Making Space with Hoda Kotb

Episode: Melinda French Gates on ‘The Next Day,’ New Beginnings, and What Really Matters

Date: November 19, 2025
Host: Hoda Kotb
Guest: Melinda French Gates

Overview

In this heartfelt and insightful episode, Hoda Kotb sits down with Melinda French Gates to discuss resilience, new beginnings, and what truly matters in life. Melinda opens up about her recent life transitions, her long-standing commitment to service, the challenges and joys of leadership, and how she’s redefining impact and legacy. Listeners are invited into a conversation that’s both intimate and universal, full of wisdom for anyone navigating change, seeking balance, or aspiring to make a difference.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Women, Work, and Family: The Ongoing Juggle

[03:20 – 08:18]

• Melinda shares observations from her book tour about the needs of women today: “People are craving more quiet spaces these days, spaces where they can be in community and let their hair down, but also talk about...serious things going on in the world or family.” (Melinda, 03:25)
• She is candid about the privilege that made her juggling act possible, but emphasizes that messiness and guilt are universal: “I talk to a lot of young women...they say, look, it’s a mess some days...learning to accept yourself, that you’re doing your best job in the moment.” (Melinda, 04:45)
• The struggle of prioritizing family over career—or vice versa—never truly goes away, as Hoda illustrates with her own story of missing a back-to-school night.

2. Embracing Imperfection and Repair in Relationships

[07:03 – 10:22]

• Melinda speaks about working through parenting missteps, describing open, healing conversations with her adult children: “We have gone back and had conversations about times mom was stressed or too busy...it’s healing for them and it’s healing for me.” (Melinda, 07:51)
• She introduces “rupture and repair,” a psychoanalytic concept: “Every intimate relationship is going to have rupture...and repair. You can use those moments as teachable moments.” (Melinda, 08:18)
• Strategies for repair include letting the child control timing and starting apologies with sincere acknowledgment, not defensiveness.

3. Leadership Lessons: Authenticity, Trust, and Clarity

[10:22 – 19:38]

• Melinda describes the rough, competitive culture at Microsoft and how “trying to fit in” left her disconnected: “I did not like myself...I could be that way in work, but I would go to the grocery store and...I wasn’t very nice to that cashier.” (Melinda, 12:05)
• Choosing authenticity changed her leadership: “I built my own mini culture inside my team...I have your back.” (Melinda, 13:35)
• On management philosophy: “Clear is kind. I try to be explicit in my management style with people.” (Melinda, 14:12)
• Leadership across contexts: Melinda highlights managing her high school drill team as formative: “If you can manage 150 young women through puberty, you can do anything.” (Melinda, 14:54)
• She stresses the importance of trust, timely feedback (“they will get feedback within 48 hours”), and lifting up others, especially women: “When we find the best in others...and draw it out, you help people find their inner talents, you help them find their power.” (Melinda, 17:27)

4. Making Career Choices & The Power of Women Supporting Women

[15:44 – 17:14]

• Shares a pivotal career story: an IBM manager encouraged her to try Microsoft for faster growth: “She said, 'If you go to a young startup...your rise will be meteoric.'” (Melinda, 17:08)
• This moment solidified Melinda’s own commitment to mentoring and supporting women.

5. A Life of Service and Meaning

[22:13 – 29:22]

• Service as foundational: Melinda’s high school motto was “Serviam—that is, to serve.” (Melinda, 22:50)
• Powerful story of volunteering at Mother Teresa’s home for the dying in Calcutta: “If you can help somebody with their dying wish, that is just an enormous gift.” (Melinda, 25:40)
• The impact of grassroots efforts: recounts local postpartum support group in Seattle, run by volunteer moms making a tangible difference. (Melinda, 28:01)

6. Spirituality, Community, & Everyday Philanthropy

[26:33 – 29:22]

• Melinda describes her women’s spiritual group as a life-affirming community for meaning-seeking and growth.
• Encourages listeners: “Pick one of them [time, smarts, resources] and start. Just start somewhere...drops in the bucket, but they add up over time.” (Melinda, 28:01)

7. New Beginnings, Resilience, and Hope after Divorce

[31:37 – 34:16]

• On personal transformation: “I’m so much more self-confident...to speak in my true and full voice and to say what I believe...to fully lift up women. There’s just a freedom in that.” (Melinda, 32:58)
• Learned to hold “deep sadness alongside deep joy” by practicing daily gratitude.

8. Ripples of Kindness, Finding Hope

[34:55 – 39:40]

• Both Hoda and Melinda share stories illustrating the power of small, kind actions.
• Melinda reflects on public moments of compassion: “A kindness can be a very big thing. It may be a small act to you, but it may fill somebody else’s heart.” (Melinda, 37:07)
• Amid societal uncertainty, Melinda emphasizes teaching and practicing moral courage in our communities, especially for the next generation.

9. Making Space: What Melinda’s Ideal Day Looks Like

[40:02 – 42:09]

• Melinda describes her perfect day: waking up refreshed, journaling and meditating outside, exercising (“I love to jog...love to kayak”), meaningful conversations with family or friends, enjoying good food, and unwinding with a favorite show like Bridgerton.
• “If I can start my day outside...it makes my day brighter.” (Melinda, 40:25)
• Lights out by 9:30 or 10—“I love a good night of sleep.” (Melinda, 42:09)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On juggling work and family:
  “It’s a mess some days. The house is messy, the kids are messy, I feel messy emotionally. But we still all have to get up and get out the door...just learning to accept yourself...”
  — Melinda French Gates, 04:45

• On rupture and repair:
  “Every intimate relationship is going to have rupture, and it’s going to have repair...you’re teaching them how to repair, name it and label it. And that’s what I learned to do.”
  — Melinda French Gates, 08:18

• On authenticity at work:
  “I built my own mini culture inside my team...when I started to be more my, I could gather people...I have your back.”
  — Melinda French Gates, 13:35

• On clear feedback:
  “Clear is kind. I try to be explicit in my management style with people.”
  — Melinda French Gates, 14:12

• On service:
  “We all need each other...to me a life of meaning even from then was to give something back.”
  — Melinda French Gates, 22:50

• On holding joy and sadness:
  “How do you hold deep sadness alongside deep joy? ...If you can find things to be grateful for every single day...that can change the whole game.”
  — Melinda French Gates, 34:55

• On small acts of kindness:
  “A kindness can be a very big thing. It may be a small act to you, but it may fill somebody else’s heart.”
  — Melinda French Gates, 37:07

Important Timestamps

• 03:20 – 08:18: The modern struggle: women balancing work, family, and perfectionism
• 08:18 – 10:22: Rupture & repair as a parenting mindset
• 12:05 – 13:35: Choosing authenticity in the workplace
• 14:12 – 17:27: Management style: clarity, feedback, building trust
• 22:13 – 26:33: Service, roots of philanthropy, and the influence of all-women spaces
• 31:37 – 34:16: Divorce, resilience, and building new confidence
• 40:25 – 42:09: Melinda’s dream day
• 37:07 – 39:40: Kindness and ripples of hope in society

Takeaways

This episode is a master class in living authentically, practicing resilience, and making a difference. Melinda French Gates’s stories and candid reflections remind listeners that meaning lies in small daily choices, relationships can grow stronger through honesty and repair, and everyone—regardless of their platform—can contribute, serve, and inspire hope.