Mayor Cory Booker on Real Time with Bill Maher

I’m sure I’m not the only person that’s really taken note of Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker since his moving keynote at Affiliate Summit East 2008. Last week, Booker appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher and gave a great interview on what an Obama presidency means to him and to America.  It was very reminiscent of the keynote speech – inspiring and motivating – so I felt it best to share.  Remember that his words can inspire you on a number of levels – which can boost your motivation to chase your own American dream and work harder to reach your goals in both business and pleasure.

I’m a Bill Maher fan from way back in his Politically Incorrect days, and I was glad that he seemed to really appreciate what Mayor Booker had to say and, apart from the occasional jabs about not having to ask a question before Booker spit out an answer, he was a really gracious interviewer.  Among some of the inspiring things he had to say, here’s one of the better nuggets:

We, as Americans, drink deeply from wells that we did not dig. This generation that I live in had so many sacrifices of those who’ve come before us, and the best thing we can do is show some measure of sacrifice to honor those people who bled on beaches from Normandy to Midway for us, or who stood on line to register people to vote back in the day that you could get killed for doing that. So, I’m not about a position. I’m really about a purpose, and I think we are a purpose-driven country. And I think it’s time that we exalt all of the spaces of our nation, that we honor the sacred nature of human dignity and human life, and try to make the idea of democracy more emboldened and more inclusive, so that all of us enjoy the fruits of this great nation.

You can listen to the entire episode (140) as a podcast through iTunes. Here’s the video clip of the segment with Mayor Booker via satellite on Real Time with Bill Maher: