A Word To The Wise
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A Word To The Wise
141. The Power Of Choice: Choosing Life Over Despair Ft. Mike Coy
Discover the remarkable transformation of Mike Coy. After an unexpected pivot when life threw a curveball in the form of cancer, Mike's resilience and tenacity shine through every word he shares. His journey, marked by two distinct chapters of before and after his diagnosis, is a raw and intimate tale of choosing life over despair, underscored by his moving book "I Chose Live." His reflection on this pivotal moment of clarity during chemotherapy, reminiscent of a scene from "Shawshank Redemption," speaks volumes about the power of choice and the indomitable human spirit.
Embark on a heartfelt exploration of what it truly means to pursue one's passions and live authentically with Mike. As someone who's navigated the tumultuous waters from a high-pressure career in finance to the rewarding realm of sports coaching, he exemplifies the joy found in aligning work with one's values. Mike's anecdotes, including the inspiring transition of an artist from retail to painting, serve as testament to the importance of embracing change and surrounding oneself with positive influences. His advice doesn't just stop at career choices; it extends to the crucial role of regular health screenings and stress management, especially for men who might otherwise sideline their wellbeing.
The episode culminates in a discussion rich with life lessons and the profound effects of mentorship, positivity, and purposeful living. Mike illuminates the connection between purpose and kind actions, sharing stirring anecdotes from his second book, "Random Acts of Kindness," and illustrating how one can profoundly touch the lives of others. Whether it's the challenges faced by athletes post-career or the power of spirituality in the face of adversity, Mike's insights touch on the universal need for purpose across life's various stages. Join us as Mike Coy inspires, educates, and most importantly, reminds us that we always have the power to choose our path, even in the face of life's toughest challenges.
Special Audience Giveaway:
- GIVEAWAY TITLE - Mike’s 10 Tips to Prevent Cancer
- Chapter 8: I Chose…Live
- GIVEAWAY URL - mikecoyspeaks.com/gift
Website: https://ichoselive.com/
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Hello everyone and welcome back to the A Word to the Wise podcast, a space where we curate conversations around mind, body, spirit and personal development. I'm your host, jumi Moses. On the show today is Mike Koi. Mike is the best-selling author and keynote speaker. His journey gained depth through an unyielding fight against cancer, fueling his acclaimed book I Chose Live. There's no cheating cancer and we all have a choice to make this battle solidified. His pursuit of excellence and beyond his stellar career as a registered financial consultant. Mike's accolades also extend to a triumphant baseball journey, coaching luminaries like Drew Breeze and being offered a minor league contract with the New York Mets.
Speaker 1:Mike's empowering speeches stir audiences, infusing them with life-changing strategies. He champions a belief winners find a way to win, losers only find excuses for why they fail. In our conversation, mike and I discuss his life before cancer and after cancer, the things he's learned along the journey, why it's important to make a difference in people's lives, and how he lives his life today with more intentionality and more love. Let's get into the show, mike. Welcome to Overture the Wise. Thank you so much for being here today. I'm really excited to speak with you and learn more about you. You're a best-selling author and a keynote speaker, and you do quite a few things, but one of the things that you're known for is just your wealth of experience in the financial consultancy and behavioral analysis field. I wanted to start off with what got you on that career path.
Speaker 2:Well, it's actually baseball. I had an offer from the Mets back many, many years ago. I always say that if anybody saw me play baseball they're dead now. But in 1978, I was offered a contract with the Mets and they were going to offer me $425 a month and $6 a day meal money. I had a pregnant wife at home. I was making $850, $900 doing hitting lessons and doing baseball on the side and then working at the Cody's clothing store on the weekend.
Speaker 2:There was no way I could take that cut in pay. I wanted something, I wanted a career. My degree was in marketing. I wanted a degree that I wanted a profession that I was able to work my own hours. I could still coach. I could still work with young men and then eventually with also women in softball. From the hitting standpoint, I didn't want to have a ceiling on my income potential. That's when one of my father's best friends was a big time financial planner in my hometown of Beaumont, Texas. We went to lunch one day and he said look, this is the opportunity, this is the career that you need to go into. 46 years later, I guess I'll figure out one day what I really want to do. It was all because I didn't think I could make a living in baseball.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. Speaking about your dad, I know you briefly mentioned him in relation to his friend, but you say that your father gave you advice which he said make a difference. Son, do you think that also shaped your career choice as well as your personal philosophy?
