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202. Bouncing Forward: From Guyana to Global Pharma, with Perseverance

• William Wadsworth • Episode 202

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Join us for another episode in our popular Student Stories series, featuring Dr Frank Douglas, a scholar for whom education was pivotal in his life's journey. 

From his beginnings in Guyana to his work in global pharma leadership, we'll follow Frank's journey of "bouncing forward": of scholarships and hard work, undertaking a PhD in America, facing racial discrimination in the workplace, and beginning a new career after medical school.

Frank also shares his clear methods for turning setbacks into strengths through hard work, perseverance and understanding how to turn your own problems into solutions for everyone.

Delving into racial history in America, this episode, released during Black History Month 2025, celebrates Frank's achievements and extraordinary life.

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You might also enjoy:

Episode 18 of the Exam Study Expert podcast, featuring industry Titan Josaia Mar : https://examstudyexpert.com/coconut-shells-to-industry-titan-when-i-grow-up-month/


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Find out more about Dr Frank Douglas:

• Discover resources on anti-fragility and perseverance on his website: https://www.safehavendialogues-llc.com/

• Listen to his podcast, Reframe for Resilience on your favourite podcast player, or at: https://www.safehavendialogues-llc.com/podcast

 

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Find out more about Exam Study Expert:

Hosted by William Wadsworth, memory psychologist, independent researcher and study skills coach. I help ambitious students to study smarter, not harder, so they can ace their exams with less work and less stress.
  

 • BOOK 1:1 COACHING to supercharge your exam success: https://examstudyexpert.com/workwithme/

 • Get a copy of Outsmart Your Exams, my award-winning exam technique book, at https://geni.us/exams *
 
 
Podcast edited by Kerri Edinburgh.

*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases on suggested books.




Questions? Comments? Requests? Or just want to say "thanks" - send me a text message (I read them all!).

SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome to the Exam Study Experts Podcast. I'm delighted to be back this week with an all-new installment of our ever-popular Student Stories Sims. Today I'm joined by an inspirational scholar who achieved huge success academically as a young person, which helped him completely change his stars and rewrite his family tree. Born into, to use his words, a poor community in Guyana, his work ethic propelled him through a series of very hard-to-come by scholarships to ultimately end up studying in America and eventually build a career as an extremely successful global leader in the pharmaceutical industry and more. His story hits hard for three reasons. Firstly, the sheer contrast between where he came from, where he ended up in his life, and how pivotal education was in that journey. It's a pretty remarkable and pretty inspirational to hit. And put me in mind, uh, for longtime listeners, you might recognize a similar trajectory from Joe's epic story way back in episode 18. So if you enjoyed Frank's tale today, do check out Joe's story as well for a parallel. Uh, really, really interesting parallels between those two examples. Secondly, uh, in later years, Frank has reflected deeply on the power of perseverance. Uh, and in addition to telling us a little bit about his story, uh, he's also here to share today some of his great wisdom on how we can all learn not merely to bounce back from adversity, but to bounce, as he says, bounce forwards, uh, which I really like. So, how to overcome adversity, uh, bounce forward to the next thing, keep learning, keep growing. And thirdly, part of what Frank has had to come uh through his journey is unfortunately prejudice based on the colour of his skin. And this feels like a timely sub-theme uh to have running through today's episode, given that we are releasing this episode in October, uh, which, as many of you might know, is Black History Month. So that felt quite apt at the moment. So, wherever you are, whoever you are, I hope this episode intrigues, informs, and inspires you this week. I hope you enjoy. Dr. Frank Douglas, a very warm welcome to the Exam Study Expert Podcast.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, thank you very much. Uh it's delightful to be here.

