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Speaker 1: Hi everyone, Sophia Bush here. Welcome to Work in Progress,

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Speaker 1: where I talk to people who inspire me about how

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Speaker 1: they got to where they are and where they think

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Speaker 1: they're still going. Hi. Everyone, I just wanted to say

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Speaker 1: I know things are kind of intense and overwhelming right now,

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Speaker 1: and I'm just thinking about you all. I hope you're

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Speaker 1: all staying healthy and practicing social distancing. Please remember that

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Speaker 1: that's the way we flatten the curve for today's episode.

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Speaker 1: My hope is that as you stay home, if you

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Speaker 1: are able, we can bring you a little bit of

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Speaker 1: joy with Work in Progress. So on today's episode, we

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Speaker 1: recently celebrated International Women's Day and today's guest is incredibly inspirational.

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Speaker 1: I'm really excited to share her story with all of

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Speaker 1: you during these stressful times because she is quite an

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Speaker 1: example of what you can do when you are determined.

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Speaker 1: Victoria Jackson is an activist on behalf of women's Empowerment

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Speaker 1: and Entrepreneurship, and in she was inducted into the National

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Speaker 1: Women's Hall of Fame by none other than Work in

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Speaker 1: Progress guest Gloria Steinhum. She's here today to talk about

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Speaker 1: her childhood, how her survival mode gave her the tools

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Speaker 1: to do what she does now, a traumatic knight that

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Speaker 1: changed everything for her, what inspired her to attend beauty

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Speaker 1: school and then begin a makeup empire, and how her

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Speaker 1: daughters rare autoimmune disease prompted her to switch gears and

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Speaker 1: work to find a cure. She gives me such an

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Speaker 1: incredible amount of hope at times like this, and I

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Speaker 1: hope you will all will learn so much from her. Victoria.

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Speaker 1: I am so excited that you're here with us. I'm

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Speaker 1: really excited to be here. Thank you for coming. I

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Speaker 1: want to get right into it. In you were inducted

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Speaker 1: into the National Women's Hall of Fame by another work

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Speaker 1: in progress guest, the illustrious Scores dynem Anden. You received

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Speaker 1: the Pontifical Key Advocacy Award from the Pope. This is

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Speaker 1: a pretty incredible time and I just feel so honored

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Speaker 1: to sit across from you. You've had an incredible journey

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Speaker 1: to get here. And before we get into where it

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Speaker 1: is I meet you, I would love to go back

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Speaker 1: a bit to the beginning. You've talked about how you

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Speaker 1: were born three months early, How how did that impact

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Speaker 1: your family early on? You know, I think you know

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Speaker 1: and and thank you. It's it's really lovely to be here, Sophia.

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Speaker 1: And honestly, even just mentioning with two thousand and seventeen

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Speaker 1: and two thousand and eighteen looked like for me with

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Speaker 1: extraordinary um. And if somebody would have told me that,

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Speaker 1: you know, I would have been inducted into the National

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Speaker 1: Women's Hall of Fame by Gloria Steinem, Um, I wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have believed it. I remember just the day, you know,

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Speaker 1: when I got a phone call that she had called

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Speaker 1: and they said Glorious Steinem was online. One that was

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Speaker 1: shocking enough. So, you know, I think how it all

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Speaker 1: started for me was, you know, I I have to

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Speaker 1: wonderful parents, one who is not with us anymore. But

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Speaker 1: they were young, and I think not really prepared. And

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Speaker 1: I always say I came three months early, and I

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Speaker 1: think it gave me a head start in being able

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Speaker 1: to worry earlier. You know, I've was, so I think

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Speaker 1: they weren't prepared in the sense that you know, you

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Speaker 1: have a child there in the hospital, they're not coming

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Speaker 1: home with you, and I think it was just a

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Speaker 1: challenge for them. You know, how long did you have

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Speaker 1: to stay in the nick you a student and little

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Speaker 1: incubator for three months. And it's so funny because I

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Speaker 1: still like the sound of a little hum when I sleep,

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Speaker 1: so must have been obviously got used to it. And

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Speaker 1: I know that when I came home, my parents said

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Speaker 1: I never slept at night because you know, I was

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Speaker 1: born with like these big brown eyes and a lot

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Speaker 1: of hair, and the nurses would, you know, just go,

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Speaker 1: she's so cute and keep me up all night. So

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Speaker 1: when I finally came home, I think I was a

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Speaker 1: little off schedule, and I think that even made it

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Speaker 1: a little more challenging for my parents. But sure now

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Speaker 1: I know that they divorced when you were nine, after

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Speaker 1: you'd moved from New York to Los Angeles. What was

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Speaker 1: it like to to pick up and move cross country

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Speaker 1: and deal with a dissolution of your family at that age?

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Speaker 1: You know, you talk about obviously what you have going

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Speaker 1: on from being a baby who's been in the hospital,

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Speaker 1: But what do you think looking back now, the impact

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Speaker 1: of that change was so early for you. You know,

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Speaker 1: I think, you know, divorce for anybody and a big move,

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Speaker 1: and at that point in time, my parents were so unsettled.

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Speaker 1: It's hard for anybody. Um, it's you know, you you're

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Speaker 1: sort of your whole life is uprooted. And as I said,

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Speaker 1: I was always a very anxious kid. Um so I

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Speaker 1: always felt a little you know, movement wasn't my favorite thing.

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Speaker 1: And you know, when you're already sort of hardwired to

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Speaker 1: be a little bit more anxious, you want that stability.

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Speaker 1: So it was challenging. But at the same time, I

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Speaker 1: was still young and coming to California was a new

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Speaker 1: adventure and we moved into an apartment in the valley

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Speaker 1: when the valley still had orange groves, wow in Panorama City,

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Speaker 1: and so you know, you started thinking about your embarking

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Speaker 1: in a new life. What is the presentation of anxiety

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Speaker 1: for a kid? You know, you talk about it being

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Speaker 1: hardwired for you with the perspective you have, now, what

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Speaker 1: what are you aware of would you'd be hung up

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Speaker 1: on as a little girl? You know, I think anxiety

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Speaker 1: presents itself so differently for so many people. But I

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Speaker 1: think even as a young person, I just remember being

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Speaker 1: six years old and just being really afraid, you know,

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Speaker 1: just feeling scared, and so that can just manifest in

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Speaker 1: you know, how you're breathing and feeling sick to your stomach,

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Speaker 1: and I think mostly for me it was in nausea.

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Speaker 1: You know, I had a lot of just feeling sick. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's really interesting, the sort of the physical and somatic

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Speaker 1: symptoms that you were aware of. Yeah, and you're just

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Speaker 1: feeling a little more disoriented and just not feeling solid,

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Speaker 1: you know. And my heart goes out to people that

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Speaker 1: suffer with it. And I think when you've at it

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Speaker 1: your whole life, you really you understand it in a

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Speaker 1: way of of how debilitating it can be and how

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Speaker 1: extra hard you have to work to overcome how it presents.

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Speaker 1: I want to get into that more with you later too.

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Speaker 1: I'm so curious, what what where did your distractions come from?

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Speaker 1: Where did all your joy come from as a kid?

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Speaker 1: What what were you into as a little girl? Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, I grew up in a family where there

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Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of money, so you know, I always

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Speaker 1: wish now and I think as a mom, I love

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Speaker 1: that I get to expose my kids just sports and

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Speaker 1: two different activities. Whether it's the luxury for them to

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Speaker 1: learn how to ski and do things. Um, I didn't

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Speaker 1: really have that, So we just sort of, you know,

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Speaker 1: went out and we're a little happy explorers, uh in

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Speaker 1: the valley. You know, just sort of you're getting into

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Speaker 1: trouble here and there, but you know, just trying to

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Speaker 1: come to terms with a family that there's about to

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Speaker 1: be divorced. My mom was starting to date. She ultimately

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Speaker 1: met actually, from our first move to California, she met

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Speaker 1: our next door neighbor in the apartment who ended up

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Speaker 1: becoming my stepfather and he had three children. So all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, very quickly, there was sort of now

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Speaker 1: a new location and a new blended family. What was

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Speaker 1: that experience like to suddenly have siblings? You know, it

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Speaker 1: was interesting and it's always made me really sort of

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Speaker 1: rethink how we think about step sisters, sister, brother, um.

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Speaker 1: You know, when I would be sort of like, wait

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Speaker 1: a minute, all of a sudden, my mom is married

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Speaker 1: the next door neighbor, he has kids, and this is

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Speaker 1: like a sister. You know, it was a little bit challenging,

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Speaker 1: you know, all of a sudden you're trying to figure

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Speaker 1: out how to integrate these new people into your life

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Speaker 1: and the challenges that come with that. And so I

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Speaker 1: don't I can't say it was the easiest of time.

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Speaker 1: And I have different relationships this to this day with

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Speaker 1: my stepsisters and my sisters and brothers, and so it's

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Speaker 1: definitely we're all very different. And when you think about,

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Speaker 1: when you reference that, it makes you rethink how we

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Speaker 1: identify siblings in the various ways they can show up

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Speaker 1: in our lives. How do you think about that now?

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Speaker 1: You know, I still think of it the same way.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm you know, family is your family, and

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Speaker 1: then you know your friends and your friends, and then

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Speaker 1: it's sort of where you come out with all of

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Speaker 1: that at the end, you know who you spend your

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Speaker 1: time with. I think we came from we we had

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Speaker 1: our different challenges as well as stepsisters and brothers because

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Speaker 1: we had you know, whether it was a step mom

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Speaker 1: or a stepdad, we had other factors that really shaped

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Speaker 1: how we think. And we have a lot of trauma

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Speaker 1: that we all went through in the family. So I

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Speaker 1: think it's um really sorted itself out differently for each

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Speaker 1: one of us. UM And I'm closer with some, maybe

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Speaker 1: not as much with others, but we all share a

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Speaker 1: lot of experiences growing up as we all do. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think we're so lucky, all of us to be

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Speaker 1: alive at this point in history as complicated as it is,

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Speaker 1: but one of the things I'm I'm so grateful for

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Speaker 1: as a person who loves to research and who just

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Speaker 1: likes to nerd out on data and on these kinds

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Speaker 1: of connections, you know, how we cohabitate, whether it's in

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Speaker 1: family or community neighborhoods. I'm I can't get enough of

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Speaker 1: all of the recent research on trauma and on family

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Speaker 1: systems and and on how it affects us and how

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Speaker 1: it presents in the audie And and I think, I

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Speaker 1: think about it. I think about what it was like

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Speaker 1: as a kid going through my own versions of you know,

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Speaker 1: family stuff that created trauma for me, and and how

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Speaker 1: we didn't know so much of what we know now.

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Speaker 1: And I imagine, because I'm not a parent, and as

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Speaker 1: I'm hearing you tell your story, I imagine it must

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Speaker 1: be such an incredible thing having your own versions of

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Speaker 1: family history and trauma and all the things that we

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Speaker 1: all have to be a parent in an era of

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Speaker 1: so much research and so much information, because we all

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Speaker 1: get to do things so differently than our parents generations

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Speaker 1: did well and so much. I mean, you could have

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Speaker 1: the research and the information, but at the same time,

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Speaker 1: you know, as you're growing up. You're just experiencing it,

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Speaker 1: so you're not thinking about that. It's just and for

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Speaker 1: me ultimately, it's all made me who I am today.

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Speaker 1: So I didn't really realize how much I've always been

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Speaker 1: in survival mode a sort of. I just I think

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Speaker 1: I really did. As I said, I came out early,

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Speaker 1: three months early to start my worrying and go into

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Speaker 1: my survival mode. But it it really ultimately has given

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Speaker 1: me the tools to do the things that I'm doing

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Speaker 1: now and think the way that I think. So as

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Speaker 1: I'm watching my children, you know, I have three children

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Speaker 1: and now two grandkids, I'm seeing how you know, they're

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Speaker 1: navigating it and how you're almost really a lot of

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Speaker 1: ways you're hard wired, how you come in with your

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Speaker 1: anxieties and sort of knowing where I can kind of

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Speaker 1: step in and guide them and where I need to

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Speaker 1: step back. And this is just going to be their process.

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Speaker 1: But no matter how much data and information is out there,

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Speaker 1: you're kind of going to go through what you go through.

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Speaker 1: Yeah m hm. So you talk about how you love

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Speaker 1: to go exploring and adventuring as a kid. Were you

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Speaker 1: as a young girl into makeup? You know, I think

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Speaker 1: the makeup, Yes, was more of an escape for me,

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Speaker 1: because as I was, really my adventuring was more to

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Speaker 1: get me out of the house. So, you know, I

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Speaker 1: loved being creative, and I didn't really know where I

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Speaker 1: was going to land or what I was going to do. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, I was never like, oh, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: be the doctor or the lawyer or whatever. But I

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Speaker 1: knew that I enjoyed playing with makeup. I really liked

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Speaker 1: making over my friends. And I can't say that I

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Speaker 1: really had great skills, but I early on always had

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Speaker 1: a great I I sort of say now, and I

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Speaker 1: was always really like good taste, waiting for money to happen. Um.

