Words as Currency: The Marine, the Marketer, and the Metastatic Advocate
Host Nathan James sits down with Jake Messier, a former Marine Corps combat correspondent, PR executive, and public affairs specialist whose career has transitioned into urgent healthcare advocacy. Jake opens up about his non-linear journey, which began with dropping out of college after his junior year to find direction in the military. Stationed at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo as a broadcast journalist, Jake fulfilled a promise to his father by earning his sociology degree abroad through the UMGC Asian Division while capturing the diverse lives of service members across 43 countries.
Following his military service, Jake navigated intense corporate environments, working as a CBS news assignment editor during 9/11 before founding the largest non-profit marketing agency in New England, an achievement that landed him in Forbes as a prominent "olderpreneur". However, his path took a drastic turn at age 52 when a routinely dismissed lump under his arm led to a diagnosis of stage 4 metastatic male breast cancer. Now managing an incurable illness, Jake has mobilized his deep marketing expertise to combat toxic masculinity and emasculation within healthcare, building a massive digital community as "The Guy with Stage 4". Tune in to hear how Jake became the first male breast cancer patient appointed to a Susan G. Komen steering committee and why sharing our most vulnerable chapters is the ultimate catalyst for saving lives.
Episode Information
Jake Messier
I don't want you, at 52 years old, to be putting on some deodorant and say, oh, that's weird, and then go on with your day because nobody ever told you that guys could get breast cancer. That's what I'm trying to change. When I said before that I had 30 people a day, that was my goal was to reach 30 people a day.
I had a video last week on Instagram and we're closing in on a million views. It would be my first video that's gone over a million, right? But it's not about my own ego or hubris. It is about the fact that a million people saw my handle and now know that guys can get breast cancer. That is why we're doing this.
Narrator
Welcome to the UMGC podcast Unstoppable Stories with your host, Nathan James.
Nathan James
All right, everybody. Hello. Hello. I am here with Jake Messier. He is warmer combat correspondent with the Marines. He is a PR executive. He's now a health advocate. And that's largely driven by his own medical journey that we're going to get into shortly here. But, Jake, really appreciate you. I told you before, but I really appreciate you taking the time to to to spend with us today.
Jake Messier
Oh, I'm really happy to be here. Thanks so much for having me.
Nathan James
You got it. You got it. Let's start early on in your journey. You dropped out of college, right?
Jake Messier
I did, after my junior year.
Nathan James
There it is.
Jake Messier
There it is. Yeah. I only had, like, eight more months of school left, but I was like, that's it. I'm out here.
Nathan James
There it is. And then to join the Marines.
Jake Messier
So what?
Nathan James
You know the story behind the behind that.
Jake Messier
Well, I was lost, right? I had gone through three years of college. I think I had changed my major 4 or 5 times in those three years. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was failing not just academically. Right, but I was just failing. I just I was just lost. And I wasn't putting in the I didn't want to be in school anymore.
I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was pretty much directionless. And my. I come from a military veteran family, right? My dad was a marine. My great. My grandfather was a sailor. My great grandfather was a marine and a soldier. He was in World War one and World War two. So I come from a long line of of seafaring men, right?
The Marines and the sailors.
Nathan James
That makes sense.
Jake Messier
And I told my dad after I had made the decision, or maybe school had made the decision that I would not be returning in the next year, that I was going to join the military. And my dad was like, all right, you went through three years of college. I'm not necessarily keen on this idea, but do everything or do anything you want, but just don't.
Don't join the Marine Corps. And I was like, got it checked out. So I went straight to the recruiters office and joined the Marine Corps. No. I mean, it was I went and looked at all five of the services, you know, the Coast Guard included. I went, looked at all five of them, and and again, I was pretty directionless, but I but I knew that I wanted to get some kind of marketable skill while I was in the military.
Right. Yeah. And I wasn't I wasn't a wrench turner. Like, I wasn't a, I wasn't a a guy that could go in fixed tanks or fixed jets. So that wasn't the skill set that I could do. I thought that perhaps being a machine gunner wasn't probably the best skill I could get for the corporate world afterwards. So the infantry was out, but this job came.
That was Combat Correspondent 4341, public affairs in the Marine Corps, which is an essence of military broadcast journalist or print request.
Nathan James
Gotcha. So, I mean, what drew you to that particularly? I mean, I know you did end up becoming a combat correspondent, right? But what was it that gave you the green light and said, you know what, that's it. That's the one.
Jake Messier
Well, it's it's, you know, words have always been my currency, right? Since since the beginning. Right. And, and I figured I could serve my country and use my creativity. It's it's really. I mean, if you think about it, there's very few jobs in the military that allow you creativity right there. There is. And me being a creative, you know, it wasn't like I was gung ho, let's go serve the country.
