5. Cancer, Leadership, and the Gift Nobody Asked For with Nicole Gann

Cancer doesn’t just interrupt your calendar. It interrupts your identity.

In this episode, Amber Bardon sits down with returning guest and leader Nicole Gann for an unfiltered conversation about breast cancer. What it takes from you, what it reveals, and what it forces you to finally stop pretending you can “handle alone.”

Amber shares her 2025 breast cancer diagnosis, the shock of hearing the word cancer, and how the following weeks felt like life stacking one hard thing on top of another. Nicole opens up about her own diagnosis, the brutal reality of treatment, and the moment she realized: there was nothing that would’ve slowed her down like cancer did.

Together, they talk about the complicated truth that can exist alongside pain: cancer can be a teacher. Not because it’s “good” but because it demands you get honest about your pace, your stress, your boundaries, and your relationships.

This is the episode for anyone who’s ever tried to be strong by being silent.

Resources & Mentions

• Anti-Cancer Living by Lorenzo Cohen 
• Brené Brown on Empathy

Discover more on our website. 
Let’s get unapologetic: Follow Amber on LinkedIn & TikTok

🎧 Subscribe, share, and tag Amber

Transcript

Amber Bardon: [00:00:00] Welcome to the F Word podcast, where we are bold, fearless, and unapologetically female. I'm your host Amber Bardon, and on today's episode, I am so pleased to announce Nicole Gann, welcome to the show. 

Nicole Gann: Oh, thank you. So happy to be with you. I love it. 

Amber Bardon: I should actually say welcome back because you are on our first episode about women in leadership, which is what inspired me to start this podcast in the first place.

And it's just been such a privilege to know you and to interact with you and to see you advocate for so many different things. And the topic of today's podcast is we're gonna be talking about this C word cancer. And as, uh, listeners may know or may have seen on my LinkedIn post, um, I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2025.[00:01:00] 

And it was, it was shocking. And Nicole is the one of the first people I thought of to reach out to, because I know you've been through it. Nicole, you, you've been vocal about it, you've been open about it, and you have been so generous with your time ensuring resources and ideas with me. And both of us are, you know, through the other side.

We're both, you know, cancer free today, um, which we'll talk about, you know, what that means, but. I think you and I are on the same page that these kind of topics are really difficult to, to discuss, but that's why we need to talk about them because we need to get awareness out there. You know, it's, it's important for people to know how to even talk to you or know like how they should be reacting.

And then I just think to think to share experiences, it's all just part of the human connection. 

Nicole Gann: Absolutely. I agree. Thank you for creating this form, [00:02:00] Erin there for us to talk about that. 'cause I think it is an important conversation and I think we don't talk about things enough, especially as women. We seem to internalize it and think we should shoulder all of the things.

And you know, for me that was a big lesson, you know, during my cancer journey of how to let those things go, lay things down, make it about myself, ask for help, set boundaries, all those fun things. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah. So to start off with, I just wanna tell a story about, uh, an interaction I had with you. And it's a story I've been telling a lot of people when I got diagnosed.

So I was diagnosed in, uh, October. I went in for a routine mammogram and they found something and I went back with follow-ups, and then I got that call that it was cancer. And actually when I got the call. I, I, I, I was scheduled to go in the next day to see the surgeon and they didn't know at the time that they [00:03:00] called me all of the details.

So they didn't know the receptors, they didn't know any, really any information other than it was cancer. And so that, that night was very, very difficult. And then when I went in the next day, um, I was, I found out it was the best possible scenario for me. I was very lucky. So, stage one, grade one, um, non-aggressive, you know, pretty, uh, pretty treatable.

So, um. That was, that was good news to hear that, but it still just took, you know, come outta the blue. You know, I don't, I don't drink, I don't smoke. I live a very healthy lifestyle because I have really bad migraines. So, uh, because of that I've always lived a pretty healthy lifestyle. I don't have any genetics in my family.

Um, I have cancer, which genetics actually play not as big of a role as people think that it does. Um, so, so it's pretty shocking. Um. So the first thing I thought is, where's my community? Where are my resources? Who can I talk to? And like I said earlier, you, Nicole, you were one of the first people I thought of.

And you know, you and I had a phone call and you said something to me that at the time that I thought was crazy. I was like, why is she saying [00:04:00] this? And you said, Cancer in some ways has been a gift. And I was just like, don't feel like that. Like, why would she say that? You know? Like, that's so, so strange to say that.