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Speaker 1: I just always had a certain you know, my dad

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Speaker 1: was a wallpaper salesman, and early on, you know, the

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Speaker 1: big treat was like, oh, you can pick the wallpaper,

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Speaker 1: you know, for your bedroom or something. And early on,

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Speaker 1: I was just always into design and decorating, and so

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Speaker 1: makeup was just an extension of that and I just

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Speaker 1: enjoyed it. And I really on got a sense of

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Speaker 1: how people started to feel better when they looked better,

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Speaker 1: and that was interesting to me, and I wanted to

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Speaker 1: help people just look better. My friends look better and

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Speaker 1: feel better and I enjoyed it. So were you doing

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Speaker 1: more and more of these makeovers in your teenage years. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was doing more and more makeovers. I was doing hair,

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Speaker 1: I was you know, I was trying to figure it out.

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Speaker 1: I decided that I was going to when I was

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Speaker 1: out on my own, have to figure it out, so

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Speaker 1: I would be doing you know, working as we all

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Speaker 1: do the odd jobs as a waitress or whatever, and

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Speaker 1: decided to earn the money to put myself through beauty school,

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Speaker 1: which was six hours of beauty school. My mom had

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Speaker 1: money to send one child to call and I had

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Speaker 1: a younger sister that was really academic, and you know,

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Speaker 1: I was not interested in school at the time. As

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Speaker 1: I said, I was always sort of maybe getting a

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Speaker 1: little bit into mischief and missing school and you know,

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Speaker 1: not really paying attention to it due to a little

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Speaker 1: bit more of the conflicts in and sort of you know,

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Speaker 1: not happy times at home. I know that you went

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Speaker 1: to beauty school after you dropped out of high school. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And if it's okay to ask about the experience that

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Speaker 1: led to that when you talk about things that shape

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Speaker 1: you so formatively, I imagined as a woman when you

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Speaker 1: went through at seventeen was a huge formative experience. There

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Speaker 1: was a serial rapist in southern California, yes, in seventies. Yes,

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Speaker 1: And you know, I was always part of my anxiety.

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Speaker 1: It was a really sort of scared kid too. I

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Speaker 1: always had this feeling like somebody was going to get me.

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Speaker 1: So it was always sort of the joke in the house,

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Speaker 1: like who's going to get you? You know, nobody's gonna

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Speaker 1: get you. And there was one night where somebody did

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Speaker 1: get me, and um, it was the pillowcase rapist in

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Speaker 1: the seventies. He came and I say in the seventies

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Speaker 1: because there's been a sort of I don't know if

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Speaker 1: you want to call it unfortunately, as if the world

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Speaker 1: needed to pillowcase rapists. There's been a recent pillowcase rapists

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Speaker 1: that people will go is that the same one? But

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Speaker 1: the pillowcase rapists in the seventies. What he would do is,

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Speaker 1: you know, he came in through we had a cat door.

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Speaker 1: It was like a dog door actually, where he kind

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Speaker 1: of put his hands through it and unlocked the door.

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Speaker 1: And I was the only one in the back of

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Speaker 1: our apartment who was actually here in West Hollywood, and

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Speaker 1: he came in and I thought it was my brother.

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Speaker 1: I had an older brother and my stepbrother, who I

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Speaker 1: thought because he was all dressed in ski mask and

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Speaker 1: had a knife and all the awful things that you

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Speaker 1: just see in the horror movies, you know, standing behind you.

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't my brother, and it was And you know,

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Speaker 1: at that moment in time, I mean, I learned a

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Speaker 1: lot of things about myself. Number One, I thought, there's

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Speaker 1: no way that I'm supposed to die right now. Like

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Speaker 1: I just remember thinking, I'm seventeen. I was six months

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Speaker 1: from graduating high school, and I just thought, there's no way.

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Speaker 1: It just I just couldn't come to terms with that.

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Speaker 1: And since I was in the back of the house,

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Speaker 1: in the back of our apartment, I thought he had

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Speaker 1: already you know, gotten the rest of my family and

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Speaker 1: I was the last one. So immediately that was, you know,

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Speaker 1: my family's all gone. And then you know, I'm really

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Speaker 1: not going to any of the details obviously of the rape,

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Speaker 1: but to say that, you know, it was violent. And

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Speaker 1: I learned at that moment how I could go out

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Speaker 1: of body in my mind, and I really did and

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Speaker 1: just thought about, you know, the most upsetting thing was

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Speaker 1: my family, and it turned out that I was the

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Speaker 1: only victim and they were asleep in the house, and

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Speaker 1: so it was of course, it was extremely traumatic. I

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Speaker 1: never went back in my room again. I left the

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Speaker 1: house shortly thereafter. You know, I got married to like,

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Speaker 1: you know, a guy in high school that had been

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Speaker 1: a friend. But I thought, I'm going to get married.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to be by myself, and that was

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Speaker 1: really it was really really hard. I didn't. I dropped

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Speaker 1: out of school and I just decided that, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to figure out what I want to do.

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Speaker 1: I was working lots of jobs here in l A

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Speaker 1: and Hollywood and as I said, waitressing and you know,

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Speaker 1: just working to make money, and then decided to go

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Speaker 1: to a to beauty school. But it definitely is a

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Speaker 1: game change where it left me with not only the

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Speaker 1: anxiety that already had, but claustrophobia, which was you know,

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Speaker 1: really I still struggle with. I didn't fly for thirty

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Speaker 1: seven years. I didn't even get on an airplane. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was it's definitely you know, any woman who's been

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Speaker 1: through that, you know, will tell you obviously it changes

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Speaker 1: your life. But when I look back at it now

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Speaker 1: as a woman, the age that I am and all

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Speaker 1: that you know I've accomplished and done. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: it's all, It's all part of it, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: all part of knowing that one day I would be

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Speaker 1: sitting on a couch talking to Sophia Push and telling

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Speaker 1: my story and how you get to the other side.

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Speaker 1: I'm so sorry that that happened to you, and I

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Speaker 1: really appreciate your being willing to talk about what some

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Speaker 1: of the effects are. You should never any I don't

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Speaker 1: believe any victims should ever have to relive their trauma,

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Speaker 1: you know, and go into details as you mentioned. But

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Speaker 1: I do think it's probably so healing for some people

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Speaker 1: who are listening at home, who have been through their

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Speaker 1: version of that experience, to say, oh, yeah, I have

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Speaker 1: this thing that stuck with me. I couldn't do X

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Speaker 1: after my assault. I you know, for whatever reason, so

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Speaker 1: many women, I think, for so long have been encouraged

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Speaker 1: just not to talk about those things, and we find

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Speaker 1: such healing and community when we can recognize ourselves in

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Speaker 1: other people's experiences. Yeah, and I think it's also encouraging

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Speaker 1: what you can do to get beyond, to go to

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Speaker 1: that next place that you know where you're not just

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Speaker 1: stuck or as a victim that you you know, so

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Speaker 1: I've always been as I said, I think those early

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Speaker 1: years of always needed to be in survival mode. I

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Speaker 1: go right into you know, okay, so now what are

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Speaker 1: you gonna do? Giving my time to grieve, you know

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Speaker 1: and process and therapy. M hmm yeah. I like that though,

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Speaker 1: So now what? So now what? And you're now what

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Speaker 1: you went into cosmetology school and that that opened up

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Speaker 1: a runway to change your whole life. Yeah, it helped

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Speaker 1: me to figure out what I wanted to do and

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Speaker 1: what I didn't want to do. You know, um as

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Speaker 1: you're doing you know, makeup and you're doing hair and

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Speaker 1: all these you know, beautiful little ladies with blue hair

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Speaker 1: that you're trying to not mess them up too much

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Speaker 1: because you know, you're you're figure out and learning your craft.

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Speaker 1: But it was a great experience and I realized that

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Speaker 1: doing sort of coming out of that, that the makeup

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Speaker 1: portion was something that I enjoyed and went on to

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Speaker 1: you know, work in department stores and go okay, how

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Speaker 1: am I gonna you know, really get better as a

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Speaker 1: makeup artist because I had a great eye, but my

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00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:19,520
Speaker 1: skills needed some work. So I went on to working

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Speaker 1: for a clinique and the department stores here in l A.

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Speaker 1: I remember in Bullocks, Westwood, and you know, just started

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Speaker 1: working for different cosmetic companies as a makeup artist and

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Speaker 1: perfecting my skills and having the opportunity to work with

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Speaker 1: all different products and and seeing what was out there

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Speaker 1: and really seeing what worked and what you like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and trying to get women into I would see so

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Speaker 1: many women coming to the makeup counter and they were

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Speaker 1: overly made up or I looked at some of what

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Speaker 1: the other artists were doing and they would just be

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Speaker 1: just layering on the makeup and I was like, no, um,

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Speaker 1: I really have this eye of this more no makeup makeup.

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Speaker 1: And that's where it really first started for me, was

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Speaker 1: in those department stores and looking at all the women

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Speaker 1: that came in and also all the women that just

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Speaker 1: didn't know how to do their own makeup. When when

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Speaker 1: you began as a makeup artist in a department store,

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Speaker 1: how did how did you then wind up being a

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Speaker 1: makeup artist working and advertising because you were doing ads, editorial,

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Speaker 1: I mean, album covers, working with actresses. How did the

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Speaker 1: transition happen? The transition went from UM. I was in

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Speaker 1: a department store doing that for a while, and I thought,

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Speaker 1: I really want to work for magazines. I want to

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Speaker 1: do that look so glamorous to me, you know, just editorial,

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Speaker 1: and you know, I saw, oh the thought of you know,

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Speaker 1: doing the pages of Vogue, and you know, it just

390
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:49,359
Speaker 1: looked exciting to me. So I just decided, how do

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00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:51,240
Speaker 1: you get into doing that? You know, what do you

392
00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:54,159
Speaker 1: have to do? So basically what you had to do

393
00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:56,600
Speaker 1: is I started to meet a lot of photographers in

394
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Speaker 1: town here in l A. And offered to work free

395
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:04,680
Speaker 1: to build a portfolio and you know, hopefully you know,

396
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:06,840
Speaker 1: you're starting out your I think my first job, it

397
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:10,120
Speaker 1: was crazy, was for like Playgirl magazine, which was about

398
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 1: as far from doing beauty makeup was doing makeup on guys,

399
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:17,160
Speaker 1: you know, which you know, in the thirteen year career

400
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:20,680
Speaker 1: I had I did you know, over two hundred album

401
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 1: covers and People magazine covers and ad campaigns for everything

402
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Speaker 1: from different cigarette campaigns to Chippendale's calendars too. I mean,

403
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:35,879
Speaker 1: you name it, movie ads, and you know it was

404
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:41,520
Speaker 1: it was exciting. And during that time I realized as

405
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 1: I had been working in department stores and working with

406
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 1: all different cosmetics, I never found anything that was really

407
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 1: in a foundation that was really you know, great perfect.

408
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:56,800
Speaker 1: Everything in the once you kind of crossed over into

409
00:24:56,840 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 1: the world of beauty was more know, these pink tones

410
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: and orange based foundations. And so I thought, I'm going

411
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 1: to start, you know, making my own cosmetics and my

412
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 1: own pots and pants. I would make up my own

413
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Speaker 1: conc you know, concoctions for whatever shoot that I was

414
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:22,880
Speaker 1: going to do. Wow. Yeah, And that was that's when

415
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 1: I started to see, Okay, there's something here. I'm starting

416
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 1: to make my own makeup. I really now want to

417
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 1: start teaching people how to do this because I've always

418
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:38,800
Speaker 1: suffered from really you know, with mixed in with anxiety.

419
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:41,640
Speaker 1: Usually people that have anxiety, you're always sort of dealing

420
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 1: with low self esteem. So there was always this, hey,

421
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Speaker 1: if I can do this, you can do this. You know,

422
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:51,159
Speaker 1: if I can sit and do this, you know you

423
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:54,879
Speaker 1: can do this. And here's how. So I wanted to

424
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 1: teach women how to do their own makeup and decided,

425
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 1: as I'm now working as a makeup artist, I'm making

426
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 1: my own products, you know, how can I actually go

427
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:07,639
Speaker 1: about doing that? And I reached out to U C.

