With men this is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are possible.

Every so often you run across someone or something that defiles the natural course of events that transform your perspective on life. You might even call them miracles.

The story of Josh Cantwell’s surviving cancer is one such story. You will be moved as you listen to the experiences he went though, and the lessons God has taught him through it all.

It is a challenge to seriously reflect on your life today and not put it off until you are sick and on your death bed.

Reflect today when you still have an opportunity to adjust and create an outcome that glorifies God in all things.

With a 7% survival rate of this type of cancer, 14 years later he is one of the seven out of 100 that are still alive.

God has a purpose for his life and has taken Josh from a proud, self-centered boss to a place of humility and learning from others.

Quote to remember: “The bigger you get in business, the lower on the totem pole you go.”

Listen in and be inspired by God’s goodness and greatness and learn to be daring in your life.

Redeem Your Business Today by the Following:

How can we honor God in our business?

Serve your people in humility as a leader. How you treat others is the biggest way you can honor God in your business.

One challenge from today:

BE DARING.

Daring: Adventurously bold in action or thought.

Bold: Fearless before danger.

Live your life in a daring way and do great things with God.

More About Josh Cantwell

Website: Freeland Ventures

More About David Schmidt

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Website redeemingbusinesstoday.com

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David:

[0:00] Too many times we get busy with life and get sucked into the progress of things

David:

[0:04] from progress or a tragedy of the moment. But every once in a while, God does something to shake us up a bit. And today I brought on Josh Cantwell, who is a cancer survivor, and to tell about how God has been good to him, how he's been cured of cancer, and then the fresh perspective on life he has today. He is currently the founder and CEO of a company called Freeland Adventures, heavily involved in commercial real estate, does all kinds of business over in the, I think, Ohio area. So yeah, Josh, welcome to Redeeming Business Today.

Josh:

[0:34] Hey, David. Thanks for having me on. It's so great to be on with you. I know I've tried to schedule this up a few times and I've been looking forward to sharing. So I can't wait to talk a little bit more about it.

David:

[0:48] Very good. Well, hey, before we start, a question I ask all my guests, what is one way that you have found in your business that you can honor God?

Josh:

[1:00] Um well look in in business um i believe there's really three things that really matter the most it's people product and process um but product and process is more of a business strategy right it's the product you put out the process and the way you do it and so to me the way that we're able to honor God is through the people that we serve. And as a CEO and a founder, you quickly realize the bigger your business gets.

Josh:

[1:35] Really the lower you are on the totem pole. It's really about serving your staff and then serving your customer. In my case, we own a big portfolio of apartment complexes and we raise a lot of money. So in the way that we treat our residents and the way we treat our investors and the way we treat our staff is the ultimate form of honoring God in the way that we treat them. And I feel like humility from leadership is ultimately the way that we honor God. God talks so much about in the Bible about humility, about being humble, regardless of your success and realizing that so much or if not all of our success is really driven by God and driven by our beliefs and the success that he allows us to have. And so, so many founders, I think, and so many owners get really full of themselves, a real kind of puffy chest and feel very good about their success and feel like it's something that they drove and you start to really realize, when your business really starts to take off, like ours has, we're so fortunate, that so many decisions are being made.

Josh:

[2:51] Without me being involved, so many people are being added to the team without me being involved with so many residents are being moved in and units are being leased without me being involved. So many investors are being referred to us without me even knowing you start to realize just how humbling that really is to be able to grow a business and

Josh:

[3:15] realize that that's God working his way through all the fabric of your company. Um and so me realizing that i'm really a servant leader um is ultimately the way that um i feel like i'm honoring god every single day.

David:

[3:31] That's that's very interesting you you stated a few minutes ago that the the bigger you get the lower in the totem pole you get that i found that very interesting because many people think of the opposite ways like i'm getting higher versus yes i have more people to service more people to take care of more people to do all that. So really, yeah, you have a lot more responsibility there.

Josh:

[3:55] Um, no, yeah, that's.

David:

[3:56] That's a neat perspective.

