April 10, 2025 • 43 mins
BA Fam, I'm excited to share a new show from my friends at Higher Ground, hosted by thee Michelle Obama, called IMO. On IMO, Michelle and her big brother Craig Robinson aim to bring you the same: Candid perspectives on the everyday questions shaping our lives, relationships and the world around us. Each week, they’re joined by a guest to tackle real questions from real folks just like you offering practical advice, personal storytelling, and plenty of laughs. And a lot of their questions are about dating and relationships. Michelle and Craig share stories about being there for each other throughout their lives, from first crushes and fraught college years, to landing at the White House, to losing their mom. For six decades they’ve been each others’ most trusted counsel—and now, they want to be that counsel for you. In this episode, Keke Palmer joins Michelle and Craig when a listener 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 failure contributed to her career. They all describe how their perspectives on meaningful work have changed over the years—and the advice that Michelle’s girls are finally starting to listen to. You can hear more episodes of IMO at https://lnk.to/imomichellecraigBN
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey, Hey, ba fam, it's Mandy here, and now I'm
dropping into the feeds with something a little bit different
but also really freaking exciting. Y'all may have heard a
new show from my friends at Higher Ground, which is
hosted by the Michelle Obama. The show is called IMO
or in my opinion, so y'all know, I'm brown ambition.
We are all about giving actionable advice so y'all can
(00:30):
achieve your biggest goals, always with a little bit of humor.
While on IMO, Michelle and her big brother Craig Robinson
aim to bring you the same. Now, I'm actually a
huge fan of IMO before Higher Ground even emailed me.
And the fact I'm low key freaking out because this
possibly means that Michelle Obama knows who I am, or
(00:50):
like one of her interns or someone on her table,
Oh my god, very exciting. But I was already listening
to her show, y'all. I have loved the episodes that
she has had with My girl is Sa Ray with
Jay Shetty, and on this preview you're going to get
to hear a taste of their incredible conversation with Keiky Palmer,
and I remember listening to this episode myself and just
(01:13):
thinking that, Wow, the combination of Michelle and Kiki together,
the amount of wisdom these two carrier. She really matched
Michelle Jem for Jem. Y'all, what you got to know
about IMO is that each week it's not just Michelle
and Craig. They also welcome a guest who tackle a
real question from real folks like you, and they offer
(01:33):
practical advice, personal storytelling, and yeah, lots of laughs and giggles.
Michelle and Craig open up and they share stories throughout
their lives, from their first crushes to their college years,
to landing at the White House, to how they're coping
with the grief of losing their beloved mother, and for
six decades they have been each other's most trusted counsel.
(01:55):
Y'all know, I love my baby brother so much, and
the relationship between these two siblings, it just gives me
so much hope and gives me so much heart, and
I feel so warm and fuzzy about it because I
hope that that's the kind of relationship I can continue
to build and grow with my siblings as well. And
now they're here sharing their gems with us. So, like
(02:17):
I said in this episode, Keky Palmer joined Michelle and
Craig when a listener asked, how do I feel so
bad after a big career? Win don't forget. You can
find more episodes of I M O wherever you get podcasts.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So I remember when I did A Kill and the Bee.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Everybody kept saying, this movie is going to be a hit,
this movie's gonna bust it out, this is you won't
be a star, and like it's such an elusive thing.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
What's the star?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
You know?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And how old were you?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Then?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I was eleven and.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
They were like, this is it's like whatever that is
Michael Jackson, you know, like it was like and then
the movie came in and did so chear the box office.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I thought that was one of my favorite movies.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
And then and then I think about it, like over
time it would be my most popular film and the
thing that people most know me for. But I use
that as an example in this is because our life
is made up of many moments. It's not made like
our legacy is not just that one thing we did
any you know, many things that we did, And so
like aquilaing the Bee was always there for people to
(03:25):
come to and remember my work, and it grew over
time amongst all the.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Things I did. But I remember feeling in that moment
being like everybody lied to me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I felt like when my mom told me I was
gonna be a big girl at five, I still didn't
get big.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I was like, now, wait a minute, I'm still it
sounds like big girl just means I can't be a baby. Hey, exactly. Well, hello,
hi Craig. How are you welcome you back to my world?
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Even though I didn't stay at your.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Place, you know, and that you got a lot of
nerve coming into DC and you didn't even stay with
me because you're all trying to be Airbnb friendly.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Let me tell you. I would normally stay with my
sister and h but this time I stayed at a
really nice place. Okay, And I was going to go
for a walk this morning, but I was so excited
about our guest today that I was preparing all morning long.
And we're going to be talking about dreams, and you know,
(04:35):
it made me think of when we were little. Did
you have a dream? Did you know what you wanted
to do?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I thought I did.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
When I would be asked, probably around the age of ten,
I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
I remember you remember, Oh yeah, I was wondering if
you remember, because I thought you were going to say
lawyer or something I was going to know.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
But yes, the lawyer didn't come until after I realized
that I was not talented at chemistry or math.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
You know, that's what you can be a ten. You
can dream.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
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, I could save lives. And then
I went to high school and chemistry kind of threw
me for I didn't like science.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
So the problem with you and science is you didn't
like it because you were a good student in every subject.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I could get grades.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
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, now I'll do something else.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
But that was my dream. What about you?
Speaker 5 (05:42):
So I'm going to see if you remember this. 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.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Do you remember that it was like race car. I
was going to say pilot.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
No, no, it wasn't pilot because folks weren't on planes
like that.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
I wanted to be a NASCAR or Indie car driver.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
That's why you love Formula One.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
See it is. But do you remember how I got
talked out of it by Missus Thompson, my second grade team.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Now what did she say?
Speaker 5 (06:19):
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,
(06:39):
with all those brains, all you want to do is
be a race car driver. Oh see, Missus Thompson shamed
me out of it. See that's what I'm talking. But
as it turned out, you grow to be six six,
you can't be a race car driver.
