#364: From Grief to Greatness: How Andy Found Strength & Inspiration After Losing Jodi to Breast Cancer

Kevin Lowe: Something bigger. Something more impactful.

Kevin Lowe: Today, you're going to meet Andrew Berger. A guy who's experienced unimaginable loss.

Kevin Lowe: From that of his mother and his sister, Jodi, to his wife's health.

Kevin Lowe: But what's awesome about Andrew is instead of giving in or giving up, he created Jodi's Climb for Hope.

Kevin Lowe: And with over a million dollars raised for medical research, Andrew proves to us all that even in the darkest of times, we can choose hope.

Kevin Lowe: Today, you are about to hear a story that's going to make you laugh.

Kevin Lowe: It's going to make you cry and ultimately leave you inspired by a conversation that proves that hope isn't something that happens to you, but is rather something we create. one step at a time.

Kevin Lowe: This, my friend, is episode 364.

Kevin Lowe: But before you dive in, I want you to know this.

Kevin Lowe: If you have a dream, if you have big plans for your life, I want you to realize that they are valid.

Kevin Lowe: Because if nobody's told you yet lately, I want you to know that I believe in you.

Kevin Lowe: You, my friend, because you're here today, choosing to listen to this very podcast, I know something about you. And that is you are made for greatness.

Kevin Lowe: You have greatness inside of you. And maybe you've just needed a reminder, Somebody to remind you that, you know what? He's right.

Kevin Lowe: Kevin's right. I'm capable. I'm able. And I am deserving of having all that I want in this life.

Kevin Lowe: That is the truth, my friend. And I hope that today you're reminded of that, that no matter what dreams you have, no matter how big or far-fetched they may seem, that they are all indeed possible.

Kevin Lowe: I believe in you. So with that, my friend, gain the inspiration you need from today's amazing conversation with today's amazing guest, Andrew Berger.

Kevin Lowe: I welcome you to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Kevin Lowe: Hey, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and you are listening to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Kevin Lowe: Andy, man, it's a pleasure to have you here. Welcome to the podcast.

Andrew Buerger: Good morning. Good morning. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Andrew Buerger: And I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, well, me too. Well, Andy, I figured the best place that I would love to start is asking you to kind of take me back and giving me a kind of snapshot overview into growing up and specifically relationship with your sister, Jody.

Andrew Buerger: Yeah well we're going a few years back how much time do we have today kevin, it's like my therapist all over again talking about my childhood a year after i was born my mother died of a rare blood disease and so leaving behind my father a widow at age 27 and my me and my sister two kids in diapers she was just a year older than i was i was one she was two.

Andrew Buerger: And, you know, just from that moment on, super close, you know, where I couldn't go to a birthday party without her.

Andrew Buerger: You know, we went to, you know, I stayed close in high school.

Andrew Buerger: We had high school friends. We went to college near each other, not the same school.

Andrew Buerger: But then, you know, if I lived in Vancouver and she lived somewhere else, you know, we traveled to see each other quite often, just as close as a sibling could be.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Wow. I mean, in speaking to a tragedy at such an early age in life, I can only imagine that, That would probably draw you guys closer together with the loss of your mother.

Kevin Lowe: I mean, at such an early age.

Andrew Buerger: Yes, it would bring anybody closer together. And I was very fortunate.

Andrew Buerger: She's just an awesome human being, kind, generous, thoughtful.

Andrew Buerger: And so, of course, we fought, you know, as all siblings do. But it was easy to be close to her. It wasn't a lot of drama between the two of us.

Andrew Buerger: There wasn't a lot of, you know, sibling rivalry. so it made for a very healthy, strong, long-lasting relationship.

Andrew Buerger: You know, then, you know, when our father died, when I was 31, she was 32, we kind of also just had to lean into each other just a little bit more than we already had.

Andrew Buerger: We turned it from a 10 to an 11 in terms of our relationship, in terms of needing each other, being there for each other, and supporting each other.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. Now, as you guys grew older, were you able to stay?

Kevin Lowe: Did y'all still live near each other?

Andrew Buerger: No, we never had that luxury after high school.

Andrew Buerger: That new statistic I heard after the age of 18, I think you only spend basically one more year with your kids after they turn 18.

Andrew Buerger: We didn't have the luxury. So she remained in Boston. So I went to college in Vermont three hours away and she went to college in Boston.

Andrew Buerger: She stayed there. So I lived in a lot of different places, Vancouver, Hoover, Aspen, Boulder, Detroit, and then we'd see each other.

Andrew Buerger: We were never physically close, but then I moved to Baltimore.

Andrew Buerger: So we'd see each other, but no, we were never in the same city.

Kevin Lowe: Okay, okay. Well, I know, obviously, a big part of our conversation today really revolves around your sister Jodi's diagnosis with cancer.