And after I got diagnosed. Within the next couple of weeks, I just kept having more, like, just bad things happen to me one after another. So like a few days after I got diagnosed, I was driving, driving my car, an electric car that I have, and it, um, just stopped working outta the blue line. Like, just shut down.

I still don't have my car back. Another story, um, I just kept getting bad news, like just kept having like one thing after another. And, you know, two to three weeks after the diagnosis and after, I just kept having like, kind of like the worst and hardest time in my life. I was in an Uber because I didn't have my car.

And I was thinking about what you said and I said, and I was thinking to myself, oh, I think I get it now. I think that the gift is that I'm being forced to look at what's going on in [00:05:00] my life and what's going on with my, uh, emotional state, my mental state, and reassess and see what changes I need to make.

That is the gift. And that it, for I was, I had no choice. I was forced to slow down my pace. I had to stop traveling for a few months. I was forced to reassess certain things in my life, my stress level, um, you know, what, what are the things I do, and weighing those against the benefits that I'm getting out of them to see if it's really worth it.

And, you know, I know, I don't wanna say, I don't wanna be unsympathetic to people who have. You know, cancer experiences that obviously don't turn out the way our stories turned out, that it's not a gift, you know, it's not a gift to the family is where it's a, it's a much worse outcome. But I think with anything in life, you have to take what you can, the lesson from it and move forward.

Nicole Gann: Absolutely. You know, uh, and that's such a beautiful, you know, testament to, you know, your story and your journey. And I think everyone's [00:06:00] journey is just that, it's their journey, right? And you talk about community, and I think that's so important to talk to people who have lived the experience because there's no doubt that we all have a community of people, whether it's people in our organization or our friends, or you know, our neighborhood and they wanna help and do whatever they can.

But for me, it was so important to talk to people who had that lived experience because I think. My executive function was like, what's my strategy? What's my plan? You know, I wanna know everything that I can know about it, right? And so I wanna talk to the people who've already been there, you know, before me.

And I think it's also, you know, how you say being sensitive to people whose journeys, you know, end to end, you know, loss of life or you know, more significant consequences. I think when I. Uh, and take that and reflect as far as how it's a gift to me is probably a hallmark of how my mindset, of how I've gone through any hardship in my life is like, I take the [00:07:00] lessons that I learned from it and then I leave the rest behind because it doesn't serve me.

And for me, my mindset that I bring into any situation, and especially in cancer, going through the treatment, I think is an aid to my healing. And there are, you know, certain studies out there that will say. You know, people that can have a positive mindset and can have hope, not false hope, but can have encouragement that, you know, they can move forward.

It does affect, you know, their wellness too. And so I think that that, you know, has been an important factor for me. But your point about, uh, slowing your pace down and reevaluating your life, that that's a fundamental component of mine as well. I, you know, I say this frequently, I don't know if I would've gotten to the levels of.

Evolution in my leadership journey or in my personal journey as it relates to what healthy boundaries are, what healthy, you know, pace is. You know, how you overextend yourself. [00:08:00] Oftentimes, had I not had cancer and, and I, and I really do believe that because what else was going to disrupt me or slow me down?

I've been in executive function for so long, achieving. Whether it was climbing the corporate ladder or then running an organization just like you do, you were building an organization, founding an organization, sustaining it, and there are so much things, so many things that go along with that, right? What else is gonna disrupt that?

'cause we've persevered through so much, but when you have to stop and really take care of yourself and evaluate your own. Deep sense of wellness and healing and decisions that you're making that are gonna impact the rest of your life. It, everything just kind of narrows in real quick and it's really easy to, you know, sort through and, you know, cut the other stuff loose.

Um, which I would love to say I just would do naturally, but I absolutely did not. 'cause I didn't really prioritize myself. That's really what the truth was. 

Amber Bardon: [00:09:00] And I'm curious because I know I had the, the fortunate experience of you giving me the benefit of your lessons that you learned from your journey, but for you, when did, like, how, what was that like for you?

Because I'm sure when you got diagnosed, your first thought was like, oh, not like, oh, this is a gift. You know, I'm sure. Like how did you come to that? Um, you know, how did you come to that conclusion? What was 

Nicole Gann: that like? So, you know, I, um, have had large breasts my whole life, so I've always had abnormal mammograms and, you know, density and all that kind of stuff.

