spent more than two decades there, completely different mission than the clear water marine aquarium, but nevertheless inspired countless tens of thousands of people of all ages over her time there. I did want to go back to Iron Man for a second. You mentioned one lesson that you learned from it, but I thought there might be more life lessons that you learned, not only from being a part of the group, but yourself being an Iron Man triathlete. Yeah, that's true. I think there are a lot of lessons that I learned. I learned that you can accomplish great things one step at a time. So when I was racing Iron Man Texas and I'd done the swim, 2.4 mile swim, I'd done a bike ride, 112 mile bike ride, and I came in to do the marathon.

In an afternoon, when the heat index was over a hundred degrees in a friend of mine saw me in the changing tent and said, Hey, Bill, are you going to be able to finish this race? And I said, Yes, I have a plan. I'm going to run one mile at a time to each age station 26 times. And that's how I'm going to finish this race. And that is kind of how I live my life, which you can set small steps to achieve big goals. I've learned through Ironman how to tune out pain. I tore a ligament about three months before Ironman, Texas, and I had to figure out how to train with a bootcast on. And then I had to do a race where I still was feeling a lot of pain in my foot. I've learned on the nutrition side how important

it is to keep your body healthy for these big events. I've learned on the nutrition side how important it is to keep your body healthy for these big events. I've learned the importance of rest, big mistakes that a lot of endurance athletes makes is that they don't know when to stop and when to rest. I've learned that and that's become very helpful in the rest of my life in particular with the cancer journey. I've learned how through Iron Man, how my efforts can inspire others. And so it's not just me crossing the finish line. It's the team that's helped me get there that's inspired the people watching that are inspired across the finish line. I have learned the importance of team. You can't do any big thing in life

without surrounding yourself with people that support those goals. So you're right. What I've learned from Ironman, I take with me forever. It also gives me a confidence and a swagger that if I can do that in particular Iron Man Texas coming off that pretty serious injury, then I can tackle anything in life. And that kind of swaggering confidence really has been beneficial for me. Yes, and I think many of those things are also things that in one way or another, you touch on in the book, which I'm going to jump to now. And you start out the book by discussing a very painful surgery that you had in September of 2020. When a tumor was removed in your groin and for the audience at this point, this was your fifth bout with having cancer when this occurred if I understand correctly. But being this was your fight with cancer, you reached a point where you felt like you were no longer up for the fight. And I was hoping that you could lead off by talking about what happened at that moment, because I'm sure if a listener has cancer,

this might be something that they felt themselves, depending on what stage, et cetera they're at in their fight. But then something miraculous happened afterwards that led you to ultimately write this book. So I was hoping you could give the backdrop of that and what you hope a reader or listener who picks up the book or is listening today would get from it. Yeah, September 17, 2020 did have a big tumor removed up at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.

And this is during the pandemic, so I was alone. My wife couldn't be there with me in the recovery room. I woke up from that surgery, which took about an hour, and I woke up, and I was having an emotional breakdown and not like tears running down my face, but full-fledged. She saw a bing, and the nurse that was with me in the recovery room. I had my private room reached over, and she held my my hand and she said, Bill, what's wrong? And I kind of stumbled out. I'm not sure I'm up for the experience that I had fighting cancer and I knew what was coming and At that moment I thought I've had a great life. I've accomplished a lot of things. Maybe I'm not up for it anymore and so

She started talking to me and she called the pastor in who had been with me before the surgery who I didn't remember that was in the room. And we started talking through my life and my journey, all the things that I've done, the things I'm proud of. And we started kind of coalescing around the idea of the reasons why I should continue to fight. And so I had a very special moment with her as to why she was with me and why she was a pastor at Mayo Clinic. She'd had her own issue with a family member with cancer and she kind of shared that with me. And at the end of this hour conversation, this is my conclusion. As I needed to continue to fight. Number one, I needed to fight for my family. I needed to fight for my friends.

