Misery is Optional: How Ami Tully Lotka Beat Cancer with Humor, Leadership, and Radical Joy
Episode 2 - Ami Tully Lotka
What happens when a 25-year business veteran who's built her career on helping others "sell more and sell better" suddenly finds herself selling the most important thing of all—her own life? Ami Tully Lotka discovered that answer when stage three triple-negative breast cancer crashed into her perfectly scheduled calendar with zero warning and no genetic markers to blame.
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Instead of letting cancer derail her thriving distribution consultancy, she applied the same leadership principles that built Maximum Impact Partners to crushing her treatment. Her daughter brought a joke to every chemo session (starting with "What did one saggy boob say to the other?"). She kept that sign on her desk: "Misery is Optional." And when clients wanted to make decisions "for her own good," she shut that down fast: "Don't make decisions on my behalf—let me tell you what I can't do."
From nearly skipping the mammogram that saved her life to choosing a lumpectomy over mastectomy, from embracing baldness after a hilarious wig mishap on Zoom to celebrating clear margins with Dom Pérignon at the top of Jackson Hole, Ami proves that cancer doesn't have to steal your joy—or your sense of humor. She even landed her biggest client contract the same day she got her diagnosis.
Today, Amy shares the mantra that carried her through six months of weekly chemo plus radiation: "I do not know what today will bring, but I will handle it because I am a handler of things." And why she wouldn't change having had cancer—a perspective that might surprise anyone facing their own diagnosis.
Key moments: Why "don't make decisions for me" became her client communication strategy, the difference between 85% response and complete response (and why both led to more treatment), and how prayer became scientifically measurable support that she could feel.
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