KRIS CARR: Thrive amid Uncertainty and Loss

0:00It's about mental fitness. It's about creating those daily practices. And for me, becoming very, very aware of what my brain does on fear and anxiety.

0:18Hi, I'm Michael Hyatt. And I'm Megan Hyatt Miller. And this is the Double Win Podcast, where we talk about how to win at work and succeed at life. Well, today we are interviewing Chris Carr, who is the author of the brand new book, I'm Not a Morning Person, M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G. And Chris was diagnosed with a rare and incurable stage four cancer more than 20 years ago. But she's not just a cancer survivor. She is a cancer thriver. And we really get into that in our conversation with her. It's amazing. She's a New York Times bestselling author of such books as Crazy Sexy Diet. And most recently, as I said, I'm not a morning person noticing that that's morning as in grief.

1:03So she's been called a force of nature by O Magazine and was named a new role model by the New York Times. Chris is also a member of Oprah's Super Soul 100, recognizing the most influential thought leaders today. Her work has also been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Super Soul Sunday, OWN, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. So here's our conversation with Chris Carr.

1:30Chris, we're so excited to have you on with us today. I think you are such a great example of somebody who, with a really unique story, but one that's very relatable, is figuring out and has figured out and is figuring out how to win at work and succeed at life. So I'm just so pumped to dive into your story today. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. We got to play a little bit at a mastermind that we met each other in person at in Charleston back in December 2023. And that was so fun. I felt immediately connected to you and we left going, we need to have her on the podcast because I think our community will love learning from you.

2:12So, okay. So I have so many questions, but let's start like back at the beginning. Tell us a little bit about your health journey. And that is, I feel like I need to put that in air quotes because that makes it sound so nice and like buttoned up. And in reality, you have a pretty harrowing journey. So tell us about that and what that's meant to you. So I did not plan to be a wellness advocate or a entrepreneur. Those were not the two directions I thought my life was going to go in. But like many people who have either what I call a warning sign or a wake-up call, it inspires you to get busy living.

2:55And my wake-up call came on Valentine's Day in 2003 when I was diagnosed with a rare and incurable stage four cancer. So, yeah, it was that moment that really inspired me because the first doctor that I spoke to suggested a triple organ transplant. Exactly. And I didn't know much about medicine at the time, which I often say, but I knew that that sounded nuts. Yeah. What could go wrong? Exactly. Exactly. Besides everything. Besides everything. And then, you know, the next actor gave me 10 years to live, and the next actor suggested radical treatment that they didn't know would do anything. And that's literally the moment when I said, I think I need to become the CEO of my health.

3:41Wow. Wow. That's a powerful concept. I like that. And you guys will totally understand this. it meant that I needed to stand in the leadership of my life and say, I'm looking for colleagues that can work with me. I need to build a team. They work with me. They work for me. And it's very hard to think about that when you think about our medical world, especially there's a lot of intimidation, and it can be very difficult for patients to advocate for themselves. but deciding to fake it till I made it with that mental posture, you know, because at first I was like, of course, everybody knows more than me.

4:24And I know nothing about this, you know, I know nothing about health and wellness. And I certainly knew nothing about navigating stage four cancer. And, but saying like, okay, this is how I'm going to approach this. And I'm going to keep looking until I find my second in command. I love that concept. I think that's so empowering. How did you go about finding doctors that weren't kind of negative, like there's no alternative? I kept looking because I realized that if we weren't in alignment, you just weren't right for my team. I just love that. I just feel like that's so clarifying. I'm thinking about our community and I'm thinking about how the people that listen to the show, the people that follow our work are self-professed high achievers.

5:10These are people that are successful in their life. They're making things happen. They're in charge of things. Some may be officially in leadership or entrepreneurs, and some are leading in another context. But regardless, they're very competent. However, and I felt this myself as a patient, something happens when you go into the medical world. It's like your identity, your self-confidence, your skill set feel like they vanish, and all of a sudden you become almost like a child. And the ability, this kind of mental model of like, you're going to become the CEO of your health and wellness and you're going to build a team and you're looking for a second in command.

