Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. Let's start, as so
Speaker 2: many gen X stories do, with Oprah. She's not my girlfriend,
Speaker 2: but if she was, I like to imagine she'd give
Speaker 2: me the kind of advice she gave today's guest. It starts,
Speaker 2: Oprah said, with a whisper. But if you ignore that whisper,
Speaker 2: it comes thumping you on the head, and that thump
Speaker 2: turns into a problem.
Speaker 3: You might not have.
Speaker 2: Oprah in your girl group to alert you to whispers
Speaker 2: and thumps, but Melinda French Gates does, and today I
Speaker 2: talked to her about the whispers that turn into thumps,
Speaker 2: that turn into something we know a lot about at
Speaker 2: this time in our lives, transitions. The whisper that Melinda
Speaker 2: and Oprah were talking about was the one that Melinda
Speaker 2: could no longer ignore that after twenty seven years of marriage,
Speaker 2: of raising kids, and running a global foundation with her husband,
Speaker 2: Bill Gates, me, Linda knew her marriage was over. I'm
Speaker 2: going to read you a short extract from her new
Speaker 2: book next day about that moment when Melinda knew she
Speaker 2: couldn't ignore the whisper or the thunking on the head.
Speaker 2: It was incredibly destabilizing to find myself in that position.
Speaker 2: I had never ever imagined that I was someone who
Speaker 2: would get divorced. My three siblings are all in stable,
Speaker 2: happy marriages. My parents have been married for sixty three years.
Speaker 2: I had spent almost my entire adult life invested in
Speaker 2: this man and our family. After all of that, to
Speaker 2: contemplate approaching my sixtieth birthday single on my own it
Speaker 2: seemed unthinkable, until gradually it didn't. At some point I
Speaker 2: noticed that quietly my default assumption had changed. Once I
Speaker 2: had wondered how could I possible leave, now I wondered
Speaker 2: how can I possibly stay.
Speaker 3: I didn't travel a straight.
Speaker 2: Line to the answer. There were days when I was
Speaker 2: certain I knew what I wanted to do, followed by
Speaker 2: days when I was no longer sure. There were days
Speaker 2: when I felt confident I'd reached a final decision, and
Speaker 2: days when I went back on what I'd decided with
Speaker 2: the clarity of hindsight. I think it's fair to say
Speaker 2: that even through this excruciatingly circular decision making process, my
Speaker 2: inner voice was clear and unequivocal that I needed to get.
Speaker 3: Out of my marriage.
Speaker 2: It was the other voices that made me doubt it,
Speaker 2: voices around me that asked a lot of questions, starting
Speaker 2: with but what about what about the kids, one of
Speaker 2: whom was still under eighteen? But what about our foundation?
Speaker 2: What about having to tell my family? I didn't really
Speaker 2: care what the news coverage would be like or what
Speaker 2: the headlines would be. But the thought of telling my
Speaker 2: very Catholic parents was horrible. And then there was the
Speaker 2: other complicating factor, maybe the most complicated of them. I
Speaker 2: loved Bill. Not only that, but I valued our family
Speaker 2: life deeply, and I felt enormous responsibility to the foundation
Speaker 2: we'd started together. Was I going to rip it all apart?
Speaker 2: Was I going to forego the future we'd imagined for
Speaker 2: so long? That was an extract from Next Day by
Speaker 2: Melinda French Gates. And if some of that rings a
Speaker 2: bell with you, I'm pretty certain that just as you
Speaker 2: or I don't have Oprah on speed dial, we're all
Speaker 2: so likely not divorcing one of the world's richest men.
Speaker 2: But the inevitability of transitions isn't only for the privileged.
Speaker 2: Next Day, Melinda's book is about the day after the
Speaker 2: big thing happens, As French Gates writes, the real work
Speaker 2: starts the next day. The next day, when the graduation
Speaker 2: confetti has been swept up, or the wedding favors have
Speaker 2: been handed out, or the movers have departed, leaving you
Speaker 2: in a sea of cardboard boxes. It's when the real
Speaker 2: transition truly begins. And we can all feel that, even
Speaker 2: if our transition don't make headlines and don't come with
Speaker 2: extra zeros and decisions that will impact global philanthropy, I'm
Speaker 2: Holly Wainwright, and I am mid and I don't get
Speaker 2: to interview the likes of Malinda French Gates every day,
Speaker 2: a deeply impressive, intelligent, empathetic woman who, after being one
Speaker 2: of the few female computer science enthusiasts at her school
Speaker 2: and then university, had a major role to play in
Speaker 2: establishing Microsoft with her then husband, and an even bigger
Speaker 2: role after her kids were born in the Bill and
Speaker 2: Melinda Gates Foundation, which had delivered more than seven billion
Speaker 2: dollars in grants by the time Melinda left it. Her
Speaker 2: purpose now is to advance the cause of women and girls,
Speaker 2: and she has already, through her pivotal ventures, pledged to
Speaker 2: donate one billion dollars to that cause over two years.
Speaker 2: So I was nervous and delighted to have this conversation
Speaker 2: inspired by the book about the big transitions that Gates
Speaker 2: wants to talk about, motherhood, loss, divorce, career, shock, big birthdays.
Speaker 2: She was unsurprisingly warm and professional, boundaried, and full of
Speaker 2: the kind of wisdom I might expect from a woman
Speaker 2: who gets her life advice directly from Oprah. And so
Speaker 2: here is Melinda Frenchgates all the way from America. Melinda Frenchgates,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for being here with us today.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me Holly.
Speaker 3: Your book it's beautiful, it truly is. I really loved it.
Speaker 2: I was very moved by it. Often I wish I'd
Speaker 2: had a physical copy because I would have scribbled like
Speaker 2: it was one of those books that I took a
Speaker 2: lot of notes through. And I think that there's an
Speaker 2: enormous amount in here. Although your life has obviously been
Speaker 2: certainly not ordinary, there's an enormous amount in here about
Speaker 2: the transitions that most grown up women, as I like
Speaker 2: to call us, go through in various at various times,
Speaker 2: whether that's you know, right from leaving home and starting
Speaker 2: career to motherhood, to the loss of loved ones, kids
Speaker 2: leaving home, and of course divorce. And there's a lot
Speaker 2: to talk about in all those transitions, and we will.
Speaker 2: I would love to start, though, if you're happy to,
Speaker 2: with the chapter about divorce, because you write so beautifully
Speaker 2: about it, both with a lot of honesty and restraint.
Speaker 2: That chapter starts with a recurring dream that you were having.
Speaker 2: Would you tell us about that?
Speaker 1: Sure? I start that chapter with a dream I kept
Speaker 1: having about being on a cliff and it falling away,
Speaker 1: and I was on the cliff falling away, and my
Speaker 1: family was on the other part of the cliff. And
Speaker 1: I'd had the dream enough times that you know, it
Speaker 1: didn't take a lot to figure out what it was about.
