Speaker 1: My life changed when Ali was diagnosed at fourteen. She's
Speaker 1: saying she has an eyeball headache, and I'm thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, you know, and she says her vision's
Speaker 1: getting a little fuzzy, and I'm just thinking, well, I'm
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure it's nothing. We'll go see the
Speaker 1: eye doctor, will get you some drops. And ultimately the
Speaker 1: neurologist is doing a series of tests, wanted to do
Speaker 1: a spinal tap, a lumbar puncture, and I'm like, why, Like,
Speaker 1: she's just got something going on with her eyes. What
Speaker 1: are you all doing? You know? And so when they
Speaker 1: called with the results, they basically told myself and my
Speaker 1: husband that she had four years to live.
Speaker 2: Before we jump into this episode, I'd like to invite
Speaker 2: you to join this community to hear more interviews that
Speaker 2: will help you become happier, healthier, and more healed. All
Speaker 2: I want you to do is click on the subscribe button.
Speaker 2: I love your support. It's incredible to see all your
Speaker 2: comments and we're just getting started. I can't wait to
Speaker 2: go on this journey with you. Thank you so much
Speaker 2: for subscribing. It means the world to me.
Speaker 3: The number one health and well in the Five.
Speaker 2: Jay Sheeddi, Jay, Shenny j J. Hey everyone, welcome back
Speaker 2: to On Purpose, the number one health and wellness podcast
Speaker 2: in the world. Thanks to each and every one of
Speaker 2: you that come back every week to become happier, healthier,
Speaker 2: and more healed. And that's our mission here to introduce
Speaker 2: you to thought leaders, teachers, academics, experts, celebrities, athletes who
Speaker 2: are all trying to make the world happier, healthier, and
Speaker 2: more healed. Today's guest has been dedicated to that in
Speaker 2: a personal way and in their own mission. I'm excited
Speaker 2: to introduce you to a dear friend of mine who
Speaker 2: I've been wanting to have on the show for a
Speaker 2: very long time. We've had some beautiful conversations offline. I've
Speaker 2: really got to know her heart and her soul more
Speaker 2: than anything, and I'm honored today to get to introduce
Speaker 2: you to her. Her name is Victoria Jackson, who has
Speaker 2: known previously as a cosmetics entrepreneur but transformed into a
Speaker 2: medical research trailblazer and Women's Hall of Fame inductee. Victoria
Speaker 2: founded the global powerhouse brand Victoria Jackson Cosmetics. She and
Speaker 2: her husband Bill Guthy, founder of the marketing behemoth, Guthy
Speaker 2: Renker established the Gutthy Jackson Charitable Foundation to fund research
Speaker 2: on NMO treatments and a potential cure. Victoria's unrelenting determination
Speaker 2: proved effective. In twenty sixteen, the foundation developed the first
Speaker 2: ever NMO therapeutic and soon after three therapies received FDA approval.
Speaker 2: The unprecedented pace of the accomplishments that her and her
Speaker 2: affiliations have had are absolutely phenomenal. And I welcome you
Speaker 2: to the show. Victoria Jackson and the author of two
Speaker 2: incredible books that I highly recommend, Saving each Other, which
Speaker 2: of course will be diving in today, and this book,
Speaker 2: The Power of Rare a Blueprint for a medical revolution.
Speaker 2: Please go and grab both of these books. You're going
Speaker 2: to be hearing about the insights from both of them
Speaker 2: in this conversation. And Victoria, welcome to on Purpose.
Speaker 1: Thank you. It is so nice to be here. I've
Speaker 1: been just waiting for the opportunity to talk to you.
Speaker 1: I'm I'M a big manifesto, and so when I started
Speaker 1: listening to you, Jay, I was so inspired honestly that
Speaker 1: I just was like, I've got it. There's going to
Speaker 1: be a time I'm sitting across from him. We're having
Speaker 1: this conversation. So thank you so much.
Speaker 2: I love that. And our parts have just crossed so organically.
Speaker 2: We have a lot of mutual friends and we bumped
Speaker 2: into each other ages ago at this great fundraiser that
Speaker 2: Ellen did called Gorilla Paluzza, which was to raise money
Speaker 2: for the Diane Fosse and Ellen Degenero's fund.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great, incredible what she's doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've not it's amazing. I got to go out
Speaker 2: with them last year and it was unbelievable. But we
Speaker 2: met there, yes, and you were one of these people,
Speaker 2: and I just want the audience to know like you
Speaker 2: were one of these people that instantly was talking to
Speaker 2: me from your heart and I felt it. Then you
Speaker 2: were arranging for me to go and meet the Pope
Speaker 2: the next thing I knew, and it didn't happen because
Speaker 2: of the pandemic, but I was so grateful to you
Speaker 2: for even helping that invite come along my way, and
Speaker 2: I hope I get to do that in the future
Speaker 2: one and honor thanks to you. And I had that
Speaker 2: very special invite to go to the Vatican, which, of course,
Speaker 2: through to the pandemic, didn't happen, and then we've had
Speaker 2: these wonderful connections, even with your daughter and your home
Speaker 2: and anyway, so many different things. But I feel like
Speaker 2: your journey is truly unique and incredible in so many ways.
Speaker 2: And I want to start off with a question of
Speaker 2: what is your earliest memory from childhood of your own
Speaker 2: childhood that stays with you or that is the immediate
Speaker 2: flashback when you think to being a child.
Speaker 1: You know, I always think about how I felt like
Speaker 1: I was always different. I say that I was born early.
Speaker 1: I was born in the six and a half and
Speaker 1: so I lived in the hospital for three months before
Speaker 1: I even came home. So I think, because I've always
Speaker 1: struggled so much with anxiety and worry and you know,
Speaker 1: all of that, I think I was sort of born
Speaker 1: early to get a head start on all of it.
Speaker 1: So when I think of my early years, I really
Speaker 1: think of, you know, a young person that was really
Speaker 1: struggling and just trying to really find her place in
Speaker 1: the world. And seem like since I did come in
Speaker 1: early and was struggling just to sort of make it
Speaker 1: through in those very very early times. Because this is
Speaker 1: going back a while, and you know, now, I know
Speaker 1: for you know, premies. They have a lot more technology
Speaker 1: than they did then. But I've always been in survival mode,
Speaker 1: I think, my whole life. So I think that's what
Speaker 1: I think about, is this little person that came into
Speaker 1: the world and has been in that mode ever since
Speaker 1: pretty much.
Speaker 2: Do you think that the struggles that you had have
Speaker 2: changed towards the struggles that young people have today or
Speaker 2: do you think that they're the same thing that just
Speaker 2: differently experienced.
Speaker 1: I think they're definitely. I think they're the same thing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, obviously I wasn't dealing with social
Speaker 1: media and things, but you know, school was social media.
Speaker 1: You know, your friends, I mean, so they were all
Speaker 1: You're still trying to figure out your way in the world.
Speaker 1: So I think it may look different now, But I
Speaker 1: think that's probably why even in raising kids, I understand
Speaker 1: my kids can talk to them on a level of
Speaker 1: understanding whatever anxiety they're going through, but it's just it's
Speaker 1: just put out on a different stage now and much
Speaker 1: bigger stage, and so that makes it a little more difficult.
Speaker 2: What was the thing you were most anxious about growing up?
Speaker 2: What was the thing that kept you up at night
Speaker 2: that made you uncomfortable that made you nervous? What was that?
Speaker 1: You know? For me, it was I think because I
Speaker 1: had parents that were young and trying to figure it
Speaker 1: out and ultimately got divorced. There there wasn't I didn't
Speaker 1: feel a lot of love. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: even my mom would be the first to say she,
Speaker 1: you know, having a child that was in the hospital
Speaker 1: right away and she's so young, she didn't really know
Speaker 1: how to you know, bond with me. And I think
Speaker 1: that was tough. So I was somebody that was always
Speaker 1: seeking approval and looking for that love and just trying
Speaker 1: to figure out who I was. And I always had
Speaker 1: this really haunting feeling that something was going to happen
Speaker 1: to me, that there was just somebody was going to
Speaker 1: get me, something was going to happen. It was just
Speaker 1: something that I remember early on just feeling in a
Speaker 1: unique way.
Speaker 2: And how did you process that? Like what was your antidote?
Speaker 1: Or I mean, I think there's times you're thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: am I special? Is there a reason I'm here? But
Speaker 1: it just manifested in a lot of anxiety, and so
Speaker 1: you know, you're always just feeling like there's some shoe
Speaker 1: that's going to drop or something that's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And I lived a lot of my early years like that,
Speaker 1: as I kind of keep going back to finding my way.