Josh:

[3:58] It's so wild for me to think we have over 5,000 people that live on our campuses, none of which I've really ever met. I've had conversations with some residents when I walked through the parking lot or something like that. Uh, we have over 400 investors and we have almost a hundred staff, you know, from W2 and, um, you know, full-time staff to subcontractors, but over a hundred people. So you add all that up, it's, you know, roughly 5,400 people, uh, most of which I don't know. And sometimes I often pinch myself and wonder like, how did that even happen? You know what I mean? Like, how did that, how did that happen? So it's very humbling for sure. And I think like, okay, now if I serve these people and I know we have a good product and I know we have a good process, if we continue to modify that, to optimize it, turn the screws on it, it ultimately comes down to that product and process serving those 5,400 people. And it makes me feel pretty small actually to think that that's all happened. Whereas I honestly am not very involved in 90% of it. We have the rest of our leadership team, the rest of our staff that's building out those systems and process to serve the people and serve the investors and serve our staff. And so I like to lead from the front, but I definitely feel very humble and very small when it comes to the way this thing's been built.

David:

[5:28] That's a great perspective to have. I love it.

David:

[5:31] So yeah, tell us a little bit about your journey. I guess be as detailed as you can. I want to ask some questions as we go along. But you had cancer and you had to have surgery and it basically saved your life. But yeah, tell us a little bit about that.

Josh:

Josh:

[6:44] I was like, wow, that's weird. That shouldn't be there. What is that? I remember telling my wife. She was over in the kitchen. I'm like, honey, Lisa, come on over. Check this out. You know, she starts kind of poking around and she's like, that's kind of weird. It's only on the left side of your belly button. Like it's only on the left side of your stomach. And I'm like, you know, that can't be, that can't be good. Right. So I, I had three aunts that were all nurses and a good friend of mine that I played college football with happened to be an orthopedic surgeon. He lived across the street. My buddy Latul Farrow, Dr. Latul Farrow. So the next day I went over to Latul's house and he laid me down on his living room floor. He started poking around and he's like, yeah. That's not a hernia. That's not a sports injury. You should go get a CT scan. So I went to get a CT scan. It was actually on a Saturday morning. And on Monday morning, the following, you know, 48 hours later, they called me up and they said, I remember my wife answered the phone, David, and she said, they said, hey, Lisa, this is the Cleveland Clinic. It was like at 8 in the morning. So it was weird that they called that early. And they said, hey, this is the Cleveland Clinic. Is Josh there? And I got on the phone and she handed me the phone. She said, it's the Cleveland Clinic. And I was like, that can't be good. Yeah.

Josh:

[8:08] And they said, Hey, Mr. Kent, well, this is the Cleveland Clinic. We got the results of your CT scan and we need you to come to the hospital immediately. And I was like, oh, man. So long story short, went to the hospital. My surgeon, or not my surgeon, but my oncologist brought me in. And he showed me the CT scan and said, hey, Josh, see this big gray mass here? This is not supposed to be here. I'm sorry to tell you, but you have pancreatic cancer. And I've already set an appointment for you upstairs in oncology. And I'd like to walk you up there. And I started to think like, okay, emergency, come to the Cleveland Clinic right now. Okay, you have pancreatic cancer. Okay, I set an appointment for you on oncology. I'd like to walk you up there. This is getting pretty darn serious pretty fast.

Josh:

[9:09] Dr. Ali, he's the one that officially diagnosed me with pancreatic cancer, immediately referred me to Dr. Matthew Walsh. And he said, listen, you're going to have to have surgery. I already referred you to Dr. Walsh. Um, I need you to meet with Dr. Walsh and, and talk to him about, about having surgery. So I was fortunate in that when this whole diagnosis, David was, was said and done, the cancer mass I had was as big as a basketball.

Josh:

[9:36] It was 12 inches by 11 by 10. It was massive, but it stayed contained. It did not metastasize. i had actually the same exact diagnosis as steve jobs and steve jobs had just died that summer that you know founder of apple computer he had just died that summer of pancreatic cancer but his did metastasize he elected not to have surgery and he ultimately died from it that summer, um i was fortunate that it did not metastasize all over so i was a candidate for surgery was very, very, very lucky to be a candidate for surgery. So my wife and I, we prayed about it. Dr. Walsh, my surgeon, he literally said, Josh, I want to have you in. This was in September. I want to have you in for surgery the first week of October. And I was like, whoa, whoa. Like my son had just been born.

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