Trust in CX: Lessons from the Executive Assistant to Ronald Reagan
In the latest episode of the Delighted Customers podcast, Peggy Grande shares her fascinating journey from a regular middle-class family to becoming the executive assistant to President Ronald Reagan. From her unlikely selection to be the executive assistant for Ronald Reagan to her touching farewell to the 40th President of the United States, her stories provide invaluable lessons in building trust, particularly through the lens of the trust equation.
Here are some key takeaways:
Credibility: Peggy’s story emphasizes the importance of intuitive confidence and competence. She recalls, “I was young, yet I had to present myself as a voice of authority, even when I wasn’t always completely confident in myself.” This highlights that beyond technical skills, credibility is built by speaking confidently and being willing to take on tasks and make decisions quickly.
Reliability: Peggy demonstrated the immense value of dependability by always being present and prepared. She mentions, “I made it a habit to arrive at the office every day about a half hour before the office officially opened.” Showing up consistently and anticipating needs is a cornerstone of reliability.
Intimacy: Building a safe space for confidential discussions and knowing when to offer empathy is essential. Peggy recounts a touching instance during Reagan’s Alzheimer’s battle, noting how she had to step in discreetly to help him finish a familiar story. This exemplifies psychological safety and the delicate balance of being supportive without undermining.
Self-Orientation: Selflessness in serving another’s best interests can build profound trust. Peggy showcases this by emphasizing personalization in her tasks, such as learning Reagan’s preferences and structuring his day accordingly. Her focus on others’ needs over her own effectively strengthened her relationships and trustworthiness.
Show Notes:
Meet Peggy
Peggy Grande was Executive Assistant to President Ronald Reaganfrom 1989 – 1999, after he left the White House. She is author of the book, “The President Will See You Now: My Stories and Lessonsfrom Ronald Reagan’s Final Years.” She served as a Presidential appointee during the Trump Administration and considers it thehonor of a lifetime to have worked for two Presidents of the United States in both support and strategic roles.
Peggy is an international keynote speaker, TV and radio commentator, and widely published opinion writer in the US, UK,
Australia, and the Middle East. She was Chair of World for Brexit and was national spokesperson for a California ballot initiative. She
serves on the Board of Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy and the Board of the Center for American Ideas.
Peggy is a graduate of Pepperdine University, mother of four grown children, and has two granddaughters.
LInkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenpeterson/
Website: https://www.questionpro.com/us/?
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The Delighted Customers Podcast is sponsored by Better Help
Transcript
Mark Slatin:
Well, on this episode of the delighted customers podcast, we are stepping a little bit outside of the fairway. And we’re going to take, I think, a very fun ride together with a very special person, a unique person who knows a lot about delighting customers in a very unique way. And today I’m really fortunate to have on the show the executive assistant for President Ronald Reagan and author of the book, The President Will See You Now, a memoir, my stories and lessons from Ronald Reagan’s final years. Peggy Grandy, welcome to the show.
Peggy Grande: Thank you so much, Mark, for having me on. It’s a pleasure to be with you today.
Mark Slatin: So much fun and so impressed. If you haven’t read the book, please pick it up. It’s a it’s a fun read. It’s an interesting read. It’s an insightful read. It’s also a very touching read and a behind the scenes look from someone who is a true insider in the life and times of the president. And so, Peggy, I’d like you to talk a little bit. I want to start off with kind of the early part of the story. And I think people might be interested to know, how does someone get that job? How do you become executive assistant for the president? of the United States.
