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You've heard the book publishing podcasts that give you tips for selling a lot of books and the ones that only interview world-famous authors. Now it's time for a book publishing show that reveals what actually goes on behind the cover.
Hosted by New York Times bestselling author Anna David, Behind the Book Cover features interviews with traditionally published authors, independently published entrepreneurs who have used their books too seven figures to their bottom line to build their businesses and more.
Anna David has had books published by HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster and is the founder of Legacy Launch Pad, David is the founder of Legacy Launch Pad Publishing, a boutique, founder-led hybrid book publisher that helps entrepreneurs turn expertise into authority-building books. In other words, she knows both sides—and isn't afraid to share it.
Come find out what traditional publishers don't want you to know.
RICHARD LAWSON
Sun, Oct 26, 2025 2:12PM • 52:56
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Richard Lawson, book, career, epiphany, show business, memoir, teaching, spiritual guide, alter ego, marketing, Substack, AI, personal growth, dreams, legacy.
SPEAKERS
Speaker 2, Speaker 1
Speaker 1 00:00
Ready to go. Okay, that's so awesome. Okay, it feels like my mic should be closer, but I'm gonna trust you. You're the man. Here we go, Richard, Richard, I'm so happy you're here. Thank you for coming.
00:16
I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 1 00:18
Well, I you and I worked together, yes, but never actually directly communicated, right? I heard the loveliest things about you, and it was such an honor when you chose to work with us and so and so. We're here to talk about you, but to talk with a focus on the book and and and what it did for you at this stage in your career. Tell me why did you want to do a book?
Speaker 2 00:48
Well, it was like, if I didn't do a book, that would be something really terrible about that, because I've been in the business. So I entered the business. March 7, 1969 is when I started show business. I love that. You know the date. I know the date precisely because it was, it was the day that I had an epiphany that that's what I was put on this earth to do. I had I was in college, I was in I was in Vietnam. I got out of Vietnam three months early, and it's so funny, because I just realized how I actually became an actor. So one of my students did stand up the other night in class? I do. I have people do these cold stand up. And so they just tell some part of their story, and then they find the humor in it, and then they have beginnings of a whole set, because they keep expanding on it. So he was talking about being out in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and I said, Fort Huachuca, this is the only other person that I've ever heard mentioned Fort Huachuca. It was the last place that I was stationed, and there's nothing in Fort Huachuca, nothing. There was a Denny's, and there was a gas station and a hardware store, and the rest of the city was there to service the base. Right? It's 70 miles from everywhere. It's 70 miles from Tucson. It's 70 miles from the Mexican border. There's nothing but Gila monsters and and Tumbleweed. And it was like, I found out I could get out of the service three months early if I went to college. And it was like, God, I will go to I wanted to go to law school, but I'll go to a junior college just to get out of Fort Huachuca. So Fort Huachuca sent me to Chabot College, and it was at Chabot College that I discovered the reason why I'm putting on this earth. It was through a revelation. So thank God for boring Fort Huachuca,
03:03
and was the college there in Arizona?
Speaker 2 03:05
No, the college was in Hayward. I would go back home to my mother's house after the service.
Speaker 1 03:13
I'm from the Bay Area. Oh, you are where, Marin County. I was born in the city. Oh, you were, so you were East Bay. I was East Bay. Okay, so you grew up there? I
Speaker 2 03:22
grew up in Oakland, yep, and in, well, I grew up in every project in in the East Bay Area, Berkeley, Oakland, East Oakland. And then my mother, industrious woman that she was working as a as a nurse, who emptied bedpans, bought a little house, and then bought another house and then bought another house, and she worked 16 hours a day for 16 years. She did this and and so we went to school and went to Castleman High School in Oakland, and then Hayward high and and then Chabot was the school, the college that was in Hayward. And
Speaker 1 04:05
so your revelations in March, yes, so you started the September before
Speaker 2 04:10
I started. No, actually, it's I started, like in January. I went to the college and and I was talking to some students there, and like, I wanted to go to law school. There's no law anything, nothing large at a junior college. So it was like, I'll go join the debate team. And it was in the debate team that I was in there, and this woman came into the room and said, Whose voice is that? And I turned around and said, What are you talking about? She said, Yeah, you, what are you doing at 330 today? And I said, she said, Good, come to room 708, and I went, and it was readers theater, so I did it. It was great. And, and then she was like, Really, my first mentor? Because. Also ran, she also did the speech program and competitional speech forensics, and I joined that, and I became the state champion, and I was undefeated, right for the two years I was at that school, but the drama coach asked me to do this musical called Golden Boy. And so I decided to, okay, you know, why not? And it was doing that musical that it was, it was, it was closing night, and on my that's why it was my birthday, you know. And, and I was singing the last song, I ain't bowing down. And it was in the middle of singing that song, I ain't bowing down, I ain't bowing down, that I had this revelation. And I mean, I stopped and listened. It was a, it was a, it was a, an epiphany. It was very clear. This is what you were put on this earth to do. And while I was reveling in that moment, one of the chorus, people in the chorus tapped me on the shoulder and said, I ain't bowing down. I ain't bowing down. Oh, and then I went back into the song and sang like I never sang, oh, you literally stopped. I literally stopped. I literally it was a whole communication, right? I want one of those. It was, listen, when you have epiphany, yeah, you've had epiphanies in your life.
