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Deb Krier Doesn’t Let Cancer Get the Final Word
Bill Lampton: Hi there, welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz communication guy, once again bringing you communication tips and strategies that will boost your business. And as is the case always with the Biz Communication Show, this is not a solo act. I bring you those highly useful tips and strategies through conversations with a highly qualified guest. And today we do have a highly qualified guest coming to us from the greater Atlanta, Georgia, area. In fact, buckle up, friends, because today’s guest is a force to be reckoned with. Deb Krier is an entrepreneur, outspoken cancer advocate, three-time cancer survivor, and a certified integrated cancer coach who brings equal parts strategy, humor, and sass—how about that?—to the cancer conversation.
She’s the founder of tryingnottodie.live because, let’s face it, “suddenly” has never been her thing. She now serves as a strategic advisor to business owners and executives facing cancer, helping them keep their businesses, their sanity, and their spark intact. With decades in marketing and PR under her belt, Deb knows how to command a room, and she’s here to remind us that cancer doesn’t get the final word—she does. Hello, Deb!
Deb Krier: Hello, sir! I am so honored to be a guest on your podcast. We’re going to have such a fun conversation.
Bill Lampton: Yes, we are going to, and you’ve been referred to me by other podcasters who have discovered how well you inform and inspire, and I know that will be the case today. Deb, one of the points I think that’s so important to begin with is when someone gets a diagnosis of cancer, there’s a variety of reactions that they can have. And of course, we will talk some about mindset, and that’s what we’re really talking about now because that’s a central part of our reaction and even our recovery. When you first got the diagnosis of cancer, what were the thoughts that went through your mind?
Deb Krier: I was annoyed. I really was. It was like, “Excuse me?” And I literally told my doctor, “I’m sorry, I don’t have time for this.” And she looked at me like, “Well, darling, you’re going to have to make time.” But the fear, the anger—all of that didn’t come until a little bit later. But yeah, I was just annoyed. It was like, “Excuse me, you must have the wrong person.”
Bill Lampton: “You’re interrupting my life.”
Deb Krier: I know, I know. How rude!
Bill Lampton: And is the question often among cancer patients, “Why me?”
Deb Krier: Oh, yeah. You know, and I think we all feel that. There’s a little bit of guilt: “Did I do something to bring this on?” And of course, we didn’t. We all know people who smoke two packs a day and don’t get lung cancer, right? And there’s all of those things. Sure, there are things that we can do to make ourselves healthier just in general, but we certainly never want to do anything that has caused us to have cancer. And so I think there’s that, but yeah, there is the “Why me?”, even though the stats show that it’s a good portion of us. But yeah, it’s the “I’m sorry, go pick on somebody else” type of thing.
Bill Lampton: As I mentioned to you when we got acquainted, I empathize with you because I’ve come through successfully two types of cancer: prostate cancer and colon cancer. And I remember so well waking up from a colonoscopy and the doctor said to me, “You have a cancerous polyp that we’re going to have to remove,” and it was eventually soon, really, remove twelve inches of my colon intestine. And you do have a range of thoughts, and of course, anger comes into that as well. Your life was going along quite smoothly—why does this happen to you? Which leads me next to what came of this. There are many people who could get cured, fortunately, and that’s it. But it really led to a new lifelong mission for you. Describe that mission to us, please.
Deb Krier: Well, way back when I was just a wee little person, I worked for an oncologist and I worked for the American Cancer Society. And so I tell people, “I know just enough about this to be dangerous,” right? But I have a fabulous business coach, her name is Kathleen Caldwell, and it was her idea that I do this, and I went into it kicking and screaming. When she would say, “You need to help people,” I would say, “Oh, but I don’t want to be Cancer Girl. Ugh.” And I really did just want to get back to business as usual. But I realized I was helping people.
I would be in the doctor’s office and they would have me talk to students or they would have me talk to new patients. I’m actually still in active treatment even after 10 years. I go in every 21 days and I go in, I’m the person going to, “You need some water? Do you need some crackers?” I’m bebopping around the infusion room. And it’s just kind of something that I have always done. But I really did realize that I could and should use what had happened to me to help others on this journey. And so that was when I decided to start tryingnottodie.live because we all get so caught up in trying not to die, whether it’s with cancer, whether it’s just with life in general or something else, that we forget that we have to live. And so that’s really the premise behind it: how are we going to live through this process?
Bill Lampton: Tell us about your “Trying Not to Die… Live!”—what is that?
Deb Krier: Well, the name came from when I was initially undergoing treatment. I’m special, and so I had to develop every complication, every serious life-threatening thing, all sorts of things that you could get. And at one point, I was in the hospital for over seven weeks. And my mother—I am an only child, my mother has since passed, but I am an only child—she of course came because I was in very critical condition. And one of the times when my fabulous medical team came and went, I got the disapproving mother look, you know, the “Hmph.” And I went, “What?” And she said, “You did not say thank you.” And I said, “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Mom, I’m trying not to die here!” And so that kind of just stuck in my head that there was that.
