He Got Thrown Out of School, Went to Clown School, and Ended Up at Harvard Medical School | Ep 317 with John Glaser

0:04Daniel Robbins:So, John Glaser, I was reading about your story and I was fascinated and it kind of reminded me of some things that happened in my life. And that's why I wanted to get you on here because I wanted to understand what it's like for you when you were growing up. The fact that you went to clown school, like I don't know if I've ever talked to anyone besides a clown. if they how it was clown school and how you leverage that in life but let's go all the way back to when you're in grade school okay and something happened to you that i imagine you'd say really changed your life what was that like well it's a fair question i i mean i grew up in

0:45John Glaser:the san francisco bay area and my father was consultant so he spent a couple summers in hawaii while he did work and spent my first freshman year in the British boarding school, you know, going to because he was stationed in Dusseldorf, et cetera. So we did some movement around, even though based in the Bay Area. My mother was very bright. My father was too, but very eclectic and unorthodox. And she encouraged us. So I did trail crew during the summer and a variety of other things like that. So I learned and also went to school with a Jesuit high school. And the Jesuits were remarkable. They taught you to challenge, challenge the church, challenge the, you know, the Bible, challenge, think about it, challenge.

1:25John Glaser:And so I challenged them. So it came up with this, you know, maybe not a quite a rebel, but certainly quite willing to be unorthodox, you know, along the way. And that led to, you know, I'm sure some of the things we'll talk about hitchhiking all over kingdom come, getting tossed out of high school, going to clown school, et cetera, but the willingness to, to be unorthodox and to try things that are not conventional. It's not really risky. I mean, I did try to climb Mount Everest. But nonetheless, things that are a little bit different.

1:51Daniel Robbins:Hey, I like that. It seems like the people that really change the world are the unconventional thinkers. You can't think inside a box and make a big change. I dropped out of college. What you did, I think, is even more fascinating. Tell me about that.

2:08John Glaser:Well, three buddies wrote an underground newspaper called the Bellarmine Free Press. It was Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, the school was named after. We each wrote a column, and it was about drinking beer and taking advantage of 16-year-old girls. And we knew all about drinking beer and had only dreams of girls. You know, that was just not something we were not familiar with at all. And we made the mistake of publishing it on the afternoon of parents' night. So mom and dad came down to visit the priest, picked up a copy of this thing, and then the roof blew off. Oh my goodness gracious. You know, this raunchy stuff.

2:38John Glaser:What's going on here. So the following morning, we were in front of a tribunal of Jesuits, you know, one by each. My three buddies did the Mea Cupa, which, you know, Latin for I'm sorry. And I was the last one in. And I got in there and there's a little stage, nine Jesuits, the principal in the middle, and the principal said, Mr. Glasser, are you aware of the damage done to the school and how this is countered everything we're trying to teach you? Fine, upstanding Catholic young man. And I got mad. And I said, I'm not sorry at all. As far as I'm concerned, the Catholic Church is a criminal organization.

3:07John Glaser:And I said, for thousands of years, you've suppressed science, conducted unjust wars. And I think, frankly, the position on birth control is killing millions of women and children. And I was proud of what I had done. And I hoped it would be the first in a long series of criminal activity on my part in keeping with the tradition of the Catholic Church. And that I just got, I had my throat slit as a result of that. So I got mad at them. I pushed it probably a little too far, a little too hard. And there you go. I wound up in the middle of my junior year out of high school and went off to college because I didn't really want to go to a different high school for my last year.

3:41John Glaser:I mean, wow.

3:41Daniel Robbins:Like you, you stood your ground. I can tell that you stood your ground. I mean, I don't think most people at that age would have said the things you said in that environment. Like your friends at that time, they told them what they wanted to hear so they can continue. I mean, you break, you break the mold. So then you go to clown school. What the heck is clown school like?

4:02John Glaser:Well, I think from there I went, I went to Duke because I, you My freshman year as a British boarding school, I got enough credits to get out of it. And so I went to do it. And again, I wanted to go as far away from California as possible. So obviously, North Carolina is pretty far away. And we'll get to the clown school, but there's some intervening stuff there. So I was a math major. I really liked math. It's also where I met my now wife, or been together for 51 years. She and I were in the same dorm. But anyway, I got, at the end of my senior year, everybody seems so certain about their lives.

