Rachael Eckles has worked in the health care industry for over twenty years. A lawyer and bioethicist by training, she began her career in clinical research, ran a hospital medical ethics committee, and began a bioethics program at a pharmaceutical company. Her love of shaping the environment evolved into a career in policy and government affairs.
During a brief stint away from health care, she worked in securities litigation. It was then that she began writing fiction, which has evolved into the award-winning Wall Street thriller series, Trading Secrets, with two books released and a third on the way.
Rachael believes each of us has a responsibility to shape the best future possible, and she embodies this through her philanthropic commitments both locally and globally. She donates a portion of her proceeds to local and global programs that empower women and girls through her foundation, Aphrodite Gives.
In her free time, Rachael practices yoga, meditation, and strength training. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and her dog.
[00:00:12] Welcome back to another episode of The Political Life. Today we come to you live from New York City. Well, we're not actually live and we're not in New York City. Well, our guest is in New York City. Today we are Maggie and I. Maggie's here with me, of course, Maggie Mick from Multistate. Maggie and I are very excited to have a friend of hers on the show, an author by the name of Rachel Eccles. Rachel, welcome to the show.
[00:00:41] We're so glad to have you here. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to it. I love your podcast, by the way.
[00:00:47] Well, thank you. And maybe next time we can do this live in New York and do an interview and then go to lunch.
[00:00:53] I love it. You know, do the lobbying thing. So, Rachel, tell us, give our audience a little bit of an overview of your background.
[00:01:04] Right. So, born and raised in the Midwest and I'm a lawyer and a bioethicist by training. So, I actually started my career after undergrad. I wanted to be pre-med and I started working in a clinic with patients who had recently received a cancer diagnosis.
[00:01:22] And through a series of luck and just circumstance, I ended up moving into a master's program for bioethics.
[00:01:33] And through that, I found a very non-traditional entry into pharmaceutical, government affairs and policy organizations.
[00:01:42] So, I was working with patients day to day and then really evolved that into my love for policy and government affairs and, you know, shaping the environment to make the world a better place for patients, especially those with life-threatening diseases.
[00:02:02] What a perfect combination for someone doing government affairs to have a legal and a medical combination. You must find that incredibly helpful.
[00:02:12] It is, you know, I think the clinical experience was probably the thing that shaped my career the most being day-to-day one-on-one with patients who had just recently been diagnosed with cancer.
[00:02:24] And then, you know, moving into clinics that had other patients who were very sick from a myriad of diseases and then learning to build that story and to, you know, shaping policy.
[00:02:38] It's been, you know, a really wonderful way to kind of tie in my love of storytelling.
[00:02:46] So, when you go to undergrad and you choose this path for your career, and it seems like you've got like three different career paths actually going in.
[00:02:57] We're going to dive into all of those.
[00:02:59] But how do you choose to become a bioethicist?
[00:03:06] Well, candidly, I had no idea that I wanted to do that until the second I decided.
[00:03:10] So, I graduated with an undergraduate degree in philosophy, and my plan was to go directly to law school.
[00:03:21] Decided to become a yoga teacher, and from there I decided I wanted to be a doctor.
[00:03:25] So, I had a very busy time in my 20s of exploring different career paths.
[00:03:30] And what, you know, how I really ended up into the bioethics space was through a mentor of mine that I worked with in the oncology clinics.
[00:03:41] He's an oncologist, also trained as a bioethicist, and he was starting a program with a lot of other professors at Indiana University.
[00:03:50] So, I was actually the first student in their bioethics program and the first student in their joint bioethics and law degree program.
[00:03:57] So, it was really wonderful to be the first because I got all of the opportunities, you know, that I wanted.
[00:04:04] I was able to be a graduate fellow at the Center for Bioethics, in addition to a visiting scholarship at Eli Lilly on bioethics.
[00:04:13] So, it was really such an amazing way to get a lot of opportunity very young right out of college into, you know, what's really shaped the last 20 plus years of my career.