Kevin Lowe: Would you kind of go ahead and talk to me about this whole kind of chapter of the story?

Andrew Buerger: Yeah, sure. You got to get the back story in terms of our relationship where we were there for each other, to support each other through good times and bad.

Andrew Buerger: Dance at her wedding, you know, and we're there for, obviously, the birth of her children.

Andrew Buerger: So it wasn't just the challenging times. We had amazing times.

Andrew Buerger: And as I said, I lived in Vancouver.

Andrew Buerger: We had some amazing experiences there. and then when i was basically 40 years old she was 41 she was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer for which there's no cure unfortunately they have not found a cure for that when it's stage four yet when it's involves various parts of the body from the brain to the lungs and the liver and so i've been given a gift in life which is like this filter my brain no bad news goes in there so every time something i get this news i don't see the bad news i can

Andrew Buerger: only see an opportunity.

Andrew Buerger: And I didn't think she was going to die. I heard that she had cancer, but I didn't think it would eventually kill her because that's just about where my brain goes.

Andrew Buerger: And so something switched in my brain. I said, I've got to do something.

Andrew Buerger: So we started raising money for a very promising treatment here that happens to be in Baltimore. I look for where the best treatment was being done.

Andrew Buerger: And it was a woman named Dr. Alicia Emmons here in Baltimore that was doing really cool research where they would take a woman's tumor cell, turn off the DNA, chop it up into a million pieces and then put it back into the woman's body with a low dose of chemotherapy that woke up the immune system to fight that. I'm like, wow, that is really cool.

Andrew Buerger: And so what can I do to help you? She said, I need money. So we started a nonprofit.

Andrew Buerger: At that time, we called it Climb for Hope to raise money for that.

Andrew Buerger: And so we raised a lot of money and we advanced her research pretty quickly, but we didn't do it in time, unfortunately, to save my sister's life.

Andrew Buerger: She died at age 45, leaving behind three of the most gorgeous kids in the world.

Andrew Buerger: And an amazing, loving husband.

Andrew Buerger: You know, it was hard to go through that with her and lose, you know, basically my best friend after having gone through that fight with her and tremendous loss.

Andrew Buerger: But what remains is her memory and an organization that's raised over a million dollars for breast cancer research at Johns Hopkins.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. So just to recap what we just heard is you lost your mother when you were only a year old.

Kevin Lowe: Right. You lost your father when I think you said you were 31.

Andrew Buerger: Yes.

Kevin Lowe: And now you just told us that you lost your sister.

Andrew Buerger: Yes. Yes.

Kevin Lowe: That seems for a man who doesn't take in the bad news and finds opportunity, it seems like anybody would say, wow, that was a lot.

Andrew Buerger: Yeah, I can see. I can see where you'd say that.

Andrew Buerger: It's a lot. And, you know, there's an amazing quote from Marcus Aurelius, who was the last of the great Roman emperors and a student of Stoic philosophy.

Andrew Buerger: And he once said, it is fortunate that this happened to me.

Andrew Buerger: It is fortunate that this happens to me. So I embrace that philosophy.

Andrew Buerger: You know, when I get to the top of a mountain or I have a good event at work or something positive happens in my life, it is fortunate that this happens to me.

Andrew Buerger: And then when something negative happens in my life, I also say that it is fortunate that this happens to me because I know that there's a silver lining on the other side of that tragedy.

Andrew Buerger: And all those losses turned out to be a gift to me in that I know why I'm on this earth.

Andrew Buerger: I'm here to use all my creativity and energy to help take a bite out of disease so that other families can live more fulfilling lives. So my life for the past 20 years has been in this area.

Andrew Buerger: As I said, we started a nonprofit that we've renamed from Climb for Hope to Jody's Climb for Hope. And we've made a difference.

Andrew Buerger: We've sped up research on that vaccine, which now is not necessarily treating breast cancer, but now you're seeing immunology working for other forms of cancer, like skin cancer.

Andrew Buerger: So not that that was all of our doing, but we were a tiny cog in the wheel that sped it up. It may have saved some lives.

Andrew Buerger: We've given hope to thousands of others that we can continue to advance cancer research.

Andrew Buerger: And we skipped over one small detail in that I married this beautiful woman, Jennifer, and six months after we were married, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Andrew Buerger: And so we're now also raising money for multiple sclerosis research.

Andrew Buerger: And so the money we raised goes to breast cancer research at Hopkins, as well as their amazing multiple sclerosis research center.

Andrew Buerger: And so, again, we're helping move the needle there to find the next viable treatment for MS.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. I think that is one of the most amazing life's purposes I've ever heard.

Andrew Buerger: Thanks. Thanks.

Kevin Lowe: The name of Jodi's Climb for Hope. Talk to me about the name, Climb for Hope. What is that in reference to?