I needed to fight for others to show the example that no matter what you continue to fight, that you never give up, no matter how hard it gets, you have to continue to fight. And I needed to fight to make God proud. I needed to give it my all and so at the end of that hour conversation I was up for the fight. The name of the book came out of that conversation and she looks at me and she goes Bill you need to turn your pain into purpose and write a book to help others. I said okay what, what's easy to say, okay, but writing a book is

it's a major effort and I had to find a publisher who I sent the one page summary and they call me and they said, we're in. We believe in this mission. We believe what you're trying to do. We believe that this book can help other people so we're in. And so that was really the genesis of how the book was written, but it really was a change in my perspective, a true miracle, and my mind on my willingness and desire to fight. Yes, and if the audience doesn't realize how prevalent cancer is, I believe it impacts 18 million people per year. And at least in the United States, the three leading causes of death from cancer are colon cancer, lung cancer, and pancreatic cancer. Why does cancer impact everyone in such a unique and individual way?

Yeah, it's 1.8 million people in the US each year diagnosed with cancer. It's a big number. But the number really impacted by cancer is a multiple of that because everybody of those 1.8 million is their friends and family that are going to be impacted by it as well. But each person has their own unique journey with cancer. It depends not only on their age and their health condition and the type of cancer, but also their physical strength going into it. They're emotional, they're mental strength, their faith, all those weave into what that experience is for cancer patients. There's really a few different types in my mind. There's the deniers and I've seen those that these are folks that just say I don't

have it. That's one far end of the bell curve on the other end of the bell curve or the definers. These are people that cancer defines who they are and that's who they become and it has some friends that it's what who they are. They're the cancer survivor. Then there's everybody else in the middle, which is a pragmatist, which is where I sit, which is, yeah, cancer is a big part of my life, but it's not my life. And I'm gonna do everything I can to beat it, but this is not gonna define who I am.

Ironically, now that I wrote this book, it becomes more of a defining piece than I ever intended, but that's a trade-off for helping others. Yeah, so I'm gonna to kind of just go through the book, because I think it was a logical way to do this interview. So receiving a cancer diagnosis can be life altering and in addition to that an extremely scary moment. Can you tell the audience what was going through your head when you got your diagnosis and some of the things that you were thinking about? First of all, it's numbing.

It becomes really hard to think. It's like you're in a twilight zone. So normal thoughts become challenging, listening becomes challenging when the doctor tells you that I can't. I've been told seven times. Sixth, we're right, one was wrong. So I have a lot of experience there. Your head is swimming. You're scared. You don't know what to do.

You want everything to move faster than it can possibly move. Now the most important thing becomes of that patient. I've got to move this thing along. And there are cancers where it does have to move along. It's a speed of light. But most, you can have a week or two or three to kind of get your head together. What I have learned not to do, though most you can have a week or two or three to kind of get your head together.

What I have learned not to do though is to overreact. And this is just through experience and watching others because they're not always right on the initial diagnosis. And even though the additional diagnosis will tell you have cancer, there's a lot that has to happen before you know what the path is going to beaging, the type, the predictor subtype, the grade, all these things become pretty important. So what I have learned and what I have eyes folks to do

when they are given the diagnosis of cancer is to kind of hit the pause clause. So take a deep breath, start getting your wits together. Don't tell a lot of people. Don't post about it on social media, because you're experiencing so much emotionally that you've got to kind of get your head around your own emotions before you start having to deal with other emotions.

And once you tell somebody you have cancer, you've got two things to deal with. You've got them, and then you've got you on the emotion side. So the pragmatic approach is to pause and then quickly start identifying what is your game plan going to be on the cancer. Where do I go next? Where do I go to get a second opinion? But all that in the moment, it's hard and that's what the book is meant to do is to kind of guide you through what to do because It's a challenge to be able to think clearly and make great decisions when you're under that amount of stress given a cancer diagnosis And I was gonna follow that up. I mean you just referred to it, but why is it so important to seek a second opinion? Yeah, I made that mistake. The reason I've had cancer so many times is because early on in my journey 2002, my first cancer, which was thyroid cancer,

I listened to the doctor, had my thyroid taken out completely and went through radiation ablation treatment, which I got out of the hospital when I was measured by a gygric counter, that I was safe enough to leave, though I wasn't safe enough to be around people. So I had to live by myself for a couple weeks till that went down. But then I went back to those same doctors and they told me less than a year later that my cancer was back and they wanted me to go through

another round of radiation ablation treatment. And this radiation is the same radiation, John, that was released by Chernobyl. I died in 131. At that point, I called the timeout. I'm like, what am I doing? And so, at that point, I reached out for a second opinion, which was MD Anderson in Houston. And they're like, oh, no, your cancer is not back. You don't need a second round of radiation treatment. We're not sure we would have done the first round, but you can't take it back. So at that point, I realized that second opinions

can be a difference between life and death because if I had that second round of radiation treatment, I'm not sure we'd be having this conversation. The initial radiation treatment is potentially what has given me my lymphoma, which is four times, and I also currently have prostate cancer. I'm thankful that I got a second opinion. Well, and I'll just give a great example of my sister's cancer.