Speaker 2:Well, I think so. The last words my dad said to me was son, make a difference. I feel like that. It was probably from the coaching aspect, because he was a coach and a layman discipled by Christ's minister. I think that his meaning was keep coaching, keep working with kids and pay it forward, make a difference.
Speaker 2:But as I've gotten older, jimmy, I believe that it's more of connecting on the personal side, on the health side, on something that I bring out in my book.
Speaker 2:I chose live is that on my battle with cancer and how I'm winning the war is that stress is a silent killer and men don't get checked, men don't go to the doctor. I mean, we all know that women are smarter than us, but the bottom line is that men's, our death rate is 58% higher than women's because we won't go to the doctor. And all of a sudden and I feel the same way I think about the great Toby Keith who just passed. I mean, I've got a band, I do the music, and one of the songs that are in my set every night that I perform is Don't Let the Old man In, and it's a tremendous story. But I'm thinking about you get somebody like Toby Keith that thinks that, oh, I've just got some indigestion, I've just got something, and then finally go gets checked and you've got six months to live. I mean again, I feel like that my dad's words have gotten much deeper than me just coaching kids.
Speaker 1:Yes, 100%, and it's interesting when I went on your website.
Speaker 1:I listened to a couple of the songs that you wrote and heard you play, and there was just so much heart and soul into it and I just remember thinking, oh, I have to talk to Mike. He has so much wisdom to impart, I bet. And I want to talk about your book, and I know you just mentioned it. I chose Live and I know that this book is kind of the aftermath or part of the effects of you going through what you went through with your health right. So I want to start off by first asking when you first got that cancer diagnosis, what was that moment like for you? What were you thinking in those moments?
Speaker 2:Well, you kind of go blank when that doctor comes in and says the three words you don't want to hear and that's, you had cancer. I think probably my kids will tell you that my life is clearly defined as AC and BC. After cancer and before cancer. I've never been sick a day in my life. I've been an athlete my whole life. Now I've got four knee surgeries and a blown Achilles, but that's all sports related. But I was having this continuous sore throat. I had moved to Georgia. My company, aflac, had given me a tremendous opportunity to be the director of sales and training for the state of Georgia and I had just gone through a pretty devastating divorce. And I got this job opportunity and I jumped on it and I said I'm moving to Georgia, I'm going to start my life over again, and I think that there's pretty much.
Speaker 2:There was a lot of stress coming off of the divorce, just packing up, leaving my kids, my grandkids, and just moving to a state where I didn't know anybody in a job. That was a lot of pressure and I was getting into it and really going after it and after about a year I was having this sore throat and I didn't know what the deal was, and so, finally, like any man, I waited five or six months, but I went and got checked and the doctor says oh, it's probably a sinus infection. You've got drainage. Let me give you some antibiotics and you'll be fine in a few weeks. Well, the thing that I found out is that I had a tumor the size of your fist at the base of my tongue, and I was told that it was a sinus infection. So five or six weeks later, I still had this continuous sore throat. I went back to the doctor and she said well, what we need to do is put you on some really heavy duty antibiotics. And, jimmy, all those antibiotics did was destroy my immune system.
Speaker 2:And on July 4th weekend, 2013, I went into the bathroom and one of my litinose was sticking out like a golf ball Golf ball to my neck and I said well, that's not good. And so I forced my way back into to see the primary. She got me a specialist. On the next day, they get five needle biopsies. Now, I don't know if you've ever had a needle biopsy, but it's something you ought to try sometime. It's a lot of fun. And the doctor said look, it's probably nothing, don't worry about it, we'll give you a call in a couple of weeks Now.
Speaker 2:At that time I had left home office and gone to Dalton, georgia, where I had my own district. I was going to be my own boss again. I actually lived right across the border at Chattanooga, tennessee, because Tennessee didn't have a state income tax. So I moved. My condo was in Tennessee but it was only 10 minutes from my office.
Speaker 2:And I got a call that afternoon on my way back to Tennessee. The doctor wants to see you tomorrow at two o'clock. Okay, so I turn around, drive back next morning, two and a half hour drive. And that's when he walked in and just said you have cancer and, in all fairness, you kind of block out the rest of it. You know it's saying that it's not so much a life or death thing. Now, if you would have left this alone for another two to three months, that tumor would have grown and closed off your windpipe and you would have died. But they were concerned about saving my vocal cords and not removing my tongue For somebody that talks for a living, to somebody that has fun with the music. That was not something I wanted to hear.
