There's such a thing as knowing too much. You've been married to the President of the United States who knows everything about everything in the world. Sometimes you just the phenomenally successful author. Please welcome the former first Lady of these United States, Michelle Obama. I don't want people looking at me and Barack like hashtag couples goals. No, no, there are some broken things that happen even in the best of marriages.
What is the thing that keeps you up at night? Now, before we jump into this episode, I'd like to invite you to join this community to hear more interviews that will help you become happier, healthier, and more healed. All I want you to do is click on the subscribe button. I love your support. It's incredible to see all your comments, and we're just getting started. I can't wait to go on this journey with you. Thank you so much for subscribing. It means the world to me.
The number one Health and well inness podcast.
Jay Sheetty Jay Shettye Only shet Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I am so excited for today's episode. But before we do that, make sure you subscribe so you never miss out on any future episodes. I've got so many more exciting guests that I can't wait for you to listen to. And today's guest is, of course, the one, the only, Michelle Obama. We're talking about her book, The Light We Carry. If you don't already have it, makes you go and
grab it. I can't wait for you to hear this conversation. Michelle. Thank you so much for joining me on purpose. This is such an honor. I'm so grateful to have you here.
I'm thrilled to be here. I'm a fan.
Oh that means more to me than you know. Thank you so much, and I'll dive straight in. What is the best part about being you?
I have never thought about that. That is a great question. I think my family, my friendships. I think one of the things that Barack and I we always talk about is that we're proud of the fact that we've kept our community. You know, people that we've known all our lives are still a part of that community that keeps us solid and keeps us whole and grounded. It's easy to lose your head on this journey that we've been on.
And I think what keeps us focused is that we've had, we have some solid people in our lives, and we make it a point to cultivate those relationships and to learn to be intentional about them. And I think that that's probably one of the coolest things, is that, you know, I've got this big kitchen table of people who keep me focused and keep me honest.
What's the longest friendship then non family, Like, what's the.
Say, the longest friendship? I mean, gosh, childhood friendships I still have. I've sort of picked up friends throughout every part of my life. You know, I've got one or two. I've got high school friends that I keep in touch with, the college friends, the law school friends. You know, so you sort of gather people throughout and I've had a lot of people who've sort of just hung in there before we were the Obamas.
Yeah, how does that work? I feel like so many people who are on their journey, a lot of us don't take steps forward because we're scared of what our friends will think. Some of us get carried away with success and ego and pride goes to your head, and then you alienate people. Sometimes it's envy and jealousy from everyone else who didn't join you on the journey. How do you navigate a multi decade level friendship when everyone
is going through so much. What are the kind of key milestones and maintaining that kitchen table?
You know, I talk about this journey like climbing Mount Everest. You start Not that I've ever done that, by the way, but what I've heard about climbing Mount Everest is that you you start out at base camp and then you hit these summits along the way, and everybody starts out the journey ready, you know, they think I'm going to make it to the top. And then you start the climb and some people are ready for it and some
people aren't. And it's surprising that you learn along the climb who's really ready And there are people who just emotionally physically can't go the whole way. They run out of oxygen, you know, they weren't fit for the climb, right. And one of the hardest things is like when you discover that, I mean, do you stop, do you go back because there was one member that wasn't ready, or do you keep climbing and sort of leave them where they are? And we've found that that's kind of been the pattern.
Right.
There are people who have been they were built for the climb like we were, and some weren't. And I find that I talk to young people about this too, because when you're a kid coming from nothing, and I won't say that I came from nothing but brought nor I came from wealth or connection or fame or fortune.
So we have a hodgepodge of people in our lives, and one of the toughest things is to find out that a dear friend wasn't ready for the climb, and in order to keep pressing for it, we tell young people that sometimes you got to leave them there because you can't carry people when you're trying to get to the top. It slows you down. But there's you know,
survivor's remorse that comes with it. And I know there you know a lot of times when I talk to kids and I see them well up, I see in them that struggle that they've reached a point where they've left people they love behind, and they struggle to figure out how to weather or how to maintain those connections,
and it becomes hard and it's draining. You know, kids, for exact ample, who got the opportunity to go to college when half their family isn't eating yes, right, and they've got a student loan and they need to use that loan to pay for their books, but they're trying to send money back home to pay the electric bill.
And I tell those kids, like, if you want to make it, you've got to make some hard choices about what to do with your life, or you will not make the climb yourself, and then everyone knows you, and then everybody loses. And I think that's how we've had to look at it. We've been fortunate enough that we've had so many people who were ready for the climb. They had to adjust, they had to go back and do a little working out, But for the most part, they've made it. But for the people who couldn't, we
had to leave them behind and keep climbing. And if once we made it to the top, if we could reach back and pull some others up, we definitely did that. It is one of the greatest challenges when you were pursuing a life that is drastically different from the one that you've come from.
It's such a thing as a graceful end.
Well, it depends on who's doing the ending right, yes, sometimes, you know. Sometimes I say there's such a thing as the slow ghost, you know, where you just sort of let relationships take their natural course. Friendships and relationships kind of tell you when they're ready, you know, and you have to kind of listen to it. You learn as you get older, you know, sometimes you held on too long. You let some you know, bad jujus stay around too long,
and as you get older you can recognize, right. I've always approached life and friendships, and I try to tell my daughters this too, is stay open, stay open to the possibility of people. I never want my daughters and I never wanted to feel so high that I was closed off and suspicious, you know, not wanting to let new people in, right, And that becomes very difficult when you're the president and the first lady. You know, you could, you know, close your life off so much, right because
everyone might want something to turn to. But I always felt like, well that's a loss, you know, because if you close everybody out, then you miss some gems. We've tried to be open and find ways to let new people in our lives and develop new relationships. And what I tell my kids is trust your gut because you'll know when people should be let out. But keep your aperture wide open. Let people in, but when they show
you who they are, let them out quickly. And as older you get, you know it's like, eah, that was that. This one isn't working out, so let's just cut it quick. But stay open, and.
