Paul Ford: [00:00:00] Hey, I’m Paul Ford.
Rich Ziade: And I’m Rich Ziade.
Paul Ford: This is Ziade Ford Advisors and, uh, we’ll get to the advice in a minute, but Rich, let’s get personal today.
Rich Ziade: Ookay.
Paul Ford: Around Christmas, I came to you and I said “something weird is happening”.
Rich Ziade: You did.
Paul Ford: I, I had told my wife and I told you. And I, I’ll just put it out for the listeners, I’ve also, I’ve written about this in Wired, I’m being public about it, so, um, I am a very big person. I have what is known as morbid obesity, or as I like to call it, fatal thickness.
Rich Ziade: Mmmm.
Paul Ford: Yes.
Rich Ziade: Neither sound great.
Paul Ford: No, it’s not great.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: And uh, it’s an absolute curse in my life and has been for 38 years. Let’s just put that part aside for a minute.
Rich Ziade: Okay.
Paul Ford: Let’s just leave that alone.
Rich Ziade: Alright, so, I mean, uh, can I ask you a question about that?
Paul Ford: [00:01:00] Any question you want.
Rich Ziade: Okay, it’s not, it is a product of you eating, you’re big because you eat a lot. You used to eat a lot.
Paul Ford: Yes.
Rich Ziade: It wasn’t like, there are other conditions that have nothing to do with consumption.
Paul Ford: No, it’s not like a, it’s not a thyroid condition.
Rich Ziade: It’s not a thyroid condition. Okay, okay, keep going.
Paul Ford: And so, uh, I’ve wrestled with this. I, at one point lost a hundred pounds and then watched it come back. And when I say watched it, it’s a very surreal process cause I’m a bright fellow and I just like, couldn’t keep the weight off. I just kept eating.
Rich Ziade: Which is a classic challenge, right?
Paul Ford: Well, almost everybody who loses weight gains it back.
Rich Ziade: Yes.
Paul Ford: And then some even interventions like gastric bypass, uh, often don’t succeed in the long run. So-
Rich Ziade: Re- regain weight, yeah.
Paul Ford: Meanwhile, the society is not really empathetic about that whole thing. They’re like, yeah, whatever, fatty.
Rich Ziade: Mmm.
Paul Ford: And so it’s just something that I kind of was like, well, I live with this, I’m probably gonna die with it. My, the culture I live in doesn’t really have a lot of sympathy for me, so I better [00:02:00] just focus on my life and my friendships and do the best I can. That’s my strategy.
Rich Ziade: Can I, can I mimic society for a moment?
Paul Ford: Go ahead.
Rich Ziade: He’s big because he has no self-control.
Paul Ford: Absolutely, that’s what society thinks.
Rich Ziade: And it’s on him.
Paul Ford: Absolutely. That’s, that is, look, I, I can negotiate with that and I can, you can’t talk back to society. You can’t.
Rich `Ziade: No.
Paul Ford: So, but what, what science found, and God knows, no one cared, but science was like, yeah, man once that weight comes on, it just doesn’t come off. You can lose it, absolutely. You, you don’t eat and then exercise, it works.
Rich `Ziade: Yeah, yeah.
Paul Ford: But once it’s on even if you lose it, your brain just sets itself and it’s like, no, no, we gotta get back there. Gotta get back there.
Rich Ziade: Got it. It’s, it’s, it’s a gravitational pull, yeah.
Paul Ford: Get back to a certain thing in your body right now, right?
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: And so, um, so as you can imagine, this was a, a source of tension in my entire life, in every moment of my, my existence.
Rich Ziade: Well, I, [00:03:00] I’ve, I’ve spent, I’ve probably spent more time with you over the last 10 years than anyone else maybe.
Paul Ford: Well, you know that, like that 10,000 hours rule, you’re an expert in Paul Ford [chuckles].
Rich Ziade: I’m kind of an expert in Paul Ford.
Paul Ford: You’re like a world expert in me.
Rich Ziade: You, you are, you are one of my closest friends and we work together.
Paul Ford: Yes.