SPEAKER_00:

We're very glad to have you here. Thank you for your time. Um I wonder if we could maybe just start. How do you normally introduce yourself? How do you normally describe who you are, what you've done, what you do?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I am originally from Guyana. Grew up in very uh very, I wouldn't say modest, actually poor circumstances. Uh when I grew up, you had to pay to go to high school. Unfortunately, uh some friends of my mother came together and found the money for me to go to high school. I did so well the first year that I got a scholarship after that, and have been on scholarships ever since, including after completing my A levels for those of you in the British Commonwealth, the former British Commonwealth, uh, I worked for about a year and a half, then received a Fulbright scholarship from the U.S. government, and uh came to America in 1963. Why that is important, I arrived in America eight days before the famous march of Dr. Martin Luther King in Washington, D.C. And in those eight days experienced discrimination based on the color of my skin. I later discovered that he had made this famous uh statement that one day he had hoped, uh he hoped that his children would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. So I had experienced that. Uh I did my bachelor's at Lehigh University, then went on to Cornell, where I did a PhD, after which uh I went to work for Xerox. And uh facing discrimination there led me actually to leave Xerox and go to medical school. So I'm both a PhD and an MD, and trained in internal medicine and what is also called neuroendocrinology, and started uh my uh professional life as an academic uh uh physician, doing both lab work as well as clinical work. And I was discovered uh during that time by the pharmaceutical industry and went to the pharmaceutical industry and started as a director, and within three years I became senior vice president responsible for research for the US for C Begaygi. Uh, today it's actually Novartis. Unfortunately, uh, about three years later, uh, when my boss, who was the global head of research and development, retired, I was called to Basel, Switzerland headquarters. Uh, and it was explained to me that because of my ethnicity, although I was the likely successor, I would not get the job because of my ethnicity. That caused me to leave uh Sibogaigi and joined uh Marin Merrill Dao, a mid-sized global pharmaceutical company. And whilst I was there, I had the challenge. Uh we were faced with losing one of our blockbusters, and uh uh I uh made an observation which led to the uh identification of uh uh Allegra and the development of Allegra in record time, that brought Maraldao to the attention of Herx, who bought Mara Meraldau, formed Herx Mara and Rousseau, and turned to me, uh, although I came from the smallest of the three companies that put together to be the global head of research and development, which I remained in that uh position when it merged to form Aventus and retired in 2004 and returned to academia in 2004. So that is uh uh in brief uh my background.

SPEAKER_00:

Amazing. Um what a what a story. I'd love to explore some of the the origins just uh just a little more. I mean the the context as you were as you were growing up, as you were being raised, you you described it as as as as poor to use your words. Just just tell us a little bit about what life was like in in in practice, just give us a little bit of color on that.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, in practice, we lived in literally uh in a one room of uh of a house. And it was my mother and uh uh at that time uh three three siblings. And um my mother was a a a single mother. And uh uh as I explained to people the way I did my homework, uh there was a a garden, a public garden about a block away from where we lived, and that's where I went after school uh to do my homework because there was no place uh at home. You know, I basically uh lived uh outside uh of the our uh dwelling until it was time to come in and uh and eat uh supper, then go to sleep, and I would uh go to sleep. Of course, as I tell people, the first time I slept in my own bed is when I went to college. Uh I slept on the floor until I was 20. And um uh it was uh in fact I I laugh at it now, but I did not know what to do with the the extra sheet uh that was on the the bed until one of my uh my college mates explained to me what you do with the blankets and the sheet, that extra sheet on the bed. And so that is what life uh was like. I uh also grew up uh in the church, which I think in a way was my salvation because uh at age 12 I gave my uh uh heart uh to the Lord and became uh very active, in fact, became sort of a boy preacher uh at that time. And I think that helped me to then focus on my schoolwork. And in fact, I I did extremely well in two exams. I actually placed uh uh first uh in in Guyana in the two exams, which was what brought me to the attention, uh I guess of those who were looking uh to give scholarships uh to Guyanese. So that uh was my background. I spent uh a lot of my time uh basically, you know, in the church and uh uh in school and uh and uh of course outside of the home because it was just one room, so there was no no place to really sit around.

