On Saturday 14 December, something magical happened: AWARE’s executive director, Corinna Lim, moderated a conversation with former First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama, in front of an audience of 3,500 people at Singapore Expo.

Their hour-long talk covered notable landmarks from Michelle’s life—including quitting a high-flying lawyer job to work at an NGO (just like Corinna!)—and themes from her autobiography, Becoming.

A few highlights of the conversation:

• On the importance of finding your voice, and encouraging kids to find theirs: “If you’re hiding your story, it’s hard for you to advocate when you finally get a seat at the table,” said Michelle. “We sow seeds of doubt in [kids’] souls and we’re surprised when we have a society of doubters.”

• On caregiving: We are told that parenting should be a 50/50 split, Michelle noted, but “then that inequity happens”. Paternity leave should be mandatory as well, not just maternity leave. “We have to start with making sure the load is shared from the beginning.”

• On her marriage to Barack Obama: “I don’t just love him, I like him. And I respect him. And I think he feels the same way about me… It is a really good marriage. Is it perfect? It’s as imperfect as any marriage is.”

• On learning the art of politics while at the White House: A significant achievement of Michelle’s was her campaign against childhood obesity, for which she worked intensely behind the scenes with food manufacturers, restaurant chains and other stakeholders. While she was surprised at how controversial the campaign became, she realised that she could deflect the negativity by focusing the optics onto her White House garden project. “On the surface, we were just planting carrots,” she joked. “‘There’s no need to look over here—it’s just a carrot!’”

• On activism: “If you do this work expecting to see your win, then don’t do it. We do this work for our grandchildren… We don’t have a right to not do this for our kids.” About her famous “when they go low, we go high” quote, Michelle said, “Why do I go high? Because it’s a better place to be… I treat people with kindness and decency and I have no expectation that that will come back to me.”

As the session drew to a close, Corinna shared a few words from a sexual harassment survivor who had passed a card to Michelle via AWARE: “Throughout my darkest days, struggling through university and coping with difficult emotions, I used to watch your videos, read your interviews, and now Becoming. You have shaped the way I live my life, think and function… I hope that as I continue to grow older, I will become the woman that you are.”

About the night, Corinna wrote afterwards, “From the very first hug she gave me where she whispered how much she enjoyed my earlier intro of her, I knew it was going to be just fine. Michelle Obama was warm, down to earth, very funny, charming and wise. She has great presence but does not dominate and has a great way of connecting with the audience and me at the same time.”

What an incredible honour for Corinna—and for us at AWARE! Thank you to The Growth Faculty for making this happen, and of course to Michelle Obama and her team.