005: Reframing Challenges: How Shifting Your Mindset Can Impact Health with Michael Coy

“When people asked me, How do you do what you do”, and now I've got the answer. I just don't let the old man in.” —Mike Coy

A cancer diagnosis can instantly alter every aspect of your life. On the surface, it means facing a potentially life-threatening illness that requires aggressive treatment. But beyond the physical battle, it also takes a profound emotional and mental toll. Even after treatment ends, cancer survivors often face long-term issues like pain, organ damage, secondary cancers, and the constant worry of recurrence. Is it possible for patients to not only survive but thrive despite the life-changing impact of this terrible disease?

This episode features an inspiring conversation with best-selling author and cancer survivor Mike Coy. Mike shares his personal journey of overcoming cancer after ignoring symptoms for too long. He discusses the importance of early detection and prevention. Mike also reflects on how his father's parting words to "make a difference" shaped his mission to help others through cancer awareness and support.

Listen in as Ann and Mike talk about the value of reframing challenges in a positive light, the benefits of maintaining an active lifestyle despite advancing years, the importance of choice and attitude in facing life's obstacles, the power of focusing on positivity over negativity, and the power of education in transforming lives. 

Connect with Ann on Social Media:  

Website: https://seednutrition.com/Annt/home 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008572834952 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annthemasterhealer/ 

Email: Tamingdiabetes@yahoo.com 

Episode Highlights: 

02:12 Cancer Awareness and Men’s Health

07:26 Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment  

13:09 Purpose and Resilience

17:46 Overcoming Challenges in Your 70’s

26:07 Reframing Thoughts

30:46 Cancer Prevention and Early Detection

35:57 Seize this Opportunity and Live Life

38:24 The Power of Choices 

Transcript

Ann LeMaster: Hello everybody, welcome to Common Sense Living Podcast where I'm going to invite you to listen to a remarkable man, Mike Coy. He has so much stuff that he puts under his belt. 

So Mike Coy, fueled by his father's parting words, makes a difference. Champions are those hungry for success. He's a Best Selling Author and a Keynote Speaker. His journey gained depth through an unyielding fight against cancer fueling his acclaimed book, I Chose... Live. There's no cheating cancer, and we all have a choice to make. This battle solidified his pursuit of excellence beyond his stellar career as a registered financial consultant. Mike's accolades extend to a triumph and baseball journey coaching luminaries like Drew Brees, and offered a minor league contract with the New York Mets. Mike's empowering speeches give their audiences infusing them with life changing strategies. He champions a Belief: Winners Find a Way to Win. Losers Only Find Excuses For Why They Fail. 

So welcome, Mike. How did your father's advice make a difference, "Son, shaped your career choices and personal philosophy."

Mike Coy: Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, my father was my idol. He was a coach. He was a layman disciple of Christ Minister. We had to put him in an assisted living complex, and I went by the same, my son was a tremendous athlete at Austin Westlake which is known as a powerhouse. That's Drew Brees, Nick Foles and Sam Ehlinger. I mean, there's so many athletes that came out of Boston Westlake, and I was the voice of the Westlake Chaparral for 12 years. I did radio on baseball, the Time Warner Cable for football, and I just had a blast doing that. And I was setting up for baseball, my son, that was his first varsity game. I went by to get my dad and the nurses said he won't get dressed. He won't get ready. And I went in and said, Daddy, we got to go. I've got to set up for the broadcast. And it's Christopher's first game. And he said, I really don't feel like it. He said, I'll make the next one. And he didn't. I said, well, I gotta go. I've got to go set up the radio broadcast and everything else. Well, I said, I'll bring Christopher by after the game. And as I was leaving, it ended up being the last words that he ever said. And that was, son, make a difference. I didn't think anything about it at the time because I felt like he was referring to all the coaching that I was doing, being involved with kids' lives at Westlake and all this kind of thing. But as I've gotten older, I feel like that has become a much deeper realization and much deeper passion for me. Especially with cancer. 

