Mike Capuzzi: Welcome back to another episode of The Author Factor Podcast. My guest today is Chris Cochran. Professionally, Chris's journey spans over three decades, during which he has held pivotal roles in sales, marketing, operations, and p and l management within large public companies. Chris is the founder of the Christian Cochrane Legacy Fund, a nonprofit organization inspired by his son Christian's enduring spirit of. Chris just published his first book, what's good about today? A purpose driven life, which shares lessons his son taught him about embracing joy and living each day to the fullest. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris Cochran: Hey, Mike. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here with you today.

Mike Capuzzi: Well, I appreciate your time. And first of all, congratulations. Brand new, like this month brand new, correct.

Chris Cochran: Yeah. August 22. Exactly.

Mike Capuzzi: A couple days ago.

Chris Cochran: Yep.

Mike Capuzzi: Congratulations on that. Obviously, what has brought you to writing and publishing this book is obviously a story in and of itself. Before we jump in and talk about your book, why you wrote it, about your son, I just barely touched on your background. If you could just share a little bit more for my listeners and what you're doing today.

Chris Cochran: Sure. So it's sort of two sides to me, right? There's the professional and the personal side. On the professional side, I've, like you said, a lot of it in the intro. I’ve worked for large companies, well-known companies. Most of my tenure has been in the it industry. I started my own company in 2008 and have grown that to be a multimillion-dollar operation today. On the personal side, I am a father, a husband, and a friend. Thats how I always intro myself.

Chris Cochran: Most importantly is that’s the most important things in my life. And like many people, I have a family. I'm married to my high school sweetheart. We've been together for almost 40 years and met when I was 15 years old, and we had three. We have three children. One of those is Christian and led this incredibly perfect life like a lot of people and, you know, ups and downs like normal things. But, you know, back in August 26 of 2020, my son was hit with terminal cancer. And so you can imagine that takes your family on a different trajectory.

Chris Cochran: And the book is really inspired by, of course, when that happened. Certainly, a story of how I met my wife a little bit, but really about Christian, his journey, what he taught us, and ultimately, that's what the book is. The book is a, is a roadmap to leading a purposely driven life. And in a sense, it's a love story. So that's my background, and I'm here today to, you know, project that message forward the what's good about today, which is a strong message that Christian left us during his terminal illness.

Mike Capuzzi: And if you don't want me to go down there, you just let me know. But just for some background for our listeners, your son found out about his illness four years ago, right?

Chris Cochran: That's correct, yeah. How.

Mike Capuzzi: From the time he found out to the time he passed, how long was that?

Chris Cochran: Yeah. So Christian, we found on August 26, 2020, as I said, he was given this terminal diagnosis. I was with him. It was right before COVID walked into the doctor's office me and Christian really not with a sense that we were going to be in this type of peril or Christian was going to be in this type of peril. And they told him he had terminal cancer. And Christian, as strong as he was and as a parent, my world sort of faded at that point. I was becoming dark. He showed incredible strength, a real superhero power, where he just put his hand on my shoulder, and he told me it was going to be okay.

Chris Cochran: He. He tried to make light of the situation, which was the nature of who he was. He asked how long he had to live. They didn't want to answer that question, but, you know, based on what, the knowledge we knew at that point, he had a less than 1% chance. So he, uh. You know, most. Most, uh. It's a very rare disease.

Chris Cochran: It's called cholangiocarcinoma. Bile duct cancer, for those in layman terms. And so he understood his path. And honestly, when he got this diagnosis, as parents, we said, Christian, we're so sorry you've got this. You can imagine. And Christian said, it's okay. He said, I wouldn't want anyone else to have this. I want this burden to be mine.

Chris Cochran: And from that moment, he got that diagnosis, not one time, not a single time, from the moment he got the diagnosis till he took his last breath with us around him at the house, did he complain? He never said what was me. He never said, why me? Yet he flourished. He got a job, you know, a remote job. He made music. He just continued to thrive as an example, to show us. And the book is inspired by his words, because his mother and I, when we would cry, we would get depressed and down. He would say. He'd say, look, what's good about today? And he would remind us that there is beauty.

