Melinda French Gates is resigning from her role as co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2014, she revealed to Fortune MPW that during her time leading the foundation, her friend, Warren Buffett, imparted some essential advice for balancing her career and life.
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00:00 I always look forward to be able to look at where I want to be today.
00:04 And I don't think I care about people knowing on the day I die
00:08 is that I was a great mom and a great family member and a great friend.
00:12 I care about that more than I care about anything else.
00:15 And it's interesting because people come into your lives,
00:17 you know, and they teach you things and you listen
00:19 and then you integrate those things.
00:20 One of the things I was most impressed about
00:22 when Bill and I met Warren very early on
00:25 was he introduced us to his friends.
00:28 And Warren has the most high-quality set of friends you could meet.
00:33 And these are friends that he's had over his lifetime.
00:37 And it really got me thinking,
00:39 "Wow, I better cultivate my friends."
00:42 I had good friends, but cultivate that network of friends and keep them close.
00:46 And Warren does little things with his friends,
00:48 like he'll send you an article of something he's thinking about
00:51 or reading about or something.
00:52 And it's an easy way.
00:54 What I started to realize is I have friends all over the world,
00:56 but those little touch points that you do
00:58 when you can only see somebody a couple of times a year...
01:01 Or Charlotte, I get to see at least once a week, which is a nice thing.
01:05 So that was a way to help me think about my friends.
01:08 And then family, there's a person who helped me in the business community
01:12 that's helped me with some leadership consulting
01:14 and even management of the foundation.
01:15 And he has two older sons.
01:17 And when I was really struggling with three young kids,
01:20 the foundation growing, we're changing CEOs,
01:22 he just said to me, he said, "Melinda,
01:24 you don't get a do-over with your kids."
01:26 I was like, "Yeah, you don't get a do-over."
01:29 And so the foundation is a marathon for me and not a sprint.
01:32 And I always have to remember at the end of the day
01:34 that my kids come first.
01:36 And somehow those messages just have really stuck with me
01:39 and then I just work to balance it.
01:41 And some weeks I get it right and some weeks I get it wrong,
01:43 and then you just have to forgive yourself and keep going.