She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was originally being treated at the University of Texas Austin, but went down to MD Anderson. And the difference in how each of the hospitals worked was pretty startling because UT Austin works from an MRI, MD Anderson works from a CT. And the CT exam, when it was done on her, three, four weeks later, showed that she had gone from stage one to stage four B, and it had spread to her liver. But at that point, we ended up going to Johns Hopkins

to Dr. Michael Pishvian to have him look at it. I had a couple other radiologist friends of mine look at her scans who said this is really inconclusive. And so then UT rescan, they did not show anything on the MRI. Ironically, MD Anderson wouldn't accept the test. So they had to go in and do a biopsy which showed that there was no spread for the liver.

And then she was able to do the whipple surgery which at that point had saved her life. Both are good cautionary tales of why you need to get more people involved in this and to seek the second opinions. So you receive this diagnosis, and I'm not sure it matters if it's your first diagnosis or your fifth or your sixth.

Each time I'm sure it's hitting you emotionally. But what would be your biggest tip for how do you ground yourself at the start of a cancer journey? It's a great question. First of all, to help ground yourself, you need to make sure that you own your own journey. There's nothing like reducing some of the anxiety and the stress is to take charge of it yourself. A lot of people think that the cancer journey is owned by the medical care team, but it's really owned by you. And so once you decide that it's my journey, I'm going to own it. It changes your perspective and so that you can come up with them with your plan, but it helps so much in the mental aspect

of grounding yourself because now it's mine, not anybody else's. And I think this is analogous to a lot of things in life, but in particular for cancer patients. For me, faith has been an important part of grounding myself, for me, surrounding myself with the right group to support me becomes very important.

It's pretty common in the cancer world and you may have seen it firsthand, but a lot of people disappear on you. When you're diagnosed with cancer, right or wrong, they can't handle it. So most cancer patients have people that just disappear from their lives, but the ones that lean into you become super important. Also helps me to be grounded is to remember every day why I'm fighting so hard, every day I wake up and I remind myself this is why I'm fighting family friends make God that really helps ground me as well. Yeah, did you ever use anything such as meditation or

visioning? Obviously you're using affirmations. Yeah, visioning for sure. So I was taught actually at MD Anderson how to do visualization techniques in the visioning piece, which is, which has been really helpful for my mental and emotional state. I do a lot of deep breathing. I try to connect myself with the environment every day. I call it vitamin D, at least sit in the sun, take my shoes off, feel the earth. I'm lucky enough to live in St. Petersburg, Florida, so I can go down the street and sit at the water. All those are really calming for me. I'm making sure I'm staying hydrated, all those things that you know that you talk about on your show become super important for a cancer patient. Yes, and I want to jump back to how do you share this with others because I think it's something that's extremely important. I don't want to brush over the answer you gave before. In the book, you suggest that one of the most important things that you can do is to pause and be deliberate. Once you go through that step of pausing

and being deliberate, and as you said, not sharing this on social media and not being in a rush to get the word out because of how it could affect you emotionally, what is then your advice for first? How do you communicate this with children? If you have them, how do you communicate this with extended family?

And then how do you put the word out to friends? Yeah, it's a complicated one especially on the family side, particularly based upon the age of the kids. So early in my journey, 2002, my kids are young, literally toddlers. And so there really wasn't much to say to them that they would understand as I progressed in the journey Cancer 1 20 2002 cancer 2 2008 cancer 3 2014 They're getting a little bit older really wasn't until cancer 4 2019 That I really started sharing more with the kids because they would understand it. I was always honest with them Here's what I'm doing But I was never really giving them any detail

about how I felt. They just assumed their dad's their dad. He's gonna beat it. But once they got to the age and their teenage years, where they can understand it, then we had the more serious conversations. They understood what I was going through. They understood the risks.

