Disappointment Is the Key to Career Success with Keke Palmer

Acclaimed actress Keke Palmer joins Michelle and Craig to answer a listener who asks why she feels so bad after a big career win. Keke reflects on how her planned breakout as a young actress went awry, and the ways that feelings of failure contributed to her career. Michelle, Craig, and Keke talk about how their perspective on meaningful work has changed over the years—and the advice that Michelle’s girls are finally starting to listen to. Have a question you want answered? Write to us at imopod.com http://imopod.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  So I remember when I did Akil and the Bee, um, everybody kept saying, this movie is gonna be a hit.

• 0:04Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  This movie's gonna bu- bust it out. This is gonna, you gonna be a star. And like, it's such an elusive thing, but what's a star? You know what I mean?

• 0:12Michelle Obama?

  Yeah, right.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  And-

• 0:13Michelle Obama?

  And how old were you then?

• 0:14Speaker 00

  I was 11.

• 0:15Michelle Obama?

  11?

• 0:15Speaker 00

  And they were like, this is hu- I'm like, wow, this is huge.

• 0:18Michelle Obama?

  Really, whatever that is.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  I guess I'll be Michael Jackson now. You know, like, it was like, cute. And then the movie came in and did so terrible in the box office.

• 0:27Michelle Obama?

  Although that was one of my favorite movies.

• 0:28Speaker 00

  And then, and then the funny thing about it is like, over time, it grew to be my most popular film.

• 0:33Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 0:34Speaker 00

  And the thing that people most know me for, but I use that as, as an example in this is because our life is made up of many moments. It's not ma- like, our, our legacy is not just that one thing we did.

• 0:45Michelle Obama?

  Okay, Kiki.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  You know, it's the many things that we did. And so like, Akil and the Bee was always there for people to come to and remember my work. And it grew over time amongst all the things I did. But I remember feeling in that moment being like, everybody lied to me.

• 0:58Michelle Obama?

  You were.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? I, I felt like when my mom told me I was gonna be a big girl at five, I still didn't get big. I was like, now, wait a minute, I'm still shorter than y'all.

• 1:06Michelle Obama?

  It sounds like big girl just means I can't be a baby.

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Hey, sex.

• 1:16Michelle Obama?

  This episode is brought to you by Pine-Sol and Chase Home Lending.

• 1:21Craig Robinson?

  Well, hello.

• 1:22Michelle Obama?

  Hi, Craig.

• 1:24Craig Robinson?

  How are you?

• 1:24Michelle Obama?

  I'm great. How are you? Welcome.

• 1:27Craig Robinson?

  Thank you.

• 1:27Michelle Obama?

  Back to my world.

• 1:29Craig Robinson?

  Even though I didn't stay at your place last night.

• 1:31Michelle Obama?

  You know, and that, you, you got a lot of nerve coming into DC and you didn't even stay with me.

• 1:36Craig Robinson?

  I know.

• 1:36Michelle Obama?

  Cause you all trying to be Airbnb friendly.

• 1:39Craig Robinson?

  Let me tell you. I would normally stay with my sister and, uh, but this time I stayed at a really nice place.

• 1:48Michelle Obama?

  Okay.

• 1:49Craig Robinson?

  And I was gonna go for a walk this morning, but I was so excited about our guest today that I was preparing all morning long.

• 1:56Michelle Obama?

  All right.

• 1:57Craig Robinson?

  And, and we're gonna be talking about dreams. And I, you know, it made me think of, when we were little, did you have a dream? Did you know what you wanted to do?

• 2:06Michelle Obama?

  I, I thought I did. Um, the, when I would be asked, um, probably around the age of 10, I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician.

• 2:15Craig Robinson?

  I remember.

• 2:16Michelle Obama?

  You remember that.

• 2:16Craig Robinson?

  Oh, yeah. I, I was wondering if you remember? Cause I thought you were gonna say lawyer or something. I was gonna say not.

• 2:21Michelle Obama?

  No, no, no.

• 2:22Craig Robinson?

  But yes, you wanted to be a-

• 2:23Michelle Obama?

  Lawyer didn't come until after I realized that I was not talented at chemistry or math. You know, that's what you can be a ten. You can dream. It's like being a doctor is all about loving children and wanting to help. Because I love kids. I love little kids. And I thought, well, if I could do something that was professional and I could save lives. And then I went to high school and chemistry kind of threw me for. I didn't like science or math.

• 2:49Craig Robinson?

  So the problem with you and science is you didn't like it because you were a good student in every subject.

• 2:55Michelle Obama?

  I could get grades. But if I thought, if I'm going to pick a career where I have to do math and science for like eight years, it's like, no, I'll do something else. But that was my dream. What about, what about you?

• 3:07Craig Robinson?

  So I'm going to see if you remember this. I, the first thing I wanted to be wasn't an athlete, wasn't a coach. Well, kind of an athlete, but it was a race car driver. Do you remember that?

• 3:19Michelle Obama?

  It was like race car. I was going to say pilot.

• 3:22Craig Robinson?

  No, no, it wasn't pilot because folks weren't on planes like that back then.

• 3:27Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 3:27Craig Robinson?

  So I wanted to be a NASCAR or Indy car driver.

• 3:35Michelle Obama?

  That's why you love Formula One so much.

• 3:38Craig Robinson?

  It is. But do you remember how I got talked out of it by Mrs. Thompson, my second grade teacher?

• 3:43Michelle Obama?

  What did she say?

• 3:44Craig Robinson?

