What to Do When You’re Told There’s Nothing Left to Try | David Fajgenbaum, Kiah Williams | TED

Name: What to Do When You’re Told There’s Nothing Left to Try | David Fajgenbaum, Kiah Williams | TED
Duration: 28 min 40 s
Description: What do you do when the world declares something impossible? When physician-scientist David Fajgenbaum was dying from a rare disease and social entrepreneur Kia

TED28:40Added Aug 30, 2026

What do you do when the world declares something impossible? When physician-scientist David Fajgenbaum was dying from a rare disease and social entrepreneur Kiah Williams was confronting the realities of economic hardship, they began asking a different question: What can I do today? In this conversation, they discuss how turning hope into action can drive meaningful change — one step at a time. (This conversation is hosted by The Audacious Project’s Alexandra Tillmann) (Recorded at TEDNext 2025 on November 10, 2025.)

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

Transcript

00:03Alexandra Tillmann: Alright, David, Kiah, thank you so much for being here.
00:09Let's jump in.
00:10Can you both share
00:12when you realized that life couldn't just happen to you,
00:17that you had to actively start choosing a path forward?
00:22David, I'll start with you.
00:23David Fajgenbaum: Sure.
00:24I might start back when I was a medical student.
00:27I had promised my mom that I would become a doctor in her memory
00:30when she passed away,
00:31when I was 19 years old,
00:32and in my third year of med school,
00:34I was really on my way to making that progress,
00:37helping patients in my mom's memory
00:38when I personally became critically ill with a disease
00:41called Castleman disease.
00:42I was so sick that I had my last rites read to me,
00:45I spent six months in the intensive care unit,
00:47and my doctors told me that we were out of options,
00:50but they gave me chemotherapy,
00:51seven different chemotherapies all at once.
00:53And amazingly, those chemotherapies worked.
00:56They saved my life, but what they also did
00:58is they opened my eyes up to this idea
01:00that none of those seven chemotherapies were made for my disease,
01:03but they saved my life.
01:05So when I relapsed a year later, my doctors told me,
01:07"We're out of options, you're going to die from this disease."
01:10I said, wait a minute, didn't you give me these seven chemotherapies
01:13that weren't made for my disease and they worked?
01:16How do we know there's not another drug out there
01:18that could help me?
01:19And so this sort of opened up my eyes.
01:21I eventually discovered another drug that could save my life,
01:24but opened my eyes up to this idea
01:26that even when the world thinks there are no more options, no more hope,
01:29sometimes there's a solution that's literally as close to you
01:32as your neighborhood pharmacy.
01:33Kiah Williams: I think for me, it was when I was young,
01:36my family just fell apart.
01:37And we were teetering at the edge of poverty.
01:40And I remember going outside, I grew up in West Philadelphia,
01:44I remember going outside one night and literally saying to myself, like,
01:49I have to be the one that saves myself,
01:54that creates a new path for myself.
01:55And so I'd always, you know, focused on school and trying to do well.
02:00But I made this decision at a young age to just say, like,
02:02I was like, I need to get out of here and I need to do something
02:06and have a better life than this for myself.
02:09And the only one who's going to do it is me.
02:12That obviously wasn't true,
02:14I had a ton of help from like, teachers, even my parents, etc.
02:17But I remember being very young, 15 years old, and saying, like,
02:22"I've got to do something different,
02:24I need to do something different and better"
02:26and was able to, like, work really hard, buckle down in school,
02:29got a full need-based scholarship to Stanford.
02:32And essentially that was the beginning of me recognizing, like,
02:35I could harness my own power and try to make something of myself.
02:41And I think fast forward years from then,
02:43when I was actually working in clinics, in medical clinics,
02:47and was going to be the first doctor in my family
02:49and would see patients who weren't getting better,
02:52doctor leaves the room,
02:54it's just me in the room as a health coach,
02:56talking to patients about whatever they want to talk about,
02:59and learning that sometimes people weren't getting the medicine
03:02that they needed because they couldn't afford it.
03:04So that's why their blood pressure is still high,
03:07their cholesterol is still high, their diabetes is not getting better.
