Disappointment Is the Key to Career Success with Keke Palmer

Speaker 1 I remember when I did a Keel in the Bee, everybody kept saying, This movie is going to be a hit. This movie is going to bust it out.
This is going to, you won't be a star.

Speaker 1 And like, it's such an elusive thing because what's a star? You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 And how old were you then?

Speaker 1 I was 11. 11.

Speaker 1 And they were like, this is cute.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, it's like, you were really whatever that is. I guess it was Michael Jackson now.
You know, like, it was like cute.

Speaker 1 And then the movie came in and did so terrible in the box office.

Speaker 2 Although that was one of my favorite movies.

Speaker 1 And then the funny thing about it is like over time, it grew to be my most popular film and the thing that people most know me for.

Speaker 1 But I use that as an example in this is because our life is made up of many moments.

Speaker 1 It's not made like our legacy is not just that one thing we did.

Speaker 1 You know, it's the many things that we did. And so, like, Akeelah and 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 1 But I remember feeling in that moment being like, everybody lied to me.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? I felt like when my mom told me I was going to be a big girl at five, I still didn't get big. I was like, now wait a minute, I'm still

Speaker 2 shorter than y'all. It sounds like big girl just means I can't be a baby.

Speaker 2 This episode is brought to you by Pine Saul and Chase Home Lending.

Speaker 2 Well, hello. Well, hi, Craig.
How are you? I'm great. How are you? Welcome.
Thank you. Back to my world.

Speaker 2 Even though I didn't stay at your place. You know, and that

Speaker 2 you got a lot of nerve coming into DC and you didn't even stay with me because you all trying to be Airbnb friendly. Let me tell you,

Speaker 2 I would normally stay with my sister,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And we're going to be talking about dreams. And I've, you know, it made me think of when we were little, did you have a dream? Did you know what you wanted to do? I thought I did.

Speaker 2 When I would be asked,

Speaker 2 probably around the age of 10, I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician. I remember.
You remember that. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 I was wondering if you remember because I thought you were going to say lawyer or something. I was going to say no.
No, no, no. But yes, you know.

Speaker 2 Lawyer didn't come until after I realized that I was not talented at chemistry or math.

Speaker 2 You know, that's what you can be at 10. You can dream.
That's like being a doctor is all about loving children and wanting to help because I love kids. I love little kids.

Speaker 2 And I thought, well, if I could do something that was professional and I could save lives. And then I went to high school and chemistry kind of threw me forward.
I didn't like science or math.

Speaker 2 So the problem with you and science is you didn't like it because you were a good student in every subject.

Speaker 2 I could get grades, 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, nah, I'll do something else. But that was my dream.

Speaker 2 What about, what about you? So I'm going to see if you remember this.

Speaker 2 I, my, 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.
Do you remember that? Well, it was like race car.

Speaker 2 I was going to say pilot.

Speaker 2 No, no, it wasn't pilot because folks weren't on planes like that.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I wanted to be a NASCAR or IndyCar driver. That's why you love Formula One stuff.
Yeah, it is. But do you remember how I got talked out of it by Mrs.
Thompson, my second-grade teacher?

Speaker 2 What did she say? So

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 i want to be a race car driver and she was like craig robinson with all those brains all you want to do is be a race car driver oh see miss thompson shamed me out of it see that's what i'm talking about but as it turned out you grow to be six six you can't be a race car driver right yeah but she didn't know that she didn't know it and and the fact and she didn't also know that race car drivers make a lot a pretty good living well they make a good living but you know they're mostly most of those guys have to be engineers they have to be really good to your point math science figuring things out so it so miss thompson didn't know what she was talking about and and i love miss thompson you know she was one of my favorite teachers but she talked me out of my my first dream and what grade was that second grade see this is what we're talking about and that's the thing one of the things i don't like about asking little kids little bitty kids to 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 do we do that to kids?

Speaker 2 Because that sets them up for thinking that life is predictable. You can pick things and plan it and it will actually happen.

Speaker 2 That's, and we're 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.

Speaker 2 everything about their lives by the time they're 15. They're supposed to have it all figured out.
Yeah. And that just sets them up.

Speaker 2 It sets up the wrong kind of expectation for how life actually works. Absolutely.
Absolutely. And it's okay to want to be three or four things, too.