Speaker 2:I remember him saying we're going to get you on some heavy-duty chemo on Sunday seven days, seven nights in the hospital, two weeks off, back seven days, seven nights, and then you're going to do 12 outpatient. During that period I was going to have to get the port installed and they were talking about it feeding too. But I remember saying, wait a minute, sunday, what's Sunday? He goes. Well, this Sunday we got to get this treatment going. I said I can't do it this Sunday. I just moved, I've got my district, I'm hiring people, I'm going out. That's terrible. I said what's plan B? He said you die. I said all right, well, let's go back to plan A here and see how we can work this out. You finally just get in your mind trust the doctors, trust your faith and let's get this done, let's get this over with. That's how I allowed it to happen.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting because we can have our whole life planned. Life can be going a specific way. Like you said, you were in a position where you were working for yourself again. You were doing so well with your new job. Granted, you had just gone through a divorce and you had to move. But life was just moving in a certain direction and then, all of a sudden, it's pretty much somewhat halted with this new diagnosis. I like what you said, that there was before cancer and then there was after cancer. I realized that in a lot of the conversations that I've had with people who've gone through very traumatic instances in their life, there's this big revelation that they have their whole perspective shifts or there's something that they had never considered prior to whatever they're going through. I want to talk a little bit more about who you were before cancer and who you became after cancer, because I find that very interesting.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that before cancer I was very driven being in the insurance industry. It was about making sales, it was about helping people, it was about getting up there and working. I had two kids that we were raising and you start thinking about college. You have so many other things going. I was coaching in the high school level where I was helping over at Kelly High School in Beaumont, and then I had summer baseball teams. That's where I was able to win three state championships, a national championship. I was the head coach for the 16-year-old USA baseball team that we went down under. We went to Australia every Christmas and played and was able to win five international Championships, and so I was always very driven on the success, on not really stepping aside and doing the proverbial smell in the coffee.
Speaker 2:All of a sudden I get hit with this diagnosis. I remember if anybody out there is going through the chemo and the radiation and all the stuff, you have good days and then you have days that are pretty tough. I remember I was in Tennessee. I was at my condo, I was out on the balcony. I'd gone through about three or four weeks of my chemo and radiation and still had several weeks to go. It was a beautiful summer afternoon. The wind was blowing. Looking at the Chattahoochee River, I felt this spelt something on my arm. I looked down and there was this big clump of hair that had fallen on my arm. The wind was blowing and I had hair going everywhere. That's when I took my hands and started going through my head and all my hair fell out every bit of my hair. I tell you something that's the realization that what you're going through is real. That's why I tell people look, my hair grew back. That's all I care about. I don't care about the tumor anymore, I just wanted my hair back. But to have that realization that you're fighting something that's more than you.
Speaker 2:I remember going back in the house sitting down, flipping through the channels I don't know TNT or something, and a movie Shawshank Redemption. Now that shows gosh 25, 30 years old now, but it was the movie that launched Tim Robbins' career. It had the great Morgan Freeman in it. It was about a man that was accused of killing his wife, and he didn't. But he was sent to Shawshank prison. The first six, seven, eight weeks that he was in Shawshank he was beaten, he was abused, he was raped. I mean it was horrible.
Speaker 2:He's out in the courtyard one time talking to this Morgan Freeman character, red, that had been at Shawshank for 40 years. Tim Robbins said how can you be here for 40 years? This place is a living hell. This is the worst place on earth. How have you been able to be here for 40 years? Morgan Freeman says well, life has choices. You either get busy living or you get busy dying. Jimmy, I tell you, it hit me like a ton of bricks that you either get busy living or you get busy dying. I turned off the TV, I went to my desk and that's when I sat down and I wrote my book. I Chose Live.
