The Best Advice I Ever Got (23 page)

Mo’Nique

Oscar-Winning Actress and Comedian

Not Going Through It … Growing Through It

One of the most profound lessons I’ve learned is that in life we don’t go through things; we grow through them.

The decision to lose weight has been the most difficult yet rewarding challenge of my life. At my heaviest, 262 pounds, I was comfortable and content. Until then, I’d made a great living extolling the virtues of being Big and Beautiful. Having those extra pounds never prevented me from doing anything. In fact, it propelled me. And enabled me to connect with women who, like me, were told that they didn’t matter. If I could be their champion, the one they could look to and say, “She’s sexy, she’s successful, and she’s happy,” then that’s who I wanted to be. And I was great at it.

Then one day my husband, Sidney, sat me down in the quiet of our home and said, very frankly, “Mama, that’s too much weight—I want you for a lifetime.” Suddenly, fear set in. How on earth could I lose weight and still be true to the person I’d become? I fought. I cursed. I didn’t want to do it. But I knew I had to. That’s when I took a trip into my closet, the place I often visit to talk to the Universe. We had some serious discussions that usually started with me explaining why I couldn’t do it and the Universe admonishing me for surrendering.

See, I’ve always been great at dispensing advice but not so good at accepting it. It was never my goal to become skinny, just healthy. The challenge to lose sixty-two pounds was more than a notion because I’m a chewer. Always have been, and I still love good food. But I had to change, even when the Nacho Cheese Doritos seemed to constantly call my name.

I started out walking, worked my way up to a personal trainer, then took dance and boxing classes, and gradually changed my diet. Someday, I’ll run a marathon, I swear. But for now I’m happy with the results.

As the weight began to come off, a funny thing happened. The fear shifted. Anxiety turned into excitement, then enthusiasm, and finally courage as I shared my struggle publicly. The very people I was nervous about disappointing began to encourage me, and their lives improved, too. The beautiful thing was we were doing it together. Shedding the weight was the beginning of conquering other struggles, and it’s led me to finally live up to my true purpose.

“Not Going Through It … Growing Through It” is now a life principle, a mantra happily shared. It’s a lesson from a husband who cared enough to tell the truth, and a Universe that loves enough to demonstrate just how rich life can be when we obediently grow through it.

Melinda Gates

Founder and Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The Sky’s the Limit

Growing up, I attended an all-girls high school in Dallas, Texas. My favorite teacher was named Mrs. Bauer, and one day she made a decision that changed my life.

In the fall of 1980, at the Texas State Mathematics Conference, Mrs. Bauer tried out a new gadget called a personal computer. Her first thought was “These are going to be big. We have to get them for the girls.” My school’s administrators agreed, but they asked, “How are we going to teach the girls to use computers?” Mrs. Bauer answered, “I will learn, so that I can teach them.”

She promptly enrolled in a master’s-degree program in computer science. She paid the tuition out of her own pocket, and drove herself more than a half hour to class every night after a full day of teaching math. All the while, she was raising three sons. It was a sacrifice, but it helped my classmates and me immeasurably.

Because of what Mrs. Bauer taught us about computers, my classmates and I were able to overcome the stereotype that girls can’t excel at science and math. When I got to college, I had the confidence to enroll as the only girl in most of my computer-science classes. Later, I brought that self-assurance with me when I started work at Microsoft, even though I was the only woman among my peers.

The truth is that women can’t prove they have equal ability until they have equal opportunity. That’s what Mrs. Bauer gave all of us: the opportunity to show what we were capable of doing. When you have a mentor who puts no limits on your potential, the future starts to look a lot bigger and more exciting.

But Mrs. Bauer did more than just stoke a young woman’s passion for computer science. She showed me what it means to make sacrifices to help others. She was always looking for another opportunity to serve, not because it was convenient for her but because she could see that the people around her needed help. As Mrs. Bauer showed me, if you give all your energy to everything you do, you will have a huge impact on the lives you touch.

