Terry Dubrow – Becoming the World’s Most Famous Plastic Surgeon | E175

Summary

Podcast Summary: In Search of Excellence

Episode: Terry Dubrow – Becoming the World’s Most Famous Plastic Surgeon | E175

Host: Randall Kaplan
Guest: Dr. Terry Dubrow
Date: November 3, 2025

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode features Dr. Terry Dubrow, renowned plastic surgeon and television personality, known for “Botched.” Through personal stories and candid reflections, Terry discusses his journey from a tough childhood to massive professional success, exploring the themes of resilience, perseverance, ambition, mentorship, and the pursuit of excellence. The conversation also touches on the importance of boldness, learning from setbacks, the impact of family, loyalty, and proactive career development.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Life and Family Challenges

• Single-parent household: Terry grew up with his mother after his father left when he was two. Poverty strongly shaped his outlook on life, driving his later ambition and work ethic.
  • Memorable Story: At age 10, Terry compared himself to a stray cat they fed, realizing he needed to “figure it out and get it together.” (02:44)
• Shared experience with host: Both Terry and Randall had mothers as legal secretaries who remarried to improve their families’ lives, resulting in complex blended families. Both experienced abrupt moves and toxic environments.
• Stepfather conflict: Terry’s stepfather enforced strict rules, leading to tension, especially with Terry’s brother, Kevin (forced to drink milk, fistfights, toxic household). (06:15)

2. Sibling Dynamics & Influence

• Kevin Dubrow’s journey: Terry describes sharing a room with his older brother, a high-strung and mean aspiring rock star who would later become the lead singer of Quiet Riot.
  • “It was a really toxic environment. I very much hated him. That really informed a lot of who I became.” (08:33)
• Kevin’s success: Despite no natural talent for singing, Kevin’s sheer focus and will transformed him into a rock frontman who achieved a number one album, “Metal Health.” (29:19, 41:13)

3. Academic Ambition & Early Lessons

• Obnoxious and talented: Terry was a sarcastic, high-achieving student who received his only high school B for writing a humorous, critical essay on history (“high school in many ways is exactly like prison”). (09:02)
• Formative influence: Early academic setbacks, like that B, “bummer...because I wanted to graduate with a 4.0,” reinforced his drive towards excellence.

4. Formative Life Experiences

• Alcohol aversion: A traumatic whiskey incident at age 12 led Terry to avoid drinking until age 38. (13:42)
• Exposure to entertainment: Growing up near CBS Television City, Terry recalls the impact of Hollywood’s proximity and atmosphere. (17:04)

5. Finding a Career Path

• No role models: Terry’s family didn’t discuss careers; he was initially steered toward dentistry or optometry by his mother due to their perceived stability. “I had absolutely no clue or concept about what I would do with my life.” (19:08)
• Dentistry: hated it. Volunteering bored him, so he dropped pre-dentistry, meandered, then found inspiration in science and medicine.
• Turning point: Volunteering at the UCLA ER, inspired by the confident, brilliant residents (“relaxed brilliance”) and the intoxicating smell of the hospital, Terry decided to pursue medicine in earnest. (21:59, repeated at 00:00)
  • “The minute I walked in there, I was just lit. There was something about the smell.” (00:00, 21:59)
• Proactive career transition: Transferred to Yale to complete prerequisite courses and a master’s degree; thrived there academically, taught MCAT prep.

6. The Power of Mentorship (& Being Bold)

• Mentorship pivotal: Terry’s career took off after chasing down charismatic surgeon Dr. Mal Lesavoy after a spellbinding lecture. Mal invited Terry to his lab, sparking prolific research and publication output.
  • “Be bold. I always say to my kids, it's not so important to be smart, but it's important to be clever and bold.” (23:00, repeated at 50:44)
• First mover advantage: Terry emphasizes proactively seeking opportunities and adding value—whether meeting a billionaire, a future mentor, or applying creative approaches to get noticed. (50:44, 52:47)
  • “Take the first step. Be enthusiastic, be humble, be authentic. Everyone loves to be interested in...” (50:44)

7. Loyalty, Opportunity, and the Music Industry

• Quiet Riot’s big break and heartbreak: Terry recounts how Ozzy Osbourne poached guitarist Randy Rhoads from Kevin’s band, Quiet Riot, highlighting human nature’s complexity with loyalty and ambition.
  • “It taught me about, you know, loyalty...but how can you possibly turn that down?” (31:59)
• Fame’s fleeting nature: Reflects on his brother’s meteoric rise and personal struggle, the intoxicating live shows, and the drummers and musicians who partied at their house. (37:28)

8. Mentorship & Networking Advice

• Standing out: Both men stress that mentorship must be earned through authentic connection and proactive value-creation, not generic requests. (55:42, 57:19)
  • “You've got to earn mentorship. You have to earn your time in the door.” (55:19)
  • “If someone puts a cat on there who is in need of help...obviously that's going to pull on my heartstrings a little bit...” (59:07)
• Preparation & research: “Do your homework and figure out how you can come resonate with them.” (55:42)

9. Academic & Career Progression

• Medical training: Terry describes his traditional, intense path—general surgery residency, then plastic surgery. Key was publishing (the true “currency” in medicine/residency selection).
• Practice beginnings: Planned to stay in Beverly Hills but, thanks to a bit of chance and a friend’s encouragement, moved to and established himself in Newport Beach. (61:46, 62:24)

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Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

| Timestamp | Quote | Speaker | |-----------|-------|---------| | 00:00 & 21:59 | “The minute I walked in there, I was just lit. There was something about the smell.” | Dr. Terry Dubrow | | 02:44 | “Even at the age of 10, it dawned on me that I could be that cat. And I need to figure it out and get it together.” | Dr. Terry Dubrow | | 08:33 | “It was a really toxic environment. I very much hated him. That really informed a lot of who I became.” | Dr. Terry Dubrow | | 23:00 / 50:44 | “Be bold. I always say to my kids, it's not so important to be smart, but it's important to be clever and bold..." | Dr. Terry Dubrow | | 29:19 | “He was the first hard rock band to have a number one album. He displaced Thriller on the Billboard charts at number one.” | Dr. Terry Dubrow | | 41:13 | “Metal Health was the first metal, heavy metal album ever on the Billboard to hit number one.” | Ryan | | 46:28 | “Let me tell you about the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery... We do it all.” | Dr. Mal Lesavoy (via Terry Dubrow) | | 52:47 | “If you can publish as a medical student or a resident, that's the ultimate because that's your...pushing your professor's careers forward.” | Dr. Terry Dubrow | | 55:19 | “You have to earn mentorship. You have to earn your time in the door.” | Ryan | | 57:19 | “Do your research, do your homework and figure out how you can come resonate with them.” | Dr. Terry Dubrow |

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Noteworthy Segments & Timestamps

• Childhood in poverty & stray cat analogy (02:44)
• First recognition of being poor (02:51)
• Stepfather stories & family toxicity (06:15)
• High school academic life and teacher conflict (09:02)
• Kevin Dubrow’s personality and musical rise (08:33 – 29:19)
• Whiskey incident trauma (13:42)
• Dentistry vs. medicine: finding his calling (19:08 – 21:59)
• Yale MCAT teaching, academic pivot (24:58)
• Mentorship with Dr. Mal Lesavoy; research/publishing (46:28 – 52:47)
• Quiet Riot, Ozzy Osbourne, and loyalty (29:19 – 32:38)
• Mentoring and advice on networking (55:19 – 59:47)
• Establishing Newport Beach practice (61:46 – 66:03)

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Tone & Language

Dr. Dubrow is candid, self-deprecating, reflective, and direct; the vibe ranges from humorous anecdotes to earnest discussions of pain, ambition, and values. Randall Kaplan is empathetic, engaged, and shares personal parallels, setting a tone that is conversational, encouraging, and insightful.

