Transformation and Tenacity: How Jen Hardy Embraced Life's Sweet and Salty Aspects to Become Fabulous

Hello, good people, and welcome to cancer and comedy. This is the podcast where we'd like to offer people a dose to help them to cope with cancer and other bad things in their life with hope and humor. We love to do that by talking to people who embody this vibe that we have of that your life's not over with just when something bad happens to you. Her name is Jen Hardy, from Jen hardy.net she is, among other things, the fabulous over 50 podcast and basically a media empire with all kinds of things going on. But she and moreover than that, she's my friend, and we've got to know each other over a pod Fest and some other events that we've been involved with. She is fabulous in every way. Jen, welcome to our welcome to our conversation here today.

Well, brought I am honored to be here. I really am, and I so love everything that you're doing. So, thank you for letting me be here today.

Well, you are an amazing person, and I've heard you speak on several occasions. I've been all over your website, and you have some really cool things. And one of the things that brightens me up about you is seeing your smile. It just delights in every way I can see it now and I share it with our audio audience that just happens there. So just tell me, Jen, what's something that's put a smile on your face here recently, what's brightened up your life here recently,

I tell you what, Brad, every day that I can stand up and walk puts a smile on my face. You know, I think people, you know, there's a lot of big things that have happened a lot in the last 12 months. But I think, honestly, every day that I get up and I'm here and I can do that and be with my family, it is the greatest thing in the world.

Well, let's, let's go with that then, because there's a reason that you say that, because not too many years ago, you had a pretty, pretty crisis moment in your health, and that led you to make some changes in life. So, let's just, I'll let you tell the story. But if you can pack that, you were cruising along very okay in your life. Then 2018 rolled around. So, let's, let's go there.

Well, we're gonna go back a little bit further to 2013 because I fell down the stairs twice. And you know, that's not normal, and I didn't want to go in for a scan. My husband, they thought he had cancer, so we were waiting for his surgery, and I said, you know, I don't have time. I'm taking care of him, yada yada. And my sister-in-law says, no, you gotta go, go do a scan. I'm missing most of the muscles. This is back in 2013 on the outside of my back. So they decide maybe we should look into that. Hmm, wow. It Long story short, I walked into the doctor. He saw a drooping eye. He forgot about my back muscles. He said, you’ve got myasthenia gravis, which I did, after many painful tests that are like medieval torture. We don't have to talk about anyway, I was treated for that, but because they overlooked the muscle thing which happened to me, muscular dystrophy, they gave me some muscles to or medicine to relax, which caused me to end up in the ICU. Oh, my goodness, it is not a good place to go, but you are conscious? Can I tell you? Anyway? So I rolled this roller coaster of not being well, not being diagnosed properly or completely, until 2018 then they realized I have myasthenia gravis and muscular dystrophy, which is very rare to have them both, and I was in and out of a wheelchair, and using a walker and a cane, at that point, really struggling, and my doctor told me, You know what, I'm gonna just make you comfortable. You've got about a year to live. My pulmonologist told me that my diaphragm was working at 20% because of the muscle issues, and that I would be having a permanent trach with a oh, I can never think of the word Brad. What is the world that reads for you?

The ventilator? Mania.

Yes, I sleep with a BiPAP, which is a noninvasive ventilator, every night. But they were going to do the trach with the ventilator, and they said, don't worry about it. You walk around with it. It's no big deal. And I thought, well, you know, to me, it is and, and to the people who live with one more power to I, I have so much respect for that, but I was not ready. I had two young children and seven or five older children. We have seven altogether, and I thought, I don't want this, but also, if I'm going to go because, you know, I had had four years to think about the fact that I was progressing. I want my family to be happy and secure and whatever, which is hard for young children, so I moved us to an island, and it was my fantasy. Now, we don't live on a mansion on the beach. We live in a modest home three blocks from the beach, but tell you what, Brad, it changed my life because that salt air and the stress let it was less stress, not stress-free living, because we're still, you know, living in the world, sure, but I don't know it did something. And it is beyond 2019 it is 2025, As you said, and I am still here and walking without a cane or a walker at this point.

And you're not only doing all that, you're doing great. I was with you in person, and you were energized. You were vibrant. You were walking everywhere. You're not a wheelchair. You're, you're, you're a vibrant, alive person in every way possible. You, you rock the glitter as a part of your look and that vibe, but it's more your energy that comes from within, that that is definitely there. And so it seems to me, the bold move that you made was not only the physical move to go to the island paradise, but it was kind of some inner work that you did and some changes that you made in your psyche, and your mindset and things of that of that nature that gave you hope. Is that fair to say?

