How do we navigate life’s major upheavals when our plans suddenly fall apart? What can we learn from someone who successfully rebuilt her identity after divorce, career changes, and personal transformation?
Melinda French Gates offers a roadmap for handling transitions in The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward. Drawing from her experiences leaving Microsoft, co-founding the Gates Foundation, divorcing Bill Gates, and becoming a grandmother, she presents practical strategies for moving through uncertainty with grace and purpose.
Read more to discover her framework for turning life’s most challenging moments into opportunities.
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The Next Day: Book Overview
In The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward, Melinda French Gates explores how to navigate life’s major transitions with grace, purpose, and resilience. Drawing from her own experiences—including her career at Microsoft, her high-profile divorce from Bill Gates, leaving the Gates Foundation, and becoming a mother and grandmother—French Gates offers a framework for confronting change, honoring our authentic selves, and finding meaning in life’s pivotal moments. The book addresses a universal challenge: how to move forward when life disrupts our carefully laid plans and forces us to redefine who we are and what matters most.
As co-chair of one of the world’s largest philanthropic foundations for more than two decades and now the founder of Pivotal Ventures, French Gates brings a unique perspective on personal transformation during times of significant change. Written as she had gone through several major transitions and approached her 60th birthday, the book combines memoir with practical wisdom. French Gates wrote this book for anyone facing or recovering from a major life change, whether expected or unexpected, chosen or thrust upon them.
Our guide explores French Gates’s journey, examines why she believes transitions are crucial moments of growth and transformation, and presents her strategies for navigating change. Throughout, we’ll compare French Gates’s insights with how experts understand the psychology of change and transition, contextualize her experiences within US work culture and the American Catholic experience, and bring in complementary wisdom, like Buddhist perspectives on impermanence and self-compassion.
Who Is Melinda French Gates?
French Gates’s framework for navigating transitions emerges from her experiences. From her formative years to becoming one of the world’s most influential philanthropists, her story provides context for her approach to managing change intentionally.
Growing Up With Faith and Education as Family Values
Born Melinda Ann French in Dallas, Texas, French Gates was raised in a devout Catholic family where faith, education, and service were core values. Her father was an aerospace engineer who worked on NASA’s Apollo missions, while her mother managed their household. French Gates attended a Catholic all-girls high school, where she excelled academically. The nuns who taught her emphasized the importance of both intellectual rigor and spiritual contemplation. French Gates credits these early experiences with teaching her to balance guidance from others—including teachers, authorities, and institutions like the Church—with her own wisdom.
Building a Career—and Meeting Her Partner—at Microsoft
After attending Duke University and earning degrees in computer science and economics, as well as an MBA, French Gates joined Microsoft in 1987 as one of the company’s first female software developers. She rose through the ranks at Microsoft to eventually become General Manager of Information Products.
It was also at Microsoft that she met Bill Gates. In 1987, the two quietly struck up a relationship, which only a few close colleagues at Microsoft knew about. French Gates describes the early years of their romance as “on-again, off-again”. They married in 1994.
Embracing Motherhood and Redefining Success
French Gates decided to leave her career at Microsoft to focus on motherhood after her first pregnancy. She explains that she gained 79 pounds during this pregnancy—more than twice the amount recommended by American physicians—which concerned her doctor. After confirming that neither her health nor the baby’s health was at risk, she told her doctor she didn’t want to discuss her weight further, choosing to step back from others’ expectations and practice self-compassion instead.
The couple went on to have three children: Jennifer, Rory, and Phoebe. French Gates describes each stage of parenthood, from each child’s first steps to their departures for college, as opportunities to practice letting go. She embraced the concept of the “good enough parent”—a philosophy that recognizes perfectionism in parenting can actually be counterproductive. Rather than trying to meet every need or protect her children from every challenge, she found that accepting her limitations as a parent and allowing her children appropriate independence ultimately helped them develop their own inner resources.
Confronting Loss and Mortality
One of French Gates’s most difficult experiences was the 1999 death of her close friend John Neilson of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Their friendship began when they both worked at Microsoft and grew into one of her most important relationships. In December 1997, John called to tell her they had found a tumor in his chest. Despite initial treatment success, the cancer returned and spread rapidly. She was nine months pregnant when he entered hospice care, and French Gates named her son “Rory John Gates” in John’s honor. This experience taught French Gates about grief as the inevitable cost of loving and then losing someone, and that experiencing that grief helps us create new meaning.
