12 Days of Giving Day 12: From Cancer Diagnosis to Cancer-Free - A Business Owner's Raw Story of Survival, Support, and Unexpected Joy

What happens when your life changes in the blink of an eye? In this powerful finale of our 12 Days of Giving series, successful business owner Shana Sissel shares her raw, unfiltered journey through an unimaginable year. After suddenly losing her partner, Shana faced a devastating stage 4 cancer diagnosis while running her company and raising her young son as a single mother. But what started as a story of loss transformed into an inspiring testament to human resilience, the power of community, and finding unexpected joy in life's darkest moments.

This episode goes beyond the typical cancer survival story - it's a masterclass in vulnerability, leadership, and the profound impact of letting others in when everything feels like it's falling apart. Shana's candid account of maintaining her business through personal crisis while learning to accept help offers valuable insights for entrepreneurs, leaders, and anyone facing life's overwhelming challenges.

From learning to walk again to achieving cancer-free status within months, Shana's story reminds us that even in our lowest moments, we're never truly alone. Her message of hope, resilience, and the unexpected gifts that can emerge from life's greatest challenges will leave you inspired and ready to face whatever comes your way.

Visit https://www.banrioncapital.com/ to learn more about Shana's work and connect with her team.

As always we ask you to comment, DM, whatever it takes to have a conversation to help you take the next step in your journey, reach out on any platform!

Twitter, FaceBook, Instagram, Tiktok, Linkedin

DISCLOSURE: Awards and rankings by third parties are not indicative of future performance or client investment success. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All investment strategies carry profit/loss potential and cannot eliminate investment risks. Information discussed may not reflect current positions/recommendations. While believed accurate, Black Mammoth does not guarantee information accuracy. This broadcast is not a solicitation for securities transactions or personalized investment advice. Tax/estate planning information is general - consult professionals for specific situations. Full disclosures at www.blackmammoth.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 A Journey of Resilience
• 13:05 Facing Adversity: The Impact of Community
• 25:28 Transforming Pain into Purpose

Transcript

Stoy Hall, CFP® (00:00.59)
Happy holidays, everyone. Another day of 12 days of giving and today we have one of the most badass women I know that Shana sizzle, you guys can go back and look at her bio and introduction. She's been on a few episodes. That's not what today is about. Today is about a journey, a story that had just happened over the last year to her. And as a woman business owner, the things that she has to go through. And I know there are a lot of you listening out there that are going through stories that none of us could imagine. But

from today's story, want you to know you're not alone. There's a lot of people going through a lot of different shit, and we are here for you. So, Jano, without further ado, why don't you dive into the story and the chaos, craziness that you've gone through over the past year specifically as being a business owner.

Shana Orczyk Sissel (00:46.699)
Yeah, you know, I'll just dive right in. 2023 was not a great year for me. I thought it was gonna be. It started off great. But in July of 2023, my partner died. Suddenly, he just went to bed one night and didn't wake up at the age of 46. He wasn't sick. And so that was a crushing blow to me that then

had a number of additional things that happened almost immediately after that, that kind of set my life into a tailspin. And the moral of the story will start there, is that your life literally can change in the blink of an eye and you can never see it coming, for both better or worse. And this story kind of encapsulates both of those things. So after Joe died, I started having back pain.

I won't go through like every aspect of that journey, but I will start with right after he died, I started having back pain that got progressively worse and doctors did not take me seriously. I went to several doctors, six to be exact, before one had the intellectual curiosity to do anything. Most doctors told me that it was just the stress and trauma of losing my partner.

because there is scientific evidence that back pain can be triggered by stress. But none of them, after my persistence of asking, no, this doesn't seem right, even thought, well, let's just take an x-ray to make her feel better or just to rule anything else out. None of them until doctor number six. Doctor number six could see I was clearly in pain and wanted to try to help me not be in pain.

And so he decided that he was going to do a nerve block, a intercostal nerve block. And while he was performing the block via ultrasound, he saw something on the ultrasound he didn't like. So he immediately sent me to get x-rays. And I had those x-rays done right before Thanksgiving. So for anybody who's paying attention to timeline here, Joe died in July.

Shana Orczyk Sissel (02:59.123)
and it was the week before Thanksgiving or two weeks before Thanksgiving before a single doctor was like, we should get an x-ray. I had an x-ray, the x-ray revealed I had a compression fracture at T7 in my back. And I thought to myself, well, that's the weirdest thing ever. I feel like I'd know if I broke my back. I feel like that's something you did and you know immediately.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (03:22.968)
Right, I fell down the stairs, I did something.