It is fair to say my podcast used to be for moms with chronic illness, and I've done a deep dive on chronic illness, and I have multiple illnesses that normally don't live together, and I've really there's a book called The Body Keeps the Score that I would recommend for people listening. There's a lot of research that talks about abuse, early abuse and health leader, I think that applies to a lot of different things, not only because your body's taking a beating one way or the other, but because mentally, we are taught to be victims. And I think, you know, and we lose our ability, you know, when you're fighting so hard mentally, I think sometimes you lose the ability to fight physically. And so, I've done some serious work to get beyond some of the things that had happened when I was younger, and not live in that anymore, and not live in that victim mentality that I was taught to live in. And I have decided that I'm not going to be that guy anymore, and I'm going to be in control now. Can I control my health? No, is it progressing? My diseases are progressing. That's just the nature of them. And I don't think it's fair to say if you have the proper mindset, you're never going to get sick, because unfortunately, none of us are making it out of here alive.

For sure.

I think it can help us while we're here, but it should you. It helps you to choose how, how to cope with it, how to deal with it. Then, is it kind of what I I think it's part of what we're saying here.

You decided to not go down a spiral of Demise and doom and gloom and like and just give up and say, the heck with it. You chose to be vibrant and alive here to the very end. And so, like we like to say here on our podcast, you have the grim of cancer or other bad things happen to you, and you can have the grit of a full and fulfilled life and so but then we make the choice of how, how we do that. And it sounded like you not only did us, but you dove in full speed here. Jen, I mean, you are doing all kinds of stuff. You have, you know, you've got books, you've written books, you've got retreats, you've got podcasts, YouTube, courses and things like that. And, wow, that's amazing, but it seems like a big theme that goes through all of those now for you is that you're gonna kind of smile and laugh through it no matter what, and maybe, maybe a grin and Barrett attitude, perhaps, but that's what you're doing. So, help me understand how that attitude not only helps you, but maybe help others around you.

Well, you know the biggest impact to me was I, you know, for a long time I didn't want to tell my story, and finally, you know, I told it, but then I stopped telling it, when I when I rebranded, and I fabulous over 50, and I stopped talking about being sick all the time, and all these great things started happening. But then I felt like I was just bragging, like it. Didn't want to brag, but I wanted to share, but I needed people to understand the perspective that I was coming from, that I shouldn't be here. So, every good thing that happens, it's a miracle, everything, you know, and although isn't everybody's everyday a miracle. But anyway, and so I told the story again, of you know what happened? And I had someone tell me that they were on the verge of suicide. And they listened to my story, and they said, if you can get through that and be where you are today, I had hope, and I thought, oh my gosh, you know, and not to that level of Inspire. That was never my goal of inspiring people to that level, but if I can just get one person to realize, if I stop thinking about being sick all the time, I stop talking about being sick all the time, it doesn't take away the validation that you're not well, right? But focus on the positive and every day, set a goal. It can be that you make your bed around yourself if you cannot get out of bed, right? I mean, it can be that you clean up your nightstand and make a pretty place if you cannot get out of bed, but one every day, have one thing that you do. And Brad, I, I set one goal last year, and I it was to make my podcast top 1% and I didn't make that goal. It. Top 2.5 but there were so many things.

I know how hard it is to get to that point, but my goodness, way to go.

Yeah, God, yeah, well, and it's funny. I mean, it sounds ridiculous, because only you know it's silly, but I think you know we need to give ourselves permission to think big, yeah, and, you know, and, and set big goals, you know, I decided to write a book last year, and I messaged a bunch of my friends, and I said, I'm writing a book, and I'm going to publish it in two weeks, if you have two days to give me a submission, and every and I said, it's going to be best seller, so you'll be contributing to a bestselling book. And everyone said, You're insane. There's no way you're going to do this. But Brad, let me tell you what I did it, and it stayed at number one of new release in podcasting, a website in webcasting for 30 days.

Well, we'll get to the links later on, but go and tell us the title that book, just so people know about people know about it.

It's uncensored YouTube hacks. There's a long subtitle, but that's it, but, but the point isn't like, oh, look at me, like, I can do the thing. The point is you can do it if you know, whoever's listening, whatever your goal is, you know, even if you're in the throes of treatment and all you know, you may not be able to write a book in two weeks right now, but what, what do you want? You know, yeah, think about what you want and set a goal. It just it.

