- Hey everyone, thanks so much for joining us today on She's Inventable. Today we have He's Inventable, and I'm so excited to bring this episode back to you. This episode is one of my favorites with coach, author, and speaker, Robert Party. Robert's amazing wife, Dr. Desiree Party, passed on from this world on September 6, 2009, from metastatic breast cancer. Robert wrote a memoir of their life's journey in his book, Chasing Life. My life was changed the day I read this amazing book. In honor of Desiree's life, we are bringing back this episode to you on the 15th year of her passing to encourage you to read his book and begin Chasing Life too. Enjoy this episode and grab a copy of Chasing Life by clicking the link in the show note. (upbeat music) Success looks so easy from the outside, but all successful people have had to overcome enormous obstacles along the way. And in many cases, look failure right in the eye. Most successful people don't focus on the struggle and rarely do they talk about it because quite frankly, that's not what creates success. Join us here where we will chat with fierce female entrepreneurs and share the good, the bad, and the ugly of entrepreneurship and talk about the obstacles we have faced and how you can overcome them to reach the success that you desire. I am your host, Tammy Lehman, and this is the She's Invincible podcast. (upbeat music) - Hey everyone, thank you so much for joining us today. On the She's Invincible podcast, we have one amazing guest for you. Oh my gosh, yeah, you're ready? Get ready for it. Are you here for it? I'm here for it. This is Robert. He is one of those rare individuals who embraces change and lives by a philosophy which he calls possibility in action, taking his desire for transformation and putting it into action daily. Born in New York City, Robert has also lived in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Rome, and now lives in a small Italian village in the national park of Abruzzo, received his MBA from Columbia University and was quickly recruited by one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. In 1997, it was shortly after accepting the position that he and his wife were confronted with an extreme life event that shook the very foundation of all their hopes and dreams. Desiree, his wife while pursuing an MD PhD was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer right before her 31st birthday. Despite their trials, both Robert and Desiree thrived. Unfortunately, in 2009, after an 11 year valiant battle, Desiree succumbed to metastatic breast cancer. In 2014, Robert decided to leave his comfort zone to pursue what he deemed to be a more purposeful path. Throwing caution to the wind, he pursued a childhood dream to live in Italy and a passion-born while caring for his wife to become a life coach. He now lives in the same Italian village, his great-grandfather immigrated from over 100 years ago, and he is now a certified coach. Adjunct professor, an international guest speaker, and are you ready? The author of the most amazing brand new book that just came out today, Chasing Life, The Extraordinary True Story of Love, Joy and Achievement Against All Odds. You guys, please join me as we welcome our second man ever on the She's Invincible podcast, Robert Party. Welcome, welcome, here you are. - Thank you so much. Oh, wow, number two. - Number two, this is-- - I hope I do the first guy proud. - I'm sure you will, I'm sure you will, and this has been so fun. And so I just, it has been such a joy to meet you, get to know you and your story. I'm in love with your wife. I just, every story, I just, I feel like I know her, and yet I never did get to meet her, but I feel like I'm meeting her with every conversation that we have. And I'm just so excited to have you here today. - Well, that makes me really happy, really, really happy. I just, you know, I wanna show her off to the world. She's still, she is a big, if not my life, but yeah, so I'm thrilled, I'm thrilled to death. - Oh my gosh, this is such a joy. So let's do this, let's just jump right in. Let's tell our listeners, how in the world did you get where you are today? And what makes you invincible? - Sure, I'll start with the invincible aspect because I think I'm a big believer in resilience. And I believe that resilience is not bouncing back. First of all, I always ask myself the question, why does anyone wanna bounce back? Why not bounce beyond? Why not transform, right? But what invincible is, is to get back up. You need that invincibility to stand back up and then take that leap, right? But the invincibility is that you're down in the dirt, you know, they're sand all over you, you're rolling around and you're like, yeah, I'll show you. And you back up. I actually, it's something I learned very early on in my childhood. So I grew up in a dysfunctional relationship with an alcoholic dad. And it wasn't until around the age of 13 that I actually learned how to stand up for myself. That was the last time that I was ever touched again. I was a typical bully syndrome. And that led me on the whole invincibility, resilience, grit, mindset. But I fueled my life with anger. My whole idea was to get away from my dad, get money, have independence. So to me money was, you know, I also grew up in the Gordon Gecko era, right? So, you know, Wall Street and Ronald Reagan. And I'm like, yeah, money. So I then, I'm in university and I meet this, this force of nature, truly this force of nature that just walks in, here I was trying to be, you know, the preppy, I had a whole image of my, what the way my life was supposed to be. I was chasing a girl that was going to be perfect with the Connecticut family. And I was just going to become something other than the Italian American middle class guy that, you know, was born in the Bronx. And this girl, just like I was, first of all, hippie skirt, you know, feather earrings. I'm looking around like, what is going on here? And she just, she was strong. And I wasn't, I wasn't used to that because in the Italian American family I grew up in, you know, the men stayed at the table, the women picked up the dishes and washed the dishes. And she just, wow, a month, basically a month later, she was 17, I was 19. I was, I was talking to my mom and I told my mom, I met the girl I'm going to marry. She's like, it's impossible, you're only, I'm like, no, I just, I know it, I know it. So, and that led us on an amazing journey. And there came a point in time that I was thinking of changing my career actually, which is so funny. She was doing the MD PhD. She was just about to finish up her PhD. And I was thinking going back to school. I was like, you know, I want to do something more. I don't know what people, this isn't what I want. This served me to get money to get away from and change my life, basically, or I thought it did. And we were like, okay, she's like, as soon as I graduate, but then I was offered a job in Abu Dhabi. And it just, it was great because it was either going to be a nice sum of money or a nice sum of vacation, but that she was still in school. We decided to take the vacation and every six weeks we were going to meet in a different country. And it just sounded like