I was like, well, I'm out of options here. And so and so. But it did find purpose while I was in. But yeah, I mean, I've always used creativity in words and this was a place for me to do that. I mean, I was a, I was a morning show DJ in Tokyo, in the air base where we had a huge shadow audience of millions of people listening to our show.
And, you know, I was there just spouting off my, you know, American English. But we had so many people, millions of people listening to the show, trying to learn American English. And I was there. I was there. Guy. Right. So, I mean, it's, you know, you do talk radio, you know, it's it's fun. You know, that sort of good morning Vietnam thing is exactly what I did in the military.
That was my job. In fact, Adrian Cronauer, the guy that did good morning, Vietnam. He went to the same school that I did, the defense information school. So it's literally the exact same job.
Nathan James
So ultimately, or now you made promises to your dad at one point, right? I understand he made you okay. So we'll get into that. Right. So you made two promises to your dad. Let's talk about that. What were those to.
Jake Messier
The two promises I made to my dad? Because, again, I was dropping out of college after my junior year, and my dad worked for a university. My dad was blue collar growing up, and he got a job at a university and worked there so that we could get free tuition, right? So my dad was struggling and working there, giving me free tuition, giving him the opportunities that he never had.
And I'm like, peace, dad, I'm here, you know? But I made the promise to my dad at that moment that I was going to get my degree and be I wanted to see the world. Those are the two things that I wanted to do. And I and I did, you know, through, you know, UMC, which was, you see, at the time when I, when I went through and I went through the Asian Division because I was I started my degree out at Yokota Air Base at the Asian Division.
I started the end of my degree. Right. You know, because I had that last year to get finished. But I also, you know, saw 43 countries while I was in the Marine Corps. Two I went to a lot of different places, some good ones, some bad ones, but I went to a lot of I went to a lot of places.
So it took me, you know, I know that we're going to talk about it, but it took me a little bit longer until I finished the Marine Corps. I want to say it was maybe a year after I finished it. I was just taking class. I had kids and just taking classes and just trying to finish. It took me about a year and a half to finish my final year in the Marine Corps, and then year afterwards to finally finish my degree with Umbc.
And I and I fulfilled my promises. I saw those 43 countries and I got my degree.
Nathan James
Yeah, well, doing a good bit of of multitasking, you know. So how was it? I mean, what it looked like, that journey, the feeling that even first promise of going around the world, obviously you you're able to do that through the military, 43 countries. It's probably a big question. But what's it like for you to do that as a combat correspondent?
Was it what you expected it to be, seeing the world and keeping that first promise or.
Jake Messier
Well, it's got to be fun. I mean, it's going to be I say that this is the best job in the military, not just the Marine Corps, because I got to experience every other job in the Marine Corps. I just didn't have to go live it. Right. So I could go I could go be do a story with the tank guys, and I could go out into the field for like four days with the tankers, and then I'd go back to my nice air conditioned dorm, or I could go out on an aircraft.
I mean, we were we I landed in F-18 on an aircraft carrier, you know, on that kind of story. Right. But I don't have to be attached to an air wing. Right. That's a that's a hard life, right? I can just go back and file my stories. Right. But I got to do almost every job I flown in every aircraft.
The the Marine Corps has all the jets and the helicopters I float. You know, I've been on every, you know, amphibious vehicle. So I, I got to experience where if you're a tank guy in the Marine Corps for four years, you're around tanks. That's what you do. You're never going to sit inside of an 18, right. Or anything like good point.
So I was able to experience so much of the Marine Corps, so much more than I think everybody else does. There's only about 400 of us in the entire Marine Corps. It's a very small field. And so I consider myself really lucky that I was I was able to experience so much of the differences and I was able to be attached.
I mean, I was attached to an Air Force base at an Air Force base is a much nicer base than a marine base. Right. So my last four years I was in an Air Force base and a joint function. So yeah, I mean, it really was the best of all the worlds. I was allowed to express myself creatively.
I was doing great work and having adventures and all these different things, and I was able to see the world. And at the same time I was, you know, I was starting a family and all of these things at the same time. So, yeah, it was busy at the same time. Wow.
Nathan James
Yeah. You're telling me. So wait, so you got married while you were while you were in? Yes.
Jake Messier
Correct. Yeah. My first my first marriage was when I was in. Yeah. My my second marriage is behind me over there. She's she's, she's I had my starter wife and now we're on the good one.
Nathan James
So so so okay. While you were stationed in Tokyo because you did mention that at one point, I think that was when you realize you had this. You wanted to make sure that.
Jake Messier
You can't have to get.
Nathan James
Got to get.