So I probably never get excited when they say they see something because, you know, it's usually, you know, something that you know is. Noncritical at all. But I, this journey, I had found something, you know, in my breast, you know, close, you know, to the front part of my breast. And I knew it was different immediately, just intuitively because it felt more like a stone instead of like a fatty fibrosis that, you know exists in women with large breasts.

And so I went [00:10:00] in saying, I think this is problematic, right? And we went through the whole diagnostic. So when I got. The call to confirm after I had done, you know, the three biopsies I pulled over on the side of the road thinking I was going to, you know, be distraught, but I already knew what the answer was going to be.

So I'm sitting in this, you know, shopping center and the doctor's calling to tell me that, yes, you know, it is cancer. Um, you know, all the things that they know about it at the time, you know, it's extremely fast growing. She's, you know, concerned that we've gotta, you know, take. Radical action immediately.

All the things and still. I, I am feeling no dysregulation. It's, it's as if someone is telling me statistically how my systems at work are working, like I am getting a report. So I found that looking back on it, very odd, you know, in that regard. And then I never got to the really gift or understanding part [00:11:00] until.

You know, probably into my treatment because at that moment I just took that information and I was like, okay, this is what I have to do. I have to have surgery. I'm gonna eventually have to have, you know, radiation Turned out, I ended up having to have chemo because they didn't clear my margins. Um, and my breast got rearranged during surgery because they were large, so reconstruction could happen at the same time.

And when they didn't clear the margins, I only had the option of having. You know, radical mastectomies at that point, or going into chemo, and I chose chemo, but I think going through that first round of chemo was really pivotal for me as well too, because everyone's journey I think is unique to them, and they give you a template of what primarily works for people.

And in some ways it's going to hit the mark. You know, they give you good guidance and, and I loved all of the medical professionals I worked with, but there are nuances that are associated to you, like your age, your physical [00:12:00] condition, um, you know what your wellness is, you know when this happens, right?

What other medications are you on? And so I had a really tough time that first, uh, chemo where I had to kind of become my own scientific experiment. And I think. Surviving that first round of chemo, knowing I had subsequent rounds after, that's probably when I had to really start tapping into my mindset and start to say, okay, what am I gaining, you know, from this?

Um, you know, and I had developed a mantra probably even before surgery that it was, I matter as much so I could start anchoring myself on how to focus, you know, my attention on myself because I wasn't practiced at it. But yeah, it, you know, it was. I wouldn't say halfway in my journey, maybe a little bit more, when I really started saying, okay, what am I gaining from this?

What am I taking from this? What am I learning about myself? My resilience, my tenacity, my ability to really know what's happening in my body. This is the thing. You wanna go as equipped as you [00:13:00] can to partner with your medical professionals. This is my opinion. You want to leverage their expertise, but they're not in your body, and you've really gotta be attuned to what's happening.

Your blood pressure or you know, your headaches or your nausea, all the things, like, I really became very scientific of saying, here's what I got. I need this from you. Right. And that was a gift to me too, because I had been on an embodiment journey and I, I say this can, there's nothing that made me more embodied than cancer.

And the treatment because it forces you to be right there. But that's a gift to people who have been disassociated, which I was for years, you know, from what my body was trying to tell me. Because, um, not knowing that, or not being attached to that I think can rob us of ways that we can maybe intervene sooner in our own wellness journey, whatever that might be.

So that was, you know, that was another gift, but later. It comes later. 

Amber Bardon: [00:14:00] Yeah. Yeah. Well, and yeah, for me it was a couple weeks later for sure, but for you it was a longer, longer journey, I think. I'm curious about your decision to share what was going on with you. Like how did you, what was your, because I know some people are very private and they don't want to, you and I are both much, uh, like we are very much more open about.

Nicole Gann: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Amber Bardon: You know, talk me through. Your thought process with that. What did you share with your team? How did it affect, you know, your leadership from that perspective? 

Nicole Gann: Yeah, I mean, I, although I'm not a big sharer on social media that you're not gonna find any of my journey about this 'cause I just don't do social right.

That's just not my jam, but, but if you talk to me in the grocery store or if you know me, you're probably gonna get intimate details in my life because that's just. Who I am naturally. And I think that for my team, you know, I just told them very candidly, this is what's gonna happen. This is what I know now.

