Last year, I had the chance to hear Chris Vasami keynote an event. I found him so engaging and what he said really resonated with me personally—and through the lens of Cancer and Careers.  I was definitely left thinking, we need to get to know him better. So as a first step, to close out AYA (Adolescent and Young Adult) Cancer Awareness Week, I sat him down to ask some questions. 

Chris is a former professional baseball player who has been an entrepreneur since college using his baseball skills to support other athletes and their goals.  After being diagnosed with thyroid cancer in his 30s, Chris expanded his services to include nutrition, personal training and life coaching to create a wholistic approach to self-improvement both physically and mentally. 

This short Q&A is definitely not enough so Chris will also be joining me for a moderated conversation at our 15th National Conference on Work & Cancer in June. I can’t wait to take a deeper dive and I know we will all leave with new strategies to employ for our well-being.

Tell us a little bit about your background, your work life and how cancer came into your story.  How do you think your baseball career impacted how you approached your diagnosis?

I was born in Westchester County, just north of New York City. I started my student athlete journey at the University of Notre Dame, then I transferred to Elon University and was fortunate to be drafted by the Colorado Rockies and play professional baseball. After I retired from playing, I went full-time into my entrepreneurial journey training baseball and softball players. My wife and I were married at the end of 2013, and on January 5, 2017, after months of trying to figure out what was wrong, I found out that I had thyroid cancer. My definition of hard was forever changed.

For about the first year and a half of my diagnosis, I was the token victim. I sat around and waited for doctors and science and medicine to do their job and nothing worked. After multiple surgeries, Multiple treatments and multiple states worth of doctors, I was still in a dark place.

I knew something had to change; it was time to take back control of the situation however I could. That’s when I decided to take all the skills that had made me a professional baseball player and repurpose them into my cancer battle. Now, instead of being in the batter’s box facing a pitcher, I was facing cancer. The grind, the grit, preparation, resilience, and feedback were now my focus. Shifting my mindset from victim to victor!

You started your training business at age 20 while you were still playing baseball. After you were diagnosed with cancer a little over a decade later, how did your diagnosis affect your career path/how you coach others?

The initial shock of finding out I had cancer definitely took me to a place of wondering. “How am I going to be able to work?” You start to worry about your clients, showing up and teaching the same way, and ultimately paying the bills.

However, as time went on, my battle started to change me in a good way. I became much more empathetic and sympathetic to what everyone around me was going through. It actually made me a better mentor and coach. I started to train my athletes from a more holistic approach. We were going to focus on the mental and emotional parts of the game just as much as the physical. We were going to become the best human beings we could be as well as the best players.

Your Vasami Method works with people to better themselves through nutrition, lifestyle and mindset. What is something you know now that you wish you knew when you were going through treatment to stay in the right mindset during a challenging time?

There are so many ways that I could answer that question, but I will say sharpening the skill to grieve and have gratitude at the same time. This is an “and” life not an “or” life. Society tells us that grieving is a process on its own, and it is a process, but I have come to find that the balance to grieving is living in full gratitude. Every day when I was the victim, there was very little gratitude in my life, and I fell into deeper darker holes because of it. We are allowed to grieve. I was grieving the life I used to have. I was grieving the life that I currently had, and I was grieving the life that I was going to have because of ongoing treatment and monitoring.

The shift came when I realized, even though I was sad and grieving, I still had so much to be grateful for! Waking up with Hope, a wife who loves and supports me, two daughters who love and need me, clients who still counted on me, friends who cared and the opportunity to become a better version of myself because of the adversity I was going through. Gratitude is the outward appreciation for your life, and it is a muscle and a skill that needs to be worked on every single day.

You were quoted as saying, “We would rather choose an uncomfortable hell than an unknown heaven.” What was an unknown in your life that maybe made you nervous or you were unsure about, but turned out to be a piece of heaven in the end?

When I decided to run into the darkness and fully embrace the struggle, the heaven I found on the other side was so much beauty, joy, strength and wisdom that this life has to offer. The essence of our life is found in those single solitary deepest darkest moments. It shows us what we are capable of. The essence of love is found in the moments that we get to share with our spouses, families and community. When you are able to find those two things, it’s a pretty amazing life!

Do you have any advice for others in the young adult cancer community who may be navigating their diagnosis, treatment or recovery while finding footing in their careers?

First, stop listening to everyone’s opinion of YOUR situation. I fell into that trap early on. Your journey is your own. We’re all different and it’s going to look different for everybody. so, when someone tries to give you advice, or tell you that you’ll be fine because their friend had the same thing and they are fine, just smile and say thank you.

The best thing you can do for your career is to go to work on yourself away from your career. Choose something hard every day. Build up the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual armor of resilience for yourself. Learn to understand what you are truly in control of and be brilliant at it. You will then have a skill set to bring back to your career with a different perspective and be able to compartmentalize all the aspects of your life that you will be navigating.

If you could wave a magic wand to fix something in the health space, what would that be?

I hope and pray that one day we can detect pancreatic cancer at an earlier stage. I’ve lost several people very close to me to pancreatic cancer, and it is heartbreaking knowing there is so little we can do because we find it so late. It is an amazing time to be alive with all the research and advancements they are making, and I look forward to the day that they make the next big breakthrough in pancreatic cancer.

To hear more from Chris, join us at our National Conference on Work & Cancer on Friday, June 27th. Registration is now open!