Ch 1: Diagnosis Day
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This was the first moment I felt the ground shift beneath me.
For me, it happened in two parts. The first was in a hotel room in Southern California. In late March 2024 I was on a business trip, celebrating a major milestone—the acquisition of Wawanesa General by The Auto Club Enterprises. It was a moment of pride, the culmination of years of work, strategy, and leadership. The energy was high. The future looked bright.
Then, on a frightful Wednesday around midnight, I woke up with my heart racing. Not just fast—pounding. I sat up in bed, trying to breathe through it, trying to stay calm. I checked my pulse. It was erratic and alarmingly high. I waited. Ten minutes. Twenty. An hour. Eventually, it subsided. But something inside me knew: this wasn’t stress. This wasn’t normal.
The Flight Home
I flew home the next day, still unsettled. The walk from the gate in the Denver airport to my car revealed the extent of my concern; I was completely exhausted and out of breath. I told myself it could wait, but my gut said otherwise. The following morning, I went to the ER. I didn’t want to make a scene. I just wanted answers.
What I got was a diagnosis I never expected: a pulmonary embolism—a blood clot in my lung. The doctor explained that my alarmingly high heart rate in that hotel room was when the blood clot released somewhere in my body and was traveling to my lung; I was lucky that it didn’t cause anything greater than an elevated heart rate. I was admitted immediately. The doctors ran test after test, trying to understand what had caused it. I remember the ER doctor looking at me, serious but calm, and saying words I’ll never forget:
“There’s something going on in your blood.”
It was vague, but it stuck with me. Something was off. Something deeper.
At one point, I asked the doctor to walk me through the blood work in more detail. He explained that a normal white blood cell count for an adult male is typically between 4,000 and 11,000 cells per microliter of blood. Mine was 50,000. That number stopped me cold. It was like getting hit in the face with the reality that this wasn’t just a fluke or a scare—this was serious. The kind of serious that forces you to stop, take a breath, and realize your life might be changing in ways you never saw coming.
Released, But Not Reassured
After several days in the hospital, I was released. No one had said the word “cancer.” I was relieved but not reassured. The extensive blood work they had run was still pending. I went home, trying to resume normal life, trying to convince myself that maybe it was just a fluke.
Then came the message.
I was checking my hospital’s patient portal over the weekend —something I’d done dozens of times before. This time, the screen read:
“You have a new message.”
I clicked.
Diagnosis: Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
That’s how I found out I had cancer. Not in a doctor’s office. Not in a conversation. In an email.
In that first instant, I was completely alone. The room felt impossibly quiet. My heart raced, my mind spun, and for a moment, the weight of the words pressed down on me as if I were carrying them by myself. There was no comforting voice, no steady hand, no one to share the shock, just the cold light of a screen and the reality staring back at me.
Then I called my wife into the room. The moment she entered, everything shifted. She saw the alarm in my eyes immediately—the unspoken terror, the disbelief. In her presence, my isolation broke open, and I finally let the truth escape my lips: “I think I have cancer.”
Suddenly, I wasn’t alone anymore. The fear was still there, sharp and real, but now it was shared. The weight was no longer mine to carry alone; together, we could face what came next. That contrast—between the crushing solitude of that first moment and the immediate, grounding presence of someone who loves you—was, perhaps, one of the most “real” moments in my life.
The Weight of Words
My wife and I looked at each other, stunned. No one spoke for a moment. The gravity of those words settled in like a fog. Then, instinctively, we opened a browser and typed:
“Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.”
Reading about it—understanding what it was, how it worked, how rare it was—somehow made it easier to grasp what was happening inside my body. It gave the diagnosis shape, context, language.
But then reality hit.
About fifteen minutes later, I broke down. Quietly. Tears came, and I whispered to myself, over and over:
“I have cancer.”
Saying it out loud made it real. It was no longer a line in a report. It was mine. My diagnosis. My new reality.
The Myth of Readiness
No one is ever ready for this. Not really. But what we do have—if we’ve built it—is a foundation. A set of values, habits, and relationships that hold us up when everything else feels like it’s falling apart.
That day, I didn’t feel strong. But I had structure. I had people. I had purpose. And that was enough to take the next step.
Looking Back
I’ve replayed that trip, that night, that message more times than I can count. Not because I want to relive it, but because it marked the beginning of something unexpected: a journey not just through illness, but into a deeper understanding of what it means to endure.
Resilience didn’t arrive all at once. It came in fragments—small decisions, quiet moments, and the discipline to keep showing up.
That day, I didn’t conquer anything. I just didn’t fall apart. And sometimes, that’s how resilience begins.
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In moments of crisis, the first act of leadership is composure.
When life delivers a devastating blow, people watch how you respond. Even without having all the answers, choosing to communicate with honesty, steadiness, and a sense of purpose sets the tone for how others will navigate the challenge alongside you. Leadership isn’t about eliminating fear—it’s about modeling how to face it without letting it dictate the moment.
Composure doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine. It’s about acknowledging the reality of the situation, even if it’s grim, without surrendering to chaos. In this story, the decision to share the diagnosis honestly, without dramatics or false optimism, became a quiet but powerful act of leadership. It showed others that it’s possible to face uncertainty with courage, to make space for fear without letting it dictate the course, and to focus on the next step instead of the entire mountain ahead.
True leadership in crisis is often less about delivering grand speeches and more about modeling emotional steadiness. That steadiness creates a safe space for others to process the situation, think clearly, and take action. It’s in that calm center that resilience starts to take root—for both the leader and those they lead.
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When faced with an unexpected crisis, what values, relationships, and habits would you rely on to stay grounded and lead others through uncertainty?
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The next post is about the moment I learned one of the hardest truths of my life: control isn’t strength—it’s comfort.
For decades, I led from the front—solving problems, building systems, staying three moves ahead. Then cancer arrived and tore up the playbook.
I’ll share how I went from spreadsheets and color-coded plans to learning the quiet discipline of surrender. How I stayed connected to work from the infusion chair. How I discovered a new kind of resilience—not in control, but in the courage to simply be.
It’s a story for anyone who’s ever had their certainty stripped away and wondered what’s left.
