Enabling through Humility and Openness

By Steven Mercado, 6 min read

In this episode of The Bread Podcast, hosts Andy Chung and Ariel Silva interview singer/songwriter and, more recently, interior designer Tim Ouyang. He shared the importance of letting down our pride and egos, being open and honest with others, and the transforming impact that can have on their lives. Take a look at some of what Tim had to say:

BE TRUE TO YOURSELF

For most of my life, I have tried to assimilate to the world around me. I've tried to, oftentimes, be somebody that I'm not. My parents are first-generation immigrants, so for me, assimilating into American culture was really important, and as a result, I hid a lot of aspects of my personality, of my cultural upbringing, and also, I'm gay as well, and so there was that aspect of my life that I was also trying to hide for most of my life.

DISARMING WITH HUMILITY

I grew up in very, very conservative circles, very conservative churches, I've had very conservative friends, but I would say that for me, in navigating through all of that, I've found that if you don't take things personally, if someone disagrees with even who you are, your identity, like someone who is racist against you, or someone who is homophobic, whatever you want to call it, I've found that if you give me 5 minutes or an hour with somebody who doesn't like me or disagrees with my belief system or who I am, give me an hour with that person, I'll talk to them, and even though I might not change their mind, I feel like I will change their attitude. When you make yourself open and vulnerable, for the most part, there are some crazies out there, I don't want to diminish that, but for the average person, if you come from this place of like, "I'm not going to defend myself, I'm just going to tell you my story, this is where I come from," you disarm people. You disarm them, because everybody comes into these conversations wanting a fight. I think that's why art and music is so effective too. I genuinely choose to not argue or engage with people in that way. I try to use music as a way to just communicate who I am. 

UNDERSTANDING AND HUMANIZING

When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, Tim wrote a post on his Tim Be Told Facebook page to speak on the situation. When Tim received angry comments from some people, he chose to respond in a humble and understanding way.

“There were a couple of people who got really angry at me for the way I phrased certain things and they started commenting saying things like, you don't know what you're talking about. Instead of arguing with them and getting mad about it, I just said, you know what, I'm really sorry that I expressed that in the way that you took it and I really hope that you understand where I'm coming from. I really do believe there are people that voted a certain way because they have a certain belief system and I don't think that they're necessarily evil people. The guy that was saying this stuff was shocked, and he responded in a comment, and was just like, wow, that was so gracious, I didn't expect that.

 What people don't realize is you just have to shift somebody's perspective just a small amount, just a small degree, and it takes them on a completely different trajectory. You don't have to change someone's mind completely, you just have to show them that none of us are monsters. That's why I make music. It's one of the most human things that you can do. Music kind of bypasses a lot of the surface stuff, all of the armor that we put on, and it penetrates through that, and it kind of hits people in the soul.”

REDISCOVERING THE JOY OF HONEST WORK

“For me, there was a time period where I was wondering, why am I doing this? I don't know if what I'm doing is effective, I don't know if what I'm doing has any value, and I felt like I was trying to make music to make people like me. That was when it started becoming really depressing. Instead of making art from a place of wholeness, from a place of "I am enough," and from a place of outpouring, it felt like I was taking my own poverty of soul and trying to take from that little that I barely had to make more music so that people could consume it and make me money. That was such a draining process, I hated it.

So, for me, after I came out in 2017, I took a long break from doing any performances because I basically blew up my life. I blew up my whole world.

In that time period where I was not concerned about getting social media likes or making sure that I was selling enough music, that's when I started writing music for the latest album that I did. It was probably one of the most honest pieces of work that I've ever done, and one of the things that I'm most proud of in my music career. It might not have garnered as much attention as some of the stuff that I've done in the past, but I was so much happier making it, and that was the thing that mattered to me the most, was the joy of making music came back.”

DIFFERENT FIELD, SAME IMPACT

“In the same way where in music, I saw it making a difference in people's lives, I've seen the interior design thing do the same thing. It's a different type of art, but it's really cool, because I even had a friend who I helped redo their kitchen. She was telling me that her and her husband were fighting all the time because the kitchen was so disorganized and they couldn't function in it. She said it was the source of a lot of strife in their marriage. I went in there and reorganized their whole kitchen and basically made everything more beautiful, more functional, and a couple of months later, she said to me, this has changed my life. I don't fight with my husband about this anymore. You just think about that, how such a seemingly superficial change can make such a big difference for someone's personal life, that, to me, is so cool.”

We hope you enjoyed this installment of The Bread Podcast. You can hear the full conversation by looking up “The Bread Podcast” on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Be sure to check out our previous episodes as well!