- Swietenia Puspa Lestari.
(lively orchestral music)
(audience cheering)
- Good morning, everyone.
Good morning,
or in Bahasa Indonesia we
say (speaking Indonesian).
(audience replying in Indonesian)
My name is Tenia, and I'm
an active scuba diver.
And I lead an NGO called
Divers Clean Action.
This Obama Leaders Convening
has made me reflect so much
on dreams, passions, collaborations,
curiosity and courage.
These are values that captured
my journey as a leader
and are reflected in the values
of the Obama Foundation also.
It has made me remember the
time when I was nine years old.
I used to live in one of the 17,000
small islands of Indonesia.
The name of the island is Pramuka island.
It's located in the northern part
of the capital city of Jakarta.
I learned to scuba-dive
there and had the privilege
to see all the wonderful,
beautiful creatures
such as colorful corals, sea turtles,
dolphins and even whale sharks.
But year after year, I noticed
that there was increasingly a lot of trash
on the beach and under water.
Then, in 2015, I was 19
years old and studying
in my third year of university.
I had time to reflect
on the lack of awareness
about how much trash was in our oceans,
and also the lack of
actions to prevent it.
At the time, I couldn't
find any organization
that do clean up regularly.
So, two of my friends and I
decided that we will take this on our own.
Our first step was to build
a community of volunteers
who cared and wanted to take actions.
It was only with three friends at first,
but we cleaned up the oceans monthly.
And this movement grew.
First, from only three to 10 people,
and then to 100 people by the end of 2016.
We realized that we
needed to educate people
living in the area, as
this trash in the ocean
was overwhelming to them.
Most of the small islands do not have
a proper waste management system.
In part, because the
islands are shrinking.
So we went door to door to educate people
on what to do with their waste,
to make sure no more would
go into our beloved ocean.
Building on that passion and momentum,
we also decided to empower those
who live far away from
the ocean, to remind them
that we are all connected
through a collaboration.
In 2016 we started the No
Straw movement campaign
in partnership with the biggest
fast food restaurants in Indonesia.
We encouraged them to stop
providing plastic straw.
Now, I'm happy to say that this movement
has inspired other restaurants.
Together, we reduced
single use plastic
waste nationwide by 91%.
(audience cheering and applauding)
Throughout this journey
I got a lot of questions
from my fellow youth about
how to make similar changes
or programs on their own communities.
So, my NGO started empowering
youth by hosting workshop,
when we train them to start
the same recycling programs
in their communities.
Through the 70 people we train every year,
they together in turn,
impact to more 20,000 people
throughout the country.
This model was so successful,
we expanded to 11 countries
in Southeast Asia by 2018.
And now, I am here, 24 years of age,
leading an NGO with 10 full-time staff,
and more than 1,500
volunteers across ASEAN,
feeling so blessed that
one of my inspirator,
the one that inspired me
to have the courage to do so, is here.
President Obama is the one who said,
"We are never too young to lead."
His words and actions by
bringing the 200 leaders
from Asia-Pacific here,
to give this privilege
of learning,
sharing, collaborating,
enables us to get such a
priceless support system.
Mentors or even a family,
a family for those who
feel they do not belong,
or are being doubted
while leading various important
causes in their regions.
I learned from him that
leaders should have passion
and compassion to give impact.
But only to prove to other people.
Let's magnify our power
with even bigger actions,
after this convening.
And there's no better way to understand
what, in turn, inspired President Obama
than having him talk with
his sister Maya Soetoro
about their roots in the Asia-Pacific
from their time in my beloved Indonesia
to their time in Hawaii.
And the values that
have shaped their lives,
and, in turn, shaped all of
us here Obama Leaders today.
I am so pleased to welcome
you to this conversation
between President Obama and
Maya, and we will hear from them
after this short video.
Thank you.
(audience cheering)
(upbeat music)
- Barack and I had a lot of freedom
growing up in Indonesia and Hawaii.
We climbed summits and
splashed in waterfalls.
There was a lot of community gathering
and nights spent under stars.
- Part of my DNA is the influence
of all the Asian cultures.
Obviously, the love of the land
and the love of Hawaiian culture is in me,
and I think representative
of a lot of the cultures
throughout the Pacific region.
- It's so powerful for us to return
to Southeast Asia together.
This is a place of great significance.
There's so much in the way of grassroots,
leadership and energy.
- The intention of the Foundation
is to build the next generation of leaders
in the United States and around the world.
And there's no region that
is gonna be growing faster,
is gonna be more populous, more dynamic
than the Asia-Pacific region.
- My hope is that we can acknowledge
the many gifts we've
received from this region.
And begin to recognize the enormous gifts
that this region possesses
for the rest of the world.
- One of the benefits of
our foundation generally
is to let all these young people know,
"You're not by yourself.
"You've got a community,
you've got people,
"who are going through the
same struggles that you are,
"see the same opportunities that you do,
"are inspired by a similar vision."
And if we can create a platform
where they're supporting each other
and creating that network effect,
I'm confident that what we'll see
are millions of young
leaders around the world,
who have positive vision for change,
and they'll move mountains
as a consequence.
(gentle music)
(audience applauding)
- Please welcome Maya Soetoro
and President Barack Obama.
(upbeat music)
(audience cheering and applauding)
- Hello, hello.
- (speaking Indonesian)
- (speaking Indonesian)
(audience replies in Indonesian)
- Aloha, everyone, are
you having a good time?
- Yes!
- Fantastic.
Well, it is so much fun to be
here with you, my big brother.
- My baby sister, Maya.
- Can you tell us a little
bit about growing up
in Hawaii and Indonesia
and that probably informed
your perspective and your view on life.
What do you think?
- Absolutely.
So, first of all, growing
up in Hawaii means,
you're generally happy 'cause the weather
is good all the time.
(audience laughing)
And people always used to ask me,
"You seem so calm, you seem so relaxed.
"You seem, you know, you
don't get too stressed."
It's like, when it's 80
degrees, and there's a beach,
you feel good.
So, there is something,
I know we've got some
fellow islanders here.
I do think--
(audience cheering)
I do think that there's an island spirit
that you know, is important.
I think there's a genuine
sense of cooperation
that arises out of the fact
that you have limited land,
limited resources.
I think there's an
appreciation of the land,
and of our dependence on it,
that probably informs how I saw
environmental issues growing up.
You know, pretty early
on, even before you knew
the word the environment.
Like, if somebody threw
trash out the window,
you knew somebody was gonna
give you a hard time about that.
And, so I think that was important.
Now, with respect to
then, moving to Indonesia,
first of all, it opens your
eyes to how big the world is.
It gave me a sense of
how people can struggle.
Because when I moved to Indonesia in 1967,
Indonesia had just gone
through a political turmoil.
And the country was still
very underdeveloped,
there was a lot of poverty.
There was also a lot of wealth.
And so, you start to see how societies
can give so much to some
and so little to others.
And that, I think, informed my views.
At the time, in Indonesia also
you didn't have a democracy.
And so, you've got a sense of
people sometimes being worried
about expressing themselves.
And so there were some
lessons that I learned,
even as a young person.
I might not have been
able to articulate them
like a political scientist,
but I knew, okay,
this isn't always fair.
And even in our own family, you know.
My mother remarried Maya's
father, who was Indonesian,
he had a large family.
