Richard Lui, ENOUGH ABOUT ME: The Unexpected Power of Selflessness

[1:09]Zibby Owens: This is Zibby Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen Vaccine Research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time To Write, a new publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens and my website is zibbyowens.com. Okay, now back to this amazing podcast. Special announcement, I am teaming up with Katie Couric Media's Wake Up Call and Random House to give away 100 copies of the book Stranger Care by Sarah Santillis. I'm really excited about this. Here's a little about Sarah's book, and we collectively are giving away a 100 copies. After their decision not to have a biological child, Sarah Santilles and her husband Eric decide to adopt via the foster care system. Despite knowing that the system's goal is the child's reunification with the birth family, Sarah opens their home to a flurry of social workers who question them, evaluate them, and ultimately prepare them to welcome a child into their lives even if it means most likely having to give the child back. Stranger care is an illuminating read, and Sarah will be on this podcast soon. So if you would like to enter for a chance to win, please go to the link in the episode description from right where you clicked on it and enter your email address, first and last name. By doing so you're agreeing to the sweepstakes official rules and agree to receive communications and special offers from Katie Couric's wake up call and moms don't have time to read books. Thank you for doing it and enter to win today. Just go back to the episode description. Thanks again. Doctor. Liu is the author of Enough The Unexpected Power of Selflessness. Veteran journalist Richard Liu has more than thirty years in television, film, technology and business. Currently at MSNBC and previously with CNN worldwide, he is the first Asian American man to anchor a daily national cable news program and a team Emmy and Peabody winner. In addition to journalism, Richard's fifteen year business career involves a fintech patent and launching six tech brands over three business cycles. He has lived, worked, and volunteered on every continent. Richard is a celebrity champion for the Alzheimer's Association, caregiving champion for AARP, and caregiving ambassador for Bright Focus Foundation. His first book is now out, Enough About Me, The Unexpected Power of Selflessness. Welcome, Richard. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Enough About Me. Zimmy, thanks for having me. Really, really appreciate you taking the time. I think I, like, laughed out loud when I saw the title of your book because I feel like I'm always saying that. Okay. Especially on this podcast. I feel like if transcripts, I would say it, like, a thousand times. Like, okay. Fine. Enough about me. But anyway, so it was a great great title. Yeah.

