What If Cancer Could Save Your Life? Steve Garraty on Overcoming Adversity and Second Chances

Today's story is about a young man who had this happen to him.

He thought his life was headed in one direction.

And then he heard three words.

Three words that we all fear.

Three words that change a life.

You have cancer.

But those three words, which can sound like an ending, would in fact become the start of a new beginning.

A grateful new beginning.

So, my friend, if you've ever walked through pain and have been left to wonder, what could it mean?

Why did this have to happen?

Then today's episode is going to speak up to you.

Because what I want you to understand is that even the hardest chapters in life can grow something good, can bear fruit, just like they did in the story of today's guest.

Today's guest is Steve Garrity, the author of a book titled Grapefruit.

How cancer led to leading a more fruitful life?

You're gonna hear his full story, the impact of those words.

You have cancer.

But what comes next?

It's after the devastation where it all comes together, where things start to change for today's guest and what I believe is true for you as well.

If you love today's interview, my friend, you're gonna really love Steve's book.

Please be sure to check out today's show notes where you can find links to get your own copy of Great Fruit.

Or you can also just head on over to graceinspiration.com slash great fruit to find that link as well.

Lastly, I want to give a big shout out to a past guest of this podcast, Beshoy Padros.

Beshoy is the one who connected me and Steve together.

So Beshoy, my man, thank you so much for making such an awesome introduction.

And last but not least, if at any point you think to yourself, ah, you know what?

I'm just gonna press pause and I'll finish this up later.

Well, I beg you to think differently.

Because my friend, chances are if you hit pause, you're gonna forget about it and you're not gonna come back.

And I'm telling you, you want to listen to this entire episode.

The interview is amazing.

The conversation with Steve is life-changing.

And awaiting you at the very end, you get to go from an interview to listening to maybe your new favorite song.

As I took the creative inspiration and turned today's story, Steve's story, into a song titled Grapefruit.

So just know that is waiting for you at the end of today's episode.

My friend, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe.

This is episode 435 of Great Grace and Inspiration.

Without any further ado, this is my interview with Steve Garrett.

Today, I have the pleasure of being in the studio with Steve Garrity.

Steve, my man, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02: Oh, thanks for having me, Kevin.

I've been excited to do this today.

So thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.

Well, well, Steve, I'd love to start with a question of for the person listening today, what do you hope that they take away from hearing your story today?

If you could wave that kind of magic wand and got to choose how they left feeling, what would you hope that would be?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a good question, Kevin.

I would say that it hopefully provides a new or a little bit different perspective in how your listeners view adversity that they've either been through or they're going to go through.

It's it's really not a question of if but when, right?

We hit those life hurdles.

For me, it was cancer, but the you know, the hurdles can be uh divorce, job loss, grief.

Uh, there's a lot of things that we go through.

And I think we all have our own story of challenges and hurdles.

And I hope that my story provides a little bit of perspective in how we view that and how we can grow and live a stronger and better life coming out of those life's roadblocks.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

I love it.

I love it.

Well, well, Steve, where do you think your story really kind of begins?

I mean, I know from from preparing for an interview and stuff, I would say probably around that age, like 17, junior and senior year, but but if you know a better starting point, you start it where you feel the best place is for us to begin.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think the junior and senior year in high school provide some context behind this story.

My junior and senior year in high school, Kevin, were, you know, I think to back up, my family had moved a couple times, and I came from a stable family.

Parents are still married 60 years in now, middle class family.

Dad was a hard worker, my mom stayed at home with us.

Had a good stable family life.

We moved a couple times.

The second of which was uh end of middle school, beginning of high school.

It also was from the Northeast down to back in the 80s, what was a very rural, I would use the word redneck kind of area of Georgia.

I just, for me, that was a big challenge.

And it was, I struggled with that socially and fitting in.

And a couple years later, when I did start to build my social circle, it probably wasn't the best, or they weren't the best influences.

And it led to a couple of years of hard partying and uh running a very hard lifestyle that continued to spiral more and more downhill.

I like to use the analogy of uh for those that have watched Breaking Bad, probably similar to the character of uh Walter White and how he kind of each episode and each season spirals more downward.

And I just was not looking at stopping that spiral.

I don't think I was probably capable or in the mindset to stop it, and had wrecked my parents' cars about five times under the influence of something.

