New York Moves: I like to do it when you’re on because, um, then you know that we are actually recording the call. Um, so, the, uh, the premise of how our diversity and inclusion uh years past and present kind of started as a as a forum, originally started as a mentor uh program that we were doing for young students. Um, and, at the um, panelists that the ladies that we would invite to have a mentee be selected from the audience, from the schools and colleges, and it was a very sweet state situation, you got to put your name in if you’re interested, and then the uh, the the speaker would pull uh out a name and you would be mentored with them for a day.
Mary Stutts: Oh, nice!
NYM: And it was just a nice way to do it with everyone having an opportunity to say that you know, there was no favoritism, it’s uh, it’s pulled out and here’s the the way that will take place. And so that kind of continued to build into the diversity and inclusion um conversations and how that became really really relevant uh as times progress. So, next year it will be our 10th year of this celebration.
MS: Excellent.
NYM: So we’re kind of excited about that. So, kicking off with the first question, my question to yourself would be, is that what do you feel all the qualities of a good mentor?
MS: Mmm. So, so this is why I wrote my book, The Missing Mentor.
NYM: Oh, fantastic, yeah, that’s right.
MS: Yeah, yeah, and so this is why I wrote the book, because in my in my focus on mentoring um women — and men, actually, but certainly with mentoring um women, what I realized is that when, in the early days, when people used to ask me to mentor them, I would say “yes” to everyone. Uh, eventually, that became two much which is why I wrote the book, so it’s like “I’ll tell them what I’ll tell them if I have time to tell them.” But the point is um first of all when I started doing that, I would be out speaking and I would hear these women um coming up to me and asking me questions about their career, and what was so shocking I think to me, was that I actually had the answer. I knew what to tell them. And so I started mentoring because I really wanted to give back, sort of send the elevator back down to those who are looking to move up. So my my um the thing that is so important for folks to understand when you are the mentor as well as the person being mentored is that there needs to be a plan. You have to be intentional about it, because what I found is when I said yes to folks and they showed up in my office for me to mentor them, they’re like, “Ok, I’m here, mentor me!”. They had no questions, no plan, no real focus for the conversation, so I think that anyone who is going to mentor someone, as well as someone who’s going to be mentored needs to have a specific focus, and that’s why my my process is “Let’s start with career development planning. Where do you see yourself, and where do you want to be, in the next two years, three years, five years?”. This is what I tell people to do to prepare for when they come to meet with me, so preparation is key for mentoring, so as a mentor, I need to know who I’m about to talk to, what are their aspirations, where do they want to go, what industry is it, so that I’m prepared and we can make the best use of our time. And then the mentee has to have some sense of where they want to go with their career. What industry? And then, I’m prepared for that if they say “I don’t really know,” I some people say, “I don’t care what industry; I just want to be a director. I just want to be a vice president,” or whatever. So, but, again, I’m prepared, though, so I know what this person needs to do, what experiences they need to have, if they want to be at this level in their career, and so, then, we can talk about experiences. What are the experiences you need to have, and how can we help you get those experiences? So, now, the reason that’s so important is I I did some research early on again as I was working on my book and what I found was a survey that was done that was talking about the experiences, the general managerial experiences, that people need to have if they want to be promoted into leadership. And those are experiences like job rotations, and managing of P and L, profit and loss center, doing a turnaround, things like that. But what the research found is that, first of all, the number one experience you need to have if you want to be promoted is what? Guess what? Mentoring.
NYM: Wow.
MS: You need to have — that’s the number one experience, is mentoring, uh but something that the survey found that they weren’t even looking for, it just uh it surfaced as they were doing the data is that women were not getting access to these types of experiences that they need in order to be promoted. And, the surveyors said that, “We don’t know why men are getting more access than women, but this is something that you need to pay attention to when you’re looking to advance your career.” One of the things I found as I was doing my research is the number one reason that women weren’t getting access to these opportunities is, guess what? They didn’t ask. They did not ask. They were waiting for someone to tap them on the shoulder and say “Tag, you’re it,” and sometimes that happens, but that doesn’t always happen. You have to ask for opportunities.
NYM: And I think also this obviously the most important thing of all of that is is is confidence and also people feeling that they can actually — has the door been opened to say, “ask.” Because I think a part of the process is uh women naturally feel, “I don’t want to create a fuss or a buzz, I just want to get on with my job. Because then I’m passed as a troublemaker, or, ‘oh, you’re the one who’s being vocal about something.” It’s um I think it’s a very changing platform today, which is refreshing —
MS: Yes.
