Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, transforming it into a $432 billion business, and bestselling author of Lean In, encouraging women to pursue leadership.
On the island
Eight records
Beyonce run the world, and the answer is girls. A few years ago, she did the Ban Bossy campaign with me. And if you ask crowds of people, Men, raise your hand if you've been called Bossy as a little boy... Women, raise your hand if you were called bossy as a little girl. Every hand goes up. And that's because no matter what the cultural differences are for women all over the world, all over the world we expect men to lead and women to do for others. And so Beyoncé's message that women can run the world, that women should run the world, her message that she's the boss, I think is super important for not just women, but little girls and boys to hear.
Well, the Dixie Chicks remake of Landslide. First of all, it's just a beautiful song, right? Time makes you bolder. Children get older. I'm getting older too. I've always thought about the passage of time. And this is great female voices singing a song that was sung by a great female. Like, you didn't think it could get better, but it almost did.
This is Queen. You're my best friend. I'm lucky in so many ways, but maybe one of the luckiest is I've had a group of best friends since I was quite young. We call each other the girls. They have been there for me through my first marriage and divorce. The birth of both my children, they were there when Dave was buried. A couple weeks after Dave died, when I just couldn't take it, I just sent an email: someone come. They have jobs, one of them has five kids, they are busy. But I knew that they weren't going to fight over who wasn't coming, they were going to fight about who would. And they're always there. And to this day, my phone ring when any of the six of them calls is this song.
Hamilton is just magnificent in every way. And this is, it's been a huge hit on Broadway. It's about to open in London. It is unbelievable. You'll Be Back is the comic relief, but a great song. My daughter auditioned for her school play this year, and this was her audition song. And she just belted it out, and she did so well that she got cast as the part of the genie in Aladdin, which is one of the all-time great singing roles. But I will never hear the song without picturing her standing there and just belting it out.
So, this is Sweet Baby James by James Taylor. So, I love James Taylor. Our son was our firstborn. And for some reason, we started putting on music to put him to sleep as a very young child. And I would say, for the first four to five years of his life, he only went to sleep with that disc. So, we once left that disc at a friend's house over an hour away, and we got back in the car with the infant and drove to get that disc. And what was so funny is when our son was about three, you would hear him sing, you know, the lines are funny for a three-year-old thinking about women and glasses of beer. He would not go to sleep without this song.
Because this line may be the most important line to me that was ever sung. A long December, and there's reason to believe Maybe this year will be better than the last.
So this is Elton John. I'm Still Standing. I'm often asked if I could meet anyone in the world who would I meet. I would meet Elton John. I've loved his music my whole life. He decided to do a concert series in Las Vegas. And right away, Dave knew how much I loved him. Dave got tickets for me and a co-group of friends. And since we got our tickets early, we were in the front. And he did this thing in that concert where the first bunch of rose got to go on the stage and dance. And so I got to dance with Elton John on a stage. I mean, he was playing the piano. He wasn't dancing with me. And this is the ultimate resilience song. I'm Still Standing.
OneFavourite
Well, this is one by U2. Dave was a massive U2 fan. We went to lots of those concerts together, and this was always our favorite song. Perfect song to end on.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:44So, how are you today?
Well, I'm excited to be here. Music's important. Music was very important to Dave. It's very important to me. And I think the songs that we think of as important in our lives say something pretty profound about us. And that's how I am today.
Presenter asks
2:20Why have you decided to lay it open to the world?
When I lost Dave, it it wasn't just the overwhelming grief and sadness, but what happened in the kind of days and weeks that followed was this profound sense of isolation. I felt like people were looking at me like I was a ghost. And I felt so isolated and so alone that I decided to write what I would write as a Facebook post if I were going to be honest about how I felt to the world. I wrote it really for myself. I thought it's not going to get worse and maybe it might get better. And so I hit post. And I was shocked at how broadly it was read. It was reported on the nightly news. But it actually really helped. It didn't bring Dave back and it didn't take away the grief, but it took away the feeling that I was alone because people started talking to me again. People started saying, How are you today? And it wasn't a long time from then until I decided to actually write a book. But I think the experience of sharing and feeling less isolated started me down the path to option B.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The luxury
If I were on a desert island with nothing to do and no one to talk to and no community, writing would be what I would do.
Are you willing to end the encryption in order that government agencies can get vital information to understand better how these people are going about their dastardly business?
Well, the goal for governments is to get as much information as possible. And so when there are message services like WhatsApp that are encrypted, the message itself is encrypted, but the metadata is not, meaning that you send me a message. We don't know what that message says, but we know you contacted me. If people move off those encrypted services to go to encrypted services in countries that won't share the metadata, the government actually has less information, not more. And so as technology evolves, these are complicated conversations. We're in close communication working through the issues all around the world.
Presenter asks
14:14Tell me more about it [your self-doubt].
Well, we know that women more than men suffer from the imposter syndrome and systematically underestimate their own performance. And so I definitely struggled with self-doubt and Writing Lean In and building the Lean In organization actually really helped me because I studied self confidence and I understood how to build up other people's. And I spent so much time telling other women to feel more self confident, I learned it myself.
Presenter asks
22:59How did you start making the new life [with your children after Dave's death]?
Ugh, my biggest fear when Dave died is that my kids wouldn't be okay. I called Mindy, one of the girls she had lost her mother when we were thirteen screaming from the hospital when Dave died, Tell me my kids are gonna be okay Tell me my kids are gonna be okay She had to like scream back, Cheryl, I don't know what you're talking about. And then I was kind of able to choke out, Dave died. Are my kids going to be okay? And, you know, she was a tremendous source of inspiration because. Her mother died by suicide when we were so young, and I lived through it with her. And she's not just okay, she is remarkable. She is one of the most loving, giving, optimistic people I've ever met. And I turned to Adam and said, Adam was my psychologist friend who I eventually wrote this book with. What do I do to make my kids okay? And he had a lot of good advice. And I tried to make it okay for them to grieve. We still talk about Dave. We talk about Dave all the time. I tried never to sugarcoat it. I always say to this day I miss him too. It's horrible this happened to us. But it's not our fault. It's not your fault. And Daddy would want you to be happy. Because at the end of this, it is about not just for me, but for everyone who's suffering, it's about taking back joy. Because my kids deserve joy. They do not deserve to feel unhappy or feel guilty for the rest of their lives because they lost their father. A bunch of months after Dave died. My brother-in-law, his only brother, Rob, who's so amazing, called me and said, All Dave ever wanted was for you and your children to be happy. Don't take that away from him in death.
Presenter asks
29:31Do you dare to dream the next part of your life?
Maybe not yet. But I'd like to. My children are in summer camp right now, and they're gone for weeks. And that's been hard because I remember Dave and I for years talked about we both went to camp and loved it. They'll go to camp. And we'll travel and we'll do things. I don't know if I'm at a place where I can see 10 years out the way I could with Dave because that was Dave was the plan. In the early days and months and weeks after Dave died, I thought it would never get better. I now know it does and can. Not in every situation, not on one time frame. But if we believe it can and we help each other, we do not leave people alone, it can. And I want some good to come from Dave's death, because without some meaning, without some good, all there is is death and darkness. And Dave shone too brightly for that to be the legacy. The legacy has to be life and hope and joy, because that's who he was.
“I felt like people were looking at me like I was a ghost.”
“All Dave ever wanted was for you and your children to be happy. Don't take that away from him in death.”
“I didn't know anyone could cry this much. I asked my sister, how is it possible? She's a doctor. She said, Oh, the majority of your body is water.”
“The legacy has to be life and hope and joy, because that's who he was.”