At the beginning of her decades-long career as a broadcast journalist, a network executive told Connie Chung she would never make it in the industry.

“I was not only a woman, I was Chinese,” Chung, 78, said on NBC’s TODAY show as she promoted her new memoir, “Connie.”

Chung, who did groundbreaking work as the first Asian American and second woman to host a major network show, said the doubts never stopped her. In her 40 years as a journalist, Chung has anchored for nearly every major network. In her 20s, she covered the Watergate scandal and later interviewed everyone from Magic Johnson to Donald Trump to Bill Clinton.

She usually worked across from a white man or in rooms surrounded by white men.

“Usually it was a ‘he’ who had delusions of grandeur, who talked too much, whose heads didn’t fit in Madison Square Garden,” she told TODAY.

Instead of shying away, Chung decided to develop an “armor.”

“I decided I was going to be a guy,” she said. “I was going to be spunky, I was going to have guts, I was going to have a cheeky mouth.”

In her memoirs, she recounts all of these events, from her most difficult assignments to her marriage to television star Maury Povich to her retirement from her career after adopting a son and becoming a mother at almost 50.

“Maury was the one who said, ‘We have to do this because you’re old,'” she said in another segment of TODAY with Hoda and Jenna.

She said adopting her son gave her perspective on life beyond work and how fulfilling it can be.

“I was focused on myself and my job, I was so self-absorbed,” she said. “I’m finally putting all my love into this beautiful baby… I’ve decided this is what it means to have a child. I love someone other than my silly career.”

Chung also reflected on her impact on the Asian American community, recounting the time she met a group of women who were named after her. Some of the women, born in the U.S. to immigrants or immigrants themselves, were given the name “Connie” because Chung was the only recognizable Chinese American face on television.

She describes herself as “dutiful” and “determined” in her pioneering years. But also unable to be satisfied with herself.

“I think it’s partly because I’m a woman and partly Chinese, but I could never call it a success,” she said on CBS Sunday Morning, where she also stopped by to promote her memoir.

After learning about the Connie generation, she said she truly realized the impact of her illustrious career.

“They were the ones who declared me successful,” she said. “If they think I have broken through a bamboo ceiling and they want their daughters to follow in my footsteps in one way or another, I have to accept that role.”