[00:04:24] How did you make your way to New York from the Midwest?
[00:04:29] I remember coming here as a child and I always wanted to live here.
[00:04:33] And based on the fact that my family was in the Midwest, I never really thought I would move out here.
[00:04:39] But I graduated from law school when I was 29 and I really felt like I was ready for something new.
[00:04:48] And one day I just decided I'm moving to New York City and I had a job a few months later.
[00:04:54] It's really interesting when once you make a decision to make a big life-changing move, how the universe sort of organizes on your behalf.
[00:05:03] And it was, you know, in no other world unless it were meant to be what I have had a job at one of the largest corporations in the world in New York City within four months of graduating law school.
[00:05:17] So, it was really amazing the way everything came together.
[00:05:20] And I've been here, I think it'll be 14 years if I'm a real New Yorker.
[00:05:26] You are a lifer.
[00:05:26] Yes.
[00:05:28] So, I've been here for a very long time and I couldn't love it any more than I do.
[00:05:36] So, move without the job or move with the job?
[00:05:38] What would you tell a 20-something recent law school grad?
[00:05:43] If you're moving to New York City, I would move with the job.
[00:05:48] It is very expensive here.
[00:05:54] But I do have friends that have moved here, you know, without the job and everything unfolded in a way that was magical.
[00:06:02] So, I think it really just depends on your life situation.
[00:06:05] I liked having the job when I moved here because we have friends automatically, you have a network, and you have a routine.
[00:06:12] So, for me, it was the right way to do it.
[00:06:15] My parents said when I moved to Washington and I was taking a paid internship in a senator's office, they said, you're going to take an internship after we just paid for two degrees.
[00:06:26] I thought it was so crazy, but it was just get to D.C., you know, kind of like just get to New York.
[00:06:31] Yeah.
[00:06:32] Yeah.
[00:06:33] Exactly.
[00:06:35] So, Rachel, has there been a skill set that you have found that has been helpful through your different jobs that you've had?
[00:06:46] Yes.
[00:06:47] Being a strong writer and a strong communicator, I mean, those are very generic skill sets when you talk about them on a, you know, when you're talking about the context of your career.
[00:06:58] But it really has shaped what I've been able to accomplish.
[00:07:01] And I find that while I may not have actually learned a lot of practical things about the practice of law in law school, I really think it refined my writing abilities to a way that I'm able to write for a lot of different audiences in a lot of different ways.
[00:07:18] And then I think communicating effectively, verbally, being able to give presentations, being able to speak in front of audiences really carries over into anything you want to do in life.
[00:07:30] Because you might want to persuade someone to donate money to, you know, your foundation that you're involved in or persuade someone to hire your company.
[00:07:41] There are so many things that you have to do in daily life to be persuasive.
[00:07:45] And I think that communication skill set is so important to, you know, to really be effective.
[00:07:52] Well, you may decide to write a book.
[00:07:54] Yes, I did that as well.
[00:07:57] Tell us about that.
[00:08:00] So I was working to establish myself as an expert in the wellness space.
[00:08:06] I was a wellness entrepreneur for a little while.
[00:08:08] And one of my friends said the best way to become, to establish yourself as an expert is to write a book.
[00:08:15] And so I was, I didn't think anything more about it, except that my friend who had never written a book said it was the best way to become an expert.
[00:08:21] So this is how life happens in your 20s, right?
[00:08:24] So I was like, okay, I'm going to write a book.
[00:08:26] So every time I sat down to write this book or when I was building out a business plan, I was always focused on, you know, the modern woman who's very busy and has a lot of balls in the air, juggling a lot of things in life and really just needed a team to help her get through life.
[00:08:43] So I became very comfortable with this, this strong modern woman who's very busy.
[00:08:50] And every time I sat down to write the book, this character was grabbing my attention.
[00:08:56] And so I actually started writing fiction and I fought it for a few months where I was like, okay, I need to get back.
[00:09:02] I need to start writing my yoga book again.