Speaker 2: It's interesting how every teenager goes through this phase of
Speaker 2: finding our way, and then often we either get stuck
Speaker 2: in a way that our parents expected or society expected,
Speaker 2: or we fall into something, or we continue to find
Speaker 2: our way. And sometimes you're in your thirties or your
Speaker 2: forties and you're still trying to find your way and
Speaker 2: you kind of feel out of place because everyone else
Speaker 2: has stability. But I could definitely attest to that. I
Speaker 2: felt in my teens, I was trying to fit in
Speaker 2: and I was trying to find my way, and I
Speaker 2: was anxious about did people think I was in with
Speaker 2: the crowd? And you know, and I think we all
Speaker 2: go through this. What was really interesting for me was
Speaker 2: I think I've kept trying to find my way, which
Speaker 2: is why I've lived so many different lives, because I've
Speaker 2: never wanted to not take a step forward. What did
Speaker 2: you imagine would be your first career path or what
Speaker 2: did you imagine would be your first venture and what
Speaker 2: did it end up being?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, as I'm even just in here talking
Speaker 1: to you, and I'm looking at a microphone that says
Speaker 1: on purpose. Purpose was always a big thing. Even when
Speaker 1: I was young, I was thinking like whether it was
Speaker 1: why am I here? Or what is the way? It
Speaker 1: was sort of like what is my purpose? And I
Speaker 1: didn't really have a skill set that I could sort
Speaker 1: of point to other than I'd probably say early on,
Speaker 1: I recognized that I was more of a creative.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I definitely wasn't going to be the academic. I ended
Speaker 1: up sort of, you know, ditching school a lot due
Speaker 1: to a lot of kind of unsettling things at home.
Speaker 1: And so I was, you know, trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what was the way that I was going to really
Speaker 1: express myself and knowing that I didn't come from a
Speaker 1: family that had money, so I was going to have
Speaker 1: to figure that out for myself. But I knew that
Speaker 1: I was creative, and it probably I started doing makeup,
Speaker 1: And I think when I started doing my own makeup,
Speaker 1: doing friends makeup, I thought I genuinely because I struggle
Speaker 1: with such low self esteem. I mean, it's gotten a
Speaker 1: lot better over the years. And I've written, you know,
Speaker 1: two prior books before these, Redefining Beauty and make up
Speaker 1: your life all about self esteem and looking and feeling better.
Speaker 1: And I really thought once I started to make up
Speaker 1: people and give them this sense of like they looked
Speaker 1: better and felt better, I had some passion around that.
Speaker 1: It was something that I thought, Oh, this is a
Speaker 1: skill set that I can really perfect. And you know,
Speaker 1: I love the idea and I'm the kind of person
Speaker 1: if I can do it, then I want to show
Speaker 1: everybody how to do it. It's like, oh, if I
Speaker 1: can do this, you can do this, and here's how.
Speaker 2: So if social media existed, you would have been one
Speaker 2: of the first beauty influences. That's what would have happened,
Speaker 2: because makeup was one of the big things that took
Speaker 2: off on social media in the early days.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, that's how my infomercials were so successful because I
Speaker 1: was actually teaching you on my DVDs how you could
Speaker 1: actually do your makeup, you know, from start to finish.
Speaker 1: So that's what I was doing. I was putting all
Speaker 1: the cosmetics together, here's how to use them. Long before
Speaker 1: I was I had my own radio show before there
Speaker 1: were podcasts where I was doing makeovers on the radio,
Speaker 1: and they said, if you can actually get people to
Speaker 1: call in and do a makeover on the radio. You
Speaker 1: can have the airtime. So yeah, this was the early days,
Speaker 1: and I love that. I love the teaching aspect of it.
Speaker 2: What gave you the confidence? I think what's really fascinating
Speaker 2: about that is you're a young person with low self esteem.
Speaker 2: You're confused about who you are, you have anxiety, but
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, you feel I'm passionate about
Speaker 2: makeup and actually I feel confident to teach others or
Speaker 2: share that. How does that switch happen? Because I think
Speaker 2: so many of our listeners are in that position right
Speaker 2: now where they feel anxious. Maybe some of them have
Speaker 2: imposter syndrome. Maybe some of them are listening and they're going, Jay,
Speaker 2: I just don't know where to see star. Or maybe
Speaker 2: I know what my passion is, but I'm not good enough.
Speaker 2: And you know, we have this lack of belief in ourselves. Yeah,
Speaker 2: how did you switch from an anxious to I actually
Speaker 2: like teaching and sharing. Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well, by the way, while I was teaching and sharing,
Speaker 1: I was also anxious, So I managed to pull double
Speaker 1: duty at the same time. I just went for it,
Speaker 1: you know. So for me, for example, I wanted to
Speaker 1: get in the world of makeup. If you were to
Speaker 1: look at my portfolio and go through my very early early,
Speaker 1: you know, photographs of makeup. Not the best makeup in
Speaker 1: the world, you know, so like I had to learn
Speaker 1: it and perfect it, and you know, I had the
Speaker 1: eye for it, but I had to now really hone
Speaker 1: my skill set to match what my eyes were seeing,
Speaker 1: and ultimately came up which was my concept of the
Speaker 1: no makeup makeup as the original person sort of doing
Speaker 1: that in the in the late eighties when everybody had
Speaker 1: on tons of makeup.
Speaker 2: Explain that to us, break that down for people who
Speaker 2: who may not have either been around or not know
Speaker 2: fully what that was in the beginning. Yeah, because I
Speaker 2: think yet.
Speaker 1: In the eighties, you think about like shoulder pads and
Speaker 1: the music videos that were out there, and there was
Speaker 1: a lot of makeup. And my whole thing was and
Speaker 1: there really wasn't even a makeup that existed at the time.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about just even a foundation, a base color
Speaker 1: that you use on your skin now to even out
Speaker 1: your skin tone that was more natural. Everything was these
Speaker 1: kind of crazy tones or pinks or oranges, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to just help women look beautiful, look great, but
Speaker 1: without feeling like they had makeup on, so that they
Speaker 1: could really look like themselves and not use it as
Speaker 1: war paint or a way to necessarily be someone else,
Speaker 1: but just feel confident in themselves. And so I had
Speaker 1: no idea how to actually create makeup, So I just
Speaker 1: started as a makeup artist. I started mixing in my
Speaker 1: garage pots and pants and making up concoctions that I
Speaker 1: would use on my makeup jobs. And that's really how
Speaker 1: I started.
Speaker 2: That. What I love about that, you know, one everyone
Speaker 2: who's listening and watching to know this is that the
Speaker 2: first time you do anything, it won't be that great
Speaker 2: and it's okay, And it's good to know that. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of us think, well, before I do something,
Speaker 2: I've got to have the perfect name, have the perfect branding,
Speaker 2: have the perfect product, have the perfect service. And the
Speaker 2: truth is, ninety veen percent of the time, the first
Speaker 2: thing you put out there is never going to be
Speaker 2: that great. If you look at the first version of
Speaker 2: Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat or anything we use today,
Speaker 2: the first version of Amazon, the first version of makeup.
Speaker 2: If you look at all of the first versions, they
Speaker 2: weren't that great. And I think a lot of us.
Speaker 2: We're kind of knocking up against that, going, I want
Speaker 2: to put something perfect out before we've even made any progress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you have to just you have to just
Speaker 1: have patience with yourself and patience with the project, but
Speaker 1: you have the process, but you have to just be
Speaker 1: willing to even put yourself out there and try. For me,
Speaker 1: I was like, I want to do make up. I
Speaker 1: want to you know, do for magines and things like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: how do I start contacting photographers and building a portfolio
Speaker 1: and just be willing to you know, even women And
Speaker 1: they'd be so afraid to do their makeup. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: what's the worst that's going to happen. You're not going
Speaker 1: to like it, you wash it off, you know. So
Speaker 1: I did twenty years of going to the jails, twenty
Speaker 1: years of going into the jails and doing makeup for
Speaker 1: women there where. Think about it where I would say
Speaker 1: women would be I'd go, what do you want your
Speaker 1: makeup to say? And I'd have women go I want
Speaker 1: my makeup to say pull over. You know, like a
Speaker 1: lot of women that were you know, working the streets
Speaker 1: or whatever. And I'd be like, Okay, let's change the
Speaker 1: message on that let's talk about you know, self respect,
Speaker 1: and I would see the energy of hundreds of gals
Speaker 1: in there that were, you know, really ready to hear something,
Speaker 1: and how it just evened out, leveled out the room
Speaker 1: with people that when they saw themselves kind of a
Speaker 1: before and after or it really changed the whole energy.
Speaker 1: So I got really passionate about this whole thing I
Speaker 1: ultimately called the power of mascara and looking better and
Speaker 1: feeling better about yourself. But it was all, you know,
Speaker 1: as I'm teaching it, I'm learning as well, and I've
Speaker 1: been I think, you know, due to an incident that
Speaker 1: happened when I was really young, sort of going back
Speaker 1: to that thinking something really bad was going to happen
Speaker 1: to me. I was one of the early victims in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three of the Pillowcase rapist, and that left
Speaker 1: me with, you know, obviously a lot of emotional scars
Speaker 1: and things that I've spent a lifetime working on, but
Speaker 1: very claustrophobic. So then going to the jails for twenty
Speaker 1: years was very claustrophobic to put yourself in a very
Speaker 1: uncomfortable situation to you know, have to. But I was
Speaker 1: there because I really believed in what I was doing
Speaker 1: in the message, and it really was very instrumental and
Speaker 1: helpful and in the other parts of my life. As
Speaker 1: I say, as you talked about mascara to medicine that
Speaker 1: were really important.
Speaker 2: Hey guys, it's Jay Sheddy here and I couldn't be
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Speaker 2: I'm glad you brought that up because we've spoken about
Speaker 2: that offline before. Could you walk us through and explain
Speaker 2: a bit more about the Pillowcuse rapist, just to get
Speaker 2: a sense of who that was, what that was, etc.
