Melinda Gates
MOMENT OF LIFT
EPISODE 70
Continuing their "Women In Innovation" series, Mike and Mark learn lessons from Melinda Gates as they listen to some of her most inspiring talks in Episode 70.
For the last twenty years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift a society up, you need to stop keeping women down.
Melinda's debut book "The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World" (buy on Amazon), was published in 2019.
SHOW OUTLINE
INTRO
Connection between human beings
Creating a moment of lift
LESSONS FROM FAMILY
Things are best when you've earned them
Raising ambitious and altruistic children
HELPING WOMEN
Women just make teams better
Investing in women
Be who you want to be, not what others want
Feminist
MENTAL MODELS
Make a market, to make a difference; we can do that
Creating Markets to Solve Problems
We like puzzles that are like metaphors to how we work together
Puzzles and Challenges
OUTRO
What you dream you can achieve; be disciplined
Advice to younger self
TRANSCRIPT
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mike parsons 0:12
Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It is an epic Episode 70. I'm your co host Mike Parsons and I am joined once again by the man himself. Mr. Mark Pearson Freeland Good morning, Mark. Good morning, Mike.
Mark Pearson-Freeland 0:29
How are you doing at your home? working away remotely? I know we are
mike parsons 0:35
definitely in a work from home studio situation. But we're not letting all the crazy in the world get to us. We've got an action packed show full of inspiration and a lot of lessons to be learned. In the last show. We did Michelle Obama, Mark who is the second standout woman of innovation in our series. Innovative women who are changing the world who we're going to decode and learn from today.
Mark Pearson-Freeland 1:06
Well, today we are covering no one other than Melinda Gates, an incredible woman who took her job originally at Microsoft in the 80s and ended up marrying none other than Mr. Bill Gates in the early 90s. And together, none of us really need an introduction. They founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the early 90s, and pledged an enormous amount of money over the last 20 years. Most famously, she released her debut book, the moment of lift in 2019. And today, we're going to be exploring some of the best lessons we can get from Linda.
mike parsons 1:48
She's a bit of a tour de force. I mean, I think it's fair to say that she very similar to Michelle Obama, she's very much her own self and not only has she done An amazing job with the foundation. She has been an advocate for not just women, but for everyone finding empowerment. In fact, if you look at her book, the moment of lift, it is crazy. It's like 1200 and 40. ratings, four and a half stars on Amazon. And just remember, apart from writing a best seller, she has donated more money to philanthropy than anyone else on the planet. She's changed the lives of millions of people who've had substandard Health Access throughout the third world. I mean, if you want to talk about legacy and impact, I mean, you can't go past melinda gates. I mean, everything she does touches to gold mark, I mean, best selling book, saving the
Mark Pearson-Freeland 2:50
world. I mean, jeez. I mean, she has to be one of the most charitable people and most inspirational people out at the moment, and she's just got so much to share. With us, and there are so many amazing lessons that we can learn and begin implementing in our own day to day lives, even though some of us aren't able to donate, you know, 500 million plus dollars to philanthropy and I can still be inspired. I can still learn lessons from a Linda and her work.
mike parsons 3:21
And I think when you put her and Michelle Obama together, if you then look at Brene Brown, you look at Lady Gaga. What is so interesting is that all of these women have this fierce independence of thought. They are like freight trains of human potential. They are on a mission to get it done, and they're not gonna let other people's mental models paradigms or bias get in their way. It's gonna be an action packed show. We've got a bunch of really smart mental models that Melinda has we've got, how she learned things in her efforts to help women, we can sort of decode them and learn some powerful lessons for all of us. It really is, it's going to be fantastic to get into the world of such a high performer such a high achiever. But before we jump in Mark, if everybody wants to dive into our women of innovation series, where do they go to get all that content in shownotes,
Mark Pearson-Freeland 4:28
there's a little place that we like to call moonshots.io. You can visit it online via any of your devices. We have all of our show notes, and our archive shows all online available for everybody to listen to. There are transcripts for a lot of them as well. And you can also get a sneak peek at some of our upcoming shows as well. But what we would love for all of our listeners to do is actually start reaching out and giving us your recommendations and who you'd love us to cover in the future.
mike parsons 4:58
Absolutely. And we've been getting some Great recommendations. In fact, we are going to add Adam Grant to one of our upcoming episodes, things to a suggestion from one of our listeners. So we really appreciate that. And if someone wants to send us an email with a recommendation for innovator, entrepreneur, to decode and to really learn from Mark, this is the big test. Do you remember the moonshots email address
Mark Pearson-Freeland 5:26
hello@moonshots.io send us your thoughts, your images, your voice notes, whatever you'd like to do. To get in touch with us feel free to send it all over to us, because we read absolutely everything. And we'd love to hear from you.
