The Story of Renee and Prince Leon

It’s high time that I introduce you to Renee Wood, without whom nothing I do would be possible. Since around 2013, Renee has been my colleague and my partner in all my work. Everything I do — interviews, talks, social media, and the list goes on — involves Renee’s behind the scenes handiwork. She has also corresponded with many of you over the years, so some of you have gotten to know her trademark warmth and extreme capability.

Beyond that, she inspires me daily by being an outlier of a human. She is unfailingly kind, wryly funny, preternaturally diplomatic, wonderfully non-judgmental, and breathtakingly positive. She’s the kind of person who never gets annoyed, even when I do things like forgetfully ask her the same question a thousand times. And whenever I talk to media people or clients who have first interacted with her, they always start by asking me the same question: “Who is this Renee? She is so wonderful!”

We live on opposite sides of the U.S., but I feel her presence constantly.

She is also married to a man named Leon Wood, who is so much her counterpart in awesomeness that we refer to him simply as “Prince Leon."

And then there’s one more thing. A little over two years ago, on Memorial Day weekend, I got a distraught phone call from Prince Leon. Renee had been admitted to the hospital with excruciating back pain. It turned out that she had Stage 4, metastasized, breast cancer.

The news, of course, was devastating.

The only person who didn’t seem fully devastated was Renee herself.

I hate to subscribe to the sometimes oppressive narrative of the person who faces her cancer with unfailing positivity. I don’t think I would do that, myself, if I suffered the same illness. It’s just not my nature.

But I can still celebrate Renee’s way. I can still learn from it.

It’s not that she never cries or despairs or curses her fate. Of course she does. But she is also just as giving as ever, and just as positive. She celebrates every moment with her family and friends, especially with her two sons to whom she is devoted, and of course w Prince Leon. She delights in everything beautiful. Sometimes she’ll sleep for 23 hours a day, then have one nice hour with her family. And you can feel — I can feel, all the way across the country — the genuine pleasure she takes in that one hour.

And Prince Leon — it’s hard to put into words how devoted he has been through this all. It’s hard to express how well he has earned his name.

Above is a photo of Renee and me, taken a few months after her diagnosis. And here’s another one, with Renee and Prince Leon himself.

We love you, Renee.

P.S. Renee’s the one who’s been encouraging me to post in a more personal way, lately. Hence this very post!