What Bill Clinton, Gerry Adams, and Monica Lewinsky Have to Teach Us

Some people believe Bill Clinton was a great President. Others are just as sure that he embarrassed the entire country with his reckless personal behavior. Both are firm in their convictions – with good reason.

The ex-President’s relationship with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has been credited as a key to bringing peace to Northern Ireland. His Clinton Foundation has enabled more than 540,000 people in 62 countries access to low cost anti-retroviral drugs to treat AIDS. His foundation is also a leader in the fight against global warming, the elimination of poverty and dozens of others initiatives that improve the lives of people around the world.

Yet this is the same man who had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, was the first President to face impeachment since Nixon, and made a controversial pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich just before leaving office.

I (as I’m sure many of you) have wondered why such a brilliant leader would make these types of mistakes? Couldn’t he control himself? I was taught long ago that it’s a dangerous game to attribute motivations to another’s behavior. Behavior is what we see. Motivations are often hidden.

This was the case for me with Clinton until I recently read a fascinating book, In Search of Bill Clinton by psychologist John Gartner. In it he explains how both Clinton’s triumphs and tragedies were nearly inevitable based on his life story.

Bill’s childhood friends consistently said the same thing: Clinton was destined to become President. Remarkably, they said this starting when he was five years old. His voracious appetite for learning and ability to make sense of complexity can be traced directly to his birth father.

His mother lived a promiscuous life, always involved with at least two men at the same time. She modeled this behavior for Bill from the time he could walk. Unfortunately, he learned these lessons all too well.

I’m not suggesting that there are excuses for Clinton’s behavior. There are explanations. The quest for those explanations is what drove Gartner through years of painstaking research and interviews.

We all have histories, like Clinton, that shape our behavior today. After reading the Gartner book, I had to ask myself, “How often do I stop and reflect about the reasons I’m thinking and saying the things I do?” My choices today are shaped by my stories from yesterday. I don’t have to share these stories with anyone. I’m more comfortable with keeping some private instead of having them written about and analyzed like Clinton’s. But in understanding the arc of my past into my present, I have more choices about what my future will be.

This may seem like Psychology 101. Maybe it is. But how many times in the past day, week, or even month have you reflected on how your history, even back to childhood, explains your successes and shortcomings? If we all did, I think we’d be able to much more consciously create our future.