Finding Gratitude in Life’s Challenges: How Remmy's Childhood Cancer Became the Catalyst for a Life Well Lived

Today, we're talking about paying it forward, but in a whole different sense.

Because today's guest, Remy Storak, he has dedicated part of his life to paying it forward to kids' cancer care of Alberta, Canada.

As a child, Remy was there.

He got to experience this camp and it was transformational.

Matter of fact, Remy says that having cancer and going through three different heart procedures as a kid was the best thing to happen to him because of kids' cancer care.

Today, you're going to hear the story about a child who was at a camp with other kids who were sick too.

Now, the reality of the situation is that these kids who were really sick, and year to year, some of the kids they didn't make it back.

Today is about giving back.

It's about paying it forward to kids' cancer care, to those who didn't make it back to camp.

But it's equally about setting off on adventure, living life to the very most that it is.

Because Remy, well, we're not only talking about kids' cancer care, we're also talking about him being a big game horseback guide in the middle of nowhere with his two brothers.

The adventure stories you are about to hear are going to leave you in awe.

My friend, I'm telling you what, if you're up for a sense of adventure, if you're up for also a heartfelt story about a kid, about a man who is now giving back, who's paying it forward, then my goodness, this is the episode for you.

My friend, I welcome you to episode 272.

What's up, my friend, and welcome to Grit Grace and Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe.

Twenty years ago, I awoke from a life-saving surgery only to find that I was left completely blind.

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SPEAKER_01: It wasn't until I was 20 years old that my mom was able to give me the full gravity of the situation, but I get to tell people that cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me.

But at the age of four, I was diagnosed with leukemia.

And now I understand it to be that by the time I was diagnosed, my bloodstream was about 90% cancer cells, and I had 24 hours to get a blood transfusion or I would have died.

And so that translated to every vein in my left knee down in my leg ended up exploding.

And lo and behold, I'm still here.

But uh it was three heart procedures and three and a half years of chemotherapy and treatment later.

But I get to say I'm extremely lucky to be here.

So I have nothing but gratitude for how my life has unfolded ever since.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Wow, wow, wow.

Now, growing up, did you have any brothers or sisters?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was the youngest of two other brothers and an eldest sister.

SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.

During that time and stuff, just out of my own curiosity and stuff, were they a big help to you, just comforting and being there with you?

SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was in the hospital for two months, I believe.

And so I was like, my mom was 100% my biggest supporter.

And when I was so young as a kid, I also get to realize that I'm quite fortunate that my sense of normalcy hadn't really even existed yet.

Yes.

But when I did get to come home, we did have a bit of uh an outdoorsy life.

We had a little bit of an acreage, and so even though my immune system was low, I couldn't go to real school, but I could still be catching frogs in the backyard and you know, bringing out the slingshot with my brother.

So absolutely it was uh a big support.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, amazing, amazing.

Well, well, talk to me about Kids Cancer Center because that's a big part of your story, and I'm curious to understand what exactly it is and where it kind of fit into this story of yours.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.

So, Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta, a nurse ended up approaching my mom three years into my treatments, and she said that, hey, like there's this kids' cancer care camp where survivors and siblings can, you know, get away for five days, and you know, parents can finally take a breather of you know the tight grip that you know every parent rightfully would have when their kids going through such turmoil.

But uh I got to go there and man, my siblings as well, for kids age seven to 17.

Yeah, I got to go to this camp for five days and be among other survivors, like my, I get to say some of my great friends growing up were double brain tumor survivors, amputees, blind, and they're the happiest people I've ever met.

And so to have this camaraderie of people who are kind of like celebrating their scars and realizing, like, oh, I have a variety of different gifts that have been given to my life and the resilience that comes with it.

And so it it it allowed a place for us to shift the narrative and for us to go and scrape our knees again after we've had like this safety bubble on our life, right?

And I I give so much credit to the counselors because it's a nonprofit, of course, and so to have the leadership come from people who are there for the sake of itself, and to be the best person of value, you have to be the goofiest, most selfless, lead with humility kind of person around.

And so I started to see this like totally different set of values that doesn't really exist in the real world, and so to grow up and be that and the best friend you possibly can for all these other kids who are cracking the bubble of what's possible for their life and redefining potential literally daily among these people who are, you know, said, you know, I can't scrape your knees because you like your blood clots won't work and stuff, right?

So, yeah, to just like redefine our lives a little bit by bit, that place just became a home of miracles for us.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow.

Now, how old were you when you first went there?

SPEAKER_01: So I am still about the most veteran kid because I started as young as I could at age seven, went all the way to 17, and then became a full-time counselor.

And uh, we'll get to the story later.

I only ever missed three summers to be a big game horseback guide, but now I've been going back every single summer as an adult to teach future counselors, so I have like 17 years in that place.

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: Wow, dude, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's incredible.

SPEAKER_00: It was so was it something was it like the same time every year, like a week during the summer that y'all would go?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.

Just five days in the summer, and then as soon as we were growing up, where we could finally have two weeks as 17-year-olds and then two months as an adult, I was like, man, I'm so prepared to work 10 months a year just so I can volunteer two months.

This place has so much magic hiding in it that it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, amazing.

Talk to me about some of the friends that you made there.