Grades were suffering, just was kind of headed down a really bad path.

And I think um something probably more tragic would have happened if not for some intervention.

And that intervention was a lump was forming on the side of my neck uh towards the end of my senior year.

I ignored it for a little while.

It started growing very aggressively, went in and got a biopsy, and on July 4th, the the surgeon called our house to inform me that um the the three words he delivered were you have cancer.

Not something I expected, but it it was um started a year of hell, and that's probably where my story begins.

But the the background, because I do believe my my lifestyle and poor choices and the path I was headed down, I do think contributed to me getting sick.

And I also think me getting sick put me on a different and better path in the long run.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

Now, before getting to the discovery of you having this cancerous tumor, during that kind of junior senior year graduating high school in this party phase of life, did you have any plans for life after high school at that point?

SPEAKER_02: I had seen the movie Animal House many times.

And uh so I had this vision of what uh Greek life, what a fraternity life would look like.

And it fit in with uh uh for those that had seen the movie, it fit in with what I had been doing the last couple of years.

So I was excited to head off to college and kind of join a fraternity and live that kind of lifestyle that I had seen on Animal House.

And I was excited about the freedom to be away from my parents and restrictions and rules.

But I would say those are probably not the best reasons, right?

Or the best um, yeah, I didn't have a good path forward.

I was looking to party more and without with less restrictions and less rules.

And I do think that would have led to be it me failing out of school or God forbid getting into uh an accident, hurting myself, hurting others.

And so, yeah, I I think I don't think I would have made it through four years of college had I gone off to school and and not been sick.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

Amazing how life can get in the way sometimes, sometimes for maybe for the for the benefit, for the you know now.

Talk to me a little bit more about the the tumor, the type of cancer, and and with that, I guess I would love to kind of group in together of just your your mindset, your thought process being told, here you've just graduated high school and now all of a sudden you're facing cancer.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so when the the surgeon called the house, I guess two things I would say to answer your your question there.

One is when the surgeon called, he informed us that he took a mass out of the size of my neck that was the size of a grapefruit, which is pretty crazy.

Every time I go to the grocery store, that crosses my mind when I go in the uh the produce sector or the fruit section, but it was the size of a grapefruit, so it's it was pretty large.

But I think what sums up where I was in life is the surgeon, and I'm sure my parents had given the surgeon some backstory about my drinking and partying.

Uh, but the surgeon said, Listen, you have cancer, we're gonna need to do, you're gonna need to see an oncologist, get some tests done to find out how much it has spread.

But one of the things he said was, definitely no drinking for at least a year and potentially ever again.

And my mind went to this place where I stopped listening to everything else he said.

Uh, my family, my I have two siblings, my parents, all sitting around the family table, uh family room table.

And um I think my family was devastated and upset, and my mom and my brother were crying.

I was in this state of shock that I can't drink.

And so I was not really that upset about the cancer.

I was upset about the fact that I couldn't drink.

So that's where my mind was, which might be a sign of denial, I guess the first stage of dealing with something, but that's where my head was.

And my mind started going to what about the what about going off to college?

What about my independence?

What about, you know, all I at that point I was partying every night.

I was going out every single evening.

Again, I was out of high school.

I was working a part-time job.

It was really full-time during the summer, and I was going out every single evening.

It it just rocked my world that socially, uh, you know, I knew that a lot of my friends were friends because we would go out partying together.

And I just knew that all that was uh now in jeopardy.

And that's what upset me the most when I was told you have cancer.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

I mean, whether or not the things that you were were focused on were were quote unquote good or bad, I mean, yeah, it's it's a it's a life change, and that's that's not easy.

And I think especially when we're talking about something like alcohol, which you know, when we're talking about addiction and and all of that, I mean, that's not an easy thing to to hear.

What was the doctor telling you guys as far as treatment and and long-term outlook on this type of cancer?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that was the hard part.

This was night, I guess to back up.

This was 1986 that I got that I graduated high school and got this phone call.

The surgeon was really just delivering the news of you have cancer and couldn't really answer any questions beyond that.

He said, You'll need to go in and see an oncologist.

And that probably took seven to ten days roughly to get in to see the oncologist that we started my process with.

But that was the hard part because, again, if you think back 1986, the the internet really wasn't around.

You had to go to the library to look things up and learn.

