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The Trust Diagnosis · Revisionist History

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. I have a friend named Dan. I've known him
0:23
Speaker 1: for years. He's in his seventies, lives outside Washington, d C.
0:27
Speaker 1: He's in the crisis communications business. Companies call him in
0:31
Speaker 1: when they have a big problem. In fact, that's how
0:33
Speaker 1: I met him. I was working on a story about
0:36
Speaker 1: one of his cases and he called me up. Dan
0:39
Speaker 1: and I talk all the time. And last of all,
0:42
Speaker 1: he said something to me in passing about having to
0:45
Speaker 1: go for a bunch of tests. He didn't say why.
0:48
Speaker 1: It didn't seem like a big deal.
0:51
Speaker 2: The last many my internest told me that he was
0:57
Speaker 2: pretty sure I had probably cancer, and for me, it
1:00
Speaker 2: was a I can't say it was a nothing reaction,
1:04
Speaker 2: but it was certainly a very modest reaction. I said
1:07
Speaker 2: to him, isn't this a minor league cancers? And isn't
1:11
Speaker 2: it a write of passage if you're a man my age?
1:15
Speaker 2: And that's how I thought about it, And it was
1:19
Speaker 2: reinforced when I would connected with the urologist who said
1:25
Speaker 2: to me anytime in the next few months, have an MRI.
1:31
Speaker 2: So I thought of it as a minor thing, and
1:36
Speaker 2: my first contact with my expert reinforced that. So I
1:42
Speaker 2: didn't even bother to do anything until August. From May
1:46
Speaker 2: to August, and I go a blood test, to an MRI,
1:51
Speaker 2: to a biopsy, to a pet scan, and then it was, yeah,
1:55
Speaker 2: you got it. And then the next deal was you
2:03
Speaker 2: should just go and get some radiation and some hormone therapy,
2:08
Speaker 2: and it was and I had to draw it out
2:10
Speaker 2: of the physician and it was a casual matter of fact,
2:14
Speaker 2: and that was sort of dumped in my lap at
2:16
Speaker 2: that point.
2:17
Speaker 1: But at a certain point something nagged at him. He
2:21
Speaker 1: wasn't sure why, since everything thus far had been straightforward,
2:24
Speaker 1: so he started calling around.
2:26
Speaker 2: But as I was going through it, because of my
2:28
Speaker 2: work and friends, I've had lots of health clients and
2:31
Speaker 2: education clients, as you know, I asked somebody just to
2:34
Speaker 2: look at it to make sure there wasn't something. And
2:39
Speaker 2: I was even embarrassed and hesitant to ask because I
2:43
Speaker 2: thought it's such a minor problem. It felt like an imposition.
2:47
Speaker 2: And my friend wanted to do it, and I was
2:49
Speaker 2: even hesitant and reluctant, and a doctor which I will
2:56
Speaker 2: name doctor Master Emory, looked at it and said, you
2:58
Speaker 2: have a big problem, and you have an urgent problem,
3:01
Speaker 2: and it was like that and he said, if you
3:05
Speaker 2: were my patient, I would have had you in my
3:08
Speaker 2: surgical suite last week, but you have an urgent matter.
3:14
Speaker 1: My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History,
3:17
Speaker 1: my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode, where
3:22
Speaker 1: we explore how and when trust decisions are made, is
3:25
Speaker 1: sponsored by PayPal Open, Trusted by consumers, built for all
3:29
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Speaker 1: learn more. Over several episodes, we'll dive into the topic
3:49
Speaker 1: of trust, where it comes from, the moment it's earned,
3:53
Speaker 1: and how we decide who to trust or not. And
3:56
Speaker 1: I wanted to start with the story of my friend Dan, who,
3:59
Speaker 1: out of the blue one day was told that a
4:01
Speaker 1: problem he thought was routine was actually threatening his life.
4:05
Speaker 1: And you had to decide, under the most emotionally overwhelming
4:10
Speaker 1: circumstances imaginable, who to trust.
4:18
Speaker 2: He looked at my files, looked at my data, and said,
4:24
Speaker 2: you have a big proble. And he said others will
4:27
Speaker 2: tell you that you don't, but I'm telling you you do.
4:31
Speaker 1: One of the many interesting things about Dan is that
4:34
Speaker 1: if I told you his full name and you googled him,
4:37
Speaker 1: almost nothing would come up. He doesn't advertise, he doesn't
4:41
Speaker 1: give interviews, he doesn't go to fancy gaullas. There are
4:44
Speaker 1: no pictures of him anywhere. He's almost invisible. But in
4:48
Speaker 1: the very rarefied world of Fortune five, when the companies
4:51
Speaker 1: and CEOs and political big wigs, everyone knows Dan because
4:56
Speaker 1: he's the guy you call when you have a problem
4:59
Speaker 1: you don't know how to deal with.
