David Simas
Appearances
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
My parents, Portugal, when they were being brought up, was a dictatorship. Antonio Salazar was the dictator, had been the dictator for decades. There was secret police all over the place. And so they didn't have an understanding or an appreciation for liberty or basic ideas of freedom or democracy.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And so when they immigrated, especially my dad, oh my goodness, we would watch the news every single day. I remember reading the newspaper with him as a little boy. And it would always be the mindset of a citizen as someone who had a voice and had a responsibility to be informed and to participate. And when he would talk about it, there was a reverence to it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
that was informed by the experience that both he and my mother had come from. And so for me, politics was always this ultimate expression of the sovereignty of the people. And oh, I just followed all of it. I remember being a young man. My father was a very conservative Republican. And so Ronald Reagan was the epitome for him.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
But I remember one day where he was saying wonderful things about the governor of New York, a man named Mario Cuomo, a liberal Democrat during the era of Reagan. And I said to him, I'm like, Dad, they could not be more different. And he's like, well, that's kind of where you're wrong. Have you ever listened to the way they talk about this country?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Have you ever listened to the way they talk about the promise of this country? And that when you listen to the poetry of a Mario Cuomo and the poetry of a Ronald Reagan, The means to get there were different. And so I just fell in love with that.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
So I ran for office when I was a young man and it just began the political career of engaging that all of a sudden ended up in a crazy way with, it was the inauguration of Barack Obama. I had not worked on the campaign. I had been working for the governor of Massachusetts, a man named Deval Patrick. My wife and I were in Washington. All of a sudden, my flip phone rang. I answered it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And there was a man who was purporting to be David Axelrod, the chief advisor to the president of the United States. And I thought it was a joke. He's like, this is David Axelrod. I said, yeah, right, I'm Barack Obama. And he said, no, you're not. I was just with him. I said, oh, blank. And I said, how can I help you? Aren't you busy?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And he said, your boss, Governor Patrick of Massachusetts, says that you're interested in a job. I said, well, yeah, but why are you calling me? And he said, I need an assistant. And are you available for an interview tomorrow? Alana, I had never been in the White House. And so the next day, after a completely sleepless night of not even knowing what I'm interviewing for, so you can't prepare.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Ilana, I am so glad to be here with you today. It's always a little weird and nerve-wracking to talk about yourself, but I am sure that given how good you are at this, it'll be a good chat.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
I walk by, and this never got old. You go through the North Gate onto the North Lawn, and the White House is there in front of you. You then approach the West Wing. And if the president is in the Oval Office or in the West Wing, there is a United States Marine at the door. And you know this with your background as a military. He or she is in complete dress, not making eye contact.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
But as soon as you get to the point, they open up the door and then you're in the West Wing of the White House. David called me. Finally, I went into his office, which was the office adjacent to the Oval. He asked me how much I was making for salary. I told him, he's like, well, this job only pays 50% of that. I'm like, okay. He asked me how many hours I worked per week.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
I said, probably around 60. He's like, well, this will be much more than that. He asked me how much time I spent with my family and my daughters. I told him, he's like, well, maybe Sundays. And after he went through this litany of terrible things, he said, so why do you want this job? I said, Mr. Axelrod, my parents are two Portuguese immigrants who grew up in a fascist dictatorship.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
I am sitting in the West Wing of the White House with the opportunity to serve the president of the United States and the American people. Why wouldn't I want that opportunity? And as he was walking me out, he didn't say, he said, let me call you in 72 hours. Ilana, we went into the hallway. The president had left. He walks me into the oval.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And I was standing there looking at the resolute desk, looking at the bust of Dr. King, looking at the eagle that on the floor and those images that I've always, I remember seeing that place and thinking to myself, this is either the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me or one of the cruelest things after he tells me I'm not getting the job.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And I got the job and it began a 14-year relationship with the president, which is amazing.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
It only happened, obviously, because my boss, the governor, who had known David for a while, vouched for me and vouched for his assessment of my capacity to work, but also his assessment of who I was as a person. A few months after, when I finally asked David, Axelrod, hey, man, I didn't work on the campaign. I didn't go to an Ivy League school. I went to Stonehill College, a commuting school.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
