At age 32 Molly Lindquist was diagnosed with breast cancer. Other women in her family had also endured this terrible ordeal. She survived it and is fighting back. Consano, the crowdfunding platform she founded, funds more than 65 medical research projects at leading academic centers such as Dana-Farber and Memorial/Sloan Kettering. Her work is getting serious attention because she’s figured out how to help disease survivors channel their energies towards defeating the illnesses that beset them. I had the opportunity of interviewing this energetic and engaging founder at TEDMED.
Click here to read the full episode transcript.
Here are some of the topics covered in this brief conversation:
Sal’s Pitch for his Investment Syndicate
Molly Lindquist Is Diagnosed with Breast Cancer, as Both Her Grandmothers Had Been
Molly Lindquist Tells Consano’s Founding Story
“I mean, over 50% of their time [researcher’s time] is spent fundraising. I'm naively thinking, shouldn't you be in the lab coming up with treatments. We need some cures here.”
Molly Lindquist Explains How Consano Works
“But people have now been calling this [Consano], this Kickstarter / Match.com hybrid. I was like, did not see the Match.com coming.”
“So, our biggest differentiator from many of the other crowdfunding platforms is that we vet each project.”
“We've listed about 65 projects from 25 academic centers from West Coast, East Coast, Dana-Farber, Sloan Kettering…”
“I think the biggest piece of advice I usually give when people ask me is really, be ready to jump on to an emotional roller coaster.”
Molly Lindquist on Work/Life Balance
“I think you know my whole premise now is leaving this world, as we all will at some point, having left a mark and having made it a better place.”
Transcript of "Crowdfunding Medical Research"
Guest: Molly Lindquist, Founder of CoNsano
SAL DAHER: Hi, this is Sal Daher of the Angel Invest Boston podcast. If you've been listening you might have noticed that I love being an angel investor in Boston. The reason for this, is that there's so much going on in the start-up space here in Boston. Practical founders working with leading inventors, venture capitalists, angel investors, patent attorneys, it's a really exciting scene.
SAL DAHER: Now, you can join us in syndicates which allow people who are not part of the angel investment community to invest alongside Boston's leading angels. I invite you to leave your email address at angelinvestboston.com in the syndicate section and we'll be back in touch with you to help walk you through the qualification process as an accredited investor. Remember, there is no obligation to invest when you put your email address there. I hope you really enjoy today's podcast.
SAL DAHER: Welcome to Angel Invest Boston. Conversations with angels and founders, usually in Boston, but today we are talking to a founder from Portland, Oregon. The reason is that we are at the TEDMED Conference in beautiful Palm Springs, California. I've never been here, this is such a beautiful place. I'm here with Molly Lindquist. She is a founder of Consano, Portland, Oregon as I mentioned. So, Molly thanks for being here.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Oh, thanks for the opportunity Sal, this is amazing to walk through this beautiful desert.
SAL DAHER: Isn't it gorgeous here?
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Wonderful.
Molly Lindquist Bio
SAL DAHER: I'm saying thanks for being here because there's so many other things going on at TEDMED that you would sit down with us, I'm very honored, thank you. You know let's start at the beginning. It's important I think for young people who are trying to find their path in life, or for older people who are maybe trying to find a new way. Give me a little bit of your biography highlighting how you discovered really what you wanted to do with your life.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: That's the best question ever, Sal because I feel like I've been on this crazy path that has gone one way, and then totally jolted the other way. It's definitely not been a very linear process. So, my background is actually in finance and corporate strategy. So, I graduated from Stanford in 2000, lived in San Francisco, did some investment banking, analyst work which I quickly decided was probably a little too intense for my whole quality of life thing.
SAL DAHER: No doubt, yeah, no doubt.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: So, I moved over to the retail side and did corporate finance and strategy for companies like Cost Plus World Market and Gap Inc. I helped kind of figure out the handbag strategy plan for Banana Republic.
SAL DAHER: The handbag strategy plan for Banana Republic, wow.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: I know, there was a lot of Excel involved in that, who would have thought?
