Who Shows Up

What cancer reveals about yourself, your people, and your organization.

I found it myself. A lump above my collarbone, on an ordinary day, when I felt completely fine.

Weeks later it had a name: Classic Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I manage risk for a living. I spend my career looking years out at what could go wrong, and I did not see this one coming. There was no plan on the shelf for it.

So I built one, and I started writing about it. The writing did the sorting. The same six sources kept showing up until I could see the shape of them, and people I'd never met told me it was their story too.

See the map
The Map

The map I wish someone had handed me.

If you're the one facing it, or you love someone who is, the first job is seeing your support clearly, fast. Who's carrying weight. Where the gaps are. What you can build even now, mid-crisis.

Six sources kept showing up, in roughly the same order, until I could finally name them. I called it F3C2M.

F

Faith

The foundation you build before you know you need it.

F

Family

Absorbing what someone you love can't carry alone.

F

Friends

The people who show up without being asked.

C

Coworkers

What covering quietly looks like, and what it costs.

C

Company

Culture against system, and who leadership really is at week 13.

M

Medical Staff

The team you build trust with under pressure.

And if you lead people, the same map reads back at you. Most companies say their people come first. Then week 13 arrives, protected leave runs out, and you find out what that sentence was actually worth.

When a crisis hits one of your people, who your organization is in that moment is already decided. It was decided long before the diagnosis.

Who
Shows
Up
JOSH CARLISLE
The Book

A leadership book with the bones of a memoir.

The crisis is mine. The map belongs to anyone walking the same road, and to anyone who leads people who might. The chapters open with the story and close with something you can act on by Monday. You feel the weight of the journey and you walk away with a list.

It stays off the inspiration-speak that sinks most books in this lane. Specific, structural, honest.

For the patient, and the people carrying it with them

Anyone facing a serious diagnosis, and the family holding the other end of it. A way to see your support system when the ground shifts, and to ask for what you need.

For the leader

Managers, HR and benefits leaders, and executives who will one day get the call that one of their people is sick. You'll know what to build before you need it.

Status: with the publisher. Out November 1, 2026. My email list sees the cover and the launch first.

Read chapter 1 free
Speaking

One talk, weighted for your room.

A 45 to 60 minute keynote, adaptable down to a 20-minute slot. The arc holds: the moment, the framework, the story through the pillars, the week-13 accountability moment, and what to build before you need it.

For HR & benefits

The 12-week cliff and extended leave. What your policy says about your values when the protected weeks run out.

For energy & safety

The EHS leader who managed risk for a living and got blindsided. Health, exposure, and the foundation you build in yourself.

For leadership

Culture against system. What the org chart can't tell you, and how people actually behaved when it counted.

Book Josh to speak
Josh Carlisle
About

Josh Carlisle

Josh leads EHS and Sustainability for an energy company, with more than 20 years in one of the most demanding, safety-driven industries there is. His job is risk: looking years out at what could go wrong and positioning the organization to be compliant and competitive at the same time.

He was diagnosed with Classic Hodgkin's Lymphoma in February 2026 and confirmed in complete remission that May, after 4 of 12 treatments. He finishes treatment in August. During it, he started writing the series this book grew from, and it found an audience of patients, caregivers, and people managers.

He writes the way he leads. Direct, structured, honest about what the work actually takes.

Follow the series on LinkedIn

Ring the bell.

Treatment ends August 28, and that's the day I ring the bell. The post that anchors all of this goes to my list first, along with everything else before the book lands November 1.