This is what I'm gonna, you know, need from you [00:15:00] all. And that's how I approached most groups. I think what was interesting for me in the telling of that was. The amount of space you've gotta hold for other people's emotions. Like you're dealing with your own stuff and then you tell somebody something and it's almost as if they have been given a diagnosis and then they're distraught and you're comforting them.

And that was one of the first boundaries I had to figure out. I was like, okay, I'm not, I'm not gonna comfort you. I'm going to comfort and nurture myself. Right? Like. This is going to be okay, but I think that people naturally had questions and then I naturally, you know, would share information. And then because people were so generous with me, I mean, I had strangers that were friends of friends.

That hooked me up. And then we would have these text conversations, or then we would eventually have ear to ear conversations and they were just immediately so candid, so transparent. And that was so helpful to me that I consciously said, [00:16:00] I'm gonna share everything that happens to me. Even my Poo baby story, which you got at dinner from my first chemo.

Um, because. Again, I like having information, like it makes me feel a little safer when I have an expectation of what's going to happen, especially in an arena that I haven't done something right. So the more I can talk about it, the more I can foster that conversation. Maybe that's gonna help somebody else's journey.

And then also, I think I talk about it a lot too, because I want women to take. Better care of themselves, right? We sacrifice a lot for caretaking for other people, and I don't want anybody to have our experience of what we went through to recalibrate. I'd like them to maybe, you know, hear that story and really give themselves a good self-assessment of where do I fit, you know, on my list of people to care for so that maybe they can evaluate that and, you know, go forward.

So, and, and I just think we don't [00:17:00] talk enough about women's stuff. Like, I don't know, like I know what, where the generation I was raised, it's like you're supposed to look a certain way and be presentable at all times and you're not supposed to let people see, you know, your emotions and the messiness.

You know, I think of uh, Q Miranda Lambert, you know, and the put your makeup on and you know, hide you crazy kind of thing. Um. I don't, I don't want that for, you know, the people that I know. I wanna talk about all the things so that we know we've got people that walk alongside of us, or that understand us, or that see us, and then, you know, maybe that's gonna impact someone else's journey in a, in a way that's positive.

Amber Bardon: Yeah. I think for me, um, I had, I had similar thoughts. My first, my first thought is that I wanna tell people about this. But I wanna tell people in a way that they're not left saying, oh, I'm so sorry. Like, that's not why I wanna tell people. I wanna tell people because first of all, like awareness. Like [00:18:00] I put off getting my mammogram, I put it off for a few months and mm-hmm.

You know, I want, I wanna remind people if you're, you have a test you can to do, you know, scan something you're supposed to be doing, do it. And like, this is like a wake up call because if I hadn't gone, you know, uh, or I kept putting it off, who knows what would've happened. Yeah. And I think just to sh again, like I said at the beginning of this podcast, to just to share the stories and experience.

So for me it was, it was a, I wanted to be able to, to tell people in a way that didn't invoke, like pity or like people saying, oh, I'm so sorry for, you know, I feel sorry. 

Nicole Gann: Yeah. 

Amber Bardon: Because that's not what I, what, what I, what I wanted or needed. And, um, I did tell, um, my leadership team right away. Then I did share with the rest of the company as well, uh, pretty quickly once I knew my surgery dates and, and what was gonna happen because I was gonna be outta the office.

But I also struggled because I'm still primarily responsible for a lot of our, um, sales process, that it involves travel in person. [00:19:00] And so I actually had a lot of travel. That was, uh, scheduled when I got diagnosed and I rearranged all of it and was able to get it all done. And I, I also felt just a lot of accountability because I didn't want to let down, you know, anyone in the company or business because I couldn't fulfill, you know, the parts of, um, the business I was supposed to be doing to help support everybody's job.

So part of that, you know, I think contributes back to. Well, what is the lesson? And you know, how do you deal with that kind of stress? And I did reach out to other CEOs, I know to ask them like, what do you, what do you do? You know, how do you handle stress and, um, accountability and things like that, because I wanna learn to manage that better.

So that was part of that process. And then. I do A-C-E-O-A-M-A ask me anything once a month. And so, mm-hmm. After I got diagnosed, um, people came on that and we talked about it openly and there's, you know, other people that have had cancer shared their stories. So yeah, that was, uh, that's pretty 

Nicole Gann: cool. 

Amber Bardon: [00:20:00] Yeah, it was cool actually.

Um, you know, people got on to ask me anything and, and some, and it's, there's no agenda so people can come and just ask me any question they want. And it was, it was kind of quiet and I said, do you guys wanna ask me about cancer? And, and actually somebody was like, oh, I didn't know you had cancer. And, uh, because even though I'd posted in our slack chat, so, um, and that person happened to have had cancer twice and so he shared his story and so yeah, it was actually, it was kind of cool.

Nicole Gann: Don't you think? I mean, I, I'll be curious, you know, how many of those kind of situations you found yourself in, because for me, when I started talking about it, you find there's so many connections out there beyond what you knew, which is again, you know, another testament of why we should be talking about it.

But I think that was. That was the beauty of me sharing. Right. You know, I talked about not wanting to hold other people's emotions, but the, the greatness was feeling connection with other people and having a deeper insight, you know, into, you know, how they had dealt with it or how they felt with it. And especially at a community like mine where I've got, you know, 400 plus [00:21:00] resident.

You know the number of residents that I have here that have had breast cancer multiple times in an age where we didn't have some of the medical, you know, capacity that we do now and hearing their stories and you would've never, you know, known it otherwise. That's my question for you, Amber. What's the thing that surprised you in a positive way the most when you started telling people?

Was there somebody or some group that you were like, huh, they really reacted maybe differently than I thought and that was kind of fun. I. 

Amber Bardon: I think, uh, I'll kind of answer that question along with like some additional information about, I think the way it changes your relationships when you have cancer.

Mm-hmm. You know, I, I told people in my life, and I think it was a good way to weed out people that I shouldn't have in my life based on the way they reacted. And maybe that's not fair. I don't know. But, uh, I think it's fair. There's some people that, you know, they, and, and, and it's maybe you know, something on their end where they don't know what to do or how to [00:22:00] deal with it, and they just disappear.

They ghost you. But it, it did tell me a lot about. The other person, by the way, they reacted and either someone that is just sort of a casual friend that I've known, you know, off and on for a while, and really don't talk to him that much. And he's one of the few people that when I told him, he called me immediately.

And it was like, can I, what can I do for you? Can I come up there? Can I, can I just like, sit on the couch with you and watch a movie? Like, what can I do to support you? And, um, you know, may, that speaks to more him as a person and, you know, um, the way he is, you know, able to handle his emotions. But that, that was really nice.

And it, it tells you kind of a little bit about the people versus the ones who just disappear after you tell them. 

Nicole Gann: Um, 

Amber Bardon: so yeah, I would say that was, um, you know, it, it that, I dunno if it was necessarily a surprise to me, but it was, it was, it was sort of an interesting thing to see how people reacted to your news.

And I think, um, people also want guidance in what they should be doing, you know, and I think this is not just surprise when someone gets cancer. So at the same [00:23:00] time I found out I got cancer. My best friend that I've known since college, her sister passed away. So she was very unexpectedly. She was going through something really difficult.

We were both going through really difficult things at the same time. And you know, I just think it, but you know, either I, I wish I was telling, I tell my friends this, that I wish there was a word in English. I bet the Germans have a word for it. 'cause they have the best words for How do you say to someone, I, I, I feel in my heart, pain for the pain you're going through.

Because we can just say, oh, I'm so sorry. It doesn't really capture that because you're not sorry. You're just like, you're, it's like an empathetic thing, but we don't have a word for that. And I wish we did. 

Nicole Gann: Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think. I was gonna say, empathy is probably the closest word. And it makes me think of that video by Brene Brown, where it's depicted by little cartoon animals, but someone's down in a dark hole and you've got a giraffe saying, gosh, it must suck down there.

And then the bear character actually climbs down in the hole with the person that's under the little storm cloud and you know, just does what you're [00:24:00] described your friend. Come sits with you, you know, just is with you. Doesn't try to do anything, doesn't try to silver line. It doesn't try to make it go away.

And I think, you know, her teachings probably says that's empathy and that's probably the closest thing we have. But yeah, 'cause you, you do want those people that can just hold space with you, right? Because there's not, there wasn't gonna be anything to make you feel better. You might feel more comfortable with it.

