Cynt Marshall | The 2022 MAKERS Conference

MAKERS

Cynt Marshall at the 2022 MAKERS Conference

Video Transcript

- Please welcome Cynt Marshall.

[MUSIC - TAINSUS, "WE STILL STAND"]

[CHEERING]

CYNT MARSHALL: Woo! Ladies! Get up! Woo!

[MUSIC - TAINSUS, "WE STILL STAND"]

We still stand.

CYNT MARSHALL: [INAUDIBLE] Come on.

[MUSIC - TAINSUS, "WE STILL STAND"]

We still stand.

CYNT MARSHALL: Sing it with me. And I'm not high enough.

[MUSIC - TAINSUS, "WE STILL STAND"]

We still stand.

CYNT MARSHALL: Yes.

[MUSIC - TAINSUS, "WE STILL STAND"]

We still stand.

CYNT MARSHALL: Woo, don't worry, baby.

[MUSIC - TAINSUS, "WE STILL STAND"]

We still stand.

CYNT MARSHALL: OK, look at somebody and tell them, "ain't no mountain high enough." Come on now. Ain't--

- (SINGING) Ain't no mountain high enough.

CYNT MARSHALL: Oh, look, acapella.

- (SINGING) Ain't no valley low enough.

CYNT MARSHALL: Yes, ain't no river.

- (SINGING) Ain't no river wide enough.

CYNT MARSHALL: To do what? (SINGING) To keep from getting--

- (SINGING) To keep me from getting to you, babe.

CYNT MARSHALL: Woo! I love this place. I love y'all Woo! [APPLAUSE] I love, love, love, love [? y'all. ?] Oh my gosh. Good morning, my sisters. [CHEERING] And I think I have some brothers in here too.

I am so excited to be back at MAKERS. Oh my god. Are you glad to be here? [CHEERING] I think so.

OK, so the last time I was here-- maybe it was the last time you were here-- 32 months ago. OK. So I need you to look at somebody. Y'all know I grew up in a Pentecostal church. OK, don't worry. We're going to get out before midnight.

OK, so we have some neighbors. So just look at somebody. Just look at somebody. And I want you to ask them a question. Say, "sister--" now y'all got to say it loud. Sister--

- Sister--

CYNT MARSHALL: --where were you--

- --where were you--

CYNT MARSHALL: --on February 11, 2020?

- --on February 11, 2020.

CYNT MARSHALL: OK, where were you? Think about it. 2-11-2020, I was at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles at MAKERS. And we were talking about not done yet. Do y'all remember that?

OK, and I was passing out some tiaras. Do y'all remember that, OK? I left you with the message of cry like a baby-- y'all remember that-- fight like a girl, and change the world like a woman. Now little did we know, little did we know that just a month later, we would be doing all of that at the same time-- crying and fighting and changing simultaneously, OK, because of COVID-19. I call-- let's see-- the COVID-19 pandemic an out-of-body experience. Would you agree?

- Yes.

CYNT MARSHALL: When you think back about it, it's like truly, it didn't happen. So I need you to look at another sister. Because this is our five minutes of church time for you. For those of you who didn't get your meditation in this morning, this is your five minutes of meditation, OK? So I need you to just smile at the sister, just smile at her, and ask her, say, "have you ever had--"

- Have you ever had--

CYNT MARSHALL: "--an out-of-body experience?"

- --an out-of-body experience?

CYNT MARSHALL: OK, and look at another sister. Because you all are loving this. Smile at the sister. And say, "have you ever had--"

- Have you ever had--

CYNT MARSHALL: --an out-of-body experience?"

- An out-of-body experience?

CYNT MARSHALL: OK, so we know-- OK, y'all are good at this. OK, so we know that COVID-19 was an out-of-body experience. But my answer to that is, yes, because I had one before. And it started on my 51st birthday, the day after my first colonoscopy.

I got a colonoscopy my last day of 50, a colonoscopy that I had put off for over a year. So my first out-of-body experience was on December 15, 2010. And that's what it looked like. It looked like headlines about, all of a sudden, I had stage III colon cancer.

On my 51st birthday, I got a call from my gastroenterologist telling me to get to a surgeon. He said, you need to get to a surgeon right away. Now I go to work on my birthday because I had to be there for the surprise party, right?

