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

Summary

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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

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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.

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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)

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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

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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

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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.

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Transcript

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[Melinda French Gates]

Oh hey.

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[Melinda French Gates]

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[Melinda French Gates]

Wow.

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[T-Mobile Salesperson]

No @t mobile. There's no trade ins needed when you switch. Keep your old phone or give it as a gift.

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In fact, wrap up my old phone too for my aunt Rosa.

[Melinda French Gates]

Forget that.

[T-Mobile Salesperson]

Aunt Liz will be jealous.

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Sounds like my family drama.

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Oh, I got it. I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with. Hey, where are you going?

[Hoda Kotb]

To T Mobile.

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[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Imagine having the power to create change in the world every single day. Well, that's the life Melinda French Gates is living. Born in Dallas to a middle class family of six, Melinda discovered her love for computers early on. A passion that launched her into a successful career at Microsoft, where she blazed a trail as one of the company's few female managers. Her journey led her to co found one of the most influential foundations in the world, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. And in 2015, she launched pivotal Ventures, an organization devoted to putting more power into into the hands of women in the United States and around the world. Just last year, she announced a bold commitment $1 billion annually toward advancing women's power globally. All the while, Melinda has navigated major life changes, moving on from her marriage and embracing the joy of her grandchildren, all while staying laser focused on giving back. In our conversation, Melinda opens up about her latest chapter one, what impact means to her today and the legacy she hopes to leave behind. I'm Hoda Kotb, and this is my podcast, Making Space. Hi, Melinda. How are you?

[Melinda French Gates]

Hi, Hoda.

[Hoda Kotb]

Last time I spoke to you, we were on book tour, and I say we because I felt like I was with you on your book tour. You've had a chance to speak to, like, a ton of audiences, and I feel like you. You gain more of a perspective on where women are, what women want. What.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

What did you learn as you went.

[Hoda Kotb]

Through your book tour and spoke to all these different audiences?

[Melinda French Gates]

Yeah, and thanks for showing up in Chicago. You just brought the energy and the joy. It was so nice. Right near the end of my tour where, you know, I'm getting a little more tired, you know, I learned that people are craving more quiet spaces these days, spaces where they can be in community and let their hair down, have a. But also talk about some of the serious things that are going on in the world or things going on in their own family lives, particularly young women who are starting their career in their 20s or in their 30s and are in that juggle of, when do I have a child? If I have a child or have a child? And they're like, how do I make this work between career and child?

[Hoda Kotb]

Well, let's start with that one, because that one, I think, is a really important one because there are women, and I just spoke to a whole bunch of business women yesterday, and that was one of the key points. It was the family. Does your career ride sidecar? When does your family ride sidecar? So for you, I mean, you have this incredible career, obviously, and you went to the Ursuline Academy, Duke, and on and on and on. When you were deciding about how do I make this puzzle complete, how did you make that choice?

[Melinda French Gates]

Make the puzzle complete in terms of my career, Career and family. Yes. And let me just say this. The other thing is, I also have many friends who are my age who I knew going through industry, tech industry, who also made the choice not to have kids and are still very happy with that choice. So I think you can make whatever choice is right for you if you're lucky enough to be able to have children, if that is your choice. For me, I always knew I wanted to be a mom. I just knew it in my bones and in my soul. And I knew I wanted to have a great career. What I hadn't figured out was how I would juggle those two. And again, let's be really clear. I'm unbelievably privileged, right? Like, I could hire really good house, you know, people who would be home caregivers with my children. But still, I carried a load of guilt. And so I talk about a bit in my book that I think we have to let go of this notion of. At least I did perfect parenting. And I talk to a lot of young women who are in their early 30s, juggling career and children, and they say, look, it's. It's a mess some days. Like, it's just messy. 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 to daycare and school and work. And so just learning to accept yourself that you're doing your best job in the moment, whether you're at work or whether you're home parenting. I think part of it is an acceptance that this is hard.

