Listen to more episodes by Vanessa on her podcast Outrun Cancer

Talking with Oscar about that moment I got the diagnosis of cancer, I was able to reflect on what LISTENING really means - LISTENING to doctors and BEING LISTENED TO. This is an interesting discussion on how we can learn to be deeper listeners - which can make a very big difference.

When you are told that “you have cancer,” your mind just goes blank. Vanessa Oshima had this experience when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Vanessa’s doctor started to systematically go through what she needed to communicate. She had moved on to fixing things, but Vanessa was still stuck on the word “cancer” and not believing it, so she stopped listening.

Vanessa, president and founder of Heart Data, describes what it was like to be diagnosed with cancer and what that meant for her as a patient. Having cancer is a physical, emotional, and social journey that affects not only the patient, but  their family, friends, colleagues – a whole community.

Also, from living in Japan, Vanessa explains how the Japanese listen differently than Westerners. She found that there is a real difference in pace at times - there is an art to slow down and to not rush and to take time to listen to what is said and what is not said. And in a culture such as Japan that relies a lot on labels for understanding we can sometimes see pre judgment rather than actual listening too.

Vanessa has worked in Market research which enables companies to listen to customers every day. But do they choose to listen deeply?