Love Overcomes All: Jenn Greenhut Tollin's Inspiring Battle with Stage Four Cancer

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast. A show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today's guest has an amazing story. After Jan Greenhot was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer, she turned her story into a story of love and positivity, and the lessons learned from her story led her to create zero negativity, which promotes positivity through accessories. So Jan's story has been featured. Her story and products have been featured on places like the uh Hallmark channel, and she don donates uh part of her proceeds to UCLA's Johnson Cancer Center Foundation for cancer research. So we're gonna be talking to her about her story and everything that she's up to and been up to, and some of those accessories out there. So if you know of anybody that uh might be going through cancer, the same thing that Jen is going through, listen up. Uh make sure they get this episode so they they might be able to take advantage of some of the accessories she has. So, Jen, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Thank you so much, Curtis, for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Uh, well, a little bit about myself. So, uh, yes, I was diagnosed with stage four triple negative breast cancer. Uh, never had heard of breast cancer as triple negative before, and I learned it was the most aggressive kind of breast cancer. And um, it came out of the blue. I was a very healthy yoga teacher who had been trying to have a baby. I had been married for about a year and a half to my husband, and I was dreaming of a family and having a couple kids, and I was so excited for this new life ahead. And I was thrown with this crazy diagnosis of stage four cancer, and given a 12% chance of surviving past five years. So it was a crazy introduction to an amazing chapter that happened in my life, and this is all nine years ago. But um it started that was the transformational chapter, and I had to figure out how to stay alive. And it's interesting because what I learned about my life was that I had been growing up and dreaming and wanting and looking for things that I didn't have in my life. Like, for example, I started very young as a gymnast in New York City, grew up wanting to be in the Olympics. I left home at 14 to train for the Olympics in gymnastics. I did really well. I was on the United States national team. Uh, but gymnastics, the culture of gymnastics is really hard. I, you know, I learned how not to cry. I learned that I was only as good as my scores. And I also learned that weighing 88 pounds was the perfect weight for me. So I grew up in a very structured, controlling environment that learned that I brought into my adult life. I also grew up wanting and knowing I was gonna be a mom and have four kids. I used to write in a journal to my adult self asking about my kids. I wanted to know their names, I wanted to know who my husband was. I was so excited to be my future self. So I wasn't miserable at all, but I realized I had always been wanting what I didn't have. So I'll fast forward a few decades. I meet my husband Larry, and we get married, we fall in love, and everything looks amazing. Finally, I'm gonna have what I've always wanted. So we jump right into IVF and we try to have a baby. And after three rounds, I failed every round. And I was so depressed. I felt like everything I had worked for, believed, tried, uh, nothing worked. And what was wrong with me? Maybe it was me that was the problem. Maybe life hates me, maybe I'm just not worthy about having my dreams come true. But I was answering the question, why is this happening to me? And getting the answer, Jen, you failed. You're just a loser. And I lived in this state for about six months of just really trying to understand like what was my life going to look like without the thing that I had wanted my entire life. Then I'm diagnosed with stage four cancer. Again, asking the same question, oh my gosh, what is happening to me? Why is this happening? What did I do wrong? And the answer was coming to me that Jen, life hates you. You don't