Jonny Imerman Fought Cancer and created the largest network of cancer survivor mentors in the world with Imerman Angels.

Listen to this interview to hear what inspired Jonny while he fought cancer to create the foundation and the candy every patient undergoing chemo needs to know about.

In this episode…

Imerman Angels carefully matches a person touched by cancer (a cancer fighter or survivor) with someone who has fought and survived the same type of cancer (a Mentor Angel). Cancer caregivers, such as spouses, parents, children, and friends, can also benefit from one-on-one connections with other caregivers and survivors. The service is free and available to anyone touched by any type of cancer, at any stage, any age, living anywhere in the world.

Today, they have the largest network of cancer survivors in the world; more than 4,000 cancer survivors and over 1,500 caregivers. They live in all 50 states, and over 60 countries.

IA has been featured by The Wall Street Journal, Harpo Radio’s “Oprah and Friends” / Dr. Oz, CNN, The Huffington Post, Men’s Health, NBC, and many more

Jonny received a 2012 CNN Hero Award; 2012 Salute of Gratitude from The City Council of Chicago;2012 Susan G. Komen “Pink Tie Guy” Award and several others

Also, Listen to the end to find out the type of candy he recommends anyone going through chemo should eat.

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Episode Transcript

Jeremy Weisz 0:02
Welcome to inspiredinsider.com you’re the founder of Imerman Angels. Listen in this interview, how Gianni made it his life’s mission to help people fight cancer. Also, what’s the one thing he thinks you should do to overcome business and personal challenges. He also talks about the advice his mentor gave him when he was thinking about starting the foundation, that and much more in the interview coming up.

Jeremy Weiss here we’re here with Johnny Immerman, founder of Imerman Angels, Imerman Angels, just to tell you a little bit about them they carefully match. A person touched by cancer, a cancer fighter survivor was someone who’s fought and survived the same type of cancer, a mentor Angel, cancer caregivers such as spouses, parents, children, friends can also benefit from the one on one connections with other caregivers and survivors, which I was amazed about the service is absolutely free and available to anyone touched by any type of cancer at any stage, any age living anywhere in the world. And today, they have the largest network of cancer survivors in the world. More than 4000 cancer survivors, over 1500 caregivers. They live in all 50 states in over 60 countries. And that’s unbelievable. Immerman angels has been featured by The Wall Street Journal, Harpo radios Oprah and friends Dr. Oz CNN Huffington Post, just to name a few. And Johnny’s received 2012, CNN Hero word 2012 Salyut of gratitude from the City Council of Chicago 2012, Susan G. Komen pink tie Guy Award and several others. Johnny, thank you for being here.

Jonny Immerman 2:16
Well, thank you, Jeremy, so much for having us. We’re flattered. Now we’re at we’re a humble group here, but a passionate group, that we’ve come a long way, but we’ve got a long way to go. But we want to help change the cancer space and make sure that people who fight cancer are able to find those who’ve been there and a positive outcome.

Jeremy Weisz 2:33
And you are and you’re doing that and you are doing that. And before we get started, and people need to hear your story and the story of Imerman Angels, I like to include One fun fact. And fun fact about Johnny is he’s been a vegan for two and a half years, and he hasn’t drunk alcohol in 11 years. Right?

Jonny Immerman 2:52
It’s 11 years and counting and probably never again but we’ll see. You never say never the right.

Jeremy Weisz 2:56
So there’s many people talk about we have so many things stopping us in life. The questions you know, how do we overcome what seems insurmountable obstacles and you’re the perfect person to talk about this? How we overcome personal and even business challenges. Could you tell us a little bit about what was your inspiration for starting Imerman Angels