I'm a lawyer. I've been in politics. I've never been and worked in Washington. Why me? And essentially his answer, I'm paraphrasing, was that's exactly why. Because what he wanted, what he needed at that moment was someone he trusted implicitly, vouched for from a character and a work ethic perspective, who had never been, tainted is the wrong word, but too immersed in the culture of Washington.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Still had that outsider's perspective. And because of my background in politics, and I think the thing that was most interesting to David, when I ran for office when I was in my early 20s, And in running for office, what I did was I knocked on thousands of doors and had hundreds of conversations, mostly listening to people.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
So my parents, who are still alive and still live in Taunton, Massachusetts, are two Portuguese immigrants. My mom grew up in rural southern part of Portugal. My dad grew up in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean in the Azores Archipelago in an island called São Miguel, St. Michael. His village was probably 300 people, literally in the middle of nowhere.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And then you take what you're listening to and you engage with them, both in a conversation, but then to inform how you're gonna approach, if you win, the process of governing. And so what I found out was He wanted someone with a fresh set of eyes who understood politics at the most basic neighborhood, interpersonal level, because, and this is one thing that I learned in love,
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
To this day, the overwhelming majority of people do not approach democracy, the American Republic, governing or politics via an ideology or a set perspective. Some do. Those are the partisans. But most people are living their lives. They will check in periodically, and they want to make sure that the people that they put in charge are listening to them and connected with them.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And that's what I heard on the doors when I was knocking. I was running for my school board, so I had my policy, my 15-point plan, and I was prepared to talk about the plan. No one ever wanted to talk about my 15-point plan for education in my hometown. What they wanted to know was who my parents were, what school did I go to, what church did I attend.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
They wanted to get a little bit about who I was. Why? because what they're doing is they are entrusting in you their agency to say, okay, I don't know you, but you are going to act on my behalf. You are going to be my voice. That's not a political or a substantive issue. At its core, there's something much deeper than that. So on the one hand, it was the lack of Washington experience.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And on the other hand, it was a depth of local interpersonal political experience that just made me lucky at that moment in time to be there.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Yeah. So you just alluded to it, Ilana. It was the best job ever. I was the luckiest person on the planet because I would leave Washington. I would fly to... someplace in the country, I'll just say Des Moines, Iowa. On a Tuesday night, I'd be in a bar or at a restaurant. No one knows who I am. I'm not talking about politics, but I'm just listening and talking to everybody around me.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Politics generally would come up, and I'm just receiving. The next night, I'm behind a two-way mirror in the focus group, listening to people talking about their lives, their communities, their assessment of Washington. And one thing stuck with me, there are many that stuck with me, but the one I'll mention now was there was a question about immigration.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And obviously, that's something happening now, not only in the United States, but globally. And we had some work to do around immigration. And the purpose of the listening session was to get at the core of the emotion around the issue. And so I remember this one woman was saying, look, I don't blame folks for coming here. I don't blame folks even when they cut the line. I get it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
I don't condone it, but I get it. But what bothers me is that the school rooms are now filled with kids. The emergency rooms are now filled with folks, many of whom I don't think are paying their taxes because they're all working under the table. And so they cut the line. And now I think that they're getting benefits that other people aren't getting. I've got two jobs.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
I'm struggling to make ends meet. And it just burns me that this is happening. It's not right. It's not fair. You know what didn't come up? Race, nation of origin, or any other kind of identitarian factor. It was this perception of both line cutting, unfair, and a lack of reciprocity, unfair. And so my then job was to take these conversations, fly back to Washington,
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
The furthest that they went in school, their formal education ended at the age of 10. Hard workers, folks who left everything behind to start something new in a country that they had never been in. It is the American story, which is so amazing. And so the piece of Taunton, my hometown that stays with me, is I have a very vivid recollection of living in two cultures always.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
In the morning, on a Thursday morning, I'd come back and I'd brief the senior team, here's what I heard. And then I would go into the Oval Office, sit across from the president, and he would say, hey, what'd you hear? And I would tell him this story of how voters were perceiving this. And every single time, there was this, for me at least, I can't speak for him, nor will I,
