ISI Brotherhood Podcast

Building Resilience: Terry Healey’s REBAR Journey from Cancer to Purpose

• Aaron Walker • Season 2 • Episode 21

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A bump behind the right nostril turned a college junior’s easy street into a fight for life—and identity. Terry Healey doesn’t just recount a rare sarcoma and radical facial surgery; he walks us through the inner reconstruction that followed, where faith, gratitude, and a bracing dose of truth forged a resilience deeper than scars. We explore the moments that mattered: a surgeon who gave hope on both sides of the ordeal, a family that showed up every day, and a girlfriend who named the real wound—insecurity—so healing could finally aim at the right target.

From there, we build out Terry’s REBAR framework—Reflect, Build, Act, Renew—the same playbook he now teaches leaders, teams, and anyone navigating hardship. Reflect is the five-to-ten-minute practice that turns days into data: gratitude lists, lessons learned, inspiration you’ll apply tomorrow. Build is mindset and support systems, from growth-oriented habits to communities that tell the hard truth. Act is execution with specificity and flexibility, translating clarity into commitments and small wins that compound. Renew is where we celebrate progress, name the traits forged in adversity, and lock in principles so the next storm finds us stronger.

We also get practical. Terry shares the gratitude exercises that stabilized him, why positivity is a choice and not denial, and how to take control when you can’t control the diagnosis. His new book, The Resilience Mindset, packages REBAR into a workbook you can use immediately, whether you’re facing health challenges, business setbacks, or a season of doubt. The throughline is simple and demanding: resilience is built, not given. When we reflect with honesty, build with intention, act with courage, and renew with purpose, adversity becomes a teacher—not a tyrant.

If this conversation sparked something in you, subscribe, share it with someone who needs hope today, and leave a review. Your support helps more people find the tools to turn pain into purpose.


SPEAKER_00:

Discover the brotherhood that sharpens you the ISI community is free for 30 days. Join now at isibrotherhood.com forward slash community. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Iron Sharpens Iron Brotherhood Podcast. We couldn't be more excited today. We've got my friend Terry Healy. Terry is a cancer survivor. He's a keynote speaker and he's an author whose life changed forever when he was 21 years old. He faced a life-threatening sarcoma that left him with a permanent facial difference. Instead of being uh willing to let the adversity define him, Terry built a thriving 35-year career in marketing and sales. He became a sought-after speaker, and he now teaches others how to overcome obstacles with resilience. His upcoming book, The Resilience Mindset, outlines his four-part rebar framework, which stands for reflect, build, act, and renew. And it helps leaders and teams and individuals turn that adversity into growth, confidence, and purpose in their life. Terry, welcome to the ISI Brotherhood Podcast, man. How you been? Aaron, great. Thanks for having me. I've been great. How about you? Well, I'm doing good. I was so excited. Uh my business partner, Derek Champagne, introduced us, and you were on his podcast. And he called me immediately and he said, Big A, you got to have Terry on your podcast. And I said, Who's Terry? Tell me more about him. And he started telling me about your journey and not even coming from you, but coming from him. It was so inspirational. And it falls right in line with helping the mindset of our audience really overcoming these obstacles and having a great sense of resilience. And so I know I gave a brief introduction. I probably didn't do you justice, but give us a little more backstory about your family, about you, uh where you call home. And uh let's let's get into this interview.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So I uh I'm married, I've been married 31 years. Um my wife is is somebody that really helped shape who I am over the years and was a great support system, obviously, but she also keeps me honest, right? I I come from Santa Cruz, California, and uh spend a lot of time in Bend, Oregon. So I'm a West Coast guy.

SPEAKER_00:

That's okay. We got both coasts covered, right? I'm in Nashville on most of the East Coast, so you and I are bookends. We've got the whole U.S. covered. And so that's good. 31 years, man. Congratulations. You don't see many folks married 31 years anymore. And so that's uh quite an accomplishment. So way to go. You keep them straight out there in California, okay? Don't let them get away with anything uh little shaky. Listen, Terry, I want you to take us back to that pivotal moment in your early 20s and tell us about what it was that you were faced, and let's dive into how you dealt with that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, thanks, Aaron. So when I was a junior at UC Berkeley, I was really, I like to say, living life on easy street. Everything was going great. And then out of nowhere, I had this bump form behind my right nostril. Um initially, we found it difficult to get a diagnosis. I was blessed that we got a diagnosis. It it took about eight weeks. But with that diagnosis, they said, hey, we caught this thing early, we just need to go do some surgery, and we think that's all the treatment you're gonna need. But know that this is a very aggressive form of cancer, and if it recurs, that might be a different story. So six months later it did recur, and so that's when my life changed uh very radically from somebody that was confident and uh living life on easy streets to suddenly you know taking a big detour and not so sure where I was gonna land.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, can you take us back? You're 20 years old, so you're in the prime, right? You're out of school and you're ready to tackle the world and you're out. Was this caused by like the sun, or do they know what caused that? Or have they made that determination?

