TFA x IMO: Michelle Obama Told Me I’m Not a Loser!

In this brief episode, Nora poses a question to Craig Robinson and Michelle Obama. And boy do they deliver!

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

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I’m Nora McInerny and this is Thanks For Asking, the call-in show about What Matters to You. But today, I’m actually calling out. I am sending out an SOS, and I’m sending out an SOS to Craig Robinson and his little sister, Michelle Obama.

They have a great show, great podcast called IMO, where they answer your questions. And I sent them a question and they answered it.

And I wanted to share it with you guys here today, and then share my response to their response and give a little bit more context to it. Does that make sense?

So you’re going to hear Craig Robinson and Michelle Obama respond, and then you’re going to hear from me again. Here we go. Hi, Michelle and Craig.

It’s Nora McInerny. I’m the host of a podcast called Thanks For Asking. It’s a call-in show where I just let people talk about how they’re really doing, and a lot of my listeners, myself included, are burned out, recovering girl bosses.

I personally took some major steps back after eight to ten years, who’s counting, of just nonstop go. And as a result, my life is more manageable because I stopped doing things that were not paying me financially or emotionally.

And yet, and yet, and yet, I have a sense of, oh, no, am I a loser? Whenever I see peers, colleagues, friends, enemies, doing things that I know I could do, it’s almost like I am addicted to stress.

And I know a lot of people probably feel the same way. Can you please give us some advice and or a pep talk? I’m begging you.

Thank you.

Well, thanks, Nora.

It’s Craig Robinson here, and it’s great to be on your show.

And it’s Michelle Obama, his little sister, who’s also excited.

She decided to join us too. I think I’ll go first, and I will just say first and foremost, you’re not a loser. So pep talk number one, you’re not a loser.

Some of the stress relievers that I have gone to in a pinch when I’m feeling like I am burnt out or I need some time away, my first go-to would be exercise or something physical, whether that’s walking or working out or taking my kids to do a workout

with them. So sort of coaching them, that relieves my stress level.

And one of the things that I do is that I try to plan the things that are stress-free for me.

Putting those kind of things on my schedule, because, Craig, you can talk about going for a walk or watching TV or getting a workout in, but if you’re always working and you haven’t planned it, you look up, your day is over, and you have not scheduled time for yourself. So I’ve learned over the years the things that give me joy, that give me a sense of release. I have to put that stuff on my calendar before I put work on my calendar.

So if that’s going to the gym, getting a workout in, if it’s spending time with my family, if it’s taking time to watch, do the Netflix and chill.

It might be helpful for you, Nora, to schedule that like you schedule all the work that you’re doing that keeps you so stressed. Put yourself on your calendar first.

So I listened to that response from Craig Robinson and from Michelle Obama right when I got back from our four week summer break.

The team here at Thanks For Asking, at Feelings & Co, me, Marcel Melikibu and Grace Berry, we took four weeks off of work.

I sent this question to Michelle Obama and her big brother right before we left when I was feeling, I mean, a little panicked, right? Like a little panicked because six or so months ago, beginning of 2025, we made a big change here.

Maybe you were here for it. Maybe you remember. We had spent over eight years making a deeply meaningful and labor intensive narrative podcast called Terrible Thanks For Asking.

And it was time for a change. It had been time for several changes. We needed a change of pace.

We needed a change of topic. We needed a change of pretty much everything. So we did that.

We closed down the Patreon. We closed down Apple Plus. We moved the entire podcast archives and new episodes over to Substack, where I was already writing every week.

Other people were subscribed there. I just, we had to simplify. We had to cut down.

We changed the format of the show from narrative interview to basically a call-in show. We changed the name. We dropped the terrible.

We needed to expand our horizons. I, you can’t stay in the terrible forever. We changed the production schedule.

We stopped making another show that we loved. It’s going to be okay, a daily show, because there was no way to make it viable without a presenting sponsor. We didn’t have one.

I didn’t have the energy to try to get another one. We needed change and we made it. And the workload got smaller and the team got smaller, the revenue got smaller.

And that was a scary choice. I think you can hear that in the way that I’m asking that question. It’s a scary choice to do less in a culture and in a market that demands more.

It’s frightening, but we did it anyway, because it was the right thing to do and because it was long overdue. I was hustling so much. Hamster wheel for at least 10 years.

