How Being the Oldest Sibling of a Teenage Brother Fighting Cancer Changed my Perspective on Life and my Business

Being the oldest of 4 siblings (much older), I still attend several high school games. I was never more excited than for the first Friday night football game of 2 high school rivals! My brother was known as one of the top players in the league standing at 6’4”, 250 lbs and just a brickhouse of muscles! I was very excited for his senior season, better yet…he was playing against my other cousins that evening which made it even betterJ Coming from a family of 60+ first cousins, rivalries are always fun events! I probably had 50+ family members along the sidelines cheering on the teams. It was the first quarter, crowd was crazy, my little cousins were yanking my arms asking for pizza and all of a sudden a kid went down on the field. At first, we thought it was cramps and then we soon realized he wasn’t moving. As the crowd was silent for at least 5-10 minutes (felt like an hour)…I looked over and said “this looks bad…which kid is it?”…I hear someone in the crowd yell “IT’S BURNS!” My family rushed the field to find that he had broken his ankle. I remember him bawling as he got driven off the field on gator…knowing his last season of his most passionate sport may be over. He was planning to play football at The University of Toledo the following year. I, along with my immediate family, shed a lot of tears seeing him crushed that evening. I walked onto the field when the game was done and looked at the empty bleachers while the lights were still on…and asked “why? Why him?”…needless to say, I was heartbroken for him. The kid lived and breathed football since he could hold one as a Toddler.

Fast forward a couple months, right before the holidays of 2015, I was driving from Columbus, Ohio to my hometown to surprise my family for a random week night dinner. He started having issues with his other ankle and went to get checked out. Little did I know that I would receive a gut wrenching, life shattering call. The best way to describe my brother is…ummm…a jock (sorry bro, it’s true) who’s extremely funny and very caring! I remember sitting at a stop light and I could barely understand what he was saying. I sadly snapped at him and yelled because I was driving and irritated thinking he was playing some joke on me, as he typically did.

It was no joke. I couldn’t hear him because he was crying and could barely talk. By the time he could talk clearly, all he said was “I have cancer”. I don’t know if I was in denial or thought he was joking, but I didn’t believe him. I pulled over the car, and asked several times if this was real. Well….it was real. I sat there in the parking lot of a UDF gas station and cried so hard that I couldn’t breathe. As I got myself together some, I drove the rest of the 2 hour drive in tears not understanding what to even think or feel. We had no idea what kind of cancer it was and it took 3 weeks to even find out. Longest 3 weeks of our lives….

I knew being the oldest sibling, I needed to gather myself and be strong as I walked in the door to see them that evening. Everyone was silent…and I rushed over to him to hug him, it was hard to even let go. I’ve never experienced a feeling like it in the world…potentially losing someone you love and raised as an older sister…it’s indescribable.

I knew I needed to move closer to family to be home to help. My baby sister is still in high school playing sports and my other was in college at Toledo. I knew I needed to be around. I had an amazing career at the time, was building my real estate empire in Columbus and dropped everything. I reached out to as many people as I could on LinkedIn trying to find the right company and the right role that would give me the opportunity to be closer. Fortunately, I found a company that I’m beyond happy with and couldn’t imagine working elsewhere now. If you are the oldest in a family, you understand the sense of responsibility you take on to be strong for not only my younger ones but for my parents. Between starting a new job, selling my house, moving, traveling all over the place for my new role and sleeping in a hospital any day that I could in between…life was insane. It had so many ups and downs, good days and bad days and many that were beyond scary. I didn’t sleep much and I cried a lot.

Through 2016, I learned a lot of lessons that changed my perspective on life and my approach to business that I wanted to share.