11 kids?
10, well, I think 'cause
one died, didn't they?
Right.
- A lot of kids.
- Along that spectrum, there was one
who was one of the most
successful people in the country,
and then there was an uncle
who wasn't so successful.
And I think took our silverware one time.
(chuckles) You have that
uncle in your family also.
(audience laughing)
So, (laughs).
(Maya laughs)
So, the reason I say that,
though, is because I think
that that teaches you
the fact that life isn't always fair.
And that it distributes
opportunities in different ways.
And part of the role
then, of a better society
is to make sure that every child,
regardless of the circumstances
that they're born into,
should have the ability to go to a school,
and should have enough to eat,
and should have healthcare,
so that they're not sick.
And I think that was
part of what I learned.
And then, finally,
I think I appreciated or at least absorbed
a certain restraint that comes
from living in this part of the world.
We're a little more reserved sometimes
about how we interact,
and not demonstrating your
emotions all the time.
- Mm-hmm, and there's humility and grace.
- And some, you know, modesty is a value
that isn't always the
case in the United States.
(laughs)
(audience laughing)
So, yeah.
- Yeah, that seems right.
Now, you alluded to the fact
that there are economic disparities.
Many of these leaders
here have opportunities
for personal advancement,
but they also have a sense
of commitment to their communities,
some of which are not doing too well.
Can you talk a little bit
about how they can balance
those individual and collective goals,
or those personal and servant leadership?
- Well, I've had a chance
to meet some of you.
Some while we were drilling
holes and nailing things,
and some of you off stage,
some of you I'd met in previous meetings.
First of all, I just wanna
say you are so far ahead
of where I was at your age.
You're more sophisticated,
you're more thoughtful,
you are doing such remarkable things,
and I could not be
prouder of the leadership
that's represented in this room.
And it does cause me to think back
to when I was in your shoes.
So, some of you, I think, are aware
that when I graduated from
college, I'd been inspired
by the Civil Rights movement
in the United States.
But at the time there was no movement
to kind of attach myself to,
so I looked for a series of jobs,
eventually found a job as a
community organizer in Chicago,
working in poor communities.
And,
it wasn't the natural career path.
So most of my classmates from college,
they'd gone on to graduate school
and some of them were
working on Wall Street.
And they could explain to their parents
what they were doing, in a way I couldn't.
And I didn't have an
actual bed in my apartment,
'cause I wasn't paid enough.
The apartment was too small.
So I had a futon mattress that I'd roll up
and put in the closet.
And then, unroll it at
night, when I got home,
which was good, 'cause I
didn't have to make my bed.
But, (chuckles).
- He's not exaggerating,
I remember this.
- No, no.
You know, I was somebody
who strongly believed
that if I was serious about social change,
that I had to make sacrifices,
and shouldn't have more
than five shirts (chuckles),
and shouldn't have more
than a beat-up car.
And when you're young, I
think that that's okay.
Because one thing that we're fortunate of
is Maya and I both, because
of not just our mother,
but also our grandparents.
They didn't need help,
so we were able to do
whatever it was we needed to
do to take care of ourselves.
But as you get older, and you then have
different responsibilities.
Or some of you already
have responsibilities,
because your families
may not be as fortunate,
they may need more help.
There is gonna be some struggle
between your aspirations
to bring about change and the
career opportunities you have.
Or in some cases, if you're
operating in a country
in which the political climate
makes activism dangerous sometimes.
You have to ask yourself,
"How far am I willing to go
"without getting into trouble,
"or maybe getting my family into trouble?"
And we've heard this in
conversations with people.
And the one thing I wanted
to emphasize to everyone
is that you're already
doing incredible work.
And,
you should never feel
guilty about the fact
that you also sometimes
have to pay the bills,
and keep a roof over your head.
And that you're already making sacrifices.
So, you also had to think practically
about "How am I going to
stay in in the long haul."
And I know some of these
workshops have talked about this.
Part of the reason, I think,
that I ended up being able
to sustain my public service
over a long period of time,
was that I met Michelle, and she forced me
to have fun once in a while.
- They heard from her
yesterday, she was a lot of fun.
- Yeah, she is, you know.
And just taking time out
to breathe, but it also means
that in the decisions you make,
you're not always going
to take a straight line.
Sometimes you have to zig and zag.
Or those of you who know
about sailing sailboats,
you have to tack, right,
depending on the winds.
And that's okay.
I was talking to Fonzie a while back.
He's around here somewhere,
from the Philippines.
Amazing young doctor,
doing work in a rural area,
and his area just got hit by a typhoon.
He was feeling kinda bad about coming here
to this week, even though
he has not left the country
this entire time, because
he's been working full time
providing care to people.
His boss, apparently,
gave him some good advice,
which is, "You need some time off, buddy."
And that's okay.
But I also think it's
important to recognize
that there will be times
where you get an opportunity
that maybe takes you out of your community
for a certain period of time.
There was a young woman from Micronesia
who is rising up in leadership,
and it's really exciting
what she's been doing,
but she's been working
at a grassroots level.
And now, her government saying,
"We need you to be the voice
for us somewhere else",
and she's worried about that transition.
You're not compromising
yourself to be that voice,
as long as you remember
what your roots are.
And the main point I wanna
make is that each of us
are gonna have a different
path that we travel.
There are gonna be times
where you're right on the front lines,
and you are taking great risks,
and you're making great sacrifices,
and then, there are gonna be times,
where, strategically,
you need to pull back,
and you need to consolidate
and figure things out,
and maybe you have a family emergency,
or you've just started a family,
and you need to think more about finances.
That's okay, right?
The question is whether
you're gonna be staying
on the general path,
that your values tell you
you need to go.
And if you maintain
your general trajectory,
then you shouldn't feel as if
somehow you've lost your way.
Because this is a long
journey, this is not something,
none of the things any of
you are trying to accomplish,
you're gonna accomplish in the next week,
or the next month, or the next year.
And that means you've
gotta have staying power,
and be comfortable with the fact
that there are gonna be times
where you have to take a pause
and consolidate what you've done,
and then move forward again.
- Sound advice.
You will listen, yes?
Look after yourselves.
I think of you as having a
lot of cultural flexibility,
which you inherited in
part from our mother,
who connected with people from far away,
who were very different from the people
with whom she grew up.
I wanted to talk to you a
little bit about, you know,
the fact that I think
that this comes in part
from your respect for diversity,
but also the presence in
your mind and in your work
of sort of, core universal values,
which are also emphasized
in the Obama Foundation.
Is it really possible to
find core universal values
given the diversity of this region
and the political differences?
And how can these young
leaders really use diversity
as a strength, as opposed
to being worried about,
or having diversity
impact cultural, religious
and ethnic conflicts?
- Well, look,
we live at a time where
there's a big contest of ideas
around the globe between
people who see the world
as there's us, and there's
them, whatever the them is.
And those who, I think like you and I,
and I believe a lot of people here,
recognize we have differences
of culture and experience and history,
and that is important to
recognize and preserve and honor.
But that, ultimately,
we have more in common
than we have things that divide us.
You know, that the dream of a parent
for their children in Vietnam,
is not fundamentally different
than the dream of a parent in Australia
has for their children, right?
