The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Cycle of Lives: 15 People’s Stories, 5,000 Miles, and a Journey Through the Emotional Chaos of Cancer by David Richman

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

Cycle of Lives: 15 People's Stories, 5,000 Miles, and a Journey Through the Emotional Chaos of Cancer by David Richman Have you ever been forced to consider the fact of your mortality? If confronted with cancer, how would you feel? What would you say to the people you love? What would they say to you? No two people have the same answers to these questions, a lesson I learned well during a solo six-week, 5,000-mile cross-country bike ride I called Cycle of Lives. The trip started as a fundraiser in honor of my sister, June, who died of brain cancer. But long before I even set out on my endurance ride from L.A. to Florida to N.Y., I exhaustively interviewed fifteen people across the country whose lives had also been irrevocably changed by cancer—either as patients, survivors, loved ones, or caregivers. Hearing their moving stories, which were influenced by many different forms of past and present trauma, transformed my cycling odyssey into a journey of emotional self-discovery as I relived the chaos and emotional upheaval of cancer through them: from the man who found true love after losing his soulmate to cancer, to the elite athlete who had to reckon with his all-star body finally letting him down, to the medical oncologist who cares as much about her patients as she cares for them. Whether you or someone you care about is going through cancer or some other major trauma, I hope this thought-provoking collection of astonishing stories can help you, too.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Thechrisvossshow.com.

Hey, we're here again on another podcast. It's like, yeah. I don't know why, but think i'm gonna make an audio bit of that i i kind of like that thing so write me and tell me what you think years ago what was it like 10 20 years ago 10 years ago or something somebody people called me from all over the world and said you got to keep doing the chris voss so singing and i was like seriously we did that for a week bit and now we have to do it all the time but i like the fire thing i might make like a little sound bite of that and put it out it's so anyway guys be sure of course to always further share

your friends and family we have today an amazing author on the show and he's going to be talking to us about a couple of books he's done the latest book that he just put out called cycle lives so we're talking to him go to goodreads.com for chest chris voss hit the bell notification button on youtube.com for slash Chris Voss. Also go see all of our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. Sign up for the big LinkedIn group there. 122,000 people over there. And also the big LinkedIn newsletter.

That thing is always fun as well. Today we have an amazing guest on the show. His name is David Richmond. He's the author of the book that came out September 28th, 2020 called Cycle of Lives. 15 people's stories, 5,000 miles in a journey through the emotional chaos of cancer. He's going to be talking to us about his book and everything he does. He is speaking and the media and all sorts of different things. After working a variety of industries, including launching two startups,

David Richman entered the financial industry as an advisor. Several years in, he found that his interests were more in managing people and businesses rather than in managing money. Over the next 15 years, he managed ever larger businesses for the same Wall Street firm, among other pursuits. David now works with a nationally recognized financial services firm committed to keeping the advisor in the forefront. For the last 10 years, David has completed 50 triathlons, including 15 Ironman distance

triathlons and more than 50 runs longer than marathon distance, including 24-hour runs, running 85 miles in Mexico in the heat of summer, running 104 miles straight from Santa Barbara to Manhattan Beach, and most recently biking 4,700 miles in just six weeks. Pretty amazing. Welcome to the show, David. How are you? Excellent.

Thanks, Chris. I appreciate that. There you go. There you go. It's good to have you on the show. Give us your dot com so people can find you on the interwebs and where you want people to learn more about you. They can learn more at cycleoflives.org. There you go. It's good to have you on the show. Give us your dot com so people can find you on the interwebs and where you want people to learn more about you. They can learn more at cycleoflives.org.

There you go. I'm a nonprofit, so all the proceeds from everything comes in, goes out to the cancer-focused charities and other charities that were chosen by the book participants here. So it's a nonprofit. There you go. So what does the nonprofit do and how does it do it? Basically any money that comes in from, you know, speaking books, donations, whatever that goes into a pot and gets split up between the cancer focused organizations and hospitals and other charities that were chosen by the 15 different people that I interviewed for a

few years for this latest book. So they each had an affinity to one organization. And I just said, well, let's just split up the money evenly and just give it to all of them. So that's what we do. There you go. So let's talk about your book, Cycle of Lies. What motivated you on to write it? The motivated me to write it, Chris, was I witnessed while my sister was going through terminal brain cancer that there was a underlying commonality with everybody that I spoke to, witnessed, watched, whether they were a doctor, Chris, or a caregiver, a loved one, a survivor, you know, patient undergoing, you know, treatment at the time, this one underlying commonality. And that was, they were all kind of pretty well equipped or could get well equipped to deal with the trauma, right? You know, this from your background, like you're in trauma mode, you're like, Oh, what do I need to fix this? Like, how do I navigate the health insurance? How do I get my kids watched with, you know, get back and forth to chemo, right? These kinds of

things that we're good about, but when These kind of things they were good about. But when it came to how do you feel about it? What are the emotions that you're going through? What have you dealt with being an oncologist for 40 years on an emotional? These type of things, people, Chris, found themselves very isolated, self-isolated. The emotional side of this kind of trauma is very, very dealt with very much by themselves. Even closest people to them don't know how to have these hard conversations about like, how are you feeling about it? And I was drawn to try to figure out why is that? Maybe not

provide the answers, but give a little bit more insight as to why that is so that we could be better equipped to start those hard conversations with the people in our own minds that are going through things or foregoing through things, how we can to start those hard conversations with the people in our own minds that are going through things or foregoing through things, how we can better have those hard conversations with people that might care about us. That's very interesting. Cancer is one of the ultimate evils. Yeah, my dog went through cancer and I put it through hospice care for almost two years. And, you know, I mean, we'd take my puppy in to see the, she was about 16,

I think, 15, 16. We'd take my puppy in to see the doctors and they'd be like, she's eating and she's pooping and peeing and she comes running for treats. You know, as long as she's still with it, she, you know, there's no reason to put her down. She had the anal sac cancer, which is very different because I could see the cancer growing. The next year and a half, I watched something grow from very small into almost a golf ball. And so I know what this experience is like. It's especially doing hospice care. So you talk about 15 remarkable stories of people going through their encounters with cancer and their journeys, the span of emotions. I know what this is like, like I mentioned before, going through, you know, it does take a toll on you.

So why did you decide to present 15 different stories in the book? Well, so what I wanted to do was to get a 360 view of the emotional side of that experience of cancer. And the only way that I could do that was to present stories where there were a wide range of age, types of cancer, severity of cancer, what perspective they came from. Were they a patient? Were they a doctor? Were they a loved one? Did they have cancer one time and done? Or did they have cancer five different times in their life? And also I needed to have people that had a wide range of different traumas in their backgrounds. We all have trauma, but different traumas that we might be able to identify with because those traumas manifest themselves into people's abilities or more often their inability to

deal with the emotional side of things later in life. So I wanted people who had a wide range of emotional responses to the things they were going through. Even gratitude, you know, relief. There's some positive, very positive things. And so in order to get that type of a view with that many different factors, I had to find a number of different people. And so I found way more than 15, but 15 that over a period of a couple of years of me really

interviewing them, getting to know them really at deep, deep, deep, deep level, talking about things that each one, Chris, had mentioned to me multiple times they had never talked to anybody about. Then what I did is I just figured that kind of checked all the boxes. Different ages, different types of cancer, different experience, a quick one and quick, a quick, you know, one and done, you know, they, they'd been dealing with their whole life, whatever. And I wanted to bring these stories in, in a poignant, you know, kind of inspirational, really deep dive level so that when we are going through something or when we know somebody that's going through something,

I might be able to understand, like, how can I talk to you about what your dog's going through? Instead of just saying, oh, I'm sorry. And then backing out of the conversation. Cause I don't want to say something stupid. Yeah. It's, it's interesting what the journey people go through. And so you have our, our, our, when people read the book, are they, are they going to be inspired? Are they going to, what are they going to find when they read the book? Cause sometimes, you know, it can be a little dark with cancer. Yeah. And I'm really glad that you asked that question because there's two or three stories that have a kind of tragic bent to them. But even those have an inspirational, optimistic, forward thinking, just very fulfilling and

evocative story to them. And an example, right? An example is the very first story in the book is a story about Bobby and what he goes through is super tragic, but I think people can identify with it and be inspired by it. And that is that he grew up his whole life not being a nice guy. It was an angry guy. Things didn't go well for him. He dug himself holes he couldn't get out of, and then he got angry about it. This was relationships, work, everything, right? He finally meets someone who has, he put it, made him see things for the first time through a clear lens.

Like she gave him a new pair of glasses, right? And they fall madly in love. She gets cancer shortly after they meet. Within a couple of years, they're married and she dies of the cancer. It's really tragic. But fast forward to the fact that through their experience they got to know each other so well they talked about everything she made him be the best him that he could be and made her made him promise to her that she that he would go to counseling after she died that he would allow himself to love and he would allow

himself to be loved. And it was this really deep connection that they had with each other and how to turn who he was pre her into who he could be past her. And he's now happily married to someone. They do a event every year to raise some money in his deceased wife's memory. They've lived, you know, this wonderful life together, you know, for the last, I think 15 years or so. And, and what I said to him is like, how do you put it into perspective? And he said, so yeah, if she didn't die, I'd be married to her, have kids, and I'd be living the greatest life ever. But she, she did die and that didn't happen. But I wouldn't change my life for a second right now. I have a wonderful life. I'm the best person I could be. I have somebody in my life that I love and respect and that loves and respects me.

My life is perfect. I wouldn't change it. So even though it's somewhat tragic, right, it's also kind of inspirational to know that you can have a second act in life where you could be your best you, you know, beyond tragedy. And so in that case, Chris, you know, even though it's a difficult story to go through, it's also very inspirational to know how we can come out positive on the other side of tragedy. Definitely. I mean, you know, surviving these things, you know, there's, what's that little lesson that that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger? You know, going through these cathartic times sometimes where it seems like we might lose everything and cease to exist. Sometimes that's when you find yourself, you know.