And so we had all these questions.

My parents had questions, I had questions, and we really didn't have any answers to them.

And uh, short of short of going to the library and trying to look up stuff, there were there were a lot of questions that weren't answered in the beginning.

So we had to go to the oncologist, and then even then it was it was all speculative.

We had uh I had to go get x-rays and CAT scans to determine how much the cancer had spread.

Uh, what I found out within a couple weeks, Kevin, was it had spread to my not only my neck, but my chest and my stomach.

And so it was stage three, which meant chemotherapy was the the treatment that they moved forward with.

So I did about nine or 10 months of chemotherapy.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

So what kind of cancer was it?

SPEAKER_02: Uh it's called Hodgkin's, and it's probably most common in like 18 to 25 year olds, is where Hodgkin happens the most, which again, I was 18 at the time.

But yeah, it's called Hodgkin's lymphoma.

SPEAKER_00: Okay.

And is that the one?

If am I getting it right, where there's Hodgkin's lymphoma and then there's Hodgkin's non-lymphoma or something like that?

SPEAKER_02: Yes, I think you're spot on there.

unknown: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Mine was in the lymph nodes, which made it Hodgkin's lymphoma.

SPEAKER_00: Okay.

Okay.

So now treatment-wise, is that because I think of typically like either chemotherapy or radiation?

SPEAKER_02: Yes.

Again, this was at the time, this is a long time ago.

They had told me, listen, it if we do these tests and it's stage one or two, we'll probably treat it with radiation.

If it's three or four, it's going to be chemotherapy, maybe a combo of chemotherapy and radiation.

But that's how they kind of treated it.

I think the more severe it was, the more likely you were to have chemotherapy as part of it.

So I did not do radiation, I did the chemotherapy.

SPEAKER_00: Okay.

Okay.

Wow.

Well, before getting to the part about the chemotherapy, the grapefruit-sized tumor, that was the entire tumor was able to be successfully removed.

SPEAKER_02: Yes, they moved it out.

There was still cancer in there.

There's still cancer in the lymph nodes, and but they they took out a mass, so they took out a good part of it in the neck, and then obviously in the chest and stomach that had to be, and there was still cancer in my neck.

They that's how they got it, was with the chemotherapy.

SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.

Wow.

So with chemo, I mean, I think we all just envision horror stories of of chemo.

How was that for you?

SPEAKER_02: It was a horror story.

It was uh yeah, it so I went in on the the first one, and they said, you know, listen, some people uh don't get sick on the first one, and um I did not.

They basically put an IV into you and you sit there.

Uh it was typically about 45 minutes to an hour, you would sit there, and the drugs would kind of slowly drip into your veins.

And the first one I did fine.

I went home, slept a little bit, and actually had a friend come over later that day and went out that evening, uh, which was probably not a good thing to do, but went out that evening.

And um then so I started having this uh, you know, at 18, you feel like you're invincible, and I was no exception.

And so getting cancer was a shock.

And then when I went in for the first session of chemo and didn't get sick, I was like, okay, this is gonna be easy.

You know, it's old people that get sick, and uh that that changed on my second appointment.

So my second appointment kind of everything seemed the same, and about 10-15 minutes in, I started, you know, projectile vomiting, and um and basically it got worse each time after that, but it it would be about 10 to 12 hours.

I'd come in, get the chemo in the morning, my parents would take me home, and I was usually hugging the toilet, vomiting till there was nothing to come up, and then there was bile coming up, and so it was pretty um, those days were pretty rough.

I did that every two weeks.

So every two weeks I would go in and and get this combination of drugs uh that would go into my system, and that first day was pretty horrible.

Second day I would feel nauseous, and then I'd go the next 12 days, pretty much, you know, normal.

I was taking classes at a community college.

I stayed home, stayed home, obviously, to get well again, but took classes and was even working part-time.

But those two days that um, you know, the day of and the day after, usually I was kind of out of commission.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, no.

Well, now during this period of being on chemo, was there any maybe specific low point where maybe you you just kind of thought like I can't keep doing this?

SPEAKER_02: Yes.

Well, there were multiple times I thought that, and I've written a book uh that I published in March, and the first chapter opens with the answer to your question, which was my rock bottom.

So there was uh towards the end, the problem with you know cancer and going through something like that, you don't know when the end is gonna come.