And so many of the things
that we're seeing right now
in our politics, sometimes
in your own countries,
but certainly you're
seeing it around the world,
sometimes between countries,
that are based on race,
religion, ethnicity,
gender, sexual orientation.
All those things that
say, "I'm better than you,
"just because of my genetic predisposition
"or the circumstances
in which I was born."
Those ideas are doing a lot of damage.
And are the source of conflict, war, etc.
So, yes, I believe that
there are certain core values
that apply to everyone.
I believe that you have to
respect people's basic dignity
regardless of their circumstances
and what they look like,
and how they worship and,
the station into which they were born.
I believe that societies work better
when everybody has a voice,
not just a few people.
I think that's a universal principle.
I believe that
every child should have
basic care early in life.
And that's not unique to any one society.
So that if there's a
society that educates boys,
but doesn't educate girls, then
I can understand the culture
and where it comes from, I can
recognize that those changes
may not happen overnight,
but I will insist
that, as somebody who has two daughters,
and a pretty strong-minded wife,
that,
women are at the very least equal of men,
that countries that sideline
half of their population
are gonna be less successful.
And countries that get all the talent
that's available to their
country and help it succeed,
I think that's important.
I believe that it's important to respect.
I think it's a universal principle
that if a state does not
respect religious diversity,
that eventually you have conflict.
I think it is a dangerous thing,
if any state says somebody
can't practice the faith
of their conscience.
Now, I will also say this.
I think it is important to recognize
that there are gonna be
sometimes conflicts in values.
You know?
It is one thing, for example,
to respect somebody's religion.
But what if that religion
then actually says
women should not be
treated equally to men.
Now you have a conflict of values.
If you're a leader in that
society, how do you manage that?
And I think one of the things as leaders,
that all of you are gonna
have to do, is accept
that sometimes there are
gonna be some contradictions.
Where it's not just a right and a wrong,
sometimes it's two rights
that you have to reconcile,
or two wrongs that you have to deal with.
You know, I remember when I was working
as a community organizer, around your age,
I discovered that some of
the people who I loved,
were great leaders, had done amazing work
helping to lift up people
in these communities,
but when you talk to them
about the LGBT community,
would say really wrong
things from my perspective,
misinformed things.
And that did not make them
automatically bad people,
but it did mean that I had to say to them,
"Look,
"the ideas you're expressing in
"showing hatred towards
that group is not consistent
"with what you've told me you believe
"with respect to your
"belief in Jesus's teachings.
"So let's talk about this."
And sometimes I would lose friends
for having challenged those ideas.
And you're gonna have to feel comfortable,
I think, at times, with the fact
that people start at different places,
cultures start at different places.
If you're organizing in a rural area,
you're not gonna immediately
be able to expect
that people are gonna think the same way
that somebody in a big
city is gonna think.
If you're dealing with older populations,
they're not gonna have the same ideas
as younger populations, and
you have to show some respect
for where people are,
before you can take them
where you want them to be.
Which is why, I think, it's
important for young leaders
to listen, as much as they're talking.
And people are more likely
to change their minds
about certain issues, if they feel
as if they're being heard.
- Great answer.
So, you mentioned girls education.
This is the first time that we have
the Girls Opportunity Alliance
and the leaders together,
which is cool.
Our mother is someone
who really emphasized
equality and equity and worked hard
on behalf of women and girls.
Can you talk a little
bit more to these leaders
about what you think that they can do
to increase participation and equity
for women in government, in
education, in other spaces?
- Well, a lot of you're already
working on these issues.
And if you heard, I think,
from Michelle and Julia,
the visit they made in Vietnam,
Yonder was there and some other people.
It was a terrific reminder
that there's still so many places
where young women don't have opportunity
and their own parents don't think
they should get an education.
And,
you know, from a government's perspective,
if I were the head of state in
any country around the world,
I'd look at the statistics,
and it turns out
that one of the best indicators
of whether a country is developed or not,
is how does it educate its girls,
and how does it treat its women.
And typically, those countries
that do a bad job on that,
are backwards and behind economically.
So, and it makes sense,
because, by the way,
even though this shouldn't
necessarily be the case,
women are still doing
most of the child-rearing.
So, if you are not
teaching a woman to read,
it's less likely that that
child is going to read.
And if you have an educated mother,
then those children are gonna be educated.
I have young staff who either
have just gotten married,
or have been thinking
about getting married.
I always tell them,
"You better think about,
"that's gonna be the mother of your kids."
If they're cute, but stupid,
(audience laughing)
you know, that's gonna be a problem later.
You know, I'm just letting you know.
That's, you know, that's not,
(audience applauding)
(chuckles) that's not a good trade-off.
- I'm sure none of your
staff are interested
in Cupid Stupid women, are they?
- You know what?
I'm not gonna get in their
business on the stage,
but (laughs).
So, we know this is true.
I think it starts
obviously with education.
For the young women leaders,
who are in the audience though,
even if you've had a great education,
even if you've had some good role models,
something Michelle talks about
is that there are probably
some still, some internal
things that you're dealing with,
that you have to overcome.
'Cause the culture is a powerful thing,
and it's transmitting a bunch of messages,
even when you don't know
you're getting them.
So, when I was in the
White House, for example,
I started noticing about
six months in, that,
we'd have these conferences
around the Situation Room
or in the Cabinet Room,
or trying to debate
these very important policies,
and,
the women, who are my senior staff,
oftentimes they weren't
talking in meetings.
- Hmm.
- And I knew they actually
knew more than the men,
but the men, they'd be like,
"Well, let me, Mr. President, let me."
You know, they'd just
have all the opinions,
and the women just sit there, and so,
after a while, I would have to
call, I'd say I have to say,
"Christy, what do you think about that?"
Or, "Melanie, you worked on this issue,
"what's your perspective?"
And then, when they spoke,
they had, you know, amazing insights.
But just the small habits of being
a little less assertive in meetings
or a little more
deferential, oftentimes meant
that they weren't heard as much.
And, in fact, you know, we
joke about this sometimes.
Sometimes, a woman would make a point,
and then, like, 10 minutes later
a guy would make the same point.
(audience laughing)
- That is so annoying, yeah.
- And it was like, I'm
sorry, she just said that.
What do you?
(audience laughing)
So, I make that point, because
I think it is important then
for women leaders themselves to monitor,
are you censoring yourself?
Or shrinking your own
perspective or influence.
And if you are, then you have to,
you don't have to be suddenly
rude and talking all the time,
it just means that you're mindful
that you need to make room
for yourself and space.
And for the men in the
room, if your organization
has no women leadership
in your organization,
then you're probably part of the problem,
and you need to be part of the solution.
So you need to also check
yourself and monitor
what you're doing in terms of
the areas that you control.
- Thank you so much.
I have been trying to talk rapidly,
but we're almost out of time.
I have one--
- No, no, no, I'm gonna take questions
from these guys.
- Yes, yes, yes.
- This is just the low--
- Sorry.
- This is like the appetizer.
- It is.
(audience laughing)
- It's the pu-pu platter.
For those of you
who know Hawaiian food.
- Yes.
- I wanna talk to you guys too, go ahead.
- So, I'm gonna leave him
in your capable hands,
and you in his.
But I just have one last question
if you can speak rapidly.
But I wanted to ask you, a
lot of these communities here
are facing, you know, flooding
and environmental instability
and other environmental hazards.
