Photo by Sumit Kohli

Dan Morrell: Three days before giving birth to her second daughter, Parul Somani (MBA 2009) felt a lump in her breast. Still unable to walk from her C-section, her husband wheeled her to the breast clinic for an ultrasound and biopsy. On her newborn’s one-week birthday, Somani learned she was in the early stages of a particularly invasive and aggressive form of cancer. Her maternity leave suddenly turned into a medical leave to accommodate 10-plus rounds of chemotherapy and multiple surgeries. Five years later, officially in remission, Somani drew on the lessons learned during that difficult time to launch an inspirational speaker platform called Silver Linings in an effort to champion resilience, advocacy, and mental wellbeing. Somani believes that silver linings aren’t meant to just be “found” during the darkest of times, but can be created through mindset, intention, and sense of purpose. These are all learnable skills, she says, that can be used to build resilience and better navigate the uncertainty and challenges we all confront. In this episode of Skydeck, Somani talks to Associate Editor Julia Hanna about the moment of her diagnosis, an unexpected silver lining from her own experience, her career pivot, and how she sees her work evolving in the future.

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Julia Hanna: Parul, can you take me back to the moment when you received your diagnosis? What were you thinking and feeling?

Parul Somani: I was actually holding my newborn baby in my arms when I got the call, and could see on the phone that it was the breast surgeon calling. And I knew that the fact that she was calling on a Saturday, with the results of my biopsy, that it couldn't possibly be good news. And in the moment I went into warrior mode, where I just braced myself to hear the news of the diagnosis and was very strangely matter-of-fact in my questions, just trying to understand what is the stage, what is the action plan? It was only when she told me that naturally I would now need to wean my baby, that tears started filling my eyes. My mother happened to be in the room with me at the time. My mother had herself been diagnosed with early onset breast cancer in her 30s. And when I got off the phone I just looked at her and I told her, “It's cancer.” And I just started bawling.

I needed to now share the news with my husband that I had received this diagnosis. What was so painful about that is that I was 31 years old, and his own birth mother had passed away at age 31 from breast cancer as well. So sharing the news with him, his mindset naturally went into the worst case scenario, and I remember him saying, “I can't do this without you.” And my immediate response was, “You're not going to have to.” Like I was just convinced that everything was going to be fine, and it's quite possible that I was delusional at that time because I didn't necessarily fully understand the scope of my diagnosis and the prognosis. But it was this belief that everything will be fine because it just has to be fine.

Photos courtesy Parul Somani

Hanna: Can you tell me a little bit about how that moment evolved into the decision to start Silver Linings?

Somani: Since my diagnosis actually came days after my C-section with my second daughter, I was technically on maternity leave and that maternity leave quickly shifted into a medical leave, which was a blessing in disguise in its own way, that I was able to be home, truly dedicated to my treatment, to my newborn and elder daughter, and luckily had the support of my parents at home as well, since they had come to to help with the baby, and now were staying to help with my treatment. About six months into my treatment journey, I did return back to the startup that I was working with and continued to work with them for a couple of more years to see it get to a point where I felt comfortable moving on and knowing that the organization was going to be in a good place, and I realized I wanted to move into more mission-driven work, and that this cancer experience that I had gone through had truly changed my outlook about what's important and how I want to spend my time and what my priorities are. I actually didn't know what that mission-driven work would be at the time. But I came across a company whose mission it was to democratize access to genetic testing for hereditary cancers.

It was that power of genetic information that led me to detect my cancer at an earlier and more treatable stage. And so when I came across this company it just so personally resonated with me. And I pivoted my corporate career into the health care space and into genomic space, all inspired by this very personal journey. I joined that company and was leading their B-to-B-to-C marketing team, and through that experience had the opportunity to also share my own personal story at health care conferences and public settings, really advocating for the power of genetic information. I was there for nearly two years when they ended up going through a restructuring and a strategic pivot of their own, and I was very unexpectedly laid off. I know the experience is brutal for everyone, but in that moment, it felt so much harder when I felt like I had lost my mission, I had lost what I was referring to as my ikigai, which is the Japanese term for your reason for being. It wasn't just losing a job, but it was now having this grief and uncertainty of where do you go from here? What that layoff allowed me to do is create space and time in my life for introspection that I hadn't carved out for myself before, and I actually later that summer went to my 10-year HBS reunion with no job and with no line of sight to what it is I would be doing next. And I never could have imagined going to my 10-year HBS reunion, being in a situation like that and yet having that time to not have to rush into the next thing, but to actually be able to think about what is it I love to do and how can I now channel that in a different way? That’s what led me to this realization that public speaking and experience sharing could actually be my mission. Instead of being employed by someone else, I could be an entrepreneur and spread my own mission in my own way. And so what started as a personal health journey has had a roller coaster of experiences. But all of those dots ultimately connected to the launch of Silver Linings.

