YouSaid · the spoken record

Michelle Obama

lines on the record: 76
first: 2025-05-01
most recent: 2025-05-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And figure out whether it works for me. And so many of us as pleasers, we're trying to give people an answer right away. And it's hard to look someone in the face and say, no. So I think it takes practice, even practice in the wording of it. And then the older you get, the easier it gets. Because guess what you realize? Your no doesn't usually change anyone else's life. You know, they might be disappointed, but guess what? They will find the next, you know, person that they'll ask, the world continues. None of us are that important. And people can deal with a little disappointment every now and then.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's Because we're not naming a who, I think it's the act of practicing setting boundaries, period, right? And I'm having that conversation with my daughters now. I mean, it takes a lot of work to learn how to say no and how not to be people pleasers, which I think they're more of us out there than we'd like to admit. It takes practice and it takes decades of practice. And I am constantly giving my girls tips on how to do it, how to politely do it, how to, you know, how to not jam yourself up, how to not say yes right away, how to take a moment and say, let me think about that. You know, some of a boundary is just saying, wait, I don't have to give you an answer right now. Let me go back and sit in it in the room.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think that needs to be addressed What I will say, you know me now well enough, Stephen, is if I were having problems with my husband, everybody would know about it. And let me tell you. And he would know it, and everybody would know.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What do I want to do in this moment as a box checking? A person who has been box checking her whole life, doing the right thing, Trying to always be an example, always going high. I think now I earned a little bit about, well, how do I feel? Do I want to up in my life and take this trip and leave my peace and my children for this? I didn't have to. That was my choice. I would have never made that choice. I would have always done what I thought was the right thing to do for other people to set an example. And I think I just told myself, I think I've done enough of that. And if I haven't, then I never will. It'll never be enough. So let me start now. This is the perfect time to start. So yeah.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So IMO, in my opinion our podcast is sort of that offering back. It's like, all right, let's keep up the mentoring that we were taught. Let's create our table and be a place where people can come for the little bit of advice and conversation in the same way that you're doing Stephen. It's like when you learn something, the way you hone in on it is that you keep teaching it to other people Right. You said that, right? And so this is sort of helping us continue to by helping others, which is a thing we both get great joy from, that mentoring, just being able to have this conversation here. And maybe somebody's going to get something from it that I missed when I was their age. That brings us joy. It's like we're here for a reason other than making a bunch of money and living a nice life or being famous. It's like maybe we can help somebody.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm sure I have more than he does because he doesn't process stuff. He just keeps working through it. But yeah, yeah. I think I've for me. Making Choices for me. I feel like now I have permission to do what I want to do. I think part of our podcast is part of that legacy. Because at least for me as a woman, I think at 61, I'm finally owning my wisdom in a way that I don't, you know, I think it takes women until we're about 60 to be like, I think I know a thing or two. But that wisdom comes from her and she was our last line of elder wisdom. And so now we're up. We're next up, believe it or not. Me and Craig and our family, we're the ones.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She's there she is there. I see it in his face more. You know how you don't see yourself in your, like I don't think I look like him at all, but he looks just like my mother, right?”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For me she continued to be that place to land, you know, the place where she always saw me, always saw who I was. And she was that soft place for our girls. She was common sense right in the middle of the White House, you know, in that big house people, you know, just with her sheer presence and her wisdom, you know, that old-fashioned wisdom. She was the center of that house. Everyone came to her door and sat in her room and sucked up her wisdom. The butlers, the you know, the florists, the housekeepers, the chefs, you know, they were all mothered in some way by her. And so she was that for me, for sure.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People in power who want power and have an understanding their why can lead us down some dark tunnels, right? But it's that empathy for me, that ability to kind of give it some perspective that allows me not to take all that hate in and to really, you know.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Saw it, we experienced it as much hatred or conflict or ridicule. We had so much love, so much goodwill, you know, so many people who tell us even today we miss you guys. And it doesn't look like any, you'd be surprised at what corners of the world and our daughters felt it and feel it, right? That is true too. We are in a really tough time right now and we are being led sadly by people who are not being, in my opinion, their best selves for whatever reasons they have, whatever is moving them to push this country in this direction, whatever hurts they have, billionaires have their hurts too. You know, business leaders.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're not mad at me, you don't understand a lot about the world, and you've been told a lot of things about who people of my skin color are. You've been taught to fear me because of the history of our country, because of what you're going through. And when you put yourself in other people's shoes, I do get why people are afraid. I do understand it. And also Borak helps me remember, which I experienced myself, you know, he says, this is still the country that elected Barack Obama twice, you know, and people in this country are proud of that. There is a very small percentage of people who would never, ever in their lifetime want a black man to tell them how to get down the street to the grocery store, right? They can't hear it. But this country is bigger than that, right?”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it usually doesn't have anything to do with us. You know, it has to do with The state of the world. way more people than it is fair to, and it impacts people of all races. And folks are angry and they're scared and they don't have enough opportunity. And when people are put in that position, they lash out. They're mean. That's when we otherwise people because it gives us a sense of stability. We pick on someone. Someone has to be a little more oppressed than us. But that doesn't make what they say or feel true. You know, that's, you know, just because you say it or think it about me and the way that I had to overcome the racist low expectations of us in our childhood. It's the same thing. It's like.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And yourself how does one deal with such scrutiny? The scrutiny occurs for eight years as the public are at war with different opinions and ideas and often the president is seen as the villain or the hero in that context and the family is obviously impacted by that. But then even beyond the White House, it's relentless. Is there a framework? Is there an underlying belief? Is there a set of values? You know, it goes back to what we learned earlier. I think I approach everything with empathy. And Barack does too. And he helps keep me in check because he is so smart and he believes in ideas and he understands context and history. You know, we are always putting these times, these moments into greater context. We're trying to understand where people's rage, ignorance, hatred, whatever it is, where it comes from.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely Since stepping reluctantly into I've been held up as the most powerful woman in the world and taken down as an angry black woman. I've wanted to ask my detractors which part of that phrase matters to them the most. Is it angry or black or woman? smiled for photos with people who call my husband horrible names on national television, but still one a framed keepsake for their mantle Heard about the swampy parts of the internet that question everything about me right down to whether I'm a woman or man sitting US congressman has made fun of my butt. I've been hurt I've been furious but mostly I've tried to laugh the stuff off.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What living under those things and trying to raise small children, you know, the kind of things that the guys in the West Wing weren't thinking about as they were fixing the financial crisis and dealing with Syria and on and on and on, I was trying to make sure that our kids came out of that process not crazy and whole.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, the girls had to have a detail, right? So they started school in second grade and fifth grade in armed cars with primarily men with guns going into a new school. Strangers that they did not know. And the detail these weren't practiced on going to Sidwell's second grade school yard. So we had to basically work on how do you do this for little kids, you know? So a lot of times details just flood through. They continuously move through. It was important for me that we find too detailed leaders that stayed with the girls for most of their time until they became teenagers because it was sort of like You know these people, right? At least they get to know they couldn't just have strange men coming through out. And we had to kind of fight for that. So that's just one example of the”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think about maybe there's some world where people knew more about this thing than we did to understand the impacts, but there are also generational differences. I was a very different First Lady, not terribly different from Hillary Clinton, but it was a different time. We had small kids in the White House and that didn't happen often. There were just accommodations and ways that the West Wing did not think about or work to fully protect all of us in the process as a unit. And so if I had known what I knew now, I would have asked for different things, but I ultimately I had pushed to get the things that we needed to be able to operate as a family, even when it came down to how the Secret Service protected little...”