When I wrote my book, I Chose... Live. I said that stress is a silent killer, but men's death rates are 58% higher than women. Well, we know you're smarter than we are. But the main thing is, men won't go to the doctor. And I think about the great Toby Keith. Toby Keith had this stomach cancer that he thought was indigestion. And you wait and you wait. And then all of a sudden, when a man finally goes to the doctor, and especially if it's cancer, it's stage 4, and you've got six months to live. With men, prostate cancer and colon cancer are the two main cancers. There's no easy cancer but those are the simplest to treat if you catch it early. And so my focus is mainly to get what I call the women folk out there to get their men to check whether it's a spouse, a brother, or a father, or an uncle. And so with my father's words, I went to the ballgame. I was broadcasting the game. And I guess it was about the second or third inning, my daughter drove up and was talking to her mom, and her mom pointed to the press box. A few minutes later, my daughter came up, and I cut to commercial. And I turned around and Jennifer said, the nursing home called and the gramps are gone. And I feel like he knew that I really believed that this was over. I don't think he wanted to come to the game and pass away, and then be the center of attention with my son's first varsity game. 

It's amazing how God can be so mysterious at times, and work in mysterious ways. But it really hit me on the fact that those were the last words that he ever said. And it had quite an impact on me then, and then continuing today on me trying to just get the message to talk to people and see what I can do to pay it forward. To inspire, to motivate and to educate. And that's exactly what you do. That's how strong your message is, especially when it comes to health issues. But I was a typical guy. I had gone through a divorce. And one of my closest friends was in the home office with Aflac, the company that I worked for. And he said, I need a director of training and recruiting for the state of Georgia. And I immediately packed up and left Austin. I'd been there for all those years and raised the kids and moved. Actually, I moved to Kennesaw. I didn't want to move to Atlanta, mainly because of the traffic and everything. Yeah, I moved to Kennesaw, and I had this huge position with my company. I had gone through the divorce, the stress level was off the roof. I was there for about six months, and I was having this continuous sore throat. And so like a typical man, I just let it ride for about five or six months. But finally, I got a doctor's appointment. She came in and she checked me. And she said, well, it's probably a sinus infection drainage. I'll give you some antibiotics. You have to understand something, I had a tumor, the size of your fist at the base of my tongue.

Ann LeMaster: Oh, my god.

Mike Coy: So I took antibiotics and did nothing. I went back about six weeks later and she said, well, I'll give you some higher impact antibiotics. What those antibiotics did was destroy my immune system. And so on July 4, weekend 2013, I went into the bathroom, and one of my lymph nodes had popped out from my neck like a golf ball. And I thought, that's not good. So I took a picture of it and I sent it to an ear, nose and throat doctor in Austin. That was one of my closest friends. I coached his son. He saw it and he went, might quit screwing around with the primary and go see a specialist. So I forced my way into an appointment to get a referral. I went to see a specialist two days later, they gave me five needle biopsies. Now, if you haven't had a needle biopsy, it's something you really ought to try someday. It's a lot of fun. And he said, look, it's probably nothing. I'll give you a call in a couple of weeks . I had left the home office and taken in my own district right on the border of Tennessee in Dalton, Georgia. I actually had moved into a condo in Tennessee because Tennessee doesn't have a state income tax so I made sure that my residence was Tennessee. And that afternoon, I got a phone call from the nurse and the doctor. They said, we want to see you tomorrow at 2:00 o'clock. So I drove two and a half hours back to Atlanta and he walked in the room and said the three words that you never want to hear. And that's, you have cancer. And so that's when the process started. 

Kind of a funny story. He said, we're going to get you set up with some heavy duty chemo on Sunday. You're going to be in the hospital seven days, seven nights. You're off to wait, you're going to be in the hospital seven days and seven nights. And then we're going to have 12 outpatients, and we're gonna start radiation immediately. And I remember telling him, what's Sunday? He is going well this Sunday. And this was like Wednesday, or Thursday, or something like that. And I said, I can't do that. I just started this new district. I just moved to Tennessee. I mean, the timing is bad. What is Plan B? He looked at me and said, you die. Yeah. And I said, alright. Well, let's go back to plan A. And here's the thing, I'm an athlete. I've always tried to take care of myself. I've never been sick a day in my life. I've had four knee surgeries, and I've blown my Achilles. But that's all sports related. But I've never been sick a day in my life. But the thing about it is, I allowed this tumor to go strong, stage 3 when I could have stopped it probably in stage one. And it would have been a much simpler process. But again, that's why I wrote the book. That is the reason why I try to get the message out and do what I do.

Ann LeMaster: And I like that. I like to look at life as it hands you this. And it's a gift, even if it's this horrible negative thing with your cancer, or if it would have been just awesome everything, right? Because it's how you handle that. So you went through that. Can you share this story today and help thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people with your story? They can get a treatment sooner if they're going to listen.

Mike Coy: Whenever we talk, whenever you do the podcast, if we can just help one person, we've done our job. So hopefully, we can reach more people. But if we can just reach, and I hear your story on that. I played this. I still play this men's senior baseball. I think that I'm 25 years old. I was in Austin, this was five or six years ago. I was on the speaking tour. I was going around mainly to Aflac kickoff meetings, and I was telling my story and talking about the cancer plan, how it saved me over $26,000 out of pocket expense and stuff like that. But I was on third base and the third baseman, a really good guy. Good third baseman. His name's Jimmy. He said, my wife made me read your book. And I went and got a colonoscopy a month ago. Now, he is 55, 56 years old. And you're supposed to get it when you're 50. And he said he had put it off. No problem. But finally, his wife forced him to go get that colonoscopy, and he had six pre cancerous tumors that were removed. But the doctor said, if you would have waited another 18 to 24 months, you'd have had full blown colon cancer. And he said, you saved my life. I said, Jimmy, you saved your life by the act of doing and getting checked. And that's the kind of accolade that you would like to have, just from the standpoint of somebody doing something for themselves. That in this case, could have quite easily saved his life.

Ann LeMaster: You do everything right. You eat clean, you exercise, you do everything, and yet you get it. So what is the purpose of that other than you wrote the story? He listened and took action.

Mike Coy: One of the parts that I tell when I speak is that when you're going through chemo, you're going through radiation, you have good days, and then you have some days that are a little tough. And I remember one day, I was in treatment for about three or four weeks, and it was tough. I was out on the balcony looking over the chatter near the river. Just gorgeous. Summer day, the wind was blowing. Just a perfect, perfect day. And I felt something kind of a clump on my arm. I looked down and it was this clump of hair. I looked and this hair was going everywhere. I took my fingers and I ran it through my head, and every hair on my head fell out. Oh, now I got my hair back. But that's when the realization hits you that you're going through something. I remember going back into the house, sitting in my easy chair. I turned on the TV. I think it was TNT or something, and the movie Shawshank Redemption. I don't know if you remember that or not, but it catapulted Tim Robbins into a star. He was falsely accused of killing his wife, and he was sent to Shawshank Prison. And the first six or eight weeks there, he was beaten. He was abused. He was ranked. I mean, it was horrible. And they had a scene out in the yard when he was talking to a lifer that happened to be played by Morgan Freeman. And Morgan Freeman's character Red had been there and been in Shawshank for 40 years. Tim Robbins said, this place is a living hell. How could you be here for two years? How in the world could you exist here for 40 years? And Morgan Freeman, the character of Red said, well, life is about choices. You either get busy living, or get busy dying. And I'm telling you, I turned off the TV. I had this epiphany. I got up, I went to my desk, and that's when I wrote, I Chose... Live.

Ann LeMaster: Yeah. It's funny how things come to you, isn't it?

