~I've been a member of the Friends of the Eisenhower Foundation for 2 years now and the benefits are amazing if you are Presidential Museum nerd like me.
~My husband and I went to Texas this past summer to go to the 3 Presidential Museums there~George W. Bush's, George Bush Sr.'s and LBJ's. We both got into all of the museums for free because of my Eisenhower Foundation membership.
~Thus, I was excited to receive my Ike Insight newsletter last month announcing that Bret Baier was going to be at the Eisenhower Museum on February 2nd.
~I'd been to the museum twice before, and since it was only 2 1/2 hours away I knew I'd be going to this event. Baier was coming to promote his book about Eisenhower, Three Days in January which would also be used as a fundraiser for the museum. If you wanted to spend a nice chunk of change you could be in the live audience for Baier's show, Special Report, instead I chose to just come to the book talk and signing.
~Baier's talk was great, he shared his journey on what led him to write the book. He said he wanted to introduce his/our generation (he's my age) to Eisenhower. He talked about how Eisenhower was very transparent and was the first TV president and the first to do live news conferences.
~He mentioned that Eisenhower was a humble leader who always empowered people to be their best. While writing the book Baier discovered, Seven Business Leadership Lessons from Dwight Eisenhower which he published as an article in Forbes Magazine and he listed those for us during his talk:
1) Be gentle in manner, strong in deed.
2) Be a navigator, not an instigator.
3) Know what you don't know.
4) Don't let it go to your head.
5) Take the long view.
6) Never attack people personally.
7) Be the chief morale booster.
~I enjoyed the event immensely. I have met my share of politicians and political pundits, and I found Baier to be a genuinely kind man. He is very much like his colleagues Sean Hannity and Tony Snow.
~The event ended up drawing more people than the museum expected, but I got there early and was near the front of the line after the talk. He not only signed my copy of the book, but also did one for my Mom and said the above, it put a big smile on my face.
