In the Lobby with Brenda Becker

Oh, this is such an honor. And you are the rock star, not me. So, it's just great to be part of your new venture and your new show. And you're out there doing so many great things.

So, I just want to quick say those little people. My son is getting married this weekend.

It's coming up. But, you know, I love DC. I've been here a really long time, but I grew up in Michigan, so I'm a Midwesterner at heart. So, that's where all that lifting others up and mentoring comes from. But I got my Ford EXP and drove here not knowing a soul. And I got here and have built a life here and two children and all that good stuff. Met fabulous people like you and so many others in this town.

Well, you know, my father was in politics in Michigan. He was a state legislator and then chairman of the Republican party. So, I'm very close with my father, probably my greatest mentor still at 88 and sharp as a tack. And you know, when I was going through college at Michigan State—I'm a Spartan, I'm so sad we lost last night—but he said to me, and I would go on the campaign with him, I was one of four and I was the only one that was really interested in that. And I said to him, I was a business major at Michigan State and I wasn't doing very well. I still count on my fingers. So he said, 'You know, if I had to do it all over again, Brenda, I'd be a lobbyist.' He goes, 'You'll make more money.' And I said, 'That sounds good. Make more money.' So I dove into being a political science major. A week out of college, started working at Blue Cross Blue Shield Michigan as a state government affairs lobbyist. I was an analyst. And what was interesting, Lisa, is I did this bill analysis. They come in from Lansing and I sat there at a desk and see what might impact Blue Cross Blue Shield. And I saw this Elliot Larson. My maiden name is Larson. And I asked my manager one day, 'What's this Elliot Larson? Why is my family name on all these?' He goes, 'Well, your father, don't you know, was the co-sponsor of the Civil Rights Act in Michigan as a Republican?' So landmark legislation to this day, the LGBT community, you know, they finally added it. He said, you know, I wrote the bill. It was intended for everybody, equality for all. So I'm very proud of that. And that kind of got me into the public policy space and how do you do good things?

No, actually, so I've been in the private sector. So when I moved here it was to work for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. There was an opportunity, took it, and so I was there doing national state relations, moved into political PAC fundraising, then moved into kind of lobbying communications. So I was with the Blues for 20 years. And then what it looked like—so I'd never served other than working on campaigns and at Republican state committee for my dad. Had not done that, which is an unusual—there's only a few of us in this town that have gone the opposite way. So then when it looked like George Bush was going to win, I started getting calls would I go into the administration and I was like, 'Oh my god, I hadn't thought about that.' And I went over to the Department of Commerce, where is where I met you, thankfully.

And so I was Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs and that's when I really started spending more time, you know, in the trenches of government. And then, you know, honored to serve for Vice President Cheney for three years after those three years and had an office up in the Senate because he was the president of the Senate. And that's really where I cut my teeth from the standpoint of serving the public sector.

Well, you know, when I took the role, I really didn't know what Commerce did. You probably didn't either. It's such a ginormous organization with so many pieces to it. So, I stuck to my core, which is my ability to build relationships. I had relationships on Capitol Hill, and Secretary Evans is new from Texas, wearing his cowboy hat. Had no idea what he was diving into really. And so, my ability to close that gap for him of having relationships on the hill, understanding how it worked was really a great partnership. You know, when I look back, I was in healthcare for 20 years and it really wasn't much on health care at that time which was refreshing for me to get into other things. You got to remember we had 9/11, we had a little bay, we had all that stuff, the economy. But what really stuck out because of today's world of tariff and trade, we had the Trade Promotion Act that we had to get over the finish line, trade agreements, and that was long hours, lots of deal-making, lots of fun, a lot of pain. But we got it done. And to this day, that was, you know, I remember 3, 4:00 in the morning, you know, calling the secretary up saying, 'Do you want to come up here and have Mexican food with us?' You know, kind of, 'I'm on the balcony with the president.' You know, I'm like, okay, I guess you don't want to come to the hill.

