Wild Card with Rachel Martin - Michelle Obama doesn't regret saying 'no'

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Michelle Obama says she's never truly been able to realize her own ambition. But now she's changing that. She's saying "no" to what's expected of her and "yes" to what she wants to do, including starting a podcast with her brother, "IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson." She reflects with Rachel on owning her decisions and the words her mom told her at the end of her life.To listen sponsor-free and support the show, sign up for Wild Card+ at plus.npr.org/wildcard See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Has ambition ever led you astray? Wow. I don't know if my ambition has ever fully been able to actualize itself. I think I'm now at a stage in my life where all my choices are mine. I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wild Card, the show where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life. Questions pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one back on me.

My guest this week is former first lady Michelle Obama. I am not going to be in politics. I'm not giving another political speech. I'm not campaigning for another candidate, but I'm here. Michelle Obama has lived a lot of her adult life under immense scrutiny, which meant carefully thinking through every word she uttered in public. But she is in a place in her life now where she gets to integrate her public and private self a little more.

And for listeners to her new podcast, eager to hear what she has learned in this life, it is a real gift. The podcast is called IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson, her brother. And I am so very happy to welcome Michelle Obama to Wildcard. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

Rachel, I'm at Wildcard. Yay, baby. All right. Memory's round. First three questions. One, two, or three. Let's do two. Two.

Where would you go when you wanted to feel safe as a kid? Oh, that's an easy one. Safety was our little house on 7436 South Euclid. I mean, the whole house. Home was safety for me because I had two amazing parents, Marion and Frasier Robinson. And there was a lot to find safety from growing up as a working class kid. on the south side of Chicago, you know, our neighborhood wasn't dangerous, but things happened, right?

Fights happened. Trouble happened. School wasn't always a safe space because sometimes your teachers didn't believe in you or challenged you or second-guessed you. So when life happened like that, when people doubted you or questioned your ability, I could always come back home. You know, when I wrote in the light, I have a chapter about my mom and her parenting principles, and one of them was come home, we'll love you here.

You know, that philosophy was like, you can't count on other people to love you. Because as a black kid, a lot of people won't just because of the color of your skin. So you cannot base your whole being on what other people think of. of you, especially as a black kid. Yeah. So come home. How long did it take you to realize that that is special? Like not everybody gets that.

For so many people, home is not necessarily, even if they have great parents, great family love, for home to be that secure for you. That's a special thing. Yeah, I think I got it pretty early on. And I think our parents, they made it a point to make sure we were aware of that. because of that emotional empathy that they had. They understood that they were giving us what a lot of kids who were just as smart, just as capable, just as able in our communities and our families weren't getting,

just because of the role of the dice, right? So my mom would always say, I love you, you're special, but you're not singular. It's like you're smart, but you're also blessed. I had a mother who was an advocate when a teacher didn't do what they needed to do by me. But she also knew that she had to be the advocate for other kids there. Right. She was like a room parent before there was a room parent, you know? She was going to mother all the people.

She was going to mother all the people. So I think I knew that early on. Mm-hmm. Okay. Three new ones, one, two, or three. Let's do one. Let's do one. Yeah. What's a piece of advice you were smart to ignore?

Oh, my gosh. You're not Princeton material. Who gave you that one? My college counselor in high school. Are you serious? I'm so serious. I've written about this. But yeah, I was a senior at Whitney Young, Magnet High School.

And, you know, it's a big school, magnet program. I was a great student. I was an honor student. I was the treasurer of the senior class. But when I sat down with her, the woman who was supposed to encourage me, she looked at my dream big doors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She told me, I don't think you're Princeton material. So what was your in the moment?

I was furious. I was furious. But I was familiar with that bar lowering. Yeah. Right. Because it happens to minority kids, poor kids, kids of color all the time. People make snap judgments based on their biases and their limitations. They don't ask questions.

And it helped me because throughout my life when I would hit those roadblock or meet those people, I was lucky enough to be the child with the temperament that it didn't wound. me, it angered me, and it made me think, I'll show you. Oh, oh, you don't think I can do this. I'll show you, you know, and I think I just walked away from that woman. I never talked to her again. Do you remember getting, I mean, it was probably an envelope in the mail, right? When I got envelopes in the mail. Yes, yes. You're accepted letter. It wasn't an email. It wasn't the click on. Right. Do you remember, like looking for that camera. Was it the smaller? The bigger one that was good. Which is kind of harsh.

No, it was one of the proudest moments, you know, to, and again, I didn't have a lot of support. My parents loved me, but once we started doing things like applying to Ivy League schools, I mean, we were kind of out of their league, right? Yeah. I mean, my mom could read over my essay, but, you know, everything I did felt amazing to her. I don't know if she or my dad felt like, well, you could change this segment or, you know, I mean, They weren't editing us. They were encouraging us. It looks good.

Go for it. It's great. Yeah. So it's like, okay. The safe house I'm in, they're like, go forward. You are fabulous. Yeah. Right.

So I was relieved to prove the doubters wrong. Right. It wasn't just your parents who knew. It was. Somebody else sees this out here. Sometimes you need external validation. Yeah. Okay.

So with your permission, I'm going to push back from the game for a minute. Yes, let's push back. Because let's do it. Because let's talk about your podcast. Oh, yes. That. Okay, it's called IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson, your brother. IMO obviously stands for, in my opinion.

It also stands for, I'm Michelle Obama. I know my... People pointed this out. My nephew, my brother's youngest son, who's in seventh grade, he pointed it out. Did you really not think that? No, we did. We did. Yeah, we did.

And also the subtext of that is like, This is me. I am, oh, yes. Yeah. This is you, is this you owning your voice in any way? You know, I think people who have known me and see me have felt like, oh, she pretty much, she owns her voice. She speaks out. She says, you know, but yes, this is the period in my life when, you know, the, oh, gosh, the stakes are not so high.

Yeah. You know, I mean, 10 years in the public eye, eight years in the White House, where every word, Yeah. Every utterance, every heel on my shoe, every blink of my eye, every fist bump was analyzed, dissected, and broadcasts, celebrated in some instances and ridiculed or disparaged in others. So even when you're an honest, authentic person, you're watchful and mindful because you don't want to be the one that creates problems. for the president of the United States, who happens to be your husband. We also knew that we were on a razor-thin wire of ability to make mistakes as the first. Is it a hard habit to kick, though? You know what I mean?

Yeah, no. The podcast, the mic is open. You're talking to people. You want to be loose. You want to be free. Well, you know, and I don't know my team is here. It's a hard habit for my team to kick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right. And I say that with all the love. Yeah, they're looking up for you. Exactly. Yeah. And to move from First Lady world into other worlds, the same cautiousness and habits, because we all have a little PTSD. We all felt responsible for the legacy of Barack Obama, for what that administration meant, right? So everybody was always on alert.

You know, so it takes a second when you start thinking, well, Can you go here? Can you say this? Can you touch this third rail? You know, knowing that even in this phase in our lives, when Barack and I say something right or wrong, it does get covered. Yeah. You know, the fact that people don't see me going out on a date with my husband sparks rumors of the end of our marriage. I mean, it's sort of, you know, so that is. Like the apocalypse. It's like, okay, so we don't Instagram every minute of our lives.

We are 60. We're 60, y'all. You just are not going to know. Well, we're doing every minute of the day, you know? And yes, I guess we're famous, but we're 60. You are. We're a real famous. We don't take selfies.

I just, you know, Barack was joking. He's like, you don't even take pictures of anything we do. I was like, I'm not thinking about a picture. I know. You're trying to be in the moment. I'm really bad at taking pictures. That's right. So anyway.

So I think them breaking the habit is as much. of an adjustment. Yeah. So I don't have to tell you that you inhabit a special place in the culture. You do. That's weird. You just do. You're not weird.

You're more than like a role model. You're like for many people, especially women, young women, young women of color, you're like a North Star. And it doesn't matter if you don't know everything, Michelle Obama. People think you know everything. People think you've got the answers to all the stuff. So I guess my question is this show, there's an advice component to this. So is this your way of kind of making peace with your place in the world and just saying, okay.

Yeah, yeah. Let me tell you some stuff. I got some stuff. Yeah, I think it's a few things. IMO, you know, it wasn't an accident that it's happening right after my mom passed. It's been a year just a month ago since my mother passed. And we were starting to have these conversations a little bit. But I think once my mom passed and the notion of doing something with my brother,

where we would be forced to see each other on a regular basis became a big motivator, right? To carry on just the tradition of family that you lose when you lose the last elder. It's also that time in life where Craig and I look. at each other, and we're like, well, we're it. Yeah. We are the elders in our family, right? And so, you know, so there's just something psychological that happens to you. When that baton, you literally, it's not past, you're holding it.

It's just you looking over the cliff. That's exactly right. And kind of realizing, well, let's step up because, you know, look, we did. We were blessed with a lot of wisdom and a lot of unique perspectives. from two parents who were no longer here that helped us be where we are and they're no longer here to deliver those messages. And a lot of people didn't have that. So we have an opportunity to keep their memory and that wisdom alive to own the fact that we now have that wisdom and then to share it with others who may not have that same kind of support system at a time

when people are lonely, they're feeling even more isolated. So all of that kind of played a role in thinking not only could this be a good idea, but it could also be fun, which is also where I am in life. If it's not fun for me, selfishly, then let's not do it. But it's been all of that. And just being able to still have a platform to give voice to people to let people know, that we're still here, not in a different way. I am not going to be in politics. I'm not giving another political speech. I'm not campaigning for another candidate, but I'm here. I'm here in

different ways. Did you ever think about not being here? I mean, not being here. But I'm going away. Just living a super private life and curling up. Yeah. And I get that more than I ever have gotten it ever before. So everything is relative, right? But I am, I'm still. I'm still. 60, but I'm still just 60. And I still feel like, I can't just, I can't stop yet. It's like, okay, I'm ready to slow down a bit, but not stop. And that time will come. But it's probably too soon. So finding creative ways to stay engaged, that is still useful and is authentic to my nature, which is advice giving and talking, as you can see, I can talk, is, I think, a good balance to strike. And I think our listeners

are having fun with it. Yeah, I'm having fun with it. It's a great show. Round two with Michelle Obama. This is Insights. Three new cards. One, two, or three. Three. Three. How comfortable are you with change?

I, thank you, Barack Obama. I married a man that got me real comfortable with change. Right. So I am now very comfortable. would change. That was not the case when you came? I, you know, I was a, for, you know, we were a perfect square in my household. Mom, dad, brother, sister, dad goes to work,

has a shift job. Life was predictable, you know. We lived a, you know, stable. Barak used to call us the black cleavers, you know, the leave it to beaver family. We, we lived a, you know, we live. which was the total opposite of the life he grew up with, being the son of a teen mother, not knowing his father, mother and anthropologists, living around the world, being, you know, sometimes living without his mother, living with his grandp. So his introduction to my little working class life was like,

Zanadu. It's like, who are these people, right? So when my husband approached me about getting into politics, A was like, what? Well, we don't do that. And we got a good right here. We had replicated our universe. We had that stability, you know?

Barack, we were both had great jobs. Barack could have done anything. He could be a professor. He could be a appellate court. He could have been a Supreme Court clerk. He's like, no, no, no, no, none of that. Got all these big dreams. Yeah, these big, crazy dreams.

The biggest, craziest one was running for president, which was the biggest massive change, not just in terms of a career move, but if he won, we'd have to move from the safety and security of a community, a city that was our own. I would uproot my kids in ways that I hadn't experienced. And maybe not how you visualize being a parent. Didn't visualize that. So could I do that? But yeah, I got used to change.

And I learned to realize that pivoting a bit, are you better? Swerving a bit. Yeah, I'm better at riding it. And I encourage people to practice it because it is a practice, practicing change in the muscle and getting over the, that scary feeling of, I don't know what this is going to be. And being able to decipher between the fear that keeps you safe and the fear that keeps you stuck. So I think I've become much more. depth at it. Three more.

Three more. One, two, three. Two. Has ambition ever led you astray? Has ambition? That's a good question. Let me flip this one on you, just because. Just because.

I want to know. I have not had this one flipped on me. Okay. All right. Oh, Michelle. I have sometimes lost my mooring. I have sometimes been a truble. attracted to the bright, shiny thing in a career that can promise more money, more notoriety, more attention.