You're naturally going to make mistakes. You're naturally going to get hurt at not going to read everyone perfectly. So true, true, that's going to happen. But it's better to be aware, no doubt the lesson. But be open in the first place, because being closed is worse.
You miss You miss out on the goodness, the possibility, the opportunity, the new right. And I never want to miss out on the new I I'd rather keep give people the benefit of the doubt, bring them in, and let them disappoint me. It's like I can deal with disappointment. I can be I can I can get over hurt, but I don't want to lose the possibility of someone special coming in. That's the greater trade off, right, and
it's proven to be the right approach. You know, we we've just met some wonderful people along this journey and gosh, if I had closed myself off to that, I oh, I think of the friendships, the influences that I wouldn't have had. So I want my girls to stay open, you know, I want them to be open people.
Yes, I had a mentor in London, probably around ten years ago, and he devised this set of questions that gives you your personality type. And there's so many tests like this, yes, but his was really interesting and it's very aligned with your thinking. So, and he also had types where we'd get locked and he'd call this CSC. He said, the more closed, the more specific, and the more controlling you get, the less you're able to actually connect, grow, evolve, learn.
And he would always say, as you're saying, the more open, random and supportive you are, the more likely you are to be able to invite people into your life at different times. And I love hearing that because I like that, Yeah, that change from close, selective and controlling to open, random, and supportive. He was saying, you never know, you could have a random interaction with someone. It could be the most beautiful lesson of your life.
And I also felt that you know, when you're the president of the United States and the first, lady, you have to be open. You have to be open to all the possibilities. You can't live in your fortress and govern the people, right, And I think we benefited from the fact that we had to figure out how to be regular people in the White House because we had kids in school, and so we couldn't become just White
House people. We had to get to know that community and go to parent teacher conference and make friends with other parents because we wanted our kids' lives to be normal. But that in a way kept me connected with people and what they were really feeling and what their challenges were. And it keeps me open and empathetic to people because I'm engaged and I'm not sitting in my castle looking out at everybody else. So I found it particularly necessary in our role.
Yeah, so that's the best thing, that's beautiful. What has been the west or the hardest part about.
Being you Well, I think it's the flip side of that coin of that. When you're on the top of Mount Everest, it can be isolating and dystopic in a way, you know. I think one of the greatest things that we've learned to appreciate in this role and I tell young people this, especially young people who think they want fame. You know, it's like, do you know what that is? You know, are you grasping for something you have no
idea or your parents pushing you towards this thing? Is that when you become famous, well known, you lose your anonymity. That's a tough thing to lose. Price, right, It's a huge price, right, The natural everyday thing of sitting and being able to sit in the world and observe it and not be observed, right, I mean.
Wow, that's a really interesting way. Yeah.
Yeah, just sort of sitting in a park and watching the world happen with nobody pulling you out of it. Right, the simple walk through a park or standing in line at the grocery store and overhearing life. We don't have that, you know, we don't have spontaneity in the same way. And that's a hard thing to lose. Now here's the thing. Fortunately, we lost it. We lost it in our forties. I just think of kids who are reaching for it, not knowing that you're about to lose a really valuable thing.
You want to you're striving to lose it, and you're only eighteen twenty. You don't want to lose your anonymity. You don't want to trade that off for anything in the world, because once you lose it, you lose a lot more. We've adjusted, right because we're adults. So yes, I can figure out how how to make one move, go on a walk, visit a friend, but I have to call like twelve people, and I have to think about the movements and security has to be lined up.
We can't do the ordinary things of life, you know, go to a movie theater or I joked at COVID when people asked when we were all in quarantine, how did it feel, And I was like, well, it's kind of easy for us because we've lived in quarantine for like, you know, a decade, decades, and so you learn to live in this smaller footprint. But it's that's a tough thing that I don't think people think about when they think of power and fame. And there's some downsides too.
Yeah, and what do what do people want the most from you? And because I love the idea of what you're saying of being open, it's that mindset is so special. Yeah, I guess when that when you are open and then like you said, you can get over that hurt. What is the hurt that you usually have to to get over all that you've had.
To well the maybe hurt is too strong of a word again because we're older. It's just the loss of a piece of yourself, right, you know. I mean people always ask me I was in Chicago the other day, and every time I go back to Chicago, people are like, do you miss Chicago? I missed the Chicago that we knew before we were here. Wow, that Chicago is no longer available to us to you, yes, yeah, you know the way we loved it in that way, and that's that's a loss. Is it a hurt? Is it personal? No,
it's just the way life is. But it's still a loss. You know, my husband loves New York and it was interesting he thought for a second, because he's been more isolated than me. He thought for a minute, when we leave the White House, we'll live in New York. And it was like, dude, you can't live in New York. And it's just he cannot access the wonderful city of New York and the way that he remembered when he was in his twenties. Because guess what, we can't do.
We can't walk down the street, we can't get on the subway, we can't necessarily walk through Central Park without a big plan. You know, the things that make New York New York, we can't access it. That's the part I don't you know, the people part, the connection to
people part. I never get exhausted by that because I'm open, yes, right, So it's not a great distinction, right, It's just the way you want to live your life, especially when you're open, right, You want to be open, you want to be in the midst of people, and we've lost that absolutely.