SAL DAHER: No, no these big brands, they put a lot of effort into something like that, yeah.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Absolutely, and you know as a bonus I got some free samples so I called it a win overall. Beautiful handbags, great strategy and I'll take one home.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: After that, actually I was getting ready to go back to business school at Berkeley and then found out I was pregnant with my daughter. In a, again kind of the first example of life laughing in the face of your plans, I thought well, you know I'll defer business school for a year and try this whole mom thing. My 22 year old Stanford grad type A self is horrified in the background. What? What's happening, this is not the plan. Stick to the plan.
SAL DAHER: Right.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: But actually, ended up loving being a mom, so I was a stay at home mom for a number of years and was ... made a move from San Francisco back to my hometown of Portland, Oregon. Which I convinced my New Jersey-based husband was a good idea after sending him listings. I'm like, "Look what kind of house we could get in Portland, Oregon."
SAL DAHER: Of course.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: He's like, "Sold."
SAL DAHER: A little aside here, this is a book that your generation probably is not familiar with, but my generation read, The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Got it.
SAL DAHER: He was a scholar of how people build wealth and so forth. He said that people who live in the East Coast, tend not to build wealth because it costs so much to live.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Right, it's amazing, I mean the cost of living was a huge factor in our decision to leave the Bay Area.
SAL DAHER: Right.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: So, once I convinced him, we moved back to Portland. My youngest daughter, I have two daughters, the youngest one was just getting ready to go into preschool in 2011 and I thought, oh I'm going to jump back in professionally. Not sure what I want to do. Going back to that idea of, you know I'd had some great jobs, I'd made some amazing connections, and learned a lot but never felt really like I was doing what I was meant to do. I know that sounds kind of cliché and cheesy but just never felt like what I was doing really was making an impact. Or at least the impact I thought that I should make.
Molly Lindquist Is Diagnosed with Breast Cancer, Like Both Her Grandmothers
MOLLY LINDQUIST: So, my life catapulted into another kind of crazy trajectory in October of 2011 when I felt a lump in my breast.
SAL DAHER: Oh my gosh.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yeah, so my daughter you know again, was heading into preschool. I have all these big plans, what am I going to do and all of a sudden that was put on indefinite hold as I went in, at the time was 32, so really didn't feel super concerned although both of my grandmothers had breast cancer. So I, you know definitely had that gut feeling like, you need to get this checked out and what was supposed to be just a quick ultrasound to rule things out turned very quickly into a mammogram and directly into a biopsy. I remember kind of swimming through the halls of the hospital. I hadn't even considered asking my husband to come with me because -
SAL DAHER: Oh geez.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: - it was nothing, you know?
SAL DAHER: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: So, you know I'm swimming around like what is going on? Finally, find my voice again and look at the radiologist who's just done this biopsy and said, "What are we thinking here?" She looked me straight in the eye and she said, "We strongly suspect this is cancer." That is when my life completely exploded.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: But the beauty of having an experience like that is very quickly you start grappling with time, mortality, you know what do I want to do each day? What's meaningful? Will my kids remember me? Probably the worst memory of that time is the day I was diagnosed I curled up with my youngest daughter, who was three at the time, and I just thought, oh she's not going to remember me.
SAL DAHER: Oh, that's ....
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Those worst-case scenarios ... but you know went through, I had a bilateral mastectomy and then went through chemotherapy and really came out with this renewed perspective on what I wanted to do. For me, I always joke the mama lioness kind of exploded. I was like, I'll go through my breast cancer thousands of times if it means my daughters don't have to deal with it. So for me, supporting medical research became my mission. I did a lot of due diligence.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: This is the very long trajectory as to how I became a founder, but ...
Molly Lindquist Tells Consano’s Founding Story
SAL DAHER: No, no, no, no, but this is very important. So you kind of hinted at how you started your company. So tell me the story of founding your company.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I came out of my you know active treatments and was actually my hair was starting to grow back and I was starting to feel good. Again, kind of this idea of really dealing with the grief of the fact that my kids might have to go this, my daughters. Really motivated me to figure out okay, how can I get to research that might help them? As I started exploring that, which was not easy to do, because I was looking for very specific things. For me that was genomics and vaccines. Things again, that would help my daughters. I started doing due diligence in organizations that I could get involved with. Again, going back to the whole Stanford-grad Type A person, I had lost control of my health, in essence. You know, I always joke, my chest went rogue.
SAL DAHER: Yes, yes, yes.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: I couldn't control that, but what I decided I could control was how I took that experience and used it moving forward. So when I didn't find the specificity and control I was looking for in existing donation mechanisms, and coinciding with the time when Kickstarter was just at about a billion dollars pledged, the question became you know, why isn't there a Kickstarter for medical research?
