HOPE is an AMAZING! A four-letter WORD and the FUEL to get you through tough times! In Episode 32 of the Shining Brightly Podcast Show (links in the comments) - ARE YOU a HOPE MAKER? My amazing guest is Jenny Mulks, a mom, cancer survivor, TEDx speaker and the founder of Along Comes Hope to help children with cancer and their families. She explains her driving passion to “CAN-SERVE” that she shares far and widein her coaching practice. Plus, we get a visit from “Hope the Bear”! Please watch, listen, download, share and review this INSPIRATIONAL show! Consider a donation to Along Comes Hope to support their mission. Keep Shining Always!

Mentioned Resources

www.AlongComesHope.com

www.JennyMulks.com

www.YouWillChangeTheWorld.com/instructors/jenny-mulks

EMAIL - Hello@JennyMulks.com

Phone: (888)-802-HOPE

About the guest –

Jenny Mulks Jenny Mulks is a mom, cancer coach, TEDx speaker, international author, patient advocate, philanthropist, and cancer thriver! She is the Founder and CEO of Along Comes Hope®, nonprofit organization serving children with cancer. Their mission is to provide service through financial assistance, emotional support, and advocacy for change, awareness and education. Jenny had a personal battle in 2006 with a rare and aggressive cancer called Cholangiocarcinoma, giving her only a short 6-12 months left to survive! Thriving against many odds, not only did she survive and thrive, it changed her entire life and career! She had previously been 14 years in Pharmaceuticals and a Regional Manager. After her miraculous healing with cancer, she left the corporate world to serve children with cancer. Then, she became an accidental Cancer Coach to adults! She began getting calls from across the country from newly diagnosed patients and caregivers for support and guidance. Because of this, she created the “Circle of Hope Cancer Support” guiding those touched by cancer with emotional, spiritual, physical, social, environmental and financial awareness and all things wellness. Jenny’s virtual sessions and guidance at the Circle of Hope Cancer Support serves all ages. AND…..It’s Free to all Along Comes Hope families of children with cancer.

About the Host:

Howard Brown is a best-selling author, award-winning international speaker, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, interfaith peacemaker, and a two-time stage IV cancer survivor. He is also a sought-after speaker and consultant for corporate businesses, nonprofits, congregations, and community groups. Howard has co-founded two social networks that were the first to connect religious communities around the world. He is a nationally known patient advocate and “cancer whisperer” to many families. Howard, his wife Lisa, and daughter Emily currently reside in Michigan, and his happy place is on the basketball court.

Website

Http://www.shiningbrightly.com

Social Media

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/howard.brown.36

LinkedIn - https://wwwlinkedin.com/in/howardsbrown

Instagram - @howard.brown.36

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#hope #TEDx #speaker #cancer #pedicatriccancer #family #teddybear #entreprenuers #coaching #healthcare #charity #giveback #donation #donate #motivation #education #inspiration #podcast #download #share #shiningbrightly

Welcome to the Shining Brightly Show. It's your

host with the most a maestro of the mic. Howard Brown. So glad

to have you here. Listen, the sun is shining outside and the

sun is shining on this podcast because I have the amazing, the

wonderful, Jenny Hope Mulks with me today. And you don't

understand how thrilled She is a friend, a mentor and a coach

Jenny Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Wow, what a great introduction, Howard,

thank you so much.

So Jenny is the friend across the country that

we've never met. But I feel like I know, I've known her for

years. And we're going to tell you that story as well. But let

me tell you just a little bit about Jenny. And then she's

going to fill in some of the blanks. But Jenny, first and

foremost is a mom. She is a cancer coach, and a amazing TEDx

speaker, international author, a patient advocate, philanthropist

and cancer thriver. But how we met is that she's the founder

and CEO of along comes hope. That's a nonprofit that serves

children with cancer, and their families. And their mission is

to provide a service and some financial assistance, emotional

support, advocacy, change and awareness through education. And

she helps families I mean, who does that it's beautiful. And

Jenny had her own personal battle in 2006, with a rare and

aggressive cancer called now I'm going to pronounce this probably

wrong, but it's Colegio carcinoma, they do it right. Oh,

I did, giving her a short six months, six to 12 months to live

and survive. So we're both survivors. It's just awesome.

And so thriving, as many odds she survived and thrived. And

she changed her entire life and her career, and she'll tell you

about that.

