Mellody Hobson
speaker
238 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard May 2025
Mellody Hobson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
I know what I want to know. I don't want to have people bullshit me. I really want to know. And I think a lot of times we don't tell people what they need to know to make them better. Now, the question is, how do you do it in a way that you don't have to be I remember Dick Parsons. I was on the board of Estee Lauder with him for years and years.
I once asked him for feedback and I said, Dick, be brutally honest with me. He said, I'll be honest, but I don't need to be brutal. And so I do think that I always want to know. And so I believe people want to know. What I've learned is everyone doesn't. But I still think it's my job to try to give the feedback that will be in the best interest of the firm. all of us.
There's an unrelaxing way in the world to wake up. I know, but I do. I look at my phone. I have to, I'm on the West Coast. The East Coast might be up.
The last thing I do before I go to bed is I go into my daughter's room and tell her to go to bed and hug her again.
I want my sports fund to work and I want Ariel to be successful. It's always the same. I just want us to get better at what we do. I don't have any sort of new thing that I have to do.
My daughter to turn out okay. That's my only job. Like that one feels mission critical, existential. It feels like if I don't do that well, I have failed at everything. And I know she's counting on me. So everything else is a backseat to that. and it feels more important every day. It's different when they're four and when they're 11 and everything feels different.
So in my personal life, I want her to, I don't want to damage her.
Wow. There've been so many. I love the book, Buffett, The Making of the American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein. That's my favorite business book. I love the book, Grit. And more recently, I love the book, Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Godera. It's about a restaurant. I love that book. That one really It is so good.
I think I had a perception of people's accomplishments that I valued in a way that I don't value today. What I mean by that is not to belittle their accomplishments, but I care more about heart and soul. than titles or money or influence. And so I value people who care about other people.
I always valued it, but I would spend so much time reading about the greats and what made them great and all of those things. Now I want to understand what makes a person a good person. That's a fantastic answer.
I have a much different perspective on life. One of our colleagues died last week. So I'm very raw. I'm so sorry. Yeah. He had a heart attack at 50.
And you just, it is a very, very, very, very hard thing. And so the fragility and the fact that at any moment, I had not ever experienced that. Someone I love just dying one day out of nowhere. It just has been very, very, very sobering.
Yeah. It's going to take me a while to get over it.
Well, you are a bright light and we are all watching and we're in the glow basking. And I am so very happy for you and all that you're accomplishing and all that you will still do, which is a lot.
So I was using the children and I have been using children as a gateway to adults. Yes. I thought if I could have parents think I've got to teach this to my children when I, in fact, know they don't know the subject matter. They'd be de facto learning. Yes. That is the exact. answer that I'm getting. Oh, that was the goal.
And that has been from the most successful people you could possibly imagine to people who are struggling every single day, where both sides have said, I've learned so much from this book.
So let me start off with the fact, and this is one of the ways I anchored the book, no matter where you live, an African village or Chicago, you have to deal with money no matter who you are. It is fundamental. It's like oxygen. It is something that is fundamental around the world. So I just want to start with that piece as that was part of the inspiration for this.
It's not an issue of a developed country or an emerging market. It's the whole world. Every person, every family has to deal with money in some way every single day. That's number one. Where I was rooted in this story and where this became my calling was how I grew up and how money affected my life and created, quite frankly, a great deal of trauma for me.
Because you were the youngest of six children and never had it. Right. And so I grew up with a single mom and there was just a shortage at all times. So we would get evicted. Our phone would get disconnected. Our lights would be turned off. There was a time we were living in an abandoned building. I mean, I could go on and on and on. Really traumatic when you're a child.
because when you're a child you have no control you can't go get a job there's nothing you can do on top of that i had a mother who was incredible in so many ways but made really bad money decisions and that was hard to watch even as a child and i kept thinking this isn't a good idea so my mom would buy easter dresses instead of paying the light bill i had that mother
Showing 121–140 of 238 · page 7 of 12
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