Unlikely Gifts Unwrapped: Unfiltered Reflections on Life After Breast Cancer

Adam Torres and Diane Simard discuss Diane’s new book.

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Show Notes:

New book alert! In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Diane Simard, Mental Health, Cancer Advocate & Author at Unlikely Gift Productions, LLC., explore Diane’s new book, Unlikely Gifts Unwrapped: Unfiltered Reflections on Life After Breast Cancer.

About Diane Simard

Diane is a psycho-oncology influencer, a messaging strategist to senior business executives, an award-winning author, a national speaker on women in business and survivorship, and an advocate to bring more attention to the psychological trauma caused by cancer.

Full Unedited Transcript

 Hey, I’d like to walk you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters com and click on er guest to apply. Alright, so today my guest is Diane Simard and she is the she’s a mental health cancer advocate and author, and she,

thank you, Adam. It’s great to be on. All right, Diane, so I love, love, love bringing on authors. So I’m excited to have you on three books under your, belt. Am I right on that? That’s correct. Okay. So we got a lot to talk about. First off, I do wanna go a little bit, further into your background and like , what inspires your work?

Like, how’d you get started with this? Of course, well, 10 years ago I was diagnosed with stage three C breast cancer, and I had a non-aggressive grade of cancer that was behaving aggressively, and so I was pre prescribed what I call the nuclear bomb treatment, a very aggressive treatment plan, and it involved, of course, chemotherapy and losing my hair.

Radiation and surgery, and it was chemo was up first. And so it was toward the end of chemo that I into a deep depression. I had high anxiety levels to start with, and so I was concerned about my state of my mental health and I. Thought I, might be able to feel better if I talk to a professional.

And so I asked my medical oncologist for a referral to a therapist who understood what it was like for a business woman like me. I. Who always was striving for perfection to be faced with something so challenging as a cancer diagnosis when I wanted to feel like I was in control, but I knew that I was not.

And so she said, well, Diane, I know that these types of therapists exist that work with cancer patients. I don’t. Know of any. And so one thing kind of led to another, and since I had a lot of connections in higher education, I ended up and with a journalism background myself, I ended up discovering that there was quite a lack of trained professionals at both the masters and the doctorate level.

Those who work with. Mental health issues. And so I realized we had a workforce development issue on our hands. So I ended up, after I finished treatment, within like a month, we announced to the general public a specialty here at the University of Denver and Colorado at their graduate school of professional sites.

Which is where they train future licensed clinical psychologists. And so I seed funded and founded a specialty called the Center for Oncology Psychology Excellence or cope. And so psycho-oncology, psychosocial oncology are many terms for it, but this, it’s a fairly new, couple of decades old up and coming.

Field of study and service where those in the mental health field are getting trained specifically how to work with cancer patients because of the unique challenges that we face, including our mortality. So first off, I’m a big fan of, course, not somebody going through something like cancer, but when somebody goes through any type of trial in their life, whether it be something like cancer or something physical or mental, just anything that they had to overcome a big challenge.

And then they, they go out, they write a book, or they find a way to they find a way to channel that to help other people. So first I just wanna say thank you for dedicating all that this, this work to that because I’m sure your work is helping many people. And correct me if I’m off on this, I dunno if it was you, this month is when you came out with some we’re in March just for everybody listening.

Mm-hmm. So the book is Live Unlike Unlikely Gifts, unwrapped, unfiltered Reflections on Life After Breast Cancer. That’s a recent release, right? I know. Have multiple books, but That’s correct. Yep. It just came out earlier this month. Congratulations. How do you feel? Thank you. No, I, I feel great. And you’re so correct, Adam, that someone like me, I needed to, as I always say, kinda hook my wagon to a life raft to get out of my funk of cancer.

And that was why I ended up writing my first book about my year with breast cancer and how mm-hmm. I, had a lot of. Bizarre experiences, some out of life stuff, and just, this had never happened to me before. And so it made for great content for a memoir style book, and that was my first book.

And I, for other reasons I ended up regarding my breast cancer experiences, an unlikely gift because it transformed me. It opened doors to a lot of answers. To unanswered questions I’d had my entire life. And I was 50 years old when I went through breast cancer. And so it was transformational in unbelievable ways.

And so the sequel to that book, which is the current book that was just, that just drops. I. Is more lighthearted only because many of the readers of the first book reached out to me and, and begged me to, to read to write this book. Excuse me. And, and I just, again, had a lot of bizarre flashbacks. The impact on your body after I.

Treatment ends is just stuff people don’t talk about. Like the impact on my eyesight. I developed cataracts at such a young age. My hair turned orange the first time I had it colored. When it got long enough and, and it, and, and I don’t mean to make light like this was funny. Mm-hmm. It’s all just, it’s all the point is it’s part of.

No one talks about cancer in this way, and I’m, I guess I’m, authentic and it’s just, I’ve found my voice now and I’ve got so many stories from corporate America bottled up inside. And so it’s been a great continued journey for me to continue to just put a whole lot of things in my life into perspective, all kind of triggered by this cancer experience.

Hmm. What do you hope that the readers of this, latest release get out?

