Episode 19: Antoinette Naddour
Executive Director and Co-Founder of Veterans Legal Institute
00:40:38Subscribe and listen on…
Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music | PocketCasts | iHeartRadio | Player.FM Podcasts
Watch Full Interview
Show Notes
Antoinette Naddour, Executive Director and Co-Founder of the legal nonprofit Veterans Legal Institute®, discusses her nonprofit career, how her military experience and her immigrant family impacted the direction of her career, and her prestigious role as a Presidential Leadership Scholar. This episode is a must-listen for those interested in public interest law, or those who would like to understand the significant role legal nonprofits play in the justice system.
This episode is powered by Clearbrief, Trellis, BriefCatch, and CSBA.
Antoinette Naddour Balta
Antoinette Naddour is Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Veterans Legal Institute® where she oversees and has responsibility for the overall management of the firm including business development, outreach, public relations, marketing, strategic planning and a light legal caseload. She comes to VLI with a long-held passion to serve homeless and at-risk veterans and service members and has dedicated her career to that end.
Noticing an influx of service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking shelter at a local National Guard armory, Ms. Balta discovered that many issues that contributed to these veterans’ chronic homelessness were legal in nature and required the assistance of an attorney. So moved by the fact that the men and women who had served the country abroad were now struggling, she committed herself to the cause of removing “chronic” from “homelessness” and empowering veterans into self-sufficiency. This led her to be instrumental in the co-development of a veteran based project at a local legal aid, with over 700 veterans receiving legal assistance during her three year tenure. Since co-founding the Veterans Legal Institute in 2014, over 6,000 local low income veterans have benefitted from free legal services.
Ms. Naddour was an officer with the California State Guard for over 6 years. She served in the rank of Major both as a Marketing Officer assigned to Strategic Communications (STRATCOM) as well as reserve JAG Officer assigned to Legal Support Command. She is accredited by the Department of Veterans Affairs and regularly lectures on legal topics affecting veterans, where she is known for providing innovative solutions aimed at veteran empowerment and self-sufficiency. In the past, Ms. Balta was a law lecturer at UCI School of Law for its Veterans Law Clinic.
Ms. Naddour is a graduate of the 2018 Presidential Leadership Scholars Class, a prestigious program that serves as a catalyst for a diverse network of leaders brought together to collaborate and make a difference in the world as they learn about leadership through the lens of the presidential experiences of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Lyndon B. Johnson. During her tenure in this program, she focused on the improvement and further development of mobile legal clinics for low income veterans, a project that is shared freely throughout the nation to promote additional services for veterans in need.
Ms. Naddour holds a degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing and Management from Chapman University School of Business as well as a Juris Doctor with a special certificate in Alternative Dispute Resolution and an LLM emphasized in Business and Economics from Chapman University Fowler School of Law.
Transcript
Welcome to the show. I’m very pleased to have joined the show, Antoinette Balta (now Naddour), who is the Executive Director and Cofounder of the Veterans Legal Institute in Orange County, California. It is an amazing legal nonprofit that assists veterans and service members with several legal needs. Welcome, Antoinette.
Thanks for having me.
I’m interested in folks like you who have law degrees and have directly used their legal skills in the past but then have branched out to other ways to serve. In your role as executive director, you wear many more hats than just a legal hat but first, I want to ask you about how it was originally that you decided to enter the law, go to law school and become a lawyer.
When I was young, my parents had immigrated to the United States. None of the women or men in my family had ever gone to college because they couldn't have afforded it. They all started work early. Both of my parents were focused on this idea of education and the American dream. My mom specifically told me, “In the United States, you can be anything that you want to be as long it’s a doctor, lawyer or engineer.” I'm like, “I don't like blood, so I can't be a doctor. I still don't understand what engineers do, so lawyer it is.” My parents both supported me throughout my journey to go to college and eventually law school. Here I am.
I understand that decision-making. I was like, “Science, blood, medical, not for me.” I like to write and argue, so lawyering seems pretty good but did you have some sense of the service that you could accomplish through the laws well when you chose it or did that come as you went along?
I always knew that I wanted to work with some vulnerable population, so I started doing community service through my church at a young age and I liked the social aspect of it. I liked how it made me feel. I felt good that I was contributing to society. I knew that if I had a law degree, I would be in a more powerful position that maybe my pen or legal mind could make a difference. I could change whether it be policy or someone's life that otherwise couldn't access justice because they couldn't afford it.
Veterans Legal Institute has the perfect intersection of your backgrounds too, because you also have served.