Speaker 1 06:37
Mine are very subtle. I was just thinking about this. I think that was yesterday. Most of my best decisions have been non decisions because I feel like I've been led. Well, slowly.
Speaker 2 06:51
So, so in that regard, my whole life is about being led. Yeah, this book is about being led. The everything, every decision, is about being led. By being led, it is in terms of, of, it's an interesting thing. So, you know, let me introduce you to the other two people who are with me. On the left side here is Richard. This is my spiritual guide. This is a person that tells me everything that is true, that I need to know, the decisions I need to make, the things I need to do, the things I shouldn't be doing. And it's a very simple, quiet voice, don't do that. On the other side is Tricky Dick. This is a this is my alter ego side that is the most creative, imaginative, the inventor prone to excesses is it falls into dealing with all things euphoric. Wants a good time and experience and adventure and will challenge the slippery slope.
Speaker 1 08:14
I love that. Yeah, we don't, do? We all have it, or some people don't.
Speaker 2 08:18
I think we all have good and evil, light and dark, you know, making a wanting to make a decision, knowing you should, and something says, Oh, come on, and, you know, and you don't, and then you wind up, you know, dealing with the reality of the deja vu of what you saw and didn't look at and then, and You have to answer for it, or the things you saw, and it was like that was the gift, right? Yep, so that is very true for me in so many things as a teacher, I have, I am, I am channeled through me. Is the the clairvoyance, the cognizance, the sixth sense, when I'm dealing with another person, where my case is not on post, meaning my psychological considerations, my ego, all of that does not exist because I'm being I'm channeled for what I perceive about this person, and I can see the whole road for that person? Yeah. Now it's just about whether or not that person can see their road, and whether they buy into it and they go with it. You know what I mean? They find their purpose. Because for me, it's at the end of the day, beginning of the day. It's about, what is your purpose? Yeah. Why are you here? Why are you interested in something like show business is like, it's like, why do you want to do this? Is this a desire, or is this something you can't live without?
Speaker 1 09:48
Right? Because, if it's if it's option one, forget it. Forget it. Do anything else.
Speaker 2 09:54
Do anything else, because you're going to be beat up, because you won't be you. Won't be able to withstand the nose. Yeah? And no has to be a motivator. Yeah, no. People tell you. People tell me no. And it's like, look, I play with a group of guys on golf on Sundays. And you know, do you play golf? No. Okay, so golf is two halves, the front nine and the back nine. You pay 18 holes the front nine, there's a bet for the front nine. There's a bet for the back nine. There's a bet for the overall so the front nine, you get around hole six, you're either down or way down, or you're almost down, or you're even or you're up. If I'm down, my group says people in my group will say to other people in the group, look, don't look him in the eye. Don't say anything, don't poke the bear, whatever you do. Because I'm looking for that motivation. And if I see it and I sense it, then I'm a beast, because I'm going to come back somehow another it just makes me focused to overcome the challenges, the defeats, the you know, and my whole career has been like that, you know, when I first walked into an audition room back in 1970 here in LA, I recognized real early that these people don't see me like I see myself. I should be number one on the call sheet because I'm the leading man, but they have me down number 6570 so hey, no sweat. I see how it goes. I have to do it for myself. And so therefore I gotta, like, if I want it, I gotta go get it. Yeah. And so therefore that has been my mentality not to depend on. And so therefore, you know, I have to create my own and and create my own party and invite people to it. I'm not, I don't do well in other people's lines. You know, I'm saying so, bringing this all the way back to the book, all of that experience and all of that knowledge that I have, and all of those whelps upon my back in terms of the process, is all in my book, which is, I deal with how to be a good actor. But being a good actor is not enough. You have to know how to have a career, yeah, and you have to be a good artist. And so it's called show business. So I teach the show, but I also teach the business, because without the business, show just sits there. You're like a car in the driveway with the engine one running, and all you can do is just rev the engine. Yeah, you know you're sitting there saying, right, rather than getting in traffic and negotiating, you know the stops and the turns and the rerouting and the rerouting, because you have a destination in mind. You know what you're going after. You know why you're going after it, as opposed to just being a good artist. You know you're waiting on somebody to discover you.
