Hi there, this is Chris Anderson, the guy who gets to run TED.

Now, you're tuning into a special archive presentation of TED Talks Daily.

This one features business leader Melody Hobson, recorded at TED 2014.

Now, if you enjoy this talk, I'd love you to check out a conversation I had with Melody on The TED Interview, another of our podcasts.

Melody and I got to dive much deeper into her bold thinking about race, thinking which honestly couldn't be more applicable to the divisions that we're experiencing in today's world. So check it out, the TED interview,

wherever you get your podcasts. So it's 2006. My friend Harold Ford calls me, he's running for

U.S. Senate in Tennessee. And he says, Melody, I desperately need some national press. Do you have any ideas?

So I had an idea. I called a friend who was in New York at one of the most successful media

companies in the world, and she said, why don't we host an editorial board lunch for Harold?

You come with him. Harold and I arrive in New York. We are in our best suits. We look like shiny new pennies.

And we get to the receptionist and we say, we're here for the lunch. She motions for us to follow her.

We walk through a series of corridors and all of a sudden we find ourselves in a stark room,

at which point she looks at us and she says,

where are your uniforms?

Just as this happens, my friend rushes in.

The blood drains from her face.

There are literally no words, right?

And I look at her and I say, now, don't you think we need more than one black

person in the U.S. Senate? Now, Harold and I, we still laugh about that story. And in many ways,

the moment caught me off guard, but deep, deep down inside, I actually wasn't surprised.

And I wasn't surprised because of something my mother taught me about 30 years before.

You see, my mother was ruthlessly realistic. I remember one day coming home from a birthday party

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