Rich Ziade: Even you, you could have really close friends, but you don’t spend eight hours a day with them. We actually work together.
Paul Ford: It actually comes down to pacing.
Rich Ziade: It comes down to pacing.
Paul Ford: Yeah.
Rich Ziade: Um, and I will say this, as your friend of the past 10 years, I had no idea. I had no idea that you were dealing with the world perceiving you that way because you kind of buried it.
Paul Ford: I, you, you sort of have to, when you have, and look, people will be, Like I said, I lost the weight before and people will have all kinds of judgements, but the reality was kind of no matter what I did, I just couldn’t get it under control. And like I said, you’re just, I’m gonna keep going. I’m a boss, I’m a successful writer. I’m doing all kinds of things.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: And if I bring that part of myself, if I [00:04:00] bring that part of myself that’s obese and outta control into that world, it gets real messy. So I just kind of draw a little curtain.
Rich Ziade: Yep.
Paul Ford: Okay, And you know, it’s you, I mean, and it’s not like you and I didn’t talk about. And we talked about food and behavior, and sometimes I was losing weight and sometimes I was gaining weight.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: Anxiety was a part of it. So like you were in the mix on it, and then ultimately it came down to me and my body. There’s like nothing anyone else can do so-
Rich Ziade: No, I, I, as a friend, I, I worried about your health.
Paul Ford: Yeah, you should have.
Rich Ziade: I didn’t, I didn’t judge you as someone that was gluttonous or doing terrible things to themselves.
Paul Ford: Trust me-
Rich Ziade: I didn’t, I I was, because I know you well enough and you’re self aware enough that it, that wasn’t in my mind, it was more like, you know, take care of yourself.
Paul Ford: Trust me as a fat person, I know the difference in a friendship.
Rich Ziade: Wow, that’s interesting.
Paul Ford: Yeah, I know, I know, you are a kind and loving person who wanted, who wanted, wished well, for me, sometimes you’d give me shit, but that’s fine, you’re my friend.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: Right, like there are people [00:05:00] who aren’t as kind, but you, you had a fundamental kindness to you, and it’s one of the ways that we work together. Um-
Rich Ziade: Okay, this is dark.
Paul Ford: So, it is dark. And so I came to you and I was like, so I, I am type two diabetic, which is a normal outcome of being this big.
Rich Ziade: Sure.
Paul Ford: And I see an endocrinologist and he had me on, I, I, I have a pretty well managed condition. He had me on a thing called Ozempic Ozempic, um, stimulates the production of insulin in the body. It’s not insulin.
Rich Ziade: Very popular drug, one of the most popular drugs.
Paul Ford: And it’s great because you’re not putting insulin in your body. You’re telling your body to make insulin.
Rich Ziade: Make more, yeah.
Paul Ford: So very good, very healthy. Side effect of of ozempic is it makes you a little less hungry.
Rich Ziade: Okay.
Paul Ford: Satiety is like, sort of like, just kind of diminished. And so you see it now, um, Hollywood Diet, the Mindy Kaling loses 50 pounds and everybody says, is it, is it Ozempic?
Rich Ziade: Oh, okay.
Paul Ford: Okay, okay. So a lot of discussion about this. Very successful drugs, um, good for type two [00:06:00] diabetics. I took it and I, I was able to maintain and lose about 10, 15 pounds and that was good, but that is not a significant change in my life.
Rich Ziade: Right. But it was a small percentage of what you need to lose.
Paul Ford: But what was great for me was the sense that I was maintaining instead of increasing, I was like, okay, cause I’m, I’m-
Rich Ziade: It’s something.
Paul Ford: My health was at risk. And so I’m like, alright, well at least my health is at less risk.
Rich Ziade: Okay,
Paul Ford: So I go see my endocrinologist and it’s typical doctor, you know, Mount Sinai system, you’re like, Hey, how? He’s like, how you doing? Oh, your A1Cs are great, you’re doing really good. You lose weight? I’m like, no, not really, I lost like 10 pounds. He was like, ah, you gotta try this new one. I’ll give it you it, it’s called Manjaro. I’m gonna give it to you. I’m like, okay, cool, thanks. He’s like, see you in May, bye. Okay, so that was the entire intervention that I received from my, um-
Rich Ziade: He’s like really political.