We need to look to one another, be inspired by each other, and help each other out
I spent six years in the California State Guard and primarily doing JAD work, which is Judge Advocate work working as an attorney and then in my final days with them, I did a lot with StratCom, which is Strategic Communications.
That gives you a certain sense of understanding for the client population for VLI as well.
In the Military, they speak a different lingo. It was helpful to advocate for your client and establish rapport when you understand that Military language. It continues to be helpful in my career.
Before founding VLI, you also worked at another nonprofit. Is that the first job that you had out of law school and service?
I spent about five years practicing privately, doing real estate and business civil litigation. Primarily, I was doing that because I had law school debt and I needed to pay it off. Unfortunately, in the nonprofit industry, it can't compete salary-wise with what we're making in the private sector, so I had to establish that first, especially living in Orange County, where the cost of living is so high.
Once I was able to get that squared away, I applied to Equal Justice Works to become an AmeriCorps Legal Fellow. I was awarded that fellowship and stationed with a local legal aid for a couple of years as a Fellow also working with vulnerable populations. I stayed on there afterward, but I thought there's such a need for military-specific legal services because the reason we have military homelessness and such a high rate of suicide amongst former service members is different from their civilian counterparts. If you don't have that understanding or insight, it's hard to serve your client or advocate for them the right way.
Did you come to see all of those different factors as you were working with the other legal aid, a nonprofit, and recognizing that there's a distinct set of issues for this population from that experience or was it something else?
While I was working there, I used to volunteer at the emergency shelter, which was at the National Guard Armory. I noticed that there was an unusually high percentage of homeless veterans. I thought, “This is so strange. Veterans are leaders, politicians, business owners and executives. They run Fortune 500 companies. Why am I seeing so many homeless veterans at this shelter?”
I started doing a little research. This was before veterans were on the map. Now, we're seeing it more. It’s more of a popular bi-partisan topic. People come together and are becoming more patriotic. They want to serve those who served our country but years ago, people weren't talking about it. It was a relatively new idea.
For California legal aids that are IOLTA funded, meaning they get funded by the State Park, they must go by income eligibility. If a veteran is 100% service-connected disabled, they receive approximately $30,000 to $33,000 a month. That automatically can disqualify them from being income eligible for legal aid. What happens is they'll be eligible for legal services but too poor to afford a private attorney all because of their disability.
I wanted to start an organization that doesn't have to have funding with those strings attached. We did eventually get IOLTA funded and, at Veterans Legal Institute, co-sponsor a bill with Senator Tom Umberg’s office to waive service-connected compensation, which is disability compensation of veterans for purposes of eligibility for IOLTA funding. Veterans statewide can qualify otherwise as long as they don't have a high income in other areas but their disability income isn't going to count or discriminate against them based on their disability.
That's an example of what you said originally in terms of having the legal training and law degree can help you make an impact in ways that you couldn't without that. You saw that experience happen. You saw a need for a public interest organization that can serve the population and then further worked on legislation to make that no longer be the case. From what I know about you, that's exactly how you roll in terms of making a difference in individual cases but then also looking at the larger problem and figuring out, “This doesn't seem right. Is there something else we might consider doing? This isn't fair.”
Thank you so much. I credit having a law degree for giving me the tools to be able to have that impact. It has been a great blessing for me. To shine a little spotlight on you, I've been blessed to be inspired and be around other female attorneys who are not only practicing law but in their spare time, trying to work on policy or other objectives that help out their community.
An example in your case is with all the amicus briefs you write to support survivors of sexual trafficking, persecuted populations in different parts of the world and returning art to Holocaust survivors that were wrongly taken from them. It's important for females in our profession, which is traditionally dominated by males, to look to one another, be inspired and help each other out.
That's why I asked you to be on the show because you are inspiring. I want people to think about different ways to serve with a law degree and different things that you can do that might be a little bit outside the box for some people that never considered that they could become a judge. I invited several judges on the show to talk about their journeys so that everyone can see there are a lot of different ways to get there.
In your case, it’s the question of how you get from a law degree to cofounding an entire nonprofit focused on a new area. That requires a lot of other skills besides just knowing your way around a legal brief or a courtroom. You saw this need, no one's filling it and because of this IOLTA funding question, there are existing nonprofits that can't fill a certain part of that need. What did you do? Most people wouldn't say, “I'll go found something then,” but you did, so how does that come about?
You don’t know what you don't know so continue to take training where you can.
