What Three Cancer Diagnoses Taught One Leader About Communication, Delegation, and Trust
What does it look like to lead a business, serve clients, and keep showing up with humor and grace while fighting for your life at the same time? This week, Jon Goehring and Coach Jim Johnson welcome Deb Krier, seasoned entrepreneur, integrative cancer coach, host of the Business Power Hour podcast with over 1,100 episodes, and one of the most authentically inspiring guests the Lounge has ever had, for a conversation about resilience, communication, delegation, and what three cancer diagnoses taught her about leadership and life.
Deb opens with three sharp and immediately practical communication tips for young leaders, starting with the counterintuitive advice to share more than you think you need to, and including the two words most leaders are afraid to say out loud: I don't know. She makes the case that communication is always a two way street, and that leaders who create space for honest feedback, including the uncomfortable kind, will always outperform those who do not.
From there the conversation shifts into Deb's remarkable personal story. A stage zero breast cancer diagnosis that jumped to stage three overnight. A first round of chemotherapy that put her in the hospital for seven weeks in septic shock. A stage four metastatic diagnosis. A separate skin cancer. And then a third entirely independent cancer diagnosis when lesions were found on both sides of her thyroid. Through all of it she kept running her business, kept serving her clients, and kept making her medical team laugh.
Jon and Coach draw out the leadership lessons woven through every chapter of Deb's story. She shares her framework for building a resilience plan, including why having the right people around you is not optional, how to compassionately remove the ones who are not helping, and why being your own advocate is the most important skill you can develop in any high stakes situation. She also delivers one of the most practical delegation breakdowns the Lounge has heard, and challenges every leader to ask whether their business could function without them tomorrow if it had to.
The episode closes with Deb's philosophy on mortality, her plea for every leader regardless of age to have a will, a medical power of attorney, and a business continuity plan, and the story behind her community trying not to die live, which she founded as a support and inspiration space for people navigating a cancer journey.
Whether you are leading through a health challenge, a business crisis, or simply a season that feels heavier than you expected, this episode will remind you that showing up, asking for help, and finding something to laugh about are not signs of weakness. They are the foundation of genuine resilience.
Connect with Deb Krier: tryingnottodie.live and yourcancercoach.life
Find Deb on LinkedIn and Facebook
Listen to the Business Power Hour podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-business-power-hour-with-deb-krier/id642539481
