How to Lead a Nonprofit That Impacts Millions

[0:01]  nobody really gets excited about cancer but man do I get excited about solving for it you know I'm not going to cure cancer nobody at lives strong is going to cure cancer we are not interested in that clinical side we are interested in survivorship how can I make your every day just a little bit better than it was yesterday what can we solve for but getting up every day to do that can be hard depending on what the day was Prior um sometimes it is those personal phone calls for people who um are reaching out independently and saying hey can you solve this for me or this is the thing that's happening in my life right now can you help CU you always want to say yes I I absolutely want to help and so it's trying to balance the micro with the

[0:47]  macro that can be for me a bit of a challenge I I want to help one but my focus as CEO is is is helping the 22 million so how do I balance that all right guys welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast now today we are sitting across the table from an amazing president and CEO of Liv strong now if you know anything about culture about cancer treatment about awareness Live Strong is in the front of your mind Suzanne

[1:37]  welcome to the show thank you so much for having me Keenan I'm really excited to be here you know I'm really excited for you to be here because I don't often get the chance to sit down across this digital table with a leader who is a part of such a globally recognized brand some of the things that we're going to talk about today is leadership we're going to talk about the impact that we're having in the community we're going to talk about innovation and so much more but before we get into that a long time ago in a galaxy far far away was the beginning of an iconic film and you said that that simple tagline made you feel something what was that so it was it was it was Star Wars you know it was um sitting in the movie theater I think I was seven years

[2:23]  old and and May the force be with you resonated in that in that 1970s movie theater but for the first time that I can really recall it was that moment where I realized wow this this thing this movie that I just saw made me feel something I got excited I was hopeful I was ready to be Luke Skywalker you know like let's get out the lightsabers I was ready to go and I watched it over and over and over again which required at the time of course there was no Netflix or Blockbuster but required at the time for my parents to haul me to the movie theater something that probably would not occur today and drop off their then small child say call us on the pay phone when it's over um but that that

[3:13]  definitely launched that whole idea of what the power of a story a really good story and a well- told story could have on on somebody the the impact was profound for me those early Stories the ones that truly make us feel something can cause us to go down paths in life that lead us to things that we could never experience let's talk a little bit about how you sitting in that part in that movie theater one day you felt something informed your early career in working in the community and helping people broadcast their ideas and I think that word broadcast is is super perfect there right because my initial hope or dream was that I'm going to go I'm going to move to LA and I'm going to I'm going to write movies I'm going to write films I want to do that I

[4:00]  want to tell those stories that make people feel something so somebody else is going to walk into that movie theater and and feel something that I that I wrote that I had a hand in and over time that evolves just like anything by the time I got out of high school it was like I'm gonna be Jane Paulie she was on The Today Show and she was telling stories and Charles caralt this is gonna definitely age me but they were telling stories on television and and again making me feel something and that felt more realistic than than moving to La at the time you know internet the internet was not a thing and so your your scope of what you could do was the confines were certainly smaller um but that idea actually sent me to okay I'm going to I'm going to go to TCU

[4:51]  um I'm a horn frog of frogs bleeding purple still I love the purple right always um so bleeding purple I went to TCU and and got my degree in radio television and film production that's what I wanted to do I'm going to write stories I'm going to tell stories and now I'm going to do it on television right I'm going to do it anyway that I can um and life in my career took me that's it's where I started um started in broadcast that was my first job my first job I was actually answering the phones so at a at a small production house and that's what I say to everybody doesn't matter what the job is if you can get a job in a business that does what you want to do do the job mail clerk it doesn't matter like do the job I was literally answering the phones thinking why did I go to school for this

[5:39]  answering phones um but fast forward and that that television path led me to Public Access television and my first role is a in nonprofit and I was teaching other people how to tell stories all about broadcasting I think it's it's so interesting um and this is the the front of my mind right now the story of Slum Dog Millionaire if you've ever seen the movie you know how he had these experiences that seem completely random in time but when the he came into the light all of those skill sets and lessons that he learned were the answer to his future how do you feel like your natural understanding and patience to help people tell stories has put you on the path to be the CEO and president of Liv strong a global brand here today great question there are lots of pieces

