There’s a version of advocacy that looks polished from the outside — the keynote, the press release, the perfectly lit headshot. That’s not what I’m here to celebrate. What I pay attention to is the messy, honest, keep-going-anyway kind. The person who admits the doubt and shows up regardless. The survivor who turns six hard years into a microphone at their first-ever walk. The author who writes the book and then gets on a bike. That’s this week. That’s Vol. 14.
Here’s the thing Claudia did that I think most advocates won’t do: she said the quiet part out loud. Impostor syndrome is still in her way. She named it. On LinkedIn, publicly, in the middle of a post about graduating from the Latino Cancer Patient Advocate Training Program. I’ve been doing this for seventeen years and I still feel that pull, the voice that wonders if you’re really supposed to be in the room. What Claudia understands, maybe better than she realizes, is that naming it doesn’t make it go away. It just means you stop letting it make decisions for you. She graduated. She’s bringing her voice to a community that is underserved and waiting for more people who look and sound like them. And she’s doing it without pretending she has it all figured out. Honestly? That kind of advocacy lands harder. It reaches the person in the back of the room who also doesn’t feel ready. The one who needed to see someone go anyway. Claudia, I’m glad you went anyway.
Six years is a long time to carry something. Pete Wilgoren had his first TURBT surgery for bladder cancer six years ago this week, and he doesn’t sugarcoat what came after — a second surgery, three years of treatment, and a disease he describes honestly as one that loves to come back. He could have spent this anniversary quietly. Instead, he stood up and spoke at the very first Walk to End Bladder Cancer in Los Angeles. I think about that a lot, the way some people take the fear they know best and point it outward, toward whoever’s walking the road behind them. That’s not a small thing. That’s actually the whole point of advocacy, when you strip everything else away. You’ve been through it. You know what it feels like in your chest when you don’t know what’s coming next. And so you show up for the person who’s standing where you once stood. Six years ago Pete was the patient. This year he was the voice at the walk. That arc matters.
I have a soft spot for people who turn their story into something others can hold onto. Kevin Donaghy wrote a book called Stories of Cancer and Hope, which already earns my respect, because writing that book means sitting with a lot of heavy material and believing that sharing it does something worthwhile. But Kevin didn’t stop at the page. This week, he and Tony Collier BEM are riding the Tour de 4 together to raise money and awareness for The Cancer Club. A book and a bike. Words and miles. I love that combination because they’re doing the same thing in different forms: moving the story forward, making it useful, putting it somewhere people can find it when they need it. Advocacy doesn’t have one shape. Sometimes it’s a chapter someone reads alone at 2am. Sometimes it’s showing up in cycling kit and pedaling for the cause. Kevin is doing both, and both count.
If someone in your world is doing the quiet, honest, keep-going work of advocacy — I want to hear about them. Comment below or nominate someone for next week’s issue. And if a friend forwarded this to you and you want it in your inbox every week, subscribe at advocacyatwork.com. See you next Sunday.