Speaker 2 Well, because over the course of your life, you may actually be three or four different things.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And I'm very careful about that. I mean, you like with the girls,

Speaker 2 Malia

Speaker 2 is one of the those interesting kids who, when she was 10, she said she wanted to write and direct,

Speaker 2 and she's doing that. Right.
Right. That's crazy.
That I, I always say that to Sasha, the younger one. That's unusual.

Speaker 2 It is rare that somebody decides at 10 that they want to do something and then they do it and they actually like it. Yeah.
But I still try not to pigeonhole them.

Speaker 2 Like, just because I say this to Malia, just because you said you wanted to do that at 10, you're now an adult. You're trying this stuff on.
You may like it. You may not.

Speaker 2 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 10.

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 we don't know what's going to happen in life.

Speaker 2 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, that they have room to respond to that change.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Just work hard. It was like schoolwork.
You don't have to get the best grades as long as you work hard.

Speaker 2 And typically, when you worked hard, you got the results you wanted. And that was

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 But I digress. I want to bring out our guest who is an Emmy Award-winning multi-hyphenate entertainer, an actress, a musical artist,

Speaker 2 a producer, a host of her own podcast, and an author.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 most importantly,

Speaker 2 she is the favorite game show host of the Robinson House Old.

Speaker 2 Because you know, we play some password in our house. You come to our house,

Speaker 2 you got to be ready to play some password. So, Kiki Palmer, will you please come on down?

Speaker 2 Oh, my goodness. I can listen to you guys talk all day long.
It's so good to see you. Thanks for being here.
Hey, you two. You guys are good guys.

Speaker 1 Thank you for having me on. And I just live for the password, play.

Speaker 2 Oh, bro. The password is.
Yes. That's what we want my glasses.
When we play, we say it like that.

Speaker 2 And the password is.

Speaker 2 You've done better than. Who was the guy, Alan Ludden? It was the

Speaker 2 original. That was

Speaker 2 high praise?

Speaker 1 I love doing 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 2 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.
14-year-old and a 12-year-old.

Speaker 2 So sitting down and watching TV is gone by the wayside.

Speaker 2 But there's two things we watch. password and dateline.
Okay. Because dateline gets you in two.

Speaker 1 That's like the perfect balance, you know.

Speaker 2 You can laugh, and then you're like, Who would have known that man with no gut? I love that balance, you can teach some life lessons with daylight. I mean, just

Speaker 2 read listening to you read Kiki's bio. It's like, girl, I would think you were 70 years old with all you've done in your life.
I do feel so 70.

Speaker 2 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.
And you have done so much in such a short period of time.

Speaker 2 Girl, I'm so proud of you just watching you just do your thing. How do you manage all of that?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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, that's all I had to stick with.

Speaker 1 You know, if I wanted to try singing and focus on that, I could.

Speaker 1 If I wanted to try hosting, if I wanted to do less film and TV and maybe do more theater, you know, it was all way, or even community stuff.

Speaker 1 And it never, I never felt like I had to just abandon any one thing to follow my dreams. It all was rooted in.
being of service to my community in the ways that felt most natural to me.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I think a lot of people have multiple gifts, most people, everybody has multiple gifts and things they want to offer.

Speaker 1 But, like y'all was saying, sometimes people make them believe that it's that whole jack of all trades, master of none.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, you know, but really, it's jack of all trades, master of none is often better than a master of one.

Speaker 2 One, yeah.

Speaker 1 And so, I think my mom, my dad, my family saying, Okay, we're with you.

Speaker 2 Let's give this a little bit of it. Let's do it.

Speaker 1 Let's give this what made me be able to do it.

Speaker 2 Do you think about the wisdom of their parenting?

Speaker 2 What do you think now about the way your parents, you know, sort of guided you?

Speaker 1 I think in the beginning, I was kind of like, as a teenager in my early 20s, it was kind of like, did I like my parents?

Speaker 2 Yeah, really, really.

Speaker 1 And then I was like, girl, everybody go. 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 1 I'm sorry that you didn't like that. But now you're a grown woman.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 2 See, now that's Chicago, right? That is Chicago to the man. He was like, I mean, everybody's parents did something.
He was kind of like, okay, girl.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 I mean, there's just a, and we talked about because we from Illinois. Okay.
And Kiki, she's sort of almost from Chicago.