[6:28]  it's very slim dog millionaire I think many of us have that experience Not only was I being able to write from behind I you know from behind the camera I also learned how to edit tell a story through pacing through sound or lack thereof I learned how to I learned the power of teaching other people um I even was a basketball coach for a little while uh at at the junior college level and that taught me that taught me too because I had to tell stories all the time to these amazing young women who were looking at me for leadership which was hilarious to me as I as I think back what um so I learned leadership from them they taught me far more than I ever taught

[7:16]  them um and then and then somehow Landing in all of these little tiny nonprofits as I figured out and navigated my way through this when I realized that this idea of giving back felt really good to me that's where I really could fit and suddenly all of these pieces started coming together when I understood that if I could tell a story really well I could get other people who were just as passionate about the things that I was to come to the table and bring their time and their talent and their money and their expertise to improve that mission and that passion that not only I had but they had too and it was that it's the power again of that story that kind of ties that

[8:06]  ties that all together how do I tell a story to you to a donor to an investor to a volunteer um to a potential job applicate what story of impact are you trying to tell these days I'm trying to tell the story of impact um what story to be brave for cancer survivors you are brave you are brave because you woke up today you're brave because you took the pill you're brave because you walked into that hospital that you didn't want to go to you heard the doctor you read the you read the book or the brochure BEC You Are Brave every day the story of impact that I'm telling today is Live Strong has to be just as

[8:54]  Brave as you are and and we're committed to that we're going to be just as brive in 2021 December cancer um rocked my world now my father like so many other men was diagnosed with prostate cancer and I'll still remember the day when he called me and excuse me if I get emotional but I'll always remember it like I was literally sitting in this seat get a phone call from my dad he goes hey man so I just uh left the doctor and you know I'm going to have to fight some stuff and in that moment um the mortality of my father my family was challenged for the first time and it rocked not only his world but my world and I will always

[9:42]  remember how Brave he was in that moment to take on these challenges firsthand and he told me a story one day where he was going into his first treatment and he was sitting in the parking lot and he didn't know what to do and at just at that moment he received a text that said today you are taking small steps towards positive change for yourself and he called me back after him was like hey man I'm just like don't know if you recognize this but a simple message made all the difference in the world because it gave me the courage to walk in and continue to fight for you and your family for you your sister your mom and it's like there is so much bravery in everybody who's been diagnosed with cancer today but it seems like it is a story that needs to be told over and over again because 22 million people are diagnosed with cancer like you said but how many family

[10:29]  members are also impacted in that and so the stories that you tell Suzanne and being able to be brave enough to show up and push this brand to the Future to have impact in all the Innovation that you're thinking of is an amazing mission to be a part of and I don't really know if you ever get time to actually sit in the form of gratitude for all the lives that you impact on a daily basis with you even just showing up and being willing to tell this story thank you and I'm sorry that you and your family have continued to feel the impact that this disease has 2 million new people every year in the United States sit in the chair and either have to make that phone call or receive that phone call you we talk a lot about the when we say somebody we we

[11:19]  work for and on behalf of and solve problems for anyone affected by cancer it is not just the cancer survivor it's the person sitting in your chair on the other end of this phone or on the other side of the couch or next door or in the other Cube that is now profoundly changed because some cells me you know messed up went wrong and what you're going what that one person is going to have to do to fix it and and to hopefully eradicate that disease or put it to sleep at the very least um profoundly changes who who they are physically and emotionally and all of those people around them it changes them and uh it is truly my honor every day to to wake up

[12:10]  and say what am I going to do today h how how can we change something today or I have an idea or we can do that just a little bit better than we did it last time or is anybody doing that how can we change that on my signature line You'll see a list of people that I work for every day they're there for a reason they're not there to to for really for any other reason than to remind me every time I hit send on an email I got to go I have to go down to that signature line and I read I read those people who affected my life and I'm working for the the 22 million the two million the the five people on my signature line everybody when it comes to fighting this fight how are you showing up every day