I think what's beautiful about this book, The Light we Carry and Becoming is it shows us just how many trials, challenges, setbacks that you've had to overcome, and that you've gone through in your life so elegantly, gracefully, tactfully, you know, with with so much determination and drive. And I'm intrigued that after having overcome so much, like you said, climbing Mount Everest, using that as a as our analogy, what is the thing that keeps you up at night now? Well,
what is your biggest fear now? After having overcome so many It.
Has less to do with me personally and more to do with the world that we're in. There's such a thing as knowing too much. And when you've been married to the President of the United States, who knows everything about everything in the world, sometimes you just want to do you know too much? Right, It's like, I don't know. I don't want to know what was in that folder that you just got that made you quiet, you know, I don't want to know why the security just pulled
you over. I mean, it could be any range of things that comes across the desk of the leader of the free world. Right, So I know a lot about what's going on, and what keeps me up are the things that I know. The war in the region in too many regions? What is AI going to do for us? The environment? You know, are we moving at all fast enough? What are we doing about education? Are people going to vote? And why aren't people voting? Are we too stuck to
our phones? I mean, those are the things that keep me up because you don't have control over them, and you wonder where are people? Where are we in this? You know, where are our hearts? What's going to happen in this next election? I am terrified about what could possibly happen because our leaders matter, who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bullied pulpit. It affects us in ways that sometimes I think people take for granted. You know the fact that people think that government, nah,
you know, does it really even do anything? And I'm like, oh my god, does government do everything for us? And we cannot take this democracy for granted? And sometimes I worry that we do. Those are the things that keep me up.
What habits have you developed? Because I think people may not have access to the news you do, but I think people can definitely relate yes, yes to what you're saying. That absolutely, Jay, I'm just seeing all the news on my phone. I'm connected to the TV. I'm hearing things from friends and family. Like I think a lot of people can relate to you saying I feel like I
know too much. What are some of the habits of practices or rules that you've developed that have really become your saving grace Because like you said to you, it's not just a news update, it's a folder, it's the person calling, it's a private meeting, whatever it may be. You're in one sense, it's even more extreme because you're so privy to the actual reality as opposed to a news channel, which is part of reality.
One of the most important practices is deliberately turning that off for a moment or more than a month, and I encourage that. I think our phones are sort of the regular man's equivalent to what I just described. We're too connected all the time. We're reading too much, we're taking too much in. We are constantly being fed by images, and that's become the norm, and it's we've been sort of marketed that that's cool, that's what we should want. But our brains are not. We are not that sophisticated
a species. We have not evolved enough to be able to take in that much information on a constant basis, and our kids certainly are not prepared to handle it. I think that plays a huge role in the higher rates of depression and suicide among young people. They've got to let their brains rest from the noise. Even though you know we're all trying to fix everything, everyone needs a break from it, right, So I am very deliberate about knowing that I can't take all that in, and
we're getting it in such a sort of misinterpreted way. Right, We've got, you know, confirmation bias. We're reading only what we already believe. And I know I have to be very deliberate about, you know, understanding that a lot of the information I'm getting isn't even complete. I do filter, you know, and then I develop habits that shut my brain off to thinking. Right. I wrote in the Light about knitting, you know, which is a habit that I developed, a hobby that I developed over quarantine.
And that's because it makes you so present.
And it shuts your brain down and allows your hands, the motion to take over. And in that way I found that it is meditative, right, And that's what meditation is. It's quieting your noisy mind. And some of us can't connect to meditation, but I think we need it. I think biologically we need to shut that part of ourselves down to get a rest from it. And I find that knitting does it. Exercise does it. Learning something physical shuts my mind down. I mean I've taken up tennis
and there's nothing that shuts my mind down. Then running after a green ball and trying to figure out move your feet, hit the ball, follow through. It's like, yeah, that shuts my mind down for the hour or ninety minutes that I'm doing that thing. I'm not worrying, you know, I'm breathing, I'm outside, I'm letting the sun hit my face. I am those habits and routines of creating something right, and we do that less and less now. It's like everything is all in the mind. It's all technology. But
I think we need something where. The thing I love about knitting is that at the end of it had made something. You know, It's just satisfying in a very different way from problem solving or analysis, right, building, creating, painting, drawing, fixing, putting something real into the world that came from your own hands, something small.
You know.
That's why I talk about the power of small in the light we carry, because a lot of times our brains are trying to do the big fix, and that's when we feel hopeless and we're tired, because most of us don't have the power to fix anything at a big scale. But we can focus on the small things that we have control over, you know, making a sweater for your daughter, helping mentor a child in your neighborhood, loving the children you bring into the world, and making
sure they have everything they need. That's where change happens, right, And when I do those kinds of activities, I meditate into that power, right, that small power that there is satisfaction from hitting a stupid ball over a net, yes you know, and getting a good swing out of it. It's like it makes the day better because I serve the ball right, or I finished a scarf.
I love to know you're so right. And I'm so glad you're using the word shutting down and this switch to analog I remember at one point, and I think everyone can relate to this. You wake up to your phone, I'd be brushing my teeth and on my phone. I'm eating breakfast and on my phone. You know, just your phone is now tethered to your hand in every activity that you're doing throughout the day, and so your brain
is never shutting down. And the interesting thing is we all know our phones need to reset, need to update, they need a software refresh or whatever it may be. And I think I saw somewhere that the human brain today has to process like seventy four gigabytes with information a day, Yeah, a day. And I was thinking, I remember when your phone doesn't you know, it's a lot.
And when you think about it. This is a brand new technology. Yes, right. You know when we got into the White House, we could we had blackberries, right, social media wasn't a thing. Right. All of that came into being in the eight years that we were in the White House, and it's just gone off like a rocket ship. We don't evolve that quickly, you know. Humans, It takes generations for us to all. We haven't adapted to this
new media. We haven't. We have not biologically adapted. And so no wonder we're stressed, no wonder, we're we're full of anxiety, No wonder our kids are struggling, you know, because we have a new technology and we've just we we've taken it in hookline and sinker. We're not even questioning how much. You know, the more the merrier, right. I think we need to be very mindful about this
new gadget. Yes, And we have to be mindful for our kids because they have no filter, right, they'll just be thumbing through this stuff, you know, their their mind's never sleeping. And as parents of my generation, we know so little about it, don't. We don't even know how to monitor it. It's like cigarettes, right, Is it good
for us? I mean at one point everybody smoked until we realized, Oops, this isn't really really good for us, right, I think we have to be cautious about this, this new thing that we're just lapping up.
Yeah. I read an article a few years ago exactly. It was saying that today we absorb in one day, in twenty four hours, the same amount of tragedy we would in our entire lifetime twenty five years ago. Today we absorb what we would in our entire lifetime in one day.
And it felt real, And that's why people feel more panicked. I mean, Barack, my husband, is a he's a fact based guy. He's a science guy. Sometimes it's not popular these days, right, having a president that believes in facts and science and all that stuff. But he's one of
those people. And he always says, you know, statistically speaking, especially when young people bemoan where we are today, he says, you know, if you look at history and statistics, if you were to pick any time in human history to be born, you'd want to be born now. Crime, war, those rates are the lowest. But nobody feels that people feel more unsafe. Why because they're getting fed images of every crime that happens anywhere everywhere, right, And when we
were growing up, you just heard your local news. You know, it's just like, oh, there was a fire or that kid, you know, and you know. Now we're getting everything, not just from our community, but all over the world. Stuff that's always been happening. We just didn't know about it. Yes, now we know too much. Yes, and we're interpreting that to mean things are horrible. We went through world wars and depressions and famine. This isn't new. It's just we
know everything, you know. It's one way to look at it.
Yes, Yes, absolutely, And I think you're right because there's the incomplete information. I like the word incomplete things, and I appreciate that kind of subtle point. Incomplete information. Then you have opinions. Then you have feelings and emotions, and so there's so much more information on every level. You have the physical information, the emotional information, the mental information of course, the physical experience of it. And it can
be it can be too much. One of the it's so interesting you use the analogy of climbing Mount Everest because I went to see a comedy show recently and I'm trying to remember the comedian's name, so I'll have to find it afterwards and put him in there. But he literally was describing. He was saying, relationships are like climbing Mount Everest, and so what he said was he goes, you started base camp, and he goes, you and your
partner are ready, You're ready to go. You're being guided, and then at one point you're like, oh, we're cold, but it's okay, we'll keep each other warm.
We'll be find and.
Then he goes you get to the first stop and you go, oh, yeah, like have you did you pack the gloves? Did you pack the gloves? And then your partner goes, oh, no, I forgot the gloves. And you're like, oh, it's okay, it's okay, we'll just keep our hands warm. Then you get a bit higher and then they were like, now it's got to a point where it's really cold, and you were why did you forget those gloves? Like you know, it's like the press that come on, like
why do you figure out those gloves? Then you get the next stop and your partner says to you, like, you pack the sandwiches right, and then you look at the sandwiches like, I don't know what to say anyway, And so you talk about this so much in your work in your book, like relationships are challenging, they're difficult. I think you've been together now for over thirty years. Thirty one thirty one, thirty one years. Congratulations. Yeah, okay, amazing,
thirty one years. Congratulations. That's incredible and so inspiring in so many ways. My wife and I have been together for ten years, and that counts counts, and you know, definitely like can see the challenges unforeseen and seen that come with being together over long periods of time. My wife and I in twenty sixteen, we both changed jobs, so we got married, we changed jobs and moved country. So we moved from London to New York. That year.
We both quit our jobs in London. I could work here, my wife couldn't at the time because of her visa, and we started new lives and we obviously moved home and we were away from our families, and that year was it brought us closer, thankfully, but it was a very challenging, difficult year because I've had that those are some of the hardest things you can do. The only thing we didn't do is have a kid.
That's right. You covered all the hardes apart.
From President the first lady, I think that that takes it. When you're going for all this challenges. You've talked about these many many times before. Has there ever been a time when you've said things or done things and afterwards though, I wish I didn't do that, wish I didn't say what.
In my marriage? Yes, yeah, of course yesterday. I love that.
How do you how do you because you've been together for thirty one years, how do you rectify something like that when you know, because there's a difference between being spiteful of being silly, but like when you really feel like I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have said that. How do you address something that.
You know that's the practice of relationships right after thirty one years. Yeah, we still do it, but you know it quicker and then you apologize. You know, you learn how to say my bad right, and that takes that takes a second right. You know. That's why I talk about relationships in the light. I talk about marriage because I just think that number one, most people don't talk about it, Like our parents didn't talk about your marriage.
