Challenging Times Teach Empowering Lessons

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gary Sanchez. At the Y Institute, we've helped over 40,000 people discover, make decisions and connect using their why. This show will be much more powerful for you once you know your own why. So head over to why institute.com and discover your why. Today you're going to meet one of the leaders who've discovered their why with us and is going to share their story and the powerful lessons they've learned.

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and then live your why. And so if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we bring on somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. And so this week we're going to be talking about the why of better way. So if this is your why, then you are the ultimate innovator. You constantly seek better ways to do everything from the most mundane task of brushing your teeth to improving the rocket fuel that powers the space shuttle. You can't stop yourself. You take virtually anything and want to improve it, make it better and share your improvement with the world. You invent things and take what has already been invented and improve that too. You constantly ask yourself the question, what if we tried this differently? What if we did this another way? You contribute to the world with better processes, better systems, and operate under the motto often pleased, never satisfied. You are excellent at associating and taking from one industry or discipline and applying it to another, always with the aim of improving something. You generally operate with a high level of energy because that too is a better way. Now, today I've got a really fascinating guest for you. Her name is Andrea Wood. And so let me quickly tell you her bio. She is a writer who loves to tell stories and a patient advocate who founded the nonprofit Blue Fairy, the Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association. Andrea is the CEO and founder of Cancer University, a for profit social benefit digital health company. With Cancer U, Andrea synergizes her talents of coaching, writing, teaching and advocacy. For over 10 years, Andrea worked in the education field as a teacher and professor for public and private schools as well as universities. Andrea obtained her Master's degree in Professional writing from the University of Southern California. All right, that's where I went. And her nonfiction writing.

Has won national awards. Her new book, the medical memoir titled Better Off a life of 147 days, is a number one bestseller on Amazon in multiple categories. Andrea, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me.

This is going to be fun. I'm looking for those of you that are just listening. I'm looking at her office and I can see in the background the USC Trojan flag. And so I went to USC as well. So I'm glad to have you on here.

Thank you.

So tell us, how did you get started on this journey? And I know your book. When did your book come out? And tell us about the title.

My book came out about six months ago and the book is about a seven year period in my life in my 20s when I raised my younger sister.

And then subsequently lost her to liver cancer in a very short period of time When I was 22 years old after graduating from USC, I got custody of my sister Adrienne, and she was 8 years old at the time. And I raised her all through my 20s in Los Angeles until one month after her 15th birthday, she was diagnosed with stage four liver cancer. And it was a total shock. I mean, before that there was no pain, there were no signs, and she only lived 147 days, hence the subtitle of the book.

And so I can't imagine what it might be like to be 22 years old and be adopting your sister as your daughter. And how did that all take place?

Well, she came out to visit me for what was supposed to be a two week Christmas vacation, December of 1994. And the day after Christmas, our mother called and said she wanted me to keep my sister and that she didn't want to be a mother anymore. And my mother had been really struggling. She was a prescription drug addict, very high functioning, had been a nurse and had always been able to maintain a job until she was caught shooting morphine at work and fired, refused to go to rehab. And then from that point forward, my mother's life was really unraveling. And so she asked me to take custody of Adrienne. And I just told her, I said, well, if I do this, I'm not going to give her back because I had just seen what was happening to Adrian as a result. And I also didn't put it together at the time, but it was three days before my mother's 50th birthday. She had had Adrienne much later in life. And so I don't know if it was a bit of a midlife crisis as well, but didn't matter. I took custody of Adrienne, later sued for legal custody, and I didn't send her back.

Wow, that's an amazing thing to do at that age. I know at 22, I wouldn't be ready for anything like that, but you did. And what were the first seven years like?

They were really hard.

I don't think I realized what a big deal it was. And until now, until I'm older and I can look back and say, wow, we really struggled financially, and it was really tough. But, you know, no matter what happened, I mean, we really loved each other. I mean, she was my sister and she was my child, and I was looking forward to that time when she would become an adult and we could be friends. But it was. It was incredibly challenging for a long time, and it actually felt like we were finally doing okay, especially with her. She had a really hard time in middle school, and she got to high school, and things seemed to be looking up, and she was just more comfortable with who she was as a person. And then cancer happened.