And I wanted to ask you that
outside of the framework
of the Paris Accords, are
there ways that you think
are especially effective for them
to protect their environment and work
towards a more secure future?
- Look, the climate change
issue is gonna be one
that all of us are
gonna have to deal with.
This region, by the way, is
probably as vulnerable as any
to climate change, because
there's so many low-lying areas,
where, as you see, oceans
rise or temperatures rise,
that there's gonna be an acceleration
of storms, typhoons, displacement.
Obviously forest fires,
just across the way.
Just a few years ago, if you all recall,
people could barely breathe for
months on end in the region,
because partly fires induced
by the palm oil industry
and the deforestation that's taking place.
This is going to be a
generational project.
Unfortunately, the previous generation
has not handled this
the way it should have.
Many of you are already
working on these issues.
I don't think there's
gonna be a silver bullet.
Rather in each of your countries,
you're going to have to make common cause
with other leaders to
find the best solutions
that contribute to moving
us in a better direction.
So, those of you who live in countries
where there are still a lot of forests,
finding out how you and your organization
can help preserve forests,
that's gonna be critical.
For those of you who are islanders,
and are experiencing the
effects immediately, right now,
there are gonna be some hard questions
in terms of adaptation versus mitigation,
but as I mentioned earlier,
your voice, your witness
to what's happening right here and now,
is a moral call to the rest of the world.
And figuring out how thus tell the stories
of what you're seeing and the losses
that are already taking place,
that's gonna be important.
If you live in a big
industrialized country,
like the United States or Australia,
our carbon footprint is
bigger than everybody's.
And so, how are we trying
to influence policy
to reduce our carbon footprint?
If you're an entrepreneur, are there ways
in which you're actively participating
or supporting finding solutions?
Because climate change, by
the way, is a good example,
of, remember I said earlier,
sometimes your values
are gonna contradict each other.
When I was trying to put
the Paris Accords together,
once we got China, I needed to get India.
I talked to the Prime Minister,
the Prime Minister says to me,
"Well, I've got 300 million people
"who still don't have electricity,
"who are deeply impoverished.
"And coal is the cheapest way for me
"to provide them electricity
that will improve their lives."
So, the only way I was
able to get India involved,
was to work with companies like Tesla
and Bill Gates' philanthropists
to transfer technologies to
help accelerate clean energy.
Because you can't expect political leaders
to say, "Okay, we're gonna
sacrifice development,
"and we're gonna leave our people poor,
"in order to save the planet.
"The political pressures
won't allow for that."
So, each of us are gonna have our own role
to play in this process.
I am still optimistic that we can slow
the advancement of a warming planet.
It's too late for us not
to have some impacts.
And so, there's gonna
have to be some adaptation
that's gonna take place.
The oceans will be rising.
And that is going to displace people.
And so, we're gonna have
to anticipate and care for
some of the consequences of that,
including large scale
migration and disruptions,
that are gonna be very costly.
But there's a big difference
between the ocean rising three feet
and rising six feet.
You know, there's a big difference between
two centigrade increase
in temperature and four.
So, even though we are going to have
some problems and disruptions,
because of what we've already done,
that shouldn't be a cause for us
to then suddenly feel
hopeless and not do more.
And I think that there's gonna be
a generational element to this.
Old people are not going
to worry about this,
as much as young people,
because they're gonna be gone
when the full effects of this are felt.
So, you're gonna have to have more urgency
and educate your communities in ways
that right now people don't think about.
And that's not always gonna be easy to do.
All right, you gotta get outta here?
- I gotta get out of here.
Well, I'm so--
- Give Maya a big round of applause.
(audience applauding and cheering)
(Maya speaking foreign language)
(Barack Obama speaks a foreign language)
Those of you who haven't had a chance
to meet Maya, by the
way, she is really cool.
(audience laughing)
And has been doing work
on conflict resolution
and,
you know, women's development,
and peace education.
I could not be prouder of her.
And she's a really good mom too.
So, I've got 45 minutes left,
and I figured I just
want to hear from you.
So you can ask any questions you want.
Or you can make a comment.
And the only thing is I would
ask that if I call on you,
that you stand up and
introduce yourself first,
tell me your name and what
organization you're working with.
And keep the questions relatively brief,
because I've got a hard
stop at 45 minutes,
and I probably won't get
to every single question.
All right, so let me take a look.
And right here.
Yeah.
- Thank you President Obama.
My name is Noelle, I'm from Australia.
I work for the Australian Federal Police.
My question to you is how mentors
have influenced your life.
Whether you found them in expected places,
or whether it's more organic
and not so much that dreaded
networking word we hear about.
Thank you.
- Yeah, that's a great question.
Did everybody hear the question?
So, I'll repeat the questions.
The question was what role
did mentoring play in my life,
and did it happen naturally
or did I go around networking,
handing out business cards
or whatever people now do.
Back then it was business cards.
I have to confess that I wasn't somebody
who had like one single mentor.
What I found though, was that there was
a collective set of
people who I learned from.
And I tried to be open to learning
from different people and
different circumstances.
I think sometimes we try
to have that one person
who's gonna teach us everything,
and that's usually not how people are.
I think people have
strengths and weaknesses.
So, there was,
there was a guy in the
Illinois Legislature,
when I got elected to
the state legislature,
the local legislature,
before I went nationally.
His name was Emil Jones.
He was the Democratic
leader in the Senate,
when I got elected to the Senate.
And,
he was a wonderful teacher
of how politics worked in that body.
And he took a liking to
me, I'm not sure why.
Partly, because, in
fact, I had first met him
when I was a community organizer,
and I'd gone to his office
with the group of leaders
and said, "You have to do some things",
and had kinda, not quite a protest,
but had pushed him on some stuff.
I think he liked the fact that I was,
there weren't that many young
African American leaders
at the time in the area, who were involved
in political life, so
he showed me the ropes.
But his politics were
somewhat different than mine.
Right, so, he was one of these
guys who was very connected
and he made a lot of
deals, and he, you know,
did some things that maybe
I would not have done.
But I could learn from him
about just how to get a law passed.
And so, he wouldn't have been
my overall leader or mentor,
but he was somebody wHo I
had a relationship with,
and he could teach me about
certain narrow things, right?
And in the same way that
I've had teachers in my life.
Professors, who sparked my interest
in an understanding in a subject.
But, yeah, maybe they didn't teach me much
about how I should be a
good husband, for example.
I've gotta learn that
from somebody else, right?
So, for me, at least, it's
been more piecing together,
being open and seeing where I can learn.
And it's usually from different people,
because different people are
good at different things.
And not expecting everybody just to be
the repository of all wisdom.
And it has probably
happened more organically,
although I do think that
the more open you are
to more people, and new experiences,
the more likely you are to
meet people who can teach you.
Right?
So, one good principle
of growth and learning
is you have to seek out
people who are not like you,
and you should not be afraid of people
who know more than you do about something.
When people ask me what was
one of the most important
leadership lessons I learned as president,
I told them one of the
things I was really good at,
is making sure that I had people
who were smarter than me in my government.
And I wasn't threatened by that,
because my job was to make sure that I put
the smartest possible people,
who knew more than me
about various subjects,
in positions where they
could do the best good,
and to make sure that I
was setting the agenda,
setting the course, setting the vision,
but not thinking that I was gonna end up
being an expert on everything.
