On Sunday night Michelle Obama spoke to a packed O2 arena in London – a 15,000-strong crowd, according to her interviewer Stephen Colbert. Mrs O, now on the European leg of her book tour for her autobiography Becoming, covered everything from date nights with Barack (‘sitting down at dinner together and just talking’) to the London exercise class she snuck in while here (‘Orangetheory in Islington’, a tough HIIT workout).
Here's everything we took away, for your Monday motivation…
1. Hold onto hope
Asked for her advice to the UK at a time of division, Michelle struck an optimistic note with a call to action. 'My advice is, get to work. Don't be complacent and don't be so cynical you just turn off. Because democracy never stops.’ And, as she put it: ‘If we don't vote, somebody will, and that means that's the direction of the country we’re in.’
2. Humanity beats protocol
She's a big fan of our Queen – ‘elegant and kind and considerate' – and no, she doesn't regret that headline-making moment when she put her arm around the monarch in what some dubbed a breach of protocol. ‘I don't know that I could have done anything different because it was a totally human reaction,’ she told the audience. ‘In that moment no, that was always the right thing to do – because it was the human thing to do.'
3. Take control of your personal message
Michelle remembered how, when she first came into the public spotlight, people attacked her ‘patriotism’ and her ‘voice’ – even calling her and her husband ‘terrorists’. ‘There was a time people accused me of not loving my country,’ she said.
‘I had to steady myself in that. I had to learn to adjust my voice. If you don’t take control of your message and your image and your voice, someone (else) will do that.’
4. Make your own mind up
When a young Barack Obama started at the law firm where she worked, Michelle reserved judgement until she met him. 'He was such a star at Harvard... he was coming in already with this sort of sense of wonderfulness, and I was sort of skeptical. When you're used to white people underestimating black people... (I thought) I'll be the judge of whether you're fabulous.’
Happily for Barack, she judged that he was - while he made it clear he was keen on her. ‘Brothers want a lesson in impressing a woman? Be clear,’ she said. ‘He had game, he was clear.’
5. Don’t mention the T word
Although Donald Trump was never mentioned by name, his was the unspoken presence in the room, as Michelle addressed everything from the pressure on Barack to produce his birth certificate to the current political climate in the US. 'There are still people in the United States who think Barack wasn't born in this country,’ she noted, describing life there nowadays as like living with ‘divorced dad’ – feels like fun but then you get sick.
She reminded the crowd: ‘For anyone who had problems with Barack Obama, let’s just think about what we were troubled by – there were never any indictments.’ He wore a tan suit, joked her interviewer Stephen Colbert. ‘I know.’
Her conclusion? ‘The presidency doesn't change who you are – it reveals who you are.’
Don't forget to check out these throwback pictures from Michelle and Barack Obama's relationship:
Barack and Michelle Obama Throwback Pictures - Grazia (slider)
1 of 4Michelle and Barack Obama Throwback Pictures - Grazia
The first image she shared was from her family home, which she describes as a 'cramped apartment'. Her caption read:'Over the next few days, I'll be sharing some photos and memories from my book, BECOMING. My father, Fraser, taught me to work hard, laugh often, and keep my word. My mother, Marian, showed me how to think for myself and to use my voice. Together, in our cramped apartment on the South Side of Chicago, my family helped me see the value in our story, in my story, and in the larger story of our country.'
2 of 4Michelle and Barack Obama Throwback Pictures - Grazia
Of course, the world swooned when Michelle uploaded her wedding day image with Barack Obama. According to her, the wedding was almost ruined by Barack waking up ill, she said:'You can't tell it from this photo, but Barack woke up on our wedding day in October, 1992 with a nasty head cold. Somehow, by the time I met him at the altar, it had miraculously disappeared and we ended up dancing almost all night. Twenty five years later, we're still having fun, while also doing the hard work to build our partnership and support each other as individuals. I can't imagine going on this wild ride with anybody else.'
3 of 4Michelle and Barack Obama Throwback Pictures - Grazia
One of our favourite images was her outside Princeton University on her first day, where she recalls being scared and never having stood out because of her race before. Michelle has previously been very vocal about how Princeton was 'infamous for being racially the most conservative of the Ivy League colleges' and even had roommates whose parents attempted to have her moved because of her race. She captioned the image with:'This is me at Princeton in the early 1980s. I know that being a first-generation college student can be scary, because it was scary for me. I was black and from a working-class neighborhood in Chicago, while Princeton's student body was generally white and well-to-do. I'd never stood out in a crowd or a classroom because of the color of my skin before. But I found close friends and a mentor who gave me the confidence to be myself. Going to college is hard work, but every day I meet people whose lives have been profoundly changed by education, just as mine was. My advice to students is to be brave and stay with it. Congratulations to the Class of 2018! #ReachHigher'
.jpg?auto=format&w=1440&q=80)
4 of 4Michelle and Barack Obama Throwback Pictures - Grazia
Yet another adorable family candid, Michelle shared her experience of living in the White House, especially with children that her and Barack wanted to raise to be grounded. Her caption read:'Home has always been where our family is...It hasn't mattered whether we're lounging on a couch in Chicago's Hyde Park or, as we are here, in the White House. We did our best to make the White House a comfortable place where our girls could climb trees and host slumber parties, where we'd have dinner together as a family, and where we tried to live by the values our parents instilled in us.'