Meet The Author: Michelle Obama

hello and welcome to my next installment of meet the author today I am sitting down with the incredible and the inspirational Michelle Obama and we're gonna be talking about her book for coming hello mrs. Obama is it okay if I call you Michelle of course great to see you again you - I'm really good thank you very much I just want to say how much I absolutely love this book like you're the most phenomenal storyteller and I know that's what you're like from your personality you're very open and honest and that really shines through in every little bit of the book from the very first moment first chapter I was sucked in especially because I was listening to you on audiobook and I was listening to you tell me the stories of your life and I really felt like I was very much there so well done it's something you should be really proud of brilliant I'm not the only one that thinks it's great you have sold 2 million copies in the US alone best-selling author of 2018 in two weeks did not anticipate any of that exciting it's good to know that the book is resonating with so many different people I think that was my hope all along that the story would connect with people of all backgrounds all over the world so I'm excited mmm it is brilliant and for anyone out there that hasn't read the book please get out and buy it because it's absolutely amazing as I was listening I was writing down lots of questions so can we get to it your words are so beautiful so I'm going to just quote some of them back to you I grew up with a disabled dad in a two small house with not much money and is starting to fail neighborhood and I also grew up surrounded by love and music in a diverse city in a country where an education can take you far I had nothing or I had everything it depends on which way you want to tell it and tell it you did you absolutely bare your soul in this book and at times that must have been quite painful and difficult how did you go about preaching writing something so deeply personal well part of the thinking was that if I was going to tell my story because a lot of people are curious how did a girl a working-class kid from the south side of Chicago wind up is the first lady with all the accomplishments that we had and in thinking about that I thought well the eight years in the White House is the least of my story you know it doesn't really explain anything so I felt like I had to give people the context of my life I had to introduce them to that little girl Michelle Robinson and give them a sense of what the sights and sounds of that little girl's life was like how she played how she was loved you know who she interacted with some of her hardships some of her failings because I really do think that that's how we get to know people you know too often we focus on what I call our stats what school did you go to where did you know how what's your occupation but the truth is to really get to know people we have to go deep into those stories and I and I felt that if I wanted people to get to know me I had to share everything so that was part of the thinking and that's really the way I've lived my life I learned that on the campaign trail in Iowa when I had to explain myself to predominantly white communities who hadn't been exposed to black folks let alone it's all black people named Obama so I had to find out how to open myself up in a way that people could connect with me and then be able to hear me so this book is really just an extension of that belief that we have to share those stories with each other if we're really going to break down the barriers and you shed them so well and I feel like your mother Marian Robinson had a really big part to play in that she says as parents you're not raising they maybes you're raising adults how do you feel in reality what did that actually mean for you and your brother Craig when you were growing up well that meant that our voices had real value in our house there are some people who raise kids in they use the philosophy kids are to be seen and not heard and it was just the opposite for us I mean we sat around the dinner table at night and we told stories about our day and when you grow up with parents who not only respect your voice but enjoy your voice that's how I felt in our home that my parents thought we were brilliant and funny and they wanted us to you know I say in the book my parents knew that there was a flame in me that they wanted to keep lit and that's what I call Zen neutrality and parenting I described my mother in that way it's that gift of understanding that to empower children in the long term you have to give them that space in that room to be themselves when they're young so ours was a household full of lots of conversation lots of debate one-upping each other in storytelling and that wasn't just true in our immediate family but we grew up in a vast extended family that I described in detail grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins and when you grow up in a big family you find that you have to you know use your voice to get a word in edgewise and I grew up in a family of storytellers so if that's why you're so good at this stories it's probably part of the reason why I'm good at I also describe myself as that little girl when I was young I was very much in my head you know I talked about how I played with my dolls and I'd love to create this imaginary world and I could spend hours on in just playing alone and in thinking about this question I think that because I spent so much time in my head before I was ready to get out there and interact I lived with stories in my head you know I could I could play all day so storytelling for me is a way that I can sort out the world and have it make sense and it was always that way for me even as a child but the parenting really matters and I try to share that with with the audiences that I talk too we have to give children the space to be and and to be who they are and you know as a mother kids come here with their own personality you know bringing up twins at the same time you can get the exact same everything but that completely different right right and I think my parents sort of understood that so they didn't expect the same thing for me as they did for my brother but they did treat us as equals which I think played a big role in me being a powerful woman with a powerful voice I was used to being respected in my home so I went out into the world and I expected that same treatment from others you've had many different careers in your life you attended Princeton and then became a high-flying lawyer you were a powerhouse at City Hall director of a variety of community not-for-profits and then a reluctant can be a political campaigner you