428
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Speaker 1: L A. At the time, they were teaching an extension classes,

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00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:14,160
Speaker 1: but there was nothing in this area. And I said,

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Speaker 1: can I do a class ten week class on how

431
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:23,679
Speaker 1: to do your makeup for either, you know, teaching makeup

432
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 1: artists to be makeup artists for film for TV? And

433
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,200
Speaker 1: they said sure. And I did that with really no

434
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:36,159
Speaker 1: experience other than a portfolio of work that I had

435
00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: been amassing. And I ended up doing that, teaching at

436
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:43,160
Speaker 1: u c l A for ten years, a makeup course

437
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:47,399
Speaker 1: that would have about fifty students a quarter. You'd have

438
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:51,280
Speaker 1: guys as well as gals, and I think the guys

439
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:53,959
Speaker 1: were in there quite frankly to meet the gals because

440
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 1: they would be doing, you know, makeovers. Everybody would be

441
00:26:57,119 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: sort of doing makeovers on each other. And it was

442
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,639
Speaker 1: really that was a great experience for me because I

443
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 1: could see that. Ultimately it went on to not only

444
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 1: introduced me to a gal who was one of my students,

445
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 1: who told me about a group of guys that, um,

446
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 1: we're doing infomercials that were just coming out and this

447
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:24,000
Speaker 1: is late eighties now, um, and they she said, you know,

448
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 1: I think they'd be interested in talking to you. And

449
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, what I have come up

450
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:32,400
Speaker 1: with a great idea of how to sell cosmetics on TV,

451
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: which I did not have at that moment, but I thought,

452
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: I'm going to come up with a great idea, Hello

453
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 1: cosmetics to women in this thirty minutes sort of format,

454
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:48,920
Speaker 1: which ultimately was really my classes at U c l A.

455
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:52,280
Speaker 1: I did a how to tape on teaching you how

456
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 1: to do your makeup and created these peach, pink, and

457
00:27:55,680 --> 00:28:00,080
Speaker 1: red color coordinated kits that women would be able to

458
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: very easily make their selection, and went on to do infomercials,

459
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 1: and that part of my life was now entering into

460
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:12,200
Speaker 1: a whole another chapter. And that's really the birth of

461
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 1: Victoria Jackson Cosmetics. That is Victoria Jackson Cosmetics, which everybody said,

462
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 1: you can't sell cosmetics on TV. You know, women need

463
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: to see them and feel them and touch them, and

464
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I can. I'm going to put

465
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:30,160
Speaker 1: these color coordinate kids together where everything is in there,

466
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:34,439
Speaker 1: the blush, the eyeshadows, the foundation is the only thing

467
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,400
Speaker 1: you're gonna need to pick, which is going to be light, medium,

468
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 1: tann and dark. I did all of the visuals so

469
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: that you could see exactly, you know, how it looked

470
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: on the different skin tones. I had amazing celebrities in

471
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: the beginning to be sitting with me on a couch

472
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: and we would just talk about the products, and they

473
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: were celebrities. My very first one was with Allie McGraw

474
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 1: and she had been a client, and so people wanted

475
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 1: to be involved in It was very visual and made

476
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: it fun, and the first week of sales we did

477
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:11,720
Speaker 1: a million dollars a week in sales my very first week.

478
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 1: I went on to doing over almost a billion dollars

479
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 1: in sales over thirteen years of thirteen infomercials, and I

480
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: created six hundred beauty products. So it was quite an

481
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: extraordinary experience. And at the time I was doing it,

482
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: I also went on to do I think before they

483
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: were even doing obviously podcasts, I had my own radio

484
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,800
Speaker 1: show where they said, if you can do makeovers on

485
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 1: the radio, we'll give you the airtime. So I was

486
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: doing that and everything was about really educating women. And

487
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 1: I decided, with this platform of being on television and

488
00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:01,200
Speaker 1: doing this infomercial, what was really important to me, and

489
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: what really was important to me was that it wasn't

490
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: about just I could teach women how to look better

491
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 1: I can tell you how to make your eyes bigger

492
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:14,239
Speaker 1: and your lips fuller. But what I cared about is now,

493
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 1: what are you going to do with that? You know,

494
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: I want you to go out and you know, conquer

495
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 1: the planet. And so my mission was really to be

496
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 1: a good will ambassador for look better, feel better about yourself,

497
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: go out and be the best version of yourself. And

498
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 1: so I wrote a book early on called Redefining Beauty,

499
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 1: and I felt like that was how two pieces were

500
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 1: really important to me, but the why it was more

501
00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:48,080
Speaker 1: important to me, why it all mattered. And so I

502
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 1: started to write another book called make Up Your Life,

503
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: and that was really inspired by I decided during this

504
00:30:56,160 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 1: period of time of infomercials was to start working going

505
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 1: to the prisons, and so I went to prison for

506
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: twenty years. I started at Civil Brand and Twin Towers

507
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 1: downtown l A, working with women and a hundred women

508
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 1: at a time, which was an extraordinary experience of doing

509
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 1: these makeovers in jail, and it was really what I

510
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 1: then be I would sort of I talked after that

511
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: about what I called the power of mass Scara, how

512
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 1: I would see these extraordinary changes in these women where

513
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 1: I would go in and I'd say, well, what do

514
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 1: you like your makeup to say? And they'd go, we

515
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 1: like our makeup to say, pull over. So you know

516
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 1: a lot of women over doing their makeup, sort of

517
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:53,959
Speaker 1: using it, you know, whether it's too you know, working

518
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 1: the streets or whatever. I was like, okay, how about

519
00:31:57,040 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: another message, like how about one that look at me,

520
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 1: respect me because I respect myself. Changing the whole energy

521
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: of how they saw themselves. And I will tell you

522
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: going into the jails and seeing the transformations of women

523
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:19,320
Speaker 1: as we would joke about like all, you know, all

524
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 1: made up with nowhere to go, but how their energies

525
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: really really changed when they would see themselves or maybe

526
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 1: before I would you know it walked in that day girls,

527
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 1: girls weren't maybe getting along. How all of a sudden

528
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: the energy changed where everyone was supporting each other and

529
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 1: they viewed themselves differently. It was sort of like off

530
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 1: with the war paint and now, you know, just a

531
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 1: new energy and self respect. That's what kept me going

532
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 1: back for twenty years, especially as a woman who, as

533
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 1: I said, I'm very claustrophobic, Going into jails was really tough.

534
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:05,560
Speaker 1: Why you're you're, you're, you're in you're in when they're in. Yeah,

535
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: you can't just walk out if you're having a panic attack.

536
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 1: Something that comes to mind for me, And I'm so

537
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:13,720
Speaker 1: curious listening to your journey and the size and scope

538
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 1: of it is so incredible. But you say that, you know,

539
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 1: you were redefining these arenas. People were saying you can't

540
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 1: sell makeup on TV. They had a lot to say

541
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 1: to you, and you did it anyway. Did you have

542
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:30,360
Speaker 1: anyone that you could ask for business advice at the time,

543
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:32,320
Speaker 1: Did you have a mentor or were you doing this

544
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 1: all just by your own kind of intuition and that instinct. Yeah,

545
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 1: I definitely really sort of the you know, uh, fake

546
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: it till you make it act as if all this

547
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,800
Speaker 1: self talk, I really didn't have a mentor at the time,

548
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 1: you know, I was really I look back now and

549
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: I think of the people that you know, in my

550
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 1: life that really inspire me. The glorious dynems I had

551
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: oh used at the time. Really, I think if there

552
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: was anybody at the time, you know, Oprah had her

553
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: weekly shows and I wanted to, you know, be on

554
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: the show. But as I was saying, I didn't travel

555
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:17,279
Speaker 1: for thirty seven years, part of this claustrophobia was I

556
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 1: really had a hard time, you know, having to be somewhere,

557
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 1: you know, two days later, if I had to fly whatever.

558
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:29,400
Speaker 1: And I finally had this opportunity where I kept you know,

559
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:32,239
Speaker 1: that manifesting that we do in our minds, where I

560
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 1: was like, I want to now that my infomercials are successful,

561
00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: I'm having this success. I'm becoming known as you know,

562
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 1: the queen of the you know, infomercial makeup Maven. I

563
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: get a call to go on the Oprah Show, and

564
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 1: you know, this is all very exciting, but I couldn't

565
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:53,200
Speaker 1: do it. I was too like I had to get

566
00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 1: to Chicago and it was one of those where you know,

567
00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:58,560
Speaker 1: I had to be there fairly soon and I just

568
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 1: wasn't going to get there. And it's one of those

569
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 1: things where you just sort of go, damn. You know.

570
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: I wished I would have done it, but I didn't,

571
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 1: and I really beat myself up for it for a

572
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 1: long time. And it was going to be a platform

573
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,319
Speaker 1: where I was, you know, the lead into the show,

574
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:19,880
Speaker 1: which was of you know, women that had sort of

575
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 1: made it against the odds, and really more of my

576
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:26,320
Speaker 1: story because a lot of people look at my success

577
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: now and I speak to you know, success in the

578
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 1: way you know how you can do it if you

579
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:36,440
Speaker 1: didn't go to the Wharton School of Business. You know,

580
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:39,799
Speaker 1: how can you be successful when you're really just your

581
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 1: own driving force? And even when I'm lecturing now, if

582
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:48,280
Speaker 1: I'm doing something at you know, Anderson School of Business

583
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 1: at u C. L A. Or at the Marshall School

584
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:54,520
Speaker 1: at USC, I'm talking about you know, what are you

585
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 1: going to do when these things in life come up

586
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 1: that you know are the game change rangers? And how

587
00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 1: are you going to handle it? And how do you

588
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 1: move forward? And you know how really trying to empower

589
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: women that again that if I did it, you could

590
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 1: do it. And here's how, here's my experience. That's so cool.

591
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 1: What did Because we're looking at the overview of how

592
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:30,279
Speaker 1: this all took off and it's kind of like a

593
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:34,880
Speaker 1: rocket ship. What did it feel like the very first

594
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: time you did your first infomercial? And are you are

595
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: those being taped and then they're airing as segments or

596
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 1: is it live like a home shopping thing? How how

597
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 1: did it go? So it's taped and you have to

598
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:56,000
Speaker 1: remember again with that like nasty self esteem issue creeping

599
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: up at this point. I had always been the makeup

600
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:02,120
Speaker 1: artist behind the scenes, so now I have to get

601
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 1: in front of the camera. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh,

602
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 1: I am not pretty enough. I I'm not I don't

603
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:12,479
Speaker 1: think I can do this. And I'm not really sure

604
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:16,440
Speaker 1: that I look like what what a CEO of a company?

605
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:19,359
Speaker 1: You know, because met a company look like and say.

606
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:23,239
Speaker 1: And so I remember the days so well. And I

607
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 1: get to the studio and I'm feeling very nervous and insecure.

608
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:30,799
Speaker 1: And they had hired a gentleman, a cinematographer who's going

609
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:33,560
Speaker 1: to be doing all the photography. And he was a

610
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:37,160
Speaker 1: Frenchman who can He says to me, goes, oh, Victoria,

611
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 1: it's lovely to meet you. And he says, you know,

612
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:42,720
Speaker 1: I have photographed the most beautiful women in the world.

613
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:46,239
Speaker 1: And there are two types of women. There's women with

614
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:50,319
Speaker 1: great beauty and women with great brains. And you are

615
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:54,840
Speaker 1: a woman with great brains. Oh my god. And I

616
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 1: just remember going, oh my gosh. And we're now standing

617
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 1: with a group of you know people, the producer and

618
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:03,520
Speaker 1: you know, the people that are all there, and they

619
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:06,239
Speaker 1: already know I'm feeling rather fragile, and I was just like,

620
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: oh great, and um that moment was just sort of

621
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:15,799
Speaker 1: in a way that was so liberating because I'm thinking

622
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 1: in my mind, oh my gosh, did you just call

623
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 1: me a dog? Like what's happening? And he sister, we're

624
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: gonna put you outside, we're gonna get you some air,

625
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 1: and we're gonna just you know, it's all going to

626
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 1: be great. And I just remember going, oh, okay, and

627
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:35,320
Speaker 1: it was sort of like at that point, I just

628
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 1: said to myself, Victoria, you're just gonna when you shoot this,

629
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:40,880
Speaker 1: You're just going to go in there and just like

630
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:44,759
Speaker 1: go for it because it had already broken down that

631
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: wall of all of that, you know, so there was

632
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 1: that moment of okay, so what are you gonna do?