Speaker 1 13:09
And so your students all knew that, that you you have this dual purpose, yeah. But did the world at large know that? Was that the goal with the book to show that there's two sides, and I know both sides.
Speaker 2 13:25
I didn't want to show it. I wanted to share it. You know, you know, it wasn't about, hey, look at me. Look what I know. It's like. I have this information, and I want to share it. For those that are interested in having a career, interested in handling their life, because one thing about having a career is one thing, but you got to handle your life and the people in it. You got to recognize who's on your bus. Yeah, you know, who's for you, who are the haters. You got to recognize how to monetize your stuff. You have to recognize how to deal with collaboration, working with people, you have to, you know, the three ingredients to success in this order is politics, personality and craft. You got to be able to get in the room. That means knowing people. And then once you're in the room, they have to like you. So that means you have to the person, your personality, your ability to engage, your ability to collaborate and communicate, your ability to make the space better, yeah, you know, to enhance so they say that guy you know, you have to, you have to create a relationship map. So that means that you have to keep adding people that you know, because you got to, you can't do it alone. You're going to have to bring in people, work with people. You're going to have to go and meet people, yeah. How do you stay in that room? So when you leave, they say, I like that guy. He's not only talented, but he'd be great to work with. You know? Yeah. Well. Of the things that John wrote a book, John Levy. John Levy, yeah, just had him on the podcast. Okay, great. So John can tell you that part of what he's looking for is people who's going to fit into the show and become a part of the family. That's so interesting. You know, who's if I'm going to be riding in a van with somebody for six, seven months. I want to like that person. I don't care how good you are. You can be great, but you can be a jerk. Yeah, who wants to work with a jerk?
Speaker 1 15:33
That's It's so interesting, because I think so many people do not understand that how important personality is, good attitude is. I was a writer for at least, you know, the first part of my career doesn't matter. Their politics and craft matter there. I'm now an entrepreneur, and those three matter a lot, a lot if you're a writer. I mean, the kind of writer I was, which was books. You know, screenwriting is different, but books, nobody really cared about your personality, yeah, more and more you got to go promote it, yeah, come on podcasts and you can't be boring, yeah? But, but so that. So this is all in your book, yeah? So you decided to do a book at this stage. So you, you said to yourself, this would be a disappointment if I didn't,
Speaker 2 16:21
well, it's sort of like going back to my assignment. It's my assignment that going back to my original epiphany, I put you here. It's not for me. It's not, I didn't put you here to be a star. Yeah, okay, okay, but being a star is part of the deal. It's part of what is going to give you the platform to say this and to do this and share this. Yeah, you know, because it's about sharing with people. Because ultimately, my whole purpose is to is to help people achieve their dreams. I see myself as a as a dream whisperer. I want to help you achieve your dreams, not achieve the dream that I see, but achieve the dreams, dreams that you see. How can I help you do that? And, and that's what I just automatically fall into, is somebody will tell me something, and all of a sudden what they're saying is, God, I see all kind of possibilities with that. You know what I mean? You know, you could do blah, blah, blah, you know, wow, you could. I was just talking to one of my cousins, who actually I met for the first time. Her father and I were like brothers, and he, he died, and I never met her. And and now she's, I think, 30 years old and married, and she's she works on this job, but one of the things that she her passion is wedding planner and and she has all these wonderful ideas. And you know her, her dream is to help people start their journey off in the most beautiful way. And I said, So, why aren't you doing that? Why isn't that your plan A and we got into a whole thing, and by the time we were done, you know, I helped her to reimagine, from her own ideas, what's possible, and then to start putting that into play so that it's not sitting in the corner that you will eventually dust off. It's something that you are, yeah, if you were, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1 18:24
and so, and so was the book that for you. So, because I think, did I read that earlier in your career, you were going to do a book about a plane, your plane crash.