SPEAKER_00:

And and tell me about your drive to to succeed and do and do so well in in education. You know, I mean I'm presuming it didn't just sort of happen by accident. I I presume you you you worked for it. And and I get the sense you're you're probably quite a quite a driven young man. Just just tell us a little bit more about that that drive and where it came from. I mean you you mentioned faith was a very important part of that. Yeah, just just tell us a little bit more about what was sort of driving you to to to achieve at such a high level.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. As far as I can remember, everyone always uh said, oh, you know, um he's a very bright boy. Uh I always remembered uh that. That's one. But uh when uh you know these two friends of my mother came together to pay for me to go to that first year, I had, you know, to me, it was such uh an opportunity. Uh I had to make sure that I made them proud of me. And so uh I just uh started uh studying and taking it seriously. And success breeds success. I suddenly found that I was being very successful. And in fact, at the end of that year, one of the teachers went to the principal and convinced the principal to actually skip me a grade uh so that I could take one of the exams a year early and be in line to get a scholarship to go to the top boys' school in Guyana. Uh and I actually had the highest uh performance on that exam and went to what is called Queen's College High School, uh the top high school for boys in Guyana. And and that basically just became uh part of uh life uh life for me. Persevering, working hard uh just became uh, and one thing, as a matter of fact, that was drilled into me, which is part of the religious part, is to whom much is given of him is much required. And um that stuck with me. And although I did not understand it, it was clear to me that I was given certain talents, so therefore I needed to return those by working very hard and uh uh and sharing those uh you know with my family and friends.

SPEAKER_00:

We have listeners in every corner of the globe, uh including some um less privileged parts of the globe. What would your message be to anyone listening to to this podcast today through the various channels on the podcast apps, on YouTube, wherever they've found their way to us? What would your message be to anyone growing up in sort of similar circumstances who feels they maybe have an aptitude to learn and and uh you know to put to perform well in education? Yeah, what would your kind of message be to anyone in that situation?

SPEAKER_02:

It's very simple. It's hard work and perseverance. And I'll tell you uh a story that reinforced that. When I was in graduate school, and this was now in the late 60s, at a time in uh America, it was a time of a lot of demonstration against the Vietnam uh uh war, it was the Black Power Movement, etc. And I was fairly uh active politically until the CIA visited me and brought an end to that. Uh but uh it was recommended to me for me to take my PhD candidacy exam, which was an oral exam, uh a year earlier than uh is normally done. And uh in asking and seeking advice from the older students, uh they all told me that what I should do is I should basically visit each of the four members on my committee who would be examining me and ask their uh opinion. Uh and three were non-committal, but one of them, who shortly thereafter actually became a Nobel laureate, so I'll tell you the caliper, uh he looked at me and he said, You know, Dr. It's not Dr. Douglas at that time, he said, You know, Mr. Douglas, uh, you're not my impression of a student. And I said, Yes. He said, Because in my book, a student spends eight to twelve hours a day studying, and I get the impression you don't spend four. Because I hear that, you know, you and one of the your friends who work for me, you spend your time uh going downtown teaching people how to apply for food stamps instead of being in class. And so we had a uh a conversation in which I was really quite distraught. Uh and uh at the end of it he said to me, you know, we brought 30 of you into this class, and one-third of you will never get a PhD in chemistry at Cornell. Not because you're not bright, you're here because you're bright, but because you do not persevere, and when things get difficult, you don't work. It's all about hard work and perseverance. And I left his office and that became my mantra. And even though part of that I worked, I worked hard and I persevered, it was at a different level. Even as an undergraduate in college, I didn't really work as hard as I could have. But in graduate school, it demanded something more. And I understood, you know, I understood precisely what he meant. And so uh I I stopped, and particularly after my visit by the CIA, I stopped my political activity and the buckle down and the message I give to everyone, it doesn't matter where you are, what you are doing, it is about hard work and perseverance.

