Creative Career Solutions for Parents

EP55: #IAmBecoming - Nuggets of wisdom from Michelle Obama's book tour

• Gina Visram

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This episode is a must listen for everyone: I was honoured to hear Michelle Obama speak live in London as part of her European book tour and I found her so relatable as a citizen wanting to make her community better, as a leader wanting to impact her country and the world and in other important roles as a mother, a wife, a daughter, a professional in her industry - in ever which way really.

Gratitude and motivation both prevail in listening to what she shared so get stuck in, listen and enjoy... and remember, if yu like what you hear do please leave a review on iTunes.

(PS - I believe I said Idaho instead of Iowa in relation to one of the stories she shared. Please excuse that error!) 

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the creative career solutions for parents podcast. I am Gina Visram, your host from www.limitlesscoaching.com and you are listening to the podcast for working parents. It is my firm belief that whether you are working inside of the home or outside of the home, paid or unpaid, as long as you are closely involved with raising your kids, you are a working parent and I hope that in this corner of the internet you can find inspirational content that really connects with you, inspires you, as I said, but is also actionable as well. But I think I've already said inspiration twice within the first 45 seconds and that's because of today's topic. Today we are talking about,"I Am Becoming": Nuggets of inspiration from Michelle Obama. I am so blessed and I know this... this isn't news and actually if you listen to the podcast, you know that I feel that way even on the crappier days because I think gratitude is such an important exercise, such an important thing. However, it was even easier than normal to be grateful this week because I had the pleasure and the honor of going to see Michelle Obama speak live as part of her European book tour. So she was here in London, she was at the O2, which is a huge venue(here in London) and I'm delighted that she decided to do that because when she was here sometime at the end of 2018 I think she did a talk at the South bank, which i s one of my favou rite places in London, but it' s a tiny venue and it wou ld ha v e be en phenomenal to see her speak there, but they literally had about 2,500 tickets I think. So yeah, this was a bit more of an opportunity for the masses to go. Well, c e rtainly the masses that wer e pr epared to fork out generally over a hundred pounds for a ticket, which for Michelle Obama, that was an investment that I was willing to, to put aside budget and pay for for sure. So there was many things that I could pick on to talk about. And you know, it kind of made me want to get out her book again and go at it with a highlighter and talk about a whole range of things. I'm not going to do that here, but what I am going to share is a few of the nuggets that she mentioned on the evening where she talked to a crowd of 15,000 of us here in London. So the evening started with, I mean they had some brilliant videos, some fantastic video footage of Michelle as a child, as Michelle Robinson because that is where her story starts naturally. And you saw her family, some of her background, some of her experience. And then of course lots of beautiful images of her family, her husband, her two gorgeous, smart girls. And you know, you remembered that when Barack Obama became president, he, you know, he had a very young family. I think she said that the girls were seven and 10 at the time. So over the eight years that they were in the white house, we really saw the girls grow. Um, and that really was the formative years. So I guess firstly I would say if you haven't actually read becoming pulleys do, it is a really, really brilliant read in my opinion. And it goes in all kinds of directions that you might not necessarily expect the most important of which probably being that you're hearing about Michelle from her childhood, from her background, from before we knew her. And because that is all a very, very significant part of her evolution and becoming and the hashtag I am becoming is what she uses because it's the notion that we're, we're all evolving even where we are now, we're evolving into something else, into another phase of our, of our time, another chapter, something else that we're interested in, maybe something else that we might be struggling with. It's, but we're always becoming, and you know, for, for Michelle Obama, of course she became the first lady and there were so many firsts for them and for her. And the evening started off with the video as I said. And then as the show was a, they called it a show. I might just use that time. They had, I think it was four or five different people, different ages, different races standing there and saying what they are becoming. And it was a beautiful way to set the tone. So Michelle was interviewed by Steven Cole bear who is a late night talk show host in the U S he is very funny. I have seen him interview Michelle. It was a great interview. I will watch it again now though. Actually after being at the show the other night, he did a great interview with Tiffany Haddish who I also love. Yes, it's a fairly different characters I think. But um, but he's a good interviewer and he had a good chemistry and familiarity with Michelle, which of course made that an even better experience for us in the audience. So here we're just a few of the things that she said, which I thought might be useful for you to hear. She talks about knocking on doors and not necessarily depending on an intermediary, the idea of really knocking on doors yourself. And I think the context for this was when she said something like, don't count on Twitter to understand what's going on in your neighborhood or in your city. Like get out there and get to know the people around you in reality. And she told a story how, you know, in Idaho they had been campaigning and it was a really important state for them and she'd felt that the day had gone pretty well. But on the news they were talking about how they were losing in that state. And so it was a great, it was a great reminder of the fact that when you're not actually on the ground, when you don't actually know what is happening around you, it's easy to, for conjecture and assumptions to happen. So knocking on doors and making personal connections is something that is really important. She also talked about how she found it very interesting that even people, and I will call them keyboard warriors to be generous. Even people who might slander you, doubt you, who do their best to be little you who have made