Celebrating A Richer Life with Ellie Guardino

11/26/20 • 77 min

During this episode of A Richer Life, host Rich Weingart speaks with Ellie Guardino, Vice President Global Head of Hematology Oncology for Personalized Healthcare at Genentech, adjunct clinical professor for medical oncology at Stanford University and loving Mom, Wife and Friend. Ellie was recently nominated and elected by Fierce Farma as one of 2020’s Fiercest Women in Life Sciences.

Ellie Guardino has been fighting her own battle with cancer since 2008 and speaks about how she is facing it head on, focusing on her work, and what it takes to live life to the fullest in spite of aggressive cancer. This episode is dedicated to celebrating Ellie Guardino’s incredible medical career achievements and her momentum to keep moving forward, inspiring others in the process.

Episode Highlights:

Rich Weingart introduces Ellie Guardino.
Who were Ellie’s role models growing up and what drove her forward?
Ellie takes us through her inspiration and her life’s work.
How important is it to hold space for your patients for them to feel safe?
Challenges of being a patient.
When did she transition to Genentech?
What causes cancer to come back?
In 2012, Ellie had another melanoma that developed on her chest wall.
What is Ellie’s status today?
How impactful has her family been in her life?
Our faith can move mountains.
What advice would she share with her children and to her younger self?
The peaceful life of Martin Luther King helps Ellie Guardino tremendously.
What would Ellie Guardino like to share with the audience?

3 Key Points:

To have faith is to defy logic and it is an act of courage. It takes faith to think positively and to know that there is a deeply loving God that cares about our pain.
No one is without fear. But it is crucial to get to a point where you can live each day without being burdened by it and can live each moment to the fullest.
Ellie Guardino’s motto is “Faith over fear.”

Tweetable Quotes:

“I may not be as much of an advocate for myself. But I was so grateful for all of the care and support that I got. I just try to remind myself that I am a patient now. I have to view this as a patient and let them help me.” – Ellie Guardino
“I was very open and I knew that would serve me well because that is what I have always told my patients. You need to embrace your community because that is what will get you through.” – Ellie Guardino
“When I was diagnosed with my melanoma, I had a chance to evaluate whether I was doing everything I wanted to be doing and the answer was yes. I wouldn’t have done anything differently. ” – Ellie Guardino
“I probably spend an hour and a half or two hours with each patient on that first visit and look at, what are their economic needs? Are they going to need extra support? We have all kinds of breast cancer grants. ” – Ellie Guardino
“I was able to keep my practice and also do research at Genentech that would impact far more patients in the long run than my one-on-one patient-to-patient care. ” – Ellie Guardino
“If I worry about tomorrow, I lose today, and I don’t want that to happen, that I lose opportunities, and happiness that I could be having, and fun that I could be having when you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Don’t focus on that.” – Ellie Guardino

Resources Mentioned:

Ellie Guardino on Linkedin

Episode Highlights:

Rich Weingart introduces Ellie Guardino.
Who were Ellie’s role models growing up and what drove her forward?
Ellie takes us through her inspiration and her life’s work.
How important is it to hold space for your patients for them to feel safe?
Challenges of being a patient.
When did she transition to Genentech?
What causes cancer to come back?
In 2012, Ellie had another melanoma that developed on her chest wall.
What is Ellie’s status today?
How impactful has her family been in her life?
Our faith can move mountains.
What advice would she share with her children and to her younger self?
The peaceful life of Martin Luther King helps Ellie Guardino tremendously.
What would Ellie Guardino like to share with the audience?

3 Key Points:

To have faith is to defy logic and it is an act of courage. It takes faith to think positively and to know that there is a deeply loving God that cares about our pain.
No one is without fear. But it is crucial to get to a point where you can live each day without being burdened by it and can live each moment to the fullest.
Ellie Guardino’s motto is “Faith over fear.”

Tweetable Quotes:

“I may not be as much of an advocate for myself. But I was so grateful for all of the care and support that I got. I just try to remind myself that I am a patient now. I have to view this as a patient and let them help me.” – Ellie Guardino
“I was very open and I knew that would serve me well because that is what I have always told my patients. You need to embrace your community because that is what will get you through.” – Ellie Guardino
“When I was diagnosed with my melanoma, I had a chance to evaluate whether I was doing everything I wanted to be doing and the answer was yes. I wouldn’t have done anything differently. ” – Ellie Guardino
“I probably spend an hour and a half or two hours with each patient on that first visit and look at, what are their economic needs? Are they going to need extra support? We have all kinds of breast cancer grants. ” – Ellie Guardino
“I was able to keep my practice and also do research at Genentech that would impact far more patients in the long run than my one-on-one patient-to-patient care. ” – Ellie Guardino
“If I worry about tomorrow, I lose today, and I don’t want that to happen, that I lose opportunities, and happiness that I could be having, and fun that I could be having when you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Don’t focus on that.” – Ellie Guardino

Resources Mentioned:

Ellie Guardino on Linkedin

Previous Episode

Conscious Parenting - How do we show up for ourselves and our family?

