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hi I'm Laura Hong professor of Entrepreneurship at the warten school I'm here today with Senator Claire Mill
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who is here to talk to us about her book plenty ladylike Claire welcome thank you
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so excited to have you here thank you so I really enjoyed reading this book I especially love reading Memoirs and this
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was a memoir of course um and I was just curious what kind of brought you to writing an Memoir what what led up to
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this well my 2012 reelection really had a national profile because my opponent was um the lame brain who said that the
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woman's body has a way of shutting itself down if it's a legitimate rape so
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the race got a lot of attention and I had engaged in some really high-risk uh strategy in that race that
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I think represents what more women should do in their careers and that is take risks so I wanted to write the book
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about that campaign and the strategy I embraced and then once I got into it the publisher said
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well your whole career has been full of owning your ambition and being risky so why don't we tell more stories than just
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the campaign so it's really for young women it's for women um who are uncomfortable saying they're ambitious
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it's for women who um feel that security is more important than getting ahead um
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it's for women who are facing that moment where they don't know if should
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they should take a risk uh this is supposed to be a gentle push to get more women to be Risk Takers yeah and I kind
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of loved that that was this theme throughout the book was that you're very ambitious and you you create this really
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interesting narrative about how you're almost Unapologetic about this um but
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also admitting some things in there that a lot of people would be very apologetic
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admitting so one of my favorite anecdotes is from one of the earlier chapters where you talk about how um a
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failure to make a cheerleading squad then uh launched you into this campaign one of your first campaigns uh so can
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you tell us a little bit about that High School campaign that you you underwent sure sure I had been a cheerleader since
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junior high I thought it was everything I uh didn't make it for my senior year
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in high school and I thought the world was over uh and so I began a stealth campaign that I've never talked about
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until this book um because what I decided was I could be homecoming queen so I describe in the book um how I went
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about campaigning for homecoming queen I did the math I figured out that the homecoming queen every year was the
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girlfriend of the quarterback or the co- Captain well there's only a couple of
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those but there's a lot of linen um there's a lot of tackles and guards and
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linebackers and and guys in the secondary so I began making friends with um the people that weren't the
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quarterback and as it turned out it worked uh they ended up voting for me for homecoming queen and I was of course
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embarrassed and am still kind of embarrassed that I did that but I wanted to tell the story because I thought it
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was an example of how you can Embrace um a strategy and get something done and in
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the process I made a lot of friends I wouldn't have made otherwise so it ended
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up being a win-win a lot of those linemen are my friends to this day but I also figured out how to do the math in a
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political campaign so I love that story because I was a cheerleader in high school but I was not homecoming queen so
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now I'm thinking hey I could have actually done something exactly so the that kind of illustrates also that one
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of the themes was that there's ups and downs so all through your career these
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there's been these ups these incredibly High Highs but also these incredibly low
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lows and you know as you read the book there's this Narrative of everything seems to build on each other is this
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something that you really thought about in terms of your career that there's
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these ups and downs in just navigating these waves or is this something more in retrospect that you really as you were
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reflecting um pieced together in this very cohesive narrative at the time I don't think I thought of it as ups and
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downs I was very focused on a goal and I was just driving towards that goal and every problem I encountered especially
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some of the sexism I encountered early in my career when I went to the state legislature in my 20s I used that as f f
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um rather than confront it perhaps as I should have I internalized it and said I'm
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going to show them I'm going to show them I will be better than they are I will go farther than they're going to go
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I will achieve um what I thought was going to be my ultimate accomplishment which was governor of Missouri as it
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turned out I lost that race um but because I lost that race I went on to win the senate seat so I guess looking
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back it is and of course I all my personal stuff in there my divorce and the problems um with my first marriage
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so it does you know have the ups and downs but to me at the time it was just me headed towards something I wanted
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very much so let's talk a little bit about that fuel right because there's
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also this this uh ambition versus um this femininity sort of balance that you have within the book as well right um
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you had said at one point in the book I managed to achieve a delicate balance of