But then I really did think we need to live. Maybe it’s five hours, maybe it’s 50 years—whatever it is, how are we going to live during that time? Whether we’re on a cancer journey or not. Are we going to say, “I’m going to put stuff off. I’ll do it at some point. I’ll take that vacation whenever.” No, we need to live now.
Bill Lampton: I was reviewing this morning a story that I imagine you’re familiar with. An American journalist and author, Norman Cousins, he was an editor. Quite a few decades ago, he was diagnosed with severe rare arthritic disease. And instead of just staying absolutely serious about it, he started watching television at the time—the Marx Brothers television, Jack Benny and Bob Hope—because he said laughter was a good way to handle what otherwise could be a totally grievous situation.
Deb Krier: Right. Humor really is one of the things—I mean, we hear that laughter is good medicine. It’s more than good medicine; it’s great medicine. And there are very real benefits from laughing: it, for some reason, lowers your blood pressure—right? You’d think it would raise your blood pressure, but it lowers your blood pressure. There are certain chemicals in your body that are activated when you laugh, and those help you heal. And it’s one of those things where we sometimes develop kind of a weird sense of humor about some of this, but we do have to laugh.
And the funny thing is, even if you fake laugh—”Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” right?—your brain doesn’t know that you’re faking it. And so the healing benefits are still released. And so they do things like laughter yoga and things like that. But yeah, watch I Love Lucy, watch—my favorite is Big Bang Theory, right?—some things like that. But how can you laugh? And one of the things that I always try to do is to make my care team laugh because they have really hard jobs. Really, really hard jobs. And so can I give them a giggle or a chortle for the day?
Bill Lampton: Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite authors. I’ve got three of his books on my shelf. And you just reminded me of an experiment he reported by some behavioral scientists. And the experiment was this: they prompted people who were working with them to smile, even though they really had nothing to particularly smile about. But he said, “Let’s find out what happens when you consistently smile.” And what happened was their mood changed. And he said the outcome of that was that we always think that a smile or laughter comes from our mood, but he said very perceptively that if we laugh or if we smile, that can elevate our own mindset, as we’re talking about.
Deb Krier: Right. And let’s be honest, this is not fun. You know, it’s—there’s just times where I just want to crawl back under the covers and not come back out for several days or weeks. And but how can we have fun with it? And I tell people, you know, we’re not saying that it’s huge. Sometimes the micro-gratitudes are enough. You know, just find something. Somebody the other day asked me, “What was I grateful for for 2025?” Right? It’s the end of the year as we’re doing this. And I said, “The fact that I’m still alive.” And they knew my story, and they said, “Well, we’d hope that would be what you would say.” But yeah, just something little. You know, I have a new puppy—oh my gosh, he is the cutest thing in the world, and getting a little puppy kiss from him, you know, just whatever that what is happening. And and now here’s the thing: you can when you smile, you kind of it’s you make other people smile too.
Bill Lampton: Yes, and that’s true. And one thing I found when I was a patient diagnosed with cancer and I was in the hospital a couple of days, one of the first things I did with my caregivers—the nurses and the doctors—was bring levity into the situation. I would crack some bit of humor when I met them or when they came by, and it changed the atmosphere.
Deb Krier: Right. You know, and sometimes it like I said, it could be a little inappropriate humor, especially you know when we’re joking about this. But as if we’re joking about ourselves, it’s okay. You know, and I was talking with a stand-up comedian who has cancer, and she said she would never, ever say something about somebody else. It’s like calling you know the “the kid the fat kid.” No, that’s just not right. But if you’re joking about yourself, then then it’s okay. And you know, anything to to lighten—even when you’re getting bad news, you know, you can still find something in there that might be a little bit of something to laugh about—you know, the “well, it could be worse” type of thing.
Bill Lampton: Deb, in just a minute we’re going to come back after a short break, and when we do, I want to talk with you and get your reaction to the fact that there are there are a large number of patients who might think, “Well, I’m just going to go it alone. I’m a—I’ve always been a survivor of every difficulty I’ve had, and I’m going to go it alone.” We’ll get your reaction to that in a few seconds.
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Bill Lampton: We’re back here with Deb Krier on the Biz Communication Show. She is not only a three-time cancer survivor, she’s an advocate for becoming a widely known caregiver for those who are currently going through the problem. Now, Deb, many of us, of course, for a variety of reasons when we contract cancer, we say, “Well, I’m just going to go this alone, and I’m not going to talk with the neighbors, I’m going to shut myself up until I whip this thing.” It’s sort of a reaction, and and I’m—I’d love your comment on this: is there even a feeling of shame or guilt that causes us to isolate ourselves? What’s the what’s the danger, the repercussions of isolating ourselves? And what then do you do to help people move beyond that?
Deb Krier: Well, you’re so right, Dr. Bill. I think so many people you know I don’t know if it is shame or if it is fear—”Ooh, they might judge me. Did I bring this on myself?”—you know, like we were saying earlier. I think there’s also the thing, “We just don’t want to bother people. I don’t want to be a bother.” And so we don’t tell about it. And of course what we need to do is we we do need to talk about it, appropriately, right? Now, I’ve been very, very open with what I’ve been going through, but I’ve also done that on purpose because I am using it to educate people, to help people, some things like that.
