Michelle Obama: We Still Go High

what is up daddy gang it is your founding father alex cooper with call her daddy michelle obama

welcome to call her daddy hey alex look at here call her daddy i'm here you don't even know

cool set too thank you it is beyond an honor to be sitting with you today how are you doing

i'm doing good i mean i'm personally good um individually good feeling whole but you know the world feels a little nutty and so there's you know that piece of it seeps in in ways but i'm

happy to be here i'm happy you're here um talk to me about your outfit how did you pick it my outfit

this is a meredith coop original and as we were thinking about promotions for the tour there is a picture that a lot of people have been showing of me at princeton and meredith coop had the idea of updating this is the week updated version it's on one of the first pages i remember when one of the first ones and when she brought it to me i was like you are so look at this i mean isn't so it's a redo it's the next version oh that's so good my campus look 2.0 meredith 5.0 yeah yeah so we were

like this is the perfect place to do with alice i love it so okay i am going skiing soon and i heard

that you are also a skier i love skiing but i'm kind of putting up my ski boots you're done i just feel like i am just one fall away you know i because i am like a crazy skier like i can't ski a little bit i'm like skiing all day oh you're going black diamond i go well i go black i don't go double black i like blacks and blues um are we doing moguls no no not yet but when i ski there's

still i'm still the former first lady with security so i have sort of a ski motorcade so there wait i'm trying to picture myself you being down like you can't tell right you can't no because the agents are they're they're blending in you know some are snowboarders and some are but they're usually in the front and the back right so that no errant person just clobbers me you know so i don't really know what goes on behind me when i'm skiing i just know we make it down and i usually i ski with an

instructor i ski in aspen vance is my ski husband and i miss him dearly vance i've skied with vance for 10 years and i hope he hears this i love him i miss him i haven't skied in two years but we ski we made it a mother-daughter trip um all every president's day weekend for the last 10 years there are a bunch of mothers and daughters we've all raised our kids together and we take the long weekend go to aspen and ski so yeah but you're you're done i just i'm just worried that you know

like i usually have one fall you don't need an injury you don't need to be in a boot and then i can't do anything else you know and we need you to do other things yeah anyway so that we need you

yeah okay well good to know i was just wondering like hobbies i'm a skier i'm i'm the similar way though like as i continue to get older i'm like i don't want to be hurt from this i want to enjoy myself but i'm so competitive this is the thing i bet what do you are you black diamonds i'm trying to go black diamonds i'll start on a blue just to like feel something and then i'm when you start

feeling feeling it and then you're just like yeah yeah no let's do that black run let's do or you do

it once and then you're like let's do it again and it's like no it's it's after lunch you just ate a

lot i always have one run too many it is the one run where i say i am done after this run and then right in the middle of the end of the run like i'm not stopping like that foot's not you're getting lazy i'm getting lazy and then the form goes form goes and then and then when i fall you know the looks on everyone's faces it's like everybody has a heart attack yeah i didn't even

think about that like you kind of also have to worry about all these other people like you said you everyone's behind you in front of you watching out for you so if you're falling feel

and do do they feel responsible and it's sometimes you want to fall and like have no one seat you don't have no everybody's there ski patrol doctors you know men with guns it's like i'm god i'm good

guys oh my god get up from there okay well good to know i just was interested in you know hobbies i

know you knit i knit i haven't been knitting lately because i've been reading a lot and reading and prep for our podcast i'm reading people's books so and i still like books so i don't do audio and you if you're holding a book you can't knit so i'm really really reading a lot right now so i haven't knitted as much but it's still there it's in me i have been trying to read more as well i think just

especially with the uptick in social media and the usage and everything i just feel so

uninspired and so reading has allowed me to tap back into parts of myself that i do miss when i was in education right and when you're in school you're like taking it for granted but then when you leave you're like wow what a what what a privilege it was um okay so when i was preparing for this interview yes i realized that there were kind of two ways i could go about it option one would be more og call her daddy days you know talk some relationships try to ask you a couple

questions about what barack obama wants to get reports on so you said what you're like it's her show i don't know right so you know relationships and sex which again you're right it would go viral

and poor brock would be like why literally have everything i've done why um but then there's the other side of this show yeah which is option two which is hard but important conversations that are relevant to young women and girls all around the world and so as juicy as option one would be or not or not actually it could have been like that's that i'm like oh um right fair

um i just thought about it i'm like you sitting here today as one of the most influential and powerful women in the world it would be too great of an opportunity not to have you impart your wisdom on the next generation who is watching and listening today so we're going with option

two so i think unless you want to go option one she's like no i think with that setup yeah you're

right yeah let's let's go with option two and to anyone watching you can all take a deep breath this is not going to be about politics today this is going to be about women yeah which i love talking about here on call her daddy so michelle are you ready i am ready alex call her daddy is brought to you by t-mobile okay daddy gang i am starting to think a night in may actually be the new nightlife uh where am i in my life right now okay i have been working so much lately that

all i want to do at the end of a long day is hang out on my couch there is just nothing better than getting into comfy clothes pulling out some of my favorite snacks curling up with henry and bruce and matt you can join too matt and doing absolutely nothing and on those nights in t-mobile has me covered with value that keeps on stacking up the more i use it like streaming benefits and snack perks that truly deliver the math is mathing with so many perks and benefits t-mobile is basically

making staying in a lifestyle so you know what i love you even more now t-mobile okay my go-to recently has been popping on a reality tv show ordering a whole pizza and hitting next episode all night long with the side of ranch okay and if you have t-mobile like i do you won't believe how good staying in can be check it out at t-mobile.com magenta status disclaimer streaming benefits included while you maintain a qualifying line in good standing okay so you recently released

your book the look congratulations thank you thanks so much beautiful and on the surface it presents like a fashion book right but it's so much more than that it is about your values uplifting women building confidence and we're going to get into all of it today but first i kind of want to set the scene of how we even got here you have talked a lot about how we live in a world where a woman's appearance and our bodies are overly scrutinized and objectified i'm going to quote you you said

it is the habit of the culture of the world to put women in their place by attacking their physical being even after you went to princeton and harvard law school you were in the white house doing things like combating child obesity and advocating for girls education the haters still chose to focus on your arms and your hair what was that experience like for you and how did you navigate it day to day

and not let it distract you yeah yeah i think it became um sort of the shock shock of the reality of that um i i i felt in the the first year of campaigning um you know when barack announced i was hesitant but once i was on board i was on board and i knew that i needed to be out there campaigning and introducing the world not just to him but to us as the first potential black president

and black family we understood that there might be hesitations mis misconceptions people who you know weren't exposed to a broad diversity of people and so we knew that it was important for both of us to be out there telling our story helping people understand our values what we cared about how we were raised who our parents were to me all of those stories are what connect us so that's what i'm out there doing you know um i'm in iowa you know it starts out that i'm in people's backyards and you know

in church basements i mean it starts out small because who are the obamas i mean who are these two right so it wasn't like people were climbing the walls i mean hillary clinton was the favorite in iowa barack was a distant fourth but we worked hard at the grassroots and understood that we'd have to meet people in their homes and in their communities and so i was kind of like not even a blip on the screen so i was out there freely talking and i never had a written speech um i just would usually

talk from my heart and talk about us and so slowly things grew and grew and i wasn't in a backyard anymore but i was in a school auditorium and it wasn't 10 people it was 5 000 people um and i think everyone was kind of shocked by how i was connecting in that way um but i always felt like this is this is who we are as americans you know i mean the one of the best experiences i had in my life was leaving

the south side of chicago and going into rural america and understanding that we're the same people you know it's like the food we eat the things we care about the way my dad loved his family the pride he had in his family you know the working class nature his work ethic people would do that they just shake their heads and nod and what might have been uh i'm not sure about you became uh i know you right and that was the experience i was having but as my popularity rose i was being covered more

right and so the press enters the scene and there are now reports right and the first thing after all this great conversation and connection the the top of the article would be she was wearing you know um not my education not my you know not not my professional career but it started with appearance and it got worse as we got better so i understood it as campaign tactics right i could separate it out and go

well this yeah this is politics right it's like what better way to beat a moving engine is to try and slow it down and so with women what do we do with women we start sort of talking about their strength and their so then i became i was angry not passionate i was a misogynist i wasn't joking about my husband and and humanizing him right um i wasn't athletic i was scary scarily muscular right um so it it was it