[Hoda Kotb]

Well, you know what's funny? Since I stepped back from the Today show, I wanted, like, clear sailing so I would have opportunities to do these things. But a funny thing happens. So I looked at my kid's calendar. It came, and I had some speeches and things smattered around, and one of them happened to be on Back to School Night. And that was the night I really, really, really wanted to go. And there was no way out of it. And in fact, I spoke to another woman in business who I did an interview with. And I said, I can't believe I'm missing Back to School Night. She goes, why would you do that? But, like, why didn't you call?

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Why weren't you on top of that?

[Hoda Kotb]

And I felt terrible about that.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

But what I realized is, no matter.

[Hoda Kotb]

How you prioritize, you're missing.

[Melinda French Gates]

Yes.

[Hoda Kotb]

And I talked to my kids and I said, look, I love you. I filled out. You know, you write a letter, I did all the things, but there was a part of me that it gnawed on me. Cause I thought this was why I went here. And yet I'm winding up in the same spot. And that makes it difficult, but I think we also.

[Melinda French Gates]

It does. It makes it very difficult. And I think then there's, at least for me, in that situation, I also missed a couple of back to school nights. There was guilt. Then if somebody else sort of piles it on top of you, inadvertently terrible. But I think the other thing is to say to ourselves, we get to make some mistakes in life and we get to Learn. This is your first year of, you know, not being on the Today show, right? And so it's your first year figuring out what will be your new rhythm. So, of course you're not going to get it all right? And again, even in parenting, like, I've gone back. My. My adult children are now all 23, 26, and 29. We have gone back and had conversations about times mom was stressed or too busy or maybe she felt like she needed to fix the child because their handwriting wasn't great.

[Hoda Kotb]

Right.

[Melinda French Gates]

And so we've had to go back, or we've chosen to go back and talk about those times because it's healing for them and it's healing for me.

[Hoda Kotb]

By the way, that's profound because, I mean, the idea of just thinking about me right now, having a conversation with my mom or my kids when they get older, saying, remember how upset I was? How did you come to even tackle that? And did you have outside help? Or did you guys just say, let's just. Let's just talk about it?

[Melinda French Gates]

In this case, I tackled it myself with my three adult children, but, you know, they've all done some work on themselves in therapy. I've done some work on myself in therapy. And then I have a really good mom friend who I respect greatly. She's a psychoanalyst. She's not my psychoanalyst or therapist, but she taught me the concept of rupture and repair, which I really didn't know five years ago. And she said, look, every intimate relationship is going to have rupture, and it's going to have repair so you can use. My youngest was still late in high school at that time, and she said, you can use those moments as teachable moments. You. You may regret what you said or what you did or that you were stressed with the child or teenager, but you're teaching them how to repair, name it and label it. And that's what I learned to do.

[Hoda Kotb]

So how do you. Okay, let's pretend someone had a huge blowup with their child. There was a rupture. We all have. How do you repair? Like, what does that look like? Yeah.

[Melinda French Gates]

So I had to learn with each of my three children that they had different ways they wanted to repair. So one of them was like, no, Mom, I'm not ready. I know you're sorry. And as a mom, I was like, will they ever, you know, are we going to be okay, you know, a week from now? And I had to learn for that child, they needed time to cool down themselves, just like I needed Time. But then I would say, okay, come to me when you're ready. So put the control for me. I had to put the control in their hands just when I wanted to be in control.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah, yeah. And so then the conversation becomes, I'm sorry for that. Is that real?

[Melinda French Gates]

Absolutely. And I want to explain to you my side of it, but I really am working hard here. Not to be defensive, but I want to hear your side too. But it starts with, I am sorry. I am sorry I hurt your feelings. It starts there and it ends there again.

[Hoda Kotb]

Right.

[Melinda French Gates]

But you have to be real in those moments and say, I'm sorry I didn't see how you felt about that. Or I'm sorry I came into the situation so stressed.

[Hoda Kotb]

What came easier to you, motherhood or the business world?