And what you find, I think it's a mistake
that some people make in leadership,
is they think, "If it's not
coming out of my mouth, then,
"somehow it makes me less of a leader."
No, you don't have to be the person
who's solving every problem,
you have to be the person
who says, "Oh, that person
"really knows how to solve the problem.
"Let me have them teach me what
we should be doing on this."
All right?
'Cause sometimes, it turns out
the people who can teach you something
are the ones you don't expect.
My daughters teach me things.
You know.
But you have to be open to that.
And it requires a certain
amount of confidence.
One of the interesting things
is humility and confidence
aren't contradictory.
Oftentimes they should
be one and the same.
If you're confident enough in who you are,
then you should be able to humble yourself
and be open to other people's power
and wisdom and experience.
That's how you will grow and learn.
All right.
See, I told you, this
is gonna be a tough one.
Here, that gentleman
right on the aisle there.
Yeah, you, yeah, no,
no, a little further up.
Right there, yeah.
- Sorry.
Hi, President Obama, thank you.
- Speak up a little bit.
- Sorry, I'm checking.
My name is,
(audience laughing)
sorry, guys.
My name is Adi Pradana.
I work for environmental
think tank in Indonesia.
Thank you so much for being
here and giving us space
for alternate leaders here to connect.
And thank you, Maya, for asking
about the climate crisis issues,
that's something I also work on.
So, my question is for the people
who work in the climate crisis issues.
It feels like we're hitting a wall.
It feels like we're losing a battle.
And we just shared this yesterday.
And my question to you is
what advice would you give
to leaders who feel that
they're losing the battle,
who feel that there's no light
in the end of the tunnel.
Thank you.
- Well.
I'd say a couple of things.
Number one, is,
we have gone through in human
history really bad times.
Every country that you're from has history
that is painful, even recent
history that is painful.
And I think that should be useful
in giving you some sense of perspective.
You know, I've often said
to groups that I meet with,
particularly young people, I say,
"If you could choose
any moment in history,
"in which to be born, and you didn't know
"ahead of time who you were."
So you didn't know what
country you were from,
what gender you were, what religion,
what your circumstances.
Were you rich, poor?
You just had to kinda
choose the average person.
When am I gonna be born?
Any time in human history,
you choose right now.
Because the truth is,
the world's never been,
and this sounds crazy,
because of all the problems
that we have.
But the world, truthfully, has
never been as well educated,
as wealthy, as healthy, as tolerant.
It's probably less violent
than it's ever been.
I mean, it's hard to remember
the degrees of violence
that have happened just in
your parents' lifetimes,
much less your grandparents' lifetimes,
much less in the course of human history.
I mean, we've got a strong
Mongolian contingent here, right?
The Mongolian president,
when I was president,
a wonderful guy, gave me a
small book about Genghis Khan.
(audience cheering)
Yeah.
Now, Genghis Khan, you know,
he ruled pretty much half the world,
but you know, you read Genghis,
he didn't have a lot of
politically correct tactics.
(audience laughing)
You know.
I mean, there wasn't like a negotiation.
You look at the history of my
country, the United States.
There's slavery, the removal
of Indigenous Peoples.
Treaties broken.
And so, all of us in our recent history,
terrible things have happened.
And yet, people overcame,
worked through it,
struggled, persevered
and created, over time,
better and better and
better circumstances.
And then, sometimes, you'd go backwards,
and then you'd go forwards again, right?
The same thing that's
true in our own lives,
is true for societies and is
true for the planet as a whole,
and that is we take two steps forward,
we take one step back,
sometimes it's one step forward,
and two steps back.
But the trajectory has been positive.
And the best we can then
do, is just do our work
and try to advance it as best we can.
Understanding that we
will not finish the job.
We essentially run the
race, we carry the baton,
then we pass it to the next
runner and the next runner goes,
and they have to carry it forward.
And I think it's important,
when you're young,
to feel a sense of urgency,
but also to understand
that's gonna be, you
have to feel comfortable
with the fact that you're not gonna solve
a problem like climate change
by yourself, on your own.
Maybe not in your lifetime.
I was the President of United
States, which you can debate
is that the most powerful person on Earth,
is it, you know, top 10.
You know.
(audience laughing)
I had some clout, some juice.
(audience laughing)
I cared about this issue deeply.
We got a Paris Accord done.
The first international framework
to solve this problem over time.
Even at the height of my
optimism finally getting it done,
we finally signed it and
everybody celebrating,
I knew that the standards
that had been set by each
country weren't sufficient.
But I took satisfaction knowing
that just by setting up the mechanism,
we had created
the ability to,
over time,
turn up the standards,
turn up the demands,
send a signal to businesses,
so that they started investing
in more clean energy, because
they saw change coming.
If I had just looked at the science
at the moment I signed the Paris Accords,
I would have still been despairing,
because it wasn't enough.
But I understood, okay,
we've advanced the cause,
and now we're gonna have
to take the next step.
And that's how change's gonna happen.
And it's not just true for climate change.
If you're concerned about
poverty in your country,
your country's not gonna
be not poor overnight.
If you're concerned
about women's equality.
Women won't be equal in
every society over night.
If you're concerned
about disability rights,
or, you know,
anti-corruption, or whatever it is,
you will have more setbacks and,
times when you feel, as if
you're not making progress.
Then, those big highs when
you have this big success.
You just keep on going.
And that's why I say you've gotta be in it
for the long haul, and be
practical and understanding
where can we take some wins.
Because one of the biggest
dangers that happens,
I saw this in my own staff,
when I was in the White House.
Sometimes people felt,
if we didn't get 100% of what we wanted,
ugh, why bother.
And they'd get very frustrated in this.
"You can't compromise on
this, we've gotta get 100%."
And the problem is that
very rarely do you get 100%
of what you want, because
the world's too complicated.
There are too many countervailing forces.
So, I used to say to my staff, I said,
"Will this make things better?"
and if they said yes, then
I'd say, okay, let's do it.
Because better is good.
Most of the time the
way the world's gotten
to where we are now, is
small, incremental victories,
not big, sweeping victories all at once.
It's been the steady application
of effort, innovation,
new ideas, tested out,
worked on a local level,
a few people are helped, the ideas spread.
Every once in a while you
get a big jump forward.
But, you know, the Civil Rights Movement
in the United States,
everybody thinks that somehow
there was Rosa Parks and
then, King made a speech,
and then, that was it,
and we signed the law.
And the people, even setting aside slavery
and the Civil War, people
have been working for decades
filing lawsuits and
they trained Rosa Park,
so that when the time came, she knew
she should be sitting on the bus,
and there were lawyers already prepared
with the case to test it out, right?
I mean, that was the work of generations.
And it's still not complete.
So you can't be discouraged.
You should take a day off,
if you feel too discouraged.
(audience laughing)
You know?
All right, relax.
(audience applauding)
All right.
Let's see.
I know this is so difficult.
So many,
so many important faces here.
Young lady back there
who's almost standing up,
that's you, yeah, yeah.
'Cause, you were like (groans).
- Hi, Mr. President, my name
is Aisha, I'm from Malaysia.
I would like to ask you a question.
When was the last time
you had an ego check?