SAL DAHER: Right.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Where people like me, who've been impacted by various health issues can directly support research that matters to them?
SAL DAHER: Okay.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Kind of shifting the philanthropic paradigm from you give, they decide to you give, you decide.
SAL DAHER: Right, right.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Again, I love that we're here at TEDMED, and they're all these technological advances really driving healthcare and -
SAL DAHER: Right, right.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: - research and really, I thought it was so interesting that this kind of philanthropic medical research realm wasn't touched by technology. So it seemed like a no brainer that, hey you know let's -
SAL DAHER: Low hanging fruit.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: - low hanging fruit. You know from a patient side it made sense. Talked to others who felt the same way, but also came to learn, and this was horrifying to me as a patient, how much time researchers spend writing grants.
SAL DAHER: Oh yeah.
“I mean, over 50% of their time [researcher’s time] is spent fundraising. I'm naively thinking, shouldn't you be in the lab coming up with treatments. We need some cures here.”
MOLLY LINDQUIST: I mean, over 50% of their time is spent fundraising. I'm naively thinking, shouldn't you be in the lab coming up with treatments. We need some cures here.
SAL DAHER: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: So really, in talking with the research community, they were very excited about this, you know kind of complimentary mechanism to raise funds for their research. Which already is kind of a matrix of putting different puzzle pieces together. So, that's really where the idea for Consano came from. Consano means To Heal in Latin, so for me personally not only is it incredibly gratifying to see research funded that might otherwise not exist but -
SAL DAHER: Right.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: - on a personal level, it's incredibly healing to channel my personal experience, and that fear and anxiety that comes with a cancer diagnosis, into something that can hopefully help others.
SAL DAHER: This is interesting because you had the self-knowledge to know that you're not going to go and become a cancer researcher -
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Correct, that was definitely ...
SAL DAHER: - at this stage in your life, with the kids and so forth. You know you're not going to spend all the time in a lab becoming a cancer researcher.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Correct.
SAL DAHER: But then, you are a person who has a lot of experience that cancer researchers don't have.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Exactly.
SAL DAHER: I mean you've been in the business world, you have all this other experience. So you decided to play to your own strengths.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Absolutely.
SAL DAHER: To pursue something where your skill set could really be valuable.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Absolutely.
Molly Lindquist Explains How Consano Works
SAL DAHER: So, tell me how it works.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yeah, it's very simple. Again, you know certainly we were not recreating the wheel. We were basically taking a mechanism that had been successful for the arts and for other project-based fundraising and applying it to medical research.
SAL DAHER: Well, guess what? Ideas are easy, implementation is what's really hard.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: That is true.
SAL DAHER: Is it Marc Andreessen who said that? Or no, no, never mind, it's certainly very true.
Researchers Funded by Consano Report Regularly
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Right, truly, of course every day is absolutely a learning experience, but you know it's you go on the website, you pick a project that matters to you. We have a variety of health categories. Clearly it started in mostly cancer-based health categories but has expanded to rare diseases and mental health, global health, a really huge variety. You donate to that project, and in a Kickstarter-type of model you would get a T-shirt or the product that they're peddling, to raise funds for. In this case, in addition to your tax deduction, because we are a 501C3, you get ongoing updates from the researcher, both updates about what's actually going on in their lab but also, hey here's an article I think is really interesting.
SAL DAHER: We hope in Standard English.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Exactly, well and that is often the biggest challenge for the researchers. Because they're leveraging a lot of the work they're already doing writing grants, but they do have to translate it, so that the public understands it. It's a very different audience. So, yes, that absolutely is always the ...
SAL DAHER: Explaining things that are going on in the lab so that a general audience can understand is really, really important.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yes.
SAL DAHER: Because most of the stuff that's going on in science if it's well explained it's really accessible. This is a big hobby horse of my dad's. My dad's a mathematician. He used to think that everybody can understand the most complicated concepts of mathematics. You just have to teach it well.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yes.
SAL DAHER: Because it's very easy to speak in jargon, in shorthand among colleagues. But they have to accept it's not dumbing down, it's explaining things.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yes, exactly.
SAL DAHER: They might discover that, when they're doing the translation that they might learn something themselves.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Absolutely.
