“If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else is going to. So go for it. Find what makes you happy and do it.”

David Hudgins is a television writer, executive producer, husband, and father. His credits include co-producer on the WB’s hit television series Everwood (2003–2006), co–executive producer on NBC’s critically acclaimed and award-winning series Friday Night Lights and co-executive producer of the popular show, Parenthood. He was also the creator and executive producer of the 2010 Fox television series Past Life, and has been nominated for numerous Writers Guild Awards. He is the founder of the Catherine H. Tuck Foundation whose mission is to provide assistance to women who are struggling financially while in treatment for breast cancer in honor of his sister, who is the inspiration behind his epiphany. David currently resides in Los Angeles, California, with his wife, Megan, and their four boys. www.catherinefund.org

The Interview

David was a writer and producer on one of my favorite shows on television (Friday Night Lights), so I wanted to interview him. (Now he’s on the equally wonderful show, Parenthood.) Though we are both from Dallas, we had never met. He is relaxed, funny, and eloquent in an easy, colloquial way. When we got in touch, he was writing for Friday Night Lights and was in production on his own series that was about to launch on Fox—that is the definition of “crazy busy.” But being the southern gentleman that he is, he still made time for this interview with me amid the madness in his office in West Los Angeles. The Catherine H. Tuck Foundation, his foundation in honor of his sister, was started in 2012 — a great example of how the effects of an epiphany will keep rippling out in bigger and unexpected ways…