The Story Isn’t Mine to Keep

I tell my story and talk about my cancer a lot. This week I keynoted the National Independent Flag Dealers (NIFDA) annual convention in Milwaukee where I talked about what it means to be “battle-tested” in business and in life.

I shared my journey developing, running and eventually selling AmericanFlags.com. I talked about my entry into endurance sports and perhaps, most poignantly, I shared my back-to-back cancer diagnoses and all the lessons I learned.

I got rave reviews and connected with several other survivors in the room.

Telling my story sometimes feels indulgent but I do it because my story - your story - is evidence. It’s proof that there’s always a way around or through something terrible. When you keep that roadmap and that sense of hope to yourself, you’re sitting on information somebody else may need badly.

I didn’t understand that when I started writing Every Mile Matters. I thought the book was an exercise in looking back. Close the chapter, literally. What I didn’t expect was what came in after. The messages I get aren’t really about the book. They are from people in the middle of their own version of it. Newly diagnosed. Afraid to tell their boss. Wondering whether wanting to keep running or working out meant they were in denial. Wondering whether they’d ever feel like themselves again.

I don’t always have answers for them. But I have my story, my own experience, strength and hope. Turns out, that’s usually all people want.

This matters a lot in my nonprofit work. People in helping professions are trained to hold other people’s pain. We are not necessarily trained to admit our own. We tell clients that asking for help is strength, and then we white-knuckle our way through a diagnosis, a divorce, a drinking problem, because we think our credibility depends on looking unbreakable. It doesn’t. Our credibility depends on honesty. Our staff are watching how we handle hard things far more closely than they’re listening to what we say about them.

None of this means telling everyone everything. Sharing your story isn’t the same as handing it off. I decide what I talk about, when, and with whom. Some parts of the last few years I still haven’t written down, and I’m not sure I will. That’s not shame. That’s a boundary, and boundaries are part of telling a story well.

I’ll also admit it doesn’t get easy. Every time I stand up in front of a room and talk about the day I got the fateful MyChart message, there’s a moment right before I start where I’d rather talk about anything else. Budgets. Grant deadlines. The weather. That moment hasn’t gone away. But I understand the power, purpose and potential of connection.

I started triathlon at 55. I’m two weeks out from the New York City Marathon right now, up early training most days, legs tired, mind mostly clear. I didn’t get here by being private. I got here because people I barely knew told me what worked for them, what didn’t, and what scared them. Their stories gave me a map that got me going in the right direction.

That’s the obligation, as I see it. Somebody shared their map with you. At some point, you share yours.

You don’t have to write a book. You don’t have to stand on a stage. Sometimes it’s one conversation with one person who’s where you were a year ago. You tell them the truth, including the parts you’re still figuring out.

They may not necessarily clap, give you a standing ovation or ask you to sign books at the end of your speech, but you’ll become an indelible part of their life and their journey.

That’s more than enough.