Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / “The Secret Power Behind World Leaders” with Phoebe Saintilan-Stocks

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“The Secret Power Behind World Leaders” with Phoebe Saintilan-Stocks · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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Get a humans.
1:53
Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas.
1:56
Here's an uncomfortable question for you.
2:00
The presidents and prime ministers who make decisions that affect your life and the future
2:05
of the planet are just fallible human beings and they're making those decisions based on
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what?
2:12
Exactly.
2:13
On whom?
2:14
On whose advice?
2:15
Who is in the room shaping their perspectives?
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When Cabinet isn't sitting and Parliament or Congress is away and the press isn't watching
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and their guard is down and their masks are off, every leader's most important yet most
2:31
secretive colleague is their right hand man or woman, their chief of staff.
2:36
And so today's guest did something that I thought was fascinating.
2:40
She tracked down a whole bunch of chiefs of staff to some of the most important and
2:45
famous people who ruled the world.
2:48
She interviewed the chief of staff to Justin Trudeau, Nelson Mandela, the Finnish prime minister,
2:53
Santa Marin, who she's the one who was the world youngest prime minister who went viral
2:58
briefly for dancing in a nightclub.
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New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern, First Lady Jill Biden, Kamala Harris, the Aussie prime
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ministers John Howard, as well as Julia Gillard from opposite sides of the political aisle
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and also Tony Blair.
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She's written a book about it.
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We discuss how these unelected chief assistants influence policy behind the scenes and we dive
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into how these people recall the way that their leaders reacted during crises that emerged
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while they were in office.
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Phoebe Stoland stocks.
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She was a policy adviser at the Australian Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
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and at the United Nations Secretariat.
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She has since founded a media startup for young female journalists and the book is called
3:39
the right hand conversations with the chiefs of staff to the world's most powerful people.
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I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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If you want to know, Phoebe Stoland stocks.
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So lots of people think about West Wing illusions of what a chief of staff does, but what does
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chief of staff manage?
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What do they do?
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Yeah, because everyone thinks that the Leo McGarry, and it's funny because I grew up watching
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the West Wing.
4:08
That's kind of like what I thought a chief of staff is, but it's funny because the chief
4:13
of staff are really differs to the person with the person you're talking to, but they're
4:18
just appointed by the person who's the leader.
4:20
They can be anyone, right?
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So it could be anyone.
4:23
It could be a friend.
4:24
It could be a political strategist, but it's funny because I think it was Biden's chief
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of staff who referred to the role as Japlen Katcha.
4:31
And I think that describes the role perfectly because you're kind of A, it's very difficult.
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B, you're constantly protecting your boss against internal external threats.
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But in a way, you're kind of part strategist, part confidant, part parent, and also part
4:47
best friend.
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And the relationship that I was really drawn to was the part parent, part friend.
4:55
And it's funny because of what I was kind of say they weren't friends with their boss,
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but they kind of had this professional intimacy because of what the role involved in you're
5:03
kind of bonded by this time and office.
5:05
Yeah, I mean, like some of them were like, hey, this is a long show at the time, some
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of them would like wear the boss of the prime minister's clothes.
5:12
Yeah.
5:13
Sorry.
5:14
Yeah.
5:15
So Blaire's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, um, it gave Jonathan his hand-me-time clothes.
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I mean, even had a story where Blaire was speaking at an event and spilled coffee down his clothes.
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And then they basically made, um, Blaire swaps suits with Jonathan.
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So Jonathan had to wear the clothes.
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Tony Blair, prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, getting
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undressed like in the back of some and putting on his chief of staff and they say they're
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not friends.
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I mean, they say they're not friends and that's why I love those two especially because
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they kind of these middle age men, they say they're not friends, but it's so clearly
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their best friends.
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It's a romance.
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Yeah, it's a romance.
5:53
Yeah.
5:54
Where did he come from?
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Where did Tony Blair's chief of staff come from?
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Tony Blair's chief of staff, very privileged background, like both of them had very similar
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upbringings and then actually started out as a journalist and then went to work in D.C.
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when Clinton was running his campaign.
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So I think Trayald Clinton and then kind of came into all that.
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And then puppy doll Tony Blair was like, it was good enough for Big Baba.
6:15
Yeah.
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Big, big, big Billy.
6:17
Big Billy.
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But it was a hit song.
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Saxophone player.
