Showing Up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime

Showing Up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime

A heartfelt, deeply personal book that shines a bright light on the values and principles that Bill Gates Sr. has learned over a lifetime of “showing up”: lessons that he learned growing up during the Great Depression, and that he instilled in his children and continues to practice on the world stage as the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Through the course of several dozen narratives arranged in roughly chronological fashion, Gates introduces the people and experiences that influenced his thinking and guided his moral compass. Among them: the scoutmaster who taught him about teamwork and self reliance; and his famous son, Trey, whose curiosity and passion for computers and software led him to ultimately co-found Microsoft. Through revealing stories of his daughters, Kristi and Libby; his late wife, Mary, and his current wife, Mimi; and his work with Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter, among others, he discusses the importance of hard work, getting along, honoring a confidence, speaking out, and much more. Showing Up for Life translates one man’s experiences over fourscore years of living into an inspiring road map for readers everywhere. As Bill Gates Sr. puts it: "I’m 83 years old. Representing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and everyone who is a part of it has given me the opportunity to see more of the world and its rich possibilities than most people ever do. I never imagined that I’d be working this late in life, or enjoying it so much." “Bill Senior is as wise as his son is brilliant. I’ve learned a lot from both of them and believe everyone can benefit from the insights Bill Senior shares in this book.” —Warren Buffett "Bill Gates Sr. is a wonderful example of what it means to be a global citizen, teaching us how we can work together for a more just and fair society." —Jimmy Carter “Bill Gates Sr., does more than just show up in this charming and instructive guide to a good life. He shares lessons learned as a husband, a father, a lawyer, a philanthropist, and a citizen. Showing up for life is a gift of great value.” —Tom Brokaw Bill Gates, Sr.,  a prominent lawyer, civil activist, and philanthropist, was co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He first answered his son’s request for help in using his resources to improve reproductive and child health in the developing world by directing the William H. Gates Foundation, which was established in 1994. It merged with the Gates Learning Foundation to create the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000. Gates and his late wife, Mary Maxwell Gates, raised three children: Kristianne, Bill, and Libby. He remarried in 1996, to Mimi Gardner Gates, and continued his lifelong commitment to many civic programs, cultural organizations, and business initiatives. Bill Gates, Sr., died in September 2020. Mary Ann Mackin provides speechwriting services to CEOs of foundations and corporations in a number of industries. Some Second Thoughts About Thinking In the early days of Microsoft's success, when my son's name was starting to become known to the world at large, everybody from reporters at Fortune magazine to the checkout person at the local grocery store would ask me, "How do you raise a kid like that? What's the secret?" At those moments I was generally thinking to myself, "Oh, it's a secret all right... because I don't get it either!" My son, Bill, has always been known in our family as Trey. When we were awaiting his arrival, knowing that if the baby was a boy he would be named "Bill Gates III," his maternal grandmother and great-grandmother thought of the confusion that would result from having two Bills in the same household. Inveterate card players, they suggested we call him "Trey," which, as any card player knows, refers to the number three card. As a young boy, Trey probably read more than many other kids and he often surprised us with his ideas about how he thought the world worked. Or imagined it could work. Like other kids his age, he was interested in science fiction. He was curious and thoughtful about things adults had learned to take for granted or were just too busy to think about. His mother, Mary, and I often joked about the fact that Trey sometimes moved slowly and was often late. It seemed like every time we were getting ready to go somewhere everybody else in the family would be out in the car--or at least have their coats on. And then someone would ask, "Where's Trey?" Someone else would reply, "In his room." Trey's room was in our daylight basement, a partially above-ground area with a door and windows looking out on the yard. So his mother would call down to him, "Trey, what are you doing down there?" Once Trey shot back, "I'm thinking, mother. Don't you ever think?" Imagine yourself in our place. I was in the most demanding years of my law practice. I was a dad, a husband, doing all the things parents in families do. My wife, Mary, was raising three kids, volunteering