Shana Orczyk Sissel (03:26.015)
You got in a car accident, you fell down the stairs, you tripped on something at the gym. Like, I feel like you would know if you did something that would result in a broken back. So I was immediately confused. And I got the results of that x-ray while I was in Boston for Thanksgiving. And over the Thanksgiving holiday last year, I actually lost the ability to walk. I was walking okay.

until that point. I mean, I was in pain. It wasn't pleasant. I stopped wearing heels for a while, but I could walk for the most part. But I lost my ability to walk over Thanksgiving last year. And so the Monday I returned from Thanksgiving, back from Boston, back to Chicago, I went and got an MRI. And that evening at the MRI facility, because I went to a out of pocket cash facility because it was cheaper. was $2.50 if I paid out of pocket.

And it would have been a 250 deductible if I went with insurance. like, if I had to go through insurance, I had to go to special places that didn't have as much ability to like just fit me in immediately. That's neither here nor there. The point is I got the MRI. The technician who did the MRI said to me as I was leaving, you really should go to the ER tonight. You don't look good. And I said to her, there is no way in hell I'm going to the ER at eight o'clock at night on a Monday.

That sounds like a special form of torture and I already feel pretty crummy. I'm not going to the ER. So I went home and the next morning I went to an urgent care clinic for orthopedic and sports medicine, which happens to be near my house because it seemed to make sense to me. And I gave my disc from the MRI to the doctor who is on duty that day. And he took one look at it and said, this is really bad. You have a lesion.

growing in your spine and it has shattered two of your vertebrae and fractured a third. I don't even know how you were able to walk at any point. You shouldn't be able to even have good, like you shouldn't even have feeling from the waist down. That's how bad this is. And for those who don't know what a lesion is, that is the technical medical term for a tumor. We call it a tumor, doctors call it a lesion. When you have any sort of cancer diagnosis or any sort of tumor, benign or otherwise,

Shana Orczyk Sissel (05:51.691)
that shows up on scans, they refer to it as lesion. And then there's two kinds of lesions. There's something called lytic lesions, which are 100 % of the time cancerous. And then there are something called sclerotic lesions, which can be 50-50. In bone, it has to do with density. So lytic lesions are less dense bone. I think it's causing your bone to be weaker. And sclerotic is excess hardening.

it's actually a symptom of potentially something healing. So that's why it matters what kind of lesion is. And my lesion was mixed, meaning there was lytic aspects to it and sclerotic aspects to it. So because there was lytic aspects to it, they knew I had some form of cancer, but they didn't know what kind. So the next day they had given me some,

Coding to go home. And they made an appointment for me to see a specialist who was a specialist in spine related lesions at Rush in Chicago. And this was Tuesday and that appointment was like Friday. They sent me home with some coding and said this should help with the pain. Coding actually made me violently ill. And I ended up calling 911 at like three o'clock in the morning, cause I was projectile vomiting on my knees at a time when I actually was not physically able to.

be on my knees, like it was, just imagine to yourself having a broken back and then having like forceful vomiting. Like none of that is pleasant folks. And so I called 911, they came, they brought me to the hospital and I was immediately admitted and then I spent the next 16 days in the hospital. Well, they tried to figure out what the hell was wrong with me. I was scanned every ounce of my body, both CT, MRI, specialized MRIs.

while they tried to figure out if there was any other lesions anywhere else in my body that they could find and they couldn't find anything. So like I at that point thought, well, maybe this is just some weird medical thing and I'm just a medical mystery, but it's going to be fine. Cause if it was cancer, it would show up somewhere. Like we'd be able to figure it out. And, ultimately they waited to have a surgery to repair my back because they had hoped that they would get the biopsy results first. And as my surgeon told me afterwards,

Shana Orczyk Sissel (08:21.215)
They wouldn't have performed the surgery they did if the biopsy results were really bad because it was a very, very difficult, risky surgery that had a very long recovery time. And what's the point of doing something which you will recover, but it's going to take 18 months to two years if you're not going to live 18 months to two years. the biopsy just took forever to come back, which was kind of a blessing.

