Live for Today Without Mortgaging the Future

People have different interests and ways of dealing with life. Machiavel`s lesson on politics, "the ends justify the means", is applied by everyone on a daily basis at a personal and professional level.
Before I ramble over my non-cancer related experiences I want to share a key lesson I've been learning through this journey with brain tumor. My timeline changed and I became a lot more mission oriented, questioning very strongly everything that deviates fom my personal values. This of course has implications because the world continues to operate under its normal course.
My sense of urgency, which was already accentuated, became even more intense. I became less patient and more action oriented, but the world still operates at the same pace it did before my brain tumor. While time became a lot more precious to me it continues to have the same value to others. All of a sudden I became very sensitive to how I use my time but of course my life is not just me, my life is everyone that surrounds me - my family, my friends, my co-workers. How other people use their time and how it affects mine became very important and I went through a big adjustment of accepting that we all have different views on priorities and therefore use of time. What may be in my view the obvious and most productive course of action and time may not be the same to others.
As an example I will share my experience at home. Accepting our imperfections at home and compromising to keep the family happy is key for a healthy family life. While waiting for anything at home became a huge exercise of patience for me I had to re-learn that waiting is a fact of a married life. I had always been and became even more impatient with my wife when she is running late due to the traditional chores that women submit themselves to for social occasions and to look great. I am very lucky to have a very commited wife that is patient enough to show me the way, and I am applying these lessons again in other spheres of life where I was losing my patience.
Life is a constant exercise of revising priorities and compromising to achieve what gives us the most satisfaction (or like I learned with Uday Rajan, my managerial economics professor, utility). We are social creatures and constantly deal with the natural tension of doing what is good for us as individuals and what is good for us as family members and members of society.
Throughout history we created mechanisms to deal with these tensions in every sphere of life:

• Family Ties: the commitment to accept the imperfections we all have as humans and that become significantly more evident with our close relationships. This applies particulalry to our parents, wife and kids;
• Religion:  the commitment to accept a view of the world and life that unites groups around faith and our existential questions about what life is about, what should be a commitment to Humanity;
• Corporations: the commitment of many people around a cause and an economic purpose that creates value for all stakeholders. Of course most people think it is just a company with job opportunities but in fact it is much more than that;
• Government: a framework created for people of the same culture, or in heterogeneous countries like Brazil and the US, different cultures with evolving values, that need a common legal framework to stay together and act as a giant group of people;

All these organizations are created to protect us from the potentially destructive powers of ourselves when we act exclusively in self-interest. It is no accident that the first thing Adam did once God created him was to break a rule. This is a key lesson from the Old Testament about the nature of humans. For the agnostics Emmanuel Kant shares the same belief under a different light. However individuals are also the motors of progress and have many great qualities, so despite our flaws we can really be great.
Most people think that one person can't change the world. Nothing could be further from the truth, in fact the world only changes when individuals decide to change it. All it takes is one person to organize many and change the world. Brazil just bred another amazing example of an enlightened person. Joaquim Barbosa, the Supreme Court President, just lead the trial and conviction of several high ranking politicians. The first black man to lead the Supreme Court started his life as a janitor and studied his way up to the Supreme Court and he created a spark that I hope will significantly change this country for better, illustrating that from now on the Rule of Law applies to everyone in Brazil.
Despite all the mechanisms and lessons from others many people still live a life that they do not enjoy, hoping to compensate for it later. There are examples of people that abandon everything when they uncover cancer. I heard a case of a guy that was diagnosed with cancer in the UK, quit his job and family to make the trip of his life only to find out later that his diagnose was false. The key lesson here is that while we will certainly go through a drastic revision of priorities we should never forget that we might, and I really hope that most certainly will, live many years to come. My goal is to live another 62 years to break the 100 years-old barrier!
As an example many people take jobs for the money so that when they get older they can finally do what they like. This is to me one of the factors that leads to the increasing rates of stress that spills into other aspects of life. I was very lucky not to fall in that trap.
Early in my life I learned a great lesson. I once worked at a financial services firm where we all worked for the money. Me and many of my peers worked from 7AM to 10PM to make a big fat bonus (when you are 22 years-old a big fat bonus is neither big nor fat). Interestingly after dedicating a whole year to this insane schedule the market went South and the company closed. The partners of the firm founded an Asset Management company and invited me to join it. My "interview" was at 8PM (who interviews at 8PM?) and I was left with the same message, "you are going to work very long hours, maybe more than before, but the money will come". I left and went to a friend's house to watch a big soccer game. I spent the evening there having a lot of fun and enjoying my friends' company. The very next day I declined the offer, I realized that if I worked there I would have missed precious moments with my friends, that my time would not come back.
I continued working at my job at the time where I learned one of the most profound lessons in life. One of the partners at that firm once taught me that we need to work on what we like and believe in, the money will follow. Today this company is a case study in the services industry, one of the first Brazilian service companies to go global, and its culture continues to be a winning culture.What is also interesting about this is that my working hours were not that different, I reduced my hours from 14 to 12 hours, but I felt a much bigger sense of purpose and came home happy every single day.
The key lesson here is to avoid waiting until you are old to be happy. However for the newly diagnosed don't think you can change the world in a few days and compensate for your life's poor decisions in a few days. Short-term decisions always lead to bad outcomes, the world is plagued with it at several levels:

