From Late-Night Laughs to Life-and-Death Decisions

The Wild Career Pivot of Jake Lentz

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My college buddy Jake Lentz’s pivot from Hollywood to treating patients in the ER is part career plot twist and part masterclass in embracing failure, curiosity, and the unknown.

Jake’s first act was the stuff of creative dreams — working as a comedy writer in LA for late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. But the writer’s strike in 2007 transformed the glitz of Hollywood into a lesson in career fragility. While others might’ve clung to the hope of more of the same, Jake’s mind wandered in a totally different direction. Encouraged by his brother-in-law, Jake began a rigorous switch into the medical field, intertwining his writing schedule with early morning physics and late-night chemistry labs.

Most of us would call switching from TV to trauma care a complete 180. But central to Jake's transformation was his resilience, a skill sharpened from his time in Hollywood. The entertainment industry, with its many rejections, equipped Jake with the ability to embrace uncertainty.

At the same time, this career transition was driven by something simple and powerful: Curiosity. Jake didn’t just jump ship on a whim. He volunteered in hospitals, asked uncomfortable questions, and sat in the discomfort of not knowing. And somewhere between “clear!” and code blues, he fell in love with the high-stakes, human-centered world of emergency medicine.

Jake gravitated toward emergency medicine because it felt real — raw. When people come to the ER, they show up at their most vulnerable; when people are scared, sick, or in pain, there’s no room for pretense. The usual facades are stripped away by pressing health realities.

For Jake, this environment has been rich ground for curiosity — meeting people where they are — often at a critical juncture in their lives. He loves interacting with such a diverse spectrum of people, each with unique stories and challenges. These small conversations have become opportunities for Jake to delve into worlds he doesn’t know anything about. You see through his stories how curiosity is both a natural and cultivated trait that leads to meaningful connections.

When we think of career changes, we often envision incremental steps, slight pivots. But imagine leaping from a world of comedy writing to the emergency room, all while maintaining a sense of humor.

We hope you listen to this next episode. Jake does such a great job of showing us how to find purpose in the smaller moments and to value connection above all else, no matter how wildly the script may change.

For more stories like Jake’s, make sure you listen to “A Life Worth Working,” wherever you listen to podcasts. Dana and I are on all the podcast platforms like Apple, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and many more.

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Dr. Michelle Weise is the podcast co-host of A Life Worth Working and author of Long Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs that Don’t Even Exist Yet. She consults as an outsourced Chief Innovation Officer for businesses, foundations and higher education institutions. For more information, please visit: michelleweise.com.