#879: How to Reinvent Yourself and Make Bold Moves — Decisive Stories from Matthew McConaughey, Steve Young, Samin Nosrat, and More

0:00 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferris, and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. This is a special compilation episode devoted to reinvention. This is something I think about a lot. How do you shed an identity or career that no longer fits, no longer suits you? Decide on a new chapter, how do you do that? How do you navigate any uncertainty along the way and how do you commit To what is next. In this episode, we're gonna hear from a whole cast of characters, a real eclectic crew. You're gonna hear from Matthew McConaughey. who explains why he stopped making romantic comedies and turned down fifteen million dollars. And waited nearly two years.

0:37 For Hollywood to see him differently. Steve Young. Talks about losing his identity that had defined him for so long, and the advice another legendary quarterback gave him. Sami Nosrod on walking away from a wildly successful food business. They was making her miserable and her next chapter, which led to greatness, great things, but was not an easy path. So Lika Jwad describes rebuilding her life after cancer. When going back to her old life was no longer possible. Lori Gottlieb.

1:04 Explains how listening to a quiet inner voice, sometimes it's whispering, not yelling, led her from Hollywood to medicine, then to journalism, and finally. Psychotherapy. Martine Rothblatt. tells the amazing story, and it truly is amazing, of teaching herself biology and starting a pharmaceutical company to save her daughter's life. And last but not least, Debbie Melman gives you a simple and powerful exercise for imagining and creating the life you truly want that has stood the test of time with many, many students of hers. So with that

1:38 I will let us get on with the show. Thanks for listening. First up? Matthew McConaughey Matthew McConaughey is an Academy Award winning actor.

1:48 whose career spans more than forty feature films. A co founder of the Just Keep Living Foundation. And the best selling author. of green lights. Let's talk about

2:00 Perhaps an uphill, perhaps a pause, perhaps something else. Which I'd I'd love for you to comment on, which did come later. And that was A Decision.

2:11 Which I'd love to Explore. To say no. Two Quite.

2:17 A lot of opportunities for a period of time. It's it seems like at one point you're very successful. You became very famous, like you said, practically overnight. You're being offered Opportunities you couldn't have imagined a week prior. And You have a string of successes and then you realize, well, wait a minute here. I might be getting.

2:35 paint it into a corner and you start to say no. You start to turn down, say, action film opportunities with big paychecks, things like that. Yeah. Was that Hard to do.

2:47 Did other people say that you are doing the right thing and encourage you. Could you walk us through and just tell a story about that experience? Love to So this is around I don't remember the year. I'm guessing it's around twelve, thirteen years ago.

3:00 I was rolling with the romantic comedies. I had taken the baton from Hugh Grant and was the male lead rom com go to guy. rom coms are mid level budgets, thirty, thirty five million. They offer a good front end paycheck to me. They go make sixty million. I mean it the studios don't have to overspend and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make them.

3:22 You get a good female and a male lead that have good chemistry. people love to go escape to'em. My oncoms are doing well. They were my bank. They were what Hollywo banked on me to be in. At the same time. I'm living in Malibu, learned to surf, got my shirt off.

3:36 And the Pop Ratier Discovery channel is like almost documenting this, and I'm like, You damn right, document it. This is the life I'm living. I love it. I worked and earned to get this life. And those romantic comedies that I get paid so handsomely for actually pay the rent at the house. On the beach that I live in. In front of this water that I'm surfing it. So how is that Pull on.

3:55 Shaking hands with gun, yes. At the same time I did notice That Any other drama I wanted to do, or even the way people sort of when I said don't meet strangers anymore.

4:08 Sort of people. thought of me or approached me or talked to me. Or about me. It was like

4:14 No, Connie's the shirtless rom com guy. And I was like Yeah. I am. And um

4:21 But only I could answer that second question. Of and I'm I only I could continue that sentence. No one else could. And like Hollywood for sure was like no, nothing else. And so any dramas I wanted to do or other pictures. No one wanted to make them with me.

4:35 And I remember We had just had uh uh Levi, Camille and I just had our first son. And My life.

4:44 was so vital. Man, I just had a newborn. I've met the woman that I love and want to spend the rest of my life with. I'm laughing harder, I'm crying harder, I'm happier. than ever life is very vital. And I'm in it. My real life is.

5:01 But my work. Feels like Yeah. Yeah, I could do that tomorrow morning. Just give me the script tonight, let me look at it, I can do it tomorrow and it wasn't really challenging me.

5:10 And the rom coms weren't challenging me. And my lifestyle was One big green light. And you know. Too many it's all green lights. It's all

5:19 Sugar and candy. Well we can that'll make tyrant out of anybody. So I remember saying this. At least Mc I remember looking in the mirror actually and go, Okay, McConnell, so If your life is more vital and true to who you are than your work, well

5:32 If it's gotta be one or the other, that's a good thing because I know a lot of people that their work is more vital than their life. So I said that's a good thing. I said, but geez, can I just get some work that might challenge the vitality. Oh. my life and the man I am in it.

5:48 Where I can get some work where I can be more me. in it. Well Those roles. We're not being offered to me.

