How Hope and Humor Can Transform Your Next Chapter

How do you move forward when life takes an unexpected turn?

Just one month after retiring from a 43-year career as a pastor, Dr. Brad Miller received a life-changing prostate cancer diagnosis. Instead of allowing fear to define his future, he made a different decision—one rooted in hope, humor, and purpose.

In this inspiring conversation, Scott and Brad explore how major life transitions, whether retirement, illness, or unexpected setbacks, can become the beginning of an entirely new chapter. Brad shares how laughter became part of his healing journey, why purpose matters more than ever after 60, and the practical mindset shifts that helped him move from surviving to truly living.

Whether you're preparing for retirement, navigating a health challenge, or simply wondering what comes next, this episode is a powerful reminder that your story is far from over.

In this episode:

• How a prostate cancer diagnosis became the catalyst for a new purpose
• Why humor can be a powerful tool for resilience and healing
• The surprising lesson Brad learned from his granddaughters
• How retirement can become the beginning of a meaningful new chapter
• Why loneliness and loss of identity affect so many retirees
• Brad's ACTS framework for living with purpose:
  • Action
  • Connection
  • Thinking intentionally
  • Serving others
• How to create a personal legacy instead of simply passing time
• Why it's never too late to reinvent yourself

Connect with Dr. Brad Miller

Visit Brad's website to learn more about his work, listen to the Cancer and Comedy Podcast, and explore his resources on hope, humor, and purposeful living:

www.cancerandcomedy.com

Connect with MindSwitch

Visit mindswitch.ca to access resources, events, and tools designed to help you create a meaningful work-optional life.

Transcript

Scott (00:03)

Welcome to Retire and Aspire. My name's Scott Armstrong, but as usual, that's not the important thing today. You see, every once in a while I get to meet somebody, and I don't know where to begin the conversation because the gentleman we have joining us today, Dr. Brad Miller, has so many interesting things to talk about and has led such an extraordinary life. But Brad, I'm gonna ask you to to start us off with this one. Brad

combined his next phase purpose, or at least part of that, with a cancer diagnosis and interjected this strange thing called comedy into it. How did that come to be, Brad? And welcome to Retire and Aspire.

Brad Miller (00:46)

Well, first of all, Scott, I just want to thank you for letting me be a part of your world here to retire and aspire. And I love your message about how retirement's not the end of a story. It's aspirational to something greater. And I I love that message I had a shift in my mind set. a few years ago a month after I retired,

as a Christian pastor. I was flagged for cancer and pretty serious prostate cancer, life-threatening cancer. Basically the doc said if I didn't do something about it, pretty serious. I'd had maybe three or four years to live, and that was about three and a half years ago. So I'm still here to to talk about it. But my initial reaction to kind of get to your question about the connection between cancer and comedy, my first response

was a nervous laugh and I call it a laugh to keep from crying.

I like to call the the teaching idea of corporate organism, which is something that comes from within. But I kinda went into a bit of a tailspin then from ⁓ from that laughing moment there, which was nervous and in denial, and kinda went the tailspin of depression. This was around Christmas time of twenty twenty two, and I had ⁓ just a bad time for a week or two there. Then I finally ⁓ got together

at Christmas time with my two granddaughters, and we landed at a McDonald's to ⁓ have happy meals and such and I said something funny and they started giggling, had a giggle fit, as it were, and they got around got everybody in the whole McDonald's restaurant laughing and giggling and Christmas music playing all kind of stuff. And I realized this was infectious and I kinda had a moment when I thought, okay

I'm not gonna be the grumpy old man 'cause of what I was. I was in my funk of my ⁓ depression about my cancer. And I'm going to see these two little girls who were five and two at the time, I wanna see them grow up to be young women and

You know, go on to high school and college, get married, whatever they're gonna do, I wanna see them. And so that meant I need to do whatever I need to do to not only take care of my physical health, moreover, take care of my attitude, and they they kinda helped me because they start calling me the funny grandpa because I was making them laugh by doing silly stuff with french fries and what have

Scott (02:51)

And I I want to hear about the evolution of the humor. but you did something that a lot of people ignore, can't access, get to, which is when you're given something that changes your life, right? And I I just I can't imagine what it was like receiving that phone call. Some of us give up. Some of us just ⁓ cast our our fate to the wind. Yet you took control of that.

Brad Miller (03:03)

Yeah.

Hm. Yes.

Scott (03:15)

I'm wondering what gave you the breadth of vision to see that there was a way out of this?

