The progress we’ve made at home. For example, our debt issue. We inherited a 3.7 billion debt for our population and our export earnings. Today a majority of that debt has been cancelled and we’ve completed our first program with the IMF (International Monetary Fund). And also the restoration of hope. Today, you know, our image of being a pariah state, a failed state, has turned around completely. Whereas people — Liberians — were afraid to carry a Liberian passport, because you’d be seen as this nation of death and destruction. Today, Liberians are very proud to carry their passport because everybody sees Liberia as beginning to be uplifted and beginning to become a possible model of success, a post-conflict success story. I’m very proud of that turnaround in our image.

The power of this victory rests on the fact that it’s about public participation; a critical step in getting the landfills shut down. It was a personal mission as both landfills are very close to houses, and the area has high cancer rates – this is what motivated us to start the campaign.

But I was not really planning to create what seems to be a lasting impact. I was just always about personal expression and pride in who I was as an Australian Indigenous girl. It was more about me sharing all of me with the world. But, certainly after all these years, it makes me really proud.

I’m very happy about it. You know, a kid from the Hill being elected to the Hall of Fame. Proud of it.

I read Stephen Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature a few years ago and got to talk to him about it after, which was a lot of fun. I reviewed it for my blog, Gates Notes, because I wanted other people to read it, love it, and hopefully learn from it the way I did. It's probably my favorite book and the one I recommend most often.

My last piece of advice is the one I could have used the most. It took me a long time to learn. And it is this: You are not a slacker if you cut yourself some slack. When I was your age, I didn't believe in vacations. I didn't believe in weekends. I pushed everyone around me to work very long hours. In the early days of Microsoft, my office overlooked the parking lot—and I would keep track of who was leaving early and staying late. But as I got older—and especially once I became a father—I realized there is more to life than work. Don't wait as long as I did to learn this lesson.