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Summary Takeaways

1. Boldness and authenticity win opportunities. Don’t wait to be chosen—take the first step, show real interest, and add value.
2. Challenges shape resilience. Poverty and dysfunctional family life led Terry to develop grit, independence, and a relentless drive toward improvement.
3. Mentorship and networking matter, but you have to stand out. Research, authenticity, and value creation are essential to building meaningful professional relationships.
4. Success requires both reactive and proactive work. Publishing in medicine, or generating your own job opportunities, means never being just an “order taker.”
5. Loyalty is tested in ambitious careers, and sometimes must be forgone for opportunity.
6. Preparation and perseverance are non-negotiable for excellence.
7. Fame and success can be fleeting—remaining grounded and ethical is vital.

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End of Part One. The episode promises a continuation next week, delving further into Terry's journey to becoming "the world's most famous plastic surgeon."

Transcript

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I volunteered at the UCLA emergency room and the minute I walked in there, I was just lit. There was something about the smell. And the residents were all young, good looking, studly, what I call relaxed brilliance. They were just confident and smart.

[Ryan]

What's your advice to everybody else who's afraid to do that? They're not going out. They don't go after what they want.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Be bold. I always say to my kids, it's not so important to be smart, but it's important to be clever and bold. You lean into those two things, you'll get very far, you know. And what do you have to lose?

[Ryan]

Nothing.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Nothing. And everything to gain.

[Ryan]

Welcome to In Search of Excellence. My guest today is my friend Terry Debro. He's is a star plastic surgeon, one of the best plastic surgeons in the world and the star of the Austin TV show Botched, which I watched, I think for the first three years every night after I met my wife Madison. She was absolutely obsessed with the show. Terry, thanks for being here. Welcome to In Search of Excellence.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this.

[Ryan]

So I always start with our family and I want to start with your mom, Laura, who is a legal secretary. And you grew up with a single mom.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yes.

[Ryan]

Let's go to the moment when you were 10 years old and there was a stray cat scratching at your door. How did growing up in poverty influence your future?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I can't believe you know this story. We were living on Genesee street near the high school, Fairfax High School. My mom was a secretary. My dad had basically abandoned us. Fortunately, although we became friends later when I was two. I say fortunately because he wasn't very nice, but anyway. And we were living in this apartment with nothing. And there was this cat. I love cats. I don't know what it is about. I love all animals, but I love cats. And there was this cat in the alleyway behind the apartment. And I went to the refrigerator and got some milk and put it out for the cat. And then from there, after, the cat would scratch on our screen door every night at about that time for me to put the milk out. And it dawned on me that this cat had. Has no place to live, has no family, has no, I don't know the right word, job, but no career. And I thought, this could be me. This is no different than the environment I'm growing up in. Even at the age of 10, it dawned on me that I could be that cat. And I need to figure it out and get it together.

[Ryan]

When you were younger, what was the first moment that you realized, hey, were poor, for lack of a better word.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

We used to go to a public pool in Los Angeles that cost for kids, it was 2 cents to get into or something. You could tell that everybody at the public pool was poor. You could just tell they had nothing, no cars. We all took buses there. You know, my mom didn't have a car till I was about 12. So we took a bus everywhere. And so it was, you know, taking the bus to the public pool, seeing that everybody else was on the bus and waiting hours at the bus, it seemed like hours, probably only minutes. But at the bus stand, it just. Everything seemed so without. To be honest, I remember there were kids at the school who had stuff. But to be honest with you, like most kids who will tell you who I think grew up poor, you weren't really super conscious of not being poor or feeling weird or bad about poor. That didn't happen until I got in high school.

[Ryan]

My mom was a legal secretary to divorce when I was two and a half. And my first memory as a kid was her crying because she was worried that she couldn't pay the rent. And as a two and a half year old, it's traumatic.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

That's heavy, Ryan.

[Ryan]

She worked two jobs to support my brother and me. And I even thought back then, my grandma would come over, she would babysit while my mom went to work, working late at night, boss who harassed her and she couldn't leave.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

That's very heavy. I mean, I had a similar experience when I was. My mom married my stepfather when I was 11. And I remember I had an older brother, Kevin, three years older. And of all the guys she used to date, she dated a lot. I remember there were a lot of different guys coming over all the time. And all the guys she used to date, he was the only one we didn't like. She said, how do you guys feel about me marrying Hal? And I said, my brother said, I can't stand that guy. And I said, well, I couldn't stand him either, but, you know, I'm a little softer and more empathic, I guess. And I said, well, if you want to. Do you feel that way, honey? And I said, yeah. And I thought, please don't marry this guy. She marries Hal, who is a construction plumber, when. Then we moved in with his three kids and moved into the Valley, the San Fernando valley, at age 11 and moved into a very, very small house with my brother and I sharing a room and three stepbrothers in two other rooms.

[Ryan]

Right. So again, very Similar story. My mom remarried when I was 6 years old. To give us a better life, she married a pediatrician turned dermatologist who went back to med school. So we were upper middle class for a while and we didn't like it either. And he also had three boys, so there were five boys as well. But we weren't living in a small house like you were. We were living in Birmingham, Michigan. And to outside world, everything looked great, but it was miserable. Yeah, we didn't like it.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

And then in high school one day we had the pleasure of coming home and my mom said to me, pack up all your stuff and garbage bag, we're moving. So we had an hour throw all of our shit in the garbage bags. And she got a small apartment in Birmingham and was very, very happy that we were out of that house. It was very toxic from the first moment. Sometimes our parents think that they're doing us a great thing. And even now my mom will look back and say, gosh, I'm sorry that I put you through that. But as a parent, you know, you've got four kids as well. I have five kids. You just want the best for your kids. You're always gonna do what you think is right.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. My stepfather was pretty toxic. He was always mad, always in a bad mood. My brother, my older brother was very high strung and very difficult and they were, they would literally fist fight the moment we got there. He'd want to enforce his values and he demanded that we didn't drink milk. We were raised by a single person. We could do whatever we want. All of a sudden Hal said, everybody's drinking milk at this dinner table. My brother couldn't stand milk and probably he was glucose lactose intolerant because it bothered his stomach. But Hal didn't care. Everybody had to drink milk. And I remember this one night where Kevin said, forget it, I'm not drinking milk. I'm never doing it. And Hal chased him down the block with a glass of milk. I have that image burned in my brain with the milk spilling. You're going to drink this milk and you're going to like it. I remember this. Yeah.

[Ryan]

So you're in the Valley. You're living in a very small crimp house. You're living in a room with your brother Kevin.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yes.

[Ryan]

We'll talk a lot about him in this show. He's a drummer. Well, he had a drum kit in the room and a real tape. Posters of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin on the wall.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yep.

[Ryan]

And you got a little 100 square feet, desk. Because you're a good student. What was that like, sharing a room with a brother? So completely different. Here you're the studious guy and here he's going to go on to become a rock star and we'll talk about his career in a little bit.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Well, he was a little mean and not very brotherly. And I remember when we were in elementary school, he was like the hall monitor or whatever and his job was to give citations for people doing wrong things and he would only give them to me. But anyway, he was a very high strung, mean, intense person. And you know, when I was studying, he liked to play music. He, you know, he's very, very into music, as I'm sure you know. And, and it was a, it was a really toxic environment. I very much hated him. That really, you know, informed a lot of who I became. Moving into this uncomfortable place in the valley with these three steps brothers who we didn't get along with this small room, my brother just dominating my life. And I, you know, it was all about, what am I going to do to get out of this situation?

[Ryan]

One of the things you did, you're a good student, great student.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

And you have described yourself as a very obnoxious, sarcastic kid. And you had a teacher who punished you by giving you a B grade. No, no, that's not what happened.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

The ass.

[Ryan]

Well, there was a. You, you got.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Oh, the history teacher. The only B I got in high school.

[Ryan]

The only B you got in.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right, right. I.