Speaker 1: And I knew I was at a transition point where
Speaker 1: I had some really tough decisions to make, and I
Speaker 1: knew I could only make them on my own. And
Speaker 1: I talk about in that chapter amongst many transitions, but
Speaker 1: in that chapter, I really talk about distilling your inner voice,
Speaker 1: that you really have to listen to that place inside
Speaker 1: of you that maybe has been whispering to you for
Speaker 1: a long time. You've been trying to ignore it, but
Speaker 1: that you need to tend to it and see what
Speaker 1: it has to say to you.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. You say it starts with a whisper.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if maybe you're quoting Oprah when you
Speaker 2: say that, but that often it starts with a whisper.
Speaker 2: Whatever that truth is, and it can be very difficult
Speaker 2: to tune into it. Do you have advice for people
Speaker 2: who are trying to tune into that, whether it's in
Speaker 2: a difficult part of their life, whether they're just worrying
Speaker 2: and ruminating, or whether it's really time to listen to
Speaker 2: that voice.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that you can do it in several
Speaker 1: different ways, you know. I also talk in the book
Speaker 1: quite a bit about friendships, and in my case, many
Speaker 1: female friendships. I talk about some males too, but female ones.
Speaker 1: I think we plant ourselves in other trusted relationships, like
Speaker 1: really trust a relationship, pieces of ourselves, and if we're
Speaker 1: being honest with ourselves and our friends are being honest
Speaker 1: with us, they know us in deep ways and they've
Speaker 1: known us. If they've known you over the course of
Speaker 1: your life or a long period of it, they also
Speaker 1: have a view on you that you don't always have
Speaker 1: on yourself and so when I talk about listening to
Speaker 1: your inner voice, for me, it was for sure journaling
Speaker 1: and starting by writing down what that, as Oprah calls it,
Speaker 1: that whisper was saying to me, really spending time and
Speaker 1: reflecting on it, but then also over a period of
Speaker 1: time talking to different friends about you know, how have
Speaker 1: I changed, how have I not changed? What were my
Speaker 1: hopes and dreams? Where am I with those? And so
Speaker 1: I think we can if we spend at least in
Speaker 1: my case, time in quiet meditation or time alone, or
Speaker 1: also journaling, but also in the context and company of
Speaker 1: friends and or in therapy, you start to really, at
Speaker 1: least in my case, I started to really listen to
Speaker 1: my inner voice.
Speaker 2: The book's called The Next Day because, as you write,
Speaker 2: transitions really begin the day after a life defining moment.
Speaker 2: I just want to read you a tiny bit of
Speaker 2: what you say about that you say, the real work
Speaker 2: starts the next day. The next day when the graduation
Speaker 2: confetti has been swept up, or the wedding favors have
Speaker 2: been handed out, or the movers have departed, leaving you
Speaker 2: in a sea of cardboard boxes. The next days when
Speaker 2: we begin to make choices. Sometimes unconsciously about how we'll
Speaker 2: respond to change, what will carry forward, and what we'll
Speaker 2: leave behind. If someone picks up this book because they
Speaker 2: find themselves on the edge of that next day, it's
Speaker 2: full of wisdom, But do you think there's a particular
Speaker 2: piece of wisdom that's very useful for deep breath this
Speaker 2: next stage.
Speaker 1: I would say, leave room for your plans to change.
Speaker 1: So on that next day, as you said, let's say
Speaker 1: you've even moved houses and you're sitting in the sea
Speaker 1: of boxes. You know, you may think that everything you
Speaker 1: carried from the old house is one you want in
Speaker 1: your new space, your new living space. But you know,
Speaker 1: when you get to that new living space, be open
Speaker 1: to maybe the lights flooding in in a different way
Speaker 1: than you expected, maybe you appreciate something differently in this
Speaker 1: space than you had in the last. And maybe there's
Speaker 1: actually more you need to let go of that's in
Speaker 1: those boxes that you didn't clear out before you moved,
Speaker 1: before you start placing everything in its place. So I
Speaker 1: talk about in these transitions that leave room what I
Speaker 1: call in the clearing in that space in between. In
Speaker 1: a transition, once you've ended something and before you start
Speaker 1: something next, there is huge growth that can happen, but
Speaker 1: you have to leave yourself open to that growth.
Speaker 2: One of the themes that runs through the book actually
Speaker 2: is from when you were a little girl, is that
Speaker 2: you're very goal oriented. You talk a lot about your
Speaker 2: binder of goals and plans and how one of the
Speaker 2: big lessons has been to allow the space for things
Speaker 2: to change right totally. There is a wonderful in the
Speaker 2: chapter about parenthood. There's a really wonderful bit about this
Speaker 2: because you say that even in your first pregnancy with Jen,
Speaker 2: you realize the process of letting go of perfectionism started
Speaker 2: right when you were pregnant, because you were like, I'm
Speaker 2: going to eat what I want to eat, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to deny my Well things tell me a bit
Speaker 2: about that about perfectionism and how sometimes it can.
Speaker 3: Hold us back.
Speaker 1: Well, I will say in my case, but I've also
Speaker 1: talked to a number of other women, many actually, who
Speaker 1: we hold ourselves to this perfect standard. Whatever that perfect
Speaker 1: standard is, it's different in different people's mind. There actually
Speaker 1: is no such thing. But I think sometimes it's because
Speaker 1: of either what's happened to us in life or messages
Speaker 1: that we get along the way of how we're supposed
Speaker 1: to look, how we're supposed to dress, how we're supposed
Speaker 1: to act in a business setting, in a personal setting,
Speaker 1: and if you let all of those voices in, you
Speaker 1: sort of create this image of who you're supposed to be.
Speaker 1: But that's not realistic. And so for me at least,
Speaker 1: in dropping the perfection and saying, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: good enough, like take me or leave me if you
Speaker 1: like me the way I am, great, if you don't,
Speaker 1: too bad. As soon as I sort of started to
Speaker 1: let that drop, I write about this in that chapter
Speaker 1: and I call it's the ease of letting go. You
Speaker 1: start to live into who you are and you let
Speaker 1: go of some of those expectations. And quite frankly, for
Speaker 1: me at least, it cleared out a lot of mind
Speaker 1: space that I could spend on other things and other times.
Speaker 1: And in parenting, I learned the concept. I wish i'd
Speaker 1: learned it earlier. My kids were in middle school and
Speaker 1: I learned it, but I learned the concept of a
Speaker 1: good enough parent. I kept trying to be this perfect mom, this,
Speaker 1: do it well, work well, all of that, and there
Speaker 1: is no such thing. It was an illusion in my
Speaker 1: mind and once I realized, once I read the definition
Speaker 1: of what a good enough parent is, I could say
Speaker 1: to myself, I am definitely a good enough parent. And
Speaker 1: guess what. It made me less anxious. It took, you know,
Speaker 1: this whole level of just I just let down and
Speaker 1: let go some and guess what, it made the thing
Speaker 1: easier for my kids too. They talked about, oh, Mom,
Speaker 1: you weren't kind of on our case so much, or
Speaker 1: you didn't expect me to like look a certain way
Speaker 1: when I left the house, or you were less anxious.
Speaker 1: So it ended up being a really wonderful concept, and frankly,
Speaker 1: I wish i'd learned it earlier.