Andrew Buerger: You know, we started it when she was still alive, and we wanted to give her hope to live one more day, one more week, one more month with her kids.

Andrew Buerger: We want to hope that hopefully we could find a cure or treatment that would keep her alive longer.

Andrew Buerger: As it turned out, you know, we give her hope, hopefully advanced her life a little bit to be with her family.

Andrew Buerger: But as it turns out, we've discovered this interesting byproduct of our organization where we go mountain climbing.

Andrew Buerger: So we started this, you know, most places we're doing 5Ks, 10Ks to raise money for $10.

Andrew Buerger: For breast cancer, where we started, our first fundraiser was climbing a 19,400-foot mountain in Ecuador. So we didn't start small.

Andrew Buerger: And so what we discovered by accident is that both of us carrying a backpack, a weighted pack up that mountain, we got altitude sickness.

Andrew Buerger: Some of us were literally vomiting, headaches, pain, fatigue, overwhelming exhaustion of climbing for 12, 13 hours.

Andrew Buerger: You know something? My sister went through that every single day for five years.

Andrew Buerger: We could push through that pain. We could vomit and keep moving on that mountain for 12, 13 hours because then we got to go home and rest.

Andrew Buerger: Where those undergoing breast cancer treatment don't get that luxury.

Andrew Buerger: People with multiple sclerosis carry a heavy pack every single day.

Andrew Buerger: It's difficult for my wife to walk around the block, walk the dog.

Andrew Buerger: So we figured she'll be walking her shoes when we have these expeditions.

Andrew Buerger: And so we're understanding what these people are going through and we're giving hope to people back home that we can continue to raise money and continue to make a difference.

Andrew Buerger: Another thing that we stumbled upon was that we discovered this doctor early and we found some other doctors very early on and we were able to give them, you know, 50, $150,000 very quickly.

Andrew Buerger: Didn't have to write grants, didn't have to fill out paperwork, didn't have to do a lot of red tape. Here's your check.

Andrew Buerger: And so they were able to get proof of concept of their research.

Andrew Buerger: And then once they raised money, like, stop giving me money.

Andrew Buerger: Now the government's giving me millions, go give it to somebody else.

Andrew Buerger: And so we've discovered that the Climb for Hope can be a sort of a VC, an early funder for people doing promising research, because you can't get money until you have some kind of proof of concept and we allow them to do that.

Andrew Buerger: And so again, we're giving hope that we can find a unique approach to disease research.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. Where did the whole concept even come from about the idea to even start such an organization and then, though, to do it not like everybody else with a 5K, but instead we're climbing mountains?

Andrew Buerger: Yeah, I tend to swim upstream a little bit.

Andrew Buerger: I've got a couple of gifts. One is that filter that we talked about where nothing bad enters my brain, drives my wife crazy.

Andrew Buerger: I think that other things i triangulate things you know i see when three things kind of appear to me i'm like oh that's something and so you know my sister getting sick meeting that that doctor i happen to be climbing with a buddy of mine on pico de orizaba which is the highest mountain in mexico uh at about 18 400 feet and we were climbing that mountain and i'm a horrible climber It's not like, oh, I'm a world-class climber who does this. I'm a horrible climber.

Andrew Buerger: But I'm like, wait a minute, Crony. What if, you know, we've got a bunch of friends together and made them raise $5,000 to go climbing with us?

Andrew Buerger: And so I happened to get, again, lucky that the guy who ran the local climbing gym happens to be one of the foremost climbers in the world, a guy named Chris Warner, who now became the second American climber.

Andrew Buerger: Ever to climb all the 8,000 meter peaks. So he said, yeah, I'll take you.

Andrew Buerger: I won't make any money on you. And let's go climb the world's highest active volcano down in Ecuador.

Andrew Buerger: And so off we went, you know, we just, I wanted to take a little different approach.

Andrew Buerger: She needed the money and I like climbing.

Andrew Buerger: And so we've got a bunch of my friends together and it turns out we raised like $150,000 the first year. We're like, well, let's try that again.

Andrew Buerger: Went to Kilimanjaro and raised another $150,000 and just kept going.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. I think that's amazing. I love not only, I mean, the mission behind it, of course, but I love the creativity and stepping outside of the box.

Andrew Buerger: Thanks.

Kevin Lowe: Thanks. Yeah, that's amazing. Well, talk to me more about your wife.

Kevin Lowe: How did the two of you meet in the first place?

Andrew Buerger: I hate this story.

Andrew Buerger: I always i always ask people do you want the truth or the story that i like to tell, my kids love it too so yeah i was getting out of a bad relationship we tell people that we met at a coffee shop because we live very close to each other and i used to like that story better but in truth i was getting about a relationship i'm like oh i need what i gotta what am i gonna do now.

