From Rock Bottom to Resilient How Mark Light Found Hope and Humor Through Cancer

Brad Miller 0:01

Hello, good people. Welcome again to the cancer and comedy podcast, where we like to offer a bit of hope and humor to cancer impacted people, and we love to talk to people who have have a story of resilience, of dealing with something dramatic in their life, like cancer, and then to get through that process. And today, we're very pleased to have the author of the book rock bottom to resilient. His name is Mark light, and the subtitles transform your mind and become unshakable when the crap hits the fan. He and we are going to talk with Mark here today. Mark, welcome to our conversation.

Mark light 0:38

Thank you, Brad, very, very good to be here. Thank you for having me.

Brad Miller 0:41

Awesome. It's great for you to have you with me. We've been able to get acquainted and some have coffee together. And you just have an incredible story to tell, and you outlined it in your book. But it really kind of starts with some real challenges that you had, which basically are about, you know, you some really bad stuff happened to you when the crap did hit the fan for you. So let's just kind of go there. Let's talk about some life happenings that happened for you that kind of set the stage for what you're doing now.

Brad Miller 1:12

Okay, which, which, how far do you want to go back?

Mark light 1:15

Well, let's, you know. Let's talk about first.

Brad Miller 1:18

Let's talk about your cancer journey and

Mark light 1:20

Okay,

Brad Miller 1:21

several things going on. Let's talk about your cancer journey.

Mark light 1:24

Sure, yeah, my cancer journey for me began on August 11 of 2022 I was living in San Antonio, Texas at the time, and went to the emergency room. I had previously had a health history, went to the emergency room, just in a lot of pain. I didn't know what was going on, although, I will tell you, I was in great denial. I kind of did know what was going on, but was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer, and it had already, by that point, metastasized to my liver, and I'm learning this as a surgeon, surgical oncologist, is entering my room in the in the emergency room, down in the hospital down in San Antonio, and he very quickly said, Hey, we have to treat this, the cancer, but we first need to get you into emergency surgery, because the tumor had grown by that point to this was what sent me To the hospital, to the point where he said, he, you know, just very frankly, right, very matter of factly, said, We got to get you into surgery, or your colon is going to explode and you're going to die. Wow. So that's where that was the starting point that tends to get your attention, doesn't

Mark light 2:34

it? It a little bit did. Although by that point in time, as you and I talked, we I was already sort of on, on bonus time, and I'd already had enough experiences with major health issues that the news, I didn't process it. I didn't receive it the way a lot of people who I've heard tell these stories over the years do. What I mean by that is I hear all these stories about my breath was taken away, and I was completely gobsmacked by by this news, right? And my reaction was, was quite a bit different, in fact, almost to the the opposite end. At the time, I had been operating a roofing company,

Mark light 3:16

excuse me,

Mark light 3:18

down in Texas, where I was losing money. And my first, very authentic, my first reaction was, yes, I get to shut this roofing company down. Yeah. And I didn't fail. I got sick, and was almost as relief, wow, given where I was in life. So yeah, interesting. And also, just to kind of set the context, you'd had, some other major health problems, life threatening health problems, you'd gone through a divorce. Other major things even prior to that is that that's the case, isn't it? Yeah, starting in 2002 I began what has ended up, or did end up, being about a 13 year off, again on again, battle issue, whatever term fits, with pancreatitis, necrotizing, chronic, acute, the whole nine yards that so far has has come way closer to killing me than cancer has okay in my three year journey with stage four cancer. But then mixed in there was in 2012 had a brief bout with bacterial meningitis, and so, yeah, health issues, that was another thing. I felt like I kind of had a cheat code going into this, because major health issues are things that I had been dealing with by that point for a long time. It just didn't intimidate me at that point. And you had a bit of a kind of a, if you allow me, you know your sense of relief and getting your diagnosis was a little bit of a cynicism on your part, a little bit of kind of a Been there, done that, or this is just, this is kind of par for the course. Is another thing happening to me? A bit of a resignation, perhaps, is anything I'm describing here accurate at all, kind of how you were feeling at the time? Yeah, yeah.

