How to Stay Hopeful (Live from SXSW with Michelle Obama)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos

Episode Title: How to Stay Hopeful (Live from SXSW with Michelle Obama)
Host/Author: Pushkin Industries
Release Date: April 11, 2025

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Introduction

In this special episode of The Happiness Lab, Dr. Laurie Santos joins former First Lady Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson for a live recording at South by Southwest (SXSW). The trio delves into the pressing issue of maintaining hope in challenging times, drawing from personal experiences, scientific research, and practical strategies to foster resilience and optimism.

Personal Stories and Adversity

Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson share heartfelt anecdotes about their upbringing, particularly focusing on the influence of their parents in shaping their approach to adversity.

• Craig Robinson reminisces about a pivotal moment during his introduction to Michelle on a national stage, highlighting the unwavering support within their family dynamics. At [03:18], he recalls Michelle saying, "Left prompter out. And he walked off."

• Michelle Obama discusses the impact of their parents, especially after the loss of their mother, Marian Robinson. At [06:13], Craig explains, "When we lose a parent, it puts us in the position where we are the wise ones in the family."

• Dr. Laurie Santos underscores the significance of their father's resilience despite his disability, emphasizing lessons in gratitude and perseverance. She notes, "Adversity was relative in our house... he saw the blessings." ([16:31])

Mental Health Crisis Among Young People

The conversation shifts to the alarming rise in mental health issues among young adults. Dr. Santos highlights the statistics during her tenure at Yale:

• Dr. Laurie Santos states, "Nationally, more than 40% of college students say they're too depressed to function most day. More than 60% say they're overwhelmingly anxious." ([19:14])

Michelle and Craig reflect on how previous generations developed resilience through facing adversity without overt support, contrasting it with today's environment where children may not be adequately prepared for the emotional challenges of adulthood.

Impact of High Expectations on Happiness

Craig Robinson addresses the societal pressures that have escalated the standard for happiness among young people:

• Craig Robinson observes, "The definition of enough has changed. There's lots of reasons for that." ([26:35])

• Dr. Laurie Santos adds, "It's not what we objectively have that makes us happy. It's what we're expecting, it's what we're used to." ([25:29])

This segment explores how increased visibility of luxury lifestyles through social media heightens dissatisfaction and unrealistic expectations.

Social Media's Role in Spreading Hopelessness

A significant portion of the discussion centers on how social media exacerbates feelings of hopelessness by perpetuating negative emotions:

• Dr. Laurie Santos explains, "Social media companies have algorithms that thrive not on us catching each other's positive emotions, but on catching each other's anger and outrage and sadness." ([30:42])

Michelle Obama shares her struggle with balancing social media use and emphasizes the importance of mindful consumption to prevent the spread of negative energy.

Strategies to Cultivate Hope and Resilience

The trio offers actionable strategies to combat hopelessness and foster a sense of agency:

1. Normalization of Emotions

   • Dr. Laurie Santos emphasizes recognizing that negative emotions are a common human experience: "When you realize that these negative emotions are a common human experience, that they're emotions that are there to help you, it can allow you to get through them a little bit better." ([22:00])

2. Social Connection

   • Reaching out to others is highlighted as a key method to boost personal happiness and cultivate a supportive community.
   • Dr. Santos advises, "When you're reaching out to other people, when you're checking in on other people, that boosts your happiness, too." ([48:00])

3. Gratitude and Finding Delights

   • Practicing gratitude and seeking small moments of joy can counteract the brain's natural negativity bias.
   • Dr. Santos references Ross Gay’s concept of "Book of Delights," encouraging listeners to "find something that's a little bit of a delight in the world." ([50:04])

4. Mindful Use of Social Media

   • Implementing the WWW strategy (Why Now, What else) to assess the purpose and emotional impact of phone usage.
   • Dr. Santos explains, "WWW stands for What for Why now, and What else." ([36:32])

5. Physical Health

   • Maintaining physical well-being through adequate sleep, nutrition, and exercise as foundations for emotional resilience.
   • Craig Robinson emphasizes, "Your physical health is directly tied to your emotional status." ([54:12])

Listener Engagement: James's Question on Hopelessness

A live listener, James, poses a question about feeling overwhelmed by ongoing global and personal crises and seeking advice on maintaining hope without succumbing to apathy.

• James asks: "Do you have any advice on how to plan for a future that feels so different from the one we were promised without becoming apathetic or just resigning yourself to things getting worse?" ([20:25])

Takeaways and Final Advice

In response to James’s question, the panel offers the following key takeaways:

1. Find Your Light

   • Focus on small, positive moments to train the brain away from negativity.
   • Dr. Santos suggests, "Find something to be a little bit grateful for that can feel big in the situation you are in." ([50:04])

2. Limit Exposure to Negative News

   • Dr. Santos advises taking breaks from the constant news cycle: "Give yourself a little bit of a break... kind of protect your positive emotion." ([53:03])

3. Engage in Civic Action

   • Participating in community activities and supporting causes can enhance feelings of hope and purpose.
   • Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson stress the importance of contributing positively rather than succumbing to hopelessness. ([44:26])

4. Personal Agency and Purpose

   • Directing energy toward meaningful actions rather than material gains fosters deeper fulfillment.
   • Craig Robinson concludes, "What it means to be human isn't whether we get to space or how much money we have in our bank account. It's really how we treat each other." ([57:17])

Conclusion

The episode wraps up with heartfelt thanks to Dr. Laurie Santos for her insightful contributions. Michelle and Craig reinforce the importance of community, positive action, and personal resilience in overcoming feelings of hopelessness. Listeners are encouraged to apply these strategies to foster a more hopeful and connected life.

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Notable Quotes:

• Craig Robinson at [05:05]: "You got this, girl. I love you. I'm so proud of you."

• Dr. Laurie Santos at [22:00]: "Common humanity... it can help you get through tough times."

• Michelle Obama at [28:42]: "What does it mean for our culture with so many people feeling hopeless."

• Dr. Santos at [36:36]: "Strategies for dealing with your phone... www: What for, Why now, What else."

• Craig Robinson at [57:17]: "What it means to be human isn't whether we get to space or how much money we have in our bank account. It's really how we treat each other."

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This episode serves as a compelling exploration of hope, resilience, and the human capacity to find joy amidst adversity. Through personal narratives and expert insights, listeners are equipped with practical tools to navigate and overcome feelings of hopelessness in today’s complex world.

