Tag: powerful

6 things one of the most powerful producers in TV learned from saying ‘yes’ to everything for a year

shonda rhimes award

She owned Thursday nights on television with her hit series “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scandal,” and “How to Get Away with Murder.”

She got to make things up for a living — something she’d thrived on since childhood.

But Shonda Rhimes was unhappy. She was overworked and unhealthy, and she didn’t feel like she was living her life to the fullest.

So she embarked on a yearlong experiment in which she’d agree to any and every request that came her way — in her personal or professional life.

As she describes in her 2015 book, “Year of Yes,” over the course of that year, she stepped out of her comfort zone and learned what it means to be truly successful. Here are six life-changing lessons she learned.

SEE ALSO: The creator of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘Scandal’ describes the moment she came into her own as a boss

1. You’ll never know if you can get your way until you ask

Jimmy Kimmel had been requesting Rhimes’ presence on his show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” for years, and Rhimes had politely declined each time.

Once her Year of Yes began, however, there was no way out. She agreed to appear on the show, except for one thing: The interview wasn’t live.

“If I have to be on TV, if I have to do something as scary as ‘Kimmel,’ Rhimes writes, “we’re going to do it my way or we don’t do it at all.”

In other words, Rhimes learned that if there’s a will, there’s a way. She’d always assumed that appearing on “Jimmy Kimmel” was out of the question for her because it had to be a live interview — and she was terrified of making a fool of herself on live television. But when her assistant communicated her request, Kimmel’s team was able to make it happen.

Rhimes was begrudgingly proud of herself for overcoming her fear: “I said yes to something that terrified me. And then I did it. And I didn’t die.”

2. Other people benefit when you get over your fears

Shortly after Rhimes, who graduated from Dartmouth College in 1991, began the Year of Yes, she received a phone call from the president of Dartmouth, asking her to give the commencement speech in 2014.

Though she was terrified, she agreed.

As she reveals in “Year of Yes,” she rewrote her entire speech during the plane ride to New Hampshire. While onstage, she calmed down when she stopped focusing on herself, and started thinking about the students in the audience as younger versions of her:

Whatever I’m going to say is not for me. It isn’t for the outside world. It doesn’t matter how people react to it or judge it. I’m not talking to anyone but these graduates sitting in front of me. This is just for them.

The speech encourages students to “be a doer, not a dreamer,” among other advice. You can watch it below:

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3. Making time for love is a priority

Perhaps the most important “yes” Rhimes uttered was in response to her youngest daughter’s question: “Mama, wanna play?”

Rhimes was heading out the door, all dressed up for a fancy event, but she kicked off her heels and sat down on the floor to spend 15 minutes playing with her three daughters.

Though she was late to the event, Rhimes writes, “That little fire inside of me has been reignited. Like magic. Let’s not get carried away. It’s just love.”

Now, she says, whenever her kids ask her to play, she says “yes.”

She urges readers to take at least 15 minutes a day to “play” — whether that means hanging out with their kids or indulging in a long bath or a manicure. In other words, those 15 minutes should be filled with love — for others or for yourself.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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The incredible life of Melinda Gates — one of the world’s richest and most powerful women

Melinda Gates

Melinda Gates is best known as Bill’s other half. Some may even say she’s his better half.

Melinda — who shares an estimated fortune of $89.4 billion with her husband — has become one of the most powerful female philanthropists in the world as co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which she helmed virtually on her own for the first six years of operation.

In addition to the pair’s education and healthcare initiatives, Melinda takes a personal interest in women’s issues around the world. At the forefront of her agenda is expanding the availability of contraception and, most recently, bringing awareness to the concept of time poverty — the notion that hours of daily unpaid work like household chores end up “robbing women of their potential.”

“When you invest in women, you invest in the people who invest in everybody else,” she wrote in a Fortune article last year outlining the benefits of hiring women in business. “And if you gradually start to take action, it won’t be long before you realize that investing in women is good for your mind, good for your soul, and good for your business.”

