Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:12:23 · S2, Nate Berkus, Alexa von Tobel
[00:12:23] S2: it, powerful [00:12:24] S0: and then what happened was many people took that risk, some didn't, but I would say, they'd say I am so uncomfortable handing over my budget for my 8,000 square foot home to a 24 year old kid, and I would say let's do one room. Let's just try it. Let's do one room together, and if you love it, we'll just keep going, and if you don't, we won't. So I got a lot of jobs in the early days. I looked the part and I could speak the part, but I'm not a snob, and I never have been and I never will be, and I never wanted anybody to feel uncomfortable working with me ever, and I recognize that if I could win these people over initially with my authenticity and being just completely myself and being straightforward, then that would lead to an opportunity to show them my creativity and everything else that I knew I could bring to the table. But I was an idiot, I can't even imagine. I showed the business of the loss for the first two years. And I remember when we hired our first accountant, there were receipts in the door of my car. With gummy bears stuck to them. [00:13:47] S1: Nate, I will attest that you have... There is nothing snobbish about you. You have a warmth where you will walk in or stand next to somebody and make them feel so special. And I do think that is a superpower that you have, which is that you make people feel like the center of the universe. And it's unique, and I think it just... You exude a lot of warmth. One more
00:13:47 · Alexa von Tobel, Nate Berkus
[00:13:47] S1: Nate, I will attest that you have... There is nothing snobbish about you. You have a warmth where you will walk in or stand next to somebody and make them feel so special. And I do think that is a superpower that you have, which is that you make people feel like the center of the universe. And it's unique, and I think it just... You exude a lot of warmth. One more [00:14:12] S0: Will you please tell Jeremiah that when you get a chance at drop off? Okay. I think he needs to hear that from you, but thank you. [00:14:20] S1: No. You you you make you make people feel really special. I... And, anyways, I I love that about you. One last important thing I wanted to touch on is just sort of a foundation of who you are as a person, which, you know, when I was younger, I'd lost my dad unexpectedly, and that sort of changed the way I think about life and risk taking because life is so precious. But, Nate, you survived the absolutely wild event that I actually remember watching in college, the the Indian Ocean tsunami, in 2004. You were an entrepreneur, alongside that. And I just wanted to know, like, how getting through that changed the way you think about life just generally.
00:15:05 · Nate Berkus
[00:15:05] S0: That's still evolving, I would say. I would say that my fear around it in the immediate aftermath was that I would be weird forever because I felt really weird. When you witness... Also, I'm sorry to know that about your father. I didn't know that. And I'm sure he would be dying of pride with everything that you've gone Toby. On to Oh, really? I didn't know that. Oh, that's the sweetest because she's the sweetest. Oh, that's so great. I'm so grateful his name wasn't Rosie. It's only downhill from there. I would say that the reason I answer that it's evolving is that the initial shock took a couple of years to wear off, but I had so much happening at the time. I had a book going, my first book going to publication that Fernando had shot the cover image of me. I had a line of 80 SKUs launching at linens and things in in store Nate Berkus stores in over a thousand doors that fall. I had all these obligations, and they were exciting, wonderful obligations before the tsunami, and then after the tsunami, they weren't. I had no interest at all, in anything that I had been trying to build, been so proud of, none of it mattered. And I remember working with a grief counselor at the time who was really effective and I said to him, I just want to feel normal, but I don't know if I will ever feel normal again. And he said to me, It's a new normal, and you'll start to understand what I mean, that grief isn't linear, it's cyclical, and that it was okay to not be able to get out of bed on a Tuesday, but then perhaps on the anniversary of the actual event of the tsunami and Fernando's disappearance, I might feel okay that day, and that is also okay. And so I was learning this skillset about how to move through the world post a natural disaster, a traumatic event, and great personal loss. I was very much sensitive to all the loss that was attached to the tsunami worldwide. I knew I wasn't the only survivor story, I certainly didn't feel like the most important one. The locals in Sri Lanka watching their hospitality to the foreigners and the travelers, that whole culture rose up to protect us, which was also a great life lesson, but I think as I move through the world now, so many decades later, I really think that what it did was it changed me fundamentally by making me feel a deeper connection to people.
00:18:28 · Nate Berkus
And that was the great lesson, the great gift that was buried in that experience. Obviously, my whole family, my children, my husband, everyone, but I think I still kind of reel sometimes when I think that I found great love twice. I don't know who that happens to. I'm so deeply grateful for that. So that matters to me, and being able to function, thrive, get excited by life, love brings that into the picture pretty strongly. So I have a really, really solid foundation as a result of that.
00:19:11 · Alexa von Tobel, Nate Berkus
[00:19:11] S1: Nate, one of the things I sort of learned about myself is that I've always been really emotionally attracted to people that can really see a lot of complexity. That just, you know, we're given this one gift of life and life is complicated. It's extremely complicated. And I think that's one of the reasons why I just like deeply adore you so much is like you can feel your ability to manage a lot of emotional complexity and and be sturdy actually through it all. It's just something that you exude. I wanna go to the future and talking about just everything that you've built. But first, I wanna say the one fun fact, which is I met you. I Mhmm. Twenty ten ish where I was your personal finance expert on the Nate Berkus show, and, obviously, Oprah Winfrey show launched you. You managed many television shows that I I, as a design obsessed person, just really enjoyed watching, American Dream Builders, hosted many shows with Jeremiah. So you launched your design firm at 24, then went out and managed many large television shows. What about that chapter of your life? Talk to us about that. [00:20:35] S0: About the early days on TV or about just, like, the... How it's always been kind of a part of what I've done? [00:20:41] S1: Been a What have you learned from that?
00:20:46 · Nate Berkus
[00:20:46] S0: So you have to be really dumb to be a part of the Oprah show for twelve years and not get a lesson every time you're in the building. You really have to have earmuffs on and blinders on to not be in that environment of strength and lucidity and authenticity and joy and support and not take something away for yourself. I mean, her audience for twenty five years took something away for themselves every day and Oprah was aware that she was more of a vessel than she never viewed herself as this big celebrity. She was the conduit to give people information, to show them things, to share stories. So again, I would have to be pretty stupid not to take everything that Harpo gave me and push that out into the world in my own way, which I feel like I've done. I mean, do I love doing TV? Not really. It's not my favorite thing in the world. I've never cared about being in Us Weekly or being recognized on the street or whatever. From a business standpoint, it's always been a means to an end. The TV brings the endorsement deals, the TV brings the licensing deals. So because it's not like my great passion, my great ambition to be a TV star, I've been very strategic about what TV has done for me and also what I can do on TV. Part of that is that my husband and I have been the only openly gay family on television for years. We have a huge responsibility to show these kids who, when I was a kid, I never saw anybody on TV married to another man, raising great kids, dealing with... I never saw anything that represented that all of our love is the same, that we connect and love and need the same way no matter what gender we're in. So for me, I recognize that very early on. Funny story, years ago Oprah used to do this thing called Fridays Live and it was a revolving cast of which I was a part of and it was kind of like a talk, it was toward the end of Harpo. I think they were trying to figure out what was coming next. So it would be me, Gayle King, Ali Wentworth, Oprah on a panel, kind of like the bizarro view, and then there would always be a movie star, like Hugh Jackman or whoever that week. And we were in a pre show meeting after the tsunami, years after the tsunami, and Gayle said, Well, I think gay marriage was just legalized in Iowa. It was the first state to to legalize gay marriage.