such a great thing. We both said, we're young, why not travel now? When she finished her PhD, she decided to take a year off of school to come and live with me in the Middle East. And to get a residency visa in the Emirates, you have to go through a health screening and they had found the cancer. Actually, she had found the cancer a year before, but we're talking in the late '90s. She was 29, just about to turn 30. The doctor said, look, you have cystic breasts in your family, don't worry about it, because that really was the case back then. A 29 year old was not gonna go for a mammogram. And that just started a whole spiral of things which we could get into. And she had a very specific way she lived life and a very specific way she wanted to confront her disease. But she pushed herself as hard as she could. She achieved really impossible, impossible dreams. And after she passed away, I had to look at my life. What did I do? I ran back to money. Right after she passed away, I had a huge amount of debt and it wasn't really for the medical system as much as it was her telling me, Robert, you know, sometimes I get really worried, what if like this keynote doesn't work? Wanna go to Puerto Rico tomorrow? And I just buy a ticket, right? Because let's do something, right, fun. Also because they had given me a 24 to 30 month life expectancy when she was diagnosed. And she did live 11 good years despite chemo almost every week for 11 years. And when I was in Dubai, I couldn't find my rhythm. I completely my internal compass, they call it a busila in Italian, which I like that word better. But my busila just changed. And one day, I never thought I would come back to Italy actually because this is where she spent her last birthday, her 40th birthday was in Rome, and then in India. And I just, you know, to me it was like, no, there's no way when I landed in Italy, because the dream was bubbling back up that childhood dream to come to Italy. I just said, no, I need to see if I could do it. And that's that whole invincible thing. Again, the whole resilience thing. It was like, you know, I'm put on this earth and I'd rather get that scar trying than sitting and watching my life pass me by. And I showed up one day with two suitcases, no job. Honestly, no money. I started teaching English for eight dollars an hour. Despite the investment banking lifestyle, I had spent all my money. So I had to like pay off the hospitals and everything else. Once everything was paid, I came to Italy. I didn't speak the language and just said, you know what? I want to see if I can pull it off. I want to see what I'm made of. I already saw what I was made of in terms of protecting my wife or taking care of my wife. I wanted to see what I was made of for myself, for crafting my own life. And that's how I wound up in Italy. And funny enough, I come from the same town that Madonna comes from. So I know her cousins, which is very odd because she's never been here. And I'm like, your cousin is Madonna. But I just fell in love with this little town. I came here for some documents and it literally felt like home. And there were a lot of things that nurtured my soul because I changed. I also aged. I matured. I'm in the middle of a national park. I'm surrounded by mountains and I had a total under the Tuscan Sun moment because I said to the townspeople, oh, I'd really like to buy a house, you know? And I was looking for like something small, right? I'm a single guy. You know, just give me a one bedroom, something, right? They showed me this one house and I'm like, no, this is going to be way too big. They're like, just take a look at it. We walk inside, they're a bird everywhere. Bird droppings everywhere. Just it's filthy, it's been abandoned. They said, take a look from the balcony but don't step too hard because it's about to fall off. And I'm like, okay, yeah, I really want this house. Thank you very much. I stood on that balcony as best as I could and looked at this open valley in front of me. And I said, this is where I need to be. So that's sort of a long version of how I wound up in Italy and sort of some of the forces that helped me transform my life. - Oh my gosh, what a story, right? Like, and you had said this to me before is that like you had to figure out what you were going to do because you had all these plans, right? You were going to live in New York, be married to Desiree, you know, and do all these things. And all of a sudden that plan was not going to work and you had to figure it out. But, you know, what a blessing in the fact that you did have a vision, right? For something else that was for you that you could do and that you pursued that, that is amazing. And I can't imagine like getting rid of everything and like showing up in Italy with two suitcases. I couldn't fit like two suitcases of what's on my desk right now. (laughs) - Well, you know, one of the things that's so interesting in this journey, and I think Desiree and I both embraced the journey as it was a lesson. Whatever the outcome was going to be was going to be, but there was something we needed to learn. And this is gonna sound really crazy to a lot of people, but basically the day after she passed away, I called up dresses for success. I donated all her clothes. I sold or gave away furniture, paintings. You know that the story of her passing away was on the front page of the New York Times and it just happens to be me standing there in an empty apartment with a painting on the floor and my dog. All I had left was the mattress. And what I realized is we don't need so much. And so I was able to show up in Italy because with two suitcases, because I realized for me to live life, I needed to be light. I needed to be open to possibilities where a lot of that possibility and action comes from because there's this saying of it's better to hold onto life lightly than tightly because then you're able to embrace new opportunities in new seasons because you're able to let go of the older things. If you're holding on to everything, you're gonna miss a lot of what life has to offer. And the expectation I had for my life, actually that was what I needed to grieve more than Desiree. I needed to grieve the death of Robert, the husband, Robert, the caregiver, Robert, the lover, the friend, all of it because my identity vanished. A big core of my identity vanished. And then there's, you know, there's feelings of guilt moving on. I actually, I love acronyms and I could kill your audience with acronyms. But I say that grief is guilt, rumination, impermanence, expectations and fear. Those are the five rings we have to go through. We have to wrestle those to the ground. Yes, there's anger and denial. That's emotion, but where does it come from? It comes from those things. Having expectations, not wanting to let go of them. Oh, life was wrong. I should have had all that. Impermanence, everything changes. You know, I can tell you, I found a gray hair the other day, like in my eyebrow and I'm like, what is that? You know, so everything changes. You know, fear, fear is a tool. It does tell us when there's danger, but what we've done is we've made it something we've made it an excuse not to actually try, not to step out