  So it was one of those days in school where you have to, she's like, all right, I want everybody to stand up and say what you want to be when you grow up. And people were like standing up saying they wanted to be a teacher and they wanted to be a fireman and they wanted to be a policeman. She gets to me and I said, I want to be a race car driver. And she was like, Craig Robinson, with all those brains, all you want to do is be a race car driver?

• 4:07Michelle Obama?

  Oh, see, Ms. Thompson.

• 4:09Craig Robinson?

  She shamed me out of it.

• 4:10Michelle Obama?

  See, that's what I'm talking about.

• 4:12Craig Robinson?

  But as it turned out, you grow to be 6'6", you can't be a race car driver, right?

• 4:16Michelle Obama?

  Yeah, but she didn't know that.

• 4:17Craig Robinson?

  She didn't know it. And, and the fact that-

• 4:19Michelle Obama?

  And she didn't also know that race car drivers make a pretty good living.

• 4:23Craig Robinson?

  Well, they make a good living, but you know, they're mostly, most of those guys have to be engineers. They have to be really good, to your point, math, science, figuring things out.

• 4:33Michelle Obama?

  So Ms. Thompson didn't know what she was talking about.

• 4:35Craig Robinson?

  And, and I love Ms. Thompson. You know, she was one of my favorite- Teachers, but she talked me out of my, my first dream.

• 4:43Michelle Obama?

  And, and what grade was that?

• 4:44Craig Robinson?

  Second grade.

• 4:45Michelle Obama?

  See, this is what we're talking about. And that's the thing, one of the things I don't like about asking little kids, little bitty kids, what they want to be, like they would know.

• 4:56Craig Robinson?

  Right.

• 4:56Michelle Obama?

  And then shaming them, you know?

• 4:58Craig Robinson?

  I know.

• 4:58Michelle Obama?

  It's just sort of like, why do we do that to kids? Because that sets them up for thinking that life is predictable. You can pick things and plan it and it will actually happen. That's, and we're going to talk about this more later, but I think that's one of the things that gets kids kind of stuck into thinking that they're supposed to know everything about their lives by the time they're 15. They're supposed to have it all figured out.

• 5:23Craig Robinson?

  Yeah.

• 5:23Michelle Obama?

  And that just sets them up. It sets up the wrong kind of expectation for how life actually works.

• 5:29Craig Robinson?

  Absolutely, absolutely. And it's okay to want to be three or four things too.

• 5:34Michelle Obama?

  Well, because over the course of your life, you may actually be three or four different things. But yeah, dreams, you know, I, you know, it's fun to dream, but I think that it's the balance of how do you let kids dream, but you don't pigeonhole them.

• 5:51Craig Robinson?

  Yeah.

• 5:51Michelle Obama?

  By their dreams.

• 5:52Craig Robinson?

  Right, right.

• 5:53Michelle Obama?

  And I'm very careful about that. I mean, you, like with the girls, Malia is one of the, those interesting kids who, when she was 10, she said she wanted to write and direct. And she's doing that.

• 6:10Craig Robinson?

  Right.

• 6:10Michelle Obama?

  Right? That's crazy. That, I, I always say that to Sasha, the younger one. That's unusual. It is rare that somebody decides at 10 that they want to do something and then they do it and they actually like it.

• 6:24Craig Robinson?

  Yeah.

• 6:24Michelle Obama?

  But I still try not to pigeonhole them. Like just because I, I said, say this to Malia, just because you said you wanted to do that at 10, you're now an adult, you're trying this stuff on. You may like it, you may not. I just want to always give my kids an out. Because if things don't work out right, I don't want to think that they're disappointing me because they said they were going to do something when they were. It didn't, it didn't turn out that way or life happened. So I'm constantly trying to balance being enthusiastic about what they want to do, but also say, life, we don't know what's going to happen in life. So we have to stay emotionally and mentally flexible.

• 7:05Michelle Obama?

  So that when things go wrong or something changes or they learn something new about themselves, that they have room to respond to that change.

• 7:15Craig Robinson?

  Yeah, well, you know, I always thought mom and dad did a terrific job because they never said, you should be this or stick with this. They just said, whatever you decide, just work hard at it. Just work hard. It was like schoolwork. You don't have to get the best grades as long as you work hard. And typically, when you worked hard, you got the results you wanted. And that was, that was advice that I've carried with me through a bunch of different machinations in jobs. And I never set out to be a basketball player. But I digress. I want to bring out our guest, who is an Emmy Award winning multi hyphenate entertainer,

• 7:58Craig Robinson?

  an actress, a musical artist, a producer, a host of her own podcast and an author. But most importantly, she is the favorite game show host of the Robinson household. Cause you know, we play some password in our house. You come to our house, you got to be ready to play some password. So Kiki Palmer, will you please come on down?

• 8:33Speaker 00

  Oh my goodness, I could listen to you guys talk all day long.

• 8:38Craig Robinson?

  It's so good to see you. Thanks for being here.

• 8:41Speaker 00

  You too, you guys. Oh my gosh, thank you for having me on. And I just live for the password play.

• 8:47Michelle Obama?

  The password is.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Yes, I should wear my glasses.

• 8:50Craig Robinson?

  When we play, we say it like that. And the password is. You've done better than, who was the guy, Alan Ludden? It was way back then?

• 8:58Michelle Obama?

  It was the original.

• 8:59Speaker 00

  That is, that is my praise. I loved doing that show and I just love that families can get together and have fun with it.

• 9:05Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 9:05Speaker 00

  That's the thing, is like, it's an opportunity for everybody to play, even the babies.