Mark light 5:00

Yeah. I mean, the way I've articulated it quite a few times in the past, Brad is I've said, you know, you once you stare down the barrel of a gun long enough and frequently enough, the gun stops, and sorry, to use that as an analogy. Oh,

Mark light 5:15

that's fine, that it's just authentically how I've described it, the gun stops being a source of intimidation.

Mark light 5:21

You know, at some point. And there you also, and I think this plays heavily into the whole mindset. Thing that that we were chatting about the other day, I had already, I had gone into this with sort of a track record that my body, I knew, responded well to their agreements, and that was not a small factor here. Well, you mentioned mindset there, and one of the things that you've mentioned here about your journey, your health journey, your various you know, situations, you adversities, you've had to to face in life, as you describe yourself as kind of moving in and out of being a negative, whiny bitch. And can you, and I have not experienced you as that, but you've described yourself as that way. So can you share with me, somewhere in this whole process, was there some sort of a turning point when you realize that, okay, I need to not be this anymore. I need to do something else in order to to deal with especially in the context of things we've been talking about here go with me there for a minute on that. Yeah, Brad, so I'm effectively sick. My 60th birthday will be in a couple of months, but for about the first 40 years of my life, I would have described myself just like I said in the book, a negative, whiny bitch. That was kind of how I rolled, how I operated. I dealt with a lot of things in, you know, going all the way back to childhood in in really bad ways. Now, I can't put my finger on exactly where a turning point was in, in an in that, but I would, I would say somewhere right around 40, probably a little bit before that, I started going through what I'll describe as a transformation, a mindset transformation, okay? And I it was by accident that I was doing this. It was, it was like life had just forced me to

Mark light 7:18

behave and view the world in a completely different way. It became as as time went on over the last 20 years, it became more of an intentional thing, but it evolved to that. And then the book came about, because I think about a year, well, in the first year or two of cancer, I started noticing that a lot of people were gravitating toward me as I was sharing my story very openly, which was not my original intent, but it almost, it almost, sort of like became a brand, but a very authentic brand. There was nothing contrived about it where, and I'm talking about a personal brand here. Sure, I was being seen as very positive in the face of negative circumstances, and I knew that that was the case. I mean, I authentically, even though I'm facing very difficult circumstances and the and the cancer journey can be an absolute bear at times, I was authentically, you know, a lot of times as I'm drifting asleep at night, I'm thinking, My gosh, do I have the best life of anybody? And that was, that was a very authentic thing. Well, I decided that that in there was a there's a whole backstory to this that we probably don't have time to get into the details of. But I did know that I wanted to write a book,

Mark light 8:38

and what the book kind of forced me to do once I decided what the subject matter was going to be, it

Mark light 8:45

forced me to get very introspective and say, All right, well, I didn't. I have a mindset that is very resilient, and I almost welcome massive, difficult challenges, and I process them a different way. But I didn't always use, you know, I haven't always been this way, and so where, where is the transformation? Where did that sort of begin? And like I said, I can't pinpoint a specific time or event in my life, but I did get introspective to the point of, what were the things that shifted for me or evolved in what I'll refer to for right now is the right direction, sure, and I started taking a lot of inventory and and and going back in time, and started to just really compile, what are the things that helped me, and Maybe, I think, not even maybe, certainly, more importantly, what are the things that that that I could put into a book that would help someone else prepare and or deal with major adverse but sounds like you've been sorting out this process, and I know you've been using some tools and some resources and some mentors to help you.