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He's good enough for me.
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Yeah.
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And I think Clinton was also very interested in New Labor because it was kind of like these
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new bright young things emerging.
6:26
Yeah.
6:27
There's a lot of overlap.
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But there's this bright young guy you should meet.
6:31
Right.
6:32
Yeah.
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And then he, Jonathan worked with Blair for over 10 years.
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And that's what I find fascinating, the chiefs of staff in the book who have worked with
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their bosses for over a decade, including Howard's chief of staff are the Citadenas.
6:44
John Howard.
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Do we have a global audience?
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I'm assuming that more on everybody knows every single person who you're going to
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imagine.
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But John Howard, long-standing conservative prime minister in Australia.
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Yeah.
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And he's an interesting character in his own right.
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Both in your book and also just his appearances in Australian public life.
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He's still fair.
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He goes on panel shows, he writes opinion pieces and so on.
7:07
Yeah.
7:08
Very sharp guy.
7:09
But so just to, before we leave the whole contours of what the job actually is, so is it,
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do I manage the daily calendar for the prime minister?
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Are they basically chief of staff, meaning not necessarily the manager of all the
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staff who work for the leader?
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But like the person who coordinates what the leader is going to be doing at any given
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point in time.
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So you're in.
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So you're in a way, the ultimate gatekeeper of that president or prime minister.
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So you're controlling access to who gets to speak to them, who they're meeting with.
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And Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister, her chief of staff kind of said, a lot
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of his role was being the diary manager.
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So he was really trying to also balance access to Gillard with her own any two levels
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and preventing burnout.
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And what I loved about Julia Gillard's chief of staff is he also talked about how he had
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to remind her to eat breakfast and work out on the week.
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I need that chief of staff.
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I need that.
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I've got my cough.
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I've got nice coffee right here.
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It's the first thing.
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It's the first nutrition.
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Yeah.
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Have that.
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Consuming for the day.
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The people seem like she would faint at events if he didn't get someone to tell her
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to eat breakfast.
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And that's the part of the role I love.
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But that's the babysitter part.
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It babysit up.
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And what I loved about the role is that you're in a way, an extension of your boss, because
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you have to be making decisions on their behalf, because I think Julia Gillard's chief of staff
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and Justin Trudeau is chief of staff, Katie Telford, can't spoke about how you have to
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kind of be solving the medium level issues and decisions that they don't even get on
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the radar of your boss.
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Right.
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Like the boss should be dealing with a global pandemic to crane.
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Yes.
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So a lot of that is, which would be easy when you're working with your boss for such a
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long period of time, but learning how to think like them and really being an extension
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of them.
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What are they going to want to have had a say in and what will then be okay with my
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having dealt with?
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I'm just preventing a lot of things to even getting to that desk.
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It sounds almost like a triage nurse in a way, right?
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You know, we're like, problems are coming in.
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You're in the emergency room.
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Everything's coming in.
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But there's this one king figure who's like the best surgeon in the hospital, and they
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can't be bothered with, you know, the scratch on the knee, the great, they, so you're triaging
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off to these different places, presumably in saying, send that to Department of Defense
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or something, or you know, you can leave this one for a so and so, or pick that to the
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first lady or whatever.
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Totally.
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And then there's the big issues like Blaz, Chief of Staff spoke about the day he got the
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call that Princess Diana died.
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And he, he spoke about how they had, Blaz was actually on holidays with his family.
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And they had to kind of get on to him in the middle of the night and then involved getting
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a local policeman to break into Blaz family house and waking up in the middle of the night.
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I guess they weren't best friends if he doesn't have a red line, which Tony Blair leaves
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on all the time, leave your phone on, bro.
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It's the chief of staff has to wake him up in the middle of the night.
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But I also a key part of the role is really being a person who can challenge a boss.
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And I think that's where trust and loyalty play such an important role in that, where
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the chief of staff has to be the person who can disagree with that boss and challenge
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them and provide that different perspective and way of thinking.
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And John Howard, who as you said was a conservative prime minister.
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Here's Chief of Staff also told me that as a son of two migrants, he really clashed with
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Howard on issues relating to multiculturalism and social issues.
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And he kind of said, I really did clash with my boss and try and break him to the left.
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But how, at the end of the day, the Chief of Staff has to remember that they're not the
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elected official.
11:00
Right.
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Which I also find really interesting, because they're so powerful.
