Built in the Fire: Buddy Clay’s Journey Through Cancer, Faith, and Finding Humor

Dr. Brad Miller 0:00

Hello, good people, and welcome to the Cancer Comedy Podcast with Dr. Brad Miller. This is the podcast where we look to help people to kids, right back to people to cope with hope and humor, and one of the things we really like to do is to talk to people who are doing just that in one form or another. And our guest today is Buddy Clay from Buddy clay.com he is the author of the new book called Built in the Fire, a little bit about his own cancer journey and about how he is navigating some adversities in his life and helps other people to do that. One of the ways he helps people to do that is he is he helps run an outpatient mental health counseling facility, and he's our guest here today on Cancer Comedy. Belly, welcome to our conversation, my friend

Buddy Clay 0:46

Dr. Brad. Thank you for having me. I know we tried to touch base and we had some issues, but now we're here. So, hey, glad to be here.

Dr. Brad Miller 0:52

We're here, we're here, and you have quite a story to tell, and you have quite a service that you render to people who have a great need, and so let's just set the context a little bit about you. Are a cancer survivor in your own right, so tell it gives us, take a couple minutes to give us context about when you found that by cancer in your own right, and how to let a little bit to what you're up to these days.

Buddy Clay 1:18

Yeah, I will touch on it as briefly as I can. Four years ago, I had a stage three melanoma diagnosis. I had a mole in the center of my back that was there my whole life, and I never thought anything of it. By God's grace, some of my best friends and I, after a guy's weekend together, they pressured me to get it checked out soon as I got back home from our vacation, I did, and that's when I found out it was melanoma. So I had surgery, I did all that. They removed it, they removed some lymph nodes, and I did immunotherapy for a full year prior to that. Everything was clear, no evidence of disease. Three and a half years later, I had one of my six month scans, and in that scan, something popped up in my abdomen, right in the subcutaneous layer, like a little belly fat. There was a small tumor. It turns out that was melanoma. So, the melanoma, some way or another, spread in the course of those three and a half years to a little tumor in my stomach, which made it stage four cancer. Now, because it deviated from the original site, I had that taken care of about a year and a half ago. I had surgery, and I chose this time not to do the traditional route, and I went about it a holistic route this time. So, stage four cancer stakes are high, it was scary, but I decided to just restructure my life kind of changed the way I was living, as far as diet and lifestyle goes, and just trust in what God has provided for me here on earth, and do my due diligence and treat my body the way I needed to. And

Buddy Clay 2:51

a

Buddy Clay 2:52

year and a half later from surgery, I'm happy to say there's still no evidence of disease, so we are hoping to continue down that path, but it's been a lifestyle change for not just me, but my I got three little girls right now, and a wife at home, and we're all trying to stay on course.

Dr. Brad Miller 3:06

Well, yeah, God, you're on a good pathway now. But to take me back to you, you have, as you mentioned, three kids. Yeah, I think when you had one of these diagnoses, you had a child on the way, and so on. What went through your mind? Then was there a state of kind of, I don't know, confusion, or yeah, I sometimes call this the insane period. What kind of was going through your mind at that moment?

Buddy Clay 3:27

Yeah, so first time around it was definitely something I was not expecting. Cancer wasn't a word that was even probably in my vocabulary. I had one little girl's time living in California with my wife, and that's when the panic comes in and the fears come in on what's going to happen, which led, you know, by God's grace, we ended up here in Knoxville, Tennessee, because that's where my family ended up. They are all living here for some odd reason. We're from New York and lived in Florida, kind of all over, but Tennessee's the where we landed. So we moved out here just to be close, because we did not know what life would look like with cancer treatment, if my wife needed help watching the baby, and all these different factors. So we moved here, and we had one child at the time. And then fast forward three and a half years, we had another little - not she was a little at the time, but my other daughter was born. She was, I think, she's gonna be five now, so roughly two,