[13:00]  and Having the courage to make the decisions that are necessary to continue to push this in the right direction courage I think is an interesting word there right I don't feel as courageous as people who sit in in a different chair than I do um who are going through treatment but I will say that it is not an easy job but when I take incredibly seriously and I get excited about nobody really gets excited about cancer but man do I get excited about solving for it you know I'm not going to cure cancer nobody Liv strong is going to cure cancer we are not interested in that clinical side we are interested in survivorship how can I make your every day just a little bit better than it was

[13:47]  yesterday what can we solve for but getting up every day to do that can be hard depending on what the day was Prior um sometimes it is those personal phone calls for people who um are reaching out independently and saying hey can you solve this for me or this is the thing that's happening in my life right now can you help because you always want to say yes I I absolutely want to help and so it's trying to balance the micro with the macro that can be for me a bit of a challenge I I want to help one but my focus is CEO is is is helping the 22 million so how do I balance that there's the speed that's necessary in the micro to make these quick decisions to impact the organization and the

[14:35]  direction in which you guys go but also the patience on the other side of it that says the decision that I make today are not going to play out for a long time how do we balance that you know there are other leaders who turn into the podcast who are on missions that they feel are worthy that have a huge impact but it's very easy for us to get impatient for the longtail of the runway it's very easy to get impatient you know we talk or I talk a lot and I think a lot about patience um in fact I have a decision sitting on me right now that is about patience it's about holding on for that long haul because investing in yourself investing in the program making that difficult decision is is almost always the right one if you've kind of laid

[15:22]  that out strategically and so it's getting past that feeling of fear it's getting past past the feeling of anxiety it's getting past that Frozen moment you know when you got like if you've ever had a bill that you didn't want to open old school mail right you got that old school mail you're like nope I'm just you know what I don't even want to see what's inside so I'm not going to make a decision on that today so I'm going to set it to the left and and I'm going to wait for another 30 days till it comes comes around but it never goes away so I I think that one of one of my strategies for trying to have patience is to really trying to dilute the decision that I have to make longterm or short term down to facts

[16:13]  only what are what are the facts only and can I take the the fluff out can I take the emotion the fear the anxiety the what if it doesn't work if I take that out of the equation is this the right decision or not and that helps to have patience I uh mentioned that I recently interviewed a brain surgeon with a PhD in neuroscience and I asked him what is the most important skill set that a human being can develop and he said emotional regulation because if you cannot control your emotions the static of that warps all the other type of decisions that we make how do you think about that skill of honing that emotional regulation as you've gotten you know more seasoned in your career it's so important it's so important

[17:01]  because people almost without exception every day we make decisions based on how we feel right and I felt tired so I went to Starbucks and decided to spend $7 on a coffee when I really could have just gone right down the hall and made my own because I was too tired or too lazy or I like their creamer better or whatever the feeling that I had was satisfied shortterm the long term and obviously I'm kind of overblowing this but the long-term ramifications of spending $7 on a coffee is that now that instant gratification cost me $7 I could have spent on something else that was maybe more

[17:49]  impactful for my life it's not about I think it's not really about willpower either cuz I think that that's not correct it's not about having the willpower it's about really almost writing it down like I will write it down this decision makes me feel blah if I feel well I feel angry so I am not going to do X or I feel not respected as a result I'm going to do why it's okay if you feel that way like owning that recognizing that oh okay I'm feeling mad or anxious or whatever it is

[18:37]  and then trying to identify what made me feel that way why am I feeling that way I have definitely found over the years that if I make a decision based on my feelings at least a business decision and certainly professional growth decisions if I make a decision based on how I feel and feeling Wings only it's almost always the wrong one there's a also a difference between your instinct and that little voice inside your head and and your feelings like that's those are two different things instincts are something you should listen to your feelings are something you should pay attention to I heard an analogy not too long ago um where the CEO was struggling really

[19:24]  bad with some stressful decisions that he was making and his coach and Mentor said you need to start thinking about yourself is like a Yeti can there's an outside layer which is the environment right then there's the inside layer of air which is the vacuum which protects us from those things and there's our core we have to be able to create separation between what's happening out here the static if you will and how it impacts us internally because if you had a Yeti that couldn't do those things it wouldn't be valuable and the same is true with you as a CEO you have to be able to control those emotions and I feel like that in itself is a lesson about maturation because very early on in my career emotions were flying and all the decisions that I made in that time are things that I'm still trying to claw back and I think a lot of leaders find themselves having to look at the mirror look in the mirror if you will

[20:11]  and kind of ask themselves these tough questions but the sense of self-awareness is something that's very difficult to be able to curate in yourself I'm not sure if you had the same struggles oh absolutely 100% it is not easy um and I think that is something that's just developed over time and it's something that comes with age but is not something that comes without practice I believe truly it's something you must practice um especially today you know I think about the challenges that the the generation you know this genen Z generation has very challenging you know for for me and the Gen X generation you know we were toughen up rub some dirt on it quite literally I don't want to hear about it go outside and we're not talking about our feelings

[20:59]  we didn't we weren't allowed to have them you know today there we may have overcorrected just a bit it is okay to have them finding the maturity inside to understand how they're going to influence the the decision that you make and how it's going to influence the future of your life because it at the moment you felt some way I heard somebody say one time and it was on a podcast and I'm going to have to go back and and try to Source this for you but I've repeated it for my son who happens to be 24 he'll be mortified if he listens to this and I say do not make a long-term decision based on a short-term emotion that has really stuck with me is this emotion that I'm feeling short

[21:47]  term and is it going to change the decision I make I can promise you I would not be the CEO of liong today if just 12 months ago 18 months ago I had let a short-term feeling interfere with a decision that I had to make about a long-term um a long-term decision a long-term goal doesn't the weight of that responsibility just from a personal perspective kind of weigh heavy on us because it seems like we are sometimes the only grounded thinkers in this world of emotion you know what I mean yeah I I do know what you mean it it can be hard sometimes absolutely to have conversations with people who are still

[22:35]  trying to figure that part out and and you want to help guide and you want to have that conversation but it's so like the word that you used earlier static there is so much static in the room that you can't have a conversation that talks about strategy you cannot have a strategic decision or any sort of strategic conversation when you have the static of emotion you know really taking up so much space and it can be it can be hard to find to find ways to cut through that static and Coach through that through those feelings and emotions and some people are not open to that that's okay but the ones who are and who are willing to say hey I don't have it all figured out I don't have it figured out you

[23:23]  don't have it figured out we're still figuring it out you know um but we have figure this out and so people who are willing to say oh well how did they ask how did you get there and don't want to hear the answer you know that's that's something that they need to look at on their own but it it can feel sometimes like we living on an island yeah I mean and this is a this is a huge part of you know nonprofit CEO burnout alltime highs and one of the things that you were talking about there was kind of in our previous conversation we said we need to re-evaluate What in impact looks like in the nonprofit sector and as I'm hearing some of the complexities and the challenges that we face of trying to be a leader of an organization is pushing Us in the right direction with all this swirling inconsistency around us is it easier

[24:11]  just to hunker down and continue to do the same stuff that we've been doing in the nonprofit sector as a way to be able to just say hey some of these challenges might be too challenging for us so let's just kind of do what we've been doing and let's just ride this out what do you think about that oh it is what it is my least favorite saying on the planet it isn't what it is that's that's complacency that's just saying that that out of my control philanthropy we have we have seen for decades for as long as the nonprofit concept has has been around we see what I refer to is that hamster wheel of philanthropy that happens so you see a need right something happens to you to you or around you somehow something impacts

[24:59]  your life and you're like that's never going to happen again not on my watch I have to do something to change it and invariably somebody creates a nonprofit there are two over two million nonprofits today in the United States 14,000 of those rescue dogs I'm not saying that they don't need help and they don't need I just don't think we need 14,000 of them but any case the reason why we have so many is because it is this hamster wheel of impact so I say okay I all of these kids need peanut butter and jelly sandwiches each each sandwich costs a dollar and so every day I need to set I need to feed 10 kids so that means I need $10 a day when does that

