Becoming Elite. Healing From Stage 4 Cancer #525

Imagine waking up one day to a diagnosis that changes everything. Our guest, Chad Vanags, doesn't have to imagine it; he's living it. Diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, Chad's life took a drastic turn. But he didn't let this stop him from continuing to live life in all its fullness. Instead, he chose to document his journey, sharing his experiences, thoughts, and insights with the world. This episode explores Chad’s awe-inspiring resilience, his journey towards overcoming adversity, and his unconventional approach to handling life’s greatest challenges.

Our conversation with Chad spans across various facets of life - from the immediate emotional response to a life-changing diagnosis to the power of our thoughts on our health and wellbeing. Chad sheds light on how life looks post-diagnosis and how he has been navigating the waters of uncertainty since July 2022. We dive into the realm of psychoneuroimmunology and how our thoughts play a pivotal role in our physical health. Chad’s story brings to the forefront the power of a positive mindset and the immense impact it can have on our overall wellbeing.

As we wrap up, we delve into Chad's unique way of documenting his journey on social networking platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn and how he's inspiring people everywhere to cherish the time we have. His story serves as a powerful reminder to align ourselves with our authentic selves, to set audacious goals, and to design discomfort into our lives to expand our experiences. Tune in to this episode as we journey through Chad's story - a story of resilience, grit, and the power of positive thinking.

Follow Chad:
https://www.chadvanags.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 The Power of Overcoming Adversity
• 3:39 Reflections on Life, Diagnosis, and Authenticity
• 18:00 The Impact of Thoughts on Health
• 25:55 Finding Purpose and Overcoming Adversity
• 32:52 Recognize and Break Authentic Self Patterns
• 36:56 Importance of Novelty in Life Planning
• 40:45 Navigating Adversity and Setting Goals
• 52:53 Process Documentation on Instagram and LinkedIn

Transcript

Chad Vanags: 0:00

And we can think about the past and we can think about the future, meaning we think about a past event and then we can project that event into the future, even though it's never happened, and we can feel those thoughts. That's a psychoneuroimmunology right when your thoughts trigger chemicals to produce a feeling that matches that thought.

Lachlan Stuart: 0:42

Welcome to episode 531 of the Man That Can Project podcast. Today is a very, very exciting, I'm sure a lot of people listening. If you're driving, please pull over to really take away the messages that will be coming from this, and I will guarantee you'll be sharing this with people that you care about because you'll want them to help, so want to help them maximize their life. Today we have Chad Vanags on the show. Chad, welcome.

Chad Vanags: 1:08

Thanks, man, appreciate it Good to be here.

Lachlan Stuart: 1:11

So, just to give people some context, the beautiful thing that I love about social media. A lot of people talk about the negative sides of social media. For me, when you use it well, as with anything, there's a lot of great that can come from it. And I use social media to connect to people that inspire me, have the ability to shift my perspective and really help me maximize my life. And one day your video popped up as a real and you were sharing a story and what is going on in your life and what you're about to document and dude.

Lachlan Stuart: 1:41

You have me in tears and I know that wasn't your intention, but your intention, which you'll talk about soon, is really helping people get the most out of their life based off the experiences that you're having, and so with that, I was like I've got to get this dude on the podcast that's Hopi Hopi's open to it. And another thing as people are about to learn, your time is extremely valuable, so for you to be sitting on here on the other side, I truly appreciate you giving me some of your valuable time, because you could be doing anything else in the world, but I know this aligns with part of your mission as well. But, chad, to start it off, I would love you to finish this sentence. I am a man that can.

Chad Vanags: 2:19

Yeah, I'm going to shift it just a little bit. I'm going to say I'm a man that does, so I'll finish it this way I'm a man that does what he said he's going to do, that's it. I'm a man that does what he says he's going to do.

Lachlan Stuart: 2:33

That's beautiful, very clear, very concise, but let's pick it into what you said you're going to do so. When I stumbled across that first video, you were going to document the beginning of the potential end of your life, or the beginning of something beautiful. Yeah, can you share with our audience what's going on in your life currently and will flow from there?

Chad Vanags: 2:55

Yeah, in July of 2022, I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Tumor in my lung was five times the average. I had 30 lesions in my brain, cancer in the lymph nodes in my vertebrae and bones. Quite the wake up call. And they told me that if the medication you have six to 12 months. If the medication doesn't work, if it does work it could work for like 10 years Cool, or it could work for six months, but the average is only a year and a half, and so that's what we call the ultimate pattern interrupt in life.

Chad Vanags: 3:39

The easiest way for me to explain that feeling is imagine anybody who drives stick. If you're an American, you probably aren't driving stick, because most don't drive it, but just imagine driving a car in third gear down a highway at 100 miles per hour. Third gear at 100 miles per hour is not good for the engine, and so that's kind of what was happening in a way. And then, all of a sudden, cancer was like somebody came, reached up, grabbed that emergency break, that e-brake, pulled it as hard as they could at 100 miles an hour, and when you do that, you fishtail and then you flip, and that's what it felt like, and we're 15 months now past that, so I've made it past 12 months, which is good.

Lachlan Stuart: 4:22

But there's a lot of things that have changed.

Chad Vanags: 4:24

And I'm sure we'll get into it.

Lachlan Stuart: 4:27

What was it like? Can we go back to that initial diagnosis? How did you receive that? You talk about this patent interrupt, and when I think about patent interrupts, especially for a lot of people and even in my own life, it's like generally a rock bottom moment, I think. Similar to what you're trying to achieve is, and similar to what I'm trying to achieve is I don't want people to have to have these rock bottom moments to really create a beautiful laugh, and so for you, I guess, can you talk through what that moment was like when you received the news?

Chad Vanags: 4:59

I mean, yeah, frankly excuse my language here but I said, fuck this, there's no way. There's no way Because, sure, I wasn't perfectly metabolically elite Peanut butter covered pretzels or something like that and bags of mangoes but I was also pretty fit still. I could go run a couple of miles easy, surf a lot and I'm like there is no way, there's no way that this is real. And they say, especially for lung cancer, that those who are more fit usually don't catch it until late stages because the symptoms are so small. And so I was like.

Chad Vanags: 5:40

So, basically, being mostly in shape is the main reason why I couldn't find this early enough. And so, like at the beginning, when I was like, fuck this, this is not happening, it's that stage of denial and then I went into straight depression and fear and anxiety. I literally sat there and it's like an immediate. It is the fastest jolt in your life. To reflect on the last X amount of years, I was diagnosed at 39. I was the youngest patient for my oncologist, by 20 years. So, like I'm looking at my last 39 years going, what the fuck did I even do? And now it's over, it's over, it's going to be done. That's how I started reacting to it. That was the initial reaction.

Lachlan Stuart: 6:31

So okay, that's a huge wake up call for a lot of people. So, 39 years, what were you doing? What had you been building to in the lead up to that? To turn around and go. What have I actually fucking done?

Chad Vanags: 6:43

Yeah, so sorry. So F-bombs are cool.

Lachlan Stuart: 6:46

Yeah, man, what's good to go?

Chad Vanags: 6:47

Okay all right, good, and sometimes I forget to think about that or ask it. Obviously, a lot of reflection happens and the easy summary of this is I had an. I had this vision for my life. Actually, when I got back from Australia. I lived in Australia five months, going to school at Bond University. I rode my push bike as you guys like to call it push bikes from Bond all the way to Sydney, right? So it took me two weeks, did you really? Yeah, every all day. What, yeah, why? Cause I wanted to do something different. And there was a bunch of Americans at my school and they're like, let's fly to Sydney. And I was like, no, I'm gonna ride a bike. And they're like, no, you're not. And I was like, well, now, I fucking am.

Lachlan Stuart: 7:35

So I did.

Chad Vanags: 7:37

But on that bike ride, right On that bike ride, I learned a ton. I learned a ton. I mean it was two weeks. For those who don't know, it's like the equivalent of going from Cleveland to Washington DC, back to Cleveland and like down to Columbus or something. And I learned a ton about just the world. And when I say that there's two incidences there, right, where it was like one.

Chad Vanags: 7:56

I rolled up to this town I can't remember where it was, it's on the beach and I sat down on a bench. A guy came up to me and said, oh, where you riding to? I said to Sydney. And he goes. Wait, you're an American, I go. Yeah, he goes, I fucking hate Americans and I go. And that's my first experience with somebody who doesn't like America, and most Aussies love Americans. But this case it was different, right, his daughter was killed by a drunk driver, by a Senator's son or some high up politician, and obviously the kid got out of it with no repercussions, right. So there was this sense of angst and I was like that was my first experience of, oh my God, not everybody loves America. And this is before the internet, right. So this is not or not before the internet, but before it became prevalent with all this.

Chad Vanags: 8:45

And then the second experience is I was riding from a small beach town to another beach town, but this time I took the inner coastal road thinking I'll just ride it. Well, I wrecked on the bike. I wrecked on the bike, came off of it, broke some things, I was all ripped up and then I was like all right, I'll just ride it the rest of the way. Well, I didn't know, for three hours it was basically gonna be a sand road, and so I literally walked this thing and I told three cars, three cars total.

Chad Vanags: 9:11

And I finally get to Pavement again and it's a small little town and this guy rolls up in a pickup truck and he goes hey, man, what are you doing? I go, I'm riding to Sydney. He's like from where? Like from Brisbane. He was like what the fuck right? He's like that's awesome. He's like about six houses up on the left is my house, I don't know how long, like it might. It was like a mile. He's like I'll have orange juice and sandwich ready for you. Mind you, he's got a pickup truck. And so I was like okay, can I just throw my bike in the back and like ride there and he goes no man, you gotta finish this shit.

Chad Vanags: 9:43

And I was like all right, but I sat down on his porch for two, three hours and we just talked about life and I said, dude, the world is, the world is everybody's the same, even though we're all different. And that's what kind of triggered me to say I just wanna be a world traveler that exposes everybody, specifically Americans, the rest of the world. That's what I wanted. But when I got out of school, this is what I said Well, first, I'm gonna become a millionaire in real estate Completely different. And I was actually on that path in 2005, six, seven, and I started making really good money. I was sold 10 million in real estate and I don't know if anybody remembers 2008,.

Chad Vanags: 10:27

But the world came crashing down and I lost everything and went bankrupt. And then it just proceeded to be startups and things that failed and me trying things, but all of them were outside of the authentic chat or chat wickedness since I wrote it up here. And that was the beginning where I, when I got diagnosed, I literally reflected on that timeline and I said, dude, I have been so inauthentic to myself it's not even funny and that what I call inauthenticity. Stress was essentially the beginning of the downfall, and I can get into that more, but I'm gonna pause there because I just talked about it.

Lachlan Stuart: 11:06

Dude, it was a. I took so much away from that because I feel like that's where I'm at in my life right now, because once again, for me previously it was wanting to be a professional athlete and then, when that doesn't quite work out how you want it to be, you have these goals and aspirations. And one thing that I love doing is just challenging myself physically, Like I just love the idea of seeing what my body's capable of competing, why my body still can. But then there's this other element that I get pulled into well, the business life. You need to earn money, you need to think about the future, which also pulls you away from the present to a degree, because it's like when's enough enough? And that's a question that all the goalposts for me continue to change.

