Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?: And Other Questions You Should Have Answers to When You Work in the White House

It doesn't matter who came to talk to me,' he said (Barack Obama). He went on to say that I needed to realize the power of my words. I could not send emails like that because they - I am paraphrasing - freak everyone out. Developing self-awareness is a lifelong process; you don't just wake up one day and have all you need. So even though I'd spend the last few months demonstrating that I was cable and knew what I was doing, this was something of a revelation. When the president of the United States tells you your words are powerful, it can be pretty shocking. I honestly didn't think anyone would give a shit if I sent a snippy email. It was good advice, specifically to me at the time but generally as it relates to any kind of replying-all in life: Think about how what you say could affect people, from the top down. It was also a wake-up call for me about my state of mind: I didn't know why (yet) - though I'm sure I did, deep down - but my temper was getting worse, and my fuse shorter and shorter.

You should always be prepared to defend your choices, whether just to yourself (sometimes this is the hardest) or to your coworkers, your friends, or your family. The quickest way for people to lose confidence in your ability to ever make a decision is for you to pass the buck, shrug your shoulders, or otherwise wuss out. Learning how to become a decision maker, and how you ultimately justify your choices, can define who you are.

Whatever anyone tells you about how technology and social media have made us disconnected from reality is probably right, but I think you can boil all these kinds of arguments down to the fact that people are no longer chill. They are goal-oriented. They are aware of all the things they could or believe they should have. They are aware of all the things that could go wrong. This awareness makes a lot of things—dating, finding a job, dating a person you meet at your job, planning a trip for the president of the United States—much harder.

I have learned a lot about myself over the years, mostly because I was open to hearing feedback. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. I usually dislike someone before I like them. I’m sensitive—especially when I’m tired or feel I’m being misunderstood. This may sound like the “About Me” section on a bad online dating profile, but knowing this stuff has allowed me to keep my contacts, my reputation, and my sanity throughout a long and often stressful career. Being self-aware means knowing when you’re about to act bad—and then not acting bad.

we didn’t only have meetings about what was happening right at that moment, because if you’re just dealing with things as they’re happening, you aren’t prepared for something to come out of the blue.

There is no bigger compliment than being intellectually curious about what someone else spends his or her days doing—it turned out that not having the answers did me no harm.

Jobs like this—the kind of job of which there are many, the kind that are definitely good but that no one teaches you to want—are found only with an open mind and a willingness to do your own thing.

For me, leadership has always been much more about rallying people around a project or cause than about being held up as the Boss.

When the White House got news of the disaster, POTUS coordinated a relief effort pretty much immediately. According to the ticktock, the minute-by-minute outline of an event that the White House comms team would send out afterward, POTUS heard about the quake at 5:52 PM in the Oval Office on January 12, and by 9:00 PM he was in the Situation Room for an emergency meeting to figure out the relief effort, which would include the deployment of thousands of troops and $100 million in aid. He asked a small group of people to go to Haiti to coordinate it immediately:

Part of knowing how to be prepared comes from being self-aware—being able to anticipate what you’ll need (or screw up) and planning accordingly. I know I am rarely, if ever, the smartest person in the room. And that’s totally OK. What’s not OK is (1) not recognizing that and (2) not coming ready to participate in a meaningful way.

I thought it wouldn’t work, but I didn’t know it wouldn’t work, so I didn’t say anything. That might be the difference between men and women: Women need to know they are right before they stand up. Men are OK objecting if they just think they might be right.

What you realize is that everyone has her own priorities—her own constituency. Often, being a leader is not about making grand proclamations or telling people what to do; it’s about balancing all these priorities and constituencies.

Never brag about your ability to type. It will never get you anywhere you really want to

I could feel my face get red and hot. I usually think you start losing your argument when you physically reveal how worked up you are, especially in a place like the White House, where, theoretically, what you say should be based on facts and figures and evidence; if your face is red, aren’t you showing too much emotion? I don’t know, but I got my point across. It wasn’t a conversation intended to resolve or change anything at that moment, but POTUS made it clear he was on my side.

I landed in Albany and picked up the bachelorettes’ white mega minivan—“the Vangina”—and I had coordinated the rest of the gang’s train arrivals and pickups at the Poughkeepsie and Rhinecliff train stations.

