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Jim Olson: He Survived Stage IV Cancer, Then He Lost His Sight · Get Real with Jim Weiss

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Let's go back to the start. You used the phrase
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: from everywhere and nowhere. Before 18, you moved, I mean,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I can't believe it. I didn't know this, eight times.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Lived in Columbia. I think I'm going there this holiday season. Mauritius.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Built a global career. And how did moving shape you
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: as a leader and make you more willing to take risks?
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Like me, you've done some crazy shit.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I can either thank or blame my dad for that.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of following his footsteps, ironically. So he at
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: least claimed to have these NGO government jobs as we
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: were growing up. When I was first or second grade,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: we were living in actually Washington, D.C. at the time,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: which is where I am right now, in Alexandria. He
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: pulled out a globe for my sister and I, and
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: this is like early December, and he spun the globe
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: out and he said, family, we're moving to South America.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: And then he went, got more specific and said, we're
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: in California. I didn't even know where South America really
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: was at the time. And he says, and we're moving
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: to Cartagena, Colombia. Dad has a new job. But the
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: good news is he bribed us. He said, we're going
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: to stop in Florida along the way and go to
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Disney World, which had just opened up. We can go
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: to Space Mountain along the way, and then we'll make
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: our way down to Colombia. But it was a transformative,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: life-shaping experience being down there. You can only imagine being
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: first and second grade, not knowing Spanish, being kind of
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: thrown into it. foreign culture and just having to make
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: new friends and learn a new language. And even though
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: I went to an American English speaking school, all your
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: friends were speaking Spanish, primarily not playing American football, but
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: playing real football, which again, I didn't really even know
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: how to play at the time. I had my Washington
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Redskins jacket, which they didn't even know what that was.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: I guess the commanders now. It forced me into a
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: situation where I had to really learned to discover new
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: people and new cultures, a new country. We went on
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: lots of family vacations across South America to Panama and
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Bogota and other places across Colombia and Guatemala. And I
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: write about this in my book, but one of the most,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: and probably my parents would be arrested now if it
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: was ever found out that they did this. But every Saturday,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: my dad would give me 20 pesos and have me
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: hop on a bus by myself and essentially ride around
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Cartagena In the beginning, it was kind of scary, but
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I mastered the Cartagena bus system. And it really just
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: taught me, just turn your GPS off. Some of you
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: don't know really where you're going to go, but some
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: of you will just take you to the most amazing places.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: And so that's really been one of my guiding philosophies
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: through life is this idea, just turn the GPS off
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: and go off-roading a little bit in your life. Wow.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Just turn the GPS off. That's a way to live.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: What were some of the secrets, I guess, to how
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: you adapted? What Is it about you deep down in
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: your wiring? We're getting wired around that age, but you
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: obviously had certain traits and abilities. How have those things
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: lived in your career life?
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Part of the bus ride experience was, again, I would
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: do these rides by myself every day, sometimes for an hour,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: sometimes for four hours, just crisscrossing Cartagena. And one of
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: the things I noticed, it was kind of, I noticed
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: it was coming, I thought of it as a rite
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: of passage. I would, these buses in Cartagena were very crowded.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: They didn't actually have doors or windows. And so they
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: get very crowded and the men would kind of hang
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: out the front door of the bus because it was
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: super crowded. And I noticed that the bus was rolling
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: to a stop. They would jump off the bus before
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: it actually came to a full stop and kind of
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: run alongside the bus as it rolled to a stop.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: So I kind of viewed that as a, you know,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know, 11-year-old or 12-year-old is kind of a
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: rite of passage demanded because these are what these other
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: you know, men were doing. And so I kept trying
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: it myself. And like every time I would do it,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: I'd fall and scrape my knee and get all these
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: people on the bus would laugh at me and joke. And,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: but like probably about a month before we moved back
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: to the States, I finally jumped off the bus and
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: and made that running start and didn't fall and actually
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: got my full applause from everyone on the bus so
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: that kind of taught me with all the scrapes and
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: bruises from that experience just that perseverance of takes bruises
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: do things but between just the exploration on the bus
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: and the finally jumping off the bus that kind of
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: I guess maybe kind of attractiveness to pain and taking
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: chances is kind of you know in many ways in
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: my guiding light through my career and being kind of
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: attracted to these jobs and different situations that a lot
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: of people run from I kind of you know, in
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: many ways run into the fire for better or worse.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Well, that's a good segue to your career spanning airlines, startups, Starbucks, healthcare,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: and now an NGO. Is there a common thread that
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: connects every chapter? Is it that I want to run
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: toward fire?
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: I'd say probably the real common thread, because not all
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: of those jobs were necessarily crisis-related jobs. They all faced
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: crises of various flavors. I mean, obviously there are some
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: higher profile ones there along the way, but you don't really,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: as you mentioned, these crises just kind of emerge. You
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: don't know there's going to be like an earthquake before
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: it happens, right? And that's kind of true in crisis communication.
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  Speaker 2: I'd say the common thread is I've always been, there's
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: probably a couple threads, but I'd say the most common
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: thread really is this idea of being attracted to mission-driven organizations,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: whether they be corporations, whether they be startups, whether they
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: be teaching at Syracuse for a year, whether it be
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: teaching at a university in Africa for a year. Every
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: organization has been a mission-driven oriented organization, different purposes and
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: different good in the world. They were trying to solve
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: in the beginning of my career in the auto industry
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: for 10 years, advising and working with Nissan. I launched
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: their first electric vehicle. So that was kind of a
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: clean technologies initiative. And then you've got airlines, which United
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: and USA and Avello was all about connecting people and
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: inspiring travel, which is close near and dear to my heart,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: which is a kind of a mission itself, connecting people,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: the moments that matter most in the world. And then
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: now at a NGO, kind of following in my late
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: dad's footsteps, kind of going full circle back to Columbia
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: and working for a global humanitarian relief organization. So all these,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: with the exception of one company, I won't mention along
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: the way, but people might be able to guess. They
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: claim to be a mission-driven organization, but realized that they
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: weren't what they said they should be. And that's probably
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: a reason why they're bankrupt now. And I put the
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: thrust reversers on about six months into that situation and
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: got out before the ship sank. But otherwise, all very successful.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: great organizations with very mission-oriented individuals and leaders.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Just to be clear, you weren't talking about United, right?
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: So that's what's mission-driven in the same travel way as Avello,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I guess, right?
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: United, Avello, Starbucks. You think of Starbucks as just a
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: coffee company, but Starbucks has built its whole organization on
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: purpose and mission. Their mission is to nurture and inspire
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: the human spirit. One person, one neighborhood, one cup at
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: a time.
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  Speaker 1: And they're doing it, still out there doing it, despite
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: all the challenges. So isn't that what you've been doing, right?
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: You've helped leaders and organizations navigate crises they never saw coming.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Then the crisis became your own. Did that experience prepare
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: you for what happened next? Or is a personal health
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: crisis different?