Speaker 2: To get a sense of and exactly the experience you had,
Speaker 2: Because I just I want people to have that context
Speaker 2: when we're looking at the rest of your life and
Speaker 2: the rest of your story as we dive in today,
Speaker 2: because if someone's unaware, it can be easy to look
Speaker 2: at your journey. And I think we do this a
Speaker 2: lot today where we look at a snapshot of someone's
Speaker 2: life and we think, well, they've done it all, they've
Speaker 2: made it, they've achieved it, they shouldn't have anything to
Speaker 2: worry about. And then when you kind of look at
Speaker 2: someone's life in full perspective, you recognize there's so much
Speaker 2: more to it. I often give the analogy to people
Speaker 2: if if you walk into a movie halfway and you
Speaker 2: see someone's life, you might think they have the best
Speaker 2: life in the world. If you didn't see the start
Speaker 2: of the movie and then the end of the movie,
Speaker 2: you don't really know their full picture. So for that reason,
Speaker 2: I'd love for you to shed some light in context
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're exactly right. I mean, there's this
Speaker 1: snapshot and then there's the film, and I think in
Speaker 1: my early mind, in the reel of the film, that
Speaker 1: was probably playing in my head, and as I said,
Speaker 1: feeling like there was a reason that I was here
Speaker 1: and that purpose. And if somebody would have told me
Speaker 1: that ultimately I'd be getting drugs make and working to
Speaker 1: cure a disease and finding a cure for a disease,
Speaker 1: I would have never believed it. But I did always
Speaker 1: have that feeling of somebody, as I said, that was
Speaker 1: going to get me. And to put a little context
Speaker 1: to California has had, there was the pillowcase rapists in
Speaker 1: the seventies, and then as if we all needed another
Speaker 1: pillowcase rapist, there's been another one since. But the pillowcase
Speaker 1: rapist that unfortunately was involved in my early days in life,
Speaker 1: came into the house when my whole family was home.
Speaker 1: We lived in a duplex, was actually in West Hollywood.
Speaker 1: As again I used to because I felt I was
Speaker 1: always a target of potentially something. I would get teased
Speaker 1: a little bit, and I had an older brother that
Speaker 1: would sometimes tease me, and so he's a very nice guy,
Speaker 1: but sometimes you know, people just I think nobody ever
Speaker 1: thought that anything was going to happen to me. And
Speaker 1: one night when I came home, it's that sort of
Speaker 1: really scary scene you see in a movie where you're
Speaker 1: in your room, and I had the room off the
Speaker 1: back of the house and I look up in the
Speaker 1: mirror and I see somebody right behind me, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's that awful thing, and you're like in a
Speaker 1: ski mask holding something with it looked like a dish
Speaker 1: rag hanging over it. And I thought it was my brother,
Speaker 1: maybe playing a joke. And I turn around and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, what are you doing? And I heard in
Speaker 1: a voice that I knew was completely unrecognizable to me
Speaker 1: when somebody says, don't move that it was not a
Speaker 1: good thing. At that point, I thought, since my whole
Speaker 1: family was home and it was really late at night,
Speaker 1: I thought I was really the last victim and that
Speaker 1: he had, you know, killed my entire family and I
Speaker 1: was the last one. And without going into all the
Speaker 1: horrible details of it, it was definitely a situation where
Speaker 1: for the first time I really experienced that disassociation going
Speaker 1: out of body where I made a really conscious which
Speaker 1: then kind of goes unconscious decision to be above what
Speaker 1: was happening. To my body and to the situation at
Speaker 1: the time, and obviously thinking about my family, and it
Speaker 1: was like really looking down and I just thought, wow,
Speaker 1: I'm seventeen. I was just about I thought to graduate
Speaker 1: high school. And I thought, I can't believe it ends here,
Speaker 1: you know, like this doesn't feel like the end of
Speaker 1: the story. There's a reason I'm here, and I knew.
Speaker 1: I had a moment where when I saw a part
Speaker 1: of his calling card and trademark is when he had
Speaker 1: me in a position where I could see he was
Speaker 1: pulling the pillowcase off of my pillow. What he did
Speaker 1: was he would then put them over your head and
Speaker 1: he suffocated, and that would be you know, obviously lights
Speaker 1: out for you. And when I saw that as he
Speaker 1: was starting to put it over my head, I really
Speaker 1: made this very decision like I am going to on
Speaker 1: three and you know where you have that where you're
Speaker 1: thinking is that you're so freaked out, like is a
Speaker 1: sound going to come out? Am I going to just
Speaker 1: be screaming in my head? But I was like, on three,
Speaker 1: I'm going to scream, and I'm going to scream really loud,
Speaker 1: and this is either going to be the end of
Speaker 1: me because he did have a knife, and he did
Speaker 1: had stabbed my leg and my stomach and part of
Speaker 1: my face that I thought, well, this could be the end.
Speaker 1: But I just in my head counted to three, and
Speaker 1: on three, I screamed and he dropped the knife. Surprisingly,
Speaker 1: he pulled off his ski mask. I couldn't really identify him,
Speaker 1: but I guess again that another sort of calling card
Speaker 1: that they knew it was him. And he ran out,
Speaker 1: and my door in my bedroom I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes would get stuck and he's like trying to pull
Speaker 1: the get out, and I'm like, oh my gosh. So
Speaker 1: it was just and then obviously I ran upstairs to
Speaker 1: find out that my parents they were asleep. I was
Speaker 1: the only victim in the house because he had come
Speaker 1: in through the put his hand up through the dog
Speaker 1: door that we had. It's you know, we didn't really
Speaker 1: have security in the house per se. Then it was
Speaker 1: really just locked the door, and he had unlocked I
Speaker 1: never have a dog door again, the door, and that's
Speaker 1: how he had gotten in.
Speaker 2: I literally got chows listening to that story because it's
Speaker 2: so you know, it's such a horrific, horrendous thing to
Speaker 2: have to live through and I'm grateful you shared it
Speaker 2: with us. Thank you so much for being vulnerable and
Speaker 2: open and sharing that. How do you not let that
Speaker 2: let you live in fear for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: What's the next thing you do from something like that?
Speaker 2: Because that would be if you didn't do anything, ever,
Speaker 2: it would be completely valid because it's such a painful
Speaker 2: experience to go through. Yeah, how do you respond? How
Speaker 2: do you react? What's the first thing you do after
Speaker 2: something like.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, you know I was hysterical, and I
Speaker 1: was you know, there was the relief of my parents
Speaker 1: and you know, being okay, but you know, there was
Speaker 1: just I knew that I could never go back in
Speaker 1: my house. I left, I didn't graduate high school, and
Speaker 1: you know, I got married, like as soon as I
Speaker 1: turned eighteen. I didn't want to be alone. So for me,
Speaker 1: it really manifested it in fear of being by myself,
Speaker 1: of somebody getting me again. But I also knew that
Speaker 1: there just was a reason that I was here. And
Speaker 1: it was shortly after that actually that that's when I
Speaker 1: started going to the jails and started to do the
Speaker 1: work there because I thought, how does this happen? Like,
Speaker 1: how do people go down these roads. You know, what
Speaker 1: is it that you know makes somebody make the choices
Speaker 1: in their life? And I just knew that for me,
Speaker 1: I wanted to find what it is ultimately that I
Speaker 1: was supposed to be doing. And the closest thing at
Speaker 1: that time, because I wasn't going to be going to
Speaker 1: college because I didn't graduate high school was going to
Speaker 1: beauty school. I thought, I can get a I can
Speaker 1: get my own little scholarship there and go and you know,
Speaker 1: start doing it through the one way that I knew.
Speaker 1: The only skill that I thought I had was in
Speaker 1: this kind of being this creative and wanting to help
Speaker 1: women look and feel better about themselves. So I just
Speaker 1: I started there really with no money and that vision
Speaker 1: and decided that that's that's what I was going to do.
Speaker 2: It's a tough question, but did you get an answer
Speaker 2: when you started visiting the prisons of why people did
Speaker 2: certain things? Did you did you find or discover anything
Speaker 2: or hear anything? And on top of that, did the
Speaker 2: pillar gase rapists go to prison as well?
Speaker 1: Yes, the pillowcase rapist was finally caught in prison and
Speaker 1: he's no longer with us, he's gone, thank goodness. No
Speaker 1: sadness around that for me. So, uh yeah, going to
Speaker 1: the jails, you really see. I mean there were times
Speaker 1: that I would go because after going twenty years and going,
Speaker 1: you know, every other month, that's a lot of visits
Speaker 1: and you hear a lot of different people's stories. And
Speaker 1: I remember going at times where there was a mom,
Speaker 1: a daughter, and a grandmother. They were all there and
Speaker 1: it was just like, Wow, how does this happen? And
Speaker 1: so there was a lot of stories of you know,
Speaker 1: in my mind too, because I didn't want to judge.
Speaker 1: I had to make everybody but like everyone's here as
Speaker 1: a drunk driver, you know, you're sort of like I
Speaker 1: wanted to equalize the room so that even though you're
Speaker 1: maybe seeing the teardrops at the end of somebody eyes
Speaker 1: of you know, maybe what they've done in life. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to judge. I wanted to just stay to
Speaker 1: my to my message, which I could see that doing
Speaker 1: these makeovers and people seeing themselves differently, especially women who
Speaker 1: had maybe had to like crazy eyebrows or whatever it was,
Speaker 1: that it had really sort of changed them into just
Speaker 1: somebody that they looked different, but who they were inside
Speaker 1: was very different. I wanted to get to that, and
Speaker 1: I wanted them to feel that, you know, you may
Speaker 1: be in jail today, but you know, when you get
Speaker 1: out tomorrow or when you get out, you know there's
Speaker 1: a whole new world out there, and there can be
Speaker 1: a whole new you out there. And that was that
Speaker 1: really took on the life of the power of mascara.
Speaker 1: And obviously it was never about selling them my cosmetics
Speaker 1: or anything like that, because I'm very much for women
Speaker 1: and whatever makeup they like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it works absolutely, and I think it's incredible how
Speaker 2: much our appearance does affect our confidence. And I've seen it.
Speaker 2: There are so many of these great videos on social
Speaker 2: media of a lot of hairdressers and barbers going onto
Speaker 2: the streets and doing free cuts for the homeless, and
Speaker 2: you hear their reaction. I've seen some of these videos
Speaker 2: where you hear their reaction before and after and how
Speaker 2: they feel about looking at themselves in the mirror and
Speaker 2: how it can be such a boost for confidence as well. Yes,
Speaker 2: and so that definitely resonates. How did it go from
Speaker 2: being your passion and something that you are so connected
Speaker 2: to as a way of helping people build self esteem
Speaker 2: to then becoming a very successful business. There's lots of
Speaker 2: steps in between. What were some of the key things
Speaker 2: you'd think transformed it from a great small business to
Speaker 2: something quite successful.
Speaker 1: Well, I think basically it's really in the world of
Speaker 1: the no makeup makeup, nothing existed, you know, and especially
Speaker 1: so you think about in you know, when you're in
Speaker 1: the jails again, I was trying to strip down people
Speaker 1: to the essence of who they were, and to me,
Speaker 1: at the core of that is this no makeup makeup
Speaker 1: that's really and so there was nothing in the world
Speaker 1: of say foundations at the time that would be kind
Speaker 1: of the starting point for that. That to me was
Speaker 1: going to be what I built my business around and became.
Speaker 1: You know, I created over six hundred products over the
Speaker 1: course of thirteen years. But my Foundation, which I sold
Speaker 1: millions millions of units of, was just based on more
Speaker 1: natural looking skin tone shades that look like you didn't
Speaker 1: have layers of makeup on. So that really came from
Speaker 1: not only the jobs that I was doing, but from
Speaker 1: all those years of going to the jails and really
Speaker 1: wanting to help women look like themselves and not you know,
Speaker 1: pile on all the makeup. So when I said, as
Speaker 1: I was making these shades and pots and pants in
Speaker 1: my garage. I had to find a cosmetic chemist. You know,
Speaker 1: like at the time you're looking in the Yellow Pages,
Speaker 1: nobody out there knows what the Yellow Pages are, that
Speaker 1: that's a directory that, yeah, exactly, and you're going in.
Speaker 1: I found a cosmetic chemist and said, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to this is what I want to do.
Speaker 1: I want to create these shades, these textures, these fields.
Speaker 1: And I started. And then while I again wanting to
Speaker 1: teach what I do and never having graduated or gone
Speaker 1: to college, I thought, you know what, I want to
Speaker 1: teach this. I'm going to call UCLA. They have an
Speaker 1: extension program. Maybe I could teach some of what I'm
Speaker 1: doing as a Hollywood makeup artist and teach that. I
Speaker 1: did that for ten years as an extension course that
Speaker 1: was again sold out every quarter. People wanted to learn
Speaker 1: how to do it. Whether it was I had so
Speaker 1: many men taking it, you know, guys that maybe just
Speaker 1: wanted to meet gals, you know, and do their makeup,
Speaker 1: but it was another way that I could just see
Speaker 1: people wanted to connect in this way. So I thought,
Speaker 1: this is great. And then through doing that at UCLA,
Speaker 1: one of my students actually said, you know, I know
Speaker 1: this group of guys that are selling products through television,
Speaker 1: and I said, wow, I think I have a great
Speaker 1: idea of how to sell products through TV color cosmetics,
Speaker 1: which no one was doing at the time because this
Speaker 1: is the late eighties and I hadn't really perfected my kit,
Speaker 1: but you know, we do that little bit of that
Speaker 1: fake it till you make it, and act as if
Speaker 1: so when she put me together with the guys, I
Speaker 1: basically said, I have this idea for these color kits,
Speaker 1: you know, peach, pink, and red, and I'll put all
Speaker 1: of the colors and products and things you need together
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to teach you how to do it.
Speaker 1: And basically, that long story short, they decided to roll
Speaker 1: the dice on that and shoot an infomercial, and the
Speaker 1: very infomercial I did with two celebrities at the time,
Speaker 1: Ali McGrath and Lisa Hartman, we started doing a million
Speaker 1: dollars a week in sales. I mean, clearly there was
Speaker 1: an appetite for women wanting to know how to do
Speaker 1: their makeup and feeling that confidence and reassurance that I
Speaker 1: tried to give in my three hour tutorials that you
Speaker 1: never see.
Speaker 2: Now, that's incredible, that's amazing. And did you find that
Speaker 2: building this business and helping these people and helping your
Speaker 2: customers but also women that you met in the prisons,
Speaker 2: did that help how you felt about yourself and what
Speaker 2: you'd been through or was there not a correlation? Was
Speaker 2: healing a part of that, or was healing having to
Speaker 2: happen separate that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, healing is a part of everything. I think we
Speaker 1: all just you know, healing happens, whether sometimes we even
Speaker 1: know it or not. It's on like a cellular level,
Speaker 1: so you know, it's whatever piece of what you're doing
Speaker 1: at the time. I've gone through so many different stages
Speaker 1: of healing because I've gone through so many different experiences,
Speaker 1: as I said, you know, as my life has gone
Speaker 1: from like what I look at in the two parts,
Speaker 1: you know, the mess Scarra to medicine, so it's all
Speaker 1: all of that journey has informed me and my healing
Speaker 1: in so many different ways.
Speaker 2: Did you find that you were saying that your experience
Speaker 2: made you rush into not wanting to be alone and
Speaker 2: obviously got married very young. Did you find that led
Speaker 2: to some codependency which caused challenges in relationships or did
Speaker 2: you actually was that something that you feel your partner
Speaker 2: was good at navigating and dealing with, because I can
Speaker 2: imagine that when you don't want to be alone, and
Speaker 2: of course, based on the traumatic experience that you had,
Speaker 2: it's very valid, but I wonder how that affects the
Speaker 2: other person as well, and how you navigated that, especially
Speaker 2: in the early years.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it started even earlier because I had
Speaker 1: you know, as I said, my parents had a lot
Speaker 1: of problems together, and my biological dad put me up
Speaker 1: for adoption when I was nine years old, so my
Speaker 1: stepdad had adopted me, and so I really very early on,
Speaker 1: i'd say, really never felt, you know, how to have
Speaker 1: a relationship, especially with a father, with a man, and
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm now married, this is my third time,
Speaker 1: So yeah, i'd say, did I have codependent problems? And
Speaker 1: being frightened and you know, being afraid to be alone
Speaker 1: definitely created issues because I was afraid and I was
Speaker 1: still trying to figure out me. And so i'd definitely
Speaker 1: say that's been a theme. And even now I've worked
Speaker 1: really hard, you know, and especially in raising three kids.
Speaker 1: You know, when you have your first child, you really
Speaker 1: have to think about all of your own stuff. And
Speaker 1: there were times where I always say, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't just hang my hat on my son, I hung
Speaker 1: my wardrobe, you know. I mean, you bring a lot
Speaker 1: of your stuff. So it's been really a conscious thing,
Speaker 1: and I think for all of us thinking about how
Speaker 1: the past informs us of what we bring to the table,
Speaker 1: and how we have to navigate our relationships, our love relationships,
Speaker 1: and all of our family relationships. And it can be
Speaker 1: really challenging, and you can become the quote unquote identified
Speaker 1: patient and how you sort of navigate that in your
Speaker 1: world in your life.
Speaker 2: I've often spoken to doctors, to their experts, and they
Speaker 2: talk about how much we need to look at our
Speaker 2: genetic past and our history and our family of health.
Speaker 2: And it's so interesting how on the physical level that's true,
Speaker 2: and it's true on the emotional level as well. But
Speaker 2: sometimes it can be so hard to look at the
Speaker 2: emotional background of our family and how it's affected us,
Speaker 2: because a lot of us go through life believing that
Speaker 2: our parents are super human. In the beginning, some of
Speaker 2: us feel that way for a long, long long time,
Speaker 2: and it's almost like the earlier we've recognized that our
Speaker 2: parents are humans just like we are, and we all
Speaker 2: have challenges and flaws that sometimes the healthier conversations and
Speaker 2: connection we can have with them as well. Your journey
Speaker 2: with your children has been a labor of love in
Speaker 2: so many ways. And I want to talk about Ali,
Speaker 2: who I had the pleasure of meeting, who you know
Speaker 2: is your co author on this book, yes, and has
Speaker 2: been at the core of your journey and connection to
Speaker 2: the medical world, from mascara to medicine and looking into
Speaker 2: that world for you. As you said earlier, you were like,
Speaker 2: I didn't really feel like I was loved in that way.