Transcript

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[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Hey Happiness Lab listeners. You know that I often like to share the conversations I have with interesting folks on other podcasts. And today I've got one that I think you'll really enjoy because I had the pleasure of taking part in a live recording of a new podcast called imo, hosted by former first lady of the United States Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson. And for their first live show ever at south by Southwest, the siblings had yours truly on as a guest to discuss a very tough happiness question. How can we fight hopelessness in scary times? I hope you enjoy our conversation and be sure to check out IMO wherever you get your podcasts.

[Craig Robinson]

Well, hey, south by Southwest.

[Michelle Obama]

Wow.

[Craig Robinson]

Austin hi. Craig Robinson, my big brother. Yeah. Yay. He's so nice.

[Michelle Obama]

You all are nice. But how about my sister Michelle Obama?

[Craig Robinson]

You know, I'm not used to being up here with somebody. Usually when I'm speaking, I'm speaking on my own But I got company.

[Michelle Obama]

I appreciate it.

[Craig Robinson]

When was the last time we were on a big stage together? You remember?

[Michelle Obama]

It's been a while.

[Craig Robinson]

Yeah.

[Michelle Obama]

Remind me, what are you thinking?

[Craig Robinson]

I am thinking about the 2008 convention, and that was a big moment for me because that was Barack's first campaign. In that campaign, people didn't know me. So I got accused in the press of being angry and combative because of the way I spoke. So I found that I had to use this speech to reintroduce myself to the country. So this was a big speech, major speech at the dnc, I remember. And my big brother introduced me and we were on stage.

[Michelle Obama]

Quite an honor.

[Craig Robinson]

It was quite an honor. But in his introduction, when you're on stage and you're doing a big speech, you have teleprompters. So you have prompter in the front, have prompter on the left, prompter on the right, because you're reading from the prompter. Because it's timed, you got to hit it right. It's national, it's live.

[Michelle Obama]

But let me cut in here. She had to read from a prompter. I memorized mine here.

[Craig Robinson]

Here we go. Favorite child. He memorized everything.

[Michelle Obama]

Memorized, memorized.

[Craig Robinson]

Well, my speech was a little longer and a little more impactful, so I needed the teleprompter. Right. So he does this beautiful introduction of me. It's all action packed. And, you know, he says, and ladies and gentlemen, the next first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama. And I come on stage and they're cheering, you know, and we do this greeting in front of the prompter where I think that my big brother is going to lean down and give me a hug and say, you got this, girl. I love you. I'm so proud of you. So I go out there and we're on national tv, and do you remember what you said to me?

[Michelle Obama]

I do. I do.

[Craig Robinson]

You leaned down in my ear and you said, left prompter out. And he walked off.

[Michelle Obama]

I was looking out for her.

[Craig Robinson]

Left prompter out.

[Michelle Obama]

I was looking out for you. I knew you hadn't memorized it, so I didn't want you to be surprised.

[Craig Robinson]

But, you know, I mean, when that wasn't working. So now I'm thinking, what was he talking about? So I'm waving, trying to play it off, and I'm walking up to the stand, and what he meant was, the left prompter was out. And I was like, okay, good looking out. But anyway, that was my brother looking out. But that was the last time we were on stage.

[Michelle Obama]

That was the last time. And look at us now. We are here launching our new podcast, imo.

[Craig Robinson]

Yeah, well, what we've been doing, we're gonna chat a little bit, so you guys will get a sense of our dynamic and sort of some of the lessons we learned growing up. And some of this podcast was started. Cause, you know, this last year was pretty, I won't say completely rough, but we had some. We lost our mom this year. For those of you who don't know, Marian Robins. And as a result. Yeah. Yeah.

[Michelle Obama]

Thank you.

[Craig Robinson]

My mom, she and our dad were some amazing people. And I think as a result of that loss, Craig and I, you know, it brought us even closer together. We were already close, but I don't know about you, but there's just something about losing what was our last parent. And anytime in your life when you lose a parent, it's tough, but you think you're going to be ready for it as an adult. But I think, you know, part of losing mom, it kind of puts us in the position where we are the. We're the wise ones in the family.

[Michelle Obama]

Hard to believe, huh?

[Craig Robinson]

I know. I mean, I talk to Malia and Sasha about this all the time as they are becoming adults. I know Malia always says, well, when do you actually feel like an adult? And I was like, never. Not really ever. Do you feel like you know what you're doing? So I said the fact that you're in your 20s and you feel like you are clueless, it's like you're right on schedule. Because I remind her that even now, at 61. And how old are you?

[Michelle Obama]

63.

[Craig Robinson]

Let's be very clear. He's my big brother.

[Michelle Obama]

Although people, because she's so iconic, people think I'm her little brother, if you can believe that.

[Craig Robinson]

Well, that's because you're bald and you have younger kids.

[Michelle Obama]

That is true.

[Craig Robinson]

I think that helps because he's got a set of older kids and he's got a set of younger kids as well. So I call him the head of the odc, the Old Dads Club. He is president and CEO. But even at this age, it's a little daunting to think that now we kind of have to step up in our family and be that wisdom.

[Michelle Obama]

Yeah. And we're always doing it at home with our families answering questions. So we're going to be doing that with our listeners. So as more as we get going, you'll see we'll have listener questions and we'll have one later today. So stay tuned.

[Craig Robinson]

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, our goal is to share some of what we learned. We know people are going through some tough times, and I don't think Craig and I are feeling any different than anyone out there. You know, we're dealing with a lot of uncertainties. I, for one, feel for folks who are struggling and will continue to struggle in these uncertainties. I worry about folks being out of work. You know, I worry about how we think about diversity and inclusion. I think about how we treat one another and the voices that we hear and what that does, what models that. That setting for the next generation. Who do we want to be as a country? All of that keeps me up at night. And I know that a lot of people are struggling with some of those things, but I find in those moments that it is better not to try to figure that stuff out alone. And for me and Craig and our family, we always try to step outside of our loneliness and talk as a family and as a community and to share those concerns. And I hope that our listeners are pushed to do some of the same things, too, that we're not gonna figure this stuff out on our own, and that we need each other and we need to step out of our loneliness and start talking to each other. So hopefully this podcast will spark some conversation, but more importantly, I hope it leads people to seek out their own communities of trust and conversation so we're not sitting alone in these feelings. So that's my hope.