If if some of those kids continued going as long as you, I was just kind of curious about that.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I'm definitely the odd one out in that sense.

I still have some childhood friends who have uh now finally come back around to volunteering again.

And it's funny because so many people say, Oh, I don't have enough money to, you know, take a week off to do that.

And it's like, uh, dude, spiritually, I don't know if you can afford not to.

Like, we need we gotta get our childhood back, you know.

Yeah.

But uh to have some friends that I've known since I was 10 to come up and uh yeah, just kind of watch the childhood get back into their bones and uh see how good they are again, just to be the most rowdy kid in the room, you know, and then be like, oh, if the adults, if this is a version of maturity that exists that gives so much hope to the kids on their way up, they're like, oh, we don't have to be, you know, hardened adults.

As soon as we get into the real world, we can move forward into life with this composure that's playful, and that's like one of the biggest things that I advocate for.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.

Now, when I talked with you before, you told me about a particular story when you guys came back to camp and one of the friends that you had had wasn't there.

And yeah, I would love to ask you, yeah, to share that story.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the most pivotal story for sure, especially as a young kid.

So when we were seven, of course, we don't have Facebook or anything.

We're frantically giving each other like our mom's phone number so we can end up at the same week of camp the following year.

I remember being 12 years old, and there was I think seven or eight of us, and we're all coming, it's like, oh, like we're here again.

Like we waited a whole year to be back to this place.

And we're all looking around, but there was only one friend missing who was Davis, and uh the younger sister, her name was yeah, her name was Jessie.

Davis had the same cancer that I had, leukemia, and she had to say, like, yeah, Davis cancer relapse, and he actually like didn't make it this time.

And so a whole bunch of 12-year-old kids are now having survivors' guilt as soon as we get back to camp and it's this time of celebration, but it probably didn't take more than like half an hour for us to realize that you know, I think the best thing moving forward is that we have to be twice as courageous in life because Davis doesn't get the chance to be courageous anymore.

And so that was a promise that we made to each other, and that just like amplified the way that we've moved forward in life.

And there's definitely been times that we check back on some of these friends, and you know, some of them are musicians now and stuff, and like entering in these creative careers, and they're like, Yeah, man, it scared the crap out of me, but you know, we gotta do it.

Like, what else is there to it?

You know?

Um, and so yeah, just that attitude of like, yeah, this this wonderful force that birthed out of you know a tragedy that you can't point any fingers anywhere for it, right?

But it's like, man, there's magic to be made of that too.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

And I mean, I can't help but think to myself, like, how profound for a bunch of kids who, you know, when when you look back on it now, to realize the magnitude of that situation and then to have the resolve to be like, you know, let's go all out because he's not here.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: That's that's powerful.

At some point in time, I'm assuming you it's when you had missed a couple of years going to camp.

Is that when you took off on some crazy adventure with your brothers?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

So I had uh been this full-time counselor finally.

Like I wasn't legally allowed to, so I was like, I came back as uh kind of like an undercover volunteer when I was 17, just on the brink of 18, and then full-time when I was 18, going into 19.

But uh, I made the promise.

I was like, man, this is this place is in my bone.

Servitude is just for me.

Like I am such a good servant leader in the sense of knowing what these kids had been through, especially through all the different age demographics of seven to seventeen, where I had been the insecure kid who was crying at night because I was homesick, and you know, the the 13-year-old kids who are, you know, don't really have their hygiene figured out, but they're falling in love for the first time, you know.

Like I could just appreciate the entire spectrum of it.

But I was like, man, I can't imagine anything ever taking me away from this place, right?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: But my two older brothers, they'd even experience camp as well, but they had worked their way up the hunting guiding industry all through Alberta, BC, the Yukon, Northwest Territories with their summers afterwards.

And they ended up getting this wonderful reputation, and one of the best hunting outfits in North America ended up reaching out to them and asked if they wanted to bring horses back into the Northwest Territories, because 40 years ago, four guys tried to do that, and it's 500 kilometers from the middle of the road where the Yukon ends into the Northwest Territories, like 12 back-to-back marathon days, just to get in where we start.

And we have a guy come and like airdrop us a pickaxe and flagging tape, and we would give him coordinates and be like touching down hunters for the first time in 40 years, because 40 years ago, those four guys on their way out got stuck in this terrible snowstorm, and two guys froze to death and had to leave all their horses out there, and they died.

And so my brothers are like, let's make it a family thing.

I was like, Oh, I'm like, man, I was like, it broke my heart, but I was like, the call to adventure, man.

I made this promise as a little kid.

I'm like, it'd be crazy if I didn't, you know?

Absolutely.

Yeah, lo and behold, the adventure happened.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Oh my gosh, that is crazy.

It's it's crazy enough that that you guys are even taking on this trip.

And so now I'm just excited for you to keep telling this story because what the heck happened?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so there's like been many evolutions of how that affected my life afterwards, because I initially had a fair amount of resentment, actually, that this wonderful situation was happening, and we were literally handed a map, and good luck on our way into the wilderness.

And so it's not like there was Google maps through the marshes.

