Dorothy: [00:00:00] CEO seldom knows everything that’s going on in their organization. And when it comes to having an employee like Chris Noble, that happens almost every day. So recently this woman decided she was going to create a rap song to talk about resilience. Now how in the world those two go together and how they have anything to do with breast cancer, I will never know. But as I listen to Chris, I’ve learned that there are different ways to talk about your breast, and many of them make a whole lot of sense.
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Let’s Talk About Your Breast, a different kind of podcast presented to you by The Rose. A breast center of excellence and a Texas [00:01:00] treasure. You’re gonna hear frank discussions about tough topics and you’re gonna learn why knowing about your breast could save your life.
Chris, thank you so much for coming back and being with us on Let’s Talk About Your Breast. You know, you are a fan favorite and we
Chris: Excellent.
Dorothy: Love it.
Chris: Excellent.
Dorothy: We love it when we can have repeats. So just for those who may not have heard your story. Tell us a little bit about what it is you do at The Rose.
Chris: What it is I do at The Rose? I talk about breast a lot. A lot. I’m in in different communities at churches. Uh, book clubs, anywhere where, where people or women gather and I talk about The Rose and about breast cancer. And early detection is my big thing, and trying to get these girls in to get their mammograms. But I’ve been doing that. This is the beginning of the 13th year. Which is very. Hard for me to believe that, that it that’s that, [00:02:00] it’s been that long that I’ve been, I’ve been doing this.
Dorothy: But I thought you were gonna retire.
Chris: I did, dorothy. Six weeks was enough for me. It was enough for me. Yeah. Um.
Dorothy: You’re just not ready yet.
Chris: No, I don’t know people like, oh, it’s asking me, are you gonna retire from The Rose? I said. I don’t think so. They’re gonna probably have to carry me out in my cold body, you know. But wait a minute, I got one more thing to say.
Dorothy: Well, we are so delighted that you are our voice inside the loop primarily.
Chris: Yep.
Dorothy: And, uh, you do a lot of presentations and, and you are the person we go to first when we have requests to for speakers.
Chris: Yeah.
Dorothy: So you have something new going on now.
Chris: I do, I have a, I have a hard time continuing to do the same thing over and over again. I think it kind of stems from, from back when I taught school. And I mean, you, sometimes you, I would present a lesson and I’d see 20 faces that had no idea what I was talking about, so [00:03:00] I had to move to plan B and explain it a little differently, or maybe plan C, I had to be flexible. So it kind of, it kind of went back back to that. And so I’m always kind of getting, trying to change things up, trying to be somebody different. Was trying to attract people to me.
Dorothy: Is that, is that why you had your, what was it? The tan tambourines that the…
Chris: My granddaughter gave me the tambourine and I thought.
Dorothy: And you started presentations with that?
Chris: I started presentations with, I would come in with this tam playing the tambourine, or when they introduced me, I’d stand up and play the tambourine and telling the story of, of my granddaughter and that she had given it to me and that her granddaughter or her grandmother who passed away from breast cancer. Her name was Loretta. Her name was Loretta, and she knew about breast cancer, so she wanted me to use this tambourine to talk about breast cancer. Not sure exactly what that had to do with breast cancer, but it got people excited. And then after I told said that story, I would give the tambourine to someone in the [00:04:00] audience.
And I said, if I say something you like, play the tambourine. If you just feel like playing the tambourine, play the tambourine, then you gotta pass it on. So I had been in some situations where it was a big crowd and I could see that tambourine being passed around. It was just one of those things that makes you a memorable, let’s have Chris come back out and bring her tambourine.
Dorothy: Right.
Chris: It was, or it was when I dyed my pink, my hair pink when it put my, let’s, I mean, they always, if I show up without pink hair, where’s your pink hair? It’s not October. You know, where’s your pink hair? Um, and, and so it was just a, a sales gimmick if you want, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s just something that, that that’s set me apart from other people that are, they’re speaking and maybe relaxed him a little bit and maybe made the subject of breast cancer a little less scary.