SAL DAHER: That's really important work, because I think the general public is just too disconnected from science. They think it's kind of magic, you know it's kind of like black box.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Right, right.
SAL DAHER: When it really is much more accessible -
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yeah.
SAL DAHER: - and it could be much more accessible than it is.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: We joke that it's like throwing a ladder up the ivory tower and being able to peek in the window and actually see what's going on and have that connection.
SAL DAHER: Yeah.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Again, for people like me who have a very vested interest in the research going on, it's an incredibly potent stewardship to have. Even with a donation of small amount.
SAL DAHER: Do you work to try to craft these reports? Do you edit them?
MOLLY LINDQUIST: I have been known to do that, Sal. Yes, so I'm usually again, as the non-medical person, that the irony of what I'm doing now, I'm like, "Had you told me pre-cancer that I'd be here chatting with you about crowdfunding and healthcare, and I'd be at TEDMED." I would have just looked at you like, "What?" But the beauty of having this different perspective is I'm the first screen. I read through a project, I'm like, "Hmm, I do not understand six of the ten words in this first sentence." We need to go back and revise. Really, not only have I learned a ton, but I think it's been an incredibly useful marketing tool for researchers as well. To communicate, and again as NIH funding becomes more and more challenging to secure, researchers are turning to private foundations and to other sources that, they have to hone those skills of communication to a population that is not necessarily a granting body.
SAL DAHER: No, no. So, this is kind of a two-sided marketplace. Is it fair to describe it as that?
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yeah.
SAL DAHER: In those marketplaces always one side is a lot easier than the other.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yes.
SAL DAHER: It's very easy to find scientists who are willing to take money.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Right, true.
SAL DAHER: It's much harder to go to the general public and get them interested in this. So how do you address the general public to have them become invested in the campaigns that you have?
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yeah, well so interestingly, you're kind of segueing right into my next point, Sal. It's like you're reading my mind. But really -
SAL DAHER: It's the logic of the situation.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: - I know, yeah, it's perfect. No, in essence when we first launched, we had researchers from six institutions. Mostly West Coast, University of Washington, UCSF, the Knight Cancer Institute in Oregon, and to your point, listed projects and saw donations via the researcher in many cases actually putting it out to their community. But a lot of donations coming in honor and in memory of people. Which, as a cancer survivor, that's no surprise to me. But wasn't something that we necessarily expected.
SAL DAHER: But how did you figure out how to address those communities? How did you find them?
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yeah, so I think the beauty of kind of the idea of an engaged patient is that, patients in many cases are just waiting for opportunities to participate in the research process. So often, it's partnering with patient advocacy groups. It is going out on social media to different Facebook groups and saying, "Hey, you're very interested in breast cancer, here's something that might interest you that we're crowdfunding." Then it becomes that viral phenomenon of you know, they share and it goes out, kind of exponentially.
SAL DAHER: Okay.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: But what we saw though again, with all of those in honor and in memory donations is that there's also a pent up demand for families who might not have the time or money to actually start a foundation, they still want that way to rally their community to raise funds for research so we created another side of the platform which we call Honor Funds where a family can share their story and then in essence, it's like a GoFundMe page only instead of funding their personal expenses they're -
SAL DAHER: They're funding the research in general.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: - Correct. Often they've had a researcher in their personal experience who's impacted them, so they know where they want the money to go. However, in some cases, and we've come across this particularly for families who've lost someone, it takes years before they're at a place where they're ready to rally the community in honor of this person, so when they don't know what research to support we help them find an innovative researcher or lab that matches with the family's priorities.
“But people have now been calling this [Consano], this Kickstarter / Match.com hybrid. I was like, did not see the Match.com coming.”
MOLLY LINDQUIST: So, I like to joke, like I definitely always knew that we would be associated with Kickstarter. That makes sense, crowdfunding. But people have now been calling this, this Kickstarter slash Match.com hybrid. I was like, did not see the Match.com coming. Not going to lie. That was never on the radar, but it's been a really incredible way to give families a way to create this legacy of love without the time and money that's required for a foundation.
SAL DAHER: Right, but you have your own platform. You're not under the Kickstarter platform
“So our biggest differentiator from many of the other crowdfunding platforms is that we vet each project.”
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Correct, we have our own. Yep, and we've personalized it. So our biggest differentiator from many of the other crowdfunding platforms is that we vet each project. So, we have a scientific advisory board. We work closely with the academic centers and ...
SAL DAHER: How do you recruit; how do you compensate your scientific advisory board?
MOLLY LINDQUIST: All volunteer, so this is ...
SAL DAHER: Volunteers, okay this is beautiful, yeah.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: I mean, Sal this is where I start to get a little teary because the kindness, the selflessness, the call to action people have responded, it's been unbelievable. People believed in this, everyone has been touched by something. Even if you're not the patient, everyone has had a family member or a loved one impacted and so we were just really lucky and able to recruit all of these incredibly talented people who believed in what we were doing, to help, for free. I'm like, I still can't believe it. It's incredible.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: That being said, every now and then I do still play the cancer card. "Well you know I did have breast cancer, you're probably going to want to call me back."
SAL DAHER: Yeah, yeah.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: But I try not to use it, you know.
SAL DAHER: No, no, no, but that's perfectly legitimate. So do you want to share with us a little bit of the traction that you’re having? What kind of volume of business have you done?
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yeah, no it's been incredible because it's been very grass roots. So again, all volunteer up until last year when I started to take a very small salary. We've raised a million dollars for research.
SAL DAHER: Oh wow.
“We've listed about 65 projects from 25 academic centers from West Coast, East Coast, Dana-Farber, Sloan Kettering…”
MOLLY LINDQUIST: We've listed about 65 projects from 25 academic centers from West Coast, East Coast, Dana-Farber, Sloan Kettering, I mean we have started to really work with some partners who, you know here I am just this lady with breast cancer who's calling up you know Dana-Farber like, "Hey, do you guys want to participate in this crowdfunding platform?"
SAL DAHER: I've got some money for you, free money, right?
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Exactly, I got a lollipop for ya.
SAL DAHER: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yeah, no and it's been incredible the traction and the credibility. We really have worked hard from the get go you know recruiting researchers who, in the beginning most of them had already had some sort of NIH funding success and then all of a sudden you have this credibility with other researchers who are like, "Oh my gosh, you know if Dr. Swisher at U Dub is doing this, maybe I should get involved." We've been incredibly fortunate that that kind of ball of momentum continues to roll. As I always say the biggest challenge we have, as an organization is getting the word out. Letting people know we exist and that it's hopefully a tool that's useful, particularly for families and people who've lost loved ones.
SAL DAHER: Wow, that's tremendous. Well, Molly Lindquist, as we come to the end of the interview, a couple of things. First I want to ask you, what kind of advice would you give to someone who's trying to found something like what you've done?
“I think the biggest piece of advice I usually give when people ask me is really, be ready to jump on to an emotional roller coaster.”
MOLLY LINDQUIST: I think the biggest piece of advice I usually give when people ask me is really, be ready to jump on to an emotional roller coaster. The beauty is the highs are so high, and the lows can be pretty low and sometimes those happen on the same day. It's like, wait a minute what's happening? But I think finding something that you're passionate about, that means something to you, you know my bar in life now is if my cancer comes back tomorrow is this what I want to be doing today? I think clearly I've had that facing my mortality moment and I wouldn't wish that on any of your listeners, however I think that bar that I now set for my life makes each day really joyful. I really feel good about what I'm doing and I think as an entrepreneur it's really, really gratifying to see people benefiting from something that you've put together.
SAL DAHER: This brings to mind, I've been preparing to launch an episode next week, an interview with this founder of a company called Videolicious, Matt Singer. He's a very introspective guy, but also a very practical guy. A point he makes, it's not exactly a quote from him, but something similar to this that, "Don't think that when you reach a milestone there will be some magic carpet of happiness." This is his word, "That you will ride on. Each time you achieve a milestone there is even more expected of you, so expect that there are going to be challenges." So basically you have to enjoy the ride.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Oh yeah.
SAL DAHER: Because if you don't enjoy the ride, as he said, "There's no magic carpet of happiness that's going to carry you after you achieve this goal, or that goal and so forth."
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Amen, that is so true.
SAL DAHER: I hear this very frequently. The guys from Wistia talked about enjoying the ride, the journey, it's not the destination it's the journey.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: So true.