5:55That gives me a way to think about this in a way that I've never thought about it before. And I feel like that's so empowering and helps these skills that we've developed be transferable. Oh, thank you for that. You know, I think it's essential for us to be the leaders of our lives. And it started for me through my health journey. But then you can say, okay, how can I apply this to other areas? But in the beginning, I think I also came into it with some advantage because I was a performer and I had a very different career. A lot of what I was doing was advertising. And so as much as I wanted to be the next big film and television star, for whatever reason, I was just very good at selling everyday products.

6:43I have sold everything from Lysol to I've been in two Budweiser Super Bowl commercials. That's amazing. Yeah, it is. And it was so advertising was really where I made my mark. But I bring that up because any actor, any performer knows that when you've done it for years and years, you're in it for the long haul. You face so much rejection. you get turned down more than you get the part. And so I think I came to this world of navigating the modern medical system with that edge of saying like, I'm not going to be intimidated by this. I know what it's like to get rejected. I know what it's like to get punched around.

7:28I know what it's like to navigate really difficult waters. How can I apply some of what I learned navigating that into this. And so that's how I started. And then just to talk a little bit about the wellness journey, like I said, again, coming to it as a student and a newbie, which I think is such a great place, way to come to the new things that we do, but also as leaders who have been doing what we've been doing for so long, to always remember to go back to beginner's mind. Beginner's mind for your customers, beginner's mind as a leader, what am I missing here? and if I can go back to that place of beginner's mind, I tend to go back to the basics, the foundational things that stand the test of time.

8:09And that's how I approached my wellness journey of saying, okay, what are the foundational practices that I can start to learn and explore and get under my belt that will help me feel better as I'm finding and building my team that will hopefully help me stay alive? Were you doing all the conventional things that modern medical practice recommends for cancer, but then you were supplementing it with all these sort of return to the basics? Or how did you approach this? I wasn't. And it wasn't because I was brave and said no to modern medicine. It was because there still isn't any cure for the disease that I had.

8:55So it's what inspired me more. With rare diseases, unfortunately, there's very little funding, and the research takes a very long time because there's such a small demographic of patients. And so, for example, pharmaceutical companies aren't going to put a lot of investment in that because the returns aren't there. And so when I finally found my doctor, who I'm still with 21 years later, we just had our 21-year scan and we started to talk about succession planning. Wow. That's a whole different kind of succession planning. That's a victory all of its own, isn't it? Yeah. Because I was like, hey, we've been doing this a lot of years.

9:38Are you thinking about retiring anytime soon? Do we have to start talking about this and building this into our plan? But anyway, what he said to me was, look, this thing that you have is a total black box. Sometimes it's slow growing. Sometimes it's aggressive. Sometimes it changes. We're going to watch and wait and track you. We're going to watch and wait and let cancer make the first move if you're up for that. And what I think you need to do is watch and live. So what did that mean to you when he said that to you? What did you go forth and do at that point? Well, that was the inciting incident, right?

10:17Yeah, sounds like it. Because I was like, are you high? Are you taking from your own medical stash? I am going to live with stage four cancer? I don't understand that. You're supposed to cut it out and fry it and make it go away. And then I get back to my former life that I didn't even really like in the first place. Like, what? And I left the hospital and went to Whole Foods because I thought, you know, I don't know what to do. And the grocery store has vegetables. And I don't know about that either. But I guess I'm just going to start here and become a student of well-being. And I cried in the produce aisle.

11:00I didn't know what was more frightening, this thing that he had just told me or kale. What are you? How does someone eat you? Is this going to be good? This stinks. So slowly but surely, like so many of us, even myself when I was starting out as an entrepreneur, you start to find the people you want to learn from and you start to piece it all together. And really that's what I did after he told me to do that. Did it slow down? Or I mean, it sounds like you had enough time to kind of figure out some of this stuff because it wasn't advancing so quickly that you, I don't know, you tell me, but were you racing a deadline?

