Michelle Obama waved a bittersweet goodbye to the In Performance at the White House PBS series.
Barak and Michelle Obama’s time at hosting the event has come to an end, and they went out with a bang.
Michelle Obama made special guests of groups of student musicians at the event, which highlighted the late Ray Charles and the enormous impact he had on music.
Before the filming of the special Smithsonian Salutes Ray Charles: In Performance at the White House, Michelle Obama spoke to the students in an effort to inspire them to keep reaching for their dreams no matter what obstacles they had to overcome.
She said, “The reason we invited you all here today is we wanted you all to understand that no matter who you are or what challenges you face, you all have the power to get from those seats down there to these seats up here or anywhere else you want to go in the world. But it’s going to take some real effort on your part.”
Michelle Obama then praised the importance of failure along the way and assured them that it is all part of the journey.
She added, “Failure is a key part of success. You don’t get here [gesturing to musicians on stage with her] unless you fail real bad, real big and real hard somewhere. And that includes my husband, the president of the United States. The question is how do you get back up from those failures.”
What do you think of Michelle Obama’s inspiring comments?