I've been studying. Yeah. Well said. And there's a great lesson to learn in there. And the lesson was that he felt that people wanted him to, you know, be in this dark, ugly place after his wife died. And she had promised him or made him a promise her, you cannot be in a dark, ugly place. You have to move on. You're the best you ever. I mean, I wish I could enjoy it, but I'm not going to be around. But you need to be the best you. You need to move on. You need to be happy. You need to live your life. And I mean,

wouldn't that be interesting? How would we feel about somebody that could move past that? You know, like, oh, it's very uncomfortable, right? It can be. But when you learn the whole story, then you realize why some people can't move on from tragedy. And some people don't take things as hard as we might, or they take them harder than we might, right? We just don't know.

They're just living their lives. But I think what it does is give some insight into, you know, why I shouldn't walk around giving somebody puppy dog eyes just because something bad happened to them. Maybe they've moved past it. Maybe they're in a better place because of it. Yeah. Yeah. And learn something from it. You know, I've been studying stoicism a lot and memento mori is a thing I have on my refrigerator where I recognize that time is limited. And we don't know how much time we have. And it could be tomorrow. It could be later today.

We don't know. And you want to do the best that you can with the time that you have. You know, I remember complaining when I was turning 50. You know, oh, God, I turned the big 5-0 on my Facebook. And, you know, I wasn't throwing a full pity party but you know I do a lot of snarky joking on Facebook and so I was kind of like oh you know here it is you know and someone wrote me something on there and they they stabbed right to the point of it that got to me and they said you know Chris there's a whole lot of, there's like millions of people, probably billions of people that wanted to reach 50 and never did.

And they're never going to get that chance to reach 50. So why don't you just consider yourself lucky there, buddy, or something to that effect. And it really struck me. I was like, wow, maybe I should operate from an attitude of gratitude as opposed to complaining about 50. And that's really, you know, I meet a lot of people that have the attitude that, you know, one more day above ground is a good day. So when you go through these stories, are you still in contact with these 15 people? And it sounds like they're kind of interact with the nonprofit, I guess. Yes. Really not from that point of it,

because that was just an agreement between us to do that. And all the organizations are listed in the book and on my website. But yes, some of the people became very close friends and are still close friends to this day. Some, we went through the exercise. They bought into what we were trying to do, gave it their all, and then moved on.

And I kind of love the mix, right? Because what you just mentioned makes me think of this idea of Sonder and this, you know, the word Sonder, what it does, it kind of gives you this understanding. When you have a sense of Sonder, it gives you an understanding that you're just a pastor buyer in everybody else's life, and they're just pastor buyers in yours. So like what you just said, like live your own life, right? Because you can't compare it to other things because you got to live your life. You got to live your best life. And so for some of the people, their best life was, and then the right place for them, thankfully, was to just absolutely bear it all. You know, give me the nothing's anonymous, give me the dirt, you know, the hard times, the good times, you know, the real thing, and then move on and off into the

sunset and go live your life. Cause, cause you know, that's, that's what you do. So I feel very grateful that a few of the people turned into very close friends. And I also am just as grateful that I had the opportunity to, to visit somebody's inner thoughts and the innermost emotions that they had. And they gave me that pass to go do that with them. And now they're off and gone. I kind of like that as well. I'm very grateful for that.

Yeah. One of my early renditions of that was Billy Joel's line from one of his songs, Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes. I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again. And you just learn that people pass through your life and stuff. So you've done a lot of biking. What are some things you learned from biking 5,000 miles from California to Florida and then up to New York? I learned a lot of lessons.

We probably could do multiple podcasts on all of those. I will tell you that I did find the secret joke of the universe is that whichever way you're riding your bike across the country and whatever direction you go each day the wind is going to be in your face i learned that oh and mother nature is one one cruel beast when it comes to the wind on a cross-country bike ride because i i would be like going like north right and the wind would be in my face and I'd go, oh, tomorrow I get to go south. And then the wind would be in my face. And then tomorrow I'd go, the day after that I'd go northeast and the wind would be in my face.

I'm like, really? Like who's got it out for me? So I learned that. But no, I mean, truthfully, I did learn a lot. I reconciled. Because look, I don't know if you've done endurance athletics but i'm sure a lot of your listeners have or know people that have it's a very contemplative place yeah you're on a lonely highway biking for 12 hours you're going to solve a lot of problems and when

you take a moment and i'm taking i'm saying a moment inside of a 14 hour day of biking to meet a stranger or to interact with someone along the way, you're going to learn a lot. And I learned that there's always a story. People always have a story. People live amazing lives. They're just living their lives. They don't think it's amazing. But when you sit down and talk to people and you get a minute with them, boy, if you can listen well and ask the right questions, people are amazing. I also learned, contrary to my belief, that bitches are nice. They're a lot nicer than you think they are. I had a few people honk horns, a few people chase their dogs after me on purpose. So I'm not going to say everybody in the world's nice,

but I did have a lot of people that stopped to help me or offered to help me anytime that I looked like I needed help. And I was kind of shocked. Like how many times is somebody going to stop on the side of the road and ask me if I'm okay when I'm sitting there changing a flat? I'm like, that's really nice. People donating to the organization without having met me, just hearing the story of what I was doing. So I learned a ton. And I'd say probably the two that stick most to me is people are way kinder than I thought they were. And also I love the idea that there's way more behind the story of each person. And it humbles you some, humbled me because everybody's going through something. Everybody's gone through something and people deal with a lot, man. They just deal with a lot.