mike parsons 5:43
All right, I reckon it's about time to get into the world of Melinda Gates, this high achieving super woman, like entrepreneur and innovator, Mark, I think there's a big theme in the world of Melinda Around connection. And so why don't we have a listen to her talking about that, and creating a moment
Oprah 6:08
of lift? how then do we here in America with our own set of issues and things going on in our own lives are dailiness create a moment of lift for these 220 million women who don't have contraceptives for the 130 girls who still have yet to go to school. You say we are the lift, but
Melinda Gates 6:29
how can I be the lift, I'm just trying to get my bills paid. So first of all your abs threat, I believe in connection connection between human beings and that connection creates empathy, and we start to understand and we learn and we grow through that. And so if you hear this global problem and it sounds Oh, it's far away. It's huge. These big numbers. You have to remember we all have our hearts, our intellects, our energy, our time and our resources. Horses Yeah. And you can apply those in any amounts, you want tiny amounts, big amounts. But what I tell people is just get connected, understand what the issues are, read about them, connect with somebody else who's working on them, decide you're going to volunteer time, even in your own community, you'll see the difference that education makes in your own community for a girl. And whether it's even working in your community. Look, our US school system is pretty broken. I'm out of the school system, a lot of you but out quite a bit, too. Yes. But when you start to do that work, and you put drops in the bucket of connecting with people and understanding other people's lives, you start to see how you have personal talents that you can contribute.
mike parsons 7:40
This is a great reminder for us all to be aware of what we're doing in our lives as our own individuals. It's very, very easy to get caught up, whether it's in social media, whether it's in the media, news sites, and so on, where we pushed in one direction or another, I think very, very similar to ours. Actually one of our favourites Brene Brown, but also Michelle, this idea of authenticity is really, really coming through here. And what Melinda has, by being authentic, you're giving others the permission to go and be themselves as well. What she actually was making this fascinating connection there that if you go out and connect with others, it helps you discover your superpower your skills, the value that you have to offer. So you can't do it in isolation as a lone wolf. I mean, she's essentially teaching us here that connectivity with others is the source, to getting things done to having impact to being the best version of yourself. And I think this is so true, like when I think about when I have an idea, and then I share it with you, when I share it with any of my teammates or clients. It always comes back 10 times better.
And what's really interesting is she's saying loose, making that connection with others. Reaching out finding people who have the same shared interest people who are on the same mission. Not only can we have the impact, but you can learn more about yourself. So she's giving us here. I mean, when leading really strongly, she's essentially saying like, the first principle of success is connection with others. That's pretty strong lead, right? That's a pretty great superpower.
And I think it's easy sometimes to get stuck, as you were saying, in your world, and it's easy to forget to connect to others. And I think maybe, at this time, here we are in April 2020. I think there is a very pertinent, a very relevant reminder
Mark Pearson-Freeland 9:46
to connect with others. Absolutely. If you're all isolated, whether it's because of the current situation or in fact, if you just isolate yourself this idea of connection, this drive and encouragement To connect with others to be successful in life is fascinating. And you're right. It doesn't just be limited to our working situation, but our home lives, our friends, our families, connecting with one another is how we will thrive and thrive.
mike parsons 10:14
So what's this next area? I think we can jump into to learn from our famous Melinda Gates, the ultimate connector, the creator of lift. Where do we go next man?
Mark Pearson-Freeland 10:26
Well, exactly. I was just alluding to, I suppose, which is you don't have to be limited to connection just when we're doing our nine to five, work lives. You can connect at home with your families. And what Melinda does in a lot of these clips, as well as her debut book is draw comparisons and lessons from family. And this first clip that we're going to dive into now reveals some things that she believes are best when you've earned them.
Oprah 10:54
I often wonder and I asked this not because you're one of the richest people on the planet earth but because I also have my friends who are who are just well off, how do you raise? How do you raise kids who are responsible and kind, who grew up with a sense of grace, and yet have their own ambition when they have access to literally everything?
Unknown Speaker 11:23
How do you do that?
Melinda Gates 11:24
Well, I wouldn't I would say it's purposeful over time. And again, I believe in putting lots of drops in the bucket and I wouldn't say I've gotten it right. My daughter, Jen, my oldest who's here would tell you i have i've made mistakes too. But I think you constantly go back to your values and do because
Oprah 11:39
when I was growing up my mother, you know, we were poor. So when she said we couldn't afford it, I know we couldn't afford it. You can never say we can't afford it.
Melinda Gates 11:48
But that's true. And I wrestled with that with jack
can never say you can't have that. We just want to put that down.
I'm like I got That message for my parents because we couldn't afford Yes. But just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Right? So just because I could buy my daughter, whatever. Yeah. Doesn't mean, I should, like she doesn't learn if I just buy it from her or my son.
And so our kids have always had an allowance growing up. And then think bigger things that they wanted that their allowance wouldn't pay for, they put on their Christmas list and my birthday list and they might get it off their wish list from us or a relative, or they might not get it. But they started to learn the responsibility of money. And they know that our hope and our dream for them is to grow up and to find whatever it is they have. All kids have amazing potential and talent and right use that talent on behalf of the world.
Oprah 12:48
And I think one of the things you have to be doing a good job to have enormous amounts of wealth and still have your kids grow up with their own ambition, because I've also talked to people who say, Well, what are you going to do? You can't get the kids To work,
Melinda Gates 13:01
you know, but I think our kids see Bill and I work very hard. We don't have to work anymore. I mean, but we do we work hard every single day. I mean, we take some vacation. So you know, we take time off, but we work hard. And I think the other thing our kids see is they have been fortunate to travel a lot both really nice travel, but they have been in and out of the developing world a lot too. And so they see I mean, even from age 10 I started taking them out they see how lucky they are lucky not just to be in our family lucky to have grown
Unknown Speaker 13:33
gentlemen shaking their head there,
Unknown Speaker 13:35
right? Yeah,
Oprah 13:36
right. Cuz I think if you're a girl born in the United States, you already one of the luckiest girls in the world. If you look at the rest of the way.
mike parsons 13:42
Yes. Whoo. Just because you can. doesn't mean you should. I think there is a huge lesson in this mark. Melinda's putting her finger right on the spot here. This is all about earning things rather than being entitled to them. And what's really powerful here is she's saying, There is nothing better than working hard and earning something versus just consuming something because you're entitled to it. And I think what I'm taking out of this is you hear her talk there. And yes, she's sitting there with Oprah and all that, but you can hear in her voice, you're not lifting any doubt that her and Bill work hard.
