Ted Elliott of Copado: I Survived Cancer and Here Is How I Did It

Cancer is a horrible and terrifying disease. Yet millions of people have beaten the odds and beat cancer. Authority Magazine started a new series called “I Survived Cancer and Here Is How I Did It”. In this interview series, we are talking to cancer survivors to share their stories, in order to offer hope and provide strength to people who are being impacted by cancer today. As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ted Elliott.

Ted Elliott is the CEO of Copado, a startup Unicorn on a mission to make software release days obsolete. He has a track record as an entrepreneur in software and the life sciences. Ted is committed to working on projects that will have a positive impact.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! We really appreciate the courage it takes to publicly share your story. Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your background and your childhood backstory?

I grew up in San Francisco watching Silicon Valley scale as a center of innovation. I attended Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA where I studied history and the University of San Francisco School of Law where I studied Venture Capital, Securities and Intellectual Property. I worked full time as a recruiter in the biotech industry to pay my way through law school and served as General Counsel for a life science business focused on cancer therapies before starting Jobscience, a software company, focused on recruitment software I sold in 2018. Since 2018, I have been serving as the CEO of Copado.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“We control nothing, but we can influence anything.”

Since 2018, my wife has had a heart attack and stroke, my dad was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and I was diagnosed with an advanced rectal cancer. My family has come together through these health challenges and the COVID lockdown as a stronger unit. Copado has grown from 32 employees to more than 500 in the same time period. It has been possible to grow as a person because I am at peace understanding that I control nothing, but I can work every day to appreciate the time and people around me. I look for one thing each day to be grateful to experience.

Today, that experience is watching Copado continue to grow, which is from the efforts of so many people including our employees, customers, partners, investors, and industry leaders. Copado recently announced it raised $140 million in funding and it was a culmination of impressive work by so many people.

I look for ways to enable the people around me to look for a way to make the best of it. Ultimately we can laugh or cry at adversity, I really like to laugh.

Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about surviving cancer. Do you feel comfortable sharing with us the story surrounding how you found out that you had cancer?

I went to the doctor, at the behest of my 9 year old, after my wife had a heart attack. I was misdiagnosed as having fatty liver causing stomach issues. The reality was that a tumor was growing in my rectum. After a business trip, where it was obvious that I was losing blood in my stools, I decided to take a colorectal test home kit that had been sitting by my toilet for six months. I expected nothing, but was asked to have a colonoscopy where the gastroenterologist identified a 6 CM tumor in my rectum and a CT scan that found my lymph nodes in the pelvis had cancer. I was 47 and shocked.

What was the scariest part of that event? What did you think was the worst thing that could happen to you?

No one I called the first day told me I would be ok, they all told me I had a serious problem and I should get my affairs in order. I thought I was going to die, a friend of mine had just died of colon cancer in a matter of weeks, I was in shock.

How did you react in the short term?

I went for a long dog walk and cried. I kept looking for a sign that things would be ok, they were not ok. I decided to go compete in a sailboat race and came off the boat understanding I choose to live.

After the dust settled, what coping mechanisms did you use? What did you do to cope physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually?

Denial was my coping mechanism, I tricked myself into believing that I was just sick and used work to take my mind off my disease.

I did a lot of walking with my dog, walking was a way that I could do something to help my doctors treat me. Getting my body into the strongest position it could be came from 6000–10,000 steps a day depending on how I felt.

I also watched a video called Heal that stated our mind is a powerful weapon in managing our health. It argued that if you believed you could get well and you believed you could heal, then you could influence your health with the power of positive thinking.

I deduced that we were all going to die at some point, but at least I had the luxury of accounting for what I was here to do. I sought out a daily moment of great fullness — was there a blue sky, a great phone call, a happy dog? The smallest item could bring me a sense of gratefulness and appreciation for a bigger plan that was beyond my understanding.

Is there a particular person you are grateful towards who helped you learn to cope and heal? Can you share a story about that?