Peggy Grande: Well, I appreciate the opportunity to tell my story and to talk with your listeners today. You know, it was just meant to be, I guess, is the only way, whether you’re a person of faith and you believe that God picked me from obscurity and dropped me into a place like that, or whether you just believe in destiny or fate. I think it was meant to be. I came from a regular middle class family. My family were teachers and educators. I had no political ties. My grandma, though, she was a flag-waving patriot, and I think she taught me to have a love of country and also love the Dodgers and baseball. But we’re talking about love of country right now. And so from a very early age, I remember just being fascinated with the whole idea of presidents and first ladies and the White House and Washington, D.C. But I grew up in Southern California, 3,000 miles away. It might as well have been space for all I ever knew about Washington, D.C. But life is funny sometimes. And I went to college at Pepperdine University right there in Los Angeles. And in the White House at the time was the great communicator. I didn’t study politics because what are the chances that a woman would ever go into politics, especially living in Southern California? So I studied communications. And of course, during my study, I studied a lot about the great communicator and he in a lot of ways, was the convergence of everything I love. So faith, politics. He was a man of, he was Christian and had great principles and values. He was a great patriot. He loved this country. And he lived in Southern California after he left the White House. And so that’s how we crossed paths. He first came to Pepperdine. He gave a post-presidency speech at the university and then opened an office right near the university. Again, no connections, no chance I could ever work for somebody like that, right? But my dad taught me to believe that somebody’s got to have the job you want, and it might as well be you. So I took notes on an old typewriter, wrote, typed a letter to the office of Ronald Reagan, licked an envelope and a stamp, sent it off, never even thinking I’d hear from them. I was shocked when my phone rang and it was the office of Ronald Reagan inviting me in for an interview. I was terribly nervous, but very excited and thought, well, if this is my closest touch to politics or somebody important, this will be it. So I went off to the interview, very excited, very nervous. Didn’t really have any idea what to expect, but had a feeling that my life would never be the same after that day, and it certainly was not. So I go to this interview. I think that it goes pretty well. At the end of the interview, I’m sitting in the lobby waiting for them to validate my parking. As a starving college student, I was really glad. In an expensive office in Century City, they were going to give me parking stickers. But as I’m sitting there kind of exhaling, thinking things maybe went okay, the doors open on the other side of the lobby and walking right toward me is Ronald Reagan. And I’m going to be honest, it’s a little embarrassing. I kind of panic because I don’t know what to do. I’ve never been around anybody important. And he’s flanked by United States Secret Service. And I think, well, Should I run? Should I hide? Do they know who I am? Are they going to arrest me or shoot me? They don’t know who I am or what I’m doing here.” So I thought about, well, what would I do if the flag was passing by? So I stood up and I put my hand over my heart. I didn’t even look at him because I didn’t want it to seem threatening. And I’m sure I looked completely ridiculous, but he walked over, shook my hand, looked me in the eye. And I’ll never forget that moment looking into those beautiful blue eyes that had so much joy and so much love of life. And my life truly was never the same after that day. But they offered me a job for what I thought would be a short-term internship. And so as I was graduating college, I worked there as an intern. And then at the end of the internship, they hired me to be the executive assistant to the chief of staff And then a couple of years after working there, the executive assistant to the president himself, she retired and they asked me to take that job. So you don’t say no to a job opportunity like that. I was six months pregnant with my first baby. Wasn’t quite sure how I was going to navigate all of that, but wound up working for Ronald Reagan from 1989, right after he left the White House until 1999. when he left the public eye and consider myself to be the luckiest woman in the world to have had a front row seat to history and sit outside his office door every day for a decade.
Mark Slatin: What an awesome story. And, you know, it sounds, I don’t know what I would do. I think, you know, there’s the President of the United States and you’re so close, you’re right in his proximity and what do you do? You know, you think about a soldier, if it was a military commander and a soldier was there, he’d salute. So what would you do?
Peggy Grande: Well, when you talk about preparing for an interview and, you know, I thought about some of the questions they might ask me and how I would respond, I don’t know why it had never dawned on me that Ronald Reagan might actually work in the office of Ronald Reagan. I haven’t ever mentally even prepared myself for what I would do if that moment happened. And even though I was terribly embarrassed because the woman who had interviewed me watched the whole thing play out, I do love that moment because so many times then over the next decade, we would bump into people out in public and watching their reaction to meeting him for the first time too, made me not feel so bad about how I reacted.