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  Speaker 2: I really don't think you can separate the two.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think we can both relate to
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  Speaker 1: how we helped leaders navigate crisis. It certainly helped me
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  Speaker 1: when I went into crisis with my wife in particular,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: but myself too. I mean, I had AFib and then
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: she got sick and my daughter had a situation where
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: a friend committed suicide. So we were dealing with lots
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: of different types of crises, but I guess what I
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: learned from all those things is you got to have
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: a plan. There needs to be a plan that can
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: take you and dig you out of the situation or
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: at least deal with it proactively. I mean, I talk
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: about prevent the event all the time. Now, that is
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: knowing your number and exercising and eating right and all
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: the prevention things that happen. But I also talk about
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: it in the context of these things can get worse.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: or they can get stabilized and potentially better. But until
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: you bring the heat down, it's nearly impossible to move
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  Speaker 1: out of it. So I don't know how your experience
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: was when this happened. And obviously nine times out of 10,
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  Speaker 1: you don't expect these things.
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  Speaker 2: I obviously experienced business-related crises before my personal crisis. So
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: in many ways, kind of my career was a rough
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: draft for, I guess, kind of the personal crises that
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: I face. And I think there are a few lessons
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: that I kind of learned over the years from the
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: business side that prepared me for this. I mean, one
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  Speaker 2: is that crises aren't stressful, but not being prepared is stressful.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: And just like pilots go through simulators and simulate, just
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: like the flight you were on at United that had
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: the engine fire. I mean, I'm sure those pilots and
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: that flight crew, I mean, they had done that drill
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: a thousand times in the simulators over the years. So
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: that was just something they were ready for. And even
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: though as communicators, we are not pilots, we in many
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: ways can embrace that same kind of simulation when we
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: do crisis drills. That's basically our business simulator for crises.
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  Speaker 2: And so that's the first thing. In my book, one
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: of the individuals I met was a middleweight boxing champion,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Daniel Jacobs, who had spinal cancer and bounced back. And
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: when I was interviewing him, he had this great metaphor
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: for winning his cancer battle and coming back and winning
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: the middleweight belt. And he said, look, Jim, he goes,
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  Speaker 2: In life and in boxing and in sports and in business,
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  Speaker 2: the fight is won before you even step in the ring.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: And it's kind of that same idea of crises aren't stressful,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: but not being prepared is stressful. What he was saying
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: was that all the sweat and time he puts in
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: in the gym and the strategy and the coaching, everything
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: he does, that's where the battle is won. And once
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: he steps into the ring, that's just the final stretch.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: So I think the same is kind of true with healthcare.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: My doctors told me when I got initially diagnosed, my
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: oncologist said, you're facing a tough opponent here, but because
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: you're in really good health, and I didn't know this
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: was coming, but I just kind of have tried to
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: live a very healthy life and stayed in good shape
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: and exercised. And so this caught me off guard, but
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: because I was already kind of preparing, I was basically
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: preparing for a battle that I never imagined would have
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: happened to me.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Well, no, it's hard to imagine, and sometimes you avoid it.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, take us back to the night you found
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: out you had a tumor. You went to the ER,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I think it was with back pain, and left with
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: news that changed your life. What happened that night?
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, one of the lessons I learned, and Oscar Munoz,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: who is the former CEO and chairman of United Airlines,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: who I worked with at United, joined at the same
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: time he was having a massive heart attack and went
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: through a heart transplant. He went back to work and
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: transformed the airline. But every speech he would give, whether
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: it was to employees or to business conferences, he always
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: ended his speeches with what he called his public service announcements.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: It's kind of this boilerplate that we plug into every speech.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: And it was this idea that he had this neighbor
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: cardiologist in Florida where he lived before he joined United
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: and just serendipitously explained to Oscar about three weeks before
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: his heart attack. And Oscar was in great shape. He
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: was a triathlete. ate really well, 57 years old. If
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: you imagined kind of like we'd be the last people
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: you think that would get, and just like Audra, like
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: last people you think that would get diagnosed with a
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: lethal cancer, right? You can't, it's not based, a lot
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: of times it is your health, sometimes it's not. And
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Oscar said, not knowing that he was going to have
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: a heart attack, his neighbor told him, look, Oscar, I
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: tell this mainly to guys because guys would have this issue.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: If you notice anything wrong with your body, if something
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: feels off, it might not be your shoulders like they
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: typically tell you about a stroke or your chest pain
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: or like Lindsey Graham unfortunately had, you might feel in
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: your toes. You might feel it in your abdomen. If
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: something feels off, call 911. And he goes, most guys
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: are afraid to call 911 because they're afraid of being
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: embarrassed because the paramedics will show up. There'll be these
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: young firefighters that are super healthy show up. You're afraid
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: that they're going to joke at you. Like, why do
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: you call us over just an aching foot or something, right?
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: But he goes, that'll save your life. And then there
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: were a couple other things that he mentioned that saved
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: his life. But so for me, I experienced in this,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Friday night in mid-November, about a week before Thanksgiving, my
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: wife Stephanie was out of town, Caitlin, my daughter, was
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: at college, and I got back from dinner, and it
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: was like 10 o'clock at night, went to sleep, and
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: at 1 o'clock in the morning, woke up in the
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: middle of the night, and I've never had back issues
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: with a, it felt like an electric screwdriver going into
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: my lower spine. Like, it was not like a lung
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: or any other kind of issue. It was like, it
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: was like almost like an abdominal or a lower spine issue.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Took some Advil. Thankfully, I say this, thankfully, it didn't
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: work because Oscar rang in my ears to call 911.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: I said, well, I think I have just enough energy
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: to drive the five minutes to the hospital that was
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: around the corner, get in the car, barely made it
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: to the hospital. I mean, I thought I was going
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: to pass out on the drive, but I got there
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: and they tossed me in a room and did blood work,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: gave me morphine for the pain. The pain went away
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: in like five minutes, did a CT scan. And two
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: hours later, like three o'clock in the morning, the doctor
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: comes out and says, I got some good news and
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: bad news. He goes, the good news is that your
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: CT scan of your abdomen and your lower back are
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: completely clean. Your blood work is good. We have no
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: idea why you were having this lower back pain. We're
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: glad that the morphine helped, but we just don't see
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: anything physically wrong with your body or with your blood.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: And I said, so what's the bad news? And he goes, well,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: and this is where it gets a little miraculous. The
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: CT scan, the aperture of the CT scan actually caught
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: my lung as well. That wasn't their intended area because
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: the pain was in the lower back. So lungs weren't
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: even in the radar. He said, we saw a two
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: and a half inch spot on your lung. And first
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: thoughts were like lung cancer. And I thought, well, I've
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: never smoked. And I've smoked a couple of cigars, maybe
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: at golf tournaments. But beyond that, I'm a runner. And
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: he said, well, I'm not sure it's cancer. It could
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: be scarring from COVID or something, but you got to
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: go get it checked out like ASAP. And that was
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: the thread in the sweater that led to everything else.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Those CT scans are essential. That's how Audra was found
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: after a year, maybe a year and a half of
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: fuddling around with a endoscopy and colonoscopy that was never
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: going to find my wife's cancer, which was on the
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: front of her stomach, so similar. You're almost lucky it
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: saw that. It ended up being melanoma, right? Wasn't that
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: the cause?