Andrew Buerger: So I went on mats.com, looked up and, you know, I saw this beautiful woman who's well-read, well-traveled, well-educated, a master's degree.

Andrew Buerger: She worked in an orphanage. I'm like, oh my God, she's a saint.

Andrew Buerger: And I'm like, well, I guess I got to join this stupid thing. And so I, and then, you know, went on one date on mats.com and that was it.

Kevin Lowe: Wow.

Andrew Buerger: Yeah.

Kevin Lowe: That's crazy. Awesome.

Andrew Buerger: Yeah, so we met in February, and then I decided to start the nonprofit in April, and I had that meeting with Dr. Emmons, who's this amazing, researcher and uh chris warner again who i said is one of the foremost climbers in the world and we had this meeting and we had like uh 20 people show up and every one of the 20 people signed up and one of those people and jennifer and mckay you know we just started dating two months make you mind coming this meeting with me and so she after the meeting she tells all my friends you're gonna have

Andrew Buerger: to tell annie that his next girlfriend that his ex-girlfriend is coming on this trip because you didn't know we'd be married or be still dating come January when the trip went off.

Andrew Buerger: And so it was a big mountain and it was really challenging.

Andrew Buerger: And it's hard and the altitude.

Andrew Buerger: And so I don't remember this, but she said that if I got to the summit, we would get engaged.

Andrew Buerger: So she made it up there. We did not get engaged up there, but she made it somehow.

Andrew Buerger: And then we got engaged three months later.

Kevin Lowe: Wow, that is absolutely amazing. I think that's an awesome story.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Now, did after that climb, did she continue to share that love of yours of climbing?

Andrew Buerger: This interview reminds me of my interview for my life insurance.

Andrew Buerger: It's like, tell me about your biological mother. Well, she died at 25.

Andrew Buerger: Well, how about your father? He died of heart disease. How about your sister?

Andrew Buerger: I'm like, do you really want to ask me these questions?

Andrew Buerger: So I married this gorgeous woman. So we climbed a Cotopaxi in January of 2007, you know, this 19,000 foot peak.

Andrew Buerger: And we wanted to climb this other mountain because my buddy of mine, John Guth, he signed up and wound up breaking his leg doing something stupid that he shouldn't have never done. So I said, dude, I'll take you climbing.

Andrew Buerger: In June on this mountain called Mount Shasta. So I got Jennifer, who was then my fiancee, Gunnar, and then this other woman, Julie, to go climb Mount Shasta.

Andrew Buerger: And Jennifer loved it. It was this hippie town in Northern California, gorgeous.

Andrew Buerger: You do this nice, tough hike up to base camp. And she was loving every second.

Andrew Buerger: And she loved the town. She loved everything about it.

Andrew Buerger: And she gets to camp and she's like, I don't feel a hundred percent.

Andrew Buerger: I'm really cold and I can't regulate my body and i'm just freezing and i'm just you mind if i don't go to the summit i'm like hey you know we're not here to go to the summit we're here for the experience so she really wasn't feeling well we went up summited and came back down and so that was june and then we got married in september of 2007 and then uh you know we decided to climb kilimanjaro the following year That's what she chose.

Kevin Lowe: Wow.

Andrew Buerger: And then February, she wasn't feeling well. So we went to the doctor and we knew because we had seen some MRIs and February 26, 2008, six months, less than six months after our wedding date, we knew that the doctor was going to give us bad news that day.

Andrew Buerger: We knew because we saw a couple of lesions on her spine by this point that the doctor was going to tell us she had multiple sclerosis. So we sat in that waiting room, waiting for the doctor to call us in.

Andrew Buerger: And I had the early BlackBerry back then. And sitting there, I couldn't focus.

Andrew Buerger: So I was checking emails. And I got this email, congratulations, Mr. Berger, your puppy has been born.

Andrew Buerger: And we had put in paperwork to get a bull mastiff, the 140-pound dog that we'd bring home.

Andrew Buerger: And so as soon as I got that email, the nurse said, the doctor will see you now.

Andrew Buerger: Of course, he confirmed our diagnosis. that Jennifer had MS and that she'd never climb again.

Andrew Buerger: So we went home, we cried our eyes out, and we woke up the next day and we named the dog Mount Shasta.

Andrew Buerger: Mount Zest was the last mountain that Jennifer's been able to climb.

Andrew Buerger: And his initials were MS. Because goddamn, MS was going to be something positive in our lives.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. Wow. Talk to me about the effects of MS on somebody. What does this disease do?

Andrew Buerger: It's unlike cancer where you can kind of, I don't want to say predict it, but, you know, everyone has very similar journeys with cancer.

Andrew Buerger: With MS, multiple sclerosis is multiple sclerosis or lesions.

Andrew Buerger: You're getting lesions on your myelin sheath, which is the protective coating on your spinal cord in your brain.

