After George W. Bush’s administration ended, the former White House press secretary found herself at a crossroads. She’d spent nearly her entire career in government, so stepping outside that world wasn’t exactly a comfortable leap. She landed a public relations job—and almost immediately knew it was a mistake.
Weeks in, Perino found herself back at an event with her former boss, venting about the situation. Bush responded with a question that reframed everything.
“He made me answer this question: ‘What’s the worst thing that could happen if you started your own thing and it failed? Let’s talk it through honestly,’” she recalled. “As we talked it through, it was clear I wasn’t going to become homeless and live on the street.”
By the end of the conversation, Bush delivered the takeaway: If the worst-case scenario was simply returning to another PR firm, then the risk wasn’t nearly as high as it felt.
“And he was right.”
Perino’s takeaway is less about long-term planning and more about short-term clarity: stop trying to map out every step of your career and focus instead on the immediate opportunity in front of you—even if it isn’t perfect on paper.
That lesson, she said, showed up in her own career decisions as well. Trying to engineer a flawless long-term plan, she noted, can sometimes obscure opportunities that don’t fit neatly into it.
“Once I focused and stopped trying to do everything, all the other opportunities came at the right time,” she added.
That mindset also helped her latest project.
Perino’s first novel, Purple State, is set to hit shelves on April 21 and is centered around a young PR professional navigating her career and personal love life. The thriller draws on Perino’s years in politics and the media.
Bush has offered similar reflections on uncertainty and adaptability. During his post-presidency, he emphasized the value of flexibility over rigid life planning.
“I think you ought to be open-minded as to where life takes you. One of the things I learned as president is that your life is just not going to unfold the way you want it to. There will be surprises, challenges, and therefore the question is how you deal with the unexpected.”
The 42nd president said those exchanges underscored a larger point about leadership: the value of actively seeking out perspectives that differ from your own.
“You’ve got to cultivate people who know things you don’t and have skills you don’t, and yes, that can be taught,” Clinton added.
“If nothing else, we can help people get out of their own way. Everybody’s got a story and a dream, and they can bring it to bear if we can just help people get out of their own way sometimes.”