Speaker 2: There's a piece of wet parenting advice from your mother,
Speaker 2: though that I actually scribbled down, which was you said,
Speaker 2: I don't know if neuroscientists would back this, but it
Speaker 2: rings true to me. You said, the children come in
Speaker 2: sort of eighty percent who they are, and we're playing
Speaker 2: with the ten percent at the edges, so holding them
Speaker 2: back from the worst ten percent, I guess of their urges,
Speaker 2: encouraging them to push towards the ten percent best that
Speaker 2: I found that idea very very freeing in a way,
Speaker 2: and I think that that's really interesting as well as
Speaker 2: what Michelle Obama said to you. I think this could
Speaker 2: only be your book where I'm quoting Michelle Obama to you,
Speaker 2: but that she says that my job is to set
Speaker 2: them free, you know, to grow into humans, not look
Speaker 2: after little babies.
Speaker 3: Can you tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: Yes, my mom also said, you know, her job was
Speaker 1: to give us our wings to fly, and she, you know,
Speaker 1: she was clear that when we launched for college, it
Speaker 1: wasn't going to be easy for her. She loved us deeply,
Speaker 1: but I always knew that she saw us as independent
Speaker 1: human beings and that we should. Her job was to
Speaker 1: help us develop and grow and then give us our
Speaker 1: wings to fly and to be who we're supposed to
Speaker 1: be in the world. And so I took that into
Speaker 1: parenting my children as well. And as I said in
Speaker 1: the book, I believe that about from her, eighty percent
Speaker 1: of their characters formed. And so when I could realize that, okay,
Speaker 1: I really can only affect kind of these edges, keep
Speaker 1: them from their worst self and nudge their best selves,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it just takes some pressure off, you know,
Speaker 1: and especially for me at least, it helped me appreciate
Speaker 1: each child for who they were, because my three couldn't
Speaker 1: have been more different. A girl, boy, girl, such different personalities,
Speaker 1: and I hear many parents say this, and so even
Speaker 1: the way I parented each of them was slightly different
Speaker 1: based on you know, how tough were they on themselves
Speaker 1: about their grades and schoolwork versus where they slacked. Was
Speaker 1: one of them slacking off a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: and the ones that were so tough on themselves, I
Speaker 1: had to tell them to calm down, You're doing fine, right,
Speaker 1: And the one who maybe was slacking off a little
Speaker 1: you have to kind of prop that one up a
Speaker 1: little and go, okay, come on, you know, get down
Speaker 1: to work for a bit here. So it helped me
Speaker 1: to see each child for who they were and parent
Speaker 1: them for who they were, not trying to mold them
Speaker 1: into some mold amorphous mold I had in my head.
Speaker 2: Friends, there is so much more of My conversation with
Speaker 2: Melinda Frenchgates did not go away.
Speaker 3: We'll be back in a tick.
Speaker 2: In talking about that transition into parenthood, you also talked
Speaker 2: about the transition into being a working parent and the
Speaker 2: guilt that you felt. First of all, you talk about
Speaker 2: the transition of deciding to be the primary parent, the
Speaker 2: person who is going to be at home. And I
Speaker 2: wanted to just ask you quickly about that. If you think,
Speaker 2: now that's a decision that every family has to make,
Speaker 2: and if sometimes that can feel a little bit like
Speaker 2: a trap for women because it's nearly always them who
Speaker 2: becomes that parent, what do you think, Well.
Speaker 1: I think it's very different by family. Look some families,
Speaker 1: I was in an incredibly privileged position that we didn't
Speaker 1: need both spouses incomes. There are many families that need
Speaker 1: both spouses incomes if they're going to put their kids
Speaker 1: through school and have the house that they want, right,
Speaker 1: But if you're lucky enough that both spouses don't have
Speaker 1: to work, What I say to women is whatever choice
Speaker 1: you make is going to be fine. Whether you choose
Speaker 1: to stay home and raise the kids and go back
Speaker 1: to work later, you choose to stay home forever, you
Speaker 1: choose to work full time while you have kids. Any
Speaker 1: choice is yours to make, and society should let you
Speaker 1: make that choice. So I think too often we sort
Speaker 1: of assume the woman's going to stay home. And yet
Speaker 1: I can't speak to Australia, but I can speak in
Speaker 1: the United States. Of most parents today that have children,
Speaker 1: in both heterosexual and homosexual couples, both parents are working,
Speaker 1: So that is more the norm today than otherwise. And
Speaker 1: the other thing I guess I learned over time when
Speaker 1: I let go of the guilt of the fact that
Speaker 1: I wanted to work and have children. In my case, again,
Speaker 1: I was very lucky I could choose my work, and
Speaker 1: I chose that I really wouldn't work full time until
Speaker 1: my youngest ended up in preschool, that you know, I
Speaker 1: would be home for those early years. But as my
Speaker 1: kids say to me now, Mom, we're glad you worked
Speaker 1: like you weren't this completely hoavering parent, helicopter parenting me,
Speaker 1: and we could see that you also got meaning from
Speaker 1: your work, and we want to work. Like all three
Speaker 1: of my children, our adults now they're in their twenties,
Speaker 1: they all want to work. Right, You find meaning both
Speaker 1: in I think if you choose to have children, raising
Speaker 1: children and in meaningful work.
Speaker 2: Absolutely and clearly that was a very good lesson to
Speaker 2: show them, because in your particular case, I guess your
Speaker 2: children could have said, we're.
Speaker 3: Not going to work.
Speaker 2: And you know the value of it when you transition
Speaker 2: to being a working mum. You were working at the
Speaker 2: Gates Foundation, and you talk about the guilt and wishing
Speaker 2: there was another hour in the day every day, which
Speaker 2: is very relatable to nearly every working parent. Do you
Speaker 2: think that guilt, when it is very much a choice
Speaker 2: rather than necessity, do you think that guilt is harsher?
Speaker 2: And when you talk to young women, because I'm sure
Speaker 2: that many women would young women would ask you about
Speaker 2: how to juggle career and family, what do you tell
Speaker 2: them about dealing with that guilt?
Speaker 1: I tell them to work on it, to name it,
Speaker 1: to work on it, and that they are good enough.
Speaker 1: And I've also said I've asked many of them, do
Speaker 1: you know this concept of a good enough parent? And
Speaker 1: if not, I tell them what it is and I
Speaker 1: can say, well, do you think you're living up to that? Right?
Speaker 1: I think I will say this. I know so many
Speaker 1: young women that have that guilt, and I remind them
Speaker 1: that this is kind of universal for women. But the
Speaker 1: sooner they can work through it and drop it, the
Speaker 1: better off they're going to be and their child's going
Speaker 1: to be. And I also will often point out to them,
Speaker 1: your child is thriving, I mean, and they really are right,
Speaker 1: you know, But we have all these expectations on ourselves
Speaker 1: as women, or society puts them on us. Other women
Speaker 1: and other men put those expectations on us at times, absolutely.
Speaker 2: The empty nest because your children obviously are grown up.
Speaker 2: Now you write about the joy of being a grandparent.
Speaker 2: That's a big transition too, that no longer being my
Speaker 2: to do list is as long as my arm, I'm
Speaker 2: juggling everything.