To do that and and your self assessment and so on. And sound like a process, not so much an aha moment, maybe kind of an emerging process. But would you say it's fair, though, say that you're a much different place, mindset wise, and even attitude and gratitude wise, than you were kind of, you know, before, when all this started to come down, are you in a you're a different, better place. Now, is that a fair thing to say? Oh, yeah, my health is, is not good at all. But mental I am in a very, very good place. And my health is, is far from the only challenge I'm dealing with and and I I think it's interesting when I really think about it, I've had times in my life where, where my health was very good, my financial situation was very, very good, especially for someone my age. And yet I was miserable. That's that, you know, I was in the middle of the, what I'll call those whiny days and very negative days and and so it's interesting that our circumstances don't really tend to necessarily dictate where we are mentally. Yeah, you say something interesting in your book here, Mark, and some of the conversations I've had with you and a lot of people, when they go through this dramatic, traumatic time in life, self assessment and so on, will say, Okay, here's where I'm at. I'm going to set some goals to move forward and get x amount of, you know, success in my career or sex points in my life, health wise or maritally, or any other thing in life. Yet you have said that this is a you take a different track on this than some people who are into to goal setting. In fact, I know you say something defective, that goal setting is a colossal waste a waste of time. So tell me how you how you deal with that, how do you deal with transformation, making progress in life, or just tell me about this thing, about how you feel about goals, goal setting, yeah. So, yeah. So I do think that that goal setting, and I was, gosh, I was probably in my mid to late 20s, before I ever even was introduced to the concept of goal setting. That sounds very weird to say, but goal setting just has never worked for me. And I know that I'm not alone. The analogy, I think it's, even the one I use in the book, is say is, I'll tell people, if you think that goal setting will work, just go to the gym or fitness, January 1, right? January 2, anytime in the first two weeks of January, and you can't hardly fit into the place, right? And yet, go after, Yeah,

nobody's there. Nobody, yeah. And, and what I, what I, what I started realizing, and I, you know, one thing that I always got very right in my life, and and I became sort of a go to

person, was fitness. And I started breaking it down for folks years ago, not even realizing what I was saying, but I would, you know, people would come to me and say, Mark, you're, you're, you've always been such a fit, very strong person, and I've struggled with with getting fit and and whatnot that my, you know, my first piece of advice, which isn't really part of this, would be, first of all, forget about working out. Just go find something that you enjoy doing that takes physical activity to do, because that way you'll keep doing it, but I do think that also does. Now I'm going to backtrack on what I just said. It does play into the goal setting. But I would say to people, Look, if, Jim, if the going to the gym is your thing, I'll share with you what I would do. And I would say, Look, I I would wake up at I'm a morning person, so I wake up very early in the morning, and I would start this process of just driving to the gym and saying, Look, don't even worry about going in. Just just establish the habit of going to the gym, even if you sit in your car and listen to a couple songs on the radio and then come home and then slowly start ramping it up. But the point that I'm getting at here when I criticize or simply just say, goal setting doesn't work. James clear has the book atomic habits, yes, sums it up perfectly. And you don't need to listen to anything I'm saying about this topic. Listen to him, because he's got what I think is darn near the perfect book on this. And he said, your results, I paraphrasing, because I don't remember exactly word for word what his quote is, but he said, your results will never rise to the level of your goals, it'll fall to the level of your processes or your systems. Yeah, I think he talks about improvement, like the 1% improvement, and that, that type of metaphor, I believe, is what he uses, yeah, yeah. Well, that's and, well, you know, in the fitness area, particularly, you know, you're what you're sharing here about goal but your approach to what other people call goal setting. I mean, you lived it out. I mean in your fitness and so on. I mean, you did something you enjoy doing cycling, and you cycled across the country and raised money to benefit a child who needed the surgery, and then you hiked the Grand Canyon. So just give us a snippet of that.