Chris Cochran: There are extraordinary things you can do in a day that brings absolute beauty to every single moment. And so he looked at that, you know, and it could be the simplest acts, you know, whether it was a laugh, it was the sun shining on him, the birds chirping, you just being with his family, being with his friends to talk. Christian saw that very differently, and so that's what I wanted to capture in this book. I'm simply the guy telling the story. But it's inspired by Christian, and because he lived a purposely driven life, and I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned from that.

Mike Capuzzi: So, Chris, when your son received this diagnosis, how old was he?

Chris Cochran: Christian was 22. He had just graduated from college. He had come home, and he was ready to start his life as a young adult. He had a lot going for him. He was an actor. He's been in movies, and he's done different things, and so he's ready to take off. So at 22, he received this diagnosis, and he passed away September 1 of 2021. So about a year that we were able to keep him with us.

Mike Capuzzi: Chris is a father. I mean, everyone listening to this, who's a parent? It doesn't even matter if a parent or not. But I just, you know, I know you've heard it all, probably ad nauseam, but it's just you're speechless when anyone thinks about what you've gone through. And just out of curiosity, what was he experiencing? Symptoms that drove, obviously, you went to the doctor, like, if you don't mind, like, what was happening? He was obviously, you know, day to day normal life, or so you thought. But what was he experiencing that drove you to the doctor's appointment back in August of 2020?

Chris Cochran: Yeah. So, you know, in the Christmas, around Christmas time of that year, we went on a Christmas. We went on a vacation to Grand Canyon family trip. We'd love to be together as a family. I have two other children, uh, just younger than Christian, and he felt great. Things were fantastic. And I'd say a few months after that, as we were rolling into spring, he started to have symptoms in his back pain, and we treated it as such. We took him to doctors.

Chris Cochran: There was nothing abnormal here. He's a healthy boy. He looked great. Uh, he was doing all the normal activities, and he never. We never got a sense there was a problem. We did physical therapy. It was only until the pain got incredibly horrible, at a point where just. It became unbearable that you go get blood tests and CT scans, and that's when sort of this journey took a different direction.

Chris Cochran: So for him, it was a very painful situation. In the end, he had a grapefruit sized tumor on his liver. He was stage four at this point. And with cholangiocarcinoma, there is no, uh, it usually comes in stage four. It's not something you can find or locate. It just sneaks up on you at the last minute. And that's what it did here. And it caught, obviously, him off guard and us.

Chris Cochran: But in a way, I think Christian kind of knew, I don’t know why. He had a lot of foresight and understanding and understood the world very differently. So that’s why he never reacted any which way, other than very positively about his circumstances, which is incredibly amazing to think that someone can be so positive under those kind of circumstances.

Mike Capuzzi: Well, I saw pictures of him on, on your website, and he was a great looking young guy.

Chris Cochran: Yeah. Thank you.

Mike Capuzzi: And I looked at it, and I even paused because he was such a vibrant looking young man. To have been hit like this with this, you know, just awful thing. It's just, it's just, it's so, so 2021 is when he passed.

Chris Cochran: Yes.

Mike Capuzzi: You started your nonprofit. I want to talk about that. You also, at some point, if you don't mind, because we've had other guests, Chris, on this podcast, who have experienced similar trauma, and part of their process of dealing with it was writing a book, much like you did a testimony to the person. When did you realize you wanted to write this book?

Chris Cochran: About a year and a half ago. I felt that nudge, and it was really Christian nudging me. Excuse me? Yeah, Christian nudging me, telling me to. It's not so much the writing of the book. I think there's, you know, the book is about finding joy in the most difficult circumstances, and I knew that Christian wanted that to be the message. Right? Yes. Obviously, when you hear this, and I hear it in your words, and certainly as a parent, anyone who's listening to even imagine this, you can't imagine it, right, until it actually happens. I've been on the other side.

Chris Cochran: Right. But when it happens, your world is turned upside down. But I think for me, yes, it was cathartic. It's definitely part of the process. But really, it's not so much about me. I always think of myself. Christian was an actor, so I always think as the guy is in the background watching my son is the actor telling the story. And Christianity, that's what I wanted to bring to life.