call this swerving mm-hm and I absolutely loved that term because I had a dramatic swerve myself and where I trained to be a doctor worked as a doctor and then became a businesswoman and so I completely understand how dreams and aspirations can change you talk about the worries that you had about other people judging your career choices especially leaving law how did you overcome that and what would you say to others facing the same dilemma mm-hmm well the first thing that I had to overcome was my own guilt because when you'd spend so much time and money in my case taking out student loans I came out of Law School with a lot of debt the notion that I wouldn't want to invest financially to recoup that you know that initial investment was a struggle for me especially growing up as a working-class kid you know I talked about the conversation I have with my mother where I was trying to break down how I wasn't passionate about my career and I I felt guilty talking to a woman who had sacrificed so much for me and probably never had the luxury of thinking about something as trivial as passion you know so explaining that to a working-class family how you're going to walk away from a solid career and a solid income to you know pursue what's deep in your heart you know my parents didn't I'm with a your biggest worry when you decided to me and initially they were but also that it was part of the challenge was what else was I gonna do you know that that's part I describe myself as a box checker because that's what how we teach kids it's like there's a path you pick a career when you're seven you study that career in elementary school you go to college you get a major and life choices are not that orderly but that's how we train kids and I was right on that path and I knew how to achieve I knew how to get aids and how to get to the next level but no one taught me how to dig deep inside my soul and figure out what I cared about and we don't talk to kids about what they care about we talk about what they should major in what they should study and those two things are very different so part of the struggle was figuring I had to relearn how to educate myself about who I was school didn't teach me that all those degrees all those fancy schools didn't help me connect into who I needed to be as a person so I had to rewind all that learning I mean it's such a shame because the education systems really should stone that from the very beginning yeah we struggle you know I mean I think the challenge is that education systems are developed for masses of teaching but every kid is so different and if you don't have the resources to individualize the the educational curriculum then you're really pushing kids through a funnel that may not fit them and that's something that I worry about and see now and in my girls especially with the standardized testing and having to post the exams and get on to the next level and write this notion that you're going to learn something with innocent that every kid is going to learn in the same way at the same time is is is disastrous and it it creates box checkers who then go on to careers that may not fulfill them and then there I'm good at it so the tough part for me was relearning all you know and figuring all that out on my own and so I had to find people who could help me yeah I did what I called informational interviews I had to go out and just meet people who were doing all sorts of things that seemed interesting to figure out what I cared about was it kids or was it working with kids was it mentoring was it education I didn't know I hadn't explored it because I was on the path to be a lawyer so that was the hardest thing for me to to understand how to do is to walk away from the formal training that I had gotten and to swerve into something more creating so would your advice be to others it is important to find your passion it is absolutely important and I encourage young people to try on different hats I think it's a shame that kids are forced to figure out so early in their life and get on a path so I encourage kids to do internships to work to talk to people who are doing things that they think are interesting because most kids are intimidated about approaching you for example and saying Holly you've done some swerving tell me about what you're what you're doing and having those conversations in high school and in college before you commit to something but I think kids feel the pressure to have to know what there is such a young age exactly 16 17 18 making these big life decisions in one of the first lines in the first chapters question that I hate the most that we asked children is what do you want to be when you grow up as if growing up is finite is if you get to a place and at some point that's the end and that's sort of one of our big dilemmas that we ask kids so early to figure out who you're going to be at five and seven and ten and even 20 years old so I do encourage young people to be open to the swerve and don't beat themselves up if they feel they may be not made the the right first choice because life Holly is long and as you know we can have many lives within a life we are always evolving that is why I called the book becoming you know this notion that we that we ever stopped evolving is just wrong yeah you didn't call it become so while you were building your incredible career you were put in charge of an intern a man that you described as a unicorn a strange mixture of everything man an exotic geek and fair to say it was by no means that love at first sight your words but it did become love for the rest of your life is it possible to put that love you fill into words and has the texture of that love changed over the last two decades oh well I tried to put it in words but it is difficult because the love you feel for a partner it evolves and it it has so many different layers right it's the it's the first love that you feel when you're you're giddy and you're falling and it's new and it's exciting and every aspect of that person is fresh you know there's there's that part of the love that's always there the sort of you know unpeeling of each other and that was what first attracted me to Barack was that he was so different from me you know he had swerved his whole life his bad didn't seems bother him he was completely comfortable with it and then knowing that in the context of his childhood and upbringing which was very different from mine that was a curiosity you know we grew up with the solid stability of the four of us at the dinner table my father had a job my mother stayed at home they were we were very traditional you know he didn't know his father his mother travelled and she was getting her PhD and she lived in other countries and exposed him to