From Hospital Rooms to Board Rooms: Surviving Cancer. Thriving in Business. 10 Enduring Lessons

September is blood cancer awareness month and as a 20-year survivor of Hodgkins Lymphoma, I am grateful to be here. Over the past two decades, I’ve come a long way in my life. I have a beautiful family, supportive friends, and I’m incredibly fortunate to have either led or been a part of the BEST, high performing teams in a career that bridges executive leadership, HR strategy, and transformative coaching.

What I’ve learned -- from hospital rooms to boardrooms -- is that moments of true clarity often come only after a crisis or trauma. For me, my cancer journey was particularly instructive, and since then I have continued to evolve those learnings, sharpen them, add new ones, and carry them into all the rooms that I’m in. These are hard-won lessons: forged in the fire of chemo, shaped by high stakes situations, and rooted in the constant reflection, “What can I take away from all of this?”