Speaker 3: Have you found joy in that transition?
Speaker 1: Massive joy is right, Yeah, it is, you know, when
Speaker 1: you finally suddenly wait up and realize, oh, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm at a point now in life where
Speaker 1: my kids just don't need me as much. I mean,
Speaker 1: they still need you some in college, but then when
Speaker 1: they launch, it's even less right, and then to have
Speaker 1: these grandchildren. You don't get to pick when you have grandchildren.
Speaker 1: I don't know any grandparent that's got to make the
Speaker 1: decision of how old they were when their child has
Speaker 1: a child. But it's a wonderful thing because all of
Speaker 1: a sudden you find yourself doing the things you did
Speaker 1: with your children, going down the slide again, you know,
Speaker 1: running barefoot in the grass, trying to do a summer assault.
Speaker 1: If you still can, and at least for me, it's
Speaker 1: quite motivating to do my squats in the gym so
Speaker 1: I can lift up those grand babies off the floor.
Speaker 3: Absolutely just to shift gearze.
Speaker 2: I hope you don't mind me saying, but perhaps my
Speaker 2: favorite chapter in the book, I'm the one that did
Speaker 2: actually make me cry was the one about the loss
Speaker 2: of one of your closest friends, about dealing with grief
Speaker 2: and lost John Nielsen. John and his wife Emmy were
Speaker 2: very good friends of yours and Bills, the kind of
Speaker 2: magical couple friends where you go on holiday together and
Speaker 2: you share a lot of landmarks. And John died much
Speaker 2: too young. Among a lot of the beautiful emotional pieces
Speaker 2: in that chapter, there's also some very I thought, some
Speaker 2: very practical advice for people who are going through or
Speaker 2: trying to support friends through very difficult times in grief.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a bit about ring theory?
Speaker 1: Sure. Ring theory is this concept of understanding that the
Speaker 1: person who is going through the hardship in the middle,
Speaker 1: say they're sick with cancer or they're in a situation
Speaker 1: where they're dying. Understanding. You know, if you think about
Speaker 1: dropping a stone in a quiet pond, you see the
Speaker 1: ripples that go out, and understanding which ring you are
Speaker 1: around that person in the center is really important. Are
Speaker 1: you in the innermost ring? Probably not if you're a friend,
Speaker 1: that's usually the person's family. Are you in the next ring?
Speaker 1: Are you one of the closest friends. Okay, maybe you're there.
Speaker 1: Are you kind of a little more distant than that,
Speaker 1: Maybe you're in a third ring, or maybe your business colleague,
Speaker 1: you're in the fourth or fifth ring. But knowing where
Speaker 1: you are, which ring compared to the person in the center,
Speaker 1: and then making sure that if you're grieving that person's loss,
Speaker 1: because you probably are that you're going to lose them,
Speaker 1: you never dump that into the center. You always dump
Speaker 1: it to somewhere out in the ring, further out. And
Speaker 1: your job for the family and the people closest in
Speaker 1: in the ring is to be a comfort for them.
Speaker 1: And yes, you're grieving, but you don't put that on them.
Speaker 1: And I was able to get permission from one of
Speaker 1: my absolute favorite spiritual poets and authors, Mark Nepo. He
Speaker 1: calls it being a greenhouse, and that's what I labeled
Speaker 1: the chapter, and that is even when you can do
Speaker 1: nothing for that person, no more meals, No more you know, interactions,
Speaker 1: no more phone calls, because they really are, you know,
Speaker 1: near the end. What you can still provide then, and
Speaker 1: all the way along the way is and light and
Speaker 1: they will feel it and their spouse will feel it,
Speaker 1: and they will know that it's there. And sometimes that's
Speaker 1: the most you can do. And yet that is also
Speaker 1: beautifully beautiful and incredibly important.
Speaker 2: That the greenhouse part is a part I immediately texted
Speaker 2: to a friend. So this is, you know, in terms
Speaker 2: of I think your book, as I say, helping a
Speaker 2: lot of people through transitions. I immediately texted that to
Speaker 2: a friend because I thought it was so beautiful. And
Speaker 2: your friends feature very prominently in this book because those
Speaker 2: relationships are clearly very important to you. And I'd love
Speaker 2: you to tell me a bit about your truth counsel.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So there's a group that I walk with every
Speaker 1: single Monday morning that I'm in town rain or shine,
Speaker 1: and it rains a lot in Seattle, especially certain months
Speaker 1: of the year. And we have walked together now for
Speaker 1: over twenty years. And what I can say, it's three
Speaker 1: other women. One of them is Emmy Nielsen, who passed
Speaker 1: away his wife Emmy. We know each other deeply. We
Speaker 1: have lived through ups and downs in our marriages. We
Speaker 1: have lived through you know, I live through John's death,
Speaker 1: as to one of the other women in the group.
Speaker 1: We've lived through raising little infants and kids, to middle schoolers,
Speaker 1: to high schoolers, to college and beyond. We're now many
Speaker 1: of us moving into the grand parent phase and we
Speaker 1: just know one another deeply, and we try to offer
Speaker 1: comfort to one another candor about ourselves and our ups
Speaker 1: and downs, and even reminding people each other of maybe
Speaker 1: they're going something hard, through something hard, but we can
Speaker 1: remind them of a beautiful time. Or maybe they're struggling
Speaker 1: with one of their children or adult children, and we
Speaker 1: can remind them the perspective we have on that child.
Speaker 1: So we just are really a truth counsel. And I
Speaker 1: call it that because for me, I wouldn't show up
Speaker 1: there and hide something from that group. And if I
Speaker 1: fel fel like I want to hide something and not
Speaker 1: tell them on a Monday morning, I have to kind
Speaker 1: of stop and say, Hmm, what am I hating from myself?
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't I want to reveal that? What is it about?
Speaker 1: If they really are my truth counsel, what is it about?
Speaker 1: That because and that helps me keep on the path
Speaker 1: of my values.
Speaker 2: That's a really interesting filter is to think that why
Speaker 2: wouldn't I tell these women about this? Obviously women supporting
Speaker 2: women are making their lives better as a massive focus
Speaker 2: of your life, and we will get to purpose soon
Speaker 2: because I think friends help us through these difficult transitions
Speaker 2: so much. Do you think it's very much friend's role
Speaker 2: to bolster and support or also to sometimes call us
Speaker 2: out when we maybe are not being that honest about
Speaker 2: what's happening.
Speaker 3: In our lives. Are you the calling out friend?
Speaker 2: Are you the one who'll say, hey, you've been complaining
Speaker 2: about this for too long now?
Speaker 1: It depends. It depends on where that friend is in
Speaker 1: parsing through their deep feelings about something. So if they're
Speaker 1: still in a grieving phase, it's too bolster and support.
Speaker 1: If it's more in a phase of maybe transition, but
Speaker 1: maybe they're not quite seeing something that I have noticed,
Speaker 1: or they're not being completely honest with themselves. I try
Speaker 1: to think of a graceful way to bring something up,
Speaker 1: because I've really learned that in friendship it's really our candor.