SPEAKER_01:

No, it was actually in my right maxillary area, so behind my nose, the tumor was growing. I was just lucky, Aaron, that it was pushing against my nostril, which which was causing my nostril to flare. Because uh, if it had grown the other direction, right, it would have been a really terrible thing because I would have never gotten uh, I never really would have been aware of it until much later. So uh it's a really rare type of typically these are um often childhood cancers, so they happen for people between five and twenty one. And I was at the high end of that. I was 20 when I got diagnosed. So um, so yeah, but they typically occur in the arms and legs, not so much in the head and the nose. So that was the other complication of mine.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, take us back there for a minute. Like what what were your feelings? What were your emotions? Uh how were how was your family aiding and supporting you? Like, if you can go back there, what what was going on in your mind related to this?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, when I first got diagnosed, you know, I I think I relied a lot on my foundation of faith. I was uh somebody that had strong religious faith that gave me courage, it gave me hope. Uh, that was really, really important. And I had a great support system. Honestly, we weren't that worried about um what was going on, but we knew in the back of our minds that there was potential that this thing could recur. And when it did, which it did, um, that's when everything changed. Should I talk about actually what happened when it recurred?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I want to hear your story.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so it was six months later, and I went into the to see the doctor, and he got the wheels in motion. He said, Go, you know, we need you to get a CAT scan, but he was already putting the wheels in motion. He was setting me up with a tumor board, he was scheduling surgery, so he knew that this thing had come back. I sensed that. Um, it was an eye-opening experience to be part of a tumor board and to find out that your case was the most difficult one they were dealing with, and that suddenly my world was gonna get turned upside down. So I ended up going into surgery with somewhat of an unknown, Aaron. Like, we don't know what we're gonna find. We're hoping we can save your eye. Well, what they did is they they removed half my nose, the shelf of my right eye, the muscle and the bones from my right cheek, part of my upper lip, part of my hard palate, and six of my teeth. And I woke up attached to my chest because they had transplanted a full thickness skin graph from my chest to fill in this cavity that had been created on my face. And so when I woke up with that, I had no idea. I nobody had any idea that I was gonna end up with this flap of tissue. So I I honestly went into the bathroom to look at myself and said, Oh my god, I look like the elephant man. And so the the issue was it was life-threatening at that point, but it was also disfiguring. So it was what what's the bigger concern? And I think over time, when we got the cancer under control, the the bigger concern was obviously what it was doing to my to my appearance.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right. So you said that you leaned heavily early on and you weren't that concerned in your faith. I'm I'm making an assumption you're Christian by faith.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And how did this alter that mindset related to your faith, or did it you know, it it really didn't.

SPEAKER_01:

As I said, you know, I had a strong foundation. I think that um I I always felt like I was somehow connected in a way to something that was, you know, um out there that was something that could give me strength. But I also always grew up recognizing that gratitude was just as important. So, you know, maybe it's a maybe it's being a Catholic Aaron and having Catholic guilt. You didn't hear about, you hear a lot about that. It's like whenever you pray for something, you better be grateful for something too, right? But anyway, I uh gratitude helped me along the way as well, because for example, when I woke up and realized that I had lost half my face, well, guess what? I still had my two eyes. They saved my eye. I was grateful for that. So I tried to focus in when I could on those things that I was grateful for.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's quite uh uh an attitude for a 20-year-old. Yeah. Right. I look back when I was 20, I don't know that I would have been quite so grateful. Uh I hope to think that I would have been, but that in itself showed a lot of resilience in you being grateful at 20, you know, you hadn't even really kind of started your life yet. And here you are, you're gonna have to deal with this. Um was it life-threatening at that point for this second surgery?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh-huh. Yeah, it was. And so uh, you know, going through that first surgery was not only difficult, but then it was the follow-up phone calls from the doctor to say, uh, we didn't catch all of it. We need you to come back in. And then it was yet another one after that. Well, there's a little bit, we need to make sure we clear the margin. So, yeah, there were moments when I thought they're never gonna get this, right? Um, so they did feel like they caught it with surgery after the third procedure, and then they sent me to radiation, and that was more of an insurance policy. But uh, but yeah, so that was where the journey began, really.