Jake Messier
To the great weather. And I'm out of time. Right? I had done two enlistments. I was on year eight. I had about another 14 months left in my enlistment, and I was like, I have to go back to school, right? I have to and, you know, I think I want to say there was a couple different options to finish your degree when I was over there.
You know, you go over to the education center on a on a base. And it's funny, people were always, you know, you're not going to the University of Maryland. You're going to buildings 314 like it's fine, you know, but you go to the education. And there was a couple different schools, and I looked at a couple of them and I was like, oh, Maryland seems like the best fit.
In fact, very similar to the Marine Corps. When I made that decision of which one to go to, I went into all the schools and I said, here's my transcripts. What's the fastest degree you can get me? I don't care what it's in, what is the fastest degree you can get? And Maryland came back and they said, well, if you know, you've got a couple.
So you did mostly my, my credits were in education, elementary education, psychology, public policy, those kind of things. So they said if you just take basically your major in sociology, you've done everything else. If you just take like you're ten classes in sociology or whatever the number was, maybe it was 12 then, then we're done. And I was like, great.
And I love social and it was great. So all I had to do was take the classes that I love to finish my degree. It was it was great.
Nathan James
That's a good deal. And I've got it. Sociology. That was my major too. So I'm geeking out.
Jake Messier
Over here. Great. Excellent.
Nathan James
Excellent. Always good to talk to a sociology brother, I'm telling you. That's right. Fascinating, fascinating.
Jake Messier
It really is. And even though I never I never went into social work or anything like that, it has definitely helped me, as in my journey as a marketing executive. Understanding demographics, understanding, buying all of those things were sort of in the background of my sociology teaching, right? I went on to get my MBA and other things right, but that background of understanding statistics and demographics and how people operate, you know, within a society all of the things matter.
And, you know, really they've helped me a lot in my marketing career.
Nathan James
That is so good, so good. So wow. So you end up, like you said, finishing up your time with the Marines, finishing your degree, I think close to a year later.
Jake Messier
Yeah. About a year under that. Yep.
Nathan James
And now while you were also studying at UMC, I understand you're also working transitioning to another pretty exciting job we're talking about. Yes, news in Boston, I believe, right, as an assignment editor. So you're multitasking work while also working at CBS. What was that like.
Jake Messier
Trying to finish that, all those things. Right? CBS, I mean, I worked at WBEZ, which is a storied, you know, classic newsroom in the country. I worked there from I got out in 2001 to 2004. And, you know, I worked at WBEZ during nine over 11. Right? I worked there I was I was the assignment editor on duty when the planes were hitting the towers.
Right. And Boston was such a big part of that story. Remember, two of the planes came out of Boston, right? So Boston is a huge part of that story. I mean, we didn't leave the newsroom for nine days. We slept in cots. They brought us food. It was, you know, it was an intent. But it also like, I'm never going to experience a bigger crisis in my, you know, you know, so so when I had PR crisis clients later on down the line and they were freaking out, I'm like, guys, it's fine.
You know, I've dealt with the huge, you know, huge, you know? So I worked on major stories when I was at CBS news. I worked at on nine over 11, obviously, the Boston church abuse scandal. Remember the whole Catholic Church abuse scandal that started in Boston that all blew up. That story blew up while I was on the desk in Boston.
You know, all of those things, sort of big, huge stories from 2001 to 2004, I was a part of, which was exciting, right? But at the same time, I'm trying to like, I'm trying to, you know, go to class at night. So I'm, you know, I go and do all these exciting things. And then I got to, you know, okay, now I get to become a student.
And I'm so far out of that student mindset at this point. Right. It's hard enough as a working adult in the military, but now I'm just trying to get back into a student mindset because I want to learn, right? It's not just about checking a box here. I'm genuinely interested in these classes and I want to learn. But I've got young kids at home.
I've got the the second wife is is now in play. And you know where where we're starting our young family. We get married in 2006. So I mean, all of these things are just trying to move along at the same time of me trying to finish my degree, which, you know, I think ultimately made me a stronger person.
Right? You know, ultimately, I did juggle so much that again, when you get to that point where you're like, okay, I can breathe now. Well, you look back at what you did over the past couple of years and you're like, damn, I, you know, I cranked, I finished my college degree. And I think that, you know, for a lot of people when they leave school especially, you know, they leave school in their junior year, getting back to school and actually finishing is extremely difficult.
And so I looked back and was pretty proud of the fact that I, you know, buckled down and did it through some hard work.
Nathan James
Through hard work. Yeah. Was there any other how as far as you how you managed to do all of it? Right? I mean, obviously I'm sensing already you had terrific energy, motivation. But I mean, how how do you navigate through all of that at one time?