I mean, you're not like, I reckon they're taking it easy. I mean, you just need to look at how much work they do in their foundation. There's no way they're doing that part time. But what's really interesting is she's challenging the people around her in this case for children, and she's exposing them to the real world outside of there, so they're not living in a bubble. And I think this is such a powerful lesson, because they're not sitting on a pedestal, counting their dollars.
They're working Hard still, every single day she even says she doesn't even need to work but she chooses to. For me, what I relate to this is when you choose your work, when you're happy to put in the hard work, as Cal Newport would say the Craftsman approach, right? the mindset of being prepared to put in hard sweat and tears to get the job done. I think their success shows you the potential outcome of it. What a powerful thought. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Oh,
Mark Pearson-Freeland 15:33
from a day to day experience, and I'm sure all of the listeners can agree as well. And Mike, I'm sure you've seen it, dozens, if not hundreds, maybe of times in your career. When you put in the hard work. You can sit back afterwards and know that you tried your hardest, and this is what I think Linda is trying to remind or possibly inspire her own children to see. It's one of the most valuable lessons I think we can learn when we will Go to work.
And when we begin growing up in our lives, whatever you put in, you're going to get something else out of it. It's quite a simple formula that so instead of this expectation of, wow, I'm maybe one of the children of most powerful and generous couples in the world, I don't really need to do anything going forward. Actually, it's the other way around.
What Melinda and Bill are doing is inspiring their own children to go out and be the very best that they can be to go and be ambitious, to go out and maybe continue to make the world a better place. And eventually, when their children have written their books, and you and I are covering their children, on the moonshots in another 30 years, or more, maybe we can, we can draw the same comparison. No matter how much you work, you want to be authentic, you want to put in the hard work to get out of it.
mike parsons 16:56
So how do you might like when you're trying to put in The work and really earn it. You know, sometimes we face those moments were like, ah, how do you push through those moments? How do you do it?
Mark Pearson-Freeland 17:08
Or I must admit, I have been in that position before when I think oh, no, I'm gonna have to work hard on this one. And the truth is, I think it comes with remembering, you know, speakers and role models a little bit like, you know, Melinda, what she's saying here, which is have the long term vision, have the awareness that I don't want to get to a point, when I look back at what I've done, and wonder, I've done it a little bit better. Could I have worked that little bit, could I have woken a little bit earlier, or stayed awake a little bit later, in order to dot the i's and cross the T's, and put in that work because I want to not only for my future children or colleagues, but actually for myself, I want to know that I've put in the hardest work that I can so The result I get is going to be the best that I believe it should be.
mike parsons 18:03
I tried to think about my legacy. I always like how do I want to be remembered? What contribution do I want to have made. And so when I'm lacking motivation or feeling like, like, for example, I finished last night, my last client Cole, finished at nine o'clock in the evening, and I had been probably working for 13 hours, maybe in a row. And I still had to do the prep for the show today. And I always remind myself that taking the time and effort to share these learnings to learn out loud together with you together with our audience, I'm really reminded of particularly when I go to events or meet people who've listened to the show who have not met before and to see their feedback on the lessons and the value they get out of the show or just the emails and the comments that we get from people. I go back to those things to make sure that I've earned it.
Mark Pearson-Freeland 19:11
You're totally right legacy, a great word.
mike parsons 19:14
That's a bit of a confronting thing like, Well, Mark, when all is said and done, how are you going to be remembered?
Mark Pearson-Freeland 19:20
I mean, it's pretty scary, right? You know, a lot of us don't necessarily want to think like that. But actually, it's one of the most useful tools at unlocking inner motivation. We don't want to accept the fact maybe there'll be a time when we're not around. But more importantly, okay, well, what am I going to leave behind? How am I going to be remembered and I love that as a driver of motivation.
mike parsons 19:44
We've only just started with the lessons that we can get from melinda gates and now we've got a couple of clips and they work on two levels. Not only do they demonstrate how Melinda has had so much impact on helping women all around the world. But there's some really practical tips and lessons for all of us when we think about how we work, and how we can be the best version of ourselves. So this next clip, we're going to be really hearing from Melinda her experience and investing in women. Frankly, I think this is really powerful because something that I've learned for sure, is this following lesson that we're going to hear from Melinda, which is women just make teams
Mark Pearson-Freeland 20:35
better.
Melinda Gates 20:36
My dad worked in the aerospace and aeronautics industry, and he worked on a lot of those early Apollo missions. We would often hear around the dinner table the stories about the women that he was recruiting to his teams, and that when he had these particular women mathematicians on his team, his team was just a better team by having them and I saw them as very strong women and I knew they were capable and I knew that any woman could be A great mathematician or engineer, really because of that experience? Well, I think I had the first experience of knowing that a team is better because I was on it in college, there were not very many women in computer science. So I was the only female on a male team.