NYM: Iin that you know people are open and prepared to one, be the one that asks the questions and uh the one on the receiving end appreciates the question needs to be asked. Because otherwise, how do you move forward, right?
MS: That is exactly right. So what has happened that has helped making this conversation easier for women to have is the understanding across corporations that in order to retain their talent, they have to have career development pathways and plans. So when I’m mentoring a lot of women, that is the safe path for them, because some of the women, to your point, and men, but I’m just focusing on women right now, but some of the women, what they say is, “I want to talk about it, but my immediate supervisor or my boss is intimidated by — they think that I want their job.” And so that’s why the safe path, to your point, about people not wanting to raise a fuss, raise waves, is to say, “I want to talk to you about my career development plan.” And the good thing about that is you can go have that conversation with your HR representative. You don’t even have to have that conversation with your boss, because every people, team leader knows that the career development pathway planning is critical to retaining staff, and so that’s that is the new way. But the companies that are best places to work, it is mandatory —
NYM: Let’s talk about that. You hit on something that’s leading into one of the next questions, I mean you talk about um it is mandatory. One of the questions we ask is that should it become a company requirement that um mentoring or leadership is something that is a shared opportunity for people that don’t have access. Um but like you know, and I’m sure you do and you can talk to it, is is that you know corporations that are not mandated or don’t have strict kind of how many people, even if it’s a percentage, we’re not saying everyone is made for mentoring. There’s other ways people can help without being a mentor. They could be present, they could be participating in something. But if it’s not made mandatory in some shape or form, is it that it just won’t happen? And if that is the case, the question I would like to ask is that, should it be made mandatory?
MS: Mhm. The companies that are the best places to work for diversity, for women, just in general, at the top of those lists, career development planning is mandatory. And if you are going to do career development planning, that means every single manager has to have to have a career development plan for their direct report employees. That’s the case at Genentech where I worked, that’s the place, the case at Comcast, NBC University, Kaiser Permanente, so then when it’s mandatory that you have to have those career development planning conversations with your employees, then the mentoring has to follow that, because that’s the only way you can really have the conversation. So, as opposed to making mentoring mandatory, uh it’s the part about doing the career development planning conversations with your staff. Now, one of the things I like to emphasize is that there is no one, perfect mentor for anybody. And your mentoring network is going to change over the course of your career as you evolve and develop. So, understanding that this is an ongoing process is not a one and done, is one thing. The other thing is that we want to make sure you want to make sure that you are valuing your mentor’s time. So, uh one of the questions that I ask when I’m speaking is, “How long do you think a mentoring session should ask?” Because it’s a little poll that I ask to take. How long, when you get someone who says “yes, I will mentor you,” how long do you think that first conversation should last? Is it an hour? Is it 45 minutes? Is it half an hour? Is it 15 minutes? The answer is 15 minutes.
NYM: I was going to say 30 minutes but yeah, I can see that.
MS: Be prepared to get in and out in 15 minutes because then your mentor sees this person values my time, they are prepared, and you are guaranteed, then, to get another 15 minutes whenever you come back to ask for more time, they’re going to give it to you because you respect their time. So there is a process to this. There is mentoring, there is sponsoring, but again, the reason you find people not saying “yes” when someone asks them “Will you be my mentor” is because they don’t want to commit to that inordinate amount of time. It’s not that they don’t want to help you. So to say, “Will you take some time to review my career development plan with me?” Everybody is going to say “yes” to that. And it doesn’t have to be your immediate supervisor. It can be more senior people in the organization, and as we’re doing the diversity and inclusion work, creating that inclusive environment, this is one of the areas for leaders who need to be seen practicing inclusive diversity is that they need to have those one-on-one career development conversations with those diverse members of their staff, not necessarily just their team, but within their organization, with women, with people of color, and make time to do that.
