Reignite Resilience
Ready to shake things up and bounce back stronger than ever?
Tune in to the Reignite Resilience Podcast with Pam and Natalie! We're all about sharing real-life stories of people who've turned their toughest moments into their biggest wins.
Each episode is packed with:
- tales of triumph
- Practical tips to help you grow
- Expert advice to navigate life's curveballs
Whether you're an entrepreneur chasing your dreams, an athlete pushing your limits, or just someone looking to level up in this crazy world, we've got your back!
Join us as we dive into conversations that'll light a fire in your belly and give you the tools to tackle whatever life throws your way. It's time to reignite your resilience, one episode at a time.
Reignite Resilience
Risk, Reinvention + Resiliency with Tom LeNoble (part 1)
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What if the worst thing that happened to you became the seed of your next chapter? We sit down with Tom Lenoble—former leader at MCI, Walmart.com, Palm, and one of Facebook’s earliest operators—who later stared down life-threatening illness, walked with his brother through the early AIDS crisis, and built a life anchored in coaching, service, and purpose. His journey moves from a childhood “shack” to Silicon Valley boardrooms to hospital wards, revealing a pattern of action under pressure and a mindset he calls “terrible gifts.”
Tom shares how he set up Facebook’s early customer operations and crucial safety partnerships, why he left a dream job when a doctor said “six months,” and how he helped launch a buyers club to find treatments when none existed. He explains resilience as a muscle you train, gratitude as a practice built for hard days, and reinvention as a cycle: take a risk, use resilience, reshape your path. Through vivid stories—returning to work with nine T cells, funding experimental immunotherapy, and investing in underserved communities—Tom shows how evidence from our past trials can power our next move.
You’ll learn practical tools to navigate upheaval: time-boxed grief to honor emotions without getting stuck, an evidence list of moments you overcame, and small next steps that restore agency and identity. We also explore purpose as a performance enhancer—how service to others multiplies meaning and stamina when certainty disappears. If you’re craving a clear, human playbook for risk, resilience, and reinvention, this conversation will meet you where you are and point you forward.
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The Quiet Gift: A Journey of Self Worth and Resilience
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Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The co-hosts of this podcast are not medical professionals. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast. Reliance on any information provided by the podcast hosts or guests is solely at your own risk.
Pamela Cass is a licensed broker with Kentwood Real Estate
Natalie Davis is a licensed broker with Keller Williams Realty Downtown, LLC
Lighting The Spark
SPEAKER_00All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark the flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strongities to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here your host, Natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.
SPEAKER_06Welcome back to another episode of Reignite Resilience. I'm your co-host, Natalie Davis, and I'm so excited to be back with all of you today. And joining me is your co-host, Pam Cass. Hello, Pam. How are you? Pam, fantastic.
SPEAKER_05We were talking a little bit earlier today that Natalie and I are like on this marathon of spending time together this week. Everybody knows that we live maybe 10 miles from each other. Maybe. We barely ever see each other in person because of just busy lives. This week we were together like back-to-back days, and then we've got two days of recording and meetings virtually. So we are getting it, we're cramming it all in at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_06Yes, where most people sprinkle it throughout the year and put it in one week.
SPEAKER_05And we are excited about stuff that we have been working on that is coming up that we'll share with you a little teaser at the end of our podcast today. But I'm gonna hand it back to you, Natalie, because we got a guest today.
SPEAKER_06We do, and I'm so excited. And it has been lovely to spend time with you. I was just thinking about that this morning and during my quiet time, I was like, I'm gonna have some time to like spend some time with Pam. Like that's probably the most amount of concentrated time that we've had outside of like our think weeks, which is which reminded me, like maybe there is that that missing piece of going back on our think weeks where we haven't done that in a couple years. So we've got seven solid days of intentional focus. It's just her and on. We knock things out. Anyways, we had a condensed version of that this week, and it was good.
SPEAKER_03It was good. Yeah, we got big things.
SPEAKER_06And as you mentioned, we have a guest that's joining us. I'm really excited just to dive in and hear more about his story and works that are in play. So why don't you go ahead and let our listeners know who's joining us today and we can dive in?
