29. Corey Drayton: "Cancer Was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me"

Before he reached 40, Corey was told he had a 27% chance of surviving stage 4 prostate cancer. Up until this point, he had been pushing through grueling 15-hour days in the film industry, despite his body’s painful attempts to alert him that something was wrong. Corey’s cancer crisis finally forced him to face deeply ingrained habits of people-pleasing, overwork, and self-neglect that he attributes to factors dating back to childhood. Now cancer-free, Corey is back in action as a writer and cinematographer. He re-entered the world with a newfound commitment to being authentic, and soon discovered that the behavior of “woke progressives” in his community felt anything but, sparking a new phase of his creative career in which he speaks openly and honestly about the hypocrisy he sees in so-called socially progressive communities, such as Portland, Oregon, where we both reside.