It was a leap of faith. I spoke with a few people in the community, both the legal and business community that I respect a lot and I asked for their opinion. I drafted a business plan. I didn't at the time have seed funding, so I looked into how long can I do this without taking a salary, how long can I survive, what's it going to cost me, how much is it going to be out of my pocket and what are the potential funding sources out there.
Fortunately, it has been a couple of years and Veterans Legal Institute has close to twenty employees but it has been an uphill battle. Every day brings on new opportunities and challenges because it’s easy to say, “I want to provide free legal services. I don't want any veterans to ever receive any bill.” We don’t take cases on contingency. We don’t take a percentage. The veteran and the veteran’s family keep everything. It’s this idea or concept of how do I keep funding this operation so that I can meet the need and this huge demand for those who sacrificed everything for our freedom.
Don't you also have business training? Most lawyers would say, “I had to make a business plan.” A lot of lawyers would have their eyes glaze over a business plan like, “What does that look like?” Even people who run law firms because that's a little bit different but you also had training in that regard.
I did. I do have a degree in Business Marketing and Management. I've always been involved in my family's business, so I was familiar with the ins and the outs and the daily of HR, overhead, payroll and things of that nature. As soon as I started Veterans Legal Institute, I did start a local training for nonprofit executives in how to run their nonprofit apart from the regular things that every single business has to encounter but it also included things on how to build a board, how to have an effective board and other things of that nature.
You don't know what you don't know but you know that you don't know it. I continue to take training when I can. In 2018, I joined the Presidential Leadership Scholar Class and through that, I was able to learn about leadership through the lens of four different presidential administrations. That helped me take Veterans Legal Institute to the next level.
I wanted to ask you about that Presidential Leadership experience. It's an honor to be chosen for it. It's competitive and second of all, it's such a unique experience both from the various presidents providing their leadership information and experiences to you but also, the other people in the class because there are lots of connections from that. The alumni aspect is pretty strong. Can you explain a little bit about how you obtained that particular role in that cohort and what was involved?
Anyone can apply to be a Presidential Leadership scholar. They do it once a year and it's for six months. Every single month, you go to a different presidential library or Washington D.C. for 3 to 4 days and you learn about leadership. It's interesting because you get to meet with different leaders and people that were part of different presidential administrations.
You learn from them about how and why they advocated for the most effective policies in terms of leadership in the best way. You do have to apply. It is very competitive. Thousands of people apply every year and they pick 60 scholars each year. I would say that it was probably one of the greatest opportunities I had in my lifetime.
Why do you think that in particular for you? Is it the confidence or the connections that it gave you as well as the insights into this decision-making? Was it many different things?
It's a myriad of things. I remember walking in on the first day thinking like, “I don't belong here with these people.” It’s that impostor syndrome where you’re sitting like, “Someone made a mistake and checked yes when they should've checked no.” With the network there, they’re a lot of movers and shakers doing amazing things in a variety of fields like medicine, arts, law and other fields.
It did give me some insight that these are normal people doing incredible things, so it helped me envision myself in greater roles and understand that with the right tools and the right resources, I can do whatever I aspire to do. The network is incredible. I enjoyed maintaining relationships with all of the fellows that were in my cohort. We do meet and chat regularly. It's like having a second family. The gift of PLS or the Presidential Leadership Scholars is one that truly keeps on giving.
I would also imagine the other classes too. It would be a special connection that all of you have. If you wanted to reach out to someone who was a member of another part of the class or a different cohort, you could probably do that and somebody would return your call.
We do all support one another. We’ve had several members of PLS throughout a variety of the actual classes in years run for political office and different members work at different nonprofits that are seeking support. It is an incredible resource and brotherhood and sisterhood for all of us so that we can help each other out.
It’s a tremendous program. It's good for you to let everyone know about it so that they can apply but also, firsthand describe how it has made a difference for you. That's what I've seen in others who have been part of the program. It turns on a switch to maximizing their potential that people already saw in what they were doing and that they could do so much more. It rockets them out to accomplish even more of what they can be and how they can contribute to the world. It's good that's how you see it as well. For any organization, that is massive growth. You are a business in a nonprofit sense but from a complete startup with no employees to 20 in 8 years is remarkable. Congratulations on that.
Thank you. I’m very blessed that we’ve been able to grow so much but I keep my eyes always looking forward because even with that many employees, we get over 2,500 increases per year, so we simply can’t meet the demand for veterans’ services. The ultimate goal and reason I continue to work so hard as if it's the first day and we’re still in the startup phase is because I never want to have to say no to any veteran that requires assistance.