They understood how it was impacting me. They understood how to manage me. In a way, when I'd come home from these treatments, they understood how he's gonna be the day before. There's understand how he's gonna be when I flew home or drove home in my latest round. So from the kids perspective, it really depends on their ability to process what you're doing and handle emotionally. For the kids side, it was important for us to get them some support, friends, family, or professional support through therapy to kind of help them be able to share with somebody not in their family,

what their concerns are, so they can take them through it and help them feel better. So that was critical for the other family and particular brother or sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles. I would wait until I actually had the game plan. And once I had the game plan, I would call them

and say, hey, here's what's going on. And a nice calm voice without too much emotion and say, here's the game plan. Here's what I'm going through. And invariably they say, hey, what can I do for you? And the answer was just stay in touch, check in with me. And that's the way I handled that. For the extended community, it wasn't until this last cancer that I even shared it with the extended community.

And I or man would work Monday through Thursday. I'd fly to Houston on Friday. I'd fly back on Sunday evening and I'd be in work on Monday and nobody knew. I was traveling to events around the world. I was carrying my medication. I was injecting myself with one of the drugs and I would carry it with me where I was, nobody knew.

And so only recently have I become comfortable sharing it with the broader community because I didn't want to deal with the broader community about my cancer, I wanted to keep it private. And I respect people that do that. Well, in chapter four, which I thought was one of the most important chapters of the book, you reveal your biggest cancer lesson. But I don't think it's a lesson just about cancer. I think it's a lesson about any medical journey that you're on. Can you tell the audience what your biggest lesson is and why it's so important?

Yeah, I mean owning your own journey. Yeah, it's yours. You own it. Your life depends on it. So you have to advocate for yourself. You have to be your own cheerleader. You have to be getting second opinions. You have to be going to appointments,

taking good notes. You have to have a buddy with you to support you, these appointments. You have to rest when you need to rest. You have to have a better diet. You have to ask the questions. You have to understand what drugs you're taking, what their side effects are going to be. You even need an understand where they're coming from, how they're made. My initial drug I got from Genentech, I didn't understand that it was made from hamster embryos, well, I'm allergic to hamsters. So you can imagine how that one went. So that level of detail is pretty critical to know. And that is the only one thing that people take away from this podcast is whether it's cancer or anything else, it's you that have to own the journey. Yeah, I liken it to be,

you have to be your own general contractor of your health, right? Great way to describe it. Because I have talked to so many doctors on this program, but myself, when I entered the VA system, I got to meet with one of my favorite doctors and the biggest piece of advice he said in navigating the VA is exactly what you said. You have to be your own best advocate because

I think what happens and it's the same thing that happens with cancer treatment is everything is protocol based and unfortunately the different teams tend not to talk with one each other. It's all handled in the silos, but there are other aspects of this, such as the impacts to your mental health, the impacts to the diet or how you wanna change your diet and other things. And so I think you get pieces from these other sectors, but you've gotta take charge and figure out

what it is you need the best support you and give you that men and winning mindset that's going to take you forward. Yeah, I think your point on diet makes a lot of sense. I hired a nutritionist to help me through my last round of chemo because I'm like, I need some help on these side effects and this is I'm advocating for myself. I'm paying somebody to do this. Now I'm working with my health insurance company with a dietitian to try to boost my immune system because I don't really have much of an immune system because of the chemotherapy still. So we're working on a way to improve that. So you're right on the money. And on the same lines of advocating for yourself, one of the most important things you have to do is pick a care team, and there's that aspect of picking them, but there's also the aspect of having to manage them. So what would be your advice to the audience on how you do both of those things?

Yeah, picking them is one of the most important decisions that you make in your journey. And so you really have to do your homework. I like and I recommend high volume cancer centers, only because those high volume cancer centers see a lot of your particular type of cancer. It's particularly if you have a rare cancer, the high volume cancer centers will deal with those. My particular doctor, MD Anderson, C's, has got to be the top three or four doctors

in the world for my particular type of lymphoma, which there's somewhere over 60 types. And so that high volume piece can work really well for you. The high volume cancer centers also have a lot of other support, which includes social workers, the example on the visioning, the advice I got down in Houston, they can help you on travel. They're kind of fully loaded. They cover the full gamut of needs that a patient may have. So, picking that is super critical. It also means that you have to do your homework

and you probably need to meet with them to make sure that there's some good connection. I'm fortunate that I'm able to build relationships with my care team quite effectively through that model. So, once you pick my care team quite effectively through that model. So once you pick the care team, then you have to get yourself your head around the rest of the journey,

which is a lot of what we've already talked about. It's putting together the game plan and then executing it. So when you talk about having this care team, how much of the care team, if you go to one of these high volume centers is given to you and how much can you be selective and who encompasses the care? They kind of selected for you.

