Drama Queens - Work in Progress: Michelle Obama

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

FLOTUS, wife, mother, author, attorney, advocate, television producer and host of the podcast IMO…Michelle Obama is here!  Listen to Michelle's podcast, IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson, here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hi, everyone. It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Hello, Wipsmarties, friends, dear ones. I am beside myself. One of my favorite human beings in the world is on the podcast. podcast today to talk about life, love, personal evolution, becoming curiosity, motherhood, martini's, what reality TV she watches and what the next phase of life looks like. Today we are joined by my forever flotus Michelle Obama. That's such an insane thing to be saying. You know her as the 44th First Lady of the United States of America. She is an incredible advocate for women and girls, education, democracy.

She was raised on the south side of Chicago, graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, is married to none other than our favorite President Barack Obama, and is basically the coolest mom any of us knows. From her nonprofit work, her advocacy for girls around the world, Her work to eradicate poverty, her nonprofit and philanthropic work is something to behold, whether she has advocated for poverty awareness, encouraged and helped to change the rules around girls' education, advocated for better nutrition policies and physical activity and healthy eating in our country. She has written three books, including her New York Times best-selling memoir, Becoming, and Light We Carry. And as if that weren't enough, runs an incredible

production company at Netflix, making some of our favorite TV shows, including one of mine, the later daters. And now, in all her free time, she is starting a podcast with her brother, IMO, in my opinion, is a gathering of Michelle Obama and her big brother, Craig Robinson, as they bring their unique experiences and candid perspectives to a range of listeners' personal dilemmas from the everyday to the existential and every week when they're answering your questions they're also joined by special guests to tackle practical advice relatable anecdotes and plenty of laughs from dating to relationships parenting and financial planning iMO sees our iconic first lady at her most relaxed and honest and take it from me this podcast will leave you laughing

reflecting and feeling more prepared to tackle life's challenges. I can't wait to talk to her about what inspired her to do this, why she is still giving us so much of her incredible time, and what her dreams are for what comes next. Let's dig in with Michelle Obama. Hello, I am so just absolutely thrilled to see you today. Sophia, I'm beyond thrilled to be with you. I haven't seen you in person in a while, but I've been watching you, and I'm so proud of the work that you're doing out there in the world, and I'm just delighted to be able to sit down and chat with you.

Likewise, and that means the world, and I will always give people their flowers. A lot of people ask me at this stage, you know, It's crazy to think I signed up for my first presidential with you and President Obama almost 20 years ago. And people will say, well, where did you get so into activism? Why do you care so much about politics? And I'm like, I had the best mentors in the game. What are you talking about? But, you know, as we see now, not everybody, you know, feels compelled to get involved at the level that you did.

And that's not just because of us, the campaign, that that's because of who you are, that you are putting your ideas, your thoughts, your passions, your disappointments into action, which is what we say. That's what makes a democracy. You can't sit on the sidelines, even if you don't, if you're not thrilled with every choice you have on the ballot. And you walk the walk, always have. Oh my goodness. I can't tell you how much it means to me to hear that from you. I was planning on beginning with a question not having to do with politics, but it's impossible not to ask you about a little bit. And I kind of feel like, let me ask you now. We'll get it out of the way and then we can just hang. When you talk about what a democracy means to you, it really is soothing not just for the ears, but for the soul. such a reminder that we can both advance a nation because we care, that it requires telling the truth, and that it might not always be pretty, but if we do the whole thing, you know, if we encompass all of what it takes, it will be beautiful. And you are a voice of reason for both the truth and the beauty. And so many people seem to be. scared to talk about what's true, seems scared to acknowledge that our diversity makes us better,

seems scared to fight. They're disheartened and they're looking for hope. And the last thing I want to do is ask another powerful black woman why the rest of the world should be hopeful because you're like, we told you. But you are such an icon to so many of us. And in this moment, is there something you say, not necessarily as one of the former leaders of the free world, But just as a mom and a friend that you want to say to the people you care about when they feel afraid? You know, I just want to remind people, first of all, fear is real and it's rational and it's reasonable. Look, too many people in this country, I don't care what their race, their political party, they're struggling. It's hard to get ahead in this world these days. Too much, too many people have too much, you know, too few people have too much, too many people don't have enough. And that is the basis of a lot of fear. You know, when people can't, you know, they can't build a life that is reasonable with all the hard work that they put in. People are struggling to.