And can you please share it
with us, the story about it?
Thank you.
(audience laughing)
- Ego checks?
(audience applauding)
I get one every day.
I mean, didn't Michelle
said she wanted to push me
out of window?
(audience laughing)
I mean.
(audience applauding)
And let me tell you something.
You know, I've been up
here defending the women,
but,
guys, I just want you to know,
if I had said that,
man!
(audience laughing)
I would've been in so much trouble.
(audience laughing)
Look, the truth is that,
you know, partly, because
I have a strong wife
and two strong daughters,
who are not impressed
with me at all.
(audience laughing)
I mean, they love me,
but they think, you know,
I'm just another dad, right?
Who embarrasses them and makes bad jokes,
and you know, if I start dancing,
they're just like, "Oh my god."
And so, so I'm often checked by them.
But also, one of the things,
this is another leadership lesson.
I was good at surrounding
myself with people,
who were willing to
tell me when I was wrong
or to question my assumptions,
or to say that I hadn't
thought something through.
And if you don't have people
in your organizations,
your associates, who you respect enough,
that they will tell you
when they disagree with you,
then you're doing yourself a disservice.
If all you have is
people who are yes people
around all the time, who
laugh at all your jokes
and, you know,
say, "Oh, yes, Mr. President,
"what a brilliant insight,
you were fantastic",
you know, you're not gonna,
not only will you not grow and improve,
but you're gonna make big mistakes.
So, that goes with what
I was saying earlier
about combining confidence with humility.
You have to be confident enough to know
that you don't know everything,
and you're going to make mistakes,
and you have to have people around you
who don't feel like they're
gonna lose their job,
if they tell you the truth, right?
Everybody here may have
had the experience of,
I mean there are different versions of it,
but, you know, you're
about to take a photograph,
it turns out you had
something in your teeth,
but nobody told you.
Gentlemen sometimes,
your zipper, you forget.
(audience laughing)
Nobody tells you.
(chuckles) Ladies, you know,
something's on your show, whatever.
You always appreciate it, I hope,
when somebody says, "Hey, psst."
Right?
(audience laughing)
Well, you know, that's a small version
of what we all have in
our work and in our lives.
So, I don't know, it just
happens so frequently,
it was hard for me to find
one particular ego check.
(Barack Obama chuckles)
The good news is that when you
have a partner like Michelle,
who checks your ego,
you also know that when,
when she goes to bat for
you, she says, you know,
"You done good."
You know she's telling you the truth.
And that means a lot.
By the way, it's--
(audience applauding)
It is important to note thought,
that it is not a two-way street.
Michelle's rule, very
early, we had been married,
we weren't even married, we were dating.
And she would, like, tease me all the time
about my ears and my bad car,
and you know, how I walk too slow,
and I talk too slow, and
she's teasing me all the time.
And one time I teased her about something,
and I don't even know what it was.
(audience laughing)
She got all.
(audience laughing)
She wasn't talking to me.
It's very lonely.
I said, "Well, why you all mad?
"You've been teasing me for months!
"This is my first little joke."
She said,
"Listen.
"There's a rule.
(audience laughing)
"I can tease you, you can't tease me."
(audience laughing)
And we've been living by
that rule for like 27 years.
That's the rule.
(audience cheering and applauding)
So, that's okay.
I don't mind.
All right.
Let's see.
Man, there's so many interesting people.
Young guy in the white
shirt there, right there.
Yeah.
- Thank you, President Obama.
My name is Tim, I'm from Australia.
And when you were in office,
you mentioned a few times
that you really tried hard
to be home for family dinners
and for moments with your children.
And it's a question that often gets thrown
at women and at moms, but
I wanna put it to you,
it's something that we've
been discussing a fair bit
in our community groups.
How you managed to balance being arguably
one of the 10 most powerful
people in the world?
And raising a family,
how you balanced the idea
that you wanted to change the
world, like a lot of us here,
as well as just enjoy time
with people you loved?
- Look, it's a great question.
I think we all have to deal with it.
I don't think there's a perfect formula.
I think it starts, though,
with recognizing that,
on your deathbed,
or let's just say for me,
on my deathbed I am confident
that I will not remember
any bill I passed,
I will not remember any speech I gave,
any big crowds, I won't be
thinking about the inauguration.
I will be thinking about
holding hands with my daughters
and taking them to a park,
or seeing them laugh,
while they're playing in the water, right?
That is gonna be the thing that lasts.
That's gonna be the thing that sticks.
That's gonna be the thing that
will give my life meaning,
is the unbounded love I feel for them.
And,
conversely, I don't care
how successful you are,
if your children, or the people you love,
are in pain and are suffering,
and are having problems,
that will overcome you.
I remember when Sasha
was three months old.
Middle of the night she started crying.
Michelle and I, we were fortunate
to have a good healthcare,
so we could call a pediatrician.
This doesn't sound like the usual crying.
He asked us to check the top of her head.
It turned out she had meningitis.
We rushed her to the hospital.
Because if it's not treated quickly,
you can have permanent disabilities.
She had to get a spinal
tap, a needle in her spine.
She's three months old.
I have no idea what was happening
during that period of time,
other than that, right?
Your world narrows to that.
That's all you care about.
I don't care about climate change,
I don't care about poverty, I
want this baby to feel better.
Right?
So if you know, if you understand that,
if you have that sense, then
you have to ahead of time,
kinda organize your life to think about,
"How do I make sure that these people,
"who I love so much, are taken care of."
That doesn't mean that
you're gonna be perfect.
And it doesn't mean that
aren't gonna be sacrifices,
but it does mean that you have
some sense of prioritization.
So, with me, I'll be honest with you.
The reason that I was
able to run for president,
was because I hadn't married somebody
who was jute cute, but stupid,
I had this incredibly strong partner.
As much as I was going to miss them,
during the two years I
was running for president,
I had confidence that
they were gonna be okay.
Partly because they were
in a community, right?
My mother-in-law, Michelle
had all these friends
and neighbors and people who could support
and make sure that those
kids were gonna be fine
during those periods of
time that I was gone.
I felt an enormous loss, but I knew
that there wasn't gonna be
a permanent impact on them
partly, 'cause they were so young.
One of the reasons we decided
I'd run for president that early,
was frankly because we thought
it'd be easier for them
to make an adjustment at that age,
than if, you know, they'd been teenagers,
and ugh, then your dad's
really embarrassing you.
Being on TV all the time,
saying stupid things.
So I think that's part of it.
Part of it is recognizing
that it goes back
to what I was saying earlier with Maya.
There will be phases in your life,
where you have to
prioritize different things.
There are times where
it will be okay for you
to just throw yourself into work,
because everything's
in a pretty good place.
There are gonna be times
where you have to maybe
make some sacrifices on the work side,
because things aren't all okay at home.
Right?
If your child's having
some emotional issues,
that have to be dealt with.
You might have to say, "You know what,
"I can't go to this conference
or do this project right now.
"I have to take care of this."
Right?
And I do think you're
right that generally men
feel more comfortable not
even giving that thought.
I think that those arrangements
are increasingly gonna
change, as women say,
"I've got ambitions too.
"And I've got work I've gotta do."
And so, you know, there's
gotta be some trade-offs
for both parties, not just one party.