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But at the end of the day, you're not the elected official.
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No.
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I mean, there is something a little weird about them giving advice.
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Like, I understand if it's personal advice about, like, eat your breakfast, but like,
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if it is advice about policy, you know, policy belongs to the demos and we as the people
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elect our representatives to go and figure out the policies and we elect an executive branch
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to implement those policies.
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So it is a bit weird that the head of the executive branch just goes, and I want this
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random individual.
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I just picked out of Walmart who, you know, Big川 Clinton told me that I was, you
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know, I might like, who's now going to have my ear closer than anyone else on affairs
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of the state.
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It's sort of strange.
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I'll be just like electing a Chief of Staff.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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That would be hilarious.
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Maybe the opposition leader should be the Chief of Staff.
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That would be fascinating.
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Especially right now.
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Collaborative.
12:04
Um, and then I was going to say another story that I loved was Biden's Chief of Staff
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has kind of said, oh no, Obama's Chief of Staff has said publicly that the Chief of Staff,
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whenever there's good news, the Chief of Staff never gets to tell their boss, um, because
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someone will have already done that.
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So the Chief of Staff, your full-time role is basically telling your boss the bag.
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Right.
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That no one else wants to tell them of course, because it will also take credit for the
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good stuff.
12:29
Yeah.
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Paul comes in normally and I'm sure this is different in a country like New Zealand
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than it is in the United States of America because of the level of prestige of the relative
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leaders and their accessibility.
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But when a court like when, you know, the undersecretary of agriculture wants to contact
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the leader, does that call necessarily go through the Chief of Staff?
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I mean, once it goes to the switch and the message is taken, is it the Chief of Staff
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who then decides whether or not that call proceeds through to the leader?
13:05
So in a way, they are the gay people.
13:07
Yeah.
13:08
And it really does come down to them, which in a way, they can also kind of subtly take
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policy priorities as well by determining who, what the information flow to the leader
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is.
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That's weird, isn't it?
13:23
Yeah.
13:24
And a little bit creepy.
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Who the fuck are these people?
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I mean, so like in the example of Tony Blair's Chief of Staff, you mentioned that he worked
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on Clinton's campaign, but do we know how, did Tony and he already friends when he got
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the job or is it like a job interview where you go, well, young, fresh, fresh faced Tony
13:43
Blair is like, I'm coming in and making Britannia cool again and like, I need someone to
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hip and does a round of auditions like because he gets people to tap dance and like put on
13:53
a show or something and like, who am I going to pick?
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But that's what I love exploring on each interview, seeing how each of them kind of came
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into the orbit of their boss and how they ended up getting the role because what I loved
14:04
about John Howlett's Chief of Staff, Arthur, is that he said he got his role just by being
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Steve Bradbury.
14:09
Who was it?
14:10
Explain his Steve Bradbury is Australian ice skater who won the Olympic gold decades
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ago because everyone before him just fell over and made it to the end.
14:21
Yeah.
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A proud Olympic nation at the summer game because we're great at swimming and a devastatingly
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poor country at the winter games, we never win very much, but we have Steve and Bradbury
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who, a nice skater, not a very good ice skater, but he was always up, I mean, look, he
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was at the Olympics, but I mean, yeah, and he was at the back of the pack and everybody
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else just felt, he was like a 12 car pile up on a highway in the fog where, one
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person falls over and then everyone else just falls over and he's slowly coasts to
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Olympic gold.
14:56
It's unfortunate.
14:57
Yeah.
14:58
I feel.
14:59
So, so you're saying Arthur's in Adina's job now, he was just a lot, yeah, that's what
15:02
he described himself as, sorry, but a lot of them were friends with their boss before,
15:07
like your last Chief of Staff and Justin Trudeau say no in each other for a long time,
15:12
but a lot of them had just been acting up in a role and then just ascended to the Chief
15:17
of Staff role.
15:18
And Dorota and Chief of Staff Raj, he had been acting up in the role for I think two
15:22
weeks and then the Christchurch Massacre happened.
15:24
So he was just kind of then in the role from then on.
15:28
So yeah, but with Blaz, I think he had been following the work of Blaz and then someone
15:34
on Blaz team invited him for an interview and yeah, it was actually just like a job interview
15:42
kind of.
15:43
Yeah.
