Living the Dream: From Dying to Thriving

Each one of us has a dream—a dream of a life less ordinary. Our dreams take the form of a new home, a loving family, a fulfilling career, or accomplishing a great feat. Whatever our dream is, these fantasies are like climbing our own personal Mt. Everest in a world without the limitations we feel so acutely in our daily life. Here, anything is possible, and everything is powerful.

Yet most of us live a life that falls dramatically short of these dreams. In fact, many people may have told you to stop wasting energy dreaming. Sometimes those voices sound like they make a lot of sense, because fantasy obviously can’t be reality.

Still, there are few people who do actualize their dreams. These fairy-tale success stories give us hope and encourage our continued dreaming. The success of others teaches us that turning dreams into reality is possible.

I want to share with you the story of my best friend and the conflicting tale about the reality of looking beyond his terminal diagnosis and having the courage to chase his dreams, and how he taught me to follow my own.

Discovering the Diagnosis

On September 17th 2012 I met my two good friends Andy and Andrew in the evening to enjoy Monday Night Football. Andy and Andrew had been best friends since high school when both had moved to Utah from Colorado and they found themselves sitting together at church one Sunday.

“Hi, my name is Andrew.”

“My name is Andrew!”

“I just moved here from Colorado.”

“I just moved here from Colorado.”

Since that moment they were best friends. I first had met Andy during our work together in youth group homes and met Andrew in 2009 on our way to see the new Star Trek reboot. Andrew’s opening question to me that night was, “Are you a disciple of TOS or the Next Generation….?” Another soulmate moment.

But on this Monday Night, we met at a new restaurant. The food was horrible—calamari shouldn’t smell like fish. The Broncos lost in shameful fashion. And Andy told us about his diagnosis of a diffused Pontine Glioma—an inoperable brain tumor that was inevitably terminal.

He explained the spider-web type tumor with such (typical of him) logical fact that the moment didn’t seem real. Andrew and I were speechless as we tried to speak past a layer of tears and emotion threatening to bubble out of us. It was a horrible night.

The following day, Andrew and I shared quite a long text conversation about our individual findings of the tragic outcomes Web MD and Google at large were teaching us about this diagnosis. Neither of us felt like working. In the afternoon, I stopped by Best Buy and bought Andy Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 1 on Blu-ray and brought it by his home.

“What else can I do?” I said through uncontrolled ugly crying.

I don’t remember much of our conversation with his wife Betsie, probably because of my emotional state combined with our less than direct communication because Andy’s three girls aged 10, 6 and 2 were playing in the next room. They didn’t know the finality of the diagnosis. But I do remember Andy referring to his eventual death as “The Long Goodbye.”

I hate “goodbyes.”

The following months would test my faith, but not my friendship, as I saw Andy undergo an invasive biopsy followed by chemo and radiation that turned his love of Mt. Dew and Sushi to mouthfuls of ash.

It is vital to the story to point out how Andy maintained a constant humility, patience and uncanny humor through the entirety of these events. I made a decision early on to never hide from his diagnosis and to have the courage to sprinkle the hard questions about his condition through our conversations of Star Trek philosophies, new Star Wars sequels and the ever-evolving Marvel Cinematic Universe.

I felt like I would resign myself to daily life as I knew it and watch my best friend slip away over the next “5, 10 maybe even 15 years.” Yet, the same experiences were awakening a force inside Andy which would push him to do and be more.

 The Parable of the Blue Picard

Andy continually saw the world through the lens of Star Trek. He often referenced the episode of The Next Generation, “Tapestry,” where Captain Picard relives and changes a pivotal moment in his life, opting out of courage but simultaneously embracing a life as a lowly science officer in a blue uniform. Andy’s diagnosis seemed to wake him up to how he was living life as the “Blue Picard.”

 

Andy was still working for the same nonprofit I met him at, only this time his role was working in the homes of troubled youth teaching them and their parents skills to change their lives. Andy’s purpose was always to advocate for youth and help strengthen families. As noble as this profession is, Andy felt there was more.

“It took me not having a future to realize I didn’t have a future there,” he often told me. Andy had reached a point where he wasn’t growing, and his only goal was the daily grind.

This is what middle life is for most of us, isn’t it? After graduating high school and going to college, you build a career. Along the way, you get married, start a family and acquire a mortgage. Then, grind for the next 25 years all the while ignoring the reality that a gold watch and a pension are historical benefits only our grandparents were privileged to earn.

“I’ve decided to go to Law School,” Andy announced to Andrew and I over an evening meal of wings. While still going through radiation treatment, Andy began to prepare for the LSAT and look forward to application season.