Brad Miller (03:22)

Well, two things. That moment with my grandchildren in the McDonalds was kind of a turning point thing, but admitted I do something about it.

if it was gonna be the fun grandpa and live to see them graduate college and so on, then I had to do something about it, both my physical health and my mental health and my emotional health. And so For one place I turned and in my personal study of scriptures, I ended up in Proverbs 1722, where it says, ⁓ a cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. And so my spirit had been crushed by this news, but what the Bible

Said was a cheerful heart is good medicine. So I took that to heart, that part there. I took the advice of my wife to heart, which her advice was to kind of you gotta snap out of this, you got to get on with your life. Then I also took the advice of some friends who'd gone through prostate cancer as well, and well how they had managed things. And so I took relationships with other people, my spiritual relationships, my relationship with my wife, and kind of a motivating factor. my granddaughter is there.

all those came to mind. And then the pathway to doing that was podcasting and I always had a love for comedy. I'd use

Telling dumb dad jokes and whatnot in the family and in my sermons and what have you. And I knew that was a way to communicate with people. Then I started to study a little bit more something called therapeutic humor, which found out that humor and laughter have actual ⁓ physical therapeutic aspects to it. And I started leaning into that. And now I'm writing a book about all this kind of stuff, and then ⁓ speaking in various groups about the power of combining ⁓ your emotional life, your spiritual life, and humor.

healing cancer with hope and humor.

Scott (05:00)

Brad, w were you were you a funny guy before all this? Were you the funny pastor, or is this sort of a new immersion?

Brad Miller (05:04)

Well so well ca

I always incorporated humor in my talks and my sermons and in just interactions with people. Now I would also say I was careful

pretty careful and in most cases successful to not use humor as a point of of ridicule or pain and that kind of thing. and just use it as kind of a lubricant in conversations or to break down barriers in a talk. You know, I found that when I was given a sermon or a talk, if I could do something a little bit funny, especially in the first few moments, that kind of broke down some barriers that way I could then get on

to some of the significant points that I wanted to teach about, and then kind of wrap it up. My basic way of talking would be to wrap it up with some sort of a storytelling, whether it's a humorous or not, but at least a powerful message in that, in order to get the point across. But humor, I have found, is one of the ways that gets people to break down some barriers. And I also see this as, you know, we live a kind of in a world of loneliness and pain and depression and things like this. And that's one way to speak through that.

Yeah, as long as you're kind of mindful and careful about it.

Scott (06:14)

And it is a a very powerful tool. And I'm gonna ask you the in the next question in a second is which is, you know, how did it manifest in your life and have you done stand-up comedy and and those kinds of things? as I think about it, humor can help take people back up to a healthy normal, way to go forward. But it's also a great way, especially when you ⁓ go to work optional life and you lose your

network of your people that you know with and and as a way to introduce yourself you know and in that subtle way if you have a sense of humor i always think it's sort of like that person's not on auto speak you know they're actually thinking about stuff so you know going upwards and and a way of connecting i was at an AGM back in Ontario with a bunch of ⁓ young hockey players professional hockey players who were 40 years younger than I was and

Brad Miller (06:41)

Yes, yes.

Hm. Yeah. Right.

Scott (07:04)

You know, I'm I'm not the humorous grandpa yet I want to be someday. how do you connect with these people? And you know, all of a sudden a a couple of ⁓ of of smiles and jokes and these guys who were looking at this, God, this guy's older than my father, they were willing to connect with us. So in your experience now, I know when you're in your sermons, I've heard you use humor. have you taken it to

Brad Miller (07:08)

Ha ha

Hmm.

Scott (07:26)

to stage or other places ⁓

Brad Miller (07:28)

Yes,

indeed I have in fact four things that this you talk about kind of transitions or things you do kind of in this ⁓ w I forget what you call it, the the job optional stage of life. What what do you work optional? ⁓ work optional. And some people call it kind of the third third of life and things of this nature. And ⁓

Scott (07:38)

Very close. Yeah, work optional, but we'll use job optional today. Yeah.

Brad Miller (07:48)

I have found ⁓ the people I encountered in my ministry, many of them who I was privileged to be with people who had, you know, various health issues and so on over the years, and many of them ⁓ taught me to have a good attitude and sometimes humor involved, but at least a positive attitude about their situation, even if they were, you know, near death or whatever the point would be. So I learned a lot from them. I also learned a lot that ⁓ humor can help you once in a while to kind of take a risk with somebody to go go with that individually.

And I also taught myself then in this process, you know, why don't I just do some things with this out of my own comfort zone? You know, I kind of was in the church world and things like that. So I just ventured out into other worlds. Podcasting being one of them, I have a podcast called Cancer and Comedy.