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: I was pretty sure it was going to be lung cancer.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: My dad was a pretty heavy smoker as a kid,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: so I thought it might have been secondhand smoke. We
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: lived in West Virginia along this polluted river of FMC
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: and union carbide, so I thought it might be some
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: kind of playback from running along the Kanawha River in Charleston,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: West Virginia for five years. But yeah, it ended up
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: being melanoma. And again, the miraculous thing was that, now
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: people are probably watching this and listening to this are saying, well,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: didn't you have some spots on your skin? Because everyone
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: thinks of melanoma, these big, ugly spots that show up
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: on your forehead or your ear or body. And even
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: though I was getting checked, I had no physical spots
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: of melanoma. And even my oncologist said, I still want
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: you to go get checked by my dermatologist just to
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: make sure there's no existing spots that we need to
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: like deal with. And I went to his dermatologist and
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: they couldn't find head-to-toe search a single spot. And I
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: guess there's about 10% of cases where it jumps the shark,
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: as my doctor said, and it just goes directly to
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: a lung or it might have been like on your
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: scalp or something for a very brief time and you
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: never noticed it before your next check. But whatever the
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: case is, they call it the masquerading cancer because there
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: are about 10% of us out there. You don't know
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: until it's, in most cases, sadly too late because if
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: I hadn't gone into that ER for that lower back pain,
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: which again, No one's been able to draw a direct
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: connection between the lung and the back. It's never happened again,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: but that's what got me in there. And they're pretty
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: certain that if I hadn't gone in for that, then
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: started having problems coughing, it would have been too late
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: because they're already two and a half inches. And then they,
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: one of my other crisis management terms I learned from
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: the airline world and business world is it gets worse
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: before it gets worse. And in my case, the thread
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: in the sweater that they kept tugging on led to
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: a brain MRI that also found an inch and a
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: half spot on my brain. So none of that would
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: have been discovered. If I'd actually had symptoms of either
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: brain or lung, my oncologist said, by that point, it
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: probably would have been too late.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: What explains it? I mean, do you sit and wonder
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: what the hell, how the hell?
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Well, I do thank Oscar Munoz. It was a life
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: ring from God, in my view, whether you're, whatever your
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: beliefs are, the universe, God, every doctor, I've talked to
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: three different doctors about this, all my oncologists, and none
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: of them have been able to draw a straight line
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: between the lower back pain and and a tumor on
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: my lung and my brain, a one-time instance that never
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: had any physical thing. So whatever it was, it got
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: me in there. And I'm here talking today because of it.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: And I am absolutely convinced with a 25% survival rate
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: of melanoma at the stage I had at stage four.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: If it'd been like six months later, I'm pretty convinced
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't be here right now, even with immunotherapy.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: What was the treatment? So was it surgery? What did
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: they do?
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: So it was immunotherapy for the lung and radiation for
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: the brain. To be honest, Jim, like other than going
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: and seeing my doctor for an annual physical, like I
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: was an outsider to the medical industry. I didn't like hospitals.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: I always, like I had to get like hernia surgery.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: I just, I was scared of them and I just
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: had no desires. That's why I stayed so healthy is
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: because I never wanted to end up in the medical system.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: And you just don't know what's going to, you know,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: get thrown at you, right? And so all of a
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: sudden I went from zero experience in the medical world
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: world other than my primary care physician and maybe a dermatologist,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: time to time getting checked for that, to being a, like,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: seeing doctors every week, every two weeks for two years.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: And I continue to be, it's almost like being in
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: the prison system. I'm like now a ward of the state.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And it's a good thing. I actually go and check
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: in with, I hate to compare my doctors to parole officers,
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: but they do have me on a very regular schedule
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: of getting MRIs and CT scans every three months just
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: to make sure nothing's coming back.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: So you're a parolee like so many of us, you know,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I caught my colon cancer early, but any little blip,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: they're going to bring you in for that. So what
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: are some of the things we want to let people
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: know about early detection and melanoma specifically, right? It can
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: be missed. So is there anything we can do to,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: did you learn of anything that could be done?
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, one thing you can do is Oscar Munoz's advice. Again,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: if anything feels off, just go to the ER. In
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: many cases, paying the copay of if you have good
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: insurance and it's like $ 250 or $ 500 to go to
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: the ER in the middle of the night, they'll run
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: all the tests and they'll catch this stuff that unfortunately
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: and very sadly, insurance companies don't pay for preventive CT scans.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: They do colonoscopies and manograms, but this would have never
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: shown up in a colonoscopy and it wouldn't have shown
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: up in just regular blood work that they do as
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: part of your primary care checks. And so I guarantee you,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: if I had just gone to my doctor and said, hey,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: can I just get a head-to-toe CT scan, it would
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: have gotten rejected and declined by the insurance companies just
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: because I thought I might have skin cancer, right, without
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: any symptoms. And dermatologists couldn't suggest because there were no spots.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: So I think it's cost of a CT scan, yes,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: if you look at the bill, it's like $ 6, 000 if
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: you look at the actual RAC rate at the hospitals.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: But the real cost, the real cost of a CT
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: scan is around $ 500. It's cheaper than a colonoscopy. And
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: so I wish I could say, like, just go get
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: a CT scan. You can. There are firms out there
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: that you can get CT scans that have now been
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: set up for this, but you've got to have $ 1, 000
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: just laying around in your bank account to pay for,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: put a vacation aside and get a CT scan, which
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: is really, really much a vacation. And even the CT
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: scan is not going to necessarily catch a tumor on
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: your brain. So Long story short, I think the advice
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: to people is, one, do go get your dermatology checks. 90%
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: of melanoma can be detected. I'm one of the rare 10%.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: And I would put pressure on your doctor, especially if
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: you have a family history of cancer. Go put pressure
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: on your insurance companies to get a, maybe it's not
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: an annual CT scan, but maybe every couple years, and
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: fight it. Fight the system. Let your congresspeople know that
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: we need changes and reform now. to Congress? Because CT
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: scans really do, even though they have false positives, they
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: will catch a lot of things that just like mine
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: that you won't catch without it.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Well, we have blood tests now. We have prenuvo and
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: similar tests. You know, my view is go get them
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: and prevent the event. And it probably is worth more
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: than going on vacation just to know these things. It
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: might give you false sense of security, but I think
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: nine times out of 10, those stories turn out to be,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: I caught something. I, otherwise wouldn't.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: And know your family's history, right? Like my daughter now,
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: for example, she's got a good case to go, even
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: if she has to petition with an insurance company down
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: the road, to get a CT scan because she comes
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: from a family history of melanoma now. So hopefully she
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: does not get it, but she now has a pretty
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: good case to go and get that CT scan and
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: argue this, that I was part of that 10% and
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: there's a good chance she could be part of that 10%
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: that doesn't have a spot that shows up.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Now, speaking of that, Stephanie had cancer too, right? But
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: before or after you?