Lachlan Stuart: 11:49

When I hit one milestone and I look back and I'm very fortunate, I'm surrounded by my wife, some musician, and so we're hanging around a lot of creative people and they're very wonderful at being present, and it just I get so frustrated at myself that I can't do that. But then, listening to what you're saying, I'm like, dude, this is gonna be me. Whether I get diagnosed with an illness or I just reached the end of my life. I'm gonna look back and go what the fuck was I doing, man? Like really all the things that I thought mattered, did they really matter? And the perfect example. So what do you think? Why didn't you be your authentic Chadwick back then? Why did you get pulled into this building and empire kind of life?

Chad Vanags: 12:35

Yeah, I mean it's insane to think back, because while I was selling real estate I had this. All my clients knew that I shouldn't be selling real estate and they actually told me I sold 10 million in real estate, had plenty of clients, and they're like. One client literally said we gotta buy a house soon because Chad's gonna be off and somewhere in the world and we won't be able to buy this house without. It was kind of like a tongue-in-cheek joke. I had a second client that literally introduced me to somebody at Nat Geo in Chicago and was like hey, go talk to this person and that person goes I can probably get you a gig being the assistant to a Nat Geo photographer Pretty sweet gig. And he's like it's gonna pay like 25, $30,000.

Chad Vanags: 13:16

So I was like are you fucking kidding me? I just sold 10 million in real estate. Yeah right, I'm gonna go make so much money, you know. And so I was like I'm just gonna go build Nat Geo, I'm gonna make so much money in real estate that I'll just build Nat Geo. But let's just say I made a shit ton in real estate, right, let's say, I made 10 million in real estate.

Chad Vanags: 13:38

I'm so focused on 10 million in real estate that when would I ever build Nat Geo? Because I'm so focused on keeping up the income flow from real estate. That's a full time, I mean, that's a lifetime gig, right. So it was ironic not ironic, but it was just naive to think that I could go and make 10 million in real estate and then go build Nat Geo Like, all right, I made it. Now I'm gonna switch and for X amount of years I'd be inauthentic to myself until I got there without the guarantee that I'd get there. And here we are.

Chad Vanags: 14:15

I never got there, so I look back at that moment as like oh shit, that was the fork in the rope where I made a decision.

Lachlan Stuart: 14:23

Now I don't regret it in a way which we can talk about later, but it's definitely that if then ideas like or when, then almost where many people said and I know a lot of men said and I was guilty in the beginning of my relationship it's like when I earn this amount of money, then I'll spend more time with my wife, yeah, and I would always be able to justify wild work lay down in the office or wild work weekends and miss events, miss just even coffee together in the morning because I needed to earn that amount of money and then I'd do it. But the challenge is, as you just stated, is like if you're not making time for those things now, it's only gonna become harder when you have more responsibility and more income because you've got people dependent on you or whatever it may be. So it's about carving out the time now.

Chad Vanags: 15:11

That's it, humans. Humans were so sophisticated, cognitively right, like our neocortex is super sophisticated, and we can think about the past and we can think about the future. I mean, we think about a past event and then we can project that event into the future, even though it's never happened, and we can feel those thoughts. That's a psychoneuroimmunology right, where your thoughts trigger chemicals to produce a feeling that matches that thought. So we'll think about the past a good thing or a bad thing, but most of the time it's a bad thing. I'd say 80% of the time it's a bad thing. And then what you do is like because of that sorry, I keep putting my hand out here as if you can see that's so good. Okay, so here's the past, right, and you'll project that into the future. And we never live right here, never or rarely ever. And I think that's the thing that's everybody's trying to get to is how do I live in the present every single day? Don't get wrong.

Lachlan Stuart: 16:15

Go ahead. Do you feel you've been able to do that now with since diagnosis, or is that something you're still trying to achieve?

Chad Vanags: 16:22

I'm getting better at it, right, I'm getting better at it. I'm definitely getting better at it. I literally am just focused on today Don't get me wrong. I'm doing a premiere for this TV show that we filmed in India and it's premieres coming up in four weeks. I gotta prepare for that, right, I gotta build some stuff, gotta do some things. I gotta think ahead to do it and put the task list together. But now it's just. What am I doing today? This is it. The thing I'm trying to do is how do I live my authentic self down to my very last breath, whether it's 18 months or 60 years, right, and that's all I think about every day, and that's how I try to do it. I can't try to answer the question like I'm getting better, but it's not easy. I work on my mind two and a half hours per day, and that's the only reason why I can actually live more presently.

Lachlan Stuart: 17:19

Can we talk about that? Because I know one of your goals is to become metabolically, physically and mentally elite, and you've got there. For those who are watching on YouTube, becoming elite is something that you're focused on Within the two and a half hours a day that you're spending on your mindset. Firstly, what are you doing? Secondly, how is that impacting you?

Chad Vanags: 17:47

I'm gonna add a zero, so we'll do the zero, the pre, the context, then the one and the two. So here's the clickbait headline my thoughts gave me cancer. Okay, that's a clickbait headline. If you think about it, though, if you look at some of the science, right, you'll see how this works. Like I said, psychoneuroimmunology is the idea that your thoughts it's not the idea, it's the science that I thought will produce a chemical reaction. So, if you think positively about something, you create dopamine and serotonin. Those are the mood elevation.

Chad Vanags: 18:20

On the flip side, when you have negative thoughts anger, resentment, bitterness right, you will create things like adrenaline, cortisol and other chemicals that suppress the immune system and everything else. Basically, adrenaline and cortisol are designed for fight and flight. Right, it's a stress response. Back in the day, we'd be chased by, I don't know, lions, tigers, bears, whatever, right? Or the tribe next door. We can't find food. That's a stress response. It's designed to be that way, but the world is different now. Our stresses are mortgage and cars and pets and things like that, and, like I said earlier, the neocortex is so sophisticated that we can think a thought about something in the past and bring up the chemicals as if it's happening today, even though it's not Perfect. Example is this when I filed bankruptcy in 2010. I could seriously look back at that and think and relive that experience and I can feel that experience, the shame, the embarrassment, the guilt. And so what happens is is when you think about those things and I would put that in my body, my body would go into the adrenaline, cortisol, fight or flight and that's what would create a new homeostasis.

