A New Book and a Testicular Cancer Diagnosis – A Survivor’s Cancer Saga - Season 2, Episode 6

It happened at the same time. Andy Storch released his book Own Your Career, Own Your Life and learned he had Stage 2 testicular cancer. Instead of promoting his new book, this testicular cancer survivor spent the next few months managing chemotherapy, adjusting his diet, and adding alternative treatments to his care regimen. Hear Andy's story on Don't Give Up on Testicular Cancer from the Max Mallory Foundation. Learn more from this husband, father, and business owner who is on a mission to get the absolute most out of life and inspire others to do the same.

Transcript

 A New Book and a Testicular Cancer Diagnosis – A Survivor’s Cancer Saga - Season 2, Episode 6

Joyce Lofstrom

Hi, this is Joyce and with me today is Andy Storch and Andy is a survivor of testicular cancer and continues to build his successful business. In his career, he’s an author, a coach, and he’s a husband and father. He hosts 3 podcasts and has positive advice, who wants to get the most out of his own life and inspire others to do the same, and we will talk about that during our conversation. He's taught strategy sales, leadership finance, and innovation to business leaders all over the world. He's going to tell us more about his cancer journey and his ongoing entrepreneurial spirit. So Andy, I'm so glad you could join me today.

00:43.73

Andy Storch

Joyce, thank you so much for having me. I'm really honored to be here. I know that you're doing this show in honor of your son, and to be part of this mission and hopefully be able to help others means a lot to me.

00:55.34

Joyce Lofstrom

Well, thanks. I really appreciate that, and it's people like you who've been through this journey that can help all of us. So, why don't you start off and tell us a little bit about your journey?

01:05.68

Andy Storch

Sure. Yeah, so as you mentioned, I'm a husband and father, I run my own business, and after going through a challenging year in 2020 as many of us did, my whole business was shut down by Covid and I kind of reinvented myself and was starting to really get into my stride, and building a new business,  and then after running some successful events within the business, I took a vacation in September 2020. And when I came back, I started experiencing some pain and discomfort in my abdomen area in my stomach and, you know, I probably I tried to wait it out and see if it would get better for 2  or 3 weeks, and it didn't really get any better, and finally my wife convinced me to go see a doctor and get it checked out. I had an x-ray and a CT scan and they didn't find anything.

It was also suggested that it was possible that it could be cancer-related, and so I went to see an oncologist who looked at me and said, you know there's a chance this could be testicular cancer. You know, you might want to do an examination and see this urologist. And it was at that point that I did a self-examination. I found a lump on my left testicle, and you know as one of those I'll say as a a typical man who kind of just ignores problems and tries to power through things, it was one of those moments where my wife is like, “you didn't notice this before?” And it's like, oh, I just thought that was like a normal thing but no, it was like a giant lump on my testicles.

So I’m like, okay, we should definitely go get this checked out, and so I went to see a urologist, which I hadn't done before, and you know he put his hands down there and it took him like 3 seconds and he's like “yep, you've got a lump there. This is most likely testicular cancer. You've got to have your testicle removed; I can do it next Wednesday.”

02:57.75

Joyce Lofstrom

Oh, wow.

02:59.98

Andy Storch

And it's like, whoa, this is all moving a little bit fast, right? This is kind of a shocking moment. I didn't necessarily think this was what this was going to be. Luckily, after this point, I've been doing a lot of personal development work, mindfulness work, studying on mindset and working on being able to handle a lot of different challenges. I wrote about it in my book, which I had been working on throughout most of 2020, because I was just about to publish the book and my wife had some plans to go out of town. We decided to postpone the surgery by two weeks, I think, or three weeks and the family wasn't too happy about that. But it was kind of the best decision for us, and the urologists seemed to be okay with it. It wasn't like an emergency, and so I got my book published on November 16th.

03:44.74

Joyce Lofstrom

Oh, that's great.

03:53.56

Andy Storch

And then on November 18th, I had surgery to remove my left testicle and this kind of put a damper on my plans for my marketing campaign to go out there and be marketing the book. But obviously, health is top priority at all times, so I had the surgery and made it through that. Okay, and I shared about it on social media and that worked out quite well, because I ended up connecting with several other people and finding other men in my network who had also gone through testicular cancer. It's one of those things you don't realize until you put it out there and start talking to people--a friend of mine from college, my neighbor next door had gone through it, a friend from college at maybe 25 or something, and by the way, I was forty years old when this happened, and as you probably know, Joyce, testicular cancer is a young man's disease.

04:43.33

Joyce Lofstrom

Right.