Andrew Buerger: And so some people get them more in your brain. You get cognitive challenges.

Andrew Buerger: Some people get them more on their spine, which correlates to, you know, it's kind of like a computer cord.

Andrew Buerger: If you're cutting up that plastic, you know, that outer coating, you're going to get your computers in your haywire because the cords can be cut.

Andrew Buerger: So people get weakness, fatigue, pain, difficulty walking, difficult using your hands, losing feeling in your fingers, a lot of mobility issues.

Andrew Buerger: Some people wind up in a wheelchair.

Andrew Buerger: Again, it's very dependent on the individual.

Andrew Buerger: And so, you know, there's a lot of great medications now that will stop the progression. So if you've got several lesions, you get diagnosed, you go on a medication, then that'll hopefully stop the progression.

Andrew Buerger: And so we're fortunate that she was diagnosed, you know, now we're no less 15, 18 years that medications have stopped it, But it still presents challenges every day.

Andrew Buerger: And I think the worst symptom that she got was when we sat down.

Andrew Buerger: The doctor says, woo, this is kind of aggressive.

Andrew Buerger: So I need to put you on this drug and hopefully keep you out of a wheelchair.

Andrew Buerger: But it means you can't have kids.

Andrew Buerger: So I know my mission to help take about a disease. Jen's known her mission since she was five years old, which is to be a mother to create healthy kids, mentally healthy kids.

Andrew Buerger: She's a psychotherapist. and now the doctor's telling us five months after we're married that we can't have kids.

Andrew Buerger: That was the worst of the symptoms. It is fortunate that this happened to me.

Andrew Buerger: It is fortunate this happened to me because what we decided to do was to go to Ethiopia, one of the poorest parts of the world, and adopt two of the most gorgeous kids on the face of this earth.

Andrew Buerger: So now she lives her life mission every single day to raise these healthy kids.

Andrew Buerger: I'm a motivational speaker.

Andrew Buerger: So it's perfect. I get to travel and she gets to, I don't have any bad effects on the kids.

Andrew Buerger: She does a great job of raising these two kids. They're now, now 14, but it's, you know, life's challenging in terms of physically for her mobility, pain, fatigue on a daily basis.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. What a story. You're, you're kids.

Kevin Lowe: I, I heard something, I think it was in one of the talks you did and I would love for you to tell me the story that you you wrote their names on water bottles that you carried

Andrew Buerger: Yeah.

Kevin Lowe: What is that story?

Andrew Buerger: That story, we were climbing Mount Whitney, which is the highest point in the lower 48, at 14,500 feet.

Andrew Buerger: And that point, you know, our kids were little and I had this startup going and Jennifer obviously could no longer hike with me.

Andrew Buerger: So training became an issue. I was getting a little older.

Andrew Buerger: And so it was a challenging climb. We had to carry heavy packs, not just to one camp, but to the second camp too.

Andrew Buerger: And so I don't sleep well in a tent. So I had two nights of little sleep, was sleep deprived, carrying a heavy pack of this mountain, altitude challenges.

Andrew Buerger: And so I spent all my gas getting to the summit, which is a mistake because 80% of the accidents happen on the way down.

Andrew Buerger: You need more than 50% of your gas tank left to get back down. I didn't do that.

Andrew Buerger: So I was having a real tough time climbing back down.

Andrew Buerger: And so, you know, my buddies, I'm like, guys, I'm having a tough time.

Andrew Buerger: Like, oh, base camp is just around the corner to the right. I'm like, okay, thanks.

Andrew Buerger: And I get, you know, sum up all my energy. I go around that corner and it's not there.

Andrew Buerger: And Danny's like, no, no, it's down a little bit around the corner to the left. I'm like, okay.

Andrew Buerger: Put one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other.

Andrew Buerger: And this camp still wasn't there.

Andrew Buerger: I found out they were lying to me. We still had hours to go.

Andrew Buerger: And I just wanted to lay down in the snow. But laying down in the snow and dying just wasn't an option. because I had two water bottles, two Nalgene bottles.

Andrew Buerger: I had written my son's name on one water bottle and my daughter's name on the other water bottle to know why I was climbing.

Andrew Buerger: It was to get back down safely to them and not just get to the summit, but get back safely to see my kids again.

Andrew Buerger: And every time I took a sip of water, I saw their names.

Andrew Buerger: And I knew at that point how far my mind could push my body.

Andrew Buerger: And I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other until I was back at camp.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. You know, you spoke about your life's purpose and...

Kevin Lowe: I look at this as, you know, giving even purpose to that single climb of your children's names, of giving that reason why, like you said, why you couldn't give up, why you had to get down that mountain.

Kevin Lowe: I think that's pretty powerful.

