Forging Resilience
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Forging Resilience
S3 Ep79 Phil Richards MBE: Proof Of Life
Phil Richards MBE spent 32 years at Tesco before life changed in 2017 with stage-four cancer. In this conversation we unpack how he reframed fear into action: the bathroom-mirror moment (“I’m not going to die today”), his three grounding questions (best, worst, reality), and his simple PROOF framework—Purpose, Resilience, Optimistic Reality, Objectives, Focus. We get practical: breaking the impossible into the “next rock,” living in the moment with family, training at 6 a.m. when motivation is gone, and talking about cancer without the head-tilt. It’s a masterclass in building discipline, choosing meaning over years, and turning adversity into service.
Beyond mindset, Phil’s story carries tangible impact. He’s raised close to £200,000 for a small diagnostic charity, earned an MBE for services to charity and the economy, and built a new network defined by service and honest connection. The thread through it all is simple: break the impossible into the next rock, remember what you love when times are good so you can reach for it when times are hard, and turn motivation into discipline through focus.
If this resonates, follow Phil on LinkedIn at “Phil Richards MBE,” check philrichardsmbe.com for his PROOF resources, and share this conversation with someone who needs practical hope.
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Welcome to Forge and Resilience, real conversations for high performers facing transition. I'm Erin Hill, and join me as I talk with people about challenge change and the adversity they've faced in life so we can learn from their experiences, insights, and stories. Today I'm joined by Phil Richards, a people leader turned purpose-led human who's lived with stage four cancer since 2017. After 32 years at Tesco, Phil's been rebuilding this life around discipline, service, and the simple framework he calls proof. We're going to be talking about resilience and how you can use it, speak about how cancer can be talked about without the head tilts and why he measures life by fulfillment, not years. Phil, welcome to the show, buddy. I'm really looking forward to this conversation, Aaron. Yeah, no, likewise, mate. Um I appreciate you being able to nudge this. We were due to have it before the summer, but um, life. And uh means it's happening after summer. Phil, quick question to get us going, mate. If if you want people to take one thing away from this conversation, and they're gonna switch off in a couple of minutes, what would that one thing be, do you think?
SPEAKER_01:The thing I would probably want people to uh to think about from this conversation is whatever happens in your life, whether that good or bad, you you don't understand the consequences of. And I'll give you an example. If it's bad, you don't know that good can't come from that bad. And likewise, if you think good is always going to be good, good can also turn bad. So we'll talk a lot more in um in our conversation about how we frame that and how we deal with what's in front of us, Aaron.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Phil, how do you deal with what's in front of you?
SPEAKER_01:Well, if I it's probably easier if I just say where I am in my life. So if I talk about 2017, 2017 was I was a 39-year-old man, really happy, married, two children. If I'd have gone back to my younger self and said, This is the life you're gonna have when you're a grown man, I think he'd been pretty happy. But I was hit with the diagnosis, unexpected, uncontrolled, and I just remember that Saturday night in AE because I was in uncomfortable pain. I'd started passing blood in my urine. Um, and it's like when the engine management light comes on in your car and you think, oh, I've got to deal with this. Sitting in A E. And I thought, I thought it was kidney stones if I'm honest. I'd uh consulted Dr. Google, Dr. Google's always right, and um I even said to the uh the doctor in AE, I think it's kidney stones, and he said, Yeah, I think you're right. They did the uh did the tests, the scans, but six o'clock the next morning I'll never forget his words. He said to me, Mr. Richards, I'm so sorry, but we found an 11 centimetre tumour on your right kidney. And I think that's the moment my life changed. So that for me was a diagnosis of cancer. But I don't think that was probably the hardest thing that I ever faced into. And you'd think that the diagnosis of cancer would be. Probably the hardest thing that I faced into is how do I then face the repercussions of that? How do I then tell my wife? How do I then tell my children? And I think, you know, you and the listeners can fill in the blanks. I don't need to go into the sadness of it, but that's probably where my mind was at that moment in time. So I think that's the part that changed my life. But I think as you mentioned right at the start of this, everyone listening might think he's had a cancer diagnosis, that's the end of his life, poor man, too young. Wrong. Because I think my life has been elevated as a result, but I think it's only been elevated because of the way that I think about things.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm really struck by what you said at the beginning about you don't always know what will become of something, be that good or bad. Has has that always been have you always had a an ability to generally look at life that way? Or is this opportunity just highlighted or magnified your ability to accept what is what it is is the way it is?
