First Lady Michelle Obama: The Importance of Confidence, Compassion, and Self-Care

Michelle Obama: Powering Up Your Mind, Body, and Voice
An exclusive interview with the First Lady


To make a difference in the world, you need to start with your little corner of it. In an exclusive interview, First Lady Michelle Obama sits down with Women's Health to talk about the importance of confidence, compassion, and self-care.

MO: Many people would love to have less on their plate, many women would. But it's just the nature of the beast, our lives. Because of that, I would advise people to be practical . . . We can start in our own universe, which is our family. We can even move backward from there and start with ourselves, because we have to be whole individuals. We have to feel confident and good about ourselves, and we have to know ourselves, and we have to invest in knowing ourselves before we're going to be a good school-board member, before we're going to be a good politician, before we're going to be a good parent.

So the smallness of the bite does not correlate to the power of the overall impact. But whatever we do, let's really commit to it, and let's try to be our very best . . . Then your sphere of desired influence is going to grow. You'll know where you need to go because you know why you're doing it, and you're being motivated by a direct passion and direct self-interest. And there's nothing wrong with women operating out of their own individual self-interest.

And we all need to think as a team of women. By that, I mean we always need to be rooting for each other, regardless of where we come from, what our political affiliations are. I think it starts with women understanding that we are all on the same team. I don't care what race we are, what religion we are . . . We are never competing with each other, because we're all working toward the same goal: building a healthy society. We may have different ways of coming at it, we may have different perspectives, different backgrounds, but we all really want the same thing.

If we're operating under that basic premise, then we're going to find space for each other at the table. We're going to encourage each other's voices. We're going to let somebody run out in front while we take care of things. We're going to help prop other women up.


read entire interview: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/first-lady-michelle-obama