Speaker 1:In your book I Chose Live? What do you want people to get or resonate with as they're reading the book? I mean, from the title it's clear that you want people to choose living and live to the fullest. But when you were writing the book, what knowledge were you hoping to impart in I Chose Live?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, that's a great question, because I had people ask me did I ever think about giving up? And I said absolutely not. I had a six-month-old grandson that didn't know me and at that point I had not walked my daughter down the aisle, and so I think it helps if you have some kind of purpose where you don't allow the depression to take over, you don't allow life to get in the way. Basically, and when I started researching the book, the Aflac Children's Cancer Center is in Atlanta and I went there three or four times just to get research about cancer, about my cancer and stuff like this, and what I found out is that stress is the silent killer, because it destroys your immune system. Second of all is about not getting checked, and so I wanted to write the book to specifically get the word out that on the stress side and I tell you this goes back to before cancer and after cancer Just this morning I am going to an enrollment with my work and there was a truck that was in the left-hand turning lane and it had stopped, so I was going to go around it and then all of a sudden he speeded up and I looked up and I had cars coming on me behind and I cut behind him and I promise you 10 years ago I'd probably gotten out of the car and we would have had an altercation.
Speaker 2:Now I just went. What happened, you know? I mean, it's kind of like gee. That wasn't fun, but I can tell for myself how I react to certain things. You know, go to the grocery store. I always get behind the lady that has 100 groceries and at the last minute she decides to pull out the checkbook and write the check right. I promise you now I just laugh. I promise you 10 years ago I would have said something right.
Speaker 2:And so, from the stress standpoint, I have gone through some specific examples. And then also on the men getting checked when I do my talks, I've been very fortunate to go across the country and I've done a lot of speaking gigs and a lot of Aflac kickoff meetings. And one of the things I tell the ladies in the audience we need your help, but we need for you to get your spouse, your brother, your uncle, your father they got to go get checked because prostate cancer and colon cancer are the two main cancers for men and there's no easy cancer. But if you get it treated early it's not going to have near the devastating effects that it would. Instead of waiting. But we don't do that, we wait. We wait six, eight, nine months. When it's so bad we have to go to the doctor, and then we find out with stage four and we've got three to six months to live.
Speaker 2:And so my purpose on the book was to tell about my life and about the choices that we make. And in every talk that I give, I end. Every message, every talk that I give, I ended by saying that Life is about choice, as you get busy living or get busy dying, and I hope and pray that each and every one of you Choose this, make the same choice I made, choose the same path that I made, and that was I. I chose live.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that, mike, and I think what you said is going to resonate for a lot of people, and not just men as well. I will raise my hand and say that I am guilty of Not getting checked as often as I should be getting checked. I know that. You know, physicals happen every year this year was pretty good about it but typically I take my health for granted and I'm like, oh, that's not a big deal. So what you're saying, I'm taking a mental note of that as well and thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1:And Speaking of choices something that you're passionate about talking about, as well as embracing choice in defining Faith and how choices decide our pathway to success. So I know that we talked about choice in relation to health, but what other choices or how can we seize our faith and really seize control of our life? Because a lot of people are just living right, and I had another woman on the show who she had cancer and in her having cancer, she realized that she was living life for other people. Her choices were defined by what would please other people rather than what actually resonated with her. So I want to talk a little bit more about your philosophy on choice in controlling our faith.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's, I mean, it's such a great question and I appreciate it because I actually was speaking to this, this, this great teller at my bank, and she's got so much personality and when you, when you go in, it's hey, mr Corey, how you doing? Did you go play baseball this weekend? Did you do this? I mean, she, she's the greatest. I took her to lunch About a week or ten days ago and I just said look, when I'm able to find somebody that has your personality, that loves people, I've got.
Speaker 2:I've got an opportunity that I would like to share with you on the insurance side, because right now and she admitted that it's very, very tough for her to live, she, she, she just recently got engaged, but for her right now to be in her apartment, have her car and to try to live on $16 an hour is really tough and and and one of the main reasons she's there is for benefits. You know it's got great benefits. And the thing I told her, I said you have to make a choice. If you would like to have an opportunity to work your own hours, be your own boss, there's no ceiling. There's nobody telling you that you're worth 15, 16, 18 dollars an hour. Now you've got it. You know there's discipline, you've got to work, and I tell myself, if you're smart enough to be dumb enough to do what I ask you to do, then you're gonna be successful, because I've done it my whole life. And that's how I try to address it of saying why are you stuck in a Especially, this is a bank at a bank, and right now just last month, 64 banks closed Branches, mainly on the West Coast, and it was PNC had had like 14 Wells Fargo has. It is a Consolidation industry right now, and the thing that you don't want to do is to put in your 10, 15 years. Then, all of a sudden, you walk in one day and it's like you don't have a job any longer.