Mark Slatin: Well, and then to go full circle and you have to read the book, but, um, you know, the bookend to that story is at the end of his life, and you had become an insider, and you had a chance to get to be in the, in the family home when he was going through his Alzheimer’s. And you, you also put your hand over your heart. You want, you want to tell us a little bit about that story?
Peggy Grande: I did. And, you know, to your point, fast forwarding to kind of the end of the story, Ronald Reagan is suffering with Alzheimer’s. Mrs. Reagan was so gracious and always gave me an open door to the home to come up and visit anytime. And so every time that I visited with him the last couple of years, I wasn’t sure if it would be my last visit with him or not. But this particular time, I just had a feeling this might be my last visit. And I sat with him for quite a while and held his hand and talked to him and he was you know, very quiet, opened his eyes and looked at me with a little twinkle at one point where I thought, maybe he knows that either he knows that woman or maybe he likes that woman. And it’s been a nice few years with her. But when I was leaving, how do you leave a man, an opportunity, a life like that? And so I stood at the side of his bed with my hand on his leg and put my hand up over my heart and saluted him just like I had done the first time I met him. walked out. And of course, the tears came, but it was a very hard goodbye. But I wanted to say goodbye to him, not just for myself, but for everybody, for America, for the world, for people who never had a chance to meet him, that if they had had the opportunity, would have also said, thank you, Mr. President, for your service, for your patriotism, for your leadership. And so that was my way to do that.
Mark Slatin: What a great story. And I appreciate you willing to come on and talk through the lens of the trust equation. If you follow my podcast, you know, I talk a lot about trust, the importance of being trustworthy, as a trusted guide to make change and to delight customers. And, and so Peggy has agreed to allow us to walk through the four variables of the trust equation and apply some of her own applications and that came to life in the book. And those are credibility, reliability, intimacy, and self-orientation for those of you who don’t know. So setting the stage for this entire high stakes situation, one of the youngest people in the office and then going through a number of significant transitions through the years. Let’s, let me start with credibility. And when we talk about credibility, and this is, this is a trustworthiness, it’s called the trust equation, and it comes from the trusted advisor book. But it really could be called a trustworthiness equation, because it is the variables that have to do with how you can become more trustworthy. So credibility is one that really has a lot to do, it goes beyond technical skills and credentials, but speaking with confidence and willingness to take on task and looking someone in the eyes. And I took an excerpt from the book here where you said, I was young, yet I had to present myself as a voice of authority. Even when I wasn’t always completely confident in myself, the pace of life and business didn’t allow for the luxury of second guessing. So it meant that I had to make many quick decisions to learn to trust my instincts. You say more about that?
Peggy Grande: Yeah. And again, thanks for taking time to read through my book. That’s the biggest gift that we can give somebody is the gift of time. So I appreciate your time and giving it to my story. But yeah, I started very young. I was a college student. I had very little job experience. I had worked at Nordstrom, working through college, but this was my first, you could call it a big girl job. And boy, was it a big girl job. And even though I did feel very young and green and obviously a little bit out of place, I had this intuitive confidence and competence, relying on the competence that I had. So people say, Oh, you were so lucky to get that job. I think you have to create a little luck. I took the initiative to contact the office, even though I didn’t know if they would ever look at my letter or hire me. But then I was ready and prepared to catch that look when it came my way. So I had gone to school, I had studied well, I had done well in my studies, and so I was ready to catch that look. I knew I didn’t know everything, and so I wanted to do the tasks that they gave me with excellence, but I also did it kind of with big eyes and big ears. So looking around the office, how did everybody in the office dress? I wanted to dress like the staff, not like the interns. How did they talk on the phone? How did they handle delicate situations? How did they get what they wanted while still keeping the relationship intact? How did they diplomatically ask the question or move the person they were talking to diplomatically to the point of agreeing? I really listened to those things. Eventually, when I finished my internship, they offered me a staff position because they probably looked and said, well, she dresses like us. She talks like us. She knows what piece of the puzzle she plays and how that fits into the bigger picture. And so it was a really natural fit. to continue on as a staff person because I had not only done my internship job with excellence, but I had really tried to see myself in that staff position. What could that look like and how could I be prepared if that opportunity came? Now, to your point, my skill set was not great. I didn’t know a lot. But I learned as I went and presented myself in a way of confidence and confidence, asking hopefully good questions along the way to fill in any gaps in my knowledge. And I think ultimately, it came down to it wasn’t so much what I could do or what I did, but who I was. And I think they trusted that, and that allowed them to then give me more authority, more responsibility, more trust in the things that I could do because I think they learned first to trust who I was.