[Ryan]

So first of all, what was her name? You've never talked to us. What was his name? His name or her name?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

His name. Gosh, I don't remember his name. The, the problem was, was he was a very nice guy, but. And I played tennis with him, but I didn't like history and he was the history teacher. And so just to get history out of the way, I took it as like a blow off course in summer school. And I can't remember his name. And he'd give us these writing essays and every one I wrote, which I thought were really good, by the way, were really obnoxious. He'd say, write an essay about analogies highlighting the concept of analogies. So I wrote this really long and I thought really good essay that was kind of funny about how high school in many ways was exactly like prison and all the similarities between high school and prison. And you know, the times that you had to respond to there was a fence, you couldn't do various things and so on. It was really one of my Best works. I mean, it was an A. He wrote B minus, obnoxious on it. It was weird because I couldn't figure out he just didn't get it. But I think he. I'm much nicer. I'm a nice guy. But, I mean, I was very sarcastic back then. And I thought, I sort of let him know that I thought history was a waste of time and beneath me and useless for my future or anybody's future, who cares? What happened in the past was my attitude, which if you think about how stupid and immature that was. I'm basically telling you your whole career is worthless and useless to students. And, you know, I didn't even realize it at the time. So he gave me a B. I never got even an A minus in high school. He gave me a straight B. It was a bummer because I wanted to graduate with a 4.0.

[Ryan]

You're listening to part one of my incredible interview with Terry Deborah, the most famous plastic surgeon in the world and the star of the TV hit show Botched. Be sure to check out part two of my interview next week with Terry. Now, without further ado, here's part one of my awesome interview. So, another similarity. When I got to Michigan, I went to private school in Detroit. Detroit Country Day school and very rigorous school. And I came from a public school. So I had asked my dad, I said, hey, I want to be more challenged. I did really well. And so he generously paid for me to go to this amazing private school. And I got there, Terry, and it's all these smart kids, I mean, brilliant kids, national science fair winners, all that stuff. And looking around, gosh, you know, can I compete with these kids? And eventually I. I did. I graduated Madden Kumalan. I went to Michigan, and first day at Michigan, I took a psych class in one of these huge rooms, you know, with 300 people. There were four TAs, they got up to speak break into four different groups. And I chose this woman, Manu Alexander, thinking, okay, she's. She looks like she's the toughest one and I'm going to take her class. It was the only B plus I got at Michigan. I graduated top 1% of my class, Phi Beta Kappa, my junior year.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Wow.

[Ryan]

But I look back and I say to myself, oh, my gosh, like, it was good that I got that B plus. I mean, I think. I think I still graduated 41 out of 4, 300 people.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Wow.

[Ryan]

But, you know, when you calculate, like, what if that have been an A minus? Whatever, I mean, we're getting into the, the thin air at that point. But before. And we'll get to college in a little bit. But I grew up in Detroit. I was kind of sheltered at this private school. You grew up in Van Nuys. Things happen here a little bit faster. You had a whiskey incident when you were 12 years old. What was that about?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So I had friends on the block and one of the kids was older, he was 16 and I was 12. And he goes, he used to take us camping, which is weird because he never did anything. But he turned out to be a little bit of a pedophile, as it turns out. And he never. I think this was the beginnings of his sort of inklings. But he would take all of us young 12 year olds camping all the time during the summer. And he was a very good student and a really nice guy. But he'd take us camping. And then I'm in the back of his camper. Well, he had a truck with a little. That little camper shell thing on it. So we're in the back driving up to wherever we used to go, Lake Casitas or something, camping, and somebody had some alcohol. They said, let's have some of this. So it was really low budget whiskey. What's the low budget whiskey you can think of?

[Ryan]

I don't drink whiskey.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah, I don't either.

[Ryan]

I drink IPAs.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Okay.

[Ryan]

And margaritas. We had a few margaritas this summer.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right. But you've heard of this whiskey. Anyway, I just can't think of it like a Johnnie Walker type vibe or whatever it was. But anyway, and we started drinking it, not knowing anything about drinking alcohol at all. Drank it, drank it, drank it. And of course got sicker than I've ever been in my life and threw up for seemed like hours. And that was it. I don't know if you've ever eaten. I remember once eating Chinese food, getting food poisoning. I couldn't eat Chinese food for three months. I didn't have another drink till I was 38. So I didn't drink at all between 12 and 38 at all. And it's partly because of that, or maybe mostly because of that. So I had a really bad experience with alcohol.

[Mentor/Advisor]

I hope you're enjoying this video so far. But before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach the next level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly a hundred, including Google, Lift and Seagate. And I also co founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage in my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success, success way faster than I did in my own journey. I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals.

[Ryan]

I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others.

[Mentor/Advisor]

I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer.

[Ryan]

A few simple questions. And if you're a good fit, my.

[Mentor/Advisor]

Team will reach out so we can.

[Ryan]

Build a game plan together.

[Mentor/Advisor]

All right, now let's get back to the video.

[Ryan]

I had a bad experience with tequila and Acapulco. Spring break, my junior year at Michigan. You know, you go on these trips back then it was $3.99 with airfare. So you're staying in this hotel with a bunch of college kids. Then you go to this nightclub and they're just pouring shots. It was Jose Cuervo, whatever it was. And I think I had five or six shots. And after a while, you can't even taste the shots right. And I wanted some water, so they kept giving me water in the shot glass, but ended up not being water. I thought I was going to die. Absolutely going to die.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

So up until a few years ago, I wouldn't drink. I never had a margarita before, and now I love margaritas. It's really the only. I only like beer, IPA beer and fruity drinks like a margarita.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So you had a PTSD for a long time.

[Ryan]

It was. I mean, just the smell of it today, even, you know, when we're. We were hanging out at this bar, we don't have to say where, but we have vacation homes in the city. Place up in Coeur d'. Alene.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yep.

[Ryan]

And people pour shots at the bar. And, you know, there's peer pressure. Some days, everyone's drinking and whooping it up and people are pouring your shot. Come on. I mean, even my son and, you know, my daughter. That night we were hanging out. Dad, you gotta do a shot with me. Mentally, you gotta get it down.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

But you're put. You've pushed packs that I put.

[Ryan]

I. It's still, like, I don't like, drink. I'll never drink straight Tequila.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

And I probably done, I don't know, in the last 10 years, maybe max 10 shots. It's just not my thing.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

In my case, I've still never had a. A whiskey ever.

[Ryan]

Let's go back. You were a skateboarder when you were a kid and you used to ride around the CBS lot on Fairfax on your board as well?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

You doing any tricks or tricks or anything?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

No, that was before skateboarding was a thing. But I remember I literally grew up within walking distance of the CBS Television City lot. Literally. I mean, it must have been seven apartments down and that's where we'd play. So we'd ride skateboards all through CBS when before it was gated, you could ride through the whole thing. And so I remember sort of a memory of Television City and the grand nature of, you know, the feelings regarding entertainment, Hollywood and TV and stuff like that. So that was an impression that made on me.

[Mentor/Advisor]

I hope you're enjoying this video so far. But before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach the next level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google, lift and Seagate. And I also co founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage of my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did in my own journey. I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others. I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs or excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions. And if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can.

[Ryan]

Build a game plan together.

[Mentor/Advisor]

All right, now let's get back to the video.

[Ryan]

A lot of us when we're young think about what we want to do. A lot of boys want to play professional football player. You know, my girls are young. I have a nine year, she'll be nine next week. And I have a five year old one wants to be a nail designer. All she does is paint nails and make nails. The other one Wants to be a dancer and a model. You know, she sees pictures of her mom and she's, oh, that's. That's great. Your mom suggested that you might want to go into dentistry in high school. So tell us about your experience at usc and then what this dentist told you in private practice that helped shape your future.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

When I grew up in the Valley with my stepfather, who was always out of work and always home and always smoking a cigar, and I have a very extreme reaction to cigars even to this day. We never, ever, ever talked about careers or success or ambition or anything. It was just never discussed. So I had absolutely no clue or concept about what I would do with my life. Nothing. I just knew I was good in science and math. I was a good student. And to me, my currency being wealthy was being a straight A. Remember that feeling? If you were straight A's, you're wealthy in a way, you're a wealthy person. At school, it gave you sort of a certain status among teachers and other.