Guest Introduction: Tom’s Unusual Resume
SPEAKER_05Absolutely. So today we have joining us Tom Lenoble. He has led in boardrooms and fought for his life in hospital rooms, surviving two life-threatening illnesses from shaping growth at Facebook, Walmart, Palm, and MCI to guiding startups. He's mastered thriving through change. He is the founder of the Tom Lenoble brand, host of the Opening Pathways Podcast, CEO of the Academy for Coaching Excellence, and a leadership coach with the Miller Center for Global Impact at Santa Clara University. An in-demand speaker, personal coach, and workshop leader. Tom uses his experience and insights to serve others. A committed philanthropist, he champions youth, women, education, and underserved communities to serve on numerous nonprofit boards. In his new book, which has just reached international and the United States bestseller list, My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns, and High Heels. He shares unflinching lessons on risk, resilience, and reinvention. Wow, that is incredible. And we are so honored to have you with us today. And I'm going to just hand it off to you because you've got quite a journey and quite an amazing story.
Early Career: MCI To Facebook
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, Pam and Natalie, it is so great to be with you today. I have been looking forward to this. And I'm just going to give you the thumbnail. How about that for your viewers, right? I like to say I retired being retired to be inspired. Oh. I had this great corporate career, as you shared a little bit. I was leading customer service for MCI, the people that broke up all the Bell companies so we could all dial one for long distance back in the day. Then I was the head of customer service for Walmart.com in the early days and spent far too much of my life in Bentonville, Arkansas. But boy, do you learn some things at Walmart, back then the largest company in the world. Then I ran global service operations for Palm, the Palm Pilot Trio people. They're part of HP now. And I got a phone call at my desk one day. I happened to be in town, and it was a recruiter from a little company called Facebook. And they were in colleges at the time. I had no idea what Facebook was. I graciously said thanks. I had my dream job and hung up the phone. And a buddy called me that I used to work with, who works in the in Silicon Valley, and said, I referred you to Facebook and you didn't even talk to them. And I said, What is Facebook? Well, short end of the story, which it's a great story if you want to hear it. I ended up interviewing with Mark Zuckerberg when he was 19 and ended up going to Facebook. I think I was employee 57, something like that, but who's counting, and set up all their customer operations, the relationship with the National Suicide Hotline, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a bunch of other things I did there while I was there. And then I was the chief support officer for a company that's now the backbone of Geek Squad Remote Support, had my own consulting business. I worked at a dating site that was bought by Match.com and managed the merger. And you could see me smile. There was a lot to learn from that. And boards would send me into their startups as either the COO or the VP of HR with their perceived problem, which was never the problem. And then I fell in love, got married, and traveled the world. But I knew I had more to share, more to give back, and a lot of wisdom. And so today I'm a coach, I'm a professional speaker, I'm a best-selling author, and I am the creator and host of Opening Pathways. And as you shared, I'm the CEO of the Academy for Coaching Excellence. We train coaches around the world as 26 years old, and there's a great story about that. I'm also, as you said, a philanthropist. I do everything I do. I did well in life from some very humble beginnings, and I believe we have a responsibility to get back. And I'm focused on underserved communities, youth in the arts, first gen students, current women's issues, and some other things that I just have a passion about. And then my CPA and I, who are best friends, Gina, we co-founded a nonprofit separate from my philanthropy work, and we work on some really cool projects like women that are discharged from San Francisco General Hospital for domestic violence. We make it possible for them to do acupuncture or Pilates to reacquaint with their bodies. Or one of my favorites, there's a woman in Oakland, California who finds at-risk boys on the street and teaches them how to play saxophone to give them an identity. We just make it possible for her to teach more.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. You have too much to do.
SPEAKER_01Got too much to do, yes. Thank you.
SPEAKER_06I love that. I love that. Tom, what I love is that that's like the bullet point version of it. Because there's so much that I feel that we, well, I'm curious to unpack the professional journey and experience that you have. Like that is just phenomenal in terms of the connections that I mean, it speaks to your community, the connections that you have. Just, you know, a simple referral. I I referred you to Facebook. You should take the call. You should take the meeting. So those are lovely. And it sounds like all of these life experiences is what came to create the book that is now number one here and international. Talk to us a little bit about that journey and experience of writing this book and what we can find from cover to cover.