But you know, it’s it’s okay to to share what you want with who you want. But I really think we shouldn’t go it alone. I did a Facebook post one time about you know something along these lines, and somebody who I didn’t even know, because my posts are are public, responded and said, “I’ve never felt so alone in my life.” And it broke your heart. But the cool thing was other people who did not know this man responded and said, “What can we do to help? Please reach out to us.”
And you know, and I think that’s the thing is we are social animals. So when something happens to us—you know, it’s it’s funny, if it’s good, we want to share it with the world, right? But if it’s bad, we kind of you know do the little turtle thing or and and we don’t want to share. But it is very important for us to build that community. I say it’s a tribe. I also tell people I’m a warrior, and I know not everybody likes that term, but you know it’s me. I am in the fight for my life, quite literally. And so I am a warrior. I am battling this.
And so I build my tribe around me, and my tribe includes my medical team, family, friends, whoever. And people have come and gone in that 10-year time span, right? But it’s it’s been something where initially I didn’t really want to tell people. And I didn’t want people visiting me in the hospital, and I looked really bad—really, really bad. But I didn’t want people to to come and see me like that. And then I realized—I mean, clearly I am a very social person. And isolating myself was damaging my mental health. I needed people to come and talk to me about what was going on in the world. I needed them to at one point I needed them to come take me for walks, to get out and get fresh air, you know, all of these things. Sometimes I just needed somebody to run an errand or drive me to to an appointment. You know, and and as much as we want to kind of isolate ourselves, it can be very damaging to ourselves. But again, you need to do it as on the level that you feel appropriate for you. Some people like me are very open, other people are much more private.
Bill Lampton: As I remember, you you have—you talked about tribes—you have some ways of getting cancer patients together. How do you do that?
Deb Krier: Well, we do have a Facebook group, and I’m you know it’s you can find it on our website, which is tryingnottodie.live, and you can find the Facebook group there. It’s you know we we keep it lighthearted. Every Monday I post jokes, I mean, all sorts of things. But it is a place for support. And so you know we’ve we’ve had one day we had someone who posted, “Got my scan results today, everything is good.” So everybody in the group, “Yay!”, right?
Then the next day somebody posted and said, “I lost my husband overnight.” And so then of course the group said, “We’re very sorry. What can we do?” And you know, and so it is a place where we can share. And you know, it’s kind of interesting, it goes along with what we were just talking about: sometimes it is easier to share with someone who you don’t really know. You know, they’re just that Facebook person. But it is a a place for us to be able to share what’s going on in our lives. Earlier today I posted and shared that I had my annual PET scan, right? You know, and and those are just fear-inducing, right? You you know there’s nothing going on, your body you know everybody’s cool with that, but until you get those results and until you read those results, you’re thinking, “Ugh, what if?” And got my results this morning, everything is absolutely fabulous, and so I posted that. But I also know if I had said there’s a problem, I would have had everybody rallying behind me.
Bill Lampton: One of the things that I’ve run across over the years when somebody is in trouble: the neighbors might think, “Well, I would go see them, I would go talk to them, but I really wouldn’t know what to say.” And reply to that, because the words really don’t matter, do they?
Deb Krier: Right. And but that is the one of the biggest things that people ask me is, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do.” And it’s funny because my neighbors—oh my gosh, some of my biggest supporters, I absolutely love them—that’s actually where I went when I got my diagnosis. I got home and I went next door. But yeah, we don’t know what to say, and so then we don’t say anything because we don’t want to say the “wrong” thing. Well, you can say, “Dr. Bill, how are you doing today? I’m sorry this you’re going through this.” You don’t need to say anything more than that, just acknowledge it.
I remember I was I have taken grief training because we were talking about, you know, grief is one of the emotions that you feel as you’re going through this. And I was talking to someone who had lost a child—which of course is the worst thing that
Bill Lampton: The ultimate grief.
Deb Krier: Yes, yes. And he told me that nobody ever wants to say anything about the child because we don’t want to cause them pain, right? And and but what he said was by them not saying anything, it’s like he didn’t exist. And so, you know, when people act like we don’t have cancer, they and I get it—you know, especially you know whether it’s something little or something big—we don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable, we don’t want to say the wrong thing. But it’s okay just to say, “I’m sorry you’re going through this,” because then the person can decide how they’re going to respond. They can say thank you, they can go into more detail, they can do whatever. But don’t don’t act like it hasn’t happened, because it has.
But you don’t you know it’s it’s okay just to say I’m sorry. Or you know when I had people who told me, “We didn’t know what to say to you,” I told them, “You know what, Hallmark has cards.” You know, and and I have all of the cards that were sent to me when I was in the hospital. I’m not you know at some point I’m probably going to have to recycle, right? But you know, it’s it really was you know and I got the very inspirational cards, I got very faith-based cards, I got funny cards, you know, and we hung them up around my hospital room because it was a simple way for somebody to to show that the they cared and really you know then they didn’t have to to talk, they just sent the card.
Bill Lampton: We have time for just one more question, and it is a vital one. I know that you also not only are a caregiver, counselor, encourager for patients, but you also give services of that nature to the healthcare professionals. Tell us in a couple of minutes about that, please.
Deb Krier: Well, thank you, Dr. Bill, that’s a that’s a a great question. You know, I talk to medical care providers about how to provide better care for us, the patient. And it’s funny, in their world, they call it patient-centered care, and I call it customer service, and they suck, right? You know, and there’s a variety of reasons for it. Not the least of which is they’re told, “Now you must see 10 patients in an hour,” and bleh bleh bleh, right? And all of those various things.
But they tend to forget that we’re not our diagnosis. I’ve actually been referred to as my diagnosis. I was in a room one day and in in my doctor’s office, and I heard the staff say, “The thyroid cancer is in room four.” And I went out, and I said, “Excuse me, I understand HIPAA. I know you can’t yell my name to the whole world.” I said, “But please not refer to me as just my diagnosis. Because that’s just a very small part of who I am.” And I said, “Find some other way to say, you know, who is in room four, but don’t ever call somebody just their diagnosis.”
And so it’s it’s things like that. And how to make sure that you can be that the you as the care team can be reached. You know, and I get it, they’re busy, there’s a lot going on, but I was having a procedure last week and my my surgeon needed to talk to my oncologist, and after 45 minutes of trying to get through, he finally told me, “We’re going to have to postpone. I can’t reach your doctor.” That was unacceptable. I told her about it and she said it was unacceptable. You know, and and so how can we make things easier for the patients, which then of course makes it easier for them? Because when we’re more comfortable as a patient, we’re going to be more comfortable sharing with them what’s going on. But if we feel like we’re the number, we’re just the diagnosis, we’re whatever, we’re not going to share what what we’re dealing with with our care provider.
Bill Lampton: Deb Krier, this has been absolutely fascinating and and encouraging and uplifting, as I knew it would be. We’re eager, I’m sure, to have others getting in touch with you that you can help them, you can help their families, you can help their caregivers. You’ve got a remarkable way of doing that. So please share with us your contact information.
Deb Krier: Well, again, Dr. Bill, thank you so much. I am so honored to be here. I was listening to some of your other programs—you are absolutely phenomenal, and you’ve got a great program, and I truly am honored that that you wanted me to to come on. As I mentioned, the website is www.tryingnottodie.live, and you can go on there. There’s several tabs on there if you are a business owner or an executive, we do have a special program for you, and so that information is there. The link to the Facebook page is there, and there are also ways on there to reach out and and connect with me. And I am more than happy to connect with with anyone, whether you are the person going through cancer yourself or you are a loved one or a friend.
Bill Lampton: Thank you for your kind words about the Biz Communication Show, and the Biz Communication Show makes a contribution because of outstanding guests like you. Absolutely. And now that you’ve given your contact information, I’m happy to share mine. My YouTube channel is Bill Lampton, PhD, and I’ve been doing YouTube instructional videos since 2007. I really don’t want you to look at those that I started with, but and honestly and remember these are the YouTube instructions on there for communication, business communication—they belong to our favorite word, free!
Deb Krier: Complimentary.
Bill Lampton: Alrighty. And then on my YouTube channel, of course, I encourage you to subscribe there. My website, since my tagline is “the Biz communication guy,” naturally my website is bizcommunicationguy.com. And I am open to phone calls, an initial call to talk about your communication challenges and opportunities and what you would like to achieve, and that initial call will be at no cost.
I want to give credit to the co-producer of this show. Mike Stewart is a technology and marketing genius that I met in 1997 when I first became an entrepreneur. We were at the National Speakers Association in the Georgia chapter, Mike walked up to me and said, “Have you got a website?” And I said, “Yes, I do,” and he said, “Have you got sound on it?” And I realized then I needed his assistance. And I’ve been calling on Mike ever since. His internet site is localinternetpresence.com, so I definitely encourage you to get in touch with him.
Deb, we the clock keeps moving and so we have to come to the end of it. Wonderful, informative, uplifting. And I want to ask, now that we’re at the end of our conversation, are there in 30 seconds or a minute any particular key thoughts that you would like to leave with us?
Deb Krier: Well, again, thank you so much. This has been such a delight. I want to remind people that you are in charge. You are your biggest advocate. It’s not the medical team, it’s not the insurance company, it’s not anybody—you are in charge. You get to make the decisions as to how your cancer journey is going to go, and stand your ground, be strong, and you can do it.
Bill Lampton: Thousands of people are are are handling it that way because of Deb Krier. Wonderful to host her, and I know the information will be helpful to you, to your family, and to your friends. Thank you again, Deb Krier, for being our guest today. And for those of you who have been our viewers and listeners, invite you to join us every week for the oncoming editions of the Biz Communication Show, where we do bring you those tips and strategies that are vital to your life and to your business. Thank you again.