04:46.26

Andy Storch

It typically affects men between 18 to 40 and I was at the very top of that window when I got mine. So I was hoping. You know, many people talked about finding it early, having the surgery, and pretty much being done with it [with] no tests showing nothing else being there.

05:00.45

Joyce Lofstrom

Right.

05:04.55

Andy Storch

Being very lucky, I unfortunately waited too long, like many men do, and I know that happened with your son as well. And so, I was still experiencing a lot of discomfort. I went and got CT scan and PET scan and met with an oncologist who found the results [which] showed that cancer had spread throughout my stomach and all the way up to my neck, and I had these lymph nodes, these enlarged lymph nodes that were just bulging out of my neck and again it was one of those moments of like, oh I didn't really think that was anything worth going to the doctor about--but it turns out it really was.

05:24.14

Joyce Lofstrom

Yes.

05:40.80

Andy Storch

Because part of the cause of my extreme discomfort I was I was extremely um, backed up, and it was because I think these lymph nodes were swollen and kind of pressing on my organs, and so was having a hard time. And you know, for a lot of people when it's internal like that, a lot of doctors still don't know what's going on. You know, I went back to my urologist for my checkup, and told him I was still experiencing a lot of stomach pain, and he said, well that's probably a side effect of the pain  medications that we gave you.

06:10.19

Joyce Lofstrom

Right?

06:13.50

Andy Storch

And so after the surgery, I said, well, that's interesting, because I never took any of them--because I'm a bit of a naturalist and I try to avoid pharmaceuticals if I can, and so I didn't take any of the pain meds, and he's like, oh well, then I don't know what it is. I ended up going to the ER one night.

06:24.80

Joyce Lofstrom

Wow.

06:29.80

Andy Storch

Spending several hours there for them to tell me they have no idea what it is, and I should just go take some Metamucil and try to flush it out. It was really frustrating, because of course they sent me a really expensive hospital bill. But that's the system we live in now. Anyway I found out later that it was actually pancreatitis that I was experiencing.

06:39.87

Joyce Lofstrom

Oh.

06:49.12

Andy Storch

And, you know, the lymph nodes pushing on my organs. So my oncologist encouraged me to start chemotherapy as soon as possible. This was around Christmas time in 2020 and so we had to work around the holidays. I had already started doing a ton of research on cancer and nutrition, and looking for ways to heal my body naturally with several books that I read and was starting to change my diet. I was taking a lot of different supplements, was investigating a lot of different natural options, and hoping to take care of things that way.

So when she first suggested chemo, I politely declined and said, I'm going to try some other stuff first and see what happens--and we did we. We actually invested a lot of money in trying some different things. A lot of natural therapies, again, I mentioned--you know, changed my diet, was taking a lot of supplements. It may have been working, but unfortunately in January 2021, I was experiencing so much pain. At some point, my wife finally forced me to start taking the painkillers, and we decided to go into the hospital and start the chemotherapy. So I ended up going to hospital for five days and we did the chemo, first cycle of chemo. After that, I was still in a lot of pain. When I went to see my oncologist, she figured out right away that it was pancreatitis and once they flushed me, I sat there and got fluids for like 5 hours straight it almost like it went away. It would never came back at that point; it was one of those things like all I really needed was fluids.

08:14.30

Joyce Lofstrom

Wow, yeah.

08:19.60

Andy Storch

And nobody ever figured it out before. So, I continue with the chemo, at a much lower pace than most people probably would, because I would come back and then find out that, you know, my blood cell  count was low--white blood cell count was low. And they would want me to take medication to get those back up, and I refused that, and they said, okay, let's just wait then. So I wait a few more days and come back. Eventually I finished 2 cycles of chemo. I was very hopeful that that would pretty much take care of it, because I wanted to limit the amount of the chemotherapy I put in my body because I see that as is it is a toxic chemical. It's basically poison for your body, right? And the idea is that it kills the cancer, but it also negatively impacts a lot of other aspects of your health, and so I wanted to limit that. It was a kind of unnecessary evil. And so after 2 cycles of chemo that I did, I had some tests done and came back to my oncologist, who was wonderful, by the way. She said that it looked like most of it had gone from my it was gone from my neck. There's still a little bit left in my stomach. She wanted me to do one more cycle of chemo. Um, that was a tough spot I was in because I didn't want to do anymore. So I took a weekend to really think about it, and talk with my wife about it,  and ultimately we decided to decline the last cycle of chemo and not do any more of that, and then invest in other natural therapies. And that was in March, April 2021, I think, and I've been working on healing ever since then--as I mentioned, plant-based diet, a lot of juicing and supplements, and other things. Throughout the time that I was going through chemo I also did a lot of high-dose vitamin  intravenous Vitamin C because I had read research that that was very helpful with cancer and chemo. That's one of those things like, you got to pay out of pocket and find somebody that does it because doctors don't really support that kind of thing. 

