Bill Gates, Sr.: Showing Up For Life

Bill Gates, Sr.
I read Showing Up For Life by Bill Gates, Sr. It's an easy read. A read that affirms family habits and activities, sheer length of time and interaction together create a legacy. The ethical and moral choices made day-to-day, while they may not be easy or enjoyable, leave a permanent pattern. Right? Nothing new, here.

What may be au courant is that we see in Showing Up For Life a family's story of discipline, liberty, love, commitment, intellect, trial-and-error, and downright determination does establish a bountiful family. Showing Up For Life brings home the ideas that meeting your neighbors right where they are; volunteering in one's community and being available for our fellow human has lasting effects. Our conglomerate of decisions and choices have a practical and fixed denouement on our family, community and the world. We not only see the Gates family in humble beginnings and living out the small, everyday choices which make them one heck-of-a likeable clan; we also see the seeds of success harvested in our generation. We are allowed an inside peek into an American family of philanthropists and what that philanthropy has the power of achieving. We are not talking only grand successes like providing a third world nation with vaccines; we are talking about Mary Gates' continually showing up to help out her local rotary club or the elder Mr. Gates' sister being denied the option of having learned to drive as a teenager so she saved her money and when her brother, Bill Gates' Sr. received his first driver's license Merridy bought him his first car.

When we were growing up, I often felt uncomfortable that there were different rules for Merridy because she was a girl than there were for me. One example is that she never learned how to drive a car. I, on the other hand, was permitted to get my driver’s license the minute I turned 16.

By that time, Merridy, who was seven years older than I, was married. She had a job and was earning her own money. For my 16th birthday, she spent 85 dollars – which was a significant sum then – to buy me a birthday present: a 1930 Model A Ford roadster with a rumble seat. Merridy’s generosity – when she had been denied the opportunity to drive herself – is something I’ve never forgotten. -- Showing Up For Life

Anyway I decided to check out the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation more intently and commenced reading more about the jurisprudent Bill Gates, Sr.

The WSJ ran an article written by Robert A. Guth which got me thinking about my own parenting aptitude. (I hesitate to write parenting skills because I am not so certain I am actually skilled at being a parent.)

Behind the Bill Gates success story is the other William Gates. The senior Mr. Gates balanced a family thrown off kilter by a boy who appeared to gain the intellect of an adult almost overnight. He served as a quiet counsel as his son jumped into and thrived in the cutthroat business world. When huge wealth put new pressure on the son, the elder Gates stepped in to start what is now the world's largest private philanthropy.

For this article Bill Gates and their family shared many details of the family's story for the first time, including Bill Gates's experience in counseling as a child and how his early interest in computers came about partly as a result of a family crisis. The sometimes colliding forces of discipline and freedom within the clan shaped the entrepreneur's character.

"As a father, I never imagined that the argumentative, young boy who grew up in my house, eating my food and using my name would be my future employer," Mr. Gates Sr. told a group of nonprofit leaders in a 2005 speech. "But that's what happened."

The first stage -- argumentative young boy -- "started about the time he was 11," Mr. Gates Sr. says in one of a series of interviews. That's about when young Bill became an adult, says Bill Sr., and an increasing headache for the family.

While very involved in his kids' lives, Mr. Gates Sr. was somewhat distant emotionally, which his children say probably reflects his generation. His stature, combined with a lawyerly bent for carefully choosing his words, also made him intimidating at times. "He'd come home and he'd sit in a chair and eat dinner, but there was never any kind of warm, give-me-a-hug kind of thing," says Kristi Blake, his oldest daughter.

Bill Gates at an early age became a diligent learner. He read the World Book Encyclopedia series start to finish. His parents encouraged his appetite for reading by paying for any book he wanted.

Still, they worried that he seemed to prefer books to people. They tried to temper that streak by forcing him to be a greeter at their parties and a waiter at his father's professional functions.

Then, at age 11, Bill Sr. says, the son blossomed intellectually, peppering his parents with questions about international affairs, business and the nature of life.

"It was interesting and I thought it was great," Mr. Gates Sr. says. "Now, I will say to you, his mother did not appreciate it. It bothered her."

The son pushed against his mother's instinct to control him, sparking a battle of wills. All those things that she had expected of him -- a clean room, being at the dinner table on time, not biting his pencils -- suddenly turned into a big source of friction. The two fell into explosive arguments.

"He was nasty," Ms. Armintrout says of her brother.