11:42No, the deadlines were self-imposed. I think we don't know how my disease started. We don't know how it could have developed slowly. So I have it in three organs. I have dozens of tumors throughout my lungs and my liver. And so it could have come on slowly and progressed or it could have come on like in a hailstorm. And so, but what we know now is that it has, it's slow growing, it's stable, it isn't moving. Again, that could change. So for a lot of years, it was about tracking how quickly it was growing and then comparing it to previous scans. But after a while, we realized, okay, God willing, and the creek don't rise, it's still behaving itself, right?

12:27But in the beginning, we didn't know. So I was moving at a pace because I thought, well, if these guys can't figure it out, maybe I can. What can I do to slow this thing down? So it was a self-imposed deadline. And that meant that I went in all in, right?

12:53So as you're talking, I'm thinking about kind of the big picture of life. And I'm thinking about what incredible uncertainty you've lived with for 21 years. I mean, first of all, I hate uncertainty. I have a very complicated... Actually, it's not complicated. It's just a hate-hate relationship with uncertainty, actually. Me too. I don't like it. It doesn't feel good in my body. It just doesn't feel good. I would like to just know everything if I could and have everything be under control, which of course is not quite how it works. Whether it's in small ways or big ways, life turns out to be not a giver of certainties.

13:30And I'm just wondering, how did you manage, how have you managed that uncertainty and managed to live with it for 21 years without it making you just nuts? That's the greatest question. And I appreciate that. And I will try to articulate it to the best of my ability. It's about mental fitness. It's about creating those daily practices. And for me, becoming very, very aware of what my brain does on fear and anxiety. Okay, so what does that look like for you? So for me, in the beginning, whenever we go through these really challenging times in our lives, I think it's very normal for us to find ourselves in these paralyzing spirals of fear or anxiety.

14:20And I talk about this a lot in my new book. And really, I think what our goal is, is to learn that all of our emotions serve a purpose. We can't amputate any of them and expect to be whole, which I have tried to do and it does not work. It makes things worse. And so by learning to befriend these parts of ourselves, we learn how to tend to them, really. And so if I look at my emotions as two things, first and foremost, information, that allows me to get curious because I am a lifelong learner. I'm hungry for knowledge. And so I go, oh, what do you have to teach me? Or how do you like to be cared for?

15:08Or why are you here in the first place? Is there something you're signaling me to pay attention to? Interesting. That gives me a focus, right? Off of the fight or flight response that's coursing through my body, I can redirect my energy into the curiosity and that hunger for knowledge. That's amazing. So that's the first part. Thank you. And I think we all do this in certain ways, but we get the invitation to do it with harder emotions too. And then the second thing is understanding that emotions are also energy, and energy needs to go somewhere. And if it doesn't go somewhere, it often goes deeper inside our tissues and driven into our body.

15:50And in some ways, it can be a part of how we implode. And so if we know the energy has to move, that means I can't run from my fear. I can't run from my anxiety. I literally like, oh, here you are. First and foremost, let me call out what it is. Let me name it, because if I don't name it, I don't know how to tend to it. And then let me understand how to work with these emotions a bit so that I know what tools from my toolbox to use. Now, I know that sounds very heady, and we can get into the practicality of that if you want to next, but that's basically how I approach living with stage four cancer.

16:29Wow. So I want to make sure I understand. So you still have stage four cancer. Yes, yes. And it could flare up at any time. Yes, yes, that's true. Wow. That is amazing. It's really amazing. Especially for two people that don't deal well with uncertainty. You know, and the emotional component of that, and one of the things that we've been studying and learning, kind of our health journey, is trauma and what that does and how it's stored in our bodies. Nervous system regulation. Nervous system regulation, all that kind of stuff. But has some of that stuff come up for you? A hundred percent. I think it came up more so recently, which is why I wrote this book.