Dr. Brad Miller 4:21

so there's real some real sense of uneasiness, fear, and lots of changes going on, and you're with your wife and your family, your kids, and you and you, and and this led to some inner dialog, I think, but also some outer dialog, and I know in our prior conversation we had, you, you mentioned some of the dialog around cancer wasn't very positive, you know, what were some people saying that kind of was, you know, looking to bring you down, or what, what was that all about, and kind of what clicked with you, you decided to tell a different story, you know, and so take me through what went on with that,

Buddy Clay 4:56

yeah, that I mean, you go on, if you Google, you know, that's not. Going to tell you anything good, you search stage four cancer, whether it's melanoma or anything, you're not going to hear anything good, that's that's all fear and scare tactics out there. And then even just people around my oncologist here in Tennessee, that I, that I met, just because it was the only option, he and the surgeon, when I found out I had the stage four melanoma. They basically told me any ideas I had around diet were just kind of, you know, a death sentence in lighter terms. I told them I might want to go down to a clinic in Mexico, and I've heard good things about it, and they're like, if you do that, you won't be around to see your girls in a few years, and that's obviously not something you want to hear. So those are the fearful thoughts in there, but the turning point was that I didn't have the firmest foundation at the time, but I knew enough, and one of the doctors said to me, I said, "I'm thinking about shifting my diet. I really think it's important to kind of change what's going in, because the body heals itself if you're eating well and doing this and that, it could benefit you. And he, at the time, said, "Not too much, we're going to do immunotherapy, that's gonna be the main driver. He's like, if you're drinking a six pack of beer a day, maybe cut back to two, but he told me not to really change anything I was doing outside of the extremes, and to me, that was just like, I don't know, I don't know much, but I do know I shouldn't be going to McDonald's while I'm having a cancer diagnosis and drinking, you know, beers every night, because that's the science is there for that, whether you're eager on the route of full holistic or semi-traditional,

Dr. Brad Miller 6:26

it

Buddy Clay 6:27

just doesn't line up. So, for that point, I was like, I'm going to dive deeper into research and see what I can do, and I was, I was done with the program I was in at the time at UT Cancer.

Dr. Brad Miller 6:37

Yeah, so give me, give me just one or two specifics about that. You mentioned McDonald's and beer as two of the staples of your diet, I assume, at that one time. But what kind of, what can be one example of what you did specifically to change things? It was kind of dramatic there.

Buddy Clay 6:55

The specific, it was a, it was a complete 180 I mean, I changed everything. I wasn't. I've always been an athlete, I wasn't completely unhealthy. There's plenty of fast food, I would say Taco Bell is little better than McDonald's in my eyes, but I would eat fast food, I would, I would drink beer. I didn't really care too much what I had, because I would work out and stay in shape, but for me it was, it was quite literally the most extreme you can go as far as the journey went. It wasn't immediate, but in a very short period of time, my wife and I, you know, put a whole house water system. We got rid of all plastic in the house. We only cook with stainless steel appliances. We were being intentional about only organic food. I went to a basically a raw vegan diet, is what I went down. It's a protocol by Gerson. I'm sure you've probably seen some stuff on Gerson in your lifetime Max Gerson was a doctor who had his own type of idea behind inflammation and what you put in the body, and it boiled down to almost being a vegan who only barely cooks their food, so we got really extreme. I dove in, like I said, my girls were a big part of my life, and I was struck with so much fear of I want to see them get married, and I'm being told that stage four melanoma, I won't be able to see that. So, I did everything, it wasn't just cutting out one thing, it was really a complete overhaul of my system and lifestyle.