Mike Coy: But it's so true. You can get busy living or get busy dying. Life gives us choice. I think about the great American philosopher, Rocky Balboa. Stallone says, "It's not how many times you get knocked down. It's how many times you get up. And it's your decision." I will tell you, I can remember a handful of people asking me if I ever thought about giving up during this process because I ended up losing over 70 pounds. I needed to lose some weight, but I didn't need to lose that much. And it just got to a point where it's difficult. It's tough. And our answer was always the same. No way. At the time, I had a six month old grandson who didn't know me. I had not walked a daughter down the aisle. And now, I have three grandsons that probably wish they didn't know me. I walked my daughter down the aisle. And now, she blessed me with a five year old, beautiful baby girl. But again, I think the whole part of trying to get over some of these obstacles that life puts when I call, again, with my baseball background, it's about you getting thrown in a curveball. Those curveballs can start to mount up. But if you have a purpose, if you have a singleness of purpose, for me, it was about being around my grandchildren. It was about walking my daughter down the aisle and still being a part of her life. And so many people don't have that purpose. They don't have that go-to that can help them get through depression. I think causes suicide, that I think causes giving up. I've tried so hard with my messages and such to let people know that life is about choices. And I end every talk that I give by saying that, I hope and pray that you choose the same path, that you choose the same choice that I made personally. And that was that, I Chose...Live.

Ann LeMaster: We're both in our 70's. And when you look back, once you hit 65, you retire. You sit in your rocking chair, and you just wait for the Grim Reaper to come. I didn't bloom until I was 71. All I did was say yes to an opportunity. And now, I'm just on a roll. I got the podcast going. I'm a speaker. I'm an author. Taming diabetes is a different course coming up. I think it's just, I'm living. I existed before. But now, I'm living. I'm an inspiration. I feel or at least I want to be to people who don't know their course. All the stuff that's happened in my life, I am grateful for it because it made me who I am today. And my father was such a wealth of information. When I was a kid he always questioned authority. As a dad, you can't question the cops, for god sake. They're the cops. Right? Well, fast forward into the days we're living now, he primed the pump. I questioned authority because I am an authority in a good way because I don't listen to that BS. I know it's sick, but I don't. I'm aware of it, but I don't live it. I live for the better. I live for the hope, the glory, the love, love of everybody. I love you. I've never met you before, but I love your story. Therefore, what the message and what you stand for makes me love you. So appreciate it.

Mike Coy: My kids will tell you, my life is definitely defined by what we call AC and BC, before cancer and after. And I can assure you that things that affected me before cancer, ow, I just kind of blew off. I just kind of laugh. I get cut off in traffic and I think about, wow, that guy must be in a hurry. Instead of road rage, instead of trying to chow in somebody, I go to the grocery store and the lady in front of me, she's got 500 groceries. I sit there, and then at the very last minute when she pulls her checking account book out and rises to the check, I guarantee 10 years ago, I would have said something. Now, I just laugh. Yeah, it's about how you accept the check having just in your life exactly. And that's when I talk about stress being the silent killer, because stress will reduce your immune system. In my case, the doctors told me that there's absolutely no doubt that cancer had been around for a while. But then, boom. It grasped, it reached and got me. Again, it is also the way you handle it. The doctor told me about the oncologist. He was a great guy, he was an older guy. I have a feeling his bedside manner wasn't the nicest in the world, but I loved him. And he called me and said, one of the things that we talked about was about me being in the shape that I was in. You're going to get through this a lot easier than a lot of folks because you're an athlete, you're disciplined. You know where this is going to go. My wife, I remarried. She is actually the scheduler for Texas oncology. She's the one that sets up the chemo and radiation for people, and that's how we met. And she told me, I don't think you realize how serious that cancer that you had was. Now, it wasn't so much life or death, but they didn't know if they were going to be able to save my vocal cords. Or if they were going to have to remove my tongue. And for somebody that speaks for a living, I had my own band. I've been performing for charity concerts and stuff for years. That's tough. That's a situation that you hope that they can overcome. And it did.

Ann LeMaster: And when you talk about the tongue, I remember in nursing school, there was a case where this guy was in the hospital. They thought he was dumb because he wouldn't write. He didn't speak. So they gave him a paper to write, and he didn't know how to write. He lost his tongue, and he didn't know how to write. So they thought he was just dumb, whatever. So the way people look at a situation isn't always the way it is.