So what part of LA were you living in?

I lived in multiple places in Mid Wilshire and Hollywood. But to get her in a better school district, middle school, we moved to Burbank, and that's where I stayed.

I see. So what. What caused you to take her to the doctor and have him find this?

You know, that's a great question. I don't think anyone's ever asked me. That's a great question. I was a teacher to be on Adrienne's schedule, and she was going to high school actually from seven to two. I taught from eight to three. And I came home from work and found her curled up in a fetal position on the floor, crying and saying she couldn't breathe and just clutching her right side. And for Adrienne to cry was a huge deal. I mean, this is a kid who did not cry. And she said she wanted to go see her pediatrician. And I was shocked because she also didn't like going to the doctor. And so I said, okay. And so that's what we did. We just. We got up, we left, we went to go see your pediatrician. We walked in. We had been there two weeks before for shoulder pain. We thought she'd pulled her shoulder in her dance class. He thought we were back because of that. And we said, no, no, no, shoulder's fine. And he took one look at her abdomen, didn't like what he saw, and sent us to the only hospital in Burbank, the local hospital, through the ER to get a CAT scan. And based on her symptoms, based on the fact that she had been to Coachella and had been pressed up against these metal bars for hours and hours. They thought perhaps she had internal bleeding. And so they do a CAT scan. And just to give you a sense of our sense of humor, as they're wheeling Adrienne in for the CAT scan, she said, hey, Sissy, watch it be cancer. And I started laughing, and I said, oh, bite your tongue. And we both laugh. We laugh. And then they finally give her something for the pain. And we're waiting on the results, and the CR doctor comes in. And, I mean, I knew it was bad because he wouldn't even look at her. And he looked at me and he said, she has tumors in her liver and lungs. And he said, we're not equipped to handle this situation because it was a hospital. They did not have a pediatric unit. That's what he meant by those words. And he said, we've arranged for a transfer to Children's Hospital.

And he walked out. And that was day one of 147 days.

And so she went from there right into treatment for cancer.

Yeah, we went there. We went straight to Children's Hospital. That was her first night there. Two days later, she had a biopsy. A few days later, it confirmed what they already thought she had, which was primary liver cancer. A few more days and she was in her first round of chemo. I mean, from the day she felt pain, it was only a week later until she had chemo. It was that fast for us.

Wow. Can't even imagine being able to think straight or know where to turn, what to do. What did you do?

Yeah. I am one of those people who gets very.

Calm and practical when.

Things hit the fan. I was trying not to curse.

Okay, whatever you say.

You say, you know, I mean, I'm the person you want. If there's a crisis or an emergency, I'm that. I'm your girl. And it's funny because I didn't know until years later that behind my back, some of my closest friends at the time, especially during this time, called me the Rock. I had no idea that's what they called me. And. And that's who I become. And so I very much was that person all the time on the outside. On the inside. I was absolutely crushed and devastated.

So she lasted 147 days. And then years later. You wrote about it.

Yes. Yeah. I had always wanted to write about us. I mean, I love to write and tell stories, and I knew that we had an incredibly special relationship. I just never thought this was going to be the story I was going to write. And so What I did, probably one of the best decisions I ever made was less than a year after Adrienne died, I interviewed everyone who would give me an interview, and their memories were still incredibly fresh. And so, even though I didn't start the book for several more years, I had all of these interviews with people and that information was gold.

People like who? Like. What do you mean? Like doctors, like nurses, like friends.

Like friends. I had a really close knit group of friends at the time who were all her aunts and uncles. And they weren't all necessarily friends with each other, but they were all friends with me. I also had a very serious boyfriend at the time who was the only father figure she ever had. And so we. She also, my sister had an amazing therapist. And so I interviewed any of those people who would give me an interview and also some of my sister's friends because it was very devastating for them as well. Wow.