Speaker 2 18:39
I was going to do I was going to do. I wrote the first parts of what was going to be so funny because it started off as just a scene that I was going to do in class. And then, then it was like, oh, wait a minute. This is a this is a one person show. Oh, this is a play. Oh, wait, this is a screenplay. Oh, it's a, it's a, it's a memoir. And it just kept, you know, asking the next question, and it kept growing, right? And so I wrote, I think, 200 pages of something that was the first part of the memoir. And, and I got to a place to where I just stopped and said, you know, more to be revealed, right? And, and I wrote some pretty cool stuff. I recognize that that I liked my madness, the way that I wrote, in the way that I saw things, you know, now that I'm taking that Trudy and I are now, you know, took those initial Notes. Uh, probably half of which I would rewrite or wouldn't use today, because, interestingly enough, I was 52 when I wrote that, and I'm 78 so it's been sitting on the desk. Yeah, and so now we're going into writing. And I did write about the the plane crash and and it wasn't just about the plane crash, but what it was about was what we were really talking about earlier. What it was about in the greatest revelation for me as to the inspiration even start writing this book was, was when I got on a plane, Richard clearly spoke and said, do not get on this plane. It is going to crash. Tricky. Dick says, hey, look, we're meeting this girl, and we're meeting this girl in Cleveland. We can't not go there. Look how beautiful she was. Off, off, off, don't What are you going to say? I was doing the drug program for the National Basketball Association. I ran the drug program. So I was I go to every 26 teams and 2727 teams in 26 cities, and 2017 and 20 six cities, because it was the Lakers and clippers in LA. So it it was like, I go to each team twice a year, and I talk about drug education, training, treatment and after care, and I need to go to the Cleveland Cavaliers. That's why I was going to Cleveland, right? And so, so Tricky Dick says, What are you going to tell David Stern, who is the Commissioner that you were afraid to fly? Huh? He's going to say, Well, maybe you should get another job if you're afraid to fly. So I had this whole dialog between these two sides of myself, get off this plane. Sit down. Get off this plane. Sit your ass down. And I'm right at the last moment. It's like, Get up, stand up. If you just stand up, they cannot take off. I unbuckle my seat belt, sit down. I slowly went back in my seat. Clicked the thing. Plane starts going down the runway, snow blowing sideways. Said, Come on, it's not going fast enough. It's not going fast enough. Come on. I was in my seat trying to make it go faster. Go faster. Plane took off, and then the wing stall, and then the rest is history. But and it crashed right away. It crashed on take off in the bay, right there at the end of the runway, and so I wound up upside down, trapped in my seat. And 27 people died. 24 people lived. But, but the point was this, I knew so that perception, once again, because it had, throughout my life, I had a series of things where it was like, Don't do this. And the deja vu of it was, you see, you knew, you knew. And so do what, you know, and I didn't. And so then it became about, you know, honoring, and I'm writing about that now. I'm writing essays about that. Now, trust the frequency. The frequency tells you everything when you have a vibe about something, when you have a vibe about a person, when you have a vibe about a situation, a contract, a partnership in the business, your friends, your sensibility, you know, should you turn here? Listen to the voice, listen to that that that perception, because it's true and you will always have the answer. It's just whether or not you're willing to listen and so, so that's part of the motivation in terms of doing the memoir, amongst other things. Because, I mean, I knew, you know, relationships, any relationship that did not work in my life. I saw it right from the beginning. But you know that free will says, Hey, no, we can make this work. We can make it work. Let's just, you know, and the reality is, is that it's like when music, when it's harmony, it's a beautiful sound. And. You feel at home, because it's comforting when it's disharmony. It's like somebody singing out a key. They're not going to hear the melody, they're going to sing out a key, and you want to live with that discordant sound. And so it's about listening to yourself. The answers are there. So how do you manage the rest of the life? How do you manage? I call it radio station, K, S, H, I, T, K, shit, you know, because that turns on, and are you going to listen to that, or are you going to breathe and slow down and make decisions that you know to be true, even when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. And so now my memoir is about going back, taking the best of what I wrote there, and all the other experiences that I've had in the last 2030, years, and and write about and write about that,
Speaker 1 26:04
right? Yeah, well, hopefully we'll get to work with you
Speaker 2 26:08
on that. Well, I absolutely, I loved working with you all.
