WEBVTT - Summer book series: Ursula Burns 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.800 Hi everyone, I'm Katie Curic and this is next question. 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:09.160 Ursla Burns has had an impressive business career that's often 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:13.440 summarized by an historic achievement that when she became the 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:16.800 CEO of Xerox back in two thousand nine, she was 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.840 the first ever black woman to head a Fortune five 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:24.360 hundred company, and as a side note, Ursula actually held 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:29.319 onto that title exclusively until only this year, when the 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:33.280 Fortune five hundred lists featured two black women. We'll get 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:37.800 to the corporate world's painfully slow diversity progress later, but 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:41.240 now the former Zerox CEO is adding another big first 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:45.479 to her achievements. First time author. I'm not a writer, 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:48.400 I don't pretend to even be one, and when this 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.159 thing started I could not believe that I had committed 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:55.680 to do this. She did commit to it and finished it, 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:59.360 and her memoir called Where You Are Is Not Who 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.160 You Are, is out now and it's fantastic. Unlike a 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:06.120 lot of books written by business leaders, this one is 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.800 about so much more than the corporate world. Ursula gets 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:14.120 very personal, sharing her childhood growing up in public housing 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.759 in New York City, her Catholic school days, her marriage, 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.680 and yes her thirty year ascent to the tippy top 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:26.600 of Xerox's ladder. In her prolog, Ursla admits writing this 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:29.600 life journey was one of the most difficult things she's 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:33.160 ever had to do, which, let's be honest, is saying 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:38.720 a lot. So we started our conversation there. Why do 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.920 you think it was so hard, Ursula? Because I did 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:44.760 it right in the middle of a huge number of 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.200 transitions in my life. Right one was the most obvious 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.440 was this pandemic. So I started the book before the 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:55.600 pandemic and then had to go back and re read 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:59.240 it for the fiftieth time in the context of the 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:02.360 pandemic and bring the book forward some of the messages 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.559 forward to the pandemic time. There was one one big issue. 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:09.320 The other is my husband passed away in January of 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.400 two thousand and nineteen, very unexpectedly. I know, I'm so sorry, 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:15.079 or and I was in the middle of this thing 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.600 as well. It was close to the end, and it 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:24.480 really did. The book made it really difficult to kind 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:27.640 of live in that moment because I had to, you know, 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.400 living that moment. Looking back at all of the my life, 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:34.440 my whole life, of which most of it was with him. 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:36.880 It's Okay, it's really hard to kind of put it 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.160 in context. It was just very difficult from that perspective, 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:43.520 as I can't imagine, honestly having to do that and 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:47.880 also deal with grieving and the fact that your husband's 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.640 death was so unexpected, and you know, I found when 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:56.080 my husband died, gosh, now twenty plus years ago, even 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:00.880 trying to concentrate was next to impossible. So very, very, 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:06.000 very difficult. You know, he's so exactly on point what 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.360 you just said. How you know you don't think about 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:10.359 I didn't. My mother died when I was twenty five, 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.480 and that was a shock in my life, right and 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:15.320 she was very young. She was forty nine when she died. 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:19.959 And a parent dying is one thing, it's crushing a 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.120 spouse dying. Even if my husband was twenty years old 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:24.400 than I was, he was eighty years old when he died. 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.480 His his death was unexpected. I mean it was literally 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:30.800 even though he knew he was getting older. It was 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.760 not something that I had brought into a context that 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:37.560 I could think about at all. So when I had to, 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:40.760 when I'm writing this book, he dies, and then I 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:45.360 have to basically stopped writing it, primarily because it couldn't 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.640 concentrate on anything, and the things that I had to 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.760 concentrate on to write and to review it, we're so 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:57.600 um horrible. From a contact standpoint, I didn't want to 0:03:57.640 --> 0:03:59.280 think about my mother's death. I didn't want to think 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.480 about really great times, right because then I didn't want 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:04.040 to think about really bad times. So basically have to 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.120 kind of step away from the book for a long time, 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:09.760 step away from writing and thinking about it. And then 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:11.440 the third thing is we were going through a really 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:15.400 tough political time where there was not a message that 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:20.039 was coming from anywhere that was like peaceful. There was 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:22.920 no there was no place to rest, like your mind. 