And so, like the first couple days, we were literally just like our horses were swimming through the bog, and I ended up getting this terrible knee injury because my horse like fell through the earth and was like swimming forward, and the three horses that I was trailing behind got spooked, and so I was kind of stretched out between holding my horses, and my horses fell sideways, and my knee got uh wrapped around the stump and like basically pulled my kneecap off.

And and so then I was like, I had no choice if we weren't getting medivaced out, like we had to keep going.

And so I ended up walking a fair amount of like the next while just because sitting stretched out in the saddle was so unbelievably painful that I ended up just like building muscle mass around this wounded knee.

Um that was like the beginning of this, but I was like, man, I'm just out here getting my butt kicked by horses, and you know, this is an incredibly glamorous journey that so few will ever have the privilege to experience in this like untouched land.

But I'm like, I want to go be of service, man.

And uh it was just really like tearing out my heart for a while, and it kind of just came to the point where I was like praying, where I had nothing but God to talk to to resonate.

Because even though my brothers had experienced kids' cancer care, like this was their passion, and so they're kind of like, you know, it's time to grow up, right?

I was like, man, it's it's not that like right.

This they they didn't quite understand uh how special that place was for me.

But so I was praying one night, and I'm like, God, how can I break my arm or my leg in the least painful way so I can go be of service again?

Because I just feel like this is absolutely not for me.

And this is a wonderful detail just because I think we have time.

But I had a friend whose mom reached out to me, and I had only known her a couple times, but she had like taken an interest and just like with the kids' cancer care story and stuff.

She's like, I just know you're gonna do great things.

And she's like, God told me to give you this book, and she's like, I've never read it.

And I she invited me over for a coffee before I left, and she literally didn't even look at the bookshelf.

She put her finger on this book and pulled it out.

And the the title of the book was called God, Thank You for My Opportunities, but please send somebody else.

And so I'm like, okay, I think it's time to read this book.

I can't remember exactly what it was in the book, but it just like the accumulation of things that had brought me to that moment, I just realized, okay, God, I didn't come here to die.

I didn't come here to to look for opportunities to hurt myself, to leave.

I'm like, if you're gonna bring me to it, you're gonna bring me through it.

And so I came to all these situations, the wrangles that I did every morning, I would just take up my shotgun and I would walk through rivers and bump into grizzly bears and have these standoffs.

And luckily, I never had to kill one in self-defense, but I was surrounded by wolves in the middle of the night, which I'll get to another time, swept down glacier rivers, and it's just like if it wasn't for that total shift of mentality that like, if God's gonna bring me through it, he'll yeah, he'll get me through it.

And it was just a total shift of gratitude to be like, I am in this present moment and nothing else matters, and to think that I should be wishing myself somewhere else is a disservice to the craziness that is my life.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what?

That is um that's a really powerful mindset, and I think I think that's something honestly that that all of us need to be reminded of is you know, sometimes it's like we we work so hard to get where we are, and then things maybe don't go quite the way we want, and we we hope and we pray to be out of it and to be somewhere else.

And there's something to be said for just embracing the moment, you know, whether whether it's good or bad.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: Especially the bad man.

I was chatting with friends now, and the the the spirit of people who be like, I can profit off of pain, not like monetarily, but spiritually, be like, my diligence could be somebody else's deliverance.

If I can struggle with class and pay it for it, then somebody else can breathe easier.

And I'm like, man, that's a that's a noble way to go.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

Well, before we continue on learning more about this this crazy adventure journey, I I was kind of curious your your faith.

Was that something that was always part of you or developed later on?

SPEAKER_01: Honestly, it was uh it was kind of present in my youth, I would say, but there was definitely some experiences where I had witnessed people trying to like say, hey, this is the right way to be, but then it was also hypocritical.

And so I'm like, man, people who are walking in faith, they kind of come with a peace and uh like a confidence of like, no, this is good for me.

And it comes with a thriving sense of like actualization.

But the people who were kind of sharing their story were kind of using like God's excuse to be like, oh, this is what God chose for me.

And it's like, I don't I don't know if I can agree with that because you're very fearful of your own life and you're staying in bad relationships, and so I'm like, I don't know if that's if I can agree.

I don't want to agree with a relationship that I see to not be exciting you or you like leaving you fearful about your own life.

And so honestly, I think it was majorly going up into the wilderness and kind of having my own spiritual experience and then coming home and realizing that uh I had lost my gratitude because I needed God in every minute when I was walking through the rivers, I'd be like, God, keep my feet firm, like keep me steady, keep me dry, and like keep me at peace with everything out here.

But when I got home and everything was so easy, which was a very shameful problem for me, that I would start to pray and be like, Hey God, I haven't talked to you in a while.

You know, I've been kind of like thinking, I would be complaining about something, right?

I'm like, man, this is a is this is a bad friendship, let alone a relationship with my creator, right?

Yeah.

And and so that's actually the the perfect question because specifically because I felt Guilty that I had like ruined and gotten complacent with my the best relationship that I had ever grown, as far as I concern.

I'm like, that's the why I wanted to go back into the wilderness for a round two to like renew my relationship with my spirituality.

Because uh yeah, I just started walking as if like uh I was I had earned the goodness in my life, and it just like it started to build an ego that was really improper, and so I'm like, I gotta go humble myself again and uh yeah, get God back in a sense.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow, I was so powerful.