of our comfort zone. Yes, of course you shouldn't do harmful or dangerous things. But you know what, I thought to myself the worst thing that's going to happen if I show up to Italy and I don't make it. Either maybe my old company is going to take me back or I'm going to go wind up living with my mother. I'll be a 50 year old man living with my mom, but you know what? I'd rather take the chance and look back on my life and say, remember that time when I went to Italy and I lost everything and I had to go live with grandma? You know, like talking to my niece and nephew because it unfortunately does and I didn't have any children. So, but we make fun of my mom all the time, so. - That's awesome. Oh my gosh. Oh, so let's talk a little bit about loss, rebuilding life. Just, you know, there are people out there that are going through that right now, right? We're coming out of, right? I say that with great hope. Out of a pandemic, there's been so much loss. There's so much grief. There's, you know, and like how do you rebuild? How, you know, what are some of the things that you did that helped you to really get back up? I mean, you were down, right? That really knocked you flat on the grounds and you had to get back up. So let's talk a little bit about that and what advice would you give to people? What are some of the steps that they could take? - Sure. - If they're going through something like this. You know what's really interesting is if you're thinking about loss and people that have lost someone close to them find this a very difficult concept, but let's say a woman going through menopause, that is a loss, a man with a erectile dysfunction. That's a loss, loss of a job, a divorce. Loss is at its root, it's all about identity. It's basically, it's a lack of knowing yourself and it's a lack of security because all of a sudden the world doesn't feel safe. And there are many, many different ways to work through it. But the key to understanding loss or understanding where, how to move forward is really understanding yourself. And so for me, I started journaling when Desiree was diagnosed. I was never a journaler. I thought it was the craziest thing in the world. It helps get things out. There's two types of journaling. There's something called release writing where you just write and write and you throw it away. It doesn't have to be legible. It's not something to go back to. You know, we're not Marcus Aurelius leaving a journal for somebody 2,000 years from now with great insights, right? You know, so, but that's part of it is being able to look inside it and understand what your dreams were. And how does that shift? Who do you want to be? You know, these are the questions in a way that help you, right, moving forward. The other thing as well is gratitude is extremely, extremely important because part of what happens in loss is, first of all, you feel different than everybody else. Then you're starting to look at and let's leave Instagram alone, you know, if I could earn my phone because, you know, but I need it for work, right? So, but, you know, we start comparing ourselves and comparison is corrosive. Comparison says, I'm not enough. I don't have enough. The other side of that is admiration. Admiration is a fuel to grow. It's looking at somebody and saying, how did they get there? I can do that, they're a role model, but we live in a comparison type culture. So, when you're feeling loss, you fall into sort of a victim feeling. Part of that comes from not wanting to accept that life is what life is. You know, we're not meant to survive it. And we quantify life based on time. You know, my mom, my dad was, I think, wow, what was he, 59 maybe when he passed away. My mom still talks about how he was taken so young and I was thinking about my wife was 41, but that's okay. But, you know, is it that people look like, I don't know, thinking about time, time has no nothing to it. It's a measurement, but how well did that person live? The joy, what did they give you? And for me, I looked at, you know, Desiree didn't go through all that chemotherapy just for herself. She went through that because she didn't want to leave me. She didn't want to leave for family. She didn't want to leave. Wow, that is a great expression of love, right? Saying, I don't want to leave. So I look at that, I look at what I learned to give her and I look at the loss and I look at what did the loss give me? It's a very hard thing. It's called benefit finding. It's part of something, a process called reframing. It feels very unusual because we are trained from when we're children, but also our brain has a default for the negative because that's how our species survived. You know, you see a stick, you get afraid it might be a snake because way back when, when our brain was originally programmed, the snake could have killed us, right? Now we live in more civilized, but it's still we have this fear mechanism. So part of it is looking for the benefit. You know, what did it give you that you can use to change your life? And changing your life doesn't necessarily mean picking up and moving to Italy 'cause when I tell my story, a lot of people think, "Oh, well, you moved to Italy." Of course, well, first, you know, if I could tell you some of the things that happen in Italy, it's crazy, but it's perspective. To change your life has nothing to do with money, has nothing to do where you live. Those can be other ripples, but it's your perspective. And so if you're moving through loss because you will never get over loss, what we live in a society, move on, get over, plow through, suck it up, never happens. That loss has changed you. That loss is part of your fabric. It's part of, I like to think of life or ourselves as a mosaic. It's a piece in your mosaic. Desiree is this big beautiful piece in my mosaic, but so there's moving forward with it. We're living life forward because I'm a spiritual for person, not necessarily religious person, but there's the psalm that says, as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The key concept is to walk through. Don't go sit in the valley. You know, don't start roasting marshmallows in the valley. No, you got to walk through the valley because that's what we're here to do. We hear more than anything else to understand ourselves because the legacy we leave, is how we lived. I think I said this to you once before, something like that. We are, each one of us, whether we have a blog, a podcast or nothing, we are content creators. We might not know it, but our actions are content in a story for someone else to say. And so what content, if you suffer the loss, what content were you given that you can use? It's very difficult listening to this, especially if you've suffered the loss of a loved one, is very difficult. But what I'd suggest to anyone is that it does start with perspective and it does start with asking yourself some questions because you don't, I don't think anyone, if they're suffering a loss, wants to feel that state for the rest of their life. - I'm sure. And I think that they don't know how to not, right? So they don't have the tools or the skills to figure out how to get out of that state of mind or that emotional state. And then