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: She was after me. So I kind of did the
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: downfield blocking on this one. And hers was totally different.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: She had appendix cancer, which is very, very rare. For melanoma,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: which I had, thank God, immuno came around because prior
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: to immuno, which got approved in like 2018 by the FDA,
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: chemo had about a 25% success rate with late stage melanoma,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: which I had. Immunotherapy was created originally for melanoma. And
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: so it has a 95% success rate, which is why
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: I'm here talking to you right now. Radiation is also
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: super helpful in some of these cases. Stephanie's case was
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: appendix cancer, which is so rare. There's not a pre-tested
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: treatment plan. So her doctor, even though she had great
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: oncologists working with her, she was a little bit of
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: a guinea pig. And thank God she was on a
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: combination of chemo, immuno, and something called Invasi. And, I mean,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: she went through a rough treatment on that, but she's
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: in remission now and doing great. But that was a
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: very scary situation, and she had to get some surgery too.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: But appendix cancer is one you don't want to mess
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: with because, again, very rare. And thankfully, the treatment she
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: got from her doctors, different doctors than mine, but got
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: her through it successfully.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so your daughter has... more than one reason. She's
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: got multiple parents who've been down this road, so she's
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: got to be extra careful. So I guess the way
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: this worked is Stephanie cared for you as your wife,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: and then you turned around and had to do it
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: for her. I mean, I talk about cancer caregiving, which
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I did. So much that we're going to do now
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: is to prevent any further events. So you're trying to
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: stay one step ahead of it. But what do you
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: think you both learned from caring for each other? I mean,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: talk about death do us part and, and all the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: hard times and wow, what tests.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Well, I have this really dear friend who I worked
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: with both at United and at Avello. He is our
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: chief safety officer. He was the chief safety officer at
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Delta and then at United and then at Avello. He's
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: won every safety award. He's the top guy in aviation.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: He's seen every crash and former Marine pilot. He was
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: looking at drafts of my book. And somehow we had
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: some conversation. He was telling me about the toast that
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: he gave at his son's wedding. And one of the
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: things he said was just so profound. He goes, you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: everyone thinks that marriage is like 50-50. But he goes,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: a lot of times it's going to be, 90-10 or
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: even 100-0. And he had this great metaphor, and I
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: include it in the close of my book, that sometimes
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: you'll be walking down a beach with your partner or
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: your wife or your husband, and you'll look back and
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: there's only one set of footprints, which basically the other
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: person's carrying the other person. I thought it was just
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: so profound. I had to include it and give Michael Coelho,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: who shared that, toast with me. It was just so profound.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: So I think that's one thing. And the other great
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: story I like to share that also a good friend
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: of mine, Doug Camp, who was Thanks to Facebook, he
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: was my camp counselor at the sports camp in Virginia
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: 40 years ago. And we've stayed in touch. And he
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: has a very severe vision problem as well. And he
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: shared with me this scene from the West Wing. For
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: any of the West Wing fans out there, you'll know it.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: It's called the man in the hole story. And it
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: basically is this idea that this guy falls in a
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: hole and these other people walk by. A pastor passes
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: by and throws in a note and it's a prayer.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: And a doctor walks by and throws in a prescription,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: but no one jumps in the hole to help him. Finally,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: a friend walks by. and jumps in the hole with him.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: And the guy in the hole goes, Joe, why'd you
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: jump in the hole? And his friend goes, well, I've
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: been in this hole before and I know the way out.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: And so it's that whole idea that so much of
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: getting through this, as you know it very well, is
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: finding other people who have been in that hole that
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: can help be your Sherpa and guide you out. And
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: vice versa, the thing I've learned now that I've been
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: through it That's why I wrote the book was to
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: be a Sherpa, be that guy that jumps in the
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: hole with other people, just like Oscar. Oscar is the
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: guy that jumped in the hole for me and showed
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: me the way out, and I'm trying to pass that forward. Amazing.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: And so I jumped in the hole with Stephanie. When
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Stephanie had her cancer, I jumped in the hole with her.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Now she jumps in the hole with other people. So
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: you just keep passing along, as you do.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: No, I do it. I get it. I totally understand it.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: And what a great metaphor. And I mean, I can't
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: believe I haven't had to stop this podcast to go
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: gather myself because it's a lot of stuff here. Cancer
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: isn't even the hardest part, right? You just mentioned you
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: have vision loss. How did that happen? Is that related
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: to the brain tumor?
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: I want to be a little careful here because they're
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: really not.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: The tumor was metastasized there. Sorry.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Like I said, it gets worse before it gets worse, right?
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: So in November and January, when I first got diagnosed
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: with the melanoma, that was Houston, we have a problem, right?