was a rolling thing and i attributed it totally to politics and i didn't write it off to what people really thought because i had months and months of understanding that the people in those auditoriums and in those school buildings and at those speeches they they understood who i was did if that makes

sense it does make sense and i think that's a great way to look at it right because you're you're able to compartmentalize essentially that this is the name of the game this is how it goes but it still doesn't mean that it's sexist right it's it's it's they're attacking you for your looks and they're not doing that

to a man they weren't doing that to my husband right they weren't describing him physically and he was out there more than i was so i was like okay well this is where it comes from it's like wow whoever is doing this when it comes to how we put women in their place it's like okay you there there wasn't comment about the substance that i was saying it was like why did she wear this and was that appropriate and what does this mean and it's all about how we look and the more you pay attention

to that you see it not just happen to me but even having other female candidates other wives other you know other celebrities other people in the public eye um so i i tried not to take it personally and understand that this was a game and i definitely didn't want to assume that this is what america thought like being able to separate out what is politics and media and where people's hearts are

and i think sometimes we still we struggle because the game is still happening you know we're still dividing each other up when my truth was that no one ever in my face in any community was unwelcoming or rigid or closed-minded right not in person right it was all about what was being fed so i didn't want that to i didn't want that to color my heart towards this country even you speaking right we're talking

about objectification because we as women experience that every day and then you're dealing with with it on the world stage i also love it because you have a pattern of challenging norms and you refuse to shrink or to conform to the patriarchy which i love and in your book you talk about learning that quote if you can't beat them work their fascination to your advantage it's one of my favorite quotes truly

because it's so relatable like from a very young age as women we learn how to shape shift essentially and we constantly have to we have to it's unavoidable right biologically to survive just to survive but that when you're talking about leaning into the fascination can you talk to me about how you personally learn to navigate it and how did you know michelle when to lean in and when to pull back

that's a that's a good question um i think again on the campaign trail and as in those first months of of of being in office um you know you just you see what's written and you see the you know you look up and there was a whole website mrs o that you know focused on and this is all it's this was complimentary it was exciting i could see the fun of it right i get it right um but i kind of thought

that i i understood that fashion and appearance for women is so powerful that if i spent too much time talking about it maybe nobody would hear anything else i'd have to say and i i came in wanting to say so much and do so much substantively i knew what i wanted to do going in and it was interesting i'd always get the question leading up to the campaign well you know how how did what

do you want to accomplish as first lady and my first answer was first of all i want to make sure my kids are whole so me being a good mother in this me and barack being good parents in this like it didn't mean that we weren't going to work hard but if you want to know what my priority was like a lot of parents is making sure that my kids weren't destroyed by this thing we're doing that they ended up whole and i thought by saying that that that wasn't controversial it was just like like i we have kids and they've got to go to school they have security and so i'm gonna have to focus on

that just like all of us as women mothers do we're multitasking and we're doing it all the time and i was doing it before i landed there but it was always interesting and people would be like well how do you know what to do in this role and to me it was clear that oh my god you you don't you don't know anything about what i did before i came here like you don't like you know and you don't want to i was like well i went to princeton and harvard i mean i practiced law i was an assistant to the mayor in

chicago i ran a non-profit of 501c3 build a board doing this i was a vice president for community relations at the university of chicago hospitals i was a dean of students i was like oh you guys i all of that just disappeared in the course of this whole election and you now see me as just barack obama's wife so that made me say what that that quickly my shoes become the most important thing about me right and again not unique to me it can happen to the best of us so

i shied away from fashion leading the conversation but i knew i couldn't i didn't completely control it

so let's lean in let's lean in with what we do let's make sure that we have a plan and a strategy in place for how fashion just like everything we did in the white house would have meaning and impact

that makes so much sense because again in the book you're talking about the now the behind the scenes of the designers you were choosing and people that you were choosing to work with was so meticulous on your end but speaking about it you can now speak about it but at the time i understand it's like i cannot be reduced to the dress and to the shoe and to the hair and the whole thing i want people to hear what i'm actually saying um i have a question because i think this is pretty applicable to my audience because it's tough for women obviously when we're even talking about fashion a perfect example

a young woman is going for a job interview and she gets the lowdown oh this boss is a full misogynistic pig so she wears the dress instead of the pants because she is so acutely aware and maybe it's subconscious that if she she leans into her conventionally feminine aura then she probably will have a better chance of getting the job but is that okay or are we abandoning ourselves and are

we compromising ourselves like what what do we do you know look life is full of compromises just period right i mean some of what i always say is that you've got to pick and choose your battles we all do um and the the the personal question becomes where are you in life right if you're a young woman that needs a job to pay off her loans and to and it's your first job and you're you know you have less

leverage than i do as the former first lady to wear what you want and have this empowerment and say what you want to do like my advice to young girls is first of all make sure you can pay your rent um you know and don't make decisions so rashly when you don't have the leverage to keep yourself safe right but in the midst of that you you don't want to compromise yourself so much that you lose yourself and you

are not safe right so you may wear the dress because it's professional and gives you an edge but then you want to be very careful of who this person is that you're now working for you know and whether so now you have to be smart it's it has less to do with what you're wearing but who is that person and do you trust him and can you trust him um you you know women don't have to dress a certain way to lead on somebody who has misogynistic you know a lot of times we blame ourselves and say

well if i you know look you leaned in because you wore that dress and you you know um but but it is a tricky balance because you know if you're in a professional setting and wearing a dress or a certain if if if that is the standard then you are a little you know you do have to be thoughtful so we have to think a lot more i mean it's just exhausting this is also what i'm saying in the book

right i mean to to strike that balance and to be thoughtful about what messages we're sending giving receiving men don't do that my husband wasn't doing that same suit put on blue suit black white shirt different tie you know i mean we're on a trip where there's 8 000 things happening in one day you know we're on a safari and then we're at a meeting and then you know even the way they structure the day it's like this is a man's schedule you know and all he has to do is take off his tie

unbutton the top top take his jacket off now he's casual now he can talk to kids now he's at a meeting at the un throws that jacket back on and i'm following around and it's like i get heels and flats and cobblestones and sweaters and blazers and tops and skirts that are too short and now you can't stoop that's me but that's all of us right we we so there's so many there's so much work that i think

we we do it so easily as women it it is just a part of waking up and it is a lot of work and i'm i want us all to start owning that it is a lot of work and that it does take strategy because you know and and for men to pretend like it doesn't that that that this isn't part of the game you know like and if we don't name it you know if we keep trying to pretend like no i just woke up like this

you know i look i want you to know how much work i want my i wanted my i want my husband i made sure he understood me traveling with you and you traveling different different burden dude

different burden it's so refreshing because again i've seen obviously critics online being like oh my gosh this is just this isn't for the time we don't need to hear about the nice dresses you're wearing and i'm like that that's the complete that's that you're actually feeding into why she had to write the book because that's the exact point that you're still just seeing it at surface

level it takes people to read the book right and this is what politics are right i mean you know i've been in the political world i am affiliated i understand it you know it's like you don't know me right so you see the book anybody who's known me my career my life the other books ever which is why this book is the third book not the first book because i was like yeah talking about fashion you know you know you gotta lay a foundation for it you gotta ease them in gotta ease them in but it's also

like if you know me you know i'm just not that person i'm not the person that's just going to talk about some dresses right no you're not michelle it's gotta have a meaning behind it so what i would just say to people is pick it up and read it first that's all as opposed to reading a review about it or reading a review of somebody who would never like me who has already has a predisposed opinion which exists in this country this is this is really a book about um self-determination

who we are as women um how it's about the team of people that help us and and it's an industry and a business and it's a billion dollar business and what stylists and makeup artists do is not just this fun little thing you know that many of us don't have the time the luxury to do it but this expectation is still there so we if we don't talk about if we don't have to talk about fashion then let's make it irrelevant then why are there dress codes and why are people commenting about people's hair

why why why are we doing any of it you know it it puts us in a trap in a way but it can also be fun

with i know it's like such a good point it's like it can have such a fun freedom to it but we would be remiss to not acknowledge everything that you've said in this book so brilliantly of just like yes but guys we have to acknowledge that women just have such a different standard that we're held to and i appreciate you acknowledging that yes there is a different level of privilege as the two of us sitting here right now and the outfit choices that we're making yes we can decide to send a message that we're wearing but it a lot of times right now in our position we are not being held to well