5:02
Speaker 2: For the past nearly forty years I have lived. That's
5:07
Speaker 2: what I referred to as the intersection of bad luck
5:10
Speaker 2: and bad judgment. I help people who have managed to
5:16
Speaker 2: get themselves into really serious trouble. The kind of trouble
5:22
Speaker 2: that is career defining, can be threatening to the existence
5:27
Speaker 2: of a business, brings a level of scrutiny from the
5:30
Speaker 2: Justice Department or Congress or media that is inescapable, usually
5:36
Speaker 2: to borrow the words of Fank Williams. These are folks
5:40
Speaker 2: who see their name at the top of the.
5:41
Speaker 1: Page and you are you're not going to blow your
5:45
Speaker 1: run horn. But literally, like if some big shot person
5:50
Speaker 1: gets in trouble, you're like tak Ghostbusters. It's like Dan
5:55
Speaker 1: gets the call. You get the first call A so,
5:57
Speaker 1: as I could tell, for.
5:59
Speaker 2: The last twenty five thirty years, I get the call.
6:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.
6:03
Speaker 2: And there have been many times where I will see
6:08
Speaker 2: a story break and I'm automatically processing it, reacting what
6:13
Speaker 2: do I think? What do I think is going on?
6:16
Speaker 2: And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking I
6:19
Speaker 2: might get a call. In many cases, I do get
6:22
Speaker 2: a call. And whether it's the General Motors bankruptcy, or
6:26
Speaker 2: the Paterno Penn State case, or the BP oil spill,
6:30
Speaker 2: the Equifax data breach, you know, either limited what I
6:34
Speaker 2: can say about what I did, but I get the call.
6:38
Speaker 1: Now, why do you Let's talk about this in the
6:40
Speaker 1: context of trust. So you've spent your life walking into boardrooms,
6:45
Speaker 1: executive suites, what have you to talk to people who,
6:49
Speaker 1: in most cases you have never met before? Right, so
6:53
Speaker 1: people just know you by reputation. Why do they trust you?
7:00
Speaker 2: It's an interesting thing. I've thought about it sometimes because
7:03
Speaker 2: I've wondered about misplaced trust. The genuine trust comes through
7:09
Speaker 2: the process. It isn't in the beginning. It's hope, and
7:15
Speaker 2: its panic and it's fear, and they've been told by
7:19
Speaker 2: somebody that they do trust. This is the guy you need.
7:24
Speaker 2: They know they're in such a difficult spot, they don't
7:28
Speaker 2: know where to turn. They are desperate to find somebody
7:31
Speaker 2: who can help them. You know. An irony for me
7:33
Speaker 2: in my medical situation is I used to say to
7:38
Speaker 2: clients sort of jokingly, that I'm a urologist and that
7:44
Speaker 2: I'm the person you don't really want to see. But
7:46
Speaker 2: when you need to see, there isn't anything more important
7:50
Speaker 2: You want to see that neurologists and you want that
7:52
Speaker 2: problem solved. There is a sense of urgency that is
7:57
Speaker 2: focusing in a way that nothing else matters. And then
8:02
Speaker 2: I end up in this situation needing my urologists. But
8:06
Speaker 2: it is what I What I know is they know
8:13
Speaker 2: quickly if they can trust me. M hm. They can
8:18
Speaker 2: tell your tone, the first things you say are so
8:24
Speaker 2: critically important. The manner, your style, your sense of confidence,
8:33
Speaker 2: all those things communicate absolutely instantly. People are processing is
8:38
Speaker 2: this a person in my in the most critical situation
8:41
Speaker 2: of my career? Should I give them time? Should I
8:43
Speaker 2: give them face? Should I pay attention?
8:45
Speaker 1: To what they're saying, and what is it in that moment?
8:47
Speaker 2: Are you?
8:49
Speaker 1: If you had to summarize as simply as possible, what
8:52
Speaker 1: you're bringing to them in that moment, what is it?
8:55
Speaker 2: It's a good question. It's a hard question because, as
9:01
Speaker 2: I've explained, I will be the least knowledgeable person in
9:06
Speaker 2: any room I'm in, and partly it's because I'm in
9:11
Speaker 2: the rooms on calls, in meetings, in boardrooms with people
9:15
Speaker 2: who are phenomenally experienced, capable, educated, credentialed leading scientists, engineers, MBAs, lawyers, CEOs,
9:27
Speaker 2: board chairs, tremendously accomplished people, and they have a world
9:32
Speaker 2: of advisors around them. They don't lack for counsel in
9:36
Speaker 2: health counsel and the communications front, marketing, legal, outside advisors,
9:40
Speaker 2: business consultants. So what do I bring. I don't have
9:43
Speaker 2: any of those credentials. I bring a depth of experience
9:48
Speaker 2: of being in truly, truly difficult situations hundreds of times
9:53
Speaker 2: where the stakes are so big and the pressure is
9:55
Speaker 2: so great. I think if I have a particular skill,
9:58
Speaker 2: it is synthesizing, clarifying. I hope and believe that I
10:05
Speaker 2: bring a common sense perspective to it, which relates to
10:10
Speaker 2: the clarity, and I want to help them prioritize what
10:15
Speaker 2: they're doing and how they're processing it. And then inevitably
10:19
Speaker 2: I'm involved in what do you say about it? What
10:22
Speaker 2: do you say? Who says it, when do you say it?