Mark Slatin: And kudos to you for being courageous and brave enough to act with confidence. I mean, this is this is really what the authors talked about when they talked about building credibility in the sense of being trustworthy. Yes, it’s the lab jacket if you’re a doctor or the certificate on the wall for your degree, if you’re a lawyer, whatever. But it’s beyond that, really. And it has to do with exactly what you talked about, which is being bold, you know, being confident. And we’re not talking about arrogance here. We’re talking about just a humble confidence that you have.
Peggy Grande: And trusting yourself. And while I knew that my skill set was maybe limited at first, I trusted the people around me to be good mentors, and to train me, and to teach me, and to coach me, even when they didn’t realize it. A lot of it was just doing my job at my little intern desk, but listening to how these other things were happening. And so the people around me taught me without even realizing it, but I was open to learn. And I was like a sponge soaking it up. And it is a very different feeling than arrogance because eventually I ran the internship program. And so I had all these young people coming in and the ones that sat there and said, oh, I can do all these great things. And I’m going to be president in 2040. You just watch. It’s like, OK, thank you. Thanks for coming in. But it was the ones who came in and said, I am so honored to be here. Here’s the things that I’ve done, but I’m really looking forward to learning because I know I have so much growth that could happen here. I bring a little bit to the table, but I look forward to watching that exponentially change by an experience here. Those were the ones that I was more likely to hire than the ones who acted like they knew it all because I knew that they didn’t.
Mark Slatin: What a great, what a great example of credibility. And then the second one is reliability and reliability really has to do with dependability and predictability. Um, and so I think about a quote, an excerpt from the book, uh, two of them I have here. I made it a habit to arrive at the office every day, about a half hour before the office officially opened in 90 minutes before the president arrived. And then the president liked to read the funnies first, his quote-unquote dessert, before he got to the main course of his daily reading. So I would take that section out of the Los Angeles Times and refold the comics on the top.
Peggy Grande: Yeah. Reliability, so much of life is just showing up. And the fact that I just showed up probably made a big difference between me getting the job that I did or not, or getting the promotion that I did or not. I just showed up every day as an intern. I just showed up every day as the executive assistant to the chief of staff. And in that role, I actually got the opportunity to kind of test run being the executive assistant to the president because just the way the office was set up, most of the office was on the other side of the lobby, the conference room, and then over on the side of the office that I worked on, the only people that were over there were the president. his assistant, the chief of staff, and his assistant. And so there was just four of us. So anytime the president’s assistant was away from her desk, away for the day on vacation, I would swing over and serve in that role. And then we would bring somebody over to help support the chief of staff as well. And so there was this opportunity to support him in a way that was comfortable and familiar by the time I got there, because I was already a familiar face and had worked with him a little bit in a support role. But that would never have happened if I didn’t just show up. And they need to know that you’re going to show up and that you’re going to anticipate and think and plan and prepare. And the president probably didn’t know it, but by the time he got in the door, he may have had his schedule, but I had my own schedule for him. And I knew exactly how the day was going to play out because I had given it thought. I had planned and prepared for how the day could be most productive for him, how he could enjoy it and meet the people he needed to meet and do the things he needed to do and do it in a way that made sense and that was enjoyable for him.