Speaker 6 (06:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
She didn't know that.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
She didn't know it and the fact and she didn't
also know that race car drivers make a lot pretty
good living.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
Well, they make a good living, but you know the
mostly most of those guys have to be engineers. They
have to be really good to your point, math science,
figuring things out.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So Miss Thompson didn't know what she was talking about.
Speaker 5 (07:10):
And I love Miss tom you know, she was one
of my favorite teachers, but she talked me out of
my first dream.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
And what grade was that? Second grade? See, this is
what we're talking about. And that's the thing.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
One of the things I don't like about asking little kids,
little bitty kids, so what they want to be like
they would know, right, and then shaming them, you know,
I know, it's just sort of like, why don't we
do that to kids, because that sets them up for
thinking that life is predictable. You can pick things and
plant it and it will actually happen. That's and we're
(07:44):
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 fifteen, they're supposed to
have it all figured out.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, and that just sets them up, sets.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Up the wrong kind of expectation for how life actually works.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Absolutely, absolutely, And it's okay to want to be three
or four things too.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
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 by their dreams, right,
And I'm very careful about that.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I mean, you like with the girls.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Malia is one of those interesting kids who when she
was ten she said she wanted to write and direct
and she's doing that, right. That's crazy that I always
say that to Sasha, the younger one.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
That's unusual.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
It is rare that somebody decides to tend that they
want to do something, and then they do it and
they actually like it.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
But I'll try not to pigeonhole.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Them, like just because I say this to Mellia, just
because you said you wanted to do that at ten,
You're now an adult.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
You're trying this stuff on. You may like it, you
may not.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
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 ten, 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
(09:34):
going to happen in life, so we have to stay
emotionally and mentally flexible so that when things go wrong
or something changes or they learn something new about themselves,
if they have room to respond to that change.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
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
(10:10):
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 and 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 hyphen it entertainer, an actress,
(10:34):
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, because you know,
we play some passwords.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
In our house.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
You come to our house, family, you got to be
ready to play some password. So Keiki Palmer, will you
please come on?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Oh my goodness, I could listen to you guys talk.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
Oh it's so good to see. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
And I just lived for the password play. The password
is yes.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
When we play, we say it like that. And the
password You've done better than who is the guy? Alan Ludden?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
It was the way of original I praise.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
I loved when that show and I just love that
families can get together and have fun with it. Yeah,
that's the thing, is like, it's an opportunity for everybody
to play, even the babies.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
So I was telling our producer Natalie, there's only two
we have at home. We have four kids, but only
two at home, okay, fourteen year old and a twelve
year old. So sitting down and watching TV is gone
by the wayside. But there's two things we watch as word.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Okay, because they get you into.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
That's the perfect balance. You know, you're laughing and you're
like you didn't know that man was no good. I
love that you.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Can life lesson.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
I mean, just just read listening to you read Kei
Ky's U bio. It's like, girl, I would think you
were seventy years old with all you've done in your lives.
I do through 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. Oh my gosh,
(12:35):
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?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
I think it's so much of what when you guys
were talking about 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.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
That's all I had to stick with.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
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 always or even community stuff,
and I never felt like I had to just abandon
any one thing to follow my dreams.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
It all was rooted in being.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Of service to my community in the ways that felt
most natural to me. 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.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
And things they want to offer.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
But like y'all was saying, sometimes people make them believe
that it's that whole jack of all trades master of none,
you know, but really it's jack of all trades.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Master of none is often better than a master of one. One. Yeah,
And so I think my.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Mom, my dad, my family saying Okay, let's let's do it,
this is what made me.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Be able to do it.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
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 banns?
Speaker 6 (14:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
And then I was like, girl, everybody go.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
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.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I'm sorry that you didn't like that. But now you're
a grown woman.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
M h.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So now what are you going to do with that?
Are you going to be mad at me forever? Or
are you going to move forward and take matters into
your own hands? See? Now, now that's Chicago, right, He
was like, I mean everybody parents did some He was of.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
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 to her because we we're.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
From Illinois, okay, and Kiki, she's sort of almost from Chicago.
People are like, but if you know Chicago, you know,
Robbins is like, it's the it's the hood suburb.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
And from he can handle herself.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
You know, it's not you know, Robins is not Highland Park.
It is not it's not Barrington, you know. Uh, 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 yes, simplicity
(15:36):
and kind of you know, no nonsense, and.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Always I just always wonder how it's like that.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
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 out
the bootstraps on your family, you know, be good to
yourself and keep over four because life isn't gonna stop.
So what are you going to do with that? And
I think that's what I learned the most from my
parents after I got out of my Yeah, it was
kind of like it all slowly started to come to me,
(16:05):
all the sacrifices they made 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.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
My parents abandoned those things.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
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 wanted to be able
to do the most with my son is teach him
how to be an authoritive figure, but also helped to
(16:47):
nurture his sense of leadership without you know, tampering him down,
you know, like be a leader, but be the right
kind of.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Leader, you know.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
So I'm sorry, but I love Yeah, right, I'm in
control here. This is a perfect time to segue into
our question, and our producer, Natalie is going to read
the question and then we're going to react to it.
Speaker 6 (17:16):
So Natalie was Unnette, Hi, Michelle, and Craig. My name
is Noel and I'm thirty six 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
(17:38):
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
(17:58):
question too. Years of working towards one thing, I found
myself oddly unhappy now that I've achieved it. 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
(18:20):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
You get the picture.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
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, 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.
(18:56):
Any insights would help, Thanks, Noel.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Well, that is I'll open it up to you, folks.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I mean, I think I maybe have had one experience
like that, 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 once
I get dad, I'm gonna have this, I'm gonna have that,
(19:28):
and then you kind of continue to push the goal
post for yourself. So I remember when I did a
Killing the Bee, everybody kept saying this movie is going
to be a hit, this movie's gonna bust it out,
this is you won't be a star, and like it's
such an elusive.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Thing as what's the star?