And so ultimately we ended up doing the surgery on December 6th where they completely rebuilt my thoracic spine. I have cadaver bone and lots of metal that were put in there to rebuild my spine. yeah, wasn't, all the nerves were cut. So I had to learn to walk again. I couldn't walk for a while. I didn't have feeling for a while. It was not a pleasant experience. And then two days after my surgery,

I was informed that the biopsy finally came back and that I had metastatic breast cancer. And for those who are unfamiliar with the term metastatic, metastasis is when cancer spreads to other parts of your body. And by definition, if cancer spreads beyond the primary point of the cancer, that's how the staging works. So if it moves, if it's just in the primary spot, it's either stage one.

If it grows, it's stage two. If it moves to the lymph node, it's stage three. And the second it moves somewhere else, it is stage four. So to say I was shocked would be an understatement because I have no family history of cancer. I have no family history of breast cancer. I have now gotten all the genetic tests done. I have no genetic predisposition to breast cancer. And

I was in excellent health and I was considered a low risk person for breast cancer. Like everything about my health and medical profile suggested that I was a low risk for breast cancer. But I wasn't a low risk for breast cancer. I had breast cancer. And so I also didn't have anything show up on a mammogram I had had, you

Stoy Hall, CFP® (10:39.083)
You have it.

Shana Orczyk Sissel (10:46.315)
little over a year prior. I didn't have the mammogram I was supposed to have in 2023 because I didn't have time and my previous mammogram was fine and I was low risk so I didn't prioritize it. know, who knows that mammogram would have happened in January anyways. Who knows if anything even would have shown up. What they ultimately ended up finding was a small swat of what they called malignant calcification that you actually couldn't even really feel on a ultrasound.

And that is the primary source of the cancer. And then there was one lymph node that looked a little suspicious, like wasn't a hundred percent clear that it was involved. But if it's spread and it's not in your bloodstream, it means it had to be through a lymph node. And because it looks questionable, we just assumed that was the lymph node that, you know, it spread through. I had to do 25 rounds of radiation. I had to immediately

undergo ovarian suppression therapy, which essentially meant, by the way, you're going to go through menopause in like a month because we're going to shut all your reproductive organs down because I had hormone receptor positive breast cancer, which meant that the cancer was using my estrogen to feed its growth. And so you have to starve it. And that means you have to shut off its food source. So

You have to shut everything down. And they did that. It was a lot in a very short period of time. I lost my partner. I lost all my reproductive capacity. I mean, I'm 46. I was 45 at the time. Like I wasn't planning on having other kids, but I also wasn't really, you know, looking forward to going into menopause 10 years early either. And...

Yeah, it was just a lot all at once. And I'm a mother of a nine year old son and I am a divorced. So I'm a single parent. And you immediately start thinking about like, my God, I have a nine year old. Like I have every intention of being here to watch him grow up. Like this is not happening. And for a day or two, I kind of went into a dark place, but

Shana Orczyk Sissel (13:05.641)
The next part of this story is the important part because as horrible as my life changed that day in November when I got admitted to the hospital and found out I had cancer and as horrible as it was to lose my partner so unexpectedly and shockingly, my entire life seemed to have fallen apart in a matter of three months where I had a thriving business.

Incredible employees, we're building a technology solution. Super excited, we've raised some capital. And now all of a sudden I'm sitting in a hospital bed, they won't let me have my laptop.

Clients are deciding not to pay invoices because they're concerned that something's wrong with me and we won't be able to support them. I struggling to make sure we can pay payroll. Reserves we had on the side, which were reserves, had to go to the ability to meet payroll and meet expenses that should have been met by cashflow from revenue. And it was terrifying.

I had a group, a core group of people around me. And this is kind of where I've always been a lone wolf. I've never asked for help. Never wanted to ask for help. I'm not even the best at giving help because I'm super, super difficult in communicating to people when they're going through stressful times. Like I never know what to say. I always try to do what I can, but I'm also the single mom of a son and I can't just drop anything anytime, which can feel like I don't care.

That said, I had a very small group of people who showed up for me. Specifically, my chief of staff, Brittany Mason, and my very good friend, Shana Ohm. Shana lives here in Chicago, and when I went to urgent care and got the coding, I called her and said, I can't really walk my dog anymore because I can't really walk.

Shana Orczyk Sissel (15:11.669)
Could you take Tico for a couple of days until we figure out what's going on? And she immediately came to my house, took my dog. So the night the ambulance came, my dog was with her because she had taken him ahead of time. And when I called her from the hospital at five o'clock in the morning, she literally jumped in her car in her pajamas to come to the hospital to be with me and sat with me all day long, helped me coordinate for my mom to fly out to take care of my son.