SPEAKER_01:I I people often talk about positivity, don't they? Like, you know, when faced with adversity, the best um the best medicine is positivity. That isn't always the simplest way. Yeah, I agree. So I think if if you ask me, have I always been like this, I've always enjoyed being happy, I've always enjoyed, you know, having some kind of purpose enjoyment, whether that's through sport, whether that's through making friends. So I've always wanted to I don't like feeling sad because it is a very negative emotion. Not saying that sadness isn't important, but what I probably didn't realise an early age is I probably learnt from the sadness and thought, how do I avoid those kind of traits? But I tell you since my diagnosis, I mean, I have you ever heard about the uh the Chinese farmer proverb?
SPEAKER_00:The story it doesn't it doesn't ring a bell yet, but maybe once once you're starting.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my word. I mean, it is a brilliant story that I think just epitomizes the way you look at life.
SPEAKER_00:So the about the young lad that falls off a horse that can't go to war. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly that, exactly that. And um, and I think what in summary of that story, you know, tell it tell it tell it for the the people that are listening that that that might not know it, Phil. So basically, you've got this father and a son, they're on a working farm, and they've got this horse that you know pulls the hoe and like you know, rakes the land. I'm not a farmer, I don't know the detail. But what happens is one day that horse runs away, and all of a sudden the son's going, Oh my god, what are we gonna do? And all the neighbours come running up and say, Oh, you've lost your horse, you know, your farm's doomed. And the uh and the old farmer just says, Well, we'll see. And they're like, We'll see. No, it's this is a disaster. All of a sudden, the next day, the horse comes back with seven other horses, and then all of a sudden the neighbours come running back saying, This is terrific, you've now got seven, you know, seven more horses. And um, you know, the son tries to chain uh train the horses to um you know to make the farm even more successful, and he falls off and breaks his leg. And all the neighbours come running up and they say, Oh, your poor son, he's broken his leg. How are you gonna manage Cope? This is a disaster for you. And he's like, Yeah, we'll see. And they're like, We'll see. He's broken his leg, he can't manage his horses. And then what happens the next day is like the military come knocking on the door saying, We're enlisting everyone into the army, we're gonna go and fight a big battle. Um, and he's like, Well, you can't take my son, he's got a broken leg. Okay, we can't take him. So that I think the moral of the story is, is when you think something is really bad, something positive can come out of it. And I think that story, when I heard it, I'm like, Do you know what? You're absolutely right. So I almost took that story, looked at my own life, and thought, how do I take a diagnosis? And bearing in mind, I sat in front of an ecologist and he's like, Yeah, I'm not sure what the next five years survival rate really is going to look like for you. And it's difficult to hear. But at the same time, it's like, well, well, what can I make of this?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I guess what it is it's the way that we choose to see things, and and and from my understanding, I know I know for me it's so easy, and it's what the human brain is designed for, isn't it? Is to pick up the negativity and run with that and predict worst-case scenarios and so it can protect us from them. However, if that runs without us getting to challenge it, or only always accepting what it says, then then we're taking a lot of yeah, possibility away from ourselves, I think.
SPEAKER_01:Um that is it though. You're taking away the possibility. And I think when I when I faced into my diagnosis, and I said this before, you know, I had I didn't just say, right, I've been diagnosed with cancer, I'm gonna be really positive and I'm gonna live my life. It it just doesn't happen like that. I had probably four to six weeks of staring at the bathroom mirror saying, You know you've got cancer and you know you're gonna die today, or you know you're gonna die soon. And it it just was miserable. But it was only one day when I looked in the bathroom mirror and I said, But you're not gonna die today, are you? And I think that was the seminal moment that changed things for me because when I realized that I wasn't gonna die today, or I wasn't gonna die this week, this month, this year, all of a sudden, exactly as you say, the opportunity starts to open up.
SPEAKER_00:So, how how what what is it that fuels you now? I mean, we touched on that at the beginning in terms of purpose, but is there something that you hold close to your heart or tell yourself when you do look in the bathroom mirror each morning that if this is the day, then it doesn't matter because fill in the blank, we will do this, or I'm gonna live by that, or I I love I love that question.