you wore that so you're not going to get the job now but if you rewound to our lives like when i was a younger girl i did dress a specific way because i knew i was in a male dominated industry and i knew i would have a better time if i wore a tighter shirt because the guy would maybe give me more attention what i did with that though is so important and i appreciate you acknowledging that it's like don't lose yourself to the game of the misogyny that we all get wrapped into and i want to talk about social media with you because this plays into it where that's the newest arena where women are being

objectified and i emphasize newest we've been objectified for forever since day one but this is this is new um you've talked about how women and girls are demeaned devalued and disrespected especially online now and we have studies to back it up right mental health issues body image issues self-esteem issues one really sad reality of this is that it's not just men tearing women down this is women it's more often women women tearing each other down and that's even more painful yeah because

it's sadly i hate to say it we expect it from men and so it hurts that much more when it is another woman doing it to another woman how did you deal when women came at you and do you have advice for women who are victims of you know being unfairly targeted i mean it's it's you know surprisingly yeah

it would hurt more um coming from a woman um because it's like wow you know you know you know you know what we're going through but here's what helps me and it doesn't you know it it it takes time maturity to kind of come to peace with this um but in order to keep myself sane in the midst of this on all levels i just try to wonder what's going on in the mind of the person who can go there right and

when i think about women attacking women it it is always rooted in the insecurity and lack of self it seemed that it is rampant in our culture like we're set up to feel badly about ourselves right and then to turn against ourselves and then to turn on each other um it's a doggy dog world out there um so i try to humanize my victimizer and say something happened to you something is you know

some something is tearing away and it doesn't have and it doesn't have to do with me right i am i might have been the closest easiest target for you at the time um but let me so that i can stay sane and wake up and show up well with people because as first lady that's ultimately my job i mean i couldn't let something break me to the point where i got so cynical and despondent about the whole of this

country like to me it's like it was it's my job to believe in america to believe in our utter deep goodness because that is true that is the you know and when people go astray it's because of something that happened to them a brokenness and that helps me right size my feelings um i agree with

you because i think especially with therapy and you know we have psychology right we know through psychology that women that are attacking other women it's like there is an insecurity there is a pain and a lot of times i think online especially the conversation does stop there though of oh she's just jealous or she's insecure she's going through something i mean i think the term mean girl for the millennial and gen z generation it has been so present in their vernacular it is at the forefront of the way that they speak and they look at each other she's a mean girl she's a mean girl

she's not a mean girl i guess my question though to you would be if we know this if these people are in pain then how do we solve this issue like how can the women who are bullying and abusing redirect that anger and that insecurity not onto other women but to where yeah yeah the one of the reasons why

i focus so much of my energy in the white house in in my post white house years on just working on issues of women and girls and their empowerment and self-esteem um you know the we're we're not focused on that strategically or politically when we you know we haven't had conversations in a long time just about education and the education system or what what kind of after-school opportunities are there for kids i mean you know we as a society aren't talking about a lot these days about how

we are nurturing and protecting our kids um so now everybody is taking it on individually right so what do i do with my girls i'm trying to make sure that they feel seen in their household because they you know and i'm trying to sign them up for activities that make them feel strong and to build confidence and you know i'm doing that for myself and i'm staying healthy and you know but how do you deal with the problem systemically yeah that's where government and taxpayers and people caring about one

another and caring about our kids it happens because we give

wonderful places for kids girls to land you know um i think you know kids need to young girls need to be in groups you know girl scout groups and opportunities they need to be able to play sports and they need to be able to they need to have access to things that get them out of their loneliness and off of their phone and and get their brains and bodies working right so so it's a i think it's just

such a big you know i know we could be here right right weeks and days talking about this because you're right it is such a systemic issue i i couldn't help but think too when you're talking about you know bring women together and and i know how you uh talk a lot about your kitchen table girlfriends and how integral they have been to your life and i think every woman can feel that when you have your girlfriends like you say you know love brock but they're your sanity those girls we get each other the flip side though is still living in this patriarchal society

it breeds competition between women because there is not enough room for all of us so there's 90 people in the room and the three women are coming in how can you not feel competitive and and then i think about you in this situation it's like like by society's standard now you are the friend to be jealous of right how have you worked through the competitive dynamics with girlfriends and tried to keep it not competitive well some of it is like

how you pick and choose right so in the light when i talked about the kitchen table it's like you've got to be really smart and selective about who you let in who you let stay in um and who who you let out um um you know who who is ready to follow the path that you want to go on right and that that's practice right uh one of the things that i say to my girls and young girls it's like don't be afraid to make friends you know be open stay open um and i always wanted my girls no matter what they were going

through it's like try on new people and and let them in because you're strong enough to deal with somebody who might disappoint you because sometimes people disappoint you and if they disappoint you in a way that's dangerous let them out quickly you know slow ghost get them get a move on trust you and the more you practice it the more you you you recognize it quicker you know and it's so for me i i i think i choose well first of all um and so it starts there and again that takes practice

you learn that over time you learn yourself um and once my friends are in in my journey we're all going together you know i mean it's just it's not it's never just my journey it's like you're coming you know let's do this you know i had to do that really proactively as first lady because we lived in this bubble and if i wasn't proactive about maintaining my relationships with my friends everybody could have easily slipped away you didn't have my phone number you can't walk up

to my door and just girl what you up to it's like nope you got to go through eight rounds of security you know hand in your social security card you gotta you know you get you get a whole to do you know it's like hey you're a high maintenance friend michelle i would understand it's like you know what i give up so right you know it's a good point so that's why i said even making friends as first lady i didn't like write that off i was like i'm gonna have to really extend myself for a new mother to be like okay sasha's coming over for a sleepover we're gonna need to know

your social security number we're gonna there's gonna be a sweep of your home they're gonna find out they're gonna want to know about whether you have guns in the house or drugs they won't take them from you but they need to know there will be men standing up so what time do you want her to come by okay they're like i don't know anymore so you you you know that that kind of helps you it's like okay you ready you you you ready you ready let's go um so i just for me um i just i take my friends with me as much as possible so you're coming with me we're doing you know we're doing boot camps

you know once a quarter we're going on trips we're planning the mother-daughter ski trip we're and a lot of times i would take the lead because you you know you can't schedule me

you know no so realizing those limitations and i think when you're all kind of even if people aren't rising or doing the same thing i found that if my friends feel like i see them and i i'm like i want you on my journey and we're all gonna we're all gonna enjoy this together it's not me and you i found that that's the way i've kept this sort of am i the friend to be jealous of it's like

we're all we're we're all going up this mountain together i mean i think that my audience needs to

hear that because i think it's it's very present right now in a lot of people's lives we've got a lot of you know 18 to 30 40 year olds listening and it's like you're leaving maybe college did you get the job who's moving who's got the boyfriend who's got the thing and it's it there's so much

clouded competition because you think oh god she got married first and i haven't yet or she had the

kid and i didn't yet well because this is what we're doing is we're checking boxes right and social media kind of you know it exacerbates that because now you know what everybody is doing and everybody's only posting the good things that they're doing the thing that i want the listeners to know young women is that the value of cultivating friendships is important it's as important it's as important as the job title and the salary or the dude you're trying to you know catch or the the the length of your veil

on your wedding dress like that all that stuff comes and goes i don't even remember i remember my wedding you know i have the pictures it was a wonderful day but my friendships those relationships are important and i just want you know in the the the advent of technology and social media it's almost like we're telling people you're okay by yourself all you need is your phone some apps and success and what i'm saying is no you need friends and you have to work on that that means you have to be a good

friend that means you have to put down your stuff and prioritize your friendships if you want to

have them let's talk about that because there's so much pressure on women to present as perfect right and then get validated for it and especially you just said on social media but you think back in the day two magazines come out a month and it doesn't mean that there's not you know scrutinizing and comparing and everyone looking at it but it's endless now it is 24 7. every day all day all day the photoshop's and airbrush and we're curating and we're carefully you know designing how we want

people to think about us can you talk a little bit to perfection and how so many women and girls feel

like they need to reach this unattainable goal yeah oh i mean i'm generationally kind of uh that's it's it's the experience that young women girls are you know having now it is foreign to me i you know i didn't with my i'm good i'm gonna be 62. i'm an old lady i'm like my grandmother right that's how i'm

my grandmother was old she was my age right stop michelle no but with as fast as things have changed we are in the midst of one of the a major uh industrial revolution it was it's like the creation of electricity right the tv like this is new right and i'm of the old guard right so i don't i don't have the habit i'm not hooked on it like i'm still picking up a book i'm still calling a friend right i don't

even know why you would want to be lonely like why are you alone it's like don't do that you know sounds so good when you say it go to the coffee shop you know don't order the thing in just get out right go to the gym you know just because you can be by yourself don't don't do it so um so that it is foreign to me the the pressure that you guys feel um but i get it i i get it um

what i want to tell people young women is get off the phone i really do it's like it's a habit it's not a need and i'm not saying get rid of it i'm just saying you've got to get off of the phone and start investing in your in real life stuff and experience but can we go as far to say like

it it's an addiction yes think about this it's intended to be right like no no generation prior to this yeah had four-year-olds being addicted to something five-year-olds six-year-olds ten-year-olds we have addiction right now that the we we cannot stop i am hoping alex that the the learning curve is

going to be quick right because we didn't know right it's this is so new you know um and now we're starting to get the statistics in on depression this is real it it's the the the dip into and the rise in depression is directly connected and linked to the creation and rise of social media and i'm hoping that the society parents will start understanding that this isn't just a free-for-all thing there are great things about it but there are a lot of problems with it

so we have to stop we we have to start regulating well we have to start regulating also because i've

you know i've interfaced with some young kids and i'll be like why do you want to have this phone over this phone or why do you not want to do like take your phone and put it away for a while and they're like because if i don't see it then i go to school tomorrow and i am the only person in the class that is not aware of what the entire rest of the class was talking about so then there's like a bullying element and there's an alienization that's happening where you're like i don't want to be the only kid that's not clued in and tapped in so then it cannot be one kid trying to lead the panic and it

can't be right and that's some of the experts have said it jonathan height scott galloway a lot of people who've written books about it have said that it would be a lot better if parents and communities made these decisions together right so that you you know but we're still a long way from that we're still figuring that out in the meantime i don't know that i have a my message is the old school message of no one is perfect that stuff isn't real it's not real at all it is just not real at

all and so why i write this book and try to talk openly is that if people are listening to me and i'm saying that look this face it takes work to do and i'm not trying to have a full face every day you know i wear makeup when i'm gonna be on tv right that no one is living these great lives it's just i know that because i live a really great life and it's not always perfect um it's it's it's a

message that i don't know lands because it's rooted in what i know is the truth and all i can say is how do i know because i know um and so don't don't feed into it don't feed into it because and i and i can also say i know a lot of these people that you're looking at i know a lot of these celebrities

girl same and i'm like trust us right it's like it's not exactly what it seems and this is work they're getting paid for it right and i think something that you um you know talking about even just like there needs to be actual change and we need to organizationally come together it is similar to what we're talking about with women and change right and i think especially with social media

the amplification of aging and the conversation about aging around women there are billion dollar brands that are pushing anti-aging aka saying as a woman gets older it is a bad thing to age meanwhile it is a privilege to age but we have been warped to believe put this cream on or inject this thing into your face and then you will be deemed more worthy to society in your book you talk about aging right and embracing new seasons of life rather than freaking out over you know a gray hair or a

wrinkle but how do we as a society fight this demonization of aging women well i always say that

we just you know men get older and wiser and esteemed right um women we just get old right yeah it's crazy um but the truth is that like i my 60s are the best time of my life that's all it's it's the canary in the coal mine i'm just telling you ladies girls like it gets better and better and better you know um yeah the youth and your skinny waist when you're 20 yeah but you have no money you don't know what to do

with it i mean it's like man it's and it's it's hard you know you're confused all your 20s and 30s and i'm just telling people you're right yes it's confusing and it feels painful but it's it gets better and so for me i'm also you know what we are what we don't do is celebrate the wisdom of older women women right i mean there's so much that older women know for sure like it's like we were there

i got the answer i can really like i know i i did it right i'm not saying i know because i'm smarter i just tried all that i failed that doesn't you know you can literally go that's not gonna work for you doesn't mean you're not gonna try it but when it doesn't like i can tell you don't feel badly that you failed because it wasn't ever going to work and there was only one way to learn that is that you did it and it's okay that you you did like there's so much we have to offer but what do

we do we instead of you know podcasts and blogs and social media being run by really wise women who actually have facts right it's a bunch of kids who are like you don't know you i know you don't know i mean like i love a parenting blog for sure you know when it comes to the best bottle and the new contraptions because it that stuff is better yes like i'm like wow i wish i had that stroller that

you can just pop and close but like who do i want to listen to on like childhood behavioral stuff i want to talk to a woman a parent not just woman i want to see what your adult children look like i just want to meet facts before i figure out whether i'm gonna follow your theory because when you're young you don't know you're just living it you're just working you're testing it and so i think the social you know the social connection of mother young mothers or young parents struggling

that's a cool thing but guess who has some real wisdom around like i tried this and it failed like this really but where are those bloggers where those conversations happening and where are young women just coming to ask to say well let me you know sit down with my moms and my aunts it's such a good

point michelle but then again i think because of the the competition and the misogyny and how warped our brains are i see women in the comment section saying aren't you too old to be doing that aren't you to be old to be doing this and so but again it's all projection it's the fear of getting older it's like how can the absence or the presence of wrinkles on my forehead dictate the the like words that are coming out of my mouth and how much you actually respect them or don't respect them and so

aging for women it's this fear when really again like you said for men it's like we're washed up they're wise yeah it gives them integrity yeah we're irrelevant and so there's this push and pull that i think at some point you're right women have to look inward and start to say why am i not tapping into this older generation who is looking down being like the hands out we got you and i think those are

great conversations for young women to have with one another right um because i think i i haven't met an older woman that isn't like any like you want to know you're asking yes sit down let's talk i don't want you to fail i want you to be better than me because now i really am not competing like all that stuff that was going on you we learned it didn't help it didn't it just messed up a lot of stuff so

now you know we can really look at that generate at least i know i'm in that place no it's a great point like it's the favorite thing i have to do which is impart some something that i learned to

somebody younger that's why speaking of you know you have this wisdom you have talked about the gender gap when it comes to confidence as women we are you know often doubted and underestimated by others and ourselves we struggle with imposter syndrome while men walk around with what you call unearned confidence as someone who has been such a symbol of strength for women around the world when did you doubt yourself the most and how did you get through those periods wow um

you know your 20s and 30s are tough times right because i always i've i've learned or i felt that

women were less or at least i was less likely to claim what i knew because i was always there was always maybe i don't know and well and i don't want to i don't want to sound too pompous or let me not cut you off um you know we're we're we're more socialized to don't step on toes because then you're bossy you know there's also a little smack down of it you know it's like well if you're if you're a little too aggressive now you're aggressive you you're not so sometimes those

labels happen and we get them i mean my my own mother i was she was like you're a bossy i'm the bossy one you know it's like i felt like the bossy one my whole life and i know a lot of outspoken young girls who were labeled as the bossy ones in their family when they were probably the ones that like had good instincts and were organized and had opinions and you know so that stuff is actually

happening to us it's not in our minds right it's like self-doubt because you are young and you are figuring it out and so the imposter syndrome i you know in your book i love how you talk about this because you talk about the tension that we often face as women between wanting to be viewed as both a woman of substance and a woman of style and so right in other words it's like you want to be respected for your brain and you also you want to be cool you want to have a career and you want to

have a romantic relationship you somehow managed multiple identities at the same time you were an attorney and you were on the cover of vogue you were known as mom in chief and you were meeting with leaders of foreign countries how did you nurture all of those identities and stay whole because this is so relevant to my audience right now they're struggling to be multiple things at once and feel

confident about yeah i what i've come to learn is that this can you have it all yes not at the same time and i think that we beat ourselves up because here's what i there are a lot a lot of women who are listening a lot of women period who i will call 120 percenters that means that just showing up means we're not just showing up we're excelling because we've always had to do that to get a seat at the table we have to be smarter and brighter and and we kind of do because if you slip up you know you

don't necessarily get a second chance or the benefit of the doubt or so we've been trained to do that so now we're operating like that and trying to do it with everything that we're doing and 120 percent plus 120 percent plus 120 percent adds up to crazy and a mental breakdown exactly um so one of the things i had to learn is that like a lot of times my 50 percent is good enough but i have to first be okay with

it right so when it came to raising my kids and keeping my job when i felt the push of i don't know if i'm like am i there for my kids like i want to like i had to stop breastfeeding and i had to do this and i had to go back um but i like having the salary and begin to pay up down our student debt and why walk away from that um what i realized was like okay i i can't be driving hard at my job at

this time my husband is in politics he has three jobs somebody's gotta take it down a notch so i i've learned to stay in the car keep your foot on the gas but just don't floor it all the time on all things you don't that doesn't mean you have to break that in me have to pull the car over and get out it just means that there will be aspects of parts of those yourself that you can't go 120 percent and then that

means that we as women have to accept a little bit less from ourselves than we're used to and that that takes you have to just get used to that and it's all in here right it's it's all the internal message like if you have a job maybe you aren't going to be able to make homemade baby food you know and guess what like i loved the jar face like there was nothing better than that dinner i was like whoa i when they started needing real real food i was like yeah curses i gotta cook but that stage

you know sweet potatoes i loved it and i'd just go to the grocery store i'd be like look at mom figure you're gonna have a little beef here a little carrot in a jar i you know i mean i love it i love it it's so real though so you have to be kind of okay with that's not gonna kill them or maybe you you can't breastfeed for a year because you can't um you don't like it your body isn't able to you had to go back to work baby's gonna be fine you know i mean we our parents didn't even breastfeed

i mean there was a generation of women that were told similac here you go i am a formula baby 5 11 brains working just fine just a little just a little bit just a little bit you know so you know we have to take some pressure off of ourselves it's like why are we trying to bounce back what's the

you're going to have a baby your whole body is twisted up and then you want to like be back at the gym doing solid core at the why why are we doing this to ourselves and i think the comparison

for women when especially mothers um i've seen again because social media it just is non-stop we don't know what everyone's going through so we're lying yes they're lying and so when you're

saying you're popping the jar open and you put it on the plate you're taking a picture of the plate

you're like that's like what i did and you know it's just like let's not do that to each other let's be more honest about the struggle i'm sure i try to do that you know um and i am constantly telling young mothers like you it's coming right you don't have to get off your career track and i don't even recommend it because kids grow up fast and then they're gone like you've sacrificed everything and you know when they leave they leave they close the door and act like you never

sacrifice they're like i remember you i don't need you anymore right so what i'm like you better have saved something for yourself so that when that period comes and they're ready to move on and you're also not holding on longer because now what do i'm gonna do i devoted everything to you and i need to now i've got to fill my time so i always i encourage people to hang in there and keep something for yourself throughout this process but that means you don't you're maybe you're not going

to be vp in five years like if you have in your mind that there's a track and there's only one way to do it that's what trips us up a lot of times like i'm going to be partner by the time i'm 28 hey look if you live until you're 80 90 there's so much time there's so much and i tell people look i had to get off the track and take pay cuts and come back sacrifice because my husband was president you know yeah that that was kind of a you know so um but in the midst of that i still managed to

be a lawyer run a non-profit i can run down the list be an author you know i've raised really sane kids who you know aren't perfect but i they're really really good um so there is time but we have to be we have to give ourselves a lot more grace in the process that would that that's what i've learned and giving myself grace it's like yeah i'm not i'm not getting it all right and and then we we as women

have to be we have to support each other we just really have to stop being a part of the fantasy you know um it it's it's not serving us it's not true you know and it's okay to not be happy sometimes like that's also a thing you you know like not being perfectly satisfied and in the exact place that you want every part of your life is that like that's what life is yeah that's what life

is and i love how you said like but i understand that society makes women feel like they have to be perfect so when it's very uncomfortable at first when you're like i'm not succeeding and i'm not doing the best like it reminds me um in your memoir how you would tell your girls to always start dinner even if your husband hadn't come home yet because i didn't want them to ever believe that life began when the man of the house arrived home we didn't wait for dad it was his job to now catch up with us i think society puts such a pressure on women to prioritize finding a man

over finding a career and a life that they love as women i would love your wisdom and advice of like how do we prioritize finding fulfillment within ourselves first before finding fulfillment in a

marriage or a partnership i think it starts with the subliminal messages that we send our our girls um and i'm really i have two beautiful daughters and you know you find yourself slipping up and going are you dating anyone you know it's like like let me not make that the first question or the second question or a question at all like let me you know um because i hear it being asked you run out of stuff to say to a young girl it's like you're dating anyone um you know it's like i i i just in

our girl group i'm when it comes up and we do that i try to talk to our my mom friends about it and what what that's doing what are our own insecurities as mothers like that we're like well you seem happy and you're on a track but do you have a boyfriend like like that you know so bad it's just a it's a when you break it down like that it's like those are the little things that no matter what and then despite

what your parents say it's just the social pressure you see everybody getting married you so i think we have to be mindful of the the way we craft questions to our not just our daughters but our sons how we talk about what happiness is and we have to work hard to separate our fears and insecurities as parents we have to separate that from our kids right because we're still carrying these old images we are still programmed we are still of a general generation where that's what

women did you went to we did go to college we were different there was the expectation that you went to college we all got our degrees but everybody started getting their mrs as they called it out of college and that was also a part of it and you'd have a career but you do it until you got pregnant you know so we have to admit that women of my generation there was a there was a path and we and we carry that with us um and we imprint that onto our kids as like this is the way that i know that you'll

be happy so i can stop worrying about you and i can know that you'll have a good life it's such a good

point of like you know putting the former beliefs and system onto the new generations because like you even think about it like why do women have miss misses and then miss and men never change from

mister they are you're just you're always you once again you don't have to evolve see we we're even evolving what do i call myself we're changing up here right you know it's like i went through that too when i got married i was like okay i'm gonna meet michelle robinson obama all right and i did that i was pr i was in a real career and it i felt like this is a lot of name it feels like a little silly michelle robinson obama hello i did that for like a month and i was like okay that that's i'm

tired you know i gotta write that down that's long three syllables for three names too much so i was like okay let me pick one and i stuck with obama because i had a brother i didn't come from a family that my father was like you carry the name you know it was like it's a name um and i was like obama is really strange name so let's all just be this strange name together you know let's just all take it on you know it's a good name it's a good name i'll take it okay but that was the that was the

thought it's like let me just pick but he didn't he wasn't going through this he wasn't changing his license and his social security number and you know he he you know so yeah another way that we evolve and it's another way to send a subliminal message that it is up to us to do the evolving it

is and and i love how you've spoken about um society's expectations we're discussing obviously of women to stay nice and to stay passive and small and how hard it is if you are a driven ambitious woman trying to make a big impact when we talk about dating for my audience so many women i think then if they are going against the societal norms and they're like okay i'm going to focus on myself i'm going to pour into myself i'm going to focus on being an individual i don't need a man i want a

man but i don't need a man then it brings the whole caliber of oh god then you have to potentially shrink yourself when you do find a man because you're so sure of yourself and that is terrifying for most men and so they're threatened and you're kind of trying to play the game and you can't be your full self did you ever feel like you had to do that when you first met barack obama and you were an experienced lawyer and he was you know a summer associate yeah um fortunately it was one of the

things that drew me to him you know like i didn't have to i didn't have to change my fundamental self i think it helped that we started out that summer with me not seeing him as a potential because i was his advisor and i was like yeah no we're not going to do that right um and why you know he's cute but i have a lot of friends and so i think that helped right because i wasn't we didn't start up our

relationship as oh i'm gonna try to yeah you know and maybe it would have but i think we kind of entered it you know as as peers you know and we developed our relationship because we had the same kind of humor and we'd make the same kind of jokes and we'd find the same things kind of corny you know um and i was being fully myself cynical in ways and you know i'd pick at it and pick at him and be like that's weird why do you do that i mean so the fact that that made him think we should date

right it's like that meant that like that didn't repel him that was like he was like and i was like no we shouldn't date because that looks tacky and it was like i don't care what people say um so it's like you know so what do i tell a lot of young girls like dating different people helped me to to see the difference in who barack was when he showed up i don't you know if he had been the first person i dated because i just didn't date i might have taken that for granted i might have thought yeah well that

these are buddy vibes right um i had learned enough to know this is this is different in a in an important way um and i just think that's the experience of dating different people and noticing in in the end it's i want young listeners to focus more on their internal feelings there's like really instead of what is happening what what the world is telling you to feel really start trusting your gut and

building that internal gut um of how you feel about other people how you feel about yourself because i think in the end the work is still within like the only thing you really can can control is you in this world and even in my marriage now you know you go through the period of i want him to be different i want him to do this differently i've grown to know i don't have control over him just like he doesn't have control over me so let me do my work and let him do our work and together

we come together as whole people and so i want our our our our listeners because they're mine now yeah right bring them in michelle like let's do do the work on self like start feeling good about yourself start working on your health start feeling strong within yourself start practicing self-esteem start working on building your relationships and your friendships you know um work on being as whole