SPEAKER_00:

How did your parents support you through this process? Were they equally strong?

SPEAKER_01:

They were incredible, yeah. Uh very strong, supportive family. They were there for me at every instance, uh, supported me all the way along, did whatever they could for me. You know, my dad was was carrying the load, obviously. He had four boys at home. Um, he was working, he was the sole provider, so he had to keep his job. But he showed up every night after work at the hospital to be there for me. My mom drove me everywhere, um, was a positive force in my life. So yeah, I was I was blessed that way.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, if I'm correct in my research, uh, you've had over 30 surgeries over the course of your life. How how did you cultivate a sense of resilience to not just survive? Like I I I think about myself and I'm like, man, what would I do? Would I just be trying to survive? But you chose to thrive throughout those 30 surgeries, and life has changed for you radically over the course of you know, 30 surgeries. So, how were you able to do that?

SPEAKER_01:

Don't get me wrong. It was uh it was a struggle. Um, I had a lot of loads. I during that six-year period where I had those 30 procedures, I was losing my confidence. My self-esteem was deteriorating. I was feeling uh not so good about myself, but I do credit my hidden ex surgeon, Dr. Roger Crumley, uh amazing guy who told me from the get-go after that major procedure, he said, you know what, we're gonna get you cured of this cancer, we're gonna get you reconstructed back to that old terry. And regardless, Aaron, whatever the final outcome was, the fact that I had hope on both sides of that equation. I'm gonna get cured, I'm gonna get reconstructed, I think helped sustain me through a lot of it, right? It just kept me feeling like, okay, one more procedure, one more procedure. But over time it became more and more difficult. And I was fortuitous that I met somebody who helped me really open my eyes to what my real problems were, which was, you know, hey, surgery isn't gonna solve your problems.

SPEAKER_00:

So man, thank God for surgeons like that that can be a sense of encouragement and a source of hope. And man, I'm just gonna be honest with you, going through 30 surgeries, you look great. Let me just tell you, you do. Now, neither one of us are much to look at, but for what we've got, me and you both, I guess we look okay. But you you really look great, man. 30 surgeries, I would have never known that ever, had you had you not shared that. Hey, I'm Aaron Walker, founder of Iron Sharpens Iron. Every successful man needs a band of brothers to push him to grow spiritually, personally, and professionally. Each week I meet with like-minded Christian business owners in our mastermind groups. We share wisdom, tackle challenges, and we hold each other accountable to grow, not just in business, but in life. Don't do life or business alone. Join the brotherhood that will challenge, encourage, and sharpen you. Visit isibrotherhood.com and take the first step today. So out of that, you created kind of a framework and you're calling it the Rebar, R-E-B-A-R, Rebar. How does this guide people to overcome adversity?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so this spawn from speaking engagements where I would share my story and then I would talk about my framework, and people would say, Well, you need to write a book about it. So I finally did it. But rebar is is really uh exactly what you said. It's a resilience framework that I packaged up in a way that makes it a little bit easier for other people to go through the four phases of my framework in a personalized journey so that they can walk away with something actionable. So it's a workbook approach. But reflect is really, and so it's reflect, um, build, act, and renew. Should I should I just touch on what each one of us?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we would love that. No, I absolutely we want to learn because there's a lot of people out there today going through adversity and they need more resilience. And a guy like you that's been through what you have gives us a great sense of hope and encouragement. So whatever you can share and teach with us, we want to hear it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I think what it's framed on is really that, you know, we all have the capacity to build resilience, right? We learn to adapt, we recover from our setbacks, and we grow stronger from our experience. But it starts with reflect. So reflect is really about finding that five to ten minutes a day to step back from your life and reflect on each day and think about start with gratitude, because there's always a million things to be grateful for. Uh, that puts you in a positive mindset. And then you do a, I would say, an audit of your day. Think about did you learn anything today? Were you inspired by anything? If you were inspired by something, is there something that you want to apply to your life tomorrow? And that's sort of how I operated. And I learned along the way that there were inspirations that were happening around me that I wanted to incorporate into my life. And know that this is a practice, right? This is about getting into a practice because you're not going to have inspirations every single day. But if you're in the practice of it and you reflect, you find that there's so many things you forget about when you don't take that five to ten minutes because everything's hitting you, right? You forget about a conversation. So that's a really important baseline. Build is really about developing a positive mindset, it's about developing a growth mindset, and that's really when we start to find balance, that's when we identify our support systems, and that's when we choose to be positive because it's a choice, right? Um, the third phase, act, is really where the rubber meets the road, and that's when we start to take control, it's when we get focused, it's when we um face our challenges. So this is really execution mode. So this is when there's a whole bunch of tools and methods that you can employ, choices, right? There isn't a one size fits all. That's the whole idea, is that this is personalized. Um, but that's really where you start to take action to address whatever you're dealing with. And then finally, renew is the commitment to the process. It's when you step back and say, What did I learn from this ordeal? Because let's face it, if you're still alive at this stage, that's a blessing, right? You've survived it. But stepping back, celebrating your wins, that helps build your confidence. Thinking about the traits and characteristics that you embody that enabled you to overcome that challenge is really important. That helps rebuild confidence. So it's really uh it's really that that time when you reassess and reinforce the process. And the goal being, how do I become a better version of myself going forward from what I learned? So in a cell, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's go back for a second. I want to break these down just a little bit because I want the audience that's listening today to be able to take this framework and apply it to their life. But realistically, the time frame for you to embrace being able to reflect and start your day with gratitude, where did that happen at along uh the process? So you're 20 years old, you have this major surgery over six years, you have 30 surgeries. Was this during that time? Was this post-the 30th surgery? Like, where did you finally come to this conclusion that you needed to be grateful for something, even in light of your current circumstances?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I mean, as I said, I think that uh I I was somebody that tried to practice that. That was important to me to remind myself that things could always be worse. So be gracious. Uh but I would say that really that reflect process became the strongest when I reached my lowest point. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Which was at what period? When was that?

