I left the victory party with my hopes dashed, thinking I should have voted for Brown. The Brown family, at least, believed in nepotism and cronyism. I had the misfortune of being a Reagan instead of a Brown.
When I returned to the loading dock, my coworkers were amazed I showed up for work the day after the election. Why was I still doing grunt work when my dad was the governor-elect? One of them said, “Tell us, Mike—do your parents love you?”
I wondered the same thing myself.
The answer, of course, was yes. In fact, Dad loved me enough to teach me the value of hard work. I’m grateful for his example of respecting hard work and defending hard-working families. I’ve tried to follow his example and teach those values to my own children.
Here, then, are some of the vital lessons my father taught me about the importance of working hard and working smart:
Working hard and working smart leads to success. Working smart is not a substitute for working hard. You must do both. All honest labor is honorable labor. It is honorable to work with your mind and honorable to work with your hands. My father did his share of both.
When Dad went up to Rancho del Cielo with Dennis LeBlanc and Barney Barnett, he did hard, physical labor, remodeling and refurbishing the original adobe farmhouse that was built in 1872. In the process, Dad got dirty and he worked up a sweat—and he had a great time. On the ride home, he sat in the backseat and did brain work—writing and working on speeches. My father was perfectly at home working hard and working smart.
Mike Rowe, the host of the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs, once said that the worst advice he ever received was posted on the wall of his high school guidance counselor’s office. Seventeen-year-old Rowe was talking to his guidance counselor about his options for college. He noticed a poster on the wall that read, “Work Smart, Not Hard.” He says that it’s a terrible idea to tell young people not to work hard and to suggest that hard physical labor is demeaning. Rowe concludes, “I think often about the people I met on Dirty Jobs. Most of them were tradesmen. Many were entrepreneurs and innovators. Some were millionaires. People are always surprised to hear that, because we no longer equate dirt with success. But we should. . . . Why aren’t we encouraging the benefits of working smart and hard?”4
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once expressed a similar notion: “If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the host of Heaven and earth will pause and say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well.’”5
I’m glad there are still people in this country who are promoting the benefits of working hard and doing a job well. Actor John Ratzenberger, who is remembered for his role as Cliff Clavin on Cheers, plus a series of memorable voice parts in Pixar animated films, is the cofounder of the Nuts, Bolts & Thingamajigs Foundation, which goes into schools and teaches the fast-disappearing trades of woodworking and metal shop. Even more important, they are teaching the American work ethic, just as my father taught me.
Yes, it’s important to “work smart”—but most successful people will tell you that the point of working smart is not to create more leisure time, but to free up more work time. Michael Moroney, in Entrepreneur, observes:
The problem with the working hard vs. working smart dichotomy is that all too often we frame the choice as one in which we can only choose “hard” or “smart.” The question we should be asking is, why aren’t we doing both? . . . Smarter work affords us more time, but that saved time doesn’t mean anything unless we put it to optimal use.
Top CEOs have reported an average wakeup time of 6:15 a.m., with many rising before 5:00, and most worked at least two hours at home after dinner. In some cases, they regularly turned in eighteen-hour workdays. Many of these industry leaders credit their success to working while others aren’t.6
Contrary to the way his detractors have portrayed him, my father, Ronald Reagan, was one of the hardest working men I’ve ever known. He worked hard and smart, and he respected both muscle work and brain work. That’s why he was lenient with me when he caught me using the “Tom Sawyer” approach to fence painting. He wanted to encourage my creativity and initiative without discouraging my willingness to work hard.
My late brother-in-law Roger Stearns was an executive with Verizon. When he saw people procrastinating or sitting and doing nothing, he’d say, “How will you ever finish if you never get started?” I think that’s a question we all need to ask ourselves whenever we feel lazy or unmotivated.
America is still one place in the world where we can start with nothing and achieve success through the work of our own hands and brains. Our hard work and smart work creates wealth and leads to success. One of the most important lessons my father taught me is that if you are able to work smart and willing to work hard, there’s no limit to what you can accomplish.
Support the free market economy. Every election day, from local races to national elections, vote for candidates who believe in economic freedom. Demand that your elected representatives support lower taxes, less regulation, smaller government, and greater freedom. Read about free market economics and study the writings of Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, Arthur Laffer, and Milton Friedman.
Preach free market economics to your friends and neighbors and learn how to defend the principles of freedom in your Facebook posts, your blog posts, your letters to the editor, and your conversations over the back fence. Defend hard work and productivity. Become a vocal advocate for freedom.
I have two friends, Karel and Sandy, who escaped from Communist Czechoslovakia in 1986. They spent a year in a refugee camp before coming to the United States. The Czech government tried them in absentia, and Karel (pronounced “Karl”) was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison; Sandy was sentenced to twenty years. Their crime: stealing property of the Czech government. What property did they steal? Their one-year-old son; under the Communist system, children belonged to the state.