[4:06]Richard Lui: We we laughed about it when we were putting it together because, you know, the the approach of it was that not to be like a shaking finger at at anybody. It was more of let's talk about it and let's be, you know, we know there's a there's a some funny elements about life, and so let's not ignore that along the way. And in the book, as you know, I I I I really tried hard. I guess I'm a I'm a wannabe comedian, and so I I tried. I do. Because, know, you I'm sure you you enjoy them. I love comedians. Like, I really appreciate their craft. It is so difficult, especially coming from news where we're always, you know, so, you know, right down the middle, and it's not often that we we get to explore that part of our person. That's true. Yeah. Might as well do it in a book. I mean, if not, now when? Yeah. Yeah. Just go for it. So for listeners who don't know what this book is about, would you mind giving, like, a quick synopsis? And then I want to know like what even inspired you to write this book to begin with? Yeah, Zibby, it started with caregiving of my father about, I guess, six years ago now, who's diagnosed maybe eight with Alzheimer's and me making the decision to travel in New York right now, but I'm from California and I would travel back and forth to help with the caregiving about three times a month. So I actually spent more days in California during the last six years than I did in any other city in the country. Even though I'm sitting here talking, I would come to New York to work, but I spent the most hours because I had to calculate it. And I was like, wow. And through that process of traveling two to 300,000 miles, 400,001, a year was, you know, it's not like you ask yourself, Zibby, well, why am who am I? What am I doing? It just kind of seeps into your your psyche because you you sit there like I sit there in the subway at 3AM wondering, okay, here I am at 3AM in the morning again in the subway, or I'm in the airport and wow, another ten hour door to door one way. It just sits in the back of your brain. You start to think about, you know, why are you doing this? And it was to help my father. And why was I wanting to help my father? Well, because he helped me. And so why did he help me and why am I helping him? And it came to this idea of wanting to help another person that you love and giving of yourself. And so when I was talking with publisher and the agent, the agent was Brandi Bowles and Pilar Queen. We really just sort of like, well, what is it the big idea here? And the big idea, especially given the reporting hat being on, which I saw all this selfishness, what I call selfish pandemic. As a breaking news anchor, covered a lot of mass killings and a lot of racial strife in the last ten years. I'm in the streets reporting on this stuff. With the reporter hat on, I was like, wow, we are really thinking about ourself too much. All of us. Like when we take other people's lives, that is super selfish. Right? That's like, my view is so important that I can take somebody else's life because I think something. That is supreme selfishness. And then with the Rachel Strife and not being able to see the other. So the reporter hat then putting on the book hat was okay, if you see this, what are you gonna do about it? So the book started to and then on my personal hat, all those things together was like, okay, let's let's do something that is a small effort to a bigger problem. And that was enough about me where we focused on how do we be self more selfless in a day to day way? I love self help books. I love business self help books. And you know, most self help books are me, me, me, me, me, love me, love me. I am me and I'm great. Right? And we've gotten so good at producing books like that. This self help book is why we call it an anti self self help book. And the purpose is the approach is very similar though, in that we go at it little by little, not, hey, you can be mother Teresa. You can be Desmond Tutu. We did not approach it that way. We approached it more of, oh, what's the little things we can do every day? What are the bite sized things we can do to build our selfless muscle? And you can tell how long it takes to describe that. I think that was maybe four minutes. I wasn't timing it. But it's a lot of things as to how I got to that point. Wow. What I was really struck by in the beginning of your book was how few people even really want to be selfless, right? That there was some high percentage of people who felt like they would be giving up too much. The majority, like we said, our original research was like a team of 10 people that put the book together. I had a researcher, a scientist, I had two comedic consultants. Wow. And going back to the way we started, I had two poets. Yeah. I just I knew that I couldn't get it done the best that we could if I did alone. And and I know from a journalistic perspective, we do that all the time. Like whatever you see on TV is not one person, just the reporter doing it. It's a whole team. And so I did not approach the book as, oh, I have to write every word. There was just no way I it could happen that way. And so that's why when it came to doing the book, when we dove in to the data, we really wanted to make sure that from my user perspective, that every time I made a qualitative claim, I had a quantitative backup and vice versa. You know, it couldn't just be a number. You also had to have qualitative to back up the quantitative, but none would stand alone by itself. And that that's very much journalistic approach to it. The way why we had a team of 10, the way we we we built the

[9:34]Zibby Owens: idea of a self help, anti self self help book. A whole new category. That was a good book. You're gonna start this whole trend. This is we're gonna need a new, like, placard in every bookstore. Lone one lone book on that shelf with a little Yeah. Well, is super interesting. I mean, how to even work with 10 people on a project and maintain the same sort of consistent voice and throughout the narrative. I mean, having I feel like I could use a comedic consultant on so many parts of my life. Like, how great if you could just say like, okay, I would like these experts to help me with this and you with this. Like, wow.

[10:10]Richard Lui: Yeah. It was because I had worked in startups before. I really did approach it as, okay, let's get all the people together in a room and let's do this. You know, at the end of the day, it was me writing everything, but, you know, in some chapters, it would be okay. You try this here, then I'd get in and I'd take what was there as the skeleton and then break it out. So that it was because, you know, I although just like as you've worked in teams before too and groups before, if you are charged with the like with slides, I don't know if you do a lot of presentation decks all the time. But when I was a strategy consultant, I did it all the time. And I was often what they used to call the deck master, which meant I would assign the slides out to everybody. But at the end of the day, I had to take whatever was there and make it all one narrative.