• Government leaders making bad decisions to win elections;
• Public company leaders making bad decisions to hit the quarter;
• Small businesses owners evading taxes by not recording sales and profits;
• People commiting crimes to get money they did not earn.

My key lessons for cancer patients and the accidental readers here are:

• Be honest: never lie to others or yourself, we all have the right to be happy and enjoy life but that responsibility is 100% ours. Being honest will always help us to prevent regreting decisions;
• Be patient: Work hard to change the things you can change, accept the things you can't change and be wise to know the difference between them;
• Be mature: accept that people will look at you differently, being closer to death accelerates our maturation process but don't expect others to be as mature and that does not make them worse;

Thanks to all my family members, friends and co-workers that blessed me with their friendship, lessons and advice at every juncture of my life, I hope I use our lessons well. To those that don't know me I hope you can constantly learn and follow the three simple principles above, life should be that easy.

Life Expectancy - Forget About It!

Models are lies that help us better understand the truth. This simple statement has given a complete new meaning to my life and helped me understand much better what statistics and faith are about.
I am an engineer, by heart and education, and as such I like to quantify everything. However I lacked philosophy in my life until I realized that I was not immortal.
My father, in contrast, is a theologist, a philosopher, a tireless reader who can separate wisdom from ignorance in a second. He loves to say that statistics is the prostitute of science. That would always come as a big blow to my quantifying ears but today I understand what he means.
When poorly used anything can be prostituted, with all respect to the oldest profession on Earth.
This week I talked to a saddened mother that was told by several doctors that her son had X, Y or Z years of life. When a company advertises a product claim it needs to place disclaimers everywhere, yet when doctors tell patients how long they expect the patient to live there are no disclaimers. What a non-sense.
About Science (Statistics)
All the statistics doctors share are based on clinical studies, and therefore are an extrapolation of what has been observed over a population not controlled for age, tumor size, location etc., and most importantly, the individual's own characteristics.
Patients insist in asking doctors life expectation stats and under pressure doctors feel compelled to provide an answer, particularly the less experienced ones. This is a common mistake in every profession. We are trained in school that if we don't provide an answer we are wrong, so most professionals feel more compelled to answer a question with a wrong answer than to say "I don't know", as the latter might be perceived as lack of competence.
If I were to live by a set of poorly used statistics let's see what would be different in my life:
- Biking: every day a person dies in São Paulo in a bike accident. I'd better stop riding if I want to escape death in a bike accident in São Paulo, a much more likely death cause than brain tumor;
- Driving: every day more than one person dies in São Paulo in a car accident. I'd better stop driving if I want to escape death in a car accident in São Paulo, a much more likely death cause than brain tumor;
- Eating: I once heard that the more we eat the shorter we live, as every time we eat we produce free radicals that make us age biologically faster. But how could I survive without food? Isn't this an example of beating up the dog to kill the fleas?
- Drinking: This one I can live without, people that drink are likely to live less, but I have to say that my College experience would have been completely different if I didn't drink. Today I only drink non-alcoholic beer, but nonetheless drinking is part of our western social fabric and the socialization that happens around drinks is part of our Modern Western Society;
- Having Kids: had I know that I had a brain tumor 10 years ago, the likely age of my tumor, I would not have had kids. How sad would my life be without my girls, and would I ever be willing to sentence my wife to a life without kids?
About Philosophy (Religion)
I was never religious but growing up in a Christian family I was of course heavily influenced by Jesus Christ. Right before my surgery in Montpelier we were driving to Milau and spotted a small village called Le Caylar where we stopped to visit an old castle. When we got to the village a little cat came to us and meowed profusely. We followed the cat, the picture below is a proof that this happened!