10:16.28

Joyce Lofstrom

Right.

10:26.46

Andy Storch

And it took several months to go get the final scan, but I got one more scan done in December 2021,  just a few months ago, and got a call from my oncologist. I think it was in January that finally gave me the all clear--the results showed that I was officially cancer-free and in remission. Whatever you want to call it, done with the cancer and I was obviously really happy about that, and excited.

I'm sure you might have more questions, but just to go back to what I was saying about asking a lot of questions, and you know, I refuse some things that doctors recommended. I'm a big proponent and fan of taking a holistic approach, really owning your health and looking for, asking a lot of questions and looking at alternative ideas--not just listening to what doctors suggest. However, that doesn't mean that my approach was the best approach or a different approach wouldn't be better for some people. Some people are in much more dire situations. You've got to just listen to your doctor. That's just what my journey was, and fortunately it worked out.

11:19.70

Joyce Lofstrom

Well, it did, and I find it really interesting about a couple of things: all the research that you did about alternative treatments, which I think is helpful to know, and just changing your diet and things like that.

11:20.47

Andy Storch

It worked retty well for me.

11:37.88

Joyce Lofstrom

Probably for overall health, it’s a good idea, though it's all very personal. But I like the idea of a plant-based diet and try to follow that, with some fish and chicken. But you know, I applaud you on that and I think the point you made is really important, Andy, because it's this disease, like any cancer--it is personalized. What happens to you won't happen to somebody else and so you gotta make those decisions, and you did, and I'm glad it was successful.

12:14.26

Andy Storch

Yeah, chemo’s the worst thing I've ever done, and it's absolutely brutal. I know you went through it with your son, and it's just it's awful and of course I wanted to minimize that.

12:14.87

Joyce Lofstrom

It’s brutal. It's a really hard thing to get through, I know.

12:32.80

Andy Storch

You know, a lot of people told me how courageous and how strong I was and I don't think that's the case at all. I did what I needed to do and I ran away from it as soon as I could. I mean, I have friends who have gone through breast cancer who have done way more chemo than I have, and I just don't know how they've gone through it, because when I was faced with that that decision of doing more, I said there's no way I'm going to do anymore; I'm going to do everything I can to avoid it. But I was in a situation where I felt like I had enough information and ability to impact things without doing that. 

You know, like you said, everybody's situation is different, depending on how far it spread. You know, like going back to earlier finding it. Some guys find it early enough and they don't even [have chemo]. I've talked to a few people who did preventative chemo, but didn't even probably didn't even need it. You know, they told me that I think testicular cancer has like a 98% survival rate or something but that--obviously it depends on how early or late you catch it. Because when it's a lot later and it's spread like mine had, and like your son's had, then it's a whole different ballgame, and you got to take all that consideration. I'm just a big advocate of really taking a holistic approach owning your health and not just letting other people tell you what to do because doctors--you know, there are many good doctors, and of course most of them have your best interest in mind--but they're just trying to solve this one problem that's in front of them, and they don't have to live with the consequences, you know, so giving you more chemo means better chance of killing the cancer. But then they're not going to be around forty years later when you might have like major health problems or ramifications as a result.  

And then I would have many conversations with my oncologist, who again, she was wonderful, and we'd have open conversations. I'd say you know what about this? What about this? And she would openly admit like, I don't really know anything other than chemo. So, you know, send me your research--we can talk about it. But that's all I've studied. They don't know much about nutrition and these other things that are evident. There's evidence and stories of many people who have healed their cancer through you know, nutrition and natural therapies. It takes a lot of discipline but you just don't  get that information from doctors. Unfortunately.

14:39.60

Joyce Lofstrom

No, you know I wondered about this with Max, because there's a protocol, and the protocol says ABC—well, but what if you know maybe you need F in there or G or something else, and they're not really always open to that?

14:45.36

Andy Storch

Right?

14:59.23

Joyce Lofstrom

And like you said, that's what they know. They know chemo and they have been successful. So I think patients are hopefully getting more involved in their own health and looking at options. So I think it's I think it's good. Your doctor is open to it and you know it's some education going on, I guess, both ways between both of you.