Co-Creating the Gates Foundation
In 2000, Bill and Melinda Gates established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and French Gates began co-leading one of the world’s largest philanthropic organizations. A pivotal moment came in 2006, when investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett pledged to donate the majority of his fortune to the foundation, effectively doubling the foundation’s resources and expanding its capacity to make an impact—but also intensifying French Gates’s struggle to balance philanthropic work against being present for her children.
During her foundation work, French Gates also faced a challenge to her Catholic faith when she advocated for global access to contraception. She had to determine how she could reconcile the ideas of her religious upbringing with her growing conviction that women worldwide deserved reproductive autonomy.
Ending Her Marriage
French Gates writes that by the end of 2019, she began experiencing recurring nightmares about a house collapsing around her, which she interpreted as a signal from her subconscious that something in her life needed to change. Eventually, she dreamed of standing with Bill and their children on the edge of a cliff, and then falling into the void.
French Gates notes that Bill hadn’t always been faithful to her, and she was troubled by a 2019 New York Times article suggesting he cultivated relationships that conflicted with her values.
In February 2020, French Gates told Bill she wanted to start living separately. For months, they continued working together at the foundation while secretly living apart. She decided on divorce that August, and had panic attacks when preparing for the proceedings, as Bill is a tough negotiator. Their divorce was finally announced in May 2021.
Charting Her Own Path
After her divorce, French Gates moved from the massive Gates estate to a more walkable neighborhood in Seattle where, she explains, she could live more simply. In 2023, she announced her departure from the Gates Foundation to focus fully on Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company she’d founded in 2015 to advance women’s power and influence in the US. French Gates committed $1 billion through 2026 to advance women’s causes, defining a new chapter of philanthropy on her own terms.
During this same period, French Gates also experienced another transition. She became a grandmother—much earlier in her life than she expected, at age 58—when her daughter Jennifer had a daughter in 2023.
How Does French Gates Approach Transitions?
For French Gates, the transitions we encounter during our lives are far more than disruptive interruptions: They are defining moments that shape who we become as we move into a new stage of our lives. In this section, we explore why she believes transitions deserve our full attention and how they contribute to our growth and development.
What Are Transitions?
Transitions are processes of change that move us from one state or condition to another, according to French Gates. They involve leaving behind familiar territory and adapting to new realities, often with a period of uncertainty in between. These changes may be expected or unexpected, welcome or unwelcome, from career shifts and relationship endings to losses, relocations, or new beginnings. Importantly, French Gates makes a distinction between an event and the transition that follows it. While events like a graduation, wedding, divorce, or job loss happen at specific moments, the actual transition begins “the next day,” when the initial shock of the change has subsided. This is when the real work of adaptation and growth begins.
French Gates explains that transitions involve three key elements: an ending of what was, a middle period of uncertainty and adjustment, and eventually, a new beginning—phases which each present their own challenges. Change is inevitable and universal, and every human life includes transitions. Rather than seeing them as disruptions to be avoided, French Gates suggests that you view transitions as natural parts of the human experience that connect you to our shared humanity. By accepting transitions as a natural part of life rather than seeing them as anomalous, we can approach these periods of change with greater wisdom and intention.
The Importance of Navigating Transitions Well
Transitions often become formative experiences that shape how you grow and change throughout your life. French Gates argues that how you navigate these pivotal moments determines how satisfied you are with your life and how resilient you are in the face of change. She explains there are several reasons why it’s important to be prepared to handle transitions:
Transitions reveal who we really are. Transitions push you beyond your comfort zone, forcing you to confront your assumptions about yourself and the world. They often reveal truths about yourself that might otherwise remain hidden because when your routines and external structures fall away during major life changes, your authentic needs, values, and desires can emerge. French Gates describes how her own transitions, particularly her divorce, revealed with new clarity aspects of herself she had suppressed or overlooked. The uncertainty of transitions create conditions where our inner voice often speaks more loudly, if we’re willing to listen.
Transitions serve as powerful catalysts for personal growth. French Gates explains that by disrupting our comfortable patterns, transitions push us to develop new skills. She points to research suggesting that working through difficult transitions can lead to what psychologists call “post-traumatic growth”—positive psychological changes that emerge from struggling with challenging circumstances. These positive changes can include deeper relationships, greater appreciation for life, recognition of new possibilities, or spiritual development. This means the person who emerges from a transition is often wiser, more resilient, and more authentic.
Transitions create opportunities for realignment. Periods of transition give you a chance to reassess your priorities and intentionally evaluate what matters most. French Gates notes that in ordinary life, inertia keeps us moving along familiar paths, even when they no longer serve us well. Transitions create natural pauses where we can reassess and recalibrate. For French Gates, her post-divorce transition allowed her to realign her philanthropy more directly with her passion for women’s empowerment, work that might otherwise have remained secondary.
