047: David Raether | From Hollywood Riches to Homeless and Back

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David Raether earned millions as a highly-paid writer on the most popular sitcom of the early 1990s, Roseanne. And then he lost it all.

At the time, he had it all ? a beautiful wife, a large home in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles, and 8 kids — all with the same wife, mind you.

Then at the height of his career he decided to walk away. He had been working 24/7 and wanted to reconnect with his kids and family.

What he didn’t expect was the “perfect storm” which would hit right as he walked away. The dot-com bubble burst. His savings nest egg dwindled as the stock market took a nose dive.

And when it came time to go back to work, he couldn?t find any work because the boom in popularity of reality TV meant many fewer sitcom writing jobs.

He lost it all: his wife, his family, his house. At the depth of it all, he became homeless.

He wrote a book about the experience called Tell Me Something, She Said. I discovered an excerpt of the book a few months ago and wanted to talk to him about his story and the lessons we could learn — about relationships and life and coping with failure.

In this episode, we talk about:

  • how to cope with failure
  • how to pick yourself up when you?ve been knocked down
  • how to use humor to stay sane when you?re going through a rough patch
  • why he would “do it all again” — including becoming homeless.

Enjoy!

Resources from this Episode: