Michelle Obama has opened up about the difficult process of confronting her fears before backing Barack Obama’s decision to seek the presidency.
The former first lady, 62, discussed her concerns about Barack, 65, entering the White House on the latest episode of her IMO podcast.
Michelle said she initially doubted whether she could cope with life as first lady. But after taking time to “analyze her fear,” she ultimately chose to stand behind her husband.
The discussion began when her co-host and brother, Craig Robinson, read a listener’s question asking her to recall a time when taking a chance felt terrifying but ultimately changed the course of her life.
“How did you know it was worth the risk?” the listener asked.
“There’s been a lot of [scary situations in my life]. A lot of things have come my way where I’ve been like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t do that,’” Michelle said.
She recalled that one of her earliest major risks came in 1991, when she left a well-paid position at Chicago law firm Sidley & Austin to become an assistant to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
“Leaving corporate law, leaving a big salary when I still had a bunch of college and law school debt to work for the city and a nonprofit… Doing something that wasn’t lucrative with that kind of debt was scary,” she said.
Michelle Obama has described the difficult personal struggle she faced as she confronted her fears before supporting Barack Obama’s decision to run for president.
On the latest episode of her IMO podcast, she said she initially felt unable to handle being first lady, but eventually worked through those fears and stood beside Barack. The couple are pictured together in 2009.
Michelle said agreeing to support her husband’s White House campaign was another moment that left her deeply afraid.
“But I’ve learned over time that I need to ask myself, ‘What am I actually afraid of?’ I learned to analyze my fear first without just succumbing to it,” she explained.
“There may be a good reason to listen to fear and take a step back, but if it’s only about your comfort or just not wanting to fail, if it’s not life threatening, you should note that in your mind and analyze what it is you’re able to handle.
“Many of us are able to handle a lot more stress or uncertainty than we think … A lot of times we let fear stop us from doing things that are really important and can be a point of growth.”
Offering advice to anyone hesitant about taking a major chance, Michelle said: “Figure out what’s making you hesitant first and figure out whether or not that’s a real fear you need to address. If it isn’t, if it’s just something in the back of your mind, then go for it.”
Michelle has previously said that her greatest concern after Barack was elected president involved the impact on their daughters, Malia and Sasha.
“The biggest worry that I had when Barack was elected, it wasn’t the difficulty of the job,” she said on the podcast last year.
“It wasn’t the strain or the hardship or the threats or all the things you might imagine. I worried about my girls.”
The conversation followed a question from listener, read by Michelle’s brother and co-host Craig Robinson, asking her to share a moment when taking a frightening chance ultimately changed the direction of her life.
Michelle said agreeing to support her husband’s presidential campaign was among the most frightening decisions she had ever made.
‘I worried about moving them out of what was the only community and home they had ever known, where my brother was down the street and my mom was picking them up from school.’
Michelle explained at the time that she felt extremely guilty over uprooting her daughters’ lives, who were then aged ten and seven.
‘I thought, “I’m gonna do the worst thing to these kids, I’m going to pluck them out in the middle of the school year,”‘ she said.
In the end, she said the girls ‘did way better’ than she expected with the transition.
Michelle’s latest admission comes weeks after she detailed how she kept her ‘nepo baby’ daughters grounded while they were growing up in the White House.
Back in September, she spoke about the importance of saying ‘no’ to children in order to set them up for success later in life.
She explained that it was especially vital that she told her and former President Barack’s daughters, Malia, now 28, and Sasha, now 25, ‘no’ when they were kids because of the unique situation they were in.
The conversation started with Michelle encouraging listeners to embrace failure.
She explained: ‘Life is like a big muscle. You’ve got to build it up. Every failure is like a pushup or a rep.
‘The more reps you do the stronger you get at life. You don’t get the strength without the reps.’
Michelle previously revealed that the ‘biggest worry’ she had when Barack was elected was how it would affect their daughters, Malia and Sasha. The family is seen in 2013
She added that everyone has to ‘learn what their own process is for getting through failure,’ which is something she said you ‘figure out the older you get.’
Her brother and co-host, Craig, then suggested that parents let their kids fail when they’re young so that their first major setback in their 20s doesn’t feel like a ‘catastrophe.’
Michelle said that was something she implemented when her daughters were growing up, explaining that she went out of her way to tell them ‘no’ to things because they ‘needed to know what it felt like.’
She added that now, looking back, Malia and Sasha sometimes question why she wouldn’t allow them to do certain things.
‘The girls tell me, “Mom, you used to tell us no.” They’d be like, “Why?” Because you need to know what no feels like,’ she said. ‘Especially for kids like ours… there’s no natural “nos.”‘
Guest 2 Chainz then interjected: ‘Nepo babies, man.’
‘We grew up with a lot of “nos,”‘ Michelle went on. ‘It was, “No we can’t afford that. No you can’t have that.”‘