[Ryan]

Students, confidence as well.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. So that I didn't. I had no idea. So I remember saying to my mother, what should I do with this? And she goes, I don't know. Because my mother didn't know. She said, well, maybe be a dentist. Dentists always seem to have such nice offices, and they do so well. And they live over in Sherman Oaks, because I guess our dentist was in Sherman Oaks. You know, we drive over to the nice part of town near Encino, which was the Beverly Hills of the Valley. Oh, my God. Remember the first time I saw Encino, and I said, okay, dentist, sure. And so I thought, well, how does one figure this out? So I looked it up somewhere way, way before the Internet, and I saw that USC was like the best dental school. And so I went over to tusc, volunteered for a little while, and then I sort of volunteered in a dentist's office. First of all, there was nothing to see. It's not like you can have a conversation with a kid about dentistry like you can about being a doctor or something, how cool it is treating disease or trauma or all that other kind of stuff. And it was instantly incredibly boring.

[Ryan]

What would you do there as a volunteer in a dentist's office?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Nothing. Literally nothing. And I don't even know why I was there, but I remember when I volunteered at usc, at the dental school, it had this cool look to it because it was USC dental school. And it was. Looked very. There were, you know, heads and molds and things. So it looked very sciency. So that was kind of interesting. So I knew it was boring. I thought, well, maybe I'll go and maybe be a dentist. But I still had no clue at all about what I was going to do. But still, dentistry was still top of the list. She also suggested optometry. I didn't know what an optometrist really did. I didn't really know it wasn't really this kind of doctor or that. And Macleaf prescribed glasses, you know.

[Ryan]

But she told you something else. She told you you're not a dentist, you're a surgeon.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Well, no, not, no, not that. Not, not so much like that. No. I actually went to college to be a dentist initially.

[Ryan]

Okay.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I decided to stay locally and I went to UCSD for my first year. Everybody there was pre med. And it was nice not to be pre med, not to feel like you're competing with everybody. So when you got as in the chemistry classes, nobody cared. So I was pre dent. And then while I was down there, I also volunteered for a dentist and with a dentist. And I realized I can't stand this. This is not. I can't do this. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm not going to do this. So I stopped the whole pursu of dentistry completely and started taking other courses and other classes. And then, long story short, because of a girl, I moved back to UCLA because I was still in love with my high school girlfriend. I was still getting A's, but I was kind of lost as to what I was going to do. And then like my third or fourth year at ucla, I sort of was going to graduate with very high scores, but I didn't know what I was going to do. I hadn't taken the right classes to apply to dental school or med school or anything. But I volunteered in the UCLA emergency room because there were so many people that were pre med. I wanted to see what it was like, remember, you know, even my father, who I started to hook up with a little bit later, my actual father, he didn't know anything about medicine. He was an engineer. He said, oh, you should be an engineer. And that seemed very boring. Anyway, so I worked. I volunteered at the UCLA emergency room. And the minute I walked in there, I was just lit. There was something about the smell. And the residents were all young, good looking, studdly what I call relaxed brilliance. They were just confident and smart. And you know, medical residents are encyclopedic because all you do, you know, the 10,000 hour rule. We do 10,000 hours in a week when you're in medical school. It's the most intensive study ever. So you walk around and you're constantly, constantly being asked. You know, it's called the Socratic method. You're constantly being asked questions, questions, questions. So you, you're always studying, you're always ready to take a verbal test. So they were so hyperverbal, which to me translated as hyper brilliant and confident and smart. And I thought, I gotta do this. So that means I now have to take all the pre med courses. What am I going to do? I transfer to Yale. I transferred to Yale in sort of before. Now they have these post back programs where if you decide you want to be a doctor and you haven't taken the pre med course, you go to a college and you take all the pre med courses. They kind of let me do that while I was getting a master's degree also. So I was at Yale taking all the med school courses and getting a master's. I got straight A's there and I volunteered at the Yale New Haven emergency room. And I was just lit. I just thought, this is the greatest thing. Took the MCATs, I killed it. And I started teaching Stanley Kaplan, MCAT course there as a job.

[Ryan]

My uncle Stanley. No, he's not my uncle. No, no.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

You know, Stanley Kaplan, remember that?

[Ryan]

Yeah, no, of course, yeah. Biggest prep group for law school. All, all the grad schools.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Amazing. And. And so there I was in New Haven making $75 an hour teaching the MCATs.

[Ryan]

It's a lot.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

A lot back then. This is 80.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Now I'm going to apply to med school.

[Ryan]

Before we get there, I want to know what is an intoxicating smell of the emergency room? What does an emergency room smell like?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So hospitals in general, as you imagine, have a certain sterile sort of smell to them for some reason, you know, like I. About 30% of people can't ingest or smell or be near truffle. You're probably aware of this, maybe you're not. Yeah. And if you. You. The way people like me process truffle is you make androstenone, which is this. It smells like excrement. Terrible. And cilantro. You've heard of this with soap, correct?

[Ryan]

Yes. Yes.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I had the opposite with the hospital. It just made me feel alive and awesome and I don't know, I just love the smell of hospitals. Weird, right?

[Ryan]

So I want to go back before college and talk about your brother Kevin.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yes.

[Ryan]

So he drops out of high school in the 11th grade.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yes.

[Ryan]

You're sharing a room. You're three years younger than him.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

What did the effect of him dropping out do to you? Here's your brother. You're a student. Were you telling him, hey, don't drop out, or were you thinking, gosh, you know, people can just quit.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

We never had. He. My brother would not have that kind of conversation with me. My brother took an IQ test. They gave him some kind of IQ test when he was like, 13. He did extraordinarily well. And they told him his score and told him his percentile. That translated to him that he was the smartest guy in the room and he respected no teachers and he had no use for school. And he thought he was smarter than all the teachers, which he probably was at a public high school. But anyway, so he was completely disinterested in anything any authority figure had to say anyway, because it was that time in history and he couldn't. He didn't want. Couldn't stand school. And he loved music. He loved rock and roll music. He grew up in the era of led Zeppelin, hard rock, 70s, you know, the 68 to 73 period, arguably the best music in history. He wanted to be a rock star. That was it. This is a waste of time. I'm going to be a rock star. And you know, he would never. If I were to say, don't. I don't. We never talked about it. He really never talked to me. It was a really weird environment to grow up in.

[Ryan]

He was a great musician. And ultimately he was a lead singer of Quiet Riot.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. So he was a very good drummer. One thing my brother and I both share is the. And I know you have it and all your friends have it, obviously is not only extreme passion, but the ability to focus on that passion for hours and hours and hours and days and weeks and think nothing else about than that thing. And my brother focused all that passion and that intensity on becoming a rock star and. But he wanted to be the front man. He was like 6:3 and big, noxious personality. Knew he was a genius. And he said, I want to be. He wanted to be a Rod Stewart or a guy named Steve Marriott, who was the singer of Humble Pie. These are his idols. Back then, he said he bought a mic stand and started singing in the room. Of course, didn't care. Had the greatest ego ever because couldn't sing at all. Didn't care that he couldn't sing and didn't care that I would sit there and listen to him and look at him go, wow, like, you can't sing. I mean, you could See it on my face. You have no singing talent at all. Zero. He literally didn't. And then through sheer will intensity and whatever self training, there was no Internet back. I don't know how he. He actually became a really good rock and roll singer to the point where he was the first hard rock band to have a number one album. He displaced Thriller on the Billboard charts at number one.

[Ryan]

So let's talk about at that time you were in first or second year of med school. And he's at the Starwood Lounge in West Hollywood. This famous club.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah, Sunset. Still there?

[Ryan]

Still there. Randy Rhodes is there. He's in the band with your brother.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

That's right.