But at the end of the day,
it's a privilege to
love somebody that much
and to make sacrifices for them, right?
It's not a burden,
it's a great gift,
and you just have to
figure out how to manage it
in a way that.
And last thing I will say,
this applies maybe more to,
modern societies, big cities, etc.
Michelle and I always joke.
Like, when we were kids,
our parents didn't pay
that much attention to us
all the time, you know what I mean?
And I do think that part
of, this may not be as true,
but certainly in the United States,
probably in places like Australia,
there's this parenting that is like,
I've gotta handle everything
and schedule everything for my child,
and if they don't get
into the right school,
or if they don't get the
best grade or something,
then I'm somehow failing as a parent.
Like, the child, instead
of just being a child,
becomes like a project, right?
And there's just like this, you know.
That's not good either, right?
That's not what kids need.
They need some space.
So you shouldn't feel
like you've just gotta be
with them every minute,
or else you're a bad dad.
There will come a point
where they don't wanna
to really see you, anyway.
But they've gotta have room.
And that is part of what
you should understand.
All right, next, let's see.
I've just got to keep on going here.
Look down here. (chuckles)
That's cheating!
(audience laughing)
Okay, I'm gonna look down here
right next to you over here.
(audience laughing and applauding)
That's a fellow islander.
Aw. (laughs)
- I feel so good!
(audience applauding)
- No, you got, you know,
you got your girlfriend,
that's called on, that's good.
- (laughs) Half a day, President Obama.
My name is Sheila Jack Bobasa.
I'm from the Mariana Islands.
- Mm-hmm.
(woman squeals)
(Barack Obama laughs)
(audience laughing)
- My question for you is
regarding the military presence
in the Pacific islands.
With the relocation of
troops from Okinawa to Guam,
there is major impact to
come for the Mariana Islands,
and it is very serious.
Although we are very patriotic community,
with one of the highest per capita
of enlisted servicemen and women,
we have died and fought in US wars.
We also value our culture, our community
and our natural resources.
But we feel like we're at
the table with Goliath.
How does one prepare
to negotiate and encourage Goliath
to come to the table, where
we can foster cooperation
and coexistence to
support national security
while preserving our culture
and conserving our natural resources?
- Yeah, look it's a great question.
(audience cheering and applauding)
You know, it's a great question.
You know, since I'm no
longer commander in chief,
I can't just say, "Come
on, let's go talk."
(audience laughing)
And I'm now out of date
in terms of all the
processes and procedures
that are taking place.
What I think is true,
and this is not unique
to the United States,
I think this is true
for a lot of countries
that have a large military infrastructure,
is that the military
often is not as mindful
as it needs to be about its impacts
on the surrounding community.
Look, in Hawaii, we still
have a whole set of issues
around the military presence and training,
and how does that affect
surrounding communities.
A general rule, when
dealing with organizations
or institutions that are bigger
and more powerful than you, is,
you've gotta bring attention to the issues
so that you get allies, all right?
I think the average person
in the United States
is not aware of some of the impacts
that base relocations may
have on local communities.
So one of your first jobs
is to raise awareness.
And, hopefully, some of the tools
that you've been learning
in these workshops
have taught you how to do that.
If not, then, we'll get some stuff online,
but,
the power of the underdog in society,
first and foremost is to be
able to mobilize public opinion.
Since you don't have the ability
to just impose your will on someone,
you have to get allies, right?
I mean, that's what happened
in the Civil Rights movement.
You had TV cameras showing
people with dogs, fire hoses,
directed at peaceful marchers,
which started changing attitudes,
which, in turn, led the federal government
to start taking different steps.
I think as you are raising awareness,
I think it's important
also, and, again, I assume
that some of this has been
covered in some of the workshops,
if not we're gotta get it online.
You have to know what it is that you want,
and what's realistic.
And you also have to make
sure that your own group,
you've worked out your differences
in terms of what you want.
'Cause my suspicion would
be that even among islanders
there are some different views.
Some people would say,
"Come on, because we think
"there's gonna be more business,
"or there's gonna be more
economic development",
or what have you.
And the others who say,
"We don't want this."
And if you have those divisions,
and your agenda is unclear,
then it will be harder for you to be able,
in a unified voice, to
project and tell a story
that gives you some allies
and gives you leverage.
So, your primary tool's gonna be initially
to raise awareness, but that means
you also have to have
done some work internally,
so that you know both
what your basic stand is.
And by the way, when I
say unity, it doesn't mean
you're gonna get 100%.
There's always gonna be somebody
who's hustling somewhere.
But it does mean, you know,
if you got your basic group
agreeing to a basic set of demands,
you have to know what
those are, going into it.
And they have to probably
be realistic enough
that they're achievable, right?
Because if you just say no to everything,
even, by the way, you
presented yourself just now,
I can tell that you've
been thinking about this.
So, hopefully, that gives you
a little bit of guidance or encouragement.
All right.
(audience applauding)
I've got, now.
I've got a hard stop in five minutes.
Because I've gotta get to Singapore,
and apparently the airport
is only giving us a little window.
So, I'm gonna try to be quicker.
And I'm gonna try to get in
three question in six minutes.
So.
Number one right there,
the young lady in the back.
Yes, right there, you, you, yeah, you.
Within the, no, yeah.
Well, it's all right.
Sorry, she got it.
She intercepted.
Go ahead.
- I'm so excited.
Hello, Mr. President Obama.
My question is quick.
- What's your name?
- This is first--
(audience laughing)
- What's your name?
- Oh, sorry, I'm so excited.
My name is Yu Men from China.
I work for girls empowerment
and gender equality.
So, my question to you is,
this is the first in asia-pacific leaders,
and what is your hope to all of us?
Thank you.
- Well, my hope is that,
A, you've been encouraged, inspired,
motivated to go back and continue
to do great things in your communities.
B, that you've recognized
that you're not alone in your efforts.
That there are people
throughout this region,
and by the way people
throughout the world,
who share your values.
And are going through the same struggles
and have the same questions.
So that now you can learn
and support each other.
Learn from and support each other.
You now are a part of a network
that can mobilize each other for change.
We'll try to formalize
that and create platforms
that make it easier for
you to work together.
We're gonna try to create subgroups
around different issues and
concerns that people have,
so that they can work
jointly on various projects.
And then, my hope is that as a consequence
of being alumni to this,
you're then out there
also recruiting and energizing
and encouraging the next generation,
and passing on whatever
it is that you've learned,
so that in wider and wider circles
we have more and more young
people like yourselves
on every continent who
are working together
and supporting each other.
And in that way, you start
building a movement for change
that can last, because it's
built on a sturdy foundation.
So that's my theory, anyway,
we'll see if it works.
(audience laughing)
We'll see, all right.
(audience applauding)
Right here in the front.
- Hi, President Obama.
- Hello.
- My name is Amalina.
I'm the Wesley coordinator
from Malaysia and I love you. (chuckles)
- Thank you, I love you too.
- My question is, I feel like the world
is getting more polarizing.
And how do we get here, and
how can we go from here?
- The world's,
as I said before, remember
the world's been polarized,
just not as polarized in our lifetimes.
In some ways you all were born,
and this is not true,
obviously, everywhere, right?
I mean, some of you come from countries
that have had recent violent conflict.