Speaker 2:And so what I try to coach People on is that for for somebody like me To realize life's too short to do anything that you don't want to do. You know and it's one thing that we talked about a minute ago about Toby Keith I love the way Toby Keith said hey, I am gonna live my life, I'm gonna sing my songs, I'm gonna do it this way, even though Nashville said that that might not be the way to go, I mean when he came out with the red, white and blue and and that, that, that song after 9-11, I mean, he got attacked and he said look, that's how I feel, you know, and he was gonna do it his way. And I think that's one thing that we get away from is that we get into a, a Job situation where it's just simply for the income or just to have a paycheck and there could be so much more out there. If you and I remember One lady this is in Austin, texas that was an unbelievable artist, but she worked at a like a, a dollar store, just to be able to have rent money. And I told her I said you really need to, you're really good, and and then she ended up slowly getting away from cutting back her hours but doing her, her paintings and has made a very good living on it because that's what she loves to do and the reason why I said before I knew I was gonna be a coach and but I didn't want to make.
Speaker 2:Back back in the 70s, coaches, teachers, were only making about eight or nine hundred dollars a month and I said I'm not gonna have somebody dictate to me. You know that this is how much you're gonna make. I'm gonna go in this direction. And yes, it's commission. And yes, I got to get up every morning and and run for mayor. I've got to shake hands and kiss babies every day and I mean, I was when I left my hometown of Beaumont.
Speaker 2:I went to San Diego to try to get into pro baseball again with the Padres and after two years I had a chance to move to Austin to get into back into the financial planning side and and then four years ago I remarried and my life has the early onset of MS and the heat in Austin was just eating her up and she said we need to go somewhere. And that's when a flat gave me this opportunity to move to Colorado Springs. And it's just gorgeous, it's just a beautiful area and and and. Again it goes back to the choices that you want to make and I just feel like we get caught up too many times and In a dead-end situation that I wish Everybody could take a deep breath and say what do you really want to do? What is your passion? This is how you want to do it.
Speaker 2:You know I was when I went to San Diego. I was, I had my own insurance agency and I would work, get there from like I would work from about eight To three thirty and at four o'clock I was at the San Diego School of Baseball Doing lessons until nine o'clock at night and the thing about it is I was making as much or more money Doing those lessons, going to spring training, working with athletes that I was on the insurance side, but I loved it. It was something that I've always enjoyed doing. And when you surround you, especially in sports I mean I've had the fortune of Coaching some of the most unbelievable Athletes that a lot of people have heard I drew breeze. I mean drew breeze the hall of fame. He's gonna be a first Ballot Hall of Fame quarterback for the Saints, but he was one heck of a baseball player and when you surround yourself with athletes like that that want to be better, that they're really, really good but they want to be better, that inspires you, that makes you want to be better. I think that's one thing that I try to spread the word more than anything else. Do everything you can to be around people that are solution makers, that are positive Negativity.
Speaker 2:Well, just, I mean my mother. My mother was brilliant. She was a school teacher. My mother and father had the first private school in Beaumont, texas, and it exploded for them and they were very, very good teachers. My mother was a tremendous businesswoman, but I can tell you you could look outside and say, wow, what a pretty day. And she would immediately say, well, it's probably going to rain. It's not? I mean, you get to that like God. Lee, mom, let's be positive.
Speaker 2:I go out of my way to stay away from the negativity and this kind of thing because, number one, it's not good for you. Number two, it doesn't do anything. It's like yesterday I'm on that treadmill and I'm trying to beat that treadmill to death, but guess what? I ain't going anywhere. But it's something that I know I have to do. But anyway, I just feel like it's so important to find that path that can help you grow and pay it forward and do something positive for yourself. The great Tim Tebow, the ex-NFL quarterback, college quarterback. I've heard him speak twice and he talks about. It's not about any day, it's about today. Yesterday's gone, tomorrow's not promised to any of us. So what are you doing today and in my case, to make a difference?
Speaker 1:Thank you for that. So, if I'm understanding everything you're saying, it's a mixture of making the right choices, surrounding yourself with the right people who speak life into you and are also solution-oriented, and also having a positive mindset as a way of shaping someone's fate or the ability or empowering them to make the right choices that align with their life, and things usually come back full circle, like talking about your experience in professional baseball and then shifting to the financial side of things and then ending up being a coach and making a lot of money doing that as well. That's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2:Well, let me tell you something. I'm part of the prison ministry with my church and I will go into these different prisons and I'll do a concert. I'll do many kind of surprising. The most favorite song is Johnny Cash's for some prison blues, okay, but I sit there and I counsel these prisoners, I talk and all I do is sit there If they want to come talk.
