Here’s what “all good” really means most of the time: “I’m not going to make this awkward.” “I don’t want conflict.” “I’m too tired to address this.” “I don’t think my concerns matter.” “I’m pretending this doesn’t bother me even though it absolutely does.”

Think about a skill you used to have that you haven’t practiced in years. Can you still do it as well? Of course not. That’s not maintenance - that’s atrophy with a friendlier name attached to it.

Real gratitude - the kind that actually sustains you - doesn’t look like the social media version of Thanksgiving.

Sometimes the speeches we need to give and the speeches others need to hear find each other at just the right moment.

As a two-time cancer survivor, I’ve learned that the anxiety leading up to scans and test results - what the cancer community calls “scanxiety” - can be just as debilitating as the initial diagnosis.

Cancer doesn’t care how many miles you’ve logged or how fast you can run. Chemotherapy doesn’t negotiate with your VO2 max. Your cancer cells aren’t impressed by your swim times.

This extra hour? It’s a microcosm of every choice we make. We can sleepwalk through it or we can be awake. We can drift or we can steer. We can let time happen to us or we can happen to time.

What was happening to my body, however, was only half the battle. The other half was the story I was telling myself about what it all meant.

"Every Mile Matters: Turning Triathlon Training into Cancer Triumph" is available now as an audiobook on Audible, Spotify, Google Play, Apple Books and in multiple formats via Amazon.

I had the pleasure of running all 86 flights or 1,576 stairs up the Empire State Building last night as part of the NYU Langone team.

Cancer changes your relationship with time. Before my diagnosis, birthdays marked the passage of years in a vague, abstract way. Sure, I was getting older, but that timeline stretched comfortably into a distant, hazy future. After cancer, each birthday became something more concrete - less a marker of age and more a testament to survival.

I make New Year's resolutions, too, but suppose we got started now instead of waiting until January 1st.

Races - especially long course races that challenge you - hit differently these days. Sure, the sleepless nights leading into the race remain and there’s that nagging sense that this is just too much too soon. But as I faced yesterday’s choppy 1.2 mile swim, a windy 56 mile bike ride and steamy 13.1 mile run, I knew I could do it, because, well, I survived cancer.

I didn't ask for cancer, wouldn't recommend it to anyone, and would gladly give it back if I could. But since I can't, I've chosen to extract whatever wisdom, strength, and purpose I can from the experience. Not because I'm grateful for the disease, but because I refuse to let it win.

As nonprofits grapple with sweeping federal budget cuts, dramatic executive orders and constant economic uncertainty, the Trump Administration now says it’s taking a hard look at the Combined Federal Campaign – America’s largest annual workplace charitable-giving drive, which is set to start on Oct. 1.

I've never been particularly religious and put my spiritual journey aside for decades, focusing instead on building a career and being my own higher power. The idea of suddenly finding God after cancer felt cliché, like I was following some predictable script about foxhole conversions.