10:24
Speaker 2: How do you communicate that? And that It can sound easy,
10:27
Speaker 2: but then you've got all the technical aspects, the factual
10:31
Speaker 2: side of that, You've got the legal considerations, the regulatory considerations,
10:35
Speaker 2: and all those pressures are there. How can you help
10:38
Speaker 2: them fight through that and get them to say something
10:43
Speaker 2: that real people can understand. There's an honesty and an
10:46
Speaker 2: integrity and a value to it.
10:49
Speaker 1: In a meeting with a client, have you ever raised
10:51
Speaker 1: your voice? No, you do have speaking of why it
10:58
Speaker 1: is people trust you. You do radiate a kind of
11:02
Speaker 1: calm and there's something dispassionate about the way you see
11:08
Speaker 1: the world. And I imagining you're doing the people who
11:10
Speaker 1: are often highly emotional.
11:13
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, I'm in a room where there's always
11:16
Speaker 2: there's lots of screaming, there's jockeying. People are desperate to
11:23
Speaker 2: sort of seeking an advisory role. Others are trying to
11:27
Speaker 2: get out of it. There are people who are trying
11:30
Speaker 2: to take credit, and there are people trying to lay blame,
11:36
Speaker 2: and there's just tremendous emotion. You know, when I what
11:40
Speaker 2: I know, I'll just tell you if it's a few
11:43
Speaker 2: things I really have never talked about. I need to
11:47
Speaker 2: get to a point where the CEO will tell me anything,
11:51
Speaker 2: and I mean tell me the personal side, because the
11:54
Speaker 2: the personal emotional toll of these things is never really
11:58
Speaker 2: factored in and it plays a huge part in what
12:00
Speaker 2: they're going through. So I I it's not as much
12:05
Speaker 2: what I say is what I hear. I want I
12:07
Speaker 2: want them to feel if they read some point where
12:09
Speaker 2: they want to truly confide in me, that I know
12:15
Speaker 2: I'm going to play a role. The other thing that
12:18
Speaker 2: I know is it is absolutely essential for me to
12:23
Speaker 2: be candid in my very first conversations, really candid. So
12:29
Speaker 2: you mentioned earlier about do you tell them how bad
12:30
Speaker 2: it is? In a sense I do. I'm not telling
12:34
Speaker 2: them something they don't know, but I want them to
12:37
Speaker 2: know two things that I have a sense of the
12:41
Speaker 2: situation without all the factual command that they have. I
12:43
Speaker 2: have a sense of it, and that I am going
12:48
Speaker 2: to be absolutely direct with them. I'm not trying to
12:52
Speaker 2: shock I'm not trying to make them feel worse, but
12:56
Speaker 2: I'm unafraid to tell them what I think. And that's
13:00
Speaker 2: absolutely and those first literally, those first conversations, it's it's
13:05
Speaker 2: critical to your role.
13:08
Speaker 1: So you go and see doctor Master, and the tables
13:11
Speaker 1: are turned. Dan had become the client, the person in
13:17
Speaker 1: a state of emotional distress and confusion talking to a
13:21
Speaker 1: stranger and trying to decide whether to trust him. We'll
13:26
Speaker 1: be right back. This is fascinating with Dan because you
13:38
Speaker 1: are in a moment. There's a moment here when you
13:40
Speaker 1: start to treat this problem you're having in the same
13:43
Speaker 1: way that you actually said this to me. There was
13:45
Speaker 1: a moment when I started to treat this problem I
13:47
Speaker 1: understood this was no different from the problems I deal
13:49
Speaker 1: with in my work.
13:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's when this whole thing turned.
13:53
Speaker 1: Do you when do you have that sense of oh,
13:56
Speaker 1: this is something I've been doing my whole life.
13:58
Speaker 2: Well, so doctor Master is telling me I have a
14:01
Speaker 2: serious problem, that it needs to be addressed, and that
14:05
Speaker 2: I need surgery, but he's not the one to do it.
14:10
Speaker 2: Then I followed up and I talked to two surgeons
14:15
Speaker 2: who said to me, surgeries out of the question can't
14:18
Speaker 2: be done, and that my problem was a lot more complicated,
14:24
Speaker 2: a lot more advanced.
14:26
Speaker 1: And now the script is flipped. Have changed dramatically. We've
14:31
Speaker 1: gone from doctors shrugging to doctor saying it's so bad,
14:35
Speaker 1: we don't even think we can do surgery right. And
14:39
Speaker 1: when they say that, so, what are they telling you?
14:41
Speaker 1: Your options are at that moment.
14:45
Speaker 2: That you're gonna need other all the treatments that are available.
14:51
Speaker 2: And they kept saying, Malcolm, it's a very interesting thing,
14:54
Speaker 2: because you know, I pay again. It was my instincts.
14:59
Speaker 2: I listen to exactly what they're saying and the way
15:02
Speaker 2: they say it, in the order in which they're saying it.