SPEAKER_01The book is titled My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns, and High Heels.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
Service, Philanthropy, And Purpose
SPEAKER_01In control, being controlled, and out of control. And I wrote it like 16 years ago, and I'm going to share with you, it was so cathartic, I put it in a closet and forgot about it. And a few years ago, I decided that I either needed to trash it because it really needed to be edited, or I needed to run with it. And I made a decision to run with it. And I want you to know that every possible door that could have opened for me opened. And the book is a memoir that crosses over into self-help. And it's fairly simple. It's letting my readers know that who you are today is the some parts of who you've been throughout your life. Whether those parts you're ashamed of, they're private, or maybe you just think somebody will never understand it. But who you are today is not who you'd be if it hadn't been for all those parts.
SPEAKER_05So we talk about that so much on our podcast. Every guest we've had, they're where they're at and what they're doing and their purpose is because of all of the some parts of their entire life. And so they would never rewrite or do anything differently.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's it's wild because you start out in the book when I was a kid, and I grew up in, we we actually called it the shack. Our family called it the shack, and it was a one-bedroom structure. We didn't have hot water, we didn't have a refrigerator. My dad literally brought home a block of ice every day, and we heated the water on this huge kerosene stove, which I can smell right now. And um, you know, I didn't know any better. I was a little kid, right? And I was one of those kids that started school when I was five, and I I don't remember it in my adult brain, but I remember at five coming home from school after a few weeks thinking and looking around, going, Yeah, I don't think I'll belong in the I don't think this is the answer for me. And um, that was the beginning of a journey that uh has been pretty extraordinary, and I'm very blessed and fortunate to even be here today, obviously.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, incredible.
SPEAKER_06And did you go through complete high school and all of that in the same community and what you all it's worse than that?
SPEAKER_01I went to the same schools as my mother and my brother, and I was the baby. So everywhere I went, all I ever heard was if you would just apply yourself like your brother. Or, and then my mother worked in the school once I hit about I think it was sixth or seventh grade. So, but my favorite story about that is one of my teachers went to her one day and said, I need help with him. And she looked at the teacher and said, Hey, look, I have him at home.
SPEAKER_02He's yours while he's here.
SPEAKER_05I wash my hands of this.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I give you permission to figure it out. You figure it out.
SPEAKER_02My brother was this quiet, shy guy. He was on the honor roll, you know, and then I came along, and and um, and it could not have been more different, you know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Oh my gosh. Wow, wow. And so that's the business suits, the hospital or the gowns, right? This is the with the hospital gowns.
Why The Book And What It Teaches
Growing Up In “The Shack”
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. You know, I my brother died of AIDS in 1985 when it was very early on in San Francisco General. There's actually a chapter in the book about that experience where I got a phone call and they told me he wasn't feeling well, and the doctor told him he had bronchitis. And from knowing what was going on in San Francisco at the time, my heart kind of sunk, right? And just a few days later, his best friend called and said he was in the hospital and I should come there. And so I did. I didn't have any money, but I borrowed some money and found my way there and came upon what I knew was not a good situation, would not have a good outcome. And it was extraordinary to be there on Ward 5A 86, Ward 865A at the time because it reminded me sort of the scene in Gone with the Wind after the war when everything was like, you know, just desolate. Yet there were these beacons of hope. There was this woman named Rita Rocket that was passing out brownies and running around and just amazing people that were working there, supporting people that there was really nothing to do for them. And I made the hardest phone call in my life to my parents to tell them your son's gay, they had no idea, and he's dying of AIDS. And if you want to say goodbye, you need to come here, which started on a wild journey for my family when they did come. And so, you know, I had worked in the medical profession early and early on before I really found my real career, and so it wasn't new to me, but that certainly was the beginning of an education of uh things you'll read about in the work book about death, dying. I was blessed and fortunate to be the death doula, if you will, for both my brother, my mother, and my father. And how fortunate is that, right? You know, it's uh sounds crazy, but it really was quite extraordinary. And and then, you know, it came to me, and it was only uh, you know, four eight years later that I realized I was sick as well. And I was working at MCI at the