A lot of people come to Normal 40 because they feel a pull.

Not because they hate their life or because they've failed.

Because something inside them keeps whispering:

"There's more."

This conversation begins there.

For more than 30 years, Chris Bertrand built a successful career in healthcare. He helped people. He built relationships. He did meaningful work. And like many of us, he reached a point where he began asking bigger questions about purpose, impact, and what the next chapter might look like.

Then everything changed.

A routine doctor's visit became a diagnosis.

Stage 4 colon cancer.

In an instant, the trade he thought he was preparing for disappeared, replaced by one he never would have chosen.

But what Chris has done since is extraordinary.

Instead of retreating, he chose to share the journey openly. He chose to use his second resume—the hardship, uncertainty, fear, faith, and resilience that most people keep hidden—as a platform to help others.

This is not a conversation about cancer.

It's a conversation about life.

It's about what becomes important when time feels different. It's about how quickly titles, careers, and plans fall away when reality arrives. It's about finding purpose inside a fight you never asked for.

And it's about the quiet courage of deciding that if you're going through something hard, maybe somebody else needs your story too.

IN THIS EPISODE

--How a Stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis changed everything overnight

--The difference between your first resume and your second resume

--What Chris learned after losing both of his parents at a young age

--Why helping others remained central to his identity after diagnosis

--The role faith plays when life becomes uncertain

--How perspective changes when every day feels more valuable

--Why advocacy and early screening matter more than most people realize

KEY TAKEAWAYS

→ Your second resume often prepares you for your most meaningful work.

→ Sometimes the chapter you never wanted becomes the one that changes lives.

→ Purpose doesn't disappear when life gets hard. Often, it becomes clearer.

→ People need stories more than advice.

→ The smallest moments become the most meaningful when time feels finite.

→ Keep freaking going.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Chris didn't ask for this diagnosis.

But he made a decision that many people never do:

To use it. To share it. To help someone else feel less alone.

If this conversation moves you, don't keep it to yourself.

Share it with someone who needs perspective or someone facing a health battle.

And if you're carrying a second resume story of your own, maybe it's time to start telling it.

Because somebody is waiting for it.

You can follow and connect with Chris on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok at Chris Bertrand.

And if you’re ready to stop drifting and start living intentionally, join us inside the Normal 40 community. You can find everything related to Normal 40 here: https://linktr.ee/lon.stroschein

Most of us inherit a scorecard before we ever think to question it.

Revenue. Title. Pipeline. Promotion. Bonus. Growth. Output.

And for a long time, that scorecard works.

Until it doesn’t.

This episode is another Insider replay, pulled directly from inside the Normal 40 community. It is a member-led conversation about what happens when the old measures of success stop telling the truth.

The conversation centers on one simple but confronting idea:

If you don’t define your scorecard, it will define you.

Not the corporate or the quarterly review kind.

Not the one built around pipeline, revenue, optics, or performance theater.

The real one. The one that asks:

Are you present?Are you useful?Are you proud of the work?Are your kids getting the version of you they need?Is your spouse getting your attention, not just your exhaustion?Are you building the life you said you wanted, or recreating the one you left?

At the heart of the episode is a powerful story: a father who died unexpectedly with a handwritten personal scorecard in his pocket. On that page was almost nothing about work. Instead, it was an honest accounting of his relationships, his faith, his family, and the areas of life he still wanted to improve.

That image becomes the center of the conversation.

Because one day, all of us will be measured.

The question is whether we are living by a scorecard we chose, or one we inherited.

IN THIS EPISODE

--Why the old scorecard eventually stops working

--The danger of winning a game you no longer want to play

--How corporate metrics can reward performance without measuring meaning

--Why making the trade requires a new definition of success

--The difference between activity, output, and actual impact

--Why time, attention, and energy deserve to be measured

--What grief can teach us about what actually matters

--How to build a scorecard that reflects the life you want, not just the work you do

KEY TAKEAWAYS

→ If you don’t define success, someone else will.

→ The scorecard that got you here may not be the one that gets you where you want to go.

→ Winning the wrong game still costs you your life.

→ Work matters, but it is not the only place your life is being measured.

→ The most important metrics are often the hardest to quantify.

→ A better scorecard does not make you less ambitious. It makes you more honest.

WHAT’S NEXT

This is the kind of conversation that happens inside The Insider.

Real people. Real stories. Real questions. Real work.

It’s not just a community.

It’s a culture.

A place where people show up honestly, challenge one another, do the work, and help one another move toward the next chapter of their lives.

👉 Join The Insider here: https://normal40.circle.so/checkout/join-the-insider

Let’s be up to something.

Most people never realize when they’re living a “last.”

They just move through the day.Answer emails. Take the call. Say “we’ll catch up soon.”

And then it’s gone.

18 months ago, Lon sat on a beach in Kona with his son Dawson on the last day of something they’d always known—father and son, in its simplest form. The next morning, Dawson would leave for a journey neither of them fully understood.

Dawson was 19.He didn’t know where he was going.He just knew he had to go.

That episode captured the moment before everything changed.

This one is what happened next.

Dawson shares what it actually looks like to follow something you don’t fully understand yet.

From cramped living quarters in Hawaii…to underground ministry in Vietnam…to teaching English and faith in a small town in Mexico he found through a single connection…

Nothing about this path was planned.

But everything about it moved.

And what becomes clear in this conversation is simple: When you take a trip with God—or with your gut, your calling, your truth, you don’t get clarity first.

You get movement.

IN THIS EPISODE

--What Dawson actually learned after leaving home at 19

--Why “get comfortable being uncomfortable” stops being a cliché and becomes survival

--The moment a single photo changed the trajectory of his life

--What it feels like to arrive somewhere you don’t belong and stay anyway

--How faith grows when it’s tested, not taught

--The difference between doing something for others and realizing it’s changing you

Why the hardest part isn’t leaving — it’s what comes after

KEY TAKEAWAYS

→ You don’t need clarity to start. You need trust.

→ The path rarely looks logical when you’re on it.

→ Growth doesn’t come from comfort. It comes from commitment.

→ The experiences you think are for others are often for you.

→ Every first becomes a last… and every last becomes a new beginning.

WHAT’S NEXT

If you listened to Episode 85, this is the continuation.

If you didn’t — go back.

Because this isn’t just a follow-up.

It’s proof.

Proof of what happens when someone says yes before they’re ready.

And if something in you is pulling you toward your own next step… You don’t need the full plan.

You just need to move.