As we followed the trail we arrived at a statue of Jesus, something that had a profound meaning to me, not so much for the circumstances that lead us there - a cat leading a hike - but for the inspirational effect that made me put in perspective how little I was suffering relative to what Jesus suffered when he was crucified.

Religion is not a literal translation of texts to prove who is right and who is wrong, it is a philosophical background that helps give meaning to life from an individual and social point of view. Humans thrived in the world both for their individual abilities and for their ability to collaborate. Religion provides a framework that leads us to favor a group at the expense of the individual, and a lot of times that is necessary. Providing a helping hand is good for us and Religion has been historically a great motivator to make us collaborate towards a common goal.

About Purpose
What could have made Jesus endure so much? How could a man carrying a heavy cross in a dry, cold land while being tortured later be described as forgiving so many people?  Jesus knew that he was God's son. According to Jesus himself so are all of us. Whether Jesus was truly or not the Messiah that came to rescue the Jewish people from apocalypse is completely irrelevant, the matter of fact is that a 33 years-old man born 2012 years-ago completely changed the world. I already outlived Jesus by 5 years and feel like I have so much to do! If you can live and believe that you are the son of God you will have the strength to endure anything, you will never give up. And the best way to change the world is by being a great role model. No, this is not an attempt to save souls, just a demonstration of the power that faith has in life when well used.

About Our Social Fabric
Christianity was spread throughout Europe as a unifying force for the Roman Empire. As diverse people as Huns, Gaelics, Brits and Saxons resisted the Roman Empire there was a need to create something in common for all these tribes to keep the Roman Empire united, and Christianity was used as a unifying force.
Years later the Dark Age came and the Roman church tried to burn anything not endorsed by it. I was once in Turkey and a friend I met there explained to me how the Ottoman Empire saved several pieces of ancient western history from being burned as Europe was immersed in ignorance and intolerance. Centuries later we are once again engulfed by religious fundamentalism in many different fronts, the most visible being obviously Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism.
We need threads to keep us together as social organisms, to compound our individual abilities with the power of collaboration. National identify, race, gender, religion and political views have been traditional forms of social fabric. We need to accept that we are both individuals and pieces of a social fabric, but we cannot let our social fabric overcome who we are as individuals.
If we live a life believing that society is the sum of the individuals and refusing to believe that individuals are fragments of society with no control over it we can live with a whole lot more purpose.

Conclusion - Forget About Life Expectancy, Focus on Driving Your Life
As I confronted death for the first time I could not accept that we are merely a set of chemical reactions living among many others. I was told by a neurologist that "today we know that the separation between brain and mind does not exist, we are just the brain". What a sad way to see life.
In the car of life we can pick two seats, the passenger seat or the driver's seat. We can also drive by looking at the rear-view mirror or looking forward and picking the roads that take us to where we want to go. Statistics are simply a way to try to predict the future based on past observations. When we resign ourselves to live by statistics we condemn ourselves to the passenger seat and the rear-view mirror, by definition.
Don't give up on life, we don't know what is going to happen to us and therefore should always strive to do the best with the cards we are dealt. The fact that we don't control most of what happens in our life does not mean that we should resign ourselves to doing nothing, to a constant state of apathy.
The minute we quit is the minute we die, and life is too precious for us to quit before dying. Never let a doctor sign your death sentence before you die, live like there is no tomorrow but always remember that there is a pretty good chance that you will still be around tomorrow to see what you are doing and that your legacy might last over 2000 years if you are good.

