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

In a heartfelt, deeply personal book, Bill Gates, Sr., shares the values and principles he's learned over a lifetime of “showing up”–lessons that he has instilled in his children, and continues to practice on the world stage today as the cochair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

SHOWING UP FOR LIFE shines a light on the qualities that shaped Bill Gates, Sr.'s life as a husband, a father of three exceptional children, and a widely respected figure in the world of law and philanthropy. Like Harvey Penick's Little Red Book, Tuesdays with Morrie, and the recent runaway bestseller The Last Lecture, it translates one man's experiences over four score years of living into an inspiring roadmap for readers everywhere.

Through several dozen narratives arranged in roughly chronological order, 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; his famous son, Trey, who, as a young boy when asked what he is doing as everyone else sits in the car ready to go, replies, "I'm thinking - don't you
ever think?" Through 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.