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being tough but with a softer approach right so talk to us a little bit about that femininity
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right the you know you said I'm used to people approaching me to talk not about
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my job but how I look and that sort of thing and how you balance that with your ambition well I I think um I I say in
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the book I'm not sure I did it right I I and that's one thing I want to stress I
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think there's way too many women who write books who have accomplished things
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in their life that do it almost looking down like this is how I did all the I hey I don't I don't get it right every
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day I didn't get it right in my life many times and perhaps when I was confronted especially with some of the
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cruel sexism early in my career it would have been better for me to be brave enough to be more confrontational at the
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time I thought it was going to hurt my career so instead I used a sense of humor um I became very good at
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self-deprecating humor um I became uh very good at laughing with my male colleagues uh even though
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sometimes those jokes were at my expense I was willing to endure that because I thought if I came on too strong it would
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limit my Effectiveness especially in a legislative body when how you get along with others um is is very important in
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terms of your ability to accomplish the goals that you set out to accomplish so uh it really was this mix of um spine of
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Steel but a big smile and willing to laugh um at sometimes even at jokes that hurt and that whole time you really
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stressed being prepared and working hard right I noticed a lot throughout the book how hard you actually worked um it
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was almost a crash course in politics because I didn't understand actually how
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much went into these campaigns and how much work went into a lot of the investigative things that you had done
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so in terms of preparation right talk to us a little bit about how you prepare and how you've prepared throughout your
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career and what hard work means to you as a woman who both has ambition and this femininity side well it's
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interesting I don't know that it's as much of a challenge for young women
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today but because there are more women there are more women at Warton there are more women in law school there are more
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women in med school there are more women although still not enough women in boardrooms and still not enough women
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that are CEOs uh there are Role Models out there when I began in politics when I began in the prosecutor's office as a
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trial prosecutor there were really no women around to speak of that I could see as my role models so it it really
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was um trying to go along to get along but I was always sure that if I knew more that I could have credibility so
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the fact that I was a prosecutor helped counter the fact that I had had a lot of
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long blonde hair the fact that I knew my way around a courtroom that I had tried
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a lot of criminal trials when I came to Jeff City that gave me credibility that women sometimes hadn't had coming to
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Jeff City perhaps replacing their husbands who had died or even coming from a more traditional female career I
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came with a background that really helped me um establish myself as someone who is very knowledgeable in CRI law and
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that I think helped very much me kind of get over the hump of being taken seriously and even roles you had later
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on so there's this famous earmarking speech that you gave where Chuck Schumer
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said it was one of the top 10 speeches that he had ever heard that was behind closed doors can you give us a little
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bit of insight into that speech well I you know I I I ear marks um you know the short
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definition of ear marks is congressionally directed spending the longer definition was that PE senators
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and congressmen would go behind closed doors and sprinkle fairy dust to decide where we were going to spend money and
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it was usually based on how senior you were what party you were what committee you served on so I was sitting in caucus
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one day and someone was with righteous indignation saying how great ear marks were and I just had enough I had just
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had enough and I just stood up and said hey all you appropriators love them because you get most of them and I just
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basically kind of did five minutes of um me going off in a passionate way about all the flaws of the ear marking system
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and how it wasn't based on Merit and how in many ways it represented the worst of
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what Washington does because it's all about who you know not the Merit of the
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project and so I um that that was uh a time that after that speech um our Cox decided to not do ear marks and so there
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it's that's a a great example of you really being you being true to yourself
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being really authentic um you said in the book I've seen people go to Washington and lose their sense of
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purpose and their sense of self right and that's very easy to do because you're in this uh you're in this field
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that's um you're facing lots of constituents you have internal external people that you're dealing with so you
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know you mentioned earlier in terms of you being yourself but also having to to manage your colleagues your the people
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you're dealing with how did you do that how are able to to manage this very fine
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sort of balance this well you got to get comfortable that everybody's not going
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to like you you know I talk about in the book in the last chapter of the disease