17:11I want to talk about uncertainty for a second and go back because I really love that you guys are parking here because I think it is something that every single human struggles with. And there's a reason why. From an evolutionary perspective, we're wired to survive. Anything that's a threat to our survival puts us in fight or flight, freeze, fawn, or WTF mode. That's my favorite mode. I know it well. WTF. We have a little condo down there. That's right. It puts us in that posture. And so we're also wired for negativity. We have to work very hard to be positive because it goes against the grain of our biology.

17:52And we have these well-worn pathways. And so it doesn't mean that we can't do it. It's just like any other habit that we want to build. It just means it needs more focus. And to use your beautiful branding, it needs our full focus. And so I don't like uncertainty either, but I know how to breathe through it. I know how to say, okay, right now what's happening is I am in anxiety. I'm ruminating. And so when I'm ruminating, I'm often telling myself a story about what may or may not happen in the future. I'm not in the present moment with my new friends. I'm not in this moment where that fear is not actually happening.

18:36I am in a movie in my mind. And if I'm able to bring myself back to this present moment, I'm often able to like take that deep breath, come back to now, realize I'm in a story, even investigate the facts. Like, okay, Chris, you're headed in for your 21-year scan. Of course, there is a chance that cancer has turned on and that it's aggressive. And that strange lump on your arm isn't a fatty deposit that happens when you're 52. It's a new tumor in your soft tissue. Yes, there is a possibility that all of that is true. But let's look at the facts. It's been 21 years. We got a lot of data in this funnel.

19:22What are the chances that that is the case? Are they slim? Yes. And so we can continue to question these fears till I get to the point of like, yeah, you got a good point. Let's go for a walk. I love that. Okay. I've got to ask a follow-on. Before we do that though, we got to talk about the book. We got to just show people the book because we're teasing people also. Friends, if you're listening and you're not watching, you can't see this, but this book called I'm Not a Morning Person is gorgeous. It is such a beautiful book. And the subtitle is Braving Loss, Grief, and the Big Messy Emotions that Happen When Life Falls Apart.

20:03And clearly, Chris, you have a PhD in life falling apart and figuring out what to do about it. And I think this has so much application for high achievers. So go to Amazon, go to wherever your favorite books are sold and buy this book because this is going to give you a pathway through uncertainty and challenges in your life. Because I don't know, if you've been alive long enough, you know, it doesn't usually work out exactly like you planned. No. That's a nice way of saying it. Okay. Continue. Back to my question. So some of the trauma-informed therapists say that your state determines your story.

20:44But it seems like there's a sense in which, like Tony Robbins would say, your story determines your state. And you mean like your emotional state? Your emotional state. So in other words, if I'm in an emotional state where I'm really agitated and anxious, then I'm going to start creating a certain story around that. But what you seem to be saying, and what I've also said is how I think can also influence my emotions. So how do those two things work together? That's such a great question. Thank you for bringing us back to that. I think that it can happen in multiple ways, right? So I'm not a trauma expert, but I have experienced a lot of trauma in my life.

21:25And I love Dr. Gabor Mate's definition of how trauma works. trauma isn't something that happened to you it's something that happens inside of you right and so it it's it can be from that inciting incident and for me it the trauma that i've experienced in my life have always come from moments of rupture is what i call them it's the diagnosis It was my biological father and I met each other later in life, and then our relationship dissolved. And so that was a re-traumatizing experience of an earlier abandonment that hit right to the paternal wound. And so what I have learned from those experiences is certainly from my experience with grief too, which by the way, I was a newbie again writing this book because even though I've been in the wellness world for 20 years and done a lot of my own work, first and foremost, grief was something that I did not want to talk about.

