Possibly the fact that some of the stuff I’ve written will still be around after I’ve snuffed it.
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Kathleen J. McInnis, Smart Women, Smart Power podcast, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 28 August 2024 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 192 →Still being here, aged 60. If I thought I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.
A selection of single paragraphs that perfectly capture something I’ve thought or felt, even if it’s shameful or perverse.
Holding on to my sanity.
More from Mellody Hobson
View profile →We cannot afford to be color blind. We have to be color brave. We have to be willing, as teachers and parents and entrepreneurs and scientists, we have to be willing to have proactive conversations about race with honesty and understanding and courage, not because it's the right thing to do, but because it's the smart thing to do, because our businesses and our products and our science, our research, all of that will be better with greater diversity.
Well, I think I am her in some ways. I grew up with a mother who said anything is possible. She had a grand vision of life and a grand vision for me. And she didn't know what it would be, but she just constantly told me whatever I wanted to do would happen. That's what she felt about her own life, and still does.
And all the while I was growing up, of course, there were just constant conversations about money and money being tight and how are we going to make ends meet and sometimes not having enough money. And it really just made me committed to living a life with much more financial security.
That moving a lot really committed me to stability and committed me to ... being in control of my destiny. That was something that was very important to me. And it also made me very conservative about money.
I could be strong and not tough. I could be kind without being soft. ... But in that moment, that olive branch of kindness was actually one that became a physical hug, and I think it taught me and the room a lot. And I said: You know what? I think this is an advantage.
I told our Ariel team, we are not going to limp out of COVID. We're going to slingshot out of COVID. We're going to be pulling that rubber band back and back, and we're going to be warehousing ideas, and getting work done, and so when this is over we will pole vault ahead.
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