Jake Messier
I, you know, it was a I think the biggest thing was, you know, getting back to sociology, if I was, if I and this did happen. Right. Because when I did my master's right after this, I was really interested in all my classes except for one. Right. My my accounting class. Right. And so I think what helps in terms of how is making sure you're in a field or an education program or whatever that you want to be in, because if you put in ten hours, you know, at work that day, you had to run home and feed the kids, and then you got to go to class, you're going to sit there for three hours or whatever you got to do. Like you better damn well make sure that something you're interested in because you're not you're not going to be motivated to do it. So I think helping me was the fact that my final 4 or 5 classes were stuff that I was really interested in learning, and I was actually upset that my job was getting in the way of me really exploring all these things.
Nathan James
So that makes complete sense. And it reminds me of how I got through my sociology degree as well. Right? For me, I transitioned from Analog community College to to ended up graduating from University of Maryland and sociology. Getting on fire for that topic. I can totally relate to what they say.
Jake Messier
About what it was really helped you get through those classes. Right? Right, right. Yeah. When you're in that, when you're like, oh man, I've got, you know, you're not close enough to the end where you're like, okay, you know, I've only got three classes left. You've got like 12 classes left and you're like, oh, it's just not close enough to see the end yet.
Yeah, I definitely I definitely picking the right subject for yourself is going to be one of the keys to finishing your education. Right. And I know I'm not breaking any ground here. I mean that's, that's, that's that's pretty common knowledge. But it's it's what helped me get through my.
Nathan James
Love it love it. And folks, once again, you are listening to Unstoppable Stories, you know, Stoppable Stories podcast. Remember to like and subscribe on your favorite podcast channel. And remember we're here with Mr. Mr. Jake Massey. So great. So let's talk a little bit about sort of the later part of your professional journey because you embarked on as an entrepreneur, right?
You took that on. And for folks who don't know, he launched Jake, launched a successful PR career and founded his own company at age 45. My understanding is right, Jake and right.
Jake Messier
I was an old entrepreneur as Forbes. Forbes did an article on me, actually, and I was it was it was on older printers that it was called. And I was like, man, I'm not that 40 times that old. But I was yeah, it was a whole thing on older nerds. Yeah. I spent my time in the Boston nonprofit marketing sector.
Right. You know, and I worked my way up. I'd worked in various big entities like WGBH was responsible for, you know, 90% of the public television out there. I worked for the Boston Conservatory when I was at WGBH. I got picked up by the Antiques Roadshow to go run their marketing for a while. So I tell people all the time, if you think the deployment schedule in the Marine Corps is bad, you have no idea until you join Antiques Roadshow, for it seems like that that deployment schedule is crazy, right?
It's nothing like at least in the Marine Corps, you're out for three months in your home for three months, like there is like, oh, you're out for a week or you've gone for three days. And it was crazy. So but I when I did all of this work in all of these fields, mostly in the, you know, my entire career, even in my service in the Marine Corps, has been about helping people, has been about helping the underserved.
You know, the two the two favorite ribbons that I have on my chest for my Marine Corps uniform are my two humanitarian missions. Right? Those are those are the ones that I that I take the most pride in, right? And so my entire career has been built on sort of helping the underdog, you know, making sure that the people that, you know, I'm a white, cisgendered male and I have a lot of privilege in this world.
And so I need to be not only acknowledge that, but then use that power for good, use that power to help other people. And that's sort of what I've done, either through professionally and helping, and helping all the nonprofits that I helped. I mean, they were all, I mean, and then when I started my business at 45, I was like, well, I'm going to start a marketing agency.
And I knew I was turning away about two thirds of the market by saying, we are only going to work with nonprofits. I'm turning away all of corporate America during away all of that. But I also wanted to work with my heart light, right? I wanted to work where I wanted to work. I wanted to work in places that I could affect change.
I wanted to work in places that couldn't afford a big agency experience. But their work and their mission deserved a big agency experience. And so we grew to the largest nonprofit marketing agency in New England. We were the biggest one. And and there was 14 of us. Right. But, you know, there are PR and marketing agencies in Boston that their their nonprofit department, right, was probably bigger than our entire company, right.
Just their department. But this was the fact this was all we did this all we did was care about what we did. So we worked with the Girl Scouts and, you know, and all of these different organizations that are really trying to affect change in the world. We worked with them on their marketing, and then I got, well, we haven't really you know, we buried the lead on why I'm actually on this show.
So I haven't actually said why I'm on this show yet. Because then I got sick, and I guess there's the there's the. I got sick when I, when I had my company for about five years and it didn't, you know, I didn't immediately shut it down or did I think a lot of people do I would actually.
So here everybody, here's the big reveal. I'm, I have stage four male breast cancer. There you go. There's the big there's the big thing. It we'll get to get into a lot of what that means in a minute. But for that particular time you know I would go and do chemo or, you know, in the mornings, you know, I'd be in chemo in the mornings and then I'd come back and do, you know, five client calls in the afternoon.