And that was not healthy. That was not a healthy way to live. And to work with me, you had to also hustle.

We had a machine to feed. The machine was always hungry. I was always stressed.

It was fight or flight, and I was always flying. I was always flying and fighting. I was always doing everything, everything, everything, everything.

Yes, that was a survival mechanism. Yes, that is a secret to my success. It has also been a secret to my self-destruction.

When you are that stressed, you transfer that stress, like a virus, to other people. I was so tired. The team was so tired.

The left of the team was so tired because plenty of people have burned out doing this work. And the choice to do less felt so unnatural. You can tell by the way I asked that question.

It feels so unnatural that I feel like I need constant validation for it. I really do. And I’ve had a hard time adjusting to it.

I’ve had a hard time adjusting to it because when homeostasis is turbulence, when you are just always used to just flopping through the skies, it’s hard to trust a smooth ride. It’s hard to trust peace.

It’s hard to feel safe when things are okay, when you’re used to them being just… But every year, I choose a theme for the year. I make a mood board for the year.

I try to live up to that theme. And the theme of this year of 2025 was less. And I’m doing less.

I’m doing less, and that has been really good. It’s been really good for me. It’s been really good for everybody.

I hope it’s been good for you. And yet it is still scary. Michelle said, I have FOMO?

Yeah, I do have FOMO. I have FOMO. And I was looking so forward to hearing her response to this, specifically, Craig, I love you.

But Michelle Obama is, she is right. She is right. We are very alike.

One, we’re very tall. Okay, one, we’re very tall. Two, my first husband had a crush on both of us.

All right, why did I wear a white J. Crew dress to his funeral? Because he said it was something that Michelle Obama would wear.

And I, I believe it. Honestly, Michelle Obama, you see my funeral fit, you’ll be like, yes, yes, yes. And I think one reason why doing less is scary is because I have seen how the world reacts to women who do less, who step back.

Michelle Obama is no longer in the unpaid position of First Lady.

And still we have these wild expectations of what she owes the American public, expectations that we do not hold men to when they are no longer in, you know, public office, which by the way, she was not in public office. She was like the First Lady.

That is not the same thing anyways. And so I kind of knew, I knew that she had felt something similar. She mentioned like reconnecting with your why.

My why is not to make and do and be the best maker or doer ever. Like that is not my why.

The why of us being independent and not being on a corporate podcast network, the why of us even continuing to do this work is having lives, is having lives, is connecting with what is real and true with our audience.

And also doing work that feels good and also allows us to live a life off the microphone, you know, off the computer, off the computer.

The point is being able to tell Marcelle, who has had one heck of a year, okay, he was laid off from his corporate podcasting job, the other job that he had, he was let go, he was let go, he was laid off from that job.

His mom died, okay, he picked up a couple other jobs, like it just, he’s not at the best year. Grace actually left in January to go get like a corporate job.

Then I noticed that she wasn’t happy because I saw a post where she said, I’m not happy, and I said, you can come back, and she came back. And she’s working on a novel, she’s a novelist.

That is the point, the point is for us to have a job and a life. Okay, so when I reached out to IMO, when I asked for advice, when I was feeling that sort of like frantic, oh my gosh, am I a loser? Am I a loser for not like doing more?

We were on the cusp of taking a summer break. Now, this was a part of our plan for Feelings & Co.

A part of our plan for Thanks For Asking, a part of our plan with doing less was we are going to make sure that we have a few weeks in the summer where we’re not working, okay?

So we stacked interviews, stacked posts, did production, you know, in the spring months that we could take four weeks off from the end of June to the end of July. And when I sent that question, am I a loser?

Oh my gosh, like, I was feeling like that panic, like that sort of like danger of am I allowed to take four weeks off? Am I allowed to take four weeks off? Will this be a huge mistake?

Will I come back and everybody has moved on? Will I even have a job? Will I even have a company?

Will the two people who work with me even still have jobs? I really was in a moment where I was doubting so much, even though I know, right? I know that I made the right decision.

Like I am confident in these decisions.

And I know that because I got back from these four weeks away, four weeks again where I did not have a computer, where I did not send an e-mail, did not strategize, did not optimize, did not do anything except swim in the sea, eat gelato, see a bunch

of ruins. Everything is ruined. Got stung by a jellyfish. It was honestly not as bad as I thought it would be.