it no secret that they really don't seem to like or respect you. She talked about how it's funny that they will still always be in the queue and always want to take a picture and she would, she would get ready, you know, she would kind of steal herself. Is that the, is that the phrase? Because you know, you know that somebody has been a complete ass to you, excuse me, online. Um, but you know, they'll come and they'll, they'll remember their in-person matters that people forget on the other side of a keyboard. And yeah, she did. She talks about how despite how people might feel about you or what they might say, or certainly what their agenda is, they might no even genuinely have an issue with you. Uh, sometimes when they have the opportunity, they'll still want to come and get that picture. Uh, she talked about making sure that you remember the difference between beliefs and opinions, different beliefs and opinions. And she, Oh, this is really cute. She talks a bit about Brock and how they got together and ultimately he was a hook shot as I think she called him in intern that her law firm was very excited about. He was going to be interning for the summer and she had fairly, not low expectations, but she, she said something that I think, uh, many of the relevant people in the room laughed about, which was that sometimes when you're in a very white environment as her law firm was sometimes there might be real excitement about a black colleague who is ultimately eloquent and articulate as so many people are. But essentially she wondered whether he was overhyped and he came late on the first day and all of that stuff. I will leave it to you to actually read it because it's much better coming from her, whether you listened to the book on audible or whether you actually get a copy. But I think the point that I was going to make a that she said, which was really interesting was that he had game and by that I mean he made it really, really clear even as she was trying to be really professional and not get with the one black intern that she'd ever had to look after and, and she was trying to set him up with friends. He made it very clear that he wanted to be with her and she said in the room, but you know, if brothers want a lesson in impressing a woman, he was a great example. He was just clear, clear, straight forward. Doesn't that sound pretty good? I know I certainly got to a point in my twenties where I was like, I am done with all this ridiculous game playing. Oh goodness. So yeah, that, that one got a lot of nods and smiles and laughs. She mentioned that she fell in love with the way Barack treated people and how that said so much about him and this related to his mother and his sister. This related to, you know, the people that he, he worked with the people in the community that he was working with and for essentially everybody, you know, he made people feel good, he made people feel important and she fell in love with the way that he treated people. I certainly had a personal connection with that thought as well because it was one of the reasons why I fell in love with my husband as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Because I saw how he treated people and interestingly in our case, one of the things that told me so much about the man that he is is how he treats his ex wife with respect. And I like, you know, no matter how good a a relationship is, when it breaks down, like no matter how civil your potentially being to each other, I guess there were, you know, ultimately faults that you can pick. Right. Otherwise you'd still be together. But I loved that he was always so respectful. And this is, this is my other half. I love that he was always saying respectful is always respectful about her. But I say was because it was one of those things very early in our time together that told me so much about the man who he is. And yeah, I think Michelle had very much that similar, um, impression from Barak in terms of how he treated people. She talked about her parents a lot. She talked about her dad who was very ill for a long time. Some of the stuff that she said about her dad. I might actually specifically mentioned in a father's day related episode, but one of the things that she talks about is the strength of parents who have a vision of a life for their kids. That they didn't have themselves, that, that they didn't have, that they couldn't really comprehend because they haven't lived it. They hadn't it. And she, I think the, the wording that she used because I was typing into my phone, um, said sending a kid off to college when you don't even know what that's like yourself. She talked about the strength and vision, the vision of what's possible, the vision for the future and their vision without locking them into your own fears. Now parents, can we get an amen? Hallelujah. Or whatever is the equivalent for you on this? Let us not let our own fears or what we don't know. Still pus in supporting our children and what is possible for them. Man, that's could be a whole episode in its own right. Actually that might have to be one that we revisit, but I thought you would be interested in hearing that. She talked about good values and good role models and the role models of seeing people going to work, working parents have the creative career solutions for parents podcast. This is for you, right? Our kids seeing us going to work, whatever work is for us is really powerful. It really opens up their mind to what's possible. It really opens up their mind to what it can do, the positives, the negatives, but you know, we want them to have their own experiences. So not have too many things around the negatives necessarily. But yeah, she talks about the good role models of seeing people go to work. You know, they didn't go to Princeton, they didn't go to Harvard, they didn't go to any of the places that they, that she had, but they went to work. But she talked about the fact that kids react to the way their parents react sometimes. And she referred to that when she was talking about wanting campaigning to be fun for her girls and that ultimately it was a slog. Ultimately the family was apart a lot. She talked about how, because the campaign team really saw her as an asset in her own right, but it didn't make sense in terms of the, the traction and the impacts that they can have. It didn't make sense for them to be in the same place at the same time because if she could get her own crowd together and get them on board and get them to see the vision and the hope and the yes I can, and all of the belief that they shared as a couple in that Barack was intending to move forward with as precedent, then it didn't make sense for them to be in the same place. So this was a family that was really separated on the campaign