Do you think with that change in the law about funding that there will be at least more IOLTA funding and more places, maybe not a specialized place like yours but at least veterans can go to other legal nonprofits that can help them in ways that couldn't help them before, so maybe by that, you're expanding the service pool a little bit?
That’s the hope. They're eligible so they're going to qualify for services at more nonprofits but the fact is different legal aid have different eligibility requirements. They’re not just income-based but also a lot of them have geographic requirements. A lot of them don't have the expertise in complex veteran benefit appeals and discharge upgrades. A lot of them don't provide services in family law. These are areas where veterans need support. On one hand, it's exciting that they might have other options but on the other hand, a lot more veterans are going to qualify, so that's also going to increase the number of veterans trying to support us.
Do you have any advice for maybe law students or newer lawyers who are potentially interested in working in the public interest or maybe even thinking about founding their legal nonprofit?
It’s so important that law students start getting training as early as they can in their careers, even during law school. Finding a law firm or a local legal aid where they can get that training and real legal work is imperative to becoming a good lawyer. Lots of legal aids out there, be it at Veterans Legal Institute or others, do take on interns, so a lot of those internships are unpaid because they are nonprofits. I would suggest that they go to their law school’s local PILF organization, which is Public Interest Law Foundation.
With the right tools and the right resources, you can do whatever you aspire to do.
A lot of them have those and a lot of them will subsidize their summer career by providing small grants so that they can work at local legal aids. That’s the best way to get your foot in the door. The majority of my staff previously volunteered at Veterans Legal Institute. They were hired in-house. There are a few that we recruited and found through other means but we like to hire and promote from within.
If someone volunteers, they get trained up, so they're able to show how effective and passionate they are about serving this population. You don't want to lose them, so you go out of your way to be creative, find funding for them and make sure that they can stay a part of your team. I highly encourage any law student to volunteer when they can, assuming they still make time to study but get some practical training in the law at their local legal aids.
As they continue and they become licensed and start their practice, a lot of law firms will give you billable hours for your pro bono work. I suggest talking to the pro bono manager at your firm if you have one or asking your boss, “Do I get credit if I do pro bono?” It's a great way, not only to help someone out but learn the ropes in a lot of areas. A lot of legal aids like Veterans Legal Institute provide free technical assistance and training, so if you take on a case, we'll walk you through it. That's a great way to build your portfolio of the types of legal services that you've provided.
It's excellent training and opportunities. I encourage the associates who work with me to do pro bono work, but then if they're working with me, they're often working on pro bono cases that I've taken in as well but also to your point about training that's important sometimes that your first motion or ability to argue in a hearing or court will come through a pro bono case rather than a paid client case. That helps you enhance your skills overall and then also puts you in a good position to then take on an argument or more responsibility in a case involving a client who isn't pro bono because you can say, “I've done this before. I have some experience.”
Don’t limit pro bono to law students and newer attorneys. We always look to the more experienced attorneys like you, whether it’s you taking on the case or you supervising a pro bono case with your associates. That level of service and donating that time and skillset is life-changing for our clientele. Many of our clients will come in and say, “All I want is to stay housed safely with my family but there's no hot water. This house is infested with roaches and the landlord won't fix it. I can't pay someone to fix it and pay my rent.”
They'll say, “All I want is for you to help me with my landlord and the rent.” When the landlord finds out, they do a retaliatory eviction. Attorneys like you will come in and help that person stay housed and a lot of times, get other relief for that veteran never would have dreamed about. It can make a difference, not just their sense of security and safety but also their economic viability moving forward. I always encourage the all-stars like you too. I know how busy everybody is. We're all busy but the busy people are the ones that get things done but always consider carving out some time to delineate that incredible skillset to serving those in need.
When you see a positive result and you're able to help someone, it encourages you to do it again because there are certainly good feelings that come from doing that so hopefully, there are a lot of repeats of people doing pro bono because of that, not just for newer lawyers where it provides some opportunity for skill-building but also an opportunity to make a difference, which you might not have that early.
The service part of our profession is we are still a profession. That's an important aspect of who we are as lawyers. Whatever moves you is how you should serve if there's a particular population you would like to help or a client that you feel moved particularly to advocate for. That's how I roll. Although I'm doing more of the appellate work, I'm looking at legal change, legal principles and how we can help a bunch of people with those but that's a little bit different perspective for the pro bono choices.
It's an incredible and rare skillset to have that's highly impactful. You're focusing your talents in the right place.