They don't always show it. And that was a theme that made me feel real proud about the book because I felt like the book was gonna help people. Because everybody's going through something. Everybody's going through something. Don't worry about your dog. That's just one of a hundred things you could have told me

that affect you on an emotional level when it comes to trauma. And to gain a little insight might let me know how to interact with you in the future a little bit better. So that was a true gift. You know, Larry King, I remember watching Larry King one time and he was talking about how his interest in people's stories and he has this innate curiosity about people's stories. He goes everywhere I go. I interview people. I talk to people. I'm curious about the story. I'm curious about the choices they made. And I internalize that because I live most of my life thinking I must have the perfect

way of living a life. There's a bit of narcissism probably in my youth. It might still be. I mean, if you're a psychologist, have fun with that. But I learned to really get interested in people's stories and what you can learn from them because people learn from my stories. That's kind of how we share stuff. That's what movies are about. That's what books are about. That's what TV shows are about. And we're all sharing stories that in ways or experiences, but inside of them are life lessons. There are these little beautiful Pandora's boxes that can open up. I talked to my book about how I didn't want to share when my other dog had passed away from a seizure. Within a half an hour, it was over. It was kind of a memento mori moment. And I didn't want to share the pain of that because it was almost too much to share. And I just felt like

it maybe should be private, but I shared that. And I, and between that and my other dog going through cancer, I've saved so many dogs lives and inspired so many people. And there were a lot of people wrote me and said they got closure. And so that's one of the reasons I love my podcasts is people come on and they share their stories, their life journeys. And I find it completely intriguing. And there's so many lessons to learn from it. And hopefully that's what resonates with the audience and makes them go away with, wow, that, that was an amazing story that came on today on the Chris Floss show. Subscribe plug. I don't know what that is. Thumbs up, like the whole thing, but you know, it was very well said. And the thing is, is we don't

often take the time, nor are we given the opportunity to learn people's stories. Let me tell you an example. So back in the day during the financial crisis, I was running a big business for a major Wall Street firm. I had about 100 people at one location. It was a really rough time. And if anybody's going through anything terribly draining on their mental health, really talk to someone because, you know, that could help you. But one of my advisors ended up taking his own life. And it was very, very, very traumatic for the people that he worked with. The young guy, young family, wonderful, wonderful man. And who knows what made him snap. But I was absolutely

shocked, Chris, as I walked around because we brought in a trauma specialist, but they were a day away and I wanted to walk around and talk to everyone. And every single person, Chris, every single person, when I walked in and I closed the door and I'm like, oh man, can you believe it? They were like, let me tell you a story. Every single one had a story of how suicide had affected them personally. A family member, a friend in their childhood or whatever. And these were people I had known for years, right? Gone to their weddings, funerals, birthdays, barbecues. I didn't know that they had dealt with that kind of trauma. Every single one of them had. And it's like when you take a moment

to learn people's story, when you take a moment to understand them, or they give you that it stuck with them. And maybe they, you know, five years later, three years later, or that day used your story as a, as a pivot point for something in their life. And how wonderful is that? And, and that's kind of the thing that's been driving me for the last 15 years or so is driving, you know, that deeper connection through storytelling, because like, like you said before, that's what it's all about. Yeah. Storytelling. I mean, that's how we learn. You don't get a life. You don't get a manual in life. They don't hand you, you know, I don't know if you got one. I didn't get one. Do you get one? They don't hand you a manual. I not only didn't get a manual, I didn't get a mentor. I didn't get a parent to do this, do that. You know,

it was like, it was like blindfold and dark. Just figure it out, dude. Yeah. Yeah. And you go through life that way and you have to stumble and make mistakes. And, and fortunately, stories are ways that we sometimes learn other people's mistakes so that hopefully we don't make them. And, you know, they, they also, you know, uplift us. They give us motivation. They, you know, sometimes other people's loss helps us. I mean, when I talked about my dog on Facebook after losing her that night, I had so many people writing me privately. I didn't know it was going to help other people.

I thought I was just complaining. And so many people wrote me and they go, wow, watching you go through that experience or share the loss the loss of bleeding that out online i realized i didn't get closure with my dad's death i realized i didn't get closure with my dog's death i i didn't realize that i was still suffering from from something and uh it was astounding to me how much it helped other people when i thought it was a self a selfish act and and and almost didn't share it fortunately i'd had enough vodka where finally after an hour, half an hour debating, I just said, fuck it.

