That is something that a lot of people have been surprised that I say, but sometimes you have to be very small to be very big.

And I found, especially as a woman of color, then in certain rooms, I am too big.

My personality or my confidence or even my speaking voice.

There's a person who's a very well-known kind of shy billionaire

that I remember once I was talking to in a lobby of a hotel,

and every time I stepped forward, he stepped back.

And by the end, we were like across the room.

And I was like, I'm too big.

I have to get small.

And as soon as I pulled myself in a lot, which people would say, like, why would you make yourself small?

He was like, can you sit down with me?

It was very interesting that he was

uncomfortable when I was in my full self, but the more that I could just modulate for him,

the better it became for him, the more comfortable he became, which was okay, because his comfort

at that point allowed me to learn a lot.

That is the voice of Melody Hobson.

I am Karen Hunter.

Welcome to Karen Hunter is awesome.

I wanted to have this conversation. This interview actually was from 2014 at the Fortune Most Powerful Women, Next

Gen Conference, Melody Hobson, of course, president and CEO of Ariel Investment.

She's also former chair of Starbucks and married to George Lucas, but that's not even, she was

more powerful. She was powerful before George Lucas. When she said this, this made me think,

...