That lesson has been precious to me. I remember it when I’m doing work on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and I try to pass Mrs. Bauer’s example and wisdom on to my own children.

LOOK OUTSIDE YOURSELF

On Commitment and Contribution

The key to a happier world is the growth of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities
.

—THE DALAI LAMA

G
iving back has become part of my DNA, but it’s a trait that’s the result of nurture, not nature. My mom insisted that we volunteer at the Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind Summer Day Camp in Washington, D.C., throughout our high school years. It was one of the most formative and character-building experiences I’ve ever had. There were kids all over the Washington area at the camp, from very different socioeconomic backgrounds. I was first exposed to the group when my sister Kiki directed a camp production of
Peter Pan
. I was ten years old at the time, and watching an all-blind cast (Stuart Abramowitz as Peter, Tori Grenier as Wendy) accompanied by a totally blind piano player (Linda Kipps) was one of the most moving and inspiring things I had ever witnessed. I was so proud of the actors, and even prouder of my sister, and I couldn’t wait to be a counselor myself.

During the course of three years, we went to the Smithsonian Folk-life Festival, took the campers swimming and bowling, and got relief from the muggy Washington summers with a giant parachute. My group of nine-year-olds started a band. I played the piano—mostly Scott Joplin—while they played the maracas, the bongos, or strummed a guitar. I’ll never forget John Lee saying to me as he sat on top of the piano, “Miss Katie, play ‘The Entertainer’! Play ‘The Entertainer’!” I also remember having to put ointment in the eyes of a little French boy who had glaucoma—a task that required a strong stomach and maturity that I didn’t think I had. Being with these kids and taking them on all kinds of adventures really opened my eyes, pun intended. It started me on the path of understanding a bigger world beyond Fortieth Street and Yorktown High School in Arlington, Virginia.

Today, my true calling is something that touched me so personally, as is often the case for people who champion a cause. After my husband, Jay, died of colon cancer, I felt a moral obligation to inform people about this second leading cancer killer of men and women. I asked my executive producer at the time, Jeff Zucker (a colon-cancer survivor himself), if I could do an on-air colonoscopy on the
Today
show. He said yes without skipping a beat. Since colon cancer has a better than ninety percent cure rate if detected early, and so many people do not get screened, I wanted to demystify and de-stigmatize the procedure. So I invited an NBC crew to watch me drink a gallon of that inappropriately named prep Go Lightly, and the next day to accompany me to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where a wonderful doctor, Kenneth Forde, got up close and personal and did the procedure. At one point, loopy on anesthesia, I believe I announced that I had a “pretty little colon.” We reached a large audience, and colonoscopy screenings increased by twenty percent. Researchers at the University of Michigan call it the Couric effect. I prefer to think of it as the Jay Monahan effect.

I’ve had quite a career in television but, of all my professional accomplishments, my continued advocacy for cancer research and awareness has been by far the most meaningful. If that is my legacy and, in absentia, Jay’s, then we’ve left a small imprint on the world by helping some people I’ll never meet live longer, healthier lives.

One of the best endorsements of my work came out of nowhere ten years ago. My daughter Ellie, who was then nine, looked at me in the kitchen and said, “Mom, I’m really proud of the work you’re doing with colon cancer.” It almost took my breath away.

Stand Up to Cancer is another proud accomplishment. Eight women, many of them Hollywood powerhouses, and I started a grassroots movement that has so far raised $180 million to support dream teams of cancer researchers from different institutions. Hell hath no fury like some pissed-off women who want to see more progress made against this insidious disease.

My daughters have learned the value of giving back as well. Lemonade stands for cancer research from the time they were in preschool, tutoring children who need some extra help, serving the homeless at the Bowery Mission—giving back has become a part of their DNA as well. But they get as much as they give. Carrie and I both tutor sixth graders at the Harlem Village Academy; it’s something the two of us do together on Saturday mornings. One Friday night, I was ambivalent about keeping our weekend tutoring date. “Mom,” Carrie admonished me, “you can’t do that. We’ve made a commitment, and we have to follow through!” I’m amazed at how much they teach me every day.

