Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson: Their Mother’s Last (Life-Changing) Advice

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Okay,

you all have heard us talk about how excited we are that our new book is coming out on May 6th.

It's called We Can Do Hard Things, Answers to Life's 20 Questions.

And when we announced the book on my newsletter, A Little Treat, the tour sold out very fast, quicker than we were thinking.

And many of you wrote and said how sad you were that the tour sold out too fast for you to get tickets.

And you know that no matter how much 12-step work I do, I can't seem to not be deeply affected when you all are sad.

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to help those who felt sad about missing their chance to get tickets.

Here's what we're doing.

In support of those of you who couldn't get tickets and in support of our beloved local independent booksellers, we are hosting a live virtual event on Pub Day of We Can Do Hard Things on May 6th.

A live virtual event that will benefit independent bookstores across the country.

So in order to get your ticket, you can click the registration button for the live virtual event at the top of treatmedia.com.

And then you're going to pre-order We Can Do Hard Things through one of the independent bookstore links.

All proceeds from this event will go to these local independent bookstore links.

So your ticket to the event will include a copy of We Can Do Hard Things, Answers to Life's 20 Questions.

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Well, pod squad.

It's very exciting.

It is very exciting.

The reason it is very exciting is that guess who's coming to join the pod squad today?

The hosts of the new podcast, IMO, In My Opinion, with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson.

Oh my God, we love these two.

Michelle Obama's passion for storytelling has set sales records, garnered awards and accolades, and earned her global acclaim.

Her memoir, Becoming,

Love.

that book spent over 130 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, sold more than 17 million copies worldwide.

Holy cow.

American Factory, the first film produced by her and her husband, Barack Obama's media company, Higher Ground, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2020.

Upon its release in 2020, the Michelle Obama podcast was the most successful original in Spotify history, bringing in more women listeners over 40 than any other podcast.

Through the Obama Foundation, she founded the Girls Opportunity Alliance, which supports adolescent girls' education and empowerment around the world.

I'm going to read Craig's media.

Yeah, you are.

I see a lot of sportsy things in here.

He's amazing.

Craig Robinson, he's the biggest love bug.

I love him.

He is the executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and host of the higher ground podcast, Ways to Win.

And from 2017 to 2020, he served as the vice president of player development and minor league operations for the NBA's New York Knicks.

Previously, he was a Division I head men's basketball coach at Oregon State and Brown, and spent more than a decade working as a trader in the investment banking industry.

He is the brother of former First Lady Michelle Obama.

And if you're interested, you should check out both of their podcasts.

They're doing it together.

It's called, In My Opinion, IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson.

And we've been on it.

We're on one of the episodes.

We went to Martha's Vineyard to be with them and record it.

And

I don't know, y'all.

you know my deep, abiding admiration for Michelle Obama, but just being with them in person, just so loving, so kind, so

human.

Michelle is just, she's just the absolute best.

I love her and we are so grateful for them to be on and for them having us on their podcast.

Y'all, just listen to this one.

Enjoy it.

It was a joy to do.

It was touching.

How are you two?

How are you doing?

Good.

We're so good.

Thank you for doing this.

yes thank you oh my gosh the podcast is crushing

we don't know i don't i never know what anything is do you like it if you like it it's crushing you guys so good

we love it yeah and that's what we want to talk to you about today yeah okay okay because

what abby and i discuss often is, I don't know if you all have noticed this, but we find life to be difficult.

Oh, why?

Anything in particular?

What's going on?

Just life?

Just like opening your eyes in the morning and seeing

the world.

Typically for me, that's when it starts.

Okay.

The opening of the eyes.

And I used to only be a writer.

And the challenge that I realized is the problem with writing is then it's only me.

So

yeah.

I'm never going to leave knowing more than I came

because it's just me.

It's just right here.

It's just you and your thoughts and your brain.

Yeah.

Right.

All alone in your loop.

In the loop.

And so the power and beauty, which is what MIO is doing.

I-M-O.

I-M-O.

What did I say?

You said M-I-O.

You're just dyslexic about it.

That's right.

I-M-O.

That would be what I would do.

And I would say it over and over again.

And Abby, I would correct her.

I would correct me.

Exactly.

Yeah.

That's basically what we do.

I just

is

that there is a kind of new, fresh, collective wisdom that can be tapped into during conversation.

Yes.

That is a beautiful,

helpful

thing, which is what's happening on your podcast.

Yes.

Okay.

Because you can go into it and think, well, I know.

And still, there's freshness and newness that comes out out because of the chemical reaction of two new people having a beautiful conversation and my brother yes my big brother it's very good but this is how we you know this is how we are here in hawaii at our house we're doing shows every day are you really you're doing no no no just talking but it's like almost like yeah it's exactly we're sitting around the table and he's visiting me Now, the whole family's here.