Paul Ford: Yeah, yeah.
Rich Ziade: Incredibly thoughtful.
Paul Ford: It’s like, ah, numbers look good– Bye.
Rich Ziade: Okay.
Paul Ford: Okay, click.
Rich Ziade: This is December, 2022.
Paul Ford: Yeah, they’re about early December.
Rich Ziade: Okay.
Paul Ford: So I go, I get the prescription, it comes to the house.
Rich Ziade: Okay, okay.
Paul Ford: I’m like, alright, well, we’ll try the, I’ll use the Ozempic up and then I’ll switch to this one. [00:07:00]
Rich Ziade: Okay.
Paul Ford: So about two weeks in, I go– what happened?
Rich Ziade: Huh.
Paul Ford: Because suddenly my brain feels really, really different.
Rich Ziade: Okay.
Paul Ford: And I wrote a, I wrote about this– I’m not hungry. Like, I’m not hungry and I didn’t realize before I took this med how much my energy, like maybe I would, I would say some ridiculous amount, 30%, 40% of my brain was just always going– How am I gonna get those calories? Gotta get ’em. Gotta get those calories.
Rich Ziade: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Paul Ford: Click. Okay, so in the test-
Rich Ziade: A switch flip.
Paul Ford: I decided to walk home from here.
Rich Ziade: Mm-hm.
Rich Ziade: Uh, to my home and, or at least most of the way. Sometimes I do that, take a bus, get, get a little exercise and I was like, uh, that’s dinner. You know what? I’m gonna go in. And I was really kind of testing myself on seventh Avenue Park Slope, there’s this kind of old school Chinese restaurant.
Rich Ziade: Like plexi glass?
Paul Ford: No no, like seated.
Rich Ziade: Oh, okay.
Paul Ford: So I go on in and I sit down, I’m like, there’s nobody else there. A [00:08:00] fat guy in a Chinese restaurant, we’ve all seen that before.
Rich Ziade: Mm-hm.
Paul Ford: And I ordered General Tso with broccoli.
Rich Ziade: A soppy sweet and spicy fried chicken.
Paul Ford: And if you are someone who is looking for calories, boy this is just hot gold.
Rich Ziade: It’s nuclear.
Paul Ford: Like he just, just get it in there. So I have like five bites and I go, eh I’m good. And that, that has not happened in 30 years.
Rich Ziade: Wow.
Paul Ford: I’m just, I’m good, I ate all the broccoli and I was like, God, this isn’t that good.
Rich Ziade: How did you feel at that moment?
Paul Ford: Extremely confused.
Rich Ziade: Confused?
Paul Ford: Well you’re, you’re talking about like fundamental wiring.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: You know, we don’t, we haven’t talked about on this podcast, but we didn’t, you had brain surgery.
Rich Ziade: I did.
Paul Ford: And you had a lot of meds because you had a seizure condition that were managing that, and then you had brain surgery and you didn’t have it anymore, and you went off the meds.
Rich Ziade: Which was wild.
Paul Ford: Right, so you, you had a transitional moment in your life where you went from like having this thing that was always extremely present.
Rich Ziade: Always in the background.
Paul Ford: Exactly, and then now it’s not.
Rich Ziade: And now it’s not.
Paul Ford: So when we were talking [00:09:00] about this, you compared it to that.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: And I was like, yeah, it, it feels that way. So then as a side effect, I just started shedding weight cause I’m not eating.
Rich Ziade: Okay, so-
Paul Ford: But no, let me be clear too, I am enjoying food more. I’m eating healthy stuff. I did all that work to lose that a hundred pounds. So my nutrition knowledge is really good.
Rich Ziade: You’re not running to sugar and cake and carbs.
Paul Ford: No, and it’s- New York City is brutal. Every office, every bodega, every, every place they just love to give you another, you know, can of-
Rich Ziade: You know what my favorite is? Yogurt muffins. There’s like no yogurt in them.
Paul Ford: [Laughter].
Rich Ziade: And then there’s like white yogurt, pretzels.
Paul Ford: Everything is a Twinkie, right?
Rich Ziade: Everything is a Twinkie.
Paul Ford: So, so you’ve seen me and you’ve, you’ve noticed the behavior to the point that you now call me out on it. You’re like, don’t order the pho if you’re not going to eat any of the noodles.
Rich Ziade: We went out to eat at a Vietnamese place. You left I think 80% of the noodles.
Paul Ford: And I was-
Rich Ziade: You ate the meat, but you left the noodles.
Paul Ford: I wanted the protein. I was just flat out [00:10:00] full. And I should have had a salad.
Rich Ziade: You should have had a salad.
Paul Ford: Right, because, and it wasn’t like I should have had a salad because that would be virtuous for me as a big guy.
Rich Ziade: Yes.
Paul Ford: It was, I should have had a salad because I wasted 80% of the food.
Rich Ziade: How much weight have you lost?
Paul Ford: Um, first of all, just before-
Rich Ziade: You don’t have to-
Paul Ford: No, I will, I will say the number, but before I say it, let me just say the weight loss- people think that weight loss is very virtuous and that you are working hard.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: And I’ve done that. I, I used to work-
Rich Ziade: You did it.
Paul Ford: I did a three-
Rich Ziade: You lost a hundred pounds.
Paul Ford: You bike you- I would ride my bike three hours a day. I would track every calorie. I built a calorie tracker. Um, so this is different, this is different, but I’ve lost, um, let me think so 34 pounds.
Rich Ziade: Wow.
Paul Ford: In the last three months.
Rich Ziade: Okay, that’s a lot.
Paul Ford: It’s an enormous amount of weight to lose without a focused weight loss strategy, [00:11:00] like typically to make a person.
Rich Ziade: You’re not late, like this is not consuming your life in terms of this is my project for my life.
Paul Ford:. Now, you know, when you would see results like this, you’d literally see them on the TV show, the Biggest Loser, cause it was a full-time job. It’s all they did.
Rich Ziade: It’s all they did.
Paul Ford: Right, you just were gonna, and we cooked the food for you and you run on the beach and we’re gonna, we’re gonna teach you about nutrition and so on. It was the biggest Loser would get these kind of results and then it would-
Rich Ziade: A horrible show and a horrible name for a show.
Paul Ford: It was really bad [chuckles].
Rich Ziade: Terrible.
Paul Ford: Size- uh, at one point GQ Magazine asked me to write about being fat, and I, I almost did, and I was like, I’m, I’m not gonna do that. I’m not.
Rich Ziade: Don’t, don’t join the fray.
Paul Ford: I’m just gonna leave, gonna leave myself, that last little bit.
Rich Ziade: Okay, um, I mean, uh, let me, let me talk about this from my perspective and what I’ve seen, cause we still spend a lot-
Paul Ford: Sure.
Rich Ziade: We are working together, we have a startup together. And, and, uh, first off, I mean as a baseline, I’m just happy for you. Uh-
Paul Ford: It’s good to have control over this part of my life.
Rich Ziade: I mean, uh, it’s, it’s great to ha- to get this [00:12:00] opportunity to take care of yourself without it being like a massive life commitment.
Paul Ford: And that’s, that’s the way to put it.
Rich Ziade: Or surgery.
Paul Ford: I have to take a shot every week probably for as long as I have to take the shot, like forever.
Rich Ziade: Okay.
Paul Ford: And that gives me the ability to make very well controlled decisions about my own health. I’m still out in terrible shape, I still have to like-
Rich Ziade: There’s a road ahead.
Paul Ford: Of course. No, but I started working out again. I started lifting weights and like, you know, you just, it’s just so much easier.
Rich Ziade: Yeah. What shocked me, so that, I mean, that’s the, the thing that’s sort of overarching, right?
Paul Ford: Yeah.
Rich Ziade: It’s like, great, you’ve got a plan and you’ve got, I mean, it’s, this is a miracle, right?
Paul Ford: It is.
Rich Ziade: It’s like, it’s, it’s like antibiotics, right? It’s, it’s a big thing. I mean, obesity’s a huge problem, not just in America, but around the world. Even in poorer countries, the poorer you are, the worst shape you’re in.
Paul Ford: Well, just so many cheap calories, right?
Rich Ziade: So many cheap calories. So it’s great that this exists, hopefully it becomes something that is available to, to pe- to everyone that [00:13:00] needs it. The other thing I just started to notice was like, you’re a little wired.
Paul Ford: Yes.
Rich Ziade: Talk about that, and then there’s a third thing I noticed.
Paul Ford: So number, so one of the ways that this new medication works is it doesn’t just produce the insulin, um, or, or hit the, uh, centers of your brain that are hungry, but it kind of gives you a little extra energy.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: And so at first, especially at first, it was very spiky. Like I was losing, I was shedding a lot of weight and I had this like spiky energy push. And so I literally had, and I, I communicated this to you and actually to the leadership of the company we share.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: Cause I had pressured speech, I was a little wide-eyed.
Rich Ziade: Mm-hm, yeah.
Paul Ford: I was, I was literally kind of doing squats in the office just to kind of burn energy.
Rich Ziade: What I didn’t know is, that life around you, uh, was [00:14:00] very distracting as you were sort of rebooting yourself. You, you were almost agitated with anything else coming at you, it’s less and less now.
Paul Ford: No, I tried to communicate that, I couldn’t process almost anything.
Rich Ziade: You were, I, I’d ask you to do something at, at work and you were like, why are you on my back? And meanwhile, I asked you nicely like a minute prior. Like it wasn’t like I was yelling at you, you were kind of, you were agitated because I think you were still kind of processing what was going on.
Paul Ford: No, in my, in my head I was, Who is this new guy? Meaning me.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: And going, and you’d be asking for things and I’m like, what’s that? Like, I just couldn’t parse the world.
Rich Ziade: Yeah. Uh, the third thing I noticed, and it wasn’t a notice you said it, um, is that you were kind of revisiting a lot of your relationships throughout your life and you were pretty angry.
Paul Ford: Yes, that’s real, tight? So it it’s just-
Rich Ziade: Talk through that.
Paul Ford: Well, there’s a few things I [00:15:00] would say, it just feels either that they slammed my, my sort of self back into my body or that I, sometimes I’m, I’m thinking about now, I’m a couple months in and I think about myself as the other guy from a few months ago because that guy was just like living in, he was sleepwalking, right?
Rich Ziade: Mm-hm, yeah.
Paul Ford: So there’s a lot of-
Rich Ziade: But why are you angry with everybody else?
Paul Ford: It’s fading, but for a while I was, I, because this thing dominated my life and I had doctors saying, you know, just kind of yelling at me. I had people just kind of treating me with various kinds of disrespect.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: And, um, I was in a lot of pain over that time.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: And, uh, and so, you know, I was just like, God man, the world kind of didn’t, kind of had it in for me for a while and I felt really bitter at the same time, then you, you go through those feelings and thoughts and then you go, well, I know who my friends are.
Rich Ziade: Yep.
Paul Ford: I love my [00:16:00] family. People have stood by me many times.
Rich Ziade: Mm-hm, mm-hm.
Paul Ford: And then you focus on that.
Rich Ziade: You, uh, uh, I’ll share an observation. Uh, you had a perfect storm, uh, hit you, which led to a lot of brutal judgment. Um, I mean, first off, people drew conclusions about you.
Paul Ford: Oh, meaning when I was a fat boss.
Rich Ziade: Well, yeah, I mean, you, you, you, you found a lot of success
Paul Ford: Oh yeah.
Rich Ziade: And you were, you were a fat boss and, and for those people it’s much easier to rationalize and by not, by the way, it doesn’t have to be boss, it could be colleague in, in the media, it could be anybody.
Paul Ford: Yeah.
Rich Ziade: It doesn’t matter people, uh, you were in a situation where people drew conclusions without even knowing you [00:17:00] very well, about how gluttonous and greedy you are.
Paul Ford: Yeah, that’s right.
Rich Ziade: And they do that, they do that not to be mean. They do that because A, it helps them feel better about themselves. It’s like, wait a minute, I have like 2% body fat. Why don’t I see Paul Ford’s success? People are crazy-
Paul Ford: Oh, no, no. The irony of being-
Rich Ziade: People are insane.
Paul Ford: Being a fat successful person means that when people look at you, they go, yeah, but…
Rich Ziade: Exactly, exactly.
Paul Ford: It’s like, and it’s like, don’t think, I don’t know, right? Like it’s, of course.
Rich Ziade: We, we built a business in New York City. It is a brutal place.
Paul Ford: Yeah.
Rich Ziade: It is a judgmental place.
Paul Ford: Oh my God.
Rich Ziade: It is a competitive place, right?
Paul Ford: Yep.
Rich Ziade: And on top of that, you’re a big guy.
Paul Ford: Yeah.
Rich Ziade: Me, I’ll just barrel right through, and, and same for me, by barreling through I’ve learned who my friends are and who I can trust and who I can’t.
Paul Ford: What I love is I’m also like, I’m a media guy and I’m a public figure, like it’s a disaster.
Rich Ziade: You’re a stereotype.
Paul Ford: Oh yeah.
Rich Ziade: You, you, you were [00:18:00] the layup. You were-
Paul Ford: Of course.
Rich Ziade: Easy to stereotype and they did it because it’s easier.
Paul Ford: You know what’s wild is, is then people would interact with me with that sort of portrait of me in their head and I could tell.
Rich Ziade: Yeah, yeah.
Paul Ford: And you would just be like, oh, you just completely hate me. And I don’t know why, exactly.
Rich Ziade: [laughter].
Paul Ford: One of the things that’s actually, it’s very, very bizarre about running a business and having successes, every now and then we’ll make a decision that really pisses people off.
Rich Ziade: Mm-hmm.
Paul Ford: And they’ll look at me, and they’ll, they’ll be really angry with me, and they’ll want to say something about it, and I can see it in their eyes, and it’s almost a relief to know why they hate me.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: Because most of the time I felt hated without knowing why.
Rich Ziade: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Ford: So, so anyway, here we are.
Rich Ziade: Here- we should give people some advice.
Paul Ford: That’s the, that’s the podcast, so here we are, I’m in the middle of all this. I think what I would say is, if you’re someone who has the same challenge I do, um, don’t be afraid of these drugs when they get FDA approval, go for it.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: Um, right now, Manjaro is for type [00:19:00] two, it’s being prescribed off label, but when the supply chain stuff is resolved and you can get a steady access, it’s pretty good.
Rich Ziade: Yeah, definitely look into it.
Paul Ford: Just straight up, concrete piece of advice.
Rich Ziade: Well you’ll, you’ll live longer and better, there’s that, it’s, there is, there’s also, we talked a lot about the social aspects of it, but you’ll also be healthier.
Paul Ford: No, it’s fun to scamper up the stairs.
Rich Ziade: Yeah [chuckles].
Paul Ford: It is.
Rich Ziade: It sure is.
Paul Ford: Yeah.
Rich Ziade: I’m gonna give a piece of advice for everyone else. I’m gonna tell it through a story.
Paul Ford: Okay.
Rich Ziade: I remember this story and I don’t know why it stuck in my mind. I went to, uh, a fast food place, this is, I’m, I kid you not 25 years ago.
Paul Ford: Okay.
Rich Ziade: This fast food place is called Roy Rogers.
Paul Ford: Oof [chuckles].
Rich Ziade: It was burgers and fries and roast beef sandwiches.
Paul Ford: Like, it’s like a Hardee’s but maybe worse? I don’t know.
Rich Ziade: It was in Brooklyn.
Paul Ford: Yeah.