• 9:09Craig Robinson?

  So, I was telling our producer Natalie, there's only two, we have at home, we have four kids, but only two at home.

• 9:15Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 9:16Craig Robinson?

  Fourteen year old and a twelve year old. So, sitting down and watching TV is gone by the wayside.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 9:23Craig Robinson?

  But there's two things we watch. Password and Dateline.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  Okay, because Dateline will get you into it.

• 9:29Craig Robinson?

  That'll get you into it.

• 9:30Speaker 00

  That's like the perfect balance. You know, you can laugh and then you're like, ooh, that man wasn't no good. I love that vibe.

• 9:35Craig Robinson?

  You can teach some life lessons with Dateline.

• 9:39Michelle Obama?

  I mean, just, just re, listening to you read Kiki's bio, it's like, girl, I would think you were seventy years old with all you've done in your life. Sometimes I do feel seventy. You know, I mean, how did you, how have you packed so much into such a young life? You're, you know, you're a baby yourself.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh, thank you so much.

• 10:01Michelle Obama?

  And you have done so much in such a short period of time. Girl, I'm so proud of you, just watching you just do your thing. How do you manage all of that?

• 10:11Speaker 00

  I think it's so much of what, um, when you guys were talking about, um, dreams, knowing your dream as a kid and then how people can help kids nurture them, is that when I told my parents I wanted to entertain, you know, we started going on auditions and stuff, there was never a ceiling. They always encouraged and said, there was more that I could do. There was never a feeling that I had, well, because I started with acting, that's all I had to stick with. You know, if I wanted to try singing and focus on that, I could. If I wanted to try hosting, if I wanted to do less film and TV and maybe do more theater, you know, it was all, or even community stuff. And I never, I never felt like I had to just abandon any one thing to follow my dreams. It always rooted in being of service to my community and the ways that felt most natural to me.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  And so, I really loved hearing you guys talk about that because I think that is why I'm able to do all the things that I do. I think a lot of people have multiple, most people, everybody has multiple gifts and things they want to offer, but like y'all was saying, sometimes people make them believe that it's that whole jack of all trades, master of none.

• 11:11Michelle Obama?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  You know, but really, it's jack of all trades, master of none is often better than a master of one.

• 11:15Michelle Obama?

  One, yeah.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  And so, I think my mom, my dad, my family saying... Okay, we with you.

• 11:21Michelle Obama?

  All right, let's give this a shot.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  It's what made me be able to do it.

• 11:24Michelle Obama?

  Do you think about the wisdom of their parenting? What do you think now about the way your, your parents, you know, sort of guided you?

• 11:36Speaker 00

  I think in the beginning, I was kind of like, as a teenager in my early twenties, it was kind of like, did I like my parents?

• 11:41Michelle Obama?

  Yeah, really.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  And then I was like, girl, everybody go. I remember my dad had this talk with me where he was like, okay, so I didn't do a lot of things right. I'm sorry that you didn't like this. I'm sorry that you didn't like that. But now you're a grown woman. So now what are you gonna do with that? Are you gonna be mad at me forever? Or are you gonna move forward and, and take matters into your own hands?

• 12:01Michelle Obama?

  See now, now that's Chicago, right?

• 12:03Speaker 00

  That is Chicago to the man. He was like, I mean, everybody's parents did something. He was kind of like, okay, girl.

• 12:09Michelle Obama?

  That sounds just like our mom, who's like, I don't understand these kids blaming their parents. It's like, well, you think their parents didn't go through something? I mean, there's just a, and we talked about it because we, we from Illinois.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 12:23Michelle Obama?

  And Kiki, she's sort of almost from Chicago.

• 12:26Speaker 00

  Anytime I say Robbins, people are like.

• 12:28Michelle Obama?

  But if you know Chicago, you know Robbins is like, it's the, it's the hood suburb.

• 12:34Craig Robinson?

  And, and if Kiki's from Robbins, she can handle herself.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 12:37Craig Robinson?

  You can handle yourself.

• 12:38Speaker 00

  You know, we don't play.

• 12:39Michelle Obama?

  You know, it's, it's not, you know, Robbins is not Highland Park.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  No.

• 12:44Michelle Obama?

  It is not, it's not Barrington, you know? But your, your, your parents sound like there's a sort of common sense groundedness to the, just the way they think. There's just kind of a midwestern kind of

• 12:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:00Michelle Obama?

  simplicity and kind of, you know, no nonsense.

• 13:05Speaker 00

  And I always, I just always wonder how it's like that. You know, obviously you don't want to be biased because we're all from the Midwest. But I do think there's something that's so like, look, hardworking, put yourself up by the bootstraps, clog on your family, you know, be good to yourself and keep moving forward because life isn't gonna stop. So what are you gonna do with that? And I think that's what I learned the most from my parents after I got out of my. I was kind of like, it all slowly started to come to me. All the sacrifices they made in all, on all accounts, not just sacrifices that we think about that we like. Like, oh, you know, I can't go out tonight. I can't go. No, sacrifices like I have to abandon my comfortability with anxiety. I have to abandon my comfortability with not chasing my dreams and stepping out into the unknown.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  My parents abandoned those things. They became heroes. They became courageous and brave in ways that I don't even think they knew that they could be, just so their children could see that they had options and that their dreams were worth believing in. And I think that is like what I want to be able to do the most with my son is teach him how to be an authoritative figure, but also help to nurture his sense of leadership without, you know, tampering him down, you know, like, be a leader, but be the right kind of leader. You know?