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
But there was this transference where I was in this position where my job was to, in a non-editorial, non-judgmental way, to tell him precisely what I heard, the words I heard, and my assessment of the emotion I heard, Ilana in the light most favorable to the individuals that had conveyed that message. at that moment in time, right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Because one of the insights that he gave in passing that just stuck with me, and this happens with leadership of any kind, he said, look, as soon as I became the president, the ability to have anyone talk to me in the way they used to passed.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
That was the job. And the responsibility to do that without, and it's, look, it's impossible because I have my own baggage, right? But to present to him without judgment, some ugly stuff, some beautiful things, but as much in an unfiltered way as possible was extraordinary. Thank you for reminding me of that because, God, that was a gift.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
There was a what we learned was a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, while the president, Obama, was still the president. And I remember vividly where he said something like, at moments like this. Our job, and he pointed to all of us essentially, was to make sure that, these are my words now, that we don't inflame the emotions that arise in that moment.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Because the emotions naturally of people when there's been a tragedy like that are raw in the sense that we need to do things about it is immediate. At that moment, the president serves as a way to not cool things down, but to just take that collective deep breath before we act. You have your emotion, you understand it, you create the space then to act in a way that is meaningful.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
The other wonderful example of it is if you think about, I think one of the most amazing acts of presidential leadership in my lifetime was after the September 11th attacks. George W. Bush went to a mosque. Right? The image and the importance in that moment for this deeply Christian man to go into a mosque because he knew where the emotions were going and could go.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
That's one example, both with Obama and Bush that I saw that. Another very quick example of presidential leadership, early in the first term, when the auto industry was collapsing in the United States, the great recession and the financial collapse was intense. And I remember, essentially, the President Obama was weighing whether or not to do a bailout of the auto industry.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Ilana, the polling in the focus groups were terrible on this. People's reaction was, you know what? They made their bed. To hell with them. No bailouts for anybody. My job... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
When I went to school, it was as if I was going to America. When I came back home at the end of the school day, I was going back to Portugal. And when I went back home, the food was Portuguese. The radio was Portuguese music. My aunts, my uncles, my mom, my dad, my grandparents, my cousins, everyone was talking in Portuguese with an English
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
mixed in, but then you would leave and I'd be with my parents and we'd go to McDonald's or we'd go to someplace else. And it was this, I have a vivid memory of trying to like reconcile wanting to be American, but also being anchored and tethered to the very different way of being of my parents. And so that bicultural tension, that bicultural, how do I fit in? What do I retain?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
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Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And I guess as many young people that have had that experience, I wanted so desperately to be American that I bristled. I didn't like the Portuguese aspect and wanted to leave it all behind until I was in my 20s and then now in my mid-50s. And oh my goodness, Ilana, that part of me.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
But when it happens, I mean, how many times have you, God knows this happens to me all the time, you're about to go into a meeting. You're prepared. There's one person that's going to be in the meeting that makes you nuts.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And you know, as soon as they open their mouth, it's almost like when you're driving to Thanksgiving day dinner or Christmas dinner or whatever, and you're like, oh God, so-and-so is going to be there.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And you convince yourself that this time it's going to be different. And as soon as you see them, the blood rushes to your... And then you lose control. You have literally ceded your agency to them or to some variant of you, right? And so again, I'm not pontificating. I'm not. This is like a constant struggle.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
I am lucky. You are lucky. All of us are lucky. I can still walk. I can see. I've got a wife whom I've been married to for 28 years, who's my best friend. I've got two daughters who are amazing. My parents are still alive. Now, this isn't to ignore personal tragedy, interpersonal tragedy, global tragedy. It occurs. It's part of who I am, but it's not all of who I am.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And I adore it now. It's something that's so, but that biculturalism and that desire to fit in was always something that I think to this day, I carry with me a little bit.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Yeah. That's the hope. That's the aspiration. That's what you try to do.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And that the only thing I truly control are my thoughts, my words, and my actions. Beyond that, I can influence, I can have some kind of effect, but the centrality of my behavior and my agency over my behavior, it's back in the courtroom. Like, don't be obnoxious. Don't be self-righteous because you have a little bit of knowledge and there's an asymmetry of that. How do you handle that?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