I won’t recommend it, but it was not the worst. Ate such good food. Just truly felt so at peace, so grounded, so wonderful.

And I got back and I heard this message. I got back and I heard this message from Craig and Michelle. And to be told that you are not a loser.

Like I told Marcel, I really needed to hear that. But I also, I knew it. I knew it because I got back and we had another team call and everyone looked so good.

And that’s really what I always say to my children. It’s what’s on the outside that counts. But everyone looked so happy.

Everyone looked so at peace. Grace wrote 40,000 words of a novel over those four weeks. She had the time and the mental space to pursue her own creative projects.

And that’s the point, right? Like that is the point. Marcel got to spend time with his kids.

I mean, he had a lot of like personal stuff to take care of, right? He had to work on his mom’s estate, all this stuff, and he had the time and the space to take care of it and still like spend time with his family. Like that is the point.

And yes, we lost 25 paid subscribers when I came back. That’s okay. That is okay.

And we also got two new advertisers, which is unexpected and is great, right? That takes some of the pressure off like the paid subscriber part. Like, you know, I got a couple emails about different writing projects.

I got a couple social media sponsorships that came through. Like, everything’s fine. We’re all fine.

And I know already that there’s somebody who’s listening who’s like, Oh my God, this is so privileged and everyone can do this. I know not everybody can do this. I also know that everybody deserves this.

I believe that. I believe everybody deserves like a nice paid chunk, a paid time off from work all the time. Like, this is what us as human beings really need, is like white space, time when we are not just clocking in and grinding.

I know it’s not possible for everybody. I also know that a lot of us have an unhealthy relationship with work. A lot of us, a lot of us are doers and hustlers, and it is not always a choice, but for some of us, it is.

And I almost talked about, you know, this time that we took off is like four weeks of doing nothing. And then I had a conversation upon my return with somebody that I love, who was laid off from their corporate job.

This is a person who is a real worker, real doer, has spent decades just grinding it out. Good worker B suddenly has so much free time and also has found that their body is just purely shutting down.

Like, you know, it’s like ringing out, like exercising all of the corporate demons that had them just bathing in cortisol and like sprinting on a hamster wheel for decades. And they’re uncomfortable with this.

They are uncomfortable with this new version of their lives where they aren’t productive, where they are not doing as much as they could do. And they had said something to me basically, like I have to be comfortable doing nothing.

And I said something to them that I will hand over to you, which is you are never doing nothing. You’re never doing nothing. Being alive is a thing.

Being alive is like the only thing, really. Like we are not on this earth to work frantically until we die. We are not.

We are not on this earth to compare ourselves to other people or to convince ourselves that we are like losers for operating within our very human limitations. What are we here for? TBD.

You know, I’m figuring it out. I’m really not that enlightened, but I’m glad to know that I am not the only one who has felt these things. So be nice to yourself.

Like Craig and Michelle said, You’re not a loser. You’re not a loser. They said that to me, but I’m saying it to you.

And we’re all saying it together. I’m going to look in the mirror. I’m going to say, Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson said, I’m not a loser.

Michelle Obama said, I’m not a loser. And I’m going to believe her. And you better believe me.

Okay? We have to believe each other.

We have to remind each other that there is a why that is bigger than simply doing tasks and accomplishing things and reaching for more and more and more, and to look around and remember that we have enough and that we are enough. So thank you, Craig.

Thank you, Michelle. I didn’t really anticipate doing an entire, like, emotional dump after you answered my question. But, you know, I needed to.

I was a little congested. And also, I will say that taking all of that time off of work, I came back, and I’m actually, like, excited. Again, like, I’m excited to work.

I feel like the work Zoomies a little bit. But I don’t feel like I have to do everything. And today, in this moment, I don’t feel FOMO.

I don’t feel FOMO. I feel… I don’t feel fear of missing out.

I feel very, very happy with where I am. And I hope you feel the same. We’ll be back next week with a normal episode, I promise.

Or you know what? I can’t promise because I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know what anything could happen.

But thank you for being here. Thank you to all of our paid subscribers over on Substack and to our supporting producers. Hi guys, it’s Nora.