And it was just clear to me that the guys weren't collaborating in a way that we were going to meet the end goal of the project on time. And so I really had to, like get everybody on the same page and, you know, get them a little bit out of their own egos and seeing what we were trying to create. And so I saw that that was one of the skills that I had.
Global Health is my second career. Today, I'd like to talk about the issue I spend the majority of my time on, and that is the health of women and children around the globe.
We in our foundation work I originally thought that the women's issues were the soft issues, and I was just wrong about that.
I realised that the reason that women were talking about women's issues is no one else was championing them. And the world wasn't actually putting resources behind women's health. And I thought, especially for my oldest daughter at the time, who's just starting into adolescence, if I'm telling her she should use her voice in the world or speak about what she believes, and I need to be doing that I need to be role modelling that in the world and I wasn't, it's time for me to just sneak out.
Mark Pearson-Freeland 22:24
This is a great clip because it reveals Melinda's drive. This reveals this idea that we briefly spoke about at the beginning of the show and connection. What Melinda is demonstrating here is how to inspire not only her children, as we saw in the previous clip, for to inspire change around the world, because of the position where she is. She's worked very, very hard throughout her career and throughout her life. And she's now in this amazing position where she's in front of the world. And she can see that there aren't necessarily Other role models for women to inspire young girls to go after jobs and ambitious careers and so on. Because for us, there's a lot of inspiration in the male space for sure. And what Melinda's seeing here and what she's calling out is, actually we need to inspire young girls, we need to create the models so that we create this new avenue in the future for our children to chase and go off and be themselves
mike parsons 23:29
and look practically speaking, she touches on the fact that when you have a multidisciplinary, diverse team, it's just better. And I want you to think about mark in our working lives. Think about all the women that just make us better. I mean, imagine if you and me and the guys were left to our own devices if we didn't have bridie, Florentina. ina, Julia Christina, all the Women that make us so much better as a team. I mean, we would be a complete mess man.
Mark Pearson-Freeland 24:08
I guarantee you, if we, for some reason were forced into that situation,
mike parsons 24:14
it would not be good because we get
Mark Pearson-Freeland 24:16
a huge amount of guidance, everything that we do, whether it's rereading something that we've written or helping us make a big decision, or in be inspired in the first place. There's women around us, drive us forward and make us better. But also it's equally true in our personal lives, our wives, our sisters, our mothers, our daughters, all of these inspirational people drive us and make us
mike parsons 24:44
better people and more balanced as teams, more considerate. There's a lot there. But there's another part to Melinda's thinking, we've acknowledged the work that she is doing for women, but actually There's something that we can all get into. And we're going to get into it in this next clip, which is actually, what she is demonstrating is this fierce independent thinking that we're celebrating and learning from her. But also to put that thinking towards making deliberate decisions about who you want to be in the world. So we're going to study that lesson right now through Melinda Gates talking about the challenge that women like her have in defining and relating to the concept of being a feminist
Melinda Gates 25:38
One of the hot topics we were just speaking of is actually in your book, which I thought was really fascinating, the topic of feminism, and I don't consider myself a feminist because I don't think conservative pro life women are really allowed to, and you actually, at one point struggled with calling yourself a feminist. So what issue Did you have with the word and what does it mean to you now? Well, first of all, I believe we're allowed To be anything we want to be in society, a mother,
Mark Pearson-Freeland 26:05
a mother
Melinda Gates 26:06
a working mom, a mom who does work. And I did struggle with the word at first I got asked it over 25 years ago, about 25 years ago was I feminist? And I think
a lot of negative things got attached to the previous generation of feminists by the other side who didn't agree with that women should be all things in society could be. But when I take my own definition of feminism, and what I know to be true is women should have their full voice and decision making power in their home, their community and their workplace. To me, that's a feminist and I am absolutely a feminist
Mark Pearson-Freeland 26:39
I think again, what's great lesson here is you define the meaning behind words yourself, you define your own interpretation, your own behaviour, and your own response to situations in life. And I think the lesson that we can get out of that and the reason why I think that clip is a really powerful one is it removes any biases that may exist in that space. And it inspires us to go back to our jobs and think, Okay, well, how can I make it a little bit better? How can I perhaps, behave in a different way or be inspired to a different direction so that I can make that positive change in my day to day work with my colleagues and my family and so on.
mike parsons 27:27
So Matt, let me put you a bit on the spot here. How do you take that thinking of Be who you want to be and stop trying to be what others want you to be? Where do you start with a process like that for yourself personally,
Mark Pearson-Freeland 27:41
it is a challenging one. It starts I think, with Simon cynics start with why, to be honest, you know, going back to one of our favourite books, and certainly one of our most popular shows, on the moonshots podcast if you understand who you are and why Why you do something, not only as a business, but as an individual, as a colleague, as a innovator, it helps you define and I suppose align yourself to the direction that you want to go in. So if I want to uncover who I want to be, I just need to think back to why do i do things? Why am I making a change in the lives of those around me? I mean, Mike to turn the mirror for a second, how do you challenge yourself in that regard?
mike parsons 28:28
I guess, trying to be my true self comes from trying to capture moments where I feel like a really high level of flow. And I don't want to say that things feel easy, but I feel very confident and comfortable in the moment. It might not be an easy moment. Like it might be intense. But that's when I try and maximise my day around that. For example, in my area, Career when I was running advertising agencies, I often felt the need to a really simple thing about being myself is I found myself dressing like I was a CEO. And as many of you already know, is like I'm the king of T shirts now. And I just feel more like myself, when I dress in a more minimal, less formal way. That's just who I am. So that's one way of like looking at where I'm the most comfortable and confident in the things that I wear. I write down all of the little mantras that I find in life that I feel really resonate with me. And I have this little list here. I'm going to read you some of them in my famous to do list I know we've actually had several of our listeners email like what is the what is this to do? manager that Mike always talks about? It's called to do list so you can go to do is calm. It's a great multiplex. Form app. I love it because it's on every device updates in the iCloud. It's all good. But let me throw a few of these at you just for fun. These are just mantras that I found that helped me be myself active body, active mind.
