What I Learned

Liz Cheney
Attorney and Middle East specialist

Find something you really love and make it your career. Don't let anyone discourage you or tell you it's not practical. I have loved the Middle East since I was a little girl. I read my first book about ancient Egypt when I was 10, and I've been hooked ever since. My career has taken lots of turns, but the Middle East has been a constant. When I was in law school at the University of Chicago, I spent every spare moment taking classes on Middle East history at the Oriental Institute. When I was practicing law, I focused on projects in the Middle East. For the last five years, I've been working on U.S. Middle East policy, women's empowerment and democratic reform in the Arab world.

I have been blessed to have had great, strong women mentors, beginning with my mother. I have also met incredibly impressive women in the Arab world. They are demonstrating enormous courage as they work to expand women's rights and human freedom in their countries. I am inspired to work harder every time I spend time with them.

My mother and father taught my sister and me that we could be anything we dreamed of if we were willing to work hard enough. That was a tremendous gift. Now I have three daughters and two young sons of my own. When I think of my girls playing soccer or field hockey, or riding horses across the Wyoming plains, I am just in awe of them. If someone told them they were less able than boys, they would laugh at the absurdity of such a claim.

I don't agree with Senator [Hillary] Clinton's views on the issues, but I think it's terrific that she is a credible presidential candidate. It's a measure of progress in this country that she will be judged not on her gender, but on whether she is right or wrong on the issues, whether she is up to the task of being president. That says a lot about us as a nation. It's about time we got to that point.

Betsy Myers
Chief operating officer, Obama for America