Michelle Obama’s LIFE ADVICE On Manifesting Success Will CHANGE YOUR LIFE | MotivationArk

as many of you know my background I mean I grew up in Chicago in a workingclass community my parents weren't wealthy so we didn't have the resources to spend on fees at private schools we went to the neighborhood public school and I went to public school my entire life and I I was always that student who wanted to get A's I wanted to do well I enjoyed learning I enjoyed excelling but what I found out is that when you're one of those kids in a community where not everyone has the same goals I found myself having to walk a bunch of different lines there were some kids that didn't like kids who were smart and got good grades there were some kids who criticized the way I talk they said that I talk like I was white which was another way of saying that you think you're better than other people so I had to contend with with how do I get my education when I'm surrounded by people who may have different expectations of me and those just weren't the kids in the neighborhood there were teachers I had to confront teachers who underestimated me every step of the way even when I applied to Princeton I write about in my book and I tell the story all the time even though I was at the top of my class and I was a class officer I was a leader when I sat down with my high school counselor or somebody who didn't know me but was assigned to work with students to help them apply to college and I told them my intention was to apply to Princeton that counselor told me I don't think you're Princeton material the person whose job it was to help young people reach their dreams when it came to college saw me and whatever she saw on me told her that my dreams were too high and that cut me in a way that even though I continued on I applied obviously you know I got in but I still remember that story I remember that feeling of Doubt just another adult sort of placing a barrier on me that I didn't even have for myself so then to enter into an elite school when your high school counselor has told you you're not good enough when all of society sort of looks at kids of color or kids from poor community or rural communities as not belonging you know I like many others walked into that school with a stigma in my own head more young people nowadays call it impostor uh syndrome I don't know if they call it that in in Britain where kids like me feel like they don't belong so they feel like they're faking it and I had to get over that and one of the ways that I got over it was that I looked around at Prince and I saw kids who were not as talented or as gifted or as hardworking as I was I learned that this notion of affirmative action sometimes only applies to kids of color or kids from different backgrounds or poor kid but there are all kinds of affirmative action that take place in Elite schools around the country athletes who are admitted because not because they're great students but because they can add value Legacy people who come from families with long Lines within the school they get admission so I started to realize that the doubts that I had in my head were all mine and I had to work to overcome that question that I always ask myself am I good enough and I write about that that's a question that has dogged me for a good part of my life am I good enough to have all of this am I good enough to be the first lady of the United States and I think that many women and definitely many young girls of all backgrounds walk around with that question but how I overcame that is how I overcome anything hard work so whenever I doubted myself I I just told myself let me put my head down and do the work and I would let my work speak for itself and I still find that I do that I still feel that at some level I have something to prove because of the color of my skin because of the shape of my body because of who knows how people are judging but it takes some time and it takes some maturity to start having some successes under your belt where you realize yes in fact I am good enough I absolutely believe that education is the key not just for young women but for people in general knowledge the opportunity to mature to try new things to meet new people to be open to different cultures you know a lot of the problems that we have in the world come from lack of knowledge you know people who are just underexposed to all the different ways there are to be human uh and we judge people based on our limited understanding of the world and and I always try to hold out empathy for those who were in that position because I know that it's based in a place of ignorance sounds like a harsh word but it's the appropriate word just not knowing you only know what you know and sadly if your world view is this small and you know no one else that looks or think differently from you because you didn't have the chance to be educated or to travel or to see the world or to have your ideas challenged and to learn how to be analytical you know then it's understandable that you would be afraid of something different from you but the only way we break through that is to educate ourselves and to educate the Next Generation you know to open them up to new ideas if you're not a strong reader if you can't take in huge amounts of information and break it down and have it make sense you won't even know when things are good for you or bad for you so yes I absolutely believe and particularly for for women and girls because women still raise the Next Generation women are at the heart of all Society we bring life we raise life we nurture life we feed our families and if we don't know what to do if those mothers raising children don't know how to keep them alive or not expose them to diseases or to feed them when they're hungry if they can't raise a living to bring resources in we all struggle so it would seemed to me that if we want to solve anything any major issue that you can think about climate change terrorism poverty inequality it starts with an education I I don't know how we we do any of it if people don't know what they don't know one of the challenges that formal education places before young people is that you're taught to figure out what you want to be when you grow up right and you're given titles and there's a finite set of them a lawyer teacher a researcher you learn those titles and then you you do the work to get to those titles and then you get jobs and you have careers what I learned was none of that has anything to do necessarily with who I am not what I want to be what do I care about how do I want to wake up and invest my time every day what brings me joy what makes me sad we don't teach that in school but I learned to try to find that for me and turn that passion into my career and that was some of the best advice because that's when I decided learned that I didn't want to be a lawyer because I'd never taken the time to think about why was I going to law school I was going to law school because I thought I should be a lawyer not because tha