And the Good News Is...

by Dana Perino

  For example, Maria Cardona, one of our mentors in D.C., suggested reading the classics because not only did you have perspective reading them as an adult, but it also helped improve writing skills.

  In a different vein, when I first started on Capitol Hill, Congressman McInnis suggested I read The Wall Street Journal Review and Outlook section every day. I started right then and I’ve hardly missed a day since. To me, the WSJ has the best editorial and op-ed page, and reading it has helped me make better arguments, learn about topics I didn’t know much about, and improve my own writing.

  I like to read a variety of news and opinion, but I can’t always fit everything into my day. So I started a weekend reading folder. During the week if I see something of interest, I e-mail the article to myself and then print the articles to read over the weekend. Brooke Sammon, a young woman who worked for me for a while, used to put my folder together. When she moved on, she started her own weekend reading packet and now she’s regarded as the best-read person in her office.

  There is power in being the most informed—it gives you a competitive edge. Whenever I prepared for a meeting at the White House and now for The Five, I want to have read more than anyone else in a meeting. Having a good and steady flow of information is as important to me as someone with diabetes who needs to keep his sugar at the right level. I just can’t live without it. I feel my brain atrophying if I’m not keeping up with the news. Information is my insulin.

  Another reason to read is to be able to pass on articles to friends, family, co-workers, and supervisors—it’s a great way to keep up your network of allies. One day in the mail I got a clipping from Sports Illustrated about how people use sports-related phrases in everyday speech, especially in politics and business (“Congress just couldn’t get the ball over the line…” and “That CEO should just take a knee on that issue.”). Kevin Sullivan, the communications director when I worked at the White House, sent it to me because he remembered how I used to get my sports all mixed up. (Three-point stance was my favorite—I used it in a briefing but thought I was talking about someone making a basket!) That note prompted me to get in touch with Kevin and we caught up—he watches my show and I refer business to him. We’ve continued to be good friends and colleagues—win-win.

  YOU ARE WHO YOU MEET

  I suggest going to at least two networking events a month. That can be something organized through your employer or a mixer put on by the Chamber of Commerce. Have some conversation icebreakers ready so that you can get through those first few minutes of awkwardness.

  Try to avoid asking right away, “So, what do you do?” because it’s a real turnoff—it’s too abrupt and can put someone on the defensive. Instead, find out where people are from, what they like to do on the weekends, and whether they have a dog (you can tell a lot about a person if they don’t like dogs). If you have a mutual contact at an event, a safe question is, “So how do you know Jim?” The answer will usually give you a pretty good summary of who they are and what they do.

  To build out your personal network, I recommend choosing five people a month who you want to stay connected to (family or friends, colleagues or former bosses) and then send them a personal, handwritten note. I used to do that naturally, a holdover tradition from my parents, who made us write letters every week to our grandparents and godparents.

  Remember, that’s one of the reasons I was even on the radar screen when the Bush Administration needed someone to join the Justice Department press office after 9/11—I’d sent postcards and letters to friends throughout the years, including a former colleague who ended up running communications for Attorney General John Ashcroft. She remembered me because I’d made an effort to be memorable (and it’s a good excuse to buy nice stationery).

  TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ONE THING YOU CAN CONTROL—YOUR HEALTH

  So much that happens in your life is not in your control, but taking care of your health is not one of them. Every day we make choices about our nutrition, exercise, and sleep, and bad decisions can hurt our careers and personal lives. I found this out the hard way.

  When I was at the White House, I worked an insane amount of hours—from 4 a.m. until 10 p.m., and often I’d wake up on full alert, worrying about things I hadn’t done or had to do the next day. My brain was able to keep going, but my body had other ideas. Over time, the pace and pressure of the job took a permanent toll on my physical health. I lost control.

  The last seven months were the hardest. The President was sprinting to the finish but I was crawling. I couldn’t sleep without a pill, my stomach wanted only bland foods, and I often forgot to eat until my assistant made me order something. My go-to was a quarter cup of peanut butter, an apple, and a large hot green tea. I bit Peter’s head off if he suggested I eat more.

  A lot of my problems were self-induced and could have been resolved with better nutrition. In my worst moment, I got my first migraine during a Presidential trip to Africa. The weather was hot and humid, and I didn’t eat or drink enough. I was operating on little sleep and with jet lag, and after four days it caught up to me. In my hotel room by myself I clutched my head and tossed and turned in the fetal position on my bed. I didn’t know what was happening.

  Finally at 2 a.m., confused and barely able to walk, I crawled along the wall of the hotel to Dr. Tubb’s room. After that I got migraines quite a bit, so I carried a prescription with me everywhere I went. I still do, but I don’t have to take the medicine very often.

  My right arm gave out on me, too. For nearly a month it was numb from my elbow to my fingers—it was definitely a smartphone-related injury. Then I came down with a cold that turned into a sinus infection, which started a ringing in my right ear that was so loud I couldn’t think straight. Peter, trying to be empathetic, said the tinnitus was so loud that it even woke him up at night. At a press briefing, I remember the ringing was so bad that I could see the reporter’s lips moving but I couldn’t hear what was being said. No medicine helped, and it lasted for well over a year.