Pick my mom up at the hospital, at the airport, brought her to my house, showed her how the kids, showed her where everything was. Like she basically took care of my mom, made sure my mom was all set. My mom had to take my son to an event that he was getting an award at that I had bought tickets for. I was supposed to go. I was so upset that I missed it. I missed several important milestones for my son during that time, because I was stuck in the hospital. One of which was when he received an award from his karate dojo at their 20th anniversary event.

My mom had to take them, but when my mom packed, she didn't pack anything for a formal cocktail event. So Shana took her shopping and Britt hopped on a plane from Las Vegas the second she found out about everything and came to my bedside. And for the 16 days I was in that hospital, my friend Shana and my friend Brittany never let me be alone ever during visiting hours and sometimes well beyond visiting hours. The night I was diagnosed and I found out

And I was informed Brit was with me. I was not alone. Brittany was with me. and then Shawna and Brittany that night, the staff let them stay well beyond visitors hours and they were, Brittany was in my hospital room teaching Shawna or trying to teach Shawna how to twerk. So you have to imagine this like as silly as that sounds, it is exactly what I needed. So

In that moment, I could have gone down a dark path. And if I didn't have friends that were insistent on making me laugh and being silly and stupid and having no choice but to laugh, it kept me from going in a place that I think a lot of people tend to go when they get a diagnosis like I did. And I truly believe that the difference between the people who make it through and those who don't has a lot to do with where they go from that moment, right?

Shana Orczyk Sissel (17:37.055)
because if you go down in a dark place, that impacts your immune system, that impacts how you handle things, you give up sooner. You just have to be in a good place. And I will be really admit that it is really freaking hard to keep positive when you get told you have stage four cancer. But I had this small tribe of people who

I didn't even know I had that refused to let me think anything other than you're gonna be fine. That night at that hospital, that Friday night when Shana and Britt were messing around and twerking on the floor and I have it on video, it's hysterical. I said to them, you know what girls, my birthday is in June. I'm gonna be walking by June and I'm gonna be fine. And we're gonna go to Las Vegas.

and we are gonna have the most epic birthday party. Because I feel like after all this, it warrants an epic party. It just does, right? You just gotta celebrate it. So we made a pact that night that on my birthday, we would go and throw an epic birthday party in Vegas and just do it up completely. Make it a big deal. And we did. And...

I did achieve everything I said to achieve. I did learn to walk again. And trust me, there were moments where I cried because I was like, when am I going to be able to walk again? I have a cane. I feel like I'm a hundred. I can't even get my feet to work right.

What is it? I can't go to conferences. can't. Nobody knows. I'm like on TV and my face is sunken because I can't eat because radiation ruined my esophagus during that time. And I'm reading comments from people being like, look at her face is all frozen from Botox. Look at her lips. No, it's too much filler. No, I didn't get lip filler. My face sunk in. My lips looked bigger. My face didn't move because it was an excruciating pain.

Shana Orczyk Sissel (19:53.675)
too much Botox, like it's all ridiculous. And so I'm trying to like at moments, like get through that, like, why can't this move faster? Why can't I do better? And ultimately what I ended up doing is ensuring that getting through that by the end of March, I was able to get rid of the cane, which actually, if you think about it, that's three months, that's remarkable. Like to me, that felt like forever, but to the doctors, they're like, this is insane.

By the end of April, my scans demonstrated that I was in remission, meaning that the cancer had shrunk to a point where it was small and not growing. And then by the end of July, the cancer was gone. I actually sat in a waiting room at my oncologist's office yesterday next to a woman who had the exact same presentation of breast cancer I did.

They found it in her spine, exact same spot in her spine, because it just makes sense. It would be in your thoracic if you just make a circle around your body. That's where it would logically spread. And she had gotten so frustrated and felt so down from chemo, she had stopped going to chemo. And I said to her, and she said, the doctors wanted her to continue because the chemo was showing that it was working, like her cancer was shrinking in a meaningful way.

but she had kind of got it in her head that at stage four, the best I can do is shrink a little and hope I can keep it under wraps, but it's gonna kill me. And I said to her, that's not true. I said, I don't have any cancer left in my body. Like my scans are clean. And I was diagnosed in December.

you can absolutely overcome this. Like I know what they tell you about stage four, but there's some nuance, right? In her case and in my case, we have what's called oligometastatic breast cancer, which is considered curable. It means that it hasn't spread in a significant way. It's only spread to like one spot. And that is curable. Don't give up. I am cancer-free today and I present it just like you.