5:55 Nothing. Nope, not a chance. We won't no studio will bank you in this drama role or this other role you want. I had control of Dallas Buyers Club at that time, but no one wanted to make it for me, nor would anyone finance it. So I decided that if I couldn't do what I wanted to do and what I wanted to do was not being offered to me It would be prudent for me to just stop doing

6:15 what I had been doing and what was in the pipeline continually coming to me, which were the Romantic comedies. I called my money manager, said All right, look, I'm gonna stop doing the only work I'm getting offered and I don't know how long It's gonna be till I work again.

6:30 How am I doing with my money? He says you've invested well conservatively, you're fine. You can take that off. I remember calling my agent, Jim Toth. It's CA. Jim. I don't want to do romantic comedy anymore. I remember this conversation. He goes, Great.

6:42 And I go, wait, wait, wait, wait, what do you mean great? He goes, Great. I go. How do you say that so quick? What are you gonna say Monday morning when you go into your superiors in the office and say McConaughey's not doing romantic comedies and McConaughey's been bringing a nice chunk of ten percent commission into you guys with these romantic comedies for years now. But he said the coolest thing to me, he goes, I don't work for them, I work for you.

7:02 That's a that's a good line. So then and then it was I went to Camilla all right. And you know, I'd shed quite a few tears with her going through this. Am I feeling fraudulent in my work? Do I feel a lack of significance in my work. Do I feel like

7:19 Is it okay to be feeling? Yes, as we said earlier. Um Connor going running downhill. Why would you sabotage not doing the work you're getting offered when you can get paid so handsomely to do it? But she understood that my soul was shaken and needed some recalibration and that the work I was doing wasn't a true

7:37 sort of expression. of who I was in my life and I was I told her I said well I wanna hold up for some work that can challenge the vitality of the life that I'm living with you and our son Levi. And she repeated the lines to me, she goes, Okay. You're gonna get wobbly. I've been around you. You gotta work, Matthew, and you love to accomplish. You're gonna get wobbly. You might start

7:57 You know, reaching for a little sip of something to drink earlier in the day too. And I'm like, Yeah, yeah. She's like She goes. Days are gonna be longer. We don't know how long this'll last, how long we'll be in this we should call it a desert. How long this'll be a desert? She goes, but if we're gonna do this, if you're gonna do this.

8:17 We're not gonna half ass it. She repeated my dad's line to me. And I went. Yes, ma'am. Gave her a hug. put some tears on her shoulder and we said, starting today, no more rom coms.

8:28 Well rom com offers came in to my agent for about the next six months, but nothing but rom com offers. And I didn't even Unless it was a major offer. Yeah, I just said no. And I they just stopped at my Agent's test, Jim Top. No. And then one of them came through.

8:45 That was like a gargantuan offer. for it and my agent said it's a pretty damn good script too. And so I said, Well send it out. Let me read it. I'm gonna read a bit. And I remember this, the offer was like for

9:01 Eight million dollars. And the script is pretty good. But it was still a sort of a wrong. And I remember reading it and going No, thank you.

9:09 I remember feeling sort of emboldened and strengthened by saying, No, thank you. Great. Sticking to my guns. No rom coms. Six months into this drought, nope, not caving in now. Don't have acid McConaughey. So he come back with a ten million dollar offer.

9:23 No thank you. They come back with a twelve point five million dollar. Now I go Mm dot dot dot ellipsit ellipsis nah no thank you.

9:35 Now they come back with a fifteen. Million dollar offer. Wow. And uh you know what? Let me have another reread of that script. And I reread that.

9:48 And you know what? At fifteen million dollars. The same script that I've been offered for eight million dollar, the fifteen million dollar offer script, which was the same exact words as the eight million dollar offer script. The fifteen minute dodge was better. It was funny, right. It had possibilities, it had angles, I had ideas, I could make this work. You know, I mean this could work.

10:12 No, I'm imagining at this point Jim is like man, this saying no thing is really Working out. He's in and he's over there teetering like I know what we said, you know, but fifty million dollars and it's not like pretty good script. I know it's rom com, it's a pretty good script.

10:31 But I said uh No. No thank. Well. That got the signal across Hollywood that

10:39 McConahae was taken a serious sabbatical. And so Don't even send him a rom com. It got around So that was kind of the crucible then. I mean that was like the Crux move. In a sense. In a way, that was a yeah, I called an audible six months in and that had him thinking I might cave, I might just be posturing.

10:58 And come on back, McConnell. Hey, we love ya. And I said No. And When they had pumped the money offer up so much and people knew in the industry what that offer was It became very clear. Oh Oh shit.

11:11 Okay. Yeah. I don't know what he's doing. But He ain't doing this stuff.

11:15 You've not doing more arm count. And it became clear. So for the next True. Twelve. Fourteen months.

11:25 Nothing. Came in. Nada. Zilch, not an offer for anything. I mean I'd check talk to my agent every couple of weeks, it'd just be like nothing came in. Nothing.

11:35 So now we're twenty months into this desert. Period. I do have my son to raise, which, you know Being a father's always been the most important thing to me. So that That's got my compass at least directed in a place that I I go, just trust in this. If you if it has something to do with raising your son and being here on the land with your family

11:54 Even if you start to wander, just trust that that's always gonna be in the asset section, McCah. You y you can't go wrong with that. So I stuck to that. And um I was now fine with not doing any work. I didn't know what I was gonna be.

12:08 Now if I was gonna change my career. I was gonna become a teacher or coach or go back to being a lawyer. I didn't know. I didn't think so, but I was writing more, I was talking about forced winners. I had put a forced winner on myself. And I was um

12:23 Pretty content. I wasn't Waking up every morning going, Did an offer come in? Did something new come in? I I was past that. And then all of a sudden Twenty months in twenty, twenty one months into this desert.

12:34 I guess talking to some authors that are interesting things. William Freedkin. Killer Joe. The Daniels Paperboy. Jeff Nichols wrote Mud for me. Steven Soderbergh called Magic Wine.

12:44 Richard Link Lair and I go do Bernie. Together. True detective comes around. All of a sudden Dallas Buyers Club.

12:51 No one still wanted to put a bunch of money up for a nineteen eighties period drama that age, but all of a sudden No directors would do Dallas Bios Club with me. They won they wanted the script. They love the script. They didn't want to do it with the guy. All of a sudden We find Jean Marc Valet. Who says no, I' I'd I'd like to deal with McConaughey.

13:09 So What happened? Was That twenty two months or that drought.

13:15 Desert. I Uh. Branded. I didn't rebrand, I unbranded.

13:22 Me being away, me being in Texas. Not being on a beach. Getting pictures of me shirtless on a beach. Not being in rom coms. I was out of the world's view.

13:34 I was out of the industry's view, I was not in your living room, I was not in your theater, I was not in any of the places that the world had become expectant to see me and how to see me. Where was I? I was gone. Where is McConahe? Well, you're gone long enough, all of a sudden

13:50 I became a new Good idea. Which I was not a new good idea. In at any time earlier than that at the end of that twenty month period. And then all of a sudden the things came to me that I wanted to do and I remember saying, You know what?

14:05 Fuck the bucks. I'm going for the experience. If I read a role that shakes me in my boots and challenges the vitality that I feel in my own real life and challenges me, the man I am in my own real life. That's what I'm going after. And then they came in. Come in and I looked at each other.

14:22 Shed some more tears and she we said let get after it. And I just started hammering'em. The family came with me everywhere I went and just started laying down work that really, really turned me on. Next up Steve Young. Steve Young is a pro football hall of fame quarterback.

14:39 Super Bowl MVP and co-founder and chairman of private equity firm H G G C Let's back up'cause What you're alluding to, I think, is

14:51 That what we've been talking about really for the whole time is transition. Yeah. And The difficulties. 'Cause I love football and I was very successful at it. I run into a lot of people who played in high school.

15:02 and loved it. The dream. Like they would give their arm to be able to or leg to be able to play in college and keep the dream going. And always think about

15:12 How when I left the game It wasn't necessarily force, but you do age out. Like it just sooner or later, even Tom Brady aged out at forty five. Like it's still as a It's a young man's game. And I remember the day I retired. I was known for this thing that I had been able to do worldwide even.

15:29 The next day I remember waking up and now that that's gone. Now what? Yeah. Yeah. And what I've learned about transition that leads to Rich Lawson.

15:39 How I describe it that everyone and even the high schooler The last day they play and it has to be put away. Needs to recognize and treat it like a death. to mourn it and go through all the steps.

15:52 of mourning it and burying it and actually having it as a place that you can Keep referring to as a Almost like a grave site. Because otherwise. You carry it around.

16:04 You never transition. Transitioning is about Actuv. Right. And so I'm really grateful my Roger Staubak poster on my wall.

16:13 I got to know him. Mm. You became a friend. Like it's insane. Yeah. How cool is that. And he famously transitioned.

16:21 Probably the most successful transition in history of the NFL. What did he transition to? Did it the Starbuck Company was a real estate business that he was usually successful? And I remember asking him towards the end of my career. Roger, what do I Give me some tips.

16:33 Run. Like run. Run where he goes just. Run away. That was his tip.

16:39 Because he said. The game will never leave you. But you need to leave it. You need to move. On

16:47 And I thought that was just Simple but really important. And I tell people today and I really want to write a book about transition. Because everybody is constantly transitioning, whether they like it or not. Most of it forced.

16:59 If there's a Authentic vulnerable way. To transition and bury and and mourn. You can wake up the next day, realise I was great at something.

17:08 And now I'm not even good at anything else. But you know what? I'm gonna We're gonna learn and grow. Next up Lori Gottlieb.

17:19 Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist The New York Times Ask the therapist advice columnist. And the best selling author of Maybe you should talk to someone.

17:31 When you look back At your Chapter changes. Uh say from entertainment to med school or med school to journalism.

17:41 Which Decision or transition was the hardest. In other words. I'd love to hear more about some of the detail of one of the harder jumps.

17:54 Where any of these Decisions that you agonized over for days or weeks or months, or was it just a flash of insight and decisive action? Which of these was Difficult for you. Leaving the entertainment business. wasn't difficult for me because I was so

18:12 Clear. That There was something deeper. That I wanted to pursue. Not that

18:18 movies and television can't be incredibly profound, but I think there was something that was more personally resonant for me about working with actual people out there. Which sort of foreshadows, of course, what I do as a therapist. But what was hard about that change was that everybody thought I was crazy. That everybody said how do you leave?

18:38 this place that you're in in your career, how do you leave that and just go to medical school? I think what was harder was leaving medical school because I had already made the switch. I was up at medical school.

18:51 And You know, it takes a lot, by the way. You know, you have to take all the classes to take the M Cat and you have to take the M Cat and then you have to you know have to meet all the requirements. It w and I was again not a science major, although I was very kind of mathy and sciencey as a person. You know, I was like on the math team and, you know, those kinds of things, but I wasn't I was very much taking humanities courses in college. And literature. And so

19:13 I think that Doing everything that it took. To get to medical school. Getting into a medical school being at A medical school.

19:20 And then saying, you know what, I'm gonna go be a freelance journalist. And not just not just any medical school either, right? I mean you're on Palm Drive or nearby with beautiful Stanford. So I can imagine that that also has a decent bit of weighting in some people's minds. Well, also financially. I think that, you know, we're we're so worried about talking about money in our culture, but it I think it's a very real thing. And I think people need to talk more about it because

19:51 You know, there I was Yeah, I already paid for two years of medical school and I had loans and all of that. And you know, now I'm gonna go be a freelance journalist. You know, who does that? And I think what it was is what I was talking about earlier is that voice, that quiet voice, where everybody else is saying, Just finish medical school, just get the degree and then figure out what you want to do. Just tough it out for two more years. And it was like

20:14 Life is short. And I was very aware of that even back then. That you know, this is a theme that kind of you see all over my work, which is this theme of why thinking about death makes us happier, right? Which is I don't mean dwelling. I mean just acknowledging it. Just acknowledging that life has a hundred percent mortality rate and most of us don't know how or when we're going to die. And so I think that even though I was in my thirties then, which sounds young

20:39 It's not. It's like why why should I spend those next two years in medical school when I know that I want to go right? When that's what I wanna do is I wanna go tell other people's stories. I wanna go do this work. That's where the fire in my belly was. And so I just followed the fire in my belly and I said, I'm gonna have to make sacrifices. I'm gonna have to make a lot of financial sacrifices and I'm gonna have to Write a lot. To make enough money.

21:03 to support myself and to pay off My medical school loans, et cetera. Now I had some money up from Hollywood. But not enough to sustain me. So you know, these are the choices that people make.

21:15 And It was again a choice where people said, I really suggest you do this, that, or the other thing. And I really listened to myself and what I wanted to do. And becoming a therapist was the easy choice, you know, the last of the changes. But I feel like every single thing that I did was really just looking at story in the human condition from a different perspective. So I don't feel like I had four different careers. I feel like I had one career and I'm just kind of experiencing them from different Ways of

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24:41 Sulika Jawad is an Emmy Award winning journalist. An artist. And the best selling author of Between Two Kingdoms. and the book of alchemy. Just based on the some of the reading that that I've done and also in your TED talk.

24:56 You had four hour naps. In the middle of some days, you still had to make visits Or you did make visits at least to the ER at points. I'm Curious.

25:09 To hear How you related to expectations of you? Perhaps. So outside of Sort of the physical aspect.

25:18 Did you feel there were certain expectations of you after Let's just call it Beating cancer. And then a dissonance between sort of the reality of your experience and what was expected.

25:32 Of you. If that question makes any sense. Absolutely. I remember the day I was discharged from the hospital and was finally done. With these four years of treatment.

25:44 Getting a slew of text messages congratulating me on being done. And that seemed to have imply an end point that I very much wanted But didn't feel necessarily true or accurate because there were so many unanswered questions.

26:01 that I realized I suddenly needed to figure out like the ones you just named. How do I hold down a job? If I need to nap for four hours in the day. How do you begin to date?

26:13 when you're coming out of an experience like this and you still have a port in your chest where do you even Or do you bring up a cancer diagnosis without potentially scaring somebody away? Is it responsible for me to consider Long term commitments. Like Marriage or children.

26:32 Given my High likelihood of Relapse. No, those were the questions I was swimming around in. But the other piece of it that I began to grapple with are the ways in which the heroes Journey.

26:45 Ark. is projected onto survivors. There's this notion that when you emerge From a trial or a big trauma.

26:56 You are Better. Braver, stronger for what you've been through. But I didn't feel brave. I didn't feel strong. I felt

27:08 wrecked by this experience and Had no idea. Who I was. Or how to find my way forward. And

27:18 What I'd expected to be The kind of Final act. Of this illness experience, which was being cured was actually

27:27 The beginning. of a very different kind of Healing. Please say more.

27:34 I would like to encourage you to continue. What do you mean by that? In that first year after treatment, I was hell bent on moving on. From this experience. I Wanted to be

27:50 a quote unquote normal young person. And I remember looking to my friends almost with an anthropological Sort of I. thinking to myself, like what does a normal 27 year old do in trying to do those things almost as if I was kind of play acting. And you know, I'd go out Dancing.

28:10 with friends and then pay for it with three days in bed. I would Try to force myself to write. About something. other than illness to come up with something new and I just couldn't and

28:24 What I came to understand Is that Moving on. It's a myth. You don't get to

28:32 Compartmentalize. your most difficult passages and stowed them in the past. You don't get to skip over The hard work of healing and grieving and recovering and really uncovering who you are in the wake of that. And that instead I was going to have to learn to move forward.

28:54 With this experience. But These imprints on My body and my mind. and to learn how to integrate them in my present.

29:04 So I started thinking about The language of ritual and the rules. of rates of passage in these transitional moments we have Birthdays and funerals and Weddings and or mitzvahs, these are.

29:21 Yeah, and morning periods these Ritualize ceremonies that allow us to Shoulder complicated feelings. that help us cross the distance between no longer and not yet. And what I realized was that there

29:36 Is no. twelve step program. There is no right of passage. For when you survive a trauma like illness and that I was going to have to create one for my own. And so that's what I did.