Scott (08:31)

Dr. Brad Miller, is an award winning podcast. And did you not win an award as the best podcaster for somebody in the fifty plus range? I won't dive into your age further than that, but

Brad Miller (08:41)

I don't mind saying I'll be sixty-eight in about three weeks here. ⁓ and so but I won an award a year or so ago for top fifty over fifty podcasters. And then a couple of years ago I I won an award for one of the better faith-based humor podcasts that was around. and so I'm happy about that. But the thing I'm most happy about is I was able to take some risk myself, and ⁓ about three or four occasions I kind of checked off a bucket list and I

I did some stand up comedy for three or four minute sets

Scott (09:12)

I still have to I still have to up it to to do that type of thing.

Brad Miller (09:16)

I think I forget you told did you tell me you'd tried that as well? Have you

Scott (09:19)

I did improv

comedy, which I h hid behind the the group in the collective. You you put it out there on stage, man.

Brad Miller (09:23)

Right.

I

did not do improv. I've been thinking about that a little bit. I've been thinking about taking a class on that here in one of my local places here. But anyhow, a I took a class at at a podcasting event. They offered a track on comedy, And the culmination of that was to do a three minute comedy stand-up routine for a group of about a hundred or so people who were in this class and some other people came in.

And I tell you what, you know, I've been a pastor for 43 years. I've spoken for groups of thousands of people and you know, some pretty big events and so on.

But I was probably more nervous doing that three minutes than almost anything I've ever done. and I and I've done it three or four times. No, every time I've been pretty nervous about it, but and that's not usually my vibe to get nervous because I try to prepare hard, But in this case, you're looking to connect it right away. And fortunately I did not get booed off the stage and the people were very receptive. And I decided

Scott (10:14)

Yeah.

Brad Miller (10:17)

to really take a risk. You know, my cancer I was dealing with with prostrate cancer, which means it has all kinds of ramifications with it regarding continence and impotence and all kinds of stuff. And I leaned in I leaned into that for my content. And so I I don't know, I guess I'm a glutton for a punishment, but people received it well the first time I did it. I've done it a few other times since then and ⁓ enjoyed it a lot. And one of the reasons I'm thinking about taking this improv class here locally is because I'm

Scott (10:25)

Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Miller (10:43)

Got the urge and the itch to see what I what's next in that area.

Scott (10:47)

Is there a chance for us including me because I'd love to see what she does it on YouTube or anything like that?

Brad Miller (10:53)

I put them on on my cancer and comedy dot com YouTube page, but I'll I'll give you a direct link later on.

Scott (10:53)

⁓

Okay,

we'll we'll put it in the show notes here. So if you're interested, yeah, Brad ⁓ he he's a man who has a wide breadth. He could be a Shakespearean actor, I have a feel, and we'll talk about incontinence and impotence on the other end of things. That's that's quite the spectrum. Hey, you're listening to the Retire and Aspire podcast. I'm with Dr. Brad Miller today. ⁓ after break, we're gonna talk about some of the more challenging obstacles that Brad through his pastor work and and connectivity has seen folks in their next phase of life.

Brad Miller (11:11)

Ha ha ha.

Scott (11:28)

And then we're going to finish off with what's up for this guy, because he just ain't slowing

Scott (12:10)

Welcome back to Retire and Aspire. I'm Scott Armstrong, and ⁓ we're having a delicious conversation with Dr. Brad Miller. And it's funny, on break, we had our producer come in, Yesse, who's in LA. And Yesse, it's fair to say he's a few years younger than us. Is that fair? Fair Brad, we were talking about improv comedy and and the the challenges of that. And and it was reminded when I was taking it,

Brad Miller (12:24)

⁓ I I don't I'm not sure she is, but way younger than me, I'll put it that way.

Scott (12:35)

lot of times when we get older, we let our brains escape rapid fire environments. We just don't tend to do it well. And that's one of the beautiful things about improv comedy because the one rule in improv comedy is when you're given an a line or a situation, the one thing you can't say is no. You have to go and go with it. And it forces your brain to do things. ⁓ let's let's talk about your work as

Brad Miller (12:39)

Mm.

Scott (12:59)

a pastor and and whether you have a story or two, but a lot of folks there's a lot of transitions in life. but a lot of them the common one we get often is when we choose to leave our careers. What obstacles do you see in this sort of age range that are constantly coming up that are people are having a tough time getting through?