Mark Slatin: And Peggy, you know, we talk about reliability and one aspect of reliability that isn’t quite as obvious is personalization, like personalizing the experience. So an example of that is you became very trusted by Mrs. Reagan, and you would talk about even, I guess she loved Snoopy cards for her birthday, and they trusted you to pick out a couple of those cards. And that’s one of many examples in the book about, you know, you share stories of, you know, you got involved in designing his funeral program. You know, you, you kind of knew the things that he liked by observing him and then delivering on that and, and reliability. And it doesn’t have to be such a big thing. It could be like, we talk about offering to make the agenda for a meeting and following through on that. So it’s, it’s just delivering, but it’s also delivering in a way that the other person would really appreciate it.
Peggy Grande: Yeah, and giving the other person the preference and the thought. I mean, there were ways that I probably would have preferred to run the office or have him run his day, but I got to know him. I know what he liked, how he liked to work, the pace, the order. like the funnies on the top. It was just a great way for him to settle into the office before he worked into this busy day to just kind of have a little fun. He had a fresh glass of water there, a beautiful view of the Los Angeles skyline and Santa Monica and the ocean. And so just that was the way he liked to start his day. And so rather than bombarding him the moment he walked in, I learned that the day would go a lot better if he came in, settled in for a few minutes, And then we started the pace of the day.
Mark Slatin: So if you’re a business, you can do this at scale. And that’s part of the challenge as we think about how to personalize the experience. And we just talked about every micro situation. But imagine if you could make someone feel like you were getting your comic section folded on the top, the dessert was on top, because that’s how you light your meal. And that’s, we’re, you know, we’re seeing some of that. We’ve seen that in hospitality and some other industries. But with the advent of AI, you know, that’s what CX leaders and business leaders should be thinking about replicating what Peggy had done in, in, in President Reagan’s office.
Peggy Grande: Yeah. I think it needs to be personal. One of the things AI will never fully be able to do is to give you that personal touch, that smile, that personal interaction. I think the more we go toward AI and everything is online, people crave that human connection. How can we make that and make them feel seen and valued and important but do it in a way that still seems authentic and warm and real and not just connected to well the AI metrics.
Mark Slatin: That’s a great that’s a great point because there you know we talk about the customer journey. in customer experience, and there’s different touch points along the journey, and there are moments of truth, or there’s peak part of the experiences where you as a business ought to know about when those opportunities are for human touch. And AI is not going to be able to replace that.
Peggy Grande: And some of it is very old fashioned. And, you know, we’re bombarded by so many messages and ads and emails and things that pop up everywhere. Sometimes the simplest thing is the most meaningful. One of the things I actually started it at Nordstrom, although I should give my mother credit. My mother used to always say we couldn’t play with the Christmas gift or spend the money until we wrote a thank you note. Nordstrom was really big on writing to our customers and thanking them for shopping with us and for giving us the opportunity to serve them. President Reagan was so good at taking pen to paper and writing to people personally. I put a picture in my book, and I tell the story of we’re flying back on a private jet from Washington, D.C., where President Reagan has just received the Medal of Freedom. He’s still wearing it around his neck, and I snapped this photo, and he’s sitting there on the plane, handwriting a note card, probably to President Bush, to thank him for this great honor. He had an assistant. I would have been happy to make that letter, type it up tomorrow when we got back to the office. But he wanted to say what he wanted to say, how he wanted to say it in a very personal way. And that meant more than anything. I also share in the book a picture of a doodle that he did one year for me for Christmas. And he had drawn a picture of a cowboy. I like to think maybe it’s a self-portrait of Reagan. And he said, Merry Christmas to Peggy. And he had Mrs. Reagan, and he both signed it. And when he gave it to me, he was a little apologetic saying, you know, Peggy, I wanted to do something special for you for Christmas, but you do all my shopping. So