Latest / The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series / The Power of Communication: How Asking the Right Questions Healed my Sister's Cancer Journey with Cecilia Garnett

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The Power of Communication: How Asking the Right Questions Healed my Sister's Cancer Journey with Cecilia Garnett · The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: This week's guest is an extraordinary woman, a stage core cancer survivor and career coach, Cecilia Garner.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: She's a little unusual as a guest because she's also my older sister.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Cecilia's here to share her inspiring journey and the powerful lessons she's learned along the way.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: Nothing is hopeless as long as you are able to find that positivity from somewhere, and we are better together as a team, as people around us.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: So there is you don't need to do stuff on your own.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to the James Grantham Podcast Super Town Model series.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: This week we are joined by an extraordinary person who is not only a fantastic coach, but is also my sister.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd like to introduce Cecilia Garnet, who is a seasoned career coach with over 20 years of experience in recruitment, talent development, and guiding young people and professionals towards careers that genuinely lie with their strength and their story.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Cecilia's delivered hundreds of talks to coach families one-to-one and recently designed a powerful employability program for social disadvantaged teenagers, including those with special needs.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: She's our Swedish, married to a New Zealander with two amazing kids, my nephew and niece, and she's a stage four cancer survivor.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: And in this episode, we are going to explore communication in a way that will not only empower you, but will show you exactly what you need to do in order to help yourself go to the next level.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to welcome Cecilia Garnett to this week's episode.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for having me, James.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first and foremost, I would just like to say this is very rare because I'll never have any members of my family on the podcast.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I just wanted to appreciate you and your journey and applaud you for how you've handled perhaps one of the most difficult things that people could face and how you've come back from that.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the whole purpose of the Super Town Model series is to show people who are role models who can show us the way when life gets really tough.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And your story, you know, I've you know, my you're my sister, but your story is inspiring, and I think it could help millions of people, and that's why I really wanted to have you on this episode.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very rare to have my sister or any member of my family for that matter on this episode.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I just wanted to give you first a warm welcome and an introduction.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd if you could, I'd love you to share your story.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: So let's just cast your mind back to a few years ago when you were diagnosed, because I think understanding your story will give people some clarity about how that your story could inspire them.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so um it was July 21, I found a lump completely accidentally, no other symptoms whatsoever.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_03: The lump was the size of a golf ball, so it was officially 36 millimeters.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I was told that if I was to have surgery straight away, I would have to have a mastectomy.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: So they instead wanted to try and shrink it with chemotherapy, five months worth of chemotherapy.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um back when they gave me that diagnosis, I had to go in for various different um MRI, CT scans, PET scans, etc., because they needed to assess whether or not the cancer had spread beyond my my breast.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: And what they found was that it had indeed uh reached um my lymph nodes, which automatically makes you go makes you go from stage two diagnosis to a stage three diagnosis.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: What transpired after that was you may recall, I came out to Spain to tell you and our mother the news because I wanted you to hear it in person rather than just over the phone.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: But upon my return, they brought me in for further conversations, and the stand-in oncologist at the time told me that my diagnosis was no longer stage three, and actually it was stage four.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: Now, for those who are unfamiliar with the staging of of or cancer diagnoses, stage to use his words, he told me that um because they have found additional inflammation in my body, namely in my groin and in my lung, that that therefore meant that I had more cancer.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: And that more cancer meant that I was now stage four.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: He told me that he was gonna pull my future um chemotherapy treatments.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: I was not going to have any um surgery, and they were gonna have to figure out a protocol for me to be put on.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: At that moment, when I got given that diagnosis, I was dumbfounded.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, you know, I had had several diagnoses in that short space of time across those few weeks.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: And each time I seemed to go in, I seemed to like have a shock.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I just didn't understand.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I didn't want surgery, really, no one wants surgery, but to then have it pulled made me feel like I didn't have a choice and I just had to sort of go along with it.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I asked him, you know, why why why are you pulling all of this additional treatment that you guys had initially you know laid out for me?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: And he turned around and said, You're stage four, which means you're terminal.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: So what's the point?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: So when you hear words like that, how did that make you feel in that moment?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_03: Hopeless.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I am naturally a fighter, but here was a doctor with loads of letters after his name, you know, he's been practicing for years as an oncologist, radio, radio, um, radiographer, and he was telling me, who has no medical background, um, that pretty much I had a finite I'm out of time to live.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you got a husband, you've got two kids, you got a family.