[Ryan]

Ozzy Osbourne comes in. Yes. He's with Robert Palmer.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yes.

[Ryan]

And he says within minutes he goes and steals Randy Rhodes.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right.

[Ryan]

When you learn about that, I think your mom told you afterward it had happened. But what. What were you thinking? And what does that say about human nature?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah, we were a little closer by then. He was a little less funky with me. And he was a struggling lead singer of Quiet Riot, who. They would line around the block at the Whiskey and the Starwood and the Rainbow. But he couldn't get a record contract. But they were huge in la. Sell out every time they were at these places. And he had like one of the finest guitars on the planet as his best friend and guitarist, a guy named Randy Rhodes, who your audience doesn't know. He played for Ozzy Osbourne. He died at the. You know, I think he was 27, like everybody else who dies in rock and roll. And there was that one night at the Starwood where I used to go watch him a lot. I was very supportive. And I'm sitting back there watching. And just as you mentioned, I see Ozzy Osbourne come in with Carl Palmer, who I was familiar with because he's the gifted drummer for Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Amazing drummer. All three of those guys were amazing. And they walk in and I could see there were like two seats over and Ozzy's pointing and they're watching Randy and Robert Palmer. Robert Palmer.

[Ryan]

I think it was Robert Palmer.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Robert. Who's the guy who was the singer? That's a different Palmer. Carl Palmer. Excuse me. His name's Carl Palmer.

[Ryan]

Carl Palmer.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Robert Palmer is the guy who did. Who was a solo artist. Carl Palmer is the drummer for Emerson Lake in Palmer.

[Ryan]

Gotcha. Okay.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Super gifted musician. So he's there. I could see them weirdly. I'm watching. Why are they. And he's going like this. And he's just you know, Robert Palmer. Carl Palmer's encouraging him. I see after the show Ozzy Carl Palmer take off backstage and they just corner Randy Rhoads. I remember one time I had an ex girlfriend and there was this really good looking guy at this club and I could see him see my ex girlfriend, she was very pretty. And he goes over to and I go, oh, he's going to start dating my ex girlfriend. I just knew it was on, you could tell there was something going on. And like the next day he joined Ozzy's band and left Quiet Riot. And it devastated my brother because not only did he have a popular band who couldn't get a record contract, now he's lost his best musician. So it was devastating.

[Ryan]

What did that teach you about human nature when you saw that go down?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

It taught me a little bit about the concept and I'm extremely loyal to a fault, super loyal. I have a thing going on my life right now where I have an opportunity to do something that's next level for me in the television industry. And if I do it, it's very disloyal. I'm not going to do it. But I am trying to work it by the way. But I'm not going to do it on its face like that because it's so disloyal. But it taught me about, you know, loyalty. But they couldn't get a record contract. They were trying for two and a half years and to go on the road with Ozzy Osbourne. How can you possibly turn that down? Who would give you advice otherwise?

[Ryan]

Loyalty, I think is one of the most important traits as a human being. And I've had tremendous breaks of loyalty on my end in the last year that are just you, you gotta look around and think, wow, shocking. Teaches you a lot about doing so many amazing things for people.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yes.

[Ryan]

And then turning on you for very crazy reasons that I'm not allowed to get into on the show.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right.

[Ryan]

But it's, you know, these are lifetime memories and it kind of makes you not want to do things for people in the future when you've been so amazingly kind, generous taking phone calls at 10:00 clock at night, making recommendations to graduate school or calling the CEO of Goldman Sachs to help someone get a job. And when someone on a team of people kind of break from that, it just, it really makes you not want to help other people. But I'm still going to do it.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

Because I think good karma goes.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

But I must say, you know, in the entertainment industry, loyalty, there is no loyalty in the entertainment industry anyway, I don't think. But when you're a struggling artist and you have an opportunity. If you would have asked my brother, hey, Ozzy asked me to join the band and go on tour with him. What do you think? I mean, if I was my brother, I would have said go. Who wouldn't? You gotta go, man. We've tried for two and a half years and my brother was the front man. It's not like the front man's leaving.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

And so. But he just told my brother, I'm Johnny Ozzy. And my brother was devastated. And that seemed like the end of Quiet Riot.

[Ryan]

But it wasn't. And did you. Do you know who what the first gig is that Quiet Riot played as ever as Quiet Riot when they first formed the band?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

No.

[Ryan]

Randy Rhodes Prom.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Is that true?

[Ryan]

That is true.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

That's so funny. Randy Rhodes graduated high school, apparently.

[Ryan]

He did.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Randy Rhodes was one of the. One of the nicer guys you could meet.

[Ryan]

Yeah. Your brother is a year older. So he was 19 when he played. Randy Rhodes, no training.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah, that's very interesting. But Randy Rhodes, I mean, after they got past that. But you know, you know what happened to Randy Rhodes, right?

[Ryan]

Yeah, yeah. I think as a kid a lot of people want to be famous. I had and still have a rock star fantasy. I taught myself to play the drums at 35 years old. They went to Costco and I bought myself a drum set. Now I have an 8 piece DM drum set in the bedroom next to our bed. In my bedroom.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

And you can play?

[Ryan]

Yeah, I can play.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

You took the lessons? You did the whole thing?

[Ryan]

No lessons. Self taught. It's weird because I can hear a song for the first time and play the song when I hear it for the first time. It's this weird kind of.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

You're a drummer.

[Ryan]

It's this weird kind of a thing.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

That's cool.

[Ryan]

My brother, when we were living five boys together, had a drum set in the family room. But I was not allowed to touch the drums really. So twice when nobody was home. And it's hard to, you know, when there's seven people in the home, you know, your mom, stepdad and five boys. There's very few times that you can hop on when you're alone in the house.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right.

[Ryan]

And you know you're not doing it when you're young, you're doing it as a teenager. So I played twice and I always played in college. We had this wood desk in the dorm room and I would, I would play so hard the chips Would go flying off the wood. And at the end of the year, it was like the whole end was just raw wood. So. And I played the drums on my desk before I got here. I psyched myself up before the show. I jammed the music. And this morning I was playing Bob Seger Feels Like a Number. Bob Seger from Detroit. And I was just jamming the music. I mean, Toc John's in the other room thinking, hey, what's going on here? But that's cool. I'll play where we have our summer home. They have events where we bring in bands.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yep.

[Ryan]

And I'll always set it up in advance where I get to play a song in front of our residents, where we. Where we have our homes in the summer. So if you're out there for the barn dance, I mean, you know. Yes. And really, no. I mean, if you're not a drummer and you hear someone playing the drums, you don't know when they're making a mistake. You don't really know if they're good. It just sounds. It sounds great, you know, making a lot of noise up there.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

No clue.

[Ryan]

But, yeah, it's fun. And we have properties in Nashville and Nashville, you know, Broadway street, it's, you know, one. One venue after the other. And Kid Rock has this amazing venue, and they have an amazing band up there. So when I go, I'll pay, you know, play a song in front of 2000 people and.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Cool.

[Ryan]

You know, you hit the bass drum and the thing just reverberates everywhere. Speaking of the Rockstar fantasy, it's interesting, you know, when you think about it, and you're at the Forum or Staples center now, it has a new name, Crypto arena now. And you think about all these bands, you look out, what would it be like on stage, looking out at 20,000 people? So what was it like? You had that opportunity.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Tell us about that as this. I went to UCLA Medical school, my first year in medical school. My brother's album went to number one on the charts. And so he bought a very big house in Hancock Park. They were doing a lot of construction. And he said to my mother, hey, I'll let Terry live there for free, above the garage, near the pool house, if he takes care of my cat.