travel and so swerving was all he knew and I knew stability so I think that sort of that contradiction that we found in ourselves was was the first part of that life opposite attracted yeah absolutely and then I respected his choices so it wasn't just his life it was the choices he was making with it the fact that he was a lawyer but he cared very much about the community that he had taken time off to be a community organizer which is something you just don't find people young people who were taking time out to figure out how to help others in their own communities that was attractive to me the way he treated his mother the way he treated the women in his life the way he treated those that were were of a lesser standing than him so when we work together in the law firm I fell in love with the fact that he was kind to everyone so there's that bit of it so yes the relationship does grow and change and so now we've built this life together and we've had all these journeys together and we've had all these hardships and we've you know raised two beautiful children and there's the love that comes when you see the man that you love care for your children that's a whole different layer of love and nothing can replace those memories you know that's more important to me than what he accomplished as president of the United States or anything that he's done on paper the fact that he is a good father to my daughters is it's a powerful aphrodisiac so yes it's it's it's difficult to put it into a few words because it's it's a lifetime of learning and growing and falling and recovering together well you've done it so well at putting into words because if I was asked the same question I think the English and English sort of person to me would have really struggled with that so I know you've really done what honest but that was the assignment of the blue yeah it's like I had it open right yeah openness possible and I also want young married couples to be open about what love is and what does that feel like I don't think we talked about that enough so I think there are young people out there a figure now well is this lust feeling I have is that good does it last forever what happens when that goes away does that mean it's broken you know and and when you're like us and you're a couple that's viewed as a role model to others I feel it's like our responsibility to tell the whole story so that people know that beautiful marriages have challenges and there are ups and downs and that doesn't mean that it's broken it means that you have to work at it but no one tells young people that marriage is work we talk about the love we talk about the wedding we talk about the good times but we don't talk about how you sustain it year after year after year again it's very lucky we both had parents that stay together I really let me see it and I and I my parents have been very open when my brother and I about the fact that and they're open they've been open with us and we just met them so your parents are example of a couple who is very clear and honest about who they are and what it took for them to be as strong as they are now so I you know I I feel like that's that's a gift we're supposed to give others you know yeah and it's definitely in love that's got you both through tough times especially the struggles getting pregnant and I've experienced miscarriages I've been through IVF as well why did you feel you needed to share that bit of your life story which was very very personal for the same reason it's we don't talk about those things and when I was in that position I wished I had more people who would tell me that it would be okay that this happens to more people than we know and it wasn't till I experienced it and then slowly started talking about it and then you meet so many women who were like that was my that was my journey that was mine and I didn't even realize how common miscarriages were and that's something you know you sort of think that OB guy knees would just sit down and tell us that at the outset that this is how it works yeah and sometimes your whole life trying not together exactly and then no one tells you that it it's not just a magical thing that happens so I think you know as I my parents taught me more information is better you know giving giving young people the truth helps them in the long run so I felt like I had to share my truth and it wasn't a difficult thing for me to share anybody who meets me I would have the same conversation so why I couldn't see not sharing with the world what I would share with anyone who I was trying to help I felt the same when I was going through the experience that it took me ten months a year to openly say yes I'm trying for maybe it's not happening I wish I'd done it earlier but once I open that floodgate I was like I'm so thankful that I have now got it off my own chest and also helping others to understand that it does happen to people absolutely and there can be happy endings there are many many happy endings so yeah I'd love to touch in your support systems throughout becoming you list amazing female mentors and Lidl leaders who have advised and supported you you also admit you actively sought out these strong women what would you say to young women and to young men about the importance of seeking out strong mentors and what did they mean to you oh my goodness you you don't do anything alone and I think a lot of young people think they look at people like us and think you just magically appeared you became and there you are and it's like no no I always looked ahead of me at the women primarily who were doing the things that I wanted to do I talk a lot about Valerie Jarrett for example who has worked in our administration but I met her very early on before Barack and I even got married and she for me was one of the first examples of a strong professional woman who was a single parent who was doing a phenomenal job as a mother and was just a boss at work and watching her balance that and not losing herself in either role you know I talk about how I'd sit in a meeting with her and she'd be in the midst of you know business leaders sitting around the Abell the mayor on the phone and her secretary would call and say her daughter had just got home from school and wanted to talk and she turned herself off in a second because she said I will always make time for my daughter you know so I saw how important it was that even in the height of your career putting your kids first was important and that helped me sort of think about how I wanted the White House experience to feel for my daughters that's why we you know in so many instances we would stop our day you know no matter what was going on and give that time to the kids because we wanted them to feel