Andrew Buerger: Yeah. Yeah. I learned the power of purpose when we were climbing Kilimanjaro when, you know, we had gotten all of our climbers to the summit and then safely back down over eight days.

Andrew Buerger: It was a brutal, tough, cold, challenging expedition.

Andrew Buerger: And we had seen this one other group on the mountain and I talked to them.

Andrew Buerger: Finally, we got back down to the bottom. We celebrated reaching the highest point of Africa. and raising $150,000.

Andrew Buerger: And I was chatting with them. Only half their team made it. I'm like, what happened?

Andrew Buerger: 12 of them, the 24 of them, well, Billy's feet got cold. So Tracy took them down and Eric got tired. So Stacy took him down.

Andrew Buerger: My sister was still alive. I had a flag that said, stay strong, JB, Jody Berger.

Andrew Buerger: I wanted to give her hope, as we talked about. We had people's names that were undergoing treatment.

Andrew Buerger: We promised we'd get their names to the summit. We had names of people who lost their loved ones, we promised we'd get their names to the highest point in Tanzania.

Andrew Buerger: We weren't going to turn around when our feet got cold and when someone was vomiting from altitude sickness.

Andrew Buerger: We had a mission to get those flags to the summit. And that's when I realized the value of purpose.

Andrew Buerger: In my own life and in my business life, purpose helps you climb your figurative Mount Everest.

Andrew Buerger: One of my favorite books is Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, who's a psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust, one of the worst things ever in history of humanity.

Andrew Buerger: And there's a quote from Nietzsche, he who has a why to live can overcome anyhow.

Andrew Buerger: And so we can all climb our figurative Mount Everest if we have that mission.

Andrew Buerger: And so, you know, my mission is to help take a bite of disease so other families can live of fulfilling lives.

Andrew Buerger: But it doesn't mean that an expedition, a day, something else, you can't put your mission, a different mission statement on your water bottle.

Andrew Buerger: You may carry that flag around with you of your life's mission, but you know something, when you're on an expedition, what's the purpose of this mission?

Andrew Buerger: Not to get to the summit, but to get back down safely to see my family.

Andrew Buerger: And I wrote my mission of that journey on my water bottles that day.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. What a valuable lesson for us all. I absolutely love that.

Kevin Lowe: Your organization, Jody's Climb for Hope, at what point did you also expand it to help with raising money for MS in support of your wife?

Andrew Buerger: So we think our first expedition was in January of 2007, and she was diagnosed a year later in February of 08.

Andrew Buerger: And so within a year, I looked at Janice, I guess we're raising money for MS now too so we do both and we tend to you know basically split our you know if you raise a hundred thousand we'll get 50 to each researcher on each side so it's a bit weird to lump the two together we're raising money for breast cancer and ms but people appreciate it people understand it and people embrace it but yeah we've been doing it both of them for a while yeah.

Kevin Lowe: That's absolutely amazing now kind of shifting gears i'm i'm very curious to learn how You also had some type of discovery, I guess, while while hiking in Iceland that led to you inventing some type of drink.

Andrew Buerger: Right. So we talked about my triangulation. Right. So, again, I've been very fortunate that I I'm like that kid's sixth sense.

Andrew Buerger: I see things that are, you know, so when I triangulate things, I'm able to see, you know, things that aren't there. And so, you know, I had been a health nut for a long time and I couldn't find a convenient source of protein.

Andrew Buerger: And this is, you know, going way back to late 90s that I tried to consume a lot of protein without any sugar.

Andrew Buerger: And obviously good fat, not bad fat. So I've been eating this lifestyle for a long time, but I couldn't find a convenient source of protein.

Andrew Buerger: So we're on this mountain and Jen was actually able to come to base camp.

Andrew Buerger: And this could be just, you know, it was just car camping.

Andrew Buerger: So we were climbing the highest mountain in Iceland. and they serve this, this like yogurt thing for breakfast.

Andrew Buerger: And I'm like, oh, I'm lactose intolerant. This is not going to be pretty, you know, but we're going to consume like 6,000 calories that day.

Andrew Buerger: So, you know, I ate it and I was fine. And I ate some more the next day and I was still fine.

Andrew Buerger: And I said to the guy, Ivar, what is this stuff? He said, it's not yogurt, it's skier.

Andrew Buerger: It's technically a form of cheese and all the lactose gets consumed by their probiotics.

Andrew Buerger: It's basically, it's very similar to Greek yogurt. And so it's super high in protein and tastes delicious without sugar.

Andrew Buerger: So I looked at Jen and said, this is what I want to do the rest of my life.

Andrew Buerger: Because, you know, as we talked about, my mission is to help take a bite out of disease.

Andrew Buerger: And so I wanted to create a super healthy product that was convenient, that, you know, you can go to a store.