And then I would do social media, you know, or PR or a, a press release or whatever I could handle in the afternoon. I did that for two years. And then when I when my disease finally went metastatic. And for those who do not know, and there's a lot of people that do not and I don't want to ever insult people, but metastatic means stage four.
So when you hear metastatic breast cancer, that also means stage four breast cancer. That also means incurable breast cancer, right? It does not necessarily mean terminal breast cancer. I think a lot of people get that wrong. And it's not terminal in the sense of the word where nobody has given me a, you know, you've got nine months to live, right?
But at the end of the day, unless I get hit by a bus or unless I fall off a cliff, right, this is the thing that's going to take me out, right? This is the thing that's going to, you know, end my life at some point. And so I, you know, when I went stage four and I knew I wasn't going to get any better, right?
That was the time when I, when I sold my agency, I sold it to my trusted lieutenant who had been with me since day one. You know, I had scaled back the agency. By the time we were done, it was only four of us. But I when I sold it to her and she she's running it and it's a great little company and she's running her own little marketing agency now, which is, which is awesome.
And it's what I sort of wanted to see. But yeah, that's, you know, that brings you up to about 2023. When I got sick.
Nathan James
When you first had the diagnosis. Right. I know that it came as, you know, a obviously surprise for additional rock, of course. Right. We know that the statistics are that roughly 1% of all cases for breast cancer are more.
Jake Messier
Right. It's 99% women, 1% men. You know, it's 1 in 8 women versus 1 in 7, 725 men. It's about 2800 men a year in the US. Right. Which is not a small number. Right. That's 3000 guys. I mean, it's I mean, yes, it's small as compared to the, you know, epidemic that is female cancer, right? 1 in 8 is a big scary, crazy number, right?
I know way more than eight women. And to think that one of them is going to get breast cancer, that's that's crazy.
Nathan James
In that moment, I want to ask you about that experience. And because you talk about this a lot in your advocacy work, about this journey, this journey against cancer, but as a, as a male, right? And the unique experience that's there with this particular form of cancer. So I just want to use this as a starting point. What was that like for you to wrestle with the reality of that, right, that other men are wrestling through, but again, in a pretty significant minority?
Jake Messier
Yeah. I think I was diagnosed in September of 23, but I think to really talk about this the way it should be talked about, you need to go back about six months. I was it was sometime in the March April time frame of 23. I'm not exactly sure. I was putting on deodorant and I felt a lump in my armpit and I was like, oh, that's weird.
And I just went on with my day, right? That's what guys do, right? They're like, oh, okay, that'll go away. And after a month it didn't go away. And I was like, all right, well it'll go away. You know, I didn't do anything. And then, you know, about July I was like, oh, well I have a primary care visit next month.
Right. So I have, you know, I'm 52 at the time. I've got a list of things that are going wrong with me. So I'm going to write down, I'm just going to put, you know, lump in lump in armpit, you know, with the with the rest of the things that I'm going to go in and talk to my primary care visit about.
And so I go and talk to my primary care doctor, and we get through all the other things. And I say, yeah, I got this lump. And he's like, yeah, that's sort of weird. And the guy I know weird, and he's like, and he lists enough about ten things that it could be. And none of them were breast cancer.
But he said, let's send you in for a mammogram. And that was my first time. I'm like, wait a man, what are you talking about? I'm going in for a mammogram. And that started this process where a couple of days later I go in for a mammogram. And when I was sitting there, I mean, at that time, I had never read any cancer scans.
Right? I've never seen one. Right. I, you know, now I get one every three months. I can I can look at it. I know what to look for in my scans. I know, but at that time I'm like, I don't know anything that I'm looking at. And so there was a mammogram. The mammography nurse that had just done the mammogram was sitting next to me, and she's seen a million of these things, right?
She's seen a million cancer cases and she's seen a million non cancer cases. Right. She's been sitting in the room for all of these. And so I said to her, I said can you tell me what I'm looking at. And she goes I can't. You have to wait for the radiologist to come in. And I said, okay. But she said, what I can tell you is that your life is going to start moving incredibly fast and incredibly slow up the exact same time.
And I said, okay. I mean, she was telling me, obviously that I had cancer, but and nothing really has been truer to that fact since that moment that my life, you know, it seems like that conversation happened four days ago, and it seems like that conversation happened 40 years, actually, in time. Right? You know, and and so that set, you know, and you hear the words, you have cancer, right.
And that that sets off a certain amount of panic and shock and all the things that you hear. But then when you hear you've got breast cancer, like that is a totally separate set of alarm bells and things that are going off in your head. Right? There's that set up. And this is not unique to me. This is actually the statistics will bear that male breast cancer is actually about 30% more fatal than female breast cancer, which is that's a big scary number in and of itself.
And the reason is not because the disease is more aggressive. The reason is because the psycho and social stigma that goes along with males having breast cancer, the the, the problem comes in where there's an insane amount of emasculation that comes with this. There's an insane amount of I'm living with a woman's disease when, you know, there's all of this stuff that comes up, you know, the pink ribbon, the pink world.
And and I say all the time, I'm very happy and blessed to live in the pink world, right? I really am. Because when I say, like, have you ever heard of appendix cancer? You know, I don't. Probably not. I mean, most people haven't heard of appendix cancer, right? The same number of people that get male breast cancer are going to get appendix cancer, right.
Appendix cancer is not research not funded. It's not talked about. It's not anything. Breast cancer is the most funded, the most research, the most talked about. You know, the pink ribbon. I'm a marketer, right. The pink ribbon is one of the most successful marketing campaigns in the history of mankind. You can put the pink ribbon up there with Ford and Pepsi and Coca-Cola like, insane.
The amount of money and recognition that that pink ribbon has had. It also comes with a cost, right? That there's this femininity, that there's this, almost a romanticization or of infantile of the disease when everything is pink and flowers and a lot of people not just meant a lot of women are just like, okay, stop with the pink, stop with the I know this is not this is a disease that they ripped off part of my body.
This is not something that's cutesy and all these other things. And so for a lot of men, like living in that pink world is incredibly difficult. You know, I've heard stories that men choose not to stay in treatment because they can't be in that world. There's, there's there's so emasculated. And that's a level of toxic masculinity that I don't necessarily understand.
But I tell people all the time, I'm like, look, if I'm one of the leading spokespeople for male breast cancer in this country, which I am, if I'm that guy, then I'll work on the toxic masculinity of our ranks. Right? It's a hell of a lot easier for you to paint your waiting room green or orange or yellow or some other neutral color.
Right? That's that's a much easier thing for you to do as a health care organization to include us men, right? You know, when I had my mastectomy, right? I have I have a right side mastectomy. When I went in for my, my surgery, they at the end, they put on a surgical bind. It's sort of this big tube thing that sort of keeps everything in place for the first couple of weeks after you're done.
And as I was waking up out of surgery, the O.R. nurses who were trying to be kind to me and I want to give them credit, they weren't they were trying to be kind. They were trying to look out for me and my sense of masculinity. They said, hey, we didn't put a surgical bind on you because the only ones we had in the O.R. were pink and flowers.
And I'm like, do you think that I'm going to turn down a medical device? Because it has been like, of course, put it on me, of course. But that's the level of microaggressions that is constant. When I was handed my, you know, when you go into your first cancer meeting, right? And they're like, hand you this big stack of papers, it's this big thing, all the brochures and pamphlets and everything you need to know.
Right? I didn't see anything in there that looked like me. Right. It was all, to be honest. It was all like 70 year old white women. That's all it was. That's like the demographic of breast cancer. So it wasn't even diverse. And you know, that 30% number of male breast cancer, that's the same number, 30% is is higher in African-American women.
Black women are dying in a much higher rate than white women, you know, and it comes from the same social stigma that comes with the sort of big breast cancer. Those that pink ribbon, that money that flows from a lot of different organizations. It just makes it so it's very difficult to not be in the in the standard breast cancer demographic.
And it's tough for a lot of guys to live in that. Right. And that's where, you know, I had to make that decision to, you know, be like a lot of other guys and just, you know, keep your head down and don't even say the words breast cancer. Because when you say breast, you have to admit that you have, you know, these are breasts and, you know, and I, you know, and guys get squirrely about that.
And so I've tried to change my tone over the years, which is, hey, you know, if you're a human mammal, like, it doesn't matter if you're a mammal, you've got breast tissue on your chest. Right? And that breast tissue can be susceptible to cancer, like, fine. We don't have to call them breast. We don't have to go down all that route.
If you're a mammal, then you've got breast issue. And so, you know, I started off my social media accounts just trying to reach like 30 people a day. That was my initial goal.
Nathan James
You know, I was going to ask, you know, how you might coach men through navigating some of the stigma, you know, in that area? And I think you basically covered, you know, a lot of that. And you've also referred to your, you know, your platform and let's let's go there because as you said, you're one of the top advocates, right?
When it comes to male breast cancer. You now go by the guy with online and your title is the guy with stage four breast cancer. Right. That's your what a counter says. Is that TikTok?
Jake Messier
Right. That's TikTok and Instagram. It's the guy with stage four breast cancer with the numerical four.
Nathan James
Okay, I got you. I got you, all right. I'm tracking. So, you know, I'm going to get into sort of your heart behind it, right between all of the treatments, right. and surgeries that you've had to deal with, you know, there's an energy. You can only have so much energy. What drives you to spend, you know, this much energy.