Mike Coy: That's such a great story, because it's no different than me coaching athletes. When you Coach Drew Brees, when you have a world class athlete, you find out that you handle them a certain way because they're really, really good. But they want to be better. And you get in my case, a young man that is really needing your experience, your expertise. And it's about how you can push them to do something that they didn't think they could do, that you want to make them better as they get along. And when you have a young man in a summer baseball program, that's really not very good. He could not make his high school team. And then you get that phone call a month or so later saying, Coach, I made the high school team. I think that again goes back to the discipline. If this is what you really want, then exactly what you've done in your life, and you go for it. When we get into our 70's, I had a charity concert just a couple of weeks ago, and one of the songs that I showcase is, Don't Let The Old Man In. Now. That's Toby Keith Ballad. It was the theme song for the movie, The Mule with Clint Eastwood. Eastwood played a Korean Vet true story that had gotten down on his luck. He had a friend of a friend ask him if he could drive. He said, I can drive. Well, he ended up the next three years being the number one drug carrier, the drug mule for the Mexican cartel. 

And the way it came about is that Toby Keith was playing in a charity golf tournament in California, and his playing partner was Clint Eastwood. And Toby, he said, whatever you do, don't play Clint Eastwood for money on the golf course. He'll take every dime, right? So they were going down the fairway and Toby Keith was just making conversation. He said, well, Clint, you got anything going? And Clint said, yeah. Matter of fact, I'm leaving tomorrow to go to Texas. I'm filming this movie, The Mule, and it's going to be a six month shoot. And Toby said, I don't mean to be rude. But how old are you? And Clint Eastwood said, well, I'm getting ready to be 89. Clint was 93 now. Toby said, how can you do that? Clint got out when, got his club, and walked back to the cart. He stuck his head in and said, I just don't let the old man in. And when he did, that just resonated with Toby Keith. He went back to the hotel room that night and wrote this beautiful ballad. So with you, how do you do the things that you do? I still work full time. I do these podcasts. I do charity concerts with my music. I snow ski, and play men's senior baseball. And when people ask me, how do you do what you do? Now I've got the answer. I just don't let the old man in.

Ann LeMaster: I like that. I won't let the old woman in either. Well, as old people, I love to say that because I'm aging younger. That's what I tell people. And they tell me like I was 74. A week and a few days ago, don't say you sell old. And I said, why not? I'm proud of it. I'm 74. I'm aging younger. And I swear, this is my natural color. I'm not great. I have wrinkles, and they don't see them. I said, you don't see all these wrinkles? Oh, my goodness. Because we are full binders about ourselves, right? But I feel vibrant inside, I feel alive. And now that I have my voice as a child, I was told children are to be seen and not heard. So I just kind of shut up and took the shit people would dump on you. I just took it and tried to knock me down, and all that did was piled me up higher until I just decided that I'm born again, so to speak. And I really feel that I was gifted with my voice and my strength and determination. I joined the service when I was 31. I took a leave of absence from the factory job. It was just the Iowa Army National Guard. It wasn't a real show that I did the grunt and grind in the beginning, but I never had to go overseas. But it's something I always wanted to do. And if I wouldn't have, I'd always wondered what should have been. Whenever I think I can't do something, sarge kicks in. And yes, I can. And the first time I stood on stage, I froze. I was partway through, and then I froze. I was afraid. I revamped that thought. I said, what the heck am I afraid of just people out there listening to me. If I want to go back in life to see what is a real fear, it's victory tower, straight up 50 feet. I'm scared to death of heights. One misstep, and I'd fall to my death. That's fear. So none of the rest of it matters. Just go for what your dream is as long as it doesn't hurt anybody.