15:05
Speaker 2: The first thing they would say to me is we
15:08
Speaker 2: can keep you alive. And that was meant as a
15:13
Speaker 2: reassuring message. And it wasn't not because I feared death,
15:17
Speaker 2: but because I thought they thought that I feared death.
15:22
Speaker 2: And what I was worried about was quality of life
15:25
Speaker 2: more than length of life. And consistently it was about
15:29
Speaker 2: we're going to keep you alife. We can keep you alive,
15:31
Speaker 2: and then it was but surgery is not an option,
15:34
Speaker 2: you're too far gone, And then it was a radiation
15:40
Speaker 2: extensive hormones the rest of my life in chemotherapy, and
15:47
Speaker 2: an ordeal that would be I'm looking grateful for anything
15:52
Speaker 2: but exceedingly unpleasant, a life that was tremendously compromised. So
16:01
Speaker 2: I talked to these surgeons and their language was One
16:05
Speaker 2: surgeon said, oh, oh no, no, no, no, no no.
16:08
Speaker 2: Immediately after he told me, you know you can say
16:13
Speaker 2: alive you don't want the surgery, he said, I I
16:17
Speaker 2: would be I would not want to do it, but
16:20
Speaker 2: he said, I'll do it if you want me to.
16:23
Speaker 2: And I don't, you know, but he literally said, I'll
16:25
Speaker 2: do it if you if you really want me to.
16:28
Speaker 2: And you know, no one of course is thinking of that.
16:31
Speaker 2: A second surgeon that I talked to kept saying, and
16:36
Speaker 2: I'm not exaggerating, I think he said it. I made
16:38
Speaker 2: notes seven times in my I had a video chat
16:42
Speaker 2: with him. He said, it's at least ninety percent that
16:47
Speaker 2: I will not be successful, and he said it's probably below.
16:53
Speaker 2: It's probably single digits to have any chance of success here.
16:58
Speaker 2: And he was so worried that I wasn't hearing that.
17:00
Speaker 2: He kept repeating it over and over and over again.
17:03
Speaker 2: So after I talked to them, I talked to another
17:05
Speaker 2: doctor who said to me, finally the magical messy for me,
17:09
Speaker 2: which is, you're the only one who can figure out
17:12
Speaker 2: what to do here, Dan, the doctors can figure this
17:14
Speaker 2: out for you. And I immediately understood what that meant,
17:20
Speaker 2: and I was immediately comfortable. I thought, I distress. Interestingly,
17:25
Speaker 2: the challenge was great, but the stress receded. I thought,
17:29
Speaker 2: I know this, I know exactly what he's saying. What
17:32
Speaker 2: did he mean, Not that I had been talking to
17:38
Speaker 2: incompetent doctors, not that I was getting bad advice can
17:44
Speaker 2: argue about the elements of it, but that it is
17:47
Speaker 2: a problem that doesn't have necessarily obvious, clear advice attached
17:54
Speaker 2: to it. That what no one had said, but which
17:58
Speaker 2: I figured out the tests are not clear, they're not definitive,
18:02
Speaker 2: they're not perfect, and that the science is incredibly complicated,
18:07
Speaker 2: and that I could get extremely accomplished people from different
18:11
Speaker 2: fields on collegists, pathologists, surgeons looking at this and they
18:17
Speaker 2: could legitimately come to a wide range of different views.
18:21
Speaker 2: I thought, I've lived my life in that room. I
18:23
Speaker 2: know what that means.
18:26
Speaker 1: So what was your next step?
18:29
Speaker 2: Wait?
18:29
Speaker 1: At the moment he says that so that's the moment
18:32
Speaker 1: where you say, Okay, I've been here before.
18:34
Speaker 2: No, I know another deal.
18:37
Speaker 1: He was in a crisis, and what had he spent
18:39
Speaker 1: his entire life doing solving crises? What was a change
18:44
Speaker 1: in your perspective of that moment? Did you?
18:46
Speaker 2: So? You said, had you tremendous comfort?
18:48
Speaker 1: Yeah?
18:50
Speaker 2: It was. It was. I am one hundred percent confident
18:57
Speaker 2: and comfortable making this decision myself, not because I thought
19:02
Speaker 2: I would be perfect or that I knew more than
19:04
Speaker 2: the doctors. I knew that I didn't, but that I
19:07
Speaker 2: knew the right process to go through to arrive at
19:13
Speaker 2: the best conclusion I could arrive at, and I have.
19:16
Speaker 2: It was. It was a tremendous calming experience for me.
19:20
Speaker 2: But I was blessed because of this experience. Nothing I'd
19:24
Speaker 2: ever planned on, nothing I would have ever thought about
19:27
Speaker 2: when I started this. But I've been through it dozens
19:30
Speaker 2: and dozens and dozens of times on incredibly complicated, high
19:33
Speaker 2: stakes issues, careers, billions of dollars, and that I had
19:38
Speaker 2: a network of people that I could call on for perspective,
19:43
Speaker 2: so I knew I would get good advice. So I
19:46
Speaker 2: just from that moment, I just said, this is my
19:48
Speaker 2: newest case assignment.
