Patti Rogers’ Story: Living a Life That Matters {Concept, Story & Portraits}

Another awesome Real Women, Real Stories assignment for iGnite — this time interviewing and photographing the kind, inspiring, talented and entrepreneurial Patti Rogers. Patti is many things — a handful of which are wife, mother of two, friend to many, community leader, breast cancer survivor, successful entrepreneur (having started and sold her own graphic design and marketing firm prior to her newest venture), incredible writer, and founder of Rallyhood, a business that sprang from her experience battling and conquering breast cancer with the help of a powerful community of loved ones rallying behind her.

I photographed Patti at her beautiful Austin home, and left incredibly inspired and uplifted by our conversation and her story. This woman is truly a light and a powerful example to us all to find a way to use our challenging life experiences, however hard and trying, for good.

I’ve included my favorite snippets of Patti’s words, but head over to the iGnite blog to read the full story.

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On Growing Up in Athletics: “…And while I expected that living in Texas would mean I would become some kind of rodeo star, luckily, I fell into athletics. I graduated from summer league swimming to year-round swimming at the age of seven. And by chance fell into one of the most elite programs in the country, Longhorn Aquatics which was the club program associated with UT. It was a serious and rigorous program and a 2x/day commitment that transformed my life. It taught me many things:

• Hard work is the secret to success. There is no substitute for it. Yes, people have good genes, but the people who have good work ethic are the ones who really win. Inside and out.
• The power and the importance of self-talk. Our thoughts become our words, our words become our reality. So be intentional about what you think and say.
• You can always go farther than you think. So do.
• It’s not really a race about you and the person next to you. It’s a race with yourself to be the best of yourself, and achieving what is important to you.

On How to Succeed: “…We all can be more and do more than we think we can when we practice declaring our vision, our gratitude and our dreams.”

On Work: “I’m currently founder and CEO of Rallyhood, a community collaboration platform that transforms how people come together with purpose. I founded the company after my personal journey through breast cancer. I witnessed the power of community in action and was changed forever by the extraordinary kindness and love in my life — but also witnessed the frustration of trying to organize a group when the tools are fragmented and hard to use. When I got well, I got inspired to build a new kind of platform to make it easy to come together with purpose—around a person, event or any common cause—in all segments of our lives.

We launched the platform in Fall of 2012 and today Rallyhood is the only platform that enables the social and mobile experience across an organization’s user groups, creating authentic engagement and meaningful daily value. Rallyhood, whose manifesto is “Do Good Today” now empowers more than 12,000 communities and provides solutions for organizations like The LIVESTRONG Foundation, Seton Healthcare, Susan G. Komen, Girl Scouts, Leukemia Lymphoma Society – Team in Training, and the Elizabeth Dole Foundation.

Rallyhood believes in the positive ripple effect of community. By empowering purpose-driven groups to be more effective, everyone wins. When things are well organized, we can do more together, and have more free time to enjoy the people and the moments that matter most.”

On Her ‘Story:’ “On March 17th, while many of our friends were away on ski vacations and sunny outings for spring break, my heroic husband Michael and I headed into round 4 of chemo for breast cancer at ‘chemo palace.’ This is my term of endearment for the chemo room, which on a good day is as bizarre as Vegas—seriously bad lighting and insane people watching. While it was not exactly a dream vacation, I was thrilled to score a good chair next to the window so I could take in the blue sky and pretend I was in Hawaii. I normally scope out the room and try to choose a chair without a lot of people around, so when my reliable and loving posse shows up with their proverbial boom box and picnic basket, we don’t derail anyone’s luck at black-jack or sour their cocktail.

Even though there was a lady directly across from this particular chair, I seized the opportunity to settle in at the window position. Trying to mind my own business, I avoided eye contact, but I couldn’t help but notice her sassy grey haircut and her bright spring-colored outfit that was as uplifting as my window view. As I went through a series of comfort rituals—leaning the chair back to just the right position, tucking my cozy blanket around my legs, setting out my touchstones of faith on the table next to me—I closed my eyes to pray for courage to remember the value of the day. This day, every day, is a gift.

When I opened my eyes, I caught the beautiful, angelic gaze of the woman across from me. Suddenly, all of the Vegas surroundings dimmed to grey and all I could see was her face. It was my third grade teacher, Mrs. Clark. We both flew to our feet and into a hug that seemed to last a delicious forever. I held on so tight to her tiny frame while giant tears ran effortlessly down my face. At 82, she was just as bright and loving as I remember her 30 something years before. After the tears, we shared stories and jokes about how chemo had upset her golf game and how we should get together to sample bald-head balm. My cocktail waitress in scrubs hovered with an IV and a bag of saline, so Mrs. Clark and I said our goodbyes. She put her petite hands on my face and looked me in the eyes, ‘Do good today,’ she said.

I did my best to keep from weeping until she left the room. The simultaneous weight and levity of these words washed over me like a second baptism. I remember hearing her say this very same thing when I was nine, when I thought doing ‘good’ meant sitting still or listening well in class and my ‘today’ was something all together different. But here I was, in the middle of chemo palace, I realized that what she meant then was what she meant today: ‘Open your heart and be the very best of yourself – today. Do something that matters – today. Make it count – today. It is the only today you will ever have.’

I was suddenly reminded of the words from a Native American song I had stumbled across a few days before: ‘You, whose today it is, get out your rainbow colors and make it beautiful’

I made a promise to Mrs. Clark in my heart, I would make this journey count… I would find a way to pay forward the kindness that carried me through and I would live to that beat… to that promise…. to do good today!”

Read the full story on the iGnite blog