  My back was so uncomfortable under my right shoulder blade that I practically stalked the osteopath on the President’s medical team (we called him the Bone Cracker). When I started showing up there three times a week to get adjusted, Dr. Tubb told me not to worry—they’d help me get through to the end of the administration. He thought most of the symptoms would go away once we left the White House.

  Dr. Tubb was right, but it took a few months for the worst of it to stop, and I’ve actually never slept well since. If I ever worked in a White House again, I’d take a much different approach with my health. By not taking care of myself, I hurt myself physically. And just think how much better I’d have been at the job if I’d had proper nutrition and didn’t let the stress get to me.

  It’s not that I didn’t try to take better care of myself. I tried cutting out bad habits, like drinking too much soda. In October 2004, just before the election, I realized I’d been drinking Diet Coke all day every day. I’d get a large fountain drink in the morning and again in the afternoon, and then I’d have another with dinner. I decided to quit cold turkey. That was one of the hardest things I ever did but I was proud of myself and felt a little better.

  Then in Albania with the President in June 2008, I was in the staff room waiting with my colleagues while the President and Mrs. Bush attended an official luncheon. There was a heat wave and no air-conditioning. The Albanians brought in big platters of fish for us to eat, but I don’t like the taste and so I sat there hungry. After a while, I started eyeing the President’s Diet Cokes—there were always two cold ones in a bucket for him in case he wanted one. The cans were sweating and looked so good. Finally, I broke down. I took one of the President’s Diet Cokes. (Sorry, sir!) Since then, I enjoy my caffeine fix in moderation.

  Most jobs aren’t as stressful as the White House, but still we all deal with a lot of stress when we’re working and keeping up with family and friends at the same time. Stress is relative—how we react to and deal
with it is up to us. Good nutrition is a choice we get to make several times a day. We choose whether to take the apple or the candy bar, to walk or sit on the couch, and to drink water or soda (I’m terrible about this one).

  And since the only way to really deal with stress is to exercise, we have to make a commitment to that, too. We had an ellipitical machine in our spare bedroom on Capitol Hill and every morning at 4:30 a.m. I’d try to read the papers while I climbed fake steps and sent e-mails to White House correspondents—it wasn’t the best workout, but it cleared the cobwebs from my brain so I could think more clearly. Then on the weekends we’d do longer walks—“city hikes,” I called them. Now that I have more time for myself, I still try to do something every day—in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon too, even if that’s just choosing to walk home instead of taking the subway.

  While I’m a morning person (which irritates Gutfeld), I always exercise in the morning because a scheduled workout is usually the first thing to be crossed off of a to-do list when something else comes up. If getting up earlier sounds impossible, just try it for a few weeks and you might surprise yourself. Even getting out of bed a half hour earlier every day can make a difference—you’ll have better health over the long run (and you’ll be in a much better mood).

  If you take anything away from this book you can apply to your own life, I hope it’s this tip to take charge of your health. It’s important to try to get fit while you’re relatively young. When you’re older, biologically and time-wise, it’s so much harder to get into shape. The time you put into being healthy and fit when you’re younger is one of the best investments you’ll ever make—it’s like a 401(k) plan for your body. It’ll pay off over the long term.

  BALANCE IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

  Here’s a multimillion-dollar question: How do you find a good work-life balance? If anyone had the answer, they’d never have to work another day.

  Many people feel like they’re in an unbreakable cycle—hard work leads to working harder and free time gets squeezed out.

  How many people do you know that say they just want “to get a life”? When I hear people in their twenties say that, I think they don’t really have a right to complain about work-life balance yet. Work is your life when you’re starting a career. As Gutfeld says, the bottom rungs of the ladder are supposed to be uncomfortable so that you’ll strive to get to the next level.

  But there are ways to make the cycle more manageable:

  Be a Schedule Warrior

  One of my pet peeves is hearing people brag about how busy they are. They may think they’re venting, but really it’s annoying to hear every response to “How are you?” as “I’m so busy, you wouldn’t believe it.” Actually, I’d believe it, because I feel the same way. But it sounds so pretentious and boring.

  I fall into the busy trap over and over. I have many great opportunities to participate in charity fund-raisers, policy debates, speaking events, galas, and award dinners. I like to be busy, but there’s a fine line between having a lot to do and being overwhelmed and frantic. My schedule can become my worst enemy (and I don’t even have children to look after).

  I finally realized that there’s only one person who can help me keep a decent schedule—and that’s me. I could either let my schedule rule me or I could make it work for me.

  I’ve learned to say no to requests, hold the line when pressed, and not feel so bad about it. I try to keep my mornings free for reading and studying for the show, and I make time for exercise every day, in a class setting where no phones are allowed. That’s usually when I free up enough brain space to have a creative thought that I can use later. At Fox, I work an evening or two for one of the prime-time shows, so if I have to do that, I try to schedule requests for mentoring meetings or networking coffees in between shows—that ensures that the meetings can’t run long!