SPEAKER_01:And have I got the answer to it? Probably not, because sometimes I still look in the mirror and think, you know, is it all worth it? Depending on how I feel, I might say, look, is it all worth it? What am I doing this for? And I've often, you know, I've often talked to people about when you're at your highest moment, that's the time to remind yourself why you do stuff. So when you're, you know, we just come out of the summer, so whether you've had a brilliant family holiday, whether, you know, you've got children, you're proud of something they've done, whether you've had a brilliant meal with friends, that's the time to remind yourself about why you do what you do. Because in your darkest time, and I always say to people, just when you're having a good time, make some notes in your phone. Because when you're having your darkest time, just pull up that, you know, the notes section of your phone and remind yourself about, do you know what? I love doing that. And it automatically brings a smile on your face and it allows you to um it allows you to what I call flip the mindset.
SPEAKER_00:What is it you love to do, Phil? And the the notes that that light you back up on your phone then, mate?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I've got I've got two, um, I've got a wonderful wife and I've got two uh two daughters. The daughters are are old, I say old now. They're not children, yeah, 26 and 23. But what I really enjoy about our life is we talk about living in the moment. So someone asked me the other day, like, well, what's different about you? You know, because you were always a dad, you were always a good dad, you always spent time with your children. But what's different now? And I and I described to them that when I got my diagnosis, it wasn't just me that got my diagnosis, my whole family and friends got the diagnosis as well. So we almost made a commitment that when we see each other, we kind of live in that moment. So whereas before I would have been present, but not necessarily in the moment. And now what we often do is, you know, when we see each other, we'll plan to do something special. So my daughter doesn't live with me because you know she's moved out with her boyfriend, but every week she will come and see me, and she'll come and see me, and we will make sure that we do something really special. When, like, we're going on a family holiday and um at the weekend, and it's my wife, my two daughters, and their boyfriend. So there's six of us going, and I've got to tell you, Aaron, I am really looking forward to it because all of those five human beings, I love interacting, I get something different from all of them, and we're just gonna have the most amazing time, and I kind of like feeling the excitement already.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, love it. What comes to me is that I I'm reminded of the the minute things each day um in terms of yeah, relationships, or it's the small things that I can bring my attention to, regardless of whether I'm high or low.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and and what also I'm struck by is your acceptance. So it seems to me that you've accepted it. It doesn't, you don't have to like it, yeah. But in by doing so, you're almost like releasing some of that power and it's doomsday sort of uh spell to enjoy the small things again, the the relationships, the holiday, the time with a daughter, um, which allows you to see more, which I guess we'll get onto in terms of the purpose and coming up with your own framework. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, see, Aaron, I think what you've just done is you've just hit the nail on the head. So if you think about a diagnosis, and it and it doesn't have to be a diagnosis of cancer because I'm really, really clear. This isn't a game of top trumps. Just because I've got stage four cancer doesn't mean that you falling off your mountain bike and hurting your shoulder isn't a significant impact to your life. But I think reminding yourself of those tactics that really help allow you to move on. So something else I also use is whenever I come up against a difficult time, I always ask myself three questions. The first question is out of this situation, what's the best I can hope for? The second one is what's the worst that can happen? And then ultimately I get to my third question, which is what's my reality? And I think when you get an answer to those questions, so if I just take my diagnosis, what's the worst that can happen? Well, the worst that can happen is my cancer starts growing at a very fast rate, all of a sudden it takes over my life, and you know, it might shorten my life expectancy more than I expected. That's the worst that can happen. Once I've accepted that, I can move on. So I can say, okay, so what's the best that can happen? Bearing in mind I know what the worst that can happen is. The best that can happen is, okay, so you don't know what's around the corner, why don't you make the most of your life? And I think the question asking myself is what's stopping you? And the answer, Aaron, believe it or not, is always me. So when you say, What am I gonna do? What's the best that can happen? How can I make it happen? If it's important, you'll make it happen. But the reality part I think is really important. So it's not just about saying, I'm gonna live forever, or I'm gonna get over this problem, it's not an issue. It's about saying, What is my reality? The reality is, is you know, I could be faced by a shortened life expectancy shorter than I thought it would be. But the reality is I still got time to enjoy because I'm looking in the mirror and I'm feeling good and I'm doing all of the work as in the exercise, the healthy habits. So the reality is, is if you keep doing that, it's gonna work in your favour.