SAL DAHER: Because founding, it's a hard road but it's a road that you really have to enjoy.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yeah, absolutely and frankly, life's too short not to enjoy it, you know? I mean really it comes down to really living each day. I think that's ...
Molly Lindquist on Work/Life Balance
SAL DAHER: Now that brings another question to mind. How do you keep this thing from eating up your time with your daughters?
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Again, that bar that I mentioned that, is this what I want to be doing today? That factors into all parts of my life. So, you know the reason I actually love being a founder is the flexibility, it affords me to still chaperone field trips with my daughters, and go to ice skating competitions, but always if I'm doing something that I would rather be with my kids I'm like, this is not worth it.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Again, that's something that's very hard because I have historically very much been a people pleaser. So, I want to do well, and I want people to be proud of what I'm doing so to have that liberating moment of saying, "You know what? I've only got this amount of time and I'm going to prioritize it the way I need to do it." Was incredibly liberating.
SAL DAHER: This brings to mind the current interview on my podcast, Bettina Hine talking about how being a mother really concentrated her mind, a mother and a founder. She just didn't waste time.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Absolutely.
SAL DAHER: She had no waste time in her day.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Absolutely.
SAL DAHER: She's all business, or all being with her kids, no fluff.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: You know what's interesting, I actually have on my resume you know I mentioned I was a stay at home mom for several years. That I have a line item, Chief Mom Officer, grew and birthed two humans, raised them into kind, caring ... I mean the skills that I gained from that are incredibly useful in the Consano side of my life. In fact, I always joke that the worst performance reviews I ever got were from toddlers. They're like fail mom, fail So, you know I think for us, because this all stems from such a personal family experience, my daughters know all about Consano. My daughter pitched Consano to her Girl Scout troop to use their cookie funds to support a childhood cancer research project. Talk about you know, give me whatever awards and accolades but my most proud moment was watching her do that, and seeing like, she gets it.
SAL DAHER: This is a very valuable thing for the 21st Century. It used to be in the 19th Century that companies weren't organized. Most people worked for themselves. They had a little farm, they had a little business, and so forth. Then as industrialization made large-scale production you know, as economies of scale, made sense that they would have large, organized enterprises that people would work for. This is a thing that lost, because they were working at home and the children saw them at work. There's no better example, today a child doesn't see a parent at work, just sees the absence of a parent but they don't see the parent at work.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yes.
SAL DAHER: So, there's a disconnect and I think what you're doing here, this is really very healthy for your daughters to understand, to have that model, to see their mom really dedicated to something and handling it, managing it really well.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Well thank you.
SAL DAHER: They're learning a lot I'm sure.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: I think and that being said, they're also like, "Are you doing Consano stuff again?"
SAL DAHER: Again?
MOLLY LINDQUIST: So, you know, it's a Catch-22. I think the whole idea of balance is a myth. We do the best we can and someone's going to be mad at us, that's what I've kind of succumbed to.
SAL DAHER: At some point or another.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Yes.
SAL DAHER: They'll get over it.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Exactly.
SAL DAHER: So, take a moment and think if there's anything else that you want to say.
“I think you know my whole premise now is leaving this world, as we all will at some point, having left a mark and having made it a better place.”
MOLLY LINDQUIST: I think you know my whole premise now is leaving this world, as we all will at some point, having left a mark and having made it a better place. So I would really just encourage everyone to just reassess periodically. Is this really what I want to do? Is this making the impact I want to make? Because again, life's too short. I tend to be a broken record on that point, but I think we get really entrenched in our day to day lives and you know we have responsibilities but I think having the checks and balances every now and then to make sure, is this really what I'm meant to do? You know what? The beauty is, you can change if it's not. That's the beauty of life, and I think we're all evolving and doing the best we can, and just cutting ourselves a break.
SAL DAHER: Tremendous. Molly Lindquist, I'm very grateful to you for sitting down in this very busy time here at TEDMED and sharing your really impressive adventure with us.
MOLLY LINDQUIST: Thank you Sal, I've really enjoyed this.
SAL DAHER: This is Angel Invest Boston coming to you from Palm Springs, California, the TEDMED Conference. This is Sal Daher.
SAL DAHER: I'm glad you were able to join us. Our engineer is Raul Rosa. Our theme was composed by John McCusick Our graphic design is by Katherine Woodman-Maynard. Our host is coached by Grace Daher.