get ahead. They are working too many jobs and still not able to get ahead. And that makes that, that just predisposes people to be afraid. So I think first we have to acknowledge that we do need to create some balance economically. That if we don't find a way to really invest in the middle class, all of it, right? As we did when my parents were growing up. I mean, my father was a blue-collar worker. He worked for the city. And let me stop there. But how important city government workers are federal government workers. Those are the jobs. Those are the roles in our society that built America in so many ways. And on that single salary, my father could pay his bills. My mother could stay at home. He put two of us through college. And he had a little bit of savings

and a pension, right? That reality doesn't exist for enough people anymore. And when you don't have that, you are afraid and you do look around for someone to blame. And that's where leadership comes in because leadership can either lead by fear, they can either fuel that fear and explain it away by saying be afraid of other people, people who aren't like you, somebody else is to blame for this, or you have leaders who lead with hope and remind us that we swim and sink together and that we have to do our part to make sure that our neighbors have enough so that they feel like they have a stake in this democracy. That's why I think hope is important, you know, because it does control how we feel.

And we cannot underestimate the role that negative language does to our psyche. And it makes us tired and it makes us want to give up. And it taps into the worst of us. So I always say we owe it to the next generation to stay hopeful. We have to watch our language. We may say what we, how we feel in the privacy of our own homes, but those of us with public platforms, I think we have a responsibility to keep moving us towards the light and encouraging everyone to stay, educated, focused, and engaged in this democracy. So, I mean, you know,

there's no easy way to talk about it, but I think we first have to acknowledge that a lot of people don't feel like they have a fair shake in this country. And when they don't, they're easy pickings. Right. You know, and it's easy for us to turn on one another when so many of us are struggling. Do you think that part of that is because the power that we're up against is so hard to kind of quantify for the average person? And I say that, including myself, you know, the The idea that in the last Trump presidency, 25% of the entire United States debt was created because we'd rather give a trillion dollar tax cut to like 60 billionaires instead of just tax folks that allowed for the system that your dad and mom could flourish.

And when you were a kid, it's so hard to fathom what those numbers mean that it can be easier to think, well, there must be waste in the government. And why do we have so many federal employees? And now that the federal employees are getting cut and the cancer research is getting cut and all these people are getting fired, they're like, wait, wait. And it almost seems to me like the reality

that I think the leadership that you and your husband displayed, the leadership that so many of our great elders in the progressive parties have displayed that have tried to teach us that this doesn't work unless we acknowledge that it's a community. project. It feels like the need for communities finally hitting people. Yeah, I hope so. I hope that we understand, as I said before, that we all sink or swim together. It's disappointing

that we have to go through the fire in this way, but sometimes, you know, I mean, we, these issues are complicated. And we also have to remember, we're dealing. We're dealing. in different times now where people are very distracted. They're on their phones, they are tick-tokin and and 30 character writing and we're dealing with communication that is totally new. And it's very hard to describe and explain very complicated issues in 32 characters or less, right? And so I think it's difficult because people want their, their information in sound bites. You know, we also have social media that feeds people what they want, not necessarily the truth or what they need to hear. So again, not only are people struggling, but they're being

confused. Right. We don't have one clear source for truth. We don't have one clear source. We don't have one clear source where we all sit around and gather the same kind of news and we hear the same kind of facts, right? And that we, and we've never experienced that in any time in our history as a nation because this technology that we're dealing with, we haven't quite figured it out yet. And just remember, Sophia, when we entered the White House, we were, we came in using Blackberries, right? Yeah. There was no such thing as social media, right? We were learning about it. I mean, there was meet up, if you remember that.

That was a big organizing tool of the Obama campaign. There was no Zoom. There was no Insta. There was no, you know, my kids, I was barely learning how to parent them with these new tools. Yeah. Right? So we're also dealing with a new kind of information challenge. And we haven't figured it out.