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. I was um I I said to somebody in conversation the other day, and they really challenged me on it, which is brilliant. I like I like that. Um, I I want to be a world-class podcast host. I don't really know what that means. And they asked me straight away, have you ever listened to one of your episodes? And it was neither a negative nor positive comment. No, I haven't. So I went back and listened to a couple, and there's there's loads that stick out in my mind, but I went back to listen to one which really enjoyed, and I think I listened to another one. And now this this episode stuck with me because I'm gonna do a speech about it next week about the lessons I learned from this guy who came to talk. His name was Jeremy Evans, he got attacked by a grizzly bear. Um he he got three separate uh three yeah maulings from the same bear and survived. He he crawled 12, 13 kilometres out of the mountain um on the way back. It's pretty horrific to listen to, and it's really emotional for both of us, him more obviously, but I it really impacted me. But my something you talked about there is the reality piece. So I asked him a question along sort of what sort of challenges do you face now, just after the attack? And he said he didn't see them as challenges. Whilst he might not be able to run a four-minute mile now because his leg was obliterated and all the pins that he's got in it, he can ride a four-minute mile on his bike type of thing. It's just uh and like you were saying, just being able to flip that, um yeah, is is a gift. Um, and and part of me feels we don't have to wait to hit that rock bottom, to hit the diagnosis, to for a relationship to break up or or take get attacked by a grizzly bear. I mean, that's why I love these conversations. It sows the seed of possibility for people to apply that to their own life.
SPEAKER_01:And I what I mean, what a great story. I mean, I've not listened to that episode actually, but I think you know, I've made a note now that I'm definitely going to go back and listen to it. I mean, what a what a story to be mauled by a grizzly bear and then be able to tell the story in such a positive way. No, I love that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but but here's the thing, it's it's all of it. He he he jokes, he cries, my daughter walks in during that episode. It all of it happens, it's all life and it's all just as it meant to be. Um, and there's some really important lessons that he draws out, which which I'm gonna talk about another time, but that's that's the conversation for another day. Um, so yeah, I love those, I love those tactics that you've come up with uh uh Phil when you are struggling. Is there any other things that you that you do that you talk about um that you remind yourself of when when you're challenged, when when it feels a bit darker on that day?
SPEAKER_01:The um, I mean, we'll talk about my proof framework shortly, but I think some of those little tactics I've tried to, I mean, I I love an analogy, I love uh, you know, um what what's the um what's the word is it anagram?
SPEAKER_00:Is that the word you're thinking of?
SPEAKER_01:No, it's not anagram, it's um across it's almost like an acrostic, something anyway, it it will come back to me. But I was I remind I was thinking the other day about when you face a problem in life, and and I and I wrote about it, but when you when you face a problem in life, you can either become the battery or the charger. And what I mean by that is if you're the charger, so if you think about a problem, if you just plug yourself in with your thoughts, you're just gonna keep charging the problem. Charge and charge and charge. But if you become the battery and you use the negative force along with the positive force, automatically you're a force to be reckoned with. So I think life isn't about avoiding sadness, not having disappointment, not having those life-changing moments, but it's about saying, if I've got one of those, similar to the story you're telling about the chap with the bear, when I've got one of those moments, what am I learning from it? And how do I make sure that I move very quickly into acceptance, and then I see the reality of what my new life is as a result of that and making the best of that. That's what I think it's all about.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I I get that, but I can also understand how for some people that can seem really quite far away.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:There's a lot, there's a lot there, especially if I'm dealing with this, especially if I have to tell the sad news to my family. That can that can seem like a lot.
SPEAKER_01:You're absolutely right. So we're doing this podcast. If you'd have done this podcast in 2018, we would be having a very difficult conversation or a different conversation, because I would probably still be talking from a lens of emotion because it's still very raw. And I think what you've got to do is you've got to build very short-term goals to hit those long-term aspirations, and I think it's worthwhile breaking that down. So in 2018, if you and I are having a conversation, I'd be like, Jesus Christ, yeah, this is pretty rubbish. What on earth am I gonna do? How do I tell my children that you know they may only have their dad for another few more years? So I think it's a brilliant question. It's not right, you know, you can you can't turn yourself into this superhuman being and pull yourself out of adversity instantly. It's it's just not possible. But there's short and there's long-term aspirations.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love it. And you know what? That's one of the lessons that I drew from Jeremy's conversation. Two broken arms. Uh, he'd been bitten on the head several times. Don't look at the photos, and and his leg had gone as well, as well as multiple bites to his ribs. Um, so rather he told me that to crawl these 13 kilometers is impossible, but he could crawl to that next rock. Yeah, let's see what happens. I can make it to the next tree, two meters away. That's great. I love that, mate. It's so it's yeah, interesting how that, yeah. And I think that's because that's important to me, and you can see here two different stories breaking the impossible down or the unknown to this to the next rock or to the next hour, or for the the smallest step, yeah, something we talk about a lot. Um, you you've mentioned this, and I I have as well your your proof framework. Do you want to just walk us through that and how you came how you came about to make this real for you?
SPEAKER_01:I I'd say I'm really chuffed with myself actually because um I wouldn't necessarily call myself a creative. But I I kind of I talk about the bathroom mirror a lot because the bathroom mirror became my best friend because lots of those conversations that I'd have in preparation for having conversations with other people or just to try and get my own head straight. I I remember a conversation where I'm just like, you know, when you get to that stage where you think, well, what's the point? What is the point of this? I've been given a diagnosis, the oncologist has told me you can't cure it. So basically, good luck and try and live as long as you possibly can. So during my conversation, I'm like, okay, so what's the point? And then I ask myself, I need the proof to live. What is my proof to live? And then um I just came up with this proof framework, which is if I took the word proof, so what's the proof of living? How do I find what's important for each of those letters? So for me, the P of proof starts with purpose. And this has probably been the biggest igniting factor for me, which is when you find out what your purpose is. So if you think about that North Star, so what is the most important thing? Is and you know, there's things like the Yikigai and things like that, which is a Chinese way of trying to find out what your purpose is, but it is ultimately, you know, what do I love doing? What does the world need? What can I get paid for? Um and when you find your purpose and what's important and what you're good at, all of a sudden life becomes really manageable and easier. But the second part of that leads follows on from the purpose because it's all very good to say, right, I now know what I'm good at, I now know what the world needs, and I now know um how to get started. The R part is how you build those resilience pathways because you know, life life isn't always easy. It's not it's not smooth running. So, how do I build those resilience pathways? And that's about how do I, similar to the what's the best that can happen, what's the worst that can happen, and what's my reality, how do I factor in, you know, when I face disappointment, how do I want to react? But also when things are going good, how do I prepare for you know the longevity of what it is that I want to do? Um, the O is about optimistic reality. I talk about that a lot because lots of people say to me, Phil, you're really positive. I am really positive, but I'm I'm also I'm more drawn towards the optimistic reality, which is you know, I know that I'm not gonna live forever because no one is. But the optimism is how do I face into what I'm going through right now? So we talked about acceptance, but how do I make the best of what I've got? And then this is the part that I'm really good at. So, in all of the jobs that I've done over the years, objective setting for me is probably the best thing that's gonna get you from A to B. And quite often, once you hit B, you're planning for C. But objective setting is not just about, and if you go in the corporate world and you say to someone, right, write an objective, they try and write it in a way that they think that their boss or the you know the corporate leaders are gonna read that and say, Wow, this man needs promoting. But the reality is when you write an objective that says, This is what I want to do, and I call it the what method, what do you want to achieve? How do you want to do it? What assistance do you need, and put that time frame on it? So I call that my what method. So when you do that, you automatically have got something to work towards. And then the last one is the F. So the F of proof for me is focus. So how do you really it's so you've worked out what's important right from purpose, right through the reality of where you are, you've set yourself the objectives. If that is all important to you, how do you hit that with focus? So, how do you really turn motivation into discipline? How you build healthy habits? Because once you get that, all of a sudden you start hitting your goals, and life becomes a great place to live.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, love it, love it. There's a there's a lot in there. Um, I I in just in terms of purpose, I can't something that I've been challenged on recently is is finding it. Um and I choose now to rather see that it's something that gets drawn out of us, it's always there. We just don't always see it. Would that be true for you, Phil? Or is that something that you have found?