Jonny Immerman 3:20
the real inspiration Jeremy was trying to find meaning and purpose and why 26 years old you find yourself in surgery and chemo Thank you beat it and other currents 14 years behind my kidneys and my spine other surgery in 2016 bucks about one eight and a half. I went through all these medical extraordinary things and most of my presents ones were not and afterward that looked at the system and I really believe today it’s the duty of all survived was one of us to look at the system and find a crack in the system and then plug it to something to fill that will give back for me giving back and sharing my story with another guy who was my age and is going through the same thing. So I could tell him Hey buddy, you know I know you’re in your first week. You just found out get testicular cancer and you’re scared. Guess what? HostGator too but it’s all I can do it I beat it. Here’s what I know. I’ve learned all this along the way to chemo feels like this you should probably during chemo don’t eat that stuff that didn’t work for me. Be careful about working out here’s probably won’t be able to work out all these insider tips that survivors have because we simply live experience need to be given back and shared. When I was sick Jeremy to be very direct. I have the most best support you in the world. I had the best mom I was there. Every minute. Every chemo every surgery will hold every minute. A brother was great. Friends were great. And a lot of people don’t want me to chemo every day. But I simply didn’t know any younger adults were also athletes will also survive. And there’s a disconnect human angels is created to basically fill that void. So when somebody at any age don’t have to be an adult, you could be 56 and have colon cancer. And we say, Look, we know an angel, you should know, you know, Gus, because there’s DC. Stage two colon cancer the same time you got diagnosed this morning, you got noticed? Because he is living proof you can do one to one with the student Sema, it’s like magic, to watch this friendship. Inspiration is encouragement. It’s, it’s knowledge, it’s tips along the way. It’s friendship at the right time, all based around one word. Just

Jeremy Weisz 5:38
what was it? Like? Can you tell us what was like when you first found out? And what do you tell people that you mentor? That’s got to be really difficult.

Jonny Immerman 5:47
Yeah, when I first found out I was scared, I had no idea. They’re telling me they’re gonna cut my testicle out and remember the bank sperm. I’m like, Whoa, what’s that all about? And I remember walking in by myself, my mom said to me, you want me to come with you for the sperm bank. And I was like, Mom, that’s cool. You know, I’ll give myself like a typical guy until the six, her walk in there by myself. Just what am I do? This is bizarre. No, I don’t I just really, it just didn’t make sense. It happened so fast. And then all of a sudden, you’re going into chemo for eight hours. And you feel like you’re blindfolded. And a dark forest trying to navigate out. It’s hard to know which way to terminate because you just don’t know where you’re going or where you’re trying to get to. And it’s just, it’s just a scary process. So for me that first week, and I saved the most people the first 45 to 60 days. It’s like the dust is everywhere. It’s like a windstorm, you really don’t know what ends up. You’re nervous. You’re scared as this whole new jargon terms, things like alpha, theta, protein, beta hCG, and bacon sperm and PICC lines and quartz, and your pidgins and the elastos, and prednisone, cisplatin, and all these drugs and names and you’re trying to understand what about means overnight. If you like taking the final exam of a former college class, the first day you show up? How do I know I’m everyday, of course, because I’m in it, or the bell rang, and I’m in it. So I think a lot of people, including myself, feel unsure. You feel isolated. And you have questions, and you don’t really it’s great to have friends and family. You don’t really have most people someone who’s like, Oh, I’ve been through this, you know, I can answer a lot. Yeah. That was the impetus. That’s why we created different ages. And we just started Jeremy is the simplest store in the world. After I beat it. I didn’t know any survivals. I prayed every morning, every night that if I live, I would do something to give back and help other people. And so what I started doing about two months after my last chemo, is going back to my local cancer center after work back to my local kitchen or on the weekends, walking in rooms, usually young people because then you have to relate to them on walking in and saying, oh, what’s your name? Or your Lisa? Her 24 got leukemia? On 27. I just want you to stick looking. And immediately refrence can immediately be suspect 25 questions for you about what did you go through? Did you get this funky rash? Always report in your arm? I vote was immediately, your friends for all the obvious reasons. someone’s like, how could you not? There’s really only two people in the world, you get what it’s like. So it feels and over time I realized walking door to door is a much more scalable model shouldn’t be just one guy in suburban Detroit, and door to door in his local cancer center. Survivors. Every one of us has a story no as a team as a network. And then we started with reading survivors. When Angel after the next total we recruited now over 4000. Every one of them has a story. Everyone’s come out on top and match with the right person at the right time can offer some methods on them.