I wasn’t quite sure how he could do something for you without involving you, but I made this for you and I hope you like it. There’s nothing I treasure more. It’s from his heart, from his pen. It’s so special and yet probably very simple. And I’ll give you one other example. I went to an event, Pepperdine University, my alma mater was hosting Doug McMillan, the chairman and CEO of Walmart, spoke at this event. And he somehow, he had said something about Reagan in his remarks. And so afterwards, I took the time, I wrote a little handwritten note to him, sent him a copy of my book and said, you know, you might enjoy this book. I know you love Reagan. We share a love of Pepperdine. I think one of his kids went there, but sent it off to him. Never expected to hear from him or if anything, you know, an assistant send me a note. This is a company with how many millions of employees all around the world? A couple weeks later, I get a handwritten note card from Doug McMillan, and it says, Peggy, thank you so much for the book. Congratulations on living a life of consequence. What has stuck with me since that day? Here’s this man. When you write a handwritten note, people know you can’t be multitasking. I’m the queen of multitasking. You can’t multitask. And for that moment, whether it was 15 seconds or two minutes, that person thought of nothing and no one but you. And there’s nothing actually more powerful than that. And you can call it antiquated and simple, but I’ve gone to so many dinners where I’m sitting between a governor and a senator. I’ll drop a note into the mail right after that dinner. And within five days, I’ve got notes from both of them. So this is really still what people at the top of the game, the top of the pyramid are doing. If you really want to live a life of consequence, using that word from Doug McMillan, that’s a really simple thing you can do. And it’ll stand out in this noise of media and digital Do you remember the last person you got a handwritten note from? You don’t care about their stationery or their handwriting. You know how it made you feel. And so sometimes the simplest things, the easiest things, the most obvious things even are the things we don’t do because we’re overthinking it and trying to make it more complicated than it is. That’s a human touch. That’s a personal connection that will be memorable more than any amount of Emails you can send to anybody.
Mark Slatin: Yeah, well said 100% agree Thank you for sharing that So the next the next one of the three that are in the numerator, so you’ve got credibility reliability The last one on the top is intimacy and that really is all about psychological safety Is this a safe haven for difficult conversations? Will she be a vault? Will she know when to empathize? Will she know when to laugh or when to cry or when to not really say anything? And there’s one example that I’d like to share that really sort of summarize. I hope Charlie Green, who is a co-author of the Trusted Advisor, is listening. And if for those of you listening want to get a deeper dive, we’re just touching on the four definitions of these variables, but Charlie was on the fourth episode of Delighted Customers. So if you want to go back and listen to that one, he’s the true expert on it. But you say in, and there’s two quotes I want to share here and really have you respond particularly to the second one. One of my favorite Mrs. Reaganisms, you called it, was what she said the first time I called her to cover something confidential. Hi, Mrs. Reagan, it’s Peggy. I need to tell you something, but you didn’t hear it from me. You know, Peggy, I’m a well, not a fountain. Right. And so that is a great way to think about how you how you can be a safe haven, how you can create an environment, if you truly live it out, for psychological safety in terms of intimacy. And before you respond, I want to share this other very, very touching moment. I knew this story. It was one of my favorite funny stories going back at least 40 years for me when I first heard it. It’s a pony story. And it’s a story about, I’m not going to go into it, but you’ve got to read the book. Got to buy the book. But some of you may have heard it, and it’s a humorous story about two young boys, one’s an optimist and a pessimist. And President Reagan, this is a turning point for you. And I always wondered, someone who’s with someone every day, and we’ve all maybe had friends who’ve suffered from dementia or have had family members, relatives, neighbors, when is that turning point? When do you kind of notice and say, aha, oh boy. And this was that moment. And he was telling it to a visitor, telling the story to a visitor, and he lost track of the story and looked at you, which tells me and what and so you fill us in and what he’s telling the story got to the punchline and he looked at you. And then what?