Speaker 1: We so often don't see ourselves right. We so often
Speaker 1: as one spiritual leader talks about Byron Katie that you
Speaker 1: have to look at the finger that's pointing out at
Speaker 1: somebody else. Say you're mad at somebody and you're pointing
Speaker 1: a finger, How dare they? How could they? You have
Speaker 1: to look at the three fingers pointing back at yourself,
Speaker 1: and so often we don't. Right. There's an old passage
Speaker 1: in the Bible. I think that says, why is it
Speaker 1: we see the splinter in our neighbor's eye and not
Speaker 1: the log in our own? And we so often don't
Speaker 1: see ourselves? And so I feel like with true friendship,
Speaker 1: I do want them to be candid with me, gently candid,
Speaker 1: but candid, and vice versa.
Speaker 2: Talking about the things that get you through the transitions.
Speaker 2: You write about meditation, and you write about therapy. You
Speaker 2: actually write that as a product of a sort of practical,
Speaker 2: very Catholic upbringing. You used to think that therapy was
Speaker 2: for other people until you found the right therapist. Can
Speaker 2: you tell me a bit about that journey?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think part of it might have been, you know,
Speaker 1: the generation I grew up in part of it, as
Speaker 1: I grew up in the South and I was Catholic,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, it seemed like it was maybe for
Speaker 1: other people. But then luckily again I had a friend,
Speaker 1: not as part of that walking group, but a different
Speaker 1: friend in one of my spiritual groups who gently said
Speaker 1: to me, you know, Melinda, when she saw I was
Speaker 1: going through a really tough time in the marriage, she
Speaker 1: was said, have you ever considered therapy? And she was
Speaker 1: really gentle about it, but I knew exactly what she
Speaker 1: was saying, which is I think you would benefit from it?
Speaker 1: And I resisted the idea at first, but then I realized, no,
Speaker 1: she's right, I could at least just try it and
Speaker 1: see I might like it, I might not. And I
Speaker 1: even talk about in the book I had one therapist
Speaker 1: that just wasn't quite right for me, and I had
Speaker 1: to switch to a different one. The reason I put
Speaker 1: that in the book is I want people to know
Speaker 1: it's you know, you do have to find the right match,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't always happen on the first go round.
Speaker 1: And that's okay.
Speaker 2: You're right that you were going and saying there's this
Speaker 2: problem at work, it's a work problem, and then they
Speaker 2: was sort of like, I don't think it's a.
Speaker 3: Work problem, but generally brought you to that that's that thing.
Speaker 2: Isn't it about you not being able to see what's
Speaker 2: right in front?
Speaker 3: Necessarily we can't.
Speaker 1: We so often can't, And so again you have to
Speaker 1: have somebody who's not going to judge you, who's compassionate,
Speaker 1: who can let you work through that thing that's there
Speaker 1: on the surface that might actually be a problem. And
Speaker 1: in this case it was actually a problem of toxic employee.
Speaker 1: But over time they could get me to see that
Speaker 1: there was even a much deeper problem than that one
Speaker 1: going on. So yes, deal with that problem on the surface,
Speaker 1: it's here and now, but let's get to some of
Speaker 1: the deeper things going on.
Speaker 2: The nerve to cool things out and make big transitions
Speaker 2: is the thing you've got to find in yourself, right,
Speaker 2: and you write about also finding that in meditation. Almost
Speaker 2: every smart woman I speak to on this show tells
Speaker 2: me that meditation is an absolute key part of what
Speaker 2: gets it through.
Speaker 1: Why it's a game changer, because you steal yourself down
Speaker 1: and you can start to see your feelings and your
Speaker 1: thoughts bubble up, but you don't have to stay in
Speaker 1: those feelings or thoughts. You start to learn that, oh
Speaker 1: those will pass. Oh that's just a thought right now, Oh,
Speaker 1: you can examine your thoughts. Is that true? That not true?
Speaker 1: And at least for me, it's been a place where
Speaker 1: I can quiet my mind down the busy noise of
Speaker 1: the day, the busy mind, and just get a sense
Speaker 1: of sort of essence and being. And it's just it's
Speaker 1: a beautiful place. And I can't recommend it more highly.
Speaker 1: And I have one of my friends in my walking
Speaker 1: group says, very wisely, do what you can, not what
Speaker 1: you can't. So if you can only spend five minutes
Speaker 1: in meditation a day, praise yourself for the five minutes.
Speaker 1: Don't beat yourself up that it wasn't ten minutes. Or
Speaker 1: you spend ten minutes in meditation a day, don't beat
Speaker 1: yourself up that it was ten minutes and not twenty.
Speaker 1: Do what you can, not what you can't. And I
Speaker 1: think of it as those drops in the bucket. You know,
Speaker 1: if you put a drop in a bucket every day, eventually,
Speaker 1: maybe it's going to take you ten years, but you
Speaker 1: fill that bucket with water every day. If you put
Speaker 1: a drop of meditation in, you are going to change
Speaker 1: your life, and you'll change your mind, and you'll change
Speaker 1: your thinking.
Speaker 2: I think enough people have told me this now that
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 3: Clearly it is clearly true.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about goals and purpose because you
Speaker 2: say in the book that you're something of a reformed
Speaker 2: goal setter.
Speaker 3: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2: Like you said, you know, you were very driven as
Speaker 2: a young woman, which you clearly had to be because
Speaker 2: you were making it in what must have been, particularly
Speaker 2: then but still is a very male dominated field. So
Speaker 2: being very focused must have helped you enormously.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I write about goals and goal setting in
Speaker 1: the book, some of which honestly are highly embarrassing. I
Speaker 1: wrote down a few of them that I had I
Speaker 1: put in the book a few of them that I
Speaker 1: had written down as an eighth grader and it's high school.
Speaker 1: But it helped me, see, you know how, My goals
Speaker 1: hopefully are a little more lofty now and have changed.
Speaker 1: But I think goals served an amazingly good purpose in
Speaker 1: my life, particularly, as you say, because I was in,
Speaker 1: you know, a very male dominated feel I was a
Speaker 1: computer scientist in college. I worked at Microsoft in the
Speaker 1: early days, so it me going. It kept me focused
Speaker 1: and driven. I still to this day have goals in
Speaker 1: mind and ideas of where I'm going, but I'm not
Speaker 1: as rigid about them. I leave room for more growth
Speaker 1: and more openings and more flexibility, Like, okay, I mean
Speaker 1: a big lofty goal I have is how do we
Speaker 1: lift women up all over the world because families. I
Speaker 1: just know this from good data and from seeing it
Speaker 1: myself over many years of traveling families, communities, societies are
Speaker 1: better when women are lifted up and have their full power.
Speaker 1: So it's a big lofty goal to get there. But
Speaker 1: I don't have these rigid goals of Okay, this year
Speaker 1: we have to get from this number of CEOs to that,
Speaker 1: or this many women in politics to that. It's much
Speaker 1: more that I leave room for flexibility and change depending
Speaker 1: on the strategies I'm trying to evoke, and quite frankly,
Speaker 1: based on even the economic or the political environment. So
Speaker 1: I still have goals, but they're a little bit more loose,
Speaker 1: is what I would say.