Because I wasn’t just stating all the minute little statistics and, and trying to relax, but, so I’m always, I, I [00:05:00] started out doing my hair pink and then, then I did the tambourine and the last, the last five years, I have wanted to write a rap.
Dorothy: A rap.
Chris: A rap. I could see myself going to these don’t like mega churches doing a rap.
Dorothy: Oh no.
Chris: I know, I know, I know. And I would be at an event and there’d be somebody, uh, somebody was entertaining and he was a rapper, and I would give him my card and say, would you please call me? I wanna write a rap. I’m gonna do a rap in October. Of course they looked at me and said, sure, you are to themselves, and never called me. So last.
Dorothy: I wonder why.
Chris: I wonder why?
Dorothy: Chris said, look at you.
Chris: I understand. I understand. But you know, I was very serious.
Dorothy: Okay.
Chris: I was very serious about this. And so in September, when I was gathering my thoughts for what I’m gonna do in October, I said, I’m writing this rap. So I wrote the rap.
Dorothy: Wait. [00:06:00] You have a rap?
Chris: I have a rap. Everybody knows I’m Chris from The Rose. From the top of my head to the tips of my toes. Everybody knows I’m Chris from The Rose. For 38 years and a million folks. Mammogram saved lives. It ain’t no joke. The next verse, my boyfriend helped me write.
Dorothy: Okay.
Chris: From county to county and steeple to steeple, I spread the news to all of my people. Everybody knows I’m Chris from The Rose and there’s a whole lot more of them. Some say it hurts. Well, maybe a bit, but it’ll be over lickety split. Everybody knows I’m Chris from The Rose.
Dorothy: Go on.
Chris: Whether injured or not, we’re at your service and I’ll be there if you’re a little nervous. Everybody knows I’m Chris from The Rose. Ultrasounds and mam- ultrasounds and biopsies, we do those too. The Rose has your back. We really do. Everybody knows. I’m Chris from The Rose. Thank you [00:07:00] for there’s a couple more. Thank you for listening to my little Diddy. Remember The Rose is the best in the-
Dorothy: city.
Chris: And every time I was gonna do my rap before I did it, I would tell ’em, listen, I wrote this rap, and every time I do it, I get a standing ovation. So every time I do it, I get a standing ovation. I don’t mean to put any pressure on you, but it, it’s just a way to be a, you know, to open it up, to relax. I mean, I’ve done it to a lot big churches where there were hundreds of people in the pews thinking to myself, I’m not gonna make you, I’m not gonna embarrass you, Dorothy.
It’s gonna be good. It’s gonna be good. It’s gonna good. Not gonna embarra you, but, but I learned. I, I learned a long, long, long time ago that you have to kind of, you know, you, you need to be the most positive person in the room if you [00:08:00] wanna attract business. ’cause I was in the business world and you had to participate in life. I didn’t just wake up one day and say, I think I’ll be. The most outgoing or person I know, and, but my, my partner and husband taught me a lot of those things.
Dorothy: Hmm.
Chris: And one of the things, the number one thing he taught me that has to this even today, is to do what you fear most. Do what you fear most. And I’m sure you don’t believe this, but I was petrified to speak in public.
Dorothy: Really?
Chris: Petrified. Now, I could speak in front of 48 second graders, but in public, and so I lived in the city of Bellaire and some of the movers and shakers in Bellaire came to me and asked me if I would run for city council. I. And I’m thinking, what? So I went home and I told Mike and he said, well, what’d you say?
[00:09:00] And I said, well, I can’t run for, I, I can’t be on city council. You have to talk in front of people. And he said, well, you can do that. You know, sometimes you just gotta do what you fear most. So I ran for city council. I served on the city council. First two years on my city council journey. All I said was so moved.
Because I was, I was petrified to talk the last two years. They could not shut me up. And since then they could not shut me up. And, and so I, I developed that attitude about do what you fear most. So every time I would come up against something I feared I would do it. And what I found out was as you continue to do what you fear most, you become fearless, and I’m pretty much fearless, Dorothy.
Dorothy: Yes.
Chris: I am.
Dorothy: That you are.
Chris: I’m pretty. And and it’s because of those words he said to me.
Dorothy: Interesting.
Chris: It is, isn’t it? And [00:10:00] so our story,
Dorothy: Our story.
Chris: Our story.
Dorothy: So the story about you and me. Okay.
Chris: About, um. 2000 or 1990, I joined my first women’s group. And I was in the group about a year, and the incoming president called me and said, listen, would you serve on my board and be my newsletter editor? And I said, no, I really don’t wanna do that. So that night in hot tub, I told Mike about the call I’d gotten from Merlene and he said, well, what did you tell her?
I said, I told her I didn’t wanna do that. So he says to me. This is a long time ago. What’d you join the group for if you weren’t gonna participate? So I called her the back the next day. And, um, I said, you didn’t fill that position, did you? Oh, no. I said, I’ll be your newsletter editor. So for the next 22 years, I served on board with her. She served on mine, we [00:11:00] traveled together. We were, we were great friends. And, um. You gave me this job at The Rose, and about a month into this job I was here and you said something like, you know, I knew I wanted to hire you, Chris, but I needed to ask our board president. And I said to you, well, who’s your board president? Merlene Knot. That’s our story. I mean, that’s, that’s do what you fear most, you know, what’d you join the group for? And so there are a lot of things I learned doing those things . And, and so as I, as I was developing my new thing, ’cause I, I rapped, you know, how to follow rapping. I may not give up the rap ’cause it was pretty good.
Um, I started thinking about resilience and how did I get to be this, how, how was I fearless? You know, how did I, how did I do this? And it was, it was that resilience piece to me.
Dorothy: [00:12:00] Resilience?
Chris: That, yeah. And it’s, as I was teaching those kids and they didn’t understand what I’m saying, I met with some adversity, so I had to figure out what am I gonna do next to get, so I automatically switched into that back when I was a teacher.
And then as a, a business owner, you know, if you’re not making money, you gotta figure out if you’re closing the business or you’re gonna figure out how to make money. You know, so I, there was just times I, I just kept dipping in and, and these were these things that came, came about because I was resilient.
But then I got to thinking. I didn’t do this on my own. I wasn’t born resilient. I mean, I was born an extrovert, but I wasn’t born resilient. People in my circle helped me become resilient, and when I needed help with something, people helped me. I. Like our friends at the Angel surviving cancer. They helped me be, helped us because they knew me.
Dorothy: Right.
Chris: And I knew them because I was resilient trying to get people to help girls with breast cancer. So [00:13:00] it all kind of connected and, and along my 30, 40 plus years of, of business and, and teaching and all of that, I just learned how to. To help other people and ask for help from me and, and not let that adversity, ’cause Adversity’s always going to come.
I mean, it, it came to me a couple of times driving here today, adversity is always gonna come. But how you handle it, what is it the saying? It’s, it’s, it’s 10% of what, what happens to you and 90% how you handle it. Right.
Dorothy: How you respond.
Chris: How you respond to it. And that is very, very true.
Dorothy: Of course, that that same saying goes with all the things we worry about.
Chris: Yes.
Dorothy: You know, 90% of them never happen. They never happen.
Chris: Yes.
Dorothy: But we, we waste time worrying about it.
Chris: Yes, yes. Yeah. And so I started adding resilience and in, instead of saying, Chris wants to come and talk about The Rose and breast cancer. And they’re going, oh [00:14:00] no, we need something more upbeat. ’cause they don’t know that I had a rap. But, um, it’s, Chris is gonna come talk about resilience and so I talk a little bit about my story. And then I ask the audience to give me some of their stories. And just throughout the the talk, I try to get them to understand that they’re resilient, even if it was just a minor little thing today, they’re resilient or think about something you did and was bigger than, than that.
And then after I got everybody, okay, everybody who’s resilient, stand up, raise your hand, something. Then I said, okay, why are you afraid to get the mammogram? You know, everybody in this room just admitted you’re resilient. We need to get this mammogram so we can be resilient and we get past it. ’cause, you know, and the whole spiel about it, I mean, you’re not giving yourself, you’re not, you know, if you’re not getting that mammogram, you’re not giving yourself a chance [00:15:00] for the new technology to work in your benefit.