Brad Miller (13:18)

Well, I I'm glad you mentioned this 'cause this is where a big part of my heart is at, Scott, is for people generally in the sixty plus range who are kinda a little bit lost. there's an epidemic of loneliness out there, I think, among all people, but

A lot of people put their identity in whatever their career is or their marriage or their raising their kids, things like that, first and second phases of life. In the third phase, they're kind of a little bit lost. And the only thing I knew when I was getting ready to retire, the year or two before that,

is I wasn't gonna sit around and watch the prices right all day and that kind of thing. It was yeah, I was gonna do something. But it's finding a direction to go.

I knew I didn't want to stay in pastoral ministry, but I knew I wanted to kind of stay something that's a little bit faith-based. I knew I wanted to stay in something communication-based. And I had been in podcasting for a while, and I thought that was going to be a a way. But I did not have any idea that I believe the God kind of minded for me to lean into this cancer thing. And so I ended up doing, I mentioned about how I've done stand-up comedy a few times. I've also done a cancer ⁓ comedy event, which was a fundraiser for cancer, where I brought in comedians and kind of was the you know the host of all that.

That and I got another one coming up this fall. So I've done those types of things. Lean into that. The idea is to find a direction to go that gives you purpose and a sense of meaningfulness in life, because what is the opposite of that is the sense of meaninglessness in life. And when people have meaninglessness, they can fall off the ledge, and they that's when depression sets in and loneliness sets in. You can adjust your direction, but to get a direction. And what I teach and I do, I simply call this the action stage.

Got to do something. You know, I have a little process called the ACTS process, and the A stands for action. And that means do something. Get off your rear and do and do something. In my case, and when I had my cancer diagnosis, it was to start a new podcast. That's what I did. That was the action I took.

Scott (15:12)

I was gonna say it sounds like and I I may be you know putting on false parameters here, but having a strong ⁓ basis in faith, you have had a guidance and you know what it's been like to lean into a purpose that is satisfying, fulfilling. A lot of people go through life trading dollars, ⁓ money for time, ⁓ and then they get to this place purpose. ⁓ is purpose busy? purpose means I don't have to do anything.

What would your words be to to somebody who's coming from that kind of almost infertile ground when they get to this transition place?

Brad Miller (15:45)

Well, I also kinda go back to the situation I had with my granddaughters in that McGalls restaurant. I was in this funk and I was basically a grumpy old man. And being a pastor and getting older myself, I'd seen some people in my life

who I consider grumpy old men, grumpy old women, that I didn't want to be anything like those. And then my granddaughters called me the fun grandpa. And I said transition, okay, I've got to decide, I've got to have a mind shift that I'm going to be more like the fun grandpa than the grumpy old man here. So that's a decision that you make. That's one of the reasons I love the name of your of your company, Mind Switch, because I think in some ways it's almost that simple. You decide to do it and you go for it. And those people who've decided to do that in whatever realm of life,

made a decision to do something with their life greater than self are doing something great. Paul McCartney is in his 80s. Ringel Star is in his 80s. They're all still doing some cool stuff. Yet the life doesn't end when you turn 65. You know, you can turn the leverage up a little bit, just a good little different direction, but you got to have a direction to go, and you got to keep

Movement. That's the action step.

Scott (16:52)

And I the British have a great term and I use it a lot in the the retire and a spy world and it's caudal womping. And it means to meander purposefully in a vague direction. In other words, action. You're not sure where you're going to go, but when you hop onto that next stone, you'll probably see things that you didn't see from the previous stone. So momentum is a is a beautiful thing. ⁓ you're not stealing it from me. I'm quite sure somebody one one of the foundations of retire a spy, Brad, is called

Brad Miller (17:12)

I love that. I love that term. I'm gonna steal that one. There we go.

Ha ha ha.

Scott (17:21)

Living Legacy. And Living Legacy is simply this. It's a five words that you want people who are watching you live your next phase of life to use when they watch you. And so without putting you on the spot now, you don't have to give me five words, but if you were to use a couple of words that as you you know go from 68 to 69 and 70, that whether it be your kids or your grandkids or your faith-based community, when I go up to them and say, What do you think of Dr. Brad Miller?

Brad Miller (17:23)

Mm.

Scott (17:52)

How's he living his life? What what would you want them to see and say?

Brad Miller (17:56)

I got I got five words for you right away because it's really what I'm focusing a lot of my my work right now on. The book I'm writing is about these five words. Let me lay them on you here ⁓ r real quick and I hope they can serve your audience well. I already mentioned the first one, it's action. They aid to take action. You just gotta get off your rear end and do something. Even if it's taking a walk in the woods, you may just go in a circle for a while, but take some action. So I love that. Nothing happens if you sit on your rear end too long. And the second

Scott (18:06)

Okay.