You didn't talk about your feelings you didn't talk about your parents didn't tell you about the challenges that we're facing. So why why don't we share the whole experience? Because what happens is that by not knowing, you hit in your relationship some natural, like understandable rough patches and you want to quit. And it's like, oh no, no, no, no, no, that's not quit worthy. That's just that's the just the nature of things, you know. That's why I joked. It's like, oh,
you're mad at your partner. You're mad for a year, and you think the marriage is over. Nah, you're gonna have decades. I don't know if I like you, you know, because over the span of a thirty year marriage, yet you cobble together enough arguments and you got to decade, right, And that's just the way it goes. But you don't quit on it, right, You learn from it. And that's what sustaining a relationship is. It's the choice to figure it out, not to quit when it gets hard. So, yeah,
I said something that I didn't mean to say. Right year five, we might have had hurt feelings and it would have taken days to rectify it. You're thirty, It's like, eh, there she goes again, or there he goes again. I know how to talk to him about it and when because we've practiced it. We've made a lot of mistakes, we've gotten it wrong, and after thirty one years we're getting better at it and it gets better and better
and better. You know. Look, if you lived with your roommate for thirty years, you would hate them at some point in time, but it wouldn't be some defining thing. You have friendships that they laugh. You're gonna have some falling out. Why do we put so much pressure on
marriage to not be hard. It's the natural hardest thing you will ever do, which is to try to build a life with another person who wasn't raised in your shoes, who has a totally different temperament, right, and you're like having other people with them, you know, you bring other lives and other personalities into the mix, and then life is happening. Of course, it's gonna be hard, you know, but I wouldn't trade in my marriage for anything in
the world. With all the ups and downs, with all the running for president stuff, I was like, what did you do that? I mean, talk about that being a big, gaping, yeah, transition thing in our lives, but the good has outweighed and if we hadn't hung in there, we would have
missed all the good. And that's what I tell young people, like, first of all, pick well, pick some what do you respect and like start there, right, and then remember that that's who they are, and then understand that with that, they are going to be and you are going to be deeply, deeply flawed, and you're going to make a whole lot of mistakes, right, But in the end, you can look that person in the eye and you go, You're still the person that I like and love and respect,
and we can figure this out. So I share that because I don't want people looking at me and Barack like hashtag couples goals and not know that. No, no, there are some broken things that happen even in the best of marriages.
Absolutely, And you use that term quit worthy. Is that something that you defined for yourself what you saw as quit worthy and what you saw as not quit worthy.
That's a good question. Look, I think there are some objective quit worthy things like criminality, of course, abuse, but hey, that's that's that's me. You know, there's some people who love through a whole lot of things. So I think
that has to be individual. But if I were talking to my daughters, I wouldn't want them in to stay in a marriage that made them feel oppressed, that was an overall negative to who they were, right, I do think there are reasons to walk away from marriage, friendship, a whole jobs, a whole lot of things.
Right.
So, yeah, I have a clear list of like the non negotiables, but everybody has their own.
Yeah, absolutely, And I think that's so important that you know, everyone who's listening and watching, the idea of having our own quit worthy definition is such a need because it can get really hard to find clarity when you get really deep into something. A practice that I love doing with a lot of my clients and even people that I work with or online is I ask Kevin to write down the needs that they have in their life, and then write down the people that filled those needs.
And it could be themselves too, some of them, and then some of them are their friends, their mom, their dad, and of course in your book, like we noticed like your mom's like wisdom, right, Like she's the Buddha in your life. As you say you see different people, what are the roles that you initially wanted President Obama to fill that you then realized they actually needed to be fooled by other people.
That's a good question. I write about it. The fact that we are two very independent, ambitious, smart people and complex, you knows, as individuals. We you know, were dynamic in you know, I'm not saying that as an ego trip, but.
No, you know what you mean, you constantly flux.
That's exactly right, and I learned It took me a while to learn that. You know, there's no way we could be everything to each other. We have different interests, different goals. There was a stage in my marriage where I thought that's what a partner was supposed to be. You know, you should call me all the time, we should talk all the time. We should be each other's best friends all the time. Our marriage got better when I got better about that, because I think he already
had that independence. This notion of I love you, I don't even if I don't talk to you today, That to me is like I don't need that. I felt like I needed more of that. But as I got older, right, I got more mature, more clear about my own goals, I realized that I, you know, he can't be responsible for my happiness. I have to be responsible for that. I have to define it for myself. I have to learn how to achieve it. My husband is definitely a part of that, but he is not the I cannot
put him in the center of my happiness. That freed me up to let him be him and let me be me. So I have friends who give me things that my husband doesn't give me. I have girlfriends. One distinction that we have is like, I'm a talker, all right. When I sit down with my girlfriends, we can talk four days, I mean literally for days. We can take a break for lunch, but we can talk.
You know.
My husband's not He can talk, but he will come by a friendship session, you know, nine o'clock in the morning. I have a friend staying with me and he's like, what are y'all talking about. It's like, well, we're just now getting into our kids and we're going to talk about each one of them separately for like an hour.
Right.
He's like, I couldn't do that, right, He can't be that for me. But I have really good mostly girlfriends who give me that. You know, we will dissect life to the bitter. We will ring everything out of every subject and he's like, I think I'm done, and it's like, well, you can go be done because I've got her and we just got started. We're gonna we got twelve more hours to go, right.
And that's so beautiful to hear because I think, especially when we're young, we think that that person has to be all of that and from the beginning, and or they'll become it. There's the other fallacy of like, oh, well, I know who they could be and who they could become. How much of that did you feel you had to disconnect and detach from it, like what this person could be to you? Obviously not in the world, but.
I had to disconnect from all of those beliefs, right, And every couple is different, I've found. I know people who are each other's best friends. They like to travel together, they walk and hold hands. And I have friends who are in relationships where they talk like every hour. I'm like, are you talking to him again? Nothing changed? You know, it's up to the individuals to define that for themselves.
For Barack and I and I think you should be clear about that because the other thing is that when we hold on internally to an expectation of the other person. We don't even share it, so now we're mad that you haven't even filled something I never even told you I need it. You know that takes time and it takes work, which is why marriage is hard, right because you'll have the tendency to live in your head and live out the image of what you want them to be,
and you haven't even communicated that to them. That's just one little fraction of the challenge of marriage and friendship and all of that. It's hard, it takes time, but it's worth.