[Michelle Obama]

Oh, go ahead and clap. Yeah. See, we're not used to a live audience yet, so. No, I absolutely agree with Mish. To her point, we talked about not having all the opinions.

[Craig Robinson]

Or all the answers.

[Michelle Obama]

Or all the answers. We got plenty of opinions, but not all the answers. We're gonna have a guest with us on most of our episodes, but sometimes it'll just be the two of us kind of chopping it up.

[Craig Robinson]

But.

[Michelle Obama]

But before we bring out our special guest today, I thought I'd pose a question to my sister. It's interesting. Now that we're doing the podcast, we talk all the time, but now we save our talking for when we see each other.

[Craig Robinson]

Now you're like, don't say anything.

[Michelle Obama]

Don't say anything.

[Craig Robinson]

Save it.

[Michelle Obama]

Don't say anything. But do you remember how mom and dad taught us how to handle adversity?

[Craig Robinson]

Yeah. Yeah. I talk about this in both of my books. For those of you who don't know our story, our dad, who Frazier Robinson, he developed Ms. In the prime of his life. He didn't always have it. He grew up as a boxer, an athlete, a swimmer. And like in his early 20s, he contracted Ms. And he couldn't walk without the assistance of a cane. And the disease progressed. So we only knew our father as someone with a disability. And I think that growing up with a parent with a disability, looking back on it, we were always kids that were growing up with a real sense of vulnerability right before us. Because our father was the sole breadwinner, our mom stayed home, he was a city worker, so that salary was important. I think we knew that. But to know that the person that you lean on most is vulnerable, I think it always made us clear about adversity. I think we lived within adversity to a certain extent. And it sort of made us both a little wary in interesting ways for a kid. And Craig, I don't know if you remember little things that we didn't at the time tie to our dad's disability, but Craig was always, like, doing disaster preparedness stuff around the house. I mean, I kid you not, this little boy. And he was about 10, and I was always his witness sidekick running behind him like, what are we doing now? And he came home one day and said, you know, how are we gonna get out if there's a fire? So he made us all. Do you remember?

[Michelle Obama]

I do, I do.

[Craig Robinson]

Tell your little worry story.

[Michelle Obama]

So I was. I was worried about. And you know, back in the 70s, there were a lot of house fires. I don't know about you guys.

[Craig Robinson]

There weren't smoke detectors, There weren't no sprinkler systems. We're talking young people back in the Stone Age.

[Michelle Obama]

So I was always worried that we lived on the second floor and our dad couldn't get. How would we get out if there were a fire? So I coming home from school and having done a fire drill at school, I set up a fire drill for us at home.

[Craig Robinson]

But it wasn't just that he had to make sure that he could drag our dad to safety. So he made.

[Michelle Obama]

I made my dad get on the floor. He had to be humiliated.

[Craig Robinson]

But he humored you.

[Michelle Obama]

I had him stand up and I grabbed him from behind and put my arms under his shoulders and then just leaned him back and I dragged him through every room of the house to make sure that I could get him around. And he let me do that.

[Craig Robinson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Obama]

God bless him.

[Craig Robinson]

Yeah, yeah. But that indicated this little boy was worried about some stuff that probably a normal 10 year old wouldn't worry about. And that wasn't it. You know, he would tie his left hand behind his back.

[Michelle Obama]

My right hand.

[Craig Robinson]

Oh, your right hand. Because he was right handed. Because he was worried that he would lose the use of his right hand. So he needed to know how to do everything with his left hand. There was one week that you walked around blindfolded just in case you lost your. I mean, his eyesight. And I'm there, little me going, no, to your left, Greg, to your right. No, wait.

[Michelle Obama]

She was right there.

[Craig Robinson]

Right there. I was like, I don't know why we're doing this, but my big brother says we're doing it. And our parents would just humor us. But while we lived with probably that underlying level of uncertainty, I think when you talk about how we learned to deal with adversity, I think we learned it by watching our father persevere. Because let me tell you, our father, despite his disability, was a man who got up every day and went to work. I mean, I don't remember a time in our life that our dad missed a day of work. Blue collar worker. He took pride in the little things that I think we take for granted, like paying your bills on time, not being house poor. That was a word. We don't want to be house poor. But my father would never, never let a bill go by. He was resilient and he was positive in his life. He was a joyful man, because I think he. Adversity was relative in our house. You know, if you could walk, if you could, you know, hold down a job, if you could take care of your family, if you could love your kids, if you could live with honor and decency, well, who cares if you couldn't walk? You know, he saw the blessings. So I think for. As I look at it, for me, we learned to. I mean, adversity was relative. Adversity was a part of life. But it wasn't everything, you know, that you'd have to just work your way through it. And the other thing I think dad taught us was gratitude. Immense gratitude. I mean, our father, as you could tell from the stories, was a kind, gentle man. He rarely raised his voice or got angry. But, you know, when he was disappointed in us was when we showed a lack of gratitude for what we had. You know, if we had a bowl of ice cream and we were looking for the second scoop before we finished our. The first scoop, what would he say?

[Michelle Obama]

Never satisfied.

[Craig Robinson]

Never satisfied. That would be the one admonition. Never satisfied.

[Michelle Obama]

I hate those two words to this day.

[Craig Robinson]

Yeah. And when I face adversity, his words, you know, sit in my brain. It's like what do I have to complain about? What is it that I can't overcome because of the model that my father set for me? You know, why wouldn't I be happy? Why wouldn't I be able to get through this? Because we saw a man do it every day and do it without complaint. Because if anybody had a reason to complain would be my father, who was a black man growing up in Chicago, raised in desegregation, who was intelligent man with ability to do art, but couldn't live up to his promise. I mean, there were a whole lot of reasons for our father to be upset and angry and not happy and to feel disappointed, to feel sorry for himself, but he was the exact opposite. And so that's what I think about when times get hard is like, look, my dad would push through it.

[Michelle Obama]

Right, Right. And we could talk about our dad for two shows. Right. But we've got the perfect.

[Craig Robinson]

Yes, we do.

[Michelle Obama]

Guest to talk about happiness and adversity and all that kind of stuff. Dr. Laurie Santos is a Yale professor. Oh, you guys. All right, all right, good. She's host of a wildly popular podcast called the Happiness Lab. She's also the teacher of one of the most popular classes at Yale.

[Craig Robinson]

Wish we had this when we were.