Andrew Buerger: It's obviously a lot different here in 2024. But this is back in, you know, 2009, where, you know, all you got was like pork rinds at places for a kind of a grab and go protein source.

Andrew Buerger: And so I looked at Janet. This is what I want to do the rest of my life.

Andrew Buerger: So I came home, quit my day job.

Andrew Buerger: Again you know i'm not real bright but i'm i see things and so i went to the university of vermont undergrad and we've got a really good dairy science program there so i called up a dairy scientist and he helped me came up with the recipe and we created the first organic protein drink with no added sugar you know stevia had just come to the markets we were basically the first drink the market that used stevia and so we're able to create a drink that a 30 grams of protein you know we mix it up with frozen fruit at home and

Andrew Buerger: like wait a minute you know what if we did this commercially.

Andrew Buerger: So we found someplace commercially to do it.

Andrew Buerger: And we just took our skier that we made and mixed it up with fruit and put it in the bottle.

Andrew Buerger: And next thing you know, we were in 40 states and largest supermarket chains, Publix, Kroger, Whole Foods, Wegmans, all over the country.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. Now, what is the brand name of the product?

Andrew Buerger: Be More Organic. B apostrophe M-R-E. So in Baltimore, we call this town Be More.

Andrew Buerger: So I called a product called Be More Organic. It's kind of a play on words.

Andrew Buerger: We had to close that during COVID. But for, you know, for 10 years, we had what I thought was one of the healthiest products on the market, all organic, so no hormones or pesticides, high in protein and no added sugar.

Andrew Buerger: So that was my life mission to help take about a disease.

Andrew Buerger: And then we gave 1% of our sales to the nonprofit called Jody's Client.

Andrew Buerger: So every day I was excited to go to work because, you know, I was living my life's mission every single day.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Wow. That is, that is awesome, man. And I, I have never heard of that product before. And I, that sounds amazing.

Andrew Buerger: Well, unfortunately, yeah, we had to, we had to discontinue it, but it was great for a long time.

Kevin Lowe: Okay. Okay. Interesting. Wow. Well, I guess the thing that I would love to ask you is how have you found a way to kind of balance it all from the emotional stress of life to running a nonprofit, to living out loud, hiking, to becoming a father.

Kevin Lowe: How does one manage all of that?

Andrew Buerger: My wife or kids would probably say I don't manage it well.

Andrew Buerger: It's a lot of work, time consuming. When I had my for-profit business, which was the protein drink and the non-profit, it was just love.

Andrew Buerger: You know what I mean? It's like when you're a parent, it's the hardest job you ever love. And it's the same thing.

Andrew Buerger: You love what you're doing. You're passionate about it.

Andrew Buerger: It didn't feel like work. You know, as I said, I got excited to get out of bed every single day because I got to live my life mission.

Andrew Buerger: You know, I have I'm also, you know, it's a big believer in as a leader and having a great team.

Andrew Buerger: So I've got amazing volunteers at Joey's Climb for Hope who helped me organize all the missions. And then, you know, when I run a business, there's an amazing team that always also supports me with that.

Andrew Buerger: And then at home, you know, my team here is amazing. My wife is an amazing life partner who does all the heavy lifting here.

Andrew Buerger: So I'd say just, you know, a lot of great support.

Andrew Buerger: One of the things I learned, you know, was when I told you I'm not a very good climber. And so I always have a guide, you know, to keep me out of the crevasse.

Andrew Buerger: They keep me on that when it's dark and I don't want to get lost on Mount Rainier in the cold.

Andrew Buerger: We have a guide to help us. You know, I had my for-profit. We made the first organic protein drink with no added sugar.

Andrew Buerger: I called a guy named Seth Goldman, who created the first organic tea drink with no added sugar. And so he was very generous with his time and mentored me.

Andrew Buerger: And so I always had a guide in my for-profit business as well that guided me.

Andrew Buerger: And so I realized that asking you for help is a sign of strength, not a sign of peace.

Andrew Buerger: You know, when I do my motivational talks, I always ask the audience, I said, who here likes asking for help?

Andrew Buerger: You know, we have an audience of 300 people, maybe one, two people were raised.

Andrew Buerger: And nobody actually like, oh, my God, I'm bothering somebody.

Andrew Buerger: I'm going to bother Kevin. I don't want to do that.

Andrew Buerger: And then I say, hey, raise your hand if you like helping people.

Andrew Buerger: And all 300 hands go up, of course, because we all like helping people, right? It makes us feel good.

Andrew Buerger: Well, guess what? I made Seth Goldman feel good because, hey, dude, can you help me?

Andrew Buerger: When I was having trouble raising my black son because I wasn't a very good black father, you know, I didn't have a black father myself.

Andrew Buerger: And so I knew the Baltimore Ravens because our smoothies were in their locker room.