SPEAKER_00:

So I guess of the two, possibly the harder one to put into practice is perseverance, particularly when things get tough, right? I mean, that's that's the way the rip rubber really meets the road. Can you keep going even when you're you're get facing setbacks, you know, you're not making the progress you want, you're frustrated, you're disappointed. Are there any tools that you you've learned or that you might be able to share with us that how how we approach and overcome those challenges?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I'll tell you what uh my my my passion now is is to uh basically to uh share with the people uh how one uh perseveres. And uh one of the things uh uh I actually do have a podcast also which is called Reframe for Resilience. Recently I changed that podcast to the anti-fragility reframe podcast. Nasim Talib wrote a book, Anti-Fragility, in which uh he gives many examples in different fields, but the point he makes is resilience helps us to bounce back from stress or challenge. But what we really need to do is what I say bounce forward to get stronger after a challenge. And so my focus has become how do we look at a challenge or stress that we have and focus on becoming stronger because of that stress. How do we bounce forward? And uh and so that's uh what uh my focus is. And you know, and there are some uh simple things, some of which uh I did to enable me actually to succeed. I've taken some of those lessons and put them into what I call my anti-fragility reframe methodology, because those were some of the things that I had practiced without even realizing their importance, except that they were working for me.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, I'm sure it's quite a big subject, and I'm sure you've done a lot of thinking on this, but but are there kind of a few simple ones you might be able to share a little of with us today so we can sort of take some practical ideas away uh to apply to our industry?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Let me give an example in fact this is where all of this began. And I mentioned uh that I left uh C Baggy. Uh sorry, yeah. I left Xerox. I left C Baggy later for another reason, but I left Xerox after I'd completed my PhD. I first had a job. And for three months, when I joined Xerox, I could not get a good project. And one day a young white man joined the group, uh, and within a week he was placed on one of the most exciting projects that we had at the time. So I went to talk with my boss, and I was just very stunned to see his expression when I said to him, uh, you know, Steve, don't think of me as though I am Frank. Think of me as though I'm Bob. And he looked at me and he said, You know, you're right. Bob has been here a week and I've put him on the archery project. Well, I was furious. I ran out of his office, down to the office of the senior vice president to give him yet another example of my being discriminated against. Well, two years later, I'm sitting uh in in medical school thinking about that episode and realizing that I had made two errors. The first error was that Dr. Tribes, the senior vice president, that summer had hired three young black PhDs, I being one of them, to join the single, the one black PhD that Xerox had in research and development at that time. So it probably was more important to him that Frank Douglas would do well than it was to Frank Douglas. The second error I made is that I was not clear on what my desired outcome was. It was not for the senior vice president to go and have tough words with my boss. For heaven's sake, I was a freshly minted PhD. I wanted to show my stuff. I wanted to show people what I could do. So had I reframed, had I put it differently, and had I said to the senior vice president, you know, Dr. Tribus, could you help my boss find me a good project? I have to say, he was two, three levels above my boss. He would have walked into his office, he would have said, find a man a good project. It would have happened yesterday. Now, in 2018, when I was writing my memoirs and writing that episode, I realized that I had actually learned from it. Because thereafter, starting in medical school, where I had lots of challenges, I began to look for what I called a better problem to solve when I had a problem. And so instead of focusing on my problem, I would try to find a problem that others were experiencing that was similar to mine, because I observed that if I went and discussed that problem rather than my problem, the supervisor or whomever would become engaged in that problem. And once they were engaged in trying to solve that problem, then I could say, and you know, if you solve that problem, it would really help me. And you know, later, of course, uh after I was writing uh my memoirs, I began to call it uh my reframe methodology. So in the reframe methodology is that if you have a problem, one of the things is you need to be very clear on your desired outcome, not just for that problem, but think two, three years out. What's your desired outcome? And then also think about you know broader benefit. If there were a solution, who else in your area on your team could uh benefit? And try to find what I call the better problem to solve. That's your reframe. And uh another aspect of it is with the broader benefit, it gives you a chance now to be inclusive, namely to bring others in to find innovative solutions to the problem. So you go from the aggrieved eye to the productive we. And uh, you know, so that's uh sort of what I uh I try to coach uh people and teams uh basically to do. Now, with respect to anti-fragility, is we ask the additional question, how would that make you or the team better or stronger, etc.? We give that additional uh challenge, you know, which uh of course, and and then and and the whole part of it starts off with uh the reframing. You you you have to uh to change perspective. You have to be prepared to look at the problem through different lens. And uh so shifting perspective is uh an important part of the reframe methodology that I discuss with people.