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:25.160 It was every time you every time I woke up, 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.200 and if I read anything about what was happening in 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:29.599 politics in the US, it just threw me into another 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.840 noneother tail spin. So I had to take literally when 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:35.560 they say time out, I had to take time out 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:39.600 and just kind of move away and not think about it, 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:41.919 and not think about my life and not think about 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.359 how you're trying to kind of put it in the 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.000 context of a book, because you said what you said 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.960 was so you don't live your life in reverse, you 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:54.039 live your life going forward. So you never think, you know, 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.920 the day that passed right before you, which I retell 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.440 days that happened before me in the book are not 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:03.120 concept funchal when they're happening, so you don't think about 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:04.960 them in that context. You just think about them, is okay, 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.239 so another day. But when you retell them, you retell 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:11.160 them from this perspective as if you knew they were consequential, 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.200 and they aren't. And I'm an engineer, so everything was 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:17.159 kind of illogical about the whole thing. And finally I 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:19.080 got through with my goodness, thank goodness, I got through 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:21.920 the whole process, and my The woman who helped me, 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.600 help me write, her name is Linda Frankie. It's very 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.720 very good. She was as good a because I did 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:30.640 all little writing right, I tell her, you know how, 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.240 you know how the process goes right, tells you back 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:34.880 then you have to read it and put it in context. 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:37.120 And I would dwell on certain things and try to 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.160 become really precise. And she was just very good at 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.120 at kind of moving me on. It's not letting you 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.520 get too deep into the minutia. But but in addition 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:48.000 to that, of course, you talk about the political scene. 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:52.480 We have this massive racial reckoning with the Black Lives 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:57.200 Matter movement that intersected with the pandemic. So, uh, that's 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.520 something that I think you've lived your entire life and career. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:04.240 On the other hand, did that change the tone of 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:06.039 the book or did you? I know, you had to 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.719 go back and make sure that you did it from 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:12.279 the vantage point of where we are rather than where 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.040 you were when the book started. Absolutely, and it did 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:17.559 change the tone a little bit. My daughter keeps telling 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:19.839 me that I have to watch to not be shrill 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.280 because sometimes I get yeah, when I get into to 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:25.000 not be shrill, because you know, sometimes you get to 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.840 the point where you just are so engaged, so angry, 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.760 so um emotional about the topic that you get really 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:34.880 wrapped up into it and it gets um almost like 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:39.000 a lecture. We'll tell your daughter that's a very gendered word, ursula. 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.200 And I can't believe at her age she's telling you 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:44.400 not to be shrill. I need to talk to her. 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:49.120 My daughter is actually very um astute on these types 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:51.719 of things. She's a writer. She used it to me 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.880 for a very specific reason. It's kind of like the 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.480 way I raised the kids. I would get into it. 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.919 But the point was that I had to kind of 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.280 become emotional, but not be so emotional. And there at 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:07.400 some points in the in the book, and some points 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:09.960 even in the retelling, and when I was speaking in 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:15.600 press around around the you know, George Floyd's murder around 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:20.440 this whole time, how emotional and how troubling it was 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.120 to me that we are, that we are at a 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.200 point in this country. I'm at a point in my 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:30.560 life where I have I have quote unquote arrived, Katie. 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.440 I'm you know, literally, I have more money that could 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:38.920 possibly imagine. I am engaged in places I never thought 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.480 I would be. I have access to people that I 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.600 couldn't even can't even imagine, I know, much less hang 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:49.040 out with regularly. I'm very kind of set and I 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:51.600 now and even for my whole life, I've been involved 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.240 with kind of pushing it out and giving back. But 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.720 I sit here, and I sat there and said, can 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.680 you can I believe? Can Ursula Burns believe that this 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.880 is two thousand and twenty and we're still talking about 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:09.360 and dealing with and living with, very visually people who 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:13.640 have total disregard for other people's lives, who and and 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.520 and people who speak about it in leadership as if 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:21.040 it were a transaction, you know, just it just happened. So, no, 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.000 there's a bigger context to this, there is more emotion 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:26.480 to this. There are people who are affected in this, 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:31.240 and it has become ordinary. And that was to the point, 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.480 was that, you know, George Floyd and his family, George 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:38.400 Floyd suffered the ultimate and his family suffered. But I 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:42.240 don't think that the the political leadership understood that the 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.520 nation was struggling and that we, even though it wasn't 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.840 our direct family, we black and white, young and old, 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.679 were struggling, and instead of getting any kind of solace 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:58.480 or comfort, we got unbelievable responses like, you know, why 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:00.760 is this such a big deal? This whole context of 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:03.320 well he was a criminal. There's a whole bunch of 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:05.880 unfeeling in the middle of a pandemic. In the end, 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.400 so there was this like this kind of big gap 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:10.640 of don't you know what we need as a nation? 