Detroit News Reprint

Cancer Survivor Offers Mix of Inspiration, Advice

Grosse Ile business guru now counsels CEOs

By Bill Vlasic / The Detroit News

ANN ARBOR -- Seven doctors filed into the tiny room at the University of Michigan Hospital, their heads held down as they approached the 18-year-old college sophomore lying in bed.

Until that moment in November 1978, Joe Caruso's only worry was how long the surgery to remove his swollen left testicle would keep him out of classes at Central Michigan University.

One doctor stepped forward. "Joe," he said. "You have incurable cancer and you're going to die."
A wave of nausea flooded Caruso. He had two types of testicular cancer, a four-inch tumor in his stomach, two tumors in his right lung, one in his left lung, and one in his lymph node.

The doctor continued. U-M, he said, was participating in an experimental chemotherapy program. The treatment could destroy a patient's lungs, liver and kidneys. Only 3 percent of the study group was expected to survive, but the research would be invaluable. Would Caruso volunteer?

"I don't think I have a right not to," Caruso said softly.
"If I don't, other people could die. I'm supposed to do this."

It was a decision that saved Caruso's life, and would impact the lives of countless others.

Twenty-three years after facing death, the cancer-stricken teen-ager has become a 41-year-old business guru who commands $5,500 a speech and counsels top CEOs from Detroit to Los Angeles. He's a self-made success in the self-help industry with four books to his credit, a syndicated newspaper column, and a daily program that debuts this month on Canada's biggest radio network.

"I've been called everything from motivational speaker to marketing expert to management consultant," Caruso said. "It doesn't make any difference. What I do for people is what matters."

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Three thousand graphic designers settled in their seats in the Bill Graham Auditorium in San Francisco June 13. The lights dimmed as a dapper man in a white sport coat strode on stage for the closing speech at the HOW magazine 2001 design conference.

Joe Caruso took a deep breath, then went to work. "Since the beginning of time, we've used art and design to represent meaning," Caruso began. "Your icons and images help us find meaning in our lives. And we are always looking for our meaning."

For the next hour, Caruso held the audience in thrall with his unique mix of inspiration and advice, a message he spreads 180 days a year at corporate seminars and conventions around the world.

While he operates the Caruso Leadership Institute out of his riverfront home on Grosse Ile, Caruso virtually lives on the road, speaking to groups ranging from sales reps to steelworkers. Charismatic and driven, he could be on the cusp of stardom in the multibillion-dollar motivational business.

His personal battle with cancer is part of every speech Caruso gives, but only as a means to grab his audience's attention. "I know the power of my story," he said. "It gives me the opportunity to reach people." His corporate clients say Caruso bridges the gap between business consulting and inspirational speaking.

"Joe is very impressive as a speaker and as a consultant," said Burl Adkins, chief executive of Global Technology Associates, a Lincoln Park-based engineering firm. "He has an unusual ability to understand people's feelings, to analyze their problems and come up with solutions."

Caruso earns a six-figure income and counts corporate giants such as United Airlines and American Express among his clients. Yet his own motivation seems to run deeper than wealth and fame. To hear him tell it, his success is a byproduct of an insatiable need to share the lessons of his own remarkable life.

"People ask me why I work so hard," he said. "It's because I know how to change lives, whether I'm talking to one person or 3,000 people."
It sounds like hype, but not to Mike Kargenian, a neighbor of Caruso's who underwent a quadruple-bypass heart operation last November. The surgery left him in constant pain from nerve damage in his shoulder, and the 66-year-old retired construction manager veered into a state of depression. Then Caruso began dropping by, sitting at Kargenian's bedside for hours, just talking. "He always wants to know what he can do to help you, and that's a very rare thing in this world," Kargenian said. "I don't know if I've ever met anyone quite like Joe."

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Caruso grew up in the gritty, Downriver city of Trenton, the second of four sons of Mickey and Ruth Caruso. His father, a cost estimator at Ford, was something of a local celebrity as a trumpet player who led a 1940s-style big band in area nightclubs on weekends. His four sons followed in his footsteps, forming their own top-40 cover band as teen-agers and playing weddings and school dances.

Caruso excelled as a student at Trenton High School, earning National Honor Society recognition and winning election as senior class president. A talented clarinet and saxophone player, he earned a music scholarship to Central Michigan. An engaging youth with a chiseled profile and toothy smile, Caruso was ambitious, cocky and bursting with personality.

Then, during the summer after his freshman year, his left testicle started to hurt. "Back in those days, you didn't talk about those kind of things with your family," he said. "I went back up to school in the fall, and it started hurting so bad I could hardly walk."