Chad Vanags: 19:29

Homeostasis is where your body is in a perfectly chemically balanced state. Your respiration, your glucose, your heart rate, everything's perfect. The problem with it chronic stress, right Elevates that baseline. So now, like, instead of at the baseline of zero, let's say you've elevated to four. What happened was I was living in that four state, like that elevated homeostasis state, for years. What happens is when you're out of homeostasis and that stress response is kicking in all those chemicals, you essentially right turn the immune system off from cellular repair, catching diseases, all that stuff and finding tumor cells. Everybody has tumor cells, by the way. Everybody has cancer cells. Your immune system is what's getting it. But if the immune system has to always be in fight or flight because that's where I'm sitting and trying to repair, it can't do both well at the same time and all of a sudden you're trying to build your life in a tornado-like environment.

Lachlan Stuart: 20:31

That's essentially what.

Chad Vanags: 20:31

I was doing for years. I'm embarrassed sometimes to even say it, but I have no time for embarrassment anymore, so it's like who gives a shit? That's why I'm also doing podcasts like this, right? Because I just want to get this out. So that's the context. That's the context. So the first question then you asked is like, well, what am I doing? Right? Like, what am I doing?

Chad Vanags: 20:52

So if all the thoughts that I have are here's a better, one more context piece we have 70,000 thoughts per day. Think about this 70,000 thoughts per day, 95% are the same as yesterday. Shit ain't changing. Like 95% are the same as yesterday. And I always ask people what percentage do you think is negative? And I get a range 60, 70, 90, right, it all depends on the individual, but we can roughly say 80% negative. And I do this exercise, when I do this training, I say, okay, shout out some thoughts you have in right now. And literally right on cue, eight of the 10 are negative.

Chad Vanags: 21:35

So what I needed to do is like I needed to break the shitty patterns in my head, because what I needed to do is I need to break the neural nets in order to have the good thoughts, to produce the better chemicals. And so I will sit down, I'll sit in this chair right here and I'll shut my body down. So there's four steps, right, I call it mental work. Some people call this meditation, but it's not like using the column app going blah, blah, blah. Right, so there's four brain wave states Beta, alpha, theta, delta. Delta is sleep, so we can just take that one out.

Chad Vanags: 22:16

Beta is what you and I are doing, talking back and forth, and sometimes beta gets super high, right, meaning you're stressed, that's high, high beta. Alpha is like where you're kind of sitting, relaxed, taking it in. So if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably just in an alpha state listening. And then theta is the magic zone for me, right, and for many. Theta is that moment, right before you fall asleep, where your body is shut off but your mind is still there. You know what I'm talking about. Yes, right, and so in that moment, remember psychoneuro-humanology, where the thoughts produce chemicals. But if your body is shut off, chemical is shut off, chemicals aren't produced, but your mind is still there. So I get into this theta state. I'm sitting at this desk and I'll slowly lower it down, and anybody who's ever done a meditation knows that it's like bang, bang, bang, bang.

Chad Vanags: 23:14

You know it's a pain in the ass, yeah, but eventually, like, I get to a place where I'm like I slowed it down and I can feel the body go limp right and I'll like, actually my neck will sometimes fall. I'm like, okay, my body shut off. My mind's very aware, and so if anybody's ever seen Star Wars, you know it's got that script that goes at the beginning yeah, long time ago. Whatever the hell it says, that's what happens. Now I'm literally my mind can look at all the thoughts. That's called thinking about thinking, metacognition. Now I'm thinking about thoughts and in that script I'm identifying the thoughts that don't serve me, and it takes work. That's why I call it mental Right. And so here's an example of one early on I can't remember how I phrased it, but it was I'm not where I need to be, or I'm not where I thought I'd be Right. When, anytime, you think that, what feelings do we think we create? I'm not where I want to be. What do we feel? Anxiety, yeah, anxiety.

Lachlan Stuart: 24:22

Anxiety.

Chad Vanags: 24:24

Depression.

Lachlan Stuart: 24:25

Yes, so I realized all that shit.

Chad Vanags: 24:28

And so, like, as I'm sitting there, I was like, oh my God, this has been subconscious in my mind. I didn't even know it was happening. So I had to say, well, what's the opposite? And I say opposite, but sometimes it's not perfectly opposite and I was like, well, I'm exactly where I need to be. So once I flip that thought right, I start to say it and I say it like a hundred times over and over because you don't really believe it at first I'm right where I need to be. I have stage four lung cancer. That's not exactly what I fucking wanna think about. And so now I'm like I'm exactly where I need to be. I repeated a hundred times. And also my body starts to feel it. You say it enough times. The chemical will be produced. And so as soon as it triggers and I can feel the trigger change, I can feel it All of a sudden I start bringing it back up. So when I get out of that state and I come back to beta, I now have a new thought pattern that is associated with a feeling. So now the chemicals of dopamine and serotonin are being produced versus the negative stuff. So that's how I do it, right.

Chad Vanags: 25:32

It takes a lot of work, hence the name mental work. I do it in the morning, right. When I wake up, I do it, for I'd go on a walk and do it for an hour and 15 minutes, right. And then at night, when I go to sleep, I do it for upwards of an hour and a half, and people are like how do you have time for that? I go, I have to fucking have time for it, you know, Anyway, so that's how I do it. The result what you're experiencing right now with my energy level four months ago was not even. It was non-existent. I was depressed, I was anxious, right. And now I'm kind of like I'm back to what they used to call me, charger chat. That was my nickname, charger chat. I'll charge a chat, Love it, yeah. So that's look, I'm in the best place. I still have nine lesions in my brain, I still have a lung tumor, I have all these things, but for some reason I stopped giving a shit and I'm just gonna go live and it's all because of that mental work.