633
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 1: You know, and I just decided and I went in

634
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 1: there and I gave it my all. And I'd never

635
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: been in front of the camera really, and I just

636
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:03,800
Speaker 1: also was very easy. I created all those products and

637
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 1: I knew that they were great products, so it wasn't

638
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: like doing any hard sell. I think that's the part

639
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 1: that was, you know, ultimately challenging about how infomercials got

640
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 1: a bad rap because it was for me, it was

641
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:21,279
Speaker 1: really easy. It was like, ladies, this of works. You

642
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:23,359
Speaker 1: got to try it. If you don't like it, send

643
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:26,360
Speaker 1: it back, you know, but just try. And I was

644
00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:30,760
Speaker 1: showing them in demonstrations that you only need this little

645
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 1: bit and liquid it does. So it was very organic

646
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 1: and very authentic and real for me. So and when

647
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:43,720
Speaker 1: the sales take off, because you've been making this stuff

648
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 1: you said at home, you know, you were making and

649
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:48,920
Speaker 1: formulating your own cosmetics. What is it like to have

650
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: to get a production house? How how do you go

651
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:55,759
Speaker 1: about doing that? Figuring out who can make these formulas

652
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:58,280
Speaker 1: for you, and how to get them packaged and shipped.

653
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:00,920
Speaker 1: I mean, it just feels so overwhelmed. Yeah, you know

654
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 1: it is. I mean that's why my first connection was

655
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 1: to you know, seeking out like the best cosmetic chemists

656
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 1: to help me take what I had created in my

657
00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:13,560
Speaker 1: garage and my little pots and pants and turn it

658
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:16,719
Speaker 1: into something that now you're selling and is safe and

659
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:21,239
Speaker 1: clinically tested and all those kinds of things. So I

660
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 1: was really I was learning as I was going. Um,

661
00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:27,520
Speaker 1: I learned about manufacturing. I learned about you know, how

662
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 1: I wanted. I was in it in every single way,

663
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 1: how everything had to feel how you know, and my

664
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: philosophy was this no makeup makeup, So everything really had

665
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:42,800
Speaker 1: to represent that, not only in how I was teaching it,

666
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: but in what you were ultimately going to see. So

667
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 1: that was in making sure that, you know, eyeshadows had

668
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:52,600
Speaker 1: just the right amount of payoff of color, but you know,

669
00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:55,239
Speaker 1: knowing that women might tend to use a little bit

670
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 1: more than less. How to make everything really reflect my philosophy.

671
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:02,239
Speaker 1: Though it was a lot of research, There was a

672
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 1: lot of meeting people and ultimately put together which was

673
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:10,279
Speaker 1: a really really solid product line. So you basically do

674
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:13,439
Speaker 1: an infomercial, you test it, and then when you see

675
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 1: the results, we pulled back and you gear up to

676
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:21,759
Speaker 1: then be selling a million dollars worth of product a week,

677
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:26,239
Speaker 1: which was ultimately, in the heyday of infomercials, twenty two

678
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: thousand new customers a week that I would have. So

679
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 1: it was quite extraordinary just to see that and watch

680
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 1: the building of of what ultimately became that beauty empire.

681
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: If there was something that you could have known when

682
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 1: you were starting out in hindsight, what do you think

683
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 1: that would have been? I think the hardest things even then,

684
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 1: it's you know, you have to Sometimes you're going to

685
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 1: make a deal that maybe isn't going to be the best,

686
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:56,959
Speaker 1: you know, when you're starting out as a makeup artist

687
00:41:57,040 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: in my case, um, you know, sometimes the people you're

688
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: getting in business with. You know, I wish that I

689
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,440
Speaker 1: maybe had a little bit more people that were familiar

690
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:11,360
Speaker 1: with infomercials in my earliest you know, negotiations that I

691
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:15,280
Speaker 1: may have made some better deals for myself. But ultimately,

692
00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:18,239
Speaker 1: you know what, the people that I was in business with,

693
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 1: they were very generous and that they took a leap

694
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 1: of faith in me. So I think it all played

695
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:29,440
Speaker 1: out the way it was supposed to. I think everybody

696
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:31,480
Speaker 1: told me it was never going to happen. You're not

697
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:33,680
Speaker 1: going to be able to compete with the rev LANs,

698
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 1: and the land comes and the you know, on and

699
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:39,600
Speaker 1: on and on. So I'm glad that I didn't listen

700
00:42:39,719 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 1: to them and that I just step by step and

701
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 1: you know, every piece lad ultimately to that success. Even

702
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: my students were the test market for the products that

703
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 1: I would sell more local to them that I could

704
00:42:56,120 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: always be testing and seeing. So so you can imagine

705
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:03,480
Speaker 1: to the transformation or the transition I should say, there

706
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 1: were all the transformations in the makeup world, but now

707
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:10,720
Speaker 1: I had to go from like transformation to a whole

708
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 1: different transition, from the power of mascara to the power

709
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 1: of medicine. It's so cool. What do you think, because

710
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's so many people at home listening right

711
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 1: now who are so inspired, who have ideas for businesses

712
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:29,040
Speaker 1: and things they want to create. What would you say

713
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: are the three most important things for listeners to plan

714
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:39,440
Speaker 1: for when they are looking to start a business. I

715
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 1: think you have to you have to really research, obviously

716
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 1: what the business is that you're going into. You have

717
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 1: to be prepared for all the people that are going

718
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 1: to tell you why it doesn't work. So if you're

719
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:56,400
Speaker 1: not a person who can sort of weather that, like,

720
00:43:56,560 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 1: don't even try because you have you know, you have

721
00:43:59,800 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: to have that real I'm doing it no matter what.

722
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: And here's how so that you know I'm the kind

723
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:09,279
Speaker 1: of person that, well, if it doesn't work, you know,

724
00:44:09,719 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 1: working straight ahead, then you know I'll like come in

725
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:15,800
Speaker 1: sideways or come up from the floor down from the

726
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 1: ceiling or whichever way. I have two problem solve. So

727
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 1: you have to be a problem solver. You have to

728
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:28,399
Speaker 1: be somebody who can persevere and figure your way out.

729
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:30,879
Speaker 1: I mean, you just have to. And I'm not even

730
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:34,280
Speaker 1: necessarily a real positive person, you know, I can really

731
00:44:34,880 --> 00:44:39,040
Speaker 1: deal with all my own insecurities and fears and all that.

732
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:43,200
Speaker 1: But you've just got to find whatever way that works

733
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 1: for you. For me, it was the act as if

734
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: fake it till you make it and create a visualization.

735
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:55,719
Speaker 1: I saw myself always, you know, in the place, in

736
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 1: the space, the way I wanted it to be. I

737
00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: would just always manifest that I'm a seeker. I always

738
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:06,759
Speaker 1: have been. I'd always be reading whatever book inspired me.

739
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:11,000
Speaker 1: So all of those things. You have to take all

740
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:15,359
Speaker 1: those little bits and talk to all different people, uh,

741
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:19,239
Speaker 1: and just take it all in, and then you have

742
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:23,680
Speaker 1: to rely on your your intuition and your gut. I love.

743
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 1: There's a thing that you talk about and you just

744
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: touched on it about fear and you you've spoken a

745
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 1: lot about how fear has really been a constant in

746
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:39,040
Speaker 1: your life, but instead of letting it paralyze you, you've

747
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:43,400
Speaker 1: really used it. You've learned how to not let it

748
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:45,960
Speaker 1: stand in your way. And it almost strikes me that

749
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:49,879
Speaker 1: that you've managed to turn fear into fuel and I'm

750
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:53,279
Speaker 1: curious about how you've taught yourself to do that, how

751
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 1: you've figured out how to do it anyway. You know,

752
00:45:56,239 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: it's really by having to do it. And you know,

753
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 1: I was listening to I recently went to I go

754
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: to you know, wather different seminars, and I did a

755
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:09,239
Speaker 1: Tony Robbins thing and you know, he was saying something

756
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:13,880
Speaker 1: about fear, and it's like fuck everything and run. You know, um,

757
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 1: you know, you know, for me, it's always been right

758
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:22,680
Speaker 1: on my shoulder. And Gavin de Becker even there's a

759
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:25,040
Speaker 1: book called The Gift of Fear. I don't know if

760
00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:28,440
Speaker 1: you've heard it, but for me, it was an important

761
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 1: book that I read somewhere along the way where it's

762
00:46:31,520 --> 00:46:35,560
Speaker 1: how you know, you always get a sense of where

763
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:37,759
Speaker 1: I said early on, you know, I always felt like

764
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 1: somebody was going to come and get me, and then

765
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:44,240
Speaker 1: they ultimately did that there's something that how to take

766
00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:48,799
Speaker 1: this fear and harness it into something positive. It's sort

767
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:51,759
Speaker 1: of like the Gift of Fear is an early version

768
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:57,279
Speaker 1: of like, you know, Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, you know, just

769
00:46:57,400 --> 00:47:01,840
Speaker 1: always being really intuitive. So I just tried to harness that.

770
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 1: And there's times I'm able to walk through the fear

771
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:09,520
Speaker 1: times where you know, in obviously the world I'm in now,

772
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:15,359
Speaker 1: it's riddled with fear with my daughter's condition. And when

773
00:47:16,120 --> 00:47:18,800
Speaker 1: I was told, you know, which was the game changer

774
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:21,799
Speaker 1: in my life, when I was told that she had

775
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:26,879
Speaker 1: four years to live and I just couldn't breathe. I mean,

776
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:30,520
Speaker 1: it was if a person who is you know, sort

777
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 1: of hard wired for anxiety was given, you know, just

778
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 1: fear served up, you know, in capital letters on a

779
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:44,239
Speaker 1: platter in your face, um terror, you know, wanting to

780
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:48,640
Speaker 1: do everything, fuck everything and run and and had to

781
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 1: stand there and now deal and make a plan. It

782
00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:56,719
Speaker 1: was two thousand and eight when Ali was diagnosed, Yes,

783
00:47:57,080 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 1: and at the time you were still running the beauty business, right, yes.

784
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:05,840
Speaker 1: And I imagine when you've built a billion dollar empire,

785
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:11,320
Speaker 1: you never foresee that you're going to leave it behind.

786
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 1: But when your daughter got sick, you said, done with

787
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:21,440
Speaker 1: the business. Everything everything in life now changes, everything is

788
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 1: is now going to focus on figuring out how to

789
00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 1: get her Well was that it really does? It's amazing

790
00:48:27,719 --> 00:48:30,480
Speaker 1: too as a mom, it was really like the book

791
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 1: on Messcara closed and I opened the book on medicine.

792
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:39,839
Speaker 1: And now you have to remember, I'm I have three

793
00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:45,800
Speaker 1: beautiful children. UM my daughter was we're out, we're about

794
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 1: to be we're driving, We're going to a premiere of

795
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:52,279
Speaker 1: a friend of mine, and she starts saying she has

796
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,640
Speaker 1: an eyeball headache, sort of this like my eyeballs hurting.

797
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 1: It's weird. I don't know how to explain it, mom.

798
00:48:57,719 --> 00:49:03,080
Speaker 1: And I'm starting to lose some some vision and you know,

799
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 1: I feel like everything is blurry, and I'm thinking maybe

800
00:49:06,719 --> 00:49:09,400
Speaker 1: she has an eye infection or something. So we go

801
00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:12,840
Speaker 1: to to you know, a doctor the next day and

802
00:49:13,680 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: looks at her eyes and dilates her eyes and says,

803
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:21,360
Speaker 1: you know, she has an inflamed optic nerve. Looks like

804
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:25,479
Speaker 1: optic neuritis. We need to go to the next doctor,

805
00:49:25,560 --> 00:49:30,239
Speaker 1: then the next more advanced opt neuro ophthalmologist to see

806
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:34,200
Speaker 1: what's going on, and basically he sees the same thing.

807
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:36,839
Speaker 1: Seems this optic nervous is now you know, we need

808
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,400
Speaker 1: she's gonna need to go to a neurologist. And this

809
00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:42,480
Speaker 1: is all happening very fast. And you know, I've you know,

810
00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:45,439
Speaker 1: my other kids and including her, she's never been sick

811
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:48,000
Speaker 1: sort of like, you know, why would I need to

812
00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:52,480
Speaker 1: go to a neurologist. I don't understand, and he basically

813
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:56,279
Speaker 1: I go to this neurologist and he says, we're gonna

814
00:49:56,320 --> 00:49:58,799
Speaker 1: need to do a lumbar puncture. And you know, now

815
00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:00,960
Speaker 1: I'm like a lumbar punk Sure why you know, she's

816
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:02,880
Speaker 1: got an eye thing going here? Why are we doing that?

817
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:05,759
Speaker 1: And so we didn't do that, and he said, well,

818
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 1: let's just do a series of blood tests and exams.

