good morning Hank it's Tuesday greetings
from Austin Texas where I am surrounded
by some very nice camera equipment and
about to talk to Michelle Obama you know
what I'm kind of uncomfortable here
let's just go to my basement for a
second oh look I'm back in my happy
place so I'm often asked about marriage
advice and writing advice to topics I am
very reluctant to talk about because I
don't feel qualified but I loved the way
Michelle Obama wrote about marriage in
her book becoming and I also loved her
approach to memoir in general so I
thought I would ask her to share some
marriage and writing advice with me
alright back to Austin hi okay it's very
nice I thought the way you wrote about
marriage in this book was absolutely
astonishing and and brilliant and it
really resonated very deeply with me
because when my book The Fault in Our
Stars was published my life became very
different very suddenly not on a like
becoming president level but but
different and so I wonder if you could
talk about the challenge of that and and
how you found a way to live with it
Barack and I talked about how valuable
it was that we were older in him I chose
to share so much about our marriages
because I think about young couples and
how little we know when we get married
about what marriage is I mean nobody is
giving us a guidebook on how to do this
thing called building a life with a
whole other person marriage is
inherently unequal not just gender wise
it's just there's no way that you ever
have 50/50 and we talk about it in those
terms like well you do half and I do
have life isn't that clean people think
about me and Barack has hashtag
relationship goals and usually when you
have couples like that all you see is
the good stuff you see the fist jabs and
loving touches and the moments that you
know make people think oh aren't they
great but to me I felt like if I'm not
telling you how hard it was I'm not
being honest with you about what you
need to do to build this thing that
right has right and one of the things I
really loved about becoming was the
resonant details especially from your
childhood that reflected larger parts of
your story in second grade you know
needing an advocate because you were in
in his class with the
bad teacher who was in way over her hand
I want to know how you pick those
resonant details is there is there a
secret some of it is what do you
remember and for me there's a reason why
I remembered that second grade why it's
stuck with me why at this age do I still
remember that I didn't get a star first
time because I didn't know the word
white it seems like a mundane story but
this is very telling it's it's a truth
about me that has been consistent since
I was four or five years old why did I
carry those stories with me all the way
to and through the white house I don't
worry about the stuff I don't remember I
try to find the value in what does stand
out
we all remember maybe ten good stories
from our childhood and they all have
meaning we just have to value them
enough to take time to to nurture them
and sit with them and understand why did
they stick with us yeah that's super
helpful and thank you so much and it is
such a pleasure to meet you and thank
you again for your extraordinary book
thank you thanks so much great he did it
thank you so we just finished our chat
with mrs. Obama and Wow
that was super cool she was lovely of
course and very generous with her time
and very good at making anxious people
feel comfortable which was appreciated
because as you can probably tell I was
extremely anxious hello me from the
future here I've read a lot of political
memoirs and I really did think becoming
was extraordinary because it managed to
tell a very big story at a very human
scale Hank I'm off to think about the
way my childhood memories may resonate
with my adult self I will see you on
Friday