[Melinda French Gates]

Great question. You always have these insightful questions. Boy, I had a lot to learn in both. I think innately I came in with some amazing parenting skills thanks to my mom. My mom is a deep conversationalist, listened to us as kids a lot and had her moments. She got hot and we had to repair business. Took me quite a while to learn how to actually play the game. But once I understood understood it, then the business stuff was like, kind of easy.

[Hoda Kotb]

Easy for you?

[Melinda French Gates]

Yeah, much easier. But that has been a learning. Like, let's be honest, that's been a 15 or 20 year journey of learning.

[Hoda Kotb]

What was the bumpy part in business before you said, oh, now I get the key to it. Now I understand it. What were the big lessons you had to learn before it got easy?

[Melinda French Gates]

Well, I talk about this a little bit in my book when I was at Microsoft. So I came straight out of college and business school, went to Microsoft and, and this is still, I think quite true of the tech community from what I hear from women and young men. You know, it's a rough and tumble, sharp elbows. It was the boys debate club, you gotta know your facts. And so I could study that. And I didn't like to have to defend every single point when I went into meeting. But I learned how to play that game. And it took me about 18 months, two years. But then I came to realize I did not like myself. I could be that way in work, but I would go to the grocery store and guess what? I wasn't very nice to that cashier. Right. Or I wasn't very nice to a friend who, you know, just wanted a little compassion. And I thought, I don't like myself.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah.

[Melinda French Gates]

So then I thought, okay, I'll leave the company, which is fine. I Thought I could find another job. I had the confidence in that. But I thought before I leave, I'm gonna, I'll fall flat on my face, but I'm going to try just being myself inside this rough and tumble world. And it turned out when I started to be more my, I could gather people on my teams who wanted to work in that way. And so I almost built my own mini culture inside of my team that was 1,800 people.

[Hoda Kotb]

I wanna talk about how you did that. Because to walk into a room where people are throwing elbows and getting where they want and having a thick skin, to finally saying like, exhale, this is me. Tell me what the first few weeks of that were like.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Cause that had to be first of.

[Hoda Kotb]

All weird for them too. Probably like what happened to Melinda, you know.

[Melinda French Gates]

Yeah, I had enough people working and alongside me already who knew who I was, and I could just practice being myself with them. So it didn't happen right away, but I could practice over, you know, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks. And there was just a tone shift. Right. And then I literally decided to be explicit with my teams. I have your back. So when we go to those rough and tumble meetings with senior management, they are gonna be tough. And I'm gonna be tough on you to prepare you for those meetings. Cause we need to go in, we to show what we're doing. If we want more resources on our project, we gotta do that. So I will be tough on you as we prepare for those, but I'm gonna give you real feedback. But when we're in the meeting, you need to know I have your back. I will never undercut you in a meeting. And so by being explicit about it, I built trust in my teams and they could trust I was giving them clear feedback. I tried to be kind when I was doing it. And then we'd all go to the meeting extremely well prepared and ready for it. We would come out bruised sometimes, but I. They knew I had their back and that matters.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's a key part of your management style. Trust. I mean, that's. Yeah, trust. How else would you describe your management style? Like, who are you as a leader?

[Melinda French Gates]

I believe that clear is kind. And I actually keep something on my desk that says clear is kind. And so I try to be explicit in my management style with people. I actually learned to manage quite young, actually. In high school. I was managing. This is gonna sound funny, but I was managing. I went to an all girls Catholic, managed a drill team. It was 150 young women my age. And Just younger than me. I had to discipline them. I had to make sure they were on time. I had to make sure we had our dance routine coordinated. They were going through puberty with boyfriend issues. We got to get on the bus with all the equipment. If you can manage 150 young women through puberty, you can do anything.

[Hoda Kotb]

Let me ask you this. So you did it?

[Melinda French Gates]

Yeah.

[Hoda Kotb]

Did they like you and did you care?

[Melinda French Gates]

Some of them did not like me. And to this day we laugh about it because they purposely cut up. Cause they were my friends, you know, to see like what they could get away with. But they were proud of what we did in the end. And so I, so I learned to manage there. I managed young men in college teams, software teams. How was that managing? Very different.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah, how'd you do that?

