Mind Over Mind: The Surprising Power of Expectations by Chris Berdik

Author:Chris Berdik [Berdik, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9781101595275
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2012-10-10T14:00:00+00:00

8 ] WHAT IT TAKES

On February 13, 2008, New York governor Eliot Spitzer checked in to room 871 at the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel in Washington, D.C. At the time, Spitzer’s star was on the rise. In his years as a top prosecutor, he’d taken on the mob and won. Then he’d gone after Internet scammers, polluters, and shady corporate dealers. Married, with three daughters, he exuded an image of the upright citizen, fighting for fair play.

The press loved Spitzer’s brawling approach to white-collar crime. His face graced front pages and magazine covers. In the late 1990s, he had jumped into politics and he hadn’t lost yet. According to well-connected people in a position to know, he seemed destined for even bigger things. How big? There were whispers that he might one day be president of the United States.

What the presidential whisperers didn’t know, however, was that despite all his success, Spitzer was actually incredibly and tragically weak. That weakness was about to be caught on tape.

Before arriving at the Mayflower, Spitzer made several calls to arrange for a high-priced prostitute. A federal wiretap of the escort service captured every sordid detail. This wasn’t Spitzer’s first time hiring a hooker. He was a regular customer. In two years, he’d spent more than $100,000 on illicit liaisons.

Before his rise to governor, Spitzer spent nearly a decade as New York state attorney general, where he earned a national reputation as the scourge of Wall Street. He was the new sheriff who was ready and eager to ride against the Masters of the Universe. He excoriated the executives of high finance as greedy and corrupt. He littered their posh offices with subpoenas. He came after them for price fixing, insider trading, and cooking the books. Along the way, people began to sense that Spitzer wasn’t just fighting the good fight against white-collar criminals, but bullying and grandstanding. Most famously, he sued Richard Grasso, the former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange* for earning too much money—in 2003, Grasso took home about $140 million in a deferred compensation package. As governor, Spitzer tangled openly with Republican legislators, allegedly telling the top Republican in the State Assembly, “I’m a fucking steamroller, and I’ll roll over you.”

The world of entitlement and privilege with which Spitzer clashed so fiercely happened to be where he was born and bred. He came from money and attended the best schools. He’d never had to struggle. Still, Spitzer believed in the ideals he preached, and he worked hard to reach a position where he could fight for them. Once he had that power, he used it with great relish, but he had no power over himself.

On March 10, 2008, after the New York Times broke the news of Spitzer’s D.C. dalliance and outed him as “Client 9” in a federal investigation of Emperors Club VIP, the governor walked up to a podium with his wife, Silda, and admitted his guilt.

“I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family and violates my, or any, sense of right or wrong,” Spitzer said.

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