So back on your adventure, uh we're gonna fill in some gaps here and go back, but I have to ask the the biggest question did y'all make it?

Did you succeed or were you helicoptered out?

SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, no man.

We uh we were there off-grid for 110 days at a time, nearly four months.

What and oh my gosh, dude, that's forever.

Yeah, it is.

And to like go in when the sun is like we were so far close to the Arctic Circle that the sun did not set for the first month and a half up there, and so we would get a tiny bit of shade at 3 a.m.

when the sun dipped behind a mountain if we were lucky, if we were positioned properly.

But it would be, you know, 30 degrees or you know, eighty, eighty-five degrees at 3 30 in the morning.

Like we couldn't sleep, we would get roasted out of our tents.

But uh in the last month, in the last month, it would be below freezing every morning.

We'd be slapping snow off of our tent in the middle of the night so it didn't cave in on us.

Like we just had little two-man tents because we're just everything had to be carried on our horses' backs, right?

We couldn't have anything luxurious.

SPEAKER_00: So that's insane.

Now, how many horses did you guys have with you?

SPEAKER_01: Between us three brothers, we had 14.

Okay.

Did all 14 make it?

Yeah, so that was actually a really wonderful thing because there was like this is kind of a gnarly detail, but there was neighboring outfits in the Yukon that weren't nearly as far into the wilderness, maybe 300 kilometers instead of 500.

So still a crazy jaund in, but there is a reputation that like the way through the marsh into the wilderness was so bad that you know there was a couple we had to kind of account for the possibility of casualties along the way, right?

And there was like, of course, nobody wants that, but we hadn't lost any horses in the in the three years that we all did that together.

And that was a really big deal because the neighboring outfits would lose like one to three horses every season.

And it's devastating, right?

Like it's family as far as you're concerned when you're yeah, when it's all you have, and it's precious cargo, precious weight, all your adventures are on the backs of these like crazy beasts.

And so, yeah, no, we were extremely fortunate and had wonderful friendships and you know talk to our horses like buddies.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh, absolutely, absolutely.

So on this adventure, I mean, we we've realized now it's not just like you're out there for a weekend, we're talking extended amount of time.

Talk talk to me some through some of your most memorable moments, whether because they were scary, because they were amazing.

I'm just kind of curious to learn some more details.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.

Okay, I'll I'll I'll give you a funny one before I give you like the scary one.

Okay, I had this this horse boots that I was wrangling on, and like the most loving way to put it is that this horse was so unbelievably strong, but he was so unbelievably dumb.

And you like because they're herd animals, they are so in tune with each other and the direction that they go.

And so every night we have the horses tied up all day because like it takes like a whole day at least for like all the food to go through their stomach.

It takes about four hours for a horse to graze and fill their stomach.

And so overnight we would let them go.

We have like bells on their neck, but I would have to track them by their footprints in the ground and by the poop that they leave behind, and now I would just walk into the wilderness and find out where they were.

Oh wow.

But if we had enough, if we had few enough hunters, then we could keep two horses in, so they'd always need a buddy, otherwise they would get afraid.

So I had Boots and Blue who would stay in, and I would hop on Boots in the morning, and we would ride off into the wilderness.

And I was trusting Boots before I understood that he wasn't as smart as I realized.

And he ended up trailing me through willows and he was galloping, man.

I was pulling back as hard as I could, but his head was down.

He was so sure that he was finding his buddies, but he was following caribou tracks for 20 minutes, and we ended up in the middle, we ended up in the middle of the valley.

This horse looked down like side to side and realized he had no idea what he was doing.

And I got like, I literally had like blood on my cheeks from like branches whipping me in the face, and this horse just turned around and gives up.

I'm like, no, absolutely not.

And on the way on the way back, I realized that the horses had actually like done a circle around our camp and went out the opposite direction.

And so the horse went back to camp and basically wanted to give up, and so I had to like drag him out of camp.

And so I was basically doing extra work just to pull the horse out.

And so there's literally the opposite of every point of having this Wrangle horse.

But as soon as I found a track, I like pulled the horse's face down into the ground to like make him look at it.

He got all excited, and I hopped into the saddle and I got my shotgun like slapping across my back as he's like trotting away.

And I'm kind of like getting used to it because I know I'm like gonna be trotting for a while.

And then like five minutes into it, the horse just goes to a dead, dead halt and like plants its back legs into the ground so surprisingly.

I literally front flip over Boots' head and I'm holding onto the reins in my left hand, and it as it pulls up, I literally punch myself in the chin on the way down, holding on to the reins, and my my back lands on a rock, and I'm just like and I'm like, what the what?

And I turn over and I see this steaming pile of bear crap right beside my head.

I'm like, oh, okay.

Like, and so Boots is trying to like yank me, and I'm like just gasping for air, and I'm just holding on to the reins with my left hand as this horse is like dragging me on the ground.

I'm like, oh my god, like this is still before seven in the morning, and all of this crap is happening.

I'm like, this is an unbelievable day.

But uh lo and behold, I ended up finding the horses like 10 minutes after, but that was like a day in the life, man.

It's as much glamorous as there was, like, it was a rodeo.