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: They were 10 and 12 at the time, so still young, still need their mother.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, all children need their mother at whatever age, but I just I I just didn't get it, and I just felt so unempowered that I had to hear his reasons as to why they were not going to follow through on the original treatment plan.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and you know, I was really upset.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, naturally.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it I just wanted to say there's a you know, I think there are some amazing doctors, but sometimes they just look at the the symptoms and just tell you what is, and that when you're told what is, you can feel so disempowered, as you said, and then it's like what do you need next?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, Cecilia, your story just doesn't stop there at all.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's just the beginning.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember when I was in Spain looking after our mother at the same time, just thinking, Wow, what's gonna happen next?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: you know, and you you know, we we were thinking, How can we help?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the only thing we could do is pray every day.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I like this terminology by the Quakers, they say pray whilst you move your feet, and that's exactly what you were doing.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, how did you handle what came next?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you had the diagnosis, you probably felt, as you said, like hopeless, and the rest of it.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what happened next?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: What how did you handle this?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is a lot of things that some people may get a diagnosis and think, Well, what do I do?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: So, the first thing it was it wasn't this didn't happen overnight, it was very it was gradual, but timing is of the essence.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: This is what I've learned.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_03: So, when I was brave enough to share my diagnosis with other people around me, I then got introduced to some very inspirational people who had come through at the other end, and that led me to an introduction to an amazing functional nutritionist, and also led me to another organization that supports cancer patients through complementary treatments alongside traditional chemotherapy and radiotherapy and surgery, um, such as hyperbaric oxygen therapy, infrared sauna, repurposed drugs, all which work in tandem with the uh more traditional uh treatments that are on offer with an or you know with a with a system like the NHS.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: I really I really like that because you're just trying to take anything you can get your hands on to be able to assist yourself so you gain some level of control because it must have felt like you were out of control, right?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I lost all control in terms of the doctors, the doctors were making all the decisions for me, and I had to go along with it.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: But what I learned was that you don't have to go along with it, or you are allowed to put in requests, or you're allowed to ask questions.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I from short very shortly after that, I started doing a lot of reading.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_03: I joined a lot of um specialist Facebook groups on breast cancer, yeah.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and started reading other people's stories, understanding the challenges that they'd faced.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, it's different from country to country.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but here in the UK, you know, we're really lucky that we've got the NHS and they do a fantastic job, but they're still, you know, a lot of these doctors and nurses are are human just like us, and they can get it wrong.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: And what transpired was that oncologist who gave me that terminal, you know, stage four diagnosis was actually incorrect.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I used my network of contacts and and managed to find a way to get an appointment with the leading breastcare uh specialist at the Marsden, who, when I explained my story, had agreed to see me for a second opinion because you know I really needed to know if this was really it's fair, it's fair enough, right?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna give a terminal diagnosis, you want a second opinion because you don't want to just take it.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because there are a lot of cases where people receive a diagnosis and within a short amount of time they're gone, they pass away.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: But but you you wanted a second opinion, you know, that's natural within I think within your own your own psyche.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think the way Sicilia's built is let me find another way.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: If this is the first you know, diagnosis, is there is there something else?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you went to go and see what happened next.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't know if you remember this, James, but the last day that we were in Spain when I came to tell you and our mother the news, I got stung by a jellyfish.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: I remember that.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: I all only put my foot in and I got stung.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: But that and it was quite a bad sting, it became very inflamed.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I don't know if your listeners know about this, but I learned about it that your lymph nodes are in place to eliminate toxins from your body.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and a light or a sting, like a jellyfish sting, makes your lymph nodes work with overload.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: And didn't know that that was the reason why I had more inflammation elsewhere in my body due to the jellyfish sting.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: So when that was clarified by Professor Johnson at the Marsden, it I could go back to my hospital that I had originally started the treatment with and explain the second opinion or have that re-looked at.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I was then taken back to a stage three diagnosis, which meant all the treatment was back on the table.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, just there's something as normal as well, I wouldn't say normal to get stunned by a jellyfish, but something that is so abstract can come across and change a diagnosis.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, does that mean the first doctor was wrong because of the jellyfish sting?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the reason.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: So he didn't know, and none of you knew.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, interestingly enough, they did know because they ask you right at the beginning when you have your chemotherapy, just before about your house to have your chemotherapy treatment, yeah, whether or not you have been stung or bitten.