So I would keep going in for these sessions, and every couple months uh we would get new X-rays and CAT scans to see is it working?

Are the tumor shrinking?

And eventually, so they never know like when the end is gonna be.

They just keep doing that until there's no evidence of the cancer anymore.

And so towards the end, although I didn't know it was the end, probably a couple sessions before I finished and was declared in remission, there was a time where my mom and I went in for another session of chemo.

And um, I kind of had a breakdown, I call it a breakdown, where I asked my mother to go inside the doctor's office and to give me a few minutes in the parking garage.

And I just broke down.

I didn't want to go in.

Um, I was bawling, I was praying, asking God to give me strength to go back in and do it again.

Uh, but I just I was spent.

You know, at this point I was completely bald, had no hair left, had no, I had a couple friends left that had kind of stuck by me.

It was a lonely year, was tired of how sick I got because each one got progressively worse.

But yeah, the mental part of it, Kevin, it built to a point where I just didn't think I could do it again.

And I spent about an hour in that parking garage.

And my mother, God bless her, she was upstairs and just patiently waiting for me to kind of get my act together.

But yeah, that was my rock bottom during that process.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Who during this time would you say that that you leaned on or did you?

I mean, you you mentioned that you had had a couple of friends that kind of stayed with you.

I mean, I know some people kind of handle the difficult stuff in life just internally and you know, stay themselves.

Others need need somebody to to lean on, to cry with.

Was there anybody that that you would say that was for you?

SPEAKER_02: There were seven people, my parents and my two siblings.

So there's four family members, two friends from high school that I mentioned that were just unbelievable angels during the whole process.

Took me to some treatments, you know, took me to school, took my mind off of it, listened to my my challenges and what I was experiencing.

And then the seventh was a there was a nurse at the oncologist's office that just really went above and beyond her kind of duties.

I mean, I would say we established a friendship uh during that time.

And um, she was just incredible, and I think she helped me quite a bit, especially on the days of my my chemo and trying to get my mind off of it and just so supportive.

She cleaned up my vomit each time.

Like she was unbelievable.

And we talked outside of you know, outside of my visits.

So I would say those seven really helped me get through that year.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Wow, that's that's amazing.

And and I absolutely love that you just spoke about the the lady who who worked at the doctor's office.

Because I think so many times we we put our doctors, the nurses, they're kind of over in this one category.

But when that bridge can be formed of them being so compassionate and understanding to form a relationship, I think that's kind of where the magic lies in healthcare.

SPEAKER_02: And I've tried to track her down.

All I know is her we ended up switching oncologists, and that's that's another chapter in the book.

But uh the the nurse, I just knew her first name, and when we switched doctors, you know, again, that was pre-cell phone.

And unfortunately I didn't keep in touch with her, but uh yeah, I'd I'd love to I've tried to find her over the years so I can thank her, but uh I haven't been successful in doing so.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

Well you go through this, what was it?

Was it roughly a year of chemo?

SPEAKER_02: It was probably close to 10 months, I think.

SPEAKER_00: Okay.

So you go through 10 months of of chemo of this this kind of year of of pure and utter hell.

How do you begin at the end of treatment to try to transition back into a quote unquote uh normal life?

I mean, I'm sitting there trying to think, I mean, the transition it can't be just flip on a light switch and all of a sudden everything's better, I feel great, and just do I go back to partying and and all that.

Like, what happened for you?

SPEAKER_02: So it's a great question.

And it was, yes, not not flip of a switch, and it definitely was a a gradual transition to answer that question.

That summer, I was just probably the the well, first of all, the day the oncologist walked in, and again, you don't know when the end is coming.

So I went in, had gotten some tests done, some CAT scans and x-rays, and I was going in for what I thought was another round of chemo, and the oncologist came in to review the results, which we had done a number of times, the results of the scans.

And he came in and said, I've got great news for you.

And so when he told me they'd gotten all the cancer, I think that was to this day, and I've had kids and I've gotten married, to this day that ranks as probably the moment of gratitude that was at an all-time high for me.

I mean, it I can't even put into words how how grateful and how blessed and how overwhelmed with joy I was when I was told we've gotten it all and you're finished.

But from there, you know, I did head off to school in the fall.

I did join a fraternity.