SPEAKER_00: Wow, wow, and we and we all thought being a cowboy was sexy, you know?

SPEAKER_01: Oh, dude.

But the stories after like that, like it's the best part to be able to laugh at yourself because you can get an ego, like, yeah, I'm like a modern day cowboy, but it's like, yeah, dude, I punched myself on the way down from the front flipping off the horse.

Like, I am I am not special.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

That is hysterical.

So so that's a funny story.

What about a scary story?

SPEAKER_01: So my signature life-changing story.

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00: Now we're getting deep.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're getting to it.

This was, yeah, season two, day 67.

I remember journaling.

We were ended up in the same camp that we found the first year around it.

It was our favorite area.

We called it Coons Camp.

And this was like old, like uh just native names that they had left on the map, so it wasn't our our choosing.

But uh the the previous year, our first year, winter had came a month early in August.

And so we were hunting for a caribou, and the caribou migration ended up walking down our valley.

And so we were looking for one, and we ended up climbing a hill, and we watched hundreds walk by, and we're like, Wow, what do we do with that?

And so we're like, oh my god, like same time next year, let's go.

And so we did that, and as it should have been, winter did not come in August.

And so me and my eldest brother, it was just the two of us, because we only had one hunter, and so our middle brother, Lauren, actually got to go off in uh in the bush plane, and he got to go backpack elsewhere, and he got to a change of scenery, which was really cool.

So it was just me and the one brother for this situation.

So we hunted in every direction that we possibly could for the four days, and because the sun doesn't set and my brother is a maniac, we would hunt for like 20 hours a day because he's like, I want results, I want a story for our hunter.

And so we were exhausted, but we did not see anything.

And so we came back on the fourth day, and he's like, Okay, I think the best thing I can do is take eight of the horses.

I'll take the hunter.

I'm gonna go down the valley about seven hours to what was called Death Valley because a glacier had basically wiped out this entire terrain.

So it went from this extremely densely forested area to what was like literally a sheer wall of just like nothing but a couple willows.

And if anything exists out there, you can see it, it can see you, and it's just wide open.

And so I was like, Yeah, man, I haven't had a break in two months, like, go ahead, like and so I was like, Absolutely, I'll take three days off.

He said, Yeah, I'll be back in three days, I promise.

And so I'm like, Oh, just taking it in, sleeping in a little bit until seven in the morning.

So, because I still got to get my horses, but uh it was day two of this break, and I was sitting around the fire for dinner.

I was just like, I made I cooked caribou steaks over the fire, and I'm just enjoying life reading Game of Thrones.

I carried this book 500 kilometers just to have something to relax to.

And uh, I have my six horses in a semicircle behind me, and there's this S-shaped river beside me by my fire, and I see this grizzly walk out from 100 yards, and it just casually walks right across the river.

So he's about 10 yards from me, and it stands up on its back legs, and I always got my shotgun right there.

But bears are like 95% good, they're just curious, but at the same time, I'm like, okay, well, it smells my food 100%, and so it's just like kind of taking it in, and like I got my shotgun there, and so I'm like same, like screaming bloody murder, like do something.

Like, if you if you're gonna come, come now while I have the upper hand and you're gonna have to like run through this river on your way to charge me.

But I'm standing up like shotgun ready, like it's in my sights.

But this bear is standing on its back legs and it's looking all around at my horses.

My horses are looking at it, and it doesn't even look at me while I'm screaming at it, and it gets back on four legs and walks off.

I'm like, that's way scarier.

I'm like, it didn't even bother to look at me while I'm like scream, I'll kill you.

And I'm like, man, I'm like, it's gonna come back in the middle of the night for sure.

And so I'm like, oh dude, like now this is a bad situation because I have to let my horses go every night.

I don't have, I don't get to keep two in, like I have to let them all go.

So I was kind of preparing for the worst.

I'm like, man, I just gotta get through one night and then Ben will be back.

And so the horses knew that this grizzly wanted to come back, and so as soon as I let them go, I just hear their bells ding ding ding into the distance, and I'm like, oh, I'm actually alone now in the first time in the wilderness.

I'm like, I've always I've done Wrangles alone, but at this moment I was like, okay, now there's actually something that is stalking me.

Yes.

And so I had everything ready to like a big bonfire set up, and so it dwindled overnight, but just to be able to like flick it and have everything light up, and I went to bed with like my headlamp on my head, ready to rock and roll.

And it wasn't until 2 a.m.

that I finally fell asleep.

I ended up waking up at 4:40, I remember, still pitch black, but I thought I was having this nightmare where there was like wolves howling and yapping, and I tried to close my eyes because I'm like, I'm waiting for a bear, but it was so loud that it was screeching in my ear, and I'm like, oh shit, like they're circling me.

And so I roll at them, I roll out of my tent, I turn on my headlamp, and I see three sets of eyes to my left, two to my right, and I can hear more behind me, and like I only have four bullets.

And so I just like pop a shell in the chamber and I fire one into the air, and just I just like holler into the darkness, and it goes dead quiet, and I just like run over to the fire, frantically light it up, and I'm just like hugging this as I'm like frantically looking around in the darkness, like not seeing any eyes.

And it's just eerie quiet.

And I'm just thinking, Ben's never gonna believe this.