To how you decided just to live it out that way and serve, you know, in terms of your fitness, in terms of serving others. Yeah, no. Thank you very much. And first of all, tying that back into the goal setting, I, you know, I've one of my famous throwaway lines is, I did ride a bicycle all by myself across the entire United States, only capable. I'm not capable of doing such a thing. What I was capable of doing is waking up every morning at 6am having breakfast, being on my bike by, say, 8am and riding until lunch, and then just riding until I found a place to have dinner and just rinsed and repeat that 60 days and and, and boom, I've written across the country, but if I had focused on the goal, I would have thrown in the towel probably in the first couple of days. But anyway, yeah, you, you just kind of did what was right in front of you. Sounded like to me, you know, you just kind of did what was there in front of you. Yeah, very, very much. So, so yeah, fitness has been one of those things that has always come kind of easy for me, going back to it early in life and and, but I was never a very adventurous person. I was in my 20s and 30s, mainly kind of a gym rat, but I had never been a Boy Scout. And for me, a hike, so to speak, was a walk on a beach somewhere in a resort town. Yeah, and I was introduced by a friend, a fellow patient of the surgeon who treated me when I had pancreatitis with my worst area pancreatitis,

and a gentleman who I met, I refer to as the judge, because he is a sitting City Court Judge up in northern Indiana. He was an avid outdoors person, and we ended up going together out to the Grand Canyon, and I got equipped and got myself mentally and physically prepared for something I had never done before, and we hiked to the Grand Canyon. And prior to that, I was back sort of on the upswing from a couple of years of dealing with very bad health, with my pancreas disease, and I'd gotten into cycling, sort of as the means to get back some strength back and get back in shape and whatnot. The hike in the Grand Canyon was a life changing experience. To put it in the most understated way possible, I felt like, I mean, it changed my life in so many different ways. Well, one of them, one of the ways it changed my life, was by making me feel as if I was invincible. So on the flight home from Phoenix, Arizona, from that first hike that I did in the Grand Canyon in 2012

I had that epiphany, or the aha moment that I thought, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to ride my bike all the way across the United States. And I thought I had just invented the idea and Googled it, and felt like, guy, maybe you're the only person in the world that hadn't already done it yet, sure, but it became an obsession, and something that I,

I guess, obsession is, is that is the only word that I can think of that really applies. Well, a situation did avail itself while I was in the in the stages of wanting to make this happen. And And 2016 this is the year I'm going to do it. A gentleman that I was acquainted with by the name of Chris Tyson, had a little girl who was three at the time, named Emmy Emily, and she had a childhood form of the same disease I had, and got a surgery, yeah, and they were in a financial situation. I had already set up a foundation along with my surgeon a few years prior to help people in this situation. So I saw this as a great opportunity to

really be less self indulgent. I thought taking two months out to ride a bike across country just for an adventure, just seemed a little self indulgent, sure. And this felt like, Oh, if I do it for a good cause, then it's so it's I felt better about doing it. And, yeah, and, of course, well, it kind of, it's kind of brings me around to the sense that you apply. You didn't just talk to talk, you applied it. And that's where I want to go with you now, and how you've written this book and you have, I'm fascinated you. One of the things you mentioned in your book is this a framework of which I use quite In fact, I help others in this basically framework called the BE, DO have model, but you got to flip the script on that a little bit. And so tell us about that. BE, DO have model, and how you help use that model now, or use your approach to this thinking to be more resilient, which is a key theme of what you're all about. Yeah, for anybody that's not familiar with the BE, DO have model. It's, it's basically, in order to have something, you must do something. So in order to, you know, if somebody wanted to be a millionaire, they have to go do things that non millionaires, that correct, and put themselves out there. Well, one of the.

Phrases that I've I used to hear when I first got into sales was, in order to have something, you must do something. But in order to do something, you must first become something. What I was hearing was the BE, DO have model? Well, I say that before you can become something, you must first do something. So in the chapter on my book. I call that the lower case do before the be do have right? And so my overarching point, really with the book, and I guess I'll say one of my overarching points, is action. It's

go do things, even if you screw things up, do still do them? Yeah. Be, be, be an action taker. And I think, and you kind of give us a framework in your book about how you've done that and how you can teach others to do do that. You call it the framework. You call it the trashy T r, s,

