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I'm Samir Nur Muhammad, a professor of management at Warden, and I'm joined
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here today by Reggie Love, uh, former special assistant to President Barack Obama. Reggie's here to talk about his
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new book, uh, Power Forward: My Presidential Education. Reggie, welcome back to Warden. It's a pleasure to have
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you here, Samir. Thank you for having me. I I appreciate you bringing me on today. I heard about your book a few
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weeks ago when it was featured in USA Today. And after reading the book, I just came away thinking that you're such
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a sponge. Whether you know you're around Coach K, who's like the most winningness
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coach in college basketball history, or President Barack Obama, or any other leader, you just seem to suck up
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knowledge and reflect on your experiences. Where did that ability come from? Uh, you know, that that's a great
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question. I I will I always say that um I was a younger brother growing up and so my brother Richard, he's uh four
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years older than me. And uh the thing that I always learned that if if I didn't want to get a spanking or if I
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didn't want to get grounded, it's like do the things that he didn't do. And so
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uh uh that's really where it started. But I mean, look, I think I just was fortunate enough to uh to spend so much
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time with two guys who took the time to to mentor me. uh you know in so many scenarios um you can work with people uh
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that you know that aren't necessarily as invested in the development of the people that are are around them and you
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know and I was lucky enough in which you know I think coach Kay uh is is uh the epitome of what uh collegiate athlet
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athletics should represent and how he grows young men uh into into you know into men into productive members of of
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the community whether or not that's basketball players players or analysts or lawyers or hedge fund managers. Uh if
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you look at the pedigree of of of of professions of people who've come uh from coach Kate's uh toutelage, it's
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pretty it's pretty impress impressive. And and the president as well. Um I I I
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think that that's something that's really, you know, an amazing uh attribute that he has. Uh, you know, I
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think that sometimes you work for guys in politics and they try to figure out how to convince their staff to stay as
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long as possible. Um, but in the scenario working for him, even when I left, uh, you know, I think he, you
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know, even said to me, you know, look, I think you're going to go on to do great
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things and, you know, any support that I can give you in your development, you know, I'm there for you. So I I'm I I
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more I'm just lucky uh that people have been willing to put uh you know inputs
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in and uh in and mentorship into me versus uh uh vice versa. Yeah. So you know one thing that really stood out in
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the book too was your your decision to go work for the then Senator uh Barack Obama before he became the national icon
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that he is of course today. Um when we think about our students here at Warden especially, we think about a lot of
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them. they have these, you know, really established paths in front of them. And it really stood out to me that you kind
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of chose this more unconventional route. Did you ever doubt that decision? And if
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you ever did, what did you kind of say to yourself to to ensure that, you know, you were on the right path and you
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really believed in it? Yeah, I you know, um there's a there's a couple funny
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sayings. I think the first one is um you know my college football coach used to tell me this is look uh you know you're
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going to make uh you're going to make the wrong play often um but if you make
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the wrong play uh full speed you know that's better than uh making the right
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play going 50%. Um and I think that's like a very telling uh uh element because we spend so much time trying to
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get everything exactly right. It's like I want every piece of data that I can
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get before I decide to make a decision. And until I get all of those data sets out there, I'm not going to take a
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decision. And so, you know, uh you know, it's like uh uh the running back who
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runs into the wrong hole, if he's running full speed, even if it's the wrong hole, sometimes he pops out. Uh
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but if he's running in the right hole and he's running half speed, he gets
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like a concussion. Um, so look, when I made the decision to go work for then Senator Obama, I I
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there were a couple of things that were going on for me. Um, one, I kind of said
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to myself, look, um, I'm 23. My my hopefully my my runway is relatively long. uh if I if I make the wrong
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decision today, you know, I've got a lot more time in order to recorrect that
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that uh that wrong decision uh versus doing something that's a little less risky or has less downside uh for a
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significant amount of time and in which you come out of it and you know, you haven't had a a bad experience, but you
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haven't you know, you h you haven't gotten away from sort of the mean. Um,
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so you know, I think when you're young, I think you got to have a happy a healthy appetite for risk. Um, I don't
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think that necess it was I don't think it was a huge risk in the sense of, you
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know, uh, I think my decisions were between going to work at Goldman Sachs and going to go work for a guy whose
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known name they could pronounce. And and I really thought that both uh both jobs
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were going to be a win for me because, you know, either I would go to finance and and learn and, you know, have an
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opportunity to have a great earning potential or I would go work for someone that I really admired and respected and
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and someone who I thought that I could grow and learn from as well. Um but I and and the other and the other piece of