Speaker 2:We don't reach out to them. They come to us and I tell them all the time it's about choices. You made some choices. That puts you here. Now you have an opportunity to make some other choices in your life that can change your life, that could help society, not cost society. And you'd be surprised the number of prisoners that I've been able to speak to and mentor that really want that, because they've hit rock bottom. And a lot of times, until you do hit rock bottom, you're not going to make that change. You're not going to make that shift, that new paradigm, to where I want to do something positive instead of something negative. And I see that with these prisoners usually every quarter when we go into the different prisons around Colorado Springs.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that. Something else that you had mentioned a while back that I wanted to touch on a little bit is the fact that stress can be a silent killer in a lot of people when it comes to their health. How do you manage your stress now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's believe it or not. I try to take a deep breath. I know that sounds so simple and there's so many cliches out there about that, but really what I try to do is, if I get cut off in traffic, I just think, wow, that guy or that girl must be in a really bad hurry when, 10 years ago, I would try to catch up with them. Road rage, whatever. It's not worth it. Okay, I mean it's like in Austin Texas. The infrastructure is terrible. The city fathers years ago said if you don't build it, they won't come. Well, they've come, and so you need to understand. If you get on Mopac Boulevard at 435 o'clock in the afternoon in Austin Texas, it's going to take you an hour or an hour and a half to get south or to get north. Just get ready. And so I was able to. I might have a concert coming up, a charity gig, and that gave me the chance to put music on that, songs that I was going to perform at that concert. And it gives me a different perspective instead of bitching and complaining about the traffic. And so I feel like that if we are able to just kind of take a step back, take a deep breath and say you know what. Life is too short, this isn't worth getting upset about, because a lot of times you can't control it anyway. I mean, it's like this morning there's nothing I could do about this guy cutting in front of me, you know, I mean, and so I just tried to make the best of what almost was a bad situation. And I feel like that. That's where I have grown as a person, where I've tried to be a much more tolerant. Well, I'm much more tolerant with the grandkids than I ever was with my kids. But I'm trying to be a better husband, I'm trying to be a better father, I'm trying to be, you know, and I think a lot of this happens when you realize you're in the. In my case, I'm in the last quarter of my life. I mean, I'm 70 years old, I'm about to be 71. And so I know that I'm in the last quarter of my life. So do I make that miserable for myself and other people, or do I try to make it better for myself and other people? And I think that's where my focus has been, where I'm not as driven. Now I'm competitive, you know. There's no doubt about that.
Speaker 2:You know, I remember reading an article about Michael Jordan one time and it came out that he had a gambling problem. And he said I don't have a gambling problem, I have a competitive problem. When I'm sitting over a putt and it's a 10 foot putt and Charles Borchley says I bet you $10,000, you miss that putt, he goes okay, and if I miss the putt I'll write him a check. But Jordan makes $300 million a year, just off Nike. So for him to lose a million bucks on the golf course, it's like you know me and you you know losing $100, right. And he said I don't have a gambling problem, I had a competitive problem. Well, that's kind of how it has motivated me in the insurance field, because I don't like that.
Speaker 2:I had a really good week last week, but I was not number one. I was number two because this really good female agent beat me by $580 for the week. I can't stand that right. But it's now much more under control, where I'm having a heck of a week this week and I can't wait to see what the results are next week. So I can tease her about beating her once and she's her beating me two or three times. So you know, I think a lot of this comes back on how you address the situation, how you've what is the easiest way to face the situation in handling. And I'm telling you I go into a lot of detail in the book about stress and what to do and how to handle it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting when you talk about, just usually, things that would really piss you off or irritate you. Now you just don't take them as seriously. And one of my philosophies in life life is serious but it's not that serious. And I had a similar thing happen when I was trying to cross over and get to my exit and this car just was not slowing down and they were charging at me and I immediately wanted, like you know, was going into a fit of rage and I just realized I was like, well, thank God he didn't hit me, at least.
Speaker 1:I was able to cross into my, like my late, and get to my exit. So it's all about perspective and not taking ourselves too seriously, because what does that really do for us, right? So I appreciate you for sharing that and giving the Michael Jordan example. I watched his documentary as well at night and you remember he said that. So we've talked about the mind, we've talked about the body and on a word to the wise, I like to connect mind, body, spirit. And I don't know if you're a man of faith or if you believe in God, but if you believe, how does your belief, or how did your belief in God kind of help you through cancer and also kind of continues to help you in your life at the moment and in your purpose, in your current purpose?
Speaker 2:Well, there again, you have a choice. You can either believe or not believe. I would rather believe, and if I'm wrong, okay. But I think that I went down a better path because I did believe. I mean, my dad was a layman to cyberacrice sinister. So almost all of my up until I was about 16, 17 years old, I was at church every Wednesday night, every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, and then when I was about 14, I took over the music side, in the choir and this kind of thing, and got myself more involved and I feel like I am much more spiritual than I am religious, because I feel like my faith is what helped me on my cancer to say get through this and make a difference, get through this and see if you can help somebody else. I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2:I was still in Austin and I was playing men's senior baseball on my third base. The third baseman it was a friend of mine, his name is Jimmy and he's a real good third baseman and. But he turned to me and he said Mike, my wife made me read your book and and so I went and got a colonoscopy a couple of weeks ago. Now he was like 54, 55. You're supposed to get it at age 50. He said I was four or five years late. But he said I went and got it done and they found three precancerous polyps in my colon. They removed them and the doctor said if I would have waited another two years or three years I would have had full blown colon cancer. He says so I just want to let you know. You saved my life. And I said no, jimmy, you saved your life because it's about the act of doing. Okay.
Speaker 2:I mean, when I was the trainer in Georgia, I have people tell you you know, july, on January, the first, you said you know, I need to lose some weight, I'm going to lose weight. And I look at him and I go no, you're not. I said you don't have a plan. Now, if you came to me and you said you know what? Every night I'm going to walk around the block, I'm going to. You know, I'm going to go to the track and I'm going to run the straightaways and walk the curves, I'm going to cut back on the fried foods, I'm going to do this, this and this. Then I would say now you have a plan. Nobody plans to fail, jimmy, you know this. We just fail to plan, right, I mean, we just don't put it down. I've got sticky notes everywhere.
Speaker 2:I've got things that I try to, and one of the things I do on one of my talks that I give is about I want you every morning to go in the mirror and say today is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm going to seize this day, I'm going to seize this opportunity and I am going to make a difference. And I think that positive reinforcement of saying this is what I plan to do, this is what I, and the thing about it is, if you don't do it, that's okay. Do it tomorrow All right, but try to do it today, because this isn't about any day, this is about today.
Speaker 2:And I feel like that again on the spiritual side is I got through the cancer and now I have three grandsons that wish they didn't know me. I think sometimes I did walk my daughter down the aisle and she's giving me this precious five-year-old granddaughter. And again, when you have a purpose that helps you overcome a lot of the valleys. You know my dad was a quarterback in high school and college and he said one of the things you find out the quarterback gets way too much glory when you win and then takes too much blame when you lose. So if you can try to keep it as even as possible from your life standpoint, I think it makes it easier on yourself and then also the people that you're around.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1:It reminded me of this conversation that I had recently with this amazing guy called Brett Brett MacPiang and he was a wealth and financial manager for over 30-plus years and he worked with a lot of rich athletes, a lot of just CEOs and sort, and he said that part of his work was that you know a lot of these people.
Speaker 1:They're very competitive for most of their life and they're go, go, go, go go. Then they get to a point where they kind of face depression or they're going to do something very difficult and they don't have a sense of purpose and what he realizes is that different stages of life call for different purpose and usually at the later stage of life it's really about giving and anchoring into the connections with family, friends and even strangers and paying forward our life lessons and helping others and really making an impact in their lives. And just hearing you talk about your experience and your life in general, it just seems like you're really in a space of giving back and really connecting with the people in your life. So thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you something. I've been around athletes my whole life and I saw this staggering statistics that 63% of NFL football players broke file bankruptcy within two years after they finished their career. I mean that's scary. I remember seeing an interview with Shaq and during the Olympics, during the Dream Team, he actually was with Charles Barkley and they went to Barkley's house and Barkley had, like I don't know, six or seven cars lined up and Shaq goes what are those cars? And you know Barkley said well, they're mine. And Shaq said you only need you can only drive one at a time. What are you doing? You got about $2 million worth of cars sitting there. What are you doing, you know? And so now Barkley is the one that he did an interview the other day. He said if there's anybody out there that pays $10,800 for a Super Bowl ticket to go and sit in a stand, you got to have your head examined. You know, and I mean it's amazing.
