In a 2018 panel with Penguins Books U.K., Obama talked about how young people are taught to figure out what they want to be when they grow up and the title associated with that, whether it’s a lawyer, teacher or researcher. They then “do the work to get those titles” and have jobs and careers.
“What I learned was none of that has to do necessarily with who I am,” she noted, “not what I want to be.”
Instead, Obama encouraged young people to ask themselves questions, including what do they care about, how do they want to invest their time, what brings them joy and what makes them sad?
“We don’t teach that in school,” she continued, “but I learned to try and find that for me and turn that passion into my career.”
Obama said her life then “started opening up” in ways she’d never predicted. “Because I started asking myself that one simple question: Not what did I want to be, but who did I want to be?” she added. “And how did I want to show up in the world? And if you all can get the jump start on starting to ask yourself that question as you, you know, go after your careers. If you’re starting to think, what kind of work will bring you joy? Because if you find that, you’re going to do well at it and everything else will fall into place. And it did for me.”