time on this amazing fast track, uh, probably with even what I told you, one of the best companies I've ever worked for, without a doubt. And and the doctor, that was my first time, said to me, I went back to work and and he finally said to me a few weeks later, you can either die at your desk or you can do something you enjoy because you might be here for six months. And so I I made the decision to go on disability. It was really, really hard, right? It was kind of one of those things that I was leading, something I had worked really, really hard for. And but I did, and I as I have done a number of times, turned that into something meaningful. And I uh was part of six guys that opened the DC Buyers Club and Washington DC, I think Dallas Buyers Club. And we saw Matthew, Matthew McConaughey and very similar. It was called the Hope Foundation, which I named Healing Options and Positive Energies. And back then there was nothing, right? So in the front room we would we would have material to read. Sometimes it was just a hug or a touch when nobody else would touch you. But once we got to know you, we invited you to the back room where we had either smuggled in or found uh alternative treatments that we didn't know what we were doing. We were injecting bovine thy enemas and doing bitter melon enemas and coffee enemas, whatever it could, because it was survival and there was nothing. And so it was an extraordinary time. And you know, I was pretty sick during all of it and decided that I was gonna move to San Francisco because if there was a chance, that was where it was going to happen of anything that might help me. And arrived in San Francisco, couldn't find a doctor. I was on the waiting list for three doctors, and I finally got a call and went in to meet this extraordinary woman who is um just a dear friend today who threw me in the hospital. I was there for two weeks, I was very, very ill and um put me back together. And you learn from these experiences, and and then I turned that into running clinical trials in her office and being the executive director of a nonprofit that focused on children with AIDS. We wrote the first nutritional standards for children with AIDS, and I think that's sort of a pattern. And as I share more with you, I'll tell you about where this falls for me. I have something I call terrible gifts. Terrible gifts. We all have terrible things that happen in our lives. We lose a relationship, we lose somebody we love, we lose a pet, we lose a job, whatever it may be, it's not something we would want to have happen. It's a terrible experience. But somehow, a month, a year, maybe even ten years later, there's a gift out of it. That's why I call them terrible gifts. So, how do you take these things and use resilience? And I define resilience not as just getting back up, but how do you get back up and grow from it? But using resilience to keep moving forward. You know, I had this woman on my podcast recently that's a perfect example of this. She went in for a simple procedure. She ended up getting MRSA. Her leg was cut off. This woman was like an Olympic level sports person. What is she gonna do with her life? She couldn't find a cane or a walking stick she liked. So she made one out of acrylic in her oven at home. She fashioned the handle around a wine bottle. Well, today she has a global business with these super cool walking sticks and canes. She got a terrible gift.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Absolutely. What a beautiful story. Yeah, absolutely. And it's it's not just getting back up, it's it's how are you going to thrive after, right? And that's the I think that's the big piece. And Pam and I talk about this quite a bit. We're we're fortunate to have guests that join us on the show that have overcome some type of adversity, but not just simply overcoming it. They're also thriving. They find themselves in a space where they tap into their purpose and and their passion. And um, I guess they find that ikigaya if they're looking for it, unbeknownst to them, maybe in some cases. So, like turning that around and and how is that an opportunity that can impact and help others? Because that's ultimately what she's done.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I never want to belittle illness or tragedy that happens, right? Because not all of us can do what I just share and more that I could share with you that are similar throughout my life. But I hope that through stories and through the book and through sharing these things, that people see that there's something you can do. Because in my practice, what I see with so many people, so many people, whether it's CEOs and founders, executive directors of nonprofit, or just people that are working and getting by, or just everyday people, is so many people live in the past as if they're going to have a do-over, as if there's something is going to magically happen differently than it did. Now, we can learn from the past, but hanging out there, in my opinion, is not the smartest place to hang out. And getting too far in the future, you know, except for keeping the lights on, making sure the kids are cared for, there's gas in the car, those kinds of things, you're missing out where the magic is, which is right here now.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Uh Tom, how do are there tools that you coach people to when they are going through those challenges to help them seek out to figure out what that gift is?