Speaker 2:I saw this thing on Rob Gorkowski, the great tight end for the Patriots, and he made this interviewer said it's reported that you made $70 million playing football and he goes. Well, actually it's $69 million, he goes, and it said that you have not spent one dime of that on your life and he goes. Nope, he goes. I've got it all invested. I've got it all put aside. I make my living money on my commercials and my appearances and stuff like that. I've not touched one dime of my football money and those are the kind of things that inspire me to when I'm talking, especially with younger people and some of my athletes that I had one picture that signed with the San Francisco Giants years ago and he got 1.5 million signing bonus and his salary was $500,000. And I told him I said here's what you've got to do. Please put this money aside. You can put a million dollars in a tax free ministry, a tax free municipal bond, and get $3,000 a month tax free income which should pay your basic bills. And it's something that he did and he played for nine years, ended up making about $8 to $10 million playing baseball and is now retired and he's an assistant coach at his high school baseball where he played baseball in high school as a pitching coach, because he doesn't need the money.
Speaker 2:And those are the stories that I mean. Think about all the you've read the statistics about these people that win the lottery and then, a year or two years later they don't have a dime. And so I feel like again, if you have that purpose, if you want to move forward, pay it forward, do something positive, and I just think you can make a difference in the life. It's like when I wrote my second book, a Random Acts of Kindness it was doing COVID I was sitting around not doing anything and I remembered a short story that I had read, I don't know 20, 25 years ago, from Chicken Soup for the Soul, and it was a short story called A Simple Gesture by John Slattery.
Speaker 2:And I went back it's a true story and I took that story and just embellished the heck out of it and made it my own.
Speaker 2:But it's all about a random act of kindness. A simple gesture might just change somebody's life but more importantly, as it's brought out in the book, it could actually save someone's life. And I think the more that we stay on that positive side because you look at society, you look at our nation, you look how divided we are and I just feel like that. You know, if you believe in what the Reverend Martin Luther King did in his life. I'm a big Elvis fan. I sing quite a few Elvis' songs and stuff, and he was so concerned during the civil rights movement on what was happening in the world. When Mac Davis wrote in the ghetto and Colonel Parker said, no way you're going to sing that song, elvis, for one of just a few times, went behind Colonel Parker's back and recorded that song because he said this message needs to get out there. I can tell you something, jimmy 40 years later, 50 years later, it's the same thing.
Speaker 1:Thank you, mike. That was so powerful. I need to make a note to have you back on the podcast to give us financial tips on saving and investing and growing our money. But thank you so much for your words of wisdom. This has been a great conversation and I usually like to wrap it up with final words of wisdom to the listeners, since it's called a word to the wise. I know you've shared so many gems and tips, but if there is anything additional that you keep in your back pocket as you go through life, Well, one of the things I would appreciate is that I've got two free gifts that I'm giving away.
Speaker 2:It's mikecoyspeakscom slash gift Mikecoyspeakscom slash gift. One of them is Mike's 10 tips on how to prevent cancer. And then I also added chapter 8 in I Chose Live, because I think it's a powerful chapter for people to read. And so if people would just go to Ichoeslivecom Ichoeslivecom they're going to find out more about me than they want to know. But I've got my books there, I've got some words of inspiration and again, if I can and I know that you understand this better than anybody but if we can just touch one person, just one person, then we've done our job.
Speaker 2:And what I try to do every day is try to touch one person, make a difference, and then that's my payment. My dad said that God has given you some gifts on the athletic side and the music side. Now how you use those gifts is how you repay him, and so that's something that I really try to live my life on, and I appreciate this opportunity so much. You are so great and but, like I said, if people want to find out more about me, just go to Ichoeslivecom and they can reach out to me through the email or anything that they want, and I'd love to be able to relate my experiences to anybody in your audience, mainly because I wrote the book to say there's no cheating cancer and we all have a choice to make, and that's how I want to live my life.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I'm going to add all of the links to your website in the show notes and thank you so much for the gift and I really appreciate you again for stopping by A Word to the Wise. Let's do it again. Thank you, jimmy. You can follow A Word to the Wise on Instagram and TikTok at A Word to the Wise pod. We're also on YouTube at A Word to the Wise podcast. Please be sure to subscribe If you are enjoying the show. Please rate, leave a review, share and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Till next time. Peace and love, always, always, always.