SPEAKER_01:You you well, I I think you're absolutely right. So if so, an example would be if I rewind five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, I think at those moments in time, if I asked someone or they told me, Phil, what are you good at? What would be your real strength? The common theme would be the same. But what we tend to do is say, okay, well, I know that I'm good at that. And then what we do then is, you know, especially when you work in the corporate world, is people say, Yeah, we know you're good at that. So forget about that, put that to the side. Let's focus on the stuff that you're not very good at. And then all of a sudden, you start focusing on the stuff that you're not very good at, but there's a reason you're not very good at, it's because you don't like doing it. So you kind of forget what you're good at because it's already in the bag. I think the point of purpose is saying, forget about the stuff you're not very good at. Remind yourself of the stuff that you are brilliant at. So, what do people say about you? So, if I think, I mean, you know, I worked in corporate for ages, and what I love doing is if someone said to me, What's your dream? It would be I'm standing on a stage, a room packed full of people, and we're talking about a subject matter, and I'm there to break it down, keep it simple for them, energise, we'll have a bit of a laugh, but they'll leave that session going, Phil Richards is brilliant. He is brilliant on stage, and you know what? I loved listening to him. What people would say to me is like, you know, when we had corporate events, I remember like several bosses in the past saying, we've got this big corporate event, right? We need to uh we need some speakers. Phil, you can't go on because if we've got to follow you, we're all gonna look really rubbish. So rather than use my strength, they'd say, Phil, no, no, no, no, we you can't go on stage, or or maybe you go on the end and just like wrap it all up. And I'm like, and I kind of like accepted it for a bit, but the reality is, is I know I'm good at that, so why not why not focus on it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, love that. Something that it's the it the two episodes I listened to when I was reviewing my podcast, uh, one was uh with a mate of mine called Nick Wadsworth, um, and he talked about purpose and uh as well from his program map map was the listener. You listen to that, and he talks about past pain equals present purpose, and I love that as well. So, yeah, using our struggle. So if so there we go then. So if we don't really know what that means, or once again that seems too far away, or we've got so much going on, we can't see it, or we think it's something to find, then sometimes what we've gone through as a struggle, we've already got the answers, and we never know how that might help somebody one step behind us.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um yeah, love it. Going on to resilience, Phil, what's some of the boring habits, the boring stuff that you do now to help build, sustain, uh, live into resilience?
SPEAKER_01:So the I I tell you what is really helped me is when you work out what's important. So for me, if I work out what that what I want to do is I want to live as long as I possibly can. But there's got to be some factors in there that lifestyle changes that really help me to achieve my goal. So, you know, they're simple things like what I put into my body, so what I eat, the exercise that I do, the sleep that I get, the stress removal. So those four things are really, really important. But they're easy for me to talk about, but they're not necessarily easy to do. Because if you think about, I mean, exercise is a great example for me. So what I do every single morning, and I've done it for the last 470 days consecutively, is I get up at six o'clock in the morning and I'll either go and do cardio work, strength work, or you know, stretching, relaxation. Now, when I wake up at six o'clock in the morning, I can probably say two days out of the seven, I actually feel like you know, getting my ass out of bed and going to do it. The other days, I'm just like Again, going back to my only early um point, what is the point? Why am I doing this? So when you're talking about the resilient stuff, that's when you've got a devil on your shoulder and an angel on your shoulder, and the devil goes, Oh, stay in bed, just relax. You've worked, you've worked out for 450 days. What's what's a day gonna be? But then the angel's like going, You've come so far. How much are you enjoying living? You know, this is the kind of method to your madness. So it's about reminding yourself. So building those resilience pathways is how do I remind myself what's important so in the toughest times I can get myself to do it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, love it. If you were to answer your own question in a sentence, what is the point? What what comes to your to your heart to speak out to the listeners now? What is the point?