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I should have Said that I needed. His team To really truly value that he had a family. That I shouldn't have just said, well, this is what it takes to get this done. I mean, it was almost like the consultants that sit around. It was almost like this is the way it has to be. And remember, the legacy of presidential office doesn't recognize families. It is not designed, you know. You get in there and it all revolves around the commander in chief who has always been a man. And the whole system of it doesn't really take into account that there's a wife and kids and their needs and the demands on them. So I wound up having to fight for a lot of stuff on my own. So if I had known these things and maybe Laura Bush knew more than I did because the bushes had been in the White House, maybe, you know.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For my father went back on the best sellers list, he wrote audacity of hope, you know, so there was all this income that was being generated from his book sales. And he kind of looked at me like, I think we're okay. And I'm like, darn drats. So I didn't know enough to know what to ask for. I mean, we were flying blind. I didn't know what that journey was going to be and what I would need to negotiate for myself. And that was a bit problematic. It was problematic not to know what I needed.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I, you know, it wasn't very thoughtful. I told him that he definitely had to quit smoking because he was still toying with smoking. He was in it and not in it. And we had to have enough of a nest egg so that, you know, we could, that we wouldn't be just financially broke at the end of it. You know, I thought that that was going to cut it, right? Because we weren't in really, we were just starting to make decision moves where we were recovering the income that we lost making our purposeful move. So I kind of thought that was going to be the deal breaker. But then he was chosen to give the speech at the Democratic National Convention and he just blew up. And as a result of that, and maybe I'm getting it out of order.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Many people don't know, I mean, much is not covered. You're paying for every food, every bit of food that you eat. You're not paying for housing and the staff in it, but everything, even travel, if you're not traveling with the president, if your kids are coming on a bright star, which is the first lady's plane, we have to pay for their travel to be on the plane. It is an expensive proposition and you're running for two years and not earning an income. So all of that was in my mind. How would we manage this? So my fears were came from the fact that I thought he could win, you know, because if I maybe way in the back of my mind, I was hoping that maybe he wouldn't, you know, that this would be the last thing he would do. But I knew he had it in him to make this. Happen”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that was the problem. You know, I knew that in my heart I knew that he would make a phenomenal president. And as I've written in the light, the truth was that my initial reaction was like, oh, no, oh my God, don't do this. It had everything to do with having the foresight of knowing what this would do to our lives. I mean, I was projecting that if you win, which I thought he could and should, he would be somebody that I would want as my president. It was all about, this is going to our kids are little. We're going to have to move. How do you raise kids in the White House? It's dangerous is the first black potential president. We knew there'd be death threats. There was just all the how would we afford it? Because it's expensive to live in the White House.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, there are the moments where I'm like, right? But was it real? No. No, no. There was never really a full moment. There are moments when I was resentful. There were moments when I was mad. There were moments when I didn't feel like I got enough attention. But it's like, don't you feel that in your relationship right now? So it's just me understanding, yeah, I was mad, but I forgot even why I was mad, right? It's like, was I really that mad? Oh, did I say that? I'm sorry. I didn't really mean that. So no, in the end, you know, no, we're, you know, and the beauty of my husband and our partnership is that neither one of us was ever really ever going to quit at it because that's not who we are. And I know that about him. He knows that about me, you know. So no.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People give up too quickly on marriage, right? Because there is so much friction built into the equation. And if you're not getting help talking about it, going to therapy, just understanding how things are changing and how do you continuously renegotiate your relationship with your partner, I just see people quitting because they look at me and Barack and go, hashtag couple goals, you know, and I'm like, it's hard. It's hard for us too. But I wouldn't trade it. He is, as the young people say, he is my person.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Little people with their own sense of everything they mess you up you love them dearly but they're a hassle and they're demanding and they have their own whims and now they're in your world in your partnership they are factored into everything so even when everything works out and you have the 3.2 kids and you got everything right, it's still going to be hard because now you're developing a life, right? So I talk about these things because I think that”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As your partner is going to the gym and keeping his figure and, you know, all of that, you know? So it's a long way of saying there are just many natural reasons why marriage, infertility, trying to have kids. Makes things difficult. It's like I try to tell couples of course it's hard. Just listen to what I said, right? If you're having some issues in your marriage, it's not you. It's the process of marriage. It's just all hard because guess what happens when it all works out right? You know what you end up with?”