819
00:50:08,719 --> 00:50:13,160
Speaker 1: And he starts checking boxes for the lab slip for

820
00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 1: the blood test, and one of the box he's he's

821
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:21,240
Speaker 1: checking is something called an m oh neuro miletos optica,

822
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:23,960
Speaker 1: and as I'm looking at the slip, I go, so,

823
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:26,879
Speaker 1: what's that? And he goes, oh, that's you know, don't

824
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:28,719
Speaker 1: even worry about that. A guy. He was, I don't

825
00:50:28,760 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 1: even know why I checked that. You know, if she

826
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 1: had that, that would be a nightmare. Don't even think

827
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 1: about that. And the labs go off, and meanwhile Ali

828
00:50:38,320 --> 00:50:42,000
Speaker 1: is still, you know, she's thirteen, she's not really wanting

829
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:44,279
Speaker 1: to pay attention to all of this, you know, she

830
00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:47,480
Speaker 1: just wants to figure out what's wrong. And basically the

831
00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:50,439
Speaker 1: lab comes back and she has what he was saying

832
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:53,000
Speaker 1: was going to be a nightmare, which was n m O,

833
00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:56,440
Speaker 1: which at the time was known as Devick's disease uh

834
00:50:56,680 --> 00:51:01,000
Speaker 1: nerro myleitos optica now and says, well, you're gonna need

835
00:51:01,040 --> 00:51:03,920
Speaker 1: to get yourself to the Mayo Clinic right away. And

836
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:09,280
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, the Mayo Clinic. I'm okay, And here's

837
00:51:09,280 --> 00:51:11,120
Speaker 1: the doctor you need to see. And he gave me

838
00:51:11,200 --> 00:51:13,120
Speaker 1: the name of the doctor, which was a doctor Brian

839
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: Winechanker at the Mayo Clinic who was the only person

840
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 1: that was seeing anybody in the world who had this.

841
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:24,000
Speaker 1: And we're off to the Mayo Clinic where Allie early

842
00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:26,640
Speaker 1: on was very very clear with me that she didn't

843
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:29,040
Speaker 1: want to know what she had. She just said, Mom,

844
00:51:29,120 --> 00:51:32,440
Speaker 1: I know you, you'll figure this out. And we're off

845
00:51:32,520 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 1: to the Mayo Clinic where this diagnosis was confirmed and

846
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:39,279
Speaker 1: they told me that within the next few months she

847
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:42,879
Speaker 1: would probably have another attack and she would become paralyzed

848
00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:46,920
Speaker 1: and she might be gone within the next four years.

849
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 1: How does something going on with the optic nerve relate

850
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:57,320
Speaker 1: to this diagnosis and potential paralysis? What how does NMO

851
00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:01,440
Speaker 1: work in the body the way it works, is you know,

852
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 1: autoimmune disease is something that actually, you know, the World

853
00:52:06,160 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 1: Wide Health Organization says and two thousand thirty five is

854
00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:12,400
Speaker 1: going to be the number one killer, especially in women

855
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:16,560
Speaker 1: seven to ten women. We have this autoimmune diseases loop

856
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:21,319
Speaker 1: as rumor towards arthritics h M s H n EMO.

857
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 1: NIMO presents a lot like MS, so most animo patients

858
00:52:28,680 --> 00:52:32,360
Speaker 1: of them have been misdiagnosed with MS. But how this

859
00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:36,480
Speaker 1: presents an n EMO is our body is attacking something

860
00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:39,200
Speaker 1: called a q P four alcal porn four and without

861
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:42,400
Speaker 1: getting two technical, it's a water channel that we all

862
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:46,600
Speaker 1: have in our body and it attacks myelin and mylin

863
00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:49,880
Speaker 1: is along the optic nerve and it's the spinal cord.

864
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:55,800
Speaker 1: So you can have these completely random attacks that you

865
00:52:55,960 --> 00:52:58,400
Speaker 1: don't know what it is that can trigger it, because

866
00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 1: an autoimmune disease, you don't know what it is that

867
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:03,880
Speaker 1: triggers things. Is it diet? Is its stress? Is that

868
00:53:04,640 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: you know, hormones? Is it? You know, environmental? Is it vaccines?

869
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:14,920
Speaker 1: There's so many pieces to it. Um So you know,

870
00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 1: even to this day, that's what we sort of live

871
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:21,000
Speaker 1: with in Ally's condition, is that you don't know when

872
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:24,719
Speaker 1: an attack is coming. So at the time when he

873
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:26,880
Speaker 1: first told me probably within the next three months this

874
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:30,920
Speaker 1: would happen, I was very much no. It's you know,

875
00:53:31,160 --> 00:53:34,120
Speaker 1: I think this isn't gonna happen, and you know, you

876
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:36,960
Speaker 1: kind of go into that and you know, denial, and

877
00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:40,600
Speaker 1: you know, basically they sent us home with you know,

878
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:44,160
Speaker 1: let's keep in touch. Let's she goes on a steroid

879
00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:47,279
Speaker 1: taber of you know, prend zone and things like that,

880
00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:52,239
Speaker 1: and um, we sort of you know, just think about it.

881
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:55,279
Speaker 1: But sure enough, within the next I think it was

882
00:53:55,400 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 1: three to six months, she had an attack that affected

883
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:02,920
Speaker 1: her spinal cord. And you know, I can only tell

884
00:54:02,960 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 1: you to watch your child go through that kind of

885
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:11,800
Speaker 1: excruciating pain where it's almost electrical pain, where you you know,

886
00:54:12,040 --> 00:54:15,800
Speaker 1: there's no pain killer that you're taking. It's really really

887
00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:22,279
Speaker 1: it's as a parent, it's horrifying and not knowing we're

888
00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:25,360
Speaker 1: still working under the premise that, oh my gosh, you know,

889
00:54:25,480 --> 00:54:28,960
Speaker 1: she's got four years and think about how insane it is.

890
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:32,160
Speaker 1: As a parent, You're thinking, now, how am I going

891
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:35,480
Speaker 1: to cram do? I is this really so like? Am

892
00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:37,239
Speaker 1: I really going to lose my child? Like how do

893
00:54:37,360 --> 00:54:42,080
Speaker 1: I cram four years of life into you know, my child?

894
00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:46,040
Speaker 1: And I started to not sleep at night. So now

895
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:50,680
Speaker 1: I go into like sleep deprivation, sort of like mode

896
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:55,279
Speaker 1: where you're trying to go okay, And I reached back

897
00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:57,520
Speaker 1: out now that she's had this attack, to the Mayo

898
00:54:57,600 --> 00:55:01,319
Speaker 1: clinic they're involved, and I asked the doctor if he's

899
00:55:01,320 --> 00:55:04,480
Speaker 1: doing any research, and I said, is there any research

900
00:55:04,600 --> 00:55:06,319
Speaker 1: going on that you're doing and he says, I'm doing

901
00:55:06,400 --> 00:55:09,960
Speaker 1: some and I go, well, okay, well my daughter has this.

902
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:14,280
Speaker 1: I'm a mom truly, you know, beyond on a mission,

903
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:16,719
Speaker 1: and I've got a checkbook. So you and I are

904
00:55:16,760 --> 00:55:20,560
Speaker 1: gonna be working together and I'm gonna here this motherfucker.

905
00:55:20,760 --> 00:55:24,680
Speaker 1: So that's pretty much what I said. And that was

906
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:27,360
Speaker 1: from that moment on, that's all I've been doing. And

907
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:30,080
Speaker 1: so was it that phone call that established the Gutty

908
00:55:30,160 --> 00:55:34,880
Speaker 1: Jackson Charitable Foundation to fund the research? Yes, and that's

909
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:39,440
Speaker 1: exactly when it started. So again, you've you've created one

910
00:55:40,760 --> 00:55:44,960
Speaker 1: enormous business and now you're creating an enormous charitable fund.

911
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:50,040
Speaker 1: How does one go about starting a foundation, especially when

912
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:52,920
Speaker 1: you feel like you're on the clock to do it? Well?

913
00:55:53,040 --> 00:55:56,880
Speaker 1: Starting the foundation was almost, you know, sort of secondary

914
00:55:56,960 --> 00:55:59,719
Speaker 1: to the fact that how do I learn enough to

915
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:03,360
Speaker 1: on a foundation Like basically I'm going, yeah, sure, I

916
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:07,200
Speaker 1: mean I made lip gloss, right, I can cure disease.

917
00:56:08,200 --> 00:56:10,720
Speaker 1: Was really, how am I going to learn enough about

918
00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:14,520
Speaker 1: what's going on? Who in the world is even studying

919
00:56:14,640 --> 00:56:18,640
Speaker 1: this besides this one doctor gentleman I'm talking to at

920
00:56:18,680 --> 00:56:22,000
Speaker 1: the Mayo Clinic. How am I going to put together this,

921
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:26,720
Speaker 1: you know, this group of people and get this brain

922
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:29,800
Speaker 1: trust that I need in the world to help me,

923
00:56:30,160 --> 00:56:35,000
Speaker 1: you know, cure this disease. So I went to Stanford Medical.

924
00:56:35,719 --> 00:56:41,120
Speaker 1: Somebody introduced me to a professor there and I met

925
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:43,520
Speaker 1: with him and I said, I need to learn everything

926
00:56:43,640 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 1: about this He was in molecular medicine, and I said,

927
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:49,520
Speaker 1: I need to learn everything about this condition. I need

928
00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:53,799
Speaker 1: to learn everything to figure out who the people are

929
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:57,240
Speaker 1: in this space that would even be interested in working

930
00:56:57,280 --> 00:57:01,399
Speaker 1: in this. So MS was obviously a sleep what most

931
00:57:01,480 --> 00:57:04,600
Speaker 1: patients were diagnosed At the time, I didn't even there

932
00:57:04,719 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: was no other patient that I even knew at all.

933
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:11,120
Speaker 1: Ali was the only patient I could even find. So

934
00:57:11,840 --> 00:57:14,680
Speaker 1: since then, through my work, I will say there's five

935
00:57:14,880 --> 00:57:20,520
Speaker 1: hundred thousand patients worldwide that have this. So the work

936
00:57:20,560 --> 00:57:23,160
Speaker 1: I've done is has changed the whole landscape of how

937
00:57:23,240 --> 00:57:26,680
Speaker 1: we look at MS now and NMO. But it was

938
00:57:27,120 --> 00:57:30,560
Speaker 1: literally one ft in front of the other, uh and

939
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:36,880
Speaker 1: putting together a group of doctors, nurses, researchers, scientists, anybody

940
00:57:36,960 --> 00:57:40,080
Speaker 1: that would talk to me and was working in this

941
00:57:40,240 --> 00:57:44,080
Speaker 1: space and my problem solving in the way I think

942
00:57:44,120 --> 00:57:47,880
Speaker 1: about things. And when you have a child, where you

943
00:57:48,120 --> 00:57:51,600
Speaker 1: as you said, as you're on the clock now, you

944
00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:55,680
Speaker 1: run things very differently. Um, when you know it's life

945
00:57:55,720 --> 00:57:58,280
Speaker 1: and death, when you know what your child, when you

946
00:57:58,360 --> 00:58:01,480
Speaker 1: know there's a timeline, you just don't take a lot

947
00:58:01,560 --> 00:58:04,640
Speaker 1: of ship. You know that the only way you're going

948
00:58:04,680 --> 00:58:07,960
Speaker 1: to cure something is people are gonna have to collaborate.

949
00:58:08,240 --> 00:58:10,720
Speaker 1: They're gonna have to work together, they're gonna have to

950
00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 1: share information. Like these were all basic common sense things

951
00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:19,000
Speaker 1: to me, which I found out, you know, while I

952
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:21,600
Speaker 1: was doing it, that these were very rare things in

953
00:58:21,640 --> 00:58:25,440
Speaker 1: the world of medical research that people worked independently, they

954
00:58:25,520 --> 00:58:29,680
Speaker 1: didn't really share information, they worked in silos, they didn't

955
00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:32,919
Speaker 1: publish together. So I was like, well, this is gonna

956
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:37,720
Speaker 1: be my money, my way, and um, that's that was

957
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:42,160
Speaker 1: really from day one. We're all going to work together

958
00:58:42,680 --> 00:58:45,600
Speaker 1: to cure this, and these are sort of the rules

959
00:58:45,640 --> 00:58:48,320
Speaker 1: of the road. How long did it take you to

960
00:58:48,480 --> 00:58:51,560
Speaker 1: find everyone to put on the team? That feels daunting

961
00:58:51,640 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 1: to me to try to your point, to find researchers

962
00:58:54,080 --> 00:58:59,000
Speaker 1: and nurses and labs. How does that begin to happen? Well,

963
00:58:59,040 --> 00:59:01,040
Speaker 1: when you start in the very you know, when I

964
00:59:01,120 --> 00:59:03,680
Speaker 1: look back now in my very early days, going back,

965
00:59:03,760 --> 00:59:06,040
Speaker 1: I've now been doing this for twelve years. I'm about

966
00:59:06,120 --> 00:59:11,320
Speaker 1: to have, um, my twelfth conference. My first gathering really

967
00:59:11,960 --> 00:59:14,919
Speaker 1: was you know, there was like six doctors in the room,

968
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:17,439
Speaker 1: and it would be talking to one doctor who would

969
00:59:17,440 --> 00:59:19,880
Speaker 1: put me in touch with somebody else who might put

970
00:59:19,960 --> 00:59:23,400
Speaker 1: me in touch with a lab. And you realize as

971
00:59:23,480 --> 00:59:27,240
Speaker 1: I was studying the science that I would have to

972
00:59:27,400 --> 00:59:31,520
Speaker 1: come at it in many different ways, so ultimately knowing

973
00:59:31,560 --> 00:59:33,600
Speaker 1: what the goal being that I have to cure this,

974
00:59:33,840 --> 00:59:36,520
Speaker 1: and I am going to ultimately need to have a

975
00:59:36,600 --> 00:59:41,200
Speaker 1: massed enough science to engage pharmaceutical companies to help me,

976
00:59:41,600 --> 00:59:44,880
Speaker 1: you know, come up with a cure. So it was

977
00:59:45,040 --> 00:59:49,120
Speaker 1: just putting the right people together in the room early on.