I mean, there’s so many cancers we can discover now at stage zero, what the hell is stage? Stage zero. What the heck is stage zero? You know, but you’re not giving you, and, and so stop worrying about that. You’re resilient. And so that’s kind of how I’m piecing that into our, our business. Our, is that we’re resilient.
Dorothy: And what happens after you do that talk? Do they come up to you?
Chris: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Dorothy: What are some of the things they ask?
Chris: I mean, I can’t believe, thank you so much. I mean, I feel much better. I’m not, I really wa I, I I would really like to get a mammogram, but I’m afraid. I’m still afraid. I said, how about if I meet you there? I’ve met at least a half a dozen women when they had their first mammogram. I’ve met a couple of them that had to go back for, for, um, diagnostic and ultrasounds to be there with those women. And, um, some of ’em will ask me that. And uh, and they [00:16:00] always want my card, and I always, always ask.
And I’m asking in this podcast, invite me to speak, Chris will come speak about resilience.
Dorothy: Yeah. And do your rap.
Chris: And do my rap. Well, I wouldn’t want anybody to miss that. And James knows it by heart because I’ve done it that my boyfriend for, I’ve done it for 3 million times, you know? But he did write that verse about, ’cause he’s the one that travels with me sometimes from steeple to steeple.
Dorothy: Right.
Chris: And county to county.
Dorothy: Right.
Chris: And, and I wake up many days now and think, how did I get this life? After the worst day of my life happened, and that would be the day Mike died. But how did I get this life? I mean, you gave me an opportunity, but yes, I seized that opportunity.
Dorothy: Absolutely.
Chris: But how did I get there? And so I tell a little bit of that story sometimes about that because I mean, that’s the worst day of your life. You know your mom and dad are probably gonna die before you. It’s. It’s not your spouse or your sister, you know?
Dorothy: Right.
Chris: Somebody like that. And how do you, how do you move [00:17:00] past that? And a lot of it is, he’s still there looking at my awards, you know?
Dorothy: Alright. What’s that about? Tell us that.
Chris: Oh no, he, every, when I had my business. I would get a big head every now and then. I know you can’t believe that, but had he would say, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know you’re, you’re wonderful, but what have you done lately? So now if I get an award, my sweet boyfriend pulls out Mike’s picture, puts the award by my picture, and I don’t even know it anymore.
I mean, I don’t know. He is done it. I said, where’s my award? He said, Mike’s looking at it. Mike’s checking it out. And I have received a lot of awards. A lot of you laugh a way too many awards. I keep telling them, give them to the, yeah. But, but the community that I’m in, the African American community that I primarily work in.
They, they honor their people. They honor and award and uplift the people in their communities that are doing great things. And so I’m blessed to get that award from, from that community. But they do [00:18:00] a, a lot of that and I think that’s amazing that, that they, and then, and that’s part of being resilient.
They’re helping that next, that person who just got this award for being whatever. That helps that person.
Dorothy: It does.
Chris: It helps that person immensely. And, um. And that, that’s some of the things that, that helped me. And it, you know, it doesn’t matter whether you are an extrovert or an introvert, nobody’s born resilient. It’s something you learn to do and you cultivate and you cultivate. I mean, in a way I cultivated our friendship over those years. I mean, we, we would see each other at, at events and we’d talk. And if I’d have just never talked to you. ’cause there there were three or 400 people in the room, I might not have even seen you.
Dorothy: Right.
Chris: But we cultivated that, that friendship, that knowing each other, and that ended up here in this chair.
Dorothy: Right.
Chris: Who knew?
Dorothy: Who knew?
Chris: Who knew? And, and so I, you know, I, I talk about those kinds of things in, in my, my talk. And I, and, and I, and I try to get others to [00:19:00] talk about theirs because that happens all the time. And, uh, many of the things that I learned to do and many of the, the, the skills I have, I learned by volunteering to do that job. I learned how to use Excel because I, I kept track of, of, uh, reservations.