One Year With Glioma

Today I complete one year since I woke up inside an Airport Ambulance on my way to the hospital. This one year has been the scarriest, most intense and fullfilling year of my whole life.
I have learned more about myself and life in general in one year than I have learned throughout my entire journey on this planet. After thinking about what to write to "celebrate" my first birthday with brain tumor I decided to share the lessons I learned in this intense year. These are not set in order of importance but they are all important to me.
1. The Importance of Faith - I used to believe in God`s existence, but now I am sure He exists. Being closer to death made me as close to life as I have ever been. Life is a miracle and the sequence of events that led me to write this can only be explained by God's desire for me to be here;
2. The Importance of Family - Nothing has been more important through this journey than having the comforting presence of my wife, daughters, parents, in-laws and relatives throughout this journey. If I needed a strong reason to fight for my life they have given it to me, and the relentless optimism with how I face my condition is only possible because I get re-energized every time I see the smiley faces of my daughters when I get home.
3. The Importance of Friends - I have always kept a strong connection to my friends. The love and support they have given me has just been overwhelming (pause to cry). The way in which Livia and my College friends sent me to France for surgery (Força Patrick) has simply been the most incredible demonstration of affection I have ever received and I will be eternally grateful for the energy boost I got from it, not to mention all the incredible messages and support from all the friends I made in the US and the new friends I made at work in Brazil, who have been uncodittionally supportive.
4. The Importance of Fellow Brain Tumor Warriors - When I was at my lowest point right after being diagnosed I was picked-up from the ground by complete strangers. Liz (Liz Army), Jim Hewitt (RIP brother, I have not met you but you have helped save me), Scott Vickroy and others I have met through the Internet helped me understand that I might still have a lot of life ahead of me. While none of us are exactly sure about how much, we all ought to live life at its fullest until our time comes.
5. The Power of the Digital World - the Internet has helped me connect to very importamt people, has given me access to scientific papers that have helped me make critical decisions with the help of my doctors and has enabled me to help others, the original intent of this blog. I believe we are entering an era where people with common interests will finally be able to leave their differences behind and connect to work for the common good. We ought to leverage the knowledge sharing power of the Internet and digital information to accelerate the scientific gains in the fight for a disease free, long and great life for Humanity.
6. The Importance of Public Health Care - I had never been a supporter of big Government or Public Health Care, but there are things we need to socialize in order to create a strong society. As the IRS says in front of its building, "Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society". I was saved by the Brazilian Public Health Care System, where I was diagnosed and which now provides me with "free" (I do happily pay taxes) chemo drugs, and by the French Public Health Care System, where I was operated at a significantly lower cost that it would have cost me to be operated in Brazil, even with Insurance. After reading stories about the personal financial havoc that Cancer can cause to people in the US I had to rethink my views on Public Health Care. Public Health Care is bad until we find ourselves caught in the sad side of the debate. Strong democracies socialize gains that benefit society in general, such as Education and Health Care, and privatize losses to those that have caused them. We ought to rething the direction in which the world is going, where Banks and Companies are rewarded with "Too Big to Fail" policies, socializing losses and privatizing gains to risk takers and bad managers, while Health Care and Education, the foundation for any strong society, become secondary.
7. The Liberating Power of Knowledge - Brain Tumor has kept me away from my old passion, triathlon, and I had to find a new outlet for my energy. I have been reading more that I have ever read in my whole life. My father has always been a role model, a self-made man that reads an average of 3 books a week and who instilled in me the passion for knowledge. I have never studied so much since I was a student, and I love every new discovery I make, from the History of Cancer, the History of Medieval Europe, Capitalism and the power of Democracy combined with the Rule of Law. I am now reading a book by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the Brazilian President that transformed this country into what it is today. His "Brain Tumor" was exile. A fervorous Brazilian, FHC was extradicted during the Military Government and risked his life to come back at age 37 (my age at diagnosys) to help fight for a new Brazilian democracy. His defining characterisitic is his focus on the present with a relentless optimism and vision of how we can make the future better, because the future will always be different from the past.
8. Dealing with Suffering - I had always been a "chicken" when it came to dealing with bad news, such as death and disease. I have learned to live with both in a way that continues to surprise me. One of the first things I did to "test" my brain after surgery was to speak to unemployed executives going through Out-Placement at my father's office. The topic was "Every Executive has his Journey in the Desert". The types of journeys included things such as being laid-off, going through divorce, going out of business and losing a loved one. I was there to talk about dealing with a challenging health condition, and this was set to help me understand how I would react to public speaking as I knew I had a big one coming at my real job. It was the best feeling ever, I was fine to speak in public and most importantly was finally able to empathize with people that were also in very challenging situations. Having Brain Tumor invites people to talk about their problems, and the advice I always give is the same Winston Churchill gave England during the Second World War: "never give up, never, never, never!" Everything will be fine in the end, if things are not fine you have not reached the end.
9. The Importance of Priorities - Life is too short and unfortunately we cannot do everything we want. In order to enjoy all aspects of life, from family, friends, work and personal hobbies, we need to set limits, or one will take over the others. We will never have enough time to do everything we want, so being choiceful about where to invest our time is critical to a fullfilling life.
10. The Importance of Curioity - Never take answers for granted, often times things are done in certain ways due to a sequence of events rather than because it is the best way to be done. A mind that is focused on making things better will always find opportunities for improvement, even if you are an Engineer in search for answers on brain tumor. If you can't find an answer remember that Human Progress has only been possible because some people decided to never quit until they found answers to their questions.
Thank you all for the support and love given to me, I hope these thoughts help me give a little bit back to you of all you've given to me in the past year.