Mike Coy: I wrote, I Chose...Live during COVID. Sitting around, staring at the wall, I remembered a short story that came from the series of Chicken Soup for the Soul, and this probably 20, 25 years ago. But I remember a short story called A Simple Gesture by John Schlatter. And I've revamped that whole story. It's a true story about the jock and the nerd, and how their lives came together. And then I wrote the second book, A Random Act of Kindness. And it was all about that. There are things that happen in your life, there are things that you can do to affect people, to help people. That in some cases, can change their life. But also in some cases, it could save their life. I've just had a lot of fun just having these speaking engagements. People reached out to me, and it's been a fun ride. I started with the command of your brand just to help me get the word out, and to be on a very special podcast like yours to be able to just tell the story. And like I said, if you can just help one person, then you've done your job.

Ann LeMaster: So when you were talking about losing your hair and how we can reframe our thoughts on something, we're older now and our hair is thinning. Oh, my goodness, I don't have any hair. And then you can think instead, you have hair. Somebody who doesn't think your hair is gorgeous even if it's sparse because they had cancer, and they don't have hair. They have to wear a wig. That kind of thing. I like to go back to where you are now. And like it or not, why are you there? I know you had a list of things here. I got Mike's 10 lifestyle tips to help prevent cancer. Would you mind if I read them?

Mike Coy: Oh, yeah, that's part of it. One thing I want your audience to know is that they can go to mikecoyspeaks.com/gift. mikecoyspeaks.com/gift, and I have my extended tips on how to prevent cancer. And then I also have Chapter 8 of I Chose...Live, because I think it's a very powerful chapter. And that's free. It's a free gift for people to reach out and see. But yeah, I'd love for you to talk about that.

Ann LeMaster: The first one is no tobacco. We know all this vaping these kids are doing. And then eat healthy. Oh, yes, genetically modified and all that. It's raping the earth. As my father had said many years ago, the toxic chemicals we're putting on there is raping the earth. Try to maintain a healthy weight. That means eat healthy food, because the junk foods we're putting on are killing your baby. Physical activity is key. And then there's skin cancer. It's one of the most common kinds of cancer and one of the most preventable. Avoid the midday sun, stay in the shade, cover your skin, don't skimp on sunscreen and never use tanning beds or sun lamps. So many of us have been really guilty of that. Me in the past as well. I'd like to add sunscreen, make it organic. Because otherwise, you're smearing chemicals on, and then the sun beats it into you. Viral infections are protecting yourself against certain viral infections to help protect against cancer. Practice safe sex, by all means. Do not share needles. Get checked self exams and regular checkups. Stress is a silent killer. There is so much stress going on.

Mike Coy: Whether we like it or not, genetics have something to do with it. I remember that I was helping with enrollment with the Atlanta Independent School District one day. There was this cute, young kindergarten teacher, and she was in her early 30's. She was like 31, 32 and she asked me, do you think I should get a mammogram? My grandmother died of breast cancer. My mother is in remission with breast cancer. I'm worried about me and my sister. And I said, you've got the cancer plan. This is something that I would always recommend on early prevention. Go ahead and have that done. Well, she called me about a week later and she said, my insurance won't cover it because I'm not 40. And I said, the mammogram is gonna cost $150 for going to the doctor every year. You get a $100 wellness check from Aflac so go to the doctor, get your wellness check, your mammogram is gonna cost you 50 bucks. She got the mammogram. And sure enough, they call it a shadow in her left breast. They went in, got it out. Very simple procedure, no chemo, no radiation, just removed that little speck. And the oncologist told her, if she would have waited eight more years, she would have had full blown breast cancer that probably would have gone to her ovaries, and that her life expectancy would have been anywhere from 3 to 18 months. So there again, when we start talking about the prevention aspect of what we do, what you talk about, especially on the diabetes side, is that you have to handle it your way. But the biggest thing to do I think is, I preach about men getting that prostate exam, getting the colonoscopy to help prevent the two major cancers that men face. And that's prostate and colon.

Ann LeMaster: It's unfortunate that our medical system and insurance doesn't cover prevention. At 40 is so much cheaper to pay for that lady rather than developing it 10 years later when it's full blown money out of pocket for sure. And that's part of why our medical system is so extensive.