That's right. Yeah.

So first of all, I had a lot of fear, you know, like we all do. We all have impostor syndrome at one point or another. And I'm like, what can I possibly offer the Vice President of the United States? He had been a chief of staff. He'd been a member of Congress. He'd been in leadership. Been the Secretary of Defense. And I just realized it was kind of the same thing. They become kind of in a fishbowl a little bit. And so I was able to provide him kind of context and color to what was going on on the hill. You know, we kept him up to date. The one thing I learned from him which was most—just through observation—was he always acted—this is a great lesson for me and anybody out there listening—is act like you heard the information for the first time. I figured by the time I went to brief him in the day, he'd been in with the president, into the security briefings, senior staff meetings, and I would go in to brief what my role, what was going on on the hill, and he always acted, he always took it in. He never said, 'Oh, you already heard about that this morning.' You know, and so I figured he was—what he was trying to do is never cut off his sources of information. And it was an incredible job. I cried I think the day I had to turn my badge in and leave the White House grounds for the first time. Because the experiences, the information, the people you come in contact with and as you said earlier, the people you work with are always—you're bonded for life. You make all the time because you are serving a higher purpose than yourself or one organization. It's for our country. It's for the people. And whether you agree with the president or not, whoever it is at the time, you want them to succeed. We want to be successful in this country.

Well, how many times does somebody walk into you and say, 'Hey, Lisa, did you hear blah blah blah?' And you're like, 'Oh, yeah. I heard that already.' And by the third time somebody does it, you don't go in there and tell them anymore. And they may miss some piece of information. So, I try to always say, 'Oh, thanks so much for telling me. Oh, really? What happened there?' You know, just try to dig in deeper of what they know.

Yeah, I think we all have to be curious. We have to have a growth mindset because, you know, even as we age and we have more wisdom. However, how do we continue? You know, two years ago with my team here, I said, 'Okay, AI, we better get on top of it.' So, you have to be visionary. You have to challenge yourself to learn new things to keep sharp, to be relevant, to add value. So I continue—I work with, I think the group you're talking about, Extraordinary Women on Boards. There was Modern Elder Academy. We went out there as a group. I'm not a retreat person but it was stretch and grow. Put yourself somewhere every day that you fear something or uncomfortable. I did a spray tan not long ago because my son's getting married. I was fearful of doing a spray tan and all the young people today are like, 'What are you talking about?' But I was like, 'Oh, this wasn't bad at all. I may do this every week.' You know, so it's always challenging yourself to learn something you don't know, to not fear it, even if you do a little bit, right?

So Boston Scientific is a medical technology, so it's noninvasive surgery. So we do a lot of plumbing in the heart. But we have eight business divisions, all non-invasive. Everything from deep brain stimulation to endoscopy to urology. You name it, we do. We don't do hip and knee replacements or anything with the eye, but pretty much all non-invasive. And you know, our job every day is to connect what's happening so that we can grow as a company. So I have a group of nine of us. I'm an empowerer. They're all much smarter than I am. They work hard every day. They're committed. They're passionate. But our job is to make sure at the end of the day, your mom, your dad, patients across the globe get the technology and the products to help improve their lives. And that may be, you know, putting a stent in so that they don't have a heart attack. Watchman that catches blood clots if you can't be on a blood thinner. So, there are all sorts of things like that. We're even into cancer now with some radioactive beads that directly hit the cancer without hurting the surrounding cells. So, all sorts of stuff like that. And you know, you look at healthcare, a global company now, we're supply chain, we're trade, we're taxed, shipment of lithium batteries that are in our products, you know, how do you know when those fires were starting in planes. So our portfolio is broad and it is impactful. Everything from FDA, CMS, highly regulated. So it's really fascinating stuff. Every day it's something different. Now with this law coming at all of us and my job is to cut through the clutter and work with my team, stay focused on what's important and keep everybody calm.

