How Patty Stonesifer uses 9 words to make every decision
In our latest WorkLife episode, I sat down with Patty Stonesifer — former senior executive at Microsoft, founding CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Amazon board member.
When I first agreed to take over WorkLife, Patty was the first guest I knew I wanted to ask. She has been one of my most important mentors, and I wanted all of you to get to learn from her. Patty is not a particularly public person, so she said no at first, but we eventually got her to say yes! I’m so excited for more people to get to benefit from her wisdom, and she’s here this week to share something that’s been important to her, that she’s carried for years, and that she hopes will help others: a personal mission statement that has guided every major career decision she’s made for the past three decades.
You can listen to the full episode anywhere you get your podcasts or watch it on YouTube, but here’s a sneak peek:
Top 3 Takeaways
1. Patty’s personal mission statement is both a yes device and a no device.
Patty’s statement — love, be loved, seek justice, keep learning, and laugh — isn’t just an aspirational poster on her wall. She uses it as a working filter to evaluate every opportunity, every board seat, every ask on her time. But it also gives her a principled reason to say no — clearly, calmly, without guilt. She has a worksheet that she uses monthly to evaluate herself and her time against the piece of the statement (more on that below).
Knowing what to say no to (and actually saying no) is something I struggle with, and I witness a lot of very talented leaders who spread their energy too thin because they don’t know how to say no. Patty’s framework has already helped me get better at it.
2. “Cool” is not a framework.
Early in her post-Microsoft chapter, Patty took a job at DreamWorks because it sounded cool. She left 12 weeks later. That experience is what pushed her to formalize her mission statement — because without a framework, flattery and novelty fill the vacuum. She talks about being drawn to jobs that her mother would be excited about before she had her own framework. I've definitely taken jobs because I thought my parents would brag about them before I'd asked myself if they were right for me.
As Patty said, the world is full of worthwhile opportunities, and you can only do a few of them well, so picking carefully really matters.
3. Balance across your values matters as much as the values themselves.
Patty admitted that even after writing her mission statement, she took on too many corporate boards early in her Gates Foundation years — leaning hard on keep learning while underweighting seek justice and love and be loved.
As I mentioned above, one of the other things I love is that Patty uses this statement to actively inventory her time against her priorities. She has a physical sheet of paper — her mission values down the side, subcategories underneath each one, and a column for personal and professional tasks. She uses it weekly and prints a new one every month. She scribbles all over it. Her 8-year-old granddaughter checks that her priorities are still on the list. As I said, this isn’t a mission statement that’s all theory or words — Patty uses it as an operating system for her life and as a way to recognize when she’s over- or underinvesting.
We spent the last part of the episode with Patty coaching me on creating my own mission statement. It builds on three questions.
Patty walked me through the essential building blocks:
How do you want to show up — in your relationships, with your colleagues, in the world?
What is your special purpose or power — where do your skills meet what you care most about?
What is a key area of personal growth you want to be known for over the long arc of your life?
The last thing she asked me, once we had a first draft was:
What’s missing once you answer the first three questions? Patty tells a great story about some feedback Melinda Gates gave her that helped her finalize it.
She also reminded me that the goal isn’t a polished statement on day one. This is something she’s refined over time. The main goal is a touchstone you can actually carry with you — and check things against.
Listen to the full episode here. And if this one resonated, share it with someone in your life who’s navigating a big career decision right now.
Let me know what you’d like to hear about in future episodes, either in this poll or in the comments:
What else?
👋Hi! I’m Molly. This is where I share the lessons I’ve learned from building fast-moving, messy, ambitious companies. If you’re new here, here’s what you can do to stay connected:
Subscribe to Lessons to get new posts. I post at least 2x per month for all, and paid subscribers also get access to video courses and the full library of content. We’ll also post here every time a new episode of WorkLife comes out.
Follow me on LinkedIn, where I share more tools, thoughts, and a little of the day-to-day chaos.
And if you’re a leader looking for a community of peers to lean on and learn from, come find out more about Glue Club over here.
I'm going to be coming back to this over and over again. Thank you.
The save pdf button doesn’t work on iOS. Good idea otherwise!