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TED Talks Daily

(#10) Elise's Top Ten: What almost dying taught me about living | Suleika Jaouad

with Suleika Jaouad

Published September 20, 2025
View Show Notes

About This Episode

Host Elise Hu introduces a talk by writer, teacher, and activist Suleika Jaouad, who recounts being diagnosed with leukemia at 22 and spending four years in treatment as "patient number 5624." She explains that surviving cancer did not end her struggle; instead, the hardest part was reentering life afterward, dealing with physical limitations, grief, PTSD, and the myth of the heroic, ever-grateful survivor. Jaouad describes a 15,000-mile road trip to visit readers who had written to her, and shares what she learned about meaning, hope, and living in the in‑between space between sickness and health.

Topics Covered

Cancer Medical crisis Trauma Grief and loss Resilience Near-death experiences Personal narrative Perspective shift Identity Mental health

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Quick Takeaways

  • Surviving a life-threatening illness does not automatically bring clarity or happiness; the most difficult work of healing can begin after the disease is gone.
  • The cultural myth of the heroic, ever-grateful survivor can be harmful because it hides the ongoing challenges of recovery and reentry.
  • Jaouad felt lost and ashamed after treatment ended, struggling with physical limitations, fears of relapse, unprocessed grief, and PTSD despite being officially "cured."
  • Letters from strangers who related to her experience helped her see that one can either remain hostage to trauma or find a way forward.
  • On a 15,000‑mile road trip to meet some of these correspondents, she learned from people living with chronic illness, incarceration, and recent cancer survival about meaning, creativity, and radical hope.
  • She argues that the boundary between the sick and the well is porous, and that most people move back and forth between these states over their lives.
  • Letting go of the expectation of returning to a pre‑illness self and accepting current limitations allowed her to actually start feeling better.
  • Jaouad defines the real hero's journey as learning to live fully in the messy in‑between, staying alive in the richest, most whole sense despite interruptions and imperfections.

Podcast Notes

Host introduction and playlist context

TED Talks Daily and Elise Hu's Top 10 playlist

Elise Hu welcomes listeners back and identifies the show[2:38]
• Elise says listeners are hearing TED Talks Daily, a show bringing new ideas to spark curiosity every day, and introduces herself as the host, Elise Hu.
Description of the special Top 10 TED Talks playlist[2:48]
• She explains this is her top 10 TED Talks, the first ever podcast playlist where TED shares a curated list of talks from the archive on the feed all at once.
Closing out the playlist with Suleika Jaouad[2:57]
• Elise says that to close out the playlist they have the formidable writer, teacher, and activist, Suleika Jaouad.

Framing of themes leading up to Suleika's talk

Previous talks in the playlist focused on self and narratives[3:12]
• Elise notes that they started with talks about present and future selves and how to think about them, and have also talked about stories we tell ourselves and narratives for the wider world.
Attention to aesthetics, connection, and relationships[3:17]
• She says they have considered aesthetics, connection, and relationships as part of the playlist themes.

Introduction of Suleika's 2019 TED Talk

Summary of what Suleika shares in her talk[3:36]
• Elise explains that in her first TED Talk from 2019, Suleika shares what almost dying taught her.
Central question of the talk[3:36]
• Elise says Suleika asks the profound yet simple question: how do you begin again and find meaning after life is interrupted?
Elise's framing about interruptions and restarts[3:41]
• She notes that as learned from many TED Talks, life can be a series of interruptions, restarts, and frustrations.
Elise's characterization of Suleika's reminder[3:43]
• Elise says Suleika reminds listeners of life's beauty and our resilience.

Suleika's diagnosis and early cancer experience

Life before diagnosis and sudden change

Just out of college and starting a career[4:03]
• Suleika says it was the spring of 2011 and she had recently graduated from college and moved to Paris to start her first job.
Her original dream to be a war correspondent[4:09]
• She explains that her dream was to become a war correspondent.
Unexpected "conflict zone" of illness[4:16]
• She says that the real world she found took her into a really different kind of conflict zone when, at 22 years old, she was diagnosed with leukemia.

