Life lessons from Robert Rubin
Over the past few weeks I’ve been slowly reading Robert Rubin and Jacob Weisberg’s In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington. The style of Rubin’s memoirs perfectly match his deliberative demeanor. I’m not finished yet, but so far there are two things worth singling out as tips for those who aspire ...
Over the past few weeks I've been slowly reading Robert Rubin and Jacob Weisberg's In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington. The style of Rubin's memoirs perfectly match his deliberative demeanor. I'm not finished yet, but so far there are two things worth singling out as tips for those who aspire to pominent positions in their lives:
Over the past few weeks I’ve been slowly reading Robert Rubin and Jacob Weisberg’s In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington. The style of Rubin’s memoirs perfectly match his deliberative demeanor. I’m not finished yet, but so far there are two things worth singling out as tips for those who aspire to pominent positions in their lives:
p. 54: “Anyone who is honest about having done well will acknowledge the enormous role played by chance.” To some this statement might be so obvious as to appear banal — but as someone who’s digested more than their fair share of memoirs, this might be the first time I’ve encountered an “eminent person” actually saying it out loud. I strongly suspect that many who have reached Rubin’s stature believe that their success has little to do with luck and eveything to do with their own diligence, brilliance, piety, or strategy. It was nice to see — and thoroughly appropriate from a man who lives by the princple of expected value theory. 2) In recounting how his career progressed, Rubin goes into detail about what he did at Goldman Sachs. However, he also thinks that his non-profit and charitable activities were essential to advancement (p. 85):
You can draw a… straighter line from my joining the board of ABT [American Ballet Theatre] to subsequent opportunities, because being on the board of an arts organization caused people to view me as someone who was involved in civic activities…. And so it went, with one involvement leading to another. The key was to get in motion to begin with….. [O]utside involements added other dimensions to my life, providing a glimpse of what other people’s jobs and lives were like and an opportunity to contribute to purposes beyond my work. What’s more, outside involvements helped my Goldman Sachs career, as I met well-established people who were also clients or potential clients of our firm.
I’ve read a few other biographies that point to the same synergy between civic involvement and career advancement. Some might argue that this is an example of slef-interested behavior wrapped in the guise of acting the do-gooder. Me, I think tt’s nice to see that it is possible to do well in part by doing good.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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