19:51
Speaker 1: First trust was misplaced trust. Second trust stage was you
19:56
Speaker 1: can trust yourself. I Dan can trust myself on this.
20:00
Speaker 2: I can trust myself in this process.
20:04
Speaker 1: So he started over doing exactly the thing he always
20:07
Speaker 1: does when he takes on a new case. He read
20:09
Speaker 1: everything there was to read. He went through his medical
20:12
Speaker 1: records with a fine tooth comb, flagging the things that
20:14
Speaker 1: he didn't understand or that needed clarification. He was guided
20:18
Speaker 1: by one of the foundational principles of his work. First
20:22
Speaker 1: facts are always wrong, always wrong, always wrong, always wait.
20:28
Speaker 1: Describe explain that a little bit, because it's super relevant here,
20:31
Speaker 1: because in your case, the first facts are wrong, wrong, wrong.
20:35
Speaker 1: Why are first facts wrong?
20:37
Speaker 2: Well, it's the kind of thing you know. I had
20:42
Speaker 2: to learn through experience. Again, you're in a room. You're
20:46
Speaker 2: brilliant doctors, brilliant engineers, m b as, fabulous lawyers outside
20:51
Speaker 2: counts you would and so when they're telling you something,
20:58
Speaker 2: you believe it. You're based on their credibility, their integrity,
21:04
Speaker 2: their experience. The problem is where did they get what
21:07
Speaker 2: they know? In a crisis. It's coming too fast? How's
21:14
Speaker 2: it being processed? How thorough is it? How much can
21:18
Speaker 2: you know, and how's it being interpreted, Who's interpreted And
21:23
Speaker 2: sometimes there could be some obvious bias. Sometimes there's unintentional
21:28
Speaker 2: a bias. But what I always know is you don't
21:33
Speaker 2: have it all. What you think you have part of
21:36
Speaker 2: it's wrong and you need to be extremely careful decisions
21:42
Speaker 2: you're making based on those facts and what you're saying,
21:45
Speaker 2: because you're going to be reversing some of those decisions.
21:48
Speaker 2: You're going to be eating some of those words. And Malcolm,
21:51
Speaker 2: I never even thought about that. In my case. I
21:54
Speaker 2: did what all my clients do. Well, I've got serious
21:57
Speaker 2: lap tests, I've got an important experienced doctor, I've got
22:02
Speaker 2: other experts who have looked at it. Surely these things
22:06
Speaker 2: are right, you can rely on them. And I did,
22:09
Speaker 2: and I was absolutely wrong.
22:11
Speaker 1: What he learned was that the test that everyone was
22:14
Speaker 1: using to make sense of his case, where was his cancer?
22:17
Speaker 1: How bad was it? How much had it spread or flawed?
22:21
Speaker 1: Not because of anyone's incompetence, but just because trying to
22:25
Speaker 1: get an accurate picture of cancer when you first find
22:27
Speaker 1: it is really really hard. And that what happens is
22:31
Speaker 1: when doctors speak to their patients, they sometimes forget to
22:35
Speaker 1: communicate this fact, they pretend that they know something for
22:39
Speaker 1: certain when they actually don't, which meant that you couldn't
22:43
Speaker 1: put your trust in the results of biopsies and scans.
22:46
Speaker 1: You were of necessity in the world of subjectivity and judgment.
22:51
Speaker 1: And Dan knew all about the world of subjectivity and judgment.
22:55
Speaker 1: It was where he had spent his entire career. Then,
22:59
Speaker 1: when he felt that he was at least informed enough
23:01
Speaker 1: to ask the right questions, he put together a list
23:04
Speaker 1: of doctors he wanted to interview, put everything on hold
23:08
Speaker 1: for two months, and had a zoom call with one
23:11
Speaker 1: specialist after another. So you you go out, how many
23:16
Speaker 1: doctors do you interview?
23:19
Speaker 2: I had conversations with eighteen doctors, eighteen eighteen.
23:24
Speaker 1: And of those eighteen, how many told you? Can you
23:30
Speaker 1: kind of quantify what they told you? Like, how many
23:32
Speaker 1: told you surgery were Treatnteen fifteen told you what don't
23:38
Speaker 1: do surgery? Don't do surgery?
23:41
Speaker 2: One was split and two said yes.
23:44
Speaker 1: Tell me about the two who said yes.
23:48
Speaker 2: It was And I never shared the information between the
23:53
Speaker 2: two of them. I want to just objective views. And
24:00
Speaker 2: they both said almost exactly the same thing, almost exactly
24:04
Speaker 2: the same way. And they said they both acknowledged that
24:10
Speaker 2: I'm certain this will be a distinct minority of views
24:14
Speaker 2: that you're going to hear if you talk to other people,
24:17
Speaker 2: almost anybody else will tell you not to do surgery
24:20
Speaker 2: and that you can't do surgery. But they're wrong. And
24:25
Speaker 2: a factor in it was they also both said, your
24:29
Speaker 2: chance of beating this isn't great, but it's nonexistent if
24:36
Speaker 2: you don't have surgery, and mattered a lot to me,
24:43
Speaker 2: and you know in the other calls, again good doctors,
24:47
Speaker 2: experienced doctors, but saying likely of being successful almost nothing.