[Ryan]

Larry the cat.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Larry the cat. And I said, yeah. So I lived there. My mom calls me, goes, well, he sold out the Forum, which was like our Madison Square Garden back then. Before we had all these arenas here in Los Angeles. There was the Los Angeles Forum. It wasn't the Great Western Forum. It was even before that. It was the Forum, and if you were a major rock band, you played at the Forum. And he sold out, I think, three nights of the Forum. My mom said, your brother wants you to go to the second show and come backstage and do the whole thing. I said, great. So took all my buddies, was living in his guest house or above the garage at the time, taking care of his cat. And they took me back. They gave me the backstage pass. And I remember, like, wow, this is. This is special. This is high life. This is. This is rock star, you know, because he had just made it. He went from playing backup to Lover Boy to. All of a sudden, they realized at that Lover boy would sell 3,000 T shirts, and Quiet Riot was selling 12,000 T shirts, and they were the opening act. And that's when they knew, hey, they're coming to see you guys. And they broke off from Lover Boy and went on this international tour. Come in two months into this tour, play at the Forum. And I go back there, and they go, your brother will be out in a minute. So I'm sitting there backstage, and maybe 20 minutes before they're gonna go on, I hadn't seen him yet, and he sees me, and he's clearly coked out. But I didn't even think he was coked out. He was just in a great mood. He was very into cocaine. He sees me, he goes, toad. He used to call me Toad because there was a American graffiti movie, which you probably remember who Harrison Ford starred in, and so did Richard Dreyfuss. There was a nerdy character named Terry the Toad. So my brother nicknamed me Toad. Terry the Toad. He goes, toad. And he comes out, and in a very intoxicating moment, it was just him and me backstage, the band, the drum. Everything had been all set up already. Just giving me this giant backstage behind the curtain. And he puts his towel around me, and he starts going, how cool is this? And he starts spinning me around. And as he's spinning me around, he takes his hand and opens up the curtain. And you could see 18,000 lighters lit, waiting for them to come out. So it was like. And it was. I remember, like it was yesterday. Gave me chills. And he said, this is what it's like, he said to me. So that's what it was like. It was just intoxicating and incredible. And then when I went to the front row, my buddies, and saw that concert, he was amazing. He was amazing. He can sing, but he, like, can really sing. And I think singing is one of Those talents where it's not like piano or flute, you can force yourself to become an adequate pianist or flutist, flautist, or even drummer. Right. Even if you don't have very much talent, you can sort of get to a certain level. I don't think I could ever sing, no matter how hard I tried. I don't think I could ever carry a tune that anyone would want to hear, much less would have a number one album with. Yet he did it. He willed himself to become a rock and roll singer.

[Ryan]

And like you said, that album called I think, Metal Health, Metal Health was the first metal, heavy metal album ever on the Billboard to hit number one. And their number one song, which hit number five, they didn't have a number one hit, but their number one song was Come and Feel the Noise. Come Feel the Noise, which I didn't know until I did research for the show. It's Come C U M. Yes.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Come Feel the Noise. You've never heard the song before?

[Ryan]

No, I love the song. I used to sing it. I think I knew the word by heart, but as a kid, I'm not thinking about it.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right. And there's a song called Metal Health with bang your head. Mental health will drive you mad. That was another huge. They were the most played video on MTV in 1984.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

When MTV was MTV.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

They were huge. For five minutes.

[Ryan]

Yeah. I was sophomore in high school.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. They were huge.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

You know, that had a profound effect on me. I remember that.

[Ryan]

And he used to have David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yes.

[Ryan]

With these naked girls.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

So you're three years. So at this point you're in med school and are you kind of walking around and staying by the pool with him and say, hey, what's up?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So you never knew when he was going to come home. You always had to be on guard because he would just appear out of nowhere. You didn't know if he was on tour, if he was in town or what. And one night he comes home with Eddie Van Halen, David Lee Roth, David Coverdale, from a band called White Stake. And they were playing pool. They were. They're playing pool in the guest house. I mean, in the main house. Plane pool. Yeah. And all of a sudden, you know, I have to get up. I have to be at my surgery rotation at like, you know, 4:30. So I'm just about to get up around 4:20. And about 4:10, I hear this screaming out there, Toad screaming for me. I look out and I see my brother and Eddie Van Halen David Lee. I go, my God, Eddie Van Halen. David Lee Rothschild Here. Jesus. And he goes, where's Larry? Who's the cat? And that was my only job. I didn't know where the cat was. The one time I don't know where the stupid cat is. He's not sleeping with me. And so I run down there and talk to them and I can't find the cat. And he goes, you can't find Larry? You can't find, you know where Larry is. You can't find Larry. And I remember Eddie going, dude, it's cool, it's cool, he'll find the cat. But I had to go, I left, I got home the next day, he was gone. He was already flown away off tour. And my mom calls me, he goes, hey, wants you to move out. He kicked me out.

[Ryan]

And I think he had come home at 3:48 in the morning.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

And you're getting ready to.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah, to go to school. Yeah. So those things happen all at the same time.

[Ryan]

The lesson there is you got to be a better cat watcher or better dog watcher.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. The cat was in the main house sleeping. So yeah, he kicked me out and I moved in with my best friend.

[Ryan]

So let's fast forward. You go to Yale, you're doing kind of pre med graduate.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

That's right.

[Ryan]

Studies.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

That's right.

[Ryan]

You go to UCLA med school.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

That's right.

[Ryan]

And then it's your second year and you're in this spellbounding lectures by Malcolm Lesafoy, who walked in with some cowboy boots. What happened next?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

The professor. When you're in your second year of med school, you intermittently have a lecture from various professors who are in various specialties just to give you a taste of what the specialty is like. So this one, this was sort of the plastic surgeon was going to come in. So this guy comes in, Dr. Mal Levoy, who was, I mean, he looked like Mel Gibson. Extremely handsome, blue eyed guy, about six, three with cowboy boots, Very, just charismatic. He says, good morning ladies and gentlemen. And he goes, all right, turn down the lights. He was like just very casual and in command. They turn the lights and he starts showing pictures. He goes, let me tell you about the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery. He had this very deep sort of cool voice. He goes, and they say plastic surgery encompasses the entire field of medicine. Head to toe, we do it all. He goes, we do gunshot wounds, he's showing us gunshot wounds. We do cancer reconstruction. We do cleft lips, cleft palates, we put fingers Back on microsurgery, we do cosmetic surgery. But he said, but who cares about that? We do this. It was all just about what studly surgery, plastic surgeons do. And this went on for about an hour, before and afters, and him talking about it. And lights go back on, and everybody just looks at each other. In the class of 86, UCLA school message, everyone okay, like, we all want to be plastic surgeons. This is. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen. It was like having Tom Brady come talk to you about being a NFL quarterback. He goes, all right, you guys, good luck. Take care. And then he walks out. And I said, screw this. I go chase him. And he's walking down the hallway, and I walk up to him. Dr. Leslie, I'm Terry Dubrow. He goes, nice to meet you. And I go, do you do research? Because, you know, being an academic surgeon is all about publishing papers. And he goes, I have a lab. And I go, you do? He goes, I'm going there right now. Come with me. He was that kind of guy. Takes me to his lab. Within five minutes, I'm working in his lab. I'm taking over his lab. And I punished. I published 23 papers with him in major surgical journals that I wrote.

[Ryan]

The first one, I believe, was something about medical flaps or something. I think it was called Management of Large Scalp Defects with Local Pedicle Flaps.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yes.

[Ryan]

What on earth does that mean?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

He was a real cowboy. And when you had one thing plastic and reconstructive surgeons do, besides cosmetic surgery, is when you have a giant hole in the body that won't heal with organs exposed or blood vessels, you need to cover it. And that's one of the things reconstructive surgeons do. We take tissue from one part of the body with its blood supply intact and move it over to cover a hole to protect critical parts of the body. And that's called myocutaneous. Myome muscle, cutaneous flap skin. Myocutaneous flap surgery. He was really good at it. He could take someone whose cancer had eaten half their stomach and their organs are exposed, and he could rotate the latissimus dorsi with the overlying skin and the blood supply intact and rotate it over and cover up that area and get it to heal, and they'd go home. He was a master at that. I wrote up everything he did. I basically wrote up his surgical experience for him, and we published all these papers.

[Ryan]

When I was in law school, the billionaire Robert Pritzker came to Northwestern Law School. J.B. pritzker now the governor of Illinois. He and Trump are best friends, as you know.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right.

[Ryan]

He's also Gutfeld's favorite person. I don't know if you watch Gutfelder now, but there's a picture of JB every night on Gutfeld.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right, right.

[Ryan]

I'm aware of that. Prime target. So there's a U.S. supreme Court case regarding something known as the Bismuth Business Judgment Rule, which means if you're a board member of a public company, essentially you are liable except if you commit fraud or gross negligence or something like that. Pritzker's own the company as part of that case. So Robert Pritzker came in. I wore a suit that day and I thought, okay, I was this young kid and wanted to work in business. I said, oh, gosh, you know, the Pritzkers are, you know, coming. And I, I didn't even know who the Pritzkers were. I remember first year of law school, standing at the copy machine, which no one younger will even know what that is. I mean, they've heard of it, they've seen a picture of it. And JB and I are sitting there talking and we would both line up with a registrar because we want to take all the business classes that we could take and max out on that. So our register, her name was Christina Jones. I don't even know how I remember the name. But we, we would sit there and there was no, you couldn't do it online. I mean, no one had. I mean, we had a computer, but it was nothing like, you know, you sign up today. So we'd stand in line. We became friends. And then, you know, he tells me one day, I said, you know, why did you come to Northwestern? He said, well, I got into Harvard without applying to Harvard. Like, oh God, you know, and JB is very mellow, non assuming looking at all. I don't know if you've ever seen a picture when he's, he's not like the best dressed guy and Right. If he were sitting here, I mean, he knows it.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

And he's. And I'm thinking, oh, God, like, do I ask or do I not ask? I said, all right, I'm going to ask. I said, well, how is that possible? You get into Harvard Law School without applying. So. Well, my family gave a lot of money and so now I'm thinking, okay, well, am I going to keep going with the question and humor the question? And he wasn't bragging, by the way. It was very, just nonchalant. Matter of fact, I said, how much Money did I give? And he said $50 million.

[Mentor/Advisor]

Wow.

[Ryan]

I said $50 million? Yeah. Last year.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Wow.

[Ryan]

Thinking, oh, okay. So who are the Pritzkers? So that predated him coming to the school. I got dressed out. He was done talking. I followed him out in a suit, looking good. He said, come take a walk with me. Robert Pritzker, who lived on Lakeshore Drive, 10 minute walk. Went up to his apartment, sat, talked around for an hour. He drove me back to law school and a Ford Taurus with an AM radio, really. Only it was just a fascinating, fascinating conversation. The lesson, which is similar to your lesson is, go get it.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Oh, yeah.

[Ryan]

You followed him right out of the lab. And what did you say to him? And what's your advice to everybody else who's afraid to do that? They're not going out. They don't go after what they want. And it's so easy. All you got to do is go up to someone, be earnest and ask.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah. Take the first step. Be enthusiastic, be humble, be authentic. Everyone loves to be interested in. Everyone loves when you take an interest in them. And I took an interest in him, and I took an interest in what he was doing. And he also happened to be the greatest human being and became my mentor and still is and a great friend. But go for it. You know, you've got to be bold. Be bold. It's more important. I always say to my kids, it's not so important to be smart, but it's important to be clever and bold. You, you lean into those two things, you'll get very far. So, you know, and what do you have to lose?

[Ryan]

Nothing.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Nothing and everything to gain. So it's interesting because he took me to his lab and I immediately realized it was all about the currency in medicine and medical school, besides grades. But the real currency to getting, like the superstar residencies is publishing. If you can publish as a medical student or a resident, that's the ultimate because that's your. You're pushing your professor's careers forward. He was an assistant professor at the time, and it's worth much more than an A in a class or high score on a test. And I somehow realized that right away. And I became very, very adept at identifying topics to write up, send off to the major surgical journals. And I always had my paper accepted the first go round at the major surgical journals. I had one paper when I was a general surgery resident that got accepted, that changed the way blunt trauma, blunt cardiac trauma was treated, and I presented it the most prestigious organization, general surgery, called The Society of University Surgeons, which a resident has never presented there. And it was just one of these things where I was able to sort of identify what the currency was and really focus on it and just apply all the intensity and passion that I've. That anybody could to that one thing. And I did that almost in my spare time while I was learning medicine.

[Ryan]

And it's such an important point, by the way. I do a lot of mentoring. I do a lot of professional coaching. And I tell everyone there's a difference about being reactive and proactive.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

So what you did to proactively come up with these topics and do things that no one asked you to do. So critical to all of our careers. Don't just be order taker. Be proactive and create value wherever you go. And anybody in the world who creates value, who adds value to something that no one asked for and is proactive in thinking like a team member, it's going to work 100% of the time.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

No question. By the way, this is exactly how we ended up on the Real Housewives of Orange County.

[Ryan]

Don't tell the story.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

I won't. But in a very similar way. I mean, not exactly the same story, but a very similar narrative or theme is how that happened.

[Ryan]

Let's go back to Mal. Can I call him al, please? Okay. Dr. Lassevoy. Doctor, or does he go by.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

He'd say Duckless. He'd go, call me Mal. That's why. That's why. By the way, I don't know if you ever watch Botch.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

But I'm Dr. Nassif. What do I come out? Hi, I'm Terry. Terry, Bro. Nice to meet you.

[Ryan]

It's so weird that you say that. I'm so glad that we're bringing it up. It's, you know, you go to. You go to a doctor's office, even a dentist's office, you say, hi, I'm, you know, I'm Dr. Kaplan and I'm random. Like, who's. It's like, what's up with that?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right.

[Ryan]

We're not calling each other by our first names. Are we that formal that you know your graduate degree? I mean, Right. You know, no one's calling me Esquire either.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right, Exactly. So that's. Yeah. Mal taught me how to be a doctor, by the way. You know, I learned very early the value. And I know you know this and you are this of mentorship.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

If you can identify a mentor early on in your life, and many mentors potentially. But he was my main mentor. That's like the greatest gift you can give yourself in terms of success.

[Ryan]

I think it's huge. And it's helped me make my career. And I've devoted a lot of my life to mentoring people. And I had, I had mentors. But I think it's really important we should talk about this. I have almost maxed out on friends on LinkedIn, and I know maybe a thousand people on LinkedIn, and I think you max out at 30,000. And I used to accept everybody, and 20 times a day I get emails or messages, hey, you have a cup of coffee, you know, are you free? I'm in the venture capital world. I'm, you know, entrepreneur. And it just doesn't work that way.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right.

[Ryan]

You know, you have to earn mentorship. You have to earn your time in the door. So what's, what's, what's your best advice? What's a way that some med student today could walk up to you in Beverly Hills on the street and say, they'll say, Dr. Dubrow, because they're going to be polite. You'll say, call me, Terry. How can you be somebody's mentor today? Some random dude walking up to you?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

They would have to engage me in a way that was authentic. Doesn't seem sort of perfunctory or in a way that let me know that they really were interested in something that I could potentially help them with rather than just, hey, I want to be a famous plastic surgeon on tv. Can I talk to you? That wouldn't work for me. Yeah, but if they came up to me and said, and appealed to, what got me, what gets us all interested in the field to begin with, the fundamentals. Hey, I, I love physiology and I love the way the body works. It's always fascinating me with the body, you know, as if they research me. I always say, the body tells you, tells you a story as it's trying to get through trauma or healing. And you have to listen to that story to help it along and nurture it so that it will heal. If you don't, if you go against that story, it's not going to end the way you want it to end. And so if somebody showed genuine interest and appreciation for my particular approach to something and told me about that and they appreciated that, I say, well, that's a person who authentically knows something about me, like, you could do it. Because look, look how much research you've done in this. You know, everything there is to know about me. I've never had an interview where you know so much about It, I mean I've had thousands of these interviews. I, you know, they really got, you're the botched doctor, what's it like? But anyway, you know, do your home, do your research, do your homework and figure out how you can come resonate with them.