SPEAKER_01:

So that was in um 1989, which was four years after that major procedure I described. And I had had six surgical procedures from one surgeon over like a six-month period where he was trying to make my nose symmetrical again. And it didn't work, was the bottom line. They couldn't make it make it right. And um, so uh anyway, I met somebody, a woman who, long story short, really helped me understand that my issues were not my physical appearance, my issues were my insecurity. She called me out on, and basically that prompted me to step back and really spend a lot of time and reflection and think about wow, that's brutal. Uh that's devastating to hear. But here's a woman that's telling me that it's not my looks that are the issue. So the surgery wasn't something I could control. I recognized that at that point. 30 surgeries, and I'm not making progress, right? So um it was a blessing because when I reflected on it, I thought, okay, I need to figure out how to rebuild myself. How am I gonna do that? And that's when I started on my journey to try to figure out what tools I could employ.

SPEAKER_00:

How did you receive that information from this lady?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh it was uh we we had spent a long weekend together uh up in the Napa Valley, and it was sort of the end of the weekend. She was from So this was a friend.

SPEAKER_00:

This wasn't a doctor, this was a friend, right?

SPEAKER_01:

This is a girlfriend at this point.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh okay, okay. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01:

So she uh I I've got to take her back to the airport to Chic, you know, to fly from SFO to Chicago. And we're sitting there having a glass of wine, and she just looked at me and she said, You have a lot of issues that I can't help you with, and you need constant reassurance, and I can't give you that. Boom, right? It was like, wow, that's pretty brutal, right? But in the end, I was gracious, I was so thankful that she put it out there for me because here's somebody that had been attracted to me that I trusted, and I believed in what she was telling me. I don't, I don't think she was lying to me. She looked me right in the eye, and that was a real wake-up call for me.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, it's really uh important that the listeners hear what you just said because we need people in our lives that will tell us the hard truth. We need people to love us enough to call us out and call us up. We need people that won't coddle us and baby us, but we need people to say, hey, here's the reality of it. It is what it is. And are you gonna let that define you? Are you gonna get over it and let's move on and have a productive and purposeful life? And it sounds like in her way, that's exactly what she did for you.