It, absolutely. Yeah. I think those those check ins are the hardest. I know that there's four check ins that I try and keep a good habit around with my wife that have really helped me. One of them is every day I'll ask her like, what was your highlight today? Or what did you learn today? Something something positive? Something like what's the best thing that happened to you today?
I want to know because it's so easy for us to get so busy in our days, not see each other all day, not speak all day, and days can go by like that too because we're also traveling. And then every week I try and ask you, like, how can I what can I help you with this week? Like is there something coming up that I just need to be aware of? Yeah, Sometimes it's just information, and that gives me an opportunity to also tell her I've got a really stressful week coming up. Just know that
I may not be at my best this week. I'm just letting you know. Every month, I'm you know, checking in with her and trying to just say to her, like, what's your big focus for this month, Like, you know, what's the big thing that you're working on? Then every year is easy, like you know, what's your goal? Is a resolution or whatever? And I find that those questions and sometimes every quarter I'll ask a question, which is the hardest one, but it's like is this relationship going
in the direction you want it to? And if it isn't, what are you willing to do? And what am I willing to do to get it back on track? Because I find so often like if you just don't talk about that deep intimacy, you're just going on different tracks. And that's why five years later you're like, well I
don't know you anymore. Yeah, yeah, And so I find that like staying in close contact, but one of the biggest things I read which I wanted to try with you is the Gotman Institute talked about how the number one skill or habit in relationships, and they looked at couples who'd stayed together the longest, and they found it wasn't date nights, it wasn't vacations, it wasn't any of this stuff. It was learning how to fight. Oh, it
was knowing how to deal with conflict. And most couples, obviously we all go, well, we never fight or we're never going to fight, but it's inevitable. So I came up with these three fight styles, and I wanted to know how you see yourself and how you see President Obama or how he would see himself. And so here the three fight styles are a venter, which means I want to fix and solve it. Right now. You like to vent, you're really trying to fix and solve it.
The second one is you're a hyder. You need time and space to think about it. I just want to go spend time by yourself. And then the third one is the exploder, where it's like I want my emotions to be heard, felt and seen before we take time about or before we try and solve it. Which one are you?
Okay? So I've changed over early on in our relationships, I was more of an exploder. I think he has been always been a fixer, right, Yeah, So then I would be explosive and then want to hide. Right, It's like, I want to explode, let me have my emotions and then give me a moment, right, And he's like, we've got to fix this. We've got to you know, shut this down. We've got to. I will figure it out. Let's talk this through. And I love that about him,
especially as a man. You know, he's somebody that is not afraid to put his emotions out. He's smart, and so he knows me. So he's like he won't let me pretend like there's nothing wrong because he knows. I know there's something You're a little off. And but I've had to learn that exploding on a fixer it doesn't feel good to them, right, It just you know, it feels good for me, but it doesn't feel good for him. Right. But he's learned that as a hid that I do
need a little more time. Right if I'm exploding, I can't be rational enough to talk through your fixing. And you if you want to fix it. Then I've got to be in a rational place. So let me hide for a minute. So I need to get myself down to a fixer place. Yes, I think that's been the trajectory of our sorting through learning how to argue. But I like those But he's he's been pretty consistent. He is consistently the fixer, you know. And he's also much
more even keeled, you know, than I am emotionally. We're just different people in that way, and he's learned not to be too afraid of the explosiveness. Yes, it's like, I don't mean it. I'm just saying it right now because I need to say it.
Yes, right, And that awareness that you're just displaying there is so powerful to witness because you realize, wow, it's not as serious as I'm making it out.
It's important, that's right, it's.
Important, and I need to take note of it, but it's I don't need to deal with it in this right well, And it's maturing.
We all say, well, say what's on your mind, you know, tell it like it is, and it's like, yeah, I'm that tends to be who I am. But as you get older, you realize, yeah, that's your heart, but your head tells you you want to be heard, and you have to think about who you're talking to and what you're in gold is because that will dictate how you have to communicate to them. So when you're young, you just want to be heard. As you get older, you
have a goal. You want to achieve something, and being heard in the way you say it may not get you to your goal. Yes, I mean that's at the crux for me of what going high is, right. I mean, going high is being strategic. If you're really trying to make change, you have to think about whether your approach will allow for change to happen. You know, going high means you're thinking about a broader point outside of your
own anger or hurt or pain. You're thinking where am I trying to get to and how do I do that with this group that I'm trying to move. That's passion matured into purpose, and young people often they want to just act with passion. Yes, right, but passion doesn't always solve a thing. And I've learned that in my relationship. You know, my passion isn't is meaningless if my husband can't hear it, you know, if I've hurt his feelings
in the process. Well, what's that's not the point, you know, So I have to mature my passion, you know, I have to mature it as a mother, right. I have to be very careful as a mother with the words I say. I can't just say what's on my mind. I can I have to think about how I say it to which child because they're both different and they both need to be parented different. Right. So going high is like, to me, it's the mature way to live, right, the mature way to get the message across. It doesn't
mean that how you feel isn't relevant, right. It's true, It's real and true, but that's for you to deal with. When you're dealing with external people, whether it's your husband or your kids or your friends, your passion has to take way to what's going to work with this person, what's going to work with this group of people? To me, that's what going high is.
Yeah, what a great definition. I think you're the best person has this conversation with I love how you explain the need for that, And actually I don't think i've heard it explained in that way before. I really appreciate it because I think currently we've confused being authentic and being strategic. What you were just saying is when you're sharing how you feel, you are being authentic, but maybe it won't be authentically recved or heard or seen because
it wasn't strategically perceived. But we sometimes today perceived strategy as manipulation or as a technique, as opposed to or selling out or selling out. Right, walk me through that, because I think how we perceive we've put authenticity on a pedestal, which is not wrong, but we've put strategy is like the thing that you kind of you know, shun well.