Seemed like your world was rocked, yeah, originally by the prognosis, and I noticed you got some things earlier in your life, growing up, and all that kind of thing, which rock your world, but now you've had some other things rock your world in the positive way. When someone says something, you've said has helped me from taking my own life. That rocks your world in the positive way. When you say you're able to write a book in two weeks, rocks your world in a positive way. And that thinking bigger thing just helps you to expand your impact on this world. And my goodness, we are called upon to make an impact, to make an impression on others, and that's the intimate moments, but that's also the kind of the micro and the macro moments. And one of the things I think is cool is, it seems to me, from what I can observe as you've also kind of done that in your marriage and your family as well. You've got those intimate moments as well as those kind of, those big, big moments I know you, somewhere in the materials I write about you, you let the talk about some Intimate Moments with your kids around your bedside, for instance, and you were able to find some joy and some humor in that. Are you able to kind of have this sensibility of these intimate moments, in these big moments?

Yes, can I talk about that for a minute?

I want you to, I think, because I think I want you to.

You know, when I was very, I was very ill, there was four months’ time when I was getting diagnosed. I was back in 2014 we had seven kids, a two and a four-year-old, and all teenagers. If you can imagine why I was bedridden completely. We had converted our garage to a bedroom. There were five steps to get to the rest of the house, and I couldn't navigate them, so I was stuck in one room. So, we brought camp chairs and we put them in the room, all around the bed. And so, when my kid’s friends would come over, they would come hang out with me because I couldn't go anywhere. And at first their friends would walk in and they'd be like, this is so bizarre, because a lot of parents don't even let their children in their bedroom, let alone encourage people to be in the room while they're in bed. But those were some of the best times of my life, because they were those intimate moments. We were talking, we were, you know, just being present. And that's one thing that being sick did for me, is that it made me stop everything else. No more running to soccer, no more running everywhere and being so busy, I had to think about my life and what I wanted. And it really was a beautiful time.

So, it seemed to me, you were kind of making a bit of a transition from Super mom to your super mom. You know you are here with us, and you're present, and that's good. I also love another turn of phrase that you've used that I don't hear too often, at least in this context, that you've used here. Jenna, some of the stuff we've talked about here, and you talk about having a sweet and salty aspects of life. I love that. I love that. So, tell share with me and our audience what you mean by having sweet and salty aspects of life, of joy, humor, other things going on. Tell me about that.

You know, there's an old proverb that says you cannot enjoy the sweet unless you taste the salty. And so, you know, if we only ate candy all day, it would not taste good. And it's how it is in life, right? When the beautiful things happen and the impactful, wonderful, loving things, if that's all we had, I don't think we'd appreciate it. And so, we've learned, we've had a lot of bad things happen, Brad, and we've just learned that that is part of life. And. And what I've done is tried to find the lesson. And you know, one of my sons said, how come Why do we have so many bad things happen? We just, Oh, my goodness. I used to tell my children that Murphy's Law was named after our family because it's that bad. But do you know how many people I can help now because I am in the position I'm in, and I'm meeting all kinds of people, but I have been where they are, and I know how to get out of where they are, and I know how to talk to them where they are because I lived it, or I'm still living it, and I'm just not showcasing that side, but it's if we look at it in what is the lesson for me and what is the lesson I can share with others? It puts a whole different perspective on those things when they happen.

Well, that's awesome. When you already mentioned about the story about the one person who was suicide ideation, but I got a feeling that there's another story there, but kind of along this line about somebody who you've impacted, tell me about a person that you've impacted who's reached out to you and said, Jen, thank you for sharing this story or this aspect of your life, either in person or online or something like that. There's got to be someone who's been struggling with life, who you've been helpful to.

Can I share an opposite story that has a lesson?

I'm wide open.

So, before all of this, before 2014 we used to live in this gorgeous house in Tennessee on five acres on a hill, five bedrooms. It was just, you know, beautiful. And I did not ever share that anything negative was happening. My life just looked perfect, and it looked wonderful. And there was a woman at our church, and she was struggling, struggling so hard with something that I was had been going through. And I said, hey, let's go get a coffee. Let's go sit down and talk about it. And she said, Jen, I am not going to sit down with you, because your life is perfect and there's no possibility.

Oh, my goodness, okay.

And I think that was a turning point for me in that, okay, this is not real. What I'm presenting is not real. I didn't realize how unreal it was. And that was the time where I decided, you know, and I think I tend to overshare. I mean, you were at my comedy thing where I shared a lot, but I've decided I'd rather overshare than be the guy that has the perfect life that everyone thinks is perfect,

Right.

When, and I and I'm unable to help them, because I'm so unreachable, I don't think that's right.