I don't think there was anything to make me feel better either. Right. Um, execution was my coping mechanism. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah. Same. Same. You think you and I are 

Nicole Gann: right 

Amber Bardon: that way, 

Nicole Gann: but 'cause I wasn't gonna feel better. 'cause you're, you still in the back of your mind know that you gotta deal with this and, and like you said, you've got so much on your plate.

But I think that, you know, also what you said about realizing people in your life that. I don't know if you said maybe shouldn't be there, but, um, something along those lines. And I think that it gave me some of that same [00:25:00] clarity too, more from the standpoint of what I was investing in certain people that I didn't need to invest that energy.

Right. I, I came up with this, and maybe it sounds harsh on the onset, but just kind of reciprocal. Relationships, like I wanted to be in relationships where I was giving and getting instead of, you know, just giving, like I have contractual relationships in the organization I serve and there's a, there's a high amount of give in that contractual relationship, but in my personal relationships, whether it's with friends or family, I wanted to see.

More of a, you know, reciprocal type situation. Not that it has to be balanced. Sometimes there's things that we're carrying that's a lot heavier and we've need a disproportionate amount of take and vice versa, and we have a disproportionate amount of give. But I could definitely look at certain relationships and see that it [00:26:00] was all, you know, give on my part, you know, because I was maybe life coaching people or.

Executive functioning for people. Right. Um, and I just couldn't do that anymore and add that under the column of gifts too, because it freed me up to, you know, have clarity on that. Um, so I think that's, you know, wise insight that you have. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah. And I think what people can do is, is what you, you know, you just mentioned, is just to show up for you.

And, you know, it, it's, it's, it's a really, I feel like it's a default thing to say, can I do anything for you? And when you're the person in the situation, it's hard to give. That's like a giving, it's like putting work on you to think of things for people to do for you. 

Nicole Gann: Exactly. Right. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah. And, and you know, if you're going through something you don't, you won't, you don't want that.

So I think. Just to, to do it. I think just if you're, if you're there, if you're geographically there, just go over, you know, show up to someone else, bring them a meal. Don't, don't ask permission. You [00:27:00] know? Um, yeah. And don't give the person who's going through something more work by asking them what you should do for them.

Yeah. You know, 

Nicole Gann: that's what, 

Amber Bardon: that's tricky. It kind of depends on how well you know, the person and, and all of that. But 

Nicole Gann: Yeah. 

Amber Bardon: Um, 

Nicole Gann: where you would describe yourself as someone who it was receptive to help. In general as a rule before cancer or someone that was so self-sufficient that people would sometimes be like, I don't even know what I can get you for your birthday, much less while you're having a cancer diagnosis.

Amber Bardon: Yeah. You know, me too well, Nicole. Yeah. But I did, I did accept help during, uh, going through treatment and I, I did, um, I, I did. Realize I can't, I can't, I'm gonna take what I can get. Like, I had to go through surgery. I'm very fortunate I didn't have to do chemo, but I did have to go through radiation. Um, you know, I did take, you know, stepped away.

Uh, I was working through it, but I did step away for naps or whatever with fatigue. [00:28:00] Um, and did take people up on offers to help. And, you know, that is, I realize it was, it's something I needed. 

Nicole Gann: I had to work on that too. I would not have described myself, or people would not describe me as someone who asked for help.

I don't know. Somewhere maybe in my childhood, uh, I developed, you know, I'm just gonna be self-sufficient, who knows? But, um, someone said to me, a really close friend of mine said, you know, please let me. Be there with you or for you. Like, I know you can handle anything, but it's okay if you let us handle some stuff too.

And just the way she said it, you know, made me think, huh, you know, maybe I need to quit being such a barrier, you know, and just ask for help. 'cause it's not my default either. 

Amber Bardon: For me too. I think being able to, being able to kind of joke about it is like, so there's no fear around it or, you know, I don't know what to say.

I wanna be careful. So one, one of the jokes I was making when I got diagnosed [00:29:00] is, um, you know, I have two kids and getting them to do anything is. Always hard. So I was saying I was using it to bribe them, to get them to take showers like I have cancer, you need to go get in the shower now. 

Nicole Gann: I like it. I probably said something along those lines, satirically as well, like, how dare you?