Dr. Brad Miller 8:12

So, you didn't go halfway, you kind of went cold turkey, as it were, are all in, maybe better way of putting it. So,

Buddy Clay 8:19

yeah,

Dr. Brad Miller 8:19

well, that's awesome, and it made a difference, and you're doing from what I can, which you shared earlier, doing pretty well, right at this point,

Buddy Clay 8:27

as far as the test show, and then the biggest thing, which was such an amazing thing that happened, was I had the tumor removed, that was the only part of the surgery I did, and I was supposed to start immunotherapy, they wanted me to do two months of immunotherapy, have surgery, finish a year of immunotherapy. That sounded great for me. I'm, I'm a big fan of the immunotherapies that they have for melanoma specifically. The success rates are good, but at some point, when I was at, I was supposed to start, I was in MD Anderson in Houston, I was, I went to meet with the doctor, I went over a PET scan, and I was supposed to start my immunotherapy, and I just felt something, and just I don't know, my spirit, I felt that I'm going to postpone this. I want to do the diet, do everything, and then I'll have the surgery, and we'll see what it looks like. So the biopsy came back after the surgery, it showed that there was 1/4 of the tumor was dead, and if I would have done immunotherapy, the doctors would clearly say it was, it was due to the medicine, and they would probably write off the diet. They might say that was Kelty healthy, whatever. But for me, I wanted that clarity that this diet was doing something important for me. So I got that, and it was something that's just invaluable, because I didn't. I would always second guess, was this diet worth it? Could I have been drinking? Could I, whatever it may be? But I didn't do that, and that was awesome.

Dr. Brad Miller 9:41

Well, you've tested a couple times there, where you said some about your spiritual life and things like that. I know in our prior conversation you mentioned that faith has sometimes been an anchor and sometimes a wrestling match as you've dealt with your diagnosis. Say a bit about that. How about faith as an anchor and wrestling match?

Buddy Clay:10:00

That's that's that's exactly it. I mean, I'll touch on the wrestling match first. I'll walk outside, and you know, I'll see someone that even just, you know, using drugs, someone that might be homeless, they're eating, you know, their lifestyle, and they're gonna probably live to 90. And there's been wrestling matches, like, "God, why me? Like, why, why am I the one that has to deal with this? Why can I go to a restaurant and see people who are clearly not taking care of their bodies, but they're gonna die of old age, and then I'm on the other side of it, where I'm not promised to get past 40 or 50, and that was the wrestling match of God, why a lot of back and forth, and a lot of just thoughts on this shouldn't happen, I'm not, I'm not a cancer patient over what I would, the normal person would perceive as a cancer patient. I go to those halls, and I'll see people who obviously look very sick. Some people lost their hair, hooked up to IVs. That wasn't me, but it was me, because I was in the same situation as them, and I just.. I couldn't make sense of it, and it was very tough to come to grasp with. But on the flip side of it, the anchor part was that I mean, if I believe God is sovereign, He is sovereign. It doesn't matter if I have cancer or if I, you know, lost my legs in a car accident, like He is sovereign, no matter what. If my kids got taken away from me, God forbid, He is still sovereign, and I need to believe that, and that that doesn't change based off my circumstances. So, however long I'm here on this earth, my only goal and my only calling is to bring glory to Him, because this time on earth, in my eyes, is very, very momentary. It's short, so I need to make the most of it. So, really, if I have an extra 20 years or two years, it's all the same in God's eyes, and I need to just do what I can in that moment, live day to day, be present with my girls, and be present at work and try to run a company the best I can.

Dr. Brad Miller:11:44

Well, that's awesome. I love that, that give and take, or that kind of yang and yang of the anchor and the wrestling match, and I guess what a lot of people go through when they deal with cancer or any other adversity in life, and you can say that very well. How faith is in the center of that, and the sovereignty. I love that part of what you just share, shared there. We also mentioned now you have a business that's kind of came out of this experience a little bit, and turns to try to be helpful to other people. Tell a little bit of how that came about, and how you now run a business that's looking to help people who are going through their own struggles.