Shana Orczyk Sissel (22:16.189)
You can do this. It does suck. It does suck. But like, you can do this. And she ended up giving me a huge hug. And my doctor told me that she agreed to go back to chemo. I think that that can be really helpful. And you want to give people a lot of hope. And these are the things that I think I've learned through this journey. And as I've come out of this journey, my life is better than it's ever been. My business is thriving.

I worked through all of that. Nobody even knew I was sick. We continue to thrive. We're bringing on advisors every day. We're bringing on new asset managers every day. Our MVP is up and running and working great. I'm thriving. I get a lot of opportunities to speak at conferences, to be in the media. I've been approached to write a book. I've been approached to do a TV show. My son is doing great. He's...

thriving in his karate, I have a great tribe around me, and everything is going so well right now. My life changed in the blink of an eye for the worse, but in the same sense, it changed in the blink of an eye for the best through the worst. And so I guess my message here to the viewers is that I am not gonna sit here and tell you

that my outcome is repeatable because I don't know why I was able to achieve what I achieved but I will tell you that no matter how things seem and how bad they seem your attitude and the tribe around you that you choose to surround yourself with have a massive impact on how you come out of those things. A massive impact and

I also believe that if your quality of life isn't going to be great, those things matter too. Living just to live versus actually living are two different things. And I've been very fortunate that I've been able to work with my oncologist to come up with the best plan for me that keeps my quality of life extremely good. It's not without its issues. I mean, I have cancer related side effects that I don't like. I have all the...

Shana Orczyk Sissel (24:45.021)
I have to deal with all the issues of menopause long before I should have been able, had to deal with issues of menopause. But overall, my quality of life is excellent and my attitude is excellent and

I think I kept my attitude in that I will get through this and I will be fine and never wavered. And so I think the viewers should take away that like even in the worst of situations where everything seems to be going wrong, as cliche as it sounds, sometimes those obstacles are put in place for you to challenge you so that you can be in the right place to accept whatever

blessings and gifts are coming your way in the future. Because you'll never appreciate those good things if you didn't have to go through challenges to achieve them, right? You'll never really appreciate, you'll take it for granted. And so every time I go through a negative situation, and this was probably the worst year of my life from July of last year until probably May or June of this year, July to July, July is when Joe died, July is when I was cancer free of this year.

So in that whole year, I went from losing my partner, being diagnosed with cancer, breaking my back, learning to walk again, trying to keep my business up and running, all of that. And then a full circle year later, I was completely cancer-free. so, yeah, I think that ultimately that's what it comes down to is that, you know, we're all going to go through tough times and how we choose to respond to those times matters. And much of that can be influenced by the people we choose to surround ourselves with during those times.

So that's my story.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (26:29.688)
your story is tremendous, obviously, and knowing you I didn't even know most of it until later in the whole situation. And I hope that listeners are watching this and going, I might not be in exactly her scenario. But I do have kids, I do have a business, I do have something I'm going through. And I just want to ask you this one question and then we'll end this whole thing of when you were going through all of this, and your tribe kicked down your door. What

Shana Orczyk Sissel (26:57.991)
Yeah, they legitimately did. These people were not gonna let me be alone, even if I told them to. I had a friend from my son's karate dojo that was like, I wanna come visit you in the hospital. And I was like, you can't come see me in the hospital. I look like hell. And he was like, I don't care. And eventually I had to relent and be like, fine, you can come visit me in the hospital. Because he wouldn't accept no for an answer.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (26:59.32)
They literally did. Yep.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (27:21.21)
And and so the question is, when you relented finally, because of all the pressure they were putting on, what did that do to you emotionally and where you were at mentally from basically your because everyone's going to want to shun people out, right? Just leave me alone. I can deal with this, right? You're a lone wolf. And you wanted to do that. When you relented, finally let that happen. How did that change the course of your mentality from there on?

Shana Orczyk Sissel (27:24.479)
Yes.

Shana Orczyk Sissel (27:34.4)
Right.