SPEAKER_01:What is the point? The point for me is I'm at a stage now where I don't want to stop living. So and the best way that I can describe this, Aaron, is an 11-year-old boy asked me this question last week that has literally stumped me and got me thinking. And he said to me, because I did this talk at this school about the uh what I call my life lessons, the importance of living. And he came up to me afterwards, 11 years old, by the way, and he said, Can I ask you a question? I'm like, Yeah, of course you can. Expecting something about what was it like when you were at school? And he said to me, if you could go back to 2017, sit in front of that doctor, and him say to you, You haven't got cancer, Phil, and then you don't live the way that you've lived since your diagnosis, what would you choose? And I was like, You're 11 years old, boy. But he has you know he has he's not talking to me about disease, he's talking to me about trade-offs. So when you're asking me what's the point, the point for me is I am really living my life at the moment. And it's not that I wasn't before, you know, I was really happy before, before my diagnosis. But uh since my diagnosis, the way that I've cut out the stress in my life, the way that I've looked at the relationships I've got in my life and said, you know, is this a two-way thing or is it a one-way thing? And I've just made some really tough decisions that's going to make me go faster in life. Working for a big organization like Tesco, I had so many connections. Like, you know, people loved me, I loved them, but my network outside of Tesco was probably quite minimal. And I've spent probably the last year and a half building a connection outside of my work, and it has given me so much fulfillment. If you think you and I didn't know each other, and we probably wouldn't have done without my cancer diagnosis, but we've connected on a platform, and now all of a sudden we're having a brilliant conversation. Yeah, that's fulfillment for me.
SPEAKER_00:Love it, love it. Yeah, it talks to that relationships piece for me. Um, yeah, the importance of that, and yeah, what a question from 11-year-old boy making note of that name. That would have brought me to tears, by the way. Just that the potential for yeah, yeah, to to sit in the possibility, not the disease, but just the depth, the depth to that question is is is incredible.
SPEAKER_01:Morgan was his name, 11 years old, and I'm like, unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00:Brilliant, brilliant. One one thing that I'm curious to ask you about, Phil, is yeah, maybe these days people will get to know your name because of your diagnosis. Um, but in the average family setting, when that gets brought up, how would might we as the family support people who give us this bad news without the the the sympathy or the head tilt or the or the yeah, how how might we best support people going through life-changing illness?
SPEAKER_01:See, I I I love this question because I'm I'm involved with lots of um cancer groups and platforms and stuff, and it's really interesting because I like to provoke thought on this, because everyone in the cancer community, once they're diagnosed, they want everyone that hasn't got cancer to open up a conversation and understand what they're going through. But what they tend to do is they tend to limit conversation because they say, you can't call me brave, you can't call me an inspiration, you know, you can't say that I'm battling cancer. And that's okay because that's how they feel. But for me, if we're going to open up a conversation, we've got to expect that people that haven't got cancer are coming from a place that they just don't know. I mean, the amount of times that, you know, certainly when I was first diagnosed, and the amount of people that said, don't need to worry, because you know, my dad was given, you know, a a year to live, and he's like, he's still here like 10 years later, and you know, he takes apricot kernels and he puts kale down his neck, and yeah, do you need to try it? Or by going to it's some everyone's got like a theory or a treatment, and it's like but what I can't do is say, stop talking to me about that because it's not helping. Because what their intention is, is they want to open up the conversation. So my job is not to close it down, and it's the same with my close family and friends. You know, when I when I was first diagnosed, my eldest daughter was at university, and I used to go and drive to see her once a week. We would literally sit in a restaurant having dinner and we'd both be crying. Anyone looking round would be like, what a weird situation, but we'd both be crying. But I looked back at that as a moment in time where we were opening up the conversation. We don't cry about it now, yeah. And I'm sure my girls still think about it, and I'm sure that you know they may talk to their friends or their partners about it, but they're not sad like they used to be in 2017 and 18.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, I know that from my experience with uh a family member uh who suffered whereas my old man had um uh prostate cancer. One of the ways he dealt with it was humour, but I also know that that's like a protection mechanism. Yes, but need because he opened that door, we we happily followed with a lot of banter, um, which I'm not sure was always helpful, but yeah. I I guess it's meeting the person where they're at, yeah, but also being understanding that yeah, we yeah, I get I get that because we want to be helpful, you get all this advice, yeah um, all this maybe unnecessary sympathy rather than empathy. Um, yeah, because it's not it's not the average day conversation, which will probably lead to yeah, being being with your daughter in a restaurant crying, which which is also really, really special as well. I uh as well.
SPEAKER_01:Uh we look back at that with very fond memories. We can laugh about it now, but I mean I mean at the time, I mean my my my roast dinner was soaked.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, brilliant. Bill, um you got given the MBE for your work in in terms of supporting cancer and talking about this. What what what was that moment like for you?
SPEAKER_01:Oh my word. I mean what what an honour. I mean, I you know, when I got this letter through the post from the Prime Minister at the time, which was uh which was Boris Johnson saying, just let you know you've been nominated for an MBE, you cannot talk to anyone about it, you know, otherwise we will withdraw it. Um and then it just gets confirmed, and it was COVID at the time, so it was a bit difficult. But um yeah, I went to Windsor Castle. So the reason I got the MBE was my services to charity and the economy. And the backstory of that was when I was diagnosed, lying in my hospital bed, this nurse came along and she said, I've got two leaflets. One is living with cancer, and one is a local charity called Scannerpeel. Now, there is no way I was gonna look at that leaflet about living with cancer because my brain wasn't ready for it. So I thought, oh, how do I look at this? Maybe I could raise a little bit of money. And um, I looked across the ward and they've got this uh like picture of a tree. And if you raise£5,000 for that charity, you got your name on an apple. So I thought, back to my goal setting. I'm like, I'm gonna get my name on an apple on that tree. And so I set out to raise£5,000, and I think I'm just short of£200,000. So I don't even know how that happened, just from doing endurance events, but I raised a significant amount of money for such a small charity, and then yeah, so that's why I got awarded the MBE. And it was Princess Anne that did the um did the ceremony that day. What a lovely lady. But I was really nervous because there's proper protocol. You know, you have to you know walk up to the door, then you've got to stand with your left shoulder to the the field adjudant or whatever he's whatever he's called, then you've got to march five uh paces to the right, then you've got to turn around, then you've got to bow. Yeah, you you call I think you call allowed to call her uh your royal highness, and then after that you call her mum. I mean it I I was given all this in the briefing and I'm like, I am gonna mess this up.
SPEAKER_00:I bet your bathroom mirror saw some action with those practice in those lines, didn't it?
SPEAKER_01:It it really did. My my bathroom mirror, I'm like, what on earth do I say to royalty? Yeah, she was lovely. She was absolutely lovely.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. Phil, um as as we start to close this conversation out, is there anything that you would like to mention that we've maybe not talked about or touched on today?
SPEAKER_01:Um I think we've had a really do you know what? I've really enjoyed this. Time has flown past, and I think this is a beautiful thing about a podcast, which is how you open up a conversation and take what's predominantly a really sad subject, and we've just had a really good life lessons conversation. So all I would say to anyone that's listening is if you are faced with a situation where things aren't going your way, and you mentioned earlier on it could be something like a relationship breakup, it could be pro problems at work. I think it's just important to know that if you build the right tactics, you can find a way out. But there is a way out, and it's just don't rush the journey, but just plan on the sites that you want to see.
SPEAKER_00:Love it. Awesome. Phil, where where might people be able to find out a bit more about yourself or the work that you do, mate?
SPEAKER_01:So I um I'm very active on the platform LinkedIn. Um, and I say very active, I uh I share life weekly life lessons. So whatever's happened to me in that moment in time, you know, I try and create life lessons and I share that. And I and I encourage a conversation. So Phil Richards MBE on LinkedIn is where I am. Um I'm just in the process of setting up my own website, so that'll be philrichardsmbe.com. Um, so you can um so you can look at that to see my proof framework and and what I offer. Um and that's where I can be found.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. Well, Phil, I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, mate. Uh, highly anticipated as well after a long hot summer here. Um, but it's well worth it. Um, yeah, thanks for the for the work that you do. Thanks for being able to accept this so that others like myself might be able to learn from it, mate. It's been a pleasure to to spend some time with you.
SPEAKER_01:It's been a real treat, and I just keep doing what you're doing. I know you said that yeah, I'm just gonna set this out to do a hundred episodes, but what I really like about what you're doing is you're opening up the conversation about resilience. What you're also doing is you're saying, how do we learn from each individual and then build that into something where people can use it as their own framework? So just keep doing it, Aaron. I love it.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you very much. Very kind. Cheers, Phil.
SPEAKER_01:Cheers, Aaron.