24:54
Speaker 2: Not we know from the start we're not going to
24:56
Speaker 2: be able to get it all out. It's going to
25:00
Speaker 2: give you with a lot of difficult side effects. Then
25:03
Speaker 2: you're going to have to start these other treatments. The
25:06
Speaker 2: side effects for the follow up treatments will be compounding
25:09
Speaker 2: with the side effect you're having after surgery. And I
25:12
Speaker 2: remember an oncologist thing to me, it is the absolute
25:17
Speaker 2: worst course of action you can take.
25:20
Speaker 1: So what was different about these two guys who disagreed.
25:25
Speaker 2: It's a funny thing because it it really does relate
25:32
Speaker 2: to my life experience and my work. Confident, clear, concise, unemotional, definitive,
25:43
Speaker 2: and convincing, not just words and manner, but factually the
25:49
Speaker 2: way they presented it, and listening to that, combined with
25:56
Speaker 2: I had already reached the point with all the information
25:59
Speaker 2: I had, realizing that there were, you know, it's cloudy
26:03
Speaker 2: information and differences of opinion, and I thought, I know
26:07
Speaker 2: that I'm comfortable with that now, and that I thought
26:11
Speaker 2: based here. You know, I don't think I ever took
26:14
Speaker 2: a science class in high school or college, but the
26:18
Speaker 2: science convinced me there was a very good chance that
26:22
Speaker 2: these doctors were wrong, that these tests had flaws, that
26:28
Speaker 2: some of it just didn't add up in the ways
26:31
Speaker 2: that it had been looked at. And I combined my
26:34
Speaker 2: own instincts, my own reading and information, with the way
26:37
Speaker 2: these two doctors talked, and I thought, how about my
26:42
Speaker 2: life on them?
26:51
Speaker 1: Then ended up choosing a surgeon at Duke University. He
26:54
Speaker 1: wasn't a prostate specialist. He was just someone who did
26:58
Speaker 1: complex cancer cases of all kinds. He was used to
27:01
Speaker 1: looking at things that seemed impossible. He has a different lens. Yes,
27:08
Speaker 1: he seemed broader range, presumably of problematic and.
27:13
Speaker 2: A good That's something I can relate to I'm in rooms.
27:17
Speaker 2: You know, years ago, Malcolm, CEO of Disney, said we
27:21
Speaker 2: would never be good at handling a crisis because we've
27:24
Speaker 2: never had one. And I thought, that can't be true.
27:27
Speaker 2: It can't be true. You're Disney. And what I realized
27:33
Speaker 2: in most of the rooms I've ever been in, they've
27:37
Speaker 2: never had bet your career, bet the company crisis. We
27:43
Speaker 2: think that everybody has. You've had all kinds of tests,
27:47
Speaker 2: but for most people it's a new experience, or the
27:53
Speaker 2: stakes are so big.
27:54
Speaker 1: Are you talking about the doctor? So in this case,
27:57
Speaker 1: the doctor had seen yes.
28:01
Speaker 2: And I have been in hundreds of boardrooms where I'm
28:08
Speaker 2: looking to CEO and he or she's wondering, is this
28:13
Speaker 2: the end of my career? Is this how I'm going
28:14
Speaker 2: to be defined? Am I going to lose my net worth?
28:16
Speaker 2: Am I going to go to jail? Am I going
28:18
Speaker 2: to be humiliated in front of Congress? Am I going
28:20
Speaker 2: to be embarrassed? At my with my family? That fear
28:26
Speaker 2: is there, And you know, I've had them say to me,
28:30
Speaker 2: my god. My communications people are under their desks, they're
28:34
Speaker 2: scared to death. My lawyers are arguing with each other,
28:39
Speaker 2: my board strong differences of opinions there, and then you
28:43
Speaker 2: know what you also have in those situations is they've
28:46
Speaker 2: got their friends, their neighbors, their country club colleagues, their
28:50
Speaker 2: their their business peers and friends. Somebody inevitably says to me,
28:57
Speaker 2: my wife's brother's neighbor's cousin says, I should do X.
29:01
Speaker 2: You've got it coming in from all directions. So you're
29:04
Speaker 2: trying to figure out who do I trust. As I've
29:09
Speaker 2: communicate to you before, the facts are wrong one hundred
29:12
Speaker 2: percent guarantee you you don't have all the facts, and
29:14
Speaker 2: some of the facts you think you have it wrong.
29:17
Speaker 2: So how am I supposed to make a decision now?
29:20
Speaker 2: And so I end up with this surgeon, and he
29:24
Speaker 2: broke it into two pieces. Can I do the surgery technically?
29:27
Speaker 2: Absolutely yes? Is the surgeon going to be a success?