You know, there's so much energy goes into the advocacy work that you're doing publicly, right? Give us insight into what's driving you to do that.
Jake Messier
You know, when I first started documenting my cancer journey, I think I was like the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that are out there doing it as well. Right? Here's me going to chemo, here's me doing, you know, and I'm just trying to, you know, capture my story. And so and initially I was like, well, maybe, maybe, you know, I know that I'm a little bit of a unicorn here because I have male breast cancer, which is different than other breast cancer.
And so maybe other guys can sort of see me going through this process and it's not as scary. I think that's how I started. I'm just like, you know, but then I started like not just documenting but also making declarative statements like, I had this little thing where my chemo, my chemo ward was on the second floor of the hospital that I was going to.
Right. And I was I made a declaration on day one that we're going to we take the stairs until we can't. Right. And so, you know, here's me, you know, and then every day when I went to chemo, it became a thing of me taking the 28 stairs up to the second floor rather than taking the elevator. Right.
But we take the stairs until we can't. And I did that for, you know, the five months I was in chemo, five months, you know, going to chemo, you know, it was we take the stairs until we can't. And that started this, I don't know, this, this, this movement and I, and I like to think of it as a movement because nothing else is going to like it going on in social media.
Well, then I just started I mean, I've been doing this as we talked about for a long time. I've been a radio DJ, I've been a news anchor, I've been doing social media for like 20 years, not necessarily pointing the camera at me. Right. And and talking. But I was like, oh, I can do this. So I just start talking and, you know, hey, did you know that male breast cancer is blah, blah blah or whatever?
And people are like, oh, I didn't. And so I start doing this and as I start to grow, it starts, you know, again, being a marketer, understanding how social media works, understanding how to manipulate social media, I start going into the back end saying, okay, these types of content work. This doesn't let's work on this. And we grew and you know, we're now at 50,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram, which again, I'm a marketer and I understand that 50,000 followers does not an influencer make, but 50,000 people in the male breast cancer community is a infallible number.
50,000 in the cancer community is a big number. Right. And so, you know, I split my messaging between male breast cancer, obviously, you know, hey, male breast cancer is a thing. Did you know that? I then talk a lot to the metastatic breast cancer community, men and women. It's a very underserved population that that aforementioned pink ribbon that all that money that brings in, you know, that literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars a year, 2% goes to the 2% goes to the one that's going to kill you, 2% goes to the metastatic community.
98% of the funds go to stage one through three. The ones 2% goes to the one that's going to kill you. So I'm trying to raise awareness for the metastatic breast cancer community. I mean that's a that's a big thing. Again, trying to shift that needle on, you know, I think a lot of what and people well you're metastatic you know I'm not going to waste a bunch of resources on you.
You're going to die anyway. That's sort of the the mentality that's out there. And we're trying to shift that. Right. And then I the last part of my audience is just, you know, it's split between the rare disease people. You know, male breast cancer is a rare disease. 1% of the population gets it. But I also talk to a lot of other people, people at appendix cancer.
That's how I found out about that one. It's women that are in the colorectal disease space. Right. It's people that's only about 5% of colorectal are women. But people are like, oh my gosh, you're talking the same language that I talk you. You're saying the same things and maybe about a different disease. But thank you for saying these things and thank you for speaking up for us.
And thank you. So I sort of split my time between those three categories as well as, you know, showing my life in Western Massachusetts. You know, we have you know, I try to make it so that it's not just about cancer. And it can't be right. I have to live my life and I, you know, show me going out with my grandkids or my dogs or my wife or whatever.
My wife is a big side character in this and and the, the social, you know, I've told I've been I've been recognized out at airports. So I'll be walking through an airport and somebody gets you and I'm like, what are you talking about? I told my wife and said, it's going to be even weirder when you get recognized as a side character.
So, you know, it's we're growing this. And and to be honest, that's what makes real change, right? There is 2500 female breast cancer organizations in this country. There's only three for men. And so when you're trying to affect change, I can't I can't work with them. The three really tiny male breast cancer organizations and expect to affect real national change.
What I'm trying to do is work with the large breast cancer organizations or, you know, to Susan G. Coleman's, the National Breast Cancer Foundation, the American Cancer Society. And I don't need to be the unicorn on your pin. I don't need to be waving my hand. Hey, guys, get breast cancer to I don't need to be that guy.
I need to be sitting at a table with other breast cancer survivors. And just the fact that I'm sitting there tells you that I'm a breast cancer survivor. I don't need to be waving my arm just telling you I'm a breast cancer guy. I need to be seated at the table so that we get what we deserve. And I will tell you that that has started to work, Susan G.