My wife. She dealt with me on days where I was a pain in the neck. The days when I felt awful and had a short fuse. She took me to my appointments, she listened to my doctors, she prayed for me. She never let me know I looked bad, my hair was thinning or ever let me know anything except I would be ok and make it. My unconditional fan was essential to making it.

In my own cancer struggle, I sometimes used the idea of embodiment to help me cope. Let’s take a minute to look at cancer from an embodiment perspective. If your cancer had a message for you, what do you think it would want or say?

I think the cancer was a f@;@$,ing monster out to beat me. Its message was “you control nothing.” My response was I respect that I am not in charge of the situation but I’m not going to let you define my life. The cancer forced me to evaluate who I am and why I am here and finally it brought me peace with living.

What did you learn about yourself from this very difficult experience? How has cancer shaped your worldview? What has it taught you that you might never have considered before? Can you please explain with a story or example?

Cancer is not a death sentence. How you get back up on the horse after you fall defines us. I learned what was already right in front of me but I had been blind to see, I have had a blessed life and I needed to make the most out of the people around me. If my time was up , it would have been a great ride. How could I use the extra time I was being given to make the most out of life. What was my journey and how could I contribute to the world? My thinking shifted to purpose. I decided that my first mission was to make it possible for software developers to go home for dinner with their families on release days, and make it so as many people as I could impact would have a better day at work. If I was going to get a bonus round in life, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t wasted.

How have you used your experience to bring goodness to the world?

I have influenced the creation of hundreds of jobs and I am hoping to help thousands of people find purpose in their work. If people like their jobs and feel they can be successful, this is the purpose of this stage of my journey.

What are a few of the biggest misconceptions and myths out there about fighting cancer that you would like to dispel?

The biggest misconception is: You are alone. Everywhere I turned, a friend, colleague, investor, partner and customer shared their health struggles and how they or their loved ones had been impacted by cancer. We are not alone. It sucks, but if you have cancer, you are part of a big ecosystem of fighters and survivors.

Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your experiences and knowledge, what advice would you give to others who have recently been diagnosed with cancer? What are your “5 Things You Need To Beat Cancer? Please share a story or example for each.

1. Speed up and don’t wait to see the best doctors you can visit. I am a big advocate of finding a center of excellence that specializes in your disease. If you can get to Mayo, MD Anderson or Sloan Kettering do not pass go. Go there as quickly as possible.
2. Talk to other people who have had cancer. Listen to their experience and what worked for them, if they are there totally to you, something is working.
3. Bring a listener to all your meetings with doctors. They should also take notes. It’s very hard to process conversations when you are in survival mode. Talk to your listener and see if you agree on what happened in your meetings and make sure you understand what your doctors are proposing.
4. Always go to medical records and get a copy of your MRI, PET scan, CAT scan or any other imaging. Create a binder with all your digital records, the cards of your doctors, and any information you are given. You need to always be aware of what images your doctors are looking at and comparing.
5. Be your own advocate. No one can advocate for you like you. At the same time, realize that your doctors treat people all the time. If they tell you to do something, listen, and respect that they are trying to save you.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be?

I would like people to take pictures of their poop and show them to their doctors. I don’t think most of us understand what blood looks like in your stool. When something looks wrong in the toilet, go see the doctor. Push to have a colonoscopy at a younger age, don’t wait for the age of 50. Take your mortality seriously.

If you get a cancer diagnosis, get a CAT scan as soon as possible to understand how much the disease has spread. Don’t accept days or weeks as an answer. I think anyone with a cancer diagnosis and the healthcare means should be able to get a scan within 24 hours to help them understand where things stand. I was told it would be 6–8 days so I went to the ER instead. Within 24 hours, I had a CAT scan. No one should have to do that.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)

Take a moment to figure out what you are grateful for today. If this helps anyone get perspective that will feed my journey. Actually, I’ll take that back, if Marc Benioff reads this, I’d like to thank him for creating an ecosystem at Salesforce where I have met and continue to meet so many people on a journey to build the future. Copado is my second business built on the Salesforce platform, so I think Marc deserves a thank you.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

LinkedIn is the best way to follow my adventure https://www.linkedin.com/in/tedelliott

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!