15:22.31

Andy Storch

Yeah, and she [oncologist] would say, if I brought up the Vitamin C, she'd say, well I've heard that that can be helpful; I work with a bunch of old school doctors in my group. No one's here going to support it, but I support you if you want to go try it. You know, just put me in touch with the nurse so we can confirm some things. And that's what I did. I found a nurse with a local drip clinic and I would just go see her once a week she would like let my doctor know what she was doing, and I would sit there. She would give me 100,000 milligrams--we worked up to about 100,000 milligrams of Vitamin C dripped into my IV over the course of probably about 4 hours. I would sit there just feeling awful—but, you know, committed to it because I knew that it would be helpful and I think it was all these things, you know they add up. You really have no idea, right, if they're helping or not? But you go on faith and say well, I'm going to do everything I can to take care of this thing.

16:07.29

Joyce Lofstrom

Yeah, and I think you also make a point we want to emphasize this that we're not saying don't do chemo. It's just like, investigate what else you can do so.

16:18.69

Andy Storch

Right? Exactly. Just educate yourself and know what you're doing to yourself and to your body and that if you see there's other options or can you do things to complement it, because you want to make sure you take care of the cancer. Especially if you have testicular cancer. Like you said, there's a very clear protocol and your doctors are going to tell you chemo is the solution, and so maybe you choose to do the chemo. But I recommend looking at ways that you can mitigate the effects and maybe even help it along so that it works faster.

16:52.74

Joyce Lofstrom

So that kind of segues into a good discussion point on your what was the biggest challenge that you faced during all of this, because you see you're a very positive person. You know, I mean that as a compliment—but what was your challenge?

17:01.38

Andy Storch

This is almost going to sound silly and trite. But I don't like it when I looked at this as a challenge. I was never really afraid that I wasn't going to make it or anything like that; I knew that the odds were in my favor, and I was going to do what I could to be successful with it. But I was annoyed that I love building my business and my brand and yet had to kind of stop doing that. The other challenge was, because I was building a business, running my own business, and was already kind of in transition and supporting a family as the sole breadwinner. You know, with a mortgage and kids and you know I was obviously worried that I wasn't going to be able to pay the bills and pay mortgage payments, that sort of thing. One of the biggest challenges was keeping income going since I couldn't work as much during those like two to three months--making all of that work, and then with the chemo. There was just some really hard days, as you know going through with your son. 

18:08.66

Joyce Lofstrom

Yes.

18:14.64

Andy Storch

It was hard to sleep many times, especially after that first five days of that first round [of chemo]. I remember it was just impossible to sleep. I was just up all night. I read a lot of sci-fi novels and just found other ways to pass the time, because that was that was one problem I was not used to; I've never had a big problem sleeping. I go to bed at 9 and fall asleep usually pretty quickly.

18:29.92

Joyce Lofstrom

Right.

18:33.60

Andy Storch

But during that time period, it was really hard and the other part of that on the other end was that I've always been like an early riser. I love getting up early and like taking care of a bunch of stuff and I just could not get up. It was really hard to get up in the morning before, say, like 8 AM, while I was on the chemo. And it was that way for several months after finishing--just kind of long-term effects of doing the chemo.

18:54.30

Joyce Lofstrom

Right? Get your body adjusting to everything, too. So, you mentioned your wife helping you and encouraging you to go to the doctor, who was your support system during all of this?

19:08.61

Andy Storch

So my wife had actually gone through cancer a year before. My wife had thyroid cancer and so she had a little bit of experience already with what we were facing. She had surgery to remove her thyroid.

19:13.67

Joyce Lofstrom

Oh boy.

19:25.31

Andy Storch

She also turned down the radiation that the doctors recommended, and didn't do any further treatment after that. But still, it’s like a lifelong commitment to medication once you get your thyroid taken out. But she was right there with me the entire time, supporting me throughout all of this--with two kids obviously who are around which, you know, they're not necessarily helping with a lot of things, but certainly providing that love and just that purpose to be able to keep going.

I have have a great family. My mom lived a couple miles away and helped take care of me--you know, jumped in and took me to the doctor and whatever I needed. My dad and stepmom are not too far away and then I'm very blessed to have a pretty big network of friends all over the world, and a lot of people that would just check in with me on a regular basis. I was also sharing a lot of my journey and what I was doing and going through on social media, on Linkedin and Instagram and Facebook. And so that helped a lot of people know what was going on with me, and then you know a lot more people reached out as a result.

Now that was my decision. I know other people are not necessarily comfortable with that. In fact, I had multiple people reach out to me and say, you know, thank you for sharing this: I have gone through the same thing and I had never told anybody because I wasn't comfortable with it, which again, like everybody's on their own journey and if I can speak for other people and raise awareness when others don't want to or are not comfortable sharing their story, then you know, I'm glad that I'm able to do that.