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you hear that, I thought, oh, have I been stung by a bee or have I been bitten by a dog?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_03: And the answer to that was no.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_03: But I did mention, well, I don't know if it's relevant, but I have just been stung by a jellyfish, and they said, No, that is relevant.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: So it was in my notes.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: But this doctor, this oncologist, didn't read my notes, and so he made he jumped to a conclusion that was absolutely right.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Can I ask a question then?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is really important to the audience.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: As you know, we are quick to get something or receive some news.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, maybe at some time I always like to think when you're going out shopping, you get a first price when you're given a quote.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the first quote you say yes to?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And in this case, it's it's a lot more severe, you're getting a diagnosis um or you're receiving one, but that doesn't mean you have to accept it.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think that there is a great deal of strength within each of us, demonstrated by you, Cecilia, which is saying, I'm not having this, I think that there's another way.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I think that sometimes we can fall prey to to being human and going, Oh, I can't do anything else.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: That is very normal and human because sometimes that is the bottom of we're hitting rock, bottom.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_03: Especially when you are presented with information from an expert.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm not a medical expert, I have not had any medical training whatsoever.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_03: So I had to very, very quickly learn the language that they talk so that I could have conversations on a similar level with the knowledge that what I was learning was relevant, but not just that, that they would hear what I was saying, so that when I was presenting my questions and challenging some of their theories, that I would actually be heard by them rather than overlooked because I'm wasn't a medic or a doctor myself.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: You could potentially just a patient, another number with another case.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: Correct.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we're we're all important, everybody listening, everyone in the world, we're all important.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, how did you manage to communicate what you needed to communicate, and what exactly did you need to say?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think communication is the main theme of today.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Your ability to communicate what you needed, given the information that you'd acquired.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, not many people want to go and learn like what you had to learn given you knew nothing, but your life was on the line, your family's on the line, your kids' lives are on the line.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I think for me, the emotion I first tapped into was I don't understand, I don't get it.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: And so I became a detective overnight, almost like an investigator.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I wanted to find out as much as I possibly could do about my type of cancer, because all the cancers are you know different and treated slightly differently, and I just wanted to know as much as possible so that I could ask questions, and then in asking the questions, then I could understand why this is the case or why that might be happening.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: And the more I found out, the more I was then able to present an alternative or a suggestion to the specialists, to the experts, to get the best kind of treatment for me.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: And that allowed me to prove and show them that I was committed to achieving the best possible result, which would be beneficial for all involved, you know, it looks good for the doctors, it looks good for the hospital, and of course, it would be good for me and my family.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: But I had to first really understand why they may have come to the conclusion that they did.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: So getting that second opinion was very valuable, and then when I was able to present the reasons why I might want alternative uh treatments, that they actually heard me.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: So going back to really understanding the language that they use.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_03: So one of the things that I first did after that uh second opinion was to change the allocated surgeon that I was given.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: And the reason why I wanted that is because I wanted somebody who had a tried and tested and successful track record of taking out lymph nodes uh and a lumpectomy.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I did my research, found a doctor that predominantly a surgeon who predominantly works with private patients.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: My I was NHS, so it's slightly different, but he agreed to be my surgeon.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: I then later on found out how did you even get that person?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think your art of communication is quite rare, and I think a lot of people can learn through Cecilia's art of communication, which is very clear, and making sure you have, um, as you mentioned, the right questions.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: But how do you even find the people?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then what questions did you ask them?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: And how did you get them to say yes?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think everybody can benefit from asking the right questions and learning how to get a yes from people.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think the thing is, is we are much better.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: How can I explain it?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: No man is an island, I think.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_03: A famous quote has once was said, and we are much better together.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so my sharing of my story with others led me to then find people locally to me who had the same surgeon.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: But this name kept cropping up, cropping up, cropping up.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: So then I did a Google search of him, you know, looked him up on the uh the you know, the medical um uh websites, and read a whole load of reviews, what his background was, and knew that he was going to be the best bet for me, given the type of uh breast cancer I had, and that it had gone to the lymph nodes.