Mr. Gates Sr. played the role of peacemaker. "He'd sort of break them apart and calm things down," says Ms. Blake, the eldest sibling.

The battles reached a climax at dinner one night when Bill Gates was around 12. Over the table, he shouted at his mother, in what today he describes as "utter, total sarcastic, smart-ass kid rudeness."

That's when Mr. Gates Sr., in a rare blast of temper, threw the glass of water in his son's face.

He and Mary brought their son to a therapist. "I'm at war with my parents over who is in control," Bill Gates recalls telling the counselor. Reporting back, the counselor told his parents that their son would ultimately win the battle for independence, and their best course of action was to ease up on him.

Bill Sr. and Mary ultimately took a page from their upbringing: They backed off. They enrolled their son in a school that they thought would give him more freedom. That was the private Lakeside School, now known as the place where Bill Gates discovered computers.

Mr. Gates says he began to realize, "'Hey, I don't have to prove my position relative to my parents. I just have to figure out what I'm doing relative to the world.'"

Each of us has a grand sphere of influence and are capable of great things and we are all weaving a tapestry from which future generations will annex and increase. Maybe we all want to throw a glass of water on our children from time-to-time; maybe we all cringe when we contemplate our children actually using our name--that name we work diligently to make honorable; maybe we all tremble a little when our children make choices and act on decisions we wonder from where they came! We know they didn't get that from us, we say to ourselves and sometimes out loud and on purpose!

It's a delicate dance this thing we call showing up for life as a parent. To give our children the freedom to be who they are happiest being and doing that which brings to them the greatest satisfaction is sometimes the greatest leap of faith. If we but follow the guidance of the Gates' counselor we've most certainly heard before, and allow our kids room to just be, we no doubt will have had a hand in raising admirable, joyful, successful adults who know the benefits of showing up for life, too.

One of the [best pieces of advice] I ever had ... is the business of getting along with and encouraging the right things with your youngsters. Bill's mother and I early on were involved in parent effectiveness training, [an] activity at the church we went to. And the thing that the people there taught us and emphasized, which is so central and so significant, is that you should never demean your child. When you think about the centrality of that, in terms of the relationship with an offspring, you're off to a really good start. I'm a great fan of my son's. I think he's an incredible citizen and a wonderful businessman, and we let that show in the things we do together. --Bill Gates, Sr.

So I'm thinking over the things that he said...parenting is as much about showing up as it is about a set of rules and examples I bestow upon my children no matter how well-intentioned.

Adam Walsh Child Protection Act

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act was passed on July 25, 2006—20 years after Adam Walsh's abduction. The act established a National Sex Offender Registry law, but recent news reports reveal most states will not be in compliance with the law by the upcoming July 2009 deadline. John Walsh, Adam's father, and host of the TV show America's Most Wanted urges Americans to act now and write to their representatives in Washington, D.C.

“It's a very blunt instrument, especially in a highly charged political atmosphere.” --John Walsh

So I'm thinking over the things that he said and urging my friends and family to write their representatives. Just click on the link above for a form letter and contact information.

Walter Cronkite: And That's The Way It Is

I was four years old and sitting on my knees in front of my grandparents' new, black and white, console television. The voice I heard, soothing and calming had undertones of confidence and authority. That is my first recollection of Walter Cronkite and that Autumn day I heard him report on the J. F. Kennedy assassination.

That was it. Forever emblazoned in my psyche was the assuaging southern drawl of Walter Cronkite; the CBS anchor known as the most trusted man in America. In fact he became known by the drop-out-love-child-flower-child hippies and yippies as "Uncle Walter." Who would even come close to that today? Uncle Morley Safer? Uncle Charlie Rose? Uncle Mike Wallace? Uncle Andy Rooney?

It seemed as if I grew up with him. It was his news reports where I learned about the Viet Nam war; and Watergate, Iranian hostage crisis, Apollo 11, Apollo 13 and the moon landing.

He was down to earth and had, it seemed, a kinship with Americans. His bushy eyebrows, woolly mustache and Cary Grant good looks endeared him to Americans. We wanted to trust him. In turn he wanted to deliver the forthright, bona fide news, just the facts. During a time when the powers that be at CBS were beginning to cautiously "report" nightly news, Cronkite hit it head on. Quite often he was asked what award he was most proud of and he'd always say his Emmy for his report on Watergate. And boy did he have Emmys. He had so many Emmy statues he couldn't keep track of them yet the one he beamed at having was for his work reporting on Watergate! That two part investigative report, in part, assisted in toppling a president. He elicited and evoked almost immediate confidence and supposition from his TV viewers. So when he became skeptical in the tumultuous 1960's America sat up and listened. If he reported on the Watergate break in we, quite simply, believed him. Cronkite had power and never exploited it.