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By Dr. Bill Lampton Ph. D.Bill Lampton: Hi there, welcome to the Biz Communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lampton, the Biz communication guy, once again bringing you communication tips and strategies that will boost your business. And as is the case always with the Biz Communication Show, this is not a solo act. I bring you those highly useful tips and strategies through conversations with a highly qualified guest. And today we do have a highly qualified guest coming to us from the greater Atlanta, Georgia, area. In fact, buckle up, friends, because today’s guest is a force to be reckoned with. Deb Krier is an entrepreneur, outspoken cancer advocate, three-time cancer survivor, and a certified integrated cancer coach who brings equal parts strategy, humor, and sass—how about that?—to the cancer conversation.
She’s the founder of tryingnottodie.live because, let’s face it, “suddenly” has never been her thing. She now serves as a strategic advisor to business owners and executives facing cancer, helping them keep their businesses, their sanity, and their spark intact. With decades in marketing and PR under her belt, Deb knows how to command a room, and she’s here to remind us that cancer doesn’t get the final word—she does. Hello, Deb!
Deb Krier: Hello, sir! I am so honored to be a guest on your podcast. We’re going to have such a fun conversation.
Bill Lampton: Yes, we are going to, and you’ve been referred to me by other podcasters who have discovered how well you inform and inspire, and I know that will be the case today. Deb, one of the points I think that’s so important to begin with is when someone gets a diagnosis of cancer, there’s a variety of reactions that they can have. And of course, we will talk some about mindset, and that’s what we’re really talking about now because that’s a central part of our reaction and even our recovery. When you first got the diagnosis of cancer, what were the thoughts that went through your mind?
Deb Krier: I was annoyed. I really was. It was like, “Excuse me?” And I literally told my doctor, “I’m sorry, I don’t have time for this.” And she looked at me like, “Well, darling, you’re going to have to make time.” But the fear, the anger—all of that didn’t come until a little bit later. But yeah, I was just annoyed. It was like, “Excuse me, you must have the wrong person.”
Bill Lampton: “You’re interrupting my life.”
Deb Krier: I know, I know. How rude!
Bill Lampton: And is the question often among cancer patients, “Why me?”
Deb Krier: Oh, yeah. You know, and I think we all feel that. There’s a little bit of guilt: “Did I do something to bring this on?” And of course, we didn’t. We all know people who smoke two packs a day and don’t get lung cancer, right? And there’s all of those things. Sure, there are things that we can do to make ourselves healthier just in general, but we certainly never want to do anything that has caused us to have cancer. And so I think there’s that, but yeah, there is the “Why me?”, even though the stats show that it’s a good portion of us. But yeah, it’s the “I’m sorry, go pick on somebody else” type of thing.
Bill Lampton: As I mentioned to you when we got acquainted, I empathize with you because I’ve come through successfully two types of cancer: prostate cancer and colon cancer. And I remember so well waking up from a colonoscopy and the doctor said to me, “You have a cancerous polyp that we’re going to have to remove,” and it was eventually soon, really, remove twelve inches of my colon intestine. And you do have a range of thoughts, and of course, anger comes into that as well. Your life was going along quite smoothly—why does this happen to you? Which leads me next to what came of this. There are many people who could get cured, fortunately, and that’s it. But it really led to a new lifelong mission for you. Describe that mission to us, please.
Deb Krier: Well, way back when I was just a wee little person, I worked for an oncologist and I worked for the American Cancer Society. And so I tell people, “I know just enough about this to be dangerous,” right? But I have a fabulous business coach, her name is Kathleen Caldwell, and it was her idea that I do this, and I went into it kicking and screaming. When she would say, “You need to help people,” I would say, “Oh, but I don’t want to be Cancer Girl. Ugh.” And I really did just want to get back to business as usual. But I realized I was helping people.
I would be in the doctor’s office and they would have me talk to students or they would have me talk to new patients. I’m actually still in active treatment even after 10 years. I go in every 21 days and I go in, I’m the person going to, “You need some water? Do you need some crackers?” I’m bebopping around the infusion room. And it’s just kind of something that I have always done. But I really did realize that I could and should use what had happened to me to help others on this journey. And so that was when I decided to start tryingnottodie.live because we all get so caught up in trying not to die, whether it’s with cancer, whether it’s just with life in general or something else, that we forget that we have to live. And so that’s really the premise behind it: how are we going to live through this process?
Bill Lampton: Tell us about your “Trying Not to Die… Live!”—what is that?
Deb Krier: Well, the name came from when I was initially undergoing treatment. I’m special, and so I had to develop every complication, every serious life-threatening thing, all sorts of things that you could get. And at one point, I was in the hospital for over seven weeks. And my mother—I am an only child, my mother has since passed, but I am an only child—she of course came because I was in very critical condition. And one of the times when my fabulous medical team came and went, I got the disapproving mother look, you know, the “Hmph.” And I went, “What?” And she said, “You did not say thank you.” And I said, “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Mom, I’m trying not to die here!” And so that kind of just stuck in my head that there was that.