There's my suicide note. Go see you later. If I don't wake up in the morning after a bottle of vodka and stuff, then people know why. So let's talk about leadership a little bit. You've written two books, I believe, Winning in the Middle of the Pack is your other book? Well, I've written other books. I've written books on endurance athletics and

other things like that. But yeah, the other main book I wrote was Winning in the Middle of the Pack. And I thought where I came up with this book was I found by accident, because I didn't start doing endurance athletics until later in life. I was nearly 40 before I did my first run ever. I was a smoker. I was overweight. I was sedentary. And then all of a sudden, a lot of things happened in my life in a very short period of time that said, dude, you got to make some changes. And so I started to become active. And that led to me doing endurance athletics and half Ironmans and Ironmans. I just did a half Ironman four days ago. So know, so it became a lifestyle. I realized that there was a lot of similarities

and I'm not saying tritely. I mean, really deep similarities between doing, let's say, a hundred mile run and having a hundred employees or running a hundred million dollar business. There's a lot of similarities. And so I wrote this book, Winning in the Middle of the Pack,

that, I don't know, I mean, in a very short description, I kind of believe that most people go through life trying to please others or worrying about how others are going to perceive them rather than doing it for themselves. And we're kind of taught if you do for yourself, that's like a little selfish. But when you look at somebody like a Michael Jordan or an Oprah Winfrey or, you know, whoever you want, Tiger Woods, they all do stuff for themselves, right? They could care less what anybody else thinks. And I think we could adopt that a little bit. And in the middle of the pack, because I'm not going to ever be an Oprah Winfrey or Elon Musk or whatever, in the middle of the pack, if I can just do it for myself, I'm probably going to get a lot more out of it than if I'm trying to do it to please you. And so that's what the winning in the middle of pack is all about. And what do you like about racing and bicycling and doing all this stuff? What did you find it did for you? It says here on your bio of the book, you might not have lived to 40, you were overweight,

heavy smoker, in a destructive marriage, trying to protect two kids, prone to extremes. You were very unhappy. What did you find doing some of this stuff, triathlon, et cetera, et cetera, what did you find that did for you? At first, it prevented me from continuing to smoke, right, because you can't smoke and swim at the same time. So at first, it was a big try. It's a good try, but it's not going to taste very good. So it helped me stop smoking and it helped me stop overeating. It helped me relieve some stress and look for positive outcomes from my stressful days

instead of negative ones. That's how it started out benefiting me. Then it became more of a health thing. Like wow, I started becoming physically the best I'd ever been in my whole life and that's how it started out benefiting me, then it became more of a health thing. Like, wow, I started becoming physically the best I'd ever been in my whole life. And that's kind of a drop, right? How cool is it to know that you can do these things like go run 100 miles because that's what you want to go do? Like, wow, that's pretty amazing, especially from a guy who never did anything like that

his whole life. But then really what it became is a real magnet for my desire to learn. And so I have this really big desire to learn, to see what I can get out of life, who I can become, what lessons I can learn. And endurance athletics is a great teacher of lessons. And it's really fantastic. And once I found that I could learn more about myself and I could apply those lessons, because I had learned a lot of lessons in business. I just never knew how to apply them to myself. So when I kind of said, oh, shoot,

there's comparisons between running the business and raising kids and running mar you know, marathons. Ah, what can I learn? Then it became a real draw for me. And so that was the, that was the, the, you know, the elixir, the magic elixir for, for me is, is learning. What, what can I learn about myself? What, what can I do? What am I losing?

You know, how, how low did I set my, my goals or how high have I set my goals? When to quit, when not to quit. I mean, I could go on and on, but I just, I just love the learning part of it. Yeah. The, you know, things like these really hone your headspace, I guess. I don't know if that's, it doesn't sound very professional, but you talk about how it helps you find mental acuity and deep personal self-awareness and it's a real headspace game like about 11 months ago i started working out worked out for 10 months straight until i got inaugural hernia but i started going to the gym for the first time every single day or every other day if i had a you know i had a one-on-one off day and you know 54 you can't

you gotta you kind of sometimes need to take an extra day off. But for the most part, I went every day for 10 months to the gym. And I'd never gone to the gym every day for ever in 54 years. And so this was a new thing for me. And it was all about the headspace of going and working out and forcing yourself to push your limits. And I was really enjoying it. And it was really awesome. And I was really enjoying it and it was really awesome. And I look forward to going back to it. But even losing weight, you know, I've lost 75

pounds twice now going through intermittent fasting. And, you know, there's a headspace to it. It's a, you have to hack your brain. You have to hack your belief system. You have to hack your thought processes and, you know, disable the crap that got you into bad places like smoking or being overweight or, you know, not wanting to go to the gym every day. You had to hack it and then you have to deal with it. And I'm sure that during a triathlon or, you know, a long bike ride, you know, there's your body really starts in your mind and really starts fucking with you where it's like, you know, what are you doing here, buddy? This is hard. What are you, what's going on, man?

And you've got to be able to, you know, master what's going on between your ears, which for many people is, is harder to do than, you know, just bossing other people around or telling everybody else what to do. Right. But oftentimes don't we just think about when something's super hard, even if it's something that we chose, it's easier to complain about it. And kind of right. I got like, I remember one time I had to do something at work that was really, really hard. I had to terminate someone who didn't deserve to be terminated. And I had to do it for a number of different reasons I won't go into, but it was really difficult for me to do. And I, before I did it, I closed the door and I went into my boss and I said,

man, this is really hard. I really don't want to do it. And she said, she was my language, but she said, we do hard work here. You want a friend? Get a fucking dog. Bullshit. It's supposed to be hard. I think that's the new theme of the show.

Right. You want a friend, get a dog. Get a dog. But then you think about it and go, well, okay, if it's supposed to be hard, then when it is hard, it's not so hard. Right. So if I told you right now to go run 20 miles and you'd be like, there's no way I'm going to do it.

But if you thought to yourself, I know it's going to be hard. I know I've got this number of different obstacles I got to come up to. Like I'm in the mind space to realize it's going to freaking hurt. It's going to be difficult. It's not going to feel like it makes it a little bit easier. Right. Yeah. Right.

So it is, like you said, it's mental cue. It's changing the way that you think it's, it's, it's like, it's a quest quest to it's a quest to know because i had lived my whole life like same thing that bobby did dug holes just to get out of them make people happy i had chip on my shoulder you know whatever and and i never did it for me and and and and i like the idea of being your best self for you and then that allows you to be your best self for others definitely not the other way around yeah hacking your brain and you know especially doing something you know there's going to be physical pain and that and it's going to challenge you because you know it's one thing to think you know like for me okay i'm going to write a book i i wrote my first book last year and you know that's a game. But when it deals with pain in the

body, so for you in a case of cycling or doing a triathlon, you know, not only do you have to hack your brain, you're going to have to deal with your body's issues where your body is like screaming out or something hurts or something's not working or you pull a muscle or, you know, you've got to push through that that that thing you know i remember when i would go to the gym every day i would i would push through and then there would be that kind of euphoric moment where your body finally kicks in and goes goes yeah this is fun oh yeah right and you you you know that pain is coming and a lot of people when they look at when they know pain is coming, and maybe some of

the folks that you interviewed in your book, Cycle of Lives, maybe some of those 15 people, they knew that pain was going to come as a part of cancer and maybe the pain of death and loss and your family and et cetera, et cetera. You know, anticipating that physical pain is a whole new level of brain hacking that you need to do. Oh, no question. Absolutely no question. One of the stories is this woman, Patricia, and I won't tell you the whole story because her story is 10 different stories. But she had cancer five different times in her life.

Jesus. In her adult life. Took care of her father while he was dying of cancer. She was in an abusive relationship. You name it. But near the end of her last bout with cancer, or one of her last bouts with cancer, she was out with friends getting ready to go on a boat. And she needed to run back to the hotel room to get something.

And she looked in the mirror and she said, you know what? I mean, you're wearing this thing tied around your head because you don't have any hair. You know what? Just take it off. Just be yourself. Everyone has their time in the barrel. Like, this is your any hair. And you know what? Just take it off. Just be yourself. Everyone has their time in the barrel. Like this is your time in the barrel. So what? Everybody has their time in the barrel. They'll deal with it. You deal with it. Just smile and move on. And I'm like, what the hell? Like you're going through your, at that time, third or fourth

bout with cancer, different types of cancer, very serious cancers too. And she just looks in the mirror and smiles at herself and says, Hey, everybody gets their turn of the barrel. And I'm like, wow, man, how in the world could I, could I ever learn how to think like that? Yeah. That's, that's the term I adopted from somebody to somebody would, would, you know, every, I always thought that, you know, trying to do life with a perfect trajectory. And, trajectory and and a lot of us have the delusion especially in this instagram life that people live these perfect lives you go on instagram and you you look at people and they're like they seem like they're living their best lives and and uh probably that's about the only time that they're not crying into their pillow every night

is when the photo and then the rest of the time they're they're in some sort of depressed state. And so we have this FOMO or this delusion, this fear of missing out. And people don't understand. But, yeah, everyone's every the one that's the one thing I've kind of learned to accept in life and through listening to other people's stories, like reading your book and and other things that I've gone through in my life where I've heard other people's stories. People that come on the podcast is is, yeah, everyone has their time in the barrel. I don't know of really anyone who's ever had a perfect life or perfect challenge. And, you know, sometimes you can see people that like, oh, Michael Jordan, you know, or Oprah Winfrey, oh, they had a perfect run and everything was a home run and they weren't.

And then you find out that, you know, everyone goes through struggles in life and they have to go through a lot of, I think everybody almost goes through at least one cathartic sort of experience. Oh, there's no way that that's not true. And I think by being open to the fact that what might be easy for you is super hard for somebody else and what might be, you you is super hard for somebody else. And what might be, you know, super easy for somebody else is super hard for you. Right.

To learn that kind of empathy and compassion. Like I, I love the story of, of one of the people in the book. He's, he's this doctor. He built a great practice. He's got, you know, he's a, he's a big executive in the medical business. Like this guy, and you look at him, you think, man, this guy's got the most wonderful life. You realize that at some point in his life, he had a severely handicapped child. He was a single dad. At one point in his life, he was so low that he was digging in the sofa as a doctor, as a single dad, digging in the sofa for loose

change. He could stop at the gas station to go get gas to fill up enough that he could go pick up his paycheck so he can go cash it and grab dinner. I mean, you never know what people are going – you never know, right? The doctor that comes in and seems like they're not paying attention to you, maybe they just had to tell somebody in the previous room that they were going to die. And maybe they didn't know how to process that. So just, and I'm not saying we can walk around being, you know, tippy toe around everybody who might be going through something difficult. But to learn a deeper sense of empathy, to learn a deeper sense of compassion that everybody's going through something or has gone through something. Probably, like you just said, at least one major cathartic traumatic event, most likely multiple. To understand that at a deeper level allows us to form that deeper connection. That's the whole purpose of it.