It took a year longer than he would have liked, as his treatment proved debilitating enough to delay the LSAT until Winter 2013. That summer, he was awarded a partial ride scholarship to the University of Idaho. This meant Andy and Betsie would leave their careers, sell their home in Herriman, Utah and move their 3 girls to the small town of Moscow, Idaho for the next three years.

While Andy was confident about his decision, I know they were worried about paying for that first year of tuition before the scholarship kicked in. As God would have it, an offer from Texas A&M offered him a full ride. I counseled him through this decision. He called University of Idaho and told them about the competing offer to which they immediately replied in kind. Andy would go to Law School at University of Idaho after all, and he wouldn’t have to pay for it.

None of this had to do with his diagnosis. Andy was a very private person. He didn’t want any special treatment because of his brain tumor. He wanted to live as normal a life as possible. So, he went to Law School, studied alongside kids 10 years or more younger and with professors who never knew of his struggles. He had internships in Utah and Nevada and studied abroad in Jerusalem for a winter intercession.

Andy discovered a love for family mediation. He was recognized with the Spirit of the Clinic award for his skills, work ethic and clear passion in helping others. He graduated with his Juris Doctorate in 2017.

Andy transcended his diagnosis to shed the uniform of the “Blue Picard”. How many of us let far smaller and less serious obstacles keep us away from our dreams? Dare I suggest, most of us?

Meanwhile in a small Utah Government Agency

I was doing just that at my work at the Department of Workforce Services for the State of Utah. I tearfully watched Andy move away in 2014. I investigated enrolling in a Master of Marriage and Family Therapy program that fall, which I later thought would happen the following year.

In May 2015, my wife Jenafer was surprisingly diagnosed with a Meningioma (a brain tumor), and was rushed to emergency surgery within 24 hours, successfully removing the benign mass. This surgery was not without consequence. Jen was left with a challenging physical recovery, and an even longer functional recovery. She hasn’t worked since. Even today, in our normal every day life, she has deficits which continue to impair her including complete deafness on the left side.

There were some nights I would call Betsie, Andy’s wife, and we would talk about our experiences. What a small world for our two families. We are quite a mirrored pair. Jen’s tumor was operable and not terminal. Andy’s was the opposite. Jen and I have three small boys. Betsie and Andy have three beautiful girls.

The next year and half of recovery was a challenge for our family. Working for state government doesn’t pay well, even if people suppose the benefits are great. We cashed out 401K’s to pay for medical bills. I certainly felt like I was living my own version of the “Blue Picard.”

Still, I loved my work: coaching unemployed job seekers back to successful employment. But I wasn’t going anywhere myself. I knew I needed help.

In July of 2015, I had a conversation on my front porch that would change my life. Tony lived around the corner, and I knew he worked in some area of training I was interested in. It turned out, Tony was a coach himself.

“I can help other people earn six figures and find fulfilling careers. Why can’t I help myself?” I questioned.

“Every coach needs a coach,” he replied.

Those words cut through my core. Tony shared a little about the information he coached, and I hired him. Jen and I used our last $5k on 6 months of coaching and it changed our lives.

I learned how each of us have the power to be creators of our lives rather than be victims of circumstance. I learned how to identify and change self-limiting beliefs. I learned how to persist through fear of change. I learned how to build the habits of a positive mindset and how to set and achieve big, worthy goals.

I took what I learned and taught my job seeking class. Suddenly, my clients began reconnecting to fields of passion. Their new jobs were earning them more money after unemployment than before—a statistical anomaly.

Through these successes, I began to set my sights higher. It became increasing clear I needed to leave my job and go into business for myself. I was terrified; but I persisted. In June, 2017 I left my job at the State of Utah to work full time for the company I had started just months earlier.

Graduation days

A few weeks later I had a conversation with Andy. He was studying furiously for the bar exam, and I wanted to see how he was doing.

“I’m sorry what was that?” I asked him. It sounded like he was in the middle of a sandwich or something.

Andy told me he had suddenly developed speech problems in recent weeks. “I wanted to get an unbiased opinion on how I sounded,” he said slowly with great effort to sound intelligible (again being typically logical).

Andy’s speech was just another symptom in a series he struggled with over the past few years. This included worsening double vision, a slower walk, and lack of mobility and fine motor skills on his left side. “You need to go see the doctor, man,” was my immediate reply. While a doctor’s visit would be a huge distraction from his Bar Exam studies, Andy made an appointment.