He's never gonna believe this.

And uh the sun starts to rise like about 40 minutes afterwards, and instead of following my horse tracks, I ended up following the wolf tracks on top of the horses, and they had ended up harassing my horses.

None of them were hurt, thankfully, but they were pretty pissed off.

I was like, Me too, let's go.

Ben's coming back today, everything's gonna be fine.

And so that whole day, like, I can't even sit still.

I'm just like, I see all these like there's the bear tracks around my camp, there's these wolf tracks everywhere.

I'm like, Ben's never gonna believe this.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: And the whole day goes by and the sun starts to set again, and Ben's not coming back.

And I'm like, all I had was his promise.

I'm like, he has the satellite phone, I don't have any means of connecting with him.

I'm like, I have to repeat this every night until he's back.

I'm just holding down the fort now.

And so my mind goes, worst case scenario, right?

I was like, why would my brother go off on his promise?

And it's not like it was crazy weather or anything, as far as I was concerned.

I'm like, he's not pinned down in a blizzard, right?

And so, yeah, mom was like, man, he's gotta be hurt, hunters hurt, something.

I was like, well, if there was a like a Medevac helicopter or something, I would probably hear it.

Like, nothing else goes over these valleys, but nothing happened, and so I'm like, man, I just gotta repeat this every night until he comes back.

And so day three, four, five, six, seven go by, and my mind is just worst case scenario.

And so there was this one bear, but there was literally a second one that was way bigger.

That uh there was this airstrip maybe 500 yards behind our camp, just through some trees.

But there was this fuel barrel that we put there to have an extra saddle in case one got broken, and this bear was like pawing and beating the crap out of this fuel barrel because they can like chew on the leather and they like the salt from the sweat.

Oh, yeah.

So I'm like, I was seeing this other bear like beat the crap out of this.

I'm like, man, it's got to be desperate.

I'm so like, man, there's these predators everywhere.

And so it just felt like my bubble was getting smaller and smaller, and I was just kind of like having a stern word with God, like, what the hell is this for?

Like, what could justify the stress?

And I realized that I carried that Game of Thrones book, 500 kilometers by horseback, to have something to relax to.

And I'm like, man, like what if I wrote something and I could give 10% back to kids' cancer care?

I'm like, if I'm gonna die young, I might as well do something that pays it forward.

And so in that time, to keep my head on straight, I ended up starting to write the initial ideas that became the first fantasy books that I wrote, and uh that kind of brought me into the authorship world.

And I wasn't a crazy reader or writer prior to.

I was a total fraud, but it was kind of like uh just a desperate attempt to keep my head on straight, but it was something that just like really just like seeped into my bones.

I'm like, this is something I'm gonna do.

So when my brother came back on day seven, he kind of like swaggered into camp and he had this like record book caribou and he was all happy.

I'm like, I don't even care.

Not cool, man.

This wasn't fun.

And I was just like not in a good mood.

I kind of like had a little fake celebration, like, yay, but I'm like, look, like this was the worst week of my life.

Yeah, I was initially so excited, but yeah, that was like a canon moment of my life that uh yeah, maybe become an author.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

Again, you know, I said profound, I think several times in our conversation, and I'm gonna say it again because here you are in a situation, you have no idea if your brother is alive or dead.

You've got packs of wolves swarming around you.

You've now got two different grizzly bears potentially ready to eat you.

I mean, you're walking around with with food, your horses, yeah, and and you think to yourself, huh, I want to write a book.

I want to donate 10% to the kids' cancer care.

So let's focus.

SPEAKER_01: I mean, like who thinks of that?

Like it's it's a dude, it's a it's a total trauma response.

That's all it is.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

I mean, that is that is pretty darn cool.

I must say that.

So talk to me about from that point in in the book and in that where does life kind of go from there and in the process of writing the book?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I can fast forward a little bit here.

So we did a second season and I ended up doing a third.

And this was, as far as I consider, I kind of call it like a divine intervention because again, I kind of lost my gratitude, and I was like, okay, well, maybe I'll go into the wilderness so I can have space to write my book again, you know.

And I kind of was almost cheaping out on doing the hard work and just sitting down and doing what I set my spirit to do, right?

But it's like, oh no, I got this paycheck, and you know, I'm I'm this horseback guide and I'm enjoying time with my friends, like I've earned it, and I'll do the hard work when I'm back into the wilderness when I have no distractions.

But so on the third season, I ended up getting flown out, not for a major injury, but because of the heart procedures I had as a kid, I can end up having heart palpitations that I've been able to manage just by like being fit my whole life, not being an alcoholic and stuff.

But if I get one of these palpitations, it goes from 70 to about 230 beats a minute, and I can't stop it for 15 to 30 minutes.

And it's like being in a dead sprint non-stop the whole time.

It's like my whole torso vibrates.

And so my body was just burning calories that I couldn't keep up with, and I ended up losing a lot of weight and to the point where it didn't make sense for me to be walking around in bear country uh with a heart problem.

Because if I passed out and, you know, my brothers aren't concerned for me to be gone for like six hours at a time before they get worried.

So I was like, this is just not realistic, man.