The testicle was surgically removed at Seaway Hospital in Trenton, and within a week he underwent the battery of tests at U-M. What Caruso thought was a minor health issue was nothing of the sort. His body was riddled with cancerous tumors, his prognosis so grave that he was a prime candidate for a national clinical study of an experimental chemotherapy treatment.

"Joe was one of the very first ones in the study," said Jeannie McDonough, a nurse involved in the program. "It was the first time we'd used these three drugs together."

On the night of Nov. 29, 1978, Caruso drifted off to sleep in his room at the U-M oncology unit, an IV in his arm dripping a mixture of three drugs -- cisplatinim, bleomycin and velban -- into his veins. He awoke a few hours later, a loud banging sound in his ears. "I couldn't figure out what was making all this noise," he said. "Then I realize I'm convulsing and shaking so hard that the metal headboard of the bed is slamming against the wall." A violent bout of vomiting and diarrhea followed, then resumed every 20 minutes for hours. By morning, Caruso's body was wracked with pain and chills. "I thought that from this point on, this is how my life is going to be," he said.

In the coming months, a grim routine was established. A night of chemotherapy, followed by a week of intensive examinations by U-M doctors, then three weeks at home recovering for the next treatment. His hair fell out in clumps. Chronic pain developed in his back and joints, and his weight dropped to 106 pounds.

He resigned himself to the inevitable. "I know I'm going to die," he said. "And I decided to commit myself to studying and learning what I'm going to be missing in life."

For five hours a day, Caruso read -- philosophy, religion, history. While life went on in the bustling Caruso household, he lay on the green-and-white, floral print couch in the living room, studying, thinking and praying.
After four months of chemotherapy, Caruso underwent surgery to remove the tumors in his stomach and lungs. Another six months of what his doctors termed "maintenance" chemotherapy followed. Weak, frail, and scarred from multiple surgeries, Caruso made a decision.
"Stop the maintenance," he told his doctor. "I can't do this anymore. If you tell me tomorrow that the cancer is back, I don't have the strength to fight it."
It didn't come back. After two years, Caruso's cancer was in remission. He walked out of U-M Hospital on an autumn day in 1980, and never looked back.

*** *** ***

"We're born alone and we die alone. And in the middle, if we're lucky, we find love."

The 300 people at the Holiday Inn in Southgate hang on Caruso's every word. For two hours he "tells stories" about his cancer, his family, his life, yet always circling back to his core message.

"We identify ourselves by how we think and feel about ourselves," he said. "Herein lies the challenge. These thoughts and feelings determine our actions, even the actions we want to change. Yet we can't make any lasting and dramatic changes to how we act without changing the way we feel about ourselves."

Caruso launched his motivational career in the late 1980s almost by accident. For a few years he toured the country with his brothers in their rock-and-roll band "Caruso." The group enjoyed spurts of success, cutting five records and opening for bigger acts including New Kids on the Block. But Caruso felt drawn in another direction.

"I loved the fun and camaraderie," he said. "But more and more I realized that I have something else to offer, that I have a feel for counseling people."

He started small -- working with disgruntled employees at a Downriver restaurant, giving speeches to local businesses, advising a friend who ran a marketing company. He wrote a column called Success Strategies for the Wyandotte News Herald, then had it picked up by a national syndicate.

The business blossomed as referrals poured in. Caruso began selling audio and video tapes of his speeches, and published four collections of his newspaper columns as books. He organized weekend inspirational retreats for small groups at the Grosse Ile home he shares with his wife, Carol. Several companies put Caruso on a monthly retainer as an organizational consultant.

Despite a breakneck schedule of speeches and seminars, Caruso is hungry for more.

"People ask me why I work so hard and I say it's because I'm lazy," he said with a grin. "Really, I'm just a guy who came out of no place who's trying to make a difference."

He's on the verge of breaking through the clutter of motivational speakers and gaining broader exposure. Later this month, his Cup of Joe daily radio spot kicks off on the Chum Radio Group, a network of stations reaching 240,000 listeners across Canada. He's also pitching his new book, The Power of Losing Control, to publishers in New York.

But as he crisscrosses the country advising clients and addressing crowds of people, Caruso can't escape his past. Sometimes he closes his eyes and visualizes the skinny, frightened kid in the hospital bed. "I used to stare out the window looking at the trees, wondering if I'd ever touch a tree again," he said. "I'll never forget that."

The memory is one reason why Caruso titled his favorite newspaper column Undeniable.
"I want to be the best," he said. "Why? I'm a dreamer. Why did I live through cancer? I don't know. My cancer experience is the worst thing that ever happened to me and the greatest gift I ever had. I don't know when or how I'll die. Until then, I'll bring all I am to all I do."