She previously been a pharmaceutical rep and a

regional manager. And after her miraculous healing, she left the

corporate world to serve children with cancer. And that's

just so noble. She's become the accidental cancer coach to

adults as well and many families. So, Jenny, you have

really inspired me. And I just, we met just by mutual admiration

society, because I was going through treatment, and I had

found you and I'd reached out and the first thing I want to do

is just say, thank you, because you supported me, we've got to

know each other and all of a sudden in the mail, I get hope

the bear can you can help make an appearance.

Did you mean you got somebody like this?

I did, And so for those that are listening, Jenny

is holding up the cutest cuddly little teddy bear with a heart

on it. Okay, and it actually has a paw that says a message what

does it say? Love? I hope is that took the bear, right? And

then as a message I have my hope to bear as well. And she puts a

personalised message to each person each child or adult that

gets it and you know, even me okay at age 50 got a bear and

boy does that mean a lot. So I got hope the bear I have hope

and hope sits in in our bedroom on our bed and we love it and it

means a lot because I think of you all the time and I think of

the inspiration that you provide to that. So tell us a little bit

more would I leave out from from your great bio.

Well, I love that you connect me with hope. I

mean, what a huge honour right? To have an inspiring word like

that that people go oh, that makes me think of you and that

you have hoped the bear on your bed that tells me one that you

keep hoping your heart every day but to you make your bed and

that's

that's I do do that I'm a little discipline.

You know, Mama Nancy Brown said hospital corner. So I do I do?

Absolutely. I get you. What did you leave out

about me? Well, I probably the only thing that really long bio

was that you left out that I wanted to be a whale trainer

when I was in college, and I applied to SeaWorld. And they

didn't call me back.

Oh, wow, that's a secret. I did not know that

Shamu is gonna get the get a coach named Jenny.

I was like, like Coach whales, and then I

coached volleyball, high school and college and then I'm like,

why not coach whales. I guess I'm gonna coach cancer patients

instead.

Well, first of all those that are just listening,

if you're viewing on the video, you'll see that she's wearing a

beautiful t shirt that show me your hope. So show me your hope.

And also also talk a little bit about the Circle of Hope.

Because that's the thing I think I missed.

Yeah, so Circle of Hope is on the newer

side. So since you and I have been catching up, we are in the

early stages of getting it off the ground. So as you know

there's only so much time in the day and when you are working

with cancer patients and caregivers and the one on one

coaching. There's not enough time to be able to help and

serve everybody that needs help. So the Circle of Hope is a

virtual platform that is free for all of my along comes hope

families and it has access to everything wellness. So I have

other coaches on there that specialise in, say yoga and

meditation and trauma, yoga, grief, nutrition, tapping, Heart

Math. So there's all kinds of different modalities of easing

your angst, as well as gaining additional knowledge on how to

treat ourselves better how to work through times that are

challenging, and find that that peaceful space, I also am

certified This is did not make it on my my bio. I'm a certified

Cancer Care minister. And another one of my coaches that

he's actually I coached him. And now he's coaching with me, we've

got certified together in cancer care ministry, through city of

hope.

Isn't that cool? not know that. That's new. So

oh, that's outstanding.

We're bringing the spiritual aspect onto it. So

it's a 24/7 platform, that you can go in and be a part of live

fireside chats with myself, and whoever we have on is that guest

coach that day, or one of our, our home coaches. Or you can go

back in and have access to the archives as long as you'd like.

Down the road, we also will be providing services that are

discounted for anything wellness. So if you think of

anything wellness, that's where we're headed with a circle of

hope. And it's really two things that I thought of from when I

had cancer and that my mom had cancer, you know, you know how

it is you get on Google, and they start going down into these

rabbit holes, and how much time it takes. So it's to try to

reduce misinformation and myths and give you a one stop shop to

be able to just think of yourself and all things

wellness. Let your medical team be your medical team, I will be

your circle of hope.

It's beautiful. And I want to tell you that I've

heard you use you know, because I've watched you speak before

and we've known each other now, at least seven years since I got

diagnosed and you created a word called can serve. Tell me the

origins of that and how that all came about.

Well, that came about in the very early

stages of my cancer diagnosis. What I was realising is when you

listen to the power of words that they have on you, they can

really impact you or to have energy words have emotion. Words

have truth or lies, right. So when they told me I had six to

12 months to live, I was being a good girl and obeying the

doctors, I could literally feel my life force was diminishing.