But then I really did think we need to live. Maybe it’s five hours, maybe it’s 50 years—whatever it is, how are we going to live during that time? Whether we’re on a cancer journey or not. Are we going to say, “I’m going to put stuff off. I’ll do it at some point. I’ll take that vacation whenever.” No, we need to live now.
Bill Lampton: I was reviewing this morning a story that I imagine you’re familiar with. An American journalist and author, Norman Cousins, he was an editor. Quite a few decades ago, he was diagnosed with severe rare arthritic disease. And instead of just staying absolutely serious about it, he started watching television at the time—the Marx Brothers television, Jack Benny and Bob Hope—because he said laughter was a good way to handle what otherwise could be a totally grievous situation.
Deb Krier: Right. Humor really is one of the things—I mean, we hear that laughter is good medicine. It’s more than good medicine; it’s great medicine. And there are very real benefits from laughing: it, for some reason, lowers your blood pressure—right? You’d think it would raise your blood pressure, but it lowers your blood pressure. There are certain chemicals in your body that are activated when you laugh, and those help you heal. And it’s one of those things where we sometimes develop kind of a weird sense of humor about some of this, but we do have to laugh.
And the funny thing is, even if you fake laugh—”Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” right?—your brain doesn’t know that you’re faking it. And so the healing benefits are still released. And so they do things like laughter yoga and things like that. But yeah, watch I Love Lucy, watch—my favorite is Big Bang Theory, right?—some things like that. But how can you laugh? And one of the things that I always try to do is to make my care team laugh because they have really hard jobs. Really, really hard jobs. And so can I give them a giggle or a chortle for the day?
Bill Lampton: Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite authors. I’ve got three of his books on my shelf. And you just reminded me of an experiment he reported by some behavioral scientists. And the experiment was this: they prompted people who were working with them to smile, even though they really had nothing to particularly smile about. But he said, “Let’s find out what happens when you consistently smile.” And what happened was their mood changed. And he said the outcome of that was that we always think that a smile or laughter comes from our mood, but he said very perceptively that if we laugh or if we smile, that can elevate our own mindset, as we’re talking about.
Deb Krier: Right. And let’s be honest, this is not fun. You know, it’s—there’s just times where I just want to crawl back under the covers and not come back out for several days or weeks. And but how can we have fun with it? And I tell people, you know, we’re not saying that it’s huge. Sometimes the micro-gratitudes are enough. You know, just find something. Somebody the other day asked me, “What was I grateful for for 2025?” Right? It’s the end of the year as we’re doing this. And I said, “The fact that I’m still alive.” And they knew my story, and they said, “Well, we’d hope that would be what you would say.” But yeah, just something little. You know, I have a new puppy—oh my gosh, he is the cutest thing in the world, and getting a little puppy kiss from him, you know, just whatever that what is happening. And and now here’s the thing: you can when you smile, you kind of it’s you make other people smile too.
Bill Lampton: Yes, and that’s true. And one thing I found when I was a patient diagnosed with cancer and I was in the hospital a couple of days, one of the first things I did with my caregivers—the nurses and the doctors—was bring levity into the situation. I would crack some bit of humor when I met them or when they came by, and it changed the atmosphere.
Deb Krier: Right. You know, and sometimes it like I said, it could be a little inappropriate humor, especially you know when we’re joking about this. But as if we’re joking about ourselves, it’s okay. You know, and I was talking with a stand-up comedian who has cancer, and she said she would never, ever say something about somebody else. It’s like calling you know the “the kid the fat kid.” No, that’s just not right. But if you’re joking about yourself, then then it’s okay. And you know, anything to to lighten—even when you’re getting bad news, you know, you can still find something in there that might be a little bit of something to laugh about—you know, the “well, it could be worse” type of thing.
Bill Lampton: Deb, in just a minute we’re going to come back after a short break, and when we do, I want to talk with you and get your reaction to the fact that there are there are a large number of patients who might think, “Well, I’m just going to go it alone. I’m a—I’ve always been a survivor of every difficulty I’ve had, and I’m going to go it alone.” We’ll get your reaction to that in a few seconds.
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Bill Lampton: We’re back here with Deb Krier on the Biz Communication Show. She is not only a three-time cancer survivor, she’s an advocate for becoming a widely known caregiver for those who are currently going through the problem. Now, Deb, many of us, of course, for a variety of reasons when we contract cancer, we say, “Well, I’m just going to go this alone, and I’m not going to talk with the neighbors, I’m going to shut myself up until I whip this thing.” It’s sort of a reaction, and and I’m—I’d love your comment on this: is there even a feeling of shame or guilt that causes us to isolate ourselves? What’s the what’s the danger, the repercussions of isolating ourselves? And what then do you do to help people move beyond that?
Deb Krier: Well, you’re so right, Dr. Bill. I think so many people you know I don’t know if it is shame or if it is fear—”Ooh, they might judge me. Did I bring this on myself?”—you know, like we were saying earlier. I think there’s also the thing, “We just don’t want to bother people. I don’t want to be a bother.” And so we don’t tell about it. And of course what we need to do is we we do need to talk about it, appropriately, right? Now, I’ve been very, very open with what I’ve been going through, but I’ve also done that on purpose because I am using it to educate people, to help people, some things like that.