It's a good day to be alive!

Today was a very good day. Woke up early to go to my first post-glioma race, after a long night where I finished my first analytical research on brain tumor. For those than know me well there is nothing like sports or analytics to get me going.
I am creating a new blog based on my "scientific" discoveries, I want to generate insights for students or doctors that are getting into brain tumor research, I hope I can help open new avenues for research on brain tumor. This new blog will be called "We can think with glioma".
I ran a 10k with a good old friend of mine who was also a great runner but got off the wagon after getting married a few months ago. It was an incredible day, perfect weather, about 8,000 people running and a great route close to downtown São Paulo (Pacaembu). This was the first "run-only" race I've done and the energy was incredible, I think I am ready to set more ambitious plans, and I will create a sports blog to talk about my goals and achievements called "We Can Run With Glioma".
On Friday I had dinner with a good old friend. I was set to have beer with him nearly one year ago but disappeared and never got back to him with a meeting spot. I was hospitalized right after having a seizure and when he finally got hold of me I shared that I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. While stunned by the initial shock, he and his mom, who I am yet to meet, always cheared me up with very cool messages.
My friend shared with me a video that captures my feelings in a way I would have never been able to describe, check this out: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/stacey_kramer_the_best_gift_i_ever_survived.html
This is the same friend that shared with me 12 years ago a phrase I repeat until today when someone tells me they don't have time - "What separates us from death?".
He shared a moving story about a relative diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer, one of those with poor recovery prospects. I am sure I am butchering the details but I hope I got the essence. They consulted a psychologist to understand what might happen in that person's mind with that prognostic, and he shared that it depends on the person's attittude towards those last days.
Some people have the best time of their lives in that period, telling people they've dettached themselves from how much they missed and love them. They would also check-off their bucket lists or simply reject anything that was not fully endorsed by their hearts.
On the other hand some decided to die right there, living a life of misery and pessimism, forgetting that they still had precious days. months or even years to do the best they could with their time left.
What a profound impact attittude can have on anyone's life, wether with or without cancer. In Steve Job's biography he shared that he always had a feeling that he would die early, so he decided to use every precious second he had to change the world. What a success!
I really think we should all live like this before we are reminded of how much time we've divested making poor choices or simply not following our hearts due to lame excuses. We all have a mission or more in life, your heart will tell you where to go, be open because an unwanted experience -- frightening, traumatic, costly -- can turn out to be a priceless gift, just like Stacey Kramer shared. Thank you Stacey for sharing your experience, you have made the world a better place by choosing optimism instead of pessimism.
One of my favorite Esopus paraboles is the one about the fox and the grapes. The fox really wanted to catch some grapes that were too high for it to reach. Instead of figuring out a way to get to those grapes the fox told itself it didn't want grapes anymore.
Always remember that pain is temporary, quitting is forever, like my Mount Lebanon Caffeine and Cycling Club friends had taught me. Those nuts just finished the most painful bike race I've heard off (seemed worse than The Dirty Dozen!), the Diabolical Double. Hats-off to you my friends, I hope to join you again, maybe in the same shape you have seen me last. Yesterday I biked for about an hour searching for hills that replicated the same painful experience of climbing Mount Washington. I dearly remember when I climbed Mount Washington for the first time, then followed Liberty Ave. all the way to the Zoo, going into the long observatory climb to finally bonk at Greentree! Luckily those guys had a cereal bar to share with that inexperienced Brazilian that showed up to bike with them for the first time.
What a great time, I will never quit!