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: And then I got diagnosed with the brain tumor and
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: it got worse. But like I say, it gets worse
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: before it gets worse. And then I made the mistake
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: on Father's Day. I was, the brain tumor was gone
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: three months into that. The one dose of radiation on
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: the brain and tumor was gone. and it's never come back,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: which is great. The lung, thanks to the immunotherapy, four
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: or five months in was, six months in was 70% gone.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: And that's how powerful immunotherapy was. So I was getting
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: a little cocky. And so I went and got this
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: tattoo on Father's Day with my daughter on my right
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: shoulder that says, do hard things. That's kind of my
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: mantra from working at that university in Africa. And JFK's
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: man on the moon speech, we do things not because
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: they're easy, but because they're hard in life. And I
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: think I jinxed it because about a month after getting
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: that tattoo, the world threw me another curveball. I was
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: on a business trip with Avelo Airlines on the 4th
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: of July up in Santa Rosa where we had a base.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: And we're feeding our pilots and flight attendants and ground
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: crews hot dogs and hamburgers for the 4th. And I
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: got in my car to go back to the hotel
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: and I couldn't read my phone. Everything was in black.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: It was just all a fog of blurriness. And if
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: you wear glasses, the only way I can describe it
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: is like a double dose of dilation drops. At the moment,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: I didn't really think anything. I thought, well, maybe I'm
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: just tired. I did wear contacts for like driving and stuff.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: I needed contacts, but like it wasn't like, you know,
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: I could drive and do different things. It was just
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: more like for reading and stuff. So I get back
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: to the hotel and I thought, oh, I'll wake up
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: in the morning. It'll be fine. And I woke up
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: in the morning. It was even worse. I look in
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: the mirror and I thought I was staring in the
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: face of a monster. Like it was just everything was
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: pixelated and just blurry. And I called my optometrist who
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: does my contacts. I didn't know who to call. And
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: so it wasn't even an ophthalmologist. And she said, went
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: through a checklist and said, well, I don't think you
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: ever attach retina or anything. Just come and see us
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: when you get back on Monday. And when I got back,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: she had no idea what was wrong. So I went
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: through about six different specialists in Houston and they finally
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: landed on optic nerve damage, which is a horrible diagnosis
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: because I asked her when the doctor, this wonderful doctor
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: who has the best bedside manner, and she put her
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: hand on my shoulder and I said, well, so what
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: are you going to do about it? She goes, well, Jim,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: I know you've already been through like the hardest time.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: She knew all about my cancer. She goes, you know,
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be the one to tell you this,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: but there's unfortunately no cure for optic nerve damage. It's
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: permanent at this point. And so I basically, since July
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: 4th of 2024, just past the, what, two-year mark, been
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: living in this world of legal blindness and blurriness. So
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I stopped driving, never got in a car again. After
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: July 4th, I got back and I couldn't even get
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: in my car because I just, no one told me
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: I couldn't drive. I opted out of driving because I
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: just couldn't see. So I can see, the only way
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: I can describe it is I can still see, but
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: it's like, again, if you've had that dose of dilation
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: drops put in, I can barely read a word on
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: a page. So I have Siri read me thing. I've
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: really had just learned to readapt to my life. And
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: they just don't, unfortunately, they don't know what caused it.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: They think it might, the immunotherapy might've caused a dramatic
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: swing in blood pressure or something. That's one of the
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: side effects. And that could have triggered a micro seizure
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: of some kind, which causes optic nerve damage. Could have
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: been the tumor. So I'm careful to say that I
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: don't want to put the blame on immunotherapy, but that certainly,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: they took me off of immunotherapy for the final mile
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: on my lung tumor and zapped it with some radiation.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: So the lung tumor went away as well, which is
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: good news. So I like to say, I'll just kind
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: of round out here. I'd rather be blind because I'm
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: legally blind and alive than six feet under with 20-20 vision.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: So I've learned to deal with it.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: So that's what it taught you. I mean, and you
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: mentioned the tattoo. It seems like you need to put
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: ER after it. do harder things. I mean, what the hell?
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Or maybe I should have got a tattoo that said
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: do easy things. I don't know. But so I guess
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: my lesson to folks is don't get it unless you
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: really want to do hard. It was almost like the
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: universe said, okay, you've managed through this cancer battle. You
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: want something really hard? We'll give you something really hard.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: So just don't get a do hard things tattoo unless
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: you really want to do some hard shit in your life.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: So that's my advice.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know. There are lessons. about all of it, right?
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sitting here, you and I haven't talked
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: in a few years. Prior to that, right, I didn't
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: know any of this and didn't know this happened to
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: this degree other than what I read in the book
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: and all the rest. So obviously you're an amazing example
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: of how to make this happen, but you obviously stepped
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: away from work for disability leave and you wrote the
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: first draft of the book. Was writing part of the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: healing process and coping process? How did the story you
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: needed to tell appear for you? Did you just need
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: to write to get this out? No.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Well, like when I first got diagnosed with the cancer,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: like our CEO and my boss at Avello, Andrew Levy,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: who was our CFO at United, who had brought me
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: on to Avello. I mean, so supportive. He take whatever
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: time you need to go get your immuno treatments, to
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: see your doctors. There was no, I worked through the
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: whole thing. I was still flying around the country and
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: launching new markets and like, The immunotherapy is just mad.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: It's unlike the way I describe people. It's almost like
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: immunotherapy are like drone strikes that just attack the bad cells.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of people do have side effects.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I thankfully didn't have any side effects from it. But
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: chemo is like a nuclear bomb. It attacks your good
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: and your bad. So that's why so many people have
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: so many bad side effects. But immuno really is very
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: magical and it works very well on me. When I
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: had the vision loss, which is very dramatic, that actually
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: had a very real impact. impact on my ability to
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: do my job. Cancer didn't really impact it other than
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: just having to like go see more doctors and stuff
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: and take a couple hours off to go get an infusion.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: I still was flying all around the country doing things.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: The vision loss, all of a sudden, when I went
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: to San Francisco airport after that, after I first lost
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: my sight on that trip on July 4th, I was
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: so scared because I showed up at the airport and
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: to fly back to Houston and I couldn't even read
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: my boarding pass. I was so embarrassed. I was having
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: to ask people to point me to the gates. And
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: I was just in a nosedive. I mean, I literally
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: was like, I felt probably like Sully felt as he
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: like was staring down the Hudson River in Manhattan coming
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: up a thousand feet a minute.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: And now Alzheimer's disease for him.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now it was just really, I mean, that's another
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: whole probably conversation in itself. But the vision loss was,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: even though compared to cancer, like I'm alive. So I
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: try to put it in proportion. But from a working,
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: functioning standpoint in the world, cancer didn't really interfere with
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: my day-to-day life, other than the fear that I might actually, like, die,
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: which is what I thought, like, when I first got diagnosed.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: But vision, I mean, that was when I really, like,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: a lot of nights, I never really showed it to people.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Even Stephanie, when I wrote about it in the book,
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: she goes, I don't remember that. And there were days
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: when I would wake up or nights when I go
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: to bed, and I would... cry myself to sleep and
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: I'd sink into my sheets really about the vision loss
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: because I just was so scared that everything that I
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: know about my life was just turning upside down right
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: in front of me. So yeah, that's when I kind of,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: I was like a football player. I called Andrew Levy about,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: I tried to do my job. I personally, I don't
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: think anyone noticed it, but I personally, like I went
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: on another press conference trip. And even though I'm really
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: good at, I memorized my script. So no one even
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: really knew the difference. But I personally, like doing Zoom
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: calls and Teams calls, I couldn't see the names on
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: the screen. I just was worrying I was going to
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: screw things up. And so I called Andrew, our CEO,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: and said, I'm going to bench myself, coach. I never
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: thought I'd be one of those people that, take short-term disability,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: but it was the best thing I ever did. And
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: it was during that period that I wrote the book
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: because I'd go on these walks. When you're on short-term disability,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: you have nothing to do legally. I wanted to work
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: and still do things, but they, like, our HR person said, like,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: even though you want to work, Tim, we can't give
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: you anything to do. So people would check in on me.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I have friends who swear by it, and they've gotten
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: the healthiest they've been in their life.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I had nothing to do, so I'd
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: go on these long, like, five-mile walks every morning. And
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: I'd come back and I'd start journaling. And then my
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: wife and Kayla would say, Dad, you've always wanted to
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: write a book. You got 90 days. You have nothing
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: to do. Why don't you write the book? You have
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: nothing else to do. You have no excuse for not
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: doing it. And those journals just started turning into the book.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: It was the best thing I did because writing a book,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: it's just having that quiet space for 90 days with
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: nothing else in my mind to worry about other than
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: you know, the health issues, it was a great runway
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: to get the first man. I wrote 300 pages in
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: those night, the first draft. I didn't get the book
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: all the way done, but I got the first draft
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: of the manuscript done in those 90 days.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: That's incredible. The framework in Tailwind comes from aviation, aviate, navigate, communicate.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Why is that a model and a good model to
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: lean on as life takes so many twists and turns
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: like yours has?