03:10And I realized that I wanted to do something
03:12that could address that at a root level
03:14for those patients who were trying to take care of their health.
03:18And just all of these external factors were blocking their ability to be well.
03:23AT: You know, as you both talked about,
03:25our life is shaped by our circumstances, right?
03:29Some more formative than others.
03:31You nearly lost your life.
03:34And some we can control more than others,
03:37but they all contribute to where we head.
03:41As I shared, you know, these can be dramatic,
03:45or they can be small.
03:47David, you know, your near-death experience with Castleman's disease
03:51led you to become both patient and researcher really simultaneously.
03:55And Kiah, as you just shared,
03:58the economic resources of your family
04:01that you were born into really affected
04:03kind of, what you dreamed for your future.
04:06These are the realities of your lives, but you manage to use it
04:10for your creative fuel, for your energy.
04:13Can you talk a little bit about how you took those things out of your control
04:17and used them to expand rather than to contract,
04:22which I think can be a very natural experience for some people?
04:26KW: I think -- there's a really good quote that one of my co-founders used,
04:31and I love this because I think it so speaks to me,
04:35"sometimes motivation follows motion."
04:38Not the other way around.
04:40And so I think sometimes literally
04:41just by putting one foot in front of the other,
04:44you don't have to have 100 percent of the answer.
04:47You can have five percent of the answer.
04:49Just start moving towards that.
04:51And so I think when we think about this big issue,
04:53even of 30 percent of people in the US not being able to get medicine they need
04:59because it's just too expensive.
05:01We don't have to have all the answers to fix everything now.
05:04We can just start on the thing that we know to be true,
05:07which is this is a dumb problem,
05:09and we know that there's surplus that exists
05:11to actually meet some of that need.
05:13And let's start moving forward with that now.
05:15And I think a lot of that also, just like from my personal experience
05:19and just thinking about my own family and kind of where I came from,
05:23I mean, my dad always told me this growing up,
05:25he was like, you know, my grandfather wasn't literate.
05:28And people would ask him like, well, how does he function?
05:32And I remember someone asked specifically,
05:34how do you drive if you can't see street signs?
05:37And my dad told me that his father said to him,
05:39"I look at the stars."
05:41And so I'm like, if my grandfather can look at the stars to find his way
05:46and navigate through streets,
05:49what excuse do I have to not do everything I possibly can
05:53for the patients that we're serving, and to plot a better life?
05:58Look at the stars.
06:00AT: It's incredible.
06:01And David, how about you?
06:02DF: I love that.
06:04For me, I think that the moment that that drug sirolimus,
06:07which is the drug that ended up saving my life,
06:10the moment that drug started working for me,
06:12I started seeing my results improving, started feeling better.
06:15I just haven't been able to get this question in my mind.
06:18If this drug is working for me,
06:20how many more life-saving drugs are sitting at our local pharmacy
06:23that could treat more patients and more diseases today?
06:26And I think exactly as Kiah is saying, you know,
06:28once you see something like this, once you experience something like this,
06:32whether it's learning about access to medicines or the work we're doing,
06:36learning about the fact that there's all these hidden cures
06:39that are unmatched,
06:40you can't unsee it.
06:41Especially when you see the impact that it has on humans,
06:44patients that are alive because of these medicines.
06:46And so I think, to answer the question,
06:48once you see something like that,
06:50it's about continuing to push forward and say, OK,
06:52maybe this helped me, but can this help the person
06:55down the street from me?
06:56Can this help someone else in my community?
06:58And then when you start seeing that it can,
07:01you can just keep asking bigger and bigger questions.
07:03Can it help people all over the world?
07:05And I think that's so important in guiding us.
07:07AT: Kiah, you just were touching on something.
07:11You were talking about the fragility of healthcare across the country,
07:14which really led you to start Sirum.
07:18In your work, you often confront systems
07:21that are not easy to change
07:24or that aren't fair.
07:26And you've witnessed, as you shared,
07:29families that are making impossible choices
07:31between being able to afford medicine,
07:34being able to get food on the table for dinner.
07:38These are issues we're all hearing about every day on our news, too.