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:12.000 Don't you know what we need these people? Don't you 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:14.320 know what we need as a world? And the answer 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:16.480 was they The answer was no, I don't know, and 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:18.840 if I didn't know, I don't particularly care. And do 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.640 you think that things are changing? Our's law. I can't 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:25.160 help but think as I look around that we are 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:30.880 in the midst of a seismic cultural shift and attitudes 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:37.160 about race, diversity, equality inclusion, that these things are being 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.320 talked about in a way in my lifetime they have 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:45.680 never been talked about. Praise the Lord, thank God. And 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:50.000 do you see that too? Absolutely it is such. And 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:52.800 I'm asked all the time, asked all the time whether 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.000 or not this is a you know it's gonna last. 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:58.640 So I always put it in the context of the 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.240 of Hamiltons, and right, is it a moment or a movement? 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.920 And we are It could be a moment if we 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.679 let it be a moment if we just basically back off, 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:13.480 we meaning citizens in the world, we just back off 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.840 black and white, male and female, and just said the 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.720 status quo, the way we were living before is generally okay, 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.200 we'll just go back to that. Or if we that's 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:26.400 the moment, the movement, which is what I feel, which 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:28.480 is what I think you're saying you feel and see 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:33.480 as well that the movement is We're not We're not 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:37.440 able to forget everything and move backwards. We have to 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.080 move forward. I don't know what that is going to 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:42.160 look like at the end, but I know it's not 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:44.520 going to be what it was before. If we keep 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:48.640 our voices in the right tone and are really inclusive 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:52.240 of a lot of people's ideas, we will actually make progress, 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:55.480 not just changed, so it will be changed for the better. 0:10:56.080 --> 0:11:00.840 I am so optimistic about this happening. Generally atenistic, but 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:05.600 I'm so optimistic about this happening because we, we people 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.200 will not allow it to just swipp slip back. We 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:13.120 will not allow the what I call the essential worker, Okay, 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:18.640 the essential worker who became essential only when we wanted 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:20.440 them to be essential. But before that, we didn't pay 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:22.400 any attention to them. Most of these people, we wouldn't 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:25.000 even pay them more than fifteen dollars an hour. We're 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:29.120 know these essential workers became core and critical to our lives. 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:36.280 Black people, under resourced people became visible to us for 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.319 the first time, really, and I think it's a it's 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.439 a good time and the book. Part of the journey 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:44.800 of the book when I read it again in the 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:48.840 final time, was I how do I say this? I 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:52.400 started there, That's my life, That's who I was, That's 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:54.600 who my mother was. For sure, she was a person 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:59.440 an invisible person, and that I want to ask you 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:03.600 about her because you have had such a fascinating life. 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:09.520 Firstless so impressive. Your mom was an absolute saint, and 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.400 she died, as you mentioned, at forty nine. She was 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.680 an immigrant from Panama. I was so struck when you 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:23.160 wrote about her biggest annual income was fort dollars and 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:28.200 three a year. Yes, had three children. Um raised you 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.800 all to value the importance of education. Your mom was 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.880 a truly amazing woman. And one of the things that 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:39.280 prompted me to ask you that that question now is 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.400 that forty nine she died. If she had had access 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.800 to better medical care, for example, you're convinced that she 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:48.600 would have lived a much longer life. But talk about 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:52.840 your mom for a minute, because what an unsung heroine 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.480 of not only your life, but probably represents a lot 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.520 of women like her. Yeah. I think that this is 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:06.760 the backbone of America. It is the dream of America 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.640 embodied in my mother. She did it. She basically came 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:15.120 here with very little, like literally nothing. She had a 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.880 high school education. She at the time had a husband, 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:23.000 he was he left early. A mother never spent time 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.360 thinking about or talking about what we did not have 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:31.520 that was not part of our daily discussions ever, including 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:36.079 my father. Never literally my aunt's told me about my father. 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.720 So my mother was just this person who when I 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:41.800 tell the story, when the when you look back, it 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:45.920 seems like she was this perfect saint. She was a 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:50.319 typical mother because she she cared about her children immensely. 