Liz Dawes // Connor's Run, combating cancer and creating legacies

07.22.2020 - By Sarah Davidson Play

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This week’s episode is another one of many that’s been shuffled around and pushed back for various reasons, but that has ended up coming out just when I think our guest’s insights are most powerful. A big part of seizing your yay is acknowledging that both the best and worst times of our life play a role in our journey and If we ever needed some guiding words on turning adversity, uncertainty and grief into something positive, Liz Dawes is your woman.

Like many of our guests, I loved diving into her earlier years because she had an entire life and career going from a small town in Wisconsin to travelling the world leading multi-million-dollar sales and marketing accounts BEFORE the chapter most of us know her from now as an adopted Melbournian and internationally recognised CEO and Chairman of a charitable foundation. Liz and her husband Scott had their world turned upside down when their son, Connor, was diagnosed with paediatric brain cancer – the #1 disease killer of young people – and passed away a few years later. We discuss the many different ways people process grief and how just a few short months later, Liz held the first Connor’s Run founding the Robert Connor Dawes Foundation which is now the biggest paediatric brain cancer foundation in Australia. As she puts it in her TEDx talk last year, Liz reframed, reimagined and reaffirmed her way forward and has now raised $7million impact dollars that’s helping fund research, care programs and so much more. Parts of this one are heavy but incredibly meaningful and with a beautiful happy ending (or happy beginning that's now eight years in) – I hope you are as moved as I am by Liz and the beautiful legacy she has created for Connor.