{"id":32177,"date":"2019-02-20T12:58:54","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T17:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/creator\/creator\/?p=32177"},"modified":"2020-02-26T14:27:48","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T19:27:48","slug":"making-a-career-out-of-talking-to-strangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/research-insights\/expert-insights\/making-a-career-out-of-talking-to-strangers","title":{"rendered":"Making a career out of talking to strangers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Lisa Ling was a little girl, she wanted to be Marcia Brady. Lisa and her younger sister, Laura, would pretend they were the Brady Bunch\u2014Laura as Jan or Cindy, their grandmother as Alice. <\/span>“The television was always on in my house,\u201d the journalist and author <\/span>told the audience of WeWork employees at the \u201cStudent for Life\u201d panel discussion at the company\u2019s recent Global Summit<\/a> in Los Angeles<\/span>. \u201cIt was my favorite babysitter. I had fantasies about being on TV.” <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fantasies that took root in childhood only grew she did. At 16, she landed a hosting gig at a local teen magazine show called <\/span>Scratch<\/em><\/span><\/i>. \u201cWorst name ever,\u201d Ling says with a laugh. At 18, she was hired as a reporter at Channel One News, broadcast in schools nationwide. While at Channel One, she covered drug wars in South America, globalization in China and India, and democracy in Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No longer a little girl enthralled by the glamour of television, Lisa developed a love of reporting. “I wanted to communicate stories,” she says. Her inspiration? Connie Chung. “She was the only Asian person on a national stage, and to me, she symbolized all that is elegant and graceful on TV,\u201d Ling says. \u201cSo I set out to have a career like Connie\u2019s.” <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
\u201cI challenge myself to meet someone new every day and interact with someone entirely different,\u201d says Lisa Ling.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While a student at the University of Southern California, she kept missing classes to go on assignments for Channel One. “I realized I was getting a better education doing what I was doing because I had a unique opportunity to be out in the world,\u201d she says. \u201cFor a kid who didn\u2019t have the resources to travel, this was the best education conceivable. I became a smarter person, but really, I became a better person.”<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ling recalls Channel One sending her to cover the civil war in Afghanistan, a country she couldn\u2019t identify on the map, \u201cand most adults couldn\u2019t identify either.\u201d She was just 21 years old, traveling with the Red Cross to Jalalabad. When they landed, they were immediately surrounded by young boys carrying weapons \u201cthat were quite literally larger than they were,\u201d she recalls. When she asked how old they were, the local guide responded, \u201cThey do not know, but if you ask them how to operate an RPG or bazooka, they know.\u201d This story had the most profound impact on Ling and her career. \u201cThat moment in Afghanistan, I realized <\/span>this<\/em><\/span><\/i> is what I should be doing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ling\u2019s career has taken her from Afghanistan to Iraq and even helped her diplomatically fight for her sister Laura\u2019s safe return from the North Korean government. When asked about Laura and her colleague Euna Lee\u2019s imprisonment in North Korea in 2009, she remembers the total fear her family felt\u2014and the delicate way they needed to handle the request for the women\u2019s release. \u201cNever once did we make any accusations on what we believed,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt was all about allowing the North Korean government to save face.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite her success, Ling acknowledges there is \u201ca tremendous amount of gender bias in the workplace. That is really undeniable.\u201d While her show, <\/span>This Is Life with Lisa Ling<\/em><\/span><\/i><\/a>,<\/span><\/i> has been on CNN<\/a> for six seasons, she had to fight for it get renewed, and suspected it might have been because \u201cmaybe I\u2019m not white and male enough.\u201d Yet everything she\u2019s been exposed to has compelled her to continue telling stories.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much out there to acquaint oneself with,\u201d says Ling, who sees herself as a student for life, seeking out new people and experiences every day. \u201cI challenge myself to meet someone new every day and interact with someone entirely different,\u201d she explains, encouraging others to do the same. \u201cYou\u2019ll become more open-minded, smarter, and ultimately better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNN’s Lisa Ling says becoming a journalist was “the best education conceivable” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1711,"featured_media":35069,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43906,43901],"tags":[512,1444],"class_list":["post-32177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-expert-insights","category-research-insights","tag-impact","tag-career"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMaking a career out of talking to strangers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"CNN's Lisa Ling says becoming a journalist was "the best education conceivable."\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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