[25:48]  stop once you start feeding those kids when does the need stop there are two things I think there that we get wrong in the nonprofit Community one is to to say well I'm just everybody knows that these kids need a peanut butter and jelly sand I'm like who's not going to give to that everybody should give to that well get not everybody is passionate about giving peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the kids some people are a lot more interested in Saving the Blue Warbler you know in North Carolina or whatever right that it's not their jam it's not their thing it's not the thing that they are passionate about so nobody owes you nobody should be unless they're really passionate about that peanut butter and

[26:36]  jelly sandwich second you're going to keep going to your donors and your keep and your corporate partners and you're going to say well I need another $10 I need another $10 they never get off that flywheel in fact the flywheel just increases in size because either one the sandwich gets more expensive or two you decide you want to you want to feed 20 kids and not 10 the last piece of this impact that I think that we're thinking about wrong and I learned at my time with Casa what if you stop let's say you've been delivering peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the same 10 kids for a year and then one day you're just tired and you just can't do it anymore and the donations have dried up and you

[27:25]  know man it was great it was a great while lasted and this meant so much to me what are those 10 kids going to do for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches you have just created a system and an ecosystem meaning to do good but if you can't deliver on that good consistently now depend you've create you've created another crisis without meaning to you've created the dependency and so this idea of philanthropy beginning Feller said this David Rockefeller said this what you know philanthropy begins where government ends and we as a community continue to push that line and see well we'll just keep taking more taking more taking more and and so we're we're solving for all

[28:16]  of these problems I'm not saying that the government should solve for all of the problems I don't really know where the line should be but I think everybody needs to pay attention to that line and this hamster wheel of philanthropy that they've that they're creating out of an out of wanting to do good but I think to your point earlier when we talk about patience would you start would you start a a for-profit company with no exit strategy what's your exit strategy as a nonprofit because you should have one that's impact some of the best CEOs who I've sat across from say this is going to sound completely contrarian but we're trying to put ourselves out of business here and a lot of people don't like to say that but we are trying to

[29:04]  put ourselves out of business when it comes to serving our community when it comes to you know mental and Behavioral Health substance use all these things if we're doing our job correctly we shouldn't be around here anymore and I feel like there's an there's an underlying element of personal accountability that's in here as well how do you think we've gotten so far away from this personal accountability especially in a place where it's okay just to feel good and to show up and to be nice people which nonprofits often get kind of labeled as we do I think it's you know when you feel that way right well I want to go out of business and sure I'd love to go out of business but I know that from a liong perspective we're not going out of business anytime soon I'm segmenting the places that I plan to go out of business until they cure cancer and even for 20 20 years 30 years 40 years after

[29:53]  that we're still going to be here because people will still be living with the effects of of treatment right the side effects of having the disease but I'm going to conquer the segments so I can't fix the whole thing like do I want people to you know if I was in suicide prevention of course I don't want anybody to ever kill themselves again I don't know that that's a realistic piece of I don't know that that's realistic I can't control those things so I think it's about controlling what you can what can I control about this Mission and yeah you should put yourself on the line I think that's a lot of you know we talked about being brave I personally need to be brave if I'm going to try to CH to make sure that

[30:44]  everybody who's had cancer is moving and exercising in some form the very day after treatment I'm gonna I'm going to do it but if I'm going to say that that's not live I mean that's Li Strong saying that but if my name is in there is in there in any way that's my responsibility too I'm holding that up um I hope that I hope that we can get back to a a level of personal accountability where hey you know what my idea might not work but I was brave enough to try and to own the failure because not every idea that I have is great and not every plan that I'm