So, friends all over the place would check in with me, sent me care packages, and send things in the mail, and that stuff was always like, I was just so grateful for all of that and it helped me keep going, and then I would say I was committed to supporting myself through this and not really getting down on it--remaining optimistic about the future and to make it through it with resilience. Two big things that I used, I leveraged, throughout the hardest times--one was the nature of impermanence and remembering that this is not going to last forever. And I will get through this. And the other one was gratitude. I would do 2 things every day: I would meditate and I would also write my gratitude every day--something I do regularly anyway. I really doubled down on that. No matter how bad I felt, I’d  take out my journal and write down my gratitude for the day—for my family, for my friends, for the nurses who helped me, the doctors, for the beautiful weather that we were having--just anything, and I would finally start running down every day that I was grateful for this cancer and it's kind of a good way to convince yourself that this is a good thing.

22:05.50

Joyce Lofstrom

Yes, right.

22:08.54

Andy Storch

I started to believe it and I really do believe it now, that it was a blessing, because it gives me an opportunity to speak to you and speak to others who I would never get to speak to, and hopefully help others who are going through a similar experience. I'm just grateful for all of that time and I'm especially grateful for my wife, and my mom, and my family and my friends who supported me through all of this.

22:27.52

Joyce Lofstrom

Well I asked that question because I think it's important for listeners to hear that--because I always found that, too, and I had my different cancer diagnoses. You know, my friends, my family--you need that kind of support and I should.

22:38.28

Andy Storch

Yes.

22:45.48

Joyce Lofstrom

You should have your wife come on and talk with us. I've had thyroid cancer I guess, well three times. The first time, I had my thyroid out when I was 25, so as you know, you take thyroid replacement and then [there were] a couple recurrences with a lump they missed, I guess ,but that whole thing with the radioactive iodine, which is what they recommend--I've done it twice but, you know, I start to question it too. But that's a whole ‘nother podcast.

To your point, having family and a support system is really important and not everybody has that. I do think there are many people because of fear or ego or whatever, don’t.

23:28.62

Andy Storch

[Some people] try to pretend or feel like they need to do things on their own, and they don't want to put other people out, like, I'm not going to ask people for help because I don't want to bother them. But you really do need help to get through these things. You can't do it on your own and it's depressing to try to do things on your own. You need the support system; I mean, there were many days where I couldn't really have done much on my own and so if I didn't have my wife. I think I would have had to move back in with my mom, you know, at least for a short time, or have her be there every day to help take care of me, because it's just it's really tough to get through that time when you're on chemo.

23:57.27

Joyce Lofstrom

Yes, it is, and I I've always been very open; I mean, what you want to know about me, I'll tell you, so I've always talked about it. But you made a good point, too, that some people don't want to share, and  your story may help some of those people that don't really want to.

24:10.98

Andy Storch

Right.

24:16.43

Joyce Lofstrom

Down that road of sharing everything, you mentioned early in the podcast that you reinvented yourself when Covid hit, but I know you had your business going, what’s it been, more than a decade? So tell us about the business and then the book that you wrote.

24:17.70

Andy Storch

Absolutely.

24:33.65

Joyce Lofstrom

And your own career and your life.

24:34.55

Andy Storch

Sure, I mean I've been in corporate consulting for about a decade. I worked for a consulting company for a long time and then 2018, I made a transition to becoming an independent consultant and in early in 2020 I moved away from an organization I had been affiliated with--great organization, just we decided that it was best for us to work separately and partner on different things, and so I went out completely on my own. And my whole business before that was selling and running in-person training programs. I ran a lot of workshops on leadership development, strategy, finance, things like that. And I was on planes a lot, flying all over the world, running these workshops, and when Covid hit, it shut everything down. It all went away, clients went away, and said, okay, we're not investing in these things anymore and we can't get our people together in person anyway.

So that's why I mentioned I needed to completely reinvent my business. You know, I obviously moved to doing some virtual things. I had hosted an in-person conference with a friend of mine in January 2020 that was a big success, and the business was growing as a result, and then obviously it all got shut down, so part of the pivot was, I launched a membership community--to keep people connected in the niche that I work in, which is talent development. And it ended up being a godsend, because that community is essentially like, I run this community. There's about 100 members in there now and it provides recurring income for me. People pay monthly and annually to belong to it and that really kept me going while I was going through the cancer and I couldn't do a lot of other work.