Malia's here.

And we sit around and we talk about everything.

And there's this range, age range, because his youngest is 13, his oldest is 30, and then everybody else is in the middle.

But this is how we grew up around the kitchen table.

We just didn't solve problems alone.

That was never like a thought that I would ever have an issue that I wouldn't be like, mom, Craig, everyone, everyone, all the kids, we're going to talk about this at dinner.

You know, every embarrassing moment, every stumble.

So we like, let's try to do this with other folks who may not have that community, you know, who may not have a base of support that they can go to on a regular basis, particularly in times when people feel so lonely.

Yeah.

And especially during this time when we lost mom, I think both of us were thinking, ah.

now we're the old heads of the family and yikes what do we do now and we really are trying to be intentional about getting together on a regular basis.

And this show allows us to do that.

Once a month, we get together and do it.

And it's just, I'm getting goosebumps just telling you about it.

That's how happy it makes me.

So it's been great.

It's just been absolutely wonderful.

And we just had some amazing guests and experts.

You guys, you know, we now are in love with you both.

So, so in love.

But, you know, we've we've learned a lot.

I mean, over dinner last night, we've been having long conversations with the younger ones about social media because we had a great conversation with John Height, who wrote The Anxious Generation.

And I think you started implementing some of the stuff that John suggested in terms of, you know, getting kids offline and in real life and what that's doing to their brains.

But we were talking to that with the kids last night at dinner.

And what I was doing, being the coach, I was like, okay,

one hour social media.

That's it.

Hard and fast rule.

And Jonathan was like, no, no, no, no.

You have to replace that with something if you want to get better.

And you guys probably know this.

And so I said, well, what do we need to replace it with?

He said, how about a 90-minute movie?

And I was like, wait, you mean replace it with television?

That's

doable.

Yeah, that's doable.

That's doable.

Yeah.

Do you know, That's so interesting because we have reached the screen time moment where when we are watching a movie as a family, I'm like, oh, God, we are such a good family.

Like, look, we are so

our togetherness.

I'm like, wait, this is just not okay.

It's good enough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you got to be careful because, you know, with teenagers, I was watching this thing the other day.

And a lot of streamers and networks, they're making content and the words that they use are second screens.

So when your children are watching, is it second screen material enough for them to also be on their phone?

Is it something that isn't as detail oriented?

Oh, my.

So when we're sitting on the couch with our kids and they pick up their phones, I want to like go over there and snatch the phone out of their hands, like, watch the show with us.

Yes.

I can't.

There's teenagers.

But why can't you?

I mean, watch.

I know I am paying for it.

Why can't we?

Yes.

Because now we're learning that it's not really good for them.

You know, that they're reaching for that phone out of habit, that their minds have been captured.

You know, so if they were sitting there smoking a cigarette next to you, same thing.

You would snatch it.

You'd be like, no, no, you're not lighting up on my sofa, not in the middle of this movie.

But I think that that's something that, you know, we have to talk about because kids have gotten accustomed to this thing.

So have we as adults.

And what we're learning is that this stuff is

frying their brains and it's not preparing them for real life and it's taking away their attention span.

It is messing with all of us.

We didn't know this five years ago.

We didn't have the information.

But now that we do, it's like seatbelts, you know?

It's like all the things that we didn't grow up doing or knowing that it was a problem.

And now we have to kind of go, this is for you.

Put the phone down.

Learn how to pay attention to something for 90 minutes because that's what life is going to be.

That's what a job is going to require you to do.

And if you can't practice that like a coach,

you're not forcing your kids to practice attention span, then they're not ready for the game of life.

That's right.

You coaches, you

players,

you sports people.

Well said.

Well said.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And there's hope.

I think parents, because it can be stressful because you think, oh, God, I did my best and I screwed this up.

But it is, you brought up smoking.

Everybody was smoked.

Doctors were smoking.

We know what we know when we know it.

Our mom smoked when she was pregnant.

And we always tell her, we could have been somebody, you know?

Yeah.

If you had not smoked while we

smoked and eyeballs.

You know, they drank.

Everybody had a drink.

I was like, Craig could have been six.

I could have been six, eight, or six, nine.

You know,

we've made it clear.

It's like you, you really didn't maximize our development, but we're okay.

And that's what she would say.

You're fine.

Yes.

Anyway, she would say that.

It's a bit of an understatement.

But yeah, we're having a ton of fun with the show and with IMO.

And we are learning some stuff.

Okay.

We're just so grateful to you guys for

supporting it.

being a part of it.

It's been just great getting to know you too.

Thank you for being a part of our community.

It's been terrific.

It's a dream for us.

And what we wanted to talk to you about, it doesn't have to be from your podcast, but it could be.

We wanted to ask you, when was the last time you read something or saw something or heard something that kind of just like saved your life in the moment, that helped you put something back into proper perspective or gave you a clarity and comfort and courage to begin again?

Whether it's advice or a story or just something that made you go, oh yeah,

that's mind-shifting.

Yeah.

For me, since we talked about our losing our mom, the months before our mom died, she was with me.

And it was a real special treat because we were all in Hawaii.

She would usually come in December for Christmas and then go back sometime in January, but she got sick then.

And so she wound up staying until March.

So we had all this amazing time with me being able to really just care for her because, you know, when she's not in DC, she's in Chicago.

I live in DC with our folks.

Mom's in Chicago, Craig's in Milwaukee.

So we were doing a lot of caregiving from a distance, you know, which was a little stressful.

But our mom liked her independence and didn't want to be a burden.

So having that time with her and not knowing that our time was limited, it was special.

But

we were back and forth to the hospital and we had just come back from a hospital visit and we were sitting on the sofa together watching a court show.

And I reached over, grabbed mom's hand and she looked at me and she said,

wow,

this was short.

And I said, what are you talking about?

And she said, life.

And,

you know, that really hit me because our mom, first of all, was always preparing us us for her death since the time we were little.

You know, it's one of these things, it's like, you guys got this.

Because I think, as a parent, that's one of your biggest worries is that you leave before your kids are ready for you to leave.

So she kind of overly prepared us.

But at that point in time, to

see in my mother the shock of how short life was,

you know, that kind of snapped me into,

I would say, a different kind kind of mindfulness

about

my life because I started to think, wow, yeah,

life is long, but then it gets really short.

And

if we're lucky at 61,

maybe

we get 20 more summers, you know, and not in a morbid way, but it's like, you know, this stuff gets finite and we're blessed because we're healthy and we've seen things in the world, but

time is limited.

And so it kind of made me think in this year, how am I being mindful now in the choices that I make about how I spend my time, where I go, what I do, who do I do it for?

Because I'm also at a different time in life where my kids are adults.

So I spent most of their lifetime making decisions for them, right?

You know?

Yeah, I do.

Now I'm sort of free of that.

You know, I'm no longer the first lady.

I mean, there are a lot of big obligations, things that I did because,

you know, it was an honor.

It was my responsibility, all these things.

But now in this back half, you know, in this back nine,

How am I thinking about who do I, Michelle Robinson Obama, want to be and what choices do I make for me?

And I think this is really the first time in my life that I'm doing that.

You know, and I've made some decisions, as many people know, the earlier in the year about where I was going to go, where I was going to be, what things I was going to attend.

And, you know, there are repercussions to that.

And as a woman, we always are worried about disappointing other people.

You know, and I've spent a lot of my life making sure that I was showing up

as best as i could because i didn't want to disappoint people and a lot of times i made decisions that weren't in my own best interest i think after this year you know my mindset is okay i gotta start being brave enough to make decisions for me so i think that that's probably one of the

I guess, most recent examples of something

that mom said to me.

And that, like, of course, that wisdom, that last bit of snap out wisdom came from her.

Yeah.

How appropriate it is that it came from her.

But I think it's changed the way that I make decisions to this day.

And I'm just trying to be more mindful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's interesting that Misha's story is about mom, because mine is about mom, but it's probably right because we just lost her.

We were there with the boys.

My two youngest sons are 15 and 13.

And

mom, they were sitting by her, and they're getting to be tall too.

And she snuggled up with them and she's patting them on the head.

And

she said to them, Okay, you don't have to sit with your grandma all day.

You go ahead and do what you want to do.

They were sort of babysitting her, and she didn't want to be babysat.

And then mom and I went out on the porch and she was like,

You've done a good job with those two.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It makes me want to focus on my family.

Yeah.

All this other stuff doesn't mean anything.

Yeah.

You know,

and enjoy life.

Like Mish puts it, it's like 20 summers.

Yeah.

20 summers?

Are you kidding me?

Yeah.

You put it that way.

It's like, and to be able to do this with Mish

and

learn something new and help folks in the process,

it's life-changing for me.

I feel like a different person getting up in the morning.

I feel like I'm coaching again.

Yeah.

Right?

But

it's all the people who love her.

Yeah.

I'm coaching them all.

We're coaching them up.

So it's really a great question.

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What about you guys?

Glennon?

Well, first, what I want to say is you are really damn lovable, too.

Oh, God, you're not just about.

You are.

Oh, man.

Thank you.