And maybe strategy is too strategic or hard of a world, but you could replace that with empathy, right, you know, connectivity. It's sort of like who am I trying to move? And where are they in this? Right? And when you're the President of the United States or the first lady, you have a big platform. I've always felt like I have a responsibility to set my feelings aside and think about where are you? Why are you so angry? Where is your hate coming from? Because yeah, I can be
mad at your hate. I can be mad that you're you know, you just said something racist, or you knock me down a peg, or you misjudged me. But if I'm trying to fix the relationship, I've got to understand what are you going through? Where did that perception come from, what's your history? What puts you in this spirit of hate? Because that's going to dictate how we can even begin to have the conversation. I don't lose my authenticity in that because I know who I am, right, but I
have to make room to understand who you are. That's either strategy or empathy. But to me, effective communication, especially if you're a leader, if you have the power, it requires a step back. Yes, right, And I think that's what going high is, and I do you're right. I think in this day and age, we've kind of supplanted that consideration. Because my feelings count. My voice has to be heard, which is also why I think we have
to learn how to hear people throughout. We have to give people a space to be heard outside of the anger, right, because that's where all that's coming from. Right. When people can't mature their response, it's because they don't have a voice. It's like and if I don't have a voice in regular conversation, then I will make you hear me.
Yes, right.
Young people feel that way, absolutely right. Oppress people feel that way. People who don't have a stake and it feel that way. Which is why I think it's strategic to give everybody a piece of something so that they feel seen and heard. I think that brings that ratchets down the anger, the explosiveness, because people can guarantee that they are being seen, they'll be heard. They don't have to yell, they don't have to tear something apart, they
don't have to break it because they own it. And we just lose sight of that these days and our policies and our perspectives. You can't shut people out, you know. I talk about in the light when I think about kids from communities that are under invested in their anger, their lack of like, I don't none of this belongs to me, so why would I protect it? Why wouldn't I break down your house or rob you or try to take your car because I don't own any of this.
This country is not mine. They don't see me. Right. I think we do better with kids if they feel like I've got a chance here. This place is investing in me, so I'm invested in it. We do that with kids in the inner city. But you know, we don't talk about education. We don't talk about what we're giving them, or whether they have music or joy or sports or activities. We just want them to have nothing and then be okay with it. But they're going to fight to be heard.
Yes, they're going to.
Fight to be seen, but they're not going to do it in a rational way because they don't have a strategic place and they don't feel like they're a part of it.
So true, so true. When you're trying to go high, when you're trying to have this view of I want to understand your story. I want to get inside your mindset and recognize why you have evolved in this direction or this particular path. If anything, what does still offend you?
Like injustice, ego, greed, it's offensive, racism, ignorance, it's offensive. And I've always been that kid. I don't like unfairness, I don't like bullies. But I have to think about how I deliver messages that's beautiful still even in my pain and my anger and my day disappointment, so that those emotions are there, but I have to think about where do where do I let that out in a safe space, and that's what my kitchen table is.
Right.
I still have those emotions, but in my public facing voice, I have to be responsible, right, and strategic and thoughtful about what's going to move the needle, what's going to add value. My emotional well being gets taken care of at the kitchen table. I can't suffocate those feelings, but I can't act them out in the town's square. Yeah, because I'm just going to add fuel to the fire, and that doesn't help if we're trying to move the needle.
I don't believe because those feelings are still mine. And if you ask me, I'll tell you what I'm angry about, but I'm not going to lead with that. And in the midst of the message, I'll make it clear what I stand for and what I don't stand for. But the tone and tenor of the message matters. We can't just say what the first thing that comes to our minds. We cannot. That is not authenticity. To me, that's childish. And we see childless leadership right before us. What that
looks like and how that feels. Where somebody is just base and vulgar and cynical in a leadership position. It doesn't trickle down well, you know, that just begets more of that. I think we are obligated to model for those of us that have a platform, because it resonates, and I want to resonate good. I want to resonate reason and compassion and empathy, and that's more important than my feelings because my feelings I can take care of those.
That is, that's a masterclass in communication right there. Genuinely, that is to hear that from you with so much empathy but energy is so empowering for everyone who's listening and watching, because I think we've approached it from the other way around today. I think my personal feelings, not mine, but in general, how we feel. My personal feelings have become more important than moving and supporting and serving and caring and getting to where we need to get to.
And that's because we've suppressed those feelings. That's why that has happened. It hasn't happened because people are mean or insensitive. It's happened because people feel they've been so unheard. Going back to your point, and that's why we need to give space, We need to get let this rise. How early did you start recognizing this for you and your own life, like where do you remember, like the earliest
before the White House, like where you actually were? Like this worked, like this made sense and I still felt good because I had my kitchen table. Is there anything that comes to mind, and.