And also help us realize that, hey, it's okay if we're going through hard times. It's okay if we're taking our time in the barrel. There's many people that they worry about their image in life. They worry about how they're perceived. Some of it's biological. And, you know, they worry about, oh, what will someone think if they see that I'm failing? I think, you know, I kind of, up until that moment that I shared my dog's death, I'd always kind of run my social media from a PR aspect.

I didn't really talk about myself personally or much or about anything I went through. And I was kind of, you know, living a kind of, I was kind of shooting through life without any problems. And, you know, that, that kind of, that I, no one had died around me for 27 years. Like I, I don't know why I just had a good run and no one had died around me. I hadn't gotten to a funeral in 27 years. No one had died around me that I loved. I had some great grandparents and great grandparents when I was young, but they all passed away in my twenties, early twenties and teens. And so no one had died around me for 27 years. I had no houses, if you will, that, you know, we build up when we experience these cathartic moments. And so, yeah, it hit me like a ton of bricks and I had no

protection for it, no ability to deal with it. But yeah, you start to realize when you hear other people's stories that, hey, you know, it's okay that I'm in this moment. It's okay, you know, because people do turn to suicide and they turn to other, you know, alcoholism or, or other destructive means because they think that, you know, they've fallen off the horse and now the whole world is looking at them pointing fingers. And that, like I mentioned before, what surprised me was how many people had empathy towards what I was going through and, you know, reached out to me and said, Hey, you know, I'm, I'm going through the same thing. When I recently got my inaugural hernia, you know, people reach out to me and started telling me

about the fact that he had one and I, you know, I was kind of bummed out. I got thrown off my 10, 10 month run horse of working out and becoming a pretty strong guy. Now my focus is on losing weight, you know, so I've, I've realigned that, but you know, it's interesting, you know, everybody has time in the barrel and it's okay. You're, you're, you're going to have that and welcome the next thing you got to do is focus on how to get yourself out of it and, and learn from it and maybe help other people in the end. And when you do learn, then you're going to be open up to connecting with the people in your lives that maybe want to connect with.

Like instead of when somebody asks you, Oh my gosh, Chris, I know you're going through something. What's going on? Instead of you just going, I'm fine and not wanting to engage them because you don't want to bring the attention. You don't want to be embarrassed. You don't want to feel guilty. You don't want to bring them down.

You know that they're not really interested. Whatever all the junk is that's preventing you from answering that question truthfully, right? A little bit of that gets stripped away. And I think for me, I know other people are more advanced than I was at that time, and they're able to process these stuff as natural things that they know, but I didn't know until I knew. I didn't know that I shouldn't care about what other people thought about me

more than what I think about me until I knew. I didn't know that. I mentioned I just did a half Ironman the other day up in Oregon, and it reminded me of the very first half Ironman that I did. I was like five months away from quitting smoking. I was still pretty overweight. And I'm like, all right, man, I'm like this stud. I'm going to go do a half Ironman.

And I go up to the start, and it's one of these starts over time, so you can watch all the people take off, and's your turn to take off and everyone was a greek god like they were all in speedos looking all like not a ounce of fat on them you know they were walking around on rose petals i mean they were like i'm like what the hell am i doing here like they're gonna laugh at me i'm the biggest idiot i don't belong in this group of athletes what the hell was i thinking? I literally should get in my car and go home because I don't belong here. Everybody's going to look at me like I'm a total fraud. And then right before I let that thing take me to my car, the gun goes off and

this one dude flips over on his back and he starts doggy paddling on his back. And another dude swims over to the side of the river and starts walking because he can't swim. i'm like i started laughing at myself i'm like man they're just running their own race they could care less what anybody thinks we used to do the same thing don't care about them just just just figure out a way to get the race done yeah that's the one thing you know people have with the gym where you know oh you go to the gym there's all these good looking people you know there's the guys who are overrated out and they've got the muscles. And, you know, and you look at them and you look at yourself and, you know, here I am going to the gym. I haven't worked out in 53 years.

But then I realized early on what we talked about earlier is the battle is in here. Yeah. The battle is against Chris Voss and Chris Voss's will and Chris Voss's body and his mind. You know, there were some days I talked about some Facebook where I didn't want to go to the gym. I'm like, I kind of hurt. I don't feel well. I kind of feel a little beat up and I like to take a day off, but I know myself well enough that that's how I got here by, by going, well, I'm going to take a day off from the gym today and then tomorrow and the next day and then 53 years go by. And so I would go to the gym and I'd slowly start working out, but I would force myself to go to the gym. Kind of

like what you would use it where you would go, you know, to the meet and, and, you know, showing up is half the battle and then you're there and then i would be like i don't feel well but here we'll okay let's just do a set and you know one of the other lessons i learned a long time ago the best way to eat the elephant is one bite at a time so you go okay well i'll do a set and we'll see how i feel after that but let's let's do a set then you do a set and you know, all the pre-workout caffeine gets all the juicing you're doing. Not steroid juicing, by the way, you know, between all the proteins

