All episodes
EP
142
·
Career
·
1:24:10
·
Quitting medicine at 38 to build furniture
With
Dr. Leon Okafor
·
Furniture maker, ex-surgeon
About this episode
Leon spent twelve years training to be a surgeon. Then he walked into a woodshop on a Saturday and never really left. We talk about sunk cost, telling your parents, and what his hands learned first.
What we talk about
Leon told his mother before he told his department head, and he says that was the harder call. He walks us through the year he kept both lives going, the first chair he sold for less than the wood cost, and why he still keeps his scrubs in a drawer.
Chapters
00:00 Cold open
03:12 The Saturday class that started it
14:40 Twelve years of sunk cost
29:05 Telling his family
47:30 The first commission
1:05:18 What surgery taught him about joinery
1:18:02 Advice for anyone halfway out
Mentioned in this episode
The workshop Leon trained at in Philadelphia
Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford
Leon's studio on Instagram