They arrived in America with the clothes on their back, plus a few clothes in a bag they brought with them. When they got to Los Angeles, they saw how Americans dressed—and they threw their bag of clothes in the trash. Within a week, Karel got a job at the Disneyland Hotel, working in the kitchen. His wife Sandy worked nights and stayed with their one-year-old child during the day, learning English by watching soap operas.
Karel would come home and speak Spanish because that was the only language he heard at work and he thought it was the national language. Sandy said, “No, no, English is the national language.” They decided to learn both.
Karel once said to me, “Michael, most Americans don’t understand the country they live in. They don’t understand how wonderful America is. You can come to this country with the clothes on your back, not knowing the language—and if you’re willing to work hard for twenty-six years, you won’t have to worry about the next twenty-six. There’s no other country in the world where you can do that. It’s too bad that Americans, born in freedom, don’t appreciate what they have here.”
My father appreciated the freedom we have here in America, and he tried to preach the wonders of America to everyone he met. Sometimes we don’t realize how much America means to us until we see our country through the eyes of immigrants—immigrants like my friends Karel and Sandy.
Teach the American work ethic to your children. Be a great example to your kids, as my father was to me. Let them see you enjoying the work you do, both at home and in your profession. Instead of grumbling about your tasks, plunge right in and whistle while you work. Show your children that hard work can be enjoyable—and that hard work pays.
Have your children do chores right alongside you. Give them praise and affirmation for working hard and doing their chores well—just as my father praised and affirmed me. Help your children to understand that wealth is created through hard work, including brain work. Whenever they ta
lk about their dreams and goals in life, help them understand that it takes focus, perseverance, and hard work to achieve those dreams.
I will always remember my days at the ranch, watching Dad as he worked, seeing how his muscles flexed as he swung his ax and how the sweat beaded on his brow as he worked with his horses. My father taught me the value of hard work, and I’m thankful for his example every day of my life.
3
Speak the Truth, Live the Truth
DURING DAD’S ACTING CAREER, it was sometimes said that Ronald Reagan played Ronald Reagan on the screen. And there’s a lot of truth to that.
In his first film, Love is On the Air, my father—who had just left a job as a radio announcer—played (what else?) a dashing young radio announcer. In the years that followed, he played a series of different roles, but most were variations on the real Ronald Reagan. He might be portraying the dedicated Secret Service agent Brass Bancroft in Code of the Secret Service, or the lighthearted ladies’ man Alec Hamm in Dark Victory, or the athletic George Gipp in Knute Rockne, All American, or the carefree playboy Drake McHugh in Kings Row, or the crusading district attorney Bert Rainey in Storm Warning—but all of them came across as quintessentially Ronald Reagan.
I’m not saying Dad lacked range as an actor. Any actor who can successfully portray Gen. George Armstrong Custer in Santa Fe Trail and an epileptic scientist in Night unto Night is no one-dimensional actor. But every actor’s range has limits, and my father knew he had exceeded his range after accepting the role of an organized crime boss in the 1964 drama The Killers. It was Dad’s final film role, and he accepted it against his better judgment after his agent, Lew Wasserman, talked him into it. (Wasserman was a manager of the talent agency MCA; when he merged MCA with Universal Studios and Decca Records in 1962, he created the powerful entertainment conglomerate MCA/Universal.)
In every other role Ronald Reagan played, he could create the character by tapping into some aspect of himself, some inner truth. But how could he find within himself the qualities of a vicious mobster—a man without a conscience, a man who would kill you as soon as look at you? If you watch that film, you can’t help feeling that there’s something fundamentally wrong about the scene in which Dad’s character, Jack Browning, strikes Angie Dickinson’s face, sending her reeling.
Dad regretted making that movie. Why? Because his character was a mask, not a revelation of truth.
I visited with Angie Dickinson at a Hollywood event a few years ago, and she said, “Do you know why your father was so bad in The Killers? It’s because he had to play an evil character, and your dad was a good guy—he couldn’t relate to the character. No one as kind and decent as your father could ever be convincing playing a cruel gangster.”
“Well, Angie,” I said, “if it makes you feel better, the whole movie was terrible.”
She laughed and agreed that it was—and she affirmed my belief that acting is about finding and expressing an inner truth.
Both of my parents, Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman, saw acting as a process of revealing truth. Mom would stay in character for days during a film production to preserve the truth and integrity of her character. Mom and Dad both believed that the camera was merciless in detecting insincerity and fakery.
Great actors know that acting isn’t just a game of “let’s pretend.” I’ve been in actors’ workshops and I appeared in six episodes of Mom’s television drama Falcon Crest (I played the concierge at Mom’s spa—and by the way, I was terrible!). I’ve done enough acting to develop a deep respect for the skills and accomplishments of my parents. The goal of acting is not to present an illusion to the camera, but to reveal truth.
That was also Dad’s goal in his political career—revealing truth. All too many politicians think that their job is to conceal the truth. But if you want to succeed the way my father succeeded, if you want to do some good in the world, then you need to deal in the truth, the way my father did.