and, you know, and sometimes I go pump caffeine, you know, take some of that taurine, take one of those Rockstar shots. It wasn't the best for you, you know sometimes you know and then you know eventually those endorphins and whatever kick in and your body goes hey back in shape and i'd kick into gear but sometimes just driving myself to the gym even though i didn't feel like going and just going you're going to the gym and we're gonna sit there i know there were some times where i didn't feel well and i i would sometimes have to stop and just go sit in the locker room, kind of cool out for a second if I was feeling kind of odd and then go right back at it. And sometimes I just had to

process whatever's going on. But yeah, the headspace, like I would realize when I would go there, screw these other people in the gym. I'm not here for them. They don't have to live in my body. They don't have to live in my mind. I do. Right. And that's the difference though, right? Because if you're making the promise to go to the gym for somebody else, you can get out of not being and not going to the gym, right? You can get out of it. You can make excuses for whatever, when you're doing it for somebody else, when you're doing it for yourself and you walk by the mirror and you take a look and you go, Oh man, I let that guy down, that's not a good feeling. Yeah, it's not.

Yeah. And then you end up in a bag of Doritos or in a box of ice cream or whatever, like some people do. And you don't look in the mirror saying, I'm proud of you. You don't do that. You avoid the mirror. So this is a great discussion and a really important life lessons we've covered here, David. One of the other things we do want to plug is you do do speaking, keynote workshops and testimonials. Tell us a little bit about that before we go out.

Yeah, sure. I have several that are geared towards either, you know, kind of like this idea of connecting people through story and being more empathetic and understanding and compassionate to what others are going through and allowing them to show us compassion and empathy for what we're going through. I kind of talk about that through the lessons learned in the Cycle of Lives project, and that's going to be ongoing for many years. I also do talking about business. As I said, just tons of lessons learned from endurance athletics that can be applied to business and life that can be applied to endurance athletics and vice versa. So I have multiple keynotes that I do depending on the audience and depending on what the need is. I kind of love to tell stories and give people a like, oh, yeah, okay, I can get it through that

analogy, through that story. That makes sense to me because that's the way I work. Like something happens and I get this visual in my head and I go, oh, yeah. So next time when I'm there, I think of that visual and it helps me through whatever I'm going through, you know? Yeah, that's awesome. So you inspire people in so many different ways. Anything more we want to touch on or throw out on you before we go? Oh, gosh, Chris, we just met, but we should talk for another six or eight hours.

I mean, honestly. Good, my life lessons. But we want people to go buy the book, too. We want them to go buy the book. Yeah. Not only that, but the audio book is awesome because I had 15 actors, each doing one of the 15 people. Oh, really? Yeah, so it was really it's really fantastic

that the book i guess that is inspiration it's also not 400 pages of a zero to page 400 each story is self-contained in the voice of of the person so um so you can read one story and move on and be done with it you know obviously you raise a little bit of money for charity, which is great. But I think what it can do is really give you just a tiny bit more insight into that idea we've been talking about most of the time, which is you never know what people are going through or what they have gone through. And in that case, I've heard so many people come back to me and go, oh my God, I'm going to be a better doctor. I'm going to be a better nurse.

I know I'm going to be a better friend. I now know what to say to my grandma. And I don't provide the answers. I just wrote the stories. But oh my gosh, now I know what to say to my grandpa after my grandpa died. I'm not afraid to say the wrong thing anymore. And so I think the book in that sense is really accomplishing what I hope to set out to do. That is awesome, man. Yeah. Everyone should check out the book. In fact, I've got to do the audio book for my book.

I should use my 15 different personalities to read the book. But I like that idea of having 15 different actors because that really gives it that feel. Oh, that's amazing. I'm a big audio book consumer. I love audio books because I can listen while I'm working. I can listen while I'm driving. I used to listen to the gym or going, you know, any place. I mean, first thing I do in the car when I turn it on is load up the audio book and plug it in.

And, you know, to me, driving somewhere is such a waste of time. Or, you know, doing something, traveling, flying, it's such a waste of time. So use it to expand your mind and get smarter. And I love that sort of aspect of it. So thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it, David. Yeah, absolutely, Chris. I'm glad you had me.

I love talking to you. And if there's a reason for us to talk again, let's do it. I feel like we could converse all the time. There you go. And give us a plug,.com, so people can find out more about you. Yeah. So my books are wherever books are sold amazon you know your local bookstore whatever if you want to sign a copy or you just want to learn more talk to me

or interact with me i i do respond to all contact inquiries it's it's cycle of lives dot org cycle of lives dot org you can find me on facebook instagram whatever there you go order up the book guys you can find on amazon cycle of liescle of Lies, 15 People Stories, 5,000 Miles and a Journey Through the Emotional Chaos of Cancer. You know, we all take time in the barrel and sometimes the biggest fight and battles that we have are within sight of ourselves and what's on between our ear space. And then, of course, our bodies as well. Thanks for tuning in to my audience. We certainly appreciate it. Go to goodreads.com, Fortuness Chris Voss. Go to youtube.com, Fortuness Chris Voss, LinkedIn, Fortuness Chris Voss, and all of our big groups over there, the new LinkedIn newsletter, etc.,

etc. Also, make sure you go to chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you next time.