15:44
You slash Tinder date in a way, because you're trying to figure out in that interview,
15:50
not just whether or not the person is competent, but whether you want them calling you all
15:54
the time and being the person who you call or when you say I don't know what the fuck
15:59
to do about bloody, you know, she's in pink or whatever, yeah, exactly, but also because
16:07
so much of the role comes down to personality, like that place, such a key role in the ways
16:12
of working that it kind of is in a way, speed dating.
16:17
Yeah.
16:18
And when you say that their advice is as well, to whom I'm still sort of hung up on this
16:24
question of who their loyalty lies to, to the voters or to the individual, right?
16:29
If they see, I mean, the Arthur Senedina's question in terms of trying to move John Howard
16:35
into a more progressive frame of mind about Australian multiculturalism might be a good example
16:40
of this.
16:41
Do they see their principle loyalty to principles or to the person?
16:48
Yeah.
16:49
Yeah.
16:50
So I would say there were two camps with the chiefs I interviewed.
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There's the camp that are absolutely, I would say loyal to the person.
16:58
I mean, all of them would say that they're not starved was the public and the country
17:02
they're serving.
17:03
Blah blah.
17:04
The public that didn't elect them, the public that didn't like them, but there was, yeah,
17:09
there was the camp of people who are definitely loyal to with the person that working for.
17:14
And I think what shows us so clearly is that a lot of the chiefs of staff who their bosses
17:20
have since left office, they're still working for that person, even private space.
17:25
But then there are people like Nelson Mandela's chief of staff, Barbara Masachella, where
17:30
she said that her loyalty was to the ANC and not Mandela, which I found fascinating.
17:36
She was the first chief of staff to really say that to me in the interview, but I would
17:41
say also would be to the party as well, because he obviously went on to become a politician
17:48
and then US ambassador, which I also find interesting because a lot of the chiefs said that
17:53
what would hint to their role is having their own political ambitions, but how was chief
17:57
of staff also went on to do exactly that.
18:00
That's interesting.
18:01
Yes, although not elected off first, right?
18:05
He was, I thought it didn't run for anything, right?
18:06
He was appointed, or did he?
18:08
He was for Senna.
18:09
Oh, he became a sinner, of course, yes, yes, Senna was sent there.
18:12
So he became a politician and then?
18:14
Yeah, that's interesting, yeah, yeah.
18:17
The invisibility of the role is one of these things that gives it such mystique as well,
18:22
because most of the, like his name is the only name of all of the people's names who
18:27
you've rolled off your tongue who I've ever even heard of, right?
18:30
Yeah, the even Albo is chief of staff.
18:32
That's the current prime minister.
18:33
Yeah, who is it, do you know?
18:35
It's a man called Tim Gartrell, but no one knows what he looks like.
18:39
So cloak and dagger.
18:40
Yeah.
18:41
It's going on.
18:42
But it's so funny because when I was working in Canberra, the first chief of staff I was
18:47
exposed to, so I was working at the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and Scott Morris
18:51
and was a prime minister at the time.
18:53
And whenever his chief of staff, John Kunkle, would be involved in like documents and meetings
18:57
when you imported things for happening, but when you nothing about John, we didn't know
19:02
what he looked like when you Googled him, nothing really came up.
19:05
And that's where I actually got the idea, because I became so interested in the role, because
19:11
even Googling them, nothing comes up because I'm so committed to being invisible.
19:16
And all of the sudden, you know that the shit's hitting the fan somewhere, and there's
19:19
ghost in a suit shows up as well.
19:22
Absolutely.
19:23
Yeah, just a mop with a face, with a balloon on top of it, with a face drawn on it wearing
19:27
a suit.
19:28
Like there he is, the anonymous chief of staff.
19:31
And our vote, Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan was saying that downings to it kept saying
19:36
to him, you need to get a headshot taken for us to give to the British press, because
19:40
they're always running stories where you're mentioned, and they want a photo, and he just
19:43
refused to get a headshot taken to the point where the British press would run this picture
19:48
of like a man in the shadows, and this mysterious, because he was hellbent on staying invisible.
19:54
Do you think that did you get the impression that they ever use that anonymity?
19:58
I don't want to say nefariously, but like as a way to exert more influence than they
20:03
could if they were in other public life.
20:06
I think being invisible can definitely, they can leverage that, absolutely.
20:10
Yeah.