29:50 As Tim takes a long inhale because there's so many so many questions I wanna ask. I don't want to interrupt your train of thought, but you mentioned no one gets to skip The hard work of grieving, recovering, And or in some senses uncovering. the trauma or the difficulty through which they have passed I would love to hear

30:12 What type of work Whether it ended up being hard or otherwise. ended up in retrospect being really valuable. Was it were there any particular

30:24 Things you did, types of therapy. you experimented with anything at all that really seem to help with Those Checkboxes.

30:36 These are the things that must be done before you can pass go. You don't get to skip these seven steps. Was there anything that really stood out as Valuable or helpful. In terms of that work. So the truth is

30:49 I didn't do much of that work that first year. I had done therapy while I was sick. I had gone to support groups for young adults with cancer. But in the aftermath of that experience Because of that projection.

31:05 That This is supposed to be done. I didn't have in place those same kinds of support systems and structures. I think

31:16 When someone gets diagnosed or when Someone loses a loved one if you're lucky to have friends and family, everyone rallies around you and and that moment of acute distress. Uh but in my experience and and the experiences of so many other people.

31:37 that I've befriended or interviewed. It's it's the quieter weeks and months after that are the hardest because you don't have the cavalry. running after you and you're left to your own devices. And so All those sources of support that I had

31:56 created for myself or or sought out in treatment I no longer had. in the wake of treatment. And so I really had to Invent my own. But this notion of of recovery is something That

32:10 I spent a lot of time reflecting on the word recovery implies a return. to something. And I think in that first year I was really trying Two

32:24 return to the person I'd been. prediagnosis and very quickly realized that that person no longer existed. And that Though the word

32:35 may be implied otherwise recovering. Wasn't about Of return to the old. It was a kind of Brute. terrifying act of discovery and

32:46 What was helpful was I met a doctor who was I was actually interviewing for a story and we got to talking and I explained to him some of the things I've been struggling with. And he said to me, It sounds like you have post traumatic stress disorder. You have PTSD. And that was a revelation to me. Because I thought of PTSDE. As something that's

33:07 reserved for veterans returning from war or someone who has experienced a kind of violence. It hadn't occurred to me But it also applied to Emerging

33:21 S A long period of life threatening illness. And once I actually Understood. What it was that I was feeling once I removed

33:33 Any expectations of what this post cancer experience was going to be like. And I actually was able to confront The facts. of what was happening. Faith forward.

33:45 Then I actually began to create a plan for myself. What did that plan look like? And was it mostly focused then at that point on the present state awareness of this possible diagnosis of PTSD? So rather than being trapped in the past. Trying to revert to this

34:06 pre illness version of yourself that no longer existed. Did the plan focus then on This diagnosis or possible diagnosis of PTSD. What did it look like? The simplest way

34:18 For me to say it is that I understood I needed time. to heal, which wasn't something that I'd allowed myself. I'd been pushing myself to figure out what I was going to do next and to kind of get back into the motions of living immediately. But more than that, what I understood was that it

34:37 I needed to learn how to feel safe again in my own body. I write in the book that When This feeling caves in on you, you no longer Assume structural stability.

34:49 You have to learn to live along fault lines. And so that really became my work. I've wanted To feel Safe in my body. I wanted

34:59 Two learn to become my own caregiver after years of being dependent on other caregivers. And more than anything, I wanted To carve out the time and space to figure out Who

35:13 I was and what that path forward was going to look like for me. So What I did was I started By confronting A smaller fear.

35:23 but still a pretty significant fear for me, which was learning how to drive. Um And so that's what I did. I

35:34 learn how to drive and As I began Learning how to drive. I started dreaming of going on a long road trip. Yeah.

35:43 And as I began dreaming of that. I Began to imagine A solo cross country road trip. And

35:52 I didn't just want to go on some kind of touristy boondogle, but I was really Seeking out people who could offer guidance in this strange kind of limbo in between place that I found myself in. And so I ended up making a list of about twenty two strangers, all of whom And

36:13 written to me in response to my column about all kinds of reckonings and interruptions in their own life. And That's what I set out to do. I had this newly minted driver's license, which I'd had for about a month. I rented out my apartment.

36:30 And use the funds from that to pay for my road trip. And I reach out to all of these different people to let them know I'd love to meet face to face and

36:43 I left home. Into the unknown. Next up Samin Nasrat Sime Nosrat is the James Beard award winning author of the New York Times bestseller.

36:55 Salt. That Acid heat. Also the title of her acclaimed Netflix series. Why was the

37:04 Focket. So Quickly. Or were there any particular reasons that come to mind? I think part of it was timing of it. So what it was was I was really good at making pasta. That's like I lived in Italy for two years. I made pasta every day for 10 years. I really love making pasta.

37:21 And when the restaurant closed, I would sort of bump into people in town and they'd be like, Well, we really miss your pasta. And I really enjoy the like beautiful sort of manual labor of making it and the folding and the cutting and the whole thing. And so I thought, well What if I cut out all of the parts of having a restaurant that I hate and I just make the pasta and sell it to people? So we had I had these friends who had a commercial kitchen that was empty a lot of evenings. So they let me use it and I was like, Okay, well, how do I sell this pasta to people? So this was I think it was two thousand nine, so it was before I think it was before Instagram or was certainly before Instagram was really big. And I maybe had a Twitter with like five followers, but like

38:01 Really, Facebook was the main And so I think I put on Facebook, like I'm gonna sell some pasta. Does anyone buy it? And I made a Google Doc. And people started buying it. And so I opened a little like Shopify storefront where people would order this stuff online. So I would know exactly how much to make.