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that's great advice. I think you can think of lots of examples of where you might find applications for that at various stages of of learning in academia. I mean, you know, that kind of conversation you were having with your boss's boss's boss or whatever it was, you know, that's that's the sort of conversation, you know, whether it's about a racial issue, whether it's about some other form of, you know, you feel you're not getting what you want from your your program, you know, particularly at a sort of high level of academia, you know, you're in a PhD program or something and it's not quite going right, you're not getting the support you need, whatever. You know, that way of approaching it, that kind of quite constructive way of approaching it, having that clear end in mind, how can we have a broader benefit for everyone? Ultimately, I think in education, I think, you know, the majority of the time, the people that you know are they supervising you, teaching you, mentoring you, they want you to succeed, and it's in their interests for you to succeed. And so uh helping you succeed is is is very much in everybody's interests. Everybody's on the same page on that, you know, the majority of times. So that's that's a really good starting point. And then yeah, thinking about that that better problem to solve rather than just going in there all guns blazing with your list of complaints. Um, you know, how can we have a constructive conversation about this? Um I love that phrase you used, you know, could you help? Dot dot dot. You know, could you help in this case, could you help my boss put me on a better project? Yeah, of course. That's that's a very concrete problem to solve. I can do that, and that clear benefits for everybody. Um yeah, that's really interesting. Well, I mean, on on that note, and and conscious we our time is drawing towards an end uh for for today, but um it's been it's been so so interesting talking, hearing a little bit about your story, uh some of the practical things you've been working on in more recent years, uh, you know, reframing methodology and and and bouncing forward. I I'll remember that phrase, I really like that. I wonder we we are going to be broadcasting this episode um uh in Black History Month, October 2025. Uh, I wonder on that theme, you know, we've had the theme running throughout the conversation, but I wonder if you had a message for our for our audience, for our listeners on that theme uh as as we bring the conversation towards an end.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, as a matter of fact, for that that theme, I think it becomes very important uh to uh remind young people particularly that it's not enough to be resilient, to bunce back, but to bunce forward, to be anti-fragile, and indeed to do two things to be clear on what is their desired outcome, not immediately, but three, four years from now, and how does that improve the lot of others broadening benefit? Those two things are really very important, and if they have those two things, they are going to be able to better align their talents with the purpose of their life, and it will help them to find purpose of their life, and so that's the message that I would like to give them. And in fact, if you look at the many leaders with whom we have been blessed uh in the the the black and Hispanic community, you can see those things that they had clear uh vision about what needed to be done. They persevered with it, and it was not about them personally, it was benefit for others. It was benefit for others.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely, so so powerful. Frank, thank you so much for today. It's been been such a fascinating conversation. Uh if people want to find out more about your work, books, podcasts, the work you do speaking, uh where would you signpost them to?

SPEAKER_02:

The safe haven dialogues. And if they go to safe haven dialogues, com that's our website. But look for safe haven dialogues, hyphenlc.com, and uh they'll find a lot of our podcasts, uh books and uh courses, etc.

SPEAKER_00:

Phenomenal, phenomenal. Dr. Frank Douglas, thank you so much once again.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, thank you. I enjoy the conversation.

SPEAKER_00:

I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Dr. Frank Douglas. Thank you so much for joining us today. Remember, if you get value from the podcast and you enjoy the work we do, please take a moment to support the channel uh by liking, subscribing, uh, following, and sharing what we do. Your support is hugely, hugely valuable. And if you're on a platform uh that supports this, uh particularly YouTube and Spotify, uh, do leave us a comment on the episode down in the comment section. Uh we read them all and really enjoy hearing what you thought of the episode, uh, things you're going to act on, things that related, things that resonated. And if you have particular questions, I will do my best to get to those as well. So thank you so much once again for tuning in this week, and I will look forward to seeing you again soon. Wishing you every success, as always, in your studies.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that was good, wasn't it? I found myself taking notes. If you need a reminder of anything from today, head to the website for a write up of this episode, as well as lots more top knock advice and resources. That's uh examstudyexpert.com. See you next time.