[31:30]  executing on works perfectly of course not like we're human beings so one from a donor perspective and from a supporter perspective I would ask people to lower your expectation just a little bit because Perfection will never be achieved not by not by the donor not by me but man we're doing the best I the best that we can and so if you see bravely leadership if you see people who are like you know what I'm ready to gamble on that because I what if it works that's another one of my favorites is what if it works well yeah but it might not but what if it does what if it does then I can go to sleep you know tonight knowing that the impact that that patient decision I had that I got

[32:20]  to make a year ago is going to change lives for the foreseeable future that's that's incredible impact and something that would allow me to sleep well at night um but it's that personal accountability that yes we have to have and I would hope others begin to have Grace a little bit of Grace for very difficult role of saying I'm going to I'm going to commit my life to helping other people with with some handcuffs on that the rest of the business world does not have and uh I'm going to do the best I can navigating an unknown world I think about that that bravery in two lenses the first lens is what everybody is

[33:09]  quick to adapt because it's easy which is what if we fail right but the other side and the courage that it takes The Bravery to take the leap into a space where it is unknown is also incredibly freeing you know I feel like from a human perspective we're very good at articulating this future of this possibility of something which is natural for our lizard brain to do comes up with all the possibilities and why we will fail but the other side of that is if you have true belief in what if it actually works out the possibilities are endless and that is a narrative that I can get behind because we never know what the possibility looks like absolutely 100% love that and you're you're you're right I mean that's that is what drives me to say personally I think this is going to work I think it's going to work and the more

[33:58]  people I socialize the IDE deal with the more feedback I get that's the other pieces I think um that I've learned over time becoming more mature as a leader is saying bring me the experts I am not the expert I need I need to hear all of the all of the feedback right I want to hear all of the feedback good bad ugly positive like a want to hear it all so I can take it in take it into account and say oh you know what maybe I need to just jig a little bit this way or Jag a little bit this way or oh my gosh I didn't realize that like that's the power of bringing people together who are smarter than you in a in that are subject area experts because I think that

[34:46]  that moves the odds in your favor for success but to be able to say this could work like what if this works planning for Success too I think that's something we don't always do is the expectation is the expectation is it's not going to work and that shouldn't be the expectation the expectation it should be it's going to totally work like totally work I hear some optimism in your soul you know there's a I want I want to run a framework past you um so part of my personal brand that I've tried to put out into the world is always being positive and optimistic but in a world of negativity and insecurity people have reached out to me and said Keenan you

[35:33]  know what you need to chill out because you're toxically positive and so what I did other than laughing in my soul to those people um is I started messing around with a framework called practical optimism practical optimism is understanding the landscape the challenges that we face but still choosing to have the power to make the choice to be on the optimistic side the positive side for the outcome that could become what do you think about that practical optimism framework absolutely I love the Practical optimism I think it's it's taking that in maybe like bite-size pieces again like kind of what I was saying earlier for example Live Strong fertility every state H we are hoping and working towards every state passing a state law that mandates insurance

[36:22]  companies including Medicaid must cover fertility um for fertility preservation for people who are diagnosed with cancer I'm not saying regular people I'm not saying just just people um affected by cancer right who have that diagnosis if I were to say so practically oh my God it's 50 like that's going to take forever plus we've already we've got 18 and not all of them are perfect and like New York doesn't cover Medicaid and I mean you know this is a lot of work for like I don't know are we helping anybody at all it's really easy I think to run down that path that gets you right into the I'm I'm not going to be

[37:09]  optimistic this is too hard it's too hard overwhelm too much but being practically optimistic is saying there's a bill right now that has just been written in the state of New York that's in the assembly that changes that to Medicaid that expands that coverage to Medicaid and since we've got 7 million people living on Medicaid in the state of New York that's going to have a profound effect on those people right 15% of the people who apply for fertility coverage from Liv strong are in this um in the state of New York are on Medicaid now 5 years ago before the bill was passed it was less than 1% being practically optimistic is saying hey okay we can really change this with this little thing like it