Rich Ziade: It was like a Hardee’s and, and I went in, and I was like a smug 25 year old and it was busy, it was kind of chaotic in there and it was like six o’clock and the person was [00:20:00] kind of gruff and pushy with me, like as I ordered my thing.
Paul Ford: Can we just pause for one sec? There is no chaos like Brooklyn fast food chaos.
Rich Ziade: It’s crazy, right? It’s just crazy.
Paul Ford: Manhattan doesn’t come close, I’ve never been anywhere where just stuff can just feel like it’s about to spiral out of control.
Rich Ziade: Yeah, yeah. So this person was rude to me.
Paul Ford: Yeah.
Rich Ziade: And not nice to me. Not rude, uh, rude is probably too strong. He was just kind of like, didn’t give a shit. He was like, what do you want? Like, he was kind of smug and, and a little bit of anger there. And then, uh, and then I made a joke, I was like, and what about that customer service? And he looked up at me and he said, I’ve had a really long day and I, at that moment, I realized that it was about me.
Paul Ford: Yeah.
Rich Ziade: And this person had probably dished out 6,000 burgers.
Paul Ford: Yes.
Rich Ziade: Over like a 10 hour shift.
Paul Ford: Yes.
Rich Ziade: And here I was saying, making a comment about how he wasn’t nice to me.
Paul Ford: Just showing how [00:21:00] you were a little bit in control, right? Like, just a-
Rich Ziade: A little bit of that, and also I was a little hurt. I thought I was being funny and smart and nice.
Paul Ford: Yeah.
Rich Ziade: And this guy wasn’t being nice to me.
Paul Ford: Yup.
Rich Ziade: And the, the advice out of that is I’ve, we, we meet all sorts. And some people, some people look genetically, are just satanic, they’re just terrible. You ever meet like a nine year old who’s just a piece of shit?
Paul Ford: Yes.
Rich Ziade: It’s terrible, right? I was like, oh my God, poor child, poor, poor, everybody.
Paul Ford: Yeah, it’s sad, it’s a sad situation. You just see where it’s gonna go.
Rich Ziade: But for most, there’s stuff going on.
Paul Ford: Yeah.
Rich Ziade: And pause and think about the stuff that’s going on for people. That is, and I am, if anyone who works with me or knows me, I’m a bulldog, like I’m an aggressive person, and I’ve tried over the years to better understand what’s going on with people, uh, and it’s a healthy thing. You get, you get better relationships out of it, and you feel better, frankly, It’s not about you always. Paul, I’m happy for you.
Paul Ford: Well, let’s see how [00:22:00] long it lasts. But I will say the, you know, the funny thing, the weight loss is great, like obviously I feel better, feeling better, but, uh, the clarity is, is all.
Rich Ziade: Look, this is so good that I’ve heard you numerous times say that you’re worried about it, like no longer working.
Paul Ford: It’s their supply chain issues with the drug and so on and so forth.
Rich Ziade: Yeah.
Paul Ford: I will say also the, um, I’m back to work, right? Like it took a minute. It actually, this was-
Rich Ziade: You, you needed to reset.
Paul Ford: Yeah.
Rich Ziade: This was a, this was a huge, huge thing for you and you are settling down.
Paul Ford: Yeah, I have a little ways to go.
Rich Ziade: And I’m speaking psychologically and socially and whatnot.
Paul Ford: I have a little ways to go, but here we are.
Rich Ziade: It’s great. Uh, boy, this was a special one, Paul.
Paul Ford: Very special episode of Ziade Ford advisors [chuckles].
Rich Ziade: Uh, check out the article by the way, it’s great.
Paul Ford: That’s right. We’ll put a link.
Rich Ziade: It’s at wired, uh, wired.com. Uh, thanks for listening to the Ziade and Ford podcast, you can find us in all the usual places where podcasts are [00:23:00] made available, and on Twitter, @ZiadeFord and ZiadeFord.com.
Paul Ford: Send us an email hello@ZiadeFord.com. Let’s uh, get back to work.
Rich Ziade: Bye.
Paul Ford: Bye.