Speaker 6 (19:42):
You know what?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
And how old were you? Then? I was eleven and
they were like, this is it's like whatever.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
That is, Michael Jackson, you know, like it was like
and then the movie came in and.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Did so terrible in the box office, although that was
one of my favorite movies.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And then I think about it is like over time
to be my most popular film and the thing that
people most know me for. But I use that as
an example in this is because our life is made
up of many moments. It's not made like our legacy
is not just that one thing we did any you know,
many things that we did, and so like a killing
(20:20):
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.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
But I remember feeling in that moment being like everybody
lied to me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
I felt like when my mom told me I was
gonna be a big girl at five, I still didn't
get big.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
I was like, now, wait a minute, I'm still it
sounds like big girl just means I can't be a.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Baby, exactly how I felt with the thing. And so,
but what I learned and what I never did to
myself after that was too expected 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, Yeah, if I receive a
(21:01):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
So that makes me think. I mean, I share this
all the time.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
I mean. I went to Princeton Harvard Law because I
thought I was going to be a lawyer, and a
corporate lawyer.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I didn't know anything about what a lawyer did.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
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, yep, right.
And then I got out. I practiced an a firm
for two years, and I was like, I don't like.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
This at all.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
I'm not, you know, because corporate law is about it's
papers and briefs, it's research. It's not very people oriented,
especially in your early years. It just I had no
idea what corporate law was. Right, and I had I
had wonderful mentors, people supported me.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I did. I was able to achieve and do good
things in that year.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
But I didn't.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
I didn't know what that felt like. I did not
want to be a lawyer. And as it turns out,
after all.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
That education and all those loans.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
But to your point, it was all them loans that
we just paid off before Barack went into the White House. Okay,
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
(22:39):
was going to mean and what was that what that
was going to feel like. It was just a goal
that I set for myself. I didn't even know what
it was based on. 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 I didn't. Un Fortunately I have parents. I
(23:02):
was like, let me try on some other things. 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, but it wasn't
(23:24):
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. So for Noel, they're 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
(23:45):
emotion on one or two achievements, it's it always sets
you up for disappointment because life is bigger than that.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
So to to not take this into a sports metaphor,
which yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
It seems to.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
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, they
(24:24):
love to do the hard stuff, they love to get
in the gym, they love to compete when nobody's watching,
and that ends up being turning into a guy like
Lebron or like Michael Jordan. And what I've finding is
that people don't learn how to enjoy the process. Because
(24:46):
Noel's done all this great work that got her to
where she is, that she should be loving the fact
that she got there, and she can't because she got there,
and the goal was.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
The book.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
I do the book, and then I get all of this.
To your point, Kiki, I get all this stuff that's
supposed to come with.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
The book is 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 Noel, 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. Yeah, to tell stories through food.
(25:30):
I can do that through helping people tell their stories
to 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.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
That I like to perform. It's that I like to
make people believe in something.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
I like to make them feel inspired, excited, whether that's
through a killing the bee, having 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.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
It is to just make people even feel good and aspired.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Because I think that's another thing that I hear with
Noel is like, that's the micro goal was to do
this thing, the book, the book.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
The micro goal was to do the book.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
But the macro goal, you got to 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
a 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.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
But this is why I want you know, this piece
of advice is for Noel, 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.
(26:49):
I mean, you know, one reason why I said I
wanted to be a lawyer was because when you say
that out loud when 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.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
It's like it sounds good. You know, I want my
daughter to be a lawyer, you know.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
So we're constantly 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
(27:31):
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,
and get someone to.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Write a book.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
You know.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Mom reacted pretty well to that.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
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 and what do
(28:15):
I want to be in life?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Because when I had to transition out of law, that.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Was the first time when I've decided at that stage,
after all that debt, I don't.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Want to be a lawyer.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Now I have to do the hard work of figuring out, well,
who do I want to be? Because 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 do you want to be in the world.
So I had to do that work on my own
(28:46):
and start meeting with different people and hearing about different
jobs and careers.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Because I was even limited.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
To going to the best schools in the country, I
was shown like ten careers I could be of all
the things in the world.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
You know, how did you discover? How did you get
yourself to that answer? I'm curious.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I started doing I started meeting with people. I started thinking,
I had to start thinking outside of the box.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Like what do I enjoy?
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Yeah? Yeah, And it went back to kids and inspiring.
It went back to mentoring, and it's like I get
my most fulfillment I wake up and pop out of
bed when I'm gonna sit down with another young person
who was like me, and I could like share with
them some secret some things I learned to help make
(29:32):
their life a little bit easier because I know just
how many young people just.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Don't know and you really do that. Yeah, and it
is really I don't want to 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,
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 yeah,
(29:56):
we just don't know how to be a WEE don't
always understand how to get from challenges to peace.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
It's like everything is like, well, challenges.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Came, we gone, and it's like, yeah, I'm sure sometimes
that's important to do. But when you speak about your family,
how you've gotten to where you are, and you always
talk about there were challenges, but what you get on
the other side of going through.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
That is what you're looking for.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
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, What.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Did I care about?
Speaker 4 (30:41):
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?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Who are the people that do this.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
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. 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
(31:22):
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 knows, but I got a handful
of yeses. And I remember meeting with the head of
Corporation Council for the University of Chicago. I'll never forget
Art Susman, who has passed.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
He just said I would love to meet with you
because he was an attorney.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
And I sat down, took time off of lunch, met
with him, talked about the university and all the things
that you can do there, and then he introduced me
to Susan Shehr, who eventually became my chief of staff
as first Lady Wow. She was working in the Mayor's
office as Corporation Council. Eventually she introduced me to Valerie Jarrett,
(32:10):
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 to this story, and I started
trying on other things. I just tried on other careers.
I worked for the city and planning and development, I
(32:33):
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 me right.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
And I just want to wrap it.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
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 and not asking them to narrow it so
(33:13):
so much so that they only start, they focus.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
On the wrong things yes, and compare.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
And get confused about what true happiness is.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
So yeah, no, that's so, let's try and give Noel
some advice to because I'm hearing from both of it.