[Melinda French Gates]

Very different. Well, they were technical teams, but again, I learned to build trust. I could see people's talents and split people up on projects and say, I'm gonna do my part, this is my part. I'm gonna have you do your parts and we'll put it together. And I built trust. And then I went to business school. You manage mixed teams. So by the time I got to Microsoft, I was very used to managing.

[Hoda Kotb]

Why did you turn down IBM, this great, awesome, well known company for Microsoft, which at the time was not that.

[Melinda French Gates]

Yeah. And I grew up in Dallas, Texas. I'd gone to school in North Carolina at Duke. So going back to Texas, to Dallas, which is where I had this offer with, I was very attractive to me. My parents were there, my friends were there. But I went to meet with my hiring manager and she happened to be a woman. And she said, are you ready to accept this offer? It was in the spring of my last year of business school. And I said, well, you knew I was going to interview other places. I have, I've turned all those down. I have one more place to interview. And she said, would you mind me asking? And I said, I'm going to this little tiny company, Microsoft in Seattle, Redmond, if you've ever heard of them. And I'm gonna interview there and then I'll come back and give you my decision. And she said, well, would you like a piece of advice? And I said, sure. And she said, well, you're a young woman, you seem quite smart to me. We'd love to have you here. But she says, I will tell you as a woman at IBM and pretty much any manager, you have to climb the various rungs. The career ladders are very well known here. And she said, it will take you a while to climb that rung. She says, I think if you go to a young startup like Microsoft, she you clearly smart, you're clearly a good manager. She goes, I think your rise will be meteoric.

[Hoda Kotb]

Cause she did you a solid.

[Melinda French Gates]

I mean, she did me a huge solid.

[Hoda Kotb]

I can't believe that.

[Melinda French Gates]

Wow. Me either.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's about. First of all, there's nothing I love more than women helping women, saying, you know what, that'll give you your shot. Has that been part of your. The way you do business too?

[Melinda French Gates]

1,000%. Yeah, tell me about that 1,000%. I believe that when we find the best in others, males and females, and we draw that out, you help people find their inner talents, you help them find their power. We all have it inside us. And I think teams and results are better when people know they're talented. And so I really believe in trying to lift up women and men. And I think sometimes women, I've learned, need an extra boost because the workforce is telling them they're not good or society's telling them they're not good enough. They are good enough. Or they just don't see women in upper. We still don't see women in upper echelons of society. Right. And so there's no reason not to do it. And I will give them clear and kind feedback if I think they're not doing a good job. One of the other ways you asked me earlier how I manage teams is trust is really important. Everybody who works for me knows that if I have feedback for them, if I'm unhappy with their job, they will get feedback within 48 hours. They won't get it right away because I might be frustrated or even angry. I will calm myself down, but I will come back to them. And that way they can know that when their performance review comes in six months or a year, they're not going to get surprised. They've had feedback along the way.

[Hoda Kotb]

How do you know when an employee. When you've exhausted all of the options and it's time? Because someone once said something like, take time in hiring, but when there's something that's not right, make sure that that happens quickly. When there's a firing.

[Melinda French Gates]

Yeah, I definitely. I think I give people a very long rope. I do management by trust. But if somebody breaks my trust or I see something that doesn't feel right right away, I've learned, especially if they're being managed by somebody else, to log it with their manager quickly because that person may also be seeing signs of it. And so they need this extra data point. And so I look for patterns. And if I see a pattern that's gone on more than twice, I say we may have to make a change here.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

More ahead with Melinda French Gates.

[Hoda Kotb]

Stay with us.

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[Royal Caribbean Narrator]

Welcome to gift wrapping.

[Wayfair Narrator]

Whoa.

[T-Mobile Narrator]

So is Saldana.

[T-Mobile Salesperson]

Hey, can you wrap these please?

[Melinda French Gates]

Wow.

[Royal Caribbean Narrator]

IPhone 17s.

[T-Mobile Salesperson]

You splurged at T Mobile. You can get four iPhone 17s on them. The new center stage front camera is amazing for groups that selfies. It's the perfect gift for everyone.

[Royal Caribbean Narrator]

I'm the worst. I only got my mom a robe.

[T-Mobile Salesperson]

Well, it's better than socks.

[Royal Caribbean Narrator]

So I have to trade in my old phone, right?

[T-Mobile Salesperson]

No @t mobile. There's no trade ins needed when you switch. Keep your old phone or give it as a gift.

[Royal Caribbean Narrator]

Incredible.

[T-Mobile Salesperson]

In fact, wrap up my old phone too for my aunt Rosa. Forget that. Aunt Liz will be jealous.

[Royal Caribbean Narrator]

Sounds like my family drama.

[T-Mobile Salesperson]

Oh I got it. I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with. Hey where are you going?

[Hoda Kotb]

To T Mobile.

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[Hoda Kotb]

There's so many facets to you that I am intrigued by how you manage. And all of that stuff is so beautiful and meaningful. But I love this because in your high school graduation speech you said if you were successful, it's because somewhere, sometime, someone gave you a life or an idea that started you in the right direction. Remember also that you are indebted to life until you help a less fortunate person, just as you were helped. When I read that, I was thinking about your service piece, the part of your life. And it just was so beautiful for me to look at that and go, ever since back then, man, ever since you were little, that's been a building block of your life.

[Melinda French Gates]

Yeah, I went to this high school run by these very liberal Ursula nuns. But the motto was Serviam, that is to serve. And they really taught us that if we were lucky enough to be in that school that our parents could afford it or we got a scholarship or we were on financial aid. We were lucky with the education we were giving and we had talent inside of us. And so look at that and make sure you serve someone else. Like they were in service to us, those nuns, those teachers, you know. And I had some incredible female teachers. I didn't have very many male teachers in high school. Cause an all girls school. Just incredible female teachers who I could see they were giving their. It was their life's calling to teach and they had a family on the side. Right. And so I just knew that we all, if we're. We all need each other. We so much act like we don't even. I, I sometimes like to be mis. Independent. We need each other. And they gave me, and my parents gave me such a grounding to go off in the world that to me a life of meaning even from then was to give something back.

[Hoda Kotb]

So service. I mean now you clearly live this life in the philanthropic lane, but it's always been that way. I was thinking about Mother Teresa.

[Melinda French Gates]

Did you.

[Hoda Kotb]

I know you've spoken about her. Did you ever get to meet her throughout her life?

[Melinda French Gates]

I did not. I wished I had. But I went and worked in her home for her, for the dying in Calcutta and in the orphanage I went with eight other female friends that are part of a spiritual group. And we wanted to go over to India and do some learning and we got to volunteer for a few days.

[Hoda Kotb]

Will you tell me what that was like? Oof.

[Melinda French Gates]

Yeah. She's such an inspiration because. And I will tell you what it's like. She's such an inspiration because she said if she had. If she hadn't picked up that one dying person, she never would have done her work. And I love that because you start here and you may end up over here, but you start somewhere. The home for the dying was just heavy, right? I mean, these are people who know they're going to pass. At least they're in a place where their basic needs are being met, they're being fed, they're being clothed and bathed daily. But many of them, and the ones that I was assigned to, in particular this, this woman, young woman, she had hiv, aids. And so I. And I couldn't talk with her because we spoke different languages. But I could hold her hand. I could. We could do. I. You know, we could do gestures. She eventually kept pointing up, she wanted to go up. And I'm thinking, what is this?

[Wayfair Narrator]

This?

[Melinda French Gates]

And anyway, it turned out, I finally figured it out. She wanted to go up to the roof to see sunset. And so after she got fed and had her medicines, I was able to have someone help carry her up to the roof. And we sat together in two plastic lawn chairs and we watched the sunset. And it was like, wow. Like, if you can help somebody with their dying wish, that is just an enormous gift.

[Hoda Kotb]

The other beautiful part of what you said is that you have a group of eight women who do things like that. I mean, I literally, I was like, how great to be part of that group. So this group, you and your closest friends, or these dear friends of yours, what kinds of things like that do you do and what made you start this group in the first place?