Jeremy Weisz 9:13
I want to hear about some of the things you did to get this out there and recruiting. But first, tell us about one of those tough things to overcome with running Imerman Angels. How did you I mean, having the idea and actually getting out there and having it thrive is his different story is difficult. What is one of those tough times when you’re running it?

Jonny Immerman 9:35
Yeah, there’s no there’s no question about it is it’s been a challenge for us to grow it and build it but that’s part of any organization and we’re the biggest work that we do but there’s always challenges and you have to expect more of them. Because the goal is know how do we have the perfect person for you at the perfect time and we will close With over 4000, that’s great. But we always think, you know, bigger and aim high over here, we think gotta get 1 million survivors, and they’re out there, we have 4 million, you could have an exact match every time. He’s exactly like you, but his nursing homes are getting closer every day. And we’ve come a long way. But the biggest challenge is awareness. How do we get the awareness out there some more survivors? Join us help us get to that four or 10 million plus, and as many survivors as want to train, we want every one of them. And then in addition, how do we reach more hospitals and more doctors? So they know that patients can we can help every one of them, but they don’t know us?

Jeremy Weisz 10:44
Yeah. And that’s a tough problem. How do you overcome that? How do you increase awareness or reach more hospitals, because I mean, a lot of people, whether it’s a nonprofit or in general, in their business, that’s always an issue. Right.

Jonny Immerman 11:01
Now, the way we create awareness right now to grow and help more people, is simply a list of three main buckets. The first bucket is the hospital system. So doctors, nurses, social workers, we spend a lot of time speaking with them to basically send people and so we can help more people send us referrals. bucket number two routes like LIVESTRONG Nike Cancer Society, keep in the BOMA society, the silver lining Foundation, Coleman all these would send us referrals for support, we do that they don’t do. And they do what we don’t do. So together, we got to partner well work together, boss refer to make sure people find what they need. That’s the second way of it’s important. Third Way is pounding the pavement. It’s the T shirts right here that we all wear. This fans, it’s the Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, CNN, TED Talk, whatever we can do, to get the word out the mass public, if you know somebody, such by cancer haven’t called us. And if you know somebody who’s a survivor wants to get back and call us because you want to get them in the network. And that’s what makes the whole purpose fun.

Jeremy Weisz 12:11
So what’s been I know there’s a lot of inspirational moments and things. What’s been one of the proudest most memorable moments for you after starting Imerman Angels?

Jonny Immerman 12:22
Well, the proudest moment for me is when you get those emails, and we get a lot of them and I love every one of them, you never get old, get an email or a call. And some of the letters somebody just hand writes, it says I beat my cancer. My name is Marissa, I’m 32 I beat ovarian cancer. I live in Alabama. You guys matched me up with Amy lives in Kansas. And she’s 38 beat the same ovarian cancer. And I beat it. And I’m better now. And that friendship changed my life. And I’m so grateful. Thank you so much for the inspiration and introduction to Amy. I’ll never forget this. This really changed my life. That’s what we love to get those messages, those notes. That’s what it’s all about. You know, you need one golden organization. It’s about one on one, Cancer Support and goals. How do survivors impact the lives of both today? Easier, you can more motivated. Someone else they need to get to the finish line? The lightning?

Jeremy Weisz 13:27
Yeah, I’m sure you get a lot of those stories to what’s been another big challenge with running Imerman Angels and getting the word out.

Jonny Immerman 13:40
You know, are a big challenge for us. I think we’ve really figured it out as of last July. But I would say it’s the biggest challenge we’ve had as an organization is using how to use technology to help us be better. How to use tacking, basically, the number one thing I’m talking about here is the database. How do we how do we use the data, we have to match people up accurately and get the right people hooked up at the right time. And we’re on our four point out. So our 1.0 It was my laptop and I’m on right now, which is your MAC address book and just simple keyword searching, meeting survivors and typing your story into the notes. You know, whatever their profile is, and then searching them by email or however and

Jeremy Weisz 14:30
really doing it manually. Yeah.

