Dr. Terry Dubrow Just Shared His Surprisingly Simple Philosophy for Never Being Stressed

Some people walk into a high-pressure career and let it eat them alive. Dr. Terry Dubrow walked into one of the most intense jobs on earth and decided the whole thing was kind of hilarious. The board-certified plastic surgeon, obesity medicine specialist, and Botched star has spent over 30 years in the operating room, and his entire philosophy for staying sane comes down to one word: silly.

On DITL, host Paige Port sits down with Dr. Dubrow to unpack his refreshingly low-stress approach to, well, everything. Here’s what he’s working with.

Dr. Terry Dubrow on Taking Life a Little Less Seriously

Find the comedy in literally everything

Dr. Dubrow credits his outlook to his mom, a single parent who had every reason to crumble and just…didn’t. “No matter how bad it got, she just thought, ‘Eh.’ And she just laughed about it,” he says. That stuck. He carried it straight through a brutal seven-year general surgery residency by refusing to take the misery seriously. “You can go, ‘Is this the weirdest, funkiest thing ever?’ and just laugh about it. And that’s what we did.”

It’s less a personality quirk and more a survival strategy, and it’s surprisingly easy to borrow:

• Treat the chaos as material instead of a crisis
• Be the person making the room laugh, not the one spiraling
• Remember that “everything is just a little off base,” as he puts it, so you might as well find it funny

Kill every problem with kindness

When things go sideways in surgery, Dr. Dubrow doesn’t get sharp or panicked. He gets nicer. “The big jerk surgeons are the ones that have the most mistakes and most problems,” he says, so he goes the opposite direction and floods the room with calm. “I try to kill every problem with kindness.”

He uses the same move outside the OR, including with a notoriously difficult lawyer he was about to face in a deposition. His plan? Be so warm it’s disarming. “Pour honey over anything,” he says. “Someone’s mad at you,” and the sweetness throws them completely off balance, often bringing out their better side in the process.

Stay fully present (and stop fearing everything)

Dr. Dubrow doesn’t waste energy worrying about what’s next, because he’s too busy being exactly where he is. “When I’m in a place, I’m really only there,” he says. Whether you chalk it up to focus or just refusing to borrow tomorrow’s stress, the result is a guy who isn’t bracing for disaster on a loop.

That extends to his take on wellness culture, where he’s cheerfully opted out of the fear. “If all that stuff from the 70s, 80s, and 90s hasn’t killed me, there’s no point in avoiding it now,” he says. The bigger point isn’t to toss out your healthy habits, it’s that white-knuckling every ingredient and worst-case scenario is its own kind of stress, and he’s just not interested in carrying it.

Listen to the full episode on DITL with Paige Port, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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