Or the wrong outfit, but other than that, you know, but you look at, when you look at 10 issues, which one is going to be most impactful and at what time frame is that come into play? So you have a lot of moving pieces, but at the end of the day, which one is in front of us right now? It's tax. It's tariff and trade.

Well, I think at the state level you move much quicker than the federal level. I still think that's the case. I think that the states now though are trying to fill the void because the federal government has slowed down so significantly. We're not getting a lot of things done. So they're starting to do it at the state level which a lot of times with issues you say, 'Wait a minute, we can't have a piecemeal of 50 different regulations, we do need federal legislation.' So what happens now at state level is bubbling up more. You even look at state legislators, more and more of them are running for Congress. So those that have been in the state legislature are now becoming congressional members. Governors are now wanting to run for president. So, I think it still moves faster, but they're now filling the gap because the federal government has become so slow to act. Does that make sense?

I think that my dad has been my lifelong mentor and he still is. If there's nothing he doesn't know and that hasn't provided thoughtfulness on something for me with great wisdom and living life. I think throughout my life I've had different mentors for different things. And a perfect example, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, new manager was dealing with some struggles and I went down to HR and they said, 'You know what, so and so is a really good manager. Why don't you go talk to him?' And I was like, okay. So that was the first time where I was very specific about asking somebody to help mentor me through being a new manager because nobody teaches you how to be a manager. It's really a learning experience. So, I think there's many people throughout my life and I still look for mentors. Some of these new groups I work with that I've talked to you about, Extraordinary Women on Boards and those type of groups, I find people in those groups that become new connections and I will call and say, 'Hey, I'm struggling with this. Can you help me? Can you help me think this through?' And so, I think mentors are throughout your life. There are different people at different times that you pull in because you're going, 'God,' and those are the kind of calls I get is like, 'I really need to talk to Brenda about this.' And I take such great honor that somebody would want to hear what I might say but I think Lisa the key is listening. People really just want somebody to listen to them. They don't want them to necessarily fix it, they just want a little guidance. But it's, you know, two ears, one mouth. We want to talk all the time but it's really the listening skill that is so important to helping others.

You see is what you get, girl.

Well, I made my living room into a gym. So, I keep very active, busy. Trying to stay fit. I get great joy. I get a lot of stress release from that. I've had some injuries lately, but I love golf, pickleball. I've gotten into that. I love to hike. I love to be in the mountains. I love to be at the ocean. I like to travel, but I mostly just enjoy being with my kids. My little grandpup, he's a little French bulldog. And take good care of him, too. You know, he's everybody's dog. I said to my daughter, 'I want you now. This is your dog. It's everybody's dog.' We love Bud. His name is Budweiser. But I just enjoy being with people, meeting new people, and you know, just I'm starting to just say, you know, every day find joy. I read books. My recent one by Mel Robbins everybody's talked about is Let Them. And so I just started that book. The other one is Die with Zero. That's giving some great perspective on how to think about living. You know, so many people worry about how much money even if they've got enough but they don't think they have enough and how you look at experiences with that money that compounds like it would be in the bank. It's just a really interesting book. So I stay very active. I don't sit still very well.

No, it's always fun to see you.

Michigan State.

Yes. Not big, but I just bought the Ora machine. I changed my life. Keurig. I just decided Keurig's out. So now I have my flat white in the morning. I like it. Press of a button.

Bolognese. Pasta.

Italy.

Yes.

I'll let you know. I promise.

That's really hard. There's so many fabulous people, but I would—I have—Can I lay out two or can I just—Is it just—

I'm gonna give you two. Jane Adams. Who has been a rock star in my opinion. Lifts others up. And Tiffany Moore, she's phenomenal, too. I mean, they're both women that have been in my circles long time. And have been very supportive of me constantly. It's always how are you? And they're just beautiful, lovely women.

Believe in themselves.