How To DESTROY Self-Doubt By Trusting Your Own Experience | Michelle Obama

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

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0:48How did you overcome that belief that you don't belong or that other people are telling you you don't belong? I got there and I looked around and went, oh my God. Sat in a few classes. I sat in a few classes and sort of realized that affirmative action isn't just the color of your skin, but there were a lot of kids that were legacy kids. They were athletes. They were, it was like, and then you sit in class with people, a lot of bright people, but there were a lot of people that were just, so you wonder, well, how'd you get here? You know, who told you you were ready? Right. And then doing well in that environment.

1:22For me, it sort of took the curtain off of this elitism. It lifted the veil. It lifted the veil. That's the phrase I was trying to come up with. It lifted the veil for me in a pretty—so if I'm here at the top schools in the world and I am succeeding, then all this other stuff is a lie. Interesting. You telling me that I can't, this is the scam. Like you want me to think I don't belong here when I actually do. And so that was the first step of let me just let me trust my gut again. Let me go back to the foundation, the things that my parents were telling me that I thought maybe they just loved me and start believing what's actually happening in the world.

2:13Let me trust my experiences. Interesting. And and so I experienced my way into confidence. And the White House is just another Princeton, right? Really? And the experience was just the same. You have a lot of people saying that there's no way that this black couple is capable of representing our country. You know, they are not patriotic. Look at their fist bump. You know, did she really get into Princeton? Is he really from this country? You know, did he really go to Harvard? is his, you know, it's the, it's the same kind of let, because we can't see past our own prejudice. Let's question because we were told that there is an order and that you don't belong at the top, you know, and what I soon realized is that's not about me.

3:04That's about them, which goes back to what we learned at our kitchen table. It's like, you cannot base who you are and how you think of yourself on what anybody else other than who's at this table and knows you thinks. Because everybody's bringing their own stuff to their opinion of who you are. So you have to do the work and let your work speak for itself. That's fascinating because if you're at, you know, the position you're in for eight years during that time, how are you able to keep the core nucleus of your closest friends and family to just only focus on what they think of you rather than what the world thinks of you both at the extreme high high and others extreme critical like how did you not own your own hype of half the world or whatever or most the world and then the extreme criticism like you can't listen to either interesting and so So that's not to say that I didn't look at any press.

4:08I, you know, especially when you're campaigning, you can't help but know what things are. But what I learned was that I have to filter it. You know, so the beauty of being in the White House is you have a comms team, a communications team. And I just get to the point where tell me the things that are objectively are things that I need to hear. And I just had to practice. this. And I wasn't always good at it because I'd look through the clips. I'd look at stories every now and then. I dig a little too deep, you know, good and bad. Yeah. Feed the ego and then also the criticism. Ah, that doesn't feel good.

4:45Exactly. And it's like, well, I can't believe one and not the other. So let me just do the work. So I tried to develop a habit of getting my information, not firsthand, but thirdhand. So my comms director, tell me in this meeting what I need to know, what I need to be paying attention to. If there's an article or something about the girls or something that I need to know in preparation for this speech, give me that information. So I do what I tell young people to do not read the comments section. You know, just don't go there. If you if you're in social media and you're doing this work, do not let that stuff feed you.

5:22You have to be disciplined enough to just put your head down and do the work and let the work speak for you. So I would read things about the work. You know, did the speech work? Is the program working? Is it having impact? But all the other stuff, the op-eds and the commentary, it's like good and bad. I can't take it in because it would cloud the work.

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6:41Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.