• 14:27Craig Robinson?

  As I mentioned earlier in the episode, this time on my trip to Washington DC, I didn't stay at my sister's place. I stayed at a wonderful Airbnb. The place was fantastic. My sister is not very happy with me, but being at my own place, I can cook for myself when I want to. I actually boiled a few eggs for myself. I can have a beer, put my feet up. I can take a shower and come out of the bathroom with my towel around me and not necessarily have to get dressed right away. But I think that from now on, when I come to DC, I'm going to stay in an Airbnb, to my sister's chagrin. This episode of IMO is sponsored by Chase Home Lending, inspiring confidence in your home buying journey.

• 15:12Craig Robinson?

  No matter where you are in your home buying journey, it's easy when you start with Chase's home lending experts and smart digital tools that can guide you every step of the way. Buying a home is part of building a strong foundation for your future and creating a space where you and your loved ones can thrive. When Kelly and I got married, we were thinking, what's the best way to lay a foundation for our new family? Well, we decided that foundation could be laid by purchasing a home. As it turned out, that was the right decision. We've raised four kids in our home. We still have two there and we are saving for college. And our home ended up being the best foundation we could have ever wanted.

• 15:57Craig Robinson?

  Chase is committed to helping you build a strong community and achieve your homeownership goals. They offer the support and guidance you need to make your dream of homeownership a reality. Visit chase.com/thert to learn how Chase can help achieve your homeownership dreams. Member FDIC, equal housing opportunity. We're so thrilled that PineSol is a partner of IMO. PineSol has been connected to our family forever. To this day, whenever my sister and I catch the scent of PineSol, we automatically feel better about life. The smell of PineSol has always taken us back to our childhood home.

• 16:39Craig Robinson?

  It is amazing how smells can transport you to a place or a moment in time. Another smell that takes me back is cherry blossoms, which always remind me of visiting Michelle in DC. That's why I'm excited for PineSol's newest scent, Cherry Blossom. The cleaning power you know and love from PineSol is available in a new scent this spring, Cherry Blossom, which is light and fresh and leaves a lasting floral scent while eliminating tough dirt, grease, and grime. You can use PineSol Cherry Blossom Multi-Surface Cleaner to help deodorize and clean hard,

• 17:18Craig Robinson?

  non-porous surfaces, including floors, sinks, counters, stoves, bathtubs, shower stalls, tile, and more. Visit pinesol.com to find where to shop PineSol Multi-Surface Cleaner in the new Fresh Cherry Blossom scent.

• 17:41Craig Robinson?

  So I'm sorry, Meech, but I

• 17:44Michelle Obama?

  I love Meech.

• 17:46Craig Robinson?

  Yeah, right?

• 17:46Michelle Obama?

  Sorry, Meech. Yes.

• 17:49Craig Robinson?

  I'm in control here.

• 17:53Craig Robinson?

  This is a perfect time to segue into our question. And our producer Natalie is gonna read the question and then we're gonna react to it. So.

• 18:03Michelle Obama?

  Natalie. What's up, Nat Nat?

• 18:07Speaker 03

  Hi, Michelle and Craig. My name is Noel and I'm 36 years old. My whole career, I've had one dream, to write a cookbook. Since college, I've worked single-mindedly towards doing this. I've written for food magazines, become an in-house recipe developer. I worked as a cheesemonger. I've even become a food stylist to help other people realize their own cookbook dreams. In the midst of it all, I've also been scheming up and dreaming my cookbook. Until recently, though, it really felt like it would never happen. And then bam, I got a book deal. My first cookbook will come out late next year. So you might be wondering, what's the problem? That's my question to you. After years of working towards one thing, I found myself oddly unhappy now that I've achieved it.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  I don't feel I've made enough progress in the rest of my life. I've made very little money. I don't have the house I hoped I'd have, or the relationship I thought I might. I fear I've given up so much for one thing and I'm really not sure it feels worth it. I'm deeply aware of what I don't have and I feel a bit overwhelmed by the rest of my life. Getting this cookbook to the finish line on time and within budget, trying to earn more money, staying healthy, trying to date, you get the picture. In short, I don't feel encouraged and proud, or like I've succeeded as an adult. I feel tired and anxious. Have you ever felt this way? Do you have any advice on how I can reframe my mindset to focus on the good,

• 19:33Speaker 03

  embrace what I do have, and move forward with a little more optimism for the future? Maybe even find a little gratitude for what I have accomplished? Any insights would help. Thanks, Noel.

• 19:46Craig Robinson?

  Well, that is a lot. Yeah, that was heartbreaking.

• 19:50Michelle Obama?

  It is.

• 19:51Craig Robinson?

  I'll, I'll open it up to you folks. I mean.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  I think I maybe have had one experience like that. Um, and it's because you attach all these expectations to it. You know what I mean? Like, it's one thing to say, I want to achieve this for me. And then there's another thing to say, I want to achieve something because I'm expecting all of this to come with it. You know how you can think about, well, once I get da-da-da, I'm gonna have this, I'm gonna have that, I'm gonna have that. And then you kind of continue to push the goalposts for yourself. So I remember when I did Akil and the Bee, um, everybody kept saying, this movie is gonna be a hit. This movie's gonna bu- bust it out. This is gonna, you're gonna be a star. And like, it's such an elusive thing, but what's a star? You know what I mean?

• 20:29Craig Robinson?

  Yeah, right.

• 20:29Michelle Obama?

  And. And how old were you then?