Speaker 2: Walk me through what it feels like when your daughter,
Speaker 2: who you love so deeply gets diagnosed with an illness
Speaker 2: that is very rare, and on top of that, you
Speaker 2: here she doesn't have very long to live. Oh, I
Speaker 2: just can't imagine. I'm not a parent, but I can't imagine. Therefore,
Speaker 2: I can't imagine what that feels like. Can you walk
Speaker 2: us through what that moment feels like when you've raised
Speaker 2: someone for what fourteen years?
Speaker 1: And you know, yeah, I mean my life changed, you know,
Speaker 1: my life changed when Ali was you know, I have
Speaker 1: three children, and when Ali was diagnosed at fourteen, you
Speaker 1: know where, you know, completely healthy, fine, and you know,
Speaker 1: we're going to a premier, a premiere of a movie.
Speaker 1: We're going to go see something. And she's saying she
Speaker 1: has an eyeball headache, and I'm thinking, oh, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, and she says her vision's getting a little fuzzy,
Speaker 1: and I'm just thinking, well, I'm you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's nothing. We'll go see the eye doctor, will get
Speaker 1: you some drops, and you know, you don't think anything
Speaker 1: of it. And then all of a sudden, I find
Speaker 1: out you're going through to the eye doctor that he
Speaker 1: doesn't she doesn't examine and says, like, she's got this
Speaker 1: optic neritis and we need to find out optic neurritis
Speaker 1: is the swelling of the optic nerve and we need
Speaker 1: to find out what's going on and go to an
Speaker 1: op the neural ologist and find out that, you know,
Speaker 1: And now I'm going he's saying, you've got to go
Speaker 1: to a neurologist, and ultimately the neurologist is taking a
Speaker 1: series of doing a series of tests, wanted to do
Speaker 1: a spinal tap, a lumbar puncture, and I'm like why,
Speaker 1: Like she's just got something going on with her eyes.
Speaker 1: What are y'all doing? You know? And it was it
Speaker 1: was really scary. And he's decided he's going to do
Speaker 1: some blood work the neurologists and he starts checking boxes
Speaker 1: and one of the boxes they check is for something
Speaker 1: called neuromiolitis optica. And I said, oh, what is that?
Speaker 1: And he goes, oh, don't worry about it. That would
Speaker 1: be a nightmare. She's not going to have that. I
Speaker 1: don't even know why I've ever checked that box. And
Speaker 1: of course, you know how that goes check that box.
Speaker 1: And it turned out that that's what Ali had. And
Speaker 1: so when they called with the results, they basically told
Speaker 1: myself and my husband that she had four years to live.
Speaker 1: And it was just life changed. Life changed I in
Speaker 1: my mind. Right then, I said, okay, well I'm closing it.
Speaker 1: At that point, I had a billion dollar empire of
Speaker 1: you know, my cosmetic world. I'm closing that book and
Speaker 1: I'm going to open the book on medicine and here
Speaker 1: I am I make lipglass like in cure disease. Yeah. Right,
Speaker 1: But I was going to do it. I was going
Speaker 1: to find the way and save my daughter because it
Speaker 1: was just I mean it takes you to your knees,
Speaker 1: it takes you to the floor. It just the air
Speaker 1: goes out of the room. You know, you're just like
Speaker 1: you don't even know where to begin, and you literally
Speaker 1: just have to start somewhere. And that's where I just thought,
Speaker 1: in that moment, that was my purpose. Everything came back
Speaker 1: to me, the disassociating wall, you know, the rape was happening.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, oh, this is it. This is
Speaker 1: why I'm here. I'm supposed to cure this. And it
Speaker 1: was just like that just became the mission from that moment.
Speaker 2: For you. In that moment, it sounds like all of
Speaker 2: your pains really became your purpose. And that can sometimes
Speaker 2: be the hardest path to purpose because there are several
Speaker 2: different paths. There's passion, there's a profession, there's people you love.
Speaker 2: But then when it's your pain, your pain of seeing
Speaker 2: your child suffer and getting news like that, what was
Speaker 2: useful from your cosmetic background that did transfer over into
Speaker 2: healthcare and medicine or was it just like none of
Speaker 2: this is useful and I need to build a different
Speaker 2: skill set because I can imagine and that that transition
Speaker 2: is not easy mentally, emotionally and of course logistically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not easy on any level. Spiritually, I mean,
Speaker 1: you name it. What I drew upon more than anything
Speaker 1: was everyone my whole career, my whole life, has always said, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, even when I was starting my cosmetic company,
Speaker 1: oh you can't do that. You know, there's a million
Speaker 1: cosmetic companies out there. So it was the everyone up
Speaker 1: to that point always telling me I couldn't do it that.
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I can do this, I can
Speaker 1: do this. I didn't know how I was going to
Speaker 1: do this, but I thought no because, as I said,
Speaker 1: and I really it's all about for me, it's what
Speaker 1: the power of love and intention, anything's possible. And I
Speaker 1: loved my daughter and I was going to set this
Speaker 1: intention and I'd been able to manifest you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's been through my creative visualization. I see it in
Speaker 1: my head. I make the picture, and then I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to work to create this and I need
Speaker 1: to find this cure and I'm going to be able
Speaker 1: to I'm going to sit and ask all the questions
Speaker 1: I put together. The first thing I said to myself
Speaker 1: is I have to learn about this condition. I've got
Speaker 1: to educate myself and there I cut to you know,
Speaker 1: put a group together, and I went to Stanford and
Speaker 1: I started studying molecular medicine with a group of advisors
Speaker 1: to understand the process of this particular condition and really
Speaker 1: start learning. And just sat there with a group of
Speaker 1: doctors and advisors that I would just pick from. They're
Speaker 1: in the world of MS or in loopus or rheumatoid
Speaker 1: arthritis and these other autoimmune diseases, and I just started
Speaker 1: saying telling them my personal story and of you know,
Speaker 1: how can you help me? And you know, basically, I
Speaker 1: was fortunate that I could say, I'm I have a checkbook,
Speaker 1: and if you're willing to work the way I need
Speaker 1: you to all work, which was everyone was going to
Speaker 1: have to collaborate and work together and share information because
Speaker 1: everybody said they don't do that in the medical world.
Speaker 1: I said, We're going to find a cure, and this
Speaker 1: is going to be a model for how we look
Speaker 1: at curing disease in the world. And I mean I
Speaker 1: said it on a very big stage for myself. But
Speaker 1: the biggest thing was always to find a cure and
Speaker 1: at least find some therapeutics to help me. As Allie
Speaker 1: was suffering at the time.
Speaker 2: What were some of the biggest roadblocks you mentioned one
Speaker 2: of them their collaboration. What were some of the biggest
Speaker 2: roadblocks you saw in healthcare in curing these seemingly incurable
Speaker 2: diseases because you went in there. Of course, as you said,
Speaker 2: you'd worked hard, first of all to build this incredible company, right,
Speaker 2: Therefore you had resources. It's not like you just had
Speaker 2: resources because you inherited them or you had them from
Speaker 2: somewhere else. But even with that, you had to learn
Speaker 2: bring people together, figure it out, like what was some
Speaker 2: of the blocks that you ran up against or that
Speaker 2: you saw that existed before you were able to create
Speaker 2: and curate your own teams.
Speaker 1: I mean the biggest thing is for me, I needed
Speaker 1: to get to people's brain trust, and I really need
Speaker 1: to do the way I thought was in was through
Speaker 1: their shared humanity and sense of their own purpose, like
Speaker 1: always bringing it back to well, why did you get
Speaker 1: into this, Why did you decide to be a doctor
Speaker 1: in the world of MS research or things? So that
Speaker 1: was the positive side. The reason I had to do
Speaker 1: that is because it was very clear to me very
Speaker 1: early on that people don't share or work together. They
Speaker 1: all wanted sort of their own spotlight for their findings
Speaker 1: or their published work. But in the world of rare disease,
Speaker 1: which I found out at the time, they were saying
Speaker 1: there was maybe ten thousand people worldwide that have this.
Speaker 1: Since my work, there's over a million people in counting
Speaker 1: that have this because it's so misdiagnosed, whether it's MS
Speaker 1: or other things. So I had to get people to
Speaker 1: work together and share. That was going to be the
Speaker 1: biggest obstacle. But because I had the power of at
Speaker 1: least having a checkbook and always feeling very blessed and
Speaker 1: fortunate for that that I could say, I will pay you,
Speaker 1: tell me who you need to get in the room
Speaker 1: and at the table, but you're all going to work
Speaker 1: together and share together. So I'd say that that was
Speaker 1: the biggest obstacle. And then finding people, and then honestly
Speaker 1: what became more and more as I went down this
Speaker 1: through this journey to cure anything, even in a rare disease,
Speaker 1: I had to I found out that I had to
Speaker 1: build a blood bank. Now can you imagine, here's all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're working to, you know, find your
Speaker 1: way with just getting researchers and scientists to the table.
Speaker 1: But it became quickly apparent to me that they said, Victoria,
Speaker 1: for us to do the research, we need to have
Speaker 1: we need to have blood CECTS specimens. We need the
Speaker 1: material to do this research. So I thought, wow, now
Speaker 1: I have to create a repository, a blood bank, and
Speaker 1: start collecting blood from patients. When I'm hearing it so
Speaker 1: rare and when Ali was first diagnosed, I was trying
Speaker 1: to just find one person that had this. Now I
Speaker 1: have to amass an entire blood bank of specimens around
Speaker 1: the world, and that was seemingly I thought, how do
Speaker 1: you start? How do you do that? How I did that?
Speaker 2: How do you do that?