This macro thing is something to really grab onto. How
can we help Noel find her macro?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
I always do personal prompts like what she was just saying,
you know is ask myself right 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 macro
is I think always a point of view of service.
(34:04):
I truly believe that we all feel most purposeful when
we are being service 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? That would
be my first three, just to throw something out there
(34:25):
to help leader there.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
I would also want Noel to think about what does
happiness mean?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Right?
Speaker 4 (34:35):
Because I also notice among young people, because I mentor
a lot of young people, the expectations of life are outsized. Yes,
I mean, I just think it is true. I think
we have a generation of young people in their twenties
who think that the goal is their personal happiness period
(35:00):
and that is just not life, you know, 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 Noel has been she's been chasing some
(35:21):
false belief of happiness, like there's a place that you
land where there the land is forever happy and there
is never a bump. I hear that that's part of
her disappointment. Yeah, because she's waiting for the thing to
be perfect.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
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 the reality that I
think has to hit us all that discomfort is a.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Part of lit, It is a part of life.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
This period that Noel is also in is like that
may just be the vibe right now.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
We don't have you right, you achieved a thing and
now you had because they had a high with it
and you celebrated it, and now it levels back. Call right,
So DW dude, does Noel know how to deal with level?
Does she know how to does she know how to
exist when life is just life?
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (36:09):
You know? And I talk to my girls about this
all the time. It's like, learn to be satisfied. My
mom says it to me. Where this was the thing
that our parents said, This is another midwestern Chicago South
that never satisfied. I mean, we didn't have anything, but
the minute we acted like we weren't appreciating what was
(36:31):
on our plate, it was like.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Never satisfied.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
How are you asking for something and you still have
something on your plate? You know?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
I tell my girls the greatest gift.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
That they can have developed for themselves is the ability
to be self sad, to be happy where you are
wherever that is. Didn't 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
(37:05):
life is just it's nothing. Nothing in the middle, yes,
and I think this generation they don't want that nothing
in the middle. You know, when things are just bland,
which is y'all, most of life is just ordinary.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
You know.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
You got to learn how to be happy alone. You
got to be happy a little bored. You got to
be happy when things are hard. You got to learn
how to be satisfied when you failed. Ye, and things
don't go your way because all of that keeps to
you getting up. But I think there are a lot
of young people who are searching for this impossible feeling
(37:43):
of continuous happiness.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
I'm curious with you both because you know, we're talking
about the generation. But it's also like it's like when
I was saying the age I went through blaming my parents, Okay,
this is the age of having to realize that you
have to be comfortable and discomfort and everything's not going
to go your way. When you think about you and
your ear early thirties, 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
(38:07):
be at eighteen. I'm grown, okay, and I really in
my twenties. It's fun, actually this was terrible at thirty
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?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
How did you deal?
Speaker 6 (38:22):
For me?
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Go ahead, you go, you know what I've what I've
learned now that I'm sixty, right, because there's no that's right,
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 twenty. Of course you thought
you knew what you were doing at thirty. Of course
that's all you knew. I used to joke with the girls,
(38:44):
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 attend, I've been telling you
that girl, you know, and I'm getting a lot in
their twenties.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Well, mom, you were right. I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
I was like, just imagine you just where you're you're twenty,
You just now putting together sentences. You know, at twenty
you got five years of that. You couldn't even talk straight, right,
You didn't you know? You were learning how to go
to the bathroom on the toilet, you know, it's like
you're young.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
You just haven't even been here long enough.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
And now that i'm you know, wisdom comes with age,
so with wisdom.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
In hindsight, I realized that that is life.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Life is becoming, Like we are all ways 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? That would
be crazy, That would be crazy. At this stage, I
am still becoming. I've learned something new about myself as
(39:50):
a woman. I'm more in touch with my fee my confidence.
I know what I know, and I feel I feel
more empowered to claim what I know. I don't doubt
myself in the ways that I did in my forties
and fifties, because that's still coming for you too, you.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Know, and 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 yet it's never ending.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
These realizations that we're going.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
To have and we'll we'll we'll leave Noel with us
as we close.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Are we closing already closed, unfortunately, but we want to
send Noel home.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
With find your macro. Yes, stay away from those titles
and keep becoming. Yeah, keep becoming.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Well, you better wrap that up.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
I also want to remind Noel and young people that
happiness is within your power.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
You know, the hell do we mean?
Speaker 4 (40:55):
The happiness that she is trying to find in this
job and this book is this whatever.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
It's not the external achievements, it's are you?
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Are you good with you when you're all alone and
achieving nothing and nobody's around. Have you learned Noel, how
to be okay with you? Because that that disappointment, You know,
the next achievement will happen and it will pass. You know,
the next big thing will come and it will go.
(41:27):
And when you are left, what you're left with is yourself.
And that's that self work that I would want Noel
to do, you know, thinking about the prompts of who
you are and who you want to be.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
But I think all young people.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
You will not find your happiness on a phone on
social media.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
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.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
And as you said, Kiki, a lot of times that's
serving others, you know. And if Noel gets out of
her head and balances out her achievements with some giving,
you know, I think that she will find more more peace.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
I think that's I just want to know.
Speaker 5 (42:13):
That's perfect, because Noel is getting it from the young
and the not so young.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I'm on the floor. You so wash it. My gosh,
he's the old man.
Speaker 5 (42:25):
And this has been terrific. We love you were.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Did I listen to you? Guys? Please let me come back. Please,
I just need.
Speaker 5 (42:41):
To get.
Speaker 6 (42:43):
You.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
We will find you because that you just laid on
me today.
Speaker 4 (42:47):
You have some tea too, some tea with some living
and Craig you something but you know match Capricorn and
Virgo and were.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Good table. I'm so proud of you, girl than I
really am.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
You are showing up in the world and being the
role model you were.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
You know, you.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
Were putting your light out there and we all feel
it so the world.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
To me, you're an inspiration. I'm so glad to meet you.