Maybe this all sounds cheesy to you. Maybe you're feeling secondhand embarrassment that Barack Obama called me to say he saw the spirit of my dead cat soaring over a mountain. Maybe you think I'm a spoiled baby- that there are real problems in the world and instead of dissecting them and advocating on behalf of them, I decided to end my book with a story about how much I love cats. Maybe the fact that my Instagram account consists primarily of pictures of these cats- or the fact that I have an Instagram account at all- is infuriating to you. Maybe you think this proves the point that I'm a "cupcake-eating cheerleader," and not a "serious" professional woman. I think a "serious" woman can also be a crazy cat lady, and I will be rescuing cats until someone has to rescue me.

Ms. Mastromonaco, this is the Air Force One operator. We miss you up here! Are you available for a call from the president?" Before I registered what was happening, I was on the phone with POTUS. "I heard we lost Shrummie today," he said. "There are a lot of sad faces up here on Air Force One right now. You should know- I'm pretty sure we saw his spirit up here over Denali.

Kindness often exists on a smaller scale than the grand gestures popular on social media would have you believe. Though anonymously paying off someone's student loans or giving a waitress a $5,000 tip are amazing acts of goodwill, things like being willing to cut someone some slack, or making a thoughtful phone call, can help another person so much.

I didn't realize what an important part of my life Shrummie was until he got sick. As I had moved around the country, he was the constant; he made all the random apartments I'd lived in feel like home. When I was upset or sick, he slept right next to me and wouldn't move. Even when work was shitty, you couldn't help but lighten up when he would stand at the front door waiting for you to get home so he could lead you to the cabinet with his food.

The economists were talking about their alma maters (Dartmouth, William & Mary, MIT, Princeton), and Peter asked if Gibbs or I ever felt out of place because we didn't go to an Ivy League school. I could feel my face getting hot- remembering that awful day when I got skinny envelopes from Cornell, Brown, and Georgetown saying "Thanks, but no thanks." "Well, we all ended up at the same table, didn't we?" Gibbs - who went to North Carolina State - shot back. "Seems like we got a bargain!" Um, true.

I argued that modern women see no contradiction in being both informed and fashionable (and that men's magazines don't get much grief for running photos of women in bikinis alongside lengthy reportage).

But that had also always been my thing: small but mighty, cheerfully girlfriend-y but hardworking, only an asshole when vitally necessary.

I don't remember seeing what other people had and wanting them. I remember specific moments when I just felt content, and I still am. I think that even at a young age, I had a sense that life was what you make of it. That, and the confidence that jelly donuts are about the best thing on Earth. The two things are probably related; if a $1 jelly donut makes you really, really happy, you can get through a lot with a little.

I think the idea that times were simpler “back in the day” is true in a lot of ways. Whatever anyone tells you about how technology and social media have made us disconnected from reality is probably right, but I think you can boil all these kinds of arguments down to the fact that people are no longer chill. They are goal-oriented. They are aware of all the things they could or believe they should have.

I have always liked the feeling of being prepared. Preparation is protection you can create for yourself; for some people, the hard part may be balancing precautions with paranoia, but in my experience, you can never be too prepared.

Secretary Clinton wrote in her memoir that she “ducked under” the Chinese guards’ arms to make it inside.

I attribute a lot of my success to never losing sight of the fact that I worked for Barack Obama. I was not Barack Obama; I am never going to be Barack Obama. In DC, you can get some level of power from the person you work for, but the minute you forget power comes and goes with elections, that’s it. You may think you are hot shit for working at the White House, but there is always hotter shit around the corner. You are staff, a helpfully lowly term.

Senator Kerry walked into the room. He blew past me and into his office, but then I heard him ask who I was. His team told him I was interviewing. He asked for my résumé, and I heard him say, "She worked at Sotheby's—she must be good." Forward motion is always better than no motion—even if you don't think it's taking you in the direction you wanted to go.

I ended up as the assistant to the CEO at an Internet start-up called SenseNet on Hudson Street. I had no interest in the Internet, or venture capital, or really anything I was doing, but the people were nice and I could wear whatever I wanted to work and it was within walking distance of our apartment. Sometimes, for a little while, that's enough.