Peggy Grande: I mean, this is a story I had heard him tell dozens, if not hundreds of times. And, you know, always people loved it and laughed and he was telling it like he always had. And he got to the very end and there was this long pause. And, you know, sometimes it’s that, that actor, that long pause that you wait for the punchline. But this time, the way he looked at me, I knew that he didn’t know. how the story ended and he had forgotten and lost the punchline. And so in that moment, I did something I would never have done before, which was step in and tell the punchline and finish it for him. And everybody laughed and, you know, and I said, thank you, Mr. President, for letting me, you know, deliver the punchline this time. There was this sinking feeling inside of me that, something was wrong. And, you know, I tried to tell the story of his Alzheimer’s in the book in a way that was revealing, but ultimately respectful. I felt like it was safe to talk about because he felt safe to talk about it with the American people. But I tried to ultimately do it in a way that respected his privacy in the end. But for anybody who is dealing with a similar challenge, You can definitely read between the lines of what I’m saying as we walked through this journey. But it very much was a turning point. And I would say my radar went up even more. Where are the times that maybe he’s looking to me to help him out, to fill him in, to keep him up to speed, to remind him of something? And so I started taking a little more initiative to step in at times that I previously would never have done so. And this was maybe even before we knew what the actual diagnosis was. And even once we got the diagnosis, there was not much information about Alzheimer’s. So we really didn’t know what we were dealing with, even though we knew what we were dealing with. Just turning up that radar, I guess, and trusting my instincts. Again, when to jump in. I didn’t want to baby him or belittle him or make him feel embarrassed that I was stepping in. I wanted to do it in a way that was seamless and supportive. and always from a place of love and care, but not wanting to insult him or overstep my bounds. And so it was this daily pendulum of what’s too much, what’s not enough, and where do I fall on that pendulum today or in this moment? And it was ever-changing, as anybody knows who has dealt with anybody who has experienced any sort of memory issue.
Mark Slatin: Yeah, yeah. Excellent. Well, very touching.
Peggy Grande: I found myself. I’ll just go back real quick to the first part that we were talking about, which was Mrs. Reagan. I’m a well, not a fountain for information. And that story almost seems like it’s an oxymoron because it is all about trust and keeping confidentiality. But part of what president and Mrs. Reagan trusted me for was that I would be the eyes and the ears and places and rooms and conversations that they didn’t hear, that they wouldn’t be privy to. And so, yes, I considered myself a well, not a fountain for information, but I also had to know when it was appropriate to take information I was privy to and share it with them because I wanted them to know things that they should know. I wanted them to know that I always had their back, that I would always tell them when there were things that maybe they needed to be aware of, even if it meant having kind of an uncomfortable conversation. And so, yes, I was a well, not a fountain for information, but ultimately I knew who I served and supported and everything I did was through the lens of what would be best for President Reagan. And so sometimes that meant being a fountain, to use Mrs. Reagan’s word, but to share with President Reagan in confidence something that I felt like he needed.
Mark Slatin: A great example of intimacy. And so the last one, which is in the denominator all by itself, is self-orientation, because it’s in the denominator because it works in the inverse relationship to trustworthiness, meaning that the more you think someone is all about themselves and for themselves, the less you trust them, should make intuitive sense. And it’s all about where’s your focus? It is on yourself, Is it on yourself or is it in on others? Um, and so, uh, you know, you, you talked a little bit about loving your role to protect, use that word, protect the president. And so I want to take a quote from the book here. Um, that, um, you talked in, in, I think in reference to Mrs. Reagan, her, her instincts about people were astute and her husband trusted her intuition over time. I grew to have strong Alliance with Mrs. Reagan. And she recognized that I shared her goals of wanting what was best for her husband and discovered that my loyalty to him ran deep and pure.
Peggy Grande: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we just talked about intimacy. It’s kind of a weird word to use in the professional sense, but when you do have a deep affection for somebody that you work with, that you care about them personally, you care how their day goes, what their legacy is, how they’re seen and respected and trusted, you do get kind of this protective side to you. And I knew for the most part, every hundred people that called or wrote to the office, 99 of them probably got me, unfortunately. But could I give them a glimpse of who he was and what he was about? Could I respond to them in the way that he would have had he had the opportunity to? Could I give them a window into who he was and how he would have interacted with them had he had the chance to? And so there is that intimacy, which leads to that ferocious kind of protection of him. I wanted to get my job right because I never wanted him to look bad or have his life be in danger or damage or tarnish his reputation or his legacy. That was so important to me. One of the reasons I got along well with Mrs. Reagan is because she knew from early on that I was ferociously loyal to her husband, that I had no agenda other than about him. It was all about him. I had no personal agenda. And so that, to your point, did make her trust me. Even when my skill set at the beginning wasn’t great, I think she knew my heart and knew that I was there and was all about him.