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:57.800 She sacrificed everything in her sphere for us. That's basically 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.599 she lived for us. She had no idea she was 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.720 gonna diet for you nine Obviously, she thought that if 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:08.439 she raised good kids, and this is part of her spiritualism, 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.480 her religion, that if she thought she raised good kids, 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.720 that God would take care of everything. Else. She thought 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:17.280 if she raised kids that worked hard and took care 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.840 of themselves and big for her, took care of each other, 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:23.040 that God would take care of everything. So she had 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:25.920 these fundamental beliefs that a lot of you know, just 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:28.600 regular good old fashion hard work, keep an eye on 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.160 the people who are close to you. She struggled, And 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:35.640 when I was about sixteen or seventeen, I realized my 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.360 mother was really struggling. You know, when your kids you 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:40.720 just figure this is the way everybody lives. My mother 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.160 literally woke up early every single day, went to bed 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.600 late every single night, and every day she had to 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:49.840 figure out a way to have food for us on 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:53.120 the table, to keep us physically safe, to get enough 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:57.160 money to pay basic things. I learned later how much 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.720 she bartered for just about everything. How she would go 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:02.600 to my high school. I have to have discussions with 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:04.920 my high school because she couldn't paid the tuition. My 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.240 mother paid sixty five dollars a month for me to 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.240 go to high school. That's six fifty dollars a year. 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:14.560 She made four thousand, four hundred dollars. It's just unthinkable. 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:19.400 But the reason why it wasn't unthinkable for me when 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.400 I was growing up was that she didn't make it obvious. 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:27.880 She just made us obvious to ourselves, if you know 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.200 what I mean. We were it was all about us. 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.600 He never complained. She never really didn't know. I mean, 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.840 you said at sixteen she was struggling, but but she 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.000 never she never talked to you all of it. I 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:41.160 realized that when I when I was in high school, 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:43.520 because I went to a all girls, Catholic high school, 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.680 basically a high school above our meetings obviously, but it's 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.440 really great school. I mean high school in in the 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:53.040 Midtown New York City Cathedral High School. And when I 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:55.120 went there for the first time, I took I took 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:59.920 the bus out of our neighborhoods. I was, what's six fourteen, 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.160 I guess when I first went the first time, I 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.160 took the bus out way up to quote unquote Midtown. 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:07.640 I lived in the Lower Reside and that's where we stayed. 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.040 We stayed there. That was our world. And when I moved, 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:12.760 when I was going up and down on this bus, 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:14.680 and I started to realize people live in these great 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.600 neighborhood so this was pretty cool, and they had things 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.200 besides bodega's and and the like. And then I went 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.200 to school and met other children and their parents and 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.880 realized just the look of my mother, the look how 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.680 she dressed, how she looked. She was carrying a lot 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.400 of weight. You could tell that she had a lot 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.080 on her shoulders, even though it didn't you couldn't see 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.320 it physically right obviously, but you could see it in 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:42.120 her body. And that's when I said, whoa this is? 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.880 This is taking a lot from her, And is that 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:50.760 what inspired you to achieve and to really pursue excellence, 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:55.320 Because clearly you're a highly intelligent person, you know, And 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:59.040 you went to to college. You started, I guess in 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.720 chemical engineer and then engineering, and then you transferred to 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:06.880 mechanical engineering. You've got your masters and mechanical engineering. I mean, 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:11.640 what inspired you to to be such a huge achiever? Yeah, 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.840 my mom, it was about in the beginning, what perspective 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:16.560 do you have? Right? I mean, I had no perspective 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.679 on companies and hierarchies and c eos none. What I 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.960 wanted to do is get a job that I that 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.119 earned enough money. That's why I picked chemical engineering. This 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:29.920 was very insightful choice about you know, I just went 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:32.520 to a book. You're very practical, very practical. I need 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.240 a job that could pay the most money after four 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:37.159 years of college. We had no option but to go 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:39.840 to college. But my mother said, basically no choice. I 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:41.360 would always say how you're gonna pay for it? She said, 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:43.280 don't worry about that's me. You take care of your business. 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.119 I'll take care of my business. And so I looked 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:47.720 it up and it was chemical engineering. I was gonna 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:49.520 be a chemical engineer. Four years of college. You make 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.159 the most money twenty five thousand dollars or whatever. It 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.800 would have been dollars. That was I was like, oh 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.399 my god, because I mean twenty five thousand dollars, we 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:02.520 can change our life for twenty hours. It was that straightforward, 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:08.440 that practical decision, no complications, literally dollars a year, four 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:10.679 years of college that said. Of course I didn't go 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:12.359 to four years. I went to five and a half year. 