Dorothy: Oh.
Chris: I mean, ’cause a lot of times when you’re using learning some sort of, you’re learning something new, you’ve gotta have a reason to do it. You can’t learn it until you gotta do it.
Dorothy: Right.
Chris: And, and so I mean, I learned a lot of that stuff I learned and, and, and so I think resilience is, is something everybody can benefit from. And, um.
Dorothy: Everybody has it, whether they know it or not.
Chris: Whether they know it or not. And I’m, I do have something new for 2025 that you don’t even know about?
Dorothy: Dare I ask? No, you do have to let me know these things sometimes.
Chris: I’m letting you know right [00:20:00] now.
Dorothy: Okay. Tell me.
Chris: Well, one of the biggest topics in the country, the world right now is mental health. There’s a big push for mental health. And that sort of stuff. And in October I was at a luncheon and I met a woman sitting at my table. I have a tendency to talk to people and, uh, she’s a mental health nurse and I’m gonna tag team on her events where she speaks and I’m gonna speak about breast cancer and she’s gonna develop, develop a part of her speaking around not being afraid. The, the mental health around being afraid so we can tag team together to her events and she’s gonna go to mine. So not only am I, can I say Chris is gonna come and talk about breast cancer and resilience, Ombre and Tiffany, who is a mental health nurse, and she’s gonna talk about [00:21:00] this, so it’s something new.
Dorothy: You remind me of a carnival or a traveling show of some kind. I mean, Chris, I don’t even remember the old days. But you always have a way of bringing something different into the world. And, and I think that’s your gift.
Chris: It’s prob, it pro it. It probably is.
Dorothy: I don’t know that everybody has that gift.
Chris: Yeah. And I, and I, ’cause I talk to people. And I like people, but it, it doesn’t, you don’t have to do it my way. You just have to figure out how you can be resilient because you can. And you have and, and you have people around you that will help you. Now you gotta be willing to help them too. You gotta be on the other side and be able be, be their, their person they go to and the person that they, they call when they need help with this or that. Not, not, not with their, necessarily their health, but just whatever they need. Or, and you have to be [00:22:00] that for other people. Because.
Dorothy: That’s, that’s hard for some people to ask for help.
Chris: It’s very difficult. It is, it really is. It’s, it’s hard for people. Well, j but, but it’s because they don’t have those relations. They haven’t built those relationships yet, and they don’t even know how to sometimes, and sometimes they may need to get help to learn how to do that, you know? Um, but, but, but even introverted people have friends. It may not be as many as Chris Noble, but they have friends and, and, and they too can, you know, be, be, um, resilient. And I, I, I kept seeing that word resilient and zeroing in on it. And so I bought a painting. I really only bought this painting because I wanted to make a donation to this group. But I liked the painting, so I figured if I’m gonna give a hundred dollars, I’m gonna get something back. So I got this painting, but I looked at it and it. When it’s done, I’ll let you know it was someone else’s painting, [00:23:00] but I’m going to enhance it.
Dorothy: Oh, okay.
Chris: And right now it’s halfway enhanced and it just reminded me of the word resilience. So in my studio AKA, my garage is this 42 by 42 canvas with paint on it. And I have written the word resilience on the canvas, but it’s just in shock. And I am still fi finishing the rest of the things I wanna put on it, and I already have someone to purchase it. But, but the reason I tell you that story is because that I, I see it when I walk, I pull in my garage, there’s that painting that says resilience. And it was actually before I started working on this painting, before I started thinking about talking about resilience. I mean, I don’t know how it all worked out.
Dorothy: Oh, I know. These are, these are those weird stuff. Those Yes. God things.
Chris: The God things.
Dorothy: That drive us and move us. And help us to believe something that is beyond us.
Chris: Yeah. Because it’s, it’s still there, there now. ’cause I’m still working on it. And I have the painting sold [00:24:00] and that’ll be another donation to The Rose for $250.
Dorothy: Wow.
Chris: So it’s already sold.
Dorothy: That is great. Great.
