I might not have seen my pal for 25 years, but we picked up like it was yesterday. It was pretty grueling. I think of those relationships as forged in fire. My memory is of all those years of the Bush Administration are very vivid. They dont fade, at least not yet. Some of the bad ones, i hope fade. It is actually funny, i am sure you probably get asked, im going back into an Administration One day, i am too old for that. That is a Young Persons job. I said that several times. I am so old i go back to the reagan administration. At one point when bush 41 was president , i got to work in the u. S. Trade representatives office. It was a fantastic job. Absolutely fantastic job. I mercifully found some work in the private sector. Would you ever go back . No, not doing that. Mary madeline and i wear chair people, freds outlet friends go back into government. [laughter] right . And then 43 took office. God bless him. Would you ever go back, absolutely not. I was spoiled. It was her greatest job in the world. How did you Mary Madeleine did you let each other down in a society . Completely. This is all about you. I have so many questions. Page after page after page of questions. About your wonderful new book. You are an author several times over. You are world famous. Very good reasons. A lot of people that may not be familiar with your back story. I know some of it but then i start researching. I did not know that. You are a western girl gone east. Tell us about wyoming and growing up in wyoming. I remember being at a dinner with president bush at once. Where you from . I said, originally, i was born in wyoming. He said i have never met anyone from wyoming. Chances of that being true. Wyoming had the safest population. Almost at the utah border. Southeastern part of wyoming. My dad had grown up on a ranch in newcastle wyoming. That is in the black hills. My mom was from rawlins wyoming. It is on iad. Chances are if he ever took a trip you went by rawlins. Just such a special place to us. Those were my vacations. I did not i do not think, i dont think i saw the ocean until i was 15 years old. We went to the ranch are my other grandmas place there. I just loved it. I was pretty selfsufficient. All of that good stuff. My grandfather was a county call missionary. He knew Vice President dick cheney from way back when. When cheney was running for congress in wyoming. I was kind of involved, aware of politics and Public Service early on. Especially Energy Issues early on. He always believed since i was a young girl that america needed to be more energy independent. Very forward thinking. I had a chance to have that experience. My dad went to a college, the first of his family to go to college. University of wyoming. And then we moved to denver. Before we get too far, i want to talk to you about your school. Did moving to denver seemed like that big of a deal . I was only two. They were adventurous in that way. One of my pieces of advice in this new book is dont be afraid to move. I moved quite a bit. My husbands dad was in the air force. Now it is 41st Mailing Address of his life. Moving was part of it. Lets go back to your childhood and talk about school. Your parents instilled the love of reading at an early age. My mother used to go crazy. When we would go to the library, you are only allowed to check out seven books at a time. I would read like three of them on the way home in the car. Long distance to a library. Dear member your favorite childhood books . Laura ingle while their books. I love the nancy drew theories. I love all things beverly cleary. Judy blume. Okay. Yeah. I loved reading of all kinds. I think one of the things that was most important for where i am today is something that i encourage people to try to do, if they can. When i was in third grade my dad started this tradition with me. I had to read two articles to discuss. When he would arrive home, he was change his clothing. Beforehand, we would sit at the table and i would present which articles i had chosen and then we would discuss them. Why did you choose it . What was interesting about that . What would you have done differently . I just remember that so fondly. Through all of my Elementary School years, high school years, my dad was a news consumer. He subscribed to every magazine. U. S. World news report time magazine, newsweek. We got them all. We made little notes. We had pretty robust dinner discussions as well. I do think back. There was one time on marine one where briefed the president about something. I had a flashback to the dining room table. Wow. I thought how important it was for me as a young girl to have to present myself with Critical Thinking skills. Excellent point. Concisely, effectively, with purpose and meaning. Do you know what it was like to brief president bush. You had to be on top of it. I one time did everything, the punch line was, i finished the briefing, took a deep breath, he stands up and says that sounds crazy to me, but i guess you know what you are doing. A big confidence boost right there. A love of news and all thing information as your growing up and i am surprised. Always wanted to be an anchor. Not only did we have all the newspapers, but because we lived in the Mountain Time zone, we could see abc news and then nbc news. Just a way that the time works. You think back to it, i wanted to be an anchor, but in my mind i wanted to be a local news anchor. Because, if you think of the three networks for how many decades, there were no women that wear at the top of that profession. If you want to be heard, you have to see her. Great expression. When i started doing local news as a job, wait, how do you climb this ladder. This latter seems really hard. I did want to be a local news, but that came off that pretty early when i realized how do you actually get ahead. What was the answer that you discovered . Basically. Well, actually, another thing happens. I loved covering politics. You do local news reporting, you work your way out. You cover everything. I covered tornadoes. I was interested in everything, but i did not love it. One day the legislature was not