Strategic Discipline Blog

CANCER CURED – CHAPTER III - A Flood Can Be a Healing

My journey through Acute Myeloid Leukemia continues with Chapter III from CANCER CURED - Why Did I Get Cancer?

(Previous segments of CANCER CURED are available here:  CANCER CURED BOOK -to read these from the beginning you’ll need to scroll through to the bottom to find CANCER CURED – What do You Feed?, which is the first in the series.)

This is the fifth section of Chapter III

In 1986, after a difficult breakup with a woman I had been dating for two years, I visited a bookstore in Wausau, Wisconsin. I discovered a book called The Prosperity Secret of the Ages by Catherine Ponder.   My initial motivation was financial gain, however, the book offered spiritual insights, including a metaphysical understanding of the bible.  Metaphysical refers to the study of what is beyond the physical world and human senses and is concerned with explaining the fundamental structure of reality. The book opened doors to a deeper understanding of my spirituality.  It was loaded with examples of affirmations, something I’d believed in. It stirred a recommitment to reading the bible, fostering a belief I would meet my future wife through something the author called a Master Demonstration.  A master demonstration is a big result, a big prayer answered, a big dream come true.

Most of us don’t realize by the time we’re 35, 95% of the thoughts we have are the same thoughts we had from the day before.

To change we need to change our thoughts.  The hardest part about change is making sure the choices we make today are different from the thoughts we had yesterday.

New thoughts lead to new actions and behaviors which lead to new feelings.  These new feelings lead to more new thoughts.

The Prosperity Secret of the Ages started a lot of new thoughts in my mind, which eventually led me to new actions and behaviors. This stimulated a lot of new feelings and eventually more new thoughts! 

These new thoughts eventually led to my becoming part owner of a new radio station in Wausau, and then a new relationship with my wife and children, Joshua and Noah!

A stoic would ask, “Where is the good in this?”

Reading this book you already know from the first chapter that is not the way I initially responded.  I got angry, vented, and spewed foul judgments on myself and my predicament. By the time I entered the hospital, the refractory period from discovering I had Acute Myeloid Leukemia had dissipated, and my emotional intelligence emerged.   

I had trained myself to ask, “Where is the good in this Father?”  I sought a Power Greater than myself to discover, how I could learn from this and make myself better than I was before.  (Note Josh, my son’s admonishment in the hospital room when Dr. Zenk shared the AML news!)

Questions like this ignite the frontal lobe.  Questions stimulate us to look for possibilities rather than the worst-case scenario, which our mind is programmed to look for because the sympathetic nervous system is automatically programmed for our survival. 

A chapter from The Prosperity Secret of the Ages is entitled, A Flood Can Be A Healing.

The famous flood story the Bible shared is symbolic of periods of healing and readjustment that come to all of us, to balance and perfect the negative experiences through which we have passed.

In the universe, in man, a balancing power for good is ever at work. This balancing power for good causes readjustment and healing to take place, after man has wandered away from that which is best for him.

In history and in Bible symbology, we are shown that every time man wandered away from the path of his good, he experienced a reaction that led him back to a saner point of view. It is through this process man evolves into his divine heritage of greater good.

In Bible symbology the word "Lord" not only means the Supreme Being, but it can also mean the law of mind action, whereby man reaps as a result of what he has previously sown through his thoughts and actions. (Can you see the idea of responsibility sown into this?)

The Prosperity Secret of the Ages indicated it wasn’t so much the Supreme Being who brought about the flood, as it was the law of mind action whereby the people brought it on themselves, through wickedness, which caught up with them. Wicked people symbolize our negative thoughts that must be flooded out of our minds and bodies so that new health and well-being can flow in.

We don't need to panic and give up when we find ourselves flooded with negative experiences. Like Noah, you can know cleansing is taking place. That which is no longer for your highest good is being cleansed, released, dissolved from your life-- whether you want it to be or not.

Later in the book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, the same principle is shared by Dr. Joe Dispensa, “We can change in times of pain and suffering or in times of joy and inspiration.  Which would you choose?”

Sometimes the only way the Universe, God, and our subconscious can get our attention is to give us pain and suffering to FORCE US TO CHANGE!!

The experience of ill health, in which you seem flooded with pain, weakness, and inharmony in the body is a time when your body is attempting to throw off, release, and dissolve much that is no longer of any use in mind or body.

A flood experience is good! It is a purifying, balancing process that helps you get ready for the greater good.

This message, a flood can be a healing helped me to look at my cancer as something other than a death sentence, rather it was an opportunity to cleanse and release the negative thinking that had brought me here.

These thoughts, actions, and resulting feelings, helped me to achieve steps 2 and 3 in Joe Dispensa’s 4 major similarities in people who achieved spontaneous remissions.

1. “they all understood that it was their own mismanagement of their thoughts and reactions that created their disease.”
2. “all said this, I have to reinvent myself.  I gotta become somebody else – I can’t be this miserable victim for the rest of my life.  I got to become somebody else.”

I wasn’t familiar with these steps at the time, however upon reflection, I can see how it was critical to think as I did to set the stage for me to achieve my eventual spontaneous remission.

Unbeknownst to me, my thinking and my discipline to respond the way I did were important to achieving my desired outcome.  

The first week in the hospital was challenging. I thrive on routine. It seemed every minute I was being interrupted for tests, meeting a new staff member on the floor, a doctor, being wheeled to another floor for testing, or simply adjusting to the hospital routine.

Once the first week in the hospital started, I didn’t have much time to invest in beating myself up. Instead, I already started investing my time in thinking through a solution, and recognizing I needed to change.

There wasn’t time to set up my daily routine either. Yet because of my nature, I sought every opportunity to routinize my new normal.

Change is about new thoughts, choices, actions, and behaviors, leading to new experiences, from which new feelings emerge, which in turn become more new thoughts.

My focus turned solving my illness into a goal, an objective. It was a problem to solve and I used my experience as a coach to develop a plan to discover a solution.

Call to Action

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Create an environment where everyone is inspired to give their best.

Growth demands Strategic Discipline.

How does one learn to become resilient? My two brothers were exemplary cases.  I share my oldest brother, Jim Wick’s story next blog, and how he inspired me.   

Building an enduring great organization requires disciplined people, disciplined thought, disciplined action, superior results, producing a distinctive impact on the world.

Discipline sustains momentum, over a long period, laying the foundations for lasting endurance.

A winning habit starts with 3 Strategic Disciplines: Priority, Metrics, and Meeting Rhythms.   Forecasting, accountability, individual, and team performance improve dramatically.

Meeting Rhythms achieve a disciplined focus on performance metrics to drive growth.

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NEXT BLOG – CANCER CURED – CHAPTER III - MY BROTHER - JIM