Chris Cochran: I wanted people to know him. Obviously, that was what the book is intended to do, but I wanted them to have takeaways because so much of the world is suffering so much. People are dealing with grief. Right. And people deal with it in different ways, but there's all kinds of problems we have in our world, people are going through divorce. I know that doesn't measure up to losing a child. They lose their parents. But they need outlets to be able to have a discussion about that and an opportunity to hear from other people who have been through the worst of things.

Chris Cochran: Right, right. And I detail that in the book. I talk about that slow process. Right. It's a difficult thing to watch this. As you mentioned, he's such a beautiful soul. He's gorgeous. And to watch that person debilitate with cancer, it's very difficult to watch, especially your beautiful son.

Chris Cochran: So it's something that I felt that nudge. And I started journaling. I journaled all the way through Christian’s sickness. So it was an opportunity for me to go back, which was difficult, obviously, you got to read back through these journals. These are how I felt emotions at the time and tried to put that into some cohesive manner that I could put out to the world that made sense, that people could take away in a positive light the one thing I did not want to do, and Christian told me this, is do not write a book that bums people out. Right. And that's not what I wanted to do. It certainly takes you on a journey, but it is about showing the positivity and the things you can do in everyday life.

Mike Capuzzi: Have heard a similar story from others that I've interviewed. And again, it's always been about, like you said, it's never been about the act of writing the book. Yes, writing the book is part of that process of healing, but it's also the testimony to the person. I've got to believe, Chris, again, as a, I'm a father of two daughters that just graduated college, I've got to believe, and I'm sure your other two kids have, I'm sure have read the book. But if not, I mean, that book has got to be a gift to those kids, too, like to your other kids. I mean, what Christian went through, there's such impact because the reason I share that is because we all, and you know this, again, we all get so caught up, right? And all this b's stuff, this bf to day stuff, right, that we all think is important. And, you know, I'm sitting here as you're talking thinking, well, geez, you know, just simple little things that we put off, we don't do. We hold grudges, you know, that whole spiel.

Mike Capuzzi: And I just have to believe. Your book is a powerful reminder about really what's important and how to, you know, like I said, fine, I love the title. What's good about today, right. Because there is always something good, correct?

Chris Cochran: Absolutely. That's the point. And you hit the nail on the head. Right. I know you. You have two daughters and same age as my kids, right? We're the same. And I think it's important to realize, and I say this is, I say this when I do, you know, speeches. Imagine waking every day and saying, what's good about today? And then being told you have a terminal diagnosis.

Chris Cochran: You know, like, I'm not sure I have the strength to do that. But yet he did. And so I think there are many things that people can learn. Right. A lot of my life and a lot of people's lives, we work from our neck up. We think with our head, right. It's business decision. And look, you have to do that.

Chris Cochran: I mean, there's financial decisions you have to make. There's important things you got to do with that. But I lean a lot on the heart when I make decisions now, especially after sort of pre cancer and after cancer. And so I believe that when you lean in with your heart on these decisions, it benefits you in the long run. Right. Because that's about leading that purposely driven life. If you lead your whole life with your head and how you're going to do things, it's just, it's not healthy. Not healthy for you.

Chris Cochran: It's not healthy for those who are around you. So I do think it's important to recognize the beauty in each single day, you know? And that means whether it's in the beginning of the day, setting an example of saying, hey, what's beautiful about today that I'm going to do, and you go do it, and then at the end of the day, saying, what's, what's good about today? All those things can really help you, bring you back into what everybody talks about, talk about gratitude. But being in the present, right, that is. That is key. Um, to be in the present, this.

Mike Capuzzi: Is so new to you, even though it's still measured in years, it's just a few years.

Chris Cochran: Right?

Mike Capuzzi: And what I find challenging as a father, as a husband, as a man, is stories like this always sort of reground us, recenter us. This is important. And yet life gets in the way, normalcy gets in the way, complacency gets in the way. Have you figured out, Chris, like you said, pre cancer, and now, like, have you figured out that key of, like, how do you make this a true, lifelong commitment to saying, I'm going to be different?

