December 14, 2024 • 48 mins
What happens when you face a stage IV melanoma diagnosis? Georges Cordoba, our remarkable guest, knows this battle all too well. Once caught in a cycle of surgeries and pharmaceuticals, Georges defied his prognosis by turning to holistic healing methods that have kept him cancer-free for over a decade. His story isn't just one of physical recovery; it's a testament to the transformative power of healing the mind and spirit. As a holistic coach and functional nutritionist, Georges shares the tools and mindset that guided his path to wellness, offering hope and guidance to those facing similar health challenges.
In this episode, we explore how Georges's journey through fear and uncertainty led him to embrace the healing arts, tune in to the power of the Spirit, and practice forgiveness of self and others. We dive into the emotional aspects of healing, discussing how forgiveness and visualization became crucial parts of Georges's recovery process. Insights from his experiences underscore the importance of resilience and emotional intelligence in battling chronic illnesses, revealing that healing is as much about the mind and heart as it is about the body. Georges's narrative shines a light on how changing your perspective can empower personal growth and recovery.
Listeners will also discover practical strategies for enhancing health and well-being. From the significance of mindful eating and gratitude to releasing emotional burdens through meditation, Georges provides valuable insights into fostering a healthier lifestyle. His story is a powerful reminder of the impact that positive habits and mental focus can have on our overall vitality. Whether you're facing health challenges or seeking inspiration for personal growth, Georges's journey offers a blueprint for embracing holistic wellness.
Learn more about Georges:
Calendly: https://calendly.com/coach-georges/transform-your-health-vitality-holistic-coaching
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@healinginsideout
Instagram: @coach.georges
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/georges.cordoba
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/georges-córdoba-76883427
Beating the Odds book: https://a.co/d/38Pki8y
Website: https://www.qualevita.com/
Email: coach.georges@qualevita.com
Want to learn how to build your EQ? Let's meet to see if working together is good fit.
* Calendar: https://calendly.com/jami-carlacio/virtual-coffee
* Email: jami@jamicarlacio.com (mailto:%20jami@jamicarlacio.com)
* Find out more about my coaching services: https://jamicarlacio.com
* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jami-carlacio/
* FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/jamicarlacioEQ
* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamicarlacio1/
* YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/jamicarlacio1
* TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jcarlacio
* Substack: https://substack.com/@eqmaven
* I'd appreciate your support the show by buying me a cup of coffee: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2167520/supporters/new
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Georges Cordoba (00:00):
I found out and this is something that people
should listen to that we will.
Any cancer patient willcontinue to have recurrences
until he or she finds the rootcause, what caused the disease
to come in In this case, cancer,which was my experience and
(00:25):
once you find that root cause,which is usually a combination
of the mind and emotions, whichmanifest in the body, exactly it
manifests in the body.
Jami Carlacio (00:35):
Yes.
Georges Cordoba (00:36):
Once you clear that clutter, your healing
starts again.
Jami Carlacio (00:47):
Welcome to the podcast Emotional Intelligence
your greatest asset and key tosuccess.
I'm your host, Dr.
Jami Carlacio, coming to youfrom the Greater New Haven,
Connecticut area.
A s an emotional intelligenceor EQ coach.
I'm committed to helping peopledevelop both emotional
intelligence and mental fitness.
That is, you'll come to regardproblems as situations that help
(01:11):
you learn and grow.
Eq is a way of being and doingin the world that enables you to
develop and sustain a positiverelationship with yourself and
others, at home, at work andeverywhere in between.
Please subscribe to thispodcast and tap the like button
so more people can enjoy thebenefits of EQ.
And now here's the show.
(01:33):
Hello everybody, and welcome tothe podcast.
I am so glad you're here andI'm very glad to introduce you
to my new friend, GeorgesCordoba.
He is, I don't know, nothingshort of a miracle-- that might
be the way that I would describeyou.
A nd I am excited for you totell our audience your story.
(01:56):
So today we're going to talkabout wellness, and we're going
to talk about the different waysin which our Western society
thinks it can make us well, andhow a holistic approach is
actually often an even betteranswer.
So with that, let me tell you alittle bit about Georges.
(02:19):
So, first of all, he is a stageIV melanoma and metastasis of
the brain cancer survivor.
Yes, you heard that right-- andhe fought the disease for 10
years and he had 10 surgeries,including four craniotomies.
(02:40):
The pharmaceuticals nearlydestroyed his body.
So he took a leap of faith andwent into the natural, holistic
route to heal.
And here he is after 12 years,free of cancer, and God bless
you for that.
I just think that's so amazing.
So seven years ago, george justtook another leap of faith and
(03:01):
he transitioned from being achief technology officer to
working in health and wellness,and that's why I have him here
today.
So he works with people who aredealing with cancer or the
threat of cancer and he helpsthem to transform their health
and their vitality.
He became a holistic coach anda holistic master of
transformative coaching and afunctional nutritionist and a
(03:24):
professional speaker, and he'salso a rapid transformation
therapist and I'll let him tellyou a little bit about that.
And he's also a hypnotherapistand a Reiki master.
So Georges and I connected on alot of different levels, and so
it made sense for me to ask himto be here with us today.
He's also an Amazon bestsellingauthor for his book Beating the
(03:47):
Odds my Journey Through HolisticHealth to Overcoming Advanced
Cancer, and as an athlete, heplayed NCAA Division I tennis
for New Mexico State University.
He enjoys competing in 10K andhalf marathon races, and he is,
let me see, an accomplishedpiano player, having studied at
(04:12):
conservatory.
So, george, if there is such athing as a Renaissance man, I
think you're looking at himright now and all of his
information will be in the shownotes.
So welcome, welcome.
How are you today?
Very notes, so welcome, welcome.
Georges Cordoba (04:26):
Very good, very Jami, and thank you for
inviting me.
I'm honored to be in your showand to share with your audience
some good stuff, including,obviously, my journey the
10-year battle with cancer.
Jami Carlacio (04:42):
Yes, and before we get to that, I just want to
say a couple of things, becauseI am working as a substance use
disorder recovery coach in aclinic and what I find is that a
lot of people are medicated ona lot of stuff and doctors used
to medicate me as well and I amno longer on medication because
(05:07):
actually I found a lot ofhealing through holistic health
measures myself, whether it'syoga, meditation, reiki and just
really adopting a differentmindset.
Positive intelligence andemotional intelligence have
really changed everything for me, and I have found that the
thinking has so much more to dowith your health than sometimes
(05:31):
the drugs, and sometimes theycan be detrimental.
So I just wanted to start withthat, because I think that might
be a springboard into youtelling us a little bit about
your story with drugs and chemoand then finally getting to this
place of drug-free andcancer-free.
Georges Cordoba (05:49):
Yeah, sure, as many people know, there are
about 12 rules of the mind.
One of the rules is that themind goes to what is familiar.
And for most of us,particularly in the West Western
societies, what is reallyfamiliar in our minds is to go
to an oncologist and in a waygive him or her all the power
(06:15):
and we become a patient andbasically do whatever they say.
So I did that and my Greek.
I'm half Greek and half Spanish.
My parents are from Madrid andAthens.
On my Greek side of the familyI grew up seeing family members
(06:37):
my grandfather, his brother, mygrandmother's sisters, then an
uncle, then another uncle, lateron my godfather, and then,
three weeks before I wasdiagnosed, my mother passed of
cancer.
So when I looked at my familylandscape, you know from the
(07:01):
Greek side, I really thought Iwas doomed.
I mean, I fear the disease.
Since then and three weeks,like I said, after she passed, I
couldn't warn her I got.
I was diagnosed already withmalignant melanoma.
I started at the top of myscalp and I did that.
(07:23):
I just went.
I basically I couldn't believeit, I was in shock, but I
everything happened and nextthing I know I'm.
I'm at a oncologist's office Iwas recommended to him.
The whole journey started Um.
First of all I was luckybecause the same day I got my
diagnosis I was because I havefamily doctors.
(07:46):
I mean doctors in my family Iwas able to be seen by one of
the top dermatologists inSoutheast Florida I was living
in Miami, Florida at the time,from Sylvester Cancer Center,
and I reached out but hecouldn't see me in seven weeks.
So I called my buddy he's mydaughter's godfather and he said
(08:14):
no worries, I went to schoolwith him and he'll see you today
.
So we managed and in theafternoon he removed my first
lesion in the brain andbasically he did recommend going
with this surgeon oncologist.
He'll do a sentinel biopsy,which was, by the way, invasive,
(08:44):
and that's when I started justaccepting all this stuff coming
into my body.
In no time I had my firstsurgery, which, by the way, this
tumor in the top of my headcame back, and so I had my first
craniotomy.
(09:04):
And at the same time the doctorsaid I was going to get two for
one.
He actually removed 23 lymphnodes from the right side of my
neck because there was a biopsybehind my ear, a lymph node that
came out positive.
So they decided to take a wholebranch of lymph nodes and there
(09:29):
were three that they couldn'tget to.
He couldn't get to and so hedecided without asking my wife
or anyone I was asleep toactually sacrifice one of my
neck muscles to get to thosethree lymph nodes.
And it so happened that out ofthe 23, those three were
positive.
So you know, that was basically.