[Michelle Obama]

I wish we had it. And that's psychology and the good life. And she's just an all around great person. So can you welcome Dr. Laurie Santos, everybody?

[Craig Robinson]

Well, hey, Professor.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Hey, Michelle.

[Craig Robinson]

Thank you for being on here.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Thanks so much for having me, too.

[Craig Robinson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Little intimate group.

[Craig Robinson]

This is a little bit intimate chat. So how did you come to teach the course? I know you've answered this question a million times before, but what led you to understand that young people today need a course on how to be happy?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah. Well, I took on this new role on Yale's campus, where I became what's called the head of college. Yale is one of these funny schools where there's, like, colleges within a college, like Harry Potter, like Gryffindor, Slytherin kind of thing. So I became head of a college on campus, and that meant that I was, like, living with students, like, eating with them in the dining hall, hanging out with them up close and personal. And I just didn't realize the college student mental health crisis was as bad as it was right now. Nationally, more than 40% of college students say they're too depressed to function most day. More than 60% say they're overwhelmingly anxious. Like, this was a real crisis that I was seeing. And that felt really frustrating because, like, my field has all these strategies we can use to feel better, experience more resilience, feel less stressed. And I was like, let me just develop this class. And then it got very, very big. Not as big as this, but.

[Amazon Pharmacy Representative]

You're listening to a live recording of me on Michelle Obama's new podcast, imo.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

We'll be back after a quick break.

[Michelle Obama]

We've got a live question. We have a person. James, are you here? Oh, there he is. James. James, can you stand up?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

All.

[James]

All right, I'm standing.

[Michelle Obama]

All right, James, let's. All right. Great, man.

[James]

Hey. So excited to be here. My question is, I'm 28 and I live in LA. The fires impacted people close to me, and it feels like that's only going to become more frequent. And everything that's been happening politically, domestically and globally, it feels like a version of the world is ending. And when I talk to friends, they say, this is the new normal. And my immediate instinct is to push back. You know, we can't accept this. But personally, living with the inevitability of it, it also forces me to rethink what I always assumed adulthood would look like. You know, buying a house, starting a family. So my question is, do you have any advice on how to plan for a future that feels so different from the one we were promised without becoming apathetic or just resigning yourself to things getting worse? Thanks so much.

[Michelle Obama]

Cool. Thank you, James.

[Craig Robinson]

Yeah. That's an amen from everybody in this room, right? Everybody's feeling like that a bit. Lori, you wanna start by taking a stab at an answer?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I mean. Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing to answer, the first thing to say for that question is that this is normal. Right? You're not the only person in the room that's going through that. And I think that normalization is critical. All too often, we can get into this, like, toxic positivity vibe where it's like, I'm feeling kind of embarrassed that I'm so upset and frustrated and overwhelmed, sad about what's going on in the world, but, like, we're supposed to feel that negative emotions are normal in an abnormal world. And I think it's fair to say that we are. You know, it's not great, but we are in an abnormal world right now. And so I think that's kind of point number one. The other reason that normalization is so important is that psychologically, it can help us. When you realize that these negative emotions are a common human experience, that they're emotions that are there to help you, they still don't Feel good, but it can allow you to get through them a little bit better. Even here in UT Austin, there's a researcher, Krista Neff, who studies this process of what she calls common humanity, recognizing like, we're all going through it right now. And what she finds is that can actually help you get through tough times. She does this cool research with Afghan and Iraqi veterans and finds that those that give themselves self compassion realize that everybody's going through a tough time here. They wind up coming out with less evidence of PTSD and other related disorders. So, like, when you give yourself a little grace for feeling those negative emotions, realize they're normal in bad times, that actually helps you get through the negative emotions.

[Craig Robinson]

The other thing that I want to get your take on, Laurie, is what's happened to the bar on happiness. Because it really feels like these days that the expectation of young people are so high. And some of that, I think, is our fault as parents. You know, when we were growing up, I mean, life was a lot simpler, you know, I mean, just to give you an example of excitement in our house was getting pizza on report card day. If we got good grades, you know, I mean, at Christmas time, we could ask for three gifts. That was it. You know, go through the Sears Roebucks wishbook. You could pick three things out, and that was it.

[Michelle Obama]

Wait, the young folks don't know what that is?

[Craig Robinson]

Oh, yeah, it's a catalog. First of all, Sears and Rope, that was the only store you go to. You get your car tuned up and a washing machine and your school clothes all in one place. And they had a catalog. And you know what a catalog is, young people? It's the thing you look through for items and you pick it out. Well, that came out each year, and that's where all the toys were. So, you know, our parents just, you know, they were happy that we got good grades. You know, I can tell you. Did our parents push us to go to Princeton? No, they were just like ghosts. Do something with your life as long as you're a good person. But when I think of young people today, the standard for happiness is, like, gone through the roof. I mean, you don't just go to college, but there are, like, seven colleges you can go to, or it doesn't matter, or, you know, people. You look on house hunters and everybody's looking for, you know, marble counters and tray ceilings and, you know, a man cave and. And there's a certain car and, you know, and you're not supposed to be successful, but you're also supposed to be famous, because social media tells you that that's what it means to be happy. So I guess that's a long way of asking, is some of this, you know, not just the world? Because the world's been bad and it's been worse than it is right now. But people, young people, are more unhappy than I think we ever were with a lot less.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

That's right. And we have data on this, right? Looking across time and those rates of depression, anxiety and stuff I just talked about, they're worse than they are in young people right now, than ever since we've recorded them. Right? Like, and it's much worse. And I think you're exactly right. I think it's a lot our expectations, right? We have tools that allow us to see those fancy houses, those fancy vacations, those fancy schools, and they're just in our pockets dinging all the time, giving us a comparison that makes us feel kind of crappy, right? And what we know from the happiness science is that it's not what we objectively have that makes us happy. It's what we're expecting, it's what we're used to. You know, that's why I love the story of your dad, right. You know, just getting a little bowl of ice cream like that should be enough, right? And so I think the, especially in young people, the definition of enough has changed. There's lots of reasons for that. But I think getting to a better point of accepting and what our expectations are, that'll help a lot.

[Craig Robinson]

And that's different from being complacent, Right? Because I think we were taught that you don't need everything and you're not entitled to everything. We were taught not even entitled to happiness.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Exactly.