You are inspiration as well.
Speaker 5 (43:21):
This discussion is not over we'll have another one. Y.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Yeah, I'm happy about that.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
Thank you, big, thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
OKBA fam, Wasn't that amazing? Y'all? Gotta go check out
i AMO with Michelle Obama, my Forever First Lady, and
her big brother Craig Robinson. Don't forget. You can find
more episodes wherever you get podcasts.
Hey, Hey, ba fam, it's Mandy here, and now I'm
dropping into the feeds with something a little bit different
but also really freaking exciting. Y'all may have heard a
new show from my friends at Higher Ground, which is
hosted by the Michelle Obama. The show is called IMO
or in my opinion, so y'all know, I'm brown ambition.
We are all about giving actionable advice so y'all can
(00:30):
achieve your biggest goals, always with a little bit of humor.
While on IMO, Michelle and her big brother Craig Robinson
aim to bring you the same. Now, I'm actually a
huge fan of IMO before Higher Ground even emailed me.
And the fact I'm low key freaking out because this
possibly means that Michelle Obama knows who I am, or
(00:50):
like one of her interns or someone on her table,
Oh my god, very exciting. But I was already listening
to her show, y'all. I have loved the episodes that
she has had with My girl is Sa Ray with
Jay Shetty, and on this preview you're going to get
to hear a taste of their incredible conversation with Keiky Palmer,
and I remember listening to this episode myself and just
(01:13):
thinking that, Wow, the combination of Michelle and Kiki together,
the amount of wisdom these two carrier. She really matched
Michelle Jem for Jem. Y'all, what you got to know
about IMO is that each week it's not just Michelle
and Craig. They also welcome a guest who tackle a
real question from real folks like you, and they offer
(01:33):
practical advice, personal storytelling, and yeah, lots of laughs and giggles.
Michelle and Craig open up and they share stories throughout
their lives, from their first crushes to their college years,
to landing at the White House, to how they're coping
with the grief of losing their beloved mother, and for
six decades they have been each other's most trusted counsel.
(01:55):
Y'all know, I love my baby brother so much, and
the relationship between these two siblings, it just gives me
so much hope and gives me so much heart, and
I feel so warm and fuzzy about it because I
hope that that's the kind of relationship I can continue
to build and grow with my siblings as well. And
now they're here sharing their gems with us. So, like
(02:17):
I said in this episode, Keky Palmer joined Michelle and
Craig when a listener asked, how do I feel so
bad after a big career? Win don't forget. You can
find more episodes of I M O wherever you get podcasts.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So I remember when I did A Kill and the Bee.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Everybody kept saying, this movie is going to be a hit,
this movie's gonna bust it out, this is you won't
be a star, and like it's such an elusive thing.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
What's the star?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
You know?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And how old were you?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Then?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I was eleven and.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
They were like, this is it's like whatever that is
Michael Jackson, you know, like it was like and then
the movie came in and did so chear the box office.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I thought that was one of my favorite movies.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
And then and then I think about it, like over
time it would be my most popular film and the
thing that people most know me for. But I use
that as an example in this is because our life
is made up of many moments. It's not made like
our legacy is not just that one thing we did
any you know, many things that we did, And so
like aquilaing the Bee was always there for people to
(03:25):
come to and remember my work, and it grew over
time amongst all the.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Things I did. But I remember feeling in that moment
being like everybody lied to me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I felt like when my mom told me I was
gonna be a big girl at five, I still didn't
get big.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I was like, now, wait a minute, I'm still it
sounds like big girl just means I can't be a baby. Hey, exactly. Well, hello,
hi Craig. How are you welcome you back to my world?
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Even though I didn't stay at your.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Place, you know, and that you got a lot of
nerve coming into DC and you didn't even stay with
me because you're all trying to be Airbnb friendly.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Let me tell you. I would normally stay with my
sister and h but this time I stayed at a
really nice place. Okay, And I was going to go
for a walk this morning, but I was so excited
about our guest today that I was preparing all morning long.
And we're going to be talking about dreams, and you know,
(04:35):
it made me think of when we were little. Did
you have a dream? Did you know what you wanted
to do?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I thought I did.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
When I would be asked, probably around the age of ten,
I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
I remember you remember, Oh yeah, I was wondering if
you remember, because I thought you were going to say
lawyer or something I was going to know.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
But yes, the lawyer didn't come until after I realized
that I was not talented at chemistry or math.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
You know, that's what you can be a ten. You
can dream.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
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, I could save lives. And then
I went to high school and chemistry kind of threw
me for I didn't like science.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
So the problem with you and science is you didn't
like it because you were a good student in every subject.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I could get grades.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
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, now I'll do something else.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
But that was my dream. What about you?
Speaker 5 (05:42):
So I'm going to see if you remember this. 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.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Do you remember that it was like race car. I
was going to say pilot.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
No, no, it wasn't pilot because folks weren't on planes
like that.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
I wanted to be a NASCAR or Indie car driver.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
That's why you love Formula One.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
See it is. But do you remember how I got
talked out of it by Missus Thompson, my second grade team.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Now what did she say?
Speaker 5 (06:19):
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,
(06:39):
with all those brains, all you want to do is
be a race car driver. Oh see, Missus Thompson shamed
me out of it. See that's what I'm talking. But
as it turned out, you grow to be six six,
you can't be a race car driver.
Speaker 6 (06:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
She didn't know that.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
She didn't know it and the fact and she didn't
also know that race car drivers make a lot pretty
good living.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
Well, they make a good living, but you know the
mostly most of those guys have to be engineers. They
have to be really good to your point, math science,
figuring things out.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So Miss Thompson didn't know what she was talking about.
