Melinda French Gates

As I moved up the ranks, I realized I no longer wanted to play that game.

I would leave work, and at the end of the day, I'd go to the grocery store, and I just wasn't a very nice person anymore.

And I thought, that's not who I want to be.

And so I thought, I'll leave.

I'll go get another job.

But maybe before I do that,

I'll just try being myself.

I knew I'd fall flat on my face, whatever.

And as I started to be more myself, and because I was managing large teams, people started flocking to my groups around the company.

And others would say to me, how did you get that developer, that hard-charging developer, you know, from out of the project to come work in the consumer division?

And I started to realize it was the culture I was creating.

And this is one thing I've learned about myself over the many years, is that I work against the N-O-T-S, the nots.

Who do I not want to be?

Yes.

And it's true.

When I go back and look at who was I friends with in college, and I would see some of these – I went to Duke University.

I came from a very middle-class family in Dallas, Texas.

But as I would see some of these kids who were more of wealth and of means and –

sort of acted like they were all that because of coming from a family with a name or wealth, I thought, I do not ever want to act like that.

And if I'm ever lucky enough to be in that situation, absolutely not.