[Craig Robinson]

Our parents didn't think they were responsible for our happiness for anybody. In our generation, you imagine a parent who worried about whether your child was happy. We didn't come from that. It was like, you're not happy. Get over it. Read a book, get out of my face, move along, go outside. You know, and our generation of parents, I mean, we lose sleep if little person is sad today. And it's like sadness and anxiety, that's all a part of life. But we, as we parent our children, sometimes I think we've made them a little less resilient. And again, that's not to say that people aren't dealing with real anxiety and mental health issues. But I think one of the things I try to think about as a parent and I think our parents did to us, they tried to prepare us for what the world was going to be, which was oftentimes disappointing, most of the time hard. And there would be deep anxiety that you'd have to get through at all times. So they gave us those tools much earlier than I think. Some parents today are willing to let their kids go through some of those tough feelings. So then they get out in the real world and they're confronted with a whole lot of emotions that nobody ever told them was coming.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

That's right. And I think it leads to mental health crisis, not just in our young people, but also in parents. The former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy talked a lot about parent mental health and parent stress. He actually issued like a public health advisory on the fact that parents are going through their own tough emotions. But the biggest tough emotion that parents reported is guilt, as though they're not doing enough for their kids happiness. They're not doing enough to kind of give them everything they need. And I think that reflects exactly what you're saying.

[Michelle Obama]

Laurie, I want to get James question sort of deals with a little bit of hopelessness there. And I was just trying to figure out what does it mean for our culture with so many people feeling hopeless.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah, was bad, as you probably guessed, not great to live in a completely hopeless culture. And we really do live in more of a hopeless culture than we ever have before. Researchers go out and study this and they have, over time, one of the best questions for this is they just ask people, on average, can you trust the other people around you? Right. In the 1970s, when they asked folks that question, around 50% of people said, yeah, on average. Most folks can get trusted. When you ask that same question in 2018, it's down to a little less than a third. That doesn't sound like a big drop, but if I was plotting that, that's basically how much money we lost in 2008 when the Financial crisis happened. Right. So this is like complete, like off a cliff decline in people's sense of trust and people's sense of hope. And it's bad for lots of reasons. Bad for us personally. People who experience less hope, experience more depression, experience more anxiety, experience more loneliness, which is interesting. Hope seems to be connected to our social connection. Also bad for our bodies. People who are more cynical report experiencing more diabetes, experiencing more heart disease. And it's probably bad for us as a society because when you don't experience experience hope, what you think is like, stuff's never going to get better. And when you think stuff's never going to get better, you don't take action to make it better. Right. You don't vote, you don't do things pro socially to help other people. And what you find research wise is if you study people who are cynical, they self report not voting, they self report not donating to charity, not doing the stuff that you need to do to make things better. So, yeah, it's really bad. And it becomes a vicious cycle. Right. Because as more people get hopeless, then they look out in the world with this hopeless lens. They post on social media with a hopeless lens. We get podcasts that are very hopeless, and it just becomes a cycle where we reinforce each other's bad perception of the world. One that might not even be really accurate.

[Craig Robinson]

Yeah. And you talk about that transference, the ability for us to export our bad energy onto other people, and we naturally, as humans, we pick up those cues. Can you talk a little bit more about that transference that you.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah, I mean, we know for sure that emotions are contagious, right? They're just like Covid. And we know this, right? You go into an office and you hang out with somebody who's feeling hyped up and optimistic and excited. You kind of catch that, right? You go into the same office as somebody who's down and not feeling it. Like, you catch that too, right? These days, we don't just catch emotions from the other people we're around. We have this transfer system online where folks are catching emotions globally. I hop on some social media platform, I'm catching some emotion from somebody on Instagram that lives in a different country, in a completely different time zone. But I catch that, too. And that's made worse by the fact that these social media companies obviously have algorithms that thrive not on us catching each other's positive emotions, but on catching each other's anger and outrage and sadness. That's what gets eyeballs on our phones. And so all these things together mean not just that there's transference, but there's particular transference of the bad stuff, of the hopelessness.

[Michelle Obama]

You know, our mom and Misha will remember this. Obviously, we didn't have social media growing up, but we had friends who had stuff or friends who said things. And our mom was always, why do you care about what they say? And I find trying to give my kids that advice is hard with social media. And I think a lot of parents find it hard. How do we balance that these days with social media? Because, you know, we recently were talking with someone else who was telling us, you just. If you take social media away, you got to Replace it with something. But my question is, how do we help folks find a balance here?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah. I think one of the ways to find a balance is just to realize that what we're exposed to affects us. Right. You hop on Instagram and you start scrolling through that feed, you might know that some of the stuff you look at is Photoshopped. You might know that some of this stuff, you know, these companies are. They have algorithms that are sort of pointing you in a bad direction, but that doesn't enter psychologically. You're just soaking in emotions and then the stuff you see. Right. But I think that knowledge can be a little bit of power. Right. You can even ask yourself, like, how do I feel after that? Scroll through Reddit or through social media and ask yourself the question, do I feel more empowered, more hopeful, or do I feel kind of gross and, like, in despair? Right. You can make the choice to put that away. Right. You can kind of notice mindfully how it's making you feel, and you sort of choose to, you know, stick it back in your pocket. Social media companies wouldn't have these algorithms if all our eyeballs weren't on phones anymore. And we actually have more agency than we often remember in that. In that fight.

[Craig Robinson]

People always ask me and Barack, how did we stay hopeful in not just the eight years that we were in the White House, but beyond. Because let me tell you, there was a lot of negative energy floating our way. A lot of rumors, a lot of gossip, a lot of, you know, my husband wasn't born in this country. We didn't care about. We weren't patriotic. You know, he. Yeah, he didn't get into Harvard. I mean, you know, I don't know if you all remember. I certainly do.

[Michelle Obama]

He wore a tan suit.