that's why I'm so grateful to have you here because I know you're gonna help my friends because you know, they're suffering. And so we have messages for them today too. So I-- - If I could just hit the drop, but I just wanted to say one thing-- - Two, two. - Yeah, gratitude more than anything else because the other practice is like mindfulness, journaling mindfulness is very difficult for a lot of people at the beginning. Journaling people feel uncomfortable 'cause they don't know what questions they're supposed to be answering. And then the journal sort of becomes, I feel really crappy today, this happened, that happened. Instead of saying, you know, I started thinking about things differently, but gratitude is easy. Gratitude is seeing how full your life really is. A lot of times it's guilt that holds us. We think we shouldn't feel good. You know, I just suffer the loss, especially if you suffer the loss of someone you love. Wow, you know, but that person wouldn't want, everyone says this, that person wouldn't want you to suffer. - That's where I was going. So, and we talked about this was, you know, and I had asked you what would Desiree have said, right? If I had a conversation with her and we knew that she wasn't going to be here. And I said to her, you know, what does she want for you? You know, and so let's talk about that. But you can answer that question now for other listeners. - Sure, sure, sure. I know 100, now, I just want to frame this for your listeners. I know instinctively because Desiree and I never talked about death. It was, we can talk about her philosophy, but we never talked about those things. So it wasn't Robert, you know, if I pass away, I want you to meet somebody else and have children and no, it was taboo. But I know because of the way we lived and regardless of her suffering and all of the things that happened in our lives, we embraced joy and she would want to make sure that I never disconnected myself from joy. She would want to make sure that I lived a joyful life that meant with somebody new, that means with somebody new. If it means what I'm doing now, it means what I'm doing now. But to not give that up, because what is the real gift we have in life? It's that mystery and wonder of what life really is. You know, we're joyful when we're children because, and if you think of some children, even if a pet dies or their grandmother dies when they're young, they're sad. And maybe they'll go play like five minutes later. And it's not because they're immature or ignorant or uneducated. They're in a state of the wonder of life and not all the fears and worries and everything else we have as we get older. And her journey, our journey together, taught me about joy. So for sure, that would be her answer. To stay connected to joy. - I love that, I love that. And you are doing that, right? We talked about that. - Yeah, I am doing that as best as I can. I'll share with your audience two unusual things. Two years ago here in the middle of a boot, so I had no idea that I actually had ticks. I contracted Lyme's disease and I didn't treat it because I didn't know I was bit until I got really bad arthritis and stuff. And I'm suffering from long COVID at the moment. So, you know, I look at those things. And the perspective I learned with Desiree is I could say to myself, my life is really kicking me, right? Or I could say, ah, you know what? Yeah, but that's not gonna stop me from enjoying this. And I'll find a way to enjoy it. Like I love to run, I can't run at the moment because I have the COVID toes. And so now I sit on my balcony in the morning, which I didn't do. I would drink my cappuccino faster. I sit and spend more time and there are these swallows outside, which they zoom around in the morning like crazy. They're just like jet planes all over the place. And I get to watch that. And oh, there's joy. It might not be running. And so it just opened up another opportunity, which is why I'm always back to that possibility and action thing because possibility. - I love that. And if you look for joy, you'll find it, right? - Sure. - Yeah, and it's different for everyone. So different for everyone. Okay, so let's talk about this. I have, I just have, I mean, we could do this for like three hours, I know we could do this. - There's so much to talk about. So there are people going through this right now, right? What would you say to them as far as like the way that you managed, that's the only word I can think of is that you managed this disease for Desiree. And you were the one who carried it all, right? And you gave her what she needed in small doses. Can you share like how you supported her through this as her spouse? There's women out there that are listening right now that are going through the same exact thing. Could you share with them some of the things that you did that maybe they could pass on to their spouse that could support them? - Sure, for a little clarification, Desiree, when she was diagnosed, she didn't want to know anything about her disease, not one thing. She said to me, Robert, I know enough to be dangerous to myself, I don't want to judge anything about myself. I just want to go on with my life. Will you carry this for me? And of course I suggest because that was the gift I could give her, right? And except for periods here and there, she didn't, I mean by the end, she probably knew, but she knew the cancer spread to her liver, but she didn't know it was also in her bones, her lungs, her peritoneum, her small intestines, she didn't know any of that. So the thing is that first, I realized that there was a lot of purpose in it. And what I mean by purpose is that I was giving myself to support the woman I loved, to achieve what she needed to achieve. So the difficulty, and because I am a guy, I think it's more of a guy thing, but maybe it's not, you know, we want to be superheroes. We want to fix, we want to save. We get frustrated because this is the protocol you should be following. What I learned when her cancer recurred, because that, not giving off my entire platform, was the fact that my job wasn't to fix, my job was to support. And I needed to give her space to be the woman she wanted to be, to love me. I needed to give her that space, which was a gift to me because then she was my wife and she was a person before she was the patient I had to take care of. It is very hard because again, you get into that idea of surrender. And, you know, it's a word that has a bad connotation. And I will say it is the bravest thing in life to do. It's hard, I could get teary-eyed thinking about it because it's so hard, but it is when you allow yourself to focus on now. You say, I can't control the future. And this is not just for the disease, this is our life. We can't predict the future, we can't control life. I'm gonna focus on now. What is it that Desiree needed now? And it became much easier because it became integrated in our life. It didn't become our life. My life was not caregiver and she was somebody that needed care. We were Robert and Desiree the couple and there was this aspect. I had to overcome my fears of not doing enough and had to accept, I can't fix it. So, you know what, she needs love. She needs