deserve to be here anymore. You failed at your purpose. So let's kick you out, get you out of here. And uh that felt so true to me, that answer. And it also was like, this is unacceptable. I don't want to die. I got to figure out how to live. So the only thing I could think of doing was to pray. I started praying and bargaining, basically, like, please let me live. Please show me to the right doctor, and I promise I'll do anything and everything to give back. So I put it out there. I had three different oncologists to meet at three different hospitals. The first two meetings didn't feel right. It was scary, like it was basically the same kind of treatment, aggressive, and then you're gonna die eventually. Third doctor, I remember feeling safe right away. This was at UCLA, and he goes over the treatment plan. You know, he's not promising me anything. He just says, We're gonna treat you with chemo, we're gonna then have a surgery, then we're gonna have radiation, then we're gonna have more surgeries. And then he said, We're gonna have to remove your ovaries. I'm so sorry, Jen. You've you're never gonna have a baby. But then he said, if I had gotten pregnant, that pregnancy would have killed me. And that was the moment that it felt like my entire life was flashing before my eyes, and life that I thought was punishing me was actually saving me. And the life that I thought was not working out had been working out perfectly, and if everything was working out perfectly, then everything still is working out perfectly. And I walked out of that office seeing cancer as a gift, and then I was going to enjoy the process as much as I could to go through this journey and see where it leads me. And if I am gonna die, I'm gonna make every day from here on out the best day that I can because life is such a gift and it might be away, gone in a couple years. I want to make the most of every moment that I have. So that intention led me on like a different mindset. So, my mind, instead of trying to figure out why is this happening to me and figure out all the answers that are negative, I started asking, why is this happening for me? How is this making me better? What am I supposed to learn? And I started just looking at my life in a different way. I started noticing everything that I had, which was amazing, like my family, my friends, a meal, shelter, just everything was perfect the way it was. I went into treatment. I didn't want to see cancer or chemotherapy as poison. I looked at it like this is medicine that was designed for me to heal me, to help me live. I'm going to love this chemotherapy and surrender to the medicine. I'm going to trust my team of doctors. They know what they're doing. They know what they're doing, and my life is in their hands. And I'm gonna love whatever I can. Gratitude, love, and trust. Those were the superpowers that sort of became my compass. And I can't tell you what happened, but I can tell you I was cancer-free in four months, and immediately I was like, How am I gonna share this with everybody who wants to possibly overcome something so traumatizing and actually make it work for you? So it turned out stage four cancer was the best thing to happen to me. And that was exactly the mindset I had going into it because I really wanted it to be. And that's kind of how powerful I believe our minds are. And also, I believe when we choose to say yes to the journey, whatever it is, no matter how hard it is, we're gonna come out on the other side wiser, stronger, knowing something that is worth sharing. So that was the um inspiration behind a company, behind a foundation, behind a book that I wrote with my husband called Everyone Needs a Larry. Uh, we wrote about the patient experience and the caregiver experience, two sides to one crazy story. And it really opened up something with both of us about the caregiver and that side, and how nobody really talks about the caregiver, and the caregiver has such a hard job because they have to keep all their emotions inside, and they just have to show up and do everything that the patient needs. So that book was honoring the caregivers out there. Uh and shall I keep going?