As part of his legacy, Cronkite donated his personal papers to the University of Texas at Austin. He helped sponsor an endowment for the University of Southern California's Annenberg Award for excellence in television political journalism and the Arizona State University’s school of journalism which is now known as the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

He wasn't particularly fond of retirement and often lamented he had regretted stepping down from the nightly news within 24 hours of resigning and has "regretted it every day since." He promised that upon his retirement he would continue to follow news developments “from a perch yet to be determined. I just hope that wherever that is, folks will still stop me, as they do today, and ask, ‘Didn’t you used to be Walter Cronkite?’ ”

So I'm thinking over the things that he said...and that's the way it is.

Malcolm Gladwell: My Hero!

I read the New Yorker magazine. In the May 11, 2009 issue there was an article written by Malcolm Gladwell entitled: How David Beats Goliath.

One of my favorite authors writing about one of my favorite topics--the success of the underdog! In this wonderfully woven article Mr. Gladwell tells the tale of a father who coaches his daughter's basketball team and instead of banishing the less talented and shorter players to the sidelines and giving the most talented, taller players most, if not all, of the court time Vivek Ranadive, the father-coach theorized he would implement two approaches. First he would not shout as he knew from experience his daughter and most other girls do not respond well to shouting and secondly he would coach his girls to play a real full-court press, every game, all the time. The girls ended up at the national championships in true David and Goliath fashion

Coach Ranadive's

Redwood City strategy was built around the two deadlines that all basketball teams must meet in order to advance the ball. The first is the inbounds pass. When one team scores, a player from the other team takes the ball out of bounds and has five seconds to pass it to a teammate on the court. If that deadline is missed, the ball goes to the other team. Usually, that’s not an issue, because teams don’t contest the inbounds pass. They run back to their own end. Redwood City did not. Each girl on the team closely shadowed her counterpart. When some teams play the press, the defender plays behind the offensive player she’s guarding, to impede her once she catches the ball. The Redwood City girls, by contrast, played in front of their opponents, to prevent them from catching the inbounds pass in the first place. And they didn’t guard the player throwing the ball in. Why bother? Ranadivé used that extra player as a floater, who could serve as a second defender against the other team’s best player. “Think about football,” Ranadivé said. “The quarterback can run with the ball. He has the whole field to throw to, and it’s still damned difficult to complete a pass.” Basketball was harder. A smaller court. A five-second deadline. A heavier, bigger ball. As often as not, the teams Redwood City was playing against simply couldn’t make the inbounds pass within the five-second limit. Or the inbounding player, panicked by the thought that her five seconds were about to be up, would throw the ball away. Or her pass would be intercepted by one of the Redwood City players. Ranadivé’s girls were maniacal.

The team's entire philosophy is based on a willingness to try harder than anyone else.

This is the second half of the insurgent’s creed. Insurgents work harder than Goliath. But their other advantage is that they will do what is “socially horrifying”—they will challenge the conventions about how battles are supposed to be fought.

When effort trumps ability the "game" is knocked on it's behind! No one expects the unexpected.

T. E. Lawrence... was the farthest thing from a proper British Army officer. He did not graduate with honors from Sandhurst. He was an archeologist by trade, a dreamy poet. He wore sandals and full Bedouin dress when he went to see his military superiors. He spoke Arabic like a native, and handled a camel as if he had been riding one all his life. And David, let’s not forget, was a shepherd. He came at Goliath with a slingshot and staff because those were the tools of his trade. He didn’t know that duels with Philistines were supposed to proceed formally, with the crossing of swords. “When the lion or the bear would come and carry off a sheep from the herd, I would go out after him and strike him down and rescue it from his clutches,” David explained to Saul. He brought a shepherd’s rules to the battlefield.

True to form, Gladwell turns conventional wisdom on it's ear stating 71.5% of the time the David's win, not the Goliath's. Folks, it's simple: endurance battles favor the insurgents.

"The values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are." --Malcolm Gladwell

So, I'm thinking over the things that he said and continuing to try hard and act more.

"If there's one cultural quality we have, it's that we always see ourselves as the underdog." Bill Gates