You’re Not Dead Yet Finding Purpose, Faith, and Resilience After Stage Four Cancer

✨ Episode Overview

In this episode of Who We Become — Life Beyond Change, Amanda Lentz sits down with Troy Frostad to explore resilience beyond performance, identity after diagnosis, caregiving, faith, and what happens when life forces you to confront your own mortality.

Troy is a certified executive and performance coach, a U.S. Air Force veteran, founder of Pinnacle Leadership, and a man who, five years ago, heard the words stage four colon cancer.

What followed was not only a fight for survival, but a complete transformation in how he understood strength, leadership, vulnerability, purpose, and what it truly means to keep going when life no longer looks recognizable.

Together, Amanda and Troy talk about the emotional reality of serious illness, the hidden burden caregivers carry, how resilience changes when survival becomes personal, and the way difficult experiences can uncover a deeper calling.

This conversation is for anyone navigating uncertainty, health challenges, grief, identity shifts, or seasons where life asks more of you than you ever expected to give.

👤 Meet Our Guest: Troy Frostad

Troy Frostad is a certified executive and performance coach, U.S. Air Force veteran, and founder of Pinnacle Leadership.

Before his cancer diagnosis, Troy spent more than 27 years in executive leadership roles, leading teams through high-pressure environments while building a career rooted in discipline, endurance, and performance.

But after being diagnosed with stage four colon cancer during the pandemic, Troy’s understanding of resilience fundamentally changed.

Today, through coaching, leadership development, and emotional resilience work, Troy helps others navigate adversity, identity shifts, emotional triggers, purpose discovery, and the “what next” moments that often follow life-altering change.

🔗 Website: Pinnacle Leadership
📷 LinkedIn: Troy Frostad on LinkedIn

🕒 Key Moments from the Conversation

00:00 — Introduction
Amanda introduces the deeper conversation around resilience, identity, illness, and becoming.

01:19 — Who Troy was before cancer
Troy reflects on his life as an executive leader, Air Force veteran, and someone who once defined resilience as endurance and discipline.

02:29 — What resilience meant before diagnosis
The conversation explores military culture, emotional suppression, and the belief that toughness meant pushing through no matter what.

03:44 — Missing early warning signs during COVID
Troy shares how delayed screenings during the pandemic contributed to his diagnosis and how quickly life changed afterward.

06:24 — Hearing the words “stage four”
A devastating moment that instantly shifted Troy’s understanding of mortality, identity, and survival.

07:57 — The overlooked reality caregivers face
Troy speaks candidly about the emotional burden his wife Kim carried throughout his treatment and recovery.

10:56 — The resilience caregivers often embody first
A powerful reflection on how caregiving requires strength, clarity, and endurance in ways many people never fully see.

13:36 — “Real resilience is not pretending everything is fine”
Troy explains how acknowledging fear and uncertainty ultimately made him stronger.

16:35 — Choosing to fight anyway
The mindset shift that helped Troy stop identifying himself as cancer and instead see cancer as something he was facing.

17:35 — Faith, mortality, and letting go of control
A conversation about spirituality, stoic philosophy, surrender, and learning to focus only on what can actually be controlled.

21:09 — How cancer changed Troy’s leadership coaching
Why emotional awareness, self-reflection, and understanding our reactions are critical parts of resilience.

26:25 — Living differently after surviving
Troy shares how gratitude, perspective, and purpose now shape how he approaches each day.

29:24 — From “what if” to “what next”
How surviving cancer led Troy toward helping others discover meaning and purpose after difficult life experiences.

Quotes That Stayed With Us

“Real resilience is not pretending everything is fine.” — Troy Frostad

“Cancer is something I have. It does not define who I am.” — Troy Frostad

“Pretending takes a lot of energy.” — Troy Frostad

“You’re not dead yet.” — Kim Frostad

The Version of Resilience We’re Taught — And the One We Eventually Learn

One of the most powerful themes throughout this conversation is the difference between performative resilience and honest resilience.

Before cancer, Troy believed resilience meant discipline, endurance, pushing forward, and never complaining. It was the version of strength reinforced through military culture, executive leadership, and achievement.

But serious illness dismantled that definition.

Because eventually, there comes a point where strength is no longer about appearing composed. It becomes about telling the truth.

About admitting fear.
About acknowledging uncertainty.
About facing mortality without pretending you’re unaffected by it.

Troy shares that one of the biggest shifts during treatment came when he stopped spending energy pretending everything was okay.

And in many ways, that honesty became its own form of resilience.

🤍 The Invisible Weight Caregivers Carry

Another deeply moving part of this conversation centers around caregiving and the emotional burden carried by spouses, partners, and families during illness.

Troy repeatedly acknowledges that while he had a treatment plan, his wife Kim was navigating uncertainty while simultaneously trying to hold everything together.

Managing appointments.
Supporting emotionally.
Holding hope.
Managing practical responsibilities.
Continuing life while quietly carrying fear.

It’s a perspective we rarely hear spoken aloud.

And yet for so many families, caregiving becomes its own survival experience.

This episode serves as an important reminder that resilience often exists not only in the person receiving care, but also in the people standing beside them every day.

💡 Survival Changes the Questions You Ask

One of the most profound ideas Troy shares is the transition from “What if?” to “What next?”

During illness, survival becomes the central focus.
What if treatment doesn’t work?
What if time runs out?
What if life never looks the same again?

But surviving introduces a completely different set of questions.

What now?
Why am I still here?
What do I do with this experience?
How do I live differently after facing death so directly?

For Troy, those questions ultimately became a calling.

Not simply to return to who he was before cancer — but to help others navigate emotional resilience, purpose, leadership, grief, and identity after difficult life transitions.

🤍 Why This Conversation Matters

There’s enormous cultural pressure to appear strong during hardship.

To stay positive.
To move quickly.
To “beat” adversity gracefully.

But this conversation offers something much more honest.

It reminds us that resilience is often messy.
That fear and gratitude can coexist.
That survival changes people.
And that sometimes the deepest growth comes from experiences we never would have chosen for ourselves.

Most importantly, it reminds us that even in life’s hardest seasons, there are still parts of ourselves that remain untouched:
faith, love, purpose, connection, and the decision to keep going.

📌 Resources & Mentions

🌐 Website: Pinnacle Leadership
📷 LinkedIn: Troy Frostad on LinkedIn

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