And you know, they really stood up and supported me in many ways. I'm grateful for that community and I mentioned I was already working on my book in 2020 when Covid changed everything. So, I started to work on building a business around the book, which is called Own Your Career, Own Your Life. The tagline is stop drifting and take control of your future--and it's because I've been in corporate consulting for 10 years, I've traveled around the world, I've looked at, watched, leaders in different companies and have seen what success looks like. But I also observed a lot of people kind of drifting through their careers, operating in reaction mode, waiting for other people to tell them what to do, not really having a clearer plan or idea of where they wanted to go. I wanted to provide a guidebook for people to really take ownership of their careers and start living in the present and preparing for the future--whatever might come, because there's a lot of uncertainty in the world and not everybody wants to go run their own business like I did. I think most people just want to be happy and fulfilled in their career.

So I wanted to create a resource for that, and so I published the book in November 2020 and I've been working on building a business around that, and now I do a lot of speaking in large companies on how to own your career. I have a training program and an online course and I'm launching a membership community for people who want to go deeper on owning their career as well and just teaching  important skills like self-awareness, setting a vision, setting and achieving goals--doing these, preparing for the future, like investing in continuous learning, building a network, building a personal brand, and then a lot on mindset as well as a chapter in the book on mindset. I'm starting to do more and more work on that and I just feel--at the time I felt like I knew a lot about mindset, but now having gone through this cancer journey, I feel infinitely more qualified, like I've dealt with one of the ultimate challenges and made it through--and I think my mindset was a big part of how I made it through.

27:57.20

Joyce Lofstrom

Yes.

28:07.54

Andy Storch

You know, remaining optimistic and positive throughout, no matter how tough it was.

28:10.90

Joyce Lofstrom

You know, you said a lot that really just hit home for me because especially you know as I've gotten  older and spent more time in my career, I think about people [who look at] that whole thing about a vision and having goals and things like that. It's really important. I have to say, I probably didn't do that the way I could have.

28:34.99

Andy Storch

Me neither. That's why I wrote the book, because I had no idea what I was doing through most of my 20s and then you know finally started to turn things around in my mid 30s and I was like oh, I've learned a lot, all this personal development work--I think I can help other people with this as well. Which is a big reason why I wrote the book.

28:48.50

Joyce Lofstrom

Yeah, and it's a universal need; I mean it's for everybody, no matter what type of job you want. I think that based on things I know now. I'm glad you have it; I think it sounds like a great group of people.

28:54.90

Andy Storch

Yeah.

29:08.46

Joyce Lofstrom

We'll get to that at the end, where you can tell people how to find you, but the other thing I have to ask you is--only because I don't know much about it--and I think this is part of your story, too, is the podcast that you've done on for your business. When you started on non-fungible tokens and FTS. I just want to talk about that a little bit. Can you tell us about how you got into that, and what it is like?  

29:27.38

Andy Storch

Yeah, sure. Well, there is a slight connection to the cancer. It's interesting. So I have three podcasts.  One is on talent development, called the Talent Development Hotseat. One is in support of the book and business, called Own Your Career show, and then I started the third in November, called My NFT Journey. Last year, early in 2021, as I was going through this, I was listening to a lot of podcasts and one of them was the GaryVee Audio Experience, a podcast from Gary Vaynerchuk, or GaryVee--someone I've been following for years. And he started talking about web 3 blockchain, he started talking especially about NFTs, and so I was listening to everything he was saying and trying to learn everything I could because I'm a naturally curious person. I've always loved investing and technology, and just trying to figure out what this means for the future and is this something I should be thinking about investing in?

It took a while to really understand what the heck it was, but then it finally clicked and when Gary  announced and launched his own project in May 2021, I bought into it and with timing, things just worked out well for me and my family because we had actually pulled money out of retirement--set money aside to handle, to take care of all of the things we're going through with cancer especially, because even just the normal way with we have health insurance through the exchange, there were still at a lot of expenses, and then doing all the out-of-pocket stuff we did, which was a lot, not just relying on the doctors and the normal health care system. I knew we're going to be spending a lot of money, so I had pulled some money out and had already started because of a friend's recommendation--started slowly, buying some cryptocurrency, bitcoin and Ethereum through that time, and so then when I learned about NFTs and Gary launched his project in May, I had Ethereum,  which is what you needed to buy the NFTs, and ended up investing a pretty significant amount into what he was doing because I believed in it so much. That has worked out really well, by the way, it's  now worth a lot more than what I bought it for. But it just started like a real fascination with this whole space and everything that's going on and at the same time, my best friend Bennett was getting into it as well, and we both started investing in a bunch of stuff and talking every day about it. And so we're really early to this area, and I'm convinced that what we're calling web 3 which includes Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, NFTs, is going to absolutely transform the world in the same way the internet did in the late 90s, early 2000, and so I'm excited to be early in that and I want to help educate other people along, and share my journey, which is why I started the podcast My NFT Journey.