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: And so because of the mess up from before, I was able to ask, you know, it's really important that I have the right team.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you went to go around and basically curate your own team.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think you touched on it earlier, but you also went and tried to do your own thing by finding a nutritionist as well, hyperbaric chambers, starving cancer cells with oxygen.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is all fascinating stuff.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: So you're trying to meet traditional medicine with your own holistic nutritional.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: So you're trying to find, you're trying to take back control where it was kind of taken away from you.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I have to ask you a question.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Did this, when you were curating a team, did this give you hope?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, because suddenly the doctors, the oncologists, the nurses started listening and really hearing me.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: It probably took about three months for them to see that I was actually getting some really good results because I was walking in to chemotherapy with a whole host, I was icing my hands and my my feet so that I wouldn't get peripheral neuropathy, which is like a numbing of the fingers and the toes, which can be permanent.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I was talking about, you know, that I had completely overhauled my diet, no sugar, no dairy, no um um I like this because this is a real practical approach to feeling, you know, as we mentioned earlier, like taking back control when it's kind of it feels as though it's taken from you.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: Experts like from breast cancer charities were telling me there isn't one of them turned around after I'd phoned them up and they said, Look, I hope you understand love, but there is no medical proof that changing your diet has any positive impact.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: However, the fact that doing all of these additional complementary treatments, including diet, meant that after three months my tumour shrunk from 36 millimeters to 24 millimeters.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_03: Then the following two months of the remainder of my my chemotherapy, plus still doing the diet, still doing hyperbaric oxygen, still doing repurposed drugs, it then shrunk a further uh 66%, I think it was, to eight millimeters.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh just tell us a little bit about the hyperbaric chamber because I know a lot of tennis players use hyperbaric chambers.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about this because a lot of people don't necessarily understand what oxygen is doing.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, how is that helping you?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: I I I can understand it myself, but I you can explain.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: I learned that cancer cells don't live or or don't operate very well in intensive oxygenated environments, right?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: So you walk into this hyperbaric oxygen chamber, it's not particularly pleasant, particularly if you feel a little bit claustrophobic, you've got this sort of gas mask on you, and you can be in there for an hour and a half up to two hours, okay, um taking in this oxygen.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes it can make you feel lightheaded, sometimes it can you know make you feel a bit nauseous.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: But what I was told was that when you are having chemotherapy, um if you fast before you do oxygen, hyperbiotic oxygen, you your your good cells, your healthy cells, hibernate and they protect themselves until more food or more nutrition fuel comes their way.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: But the cancer cells are dumb and they just sit there in the middle waiting for any morsel of food.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: So that when I then after I'd done a hyperbiotic oxygen, I'd then go and have chemotherapy, maybe not the same day, but the following day or a couple of days afterwards, those cells are already weakened from the oxy oxygen, that therefore the chemotherapy can then mop them up, but yet keeping the healthy cells uh safe and reduced the amount of um side effects that I received from chemotherapy because I was keeping those healthy cells safe.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: You went and go and do all your study, so when you educate yourself, then you can execute with the knowledge you get.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: Also, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, a bit like you were talking about sports athletes, etc., it heals bodies, you know, after surgery and stuff, three times faster than anything else.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: So whilst it was also helping me weaken the cancer cells, it was also helping me heal quicker through my surgeries.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's really beautiful.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've uh experienced the benefits of oxygen uh chambers.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: I've I used to do it for a couple of years when I lived in Tokyo, they had they were already out there.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: You could go and uh have it have it up your nose, and you had a uh you could zip up bag and sit in this oxygen.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it's fascinating how good you feel, how well you sleep, how radiant your skin looks, how quicker you're able to focus.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's fascinating.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, you know, when you're in the hospital and patients can't breathe, the first thing they do is put you on oxygen to help the body find a state of uh of balance.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's very interesting.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: I guess that you know, as we sort of head towards the end of that story, you you've you've been taking complementary medicine, nutrition, hyperbaric chambers, etc., and repurpose drugs you mentioned.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're also doing the chemo.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, how what happened next, you know, because this is that the last bit of this story is really interesting because you've shown that asking the right questions to the right doctors who you didn't know, you had no background, managed to put you in a position where you felt that there was great hope that could come from the situation where usually, when you're giving a diagnosis, there's no hope, that's it.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think the doctors around me realized that I wasn't somebody who's gonna roll over.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I was always going to fight my corner and ask questions.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I think in the end, they really respected me for that, which then resulted almost what I would say is the most fantastic thing was I learned that having your lymph nodes removed has you can't tell what's going to happen afterwards.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: But there was a lot of talk on the Facebook groups that I was following that people were getting lymphedema, and lymphedema is like a swelling of your limb.