And it's not, those places aren't home to me, actually. And it took a lot for me to recognize. I did. I was able in the moment to. recognize, I don't feel like me here. I don't feel like me here. It's all part of life experience, right? You try stuff off and you make mistakes, right? So it's not all bad to indulge a little bit of ambition that may be leading you astray as long as you find your way back. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, the thing I keep thinking is like, wow,

I don't know if my ambition has ever fully been able to actualize itself because of the nature of what me and my husband have done. I mean, I guess you could as a team. Right. You know. It wasn't about your individual. Was it right? It was the team ambition. And I went along arguably kicking.

and screaming, right? And, you know, I think I'm now at a stage in my life where all my choices are mine. All my, you know, now I can say that whatever I'm doing from this point on is about my ambition, you know, and that's fairly new, right? Because as a working mother, you know, I think all of that stuff, it, kind of cut my ambitions short a little bit. Yeah. Because I had to make a set of decisions.

Okay, my husband's over here. I've got these kids over here. I don't know if I can afford to be ambitious right now. Right. So I have to take a step back. Even though ambition is there, I can see where I could make more money. I could do that. Yeah.

But, you know, I got these little kids that I love. And I do want to go to the Halloween parade. And I want to, you know. So I think I kind of squelched my ambition. But now is a time for me to embrace my own ambition and to define it for me. So maybe the answer is we'll see. Yeah. Because I think I'm just now fully stepping into my own ambition.

Yeah. And right now I have not regretted it. Part of ambition in living your own life is saying yes to things you want to do. It's also saying no, I imagine, to things that you don't want to do. For sure. And we experienced that. One of the major decisions I made this year to stay put and not attend funerals and inaugurations and all the things that I'm supposed to. That was a part of me, you know, using my ambition to say, let me define what I want to do.

apart from what I'm supposed to do, what the world expects of me. And I have to own that. Those are my choices. Whatever the backlash was, I had to sit in it and own it. But I didn't regret it, you know. Yeah, because it's your life. It's my life now. And I can say that now.

But we'll see. Maybe next year we sit down, I go, you know, Rachel, went a little too far. I'm going to rain it back in. I'm going to rain it back in. Okay. Last round. Okay. How are you feeling?

I feel great. You feel good? Yeah. We're breezing through me. We're breathing through this. Okay. This is beliefs. Okay.

One, two, or three. Let's go with two. Two. How often do you think about death? Hmm. I should flip this one just because we're almost done. I'll let you flip. I'll give you two flips.

Because my answer is so short all the time. I think about that all the time. I mean, I do, right? Death is life. Death is life. It's the flip side. It makes living feel precious and urgent and vivid. And, yeah, like I told you, my parents died.

It feels, I made this show in part because I like to talk about how we live our life and how precious it all is. And what does happen after we're gone? I don't know the answers to any of these things, but they occupy my imagination. So I think about it. I think about it all the time. I'm right there with you. I do. And not in a morbid way.

No, I read about this in your book and how your parents talk to you about dying. That's right. That's right. To make it a normal thing. Well, and also, you know, as we get older, you know, look. And my husband thinks this is morbid. But at 61, you know, if I am lucky, if I am truly blessed, like, 25 more summers. Oh, yeah.

I do that math all the time. Yeah. You know? When I measure how old my kids are against that. Yeah. Yeah. Because if you're not mindful about time, you know, like 10 years, we've been out of office for 10 years. Right.

what happened? What happened of those 10 years? You know? I mean, it's like, I did a lot, right? I mean, two, three books, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's a lot that happened, but it went by fast. And I'm at the stage of life where I want the next 10 years to go by slowly. Yeah.

Because guess what? I love, I love life. I love my life. I love life. But what I feel is that if I'm not mindful about it, the years slip away and you wind up spending a year doing what. Did you do anything you wanted to? Did you spend time with the people that you wanted to spend time with, doing the things that you wanted to do? And there's a time in life for all young people where you just don't have that luxury because you're grinding and growing and building.

You haven't earned it yet, right? and you should be out there doing and shaking and bacon. Yep. But with 25 more summers, I want to know. I want to feel each one of them. I know. I want to be like, ooh, this year, this was slow. I was like, I ain't do much of anything.

You got to accomplish anything. You got bored. And I was like, oh, I read another book. It took forever. Do you think you're comfortable with real slowness, though? Like, do you think that's that? Yes. Oh, you are. Okay. Oh, yes, I am. And a day of nothing is one of those nice, slow days where you look up and go, oh, man, it's only noon. I want more of those because I want these last 25 summers to feel long and purposeful and mine, not because I've given that time away and I looked up and it's all gone. I've given it all away to everybody else. And I don't even know what was left for me. And so I think all of that is a

part of thinking about death. Totally. You know? And when it comes, I'm not afraid of it, but you're not. No, I'm not. But let me tell you one thing that was interesting to me, and I think you're the first person I share this with publicly, is like the last year of my mom's life, she got, she was sick.

Her body was just shutting down for a number of various reasons. And her last bout of illness, she was with me. in Hawaii, in our home in Hawaii, which was a blessing, right? Because she was forced to let me take care of her. She didn't want to be a burden. She didn't want to be a burden. And ooh, did I, I had doctors and nurses and everybody coming in and we had her diet and this and I was bossing her around and she was mad and she was, I just want to go home. And it's like, but you can't. You're stuck with me. You know, I could just take care of her. And she got better and went back to Chicago.

But we were sitting on the couch watching one of her court shows because she liked court shows. And she was realizing that, you know, she might, she will not ever be the same old self that she was. She was starting to realize she's coming to the end. And this woman that prepared me for death, right, and talked to me about all this stuff and was like, I'm ready to die, who needs to be old people around too long? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She leaned over to me, and she said, wow, this went fast.

And I held her hand. I said, what are you talking about? And she said, life. She said, this went fast. And this was the woman who was ready. And what that told me was that even when you tell yourself you're ready, if you're living a good life, you're never really. ready for it to end, right? So I hope I feel that way, even though I will be ready for it,

you know, because it's been good and purposeful that I'll feel like, I wish I had more time. So I'm trying to live my life like that, you know. Rachel. Don't you. It's your stupid cards. Oh, God. All right. Last one. Yeah, yeah.

I don't even care what it is. Just flip. You've already got two. You pick it. Okay, you pick the last one. You want me too? Yeah, you pick it. But these are all so good.

Okay. Then you pick it. And okay, you, you, and I won't flip because I had my flips. Fine. Okay. Dealer's choice. Okay. Because I really do want to know your answer.

I mean, I want to know your answer to all of them. The others, you weren't so sure. Yeah, right. Take it or leave. What's your best defense against despair? Hmm. This is easy. It's being around kids, being around young people.

That's why most of my initiatives in the White House involve young people. And I'd be having a bad day and I'd talk to my team and I'd be like, oh, get me to some kids now, stat. So one of the things we used to do was to make these surprise visits to high schools in the area. And my goal was to get to every high school. But it was like, we're not going to make it a big deal. We don't want kids fighting over who's coming. We don't want to shut down the school and all this. So if it's an OTR and off the record, you could pretty much do that.

But it's still the first lady in the presidential motorcade. So we would always hook in the secretary of education who would go in as sort of the ruse of we're here to announce a da-da-da-a-da-pah policy. And the kids would be there. And then I'd come in. And they'd just be like, what? No media, no every. And then we'd just talk, right? We'd talk about life.

First, we'd have to get them to stop crying and stop screaming, you know, and that took a while because we would try to do these things in the hour. And it's like, these kids aren't going to settle down. This is too much of a shock. So we need to make the time limitless, like, until they can calm down enough. Because, like, kids, once they calm down and see that you're real, you know, and it's like, and I'm just like this, you know, then they start asking real questions. But it takes a minute. But those would be some of my best days, you know, of just like, give me to a school. So what do you do now? There's a lot of despair.

A lot of despair. You're just like, give me to a kid. Give me to a kid. Yeah. What do you do? It's sprinkled throughout my life still. You know, when I did my book tours and we did bookstops, we always went into the community, stop by a school or with a leadership group of some sort or at a college or what have you.

So we try to filter it in. But kids give me hope and they remind me of the fact that we don't have the luxury of despair as adults. Because when you despair, you stop acting. It sort of gives you the excuse to just give up and be in your despair. And we can't afford that because when you, we aren't acting, doing our part, mentoring, voting, you know, doing whatever we can, caring, not being complacent or apathetic or so disappointed that I just can't be bothered. Yeah.

We are wasting. Apathy is dangerous and it's dangerous for our kids because they can't act. They don't have a vote. They can't change anything. They live in the country we create for them. But it also sounds like, you know, in a very granular way, when you, Michelle Obama, wake up and it's feeling too much and something happens and despair sets in, your go-to is to do, to act. Yeah. To, like, get up and do something.

Yeah. Yeah. And if it's with kids, or maybe it's just a workout, maybe it's moving, you know, but sitting still for me is the... It is the opposite of combating despair, sitting in it, thinking too much about it. Stewing in it. Stewing in it. But moving and doing something, you know, that's why it's like the key to depression for me, if it's not clinical, the first step is just get out of bed, get up, and connect to people, right?

You know, we aren't built to do this life alone, and we need to be around each other to be reminded of who we are. and why we exist, and we do not exist for ourselves because we can't survive on our own. We are, as a human species, we're pretty weak, you know. We don't do well in the sun. We don't have fur. Our teeth don't do anything. We have no claws. I mean, you know, camping is very difficult for me, honestly.

Camping is difficult for most people. I mean, I love those nature shows, the Laskin bush people. I'm like, you are going to be good. Just watch that with popcorn. But most of us. Oh, we'd be dead in an hour. You know? We need community, you know.

So being in the presence of other people, you know, that helps me as well. What about you? Flipping with abandon. Flipping with abandon. That's less a flip because I answered it first. So this is just more curious. It's the same. It's to reach out to people.

And it's to get micro. So much of my despair. It happens as macro. It's about the big stuff that I find hard to control. So it's like, let me think about the things that are in my patch of the world. Let me think about my next door neighbor and what's going down with her. Let me think about my kids and how I can make this meal special for them. And like, just get, I try to get hyper-local about it.

And it makes me, and it's selfish because it makes me feel better. I agree. And then it has the ancillary benefit of hopefully helping other people. but like it's too easy to get lost in the existential dread. Yeah, I call it the power of small. Yes, totally. We think so much about big, big change, big, everything's got to be big and huge. And most of us don't have the platform to make big things happen.

But I've seen how big power can't do a lot. You know, the president of the United States, for reasons we're now learning, there's a limit to those powers and they should be. because you can mess up a lot if your power goes unchecked. But if you think of the power of a good neighbor, the power of being a good parent to the kids you brought into this world, well, yeah, that's something each and every one of us can do. And we, if everybody did that, if everybody just exercised their full small power.

Oh, yeah, the butterfly effect, that just trickles around. So I agree. We end the show the same way every time With a trip in our memory time machine Oh, are you excited? Ooh So it's make belief I just do this

Okay So in the memory time machine You get to go back To one moment in your past It is not a moment you want to change anything about Okay This is just a moment That you want to linger in

A little bit longer What moment do you choose? It's got to be on Euclid Avenue. One of the nights after dinner, when my dad's on a regular shift where he's home for dinner, and he agrees to play a game. Because our parents were regular parents, like, we're not playing with you. You know? Right.

It's like, so the decision to play with us after. dinner. Big deal. It was huge, right? Whether it was a game of hands down or this, the way, or singing or dancing game or any game. It's like, he'd decide. And then to top it off, not only would my dad agree to play, but my mom would finish

the dishes and come and play to. And the four of us would be sitting in our, we're sitting in the living room, just playing a game and laughing and music is on. and it feels like everything is right and safe. Back in that safe place on 74th in Euclid. I'd be back there. That's a lovely one. Yeah.

Michelle Obama, her new podcast is called IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson. Congratulations on that show. Everybody listen, it's wonderful. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you for listening. If you are new to the show, welcome. We are so glad that you're here.

If you enjoyed this conversation, follow our show for more conversations just like it. I might recommend checking out the chat that I had with LeVar Burton. He talks about the pressure of being Levar Burton, or the interview that I did with the writer Zadie Smith, who also tackles that despair question and has just incredibly beautiful things to say about it. There's also an episode with radio legend Ira Glass, who talks about how he plays basically a nicer version of himself on the radio. We've got a lot for you, so I hope you stick around.

This episode was produced by Lee Hale and edited by Dave Blancher. It was mastered by Robert Rodriguez with engineering help from Jay Sizz and Andy Huther. And a big shout out to NPR's visuals team who filmed it all. If you'd like to see that version, search for the show on YouTube. Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sangweni, and we had extra help from Natalie Winston. Our theme music is by Romteen Arablewe. You can reach out to us at Wildcard at NPR. We'll shuffle the deck and be back with more next week.

Talk to you then.