When Stanford physician Bryant Lin was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, a friend gave him one piece of advice about his own prognosis that he still credits with how he's lived every day since.

Bryant Lin is a Clinical Professor of Medicine and Director of Medical Humanities and the Arts at Stanford, a fourth-generation physician who spent two decades in primary care before his own stage four diagnosis in 2024. He built a medical school class around his experience that drew coverage from the New York Times and CBS Mornings, and he's the author of Sunshine: An Exploration of Living When You Are Dying.

In this conversation, you'll explore:

The advice from a fellow doctor that changed how Bryant thinks about his own prognosis, and why he stopped looking at the numbers everyone else obsesses over
A simple filter he now uses to decide which commitments are worth keeping, and what needs to go
Why he changed very little, even after learning how much less time he likely had
Why he chose to teach a Stanford class, narrating his own cancer journey, while going through chemo in real time
What a good life means, once you learn you have a lot less time to live it.

It's a conversation for anyone asking themselves what's actually worth their time, whether or not a doctor has given them a reason to ask.

You can find Bryant at: Website | LinkedIn | Episode Transcript

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