Speaker 1 Every time I say Robbins, people are like.

Speaker 2 But if you know Chicago, you know, Robbins is like, it's the, it's the hood suburb.

Speaker 2 And if Kiki's from Robbins, she can handle herself. It's like, right.
You can handle yourself. We don't go play.
You know, it's not, you know, Robbins is not Highland Park. No.
It is not.

Speaker 2 It's not Barrington. You know,

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 your parents sound like there's a sort of common sense groundedness to just the way they think. There's just kind of a Midwestern kind of

Speaker 2 simplicity and kind of, you know, no nonsense.

Speaker 2 And I always

Speaker 1 always wonder how it's like that.

Speaker 1 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 by the bootstraps,

Speaker 1 hug on your family, you know, be good to yourself and keep moving forward because life isn't going to stop. So what are you going to do with that?

Speaker 1 And I think that's what I learned the most from my parents after I got out of my,

Speaker 1 I was kind of like, it all slowly started started to come to me.

Speaker 1 All the sacrifices they made in all, 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.

Speaker 1 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.
My parents abandoned.

Speaker 1 those things.

Speaker 1 They became heroes.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And I think that is like what I wanted to be able to do the most with my son: teach him how to be an authoritar figure, but also help to nurture his sense of leadership without, you know, tampering him down, you know, like be a leader, but be the right kind of leader.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know.

Speaker 2 As I mentioned earlier in the episode, this time on my trip to Washington, D.C., I didn't stay at my sister's place. I stayed at a wonderful Airbnb.
The place was fantastic.

Speaker 2 My sister is not very happy with me, but being at my own place, I can cook for myself when I want to. I actually boiled a few eggs for myself.
I can have a beer, put my feet up.

Speaker 2 I can take a shower and come out of the bathroom with my towel around me and not necessarily have to get dressed right away.

Speaker 2 But I think that from now on, when I come to D.C., I'm going to stay in an Airbnb, to my sister's chagrin.

Speaker 2 This episode of IMO is sponsored by Chase Home Lending, inspiring confidence in your home buying journey.

Speaker 2 No matter where you are in your home buying journey, it's easy when you start with Chase's home lending experts and smart digital tools that can guide you every step of the way.

Speaker 2 Buying a home is part of building a strong foundation for your future and creating a space where you and your loved ones can thrive.

Speaker 2 When Kelly and I got married, we were thinking, what's the best way to lay a foundation for our new family? Well, we decided that foundation could be laid by purchasing a home.

Speaker 2 As it turned out, that was the right decision. We've raised four kids in our home.

Speaker 2 We still have two there and we are saving for college and our home ended up being the best foundation we could have ever wanted.

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Speaker 2 Visit chase.com slash start to learn how Chase can help achieve your home ownership dreams. Member, FDIC, Equal Housing Opportunity.
We are so thrilled that Pinesol is a partner of IMO.

Speaker 2 Pinesol has been connected to our family forever. To this day, whenever my sister and I catch the scent of pinesol, we automatically feel better about life.

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Speaker 2 So I sorry Mish, but I love it. I love Mish.

Speaker 2 Yeah, right. Sorry, Mish.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 I'm in control here.

Speaker 2 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.
So, Natalie. What's up, Natalie?

Speaker 3 Hi, Michelle and Craig. My name is Noelle and I'm 36 years old.
My whole career, I've had one dream, to write a cookbook. Since college, I've worked single-mindedly towards doing this.

Speaker 3 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 help other people realize their own cookbook dreams.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 My first cookbook will come out late next year. So you might be wondering, what's the problem?

Speaker 3 That's my question too. After 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 I'm deeply aware of what I don't have and I feel a bit overwhelmed by the rest of my life.

Speaker 3 Getting this cookbook to the finish line on time and within budget, trying to earn more money, staying healthy, trying to date, you get the picture.

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 Maybe even find a little gratitude for what I have accomplished? Any insights would help.

Speaker 2 Thanks, Noel.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 that is a lot.

Speaker 2 That was heartbreaking.

Speaker 2 I'll open it up to you folks.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 You know how you can think about one side, get da-da-da-da-I'm gonna have this, I'm gonna have that, I'm gonna have that, right?

Speaker 1 And then you kind of continue to push the goalpost for yourself.