Speaker 5 (07:10):
And I love Miss tom you know, she was one
of my favorite teachers, but she talked me out of
my first dream.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
And what grade was that? Second grade? See, this is
what we're talking about. And that's the thing.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
One of the things I don't like about asking little kids,
little bitty kids, so what they want to be like
they would know, right, and then shaming them, you know,
I know, it's just sort of like, why don't we
do that to kids, because that sets them up for
thinking that life is predictable. You can pick things and
plant it and it will actually happen. That's and we're
(07:44):
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 fifteen, they're supposed to
have it all figured out.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, and that just sets them up, sets.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Up the wrong kind of expectation for how life actually works.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Absolutely, absolutely, And it's okay to want to be three
or four things too.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
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 by their dreams, right,
And I'm very careful about that.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I mean, you like with the girls.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Malia is one of those interesting kids who when she
was ten she said she wanted to write and direct
and she's doing that, right. That's crazy that I always
say that to Sasha, the younger one.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
That's unusual.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
It is rare that somebody decides to tend that they
want to do something, and then they do it and
they actually like it.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
But I'll try not to pigeonhole.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Them, like just because I say this to Mellia, just
because you said you wanted to do that at ten,
You're now an adult.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
You're trying this stuff on. You may like it, you
may not.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
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 ten, 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
(09:34):
going to happen in life, so we have to stay
emotionally and mentally flexible so that when things go wrong
or something changes or they learn something new about themselves,
if they have room to respond to that change.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
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
(10:10):
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 and 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 hyphen it entertainer, an actress,
(10:34):
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, because you know,
we play some passwords.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
In our house.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
You come to our house, family, you got to be
ready to play some password. So Keiki Palmer, will you
please come on?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Oh my goodness, I could listen to you guys talk.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
Oh it's so good to see. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
And I just lived for the password play. The password
is yes.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
When we play, we say it like that. And the
password You've done better than who is the guy? Alan Ludden?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
It was the way of original I praise.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
I loved when that show and I just love that
families can get together and have fun with it. Yeah,
that's the thing, is like, it's an opportunity for everybody
to play, even the babies.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
So I was telling our producer Natalie, there's only two
we have at home. We have four kids, but only
two at home, okay, fourteen year old and a twelve
year old. So sitting down and watching TV is gone
by the wayside. But there's two things we watch as word.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Okay, because they get you into.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
That's the perfect balance. You know, you're laughing and you're
like you didn't know that man was no good. I
love that you.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Can life lesson.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
I mean, just just read listening to you read Kei
Ky's U bio. It's like, girl, I would think you
were seventy years old with all you've done in your lives.
I do through 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. Oh my gosh,
(12:35):
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?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
I think it's so much of what when you guys
were talking about 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.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
That's all I had to stick with.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
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 always or even community stuff,
and I never felt like I had to just abandon
any one thing to follow my dreams.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
It all was rooted in being.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Of service to my community in the ways that felt
most natural to me. 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.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
And things they want to offer.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
But like y'all was saying, sometimes people make them believe
that it's that whole jack of all trades master of none,
you know, but really it's jack of all trades.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Master of none is often better than a master of one. One. Yeah,
And so I think my.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Mom, my dad, my family saying Okay, let's let's do it,
this is what made me.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Be able to do it.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
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 banns?
Speaker 6 (14:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
And then I was like, girl, everybody go.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
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.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I'm sorry that you didn't like that. But now you're
a grown woman.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
M h.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So now what are you going to do with that?
Are you going to be mad at me forever? Or
are you going to move forward and take matters into
your own hands? See? Now, now that's Chicago, right, He
was like, I mean everybody parents did some He was of.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
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 to her because we we're.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
From Illinois, okay, and Kiki, she's sort of almost from Chicago.
People are like, but if you know Chicago, you know,
Robbins is like, it's the it's the hood suburb.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
And from he can handle herself.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
You know, it's not you know, Robins is not Highland Park.
It is not it's not Barrington, you know. Uh, 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 yes, simplicity
(15:36):
and kind of you know, no nonsense, and.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Always I just always wonder how it's like that.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
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 out
the bootstraps on your family, you know, be good to
yourself and keep over four because life isn't gonna stop.
So what are you going to do with that? And
I think that's what I learned the most from my
parents after I got out of my Yeah, it was
kind of like it all slowly started to come to me,
(16:05):
all the sacrifices they made 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.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
My parents abandoned those things.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
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 wanted to be able
to do the most with my son is teach him
how to be an authoritive figure, but also helped to
(16:47):
nurture his sense of leadership without you know, tampering him down,
you know, like be a leader, but be the right
kind of.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Leader, you know.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
So I'm sorry, but I love Yeah, right, I'm in
control here. This is a perfect time to segue into
our question, and our producer, Natalie is going to read
the question and then we're going to react to it.
Speaker 6 (17:16):
So Natalie was Unnette, Hi, Michelle, and Craig. My name
is Noel and I'm thirty six 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
(17:38):
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
(17:58):
question too. Years of working towards one thing, I found
myself oddly unhappy now that I've achieved it. 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
(18:20):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
You get the picture.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
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, 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.
(18:56):
Any insights would help, Thanks, Noel.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Well, that is I'll open it up to you, folks.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I mean, I think I maybe have had one experience
like that, 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 once
I get dad, I'm gonna have this, I'm gonna have that,
(19:28):
and then you kind of continue to push the goal
post for yourself. So I remember when I did a
Killing the Bee, everybody kept saying this movie is going
to be a hit, this movie's gonna bust it out,
this is you won't be a star, and like it's
such an elusive.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Thing as what's the star?
Speaker 6 (19:42):
You know what?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
And how old were you? Then? I was eleven and
they were like, this is it's like whatever.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
That is, Michael Jackson, you know, like it was like
and then the movie came in and.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Did so terrible in the box office, although that was
one of my favorite movies.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
And then I think about it is like over time
to be my most popular film and the thing that
people most know me for. But I use that as
an example in this is because our life is made
up of many moments. It's not made like our legacy
is not just that one thing we did any you know,
many things that we did, and so like a killing
(20:20):
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.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
But I remember feeling in that moment being like everybody
lied to me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
I felt like when my mom told me I was
gonna be a big girl at five, I still didn't
get big.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
I was like, now, wait a minute, I'm still it
sounds like big girl just means I can't be a.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Baby, exactly how I felt with the thing. And so,
but what I learned and what I never did to
myself after that was too expected 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, Yeah, if I receive a
(21:01):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
So that makes me think. I mean, I share this
all the time.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
I mean. I went to Princeton Harvard Law because I
thought I was going to be a lawyer, and a
corporate lawyer.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I didn't know anything about what a lawyer did.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
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, yep, right.