So, I didn't get to pick my doctor, but based upon my particular type of cancer, they picked him for me, and the high volume cancer centers have those specialists So I was completely confident both at MD Anderson at Mayo and who they picked because they picked the experts in my particular type And I know in the case of pancreatic cancer. They have a great organization and nonprofit called Pancan or any of the cancers that You have had to have you had a similar organization that is there to be an advocate. And what would your recommendation be to the audience on that? Yeah, each cancer has their own groups.

I've been lucky enough that the leukemia and phoma society has been a big resource for me. So when you're diagnosed with cancer, a lot of times you just want to Google it. Well, that can be challenging because you don't know where the source of the information is as come as it's being fed to you from Google. So what I recommend is that when you're diagnosed a pain can's great for anacratic cancer, there's prostate cancer organizations. My Loma Research Foundation I've worked with, but Leukemonum Phonomac Society, particularly for me, provided some financial help early in my journey when I was flying to Houston all the time.

But most importantly, they provided me information to help me understand my cancer better. That was already vetted, right? You're not gonna get from a Google search. I could work with Lou Kimmel and Phomeo Society because of my immunocompromised state related to the COVID pandemic. So they put me in a John Hopkins study

to measure my antibodies, to see what my reaction would be to the COVID vaccines. So they put me in a John Hopkins study to measure my antibodies, to see what my reaction would be to the COVID vaccines, which unfortunately wasn't was none, but they studied all this. And I even have a nurse practitioner that I can ask questions to at the leukemia, lymphoma society when I have questions about my health. Okay, I think that's some great advice. So the other thing I wanted to do was ask you a series of questions about different aspects of treatment. The first one is I know a lot of people think the whole area of clinical trials is a gray one because a lot of people don't know where are the clinical trials, what are the

best locations for them, how do you find the clinical trials that might be treating the biomarkers for the cancer that you have, etc? Is there any advice or insight that you have on that topic? Yeah, first of all, if you've got a high volume cancer center, they'll know. So, as an example, 2008 diagnosed with stage treatment in Phalma, they prescribed a treatment called R-Chop. And I told them, no. And they're like, what do you mean, no? I was like, I don't want to get R-Chop. They're like, why? I said, I don't want to lose my hair. They're like, you're kidding. You're going to turn down your chemotherapy treatment because you don't want to lose your hair. I'm like, yes, I need to continue to work. I'm in sales and marketing. I'm traveling around,

and I don't want to lose my hair. And then they smiled and I like, okay, give us some time. I almost missed my flight back to Tampa and they spent a couple hours, and they weren't upset with me for challenging them. They were actually happy. So they came back and said, hey, we got a trial. You probably never heard of it before.

It's called the immunotherapy. And so I'm like, okay. And in 2008, never heard of it before. It's called immunotherapy. And so I'm like, okay, and in 2008, nobody heard of immunotherapy. Look, it might work. We're not really sure, but if it does, you don't lose your hair. And if it doesn't work, then you'll do our job. I'm like, Buiya. So number one, ask. Number two, there's resources out there, American Cancer Society, also cancer.gov. There's resources out there that can help guide you to trials if you need to, but the best solution is to ask your care team. Okay, and I was gonna actually go into it

immunotherapy next because it's one of the largest breakthroughs that they've had in recent years for treating many different cancers. Unfortunately, pancreatic cancer is not one of them. It's hoping you can describe what it is and how it ends up working. Yeah, it's a little deceptive. There's chemotherapy, immunotherapy,

radiation treatment, a lot of different types. Immunotherapy is harnessing your body's immune system to fight the cancer. So in my particular type of immunotherapy that I've had, the best example that I can give, and this was drawn out for me, is there's the cancer, and the immunotherapy drug marks the cancer,

like with a little axis is all done, obviously through the immune system, but it marks it and then that tells the immune system to go kill that cancer cell. So that's the basic of what immunotherapy is. It's a little deceptive because you think with immunotherapy you might not have side effects and things like that, which is not true. The side effects from immunotherapy