Speaker 1: How do you do that? I hired a nurse that
Speaker 1: I said, I'm going to find where these patients are.
Speaker 1: I'm going to send this nurse with a little cooler.
Speaker 1: She would show up with a little cooler and she'd
Speaker 1: go to Alaska or she'd go anywhere, literally taking samples
Speaker 1: and bringing them back. That's how I started. I now
Speaker 1: have over one hundred thousand specimens in my own blood
Speaker 1: bank and viral repository that is used for drug companies.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's changed the whole landscape. But if
Speaker 1: somebody would have told me, honestly, Jay, that I would
Speaker 1: be like having to build a blood bank, that I'd
Speaker 1: be doing that. I mean even early on when I
Speaker 1: was trying to get patients to just give their samples,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, how about if we do like blush
Speaker 1: for blood? You get a blush if you give me
Speaker 1: your blood because a lot you know our women, but
Speaker 1: you get creative and you think about that. And I
Speaker 1: knew that the biggest way that I could make the
Speaker 1: difference was getting all these people together in a room
Speaker 1: working in the same direction.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that you know, it's so inspiring because
Speaker 2: it's so You've just had so many moments in your
Speaker 2: life that I think it would be natural and it
Speaker 2: would be completely okay to give up and slow down
Speaker 2: and just accept. But you and you also, I'm intrigued
Speaker 2: because when I've spent time with you and even today,
Speaker 2: it's not like you're fighting. It's almost like you're creating.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, I'd love to hear your thoughts
Speaker 2: on those two sentiments, because often we think we have
Speaker 2: to fight to stay alive. You started by saying you've
Speaker 2: always been a survivor. Yeah, what do you think is
Speaker 2: core to surviving difficult situations? Is it fighting or is
Speaker 2: it creating opportunity or what is it?
Speaker 1: You know, I've never looked at it as for example,
Speaker 1: put in the in the mix there the thought of
Speaker 1: like being a victim, Like so if you think of
Speaker 1: being a victim, you think more of fighting. So I
Speaker 1: don't think of myself as a victim or you know,
Speaker 1: it was never like, oh, why is this happening to me?
Speaker 2: Was? How did you not have that?
Speaker 1: I mean, I wish there's a lot of times, clearly
Speaker 1: I wish that I had not gone through through a
Speaker 1: rape and gone through what I went through. And there's
Speaker 1: times that I was like, what would it have been
Speaker 1: like if I graduated high school and I went to
Speaker 1: college and all that? But you know, that wasn't in
Speaker 1: the cards. That wasn't my journey or but I've always
Speaker 1: tried to I always try to zoom out and look
Speaker 1: at you know, why is this? You know, what's the
Speaker 1: way in where can I I always want to do
Speaker 1: something good and make the good come out of it.
Speaker 1: That's just how I've always been and I want to
Speaker 1: find that way, and I genuinely always want to help
Speaker 1: and whatever it was whether it was teaching women makeup,
Speaker 1: which is now, which is you know, when I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there at the pharmaceutical company and showing them the path
Speaker 1: why they need to help all these people and how
Speaker 1: they can and again going through their brain trust to
Speaker 1: get them. I mean, think about having to get pharmaceutical companies.
Speaker 1: The fact that I got three drugs made people say
Speaker 1: that never ever happens, let alone in a rare disease world.
Speaker 1: How passionate you have to be about what you're talking
Speaker 1: about and wanting to So it's not really fighting for it,
Speaker 1: it's just helping people find it within themselves. That's what
Speaker 1: I do. I find that one piece, like what you
Speaker 1: do so beautifully, you find that thread, that thing that
Speaker 1: binds all of us, that sense of shared sense of
Speaker 1: humanity and that purpose. I had to find that purpose
Speaker 1: in the room for all those people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, what did you end up so far? What
Speaker 2: have you accomplished and how Obviously I named some of
Speaker 2: it there but in the intro, but could you explain
Speaker 2: what has been accomplished and what you're still pursuing so
Speaker 2: that we can just understand from a you know, success
Speaker 2: point of view, Like when you've invented these three drugs,
Speaker 2: but what is yeah, what have what has that achieved?
Speaker 2: What has that stopped? And then what are you still
Speaker 2: trying to figure out?
Speaker 1: So and I never I was hipful to get people
Speaker 1: that invented them because you know, going to obviously genetech
Speaker 1: and where they really you know, that's what they do.
Speaker 1: But now what I learned, so I started to people
Speaker 1: are always going, how are you doing this? Like like
Speaker 1: this this sounds crazy. You're like making lip gloss and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you're getting these drugs made. Like
Speaker 1: there's a there's a lot in between those that little
Speaker 1: journey there. And that's why I wrote The Power of Rare,
Speaker 1: a Blueprint for Medical Revolution, which is really this is
Speaker 1: because there's other moms, dads, families that are you know,
Speaker 1: going through stories like mine, and I said, I'm going
Speaker 1: to write down at least this is what I did,
Speaker 1: because people always want to know how you did it.
Speaker 1: I found the biggest magic was always bringing early on,
Speaker 1: I brought people together. I had I brought together over gosh,
Speaker 1: forty countries together, and hundreds of researchers and scientists and
Speaker 1: page together. So that's always been so critical in what
Speaker 1: I do. But what I'm doing now is so people
Speaker 1: have said, wow, how have you done it? Look at
Speaker 1: what you've done, Look at autoimmune disease in general, autoimmune
Speaker 1: disease right now, which is what you know Ali has,
Speaker 1: and yes she's on a drug now that is more
Speaker 1: controlling things. But I decided as I listened to you know,
Speaker 1: our president, which is great, he talks about cancer and moonshots,
Speaker 1: I thought, I want to do a cure shot. A
Speaker 1: cure shot. We don't need to go to the moon
Speaker 1: to start curing disease here, and autoimmune disease and cancer
Speaker 1: are opposite sides, are the same coin. And I thought,
Speaker 1: people start going, have you looked at what you're doing
Speaker 1: in the world of autoimmune disease, this particular one, using
Speaker 1: this as a blueprint for curing a lot of other
Speaker 1: autommune diseases. So that's really what I'm passionate about now.
Speaker 1: And I have to say I have an amazing team
Speaker 1: that supports me. I couldn't have gone through this journey
Speaker 1: without a doctor Michael Yaman, who's head of molecular Medicine
Speaker 1: at UCLA. I mean, he's the scientist that you know.
Speaker 1: We've gone everywhere from you know, the Harvard's to the
Speaker 1: Mayo to we were doing work with Verily at Google
Speaker 1: looking at biomarkers. I mean, he's always by my side
Speaker 1: and probably one of the smartest people. So I'm very
Speaker 1: fortunate that I've put together a great team of people
Speaker 1: and they see how far we've come. So I'm actually
Speaker 1: looking at how this story ends. Is I'm gonna like
Speaker 1: bringing be a big part in working and curing autoimmune
Speaker 1: disease around the world, because you know, Ali said early
Speaker 1: on in her journey, and her journey is really for
Speaker 1: her to talk about. But she said, Mom, this isn't
Speaker 1: just about you and you and me anymore. And that
Speaker 1: was a turning point. I was like, you're right, it's not.
Speaker 1: And when I see now all the patients and the
Speaker 1: parents and you know, and I just feel if my
Speaker 1: voice can help give voice to to other people, this
Speaker 1: is this is what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: And for our views and for our listeners, how is Ellie.
Speaker 1: Alie's doing really well. She passed the bar, she went
Speaker 1: to law school. She she was her own champion. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think early on, you know, she was like, Mom,
Speaker 1: I don't want to know what I have. Don't tell me,
Speaker 1: which was really can you imagine in the early days
Speaker 1: of walking around thinking, oh my gosh, my daughter has
Speaker 1: four years doesn't even want to know, but she goes,
Speaker 1: I know, whatever it is, mom, you'll you'll figure it out.
Speaker 1: And but Alie's really the one who has uh has
Speaker 1: figured it out, and and she's doing really well and
Speaker 1: she's a champion, and you know, you see how the
Speaker 1: toll it takes even on you know, I have two
Speaker 1: other children, and one at the time was a musician,
Speaker 1: you know, on the road opening for One Direction for years,
Speaker 1: and he's out on the road, and I'm you know,
Speaker 1: going and going to these different institutions. And I should
Speaker 1: say because as people are going through this and whatever
Speaker 1: your journey is. Even while I was going through this
Speaker 1: and this was Alley's, there was at one point that
Speaker 1: I myself became diagnosed with cancer and I had to
Speaker 1: really sort of go, this can't be again that visualization.
Speaker 1: I was like, this isn't going to be the movie
Speaker 1: where like the mom's trying to save the daughter but
Speaker 1: then she gets cancer and she dies or Lorenzo's Oil
Speaker 1: which people told me about where you know he dies.
Speaker 1: It was like, no, I'm going to whatever the odds are,
Speaker 1: whatever things happen, there's another way to look at it
Speaker 1: and another way to persevere and get through it.
Speaker 2: What have you learned about? So, Like, let's say there
Speaker 2: are people in the audience who are listening or watching
Speaker 2: today they know someone who's struggling with an autoimmune disease
Speaker 2: or someone in their life or maybe even and even
Speaker 2: if they are, I have people to my family and life.
Speaker 2: Where did they start? What do they do? Where do
Speaker 2: they get help? Like? What what are the best places
Speaker 2: that you've seen or places of support, especially if people
Speaker 2: on in a you know, financial don't have financial capacity
Speaker 2: to help solve some of those things.