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to appease and I think women have a much more serious case of the disease to appease sometimes than men I think we
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all I mean I I want everyone to like me and most people who go into politics really want everyone to like them
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because they've chosen a career where you put yourself out for public acceptance or reject ction every two
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four or six years so it it's hard to get used to the fact that people don't like
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you but you can't get anything done if you don't make somebody mad it's
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impossible to get anything done without angering someone so you've just got to
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get comfortable I mean when I gave that speech there were people in my caucus that were Furious that like who does she
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think she is and probably some of them think that to this day but that's okay
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um you don't have to have everybody like you uh obviously you need to take care
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of your family and your good friends and try to make friends but it shouldn't be
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a kind of exercise where you're trying to please everyone all the time that's
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why people are so sick of Washington well why do you think it's so difficult
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for women especially to to be okay with that to you know so women really want people to like them why do you think
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it's there is this gender difference I think we're natural negotiators I I mean
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we have strengths that men don't have I think we are more consiliary I mean I in
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speeches to women I like to talk about um I give speeches to men sometimes I have men raise their hands when have you
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ever had the nerve to punch somebody have when have you had the feeling you wanted to punch somebody and it's
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surprisingly common among men it's not that common among women so there is not
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that combativeness um that sometimes I think gets in the way with men um I think
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women can be hyper competitive but I think there is a desire to kind of sugarcoat it and say oh I really want
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you to get it too or you know I want you to be my friend and oh I want us to get
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along instead of powering through a situation and trying to just get something done even if it means um
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stepping on toes so let's talk a little bit about that women supporting other
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women versus women not wanting to support other women because they want to um you know still be in that finite
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population you told a story in the book about um you were a young uh state representative and you wore a leather
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skirt into an event um and somebody had asked uh at the party who is that person
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um and they told they said that's a state representative and they said well who is the that she's with that
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he's with that he's with um and you know in that kind of illustrates that some
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women and that was a woman who was asking this this question so some women are very that want to be mentors and
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supporters of other women and then I'm sure you found that other women's have
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not been as as supportive can you talk a little bit about that dichotomy I it's
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interesting and I it's such a waste of of energy um but I think women are hard
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on other women now don't get me wrong I talk about this in the book I'm not
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saying that women should give other women a pass uh I think women um have to compete on Merit and no one should be
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entitled to get a job or to get a promotion or to win an election because they're a woman um but if a woman is um
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it's it's almost as if sometimes women try to find flaws with other women and I
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don't know where it comes from but I know it's negative and I know it's not a
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pretty place where it comes from um and I think it's um I've tried in my career
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to bite my tongue when I want to be hypercritical of other women because there is this tendency to I think do
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that and I I just want women to realize that we need to support each other it's
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especially important if you're in a male dominated field I talk about the queen
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bee syndrome where when I went to the legislature there were some women who were really wanting to Mentor me and
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help me and there were other women who were very uh standoffish and undermine me and so you know women get to choose
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which they want to be and I just hope more and more women choose the nurturing mentoring um colleague as opposed to uh
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she's my competitor they maybe will only take one woman can I cut her off at the
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knees right and this it's very hard in such a demanding sort of Arena um and
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you had a lot of demands placed on you and one of the things that I also reflected on as I was reading your book
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was that the number of times where you were able to remain calm and have Grace Under Pressure um there's one instance
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where um you you spoke about um when Barack Obama was pulling out of Missouri and you said well I have given so much
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and I have and you basically went into another room calmed yourself down and then came back out and gave that
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argument now that's really difficult to do how have you been able to to do that when you when you are
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faced with these extreme sorts of pressure situations where you just want to explode um how do you actually step
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back and calm yourself down well I you know I don't know I think it's um
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probably how goal oriented I am um I think part of that is owning your ambition um because I was ambitious and