[LAUGHTER]

And so I'm there like trying to like find out stuff about the surprise party. And I get a call about a tumor. And so my out-of-body experience started with that first phone call that ended up with all kinds of stuff happening. And then I had to really think about my future.

Because the second phone call I got was a few weeks later, after I saw that surgeon, telling me that-- and to quote him-- he says, "I have news, it's bad, and it's significant. You have stage III colon cancer one lymph node from stage IV."

That truly was an out-of-body experience. I felt like he was talking to somebody else. So very quickly, I had to think about my future. And that's what we're talking about in this conference, making the future.

So future, time regarded as still to come. So here's what my future ended up looking like. All of these things were in my future, OK? I ended up putting on my chemo pearls. And that's why-- y'all like my pearls?

- Yes.

CYNT MARSHALL: That's why I still wear my pearls to this day. Because I was chosen for the chemo class of 2011. I had more scans than you could shake a stick at.

I told my husband, I knew I was glowing in the dark at some point, OK? I had all kinds of scans, everything. But my future was chemotherapy. And I chose to live.

I had a decision to make-- hold on, let's go back. Let's go back. Those questions. Do I relish in the out-of-body experience? Do I have a pity party-- because that's what I was trying to have when I called my mom to tell her what happened and she didn't want to hear it.

She said God was going to take care of me. Or do I make my future? That's the point where we are right now. This is about making the future.

So I made the future. That's a picture of me throwing my chemo part overboard after I kicked cancer's butt, OK? [CHEERING] Two years later, I was on the cover of a magazine, OK?

I wish I could get back in that red suit, OK? But I just can't. And I'm OK with the hips so I'm not even trying to do that, OK?

But two years later, I had an attitude of gratitude. I had to live for these honeys. These are my babies who taught me how to make the future. They were all in foster care-- sad, abandoned, neglect stories. They taught me how to make the future. They gave me a reason to live.

So I came out of my out-of-body experience. I embraced what I needed to do. And, look, there's my oncologist there, Charlie Eisenbeis. We had something to do. We had to stop looking to the future and start making the future.

Look at somebody. Smile at them again. That's what we're going to be talking about all day. Say, "stop looking to the future."

- Stop looking to the future.

CYNT MARSHALL: Now y'all got to say it louder than that. "Stop looking to the future."

- Stop looking to the future.

CYNT MARSHALL: "Start making the future."

- Start making the future.

CYNT MARSHALL: Here's what I want you to do, I want you to think about right now, get out your phones, whatever you write with. I want you to think about one thing, just one thing that you will do to define your future, one thing. From the time I threw that chemo port-- you know, I named my chemo pump Winston.

Because, you know the movie "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" and Winston was-- Winston was the little cutie pie, Taye Diggs, right? So I named my chemo pump Winston because I think he had to give me my groove back, OK? But I named my port Willis. That was his little brother. And I threw that thing overboard on a ship with people who didn't even know me singing, "I Will Survive."

And I feel like that's how, where we are right now coming through this pandemic, OK? Some things were taken away from us, but you know what? We're going to survive. We have survived.

And we have some things to do now. We have to make our future. We have to decide what our workplaces look like. We have to decide what our homes look like, what this society looks like, a society that's trying to take away things from women. We get to make the future.

So I wrote a book. [INAUDIBLE] wrote a book? I wrote a book during the pandemic, OK, and released it a few weeks ago. I am on a mission.

And it's called "You've Been Chosen." And it talks about my cancer journey. But it also talks about how all of these things, like the pandemic, that show up in our lives.

We are ready for them. We are equipped for them. And we are equipped because God and great people, like the great people in this room-- [INAUDIBLE]-- like the great people in this room, we have to show up for each other.

So here's what I want you to do. I need you to stand up. Because y'all know you have to stand up when you're talking to me, OK? Y'all know you have to stand up. OK, I need some background music. I need some background music. And I need you to tell five people, "You've been chosen. Let's make the future." Five people, "You've been chosen. Let's make the future."

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

CYNT MARSHALL: You've been chosen, ladies. Let's make the future.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

CYNT MARSHALL: OK, are y'all ready? Let's make the future. OK, let's make it. Let's make it.

OK, so talking about being chosen and making the future, I want to introduce a MAKER and changemaker. She's absolutely incredible. I love this woman so much. I'm truly going to be her when I grow up. Take a look at Maybelle Blair.