I was a lot more, I knew that that lifestyle I had lived in high school I needed to leave behind me.

I think that took 10 months of chemo and time to reflect to decide that I can't go back to that lifestyle, nor did I want to go back to it.

I also had read some things and learned that I believe that that partying and drinking and what I did from a stress and what I did to my body and my mind during that time probably led to me getting sick.

And so I knew that I had to go, that I had to approach college differently than I had expected before cancer.

But I did go off in the fall.

Uh I switched, I decided to go to a different college, uh, went to the University of Georgia.

And it was, it was wild, Kevin, because you know, three months after that year of hell, as I like to call it, I'm going to football games, I'm going to tailgates, I'm I've got a hundred friends in the fraternity that I quickly developed going out on dates, which there were no dates during the year I was bald and sickly.

And so I just felt like I was the amount of gratitude I think I had compared to the average uh student at the time was probably really high.

Uh, but I think I did it more responsibly than I would have thanks to the cancer.

So that's how I kind of started to approach it.

Though the I'd say there was some mental trauma of I was always worried, typically when you're cured of cancer, you're in remission for five years.

So the oncologist had said, hey, we got it all, we're done.

For the next five years, we're going to monitor you closely.

You're going to continue to get the scans.

And if we don't find anything after five years, then you're cured.

And I remember him saying the chances of getting cancer then are the same as anybody else.

And so that five years, obviously, I was, you know, in college during that time.

And there were a couple scares where I would have like a swollen lymph node or was sick, and my mind would go to places of, you know, oh no, it's it's come back.

So that was probably the hardest thing to deal with.

But does does that answer your question?

I would say those are some of the ways that was affected my transition.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, 100%.

And and I think that little piece that you just spoke about, I think is probably probably the the hardest thing to deal with is uh the fear of it coming back.

I know from my own perspective of having a brain tumor, uh, you know, my my tumor was not cancerous, but when they had removed it, they they had to leave this tiny little piece.

And so so I had to always keep going back for follow-up MRIs to to check to be sure that it wasn't regrowing and and thank God it it uh never re never started growing in it.

Actually, the little piece that was left just died off.

But uh but I know from that aspect uh what it can feel like the the fear, the worry of you know that that infamous question of what if what if it is coming back?

And that can make it I I feel that can make it really hard to sometimes really uh move on with life.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that definitely was the hardest part post-cancer, for sure.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

So where does life take you from there to to lead you kind of in the direction that took you to kind of where you are today, all these years later?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so there was that first year in college, there was a pivotal thing that happened for me.

And it was uh, believe it or not, it was a movie.

So I went home for Christmas, my first Christmas after after being cured of cancer.

And I was going to college.

I lived in Atlanta, I was going to college about an hour and a half from Atlanta.

When I was going home for a break, one of my new friends in college had asked if I had ever seen the movie It's a Wonderful Life, and I had not.

And so, dating myself a little bit, I went to the local Blockbuster and I rented this movie and uh took it home and watched it.

And I was bawling watching the movie.

For those of your listeners who haven't seen it, it's it's basically uh, I think it was back in the 30s or 40s the movie came out, but it was a gentleman who had, you know, a great family and had grown up in this town and wanted to get out of the town, and a number of things happen in his life that are big setbacks.

And he reaches a point where he's wishing he was dead, had never been born, and this angel grants him that wish.

And the second half of the movie, he's able to see what life would be like had he not been born.

And for me, that movie, I kind of always saw my cancer as like, you know, the life before and the life after.

And that movie really resonated with me.

And um, and so from that, I started uh, you know, I watched every Christmas multiple times, but it started changing the way I viewed my experience with cancer.

And so it was an awful year and it was terrible, and I would never want to go through it again or wish it on anybody.

But I started to view it as one, it put me on a different path, a better path, and I was headed down a bad path.

But two, I started looking at some of the benefits or the values that I was starting to embrace because of my experience with cancer.

And so it just really, I'd say perspective was the first thing that changed, and that movie helped frame that up for me and had me starting to analyze my my year with cancer differently, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 100%.

You know, it isn't isn't it always kind of crazy sometimes how we can have such changes in in our lives from the most uh unexpected places.

I mean, I know for myself, one a pivotal moment in my story, it happened from a chapter in a book I was was listening to.

For you, this movie.