I have cancer probably to my husband, 

Amber Bardon: you. So, you know, I think, you know, again, gauge by the relationship you have with the person, but if that's something you think that they would go for, I think make jokes about it. It does make it a little bit easier to talk about and you know, again, put that on the gift side that you can, you know, have the whole new set of folks.

Nicole Gann: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, what do you think has been like your biggest thing since you've come through, you know, your surgery right? And you're not in active treatment now, like how do you find yourself navigating? Did [00:30:00] you feel a draw to kind of like go back to the behavior pre-cancer, like and then say, whoa, whoa, and now I wanna come back to these lessons that I was said I wanted to keep with me.

I'm just curious, like what's been your experience? 

Amber Bardon: Yeah. Yeah. I was just thinking about this in the last week because. I sometimes just forget that I had cancer. You know, it's, I, I went through a very intense couple of months. I'm, I'm on medication for five years, but, um, you know, I'm feeling good now and, and I, I have been finding myself going back into old habits.

So this month I am traveling for two full weeks for work. And last week I was traveling. I was gone for five nights and it was, it was hard. And I was like, I'm away from my kids. There's issues going on at home that I'm not there to deal with. I'm super stressed out. And then I was just thinking, why, why am I doing this?

You know, this is, this is the pre-cancer types of things I was doing and mm-hmm. You know, I, it's not that I'm gonna not [00:31:00] do that kind of thing when I need to for work, but I think I need to evaluate more, am I the right person to be doing this? Does it make sense to, you know, have this kind of schedule and put myself back in these habits?

Nicole Gann: Yeah. 

Amber Bardon: How about Bill? 

Nicole Gann: Yeah. I've been so conscious, like coming out of treatment, I was just like, if you were to look at my journals or my notes on my phone or anything, it was just over and over and over. Stay stay aligned. With the ground that you achieved, you know, through treatment, the lessons that you discovered, the epiphanies, it's like stay aligned with that.

Do not, you know, fall back into that well worn rut. And so I just tried to really create a consciousness around it so that when I would feel myself drifting, because I do, because it's just well worn path of behavior, that I would really pull myself back. And I also gave people like my husband, my mom, you know, my really close friends.

You know, permission to [00:32:00] really sound the alarm. Like, I, I really need you all to tell me when this is happening, because I was very clear I didn't want to go back there, right. Because I had been doing all the work of, you know, kind of what led me up until that point and very aware that how routine behavior was so embedded in me.

And so I think now, you know, my diagnosis was in 23. Um, you know, I came outta treatment. The first part of, uh, 24 or March of 24 is when I got done with all my treatment. But, um, and so I'm far enough along now to where I can say I, I fall into that rut less and less. Right. And I think some of the. Gift of me getting at this stage in my life, you know, in my late fifties.

You're in that kind of discovery phase anyway, of wanting to blow up all the systems that got you to where you're at now. 'cause I'm about to go into my six decade of life where it's just basically [00:33:00] like, screw it all. I will wear what I wanna wear, say what I wanna say, do what I want to do thing. So I'm trying to get myself prepared for that decade.

So I think it just made sense at that time in my life to kind of spur that along for me to stay, you know, present and resist those draws back to where I was before. Because I, I don't want to be, I lived that version of myself and I don't want to revisit her. She did a great job when she was there. She did the best that she could.

I love her, but I wanna stay in this version of myself that I'm now. 

Amber Bardon: That's a good reminder. I need to have people that can hold me accountable as well. And yeah, for me, my, my biggest thing that I need to change is, is my stress level. That was the mm-hmm. You know, you, you're the one who recommended the book to me called the Anti-Cancer Lifestyle, and you have the mix of six and outta those, like the, the stress is the one that really applies to me the most, and, uh mm-hmm.

Yeah. It's easy to slip back into that when you've been doing it for so long. 

Nicole Gann: It really is, and, and [00:34:00] stress, I think is, is just devastating in so many ways. I mean, I just got my, you know, AA ring so I can see how many times a day I'm stressed. And I'm always surprised at some of the times I am because I've had such an internalized relationship with stress, meaning my brain barely registers it at all.

And if I wasn't listening to what my body was telling me about stress, I might even not even tell you that I'm stressed. So now having this ring to tell me I'm stressed allows me to kind of drop into my body because that's the thing that I still continue to pursue the most is because I know how much stress affected me, you know, coming up to that point.