[37:58]  doesn't have to be so Global right you can you can bite-size that positive energy and watch those Watch The Winds collect your nose right you you collect your nose so you so that you get the win but and eventually you eventually you could collect enough NOS that you are going to win there is going to be a yes it is going to happen the Bill's going to pass the the Drug's going to be approved the therapy will whatever that is eventually it's going to be a yes I don't know how you go on if it if you can't believe that you know the pessimist is right all the time except wrong 100% of the time you know and it's like I would rather be on the side of the fence that is optimistic as positive as encouraging

[38:45]  for the future where people are going to smile and have benefits that we can't even understand because that's the world that I choose to live in that's the grounding in that positive or that practical optimism there's um there's another element of what I've been trying to really focus on even since our last conversation together I was really charged up by how enthusiastic you were for the mission and all the things you've been able to accomplish in the lives that you've impacted I've been really trying to focus on one question is what would be my biggest regret when this was all over and what I've really been trying to do over the last couple days maybe a week is ground myself in enjoying the process when we're fighting such a huge fight like Liv strong is it's easy to get overwhelmed with the examples of what's not working but when

[39:32]  we look back in our days Suzanne we're going to think about how much did I enjoy my time doing what I did along the way how often do you get a slow down and enjoy the ride of what you do every day with all the stress that you're under often I'm having a really great time I'm having a lot of fun and it's hard to have fun when you say what I what do I you know what I do for a living I type the word cancer so much that I just type the letter c and it autofills like that's that's the number of times I'm typing that in a single day but I am absolutely energized when I get off the phone with people when I right before we were talking today I was on the phone with a young woman who is an Aya adolescent

[40:20]  young adult she's young adult she's finishing her cancer treatment she just came back from a a conference where there were other women just like her and she was like this was our first out loud conversation our very first one we've had a couple of emails but first out loud and she said oh my gosh your ears must have been burning because all we did at this conference for an hour and a half was talk about Live Strong and Live Strong at the why and Live Strong in fertility and how much impact it had on my life and now you're telling me about these new things and I'm even more excited than I was before that that is that's great like that's that's what gets me really excited and

[41:09]  it's I certainly personally feed off of other people I'm looking for people not that I don't want to surround myself with people who ground me in reality like you know I don't don't always have to have the Magic Carpet Ride people with me you know like they don't always have to be like that but man um when you realize that you are a part of something that's so much bigger that's pretty cool but your your position is unique because you're also the architect of where you guys are going and this is something I got really excited about in our last conversation I'm not sure how much you can share so I'll let you kind of drive this part of the conversation but underneath the tutelage of our CEO Miss Stone where are we going what's the vision you're

[41:58]  casting I really took where we've been to help inform where we're going really understanding who is Liv strong like who are we who were we in the very beginning and how does that compare to where we are today and of course you're going to grow and evolve but who we are who we were in the very beginning and the thing that really got people together was this you two oh just hey oh my gosh you also and shared stories connection and grit and saying okay I got you I got you I did this you can do this too this this wristband connection right where if you saw somebody yelling that wearing the

[42:45]  yellow wristband if you see somebody wearing the yellow wristband you don't have to worry about how you're going to start that conversation there's already a commonality that you have Liv strong in the very beginning created this word survivorship we created the whole field of survivorship patient navigation which is something that every single oncology office now has to have did not exist 27 years ago didn't exist and so the things that we were able to do then what I look back and see is it's Innovation it's bravery it's saying that should be there why isn't it there and not accepting it is what it is is as the answer so today and moving forward what you'll see from Liv strong

[43:36]  is the the attempt to always be right on the front edge to understand what's what's getting ready to happen um what do we see in those Trends what are we seeing as challenges and what is not being solved for and let's go and solve for it now so they're marketplaces there's this great great animated film called robots I think three people saw it but my son loved it I watched it over and over again so you do with kids um but there's a it's really about entrepreneurial Spirit which is probably why it didn't go great U but for kids but I loved it and uh and and the one of the robots says see a need fill a