A, C, H, yeah. T R, A, S, H Yeah. Trash, yeah. So I want you we're gonna I want to touch on one of those little deeper here in a moment, but just just so our listeners and those who are watching this can get an idea. Give us an idea. Just touch on each of those points briefly, what the trashy model is all about. Because I think it's important for people who are dealing with cancer or other adversities in life to learn that there's something you can do with this. When you feel trashed or trashy, you could do something about it. So this is big part of what your book is all about. So go with her, with me for a minute. The trashy model, yeah. So the so the the word trash is an acronym, and the first letter T stands for tactical vulnerability, and what I essentially am talking about there is using vulnerability most of our society, we want to hide our flaws and our problems from the world. And there certainly is something to be said for that, however, holding out your flaws and your pains and your problems and being vulnerable is is an enormously powerful thing for helping deal with problems. A, it draws people into you. B, it it just helps you not be in denial. How to phrase that about tactical or vulnerability? Tactical means that you just, this is a part of who you are. It's not just a reactionary thing. In other words, some people you know would break down in tears of whatever it would be, the vulnerability that comes with, you know, dealing with the trauma. But you're saying that this is a part of the tactical vulnerability. I love that. So tell us about the R. Then R is radical responsibility, and this is one where I touch on some nerves with certain types of people, I guess, or some people, maybe a lot of people, but radical responsibility is probably as much about bashing or advising. Maybe a nicer way to say it is advising people to stay out of victimhood. Victimhood is not the same as being a victim. I could make an argument that you and I, Brad, are victims of cancer, but we're not living in right and what? What I'm talking about staying away from victimhood. The way to stay away from victimhood and and all of its negative, long term trappings is to take full responsibility for what happens to you and the outcomes and pretty much everything in between. And there's a certain framework for for doing just that. I think that's a part of the formula for success for a lot of people, is being responsible and taking, you know, action based on being responsible, and not just letting life happen to you, but you go and do something about it. I love that. So let's talk about

the A. A is attitude aerobics, and that is a borrowed phrase from a guy by the name of Nick Murray who completely changed the paradigm for me. Anyway, in a very small excerpt from a book he did that had nothing to do with mindset, but he talked about attitude aerobics. And one of his things was that, that he that he talked about it, was a completely life changing concept for me at the time, was, you know, we hear all kinds of people, teachers and coaches, for sure, parents, clergy. I mean, just anybody that's in a leadership position. We'll all talk about positive mental attitude, sure, but they don't really ever get very much into how you go from a negative, mega mental state I had for to the first two thirds of my life, into a positive mindset, and it's about action. So the analogy that I have used for all of these years has been that, you know, you can no more change your attitude just overnight from being a negative one to being positive, just by making a decision, then you can decide, you know, this morning, I am an Iron Man triathlete, even though I.

Have spent the last 30 years of my life eating potato chips and watching TV on the couch, living sedentary. The fact of the matter is to make those trends of transitions or transformations, I think is a more accurate term. It does take action in a certain specific type of action. It takes practice and it you got, just got to do it. You can apply it. You know, as you mentioned there, the aerobics tells me that's the, that's the physical aspect, metaphor for this that you, you don't just decide that's one piece of it, but that's not the end of the story. You got to apply it. You got to do it, and then you got to, you know, follow up on that. And I love, I love that. So, yeah, yeah. And the most important thing, Brad, sorry to interrupt, but I want to make this point here, because it is the thing about attitude and doing these things to improve your attitude, it's all centered around it's nice to be well thought of by the world around you. But the more important thing is by following the formula that I outline in attitude aerobics, it changes the perception that you have of yourself, and that's a real positive mental attitude. Well, I could just to kind of go back to your experiences of hiking the Grand Canyon and going across the country. You mentioned about how you got up every day, you just said, I'm going to, you know, pedal for four or five hours. Take a lunch break about a four or five hours. It's right in the middle, the messy middle of almost any endeavor with we can get really hung up, because that's when it gets tough. You're in the middle of of the, you know, the the wilderness experience. It can be really tough, but you've made your just you made your decision to move forward, but you got to keep doing it. Make your and keep applying enough. I love, love that part of your trash, trashy metaphor there, tell us about the H. Tell us about the H. H is healing humor. I know this is your favorite one, Brad. And in there, I'm talking about the value, the immense value that humor plays in dealing with difficult and painful circumstances. Yes, there's actually a it. You know, in in being able to