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Well, um, what I want to ask, and shout out to all the caregivers out there. What I want to ask is uh how did your husband take your diagnosis and and and how how were you uh how were you, you know, dealing with the chemo? Because you know, chemo uh is really hard on uh I know people that have can't had cancer and stuff have cancer. Chemo is really hard.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Chemo's really hard. Yeah, you're right. And it also um it would never be something I would want to do again, but it also there was like a per a reason for it. There was a purpose and a meaning for the hard moments because that meant to me that it was working, and it also meant every day that uh that is kind of like you know, every round. I had six rounds of chemo, every round was closer to the end, and uh you just kind of go through every day, moment by moment, and you just keep walking. You just keep getting up, you keep walking, and one day, you know, it's not gonna last forever. It's it's such a short, um, short period in the whole journey, but yeah, it was hard. Uh, what was great about chemo for me was that, you know, I told you I was a gymnast and very controlled and kept everything inside. I had no strength to keep anything inside. So I was, you know, crying, I was screaming, I was like laughing, I was like a little baby again. I was like having every emotion coming in and out. Um, so in a way, I learned more how to express myself with chemo because there was like no reason to worry about anything else other than staying alive, really. My husband, on the other hand, who is a very emotional guy, he had to keep everything inside and stay strong and you know, stay, make sure I'm not stressed and make sure that I have what I need. You know, he he he showed up and he talks about the fact that every caregiver, they have no idea what they're doing, but they show up, they love their patient, and they're there for whatever needs to be done. And we both we both were on the same team. We just had different roles to play, and we both wanted the same outcome, which is the patient staying alive and the couple being better from it all. And so we went in with that intention, and that's sort of also what happened. Like we we grew, we learned, we we uh had a lot, we overcame a lot, let's just say that. And after being married only a very short period of time, we kind of like were married only two years after once chemo was over, and it felt like we were, you know, a 25-year marriage at that point.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Well, let's talk about your company z zero negative. Uh let the listeners know what what your company does and you know all all about it, anything you want them to know.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Yeah, so what I learned in the chemo chair was it how powerful, and it's gonna sound cheesy, but how powerful love is. And I truly believe part of my quick healing was that I was sending love to my cancer cells. I was talking to them, I was saying thank you for coming and thank you for going, because I believed they were coming to show me the message that I needed to love myself. I had been so hard on myself my entire life, calling myself a failure, you know, like really just talking to myself like nobody would ever want to be talked to. And that's not okay. So I think the cancer cells were coming to say, Jen, you need to love yourself, and that is the most important thing. So, okay, so love, wanted to spread love. I wanted to spread that idea that love is so much more powerful than anything else. Uh, I also wanted to give back to cancer research. I was so grateful for this team of doctors and the research that has come so far. And I wanted to be a part of the team that continued to give back and help them find a cure. So the idea came from that moment in the chemo chair. I had a friend who um they had a bag in their closet and it said love. And I thought, what a great idea to make a chemo bag, like a tote bag that says love, and every bag sold would be able to give back to cancer research. What do I want to call my company? Well, my cancer is called triple negative. Triple negative sounds like a death sentence. Like, ew, triple negative. It just sounds so dark. What's the opposite of triple negative? Zero negative. There is no negative, there is only positive, there's only light. So that was how I formed the name of the company. And I put love, zero negative because I believed I was sending these tote bags, sending love through this tote to everyone who wanted to be a part of this mission of spreading love and giving back. So that is the company, Love Zero Negative. The accessories have become more than just tote bags, it's accessories that are crossbody bags. The crossbody bags can be fanny packs, their clutches, their um straps, straps that say love that you can kind of put on any crossbody. And uh though every sale go gives back to the foundation now that I started called the Zero Negative Foundation. And the Zero Negative Foundation supports patients and caregivers and cancer research because those three, those three, those three people, in a sense, are going to be the team that can become cancer-free or not. So we want to empower the patient with the sense that they can look at their cancer journey with a belief that they're not being punished. This actually is for them to heal an opportunity to grow and to transform into a better version of them. We want to support the caregivers and give them a community that says, we see you, we know what you're going through. And we uh are in a process right now of raising money for the caregivers. And we have a program that basically will give um grants to families that need help, whether it's groceries or gas or therapy, childcare. Families sometimes need help when they're going through something so serious. So those that program is what we're raising money for right now. And we also have a chemo love tote program, which is basically we send chemo tote bags, the tote bags that say love, we fill them with items like a water bottle, a journal, a book, cashmere scarf. Uh things that keep patients comfortable when they're going through treatment. And it's our way of cheering them on and saying, you got this. We're behind you, we're praying for you, we're thinking about you. Uh and yeah, we have a fundraiser every year that we end up giving back to UCLA's Johnson Cancer Center Foundation. And the fundraiser is at the comedy store because we we want to laugh and have fun as we're raising money. So this year we don't have the exact date yet, but it's gonna be in November, and we're starting to put it together.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