NYM: Okay, fantastic, thank you for that um breakdown of what’s relevant both to the conversation for mentee and mentor and for corporate uh representation. But going on to a couple of the other questions, Mary, I’d like to ask that given the evidence of um mentoring diversity in companies and corporations um and the relevance of it, this this is a two barrel question. One is, should it be uh, mandatory is not the right word, should it be um, how do I word this? I’m going to separate the questions. I’m going to separate the questions. So the first one I think I’m going to ask you is uh do you feel that there should be a budget put in place and a five year plan for a mentor career development process within a corporation? So that they’re actually committing to what they’re saying. It’s not just verbal, and vocal, and people are just doing it because the company is requesting that people contribute their time, without the company backing it in the way that people want to see backing sent inn sending people on training sessions, bringing inviting people into speak, um, without some commitment from the company um do you feel like it actually I guess the question is do you feel that is necessary to take on?
MS: Absolutely. It is absolutely necessary for the company to be intentional about investing in their talent and their workforce. You want them to invest their time and their life into building your business —
NYM: Right.
MS: You have to invest in them. So again even the smallest companies I have found will have budgets set aside for learning and development um opportunities for their people, um uh a lot of the companies now are doing the um the mentoring platforms uh like mentor click, CSweetner, and there is a healthcare one for women that I am a mentor on that platform where women can come in and actually schedule a half hour so that they can join CSweetner and schedule an actual half-hour session with me, um and companies are investing in those platforms so that their employees can get access to mentoring in their organization so mentor click is just within your organization, but getting access to all these different people across the organization for your employees that you want to develop and that have access to the platform, and then some of them are dealing with these outside platforms like CSweetner, where those of us who are mentors come from organizations all across you know the world, literally. But uh absolutely, companies realize, and the employees realize, and they are looking for that as they when they are coming to a company, especially the millennials, the Gen Z, uh even the Gen X, they are looking and wanting to see, “Do you have, are you making that learning and development investment in me?”. And it’s actually being included in job descriptions uh even more so now um that that is included in there as one of the perks or benefits of coming to work for that company.
NYM: Which is great because it gives people a sense of um the company cares, which I think is the massive, just the massive — we spend, we say to everyone, “We spend more than 50% of our life in work. If you don’t enjoy it, then get out, don’t do it, because it has to work.” But this takes us nicely into the next question where we talk about um in the uh in the uh nineteenth century, the central morale challenge was slavery. The twentieth century, it was a battle against totalism. The twenty-first century, which is a paramount morale challenge in the struggle for fairness and gender equality. So, why is it that gender equality today, in the twenty-first century, is still a conversation that we need to have? What is it that isn’t striking home for the western world?
MS: Yeah, well, I think it’s the same reason the gender equality issue is the same reason we have the racial equality issue which is the bias, which is the male-dominated uh society that has been the the approach the the historical uh setup and structure, uh certainly of business and corporate world and careers, and so the the um challenges are still there when it comes to gender and that’s why as a part of the diversity and inclusion work that I do um I do a whole focus around gender-balanced leadership. And the point is educating people in the organizations — men and women — about the different kind of characteristics of uh female-focused leadership versus male-focused leadership, with the understanding that uh first of all, you can be a woman and and practice the male’s and vice versa, but the understanding and the main point of that is that we need both.
NYM: Right.
MS: The balanced, gender-balanced leadership is the the those companies that have that, and understand that, and value those trades, are the ones that are doing better and more financially lucrative and better able to hold onto their employees, their workforce, and so that coming to that recognition, so again my premise is that I don’t think anyone gets up every day and says “Oh, I’m going to go out and create acts of bias, or you know, leave people out, or microaggressions,” or or whatever. I don’t think it’s intentional, I assume good intent, intent, but by the same token, corporations have to be intentional in making sure that they are practicing gender-balanced leadership, uh diverse you know, ethnically-balanced leadership that their companies are representative of the population of the countries, the cities, the nations, where they exist, but also of the customers and patients that they want. It is amazing to me that you want every nationality in in America, our competitive, our diversity is our competitive advantage. And so because you do what all the diversities here in the united states, the genders, all of that, and you want to take advantage of that from the perspective of selling your wares and growing your business, but you think that you’re going to be able to do that without having a workforce that is representative of this country? It’s not possible for you to fully penetrate your market and fully achieve the value uh from your services or your products that you could achieve if you really are practicing inclusive diversity, and that includes gender-balanced leadership.
NYM: Nice. I like that, gender-balanced leadership. I’ve not heard that before um but I think you you can understand the relevance of it because it all, I always say is that you want a fair platform for women and um to I think you said something a photoshoot is is that how easy it is that we can’t just say women anymore, we have to say women and diverse women, that includes every authenticity that you want at the table.