Can I ask you too about any mentors or sponsors? It sounds like you have some of those from the PLS program but before that, you had mentors and sponsors in terms of helping you to navigate funding and running the nonprofit or otherwise in your career. People like to hear these kinds of stories and parts so they can recognize mentoring and sponsorship when it presents itself and what that might look like.
I still always reach out to different mentors that are experts in different areas to bounce back some ideas back and forth, whether in the law, Military and business. I try to have at least one coffee or lunch every month with somebody who knows something that I don't so that I can pick their brain and be able to grow in that area. By that same token, I've always mentored younger attorneys to help them figure out their path, career and get them going.
I've had the opportunity to do that through the Orange County Bar association, which has a mentorship committee and every year, they pair us up with newer attorneys. Other people have said, “Can I maybe talk to you 30 minutes or 1 hour each
month and pick your brain about what I should be doing in terms of my career or how I should be practicing law? What's the most effective way to combine my passions with my skillset and job?” It’s a true honor both to give and receive in terms of mentorship.
That's a good reminder for more senior attorneys too to make themselves available for that, be open to that if people approach you and be willing to meet with people and provide whatever experiences or wisdom might be helpful. Another thing you said that I thought is important too is that you're interested in helping people to mentor them to do what they want to do or where they might grow in their profession. You did not say, “I'm here to make a bunch of mini-mes. I'm here to have people who want to do exactly what I do or in this way.” That's the truest type of mentorship.
You want to allow people to become the best that they can become and do what they want to do instead of saying, “What I did is great. You should do it too and do it in this particular way.” Even though there might be some hard lessons from how you got to where you got and you're like, “Looking back at this, I would try to avoid this thing because that was a long road to go. This way is better.” That's a different mentoring.
You’ve made a good point when you said, “What I do is an appellate type of work. That's how I do my pro bono” If you came to me and you said, “I’m looking for a pro bono opportunity. What should I do?” I asked them, “What are your strengths? What do you like to do? How can you merge those two things?” I believe people should stick to what they're good at and what they're passionate about.
How did your experience in private practice impact what you do in the nonprofit realm or maybe even your experience with other supervisors or managers impacted how you run VLI? There are two questions in terms of how you practice law or think about law and then managing your team.
My first job was with an attorney who believed in learning the law by the actual physical books. She didn't like Lexis, Westlaw or any other search engine. She said, “Here are the books and this is how you look it up.” It was a great way to learn how to use the resources that were available to me. She had a very interesting style of leadership. From there, at my other jobs, I learned different ways of practicing law, researching different tools to use and different resources. All of those experiences helped me not only be able to understand the practice of law but also how to manage my team and how to work with them.
Focus your talents on the right place.
I looked back at all of the experiences I had and think about what worked with me, what style did I appreciate and what didn't particularly appreciate. I tried to use the methods that I thought were most helpful. For example, I once worked for a boss that you were not allowed to ask him a question. He was busy. You couldn’t talk to him. If you did, you felt judged or guilty. I thought, “That wasn't helpful for me for my professional growth.”
I make it a point at Veterans Legal Institute to have an open-door policy. Any question is relevant amongst my staff. We have an all-staff meeting where we can talk about anything but because of the pandemic, we’re on Zoom. There’s no agenda to it but it's not structured in any way other than we go from person to person, ask questions, celebrate victories and talk about any support that we might need.
It’s an open forum. I always try to reinforce to my team, “If you need anything, you can always call on me. I'm available in person, by phone, text and email.” I like to be accessible. In terms of my style of leadership, I want to create other leaders. I don't want to be alone at the top. I want a strong team where every single person on my team is growing and is a leader because eventually, every executive director needs a succession plan. You can't do everything yourself but you're so much more powerful when you have a family working with you. I look at my colleagues as my work family. I learned that style through my own experiences.
Did you start with that open mic meeting thing where people can talk about things or did you come to that over time?
By the time I started VLI, I knew that was going to be my leadership style. I wanted an open-door policy and my staff to always feel comfortable sharing with me any of their challenges or victories even. I like to celebrate their victories. I will ask them and when they share with me, I'll share it with the rest of the staff. I like to spotlight those who are trying hard to get the best results and zealously advocate for our clientele. I have been like that from day one. I do try to reaffirm that to my staff periodically so that they don't forget. I’m like, “If you have this question or issue, come to me. We're a team. We’ll work and resolve it together.”
It also creates a culture amongst everyone on the team in terms of we help and cheering each other on. What we do is challenging but we're not going to be challenging with each other.
Having an amazing atmosphere at work is so important. For that reason, outside of practicing law all the time and celebrating each other's victories, we have an informal health and wellness program where once a month we try to do an activity together. Sometimes, it's a hike, physical training at a gym or happy hour. We’re also planning a beach cleanup. It's a fun way to bond.
Sometimes, we talk shop but we are enjoying each other's company and take a break because public interest work can be very emotionally exhausting and that's why sometimes, you see people in the field end up going back to private practice because it can be very difficult for them to handle all of the emotional aspects of serving a population that's homeless, disabled or mentally ill.
There's a lot of positive in helping people but then it can be challenging day-to-day in that regard. Seeing the sheer number of people that need to be served and the number that you can serve, that's got to be difficult as well.
One of the conversations I always have with the newer attorney is, “You joined Veterans Legal Institute because you might be an A-type attorney but you’re very empathetic. That’s why you’ve chosen to dedicate your career and make 70% less than what you would make in the private market because it makes you feel good and you value helping other people. With that being said, on your first day, you’re going to have 200 cases on your desk.”
“You’re going to have to figure out how to triage because there’s only 1 of you and there are 200 people that want your help and attention. You can't help all of them effectively, so you're going to have to go through and decide, ‘Who can I help? Who do I help first? Who can get resources elsewhere? Who are we going to have to say no to?’”
For someone who is empathetic and is a warrior in service, it’s so hard to say no. What I've seen and I experienced this myself when I was an Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Legal Fellow, what happens is you end up taking all these cases, you're working seven days a week and you're working nights. You're like, “I want to help all these people, but something has to change. I can't do it.” We have talked about being mindful of our caseload.
That’s where a lot of people have difficulty having longevity in the public interest. If you do push that hard all the time, you're going to get pretty drained.
Going back to leadership and management, that's why I try to have my team focus on a 40-hour workweek. If you need help, you ask for it. Take your vacations. Your teammates will cover you. Learn to triage because it's important to have a healthy work-life balance.
That's good advice all around. There are a lot of very hardworking associates at law firms as well who could well take that to heart in terms of maintaining longevity. In doing what they do as well, all of us can be reminded of that and it's a good reminder for that. It’s good to have the health and wellness focus as well. I usually end with a lightning round of a few different questions. You can answer with a few sentence answers. We try to get through them pretty quickly. What is the trait that you most deplore in others?
Selfishness.
What is the trait that you most deplore in yourself?
It can be personally hard to satisfy myself. I feel like it's never enough what I'm doing.
Every single person in a strong team is a leader.
Who are your favorite writers?
I love Kahlil Gibran, who wrote The Prophet many years ago. It's probably one of my favorite books. I love Isabel Allende. She's a Latina author who does incredible historical fiction and fantasy-style books.
Who is your hero in real life?
My mom. She is the most selfless person I've ever met. She works so hard. She's so humble. Her core value is her family. She's an exemplary woman.
For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
I feel most grateful that I live in the United States. I truly believe that we live in the best country in the world. We have so many opportunities and programs here. Like any other country, it has its faults but compared to other countries, it's a beautiful country to live in, especially as a woman.
Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you ask to have as a dinner guest?
There are so many, but I’d be interested in meeting President Biden and talking to him. What we see in the media, how much of it is true? What does leadership look like? What are his struggles?
You’ve met several of the other prior presidents, so you can continue in that vein.
They have very different leadership styles.
In your PLS training there, there were President Bush and President Clinton. Who else is involved in that?
Both President Bush, junior and senior, Clinton and then the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. I did have the opportunity to meet both Presidents Bush, junior and senior, as well as President Clinton.
What is your motto?
My motto is to move forward. It's so easy sometimes to fall into the attitude of, “I'm overwhelmed. Things are hard. Why did this happen to me?” When that happens, you got to stop, take a breath and then move forward. Life is short. You got to enjoy it.
I like that one. I think that in terms of taking the next step, you have to keep moving forward. Even if you can't see the rest of the path, take the first step, then the next step and keep moving forward. You never know where it might lead.
I had a conversation with a girlfriend who lost her husband. She was crying over the phone saying, “I don't know what I'm going to do. I will never forget him.” I said, “You don't have to move on today but you can move forward.” We have to also honor ourselves in times of tragedy, loss and difficulty and figure out what tomorrow is going to look like.
That is an excellent admonition to conclude the episode with. Antoinette Balta, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate all of your wisdom.
The pleasure is all mine. Thank you, MC.