My friend Ben Wilson has stage 4 lung cancer. He has 4 kids under the age of 5. Yesterday I saw him.
He found out 6 weeks ago. In that time he moved his home closer to his doctor, got his will + estate stuff together, and gone to endless doctor appointments. He also raised $400k to help pay for treatment.
But most striking is that when talking to Ben, he appeared to come to all this with peace and dignity.
Hearing what he’s going through made me sad. For Ben, his family, and his parents. I’m angry that a great person is suffering. It hurts even more given Ben has never smoked, drank, or really done anything bad (he’s a fairly strict Mormon). He’s innocent and still suffering. It feels the universe did not uphold its end of the deal that I thought we had. If you put good in, good should also be the output. Its offensive and angering.
But I was also inspired by his bravery and dignity. Imagine. 6 weeks prior, your doctors tell you that you have an illness where statistically you likely only have 3 to 6 months to live. And now you and I are talking. Do you think you’d be brave? Fearful? A wreck?
I don’t think I would be nearly as dignified as Ben. I asked him are you doing any xanax or anything to stay calm. He said when you have what he has the doctors will give you anything that you want but he wants to face it all sober.
Ben hosts a podcast called How to Take Over the World where he deconstructs how great leaders came to be.
In a tragic and ironic plot twist, Ben’s in his own battle to take over his world. And he’s very much behaving like the great men he documents.
He had a notebook titled “0-365”. It was a daily journal for the next 365 days. He said his goal is to fill out each page and hopefully have a sequel that his kids can read.
And so what’s giving me this emotion of awe is that I’m watching him become this great man in front of me, in real time. He’s facing a dire situation with greatness. He doesn’t have much leverage here but is still taking control of his situation with wisdom and integrity.
But then he had also told me: but if I do have to meet my maker sooner than expected, I’ll do it with excitement.
I write and talk about business a lot. I have a podcast called My First Million. Something I try to get across often is that the “million” in my first million isn’t just money. Its about defining what a “rich life” means to you. Your family, career, how you treat people. The legacy or reputation you want to have. Having kids was the first time that I truly felt life was short and that we have to really work hard to not worry about the small things and instead focus on living a rich life.
But seeing Ben. His story. His dignity. It really reminded me how short life can be.
Ben is working with the best doctors on earth. He has a horrible illness. And he’s optimistic that his life will extend past the norm for his illness.
But the way he’s in the moment. How present he is. How high integrity and dignified he is. And how he still has this perfect mix of fire to fight but acceptance that anything can happen. It just struck me how great men exist and his reaction to all this is how part of his greatness has come out.
I’m not sure of all my takeaway on this. But I wanted to write my initial feelings here because I know I don’t want to forget how my conversation with Ben made me feel.
I’ll end with this: I hope you or me never get cancer. I hope we don’t have to have this moment where we have to face a scary outcome. But what I do know is that throughout our day we have little annoyances. We have times where we can easily get distracted from what matters. Times we can react negatively to negative things. Ben has a show on how great men became great. But becoming great, it seems, is about doing responding to tiny things with grace and dignity and integrity. Do those small things well. And if you ever face something huge like Ben, your default is to behave like Ben has.