1. Do not take 1 day for granted: I learned this lesson quickly. Pick the most important person in your life…and imagine getting that phone call from them. Waking up every day not knowing what was next. Not knowing if they’ll make it. Not understanding the level of suffering they are baring. Being willing to do anything to ensure they survive. It’s life changing. The days you wake up and bitch about the weather, something going on at work, your significant other making you mad or having to pay a bill…those days will go away. Those things no longer matter and never will again. 1 in 3 Americans get diagnosed with cancer in their life. Take a look around the room wherever you are at right now, and know that 1 out of 3 will get cancer. If you knew that you were going to find out something life shattering tomorrow, what would you do today? Whatever that is…DO IT. You want to see the world? GO! You hate your job and want to start something new? DO IT. You need to mend a relationship but scared to? DO IT. Do not live your life by someone else’s terms. If I died tomorrow…I can now confidently tell you…I’ve lived a good life and as I’m putting on my make up each morning…I ask myself what I’ll do today to make myself better or what action I’ll take towards reaching my goals. I have a passion to go after everything I want to accomplish, see and do with a drive that I can’t describe. It will change your personal life, your mindset, your relationships and your approach to your career will take leaps and bounds!
2. Give back: When life is moving fast, we sometimes do not realize what else is going on in the world. Sleeping on the couch in a children’s cancer hospital was by far one of the humbling and eye opening experiences of my life. Most cancer patients have to travel far distances to get to a hospital that specializes in their kind of cancer. I would bet 90%+ of children on that floor were fighting alone. Their parents still needed to work to have insurance or their family couldn’t even be around but they ensured their kid was under the best care. Can you imagine being 8 years old, suffering every day, fighting for your life, getting sick daily and doing that all by yourself? It’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. If you don’t already do this…I encourage you to spend at least 10% of your time, your money and your life giving back to other people. Imagine if everyone did that? Imagine how much the world would change. I have a vision in 2017 to give back to several children impacted by cancer. I have goals of reaching as many as I can around the globe to provide them mentors, friends and a community to support them as they fight to survive.Figure out what touches you, and make an IMPACT! Not only will it change your perspective on life, it’ll help the rest of your life flourish. Whatever you do, share it. Encourage others to do the same. Involve other people. Spread the word of whatever matter it is. I guarantee you, not only will it impact a life…it may even save one!
3. Do not take ANY SHIT & have FAITH! – Look, I’m going to be real with a lot of you. Before this even happened, I already had a passion and a mindset that no one was stopping me from getting me to what I wanted in life. For those that know me well, you are probably smiling because I’m not afraid to go after what I want, say what I believe in and I’m sure as hell not afraid to knock on a million doors to go after my dreams and get told NO because I know there is chance one person may say YES! When you realize that the saying “LIFE’S SHORT” is real…it amps up your mental strength to go after whatever you want because you never know when your day will come.Although I was doing well in life, going through this made me realize I could do even better. It’s all mental. I have so many friends, especially in corporate life…that try to live by the books. They have people telling them what their path should look like, who they should become friends with, who they should become, etc. STOP! This is your damn life. You love being creative and being in front of people every day but stuck behind a desk because someone told you that’s “what will get you to that next role”?…have the courage to voice what makes you happy and go after it. As a leader in the corporate space and in my own business ventures…I encourage people to do what makes them happy. My goal as a mentor and leader to people is to help them be the best individual they can become, even if that means not at my company. If you’re happy, then you work harder, and any company in their right mind will see the value of their employees being happy.The night I walked onto that football field and asked “why? Why him?”…will never happen again. If it weren’t for him breaking his first ankle, it wouldn’t have led us to testing the tumor in his other. Who knows if we would have found it too late at that point? Have faith that things happen for a reason. Life can be scary at times, making decisions aren’t always easy, but make them with all your heart. Wake up every day and live that day as if it were your last.
4. Make yourself a priority: Lastly, I encourage you to spend time on yourself. I used to always be focused on other people, projects, work and more. Although thinking about other people first is something I admire, you first must take care of yourself. Eat healthy, discover your passions, understand who you are, where you came from and where you want to be. Without doing this, you cannot make the best of helping others nor will you be the best YOU that you can be.

“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number 1 is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number 2 is think. You should spend time in thought. And number 3 is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it, if you laugh, you think and you cry, that’s a full day! That’s a heck of a day! You do that 7 days a week, you’re going to have something special” – Jim Valvano

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