Buddy Clay:12:22

Yeah, so the book that I came out with is called Built in the Fire, and it's called Two Battles at Once, is the subtitle, so it's talking about the battle of cancer, and then the battle of running a business and running a home, basically. So I have an outpatient facility here, we treat substance use and mental health services, we have about 100 clients in our care at any given time. I have 50 employees, and we do great work all throughout the year, and it's a lot, though. It grew into something that was quite large. I opened it after I moved here to Knoxville, by God's grace. Again, I wasn't planning on it, but over the course of time, it's grown to something pretty awesome, as far as what we can do. But it comes with a weight and a stress. I have to show up, and, as the, you know, quote unquote leader of the company, my employees look at me. I need to be as present as possible. If I start to stop showing up to the office because I'm stressed or my mood is down, and I'm not, I'm not leading by the right example, it's gonna be felt on the leadership level, and that foundation will affect everything, so it's been a battle for sure, and just it's been a cool learning experience for me, because the biggest shift that came from that was when someone has a title, or in my eyes, prior to doing this, when you're, when you look at what you see as a CEO, you want to think like they have it all together all the time, they're running a business, they are heads on straight and everything is great for them, but that wasn't the case, and I didn't want to. I always wanted to keep that image there to some extent, but through this last season, I would say in the last two years, I've really opened up about my fears. I've opened up about what's really happening. I've let my employees in on what's going on. I didn't keep it a secret. I said, you know, I have this stage four cancer diagnosis. I'm going to go away for a little bit to get treatment, and it's an ongoing battle, and all these different things, and it's really opened the door to, I would say, almost humanize me more so than I could have ever imagined. And it's been so impactful, because, as you're well aware, cancer doesn't only pick a very few amount of people in the world, it's kind of widespread. So,

Buddy Clay:14:22

sure, I've been

Buddy Clay:14:23

able to talk to staff, I've been able to talk to staff members who got a recent cancer diagnosis, and explain where I'm at, and level with them, and give them the opportunity to kind of, you know, talk to you about some fears they have.

Dr. Brad Miller:14:34

You kind of have the give and take there. You have kind of the interesting position of running a mental health entry and substance treatment organization, and then you, which is designed to support and help people in need, and yet here's some moments when you're the one who's in need, they need support, and it seems like from what you're sharing with me, all in all, being vulnerable with your staff, and maybe even some of your clientele. It was overall a helpful thing for yourself, was it also in some ways helpful for your staff, and for, you know, the providing of a good service for your clients?

Buddy Clay:15:11

Yeah, I mean, I needed it for sure. It's, it's, it's very difficult to try to put on a face every single day that I have it all together, so being able to just be okay with explaining, like, maybe today I'm not going to be, you know, who I normally am. I might be kind of absent-minded or just not as present, and that's freeing to be able to have that conversation. And then with my clientele, it's been, it's been an awesome opportunity to have to sit down with people in my care where they wouldn't normally get that opportunity with, again, quote unquote, like a CEO or founder of a company, but I could sit down in my office, just like you and I are talking, and talk about life and the fears, and I could tell them, like, you're here for mental health services because you struggle with depression or anxiety, I'm here with you, like the anxiety and depression, they, they, they don't discriminate against, you know, who's got their lives together or not, it affects me just as much as you, and I'm working through some stuff.

Dr. Brad Miller:16:04

I think that's probably helpful. In fact, you, in our prior conversation, you mentioned a particular client who you have a was particularly impactful on yourself, and, and if you recall that story, can you share a little bit about that story, or maybe about another, any other client situation that's been impactful that's touched your life, what has it taught you?

Buddy Clay:16:25

Yeah, the one that we, the one we touched on was, it was most recent, so it was fresh in mind, but he was really, really struggling. He was going through, I don't want to say he felt like a victim, but it was, it was affecting him in a sense of like there was an entitlement that he was feeling, and it was really affecting his mental health, because you can't. I've learned that I can't walk through life with a chip on my shoulders and be the best version of myself. I need to understand, like I mentioned, like you know, God is sovereign, He's sovereign. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna have a pity party. And this guy was really struggling, he couldn't make a breakthrough, he was struggling in groups, he felt like he needed special treatment because of this, no one understood him because of the cancer piece, but he and I sat down, and we had a really good, deep heart to heart conversation, and I explained to him that this is where I'm at, I'm not just some counselor talking to you and giving you some good advice on how to improve, I've lived it and I've been through it, I'm not just trying to tell you what to do, like I'm telling you what I did, and that was so powerful. There was a shift, you could even physically see, kind of like internally, a light bulb almost went off, and there was a piece that went on him, where for the rest of his stay in our program, we're typically like a 45 to 70 day program. For the rest of his stay, he had a much different perspective, and he was able to make a lot more progress in a short period of time, because he removed that barrier or that chip on his shoulder that he had.