SPEAKER_01Well, one thing that I find with people that they tend to not identify with is when we're going through something, it's new and it's big and it's supercharged. But we forget the evidence of the things we've been through in the past. So rather than remember those things what we've been through, and that we have this evidence that we survived it, that we got through it, uh knowing that we can do that again. It may look different, it may feel different, it may be a new challenge. But just as you did that, you will be able to do it again and again and again. You see, I see life when somebody tells me their life is like going like this, that kind of looks like a flat line to me, right? I see life as a series of, we'll just call it ups and downs. And I happen to believe those downs are places where we get to learn and grow. The ups are where we get to apply what we've learned and grown from as well as learn new things, knowing that if life is life, there's gonna likely be another little downturn along the journey somewhere.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, absolutely. I feel that's such a great description for the ups and downs, right? The roller coaster of life that we we learn and and grow and then apply and then do it again, and then just continuing that. I'm assuming continuing that cycle until the finish line. Is that what we're doing, Tom? Yeah, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01You know, we you know, you build resilience. I love to use risk, resilience, and reinvention, right? Because we have to take risks. We can use resilience and then we can reinvent ourselves. But I look at resilience sort of like when I'm exercising and I'm trying to build my bicep or tricept. The more we use resilience, even risk, but the more we'll just focus on resilience, the more we use it, the stronger the muscle of resilience gets, the more we're able to use it, the more we're able to rely on it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
DC Buyers Club And Survival
SPEAKER_01I've experienced that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. We we were talking yesterday about the power of gratitude and it the role it plays with resilience. Because I think when you can reframe your mindset to be focused on the gratitude in things, it's easier to deal with those challenges, those things, those downturns that happen. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And you know, I I have that is one of the things that truly is come out of my journey.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I have a very, very pronounced gratitude practice. And gratitude isn't just being grateful to those things that go well, or that that that, you know, I'm grateful because I got a new car, or I'm grateful because whatever. Gratitude is being able to be in the space of being grateful when things don't go your way. You know, I love to say to people, we got up today. Some people didn't.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Wow.
SPEAKER_06Tom, is gratitude something that you carried with you as you were going through the research and the treatment after, I mean, you were basically told maybe six months is what you're looking at. And so you found this community and created this community where you started to look for alternative modes of treatment and ultimately find a physician that would help you in in the research. But what are the other things that really helped you get through that space?
Moving West And Clinical Trials
SPEAKER_01You know, there's one, there's something about me, and it it started when I was a kid. I mean, I used to get in trouble for it because as a kid, it showed up was if you told me I couldn't do something or not to do something, yes, my reaction was I'll show you. Turn around and watch what happens. Now take that food through life. I've applied that in so many times. Like, you know, I've had doctors that have told me, you know, we can't do anything. And I'm sort of like, all right, watch this. So I remember in, I think it was the end of 99, I had nine T cells. If you know anything about immune problems, nine T cells, you're supposed to have, you know, 400, 600 of those little babies. And I had nine. Wow. And I just signed them to people to take care of them, I named them and said, Okay, you take care of Fred, you take care of Susie, you know. And I remember going to the doctor and them telling me that this is as good as it gets. And I remember thinking to myself, you know, I have this, I have a I have a great disability check, you know, I've got a nice little apartment, I've got this nice little cushy life, but is this really as good as it gets? And so I had one of those moments of all right, everybody, watch this. So I made this decision on my own to go back to work. Now the doctors are telling me, you can't do this, you're gonna kill yourself. The disability company came to me and said, You can't do this, we're gonna give you an extra year to fall back on. So in case you can't, you've got to fall back. And then I decided in the middle of the dot-com craze to go get a position in a dot-com startup. Now, here's the thing to know while I was sick on disability, I missed the whole internet revolution. I like kind of knew how to do the basics on email, and I took a position as the director of customer service and satisfaction at an internet startup. Well, wow, it was kind of one of those things. I remember I got this call. I was in on Union Square in San Francisco, and they called to offer me the job, and I felt like I was like levitating a little bit. And I said yes, I hung up the phone and I was like, okay, now what? And then my first thought was I have nothing to wear. And there was this men's store in front of me, so I went and bought three suits, right? Because I, you know, it was like, you know, I got I gotta have something to wear.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
The Idea Of Terrible Gifts