[Melinda French Gates]

We're all from different. Some are non religious, but the rest of us were all from different denominations of religion and we were all seeking. We all were kind of more in our late 20s and starting families and had had careers and we were all, you know, seeking something more, seeking meaning. And so a woman named Killian. No, again I talked. She's mentioned in my book. She had moved to Seattle with her husband from dc. They changed careers and she had been part of some spiritual groups back in D.C. and she was looking for a faith community. And so she asked us, as we got to know, would we wanna come together and we did. And so instead of a women's book club, which I enjoy those too, we became a women's spiritual group. And we did do spiritual readings every couple of months. We would eventually have a speaker. We would all listen to the same, eventually the same podcast. And then we would come together once a month to then talk about what we were feeling and what was coming, as she would say, alive for us. From the readings, I think some people.

[Hoda Kotb]

Feel like, well, I can't do much, you know, Melinda Gates, or there are other people who can give a lot. I can't. My stuff doesn't really matter. I don't have enough to make any kind of a change. What do you say to that person who thinks it's too big of a thing for me to even put my toe into?

[Melinda French Gates]

I hear that a lot from people, and I say to them, you have your time, you have your smarts and your energy, and you have resources. Just pick one of them and start. Just start somewhere. And it is. That's why we talk about Mother Teresa. She picked up one person. It's drops in the bucket, but they add up over time. So I'll give you an example. Last year around Christmas time, I went to visit a group in my own backyard in Seattle. It was a volunteer group run by five female professionals. And they were counseling women who were postpartum who were going through depression. And so there was a call line. These women would call in, and there were professionals, but most of the organization were all volunteer moms. And they said, I went through postpartum depression. I know how hard it was. Yes, I have three children at home, but I can still give three hours a week to this. And they would do it from their homes. And they knew when to refer these women to services. Sometimes the women on the other end of the line just needed to be understood and said, yes, this is hard. You will get through. And I'm telling you, those volunteers, their three hours a week made a difference in these women's lives.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

More with Melinda for French Gates when we come back.

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[Melinda French Gates]

Are you ready to get spicy? These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy. Sriracha sounds pretty spicy to me. Um, a little spicy, but also tangy and sweet. Maybe it's time to turn up the heat. Or turn it down.

[Royal Caribbean Narrator]

It's time for something that's not too spicy.

[Melinda French Gates]

Try Doritos Golden Sriracha. Spicy but not too spicy.

[Hoda Kotb]

The book is called the Next Day. It's a beautiful book and I love the title just because it's hopeful. To me it's like no matter where you are in your life, you'll wake up. There's the next day. Totally. I had one of those weekends with kids. That one was sick, one was upset, everyone was fighting, people were crying. It was two in the morning, I was on a thin string. And then I woke up the next day and I started repeating this mantra that someone said. They said, say the words. Good things keep happening to me. So I said good things keep happening to me. And I was on my way to the gym at 5:15 and I go good things keep happening to me. Hope's fever broke. Good things keep happening to me. Haley slept through the night. Good things keep happening to me. There's a parking place up front. There's never that spot. Good things keep happening to me. Brian, my trainer could come in early at 5:15 today. He gave me extra time. Good thing. And it was kind of weird how the same day. Cause I had the afterglow of kind of yuck, you know, that stench of like the night before. But really I do think some things are a choice. And I love your book Cause it's full of all the transitions of life, of your life. And the next day you talk a little bit about your divorce. How are you different today than you were on the first day or the day that you knew that that was over?

[Melinda French Gates]

I'm so much more self confident when you get through something really, really difficult like that. And I think, you know, I wouldn't wish divorce on any family, but sometimes it's necessary and the process is difficult. And I certainly wasn't perfect through it, but I felt like I'd supported my kids well enough through it. Because when you are taking something apart, it's not just if you have children, even adult children, it's not just the couple, but it's, you know, we had three other people too, so there are five of us. Our unit was being pulled apart by me. But it was. It has given me back my confidence, you know, to be able to speak in my true and full voice and to say what I believe and what I think without anybody else trying to edit that. To be able to use my resources in the way that I believe they should be used in the world to fully lift up women. There's just a freedom in that. And so I have made that transition. And, you know, there were things I still, of course, needed to go through and work through that had happened. But I know now I'm fully on the other side. And so then life becomes beautiful. But I will say, you're saying that you said there. I hadn't thought of it that way. Like, good things happen, you know, good things.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

What did you say?