SPEAKER_01:

She did. And uh 31 years later, 34 years later, we're still um, we're still friends, we still talk. So it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh yeah. That's awesome. But it's not the lady you married, right? No. This was a girlfriend, but you're still friends with this lady, and you should always remain friends with this lady. She helped save your life. She did, absolutely. And so, man, that's a that's a huge, huge blessing. Listen, in your journey, what do you think was the single most important message that you would like the listeners to walk away with today when they're facing their own challenges? And I know personally, my very best friend right now, or one of my very best friends, is facing uh a very serious matter related to cancer. I've got a family member that's dealing with uh issue that's uh cancer involved. And what words of encouragement, what is a single thing that you would even say to them today? What is that message you would tell them?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I would say as difficult as as life can be and as hard as some of your days are, um, there there's always hope, right? And we do all have the capacity to build resilience. I have run into so many people that feel like, well, I'm just not a resilient person, they'll say. It's like I just don't have that. And it's like, that's not true. We all have the capacity. And step back and think about the things that can help you cope and keep hope, and it's one step at a time, and you you can start to go forward. Uh, I I I truly believe that uh focusing on the positive and having this mindful positivity, uh, whatever that might sound like to somebody, uh, there's always a million things to be grateful for. So think about that too, because life can always be worse and your prognosis could always be worse. And so think about that, and that helps, I think, put you on a more uh optimistic path going forward, which opens up new opportunities.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, Terry, about uh three or four years ago, I was in a really bad spot emotionally. There was something that was very troubling in my life, and I didn't have a sense of gratitude at that time. And I know uh a lot of people that are listening right now are kind of in that space in our audience. And a friend of a friend of mine gave me the same advice. He said, You need to be grateful. And I'm like, man, I'm at one of the lowest points of my career, and I don't feel that grateful right now. He said, Be grateful anyway. And he gave me an exercise. He said, if you would just sit down and take a yellow pad and start writing things out that are good, things that you're grateful for. And I filled up seven pages on a legal-sized yellow pad. And I'll be honest with you, I'll attribute that exercise to getting me out of the muck in the mire. And that's what you're telling us right now. Man, we've got to start with that. Seth Buckley is a member of Iron Sharpens Iron Brotherhood, and he wrote a book called Ambition. And it's about things to be grateful for and things that can help us along that line. Dr. Andy Garrett is uh a member of our community as well, and he's written a lot on resilience. And when I heard your story and I knew that you were gonna be a huge inspiration in helping people with this rebar and this resilience framework, I think we need to do everything in our power because God doesn't promise us it's gonna be easy always, right? We're faced with difficulties. We have situations that we deal with personally, professionally, and spiritually, that we need kind of a framework that helps us work through these things. So all of you guys, you, Dr. Andy, Steph Hugh Eckley, you guys are doing an amazing work and you're really helping people in our community and communities around us to overcome those obstacles. I know that you wrote a book recently. Uh, I think I see it in the background there. Hold it up so we can see that book and tell us a little bit more about that book and how that our listeners could get a copy of it, the resilience mindset. So tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind that. How long has it been out and where can our listeners get a copy?

SPEAKER_01:

All right, thanks for that. So the resilience mindset uh was really uh written as a response to a lot of the feedback I've received from people that heard me speak that said, you speak about this stuff, you need to put it in words in a book and provide a guidebook to help others. And so uh grateful for those people because I finally got to it, got it done. Um, it was released on September 9th. Um, it's available um at at any bookstores, Amazon, or wherever. Um, it's also on my website. And um, and yeah, I just hope I hope that it can help people in some way, shape, or form, even if it's just a little bit, uh that would that would be worthwhile.

SPEAKER_00:

Man, Terry, what an inspirational story. Thank you for coming on the ISI Brotherhood podcast today. Listen, guys, if resilience is something that you're struggling with, pick up a copy of his book. There is no doubt in my mind that it'll be extremely beneficial to you. But you got to remember that resilience is built, it's not given. By reflecting, by building, by acting, and by renewing, and then we can overcome even life-altering adversity in our life that we face each and every day. Mindset really matters. It's something that I've struggled with over the past. Thankfully, today I've got a great mindset. I want you to have the same because when you're positive and you show gratitude and you have purpose in your life, you can transform this pain into personal and professional growth. Don't let anybody tell you that you can't. And adversity is a gift in disguise. And when we embrace that, it can clarify our calling and deepen our faith. And I want you guys to understand that no matter what you're going through today, this mindset, this rebar framework, it can help you without a doubt. And I want to thank you guys for joining us on the ISI Brotherhood Podcast. Terry's story is a reminder that adversity doesn't have to defeat us, it can define our greatest strengths. And if you found value in today's episode, I want you to share it with your friends. Maybe go and follow us. Uh, give us a five star rating if you can. And remember at ISI, we believe that isolation is the enemy of excellence. I want you to stay strong, stay connected, and we'll see you next time.