trail, but she recognized the kids react how their parents react and wanted to make it fun. So there was fairs, there was painting. And again, it really got me thinking about, you know, what can we do to make our own experiences with our families even more fun. Again, thank you auntie Michelle. That is probably another podcast topic in its own right. Uh, she talks about what it feels like to lose your anonymity. Something that I'm pretty sure most of us in the room couldn't relate to, but it was very interesting to hear she answered the question, is the presidency a moral position and had a resounding yes. And one of the many graceful things about this woman is how she can refer to the presidency and even refer to the current president without saying his name. His name was not mentioned once, but of course in talking about her fears, cause that was one of the questions. One of the things that she's worried about, Oh she did some grit. Actually, I'm not going to do this, but justice and I think I was just listening and not writing during this part, so I might completely butcher it in terms of how I describe it. But she talked about how, you know, the idea that the world, that the earth, that, that we ultimately veer towards the good even when we have big speed bumps along the way. And I know it's crazy, it's not that war. Um, all kinds of things are, are the things that kind of really make you question the humanity and, and question what is going on. And I, in our own way, certainly in the U S certainly in the UK, we have a lot of that going on. Whether it is a presidency, whether it is Brexit, whether it is, whatever, whatever you, you believe. There are lots of things that we are questioning and there's lots of divisiveness and stresses right now really. And, and she talks about, you know, have fun belief that things ultimately veer towards the good. Uh, so like I said, I didn't actually write that bit down. I didn't paraphrase. I think I was just completely soaking in and taking in what she was saying. But if you needed to hear that little bit of hope today, I hope that's helped to hear that perspective. She talked about how we can lift up kids or we can crush them each and every one of us can lift up kids or we can crush them. And this is something that we can remember all the time because this is going to be relevant for us as parents. And if you're an educator, it's really relevant for you too. And she talked about how there had been a lot of doubt from her counselor and her counselor, her, her careers counselor in high school had wondered why she was even bothering and applying for the schools that she was applying for. And of course Steven asked her all, you know, have you sent her a copy of her book? Have you done all of that? And she said, you know, I can't even remember her name. And, and I, I probably can't even remember what she looks like, but I can remember how she made me feel and how she made me doubt myself. And yeah, the idea that we can lift up kids or we can crush them is important. And actually I'll extend that even to, you know, the, the fellow grownups in your life as a couple, we can do that to each other as a colleague in the workplace. Oh my goodness. We can be that to each other, you know? So yeah, it's the whole idea of, of the way that you make people feel. And really I will leave with her. Um, final couple of thoughts. One was that it's worth remembering and she said this one, there was a beautiful picture of her with Nelson Mandela. It is worth remembering that it's not often that a leader lived to see the fruits of their struggle and their sacrifice. It is not often that a leader has lived to see the fruits of their own struggle and their sacrifice. And I think she said that in the idea of it, but Nelson Mandela has, but also with the idea that you know, some of the stuff that they were fighting for under the Obama administration, these things aren't about them or even necessarily their kids immediately. But these things can have an impact on the world moving forward. So even when you're on the throes of the mezz parts of change, and that I did write down, those were, those were her words on the throes of the uneasy parts of change. She talks about the fact that we have an obligation not to lose face in the possibility of being better. And that is the last thought that I will leave you with today. We have an obligation not to lose face in the possibility of being better. I cannot tell you how brilliant it was to have this opportunity to see her speak live. It was really, really incredible. But what I can tell you and what I think this is a great reminder of is that connecting with the right kinds of nonfiction books. And when I say the right books, it's not me telling you what the right books are. It's you knowing, you know what the topics are that are important to you. It can confidence, it can be money, it could be politics or leadership, it could be anything. It could be you know to do with raising kids. It could be about Korea. There was so much great nonfiction content out there. Like Michelle's book, she talked about the fact that Barak actually she didn't bring it up. Steve and Pilbara talks about Barack having a book coming out but not only can we read these books but so many of them are read by the author themselves and are accessible on audible or wherever you get your audio books so we can turn off some of the nonsense that we we can't do much about necessarily or even if we feel that we can do something about it. Like I know we've got climate change protestors at the moment. There are certainly trying to do something about what they feel strongly about, but sometimes you just need to turn down the noise because there is so much noise and you can consume something else and there were some great, great books out there. So I am going to do a separate podcast on that actually on some that I would recommend that have meant a lot to me recently, but also I'd love to hear from you on that as well. So that is a whole different topic. But today we have been talking about, I am becoming nuggets of inspiration from Michelle Obama. I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I've enjoyed talking about it and as always, let's connect. Feel free to reach out on social media. I am limitless coaching on Facebook. I am Gina fee limitless on Instagram. I am limitless coach on Twitter and if you are listening to this on I changes, I've said, please subscribe, please share and certainly please leave a comment, leave a review. I'd love it if it was a positive one and it will help other people find this podcast. Amazing. Alright, lovely. I hope you have a brilliant day of brilliant time, whatever you're doing, and I really look forward to connecting with you again soon. Bye.