tavis: his name is bruce feiler . his book is no. 5. the book is called "the secrets of happy families." i am always honored to have you on this share. that is our show for tonight. see you next time. good night, and as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. join me next time for a conversation with actress angela bassett and fuqua.r antoine that is next time we will see you then. >> there is a saying that dr. king had that said there is always the right time to do the right thing. i try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only halfway to completely eliminating hunger and we have work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more.

join me next time for a conversation with author bruceing feiler about "the secrets of happy familiesis next time. we will see you then. >> there is a saying that dr. king had that said there is always the right time to do the right thing. i try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only halfway to completely eliminating hunger and we have work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. stamp hunger out. pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

sanjay gupta introduces us to bruce feiler, a devoted husband, father and writer who overcame a rare bone cancer. >> reporter: i first met bruce three years ago when he was trying to rebound from a cancer diagnosis, grappling with the possibility of dying before his twin daughters, eden and tybee, grew up. facing his own mortality. >> i could just feel my body sort of slipping away. >> reporter: he makes an extraordinary request. >> will you help be their dad? >> reporter: thankfully, bruce and his family got through that. and today bruce has no evidence of cancer in his body. with all that behind him, he has resumed doing what he does best, writing. his new book is called "the secrets of happy families." what inspired you to write this book? >> we were always on the defense. and that's what it's like to be a parent these days. we made a list of all of the things that the kids have to do in the mornings. and then here's the key. they have to check off their own lists. a lot of what we are doing here is trying to kind of bring them into the process, be less top down, be less kind of pa

a piece that bruce feiler wrote in "the wall street journal." >> yes. >> called family inc. there's -- you should have a ceo who runs your family. one of the parents should be the ceo. and, you need to have group meetings, and conference calls? i mean how should this work? >> well, i was frustrated as a parent. our lives were chaotic and out of control. and i was especially frustrated with the family improvement industry. that the only ideas we're allowed to implement must come from these family experts. but the truth is, we have, women are in the workplace now. we have dads much more interested in parenting and this new generation of parents is taking ideas from the workplace and bringing them home. and as you mentioned one of the ideas that many family that i interviewed are doing is they're having family meetings. and here's the -- >> what's a family meeting? you almost equate it to a board meeting, the way i thought about it. >> well, it's a 20-minute meeting and you basically ask three questions. what's going well? what's not going well? what will you work on in the wee