You know how to get me choked up.

That was a good question.

Yeah, but what's so cool about you too, Michelle, I'm sure you feel that people are a little reticent to open up to you because of all of it.

Yeah, just iconic.

You can say it.

She's iconic.

Just comes with a lot of stuff, right?

But, Craig, you just have this human way about you that actually makes the relationship you both have with each other.

It makes me feel so much more capable of being like a normal person around your sister.

For real.

That's true.

I'm just so grateful to you for that.

And because this is like your sister, like this is how you are.

Anyways, we just adore you both.

What's your story?

And I will say, before I will tell my little story, but I just allow me to say one thing that I have been carrying around this letter that I wrote to you after your mom died.

I brought it to Martha's Vineyard.

I could not get up the courage to take it out of my pocket.

Then the only reason I came to your damn holiday party, because I don't go to parties, we don't, was to deliver this damn letter again.

And then we were standing by you and Abby kept going,

give me the letter.

And I got in the car and said, I'm doing it.

So

the point is this.

When I found out that your mother had died, I

had this really interesting experience that felt like I described it to Abby as like I had a very deep sinking feeling.

And the sinking feeling was that having watched you for so long and

feeling such admiration and also exhaustion for you and feeling like gratitude that you had the shelter of her in your life.

It was comforting to everyone else who loves you to know that you had that.

And so the sinking was very

a sadness.

But then there was like this rising that felt, I described it to Abby as like the values that you all pointed us back towards, you know, the.

humility and the service and the community and the love.

Having read your work, it was just so clear that it came from her yeah

yeah that like what you brought into the white house and like

you know beamed out to us was actually of her

so it just felt like an honoring of really truly who a founding mother of our country yeah

that this is not a place that was founded once that it's a ongoing experiment and that her spirit and values and honor is what was given to us.

So, thank you for sharing her with us.

And the thing that keeps me going is that

it was unique, but it exists all over the place.

And I want your listeners and our listeners in times like this where we feel a little trapped and lost.

It's to remember that there are so many Mary and Robinsons out there of all races and backgrounds.

And there are times when we get confused and there are times when we go in the wrong direction.

But at the core of who we are as humanity on this planet, there are more people like her

than there are not.

And she would tell you that.

She never would take credit for being singular.

Yeah.

She always said, and she was the ultimate team player.

She was like, so-and-so's parents could do this, and so-and-so's kid could do this.

So-and-so is her favorite term for any

person.

So-and-so.

Just any fool.

And we used to get so mad when she'd get on us and try to be like so-and-so.

And we'd

so-and-so.

And we give us a name.

Just say the person's name.

But she never took any more credit than anybody else.

She always said that there were kids in our neighborhood who could have been just like us.

Who was smart, smart, capable.

Yes.

But for a bad teacher or a parent that didn't pay attention, you know, she believed in our father too, in the goodness in people.

Yeah.

And

that led me to Barack, which led me to see the country and the world and to find that to be true, you know.

And so

Even when things are bad, I try really hard to remember that we're not unique, you know, that the joy and the love and the devotion, you have it in your family.

We feel it in you too.

That's why people are drawn to you.

The thing that we just have to remind people of is that this feeling is actually the better feeling.

Like, so gravitate to it, you know, I mean, it is easy to be mean and to not share and to be greedy and to cut people off and to say nasty things.

i mean that's you know that's part of our defense mechanism but we need a reminder that that's that's not what brings us joy that's not what it's not the money it's not the power it's not the house it's not the dollars in your bank account it's like how you treat people in life and

lately

the experiences that we've had in the loss of that core for us is it it makes us want to fight for that truth even more, you know, to shine a big light that knocks out the darkness that feels like is suffocating us, that it's causing us to wake up every day and go, where are we?

Is this what we're supposed to be?

Is this who we are?

And the answer is no.

No,

no, we're better than this.

We are so much better than this.

And better doesn't come in the form of a race or religion or gender or sexuality.

We all have it.

You know, we just have to call upon it.

We have to have the courage to be great.

Yeah.

That's it.

Have the courage.

Yeah.

Because what's in us all,

we all have the potential to be an all-American.

You too.

That's good.

You too.

You just, it sounds like, okay.

I'll tell you my story.

Yeah.

What is it?

What is it?

So I have been spiraling around in what has been an eating disorder since I was 10 years old.

Okay.

And I keep, every five years, I think I've nailed it and then

back.

Okay.

So recently I had another slide back.

Yeah.

And it's okay.

I'm getting, I know how to get the help that I'm getting.

I was writing about it a little bit and talking about the feeling of,

you know, when you kind of have one struggle that you just keep coming back to.

Like I thought, I kind of always had a feeling like I was going to have a victory.

