Who Shows Up

Build it before you need it.

I found it myself. A lump above my collarbone, on an ordinary day, when I felt completely fine.

Months later it had a name: Classic Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I manage risk for a living. I spend my career looking years out at what could go wrong, and I did not see this one coming. There was no plan on the shelf for it.

So I built one, and I started writing about it. The writing did the sorting. The same six sources kept showing up until I could see the shape of them, and people I'd never met told me it was their story too.

By about the second month I could see the thing this whole book is built on. Every single piece of what was holding me up had been built before I needed it. Not one part of it got assembled after the diagnosis.

See the map
The cover of Who Shows Up by Josh Carlisle. The title in concrete letters on a blueprint ground, the word UP still standing in scaffolding. Subtitle: Build It Before You Need It.
Out October 15, 2026
The Map

The map that I wish someone had given me.

If you're the one facing it, or you love someone who is, the first job is seeing your support clearly, fast. Who's carrying weight. Where the gaps are. What you can build even now, mid-crisis.

Six sources kept showing up, in roughly the same order, until I could finally name them. I called it F3C2M.

F

Faith

The pillar with the deepest footing, and the one you can't set in the emergency.

F

Family

Absorbing what someone you love can't carry alone.

F

Friends

The people who show up without being asked.

C

Coworkers

What covering quietly looks like, and what it costs.

C

Company

Culture against system, and who leadership really is at week 13.

M

Medical Staff

The team you build trust with under pressure.

Six pillars have to stand on something, and that part is a slab. The slab is your body, and you're the one who pours it. You pour it on ordinary days, for no particular reason, years before you have one, and it's the single piece of this nobody else can pour for you. The six are people. They arrive when they arrive.

And if you lead people, the same map reads back at you. Most companies say their people come first. Then week 13 arrives, protected leave runs out, and you find out what that sentence was actually worth.

When a crisis hits one of your people, who your organization is in that moment is already decided. It was decided long before the diagnosis.

The Build-It-Before-You-Need-It Inventory

Thirteen questions worth answering while it's still hypothetical. Six for you, seven for anyone who leads people.

Download the inventory

Chapter 1: I Found It Myself

The first chapter of the book, free. The morning I found the lump, and the room I stood up in to say it out loud.

Read chapter 1

Both free, no email required. If they help, pass them to someone who needs them.

The Book

A leadership book with the bones of a memoir.

The crisis is mine. The map belongs to anyone walking the same road, and to anyone who leads people who might. The chapters open with the story and close with something you can act on by Monday. You feel the weight of the journey and you walk away with a list.

It stays off the inspiration-speak that sinks most books in this lane. Specific, structural, honest.

First, for the person who isn't in a chair

You, right now, with nothing wrong. Your body is whatever you've made it so far, your benefits are a document you've never opened, and the people who would carry you are people you're too busy to call. Every one of those takes years to build and about a week to need.

Second, and not a distant second, the leader

Managers, HR and benefits leaders, and executives who will one day get the call. Two of the six pillars belong to work, which means you write a third of somebody's support structure before you ever know they'll need one.

And if you already got the call, some of this is late and the book says so plainly. What's still open is the inventory. Run it on exactly where you are today and it will tell you which of your six is thinner than you thought.

Status: with the publisher. Out October 15, 2026. My email list saw this cover before it went up here, and they'll get the launch the same way.

Read chapter 1 free
Listen

Conversations about the year, and the map that came out of it.

Longer than a post and less tidy than a chapter. If you'd rather hear it than read it, start here.

Big Swing · Episode 16

From Pond Hockey in Wisconsin to the Biggest Fight of His Life

Where the foundation came from, what the diagnosis did to it, and what held.

Speaking

One talk, weighted for your room.

A 45 to 60 minute keynote, adaptable down to a 20-minute slot. The arc holds: the moment, the framework, the story through the pillars, the week-13 accountability moment, and what to build before you need it.

For HR & benefits

The 12-week cliff and extended leave. What your policy says about your values when the protected weeks run out.

For energy & safety

The EHS leader who managed risk for a living and got blindsided. Health, exposure, and the foundation you build in yourself.

For leadership

Culture against system. What the org chart can't tell you, and how people actually behaved when it counted.

Book Josh to speak
Josh Carlisle
About

Josh Carlisle

Josh leads EHS and Sustainability for an energy company, with more than 20 years in one of the most demanding, safety-driven industries there is. His job is risk: looking years out at what could go wrong and positioning the organization to be compliant and competitive at the same time.

He was diagnosed with Classic Hodgkin's Lymphoma in February 2026 and confirmed in complete remission that May, after four of 12 treatments. He finished the twelfth on August 28 and rang the bell. During it, he started writing the series this book grew from, and it found an audience of patients, caregivers, and people managers.

He writes the way he leads. Direct, structured, honest about what the work actually takes.

Follow the series on LinkedIn

I rang the bell.

Twelve treatments, finished August 28. What comes next is the book. The cover went to my list first, and so will the launch, with the writing in between, before it lands October 15.