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, even when I first got diagnosed with cancer,
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: and as scary as that was, I still remember sitting
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: in my oncologist's office, and he's like, you have stage
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: four metastatic melanoma. And it was like slow motion. It
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: was like watching the garage doors shut on your nice car.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: And all I could think was stage four. And I
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: knew nothing about cancer, but I knew that those were
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: words I did not want to hear. And so at
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: that point, I kind of just, it was instinctive. I'd
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: been through so many crises. It just instinctively hit me
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: that pilots like Sully, who are facing life and death situations,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: staring death down a barrel. Pilots, this is the first
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: thing they learn is aviate, navigate, communicate. They've been learning
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: it for 50 years. Every pilot, civilians, military, commercial. And
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: the idea of aviate, which is the most important of
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: the three, is fly your plane. Most plane accidents are
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: pilot error. And you can trace it back to they
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: didn't follow that number one step of aviate. They got
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: distracted with the other atmospherics going on. And didn't keep
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: the plane in the air, which would buy them time
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: to then navigate to find a safe place to land
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: the plane, whether it's a highway, another airport, or a
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: river in Sully's case, and then finally do a really good,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: clear job of communicating. So like Sully followed that to
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: a T. So in my case, it wasn't like I
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: got diagnosed and said, oh, I'm going to go write
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: a book now. My first role was to aviate. I thought,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: you know, I've just got to stabilize the situation, both
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: with the vision situation when I took the time off,
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: went to see all my doctors, and same with the
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: cancer and I just realized, you know, Aviate is all
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: about stabilizing your situation, having that composure to not get
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: panicked about all the other atmospherics or get distracted and
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: just whatever your situation. It could be a business crisis.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: The Aviate Navigate Communicate, I don't even call it a framework.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: It's a mindset. Works literally whether you're a pilot, whether
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: you're a crisis manager. I've used it at Starbucks. I've
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: used it. You can use it in literally any business
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: situation as a leader. and you can use in your
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: personal life, whether you get hit with a medical situation
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: or financial distress, a natural disaster wipes your home out.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: The ABA Navigate Communicate mindset, as I call it, works
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: for pretty much any situation.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Oh my God, 100%. You added a fourth pillar, appreciate.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Why is gratitude so essential? As a way of cultivating. Yeah.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's not one of the three that pilots learn,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: but it probably should be. And actually, I don't know
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: if this happened on your United flight when you had it,
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: but I've been on some interesting flights as well. Thankfully,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: nothing as harrowing as yours. But most of the pilots
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: I've been with, they always come back after they've landed
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: the plane and they give gratitude to the flight attendants,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: to even the passengers for being calm and helping with
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: different situations. And And so I thought, like, it's kind
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: of like that man in the hole story that I
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: just told you. Like, none of us get through these,
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: whether it's a business crisis, whether it's a personal crisis,
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: a healthcare crisis, no matter how strong, smart, healthy, strong-headed
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: we are, like, none of us can get through these
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: situations by ourselves. It's just not going to happen, whether
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: it's the medical professionals, your family, other supporters. And so
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: that gratitude, that's why it's such a huge chapter in
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: my book. It's not just a simple acknowledgments at the end.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: And Stephanie is like, you know, when I was writing,
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: she's looking at the draft. She goes, I think yours
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: is like the longest acknowledgement section I've ever seen. And like,
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: I actually even wrote letters instead of just doing like
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: thanking my family. I actually wrote letters to my late dad,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: to Caitlin, my daughter, to Stephanie and to my mom
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: and to my sister, because there was just that much
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: gratitude that I felt I needed to share. And then
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: I've got the traditional gratitude to all my doctors and,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: and other people who contributed to the book and all
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: of that too. So it's just such an important part.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Well, what gets in the way of it? Do we
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: just get inside our own heads and self-pity? Or what
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: do you think gets in the way of appreciating?
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's just even to still appreciate. I
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: think it's just this idea that when we're facing a storm,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: like one of the proverbs that I learned while I
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: was living in Africa was when I did my first trip,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: when I went to climb Kilimanjaro when I turned 30,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: My Sherpa told me this great, I guess, kind of, again,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: kind of proverb, which is that if you want to
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far,
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: go together. And even great, Africa has a lot of
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: really like record holding distance runners, marathoners, milers, 10K folks.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: And even those distance runners, which is a very individualistic sport,
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: if you think about it. But even if you talk
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: to people like Kip Kino, who won the gold medal
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: in the 10,000 meters, who I got to meet while
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: I was in Africa, back in the 76 Olympics, he
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: even told me the reason he won that was such
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: a great runner was not because of himself, but the
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: team and that kind of orbit of support that he
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: had around him, the nutritionists, the coaches, his family, others
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: who kind of really pushed him to the limit. So
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: I think this idea is, yes, you've got to have
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: gratitude for those that help you, but before you can
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: even have gratitude, you've got to have the courage. And
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: I think it really is courage to be willing to
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: reach out to others, and even in business, right? And
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: I think it's a maturity thing. You find that, and
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: you probably see this in the agency, right? Like, you know,
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: I don't want to generalize here, but I've found in
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: my career that the colleagues I work with, as individuals
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: in their careers move along farther in age and maturity,
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: they're the ones that actually are willing to kind of
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: reach out to others and have other support. It's usually
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: the young, aspiring managers and directors who want to do
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: it all themselves so they can get credit for it
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: and show that I can do this. But in reality,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: like when I mentor young folks, I always tell them like,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: the way you're going to actually get that next level
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: up is not by trying to do it yourself, but
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: you're going to get more credit for actually building and
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: reaching out and having a team around you and showing
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: that you built this coalition to get this job done
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: and solve this problem than going to your boss and saying, hey,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: I did this all by myself. And I think that's
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: a maturity thing, and I think it's a courage thing,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: because people want to show they can do it by themselves.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: And that's not typically how you're going to have the
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: biggest impact or outcome.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, Audra didn't end up overcoming the cancer.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: The cancer got her, but she did say it was
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: a gift wrapped in barbed wire and made her see, recognize,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: appreciate in ways that I don't think she ever had.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: And there's something to that. If someone's listening today who's
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: receiving devastating news about their health or they're living with
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: someone who is, what would you want to say to them?