  Socially, I live in the most remarkable city in the world. In New York, you could go out every night with fascinating people to really terrific restaurants—there is no end to what you can see and do. That kind of social calendar makes some people feel more alive, but it exhausts me. I finally had to cut back to just one night out a week so that I could handle living there. Instead of worrying that I’m missing out on a great night out, I love being home.

  Setting personal scheduling rules can cause worry that your boss or colleagues will resent you or think badly about your performance, wondering if you’re really pulling your weight. But I think that being consistent with scheduling boundaries for about three months resets everyone’s expectations. Soon enough everyone realizes that you can’t stay past 6 p.m. on weeknights but that you’ll be able to get your work done on time. At Fox, my colleagues know that I’m at my best before 7 p.m.—after that, I start to fall apart. I can get up before dawn and be firing on all cylinders, but as soon as the day is over, my energy runs out.

  As a manager, you can set the tone, too. Your staff follows your example. Karen Hughes, a longtime friend of President Bush’s and his communications counselor, remembers that during the first days of the administration, the President told his chief of staff to be reasonable with the schedule and said, “Don’t run off all of my young mothers.” He knew that he needed a diverse team surrounding him and that moms had to juggle a lot of responsibilities. If it came down to going to a policy meeting or a Little League game, he expected you to be cheering on the sidelines, not sitting at the meeting.

  I’ve got a new way of answering the question of how I’m managing everything in my life. Instead of complaining about how busy I am, I say, “I’ve found a really good balance.” That shocks people! I say it even if I don’t feel that way, but it’s becoming more believable—even to me.

  Lighten Up

  If there is something we all do well, it’s talk negatively to ourselves all day. With rare exception, no one ever thinks they’re good enough at anything—not handsome, pretty, skinny, funny, secure, rich, talented, or smart enough. They fret about not being as good a spouse, parent, sibling, neighbor, and friend as they want to be. We send ourselves negative messages the moment we wake up before we get out of bed, then all day long as we try to pack as much as possible into our days, and then when we try to go to sleep and can’t turn off the voices. It takes concentration and effort to overcome those habits. Some of them are impossible to stop—for some, their shortcoming could be their looks while for others it could be their success as compared to friends and colleagues.

  I remember feeling quite inferior to the press secretary who held that position before me—Tony Snow. And instead of that making him feel good about himself, he was determined to help me stop thinking that way. On his last day at the White House, he came over to my office and said, “So how are ya feeling?” I said, “Well, not very good. How am I ever going to replace you?”

  He then made me stand up and come over to where he was standing. He put his hands on my shoulders and told me to look him in the eye. Since he was well over a foot taller than me, I had to tilt my head all the way back to meet his gaze. He shook me gently and said, “Listen to me. You are better at this than you think you are.” I blushed and looked away and started to mumble that I wasn’t as good as he was though I was grateful that he was trying to reassure me. But I wasn’t totally convinced.

  About two weeks later when I was cleaning up my desk on a Friday night, I realized all of a sudden what he meant—that I didn’t have to be just like him, that I could just be myself. That sounds like a very obvious and logical conclusion, but it was such a freeing moment. I saw it was safe to step out of his shadow and do the job the way that felt most natural to me.

  One of my changes was turning down the temperature in the briefing room—I was less argumentative and gave shorter briefings. I tried to swallow my sarcasm and bit my tongue when I was tempted to take a shot at someone. I embraced who I was at that time in my life—it felt like when I realized I was a conservative and again when I met Peter. Once I chose just to be myself,
everything fell into place.

  Most people will have this experience at some point in their lives, where they realize that they can’t be all things to all people, especially when it comes to pleasing themselves, and then everything starts to look a little brighter. Remember that you are better at everything than you think you are—it’s important to keep trying to improve. But give yourself a little bit of a break. Everyone in your life will benefit from you not beating yourself up all the time.

  WHAT’S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?

  Some of the best advice I ever got from the President was after he left office. When he saw me in April 2009, he asked all about how I was doing. He is a good career counselor. I tried to put a good spin on things, but he saw right through me.

  I’d joined Burson-Marsteller, a global public relations company, and it wasn’t a good fit (mainly because I really didn’t want to do PR). The other problem was that I didn’t match the culture at Burson. The top leadership of the company was from the Clinton Administration, and they were smart and fun to talk to. We liked to trade political war stories and gossip about Washington. But our styles were so different—where the Bush White House was like a smooth ocean liner, the Clinton White House was more of a scrappy fishing boat. I got seasick.

  The President didn’t let me off the hook when I tried to change the subject. “You worked way too hard to be unhappy after the White House. Why don’t you start your own company, a consulting business?” he asked.

  I went through a list of why I thought I needed to be a part of an established global firm, but it felt pretty weak.

  And then he asked, “What’s the worst that could happen? Your business doesn’t succeed and you have to go back to work for a PR firm? Is that the worst thing that could happen to an educated woman in the United States who served in the White House as the press secretary? Doesn’t seem like too big a risk to me.”

  I knew he was right, but there were those butterflies again. I worried what people would think of me if I left so soon after just starting a job. I didn’t want to disappoint them. I went home and asked myself again, “What’s the worst that could happen?”