Andrew Buerger: And I called this 6'8", African-American man by name, Carl Davis, who plays for the Dallas Cowboys now.

Andrew Buerger: He played for the Ravens at 350 pounds. I said, Carl, can you help me mentor my black son?

Andrew Buerger: So now I ask for help in all aspects of my life.

Andrew Buerger: I have people helping me, mentoring me in business.

Andrew Buerger: People who mentor me with raising kids. I have my friend who helps me with my diet and nutrition.

Andrew Buerger: I ask, it's like a board of directors that I ask for help. because I feel it's a sign of strength and not a sign of weakness.

Andrew Buerger: And I make those people feel good because they get to help me.

Andrew Buerger: So that's a long answer to a short question of how I get through it. I ask for a lot of help.

Kevin Lowe: Wow. And I personally think that's the most amazing answer I could have expected for the simple fact that there's so much power in that. There's so much love in that.

Kevin Lowe: And this idea of what you illustrated is we hate to ask for help, but we love to help. Yeah.

Kevin Lowe: You know, I mean, it's such an ironic kind of predicament of this situation. Yeah.

Andrew Buerger: Yeah. And I'm sure somebody like you probably struggles with it, too. I don't want to ask for help. I don't need help. Right.

Andrew Buerger: You know, you feel like it might put some sort of stigma on if you ask for help.

Andrew Buerger: But, you know, people want to help.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. Well, today, I know that you mentioned you do motivational speaking.

Andrew Buerger: Yes.

Kevin Lowe: If I'm not mistaken, you also have a book as well, correct?

Andrew Buerger: I do. It's out there somewhere. Yes. It's called Carrying a Flag from Pain to Passion.

Andrew Buerger: It's kind of about how we get that flag to the summit.

Andrew Buerger: That flag can help you overcome a lot of obstacles if you carry it in your pack every day.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. I love it. Well, listen, Andy, for somebody who would love to learn more about you, to stay plugged in with your world, maybe to find your book or to look at hiring you as a motivational speaker, where's the best place for us to send them?

Andrew Buerger: I have a website, andrewberger.com. Andrew, as in my first name, and then Berger, B-U-E-R-G-E-R.com.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, well, well, listen, I guess my last question for you is when I when I listen to you talk about this kind of life story, it's a story that it seems so amazing at your level of of giving back.

Kevin Lowe: What do you hope at the end of the day when all is said and done?

Kevin Lowe: What do you hope that that your your kids remember you for?

Andrew Buerger: Jeez. You had to give the doozy at the end.

Andrew Buerger: Oh, we're out of time. Look at that.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Buerger: You know, it's funny because, you know, when I was a kid, you know, my dad used to put me in the car. I used to drive around town collecting money for the community chest.

Andrew Buerger: And I used to watch him, you know, go raise money for people less fortunate.

Andrew Buerger: And now I'm on my computer.

Andrew Buerger: I'm like, dad's on his computer again. But, you know, I'm sending out emails raising money.

Andrew Buerger: I'm sending out doing work for logistics on the computer to do stuff for the climb.

Andrew Buerger: You know, I'm not on the phone talking to people. Hey, guys, here's what's going on. So they don't hear me and they don't see me doing it besides the computer.

Andrew Buerger: So it's a real challenge for me. My kids know what I'm doing.

Andrew Buerger: I was very fortunate the other day that my daughter opened the mail and there was a $20,000 check in there.

Andrew Buerger: And so she was able to see. Oh, OK.

Andrew Buerger: That's part of it why dad is on the computer and I you can't see it but there's a she put this little note finally on my wall said you're the reason that Client for Hope is the way it is because of all of your hard work.

Kevin Lowe: Hmm.

Andrew Buerger: So I hope that they're able to see that I'm using my my brain and my all my effort and my creativity to help take a bite of disease so other people can live more fulfilling lives.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, I love it. Andy, man, it's been a real pleasure having you today.

Kevin Lowe: I have really enjoyed getting to to hear your story and your perspective on the way in which you look at life.

Kevin Lowe: And I believe it's something that we can all listen to your story, listen to your perspective and take at least something you've said today and put it into action in our own life.

Kevin Lowe: So I thank you in the most sincere way possible.

Andrew Buerger: I appreciate you giving the opportunity to share my story and hopefully, as you said, somebody will learn for it and just learn to take, put one foot in front of the other to make it through the day.

Kevin Lowe: Absolutely. For you listening today, My hope is always is that like me, you've come away feeling a little bit better than when we started.

Kevin Lowe: You're left with so much words of wisdom about life that I hope you do put it into action in your life.

Kevin Lowe: And of course, like I like to end every episode is I hope today's episode maybe made today a little bit better than yesterday and makes tomorrow a little bit better than today.

Kevin Lowe: I'm Kevin Lowe, and this is another episode of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.