Ken Burns

Emmy Award-Winning Director and Producer

Do Something Lasting

Many, many years ago, not long after I graduated from college, while working on my first film on the history of the Brooklyn Bridge and its great designer John A. Roebling, I decided—rather rashly—that I had to interview the now late playwright Arthur Miller, and he had, after several pleading phone calls from me, rather reluctantly agreed. Miller had, of course, written a play called
A View from the Bridge
, and I was sure that he would be able to shed some light on what I had come to believe was the greatest suspension bridge in the world—that remarkable amalgam of stone and steel, which after its improbable and dramatic construction became a source of sublime inspiration to artists and poets, photographers and filmmakers for more than a century.

But on the way to Miller’s Connecticut farm I had picked up a copy of the play and discovered to my horror that there was not a single mention of the bridge—it was merely the background for a drama completely unrelated to the themes of my film. I was mortified, and it seemed only a few panic-stricken minutes later that we pulled into his drive and I nervously rang the great man’s door.

The first thing a very tall and very imposing and very gruff Arthur Miller said to me when he opened the door was “You know, I don’t know a damn thing about the Brooklyn Bridge. I can’t help you.”

I had been standing there for several moments in abject shame and utter humiliation when he finally relented and said, “Okay. Perhaps I can give you something. Come with me.” Now, I had been planning to set up an elaborate interview around a favorite chair in his house, to take several hours to adjust the lighting, and to film several rolls, but Miller directed me to his backyard, where the late-afternoon shadows of a perfect fall day were lengthening. “Let’s go—now,” he said, and we all knew that he meant it. Clearly, in his mind this was not going to waste any more of his time than need be—and we weren’t going to be staying long, either.

We scrambled to take a quick light reading, and put the 16-mm camera up on the tripod. There were only a few minutes left on the roll of film that was still in the magazine from the morning’s shoot. The sound man fumbled with his reel-to-reel tape recorder, checking the levels. But now Miller refused even to sit down. He would do the interview standing up or not at all, and we scrambled to find an apple crate that I could stand on to approximate his height—but, of course, never his stature. “Let’s go—now,” he said again, clearly impatient with our, in retrospect, utter ineptitude. And we were completely flabbergasted; we had never done an interview where the subject wasn’t quietly posed in some study or living room. My heart was pounding out of my chest; I can still remember the nausea I felt.

To this day, I do not remember what feeble question I asked him to get him to speak. It doesn’t really matter now, I suppose, but Miller’s few-sentence answer constituted the sum total of the interview, and it has stayed with me, like the panic, the rest of my life. I know it by heart. He said, “You see, the city is fundamentally a practical, utilitarian invention—and it always was. And then suddenly you see this steel poetry sticking there and it’s a shock. It puts everything to shame and makes you wonder what else we could have done that was so marvelous and so unpresumptuous. It carries its weights, it does what it’s supposed to do and yet … I mean they could have built another Manhattan Bridge and [Roebling] didn’t. He really aspired to do something gorgeous. So it makes you feel that maybe you, too, could add something that would last and be beautiful.”

That was the whole interview. “Maybe you, too, could add something that would last and be beautiful.” Those words became the final words of my very first film and, in a way, they became—like the declaration of principles the young and still idealistic Charles Foster Kane tacks to the wall in Orson Welles’s great masterpiece
Citizen Kane
—my guiding principle as well.

I’m not sure how well I’ve lived up to the creed Arthur Miller so generously gave me that afternoon, but his words still resonate for me every day: Do something that will last and be beautiful. It doesn’t have to be a bridge—or a symphony or book or a business. It could be the look in the eye of a child you raise or a simple garden you tend. Do something that will last and be beautiful.