Prognosis and loss of former life

Doctors' prognosis and impact[4:34]
• Doctors told her and her parents point blank that she had about a 35% chance of long-term survival.
Shattering of imagined future[4:43]
• She says she couldn't wrap her head around what that prognosis meant but understood that the reality and the life she'd imagined for herself had shattered.
Transition from independent adult to patient[4:52]
• She describes losing her job, apartment, and independence overnight and becoming patient number 5624.

Life inside the hospital

Length and intensity of treatment[5:07]
• Over the next four years, she underwent four years of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant.
Hospital as home and adapting to new reality[5:02]
• She says the hospital became her home and her bed the place she lived 24/7, and because it was unlikely she would ever get better she had to accept her new reality and adapted.
Coping strategies and culture inside the ward[5:36]
• She became fluent in "medicalese," made friends with other young cancer patients, built a vast collection of neon wigs, and learned to use her rolling IV pole as a skateboard.

Becoming a "war correspondent" from the hospital

Starting to write from the front lines of illness[5:46]
• She says she even achieved her dream of becoming a war correspondent, though not as expected, starting with a blog reporting from the front lines of her hospital bed.
New York Times column "Life Interrupted"[5:48]
• The blog morphed into a column she wrote for The New York Times called "Life Interrupted."
Primary focus on survival during treatment[6:02]
• She emphasizes that above all else during that period, her focus was on surviving.

Survival, cure, and the myth of the heroic survivor

Surviving and being cured

Spoiler that she survived and is cured[6:22]
• She tells the audience that she did survive and, thanks to an army of supportive humans, she is not just still here but cured of her cancer.

How others project heroism onto survivors

Being labeled an inspiration, warrior, and hero[6:35]
• She observes that after a traumatic experience people treat you differently, calling you an inspiration, warrior, or hero who has lived the mythical hero's journey.
Cultural story of the hero's journey after illness[6:44]
• She describes the narrative of someone who has endured impossible trials, lived to tell the tale, and returns better and braver for what they've been through.
Her satirical description of a "perfect" post-cancer life[7:02]
• She jokes that according to this story cancer totally transformed her life and that now every day she supposedly drinks celery juice at sunrise, does 90 minutes of yoga, and writes down 50 things she's grateful for on paper she folds into an origami crane and sends out her window.
Rejecting the unrealistic recovery fantasy[7:08]
• She admits she does none of those things, says she hates yoga and doesn't know how to fold an origami crane, using this to contrast myth with reality.

The hardest part beginning after the cure

Healing work starts after being cured[8:29]
• She states that for her, the hardest part of the cancer experience began once the cancer was gone, and that being cured is not where the work of healing ends but where it begins.
Critique of the heroic survivor myth[7:52]
• She calls the heroic journey of the survivor we see in movies and on Instagram a myth, saying it is not just untrue but dangerous because it erases the very real challenges of recovery.
Acknowledging privilege yet naming the struggle[8:13]
• She clarifies that she is incredibly grateful to be alive and aware that her struggle is a privilege many do not get, but insists it is important to tell what projections of heroism and expectations of constant gratitude do to people trying to recover.

Reentry after treatment and feeling lost

Leaving the hospital and facing an empty home

Discharge day and relationship loss[8:36]
• She recalls the day she was discharged, finally done with treatment, and notes that the four years of chemo had taken a toll on her relationship with her longtime boyfriend, who had recently moved out.
Loneliness and grief over a friend's death[8:27]
• Walking into her quiet apartment, she wanted to call her friend Melissa, a fellow cancer patient who she felt would understand, but Melissa had died three weeks earlier.
Collapse of inner scaffolding and loss of direction[9:27]
• She describes being too tired to cry, feeling the inner scaffolding that had held her together since diagnosis suddenly crumble, and realizing that after 1,500 days focused on surviving she had no idea how to live.

Mismatch between being "better" on paper and lived reality

Medical "wellness" versus internal state[8:49]
• On paper she was better-no leukemia, normal blood counts, disease gone, disability checks stopping-and externally she no longer belonged in the "kingdom of the sick," yet she felt further from being well than ever.
Permanent physical toll and practical worries[8:43]
• She notes that chemo took a permanent physical toll; she wonders what job she can hold when she needs four-hour naps in the middle of the day and her misfiring immune system sends her to the ER regularly.
Invisible psychological imprints of illness[9:08]
• She lists fears of relapse, unprocessed grief, and demons of PTSD that can descend for days or weeks as psychological impacts of her illness.

Concept of reentry and unspoken challenges

Reentry beyond war and incarceration[9:32]
• She says we talk about reentry in the context of war and incarceration but not as much for other traumatic experiences like illness.
Shame and guilt in recovery[9:49]
• Because no one warned her of reentry challenges, she thought something was wrong with her, felt ashamed, and with great guilt kept reminding herself how lucky she was to be alive when many, like Melissa, were not.
Longing for the clarity of being acutely ill[10:05]
• She admits that on most days she woke up so sad and lost she could barely breathe and even fantasized about getting sick again, saying she missed the hospital's ecosystem where everyone was broken too.
Simplicity that comes from facing mortality[10:05]
• She reflects that staring mortality straight in the eye simplifies things and reroutes focus to what really matters, and recalls vowing while sick that if she survived it had to be for something-to live a good, adventurous, meaningful life.

Letters from strangers and decision to seek a new path

Inbox of messages from readers

Varied responses to her writing[10:19]
• She says she had an inbox full of messages from strangers who had read her column, including unsolicited advice about curing cancer with essential oils and questions about her bra size.
People who truly understood aspects of her experience[10:55]
• Mostly, she heard from people who, in their own different way, understood what she was going through.
Examples of correspondents: teenage girl, professor, death row inmate[10:41]
• She mentions a teenage girl in Florida coming out of chemo who wrote largely in emojis, a retired art history professor in Ohio named Howard with a lifelong mysterious health condition, and an inmate on death row in Texas named Little GQ (short for Gangster Quinn).

Shared themes in the letters

Parallels between incarceration and illness[10:58]
• She notes that Little GQ, who had never been sick and does 1,000 push-ups every morning, related to her description of "incanceration" and being confined to a tiny fluorescent room, and wrote that the threat of death lurks in both of their shadows.
Choice between being held hostage by trauma or moving forward[10:55]
• She says these strangers' words became lifelines, showing her that you can be held hostage by the worst thing that's happened to you and let it hijack your remaining days, or you can find a way forward.

Deciding to go on a physical journey

Desire to be in motion and "unstuck"[11:49]
• She wanted to be in motion again, to figure out how to "unstuck" herself and get back into the world.
Rejecting clichéd "cancer journey" narrative[13:01]
• She decided to go on a real journey, not the "bullshit cancer one" or the mythical hero's journey others thought she should be on, but a real pack-your-bags kind of journey.
Practical steps to launch the road trip[12:11]
• She put everything she owned into storage, rented out her apartment, borrowed a car, and talked a dear but somewhat smelly friend into joining her: her dog Oscar.
Scope and purpose of the trip[12:22]
• Together they embarked on a 15,000-mile road trip around the United States, visiting some of the strangers who had written to her to seek their advice and to say thank you.