22:37and is something I did not want to explore or put any energy into because it was terrifying to me. Because I thought that if I allowed it in, I would be overcome by it and I would drown and everything would fall apart, my relationships, my business, my ability to function in the world because it feels so hot inside. And I think that trauma has a similar effect. But as something that my therapist said, just to go back to this idea of how does it work, when we think about trauma and we think about what happens inside of us when we go through a traumatic experience, we apply that to things like grief.

23:22She said, when the grief train pulls into the station, it brings all the cars. So true. It brings the past stuff. It brings the things that we think we're over. It brings unresolved traumas. And I think that it's this very divinely inspired experience that allows all of these things that maybe we weren't ready to address to come forward and get the tending that they need. You know, that's so interesting because I think that when unexpected negative things happen, traumas, scary things, whatever, our instinct is to fight it. And our instinct is to resist it. And I think you already made such a great point about how our brain is wired from a survival standpoint and from an evolutionary standpoint that, you know, that's meant to protect us.

24:16But in reality, there's such a redemptive aspect to those experiences. It's like an invitation to heal and an invitation to wholeness. but it takes a lot of courage to be willing to embrace that because it's, it usually gets worse before it gets better. I mean, grief, I think is such a great example of this. And my experience with grief, you know, the only way out is through, I remember having a therapist tell me that at some point, you know, like the only way out is through, there is no shortcut. There is no way to like be more productive at grief. And we will all experience grief intensely for most of us, multiple times in our life, and yet there's so much that it has to teach us.

24:59So before we get really practical here, I'd love to just know two or three things that you feel like from your book and your work personally that grief has taught you. So when we talk about grief, let's open it up so people who are listening don't think, I haven't lost somebody, so therefore I don't need this conversation. Grief can be the loss of your former sense of self. Grief can be the miscarriage. Grief can be the divorce. Grief can be the demotion. Grief comes in many shapes or forms because we experience loss every single day in a million ways. The loss of the day, the loss of when your children leave to go to college and you're so excited that they went to the college of their dreams, but now you're empty nesters, right?

25:50Loss happens. And I often say that through this experience of writing this book, I realized that we live in this grief-phobic, messy emotions averse society. That is so true. We will talk about anything else. That's why it's called I'm Not a Morning Person. I didn't want to talk about it. And by the way, it's M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G, Like not mourning, like good morning, but like sadness, grief. Yeah. And what I have found since then is to your beautiful point, the way out is through, you know, we can't expect the rainbow and say, but hold the rain. And if we talk about like some of the things that I know are really popular to talk about on Instagram, like manifesting, everybody wants the life of their dreams.

26:39Everybody wants to live it big, live it full, live it their best self, best life, right? So we talk about the things that can help them do that. And oftentimes those things are very positive and very aspirational, inspirational. And we're dream chasers, right? And that's wonderful. I love that sugar. It's sugar. And I love it. I would like more of it, please. I want all the icing. But if you actually want those things, this is the work that gets you there. Because addressing these things, which each and every one of us carry, you're basically saying, I am willing to dissolve the barriers that keep me from fully alive living.

27:20That's a powerful concept and one we don't talk about enough. It also takes courage because I think we live in a world where we're always looking for the hack. We're always looking for the shortcut, some way to microwave the experience and get to the end faster. And speaking for myself, it's been a slow thing and I'm still working on it. Oh gosh, I love that. We're going to microwave the experience. That is the best. And it's so true. And I am too. Like I have my places where I'm still struggling with what we're talking about. That's why I think it's a practice. So going back to some of the basic things.

28:06Yeah. Let's talk about the five pillars of wellness that you talk about in your new book, I'm not a morning person. Absolutely. So I teach a very simple approach to wellness. And one of the chapters in the book is called self-care in the storm. And throughout the book, the book is set up to explore the different experiences that you may face when life kicks you in the teeth. And it's not just about grief. I have a chapter on rage. Um, there's a lot of talk about fear and anxiety. Like these are the shame. These are the cousins that come to the club with grief, the family reunion that nobody wants to go to.