Learn the principles that helped me overcome cancer and continue to guide me to live a healthier and happier life.

Steve Holmes
Get cancerREADY
“I aim to help you bridge the cancer information abyss to the pathway beyond your diagnosis”
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These are my words – simple principles that over time, came together to form the backbone of my everyday effort, and they have helped me help myself. It still seems a little strange that grouping words can yield so much power.

For me, these words created a significant distinction in how I approached my cancer challenge; they provided me with a bridge and a pathway to move beyond what I thought I was capable of.

Eat light:

My main focus was to eat enough to sustain my energy, even if that meant not always eating what is typically considered “healthy” food.

Dealing with cancer was already stressful enough, and there was so much conflicting advice on what to eat from various experts that it only added to the burden.

Losing significant weight became a big problem in and of itself, making it a challenge to eat enough to maintain my energy levels. Volume became my healthy food.

However, by trial and many errors, I discovered the right volume of food that I needed to eat to sustain my energy levels. This knowledge has been invaluable to me then and now. Focusing on the right volume of food has helped me worry less about what is perceived as “healthy” food.

Knowing my volume has become a significant asset to me, especially now that I am once again lifting my work and recreational road cycling efforts.

Move Light:

“Ride within – Ride with Rhythm – Ride for tomorrow”

Move light is a mindset that helped me overcome what seemed impossible, a gateway to what I could achieve physically.

As any road cyclist knows, climbing steep hills is a test of mental and physical endurance. On the climb, you are on your own; it is just you and the gradient doing battle. I had learned to remove myself from the noise and pain of such a challenge and tune into a rhythm that smoothed out the grind.

I think we all need those keywords or phrases to guide our mind over our body, and for me, ride within, ride with rhythm, and ride for tomorrow, were those words that created a new pace and they also helped me overcome many seemingly impossible obstacles.

Be Open:

Being open unlocked me, and it unlocked all possibilities real or not. It allowed me to look through the impossible to where it could be despite what others believed.

Being open let in new and fresh perspectives at a time when all around me had me dead and buried before I drew my last breath.

I think most of all, being open allowed me to step outside myself and take the only pathway left.

Be Willing:

I believe that willingness is one of my most overlooked and underutilized human assets. I have it within me, but it’s often seen as an inspiring concept that lacks structure.

When I was faced with what seemed like a certain death, being willing to keep going was incredibly difficult, especially when it went against the majority’s logic and what seemed like contrary realities. However, I learned to get out of my own way and allow my willingness to rise up from deep within me.

My willingness was fully naked and exposed for all to see and critique. Yet what they could not see was the surges of energy and momentum that helped me take that next step, and the one beyond that, until the impossible became possible.

I believe that willingness feeds on itself and attracts new perspectives, opportunities, and people of talent and character. It bridges the limitations of other people’s realities and allows me to push beyond what I thought was possible.

Be Consistent:

Being consistent has been a journey of self-discovery and growth for me. At times, others may have seen it as stubbornness, but I know that it comes from a deep trust in the principles that guide me. To me, these principles are like a team, each supporting the other and working together towards a common goal.

It hasn’t always been easy to stay consistent, but over time I have learned to recognize the importance of even the smallest steps toward progress. Before my experience with cancer, I didn’t always appreciate the value of consistency and how it can build momentum. But now, I understand that every little milestone is a step towards achieving my goals, and that has helped me stay on track.

Summary

Trust in yourself, remove the noise, and find your own rhythm to grind out a victory over what appears impossible.

Please remember that your doctors are doing their best, but they too are only human and subject to the same mistakes as us all. As patients we have our responsibility to rise above our best and to learn despite the obvious pain and stress, it is after all our life, and opportunity on the line.

To rise up and above our best is to lead others to do the same.