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“anyone to talk about, having her hormones go up and down literally, right, probably dealing with depression and maybe some postpartum still working, still slaying dragons, still on the path, but she's carrying it all on her own, and then if you do IVF, the bulk of the work, the shots, the we are the petri dish in the IVF process. You show up, you come in a cup, and oh yeah, good for you, right? And you're a little mad about that too, because women have to get shots every week. And you have to go back and forth in between having your job, your high powered job, and keeping it all together. You're at the doctor's office every month trying to count your eggs and hoping that you're producing eggs, and then you have to go through the procedure. And then you have to be pregnant for nine months.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh try a little bit, and then now it's time for IVF if you can afford it, which it wasn't covered by insurance at the time. So, you know, it's just a shock to the system. You know that why is this such a secret? Which is why I talk about it openly and I talk about miscarriages because the other thing I learned is like most pregnancies a good percentage of them end in miscarriage that people have been having miscarriages for years but not talking about it so when it happens to you a box checker somebody that thought life was going to be so and you did all the right things to have things not work out and to know that it was going to be that way and nobody told you so that you could be prepared for it it just it was a blow and then as a woman you're walking around owning the blow as if it's your fault and so you're carrying around that burden and that can become the first pressure point in a marriage because emotionally you've got a woman that is carrying all of this feeling like a failure feeling not having”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why wasn't people talking about this? So by the time we started really trying, which worked perfectly for our careers in maturing and having everything set, right? Because that's what we're trying to get everything set. Unlike our parents who, you know, had us. We lived in a little bitty apartment, one income. Our generation were worrying about, I want everything set. I guarantee you have things way more set than any of our parents had before they started having kids. But we're waiting for everything to be perfect, no friction. We don't want any friction, right? And while we're waiting for our lives to be perfect, that biological clock is ticking. So you start trying and it's not working. That's when you go to the doctor and they tell you, oh, you're running out of eggs. This is normal. I mean, you're going to have trouble getting pregnant.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And every month we're losing them, and so there is a period of time, usually, and it's different for everyone, usually in your thirties where you go from fertile to not. And it's like falling off of a cliff. And I'm like, why didn't anybody tell me this”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because the thing because we don't talk about our bodies and women's health and there's just not a lot of conversation about marriage or pregnancy or any of this. Our parents don't talk about it. Their parents before them don't talk about it. So you imagine your life as you're checking boxes. I'm waiting. I've delayed having kids. I found the love of my life and now I'm going to get pregnant. And no one tells you that there is really a biological clock. Like that's not false. You know, we have partner and podcast doctor Sharon Malone who wrote a book Grown Woman Talk where she's talking. She's sort of ripping the curtain off of women's health questions. And in a conversation with her, she reminded us that women we are born with a finite set of eggs. And we don't get any more.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, because I didn't know that that was the thing that you had to worry about because when you're in the midst of it, when you're in the midst of pursuing your own independent journeys, it's beautiful, right? It is. It's like I'm independent. He's independent. We get along. And then all of a sudden someone's legs are cut off from under them, you know, someone is making a different set of sacrifices that wasn't negotiated because of children. Because of children, because of life.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“breastfeeding or she made a set of choices to make this little creature work and you guys haven't had a conversation about that and what that balance looks like because you're just slaying your dragon at the same rate Oh, there's going to be problems. There's going to be resentment. There's going to be fatigue. There's going to be measuring and counting and all the things. So I think it's just important to communicate now, to start doing the work of making sure that you guys are defining your one life together, that you're deciding together now what dragons are going to be slain. Who gets to do what when you know? And what does that feel like? You know, are you going to be working all the time? Are you going to be traveling all the time on the road? Is she coming with you? How does she feel about that?”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, because you know when you're independent operators in the world, you know, he's off, he's traveling, I'm traveling, you know, maybe I don't see him during the week. And then on Saturday, whoa, it's great. I love you. I missed you. This was so cool. Tell me about your life. And oh, this is, and it's sexy and it's all of this, right? And you're moving and, you know, and you also are okay having a break. It's like, let me miss you for a little bit. So I don't care that you're traveling or that you're everywhere. But the minute there's a little baby that is waking someone up, and if there's one person that's carrying the burden of that, you know, if one person's dream stops because they're taking on the lion's share of things and you're still going to the gym and you're still slaying your dragons at the same rate and you haven't looked over at your partner who maybe is now stuck at home because she's”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you bring life into the world, you know, that's the project where you can't do that independently. You can't be on one path and your partner on another because raising those kids and making them as whole as you'd want them to be has so little to do with the dragon you're slaying now than it does with how you partner and engage and make choices together on these little creatures that you're going to love more than anything in the world and you're not going to want to get that project wrong, but you've got to work with your partner. You've got to communicate. And that's when it gets really hard.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For somebody with your personality in particular, my advice would be that You know, I could see you thinking, you know, if I've got my stuff together and I've got my path going over here and you've got your path going over on over there, you know, as long as we're both trudging along, you know, and pushing, we're going to be good. And generally, that can work because you can be too independent beings out there with basically slaying your own dragons, right? Making the choices about which dragons you slay and how, you know, how much armor you want to use, you know, you're independent people. And that feels good right now until your first and most important joint project happened, which you told me you want. You have kids, right? That's oftentimes when the rub happens because when you”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Million jobs, and we were cobbling together our payments for student loans at the time, which were more than our mortgage we had bought a condominium. We were on our way to building our lives together, but we were in deep debt. So while we were both pursuing our deep love of being in the community, our incomes were going in the opposite direction of where they were supposed to go. But we were in this together, you know. Politics hadn't really come into the fold yet. It wasn't a part of the conversation. But we were both kind of on these parallel paths, kind of figuring out how do we take all these skills and all this energy and help people. I was working in the city. He was working everywhere else and writing a book. And we were just kind of, you know, we were sort of plotting ahead.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The president of the Harvard Law Review basically the world of law is open to you. The normal path is that you clerk for an appellate judge for a year or two and then you go on to clerk for the Supreme Court. Then you go on to do a pellet work. You have offers from every law firm. You are in demand or you can do policy or whatever. That was the normal path. I was like, so are you going to clerk? He was like, why would I clerk? So he didn't work at any of the big firms. He went to a very small firm that was doing public interest work. So he wasn't making a lot of money. He was doing what I was doing. He was going the opposite direction of all the things that were supposed to make us money. But he was like, money isn't why I'm doing this. I'm trying to figure out how I can best use my skills to impact the most people. So he was doing...”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, by then he was he had written his book because he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. The president of the Harvard Law Review is the top student at the top law school in the world. And he was the first black student to be elected president of the Harvard Law Review. And that garnered a lot of attention for him. We were dating at the time. And so he got a book contract to write a story, Dreams for My Father, which I thought was, who writes a book at your age, right? You know, but he was like, yeah, I might as well tell his story. And, you know, and it was money, right? He got in advance and we were engaged, so he was working on that project, but he was still trying to figure out what he was going to do. And when you're”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To do if you were anyone who had an opportunity to get an Ivy League education, that was really all they talked about. That's all they showed you. You know, there wasn't a course or a major in helping people. There wasn't a course on working with young kids. You know, there's no major for that, especially in the Ivy Leagues. So I knew nothing about the nonprofit world. I knew nothing about NGOs.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What brought me joy and of all the things that I was doing in my life, what was the thing when I had it on my calendar that I would jump out of bed for that would change my way I felt about the day and it always had to it went back to mentoring because while I was doing all this stuff in law in my education I was always finding ways to help younger kids understand how to get here. So it was the mentoring piece that Craig mentioned. You know, we never talked about that when we think about our parents. That brought me absolute joy. I started really trying to listen to that self-interested part of me. You know, it's like, what made me happy? I never asked myself that. I always did what I thought I was supposed to do and making money was one of the things that you were supposed to do.