to be seen as a woman. She needs to be heard. She doesn't need to be told everything is gonna be okay. Oh my God, who am I to say everything is gonna be okay? But, you know, look, we're gonna do everything possible. We're doing everything possible. What? And this is, it's a difficult dynamic for a relationship for sure. But the couple needs to have a conversation and the woman has to explain, if it's the reverse, it could be a woman that's taking care of a man with cancer, right? What do you need from me? Nobody wants to have that conversation because it brings what's really happening to reality. You're all aware of it, we're doing it every day, but we don't really wanna talk. What do you need from me? Because then you're also admitting you can't fix, right? And that I think is the most important. And I tell you that from a couple point of view, when you start to have that conversation, your relationship is most of the time much stronger. There are people that can't handle, let's say the calling. I wound up volunteering in the doctor's office. I became a chemotherapy companion. Now there was no such thing, but I created it because we met this amazing woman while my wife was going through chemo. I was at every chemo appointment as I had and I was always in the chair. I don't know how they allowed me to sit in the chair with her, but I was in the chair with her. And we met this woman Robin and we started talking to her and she was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer and her husband divorced her. And I literally couldn't understand it, but I then said to her she didn't have the same schedule as Desiree, but it just happened. We met a few times and I said, "Robin, when's your next treatment?" And I went, I sat with her, I made sure she got home. Because imagine having chemo for two hours and getting in a taxi when you're nauseous to go back home all by yourself and make sure you're paying the money correctly. And I was like, "Take you home." She lived on the Upper West Side in New York. Make sure everything's okay. Get your medicines if you need medicine and then go back home. It made me understand how someone that is going through someone that is going through a chronic or terminal disease, how unbelievably admirable they are, how unbelievably strong. - And you were such a gift to her because I can't, as a woman, even imagine going through that alone. And she was forced to until you showed up and that was such a gift. And a gift from Desiree too. I mean, she's got cancer and now her husband's gonna go help this other woman. I mean, seriously, that was a gift, what a gift. And I think that's another way of getting through it, right? As being the helper, being the one that can get into action, as you say, possibility in action. Like look around, what can you do, right? You might not be able to fix it, but you can give them whatever else they need, right? - Exactly. - Whether it's love or whatever help or support. Or hold a hand, right? That is amazing. And I actually am glad you brought it up 'cause I actually wrote it down. So yeah. And then the other thing I definitely want you to share 'cause I hope we can share this through the podcast is your visit with Oprah. Like everybody in the world wants to be with Oprah, right? And you guys did that. And that was so amazing. Like literally I cried. I cried, I watched it and I cried. I watched it a few times. Not today 'cause I was like, not today, right? But yeah. So let's talk about that real quick. - Sure. And I actually do cry when I watch it. So. - Oh, sorry. - So it was very funny. I came across, well, no, actually, Desiree came across on the internet that Oprah was having a special show graduating against the odds. And she said, oh, it's so sad because it's for just high school, but I would love to be able for people to see, you can achieve things even if you're going through chemotherapy and everything else. And so now this is really sort of pre, not pre-internet, but it was 2002. I just, every sort of angle I could find to get in touch with Oprah, the Oprah show. And I said, look, I know that this is high school kids. You need to hear this story. And I told it, I told them the story immediately. And I told Des, you know, that a group are gonna be on Oprah. And yeah, I'm so proud of my wife. And I call her my wife. People are catching that, I call her my wife. And she came out on that stage and Oprah said, welcome, Dr. Desiree Party. Now they had told Desiree, you know, don't touch Oprah because that's the rule. Don't, you know, don't touch Oprah. Oprah opened her arms. And my wife, I'm hysterical crying in the audience. I mean, I'm a mess. I just, I don't know, I was a big puddle. And Desiree hugs her. And then Desiree couldn't say a word. She just had a shaking on her head because she wasn't, she was so awestruck in general. And then Oprah turns to comments about me, but then off camera, she was like, boy, you have the ugliest cry. She's like, you're not supposed to bring that ugly cry in my studio. Do you see all these people crying? And there was a woman next to me. I mean, like she, just the tissues were coming out of the box. All I kept hearing was shh, shh, shh, shh. - But, so it was just, I think in a way, Desiree from the very beginning when this happened, she believed it was a gift that she needed to use. And the universe, and I know this sounds very corny to a lot of people because I was one of those people that I'm like the universe, but the universe did open up opportunities for her to use her experience up until the very end. I mean, the New York Times article was being written and it wasn't complete when she passed away. And they decided to take it in a different direction. And I knew it wasn't necessarily a flattering, it was flattering and not flattering. It depends on how you read it, but I knew it was gonna be a little more controversial. And I was like, her whole life's mission was for people to talk about cancer and palliative care and patient choice. At the bottom of all of this, whether it is patient or not a patient, you know, you think of Victor Frankl in the world or I don't know if you know who Edith Edgar is, I just love that woman. She's also a Victor Frankl, you know, she was a Holocaust survivor. She's 93, she's still doing TED Talks. I mean, I love the woman. And they talk about choice. Choice is our right and choice doesn't necessarily come from walking into, you know, a Nike store and having 25 pairs of sneakers and not knowing which one to choose. It's how we think. So that's the Oprah story. That was probably gonna be my good. So along the line, I'll come up with another good. (laughs) - So let's talk about this book, this book that just went out today. Oh my gosh, I cannot read it. - I can't believe it. I literally, this has, this started actually because a friend of mine, a friend of ours who was also a chemotherapy patient that got to know Desiree wanted to know more about her story. She was fascinated by Desiree. She was fascinated by us. And she's like, you know, just, you lived such an incredible experience with her. You know, just tell me about it. And she was putting it down on paper. And it became a labor of love for the both of us. We stopped it for a while, then we returned back to it because there were so many important lessons and it's not a coaching book. It's not a lesson book. It is a journey. You're gonna walk through her life's journey. And it's called Chasing Life because it's that whole thing about, before when we talked about time, right? Your life is not measured by time. Your life is measured about how well you live it, how joyfully you live it. And so Chasing Life is about overcoming complacency, waking up and living your life on purpose, which is her example. And it just is something that I'm thrilled to death. The more we worked on it, the more it moved me. And that's when I knew it was ready because it reminded me of the shifts that happened in my life that I don't wanna forget. Because it is easy to fall into complacency. It is easy to be lazy and let life happen to you. But at the end of the day, first of all, I'll tell you right now, you're not gonna remember how that new car felt on your deathbed. Yeah, you might think about your money because you're giving it away. You'll remember laughter, you'll remember joy. You'll look back and I know this because I saw the way she was living and I saw the way she was dying because I knew she was dying before she did. Though she probably of course felt it. But she became very purposeful and she didn't need things anymore. It was about the experience. It was about what she was leaving in terms of how she touched people. I mean, this woman got on, we would get on a plane sometimes. The day she got chemotherapy, she would fly to India and she would work in a hospital as a volunteer. And I'd be like, you know, that's where again, right, the man, the caregiver, you're supposed to protect her, we're going to India. Are you crazy? You're immune system, but I had to hold that space. And I had to do what I could control the situation so she wouldn't get sick. But that was more valuable to her than me giving her another, you know, protein shake. So the chasing life is... - That fed her soul. - Exactly. - Yeah, like you can drink all the protein shakes you want, but that doesn't feed your soul and you were able to give that to her. That is amazing. And she was able to give that to other people, right? Like for as long as she lived, she was still able to pour into other people and make an impact in the world, even in India. And she didn't let anything stop her. And she was fueled by that energy. - And that makes her invincible. - A 100%. You know, the book doesn't go into how she passed away, which was, she knew she was gonna die in pain. She knew she, as aggressive as she was being to battle her disease, one day her body would just give out. And it gave out all at once. I woke up and she was in the bed and I walked into the living room. I found her on the floor rolled up with a black glad garbage bag vomiting into the bag. The bag was almost full. We took her to the hospital and we never talked about, we still hadn't talked about death. She was doing what she could in the hospital up until one point. You know, I was in the bed with her and she just squeezed my hand and we had signals, hand signals, that was our thing. And she looked at me and she said, "Robert, I'm tired." And I said, "Okay, baby, rest." And I knew she said her journey was over. But up until that point, she fed off of what she gave. The more she gave, the more she could give of herself, the more she could use her experience, the more she was able to do things that I sometimes looked at her and I said, "Oh, I can't believe it." Now, when you talk about it fed her soul, I look at the pictures now and I think to myself, "Oh my God, she was so sick." I didn't see it because I saw, let's say, her soul, I saw what she was doing. I chose to do very unusual things when she actually died. She died in my arms and I asked the hospital if I could actually bathe her body. I don't know why, it's nothing to do with religion. I'm a Catholic, I don't think we bathe the body. I don't know where it came from, but I asked to bathe her body and dress her before they took her away. And when I turned her over, she was only in the hospital for 10 days. When I turned her over, her back was full of sores. And I looked at her and it was, in that moment, I realized in my mind, I said, "Baby, you were never this body. "You were never this body." And it helped me with my grief because I was just able to say at that point, "Yeah, she's okay." 'Cause this was just what she needed. And then I also, I asked to be the one to put her furnace and her coffin in the furnace because I needed to sort of be there till the very end. And interestingly enough, when we were in India, this guru person had said, "Oh, God takes care." And when somebody close to God dies, God's gonna send a golden chariot. So I'm sort of like, where the F is my golden chariot? Because like, and the wall to the entrance of the furnaces, it was a beautiful golden chariot painted on the wall. I don't share that with anyone. I don't know why you made me feel so comfortable to share that just sort of came out, but okay. So-- - I'm dying over here just so you know. I don't even know how you did that. And I don't know, I don't even know how you talk about it, but right now I can't, I'm just, I don't know. No, it's hashtag, no words, right? - Hashtag, no words. Okay, well, we'll move to the next question. - Yes, yes, oh my gosh. Okay, so June 21st, 2021. Yes, it's your day. It's amazing. - Yeah. - You've waited a long time. - It's actually a long time. This date was one, I just liked the 21-21. So that was my thing. But Desiree loved the summer solstice. She, whenever we could, had to make sure that she sat and watched the sunset. It was just, it's the longest day of the year. The color to her was very special. I can't tell you how many times when we were, really had no money. You know, get a cheap bottle of wine and a pizza and go sit, you know, on a bench. On the west side, we'd take the bus over and just sit there drinking out of the bottle, eating the pizza, watching the sunset because, you know, we didn't have, we were, we got married very young. She was in medical school. I wasn't making that much money at that time. But it was such an important day to her. And because the concept of the soul thing and everything else, God, she was the brightest light. She probably will owe it. Yeah, she will be the brightest light in my life. And so introducing her to the world on the brightest day is just something, well, the world, the Northern Hemisphere. Yeah, it's just something, something really, really special. And I know I've told you this as well. You know, this whole journey, the reason why I am able to talk about it, even though there's some things that, you know, shake me up a little bit, is the fact that I am, and I say this all the time, I am beautifully scarred for having loved and cared for my wife. I mean, it is a scar I'm proud to show. It is, wow, I earned it. But I only, I didn't earn it only because of what I did. I mean, that's, that's because I loved her so much and because she gave so much of her to me and herself to me, right? So that comes, all of that I think comes into when, if you're a couple and you're