[00:09:03] Why am I not writing my yoga book?
[00:09:05] And finally, I just gave myself permission to write the book that I was meant to write.
[00:09:10] And now it's turned into a series.
[00:09:14] So I wrote a book about this very powerful hedge fund manager in New York City.
[00:09:19] And she's, you know, sort of dominating work by day is a very chaotic, messy life on the side.
[00:09:27] And it was just really fun on top of everything else.
[00:09:31] I don't know if you know this, but law school and getting her master's in philosophy are not that much fun.
[00:09:37] So it was fun to write.
[00:09:39] It was really fun to write fiction.
[00:09:41] And I loved creating this character that women from all over the world have told me that they really relate to.
[00:09:48] It has been just so much fun.
[00:09:51] And it's such a pleasure to hear from readers and to have these communities, you know, places of people who would have never met me otherwise, who've read my books and relate to the character has been such a pleasure.
[00:10:05] And the book is Trading Secrets or the entire series is Trading Secrets?
[00:10:10] The first novel is Trading Secrets.
[00:10:12] So that was my debut novel.
[00:10:14] The second novel is called Risky Assets.
[00:10:16] And I'm finishing up the third one.
[00:10:18] It's a novel as we speak.
[00:10:20] It should be finished in the next few weeks.
[00:10:22] And then we will go out on submission, which is when your agent submits it out to publishers.
[00:10:31] So your heroine, what's your favorite quality of her?
[00:10:36] Her name is Celeste Donovan.
[00:10:39] And she always finds a way to make happen what she wants to happen.
[00:10:47] She's so persistent and relentless.
[00:10:49] And I think that if we all kind of carried that more into our lives, we would be doing exactly what she's always done is designing a life, you know, you love.
[00:11:00] And I love the, she's always got, she was, you know, a few steps ahead of the reader of figuring out a way to solve whatever quandary she's gotten herself into.
[00:11:14] And it's been so much fun evolving her character.
[00:11:18] I feel like, you know, I've grown with the character because when I first started writing the book, the character was like nine years older than me.
[00:11:25] And by the time I published it, I had caught up to her in age because the first book takes a long time to write.
[00:11:31] But it's, you know, I sort of grew up with her and I think I started writing in my early 30s and published it right after the pandemic started.
[00:11:43] So the first book came out in February of 2020.
[00:11:47] And then I, you know, I'm working, working my way into hopefully having a library of books that I've written throughout my life.
[00:11:56] How do you launch a brand new book and a brand new author in a pandemic?
[00:12:02] It was tricky.
[00:12:03] I decided to self-publish because as you may have guessed, the publishing industry was completely shut down during the pandemic.
[00:12:11] But book launches being pushed out, some of them years.
[00:12:14] And I wanted the book to come out then.
[00:12:17] So I was 40 years old and I was like, I want to publish a book.
[00:12:21] I want to be a published author by the time I'm 40.
[00:12:24] So I quickly, I mean, when I say quickly, I mean, like within one to two months taught myself how to publish a book.
[00:12:32] I was scouring the internet.
[00:12:34] I started a publishing company.
[00:12:36] I learned how to do all the printing.
[00:12:38] Um, and it's, it was so much like completely new industry, completely new platform that I was creating.
[00:12:48] But somehow it all worked out.
[00:12:50] I mean, it was so much fun during the pandemic when everything was so challenging to launch a book.
[00:12:56] I had these wine tasting series, uh, with a friend who is a sommelier, one of my sorority sisters.
[00:13:02] And we would just talk to readers.
[00:13:05] I would explain, you know, um, why I chose the wine and a certain scene and what the restaurant was like.
[00:13:11] And my friend would explain the origins of the wine.
[00:13:14] And then we would talk about the book and the characters.
[00:13:17] It was so much fun.
[00:13:18] It is so much fun.
[00:13:20] Yeah.
[00:13:20] And a lot of my friends still remember that time because we were all sort of lonely.
[00:13:24] And, you know, we would do these wine tastings once a week.