(09:50):
I consider myself lucky withthat and obviously I had some
issues later on because thatmuscle was not there and you
know, if you see me without ashirt you can see that I have a
cavity there, even though natureis amazing.
The other muscle there's twothere, really kind of like made
(10:12):
it up, but not completely.
And right after that they put meon this.
They started to try things.
Melanoma was pretty unknownhere in the States.
I n Europe, especially inAustralia, they were way ahead
of us in terms of prevention andthings like that.
So they put me on interferon.
(10:34):
I was five months in this drugthat actually it was killing me
From the get-go.
I just felt horrible me fromthe get go.
I just felt horrible.
I kept trying to keep mypositive attitude, saying, well,
if I feel horrible, imaginewhat it's doing to these tiny
cells that you can't see withouta scan, but really it was
(10:57):
taking a toll on me.
Five months into that, I'll gopretty quickly.
Five months into that, I'll gopretty quickly.
I was having some issues on myleft ear and they did a biopsy
of one of the lymph nodes by myear and it was positive.
So they decided to extract 22lymph nodes on my left side of
(11:21):
my neck.
But no, they didn't have tosacrifice a muscle or anything
like that.
Two of those 22 were positiveand that started my journey.
They tried.
Because the interferon didn'twork, they put me in a different
type of chemo and we tried thatI was in remission.
We tried that I was inremission, as they call it, a
(11:44):
few months, maybe six, sevenmonths, and then it appeared
again and this time was in oneof my glute muscles.
Melanoma is so aggressive andunpredictable that it's really a
rough type of cancer to beat,or even for doctors when they're
(12:12):
doing what they know.
So all in all, I was havingsurgery, then I would have
treatment, then remission, thenrecurrence, then surgery,
treatment, remission, allthrough eight years In year
eight, after three months beingclear of cancer.
(12:34):
All of a sudden I started tostutter.
I was stuttering.
I was speaking more Spanishthan English, as Spanish is my
first language.
I was speaking more Spanishthan English, as Spanish is my
first language.
And at one point, you know thekids and my wife they were
wondering, they knew somethingwas wrong.
I was getting these massiveheadaches and so they kept
(12:57):
asking me if I was okay.
I said yes, but they noticedcertain things, like I would go
and brush my teeth and come outof the bathroom and when my wife
would go in, she'll see thetoothbrush with the paste, but I
didn't brush my teeth.
Jami Carlacio (13:13):
Oh wow, so there was definitely some misfiring
going on.
Georges Cordoba (13:18):
Yes, yes, and so there was terrible things.
That happened for a few daysand so she was already very.
That happened for a few daysand so she was already very, you
know, suspicious my wife andthe kids.
And so one morning, after thatincident with the toothbrush,
she asked me are you okay?
(13:38):
I was going to go see a clientin downtown Miami and I said,
yeah, she goes.
You want me to drive you ortake the metro rail?
And I said, no, I'm fine, I'lljust park there.
And it was a whole day thing.
Then we had a couple ofmeetings and a presentation.
So I get there, we go,everything's fine.
(14:00):
And I go to lunch with themthree of them and myself.
And as we ordered lunch nextthing I know they finished.
Then I had my plate was fulland they kept asking me I would
say, no, I'm okay, but go aheadand eat.
(14:23):
So they realized something waswrong.
They paid the bill and thenthey actually made sure that we
went across the street in themiddle because they knew
something was not right.
And as we were going up theelevator I lost my vision.
[Oh gosh], for a few seconds itseemed like eternity, but I
completely went blind and thatreally scared me.
(14:45):
It just came back.
So my client, actually the CEOasked me for my wife's number
and called her and she said donot let him go, take the car
keys and I'll be there.
I'm going to take the MetroRail, and that was good and
(15:06):
downtown from where we lived,where she worked she's in the
medical field, by the way shegot there and we didn't drive.
That particular Metro Rail tookus to the hospital and we saw
the oncologist.
He made a call and so he waswaiting for us, and they asked
(15:28):
me a few questions which I didnot answer.
I was wrong.
They asked me who the presidentwas and I said Ronald Reagan,
you lost a few decades.
Yes, I did and uh, you know, hewould ask, he would ask me for,
for like a color in in Spanish,and I would say it, and then I
(15:51):
had a hard time.
It, you know, repeated inenglish, things like that.
Uh, so he made the decisionright there says, look we, we're
gonna keep him here, we'regonna hospitalize him, we have
the best surgeon, neurosurgeon,in in town and one of the best
in the country.
(16:11):
He was only 37 years old, bythe way, but uh, so that was my
first mets in the brain andended up having a surgery.
It was close to 10 hours.
They opened up.
I don't think you can see it.
Jami Carlacio (16:28):
Probably not.
It's kind of hard to see.
Georges Cordoba (16:31):
Yeah with the lining, but it's from ear to ear
like on my front lobe.
At that time the tumor grew sofast it was almost like a key
lime Not a big full-sized lime,but a key lime.
Jami Carlacio (16:45):
That's big, that's big, it's still pretty
big, oh yeah.
Georges Cordoba (16:48):
It was really affecting a lot of my like I
said, my vision.
I was stuttering.
Jami Carlacio (16:54):
And your memory.
I mean, it sounds like itaffected every single part of
your life.
Georges Cordoba (16:59):
Absolutely.
That's something that I didn'tmention, but when I was
diagnosed, my kids were alreadygoing through the trauma of
losing Yaya.
They called her my mother,their grandmother.
They were very close to her andall of a sudden I had a hard
time deciding do I tell them?
But I did say I did.
(17:21):
In the afternoon when theyremoved it it was an ambulatory
procedure the first one, so Itold them I called my wife.
She was do we do it?
And we realized yes, we'll doit, and it turned out to be
pretty much a trauma for themRight off the bat.
(17:44):
My youngest and only girl,Claudia, seven years.
She was seven years old, shewas .
.
.
"Dad.
Our family is breaking, we lostgrandma and now you know what's
going to happen with you, andso that added a lot of you know.
That whole experience added alot of stress for me.
Jami Carlacio (18:01):
However and we'll go back to the craniotomies and
stuff- Well, let's also getback to like the difference
between Western medicaltreatment the traditional, so
that we can move on to some ofthe like why, you're here today.
Georges Cordoba (18:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
You can read about the kids inmy book.
And so I had my first granulomaand again I accepted.
They said, look, we're going toput you on a six-week
radiotherapy in your head.
So you're going to come for sixweeks, monday through Friday,
and we'll do radiotherapy.
(18:39):
They did say that one of theeffects there could be that I
would get more tumors, and so Iaccepted.
They said, look, we recommendyou doing this or whatever is
around there, we're going tomake sure it's gone.
But what happened actually wasthe opposite.
All of a sudden eight moretumors showed up and they were
(19:02):
all melanoma and we tried to .
.
.
t hey tried to get rid of thesmall ones with gamma knife.
I had two gamma knifeprocedures.
They're really a surgery in away it's a two hour to three
hour procedure where they try togo with targeted radiotherapy,
(19:23):
like laser beams, to thosetumors, and it was successful
for a couple of them.
There were three thatdefinitely needed to be
extracted and thank God for that, they were operable.
But there were two that werenot operable out of the whole
thing.
But there were two that werenot operable out of the whole
thing.
So I just took the news andcontinued to do my stuff.
(19:48):
But at that time, when they cameback and I had, after the two
gamma knives, and I had my thirdcraniotomy because I had the
first one, like I say, it was arecurrence they had to really go
in there and open up.
So on my third one, they foundthis new drug, this new chemo
(20:10):
that would penetrate the brainand that was good news to them
because the brain is very, veryprotective for toxic stuff.
So I agreed you know, my wife,everybody the doctors in my
family, yeah, take it, you stuff.
So I agreed, you know, my wife,everybody the doctors in my
family, yeah, take it.
You know this is great and, bythe way, it was oral.
(20:31):
There were capsules and eachcapsule so you have an idea was
$1,000.
Jami Carlacio (20:37):
Yeah, so a lot of people if they had to have
something like that.
(A) it's not accessible toeverybody.
Well, yeah, I mean you have tohave a certain kind of insurance
or you have to have a heck of alot of money.
Georges Cordoba (20:49):
Yeah, we kind of had both.
My wife had an amazinginsurance with the Baptist
Hospital down there, but, youknow, on year three, three, we
had already consumed ourdeductibles and all this stuff.
So we had to start tapping into401ks, IRAs, college funds for
(21:11):
the kids.
We had it all figured out.
You know, five kids we have,you know so I, and now there are
adults.
But so that was another toughsituation.
So I took this.
This was supposed to be fivepills, one Monday through Friday
, one pill a day, take a breakfor a week and then go five more
(21:32):
days.
On my sixth pill, my sixthcapsule, which was on a Monday,
I made a decision that thisstuff was killing me.
I was literally off the roof.
I mean, I was so tense, soanxious, so I just don't wish
this stuff to anyone.
(21:53):
And so I did a lot of praying.
I always meditated andvisualized with my tennis career
, so I started to use that evenmore than before just to make a
decision.
I was faced with this decisionto say, look, I've been going on
(22:14):
this eight years and it's thesame cycle.
I end up with the surgery, theygive me treatment, I go to
remission, reoccurrence surgery,and I cannot live like this and
, needless to say, with thistype of drugs.
And so I talked to my wifeabout this.
