Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House QUOTES

1 " Part of knowing how to be prepared comes from being self-aware—being able to anticipate what you’ll need (or screw up) and planning accordingly. I know I am rarely, if ever, the smartest person in the room. And that’s totally OK. What’s not OK is (1) not recognizing that and (2) not coming ready to participate in a meaningful way. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

2 " I have learned a lot about myself over the years, mostly because I was open to hearing feedback. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. I usually dislike someone before I like them. I’m sensitive—especially when I’m tired or feel I’m being misunderstood. This may sound like the “About Me” section on a bad online dating profile, but knowing this stuff has allowed me to keep my contacts, my reputation, and my sanity throughout a long and often stressful career. Being self-aware means knowing when you’re about to act bad—and then not acting bad. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

3 " What you realize is that everyone has her own priorities—her own constituency. Often, being a leader is not about making grand proclamations or telling people what to do; it’s about balancing all these priorities and constituencies. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

4 " You should always be prepared to defend your choices, whether just to yourself (sometimes this is the hardest) or to your coworkers, your friends, or your family. The quickest way for people to lose confidence in your ability to ever make a decision is for you to pass the buck, shrug your shoulders, or otherwise wuss out. Learning how to become a decision maker, and how you ultimately justify your choices, can define who you are. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

5 " There are certain lesson you pick up gradually as you go, letting them accumulate after a series of similar mistakes or experiences until you finally realize you've been a fool al along. And then there are lessons that are so massive they smack you in the face - you don't reflect on a period of your life and realize, 'Oh, I learned something then'; you know it's happening when it's happening. The importance of kindness - which extends far beyond 'please,' 'thank you,' and 'your hair doesn't look bad today' - is a combination of both: Over and over in my life, I've been bowled over by how kind people can be, and how that kindness can change your outlook. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

6 " It doesn't matter who came to talk to me,' he said (Barack Obama). He went on to say that I needed to realize the power of my words. I could not send emails like that because they - I am paraphrasing - freak everyone out.

Developing self-awareness is a lifelong process; you don't just wake up one day and have all you need. So even though I'd spend the last few months demonstrating that I was cable and knew what I was doing, this was something of a revelation. When the president of the United States tells you your words are powerful, it can be pretty shocking. I honestly didn't think anyone would give a shit if I sent a snippy email.

It was good advice, specifically to me at the time but generally as it relates to any kind of replying-all in life: Think about how what you say could affect people, from the top down. It was also a wake-up call for me about my state of mind: I didn't know why (yet) - though I'm sure I did, deep down - but my temper was getting worse, and my fuse shorter and shorter. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

7 " I once tried to impress him by telling him about the time my friends and I had climbed on Newt Gingrich's car. Bernie was unmoved; his attitude was basically, "Well, what else would you have been doing? "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

8 " I ended up as the assistant to the CEO at an Internet start-up called SenseNet on Hudson Street. I had no interest in the Internet, or venture capital, or really anything I was doing, but the people were nice and I could wear whatever I wanted to work and it was within walking distance of our apartment. Sometimes, for a little while, that's enough. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

9 " I thought it wouldn’t work, but I didn’t know it wouldn’t work, so I didn’t say anything. That might be the difference between men and women: Women need to know they are right before they stand up. Men are OK objecting if they just think they might be right. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

10 " Whatever anyone tells you about how technology and social media have made us disconnected from reality is probably right, but I think you can boil all these kinds of arguments down to the fact that people are no longer chill. They are goal-oriented. They are aware of all the things they could or believe they should have. They are aware of all the things that could go wrong. This awareness makes a lot of things—dating, finding a job, dating a person you meet at your job, planning a trip for the president of the United States—much harder. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

11 " Jobs like this—the kind of job of which there are many, the kind that are definitely good but that no one teaches you to want—are found only with an open mind and a willingness to do your own thing. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

12 " we didn’t only have meetings about what was happening right at that moment, because if you’re just dealing with things as they’re happening, you aren’t prepared for something to come out of the blue. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

13 " When the White House got news of the disaster, POTUS coordinated a relief effort pretty much immediately. According to the ticktock, the minute-by-minute outline of an event that the White House comms team would send out afterward, POTUS heard about the quake at 5:52 PM in the Oval Office on January 12, and by 9:00 PM he was in the Situation Room for an emergency meeting to figure out the relief effort, which would include the deployment of thousands of troops and $100 million in aid. He asked a small group of people to go to Haiti to coordinate it immediately: "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

14 " course: If I am never good at anything else, I know I am good at this. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

15 " There is no bigger compliment than being intellectually curious about what someone else spends his or her days doing—it turned out that not having the answers did me no harm. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

16 " Never brag about your ability to type. It will never get you anywhere you really want to "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

17 " If you do it responsibly, quitting something that isn’t benefiting you—whether it’s dance classes that “everyone is taking” or a soul-sucking job that has nothing to do with anything you’re interested in—can change your life. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

18 " For me, leadership has always been much more about rallying people around a project or cause than about being held up as the Boss. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

19 " presidency, and that’s all that mattered. The next day "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

20 " That might be the difference between men and women: Women need to know they are right before they stand up. Men are OK objecting if they just think they might be right. I thought, but I didn’t know. "

― Alyssa Mastromonaco , Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House