[Melinda French Gates]

Good things.

[Hoda Kotb]

Good things keep happening to me.

[Melinda French Gates]

Good things keep happening. What I did learn during that time, I had read a book before that, back in about 2012, called Awakening Joy. And it talked about how. How do you hold deep sadness alongside deep joy? Because I didn't think they could go together. I just didn't. But it turns out if you can find things to be grateful for every single day and remember those or jot them down. So when I was going through some very difficult times in my life from, say, from 2012 all the way to the end of the divorce, different times. I could be deeply sad some days, but I could also find three things.

[Hoda Kotb]

I was grateful for that can change the whole game. The book Conversations with God, which is I had it and then lost it and gave it away and found it again, and I popped it open to this page and I loved it so much. It said, if you are seeking understanding, like I think a lot of people in this world Are, give it. If you're seeking love, give it. If you're seeking prosperity, give it. If you're seeking whatever you're seeking, give it. And his philosophy is, you can't give away something you don't already have. So on your worst day, when you're like, nobody loves me, give away love. Oh, I do have it. I just gave it. And they tell the story of a guy who was very. He'd come on hard times. He had like a hundred bucks. And he saw a poor family sitting at the train station, three kids and a mom. And he said, do you guys want to come to my house for dinner? And they looked at him like it was Christmas morning. And he brought these little kids and this mother home, and he said, all I had was rice and veggies. And I made a huge stir fry in a big bowl. It's all I had, a big pot. And I served it up, and they gobbled it up. And I gave him hot chocolate. I had packets, and I gave him half of my hundred fifty dollars or whatever, and they went on their way. And he said the feeling he had was something he could not duplicate. And prosperity followed him from that day forward. So it's like sometimes when I look at the state of the world or the country or whatever, and I think there's no understanding. Everyone's yelling, yeah, all that is. But when you talk about doing a little thing, I do sometimes feel like. I mean, I am not a hopeless person. I feel hopeful. I think that when I watch someone buy someone else lunch at a lunch counter, I think there's goodness. I try to focus my gaze on the goodness. I'm not ignoring everything, right? But there are, you know, people find hope in very dark places. People find hope in prison. People find hope in, you know, but in terrible situations, they still have that glimmer. Do you or can you or do you see hope still sometimes?

[Melinda French Gates]

Oh, absolutely. When I walk around in Seattle, in the neighborhoods, there are literally people out tending the public trails. And if you stop and talk to them, they're the neighbors who live along the public trail, and they're just giving their time to make it a nice place for the public. In New York, just two days ago, I was walking somewhere, and a woman had clearly had a health event right there. Just seeing the way the police officer moved in and was tending to her so gracefully. And right away, two other people were coming and responding. I thought I just kind of watched him tend to her, and I thought, God, that is so beautiful and so thoughtful, right? And so you see it all the time. And I think some people sometimes think of these kindnesses as these small things, these small kindnesses. No, a kindness can be a very big thing. It may be a small act to you, but it may fill somebody else's heart. Right. And so we all, if we can spread a little more kindness in the world or a little bit more joy in the world, you don't know where those ripples in the pond go.

[Hoda Kotb]

You're in the helping business, obviously. You're in the healing business. You're in the taking care of people business. In this time, this political time, how do you see it? How do you see what's ahead?