Lachlan Stuart: 26:34

And that's I think it's such a powerful point to touch on. So you're hearing your story, I'm like it makes all of the problems, all the things that I stress about, just seem really insignificant. And I understand that every individual, we all, have our own challenges and they are the biggest challenge that we're dealing with, right. So it has significance. But understanding your making time, your prioritizing time to work on your mindset, when so many people neglect that it's. I remember back in the day I used to listen to a lot of like emo music and punk music and stuff like that, which I loved.

Lachlan Stuart: 27:13

But I understood when I started working on my mind, because I wake up every day and I go to bed the night before wanting to have the best possible day the next day, the best outcomes, as we all do get up at five am or whatever time I choose to get up, do what I need to do, but when you wake up, that alarm goes up and you're like shit, I don't know I could lay back in. I'll even find myself just sitting on my side for three minutes having this conversation with myself do I get out or do I just snooze? Snooze would be all right, but anyway you get yourself through that alarm and you get on with your day because of the mental prep. But when I'm getting out, the first thing that I do much like what you said, chadwick is I prime my mind. I'm not happy and motivated every morning. I'm like, fuck, I want to go back to bed. Man, I want to stay in bed with my mrs for another 40 minutes. She's happy, nice. But I also know on the other side of that is the life that I want to live Like. I love being active, I love getting up early, I love learning.

Lachlan Stuart: 28:10

I'm very curious about people like yourself, or people's lives, and that first couple of hours in the morning is when I get to do that. It shapes my day, because if I don't do that, I'm like tumbleweed on a dirt road man, I'm just getting blown wherever the wind takes me and, as you've mentioned, it's like we don't know when our time's up and we all have the ability to design our life. It's not easy. There are things that you will do, people that you'll surround yourself with that maybe take you on a bit of a detour, but when you understand why you're here, as Chad the detour you went on and probably wanted to, that I'm actually on at the moment is like you're creating something that maybe is a little bit further away from your authentic self than you believe.

Lachlan Stuart: 28:56

I do believe I'm lucky because I work in a coaching space, so I get to do the shit that I'm doing every day anyway and talk to cool people and all of that. But for those who are listening, what do you want to look back and reflect on and go man, that's what I should have been doing. What mindset do you need to develop to do that shit? It takes time. You just said two and a half hours a day. That's insane. Like to me, that's even insane. But I can appreciate and respect why you do that, and what I love is the adversity that you're dealing with I could not even comprehend. I can sit here and say, yeah, man, I would do this and this is how I'd respond to that, but I don't fucking know. I have no idea.

Chad Vanags: 29:40

Who knows the hope is. You never have to find out right.

Lachlan Stuart: 29:43

Correct. But the learning for me and the takeaway for that is you have to do the work on the mindset to be able to get the life that you want.

Chad Vanags: 29:53

Yeah, I mean, look, I'm going to be honest, it's funny. When I was playing soccer in high school and college, everybody was like, oh, it's 98% mental and I'm like, okay, cool, I don't know what that means. And now I'm like, fuck, it's actually probably 99.8% mental. Yeah, if your thoughts have that power on the chemical production, right, if your thoughts have that much power on chemical production, mine was just cancer, but that could lead to other things. If you overwork it, it can lead to hypertension or diabetes, whatever. Right, the chronic stress is the problem. And don't get me wrong, I look back and I'm just like dude, I wish I wasn't in this place, but that's one of those thoughts.

Chad Vanags: 30:36

I wish I wasn't in this place, Because when I wish I wasn't in this place, it's going to produce anxiety, depression, fear, and so the thought that I had recently one of the epiphanies and one of the changes that I've had, that actually is probably the main reason I'm even being dysfunctional right now. For my wife it's like oh my God, I haven't seen this version of you in 15 months, right, the one I had a couple of weeks ago, and I recognize it. It had been happening, but I didn't know it until I sat down and I did the observation. It was simply I've wasted my chance, my one chance at this life.

Chad Vanags: 31:14

I've wasted my one chance at this life and I realized that even that subconscious thought because it's so automatic you don't realize it's there that thing was bringing the chemical production of depression, anxiety, etc. And so when I saw it, I changed it and it took me a while to feel it. Remember your body's like what the fuck is this new thought? And it was simply I was born for this shit. Now I don't know how long I'll live 18 months to 60 years but the point is is now I sit here, I'm like I was born for this. Do I want to be born for this? Not really right.

Chad Vanags: 31:49

But when I sit there and I actually think it, and I actually believe it and actually feel it, the energy goes through the roof. And energy is what changes cellular makeup. And the hope is that energy change because my body has the medication to fix this. The question is will it be enough and will I be able to access it? The key is the energy component. How do I stimulate the cellular makeup to get the NK cells, t cells, all those things to actually recognize the cancer cells and take it out? And so, looking back, it's kind of like it's wild to think that this experience I I weird to say but I was born for this, because my hope is that, whatever I learn, regardless of the time I have left, I can help people either improve their performance and what they're doing because they're already in a good spot, or help them recognize before they get to the point where it becomes a forced pattern interrupt.

Lachlan Stuart: 32:52

How did you? What was the process that you went through to recognize what your authentic self was?

Chad Vanags: 33:01

I went back to. I went back to college and I said, what did I really want? And again, it was that Australia experience that changed everything for me. Right, riding that bike from Brisbane to Sydney, I just I was just like, how do I? I was like that's all I want to be doing. And so I went back and said, what did you want to do? And I was like, well, I wanted to do this. Okay, so why aren't you doing it? Now, don't get me wrong, right this?