07:43How do you counsel others
07:45who see systems working against the greater good
07:50or perhaps are plagued by injustice,
07:53but wonder, do they really have the power to make any change?
07:58KW: I think that's a very timely question.
08:01What do you do in your own community?
08:02What do you do in this state, what do you do in the country,
08:05whatever level you're looking at?
08:07And I think Sirum has really shown me the power of getting out there
08:13and just getting stuff done.
08:15We started as a very ragtag,
08:17like, this started as a student project,
08:20and has grown now to the largest redistributor of unused medicine.
08:23But sometimes it's literally just picking up the phone
08:26and calling a local legislator.
08:27So, for example,
08:29we actually were able to launch a home-delivery pharmacy
08:31in the state of Georgia,
08:33but the way that that happened
08:34was literally we got an email from a retired person in Georgia,
08:39and we got one of these emails that was like,
08:41it was like all purple font.
08:42So we were like, how legitimate is this?
08:44Everyone knows those emails that you get in inbound to your like, hello@sirum.
08:49And we were like, this may or may not be legitimate.
08:51Concerned citizen that says, "Hey, how do I make this happen in my state?"
08:55Emailed us in, called his local legislator,
08:59got us a meeting with the chair of public health
09:03in the Georgia legislature.
09:05That was the beginning that was the spark.
09:07So I think we can actually trace back in every area that we're working
09:12in this country.
09:13It was usually just one person who was concerned.
09:16It was a concerned pharmacist who saw unused medicine.
09:19It was just a random person who read an article about us and said,
09:23"I want to do something, what can I do?"
09:25And we said, if you can get us a meeting with the state,
09:27that would be awesome.
09:29And like, from that moment of just them calling their legislator
09:33to say, "Hey, I want to see this program happen,
09:37we were able to make inroads.
09:38So I think that it can feel very --
09:41A lot of it is just unclear what is the path forward.
09:45Again, you don't have to know every step,
09:47but doing something rather than nothing,
09:48choosing action over apathy,
09:51I think it just bears out.
09:53And I've just seen this multiple times, the value of an email or a phone call,
09:57and what it can be to changing, fundamentally,
10:00the destiny of our organization,
10:03but also our ability to serve tens of thousands of more patients.
10:08AT: Incredible.
10:10David, I'll turn to you.
10:13Many people feel like they need permission
10:16or like, a dramatic wake-up call
10:18to chase their audacious dreams
10:22or really affect change.
10:26But what would you say to someone who senses this can't be all there is,
10:30you know, but isn't sure quite whether or how to show up?
10:35DF: Yeah, great question.
10:37I think that no matter what you're going through in your life
10:40or the challenges you're facing,
10:42I think it's worthwhile asking yourself, what am I hoping for every day?
10:46What am I wishing for?
10:47What am I praying for?
10:48Like actually reflect on the things that you're praying for, wishing for,
10:52and hoping for every day.
10:54And that can oftentimes tell you exactly what you should be doing,
10:57because whatever you're hoping for and you're wishing for,
11:00that is actually the inverse of what you should be doing.
11:03You know, what can you do today, tomorrow, and the next day
11:06to create the thing that you're hoping for,
11:08to solve the problem that you wish would be solved.
11:11And there are a lot of challenges that we face every day
11:13that feel insurmountable,
11:15and many that truly we have a hard time
11:17actually having an impact on.
11:19But there are also many problems in our lives
11:22that we're hoping for a solution for,
11:24that we actually have something that we can do
11:26to help to solve that problem.
11:28And as Kiah mentioned, it may be that we can call a state legislator,
11:33or maybe it's that we can post something on social media
11:35to raise awareness about a problem.
11:37But there are tangible things we can do.
11:39But I think it all starts at reflecting on what are you hoping for?
11:43What are you wishing for?
11:44And I think that's a great place to start with,
11:47what you should be doing every day.
11:48AT: Yeah, you call that, in your TED talk, actionable hope, right?
11:52That it's not enough to just hope for something more, to say,
11:55well, in six months or in a year, right?
11:59Maybe talk a little bit about that.