[Ryan]

Yeah. One of the things that I find as well that people should do is they should research you and we'll talk about preparation in a little while, but they should find out what are you interested in and how can I add value to what you're doing. For example, I don't know if you have a LinkedIn page, but there's a lot of information out there about what you do non profit wise. And we'll talk about that at the end of the show as well. It's very important to get back, but you could easily say, hi, I like to volunteer. How can I help your non profit? Or how can I organize this event?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Why?

[Ryan]

Nobody does that. Which is exactly why you should. You have to stand out. You have to do something different. You have to send someone a five page single space letter about every job they've ever had. That's what I did.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right.

[Ryan]

And if someone writes me, I mean I talk about my letter writing campaign. I was a loser lawyer. I had three jobs in eight months when I moved to Los Angeles. Lost two jobs in six months. Three jobs in eight months. And then I said I'm going to write letters to CEO. No Google, nothing like that. LexisNexis, which you probably know. Yeah, research tool. Our law firm had one over 300 letters.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Wow.

[Ryan]

Michael Eisner, Sumner Red. So I got 80 meetings.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Wow.

[Ryan]

Took five hours to write. And it was, it had a cellophane cover, a quote they had given. It was tab transcripts, letters of recommendation. I take every letter that I get. Like the one that I wrote. Why? Because I can tell when someone's telling me my dog's name. By the way, you come in for a meeting with me and you know my dog's name. Karma, meeting's over. Why? Because it's on my bio on my website. And if you can't spend 20 seconds reading my bio on my website. See you later. But if you list things about my podcast, about the Joe decenna podcast or the Damon west podcast or you know, Dana White being chased out by the mob. And he talked about that. I'm going to be with everybody. You got to earn it.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah, well, it's on your T shirt, isn't it? No, I think you're right. Absolutely. And then the other piece of Advice, if it's even possible, and it may be, and this is a slippery slope because you can seem disingenuous, but if you can appeal to something that pulls on my heartstrings, that really will pull me in. I get DMED all day long. I delete them all. I barely read them. But if someone puts a cat on there who is in need of help, or obviously they're talking to me about their struggles with the LGBTQ community, obviously that's going to pull on my heartstrings a little bit because of my family.

[Ryan]

But four kids and three of them are part of the community.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we spent a lot of time with that community and trying to help the families of those kids and so on. So that's a big part of our charity.

[Ryan]

I'm not going to give people too much advice on how to get this in meeting, but if they were really creative, they'd find a plushie of a cat and build a little garage. And with a sign, you're always welcome here.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ryan]

That would work.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right?

[Ryan]

So let's get back to the practice. You stay seven years in the lab.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Well, while I was doing general surgery.

[Ryan]

While you're doing general surgery. But the two of you are doing surgeries at the same time, I think, right? You are one of the. He was on the left side of the body and the other one was on the right side of the body. Is that what was happening there?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Well, when you're in training, you never get the right side of the body initially. You're always on the left. You're the assistant.

[Ryan]

Okay.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

You know, it's like being the copilot.

[Ryan]

Could you stand on the right side? So if you're laying down and you're standing on the right side of the body facing the head, why do you want to be on the right side of the body?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Because most surgeons are right handed.

[Ryan]

Okay.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

And we pretty much. It's just almost convention. You could start on the left side of the body. Well, you know, so I did the old traditional track, which was go to med school, do full blown general surgery, start to finish, where I was chief resident in general surgery seven years, and then went on to plaque surgery. Now they have these much shorter hybrid things where you do five years, a couple years of general surgery, and then three years of plastics. But I was. I did the full old fashioned way, where before you could apply for cardiac surgery or plastic surgery, which is the. I was deciding between those two. Ultimately, you had to finish general surgery and graduate. It was a Pyramidal program where you started with 30 interns and only four people graduate.

[Ryan]

You graduate, you go into private practice, ultimately move down to Newport.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

Right.

[Ryan]

With your mom. Did you just say, I'm going to open up my own practice? How are you getting patients at that point?

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

So when I. When I first went into practice, I had a lot of offers in Beverly Hills, and I figured I'd be a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and then stay, do research at UCLA and have part academic, part private practice. I don't have that many friends, but I have one very, very close friend named Dr. Scott Foreman, who's a very gifted orthopedic surgeon who, weirdly, his other best friend is Dr. Mehmet Oz. I don't know why he became friends with, like, the two TV doctors, but.

[Ryan]

You guys were nicknamed, like, the Something Brothers.

[Dr. Terry Dubrow]

The Dude Brothers, yeah. So when I went to UCLA med school, I got there. He's the first guy I met in the class during the microscope fair, two weeks before class started. And I go, you in the class of 86? And he looks at me. He was like Spicoli on Fast Times. Ridgemont High. He was the lifeguard at the rec center up there. He goes, yes, I am, Dude. Like that. And we just, like, kidded off. He was a California guy, great swimmer, All American swimmer, college. Anyway, we became best friends, and we hung out, and we were the Dude Brothers. So we were always together through all four years of med school. And our big thing is, people would walk by, we'd go, hey, dude. Hey, dude. Hey, dude. He calls the Dude Brothers. We're very outgoing and very friendly. We had a. To us, med school was hilarious and fun. We laughed our way through med school. Everybody else struggled. We thought it was the most amusing thing, and everything to us was just funny. From anatomy, it just was all weirdly silly. Weird. That was our approach to stress. We thought it was funny. So I graduate. We graduate. He goes off to do orthopedic surgery at Columbia in New York, and I stay to do general surgery here. And he gets there, and his best friend, his first guy he meets there is Terry debrow. There is Mehmet Oz as an intern in general surgery at Columbia. I stay here. We graduate. He graduates before me because orthopedics is only six years. Mine was longer because of plastics and orthopedics and general. Long story short, I graduate. He's in Newport beach because he's from Long Beach OC area. He had already established a practice in Newport Beach. And he goes, so where are you going? To open up your practice. I go, I think I'm going to join this guy who was doing a lot of celebrities, and he loved me, and he wanted me to join him in this celebrity plastic surgery practice in Beverly Hills and the Valley. He had a couple of practices, and he goes, you should come down to Newport Beach. I go, what is Newport Beach? I'd never been there in my life. He goes, just come down. So I came down and I thought, okay, it's kind of pretty. Seems kind of boring. And then I get down there, and my buddy was the kind of guy everything works for this guy. Wherever he goes, the red carpet just magically is rolled out for him. Like, if I remember going to a movie in Westwood and there were two lines going in. One was medium long, one was sort of longer, and he gets in the longer one. I go, dude, I'm gonna go in the medium one, the shorter one. He goes, okay, his just went right in. And mine, like, I'm like 25 people deep. And he's eating popcorn at the seat already. He says to me, he goes, you should practice plastic surgery in Newport Beach. I go, eh, I'm gonna be a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. He goes, well. And then he takes me down the hall from his orthopedic office, and there's a corner office where someone just moved out. And he walks in, and it was pink, and it was some OBGYN's office. He goes, wouldn't this be a good plastic surgeon's office? I go, yeah, probably. It was kind of an ocean view. He goes, here's the lease. Let's hang out. And it was like. And I thought, scott Foreman. Everything works for Scott Foreman. And when you're with him, everything works for you. And I went. But he goes, just sign it. That's how stupid I am. And I just sign it. So I open up a practice in Newport Beach. While I'm working this guy celebrities practice operating on celebrities here. At the same time, I'm driving back and forth, living in Santa Monica. He goes crazy. He's best friends with these guys who do Top Gun, these producers. He's doing massive coke. He stops paying me. I have to leave him because he's just gone. He has to go into rehab and shut down the practice. And I go, well, there I am now. I just go down to Newport beach, and I'm in Newport beach full time. And that's how I ended up at Orange County.

[Ryan]

Interesting.