32:12.60

Joyce Lofstrom

Very good. So I guess we're I don't know what to say because I think it's fascinating, and I think the one thing I saw online, trying to understand NFTs--I'm a big Beatles fan—I saw that Julian Lennon who is John Lennon's son, had an NFT and I think it was of one of his photos or something from his father.

32:38.85

Andy Storch

He did a couple photos he did 1 of John Lennon's guitars. It obviously is a digital image and then I believe they had an image of the original notes from what? John and Paul did in writing Hey Jude? Some interesting collectibles.

32:44.40

Joyce Lofstrom

Right.

32:57.33

Andy Storch

You know, for those that are not familiar, NFTs are essentially digital assets. They often tend to be like kind of treated in the form of collectibles, kind of like buying baseball cards or, like you mentioned, like a musician's old guitar--but they're digital. They're called non-fungible, which means they're not really exchangeable. There's only a certain number. You think about an artist creating 1 or 100 editions of a print, and it's like proven that only that number exists because it's on the blockchain and you can see exactly how many there are--how many, where they came from, and that sort of thing. So there's no chance of fraud, or, you know, forgery. Now people can try to fake stuff and like try to trick you, and there's a lot of fraud unfortunately in the NFT space, a lot of scams I should say. But if you know enough to look at something and be able to see where it came from, it's not that hard. You can  verify easily if something's real or not, and that's what I think is really interesting and cool about the whole NFT space. What that creates, they call it kind of the um, the fan--I'm drawing a blank on what I'm thinking of. But essentially it's an opportunity for creators like artists and musicians to start selling work and raising money directly from consumers and not really having to go through third parties and so you see a lot of artists jumping in that are becoming really popular that are good in the digital space. But you know, it's an opportunity to maybe invest in musicians or bands or entrepreneurs that you believe in, where they don't have to be publicly traded companies. You know they could sell digital tokens and you can invest some money and say hey, I really love this band. Whatever it may be. You know whatever your new version of the Beatles is.

34:46.35

Joyce Lofstrom

Right.

34:48.90

Andy Storch

If they become more popular, it might become more valuable in the long run and because NFTs,  mostly have they have what are called smart contracts behind them that can also reap rewards down the line from future sales because they may have something in the contract that says they get 5 or 10 percent of all future sales. So, it's one of those interesting things. Provides more incentives, both to the creators and to the fan base, the collectors, to keep raising the value of things. I think it's going to be the future of everything, tickets, concerts and sporting events will be NFTs and we will be showing off our digital wallets in the future. So again, I'm just fascinated by it and I want to be sharing and helping others get into the space.

35:29.30

Joyce Lofstrom

Yeah, and I think it's something to maybe explore if you have extra time while you're going through cancer treatment. You know, I've talked to one man who was doing chemo and wrote a musical while he was doing his 4 cycles of chemo.

So you've been through this, and you're very comfortable talking about your health. Why do you think some men aren't? Why do they not want to investigate if they see a lump or talk about anything? What's the roadblock?

36:04.48

Andy Storch

That's an interesting question. I think there's an element of masculinity and ego that makes people feel like, “I should be able to handle anything and if I ask for help; it means I'm weak if I go see a doctor.” Right? Like something could be wrong with me and we don't like to feel like as men. We don't like to feel like we're weak, right? I think there's an element of inconvenience, like I don't want to take time to go do that, and then who knows what it could turn into, and I don't want to bother other people. I think there's a lot of factors to it. But it does seem that men more than women tend to put these things off and not go see the doctor or investigate these things when they really should, right? I'm proof of that and we talked before we started recording about Lance Armstrong, who I think was 21 when he found out he had testicular cancer and he waited way too long. I mean, you read his memoir. He was basically like coughing up blood, and was like, I don't know maybe I should go see the doctor--I mean it was just really, really bad and then you know he found it. I think if he'd waited just another couple weeks, he probably wouldn't be here and wouldn't have gone on to win

That's why one other reason I have been speaking up so much is number one, I want to raise awareness about prevention and nutrition and health and, here are the things you can do to heal things naturally and prevent possibly getting these things. But number two, is to check regularly if you find a lump, men, on your testicle; women, on your breast--like go to a doctor and get it checked out. You know there's not much of a downside. Well obviously you could find out bad news, but it's better to find out early and be able to take care of it than putting things off. So I've been spreading that awareness, and I've had people message me and say thank you, I've got this thing checked out and it turned out to be fine but I was worried, and you know lots of people have been going to get checked and that's what we need.

38:01.69

Joyce Lofstrom

Yes, you're right, if we can help one person it's a good thing. So, you've mentioned a lot of cool things you're doing with your communities and your book. Can you give us some ways to find you, Andy, like URLs and such?