Dr. Brad Miller:17:46

That's awesome. That's awesome, particularly when you see that transformation take place in other people, that that becomes affirming to you that you're doing something right in your organization, doing something right. But you mentioned you mentioned, buddy, that you have a book that just came out, so if you have on Amazon, we'll put links to that in our show notes at Cancer comedy.com But tell us, what's one kind of key thing that you really want people to get out of your book? Why do you want them to walk away saying, okay, this is a nugget, this is something here that's going to serve me.

Buddy Clay:18:23

The biggest overall arching theme of the book is that you need to build a foundation, so the quote in there is that we don't ever really rise to the occasion, but we fall to the foundation that we've already built. So the biggest piece in this book is just it's more of a leadership guide that could apply to whether it's marriage, running a business, or training for a marathon, is that there's not a superhero moment. You don't wake up miraculously strong one day to overcome those challenges, and you're going to fall to whatever foundation you built. And if your marriage during good times was built on a shaky foundation, it will crumble during those hard times. If your health is shaky. When things are good, it will crumble during the hard times, and that applies to any area of life. So, the biggest takeaway from that book is that day-to-day work on that foundation, what's that look like? Is it being consistent every day? I like to use running as an example, oftentimes when I work in this field, and it's like I can't go out and run a marathon tomorrow. I can't expect it to happen. I need to train and build a foundation. So, if it's the first day of only running one mile, that's great, or if even one step, you got to start somewhere, but you need to keep building on it and building on it, because when that day comes and it's race day, you're prepared best you can. You're not going to just wake up and say, okay, I could run a marathon, I could get up and run like it doesn't work, and that's the same principle for many areas. That was the takeaway, is just build that foundation, so you don't have to try to rise to an occasion, but really just fall back on your foundation.

Dr. Brad Miller:19:51

Build the foundation, and your metaphor you're using for the title, your book is built on the fire, so it sounds to me like the foundation is also kind of you. So I want you to go with that metaphor, but it sounds me, it's kind of built on the crucible of the fire. Can you unpack that a little bit?

Buddy Clay:20:07

Yeah, I don't think for me I would ever be able to get to where I'm at without being tested. I think about oftentimes different characters in the Bible too. I think about Job's life, like he went through obviously the toughest times you could ever imagine, everything was taken from him, and there's not much you could learn through good times. It's just, it's hard, like if I'm running my business and everything's great, there's gonna be so many blind spots that I'm not aware of. You don't really learn to have a strong foundation until you're tested, the, you know, there's plenty of cliches, like pressure creates diamonds and all of that, but it's true, you don't really, if you make it through that fire, like I said, built in the fire, I could have crumbled and not, and just curled up in a ball and stayed in my house, but that wouldn't have built a firm foundation, I wouldn't have been built into who I am today and where I plan to be going in the future, so being built in the fire is just, I think, the most important way to learn any, any of life's lessons, just you can't get by by just having an easy life,

Dr. Brad Miller:21:01

you could either be consumed by the fire or forged in the fire and sound like you've

Buddy Clay:21:05

exactly

Dr. Brad Miller:21:06

chosen the latter. I think it's interesting, you got a great story to tell here, buddy. One of the things you shared with me in our earlier conversation is having a story meaningless if you don't share it, and I thought that struck, struck, suck with me. So, when do you really realize that you know you got a story that really needs to be shared beyond your own experience to serve others. When did that kind of come to you, and what, what is meaningful to you about that?

