When life threatens to collapse, you can still choose your comeback. For most of my life, I’ve dealt in chaos. I was a retail turnaround specialist, and I knew how to bring order to the mayhem and fix anything that was broken. Except, as it turned out, my own sense of invincibility.
For years, I lived with the quiet knowledge that cancer ran in my family like an inherited storm—my sister, my mother, and my grandmother were taken by the disease. I spent a decade fortifying my body and hoping against all odds that I wouldn’t have to battle the tempest. But at fifty-one, when the diagnosis finally came, it still felt like the ground had dropped out from under me.
This book tells the story of what happened when the fixer had to face the one thing she couldn’t outwork.
It traces the years when my titles—CEO, President, Chief Merchandising Officer—were the center of my identity. It follows the woman who tried to schedule chemotherapy between client calls, who held onto a project even while on medical leave, and who believed I could strategize my way through cancer the way I had strategized through boardrooms.
It’s also the story of what swept in as the sliding door opened: survivor’s guilt that stole my breath, joy tangled with grief, and denial intertwined with fierce determination. The moments of truth seen in dressing room mirrors and spreadsheets of data. The day HR told me to choose between work and recovery. The playbook for healing I built with a binder, dividers, and colored tabs. The instinct that whispered: You already know how to lead. Now lead yourself.
Part memoir and part playbook, each chapter pairs a story with the strategies, questions, and mindset shifts that helped me navigate the hardest project of my life. It explores how to advocate for your body, trust your intuition, release an identity that no longer serves you, all so that you can discover the life waiting on the other side of fear.
This is not a story about cancer. It’s a story about choosing to live—fully, presently, relentlessly.
If you’ve ever faced a diagnosis or an illness that rearranged your world, this book is your permission to take control and command your comeback.
Farla Efros is a seasoned retail executive, cancer survivor, mother, and unapologetic truth-teller who lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter. Farla has held senior leadership roles across the retail industry, including President of HRC Retail Advisory (part of Accenture Retail Strategy), Interim CEO of True Religion Brand Jeans, and Executive Vice President & Chief Merchandising Officer at Office Depot.Known for her sharp insights into consumer trends, she has been a frequent guest on BNN Bloomberg, offering expert analysis on retail strategy and the evolving marketplace.After a high-powered career in business and retail, her life took a dramatic turn when she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer in 2023-a year that also brought unimaginable personal loss. What followed was a journey through surgeries, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and soul-rattling grief...but also radical resilience, dark humor, and a fierce refusal to disappear.Through her platform The Healing Rebel CA, Farla shares the raw, real, and often hilarious side of life during and after cancer-not just survival, but the messy, painful, and surprisingly beautiful path of learning to live fully again. Her writing blends sharp wit with emotional honesty, calling out the clichés and celebrating imperfect healing with defiance and heart. Farla shares her story and strategy for reclaiming agency, building community, and living with courage and authenticity.Farla writes to connect, to comfort, and to remind every survivor: You're not alone-and you don't have to be graceful about it.