And I learned from being strong and working out five days a

week, at least two bedrooms very quickly. And I could feel my

light going out. And I was realising holy cow, I took that

cancer that dark and limitless and scary word that's, you know,

we were very handcuffing. And instead I'm like, alright, we

need to flip this around. And when I when we created along

comes hope I realised how I took cancer and moved it to can serve

two powerful words, instead of these limiting this limiting

word of cancer. So can serve because we can serve one

another. And I truly believe we're here to do that. During

our time of healing, we are receiving service most often,

right. And that's hard to do. Sometimes it'd be a graceful

recipient is a gift to those giving. But when we can also be

in service and an acting in doing we can serve we're, we're

serving, whether we're receiving or we're giving, that's what we

need to remember,

there's so much synergy between us and you know,

as both being, you know, patients, survivors, advocates,

now you're added minister to the title. And you're right, there

is a darkness. And I think you can give that darkness, some

space, but you can't let it dominate you or else you know,

depression and bad things can happen. You need to be able to

take the light of others and help them lift you up. And

that's where we you and I are just like in lockstep there, you

know I wrote a book that basically is that you know, a

resilient guide to living a life to lift up yourself and lift up

others. So you and I are in lockstep there. So you, you now

have taken that and you are use that in your cancer coaching,

correct? Well, like I said, in the bio cancer

coaching became accidental, right was and I'm sure you get

this all the time too, because no one I was a regional manager

in pharma. Before that I was a sales representative. I'd been

in pharma for a long time many disease states. So you know, you

know a lot about medications. You know a lot about disease

states, you understand clinical studies, but you also understand

the medical system and how to manoeuvre around it through it

when you're getting there. wall after wall with managed care and

trying to get access to, to facilities that you know what's

gonna be eight to 10 weeks. So I was getting these calls, and it

became very overwhelming and I was realising Wow, they're all

in the same exact position I was in from the beginning of, okay,

we got to put our boots on, let's get to work figure this

out. And so that's what cancer coaching does is it really helps

us to align. Instead of just going into all the data and

details, it's aligning the mind and body with the Spirit.

Because when you're frenetic, your body's not going to be

healing and sleeping and doing what you need to do to rid

yourself of this, of this cancer. So that's where I come

in, because I've been on both sides of the fence as a

caregiver, and a patient.

Right, and a pharmaceutical rep. So you have

the medical backing as well. So when did the long come soaps

start? And also you started you focused on families and

children?

Correct. That started 10 years ago, almost to

the date. So April 1 2013. Yes, so God put it upon my heart,

what kept being a calling a calling a calling to the

children to serve the children. And when I was at MD Anderson

Cancer Centre in Houston, one of my rooms overlooked these two

tall, tall buildings across the way that illuminated at night,

and it was Children's Hospital. And I just my little boy was

four at the time. And today, he's 21, literally today.

Congratulations, happy birthday. I know, thank you. And I

couldn't imagine that being my child in that in that cold

building with the glass walls and fighting for his life. Like

I couldn't imagine that. So I really, I know that that's one

of the reasons that God put that on my heart because I have such

a great empathy as an adult going through it. I couldn't

imagine the kids.

Ya know, it's hard. I, when I was 23, still

young onset, I would go sit with the kids in the paediatrics in

the Jimmy fund in Boston at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, too,

because I didn't have a place for me, either old or young

kids, and where does a 23 year old fit. So I can totally

understand that. And it's horrible that, you know, anyone

young onset or peds, kids have to go through this. It's, you

know, they don't even have to understand kind of why and what

they're going through and they're suffering, and they

families do need help. And it's amazing that you're there. What

would be some initial advice that you give to families. And

even if you talk to the kids, what do you say to them?

Well, in the early stages of diagnosis are so

important to really set the stage for not only yourself, and

it's how you received the information from your your

caregivers, or your providers, your medical team, but also

sending that message forward. So you are, you're the platform,

you as in the newly diagnosed cancer patient, you're the

platform for how the others are going to behave around you. You

can set a tone of fear, or you can set a tone of hope. You can

bring God into it right away, that we've got a spiritual

higher power here that's in control. But we can also make

sure that no matter what we face in this journey, that we're

going to thrive, not just survive. And that's really

important, because how are you and I know, we're not getting

out of here alive, no matter what we do, we can kick and

scream, we're not getting out of here alive. But how can we make

the best of every one of our days that we still have here.

And that might be two 105 that might be 265. We don't know, or

younger. So it's really important to when you're

bringing the others onto your team, to have a mindset and an

attitude of hope. And that we're going to do this together. And

and remain positive.

I want to emphasise because I went through

cancer in 1989 and 91. It was analogue and then again now 2016

To today seven years, analogue and digital is very, very

different. We my dad brought home a book about cancer from

the library. With all the digital resources out there,

there's you know, way to do that. And you said something

really important about making sure that you can actually

receive and so in your time in need, okay, you need to be

selfish. You need to be able to be able to take help and give

people that other joy and share their light with you to help

lift you up in your time of need. I want to emphasise it

again. The second point is that through COVID Most people didn't

go get checked. You couldn't go hospitals were flooded and you

didn't go get your mammography, you didn't go get your prostate

checked, you did not go get a colonoscopy or a FIT test or

cologuard at home, you didn't go get your cardio check. You

didn't go to the dentist, skip their appointments. And so I

always you know, say that gotta go get screened. Because, for

example, if I would have been screened 10 years earlier, I get

screened at 50. And the age is 45. Unless you have actually

symptoms, okay, like blood in the stool, or cramping or

stomach pains and things like that. Or you have family

history, you can get screened earlier. But it's one of the

most misdiagnosed things as far as my colon cancer, there's

going to be 155,000 diagnosis 52,000 deaths this year, we're

not going to stop cancer. But you can if you get it early

enough, if you get it early enough you can and for most

things, if you get it, so keep up with your health. And so the

first thing and it's a big buzzword now self love self

care, but eating right, exercising, right, hydrating

right, getting sleep, okay, all that stuff matters. All that

stuff matters. It really does. So I want to talk to you,

because one of the things that in our previous conversations,

and actually what you did in being inside the last chapter of

my book in chapter 18, I just did a podcast called 18 equals

life 18 In Judaism equals high and find means life. And there's

360 pages, 18 chapters, and one of the things that we spoke

about and when we interviewed for being in the last chapter

was becoming a hope maker or hope taker. Okay, and again,

this is all trademark for you and all that, but it sits with

me. Okay, hope the bear sits with me. Along comes up. But

tell me how you came up with that and give people some

definition in some some something about that a little deeper?

Course. Yeah, I'm glad you touched on that.

That goes back again to your energetic surroundings. So being

in the corporate world, and pharma was it's a very

competitive field. I had a wonderful company, but sometimes

it's never enough. I had wonderful support when I went

out sick. I wonderful support before that. Things changed

though when we got bought out. But point being, we can be

around people that suck the energy out of us that do not

help fill our cup, that are very negative, that are fear based.

It's all these things that in it, there's a great way to

decide if they're a homemaker or hope taker, how do you feel when

you leave them? Do you feel regenerated and you know,

vivacious and full of life and be like, Wow, that was so

amazing to just have that great chat. I always feel like I want

to chat with you. Or do you come home and you're like, oh, my

gosh, I gotta go to bed. I need a beer or whatever. They're,

they just suck the life out of you. Those hope takers, they

really check chip and chip away at your spirit. And the hope

makers, that's who ended up being my treatment team. I mean,

when I walked into to MD Anderson, I've gone to five

different doctors and facilities. When I walk into ma

MD Anderson, everything there was hope filled from the guy

that parked our car at valet, to the person that did my labs to

whoever was greeting us at the front to the nurses to triage.

And my physicians, it was amazing the energy there. And

and hope is an energy. And being a homemaker. And I hope taker is

an energy. So I recommend highly to surround yourself with hope

makers, because they will make your life so much more complete.

Well I want to take it even further. Because

you and I are aligned that we are building a movement of Hope

makers because what I My Gospel is that we lift ourselves up. So

you take care of yourself, build that foundation back, and then

you go help others there's so many people in need, I mean,

random act of kindness act of giving, taking a walk, sending

someone a joke, but also filling your own cup and go into your

happy place. Mine's the basketball court. Others can be

cooking and travelling and art and yoga, but you can lift

yourself, lift up others, and then we join hands and become

this force multiplier for good and positive change. That's a

homemaker. And that's what we're building. That's the movement

and we are joined you and I tagged him on that for sure. So

now you did mention, you know, we there's lots of people that

are going through, you know, treatment when you get said that

cancer diagnosis. Some people say that that your survivorship

starts on that day doesn't feel like it, but use the word

thriving versus surviving versus thriving. And so why is it

important that you differentiate that?

I think surviving is underplayed,

because that can mean just kind of like trotting along. How're

you doing today? I'm surviving right now. Thriving is taking in

life taking in the beauty of that blue sky. Taking in the

sparkle of your baby's eyes or the laughter that you hear on a

playground. I'm when you're walking by the bird on hearing

chirping outside, it's, it's your senses truly coming alive,

and having this great appreciation for all the the

beautiful things that God has created around us. And that's

where gratitude plays into our healing and to our role. And I'm

not just filling fluff, like, I really feel like when I was

diagnosed, realising that all of a sudden, I could hear this

clock ticking, because before that I took life more for

granted. I assumed I was going to be here 110 years. And all of

a sudden, I'm like, oh, that clock is loud. But the Greens

became greener on the grass, and the blues became bluer in the

sky. And that little bug that was walking by I actually would

watch my son stop and pick it up. It was just, I was

enthralled at watching life through him too. It's, it's

truly a joy to capture life that way. So I recommend to thrive

well before you have any life challenges, so that you can

enjoy every step of it.

yeah, so also, you're you you you did a TEDx.