Encounters on the road trip: Howard, Little GQ, and Unique

Visit with Howard in Ohio

Howard's counsel on opening to uncertainty[13:33]
• Howard urged her, when suffering loss or trauma, not to guard her heart but to open herself up to uncertainty and the possibilities of new love and new loss.
Howard's life despite chronic illness and uncertainty[12:13]
• Howard will never be cured and had no way as a young man to predict how long he'd live, but that didn't stop him from getting married, having grandkids, and taking weekly ballroom dance lessons with his friends.
Howard's definition of meaning[13:33]
• In a letter he wrote her, Howard said meaning is not found in the material realm-not in dinner, jazz, cocktails, or conversation-but is what's left when everything else is stripped away.

Visit with Little GQ on death row in Texas

Discussion about passing time and creativity[13:40]
• Little GQ asked what she did to pass the time in the hospital; when she said she got really good at Scrabble, he replied that he did too and described making board games out of paper and calling plays through meal slots with neighboring prisoners.
Testament to human tenacity and adaptation[13:33]
• She presents this as a testament to the incredible tenacity of the human spirit and our ability to adapt with creativity.

Visit with Unique in Florida

First impressions of Unique[14:17]
• She says the teenage girl's name is Unique, fitting because she is the most luminous, curious person she has ever met.
Unique's hopes and plans despite fear[13:56]
• When asked what she wants to do next, Unique says she wants to go to college, travel, eat weird foods like octopus, visit New York, and go camping even though she is scared of bugs.
Radical hope contrasted with fear[14:08]
• Suleika is in awe that Unique can be so optimistic and full of plans given everything she has been through and concludes it is far more radical and dangerous to have hope than to live hemmed in by fear.

Insights on the porous line between sickness and health

The sick-well divide as an illusion

Porous border between the sick and the well[13:53]
• She says the divide between the sick and the well does not exist and that the border is porous.
Most people will move between these states[14:27]
• As people live longer and survive illnesses and injuries that would have killed earlier generations, she says the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms, spending much of our lives somewhere between the two.
These conditions as terms of existence[14:45]
• She concludes that these are the terms of our existence.

Letting go of returning to a pre-illness self

Ongoing nature of healing[14:53]
• She says she wishes she could say she feels fully healed since the road trip, but she does not.
Acceptance of current body and limitations[15:05]
• She found that once she stopped expecting to return to her pre-diagnosis self and learned to accept her body and its limitations, she actually started to feel better.

Rejecting binary notions of health and wholeness

Health is not a simple binary[15:15]
• She argues that the trick is to stop seeing health as binary-between sick and healthy, well and unhealthy.
Avoiding perfectionism about wellness[15:27]
• She urges people to stop feeling unwell, whole and broken, to stop thinking there's a beautiful, perfect state of wellness to strive for, and to quit living in constant dissatisfaction until reaching it.

Life interruptions, the real hero's journey, and conclusion

Universality of life interruptions

Every life will be interrupted[15:15]
• She says every single one of us will have our life interrupted, whether by a diagnosis or another heartbreak or trauma.
Need to live in the in-between place[15:46]
• She stresses the need to find ways to live in the in-between place, managing whatever body and mind we currently have.

Examples of small acts of meaning, ingenuity, and hope

Ingenuity in constrained conditions[16:03]
• She mentions the ingenuity of a handmade Scrabble game in prison as one way people manage in-between states.
Stripped-down meaning in love and simple joys[16:43]
• She points to finding stripped-down meaning in the love of family and a night on the ballroom dance floor.
Radical, dangerous hope leading to action[16:24]
• She suggests that radical, dangerous hope will someday lead a teenage girl terrified of bugs to go camping.

Redefining the real hero's journey and wellness

The real hero's journey as living fully amid messiness[16:36]
• She says that if you're able to live in this way, you've taken the real hero's journey and achieved what it means to actually be well.
Definition of being truly well[16:53]
• To her, actually being well means to stay alive in the messiest, richest, most whole sense.

End of talk and audience response

Closing words and thanks[16:59]
• She ends with "Thank you. That's all I've got. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you," as the audience responds.

