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Cosmetics CEO Bobbi Brown on baseball legend Yogi Berra
I'm probably one of the few people in America who fell in love with Yogi Berra not because he's a legendary baseball player but because he's a really nice guy. We were introduced years ago in our New Jersey town and have been friends ever since. He is a national treasure, and I feel genuinely lucky to have him in my life.
He is an incredible family man.
He adores his wife, Carmen. He loves his children; he loves his grandchildren. He cherishes his friendships. He's such a kind human being. I have never seen him be rude to anyone in public, not once. From watching him, I have learned valuable lessons in how to treat people.
I actually have a lip balm named after Yogi. My staff came into my office one day and said, "Okay, what do we want to name this clear lip balm? How about Bare?" And I said, "No, I want to name it Yogi." They just looked at me like, What? And I said, "Yogi. As in, Yogi Bare. Get it?" He gave his permission.
Yogi's very funny because he's been known to go into the Yankees locker room and give makeup advice. He'll tell these guys, "You gotta try this" or "You gotta try that." So
I get a lot of phone calls from people with the Yankees asking for Bobbi Brown skin-care products. As the mother of three boys, it's good for me to be surrounded by sports-my kids don't care about makeup.
But my favorite Yogi story of all happened when a mutual friend told me that Yogi was "cheating" on me-that he was using someone else's skin-care products. I said, "Yogi?" And he said, "Bobbi, I tried your wrinkle stuff, but it didn't work." I said, "Well, don't get the wrinkle stuff, Yogi. You gotta get the anti-wrinkle stuff." And he said, "Yeah, can you get me some of that anti-wrinkle stuff?"
-- Bobbi Brown's new book is Bobbi Brown Makeup Manual (Grand Central Publishing).Author Rick Bragg on his brother Sam
Rolling, smoking, shaking junk-I drove a lot of junk. It might have looked good, broken down in the yard, but an $800 car is never going to take you very far, and when they broke down, it always seemed like it was someplace pitch-black and wet, or cold, or blistering hot. And I would have perished there, staring under the hood of an old Mustang or an ancient GMC truck, if not for him. They would have found my bones bleaching in the Alabama sun, half hidden by johnsongrass, if it hadn't been for my brother Sam.
I was trying to make something of myself, trying to fit into the necktie world, trying to flee the very world of rusted wrenches, muddy work boots, and grease-stained hands that we had been born into. But I kept breaking down on the way.
He was not fleeing that place with me. He was in it, then and forever. As the oldest brother, he went to work as a boy, digging coal out of frozen mud so we could heat the house, raising hogs so there would be something delicious at suppertime instead of just beans and corn bread. He never had a job that did not depend on sweat and muscle and guts.
But instead of laughing at me or even just ignoring me as I tried to escape that life, he came to rescue me, every time I broke down on the side of the road, my clip-on tie flapping in the wind.
I would hold the flashlight as he worked for hours under a hood or under a car till he finally got me rolling again, got me on my way.
Not one time, not once, did he refuse to come when I needed him.
He is only three years older than me, my brother Sam, but he helped raise me, helped me climb up to something that I used to think was better. Now, knowing him better, I know that I didn't go someplace better-only different.
-- Rick Bragg's latest book is The Prince of Frogtown (Knopf)
Actress Marlo Thomas on her father, Danny Thomas
The greatest source of inspiration for me has always been my father. Though he's been gone for 17 years, his lessons still resonate. He taught me how to run my own race in life, about how giving is more enriching than taking, about how to tell the perfect joke. But the most inspiring thing he taught me was to forgive.
One incident is vivid in my mind. It happened when I was a teenager. My sister, Terre, and I were not very fond of a so-called friend of our father's. Dad was a very generous man, and as he'd done with so many people, he'd given this fellow a career boost. But when my father asked for a favor in return, the guy didn't deliver.
Dad wasn't someone who loaded himself up with a lot of emotional baggage. His outlook on most things was "Live and let live." In this case, however, his levelheadedness bothered Terre and me, and we let him know it.
"How can you be nice to that man?" we said to him. "You've been so kind to him, and he's not being kind back. Why would you want to give him the time of day again?"
My father shrugged and said to us, "I do not hunch my back with yesterday."
I didn't get it at first, but over the years I came to understand the philosophy. Holding a grudge doesn't change the person you're angry with, but it changes you. It makes you heavier and gives you more weight to lug around.
After my father died, in 1991, I received letters and calls from people around the world who wanted to express their sympathy. Everyone knew how deeply I loved my dad and what a giant hole had been left in my life with his passing. One letter came from a fellow I'd had a falling-out with years before.
"I know I'm probably not the person you want to hear from right now," he wrote, "but I thought I'd tell you how sorry I am about the loss of your father. I know he meant the world to you. I just wanted to let you know that you are in my thoughts."
I was moved, and I wrote the man back. I thanked him for his kindness. And then, because he'd mentioned our disagreement, I recalled Dad's inspiring words. "I am my father's daughter," I wrote. "And like him, I do not hunch my back with yesterday."
-- Marlo Thomas is national outreach director for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, which was founded by her father, Danny Thomas.
Biographer Alice Schroeder on investor Warren Buffett
Over the past five years, I've spent about 2,000 hours watching Warren Buffett work, and I've never seen anybody use his time more effectively. He does not do meetings, especially meetings where people sit around and plan their next one. It's a time-waster. Instead he sees people individually and will give a yes or no response to their proposals. Occasionally he'll ask questions. But once he makes a decision, he never revisits it. He's incredibly efficient.
He does not book up his day with a lot of activity. He keeps his schedule very open so that he's free to do what he wants and likes to do. Those who need access to him have it. And if someone from his inner circle calls, he picks up his own phone. (All others go through his secretary.)
He's inspired me to be a much better manager of my own time.
I am more focused, and I've wiped out nonessential things. I make time for what I really like to do-things like gardening and traveling. I have given up hot-air ballooning, which I like only a little.
Also, Warren Buffett never criticizes those closest to him. He'll only praise the qualities that he likes and admires. People feel safe around him because of this and try to live up to what he wants. If he hadn't told me I was a good writer when I was still in finance, I would never have undertaken a biography of him. I hadn't written narrative before.
But he believed in me. Here I am today, the author of a new biography of Warren Buffett [The Snowball]. All because he said, "You can do it."
-- Alice Schroeder's new book is The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (Bantam).
Designer Eileen Fisher on Economist Otto Scharmer
Some people help me see more in the world and make connections within it, and one of those people is Otto Scharmer. As a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he works on how organizations change and how we approach the future. That may sound dull, but he's pretty brilliant! He is a big-picture thinker.
I first became aware of him when I read the book Presence, which he coauthored. It seemed so aligned with my experience of how creativity happens. In my company, we think about the future a lot because the business is always evolving and we're planning garments today that won't be in stores for a year or more. Clothes are something that you want to have in your life. They're not just a fad; they last.
We have a process [at Eileen Fisher, Inc.] called Deep Dive, and in it we try to come together as a team to sense the emerging future. Otto has helped us open the discussion so that we get ideas from lots of people. It's important to catch ideas while they're still raw.
From Otto, I've learned that a lot of creativity is about being patient. Instead of saying, "Bang! We're going with this," it's good to be open to possibilities. And to be open-minded, you have to be openhearted.
Otto is an excellent listener, and he's made me aware of the power of everyone looking to one another instead of to me. So now I'm as interested in how we work as in what we make. Sometimes I forget that what we design are clothes!
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