Chad Vanags: 33:32

I think follow your passion is some of the worst advice out there, because, like, I'm passionate about surfing, but I I'm not going to go follow my passion, become like a surf coach. I'm just not going to do it right, because, you don't know, you got to pay bills and make a living. If I were to look back and say, well, what would you have done differently? It's funny because now I'm actually like you know what? Maybe I wouldn't do anything differently, but for somebody who's in a place, I'm now gifted with this. I consider this pattern an interrupted gift. Okay, so I'm now gifted with this, but if you're at a point where something is going crazy, the way I look at it is are you in a hamster wheel or are you in a maze? Are you in a hamster wheel or are you in a maze? Because here's the difference. Have you ever done a corn maze? By any chance, you're in the Midwest now. Have you ever done?

Lachlan Stuart: 34:23

a corn maze? Yeah, no, I haven't yet, but maybe I will after this. They're so epic, they're so epic, the corn maze, yeah.

Chad Vanags: 34:29

Yeah, look in Tennessee they should have a few. If not, just drive to, like you know, ohio or Iowa. But my point is they're epic because, like as a kid, you're running through a maze and it's super fun. But when you go through a maze, or you do a maze, you bounce off walls. You're like, oh, that's a wrong turn. Oh, and that can be frustrating in many ways. But a maze is fun and, more importantly, there's always an out. The question is is, will you get out of the maze before you die? Maybe, maybe, not Right, but the point is, the maze is always fun.

Chad Vanags: 35:02

But a hamster wheel, that's not fun. Nobody. Anytime we say the word hamster wheel, everybody cringes like, oh, I don't want to be on a hamster wheel. So the question is are you on a hamster wheel or are you in a maze? If you're on a hamster wheel, you need a stick in the spoke. I was forced. I was given a forced stick in my spoke. That was cancer, but you can put a stick in your own spoke.

Chad Vanags: 35:25

So, step one, figure out if you're on a hamster wheel or an amaze. That's it. If you're in a maze, you're golden. That means you're happy. 80% of the time. You can only be happy 80% of the time because there's still tax to pay in dumb shit like that, right? So I did a bunch of this.

Chad Vanags: 35:42

So, maze or hamster wheel, step number one if you find out, if you're in a maze and you're just bouncing off walls, fine, you're good, just keep bouncing off walls, figuring shit out. But if you're in a hamster wheel and you recognize you're in a hamster wheel, you've got a pattern interrupted and that could be anything I like to do. Unguided travel, that's what Uncharted Spirits is. That's what our TV show is about. Other people like to go on, do arduous things, like an Iron man or something I don't know. But the point is is once you get the pattern interrupt, things will change and sometimes changes suck Right, like maybe the house you live in and the cars you have you shouldn't have, because they're actually keeping you from the things you should have been doing. I don't know, it's not easy, but it's way more rewarding.

Lachlan Stuart: 36:32

And that probably comes back to you taking time to think about what it is. People live such busy lives now where they don't ever stop and think about is this what I want, or what is continuing to do this thing costing me? Because every decision we make costs us something and we need to get clear on what those opportunities costs are and what we are going to look back with fond memories. It's like when you go traveling. Obviously you said you do a lot of unguided travel. I'm sure even from my experiences, the stuff that you talk about and you laugh about a couple of months later or years later is all the shit that went wrong. It's not the most incredible trip where you fly business class and then you get chauffeur to this lovely hotel where they have croissants waiting for you to talk about. That. That's cool for Instagram, but then you forget about that because there's nothing to interrupt the flow state that you wanted to be in.

Chad Vanags: 37:27

Dude, you nailed it. That's actually exactly it. Right, it's the discomfort. I mean the TV show we created called Supply Run, it is designed to go wrong because there's a quote in a book I can't remember the book, I don't even find it but monotony, right. Basically, the idea of monotony collapses time. It collapses time. So you go into the office every day or you're on the Zoom every day, right, and you just do the same same, same, same same thing. All of a sudden, the 10 years felt like a year, like where the fuck did the time go and everybody's like what have I been doing?

Chad Vanags: 38:05

But novelty expands it. Right, we did this trip in the Himalayas. Right, it was 22 days. It felt like a freaking lifetime because things were so new to us. We were like what is happening? We're only on day two. It feels like we're like a month in and it's purely because the novelty of the things going wrong. Nothing was planned other than point A, point B, let's figure it out along the way. It's the novelty that actually makes your life feel expansive.

Lachlan Stuart: 38:39

That's one of the challenges I have, especially with focusing on. You know, I think a lot of the work that I'm doing now on myself is because I want to learn to be more present, be able to live in the moment. But I also am so programmed to think about where my life's going to be in 10 years time, and I think it's important to have a bit of both, because you don't want to just live so much in the present that the future coming your way is terrible. People do that with alcohol, drugs or certain other ways that they live their life, but there's this sort of juggling act that needs to happen, where you do sit down and think about okay, well, how can I maximize the most out of this day and make sure that it's not similar to yesterday or tomorrow? But also consistency and repetition is what delivers certain results as well. So in I guess, even speaking out loud now, part of what can help you live an incredible life is having consistently random or challenging experiences in your life.

Chad Vanags: 39:40

Yeah, I mean design, designing some discomfort, and it's not like let me go cut my hand. You know what's going on, you know. It's like don't put yourself in stupid situations, right? It's controlled. Chaos is what we're looking for, right. We're looking for ways to plan the experience that forces just a different way. Sorry, I lost my train of thought. What was that? How did you phrase that again?

Lachlan Stuart: 40:14

The, where I was talking about having this juggling act between building, you know, or even, for you, I guess, living in the future, because you don't, and all of us don't necessarily know how long we're going to be here, but we want to make sure that the life that we are creating for ourselves is one that we want to be part of.

Chad Vanags: 40:32

Yeah, yeah, it's weird, right? It's like how do you plan for the future? I couldn't. I couldn't even plan for the future. Nine months ago, six months, four months ago, I couldn't even plan for the future. I was like what's the fucking point of planning, like why didn't you try?

Chad Vanags: 40:45

But I still have these things where I you know you've heard the name B-Hag Big Hair, yaudetious Goals. I still have them and it's really simple. It is build this TV show called on our supply run in this Uncharted spirits company. I want to surf Mavericks. I want to be a drummer in front of a thousand people. I've never drummed in my life, but I have it there. I air drum, I get the concepts and then it's like you know, go to Mars, okay, mars Mavericks. That's probably less than a 1% chance, but I don't give a shit, I'm going to try anyway. And so, like, I still have these Big Hair Yaudetious Goals for something to go towards.

Chad Vanags: 41:27

But in the micro day to day, I can only plan out 18 months for myself now, at best. And so it's like cool, I have an 18 month plan or a year plan and that's how I'm operating from here on out, because you cannot predict what's going to come this place, that we have this house that you see here. Like we bought it with a three year plan. The plan was to remodel it, which we did. That was phase one. Phase two was start to build the locks. It's a half acre land in California on the ocean. It's kind of unheard of, it's a unique lot. So we're going to build this thing called Tequila Farm. Then we're going to get into phase three of the house renovation. Well, we're in the middle of phase two, building on Tequila Farm and then I get cancer. Well, that throws everything off. So the three year plan didn't even matter. So it's like 12 to 18 months is best. Just plan for 12 to 18 months.

Chad Vanags: 42:12

Know, your Big Hair, yaudetious Goals are there. My wife and I have this thing called the North Star. We both looking at the North Star. That's all that matters. And what is the North Star? So, having a definition of what the North Star is, the path in which you get there can be different and can change. Anybody who's been a hiker, off trail hiker, knows that you go one way and then you're like, oh shit, that's not working. You got to go the other way, but you're still getting to the same destination, it's just different. So know your North Star, know where you're hiking to, but be ready for the trails to change.

Lachlan Stuart: 42:46

Yeah, and once again, as you've said a number of times, like the challenges and the rerouting is something that you've got to learn to deal with because that's part of life.

Lachlan Stuart: 42:54

A lot of people especially yeah, it is the fun part, but a lot of people are still struggling to accept that, accept the situation.

Lachlan Stuart: 43:02

It's like can I sit here and complain about it, which is the easy option, or do I press reroute and just get to work moving towards the life I don't want to create for myself?

Lachlan Stuart: 43:11

And, once again, it's easy to sit here and say that. But I guess the example that you gave, with you're doing two and a half hours of that mental work to be able to get yourself ready for the day, depending on what's going on in an individual's life, that probably determines how much time we need to prep ourselves for how we want to show up and, I guess, the results that we want to achieve. It's much like, I guess, you creating your TV show as opposed to me trying to create a TV show. You've got a lot more experience, so you could do it in probably one 100th of the time that I put, because I wouldn't even know which camera to start with or how to design a script, et cetera. And that's what I feel a lot of people struggle to make or potentially, a lot of people just aren't aware that your starting point is very different to the person next to you.

Chad Vanags: 44:00

Totally. Everything changes for everybody, right? You said something a moment ago and I sometimes overthink and forget where I was going with these things. That's all right, yeah.

Lachlan Stuart: 44:12

There was something I said yeah, I wish I could just replay myself, but I yeah, it was like a good thing, but I'll come back.

Chad Vanags: 44:21

I'm sure I'll come back to it, but man, it's gonna annoy me.

Lachlan Stuart: 44:27

But, yeah, anyway I was gonna ask anyway, and then obviously that thought comes back but how has it been on your relationship with your Wi-Fi? Obviously having her support, but how has it? You know, I guess she's on that journey with you, so it has she been throughout that experience.

Chad Vanags: 44:46

Yeah, I just thought that I got the thought. So pause on that one. Here's the thought. So what happens is with people in life, right, shit comes up and if you're not prepared mentally, you're gonna react in a wrong way.

Chad Vanags: 44:58

The perfect example of that was I've been doing this mental work for nine months, or three months, 90 days, and then I had to do scans. Scan sucks. Anybody who's had anything to do with scans knows that there's this thing called scantiety, and so scantiety was kicking in hard right, and I'm sitting here going dude, you've done the work, you've done the work. You've done the work, use it. So I get two scans every time. I get a brain MRI to see where the lesions in my brain are looking like, and then the second one is a PET scan, which is the full body scan. And I got the scans done and, of course, the brain MRI comes back within a few hours. It's you should sit there and wait, and I see it before even the doctor does. So I get to interpret it, which is super fun.

Chad Vanags: 45:36

That was a joke, but anyway. So my point is I got the brain MRI back and I saw increased size in five of the nine lesions. Okay, increased size. That's an immediate like body and the mind goes into oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, it's over right, or things are gonna go south. What did I do? I said dude your mind. You've been working on your mind. Let's go fix the mind, change the energy, change the energy. So I went for that walk and I changed the energy and I kept calling it you know what, fine, we're in the third quarter, we're in the third quarter, we're in the third quarter. And I just kept going and going and finally I came back and I go you're gonna figure this out, it's all right. My PET scan comes back a few hours after that and the lung tumor decreased 30%.

Lachlan Stuart: 46:19

It had not moved.

Chad Vanags: 46:20

It had not moved in nine months. Literally the same measurement for nine months, and then, all of a sudden, it's 30%. And so, like that's a wild experience to have because, like I knew that I had to work on my mind and I was rewarded with something, luckily. And the doctor the best part about it the doctor goes we have no idea why I would do that and I go I have an idea, but I'm not going to talk to you about that right yet. So that's the. That was the thought I had, meaning you have to prepare the mind for the inevitable adversity, right, it's going to come, it's going to come for everybody.

Chad Vanags: 46:54

So, to follow up on how is it like? What's it like with my wife? Like, look, caretaking is hard, caretakers don't get enough credit, they just don't. And I wish caretakers did get a lot more credit, because it is not easy Looking for her. There's no physical things with me meaning like I'm still active, I crossfit, I serve all that shit. It's the mental and emotional side that's the problem. And so when I go south, she has to carry that, but she has to basically take her glass of water and fill mine so that we have something to work with. And finally, when I'm back up in that glass of water, she's now depleted and now it's a reverse. I've got to you know, she's exhausted.

Chad Vanags: 47:42

The relationship is. We're lucky, it's it's. The relationship is stronger than ever, right Because of that, because you're in it together and I'm lucky that I have a partner that is, you know, with an insignificance in health, like, actually we actually follow through, I guess. Yes, so it's, it's better, it's better. And now everything we do every day is a shared vision on, like, all right, sure, healing is good, healing is important. I keep telling people cancer is not the content here, cancer is not the content, it was just the messenger for everything else. And so now we have a mission together to change the way people live, basically save lives, remove from the stress. Basically the same things I keep saying metabolically elite, physically elite, mentally elite. I have to do it to live. But if we can document that as a team, it'll help people, regardless of where they're at in life. And to prepare for when an inevitable adversity comes, regardless of what that adversity is.

Lachlan Stuart: 48:48

It's always prepared, preparing for the stuff that's upcoming, and especially the seasons of life, as Jim Rown always spoke about. Many people could be in or have had, you know, been in summer up until this point. But if you're not preparing for a winter and it's not about always having this negative, yeah, the area of how life's going to work it's just understanding how life works, like there's got to be ups, there's got to be downs, and you need to prepare for that. How are you going to respond? One thing with the work that I do, we try to do a couple of tough challenges every year, and last year I did 30 marathons in 30 days and I did 12 12 hour walk right with the, with the group of lads, and the hardest one was the 12 hour walk. Like you wouldn't expect it to be hard, doesn't sound that hard, but doing it from 6pm till 6am and because it's such a long period of time to be in your head.

Lachlan Stuart: 49:44

Yeah you did it overnight, yeah, overnight.

Chad Vanags: 49:47

Well, that's why. Yeah, that's super hard, yeah, but it was.

Lachlan Stuart: 49:51

It was brutal, but the next morning. So of the 20 odd that started, I think four of us finished, but everyone had, regardless of what point they withdrew, they all had their moments where they felt like they'd achieved something that pushed themselves further. You know hips aching, my foot's aching, mentally, I you know. For me, I was worried about missing sleep because I'm so focused on sleep. But you just have these breakthroughs and you now understand that the limit that you had put on yourself has changed. And when you do it with people, you've got this connection with people that it's very hard to get in everyday life, because you suffer together. When you suffer together, man, the outcomes are phenomenal.

Chad Vanags: 50:31

I mean, we literally did a podcast episode on that. My brother and I like basically making friends after 30.

Lachlan Stuart: 50:38

Right, I did a podcast on that, like two weeks ago.

Chad Vanags: 50:41

Yeah, it's exactly it.

Chad Vanags: 50:43

Like, yeah, you don't make friends boozing, you use inhibition. It's actually going through a hard thing together because now you have that moment to connect you and it's always there for the rest of your life and you can talk back on it. Jd, who came with us on this on this show he never been outside of a Florida, florida Gated Community, like he's never left the States and then we take him to Nepal and the Himalayas and Northern India. You know, that's like a that's a mind boggling experience and it was hard. And now all of a sudden, like JD and our cameraman like play chess together almost every day and it's purely because they went. We went through this thing together, you know.

Lachlan Stuart: 51:20

Yeah, that's awesome and it's been, I guess, as well what you're doing, creating those moments for people. But I think from my experience, even when I wanted to run my first marathon, it's like you have to wait till that's on or you can just create your own marathon. I did did that Because I understand why. I personally want to do it externally. It's nice to get the metal be a part of that environment. But if you're doing it for a different reason, don't just wait for people to create things, for you've got to take responsibility and take ownership and get things done Totally. But, chad, I want to respect your time, made it spin an absolute pleasure and for those who know, there's so much more, they can find out about what's going on in your world and everything like that. But the beautiful thing is you're documenting this journey. Where can people follow you?

Chad Vanags: 52:10

Yeah, I mean, look, here's the first thing being a being a well trained marketer, right? I want you to go to my website, chad vanningscom, and sign up for the newsletter. That's the first thing I want you to do, right, because there I document everything. Right now, it's just been updates on on everything. I'm going to start moving towards the metabolic, the physical and the mental how to, if you will, right, like I need to move to the how. Right now, it's just been me documenting, like, what's been going on. Now I'm going to say here's my blood work, here's my results, here's the food that I'm now using, here's the physical components to build muscle. Here's now the mental side, right? So go to Chad vanningscom, sign up for the newsletter. That's where you're going to get the most information. The second thing is just go to Instagram. If you're on LinkedIn, connect with me on LinkedIn, because I documented there. And Instagram. Instagram is where I'm doing all these videos. I try to do them daily, but it's obviously a lot of work.

Chad Vanags: 53:05

But that's where I document this entire process.

Lachlan Stuart: 53:10

Awesome, and all the links can be found in the show notes below. So, whichever platform you're listening on, make sure you head down and click to follow along, and if you've gotten value from this episode, make sure you definitely share it with those you feel will gain value from it and leave a five star rating and review Chad. It's been an absolute pleasure, mate, understanding how valuable your time is. I really appreciate that I got to share an hour with you and learn what it's like to learn a little bit more of what it's like to understand what life is really about.

Chad Vanags: 53:41

Yeah, man Appreciate you having me on Cheers, my man, thank you.