Speaker 1 So, I remember when I did a Keel in the Bee, um, everybody kept saying, This movie is gonna be a hit, this movie is gonna bust it out, this is gonna, you won't be a star, and like it's such an elusive thing because what's a star, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Yeah, right. And how old were you then?

Speaker 1 I was 11. 11, and they were like, This is cute.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, it's like, you were really, whatever that is. I guess I was Michael Jackson now.
You know, like, it was like cute.

Speaker 1 And then the movie came in and did so terrible in the box office.

Speaker 2 Although that was one of my favorite movies.

Speaker 1 And then the funny thing about it is like over time, it grew to be my most popular film and the thing that people most know me for.

Speaker 1 But I use that as an example in this is because our life is made up of many moments.

Speaker 1 It's not made like our legacy, it's not just that one thing we did.

Speaker 1 You know, it's the many things that we did. And so, like, Akeelah 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 1 But I remember feeling in that moment being like, everybody lied to me.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? I felt like when my mom told me I was going to be a big girl at five, I still didn't get big. I was like, now, wait a minute, I'm still

Speaker 2 shorter than y'all. It sounds like big girl just means I can't be a baby.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 1 This doesn't seem right how I felt with the Aquila thing and so but what i learned and what i never did to myself after that was to expect an 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 certain achievement no it's that to me and that has to be enough so that's the one thing i i thought about when that happened so that makes me think i mean i share this all the time i mean i went to princeton harvard law because I thought I was going to be a lawyer and a corporate lawyer.

Speaker 2 I didn't know anything about what a lawyer did. 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.

Speaker 2 You get into Harvard, you go, right? That was the extent of my thinking. Yeah.
Right.

Speaker 2 And then I got out, I practiced in a firm for two years. And I was like, I

Speaker 2 don't like this at all.

Speaker 2 I'm not, you know, because corporate law is about, it's, it's papers and briefs, it's research, it's not very people-oriented, especially in the your early years.

Speaker 2 It just, I had no idea what corporate law was. Right.
And I had a, I had wonderful mentors, people supported me.

Speaker 2 I, I did, I was able to achieve and do good things in that year, but I didn't, I didn't know what that felt like.

Speaker 2 I did not want to be a lawyer.

Speaker 2 As it turns out, after all that education and all those loans, but to your point, it was

Speaker 2 autumn 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.

Speaker 2 But to your point, I had no idea. what that was going to mean and what was that what that was going to feel like.

Speaker 2 It was a goal that i set for myself i didn't even know what it was based on yeah i didn't know my why i knew my what but i didn't know my why and and i could have felt um

Speaker 2 like a failure for it right but i did i didn't fortunately i had parents i was like let me try on some other things like to your point there are chapters in life that was a chapter I needed to do that and know that and understand that.

Speaker 2 And I went on to have many, many chapters. And I'm still glad that I got my law degree.

Speaker 2 The way I think, you know, how I see the world is very much influenced by that education. Yes.
But it wasn't who I was supposed to be.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 or put too much emotion on one or two achievements, it always sets you up for disappointment

Speaker 2 because life is bigger than that. So, so to

Speaker 2 not take this into a sports metaphor, which I get accused of all the time.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 it seems to me

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 You have to enjoy the process. Like

Speaker 2 guys who make it into professional athletics, they love to work out.

Speaker 2 They love to do the hard stuff. They love to get in the gym.
They love to compete when nobody's watching.

Speaker 2 And that ends up being turning into a guy like LeBron or like Michael Jordan.

Speaker 2 And what I'm finding is that people don't learn how to enjoy the process because Noel's done all this great work that got her to where she is. And she should be loving the fact that she got there.

Speaker 2 And she can't because she got there and the goal was

Speaker 2 I do the book and then I get all of this that to your point, Kiki, I get all this stuff that's supposed to come with the book.

Speaker 1 It's because I think that what happens to us sometimes is we focus on the micro goal that is actually servicing the macro goal. And I don't know what that is for Noelle.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 That's the real goal. Yeah.
To tell stories through food. I can do that through helping people tell their stories through food.
I can do that through food styling.

Speaker 1 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 that I like to perform.

Speaker 1 It's that I like to make people believe in something.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I like to make them feel inspired, excited, whether that's through Akeel and the B, having a conversation here with y'all, or you and your family getting together, watching Password.