4:32John Glaser:I'm going to be in medical school or law school or business school, whatever it is. I didn't know. So I took the GREs, the GMATs, the LSATs, the NCATs, the actual, every exam I could think of because I figured I'll never be this smart again. And they're good for five years. And I got out of college and I went to work at Pizza Hut. And then after a couple of weeks of that, I thought, well, that's kind of cool. And then I went to work in Alaska in a salmon cannery in a Native American village called South Macne. and in August I had you know six grand in cash more money I never had in my life and nothing to do so I hitchhiked from Fairbanks Alaska to the Panama Canal through North Carolina it took me six months you know along the way it finally got to Panama and said I'm tired of hitchhiking and I miss this woman who now I'm married to I'm gonna go back to Carolina and be with her and while messing around looking for a job I said I'll go to clown school you know I'll learn how to be a clown i still have my makeup in the attic i can still do a passable juggle uh have a couple stupid cub scout troop you know tricks to do etc but it was largely because it seemed like something to

5:35Daniel Robbins:do it might be kind of interesting for some reason i couldn't help but think of forest gum i don't know why he runs across uh it is very interesting like hitchhiking was a thing at some point it's really hard to imagine like hitchhiking was an actual way that people got around because obviously for many years. I mean, still, you know, it's illegal and people don't do it. But there was like the dangers, I think, of hitchhiking. What was it like back then? I mean, Alaska to Panama? I can't even imagine that.

6:07John Glaser:Well, I mean, there's a route you can go from Anchorage up to what they call Tope Junction, catch the Alcan, Alaska, Canada Highway down to Seattle. And from there, you hitchhike out to Spokane, drop down to Denver, take I-80 or I-70 back to North Carolina, I-40 back to California and then down the Pan-American Highway until you get to Canal. And then the road stops, et cetera. But, you know, you have to be smart. Even then, there were some scary people and some scary times. So what I would generally do is hitchhike out of truck stops. And I'd basically go up to someone filling their tank. And there'd be one of three scenarios.

6:41John Glaser:It's either mom, dad, and the kids. And basically, I'm John Glasser. I'm a Duke student. I just had a summer job. I'm heading back east to visit my girlfriend. I'm a clean-cut All-American. And so, you know, they either bought that or they didn't. Or it was a guy with a gun rack and a flag and basically, you know, bounce around between jobs, just did some work up in Alaska, head in the east to see some other work. I'm basically a blue collar working guy. And so, yeah, yeah, my kind of guy. And the third was, you know, a bunch of guys with long hair and a micro bus and say, hey, man, got any weed?

7:09John Glaser:I got some money for some weed thins, you know, that kind of stuff here. So and that didn't always work. And the truckers wouldn't touch it because there's a liability issue. but you know first of all never hitch i'll give you some advice never hitchhike at night this because the wacko element is up never hitchhike within 30 miles of a big city because you want long rides you want 400 mile rides not 10 miles down the road plus the wacko elements higher as you get closer to the city so out of the truck stops during the day and you're looking for the big several hundred mile ride and sooner or later you'll get there that's i mean soon

7:42Daniel Robbins:there'll be robotics that you know robot cars that will just drive us for very cheap so we won't have to even think about hitchhiking. But I did a week on the Appalachian Trail when I was around the same age. And it really taught me a lot of different things. It was a very unique experience. I wish I kept, I could only last a week. I couldn't go. But at some point, I did think like I should have kept going to finish. Did you learn something about yourself or just about life in general while you were doing this?

8:10John Glaser:Well, I think one of the things I learned is at At the time, I was really anxious that everybody else, my colleagues, were off to careers and I was just floundering. And what I learned is it doesn't really matter. I mean, there are lots of ways to make a great life and accomplish a lot. But the fact that you're not traditional is OK. But I learned that. The other is you get some really cool rides with some really cool people. And, you know, they may not they may have been farmers or mechanics or hairdressers, et cetera, but they were smart. They were sophisticated worldviews. And I remember one particular ride I got was going from Seattle to Spokane.