approaching a disease, try to understand how not to let the relationship get sick. The disease should not infiltrate everything. Of course, it's the person's decision, whoever has the disease, of course, how they manage it. But that's why conversation is so important. - Well, this has been amazing. And I just want to say thank you for sharing this day with me and this book launch and I am just over the top excited. And I want to remind our listeners to go jump on the show notes right now and click the link so you can purchase this amazing, amazing book that is bound to hit the top of the charts. Such an amazing story of great love and a great life lived. Thank you so much. - No, thank you. Thank you so, so much. - And tell our listeners where they can find you. - Sure, the best way to find me is my website, which is www.robertparty. And my name, even though it sounds like party party party, it's p-a-r-d-i.com. - Yes, yes, okay, awesome. So, and you can just click the show notes if you're listening right now and go right there to that website and also click the link to get the book. You will not want to miss this. - And now a word from our sponsor, Christine Trumbull, founder of Coaching the Climb, understands the challenges of building a successful business. She's faced many of those challenges herself and helped hundreds of clients build successful businesses. With the launch of her new podcast, The Climb with Christine, you will hear the same advice she gives her clients, as well as conversations with experts in a variety of topics, including business, health, relaxation, mindset, kids, and fashion. Check it out on iTunes, The Climb with Christine and be sure to subscribe, download, and give her a reading and review. - Okay, so you know, I know you've been listening to our podcast. - I love your podcast. - Thank you so much. I love that you love it and I appreciate that so much. And, you know, we're mostly speaking to women and that's really what to me was so deep in my heart that I wanted to have you come and share this story because your wife Desiree was invincible and she allowed you to be invincible in the ways that you two lived your life and your relationship and your marriage and your love and all the things. And, you know, there are women out there today and I love what you said about the comparison and admiration because you know that's our stuff here. Like, women are comparing themselves. That is the whole reason why I took the time and effort to start this podcast. I could not figure out how to get women to stop comparing themselves to other women. And I thought, I'll fix them. I'm just gonna bring them all these women, you know? They gotta stop, but if they're not gonna stop then I'm gonna show them the truth because the truth is not in the successful, confident woman. The truth is in the journey. The truth is in the obstacles that they overcame and the way they had to get back up. And, you know, I know you're not a woman, but I gotta tell you, there's just no way I can let you be on this podcast and not put you in the hot seat to share the good and the ugly. You just cannot get away without it. So I'm just so excited to share this part with you and hear your stories. So let's start with the good. - The good, okay. And I want everything to be tied to Desiree as well. - Yes. - So the good, so Oprah would have been great. We had a lot of good in our lives. And I think that for me, one of the really goods was at, right at the end of her life, right before she passed away, she was given the opportunity to speak, it was a very critical speech at VNS Hospice in New York. And I'm using it as a good because this woman had chemotherapy stores on her tongue, in her mouth, down her throat, she gave an hour and a half speech. She refused to stand behind the microphone. She walked around and the reason that I say it's good and regardless of the fact that she was maybe, she was five foot one at that point, she was probably about 75 pounds. And she had all these sores. One, I think it's important for the listeners to realize that there is a good even in that. Like, adversity doesn't mean that everything is bad. I watched this woman give her entire self to a cause that day, saying how important it is for patient choice to listen to patients, to communicate just so many different lessons. So that's my good because I watched her, I watched her shine brightly. I watched and that was so, it was so good, so beautiful. - And she left her mark, right? - She did. - She gave all she had and then some. - And then some. - And then she left her mark. Yeah, that was the last, basically work thing she did. She gave that speech. She was scheduled to be the guest speaker at Mount Sinai's white coat ceremony. Funny enough, she passed away in Mount Sinai Hospital. A day or two before the ceremony. They actually invited me to the ceremony, which I went to and I don't remember much except the dean of the school who actually wrote the forward for the book. And one of the being a great friend of ours. I just remember her holding my hand and the both of us just silent tears. I mean, the tears were falling, but Desiree did leave her mark. And so that's my good. - I love that, oh, I love that. All right, and now the bed. - The bed, okay. So I had to think about the beds because I do know your podcast. So I know the bed was coming up and it's part of that whole perspective thing that it was hard to find. But I'm gonna talk again about her passion for work. And so she was given the opportunity to speak at San Diego. And it was really not advised that she fly for so long because she was already having a lot of circulation issues because of the cancer in her peritoneum. And she didn't know that she had the cancer there. So I couldn't really say, no, we can't go because of what we figured it out. She gave a great speech, we got on the plane and we were grounded for six hours. No water, like they couldn't open the galley. I don't know what it was. And her legs started to swell. Then we take off, she was in a lot of pain because her legs were swelling. And I'm trying to, you know, I had learned because she had lymphedema after the mastectomy, had learned how to wrap her arm. So I was trying to, with whatever I had, like I took up my shirt and I added like a thin shirt and then I had a T-shirt underneath, I was trying to wrap her leg. I wound up sitting on, I guess, went to the front of the plane and I asked somebody if they would move so she could have more room. I wound up sitting on the floor in front of her so she could put her legs on my head. So at least they were sort of not above her heart but it would help the swelling. And so that was a bad because she gave this amazing speech. She was so excited and by the time we got home, she was in incredible pain. She felt just destroyed and it took away some of that joy. But once we were in our own setting and like, I was able to explain, "We're gonna get this under control, don't worry about it." But of course, she also knew what swelling meant in the legs, right? So it was an indication there was cancer where I was telling her there was no cancer. And those were things she didn't wanna know. So that was a bad. - What a guy. You