as you can be because you can't control who's gonna love you who's gonna like you who's gonna give you a job who's gonna see you the way you want to be seen because everybody has their own stuff and so you can't define yourself by other people's stuff so like how do we become more confident individuals we have to practice that work on ourselves we have to know pick apart those aspects of our childhood

that we carry around i am a believer in therapy i am i am in i go to therapy we've been in couples therapy i believe in the practice of having those conversations with objective people who help you piece through that stuff and it's a constant it's it's constant work you don't get to a point where like i'm there i'm done i'm good it's over right it and then so i don't want people to be intimidated by like this is what life is we were ever growing evolving improving there isn't like a finish line

where you get an a and you're now a whole person perfectly it it i'm 62 it doesn't happen my mother was 86 when she died and there were parts of her that she was still building upon and so it's not in your 80s you know i had a great conversation with jane fonda and beth ann hardison on my podcast about aging in the public eye they're still having those conversations with themselves about evolving and i think that that is the power that we have as women is that we know we have to keep evolving and so we do

a lot of men don't they don't it's so true i um they're just like here and proud of it right because i've worn these same pants for 20 it's like don't say that like that's not cool it's not it's not

impressive it's not impressive impressive no it's so inspiring the way that you are speaking about this because um i remember i was so fortunate i got to interview jane goodall and she talked a lot about how she was still pushing and she was still going because she still wanted to learn and i think having an appetite to learn means you want to change and you want to evolve and you want to grow and i agree with you the power of the system basically us being like you're not enough and you need to

be this it does force us to constantly have our head on a swivel so in a beautiful way you have to find the positives we're forced to be so multifaceted and we're forced to know who we are in so many different lanes and we're also forced at every age 18 21 30 40 50 60 70 80 we have to constantly be thinking how we're evolving because society is forcing us to do that but if we can use it to our

advantage that's when you become unstoppable we can give ourselves grace in the process because in the end i think we're all just too hard on ourselves that it starts there right and so you're your you're your first fan and if your first fan is like you're just kicking your ass like of course you're mad and bitchy and want to beat the other woman of course that's you're competitive within yourself right and so that's where it splatters out onto everything else and i think that women we need

to be kinder to ourselves really gentler you know um the the anger that can come up with the double

standards um i just want to make sure we hit on this because i feel a lot of in a beautiful way yes are there is a lot going on with this these generations but we are vocal and people are saying how they feel but it is crazy how the world still punishes outspoken women and judges us more harshly than men who literally say the exact same thing as us right at the beginning of your husband's first campaign you were labeled an angry black woman because you were speaking assertively and honestly and

passionately yeah you referenced that earlier of how they turned passion into anger anger what advice would you give to strong women in this upcoming generation right now who are listening who have been labeled a bitch or too much or too passionate and they're doing the same exact thing as their male

counterparts yeah yeah well there's you know there's still strategy in in all of it right you know what i found that i had to do i had to be more thoughtful about my tone i didn't agree with it right but i was like until people get to know me okay let me smile a little bit more let me make sure i smile all right because sometimes i'm talking and it's like and that's the photo they get ah right so that's on the front page i was like i didn't feel that way but that was in the middle and i don't i don't

i didn't like this but i'm like okay we're we still live in a society that has a different standard for women so it's just like with fashion let me let me understand the game and let me let me let me play the game all right so instead of being angry about being called angry i was like okay let me be careful about doing extemporaneous speaking right because i can do it but then i launch right that's

why i do more speeches publicly because i can take time and think about what i want to say and how i want to say it and sort of think about you know how i come off i think now the more people have gotten to know me right at this stage in my life i feel like this is why i say okay if you know me you know you've heard me enough you know my heart you know yeah i i can be funny but angry uh nah not really i'm not that angry about that i am angry about stuff i'm angry about injustice unfairness i hate bullies

there's a lot i'm angry about and i am i feel justified in being angry about it so all right you got me i am angry about some things but generally right but it takes some time to earn that right um so as i'm talking to younger women it's like understand how people are going to come at you you know and then think about how you want to deal with that because it's it's not going to go away so what's

your strategy of understanding that this is part of the game that it that it doesn't define you but if you're like i think it is more important for me to get the point across than to be right about how i do it um especially in the world that we're in which was it's the country right so i my it wasn't about me it's not how i feel like to me that's what you the responsibility

of being a leader that it's not your feelings anymore like i can have my feelings now because everything i'm doing is about me but when i was first lady and when i'm doing public things it's like okay my ego so how do i how do i get this to work you know um that's what i think about and if if if i'm if i'm delivering something in a way that makes the message fall short on some ears then i'm going to change it because i want people to get the message it doesn't matter how i feel i'm okay

with making some changes to get this thing done right it's such good advice michelle like even for

myself personally i'm i feel like a sponge right now i'm like keep talking just keep going like how much more time we have because it's so relevant to the way that women live right now it's like there are more ambitious women than ever which is amazing there are women working we finally are allowed to vote we all have credit cards great now we actually have ambition and we're trying and it is an uphill battle but we are being met with like we i said the same thing as him why didn't that work it is we have to acknowledge the game and i think for a while potentially especially with

feminists and everything we felt weird being like no play the game because it feels like we are twisting something and we're being sneaky and it's like no no no we are the other we are the other so when we are coming in it's we're always playing someone else's game as women we are the other sex so it's okay if you are trying to move a certain way because we live in a man's world and so you have to sometimes placate and smile and do these things but if you get your message across that's kind of all

that matters if you get what you want to get done and the other piece of that is that when we do have power let's just not become male versions of the thing that was female versions of the thing that was broken you know because a lot of this has to do with leverage right so if you if you don't have the power to change it then you've got to work to get the power and sometimes there are compromises that have to be made to get the power and then when you get the power when you're the boss when you're

running your own thing then how do you behave as the leader that like then like because this is your culture you're setting when you're in charge of the culture and if you're still if if you're perpetuating the game then you're a problem and not approving it yeah you know that means that then you lost the plot on the way in so like as we're being ambitious women when we do get that thing then who are you in it how are you changing culture how are you shifting are you just repeating

the mistakes that made you play the game in the first place the game is to get the power to have impact to broaden the aperture of what is possible but when we do have the power if we're if we're oppressing if we're shouting down if we're not including if you know if you're in charge of the dress code change it you know um if if you are the head of hr and there are ways that you can make life easier for uh you know working mothers and families then be the advocate at the table and don't say well i had

to do when i you know i didn't have this when i was there so you have to pay the same dues be the change yeah be the change and don't like you don't want everybody to have to pay your dues if you know the dues were there then open it up for your the next generation make your seat the seat that makes

it easier for others like you to be there something as you're saying that to bring men into this conversation um which i was watching your speech in 2016 today um when you were the whole speech was really about women and you were um you know there for hillary and it was such a beautiful moment because you're like and men men listening and i think sometimes i don't want ever to have men leave the conversation like and be like oh i guess that's not about me yeah it's not about me and it's

us against you and it's a whole thing so i think to bring men into this conversation um you've talked about some really important male figures in your life you've talked about your father your brother your husband how do we bring men in and make them allies and partners to help solve these issues because

women cannot do this alone we need them no no i mean look i i as the older i get i realized how blessed and rare my existence was as a woman in the world to be surrounded by so many amazing men where i was always safe like like in realizing that like that's more unique like abuse neglect none of it

i had uncles and brothers and you know grand both of my grandfathers right i now understand how rare that is like it's sad and it makes me sad to know that so many of us women and girls don't can't say that that they had someone in their life that um that harmed them in some way um they were harmed at the hands of a man that they couldn't trust um i didn't have that um and i feel blessed and i understand that's unique

so in that sense we can't lump men into a category right because there are a lot of allies you know they they're different from us that you know we can joke it's like yeah you're not that good at that and you're you know but i i have i've grown up with wonderful men who my the men in my life may help me with this confidence you know i was always a part of the of the crew i was never the little girl out

my father always thought he's gonna learn a box you're gonna learn the box you know my brother protected me right um so we can't forget that there are so many good men that you know it isn't an us against them and we're the ones raising them still yes you know um we we have so much to uh impact in to how our young men are shaped as mothers and as women in the in the world and so we have to see them

as essential allies from the the moment they show up in the world so but we can't love them into uh complacency or incapability you know we're always building the men that we want um and so my message to those men you know when i'm in a room full of ceos and men the thing i i say to them assuming that i'm talking to all the good ones it's like i know you love your daughters right because we're of a