Chris: So, you know, I dunno, but it, but it was, it is because of the people that are, were around me, my, my parents, you know, those people the people that were around me. Um, I, I didn’t grow up with lots of girlfriends and lots of friends. I was, I always had a little weight issue and I didn’t date until I was like in college. And I mean, I, I didn’t, I didn’t make real good grades when I found out a C was passing. That’s all I need to worry about. And not until I got a graduate degree did I worry about a degree a a a grade.
Dorothy: Yeah.
Chris: If I could make a C I’m happy. I mean, I didn’t do any of that stuff. So this is all something I’ve learned beginning probably with Mike and, ’cause I owned the company, he didn’t have any, any part of it because it’s a community property state. And that way we could get business because we [00:25:00] were a women owned business and there was no question that there were a women owned business. ’cause it wasn’t 51, 42, 49, it was a hundred percent. And we did get, so I learned a lot stuff from someone. ’cause I wasn’t in a business world. I taught school.
Dorothy: Alright, so you are Chris from The Rose. Let’s close this up with:
Chris: Yes. Everybody knows I’m Chris from the Rose, right? Lemme think about what verse I’ve missed. I haven’t really missed a good verse. I, I don’t, I don’t know, but you know. All right. Everybody knows I’m Chris from The Rose, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. Everybody knows I’m Chris from The Rose.
Dorothy: Chris. That is so good. In, in one way. I’m sure. I’m sure there are some critics that would say, that’s silly. Could use some more uh, work.
Chris: Well if those guys that I gave my card to would’ve helped me. I do need a beat. I don’t have the right beat, but I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m doing this on my own guys.
Dorothy: Okay.
Chris: If you don’t [00:26:00] like it, help me with the beat.
Dorothy: That’s our request.
Chris: Someone can come help with the beat, you know.
Dorothy: Come help Chris with her, her rap.
Chris: With my rap music because I’ve been rapping for The Rose. That’s what I call it, rapping for The Rose.
Dorothy: We need your help. Please subscribe is nothing else but help Chris.
Chris: The rap?
Dorothy: Yeah, let us know if you wanna help Chris with, with.
Chris: Yeah, I, I had need the beat, but, and a couple of places that I did it, they gave me the beat. Yeah. They were helping me with the beat. So.
Dorothy: So aren’t you using it? Just didn’t, you don’t remember it? You don’t. You gotta remember, okay.
Chris: Yeah, I gotta have my, I said to this one kid, I said, you need to travel with me ’cause you got me on this beat. And I was one at one event and there was a rapper there and his name was Little Troy. And after I did my rap, little Troy told me he liked my rap.
Dorothy: Oh, well, I, I guess you’ve had the seal of approval.
Chris: Little Troy.
Dorothy: Chris, thanks so much for being with us today and for bringing us resiliency and for bringing us rap. [00:27:00]
Chris: Rapping for The Rose Baby.
Dorothy: And for all the work you do in the community.
Chris: It’s, um, I, uh, it’s my privilege, my blessing. It’s my life. You know, I, I have so many things post, I mean, be that I have now because I have the, the, I got a family. You know, and I got, I got a, a daughter and a granddaughter and a son-in-law. You can help me get by having me here. I mean, what a life.
Dorothy: You didn’t need anything. Well, I don’t know about that.
Chris: Maybe to restrain me.
Dorothy: You just needed somebody to open the door.
Chris: Yeah.
Dorothy: And that’s, that’s what life is.
Chris: Yes, it is.
Dorothy: Looking for people to open those doors.
Chris: That’s a great one. I’m gonna use that one.
Dorothy: Okay.
Chris: Good job, Dorothy.
Dorothy: Thanks.
Post-Credits: Thank you for joining us today on Let’s Talk About Your Breasts. This podcast is produced by Speke Podcasting and brought to you by The Rose. Visit therose.org to learn more about our organization. Subscribe to our podcast, share episodes with friends, and join the conversation on social media using [00:28:00] #LetsTalkAboutYourBreasts. We welcome your feedback and suggestions. Consider supporting The Rose. Your gift can make the difference to a person in need. And remember, self care is not selfish. It’s essential.