38:19 Because a big thing in food is it's already so hard to make money. And really if you're not efficient in terms of every decision of how much labor and ingredient, you'll really lose money. So by sort of taking my orders in advance, I knew exactly how much to make. Nothing was gonna go to waste. And then people would come pick up their stuff. And so Then Very quickly it grew from just pasta to pasta and sausages to pasta and sausages and cookies,'cause everyone else that I knew who was an unemployed cook.

38:47 who maybe wanted to start their own food business also wanted to do these things. So We started doing this and all of a sudden it became this like online marketplace where you could pre-order your and prepay for your food. And then come and pick up your stuff like a week later. It was sort of this way to get beautiful restaurant quality stuff at home.

39:05 But it was before it was certainly before caviar, it was certainly before like a lot of these internet food things. And it was also before Good Eggs, which is like a food tech startup, that was sort of born out of this thing. And so it was definitely like One of the first online order your food thing. I don't know. It was just a weird time. And so then

39:27 We had a mailing list from the restaurant and I started sending it out to that and and very quickly because the press sort of was like very interested in this weird way that I was operating this thing. the mailing list grew to like many, many tens of thousands of people way more than I could support. And so it was just it was a whole thing that grew out of control. beyond the resources I had very quickly. And so I was always struggling to keep up, and that became such a source of stress. All I had wanted to do was to make some pasta. Yeah, like uh and I'm like managing like nine thousand business licenses and permits and health

40:05 department and you know, sh taxes and sales tax it was just like and vendors and vendor infighting and people wanting their beans vegan or whatever. Like it was so much more than I ever wanted to do. And it took so much energy and I couldn't do it anymore. I knew I couldn't do it anymore. So you have this feeling I can't do this anymore, which I think a lot of people have, and yet they keep doing it, right? For a long time. And maybe forever to a certain extent. Now while this is happening, you have these

40:38 maternal instincts kicking in. Which make you feel obligated on some level to help these people who, at least in your head at some point And in their heads depend on this income. Do you remember like the meal, the drinks you had with a friend, the walk you took, where you're just like, you know what?

40:58 Fuck it. Like I have to close I have to close this down. When you went from thinking about Winding it down to Like okay, tomorrow morning. That's it. I'm doing it. Pretty sure it was therapy. Yeah. Okay. All right. I'm pretty sure it was therapy. And I'm pretty sure I realized I think

41:15 The like thought. that sort of like really hit my body that I realized it was that I had by that point spent ten years cooking. I had been wanting to be a writer. For you know, since I was fifteen years old. I finally had a chance.

41:32 to make the time to be a writer. А івен ад ан офис. That I had that I shared with other writer like I had everything in place. But because this thing was ruining my life and making me miserable I couldn't do the thing that I always had wanted to do and was like basically ready to do.

41:49 And it not that it was some easy thing to just go be a writer,'cause like what I was gonna write, I ended up writing blog posts for yoga journal.com for twenty five dollars a like it wasn't so much income or anything. It was just this I knew that this thing was making me like emotionally and almost physically Yeah. I just had to stop, and I think Now I'm just so much more attuned to that moment to that feeling of knowing like this thing is bad for me.

42:15 And no matter how many other people it's good for, it's making me sick and it's making me feel really bad. So I think I try to be a lot more aware of that. And sometimes now I get into situations or projects or jobs where like that feeling comes up again. But I'm already in in it. And often now a lot of the work that I do is temporary. I do one project, I do one article, I do one story, I do one whatever. So now for me it's more about learning

42:43 And being really attuned to what's happening. Even just for example, in the process of making this show, like I had never made a show before. This was this incredible opportunity that came to me. I was so excited and felt so lucky. To go make it and go do it. And I still feel so lucky and so excited. But a lot of things happened throughout the making of the show that I was like, Oh This doesn't feel very good, or this doesn't feel very fair, or I don't ever want to be in a situation like this again. And so now that I know what's possible, like I know the one negatively and also positively

43:14 I know what to ask for, and I know how to articulate that. I will forever insist on working with a lot more people of color in the future. Like I'm gonna insist on making sure that I have a lot more power creatively in anything that I do. I realized I became very frustrated when I didn't have as much power. as I needed or wanted. So there are just things like

43:37 It's a constant learning thing. Nothing's perfect. We figure things out as we go and like we try to do our best. And like what is failure? I don't know. I mean It's not that big of a deal, if especially if there's some sort of positive takeaway that you have. And Maybe my therapist would be really proud of me. Maybe it's really bad for me to even say that my therapist would be proud of me, but like But I do feel like all of these stories and all of these experiences really always come back to me sort of paying attention.