12:01DF: That's right.
12:02I've realized there's this circuit and it all starts with hope,
12:05you know, what are you hoping for?
12:06And that hope really needs to drive action.
12:09And if that hope drives action,
12:10what I found is it often will drive impact.
12:12And what does impact do?
12:13It gives you more things to be hopeful for, more hope.
12:16You create this incredible circuit.
12:18Hope, action, impact, leads to more hope, action, impact.
12:21And all of a sudden, years later,
12:23you're sitting here with these two amazing people and all of you
12:26and able to share about an organization, Every Cure,
12:28that's saving lives of patients all over the world.
12:31But it all starts with that first hope and turns to action and impact.
12:35AT: I know we're going to talk about a lot today, but, you know,
12:38for Every Cure and Sirum, like, how can people be part of it
12:42or support the work that you're doing?
12:45DF: Sure, I'm happy to start.
12:46Yeah, absolutely.
12:48So many of us in this room have received medicines
12:52for diseases that they're not approved for to treat us.
12:56It's called off-label use.
12:57In fact, 20 to 30 percent of all prescriptions
12:59in the US every day are off-label.
13:01So doctors are trying drugs for diseases they're not intended for.
13:04Unfortunately, it happens very randomly
13:06and there are a lot more opportunities for those drugs to be used systematically.
13:10But it's just not profitable in our system to find a new use for an old drug.
13:14Eighty percent of drugs are generic,
13:16so unfortunately, the system isn't built for this,
13:18to find new uses for medicines.
13:19But the reason I share that as background
13:21is that that means that most of you all have received a drug
13:24for a disease it wasn't intended for, and maybe it helped some of you.
13:28You can go to everycure.org/ideas
13:29and you can tell us about a drug that you've received
13:32that maybe has helped you, that we can look into.
13:34We can look into our AI platform to see how is it ranking
13:37versus all of our other repurposing ideas.
13:39Second is that you can help to support us financially.
13:41We run large clinical trials that are very expensive,
13:44and we want to reach patients all over the world.
13:46And finally, awareness raising is really important.
13:49We find treatments for diseases that we never would have imagined,
13:52like lidocaine for breast cancer
13:54or DFMO for Bachmann-bupp syndrome.
13:57And amazingly, the problem for a lot of these medications is just awareness,
14:01just getting that drug to the patient.
14:03It's a matter of letting patients and doctors know.
14:05So helping to spread the word about our work at Every Cure.
14:08KW: For us, there is an opportunity, if you have --
14:11in some instances,
14:12individuals can actually donate their unused medicine
14:15as long as they're in sealed containers, unexpired.
14:19So there's an opportunity for you to potentially donate.
14:22The other thing I would just say is, this is TED.
14:24Like, y'all are well-resourced, well-connected individuals.
14:28If you want to see us come to your state to bring a full solution
14:34for medication access to your state, reach out.
14:37AT: You know, going back to what David was talking about, actionable hope,
14:40I think that's such an important thread.
14:44And Kiah, we were talking yesterday,
14:47and I've heard you say before that it's a privilege to do hard things.
14:52Kiah also has a new baby,
14:54so she's in the thick of doing hard things right now.
15:00And something that you also have said is that,
15:04really thinking about short-term pain for long-term gain.
15:08So maybe talk a little bit, Kiah,
15:10about how you kind of, rationalize those feelings
15:14of the pain and the gain.
15:16KW: So like, hope is a tough concept for me
15:18because I am ...
15:21I am a probably realistic, pragmatic pessimist.
15:26Like, I don't think anyone who's ever worked with me
15:28would say "Kiah is a hopeful, optimistic human."
15:31Which is kind of a weird thing to say,
15:33considering I'm doing social entrepreneurial work
15:36and trying to have impact in this world.
15:38So like, why am I doing this?
15:39And how do I get up every day and continue to do it?
15:42And I think a lot of it comes down to like, you know,
15:46when you are having personally experienced,
15:48when you are living at the edge
15:50and you're like, I've just got to put one foot in front of the other.
15:53I've got to make sure I have what I need.
15:55I have to make sure there's a roof over my head.
15:57I have to make sure there's electricity because the electricity got cut off.
16:01Like, you're not necessarily thinking about the hopes and dreams of the future
16:05that you want to have.
16:06You are thinking about living today and making to tomorrow.
16:09But I think that in and of itself, I've realized, is a form of hope,
16:13because you do not just lay down and die.
16:16Candidly, like.
16:18And this is something I say to myself
16:19because I am not an optimistic person.
16:21I'm not a very hopeful person.
16:23"Well, Kiah, you have options
16:24and hopefully you choose to make this world a better place
16:27and to keep going."
16:28And I think what you referenced around, like,
16:31how do I make this all work in my head,
16:33is, at the end of the day,
16:36now that I am not in that situation where I am worried about basic needs,
16:42like, it's such a privilege to be able to choose the hard things in your life.
16:47For so many people in this world that is not a choice that they have.
16:51That thing is sitting right in front of them,
16:53staring at them every single day.
16:56So the fact that I have food on the table, good health insurance,
16:59a roof over my head,
17:02I get to now choose
17:04what are the things that I'm going to take on that are hard.
17:08And so like, I reflect on that,
17:09especially now being on a stage like this in a room like this,
17:13what a privilege it is for me to choose hard things
17:17and to go out and tackle those.
17:19And all of us in this room,
17:21I think mostly, probably, have the ability
17:24to choose the hard things that you're going to tackle in your life.
17:28So you can choose career, you can choose to start a new job,
17:31you can choose to start a new organization.
17:33Like, these are all choices that we have, and it's a privilege of choice.
17:37And so I think for me, that is what gives me more hope.
17:41And that lights a fire under me of this idea of every day I get to wake up
17:45and choose to go out into this world
17:47and tackle some of these systems of oppression.
17:51Systems of inequality.
17:53And so like, what a beautiful life that is,
17:56to be able to wake up every day
17:57and be at Maslow's hierarchy of need at the top,
18:01working on self-actualization.
18:04AT: David, for people who are navigating
18:08some of that crossroads that you're talking about, a big change,
18:11maybe it's you want to start an organization or change jobs,
18:17but for those of us who might be in that place
18:19but feeling a little bit stuck,
18:21what small everyday choices or mindsets
18:26do you share with people to kind of help them move forward
18:29or build like, a more meaningful path?
18:31DF: I think there's three things that can really help you
18:34during a really tough time.
18:36And I learned this from the six months that I spent in the intensive care unit
18:40when I was dying from my disease, Castleman's.
18:44And the first is that you have to have a vision for what you're fighting for.
18:48So you have to be able to actually see what is it that you want
18:52and that you're wishing and hoping for.
18:53So for me, I was wishing and hoping for a family
18:56with my girlfriend at the time, Caitlin.
18:58I was wishing and hoping that I would be able to find drugs
19:01in memory of my mom and treat patients in her memory.
19:03That vision was so important for me as I was struggling to survive
19:07for those six months.
19:09The second is that you have to have an amazing team of people by your side.
19:13My sisters literally held both of my hands
19:16eight hours a day for those six months,
19:18giving me the strength that I needed.
19:20My dad sat with me, my girlfriend was there with me as well.
19:23They provided strength and support.
19:24And of course, when you think about it from a professional perspective,
19:28the team that you have around you is everything, right?
19:30It's so important, it is truly everything.
19:32And the third is that you have to take things one step at a time.
19:36If someone had come to me at the beginning of the six-month period
19:39and said, "You're going to suffer the most unbearable pain you've ever felt,
19:42you're going to be on the brink of death for six months.
19:45You're going to say goodbye to your family."
19:47I would have said, there's no way I have the strength
19:50to make it for six months.
19:51I would have said, "Where's the white flag?"
19:53No way I can do that.
19:54But taking the approach of one step and one breath at a time
19:57helped me so much.
19:58I remember there was one point, about 11 weeks into that illness,
20:02where my doctors told me that we were out of options,
20:05and I started slowing my breathing.
20:07It was so painful to breathe and I was starting to let go.
20:10And I remember looking up at my sister and everyone else had said goodbye,
20:15you know, said goodbye to all the people that I love.
20:18And my sister looked at me and said, "Just breathe, Dave."
20:21And I remember hearing that
20:22and I was like, "You know what?
20:24I can do maybe one or two more breaths, let's go."
20:26And I did a couple more.
20:27I can do a minute of this, I can do an hour of this.
20:30And those couple of hours to couple of days
20:33were the difference for the time we needed
20:35for the chemotherapy to kick in to save my life.
20:37And so I think with all these challenges that we face,
20:40if you can have the vision for the future,
20:42the support by your side,
20:43and then really take things one step or one breath at a time,
20:46I think we can overcome so much.
20:48AT: Resilience is a topic that's been touched on a lot
20:51over these last couple of days,
20:52and I think that the perception often is that social entrepreneurs
20:58or leaders like you are always full of hope,
21:01like, always ready to go forward and conquer more.
21:06Like, is that how it feels to you?
21:08Do you always feel that way?
21:10KW: I think I already said no.
21:12I'm a very pessimistic human.
21:16In a lot of ways, on a daily basis.
21:18But I am, it's interesting,
21:20I don't know that I have always hope.
21:22I know that I have faith.
21:24And I know that I have faith, weirdly, in this country.
21:28I have faith in humanity.
21:30And I think going back to what is the vision that you want to see
21:34and what is the world you want to live in,
21:36like, it's much better for me,
21:39and I can wake up and be happy and recharged thinking about this world
21:44and humanity as a race that is ultimately going to save itself
21:47than it is to think about this country or humanity
21:51as a race that's going to implode and destroy itself.
21:55AT: It's helpful to hear.
21:56KW: So ... I think, yeah, a lot of us are tired,
22:00like, people are tired.
22:03And at the same time, like, this is it.
22:07Like, I think you had mentioned previously this concept
22:10of short-term pain, long-term gain.
22:12I think many of us are in this room or watching this talk,
22:16because you've had a lot of really cool opportunities to be successful.
22:20And I think what we learned from that is delayed gratification oftentimes.
22:25To say, OK, you put in these hours studying, you do schooling,
22:29you wait for that promotion, you work hard,
22:31you put your head down and you grind to get to some next step.
22:34And that is great, that is awesome.
22:37At the same time, I want to just raise the alarm that we cannot defer life
22:43and we cannot think about like, well, you know,
22:46right now is really challenging,
22:49hopefully five years from now to be better.
22:52I think that there is a time in which you have to decide for yourself,
22:55when am I in that grind-it-out, delayed gratification.
22:59I'm going to just put in the time and then pop my head out later.
23:03And when are you going to say to yourself, like, this is my life now?
23:07How am I going to make decisions and take new actions that change my life,
23:11my family, my community, my world for the better?
23:15AT: I find that so powerful.
23:17David, anything you want to add to that?
23:19DF: I just completely agree with Kiah in everything she said.
23:23I think I probably fall on the end of the spectrum of being
23:26maybe a little bit more optimistic and hopeful.
23:28Which I think is great,
23:30I think the important thing is that it's finding some balance.
23:33I think it's important that we get to work together and do tough things.
23:37But I think that what I would say is that I sort of, you know,
23:42have the mindset of what's possible in terms of treating patients
23:45with horrible, deadly diseases.
23:47And I get a chance to see people that said goodbye to their family,
23:50that were on their last legs
23:52and were able to save their life
23:54with a medicine that wasn't made for that disease.
23:56And it's hard for me to put it into words.
23:59Just what that means when you get to see someone come back,
24:03literally, from the dead,
24:04where you literally get to see someone walk their daughter down the aisle
24:08on their wedding day,
24:09get to hear their child speak to them for the first time.
24:13These things are so powerful and they give you so much energy.
24:17It's hard to describe.
24:19I think another piece of this is
24:21when you say goodbye to people you love, and you start to wake up
24:24and you're like, oh my gosh, I got another day.
24:26Like, this is incredible.
24:28It gives a glow to life that's hard for me to overemphasize.
24:32At the same time,
24:34we also have patients that we're not able to help
24:36and patients where we try everything for them
24:38and they still die from their disease,
24:40diseases that we're working on so hard,
24:43and we want treatment so bad and we just can't find them.
24:46And so I think that when you bring all those together,
24:49it's the excitement of life and the fact that we're all here
24:52and it's just amazing,
24:54the excitement of being able to help people that shouldn't be here,
24:57that are living what we call overtime,
24:59but it's also sitting with the pain of the patients we're not able to help,
25:02sitting with the pain of the diseases that we're not able to treat yet,
25:06and having that pain drive further action.
25:09AT: What is one thing that you would leave people with?
25:15Or like, an action that people can take to start to like make change
25:19in their life starting today?
25:21Kiah, I'll start with you.
25:23KW: I think we're in an incredible moment
25:25where thinking about what really matters to you,
25:28what really matters, not the things --
25:30There's a million things that everyone says that they care about, right?
25:33Because, like, to be a good human, to be a good person,
25:36you must care about a lot of things.
25:38You must do all the things, you must vote, you must recycle.
25:41You must go to see your dentist every six months.
25:43Like, there's all these things that we all have to do.
25:46I think there's too much.
25:48There's so many things.
25:49It's so hard to feel like you are a good person
25:52that is doing good things.
25:55And I think this is a time -- I've really been thinking about this
25:58because I have a new priority, which is I have a child now.
26:01It's how do I focus on the things that actually really matter?
26:06And for me, it’s understanding more authentically for myself,
26:12what are the things that, like --
26:14for me, it's again, it's like, what are the things that bother me?
26:17What are the things that anger me,
26:19what are the things I'm excited about?
26:20Like, for me, it's all about the strong emotions that come out
26:23and how do I focus my life and my work and my mission on impacting those.
26:29And it's going to have to be, for me, the way I choose to do that,
26:32is going deep in a couple areas and having to maybe say,
26:36I maybe didn't go to the dentist in the last six months
26:39and like, I'm OK with that.
26:41Like, maybe I'm taking a break from some of these things
26:44because I want to focus on these others.
26:46So I think it's really just understanding for you
26:48what are the things that actually just deeply matter
26:50and taking action on those
26:52because it's the recognition you can't do everything.
26:54And I'm a person who wants to do everything.
26:56And so I think rather than being really sad about that,
26:59it's using that as the empowering statement to myself
27:02to say, I can't do everything but the things I'm going to do,
27:04I'm going to do really well,
27:06I'm going to be really focused
27:07and I'm going to see impact in those areas.
27:10AT: But it is very important to go to the dentist every six months,
27:13don't forget that.
27:15David, just quickly.
27:16DF: Sure, so, completely agree with Kiah's points.
27:19And one way that I've sort of framed this
27:22in a way that's been really helpful for me,
27:24is that I've considered the moment that I nearly died for the first time
27:28to be the start of my overtime.
27:29And overtime is a sense that many of us can relate to.
27:32So think about at the end of a sporting event
27:35where your game goes into overtime,
27:37and if you're playing in one of those games,
27:40it can be really scary to be in overtime
27:42because like, at any minute, the game could end,
27:44if you make a mistake in overtime, the game is over.
27:47Make a mistake in the first half the game, you can make up for it.
27:50So overtime can be really scary.
27:52But overtime can also be really clarifying.
27:54When you're in overtime,
27:56you focus only on the things that are most important to win,
27:59whatever that sporting event is.
28:00And so I found for me
28:02that I've been in the state of overtime now for 15 years,
28:04I guess I'm in my fifth overtime by now.
28:07But in this overtime, it helps me to sort of cut out the noise,
28:10the things that I don't care about, the things that aren't important to me,
28:14and to just focus on the things that are really important to me.
28:17And so I think that I've, when I was 25,
28:19sort of first realized that we're all in overtime.
28:23But the truth is, we're all in overtime.
28:26And, you know, none of us know how long our overtime is going to go for.
28:29But all of us have the ability to make the most of every second in overtime.
28:33AT: What a great way to end.
28:34David, Kiah, thank you so much for a great conversation.
28:37(Applause)