I need to go find out what's going on with my heart because this is like the most confident I've been in this situation, but like my heart's really not in good shape, and so I had to find out.

So that ended up closing my window into the guiding world in an essence, because like it was a big ordeal for the company to fly out into the wilderness and get me flown back to Edmonton and stuff, right?

And so I ended up getting diagnosed with superventricular tachycardia, which is basically the tube that was through my heart for a year as a kid, kind of healed like an earring where that scar tissue.

Um, if there's a poor electrical impulse, then it just like sends my body into like a crazy flight or flight without the adrenaline perk.

So I'm just there and my body's like going over mode when I'm just like sitting there chilling, and I'm like, man, this sucks.

Yeah.

So that as far as I was concerned, I made it the meaning of like, okay, I believe God is closing this door so I can get my crap together and be the person that I said I was gonna be and write this book.

And so it sucked because I had to leave my brothers out there, and the two of them ended up managing, and they ended up like flying out a different Wrangler to help, but there was nothing that a third guy could just get dropped in and be able to do the job that a brother could do, right?

Yeah.

And so they managed to do it, but uh yeah, I had this like this guilt that I was like, man, I left them behind like against my own will, but I have to do justice by them.

And so I put my head down and I started writing this fantasy book, and a year and a half later I've I wrote it, Grimm's Prodigies, and uh I went hard, man.

I was like, I'll be the next George R.

Martin, and I had like 63 named characters and family trees and a map built by the first two books to two years.

I was going so hard.

But I realized I was in the entertainment industry and not the philanthropy world, because even though I was getting a little bit of traction, I'm like, I keep having to shift the conversation from oh, this, yeah, this book's great, but here's what I really want to do with the world and help with kids' cancer care and pay it forward, right?

And so I'm like, I feel like I'm really not in alignment here.

And uh so I ended up finding this app called Shaper, which sadly doesn't exist anymore, but it was basically Tinder but for business people.

SPEAKER_02: Okay.

SPEAKER_01: And so I'm like, I need to find people who are in nonprofits and living the values that I knew at kids' cancer care.

I need to be surrounded by people who are being of service for the sake of itself, because I really felt like a black sheep trying to be some guy who didn't have much money, trying to give back and just like live this life of servitude while everybody's just going to work and getting their money and going and getting wasted on the weekends, and I just like kind of felt alone, you know?

And so I ended up meeting this woman named Rachel who was like retired in her early 30s, full-time mom, because she'd built like some online assets, and she was just like teaching philanthropic business mentorship for the sake of itself.

And I was like, Oh my god, like you are an angel sent from heaven.

And she ended up introducing me to John Maxwell's Inner Circle, which he's he's written like 83 leadership books, but uh just like genuinely brought me into the rooms of extraordinary people who had turned their business into.

Into like philanthropic empires to fund cleft palate surgeries in Uganda or build rehabs for people after they themselves were cocaine addicts and stuff.

And so I was like, wow, like these are people who are genuinely finally are holistically well, and they're leading with uh humility and vulnerability.

And that's the first time I saw men being truly vulnerable in in front of people and to their wives, and so it just like cracked open the paradigm that I previously had of my life.

And if I'm like, if I wanted to write a book about gratitude, even like my own family, not to like speak ill of them, but they're like, who can relate to a cancer-surviving horseback guide?

Like, nobody can, it's not gonna be a seller.

And so I'm like, okay, like you guys have a vested interest in me, and like I need your opinion, obviously.

And so I kind of diminished my spirit that my actual story itself could be of value.

But these people who had turned their turmoil of their life into a fuel to create something bigger than themselves that they could pay it for, they're like, man, you gotta do something with that.

Like you have a miraculous story, and like there's a lot of substance in there.

It has nothing to do with the actual journey itself.

It's the way that you saw your problems, like insurmountable things, whether it was cancer or wolves and bears, um, but your spirit to be like, God didn't bring me here to die.

And that's it.

And there's a reason I came here and stuff, right?

And I could pay that for and that like I'm doing the scary things because I'm paying it forward to my friend Davis.

And, you know, just little things like that.

Like I could have a reason to complain and be like, yeah, the world is a dark, scary place, and don't do too much because you're getting you're you'll get your butt kicked, right?

But it's like, no, that's why it's exciting.

That's why, like, you gotta go live, you know, have yourself a story, right?

And like, God forbid, like the story is that you got your butt kicked, and you can laugh with your friends, you know, what a joyous time you can have too.

You can profit off your pain in that sense, too.

And so just captivate that true spirit of gratitude and all the ways that it humbled me for the next two years to actually bring that book to life where I could celebrate my my friend's upbringing and the miraculous and the tragedies that came with it.

But the fact that despite all genuine reasons to feel that you could play small in the world, that that was not a choice worth making.

And so that became like a war cry that I've been living my life for for the last five years now.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow, wow.

What a powerful, powerful story.

No, what what is the name of the book?

SPEAKER_01: It is an arsenal of gratitude waging war on mediocrity and regret.

SPEAKER_00: What does that kind of mean to you?

Waging war on it?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's that's a great question because I could say, like, no, playing video games and stuff, but I'm like, I play video games.

I don't guilt myself for that, right?

Like, there's a there's a cultural conversation that says like what a mediocre thing could be.