SPEAKER_01And then I started thinking about, okay, now what's gonna happen here? And I thought, okay, you know, I'm pretty bright. I'll figure that this will be okay. And these none of these people know that I was sick. Any other career you've heard about, nobody knew I was sick with anything the whole time. So there's some people that read this book are gonna go, what? What? You know, but uh I went, and here's the best part about this story is my health sword. So when I was told, don't do this, it will kill you. And I on my own, this is the key here, where we draw up, we pull out of ourselves possibility. I all of a sudden had 200 T cells. Now, 200 T cells is a huge thing because below 200, you can get all these horrible opportunist infections. You have to take all this medication to prophylaxis medication to stop it. Well, you hit 200, you're, you know, all that stuff is is related a bit. And so it was amazing. And I think that's just part of who I am. I can remember one time with cancer, which that's a whole nother story we can get into, but you know, I've been radiated so much that I glow in the dark. I mean, I could be your night light, right? You could put me in a corner and I could just glow in the room for you all night. But they came to me one time and said, Cancer's back, it's in five places, we can't use radiation because we'll fry you, and there's really nothing we can do for you. And I chuckled. Now, if you want to freak some doctors out, when they're telling you that you're not gonna make it, you know, you're gonna get like some not too long to live because they can't do anything for you, and you kind of chuckled. And I chuckled because I knew I knew something that I could do. I'd already made peace with dying. I didn't have to do that anymore. That was that was like easy stuff, right? That's out that's under the bridge now. And so I remember leaving there and thinking the same kind of thing I did as a kid, maybe as an adult, but hmm, watch this. Yeah. So I sought out a doctor. Uh I'd learned as much as I could. I found a doctor at UCLA that would allow me to do immunotherapy before it was really a thing, along with this other sort of like immunotherapy that was just for people with advanced prostate cancer. So I went there and he said, Sure, I'll let you try it. We don't know if it will do anything, but we'll let we'll let you try, but your insurance isn't gonna cover it. And so you'll have to pay for it. So I wrote them a check for$450,000. I went for 18 weeks. Every week I flew from San Francisco to LA and I would fly right back after these horrible treatments. They would say you should spend the night in the hotel, not go right back. And I'm like, by the time I could get in LA to a hotel and edit, I could be in my bed in San Francisco, right? And so anyway, it was all over. Who knows? I like to believe just the energy of doing it is enough to make you get better sometimes, right? Who really knows what the clinical significance was? But one day I called their business office and said, I need you to file this insurance, I need the explanation of benefit for tax purposes. Well, you know they're not gonna pay for it. I said, I know, I just need the piece of paper. Yeah, they filed it, uh the insurance paid it, but they had to give me my money back. I share this story with you because this is abnormal. I get that. But there's times in our lives that we take what people say to us, yeah, we take it as face value. We don't use our own power, own our own power of possibility or our own use of resilience to see what we might do next. And I want to be fair. People ask me often, Tom, you said. All the time, I'm still here. Why do you think you're still here? Now I had the best medical care. I had access because I had insurance. My skin color gives me privilege. But there was one thing through it all that I know to be true. I believed I could.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Exactly. You had hope.
Thriving, Not Just Surviving
SPEAKER_01I had hope. I had gratitude. I dug down deep into those things which you know it's hard to be grateful when somebody tells you, I have nothing to do for you. Well, remember, I had already been given the ticket out a few times already. I've got plenty to be grateful for. So what I do when those things happen, because it'll happen again, I'll get the test done, I'll get the scan done, I'll get the call, I'll go back and be a brighter night light after the radiation, right? So what I do, and not everybody can do this, I get that, but I share it because of the possibility. I get it, I'm human too. Look at my watch, Tom, you got 40 minutes. Stomp your feet, scream, curse at the sky, cry, whatever it is you think you need to do, because at the end of that time, it's time to think about what you're gonna do to move forward. How are you going to do whether whether moving forward means taking care of business, whatever it may look like, it's time to move forward because again, if I do that where I'm hanging out there, I'm living in the past of something that's occurred. There's no do-over. The test result isn't gonna suddenly, because I'm in denial of it, flip and say that's not true. That they're not gonna call and say, Oh, we made a mistake.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So living there too long, I'm missing out right here and right now. And what I love to say, I might miss a butterfly that flies by.
SPEAKER_05I love that you say that because I think a lot of people think, oh, resilience is when something bad happens, we're like, oh, just put on a happy face and move forward, but not allowing themselves to sit in that moment for whatever however you're feeling. The sadness that however long it takes. And and stay there, but like you said, don't stay there too long because what you focus on expands. So if you sit in that, that pit of anger and sadness, you're gonna be stuck. And if you can, like you said, all right, now what? Now what am I gonna do? Because this isn't where I'm gonna stay. And I'm not gonna take this. I'm not gonna take what the doctors have said because I'm gonna do something different.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas to fuel the flames of passion. Please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes, and of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.
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