Buddy Clay:21:31

There's been a lot of pressure from the outside, friends and family, so I can't say it was a complete internal shift of me wanting to share. Me, by nature, I'm not someone who likes to talk or share. I'm fairly open. I'm okay with that. I've always been pretty good at talking to the ones closest to me, but me being on a stage or a podcast or whatever may be has not been something that's been comfortable or easy for me. So I think when I was doing all this research and throughout this process, there weren't many great stories out there. See, it seemed like the ones who beat cancer beat it, and they moved on, and they didn't want to share their story too much. And there's a lot of not great stories out there, as I'm sure you're aware. Most people, there's a lot of horror stories, and there's things that could be scary out there. And I wanted to be one of the voices of light, and that's why I was drawn to your using comedy aspect of it too, because there's there is still joy in it. It's not a dark, dismal story that I have. It's it's a story of hope, and it's a piece that I want to share with people. And even if I don't get to live to 90, and for some reason something comes back and I go earlier, there's still a lot of joy that came through this, and there's been plenty of great interactions and meaningful conversations I've had throughout this journey that I wouldn't have had with others if I didn't have such a sense of urgency placed on me that I'm not guaranteed tomorrow.

Dr. Brad Miller:22:52

Well, let's go with that for a second. Here, buddy, is there a story that you have, a particular joy or particular, maybe even a funny or lighthearted moment that somehow happened to you. This whole process has lifted you up, either among your own experience or with your at your business or with your family. Is there any stories that you might be able to share with our cancer comedy audience about how you experience joy in this whole process?

Buddy Clay:23:16

Specifically, I don't know if there's been like a moment that has been, I could pinpoint exactly. There's just been a lot of conversations, like I've mentioned, that me being able to share my faith have just really has been powerful, and talking to people about what I do, and and making light of it. Like, for instance, one thing that is part of my protocol is, it's, it's, I do coffee enemas twice a day. I've been doing them for about over a year and a half now, that's one that's like people say, "Hey, what's a coffee? And when I say, "I, I started drinking coffee from the other end, basically. I've been doing that, and it's, it's, it's something very odd.

Buddy Clay:23:52

Well,

Dr. Brad Miller:23:53

I bet that gets that gets people to tension, doesn't it? When you say that, doesn't it

Buddy Clay:23:57

opens the door,

Buddy Clay:24:00

and I can make light of it too, it's something I could laugh about and say, like, you know, this, I know it seems funny, but I never would have expected. Okay, you ask me, not gonna happen.

Dr. Brad Miller:24:10

Drake, have coffee from both ends, I love it. Yeah, wow, well, I'm not sure if I would love it, but I'll just say that I'm glad you like it, or, well, maybe you don't like it. I'm glad you are found some, some humor in that, because that's certainly

Buddy Clay:24:25

humor.

Dr. Brad Miller:24:27

Oh my gosh, well, that is something else. But let's transition for a minute here in the last few minutes together, everybody, about how what you do and what you share and can be helpful to others. Let's kind of take yourself back to when maybe you were diagnosed and first going through some of the changes you were going through, and or some of your clients are going through, you know, I'm sure there's a at least ideally some big difference when certain person is going through whatever intake process they have with you, and hopefully when they, you know, 40 to 75 days later they come out, the idea is they had. Made some made some progress, but let's talk about what would you say to someone who's kind of got the diagnosis of cancer or some other bad adversity in their life, and what would you say would, might be, what's here's the first, maybe a couple of steps, couple of things to do, some action points that you, that you can take based out of your experience, what something you might offer to someone who's going through that, you might need to hear that here today.