But at the end of the day, it's like you can you can have like simple pleasures that uh you enjoy and you relax with, but at the end of the day, like, do you respect yourself?

Do you love the person you fundamentally are?

Or do you feel like you are a great friend to the people in front of you?

And so it's more of a calling to like listen to your own life and like, am I excited for tomorrow?

Am I aligning my life in such a way that I see good things are coming?

And gratitude in the sense of taking a genuine inventory of all the things that you have in your wheelhouse and your arsenal to build whatever life you want, because all that you have is all that you got.

And so, even if it's not much, it has to be enough because it's all that you have, right?

And so for the people that are bitching and moaning, it's like that's also choice, you know?

Yeah, and so when I have these friends who grew up and they had every reason in the world to bitch and moan about their experience, they chose not to.

And so to have perfectly healthy adults that have chosen to become a victim, I am personally, I don't like take that upon myself, but I just live in such a way where I believe that to be such an audacity that they will look upon me and be like, wow, like things are actually pretty good.

You know, people can say, like, oh, three heart procedures, like, oh, that's pretty bad.

Like, you could, you know, that sucks.

But I say, like, no, cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me, and that's a choice.

And then I can have a cool conversation with people and be like, yeah, man, here's these things that you say have power over your life, whether it's depression or you know, a relationship that didn't work out for you, is that actually could that become a fuel of flame for your life?

Be like, no, the story is gonna get way better.

Watch me, you know?

And just to, yeah, realign the vision of your life.

We're all visionaries, we just don't act like it, right?

It's like despite these reasons that I have to play small, that's why my story is awesome that I don't act that way.

SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.

Oh my gosh, dude.

I love it so, so much.

And it's through this book that you're donating 10% back to the kids' cancer care.

Is that true?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I do it between between all of them.

Okay.

And uh, yeah, and it's just like between my speaking gigs and everything that's come along the way, too.

And I just gotta say, on like on that note, it's so evident too, like the way that you speak, and like as your brain tumor has brought you to this place of, you know, you've lost your vision, but like you embody that essence of like striving forward valiantly and having these amazing conversations.

And so I think you are a walking example of taking your pain and turning it into something powerful.

So I just want to say thank you for that too, man.

SPEAKER_00: Oh man, well, that that means a lot to me.

I think I think that's exactly why I resonate with so much of your story and what you're all about, because you know what?

It is, and it is it does come down to a choice.

You know, we do I I you know, I often say, you know, we we can't always depict what's gonna happen in our life, but we can always decide how we're gonna react to it.

You know, Lily buddy.

Yeah, I love it.

So my last question for you is at this point in your life, all that you've you've gone through from the hard times to the good times, what does it mean to you to live a life well lived?

SPEAKER_01: Uh, I mean, I should have a straightforward answer because I've wrote a whole book trying to say exactly that, right?

But the conclusion that I came to is this is kind of a spiritual answer in the sense of when people say, like, oh, I've transcended through my spirituality.

I don't think we transcend, I think, when we've actualized ourselves as people, it's more of a homecoming to the person that we were fundamentally always capable of being.

And it to my answer that is tied in with like growing up around survivors.

I'm like, I think if you live like you're dying and act like you're on a timeline as scary as that is, it's like, I only have so much time to make these decisions.

And that, you know, I don't know if I have more than a week.

But if I did have a week, I would probably note that this 30-minute phone call or this hour-long podcast that I did today, this is worth remembering.

I'm gonna write in my gratitude journal.

This time with, you know, Kevin Lowe, unbelievable.

That I could meet all these people in the whole world, but I get to meet this guy who I get to celebrate my story with.

And just to like really sit in the moment and live from where my feet are grounded and live courageously because I don't know how many more courageous opportunities are coming, you know, but to yeah, act as if time is limited and that the people that you spend time with just treat it with unbelievable diligence that uh you could be doing anything else in the world, but your feet are right here.

Are you happy with where they are?

And just take accountability, be like, yes, I am proud and I am happy, and I'm grateful that these people are in front of me.

And this is the people that I get to bring into my atmosphere and overflow to, and these people get to overflow into me.

And so that's kind of my version of living like you're dying.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.

You know, Remy, your your story, your story's incredible, but what's more incredible is is your outlook on life.

Because we just have heard, I mean, a kid who who had who had cancer, a kid who who went to to camp with other kids who had cancer, someone who didn't make it back, to then crazy stories of living out in the wild, and all of that is is a heck of a story.

But then to listen to you getting so deep about life, that's where your superpower is.

And uh, I thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I appreciate you having me, man.

You've created something seriously wonderful here.

So for anybody that uh this overflows to, man, I just want to express that extreme gratitude that time is precious and uh like you time invested in the Kevin Lowe podcast, like is well placed, man.

You've created something wonderful here.

SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you so much for you listening today.

My hope, my prayer is always that you are not just entertained through this podcast, but something said by my guests truly impacts your life.

And my hope also is that if something said today resonated with you and you think to yourself, man, you know what?

I bet my friend would really like to hear this.

I encourage you to share today's episode with that friend because, well, that's how we get to make the impact a little bit greater.

My friend, i can below.

This is great great inspiration.

Get out there and enjoy the day.