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Whoopi Goldberg
Actress and Activist
When I was a kid they didn't call it dyslexia. They called it you know, you were slow, or you were retarded, or whatever. And so, I learned from a guy who was running a program who I met one day and he had written out on a board a sentence. And I said to him, "You know, I can't read that." And he said, "Why not"? And I said, "Because it doesn't make any sense to me." So he said, "Well, write down what you see under each. Whatever you see, write exactly what you see underneath." And so, he brought me to letters by coordinating what I saw to something called an A, or a B, or a C, or a D, and that was pretty cool.
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Whoopi Goldberg
Actress and Activist
I went to the bathroom once and people followed me in, and a lady put her hand up under the stall with a pen and a piece of paper, wanted my autograph. I said, could I just finish what I'm doing first? So sometimes people just forget, or they grab you and they don't realize that, you know, you're a person that feels. They grab my hair. People grab my hair and go, Whoopi!! And not realize that I don't mind saying hello, but hey! That hurt, you know. Or when you're rushing, or you're preoccupied and you just can't stop. People aren't always understanding. And so you feel bad because you don't want them to think ill of you. And you come to a place where you say, "You know what? Too bad. I have to go." So that's kind of tough.
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Daniel Goldin
Space Exploration
My first boss, Bill Mickelson -- a little short fellow, crew cut, wore a fresh bow tie every day -- and he saw that I was insecure. He saw that I understood how to do the work, but I needed to become more of a complete person. So, he asked me to talk, do public speaking, every single week. He wanted me to talk to a tour group coming through NASA. And this is the '60s; people were fascinated with the space program. And I said, "I can't do that." He said, "Oh yes you are." I mean it was tough love. And, I got in front of my first groups. I got tongue tied and humiliated. And he'd send me back and I'd have problems. I said, "Bill, I can't do this anymore." He'd send me back. I said, "Bill, I can't." "Go back." I did this for two years.
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Daniel Goldin
Space Exploration
We fixed the Hubble Space Telescope. It was nearsighted just like me. It needed a contact lens. And, there was terrible depression at NASA because we launched it and it didn't work. Bad people didn't do that. The space frontier is fraught with problems. But we put a team together and good people fixed it. The same people that designed it, fixed it. We launched a probe to Mars and it blew up when it got to Mars. Within 24 hours, we conceived that we're going to put a lander on Mars and do it in three years for a quarter of the cost, and we did it.
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Alberto Gonzales
Former Attorney General of the United States
My father had a terrible drinking problem. He was an alcoholic, and there were many nights when I remember him coming home and, you know, severe arguments with my mother and throwing the pillow over my head and just trying to not listen to all of that. I mean, unfortunately, those happened way too often. But one story I do like to tell about my father is, no matter how much he drank on a particular night, if it was a work day the next morning, he was always up and he was always gone to provide for his family, so I learned that lesson very early on. But, you know, in that respect, I mean there were some difficult times in my family.
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Alberto Gonzales
Former Attorney General of the United States
The (Air Force) Academy was tough for me because there's such a concentration on engineering and physics and chemistry, and my strengths lie in English and history and political science and law and government. And so I did well in terms of being on the dean's list every semester, but I struggled. It was hard. I had to work very, very hard. I was the freshman class council president, and so I assumed responsibility early while I was at the Academy. Because I did as well as I did, I was able to participate in a gliding program during one summer, so I learned how to fly gliders. I mean it was a great experience.
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