[Melinda French Gates]

I don't think any of us know how this is going to play out. This is a unique situation. We haven't. There are elements we've seen before, but we've never seen this story play out in this particular way. And we also don't know technology's coming very, very quickly, the advent of AI. So I really can't answer that. None of us know. But what I do know is I can teach inside my family. And I watch my daughter, My oldest daughter's 29, and she and her husband have two young girls. I see them teaching kindness, I see them teaching love. I see them being kind to other people. I think we just have to keep doing that in our communities. You know, what are our expectations for how we behave towards one another? Right. You know, can we call out the people who are bullying? I used to say to my kids on the playground, it's not only if somebody bullies you. If you see somebody bullying somebody else, I expect you to stand up for that person. I expect you to take some action and take that kids back or go to a trusted adult.

[Hoda Kotb]

Right?

[Melinda French Gates]

So I think when we see things in society, no matter what level they're at, we need to name them for what they are, whether it's bullying, whether it's harassment, sometimes. And when we see leaders who have a good moral compass and are truly living their values in society, we need to do all we can to keep lifting those people up.

[Hoda Kotb]

So, Melinda, this podcast is called Making Space, because I like to know, when you have a day that's for you, you have not one thing you have to do, not one. You wake up, your eyes are open. I know you can't even match this day. So how would you spend the day from the moment you open your eyes to the moment you close them and go to sleep?

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

What time would you wake?

[Hoda Kotb]

How would that day unfold?

[Melinda French Gates]

Ideally, I'd wake up at 7am Totally refreshed. Good night of sleep. Go outside and sit in a chair with a nice cup of coffee and journal and meditate. If I can start my day outside with the birds chirping or whatever's going on, somehow it makes my day brighter. If it's a rainy day, it rains a lot in Seattle in the winter. I can at least open the door and hear the rain and feel the breeze. And so I'll sometimes sit in, in a chair in my room or in my bed and journal. That's the start of my day. Next would be exercise. Any form of exercise.

[Hoda Kotb]

You love it. What's your favorite? What's your favorite kind?

[Melinda French Gates]

Probably jogging, which I can't do as much anymore. But I love to jog. I love to kayak when I can in the summer. Super fun. So followed by a good talk on the phone with my mom who lives in California and I'm in Seattle or talking to one of my kids. Followed by a long lunch with a friend. Like no time constraint. Oh God, right.

[Hoda Kotb]

Can you imagine? Nothing? No. And how would you wrap your day up? How would it wind down at the.

[Melinda French Gates]

End of the day? Would just again might be just a really. I'm kind of. I'm a foodie. So a really good meal at home or out again, a dinner with somebody I love, you know, and then followed by a good show on tv. An hour, a rom com, something that grabs my attention. Tension.

[Hoda Kotb]

Like the pit.

[Melinda French Gates]

I couldn't get over the pit. I loved it. Really?

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh yeah.

[Melinda French Gates]

You know, I watch Bridgerton start to finish twice, you know, when it was on. So yeah, a good one hour something because then I can just go to bed and everything's off my mind and.

[Hoda Kotb]

Then lights out is one.

[Melinda French Gates]

Oh, my ideal lights out is nine, 30 or 10. I love a good night of sleep.

[Hoda Kotb]

Speaking my language. Speaking my language.

[Melinda French Gates]

You're getting there.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Melinda.

[Hoda Kotb]

Thank you so much, much.

[Melinda French Gates]

I really appreciate it. Thank you, Hoda.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Hey guys, thank you so much for listening and for coming on this journey with me. If you like what you heard, and I hope that you do, please give Making Space a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts and make sure.

[Melinda French Gates]

You tell your friends.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening right now. Making Space with Hoda Kali. Copy is produced by Allison Berger and Mitch Rissmiller along with Kate Saunders. Our associate audio engineer is Juliana Masterilli. Our audio engineers are Matt Tierney and Joe Plord. Original music by John Estes. Missy Dunlop Parsons is our executive producer. Libby Least is the executive vice president of Today and Lifestyle.

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As the daughter of immigrants, financial struggles were part of my everyday reality. In high school, I became homeless and had to live in a women's shelter. Thankfully, being an Apia McDonald Scholar enabled me to attend college and begin a new chapter in my life. And now my reality is filled with endless possibilities.

[Royal Caribbean Narrator]

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