[10:58]Zibby Owens: And so that was that was the approach here too and how we got to the end. I feel like this is another little spin off. You could do like an Audible original or something called the Deckmaster, like how to how to how to utilize teams for your writing. I feel like that's really interesting because he talks about that. Anyway, next project. Project. Well, That's also in the book, you were talking about how when people are evaluating your performance as happened when you were interviewing for your anchor position at CNN, that it wasn't just what happens when they say, you know, rolling, but what happens behind the scenes and how you were, like, wiping your face with a piece of paper because you were sweating and nervous and all this stuff and how Yeah. You try to get a job, it's the whole person, right? You basically you can't fake it and really be good at your job. You have to, like, actually be confident to have some jobs. So tell me a little bit about how you even got into that situation. Like how you knew this is what you wanted to do, how you went from consulting to that, and how you were willing to put so much on hold to help your dad. Yeah. The the

[12:04]Richard Lui: career change was to be open to whatever is in front of me and not like whimsically, more of don't ignore what's happening. And it's very similar as to the decision to decide to go part time in news anchoring was because, well, your dad's not well and his disease, the disease that he lives with, is only gonna become more and more intense. So don't ignore it. You know, I think especially with family caregiving and there's over 53,000,000 of us. And Zibby, have you family have you been a family caregiver? The odds are yes. Yes. Not for that long, but yes. Unfortunately, yes. Yes. And so you understand. And it's not like as soon as that happens, you're like, oh, I'm a family caregiver. I embrace it. I love that. I love being a family caregiver. No, we don't do that. Typically is I don't wanna be in this situation. I'm not happy. This is gonna take more time and effort and emotion. And so we don't often it takes years to identify as that and accept it. And I think in both situations, both in the career decision and then with both career decision, which is to work part time to take take care of my dad and then moving from consulting to journalism fifteen years ago, both of those were just sort of, hey, this is reality. This is where you're at. For my father, I've explained why. I just you know, at certain points, like, well, I I cannot not help him fight for this because, you know, he helped me in so many ways, like my as my mother did too, fight for the right decisions. You know, whether it was to go back to school because I did not go to to college out of high school. I worked in fast food for five years. And then I got fired, and I was like, okay. Well, I could go back to another fast food place. But, you know, when I was thinking, you know, I should probably go to school. You know, my dad's okay. I'll pay off all your debts. I'll borrow money on the house, and you you go to school. Please go. It's alright. Mom and dad will take care of you. And he they had done it all throughout my life. You know? They could have said, hey, tough luck kid. You're 22. Figure it out yourself. Right? Instead they said, no, let's let's let's help you figure this out, Richard. Are you sure you wanna do this? Are you committed to it? Okay. If you're committed and you thought about it, let's go do it. So that context as to why I decided to change my career, which, excuse me, to work part time was built around not only the be very open to the context, but also the drive to to give back that in in ways that they had always given back to me. In terms of becoming a a journalist from consulting, that that was a one year debate with all of my good friends that I went biz to business school with. And I would say in it, you know, maybe it was six months or a year. But I was like, you know, I'm thinking my my interest now is shifted because I've learned so much through business school and working after business school that this is now the big thing I need to really commit to. And I'm sure many of them thought it was maybe perhaps whimsical, but I I haven't been typically whimsical in my career choices in the past. But maybe they thought that, like, you went to business school, you're working at Citibank, you did a startup, and we're done with it now. Why would you wanna become a journalist? And here I am now fifteen years later, still doing the journalism job and feeling very grateful for it. But I think what shifted was I felt there were there there was a need to talk about stories in the way a person like me might talk about them. And so began the journey. And I did not know that the need for a person like myself to be talking about stories would be so important. And in the last year of so much anti Asian hate, I've really realized the importance of something like that looks like me and has lived. That's definitely an important part of my existence. It's not the only part, and it's not the only story as you know, Zibby, but it's a reflect that. Just as when I'm talking about gender equality and talking to, you know, various sectors, like for instance, the finance sector, it's not an easy topic, but we have to talk about it. And I cannot check anything at the door. One of the questions I often ask in those conversations is if you're a man and you've gone into a business meeting and you thought about your gender, raise your hand. If you're a woman and you've gone into a business meeting, you've thought about your gender, raise your hand. And you know what that looks like. It's the men are like, what are you asking? And the women are like, you got it, Richard. And the same as this sort of existence of why I became a storyteller and a news person and journalist says, you know, if you've ever thought about being this, have you raised your hand? And I I have. And now as we've lived through a very tough year and a lot a very tough year a very tough decade when it comes to racial strife in general, these are hands that I raise. I'm not gonna not talk about these things. It's not the only story. Again, it's not the only story, but it's an important story. And so that those are sort of the reasons why I made these shifts. And they're not they weren't small ones. It's sort of like when I left business and decided to become a a journalist, you know, I had to write a check for $70,000 because the consulting company was so kind to pay for my second year of school of business school. And who's not gonna say yes to that? But saying no to them to return, and they they were so kind to keep my job. And I look. I told you about how difficult it was to pay for education earlier in my life. I was like, what? I don't know. This is a big yeah. Biggest check I ever wrote. But I knew that I had to get out there and do this. And so it was not an easy decision necessarily. I don't think you were saying that, but it was one that I definitely was like, okay. This is the new world that I'm in. And in this new world, this is what I need to do. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