How French Gates Recommends Navigating Life Transitions
Transitions can feel disorienting, but French Gates explains that if you take an intentional approach to them, they can become opportunities for growth. Drawing from her experiences, she offers some strategies for navigating change effectively. Each strategy addresses a different dimension of the transition experience, and together they form a comprehensive approach to moving through change with resilience and purpose.
Strategy 1: Listen to Your Inner Voice
The foundation of French Gates’s approach is learning to recognize and trust your authentic self—what she calls your “inner voice.” This inner wisdom represents your fundamental truth: your core values, needs, and aspirations, beneath the expectations and opinions you’ve absorbed from others. French Gates explains that your inner voice isn’t necessarily a literal voice, but an intuitive knowing that might show up as a persistent feeling that something isn’t right, physical sensations like tension or unease, clear thoughts in moments of quiet, or recurring dreams or images with symbolic meaning.
For French Gates, ignoring her inner voice throughout parts of her marriage caused her to lose touch with herself. She explains that this disconnect became apparent when her opinions were dismissed in meetings where she and Bill were both present, or when she found herself constantly accommodating others’ needs at the expense of her own. These experiences of feeling diminished made her recognize that her reality wasn’t aligned with her deeper values. She explains that your inner voice provides consistent guidance through transitions because it connects you to your core values when everything around you is changing. This means it helps you make decisions based on what matters to you, not what others expect of you.
How to Access Your Inner Voice
French Gates offers advice for strengthening your connection with yourself during transitions:
Create regular stillness. French Gates practices meditation and explains that she spends time in nature to quiet external noise. She mentions taking solo walks along Seattle’s waterfront as an effective way to create mental space: Even five minutes of quiet can help you hear your inner wisdom more clearly when life becomes chaotic.
Pay attention to your body. Your body often signals misalignment before your conscious mind catches up. French Gates experienced panic attacks during her divorce negotiations, her body’s way of alerting her to overwhelming stress. Notice when your body feels tense, exhausted, or uncomfortable in specific situations, as these reactions can be valuable signals.
Look for patterns. Recurring thoughts, feelings, or situations often reveal messages from your inner voice. French Gates noticed a pattern throughout her marriage where her perspectives were frequently overlooked, with people automatically turning to Bill instead. Recognizing this pattern, and her frustration with it, helped her understand her need for respect and recognition.
Ask revealing questions. When facing a decision, ask yourself: “What would I do if I weren’t afraid?” or “What choice would make me feel most like myself?” These questions, which French Gates asked herself when considering whether to leave the Gates Foundation, can bypass your analytical mind and tap into deeper wisdom about what you really want and need.
Strategy 2: Work Through Grief
All transitions, even positive ones, involve loss. French Gates’s second strategy requires addressing the emotional reality of change by acknowledging and processing grief rather than bypassing it. Grief during transitions is a natural response to losing something significant, whether a relationship, role, identity, expectation, or dream. French Gates explains the science behind this experience: When you love someone or something deeply, your brain physically restructures itself around that attachment. When that person or element of your life is suddenly gone, your brain must literally rewire itself, creating physical and emotional pain.
The key insight French Gates offers is that fully experiencing grief, rather than minimizing it, is essential. You can’t move forward until you’ve acknowledged what you’re leaving behind: Acknowledging your loss honors the significance of what came before, and working through grief opens space for new beginnings. French Gates sees grief as evidence of having loved deeply. For example, the pain of her divorce reflected her commitment to her marriage. By allowing herself to fully feel this pain, she created space for new possibilities and joy.
How to Work Through Grief Productively
To process grief effectively during transitions, French Gates recommends a few tactics:
Name your specific losses. French Gates suggests identifying what you’ve lost in a transition. During her divorce, she noted she was losing not just her marriage but family traditions, certain friendships that didn’t survive the split, and aspects of her public identity tied to Bill.
Allow all emotions without judgment. During major transitions, French Gates has felt anger, sadness, relief, and confusion. Rather than labeling some emotions “wrong” or “inappropriate,” she recommends feeling them all nonjudgmentally, just as she let herself feel sadness about her marriage ending and relief at no longer having to manage the tension she’d been living with.
Find safe spaces for expression. Create contexts where you can process your grief openly. French Gates worked with a therapist who helped her navigate the emotional complexities of her divorce and identified friends who could listen without trying to fix the situation or take sides.
Look for meaning without rushing. While grief eventually yields new insights, don’t pressure yourself to find that meaning prematurely. French Gates took time to experience her losses before trying to extract lessons from them. Meaning emerged naturally as she moved forward.
Strategy 3: Build a Support Network
French Gates’s third strategy is building connections with other people. She emphasizes that no one transitions well in isolation. Your support network provides different types of assistance: emotional validation that normalizes your experience, practical guidance for navigating unfamiliar territory, a balanced perspective when your emotions are intense, accountability for the commitments you make to yourself, and celebration of your progress. She sees support during transitions as a necessity because transitions inherently challenge your sense of identity, necessitating an outside perspective. Additionally, strong emotions can cloud your thinking, which makes objective input from people who know and care about you valuable.
How to Create Your Support System
To build effective support during transitions, French Gates offers a few strategies:
Identify different support needs. Rarely can one person give you all the support you need. For example, French Gates needed people who provided emotional support (close friends who listened without judging), others to offer practical assistance (advisors who helped navigate the logistics of separating herself from the Gates Foundation), and perspective (friends who had been through similar transitions) during her transition to focusing on Pivotal Ventures.
Communicate boundaries clearly. When sharing your transition with others, be specific about what you need from them. During her divorce, French Gates told certain friends she just needed them to listen, without offering advice. With others, she asked for practical help navigating her new situation. This clarity helped prevent misunderstandings and disappointment.
Seek transition-specific connections. Beyond your existing network, find others who understand your particular transition. After becoming a grandmother in her late 50s, French Gates connected with other women experiencing this transition at a similar life stage.
Consider professional support. French Gates discusses how therapy helped her navigate major transitions. She emphasizes that therapy isn’t just for crisis management but serves as an ongoing process for growth and self-understanding. Her therapist provided a neutral space to process emotions that were too complex or raw for her to share elsewhere.
Strategy 4: Practice Self-Compassion
The final strategy French Gates recommends is practicing compassion for yourself during transitions. She explains that self-compassion involves treating yourself with the kindness you would offer a good friend, recognizing that struggle and imperfection are part of being human, and maintaining perspective on difficult emotions without suppressing them. This practice creates the internal conditions necessary for you to move forward: Transitions naturally involve missteps as you navigate unfamiliar territory, but self-criticism wastes energy you need for adapting to change. Treating yourself with kindness builds resilience and motivation.
During her divorce, which played out under intense public scrutiny, French Gates practiced self-compassion by separating her assessment of her own self-worth from the outcome of her marriage. She explains that she had to consciously choose not to see the end of her marriage as a personal failure, but rather as a difficult choice she made with integrity. This allowed her to maintain her dignity and make clear-headed decisions despite the painful circumstances.
How to Cultivate Self-Compassion
To practice self-compassion during transitions, French Gates recommends a few tactics:
Notice your self-talk. French Gates suggests becoming aware of how you speak to yourself. After leaving the Gates Foundation, she caught herself questioning whether she could succeed independently. She countered these doubts by reminding herself of her extensive experience and capabilities, speaking to herself as she would to a friend facing similar doubts.
Normalize your struggle. Remember that difficulty during transitions is universal. French Gates found comfort in recognizing that her grief, confusion, and uncertainty in major changes are all normal human responses, not weaknesses. She specifically mentions reading about others’ transition experiences to remind herself she wasn’t alone in dealing with these struggles.
Create self-compassion rituals. Develop specific routines that help you to be kind to yourself. French Gates describes taking daily walks, maintaining a healthy sleep schedule, and setting aside time for activities that brought her joy—like spending time with her grandchildren—even during the most difficult phases of her divorce and career transitions.
Balance accountability with kindness. Self-compassion doesn’t mean avoiding responsibility or difficult truths. French Gates distinguishes between compassionate self-reflection (which promotes growth) and harsh self-judgment (which impedes it). During her foundation transition, she assessed her strengths and areas for growth without diminishing her capabilities or worth.
Exercise: Access Your Authentic Self During Transitions
French Gates emphasizes that connecting with your inner voice is fundamental to navigating transitions effectively. This exercise helps you recognize and honor your authentic self when facing change.
Think of a transition you’re currently experiencing or anticipating. What physical sensations or recurring thoughts arise when you consider this change? Pay attention to subtle signals like tension, energy shifts, or persistent ideas.
If your inner voice could speak freely about this transition without concern for others’ expectations or practical constraints, what would it say?
What specific actions could you take in the next week to create more stillness and space for hearing your inner voice? (Examples: 10 minutes of daily meditation, a solo walk without devices, journaling before bed)