[Craig Robinson]

Wore a tan suit once. I mean, the level of scandal that occurred. But through it all, what kept us sane and we tried to instill this in our daughters is, you know, you cannot. You know, you cannot live through social media. I don't think I have ever once looked at a comment section, period, at all, ever. And I know it's difficult for this generation, but, you know, I would implore young people to stay. Don't let that negative energy enter into your space. These are people who. Who don't know you. A lot of this stuff is made up, and it does not feed you. And, you know, I mean, you can't do it, and we never do. Now, that doesn't mean you don't stay informed. But staying informed has nothing to do with the comments section. You Know, it has everything to do with the content of the stories that you take in. And I think we cannot get so trapped by social media that we feel so caught up into the one way we get information. We've got to broaden our spectrum, and we have to get off the phone, which is another thing. And I would love for you to talk a bit about that as a tool. I know you got a lot of tools, but there are a lot of people here of all ages who. Who are trapped by their phones. And when you talk about us being disconnected and not talking to each other, I am not out in the world like a normal person anymore. But when I am, people don't even recognize me. You know why? Because they're on their phones. Nobody is looking at each other. I could walk right past somebody with a hat on, you know, and I'm just a black woman in a cap.

[Michelle Obama]

But that's because I don't know.

[Craig Robinson]

No, I've done it.

[Michelle Obama]

I don't know about you.

[Craig Robinson]

I have done it. I fly commercial. I am out there with the people, and folks are not paying attention. I'm. I'm.

[Michelle Obama]

I fly commercial.

[Craig Robinson]

So.

[Michelle Obama]

Okay, okay.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

See?

[Craig Robinson]

Good thing I'm here.

[Michelle Obama]

Good thing I'm here, you know, with this face, walking around, flying commercial. How's Michelle? Tell Michelle I said hi. How's she doing? They okay?

[Craig Robinson]

Anyway, strategies.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Strategies. Yeah.

[Craig Robinson]

I'm gonna get a mute button for him. I'm just kidding.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah, no, but strategies. I mean, I think awareness is really key here. One of my favorite strategies for sort of dealing with your phone and being on your phone all the time comes from the journalist Catherine Price. She has this lovely book, how to break up with your phone, where she argues. You don't have to break up with your phone so much as you need to take it to couples counseling so that you can, like, deal with it better. But she has this really handy acronym that she uses whenever she finds herself on her phone. It's www, which you can think of because you're probably on the world wide Web, right? But this is not world wide Web. WWW stands for what? For why now and what else? So what are you on your phone for? Maybe you're checking your email or looking at a map. Maybe you're just deep in some TikTok dive, right? Was there a purpose? Right. Why now? This is an important one. Because you notice your emotions, what drives you to your phone. Were you bored? Were you anxious? Right. What's your cue that gets you there? What's that craving coming from? And then finally, what else? What's the opportunity cost of being on your phone right now? You might be missing Michelle Obama on your flight. There's a sitting right next to you. You didn't notice. Right. You might miss the beautiful scenery. You might miss the opportunity to talk to someone who has interesting stories, interesting ideas. That what else question is critical because what studies show us is, is that because we're on our phones, we're less social than we could be. A lovely study by Elizabeth Dunn at the University of British Columbia had people with their phones or without their phones sitting in a waiting room. They weren't even using their phones. It was just like, present or not. And she just measured the amount of smiling that people did. You know, casual, somebody's in your room, you smile at them. She seems 30% less smiling when phones are present. Right. Calculate that by all the phones on planes in Austin and so on. So we're really missing out. But that strategy of www, I think what it gets us towards is like, we just have to be mindful. We just have to notice these are good tools. Right. We know even from COVID times they were so useful, but we just have to use them in a healthy way.

[Craig Robinson]

Yeah, I love that.

[Amazon Pharmacy Representative]

Time for a quick break, but there'll be more of me on Michelle Obama's new podcast, imo in just a moment.

[Michelle Obama]

Lori, what can we do to find hope when things are are tough? Like in James Situation, he's looking at his friends who have lost things in a fire or, you know, other personal disasters. What can we do?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah, I think there are a couple things, right? One is, one is making sure you have the right definition of hope. Because I think sometimes when we think of hope, we think of what at least psychologists might call optimism, where you're just like, everything's going to be fine. And I think that everything's going to be fine is like. I mean, look at the new. Like, look at X. Like anywhere is not fine, right? And so I think it's important to like, call it the way it is. It's not fine, but hope isn't that. Hope says things are not fine, but I can actually see at least a few paths for things to get better. Why is that psychologically so important? If you think things are fine right now, are you going to act? You're going to take agency, you're going to do anything about it? No, because you're just kind of things are fine right now. The world's not on fire. When you experience hope, what you feel is things are not fine. Right now. But there's a path. What does that path do? It gives you agency. It gives you a sense that something can be done. And probably I can be a small part of what needs to get done. And that small part is because I think when we think we have to be the only one out there fixing everything, that also makes us feel a little overwhelmed and sad. But when you realize that you're a small action, you're checking in on someone, you're donating five bucks to a cause you care about, you stepping up in any way to make things better that actually matters. And one of the things we know psychologically is that it also helps us feel a little bit more hopeful when we take action, right? So you show up at that cause you care about or go to protest, right. Donate some money. Psychologically, you start to feel like, oh, we're even getting closer to a solution because I stepped up. Maybe other people step up. You also see good social evidence that you're not the only one. You show up at a protest, you're usually not the only one there. You get a whole room like this full of people who care. Now all of a sudden, your beliefs start to change. So you can, instead of being that vicious cycle of hopelessness that we talked about before, you can become part of a virtuous cycle of hopefulness. And that's the kind of thing that can also be socially contagious.

[Craig Robinson]