[00:13:28] And, um, at some point I had to kind of start winding them down and everybody's like, why are we stopping this?
[00:13:34] This is so much fun.
[00:13:35] So it has just been such a really amazing way to, um, transition through so many different things that have happened in the world over the past few years.
[00:13:45] What's your writing routine?
[00:13:49] I write all weekend, every weekend when I'm writing.
[00:13:53] So a lot of people come to me and ask how I'm able to write a book when I work full time and I have hobbies and I have, you know, a family and other things.
[00:14:03] And I have sort of the same, um, habits and routine that I had when I was in grad school of just doing everything as quickly as possible in a condensed amount of time.
[00:14:13] So I usually write a book within two or three months.
[00:14:18] Um, I will drag it out for years.
[00:14:20] I'll talk about it for a long time, but the real writing happens, um, in a condensed timeline.
[00:14:26] So usually I spend, you know, four to six hours on the weekends each day writing.
[00:14:32] And then, um, on the weeknights I try to get my editing in.
[00:14:36] Um, and then once, you know, once you write it, it's done, right?
[00:14:40] So it's, it's hard to find the time all summer.
[00:14:43] I have, you know, all the fear of missing out while everyone is traveling around Europe.
[00:14:48] I'm sitting at my computer.
[00:14:50] Um, and similarly with the holidays, sometimes I have to, you know, give up, give up short-term pleasure for a long-term contribution.
[00:14:58] But it is, um, it is the best way for me.
[00:15:01] I know a lot of people who can just write an hour every day their entire lives.
[00:15:06] And that's amazing for me.
[00:15:08] I really have to dive into the story and I sort of clear my plans as much as possible while I'm writing.
[00:15:15] Um, especially when I get close to the end.
[00:15:18] And as a self-publisher, do you have, um, someone that helps you with editing?
[00:15:24] I do.
[00:15:25] I have a copy editor, a development editor, and then, um, a cover designer.
[00:15:30] So I've sort of come up with my own team that I really enjoy.
[00:15:35] And I did, um, I do have an agent now for my third book, but I, I'm not sure if we'll sell all three books or if I'll continue to publish the first two.
[00:15:45] That said, I am still going to keep my publishing company.
[00:15:49] I really want to have a space for women who are entrepreneurs building their platforms who want to publish, but don't really have the time to traditionally publish.
[00:15:59] So I hope to publish two or three authors by the end of 2025.
[00:16:03] I think I have my first one lined up.
[00:16:05] So, um, yeah, so the publishing will go on and, um, you know, I'll figure out if, um, what my own publishing journey looks like, but this way I can stay close to readers, do what I love and help women build platforms to, you know, share their passions with the world.
[00:16:25] And we've talked about publishing for passion before, and that kind of builds on this quest to the future.
[00:16:31] You want to share a little bit about that?
[00:16:33] Sure.
[00:16:34] So I, when I was first, um, launching my publishing company, I was spending a lot of time, um, uh, well, I guess it was before the pandemic, but I, I had joined a board of directors with, um, a lot of programs in developing countries, namely Kenya.
[00:16:51] So I was spending a lot of time, um, doing community development work in Kenya on vacations and, um, and other activities.
[00:17:00] And it just felt like really natural for me in, you know, doing the thing I loved, which was telling stories and getting them out into the world to tie that into giving back.
[00:17:12] So what I've done is I earmark a percentage of my proceeds that go towards community development programs across the world.
[00:17:20] Um, I, I focus on New York locally and then globally.
[00:17:24] Um, it's been sub-Saharan Africa, but I, you know, hope to have more programs in the future.
[00:17:30] I'm building my foundation now.
[00:17:32] So I've really just done my giving through other foundations at this point, but ideally all of my authors would have, you know, a designated, um, charity that they want to, uh, you know, a percentage of their proceeds to go to.
[00:17:46] And we could build out a really nice platform for, um, you know, having grants and other community development opportunities in the future.
[00:17:53] So it's on my long-term vision board to get that underway.
[00:17:57] But right now it's, um, it's a commitment for me to just give back because I've had so many people in so many ways fight for me in my life.
[00:18:07] And I want to help others, you know, have the same opportunities.
[00:18:11] So your core competencies, I always think of as law and storytelling, and the law actually comes into Kenya as well.
[00:18:19] So you just got married and you've been working on actually helping your husband come to the States.
[00:18:26] So another big project, what have you learned, uh, through learning the immigration system and using your law, um, degree there?
[00:18:35] Such an interesting question.
[00:18:36] It has really been a long learning process to go through this.
[00:18:43] I have had a lot of friends over the years who have, you know, pursued visas, gotten work visas, moved to the U S and, you know, have their careers here.
[00:18:53] It's much different for someone, for a Kenyan and an American to fall in love and, and to, um, you know, to get someone here who doesn't have family here, who's never been here.
[00:19:04] Uh, so it was, it was a really long journey for us.
[00:19:07] We met, um, through the course of my nonprofit work, uh, in, off the coast of Kenya, um, in 2018.
[00:19:16] And then in 2021 is, um, when I really started traveling again after the pandemic and we rekindled and we started the process then.
[00:19:25] And it took, um, over two years for, um, my husband to be able to even visit America.
[00:19:32] So it's a very long process to, you know, when you go through the system the right way, um, to be able to, to have, you know, your spouse live legally in the U S and where I really think.
[00:19:46] I mean, there are a lot of different ways that my legal background came in handy.
[00:19:51] First of all, I have to give thanks to my, I have a few classmates who really helped me navigate the process.
[00:19:56] And they were both like, you do not need to hire a lawyer.
[00:19:59] You can do this by yourself.
[00:20:00] I'll hold your hand.
[00:20:02] You have the skillset to do this.
[00:20:04] So I did trust them and it ended up working out.
[00:20:08] And what I found was through my research that I actually knew a lot more than the attorneys I would do like quick consultations with to make sure I was on the right track.
[00:20:17] Um, so I was happy that I had a foundation and an understanding, um, you know, through my classmates.
[00:20:24] So your network is so important for things like this.
[00:20:27] And then because I, you know, do work in policy and government affairs, I did call a few of my friends who had, um, uh, who had colleagues that worked for my New York delegation.
[00:20:39] Um, and I was able to connect with one of my, uh, members of Congress and they were really helpful in not only just navigating the process because ultimately we didn't end up getting.
[00:20:51] And it doesn't necessarily give you any special treatment, but it's really nice just to have someone who knows the system and is willing to talk to you, uh, to walk you through what they know from their side, which is very different than the constituent experience.
[00:21:06] So having that was such a nice, um, uh, a nice support system for me as I was going through this, because like I said, most of the people I knew were going through this with their employers, um, you know, securing a visa for them.
[00:21:22] It's much different doing a fiance visa, which is what we did.
[00:21:25] And, uh, you know, with the backlog from COVID, it was, it was a very long waiting process.
[00:21:31] The waiting time before COVID was five to seven months.
[00:21:34] So we waited 24 months, I think.
[00:21:37] So, um, much different landscape now, but having that skillset of, you know, just understanding how to research, research rules and regulations and all the things, um, understanding that having a network of my classmates that I could call on.
[00:21:55] And for any sort of support, having my network through, you know, my professional network was really helpful to understand that there are people in congressional offices who are willing to engage on your behalf, um, so that you can be together with your family.
[00:22:11] So it was really magical to have all of those different parts of my life kind of come together and, you know, culminate into what my whole life I thought was just a very easy traditional thing, um, to fall in love and get married.
[00:22:25] And have it be this very complex multi-year, uh, process was much different.
[00:22:32] What was your favorite thing you were most excited about showing him when he got to New York?
[00:22:36] I'm sure you had such a long list.
[00:22:38] It was such a long list.
[00:22:40] So one, he, um, was able to meet our dog.
[00:22:44] So he'd seen our dog on video, um, video chats, obviously, but he had never, they had never met.
[00:22:51] So they were just instantly in love.
[00:22:53] I'm not sure they even need me around anymore because they really enjoy each other.
[00:22:58] And then, uh, he had asked to see, he really wanted to see Times Square.
[00:23:03] And I was like, no New Yorker likes Times Square.
[00:23:06] You're going to go once.
[00:23:06] And then you're never going to want to go again.
[00:23:09] He still loves Times Square.
[00:23:11] He's an introvert and he loves watching all the people.
[00:23:16] I'm like, doesn't it bother you?
[00:23:17] They're so loud.
[00:23:18] There's so many.
[00:23:19] They're tourists.
[00:23:19] Nope.
[00:23:20] He is like in heaven, just watching it, like taking it all in.
[00:23:24] Um, so now I just send them on his own.
[00:23:27] I don't need to go.
[00:23:28] The first few weeks I would walk with him and he's like, let's go to Times Square.
[00:23:33] Which is so funny for a New Yorker to hear anyone say, um, especially if they want to
[00:23:38] go twice, but he wants to go all the time.
[00:23:40] So that's been really fun.
[00:23:42] Um, and then just, I mean, it sounds cliche, but just to be in our home, it's, you know,
[00:23:47] it's really interesting because I was always able to go to his home.
[00:23:51] We were able to go on vacations, other places, but it's not, you know, he, he wasn't someone
[00:23:56] who has a passport where it's easy to visit the U S.
[00:23:59] So he was always just like seeing where we live on video.
[00:24:04] Whereas I had seen his home.
[00:24:05] I had seen his hometown and his community.
[00:24:07] Um, I was just so excited to show him when he got here.
[00:24:14] That's great.
[00:24:16] Uh, Maggie, you want to jump into the, uh, final questions?
[00:24:19] Sure.
[00:24:20] Well, speaking of traveling around the world, we tend to have folks on who are constantly
[00:24:26] on the road, um, professionally and personally.
[00:24:29] And so we like to ask, where were you last?
[00:24:31] Where did you visit last?
[00:24:33] And what was the best meal or best restaurant that you went to, to, and then where are you
[00:24:38] headed to next in case someone wants to reach out to you on LinkedIn and make a friendship
[00:24:42] by just giving a restaurant tip.
[00:24:45] I love that.
[00:24:46] First of all, my travel does not sound very exciting because my last trip was DC and my
[00:24:51] next trip is DC.
[00:24:54] A lot of good restaurants in DC.
[00:24:56] A lot of good restaurants in DC.
[00:24:59] Um, I used to have a lot more exotic travel, uh, but these days it's sticking closer to home.
[00:25:05] Um, so, I mean, DC has such a plethora of amazing new restaurants.
[00:25:10] I feel like over the past five years, the food scene there has just exploded.
[00:25:14] So I've enjoyed seeing, um, there's actually a lot of New York restaurants that have started
[00:25:19] opening in DC.
[00:25:20] So I enjoyed pasties and DC this last time I was there, which is one of my favorite spots
[00:25:26] in New York.
[00:25:27] Um, and, and like I said, I'll be in DC again.
[00:25:30] So if anybody wants to share new restaurants with me, I would appreciate it.
[00:25:34] I still have a long list of, um, I lived in DC for a year and I was trying to make my way
[00:25:40] through all the Michelin restaurants.
[00:25:41] The first year the Michelin guide came out and I still have a few on that list that I need
[00:25:46] to either go back to or visit for the first time.
[00:25:49] So, um, I'm open to any and all recommendations.
[00:25:53] Love it.
[00:25:55] Well, thank you for joining us.
[00:25:57] Thank you so much for having me.
[00:25:59] This was fun.
[00:26:01] Rachel, thank you.
[00:26:02] Uh, we look forward to your, uh, your book coming out and, uh, for our listeners out there,
[00:26:08] uh, we hope you have a great week and we will see you next Monday.