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:14.800 I got my master's degree. And by the time I 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:18.560 ended college, you know, my mother was to the point 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.720 so sick, and I was dying literally a couple of 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.760 years after that. So right when I could have started 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.200 to switch it back and give it to her and 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.879 make her life a little bit more comfortable, which Katie 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.640 would have been easy to think about this right five, 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:37.440 I could have made her life easier without too much complications. 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:40.880 And I ran out of time, you know, I basically 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.040 that's right out of time. And she so she she 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:49.560 died in the hospital of that is, you know, the 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:53.160 center the heartbeat of hospitals in New York. But this hospital, 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:57.880 it was Bellevue, was so you know, let's overrun at 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.840 that point. It was so cry would have taken care 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.159 of all kinds of things that age was, you know, 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.159 how it was at that time, and so she didn't 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:09.000 get great care. I think that this is not that 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:11.600 the people ignored her. It was just as I was 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:15.320 not capable of pushing it. If my mother had gotten 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.920 sick when I was older, I would have literally been 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:23.199 able to her right advocate for her. And I just 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.439 didn't even know how to do it much says that 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.320 it was possible to do. You know, I had no 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:30.680 idea when my husband was sick the first time, when 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:33.679 he got ill, way before he died along collapse, when 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:38.480 he went into the hospital. Literally I was the general, Literally, 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:40.720 this is what's going to happen. This is that you 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:42.879 guys can't. I want to know what's going on, who's 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:45.080 going to see him, et cetera. If I had half 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.080 of that, my mother would have surely been alive. Sounds 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:51.679 like you you have a lot of I don't know. 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:53.840 It sounds like you're you feel a lot of guilt 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.199 about huge amount of guilt. Huge amount of guilt. It 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:58.880 took me a lot of time, and I'm not gonna 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:01.359 cry on this to get over the fact that you can't. 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:05.920 You can't live your life backwards to force right. If 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:08.200 you would have known, you would have done it. Differently. 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:10.600 But of course you didn't know, so you can't kind 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:12.840 of keep winding back about, well, I should have done this, 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:14.760 I should have done that. It wasn't that I knew 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:16.440 what to do and didn't do it. I had no 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.320 clue what I'm doing. That's one of the reasons why 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:23.520 now I pushed so hard for basic things that as 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:26.520 citizens of the world we have to have. We shouldn't 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.919 have to have somebody who who has time and energy 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:33.120 and power and position to advocate for us to get 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:37.840 things that are like the Pavlovs need right. Anyway, it 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:40.959 took a lot of time for me to get past that, 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:43.400 and even now I cry when I talked about it, 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:50.000 because she should have been able to enjoy our success 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.879 more more, not financially just being there. If you do 0:20:55.520 --> 0:21:00.760 financially that you could have been able to perfect her 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.800 quality of life. And in a way you pay tribute 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:06.880 to her ursula because your title is where you are, 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.880 is not who you are, And that came from your mom. 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:16.840 And my mother had these amazing Pemanian English translations sayings 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:19.439 that were She said them all the time, and of 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:21.840 course when you're growing up you think you know, can 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:24.080 I hear this one more time. I'm gonna explode if 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.399 she says this one more time. You know, leave behind 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:32.000 max My name is Crystal, Maxine birth Um. God doesn't 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.320 like ugly, so she said, that doesn't like ugly, and 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:41.320 that meant you yourself can't be ugly, not things you. 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.280 God doesn't like ugly, so you can't be an ugly person. 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:46.760 She would say, leave behind more than you take away. 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:49.000 That's how we'll measure whether or not you're successful. It 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:50.919 is not about anything else by the whether or not 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:54.440 you leave and every interaction more, Oh my goodness, on 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:56.960 and on and on. She says, the world, don't worry 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.439 about the world can't happen to you. You have to 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:02.320 happen to the world. You know, all these all of 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:05.240 these statements, is like, and now I say it in 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:09.240 the book. Throughout my life, I lived with these statements 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:13.200 in my head. I literally buried in my head. Didn't 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:16.120 say them out loud all the time, but I literally 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:20.600 think about them and was raised with them in my soul. 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:23.679