And as somebody who has seen all kinds of power at work, you know, I've been at some of the most powerful tables. One of the things I remind people of is, yes, there is large power. You know, there are a handful of people in the world who can do a few things that can impact so many. But the truth is that the small power that each of us has to do something right in front of us if we're all doing that outweighs anything that, you know, some big leader somewhere can do. I mean, just think about. Yeah, just think about as our parents did, you know, Marian and Fraser Robinson, who didn't go to college, you know, mother stayed at home, father was a city worker. And let me just stop and give a big shout out to city and federal workers, people who are the lifeblood of this country. Also, those jobs help to create an entire middle class of people like our fathers, our father, our parents. And they do the lion's share of the work in this country. You know, if we're going to start asking who's doing what, I would. From my experience, the folks who are working on the ground and Picking up our garbage and making sure that our, you know, schools run and that our air is clean and that our flights stay up in the air. That those people are the true heart and blood of this country. But that power is what changes things. You know, those parents with a little bit that they were able to do with their power raised two of us. You know, and if you just think that if everybody on this planet was valued and had an opportunity to have a job and to take care of their kids and to raise them with some level of honesty and kindness and with humanity and taught them to love everybody and to be inclusive, you know, just imagine if everybody did that little thing right in their plate. You know, if you're going to have some kids, you know, if you can have the courage and the power to exercise that small thing of raising them with some troops and some honesty, just imagine where we would be right now as a country. You know, imagine what our leadership would look like and how we would ask them to speak and to act and to model. That is the beauty of small power, you know, so as James, you know, thinks about what to do, you know, I hope that retreating into hopelessness is not on the list, because, shoot, if my dad didn't. This is how I feel. If my father, Frazier Robinson, didn't retreat with all that he could have retreated from in times a lot tougher than this, because he wanted to lay a foundation for us that we have that obligation, all of us, to do the same thing, we can't afford to be hopeless, I would say.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah. And I love that you share the story of your father, because it's also one of the strategies that we can use, tiny strategy we can use individually to do better, which is sharing these positive social stories like the world and social media, all these algorithms are filled with terrible stories, but you can actually see the good ones. You can say, my dad, in the midst of experiencing this terrible disease, was hopefully taught us gratitude. And it doesn't even have to be Michelle Obama's dad. You can find these little examples of moral goodness, but don't just keep them to yourself. Share them. And I think if you're a parent, this is one of the best things you can do to your kids, right? Because they maybe don't have as much kind of frontal lobe power to go out there and find those good stories over the dinner table. What moral goodness did you see today? What was something that delighted you, that kind of made you happy, specifically about what somebody else was doing? We don't share these enough, but the Sad thing is, they're out there. We just don't hear about them enough. And so this. That's one of the reasons I'm so glad y'all are doing this podcast. There's gonna be way more stories than that that come out that allow for what researchers call social savoring or sort of savoring the goodness of other people.

[Craig Robinson]

And that's also a way. I'm sorry, for people to use their social media, you know? You know, it's there for a reason. There's power in it, you know, but we have to resist the notion to use it to harp on each other, to dis and to spread gossip and to, you know, I mean, each of us in our world can encourage the people within it to use the tool for good. You know, it is a choice that we can make. Right now, everybody in this room, everybody listening to this podcast who hears us, you can make a choice to either, you know, use these tools for good or use them for evil or to use them to appease your frustration. Because, remember, as Lori said, we pass on that energy, you know, we're passing it on. Our anger, our rage, you know, is one of the reasons why, you know, when our household, we use the motto, going high is important, because going high is the model. Especially if you have a platform like we did for eight years. Yeah, it's easy to get on a big platform and rile people up and to say hateful things and to make fun of people. Of course, anybody could do that. Any leader can do that. Right. That's the easiest way to lead, because you're sort of tapping into your easiest basis, you know, core, and you lash out, you share that anger. The strength and the power comes is when you can harness that, you know, and understand that if you have a power platform, if you're going to be on social media, that you now have an obligation not to spread hate and bitterness and anger.

[Michelle Obama]

And if only because I want to give James some takeaways. But I.

[Craig Robinson]

This is Craig's job, too.

[Michelle Obama]

We also have the happiness doctor here, so how can we. And let me back up, because our mom used to say, you're responsible for your own happiness. And that was some of the most empowering advice she ever gave us. How can we help those out there who don't have a Marianne Robinson or a social group? How can we help them work through making themselves happy?

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Well, your mom might have been a better happiness scientist than you guys thought, because she's reading the evidence out there, because that's what the Evidence really shows is that it takes some work, but you can do things to feel better, even in a horrible situation. Right. Even in a horrible situation, there are things you can do to feel a little bit better. And I think one of the biggest ones is really to connect with other people. You talked about the problem of phones leading us away from each other. You talked about the loneliness crisis. You're in a room with lots of other folks right now. You're probably in lots of rooms with lots of other folks. Just talk to them. Check in on your friends, reach out to them. These things sound silly. They sound like such a tiny thing to do, but they allow us to get towards more civic action. Right. They're really like, in a very tiny way, the basis of democracy. Right. Just talking to people and getting to know them. Right. And so in your own small world, do that and reach out to the people that you care about. We often assume, again, that that's kind of a silly thing to do. But what the studies show is that when you're reaching out to other people, when you're checking in on other people, that boosts your happiness, too. So you're ultimately, by doing nice things for others, growing the pie, and you're giving yourself a little bit more of a sense of hope. Because whenever you take action, you're like, oh, my gosh, I have some agency. Things can't be that bad. I can make it a little bit better.

[Michelle Obama]

Well, go ahead.

[Craig Robinson]

And I know, Craig, you're a coach. You've coached, you've mentored. I know that mentoring isn't just about giving. You know, it's about what you get in return. You want to talk about?

[Michelle Obama]

Yeah, I. You know, I started out in corporate America and moved into coaching, but I always felt like I wanted to be a coach or a teacher because I was coached and mentored by my dad, my mom, and really good coaches. And I thought it was really the reason why I got to do all the wonderful things I got to do. And I felt like I needed to share that with all these other young people out there. And to Lori's point, it makes me feel fantastic. And it just is just such a wonderful, warm feeling to be able to help folks.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah. And I think another thing that we can do, again, kind of channeling your parents, because I think they were on top of this stuff, is what your dad said. Right. Find something to be a little bit grateful for that can feel big in the situation that James is in. Right. When it feels like everything is collapsing around you, it's Hard to be living in LA in the midst of these fires and be like, well, I'm grateful for if that feels hard. Choose a lighter version of that strategy. Look for just something that's a little bit of a delight in the world. Like, just a delight, something great. This is a practice I heard from the writer Ross Gay. He has this lovely book called the Book of Delights, where he decided every day he was just going to go out and find some small wonder in the world that delighted him. And they're tiny things. Like, you see somebody on the train, give each other a fist bump. You walk into a cafe and it's playing El Debarge, like Rhythm of the Night, which is like, great song. And Ross Dave was like, that's a delight, right? And what it does is it allows him to train his brain away from something that our brains do naturally, which is what researchers call a negativity bias. We instantly notice all the bad stuff. You scroll through your feed and your brain is locked onto the bad information. But to find the good stuff, to find the delights, you gotta, like, put a little energy into it. And when it becomes a game, when you know you're sharing them with someone else or writing them down, now all of a sudden you find them a little bit more quickly. And one of the reasons I love Ross's book is that he actually shows that this power of delight can help you fight all kinds of stuff in lots of ways. It's a book that deals with a lot of the bad stuff that's going on. It talks really explicitly about racism. It talks really explicitly of cultures of violence and things like that. But when you find the delights, you're able to kind of get through it. It's like you're kind of patting yourself with some positive emotion to deal with the negative stuff. And this is one of the reasons I think we need to find our light a little bit more, is the other thing that research shows is that if we want to make changes, we kind of need the emotional bandwidth to do that. And one of the ways you do that is finding your light, right? Focusing on positive emotions. There's this researcher, Constantine Kushlev, who works at Georgetown, and he asks the question, who's out there doing the work to solve the problems, right? Who's showing up at the protests? Who's engaging in climate justice? And what he measures is people's positive emotion. And he finds that the more you self report having more positive emotion versus negative emotion, the more you're going out to that protest for A cause you care about the more you're donating to kind of fix the things out there in the world. It's kind of like putting your own oxygen mask on first so you can help others. But it's not just like others. It's like helping the whole world. And so that. That pit of research has helped me because sometimes it can feel bad to not be hopeless in a hopeless world. Like, if you're going through what James is going through, it's like, should I experience delights? Should I get happy? Because El DeBarge is on in this cafe, it feels, like, weird. But his research helps me because it's like, no, it's almost your responsibility to find positive emotion because it actually allows you to get towards the actions that can fix stuff.

