Attitude is Everything has always been my mantra. It seems that the more troublesome an event or challenge I’ve faced, my natural defense mechanism (that I attribute to my parents, siblings and friends) is to use positive thinking as the kick starter and humor as the mechanism to power through the adversity.
I found out I had small cell lung cancer two days before I was about to move to Zurich Switzerland to accept an assignment as partner in a large private equity firm there. The first two weeks were very rocky and then 180 degrees to the positive and the two ends of the spectrum are important to understand.
I will not name names to protect the guilty, but I initially had the biopsy done by a local medical group. That group, in an attempt to keep the business local, delayed telling me the results for one whole week so that I could meet with their cancer specialists. When I did meet with their specialist (and when I found out I had small cell lung cancer) the bedside manner, outlook and demeanor could not have been more negative. It was basically “what you have can’t be cured”.