can be significant as well. Though the beautiful difference between immunotherapy and chemotherapy is the chemotherapy, and I had that in my last round. I had both immunotherapy and chemotherapy is that the chemotherapy wipes out the good and the bad cells. So in my particular round, I have both immunotherapy and chemotherapy is that the chemotherapy wipes out the good and the bad cells. So my particular case, my cancer is of the B cells, which is a typo lymphocyte, and so the chemotherapy basically was wiping out all my B cells. And so that's how the chemotherapy

works. And so immunotherapy is amazing because yes, the side effects are less, you can still have some, but it's the body harnessing its own strength to kill the cancer, it's beautiful. So with immunotherapy, I kept my hair. With chemotherapy, it thinned, didn't fall the way out, but for a lot of folks, the chemo makes it all. Okay, and then some other things.

How much did exercise and having stress outlets impact your journey? Exercise dramatically. I continue to run always in good physical shape. Interestingly, my cancer is incurable. So I'm always in shape because I want to be ready for when it comes back. So, when I was diagnosed in 2008, three years later, I did an Ironman event and the doctors are like, wow, you're reacting really well to this treatment and they say that my great physical condition and going into it made a big difference and it does. As an example, I was going through immunotherapy and I was in the hospital, my private room, I'm all hooked up to alarms and the alarm went off

for my heart rate because it was 42. They'd stop it, they'd page a doctor calls and he goes, don't worry about that. He's an Ironman, it's no big deal. So I'll turn it back on so that lower heart rate helps. I'm also exercising to try to prevent a future cancer, but since I know my cancer will come back, I basically stay the best I can outside of when I'm going through treatment and for some time period coming out of that, I stay in great shape. So because I know it works, being good physical conditioning, let alone the mental aspect and the emotional aspect, that is my outlet.

So as long as I'm running and my family knows as long as dad's going out the door in the morning, he's gonna be in a good spot emotionally and mentally. It's true. Okay, and then I appreciate that because that's what I've heard from other cancer patients is doing this exercise and trying to matter how hard it may be at times to keep it up is extremely important. The other one is diet and I know at least in my sister's

situation she did something very similar to you as she went to a dietician who specialized in pancreatic cancer. Now she's gone to another one who is specializing in lung cancer, but it's so interesting to me how they can change up the diet so radically based on the different types of cancer that you might have. Is that something you found to be the case as well? Yeah, it's true. For me, going through the chemotherapy, I was trying to minimize the side effects because it becomes challenging. In many cases, you're nauseous to try to eat. And so, going through treatment diet was a little bit different than coming out. And so coming out of the chemotherapy, then I started leaning in on a diet that would boost my immune system because that's my big

struggle. And life right now is catching a cold or pneumonia or COVID or whatever that could take me out. So that diet becomes a pretty critical, which for me means a lot of peppers, sweet potatoes, doing a lot of antioxidants with berries, a lot of fruit, a lot of vegetables, just my wife jokes. It took me getting cancer five times before I cleaned up my diet, but it does make a difference not just while you're going through it, but post and helping your body heal. I've way leaned off of red meat. I don't do any fried food and it's making a difference. Okay, and then did also want to ask you about homeopathic treatments. Is that something that you've explored? Yeah, I was lucky enough, my wife and I owned,

we just sold it a year ago, massage envy. So massage was awesome and was encouraged by my healthcare team. On the homeopathic, it's really related to side effects that I deal with that. I have, I've had some major skin issues and through the chemo, so I lean on those. I find those that work pretty well. I've talked with my daughter about acupuncture for some pain. I'm still having I haven't done it yet because I'm afraid to go. But once that once I feel comfortable getting out into the world again, I'll do some of those things.

Okay, and then the last thing I wanted to ask you about on this line of questioning is how much importance should people put into early screening? And is this something that you advocate? Yeah, 100% super important. So the guidelines change, but getting colonoscopies, it's the best thing you can do as an adult when you need to get it. If you're a male getting prostate exams and measuring your PSA is super important. Same with with breast cancer, you make sure you go get your screenings. Yes, the best thing you can do to be cancer is to catch it early and those screening mechanisms are super critical. So listen to your primary care physician or listen to yourself. I mean, I go do blood tests at lab core at a Walgreens in between my appointments to see how my immune system is doing.