MS: That’s exactly it. Women and people of color, you really do have to say that, because you know even in California when we did the legislation to mandate women onto boards corporate boards of directors, what we found after the first couple of years that only white women were being put on the board, even though the women who lobbied and and asked for this were women from every ethnicity across the board. Um but that’s what happened, so that’s then uh we had to go back to the legislature to say “okay, add people of color,” and they added people of color and LGBTQ, so it’s unfortunate that you have to be so specific and directive when you’re trying to do these things, but you do for right now.
NYM: Yeah, yeah.
MS: Hopefully we can move past that.
NYM: And you know corporate and business being business, if someone can find a loophole, they’re going to find it, and they’re going to use it until somebody says you can’t, so just hold it. And a lot of it is just common sense.
MS: Common sense, that’s exactly right.
NYM: Common sense. I remember one of our honorees last year said that she got up on the platform and she says, “The only one thing I wish for is people had more common sense. I just feel that if people just thought about what they did, it seems to be one rule for me, and then another rule for you,” and it just made me crazy in that, it’s all I’ve had, conversations this morning about common sense. And it’s which part of this don’t you understand?
MS: One of the ways that I like to address what I call the — I love how you describe it, the common sense piece, is to constantly reiterate to people, one size fits one.
NYM: Yes.
MS: The leader, you cannot come in and say “Oh, I’m going to treat everybody just like XYZ”—one size fits one. What is important to me is going to be totally different than what is important to you. How I want to be treated in the workplace, what I consider to be uh cultural humility and important to me is going to be different than what’s important to you, and as leaders, we need to respect the individuality of our workforce and listen. The reason I talk about “one size fits one: is because I have to encourage leaders, even physicians when you’re talking to patients, listen to them. The biggest uh complaint that patients have about their physicians, especially women and diverse patients, is that the physician didn’t listen to me, and the result of that is these worse health outcomes you see, for example, with Black and Hispanic patients being diagnosed later with cancer because the physician didn’t listen early on when they were talking about the symptoms, did not take them seriously when they were talking about it and so now here they’re at Stage 3, Stage 4, and their morbidity is more of a a risk than ever before. So one size fits one. Listen to people and ask them questions about what’s important to them. Don’t assume you know, just because you see it’s a woman, or just because you see it’s a Black person, or Hispanic, or Asian person, or LGBTQ person. Ask questions and remember one size fits one.
NYM: Yeah, so funny. I’ll always remember, I come from a very um sales, marketing structure, I’ll always remember um the company, my first ever sales company was an American company, and I remember my boss saying to me, “Keep it simple, stupid.” Just keep it simple, stupid. KISS.
MS: KISS, KISS method, I love that.
NYM: It’s so, so easy and it’s one of those things that just registers and clicks, and it’s just like, “KISS: keep it simple, stupid.” That’s all you need to remember. The other rule, he always said to me remember “Listen twice and speak once, you have two ears and one mouth.” So just balance all the time.
MS: I love it.
NYM: It was just and it was just like the tiny little things he had just like and I never, ever forgot that. Because when I see senior managers in meetings, they all kind of are very conservative and all of this kind of very mature conversation is taking place, and you’re like this young apprentice in the room, and you’re all excited, and you’ve got high energy, and next thing you know, but these people are kind of very and I’m getting the whole, you know? You don’t need to be that high energy. People need to feel that they’re not being um uh as if you’re you’re talking on equal footing. There’s no uh you know, I’m the boss, you’re the manager, this is how it works, this, this, you have to put people at ease, that’s how it works. But anyway, I digress. I promise I know that we’re running over time, I’m hoping you’re okay for at least —
MS: Oh yeah.
NYM: Okay, cool. So I’d like to turn the tables a little bit uh Mary to you and ask a question, but, what do you feel was your defining moment um that brought you to where you are today? And if there was one, what would you say it was?