I I was gonna graduate from it at some point I was gonna have a finish line and it just struck me that oh I'm almost 50 so this might just be my thing and it I had a feeling of

whatever the feeling is for wondering if people are just sick of your thing if they're just going oh my god seriously again

so I wrote about it a little bit And this stranger wrote back to me.

Now, they didn't know that I was reading their responses because I'm not supposed to for my mental health.

So, because of that, I read everything, okay?

Because this is

it of you.

No, I know.

It's good.

Well, I don't do social media, but these are like, people don't tend to hate read a newsletter.

So it's usually loving and, you know.

So they responded.

This woman responded to me and she said, I hear you being tired of this story of yours.

I want you to know that humpback whales, when they're born, are born with one tone,

one song,

and they're meant to sing it every single day of their life from the time they're born to the time they die.

And that's their only song, and that's their duty.

Wow.

And I thought, I have not stopped thinking about it since I read that little.

It reminded me of, I was trying to explain to Abby why.

And I think it has to do with, you know, that poem by Mary Oliver, the Wild Geese poem that ends with, like, it's about despair and struggle.

But then it says, really, you can just take your place in the family of things.

That's how it felt to me.

Like, I'm just an animal and I've got one song.

And it's okay if I spiral around it for the rest of my days.

Yeah.

And maybe I'm meant to have it so that other people that have that same song, we can like find each other.

and

i don't know it just really meant a lot to me i don't know why stories about animals always seem to help me i don't even go outside often

i think that's i think that's that's beautiful um and powerful on so many levels because we are out here trying to

conform

sometimes in ways that maybe that's not who we're supposed to be, you know?

And instead of embracing all of ourselves, right, the good and the bad, the beautiful stuff and the gnarly stuff, right?

We're taught that it all is supposed to be perfect all the time, you know?

Like you're not supposed to have problems or issues or distress, you know?

And this was also something we talked about with Lori Santos, you know, Dr.

Lori Santos, who teaches the happiness course at Yale.

We had a great conversation with her.

And I've thought about a lot of what she's talked about.

But our happiness bar, to me, is way off.

And I'm whacked.

You know,

it's like, I think in this generation, somehow, we think we're supposed to be happy and perfect.

And our parents weren't like that.

And our grandparents weren't like that because there wasn't room at that time in history when there was segregation and misogyny, and women were still fighting for rights.

I mean, when you think about where there was a Great Depression, there were wars all the time.

No one was raised to think that you were supposed to be happy or perfect or not to have a problem, and that that was going to be the standard of the way you live-like always getting what you want and never really having to work through really hard things.

But that's life.

That's like what

we are meant to do as humans on this planet, as animals.

That's all we have.

And I think kids today, and so many of us are sad because when there's an imperfection or there's a block or there's a challenge, we feel completely and utterly broken and useless.

rather than feeling like, yeah,

that's a thing that you're going to be working on forever.

And you're teaching with it and you're growing from it and you're sharing from it.

No, it's not perfect and it doesn't always make you happy, right?

Because struggle doesn't make you happy, but it also makes you strong.

You know, it also makes you wise in a very unique way.

And it's reorienting our thinking about what is human life supposed to be.

And it's full of a lot of broken, messy stuff.

And that's okay,

too.

I remember at my first 12-step meeting when I fell in love with all of it.

Somebody said something about, well, they're not happy.

And someone else said, well, being human isn't about feeling happy.

It's about feeling everything.

Yeah.

And I thought, oh, yeah,

that's right.

And the other thing about struggle is it does make us stronger and it makes us wiser.

It also makes me kinder.

Like every time I get knocked down like this,

I just feel like, oh, yeah.

I just feel more tender to everybody.

It's just a reminder of the struggle in everyone.

It's kind of an equalizer.

So thank you for that.

Oh, thank you.

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What about you, babe?

Well, my advice, it's funny, Michelle, you had kind of mentioned this a little bit earlier, but we have a 16-year-old, a 19-year-old, and a 22-year-old.

Kids that are a little bit younger than yours, and I think a little bit younger than yours.

No, I think they're older than yours, right?

Older than the two younger ones.

Yeah, 15 and 13.

He's got the older ones.

Remember, he's the old dad.

Right, right, right.

Yes.

That's right.

So love it.

In about a year or so, we'll become empty nesters, technically.

We have artists in our family, so I think they'll probably live with us after college.

Do whatever you want, we said.

Follow your dreams, we said.

But I think that one of the things that I'm trying to cultivate in myself is like my own life outside of them right now.

I want to be prepared for this empty nest moment.

And I think there's something that you said, you actually were so generous to let us include it in our new book.