[Michelle Obama]

All right, so for James, we've got five minutes for some takeaways, and that was a great place to start. You find your light. All right, I'm looking toward Lori for a couple of takeaways.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yeah, let's do it. I think a big one is to notice how you feel when you're participating in the 247 news cycle. Right. The news cycle didn't used to be 24 7. We all probably remember there was a day when you get the paper in the morning, you read it, you were very informed, but you put that thing away. Didn't walk around with you in your pocket. Right. I think there's. You can probably be informed with, like, 80% less time on your phone, and you'll still know all the terrible things that are happening. I promise they'll still be covering them, you know, 23 hours later, but just kind of give yourself a little bit of break. Why? Information is good. You'll still have that, but you'll kind of protect your positive emotion a bit. I think the second one is just one that we've talked about already. Social connection. Reach out and try to help someone else. Especially if you're feeling vulnerable, especially if you're feeling in a crummy place. Just ask, what can I. What very small thing can I do for somebody else? For a friend? Text them. Just say, hey, thinking about you. Donate three bucks or something, whatever you can financially afford a little tiny thing to a charity, all of a sudden that will start making you feel good, and you'll be doing good in the world, too.

[Craig Robinson]

And absolutely.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Thank you.

[Craig Robinson]

And I just want to throw a mom hat kind of piece on there for James, is that, you know, your physical health is directly tied to your emotional status. And I know young people. You aren't at the point where you believe what we've been telling you that you gotta get sleep. You really do gotta get some. You know, why are older people probably a little bit happier? Because I take a nap and I go, I will go to bed, and I love nothing more than going to bed early. Now, if you're in your 20s, that sounds really crazy, but, you know, it absolutely matters. And what you eat and whether you move your body. You know, we've got Lori here because, like, there is real evidence. We still live in a world where science matters still.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Please, please.

[Craig Robinson]

As we wonder what is wrong, you know, and how we fix it, you know, we can't ignore the fact that they're really smart people who have done really important research to come up with the whys and to give us answers. So this stuff actually matters. And when you're 60 plus, it all makes sense. And, and taking care of yourself, getting outside, making sure you get a little bit of fresh air, how you move your body, what you put in it matters. So if you're young and you don't feel it yet, because when you're our age, you will feel it. If you start some of those habits now, it doesn't change the world for sure. Voting still matters. But in the meantime, you know, not partying every night of the week and thinking that you're gonna wake up in a good mood, that helps too.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

But I think you're right. Like, not only does it, you said it doesn't matter for voting, it doesn't matter. I think it does, right? If you take care of your body, you're gonna be. You're gonna have the bandwidth and the resilience to fight, whether that's fighting at the voting booth or fighting in other ways. And you also channeled something else that I often talk to my students about. We mentioned gratitude, right? And gratitude is really changing your thought patterns. It's noticing the delightful stuff and trying to move away from the negative stuff. But there's other ways we can use our thought patterns to feel good. I think one of them is just thinking back, right? Getting a little bit of psychological distance. As Michelle said before, things have been bad before, right? And when you remember that, you're like, oh, we came back from it. We've come back from really awful stuff. Historically, especially if you look in long history, we've come back from really awful stuff. And what does remembering that do? It makes you realize, oh, things could be different. Even in a bad situation, I can see a path to something being better. What's that. That's hope. That's fighting your own cynicism right there.

[Craig Robinson]

And one more thing, one more thing, one more thing. You know, for young people out there, I just encourage us all to sort of. Right. Size our happiness meter.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Yes.

[Craig Robinson]

You know, and take a little pressure off of ourselves and not to measure joy and happiness by the wrong things. And let me tell you, look, we are successful. We got degrees, we make money. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But I will guarantee you that having stuff or money or fame, all the things that right now seem to be so important, you know, extolling the virtues of how much stuff you get, in my experience, that really, truly is not the key to happiness and finding out what your purpose is, you know, who you are helping and why, over how much money you have in your bank account. You know, truly, I know a whole lot of these billionaires, and not all of them, as we can see, seem happy, you know, because that's not. Ultimately, if that's your only goal is to have more than you need, to never be satisfied. If you get on that path and that's what you're going after, you know, there will be a hole in your heart. And it may feel like it's the world, but it may actually be are our misguided sense of what it means to be human. And truly, what it means to be human isn't whether we get to space or how much money we have in our bank account. It's really how we treat each other. How do we make each other feel, how do we care for one another? And I guarantee you, if you spend your life doing that, you know, really reordering your steps to be that person in the world, I can tell you that's what makes me feel better and hopeful, is directing my energy at a real purpose. So I would urge James to make sure he's driven by that and not by some other artificial goals that we've been told are important. Important.

[Michelle Obama]

That's a great point to end on. Mish, Please help me thank Dr. Lori Santos for being here.

[Craig Robinson]

Thank you, Lori. Thank you so much.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Thank you so much.

[Michelle Obama]

As you can see, we do have a lot of opinions and we could keep this thing going on and on, but listen and subscribe. Thank you all for being here.

[Craig Robinson]

Thank you, guys. Thanks, Lori.