in session. I got sent to cover a trial. It was the first day of a murder trial. A 2yearold little boy had been killed by the mothers boyfriend at the time. The trial was happening. The director said dont come back without the interview. I wear my empathy pretty openly. I get there and i am trying to be strong. I was only 2122 years old. I circled this mother three times in the courtroom. I realized, i cannot do it. Oh, gosh. I called my dad that night and said i think i just got a graduate degree in the call every parent wants to get. [laughter] thankfully my dad said, we will figure it out. After graduation, we will come back here. I waited tables, i lived in my parents basement for a summer. I thought maybe press secretary type of work would maybe be more of my speed for now. Having a chance to come to washington, d. C. And work for a congressman. It all worked out. I will just have a flashback that i will share. I will keep the stories to a minimum. We are going to talk about everything being okay. 1000 years ago i had an internship that turned into a job at the washington star. I would do whatever. Whatever to have this job. I took pictures and sometimes there would be some goofy story and they would say go off and cover this. No clue what i was doing. One time they set me off to the armory. It was a rally with the attorney general. It was on a friday night or Something Like that. I go zipping out there. Maybe three people they are. Is not particularly getting a warm response. I feel terribly. I feel sorry for the police. This very matteroffact story. Here is what he said. Call it in and 20 minutes later i got a phone call from some editor who goes what the [bleep] is this. [bleep] [bleep] [bleep]. It was a disaster. Yeah, i just not write that. I just felt so badly. I did not call my parents but i drove home saying, yep, this is not for me. That is a great story. Im going to included in my next book. You know who started out the washington star . So many people. She had been there, many many famous people. World famous sophisticated columnists. Brilliant, spectacular. If she is writing about somebody you dont like, you really enjoy reading it. She was a young upcoming about to be a star. It was big news. One of the first to fail. Reporters and editors were being interviewed. She and another person named stanley cloud were on the today show doing the interview. Going through the usual things. Pat on trade practically pats marine on the head. Everyone says you have a bright promising future. What job do you want next. Marine does not miss a beat and she goes yours. It was a stunned five seconds in tv time. Writing, you learn. Talking about what you think the significance of being able to write well. I feel like if you are a young reader in your mind, you would love to be able to write a book one day. My mom still has my first book that i wrote. I remember it has a cloth covered with bunny rabbits and carrots. It was all about animals. My cats name is spared my rabbit is on and on. Things like that. Probably because of my ranch upbringing. Fast forward, i think americas Education System is not doing a good job. I include myself in that. I thought i was a great writer. What is good writing . I dont even really know. When i was in graduate school, all of us have Mass Communications with journalism degrees. Our first day our journalism writing class we had to take in graduate school, we all failed it. Eighteen of us failed. The red markings, talk about the humbling, what have i done. And that is when i started to turn my thinking around about how to be a better, sharper writer. One of the best pieces of advice i got. Scott mcinnis. He was from colorado. He came one day i got the hard copy paper. He said, see this right here, their review and outlook section of the wall street journal. I recommend you read this every single day. Serves you well. I will tell you, i have absolutely read that every day. If i do not, i feel totally lost i started to realize one of the things i write about in the book is one way to improve your writing is to improve your reading. If you are reading good writing, you will start to pick it up. It does not mean you have to imitate them, but you will start to see what is good writing. I am telling young women in this book you have to learn how to communicate while in the office. Writing really good emails. I started doing this thing called a night note. Partly just to keep everyone informed but also to make my mornings easier. It is not a phone call that you want. Surprises are never good. It was operated on no surprises. Joshua was our chief of staff, he was tough. And you wanted to please him. My goal every day was to write the email in a way that he will not have a single followup question. How often were you able to accomplish that . Most of the time. But it takes time. What i would do to teach the younger staff as i would forward them to the email so that they could see how to do that. I still do that to this day. You talk about this in the book. Everything will be okay. My own kids are 20 something. Not always seeing the value of writing. I am sorry. I dont care what technology you use. I dont care where Technology Takes us. You have to be able to communicate something clearly and effectively. The best way to do that is with the written word. Every author always says the same thing you the way to be a good writer is to read a lot. The beautiful writers, the effective writers all read a ton. Do you rewrite . Before you send that email, do you rewrite it . Better at it now. I would say i would rewrite a field. I got a compliment this weekend from the introduction of the book. There is a guy named scott adams. I sent him the book. On his podcast he said that is the best intro of any book i have ever read. He recommends that you spend 90 of your time on the introductory story or paragraph. You rewrite it 100 times if you have to. You nail it because that is what will make a difference. That is sometimes what it takes is to really try to write well. There is something about a little trip to being true. It is important to learn