Chris Cochran: Yeah. Wow. Well, first off, it's very hard. And, you know, I meet everyone and I hear different stories and. But I always. I do something I think is really important for my daily journey, and how do I get through this life, right? And how do I do it? Make a positive impact? Part of that is just saying I'm really not in control. I thought I was in control. I thought many of us think we're in control of things.

Chris Cochran: We can control how much money we make. We can control what car we're going to buy and all these different things. But the truth is, you're really not in control. The more I was able to release that part of my body and say, Chris, listen, you're not in control. God's in control, the ultimate person. And I have to be the one to take those signals and move forward. And so I think by releasing that, it's helped me to do things. It's allowed me.

Chris Cochran: It's not to say that it wasn't easy. It's not easy for anybody. But I think that's what pushes me forward and I think can push anyone forward. But it's hard to look at every day sometimes and with all the minutia. But I certainly don't look at it like that. I take one day at a time, literally. I used to be this guy who thought, so far out the future, you know, but I don't look too much in the past, you know, but I look at what can I do today to make a difference in other people's lives. Right.

Chris Cochran: It's not so much about me. How do I make an impact for others? And I think when you do that, it's fulfilling. It is the point of a purpose driven life. I think that's the reason we're all here. And I try to, and I think that's the book. One of the things the book does is every chapter has takeaways. And so you're able to go to those chapters, go to the end of the chapter. You can see takeaways from each chapter that Christian brought to light about the book.

Mike Capuzzi: And I typically ask this question, but I wanted to keep this conversation pretty organic. Do I have to be going through a life challenge like you've gone through in order to want to read this book, Chris? Or essentially, what I usually typically ask is, who did you write the book for?

Chris Cochran: Yeah, I hope not. Right. I don't want it to be that reason for it. That's not the purpose of the book. The truth is, much of the reason for writing the book is to make those who don't know this feeling, know the feeling to some degree, right. I want them to know that there are, I'm not the only one. There are people that suffer from worse things in this world, but that I think the book can help those who are not going through. Look, grief is a universal thing we're all going to go through regardless.

Chris Cochran: It's just what, you know, how many degrees of that for yourself? But I think the book is meant for those who seem to have this perfect life but recognize you have it, you know, recognize that you're in the present. Things are good and capture those moments. Don't lose them. Don't lose sight of those things. And so that I think the book, in many ways, yes, it's for those who are seeking knowledge about grief and how to navigate that, but it's also for those who haven't experienced significant grief. So the book is for everybody. It's really a broad spectrum who can help. And honestly, I speak to businesses a lot who have employees who are trying to motivate them or try to get students.

Chris Cochran: That's my biggest thing right now is I work with a lot of students, and I'm working with school districts who we're implementing this message. Kids are coming to school. I can't believe the stories I hear of kids who are homeless who are going to school, and they've lost hope. And so I think when you can narrow it down to a simple message, right. What's good about today? You can. It's simple. But if you ask yourself for that, you can truly garner up a lot of good things that's purposeful for your day and what you're trying to achieve.

Mike Capuzzi: I love it, Chris. I love it. Chris, if you wouldn't mind, briefly tell me about your nonprofit that you started.

Chris Cochran: So the nonprofit is called the Christian Cochrane Legacy Fund. It's through the Pittsburgh foundation. So it's managed by an outside company. It's been around for a very, very long time, very reputable. And this was actually started while Christian was alive. Towards the end of his life, he asked us to do it. He wanted to start a foundation that held on to the things that were important to him. And those are things like taking care of the less fortunate, taking care of after school programs for kids in underprivileged areas.

Chris Cochran: And so we do scholarships. We, like I said, do after school programs. I do speaking engagements with students depending upon the age levels, but usually it's teenagers and above. But that is meant to drive a Christian loved animals. So we do a lot of in giving back to animals in shelters. So we'll do different things that are at the behest of what Christian wanted us to do. So he wanted us to do these things prior to his passing, which we talked about. It's not exactly the thing I wanted to talk about with my 22 year old son.

Chris Cochran: We had other plans, but things got in the way on this one. Um, we. We came up with an idea of how to help others, and that's what we drive.

Mike Capuzzi: What a testimony. What a powerful testimony. And is the book is. Is. I'm sure there's a description about this organization, the fund. In the book. In your book.