(22:34):
You know, we called the doctorsin my family.
They all thought, no, keep,keep going.
You're doing good, you'restrong, you're an athlete, you
have a great attitude.
But I, I said, look, I knowinside of myself, and I have to
say this our intuition is ourbest coach and, by the way,
(22:56):
healing happens, and you knowthis from the inside out.
You have to make some changes,some radical changes, but it
takes some faith and courage todo this type of decision.
Jami Carlacio (23:07):
You got tired of all of the surgeries, you got
tired of feeling sick, you gottired of not getting well, but
you talked about you know Ican't do this anymore and you
began praying.
So it sounds like faith enteredinto the picture.
And then you mentionedintuition.
So why don't we spend some timetalking about the role of the
(23:30):
mind and move on from some ofthe physical stuff to some of
the mental and emotional andspiritual stuff?
Georges Cordoba (23:40):
Great, and those are the three other legs
that they teach in Azahel, asyou call it.
But yes, on the mental side,particularly when I decided to
go natural, I began to do a lotof visualization.
For example, I would do thistwo or three times a day.
(24:00):
I would imagine the Pac-Mancreatures that game Pac-Man,
these creatures eating up allthe tumors in my body, in my
head, wherever they would be,and I also, because I'm a person
of faith, I would see this,basically this graceful ray, a
(24:23):
holy ray, coming down to me.
In my case it was light blue,coming from inside my head and
going through my body, meltingevery possible tumor in my cell
within, and a couple otherthings that I would do, knowing
(24:44):
that the mind learns byrepetition.
Right.
Jami Carlacio (24:48):
So how often like you did this every day, but for
how long at a time did you doit?
For several hours?
Georges Cordoba (24:54):
I did those three and then I found out about
forgiveness, so I startedmeditating on forgiveness as
well, probably altogether aboutsix hours a day, so all the time
.
Jami Carlacio (25:11):
That's a lot, so that's a lot.
People might think I don't havethe luxury, but I think if
you're trying to save your life,then you do those things
because you probably couldn'twork anyway.
But what's the role offorgiveness?
How did that fit in?
Georges Cordoba (25:28):
Yeah, you know, I found out.
I just did a talk in Torontolast weekend and there was a
holistic MD.
He's an MD but he's nowapplying more holistic approach
in his practice.
He's not an oncologist and hedid say that all disease, all
(25:49):
chronic disease, withoutexception, are emotional.
All chronic disease, withoutexception, comes are emotional.
And because of those emotionsand other things that we do
mindset and anxiety and eatingfast and all this stuff we
produce serotonin and we producecortisol which is very acidic
for our bodies.
(26:09):
And if all disease starts in aninflamed body, now we know the
formula, but forgiveness and I'mwriting a book.
The title is Forgiveness isHealing.
Jami Carlacio (26:22):
It is, but yeah, I mean who thinks, forgiveness,
I've got cancer.
I'm imagining these Pac-Manperson things eating the cancer
cells and you're imagining thisbeautiful divine blue light
healing you.
What made you think forgiveness was so
(26:42):
important?
Georges Cordoba (26:44):
Well, it is said that if you seek, you shall
find.
I was just a master in Google,looking around and trying to
find my own information becauseeverybody has something to tell
you and it could drive you crazyand very confused.
So I did it on my own.
(27:05):
It was me with Google andsomehow somehow one of my
employees.
I don't know why she thoughtabout this, but gave me a book
titled Emotional Intelligenceand I forgot the author right
now.
It's been a long time.
(27:25):
But with that I had theintuition, the discernment to
look into forgiveness.
The intuition, the discernmentto look into forgiveness.
And I realized that I had a lotof clutter in me in terms of
forgiving others, being forgiven, and the toughest one,
forgiving myself.
So I actually humbled myself.
(27:48):
I basically surrendered to theprocess, to the universe.
I called it God and I said youknow, I'm going to put my faith
into action.
Faith without action is dead.
So I looked and looked and Istarted to.
Really I got at work forgivingpeople.
A couple of them were passedaway, but there were some
(28:09):
exercises that you can do,surrogate stuff.
There were some exercises thatyou can do, surrogate stuff, and
I managed to do it very well ina retreat, a spiritual retreat.
But the ones that were alive, Ijust went very humble, said I
forgive you.
And many times it happenedbecause I wasn't a saint, let's
say I was a youngster.
(28:31):
They didn't even remember thatI did have that poison on me.
I had that stuff on me and then, you know, and then asking for
forgiveness and forgiving myself.
There's one scene that I thinkis what really stopped the
recurrences on me and my wifeand I, my friends, they all,
(28:54):
everybody, just really they hadme already in the cemetery.
Jami Carlacio (28:58):
Oh gosh.
Georges Cordoba (28:59):
Especially the doctors and stuff.
So they invited me everywherethey could.
I said and we love music, likeyou said, so many of us liked
Fleetwood Mac and they were intown, so we went to liked
Fleetwood Mac and they were intown, so we went to see
Fleetwood Mac.
My wife and I enjoyed theconcert but we cried from the
(29:21):
very first song.
We looked at each other, wecried and we just forgave each
other.
We were just hugging for twohours, two and a half hours, two
and a half hours and, uh, bothmyself and and her, we can, you
know, just say, look this, thatwas healing.
Jami Carlacio (29:41):
I was just healing this tear.
D id you send Fleetwood Mac athank you card?
no, I didn't, I should haveyeah I should have, so, so let's
just talk about this a little.
We could get sidetracked onFleetwood Mac very easily.
So the forgiveness thing ishuge because you mentioned a
very important word in therepoison and a lot of what's in
(30:04):
our bodies is poison.
Georges Cordoba (30:06):
It is.
Jami Carlacio (30:07):
And it came from our heads.
It may have been something youate, but oftentimes the thinking
, the patterns, the ruminationthat's poisonous.
And that's where the cortisolcan come in.
Right, the stress hormones comein, because all of a sudden
we're thinking this is bad, orthat person is bad, or that
(30:30):
person wronged me, or I'm a badperson.
So, speaking about emotionalintelligence is important,
because emotional intelligenceisn't just about emotional
regulation that might be theumbrella way of thinking about
it but what's more specific isresilience.
You know, in the face ofdifficulty, what do we do when
(30:52):
we are faced with, whether it issomething small like a
financial setback, or somethingreally major, like recurrent
brain cancer, where you thinkyou're going to die and they
keep taking out your lymph nodesand part of your you know, part
of your brain.
I mean you can't get much worsethan that.
But your thinking shifted.
(31:15):
You started relying on thedivine instead of on human
intervention, and humanintervention is good.
I'm not going to poo-poodoctors, Doctors are great.
They serve a really importantpurpose in our world.
But clearly that kind ofmedical intervention may have
(31:35):
saved your life, with the lymphnodes especially.
But what really seemed to turnthings around was that you
changed the way you looked atthe world and the way you looked
at yourself and the way youlooked at other people.
Georges Cordoba (31:50):
Absolutely yes.
Jami Carlacio (31:51):
And when we don't forgive, when we're in this
blaming mode or shaming mode,those are all the opposite of
emotional intelligence andthat's where you know, and again
, forgiving ourselves isimportant, but we can't get to
the place of this kind ofmaudlin self-pity of oh, I'm a
bad person.
We're not bad people.
(32:14):
Sometimes we do bad things or wemake bad decisions or we make
decisions that didn't turn outthe way we expected or we didn't
think them through.
There's even different ways ofthinking about that and, yeah,
there are real harms in theworld.
But one of the things in therecovery community, especially
(32:34):
in 12-step programs, isforgiveness.
You know, one of the biggestkeys to recovery is forgiveness.
Georges Cordoba (32:45):
Absolutely.
Jami Carlacio (32:47):
And you know, if you go to bed mad, if you go to
bed thinking, you know you havenightmares.
You start thinking about things.
I talked to a lot of people allday, every day, and I see how
their thinking got them wherethey are.
Georges Cordoba (33:04):
Yes, absolutely Absolutely.
You're just right, you justcouldn't have said it.
I couldn't have said it better,and it is so important because
I found out and this issomething that people should
listen to that we will.
Any cancer patient willcontinue to have recurrences
(33:28):
until he or she finds the rootcause, what caused the disease
to come in in this case, cancer,which was my experience and
once you find that root cause,which is usually a combination
of the mind and emotions, whichmanifest in the body.
Jami Carlacio (33:48):
Exactly Right.
Georges Cordoba (33:49):
Manifest in the body.
Jami Carlacio (33:50):
Yes.
Georges Cordoba (33:51):
Once you clear that clutter, your healing
starts again.
I am very blessed to reallyhave done a minor in nutrition
when I was in college, competingand obviously studying
engineering.
But I did a minor in nutritionto have an edge playing the game
(34:14):
and so that helped me a lotlater on.
And, like I said, doctors arenot.
They're not nutritionists,they're not psychologists,
they're not acupuncturists,they're not massage therapists.
They just know what they do andthat's great.
They're trying their best.
I would not be here withoutthose 10 do, and that's great,
they're trying their best.
(34:34):
I would not be here withoutthose 10 surgeries.
Maybe you're right.
I mean, the ones in the brainwere really key.
I could have a stroke orwhatever.
Nothing happened.