But most of you
were born and came of age
during what is probably
the most unusually
peaceful, optimistic period
right before 9/11, the
Berlin Wall had come down,
Mandela's released from prison,
there's a sense of optimism.
9/11 changes it and the
Iraq war, but there's still
a lot of economic growth
and globalization,
and standards of living
in a lot of countries
that hadn't experienced growth before,
they're seeing it suddenly.
And then, you have the financial crisis,
and it reveals all these contradictions
between all the growth
and expansion, right?
You have greater inequality,
you have climate change,
and what's happening is
more and more countries grow
at an accelerated rate with
higher carbon footprint.
You have cultural displacement,
where people suddenly,
because of the internet and social media.
You know, if you used to live
in a rural village in Indonesia,
you didn't see things that
violated your ideas of the world.
And now, just through your phone,
your children might be looking at things
that you can't believe, right?
And that you consider a threat to you.
And the same is, by the way,
it's not just in a rural
village in Indonesia,
it's a rural farm in Kentucky, in America.
They're seeing things
that suddenly feeling
as if it's an affront to them.
And then, you have politicians
who exploit that, right?
So, the way out of it, I think, is to deal
with some of the underlying problems.
When people feel more economically secure,
they're less likely to feel polarized.
Social science shows that typically,
voters are more generous
with other people,
when they feel as if they're doing well.
No surprise.
When they feel stressed,
pressed, insecure,
they lash out, and they're more vulnerable
to messages of polarization and hatred.
Number two is, young
people had to participate
in fighting back against messages
of hate and polarization,
wherever you find them.
And it's especially important for those
who are in majority groups to speak out
when they see minority
groups being threatened.
So, if you are an Indonesian,
then you have to be mindful
of what's happening to
people in East Timor.
If you're Javanese,
then you have to be able
to say something about that.
If you are from Myanmar,
especially if you are not Rohingya,
if you're part of the Burmese majority,
then you have to be able to speak out
when you see Rohingya
being threatened, right?
So, if you are--
(audience applauding)
Which isn't to say that those communities
don't have their own voice, it just means
that you also have an obligation,
because they're gonna need
allies, just like we all do.
All right, I'm not gonna get to three.
I only have time for one more,
or I'm gonna get in trouble.
So, this is the last question.
You know, it's really tough
when it's the last one.
I'm tempted to call on the
guy with the Obama hat,
but that's probably, but
that's too self-serving.
(audience laughing)
I shouldn't do that.
(laughs and mumbles)
No, no, right there, yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, right there.
No, no, no, the young
lady, right there, yeah.
- Hi, thank you so much
for this opportunity.
I think leaders here make
difficult decisions all the time.
- Yeah.
- My question to you is what has been
the most difficult decision
you ever made in your life,
and how did you make that?
Could you share that with us?
Thank you.
- Oh, that's a great question.
(audience applauding)
Look, I would distinguish
between the most difficult question
and the most important questions, right?
I already told you what
the most important question
or decision I had to
make, was who to marry,
but that wasn't that hard.
I will tell you, I think
probably, as difficult a question,
as I had to answer was whether
I should run for president.
We had a young family.
I had taken Michelle
through a series of races.
I had lost one, I had won one.
We had just kinda stabilized financially,
because my books started selling
after I was elected to the Senate,
and I spoke at the Democratic Convention.
It was a good time for
everybody to catch our breath,
the girls were happy,
we were in a new house.
Frankly, there were some
other strong candidates.
It wasn't as if I had to run
in order for, necessarily,
Democrats to be successful.
So I struggled with that.
And I had asked myself why me,
how is it gonna affect my family,
and then, could I actually win.
And,
I concluded I could win.
I concluded that in
conversation with Michelle,
the family would be okay.
And then, the hardest
question to ask is why you,
other than just your ego, right,
to the ego check question.
And I concluded that given
the time, the moment,
it might be that if I was successful,
as someone from historically
discriminated against group,
that was able to rise
to the most powerful office in the world,
that in addition to me
advancing a policy agenda,
that I might send a signal to people
about what was possible.
And to young people, and to children,
and to help people we imagined themselves
and their societies, and
that that might be worth it,
if this was probably the best
window for me to do that.
But it was still hard,
because it was still gonna
involve a lot of sacrifice.
You know, the decisions I
made during the presidency,
they were just a series of decisions,
they were really tough.
Because, as I said before,
usually, the rule was,
if you're a president, the only questions
that actually come to you for a decision,
are the ones nobody else can solve.
So when I came into office,
and the financial crisis had happened,
and we had to make a series of decisions
about how we're gonna save the banks,
and how are we going to
stabilize the financial system,
and how are we going to
save the auto industry.
Each of those questions you
were dealing with percentages
and probabilities, 'cause
there was no guarantee
that any one answer would work.
So, you'd had to make
decisions about these issues
based on getting the best
information possible.
To your question, how do you do it?
Being open to all points of
view, getting good information,
discussing it with the team
that's willing to challenge
your assumptions and challenge
each other's assumptions,
but then, at the end of the day,
you have to feel comfortable
that you set up a process,
so that when you make the decision,
you know whether it works or not,
at least you did it the right way.
And I was, I think, good
throughout my presidency,
whether it was dealing
with the financial crisis,
or dealing with you know,
how do we deal with Bin Laden
or in terrorism, or, and by the way,
some decisions that were painful,
and I still, to this day,
I'm not absolutely positive I was right.
Like my decision not to launch
another military intervention
to stop the bloodshed in Syria
is an example of just a hard question.
We had been involved in
the Middle East in some war
for over a decade by that point.
And,
I didn't think that us intervening again
and occupying again another Muslim country
in the Middle East was going
to lead to a better outcome.
And yet, there were children
who were being slaughtered.
And you had a government that didn't care
about displacing millions of people.
And the question what
responsibility did we have for that?
To this day, I can't tell you for certain
the decisions I made around that issue
were the optimal ones.
All I can say is
that I set up a process
that I believed in.
Where I asked all the hard questions
and was willing to face hard truths
and looked at the data
and the information.
And that's, you know, I guess
it's a good place to conclude
just by saying this.
'Cause it goes to a lot
of the questions earlier
about how do you not be discouraged,
and how do you deal with when you feel
like you're dealing with Goliath,
and how do you find balance.
To all these questions.
If you set up a way of being in the world
and interacting with the
world in which you are honest
and truthful not just with
others, but with yourself,
if you're willing to ask
yourself hard questions
and to challenge your own assumptions,
and,
if you're willing to
continually say to yourself,
"Okay, I say I believe this,
"but is this what I'm actually doing?
"Is this what I actually believe?
"Am I living up to my ideals?"
If you're doing that, and you're trying,
and you're working hard, and you get up
when you make mistakes,
and you sustain effort,
and you also forgive yourself,
when you make mistakes,
or sometimes when you're just tired,
and you've gotta take a break.
And if you're surrounded by
people who are honest with you
and support you and share those values,
then you should just rejoice
in this opportunity to change the world.
It's a great privilege to be alive
and have the possibility
of helping somebody
or making things a little bit better.
I have so much confidence
that if you just stay with it,
even if you sometimes can't see it,
you will have made things better.
All right?
(audience applauding)
So I'll see you out there, everybody.
Love you, thank you.
Stay with it.
(audience applauding)
(gentle music)