Mike Coy: To your point, cancer is still the most expensive treatment that's out there. All the time, it was catching up. But cancer is still the most expensive. In the back of my mind, it is such a cash cow for the pharmaceuticals, for the hospitals, for the doctors. We can put a man on the moon, but we can't cure cancer. There's not a cure out there. But if we cured cancer, trillions of dollars would go. There's something wrong with that theory.

Ann LeMaster: Now, we may have this portion bleed out. I have two strikes against me on YouTube already because I talked about some of the health care issues, specifically about one flu shot that came off of the insert, because I gave flu shots and the insert from this pharmaceutical company. They said, actually, I'm struck. There's other ones out there, they can't stop me. God's behind me pumping me forward. There's awards to get out, and you're an avenue for it. You can't stop us now.

Mike Coy: I tell people when I do my talks and everything, every morning, look in the mirror and say, today is the first day of the rest of my life. I am going to seize this day. I am going to seize this opportunity and move forward. In my line of business, I wake up in the morning and it's like, okay, I gotta run for mayor today. I gotta get out there. I've got to shake hands and kiss babies. I've got to be seen. I've got to have people know what I do, and how much I enjoy helping people when they need it the most. I can tell you that I do everything in my power to stay away from the negativity. I mean, the negative comments, the negative people, the negative stuff. Life's too short, and there's no doubt that I'm in the proverbial last quarter of my life. And I'm not going to put up with it.

Ann LeMaster: No, you're not. You can live long too.

Mike Coy: Yeah. And I just want to stay focused on what's positive because I'm the solution guy. If there's something that happens, what's the solution? I don't want excuses because excuses are for losers. I want to have that opportunity to put forward. How can I help somebody, including myself, to take that next step? The (inaudible), just a tremendous young man, extremely Christian. He has a great saying that says, this isn't about any day. It's about today because yesterday's gone. Tomorrow is not promised to any of us. What are you going to do today to have an impact on yourself, on your fellow man? Where can you help pay it forward for somebody else? And that's really what my focus is. And it's the reason why I wrote my books, why I have my website, and why I do a lot of the things that I do today.

Ann LeMaster: You are so inspiring. You're living proof that age is just a number. Attitude is everything to me. What would you leave us with?

Mike Coy: I would like to really get across to people that something can happen in your life. Again, life can throw the curveball at you. And in my case, there was no cheating cancer. Doctor came in, you have cancer, you gotta get treated, you got to get this done. And life is about choices. We all have choices to make. And I think about that scene in Shawshank Redemption when Morgan Freeman said, either get busy living, or get busy dying. I would ask people to just, first of all, please feel free to go to mikecoyspeaks.com/gift. There's two free gifts there. Just help yourself to Mike's 10 tips on how to prevent cancer. And chapter eight in my book, I Chose...Live, they can go to ichoselive.com. Find out more about me, and then just figure out where they want life to take them. One of the things that I do, and my music background is that, I'm part of the prison ministry with my church. I will go into some of these areas of prisons, and I'll do a concert. These prisoners, they sit in a cell for 23 hours a day, and they have one hour to be outside. It drives me nuts. I'm in an opportunity to play some music to mentor them. To talk to them about sources. Now, they made a choice that put them in prison. This is another one of our passions of trying to get the prison board. I would like for these men and women to have an opportunity to get their GED, to learn a trade, to get their associate degree in plumbing, to be an electrician, to be a welder. When they get out, they have a trade. They have something that they can do. But that's another time for another podcast. I just try so hard to talk to them about their choices with their experience being in prison, putting themselves in prison. How they can reach out and help people, especially young people to start following that particular path. And again, it's about choices. I want people to understand that, hey, you get busy living, or get busy dying? And I hope and pray that you take my path, and that is, I Chose...Live.

Ann LeMaster: Yeah. Inspiring, totally inspiring. All the things you've done in your life, you have such a simple message. It's just a choice. Mike, I really appreciate you being on my podcast today. Thank you for sharing such incredible information. Thank you all to Common Sense Living listeners, and I'd like you to stay tuned for the next Common Sense Living Podcast.