how to write in your bosses voice. Engenders trust and capability and you will be able to be chosen for a promotion if you can communicate effectively, your direct supervisor, you will make their life easier and you will definitely set yourself up for Better Things in the future. I think that is a great point. We all have techniques we like, we all have systems we like which is great, but at the end of the day, your goal is to make them successful. Doing it in a way that works for them. That is absolutely everything. Shall we talk about everything will be okay . I want to talk about the inspiration. You are a very busy person. You have written a couple books before. Let me tell you about jasper. We will not finish the show until we talk about jasper. You have a lot going on. There needs to be clear inspiration for this particular book. Tell us about that. You are probably the same. We have great opportunities. After i left the white house, i found i was inundated for requests from young women about advice. Everybody minutes of coffee. Nobody had much time. One of the things i did in that first book was i put all the mentoring advice i cut into one chapter. Over the past fivesix years, that is a chapter i keep hearing about over and over again. Interesting. Going through a quarter life crisis. Explained explain quarter life crisis. Wish i wouldve known that when i was 24 that this was coming up. I did not know that this was a thing. I just went through it. Oh, wait, i am not alone. My goal was to let women know you are not alone. Worries and society consume you. You can share them with others and realize the quarter life crisis i realized as getting to be about 25 and you start to realize, wait, everything that i planted everything that i dreamed that is supposed to be happening right now is not happening at all. You dont have the job that you thought you would. Maybe a life partner. That is not turning out. I did not even go on a date. I met my husband on an airplane. I did, too. A flight to taiwan. Where are you going to . Chicago. To do see. It does happen. You start to think, oh, i was going to have, this was by the time i was 30 and my first child when i was 32. I dont even know if i want to be in this industry. I start to feel like oh my gosh, what have i done . People get through it. Okay. A new job comes through. New boyfriend or girlfriend comes through. What i found, tory, since i wrote that book, not just because of the pandemic, i found that that crisis was starting to follow young women well into their 30s and beyond. Doing a couple of things. Holding them back from opportunities in the workplace and it was robbing them of lifes choice. Yeah. I thought that i had some advice. I could do mentoring all day long. I am telling you all day long. I wanted to put everything into one place. I could give the mentoring advice and also just a few other tips about finding a way back to some serenity which i think is really what gods intention for us is. To have that feeling. If you can find more serenity in your life, you are going to have a better worklife balance. Going to be more successful. You can be more productive in a good contributor to society. It is not just young women. I get it. Those young women, young men, mid 20s. Why do you think that it carries through these days, i think you are right, 31, 32, there is a lot of anxiety and angst in that state of being. How do you find serenity . I cannot imagine. The world that you are in, you can find to think about serenity much less and achieve it. You write about this in the book about achieving that type of serenity. I agree with you completely. A couple of things. All my last day, january 20, 2009, i did not even have a twitter account. Simpler times. Did not think so all the time, but looking back, yeah. Press secretary to president reagan and bush, the press secretary for years. There is no way. Everything is so accelerated. On the work front and then the social media front and then the personal front, on the work front, i am not exactly sure what is going on with the economy, now its covid it is even harder. I find that young women, first of all, all of us, win the lottery when we were born in america. Educated women in america. You are out in the drivers seat. All you really have to ask is how hard do you want to work. What kind of personal decisions are you going to make to make things happen for yourself . Right. What i find is some women, i dont know if you feel this way, they are ready for the next step. They are always then you can come back to the city, if you want to. I really encourage young women to back away from letting it consume their lives. Not only because it takes away from their life, you know, experiencing life all around you, but i talk about this one situation where someone who used to work for me, and instagram account, i follow some friends and i look at some of the stuff and think wow, i would not post that. To personal . Yes. Im not trying im just trying to say i un see that. Also, at this point in your life, does that say senior Vice President marketing to me . Thatw opportunities coming your way . Maybe not. Whatever. If you want to have a great time on your social media account, there are are ways to be respone with it. I think that young people are smarter about this. Posting nevd i lost when Facebook First started and our kids were certain age, whatever it is, they get on facebook and i was not paying any attention to it, of course. My husband feels that he will be the responsible dad. They blocked him. That was the last time we had had any contact whatsoever. Occasionally maybe somebodys birthday we will see something. They are on private groups and things like that. You are right. They are much smarter. The third thing that i would say is, i write about this, too. I think it is harder to meet people right now. I do not know why that is. Interesting conversation with a young woman who was in media and doing well and having a good career like she followed the footsteps and we kind of go through the motions and wrap things up and i just leaned back and say if you