But this is actually advice from you, Michelle, around children and raising kids.

You say it was our job all along as parents to get them to a place of not meeting us.

We can't wait until our kids are 23 and out of the house to teach them that they can get themselves up in the morning, that they can handle their homework, that they can deal with disputes at school and with their friends.

Let them practice, let them fail, let them get hurt because that's waiting for them.

We can hold on and try to fix the world for our kids, but if we do that, we're going to do that for the rest of our lives.

And that really hits me.

Abby's not trying to do that for the rest of her life.

Well, because I'm a fixer.

Yeah.

That is an identity that I wear as a parent that I am like, yes, this is what I know I can do.

Glennon does very different things than I do.

I fix things.

I'm like, oh, you need a light bulb.

Oh, you have a clog in your toilet.

Oh, you need money transferred from this bank account to the other.

Oh, oh, oh, I can do that.

But this,

the letting them have the failures and figuring some of this stuff out, that is really challenging for my personality.

And this advice has kind of been life-saving for me because now I just go, what would Michelle say right now?

How hard is that though?

Yeah.

God.

I used to think it was about really wanting to help them.

I used to think I just love them.

It's just love.

I don't think it is.

I think it's worthiness as a human being.

I think

I want them to need me.

Yeah.

Right.

Who am I if they don't need me?

I think it's about identity.

and it's like actually quite selfish yeah to make them need you well and i also think it's about

it's about fear

like it's hard to watch somebody you love

walk up and hit their face on a wall

that you know is there like you see it and it's like you're about to oh my god you just

and you're like, did that hurt?

Are you okay?

I never want that to happen to you ever again, my little baby love.

I love you so much.

So it's easier to stop them from doing it.

Some people may be selfish, but I think it's hard to watch the thing you love most

do damage to itself.

And so it is absolutely hard.

And it's hard for me.

to do it.

That's why we're in conversation because even me and Craig and Kelly and Barack, having other people to talk these things through with to sort of admit how hard it is to kind of check one another to say we were having this conversation the other night just about you know when is it time to let Austin

stay home by himself and you know what does that mean and you know it's there's a little you know just a little pushing and you know that maybe it's easy now because I'm an empty nester but I think that's why we have these conversations because we need to coach each other into

understanding what it is we're doing.

And I don't always think it's selfish.

I think it's fear.

It's a mix of different things.

It's this feeling that, of course, you're going to help somebody and give them the answer that you already have.

Why wouldn't I give you that answer?

But what we've learned is that your kids don't want the answer and they don't want it from you.

They want to, whether they like it or not, they want to hit their head on the wall.

At least they've done it.

It's like, I did it to me, because if you did it and they walk into a wall that you chose, they'll never forgive you and they won't learn from it because they'll be too busy blaming you.

And it's like, I went to this college you wanted me to go to.

It's like, go to the college you want so that if you hate it, it's your choice.

And now you've got to live with it.

And you speak from experience because she used to bump her head around the house all the time when she was a kid.

Really?

Like, literally?

oh she still got a scar on her forehead from running into the cat but metaphorically i was that kid i wanted to do it myself no she didn't want help

i didn't i was like i can figure it out i'll take my lumps and to our mom's credit yeah she didn't allow me to help her Yeah, because I was that big brother.

I was like, come with me.

I'm with you, Abby.

I'm going to fix it.

I'll fix it for you.

You come with me.

I'm going to show you how to play baseball.

You're going to do everything with me and if something happens i'm gonna fix it and my mom would before we leave the house do not look after your sister you do not have to look after her she can look after herself oh yeah wow and i felt that too i was like you don't have to look out for me i'm i got this my seven years of life i got it got this

And then boom, right into the cabinet.

But it was her choice.

It was her choice.

I'm good.

Yes, it hurt.

But I know that cabinet is there.

That's right.

Now you know to go the other way.

Are you a fixer too, Craig?

So I would have been a fixer if it wasn't for my mom sending me in the right direction early because my wife, Kelly, is the fixer of the two of us.

And we work well together because I'm a little bit more, ah, let him go out there and do it himself.

And she's a little more,

boy, I don't know.

They're still my babies.

And I want to make sure life is good for me for as long as I can.

And we're both getting better at it.

We're both getting better at it.

So this next week, I'm heading down to the final four and we're taking our youngest son and we're leaving the 15-year-old at home by himself for the first time.

Okay, well, in that vein, then we wanted you both to provide us with the one piece of advice.

If you had to give to your kids, you're only allowed to give them one sentence to live by.

What would it be?

For me, it's easy.

We have this conversation all the time.

It's like, learn how to make your own happiness.

You know, I tell the girls, the secret power is learning how to be satisfied in life, whatever your life is right then and there.

You know, learn to be satisfied with what you have.

Learn to find the joy in what you have right now do not look over at the other person's plate and covet what they have don't try to keep up with the joneses live within your means and learn how to do it on your own because it's like no one no thing as i've learned in life makes you happy but you

i want them to learn that now so that they are not getting married to be happy or to feel loved, that they're not taking a job to have some title that they loved or trying to make a certain amount of money because they think that's going to make them happy.

You are in control of your own joy and you have to be controlled.

I don't want them to have kids to be happy.

I don't want them to think, oh, I'm not happy.

Let me have a baby.

And it's like, nope.

Don't do that

because the baby is not responsible for you.

You are responsible for the baby.

So don't have a baby to have a friend or to feel better.

So that's something I say again and again.

Learn how to be by yourself.

Learn how to live within your means.

Learn how to be satisfied with what you have.

Do not always think that the grass is greener because usually it isn't.

You have to make your own grass green.

Love it.

Now, Misha's going to get mine because we heard this growing up from mom.

And it's the same thing.

And I think it's even even magnified today with social media.

Do not worry

about what anybody thinks outside of this house.

It's good.

That's good.

My mom

always made us feel

self-assured before we ever walked out of the house.

And she would check in on us when we came back in by asking questions.

And if we said we were doing something because someone else said something or did something.

So-and-so.

So and so.

You know, so-and-so is always doing this or that.

So we are trying to raise our kids.

And our two oldest kids have embraced this, right?

But the two younger ones are still developing.

And now with social media, it's so hard.

Everybody is liking you and liking your things and judging you.

And just don't fall for it.

Don't fall for the okey-doke, as we say.

Just do not worry about what other people think you know what's right you know how to behave you know how to be successful you know how to work yep that's all you need

what about you guys god i was just thinking about when i was teaching and really

it really didn't matter i know we all worry about how our kids are going to be treated at school and bullying is not okay and needs to be addressed and all of that yes yes yes but there was always no matter what was going on in the classroom an okayness to the kids who knew they were okay with their families like whose parents it was like it was okay if the whole world was telling them they weren't okay if they could look at their parents and their parents knew in their bodies in their eyes in their tone that their babies were okay yeah

and just a good reminder of

what people say about don't take criticism from anyone you wouldn't take advice from

is like yeah why do we listen to every single damn thing anyone says about us?

People we would never trust with our well, we're too connected, we have too much connection

on social media.

Well, it's not real connection, it's too much

fake connection with random people we'll never meet, never know.

We were not engineered for this, that's right, truly, we weren't, and it causes anxiety.

And I stopped social media about six months ago, and I have felt, I've told Abby this a million times, but the difference for me is as dramatic as when I quit drinking yeah yeah my entire nervous system and I know we're always talking about the the mechanics of it but I think it's the comparison of it I think it's like I feel okay in my life I love my life I love my job I love my wife I love my kids I'm and then I get on that phone yeah and I start thinking oh maybe I'm not doing enough maybe this is better maybe it's just this constant grass is greener and I think about what that must do to the little ones if it's doing it to me

anyway what's your advice babe oh

one sentence well the the thing that i would say to the kids that you would say stop taking my damn charger yes that's what you would say

yes

i have a problem i i'm the youngest of seven kids so i have probably too much attachment to my stuff because it was always taken and never asked to be borrowed and and so but the charger thing it just sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up.

It's too early.

I'll go down a rabbit hole.

I shouldn't.

What I would say, though, in all seriousness to the kids, and this is something that, you know, when I was in high school, I had a guidance counselor, unfortunately, for this person.

I won't say her name, but she asked me, she said, well, what do you want to do with your life?

And I said, I want to play soccer.

And this is in 1997 or something.

There was no such thing as like women's professional soccer.

I know that sounds wild to think about because it's it's so prevalent and popular now, but that's where we were.

She said,

Well, you're not going to get anywhere playing women's soccer.

There's nothing for you.

And I'm like, Well, I mean, I'll, I'll figure it out, you know, like I'm going to figure it out a way.

And she was like,

You are never going to figure it out.

And I bet you you will never be a soccer player.

She says this to me.

Yeah.

Oh, that's awful.

I know.

It was really upsetting.

And so when I went back a couple years, five, six years later, after I had won a gold medal and all of this stuff, I'm too nice to like throw it in somebody's face, you know, but I really wanted to.

Oh, yeah, I bet.

You know?

So I guess my advice would be: don't ever let anybody tell you you can't do something.

Because, you know, social media, the media, your friends, even your parents might tell you in words or in body language or in whatever, that maybe the choices you're making are not necessarily good.