Speaker 2: So would you advise women who are maybe again on
Speaker 2: the edge of one of these big transitions and they
Speaker 2: can't yet see, like if you're you know, if you're
Speaker 2: going through a marriage breakdown or if you're in grief,
Speaker 2: the idea that there is another side can be very
Speaker 2: hard to see. Do you think goals play a real
Speaker 2: part in helping you get there, like the stepping stones
Speaker 2: to get there?
Speaker 1: Well, I can only speak to my experience, and I
Speaker 1: would say, at least for me during that time, no,
Speaker 1: having somebody hold out the perspective for me that, look,
Speaker 1: your life is going to be beautiful on the other
Speaker 1: side at some point. Yes, even once you once it's finalized,
Speaker 1: will certainly be rough patches of things having to get
Speaker 1: sorted out. But having somebody hold that perspective. But at
Speaker 1: least when you're in that transition, or I was in
Speaker 1: that transition, there was so much grief and pain that I,
Speaker 1: you know, I couldn't see whether I was going to
Speaker 1: have a wave of one day or be just fine.
Speaker 1: Some days I'd wake up and I was kind of
Speaker 1: just fine, and other days I was just you know,
Speaker 1: could hardly pick myself up to go to work. And so,
Speaker 1: at least for me, I wouldn't say goals helped. Then.
Speaker 1: It was more just knowing I was growing and I
Speaker 1: was going to be okay, and that I was surrounded
Speaker 1: by other you know, just really close family and friends.
Speaker 1: As I was going through a difficult time, and I
Speaker 1: also will say I learned that you need to at
Speaker 1: least you need to lean into that kind of support
Speaker 1: in a way that maybe you never have before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, women are very good at being I'm fine.
Speaker 3: I don't need it. I'm fine.
Speaker 2: Don't worry about me looking after everybody else. I appreciated
Speaker 2: your generosity of including an anecdote though during your divorce
Speaker 2: of one time when you pulled the car over and
Speaker 2: listened to a sad song and how to cry, and
Speaker 2: then just got.
Speaker 3: Back on the road and kept driving. I thought, that's
Speaker 3: very relatable. Fail, the failing, get it out. Let's get
Speaker 3: on with it.
Speaker 2: After this shortbreak, the rest of my conversation with the
Speaker 2: very brave and very wise Melinda French Gates, including her
Speaker 2: decision to leave the foundation that she had spent so
Speaker 2: much of her life building. Your transition is in stages,
Speaker 2: as you were saying, you know, obviously there was your separation,
Speaker 2: and then that you were still very much involved with
Speaker 2: the Gates Foundation. Now you have your own organization, which,
Speaker 2: as you say, is very focused on women. I would
Speaker 2: love you to tell me a bit about Pivotal and
Speaker 2: also how you're feeling about this mission of lifting women
Speaker 2: up in what is, let's be honest, a very difficult
Speaker 2: time globally, and sometimes it can feel like our daughters,
Speaker 2: maybe granddaughters too, are not even going to have the
Speaker 2: same rights that we had. How is it feeling well.
Speaker 1: Part of my decision to leave the Gates Foundation was
Speaker 1: one it's in very good shape and that work will
Speaker 1: continue as a great board, a great CEO, good leadership.
Speaker 1: So I knew that work would continue to go forward
Speaker 1: and go forward well. But I also felt that with
Speaker 1: watching our rights rolled back even in the United States,
Speaker 1: a decision taken by our Supreme Court, literally my granddaughter
Speaker 1: right now has less rights than I had growing up.
Speaker 1: That just shouldn't be. And so when you see such
Speaker 1: a big step back, for me, it's a call to action.
Speaker 1: It's saying, Okay, we've got to work on this, We've
Speaker 1: got to do far more. And so I started to
Speaker 1: look at you know what's going on here? Why have
Speaker 1: so many organizations been on the defensive on this issue. Well,
Speaker 1: they haven't been well funded. We don't do a lot
Speaker 1: of funding to gender based organizations. And so I came
Speaker 1: out of the Foundation and I immediately made a one
Speaker 1: billion dollar commitment. A piece of it is to support
Speaker 1: organizations really holding up women's rights. Another piece of it
Speaker 1: is for women's health. We don't do great basic science
Speaker 1: research for women's health come out with drugs that will
Speaker 1: help women for diseases that are specific to them or
Speaker 1: that they experience differently than men. Another piece of it
Speaker 1: was supporting global leaders who are pushing forward women's rights,
Speaker 1: whether it's the women Shabana in Afghanistan who's dedicated her
Speaker 1: life to making sure Afghani girls get educated, or whether
Speaker 1: it's other global leaders thinking about, you know, how do
Speaker 1: we expand women's rights and access for women's So I
Speaker 1: wanted to signal that I think this is just a
Speaker 1: really important place that we need to make investments, and
Speaker 1: so I'm hopefully also role modeling and leading by example.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, can it be difficult too? I mean, I know
Speaker 2: that you can affect change at so many different levels,
Speaker 2: but can it be difficult to remain optimistic and positive
Speaker 2: in the face of everything that's happening? And also I
Speaker 2: wonder about that more broadly for you, because you have
Speaker 2: obviously for decades with the Gates Foundation, traveling the world
Speaker 2: seeing real disadvantage and very difficult situations, particularly for women
Speaker 2: in goals, but not only how do you remain positive,
Speaker 2: optimistic focused on the mission?
Speaker 1: Well. I write about this a bit in my previous
Speaker 1: book in twenty nineteen, The Moment of Lift, which is
Speaker 1: you know, I have traveled the globe and been in
Speaker 1: many difficult situations in low income countries where you see
Speaker 1: the devastation of poverty. You see women who are barely
Speaker 1: eking out a living in a very small field, and
Speaker 1: they have five children, right, and they can't find work
Speaker 1: and their husband can't find work. I always remember that,
Speaker 1: first of all, I'm unbelievably lucky both to be in
Speaker 1: those situations where the women will share their deep stories
Speaker 1: of their life, but that I get to leave at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, right when the trip's over,
Speaker 1: I get to go home and I have warm running
Speaker 1: water in a clean shower and a toilet. Right. So
Speaker 1: you have to hold both of those things in juxtaposition,
Speaker 1: and I talk about in that book you have to
Speaker 1: actually feel the feelings and let your heart break. I mean,
Speaker 1: my heart breaks for these families that they're in that situation.
Speaker 1: What if that was me? What if that was my children? Right,
Speaker 1: So you have to feel the feelings and let them
Speaker 1: move through you, and that can take some time, and
Speaker 1: then I can move from there to say, Okay, now
Speaker 1: what do I do? What's the call to action here?
Speaker 1: About how I might incentivize others, myself and others to
Speaker 1: help lift up people in those situations and to keep hope.
Speaker 1: I look for moments of light and joy, you know,
Speaker 1: you look for someone who's just simply kind to somebody
Speaker 1: else who's I was in a situation in Malawi with
Speaker 1: a family who had some food but not a lot,
Speaker 1: and you know what they were doing. Every night they
Speaker 1: would take a meal. The mom would, after she'd finished
Speaker 1: the day making the meal for her family, serving it,
Speaker 1: she would give a meal to her oldest child and
Speaker 1: have them walk it to a woman in the village
Speaker 1: whose husband had died a year before, and so they
Speaker 1: were feeding that woman every night. She could count on
Speaker 1: a meal from them, from part of their family meal.