were doing this, what would you spend your time with . Her demeanor changed and said im into forensics anthropology. Shes talking about forensics anthropology which my father and doctor wished he had gone into. I said thats what you need to be doing. And here is the great part of the story. The next day she emails me and you write about that in your book. She sends me an email and you will never believe this she said i didnt tell anybody that i applied for a graduate program in forensics anthropology. I got home yesterday and i got into the program. Lets talk about thank you notes. Not long ago there was a young girl we call her College Associates but there was a fulltime job that she was applying for. She got the interview and the next day i saw her and said did you write a thank you note and she said do you think it would make it look like i was trying too hard if i sent a thank you note. One of the things i think is funny [inaudible] is an email thank you note okay . If there is an immediate followup, you asked my writing sample and a handwritten thank you note. Part of it is practical with incoming digital stuff and if i get a handwritten anything in the mail i would stop the world, look at it never forget it. [inaudible] this is huge. You are kind of a blessed blh a great voice. No human likes the sound of their own voice. One thing that drives me crazy but young women in particular, i call it up speaking. Where at the end of every sentence that goes up because they are not really sure. I cant stand that. And part of it is young people start doing this and imitating each other so they dont even hear it necessarily. It follows you into college and let me tell you something, you will not be chosen for a promotion. You will not be going to the conference or to present. Maybe its somebody that works for you. I feel like we have an obligation to gently tell them because it is a habit. If you lead a young woman know that youre speaking like that, that they are speaking like that, immediately its like stopping smoking overnight. It will end and they will never do it again. She said remember im not sending you there its on my behalf, the communicators and the meeting. There were times you had to figure out how to say something. I remember one time in the situation with several generals i had great respect. He says we have a Communications Problem in iraq. Heres the moment and i got up the gumption to say we have a fact problem in iraq. They never want to hear that if you can do that for other women in your office, it could help. Its about finding your strong voice and i think there are women you admire especially public speakers. Megan kelly has a great voice. If you have a voice women have naturally higher voices. And people dont want to hear that but it doesnt wear as well over time. I love this section of the book. If youre at the room, at the table and play a role i will tell one story and then i want you to talk about it more. The pentagon and classic military, often very senior military three or four stars but the briefing would be handled at probably a one star. Thats one star feeling kind of junior. So the one star sitting to his right and the one is nervous going through first of all he came with his powerpoint and in secretary rumsfeld view hes got his head down and the secretary stopped and asked him a question. He starts scratching through whatever he said and he said no, what do you think. No, sir, i scratched it and it wont be in the next iteration. He put his hand on his shoulder and said we put that the star on your shoulder for a reason i want to know what you think you have a purpose and a reason to be there. Thats a great book. I learned a lot in that book and i also talk a little bit about yes you were there for a reason and in another part of the book take an actual notebook. They will appreciate that but you will learn more and appreciate more because it could be a very important text. With all of the zoom meetings and calls im stunned to be in a meeting and the most important person in the room is there. People will be sitting back in their chairs doing this. You said in your book everything will be okay. What are they doing, are they taking information, playing candy crush, what are they doing . Just basic politeness. A lot of it is setting the phone to your side. If you go to class and pay attention, youre going to do okay. One of my favorite things is the Teddy Roosevelt and it is let me make sure i get this right, comparison is a piece of joy. It is a wonderful quote and concept. Explain it for us. How can you and buries it and brace it . All day long we are thinking of comparing ourselves to others. Im 5 feet tall and im always the shortest. I wish i were taller. I wish i were younger, thinner, i wish i were bigger, i wish i had this or i wish i had that kind of car. And also i say this in addition because there will be people in your circle with great opportunity that you didnt get. I thought i want that life. But what i realized is every time you compare yourself, somebody is looking at you saying they want what you have. We spend all this time talking about, but no one is thinking about you they are thinking about themselves. This senator did that. So its not the right thing to do anymore. I want to talk a little bit about the white house when you were there. Think about we considered the news and information 24 7. There were news cycles and things like that but there would be a period of time when things were off. You dont have that luxury so how do you withstand that and not let it drive you crazy, do you ever turn it off . Of this job that i have now fits me pretty well because i am on nine to 11 every morning with my coanchor and going until 5 00. For every hour of tv that i do i need to do two or three hours of preparation. People dont realize that, but its significant. If youve been at the podium and think you are going to wing it like im on a high wire without a net and its not a good feeling and i dont like to do it on television, i try to be the most prepared person in the room. I did interview somebody for this book that i admire so much, he is one of my friends i look at, mother of three, Global Talent officer. One of the things she talks about as a young mom, she has two kids and they were kind of underway the next day she wasnt feeling well. I thought she had the flu. Surprise, shes pregnant. And she said it occurred to her maybe i shouldnt take this job. She said people will come up to her and say i dont know how youre going to do it. But thats funny. Even today. I am not available for calls or emails between six and 8 p. M. I will get back to you at 8 p. M. There would be chaos. She would pick up the phone and say how can i help you. I have to create a little bit of discipline for yourself and stick to it. In different jobs ive done similar things. Between here and here im going to be off the grid if you need to something, call me. And that usually stops. But you are in the news business. Youve got a big break between 11 and five you have to be reading everything on top of it you might want to call or email somebody. Im already disciplined. Im annoying to some people because i love early mornings. I am a somebody that has to pull back from but you know this about yourself. I do, thats true. I am also interested. We have a certain amount of time. I start an email for myself on friday and anything over the weekend that i think is of interest i will put it in a draft email. And then on sunday around 4 p. M. Because we have to get ready for 4 p. M. , i will send an email to the team that says here are some of my weekend spots. I go through my list of things that are important and i can delete probably half of it. Interesting. So im learning, tomac. Okay lets talk about the white house. You left in 2009. What do you think the differences are between 2009 and 2021 . One of the things i didnt have, with people making fun of my appearance on twitter, i didnt have any of that and one of the tips i had from a friend recently because now i get criticism for other reasons. At one point in the timeframe, it was bad and i felt like crawling under my desk in the fetal position. You only see responses from the people that you follow. We can control a little bit of this for ourselves and has my decision to do that hurt me and my career . I have a show called the Daily Briefing and this year i now am doing the co anchoring. Look and see how many of them are on social media responding to everything. Jk rowling might be different but she made a decision that is what she wants to do. If i think about people in the media that are successful, they are not on twitter all day. We have about ten minutes to wrap up. Ive been following jasper on twitter. He was with me through the white house years and in 2004 i taught henry what do you think about john kerry running for president he would get a flipflop and bring it back. Then henry passed away about six months after and my husband and i thought how can you leave a dog in an apartment, and our hearts were so broken. She said theres only one way to fix it. You have to get another dog. Jasper came onto the scene. Nobody knows what happened. We take so many pictures of him but he is goodnatured about that and we lived in a building that had a doggy daycare. They used to pick jasper up at 12 00 and he was exhausted but the most well socialized and recently had some health trouble. They said could we do some tests. They found a malignant tumor and we just got word as we were having this interview that it was a more common version and hes going to be fine. Congratulations. I found them the great equalizer. It just becomes this great connector for everybody. We have just a few minutes here. Whats going to happen with communications technology. Think about the things we didnt anticipate in 2004, 2009. Is there something thats going to happen that we havent even heard yet that you think will impact your business . Six years ago i asked what do you think the next big thing is and basically it was facebook live. I dont think he called it that at the time but people will be able to go live wherever they are. I dont know if everybody understands. It could pretty convincingly make it look like the president of china is saying something or doing something that could lead to frankly more. Thats what i worry about. Its happening so quickly. We are not prepared. The Artificial Intelligence to communicate more directly i could be having a conversation with my mom and her kitchen even though im physically in new york thats the next step. Im not against technology. I just worry about some of it. I met with some intelligence guys in europe what is the next thing they are going to build and they said Artificial Intelligence has progressed so much faster than we thought and its become so much more sophisticated than we thought. We learn about losing control. They start to make decisions and say exactly. Okay lets end on a happy note. What is the next book from dana perino . Patron saint of liars. Ive met people from all over the world. Ive never felt like that. Its totally blew me away. I also read a brandnew novel by kristin hannah. I listened to it because the timing i have now. A terrific narrator. Its basically grapes of wrath written from a womans point of view. It took me a while to be convinced to write this but i couldnt keep up with them and touring requests and it was such a hunger. I also cant tell you how gratifying it is to have a young woman do the cover of the book and think everything will be okay and then say i really needed to hear that. What is the novel going to be about . She decides that she is going to move to a red state and convince people that they should see the world aligned with her. She moves there like these people are actually nice. Maybe everything doesnt have to be about politics. So thats the idea that ive had. I love the idea. I hope you bring it to fruition. It sounds fabulous. Right back at you. Take care welcome to the free library in philadelphia, thank you very much for being here. Im laura kovacs and im honored to be here. Hillary clintons chief of staff huma abedin begin as an intern for the former first lady in 1996