Speaker 1 The macro goal, the real goal that I'm servicing that never has an ending is to just make people believe and feel good and inspired.

Speaker 1 And so I think that's another thing that I hear with Noelle is like, that's the micro goal was to do this thing.

Speaker 2 The book. The book.

Speaker 1 The micro goal was to do the book, but the macro goal,

Speaker 1 you got to really identify that to yourself. And that helps you to know that I'm going in the right direction.

Speaker 1 You feel that you're being of 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 2 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.

Speaker 2 You know, I think we put too much emphasis on titles and salaries and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 I mean, you know, one reason why I said I wanted to be a lawyer was because when you say that out loud and you're a little kid, the adults' responses are always, oh, that's so wonderful, right?

Speaker 2 Like, they don't even know what that is. It's like, it sounds good.
You know, I want my daughter to be a lawyer. That's so true.
You know,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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 named school? And we're sending those subtle messages. So now

Speaker 2 you become Noelle. 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?

Speaker 2 Oh, that sounds impressive, right?

Speaker 2 Guess I want to write a book, you know?

Speaker 2 Mom reacted pretty well to that.

Speaker 2 And so now I see young people getting caught at going after words, titles, things, right? A salary. I want to be rich.

Speaker 2 I want to be this name thing.

Speaker 2 And that keeps them from understanding their macro because they're not spending time thinking about who am I? That's right. And what do I want to be in life?

Speaker 2 Because when I had to transition out of law, that was the first time when I decided at that stage after all that debt, I don't want to be a lawyer.

Speaker 2 Now I have to do the hard work of figuring out, well, who do I want to be? Because no one, none of my degrees taught me to even think like that. No one had ever asked those questions.

Speaker 2 I was getting A's and awards and all that, but nobody ever said, who is Michelle? And who, who do you want to be in the world?

Speaker 2 so i had to do that work on my own and start meeting with different people and hearing about different jobs and careers because i was even limited to going to the best schools in the country i was shown like 10 careers i could be yeah all the things in the world you know how did you discover how did you get yourself to that answer?

Speaker 1 I'm curious.

Speaker 2 I started doing, I started meeting with people. I started thinking, I had to start thinking outside of the box, like, what do I enjoy? Yeah.
Yeah. And it went back to kids and inspiring.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 going to sit down with another young person who was like me.

Speaker 2 And I could like share with them some secrets, some things I learned to help make their life a little bit easier. Cause I know just how many young people just don't know.

Speaker 1 And you really do that.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Especially when you talk about, you know, family and unity. I think that's something that our generation is really struggling with right now.

Speaker 1 Not trying to speak for everybody, but we just don't know how to be a we. We don't always understand

Speaker 1 how to get from challenges to peace. It's like everything is like, well, challenges came.
We gone.

Speaker 1 And it's like,

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 you always talk about there were challenges.

Speaker 1 But what you get on the other side of going

Speaker 2 through that is what you're looking for.

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Speaker 2 But before you can understand understand the we, you have to understand the me.

Speaker 2 You know, I like I had to take some time to really understand my, I'll use your, my macro. Yeah.
What did I care about? What, what do, how do I want to be in the world? How do I want to impact people?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And then now, like, what are the careers I can do with that? Who are the people that do this?

Speaker 2 And their teachers, it's 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.

Speaker 2 I met with deans of students. I wrote to presidents of universities, Northwestern.

Speaker 2 I wrote to the...

Speaker 2 president of the University of Chicago. I was just making this 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.

Speaker 2 And a lot, I got a lot of no's, but I got a handful of yeses. And I remember meeting with the

Speaker 2 head of corporation counsel for the University of Chicago. I'll never forget Art Sussman, who has passed.
He just said, I would love to meet with you because he was an attorney.

Speaker 2 And I sat down, took time off of lunch, went, met with him. talked about the university and all the things that you can do there.

Speaker 2 And then he introduced me to Susan Scherr, who eventually became my chief of staff as first lady. Wow.

Speaker 2 She was working in the mayor's office as corporation counsel.

Speaker 2 Eventually, she introduced me to Valerie Jarrett, 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.

Speaker 2 And through it, I met all these strangers. None of these people knew me.

Speaker 2 And I started trying on other things. I just tried on other careers.
I worked for the city and planning and development. I worked in the mayor's office.

Speaker 2 I started a non-profit 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 And

Speaker 2 I just want to wrap it 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.

Speaker 2 And it has to involve some exploration.

Speaker 2 And instead of keeping the aperture of possibility for kids open and not asking them to narrow it so, so much so that they only start, they focus on the wrong things. Yes.

Speaker 2 And comparing and get confused about what true happiness is.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, no, that. So

Speaker 2 let's try and give Noel some advice to, because I'm hearing from both of this, this macro thing is, is, is, is, is something to really grab onto. How can we help Noel find her macro?

Speaker 2 That's a really good question.

Speaker 1 I always do personal prompts, like what she was just saying, you know, is.

Speaker 1 ask myself, write down, ask myself a question that I would ask someone else. What makes me happy?

Speaker 1 How does food service that?

Speaker 1 How can i be of service to me a good way to find your your macro is i think always of a point of view of service i truly believe that we all feel most purposeful when we are being serviced 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 my first three just to throw something out there to help lead her there i i would also want Noelle to think about

Speaker 2 what does happiness mean? What does that mean?

Speaker 2 Right. Because I also notice among young people, because I mentor a lot of young people,

Speaker 2 the expectations of life are outsized.

Speaker 2 I mean, I just think it is true. I think there is, we have a generation of young people in their 20s who think that the goal is their personal happiness, period.

Speaker 2 Like, and that is just not life, you know,

Speaker 2 you know, I mean, service is a better goal than happiness because, you know, life is full of bumps and bruises.

Speaker 2 And if we, if we're teaching young people that it's all about happiness, because Noelle has been, she's been chasing some

Speaker 2 false belief of happiness. Like there's a place that you land where the land is forever happy and there is never a bump.

Speaker 2 I hear that. That's part of her disappointment because she's waiting for the thing to be perfect.

Speaker 1 I think that's also a big thing when we're talking about the generation and just how we're all growing through this phase.

Speaker 1 There is the reality that I think has to hit us all that discomfort is a part of life.

Speaker 2 It is a part of life.

Speaker 1 This period that Noelle is also in is like, that may just be the vibe right now.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 2 We don't have to be a vibe. Right.
You achieved the thing and now

Speaker 2 you had a high with it.

Speaker 2 You celebrated it and now it levels back off right so now dude does noelle know how to deal with level does she know how to does she know how to exist when life is just life yes you know and i talk to my girls about this all the time it's like learn to be satisfied.

Speaker 1 My mom says it to me too.

Speaker 2 This was a thing that our parents said, this is another Midwestern Chicago South at

Speaker 2 Never satisfied. I mean, we didn't have anything, but the minute we acted like we weren't appreciating what was on our plate,

Speaker 2 it was like, never satisfied. How are you asking for something and you still have something on your plate? You know,

Speaker 2 I tell my girls the greatest gift that they can have developed for themselves is the ability to be self-sat, to be happy where you are, whatever that is.

Speaker 2 To learn how to be like,

Speaker 2 this is not exciting. I'm not winning.
I'm not losing.

Speaker 2 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 life is just, it's the nothing in the middle.
Yes.

Speaker 2 And I think this generation, they don't want that nothing in the middle, you know,

Speaker 2 when things are just bland, which is, y'all, most of life is just ordinary. You know, you got to learn how to be happy alone.
You got to be happy a little bored.

Speaker 2 You got to be happy when things are hard. You got to learn how to be satisfied when you failed.
Yeah. And things don't go your way because all of that keeps you getting up.

Speaker 2 But I think there are a lot of young people who are searching for this impossible feeling of continuous happiness.

Speaker 1 I'm curious what you both, because, you know, we were talking about the generation, but it's also like, it's like when I was saying, the age I went through of blaming my parents.

Speaker 1 Okay, this is the age of having to realize that you have to be comfortable in discomfort and everything's not going to go your way.

Speaker 1 When you think about you in your early 30s, 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 be.

Speaker 1 At 18, I'm grown.

Speaker 2 Okay, not really. In my 20s, it's fun.
Actually, this was terrible.

Speaker 1 At 30, 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? How did you deal?