And then were they wondering why you were interviewing them?

No, they knew one day I was going to write about it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. I thought maybe they were thinking a lawsuit was coming or something like that.

No, no, not at all.

And so the point of. Tell us about the. What is the point of the book? What made you want to write the book? What is in the book, and what is that that you want people to get from that book?

Well, the book is written and structured like a journal. So, for example, chapter one is actually chapter two is day two, and so on and so on. And so chapter, let's say 15 might be, you know, seven days put together. And I wrote it like a journal because Adrienne was a writer and she had started an online journal before she ever got sick at the beginning of her freshman year of high school. But she kept the journal going while she was sick, and I wasn't allowed to read it. In fact, I did not read it for a couple of years. And I kept a medical journal while she was sick to just stay on top of things as a caregiver. And so by structuring it like a journal, I felt like people could really live it with us. And also by day three, every chapter opens with information or quote from her. So you're actually getting her point of view versus my point of view. And there's a moment, this started in May, and there's a moment in August where I really thought she was getting better because she had gotten through her fourth round of chemo and we were in, we were out. She wasn't in pain. And to me, I thought she was getting better. I was like, wow, that went so well. Yay. And she knew in that moment she was getting worse. Like, she could feel it in her body. And two weeks later, the scan results came back, and sure enough, the tumors were getting worse.

And so you really get to live the journey with us. And the reason I wrote the book is I really want people to know my sister. I am very proud of the young woman that she became. And she had so much courage and dignity and humor and grace when she was ill. And I believe she's very inspiring. I really live my life every day with those principles and trying to, you know, measure up. The whole time she was sick, I was always asking in my head, why her? Why her? She never asked, why me? Never. You know, she had moments of anger, don't get me wrong, and frustration and sadness, but she never once. Pity. She never once pitied herself, like, not once.

Where do you think she got that?

I like to say it's all me. But.

I did raise it to be tough, though. I mean, I did, but there was a gap of time when I was not around, and that's when I went off to college. We were talking about this before the podcast started. I left home when I was 18. I moved across the country, went to school in Los Angeles. And so there was a period of time where my sister was left alone with my mother, except for when I visited on holidays. And during that time, from age like 4 to 8, my sister really had to learn how to take care of herself. She did. And it was hard for her. It was extremely hard.

And so she became an adult very fast.

Yes, she did. And I still remember a time when I was very young. I still remember my mother before she had a drug problem. And my sister never got to see that woman.

She was never there.

Now you've written the book and you've started It's Cancer your.

Yes.

So tell us about that. What is Cancer you.

So Cancer your is a for profit social benefit health tech startup that kind of came out of my experience of being in the cancer space with my nonprofit that's dedicated to primary liver cancer. And Cancer U is an online membership platform. It's for both patients and caregivers to educate and empower them to become advocates for themselves during that time in their lives in order to improve outcomes but also reduce cost. So the goal with Cancer U is to provide these services for our members who are the patients and caregivers, but we never want to charge them. So our actual customers are payers and providers and pharmaceutical companies. So it's a B2B business model.

So how does that work? Then somebody. How does a pharmaceutical company do? They just decide they're going to add this on as part of the treatment or how does that work?

How much time do you have? It's complicated. It's complicated. We're in the point where we went through our beta and now we had a pilot program. We still have a pilot program, but it was supposed to launch on March 1st until Covid intervened. And so now it's going to be launching toward the end of the summer, and we're going forward from there. And we're also raising a seed round as well.

So if I'm hearing it right, what you're saying is you've developed a way to help the patient and help the caregiver by giving. Teaching them to become their own advocate and that whole system or ecosystem is. Is part of the treatment that the organizations that they're going to provide for them.

Correct. Correct. I'm glad you used the word teaching because it's what came out of my experience in the cancer space with my nonprofit and other organizations. Is giving someone education is not enough? It's kind of like giving a man a fish, right? It's not enough. You have to teach them what to do with that information.

Sounds like a better way.

Yes. Yeah. Dan and I got quite. Got deep into this discussion about better way because he did not think this was my why. He didn't think it was going to be my why. And then when I told him this one phrase, nothing is ever right because it can always be made better, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's me.

Well, everything you've done and every story you've told me so far is a better way. You know, when you left home and when. Then you went back, and then when you brought your sister in with you, and then everything. My why is to find a better way, too. So as you're speaking. Yeah, as you're speaking, you're speaking my language. And it's interesting because when you meet somebody with your same why as they're telling you things, you're just like, well, of course. Of course you would do that. That's what I would do.

You're right. Right.

Well, I can hear what. I can see what you're doing. And you're constantly finding better ways to refine what it is you're doing ultimately with the goal of showing, helping people that went through what you went through find a better way to manage it. Because if you'd have known what you knew then, or if you knew then what you know now, it might even have been a different experience.

Oh, yes. Yeah. I mean, I.

Am not afraid to ask questions. With my mom as a nurse, I grew up around hospitals and doctors. And even with all of that, and even being an educated 28 year old, I did not know from day one the best option for my sister would have been a clinical trial. I didn't know that. And by the time clinical trials were even mentioned, four rounds of chemo had decimated her immune system. It just. It was too late. But perhaps if I had known that from day one, maybe she would have had a shot. And the chemo they gave her was absolutely pointless. Like.

She didn't even need to go through that chemo. It's not like it didn't extend her life. All it did was make her feel terrible. That's all it did. Yeah. You know, it's funny because a member of our Cancer Use founding team, she said, we were talking about something, this is a while ago, and she said to me, when is it ever going to be enough? You know, because, you know, she's kind of coaching me, if you will. And in my head I was thinking, well, it's never going to be enough. Yeah.

It'S, you know, so that also in the. Why, what was it? I'm often pleased but never satisfied. Yes, that is me to the core. Oh, my gosh. To the core.

And so you asked. What you just said there was also interesting because I struggled with figuring out when is enough enough. When are you going to stop? And so I have an answer.

Oh, okay. Tell me.

The answer is when it's good enough.

And, you know, that seems so simple and that seems so basic, and we want it to be more than that. But when you sit back and you think, okay, well, when am I going to stop going down this path? Well, the only time I'm going to stop is when it's good enough. And the only way I know it's good enough is when I say it's good enough. And if I don't say it's good enough, then it's not good enough.

So until you use the words, okay, that's good enough, you're not done. And that may never happen, or it may happen sooner than you think, but until you say, okay, that's good enough, I can move on. You won't move on.

Yeah, right.

You're right in there.

Yeah.

So that's. Yeah. It's helpful to know that about ourselves, because when you can finally say that Then it's time to move to something else.

We're taking a quick break to give you a chance to find clarity in your life instead of just listening. Ready to put an end to your frustration. Ready to unlock the code to your personal and business success. I know you can, because I have, and I'm giving you my exact system. It's time for you to discover your why, how, and what. Head over to yinstitute.com and get started. Let's get back to the show.

You've done a lot already. I can tell. You know, here's something I'm curious how you handle. About a year and a half ago, I had a pretty serious health scare that I never would have expected just from taking an Advil. I mean, I almost died, but I was in the hospital for, like, nine days. I was in ICU for five days. So I got to experience being on that side of the medical process. Right? Being the one in the bed. And what happens when you're in the bed is that your mind, like, goes away. I don't know how to explain it. I know a lot about medicine, and I know a lot about everything, but when I'm the one sitting there in the bed, suddenly none of it makes any sense to me.

I don't know anything. I have a patient here at my dental practice who is the head of telemedicine for the world. He is a neonatal specialist. He is super bright, and he got ill, and he was in the patient in the bed, and suddenly he knew nothing. Yeah, I don't know what that is. I don't know if you had a term. You had to coin a phrase for that, because it's something that. I don't know why that happens, but suddenly when it's you, you can't figure anything out.