• 27:54
  unknown: Right.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: It can be very painful, it can involve you not even being able to, you know, hold a pen.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I play a lot of tennis, as you know, and I really, really didn't want anything to happen to my arm as a result of having my lymph nodes removed.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: And so I learned through these Facebook groups and through reading that there is a surgery, and I think I think it's called lymph anastomosis or something like that, but basically, in simple layman's terms, it means a lymph bypass surgery, and it's normally administered post-lymphedema, so once you've got it, never is a preventative measure, or very rarely is a preventative measure.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so when I was told that I needed to have all my lymph nodes removed in on in my right arm, I challenged them and said, Look, I really don't want the lymph nodes removed unless I can have this lymph bypass surgery.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: And they smiled and thought asked me, How on earth did I know about this surgery?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I explained.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then the surgeon told me that that type of surgery requires a plastic surgeon, and they don't have plastic surgery in the hospital that I was uh assigned to.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: And to cut a very long story short, my surgeon was excited to be involved in this new uh um type of surgery, and so he used his contacts and his network and got me a meeting with a leading plastic surgeon up in London, the guys in St.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: Thomas's, and I went to have a meeting, and I will never forget that I sat in this very small room with eight other nurses waiting for this Mr.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: So and so that's a lot of people in one room, right?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: Lots of people in one room, and there was no explanation as to why they were all there.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and everyone the the The environment was electrically charged, shall we say, without any words being spoken.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_03: And shortly afterwards, in walks this plastic surgeon, and I'm seated in this tiny chair, and he and there's an empty chair right beside me.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_03: And he comes and sits opposite me, and he looks me in the eye.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_03: And he says, I've heard a lot about you.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: And when you hear that, you think, Is that a good thing?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_03: Is it a bad thing?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Are you talking to everybody?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: You were literally somebody who's not gonna take a no, are you?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: You were just not gonna take a look at the same.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: He turned around and said, Look, I've I've heard a lot about you.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I I answered by saying, Is that a good thing?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, a bad thing, and he said, Well, I'm here on time.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and I said, Okay, so he said, The challenge is I have to persuade my board of trustees to do this surgery for free because you're on the NHS.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I turned around and said to him, So what what's the likelihood?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: And he turned around and said to me, We'll see.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: And then the next thing I knew, I was being booked in for surgery and the rest of surgery.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you you were basically a a woman on a mission who was not gonna take a no.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm just trying to speak it as it is, right?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're a woman on a mission, not gonna take a no, you curate your own team on the NHS, you're doing a complimentary medicine, you're learning about the medical know-how and speaking to a language of a bunch of doctors and plastic surgeons, and they're they're kind of questioning themselves, how does this person know what they're talking about with zero medical background?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, where does that drive come from, Cecilia?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think you know, we grew up in a family that loved playing Monopoly, loved playing cards and gin rummy, etc., and playing games in the garden.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: And we've always had a bit of a competitive nature to our personalities.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_03: But I think when you have a life and potentially death situation presented to you, I'm not gonna take that lying down, and I don't think you would either.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so that inner fight very much stemmed from perhaps our childhood and growing up, but then it was also fighting for my my family today, my children, my husband, and to ensure that I would give it every single last breath of my body to achieve the goal of being cancer-free, which I have.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and if you look at yourself now, you look glowing, vital, alive.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: I played Tennessee every day for the last couple of weeks.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: We were lucky enough to go away and have a family holiday, which is incredibly rare.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it's great to see how healthy and vital you are now.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I really like your ethos of what you've shared and how you're also taking that to also show people, young people coming into the workplace, how you're helping them.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Your art of communication and curating a team and being able to ask the right questions has sort of found its way into what you're doing with your work and your coaching.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about that, because I think your art of communication could be learnt.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's saved your life, it's given your kids, you know, extension of life with their mum, your husband as well.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: This is really beautiful because asking the right questions and communicating clearly can literally save your life and can heal it in beautiful ways.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you're doing that with the clients that you're working with.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about that.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm a career coach and I help both young people leaving school or university entering the job marketplace for the first time by helping them navigate the job marketplace and teaching them how to formulate their individual story.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_03: But I also work with mothers returning to the workplace after having raised a family.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_03: And quite often, the women that I work with don't want to do what they did before, they want to find a job or a career that works around their family, or they quite often they want to have more purpose and meaning in their jobs.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's so interesting because we all need purpose and meaning, and being paid is great, but unless there's meaning or purpose behind it, you feel a bit flat.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, how how do you help people find their purpose, or do they already know, and then you try and help them?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes they know, but quite often they don't, but they're also coming from a from a place whether they're young or they've got more experience.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: Quite often they come to me with really lacking a lot of confidence.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: And part of that is because they don't know yet what their value is, what they can bring to the table.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: And so I do a lot of work with people in helping them clarify what their strengths are, what they're what they enjoy doing, and then helping them build upon that, their story as to their why, why they want to go down that path.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: Because the clearer you are about what's important to you in life and how you want to show up, the more authentic and more credible your story is to a potential employer.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same with your story, uh, which was why I was asking you.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, why did you go to the lengths that you did to try and curate a team and get the complimentary medicine, etc., and do those things every second of your waking hour uh during that treatment.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, your why was your family, your why was, you know, that was massive to you.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that was your purpose.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: Your purpose was I'm gonna find a way to get myself back to a great state of wellness again.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: And when you're asking the people their why, you know, to get back into the workplace, you're you're tapping into that same emotional drive.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: So what's happening next?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the people that come to you, how do you help them communicate in a way that is empowering to them if they don't feel that confident?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_03: Well, what I say to all of them, and this is this is you know, I know you and I have had conversations about this, and you know, we are on the same page here.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_03: But you may recall me saying that I there's this mantra that that I really adhered to, which is the quality of the response you get from someone else is only ever going to be as good as the quality of the communication you give.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_03: So in an interview situation or talking to members of family, you know, family members or even your children, other people, your partner, your relationships.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_03: If you want somebody to really hear what you're about to say in order to get the best possible response, you first have to ask yourself is the other person ready and in the right emotional state to really hear what I have to say?
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_03: So there's this exercise that I do, uh, and then I have had to sort of self-coach myself when I was talking to these doctors.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_03: Is what do you want this person to feel, think, and then do as a result of your communication?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: So with a doctor, for instance, how did you want them to feel?
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted them to feel empathy to me.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted I wanted them to feel impressed that I had done my homework.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted them to sit up and really hear what I had to say so they knew that they weren't wasting their time and they weren't just talking to somebody who hadn't just another number, another patient.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: Just another number.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to be memorable.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to be able to walk out of that any meeting that I had with them, with them learning something new, even about them as a doctor.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_03: And then what I wanted them to think about me was wow, this is a determined young lady.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: I know that she's going, you know, she's going to go far, that she's going to get the results that she wants, and she's not going to stop until she can achieve that.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_03: But not in a way that was bamboozling them or like a like a china shop or anything like that.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody who, with calm and clarity, was able to muddle their way through their thought processes in a way that would make them really hear what I had to say.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_03: Because what I needed them to do was let me have my choice of surgeon, plastic surgeon, uh the other team that I, as you to use your words, so beautifully curated around me.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that got me the results I wanted, which was a clean bill of health, right?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, cancer free.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: So just in closing, I love that exercise.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got to ask them to what does the person want to feel?