But you know, it’s it’s okay to to share what you want with who you want. But I really think we shouldn’t go it alone. I did a Facebook post one time about you know something along these lines, and somebody who I didn’t even know, because my posts are are public, responded and said, “I’ve never felt so alone in my life.” And it broke your heart. But the cool thing was other people who did not know this man responded and said, “What can we do to help? Please reach out to us.”
And you know, and I think that’s the thing is we are social animals. So when something happens to us—you know, it’s it’s funny, if it’s good, we want to share it with the world, right? But if it’s bad, we kind of you know do the little turtle thing or and and we don’t want to share. But it is very important for us to build that community. I say it’s a tribe. I also tell people I’m a warrior, and I know not everybody likes that term, but you know it’s me. I am in the fight for my life, quite literally. And so I am a warrior. I am battling this.
And so I build my tribe around me, and my tribe includes my medical team, family, friends, whoever. And people have come and gone in that 10-year time span, right? But it’s it’s been something where initially I didn’t really want to tell people. And I didn’t want people visiting me in the hospital, and I looked really bad—really, really bad. But I didn’t want people to to come and see me like that. And then I realized—I mean, clearly I am a very social person. And isolating myself was damaging my mental health. I needed people to come and talk to me about what was going on in the world. I needed them to at one point I needed them to come take me for walks, to get out and get fresh air, you know, all of these things. Sometimes I just needed somebody to run an errand or drive me to to an appointment. You know, and and as much as we want to kind of isolate ourselves, it can be very damaging to ourselves. But again, you need to do it as on the level that you feel appropriate for you. Some people like me are very open, other people are much more private.
Bill Lampton: As I remember, you you have—you talked about tribes—you have some ways of getting cancer patients together. How do you do that?
Deb Krier: Well, we do have a Facebook group, and I’m you know it’s you can find it on our website, which is tryingnottodie.live, and you can find the Facebook group there. It’s you know we we keep it lighthearted. Every Monday I post jokes, I mean, all sorts of things. But it is a place for support. And so you know we’ve we’ve had one day we had someone who posted, “Got my scan results today, everything is good.” So everybody in the group, “Yay!”, right?
Then the next day somebody posted and said, “I lost my husband overnight.” And so then of course the group said, “We’re very sorry. What can we do?” And you know, and so it is a place where we can share. And you know, it’s kind of interesting, it goes along with what we were just talking about: sometimes it is easier to share with someone who you don’t really know. You know, they’re just that Facebook person. But it is a a place for us to be able to share what’s going on in our lives. Earlier today I posted and shared that I had my annual PET scan, right? You know, and and those are just fear-inducing, right? You you know there’s nothing going on, your body you know everybody’s cool with that, but until you get those results and until you read those results, you’re thinking, “Ugh, what if?” And got my results this morning, everything is absolutely fabulous, and so I posted that. But I also know if I had said there’s a problem, I would have had everybody rallying behind me.
Bill Lampton: One of the things that I’ve run across over the years when somebody is in trouble: the neighbors might think, “Well, I would go see them, I would go talk to them, but I really wouldn’t know what to say.” And reply to that, because the words really don’t matter, do they?
Deb Krier: Right. And but that is the one of the biggest things that people ask me is, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do.” And it’s funny because my neighbors—oh my gosh, some of my biggest supporters, I absolutely love them—that’s actually where I went when I got my diagnosis. I got home and I went next door. But yeah, we don’t know what to say, and so then we don’t say anything because we don’t want to say the “wrong” thing. Well, you can say, “Dr. Bill, how are you doing today? I’m sorry this you’re going through this.” You don’t need to say anything more than that, just acknowledge it.
I remember I was I have taken grief training because we were talking about, you know, grief is one of the emotions that you feel as you’re going through this. And I was talking to someone who had lost a child—which of course is the worst thing that
Bill Lampton: The ultimate grief.
Deb Krier: Yes, yes. And he told me that nobody ever wants to say anything about the child because we don’t want to cause them pain, right? And and but what he said was by them not saying anything, it’s like he didn’t exist. And so, you know, when people act like we don’t have cancer, they and I get it—you know, especially you know whether it’s something little or something big—we don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable, we don’t want to say the wrong thing. But it’s okay just to say, “I’m sorry you’re going through this,” because then the person can decide how they’re going to respond. They can say thank you, they can go into more detail, they can do whatever. But don’t don’t act like it hasn’t happened, because it has.
But you don’t you know it’s it’s okay just to say I’m sorry. Or you know when I had people who told me, “We didn’t know what to say to you,” I told them, “You know what, Hallmark has cards.” You know, and and I have all of the cards that were sent to me when I was in the hospital. I’m not you know at some point I’m probably going to have to recycle, right? But you know, it’s it really was you know and I got the very inspirational cards, I got very faith-based cards, I got funny cards, you know, and we hung them up around my hospital room because it was a simple way for somebody to to show that the they cared and really you know then they didn’t have to to talk, they just sent the card.
