When Your Voice Opens Doors You Didn’t Know Existed
Last week, for the first time in my life, I sat at a table and promoted something to strangers.
I was there to promote my late wife Uzma’s memoir, Left Boob Gone Rogue: My Life With Breast Cancer. The event was a local author meet-and-greet at the Glenview Public Library, held on a Tuesday evening. It was a small, quiet gathering—nothing fancy.
I don’t think I could have done this two years ago, even after spending five years in grief counseling and therapy.
So what changed?
The Virtuous Circle
This is what I’ve learned.
Years of talk therapy helped me become a better person, a better parent, a better communicator, and a better leader. They got me to a space where I could write and deliver a speech about the lessons I learned from Uzma. That speech, called “One Life, Fully Lived,” took me to the semifinals of the 2025 Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking.
But something I didn’t expect happened along the way. The process of writing, rewriting, and practicing the speech over and over again became its own form of therapy. I didn’t realize it at the time. I only saw it clearly after it was all said and done.
Therapy helped me create the speech, and the speech itself became another form of therapy.
A virtuous circle.
I think this is what happens when you take a hard personal story and shape it for others. Crafting the story helps you better understand it. Sharing it helps you take control. At some point, the story stops controlling you.
Doors I Didn’t Know Existed
That speech opened doors I never thought to knock on.
A woman named Yvonne Wolf heard me compete at last year’s Toastmasters contest. She was moved by the story. When she later learned that Uzma had written a book, she invited me to talk about it on her local TV show.
After the interview ended, Yvonne asked, “Have you done one of the author meet-and-greet events at our library?”
“What’s that?”
She explained, “The library does an event every quarter where they allow local authors a chance to promote their books. They give you a table in the lobby, and you can meet people as they enter or exit the library. You can tell them about your book.”
I told her, “I didn’t know about this. Besides, it’s not my book.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she encouraged me. “You can say clearly that you are not the author, and are promoting Uzma’s book.”
So I applied. And they accepted the book.
I wasn’t searching for any of this. For seven years after Uzma died, I focused on raising our two kids, who were young when their mother passed away. After an initial failed attempt to get a publisher to pick it up, I wasn’t thinking about marketing her book. I was focused on being a dad.
But when I shared my story in public, people responded. I didn’t ask for anything, but when you share an honest story with courage and a desire to help others, people show up for you in ways you can’t expect.
That’s one of the things I’ve written about before: when you show yourself in your communication, people connect to it. Hide behind safe generalities, and they don’t.
I showed myself in that speech. And Yvonne showed up.
Three Moments at the Library
The event itself was small, but three moments stood out.
A woman hosting another event at the library that evening saw the photo of Uzma on my display table.
She stopped and said, “I remember Uzma! I was in the same art class as her. She left an impression on everyone there. I still remember her as being very artistic and having a great sense of humor.”
Seven years gone, and Uzma’s mark on others was still strong.
Then a doctor named Tejal Shah stopped by with her family. Tejal met Uzma through a Facebook group for women physicians with cancer. She gave a eulogy at Uzma’s funeral on behalf of that community. Seeing her there felt like a bridge between a past world and this one.
And another doctor, someone who sadly joined that same Facebook group long after Uzma was gone, came because she had heard amazing things about Uzma from people who remembered her. She had never met my wife, but Uzma’s voice had reached her anyway.
That’s the power of a voice that speaks the truth. It reaches farther and lasts longer than you might imagine.
What This Means for Leaders
I write this blog for physicians who are moving into leadership or considering it. You might wonder what a Tuesday night library event has to do with leadership.
More than you’d think.
Every leader has untold stories. These might be about a patient who changed their approach, a failure that taught them something, a moment when they saw the system wasn’t working, or a personal loss that changed how they view their work.
Most leaders keep these stories to themselves. They worry about seeming unprofessional or vulnerable. They think the story is too personal, too emotional, or simply too much to share.
I get it. I carried my story for seven years.
But here’s what I’ve learned: the story you’re afraid to share is often the one that needs to be told. It helps you, and it can help others who might learn from it.
When you share a difficult story well, you encourage others to be honest about their own challenges. You build trust that facts or credentials alone can’t create. People want to follow genuine and authentic leaders.
There’s something people rarely mention: Telling your story doesn’t just affect the audience. It changes the storyteller, too.
The Craft Matters
I should be clear about something.
I’m not saying you should walk into your next department meeting and pour out your deepest pain. That will not go well.
In my public speaking series, I wrote that every message should serve the audience first. That’s the first lesson. Your difficult story is just the starting point. The real skill is shaping it so your audience learns something they care to learn.
I spent months shaping “One Life, Fully Lived.” I practiced it hundreds of times. I tested it on real audiences and adjusted based on what worked and what didn’t.
I did not share my grief on stage. Yet the speech was therapeutic, because I turned my grief into something helpful for others. Shaping the speech built on what years of therapy had started.
That’s the virtuous circle: the more you shape a hard story for your audience, the more it helps you heal. Service and healing support each other.
The People Who Show Up
Leadership can feel lonely, but it isn’t something you do alone.
I didn’t do the library event alone.
Robena Armia from my Toastmasters club showed up to show support. She stood by my side throughout the evening and took all the photos.
Jeana Deninger, our club’s VP of Public Relations, helped me plan the display.
Jeana asked me, “Why did you pick a navy tablecloth?”
“The library suggested it,” I explained. “They said it makes your display pop.”
“That’s true,” Jeana agreed, adding, “but your wife’s book is about breast cancer. You should pick the shade of pink that’s on the cover of the book.”
Then she helped me pick the color during our Zoom call.
She reminded me to include a QR code for ordering and showed me the simplest way to create one. She also said, “Make sure you take pictures. You can use them in other promotions.” I told you it was my first time doing anything like this. I needed all the help.
The people who support you, who believe in your story before you’re ready to share it and take care of the details you might miss, are the ones who turn an idea into an event and a speech into something that truly moves others.
Yvonne loved my speech and thought more people needed to hear my wife’s story. Robena stood beside me. Jeana made the table look right. The folks at the library gave me the chance, even though I wasn’t the author of the book I was promoting. And the people on Facebook who shared my post sent strangers to a Tuesday evening event at a public library to learn about a woman who died seven years ago.
When you find the courage to use your voice, others join in too.
The One Practice
You have a story you haven’t told yet. Maybe it’s about a patient. Maybe it’s about a failure. Maybe it’s about someone you loved and lost.
This week, write your story down. Do it just for yourself. Don’t worry about making it perfect—just put it on paper.
Then ask yourself: could this story help someone else? Could it illuminate something your team needs to understand? Could it build trust that doesn’t exist yet?
If the answer is yes, start shaping it. Find one person you trust and tell them the story in a way that can help others. See how it lands. Adjust. Try again.
The story you’ve been carrying might be the one that opens new doors, both for your audience and for you.
Uzma’s memoir, Left Boob Gone Rogue: My Life With Breast Cancer, is available on Amazon. She was a psychiatrist, a mother of two, and a blogger who reached over 300,000 readers in 172 countries.