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to go back to Oscar here, who's
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: just such a wise leader and a wise man. He
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: wrote the foreword to my book, which I hope people
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: will read because that's probably even more valuable than the
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: rest of the book. But he tells this great story,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: which I never told him in all the speeches and
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: things I'd helped him with. I'd never heard him tell
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: this story till he actually put it into my forward.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: While I was there, I'd never heard him tell it.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: And it's this idea that I call it the why
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: me story. And he said, you know, when he came
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: out of his heart transplant, they put him in a
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: medically induced coma. And when he woke up, the nurse
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: in the ICU was talking to him and he was
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: in all kinds of extreme pain and wasn't even sure
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: he was going to survive. And the nurse told Oscar,
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: you know, I see two kinds of patients come through
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: the ICU, but they both ask the same question. They
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: both ask, why me? First group that come through say,
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: why me? Why God did you impose this horrible imposition
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: on me, this horrible illness? Why did you ruin my life?
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Why did you take my vision? Whatever the situation might be.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Why did you take my legs from me? Whatever the situation, right?
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: And the second group asks the same question, why me?
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: Why God did you Bless me with this second shot
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: at life. Why did you choose me or select me
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: to be this beacon of hope and this guide for
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: other people facing crucibles in their life? And Oscar told
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: the nurse, I want to be that second kind of person.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: So that would be my advice is don't get caught
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: up in the why me, because even if you're a caretaker,
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: you're asking yourself, why me? Why am I? The temptation
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: is why me? Why am I like burdened with this?
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: You know, I love this person, but why our family? Why?
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: As a daughter, do I have to drop out of
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: college for a semester to take care of my parents
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: or whatever the situation might be? But don't be that
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: kind of person. My advice would be, be that other
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: kind of, be that Oscar why me person that sees
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: this as a blessing in disguise.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: So why you?
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: You know, you turn the GPS off and I kind
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: of go back and try to retrace my steps and
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: all the jobs I've taken and different places I've moved
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: and they all tracked. to doing what I'm doing right
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: now and writing the book, which I always had in me,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: but I never wrote it for a reason. I think
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: there was a reason I never wrote it, even when
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: I was teaching at Syracuse, I thought that that's when
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: I'm going to write the book. And in some weird way,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: the universe and you were saying like, it's not time
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: for your book. And I think I'm alive today because
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: I was in Houston, had the great medical care there.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: I think all the stories I've had and the people
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: I've met along the way I mean, I can't really
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: explain it. I mean, I think, but I think that
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: why me attitude, it's a choice. It's an attitude that
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: you have to, it's an intentionality. That's why it's my message.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: You have a choice when this happens. Like I used
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: to say that when I sink into those sheets every night,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: just scared death. I had a choice between either giving
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: up or getting up each morning. And trust me, there
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: were a lot of mornings where I did not want
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: to get up. I just want to keep those sheets
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: over my head because to be honest, when I lost
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: my vision, I felt comfortable in a dark room because
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: that's normal to be in a bedroom with darkness. The
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: worst part for me was actually like getting up and
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: going into the kitchen or the bathroom and everything was,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: was blurry and glasses don't help with optic nerve damage. There's,
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: it's not like putting your contacts in, like it just,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: it's dilation drops permanent. And, and so that was the
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: hard part was just sometimes I just like, I just
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: want to stay in bed all day and pull the
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: sheet over. Cause this is just like it was before
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: I had the vision problem. So you have that choice,
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: get up or give up. And that's a very intentional thing.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: And it's hard. I'm not judgmental of people that can't
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: do it because, you know, there are a lot of
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: people who are facing crises a lot harder than mine.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: But that's kind of my message to people is that just,
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: you know, I write about this, like hopelessness is finite,
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: but hope is infinite. And there's always blue sky on
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: the other side of every storm. It's more than resilience.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: I like to say, You know, resilience is endurance and
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: kind of gets you through. But like I like to say,
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: you've really got to have resolve. Like turn that resilience
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: into resolve because resolve is really very intentional in going
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: after something. Resilience is just kind of surviving.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: What I've heard, agonize or organize. And we've certainly been
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: talking with a lot of people about that notion. And
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: you've done it, turned it into advocacy, impact, and citizenship,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: which I encourage everybody to do in hardship or not.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: If you really want to prevent the events, you start
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: advocating impacting and being a citizen as soon as you
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: can so that that is there on the other side
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: of the type of crisis that you've had.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Our mutual friend, Mark Stoose, who shared this piece of
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: advice with me long before I had my cancer thing,
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: it was when we were like moving to Africa and
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: my daughter was scared to death of moving there. And
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: I remember Mark Stoose had this conversation with Caitlin, who
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: was only 14 at the time. And he told Caitlin,
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: he goes, Caitlin, embrace the suck. It's going to be hard,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: but when you come out the other side from this
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: experience with your family, it's going to be life-changing for you.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: And so I write about that in my book. I
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: give Mark full credit for it. This idea of when
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: we face a storm in our life, whether it's a
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: medical situation, a plane crash, whatever the crisis is that
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: we're facing in business or life or jobs, our natural
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: human instinct, the way we're wired is to either try
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: to get through that fire or that storm as fast
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: as possible or to go around it. And That's what
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: I really write about in the navigate stage is to
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: actually slow down, actually use that navigate time. That was
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: when I took that time off with my eyesight to actually,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: it was like the universe saying, okay, you raced through
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: the cancer, but you need to slow down. And that
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: slowing down allowed me to write the book, it allowed
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: me to heal with my cancer. And in many ways,
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Stephanie had another horrible accident when that happened. She actually
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: fell up the stairs, ironically, and broke both of her shoulders.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: So while I was supposed to be healing, With my eyesight,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: she actually lost use of both of her shoulders temporarily.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: And so in many ways, she was my eyes and
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: I was her arms for about six months there. And
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: so all these things, you know, just kind of happened.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: The idea of slowing down, I think is really important.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Like just like pilots, I use all these aviation metaphors,
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: but you'll probably notice this from when you fly, that
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: when you go through turbulence, you'll hear the pilots throttling
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: back the engine. You'll hear the engines getting a little quieter.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: And that's a very intentional thing when they're going through
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: a storm or through turbulence. They throttle back because if
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: they get caught in a tailwind or some kind of downdraft,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: if they're going full throttle, it can actually lead to
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: the wings falling off or other structural damage happening. So
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: my view is that if pilots slow down, even though
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: they're going through the storm and slow down, we should
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: do the same thing. By us slowing down, it's many
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: ways faster. us making sure that our bodies and our
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: minds don't deconstruct like a plane would deconstruct when you
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: want to actually, you would think pilots want to race
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: through that turbulent as fast as possible to get to
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: the other side. They do what's counterintuitive. They actually slow
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: down instead of throttling forward. So throttle back.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: It is so counterintuitive. That's the same in riptides and
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: things like that. They tell you to not try to
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: fight and swim harder. It's relax, slow down, let the
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: waves take you a little bit. and eventually you'll get
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: back in.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: It's that in-between space, as I call it, right? You know, Starbucks,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: we had this thing called the third place, which is
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: the Starbucks store, that place in between home and work.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: And talking about like this navigation space, this in-between space,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: when you're going through a storm or a crisis, it's
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: kind of your fourth place. It's your quiet space. It
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: was like my time to actually write my book. And
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying everyone needs to go write a book.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: It might be your chance to, you know, I have
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: these 12 other stories of other people in my book
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: who've gone through crises, not just health crises, and they've
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: used that quiet space when they've gone through their storms,
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: to kind of reimagine their life on the other side
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: of that storm and gone from being one woman in
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: there had a flatlining heart attack like Oscar, and she
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: came out the other side and followed her passion to
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: bake her grandma's apple pie recipe. And now she's running
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: a multimillion-dollar business selling her grandma's apple pies all across
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: the country at age 57. People manifest that slowing down,
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: that in-between space, that think space, that fourth that fourth place,
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: as I like to call it, in different ways. I
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: don't care how you use it. Just make sure you
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: give yourself that space and time by throttling back, slowing down,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: and using that time to kind of reset your compass
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: on what you want to do.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: So I have a lightning round. We'll wrap up with
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: this and we'll lighten it up a little bit. Jim,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: thanks for sharing all this. But if there was an album,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: we always ask this. We love music here. You know,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: we're big music fans. people, which soundtrack would that be
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: of your life if there was an album that was
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: the soundtrack to your life?
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Well, I think the one that, you know, now that
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: I've kind of lost my sight, I do a lot
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: of listening on my walks and music. I'm moving to D.C. now,
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: but I was in Texas for the last five years.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: I never thought I'd actually enjoy country music, but I've
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: actually become a real country music fan. It's my go-to.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: The Highway is my go-to channel on Spotify. And so
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: my daughter actually turned me on to Post Malone as
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: he transitioned into the country world. right around the time
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: I got diagnosed with cancer and lost my sight. And
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: so I remember my daughter saying, you should listen to
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: like Post Malone on your next walk. He just had
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: his new album. He dropped his new album, F1 Trillion.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: And there's this one song and I was listening on
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: a walk after I lost my sight, just a couple
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: of weeks into losing it. And it was, the song
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: is called Nosedive. And it's all about be running one
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: minute and walking the next. You can be seeing one
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: minute and blind the next. And it kind of ends
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: with this metaphor of Every rose has its thorn and
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: this idea that I was going through a nosedive and
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: that was exactly the song I needed to hear to
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: give me the encouragement to pull out of that nosedive.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: Have you met him?
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: If anyone out there knows Post Malone or his people,
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: I'd love to.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: I can help with that. He's great. We will bring
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: that full circle at some point. I really believe that.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: I don't think these things are accidents. I've seen him
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: live a few times. I'm a big fan. What's your
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: favorite vacation?
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: I know it's relaxing, but my favorite kind of vacation
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: is anywhere new. This is a constant battle within the
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Olson family, as I'm sure you have with your kids.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: Like Stephanie and Caitlin like to go back to familiar places.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: I personally have a bias towards going to new places.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: It goes back to my Columbia days of constant discovery
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: and all that. And there's no right or wrong answer
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: to those. But, you know, give me a choice between
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: Hawaii and maybe Antarctica, which is somewhere I've never been.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: It's the last continent I need to visit. And that's
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: what I'm excited about this job. It's not going to
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: be vacations by any means, stretch of the imagination, because
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: we're doing real work in 40 or 50 countries around
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: the world. But I am super excited about, like I said,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: they're not vacations. It's hard work, what we're doing. But
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: I am actually looking forward to getting to go to
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: a lot of places in the world that I have
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: not been that are places that normally wouldn't be on
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: your radar. So I'm turning the GPS off again and
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: going to, like I'm going to Nigeria, which I've never
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: been to in probably a few weeks. So I like
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: just going to new places and meeting new people. That's
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: my favorite vacation.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. That's going to be really good. I want
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: to hear about that. What is getting, I mean, you've
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: been so real with us today. What does getting real
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: mean to you now?
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: To me, I think it's exactly what it says. It's
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: all about vulnerability and courage. What I did, I think
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: you saw, you know, one of the things you were
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: referring to is my first link. I mean, obviously a
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: close group of friends and family knew I had cancer,
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: knew I had the vision issue, but I hadn't really
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: publicly disclosed anything. I finally, right about the time while
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: I was writing the book, I thought, you know, I've
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: got to, you know, I can't, be half pregnant, right?
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: I have to, I either have to come all out.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be an either completely open book about
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: this and all of the pain and the vulnerability and
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: the courage and all the people that have helped me
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: and what I've gone through. Other people have said it,
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: but like if your story doesn't scare you, then it's
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: not going to be really a full story. And sometimes
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: the things that scare you in life are the best things, right? Like,
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: so for me, like writing that LinkedIn post back in
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: the fall of 2024, when I lost my sight, I
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: was scared to death. I wrote it and I was
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: scared to death to press the post because at that point,
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: you know, I realized that from a career standpoint, there
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: would probably be a lot of executive recruiters who would
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: write me off and I won't name them, but there
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: are a lot who've written me off. I stopped getting
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: calls from recruiters, but there are a lot of them who,
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: reached out who have been extremely supportive. And like, I'm
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: grateful to folks at Korn Ferry who got me this job,
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: my dream job of working for a global NGO. And
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: so kudos to Korn Ferry for not giving up on me.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: And just like when I went to Africa, even long
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: before this, right? Like so many people, and I'm not
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: going to name names, but so many people talk about
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: purpose and mission in our field. It's so in vogue, right?
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: To say you're purpose-driven. And again, I'm not indicting folks
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: for being that. That's a good value to have. But
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: also I feel like, okay, if you're really going to
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: preach being purpose-driven or mission-driven, have the courage to be
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: true to that narrative. And so like in my case,
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: even for all the medical issues, I thought to myself, okay,
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: I've talked a lot about and written a lot of
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: LinkedIn posts about being purpose-driven and mission-driven, but it's time
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: for me to put my money where my mouth is.
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: And that's what caused me to sell my house in
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: Chicago and move to Africa. I kind of gave up
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: everything to do that. And same thing here, like doing
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: this book. So I think being real to me is
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: having the courage to walk the talk.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: Make it happen.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: I hear you, man. Inspirational. Believe in it. And you're
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: doing it. Hey, everyone. Thanks for watching. I really appreciate
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: that you take the time to listen to this and
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: tune in. So please subscribe, follow. I've got a lot
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: of amazing guests. You're going to learn a lot. And
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: you're going to feel a lot better because you did it.