Page 50 - Leadership Secrets of Hillary Clinton

SMART POWER

our comfort zone can be good for important reasons in our
personal life, yet it can also be self-limiting. I was still
young, 32 years of age, and I asked myself, “What is the
worst that can happen if I take the job in the East Coast?”
There were certainly pluses in taking a job that would pro-
vide a rich and deep level of experience that in the short
run and the long run would provide a higher level of com-
pensation and, more important, would be a great stepping-
stone that would set me up for many other choices and
opportunities in my career. It also would give me the
chance to live in an entirely different part of the United
States, which, since I was a girl from the Midwest, would
expand my own experience of what it’s like to live in a new
and exciting place in our country—the backyard of the
White House.
I then said to myself, “What’s the greatest fear that I
have about whether I can manage that?” A big fear was just
the unknown and not being able to fulfill the expectations
of the job. Yet I knew myself, and I have always been a
good learner who was willing to immerse myself in the new
job while finding some good mentors who would support
me along the way. I then said, “I will give myself two years,
and if the new job doesn’t work out, I will come back to the
Midwest and rebuild my career and life there again.” I
ended up taking the job and staying at Fairchild for six
years. It was an opportunity of a lifetime for me, and it
opened up many new doors for me from a learning and

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