Host closing remarks on the playlist and TED curation

Identifying the speaker and wrapping the playlist

Elise names the speaker and notes the playlist is complete[17:32]
• Elise says that was Suleika Jaouad at TED Talks and that it was the last talk from the TED archives reposted as part of the first TED Talks Daily podcast playlist of her personal top 10 TED Talks.

Elise's reflections and pointer to TED curation

Joy in sharing and revisiting favorite talks[17:56]
• She describes it as a joy to share these favorites and says she returns to these talks often and hopes listeners will too.
Information about TED's curation guidelines[18:11]
• She notes that if listeners are curious about TED's curation, they can find out more at ted.com/curationguidelines.

Standard show credits and sign-off

TED Audio Collective mention[18:33]
• Elise says TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective.
Production team credits[18:44]
• She credits the talk's production and editing to Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tonsika Sangmarnivong, notes that Lucy Little mixed the episode, and mentions additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo.
Elise's promise of future episodes[19:20]
• She signs off by saying she is Elise Hu and will be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for listeners' feeds, thanking them for listening.

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Being medically "cured" is not the end of healing; the hardest and most important work often begins after the crisis, when you must rebuild a life amid lasting physical and psychological changes.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in my life have I assumed that reaching a milestone (like a diagnosis resolved or a project finished) would automatically make everything feel better, and what work have I avoided doing afterward?
  • • How am I acknowledging and tending to the lingering physical or emotional impacts of past crises instead of pretending they ended when the formal event was over?
  • • What is one small, concrete step I could take this week to support my longer-term healing or adjustment after a major life disruption?
2

Cultural myths of the heroic, ever-grateful survivor can pressure people to suppress their real struggles; rejecting those myths creates space to experience and process recovery honestly.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In what situations do I feel pressured to appear "strong" or "inspirational" even when I'm struggling internally?
  • • How might it change my recovery or growth if I allowed myself (and others) to express fear, sadness, or confusion without labeling it as failure?
  • • Who is one person I could be more honest with about what my current challenges actually feel like beneath the surface story I usually tell?
3

You can let the worst thing that has happened to you hold your life hostage, or you can choose to seek a way forward, even if that forward path is unclear and imperfect.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What difficult experience in my past still feels like it defines or confines me today?
  • • How could I experiment with one small action that represents moving toward the life I want, rather than waiting until I feel fully "ready" or healed?
  • • What story about this hardship am I repeating to myself, and how might I reframe it to highlight my options and agency instead of only my losses?
4

Connection with others who understand aspects of your struggle-even strangers-can become a lifeline that expands perspective and reveals new ways to live with pain and uncertainty.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where might I find or seek out people who share or understand the challenges I'm facing right now?
  • • How could I be more open to learning from others whose circumstances are very different from mine but who grapple with similar fears or constraints?
  • • What is one conversation, email, or visit I could initiate this month that might create mutual support around a difficult experience?
5

Accepting that the line between sickness and health is porous, and letting go of the goal of returning to a previous "perfect" self, can reduce suffering and make it easier to live fully in the present.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In what ways am I holding myself to an old standard of who I "used to be" physically, mentally, or professionally?
  • • How might my day-to-day choices change if I saw health and wholeness as a spectrum I move along rather than a fixed state I must reach and maintain?
  • • What is one limitation or change I could consciously acknowledge and work with, instead of fighting against or denying it?
6

Meaning often emerges from what remains when comforts and distractions fall away, so cultivating small acts of creativity, connection, and hope in constrained circumstances can be a powerful way to live well.

Reflection Questions:

  • • When have I felt a surprising sense of meaning during a time when many external comforts were stripped away?
  • • How could I introduce a simple practice of creativity, play, or connection into my current constraints, however small they may be?
  • • What is one modest, hopeful plan or ritual I can commit to this week that honors the life I have now rather than waiting for conditions to be ideal?

Episode Summary - Notes by Rowan

(#10) Elise's Top Ten: What almost dying taught me about living | Suleika Jaouad
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