I don't think either party has figured it out politically. I think people don't know who to trust. We don't get the same kinds of information. And therefore, it is very hard to then explain what tariffs are and, you know, what the deficit is and what certain spending cuts is and are and how the federal government actually does serve you. You know, there are books out there, but people aren't reading books, you know. The fifth, the risk that talks about, the role that the government plays and how much we depend on it for our weather and FEMA and, you know, and I could go on and on and on. But, you know, the government doesn't have a PR campaign, right? Right.

I mean, they don't have the resources of the technology giants to promote what government does. So it's very easy for people to say, yeah, this is the problem, you know. it exploded. What does the VA actually do? You know, well, let's just... A lot. Yeah, the VIA does a lot. But if you're not getting that fed to you 24-7, then the average American probably fully doesn't understand it. We'll be back in just a minute, but here's a word from our sponsors. Speaking of social media, I saw a great meme this week that was like talking about how

this sort of economic disaster that's done on purpose can only happen every 100 years because everybody who made it happen the last time has to be dead. Yeah, I saw that. I saw that one too, right? And I was like, that's part of it because we lose sight of how it actually works, but something that feels important to say, including the book that you just referenced, which we will put in our show notes, because we do say the audience of this podcast is Whipsmart. They like to learn things. women show up for democracy in record numbers, and we would be remiss not to say that as confusing as these silos can be, as toxic as these algorithms are, as much as this is an information kind of warfare now with social media, you still see black women show up at 92% rates

and vote for progress. And so what I would like to suggest to the folks listening to this, show is not only to follow our esteemed guest, but to tailor your algorithm. Follow women like Brittany Packett Cunningham. Follow social justice leaders in your communities. Tailor your algorithm to begin to expose you to the people who stand up for what America is supposed to be at her best. Because you can change your algorithm. And that would be my first for the folks at home to do that. And I want to add that we need to get off our phones too and make sure that our real lives are filled with diverse voices and experiences.

We cannot rely on somebody else telling us who our neighbors are. It is our responsibility to step outside of our comfort zones and meet some people who think differently, who look differently. I always say this. If you're sitting around a table or if you're at a table of leadership and everybody looks like you and everybody agrees with you, something is wrong. That is at the core of why diversity is important because we get to meet each other and share ideas and have real intellectual conversations. This is why your podcast is important. It's one of the reasons why I'm starting IMO. I mean, I, I did. IMO, in my opinion, my new podcast with my brother is not a political podcast because I think right now people shut their ears off to politics, but we do need to be in real conversations with each other. You know, we have to be having these kind of serious conversations, but having some fun and learning how we think and engaging face to face with people.

So I want your listeners to say that there is no substitute for really knowing your neighbor, for having a conversation with the person on the train next to you, putting down your phone while you're standing in line at the checkout counter, maybe looking over at the doctor's office and saying hi to the person sitting next to you, especially if they don't look like you. We have to be mindful, vigilant, and purposeful about creating. diversity in our lives because technology is pushing us in the opposite direction. Yeah.

I love that you mention the podcast because this is exactly where I wanted to go. As you know, sitting in your home studio in front of a mic, we're always tracking the time. And I'm like, we've already spent 20 minutes on democracy. And I want to ask the questions because I'd be remiss not to, but I really just want to hang out with you and like have a Kiki. And this is what made me so excited when I read the announcement. and I saw what you and your brother are doing because you are just gathering people

for a little bit of a respite and a laugh and maybe some learning. And to be clear, like, you don't owe us more. You don't need to do this podcast. So why did you decide that this was the thing you wanted to do? This was the way you wanted to do it? What is the honest answer is? I don't know.

What is wrong with me? Right? But the truth is I, you know, I feel like I want to offer something in these times. You know, while I don't owe anybody anything, when you have the opportunity to have a platform and to share stories and to, you know, engage for me personally, it's a little selfish because I love people. I love engaging with the American public. You know, I really, I am curious about what they are struggling with and how they are talking about things. And if I would be the kind of person, who would be talking to you on the grocery line if I was allowed to go into a grocery store like a normal person without secret service, right? I mean, my life as it stands now is not the usual life I'm used to living.

I'm not connecting with people in the way that I like to. You know, so the podcast vehicle allows for that. It allows me with my brother, outside of my husband, the person that I love most who knows me best. So it's also kind of a cool thing for me to be working on a project with my big brother. We have never worked together in this way. We've never done any work project together. Okay. So I just like the fact that once a week I get to be in conversation with our listeners.

I get to hear what's going on in their lives. We get to pull in some friends, some celebrities, some experts I get to learn, continue to learn and grow. And we're not talking about, you know, I don't have to be right about everything because we're, you know, I'm not coming in as the expert. It's just our opinion, you know, and we all have them. And so I think it's a really fun and exciting way for me to continue to stay engaged with the American people and the people who have come to know and trust and look for me. I don't want anyone to feel like, while I'm never going to go into politics, I care about what happens in this country. and I care about how people are managing through it. And if I can offer a little bit of light once a week to somebody,

you know, why not? Yeah, a little bit of joy. I hope it's a little bit of joy and a little bit of support as well. And now a word from our sponsors that I really enjoy, and I think you will too. I love hearing you talk about. the why because every once in a while someone will ask me why I do this and I'll lean here you realize I made it my job to ask really cool people a bunch of questions and hang out for an hour yeah it's like it feels like I won the the career lottery yeah you talking about

your relationship with Craig is a segue into what is normally my first question for people but I feel like people really do know a lot about your life I usually like to sit down with people and ask them that if from this moment you could like bend space time go back and meet your nine-year-old self would you see yourself in her would you go oh i see how i became this and i'm really curious about what you think it would be like to sit down at nine with you and your brother would you would you go like oh yeah it makes sense that these two are doing this funny, quirky job together? You know, that's a great question.

And I'm thinking about it as you ask it. And I think there are parts of it that are like, yes, you know, there are parts of my nine-year-old self, you know, my kind of overly confident, bossy kind of self at nine, the person who, you know, could get my brother to do anything for me, you know. My mother always said, you know, I stopped raising you when you were 10 because you seemed to know what you were doing, right? I mean, she would say that, but I'm like, mom, you know, half of the stuff I do is you in my head. So you were there. But I think that was her way of saying that I was kind of beyond my years, you know, and kind of independent in a way. But on the flip side, I'd also say as a little girl growing up, working class black girl on the south side, of Chicago, there's absolutely no way I could have imagined the life that I have now. That wasn't a

life that was routinely available to kids that came from where I came from. So the notion that me and my brother would capture audiences that are back and forth banter and the lessons that we learned under the roof of Marion and Frasier Robinson would be would provide a base of wisdom for other people, nah, I wouldn't have imagined that. And I think that's also part of why I, you know, now that I think about why I'm doing this, because at nine, at nine, at 20, at 30, at 50,

because I am a woman, period. I didn't own my wisdom until now, until now, right? I mean, as women, we are, we so question what we know. We're like, well, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. So let me not raise my hand in class and let me not, you know, while our counterparts as early as 20 are like, I know the answer. I know how to fix this. I know what I'm doing. I've noticed that women, we don't own our wisdom until we have tested and proven and gone through the fire and won a bunch that we can say, I kind of think I know something now. I think I have, I think I've gotten enough things right in this world that maybe now

it's 61. I have confidence that the lessons I've learned, the trials and tribulations that I've gone through actually have given me some insight. Yes. And then if you own your wisdom, someone will say, wow, well, don't you think you've had enough now? You need to celebrate it too. So no matter what, you're going to get criticized. And I love that you're willing to share that and name that is from this moment at 61 saying, oh, I get to own this. I think I have some valuable lessons to share. Yeah. Are there,

is there a big Robinson House lesson that you see now as such wisdom that you didn't see them? There's so many Robinson House lessons. I will say that looking back now, my parents were beyond their years, you know, just beyond their experiences. I mean, they did not, they were not college education. educated, but my parents majored in common sense. They had, both of them had PhDs and just some common sense ways of thinking about life. And one of them was, I shared this all the time, my mother's view to child rearing was, and I shared this in the light, she was like, I'm not raising babies, I'm raising adults. Yes. And so she said she thinks that one of the big