like they were at the center of everything even when their mom and dad were some of the most powerful people in the world so I wouldn't have known that that example was possible had I not looked ahead at the the women who were my mentors and I loved the story in the book where you pick up three-month-old sasha and go to a job interview oh yeah and you take her with you and you say to the interviewer look I'm a family woman you need if you want me you need to have my family too and I need to be able to have flex for working that was way ahead of its time well that was an act of complete frustration and desperation because I also talked about how I had tried it so many different ways I had tried the part-time situation when I was at the University and I first had Malia and I realized that part-time worked for professional women was it was an unequal trade-off because I found that all I got was a part-time salary but I was still doing the same amount of work and needed the same amount of babysitting so I was like well that's a ripoff for me so I tried that then I was at the stage of trying I was just so completely frustrate it I had lost one of my best babysitter's and I talked about the the the drama that happens when a working mother or a mother of any kind loses their help and it's almost worse than you know being upset at your husband it's like you I don't need the babysitter I need her but at that point I was ready to just give up because I was tired of trying to make the balance work so what led me what gave me the courage to walk into that the president of the hospital's office with my child was that I didn't want the job and I was just going out of a favor so I felt like I had nothing to lose and that also taught me that it's a shame that I had to be pushed to the corner for me to to really ask for what I needed because I think a lot of women were afraid to just put our cards on the table and say this is what I'm worth this is what I need to make this happen I can do this but if you don't it these are my top three things I would have never had the courage to do it and I think many women sit on their talents and their gifts because they're afraid to make that ass sometimes we're too polite in the professional world and and many women don't have the luxury or the leverage to make the kind of demands I that I did because I had the option of staying home because my husband brought in enough income that we it would be tough but it wouldn't have been impossible and I absolutely realized that I I was lucky to be able to walk in that office and make those demands so it's so brilliant that you did I truly believe that flexible working is the only way we're going to get full equality in a workplace because men being flexible with their work and women as well well and so it's so important and you were version of the curve are doing that already you know we just don't call it flex you know people just don't get the credit that they need people are juggling and managing to keep things afloat all the time so we just haven't labeled it properly it's happening and people aren't getting the credit for doing it but if you work and have kids you're doing something flexible in there to make that happen we just need to label it you're a mom of two children juggling a full time career and your husband decides to run for president of the United States and you admit that you struggle with politics as a career choice for anyone so he then came and asked you whether he you gave him the family seal of approval to do it but you admitted Barack was a black man in America after all I didn't really think he could win and how wrong you were I was so wrong we'd like going back to that night if you could would your question have been your answer to the questions have been any different no it wouldn't have because I believe that I I needed to give him the opportunity to pursue his passions and I also talked about the fact that I would have felt guilty by selfishly not letting the country have access to somebody I thought would be a phenomenal president even though I then didn't think he could run so I had to sort of take off my wife hat and put on my citizen hat yeah so I think the answer would still have been yes so the big day arrives this is the front page of The Times at the inauguration can you remember what was going through your head at that time it was freezing cold first of all and I was and and I and I was thinking are the kids warm did I dress them well enough because they were standing off to the sides there's still whenever your kids are around for me I'm still very much in mommy mode you know what you do when you have two young kids at a big event with it the the international spotlight is on them I'm thinking are they cold are they paying attention they smiling at the right are they smiling but then there are moments where I had to take it in and look out at the massive crowd that was there and sort of the energy and that hope the fact that millions and millions of people stood out in the freezing cold to see him take the oath of office and it was it was powerful it was a monumental day in history it's huge my my dream and the core message of my first book we economy is that one day all businesses will be purposeful that they'll all be forces for good in the world and I was heartened to learn that when it came to your initiatives as first lady such as let's move the child nutrition bill and encouraging big business to employ veterans you appealed that very sense of purpose what role do you think businesses should play in society i I think that corporations are citizens of the world in the same way that individuals are I know that that's not necessarily how the free market works but that's how businesses of old used to work you know there was the time when a business was a part of the community the owners lived in the community and employed workers they they knew the people there so when they made decisions it was hard to look beyond that the fact that your decisions impacted your neighbors and your family and your friends I wish that businesses still had that sense of fiduciary responsibility to the broader society and I think we need more leaders who think that way as well but I we are in a time when you have to tie purpose to the bottom line which is one of the things I always tried to do so with health and nutrition for example my arguments of food manufacturers was get ahead of the curve because people are being educated about their health and they're gonna make different decisions as consumers so it's incumbent upon you to look at the quality of your products and how you market them so that you meet the demands of the people who are buying them and then we tried to focus on the customer and