My parents are two Portuguese immigrants who grew up in a fascist dictatorship. I am sitting in the West Wing of the White House with the opportunity to serve the President of the United States and the American people. Why wouldn't I want that opportunity?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
How do you present it? That's on you. That for me, just to go back to, but probably I wouldn't have listened. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. It's like you have to go through all of the bad stuff to say, okay, that's actually on me. I did that. You know, when I get angry during the course of the day, it's the, okay, yes, perhaps I am justified. Perhaps that person acted in a way that is inappropriate and wrong, and I am justified in my anger. All right. Now what?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
What am I going to do with that, right? What is my response? What is my behavior? How do I act in a way that doesn't do harm to myself or to others? And it's not in a kind of safetyism or like none of this is safe space stuff. The world is messy.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
But my relationship to it and how I behave and act, that is the thing that I wish that I could go back and train young David a little bit earlier, because perhaps the muscle memory would have been a little bit stronger than it is today at 55 years of age.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Yeah, especially on Alana. What a wonderful way to end. I am a proud American. I love this country and everything that it has given to me, this American Republic and the democracy that we have. Democracy is a process. It's not an end goal. In the process, requires a sense of reciprocity. It requires an openness to others who are not like me, who don't agree with me.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
It doesn't mean I cede my beliefs. I keep those things that are core to me and my principles. But my fellow citizens, the grace and the openness and the understanding and the respect as a fellow citizen that I give to my compatriot on this process of democracy as sovereigns. It's especially in moments where it's tested that the power of the idea really becomes central.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
So thank you for creating this space and for the conversation. And I can't wait to see you in person at some time so we can geek out.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Thank you.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
They immigrate from Portugal and because they really don't have a formal education, they're working in factories. And my mother worked in a silver factory making forks and spoons and knives and silverware. And it was mostly women on her floor. And one day the machine malfunctioned. And just the way the machine was set up, she couldn't, even though she noticed that it malfunctioned,
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
you had a split second to remove your hands from the press. And the way the forks and spoons and knives are made is literally it would press down. And unfortunately for her, something impeded her ability to remove her left hand entirely. And in the blink of an eye, this young 20-some-year-old woman loses two fingers on her hands. And for them, all you have
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
are your arms and your hands and your back and your legs and the physical labor that you're using to build this new life. And everything was thrown at that moment
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And I thank you for asking because what I remember so vividly was even though she was suffering and my dad was suffering, even though I was little, the memories of my family and my neighbors and to me, a little boy, this entire community at that moment in time coming to lift up my mom to lift up my dad gave you that sense of, at that moment of peril, at that moment when you fall,
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
a sense of both family, but also that sense of a broader community. We'll be there for you. Yes, these other immigrants who are going through the same thing. And for them, because it also was a very deeply religious, deeply Catholic community, there was always this, not a fatalism necessarily, Ilana, but like, okay, this has happened. Now, what do we have?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
If this was what happened, we now have to lift each other up. And that sense of community, even as I fast forward through different parts of my career, it would come up in my mind over and over and over again. And the other thing about that, let me just say about them, which is why they are not just my parents, but I'm lucky enough that I can say that they are heroes and inspirational.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
They never once complained. I never heard them or my mom specifically complain about what had befallen them. If they did, they would close the door or never show their child, their son, or then their daughter, my sister, who was born, And so it was always this, okay, this terrible thing has happened. What am I going to do? What am I going to adapt?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
I remember her doing physical therapy with a tennis ball where just for hours she would be squeezing the ball. Why? Because she needed to and wanted to get back to work.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
When you show up somewhere and people know who you work for, you are representing them. There's no downtime. There's no off time. It is a reflection on them. Democracy is a process. It's not an end goal. It requires an openness to others who are not like me, who don't agree with me.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