see these difficult times through a humorous lens, or see the humor that lies in them is an actual skill set to be able to see and utilize that to your advantage. I am reminded of a person who I met many, many years ago, a gal who had been emergency room nurse at the Children's Hospital in Chicago, and she talked about what incredible as anybody can imagine, just very difficult circumstances there to witness a lot of and she was saying the burnout level is enormously high, but how they dealt with it behind closed doors, back, not in front of the patients, certainly was dark humor, yeah. And so I think that that dark humor, if it fits your personality type, can be a very powerful, very applicable in the whole process for cancer patients and others to deal with it in that way. And and, you know, you did some pretty deep research about this topic, and you about how they're, you know, there's actual physiological changes that take place when you when you laugh and have a humorous approach to things. I know you've, you've went into that area and then, but I'm interested, really, about your story, Mark, about any time in this whole situation and you have lots of bad things happen to you, my friend, lots of bad things happen to you. But can you remember any part of that whole process which just was a little bit light hearted or brought a smile to your face, or maybe even, you know, humorous episode that helped you get through things, something that happened to you?

Oh, gosh, a lot. And, and,

I guess pinpointing any, any specific thing is, is always a little bit difficult right on the at the moment here. Well, I got, I gotta mention, I gotta kick out the story you did about the golf tournament. For instance, in your book, I gotta kick out that one. Yeah, that was it. That's exactly where I was gonna go, because I was in the book, and I knew that was low hanging fruit there. So yeah, a group of college fraternity brothers and I,

when I after, shortly after my diagnosis, I was still living in Texas. I knew I was going to be moving back to Indiana, where I'm from, to get treatment, and a group of fraternity brothers who we'd lost touch many years ago, decided to get back together and just hang out and play golf for a day. I didn't play golf, but, but a bunch of us did. And then that turned into, hey, this was really a lot of fun. Let's do it again. And I And one particular fraternity brother and I just we really wallowed in what I again, I'll refer to as the dark humor, right? And we decided together that what we would do is name the golf out.

Building the mark light Memorial golf outing.

Even though I wasn't dead, you're still here, you're still here, you're still walking around. Yeah, that's all I've had. I've had a lot of fun, and it is,

you know, the pancreatitis days caused me to lose any fear of death that I that I might have had, but it still does. It's very therapeutic to sort of laugh in the face of the mortality associated with it. And you also mentioned a story, I thought it got some delight in the story, truth about, about, I think her name was Bertha, so, oh yeah, what's the story about that? Help us understand what gives a little context there in that story. Yeah, so Bertha, I was a financial advisor for really, most of my adult life, and Bertha was a client of mine. Who was

she? I had met her, and I guess I'll say she was not a client of mine. She verbally told me she wanted to be a client of mine, but she

after making a large presentation to get her to move her entire portfolio over to my management, she said, let's go ahead and do this, but before we fill out the paperwork, I've got to run into a meeting. Can you come back next week and we'll do the paperwork? Then this was going to be a big payday for me, which I really needed badly in those days. And she perceived the ghost me, Oh,