I once saw this video on YouTube with a Navy or Army Command is saying, whatever you do every morning, make your bed. Because if everything else fails, at least you know you made your bed, you can come back and start again. Like do your most important first work. As you well know, I'm very famous for doing deep work in the morning, focus on things that matter. Stress Relief starts with breath. I mean, I could go on and on. But these are all little things I've captured along the way that are true to me. And so I write them down so I can remember them I can come back to them and I even have a daily reminder to read one of my matches.
Mark Pearson-Freeland 30:51
You're totally right. And in fact, just to give you the feeling of camaraderie, I'll read you a couple of mine from my to do list app as well.
mike parsons 31:00
All right, hit me. Come on. What do we got
Mark Pearson-Freeland 31:02
just a couple things again that repeat daily to help keep me on track. These are a little bit more direct things that I need to put in my mind all day long. Stay focused, work as hard as you can. What's your ultimate goal? What am I working on? Am I on track? And what's my big, hairy, audacious goal of the week? I can work through those and I remember each of them every day, I think, okay, am I doing it? Who am I? Am I staying true to my original goal? I think it's great,
mike parsons 31:31
hairy, audacious goals. Yes. And maybe I can use that when I think that I can use that reminder. Well, then you've got it. Okay. So so far we know it's about connection, being almost a gateway to becoming the best version of ourselves. We know we've got to work hard and earn it. We know that look, by default, women in teams, things just get better. And taking it to this highest level of learning from Melinda Gates is we know If you have independent thinking, you can use that with laser like focus on being who you want to be and not what others want you to be. Well, that's the first half mark that is already at Han of learnings. Melinda is giving Michelle Obama a run for her money on the rate of learning. Are you ready for the second half of the show mark,
Mark Pearson-Freeland 32:20
and I hope the listeners are too.
mike parsons 32:23
Now before we get to that second half the show I'd like to invite all our listeners and to remind them if they're enjoying the show, they're halfway through melinda gates. I would ask that if you're commuting or you're at home, if you've got a chance to jump into your podcast software, your pod catcher of choice, leave us a review. It's a really helpful gift from you to us because it helps more people find the show. We get more feedback and frankly it just keeps us inspired and motivated. So if you can jump in and give us a review, write the show. share it with a friend. We would deeply, appreciate it.
Mark Pearson-Freeland 33:02
And a quick personal shout out from the moon shots team to boho snow pants in Canada who kindly left us a review. last show who's been driving on long roads in Western Canada for the past year. And you've worked through much of the back catalogue, we just want to say a heartfelt thanks not only for leaving us review, but more importantly for being with us through the journey, and hearing all of the points of view and the lessons that we're taking from some of these innovators.
mike parsons 33:33
That's the best user handle I've heard in in some time. Let's now do a big exploration into some of the mental models how Melinda Gates really frame some of her thinking. So we've done a lot on some of the behaviour side. Now a chance to look at some of the way she thinks some of those mental models that have led to her incredible contribution and impact The first place we're going to start is it's a little bit this idea around solving problems through creating markets. It's really innovative thinking it's a great mental model. So what we're going to do now is we're going to jump in to the world of melinda gates and get some inspiration about how to make a difference.
Melinda Gates 34:20
Some of these huge childhood deaths that are going on because we have vaccines that don't get out to the developing world, we have solutions, but others are like rotavirus, a huge diarrheal disease, we don't get it essentially here in the United States or you don't die of it in the United States. If you're a child, let me say that you get it but you don't die of it. So there were market failures, why a vaccine there was no rich world market for a diarrheal vaccine or a pneumonia vaccine. And again, we thought we could stimulate the pharmaceutical companies through public private partnership, to start to create vaccines if we could guarantee them a market of millions of children getting this vaccine and then being paid for it in the developing world that paid just a little bit over cost. Millions of doses if we could commit to a market, and we knew that the demand would be there, we could inset them with the right research dollars to actually create those vaccines. And that is in fact what has happened. There is now rotavirus vaccine on the market. And there's now a new pneumococcus vaccine. I was in Kenya over a year ago. And it was less than a year from when the new pneumococcus vaccine came out. And it was being rolled out in Kenya with the right strains from Kenya. And what that means is that when I was growing up in the early 1960s 20 million children died every single year. So when you look at all the children that are born in the world, 20 million die. Now the majority of those deaths happen, of course, in the developing world, Bill Nye said, well, that shouldn't be, but the way we track whether we're making progress is are those childhood deaths coming down? And I'm happy to tell you that last year there were less than 7 million childhood deaths because of that innovation event. vaccine being taken to the developing world.