Thank you. I would love nothing more than for something as scary and frightening as cancer to become more approachable for there to be more conversations about it. And I don’t wish it on anyone. That’s not what this is about. But I, just know and had, I had no experience with cancer in my family.

And so, in fact, I grew up so long ago that we could not even say the word in the early. And through the seventies, people would whisper this word cancer because on television, which was very limited at the time still, and even in movies, those who received the cancer diagnosis typically did not survive.

And so, mm-hmm. So much general, this is a general statement and I guess statistically there is so much has that has been accomplished and yes, these, these treatments are still brutal and I. Like I said, don’t wish this on anyone, but there’s for someone to get themselves informed and I just hope that we can have more conversations about cancer now that we’re getting more and more mental health professionals trained and, so much of an interest in this because who isn’t impacted by cancer in some way?

Everyone knows someone. The statistics on the likelihood of those of us that will get. A diagnosis of some type of cancer in our lifetime is significant. And so that’s, I just really hope that we can be more comfortable talking openly about it. Yeah. I agree. I agree with that. Talk to me a little bit more about just your, of course we’ve been talking about the book a bit.

But like , you’re involved in other things and other ways of educating and do public speaking and just a lot of other things. , talk to me a little bit more, I don’t know if I should use the word ecosystem, but there’s a whole ecosystem of education I feel like you’ve created and that you’re, and that by.

Of course. Thank you. Well, I, I call myself a life commentator and I’ve settled on that because I like that. What is the life commentator out here? You know what it does, but I’m in Go for it. It’s, kind of like the same reason I got that degree in journalism and public relations. It can mean whatever you want it to mean and because the further I get away from my, cancer experience, I’m my cancer was a trauma in my life.

Probably the most traumatic experience I hope I ever have. But yeah, there’s so much more. the way that I’ve processed and dealt with through writing and helping to be part of the solution was huge for me. So now I go around, I talk more about my life experiences and it can be tied to cancer, but I view myself now as now that I.

Have I’m no longer involved in traditional corporate America. I’m just working on projects that I wanna work on, and I always say the life is a life commentator. I’m always planting seeds, and that could mean anything from someone I meet. Five years in the future, they think, oh, I remember talking to her.

And so every day to me is just an opportunity to put some bobbers in the water. And I do that through, I write a monthly blog and I have a monthly newsletter, which I jokingly say is like the people version of our lives and, and these books. And these books. And then. Podcast guessing and thank you again for having me on, is such a great way to just bring attention to these little snippets of things that people don’t slow, down long enough to kind of think about.

And, so I have been fortunate, I’ve done a lot of work channeling and wondering and asking questions because of my inquisitive nature, because of my training. And, but I found that for me, planting those seeds, putting those bobbers on the water. That’s one thing, but I have to be consistent about it, and that’s what’s been so helpful for me, is to be disciplined enough to just say, I’m gonna do this every month.

Some topics are gonna really hit a chord. Some are not. But I, the point is, is I become so much more structured so that with each book now. As it comes out, I’m focusing on just expanding that reach and mm-hmm. I’m considered an independent, self-published author, but my goal is not to go for the, highest number of downloads or reaching bestseller status because there’s another side to that. I focus on writing quality material, and every one of my books has won at least one award, and I’m really excited about this next book because it is, I wouldn’t say taking a risk, but I’m actually putting it

in the humor and comedy genre because there are some sub some topics that are, and it’s heartbreaking and I hate that people don’t survive cancer sometimes. I do hate that, but it’s just been so many like. Space, palm moments after cancer and just, I mean, I got laid off in a bizarre way from my job and I had been an angel investor for years.

And anyway, it just because I went through this traumatic experience, I can put things that happen in my life, the good and the bad in a different perspective. And that is what thinks to appeal to readers and those. Followers is that, well, nobody talks about this the way that you do. And there are some beautiful, beautiful people out there whose lives are taken by cancer and other things, and they’re taken too soon.

But I tend to focus on celebrating the meaning of their impact in our lives as opposed to cancer, which they’ll, experts will say it’s becoming more quote unquote manageable. And that, may be true based on many if you catch it earlier, statistically , the likelihood of surviving tends to be higher, those types of things.

But there are still cancers that are so hard to detect that, it’s often. Quote, unquote, too late. And so that is still heartbreaking, but I just tend to have a different slant on the world. And that’s where I’m at it now, 60 years old, and I’m just grateful to be alive is the bottom line. And I, had several instances during treatment where I witnessed those and met those who were not going to survive.

And I. Devoted and continue and will dedicate the rest of my life to living for them in their memory. It’s just, a strong calling for me. Amazing. Then if somebody wants to follow up, grab your books continue the conversation, connect with your brand, how do they do that? I would love nothing more, and thank you for asking.

Please go to my personal website, which is diane m simard.com, and you can send me a note through there. My books are available through my website. There’s some resources there. If you’re interested in learning more about mental health and cancer, and I would love nothing more than to hear from anyone who wants to have a conversation about this.

Wonderful. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put those links in the show notes so you can just click on them and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.

This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing out new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Diane again for coming the show. My pleasure. Thank you, Adam.