didn't show didn't show up for the meeting, wouldn't take my calls, wouldn't return my phone calls, and on top of the financial shot in the heart that that represented, it was a very frustrating thing. So after many, I think it was at least a few weeks, and many different attempts to follow up and follow up and hang on her pant leg as best I could from afar, I decided that the best thing I could do was take out a piece of company letter had for the company that I worked for at the time, and type out a letter, very professional setup letter, and just say in all caps, why, why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Period, full stop. New paragraph, why? Why? Why? Why? Why? And at the very end, I said, why, after all the work I've done, would you do me this way or something to that effect? Yeah, and my boss, at the time, approved the letter, and I sent it out. Oh my gosh. It didn't, it didn't result anything good happening. But never you never heard from her. Oh my goodness. Just let me have a little bit fun, unless you have some fun with it in a way that you could kind of diffuse whatever emotions were going on, whether they be anger or frustration or whatever. You kind of diffuse that. And I, I love what you're sharing here about this. Well, let's kind of bring it around to this mark. Let's say you've got this really impressive book here, rock bottom to resilient. And the overall theme that I'm picking up is this is a resilient process to help your you have experienced resilience. You've got through some really bad crap in your life, cancer, other bad things, health issues, relationship issues, all kinds of things. And you've, you're, you're still here, you're still kicking you're still doing it. You're on bonus time, as you like to, like to say and but tell me about a person or a situation where maybe your story or what you've shared has been helpful to somebody else. Wow.

You know, one of the things that I and I'm going to go back to the days of, shortly after pancreatitis and

I started a foundation called the pancreatitis foundation with the surgeon who had treated me. And we started with the mission to Yeah, we wanted to raise a little bit of money, maybe for some research and stuff like that, but our biggest thing was we wanted to be a source of support for patients and the families of patients who are dealing with pancreatitis, and I'm talking more of the moral support kind of thing than sure I am finding support. So one of my first things, and I had never done anything like this before, one of my first things that the that this doctor asked me to do, was to go into the hospital room and visit with patients who were deep in the throes of dealing with necrotizing acute pancreatitis, which is what nearly killed me, at least on a few different occasions during that stretch of time, and just the act of walking in to somebody's hospital room and at that time, you know, I could lift up my shirt and show them my scar from the surgery, which was exactly like the scar they had from from the surgery that most likely that became super therapeutic for the patients. And in most cases, the patient was a male and married, so the white.

Chief or the spouse, was also given a lot of hope, saying, Gosh, you know, because when you're as sick as I was with that disease, when when I was the most down, it feels like you're never going to be well again. But when you have somebody, and, you know, I, in that case, I could be that somebody that will walked in to a patient's room who was at their absolute worst, and be able to lift up my shirt and show them I had been there and talk about the things I had been through, and encourage them, hey, you're going to get through this just one foot in front of the awesome that is a rewarding experience for anybody that's within touching distance or something like that. Well, that is awesome. That is awesome. Well, you could find all about Mark light by reading his book. Rock bottom to resilient by Mark light. So Mark, tell us how people can find out more about you, or how they can get the book, or maybe get connected to what you're all about.

Yeah, the book is available on Amazon. Just look it up on Amazon, it's, I think, $9

and it's a work in progress, by the way, and I mean that in a lot of different ways, it's far from what I would call perfect at this point, but I appreciate your feedback. I'm on LinkedIn. Not hard to find on LinkedIn or Facebook, I don't do a whole lot. With Instagram, I am looking for opportunities to speak and share my story in a way that can help other people, not just people who are already dealing with cancer or any other disease or downtime or difficult times, but but people who who may want to know what was the mindset, mindset shift I went through. I have a few stories to tell that that I think people can get some value out of. So I do look for speaking arrangements. I am also a wealth coach for a company called TARDIS. Wealth strategies. Mean, one of the things that can hold you back, and I it's it's not in the book, at least not at this point, but in a revised edition, perhaps it will be financial difficulties are one of the things that can keep someone from adopting a positive mindset when they're dealing with difficult circumstances. Absolutely So part of my life story. So yeah, look me up on social medias, my my email address is Mark, my name, M, a, r, k, at Mark, light group.com so reach out to me anytime you know, if anybody would just like to chat, if somebody's gotten a cancer diagnosis, and want to know, you know, just, just a shoulder to lean on, yeah, well, it good to know. We'll put links to all that in our show notes@cancercomedy.com

and it's been a pleasure having you as our guest here today in cancer and comedy. Again, the book is called a rock bottom Brazilian. His name is Mark light, and has been our delight to have him as our guest here today on the cancer and comedy podcast.