mistakes that parents make that she would see is that you're raising your child to continue to be dependent on you as if they will never grow up and have to go out into the big bad world. She saw it in her family, you know, of how some of her older brothers and sisters, her father was still waking them up and, you know, making sure they got to school on time. My mother being the middle child always thought, well, why can't you, why didn't you teach my older sister how to set an alarm and get up. Why would you continue to wake up a child to go to school to get their own education, right? Because if you've got to wake them up for school, you're not going to be able to wake them up to get to class at college or to have a job when they're 30. So to play out that wisdom, my brother and I, we had alarm clocks in kindergarten. She gave us a Both alarm clocks. When we reached kindergarten, he was first. And she was like, this is how it works. You are now responsible for your education. I got mine. You should go to school. And you have to wake up, you know. And it wasn't like my mother wasn't up. She just wasn't going to wake us up. She was up making breakfast, but she wanted us to own our lives. So I think that piece of wisdom has helped me tremendously, and not only as a human being,

being, but it's helped me as a mother. Yeah. Because she handed me and my brother our lives, not leaving us out in the cold, but she said, this is your life. These are your choices. And I'm going to let you practice making those choices really early. Yeah. I'm not going to wait until you're 16 to have you make your first decisions about a set of things.

Well, it sounds like she was putting your agency in your hands. Yes. in perhaps ahead of the curve, but appropriate ways. Exactly. And I find it really interesting. You know, my friends and I talk a lot about the difference for us at 40 is our parents didn't have access to any of the tools we have access to. Yeah.

You know, we can go to therapy. We can read about therapy. We can listen to, you know, Mel Robbins, whatever it is. And that debate about how you are your child's sense. safest place, how you can nurture them through things, but also how you have to teach them to be resilient. Because if you just baby them through everything, you're just going to, to your point, raise babies. When we confuse being that safe, sometimes we confuse being that safe place. Because sometimes we're trying to make ourselves safe, right? I mean, because a lot of the stuff

that we do in the name of protecting our kids is sometimes protecting us from our fears about them, from letting them go. It's a scary thing to have the, first of all, you're shocked by how much you love your kids. No one can prepare you for how this little person you've adopted or carried around inside of you, however you were blessed to have that child in your life, how they would just take over your heart, you know, and make you feel so helpless and so, you know, desperate not to mess it up, right? So if you're not prepared for that, you don't recognize that most of us parent out of straight up fear. It's like, I just want to keep you alive, right? I just, I don't want you to hurt because it hurts me to have you hurt. And so then instead of parenting,

we start protecting. And we're not just protecting our children. We're protecting our own hearts. And I think we got to kind of really be mindful about some of the decisions that we made out of the well-intentioned love that we feel for our children. Yeah. And we can accidentally handicap them, we can make them believe that we don't believe in them because we're protecting them. I mean, one of the best things my mother had us do, and we lived in a time in a neighborhood where you could walk to school, right? And in kindergarten, after a couple of days of walking me to school, my mom was like, you can do this, you know? They're crossing guards at the corner. You know, the school was literally down the block around the corner.

And there was a one big major street with a crossing guard. And then I was at the schoolyard. But of course, in Kenner and I thought my mother was crazy. I was like, I, you know, why do you trust me out here in the world? Isn't it bad out here? But she sent me off. And there was a level of pride that I developed a sense of confidence in myself that I actually accomplished it, right?

So when I write in the light that, you know, when we deprive our kids of that independence, we're also depriving them of the feeling of confidence that they can master like really small things. So my current Michelle Obama confidence, if I were to pinpoint it, started with that decision, those small decisions that my mom made to give me my life and watch me succeed at it and be okay when I failed, right? Yeah. And so that kind of wisdom, for example, has helped me. I think it's uncommon in parenting today. But it's something we should talk about, right? We should talk about why we parent the way we parent. Are we operating with a philosophy, or are we just, are we just winging it, you know? Yeah. Well, isn't this just the best? Let's continue

this conversation. We'll be back with Part 2 with Michelle Obama. This is an I-heart podcast.