44:06 to my feelings. Mm-hmm. Yeah, here. That's something that I've also personally been been working on because I think I muted my feelings or viewed them as a liability for so long and I've I've I've realized holy shit. You cannot spread sheet your way out of everything. No, me too. I mean, uh you really have to pay attention to that. I mean, I came I think about that all the time. Like I came from a culture that's like very much about

44:32 sort of appearances. And not very touchy feely in a lot of ways. I came from a family that wasn't super touchy feely. So like what did I learn to do? I learned to shut down all of my own feelings. And then I made my way into a profession Who literally tells you to shut down your feelings. Like when you're a cook in a restaurant

44:50 You don't have time or room or space for feelings. Not only emotional feelings, but if you actually burn or cut yourself, there's not time Or space to address that. You just sort of wrap your hand up and keep going. Next up Dr. Martine Rothblatt. Dr. Martine Rothblad

45:09 is the founder, chairperson, and CEO Of United Therapeutics. A biotechnology company she started to save the life of one of her daughters. And a pioneer of satellite radio. You seem to be

45:24 Good at many things. Of course, just based on the bio alone, but What strikes me is How quickly you were able to develop expertise in new fields. And uh I'd like to use this as an opportunity to

45:41 Bring up. What was mentioned at the very beginning of your bio, and that is United Therapeutics, a biotechnology company, she started to save the life of one of her daughters. I'd love for you to provide S Context for this.

45:56 And Tell a bit of the story just because uh people will want to hear it. And then the the follow up just to plant the seed for it is How you learned biology.

46:08 Because my understanding is you didn't have much in terms of Uh background in biology. That's a whole a huge mouthful of a question, but if you could give us a bit of The background. That would be extremely helpful and we can use that as a jumping off point. Sure. So it's kind of funny that, you know, you can go all the way through undergraduate at a great place like UCLA and never be required to take a life science course, but that that was the case.

46:37 So the last biology class I had was in high school. And here suddenly I was faced with a situation as an adult while running Series XM that our youngest daughter is diagnosed with a fatal illness. She can't even walk up a couple of f stairs To the front door.

46:59 And there are no medicines approved for it. I finally got her to the best doctor one could find, the head of pediatric cardiology at Children's National Medical Center in the middle of Washington, DC. And the doctor said Yeah, this is an extremely rare disease. No one knows why it arises. All the patients die within two to three years. He had only seen

47:23 Two or three other kids with it and they both died. And All you can do is hope for a lung transplant. So Tim, I was Completely crushed. I just saw black.

47:34 I didn't know what to do. And The only thing I could think of doing While she was in the intensive care ward night after night and Myself and Bina Wood tag team staying there with her.

47:47 And to just begin, you know, learning about what was this illness she had, um, which they told me was called Pulmonary arterial hypertension. And why were there no treatments available? For it.

48:05 So I just began reading and reading and reading Most of the time I read things, I didn't understand what they were talking about because there were these long medical words and chemical words. that I never learned in law school or we never had to deal with in electrical engineering. But of course there were dictionaries and and I looked up the words in a dictionary. And they had college level anatomy textbooks. So what I didn't know I just kept going backwards in

48:36 Academia, I guess you would say backwards in learning or pedagogia. Until I would even get to like a high school level textbook that would explain something. I said okay, I get that. And I kept taking notes and just educated myself night after night until I learned everything I needed to know.

48:55 How did you and I I know this is a story you've told before but ultimately in search for possible solutions. You know, as we were chatting about before recording. There's a lot of luck involved and it doesn't mean that your path is replicable by any set of parents who are caught in a tragic situation similar to what you experienced, but nonetheless

49:20 You were able to ultimately track down I suppose For say a a molecule, a drug of some type. Would you mind describing for listeners The process then of attempting to secure the ability Two

49:36 utilize in any fashion this drug or to license it. If you could describe that, I have a number of questions that'll stem off of it. There are Gazillion articles published. Um Every type of medical research you could imagine. I mean, it's just a bottomless well.

49:55 There are literally hundreds of different types of medical journals. And each of those journals have, you know, every year thousands of articles published across them. So it's difficult to find the information that you need. But in law school

50:12 We learn a very useful skill. This skill goes by the name of Shepardizing After this type of index that they have in law school called Shepherds. So what sheardizing involves Is when a judge writes a decision, like the Supreme Court issues a decision, they drop a lot of footnotes.

50:31 And of course one thing lawyers love to do is, you know, make footnotes and references. And then what you're supposed to do as a good lawyer is to Look up. All of the footnotes and the references that that

50:44 Supreme Court or lower court case referred to. And then the shepherdizing process is after you get all of those references To then look up all of the references. In those other articles. And ultimately you get to a point of diminishing returns where three, four, five levels down

51:05 The references are all circling back around on themselves. So I applied that shepherdizing process to these medical articles and somewhat like doctors whenever a researcher publishes an article They make footnotes and citations to other people's research who they relied upon. So I would get all of those articles.

51:26 And read those and then I would follow up on all of the references in those. Finally. I read about a molecule that a researcher at Claxo Welcome had written. In which they described

51:39 Testing this molecule for congestive heart failure. And it failed in its test of congestive heart failure. It did not work. But in the article, they had charts of what the molecule did. And the one thing that the molecule did that grab my attention. was that it reduced the

51:58 pressure between the lung and the heart, which is called the pulmonary artery. It reduced the pulmonary artery pressure and While leaving the pressures in all of the rest of the body Perfectly fine. Well that's exactly

52:13 The problem. We have pulmonary arterial hypertension, the people who have this disease. I'll make a quick footnote. Yeah when my daughter was diagnosed. Two thousand people in the US had the D's

52:28 Because um medicines have become so much better and because we've been able to, like you mentioned in the introduction, get all these approvals, there are now fifty thousand people in America alone living with it. So it's likely that people listening to your podcast will know somebody or another who has pulmonary arterial hypertension. I read this article and I said, Wow. Just when I need this tiny stretch of artery. Just between the heart and the lungs.