Speaker 1: And I thought, my gosh, I mean they are barely
Speaker 1: eking it out over here, and yet talk about giving
Speaker 1: something to your neighbor. Right, So when you see these
Speaker 1: points of light and these moments of joy, or I
Speaker 1: have a moment of joy even with one of my granddaughters,
Speaker 1: you know, it just fills you up and you remember
Speaker 1: that it's all these little drops in the bucket or
Speaker 1: points of light that ultimately lead to good things, even
Speaker 1: when there are big world setbacks.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask about that in terms of us
Speaker 2: getting older. I know sometimes I look at my own mother,
Speaker 2: who's a strong feminist woman, and sometimes she can get
Speaker 2: very disheartened that at this point in her life she
Speaker 2: feels like that's being rolled back a little bit. And
Speaker 2: I know that you work with so many amazing young women.
Speaker 3: Are you OPTI?
Speaker 1: I am? I am When I see the way young
Speaker 1: women are approaching their bodily autonomy or approaching work, or
Speaker 1: by hook or by crook, getting themselves through college, you know,
Speaker 1: they have opportunities that our mothers did not have. Is
Speaker 1: it easy? No? And are there still lots of barriers? Yes,
Speaker 1: but you are seeing more women starting to make it
Speaker 1: in society. Have they reached all the top levels and
Speaker 1: the right numbers? Definitely not? But are more of them
Speaker 1: graduating from college and getting the career that they would
Speaker 1: choose to get in some countries. Yes? And so I
Speaker 1: constantly look for those points of light, And so I'm
Speaker 1: I stay a realist about what the truth is because
Speaker 1: I look at the data a lot. I help collect
Speaker 1: the data on women around the world, but I also
Speaker 1: remain an optimist. I also try to remember that societal
Speaker 1: norms and movements to take a long time. You know,
Speaker 1: we're working on something really hard here changing norms, but
Speaker 1: it is possible. And you know, I even look at
Speaker 1: over the course of Nelson Mandela's life, Look how long
Speaker 1: it took him to get the change she and others
Speaker 1: were pushing for in Africa, but he ultimately got it.
Speaker 1: So sometimes it is, you know, a step forward and
Speaker 1: it feels like, oh, two steps back, but you just
Speaker 1: got to keep marching forward and hoping those steps stay
Speaker 1: forward over the long term.
Speaker 2: For the version of you that was studying computer science
Speaker 2: and was the only, well one of the very few
Speaker 2: women in that world, hopefully that at the time that
Speaker 2: has shifted. But yet it seems still looks, certainly visually
Speaker 2: at the moment, very front and center for all of
Speaker 2: us lots of male tech leaders. Do you think that
Speaker 2: that is shifting enough or do you think that representation
Speaker 2: of this sort of extreme masculinity in that world is
Speaker 2: a bit excluding to women still?
Speaker 1: Well, I never like anything that pits men versus women.
Speaker 1: So optically you're seeing a set of technology billionaires. Let's
Speaker 1: call them out, you know, kind of front and center.
Speaker 1: But here's what I would say. At the time I
Speaker 1: was in college, women were on the rise like men.
Speaker 1: In computer science, we got up to about thirty seven percent.
Speaker 1: Just like law and medicine in the United States, law
Speaker 1: and medicine kept going up, and now we graduate about
Speaker 1: fifty percent females. fIF you're sent males in medicine and
Speaker 1: in law. Computer science, it went up, and it took
Speaker 1: a precipitous drop. There has been, though, a concerted effort
Speaker 1: over the last five years to start to bring those
Speaker 1: numbers back up, and they are coming back up in
Speaker 1: computer science. So I will know that we are finally
Speaker 1: making it when I see, you know, fifty percent of
Speaker 1: graduates in computer science being women. But it will take
Speaker 1: a long time for women's to get to the upper
Speaker 1: echelons of those fields. Women still aren't there in medicine.
Speaker 1: They're getting there in the law, but it just takes time.
Speaker 2: This book required a lot of vulnerability from you, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask about that as you again in
Speaker 2: relation a little bit to age. One of the very
Speaker 2: smart journalists I interviewed once on this show is saying
Speaker 2: that one of the paradoxes of ages that you get
Speaker 2: wiser and stronger, but your skin also gets thinner. Almost
Speaker 2: you can feel a lot of suffering of the people
Speaker 2: around you in a way that when you were young
Speaker 2: it bounced off you more. Is that something you experienced.
Speaker 2: Is it getting more difficult for you to see the
Speaker 2: suffering around you or are you confident enough in your
Speaker 2: mission to stay strong on that.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's getting harder. I guess maybe because
Speaker 1: I traveled so much to so many low income countries.
Speaker 1: It was so painful for me in my thirties and
Speaker 1: forties and fifties, especially when I'm raising young children to
Speaker 1: go out and see a mom or dad with a
Speaker 1: child who's dying of something that they wouldn't die of
Speaker 1: in the United States. Dates like I've seen babies, three
Speaker 1: babies seconing on one oxygen canister in the developing world,
Speaker 1: right and you can see the terror in the parent's
Speaker 1: eyes because the kids have pneumonia. They don't know if
Speaker 1: they're going to get through it. So, at least for me,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it's gotten harder. I think it's made
Speaker 1: me more determined to put investments and resources in my
Speaker 1: voice and decision making behind these issues. And I'm in
Speaker 1: a very lucky position that I can even do that.
Speaker 2: Was it difficult for you to be so vulnerable in
Speaker 2: this book and write it the way that you have,
Speaker 2: As I say, it's very emotional book. Was it a
Speaker 2: difficult choice?
Speaker 1: It was difficult. They are parts of it, like the
Speaker 1: chapter on my friend John's death, you know, going back
Speaker 1: to my notes from that time, the photos, that is
Speaker 1: very difficult and very raw, and yet I thought it
Speaker 1: would be beneficial that I thought there might be something
Speaker 1: that I had learned and experienced. One of my friends
Speaker 1: says that aging is just another form of living. Right
Speaker 1: when you get to sixty, It's like, hey, I've lived
Speaker 1: a lot of years. I've lived six decades. So to me,
Speaker 1: it felt worth sharing those things, even if they were
Speaker 1: raw and vulnerable at times, because my hope is they
Speaker 1: might be helpful to somebody else going through one of
Speaker 1: those types of transitions.
Speaker 2: I think, absolutely, will you write it isn't in that chapter,
Speaker 2: but it's a little further on you. Right, all of
Speaker 2: us have lost something on the journey here. A dear friend,
Speaker 2: a sister, a parent, a job we loved, a healthy
Speaker 2: working body. None of us gets this far in life
Speaker 2: with everything intact.