Saving for Retirement with Glioma

Liz, the young 32 years-old inspiring leader of The Liz Army (check Survival Stories to learn more about her), asked a question that is so relevant not only to us living with a gun pointed to our heads but to everyone that saves money for retirement: should we or should we not save money for retirement?
In fact by total coincidence when Liz asked the question I was having the same discussion with my wife.
In my opinion every responsible person that has enough to do so should save money for a rainy day, which can come in the form of a health issue, a job loss or other bad things. On the other hand savings can open new opportunities, such as making the trips of your dreams, building the house of your dreams etc.
However saving for retirement to me today is an obsolete concept. In a day and age when people that are 75 years-old finish Ironman races, run Marathons, run large corporations etc. I wonder what is retirement good for when you can be productive your entire life.
Obviously age brings its effects, such as gray hair, wrinkles, lost mobility, eyesight, strength etc. However saving for a day when you can finally do nothing does not make a lot of sense to me. Why defer your dream for 30 years when you can chase your dreams today?
I had an uncle that worked like a dog his whole life and had very tough ups and downs, from being arrested and tortured during the Brazilian military Government because he was a "communist" when he was just a student leader chasing new ideas. Once he begun working he eppitomized capitalism. Working for an energy company he made his way from rags to riches, but when he finally decided to do more of what he liked (i.e. travelling) by retiring, it was too late. He was diagosed right after retirement with lung cancer and is now watching us from Heaven. He accomplished a lot professionaly and personaly, raising my cousins who are both great guys, made a trip to China to see communism in action and made a lot of people around him better people with his great heart. Nonetheless he enjoyed only a small portion of the fruits of his labor.
On the other hand you have people like my dad, who doesn't save for retirement and says that he is going to work until the last day of his life. My dad loves what he does and it always feels like a day away from work to him is a day wasted.
There are two phrases that summarize what I think about this topic:
- Find a job you love and you won't have to work for the rest of your life
- Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans (this one comes from John Lennon, I just learned this one from Kotler's book Winning at Innovation)
In the field of economics there is a concept called "utility", which in essence is an equivalent to money except that it doesn't have a value. What to me is worth 100 bucks might be worth as little as 5 or as much as 1,000 bucks to someone else. Instead of calling this money "bucks" a teacher I had called it "utils".
If knowing that having a safety cushion brings you more utility that investing in your dream trip today save enough to bring you peace of mind before you make your trip. If you realized that saving for when you turn 80 doesn't make a lot of sense either go ahead and make your trip!
I hope this helps everyone that wonders if they should save for retirement. From a strictly financial stand-point saving for retirement makes the most sense as the Government provides tax incentives for those that save money in retirement accounts, but if you are saving but deferring your dream strictly for tax gain purposes I would reconsider the decision. Money is a means, not an end, but a lot of times it can be an end and might lead us down a wrong path.
I just finished watching Margin Call, a good depiction of the mortgage backed securities market melt down. In a way the movie helps illustrate how a bank, supposed to transfer money from those that have too much and don't have anything productive to do with it, to those that need it and want to produce something with it, of course at a cost, all of a sudden turned into a big gambler through leverage. This has lead solid century-old institutions to disappear in a blink of an eye because instead of being a good resource allocator the bank became a blind money chaser, investing in securities they barely understood.
Think about what moves you, and if saving is a requirement to do what moves you, save it now. But don't differ your dreams as life expires and we have to live it while it lasts.
But remember that you might have decades after tomorrow, so be careful with living as if there is no tomorrow because I really hope we all have thousands of tomorrows!