And I think internalized stress caused a lot of health problems for me, you know, and certainly probably contributed to, you know, development of my cancer. 'cause it wasn't in my family before. I'm the first one to, you know, have breast cancer and, you know, there are indications that stress can do that. I, I hadn't [00:35:00] mastered it yet, but I do a lot more breathing, deep breathing, box breathing, all those kind of things.

A lot more trying to quiet myself. I have this thing that I call my nervous system protocol, which is really just about not what's happening here in my brain, but what's happening, you know? For my chin down and my body, you know, um, in meditative practices, they, you know, what do they call it, dropping into your body and what's going on and where do you feel tension or where do you feel this or that?

And I do a lot of trying to name emotions and where they live in my body so I can identify them and you know, where they exist. But that'll be something I'm pursuing the rest of my life because we don't work in a zen environment to where we can just be like. Um, all day. I guess we could, if we were gonna go be monks, but that's not the career we've chosen.

Amber Bardon: I, I do wanna comment on something you just said, um, in your last, uh, statement is you, you [00:36:00] said, you know, is stress, you kinda said paraphrasing you, but is stress maybe why? Part of why I got cancer and I know. I, I had a friend who connected me with another friend who was just finishing up her treatment right when I was about to start mine.

And her and I talked about this and she was the same age as me and she had like a, a 1-year-old and she was trying to get pregnant with her second child. It was just, you know, very, um, for her, just like a whole different scenario she was dealing with with that. And, you know, she said, we talked a lot about how you think, did I do something to cause this?

You know, and, and I remember she just said to me, you can't, you can't think that way. You, you can't, you're gonna drive yourself crazy if you try to think about, you know, should I have done this differently or that differently? Because we don't know, like you'll never know. Like that book you gave me said that you can have cancer for 30 years until it manifests itself and not even, you know, could be, um, you know, environmental toxins.

It could be hor, you know, hormones, you know, drugs that we're on, you know, it's just. [00:37:00] So I've been trying to, to give myself relief from that and not think that, you know, it's something with my lifestyle that caused it. Um, you know, even though it could be because you'll never know any kind of drive yourself crazy thinking about that.

Nicole Gann: I agree with you. I, I think of it more as a, like a contributing factor. Like I know stress is bad for me, right? Related to my blood pressure, related into my heart health, all the things. Um, and I, I'm trying to think of where's the origin of that idea. I think it was a conversation I have with my surgical oncologist.

When we were just talking about, you know, lifestyle, and she certainly wasn't saying it in a punitive way, but she was saying is now's the time to assess, you know, what's happening in your life so that you know all of your energy can be about healing and recovery. Maybe that's where that was formed, but I think, you know, your insight is good.

You don't want, I don't think that I could have done anything different. I didn't do anything different like that. That's my belief system. Like I did exactly what I was gonna [00:38:00] do because that's what I did. That's already established as fact because it's in the past. However, what does it tell me about whatever choice that I wanna make from this point forward?

Amber Bardon: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nicole, thank you for being on this journey with me. You've been such an amazing inspiration. Thank you. Support. I just feel really fortunate that you were and a friend, 

Nicole Gann: and I could say the same exact thing to you. I mean, I think it's just so wonderful to have people that you can have candid, real conversations with, you know, not having to worry about how they're filtered or edited or, you know, anything like that.

Right. Because of a shared experience, that's another gift, right? 

Amber Bardon: Indeed. Indeed, 

Nicole Gann: indeed.

Amber Bardon: So call to action. Anybody listening to this podcast, if you are putting off, getting a test, getting an appointment, getting something checked out, you don't feel right, go and do it. That's our, that's our [00:39:00] call to 

Nicole Gann: action. Absolutely. Dang. I mean, I know mammograms suck. Take this from a woman who used to have triple D sized breasts.

It's horrendous. I don't think it's good at any side, but yeah, the alternatives that it prevents are, are worth the, the momentary, you know, discomfort. Absolutely. 

Amber Bardon: All right. 

Nicole Gann: I love that. Call to action, Amber, 

Amber Bardon: call to action. Thank you so much for joining me, Nicole. It's always so lovely to see you. 

Nicole Gann: Absolutely.

My pleasure. I'm always happy to be with you.

Amber: Thank you for listening. For more episodes, you can find us amberbardon.com/fword. Follow us on LinkedIn and TikTok. If you like this episode, tell a friend.