Speaker 1: Well, first and foremost they have to start within. They
Speaker 1: have to find their voice and not be a victim
Speaker 1: of it, but go what what can I do in
Speaker 1: my situation? When I created I created an app Enimo
Speaker 1: Resources and I started to put together building an actual
Speaker 1: community for patients to have support groups. So look for
Speaker 1: other people that are going through what you're going through
Speaker 1: and start going through that. You know, having people that
Speaker 1: you surround yourself in life. Try to put together a team,
Speaker 1: even at whatever level. And I know people will look
Speaker 1: at and I've heard people like betray it. We don't
Speaker 1: have the money you have and all of that. No,
Speaker 1: but you have a voice, and you know if something
Speaker 1: you're hearing doesn't feel right, getting those second opinions. Advocate
Speaker 1: for yourself. That's a really, really big part of it
Speaker 1: and a big part of what I do when I'm
Speaker 1: doing my patient days where i bring together hundreds of
Speaker 1: patients together, I'm advocating for them, but I'm getting them
Speaker 1: ultimately to advocate for themselves because that's what they need
Speaker 1: to do and seek out. Just do the research, go online,
Speaker 1: look at the different things that you know, and sort
Speaker 1: of vet them for yourself and see what feels right.
Speaker 1: It's all about taking action. I'm working on another book
Speaker 1: right now that'll come out next year, but it's called
Speaker 1: Worrier to Warrior and Worry. I always say, worry ways
Speaker 1: more when you carry it alone. So you got to
Speaker 1: take that worry and kind of redirect it and channel
Speaker 1: it and do the things become that warrior for yourself
Speaker 1: that will ultimately lead you to a better place.
Speaker 2: Victoria, You've been so vulnerable and generous and kind today
Speaker 2: with sharing your journey, sharing challenging moments, and today I
Speaker 2: just want everyone who's listening watching to know we have
Speaker 2: only skimmed the iceberg of the amount of work, the
Speaker 2: depth the story, and so I highly recommend that both
Speaker 2: of these books, saving each other and the power of
Speaker 2: Rare if you're truly fascinated by the depths of this
Speaker 2: story and journey, that you dive into those two books,
Speaker 2: because like I said, we've only we've only touched the
Speaker 2: tip of the iceberg. But Victoria, we end every on
Speaker 2: purpose interview with a final five or a fast five,
Speaker 2: which have to be answered in one word to one
Speaker 2: sentence maximum, and I always ruin it by asking for
Speaker 2: more details. So that's up to me. But Victoria, I'd
Speaker 2: like to ask you your final five. The first question
Speaker 2: is what is the best advice you've ever heard or received.
Speaker 1: I'd say my mom early on said wash your face,
Speaker 1: put on some makeup, and just go out there and
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: I like that, that makes sense, that's the makeup allnes.
Speaker 1: And then I started a cosmetic company.
Speaker 2: What you tell your kids every day? Just yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2: Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever heard
Speaker 2: or received?
Speaker 1: You'll never be able to do that. You know you're
Speaker 1: you're aiming too high.
Speaker 2: So true. Question number three, how would you define your
Speaker 2: current purpose?
Speaker 1: Oh, gosh, I mean that's my purpose is to cure
Speaker 1: autoimmune disease around the world. But really is my purpose
Speaker 1: is to just be a good a good person, a
Speaker 1: kind person, to help people and truly just share all
Speaker 1: the blessings of the good fortune in my life. That's
Speaker 1: really my purpose.
Speaker 2: Question numb before you use this phrase a few times
Speaker 2: in the interview, like finding your voice, you have to
Speaker 2: have a voice finding What is the best way for
Speaker 2: someone to find their voice when they feel they've had
Speaker 2: to be quiet, silence, or they never had one in
Speaker 2: the first place.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't believe nobody's had not had a voice
Speaker 1: in the first place. We all have that. It's for me.
Speaker 1: I always encourage people to just to get quiet with yourself,
Speaker 1: which is different than becoming quiet, but getting quiet with
Speaker 1: yourself kind of a lot of times I use that
Speaker 1: visualization of just zooming out and hearing myself say it
Speaker 1: in my mind and then letting the words come out,
Speaker 1: just like they did when I made my scream and
Speaker 1: I was afraid so and those words came out. Is
Speaker 1: be willing to do it? Just just do it, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just that's so important to me. Just get quiet,
Speaker 1: center yourself, think about it, and then just say it,
Speaker 1: move it, move through it.
Speaker 2: Just do it, beautiful. And fifth and final question, if
Speaker 2: you could create one law that everyone in the world
Speaker 2: had to follow, what would it be.
Speaker 1: If we could all just get back to our shared
Speaker 1: sense of humanity? You know that, really more than not
Speaker 1: people are good people. I have seen and that is
Speaker 1: one thing, Jay, I'll tell you working with forty different
Speaker 1: countries and all the different researchers and scientists from around
Speaker 1: the world, when they walk in the doors of my conferences,
Speaker 1: everybody there is there to really help people. All the politics,
Speaker 1: all the other stuff were there to help people, and
Speaker 1: just that if we could just get back to that
Speaker 1: shared sense of humanity and loving one another, it would
Speaker 1: be nothing better than that.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Victoria. Is there anything that I haven't asked
Speaker 2: you today that you deeply want to share, or something
Speaker 2: on your heart or your mind or your soul that
Speaker 2: you feel pull to share?
Speaker 1: I don't know what do you think people hearing this
Speaker 1: will they will they benefit from it? I mean you're
Speaker 1: hearing it from the first time.
Speaker 2: It's so I mean, I meant everything I said, it's
Speaker 2: so honestly moving to hear a journey of someone just
Speaker 2: a just a real human story of someone who achieved
Speaker 2: material success after so much personal tribulation and trauma, to
Speaker 2: then switch to a service based life and now dedicated
Speaker 2: even further of course through helping ALI, but now to
Speaker 2: helping autoimmune diseases as a whole. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't know if there's a better story up for a movie.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like that, you know, I don't know
Speaker 2: if it's almost like you couldn't write it. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: it's so powerful that someone would be able to rise
Speaker 2: from those situations, even you know, third marriage you said lately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, of course, yeahah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: But I mean, like to go through that, after what
Speaker 2: you've been through, to have that ability to find love
Speaker 2: again and create love and then to have a child
Speaker 2: and kind of have everything picture perfect externally, it may
Speaker 2: seem to then have the worst news you could potentially
Speaker 2: ask for, And you know, I think it's going to
Speaker 2: move and help a lot of people I wouldn't have.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know many people who've lived that life.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well, you know what I mean, honestly, just
Speaker 1: the fact that You've given me the opportunity because you know,
Speaker 1: there are probably a lot of people that are going
Speaker 1: through what they go through, and it's hard to get
Speaker 1: people to pay attention. Getting press early on was like
Speaker 1: forget it. I mean it's like it's not sexy, it's
Speaker 1: not you know, people are talking about whatever. It's always
Speaker 1: something that and to me, it's like, this is a
Speaker 1: great story for how things can actually happen when you
Speaker 1: really do see how these doctors and patients and people
Speaker 1: work together and what's been built. It really is extraordinary.
Speaker 1: I mean it's been fifteen years now and just even
Speaker 1: you know, just going through the Hall of Fame, you know,
Speaker 1: which was amazing. Just to have that experience of having
Speaker 1: Gloria Steinem induct me into the Hall of Fame or
Speaker 1: the Pope which will get you there was all extraordinary.
Speaker 1: You know, who would think that somebody who didn't graduate
Speaker 1: high school and you know, as all of a sudden
Speaker 1: those kinds of things.
Speaker 2: How much have you invested now in this gen How
Speaker 2: much have you personally invested into this I've put.
Speaker 1: In eighty million dollars of my own money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, And that's that's that's important too.
Speaker 1: And that eighty million dollars is really you know, you
Speaker 1: look at that, it's hundreds of millions that a pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: company had to put in. And I had to show
Speaker 1: them and build a model to show them how they
Speaker 1: can make money, you know. And I could have just
Speaker 1: you know, become angry or like why do I have
Speaker 1: to do that? They can just do that, but you
Speaker 1: have to you have to kind of I sit in
Speaker 1: everybody's seat always in my mind in the room and go,
Speaker 1: how do I get everyone aligned so that we can
Speaker 1: all keep moving forward? And that was really really important
Speaker 1: is to look at what everybody's needs were in that room,
Speaker 1: what different countries, different institutions. But then saying to the
Speaker 1: Mayo Clinic, like, unless you know you work with or
Speaker 1: whoever that is, you know, I'm not writing this check.
Speaker 1: So everybody had to work with another institution in all
Speaker 1: the research.
Speaker 2: I think that's the most beautiful thing that it's you're
Speaker 2: just using the success you had in service. I mean,
Speaker 2: what better use of success is there than in service
Speaker 2: to others. Yeah, and now that you're dedicated to helping
Speaker 2: hopefully prevent and solve autoimmune diseases, I mean yeah, I
Speaker 2: feel like, so you're so right that so many people
Speaker 2: are misdiagnosed or undiagnosed, diagnosed too late, Like I'm hearing
Speaker 2: about it all the time.