[20:12]Zibby Owens: Well, well, first of all, I'm not surprised that there was some business school friend pushback. I went to business school too. And after that, wrote for, like, the business school paper. And afterwards, I was like, I'm gonna take a year off and write a book. And everyone's like, you're gonna do what? What do you mean? And there were like three other people in my whole class who had that sort of, you know, literary bent or whatever. So we kind of congregated. But I feel like for the most part, are like, yeah, okay, good luck with that, you know? I don't know. If there's one thing I learned at business school, it's that, like, I don't know about you with the consulting or startup or whatever, but there are people who are passionate about doing those things who actually are really into it. So I thought I was into marketing until I met people who really were into marketing. And I'm like, well, I'm not really into marketing. What I'm really into is, you know, this. So anyway, I found that very funny. And, man, did you really go at it?

[21:04]Richard Lui: Whoo. Now they're looking at Zivyno. Yep. No. That's my first book. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm saying you left B School and you're like, yeah. Look at that. No. I mean, for

[21:15]Zibby Owens: a journalist, like, kind of knocked it out of park. I mean, you're like, I'm gonna just try this. You know? Meanwhile, people are, like, at tiny stations all over the world, like working their way up and you're like, let me just like swoop in here, but As you know, because you went to b school is you

[21:28]Richard Lui: you're gonna give your full effort at it. And it wasn't like you were it was a a whim necessarily. It was like, I'm gonna attack this like it's a business. Right? That's what you did with your your your books. And for me, when I became a journalist, I was like, I'm gonna attack this as I'm a product because we are. Like, as a as journalist and you as a also as a storyteller, you're you're a product and you realize that pretty quickly. Okay. What's the pluses and minuses of the product? And that that is I think was the the one benefit coming out of b school is I immediately sort of shifted. Okay. You're now a product and how will people see you as a bar soap on the aisle Mhmm. Compared to all these other bars of soap and and and and get it done. And I also knew though that if it didn't work out after giving it my all, that I could certainly go back to consulting. And that's still I still feel that way, Zibby. Maybe I'll be a a strategy consultant next we speak. Maybe so. Maybe I'll hire you.