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it too is that I I did feel a little I wasn't 100 100% sure that I was ready to
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stop playing sports. I'd spent a lot of time like playing football. I I kind of
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thought I would always be like a professional athlete. That was sort of, you know, you know, that was like the I
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thought that was the end zone for me. And um uh and when that didn't happen or
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when I realized that that wasn't necessarily the best use of of of my time, I I was sad about it, you know,
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and I wasn't like super super happy that I'd been training and playing for, you
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know, a decade and a half and that it was going to come to an end. Um, but you know, I think it was it was definitely
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uh you know, it was definitely the right decision. I want to touch on the subject
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of race because it's something that comes up in the book. And you know, your
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book revealed that there were those in the African-American community that were some of Obama's harshest critics,
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especially early on in the campaign. Um, you know, you said something that they saw him as not black enough. Yeah. And
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it and it really struck me. And to you, what does not black enough mean for those climbing the corporate ladder
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today? And and what kind of information did you get from the president that are,
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you know, people in the African-American community here at Warden or even other minorities can use to kind of think
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about that experience and and kind of figure out how to travail some of those challenges that they face. Yeah. I mean,
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that's like a I I write that um chapter and it's like, you know, uh it says all
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layups aren't easy. Um and that is the example I use mainly because uh the the
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the the premise behind it is that you know you don't want to take uh the thing
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that's in front of you that's for granted right um but as a as a as a culture and as a society look I think
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race is something that's so very very prevalent and I think it varies from you
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know uh from politics to corporate settings to um uh to sports to growing up as a you know, as me as a young
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African-American in the South. Um yeah, I think it's something that is it's a
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delicate issue. Um the biggest things that I always say is that uh as a as an African-American um I feel like I have
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more opportunity today uh than my parents and grandparents ever had. Um did I ever feel like I have every single
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opportunity available to me? No, not so much. And you know, and I think I think the biggest thing that I try to do,
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which you know, may be wrong or maybe right, is that I try to spend less time uh focusing on the things that I don't
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have and more time focusing on the opportunities and things that are in front of me. Uh, and sometimes that's
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like hard to do because uh, you know, I remember growing up I went to a small private school, you know, Providence Day
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and I remember then like the tuition was like it was like $16,000 a year and I was like where who can afford this? and
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and uh you know I had my parents like were very middle class and uh they didn't have a Lexus or a Mercedes or a
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big house or any of those things and um and you know and it would have been very
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easy for me to say you know look this isn't fair or you know you know I want
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what they have or you know but I think that at the same time there were like people who lived in the neighborhood
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that I lived in that had half of what we had uh so it's when you look at race as a whole um
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and I think and race and you can go for race and can be substituted with gender with sexuality
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u with uh you know socioeconomics uh I don't think that I I don't think that there's like a silver bullet or a
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silver there's no cure all for the different ways that we're viewed. I think we just as a culture and a
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community, we need to have open hearts and open minds as we continue to grow that, you know, everyone out there has a
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story to be told, has value to be added to whether or not it's a business or to
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the creative process, to the university, to an organization. Uh, and you know, if
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we continue to try to do that, I think we grow as a country. So, what's one lesson that you want our students and
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alumni to take away from from your book and your experiences? Yeah. Um I I think the the biggest lesson out
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there uh that I that I um that I write about is um so when I was when I played at Duke, I was a very um I
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was a utility player. Everyone thinks that I was like the star because I was a captain at for the Duke basketball team.
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I was like I was a captain as a senior, but when I was a freshman, I was a walk-on. I never thought I was going to
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get on the court. Um, and there is value to be had in like in the small things. You know, every every um
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scenario that you're in is not going to always be uh exactly how you envision it
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or exactly what you want it to be. Um, when I played at Duke, I would have much rather been like JJ Reic or Shane Badier
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and like national player of the year and leading scorer, but I never was. But I got I feel like I got just as much value
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as having been a role player there as the guys who were superstars. And um and the same way when I worked on the
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campaign and in the White House, I was never like a chief of staff or legislative director. Um, but I feel
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like I learned uh just as much and had just as a significant experience for me personally to have been there just as a
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personal aid and not the guy who's like writing the legislation or deciding who's going to go in to kill Bin Laden
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or any of those things. So, you know, I think sometimes, you know, there's a
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there there's a lot of value to be had in things that don't necessarily seem as
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sexy and as cool as as you may want them to be. [Music]