Hanna: You know, Silver Linings is a phrase we've heard over and over during the pandemic. But you do mean something a bit different here. It's more of an active take, not so much about the unexpected upside of hardship.

Somani: When I think about silver linings and I reflect on my past five-plus years following treatment, silver linings are the positive outcomes that have resulted and didn't just come about from something bad happening, me doing nothing for a few years, and then something good happening. They came about through intention and openness to opportunity and willingness to act in that hardship and for that opportunity at the right time. An example of this is my father's hearing. So my father, prior to my diagnosis, had had progressive hearing loss for over 25 years, to the point that it was nearly over 95 percent hearing loss in both ears. And we couldn't really talk to him on the phone. And conversations were just very loud at the dinner table or whenever we would see him. Over those years we had consulted with many ENTs to inquire about his diagnosis and whether anything could be done. And we were repeatedly told that for his diagnosis, there is still no treatment available. When I got diagnosed with breast cancer, we had access to a medical consultancy through my husband's employer and their project and role was primarily to assist in my cancer care and helping me find the right place for treatment and answering my questions around medications, etc.

But given their expertise in the broader health care space, I viewed it as an opportunity to ask them a completely out of scope question around my father's hearing. I gave them the background and asked, do they have any ENTs that they might recommend, especially one who might be willing to do a remote consultation? They gave us the name of a specialist in Florida that we simply never would have come across on our own. We sent my father's CT scans and audiology reports. And I'll never forget the day we got on the phone with the doctor for the remote consultation. He said, “I can't be sure until I'm in your father's ear, but I'm pretty sure he's been misdiagnosed for the past 25 years. And what he actually has can be treated by a one-hour outpatient surgery.”

So a couple of months after my surgeries, I actually flew with my parents to Florida and my father underwent surgery by this doctor, and he confirmed he had in fact been misdiagnosed, and my father was actually able to have his hearing restored. That has been a life-changing experience, not just for my father, who heard himself laugh for the first time in years, but for my mother, and for our entire family dynamic. But when I reflect on that experience, it's not like me getting diagnosed and access to this medical consultancy would have just naturally led to my father then getting his diagnosis corrected. It required a mindset of willingness to see opportunity in hardship and recognize that, OK, I'm going through a very difficult time, but I now have resources that I didn't have before. And how can that be utilized to benefit other family members or benefit other challenges that we've been facing? It's that mindset that can help people create their own silver linings.

Hanna: It sounds like one of the things we can remember in these situations is that it's OK to ask questions and to push back and to take a more active role in what's happening.

Somani: When it comes to health care, it is so difficult to navigate, even for those who are highly educated and trying to do as much research and reading as possible. But what we each can empower ourselves with, whether we are a caregiver or a patient, is the ability to try to question everything and not take it for granted that what is being told to you is accurate. If you're getting a second opinion, start with a blank slate. Don't say what the diagnosis is that you've already been told. There's confirmation bias in a system that can lead to years of misdiagnosis like it did for my father. The key is continuing to advocate for yourself and being proactive and taking the initiative. If you feel like there might be something wrong, if you feel like there's a lump and you're being told it's nothing to worry about, don't take that for face value. Continue to advocate for yourself, get a second opinion, and take control of your health.

Hanna: You are healthy now, thankfully. I wondered, how do you see your work at Silver Linings evolving in the future?

Somani: When I first launched Silver Linings, a lot of the work was still focused on the health care side and sharing my clinical experiences and serving as a voice for both patients and caregivers. And that is an important pillar of work that I continue to do. But an extension of that that I'd always been passionate about and really got accelerated by the launch of quarantine and COVID is the focus on resilience and mindset, because when I reflect on my experiences, those elements played such a critical role in my own mental strength and my own mental well-being and my ability to not just face my hardship, but ultimately grow from it. It’s that element that I think is relatable to everyone. Over the past year especially, I've had the opportunity to work with many organizations and employers on presentations or workshops to spread this message of what is the science of resilience, and more importantly, how is it actionable to them?How can they build their own personal resilience and apply that to whatever the hardship might be, whether it's health or career or relationships? I see that as an opportunity that was not only highlighted by COVID, with all of the resilience that was tested for so many of us, but it's a personal skill set that will continue to be valuable and really is critical to all of our mental well-being, because hardships are not going to go away. It's how we face them that is in our control. It is up to us to figure out how we will thrive from them.

Skydeck is produced by the External Relations department at Harvard Business School and edited by Craig McDonald. It is available at iTunes and wherever you get your favorite podcasts. For more information or to find archived episodes, visit alumni.hbs.edu/skydeck.

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