So, tell me, what was that? Like? What was that, like you're

able to share your message on a TEDx stage.

It was such an honour, it really was to be

selected as a speaker for this, obviously, for this platform,

because it's worldwide. And I really felt like it was a

message that that God wanted me to have out there. And he put

most of the message on my heart, how to deliver it. Of course,

afterwards, when you watch the video and stuff, you have so

much so much that you want to critique about it. But it just

needed to be from the heart and real and authentic. And I feel

like it came off that way.

It was awesome. I hope the bear was a special

guest with you.

Yes. And hope the bear left with all of our

attendees to go home spread hope. And oftentimes, when I

give hope to somebody like that, I'll I'll encourage them to

spread hope forward. So you might be bringing it home, but

you might be giving it to somebody else that you know

needs that message.

Exactly. So listen, we're not this, this we

take cancer very seriously, it is complex. It affects so many

people more than the patient's the caregivers and your

families. And, but we're both trying to actually, you know,

move things forward and help people. And I don't know if you

know that I'm now the chairman of colon town of the board of

directors. So we're helping 10,000 folks that have

colorectal cancer, there are resources. So please seek both

of us out is a message that I want that we have big networks

and we can if we can't serve you, we know people who can have

all different types of cancer. So that's that's the major

message I want to push out to the audience and things like

that. Well, this is the time we're going to put on my

sunglasses, Jenny, and you already are shining, but you're

shining even brighter now. So my light is shining to you. And

we're going to do the shining brightly spotlight. So you're

going to tell people, I know you have something that you want to

give away. And you're going to do that. But also tell them how

they can get in touch with you do your giveaway, and then give

me some final comments. So we're going to take the show home.

Absolutely. I have a wonderful, heartfelt it's

hard to work colouring book journal. So it's actually filled

with poetry, with places to colour, places to work together

through fear. And I've had such great feedback from families

that have worked on together, as well as kids that just work on

it on themselves. So there's going to be a link that Howard

will put I assume in our show notes. Yes. And you can download

the whole 87 Page colouring book for yourself if you would like

done by artists that are working from the heart to donate back to

a long time. So And speaking of donating to low income, so if

you would like to support our children with cancer, you can

text the word hope maker 244321, you just text that I'll send you

a link. And you can make a tax deductible donation to our

mission, which we would greatly appreciate. And you can find me

as both a cancer coach and about a longtime. So at my email,

Jenny jenny@alongcomeshope.com Or you can call me at 888802

Hope H-O-P-E.

That's that four letter word we love. That's

right. It's amazing. But all this will be put in the show

notes all will be put on the links and on social media. So

give me some closing, closing statements that you want to

make.

First of all, I want to congratulate you on

spreading hope and shining brightly throughout this world.

If there's anything that these last few years have taught us is

that we can make a difference one at a time as we ripple that

energy through this world and you are doing it. And I'm

honoured to be a part of doing it with you. You can count me in

all the way, Howard. The last thing that I would like to say

is you are never alone. Everybody that's out there

listening, do not make this journey alone. Cancer is a team

sport. As a caregiver, you can really go down hill if you're

not taking care of yourself. I'm here to support you, Howard's

here to support you. Reach out if you have questions. If you

have friends that have been diagnosed anything, please just

share our information. Because we don't want you to walk this

journey alone. It'd be my honour to escort you through it.

I love that. And it is a team sport. So thank you

for listening or if you're watching the shining brightly.

So this is all about inspiration. And Jenny, you

inspire me and the work that you do. And we join hands and do

this together. And so people you can get a hold of me at shining

brightly.com There's great information about the book which

Jenny is in and the final chapter and also my speaking for

podcasting and any stages live and virtual, as well as there's

cancer information and screening information in there as well.

Plus, there's there's discussion guides on survivorship,

mentorship and interfaith, they're very interesting free

downloads that you can do that as well. There. So I will close

the show by saying that if we choose to shine brightly, just a

little bit each day for ourselves, for others and for

our communities. The world will be a better place. Jenny, I'm

honoured to have you and thank you.

Thank you so much, Howard.