Yeah, I mean, that's. I mean, yeah, it's totally normal. It's typical. I mean, I even spoke to an oncologist, okay, so a doctor who treats cancer patients for a living. And when he was diagnosed with cancer, with lymphoma, he just went to tailspin, he said, for a good week. And he said he finally understood what his patients were going through. Like, he finally got it. And I think that's just a normal response. I mean, that's why. I mean, I still, to this day, coach patients and caregivers pro bono. And that's why I'm always so relieved when a caregiver calls me, because then I know the patient has somebody. And when a patient calls me, I'm always kind of Worried because if they're calling me, that means they might not have someone, you know, they might be alone, widowed, or don't have any adult children to help them or, you know, so, you know, you do. You need. You need somebody to stand up for you and be an advocate. And that is why Cancer U includes caregivers as members. They are absolutely critical to the process.

I love that. See, I don't think people can appreciate that until it's you. And even with an advocate. Okay, so my older brother is a interventional radiologist. His wife is an OB gyn. My younger sister is a hospitalist at this hospital. And I know lots and lots of doctors, and I'm in that world, and I know a lot myself. And my treatment was still a complete disaster. So many mistakes happen. I should have been in and out of there in an hour, and I was there for nine days, and I almost died. I mean, just crazy stuff happens in a hospital.

When you. Even if you have people that are helping you.

Yeah.

If you had nobody that was helping you, I don't know what that would be like. Yeah, because you can't see. So how do you do.

Andrea, when you have a good night's sleep? If you don't sleep all night, how are you the next day?

Well, that's tough because I actually don't sleep well. And I haven't, like, since I was a kid. And I got confirmation of why. Not to use a pun, but later in life. But I've always been a dreamer, so I really remember my dreams. I remember dreams from childhood. And I always suspected that the reason I never feel rested is because of how much I dream. And I ended up doing two separate sleep cycles, studies that showed that. That I just spend too much time and that I guess it's REM sleep and not enough getting any sort of deep sleep. So I don't really ever feel rested. I don't.

Well, for most people, one night of not sleeping, and they're not doing so well. But when you're in the hospital, which I didn't appreciate until it was me, I had nine days of no sleep.

Yeah. You can't rest in a hospital.

Oh, gosh, no. And so you're expected to make life decisions and life choices on no sleep. I know I can't even put two words together. And they're asking me major decisions in my life. I was like, well, how am I supposed to make that decision? I can't even understand what you said, much less be able to make a decision, much less know what you're talking about. So the power of an advocate is just awesome that you're doing that. You have to have that.

You do.

Yeah. So I like what you're doing with that. So that's a much better way.

Thank you.

So where are you going from here? Your book just came out. I'm sure you're doing lots of speaking and lots of. Well, you would be.

I would be. I was supposed to be in Paris, man, a couple weeks ago.

Yes. But I can imagine you're having a lot of impact with people even like this. And thank yous that I can imagine that you're getting. Even though the end may not be great, the road there is so much better when they've utilized the tools that you're talking about.

Yeah. I'm very grateful that my book has been received so well by the medical community. And that's. I mean, that's been a real gift that tells me not only that it's accurate, but it's really deeply affected doctors.

And that's meant a lot to me. But on the flip side, I also know my book is very difficult to read. It's very emotional and it's very detailed. And that amount of detail was a very conscious choice that I made because I felt like most memoirs that dealt with disease that I read glossed over stuff, and I didn't want to gloss over anything. I wanted to be as real as possible. And the people who have read my book have said exactly that, that they felt like they were just right there living it with us. And, yeah, I'm very, very happy with how it turned out.

What's the biggest lesson your sister taught you?