Speaker 2 For me, go ahead, you go. You know,

Speaker 2 what I've learned now that I'm 60, right? Because there's, there's, I know, that's right. There's

Speaker 2 wisdom. You know, you look back on your life, you only know what you know.

Speaker 2 And of course, you thought you were grown at 20. Of course, you thought you knew what you were doing at 30.
Of course, that's all you knew.

Speaker 2 I used to joke with the girls. It's like when they have some epiphany about life that

Speaker 2 I was telling them, it's like, I told you that when you were 10. I've been telling you that, girl.
You know, and I'm getting a lot of in their 20s. Wow, mom, you were right.

Speaker 2 I didn't even think about that.

Speaker 2 I was like, like, just imagine you just were, you've just, you're at, so you're 20, you just now putting together sentences, you know, at 20, you got five years of that.

Speaker 2 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, you know, it's life is like you're young.

Speaker 2 You're, you just haven't even been here long enough. And now that I'm, you know, wisdom comes with age.
Yeah. So with wisdom and hindsight, I realized that that is life.
Life is is becoming.

Speaker 2 Like, we are always becoming. There is no point in which you stop learning and discovering and you get to a place where, ah,

Speaker 2 this is it.

Speaker 2 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 a woman.

Speaker 2 I'm more in touch with my fear, my confidence.

Speaker 2 I know what I know, and

Speaker 2 I feel more empowered to claim what I know. I don't doubt myself in the ways that I did in my 40s and 50s because that's still coming for you too.

Speaker 2 You can only imagine.

Speaker 1 And that's what I'm hearing from you is literally just to keep living.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I think that's a great way to put that because, yeah, it's, it's never ending, these realizations that we're going to have.

Speaker 2 And we'll, we'll, we'll leave Noel with us as we close.

Speaker 2 Are we closing already?

Speaker 2 Dang, never close. We're closing.

Speaker 2 Unfortunately, but we want to send Noel home with

Speaker 2 find your macro. Yes.
Stay away from those titles. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And keep becoming. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Keep becoming. Well, we better wrap that up.
I also want to remind Noelle and young people that happiness is within your power.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 the happiness that she is trying to find in this job in this book is this whatever it's not the external achievements it's

Speaker 2 are you are you good with you when you're all alone and achieving nothing and nobody's around have you learned noelle how to be okay with you because that that disappointment you know the next achievement will happen and it will pass.

Speaker 2 That's right. You know, the next big thing will come and it will go.
And when you are left, what you're left with is yourself.

Speaker 2 And that's that self-work that I would want Noelle to do, you know, thinking about the prompts of who you are, who you want to be.

Speaker 2 But I think all young people, you will not find your happiness on a phone, on social media. You won't find it in a salary.
You won't find it in a title.

Speaker 2 You know, you will find it once you figure out what really grounds you.

Speaker 2 And as you said, Kiki, a lot of times that's serving others, you know, And if Noelle gets out of her head and balances out her achievements with some giving, you know, I think that she will find more

Speaker 2 peace.

Speaker 2 I think that's, I just want to. No, that's perfect because Noel's getting it from the young and the not so young.

Speaker 2 You better.

Speaker 2 I'm on the floor. You guys are so old.
Watch it. Oh my gosh.
I love that. He's the old man at the table by it.

Speaker 2 Kiki, this has been terrific. We've loved

Speaker 2 you. You're such a little old wife.
I listened to you.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 1 Guys, please let me come back in

Speaker 2 anytime. I just need to get the teacher.
We will find

Speaker 2 you. We will find you.

Speaker 1 Because the tea that you just laid on me today.

Speaker 2 You had some tea, too. Some tea with some lemon.
And then, Craig, you had some things to say. Well, you know, we are a perfect match, Capricorn and Virgo.
And also, Taurus.

Speaker 1 We're all with you.

Speaker 2 This is a good

Speaker 2 balance table.

Speaker 2 Kiki, I'm so proud of you, girl. Thank you.
I really am. You are showing up in the world and being the role model.

Speaker 2 You were putting your light out there.

Speaker 1 And we all feel it.

Speaker 1 You're the world to me. You're an inspiration.
I'm so glad to meet you. You're an inspiration as well, both of you.

Speaker 2 This discussion's not over. We'll have another one.
Yay. Yay.
Your girl, come on. Happy about that.

Speaker 2 Thank you, babe. Thank you.