38:16.42

Andy Storch

Sure, I mean I'm all over social media. The most important one I want to give, if you have any listeners who are going through cancer, or have family members who are experiencing cancer, I created a guide sort of document, outlining all my story and all the research that I did-- recommendations on diet, on supplements, on books that I read that are interesting, some other podcast interviews that I've given and we'll add this one to the document after it's public. And you can grab that for free by going to http://andystorch.com/canceraanddystorch.com/cancer. I'm not asking for anything other than putting your email address. I just want to be able to send updates if I think of anything, but I wanted to make that available because a lot of people were asking me questions after seeing my posts on social media about my diet and some of the changes I made. 

There's no hard and fast rules. I think there's, you know, new research and things coming out all the time, but start with a basis of doing some research and maybe you don't do everything I did, but if you pull 1 or 2 things on there and you switch your diet to plant-based, or you start meditating more or you use the high dose Vitamin C, whatever it may be, you know every little thing can absolutely help. So grab that, http://andystorch.com/ and then I'm very active on Linkedin. That’s how you and I connected. And Instagram, Twitter, is mostly about NFTs and Facebook as well. So, I'm on social and you know, you mentioned the podcast earlier.

39:52.69

Joyce Lofstrom

Okay, so what's next for you, Andy? You've got a lot going. So, what's up ahead?

39:58.30

Andy Storch

Yeah there's a lot of stuff going on. I just launched a new community from my book the Own Your Career community, which I think you can find by going to OwnYourCareerOwnYourLife.com. And of course, if you haven't read the book yet, that book is available on Amazon: Own Your Career, Own Your Life. There are free bonus resources on the website as well, OwnYour CareerOwnYourLife.com. So, I'm building that brand. I'm speaking in more companies, looking to grow my corporate business so that I can make more of an impact. My vision for my career is that I do inspire thousands or millions of people to take ownership of their careers and live life more intentionally and so I'm out there speaking at a lot of different companies. I want to travel more with my family and continue to find ways to make an impact in the world while taking care of my own health. So, I am several months removed now from dealing with the cancer. I'm a couple months removed from getting the all clear diagnosis. That does not mean that I'm resting on my laurels, as they say, or just saying, okay I can get back to quote unquote normal American life. I'm still on a plant-based diet. I'm still juicing most days.  I obviously have some cookies and stuff here and there, but trying to eat pretty healthy and live a very healthy lifestyle, because, as you know, you already talked about these things, can come back. So, I want to do everything I can and remain vigilant and continue to raise awareness for others and whatever I can to make an impact on the world and make the world a better place. That's what I'm trying to do.

41:33.15

Joyce Lofstrom

Well, that's wonderful and I think you're a great example, too, of things that can happen that you can do once you get through a testicular cancer diagnosis and journey. You're wonderful--just so much going on with your life and your business that will help other people. So, I congratulate you on that.  My last question if you had any song that you hear and you just have to jump in and sing along--what's that song.

42:03.44

Andy Storch

Oh gosh, there's so many songs that when I hear I have to jump in and sing along. Um gosh right now I'm just um. Ah, ah, my kids and I my kids love the song Bang! by AJR. We listen to that a lot in the car lately. My daughter is always requesting, um, what is the song called?  It's like the date night. Applebee Song came up through Tiktok. That's now um I can't remember the name of it. But. That one is popular and then I would say what's the ah that song by Ed Sheeran that's been like on the radio all the time. No, you know what? I'll go with the Dua Lipa song with Elton John that has been on just a ton like, I still love when that comes on, I’ll just jump in and sing to that one I think it's um, it's not called Rocket Man because they never say “Rocket Man.” It's called Cold Heart and this is a fun one. I don't know if you haven't heard that one, Dua Lipa is a young English singer.

43:06.10

Joyce Lofstrom

Okay, all right.

43:16.20

Andy Storch

She just did like kind of a duo with Elton John where they remixed Rocket Man but they don't ever say “Rocket Man,” they call it Cold Heart and it's just a fun song to listen to.

43:21.84

Joyce Lofstrom

Okay, I have to look for that one. Mine is the music of a 60s person, but I like the Temptations, anything on their greatest hits.

43:32.19

Andy Storch

Okay, cool, I'm familiar with a lot of that music, and a Beatles fan as well. So good stuff.

43:39.25

Joyce Lofstrom

I appreciate your time, Andy. I'm so glad that you could join us and thank you.

43:54.65

Andy Storch

Thank you, Joyce. I appreciate the opportunity and all that you're doing to make an impact and I hope you can help some people.

44:00.37

Joyce Lofstrom

Yes, I think we can, so thanks.

 
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