20:11
And a lot of them kind of said, I think it was Keir Starmer's first chief of staff who
20:15
had to resign, because she just ran into the headlines.
20:18
Right.
20:19
And I think all of them kind of said, when you're in the news, it's a bad day, because
20:23
I just think that as you said, the being invisible, they can really.
20:27
And obviously none of them would tell you this, but did you get a spotty sense ever
20:32
from any chiefs of staff that they would strategically maybe sometimes want the leader
20:39
to stumble in small ways so that they could, like, if they were in a debate, or I ensure
20:48
their value, but also maybe get their way, like suppose you're in a disagreement with
20:51
the leader about something that matters deeply to you as a chief of staff, and the leader
20:55
is being obstinate and pigheaded about it.
20:58
And you've got some allies in cabinet, I don't know, who see things your way, you know,
21:02
isn't it useful to maybe not let the call go through that would have informed the prime
21:07
minister of something that would have helped them to, and so then they have a gaff at
21:11
a press conference, and you're like, I don't know, wish that your idea could have worked,
21:16
but obviously you've seen the headlines after that speech, you know, maybe we have to
21:19
go my way.
21:20
Yeah.
21:21
I want an interview I really wanted to do, because I really want to interview Peter
21:26
Krutland.
21:27
I said I'm not saying she would have done that, but I think her explain who Peter Krutland
21:31
is.
21:32
I keep wanting to have her on this show as well, she didn't, we didn't end up making
21:35
it work.
21:36
We, I never hit back from power.
21:37
Okay.
21:38
That makes me feel better.
21:39
It's not, it's not me.
21:40
It's not all, not everything's about me.
21:42
Yeah.
21:43
So Peter Krutland was chief of staff to former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who
21:47
was obviously on his podcast.
21:49
Yes, he was on his podcast recently.
21:52
That's a very interesting lesson.
21:53
But if you haven't heard the Tony Abbott podcast, by the way, to the listener, it's a good
21:57
lesson.
21:58
Yeah.
21:59
And if you're not interested in the first half hour, we talk about Australian history,
22:01
then you should listen to the final hour where we talk about issues of greater moral
22:06
disagreement.
22:07
Yeah.
22:08
And he made some interesting points, but the relationship to me is so different to the
22:14
other chiefs I interviewed, because Peter Krutland was, I mean, many would say we
22:17
were running the Australian government, and she was very public.
22:21
She was meeting with politicians on his behalf, and I just think the role that she was playing
22:27
and the way she was showing up as a chief of staff was just so different to everyone
22:33
else.
22:34
Because again, people were saying she was more powerful than Abbott, and that she was
22:38
almost delegating to him.
22:40
I sometimes wondered where those leaks were, not leaks, where that image was coming from,
22:46
whether or not she had any role in the party.
22:49
Yeah.
22:50
Well, either from people within the party who were trying to undermine Tony Abbott and make
22:56
her seem like she was the actual brains of the operation.
23:00
And she's a, we should explain it, a ferociously intelligent and ferociously motivated and like
23:06
powerful.
23:07
I could have had a job.
23:08
Yeah, and completely highly competent woman.
23:11
So in comparison to the kind of matey, blokey, air of that era of conservative prime ministers,
23:18
both Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott, she stood out as being like, you know, why isn't that
23:24
person the prime minister in a way?
23:28
But I sometimes wondered whether or not she had a role in not opposing that image.
23:34
She didn't hurt her brand too special if she wants to run in the future.
23:39
That's right.
23:40
Tony, I spoke about Abbott and Cretland's dynamic, which on how it's chief of staff also.
23:47
And I was kind of saying, you know, what are your views on a very public, chief of staff
23:52
like Peter and he was kind of saying every chief of staff is what their boss needs.
23:57
So he was kind of suggesting, you know, that's the kind of chief of staff that Abbott needed
24:01
at the time.
24:02
Yeah.
24:03
That's interesting.
24:04
Yeah, but a very interesting time.
24:06
One who would like be very strict about maintaining discipline and order, yeah, that makes sense.
24:14
Do you think gender played into her image at least and maybe the sort of attributes that
24:21
you need as a chief of staff that is in the same way that often female leaders need to
24:25
have bigger balls than the male leaders in order to prove themselves to, you know, and
24:29
play that game of like, I'm a bossy abit, and any of the men, yeah, and I'm sure like a lot
24:35
of the common two around Peter Cretland, yeah, it's sexist to change, but it's funny
24:40
up bossing into I was doing interviews for the book that people were pointing out that
24:44
a lot of the, that we have female chief of staff to male leaders and male chiefs of staff
24:50
to female leaders.
24:51
Like there was only one pairing in the book that was two women and that's something I
24:55
hadn't never, sorry, this is so not relevant to your question.
24:58
No, no, that's in that is it.
24:59
No, it is interesting.
25:00
Yeah.
25:02
And so that's why it was so interesting, a, interviewing a female chief of staff, because
25:07
the chief of staff space to world leaders, like it's incredibly male dominated still,
25:15
but it was also so interesting hearing a male chief of staff to a Julia Gillard and
25:19
Jacidera Dern, really talk about what it was like a supporting a female prime minister
25:24
and be how the sexist and misogynistic commentary that was being written about their bosses
25:31
really shocked them going into the role.
25:35
So like two different perspectives and what I loved about interviewing Justin Trudeau's
25:40
chief of staff Katie Telford is that she's trying to be very public, kind of like Peter
25:45
Cretlin and has very much shaped her own personal brand on social media, like it's very
25:51
much behind the scenes of the role because she wants to challenge the underrepresentation
25:57
of women in the role.
25:58
So she's kind of bucking the trend of the chief of staffing invisible, like to her parting
26:02
driving gender equality and the role.
26:05
Do you think there should be more visibility?
26:07
I mean, do you think that there's, in a democracy, we're sort of entitled to know who the
26:11
people are?
26:12
I think so.
26:13
Yeah.
26:14
And it's interesting even looking at the very signature collections like Man Darni's chief
26:19
of staff is very public, and I also wonder if it's a new generation coming up where the
26:24
chief of staff might be a more public role.
26:26
Right.
26:27
They're on TikTok all the time.
26:28
On TikTok.
26:29
Yeah, right.
26:30
Yeah.
26:31
Oh, God.
26:32
Maybe I don't want them to be public.
26:33
I mean, the case can also be made that if the chief of staff is a confidant to babysitter,
26:37
a therapist, you know, then maybe there should be a kind of, it should be like a doctor
26:42
patient relationship where the person's totally in the background, you know?
26:45
It's like, there's like, it's like, yeah, that's entirely possible.
26:50
You mentioned the Princess Diana anecdote, and I just want to dig into that a bit more
26:55
because where this dynamic between chief of staff and leader is most fascinating, I think,
27:01
is when the shit hits the fan and everyone goes awry and all of a sudden the leader, especially
27:06
if they're a new-ish leader, in the case of Tony Blair and Princess Diana, or in the
27:11
case of, you know, just into our Dern and the Christchurch attacks and then COVID shortly
27:18
off the back of it, you know, that's where you can imagine the weight of pressure on
27:25
your shoulders as a new leader, suddenly being like, oh my God, I thought I was just a child
27:32
wearing a suit, who was pretending to be the leader.
27:36
And now I actually have to be, now I actually have to be the leader in a way, like there's
27:41
this amazing passage in Obama's memoir of his time in the White House, which is great.
27:48
I mean, all of his books are really, really beautiful, but there's an incredible, his
27:51
first book about his time in the White House after it left office is great.
27:56
I say first because it was supposed to be in two parts, but it came out about five or
28:00
ten years ago, and I don't remember there being a second one, I don't know if he gave
28:02
up on it or not.
28:03
Maybe I missed it.
28:04
But he talks about one of his first nights in the office and just walking down, it was
28:12
at late at night, and he just walked past the outside of the Oval Office down that famous
28:19
passageway with it.
28:20
I think there's a photo of JFK and LBJ, like, you know, talking on the, as they're walking
28:26
through the passageway that goes outside from the Oval Office to, you know, the, what
28:32
do they call a helicopter?
28:33
It was two.
28:34
And he's just like walking, and I think he was still smoking at the time.
28:41
And he's like, just, this is surreal, like this is what the hell am I doing here?
28:49
How am I in this position?
28:50
I'm just like me, I'm not them, I'm just a guy, but then realizing they were all just
28:57
people.
28:58
They were all just, yeah, Lord, weird people who needed shoulders to cry on and confidence
29:05
to confide in.
29:06
And that's what I loved shutting to the chiefs about, like learning about their
29:10
boss on a human level.
29:12
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