Do I go to childhood. I don't think I knew anything that was when I was little, but I think, you know, I learned it on the campaign trail. It was a product of one of the hardest moments that I had on the campaign trail, but one of the best growth moments. And I write about this in the light when I was accused of not loving my country
because of some phrasing I said. I learned first of all, that when you have a public forum, especially in this day and age, that in your like competing people will distort you whenever they can, and if they distort your words, your truth, even your personhood, which I felt like people attempted to do with me. With us, they tried to otherize us as the first black people, accusing my husband of being a terrorist and not being born in this country,
accusing me of being angry black women. And you know the labels that can easily get put on others that people that are othered right to make people afraid of us. That that is a strategy that gets played again and again and again. It was being played on me, and it got me to the point where I was almost ready to quit campaigning. Right, But then I thought, I have to be more strategic than they are about how I deliver my message. I have to be authentic, but I also have to be careful so that I don't
get mischaracterized. I have to be smarter than them. That doesn't mean I stop, but I had to regroup for a minute there and really evaluate how am I going to regain control over my narrative and communicate in a broad way that allows me to be heard, especially as a black woman. Yes, here being critical or being off authentic or passionate, right, that was a learning curve to me. I mean, I think my sentiments about the importance of communication are always there. Yes, my belief in how important
it is that stories connect us that was there. I learned that in life, but learning how to do that on the public stage. I learned the tricks and pitfalls of it in my first campaign. Yes, and those lessons stay with me.
Yeah, that's thank you for the example. That example definitely connects you reminded me of probably one of my favorite set of words from Martin Luther King, where he said that people who love peace need to learn to organize themselves as well as those who love war. For those us who love love and love peace and love, compassion and empathy. If we're not organized about it, if we're not strategic about it, if we're not thoughtful about it, that's it won't have the impact that we all pray
for it to have. Michelle, You've been so kind and generous with your time. We end every episode with a final five. These are the fast five, which I always ruin because I'm too interested and curious. They're usually answered in one word to one sentence. Oh, but I know I'm gonna I'm going to ruin it. So it's like, so the first question I have to ask you, Michelle, is what is the best advice you've ever heard or received?
Heard A lot of it from my wives, Mom, come home, we like you here to explain that. It was like my parents always taught me that the world won't always like you, but you can't count on the world to like you. You come home to be liked, You go out there to get your education, to earn a living, you won't necessarily find people who will see you or love you or like you. You get that here, right, And that's been a peace of advice.
That Oh that's beautiful. Thank you. That's so powerful. Now a lot of people who need to hear that right now. Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?
I don't know. I don't know that the worst advice stays with me. You let it go, my brother, This isn't the worst, right, But it goes back to what we were saying earlier. You know, he's like, when you get into the White House, you got to be careful. No new friends, right, That's not who he is. But you know, it was a way of saying, be careful. I think staying open was more important in this phase in our lives than being closed off. I'm glad we stayed open.
I'm glad. To question number three, you said that the White House doesn't change you, it reveals more of who you are. What did it reveal to you about yourself?
That I'm pretty strategic and smart and resilient. The White House tests you in ways that you never anticipate paid it. And the fact that we came out as a family, as individuals, the four of us, me and our two daughters. That was us. That was our values, our compassion, our our smarts, our strategy that got us through. You know, I'm so proud of my husband, the way he led, the way his administration worked, the team that we built,
So proud of everyone. I may have diverted from the question, but beautiful, I think that's that's because of who we are, and I know that now I can.
I can see it in your eyes and feed it from you a where it's like it's might It must be hard, like knowing that you know it can't always be that way. In one sense, it's almost like great that you've been able to leave, But there's a there's that feeling also like oh but that was great.
I mean, the bars are different for people in life that I've learned. This is the thing about being another You learn how to be excellent all the time, because you can't be less than other people can Other people can be indicted a bunch of times and still run for office, black man, can't. You just learned to be good and in the end you benefit from that extra resilience. You know, you could be mad about it, but it also makes you more equipped, right, but it's still not fair.
Yeah, definitely. Question number four got two more left. Question number four, You've obviously already began living and will leave an incredible legacy for the work that you've done. If you could describe what that you'd want that legacy to read, if someone was reading it or hearing it, what would it What would it say.
That she helped more young people feel seen? Because I start with young people, because with one word we can change a kid's life, we can lift them up, but that same wrong, one word can crush them forever. And those are the building blocks of our humanity. How we treat our kids, all of them right? And so I hope that my legacy is creating a stronger foundation for young people.
A fifth and final question we asked this to every guest who's ever been on the show. More appropriate with guests like yourselves. But if you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be.
Everybody should have a home to live in, food to eat, a job, to go to an education period. There would be the fundamental rights of everyone in the world. Now there could be levels of that. You know, we would not live in a world where so few have so much and so many have nothing, and that law would create some kind of equity. We have this trickle down approach, right, that's the basis of a capitalistic economy, right, But that's not happening. It's not trickling the law would it would
require in whatever way. If we're not trickling voluntarily, then we need to be forced to trickle mandatory trickling down.
What's blocking that, what's what's doing that?
I think fear? Yeah, I mean I write about fear because I think fear is at the source of so much, because I think the people who have a lot are afraid of not having enough. And it's not rational, right, But we fear the other two And so it's hard to give to people that you think you should be afraid of because you can't connect with them. We're all human, We're so alike. I don't care about skin color or how we pray or how we love. We're all the same. What keeps us from seeing that is fear. I don't
know you. You're different, so I got to be afraid of you, and I can't. I have to make sure you don't come into my space. And then we live in a culture where people with power prey on fear to get more power. I'm going to make you all afraid of each other, and then I can come in and rule it all. I think fear is set the root of that shall.
I deeply appreciate your time, your energy, your presence, the eloquence, but also the deep energy you bring to conversations like these, and I'm definitely grateful for the light you carry, and I'm very deeply appreciative for you sharing it on on purpose, and I hope this will be the first of many conversations together. So thanky, thank you so much, thank you.
We'll talk again.
Absolutely, thank you. If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with doctor Daniel Ahman on how to change your life by changing your brain.
If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with a healthy brain.
You know.
I've had the blessing or the curse to scan over a thousand convicted felons and over one hundred murderers, and their brains are very damage