Transcription
You're almost 91. What is the truth about life that you wish more people understood? I shook more than one million hands in my life. Sometimes you make mistakes, but experience tells you to be guarded against that type of people. Don't try to be somebody you're not.
What did you do differently that led you to become the Prime Minister? A few weeks ago, I had the honor of interviewing the former Prime Minister of Canada, 90-year-old Jean Chrétien. He never lost an election and was famous for standing up to his allies, making his own big decisions, and being liked by everyone. There is no mistaking that Mr. Chrétien's story is one of perseverance, and the lessons he shares with us today will 100% make you a better person. So, without further ado, let's get into it.
How old are you? I am 90 years old, and in a month I will be 91. What does it feel like to be 90 years old and almost 91? You know, you have to take one day at a time. I feel normal. I get up in the morning, come to work, and enjoy life. And uh, I don't think about my age. I just mention it when I'm trying to impress people; they are a bit surprised that I still come to earn my living at my age.
If you're looking back on life, what are things you've done to get to this point and feel the way you feel? In my family, we tend to get quite old. My dad died at almost 99, and I have a sister who went to 100, a brother 99, another brother 95. So, you know, it's uh, normal in my family to be that age. We were nine living kids, and the one who died the youngest, he was 81. You were born in 1934, right?
A lot of people know you as the Prime Minister, former Prime Minister of Canada, but what do we need to know about how you grew up in order to understand the person that you are today? My father was a blue-collar worker in a paper mill, and he was a machinist. Coming from the rural part of Quebec, he became a lawyer, and I was elected to Parliament at 29. I could not speak real English when I arrived on the Hill. I took my job seriously. I was lucky, and I was lucky when the luck came. I was on the Hill for more than 40 years. I was in a cabinet for 30 years, of which 10 as Prime Minister, and I was on top of it. The leader of the opposition…
Was it always a dream of yours when you were younger to be the Prime Minister, or did that come eventually? No, you know, I became interested in politics because of my dad. He dreamed to have one of his kids be a politician, and as I was a hyperactive kid, he realized he thought I had the energy needed to do that. So he started to train me very young, like you train your son to be a hockey player. You go to the hockey rink at 5:00 in the morning. I wanted to become an architect, and Dad said, "You will never get elected as an architect. You go to law school." In those days, if his dad said something, we listened. So I became a lawyer at his request and a politician as it was his desire.
A lot of people go through the stages you went through, uh, you know, from being in the cabinet and being Minister, but they never become Prime Minister. Let's talk about like reaching the peak of a goal. What did you do differently than everyone else that led you to be worthy and become the Prime Minister? I don't know. You know, you have to work. Working in our family is a pleasure, and success is a goal. It's what happened to me and happened to my brothers; most of them all did quite well.
Do you think most people do the opposite? People get it the wrong way. For a lot of people, working is a burden. For me, I never had a problem getting up to go to work. I always found the interest in what I was doing, but I was lucky; I always had interesting jobs. Apparently, I was the longest-serving minister in Canada. In fact, I never lost an election and had three majority governments. It was not achieved very often; in fact, I'm the only one who managed to have three majority governments and never lost. And I had promised my wife to quit before I was 70 years old, and I quit; I was 69 years, 11 months, and one day.
You kept your word? Yes, of course. You said working is a pleasure for you, and you said a lot of people treat work as a burden. Why does that tend to happen? Why do most people treat work like a burden? Probably a lot of people don't have jobs that they love. You know, for me, it was exciting; it was always new, always new challenges. And when you're in politics, you have to perform, and if you don't perform, they talk about it in the newspaper, on TV, and so on. So it's very challenging. A lot of people go to their work at 9:00 and come back home at 5:00, and there was nothing very exciting happening, so they are happy to leave at 5:00 or 4:30 to be home where they have fun with sports and family and so on.
One of the difficulties is uh, family life and public life. But I had married my girlfriend, the first girlfriend I had, and she was my girlfriend five years before I married her, and I was only 23 when I married her; she was 21. And she died after 53 years of marriage and 68 years of a relationship. She was a great lady, very well-liked in Canada, very respected. She spoke four languages; she had great political judgment, very quiet, telling me the truth in a very nice way. And uh, you know, and I would not have become Prime Minister without her.
A lot of people have a hard time finding love or or being with the right person. What was it about your your wife that you you knew she was the right person? When I was a kid, I was a terrible kid, overexcited all the time, and my mother used to say there would be a black sheep in the family, and Jean would be the black sheep, until I met this girl, she was a next-door girl somewhere, and my wife… my mother realized that she had a calming influence on me, so she did everything, you know, for me to meet her. And she had decided that I was… that she was the woman for me, and she was right. So we grew up together basically, and she was very patient. You know, everybody would say that we were making a very good couple, and she was an exceptional lady. And when she passed away, it was big national news in Canada because she was respected by everybody. You were together for longer, but married for 63 years. Can you define the word love for me? Respect. You know, you have to respect each other; you have to define the role of everybody. She was the boss at home, so if she wanted to have a color in the wall that I didn't like, I would shut up. And uh, there's no way to do that. She was in charge of the house, and if the kids were not happy, I was always on her side, as a matter of policy; Mom was always right. She had to raise the kids virtually alone, you know, I was always on the road, so she was extremely good at that. If she had a problem with the kids, she would not even talk to me about it to not disturb me.
1993 is when you become the Prime Minister, and that's 30 years ago. When you win, you become the person responsible for managing 30 million plus people at that time in the country. That's a lot of pressure, and I know a lot of people go through pressures in life in different stages, maybe your family, your career, your friends, whatever. How did you manage pressure? For me, a problem is a problem, and when you have a problem, you have to find a solution. And in life, you have to make, hopefully always, the right decision. So I was calm, apparently, when there was a crisis. I will never get excited; on the contrary, I will become calm, knowing I had to face a challenge, and I was very decisive. That was one quality that people mention of me: I could make up my mind. For me, I've been involved all my life with decisions to be made every day. You know, most Prime Ministers hate question period; I love it. For me, to go to question period, I love it; it was a challenge. You know, I used to make the joke: you never know if you've done well. Most people turn to their staff to say, "Was it all right?" I didn't have to do that. You know what I would do? When I would get up, I would just do that. If it was dry, I had done well, and if it was wet, it's because I had problems.
So if I'm faced with a big decision in life, um, whether that's my job, my career, my care, my my family, what would be your advice for me to be able to handle that appropriately? Stay calm. Stay calm. Don't make a move on the spur of the moment. For me, I never make a decision in front of a meeting of people, because if you have 10 guys around the table, some are very eloquent; that doesn't mean that they are right. So put distance between the decision and the discussion, to have an hour or two of reflection, to forget about the presentation. Some are very good at presenting things; some are shy, not very articulate, and they might be the ones who are right. I was known not to make a decision after a discussion. If you were someone in a situation like this and you want to be able to do things like this, this, and this, I highly recommend you grab a copy of our goal-setting journal, our guided journal that helps you live a more fulfilling life based on a three-step strategy we developed after over 1,000 interviews with older people and high achievers like Prime Minister Chrétien. This journal has helped thousands of people in our community figure out their ideal life, turn it into achievable, specific, and measurable goals, and then track those goals and create a discipline structure to make progress over six months until their dreams become their reality. Click the link below to learn more, get exclusive bonuses, and start upgrading your life this year.
What is one thing that when you were younger you put a lot of importance on and as you got older you realized wasn't actually that important? Oh, I spend a lot of time on sports, for example. Sometimes I tended to do a little bit too much and that not… not on studying, type of thing, but it is life. You have your own personality; you can be natural, be yourself all the time. Don't try to be somebody you're not. Do you… did you ever put importance on what other people thought of you? Might not… Oh, I had… I had some people who didn't like me for sure. You have to be comfortable with your… this, yeah. You know, the people don't like you; there's nothing you can do; they don't like you. But I was not provocative too much. I was doing public life like playing hockey. If I'm on the ice, don't go in the corner, you head down, you go to the boards. But after the game was over, I could have a beer with the opponent guys. And in fact, in politics, the opposition, the other side, are your adversary; your enemies are the guys behind you who want to replace you. You have to live with both, so you tend to be more comfortable sometimes with the people across the aisle that are just part of the game, you know, and they were opposed to you; they were not voting for you; that was their job in their life, but they were nice guys anyway.
You've come across so many different people, people who want something from you, and they might be authentic; they might be BSing you. How do you judge whether somebody is worth giving your time and energy to? What makes a good person in that regard? When you've been in public life like me, I shook more than one million hands in my life. If somebody is lying to you, you realize it. Those who are authentic, you realize too. And it is observing people of all sorts of personalities that you navigate, and sometimes you make mistakes, but experience tells you to be guarded against that type or the other type of people. So people who are very flattering usually just… not too much, you know. Come on, I know… don't… don't insist, you know. Yeah, you know… you know when it's flattery, and you know it's pleasant once in a while, but not all the time.
So you were known to make the Queen laugh a lot, uh, and the Queen liked you a lot. You've been very good at getting people to like you, and I'm sure genuinely, of course. What would be your secrets or advice for someone who wants to present themselves in society and be accepted? Don't try to be somebody else; try to be yourself, be natural. You know, you have to have good manners; you know, watch the way you're dressed, too. I still, to this day, never come to the office without a tie. You know, I'm not comfortable wearing shoes like you when I go in public, and uh, you know, and you know… but… but… but no, I don't say you're wrong; I say I'm comfortable with that, and I try… don't try to transform myself to be like the gang. And you think most people tend to take me as I am. Yeah, you like it, fine; if you don't like it, there's nothing I can do about it.
What's your thought process to make a decision or not be afraid of what others think? When you're comfortable with a decision, you make it. When I became Prime Minister, you know, we were in a real fiscal mess. You know, the big financial newspaper had written that Canada was a candidate for third-world status; the World Bank was looking at us to intervene. And I said to the cabinet, "I might be Prime Minister only for one term, but I will fix the finances of the nation," and I did. But I knew that I could fail, and I might have been Prime Minister for one term, but I had already been in public life for 30 years, so my ambition was to do the right thing.
In your opinion, what makes a great leader? What are the qualities that someone has to have? To be honest, to be frank, to be knowledgeable, to be hardworking, and to do your best. You know, that I did my best. At the end of the day, I would come home; I would say to myself, "Yeah, I've done my best."
For you, you're almost 91. What is the truth about life that you wish more people understood? Your life is decided by life, so you have the destiny, and your assembly of your qualities will determine, or your defects, what kind of life you have. So you do your best all the time; you have something to do; you try to do it. If you do something, try to do it well; have pride in the quality of your work. Sometimes you might not succeed; sometimes it's terribly unfair. I've seen guys who should have had a much better life than they had; they were unlucky, and it's sad. But on the other hand, you have to be there when the luck passes. Don't be in the bar when the luck passes; be on the job, and you will have a chance to do well.
If you could go back in time to your 25-year-old self, knowing everything you know today about life, and you could give him one piece of advice, what would you say to him? Work. You know, nothing is completely easy, and if you have something in mind, try it, but don't go and spend the rest of your life saying, "I should have tried it." But it's easy for me; I was elected 12 times MP and never lost an election. I went through majority government; was 30 years in the cabinet; three years the leader of the opposition. So, so I have a pretty good CV, so I cannot complain. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate it.