[22:25]Zibby Owens: I'll be with my business here. Please. No. I mean, by the way, I having failed my way miserably through those consulting interviews after school, I was like, I have so much respect for people who can sort of figure out how many, like, gas stations might be in, like, you know, 50 square miles or whatever those questions are. So but once you did, like, get to sort of the this sort of vaulted place within journalism and, you know, at this, you know, holy grail of, you know, news dissemination, like, did it fill your bucket, as my kids would say? Like, did you feel, like, totally fulfilled? Like, okay, this is it. I'm, like, in my this is the zone. This is what I was sort of meant to do. Is that how you feel about it? I love your kids, first of all. Which one was it that said that? Does it fill your bucket? I love that. Or did you tell them that? That's really cool. No. We had this book, like, about filling your bucket and how you have to, like, do things that fill your bucket and some things actually, you should get it because some of it's, like, giving back. Is, like, the enough about me for kids. It's called have you filled your bucket lately or something. That is I love that. I'm putting it down right out. Fill your bucket. You just Google you can just add it to cart right now. We can you know? Done. You're is that also did you write that too? No. I did not write that. Funny. I love that. Yeah. I'm getting it. It did and did not. And I think

[23:38]Richard Lui: that was one of the things that I struggled with was, okay, well, it seems like this is pretty cool, but why do you feel like it's not? And then I it took me in probably about seven years into my career as a journalist to realize what I didn't even know in business either. I mean, business actually did my first bunch of jobs did fill my bucket in business. These startups I was working with really, I think, good people. And not like I'm saying in journalism, they weren't good people. I'm saying that it wasn't all. It wasn't everything. And I realized there were so many things that I enjoyed outside of it that it gave me. And so I talk about it in the book too, as you know, like three plants, water, three plants. And the idea is that there is a main plant that we feed and we we care for, but there there are two or three others that we also feed and care for and that we cultivate. And it was an offshoot of me realizing, okay, I'm here and, you know, have the show and this is great and but now that I'm here, I'm realizing there's all these other things I have to do, which is these parts of the community that I'm part of that I care about. So, you know, one is I'm absolutely an abolitionist when it comes to the idea of human trafficking and understanding how prevalent it is in our country, in The United States Of America and around the world, and yet we don't talk about, we're talking about, you know, selling humans and treating them like they're not human. That then another part of community that grew from that was gender equality. And so like I often will say, I'm a seven year old feminist because, you know, when I my eyes opened up after covering human trafficking. Was like, why is this the same everywhere in the world? Everywhere I go and I report on this, it's the same dynamic of the way we treat girls and women. Then that then grew into along the way also being very much part of the Asian American Pacific Islander community and what were the needs of that community too. So, yeah, just sort of grew. And so my bucket became fuller, but not because of the journalism only because of journalism plus all the things around it. And it like the the book and the movie, the book that we're talking about and the movie that that's just coming out in the this month and next month and last month is also part of that bucket being full. And so it's I'm more now on the satisfied end of a full bucket and still saying, I know it's not full, but it's okay. Mhmm. And I know that at least I've put the right scoops of sand into it. And there those scoops are look. Independent filmmakers, anybody that might be listening to us, if if you've done one as well, Zibby, I would just say thank you for doing it because it is more work than I ever

[26:27]Zibby Owens: knew. My husband's working on that now, actually. Is it? Yep. So user. So yeah. Yes.

[26:35]Richard Lui: Wow. I'm just like five years, and I'm finally reaching sort of the end. And I'm just like, whoo wee. It is work. You know, I know what we do in video news or broadcast news is very different than print. And there's a there's a cultural difference there because, you know, everything we do and and your your husband knows this. Like writing a book compared to doing a movie, wholly different things. Yes. Because everything you do in a movie requires that you show it and showing every second is so difficult in terms of the money and the time you spend on it. The book, I can just edit it and delete. Yep. Or I can find the quote and I it's but that also means you can go to places you can't go with film. Mhmm. Yes. That's true too. So so it's not one is better than the other. It's just so different. Like, that's why I love the written word because it can go so much in different places

[27:28]Zibby Owens: that if you try to do that in video, you can never make it there. I think it's a miracle any movie ever gets made now that I've seen how it is with people's schedules and Right. But I mean, it's literally, I can't believe any movies come out and that some Yeah. So many are so good. It's like, anyway, it's a miracle. Feel like we should standardize. You can only start a movie, like, with this semester, right? Because then at least you could, like, align people's schedules, all the actors and actresses. Anyway, off topic. Okay. So the only thing with this book is I feel like a lot of the people who would need to read this book might not be the ones like, they might not think that they think too much about themselves, or they might not be self aware enough to realize that they're the ones who need this book the most, right? That they are so selfish and that that they need it. They need these lessons and takeaways and your story to resonate. And maybe they just don't think that there's anything wrong with them. Like, what about what do we do about those people? Yeah.