[44:23]  need and that's what we've been doing since the very beginning we've seen a need and we filled that need so today what you're going to see from Liv strong and for the next at least 5 years what you're going to see is the creation of marketplaces where they do not exist so for example Fitness is a great one we created Live Strong at the Y 12we program in partnership with Y USA so people can go to the Y right after treatment and they can start to get their physical strength back it's a 12we program wildly successful here's the problem Co destroyed the why in many ways um wiped out that program in a lot of places but even without that withstanding you have U people who don't live near aw you have people who don't

[45:12]  want to go to the why you have people who aren't interested in going to a gym because they're self-conscious because they can't drive there whatever all of the reasons removing the barrier to exercise became the thing that I'm looking at okay well why can't a personal trainer just do that well because there's like one or two really tiny certification programs out there but there's really nothing all right so we need to how many trainers would we really need so we did some math we need 20,000 trainers in the United States to handle the the 2 million people every single year that are getting cancer with that new diagnosis those 20,000 train we don't

[46:01]  have 20,000 trainers I can't manage 20,000 trainers but I wonder if we can come up with a curriculum so no matter where you are no matter who what community in which you live I'm going to train you and teach you at a n for a nominal level right a nominal amount of money to be able to learn how to work with people who've been affected by cancer keep training anybody else that you want to but the chances are we know like one in three we know chances are somebody who already is your client is going to have cancer it's going to or you will right it's going to happen so let's learn how to work with those people so we've created a certification program we're going to certify as many trainers as we can and then the 85,000 people a month that come to our website

[46:48]  looking for looking for resource support we get to say hey do you live in 78704 here are the five trainers who live there that can help you out we're going to play we're going to play matchmaker I want to create that Marketplace that does not exist what I hope for most is to go out of business I want to create a competitive marketplace where there are four other certification programs for cancer patients out there and they're saying that they're better than ours bring it let's go when a Marketplace is created that's better for everybody right let's bring that on and when we have competing um businesses in our Marketplace we get to go out of business

[47:36]  there we get to say we solved that problem we no longer have to be in the business of personal training certification for to make sure that cancer survivors have what they need to get well to get healthy to stay healthy and we can move to the next thing so what you'll see from Liv strong is the creation of marketplaces that don't exist but should I want to create competitive Landscapes where the person that benefits is the one that's affected by cancer next is nutrition mental health is after that on Down the Line see a need F A need it's it's it's so amazing to be able to sit across um a leader who has so much at stake on the table and yet

[48:25]  you attack these problems with a furiosity a creativity an entrepreneurial Spirit which makes the difference you know if we continue to do the same things that we've always done expecting a different result that is literally the definition of insanity and a fresh perspective an optimistic Outlook and a tenacity to get things done to impact way more than 22 million people is a road that you are very much on your way down already and so it's just amazing to be able to kind of sit across this digital table because everybody who's tuning in and listening today has been impacted in so many different ways and we've been able to get an understanding of the amazing leader behind the global brand of Liv strong and the yellow wristband and it's just been such a pleasure to be able to kind of spend this time with you Suzanne it's really been absolutely amazing I

[49:11]  really appreciate it thanks Keenan it's been really fun and um you know I love what I do I think most people can sell that I do um and there's a a line that I love from a philosopher Greek philosopher whose name I would probably totally butcher if I tried to say it christianopoulos or something um but he says a society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in and I am committed to planting those trees as many as I possibly can hear at Liv strong and that's that's what we're going to do and I challenge everybody to do that we can do it we just have to be brave enough as we put a close on our

[50:02]  episode today one of our Traditions is our previous guest ask our current guest a question and the question came from a CEO out of an amazing organization down in Florida who's Community Services mental Behavior Health detox foster homes all that type of stuff and her question was in a world in the future where there's a new president of the United States now what doesn't make a difference to me doesn't make a difference still have two million people who are going to get diagnosed with cancer I still have work to do it it does not impact my mission and it does not impact how I go about that mission whether it's the person that I vote for or

[50:48]  not is a feeling and it is not relevant really to to the work that I'm doing today Miss Suzanne Stone that has been an episode of the heart and hustle podcast thank you so much for tuning in everybody that's a wrap