29:30
Speaker 2: Different question, different questions? Will it save you? You know,
29:38
Speaker 2: that's a whole separate conversation from can I perform the
29:42
Speaker 2: procedure and succeed at that? So that you can have
29:46
Speaker 2: the chance to talk about these other things. So his
29:48
Speaker 2: first was one hundred percent yes. His second was fifty
29:52
Speaker 2: to fifty that it's going to help you at best,
29:57
Speaker 2: and if the studies are what these other doctors are saying,
30:02
Speaker 2: you do have a single digit likelihood to success. If
30:07
Speaker 2: they're wrong, you could have fifty percent or better. So
30:12
Speaker 2: it's how do you interpret all the information we have?
30:16
Speaker 2: And then it was also saying to him, I've got
30:19
Speaker 2: to have sort of the free reign to do whatever
30:22
Speaker 2: I think I need to do once I get in.
30:24
Speaker 1: And how quickly do you move from this is my
30:28
Speaker 1: guy to the actual surgery. What's the time.
30:34
Speaker 2: I by the time I spoke to him. One of
30:41
Speaker 2: the things I liked about my conversation with him, I
30:44
Speaker 2: was told that you should talk to this guy, and
30:46
Speaker 2: he's confident he can help you. When I talked to him,
30:48
Speaker 2: he said, oh, no, no, no, no, I'm not confident. I'm
30:51
Speaker 2: confident I can do this procedure successfully. I can't give
30:56
Speaker 2: you false confidence about your outcome. And that was helpful
31:01
Speaker 2: to me. It was honest. I didn't need somebody. It's
31:05
Speaker 2: another view of mine. People who tell you they can
31:08
Speaker 2: solve your problem be extremely suspicious. Extremely suspicious. Your problem
31:15
Speaker 2: is multi layers, evolved over a long period of time,
31:19
Speaker 2: all kinds of dynamics at play, and so in this case,
31:24
Speaker 2: I knew that he could do the surgery. I had
31:26
Speaker 2: already factored all the calculations from the others. I knew
31:31
Speaker 2: it was my only really good chance, and I had
31:34
Speaker 2: concluded that the analysis I was getting was flawed from
31:38
Speaker 2: the others, and I just I said, let's go. And
31:41
Speaker 2: within three weeks I went from my first conversation with
31:44
Speaker 2: them to having surgery.
31:46
Speaker 1: Tell me what that first conversation you had with him
31:48
Speaker 1: after the surgery was over.
31:50
Speaker 2: The first thing was there were certain cancerous spots that
31:55
Speaker 2: were in doubt. Could he get to them? And so
31:56
Speaker 2: I needed to know immediately did you get them? And
31:58
Speaker 2: he said, yes, got.
31:59
Speaker 1: Them because the cancer had metastasized.
32:02
Speaker 2: Ye got them. And then it was you know how far?
32:09
Speaker 2: And he you know, he had to. He said, I
32:14
Speaker 2: had a nip cut, trim move most of the things
32:20
Speaker 2: inside you. I told him, thank you, But I'm as
32:25
Speaker 2: partial to as many parts as I can keep. So
32:29
Speaker 2: he had to do a lot, but he was confident
32:35
Speaker 2: he got everything he wanted to get. And the initial
32:38
Speaker 2: pathology after the surgery was positive. But you don't know,
32:41
Speaker 2: but it was a It was exactly what he said,
32:44
Speaker 2: which is the surgery was successful. Now we wait on
32:48
Speaker 2: the outcomes, and and I was, I was relieved, but
32:53
Speaker 2: I it. I don't want to sound overconfident, but it
32:57
Speaker 2: was what I expected.
32:59
Speaker 1: And how long I've forgotten now there was it was.
33:02
Speaker 1: It was a six week.
33:04
Speaker 2: Six weeks and you get a blood test and my
33:09
Speaker 2: get a p s A score and mine had gone
33:12
Speaker 2: down significantly. Was not in a great zone, but a
33:16
Speaker 2: good zone at six weeks. And then at another six
33:20
Speaker 2: weeks I went down and I you know, I have
33:23
Speaker 2: my my text from him, which I will keep because
33:30
Speaker 2: it's the only time I've ever gotten a text from
33:32
Speaker 2: a doctor where he used miraculous three times and and
33:36
Speaker 2: one paragraph to me for the outcome of my test scores.
33:41
Speaker 1: I believe I got a screenshot at that one.
33:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. So and my you know, my doctors, the two
33:50
Speaker 2: they were like kids, high fiving, you know, over the
33:53
Speaker 2: phone to each other. They both joined on a conference
33:57
Speaker 2: call to call me to tell me the results. They
33:59
Speaker 2: were ecstatic.
34:01
Speaker 1: So there's there's three trust layers here.
34:05
Speaker 2: There is.
34:08
Speaker 1: The miss placed trust in the beginning, understanding that you
34:11
Speaker 1: would you would offered, you would extended trust prematurely, both
34:18
Speaker 1: to doctors, and.
34:20
Speaker 2: She had assumed that trust was justified. Trust in the doctor,
34:28
Speaker 2: trust in his experience, his approach, and trust in the tests.
