Friend,

I was touched that you asked for my advice about going into politics. Anyone whose career in politics was nasty, brutish, and short—as mine was—is grateful that anyone thinks their opinion is worth hearing. All I’d claim is that my thoughts come with what Scott Fitzgerald called “the authority of failure.”

First of all, you need to know why you want it. You’d be amazed at how many people who go into politics can’t give you an honest answer to why they want it so badly.

All the best reasons for going into politics never really change: the desire for glory and fame and the chance to do something that really matters, that will make life better for a lot of people. You have to be one of those people with outsized, even laughable ambition, who want their convictions to mean something more than smart conversation at dinner tables. You have to have a sense of vocation, a belief that something must be done and that you’re the person to do it.

I had the vocation for politics. What I didn’t have was any aptitude for political combat. I took the attacks personally, which is a great mistake. It’s never personal: It’s just business. It was ever thus. You can prepare yourself for combat by going in as a staffer, watching it from the sidelines, as I did when I was in my twenties, but believe me, when you step in the ring yourself, the first punch always comes as a shock. That’s when you’ll know, as you snap your head back into place, whether your first instinct is fight or flight.