The biggest lesson she taught me, but I did not employ for many years, is to just live the life you have because you just don't know. I mean, I think from the beginning, very beginning, I think she knew she didn't have a lot of time, and she seemed to. And she didn't say this, but she seemed to make this bucket list and decided there were things that she just had to do. And she did all of these amazing things. I mean, she met her favorite musician, Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction on the Tonight show, and I didn't make the Tonight show happen. She made the Tonight show happen, not me. And so we met Dave Navarro, we met Jay Leno, you know, and then she had a Make a Wish day with Dave Navarro again. You know, she. And we did big things like that, and then we did small things, but there were things that she wanted to do and she was very specific about them. And you know, we would go in for chemo and she would tell the doctors and she would say, I got to be out of here by this day, I got to go because I've got stuff to do, places to go, people to see. And yeah, I just think she, she knew, she was, her time was running out, that it was limited. And you know, it's, it's not that you shouldn't have goals, right? We should, of course we have goals and long term goals, but at the same time just really appreciate every day you have and live it, enjoy it. And if, and if you are not happy, then do something about it because it's on you. You got to change it. And I did not take that advice or do it for a really long time. I just, I think I was just too deep in grief. And the biggest change I made in my life was when I decided to leave Los Angeles and without a plan at all, with no plan and just driving across the country with my cat and, and that was one of the best decisions I've ever made. And no one supported it except for my now ex husband. The time he did, he was great actually. But everyone else thought it was the craziest idea I've ever had and I just, I needed to leave la. It wasn't about moving to Alabama, which is where I now live. It was about the journey. Right. Wasn't about the destination. I don't think I'll stay here forever. But I needed to radically changed my life and shake things up. And it was great. It worked.

Here's a challenge I've got for you.

Uh oh.

Now I'm scared. Well.

Better way. People struggle with being in the moment, being, making a decision, choosing something because something else might be better, a place might be better, a thing might be better. So how do you. I guess my challenge is to figure out what conversation you need to have with yourself to be able to be in the moment and enjoy the moment and not look for the next thing, which is hard for us because we're not typically satisfied.

Right, right, right.

And so how you do that, I'd be curious. And when you figure it out, let me know.

Yoga helps a lot. I'm a 500 hour yoga trained teacher who doesn't teach yoga. But it helped me a lot to do that, to be very present, to live in the present, to be very aware.

But it's funny, a friend of mine once observed we were very different people and she said it takes me a very long time to make a decision. But when I make a decision, I make it very quickly. I do it as soon as I made the decision. She said, you, on the other hand, you make decisions very quickly, but you wait a long time to enact those decisions. And she's right. That's actually very true. And the big exception was when I decided to leave la, when I finally made that decision, said, I'm just going, no plan. From the time I told myself the day I left was.

Two months maybe. And that was hard to do. It was hard to, you know, wrap things up, you know, move my ex husband to a new apartment, you know, get rid of our house. I mean, that was hard to do as quickly as we did, but we did. We did. And so that's something I am working on, that I've made the decision. Why am I waiting to move forward?

Let me know when you have an answer.

I know. No, it's the reason you just said. It's the reason you just said.

Yeah. So essentially you've made a decision with your voice, but you haven't made a decision inside. And it takes you a while to evaluate every possible better scenario before you. Actually, it's more like you're trying it out on somebody for the feedback that you're gonna get to really see if that's right.

No, I don't tell people.

You don't? Okay.

No, no.

Or maybe you try it on yourself.

Yeah, exactly. I try it on myself. Even though I would say 90% of the time it's not, I don't change my mind.

So my daughter also has our same why.

And.

Yeah. And so, in fact, you can listen to her interview. I did interview her on for the podcast.

Okay. She.

I learned a lot from her in that interview. And I asked her, how do you make a decision so fast? And she said, I've realized that first of all, I set a time frame. I will make a decision. By this time, on this day, the decision will be made. And she said, secondly, I know by now that the decision I make is going to be pretty darn good. It's going to be good enough.

Yeah, good enough.

