🎙️🎧🔥 "Get Real" with Jim Weiss: 🔥🎧🎙️
Most people think I just fell out of a cancer chair in 1996 and started yelling at the healthcare system. Close, but I had a prior career to Stupid Cancer after the whole piano thing went up in smoke.
Long before I launched Stupid Cancer, before Out of Patients, before The Cancer Mavericks, and before I became the guy shouting about pink blenders, nonprofit CEO salaries, and building the AYA movement, I spent a decade in the agency world: graphic design, brand planning, branding, IT, and Cromagnon digital content pre and post-Y2K. (eTrade Baby, anyone?)
Also, anyone remember "new media?
I speak the language with a Spidey sense for bureaucracy. And when you find a shop that still runs on guts, weirdos, and actual vision instead of pitch decks and posturing, you pay attention.
Enter: Jim Weiss.
He built Real Chemistry from scratch—a company with a pulse. Jim's a legacy entrepreneur, an investor, and one of the few leaders in this corridor of healthcare who somehow still shows up and gives a damn
So when he asked me to come on Get Real, I didn't show up with a script. I showed up to throw down.
We got into what's unfixable, why we're still letting algorithms gaslight oncologists, why faxes still exist at all, and what consumer-driven cancer care could look like if this country had the spine to rebuild it. And, just for fun, we also ranted and raved about why cancer's still treated like a marketing vertical, why empathy is the most endangered species in healthcare comms, and what it means to lose your purpose.
But wait! There's more! We talked cancer, grief, bad ads, worse policies, and the industrial circus still pretending to serve patients.
(I'm almost done – I promise)
We swapped stories about losing people and losing faith in a system that rewards burnout and bankrupts the sick. Jim opened up about his wife's cancer. I opened up about everything that came after mine.
Somewhere toward the end, I might've leaked something big. Not officially. Just a breadcrumb. A hint at what I'm onto for my next act. If you catch it, you'll know. Then DM me if you're curious. #WeThePatients
This episode brought me full circle. From agency life to advocacy and back again. TY, Jim, for the honor of sharing the mic. Let's do it again real soon.
LINKS TO WATCH AND LISTEN
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