Speaker 1 26:11
Well, so Okay, so when, when Caitlin, from my team, talked to you, she told me that you said the book helped me activate a movement. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2 26:25
Well, the you know when you are I don't remember specifically what I was talking about when I said that to her, but what I can tell you is, when you're sitting on something, because the one thing that did activate in me is that I'm writing a lot more back when I was writing then I was writing out of passion some I woke up in the middle of the night, three o'clock in the morning, I grabbed the tape recorder, and I just had to regurgitate. It was like projectile vomiting into this tape recorder. It was just because I had been sitting on stuff for so long now, since I've been writing, and since I've been looking at communicating storytelling, what it did activate in me is the need to write more and to need to put my thoughts and formulate my thoughts, and the need to create structural functionalism in the stuff that I write. So that there is, it has to have a structure, and then it and once you understand the structure, then it has to function properly, so meaning that you have to understand, you know, what's the theme of this? Like, for instance, my, my, my, that's one of the challenging things now, is that I've had a massive life when I when I look at all the stuff that I have down on paper, we have hundreds of pages of notes. Now, taking those notes and creating. What am I really going to talk about? Yeah, what's I can talk about? Well, in 1927 not 27 but, you know, this happened then, and this happened then, and this happened then this happened then it's like, okay, you know, let's take a break. We'll come back to this next week, and we'll go to the next 10 years. No, it's like, what's the theme of this? Yeah, what is this ultimately about? What's the point? Yeah, what's the event, what's the what's your a storyline and your B storyline, your C storyline, because I have so much to talk about that, and so it's in terms of trying to find that and activate that and and then the move in, this may be the movement that she's talking about, but other books have spawned, yeah, you know, I have ideas for my memoir. I have I'm now looking at three children's books, three different like, for instance, you know, like, like, elementary school, middle school, high school. And the point that the premise of it is, is that I take these three characters, Ricky Lee me, Richard and Tricky Dick. And I pointed towards, you know, young people and like, say, middle school. What kind of issues and problems do young middle school kids have where they're dealing with the voice that says, Johnny, you shouldn't be doing. Doing this, and this other voice that says, Come on, why not? And they're characters, and so you're dealing with these characters, and it's come up with some really interesting stories. And the stories and the the degree of the story dependent upon which the high school stories, the stories are a lot more involved, but I want to do a series of books with each of those, right? Another book is a book on precepts. You know, I have a hundreds of precepts that that are like guideposts and like, you know, strong sort of, what's the word? I want to affirmations, like dreams. Don't have expiration dates. That's trademark. Do your best and forget the rest. Never let your creativity pass through the lens of someone else's morality. What does that mean? And I go into that and I show people in terms of their career. What does that mean, you know, as an artist, and you think about, you know, your ideas, and you say, hey, what do you think about this? And someone says, Yeah, I don't like the character. Now, you shouldn't be drunk. And it's like, Wait, you're not writing this, you know. So that somebody is going to help me, it's going to say, Well, why is he drunk? How much is he drinking? You know? Yeah, you know. And ask the next question so that I can continue to to uncover the truth of what I've written. Yeah, right. So I don't want somebody else's morality on my and so it's an important tool. And so there's a book of that, and then there's another book dealing with third act solutions. Third act solutions is that I'm in the third act of my life. So people in the second and third act of their lives have kind of settled, have kind of like they've gotten off their their purpose and their path. Sidebar, but it relates, I do seminars, you know, based upon this technology that I created called the doing Declaration of Independence. And I was asked to speak at for these C suite, black women, women who chairman, CEO, COO, CFO, etc, and there was 600 of them in Long Beach. What am I going to tell people who've already succeeded? I said, Well, just do what you do. I went and we had this whole thing, and I took them through the thing to discover that most of these women got a job because they needed to get a job wasn't necessarily right in the heart of their what they wanted to do wasn't their dream, but it was a job that was going to provide a living. They did well. They were smart, and they worked their way up the corporate ladder, and then they eventually became CEO. It wasn't their dream once in this room with me, and they just went back and looked at what their original dream was and what their purpose was, they got reignited and re motivated to go after the thing that gets them up in the morning. So they're not just they're not just accommodating an intelligence and a skill that they acquired, but they're going after the thing that is next to their heart. Some of these people made a deal with the corporations to say, I'm going to give you five more years. You help me build my dream. I help you expand the company, and we replace this person, and then we become contiguous, meaning that I travel alongside of you, and I might be a third party vendor because of what I'm creating for this company. And it was like, Wow, interesting that how many people are really pursuing their dream.
Speaker 1 34:21
Well, since we do have to get back to the book, that's a perfect segue, that's
34:26
all in the book, go ahead, because
Speaker 1 34:29
I do feel like we end up working with people always, at least in their second act, sometimes in their third who have wanted to do the book their whole lives. Yeah, you know, they first read a book when they were five. They're 60, they're whatever it is, and they're ready, and it's very confronting. Yes, I find that we work with a lot of people who get frightened, and they're very successful. They are not accustomed to being frightened. Yes, they're in the sort of C suite position, yeah. And sometimes they can be their own worst enemy, totally. You
Speaker 2 35:08
know, they have people around them that help them to keep them away from chasing a changing and morphing back into what they really want, what environment is very important.
Speaker 1 35:22
But what's kind of beautiful about a book, not kind of what is beautiful about a book, which I've learned, is that it can serve both, it can be that creative purpose and also help your business. Yes, because a lot of these people, they are very passionate, like I am, about business, they it does feed them. Being an entrepreneur feeds me more than being a writer, right? I find it more creative, yes, so. So in terms of of your career, you went and you were promoting the book from jump that first week it was out, you were on Sherry, yes. What else happened?
Speaker 2 36:02
Well, I was on Sherry, and then I went to other places, and, and, and then I recognized that if I were to go back and do it again, I would probably I was trying to time the book in relationship to the release of of beauty and black, yeah, now the beauty, no pun intended, of the show is that which I didn't know initially, was that it it was going to be well, the first, the first, the first season became number one globally. So I knew that we were doing well. Didn't know that we were going to become number one across all streaming platforms, and that's huge. So that 1.3 billion people have laid eyes on the show, and that's magnificent. And so, so in order to do the tour, and really, and what I'm trying to do now is set up the audio book and set up a sub stack channel. You're on
37:41
substack. Yeah, I've subscribed. And you've already done
Speaker 2 37:44
all this. I've yes and, and so I'm, I'm trying to create this sort of like three event strategy between the sub stack and building that to a point in the audio book. And that is just now being released, right now. And then, going to set up a tour of that whole thing, the child. The real challenging thing is marketing in terms of trying to find what's the code to having this thing on your own, yeah, doing it on your own, as opposed to dumping it on Amazon, yeah, and then trying to push things to Amazon, where you only get whatever percentage you get
Speaker 1 38:34
the book sales. It's a rounding error compared to what the book can do for you professionally. Who cares about the book sales? I say it all the time, yeah, rather have 100 of the right readers read my book than 10,000 people whose lives won't
Speaker 2 38:49
change, right? Exactly, and that's part of what I'm looking at, is to get on that TED talk. I was just looking at this marketing thing in terms of creating value and creating, you know why people want to listen to you, so the sub stack thing is that I'm trying to create value by writing personal things, by interviewing people on on the show, and having It be behind the wall so they hear 15 minutes, 10 minutes of it, and then they got to go more to to subscribe, and that's that's coming, and that's building, and then getting ready to go out on tour with Horace, who plays my brother. His name is Rico, but his character's name is Horace, and the show was hot, so the two of us together would go Africa. A lot of people in Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, UK, yeah. And so just trying to build this ecosystem to where. Everybody is understanding and pointing to, like, I want to know about more about what this guy is saying and where he's coming from, and the truth that he tells, and that there's a certain there's a certain transparency, yeah, and like, you know, there's a certain kind of exposing, not exposing, just honesty and sharing of what is real and and have that build. And so I'm working on the marketing side of
Speaker 1 40:33
things, but I think you, I was so impressed with how you took off with the marketing that week, and you didn't, you didn't pause, because we did work quickly to get You're welcome, but, but you know, to make that deadline so that it would hit at the same time as the show. But you know, is there anything else that the book did? Did people look at you differently.