Shana Orczyk Sissel (27:45.387)
I mean, I still am somebody who wants to take, doesn't want to burden other people. But I learned that through that, all of that and through, and how it impacted my attitude was like, I definitely cried happy tears. I remember like Britt lived with me for six weeks because I was unable to take care of myself and like literally could do nothing. And so I had to have somebody live with me and Britt stayed and lived with me.

for six or eight weeks. I remember sitting with her and going, I didn't know people actually cared this much about me. I didn't know that people, I had an impact on people this way. I didn't know these people cared. Like, I didn't realize that I had people that cared about me like this at all. And I am so grateful that this journey taught me.

that there are actually people who really cared about me that I had no idea. I had no idea that these people felt the way they did about me. know, my Finntwit fantasy football like group is like a whole group. That group was sending me hilarious memes the entire time, making me laugh nonstop, sending me care packages, talking trash. Like, what would I...

They could have easily just been like, we'll leave her alone. She's going through some, you know? But no, that's not what they did. They were like, no, she needs this levity in her life and let's be that for her. I mean, it's a bunch of guys. It's not like it's a bunch of girls. I mean, there's one other woman in it besides me, but it's just a bunch of goofy guys. But they were like, no, she needs us right now. And the flowers I got from people, like I would get flowers and I would read the card and be like, who is Stephanie?

And then realizing like, know a couple of Stephanie's, but I wouldn't think that they would send me flowers. So it didn't immediately pop in my head. it's Stephanie Bogan. Those are the things that I think came so unexpectedly to me and actually really helped me mentally stay in a good place. Cause I was like, my God, people care. People care about me. I had no idea that I had this incredibly rich life.

Shana Orczyk Sissel (30:11.627)
and these incredibly amazing people in my life who I have always looked up to and I have always admired. And I had no idea that they felt the same way about me because I never let anybody show me until that moment. But, and part of it was because I had no other choice. I couldn't walk. I couldn't bathe. I had to have somebody help me to the bathroom. Like I couldn't feed myself. I couldn't clean my house. I couldn't take care of my kid. couldn't walk. Like the list of things Shana could not do for the first...

Stoy Hall, CFP® (30:27.766)
Yeah! You physically could not say no because they could do whatever!

Shana Orczyk Sissel (30:41.451)
45 days is pretty much everything you have to do to like live. Right, so like I had to find somebody to help me and the fact that it wasn't difficult says something. Like I didn't even ask Britt to stay. She was just like, I'm staying. You know, that's that I think showed me that my life was much richer than I ever thought. And that

Stoy Hall, CFP® (30:46.764)
Mine is breathing, basically.

Shana Orczyk Sissel (31:09.011)
And I am forever grateful for every single person that showed up for me. And those people have me for life. They're stuck with me forever. I tell them all the time. There's nothing you could ever do that will cause me to not be your friend. I mean, I like what you're doing. I may tell you that you may choose you don't want to be friends with me, but I will never stop being your friend and looking out for you and being there for you if you need me because of what you did for me.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (31:36.332)
that that's the message we want to get across. If you're listening, whether you're going through it, someone that you know, your friend, your loved ones going through it as well. Be just be there for them. And also we're here for you. So if you want to reach out, DM us, I don't care, share comment, do all the shit that everyone says to do for the algorithm. Shane, I don't care about the algorithm. We care about you. We want to help you as much as possible, both personally.

and in your business. So if you want to reach out to us, we're on social media all the time. Just just start a conversation. Because we we all know you're going through something and we just want to be here for you. So Shana, thank you for telling your amazing story.

Shana Orczyk Sissel (32:11.209)
Everybody's going through something. Everybody's going through something all the time. And we as human beings should be cognizant of that. You don't have to like everybody. You can understand that the behaviors that you don't like about somebody are being driven by some struggles that they're going through that they're just not handling well. They may never heal from that trauma. They may never get to a point where you can move past it and their behavior may do things that make you not want to be there for them. But you need to understand that

most people are not inherently bad, that most bad behavior is caused by struggles that they're going through internally. So have a little empathy folks. if, as, Joy said, if you're going through something and you need a little pep talk, I am the queen of pep talks. I will never make you talk, but if you tell me you're going through something, you will, it can absolutely expect every couple of weeks that I will text you and be like, you want to chat? And if you say no, no, but I will keep doing it until I know you're okay. So.

Feel free, sorry, I'm sure you'll put my handles and everything in the show notes.

Stoy Hall, CFP® (33:14.574)
Absolutely. And happy holidays, everybody.

Shana Orczyk Sissel (33:16.523)
Happy holidays.