I often speak to political gatherings, and I say, “If you want to do well in politics, take an acting class. Get involved in an actor’s workshop. Do some community theater. Learn how to reveal your inner truth and become comfortable being who you are in front of an audience.” Acting is great preparation for a career in politics because acting teaches you a deep respect for the truth.
People called my father the Great Communicator. But do you think he woke up one morning with the ability to give speeches, the ability to believably play a role on the stage? No. He had to learn those skills. When he went to Eureka College, he took acting classes, and those classes taught him how to be himself in front of an audience or in front of a camera. There are a lot of politicians, such as Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, who are said to be natural, likeable, and easygoing in one-on-one situations—but turn on the camera and they turn into tense, unlikeable robots.
My father was often called “The King of the Bs.” There were A-listers and B-listers, and Dad was among the best B-list actors in Hollywood. He was dependable, easy to work with, and he could give a director whatever was required in a single take. Plus he was an excellent horseman—and the studios paid an extra $25 a day to an actor who rode his own horse.
Ronald Reagan was a good actor. Had he gotten the roles he wanted, he would have been a great actor. Just look at his portrayal of George Gipp in Knute Rockne, All American (1940) or the tragic Drake McHugh in King’s Row (1942). (Incidentally, his King’s Row costar, Robert Cummings, prophetically said in 1942, “Someday I’m going to vote for this fella for president.”)
My father approached every film role with a commitment to truth. And while many of his critics disparage the notion of electing an actor to be president of the United States, I think my father’s early career uniquely prepared him for his crowning role as chief executive. In fact, Dad himself once made the same observation:
Some of my critics over the years have said that I became president because I was an actor who knew how to give a good speech. I suppose that’s not too far wrong. Because an actor knows two important things—to be honest in what he’s doing and to be in touch with the audience. That’s not bad advice for a politician either. My actor’s instinct simply told me to speak the truth as I saw it and felt it.
I don’t believe my speeches took me as far as they did merely because of my rhetoric or delivery, but because there were certain basic truths in them that the average American citizen recognized. When I first began speaking of political things, I could feel that people were as frustrated about the government as I was. What I said simply made sense to the guy on the street, and it’s the guy on the street who elects presidents of the United States.1
I watched my father give speeches long before he ran for governor or president, and he inspired me to become a public speaker in my own right. He was totally authentic. I think that was the greatest lesson I learned from him as a speaker: know what you believe and know why you believe it.
I can’t write out a speech and deliver it from a script. But if you hire me to speak to your organization, I can get up and talk for fifteen minutes, half an hour, or an hour, whatever you need. I won’t use notes—I’ll simply get up and talk extemporaneously and bring it all together in the allotted amount of time. I can do that because I know exactly what I believe, and I know exactly why I believe it.
After I delivered the eulogy for my father at the Reagan Library in 2004, Sean Hannity asked me if I had a written copy of my prepared remarks. I said, “I don’t have any notes. I didn’t prepare those remarks. I just spoke from my heart.”
“No notes?” Hannity said. “The most important speech of your life and you didn’t use notes?”
“No notes. If I didn’t already know the subject, I shouldn’t have gotten up to speak.”
Great leaders, like Ronald Reagan, live the truth and speak the truth. A reputation for telling and living the truth creates trust, and leaders cannot lead unless their followers trust them.
The Real Ronald Reagan
Mor
e than once, as I was growing up, my father caught me telling a lie—and I heard a number of sermons on the importance of guarding my integrity. One story Dad told Maureen and me, a story that made a huge impact on both of us, took place in 1965 as he was considering a run for governor of California.
Justin Dart, the CEO of the Rexall Drugstore chain, invited Dad to his office for a meeting. Mr. Dart was influential in Republican circles. So Dad went to Mr. Dart’s office and they talked about what it would take to get my father elected governor. Dad had long been acquainted with Mr. Dart. Almost three decades earlier, Dad had appeared in two motion pictures with Dart’s wife, actress Jane Bryan—Brother Rat and Brother Rat and a Baby.
As their meeting came to a close, Mr. Dart pointed to a paper bag on his desk. “That’s for you,” he said.
Dad said, “What is it?”
“Take a look.”
Dad glanced inside. The bag contained tens of thousands of dollars in cash. Dad said, “What’s this for?”
“When you’re running for governor,” Mr. Dart explained, “you’re not able to go out and make a living. So this is a little something for you and Nancy.”
Dad closed the sack and threw it at Mr. Dart. Furious, he said, “Do you think you’re going to own me? Do you think you can get favors whenever you want? I’ve changed my mind. If that’s what being governor is all about, I don’t want the job. I’m not running.”
Dad stormed out, leaving the Rexall executive speechless.
It took three days for Mr. Dart to persuade Dad to return for a second meeting. As the two men faced each other, Dart apologized for suggesting that my father could be bought.
Dad heard him out, then said, “I’ve had a chance to cool off. I’ve decided to run—but I want one thing understood: if you ever need help from the governor’s office, you’ll go through the same channels as everybody else.”
Lessons My Father Taught Me Page 5