Buddy Clay:25:26

For me, I think one of the biggest things is to try and slow down when you hear a diagnosis, everything tends to speed up and wheels start spinning, and you feel like someone flipped over the timer and it's going and you can't stop it, so really taking the time to breathe for a moment, research what you can, and get second opinions. Not that cancer isn't something to take lightly by any means, it's, it's, it's deadly, and it's serious. But I don't like, I was, I had the ability to walk out of the University of Tennessee's cancer establishment because I took the time to breathe and use my discernment and reach out to other programs. I went to MD Anderson. I, there's other places I've talked to, and the time is running, and you do have to take action. You can't just sit there and stay still and not do anything, but I would say really taking it day by day is huge. We use that slogan a lot in the recovery world for addiction. It's, you know, one day at a time. You can't. I can't control five days from now. I can't control five minutes from now. Really, I could control just this moment to some extent. So, really slowing down and just seeing what can I do today. I'm going to research and do this today. I'm going to reach out to this person today. Tomorrow is another day. I'll see how I'm feeling, and then I'll do what I can in that day as well. And that falls in line with the same principle, just building a strong foundation just one day at a time, breathe and not get so overwhelmed with what's in the future, because I can walk out these doors today and get hit by a bus, and that's that's it. So I can't be focused on that

Dr. Brad Miller:26:52

one day at a time. I love that. Well, let's kind of wrap up our conversation with it, with this, with this thought here. You spent, you know, five years and just a roller coaster of lots of things going on in your life, cancer business, you know, you deal with clientele who are having their own, by definition, if someone's coming into your mental health services or substance abuse services, they have their life's a mess in and of itself, your life is a bit of a, you know, in turmoil, to say the least, and, and you've gone through the cancer process here, and you've chosen to serve others. What's something that cancer has taught you that you have taught you something about your clients, or about something that this whole process that you couldn't have learned any other way, you know, other than going through the cancer process, or something, maybe even made you better at your job. What's something that you've learned that cancer taught you?

Buddy Clay:27:50

It's, it's about not that no one is immune to adversity or even mental health issues. You, a lot of people would think that they, you know, if you have a decent life, a decent job, and a wife, and whatever, the moderately average life, that you're immune to mental health issues, but it's just not true. We all go through seasons where there might be doubt, there might be anxiety, there might be depression. So, for me, it would just really help me have more empathy for those struggling with what I didn't know existed prior to that, I didn't know what real anxiety felt like, waking up in the middle of the night in a panic, because I'm thinking about not being around for my girls when they get older, or being depressed, not able to work out, because I just feel, you know, I'm thinking about it so much. So, just really understanding that mental health issues, and it's appropriate, because May is Mental Health Month, Mental Health Awareness Month, but it's just, it's, it's real, it doesn't, it doesn't discriminate against anyone, doesn't matter if you have what looks like a great life or a bad life, there's going to be seasons where things get tough, and for me it's been very helpful just to have more empathy and more compassion for those struggling, and when they mess up in my program or have a bad day and don't participate, there's there's been more grace for that, and I've been able to help my staff navigate that as well, and just provide them with a platform of approaching people with more grace, I guess.

Dr. Brad Miller:29:11

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, you've been a great, it's been great to have great conversation here with you, with your buddy, say yay God for the health that you have now, and the vitality you have now, and able to serve people, serve your wife and your children well, and your family life, and then also the clientele of your mental health services agency as well, and that's that's all a good thing, but I bet there may be some people who are listening to us here today who have been moved by your story, so if there's people out there who want to learn more about you or about your book, how can people get a hold of you, or maybe even get you, get your, your, your book, help people find out more about you?

Buddy Clay:29:52

I try to make it as easy as possible. My name is pretty easy to spell, it's, it's Buddy clay.com that has my company on. There is linked on the page, you can find it's called New Hope Healthcare Institute. And then I have a shop on there that has options for the book, some clothing. I have this hat on here, B I T F, or Built in the Fire. So I have some just things out there to encourage people and more about what I'm doing. And then the second book is wrapping up soon, which goes really deep into the psychology and the protocols, and all the stuff that I went through.

Dr. Brad Miller:30:23

Awesome. Well, we'll put connections to all that on our website, cancerancomedy.com His name is Buddy Clay. You can find him@buddyclay.com the book Built in the Fire, and he's been our guest today here on the Cancer and Comedy Podcast.