So the law for me, actually, it flowed from, I remember the person who represented my mother. And it was from that young age, I said, that's what I want to be. That's who I want to be. And I mean, he was physically like this very short man, but to me, he was this unbelievable giant. So from a young age, I wanted to be a lawyer.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
But the biggest takeaway for me once I got to law school was the practice and the discipline of legal training requires the following. It requires a broad understanding of the basic rules and the structures, the system. It requires the regulation not to memorize them, but to have the ability in that moment when you need to, to go find it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Once you have that understanding then of the rules, because you're dealing with different fact patterns that always arise, how then do I take a series of different facts
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
that are always up for grabs that it requires you to have a broad and open perspective about memory about recall about perception of the people you're dealing with and then take the ever-changing facts and apply them to the rules to the law to the structure and then most importantly either in writing or verbally, to make the case, to argue the proposition, to tell the story.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And so there are these three components that then I just saw after law school and after the practice of law, that this thinking, this approach is applicable everywhere because what do you do in any environment? What are the basic rules? What is the circumstance that I find myself in? How do I apply that set of circumstances against the rule?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And then how do I add value and tell the story or to engage in a persuasive way for myself and for others? That is applicable everywhere. everywhere. And the beauty of the legal training, there's this, Ilana, many folks who are listening to this will know, the Socratic method of teaching.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And so you show up in your class, you've had to read the specific case, and all of a sudden the professor goes through the list of 100 students and says, Mr. Simas, are you here? And all of a sudden you want to, like, hide.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And the first question or two will be very basic based upon what you read, and then the professor will do this. Okay, even though the case had these facts, how do you think about what you read if you change this fact or that fact?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
All of a sudden, this isn't a rote and superficial memorization of it, but it is a critical analysis and a deep understanding of the philosophy of the underlying currents of the notion that things in general are both conditional and provisional. You're reacting to the conditions that you find, but you also understand that they are provisional in terms of The only constant is change.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And that's the beauty of both the legal practice, but also the legal training that I've just, to this day, even though I haven't practiced law in forever, I apply it every day.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Less as a law student, but I remember when I was practicing law, Very early, I was practicing law, and I thought I was 100% right. And, you know, it was young, cocky, show up at the local court, and I'm cross-examining a police officer who had pulled over my client.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
The culture in Washington is a constant fight. You need to...
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And just based upon what the police officer had said in his police report, likely if the judge, in my opinion, followed the law, that report and the testimony would be thrown out and my client would be fine. So the police officer, I walked him through on the stand. He basically repeated what he said in the police report.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And then again, in a fairly obnoxious kind of self-righteous way, I cited a United States Supreme Court precedent and told the judge that he was required to suppress the testimony. Alana, the look on the judge's face turned, this look of anger came across his face, called me and the assistant district attorney to the bench.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
And he basically said to me, I'm going to deny your motion because you didn't understand this precedent and that precedent. And frankly, I don't like your attitude. As I was leaving, the assistant district attorney, who was probably 30 years older than I was at the time, so in his mid-50s and had been doing this a long time, put his arm around me and he's like, look,
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Kid, you're gonna learn that when you're in front of this judge, when you make the arguments that you are making, nothing is ever 100% right or 100% wrong. You need to understand him.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
Right? That was just an amazing lesson that in very few things, very few things in life can you say with certainty that what I am saying to you is definitively right, incorrect, or fact. It's one of the things even in politics, in the practice of politics, the discernment between fact and opinion and fact and information is important.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Former Obama Foundation President: How to Lead Through the Toughest Moments | David Simas
That there are very few things that you can actually treat as settled fact. The rest, You're in persuasion mode. And if you're in persuasion mode, it brings a very different way of being and engaging that's important.