And then I got out. I practiced an a firm
for two years, and I was like, I don't like.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
This at all.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
I'm not, you know, because corporate law is about it's
papers and briefs, it's research. It's not very people oriented,
especially in your early years. It just I had no
idea what corporate law was. Right, and I had I
had wonderful mentors, people supported me.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I did. I was able to achieve and do good
things in that year.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
But I didn't.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
I didn't know what that felt like. I did not
want to be a lawyer. And as it turns out,
after all.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
That education and all those loans.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
But to your point, it was all them loans that
we just paid off before Barack went into the White House. Okay,
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
(22:39):
was going to mean and what was that what that
was going to feel like. It was just a goal
that I set for myself. I didn't even know what
it was based on. 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 I didn't. Un Fortunately I have parents. I
(23:02):
was like, let me try on some other things. 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, but it wasn't
(23:24):
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. So for Noel, they're 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
(23:45):
emotion on one or two achievements, it's it always sets
you up for disappointment because life is bigger than that.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
So to to not take this into a sports metaphor,
which yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
It seems to.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
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, they
(24:24):
love to do the hard stuff, they love to get
in the gym, they love to compete when nobody's watching,
and that ends up being turning into a guy like
Lebron or like Michael Jordan. And what I've finding is
that people don't learn how to enjoy the process. Because
(24:46):
Noel's done all this great work that got her to
where she is, that she should be loving the fact
that she got there, and she can't because she got there,
and the goal was.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
The book.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
I do the book, and then I get all of this.
To your point, Kiki, I get all this stuff that's
supposed to come with.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
The book is 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 Noel, 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. Yeah, to tell stories through food.
(25:30):
I can do that through helping people tell their stories
to 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.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
That I like to perform. It's that I like to
make people believe in something.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
I like to make them feel inspired, excited, whether that's
through a killing the bee, having 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.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
It is to just make people even feel good and aspired.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Because I think that's another thing that I hear with
Noel is like, that's the micro goal was to do
this thing, the book, the book.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
The micro goal was to do the book.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
But the macro goal, you got to 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
a 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.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
But this is why I want you know, this piece
of advice is for Noel, 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.
(26:49):
I mean, you know, one reason why I said I
wanted to be a lawyer was because when you say
that out loud when 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.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
It's like it sounds good. You know, I want my
daughter to be a lawyer, you know.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
So we're constantly 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
(27:31):
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,
and get someone to.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Write a book.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
You know.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Mom reacted pretty well to that.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
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 and what do
(28:15):
I want to be in life?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Because when I had to transition out of law, that.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Was the first time when I've decided at that stage,
after all that debt, I don't.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Want to be a lawyer.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Now I have to do the hard work of figuring out, well,
who do I want to be? Because 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 do you want to be in the world.
So I had to do that work on my own
(28:46):
and start meeting with different people and hearing about different
jobs and careers.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Because I was even limited.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
To going to the best schools in the country, I
was shown like ten careers I could be of all
the things in the world.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
You know, how did you discover? How did you get
yourself to that answer? I'm curious.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I started doing I started meeting with people. I started thinking,
I had to start thinking outside of the box.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Like what do I enjoy?
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Yeah? Yeah, And it went back to kids and inspiring.
It went back to mentoring, and it's like I get
my most fulfillment I wake up and pop out of
bed when I'm gonna sit down with another young person
who was like me, and I could like share with
them some secret some things I learned to help make
(29:32):
their life a little bit easier because I know just
how many young people just.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Don't know and you really do that. Yeah, and it
is really I don't want to 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,
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 yeah,
(29:56):
we just don't know how to be a WEE don't
always understand how to get from challenges to peace.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
It's like everything is like, well, challenges.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Came, we gone, and it's like, yeah, I'm sure sometimes
that's important to do. But when you speak about your family,
how you've gotten to where you are, and you always
talk about there were challenges, but what you get on
the other side of going through.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
That is what you're looking for.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
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, What.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Did I care about?
Speaker 4 (30:41):
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?
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Who are the people that do this.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
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. 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
(31:22):
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 knows, but I got a handful
of yeses. And I remember meeting with the head of
Corporation Council for the University of Chicago. I'll never forget
Art Susman, who has passed.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
He just said I would love to meet with you
because he was an attorney.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
And I sat down, took time off of lunch, met
with him, talked about the university and all the things
that you can do there, and then he introduced me
to Susan Shehr, who eventually became my chief of staff
as first Lady Wow. She was working in the Mayor's
office as Corporation Council. Eventually she introduced me to Valerie Jarrett,
(32:10):
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 to this story, and I started
trying on other things. I just tried on other careers.
I worked for the city and planning and development, I
(32:33):
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 me right.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
And I just want to wrap it.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
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 and not asking them to narrow it so
(33:13):
so much so that they only start, they focus.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
On the wrong things yes, and compare.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
And get confused about what true happiness is.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
So yeah, no, that's so, let's try and give Noel
some advice to because I'm hearing from both of it.
This macro thing is something to really grab onto. How
can we help Noel find her macro?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
I always do personal prompts like what she was just saying,
you know is ask myself right 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 macro
is I think always a point of view of service.
(34:04):
I truly believe that we all feel most purposeful when
we are being service 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? That would
be my first three, just to throw something out there
(34:25):
to help leader there.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
I would also want Noel to think about what does
happiness mean?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Right?
Speaker 4 (34:35):
Because I also notice among young people, because I mentor
a lot of young people, the expectations of life are outsized. Yes,
I mean, I just think it is true. I think
we have a generation of young people in their twenties
who think that the goal is their personal happiness period
(35:00):
and that is just not life, you know, 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 Noel has been she's been chasing some
(35:21):
false belief of happiness, like there's a place that you
land where there the land is forever happy and there
is never a bump. I hear that that's part of
her disappointment. Yeah, because she's waiting for the thing to
be perfect.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
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 the reality that I
think has to hit us all that discomfort is a.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Part of lit, It is a part of life.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
This period that Noel is also in is like that
may just be the vibe right now.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
We don't have you right, you achieved a thing and
now you had because they had a high with it
and you celebrated it, and now it levels back. Call right,
So DW dude, does Noel know how to deal with level?
Does she know how to does she know how to
exist when life is just life?
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (36:09):
You know? And I talk to my girls about this
all the time. It's like, learn to be satisfied. My
mom says it to me. Where this was the thing
that our parents said, This is another midwestern Chicago South
that never satisfied. I mean, we didn't have anything, but
the minute we acted like we weren't appreciating what was
(36:31):
on our plate, it was like.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Never satisfied.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
How are you asking for something and you still have
something on your plate? You know?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
I tell my girls the greatest gift.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
That they can have developed for themselves is the ability
to be self sad, to be happy where you are
wherever that is. Didn't 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
(37:05):
life is just it's nothing. Nothing in the middle, yes,
and I think this generation they don't want that nothing
in the middle. You know, when things are just bland,
which is y'all, most of life is just ordinary.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
You know.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
You got to learn how to be happy alone. You
got to be happy a little bored. You got to
be happy when things are hard. You got to learn
how to be satisfied when you failed. Ye, and things
don't go your way because all of that keeps to
you getting up. But I think there are a lot
of young people who are searching for this impossible feeling
(37:43):
of continuous happiness.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
I'm curious with you both because you know, we're talking
about the generation. But it's also like it's like when
I was saying the age I went through blaming my parents, Okay,
this is the age of having to realize that you
have to be comfortable and discomfort and everything's not going
to go your way. When you think about you and
your ear early thirties, 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
(38:07):
be at eighteen. I'm grown, okay, and I really in
my twenties. It's fun, actually this was terrible at thirty
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?
Speaker 2 (38:21):
How did you deal?
Speaker 6 (38:22):
For me?
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Go ahead, you go, you know what I've what I've
learned now that I'm sixty, right, because there's no that's right,
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 twenty. Of course you thought
you knew what you were doing at thirty. Of course
that's all you knew. I used to joke with the girls,
(38:44):
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 attend, I've been telling you
that girl, you know, and I'm getting a lot in
their twenties.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Well, mom, you were right. I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
I was like, just imagine you just where you're you're twenty,
You just now putting together sentences. You know, at twenty
you got five years of that. You couldn't even talk straight, right,
You didn't you know? You were learning how to go
to the bathroom on the toilet, you know, it's like
you're young.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
You just haven't even been here long enough.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
And now that i'm you know, wisdom comes with age,
so with wisdom.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
In hindsight, I realized that that is life.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Life is becoming, Like we are all ways 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? That would
be crazy, That would be crazy. At this stage, I
am still becoming. I've learned something new about myself as
(39:50):
a woman. I'm more in touch with my fee my confidence.
I know what I know, and I feel I feel
more empowered to claim what I know. I don't doubt
myself in the ways that I did in my forties
and fifties, because that's still coming for you too, you.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Know, and 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 yet it's never ending.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
These realizations that we're going.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
To have and we'll we'll we'll leave Noel with us
as we close.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Are we closing already closed, unfortunately, but we want to
send Noel home.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
With find your macro. Yes, stay away from those titles
and keep becoming. Yeah, keep becoming.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Well, you better wrap that up.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
I also want to remind Noel and young people that
happiness is within your power.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
You know, the hell do we mean?
Speaker 4 (40:55):
The happiness that she is trying to find in this
job and this book is this whatever.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
It's not the external achievements, it's are you?
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Are you good with you when you're all alone and
achieving nothing and nobody's around. Have you learned Noel, how
to be okay with you? Because that that disappointment, You know,
the next achievement will happen and it will pass. You know,
the next big thing will come and it will go.
(41:27):
And when you are left, what you're left with is yourself.
And that's that self work that I would want Noel
to do, you know, thinking about the prompts of who
you are and who you want to be.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
But I think all young people.
Speaker 4 (41:39):
You will not find your happiness on a phone on
social media.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
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.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
And as you said, Kiki, a lot of times that's
serving others, you know. And if Noel gets out of
her head and balances out her achievements with some giving,
you know, I think that she will find more more peace.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
I think that's I just want to know.
Speaker 5 (42:13):
That's perfect, because Noel is getting it from the young
and the not so young.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I'm on the floor. You so wash it. My gosh,
he's the old man.
Speaker 5 (42:25):
And this has been terrific. We love you were.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Did I listen to you? Guys? Please let me come back. Please,
I just need.
Speaker 5 (42:41):
To get.
Speaker 6 (42:43):
You.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
We will find you because that you just laid on
me today.
Speaker 4 (42:47):
You have some tea too, some tea with some living
and Craig you something but you know match Capricorn and
Virgo and were.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Good table. I'm so proud of you, girl than I
really am.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
You are showing up in the world and being the
role model you were.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
You know, you.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
Were putting your light out there and we all feel
it so the world.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
To me, you're an inspiration. I'm so glad to meet you.
You are inspiration as well.
Speaker 5 (43:21):
This discussion is not over we'll have another one. Y.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Yeah, I'm happy about that.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
Thank you, big, thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
OKBA fam, Wasn't that amazing? Y'all? Gotta go check out
i AMO with Michelle Obama, my Forever First Lady, and
her big brother Craig Robinson. Don't forget. You can find
more episodes wherever you get podcasts.
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