Hi everyone, and good Monday morning. I hope you had another fabulous week and are ready to get face first into this one. It has occurred to me, mostly because some of you have asked the question, that I haven’t really told you all much about the RealTime Cancer Challenge. I guess I’ve been a little weak on giving you details about my “professional” efforts.
I’ll tell you a little story, which most of you are very familiar with, but I’ll tell it anyway cause it’s such a great story. Quite sometime ago, a little over 23 months to be exact I was a 22 year old entrepreneur who was very focused on the professional side of life, saying my life was out of balance was a massive understatement. My priorities were focused on work, and play, not a whole lot on rest or health. Then one Friday evening all those things came into question, and exactly one week before my 23rd Birthday I was provided with one of the greatest challenges a person can ever be given. My priorities were the first to be challenged, and they were quickly adjusted, but not without a struggle. I did adjust the bar, for the first of what would be many times.
Many amazing things happened that first week I spent in hospital, and I must admit that the more I look back the more amazing they appear. As you are aware that first week saw me develop my strategy to approach this great challenge. Developing a strategy was one of the many contributing elements to my success to date, as it allowed me to focus on the objective and approach each “sub-challenge” with the same focus and commitment. A major part of that strategy was sharing my experience, which really originated from the demands being placed on me during that first Monday and Tuesday. I’m sure my Dad can remember sitting in my hospital room watching me talk on the phone for about 3 hours each day, explaining the same story over and over to those who were concerned. At that time I could not keep up that pace, the energy would not have tolerated it, nor did I want to tolerate it. From there the “My Friends” email group was born.
I originally wrote to about 25 friends and family, and that number quickly grew as I looked to share my experience with “any and all interested to listen, to learn and to share”. The group was originally established to act as a communication tool as it allowed me to communicate with many people from all regions, at my convenience, which was a big positive as my energy was at a premium. The group also allowed me to give you all a view of the Patient’s Perspective, most notably the emotional side of a Cancer Challenge, as I created a forum in which to express myself. Through expressing myself the group evolved into something I had never intended, a support group. Throughout the past 23 months this email group has provided me great support and allowed me to express thoughts and feelings as I felt I needed or wanted to express. It’s role, your role, has been an exceptional one, and I can’t imagine my past 23 months with it, without you.
From this email group, the Challenge originated. The idea comes from my desire to re-broadcast my emails to a new audience for the purpose of educating them about the Patient’s Perspective. Since June I have been working with a great group of people who have helped me put meat around my bone of an idea and in 2 1/2 weeks I’ll be visiting three high schools in our region to launch the program. The idea in June was to re-broadcast my messages to the high schools in the St. John’s/Mt. Pearl region, after some adjustments I decided to focus on three schools who have supported the idea from the beginning. Booth, O’Donel and PWC will allow me to execute the program in there school setting, and on November 1,2 and 3rd I will officially launch the Challenge in those schools. The Challenge will also be open to “any and all interested to listen, to learn and to share”. My goal is to provide the “opportunity” for people to learn about a Cancer Challenge from the Patient’s Perspective.
The program will be delivered through our website, which is being developed, and anyone will be able to sign up to join the new My Friends email group. I will send message notices on the same days that I originally wrote a message, and that message will be posted on our website where they will remain for any and all to read. I will provide the new group with many more visuals than I did for you all, and I also look forward to complementing my group messages with personal interaction within the high schools, as well as in other “sharing settings”.
There are many interesting elements of this idea, not the least of which is that the Challenge will recreate a Cancer Challenge in ‘real time’, which I’m not sure has ever been done before. The original group was established and spread by word of mouth, this time I get to pitch my idea, or challenge the audience from the beginning prior to starting. It will be very interesting to see how that affects participation. More to the point, it’s going to be really interesting to see what happens in general. I know the next few weeks and months are going to be an incredible learning experience, and I promise to share my new found knowledge with you all.
Hope that gives you a solid idea of what the Challenge is all about, you’ll be hearing much more about it over the next several weeks/months. While it’s top of mind I did want to tell you all that I have acknowledged that my writing frequency has taken another drop. I am very comfortable with my once a week pace and a big reason for this pace is that I have stopped taking my computer to bed. I know that’s not something you hear every day!! I have always written messages and worked from my bed, which I know is not always conducive to sleeping well. That is a big reason why I have slowed my writing frequency, not just to you all but to everyone. You’ll see me in your inbox every Monday morning, very possibly more than that, but ideally at least as much as that.
Take care and have a great day.
Live life. Love life.
Geoff
#4