[28:22]Richard Lui: And that's so you're right on the you're right on the money there, Zibby. And what I was telling and working with a publisher who's fantastic to work with and the team was this is for the swing doer. This is the person that might consider trying one of these things. And if you're targeting it towards the swing doer, then you're not gonna be overly dogmatic. You're not going to be all, you know, oh, and this is the way it is. Boom. No. It's gonna be an exploration. And it's not also gonna be a person that is an expert at it. I'm certainly no expert. So this is not a book where, oh, Richard's this perfect selfless person. No. Far from it. You know, I suggest that you No. No. No. No. Know. Such or anything. No. I know you I I'm speaking to exactly what you you know because you've read the book and that is I I definitely approach it like I'm a goof up and I goof up a lot. And I opened the book with how I thought it was all about me in my audition at CNN. And it really wasn't this what I'm saying and doing in front of the camera. It's really what I'm doing off camera. And what we do in life is the analogy here. That's off camera is what really makes us. And that's why I started the book with that. But I really do goof up in this thing. So that that is the idea is that the swing doer that is why I worked on it in a way that is, you know, I, I, I call it a white collar idea with a blue collar approach. I'm very much a bootstrapper kind of person. And the book is, is the reason why you could be another critical point if you were to read the book and say, why are you talking about yourself richer if it's called enough about me? The important thing is I wasn't gonna sit around and and say, you see, this is another example of how not to do it. And there's look at that person. Look at Jane, and then look at John, and then and then, you know, Jim and Elizabeth, I wasn't going to do that. I was going to more say, look how I goofed up. And so throughout the book, I try to share how I've goofed up, and that it's, you know, fine, you know, because often you'll build up yourself as the voice that knows everything. And in fact, in this case, it's more of, I don't know everything. And I'm trying to explore why, What can I do? And as a journalist might. And so that tone and that approach, the sort of very practical little things and bite sized things you can do also was targeted towards a swing doer. So that was the perspective. That's why you have humor in it. That's why in the back of the book there, if anybody ever makes it to the end, and if you do, you get a free steak at Cattlemen's in California, but that's why in the back, there are four poems. That's why there's also this playbook in the back where it's sort of like, if you like to do sports, that's the way it is. And that's why in the book, I wanted cartoons. I worked with a cartoonist. So there are 14 cartoons in the book. And that's why these data graphics in here too. I I was really just trying to say, if you're a swing doer, there's a lot of different ways you're gonna engage in something. And the one way you're not gonna engage if I sit there and just write from the beginning to the end about how you're wrong and this is what you need to do. That's just not gonna work. Doesn't work with me. No. I'm a swing doer. See, I wrote it for me. I'm I'm the swing doer. I'm the I'm the person who doesn't like ivory towers. Do not do not talk to me as an ivory tower. That's just boom. So I I I told the entire team all the way through Zibby, we cannot do it that way. Well,

[32:03]Zibby Owens: you succeeded in getting your message across. And I think the most powerful thing you can do and that you did do was to share your own story. All the bullet points in the world can't replace, like, one person sharing, like, their hard one advice and innermost feelings with another. So I for me, that was like the most compelling part. And anyway, well, congratulations on your book. I'm And so excited about if you end up a consultant again and you know, you need some business, let me know and I'll try to drum it up for you.

[32:34]Richard Lui: I'll take it. All right. Well, you Thanks, so Zibby. Take care. Appreciate it. Bye bye. Bye bye.

[32:39]Zibby Owens: Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram Zibby Owens and moms don't have time to read books. Also, sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.