Shannon Ivey, MFA, PCC

When I was navigating cancer treatment as a divorced, solo mother, I learned something about care: people often want to help, but they don’t always know what meaningful support looks like.

I wasn’t just a cancer patient. I was a mother, a working professional, and a person with relationships, responsibilities, and a life that didn’t stop when I got sick.

What I needed wasn’t necessarily what another patient needed. And what I needed from one person wasn’t necessarily what I needed from another.

Here’s where my story gets interesting.

For five years—before, during, and after my cancer treatment—I worked as a trainer in health and social service organizations, teaching professionals how to make person-centered referrals during critical, often emotional moments in people’s lives.

How to deeply listen. How to recognize individual circumstances. How to connect people with support that actually fit their lives and desires.

I was teaching person-centered care while experiencing firsthand what happened when care wasn’t person-centered.

I could see the gap between what we knew we should do and what actually happened when someone needed help. Not just in hospitals and clinics, but in our families, workplaces, friendships, and communities.

People cared. People wanted to help. But good intentions didn’t always translate into meaningful support.

And sometimes, the person who was already struggling ended up having to explain, organize, and manage the very care they needed.

When my training work ended during COVID, I became an ICF-certified coach. And there it was again: the fundamental belief that people are the experts on their own lives. Our job isn’t to assume what they need. It’s to listen, ask better questions, and support their agency.

Across all three experiences—as a patient, educator, and coach—I kept coming back to the same idea.

Care is not one size fits all.

Yet in our busy lives, inside and outside of clinical care, we haven’t necessarily learned how to show up for people in the ways they actually need us.

And too often, we don’t discover that until we get it wrong—during what may be one of the most painful times in another person’s life.

Ask a cancer patient if I’m right.

It isn’t enough to ask people to show up. We have to understand what showing up actually means for the person receiving support.

That’s why I built CircleUpSquad.

Today, that philosophy informs everything we do—from the technology we build to the training and organizational support we provide.

Because care is more than a good intention. It’s a practice. And we can get better at it.