Mark Pearson-Freeland 36:02
This is a great clip because it reinforces the value of data. The value that Melinda is bringing up here, to all of us, not only his listeners, but also as policymakers in some of these governments is that when you do look at the hard data of before and after, whether it's healthcare, or maybe even you're tracking a campaign, for example, in your job, when you look at that return, and you look at the positive benefit of whatever it is that you've instigated, that's a pretty useful reminder that, oh, it has increased since I began and it's a great milestone and tracker to have in your mind are having pain or day to day work, which I think is very, very valuable. And I think it's incredible the work that Melinda and bill did, but I think we you and even you can use it.
mike parsons 36:56
Yeah, well, let's dive into it even further. What She really taught us then, is that the reason why the vaccines and the medications the treatments weren't being issued is that the pharmaceutical companies didn't actually see a market, they couldn't see it. So what her and bill did is they literally aggregate and put that market together. So then the pharmaceutical companies were like, Okay, then this is worthwhile we can afford to produce this treatment. And how smart is that they didn't try and create a new treatment. They thought about it in a different way. And this is so much the power of thinking differently. What they did in analysing the problem is they saw all that they needed to do is to present a total market opportunity in to incentivize that market. And the pharmaceutical companies came to the table. So what's interesting here is many people think well, we need to create a vaccine or a treatment. What Melinda did is she He was able to say, No, no, no. All we need to do is create the right incentive in the market, make sure that the total addressable market is presented in the right economic way. And the other guys, the pharmaceutical companies will actually come to the table, such a great way of thinking differently about a problem.
Mark Pearson-Freeland 38:20
You're totally right. So by approaching a problem that maybe we can all see, and maybe people have come before us, trying at it in a direct angle, when you start thinking about it in a different way, when you approach it from a different angle, that's when you might be able to see something get chipped away. Oh, I love it.
mike parsons 38:39
And they obviously saw it in what you mentioned in the data. But then this was how they processed it and it's very similar to how governments will create tax incentives to stimulate a market. Let's take a classic one, electronic vehicles or solar panel installation. Most of our listeners will be familiar that in a lot of Western markets, governments have said look, if you buy an asset tronic vehicle or you put on some solar panels, there's actually a big tax break in there. It's the same thing. But they've appropriated that market making mentality and put it into healthcare. And for centuries, no one's done that. And then they just came through thinking differently. Looking at the data. And I know Bill is huge on data. He has this mantra if you go to moonshots.io, we did a show on bill. And he's big mantra is you get what you measure. So what you can see is that they're bringing their entrepreneurial thinking into healthcare, and it's really disruptive. It's creating amazing results. But Mark, the lessons don't stop there with mental models. What else have we got from Melinda?
Mark Pearson-Freeland 39:44
Well, this next clip is pretty fascinating. And again, I think it's a great inspirational moment. It's all about puzzles, think about puzzles and how all of them that we do in our lives are like metaphors to how we We work together,
Unknown Speaker 40:00
we come back to the puzzle.
Melinda Gates 40:02
And we are going to do this puzzle. And what I learned from that is a we both like puzzles. And we like them because they're challenging, and they're interesting. And there's some similarities about what we both like about puzzles. But if we're going to do a puzzle together, we now do ones that are 600 pieces, because you can do a 600 piece puzzle in one sitting. And today we do puzzles that are, we don't have a picture for that's our favourite. There often wouldn't. If you're doing a picture that say of Napa Valley, completely irregular shaped edge, there might be a whole vine that goes around and you don't know it. There might be pieces where there straight edges in the middle of the pieces pieces where the puzzler has left holes in it. We love those puzzles. And that's a good metaphor for me about how we work together and how I think about problems, which is with a puzzle, you always know that there's an ends illusion that the person who created one of these jigsaw puzzles has an end end thing in mind and you're going to get there. But along the way, you're going to experience a lot of frustration, you're gonna have to look at things from different points of view. So sometimes Bill's working on shapes and I'm working on colour, sometimes we switch sometimes we'll notice something the other person doesn't notice, sometimes you'll have a different perspective. Sometimes you'll step away for a while to get a different perspective. And you'll come back a few minutes later. But you have to trust yourself when you're doing a puzzle that you're going to get there. And you have to push through the frustration. And to me, that's part of the fun.
mike parsons 41:38
Oh my gosh, man, this resonates with me so much. I mean, what we're hearing is so many lessons like treat everything like a puzzle, work collaboratively, look at it different ways and just embrace challenges and opportunities to solve a puzzle rather than let it overwhelm you with stress or anxiety. it. I mean, you really get this immense sense of curiosity that Melinda has about any sort of problem. And actually, if you reflect on the last clip, they just looked at a problem in a different way and came back. I mean, they saved 13 million lives like holy smokes. I think if we see everything is a puzzle, that's almost, there's fun in that solving of that challenge. I think there's a lot to learn in treating things as a puzzle. One of the
Mark Pearson-Freeland 42:27
great takeaways I take from Melinda's clip, is take frustration at maybe not finding the puzzle piece, not being able to get policymakers to listen to you or approach a problem in a different way. And use that to your advantage. Use it as inspiration, use it as a driver to get you to that next point, to look at things from maybe upside down or walk away. I mean, for me, if I'm ever frustrated with something, maybe I'll go for a long walk or a nice run or I'll Sit down to one side and sleep on it. Oh, one thing about that problem for the next 12 hours, let's say, and I'll wake up, and I'll have another look. And maybe I'll see something different that I haven't seen. But another great insight is what Melinda saying, which she'll use bill, as a great sounding board, you know, like you and I do at work, one of us might go away and write something or create a solution that we think is great. But then the value of communication, the value of connection between human beings is coming up again here, which is once you work on something together, it's only going to get better and better.
mike parsons 43:39
Yeah. And I think, as I kind of decode and think about this a bit, there was also a subtle reference there, where she was saying, look, if you know everything's a puzzle, and that there is always a solution for your puzzle. I mean, I think a lot of the things that stress us out is when there's an unknown so if you You can build this growth mindset, this mindset of everything's a puzzle where there is a solution. Hmm. There's always a solution. Because Don't you find yourself like when you're faced with a new type of problem, part of the feeling is because you're like, Oh my gosh, like, I have no idea how to fix this. I've never seen this before. Don't you think that's where that moment of truth is where we're like, oh,
Mark Pearson-Freeland 44:27
oh, yeah. How do I respond to this? How do I give it my best go? How are my colleagues going to see me during and after whatever this situation is? But actually, I think what we should all try and remember is it's a little bit like travelling somewhere. You know, if you're going on a long drive, half the fun is actually what you're going to see in the process. So you have a real stressful situation. That's okay. Because similar to what you and I were discussing in the Michelle episode, uncomfort is like a Muscle, you've got to rip it a little bit to then get it stronger again. And much like Linda saying here, if a puzzle is difficult, that's great. If you're getting frustrated and you want to hurl it across the room, that's great too, because you'll come up at the end and the reward will be so much greater.
mike parsons 45:17
And so it's almost treat challenges as they come your way as a chance to. Okay, this is just a puzzle, and I just need to try some different approaches to solving this. Already. That sort of puts you at ease and I wanted to share like a muscle that I didn't have at the beginning of my career that I've now got is, whenever a challenge comes your way, the quicker I dive into the puzzle to use Melinda's metaphor, the quicker I jump into the puzzle and get a feel for what it is. Then already, I start to get some inspiration about possible solutions. What I have noticed is when I haven't done that my anxiety about a challenge or a problem is much higher, because I haven't even really scoped the puzzle. So what happens is I'm thinking, oh, maybe there's I don't know. But actually, I often feel a great sense of relief when I dive into a challenge and go, Okay, well, that's not as bad as I thought it was. Now that I've got into it. And, well, I haven't solved this before, but I know I've solved some pretty nasty problems in my life. So I'm sure like, you see what I'm doing. Like, it's really interesting if you just attack everything, like a puzzle to be solved, rather than stepping back as a challenge that might, like harm you. Like it's such a different posture, isn't it?
Mark Pearson-Freeland 46:49
I like that way of thinking. You know, you can apply that again, at home or at work or anything in your life, instead of it being this impossible to describe or impossible. You contextualise scenario or situation that you instantly feel uncomfortable because you've never been in this situation before. Instead, it's like a puzzle. It's like a jigsaw. You've picked it off the shelf, or it's coming away. And you just have to look at it. Take a breath. Maybe we walk through a doorway, as you do Mike, and take that big inhalation and breath and steady yourself, and then look at something and say, Okay, well, this is okay, I can have a go. I can see how I respond to it over time. And again, similar to what Melinda was saying, in an earlier clip, you get out of things that you've put in your work hard at putting together this jigsaw puzzle, or putting together a solution or a proposal to a client or a government or a colleague, then you're gonna feel so much more empowered and enriched afterwards because you know that you've put absolutely everything you can into it. And I think that is a real valuable insight. The Melinda's sang to us here.
mike parsons 48:02
A question for you, Mark, when you've got a brand new challenge, let's say, as what I'm going to imagine, for most of our listeners, it arrives in your inbox. The email comes in and you're like, oh, okay, puzzle time. What's the first thing you start to do? Like, take us through? Like, how do you break it down? In order to like, use our best Melinda Gates thinking?
Mark Pearson-Freeland 48:25
I think the first thing I would do is reread it a couple of times, make sure I've understood it, maybe I'll go away and perhaps research or Google anything that I don't 100% fully grasp. You know, I'll try and make sure I've got all the information straight in my own head. But then the first thing I do after that is actually sense. Check it with someone else, because I believe that we're better together. And we're stronger when we're bouncing ideas off of more than one person.
mike parsons 48:54
Melinda would love you for that. She talked about you know, it all starts with connection. So that's great. So you read did a couple of times, maybe walk away, go get yourself a cup of coffee, come back to it, make sure you understood it, and then you share with someone else.
Mark Pearson-Freeland 49:09
Exactly. Because what I believe I might do, and it might be true with our listeners as well, is, you're a product of your own environment. So my immediate response might be unique just to me, and actually, it's worth before you respond very, very quickly. And in the moment, it's to contextualise it with someone else because something else for example, you might you have a different background to me, and I can be enriched by speaking to you and getting your point of view.
mike parsons 49:42
Isn't there a saying a problem shared is a problem half this
Mark Pearson-Freeland 49:45
era. We believe in that whether it's stress or whether it's a jigsaw puzzle, it's gonna be a little bit easier when you open it up and share it with another. And the truth is, you might not require somebody's full attention. You're not answering that problem, but just contextualising it, even if it's just for a few minutes with a colleague or a family member, whoever it might be your partner, you level set a little bit. You realise, Oh, you know what, it is just another problem. It is just another jigsaw that I can hopefully have a little bit of fun in trying to answer. And afterwards, when I look back at it, I'll think oh, now I'm a little bit stronger. That was a new puzzle that I hadn't answered before, or a new question that I'd never really delved into. And I believe I'm now stronger and richer because of it.