8:42John Glaser:It's about 400 miles. And I got a ride with two women whose husbands were truck drivers who drove back and forth Seattle, Spokane. That was the route. And they would drive the same route. And on the CB radio, chatted up with all the truckers, you know, jokes and gossip and all that stuff. And I thought, this is really fun. You know, they're really cool people, although they're about as innocuous as hell. So you'll learn that there are many people who may not be glamorous, who may not be Nobel Bell Lores, but they're just really neat, thoughtful people. That's what you learn. The other is in Central America, I had never seen poverty like that.

9:14John Glaser:I said, wow, you know, this is, you know, there is, you know, you come from a white middle-class suburban kid. You're not really seeing people who are, you know, basically on the edge of starving, if not starving. So I experienced poverty. Frankly, I'm lasting in Panama. At the time, there's great tension between the US and Panama over the canal. And I had never experienced prejudice because I was a gringo. And I had never been on the receding end of hatred because of the color of my skin and where I was from. And wow, I didn't like that at all. And I can imagine people who that's their daily reality.

9:48Daniel Robbins:Wow. I mean, you know, it's something I always tell people is travel and experience the people. Like I don't really travel and I don't go to museums necessarily anymore. I've been to so many museums and churches and I've seen so many things that feels the same. but what i like to do is i like to travel i want to sit down with people i want to understand the culture i want to see how they live because for me that that's been just absolutely changing in

10:13John Glaser:my life it sounds like for you the same absolutely you know you're you're different in ways it's hard to describe but you are because of all those experiences so you obviously it's very interesting

10:24Daniel Robbins:because you've obviously are very intelligent i mean you went to duke which is an incredibly challenging school i believe to get into you are now teaching at harvard one of the hardest you know schools in the world one of the most prestigious if not maybe the most prestigious school in the world everyone in the world knows about harvard so but you've also thought very differently do you did you see throughout time how education and thinking outside the box did those go hand in hand or have things changed where now schools are more open to it?

11:02John Glaser:Well, I think most schools, particularly when you get to university, college and graduate school, if you say, I want to do the following, and it's not typical, they usually can accommodate that. They say, I want to put together majors. They're used to people want to be econ majors in chemistry, but they're pretty accommodating. They just want to make sure you've thought about it, et cetera, and to go off and to do these things. So I think there is a willingness to do that. When I was in graduate school, I went to the University of Minnesota, got a PhD in medical informatics, and all my buddies were computer scientists.

11:32John Glaser:But I was a sociologist because I thought that actually the hard part of getting this technology to be used by doctors and nurses was not the technology, but was managing people and managing change and things like that. And so I was going to study that. Very unusual for someone in that program to be a sociologist, but they were willing to accommodate that. They said it makes sense. And if you're willing to grind your way through it. I produced this monster of a dissertation, 467 pages, which is just this moose of a thing like that. But anyway, that was, you know, I do think in the colleges, if you want to try something different, they're open to it, just as long as they're thoughtful.

12:07Daniel Robbins:Yeah. You know, it's interesting how people are like, you know, if I want to be successful, I need to get a computer science degree where like my wife, she has a psychology degree. She never was anything in she wasn't a psychologist or never went on to be a psychiatrist but she's used that in sales for example or management leadership understanding people which i think there needs to be a big push now i mean we like computer science might be the worst degree that you get i mean it might be replaced by ai tomorrow it almost seems like people going back for these like liberal arts type degrees or anthropology or like you, sociology, like these might be very useful for understanding how to navigate people.

12:54John Glaser:Yeah. And I think there's not only book learning you can get in those courses that teach you that more so than, you know, taking a course in differential equations, for example. It's also life experiences. It's the way you were taught. It's by your parents and also the experiences you have. When, you know, I have three grown daughters in high school, they were all on teams, you you know, soccer and lacrosse teams. You know, they're okay athletes. They're not great at it. But the point is they were on teams. And teams teach you something, you know, how to get along with others, how to work together, how to handle disputes, et cetera.

13:24John Glaser:So it's a series of experiences of dealing with other human beings and how to work together and work well. At times you turn into a leader, but not always. So I think that that kind of thing is absolutely incredible in terms of making sure that or giving you the ability to thrive.