But I agree and this issomething my wife and I
discussed earlier the years thatI was cancer-free I never said
I'm in remission.
That psychologically leaves alittle seat in there that it
(34:58):
could come back.
Jami Carlacio (34:59):
No, I'm free of cancer, yeah yeah.
So that is so key.
I have seen that I used tothink of myself as a victim of
my life, and when I was a victimof my life, I was a chronic
migraine sufferer, and that wasa big thing.
(35:21):
Migraines ruled my life.
There were days I couldn't getout of bed.
There were days I could not getout of bed and I had started
getting these when I was six.
So from the time I was sixuntil a couple of years ago,
when everything literally turnedon a dime for me and I stopped
realizing I was not my trauma,I'm not a victim, I'm not my
(35:45):
disease, I'm not, I'm just Jamiea beloved child of a loving God
.
And as soon as I shifted mythinking, everything in my life
changed.
Georges Cordoba (35:55):
Everything.
Jami Carlacio (35:56):
It was complete transformation and you know I
still like Haagen-Dazs ice cream.
I'll just put that out therefor everybody that I haven't
quite given up ice cream, but Ido put better food in my body
and I put better thoughts in myhead every day in my body and I
put better thoughts in my headevery day.
Georges Cordoba (36:16):
Absolutely that's.
It is key, boy.
I don't know how much time wehave, but it is.
It is key to nourish yourself.
Don't, don't allow people orthe media anything to step in
the beautiful garden of yourmind.
You keep it with flowers, withnice, beautiful green trees, and
don't allow anyone to damagethat.
Until then you start growingweeds.
Jami Carlacio (36:39):
That's one thing.
Georges Cordoba (36:41):
And then, in terms of what we put inside of
ourselves, if we learn to loveourselves and be you know, just
give ourselves a pat on the back, being proud of ourselves.
Many things happen as well,including on the emotional side,
with the nutrition, and youjust said it, but I'll repeat it
(37:02):
you know, if you are stressedout, producing cortisol, you
remember a song, something thathappened in the past through a
movie or whatever, and you'reeating, or you're eating just in
10 minutes.
There is the same for usnutritionists 25% of our
digestion and nutrition is thethings we put in our mouth, our
(37:24):
food, what we eat.
75% is who we are when we'reeating.
Jami Carlacio (37:29):
Oh, I love that.
Oh my gosh, I can't believe.
You just said that.
That is so awesome.
It's who we are when we areeating.
Georges Cordoba (37:38):
Yes, absolutely .
And that's what goes wrong.
We start our, we interrupt ourdigestion over and over, weekly,
monthly and yearly until thebody gives up.
And what happens?
For example, we in America, theaverage person chews six times
(38:00):
before they swallow.
So we send our stomach a bomb.
You know, it's supposed to beprocessed in our mouth.
We chew more, our salivaenzymes help us process the food
and then we swallow.
If we don't do that, like I say, the average person and I'm not
saying they're, they're chewing, uh, let's say jelly, or, or,
(38:22):
or, you know, a mashed potato.
But if you're eating somethingthat you need, it's some, the
average.
Jami Carlacio (38:28):
You like meat, especially meat meat you chew.
Yeah, that's why we have teeth.
Georges Cordoba (38:33):
Yeah, exactly 20 to 32 times.
So once because we don't dothat or we're in a hurry, we
have to do errands, we'restressed out, maybe we're really
going mad with traffic, we donot have a good digestion and
with time, the stomach all itdoes.
I don't know what to do withthis.
It's not processed, it sends itas fat.
(38:56):
The fat produces acidity, andnot only that, we didn't get the
nutrients we need, so we'rehungry three hours later and
there you go.
That's why half of our morethan half our nation is
overweight yeah, well there,yeah, yeah you know, there's
there's something called mindfuleating.
Jami Carlacio (39:15):
Yes, and it would be a luxury for some people
that maybe feel like I don'thave that much time on my lunch
break.
But the idea of when I and Idon't do it all the time either,
but when I do what I do, when Ido mindful eating is I thank
the earth for the food.
I thank the soil that made itpossible for the food to grow.
(39:39):
I thank the farmer that plantedthe food.
I thank the person whoharvested the food.
I thank the person who pickedup the food from the farm and
drove it to a store.
I thank the person at the storewho put it on the shelf and I
thank God for giving me themeans to buy the food to put it
(40:03):
on my table, and I thank God forthe opportunity to eat it with
whomever I'm eating with, likemy son or something.
And just slowing that and bythe way that didn't take very
long.
I'm eating with, like my son orsomething and just slowing that
and, by the way, that didn'ttake very long.
I said it slowly, but in mymind it doesn't take long to
make all of those sort of thankyous in my head before I dig in.
(40:27):
But just doing that reminds meof where that food came from,
even if it came from a fast foodrestaurant.
It grew in the ground somewhere.
That bun, you know, that meat,or that piece of lettuce or
whatever it is that you'reeating, you know it came from
the earth.
Georges Cordoba (40:47):
Absolutely Awesome, yeah, awesome, yeah.
Actually, the first couple ofweeks in my program we only work
about, on the physical body,about how to eat and how to
actually.
I even have a couple ofdocuments.
One is called Sensual Eatingand it's really all about, and
I'll send you some of this stuffand then, if the crowd wants,
(41:09):
you'll have a link that you goto my site and download some.
Jami Carlacio (41:12):
Yeah, that would be great.
Georges Cordoba (41:14):
But there are some tricks there to help our
body restore and, like I say,knowledge is power.
Once you know it, now you haveto take action, and so in many
cases, uh, we have to.
You know, I have to make suremy client goes through some
routine and I give them actionsteps for 21 days.
(41:35):
That's the beginning of achange of a habit, and so it is
wonderful because they reallysee a fast change in their body,
in their energy, the way theysleep, which is very important
too, energy the way they sleep,which is very important too.
(41:56):
So, but but just to end up thewhole thing with the, with the
meds, yeah, if I knew then whatI know now, I would have never
gone through oncology and interms of chemo and radiotherapy,
it's just not we do.
You know, I needed to find thatwhen I say forgive myself, I
(42:18):
always ask why, why, why?
Until really I found and I saidto myself hey, this is your
fault, you caused this.
You're in a hurry, you'retrying to do your MBA, you want
to progress as a CTO, then yourkids, you're camping, you're the
soccer coach, and I was doingso many things, playing
tournaments, and all of a sudden, this source said hey, you know
(42:42):
what You're killing yourselfhere, have a lesson.
And you know what you'rekilling yourself here, have a
lesson.
And, and, and you know, I gotwhat I got yeah but uh, but it's
all from the inside out andtaking action yeah, it is and it
is.
Jami Carlacio (42:56):
It is a taking action thing.
We need to wrap up becausewe're running out of time, but
it's important.
I just want to stress thisbecause it's all well and good
to listen to this or watch thispodcast and say that's a great
idea, but if you do the samething tomorrow that you did
today, you have not made achange.
(43:18):
Maybe, maybe Georges's or Iplanted a seed and good, Maybe
the seed will germinate andmaybe the next time you sit down
and you think you're in a hurry, you'll slow down or you'll say
wait a minute.
What am I holding on to in mybody?
That's poisoning me.
Georges Cordoba (43:38):
Absolutely yes.
Jami Carlacio (43:39):
And you know, I took some people through a
meditation today and I took themthrough a forest and then I
brought them into an open fieldand I brought them to a little
hill and on top of the hill wasa basket and I said this is a
bottomless basket, it will neverfill up.
But I want you to mentallywrite down all your problems on
(44:02):
pieces of paper and put them inthe basket and then leave the
basket alone.
Don't worry about the basket,don't worry about it.
And then I invited them toimagine a divine light on them
and on the basket, and I saidjust follow the divine light and
just let it take you where it'sgoing to take you.
(44:23):
But don't worry about thebasket.
It's not going anywhere and youdon't have to do anything.
And I put a few of them tosleep, which is probably okay.
But that's okay, because theywere finally able to let go of
something.
And we all hold on to so much.
(44:43):
We have stress in our shouldersand stress in our necks and
stress in our stomachs.
Our stomachs tense up and thenwe're not digesting properly.
But I think it's it's.
You know, you talked a littlebit about weeds.
Emotional and positiveintelligence is.
(45:06):
We have the neural pathways andwe have one that's been
well-worn, and that well-wornpathway is the pathway of a
judge, and you know, the judge,jury and executioner you know
the people pleaser, thecontroller, the hypervigilant,
the hyperachiever, the victim.
And then the path of the sage isthe one with empathy and
forgiveness and innovativethinking and thinking outside
(45:29):
the box and then taking action.
The last of the five sagepowers is activate.
In other words, you can beempathetic and compassionate and
innovative and explore ideas,explore new things.
But you can do all those thingsIf you don't take action, then
(45:50):
you may as well just go sit backdown.
Georges Cordoba (45:52):
Exactly, absolutely, you know, an
illusion, basically, I'm sorry,an intention without action is
an illusion.
There, you go, and you know ithappens every year New Year's
resolution by March everybodystopped.
Yeah, you have to continuetaking action, and you know what
(46:13):
the year will go by.
You either stop or you followthrough.
And now you're, you know, veryproud of yourself that you made
something happen.
Your goal was reached.
Jami Carlacio (46:25):
Yeah, and just one other thing I want to just
remind people if you make a goaland you make progress and then
you stop making progress for awhile or you slip, that's okay.
Just get back up and get goingagain, right?
Everybody falls off a bike whenthey're learning how to ride a
(46:45):
bike.
If everyone stopped when theyfell off a bike, nobody would be
riding a bike in this world.
That's correct.
So get back on your bike andit's never too late.
Clearly, George, right, You'renot 22, are you?
Georges Cordoba (46:57):
No no 22 times 4, no times 3.
I'll be 64 now, on October 12th.
Jami Carlacio (47:05):
Oh, happy birthday.
Georges Cordoba (47:08):
Yeah, thank you yeah.
Jami Carlacio (47:11):
So, on that note, I invited Michael Bublé to join
us for a moment in our studio.
Michael Buble (47:23):
It's a new life for me.
Jami Carlacio (47:33):
And that is our show.
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you so much, Georges, forsharing your story with us and
for giving us all some hope.
Thank you, there is a betterway, and as I said, if you liked
this interview, please rememberto like and subscribe to this
channel so that more people canenjoy the benefits of emotional
(47:57):
intelligence.
And until next time, I'll seeyou all at the PQ gym.
Take care everyone.
Bye-bye.
I found out and this is something that people
should listen to that we will.
Any cancer patient willcontinue to have recurrences
until he or she finds the rootcause, what caused the disease
to come in In this case, cancer,which was my experience and
(00:25):
once you find that root cause,which is usually a combination
of the mind and emotions, whichmanifest in the body, exactly it
manifests in the body.
Jami Carlacio (00:35):
Yes.
Georges Cordoba (00:36):
Once you clear that clutter, your healing
starts again.
Jami Carlacio (00:47):
Welcome to the podcast Emotional Intelligence
your greatest asset and key tosuccess.
I'm your host, Dr.
Jami Carlacio, coming to youfrom the Greater New Haven,
Connecticut area.
A s an emotional intelligenceor EQ coach.
I'm committed to helping peopledevelop both emotional
intelligence and mental fitness.
That is, you'll come to regardproblems as situations that help
(01:11):
you learn and grow.
Eq is a way of being and doingin the world that enables you to
develop and sustain a positiverelationship with yourself and
others, at home, at work andeverywhere in between.
Please subscribe to thispodcast and tap the like button
so more people can enjoy thebenefits of EQ.
And now here's the show.
(01:33):
Hello everybody, and welcome tothe podcast.
I am so glad you're here andI'm very glad to introduce you
to my new friend, GeorgesCordoba.
He is, I don't know, nothingshort of a miracle-- that might
be the way that I would describeyou.
A nd I am excited for you totell our audience your story.
(01:56):
So today we're going to talkabout wellness, and we're going
to talk about the different waysin which our Western society
thinks it can make us well, andhow a holistic approach is
actually often an even betteranswer.
So with that, let me tell you alittle bit about Georges.
(02:19):
So, first of all, he is a stageIV melanoma and metastasis of
the brain cancer survivor.
Yes, you heard that right-- andhe fought the disease for 10
years and he had 10 surgeries,including four craniotomies.
(02:40):
The pharmaceuticals nearlydestroyed his body.
So he took a leap of faith andwent into the natural, holistic
route to heal.
And here he is after 12 years,free of cancer, and God bless
you for that.
I just think that's so amazing.
So seven years ago, george justtook another leap of faith and
(03:01):
he transitioned from being achief technology officer to
working in health and wellness,and that's why I have him here
today.
So he works with people who aredealing with cancer or the
threat of cancer and he helpsthem to transform their health
and their vitality.
He became a holistic coach anda holistic master of
transformative coaching and afunctional nutritionist and a
(03:24):
professional speaker, and he'salso a rapid transformation
therapist and I'll let him tellyou a little bit about that.
And he's also a hypnotherapistand a Reiki master.
So Georges and I connected on alot of different levels, and so
it made sense for me to ask himto be here with us today.
He's also an Amazon bestsellingauthor for his book Beating the
(03:47):
Odds my Journey Through HolisticHealth to Overcoming Advanced
Cancer, and as an athlete, heplayed NCAA Division I tennis
for New Mexico State University.
He enjoys competing in 10K andhalf marathon races, and he is,
let me see, an accomplishedpiano player, having studied at
(04:12):
conservatory.
So, george, if there is such athing as a Renaissance man, I
think you're looking at himright now and all of his
information will be in the shownotes.
So welcome, welcome.
How are you today?
Very notes, so welcome, welcome.
Georges Cordoba (04:26):
Very good, very Jami, and thank you for
inviting me.
I'm honored to be in your showand to share with your audience
some good stuff, including,obviously, my journey the
10-year battle with cancer.
Jami Carlacio (04:42):
Yes, and before we get to that, I just want to
say a couple of things, becauseI am working as a substance use
disorder recovery coach in aclinic and what I find is that a
lot of people are medicated ona lot of stuff and doctors used
to medicate me as well and I amno longer on medication because
(05:07):
actually I found a lot ofhealing through holistic health
measures myself, whether it'syoga, meditation, reiki and just
really adopting a differentmindset.
Positive intelligence andemotional intelligence have
really changed everything for me, and I have found that the
thinking has so much more to dowith your health than sometimes
(05:31):
the drugs, and sometimes theycan be detrimental.
So I just wanted to start withthat, because I think that might
be a springboard into youtelling us a little bit about
your story with drugs and chemoand then finally getting to this
place of drug-free andcancer-free.
Georges Cordoba (05:49):
Yeah, sure, as many people know, there are
about 12 rules of the mind.
One of the rules is that themind goes to what is familiar.
And for most of us,particularly in the West Western
societies, what is reallyfamiliar in our minds is to go
to an oncologist and in a waygive him or her all the power
(06:15):
and we become a patient andbasically do whatever they say.
So I did that and my Greek.
I'm half Greek and half Spanish.
My parents are from Madrid andAthens.
On my Greek side of the familyI grew up seeing family members
(06:37):
my grandfather, his brother, mygrandmother's sisters, then an
uncle, then another uncle, lateron my godfather, and then,
three weeks before I wasdiagnosed, my mother passed of
cancer.
So when I looked at my familylandscape, you know from the
(07:01):
Greek side, I really thought Iwas doomed.
I mean, I fear the disease.
Since then and three weeks,like I said, after she passed, I
couldn't warn her I got.
I was diagnosed already withmalignant melanoma.
I started at the top of myscalp and I did that.
(07:23):
I just went.
I basically I couldn't believeit, I was in shock, but I
everything happened and nextthing I know I'm.
I'm at a oncologist's office Iwas recommended to him.
The whole journey started Um.
First of all I was luckybecause the same day I got my
diagnosis I was because I havefamily doctors.
(07:46):
I mean doctors in my family Iwas able to be seen by one of
the top dermatologists inSoutheast Florida I was living
in Miami, Florida at the time,from Sylvester Cancer Center,
and I reached out but hecouldn't see me in seven weeks.
So I called my buddy he's mydaughter's godfather and he said
(08:14):
no worries, I went to schoolwith him and he'll see you today
.
So we managed and in theafternoon he removed my first
lesion in the brain andbasically he did recommend going
with this surgeon oncologist.
He'll do a sentinel biopsy,which was, by the way, invasive,
(08:44):
and that's when I started justaccepting all this stuff coming
into my body.
In no time I had my firstsurgery, which, by the way, this
tumor in the top of my headcame back, and so I had my first
craniotomy.
(09:04):
And at the same time the doctorsaid I was going to get two for
one.
He actually removed 23 lymphnodes from the right side of my
neck because there was a biopsybehind my ear, a lymph node that
came out positive.
So they decided to take a wholebranch of lymph nodes and there
(09:29):
were three that they couldn'tget to.
He couldn't get to and so hedecided without asking my wife
or anyone I was asleep toactually sacrifice one of my
neck muscles to get to thosethree lymph nodes.
And it so happened that out ofthe 23, those three were
positive.
So you know, that was basically.
(09:50):
I consider myself lucky withthat and obviously I had some
issues later on because thatmuscle was not there and you
know, if you see me without ashirt you can see that I have a
cavity there, even though natureis amazing.
The other muscle there's twothere, really kind of like made
(10:12):
it up, but not completely.
And right after that they put meon this.
They started to try things.
Melanoma was pretty unknownhere in the States.
I n Europe, especially inAustralia, they were way ahead
of us in terms of prevention andthings like that.
So they put me on interferon.
(10:34):
I was five months in this drugthat actually it was killing me
From the get-go.
I just felt horrible me fromthe get go.
I just felt horrible.
I kept trying to keep mypositive attitude, saying, well,
if I feel horrible, imaginewhat it's doing to these tiny
cells that you can't see withouta scan, but really it was
(10:57):
taking a toll on me.
Five months into that, I'll gopretty quickly.
Five months into that, I'll gopretty quickly.
I was having some issues on myleft ear and they did a biopsy
of one of the lymph nodes by myear and it was positive.
So they decided to extract 22lymph nodes on my left side of
(11:21):
my neck.
But no, they didn't have tosacrifice a muscle or anything
like that.
Two of those 22 were positiveand that started my journey.
They tried.
Because the interferon didn'twork, they put me in a different
type of chemo and we tried thatI was in remission.