I think that's the powerful thing about life of when we're ready to hear what we need to hear, we hear it from something.

And I think that's just really powerful.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I like how you said that.

I I felt like you know, there was a reason that my friends suggested this movie to me.

He most of my friends in college didn't uh didn't know I had cancer.

I didn't talk about it, but I felt like God was kind of suggesting I watch this movie, and it just it rocked me the first time I ever watched that movie and just started to reframe how I how I viewed the experience.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

So I guess what I would love to find out is the book that you have written.

When was the first inkling of an idea that you wanted to write a book?

SPEAKER_02: I joke, which is kind of true, but Kevin, I joke that it took me 37 years to write this book.

When I was going through chemo, and like I said, it was it was a lonely year.

I didn't have many people to lean on.

I had a girlfriend through high school.

We broke up pretty much right away when I got cancer.

And so it was just uh it was a tough, lonely year.

And so my parents, my mom specifically, had really encouraged me to write it, write in a journal so that it was a way of coping and kind of therapy for me.

And so I filled up a pretty thick notebook with just you know random thoughts and experience, you know, what I was going through and what the chemo was like and what was going on inside my head.

And so I did that during the course, pretty much most of the time I was going through cancer, and I filled that up.

And so that was the start of what today is the book.

Went off to college, didn't want to think about cancer.

I put that journal or the notebook, I should say, aside.

And then I would say in my early to mid-20s, after getting out, I took a writing course, and I don't know why I was a finance major, never really uh much of a writer or focused on that, but took a writing course in the evening and pulled out that journal and started to think I want to leave a story for my kids.

I have two children, and um, two children, the oncologist had told me there was a 70% chance I would never have due to the chemo.

So they were a blessing as well.

But I wanted to leave them my story when they were little.

So that was kind of the first time I started thinking about taking that journal and making it into a book.

And this was a long time ago.

My kids are now 25 and 28, but life just kept getting in the way.

I'm in sales, I would travel, you know, kids' sports, just all the things life kept getting in the way.

And so I would pick up the book, I would write some, I'd put it back down.

And I'm very thankful in hindsight that it took so long to write because the first book, the first half of the book is really what happened, why it happened, how it happened.

It was really the story of the cancer and the partying and all of that.

But the second half of the book is really because it took me so long to finish it and write it, the second half of the book is how cancer made me a better husband, father, friend, business leader.

I've been in leadership a long time, and how it affected my faith.

I would say those kind of five areas of my life.

And so, had I finished this book in my 20s, it would be part one only.

But because I have the perspective of four decades and how this year of my journey that involved fighting cancer, how it impacted my life, is really part two.

And so eventually I felt like the story would resonate with people not just who had cancer, but who've been through grief or divorce or you know, any major life setback.

And that was maybe 10 years ago.

And uh, anyways, it took me a long time to finish it really, just because life kept getting in the way.

But uh, it was a gradual process of going from writing a journal for therapy and dealing with cancer to um to having it being a book that I published.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

Now the title of the book is Great Fruit.

And I would love for you to unpack that title for me.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

So I I spent about six months, the book was done.

I was going through editing and I was struggling trying to come up with a name for the book.

I was gonna call it why me.

I think you said what if earlier, why me?

You know, when bad things happen to us, I think a lot of times we say why me.

And so I was gonna call it why me.

The problem is there's a lot of books out there called why me.

So I was struggling with what's what's a better name.

And a friend of mine who I hadn't seen in 20-something years, we got together in Atlanta for drinks, and he's more of a marketing guru.

And I was telling him about my book, he knew my story, and um he said, Hey, let me read it and I'll I'll come up with some titles for you.

And so he did.

He gave me a list of titles, and grapefruit was one of them, one of them.

But it's really uh it's a play on words, so it's great, G-R-E-A-T, F-R-U-I-T, one word.

And it's really a play on words from they took a mass out the size of a grapefruit, and it ended up being a blessing and um leading to a more fruitful life.

And so he kind of combined that and um those two those two themes in the book and came up with the name, and I liked it a lot.

And so, yeah, the book's called Grapefruit How Cancer Led to Living a More Fruitful Life.

SPEAKER_00: Wow, I love it.

I absolutely love the the play on words.

I think that's such an awesome idea, so catchy.