And if it is a love, a joy, and a passion, I didn't know that I was going to make a career out of playing soccer.

There was no way that I was going to do it.

I just, I mean, I was in eighth grade before Olympics was, women's soccer was in the Olympics and I was writing, I'm going to win a gold medal playing women's soccer one day.

Yeah.

We can dream things into reality.

So that would be my advice.

I like that stuff.

I'm going to tell mine, but I'm changing mine because I feel like I wanted it to go back to what Michelle was saying in the beginning, which was so inspiring to me about living this era of your life to not disappoint yourself.

Because our middle one came home a while back and said, I had this thing at school and Chase, who's our oldest, he wants me to join all these clubs because he was like Mr.

Clubman and doing all the things.

And she was like, I don't want to be in these clubs.

And I was like, well, then what are you doing?

Like, don't be in the clubs.

And she said, I don't want to disappoint him.

And

I thought, oh, okay.

So your job your whole life is to disappoint.

everybody.

Let me give you an assignment.

That is

literally your job.

You have to disappoint everybody so that you don't disappoint yourself.

And then I was talking to my Liz Gilbert's, one of my best friends, and I was telling her that story about the kids.

And she said, even think about that word disappoint.

To disappoint someone, you've already appointed them.

You've appointed a different person, the boss of yourself or the leader of your life.

So your job is to dethrone them over and over again

every single day.

It's like

yourself.

Yeah.

I like that.

I think we all have different versions of the same

thing.

All right.

So let's end with this so you can get back to your vacation.

Yes.

What is the thing you do?

Let's say you don't have each other.

You don't have the people to talk to.

You do not have

the communal wisdom to tap into.

What do you do when you have to just find your inner wisdom?

Do you have a practice?

Do you meditate?

Do you walk?

Do you paint?

What do you do when you need to tap into your own knowing?

I do one of two things.

things.

I either go walking

or I

do a morning shower as opposed to a nighttime shower.

A morning shower is when I think the best, even better than walking.

And I don't know what it is about it.

It could just be the morning.

I could just be a morning person.

But when I need to sort of clear my mind and come up with really cool ideas or think about a problem that I'm not talking to anybody.

The morning shower and shave, it's about a 20-minute shower and it's clarity for me.

Great.

Love it.

And you're clean.

And you're clean-win.

And clean, shaven.

It's just like ready for the day.

Oh, yes.

Awesome.

Well, for me, it's probably retreating.

I do get so much energy from people.

I don't get tired of people generally.

I am an extrovert and a people person.

And a great host.

Hostess.

Well, and that's also because I don't, you know, I don't get tired.

I don't get worn out.

I don't get drained.

Honestly, I don't.

But sometimes all of that interaction keeps my mind full and I don't take the time to really sit quietly.

So when I really need to kind of assess, I go quiet and I can spend a couple of days alone, no social media, not reading the news headlines, withdrawing from all of the inputs, you know, especially when it comes to outside noise, right?

No news, no, not even reading the clips, not taking in any outside

anything.

and sitting by myself, oftentimes in nature, somewhere where i can hear an ocean or see something green or take in fresh air there are days there's a spot in hawaii in our house where if nobody is around i will go to that one spot where i can see just everything and i can see nature happening and i can sit in that spot for an entire day

and i find that i just can get some clarity there.

So to me, it's retreating.

It's retreating into myself.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

How about you, babe, before we go?

Same.

Mine's just

a bath.

I take like three baths a day, you guys.

Yeah.

Oh, really?

So I do.

I take far too many baths.

A lot of retreating.

No, Jack.

I told her.

It's something about the water, right?

It's clarity.

The water.

Yeah, it's starting over.

It's baptism for a reason.

It's like, I need to begin again.

Some sort of tears, bath, something.

But I also think the shower, i mean our youngest used to say all these magical things happened to me in the shower and i would say that's called thinking that's because you don't have earbuds in that's like googling your brain like that's what people do is they think that's what's happening

you two

are damn delight yeah we want you to go right back to your vacation and your family time together.

We absolutely love your new podcast.

We're going to be shouting it from the rooftops.

And we're so grateful to both of you.

Thank you.

We love you.

We love you so much.

And are just grateful, happy to have you in our lives.

And I'm waiting for the letter.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

I'm going to get it to you.

All right.

You got to work up the nerve and just like, you know, just deliver it.

Five more meetings.

Now I really, really want to see it.

I need

I want to be there now.

I want to be there when you give her the letter.

Okay.

Because then if you punk out, I'm going to make you give it to her.

Yeah, now it's too much accountability.

Now it's going to happen.

She's done it now.

Well, love you guys.

Thank you so much.

Pod Squad, we will see you next time.

Absolutely.

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