MS: I think the defining moment for me happened when I was in a leadership development class that my company paid for me to go to back when I was at Kaiser Permanente actually. Um at at Stanford, and it was like uh a 3-day leadership program that was run by this amazing man, um uh and something he said to us he challenged us and I’ve never forgotten it and I talk to women quite a bit about it when I’m speaking. And you’ve probably heard about it by now because this was back in the 90s so I think it’s gotten more popular now, but what would you do if you had no fear? That question. What would you do if you had no fear? That was such a um a epiphany moment for me, one, because I did not realize how much fear was holding me back, remember the whole thing I said about the reason aren’t getting a lot of opportunities is because we don’t ask, uh same thing Karla Harris was talking about, we don’t, uh, we don’t ask like as in negotiating for money or raises or promotions or whatever it is. Um and a lot of that is fear-based, right? And you just figure, come in, put your head down, do a good job, somebody’s going to recognize me and tap me on the shoulder. But um all of that is fear-based. So that, um understanding that, and unpeeling that in my mind, so that I really started not only searching inside myself to see what did I really want out of life, but also paying more attention externally to what were the opportunities for me.
NYM: Right.
MS: And that is, that was the changing thing for me. I started um you know I started doing pilots and things and recommending them and and my leaders let me do it uh at those companies, at Kaiser, at Bayer, and Genentech uh, and and as a result of that, I ended up just leading some really trailblazing, wonderful opportunities um innovative things that added value to my companies. I’m an avid reader, so I was always staying on top of um what were the trends, what was the latest data, um where was the greatest need, um and when I paid attention to what was going on in my company, and when I saw something where we could make an impact, like diversity in clinical trials, ten years ago before it even became a thing like it is now, um at Genentech, it was like “You know what? We did not have any diverse people in our asthma trial,” and the FDA called us out on it at the outcome hearing, I know, so embarrassing. And uh and and and so we this is us, we had 50 positive phase 3 trials in a row, we are at the at the time leading the industry in successful clinical trials, we know how to do this right. So who better than us to take this on as a what we call a corporate social responsibility then you know now it’s called social impact. But for us to take that on is our corporate responsibility initiative. Now, before that, “What would you do if you had no fear?”, I would have never even been thinking about, I wouldn’t have even had the mindset to say, “I can do this.” And that question, asking myself that question, really thinking about it, really gave me the mindset to say, if there’s something that I see needs to be done, I can do it or I can certainly speak up about it, help get gather people, convene people, put together a team, whatever it is, to address it.
NYM: Wow. um that’s a fantastic uh kind of a pivoting moment for you in what kind of set the tone for who you are today, which is fantastic.
MS: And it’s it will set the tone for women everywhere. This is the part where the mentoring comes in. This is why I mentor women around this, “What would you do if you had no fear?”. Helping them to see themselves in this greater role and to stretch themselves, and to go ask for what they want, and um to envision what they really want to do, it’s it’s a pivotal moment for women everywhere to to not only hear it, but to grab ahold of it.
NYM: Yeah, I agree, fear is absolutely the truth because we we do hang onto it because we are it’s it’s all that uh uh conditioning over years and years and years that is filtered down from your parents, your grandparents, and and it this the where a woman stands in the realm of society, right?
MS: Mhm. And we’re always looking out for everybody else by the way, that’s the other thing. We’re always helping everybody else. A lot of times, right, we don’t help ourselves, we don’t speak up for ourselves, we always want to make so sure that everybody else gets the attention and the help and uh the advancement and the promotion.
NYM; That’s right, there’s nothing wrong with it. But it’s like you say, sometimes you need a reminder, right?
MS: The other piece of that, I’m sorry I keep cutting you off. The other piece of why it’s so important for us to go beyond just being uh helping everybody else and nurturing everybody else is because sometimes, we are the ones who need to be in those higher positions, because we do have the knowledge, we do know what to do, we are going to treat folks equitably and make sure that we you know lift all boats and that we are inclusive in our hiring practices, and how we run uh our teams, our business, our jobs, um and so a lot of times, we’re it. It’s like “tag, you’re it! You’ve got to go do this.”
NYM: And it is taking that, it is taking that little push, and the confidence to do it, right? Which is massive, massive. And I completely stand behind any woman that and myself included, somebody said to me recently that you don’t do your own yourself any justice because you’re literally in this uh footpath of exactly what you’ve said, uh, but you’re not a self promoter now not, I just don’t, I just don’t do it, and I was told um that in PR, that’s that’s something that has to happen now. The twenty years of our journey with our magazine would not have been possible had they not been the backer and made it possible.
MS: That’s an amazing story, you’ve got to write the forward for that coffee table book, about the vision and why you started. And that’s going to be so motivating to people, you know, here’s something I found out just over the course of working with women and people of color over the years at my at my different companies. Um, people want access and they want recognition. And the access piece is hug because uh you know, why not talk to leaders and like you need to be the one doing these fireside chats, no you can’t do one-on-one with everybody, but those companies, when you have those affinity groups, you each CSweet member needs to come individually over the course of a year or whatever, once a month, one of you, come in and do a fireside chat with these different employed populations who probably would never have that type of contact and interaction with you and I want you to go talk to them, but not to give them a business update. I want you to tell them, and what they want to hear, is your career trajectory. How did you get to where you are? What were the the decisions you made? What was the pivotal moment for you? How did you do this? How did you grow up? What kind of circumstances did you grow up in? That’s what they need to hear. And so that’s why I’m saying they want to understand the vision, the thinking behind it, the mind behind it, and that’s where your story of coming up with this amazing idea of recognizing these women and showcasing these women and and all the great work that New York Moves Magazine does, you need to write the forward about that, and then now pulling out this this this representation of the type of women who did it I I’m going to order that for myself and my daughters and nieces and all the and and make sure they have it.
NYM: Yeah, it’s it’s so true. It’s, I mean the coffee table book that we’re working on which is something we should talk about at the end of here uh for sure, because of your new journey.
MS: Yes, yes, yes.
NYM: But just a so a few more questions and and if you can try and make them kind of uh um one sentence, one word answers, because uh I think there’s a lot of content to bring to the table for them. Um, but if you um one of the questions we like to ask is what do you feel was the best piece of advice you were ever given? Which I think you kind of answered when you said that your journey took you there because of the fear factor.
MS: Yes. Yes. Um.
NYM: Anything else you’d like to add, maybe?
MS: The other best piece of advice I was given was by um a woman who’s a CEO now and uh I mentioned before, Myrtle Piter. But her advice was she was talking about, “Ask for what you want when it comes to funding for your ideas and your initiatives or projects, and she said, “If they don’t turn blue when you give them your number, you haven’t asked for enough.”
NYM: Nice one, I like that, I like that. And you want to make an impact, and that’s how to do it, right? Because then you, yeah.
MS: Yeah, you’ve got you have to have enough funding, and don’t start so low. Ask for what you really think it is needed to get this done, instead of worrying about you know what they might say and yes, they might be shocked, but her thing was, if they don’t blue when they hear your number, then you haven’t asked for enough.
NYM: Wow. I like that. I’m probably going to use that, because I never, never thought about it, where governing sales and marketing I always say it’s like the elephant in the room, and I always say to everybody when you’re pitching something and you’re looking for an answer, get to it so everybody knows that it’s out there. I always say, don’t hide away from something that needs to be said because people are waiting for the question to be asked, wherever it is, wherever the question is. Don’t wait until you feel comfortable to ask, because everybody’s like, “Well what can where are we going here, what’s going to happen, what is it that we’re going to do?” And then get it out, and let’s get the conversation going, right?
MS: That’s exactly right.
NYM: And uh the whole thing when you talk about fear, right?
MS: Yeah, that’s right.
NYM: Is rejection
MS: Yes.
NYM: And I always say to people, um, “Better to know than not know, then you know how to handle it.”
MS: That’s right.
NYM: In a place of um having your own insecurities played out, instead, put it out there, because the every question asked has a yes/no result, and you might as well know, then if it’s a no, you navigate it back to a yes. You’ve just got to know what you’re navigating. How do you know what to navigate?
MS: Exactly. Exactly. That’s right.
NYM: Couple, couple more questions. One is specific too, if you could tell your 15 year-old-self today, the classic question we have to ask, um after all the experience you’ve gained in life, what would you say to your 15-year-old self today.
MS: I mean, my biggest thing is go for it. That’s what I would tell my 15 year old self. Always go for it. Whatever it is you want, that you’re dreaming about, thinking about, just go for it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And that’s something I also advise a lot of people about. Go for it. And that and that you know so that’s getting a college degree for me, growing up in the rural south, and going to uh um uh wanting to get into a college that had only recently started accepting Black students, and wanting to go there, um you know, it was a lot of people were afraid to do that. Go for it. Go into graduate school. Moving to California. I mean just all these different things um applying for my first global role when I had no global experience, but go for it. That that to me is just go for it.
NYM: Don’t let your inexperienced hold you back, because it can none of those inexperienced can be learned out of the job.
MS: Right, and even if you don’t get it, you will learn just from the experience of going for it. All of it’s development.