Speaker 2 41:02
People are looking at, you know, I've always been the teacher people of lot of people known about my past, yeah, in terms of teaching and the people that I've taught and the people that you know. I mean, you know, when I was teaching for my mentor, Milton conselles, you know, we were teaching people like George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer, Patrick Swayze, Giovanni, robisi, Doris, Roberts, Jenna Elfman, Jim Carrey, on and on and on and on, hundreds, hundreds of people who've had amazing careers, yeah, and who were also like George Clooney, you know, was able to turn that into enterprise where writer, director, entrepreneur, business owner, you know, own, bought that tequila, yeah, and, and as as an example. And so people are becoming more and more aware of all that I'm doing. Yeah, and so it's going out there. I don't know if you've seen any of the latest things that I posted on IG Oh, using Sara, which is the AI tool. Yeah, some crazy I'll show you before I leave. It's really fun. And people are starting to pick up on that, just so that it's not your standard. You know, go buy my book on my audio book. You know that it's fun things, and, yeah, and just to bring attention to it,
Speaker 1 42:49
so would you say the book led to the sub stack?
Speaker 2 42:53
The book led to the sub stack and, and, interestingly enough, some some, in terms of, of, you know, went through a divorce, yeah, and, and those two years were very interesting, just because of the nature of the zip code of the marriage and the people involved, yeah, you know. And so therefore, and the things that have been said, wherever that these things came from, whatever you know, the negative things that was put out there, things like, what you he did, what he know, type things you know, and, and, and then certain political things happened. And what I recognized was, I need to be able to control my own destiny so that the business, you know, if you get what's the word cancel? That's the word Yeah, if you get canceled that they can't cancel you. They can cancel you in one space, but not in all spaces. I
Speaker 1 44:13
love that. So a book, would you say it's it's the ammunition against getting canceled.
Speaker 2 44:20
It's the ammunition. It's the brilliant it is the ammunition against getting canceled and stuff stack is, is, is the, is the pay window that the normal social media like social media, I dared. I wish someone could try to explain algorithms, yeah, I know, you know. I mean, yeah, so algorithms is just some you know entity that says, Well, we're going to push this your way. Oh, maybe not, you know. And it's like, Wait a minute. How many followers I have, and how come this not going to them? I hate, really. Reading the thing and says, Here are the hidden comments. Yeah, I know. Why are you hiding comments? Yeah, how do you judge to hide comments? I know. And so that is a window into what is really being hidden. You have no control, yeah. And and with AI is getting ridiculous, yeah. And so therefore, it's in terms of, how can I learn enough about AI to where it's helping me? Yeah? And also, where can I put my wares, where people can come and see my stuff and it's attached to an email? Yes, it's not, it's out of somebody else's control,
Speaker 1 45:39
yeah? So, and that is that is really, really smart, because, yeah, selling a book on Amazon, to me, is necessary, yeah, and it's actually terrific marketing. Yes, I a lot of people talk about, oh, sell the book yourself directly, you know, through Shopify, and you get the consumer's email address. I think the way you're doing it is much smarter. Sell it through Amazon, get their email address separately, and then they're your audience. They're not Amazon
Speaker 2 46:07
their audience. Yes, exactly, exactly. And if you got something to say that people is worth listening to, you know, you may not have the massive platform, but, but but, you know, it will scale up to that, because little by little, people will know you exist because, in because of what I'm doing, I'm in several different, you know, mediums, and I'm doing like, I have a movie coming out called aftershock at the end of November, besides beauty and black, and besides my book, besides my audio book, and besides the other books that I'm going to put out there, the children's books that I want To create, I want to have more than one hyphen, yeah, I want to have more than one, you know, I want to be multi hyphenate, because I want to create event strategies where, you know, three event strategies at least where, you know, that's one of the things I have great respect for. Beyonce. She's brilliant marketer, right? Yeah, so she would, so she would, she was, she would be on the Super Bowl, but her tour is kicking off. Yeah, her books are releasing. Yeah, her movie is being released. Her albums are releasing, and some other things. Now she has a liquor line, and, you know, this cosmetic line, and so therefore she's in all these spaces. And so she's not just an artist trying to sell albums that she's getting pennies on the millions of downloads. You know that she's making money in spaces where she can control her own destiny, yeah? And so pay taking from that playbook, you know, I'm trying to do the same thing,
