Neil Cavuto's world was turning in his favor: joining the nascent Fox News Channel in 1996, he was set to establish himself as one of business journalism's most important players. Ten years after being diagnosed with cancer, though, misfortune touched him again: He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. As those closest to him -- and many he didn't even know -- gathered to offer their support, Cavuto became attuned at the same time to the stories of others in the business world who had struggled with serious obstacles of their own. Now, in More Than Money, he offers portraits of the many people who have motivated and inspired him -- and whose stories can inspire us all.
The men and women Cavuto profiles have faced setbacks of all kinds -- from illness to catastrophic acts of God. But every one of them has gone on to achieve great things in spite of the odds -- reclaiming their own lives, and, just as important, taking time out to better the lives of others along the way. Among Cavuto's subjects:
- Evelyn Lauder, the cosmetics executive who pioneered the pink ribbon campaign after her own battle with breast cancer
- Jon huntsman, who survived two bouts with cancer to build one of the largest petrochemical companies in the world and found one of the most prominent cancer research centers
- Richard Branson, the irrepressible (and dyslexic) entrepreneur whose outrageous sense of humor helped him build the Virgin brand into the epitome of cool
Throughout, Cavuto weaves their stories and countless others into a compelling, uplifting tribute to the human spirit and the attributes that help us triumph over the obstacles, big and small, that life puts in our way. Moving, sincere, and wise, More Than Money reaffirms that true wealth is measured not by the sprawl of our bank accounts, but by the grace in our hearts.
More Than Money
True Stories of People Who Learned Life's Ultimate LessonBy Cavuto, NeilReganBooks
ISBN: 0060096438Chapter One
When Life Throws You A Curve Ball
I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I like the game, and I am impressed by the New York Yankees. Because they've won so many championships and World Series, and because they embody the character of New York: unyielding, cocky, very much in-your-face.
That makes all the more odd the unassuming skipper who runs this bunch. In the hurricane that is the big media in the Big Apple, Yankee Manager Joe Torre is the calm eye in the storm: solid, sure, dependable.
I marvel at the way this thrice-fired manager, in a job that tends to age men quicker than the U.S. presidency, only grows calmer over the years, and more self-assured.
He never screams or throws fits. He never berates his players on national TV. If they get hot, he lets them cool down. He prefers talking to each of them privately, rather than en masse or in public.
As he told a gathering of hospital executives in June 2001, "I like communication and talking to people one on one. I don't like screaming. I like to make sense."
Torre makes plenty of sense to his team, and to New Yorkers, and he surrounds himself with people who are much like him: diplomatic doers, not brash talkers.
A good example is Mel Stottlemyre, the quiet, modest pitcher-turned-coach who, like his boss, insists on working out his Yankee pitchers' troubles harmoniously, without fanfare or bravado. He has a rapport with his players that press reports about him understate.
Like Torre, players don't just like him, they trust him. They know he'll be there to shield them from the New York media glare. Pitchers like Dwight Gooden, Mike Hampton, and Andy Pettite, have all said that they wouldn't have become the successes they did become had it not been for Stottlemyre.
Torre and Stottlemyre proved to be powerful dynamos behind the Yankees' success and all those post-1996 division, league, and World Series championships.
As significant as their baseball achievements are, though, it's the way each man handled personal crises that made me decide to include them in this book.
Torre, in 1999, and Stottlemyre, in 2000, had bigger worries than winning baseball games and titles on their minds.
They each had cancer, and their initial prospects looked dicey. Stottlemyre was afflicted with multiple myeloma, a form of cancer that's usually fatal. Torre had a particularly virulent form of prostate cancer -- what doctors call a fast-moving malignancy.
Any time you hear the word cancer, you're rightly shell-shocked.
Just the word scares people. Cancer: the Big "C."
Years before my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor, I remember being aware that her biggest fear was getting cancer.
It wasn't so much the hopeless prospects for the disease at the time, but its debilitating final days.
For strong and vibrant people like my mother it was particularly cruel, sapping them of the energy and determination that made them unique, in the end reducing them to little more than human vegetables, painfully closing out their final days.
Heart attacks and car accidents actually take more lives, but cancer and its consequences have a singular dominance of our psyche and fears.
People who do survive cancer feel special. I know I do.
Not a day goes by, even with my MS, that I don't think of cancer returning; maybe another bout of Hodgkin's, maybe some lymphoma.
You name it, I worry about it.
And no cancer survivor ever loses that queasy feeling that it could happen all over again.
As traumatizing as it is to learn the diagnosis, and understand how your life has been changed forever, it's worse when you're in a very public job. There's nowhere to hide. Nowhere to cry. Nowhere to gather your senses.
There's an intense pressure on public figures who have to work through very private issues. Almost as important as how they privately deal with their issues or diseases, is how they do so when many people, sometimes across the country, are watching them closely.
Some handle the pressure and personal issues well. Sadly, a lot of them do not.
Magnifying the stress on Torre and Stottlemyre, as they deal with scary, preferably private, life-threatening cancers, was that they were in a profession that transcends business and inspires kids of all ages, working in the sports world's biggest fishbowl -- Nev York -- and with America's most scrutinized baseball team -- the New York Yankees.
Unlike business leaders being watched by shareholders curious about how they were doing, the Yankees manager and coach knew that millions of fans were wondering and worrying.
My father once said that you can tell a lot about a person by how he or she handles sickness. The way these two baseball veterans handled theirs is revealing and admirable.
As I discovered, they focused far more on others than on themselves. I'm sure that in private they had their difficult periods, dealing with the stark fact of cancer and their individual fears and doubts. Publicly, though, they put it all aside and led by example. No matter what their pain and suffering, they were going to hold it together -- not only for the team, but for the world. That's an enormously selfless act, at a time when it would have been understandable to be selfish. These men were not.
Continues...Excerpted from More Than Moneyby Cavuto, Neil Excerpted by permission.
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