On International Women’s Day, a celebration of women’s progress and achievements, here’s a look at the incredible force that is Melinda Gates.

SEE ALSO: Melinda Gates reveals the best way for cash-strapped 20-somethings to make a big impact in philanthropy

DON’T MISS: The Bill Gates Interview

Melinda Gates (neè French) grew up in Dallas, Texas, with her parents — a stay-at-home mother and an aerospace-engineer father — and her three siblings. The family belonged to the local Roman Catholic parish.

Source: Telegraph

The Frenches were intent on sending all four of their children to college, so Melinda’s father started a side business for rental properties. “We would help him run the business and keep the books,” she said. “We saw money coming in and money going out.”

Source: Fortune

Melinda was valedictorian and head of the drill team at her high school, Ursuline Academy of Dallas. In 2007, the Gates Foundation donated $7 million to Ursuline for the construction of The French Family Science, Math, and Technology Center — a 70,000 sq. ft. LEED Gold certified laboratory and classroom building.

Source: Ursuline Dallas, Marie Claire

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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26 of the most powerful women engineers in 2016

Nearly every element of our modern lives is a direct result of the work done by some engineer: running water, electricity, and the internet, as well as our buildings, cars, phones, computers, televisions — even our dating…

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60 Powerful Winston Churchill Quotes

Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was also an officer of the British Army, author and artist. Check out Winston Churchill’s quotes below: 60 Powerful Winston Churchill Quotes: 1. “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” – Winston Churchill 2. “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” – Winston Churchill 3. “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.” – Winston Churchill 4. “Never, never, never give in!” – Winston Churchill 5. “Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.” – Winston Churchill 6. “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” – Winston Churchill 7. “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” – Winston Churchill 8. “In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.” – Winston Churchill 9. “We are all worms, But I do believe that I am a glow worm.” – Winston Churchill 10. “Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.” – Winston Churchill 11. “It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.” – Winston Churchill 12. “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” – Winston Churchill 13. “My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.” – Winston Churchill 14. “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” – Winston Churchill 15. “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” – Winston Churchill 16. “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” – Winston Churchill 17. “Success is not final…Failure is not fatal…it’s the courage to continue that counts” – Winston Churchill 18. “It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.” – Winston Churchill 19. “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” – Winston Churchill 20. “All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.” – Winston Churchill 21. “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.” – Winston Churchill 22. “A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt; long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.” – Winston Churchill 23. “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things. If it is heeded in time, danger may be averted; if it is suppressed, a fatal distemper may develop.” – Winston Churchill 24. “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill 25. “The most important thing about education is appetite.” – Winston Churchill 26. “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.” – Winston Churchill 27. “Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.” – Winston Churchill 28. “Personally, I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.” – Winston Churchill 29. “Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” – Winston Churchill 30. “We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.” – Winston Churchill     31. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill 32. “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” – Winston Churchill 33. “Good and great are seldom in the same man. ” – Winston Churchill 34. “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” – Winston Churchill 35. “We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.” – Winston Churchill 36. “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” – Winston Churchill 37. “When you get a thing the way you want it, leave it alone.” – Winston Churchill 38. “Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.” – Winston Churchill 39. “A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril.” – Winston Churchill 40. “Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.” – Winston Churchill 41. “We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls.” – Winston Churchill 42. “There is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.” – Winston Churchill 43. “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill 44. “Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.” – Winston Churchill 45. “I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact.” – Winston Churchill 46. “Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.” – Winston Churchill 47. “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill 48. “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.” – Winston Churchill 49. “For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.” – Winston Churchill 50. “The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.” – Winston Churchill 51. “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill 52. “Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge.” – Winston Churchill 53. “If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill 54. “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” – Winston Churchill 55. “The price of greatness is responsibility.” – Winston Churchill 56. “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.” – Winston Churchill 57. “Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.” – Winston Churchill 58. “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” – Winston Churchill 59. “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” – Winston Churchill 60. “Doubts [can] be swept away only by deeds.” – Winston Churchill What’s your favorite Winston Churchill Quote? Share your favorite quote in the comment section below.

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