mike parsons 50:30
That's great. What a nice way of tying together a number of the learnings from melinda gates. But we've got just one more clip, and I'm really happy we've saved this one to last because this is such a great way to wrap up the show. And this last clip is all about what is what's been Melinda's secret, and what advice she would give to her her younger self. So let's have a listen to the last clip of the show from Melinda Gates,
Melinda Gates 51:06
I think I would say to my younger self, you know what you dream you can achieve. And I think Bill and I both feel that way. And the work that we do also together with the Foundation, which is if you set very ambitious goals in the world, and you work very diligently towards them with your partners out in the field, things do change. And we've seen the world change. And yes, some of our ambitious goals haven't yet come to fruition or a vaccine we thought we would get is not as efficacious as we would have liked. But, you know, it surprised us, for instance, that bed nets have saved you know, over 40 million people's lives. I wouldn't have guessed that back when we started the foundation's work, but we did set a goal early on to tackle malarial deaths. And so sometimes you tack on your goals and your ambitions but it's those surprises that come forward that actually show you the way
Mark Pearson-Freeland 51:54
those surprises as Melinda saying here. They're very reassuring to hear You know, Melinda and Bill and all of us, we all set ourselves these big, hairy audacious goals, as I say, and sometimes they don't immediately come off. Sometimes they take a little bit longer than perhaps you've planned. For example, Melinda confesses there, that maybe some vaccines weren't as efficacious as they thought they were straightaway. But what's wonderful here and I love that we save that clip to last is because it is a reflection as you and I were saying, upon Okay, well, what can we learn after we've gone through that process? Once we've made that jigsaw puzzle once we've received that email, and compartmentalised it, shared it with someone else, and set ourselves those intentions or goals? What advice can we look back at? And a lot of the time it's very positive, but sometimes it's also you've got to have patience.
mike parsons 52:51
Yes, she's bringing a lot home now what I took from that is, we can all walk away from Melinda Gates, knowing That be ambitious, have a big, hairy, audacious goal, who said you can't, you are only limited by your thinking. And she is just this wonderfully fierce, independent thinker. And coupled with that, I think another big lesson she brought home from us there is you can dream big, but you got to work hard every single day. And what's crazy, is if you look at so many of the people that we've learned from on the show, there is this freedom of thought this almost contrary in nature to them, they have fiercely independent thinking. And yes, they have ambitious goals, but they're paired with hard work every day. There is no such thing as an overnight success. And I think as we zoom out here and reflect on this whole raft of learnings from Melinda Gates, she has taught us that when in doubt, connect with others. Make sure you work hard If you're building teams, make sure you've got a bunch of women there just like we do because they make you better. And make sure you are being who you want to be and employing some of the best mental models, thinking differently and treating every challenge as you try to achieve that ambition. Treat. Every single challenge has just a puzzle, you know, there's a solution. It's just a puzzle, just work your way through it. I mean, what a body of advice that we can take from melinda gates. How many practical lessons did we find in studying the world of Melinda Gates?
Mark Pearson-Freeland 54:37
So many and the truth is we've only been able to cover a few of the clips and only an hour of delving into Melinda's life so far, you know, we could run a number of podcasts on Melinda herself. So I advise everybody to go and pick up Melinda's debut book and really get into the amazing work, and Melinda's done but I think that A summary Mike, the key lessons, I love this inspiration of working hard, be disciplined, but also be connected.
mike parsons 55:09
But think differently, don't just work hard doing what everyone else is doing. Like the way they solve those health problems by making the marketplace rather than creating a new vaccine. I mean, that was great thing different philosophy, right?
Mark Pearson-Freeland 55:23
So good. If you can't make that change, then create that different market. I love it.
mike parsons 55:27
Now, my question everybody go if they want to dig into the show notes for this wonderful episode on Melinda Gates,
Mark Pearson-Freeland 55:33
we'll be uploading the show notes and this transcript into moonshots.io. And again, you'll be able to find all of our archives shows including Lady Gaga, Simon Sinek, Cal Newport brainy Brown, and last week's Michelle Obama.
mike parsons 55:51
And remember that we are not finished with our women in innovation series. We've got one more Titan Come none other than Arianna Huffington. So be sure to tune in I'm really interested in what we can learn from Arianna. She's definitely had several chapters, if you will, to her life, the entrepreneurial story, the life balance story. There's so much in the Arianna story for us. I can't wait to dig into the Arianna Huffington show. Who, Mark I think we're there. I think we're much better for it. What a great set of lessons I've inspired.
Mark Pearson-Freeland 56:31
And I'm going to go and continue with Melinda on my shoulder, helping me through good on you.
mike parsons 56:37
Thank you, to you, Mark. Thank you to all of our listeners. We really appreciate all the feedback, all the ratings, all the shares, all the likes, you name it. This is the field that keeps us going. So as we're all working from home in this new reality in this new normal, we can't tell you how much it means to be able to share these lessons these thinking models with To all of you all around the world, from Canada, to Ghana, to Sydney to New York and London. We thank you all for being part of this show in this community. And that's a wrap for the moonshots podcast.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai