Simple HABITS to Get ANYTHING You Want from LIFE!Michelle Obama!Top 10 Rules

If you're gonna be a hard worker, hard work doesn't just appear. You have to practice hard work.

The only way you succeed in life, the only way you learn, is by failing. It's not the failure, it's what you do after you fail. If you do not take control over your time and your life, other people will gobble it up.

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you, and I want to see that great thing that you have inside of you Come out so you can help change the world. So to help you on your journey today, we're going to learn from writer, lawyer, and former First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, and my take on her top 10 rules of success, volume 2. Rule number 1 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. And as always, guys, as you're watching, if you hear something that really resonates with you, please leave it down in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired. And when you write it down, it's much more likely to stick with yourself as well. Enjoy.

You have to practice who you want to be. You know, you don't wake up one morning and you're suddenly who you think you want to be. You have to put some energy into it. So if you want to If you're gonna be an honest person, you have to be an honest person every day, even starting at 3 and 4 and 5, right? If you're gonna be a hard worker, hard work doesn't just appear. You have to practice hard work. You have to practice effort. And I also encourage them and try to help them understand that good things don't come easy. You know, with that effort, you know, that's where you grow. That's where growth is. Some of the best times in my life when I've grown, it's when I've done something hard, when I've overcome a fear. You don't realize that when you're doing it, but when you come out on the other side, you realize, wow, I've really stepped up.

This is what I tell my daughters every day. Do not be afraid to fail. Because that oftentimes is the thing that keeps us as women and girls back, because we think we have to be right, we think we have to be perfect, we think that we can't stumble. And the only way you succeed in life, the only way you learn, is by failing. It's not the failure, it's what you do after you fail, you know? Do you let it eat you up? Do you quit? Do you give up? Or do you let it bolster you? Does it serve as the challenge in your mind to do more, to take some risks, to step outside of your comfort zone?

Are you gonna throw up your hands and say that progress will never come? Are you gonna get angry and lash out? Are you gonna turn inward and just give in to despair and frustration? Or are you going to take a deep breath, straighten your shoulders, lift up your head, and do what Barack Obama has always done? As he says, "When they go low, I go high." That's the choice Barack and I have made. That's what has kept us sane over the years. We simply do not allow space in our hearts minds, or souls for darkness. Instead, we choose faith. Faith in ourselves, in the power of hard work. Faith in our God, whose overwhelming love sustains us every single day. That's what we choose. We choose love. Our love for our children. Our commitment to leaving them a better world, our love for our country, which has given us so many blessings and advantages, our love for our fellow citizens, parents working hard to support their kids, men and women in uniform who risk everything to keep us safe, young people from the toughest backgrounds who never stop believing in their dreams, young people like so many of you. That's what we choose. And we choose excellence. We choose to tune out all the noise and strive for excellence in everything we do. No cutting corners, no taking shortcuts, no whining. We give 120% every single time because excellence, excellence is the most powerful answer you can give to the doubters and the haters. It's also the most powerful thing you can do for yourself. See, because the process of striving and struggling and pushing yourself to new heights— see, that's how you develop your God-given talents. That's how you make yourself stronger and smarter and more able to make a difference for others.

If I was going to protect them, I had to number one protect myself and protect my time. So I knew going into this role that I didn't want to waste any time, that any time I spent away from my kids— and I, I actually took this on even before I became First Lady, even as a lawyer, as a vice president at a hospital— one of the things I realized is that if you do not take control over your time and your life, other people will gobble it up. If you don't prioritize yourself, you constantly start falling lower and lower on your list. Your kids fall lower and lower on your list. So by the time you got here, you knew how to do that? I knew how to do that.