Chris Cochran: Yeah, it is. I think it's towards the end, of course, to highlight some of the. The works that we are doing, you know, going forward. Right. You hear this whole story. You got a whole story. You got everything there. But it's all about action, right? We can talk about a lot of things.

Chris Cochran: We can. We can say we're going to do a lot of things, but that's also part of the book, was to make sure that it gives action to folks to go out and do different things, to make an impact in the world, because we all can. Right? And we've heard this before. The ripple effect is strong. You can affect one person. You can affect a lot. So I keep that in mind, and I think others can do the exact same thing, and that's what we try to do.

Mike Capuzzi: Well, you're leading me perfectly into my last question, Chris, which, again, being so new, literally measured in days being published. But the author factor is about that ripple effect. It's about the impact of writing a book, a non fiction book, whether it's part of a cathartic process, whether it's to teach somebody something. I'm interested. You could take it wherever you want to go with this. You know, what has it meant to you or to the legacy of your son or to the impact on others? What has it meant to be to have gone through this journey of writing and publishing this book?

Chris Cochran: Wow. Well, it's a journey, that's for sure. It's been full of highs and lows. The whole process of putting the book together is a journey in and of itself, as you said that earlier, and it's not done without in a vacuum. Right. I have to. My journey was talking to a lot of people, connecting the dots. There are things I knew about my son.

Chris Cochran: I knew how good he was. I knew he was kind and he was gentle and he was caring for others. He was funny. Oh, my gosh, he was incredibly funny. Incredibly funny. And he never took life too seriously. Right. But I think that it's meant the world to me that I've gotten to connect with so many people that otherwise I wouldn't, look, would I not rather be doing this podcast? I would rather not.

Chris Cochran: I would rather not have written a book. I'm sure my life would look a lot different with my kids, but that is not where I'm at today. And I've embraced a. I have to embrace that. I have to embrace what's been given to me. And so it means. It means a lot to be able to share Christian story. I want people to know him.

Chris Cochran: You know, I beam. I still talk about him in the present. Right. He's still here. So, you know, he was an actor. He was always the lead in every musical. This was the kid who was leading every musical, every play at a very large school. He's been nominated for different awards, and he's been in a major motion pitcher.

Chris Cochran: He is. And I can hear him on my shoulder saying, dad, stop. Because he was very humbled. But, you know, I loved watching him, just not when he performed, but how he interacted with people and he could interact with everybody and have a wonderful conversation. He was so present with every single person he spoke with. And I've learned, you know, that's so important that when you're with somebody and you're talking to somebody that your kids, your wife, your family, your friends and just a stranger, I remain present in that moment fully, and I do not lose sight of that, because I know one thing, you and I are only guaranteed the moment we have with each other right now, when we get off the air and things are done and we go about our lives, nothing's guaranteed. So I don't take that for granted.

Mike Capuzzi: Powerful insights, Chris. And again, I truly appreciate you sharing them with my audience. With me, where is the best place our listeners can get your book and learn more about your son?

Chris Cochran: Thank you, Michael. The book can be found on Amazon. What's good about today? A purpose driven life. It's available globally. It was on pre order for a month. It's been very busy. It's been a tremendous thing that I've seen. And so it's available on Amazon.

Chris Cochran: It's available at Barnes and Noble. It's available probably major. Any major outlet online? Maybe in the stores, you know, sometimes as it varies with the whole book thing, you know, kind of honestly, it's a little crazy, but how it all works, and I'm sure that's a whole other topic to talk about. But, yeah, they can, they can get it there. They can also find information on my song, christiancochran.org, which is just a website to talk about Christian and all the joy he brought and all the messages you'll see of what he did then. Chris Cochranspeaks.com is me, and I speak and I go out and I do sessions with different organizations and different groups. And so you can get the book at those locations anywhere.

Mike Capuzzi: Very good. Well, Chris, I do appreciate your time today. And, you know, your book is going to make a big impact on a lot of different people, ways you'll never know and or imagine. But I do appreciate you sharing today.

Chris Cochran: Thank you, Michael. It's been a pleasure being with you. And you are absolutely what's good about today. So thank you.