Brad Miller (18:24)

The second word is connect. and I mentioned earlier about some of the faith-based things I've done. So I believe you've got to connect with a higher power spiritually, but you also got to connect with other people. That's kind of an emotional thing that you do, a relationship thing

that you do. It's connect. And that's again a purposeful intentional thing. So you got A for action, the C for connection.

The thinking part is the strategic part of this. It's using your brain, the cognitive part. So that's the third word is think. And the fourth word is serve. So who are you gonna serve with all this? And that has to do with the love part, that's the emotional part. In my case, I wanna serve people like your audience and help them to have a full and successful life to the end of their life.

and the fifth word is ⁓ is throws people off a little bit when I share it to them. It's pact, P A C T. That is, you got to make a promise to yourself. And I like to tell people to write it down. You know, I when it not too long after my cancer diagnosis, I wrote down a a pact to myself about my cancer diagnosis, about how it's gonna I how I was gonna choose to live my life.

I wrote that down, I signed off on it, I made a promise or a pact to myself and I read that about every day to keep me on track with all the other things.

Scott (19:36)

⁓ you brought up one thing that I I fully believe I

serving others that so often we go through our busy lives and we're worried about our small little world, whether it's just ourselves or our nuclear family, and and that we don't serve others in a greater space. And my ask of you is just if you've never been one, and this takes some really deep self-reflection, if you've never been one.

to think much beyond yourself or those immediate in your life and you don't think of the bigger world and community. How do you encourage others to look broader? Because it's not altruistic. I mean it feeds you beautifully, but how do you make that mind switch?

Brad Miller (20:19)

I love the way you

Put that in the mind switch because it is a mind switch. And then I'm going to throw in the word leverage here. I'm going to throw in the word leverage. And sometimes we have to use external leverage and sometimes internal leverage. The internal leverage is, you know, I've got cancer or I'm depressed or whatever it is. I know I got to do something to get going here. You know, I got to do something here. That's the internal depression, that kind of thing. The external leverage is what is the external impact of other people that impacts you that.

You may want to use yourself. In my case, for instance, I use my 50th high school reunion as leverage to lose some weight. You know, I just did. I used my time with my granddaughters when they were five and two years old in that McDonald's. And I said, you know, I want to see them when they're graduating high school and getting married. So the name of my book, for instance, is Dancing at My Granddaughter's Wedding. So I want to be there, have that vision there. So I use those as external and internal leverage points,

You've got to leverage them against the that which is eating you up.

Scott (21:20)

Fair enough. Brad, can I ask you, how's the cancer prognosis for yourself?

Brad Miller (21:24)

man, I thank you for asking so much. I just ⁓ you know, I'm I'm thankful and grateful

to to God that the my last checkup a couple months ago was show me cancer clear. my my prognosis is good and so I see now I have a greater mission then to spread this mission of living a full life to the end of your life and have a sense of purpose and direction in in your life.

And to apply the axe pact to your life, to everybody I can, including your audience, and helping people to have a full life. And the cancer and comedy part, you know, it's kind of cancer is the bad thing in life, and comedy is that joy that you can have, the joy of living there can be kind of two sides of your life, but you can lean into hope with humor, and that's what we like to say on the Cancer and Comedy Podcast.

Scott (22:07)

Very cool. We've got about sixty seconds left, Brad. there's no way you're done. You've got lots of stuff to do. In sixty seconds or less, can you just give us a teaser of what's still on your want to do, must do kind of list?

Brad Miller (22:20)

I've got a new book coming out probably in the later this year in about six months called Dancing at My Granddaughter's Wedding.

And then of course, every week we've got the Cancer Comedy podcast. We've talked to great people who've have ⁓ overcome their cancer with hope and humor to live a full and successful life.

Scott (22:38)

So fair enough. In terms of you, though you know, the next two or three years, those are gonna be your main focus? ⁓

Brad Miller (22:43)

Yeah, get once

I get the book out, I hope to be on a speaking tour But after the book comes out, I got more books in me about some several things in line with this here, courses and so on. So that's what I do. I'm gonna leverage whatever time I have left, be it a year or two or twenty-five years, whatever it is, and to do the best I can to serve other people.

People with love.

Scott (23:04)

that's fantastic. Hey, listen, would you come back and chat again sometime?

Brad Miller (23:08)

⁓

man, I would love it. I love your message, Scott. to retire and aspire. I love it.

Scott (23:11)

Okay. Okay.

Thank you. And in the show notes we'll put down where the resources that Brad has been offering to you. You've been listening to the Retire and Aspire podcast. thank you so much, Dr. Brad Miller, for joining us today. Go out there, everybody, and just remember at Mind Switch, Retire and Aspire, you're just getting started.