generation now where the way my father fathered me is not unique anymore like now we have fathers who want their little girls to be ceos like like you raise them and you want them to believe that they can be anything right and so now you're in power so the question is are you building the world that you told your little girl existed right are you can you look around the c-suite that you run and say that

the little girl that i put all these thoughts and ideas in that she'll be safe at this table that i've created and that i control and i'm i'm hoping that if men think about the tables they're creating and they're not just looking at the women they don't know women that are not their children that you know it's like men don't raise us right so maybe they don't see us as part of them but maybe if you see your daughter at the table that you'll do the work to make the table a place that

will respect and honor the the the world that you told her she could have because i always say then if you don't you were lying to her because she's gonna enter this world with the beliefs that you built her up you know you built her up you set her up and that can be crushing and it's interesting when i put it that way like those rooms can go a little quiet in a way that i think i don't know

that there are men thinking about that allyship in that way like putting themselves in in the role of

their daughters that they're raising right but that's why even just this conversation michelle it's like i can already see it just like clipping that having that out there for people to consume what you're just saying like i do think i can recognize as a woman as much as you think oh my god like i hate these freaking men that yeah is going to help all of us get closer to this goal of we do deserve to be equal to men we really do and we still aren't and so it's like you have to allow the people who

are in the position of power to let us in and so to completely alienate them i think a lot of men in this generation are like i don't even know what i'm supposed to do i guess like women just hate me i'm just going to sit over here and it's like no no no yeah do not we cannot lose their attention and i think these this message is important yeah um you said that not going to trump's inauguration was an act of getting even more comfortable saying no regardless of what people think which was so powerful because as women that's how we're trained people please say yes at all costs

has getting comfortable with saying no changed your perspective about your very famous line when they go low we go high and do you think that the message still applies given the enormity of what

women are up against today yeah i you know i in the light i tried to i i tackled that question do we still go high right and i and i start by saying like the point of what going high means to me is what we talk getting to the solution it's it's outcome determinative right like what are we what is our

strategic goal um and going high means that we are working strategically towards that goal with a plan and some objectives and and it's not purely emotional right that doesn't mean that emotions don't exist because they do i do feel anger i do feel pain and hurt but if my anger is leading and it doesn't work then what's what are we doing now i'm just indulging myself now i'm just having a

tantrum you know and some people want that they're like i want to see you have the tantrum that i want to have right i was like but if the tantrum is not going to work then what is the point and when you're a leader in my mind you should have a point other than self-indulgence you know indulging your your anger right because we can get lost in that so going high to me is feel the feelings but where are you trying

to go with them and let that lead that's what going high is thinking before you talk i mean we we we teach our kids that i mean that's what it is it's like count to ten you know because like how i feel at the kitchen table like like that's what the kitchen table is for like get all that out say all the things you want to say and then look at it and say is that how you really feel because usually after you step back a little bit and it's like yeah well i would take that out and i said all of

them and always i used a lot of absolutes that's not true now that i'm on ten so let me let me re

refine that a little bit let me take that and then you'll find out that half the stuff you threw out there in anger isn't even true and it's not how you really feel so now you should go out and communicate what you really feel really clearly that you think will that's that's what going high is so yeah i think we should always be trying to go high and i think is anybody with a platform a powerful platform it's a responsibility right because that that that platform is powerful like the word

you say move people and you can move them to productivity or you can move them to division you can move them to hate um it is like anybody with a platform can do that so now we now have a responsibility if you want the platform then be it's like a gun like learn how to use it put the safety lock on you know um because you can cause a lot of damage but you can also do a lot of good you know um

and that's what going high means and yes i still think that but have the feelings you know i'm not telling people that you're feeling like just like us as women yes it's not fair it sucks the the the the standards are double we're killing ourselves you know we're in over we're inundated with messages that are wrong um feel that don't feel like you're crazy for feeling it wrong is wrong like you know

bad is bad you know and going high doesn't mean to ignore that and and we need to feel those feelings to act but how we act on those feelings is the going high part is is my point michelle i need to hang

out with you more um okay wow i'm just like i'm gonna like watch that back every day what you just said holy um i want to ask you about a recent comment you made about a female presidency you said don't even look at me about running because you all are lying you're not ready for a woman you're not as a country what do we need to do to be ready like what is it going to take look we've come a long way

you know um and what my husband has said and i agree with change takes time and context matters right 50 years ago we were fighting for the equal rights bill you know i mean just that's in there are people alive today you know that you know couldn't marry the opposite race you know couldn't love who you loved i mean this is recent history of a country that's been around for hundreds and

hundreds of years it's been going along this way and then there's a little change it just happened

but but that means that the remnants of what has been there and what we've been socialized is really deeply embedded in who we are and whether people really feel yet that they can follow a woman as president like we would just be silly to think that there aren't just some gut kind of i don't know like we're not even analyzing what those feelings are about because we're trying to pretend like it's

all better and i just think well how could it be all better you know i mean we we've been feeding off of this bone for so long it doesn't just go away it takes time right so but we're moving we are moving in that direction so that statement was you know there's the humor of it like stop looking at me right you know so that it's also my wry humor it's like come on people you know there were people who there are there are men out there that were not gonna vote for a woman you know that's though you

people have had those conversations right let's just be real about it and let's put that on the table and talk about well what's that about let's not be mad because i made the statement let's look at the fact that we've had two really qualified female candidates one who was first lady secretary of state well educated you know my husband beat her right people were more comfortable with him as a

newcomer right and now we just had the form the former vice president you know we've had what we've had qualified women and they just you know again if they're not perfect and they don't cross every t and dot every i there's a falling shortness that is happening that i you know i'd say look well why can't we talk about that why are we pretending that that didn't just happen i want to also just let you

know i agree with you michelle i agree with you my question back to everyone who's like oh no we're ready it's like how could a woman hold the highest seat in the government when she has less rights than half the population yeah yeah how how would that even be how would that work we don't have legally equal rights to men how would a woman sit above men like it does it's we're not there and so there were some people even within the democratic party that disagreed with your statement publicly people came out and just said you know just because we didn't like the candidates that doesn't mean we

aren't ready for a woman um well i hope so like yeah great you know and look that means that doesn't mean that women should roll up their sleeves and call it a day you know um like we're still growing you know so yeah i think it's gonna happen uh are we ready now i don't know let prove prove us wrong

i would love that right michelle if this incentivize everyone to prove us wrong i'd be like really

it's like all right and i'll be the first be like you're right you're right statement now my bad my

bad we're like we piss them off so much they're like no we'll show you yeah let's do that please and

look for all our the young women that we're talking to keep keep climbing if you want to be president of the united states doggone it then yes yes you can right um so yeah this isn't about slowing down you know we keep fighting and growing and developing and evolving and learning what happened there why didn't that work but let's really talk about it because it it hasn't worked we've had women governors

we just haven't been able to crack that ceiling with really great candidates so let's figure out what what what's what's going on and in the meantime what i'm telling all young girls is keep going y'all go to college get your education continue to build those skills continue to be good be kind to yourself go into politics i am not a politician that was also the other point you know it's just a reminder

he's like i am not a politician not interested in it you know um just it's not who i want to be but i do want a lot of young people a lot of younger i want those who want to do it we need you we need you to want to to be so don't take that message as you can't you should keep trying keep prove keep keep throwing the opportunity in this country's face you know and but just be strong in it and

know that you may come up short because maybe we are maybe we aren't but keep going well it's like our

whole conversation today i think there again there's so much to do for women to get to that place where we are ready um okay this is i mean let me know if you'll answer this one i'm just gonna try okay let's have a little fun okay we're i'm talking about the future here so the future is whatever we want it to be okay so if this is all hypothetical if trump does change the law and ruds for a third term hypothetically do you think your husband would consider running i hope

not michelle i would actively work against that you know the whole world starts crying i i would really i wouldn't be i would be at home working against it you know and maybe a lot of people be like good we don't want him anyway and i'm like yeah that's what i right okay so you're like not interested you know i i do believe in the need for new vision right i mean the the two terms is not

just about we like him we want it it's just like the we're changing and growing so fast this is a hard job and it it requires new energy new new vision all the time new ways of looking at the world right so i do believe that eight years is enough like you know so and there's so many talented people out there like why why would we keep going with the same people you know um i i would be a proponent for