13:39Daniel Robbins:Hey, I like to talk to professors. My dad was a professor. He just retired. I think he was sad when I dropped out of college, although I did go back many years later and graduate because my then girlfriend said, I will not marry you unless you have a college degree.

13:54John Glaser:Oh, there you go. There you go.

13:55Daniel Robbins:Which is sad because I really didn't. I wanted to just have a Lamborghini that said no degree. That was my goal in life, right? I wanted to prove that I didn't really want to have a Lamborghini, but I wanted to prove that you didn't need to have a degree to be successful. But I did have have to go back. And I think that was a great day for my father. I think he was happy. So when we look at like you said, you've been you met your wife over 50 years ago, or you've been married for 50 years, right?

14:21John Glaser:No, well, 51 years ago was the first time I told her I loved her.

14:25Daniel Robbins:Amazing. Okay, so 51 years ago, you said, I love you. I mean, people aren't even together for five years. I don't even know there's so many people I know that don't even have like a relationship at all and like and they're they're already in their like 40s and up and they're struggling so what what for you what did you do or what helped you to balance this and then you had three daughters but then also a high level executive career well i think you know there's a separate question and

14:54John Glaser:i'm sure people have talked about you know why do what is love and what makes durable love you know over very long periods of time through some times that are not always easy where you're changing a Oh, golly, we met when she was 18 and I was 19. That's a lot of change you're still going to go through. So anyway, how does that work? That's a separate kind of conversation here. You know, I do think, you know, everybody wants to have it all. They want to be a good parent. They want to have a good spouse. They want to serve their community. They want to grow themselves. They want a job, whatever, whatever.

15:21John Glaser:They want to do it all. And it's not possible to do it all. You know, not as well as you would like. There are trade-offs along the way. So it's this constant sort of low-grade anxiety. I have the right balance. I'm going to miss a kid's soccer game because of a conference or a tournament. Is that the right thing to do? And so, you know, you try as best you can to balance knowing it's highly imperfect and you will do it again. I do think what you can do and should do is a conversation with the principals, your spouse and your kids is, look, I'm trying as hard as I can to balance all this stuff.

15:51John Glaser:I won't always get it right. OK, but I don't want you for a moment to think that that's big, you know, because I don't love you. I love you dearly. It's just that I will be a human being and I will try. And if you think I've got an imbalance, you let me know. So, you know, you try hard, you bring them in as part of the solution and as part of the balancing act. And you ask for honest feedback about whether, you know, my wife, remember one time when I was traveling, she said, I get lonely when you're not here. That's all she had to say. And I said, God damn it. You know, it was too much. You know, I've skewed to the right too much.

16:26Daniel Robbins:I need to get back to the basics. So would you say then that communication might be the single most important thing?

16:33John Glaser:Yeah, I think there's a, you know, if, you know, and, you know, it sounds like you, I'm sure you have your own special of this communication and being very candid about this. Now, you know, there are certain things your spouse will do that irritate the hell out of you. And at some point, there's no point saying it over and over again. It drives me nuts when you do it. Okay, leave it alone, get on with it, et cetera. So communication, and I think the other is mutual respect. I respect you, what you do and how you go about that. and the other is the willingness to give in and to say, I know it's important to you, so we will go do this.

17:02John Glaser:Less important to me. Picking where do you go for vacation? You might say, I want to go to this country. She says, I don't want to go to that country. I want to go to another. Okay. You know what I'm saying? There's a give and take that goes with the communication and goes with the high respect.

17:14Daniel Robbins:I feel like I can really appreciate that because I feel like I many times go with the flow. It's not because I don't have my own opinions. It's because I don't really care so much to have an opinion because I know she's going to choose something. We like the same things. So she wants to go visit here. I'm great with that because I can only make so many decisions in my mind. I don't even like to make decisions, to be honest. So I'm like, I would rather someone else make that decision than me making that decision. But I really enjoyed what you said. Now you've written eight books. I don't know why the heck, I wrote one book over here.

17:51Daniel Robbins:I don't even know why the heck. why would someone even want to write another book? It must have been that important to you.