Human Experiment - Exercising During Chemo

One of the most important things I learned is how little we know about brain tumors. The more I read about it the more conflicting information about what can and can't be done during treatment I find. One of the most frustrating ones relates to exercising during glioma treatment.
While most neuro-surgeons say no to exercise as it might induce seizures, onchologists encourage exercising for various reasons. I therefore decided to become an experiment to validate or not which route to take. With a sample size of one this might not be statistically significant but hey, someone has to start. If someone wants to join this experiment please sign-up to my self-serving clinical trial.
This week I am on chemo treatment and decided to exercise, completing my first 10K run on Tuesday in under 50 minutes, my old training pace. I signed up for a 10K race in 3 weeks and kept thinking of how emotional I might become when I cross the finish line, but in a much less glamorous fashion I ran 10K on the treadmill and was just as happy to finish.
If biking was my great feat a few weeks ago, I added running to the list. To make it even more exciting my wife was just as excited with my accomplishment, which made me twice as happy.
In 3 weeks I have an MRI, I hope combining exercise and chemo might work. It seemed to work for Lance Armstrong, why not follow his lead? Once again he set the standard and won Ironman 70.3 Florida.
What an example to be followed! Mental toughness, sense of purpose, goal setting, planning ability and lack of fear, this seems to be a decent recipe for success if I could summarize what I see in Lance.
Regardless of what we accomplish we should strive to chase our dreams, and mine is still to finish an Ironman when I turn 40, no matter what I face along the way. To accomplish big things we need to have big dreams, and this is my big one. I hope this makes you dream big too and chase your dreams, wether just a 10K run to trully changing the world through your unique talent. God has given every one of us a gift, find what is your gift and use it. If you don't know what is your gift keep experimenting, I am sure you will find it!

Overcoming Fear - The Secret of Life

One of the biggest challenges for humans is that with our ability to think we developed a deep need to plan for the future, or at the very least minimize risks associated with the future. When I say risk I mean uncertainty as the word risk can take us into totally different universes, from trivial dangerous situations to really bad things. So when faced with potentially dangerous situations we create mechanisms to minimize risks. This has lead us to create mechanisms to try to minimize the uncertainty from all sorts of unexpected events, creating large industries and products such as the financial industry with products like insurance, retirement planning and financial derivatives, the pharmaceutical industry and anti-anxiety drugs, the military industry and weapons, the consulting industry that tries to help us understand what the future will be like and so forth, all of which to give us a false idea that the future is totally in our hands. However the future, as I learned the hard way, is much further out of our control than expected.  .

I am not trying to advocate that planning is not important but quite the contrary, I believe that to live a fully productive, healthy life we need to overcome fear and manage the risks associated with everything we do.

Let me recap what I have done in the last 10 years, all of which with an unknown brain tumor inside my head:

- Quit a great job and sold a fully paid car and apartment to get an MBA in another country (moved from Brazil to the US)

- Left the comfort of being close to family and long-lasting friendships to start from scratch in a new country

- Graduated from the best MBA program in the world (sorry Harvard, Stanford, MIT etc. Carnegie Mellon is the best), where I met amazing people and made long-lasting friendships

- Got married to my wonderful wife and had two amazing daughters

- Decided to stay in the US after graduating and started a new career in Marketing, meeting and working with amazing people and making great friends

- Purchased a house, obviously borrowing lots of money

- Made great new friends and got closer than I had ever been to my American side of the family 

- Completed 2 seasons playing in an adult soccer league 

- As my knees got destroyed by soccer I decided to ride bikes, encouraged by my "older brother" and my uncle

- Joined the Mount Lebanon Caffeine & Cycling Club, where I made great friends 

- To balance all this leg work I started swimming

- I then decided to do triathlons,swimming in 55 degrees water at my first short-triathlon and moving up to complete 3 Half-Ironman events

- Quit a great job and sold two fully paid cars and a partially paid home in the US to go back to Brazil and start-over, now more safely working with the same company I worked at in the US

- Worked and partied hard on every step of the way

Looking back I wonder what my life would be like if I had known that a brain tumor was growing in my head. This is not a self-celebratory blog, it is just to highlighted that my risk profile would have probably been much different. My challenge now is to not let fear overcome my life, and yesterday I reached a milestone: I left the safety of my bike trainer and faced the mad traffic of the city to ride my bike on the road, by myself!

I never thought that such a trivial, taken for granted activity would feel so liberating. I felt like I have finally overcome my fear of having seizures, which I hadn't experienced since my first one last year. Riding where I was I should have been much more worried about traffic, bike thieves or getting lost, but those were simply not in my risk checklist, just like my brain tumor wasn't in my risk checklist when I left Brazil in 2001.

At every stage in life we face decision time, and we should never let our fear of what might happen, which can quite frankly be an infinite list, overcome the joy and feeling of accomplishment that makes us all feel life is worth living and fighting for.

I hope you read this and stop worrying about what can go wrong, life can only be truly fulfilling when we find out how we can be happy if things go right, even if your idea of life going right is a mere bike ride.