Read, write, read, read. If the president were here, one of his greatest strengths is reading. That's one of the reasons why he's a good communicator. Educator, why he's such a good writer. He's a voracious reader. So we're trying to get our girls, no matter what, to just be— to love reading and to challenge themselves with what they read, and not just read the gossip books, but to push themselves beyond and do things that maybe they wouldn't do. So I would encourage you all to read, read, read, just keep reading. And writing is another skill. It's practice, it's practice. The more you write, the better you get. Drafts, our kids are learning the first draft means nothing. You're gonna do 7, 10 drafts. That's writing. It's not failure. It's not the teacher not liking you because it's all marked up in red. When you get to be a good writer, you mark your own stuff in red and you rewrite and you rewrite and you rewrite. That's what writing is. And if you come out with those skills, and then you're confident, and you can articulate, and you can stand up straight and look anybody in the eye and say, "This is who I am, it's a pleasure to meet you." That's one of the things we try to do with our mentoring program with young girls. My message to them is if you can walk into the White House and meet the First Lady and say, "My name is, how are you?" and look me in the eye, then there's nothing you can't do. That's why it's important. If you guys walked here, are sitting here in front of all these people, standing tall, asking questions, using your voice, you have to practice that. These arenas just show up again and again, and then you just get used to it. The nerves go away, and you start relaxing into your own abilities. But it's practice.

Be supportive of each other. I mean, I, I just can't say this enough. We have to be our best friends, each other. That means we cannot be catty. We cannot compete and see one person's failure as our success. We can all rise together, okay? We can all win. And we're sometimes taught in our societies that we have to compete and we have to hold each other back in order for one of us to succeed. That is not true. We need each other. We as women, we as minorities sort of take for— we underestimate ourselves, and that is, I'm pretty smart. Yeah, I work pretty hard. I'm good at what I do. I have really good instincts. I have great ideas, and I can execute. And I say that out loud because we as women don't like pat ourselves on the back for our— we're always sort of deferring.

Yes.

You know, we cede our power so easily, and I want young girls out there to know, look— Live out loud. Live out loud and understand that what's in your brain is really useful. Do not hide it. Don't dumb it down. Don't apologize for it. Just put it on the table and let people deal with it. Because we silence ourselves. I was the vice president of community outreach for the University of Chicago Hospital, and I got that job because I didn't compromise. Because before getting— working at that job, I was working as an associate dean. I had had Malia. Barack was in the U.S. Senate. So I was basically mothering part-time on my own, having— I had a full-time job, so I tried part-time. I've talked about this before. I tried part-time because I thought I have to figure this out. I have to be able to pick the kids up. I've got to be able to do all this. So, tried part-time. So, only thing I found out from part-time was that you just get paid part-time. Because I was still doing a full-time job. I was just cramming it all into the few hours that I was there and driving myself crazy. So I had vowed that if I continued to work, that I would never settle for part-time. I knew what my time and energy was worth. So when I went into the president's office to interview for that job, I thought, I have a little baby, I don't have babysitting, so here we go. We're all gonna go in to see the president because this is who I am. And I said, and if I take this job, I need flexibility. And I need full pay. So if you want me to leave my baby and my kids, then you're gonna have to pay me, because I'm gonna do the job. That was never a question, you know? I could deliver, but I wasn't— I knew then I wasn't gonna sell myself short. I don't ever view it as bravery. Yeah, you didn't think that was brave, saying, look, I'm gonna be paid full-time, right? I just viewed it as I'm not going to be taken advantage of. You know, I just— I am just not going to keep— you knew your value. That's— you knew your value. When you are struggling and you start thinking about giving up, I want you to remember something that my husband and I have talked about since we first started this journey nearly a decade ago. Something that has carried us through every moment in this White House and every moment of our lives, and that is the power of hope. The belief that something better is always possible if you're willing to work for it and fight for it. It is our fundamental belief in the power of hope that has allowed us to rise above the The voices of doubt and division, of anger and fear that we have faced in our own lives and in the life of this country. Our hope that if we work hard enough and believe in ourselves, then we can be whatever we dream, regardless of the limitations that others may place on us. The hope that when people see us for who we truly are, Maybe, just maybe, they too will be inspired to rise to their best possible selves.

Shoot, it's the hope of my folks like my dad, who got up every day, do his job at the city water plant, the hope that one day his kids would go to college and have opportunities he never dreamed of.

That's the kind of hope that every single one of us—politicians, parents, preachers, all of us—need to be providing for our young people. Because that is what moves this country forward every single day—our hope for the future, and the hard work that hope inspires. I want our young people to know that they matter, that they belong, So don't be afraid. You hear me? Young people, don't be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered. Empower yourselves with a good education. Then get out there and use that education to build a country worthy of your boundless promise. Lead by example with hope. Never fear. And know that I will be with you, rooting for you and working to support you for the rest of my life. And that is true, I know, for every person who is here today, and for educators and advocates all across this nation who get up every day and work their hearts out to lift up our young people.

And I am so grateful to all of you.

For your passion and your dedication and all the hard work on behalf of our next generation. And I can think of no better way to end my time as First Lady than celebrating with all of you.

So I want to close today by simply saying thank you.

Thank you for everything you do for our kids and for our country. Being your First Lady has been the greatest honor of my life.

And I hope I've made you proud.

Disney.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because Sweet Cherry asked me to. If there's a famous entrepreneur that you would like me to profile next, check out the link in the description and go and cast your vote. I'd also love to know what did you learn from this video that had the biggest impact on you? What lesson are you going to take? And immediately apply it somehow in your life or in your business, leave it in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. I also wanna give a quick shout out to Steph Reveron. Steph, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and visiting the studio and getting it signed and meeting you and your notebook, but also for the song that you made talking about one word. I really appreciate all the love and support, and I'm so glad that you enjoyed the book and it had a big impact on your life. Thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever what your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.

So throughout this journey, I have learned to block everything out and focus on my truth. I had to answer some basic questions for myself. Who am I? No, really, who am I? What do I care about? And the answers to those questions have resulted in the woman who stands before for you today. A woman who is first and foremost a mom. Look, I love our daughters more than anything in the world, more than life itself. And while that may not be the first thing that some folks want to hear from an Ivy League-educated lawyer, it is truly who I am. So for me, being Mom-in-Chief is and always will be job number one.

Other people told me that I might not be able to, to do well in school for whatever reason. I was always a good student. I worked hard, but I thought there was some magic that happened that made you really— you know, I didn't know that it was just plain old hard work. So there were periods of doubt for sure. I think we all I have doubts today. Doubts don't go away. You just learn how to deal with them. You start knowing yourself and you become more confident. The more successes you have, the more chances you take, you don't let the failures or the stumbles define you. Everybody falls every now and then. Some people fall a lot. And what I realized is that we have long lives if we're healthy and we do what we're supposed to do. I'm 47 years old. So think about it. Whatever mistake I made when I was 13, who cares? So think about life as a long trajectory. But at the same time, you don't want to make huge mistakes because when you're young, Making big, big mistakes can last forever, right? So you want to choose wisely. But the stumbles, the lessons learned, that's part of life that makes you grow. But I came to know that. I didn't know that when I was your age. I thought every mistake was the end of the world. I'll never be able— I'll never get into school. I'll never be— of course, we all feel that way. but just continue to work, put the effort in. And I think that has been some of what's helped me being First Lady. First of all is knowing who you are and being confident in yourself, because there'll be— Clarissa, what did you say? Pushing beyond other people's labels of you, right? That's a big part. That's what we do to each other all the time. We don't even know each other, and we already determine from one glance meeting, one line, one word, one phrase, this is who you are. So you have to know who you are before that.

And you live that reality.

And you keep living it out no matter what. And if you have good character and good intentions, that that ultimately shines through. But in the end, it's hard work. And I like to work hard, and I like to do good things. And you practice that now. And believe it or not, I didn't know it, it prepared me to be the First Lady of the United States. I didn't know. I guess I'm doing okay. But you know what? Every day we just get up and keep doing what we think is the right thing.

Stop worrying so much about getting things wrong. Success has nothing to do with perfection. So stop being nervous, raise your hand, use your voice, get it wrong, learn from your mistakes, and keep moving on. And don't worry about what other people think. It doesn't matter. I'm 50 years old now, and nothing anyone said to me when I was young that was negative matters. It doesn't matter. So be brave, use your voice, ignore the doubters, and work hard because life is hard work. Don't be afraid of it, just do it. So let me give you the one secret to happiness. One word. This is all you need to be happy. The most important word ever. If you had to think of one word that's most important to you or that's sums you up, or that would be kind of like a little beacon.

Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.