It turns out, he suddenly had a new tumor. An aggressive, Stage IV Glioblastoma had erupted. Andy postponed his studies, and on the day he was to sit for the Bar Exam in Idaho, the new mass was removed in Salt Lake City.

The surgery helped his speech in the short term and left other major physical limitations. I saw my wife experience the same but recover faster. His physical condition would probably affect how potential clients would perceive Andy as a lawyer.

 

“I knew I wasn’t going to practice Law,” Andy told me, “But I never thought something would happen that would prevent me from practicing mediation.” While cognitively intact, with a sharp wit and amazing sense of humor, it was difficult for Andy to speak clear enough to mediate. But Andy never had any regrets about his decision to chase down his goal.

“At least my picture will be on the wall when [my daughter] goes to school there,” he told me.

Andy wanted desperately to teach his daughters that all dreams are worth living—that we can do anything we put our mind to. Life is to be lived.

He was equally invested in my business, always asking how things were going. While he certainly celebrated my breakthroughs, I didn’t take the opportunity to share all the amazing things I was learning and how I was growing. After all, while I was creating, he was slowly disintegrating.

His wife and girls moved back to Utah to join Andy in August 2017. Over the next year, we hung out quite a bit. We would discuss the new Star Trek series and ponder the future of the Star Wars franchise. We talked politics and philosophized about religion.

In May 2018, we went out to see Solo: A Star Wars Story, and as Andy peeled shrimp prior to the movie at Joe’s Crab Shack, I had a thought. That thought grew as we moved our seating to a handicapped accessible row because it was clear he couldn’t move to our assigned seats at the Megaplex.This is the last time we would share a meal and see a movie.

The following week, Andy started hospice treatment. A week later my kids wished him “Live long and prosper” a final time. Several days after, when I finished feeding him some left over ice cream from Arctic Circle, I patted his foot and said, “See you around.” I had this weird moment where I knew that was the last goodbye.

I was in Illinois with my family, traveling to Michigan for summer vacation, when Andy passed. I flew home for his funeral a few days later. Family and close friends all wore Star Trek communicator badges in his honor. It was the most beautiful mourning and equally painful celebration I could imagine.

Chase Down Your Dreams

Andy gave me the courage to finally stand up and take control of my own life. I previously tried three times to attend graduate school. Each time I withdrew, quit or allowed circumstances to hold me back.

All of our days are limited on this little planet, Earth—Andy was just told how short his days actually were. Then, he decided what he was going to do about it.

For years, (unbeknownst to Andy) I have used his example to teach clients to follow their dreams. Most of us don’t have strong enough reasons for not living up to our potential. Andy had the best reason to stay complacent. No one would fault him if he had given up. Instead, he maximized his time here.

In August of 2013, Andy and I saw Dave Matthews Band perform. Standing in the “pit”, Dave launched into an encore performance I will never forget. Prior to the concert, I had written to ask if a certain song could be performed, “Drunken Soldier”. I am not sure if my request is why it was played, but he reason I requested it is obvious, but I never told Andy. As tears came to my eyes, I sung the following words:

“Keep your head up, Try and listen to your heart
Be kind always, no matter
We all grow up and someday we’ll say goodbye
So shine your light while got one
***
“Through your window, That’s one way to see the world
Step outside and look back into
Look and listen, And you decide what to believe
Shine your light while you got one
***
“And make the most of what you got
Don’t waste time trying to be something you’re not
Fill up your head, Fill up your heart and take your shot
Don’t waste time trying to be someone you’re not.”

This song has become an anthem for my life. The plea within probably resonates with you, too. You need to make the most of what you’ve got! Stop wasting time trying to be something you are not. How do you move forward? How are you going to succeed?

Fill up your head with the right thinking. Fill up your heart with the love in your life. Step out and take your shot. “Don’t waste time trying to be someone you’re not.”

I’m sure this story touched some of you. Maybe you grabbed a tissue to wipe your eyes as I had to do while writing it. Some of you may be motivated enough to take a shot at living the life of your dreams. But too many of you probably won’t.

Why?

You don’t need to have the emotional impact of a brain tumor or terminal illness to change everything about your life. You can make the choice all on your own…if you can just get over fear. Fear of what? I’ll let Marrianne Williamson answer with her famous words:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

“We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Who are you not to be? You are a child of God. You playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

“It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

This is my “Why.” I dedicate my life to helping people discover their passion and purpose so they can find freedom. I want others to live the life of their dreams. It is possible. Don’t let this just be a story that makes you feel good. Use it. Use it to shake off the limitations placed there by your family, your work and yourself. Use it to wake up and start living the life you are meant to.