We tried that I was inremission, as they call it, a
(11:44):
few months, maybe six, sevenmonths, and then it appeared
again and this time was in oneof my glute muscles.
Melanoma is so aggressive andunpredictable that it's really a
rough type of cancer to beat,or even for doctors when they're
(12:12):
doing what they know.
So all in all, I was havingsurgery, then I would have
treatment, then remission, thenrecurrence, then surgery,
treatment, remission, allthrough eight years In year
eight, after three months beingclear of cancer.
(12:34):
All of a sudden I started tostutter.
I was stuttering.
I was speaking more Spanishthan English, as Spanish is my
first language.
I was speaking more Spanishthan English, as Spanish is my
first language.
And at one point, you know thekids and my wife they were
wondering, they knew somethingwas wrong.
I was getting these massiveheadaches and so they kept
(12:57):
asking me if I was okay.
I said yes, but they noticedcertain things, like I would go
and brush my teeth and come outof the bathroom and when my wife
would go in, she'll see thetoothbrush with the paste, but I
didn't brush my teeth.
Jami Carlacio (13:13):
Oh wow, so there was definitely some misfiring
going on.
Georges Cordoba (13:18):
Yes, yes, and so there was terrible things.
That happened for a few daysand so she was already very.
That happened for a few daysand so she was already very, you
know, suspicious my wife andthe kids.
And so one morning, after thatincident with the toothbrush,
she asked me are you okay?
(13:38):
I was going to go see a clientin downtown Miami and I said,
yeah, she goes.
You want me to drive you ortake the metro rail?
And I said, no, I'm fine, I'lljust park there.
And it was a whole day thing.
Then we had a couple ofmeetings and a presentation.
So I get there, we go,everything's fine.
(14:00):
And I go to lunch with themthree of them and myself.
And as we ordered lunch nextthing I know they finished.
Then I had my plate was fulland they kept asking me I would
say, no, I'm okay, but go aheadand eat.
(14:23):
So they realized something waswrong.
They paid the bill and thenthey actually made sure that we
went across the street in themiddle because they knew
something was not right.
And as we were going up theelevator I lost my vision.
[Oh gosh], for a few seconds itseemed like eternity, but I
completely went blind and thatreally scared me.
(14:45):
It just came back.
So my client, actually the CEOasked me for my wife's number
and called her and she said donot let him go, take the car
keys and I'll be there.
I'm going to take the MetroRail, and that was good and
(15:06):
downtown from where we lived,where she worked she's in the
medical field, by the way shegot there and we didn't drive.
That particular Metro Rail tookus to the hospital and we saw
the oncologist.
He made a call and so he waswaiting for us, and they asked
(15:28):
me a few questions which I didnot answer.
I was wrong.
They asked me who the presidentwas and I said Ronald Reagan,
you lost a few decades.
Yes, I did and uh, you know, hewould ask, he would ask me for,
for like a color in in Spanish,and I would say it, and then I
(15:51):
had a hard time.
It, you know, repeated inenglish, things like that.
Uh, so he made the decisionright there says, look we, we're
gonna keep him here, we'regonna hospitalize him, we have
the best surgeon, neurosurgeon,in in town and one of the best
in the country.
(16:11):
He was only 37 years old, bythe way, but uh, so that was my
first mets in the brain andended up having a surgery.
It was close to 10 hours.
They opened up.
I don't think you can see it.
Jami Carlacio (16:28):
Probably not.
It's kind of hard to see.
Georges Cordoba (16:31):
Yeah with the lining, but it's from ear to ear
like on my front lobe.
At that time the tumor grew sofast it was almost like a key
lime Not a big full-sized lime,but a key lime.
Jami Carlacio (16:45):
That's big, that's big, it's still pretty
big, oh yeah.
Georges Cordoba (16:48):
It was really affecting a lot of my like I
said, my vision.
I was stuttering.
Jami Carlacio (16:54):
And your memory.
I mean, it sounds like itaffected every single part of
your life.
Georges Cordoba (16:59):
Absolutely.
That's something that I didn'tmention, but when I was
diagnosed, my kids were alreadygoing through the trauma of
losing Yaya.
They called her my mother,their grandmother.
They were very close to her andall of a sudden I had a hard
time deciding do I tell them?
But I did say I did.
(17:21):
In the afternoon when theyremoved it it was an ambulatory
procedure the first one, so Itold them I called my wife.
She was do we do it?
And we realized yes, we'll doit, and it turned out to be
pretty much a trauma for themRight off the bat.
(17:44):
My youngest and only girl,Claudia, seven years.
She was seven years old, shewas .
.
.
"Dad.
Our family is breaking, we lostgrandma and now you know what's
going to happen with you, andso that added a lot of you know.
That whole experience added alot of stress for me.
Jami Carlacio (18:01):
However and we'll go back to the craniotomies and
stuff- Well, let's also getback to like the difference
between Western medicaltreatment the traditional, so
that we can move on to some ofthe like why, you're here today.
Georges Cordoba (18:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
You can read about the kids inmy book.
And so I had my first granulomaand again I accepted.
They said, look, we're going toput you on a six-week
radiotherapy in your head.
So you're going to come for sixweeks, monday through Friday,
and we'll do radiotherapy.
(18:39):
They did say that one of theeffects there could be that I
would get more tumors, and so Iaccepted.
They said, look, we recommendyou doing this or whatever is
around there, we're going tomake sure it's gone.
But what happened actually wasthe opposite.
All of a sudden eight moretumors showed up and they were
(19:02):
all melanoma and we tried to .
.
.
t hey tried to get rid of thesmall ones with gamma knife.
I had two gamma knifeprocedures.
They're really a surgery in away it's a two hour to three
hour procedure where they try togo with targeted radiotherapy,
(19:23):
like laser beams, to thosetumors, and it was successful
for a couple of them.
There were three thatdefinitely needed to be
extracted and thank God for that, they were operable.
But there were two that werenot operable out of the whole
thing.
But there were two that werenot operable out of the whole
thing.
So I just took the news andcontinued to do my stuff.
(19:48):
But at that time, when they cameback and I had, after the two
gamma knives, and I had my thirdcraniotomy because I had the
first one, like I say, it was arecurrence they had to really go
in there and open up.
So on my third one, they foundthis new drug, this new chemo
(20:10):
that would penetrate the brainand that was good news to them
because the brain is very, veryprotective for toxic stuff.
So I agreed you know, my wife,everybody the doctors in my
family, yeah, take it, you stuff.
So I agreed, you know, my wife,everybody the doctors in my
family, yeah, take it.
You know this is great and, bythe way, it was oral.
(20:31):
There were capsules and eachcapsule so you have an idea was
$1,000.
Jami Carlacio (20:37):
Yeah, so a lot of people if they had to have
something like that.
(A) it's not accessible toeverybody.
Well, yeah, I mean you have tohave a certain kind of insurance
or you have to have a heck of alot of money.
Georges Cordoba (20:49):
Yeah, we kind of had both.
My wife had an amazinginsurance with the Baptist
Hospital down there, but, youknow, on year three, three, we
had already consumed ourdeductibles and all this stuff.
So we had to start tapping into401ks, IRAs, college funds for
(21:11):
the kids.
We had it all figured out.
You know, five kids we have,you know so I, and now there are
adults.
But so that was another toughsituation.
So I took this.
This was supposed to be fivepills, one Monday through Friday
, one pill a day, take a breakfor a week and then go five more
(21:32):
days.
On my sixth pill, my sixthcapsule, which was on a Monday,
I made a decision that thisstuff was killing me.
I was literally off the roof.
I mean, I was so tense, soanxious, so I just don't wish
this stuff to anyone.
(21:53):
And so I did a lot of praying.
I always meditated andvisualized with my tennis career
, so I started to use that evenmore than before just to make a
decision.
I was faced with this decisionto say, look, I've been going on
(22:14):
this eight years and it's thesame cycle.
I end up with the surgery, theygive me treatment, I go to
remission, reoccurrence surgery,and I cannot live like this and
, needless to say, with thistype of drugs.
And so I talked to my wifeabout this.
(22:34):
You know, we called the doctorsin my family.
They all thought, no, keep,keep going.
You're doing good, you'restrong, you're an athlete, you
have a great attitude.
But I, I said, look, I knowinside of myself, and I have to
say this our intuition is ourbest coach and, by the way,
(22:56):
healing happens, and you knowthis from the inside out.
You have to make some changes,some radical changes, but it
takes some faith and courage todo this type of decision.
Jami Carlacio (23:07):
You got tired of all of the surgeries, you got
tired of feeling sick, you gottired of not getting well, but
you talked about you know Ican't do this anymore and you
began praying.
So it sounds like faith enteredinto the picture.
And then you mentionedintuition.
So why don't we spend some timetalking about the role of the
(23:30):
mind and move on from some ofthe physical stuff to some of
the mental and emotional andspiritual stuff?
Georges Cordoba (23:40):
Great, and those are the three other legs
that they teach in Azahel, asyou call it.
But yes, on the mental side,particularly when I decided to
go natural, I began to do a lotof visualization.
For example, I would do thistwo or three times a day.
(24:00):
I would imagine the Pac-Mancreatures that game Pac-Man,
these creatures eating up allthe tumors in my body, in my
head, wherever they would be,and I also, because I'm a person
of faith, I would see this,basically this graceful ray, a
(24:23):
holy ray, coming down to me.
In my case it was light blue,coming from inside my head and
going through my body, meltingevery possible tumor in my cell
within, and a couple otherthings that I would do, knowing
(24:44):
that the mind learns byrepetition.
Right.
Jami Carlacio (24:48):
So how often like you did this every day, but for
how long at a time did you doit?
For several hours?
Georges Cordoba (24:54):
I did those three and then I found out about
forgiveness, so I startedmeditating on forgiveness as
well, probably altogether aboutsix hours a day, so all the time
.
Jami Carlacio (25:11):
That's a lot, so that's a lot.
People might think I don't havethe luxury, but I think if
you're trying to save your life,then you do those things
because you probably couldn'twork anyway.
But what's the role offorgiveness?
How did that fit in?
Georges Cordoba (25:28):
Yeah, you know, I found out.
I just did a talk in Torontolast weekend and there was a
holistic MD.
He's an MD but he's nowapplying more holistic approach
in his practice.
He's not an oncologist and hedid say that all disease, all
(25:49):
chronic disease, withoutexception, are emotional.
All chronic disease, withoutexception, comes are emotional.
And because of those emotionsand other things that we do
mindset and anxiety and eatingfast and all this stuff we
produce serotonin and we producecortisol which is very acidic
for our bodies.
(26:09):
And if all disease starts in aninflamed body, now we know the
formula, but forgiveness and I'mwriting a book.
The title is Forgiveness isHealing.
Jami Carlacio (26:22):
It is, but yeah, I mean who thinks, forgiveness,
I've got cancer.
I'm imagining these Pac-Manperson things eating the cancer
cells and you're imagining thisbeautiful divine blue light
healing you.
What made you think forgiveness was so
(26:42):
important?
Georges Cordoba (26:44):
Well, it is said that if you seek, you shall
find.
I was just a master in Google,looking around and trying to
find my own information becauseeverybody has something to tell
you and it could drive you crazyand very confused.
So I did it on my own.
(27:05):
It was me with Google andsomehow somehow one of my
employees.
I don't know why she thoughtabout this, but gave me a book
titled Emotional Intelligenceand I forgot the author right
now.
It's been a long time.
(27:25):
But with that I had theintuition, the discernment to
look into forgiveness.
The intuition, the discernmentto look into forgiveness.
And I realized that I had a lotof clutter in me in terms of
forgiving others, being forgiven, and the toughest one,
forgiving myself.
So I actually humbled myself.
(27:48):
I basically surrendered to theprocess, to the universe.
I called it God and I said youknow, I'm going to put my faith
into action.
Faith without action is dead.
So I looked and looked and Istarted to.
Really I got at work forgivingpeople.
A couple of them were passedaway, but there were some
(28:09):
exercises that you can do,surrogate stuff.
There were some exercises thatyou can do, surrogate stuff, and
I managed to do it very well ina retreat, a spiritual retreat.
But the ones that were alive, Ijust went very humble, said I
forgive you.
And many times it happenedbecause I wasn't a saint, let's
say I was a youngster.
(28:31):
They didn't even remember thatI did have that poison on me.
I had that stuff on me and then, you know, and then asking for
forgiveness and forgiving myself.
There's one scene that I thinkis what really stopped the
recurrences on me and my wifeand I, my friends, they all,
(28:54):
everybody, just really they hadme already in the cemetery.
Jami Carlacio (28:58):
Oh gosh.
Georges Cordoba (28:59):
Especially the doctors and stuff.
So they invited me everywherethey could.
I said and we love music, likeyou said, so many of us liked
Fleetwood Mac and they were intown, so we went to liked
Fleetwood Mac and they were intown, so we went to see
Fleetwood Mac.
My wife and I enjoyed theconcert but we cried from the
(29:21):
very first song.
We looked at each other, wecried and we just forgave each
other.
We were just hugging for twohours, two and a half hours, two
and a half hours and, uh, bothmyself and and her, we can, you
know, just say, look this, thatwas healing.
Jami Carlacio (29:41):
I was just healing this tear.
D id you send Fleetwood Mac athank you card?
no, I didn't, I should haveyeah I should have, so, so let's
just talk about this a little.
We could get sidetracked onFleetwood Mac very easily.
So the forgiveness thing ishuge because you mentioned a
very important word in therepoison and a lot of what's in
(30:04):
our bodies is poison.
Georges Cordoba (30:06):
It is.
Jami Carlacio (30:07):
And it came from our heads.
It may have been something youate, but oftentimes the thinking
, the patterns, the ruminationthat's poisonous.
And that's where the cortisolcan come in.
Right, the stress hormones comein, because all of a sudden
we're thinking this is bad, orthat person is bad, or that
(30:30):
person wronged me, or I'm a badperson.
So, speaking about emotionalintelligence is important,
because emotional intelligenceisn't just about emotional
regulation that might be theumbrella way of thinking about
it but what's more specific isresilience.
You know, in the face ofdifficulty, what do we do when
(30:52):
we are faced with, whether it issomething small like a
financial setback, or somethingreally major, like recurrent
brain cancer, where you thinkyou're going to die and they
keep taking out your lymph nodesand part of your you know, part
of your brain.
I mean you can't get much worsethan that.
But your thinking shifted.
(31:15):
You started relying on thedivine instead of on human
intervention, and humanintervention is good.
I'm not going to poo-poodoctors, Doctors are great.
They serve a really importantpurpose in our world.
But clearly that kind ofmedical intervention may have
(31:35):
saved your life, with the lymphnodes especially.
But what really seemed to turnthings around was that you
changed the way you looked atthe world and the way you looked
at yourself and the way youlooked at other people.
Georges Cordoba (31:50):
Absolutely yes.
Jami Carlacio (31:51):
And when we don't forgive, when we're in this
blaming mode or shaming mode,those are all the opposite of
emotional intelligence andthat's where you know, and again
, forgiving ourselves isimportant, but we can't get to
the place of this kind ofmaudlin self-pity of oh, I'm a
bad person.
We're not bad people.
(32:14):
Sometimes we do bad things or wemake bad decisions or we make
decisions that didn't turn outthe way we expected or we didn't
think them through.
There's even different ways ofthinking about that and, yeah,
there are real harms in theworld.
But one of the things in therecovery community, especially
(32:34):
in 12-step programs, isforgiveness.
You know, one of the biggestkeys to recovery is forgiveness.
Georges Cordoba (32:45):
Absolutely.
Jami Carlacio (32:47):
And you know, if you go to bed mad, if you go to
bed thinking, you know you havenightmares.
You start thinking about things.
I talked to a lot of people allday, every day, and I see how
their thinking got them wherethey are.
Georges Cordoba (33:04):
Yes, absolutely Absolutely.
You're just right, you justcouldn't have said it.
I couldn't have said it better,and it is so important because
I found out and this issomething that people should
listen to that we will.
Any cancer patient willcontinue to have recurrences
(33:28):
until he or she finds the rootcause, what caused the disease
to come in in this case, cancer,which was my experience and
once you find that root cause,which is usually a combination
of the mind and emotions, whichmanifest in the body.
Jami Carlacio (33:48):
Exactly Right.
Georges Cordoba (33:49):
Manifest in the body.
Jami Carlacio (33:50):
Yes.
Georges Cordoba (33:51):
Once you clear that clutter, your healing
starts again.
I am very blessed to reallyhave done a minor in nutrition
when I was in college, competingand obviously studying
engineering.
But I did a minor in nutritionto have an edge playing the game
(34:14):
and so that helped me a lotlater on.
And, like I said, doctors arenot.
They're not nutritionists,they're not psychologists,
they're not acupuncturists,they're not massage therapists.
They just know what they do andthat's great.
They're trying their best.
I would not be here withoutthose 10 do, and that's great,
they're trying their best.
(34:34):
I would not be here withoutthose 10 surgeries.
Maybe you're right.
I mean, the ones in the brainwere really key.
I could have a stroke orwhatever.
Nothing happened.
But I agree and this issomething my wife and I
discussed earlier the years thatI was cancer-free I never said
I'm in remission.
That psychologically leaves alittle seat in there that it
(34:58):
could come back.
Jami Carlacio (34:59):
No, I'm free of cancer, yeah yeah.
So that is so key.
I have seen that I used tothink of myself as a victim of
my life, and when I was a victimof my life, I was a chronic
migraine sufferer, and that wasa big thing.
(35:21):
Migraines ruled my life.
There were days I couldn't getout of bed.
There were days I could not getout of bed and I had started
getting these when I was six.
So from the time I was sixuntil a couple of years ago,
when everything literally turnedon a dime for me and I stopped
realizing I was not my trauma,I'm not a victim, I'm not my
(35:45):
disease, I'm not, I'm just Jamiea beloved child of a loving God
.
And as soon as I shifted mythinking, everything in my life
changed.
Georges Cordoba (35:55):
Everything.
Jami Carlacio (35:56):
It was complete transformation and you know I
still like Haagen-Dazs ice cream.
I'll just put that out therefor everybody that I haven't
quite given up ice cream, but Ido put better food in my body
and I put better thoughts in myhead every day in my body and I
put better thoughts in my headevery day.
Georges Cordoba (36:16):
Absolutely that's.