Speaker 1 48:13
yeah, you know, yeah. Well, you had an up close front seat for that,
Speaker 2 48:17
yes, yeah, I did. I did. And it was like, and I've seen that before. There's a guy named Ken Craig and who wrote a book you may want to, I don't know if it's still in print, but he was a, he was a major manager. He managed Kenny Rogers, Lionel Richie, the bee, gees, many other people. And he wrote a book called Life is a contact sport. Mm, hmm. And he talked about three event strategies, you know, and, and that was a book that I used in my teaching. It was like part of the, you know, the required reading, just so you understand that, you know, don't expect to survive in this business just by being in one zip code, yep, you have to be multi hyphenate, and being able to use that and learn. And today, marketing is becoming a whole nother animal. I know. I know whole nother animals.
Speaker 1 49:16
I tell people I have friends who are starting businesses, and they say, Okay, I'm going to put this as a story on my Instagram. I go, No, if you want a business, you got to be sharing about it all day, every day, every day, and you got to love your topic so much that you're not sick of it. And you got to get over yourself, because you're going to feel self conscious, yeah? And you got to remember what you said, which is, it's not about you, it's about the person you're reaching?
Speaker 2 49:41
Yes, about the person, it's about what you're talking about. Yeah, you know, delivering what you're talking about to the person that might be interested or that is very interesting, yeah. So you got to do a little research, and you also have to look at the data. Yeah, you know, you, you know, you got all these things. One of the things in. Terms of my sub stack is that, you know, I got all these different things, you know, like, like, what are the things that make you go, WTF? Yeah, like, driving up to a stop sign, a stoplight, driving up to, driving up to a stoplight, looking over, and somebody's digging in their nose, and they look at it and admire it and then put it in their fucking mouth. What the fuck
50:28
good argument for not looking
Speaker 2 50:31
so I put up stuff like that, right? Yeah, you know, and other stuff like, you know. Look, I may not know everything, but what I do know is that every goodbye ain't gone. So I do stuff like that, and a bunch of other stuff that is just interesting, fun stuff. But I also, I also get deep with stuff, yeah, and and also vulnerable with stuff, and I talk about my own life, and I show, you know, I show works from stuff that I've done and behind the scenes of so it's like, I'm trying to create a world where it's like, this is an interesting, you know, this is an interesting world this guy lives in, and I want to know more. And he has a lot to say, and I like what he's saying. We
Speaker 1 51:19
got to wrap up. I wish we didn't final words about the book and what it did for you and what it ignited in you and what it did for your career.
Speaker 2 51:28
Yeah, well, first of all, let me say your people really, you know, Caitlin is the best. She was really wonderful, and she was always so positive and cheerful. So if you all are out there wanting to write a book, then go to legacy, because they take care of you. Yeah, they do a great job. My book looks good, and I'm really happy with the way that it is. But, you know, the final words is like, you know, I just want to continue, you know, serving the world and being of service? Yeah, I'm really about being of service and and trying to help people, you know, to create the life that they want and the life that they have dreamed about. And it's never too late. Know that dreams don't have expiration dates. It's never too late to start. Yeah, how old you
Speaker 1 52:18
are, and if people want to find out more about you. They should definitely subscribe to the sub
Speaker 2 52:22
stack. They should subscribe to Richard Lawson studios, dot sub stack.com Yep, or go to Richard Lawson books.com to get you know access to my books or IG is at Mr. Richard
Speaker 1 52:39
Lawson, Richard, thank you so much for being here.
52:43
Thank you so much. This was fun. Okay,
Speaker 1 52:45
good. And Thanks y'all for listening. See you next time. Well, that means a lot, because I know you've been interviewed a lot, so I'm glad you had.