The Next Day, Transitions, Change and Moving Forward, Melinda French Gates

The Next Day, Transitions, Change and Moving Forward, by Melinda French Gates 

I liked how practical this book was. Melinda is a well known celebrity of sorts, so the book could have easily been a juicy memoir where her love story is spilled and the reader gets that inside look into the life of the rich and powerful. A bit like Demi Moore’s autobiography, where ex-husband Aston Kutcher was publicly up in arms about the validity of her stories. I was happily surprised to learn that this book was nothing of the like. There is hardly any real detail about her relationship with ex-husband Bill Gates, which in light of the Epstein files, the speculated reasons for their divorce, and the timing of the book, you’d be excused for thinking she could have gone down that path. I respect her more for not participating in matters which didn’t involve her and leaving the gossip to the tabloids. 

Melinda is a philanthropist, businesswoman and global advocate for women and girls but I wasn’t drawn to the book because of those titles (although they are impressive). I was drawn to it because of the title The Next Day, Transitions, Change and Moving Forward.  Surely a woman of such calibre would have some wisdom to impart. And that she did.

Melinda uses a handful of detailed experiences from her life to flesh out seven key messages she wants to offer the reader, those of which are split by chapter. To articulate her points, she often references other people which she looks up to and is inspired by; Spiritual teacher Ram Dass, Poet David Whyte and Percy Bysshe Shelley, New York Times writer and theologian Reverend Esau McCaulley, Psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor, writer Mark Nepo, Oprah, and Warren Buffet.

I particularly liked her reference and thoughts on the character of a man named Ziauddin Yousafzai, none other than Malala Yousafzai’s dad. We’ve all heard of Malala but don’t know so much about her dad, what a fantastic man to explore with the example he set for his daughter. He too has written a book called Let Her Fly, which I would never have known about! So it’s now on my reading list. 

Melinda eloquently references these great people and how they’ve inspired her. She somehow lifts the reader and conveys her ideas with greater depth. It’s comforting hearing that a woman with so much success, started life as we all do, just winging it basically and looking to the people that came before for her guidance. I will admit however, perhaps I should invest some time reading into the ‘greats’ myself, instead of hearing about the themes of their work through modern tellers.  

I’ll leave you with some extracts from the book that spoke to me... 

Here she quotes a poem by the Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay;

Touching the surface and the depth of things, 

Instinctively responsive unto both,

Tasting the sweets of being and the stings, 

Sensing the subtle spell of changing forms,

Like a strong tree against a thousand storms

**I love that last line, it’s not the storm against the tree, it’s the tree against the storm, we are strong and we face storms a thousand times over.

Here is a poem she keeps on her desk and reads every day, by Poet MAIA;

i hope

when you come home to yourself

there are flowers lining the front porch

that were left from all the women

you were before 

And here is an extract about someting she has learned;

Looking back all these decades later, I can’t help but wince a little at what I missed out on during all those years. The girl I see when I page through that binder was driven by a mix of ambition and anxiety. Yes, I got a lot done. But I also missed opportunities to embrace spontaneity, lean into the unexpected, and learn something new about myself and the world. 

I think about it this way; Most of the time, we walk through life in the thicket of our everyday routine. We’re in familiar surroundings, but we’re so boxed in that it can be hard to see the full landscape. In moments of transition, though, we step into a clearing in our lives. The familiar surroundings disappear. In these big wide-open spaces, there’s a lot of uncertainty - but also a lot of possibility.

I’ve learned that there are two ways to encounter these spaces. You can keep your head down and focus on finding the shortest possible distance to the next familiar thing, racing past the unknown without a second glance. Or you can find the courage to pause in that in-between space and see what it has to tell you - and then let what you learn there help you decide where to go next. 

For the first part of my life, I was the person with her head down, darting between familiar things, rushing toward something I'd already decided I wanted even before I fully understood the whole spectrum of options before me. It’s taken me most of my life to find the courage to keep my heart open to what exists in these in-between spaces, to treat the unfamiliar as a teacher instead of the enemy. 

I would recommend this book, for a quick hit of practical wisdom.

Brigid x