how and how are we going to build young leaders if the same people keep doing it again and again and again you know now it's your turn now it's my turn now you did it again i'll do it again it's like and there's all these young smart people who are just looking out outside with their ideas as leaders get older and older you know the older you get the just you you just live a different life as an older established person um and i think there's room for that wisdom but there's room for new ideas to come in you know so i am i think two terms is enough um for everybody you know and it's not a question of

what order it's just like we've heard and experienced your ideas this country is constantly evolving what are the next thoughts people with a new set of experiences a new set of a new take on the world this new generation is coming up they travel more they know more about the world they're exposed in a different way like i i am really really curious about their perspectives on how to fix some of this stuff like we don't have all the answers and that's okay that's why we move on yeah it's a great

point it's a really great point um to close this out yeah two more questions yeah i want to end on a message of hope because this is it's heavy stuff but it's like in order to change in order to grow we have to have hope we have to believe that there is room absolutely move forward so first what advice do you have to women listening who feel scared and angry about the current state of things and where

we are headed as a country oh it it goes back to something that i have said throughout this conversation that we we have to be mindful of the context of where we are and even this time feels

difficult i would argue because we've had a lot of unfettered growth right this has been a unique time of just no war there's been no great depression um i mean if you look at the history of the country the the that's this little period why it's been you know not free of a lot of problems right but it's

it's been a real it's been a continued shot upward and now we're kind of leveling off a little bit maybe a dip here there and that feels scary but as barack said the the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice it means that you don't get to the place in a straight direct route that there bends and curves along the way and we may be in a time where we're experiencing a bit of a bend a bit of a dip but we're still moving forward and that is true that's not like that's factual right

um as barack says all the time if you could pick any time in human history to be alive when you think of disease and poverty and science um and equality and openness and access would you pick any other time to be alive than right now i know i wouldn't knowing what you know we can fantasize about hogwarts and no i don't you know i don't even know what what time that took place because that's not a real

i do fan it's not a real story right but there's a lot of stuff that was broken that we didn't have that we didn't learn and we've learned it now and and we're struggling to get to that next phase but that struggle doesn't mean that we we're not making progress the other thing that i will say is like i my experiences throughout my life particularly as first lady i have seen this country up close i really i've been to many towns and communities mourned losses been on military bases

you know been in homeless shelters have seen great joys and great pains but rarely am i disappointed it as a whole with who we are as a people like that is my experience because i've gotten to be out there in a way that most people let alone most americans don't we live in our little corners of the world we live on our blocks in our neighborhoods that's how we are we're humans we are packed you

know we live in our small tribes that's how we are and we don't know about other tribes right we we know what we know um i've had the chance to experience other tribes and i don't care what your political affiliation what religion we're all really we really are wanting and moving towards the same thing you know we want to we want to live in communities where we get along you know we want our kids to be safe and have a good education we want them to maybe be a little bit better off than we have

we were but people aren't fundamentally greedy you know my father was a working class guy he never wanted to be a millionaire he never wanted to be a tech giant or an influencer you know what my dad was which is like most men black white blue green he wanted to be able to pay his bills and feed his kids and take care of his family and maybe have health care you know he's like he wasn't competing to be the richest of the rich in fact he was like you can have that that seems complicated right i'm good to me

that's most americans and we we can get there because people most people don't want that much but we do have to support each other you know we do have to protect one another and we have to you know have policies and principles that protect the greater good and i think with the right leadership we're right we're right there you know when it when it doesn't feel fair people aren't happy you know they don't they're they're not they're they don't feel comfortable watching other people's pain i know

that about this country it's just a question of how do we get get out of this and it's complicated and we like answers that are quick and easy but most of the stuff is really really hard and it takes some time i don't know if that's hopeful but to me it is it is it is all possibility it is hopeful i think

it's it's what we needed to hear because i agree with the immediacy everyone now is looking for such

the answer immediately or else they're just like so we're doomed it's over and i didn't work yeah and i think my last question when i was thinking about that is yes at first i was kind of talking about women but

like it our world does feel or our country does feel very divided today that that's a fact right it some people we can't even look at each other anymore yeah and the hate and disgust and vitriol it's so bitter like it it's the divide is so big it almost feels unfixable and sometimes i think it feels like we've turned away from seeing people's humanity that it almost feels like to the point

that we've off like almost lost our own humanity because we can't relate we can't see even if we are divided on what side we're on and so to leave us with this i guess and i know it's you'd be like well do you have 10 hours but in in the opposite of what you said where i'm like can you give us a quick answer michelle um can you though somehow explain in your opinion how you think we begin to repair not only what we have lost but create a new future that is actually inclusive equal and respectful of

each other because right now it does not feel like we are close to that and don't you get a sense that

people are not content in that yeah right so let's yeah you know i think more people are starting to be outspoken about it and realizing is this what we you know and a lot of people are like i didn't sign up for this that is us speaking that is us you know that's our real hearts kind of coming to the fold i'd like to think you know it you know didn't happen right away but it it's not like it's been a long long time we don't we're not like i just if everybody looks inside this isn't what we wanted

we want parts of it there's some things we want that mix didn't work but this i don't think we're we're happy in this state and i think that's a good sign you know i mean if if everybody were like yeah i'm good yeah i feel great merry christmas right i mean maybe i'd be like okay right but you know i'm assuming in your conversations people are starting to really we're figuring out

what is it that we do want you know we were defining a lot i don't want that and i don't want that but the work is well what do we want and i do think i don't think that this young generation wants to go back have less freedoms less possibilities of who they can be in the world who they can marry who they can love who's in and who's out i you know i i just think we've come too far to go that far back that's

what that's that's what i i have faith and i'm choosing to have faith you know um and so that those are choices and now for all our listeners it's like now we've got to do the work to look inside and figure out the parts of this that are working and what is it we have to really start having conversations about that um that that's hard to do at a time when you know our our algorithms are feeding us what we want to hear but now we know that now we're aware it's like okay you can't just

get your information from your phone or your tick tock because it's feeding you yourself and so if you want to learn something else you may have to talk to people we may have to start coming out of our phones and back into communities and we have to give each other the benefit of the doubt takes a little time because we've been so mad but it hasn't been that long it hasn't it hasn't been that long so we we can remember what it felt like when we felt more connected it's such a great point and i think

i think that's why i just was so excited to talk to you today because i feel like

especially understandably young people i think have just like an aversion to politics right now it's just like oh my god it's all this like marketing and propaganda and like oh and then again with social media we've lost the way where we don't really know who to follow right now we don't know who to listen to right now and so that goes back to the beginning of this interview to close it out it's like i knew that we could have fun i know you're funny and i know we would have a good time michelle okay trust me it's like round two you'll come back again one day but it's like we could have fun but we needed you i needed to hear from you and we needed to absorb this right now because i just

felt it and i try to have such a pulse with my audience on what they're needing and i felt this it's like going into this new year we need this fresh perspective and so i genuinely cannot thank you enough for gracing me with your time i know you are beyond busy but no but let me let me say alex

that part of the solution are folks like you young you're still to me you're young you're baby and i it's like proud baby way to go um but you you you've evolved yeah and you're building you understand the power that you have to have different conversations and you know you've got this amazing audience they love you they're you know they're intrigued by you and there's a reason for that so

that's power and now you're in the you you're in the you're in the power seat so what do you do with that you know how do you how do you you know take what you've learned or you're learning and you know about the folks who follow you and help them see more and see things differently and you're doing just that people are listening right you know they may come in for the burger but they leave with they leave with a carrot carrot of wisdom um and that's because you're choosing you know to really

think about your platform and modeling something new and that's what it's all about um look i love talking to people but i i'm i also don't want to be talking to people forever it's like your generation it's time for you all to sit in these seats and get right what we didn't get right and it's okay for us to admit that our generation we figured a lot of stuff out but we didn't fix it and that's not

what the it it's a it's a marathon it's a relay race i'm passing the baton to you my friend um and you can do it maybe a couple more side conversations just to like give me a little bit more okay we'll keep talking but we'll stay in touch we'll stay in touch but i am i am uh proud of what what you you're building and how you're using um your your space and that's that's gonna make a difference so keep doing what you're doing this has been so much fun and i'll talk to barack and

make sure that you know make next time i come in you know you tell him does he want to talk about

option one anything rock option one the headlines from this cannot be as crazy as what option one would be so anything you're stressed about pr wise babe don't worry it'll be fine you know right there

michelle obama thank you thank you thank you it was an honor having you on color it's great

spending time with you thank you for having me and more to come more to come more to come