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comfortable with being ambitious everything was really will this help me reach my goal and sometimes being
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histrionic or letting your emotions show too much I'm not saying that you have to
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be you know The Iron Lady or not have feelings I think frankly being vulnerable is part of being a more
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attractive candidate um for especially for bigger jobs in politics so people can relate to you but you also have to
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be careful that you don't um allow the emotional moment get in the way of your
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ability to communicate because at the end of the day um if you fail to communicate especially if you're in
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political office then you fail at your job so speaking of vulnerability what makes you nervous you've seen so much
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now what still kind of gives you the Jitters that you feel like you have to do that extra set of preparation for
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that really makes you nervous going out to do anything that comes to mind I think I I when I'm speaking on behalf of
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others um I've done a lot of surrogacy work I did a lot of work for Barack Obama when he ran for president uh I
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debated Karly fiorina on Meet the Press she was representing John McCain I was representing Barack Obama I'm trying to
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help Hillary Clinton right now um it's one thing when I'm speaking for me but
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when you're trying to represent um a candidate you believe in you want to be
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extra careful and cautious that you don't end up making a gaff that hurts them so I think that probably is where I
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try to be um not too careful cuz then you're not authentic but careful that I
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don't um mix that I'm speaking to help another candidate as opposed to necessarily um trying to push my own
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agenda and that's that's hard but I I really have gotten to the point now that
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I don't mind making mistakes I'm comfortable making mistakes my mouth has
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gotten me in trouble so many times Well speaking of which has Hillary forgiven you uh yeah no she's fine um uh yeah
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we're fine and uh the the Clinton family um were fine I think um they understand that you know I've I
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apologize for saying a comment that was gratuitous and painful and hurtful to them which I shouldn't have done but I
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have at least getting in trouble a lot for saying exactly what I think kind of now um makes me really comfortable um
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saying what I think knowing that um I try not to make mistakes but if I do if you say you're sorry and you're genuine
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about it people pretty forgiving yeah okay so the last question I have for you is really in terms of this balance um
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and this authenticity what is your philosophy on motherhood you've raised three children um you have stepchildren
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you have lots of grandchildren you know are you a strict mother how how have you
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really balanced this in terms of your career and and being a mother your other important role well I think uh one thing
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I try to do in the book and I want women who are working um to get this part uh you know mothers who don't work outside
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the home are not perfect and mothers who do work outside the home are not perfect
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there is not a perfect mother um mothers are like snowflakes they're all different and what you do is you
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prioritize your children in ways that are meaningful and for me I managed my guilt by um really not sweating the
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small stuff I forgot about the dust bunnies under the bed even though um my mother-in-law would test Tusk when she'd
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come over sometimes my kids clothes weren't pressed like mine were when I was a little girl um and but that's okay
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uh I asked my kids when I was writing this book what did you how did you suffer because of my work tell me what
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what I failed you I want to know now that you're grown what hurt and um Lily
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goes well will my youngest child said well really Mom the only thing I remember is that I always had Lunchables
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right for lunch instead of H sandwi now I don't know if she was trying to make
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me feel okay right and she said she actually liked it she said because everybody wanted to trade for her
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lunches now I'm not sure if that's true or if she was trying to make me feel
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good as as a grown child and a mom who uh Ador her and I hope she adores me but either way I figure the parenting turned
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out okay because either she wanted to make me feel better which means she was you raced her with the Val with empathy
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and understanding how other people feel or um the Lunchables weren't that big a
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deal so I I think that um politics has a lot of flexibility for women in terms of
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their schedules and I think there are too many women that shy away from politics because they're worried about
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having a family and what they see as the dirty rotten world of political life and
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I hope this book um tells some young aspiring women politicians that they can be great moms and have a full personal
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life and also go out there and get some stuff done in the public sector that needs to be done that's great and I
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think this is a real really nice lesson in Balance because I love the way that you know even asking you these questions
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I see your eyes light up when you talk about your career and then I ask you about your family and your eyes light up
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as well and so I think that that's a real sign that you've been able to do
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both of them um in a really graceful way so thank you so much for joining us today thank you thank you
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