• 20:31Speaker 00

  I was 11.

• 20:32Michelle Obama?

  11.

• 20:32Speaker 00

  And they were like, this is hu- I'm like.

• 20:34Michelle Obama?

  It's like, really, whatever that is.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  I guess I'll be Michael Jackson now. You know, like, it was like huge. And then the movie came in and did so terrible in the box office.

• 20:44Michelle Obama?

  Although that was one of my favorite movies.

• 20:45Speaker 00

  And then, and then the funny thing about it is like, over time, it grew to be my most popular film. And the thing that people most know me for, but I use that as, as an example in this is because our life is made up of many moments. It's not ma- like, our, our legacy is not just that one thing we did.

• 21:02Michelle Obama?

  Okay, Kiki.

• 21:03Speaker 00

  You know, it's the many things that we did. And so like, Akil and the Bee was always there for people to come to and remember my work. And it grew over time amongst all the things I did. But I remember feeling in that moment being like, everybody lied to me. You know what I mean? I, I felt like when my mom told me I was gonna be a big girl at five, I still didn't get big. I was like, now wait a minute, I'm still shorter than y'all.

• 21:23Michelle Obama?

  It sounds like big girl just means I can't be a baby.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 21:27Michelle Obama?

  This don't seem right.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  And that's how I felt with the Akil thing. And so, but what I learned and what I never did to myself after that was to expect an outcome, to be proud of the work, to be happy that I got the job or the thing that I wanted to get or did the, but not to, not to make it mean that. It is only that.

• 21:45Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 00

  If I receive a certain achievement. No, it's that to me. And that has to be enough. So that's the one thing I thought about when that happened.

• 21:53Michelle Obama?

  So that makes me think, I mean, I share this all the time. I mean, I went to Princeton Harvard Law because I thought I was gonna be a lawyer and a corporate lawyer. I didn't know anything about what a lawyer did. I didn't come, our family was, we were not professional people. I picked law because it was the next thing to do. I applied, I got into Harvard. You get into Harvard, you go, right? That was the extent of my thinking.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 22:18Michelle Obama?

  Right? And then I got out, I practiced in a firm for two years. And I was like, I, I don't like this at all. I'm not, you know, because corporate law is about, it's, it's papers and briefs, it's research, it's not very people oriented, especially in the, your early years. It just, I had no idea what corporate law was.

• 22:44Speaker 00

  Right.

• 22:45Michelle Obama?

  And I had a, I had wonderful mentors, people supported me. I, I did, I was able to achieve and do good things in that year. But I, I didn't, I didn't know what that felt like. I did not want to be a lawyer.

• 23:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:01Michelle Obama?

  As it turns out, after all that education and all those loans. But to your point, it was, all them loans that we just paid off before Barack went into the White House.

• 23:12Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 23:13Michelle Obama?

  So, I mean, we were carrying debt, you know, for a very long time for me not to be a lawyer. But to your point, I had no idea what that was gonna mean. And what was that, what that was gonna feel like. It was just a goal that I set for myself. I didn't even know what it was based on.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:35Michelle Obama?

  I didn't know my why. I knew my what, but I didn't know my why. And And I could have felt like a failure for it, right? But I didn't. Fortunately, I had parents. I was like, let me try on some other things. Like, to your point, there are chapters in life. That was a chapter. I needed to do that and know that and understand that. And I went on to have many, many chapters, and I'm still glad that I got my law degree. The way I think, you know, how I see the world is very much influenced by that education.

• 24:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 24:09Michelle Obama?

  But it wasn't who I was supposed to be, and there's no way I would have known that had I not tried it and then moved on from it and tried on some other thing.

• 24:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:20Michelle Obama?

  So for Noelle, there are just, that life is about the chapters. You know, it's never any one thing, and to place too much stock or put too much emotion on one or two achievements, it always sets you up for disappointment.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  It's so true.

• 24:37Michelle Obama?

  Because life is bigger than that.

• 24:38Craig Robinson?

  So to not take this into a sports metaphor, which I get accused of all the time.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:46Craig Robinson?

  But it seems to me that in order to be really good at what you do and to be really good at what you do, you can't just, the goal can't just be the goal. You have to enjoy the process. Like, guys who make it into professional athletics, they love to work out.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:10Craig Robinson?

  They love to do the hard stuff. They love to get in the gym. They love to compete when nobody's watching.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:18Craig Robinson?

  And that ends up being, turning into a guy like LeBron or like Michael Jordan. And what I'm finding is that people don't learn how to enjoy the process. Because Noelle's done all this great work that got her to where she is, and she should be loving the fact that she got there.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:41Craig Robinson?

  And she can't because she got there and the goal was...

• 25:46Craig Robinson?

  I do the book and then I get all of this that to your point, Kiki, I get all this stuff that's supposed to come with the book.

• 25:54Speaker 00

  It's because I think that what happens to us sometimes is we focus on the micro goal that is actually servicing the macro goal. Now, I don't know what that is for Noelle and sometimes we don't know, which is why the chapters are important. But let's say, for instance, she just likes to tell stories through food. That's the real goal. To tell stories through food. I can do that through helping people tell their stories through food. I can do that through food styling. And so I think what we often have to do is pull back and say, you know, I talk about this, like, it's not really just that I like to perform. It's that I like to make people believe in something. I like to make them feel inspired, excited, whether that's through Akil and the Bee, having

• 26:36Speaker 00

  a conversation here with y'all, or you and your family getting together, watching Password. The macro goal, the real goal that I'm servicing that never has an ending, is to just make people believe and feel good and inspired. So I think that's another thing that I hear with Noelle is like, that's the micro goal was to do this thing.

• 26:54Michelle Obama?

  The book.

• 26:55Speaker 00

  The book. The micro goal was to do the book, but the macro goal, you gotta really identify that to yourself and that helps you to know that I'm going in the right direction. You feel that you're being of service to that macro goal, even when these micro goals go in the random directions that you didn't expect because you know you're still servicing that real thing.

• 27:14Michelle Obama?

  But this is why I want, you know, this piece of advice is for Noelle, but it's also for parents out there. It's for teachers, it's for the people who work with young people. You know, I think we put too much emphasis on titles and salaries and stuff like that. I mean, you know, one reason why I said I wanted to be a lawyer was because when you say that out loud and you were a little kid, the adults' responses are always, "Oh, that's so wonderful," right? Like, they don't even know what that is. It's like, "It sounds good." You know, "I want my daughter to be a lawyer."

• 27:52Speaker 00

  That's so true.

• 27:54Michelle Obama?

  So we're constantly... Only giving feedback to kids subtly and directly about what makes for a good life, what makes for a good career choice, what makes you a good person. And a lot of times it's tied to what's your title? What's your salary? What school did you go to? What's that name school? And we're sending those subtle messages. So now you become Noel and you've been all throughout your life pursuing these little applause lines that you get from adults that are a sign that this is good. Oh, you want to write a book? Oh, that sounds impressive, right? Guess I want to write a book, you know? Mom reacted pretty well to that.

• 28:39Michelle Obama?

  So now I see young people getting caught at going after words, titles, things, right? A salary. I want to be rich. I want to be this name thing. And that keeps them from understanding their macro because they're not spending time thinking about who am I?

• 29:00Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 29:00Michelle Obama?

  And what do I want to be in life? Because when I had to transition out of law, that was the first time when I decided at that stage, after all that debt, I don't want to be a lawyer. Now I have to do the hard work of figuring out, well, who do I want to be? Because no one, none of my degrees taught me to even think like that. No one had ever asked those questions. I was getting A's and awards and all that, but nobody ever said, who is Michelle? And who, who do you want to be in the world? So I had to do that work on my own and start meeting with different people and hearing about different jobs and careers because I was even limited to going to the best schools in the country. I was shown like 10 careers I could be of all the things in the world, you know?

• 29:45Speaker 00

  How did you discover? How did you get yourself to that answer? I'm curious.

• 29:49Michelle Obama?

  I started doing, I started meeting with people. I started thinking, I had to start thinking outside of the box. Like, what do I enjoy?

• 29:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:58Michelle Obama?

  And it went back to kids and inspiring. It went back to mentoring. And it's like, I, I get my most fulfillment. I wake up and pop out of bed when I'm, when I'm gonna sit down with another young person who was like me.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  Ugh.

• 30:13Michelle Obama?

  And I could like, share with them some secrets, some things I learned to help make their life a little bit easier. Cause I know just how many young people just don't know.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  And you really do that.

• 30:24Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 30:25Speaker 00

  And it is really, I, I don't wanna just, I mean, I know we're hearing it, I'm not being biased, but you really do that. And it means so much to us.

• 30:34Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  Especially when you talk about, you know, family and unity. I think that's something that our generation is really struggling with right now. Not trying to speak for everybody, but.

• 30:42Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 30:42Speaker 00

  We just don't know how to be a we. We don't always understand.

• 30:47Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  How to get from challenges to peace. It's like, everything is like, well, challenges came, we gone. And it's like.

• 30:55Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  I'm sure sometimes that's important to do.

• 30:59Michelle Obama?

  Yeah.

• 30:59Speaker 00

  But when you speak about your family, how you've gotten to where you are and, and you always talk about, there were challenges.

• 31:05Michelle Obama?

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 31:06Speaker 00

  But you, what you get on the other side of going through that.

• 31:10Michelle Obama?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:11Speaker 00

  Is what you're looking for.

• 31:20Craig Robinson?

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• 34:47Michelle Obama?

  But before you can understand the "we," you have to understand the "me." You know, like, I had to take some time to really understand my, I'll use your, my macro. Yeah. What did I care about? What, what, how do I want to be in the world? How do I want to impact people? And so, from there, really sort of saying to myself, "Well, my joy comes from giving and working with other people and working with young people. That's really my joy." Right? And then, now, like, what are the careers I can do with that? Who are the people that do this? And their teachers is like, "I don't know if I want to be in a classroom, have some conversations with professors." I started talking to people at universities because young adults were there.

• 35:31Michelle Obama?

  I met with deans of students. I wrote to presidents of universities. Northwestern, I wrote to the president of the University of Chicago. I was just making this stuff up. And I sent letters saying, "This is who I am. I'm a young attorney. I went to these schools. I'd love to come and talk to you." And I got a lot of no's, but I got a handful of yeses. And I remember meeting with the head of Corporation Counsel for the University of Chicago. I'll never forget Art Sussman, who has passed. He just said, "I would love to meet with you," because he was an attorney. And I sat down, took time off of lunch, went, met with him, talked about the university and all the things that you can do there.

• 36:15Michelle Obama?

  And then he introduced me to Susan Scher, who eventually became my Chief of Staff as First Lady. Wow! She was working in the mayor's office as Corporation Counsel. Eventually, she introduced me to Valerie Jarrett. Who then hired me to work in the city. These are people who are now all my longtime friends. But this all came from me trying to find out my me. And through it, I met all these strangers. None of these people knew me.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  But it built to this story.