Mark Slatin: Maybe some leaders could think about when it comes to becoming trustworthy leaders.
Peggy Grande: Yeah, I certainly don’t have a corner on the market on this. I, you know, have had my own journey, but a couple of things that I, I guess upon reflection look at, you know, especially in the political arena, people think you have to be either strong and successful. or a kind, good person, and you have to pick. And Reagan showed me that you can be both. You can be strong and successful. You can be a kind, good person. And this strength and this resolve, this principled commitment doesn’t have to be compromised by the character of the person that you are. And so he just embodied that. And as a young person in his office, it completely changed the way that I looked at what leadership at the highest level is. He also showed us that optimism matters, the way you live your life. He was a happy warrior. He used positive language. He was very charismatic. He worked really hard. He also worked way into the retirement years, where a lot of people would have retired and gotten a motorhome and driven across the country. He was running for the most important job in the world and really showed us the longevity of life that we can have. And I guess one of the things that I wish I would have known early on is, and I’ve come to adopt this as a mindset, there’s this idea of work-life balance. And if you subscribe to the idea of work-life balance, especially for me, a young woman, small kids, full-time job, very demanding, the hours and the balance was never there. And I could have spent my whole life feeling guilty and bad about the fact, oh, my life is so out of balance. I don’t spend enough time with the kids. I’m not at work enough because I have kids. And instead, I decided to focus on work-life presence. And what that meant to me was wherever I am, I want to be fully there. And so if I’m at the office, I want to be a tornado of activity. I want to be so productive. I want to be on it and fully focused and all in. And then when I go home, I want to give the same benefits to my kids. And so the hours may not balance out, but I wanted to be able to look myself in the mirror every night and say, did I give everything I had to every place I was? And if I could answer that question, then that had to be enough.
Mark Slatin: Peggy, what a great conversation. Um, I could talk to you for hours, but we got to land the plane here. I want to, I want to, um, Ask the same question that I ask all my guests at the end of the show, which is, what advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?
Peggy Grande: Wow. I guess what I would say is what my dad told me. Someone’s got to have the job that you want, and it might as well be you. So dream big. Look for luck. Be ready to capture and land that luck when it comes your way. And live life with gratitude. you know, that work-life presence, being grateful for the opportunities to work hard, being grateful for the people you get to be surrounded with. I think gratitude is such a big part of just enjoying life, not just having opportunities, but enjoying them. I mean, what is it to have a really big title of a job if you don’t enjoy it and don’t enjoy your life? And so living life with an attitude of gratitude, I think, is so important. Acknowledge the people around you acknowledge the people that helped you get to the places that you wind up and That help you stay in those places and live life with a very open hand of gratitude I would say is what I would tell myself at 20 great great advice.
Mark Slatin: Well speaking of gratitude. I’m grateful to have you on the show and Would like to know if guests wanted to get a hold of you reach out to you. What would be the best way I?
Peggy Grande: Yeah. Thank you, Mark. Obviously, my book is available online. It’s called The President. We’ll see you now. Amazon, Barnes& Noble, anywhere. Audiobook, ebook, hardback, paperback. I’m online at LinkedIn. I’m on Instagram. I have a website, PeggyGrande, P-E-G-G-Y G-R-A-N-D-E.com. And I answer everybody’s emails and messages if they send them to me. And I really appreciate the opportunity for you to think a little bit outside the box that you typically have your guests in. And I really am grateful for the opportunity to be here today and to be having a conversation with your audience.