During this episode of A Richer Life, host Rich Weingart speaks with Dr. Alana Lopez, Licensed Psychologist and Parent Coach with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a PhD in Pediatric Psychology. Dr. Alana Lopez talks about her inspirations for embracing conscious parenting, how it has influenced her professional work and her own parenting strategies, and how she goes about working with families.

Episode Highlights:

Rich Weingart introduces Dr. Alana Lopez.
Dr. Alana Lopez opens up about her early journey learning what it means to be a conscious parent.
We have to do the inner work first for conscious parenting.
What was the area of her life that she felt stuck in originally regarding parenting?
What is the ‘dial’ for Dr. Alana Lopez that makes her days graceful?
In the midst of all of our ‘doing,’ we have to incorporate ‘being’ to recharge.
The importance of parenting with power and grace.
What is the conscious parenting approach that Dr. Alana Lopez uses when she is working with families?
We can get too caught up in labels for our kids and ourselves.
Honor where you are at in the moment without judgement.
90% of the time we are just going through life based on old habits.
Don’t be afraid to show your kid that you are not perfect.
What does she mean by ‘space creator?’
Parents should be the ultimate safety signal.
What does Dr. Alana Lopez mean by being an ‘energy shifter,’ ‘emotion detective,’ ‘connection maker,’ and ‘accountability partner’?
What advice does Dr. Alana Lopez have for parents that feel like they are failing?

3 Key Points:

The book that helped to transform Dr. Alana Lopez is The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children by Dr. Shefali Tsabary.
Honor your child that stands before you and make sure their voice is being heard and understood.
We can sit with our feelings and acknowledge them and open up the door to new possibilities.

Tweetable Quotes:

“I really decided at that point, like, I have a son coming into the world and I want to be all-in. In order for me to be all-in, I have to take care of myself. I have to be in touch with myself and really get back to the roots of what's important.” – Dr. Alana Lopez
“We are all humans in this together. We all have a story to tell that is so worthy and deserving of being heard.” – Dr. Alana Lopez
“Our children are our teachers and they are here for a reason. It is so powerful just to see your child through that fresh lens." – Dr. Alana Lopez
“I think for me, the biggest ‘aha’ in that area was what was my relationship with my emotions were, and to really look at that relationship. That relationship is very heavily influenced by how we were raised.” – Dr. Alana Lopez
“It is finding refuge in the simple things, like just taking a nap or just sitting with your child on the couch, with no TV.” – Dr. Alana Lopez
“Great parenting is not about doing things quote-unquote ‘right’ or not yelling. It is about getting curious about what triggers us, knowing why we fall back into old patterns without self-judgement, making a conscious effort to try something different.” – Dr. Alana Lopez

Resources Mentioned:

Next Episode

A Young Man’s Blues with Jaxon Snipes

During this episode of A Richer Life, host Rich Weingart speaks with Jaxon Snipes, currently an undergraduate at Cornell University pursuing a degree in Music within the College of Arts and Sciences with a minor in Business. Jaxon Snipes bravely opens up about the pain he experienced after literally a traumatic fall from grace that left him clinging on to life. How did Jax overcome the trauma, the physical changes, the panic attacks and the depression? On the other side, was Jax able to find his music?

Episode Highlights:

Rich Weingart introduces Jaxon Snipes, who shares what brought him to Cornell University.
How did he express himself when he was growing up?
How did he start exploring the deeper parts of himself?
Music became a massive stress release for Jaxon Snipes.
What was life like going to Cornell for baseball?
Jaxon describes the injury he experienced.
How does it feel to recount that painful story?
What was Jaxon’s lowest point after his accident?
Did the accident bring Jaxon towards addiction?
How can we alleviate pressure from kids?
How did he get out of the cycle of hating himself?
Jaxon Snipes performs a song that he wrote called “Young Man’s Blues.”
It is ok to not feel ok.
What is he doing in his life today to live a richer life?
The small stuff is the big stuff.

3 Key Points:

You have to feel your way through your pain to get through it, not ignore it. Be in touch with your feelings.
Once our nervous system recognizes that we are not going to die from mentally reliving our painful traumas, we stop acting like we are going to die.
Let kids know that they can be whatever they want to be, and actually mean it.

Tweetable Quotes:

“I had a relationship with a girl who had some anxiety and deeper issues, depression, and I felt it was my need to save her. She ultimately had to be taken away to a wilderness camp in Montana where she was completely secluded from me.” – Jaxon Snipes
“I have a therapist and I did that a bunch in the beginning because I had to deal with PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That is one of the most important things to do is to kind of acknowledge that that happened.” – Jaxon Snipes
“You’ve got to kind of dive into it (trauma) to release the tension. It is kind of like a muscle where it is super tight and it is hurting you and you’ve got to just dig into it a little bit and you have to press it and hold onto it.” – Jaxon Snipes
“I went back to San Francisco and started focusing on my health and my wellbeing. I saw a therapist who I still see, and I rehabbed my brain through mental exercises in the hyperbaric chamber.”
“Most importantly to me, I dove into my music and wrote about my emotions and experiences.” – Jaxon Snipes
“Being able to fully accept yourself, just like you are loving yourself for as long as possible when you are a kid. Develop a foundation of full love for yourself and you will kind of always remember that.” – Jaxon Snipes

Resources Mentioned: