Name: Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, shares her advice for speaking out on important issues
Uploaded: 2020-09-29
Duration: 3 min 54 s
Description: The Duchess spoke at Fortune's Most Powerful Women’s Summit.

 ELLEN MCGIRL: I want to focus on a word that you use that I use a lot, which is reckoning. We are really here. We are really facing it. And just to prepare for this interview, I listen to a moving graduation speech that you gave. And not only said Black lives matter. You said the names of the people that we've lost, the people that have been murdered. And I was struck by the courage that it took, the effortless courage that it took to keep bringing these things forward, which you do. And that brings me to the moment of reckoning. You're not the only powerful woman even in this community who has had a sitting president take a shot, at you mobs come at you powerful people and powerful forces try to take you down or try to disparage your message. This is a tough time for people with power and platforms. What is your best advice for other folks with stakeholders, with a desire to weigh in on the important issues of the day to take those risks carefully, to assess them correctly, and then to weigh in? MEGHAN: Yes, I mean, I think it's about being authentic. And if you look back at anything that I've said, it's really interesting because it often ends up-- what ends up being inflammatory it seems is people's interpretation of it. But if you listen to what I actually say, it's not controversial. And and actually, some of it is reactive to things that just haven't happened, which is in some ways I think you have to have a sense of humor about it even though there is quite a bit of gravity and there can be a lot of danger and a misinterpretation of something that was never there to begin with. But that again, is a byproduct of what is happening right now for all of us. I would say the biggest thing and what I have always stuck to that high school graduation speech. I had done it a week or so before. I had pretaped it for them it was for a 17-year-old girls, right? So the tone and the sentiment while it was, of course, going to be a call to action was certainly lighter than where we landed after the murder of George Floyd. I knew I couldn't use that tape. And I really struggled if I'm being honest about what to say. And I didn't sit down and write anything, and I didn't ask anyone for help with how I should word this. I was just in tears thinking about it. And I was explaining to my husband why I thought that it was so heartbreaking certainly for me to be back in Los Angeles. And it feeling so reminiscent to the state of Los Angeles with the riots after the Rodney King beating. And so for these girls to be graduating from high school, which should be a very celebratory time to be plagued with that unrest felt troubling to me. So I just spoke from the heart. And that's probably why it doesn't look polished, and that's why it doesn't feel perfect. But that's also why it's authentic. And I think that is the takeaway that I have found is if you don't listen to all the noise out there, and you just focus on living a purpose driven life, and you focus on knowing what your own moral compass is, there are always going to be naysayers. But at the end of the day, you know I used to have a quote up in my room many, many moons ago and it resonates now perhaps more than ever when you see the vitriol and noise that can be out in the world. And it's by Georgia O'Keeffe. And I've already settled it for myself. So flattery and criticism go down the same drain. And I am quite free. And the moment that you are able to be liberated from all of these other opinions of what you know to be true, then I think it's very easy to just live with truth and live with authenticity. And that is how I choose to move through the world. 

Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, shares her advice for speaking out on important issues

The Duchess spoke at Fortune's Most Powerful Women’s Summit.