NYM: I’ll always remember my first job that I got uh I had absolutely no experience and I applied for three jobs, and the only I got an interview is because I called them up and said to Human Resources, “You must have lost my application.” And even to this day I say I that point, our parents were so protective of us, we were never going to be interviewing, we were supposed to get married and have kids, that was our path. You get married, you have kids, your husband takes care of you. And then you applied for a job and three applications and three job offers were made because um all I did was be who I am and go. Did no, didn’t hold back, had no, you know when you have no um, you’ve not had anybody say to you you can’t, you shouldn’t, you won’t, you have no conditioning, it’s just, what’s the worst thing? That I’m going to land on my face and they’re going to say, “Well, have you any finance experience?” “No, but hey, I know how to talk the talk. Isn’t that all you want?”
MS: Right, and “I can learn it. Right?”
NYM: All of the, you can learn. It’s hilarious when you think back and I think back thirty years ago how I did it then, and I even to this day, I say to my nephews and nieces, “There are ways to get what you want, you just have to be motivated to want it.”
MS: That’s exactly right.
NYM: Someone said something recently relating to that, that if you if you go for something and you feel you haven’t gone for it 100%, I can’t remember who said something, I don’t know if it was on the TV or an honoree I was speaking to, and she was saying that then you haven’t done it right the first time, you haven’t given it your all if you’ve come back and say, “Oh, I could’ve done that differently,” then you didn’t go in with the with everything you wanted to give it, you know? You have to go in all all committed, not partially committed, but fully committed.
MS: All in. you’ve got to be all in. I love that. That’s a great um analogy.
NYM: It’s a waste of time, you’re going to be doing it again before you know it. Next question: who do you admire the most and why? Present, past, all relevant.
MS: Hmm. Um, that’s interesting, who do I — I have to say, the person I admire the most, is actually my foster mom. I became a foster child at the age of five years old. And um my foster mother was so inspirational because she was the first person in her family to go to college, um she went to Grambling State University, she was a fifth grade school teacher, but she also was the first um certified special education teacher in the state of Louisiana. And, that’s because she believed every child could learn. And she was the teacher before they created the special education curriculum. She was teacher where they put all the “problem,” primarily Black boys in her class. And she believed every child could learn, and I used to remember her — she would be so happy to have them put those boys in her class, and then she would be bragging at the dinner table about how well they were doing, and she would say, “There’s nothing wrong with those children. They just need someone to expect more of them,” and she believed every child could learn, and in her classroom, Dr. Mary Louise Wilson’s classroom, they did. Every child did. So imagine how she nurtured me, and you know helped me, and always expected the best of me. She would say to me when I would get my report card, um, you know, if I got a B, sometimes a C, but very rarely God forbid, but if I got a B, she would say, she would look at my report card and she would say, “A B is good, but you’re an A student.” So imagine hearing that your whole life. “You’re an A student.”
NYM: Yeah.
MS: And that just — a lot of probably the insecurities and things that I probably would have had being a foster child and all of these things, I never had them. People were shocked, are shocked when they found out I was a foster child. It was a very nurturing, loving family, but that was her. She set this bar, um but not in a punitive way, but just, you know, “Get together your own head, and know you can do this. You are an A student.” And, because she said it, I expected to be an A student and to get an A all the time. I that was that was my goal and for the most part I did, always. So, um, she is she is far away, that’s who I admire, that who that is who has had the greatest impact on my life. Every door that I’ve gone through, she has been 100%, she — she’s deceased now, but she’s been, she was 100% “Yeah, you can do this! You’re brilliant!”. You’re— you know, when I was producing TV shows, that’s how I started my career, she loved it. And she always said, she would always have me giving speeches, and doing talks my foster father was a baptist minister, so um you know at church, on Easter, you know the kids say a poem, I was forever having to say poems and read papers, and she she put me on platforms as a child from the time I was 5 years old, so it was all preparing me for what I’m doing now, and even as I go into this role as the CEO of the HBA, um, even the work that I did at Real Chemistry of convening all these dialogues about advancing health equity and inclusion, um, she she really prepared me for all that. She saw that in me, early on when I didn’t have a clue.
NYM: That’s fantastic, that’s a great story. My husband and I just went through one of the 8 month training for fostering, um, yeah. I’m going to pause that — thank you for that interview Mary, and let me just pause that recording