tell them you have power in this you know that what you buy is what they'll make and if you buy junk they'll make junk so it wasn't just the average advocacy but we tried to put our selves in the positions of the of the business owners what would that you know you can't tell you know a person making a big juicy high-calorie burger to stop making it if that's what people are buying it's it's it's a you know it's it's not a responsible or logical thing to expect but if people now are buying healthier options that burger maker is gonna make it's gonna make the switch because they want the customer so we would think in those terms as we started to develop our initiatives I was moved by your desire to open up the White House to many many more people including military families injured servicemen and women and you regularly invited schoolchildren to come from all over the country to work with you on your newly installed vegetable garden you used a beautiful quote about your father Fraser right at the beginning of the book time as far as my father was concerned was a gift you gave to other people I absolutely love that what was it was that what drove you as first lady to push through more diverse and inclusive White House that that and just my experiences as a kid and with kids growing up kids can only dream of what they know and I know and I grew up with so many kids who didn't have the advantages I had even though we were a working-class family I grew up in neighborhoods where a kid could live five minutes from a museum and never think they could go into it because they didn't think it was for them I know that that's how kids think and the white house is just another big museum that feels like an other place so I thought about all those kids who needed to walk in those doors and feel like all that wonderful stuff that they saw on TV that we do the military greetings and the state visits and the dinners and the music performances I wanted as many kids as possible to feel like they belong to in those chairs too and the only way to do that was to open it up and invite them in I wanted kids running all over the South Lawn I wanted kids to talk about how they regularly came and helped build that garden and have a sense of pride in the house that is theirs but you can't send that message if kids don't see themselves in those hallways so I wanted every event to be connected to kids in some way so that whatever was sent out into the world kids would see themselves in that house and then those kids will go back and tell that and read and so tell them and maybe they go to the museum down their street or think about that the the city hall in their own community as a place that they should go and explore so we did a social media competition where we got lots people to send in the questions they wanted to ask you and we've got a winner from one called Natasha on Instagram how do you manage teach your children the same resilience that you have shown through your life when they have many privileges that you did not have growing up and I was actually really interested in this one for my own children as well that's a very good question it's there are many different approaches that we try to use normalizing their experience setting the same set of expectations for our children that our parents had for us you know contributing around the house not taking your your advantages for granted you know it's the conversations about advantage as well pushing them to to to face their own fears and that's the hardest part as a parent because that means you have to let your kids go and do things that are a little frightening for you like sending them off to a way on a trip I mean Melia for her gap year spent three months in the Amazon camping I didn't want her to do that but I thought what what an important lesson in resilience for her just physically to know that she could endure something that hard and be away from home in a different country learning a different language so I had to have the courage to let her do that even though I desperately wanted her to just be close to home so some of what we have to do as parents is let go of our fears and let them fail a little bit and be there for them when they fall because if we're always saving them if we're always helicoptering around they never fall and they never learn how to get back up and that's a hard thing to what your kids do is fail I know it's something my dad always said to me it was the importance of failure I was a bit like you at school I found it quite I worked hard because I knew how to pass the exams so I never really experienced that failure of it and passed my driving test when I rang him up to say to add I've passed my driving test he was like oh it's like he's saying oh he's like I really wanted you to fail because it's so important to fail at something and it's also who they're surrounded with because maybe the failure isn't theirs but if they are put in circumstances where they see hardship and they they you know whether it's in their communities or through volunteerism you know exposing them to all the different challenges that other people face even if it isn't their challenge so service was a huge part of it you know having them in schools where some kind of mandatory community service was a part of the curriculum has always been important to me so there are many ways to do it it depends on your circumstances but kids will model what they see at home and the values that are promoted at home so whether they have a lot or a little they still know what their parents believe and what they expect just as you have known which is why your business you focus on businesses with purpose that had nothing to do with the fact that you grew up in hardship but you grew up with parents who expected you to give back and that stuck with you and I can only hope that Malia and Sasha will be as as giving and as generous as as you are thank you very much the other another question lots of people asked was would you ever run for president of the United States but well I'm going to say to all those people is it is answered in the book so go out and buy the book and read it and you'll get your answer because that was the probably the question that was asked the most one of my biggest takeaways is your wonderful quote work with purpose parent with care and I really think that's our motto to live your life by so thank you so much for that and also thank you very much for the interview today it's been really lovely seeing you again you

Channel: Virgin

Views: 894,888

Rating: 4.8277106 out of 5

Keywords: michelle obama, holly branson, meet the author, becoming

Id: yqcevP1eAbE

Length: 37min 18sec (2238 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 11 2018