It's going to be good enough. Is it perfect? No. Will it ever be perfect? No. If I wait, will it be perfect? No. What I've decided by this day will be good enough. And I'm going with it. And I was like, huh, yeah, that's better than I figured out in as many years as I've been around.

Well, I'm sure you helped at all that. I mean, the fact that she Knows her. Why?

Been very helpful.

Yeah.

What was that moment when you realized you needed to listen to your sister and say, I gotta go. Enjoy what I got? What happened?

Yes, very good questions.

I'm not letting you off the hook easy.

I know. I know you're not. Well, it's the moment when I made the decision to leave la and I, my.

Ex husband, married. At the time though, we had gone to see probably gonna get crucified for this in the comments, but we had gone to see Gone with the Wind on the big screen, which is one of my favorite movies of all time. It is so there and behind you, you know. Yeah, exactly. Oh, is it? Yeah, there you go. It is. And we've gone to see it on the big screen. We were in Burbank, California. We're walking back to our car and he's talking about the theme. He's totally wrong about what the theme is. And.

You know what? I was like, I'm not even gonna argue with him. And I didn't feel like I didn't want to. And I just kept thinking about the movie and the theme of the movie is survival. That's the theme. And I just really kept thinking about how much at that time. For a long time, I prided myself on being a survivor because I could, if I could survive losing my sister, I knew I could survive anything. And I just didn't want to survive anymore. That wasn't good enough anymore. And I felt like I was sort of living at the bare minimum. And I just, you know, and we're still walking back to the car and I'm like, I want to thrive. And that's not happening in Southern California. Like, I am not happy here. It had been four years that I had not been happy in la and I had made attempts and tried to, and I just, I am not happy here. And by the time we got back to the car, in my head, I said, I'm going to leave Los Angeles this year. And that was September 28th. And within two days I told my husband and he said, okay. And I. Gosh, I left December 2nd. Yeah, I got my car and left December 2nd.

Wow.

We moved out of the house, got him into apartment Thanksgiving weekend. I left December 2nd. I got. Yeah, I got into my new apartment in Birmingham December 6th.

So it was a movie.

Yeah, it was a movie that changed.

The direction of your life where you could have a bigger impact for way more people.

Yeah, it made me make that decision. Right. I said, four years I've been unhappy. Yeah, four years. And so it's again, it kind of almost delayed making a decision because I was totally out of fear. Totally out of fear. And it was hard to leave LA because my sister's buried in la and a part of me, I'll try not to cry. A part of me felt like if I left la, I was leaving her. And that's not true. And I go back to LA every year on Halloween because that was her favorite holiday. So every Halloween I'm in Los Angeles and I go back and I go to her grave and I visit a few friends and I. I can spend about five days in LA before I'm completely fed up. And then I le.

So it was the right decision. You made a great decision.

I made a great decision. And the minute I made that decision to get a little woo woo, things just completely changed in my life, like the next year. And again, it wasn't that it was easy. It's just all these opportunities came into my life. I mean, I really think, like, I just, by making that change, I just allowed myself to be open to all these amazing opportunities.

I love it. I love it. Well, you know, Andrea, thank you so much for being here. It's been great talking with you and meeting you. And I'm most excited about the fact that I made it through this podcast without crying because I have Kleenex sitting right here. If we'd gotten too far down the book, I was going to end up in tears because I have two daughters and I didn't want. I made it.

You made it. There you go.

But I love what you're doing and hopefully there's ways that we can help you along your journey. And thank you for being here today.

Thank you so much for having me. It was great.

It's been great. Now if people want to get a hold of you, they want to learn more about what you're doing. How do they do that?

To learn more about the book, just go to Better off ball dot com. Just the title of the book and all my social media is there. And to learn more about Cancer University, go to Cancer Dot University.

Awesome. Thank you. I'm sure we'll be in touch as we go along our journeys.

Thanks for listening to today's show. But before you go, let me ask you a question. Would you like all of your communication to be easier and more productive? Take the essential first step to clarity now@yinstitute.com I'll catch you on the next episode.

Sam.