Bill Lampton: We have time for just one more question, and it is a vital one. I know that you also not only are a caregiver, counselor, encourager for patients, but you also give services of that nature to the healthcare professionals. Tell us in a couple of minutes about that, please.
Deb Krier: Well, thank you, Dr. Bill, that’s a that’s a a great question. You know, I talk to medical care providers about how to provide better care for us, the patient. And it’s funny, in their world, they call it patient-centered care, and I call it customer service, and they suck, right? You know, and there’s a variety of reasons for it. Not the least of which is they’re told, “Now you must see 10 patients in an hour,” and bleh bleh bleh, right? And all of those various things.
But they tend to forget that we’re not our diagnosis. I’ve actually been referred to as my diagnosis. I was in a room one day and in in my doctor’s office, and I heard the staff say, “The thyroid cancer is in room four.” And I went out, and I said, “Excuse me, I understand HIPAA. I know you can’t yell my name to the whole world.” I said, “But please not refer to me as just my diagnosis. Because that’s just a very small part of who I am.” And I said, “Find some other way to say, you know, who is in room four, but don’t ever call somebody just their diagnosis.”
And so it’s it’s things like that. And how to make sure that you can be that the you as the care team can be reached. You know, and I get it, they’re busy, there’s a lot going on, but I was having a procedure last week and my my surgeon needed to talk to my oncologist, and after 45 minutes of trying to get through, he finally told me, “We’re going to have to postpone. I can’t reach your doctor.” That was unacceptable. I told her about it and she said it was unacceptable. You know, and and so how can we make things easier for the patients, which then of course makes it easier for them? Because when we’re more comfortable as a patient, we’re going to be more comfortable sharing with them what’s going on. But if we feel like we’re the number, we’re just the diagnosis, we’re whatever, we’re not going to share what what we’re dealing with with our care provider.
Bill Lampton: Deb Krier, this has been absolutely fascinating and and encouraging and uplifting, as I knew it would be. We’re eager, I’m sure, to have others getting in touch with you that you can help them, you can help their families, you can help their caregivers. You’ve got a remarkable way of doing that. So please share with us your contact information.
Deb Krier: Well, again, Dr. Bill, thank you so much. I am so honored to be here. I was listening to some of your other programs—you are absolutely phenomenal, and you’ve got a great program, and I truly am honored that that you wanted me to to come on. As I mentioned, the website is www.tryingnottodie.live, and you can go on there. There’s several tabs on there if you are a business owner or an executive, we do have a special program for you, and so that information is there. The link to the Facebook page is there, and there are also ways on there to reach out and and connect with me. And I am more than happy to connect with with anyone, whether you are the person going through cancer yourself or you are a loved one or a friend.
Bill Lampton: Thank you for your kind words about the Biz Communication Show, and the Biz Communication Show makes a contribution because of outstanding guests like you. Absolutely. And now that you’ve given your contact information, I’m happy to share mine. My YouTube channel is Bill Lampton, PhD, and I’ve been doing YouTube instructional videos since 2007. I really don’t want you to look at those that I started with, but and honestly and remember these are the YouTube instructions on there for communication, business communication—they belong to our favorite word, free!
Deb Krier: Complimentary.
Bill Lampton: Alrighty. And then on my YouTube channel, of course, I encourage you to subscribe there. My website, since my tagline is “the Biz communication guy,” naturally my website is bizcommunicationguy.com. And I am open to phone calls, an initial call to talk about your communication challenges and opportunities and what you would like to achieve, and that initial call will be at no cost.
I want to give credit to the co-producer of this show. Mike Stewart is a technology and marketing genius that I met in 1997 when I first became an entrepreneur. We were at the National Speakers Association in the Georgia chapter, Mike walked up to me and said, “Have you got a website?” And I said, “Yes, I do,” and he said, “Have you got sound on it?” And I realized then I needed his assistance. And I’ve been calling on Mike ever since. His internet site is localinternetpresence.com, so I definitely encourage you to get in touch with him.
Deb, we the clock keeps moving and so we have to come to the end of it. Wonderful, informative, uplifting. And I want to ask, now that we’re at the end of our conversation, are there in 30 seconds or a minute any particular key thoughts that you would like to leave with us?
Deb Krier: Well, again, thank you so much. This has been such a delight. I want to remind people that you are in charge. You are your biggest advocate. It’s not the medical team, it’s not the insurance company, it’s not anybody—you are in charge. You get to make the decisions as to how your cancer journey is going to go, and stand your ground, be strong, and you can do it.
Bill Lampton: Thousands of people are are are handling it that way because of Deb Krier. Wonderful to host her, and I know the information will be helpful to you, to your family, and to your friends. Thank you again, Deb Krier, for being our guest today. And for those of you who have been our viewers and listeners, invite you to join us every week for the oncoming editions of the Biz Communication Show, where we do bring you those tips and strategies that are vital to your life and to your business. Thank you again.