Speaker 1: It's true, Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2: On that the idea that aging is just another word
Speaker 2: for living. There's a lot of focus at the minute
Speaker 2: that maybe we can beat aging entirely. With the right
Speaker 2: resources and technology, we could live forever. I think you
Speaker 2: would know about that, chap Bran Johnson, what are your
Speaker 2: feelings about that? What are your feelings about that? In
Speaker 2: a place to put resource?
Speaker 1: Well, I know some of the things he's doing. I
Speaker 1: think it be kind of an exhausting way to live.
Speaker 1: I'd rather live with the time I have. Right, there's
Speaker 1: age span and then there's health span and lifespan. Right,
Speaker 1: And for me, it's about, you know, living each day
Speaker 1: to its fullest. We're not going to beat mortality. We're
Speaker 1: just not. And so to me, it's about gathering the
Speaker 1: wisdom and the lessons. Like I gathered a lot of
Speaker 1: wisdom and lessons from my friend John who passed away.
Speaker 1: I had another friend, close friend who was in the
Speaker 1: early fifties I was in my forties who passed away. Look,
Speaker 1: we don't get to choose necessarily when we die and
Speaker 1: quite you know, you could be in a car accident
Speaker 1: today tomorrow. So live the most while you're here is
Speaker 1: the way I like to focus my time.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: You write about the practices and rituals and methods that
Speaker 2: get you through. We've talked about some of them today.
Speaker 3: Your life. Now you are on the other side.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you see it this way, but
Speaker 2: you're on the other side of this very intense period
Speaker 2: of transition. What are the things that you do now
Speaker 2: every day that might be helpful to people to grounding
Speaker 2: themselves in a new reality, as it were.
Speaker 1: I still meditate every morning, I have my favorite coffee.
Speaker 1: I try to get some time and nature in the
Speaker 1: mornings before I go into work, or before I even
Speaker 1: go out for a walk with friends or go to
Speaker 1: the gym to do my exercise, So taking that time
Speaker 1: in quiet and then I also am very purposeful these
Speaker 1: days about putting the news down and not letting myself
Speaker 1: get caught at night when I'm tired, I might get
Speaker 1: caught more in the doom scrolling as you know the
Speaker 1: young people call it, or you know, following the news.
Speaker 1: I really try to put my phone away after dinner
Speaker 1: and just do something in the evenings that I enjoy doing,
Speaker 1: whether it's a dinner with a friend, or it's watching
Speaker 1: something fun on you know, one of the streaming services,
Speaker 1: just kind of get away from all the news of
Speaker 1: the day.
Speaker 2: That is one of the big things of the moment
Speaker 2: the people are battling between. I need to be aware.
Speaker 2: I need to be across all these things that are happening.
Speaker 2: You can't look away because you know the standards you
Speaker 2: walk past.
Speaker 3: Et cetera.
Speaker 2: But it is very bad for us to swim in
Speaker 2: that much negativity, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I think we need to be purposeful about how we
Speaker 1: dip into the news and read it. Certainly we want
Speaker 1: to be informed citizens. Certainly we need to know where
Speaker 1: to speak up and use our voices, or use our resources,
Speaker 1: or write our parliamentarian or our senator. So I think
Speaker 1: it's super important for citizen read to be informed. But
Speaker 1: I think we have to be very purposeful because we are.
Speaker 1: We also have to remember, you know, I think back
Speaker 1: to when my parents used to watch the news on
Speaker 1: TV at night and we were little kids, you know,
Speaker 1: before dinner or right after dinner. You know, it was
Speaker 1: kind of thirty minutes of the news and might be
Speaker 1: Walter cronkaid in the World News, but you weren't hearing
Speaker 1: about this instantaneous shooting in a school or a bombing here,
Speaker 1: that it's just this constant bombardment. So now it's up
Speaker 1: to us to put the guardrails on it to keep
Speaker 1: ourselves healthy.
Speaker 2: Finally, and that reminds me of something I've heard you
Speaker 2: say a lot that when you and Bill were starting
Speaker 2: the foundation, and obviously there are so many requests constantly
Speaker 2: for assistance when you are a philanthropist, and you have
Speaker 2: quoted often that Warren Buffett said to you, choose a
Speaker 2: small target. That's really interesting because I think that even
Speaker 2: for those of us who aren't thinking about it literally
Speaker 2: like that, with a philanthropic fortune, that can be very useful,
Speaker 2: even in terms of what you were just talking about,
Speaker 2: rather than the overwhelm of the everything, to focus in
Speaker 2: on a small target.
Speaker 1: Or sure, do you think for sure? Let's say you've
Speaker 1: set aside in your budget that you're going to give
Speaker 1: away the equivalent of two hundred and fifty dollars a
Speaker 1: year or the equivalent of a thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 1: knowing what you most care about and where you think
Speaker 1: your resources can have the most good in terms of
Speaker 1: what you think could change something. Having a focus for
Speaker 1: it I think really helps. And same thing if you're
Speaker 1: volunteering your time. I tell people, look at where your
Speaker 1: talents and your gifts are. Are you a patient person? Like?
Speaker 1: Are you a good teacher? Would you be a good
Speaker 1: mentor to a student after school or a coach for
Speaker 1: a team. Would you be better off being somebody who
Speaker 1: maybe prepares meals for a homeless shelter. Would you be
Speaker 1: better at maybe serving on a board? Would that give
Speaker 1: you joy and use your talents? Because if it does,
Speaker 1: you'll probably spend more time doing it, and you'll probably
Speaker 1: get more out of it, and the people around you
Speaker 1: in that organization will get more from your talents. So
Speaker 1: I think being targeted in our approach for time or
Speaker 1: money or energy makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: And even attention as well, right in terms of what
Speaker 2: you're going to focus on. Thank you so much, Melinda
Speaker 2: Frenchgates for talking to me today, being so genous with
Speaker 2: your time, and for writing.
Speaker 3: A truly beautiful book.
Speaker 2: I think the next day is going to be helpful
Speaker 2: to full content.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Holly.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Melinda Frenchgates. I
Speaker 2: have to say, as I had said in the intro,
Speaker 2: I was nervous to talk to her because gosh, there
Speaker 2: are a few more impressive women that you get to
Speaker 2: sit down with than French Gates. But look, if she
Speaker 2: can't convince me to meditate, nobody can. I think it's
Speaker 2: definitely time if you are wrestling, probably on a very
Speaker 2: different scale with the transition of divorce. I want to
Speaker 2: point you to some other Mid episodes that have conversations
Speaker 2: around that. Vicky Parkinson, who was blindsided by an email
Speaker 2: late at night that spelled out the end of her marriage.
Speaker 2: Amantha Imba, who has remarried after falling in love post divorce,
Speaker 2: and she talks about how she made that happen because
Speaker 2: she really did like make that happen, And Julie Cohen,
Speaker 2: who talks about sexuality in midlife and why it isn't
Speaker 2: time to settle. Thank you so much for being with
Speaker 2: us through this episode of Mid and I hope you'll
Speaker 2: join us again next week. The executive producer of this
Speaker 2: episode is named A.
Speaker 3: Brown.
Speaker 2: The senior producer is Grace Ruveray. The producer is Charlie Blackman,
Speaker 2: and there's been audio production by Jacob Brown.
Speaker 3: See you next time.