So, you had that the where your whatever image you were putting out there was not genuine. The authenticity wasn't there, at least to her, at least to her, right? And so it seems to me, you've really made a point then being authentic and genuine and real, even to the point of oversharing, perhaps. And there may be some times when some people have pushed back on that. Maybe people, from time to time, feel uncomfortable with your persona, perhaps, or your success. So, what do you do with that? Now, when people It sounds like she, she, she pushed a button with you 10 years ago, whenever it was and also people push back. Now that you've come through a lot of stuff here, how you handling it? Now when people push back,

Well, if they think I share too much, they don't have to listen. Basically, the bottom line.

There you go. There you go. Well, it's not always that the case for you. I know. I know, for instance, you've shared how, let's just kind of move into some of your media empire. Here a little bit that you were at a YouTube channel that just kind of was puttering along, not doing much for a long, long, long time, and then you made some changes, and it kind of blew up. But my point about this is you are not really a success in that era for a long time, and then it blew up. So, tell me a little bit about that process, how you went through that psychologically, what you did there, and how that might be helpful advice to others to keep going until the point of you can hit that inflection point to go to a better place.

Yeah, this is such a good lesson in tenacity. I had a YouTube channel for eight years, and when I was trying to help moms with chronic illness, I did a series, 30 episodes in 30 days while I wasn't feeling well, they were 30-minute episodes, and I worked 14 hours a day for 30 days in a row. And Brad by the end of that, and the eight years, I had 127 views and 38 subscribers. Oh, my goodness. So, I kind of let it go, and I thought, okay, YouTube doesn't like me. Oh, you know. And as podcasters say, I have a face for radio. No one wants to see some woman over 50, I'm not going to be out there. I podcasting is fine. But then everyone kept saying, you know, you have to put your podcasts on YouTube. You have to. And I thought, okay, I'll try it. So, if I'm gonna put one episode, I've always wanted to do shower thoughts from the shower dressed. I will say it first. But I stand in the shower with the shower nozzle and I say things like, why do we drive in a parkway and park on a drive? About those things, yeah, and I batched them out one to 200 at a time, and I so I put them up three to four a day, along with one interview within three weeks, I was monetized. A month later, I had a quarter of a million views. And usually, it takes 100,000 subscribers to get a partner manager with YouTube, and I only had 2500 subscribers, so they saw something in that channel that they thought was good. And now that was April 4 that I started. Now it's the beginning of January, end of January, and I have, I will have 60,000 subscribers this, and almost 3 million views.

So, it just shows you, you persisted, but you did. You made some adjustments to your life or to your YouTube channel. And I think that's a lesson that we can live with, and can be fade to people. Just keep at it. Keep at it. Keep at adjust, tweak. You don't need to stay the same. You can do other things as well, and to do that.

So, there's one other thing though, sure, is that I I had an idea that I thought was brilliant, and everyone else said it was stupid. And so I would say, if you've got an idea that you think is brilliant, try it, even if people think it's dumb, because people thought me standing in the shower was the dumb thing they'd ever heard. And it turns out, not everybody thought so.

T the tune of 60 million or whatever you just said a minute ago. That is awesome. That is awesome.

Speaker 1 21:32

I think you have an interesting history here and an interesting life in that you've been able to put some cast a vision and then go after the vision, and then to certain degrees, realize the vision, and still keep casting out more vision. And there's a part of that I think is a cool vision. I've known that you've laid out is a scene where you and your daughter are on paddle boards, watching dolphins and having some fun. And the you live kind of near where the Cape Canaveral, where they shoot off rockets, which I'm a space, both myself, I'm jealous of that alone and that, I think you call that, you know, kind of some magical paradise moments, regardless of circumstances. Here's my question for you regarding this, you want you to cast a vision you went after it had your paradise moments. Is there any lessons that you can teach to people who are having kind of a rough time about how they can seek their own paradise moments, in whatever circumstances they find themselves in, that they can do that too, have their own swim with a dolphins moment, or whatever it would be.

You know, I think you know, dream big and take small steps to get there. So, you know, before, before I ever thought I could live on an island, I mean, because that's kind of a fantasy thing, right? We were living, I wasn't feeling well, and I thought, okay, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to decorate my room like an island room, right? This is 10 years ago, and so I got the, we got a and not new, you know, like a Craigslist kind of a thing. We got a canopy bed, and I got the netting, you know, like you see on islands, oh yeah, canopy. And it went around the signs, so you felt like, Ooh, you know, you're living there. And I got new curtains and a new bedspread. And it was not a large financial setback. But to me, when I was because I was in bed, you know, 20 hours a day, I could feel like I was where I wanted to be, you know. And then I slowly brought in some pictures and a little rug, and where I was my fantasy place. And so I think, you know, we can do things like that, to make our space feel like where we want to be and really envision it, you know, by the candle of the ocean and you know, or whatever it is, if your thing is mountains or whatever, whatever it is, put yourself in that space, even if you can't physically get up and move yourself to that space, so that you feel comfortable and happy, and you wake up and look around and see the things you've always wanted to see. Maybe it's a picture on the wall that brings you there, but I think, you know, we can start little and then keep growing.

Starts for the mind and the vision, and you go, go from there. Just a couple other questions here for you, Jen, you are also a stand-up comedian. I mean, you have, if you have all kinds of things going on, women's retreats, all kinds of good stuff going on that is just awesome. But is just tell speak to a role of just having kind of a joyful countenance, or laughter, anything along that line, telling jokes, or hearing jokes, or anything along that line, that can speak to kind of a healing mindset over a growing or hopeful mindset. Can you speak to that from your kind of your perspective as a comedian or someone who sees joy in life?

You know, it's interesting. When I was a little girl, little like preschool, my mom had a friend. She. Named Sally. And Sally used to visit cancer patients and tell jokes because they had tested it and realized it was healing, and I filed that back in my little mind. And about the time I got sick, I thought, oh my gosh, there was this thing about humor and healing. I also have a horrible resting witch face. Brad, it's bad.

Oh, I don't buy that. No, ready? I will show you. Okay. Oh, well, okay, okay, I see it.

That's my face when I'm not doing anything actively. My face is horrible, and so the comedy healing combined with I have to actively not look like I hate everyone, yeah. So, I work on smiling, which sounds silly, but you know when you when? And I try, oh, goodness. And this is something that I do help people with. Is dear goodness. If you're not smiling, people are not going to smile at you. And so, people go out and they're like, people are so mean, everyone's a jerk. Well, but have you looked at your own face? Though? Look at your face. Put a smile on, and then go up. But seconds we when I was very sick, I played comedy. There's a thing called dry bar comedy. Yeah, they don't allow swearing or drugs or alcohol, things which I can listen to with the kids. And I don't prefer this wearing anyway, but we would listen to dry bar. I mean, there was, like eight years. We just stopped about a year ago, because I don't know, I forgot, honestly, but constantly play it and laugh, and it helps. It really does. It releases those endorphins. And even if you're in treatment and on in pain and nauseous, you know, when you're listening to funny things, a little part of you inside will get tickled, and it does make you feel better.

And I think it's important. And humor helps. So, humor helps, and other things help. I know you, you kind of have the, you know, the glitter persona, that kind of thing, which is cool. It just, it just made that I'm going to do this because I'm me, right, and that kind of stuff, and that that's awesome, and that is as part of, part of what we kind of a wrapping this up, or bring us to a landing, so to speak. You are a person who I see as a physical person. When I see you, you're kind of a whirling dervish a force. And I know you have your moments and you got to go crash. I get that. I get that. But in the public, at least wins. I've seen you. You've been really active. But I was wondering if you could kind of put in mind who Jen Hardy is in terms of a choreographed dance or a song or some show or something like that, that kind of come, you know, exhibits, kind of overcoming the overcoming the adversity and embracing the joy. Is there a song or something like this that kind of embodies that?

There is my song is Unstoppable by Sia absolutely beginning to end, because it talks in the beginning about how, like, I know how to put a smile on my face and make you all think that everything's fine, and basically work it to get to where I want to go. And then she is unstoppable. She's a Porsche with no breaks. She doesn't need batteries to play. And it is, it is, I play it when I'm down, I play it when I'm getting ready, and I play it behind all of my things that I can on Instagram, because it's, it's one of those, you know, see it and be it kind of things. There are days Brett, I don't feel unstoppable, and that is when the beginning of the song is more like me. And there are days when things don't go my way, but I am determined that every day that I am here, I am going to do something. And, yeah, that's all. That's my song.

That's awesome. My song is your life is now. By John Mellencamp, so that's what I used to get myself going, yeah. Well, thank you for being with us, Jen. You are a force of nature, my friend. Tell us. Tell our our folks here how they can get somehow in your universe, understand a little bit about the media empire, which is Jen Hardy, tell people how people can get connected with you.

jenhardy.net that's it. Everything's right there, so you can find it all in one spot. Made it totally easy,

And I encourage you to go there and check it out. There's a lot of a lot of good stuff there. Jen hardy.net we'll put links to that at our show notes at cancer and comedy.com. Jen Hardy, thank you for being our guest today on Cancer and Comedy.