Okay, and one of the things I thank people often overlook when it comes to cancer is that managing it can be likened to managing a business. And what are some of the most important things that patients and their families need to be prepared for that they might not be thinking about when it comes to managing the business of cancer? Cool, boy. Yeah, a lot to unpack on that one. Cancer is expensive, there's no way around it.

And fortunate that I've had pretty good, not great insurance, you threw out most of it. Now I'm under insurance on the Affordable Care Act, which is a real blessing for somebody like me and so the business of cancer a lot of times people don't think about it upfront but right up front with a diagnosis of cancer you need to start thinking about it because you may either have to not work because of cancer treatment and in which case you lean on taking disability insurance you can get some income you may have to work less, go to part-time,

so you'll have to adapt your spending on that regards, your copays, your deductibles, automatically going to probably hit the maximum, so you need to start adjusting your lifestyle. Remember I had all this when I had three little kids, so I had to do all these things, and you start managing how you spend your money because you know you're going to lean into it on the cancer spend. But that's also a great time to reach out to people like leukemia and lymphoma society or the American Cancer Society or the American Long Association. Reach out to them and see if there are resources that they can help you with. In particular, I found good support from the social workers at the healthcare facilities

where I was being treated. I'm like, hey, can you help me two year period? I did 23 trips via air to Houston. Can you help me? And they're like, yeah, and they reached out to Southwest and Southwest. I said, yeah, we can help you with. We'll give you some vouchers so you can kind of get here and not have to sweat the money stuff. But it's not just that. It's the rest of it. It's making sure that there is you have a will that you have a living will that you have a DNR. That's what your wishes are. It's making sure that you have a just in case file, which is what I have, which is okay,

just in case I don't make it. Here's the stuff that you need to know family. Here's my passwords. Here's how you access my computer. Here's my business bank account access. Oh, by the way, here's the type of funeral that I want. Here's how I communicate it with cancer, but that's the time to do it. I mean, we hired a lawyer and said, okay, what do we need to do on the legal side? And you walk through it because the last thing I want to be doing is worrying about that stuff if things go south. You want to be focused in on other things and I want to leave things for my family, clean, and I don't want them to have to make a decision. I want to make those decisions upfront. Yeah, and I think another thing people can do and you don't even have to be sick to do this. None of us know when our day is going to come, but I know a lot of cancer patients, I know, have recorded videos for their loved ones.

recorded videos for their loved ones, that in case something happened, but I think it's something we should probably all do because you never know when that moment might be. Speaking of family and friends, what are some of your best tips, people who may be listening, who have a loved one who's experiencing cancer, or how they can best support them

through their cancer journey? Yeah, I don't wanna start with a negative, but I need to kind of coach people, what not to do. Don't tell a cancer patient they're going to beat it. Because you don't know, don't tell a cancer patient that they're going to beat it because of their good attitude helps. But it alone can't save you. Don't come to a cancer patients house and cry. Don't recommend treatments.

Don't recommend doctors. Unless they ask, then you can recommend. I mean, if they're an expert, or they know for sure, get that insight. Don't tell them about your cancer, or about other people's cancer. Don't do all those things. But what you can do is you can listen.

You can be present. You can reach out to them, you cannot talk to them about cancer, the best thing is to ask them what you can do for them and then listen and then do what they tell you. Example, a casual friend says to me, hey Bill, sorry about your cancer diagnosis, it's fair. Is there anything I can do for you? I'm like, yeah, you got a boat. Can you take me fishing? Two days later, I'm fishing. I still remember it because he asked, he listened, and then he did. I do think frequent communication with the cancer patient is helpful. Even it's just via text, don't always expect an answer. But hey, just thinking about you, just praying for you, that all makes a big difference.

One of the fun ones is that, which we debated in our house, is do we want our friends to bring us food? And the answer is it depends. I don't want to eat your home cooking, right? Sorry, John, I'm sure you cook well, but as a cancer patient, your taste change, I may not like your style of cooking. So what we've learned is that, hey, I'm sure you cook well, but as a cancer patient, your taste change, I may not like your style of cooking.

So what we've learned is that, hey, can I bring you food? Yes, and for me, it's always Chick-fil-A. Could you bring me Chick-fil-Fine to favorite restaurant? People know I love barbecue, especially turkey barbecue, so they'll pick that up and bring it over. That's better than making your casserole and taking it over, which will probably just get thrown away.

And that works pretty well. I do like it when people give me advice on things to do. Netflix shows in particular that I can watch because a lot of times going through this, you don't feel like reading or doing too much. So you need things to spend the time with. I do love taking walks with my friends. The best thing through all this journey

that I've learned about dealing with others is that to make sure as the cancer patient, you tell them that you love them. And then they will tell you that they love you. And I learned this because I didn't want to be that guy that didn't get a chance to tell my friends that I love them. And so now, guy, men, women, doesn't matter. I tell them I love them. They tell me they love me. Honestly, John, women, doesn't matter. I tell them, I love them. They tell me they love me. Honestly, John, it's been magical, literally magic. Change my life.

I mean, after every conversation, it's like, hey, love you too. And sometimes, particularly for me, that was hard to do. And now it's just a part of who I am. And it's great. Well, Bill, thank you for sharing that. And I think the last question I wanted to ask is how has having cancer impacted your purpose and how you approach relationships and priorities? Dramatically, as far as relationships go, I lean into them more, probably less, probably

slightly, probably fewer people, but more meaningful relationships. So as a cancer patient, it really forces you how to prioritize your time, and particularly somebody like me that I know is coming back, right? And so I spend time with those, I really love less, I spend my time doing things that I think are important. So things that I say no to doing that are probably more important than things I say yes to doing, but I've really tightened up my world of not just of friends, but I've also really tightened up how I spend my time. And so the time is pretty critical for me and making sure I spend it with purpose. The book itself has been a dramatic change for me since it came out a couple months ago. I mean, the number of people I hear from, they say, hey, Bill, this literally saved my life

because I got a second opinion and I wasn't going to do it. I had a person that reached out to me and said I was giving up the fight. And I read your book and I decided to continue to fight and he's fighting. And I hear from him and it's making a huge difference. You can see through my career, I'm trying to have a life of purpose and a significance where I can help. And it sounds cliche. You're doing it too. I mean, you're the perfect example of your podcast. You're living the same type of purpose driven life. You're living a life of significance, and that's what I'm trying to do. And all my interactions, my default is kindness. My default is

caring and how I live my life. Well, Bill, it was awesome to have you on the show today. I obviously will have the book and everything about it and the show notes, the audience can buy it, they buy books. If people wanted to know more about you, what is the best source for them to do that? Yeah, go to billc.com. And the book is available everywhere

from Amazon to Barnes and Noble to target.com, Walmart dot com. So it's available all over the place, but if you want to learn more about me, just go to my website and it has links to to all those places you can get it. Okay, well, Bill, thank you so much for coming on and being so vulnerable and authentic with this story because I think that's what makes it such a powerful one. with this story because I think that's what makes it such a powerful one. Thank you. I hope you found today's episode with Bill Potts, both useful, educational and inspirational. And I wanted to thank Bill and page two publishing for the honor and privilege of having him appear on the show. Links to all things Bill will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com.

Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature on the show. All proceeds go to supporting the show. Videos are on YouTube at John Aramiles or PassionStruck Clips. purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature on the show, all proceeds go to supporting the show. Videos are on YouTube at John Armiles or PassionStruck Clips. Advertisers deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show.

I'm on LinkedIn and you can also find me at John Armiles on both Twitter and Instagram. Please check out both those accounts where I provide weekly inspiration that accompanies the shows. You're about to hear a preview of the Passion Strike Podcast interview I did with Dr. J. Van Bavill, who is an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at New York University and affiliate at the Stern School of Business

in Management and Organizations, Director of the Social Identity and Morality Lab. And we discuss his latest book, The Power of Us, harnessing our shared identities to improve performance, increase cooperation, and promote social harmony. Every voice is not being heard. A small number of people are disproportionately

dominating the conversation. Imagine being at a dinner party where just one person talked the whole time and the other eight people had to kind of silently sit there as they were, they got kind of yelled at and lectured and talked over. That's the dynamic of social media in practice. Not in theory, in theory, everybody gets to talk. and other people had to kind of silently sit there as they were, they got kind of yelled at and lectured and talked over. That's the dynamic of social media in practice.

Not in theory, in theory, everybody gets to talk. It's the ultimate democratizing technology, right? But in practice, that's not what happens. The fee for the show is that you share it with family and friends when you find something inspirational or motivational. If you know someone who is suffering from cancer or has recently gotten a diagnosis, then definitely share today's episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us

is to share the show with those that you care and love about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And until next time, live life action struck. you