34:33
Speaker 2: That was misplaced, and and I'm you know, I'm more
34:38
Speaker 2: critical of myself than I am of the doctors.
34:41
Speaker 1: And then the second layer was understanding, I can trust
34:46
Speaker 1: myself and this this is I notice I've done this,
34:49
Speaker 1: I have experience in this.
34:51
Speaker 2: Yes.
34:51
Speaker 1: And then the third layer was, this is the person
34:56
Speaker 1: who I'm going to place my trust in for this surgery.
34:59
Speaker 2: It's exactly right. I mean, I trust myself. I don't
35:03
Speaker 2: know how people. That may sound to people. It may
35:05
Speaker 2: sound arrogant or naive or whatever. It's it was hard
35:10
Speaker 2: earned from decades in rooms where people would turn to
35:15
Speaker 2: me and say, no, what do you think? And if
35:18
Speaker 2: you can't add value or what you're saying doesn't make sense,
35:22
Speaker 2: you're going to be out of that room. You're never
35:23
Speaker 2: going to be around. And my work was one hundred
35:28
Speaker 2: percent of referral base. So if they don't have value
35:31
Speaker 2: in the room, I don't have any I don't have
35:33
Speaker 2: a career. So it was that, and then it was
35:37
Speaker 2: the person and the process. He laid out what he
35:43
Speaker 2: said he would do and how I would do it,
35:46
Speaker 2: and what the equation was I'm putting all that together
35:50
Speaker 2: along with my reading and analysis. I had a high
35:53
Speaker 2: degree of confidence that there was the right choice, and
35:55
Speaker 2: I can honestly say I didn't lose a moment's sleep,
35:58
Speaker 2: had no second thoughts. I was certain I had chosen
36:01
Speaker 2: the right course.
36:02
Speaker 1: The idea that you didn't lose and have a moment's
36:05
Speaker 1: sleep is is so I lost?
36:09
Speaker 2: Why is this?
36:10
Speaker 1: I lost more sleep over your condition you did. I
36:13
Speaker 1: was making up in the middle of the night worrying
36:15
Speaker 1: about you, and you're like sleeping like a baby.
36:18
Speaker 2: Once I decided, I was truly confident. I can't be
36:23
Speaker 2: confident that now it's going to turn out. I was
36:27
Speaker 2: confident that I had all the information I need to
36:29
Speaker 2: make an informed decision, that I had processed it thoughtfully
36:34
Speaker 2: in a way that with the same rigor that I
36:38
Speaker 2: would give to a client, and that it was the
36:42
Speaker 2: best option available. What's going to be is what's going
36:45
Speaker 2: to be. But that's what I came to, and with
36:47
Speaker 2: that I was a patient.
36:49
Speaker 1: In the span of six months, he went from you
36:52
Speaker 1: should get this looked at at some point. Two, you
36:55
Speaker 1: should put your affairs in order. Two, we can't find
36:59
Speaker 1: any more cancer.
37:01
Speaker 2: I think that I discounted the idea of instincts and
37:09
Speaker 2: intuition in my work. I lived by it, but there
37:13
Speaker 2: was an eldement that discounted it, that it wasn't credentialed.
37:21
Speaker 2: I didn't bring a Harvard NBA to this. I wasn't
37:27
Speaker 2: a lawyer at a major firm. And I look back now.
37:36
Speaker 2: My instincts, intuition, judgment were everything in my work, and
37:42
Speaker 2: it wasn't that what I had replaced the other people
37:46
Speaker 2: in the room. What I say to people is, you
37:49
Speaker 2: don't want a room full of people like me, but
37:51
Speaker 2: you want somebody like me when you're going through this,
37:55
Speaker 2: and it is this intuition and instinct and the sense
38:01
Speaker 2: that you've described, and blank of processing and making a decision,
38:06
Speaker 2: and there are thousands of things going on in your brain.
38:08
Speaker 2: You don't even no as you're making that decision. And
38:12
Speaker 2: I have lived my life but it and lived my
38:15
Speaker 2: career butt and trust. So trust is all tied up
38:20
Speaker 2: in that. It's a fascinating field. It is what I
38:23
Speaker 2: did with clients because what they would say to me is,
38:25
Speaker 2: how don't I get people to believe us again? How
38:27
Speaker 2: do I get my customers back? How do I get
38:29
Speaker 2: them to give me more time. How can I get
38:31
Speaker 2: them to look at this in a different way? How
38:33
Speaker 2: do I do that? What do I have to do
38:36
Speaker 2: So it's all of that that plays into it. I
38:39
Speaker 2: just never figured I would end up processing it for myself.
38:47
Speaker 1: Provision Is History is produced by Nina Bird Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan,
38:51
Speaker 1: and Ben atdaf Haffrey. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith.
38:55
Speaker 1: Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence, original music by Luis Gira,
38:58
Speaker 1: Sound design and mastering by my Cello di'ela verra. Special
39:03
Speaker 1: thanks to Cure Posey, Morgan Ratner, and Eric Sandler. I'm
39:08
Speaker 1: Malcolm glar Ever.