Chelsea Berler is a successful entrepreneur, and author and an inspiration for many people. Tragically, she is also dying from breast cancer at the age of 34, but you won't hear Chelsea describe what she's going through as a tragedy nor is she a victim. Listen and please share this episode with others who need to hear it.   Note: A Life and Death Conversation is produced for the ear. The optimal experience will come from listening to it. We provide the transcript as a way to easily navigate to a particular section and for those who would like to follow along using the text. We strongly encourage you to listen to the audio which allows you to hear the full emotional impact of the show. A combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers generates transcripts which may contain errors. The corresponding audio should be checked before quoting in print. Contact Learn more about Chelsea's nonprofit organization, The Foye Belle Foundation, by watching the video below and visiting her website:  Foyebelle website Transcript

Dr. Bob: Chelsea Berler is a friend, a successful entrepreneur, and author and an inspiration for many people. Tragically, she is also dying from breast cancer at the age of 34, but you won't hear Chelsea describe what she's going through as a tragedy and she certainly isn't a victim.

Dr. Bob: She has an amazing perspective on life and on death, which she shares with me during this interview. Anyone dealing with life challenges or has a loved one who is will certainly benefit from listening to Chelsea's heartfelt and loving words. As well as from the book that she recently published 'The Yellow House on the Left'. Listen in.

Dr. Bob: Looking at your picture, your Skype profile and it looks exactly like you, but I'm assuming that that's ... I wouldn't see all that flowing blonde hair.

Chelsea Berler: I look very different right now, I'd probably look like a teenager going through puberty because I am on some massive steroids and I'm getting hair where I haven't had hair before, and of course my hair's starting to grow back from the chemo. So I'm looking mighty, mighty different these days.

Dr. Bob: Yeah. Well, I imagine that that's just one of the many lessons, right?

Chelsea Berler: Absolutely.

Dr. Bob: To learn humility not get too attached to certain appearances.

Chelsea Berler: You're right.

Dr. Bob: Well Chelsea, thanks for reaching out. I mean we're having this conversation because you had reached out to me recently just to touch base and honestly, I didn't know that you were dealing with any of this. That was a big surprise to learn that you were on this journey and I appreciate it in the thing that stuck out what your phrase that you wrote was, I would love to see you do more with people that are directly in the path of your work.

Dr. Bob: Would you be willing to share a little bit about what that means to you? What's your thinking around wanting to connect with people who are directly in the path? What does that look like?

Chelsea Berler: You know, it was so interesting how it kind of came to be is, of course, we've been connected for years and had worked together in some capacity or the next, and we play in the same circle of really great people. You were on my mind the other day because I was ... One thing I've been spending a lot of time doing is listening to podcasts and one of the biggest reasons is, is because of my current state, I have this ringing in my ears pretty consistently.

Chelsea Berler: What helps is listening to something or listening to music or things of that sort, I was actually on the podcast app and just trying to search for a podcast that was inspirational, podcast about death and dying and all that. And I thought, "Oh, Bob has one." I went and looked up, and I started listening to all men. I really enjoyed them, and then I got to thinking, you know, it'd be so great to listen into other people's stories that are going through death and dying.

Chelsea Berler: I'm assuming, in some situations people often aren't in the mood to be sharing any stories or feeling good enough to do that, oh who knows, young or old. But I thought maybe there was, and maybe there was an opportunity for you to be able to add some of those stories, and I thought, oh, I would also love to share mine just because it's rather unique to in hopes that it will also help someone else that may be in that same situation looking for a podcast or trying to find something like that, that kind of helps them with the process as well. So that's kind of how I came to reach out and be like, "Hey, Bob!"

Dr. Bob: I'm so glad that you did and I'm so glad that you were open and that you're feeling up to doing it, I know that it's kind of day by day in terms of how that goes and so thank you. I spent a little time over the last couple of days reading some of your posts and the articles that you have on Huffington Post and just kind of getting more familiar with your journey.

Dr. Bob: So first of all, you're an amazing writer and I knew that before but I'm seeing a different style, and it's a different theme of course but your ability to express yourself and the pain of it, the wonder of it, all of it, just the full catastrophe in the middle of the night. So I appreciate that you're willing to share and I know that there are people who are benefiting from that, everything that you've put out there.

Dr. Bob: A lot of people just kind of shrink into their own world and don't want to contribute it anymore. Thank you for being somebody who's not doing that, who's continuing to shine your light out in the world despite the challenges that you're dealing with daily.

Chelsea Berler: Yeah, and something to piggyback off that and I know that we'll get into this story a bit, but I actually decided right when I found out I have been writing and so I have another book with that, it's going to be done this week, I'm having helped from a writer that actually helped me write my last one, and it's basically on death and dying. So in all the right ways and it was mostly because I had these Huffington Post articles that I never in a million years thought I would be dying from this cancer. We all were focusing on a cure, which was very much the what was going to happen.

Chelsea Berler: Since that didn't we pulled together these Huffington Post articles and wrote, she's been helping write this next book that will be out soon too, and I think that it'll be a really great contributor. It's going to be called 'The Yellow House on the Left,' so that'll be fun too. So I'll keep you posted on that.

Dr. Bob: When do you anticipate that it'll be available?

Chelsea Berler: I think that it'll go to print end of next week and then it'll be about two weeks until we can get that in our hands. We've been rocking and rolling on that, and I think it was just one of those things where I thought, it now is time to put all of these things into writing because I do think that there will be people that would be helped by these stories and my story and I wanted to get it out as quickly as I could, but I was like, "Gosh, could I actually make this happen?" Because day-to-day my challenges get worse for sure and so I think we'll make it.

Dr. Bob: Awesome. I can't wait in that, and I'm looking forward to seeing it and reading it, and of course trying to spread it, spread it out to those who will benefit from it.

Chelsea Berler: Thank you.

Dr. Bob: Why don't you tell listeners what's going on, what do you, what are you dealing with day-to-day right now?

Chelsea Berler: I turned 33 last year in March and my husband at that time was traveling every week to Europe for work, so he would spend basically Monday through Friday in London and Paris for work and then he comes home every week. That's been our life forever, he travels during the week, and we see each other on the weekends, and it's been lovely, that's the life that we love to live.

Chelsea Berler: He was traveling a lot, and so we decided I'd love to take a big trip and go to Europe, and in lieu of him having to come home for a couple of weeks and kind of see his life there, following him around, enjoy some time in Europe because I had never been, and so we were really excited about that.

Chelsea Berler: So came May, I flew over there, and I had the best trip of my life, it was truly so much fun. It was great to just see not only how busy, and crazy his life and lifestyle was over there–like the guy is like the energizer bunny–but it was just fun to just immerse yourself in another country for a while, and so we did that. That wa