978
00:59:50,000 --> 00:59:53,040
Speaker 1: And it's interesting that twelve years later, I still have

979
00:59:53,160 --> 00:59:55,840
Speaker 1: some of those same people in the room. I now

980
00:59:56,160 --> 01:00:00,240
Speaker 1: deal with over thirty five countries and over two undred

981
01:00:00,280 --> 01:00:05,760
Speaker 1: researchers and scientists worldwide. I do a yearly conference that

982
01:00:06,120 --> 01:00:09,439
Speaker 1: started with those six people that has grown every year

983
01:00:09,560 --> 01:00:12,920
Speaker 1: with more and more people in the world around the

984
01:00:13,040 --> 01:00:16,960
Speaker 1: world that are you know, specialists and T cells and

985
01:00:17,240 --> 01:00:20,840
Speaker 1: B cells and all different kind of specialties in the

986
01:00:20,920 --> 01:00:26,160
Speaker 1: world of ms lupus that come together, and more and

987
01:00:26,280 --> 01:00:28,640
Speaker 1: more have seen how I've created a model in which

988
01:00:28,720 --> 01:00:33,160
Speaker 1: of how people work together to actually cure disease. And

989
01:00:33,280 --> 01:00:37,439
Speaker 1: I knew that doing that to get what I said

990
01:00:37,520 --> 01:00:40,439
Speaker 1: earlier is I needed this brain trust in the room

991
01:00:40,720 --> 01:00:43,520
Speaker 1: to cure it was. I needed to get them to

992
01:00:43,840 --> 01:00:49,200
Speaker 1: them through really my heart and my personal story, and

993
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:55,400
Speaker 1: knowing that I had no agenda, not owning anybody's intellectual properties,

994
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:59,680
Speaker 1: not you know, financially benefiting in any way, so that

995
01:00:59,800 --> 01:01:04,120
Speaker 1: I would just have to have them see me, my heart,

996
01:01:04,360 --> 01:01:07,840
Speaker 1: my intention, which I believe through the power of love

997
01:01:07,920 --> 01:01:11,920
Speaker 1: and intention, you know, anything's possible, and hear my story.

998
01:01:12,160 --> 01:01:15,760
Speaker 1: So my daughter and I early on, as I said,

999
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:18,960
Speaker 1: it wasn't until she was sixteen that she saw a

1000
01:01:19,040 --> 01:01:21,760
Speaker 1: piece of paper that said something with the words n

1001
01:01:21,880 --> 01:01:25,240
Speaker 1: MO on it, and she said, is this what I have?

1002
01:01:26,160 --> 01:01:31,480
Speaker 1: And I said yes. Up until that time, she didn't know.

1003
01:01:32,000 --> 01:01:35,640
Speaker 1: And you can only imagine as a parent, her dad

1004
01:01:35,720 --> 01:01:38,720
Speaker 1: and I thinking she has four years to live. She

1005
01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:42,480
Speaker 1: thinks she's like fine, and you know, she's just struggling

1006
01:01:42,560 --> 01:01:46,040
Speaker 1: with this I thing and this back pain, and we're

1007
01:01:46,160 --> 01:01:49,200
Speaker 1: trying to figure out. You know, I'm thinking, you know,

1008
01:01:49,480 --> 01:01:52,360
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, you know, this will be the only

1009
01:01:53,000 --> 01:01:55,880
Speaker 1: prom dress. You know, she it's got to be amazing,

1010
01:01:55,960 --> 01:01:59,720
Speaker 1: because you know, I mean, just all the crazy thinking.

1011
01:02:00,040 --> 01:02:03,200
Speaker 1: You know, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, she's fifteen, but

1012
01:02:03,400 --> 01:02:07,200
Speaker 1: maybe I should let her drink because she won't be

1013
01:02:07,280 --> 01:02:11,360
Speaker 1: around to drink, you know, just craziness. But while I'm

1014
01:02:11,400 --> 01:02:15,040
Speaker 1: doing it, we decided to write a book called Saving

1015
01:02:15,080 --> 01:02:17,840
Speaker 1: each Other that comes out I think it was, but

1016
01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:22,160
Speaker 1: now by the time she's eighteen that really, looking back

1017
01:02:22,280 --> 01:02:24,440
Speaker 1: at it, I didn't even know all the things that

1018
01:02:24,560 --> 01:02:27,960
Speaker 1: she was thinking of because we wrote our books separately,

1019
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:32,960
Speaker 1: and our pages were put together after after we were

1020
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:35,840
Speaker 1: both finished, And it wasn't until that book came out

1021
01:02:35,920 --> 01:02:39,280
Speaker 1: that I really realized how she was going through it.

1022
01:02:40,360 --> 01:02:44,320
Speaker 1: And even to this day, she's been pretty much like Mom,

1023
01:02:44,520 --> 01:02:47,479
Speaker 1: I love you, I'm going to live my life. I'll

1024
01:02:47,520 --> 01:02:50,640
Speaker 1: be there support and help you and help patients as

1025
01:02:50,720 --> 01:02:54,920
Speaker 1: I can. But and she's also responsible for early on,

1026
01:02:55,160 --> 01:02:58,200
Speaker 1: she said, when she learned what she had, she said,

1027
01:02:58,360 --> 01:03:01,880
Speaker 1: this isn't just about you and I anymore. It's about

1028
01:03:02,520 --> 01:03:06,000
Speaker 1: everybody that has this. And that's really how we've been

1029
01:03:06,040 --> 01:03:09,439
Speaker 1: a partnership, you know ever since that day. So cool.

1030
01:03:09,560 --> 01:03:14,120
Speaker 1: How how is Ali doing? Ali's doing great. Ali says,

1031
01:03:14,320 --> 01:03:17,439
Speaker 1: I have nmo more than she does. And I will

1032
01:03:17,480 --> 01:03:20,320
Speaker 1: tell you that she's my hero because even when she

1033
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:25,520
Speaker 1: has attacks, she you know, it's frightening, but she has

1034
01:03:25,800 --> 01:03:28,040
Speaker 1: gone on to she just lives her life. You know,

1035
01:03:28,160 --> 01:03:31,880
Speaker 1: she's a law student, she's a business she's in business

1036
01:03:31,920 --> 01:03:35,680
Speaker 1: school now as well. I mean, she just goes on.

1037
01:03:35,920 --> 01:03:39,520
Speaker 1: She was president when she went to UC Santa Barbara,

1038
01:03:39,640 --> 01:03:42,720
Speaker 1: she was president of the student body. I mean, and

1039
01:03:42,960 --> 01:03:46,400
Speaker 1: people not even knowing, not telling other students or friends

1040
01:03:46,520 --> 01:03:50,320
Speaker 1: what she has. And she might never even listen to

1041
01:03:50,440 --> 01:03:54,760
Speaker 1: this podcast because she won't be you know, you know,

1042
01:03:54,920 --> 01:03:58,120
Speaker 1: talking about it or living her life that way, um,

1043
01:03:58,520 --> 01:04:02,040
Speaker 1: which is extraordinary. Uh. It really showed me how having

1044
01:04:02,120 --> 01:04:05,840
Speaker 1: a positive attitude as well. She's clearly we're beyond our

1045
01:04:05,960 --> 01:04:12,880
Speaker 1: four years and I've made huge, huge progress. There's now

1046
01:04:13,360 --> 01:04:17,320
Speaker 1: a pharmaceutical is it being tested? Is it on the market?

1047
01:04:17,440 --> 01:04:22,640
Speaker 1: To I have my first drug has actually now been tested.

1048
01:04:22,720 --> 01:04:25,280
Speaker 1: It's in phase four, which is it's on the market.

1049
01:04:25,960 --> 01:04:28,400
Speaker 1: And I have two more that will probably be out

1050
01:04:28,600 --> 01:04:31,680
Speaker 1: this year. The f d A is looking at the

1051
01:04:31,760 --> 01:04:36,160
Speaker 1: foundation and really what I've created as a model for

1052
01:04:36,360 --> 01:04:41,040
Speaker 1: how you go about curing disease. And you know that's

1053
01:04:41,120 --> 01:04:44,600
Speaker 1: just and so, and we have all new technologies of

1054
01:04:44,680 --> 01:04:48,840
Speaker 1: different companies looking at it and where you know, the

1055
01:04:48,920 --> 01:04:52,600
Speaker 1: space of medicine now there's a lot, there's a lot

1056
01:04:52,760 --> 01:04:55,200
Speaker 1: on the horizon. I will have to say. Along the way,

1057
01:04:55,640 --> 01:04:58,800
Speaker 1: I also had to create my own bio repository, my

1058
01:04:58,880 --> 01:05:02,840
Speaker 1: own blood bank. Wow. So I now have over a

1059
01:05:02,960 --> 01:05:06,880
Speaker 1: hundred and ten thousand specimens from patients all around the

1060
01:05:06,960 --> 01:05:11,240
Speaker 1: world in uh my blood bank. Because you realize when

1061
01:05:11,240 --> 01:05:14,920
Speaker 1: you're doing in the world of research that you have

1062
01:05:15,120 --> 01:05:18,600
Speaker 1: to have material that people are going to research. So

1063
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:22,800
Speaker 1: I very systematically thought of all the things that you're

1064
01:05:22,840 --> 01:05:25,280
Speaker 1: going to Every time there was a new obstacle of

1065
01:05:25,360 --> 01:05:30,520
Speaker 1: people going well, we need samples from patients. I'd go, Okay, great,

1066
01:05:30,720 --> 01:05:33,680
Speaker 1: Well I'm going to start my own blood bank, having

1067
01:05:33,760 --> 01:05:38,920
Speaker 1: no idea having done any of these things before. If

1068
01:05:39,040 --> 01:05:41,440
Speaker 1: anything that I would hope people getting out of this

1069
01:05:41,640 --> 01:05:44,440
Speaker 1: podcast is that if you can go from truly like

1070
01:05:44,680 --> 01:05:49,000
Speaker 1: foundation making foundation, like a base color foundation, color cosmetics,

1071
01:05:49,080 --> 01:05:53,040
Speaker 1: to this kind of foundation where you're creating a blood

1072
01:05:53,080 --> 01:05:57,200
Speaker 1: bank and a consortium of doctors around the world to

1073
01:05:57,400 --> 01:06:00,680
Speaker 1: cure a disease, you know, there's really nothing you can't

1074
01:06:00,720 --> 01:06:04,520
Speaker 1: do when you put your mind to it. That God,

1075
01:06:04,600 --> 01:06:09,560
Speaker 1: it's just it's so cool. My brain is overwhelmed in

1076
01:06:09,680 --> 01:06:13,920
Speaker 1: the best way. When you talk about bringing drugs to

1077
01:06:14,040 --> 01:06:17,400
Speaker 1: market to treat this disease and the speed at which

1078
01:06:17,440 --> 01:06:20,400
Speaker 1: you've been able to do that. What stands out to me,

1079
01:06:20,520 --> 01:06:22,520
Speaker 1: and what you were saying earlier, is that in most

1080
01:06:23,640 --> 01:06:27,440
Speaker 1: arenas of academia and research, everyone works in a silo

1081
01:06:27,640 --> 01:06:31,200
Speaker 1: and there's no cross communication, there's no cross publishing. You

1082
01:06:31,320 --> 01:06:36,120
Speaker 1: took the silos away, getting everyone working in cohort across

1083
01:06:36,960 --> 01:06:40,120
Speaker 1: all these different verticals and essentially functioning like a team

1084
01:06:40,880 --> 01:06:43,320
Speaker 1: rather than a bunch of individuals working on the same problem.

1085
01:06:43,800 --> 01:06:46,560
Speaker 1: Do you think that that's why you've been able to

1086
01:06:46,720 --> 01:06:50,320
Speaker 1: make advances in so much less time than so many

1087
01:06:50,400 --> 01:06:55,960
Speaker 1: other research organizations. Yes, very much so. And because you know,

1088
01:06:56,160 --> 01:06:59,320
Speaker 1: in this we are really the home of NIMO. There

1089
01:06:59,560 --> 01:07:04,440
Speaker 1: is no other research foundation that's out there. So people

1090
01:07:04,560 --> 01:07:08,240
Speaker 1: knew and doctors and and I would fly doctors in

1091
01:07:08,400 --> 01:07:12,040
Speaker 1: from all over the world. I built this organically, and

1092
01:07:12,120 --> 01:07:15,320
Speaker 1: that when I would have the seven doctors start in

1093
01:07:15,400 --> 01:07:17,640
Speaker 1: the room, m'd go tell me who else you need

1094
01:07:18,280 --> 01:07:21,919
Speaker 1: to be here? Do you need a specialist in estraciites?

1095
01:07:22,040 --> 01:07:25,720
Speaker 1: Do you need the b cell you know, person that

1096
01:07:25,800 --> 01:07:28,240
Speaker 1: you've always wanted to talk to at the Cleveland Clinic,

1097
01:07:28,360 --> 01:07:32,160
Speaker 1: Like who is it? And so they were all a

1098
01:07:32,280 --> 01:07:35,960
Speaker 1: part of building the team. And then it was always

1099
01:07:36,080 --> 01:07:40,040
Speaker 1: everyone's now going to have to publish together. So we

1100
01:07:40,360 --> 01:07:43,200
Speaker 1: attacked it into and we would form there would be

1101
01:07:43,280 --> 01:07:47,440
Speaker 1: different working groups within the doctors, so somebody would be

1102
01:07:47,520 --> 01:07:53,280
Speaker 1: working on animo and pregnancy, uh, pediatric animo, like all

1103
01:07:53,400 --> 01:07:56,680
Speaker 1: these different groups, and the everyone had to work together.

1104
01:07:57,160 --> 01:08:02,400
Speaker 1: You weren't funded unless you were working with another group.

1105
01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:06,800
Speaker 1: So you would see, you know, maybe Oxford is working

1106
01:08:06,920 --> 01:08:11,320
Speaker 1: with the Mayo Clinic, maybe Harvard is working with Stanford,

1107
01:08:11,440 --> 01:08:14,640
Speaker 1: or organizations that wouldn't even and then the littler, the

1108
01:08:14,760 --> 01:08:19,280
Speaker 1: smaller clinics as well would work together. And I always

1109
01:08:19,400 --> 01:08:22,880
Speaker 1: believed in bringing people together. Even when I was building

1110
01:08:22,920 --> 01:08:25,960
Speaker 1: my blood bank, I was doing crazy things where I

1111
01:08:26,120 --> 01:08:29,760
Speaker 1: was saying to patients, you know, give your blood, get

1112
01:08:29,800 --> 01:08:35,879
Speaker 1: a blush. I was bringing in my old life creatively thinking, however,

1113
01:08:36,000 --> 01:08:38,840
Speaker 1: I could that part of me that thinks, you know, okay,

1114
01:08:38,840 --> 01:08:42,280
Speaker 1: how do I start building a blood bank um and

1115
01:08:42,400 --> 01:08:46,240
Speaker 1: bringing together every year, which has been key these conferences

1116
01:08:46,360 --> 01:08:48,800
Speaker 1: that I do where I bring everybody together in the

1117
01:08:48,920 --> 01:08:51,640
Speaker 1: room and then on the last day I fly in

1118
01:08:51,920 --> 01:08:56,160
Speaker 1: four hundred patients and their families and not only would

1119
01:08:56,160 --> 01:08:58,720
Speaker 1: they be giving blood at that time, they would have

1120
01:08:58,920 --> 01:09:01,320
Speaker 1: access and they will do. I'm doing my next one

1121
01:09:01,360 --> 01:09:04,800
Speaker 1: in March at U c l A. They have access

1122
01:09:05,280 --> 01:09:09,679
Speaker 1: to the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Harvard. The docs

1123
01:09:09,760 --> 01:09:12,439
Speaker 1: are there to meet with them and talk to them.

1124
01:09:12,840 --> 01:09:17,880
Speaker 1: And by building this patient population as well, then you

1125
01:09:17,920 --> 01:09:21,080
Speaker 1: would have the pharmaceutical companies started taking a look at it,

1126
01:09:21,200 --> 01:09:24,080
Speaker 1: going there's all these patients, and then I had to

1127
01:09:24,120 --> 01:09:27,880
Speaker 1: show pharmaceutical companies. I did presentations on how they can

1128
01:09:27,960 --> 01:09:30,400
Speaker 1: make money. I mean, it'd be nice to just have

1129
01:09:30,560 --> 01:09:32,920
Speaker 1: them want to do it because they're nice guys. But

1130
01:09:33,560 --> 01:09:36,200
Speaker 1: by the way, you know, there's there's good intentions there,

1131
01:09:36,240 --> 01:09:38,320
Speaker 1: but you have to show people like how does it

1132
01:09:38,400 --> 01:09:41,960
Speaker 1: benefit them as well? So it was always thinking of

1133
01:09:42,200 --> 01:09:45,200
Speaker 1: what do I need to do to get me where

1134
01:09:45,400 --> 01:09:49,240
Speaker 1: I want to go, which is find a cure. And

1135
01:09:49,920 --> 01:09:54,040
Speaker 1: that's that's just the guiding light. Um, I'm incredible, That's

1136
01:09:54,120 --> 01:09:58,439
Speaker 1: just where my focus goes. What an amazing thing for

1137
01:09:58,640 --> 01:10:02,280
Speaker 1: you to choose to do you with what the first

1138
01:10:02,320 --> 01:10:05,280
Speaker 1: iteration of your life allowed you to create. You know,

1139
01:10:05,360 --> 01:10:08,559
Speaker 1: we're in a time now where there's such debate around

1140
01:10:09,720 --> 01:10:12,400
Speaker 1: the very few people who have been able to make

1141
01:10:12,680 --> 01:10:18,160
Speaker 1: billions in industry who don't take responsibility for their employees,

1142
01:10:18,320 --> 01:10:22,960
Speaker 1: for health care, for really helping to give back from

1143
01:10:23,040 --> 01:10:30,320
Speaker 1: their success into society and meaningful ways. And you shuttered

1144
01:10:30,360 --> 01:10:34,160
Speaker 1: your business to literally just fund this research. You've been

1145
01:10:34,200 --> 01:10:38,320
Speaker 1: spending twelve years putting the money that you made into

1146
01:10:38,439 --> 01:10:44,560
Speaker 1: these arenas to push medicine forward. Two create change in

1147
01:10:44,680 --> 01:10:49,800
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical companies. Why why do you think more people who

1148
01:10:49,840 --> 01:10:53,719
Speaker 1: have had the kind of success that you had yourself

1149
01:10:53,800 --> 01:10:58,560
Speaker 1: made success haven't done work like this? Are they just

1150
01:10:58,680 --> 01:11:02,920
Speaker 1: not personally affective. I think obviously being you know, listen,

1151
01:11:02,960 --> 01:11:04,800
Speaker 1: if somebody would have told me I'd be curing a

1152
01:11:04,920 --> 01:11:07,680
Speaker 1: rare disease in my life doing this work, would I

1153
01:11:07,800 --> 01:11:10,360
Speaker 1: have believe that or what I have all of a

1154
01:11:10,400 --> 01:11:14,200
Speaker 1: sudden decided, Hey, I'm going to do that. I mean clearly,

1155
01:11:14,520 --> 01:11:16,439
Speaker 1: you know there was a clock ticking. I have a

1156
01:11:16,520 --> 01:11:19,519
Speaker 1: child who has it. I see it. And then when

1157
01:11:19,560 --> 01:11:22,400
Speaker 1: you're exposed to Now, when I do my conferences and

1158
01:11:22,479 --> 01:11:24,880
Speaker 1: I fly all the patients in around the world, I

1159
01:11:24,960 --> 01:11:27,040
Speaker 1: see the look in the eyes of all the other

1160
01:11:27,400 --> 01:11:32,280
Speaker 1: moms and dad's and you know, the young kids that

1161
01:11:32,439 --> 01:11:35,040
Speaker 1: come and are just holding me or want to just

1162
01:11:35,200 --> 01:11:40,400
Speaker 1: see Ali to see how Ali's doing. Um, We've done conferences,

1163
01:11:40,680 --> 01:11:42,519
Speaker 1: you know, I just did it. We did a conference

1164
01:11:42,600 --> 01:11:45,639
Speaker 1: in Malie in Africa. We've done one on the Ivory Coast.

1165
01:11:46,160 --> 01:11:50,640
Speaker 1: We've done in Moscow, I mean around the world. And

1166
01:11:50,760 --> 01:11:53,240
Speaker 1: I think, to answer your question, Ian, what's hard for

1167
01:11:53,360 --> 01:11:56,599
Speaker 1: me is when I hear whether it's certain politicians now

1168
01:11:56,800 --> 01:11:59,880
Speaker 1: that you know they talk about you know, the wealthy

1169
01:12:00,080 --> 01:12:03,680
Speaker 1: in the billionaires, and we're not bad people like we.

1170
01:12:04,080 --> 01:12:07,040
Speaker 1: I'm self made. You know, my husband and I were

1171
01:12:07,200 --> 01:12:10,040
Speaker 1: very lucky, but we're self made. Were two people who

1172
01:12:10,360 --> 01:12:13,519
Speaker 1: um my husband as Bill GUTTHI of Gutth the rancor,

1173
01:12:13,640 --> 01:12:16,960
Speaker 1: were very fortunate, but we didn't have anything. We started

1174
01:12:16,960 --> 01:12:20,599
Speaker 1: off together, we didn't have money, and we've spent seventy

1175
01:12:20,720 --> 01:12:24,519
Speaker 1: million dollars of our own money on this to help

1176
01:12:24,640 --> 01:12:29,680
Speaker 1: people all around the world and to set an example. UM.

1177
01:12:30,240 --> 01:12:33,599
Speaker 1: So it's hard sometimes to hear people say, well, the wealthy,

1178
01:12:34,040 --> 01:12:36,840
Speaker 1: I think there's amazing things you can do in the

1179
01:12:36,960 --> 01:12:41,080
Speaker 1: private sector anywhere in life. If you use your money

1180
01:12:41,200 --> 01:12:44,800
Speaker 1: for good and organized you're thinking in a way that

1181
01:12:45,160 --> 01:12:47,639
Speaker 1: you're benefiting a lot of people. And I'm very I'm

1182
01:12:47,760 --> 01:12:52,960
Speaker 1: very I think both things that I've been involved with infomercials,

1183
01:12:53,960 --> 01:12:56,640
Speaker 1: supposedly being you know, wealthy, you get this sort of

1184
01:12:56,800 --> 01:13:00,479
Speaker 1: bad rap. And you know what, I've really always had

1185
01:13:00,560 --> 01:13:03,519
Speaker 1: nothing but the best of intentions to whether when I

1186
01:13:03,640 --> 01:13:05,800
Speaker 1: was doing my makeup to help women look and feel

1187
01:13:05,880 --> 01:13:09,320
Speaker 1: better about themselves, and now I just want to cure

1188
01:13:09,400 --> 01:13:13,960
Speaker 1: people of this, you know, this horrible condition. Yeah. Well,

1189
01:13:14,000 --> 01:13:16,800
Speaker 1: and what I will say is I wish that there

1190
01:13:16,840 --> 01:13:19,240
Speaker 1: were more people in your position who thought about it

1191
01:13:19,320 --> 01:13:21,599
Speaker 1: in the way that you did. I think that there's

1192
01:13:21,640 --> 01:13:25,200
Speaker 1: a reason, you know, when when we see a documentary

1193
01:13:25,240 --> 01:13:28,439
Speaker 1: like the Panama Papers and we see how so many

1194
01:13:28,600 --> 01:13:32,560
Speaker 1: people who do make it big in that way and

1195
01:13:32,600 --> 01:13:36,000
Speaker 1: there are so few you know, how they funnel money

1196
01:13:36,040 --> 01:13:39,400
Speaker 1: out of the country or evade taxes or you know,

1197
01:13:40,479 --> 01:13:43,479
Speaker 1: and look, I think Amazon has changed the world and

1198
01:13:43,560 --> 01:13:45,400
Speaker 1: done a lot of good things for a lot of people.