Jonny Immerman 14:34
Just a few of us and that’s all it was seven, eight years ago, and today we’ve upgraded our 4.0 Salesforce. And Salesforce has been a godsend for us. It’s such a simple program to match people internally, but also to keep track of his natural land. It’s been amazing, amazing resource. It’s just not something I’m an expert at. I don’t know it’s all about tech. We finally figured out what system you use. And of course, migrating databases is never fun. But we’ve gotten that done. And as of July, our team’s a lot happier in Salesforce. And it’s making us much more efficient internally to manage the data because it can have so many 1000 people. We talked about the 4000 Plus survivors, but there’s also 1500 Plus caregivers, caregivers are mothers, mothers, wives, husbands, children, anyone connected to that person cancer, because we match them to we could match mama, the Bible neuroblastoma was totally isolated, match her up with another mom, this is my kids 12, when she was five, she had the same neuroblastoma, and she didn’t speak the language. And we understand what you’re going through. Because we went through this, once a woman moms match. So we added the caregiver piece to get even more people, and you’re matching a couple more 1000. So managing all that data, the in the right seat people match at the right time monitoring. And then following up, I mean, there’s just a lot of moving parts. But I would say that’s probably that our biggest challenge is figuring out what that tech piece should look like. Got it. But as of last July, you’ve got it.

Jeremy Weisz 16:16
Okay. We have a lot of people who listen who are in tech. So if you have any other awesome solutions for Johnny, contact him and email him. I love idea, right. And the other question I had was, What’s the best advice you’ve heard from mentor angel? I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot of great advice out there. What are some maybe the top two piece of advice that you’ve heard from mentor angel that all of us can apply to overcoming challenges and obstacles?

Jonny Immerman 16:48
Jeremy, great question. You know, there’s a lot of tips that can come along the way. One of the best tips is that a lot of people don’t notice the first day of chemo anxiety levels are so high, because people like myself, I had eight hours of chemo my first week of chemo Monday through Friday, every day, well, Monday through Friday. And I thought for sure within two minutes of chemo going into my veins, I would be fluid. And I would be puking. And it would be nauseous because like that’s what you think about when you think about chemotherapy because you don’t feel good. They throw up. And after five minutes of chemo, and I watched a trip in my arm, I looked up in my nurse, and I said, Hey, I’m sorry, I don’t think this chemo is working. And she looked at me. Why why do you think it’s not working? And I said, because I’m not sick yet. It’s all in my arm. I can see it. But I don’t know what is the right stuff because I’m kind of sick, I feel fine. And she said, you know, Listen, kid, just relax. Sit down, take it easy. It might be a couple of days. And sure enough, it was about three days, but a fourth day that Thursday of eight hour chemo days where I started to feel fatigue and nausea. But you just don’t know that going in with so much anxiety the night before. I couldn’t even sleep I slept for 20 minutes, tossing and turning because I was so nervous about the first day chemo, were a survivor could easily stepped up to look 99% of people your birthday chemo, you will feel nothing. That’s the case. That’s the chip, which is really settling for a lot of people, but must survive. It tells you that it gives you that tip, you’re going to spend a lot of time.

Jeremy Weisz 18:27
Yeah. So really just kind of having that knowledge and knowing what’s going to happen ahead of time, which is all about what what you guys do with matching people. What What’s What’s the best advice you received from a mentor for running and starting Imerman Angels? Because that’s a that’s a huge undertaking.