52:55 This molecule somehow talks to that tiny stretch of artery and leaves the whole rest of the body alone. That was the holy grail. That I was looking for. So I looked at where the author of the article was from. He was from Glaxo Welcome in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. And I made a bee line down to him.

53:15 and ask him if he could develop this molecule that he'd found For my daughter's disease. Was it an immediate handing over of the keys to the kingdom? A big all caps, yes. No, it was actually a big all caps note. Unfortunately, the individual who had written the article had actually retired a few months earlier. And the person that I ended up meeting with who is in charge of research and development

53:43 said that this was just one article, it was a incidental finding In any event this disease afflicted so few people, it was completely unrealistic to expect Glaxo Welcome to develop this molecule for my daughter and other people with that disease. And I asked him his name's Bob Bell. He's he's he's now a venture capitalist and very successful gentleman. I asked Dr. Bell I said, What would it take for you to develop this medicine? He said well it Probably would take a

54:18 You couldn't do it. We only develop medicines if they have more than a billion dollars a year in revenue potential. He said, but it's it's possible You could buy it from us. If you had a real pharmaceutical company with real pharmaceutical expertise I could then introduce you to the business development people at Glaxo, welcome.

54:40 So over the course of the next several months I created a uh a brand new biotechnology company. I was able to have a Nobel laureate. who was formerly associated with Glaxo Welcome. become head of a scientific advisory board and I re-approached Glaxo Welcome and I said, I have all the things that you asked for. Can you sell me this drug and

55:03 We'll develop it ourselves. Well, Tim, it turns out that everybody I asked said, Well, you have to get somebody else in the company to agree. And that's how it is in a big bureaucracy. It turns out that we had to have fifteen different executives sign the same piece of paper to agree to license this drug to me.

55:25 Finally it happened and all they wanted really was twenty five thousand dollars. and a promise of ten percent of any money that I would ever get from this molecule. I think they agreed to that only because I kept bugging them. I was in their face all the time. Also because I believe a serendipitous factor With that.

55:46 Doctor Bell's sister had contract a form of pulmonary hypertension From the time I first met him. toward the end of this process and he became a product champion for me. within Glaxo Welcome. I mean that was just

56:00 purest, you know, luck or serendipity, whatever you want to say. And then they really didn't think this molecule had any chance at all. And they were really just Doing it to get rid of me, I think. But still all fifteen people had to sign it. After we successfully develop this molecule

56:17 We have over time paid more than a billion dollars just in royalties to class a welcome because that molecule Has saved thousands of people's lives. it um has produced, you know, a billion dollars a year in revenue year after year after year for us. And Bob Bell, when I invited them to our fifteenth anniversary And he came with his sister, who is still alive and on our medicine.

56:43 And he said this was the absolute best transaction that Glaxo Welcome had ever done. Last but not least A conversation from 2017 with Debbie Millman. Debbie Millman is one of the most influential designers working today. According to Graphic Design USA.

57:02 An author, an educator, and the host of the Pioneering Podcast. Design matters. Now celebrating its twenty first year. the exercise that I do now with my students because they're

57:16 quite a bit younger than I was when I was doing this five year plan. I asked them to do a ten year plan. And so this gives them a chance to really mature into who they are in their twenties and into their early thirties. And it's this. Ten year plan for what I call a remarkable life.

57:32 And it's about imagining what your life could be. If you could do anything you wanted. Without any fear of failure. And They are

57:42 The most life affirming essays. They are so full of hope. And optimism. And well being. And goodness.

57:53 That it gives me a sense. That humanity is Can be saved. Um and so I've I've borrowed that exercise from Milton and now use that both in my graduate program and

58:09 the undergraduate classes that I teach. This is gonna seem nerdy, but I'm a nerd, so I'll I'll run with it. And that is do you have any Parameters. for people at home who might want to try this or recommendations, ways to start, is it bullets or is it pros and full of No, it's similar. Yeah. Any recommendations for people who would like to give this a stab?

58:33 So let's say it is Winter. twenty twenty seven. What does your life look like? What are you doing?

58:42 Where are you living? Who you living with? Do you have pets? What kind of house are you in? Is it an apartment? Are you in the city? Are you in the country? What does your furniture look like? What is your bed like? What are your sheets like? What kind of clothes do you wear? What kind of hair do you have?

58:58 Tell me about your pets. Tell me about your significant other. Do you have children? Do you have a car? Do you have a boat? Do you have Talk about your career. What do you want? What are you reading? What are you making? What excites you? What is your health like?

59:15 And right. This day, this one day ten years from now. So one day in the winter of twenty twenty seven. What does your whole day look like? Start from the minute you wake up. Brush your teeth.

59:29 Have your coffee or tea. All the way through till when you tuck yourself in at night. What is that day like for you? Dream big. Dream

59:40 Without any fear. Write it all down. You don't have to share it with anyone. Other than yourself. Put your whole heart into it. And right.

59:53 Like there's no tomorrow, right? Like your life depends on it because it does. And then Read it. Once a year. See what happens.

1:00:04 It's magic. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading. albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmas, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash.

1:01:11 Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.

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