• 36:45Michelle Obama?

  And I started trying on other things. I just tried on other careers. I worked for the city in planning and development. I worked in the mayor's office. I started, I started a nonprofit organization working with young people. All of this stuff built and all those different careers and experiences started helping me understand my, my me, right? And I, I just want to wrap it up by saying, that point by saying, we've got to find a way as parents and teachers to make that a part of the process of deciding who and what you want to be. And it has to involve some exploration. And instead of keeping the aperture of possibility for kids open

• 37:30Michelle Obama?

  and not asking them to narrow it so, so much so that they only start, they focus on the wrong things.

• 37:37Speaker 00

  Yes, and comparing.

• 37:38Michelle Obama?

  And get confused about what hap, true happiness is. Um, so.

• 37:44Craig Robinson?

  Yeah, no, that's so. Let's try and give Noelle some advice to, because I'm hearing from both of it. This, this macro thing is, is, is something to really grab on to. How can we help Noelle find her macro?

• 38:01Speaker 00

  That's a really good question. I always do personal prompts, like what she was just saying. You know, is ask myself, write down, ask myself a question that I would ask someone else. What makes me happy? How does food service that? How can I be of service? To me, a good way to find your, your macro is, I think, always of a point of view of service. I truly believe that we all feel most purposeful when we are being serviced to something else. You think that it's when you're getting, when you're receiving accolades, but actually it's when you're giving stuff out. And so I would ask myself, how do I feel like I can best be of service? What makes me happy? And how does food play a part in those, those things?

• 38:43Speaker 00

  That would be my, my first three, just to throw something out there to help lead her there.

• 38:47Michelle Obama?

  I, I would also want Noelle to think about. What does happiness mean? What does that mean? Mm-hmm. Right? Because I also notice among young people, because I mentor a lot of young people,

• 39:02Michelle Obama?

  that the expectations of life are outsized.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 39:08Michelle Obama?

  I mean, I just think-

• 39:09Speaker 00

  It is true.

• 39:09Michelle Obama?

  I think there is, we have a generation of young people in their twenties who think that the goal is their personal happiness, period. Like, and that is just not life, you know?

• 39:24Speaker 00

  It's not.

• 39:24Michelle Obama?

  You know, I mean, service is a better goal than happiness. Because, you know, life is full of bumps and bruises. And if we, if we're teaching young people that it's all about happiness, because Noelle has been, she's been chasing some false belief of happiness. Like, there's a place that you land, where the land is forever happy, and there is never a bump. And I, I hear that that's part of her disappointment.

• 39:53Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 39:53Michelle Obama?

  Because she's waiting for the thing to be perfect.

• 39:56Speaker 00

  I think that's also a big thing when you, when we're talking about the generation and just how we're all growing through this phase. There is a reality that I think has to hit us all, that discomfort is a part of life.

• 40:06Michelle Obama?

  It is a part of life.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  Like, this period that Noelle is also in is like, that may just be the vibe right now.

• 40:12Michelle Obama?

  That's right. It's like, you, right? You achieved a thing, and now you had a, you had a high with it, you celebrated it, and now it levels back off.

• 40:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 40:21Michelle Obama?

  So now, dude, does Noelle know how to deal with level? Does she know how to, does she know how to exist when life is just life?

• 40:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:30Michelle Obama?

  You know? And I talk to my girls about this all the time. It's like, learn to be-

• 40:36Speaker 00

  Satisfied. My mom says it to me, too.

• 40:38Michelle Obama?

  Where this was a thing that our parents said, this is another Midwestern Chicago South that- Never satisfied. Never satisfied. I mean, we didn't have anything, but the, the minute we acted like we weren't appreciating what was on our plate.

• 40:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:52Michelle Obama?

  It was like, never satisfied. How are you asking for something, and you still have something on your plate? You know? I tell my girls, the greatest gift that they can have, develop for themselves is the ability to be self sat, to be happy where you are, whatever that is.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Content.

• 41:11Michelle Obama?

  To learn how to be like, I, this is not exciting. I'm not winning. I'm not losing. I'm not achieving. I'm not, it's not a party. I don't have friends around every day. It's like, most of life is just, is the nothing in the middle.

• 41:28Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 41:29Michelle Obama?

  And I think this generation, they don't want that, nothing in the middle. You know, when things, when things are just bland, which is, y'all, most of life is just ordinary. You know, you gotta learn how to be happy alone. You gotta be happy, a little bored. You gotta be, you gotta be happy when things are hard. You gotta learn how to be satisfied when you failed. And things don't go your way, because all of that keeps you getting up. But I think there are a lot of young people who are searching for this impossible feeling

• 42:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:03Michelle Obama?

  of continuous happiness.

• 42:06Speaker 00

  I'm curious with you both, because you know, we were talking about the generation, but it's also like, it's like what I was saying, the age I went through of blaming my parents. Okay, this is the age of having to realize that you have to be comfortable in discomfort and everything's not gonna go your way. When you think about you in your early 30s, what, you know, and you're dealing with the new reality of, because that's the thing, is we all are breaking the realities that we thought would be. At 18, I'm grown, okay, and I really, in my 20s, it's fun. Actually, this was terrible. At 30, realizations that I have to contend with. How was it for you guys when you were approaching that and had to come to those realizations? How did you deal?

• 42:42Michelle Obama?

  For, for me.

• 42:43Craig Robinson?

  Go ahead, you go.

• 42:44Michelle Obama?

  You know, what I've, what I've learned now that I'm 60, right? Because there's.

• 42:49Speaker 00

  I know, that's right.

• 42:50Michelle Obama?

  There's, there's wisdom. You know, you look back on your life, you only know what you know. And of course, you thought you were grown at 20. Of course, you thought you knew what you were doing at 30. Of course, that's all you knew. I used to joke with the girls, it's like, when they have some epiphany about life that I was, that I was telling them, it's like, I told you that when you were 10. I've been telling you that, girl. You know, and I'm getting a lot in their twenties, "Wow, Mom, you were right. I didn't even think about that." I was like, just imagine, you just were, you're at your 20, you just now putting together sentences. You know, at 20, you got five years of that, so you couldn't even talk straight, right? You didn't, you know, you were learning how to go to the bathroom on the toilet.

• 43:34Michelle Obama?

  You, you know, life is, like, you're young. You just haven't even been here long enough. And now that I'm, you know, wisdom comes with age.

• 43:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:43Michelle Obama?

  So with wisdom and hindsight, I realized that that is life. Life is becoming. Like, we are always becoming. There is no point in which you stop learning and discovering and you get to a place where, ah, this is it. And, and do you really want that?

• 44:03Speaker 00

  That would be crazy.

• 44:04Michelle Obama?

  That would be crazy. At this stage, I am still becoming. I've learned something new about myself as a woman. I'm more in touch with my, my confidence. I, I know what I know. And I, I feel, I feel more empowered to claim what I know.

• 44:21Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 44:22Michelle Obama?

  I don't doubt myself in the ways that I did in my 40s and 50s, because that's still coming for you, too.

• 44:27Speaker 00

  Yes, I can only imagine. And that's what I'm hearing from you, is literally just to keep living. You know, that just, you know, the expectations and the, you know, I think that's the thing is like, you know, yeah, we're always becoming. I think that was, that's a great way to put that, because yeah, it's never-ending, these realizations that we're gonna have.

• 44:46Craig Robinson?

  And we'll, we'll, we'll leave Noelle with this as we close.

• 44:50Michelle Obama?

  Are we closing already?

• 44:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:52Craig Robinson?

  We're closing, unfortunately. But we want to send Noelle home with, find your macro.

• 44:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 45:01Craig Robinson?

  Stay away from those titles.

• 45:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:03Craig Robinson?

  And keep becoming.

• 45:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:06Craig Robinson?

  Keep becoming.

• 45:06Michelle Obama?

  You better wrap that up. But I also want to remind Noelle and young people that happiness is within your power. It, you know, the happiness, the happiness that she is trying to find in this job, in this book, this whatever, it's not the external achievements, it's...

• 45:25Michelle Obama?

  Are you, are you good with you? When you're all alone and achieving nothing? And nobody's around? Have you learned, Noelle, how to be okay with you? Because that disappointment, you know, the next achievement will happen and it will pass.

• 45:43Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 45:43Michelle Obama?

  You know, the next big thing will come and it will go. And when you are left, what you're left with is yourself. And that's that self-work that I would want Noelle to do. You know, thinking about the prompts of who you are, who you want to be. But I think all young people, you will not find your happiness on a phone, on social media. You won't find it in a salary. You won't find it in a title. You know, you will find it once you figure out what really grounds you. And as you said, Kiki, a lot of times that's serving others. You know? And if Noelle gets out of her head and balances out her achievements with some giving,

• 46:25Michelle Obama?

  you know, I think that she will find more.

• 46:29Speaker 00

  That's, yeah.

• 46:29Michelle Obama?

  More peace. I think that's, I just want to.

• 46:33Craig Robinson?

  No, that's perfect because Noelle's getting it from the young and the not-so-young.

• 46:39Michelle Obama?

  You better watch it.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  I'm on the floor.

• 46:41Michelle Obama?

  You best to watch it.

• 46:43Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh, I love it.

• 46:45Michelle Obama?

  He's the old man at the table.

• 46:46Craig Robinson?

  I'm the old man at the table. Kiki, this has been terrific. We loved having you.

• 46:52Michelle Obama?

  You are so wise. You're such a little old wise.

• 46:54Speaker 00

  Just because I listen to you. That's right. Guys, please let me come back anytime.

• 47:00Craig Robinson?

  Anytime.

• 47:01Speaker 00

  I just need to get the jewels firsthand.

• 47:03Michelle Obama?

  We will find you.

• 47:05Speaker 00

  Because the tea that you just laid on me today.

• 47:07Michelle Obama?

  You had some tea too, some tea with some lemon. And Craig, you had some things to say.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  Well, you know, we are a perfect match, Capricorn and Virgo, and also Taurus. We're all aligned.

• 47:18Michelle Obama?

  This is a good.

• 47:19Craig Robinson?

  I'm glad you think so.

• 47:20Michelle Obama?

  Balanced table. Kiki, I'm so proud of you, girl. I really am. You are showing up in the world and being the role model. You were, you know, you were putting your light out there. And we all feel it.

• 47:35Speaker 00

  It means the world to me. You're an inspiration. I'm so glad to meet you. You're an inspiration as well, both of you.

• 47:40Craig Robinson?

  Well, that's sweet of you. This discussion's not over. We'll have another one.

• 47:44Speaker 00

  Yay!

• 47:44Michelle Obama?

  Yay!

• 47:45Speaker 00

  Your girls come back.

• 47:46Michelle Obama?

  Happy about that. Thank you, babe. Thank you.

• 47:49Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 48:11Craig Robinson?

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