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: What do you want them to do, think, and what do you want them to do?
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_03: And the reason being the feel bit is almost the most important, but it is the most challenging.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_03: Because in order to get somebody else to actually do something for you in the way that you want them to do it, you first have to elicit a gut feeling from that person.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: So this isn't manipulation, this is like this needs to be authentic, this needs to be genuine, right?
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's a genuine authentic communication.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: If this person, if the other person feels nothing about your experience or your words, or your communication, they aren't going to be motivated to do anything about it.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_03: So if you are clear and understand what kind of emotion you want this person to feel, the other person to feel, then you can work backwards by understanding what content you need to say in order to produce.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: So give me an example of how you could apply this, just let's say, in a personal relationship.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_03: So, for example, say you're having an argument, you know, with your partner, you have a dis you're having a disagreement, and it perhaps has gone on for a few weeks now, and you want to resolve it or you want to find a way through it.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_03: But you keep, you know, you're you're you're both at loggerheads.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_03: You have, you know, one person has one idea and the other person has the other idea.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: So if you really want the other person to hear your side of things, you've got to leave the ego at the door.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_03: And you have to ask yourself, okay, clearly something's not working, the communication's not working.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_03: So what do I want my partner to feel about my what I'm telling them?
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_03: And quite often it might be, you know, I've my husband and I, we've had arguments over the years, you know, how we want to bring up the children or the challenges that we have with, you know, arranging the house, etc.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: Whatever that whatever they might be.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_03: And the moment I could leave my ego at the door and tap into what his needs were, what was important to him.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_03: That then allowed him to want to then hear a bit more about what I had to say.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_03: So showing some vulnerability became really, really valuable, you know, rather than stepping back and just allowing some space for some vulnerability.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: I like that, just leaving the ego at the door to show that you're willing to find a way or create a way, whatever that is, but with their help.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: But what I really like, you also wanted to get a yes from them that they wanted to help you.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that that you're also helping people come back to work or get the job of their dreams, you're helping people with that process, maybe when they're feeling a lack of confidence, and then you actually empower them to have that confidence as they they show up.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I and I like that because I think the more that we're able to put our ego aside, I think the more we have greater genuine connection.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and actually, in truth, that also gives you a greater state of health and wellness as well, because you know, you're not fighting and resisting the desperate need of you know acknowledgement and validation from everybody, you're getting it from yourself.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Steel, it's been really enjoyable having this conversation.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: You're an extraordinary story, really extraordinary story, and you know, it's in my own family as well.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I just wanted to share some appreciation for you, not only as my sister, but just as somebody who who has you know the willingness to listen to themselves and not take a note when and try and find a solution.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think your story is one of there is always a way if you look for it and you're willing to move your feet, and even though you weren't didn't know what to do or understand the medical background, you found a way.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I really like your story so much because I just think it can inspire other people to find a way in their own lives with whatever challenges that they've got going on, and find a way to get there, yes.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd just really like to also congratulate you on what you're doing with your work and how you're helping other people get back into the workplace and finding their jobs of their dreams, and we'll have all your details underneath this episode of how you can help people get the jobs of their dreams, but more importantly, how you can empower them to find their own confidence.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything you'd like the audience to know, just in closing?
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_03: I think nothing is hopeless as long as you are able to find that positivity from somewhere, there is always hope.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_03: And we are better together as as a team, as people around us.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_03: So there is you don't need to do stuff on your own.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_03: So find the right team around you, whether that's your friends, your family, your doctor the doctors, etc.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: But together we are definitely better than on our own.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Cecilia.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: Cecilia's this week's Super Soul Model.
• 45:10
  unknown: Thank you.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for tuning into this episode.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if you enjoyed it, please help us hit the like, subscribe, and share button and share it with somebody who you think would really appreciate this type of message.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because in doing so, you're helping the channel grow and helping the algorithm.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: So just want to give you a big thanks, and until the next episode, I wish you green lights all the way.