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had no idea because I didn't know anything, but I started with what I had to spend some time thinking, journaling about what did I care about”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“down Michigan Avenue north, so we walked hand in hand, talked slowly, and then we went and had dinner on top of Lake Point Tower, which was a beautiful view of the city. And then we, I think, end of the evening watching going to Spike Lee's do the right thing. So, I mean, he had planned, you know, culture, you know, art, lovely stroll. And slowly I was like, okay, maybe I spoke too soon, you know, maybe there is something more here. But yes, that's a long way of saying I did say no for a good month or two. But by the end of the summer, we were, I think, it was that summer. By the end of the summer I was introducing him to my family.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And after a couple of outings, he said, well, why don't we go out? And I was like, no way, are we going to go out? That's just not going to happen. We are friends. And he was sort of like, huh, well, why? And he made the case. I said, well, you know, I don't think it looks right. And he said, who cares about how it looks? And so he made his Barack Obama case over a couple of weeks. And finally, I was like, okay, we'll go out on one date. And so he planned after that it was over. It was a full day date where he pulled out all the stops. I'm sure I picked him up because I had the nice car. And we went to the art institute where he showed me his suave, you know, view of art. And we had lunch at the museum. And then we walked from the art institute.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That first day, and we talked for like hours. And I knew that we were going to be friends. He was smart, he was funny, had a good sense of humor, didn't take himself too seriously. So we clicked right off the bat. And over the course of the summer we actually became really good friends. I was even trying to introduce him to some of my friends, my girlfriends, saying, there's this really cute guy who's my advisor, because in my mind, there wasn't any way that the few black associates there who both went to Harvard were going to date. In my mind, I was like, that's going to be tacky. That's expected, right? And I was just sort of into doing what wasn't, not doing the expected, right? So my mind went somewhere else. I was like, ah, meet all these wonderful, beautiful women that I know, you know?”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, because Barack was, I was assigned to be his advisor. And that didn't mean I was his boss, but every, I was a first-year associate, so they tried to pair first years sort of with new summer associates just to help get them acclimated and to kind of give them advice to sort of mentor them for the summer. So I was his mentor, right? So he comes in, he's late. So I'm thinking, okay, this guy's trifling because we didn't in the Robinson family, we didn't do late. But he was raining and he didn't have an umbrella, and so he was a little wet. So I was a little annoyed, but he stood up and he was tall and he was more handsome than his picture. So I sort of thought, oh, okay, and not what I expected. So I took him around the office, got him settled into his office, took him out to lunch for the...”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's one of those just sort of Michelle's so hard on men, you know. So it's like, yeah, you know, she was hard. I brought him home. And I think there was one other boyfriend that you met, even though I had plenty of boyfriends. I just, you know, I had met more.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I thought I have to do something more before I settle on this. And I think Barack helped give me the courage, you know, he was the person in my ear that said Why would you want to just stop here and settle on this career when there's so much out there that you haven't tried, right? You can do this. And I was like, but I'm loaded down with debt. And right around that time, we knew we were going to be together. We knew we were going to be engaged. And he was like, we'll figure that out. He's like, don't settle on becoming a partner at a law firm because of money. You know, it's like, you need to see the world in a different way. And we'll figure this out together. And so I started swerving. I started trying other things in life and never looked back.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But she travelled the world. She didn't go to business school right away, and I always thought you gotta get your life together, you've got to be on a path. And I thought, thank God she didn't do that because she didn't know she was going to die.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sidly and Austin in that period of time, we lost our father. He died very suddenly. One of my best friends from college, Suzanne, died of lymphoma. And it was sudden. She was diagnosed in December and she died in May. Really the first time in my life were people that weren't expected to die died. You know, we had lost grandparents and great-grandparents. And I was really having kind of an existential crisis sitting on the forty seventh floor of my beautiful office with a secretary and a sob in the garage, thinking why me here rather than Suzanne because she was, that friend was also the dreamer, the person who wasn't box checking. She went to Princeton.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT