A Quote by Elizabeth Esty

Those who know me would say I'm a passionate and hard-working mom and a community leader who knows how to get things done. — © Elizabeth Esty
Those who know me would say I'm a passionate and hard-working mom and a community leader who knows how to get things done.
Every time I think I’m getting smarter I realize that I’ve just done something stupid. Dad says there are three kinds of people in the world: those who don’t know, and don’t know they don’t know; those who don’t know and do know they don’t know; and those who know and know how much they still don’t know. Heavy stuff, I know. I think I’ve finally graduated from the don’t-knows that don’t know to the don’t-knows that do.
I'm just working hard because I know that's the way you can get things done. That's how I've been able to be successful.
I'm fighting hard to make the world a better place, and you can, too. Get involved with your community, be a leader, set an example, be passionate, be your best.
I was about 20 when my mom got sick with cancer and it was bad. It was very scary and at the time I was doing my first screenplay and I was on deadline and was alone with my father in Massachusetts. I said, "Pop, you know, I don't how I'm going to work. I don't know how I can get this done. You know, I got to hand this script in and I can't think about anything but Mom." He said, "Well, you know, now is the time when you're going to learn what it means to compartmentalize." And those words really had an impact on me.
People say I'm a natural leader, but I just go out there and do my job and do whatever it takes to win; that's what comes with being a leader, those are the sort of things I've done as I've tried to grow into a leader and I'm just going to continue to do them.
My major regret in life is not going to university, though not for the qualification I would have gained. People I know who went there have a working method where they sit down and get something done; they know how to start and get on with things. I will do anything to avoid getting on with stuff.
Since Mom wasn't exactly the most useful person in the world, one lesson I learned at an early age was how to get things done, and this was a source of both amazement and concern for Mom, who considered my behavior unladylike but also counted on me. "I never knew a girl to have such gumption," she'd say. "But I'm not too sure it's a good thing.
I mean in the community that I grew up in, you know, a very, you know, mixed, almost entirely African Diaspora community, one of the things that we were not ever supposed to say was how much self-hatred and colorism determined and guided what we would call our desire. In other words, what we would consider beautiful.
You can't actually hire and fire people inside of an open source community. Which means that getting people to work together is much more along the lines of making sure that people have the tools they need both to get their work done but also to know what is being done by other people and how to take that to their employer and tell that story to their employer and to show this is why the community is good and this is why we're working on these sort of things because it helps us over here.
Like a lot of people, I have been a leader in some things, and I've been a follower in some things. I know how to work on a team. And most of life, frankly, to get things done you have to get done, you've got to work as a team.
If you are the leader, you don't have the right to say things like "Ugh, didn't eat this week I was so busy." "Haven't slept." I look sideways at those signs of bravado, which are intended to make one feel that the person is working so hard. I don't think that way.
I know the struggle - trust me. I know how hard it is for us to say 'no' to a lot of things that get offered.
I've done a lot of different things. I would say, it's really hard for me to say what the ultimate role would be. You look at a film if it comes to you.
I have never been a 'hair person.' Growing up, my mom and my sister, who loved to get their hair done, would always give me a hard time about not getting mine done.
When I was little, my mom tells me, I used to say things like, 'Mom do you hear the string section? Do you hear the string section?' And she would look at me and say, 'No honey, I don't know what you're talking about.'
If people knew the kind things my mom has done for the community and for families over the years, I think that they would be stunned.
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