So talk about the life lesson that cancer taught you.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

If I had to break it down into one lesson, it would be that life is always working out, and everything that happens to us is happening to guide us to our true nature, which is love. And we we sometimes lose the knowing of who we are by all the trauma that we have to face and all the fear and uncertainty. And sometimes it takes a really hard situation to to learn like the gifts that life has. But true superpowers that were ignited in me love, gratitude, and trust. So that would be the life lesson, and that I trust life so much more. I think uh the life lesson is to enjoy life, to find your joy, and to find your friends, have more fun, and uh never forget that life is a gift, and every no matter what we go through, life is still a gift.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

What advice would you give couples or women who have been diagnosed or are you know they're going through cancer right now?

SPEAKER_01 22:28

I would give them the advice that I would just sort of um want them to feel that it sucks. I'm so sorry that anyone has to go through the journey because it's not fun. But life is so much better on the other side and try to think of it like you know, you were chosen for this journey. You were chosen for this journey to learn whatever you're supposed to learn to heal, whatever you're supposed to heal, to become a better version of yourself that you are going to be so grateful to be. And you're gonna look back and you're gonna say, I would never have been this person without that cancer journey. So So that's what I would want anyone going through cancer to understand that when you're on the other side, and when you can look back and see how strong you are and see how there's a dot that was connected to get you to this version of you. So just keep checking off the days and know that every day is a day closer to the end.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Well, you are uh I know you did gymnastics, but you're also a singer, songwriter. So talk to the listeners about that.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Well, I have to say I love singing, I love songwriting. You know, I I partly I believe like I'm a writer at heart, and I love just I used to love writing lyrics and songs. Um, it is a past life in a way. You know, I I play my guitar at home, I sing, but I'm not pursuing that career anymore because I just feel so passionate about you know, zero negative, the foundation and the company and you know, my speaking career. I'm doing a TED talk in June that we got I have to go to Texas in June. I was very excited. But uh it had to take a backseat because you know, I changed. I changed with this cancer thing.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Well, I'm going to be having the fundraiser in November. I would stay tuned for anyone who lives in Los Angeles. It's such a fun event. We have real comedians, real funny ones come to a comedy store and we just laugh. And all the ticket sales go to the foundation and we give back to cancer research. So it's a really fun event. Uh the TED Talk is June 13th. I know that most people probably won't be going to Grand Prairie, Texas, but I hope after June, it takes about a couple months for the TED Talk to be released. And then I think I would love just for people to keep an eye out and watch it and share it. Uh and uh that would be a great way to get more eyes on the message. And then um check out the Zero Negative Foundation. The site is zero negativefoundation.org. We're raising money for caregivers for our microfunding program. And uh we're also, you know, if you have a friend going through cancer, you're able to go on the site and donate a certain amount of money, and we send them a chemo love tote. So uh we also have a book called Everyone Needs a Larry. If you know of someone or a couple going through something like cancer or a really tough time, this might this is a book that is fun. It's it's um has mistakes, it has lessons, it has our quirks of a couple going through something that they had no idea what they were doing and how they did it. So it's a good book that could hopefully inspire other couples to to be better as they go through something challenging. And that's on Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Two questions for you. That zero, is that the number zero or the word zero?

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Oh no, the word the word zero negative.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

It's a zero. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

And the the company is called Love Zero Negative. The website is lovezeronegative.com. Uh you could jump on the newsletter. We have a newsletter every week, and um I kind of talk about things of about life and getting through life and things that I'm learning, things that I'm seeing, what I'm listening to, that kind of stuff. And it's a great community that uh is just kind of like part of the whole mission of moving through life in the best way possible.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

So, how difficult was it to write that book with your husband?

SPEAKER_01 28:00

It was really difficult to write it with him. It wasn't difficult to write it. Um it was hard to write it with him, but I'll have to say I probably wrote about 80% of it. And um, he's an amazing talker, but he found that writing was not his thing. And I was able to get a lot out of him by like asking certain questions and then having having him answer sort of different questions. So I would be able to probe him on things and help his writing get out there. But it was fun, it was challenging, it was hard. I'm so glad that we had an editor helping us through. That helps help get the best out of us. And I had also been journaling all through my treatment, all through the journey. So it was it was really cathartic for me, and it came out really quickly for me. And plus, like I said, like I really feel deeply that I'm a writer at heart. So that's kind of like my love language.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

We'll close us out with some final thoughts, maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on. Any final thoughts you have for the listeners?

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Any final thoughts? Wow. Well, I'm just I'm really grateful you had me here. And uh I just have a thought of just reminding everyone to understand, never forget that life is a gift every day that we get to wake up and uh stay present, stay kind, and it sounds so cheesy, but these truly are like what helps light up the world by keeping our light on.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Right, ladies and gentlemen, zero negative foundation.org and love zero negative.com. Be sure to check out everything that Jan is up to. If you're close to Texas June 13th, go to that TED Talk and if you're in close to California, Los Angeles, go to that fundraiser in November. Pick up the book if you know of anybody that's going through Jan that her husband went through, follow, rate review, share this episode to as many people as possible. Also visit www.curvebar337 for all things living the dream and leave us a review, drop us a line, leave us a voicemail. Never know, you might even get a shout-out and get it played on the show. Share the website and the show to everybody you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Gene, thank you for all that you do, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

My pleasure. Thank you, Curtis, for having me.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.