So I guess what I'm curious about is after such a long time, from the time of honestly, from you being diagnosed with with cancer, going through it, making a few you know entries in a journal to the first idea of starting a book and in the long process, what was it like for you to actually hold in your hands your published book?

SPEAKER_02: So it's funny you said that.

So the book was published in March, and the first copy that I got from Amazon once I uploaded the book before it was available to the public, uh, it's in my hand right now.

I call it the OG.

It's the original gangster of my books.

But yeah, I carry it with me everywhere.

It's all beat up now.

But uh it was unbelievable to hold that book.

You know, I think probably for your listeners, it's you know, any major goal you've gone after in your life that took a lot of work and sweat and tears, when you finally accomplish that, whether it's, I don't know, promotion at work or selling your business or you know, whatever it is, it was very rewarding when when it finally was published and available to the public.

But holding it in my hands was like, wow, this is this is now a reality.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's amazing.

Now, have your kids read the book?

SPEAKER_02: They have.

They have, and I would say, you know, it was uh it was rewarding holding the book, but it was also a little scary, Kevin, because I'm the the book is very raw and I'm very vulnerable in there.

There's there's a chapter in there that I debated whether I should put in or not.

And so when my kids read it, they knew that they had heard, you know, that I had gotten into trouble in school and things of that nature.

But when they both read it, they were like, wow, we knew you were bad.

We didn't know you were that bad.

But yeah, I they both really enjoyed it.

And uh, you know, I hope it I part two, which is is kind of the the ways that it it affected my life.

I hope that they take some of those lessons and can learn those lessons without having to go through something like cancer, but that they can embrace things like gratitude and empathy and paying it forward and and how they can um you know be a better parent, a better spouse, how it can affect their faith.

And so, yeah, I my hope is that that they kind of embrace some of those lessons and and live a more fruitful life themselves.

But uh yeah, they were a little shocked with some of the stuff in the book.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I love it.

That's that is too awesome.

I think that's truly incredible.

And I mean, I give you a tremendous just round of applause for for finally doing it, for for finally actually turning it into a book.

I think it's truly amazing.

It's a personal goal of mine one day that I will will hope to accomplish.

And so I know how difficult it can be to do such a thing.

And so the fact that you have done it, I'm just like, that's absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's it's been an awesome journey, it's it's been fun, and I've met a lot of authors, some have been mentors to me that are further along in the journey than I.

And then I've met authors who are still trying to get their book out, and I'm trying to be a mentor to them.

So if you're ever working on that book and I can help you, I I love sharing, and and uh there's things I did right and things I did wrong and things I learned from in the process, but it's been fun, it's been very rewarding.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.

Well, well, Steve, for the person who's interested in picking up a copy of your book, where's the best place that they could find it?

SPEAKER_02: Online, pretty much any, you know, I'd say the major Amazon owns about 70 or 80 percent of all book sales worldwide, but Amazon's one.

If you're not a big fan of Amazon, you know, Barnes and Noble, uh, any of the big online retailers.

And um, you know, again, it's grapefruit, which is one word.

And yeah, they can get it online and have it shipped to them.

SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, amazing.

Well, I will be sure for anybody interested, links are all in the episode show notes.

I'll be sure to drop links for easy access to your book.

I guess I would love just to end with one final question.

And through all that you've learned in life, all that you've been through, what are you the most grateful for?

SPEAKER_02: I'm grateful that I got a second chance.

I think I could say my kids, I could say my wife, I could say there's a lot of things I could say, but none of that happens if I didn't get a second chance.

I think I was headed on a path where I wouldn't have met my wife, which means I wouldn't have had my kids.

I I could have ended up in jail or worse.

And so the fact that I was given a second chance in life is probably what I'm most grateful for because it led to it led to everything from that point forward.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I love it so much.

Steve, man, an absolute pleasure.

I am so happy we got to to make this work today.

It's been a real joy getting to have you on the podcast.

So thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to be here.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I loved it, Kevin.

Thanks for having me on your show.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.

For you listening, please be sure you check out today's show notes.

Like I said, I will have links for easy access to Steve's book called Grapefruit.

Please be sure to get yourself a copy.

If you are already intrigued by the story you just heard, you can bet the book is gonna get you even more excited.

So, my friend, check out the show notes.

And until next time, this, of course, is Grit Grace and Inspiration.