What a day was October 19.

For one thing, it was a Thursday…..Just one day after the birth date of my lovely wife, Karen (and I’m NOT saying “which one”.)

And, it was also the date that I was fired from one of my own start-ups. Talk about hitting some sort of “bottom”. Some day, I’ll HAVE to tell you guys this story.

And, it was also the same date that I filed for bankruptcy. Ugh! Another “bottom”.

Of course, October 19, 1987 was the date that the market crashed. Most of you probably don’t remember that. (I was in bankruptcy, so I didn’t really care much.)

AND, it was the day that I met, and in a private interview, my all-time hero, Alvin Toffler. Yep, thanks to Jonathan Kersting at the Pittsburgh Technology Council, I actually had fifteen minutes with the man who probably changed my life.

I remember thinking, and after Jonathan had told me that he set this meeting up, “Now, I can die happy.”

Which brings up the final bizarreness of the date….October 19….for just before I met Toffler, I had come from the Hillman Cancer Center, where Dr. David Bartlett had informed me that, and for the first time in my three-year fight with liver and pancreatic cancer, my tumors – all 350 of them – were actually either shrinking or at worst staying the same size.

And, that my liver had now completely receded to its normal size….Since 2003, it had been so large that it extended from my right pelvic bone all the way up to where it was pushing on my heart!

October 19….10-19…..if only I were a numbers player….

I’ve tried to steer clear of talking about my disease on my radio show, or other forums…if somebody asks, then I’ll answer, but for the most part, I go through each day not really thinking about it.

After all, I’ve got two young kids, a wife, and another 30-60 plus kids in my Entrepreneurial Studies Program at Duquesne University.

And then there are the many startups I’ve invested in, NFTE, and just plain old “smelling the roses”….an activity that became VERY important to me, post-diagnosis.

After the original shock of that diagnosis wore off (about a week later), I started thinking about how the hell I was going to see my kids grow up. At this time, they were just ages three and one. I remember thinking, “If I go now (and the doctors were dubious that I’d see the 4th of July, and it was APRIL!), my kids will never even have KNOWN me! Like I never even EXISTED!

I just couldn’t let that happen.

Anyway, for the next twenty or so months, I did everything that they told me to do. This meant excruciating chemo treatments and long hospital stays. I hated every second of it.

And one night, after lots of reading and even more introspection, I said to myself, “This is getting me nowhere.” Oh, sure…the tumors were shrinking, but I wanted NO tumors….not just SHRUNKEN tumors! Hell, no one dies from TUMORS….no matter how malignant they might be….people DO die from metastasizing tumors, though….you know, the ones that break off and go into the brain or the marrow, or any other number of “game-ending” places.

So, last December, I said to my docs, after the fourth treatment of my second “Six Pack” of chemotherapy treatments…”Guys, I ain’t doing this no more….I’ve been reading and from what I can discern, the ONLY way to beat cancer is by letting one’s own immune system beat it in a straight fight.”

“And this chemo crap has destroyed my immune system. It has killed my only ally!”

And with that, I “checked out” of western medicine and went homeopathic. Herbs, juices, supplements, and….MOST importantly…MIND-SET!

Now, I have always known that I can do amazing things in life simply through my will. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been able to WILL myself to do things that most people might consider impossible.

“So why not this, too?” I thought. Really, it’s just one more “battle of wills”…in this case, between the cancer and me!

By the way, this whole “mindset” thing, I think, has been extremely critical in battling this cancer. (And again….I’ve still got a LONG way to go…this is a VERY FORMIDABLE opponent, and I don’t even for ONE MINUTE think that just because we’ve not got it on the run that we also have it BEAT. Remember, he’s sucking on the host of the guy with that same WILL.)

So, just about the time that I was considering exactly how I should BEST set up my will to take on the cancer, into my life (and I don’t believe that this was at all accidental) comes a guy by the name of Sam Lucci.

If the name is familiar, it’s because Sam is the owner and founder of a company called “Partners Through People” – and PTP’s whole philosophy is itself based on something once said by Napoleon Hill, author of “Think and Grow Rich”. Mr. Hill is famous for (and among other things) saying, “Whatever the mind can conceive, man can achieve.”

Without doing a commercial for PTP (after all, I do that on my radio show), Sam came after ME, wanting ME to advertise his company on our show. This is rare in business in general, abut it has happened more than a handful of times in the history of The American Entrepreneur.

Anyway, I never gave much thought to Sam helping me arrest my disease, but once I began to understand his approach to life and his ability to help people help themselves, it wasn’t a very far distance from improving a company’s sale performance to helping me drive out my cancer through a process somewhat similar to visualization. (Although PTP’s “prescription” is far, FAR more than just visualizing, believe me!)

Now, I had to truly understand what Sam Lucci had taken some thirty years to understand….That we ALL carry with us some negative unconscious beliefs and that there is really only one unassailable TRUTH.

But slowly, I grasped what he was saying, and today, I really believe that his “piece” of this very complex puzzle is what enables me to turn the tide on my liver pancreatic cancer. Really.

You have to start with a strong will, I think…or at least a strong BELIEF that you CAN do whatever you are endeavoring to do….and then, you must add to this the elements of PTP’s special teachings.

I know…I sound like Benny Hinn.

But this is how I first stopped, and then subsequently began to shrink, the hundreds of tumors in my body. (Along with hundreds of glasses of carrot juice and special herbs and supplements and everything else.)

Would I have believed this had I not lived it? Yes…probably I would have. Because by nature, I am an optimist and by experience, I have seen what hard work and relentless desire can do.

Just this week, the members of The American Entrepreneur Insider’s Club received a piece written by Geoffrey Colvin of Fortune Magazine entitled “What it Takes to Be Great”. This article is subtitled, “Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret? Painful and demanding practice and lots of hard work.

Well hallelujah! SOMEONE finally got it right!

This article cites an “extensive study”, conducted by Messrs. Michael Howe and John Sluboda and Ms. Jane Davidson says, and I quote, “The evidence that we have gathered does NOT support the notion that excelling is a consequence of possessing innate gifts.”

These researchers go on to conclude that in studies they have been conducting since 1993, it is clearly apparent that “there are no free lunches”. You either DO the hard work, or you accept mediocrity. It’s not about brains, it’s about perseverance and grinding it out.

Their conclusion? Here’s the quote, “The critical reality is that we are not hostage to some naturally granted level of talent. We all can make ourselves what we will.”

They go on to say, “Strangely, that idea (i.e. that we can make ourselves what we will) is NOT popular. People hate abandoning the notion that they would coast to fame and great riches if only they were to “find their talent”. But, this view is tragically constraining….Because when people of this mindset hit life’s inevitable bumps in the road they conclude that they are simply not gifted enough and so they give up.”

To which I say, “AMEN!”

I brought this topic up to Alvin Toffler the other evening. Man, what a deal….to be able to ask a question like that to a MAN like that!

His response….”It’s ALL about hard work and sacrifice.” There are simply ZERO shortcuts to success….even a modicum of success.

To quote the authors again, “Maybe we can’t expect most people to achieve greatness. It’s just too demanding. But the striking, liberating news is that greatness isn’t just reserved for a preordained few. Rather, it’s available to you, and to EVERYONE who is simply willing to pay the price! (Those last eight words are my own).

So, if it’s just a matter of “doing the hard work”, my cancer has NO SHOT whatsoever.