Jonny Immerman 18:47
Yes, it’s a big undertaking, the best advice that I ever got, when I decided this full time, was a mentor of mine back in the trade area, went for breakfast with him, was thinking about doing it full time. And he looked at me and said, Johnny, but all the successful people I know, will tell you pretty much the same thing that shows to do what they love. And then they found a way to do it every day. Because it’s what you love and what you enjoy from the sphere of what makes you happy, you’re going to work harder, you’re gonna be more passionate index is going to be greater, and you’re going to enjoy the ride and not worry about getting up at 5am or 6am to go crank on it. And it was the best advice because once I pulled the trigger in July oh six, I decided to do this full time. You know, I never looked back. And all of a sudden you’re helping one guy, get him matched up and the next guy, get him that stuff. Just keep going one at a time, one at a time. And I really believe that in life and the listeners out there whatever you do, if you love being an engineer because that’s where your passion is. If you love building sculptures, if you love being a lawyer, an investment banker, or a nonprofit person, whatever it is, we’re social worker You know, if it’s what you love and in the sphere that needs the most to you, you’re going to be the happiest you possibly can be, you can build a career out of it. And I’m a big believer in that. And some of the best advice that I got my personal mentor of mine back in Detroit, and once I pulled the trigger and never looked back, I didn’t know how long it would take us to get to this point and keep going. But you know what, you just focus on one life at a time to help one guy when he’s helped you sucked up and help the next guy get to as many as you can.

Jeremy Weisz 20:30
So what’s one thing you’d recommend the ISU right now they’re going through whether it’s a personal struggle or a business struggle, what’s one thing they should start doing right now that would be helpful for them in their current situation?

Jonny Immerman 20:45
I would say the best thing to do, if you You mean to help help them women, angels get the word out there, or someone that’s interested

Jeremy Weisz 20:55
in treatment, or maybe they’re going through a real hard, you know, business situation, just like for themselves and whatever they’re going through, whether it’s a health or business, what should they start doing to kind of start overcoming because in that moment, like, they may be alone, just in whether it’s a business situation, that’s what people you know, go to you for, but maybe they’re sitting and watching. They’re like, you know, I am going through this business struggle, and there’s not like an Imerman Angels for what I’m going through what, what should they start doing?

Jonny Immerman 21:26
You know, I think what the best I believe in mentoring at my core, core core fibers, and I believe it is so much that if it’s a business thing, you try to find a mentor that’s in your business arena, just farther down that you can talk to. I really believe there’s so many good people in the world, people are inherently good, each one of us and they love hustle. People love sharing what they know to help somebody else. It’s a great feeling. That’s what we do in an Angels every day. Most survivors problem to festival people, whatever you want, but they’ve survived their cancer and sharing your story to be able to help out somebody go through going through the same pain. But I think in business, it’s the same. Try to find someone who’s built up something who’s ahead of you, that you can learn from. And we’ve actually had several spin offs to determine angels that even spin off more like daughter organizations. We got one had a spinal cord injury journey. And it’s a girl that called me and said, I was in a car accident 13 in a wheelchair, and basically paralysing here down and I wish I would have known a big sister, who said, Oh, yeah, you know, I was in a car accident, see when I was 13. But now I’m 30. And I’ve been, and I’ll talk to you about it, and one to one that she had a spinal cord injury support. We’ve given her a whole model, given her old technology system, and blood cancer plug in spinal cord injury, and it works amazing. There’s another group out there called Jimmy insulin. And my friend Jeremy Weisbach, called us and said, I wish I could do this for diabetes, because I was nine when I got diagnosed with diabetes. And now he matches people who equals guys, people that have had diabetes maybe 10 years ago, and still have it mentoring newly diagnosed people with diabetes, one to one. So it really works. Mentoring is just a powerful thing. If you look at the history of mentoring, the first organized system to do good in the world that I’ve ever seen of mentoring is probably Alcoholics Anonymous, right? A back in the 1930s. Somebody realized two men realize Bob and Bill. If you match a guy up, who’s an alcoholic, with another guy named Mike, who’s your sponsor, he’s totally sober five years that that’s an amazing one is the one. That’s your big brother, you call him and you know, he’s there to help you. We just simply applied and brilliant, we applied that same model that applies to cancer. We do it that I believe in the power of mentoring, I believe in the power of empathy, and shared experience. It’s a powerful thing. Yeah, that’s what I would provide.