It is key, boy.
I don't know how much time wehave, but it is.
It is key to nourish yourself.
Don't, don't allow people orthe media anything to step in
the beautiful garden of yourmind.
You keep it with flowers, withnice, beautiful green trees, and
don't allow anyone to damagethat.
Until then you start growingweeds.
Jami Carlacio (36:39):
That's one thing.
Georges Cordoba (36:41):
And then, in terms of what we put inside of
ourselves, if we learn to loveourselves and be you know, just
give ourselves a pat on the back, being proud of ourselves.
Many things happen as well,including on the emotional side,
with the nutrition, and youjust said it, but I'll repeat it
(37:02):
you know, if you are stressedout, producing cortisol, you
remember a song, something thathappened in the past through a
movie or whatever, and you'reeating, or you're eating just in
10 minutes.
There is the same for usnutritionists 25% of our
digestion and nutrition is thethings we put in our mouth, our
(37:24):
food, what we eat.
75% is who we are when we'reeating.
Jami Carlacio (37:29):
Oh, I love that.
Oh my gosh, I can't believe.
You just said that.
That is so awesome.
It's who we are when we areeating.
Georges Cordoba (37:38):
Yes, absolutely .
And that's what goes wrong.
We start our, we interrupt ourdigestion over and over, weekly,
monthly and yearly until thebody gives up.
And what happens?
For example, we in America, theaverage person chews six times
(38:00):
before they swallow.
So we send our stomach a bomb.
You know, it's supposed to beprocessed in our mouth.
We chew more, our salivaenzymes help us process the food
and then we swallow.
If we don't do that, like I say, the average person and I'm not
saying they're, they're chewing, uh, let's say jelly, or, or,
(38:22):
or, you know, a mashed potato.
But if you're eating somethingthat you need, it's some, the
average.
Jami Carlacio (38:28):
You like meat, especially meat meat you chew.
Yeah, that's why we have teeth.
Georges Cordoba (38:33):
Yeah, exactly 20 to 32 times.
So once because we don't dothat or we're in a hurry, we
have to do errands, we'restressed out, maybe we're really
going mad with traffic, we donot have a good digestion and
with time, the stomach all itdoes.
I don't know what to do withthis.
It's not processed, it sends itas fat.
(38:56):
The fat produces acidity, andnot only that, we didn't get the
nutrients we need, so we'rehungry three hours later and
there you go.
That's why half of our morethan half our nation is
overweight yeah, well there,yeah, yeah you know, there's
there's something called mindfuleating.
Jami Carlacio (39:15):
Yes, and it would be a luxury for some people
that maybe feel like I don'thave that much time on my lunch
break.
But the idea of when I and Idon't do it all the time either,
but when I do what I do, when Ido mindful eating is I thank
the earth for the food.
I thank the soil that made itpossible for the food to grow.
(39:39):
I thank the farmer that plantedthe food.
I thank the person whoharvested the food.
I thank the person who pickedup the food from the farm and
drove it to a store.
I thank the person at the storewho put it on the shelf and I
thank God for giving me themeans to buy the food to put it
(40:03):
on my table, and I thank God forthe opportunity to eat it with
whomever I'm eating with, likemy son or something.
And just slowing that and bythe way that didn't take very
long.
I'm eating with, like my son orsomething and just slowing that
and, by the way, that didn'ttake very long.
I said it slowly, but in mymind it doesn't take long to
make all of those sort of thankyous in my head before I dig in.
(40:27):
But just doing that reminds meof where that food came from,
even if it came from a fast foodrestaurant.
It grew in the ground somewhere.
That bun, you know, that meat,or that piece of lettuce or
whatever it is that you'reeating, you know it came from
the earth.
Georges Cordoba (40:47):
Absolutely Awesome, yeah, awesome, yeah.
Actually, the first couple ofweeks in my program we only work
about, on the physical body,about how to eat and how to
actually.
I even have a couple ofdocuments.
One is called Sensual Eatingand it's really all about, and
I'll send you some of this stuffand then, if the crowd wants,
(41:09):
you'll have a link that you goto my site and download some.
Jami Carlacio (41:12):
Yeah, that would be great.
Georges Cordoba (41:14):
But there are some tricks there to help our
body restore and, like I say,knowledge is power.
Once you know it, now you haveto take action, and so in many
cases, uh, we have to.
You know, I have to make suremy client goes through some
routine and I give them actionsteps for 21 days.
(41:35):
That's the beginning of achange of a habit, and so it is
wonderful because they reallysee a fast change in their body,
in their energy, the way theysleep, which is very important
too, energy the way they sleep,which is very important too.
(41:56):
So, but but just to end up thewhole thing with the, with the
meds, yeah, if I knew then whatI know now, I would have never
gone through oncology and interms of chemo and radiotherapy,
it's just not we do.
You know, I needed to find thatwhen I say forgive myself, I
(42:18):
always ask why, why, why?
Until really I found and I saidto myself hey, this is your
fault, you caused this.
You're in a hurry, you'retrying to do your MBA, you want
to progress as a CTO, then yourkids, you're camping, you're the
soccer coach, and I was doingso many things, playing
tournaments, and all of a sudden, this source said hey, you know
(42:42):
what You're killing yourselfhere, have a lesson.
And you know what you'rekilling yourself here, have a
lesson.
And, and, and you know, I gotwhat I got yeah but uh, but it's
all from the inside out andtaking action yeah, it is and it
is.
Jami Carlacio (42:56):
It is a taking action thing.
We need to wrap up becausewe're running out of time, but
it's important.
I just want to stress thisbecause it's all well and good
to listen to this or watch thispodcast and say that's a great
idea, but if you do the samething tomorrow that you did
today, you have not made achange.
(43:18):
Maybe, maybe Georges's or Iplanted a seed and good, Maybe
the seed will germinate andmaybe the next time you sit down
and you think you're in a hurry, you'll slow down or you'll say
wait a minute.
What am I holding on to in mybody?
That's poisoning me.
Georges Cordoba (43:38):
Absolutely yes.
Jami Carlacio (43:39):
And you know, I took some people through a
meditation today and I took themthrough a forest and then I
brought them into an open fieldand I brought them to a little
hill and on top of the hill wasa basket and I said this is a
bottomless basket, it will neverfill up.
But I want you to mentallywrite down all your problems on
(44:02):
pieces of paper and put them inthe basket and then leave the
basket alone.
Don't worry about the basket,don't worry about it.
And then I invited them toimagine a divine light on them
and on the basket, and I saidjust follow the divine light and
just let it take you where it'sgoing to take you.
(44:23):
But don't worry about thebasket.
It's not going anywhere and youdon't have to do anything.
And I put a few of them tosleep, which is probably okay.
But that's okay, because theywere finally able to let go of
something.
And we all hold on to so much.
(44:43):
We have stress in our shouldersand stress in our necks and
stress in our stomachs.
Our stomachs tense up and thenwe're not digesting properly.
But I think it's it's.
You know, you talked a littlebit about weeds.
Emotional and positiveintelligence is.
(45:06):
We have the neural pathways andwe have one that's been
well-worn, and that well-wornpathway is the pathway of a
judge, and you know, the judge,jury and executioner you know
the people pleaser, thecontroller, the hypervigilant,
the hyperachiever, the victim.
And then the path of the sage isthe one with empathy and
forgiveness and innovativethinking and thinking outside
(45:29):
the box and then taking action.
The last of the five sagepowers is activate.
In other words, you can beempathetic and compassionate and
innovative and explore ideas,explore new things.
But you can do all those thingsIf you don't take action, then
(45:50):
you may as well just go sit backdown.
Georges Cordoba (45:52):
Exactly, absolutely, you know, an
illusion, basically, I'm sorry,an intention without action is
an illusion.
There, you go, and you know ithappens every year New Year's
resolution by March everybodystopped.
Yeah, you have to continuetaking action, and you know what
(46:13):
the year will go by.
You either stop or you followthrough.
And now you're, you know, veryproud of yourself that you made
something happen.
Your goal was reached.
Jami Carlacio (46:25):
Yeah, and just one other thing I want to just
remind people if you make a goaland you make progress and then
you stop making progress for awhile or you slip, that's okay.
Just get back up and get goingagain, right?
Everybody falls off a bike whenthey're learning how to ride a
(46:45):
bike.
If everyone stopped when theyfell off a bike, nobody would be
riding a bike in this world.
That's correct.
So get back on your bike andit's never too late.
Clearly, George, right, You'renot 22, are you?
Georges Cordoba (46:57):
No no 22 times 4, no times 3.
I'll be 64 now, on October 12th.
Jami Carlacio (47:05):
Oh, happy birthday.
Georges Cordoba (47:08):
Yeah, thank you yeah.
Jami Carlacio (47:11):
So, on that note, I invited Michael Bublé to join
us for a moment in our studio.
Michael Buble (47:23):
It's a new life for me.
Jami Carlacio (47:33):
And that is our show.
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you so much, Georges, forsharing your story with us and
for giving us all some hope.
Thank you, there is a betterway, and as I said, if you liked
this interview, please rememberto like and subscribe to this
channel so that more people canenjoy the benefits of emotional
(47:57):
intelligence.
And until next time, I'll seeyou all at the PQ gym.
Take care everyone.
Bye-bye.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!