In his 11 days as Trump’s communications chief, Anthony Scaramucci’s wife (9-months pregnant) filed for divorce, he got caught on tape dissing half of D.C. and he was summarily fired by the president. What did the former hedge fund manager learn from his experience?
“I can give you my 11-day observation of the White House, or I can tell you how to get press like O.J. Simpson over 11 days,” Scaramucci said.
Scaramucci is the founder of SkyBridge Capital and served as the firm’s co-manager until January 17 2017, when he left to accept a position as the White House communications director.
Scaramucci spoke in Boston at the Forbes Under 30 Summit on October 1, an event gathering thousands of the world’s top innovators and entrepreneurs under the age of 30. He has formerly been a judge on the panel that chooses the 30 Under 30 list.
Some of the nation’s most-watched political leaders joined him as speakers at the event, which took place at Boston’s City Hall Plaza while the Kavanaugh hearings and controversy unfolded.
In their talks at the event, both Republican Governor John Kasich and former Secretary of State John Kerry fueled rumors about a potential 2020 run.
Arizona Senator Jeff Flake spent most of his talk dodging questions about the FBI’s investigations into Kavanaugh.
With these officials providing ample commentary on the political climate, Scaramucci focused his time on sharing actual insights by telling stories of failure from his embarrassing White House tenure.
Here are the top quotes from Scaramucci’s look back at having the world watch his most mortifying personal and professional setbacks.
“This is a lesson for everybody: Don’t put your ego and your pride into things."
Scaramucci is widely known as a Wall Street financier who makes crude and (often) offensive statements. But when he took the stage last week, he surprised the audience of savvy young leaders with a modest demeanor that was frighteningly charming.
Don’t get me wrong. His talk was still filled with vulgar jokes and provocative statements that were strongly opinionated. But his statements weren’t dominated by politically inflammatory rhetoric intended to generate controversy.
He was on stage to do something that contrasted sharply with other conference speakers, like the NBA’s top rising star and Hollywood actors, who were sharing their success stories.
Scaramucci casually shared his most embarrassing stories through a series of self-deprecating jokes.
He started his reflection on his short time in the White House by pointing to his biggest mistake.
“Look, here's what basically happened,” he said plainly.
“This is a lesson for everybody, don’t put your ego and your pride into things."
Scaramucci explained that he was supposed to step in as the director of the President's Office of Public Liaison. But “Adolph Bannon” and Reince Priebus, he said, didn’t want him to get the job.
He said his mistake was letting his pride and ego takeover, and he should have accepted that he wasn’t going to get the job.
"I probably shouldn't have started my first day with a chainsaw and a hockey mask,” he joked.
Instead, the president realized Bannon and Priebus were going to be a problem for him, and he brought in Scaramucci to remove them, setting off exchanges that led to Scaramucci’s dismissal a few days later.
"Once I did that, the commotion really broke out. They got fired, I got fired, and life goes on."
"When you hit the floor, are you made of China or rubber?"
Asked about the days following his publicized personal and professional setbacks, Scaramucci was quick to emphasize how crucial it is to be resilient when chasing ambitions.
"At the time it was extraordinarily painful, especially when I got fired and got put through the media meat-grinder," he said. "You have to have resiliency in your personality and persistence."
Scaramucci emphasized the importance of keeping perspective in the days following failure, and not doubting that things will be okay.
Setbacks define leaders, according to Scaramucci, who said he would do the whole thing over again because positive came from the experience.
“It's not the 11 days when you think things are going well,” he said.
"It's what happens on the twelfth day, when you think you're supposed to be in the White House working for the president, and you have been bounced by the new chief of staff."
"When you hit the floor, are you made of China or rubber?" he said. After you fall, you have to focus on bouncing back like a superball to get motivated, according to Scaramucci.
If you really are going for your dreams, according to Scaramucci, setbacks and unexpected calamities are going to happen. It’s part of aspiring to do great things in life, he said, and the way you handle yourself after it and how you dust yourself off is what matters.
“Having a sense of humor about things doesn't hurt!,” he added.
"But it still sucked to be fired, by the way," he joked humanely.
"You always remember where you came from, but you always have to recognize where you have gotten to."
This was advice Scaramucci got from his grandfather.
Scaramucci grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood, raised by parents who never went to college. His older brother was the first to get an advanced education, and Scaramucci was the first in his family to go to law school.
“I traversed from that neighborhood into Harvard Law School, on to Goldman Sachs, and yes to those 11 short days at the White House," he said.
According to Scaramucci, a fatal mistake he made inside the White House was failing to follow his grandfather’s adage. He pointed to instances where he made off-the-cuff statements dissing most of Washington. He made the mistake of overestimating the ethics of the reporter with whom he was speaking, a lifelong friend from his hometown.
“If you’re a front stabber, you’re going to live happier and longer.”
True to style, Scaramucci concluded his talk with a confidently delivered crude statement he knew would be memorable.
According to Scaramucci, you can’t have a working relationship with someone you frequently disagree with if you’re backstabbing that person. You don’t want to be a sycophant, he said, but to be constructive you need to be blunt and honest.
“I’m a front stabber,” he declares. “If you’re a front stabber, you’re going to live happier and longer.”
Marianne Brunet is a financial markets analyst at Advisor Perspectives.
Read more articles by Marianne Brunet
In his 11 days as Trump’s communications chief, Anthony Scaramucci’s wife (9-months pregnant) filed for divorce, he got caught on tape dissing half of D.C. and he was summarily fired by the president. What did the former hedge fund manager learn from his experience?
In their talks at the event, both Republican Governor John Kasich and former Secretary of State John Kerry fueled rumors about a potential 2020 run.
