By Casey Lartigue Jr.
Last year at this time, I was in the process of gathering more than 900 pages of notes. My grand plan? Release a book in 2022 marking my 10th anniversary of working with North Korean refugees. As former champion boxer Mike Tyson has said, however: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
My professional career has been focused on empowering others. The person who has said it the best is a South Korean lady named Cecilia (her father, Hwang Won, was abducted to North Korea in 1969): "You are the person who makes invisible people visible. You listen to people, find out what they need, and try to find people who can help them so their voices can be heard. I finally feel that I have the power for my voice to be heard."
I have passed up opportunities to be highlighted to focus on empowering others. Most notably, in 2015, a documentary director wanted to do a feature about me being a black man who had come to South Korea to work in solidarity with North Korean refugees. "That sounds like a wonderful story," I informed the documentary team, "but that's not what happened."
I could write a book later, accurately and on my own terms when I have more free time and had accomplished more. Lee Eun-koo and I were setting up an organization empowering and educating North Korean refugees with English, public speaking, and career development.
Then COVID-19 hit and I was left with more free time to write.
As I was organizing my notes and outline last year, I got punched in the mouth when a North Korean refugee asked me to co-author her memoir. Songmi Han had joined our organization in late 2019 as a student studying English (not public speaking). We hired her as a special assistant in early 2021.
It turned out that the quiet lady who rarely talked about her life in North Korea had some humorous stories to tell. I asked her one day if she had considered writing a book. "My story is too sad, no one wants to read it," she would insist, even as she often had me laughing out loud.
Her reasoning? She was neither a celebrity nor a YouTuber. She hadn't been part of North Korea's elite and didn't know about North Korea in general.
She later told me that after talking it over with her mother and thinking more deeply about it that she wanted to try. She told me some of the personal reasons that were motivating her.
She was worried, however, about a few things. One, she didn't want to talk about the North Korean regime or politics. Two, she feared having to do much media or public speaking (she had never given an interview or a speech).
Then, she punched me in the mouth. "Others have said I should write a book, but I said no without considering it. You are the only person in the world that I trust to tell my story. I can only write it if you help me."
Uppercut. Hit the pause button on my own book, click back into empowerment mode.
We started working on her book, but she still wasn't convinced anyone would want to read it. I started a pre-order campaign to test if people were interested. She was surprised when a few people pre-ordered the book. Then when 100 people had ordered the book in advance through our website, she felt more confident, announcing on her social media with a small following that she was writing a book. When we hit 650 pre-orders, I was surprised with her new confidence level that she didn't completely take over the book and dump me.
Selling 650 books in advance won't get her on the New York Times best-seller list, but she never imagined when she was struggling in North Korea that anyone would be interested in her story.
Our organization's mission is to empower North Korean refugees to engage in public speaking, and it was happening before my eyes quite dramatically. She explained: "Life has been happening to me. For the first time, I feel like I am making life happen."
Songmi will be making her public speaking debut next month timed with the release of her book, "Greenlight to Freedom." She has sent two thank you notes to people who ordered the book in advance.
So what about my book? I suspect that I will have more than 1,000 pages to sort through.
Punched in the mouth, I will instead focus on 2023 marking the 10th anniversary of empowering and educating North Korean refugees through the organization I co-founded with South Korean Lee Eun-koo.
Getting punched in the mouth doesn't mean that I got knocked out.
Casey Lartigue Jr. is co-author along with Songmi Han of the forthcoming book, "Greenlight to Freedom," and co-founder along with Eunkoo Lee of Freedom Speakers International (FSI).
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My professional career has been focused on empowering others. The person who has said it the best is a South Korean lady named Cecilia (her father, Hwang Won, was abducted to North Korea in 1969): "You are the person who makes invisible people visible. You listen to people, find out what they need, and try to find people who can help them so their voices can be heard. I finally feel that I have the power for my voice to be heard."
I have passed up opportunities to be highlighted to focus on empowering others. Most notably, in 2015, a documentary director wanted to do a feature about me being a black man who had come to South Korea to work in solidarity with North Korean refugees. "That sounds like a wonderful story," I informed the documentary team, "but that's not what happened."
I could write a book later, accurately and on my own terms when I have more free time and had accomplished more. Lee Eun-koo and I were setting up an organization empowering and educating North Korean refugees with English, public speaking, and career development.
Then COVID-19 hit and I was left with more free time to write.
As I was organizing my notes and outline last year, I got punched in the mouth when a North Korean refugee asked me to co-author her memoir. Songmi Han had joined our organization in late 2019 as a student studying English (not public speaking). We hired her as a special assistant in early 2021.
It turned out that the quiet lady who rarely talked about her life in North Korea had some humorous stories to tell. I asked her one day if she had considered writing a book. "My story is too sad, no one wants to read it," she would insist, even as she often had me laughing out loud.
Her reasoning? She was neither a celebrity nor a YouTuber. She hadn't been part of North Korea's elite and didn't know about North Korea in general.
She later told me that after talking it over with her mother and thinking more deeply about it that she wanted to try. She told me some of the personal reasons that were motivating her.
She was worried, however, about a few things. One, she didn't want to talk about the North Korean regime or politics. Two, she feared having to do much media or public speaking (she had never given an interview or a speech).
Then, she punched me in the mouth. "Others have said I should write a book, but I said no without considering it. You are the only person in the world that I trust to tell my story. I can only write it if you help me."
Uppercut. Hit the pause button on my own book, click back into empowerment mode.
We started working on her book, but she still wasn't convinced anyone would want to read it. I started a pre-order campaign to test if people were interested. She was surprised when a few people pre-ordered the book. Then when 100 people had ordered the book in advance through our website, she felt more confident, announcing on her social media with a small following that she was writing a book. When we hit 650 pre-orders, I was surprised with her new confidence level that she didn't completely take over the book and dump me.
Selling 650 books in advance won't get her on the New York Times best-seller list, but she never imagined when she was struggling in North Korea that anyone would be interested in her story.
Our organization's mission is to empower North Korean refugees to engage in public speaking, and it was happening before my eyes quite dramatically. She explained: "Life has been happening to me. For the first time, I feel like I am making life happen."
Songmi will be making her public speaking debut next month timed with the release of her book, "Greenlight to Freedom." She has sent two thank you notes to people who ordered the book in advance.
So what about my book? I suspect that I will have more than 1,000 pages to sort through.
Punched in the mouth, I will instead focus on 2023 marking the 10th anniversary of empowering and educating North Korean refugees through the organization I co-founded with South Korean Lee Eun-koo.
Getting punched in the mouth doesn't mean that I got knocked out.
Casey Lartigue Jr. is co-author along with Songmi Han of the forthcoming book, "Greenlight to Freedom," and co-founder along with Eunkoo Lee of Freedom Speakers International (FSI).
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