Jeremy Weisz 24:08
Mentorship is powerful. And I have one last question for you, Johnny. Before I ask it, I want you to tell the audience a little bit more about Imerman Angels and what you have. That’s exciting right now. Going on,

Jonny Immerman 24:21
as we so we do a lot of events in Chicago. We have a running team here in Chicago and beyond. Some of our runners run all over the place. But you know, people can get jerseys and one for us. You can buy T shirts on the website. We make them really cheap. We pretty much breakeven on the shirts, we just want to get them out there. So much again, Jeremy of what we do is awareness. And so much is just spreading the word hate. The system’s free to help anyone with cancer and it’s right here. And the goal was just how do we get it out there. So anyone out there wants helps. Spread the word be a cheerleader, get in touch You’re like this, talk about it. Get a wristband. You can get a wristband online as well right here, whatever you want to do to be a part of it. We’re free. You’re just going to help people reach us in those circles. You need us. Yeah. Wow.

Jeremy Weisz 25:15
Yeah. And then for everyone, we tell people the website, so they can go and check it out.

Jonny Immerman 25:21
Should Imerman angels.org, which is I M, E, R, and then angels, that word is there again. And you can also call us at 31227455298 staff total, six of which are survivors here. So it’s a very survivor driven, very passionate group. And we just want to impact we want to work together to reach as many people as we can here. Anyone out there who’s fighting cancer needs help, please reach out. Anyone out there who’s a survivor or caregiver who wants to get back. Please join us because this network of angels blows, the matches are better.

Jeremy Weisz 26:05
Yeah, it’s absolutely unbelievable what you’re doing. And I my last question is one fact that not everyone knows about fighting cancer that would help them and I’ll tell you the one that I learned from reading what you’ve written, which I thought was amazing to me was one fun fact was simply sucking on Lemonheads candies, alleviate alleviate some metallic taste from chemo. That it’s something. I mean, who would know that unless you’re talking to a mentor? What’s the one thing one fact that you do? That amazes you that people should do?

Jonny Immerman 26:40
Yeah, you know, that’s great, and it’s so true. And you get this bad taste in your mouth and chemo. It’s been a telling, I describe it as you feel like you have nails and screws like in your gums in your mouth. It’s just very metal. So laminates are amazing. lemonades donates, they’ve donated actually over 200,000 boxes to us completely free, whole random eliminators on one side laminate than the other, give them to people for free at hospitals all over. So we’re very grateful. They’re good people, they love that their product is giving us that help during something like chemo, which is awesome. So we love the love and that’s true. Another tip, I would say Jeremy, which is a great one is often sometimes people get neuropathy, which is a numbness of some it’s called rainouts and the fingertips and in their toes, in that numbness, that that neuropathy is a really typical side effects of chemo. What it does, the chemo can force the smaller blood vessels of the capillaries to constrict, what you want to do is you want to actually increase the blood flow, you want to dilate the vessels to increase the blood flow to counteract that, because what happens is the numbness, your fingers will turn white, sometimes it really hurts. You can barely open a bottle top with it. I mean, it can be really bad. And it can kind of come and go with a lot of people. And you know, that’s a typical side effect. Now a great way to add heat to dilate the capillaries to increase the blood flow to lower the numbness and make your hands feel a little better is to dip your hands or your toes into warm water. If you have a bucket of warm water or a bathtub, is what happens is that he will dilate the capillaries increase blood flow. A lot of people very typical kids rapidly chemo and it’s a great tip to be able to counteract that. And you just wouldn’t know that was a survivor told you and said listen, here’s a great site. Sometimes the doctors will match and stuff like that. Usually what happens is the doctors are so busy as they should be figuring out which treatments and how to treat someone during the patient that these little ancillary finish questions that we happen to get more comfortable because this Burke’s about his name survivors of investments to show

Jeremy Weisz 29:01
up. Well, Jamie, I want to be the first one that thank you so much all of you out there to check in. Check out Imerman angels.org And you know, I appreciate your time.

Jonny Immerman 29:12
Thank you Jeremy. Wish you well instead we see you around town and we’re both local. So look forward to seeing you around town my man. Awesome. Thanks, Jenny. Thanks a lot, buddy. Do well okay, good luck, everybody. Take care.