Komen, which is one of the biggest ones out there, right? They do the walks and the pink ribbon and all that stuff. They just named me to their metastatic steering committee. And what what we believe is the people that I talk to, I'm the first male patient on a Komen board ever. There's been male donors, there's been male doctors, there's been other males there.
But in terms of a male breast cancer patient, I'm the. And so that's where we start affecting change. Right? When we start we get to see the table and we start talking about. I'm not just trying to make nail breast cancer a thing. I'm trying to end the breast cancer for everyone. And if you have that, you know, there's lots of organizations that say, we're ending breast cancer for all or ending breast cancer for everybody, and you're not actively including men, which is so many of those organizations, then you're not trying to end breast cancer for all.
And so I intercept my advocacy with those organizations that are trying to end, truly end the breast cancer for all.
Nathan James
Well, wrap up with, with with this, right, with you being a health advocate and previously, of course, combat correspond and write a PR executive. But again like how how advocate you've shared, I think that you're, you know, there's a belief that sharing our most vulnerable chapters, right is a catalyst for change, a powerful catalyst for creating change. Right.
So even just now you were talking about, hey, you know, you're working hard to see change. Can you talk just from your experience about why sharing, being honest about our vulnerable moments of chapters in our life is such a powerful catalyst for change.
Jake Messier
Saying the hardest things out loud is is very difficult, but in my mind, necessary, right? It's, I know we have limited time, but I'll tell you this quick story. There was a guy that reached out to me about a month ago, and he said, I've been watching you for about a year. I've never commented or liked anything, but I've been watching you for about a year.
And he said, I had breast cancer 12 years ago. I'm in full remission now. I, you know, after five years, I'm in full remission. I had stage two breast cancer, he said. But 12 years ago and up until a few like three days before that, nobody except for his kids, his wife and his parents knew that he had breast cancer.
Everybody knew that he was sick or that he had cancer or that, you know, they didn't know what he had. Right? And he said, I was too ashamed to ever say the word breast. I was too ashamed to say the word breast cancer. I felt so much shame in that. But I've been watching you for a year, and after a year, I finally felt brave enough to change my Facebook profile to Breast cancer Survivor and the amount of love and support.
Like, that's exactly why I'm doing this, because saying those hardest things out loud allows other people to feel brave enough to say those things to. And while I'm at 50,000 followers, I don't have the ability to go into my comments and respond to every single person like I used to. Right when I had 10,000, it was very. I could respond to a lot of people.
I will respond to every guy that reaches out to me that is scared because they found a lump or they just they just started their journey or whatever. You know, this community is so small and they need I needed somebody that I couldn't find. Right? It's like when I have my website, the guy with stage four breast cancer, as is a website to there's a big yellow button at the top that says, if you're a guy that's just been recently diagnosed or scared about breast cancer, you know, in there there's a tab specifically for men that are going through this.
It's a tab to contact me. It's a tab to contact. I have some resources in there of those three organizations, but that's the reason we do this. That's the reason I do this. It's the reason my my support network, my family does all of these things to help support me and my health, to be able to go out there and affect real change, or for not just the the guys with breast cancer out there.
It's a really small number, but honestly, or the for the guys without breast cancer. Right. That you know, I don't want you at 52 years old to be putting on some deodorant and say, oh, that's weird. And then go on with your day because nobody ever told you that guys could get breast cancer. That's what I'm trying to change.
You know, when I said before that I had 30 people a day, that was my goal was to reach 30 people a day. I had a video last week on Instagram, and we're closing in on a million views. And that's the kind of like it would be my first video that's gone over a million, right? But like, it's not about my own ego or hubris.
It is about the fact that a million people saw my handle and now know that guys can get breast cancer, that that is why we're doing this. That's why we're affecting this change. So that so that we don't have this epidemic of guys dying at a rate 30 times more than women because they didn't know or they feel terrible about the disease that they did nothing to get, and they shouldn't be ashamed of it.
Nathan James
That's incredible. That sums it up. Well, Jake, thank you for sharing your journey, which is just remarkable. You know, from beginning and to this point in time, the impact that you're having with your platform is massive and your heart behind it is massive as well. And so it's special and inspiring and humbling for me to to have you on today.
Again. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Jake.
Jake Messier
That's really, really great. Thank you.
Nathan James
So much. You know, best wishes and everything are with you, you know, on your continuing journey as well as you. So really appreciate you so much. Awesome. Yeah. Thank you so and for our audience look. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for listening to this amazing conversation with Jake. And want to make sure that you again, like and subscribe if you want to hear more unstoppable stories like Jake's, you can catch up on previous episodes and seasons as well on your preferred podcast channel.
We're there and we'll be there as well for the next episode, so remember to tune in and we'll see you next time.