Speaker 1: That's what this will really help JA too, is that
Speaker 1: because so many people are misdiagnosed with different things. Most
Speaker 1: of the patients that now have what Ali has, they've
Speaker 1: been misdiagnosed before the doctors even knew what it was.
Speaker 1: They were misdiagnosed with MS or so that's why there's
Speaker 1: so many more patients than originally they thought. And I
Speaker 1: created there's an essay that it's literally a blood test
Speaker 1: that tells you if you have it.
Speaker 2: So how accessible is that for everyone?
Speaker 1: Anybody can get it? Anybody can get it. I mean
Speaker 1: in this case, the doctor mark checked that box, you know,
Speaker 1: for that test. But yeah, but that's why I created
Speaker 1: the app and things, because when you go to an
Speaker 1: emergency room, a lot of people they won't even know
Speaker 1: about this condition. So and then when you're not getting treated,
Speaker 1: you're just having more and more.
Speaker 2: How does the appo? Anyone can use it from home?
Speaker 1: The app? Yeah, it's on your phone. It's just on
Speaker 1: your phone.
Speaker 2: I can you tell us what exactly.
Speaker 1: The app is called NM Resources and you literally download
Speaker 1: it and it's got everything. I mean, it's it's extraordinary
Speaker 1: to see there isn't something like this that exists. And
Speaker 1: then it's totally free. It's got everything from the clinical
Speaker 1: trials that are going on, to support groups. Anywhere in
Speaker 1: the world where you are, you can find a physician.
Speaker 1: It talks about what a relapse looks like. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you have an attack, you go into an emergency room,
Speaker 1: you show them the app, everything is right there. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really extraordinary. I want, it's something that people would
Speaker 1: have in real time if you had this for all conditions.
Speaker 1: I mean, people creating something like this, it's amazing.
Speaker 2: Are you trying to do that for other or timmune
Speaker 2: diseases as well?
Speaker 1: Now what I'm doing now, especially in the one with
Speaker 1: Alli's case, is a lot of times in different conditions,
Speaker 1: you don't know if you're having a relapse. So I'm
Speaker 1: working with Verile, which is part of Google, in helping
Speaker 1: find all the biomarkers. And also I've created something called
Speaker 1: a relapse Navigator which doctors will be using that you know,
Speaker 1: is really kind of a shell for you can put
Speaker 1: in the different symptoms and things that you'll be able
Speaker 1: to patience and doctors can know if they're having attacks. So,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking about technology now, with where we're going
Speaker 1: to be with AI and all of these things. I mean,
Speaker 1: when I started it, just I think there was maybe
Speaker 1: three papers that were published on what it used to
Speaker 1: be called before Anamodevik's disease, and now there's thousands that
Speaker 1: have been published. Ands I've been doing this work literally
Speaker 1: a thousands.
Speaker 2: It's been fifteen years that you've been fifteen.
Speaker 1: Years, Yeah, fifteen years. I've been doing this fifteen years.
Speaker 1: I've waited to talk to you, or to talk in general,
Speaker 1: just to get to get the message out there, you know,
Speaker 1: because really it's really really tough, and I know there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the world that are suffering
Speaker 1: with these kind of conditions and diseases, and there's probably
Speaker 1: a lot of parents that are trying to figure it
Speaker 1: out and figure out how to make enough noise or
Speaker 1: get the attention because autoimmune disease is not you know,
Speaker 1: going away anytime soon until we all really put our
Speaker 1: focus on it and know that if we can cure
Speaker 1: autoimmune disease and cancer, I mean, think of and they
Speaker 1: are different sides of the same coin. When you treat one,
Speaker 1: you get the other. So it's you're much more vulnerable
Speaker 1: to that.
Speaker 2: And what's that gap? Like what is because you always
Speaker 2: feel I guess we assume that so much money is
Speaker 2: going towards solving cancer and solving this. If is money,
Speaker 2: the issue is time, the issues, collaboration, the issue, like
Speaker 2: what's the I.
Speaker 1: Think what makes me the craziest is when people give
Speaker 1: a lot of money, say they're very well intentioned, they're
Speaker 1: giving money to something, but it's going to maybe to
Speaker 1: pay for a chair for a professor, or you know,
Speaker 1: it's not going where it needs to go one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: You know, we're pretty much I've put in eighty million
Speaker 1: dollars with my own money, of our family money. Every
Speaker 1: penny goes to research and science a lot of places.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't or it's not put to Like everything
Speaker 1: I do is trunched. I have to see results. Everything
Speaker 1: has to be translational, meaning bench to bedside. If you
Speaker 1: don't see that, it's going to be really on the
Speaker 1: critical PA have to make a difference. I don't fund it.
Speaker 1: So a lot of money is spent on things that
Speaker 1: you know, scientists and God bless them, but they'll research,
Speaker 1: you know, the head of a pin forever, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean you have to sort of be very strategic
Speaker 1: and you have to go, Okay, where is the gold
Speaker 1: in this that I'm going to fund it because it's
Speaker 1: really going to make a difference.
Speaker 2: And why is it important for the people to make
Speaker 2: a noise because like you said, like they can't help
Speaker 2: solve it. They can't. They necessarily the solutions don't exist
Speaker 2: right now. If someone's struggling, what's your take for the prevention,
Speaker 2: but also like the living with for someone who you know,
Speaker 2: what is that? Obviously some of that for NMO is
Speaker 2: in the app. Yeah, but if it's all two immune
Speaker 2: diseases in general, Oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that basically, well, I would
Speaker 1: tell anybody that has an autoimmune disease, look at this
Speaker 1: and look at the things that we recommend. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously you've got to be speaking to your own doctors
Speaker 1: and following your own medical advice because you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not a doctor. I'm like doctor mom, you know, but
Speaker 1: I would say that, you know, there's a lot more
Speaker 1: research out there and people that are making huge advances
Speaker 1: that a lot of people don't even know about so
Speaker 1: you have to really advocate and do the research and
Speaker 1: do the deep dive. Don't just go with what the
Speaker 1: one doctor may say to you. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: people working in these areas that you may know nothing about.
Speaker 1: And look at it on the broad spectrum of like
Speaker 1: set it on the world stage, look at it globally,
Speaker 1: see what they're doing in different countries. You know, really
Speaker 1: educate yourself. That's what I had to do. I mean
Speaker 1: I had to really learn it and study it and
Speaker 1: understand it so you just can't be a victim of it.
Speaker 1: And I know that's a lot easier said than done,
Speaker 1: especially when you're in pain and you're struggling and you
Speaker 1: don't have money. But you got to find a way.
Speaker 1: You just got to find a way. I always find
Speaker 1: a way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, Victoria, Thank you so much. Thank you
Speaker 2: the whole time. Yeah, exactly. I think it's one of
Speaker 2: the you know, it's personal story to me, is is
Speaker 2: the best way to help inspire and life and others.
Speaker 2: And I think everything you shared to do will touch
Speaker 2: people's hearts and move them into action.
Speaker 1: So thank you, well, thank you. Listen, you gave me
Speaker 1: this opportunity.
Speaker 2: I'm grateful to call you a friend and you've told me,
Speaker 2: you know, we've talked about so many of those things before,
Speaker 2: but even for me to sit and hear you in
Speaker 2: this way and knowing how it's going to impact my
Speaker 2: community is going to be really beautiful.
Speaker 1: So yeah, thank you. Yeah. When we do a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, I do a lot of research and
Speaker 1: work in India as well, like worldwide, so you know
Speaker 1: that it's just so many people that they just don't
Speaker 1: have the access, that they don't know or they are
Speaker 1: too afraid to you know, So anything that you can do,
Speaker 1: I mean the best.
Speaker 2: I'm here to help. I believe in it. I agree
Speaker 2: with you. I don't. I don't know if there's any
Speaker 2: bigger thing to solve than healthcare. Like I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't think there's anything more important in the world, yeah
Speaker 2: than solving incurable diseases. Yeah, because everyone should be able
Speaker 2: to live a healthy and yeah, and I.
Speaker 1: Think that's why if people go, well, gosh, if she
Speaker 1: did it and like no experience other you know, like
Speaker 1: the way I started and found my way into it.
Speaker 1: But when you actually that's when I honestly, when people
Speaker 1: started saying to me, you know this is actually going
Speaker 1: to change MS or this is actually going to change
Speaker 1: lupis and rheumatroit arthritis, and that I was like, really,
Speaker 1: Like then, I just thought, this is this is this
Speaker 1: is the this is the work. This is my life's work,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Victoria. Thank you to everyone who's been listening
Speaker 2: and watching back at home. Please make sure that you
Speaker 2: share this with friends you know would be inspired by it,
Speaker 2: moved by it, and please let me know what really
Speaker 2: resonated with you and stood out for you. A big
Speaker 2: thang out to Victoria again, thank you, and thank you
Speaker 2: so much for your friendship and your service. Victoria means
Speaker 2: the world. Thank you so much, thank.
Speaker 1: You, thank you.
Speaker 2: If this year you're trying to live longer, live happier,
Speaker 2: live healthier, go and check out my conversation with the
Speaker 2: world's biggest longevity doctor, Peter Attia on how to slow
Speaker 2: down aging and why your emotional health is directly impacting
Speaker 2: your physical health.
Speaker 3: Acknowledge that there is surprisingly little known about the relationship
Speaker 3: between nutrition and health, and people are going to be
Speaker 3: shocked to hear that, because I think most people think
Speaker 3: the exact opposite.
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