1199
01:13:45,560 --> 01:13:49,280
Speaker 1: But also it's hard to know that Amazon employees don't

1200
01:13:49,320 --> 01:13:53,400
Speaker 1: get paid living wages and don't have health care. You are,

1201
01:13:53,840 --> 01:13:56,840
Speaker 1: I believe in in that sort of upper echelon of

1202
01:13:57,000 --> 01:14:03,439
Speaker 1: people who have made these enormous, you know, successes, success

1203
01:14:03,520 --> 01:14:06,920
Speaker 1: stories for themselves. You you should be the model. That's

1204
01:14:06,960 --> 01:14:09,200
Speaker 1: how I feel about it. I think, I think it's

1205
01:14:09,200 --> 01:14:11,840
Speaker 1: an incredible thing to be self made in my own

1206
01:14:12,000 --> 01:14:14,400
Speaker 1: right as a person in entertainment. I am. I didn't

1207
01:14:14,400 --> 01:14:16,880
Speaker 1: have a leg up anywhere, you know, I made a career.

1208
01:14:17,520 --> 01:14:21,680
Speaker 1: But when I think about making it to that percentile

1209
01:14:21,720 --> 01:14:26,280
Speaker 1: of a percentile of you know, the super wealthy, I

1210
01:14:27,600 --> 01:14:30,439
Speaker 1: you're the there's a reason that you're the billionaires coming

1211
01:14:30,479 --> 01:14:33,240
Speaker 1: on my show, and I wish that we could use

1212
01:14:33,360 --> 01:14:35,880
Speaker 1: you as a test case for every other person who's

1213
01:14:36,200 --> 01:14:40,760
Speaker 1: who's made something so substantial and say do it this way,

1214
01:14:41,160 --> 01:14:42,800
Speaker 1: you know, if you're worth a billion dollars or you

1215
01:14:42,880 --> 01:14:45,439
Speaker 1: going to commit ten percent of your money you know,

1216
01:14:45,640 --> 01:14:48,320
Speaker 1: and more. I'm sure behind the scenes past what you've

1217
01:14:48,360 --> 01:14:52,000
Speaker 1: talked to us about about this seventy million dollars invested here, Like,

1218
01:14:52,320 --> 01:14:54,639
Speaker 1: are you really going to come in and commit? Because

1219
01:14:54,800 --> 01:14:57,360
Speaker 1: there's also a reality that there's a cost of these things.

1220
01:14:57,439 --> 01:14:59,719
Speaker 1: People forget that. If you know you have a company

1221
01:14:59,760 --> 01:15:02,200
Speaker 1: where a billion dollars, well there's a lot of costs

1222
01:15:02,320 --> 01:15:05,599
Speaker 1: to paying your employees and paying for formulation and having

1223
01:15:05,880 --> 01:15:10,920
Speaker 1: I get that, but again, I I want people. I

1224
01:15:11,000 --> 01:15:13,400
Speaker 1: want people to take a page from your book. Well,

1225
01:15:13,479 --> 01:15:16,080
Speaker 1: thank you, well I and I just wrote the book

1226
01:15:16,160 --> 01:15:19,680
Speaker 1: called The Power of Rare, which is a blueprint for

1227
01:15:19,800 --> 01:15:23,800
Speaker 1: medical revolution, which people asking me, how did you do

1228
01:15:23,960 --> 01:15:26,680
Speaker 1: what you did? How do you do it? Again in

1229
01:15:26,760 --> 01:15:30,400
Speaker 1: that same vein of just wanting to, you know, educate

1230
01:15:30,560 --> 01:15:33,040
Speaker 1: and say if I did it, you did it, here's how.

1231
01:15:33,320 --> 01:15:36,960
Speaker 1: So the book really is the blueprint of the power

1232
01:15:37,040 --> 01:15:41,519
Speaker 1: of rare, of how you can do this. And honestly,

1233
01:15:41,680 --> 01:15:44,599
Speaker 1: what I was standing when I was at the Vatican,

1234
01:15:44,920 --> 01:15:47,840
Speaker 1: which took everything for me to get there because as

1235
01:15:47,880 --> 01:15:50,840
Speaker 1: I've said, I don't like to fly, but you know, hey,

1236
01:15:51,280 --> 01:15:55,280
Speaker 1: it's the Pope to stand there and watched them show

1237
01:15:55,400 --> 01:15:59,160
Speaker 1: clips of my infomercial, which was so surreal in itself,

1238
01:15:59,320 --> 01:16:01,439
Speaker 1: you know, to see some of your informercial playing at

1239
01:16:01,479 --> 01:16:06,479
Speaker 1: the Vatican, but too just to be acknowledged in that

1240
01:16:06,600 --> 01:16:09,000
Speaker 1: way because I am somebody who just puts my head

1241
01:16:09,080 --> 01:16:13,120
Speaker 1: down and do the work. Um, And whether it's Gloria Stein,

1242
01:16:13,200 --> 01:16:18,160
Speaker 1: I'm standing there giving me that award, it's all been extraordinary.

1243
01:16:18,200 --> 01:16:20,760
Speaker 1: I mean I I had the privilege of you know,

1244
01:16:20,840 --> 01:16:23,280
Speaker 1: you talked about two thousand seventeen and eighteen, but two

1245
01:16:23,360 --> 01:16:27,120
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen this year I inducted our Supreme Court Justice

1246
01:16:27,439 --> 01:16:31,040
Speaker 1: uh uh Sonya Soto Mayora into the National Women's Hall

1247
01:16:31,040 --> 01:16:34,120
Speaker 1: of Fame. And I think of all the things that

1248
01:16:35,360 --> 01:16:39,880
Speaker 1: this has led, where the places it's taken me. But

1249
01:16:40,720 --> 01:16:44,720
Speaker 1: if anything, it's it's what you're saying, Sophia, I want

1250
01:16:44,800 --> 01:16:47,800
Speaker 1: to just if I can just lead by example and

1251
01:16:48,040 --> 01:16:51,639
Speaker 1: have people see what you can do. Because when people

1252
01:16:51,720 --> 01:16:54,200
Speaker 1: still say to me, did you ever think that doing

1253
01:16:54,280 --> 01:16:56,160
Speaker 1: this is going to now make a difference in the

1254
01:16:56,240 --> 01:16:59,760
Speaker 1: world of MS or in lupus and changing how we

1255
01:17:00,120 --> 01:17:03,800
Speaker 1: get research and how things are done. You know, as

1256
01:17:03,920 --> 01:17:07,120
Speaker 1: the little makeup artist who wasn't sure and didn't graduate

1257
01:17:07,240 --> 01:17:10,760
Speaker 1: high school and didn't go to college. I didn't I

1258
01:17:10,880 --> 01:17:12,920
Speaker 1: didn't expect any of that. But all I know is

1259
01:17:13,000 --> 01:17:15,160
Speaker 1: what I did is I put my head down, I

1260
01:17:15,240 --> 01:17:20,280
Speaker 1: did the work, and I just want to be helpful

1261
01:17:20,680 --> 01:17:23,960
Speaker 1: and honestly, I wanted to save my daughter and I

1262
01:17:24,160 --> 01:17:27,520
Speaker 1: do truly believe with the power of love and intention,

1263
01:17:27,680 --> 01:17:30,920
Speaker 1: there's nothing you can't do in this world. I love that.

1264
01:17:31,920 --> 01:17:36,040
Speaker 1: Do you have plans to go after more diseases? Uh?

1265
01:17:36,200 --> 01:17:38,800
Speaker 1: My husband asks me that from time to time ago,

1266
01:17:38,880 --> 01:17:40,280
Speaker 1: So what are you gonna do now that you know

1267
01:17:40,560 --> 01:17:44,960
Speaker 1: you're curing this? Um? I have been approached. UM. You

1268
01:17:45,080 --> 01:17:47,599
Speaker 1: know the world of autoimmune disease as I says it's

1269
01:17:47,640 --> 01:17:52,960
Speaker 1: going to be Are it already? Is faster pass cancer?

1270
01:17:53,360 --> 01:17:58,920
Speaker 1: And is you know, how can what I've done help affect?

1271
01:17:59,000 --> 01:18:02,240
Speaker 1: And looking at the landscape of automoon disease. So I'm

1272
01:18:02,280 --> 01:18:04,519
Speaker 1: looking at that because people go would be shamed all

1273
01:18:04,560 --> 01:18:07,360
Speaker 1: the work that you've done and all the connectivity. And

1274
01:18:08,320 --> 01:18:11,839
Speaker 1: you know, I work with Verily Life Sciences at Google.

1275
01:18:12,000 --> 01:18:13,600
Speaker 1: I have a lot of you know, I work with

1276
01:18:13,680 --> 01:18:17,120
Speaker 1: a lot of different pharmaceutical companies, and I really do

1277
01:18:17,360 --> 01:18:21,240
Speaker 1: like being, even with the FDA now, being that bridge

1278
01:18:21,320 --> 01:18:26,439
Speaker 1: between patients, you know, advocating for them and also working

1279
01:18:26,560 --> 01:18:30,320
Speaker 1: with these pharmaceutical companies because you really you can't make

1280
01:18:30,400 --> 01:18:33,479
Speaker 1: any one person the enemy or you just aren't going

1281
01:18:33,520 --> 01:18:37,479
Speaker 1: to get there. So I really am very good at

1282
01:18:38,000 --> 01:18:42,800
Speaker 1: building bridges and just keeping that communication going. So if

1283
01:18:42,880 --> 01:18:45,880
Speaker 1: I can take what I've learned and what I've done

1284
01:18:46,120 --> 01:18:51,040
Speaker 1: and the resources that I have, I probably will go on.

1285
01:18:51,640 --> 01:18:55,840
Speaker 1: But I should also say that I'm I won't say who,

1286
01:18:55,920 --> 01:18:59,200
Speaker 1: but I'm also doubling back in the world of beauty

1287
01:18:59,320 --> 01:19:04,920
Speaker 1: and doing some things that you know, I enjoy doing

1288
01:19:05,040 --> 01:19:09,000
Speaker 1: and we'll be doing for some other people coming out

1289
01:19:09,080 --> 01:19:14,240
Speaker 1: with their own products. So very exciting. There's a lot

1290
01:19:14,320 --> 01:19:17,439
Speaker 1: on the horizon for you. There's a lot on the horizon.

1291
01:19:17,720 --> 01:19:21,200
Speaker 1: And as they said, I've got two other children that

1292
01:19:21,479 --> 01:19:25,800
Speaker 1: I love and adore, two boys, and one is an

1293
01:19:25,880 --> 01:19:31,280
Speaker 1: aspiring singer songwriter and the other is uh a wonderful

1294
01:19:31,479 --> 01:19:35,560
Speaker 1: dad living in Portland with now two two grandkids that

1295
01:19:35,680 --> 01:19:39,880
Speaker 1: I have. So I have a wonderful family and I'm

1296
01:19:39,920 --> 01:19:43,080
Speaker 1: excited to, you know, just have some some time with them,

1297
01:19:43,560 --> 01:19:46,280
Speaker 1: because a mission like this takes up a lot of

1298
01:19:46,360 --> 01:19:50,040
Speaker 1: your time, I imagine. So my last question for you,

1299
01:19:50,200 --> 01:19:53,080
Speaker 1: and that I ask everyone. The podcast is called work

1300
01:19:53,120 --> 01:19:55,719
Speaker 1: in progress, and I'm curious when you hear the phrase,

1301
01:19:55,800 --> 01:19:57,839
Speaker 1: what comes up for you as a work in progress

1302
01:19:57,880 --> 01:20:01,600
Speaker 1: in your life? Gosh? I mean, that's so spot on

1303
01:20:02,120 --> 01:20:05,160
Speaker 1: for me because I always look at I'm a work

1304
01:20:05,560 --> 01:20:11,040
Speaker 1: in progress, and I don't think I've ever been anybody

1305
01:20:11,120 --> 01:20:15,600
Speaker 1: to sit back and go, oh, yeah, I'm there. So

1306
01:20:16,720 --> 01:20:19,919
Speaker 1: you know, part of that me that seeking and searching

1307
01:20:20,800 --> 01:20:25,400
Speaker 1: will continue to do that, but I I hope to

1308
01:20:25,520 --> 01:20:30,080
Speaker 1: do it with a little less burden and a little

1309
01:20:30,160 --> 01:20:34,519
Speaker 1: less heavy heart and a little freer in spirit, sooner

1310
01:20:34,640 --> 01:20:38,680
Speaker 1: than later. I love that. Thank you so much, Thank you.

1311
01:20:43,760 --> 01:20:46,880
Speaker 1: This show is executive produced by Me, Sophia Bush, and

1312
01:20:47,000 --> 01:20:51,760
Speaker 1: sim Sarna. Our supervising producer is Alison Bresnick. Our associate

1313
01:20:51,800 --> 01:20:54,760
Speaker 1: producer is Cate lin Lee. This episode was edited by

1314
01:20:54,840 --> 01:20:58,240
Speaker 1: Matt Sasaki and our music was written by Jack Garrett

1315
01:20:58,280 --> 01:21:00,680
Speaker 1: and produced by Mark Foster. A show is brought to

1316
01:21:00,720 --> 01:21:01,879
Speaker 1: you by a brilliant anatomy