sat on the floor so she can put her legs up on your head. - Yeah, well, she had great legs. - She had great legs. (laughing) - Oh, so that probably helped that, right? Oh my gosh. All right, while we're taking the turn, the hard left, we have to go ugly because we are here to help these people get back up. - All right, I'm surprised I'm gonna share this to tell you the truth. It is in the book. It is the ugliest moment I've ever had in my life. I had some pretty dark ugly moments when I was a child, for sure. And this just brought everything to another level. So what I'd like to do is I'd like to read the passage. - I love that. - Okay. Last time I read it, I got emotional. So, okay. It tore out my guts to watch her going through chemotherapy yet again. And one night while we were visiting my mother, it all got the better of me. I was having yet another drink and my mother started harping up on me. You've become just like your father, she yelled, exactly like him. That did it. It was the proverbial straw. Do you have any idea what's happening in my life? Do you, I screamed at her? No, you don't. You don't know how it feels. I can't save her. Don't you get it? I can't save Desiree. I should just kill myself. I screamed tears of rage and pain cutting my vision. I grabbed a kitchen knife. I was spiraling. I swear the only thing that prevented me from plunging it in was the look on Desiree's face. As miserable as I felt. As much as the pain and the hurt were tearing me apart. I saw the look of concern on her face. This is not the way it should be. She asked me to be her rock. What the F are you doing, Robert? I thought to myself. The empathetic and passionate look on her face and that questioning voice looming in my mind shocked me back to reality. I needed to learn to surrender and let go of what I couldn't control. I needed to stop fighting against life and trying to save her. I needed to start fighting for our life together regardless of the remaining time we had left. It all became clear in an instant. I collapsed on the floor. Desiree came over to me. Hugged me from behind as she always had pressing her body into me. Letting me know we were one and whispered, I love you, Robert Party. It's all going to be okay. - Okay, well, that's ugly. - Ugly and beautiful. - Yes, and that was what I was about to say and look what it made from that. It was like, I just keep thinking as you were reading like the sculptor and the clay, right? And how that was like one big glob of messy clay and then it turned into this and that is so amazing. And it was her love and her affirmation, right? It was her words that got you through that and that is amazing. Again, another gift. One more gift from Desiree to get you. And literally like, I don't know if you realize this but you were faced down on the ground. - Oh, yeah. - Just like these women that are listening right now and you had to get back up. And sometimes we need a lot of times we need that love and that affirmation and that person, right? Your person, your lobster, right? - Your lobster, yeah. - Your lobster who just spreads out over top of you and gives you, it's almost like a transfusion. That energy that they give you in that moment is what you need to get back up and she gave you that. And you'll never forget it. And I think like those are skills and tools for the toolbox because as awful, right, as that is, there are other times where you're gonna struggle and you can just feel that. Can you take your, so I got chills. Like when you read those like last three sentences, I had chills come over my whole body. So to me, that's a tool that you keep with you for the rest of your life that when things get hard you can walk through that again and you can feel her presence and you can feel her love. And you know she's there, she's never leaving, she's always there and she's always with you. And that is amazing. - It's that beautiful scar. And can I share a quote with you because you said something that made me feel I need to share a quote? - Absolutely. - When you were talking about sculpture, my most favorite quote is by a gentleman by the name Richard Bach. And he wrote Jonathan Living since Eagle but he also wrote a book called One. And in that book, he says, "We're all born with a block of marble "and the tools to shape it into a sculpture. "We can drag it behind us untouched "which would be in action." That's my, am I heading that? We could pound it into gravel, anger, or we can shape it into glory. That's what Desiree did. - And that's love. - Yeah. - Oh my gosh. I just feel like I don't even know what else to say. This has been so amazing. Thank you so much for sharing so much. I know it's not easy, right? I know it's not easy. We're all girls out here, you're a guy, you know? I just, I so appreciate you doing this, sharing this. And I cannot encourage our listeners enough to get that book Chasing Life by Robert Party. You have to hear the rest of this story. You just got a little, little bit, but don't miss out. Click that link in the show notes and get it. - And the thing that I'd like people to understand is that joy is found in the ordinary moments. And it's the ordinary moments which make life extraordinary. - Okay. So. - Thank you so much. - Oh my gosh. This has just been amazing. It's such a joy for me. And such an honor to have you share this, but also share Desiree with us because we didn't meet her. And so now we feel like we know her and we can love her too. Right alongside of you. And that is amazing. No greater love. Okay. So let's do this. I'm gonna have you finish this sentence for me. - Sure. - And then we're gonna wrap it up. The world would be a better place if more people knew blank. - The value of their uniqueness. - I love that. Oh my gosh. The world would be a better place if more people knew the value of their uniqueness. That is amazing. You are amazing. - Oh, well thank you. - Congratulations. - You're amazing. Look at this, invincible. I mean, the people you're helping. And I was so honored when you asked me to be on the show because I wanted to be a window for Desiree. I knew I was, I actually thought I was the first guy, but I'm the second guy. So. But I really just think you're doing great work because nobody should compare themselves. And if you think about that, the value of uniqueness. - Hell yeah. - I was just thinking that. - How can you compare yourself? - You can't. You can't. You're always better. You're the only you, right? You're your best you. The only you you'll ever be able to be. Stop comparing yourself. Oh my gosh. Okay, you guys, you know what's next. I don't know where you are in your life or your business, even in your health. But if you're face down on the ground right now, get back up, girl. Get back up. You can do it. - Hey, thanks so much for hanging out with us today. If you were inspired or learned something new, please subscribe to the podcast. Give us a review and share us with your friends for more information about me and how I can support you. Please stop on over to my website at cammyleman.com and book a free call with me. I'd love to meet you and learn more about how I can support you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
