Since 2012, Oct. 11 has been known as the International Day of the Girl — a day set aside by the United Nations to honor girls around the world and improve their lives.
For the 2016 celebration, President Barack Obama gave attention to three major issues affecting young women: sexual assault on college campuses, equal pay for equal work, and increasing women’s involvement in the science, technology, and engineering fields. And the first lady, Michelle Obama, used the day to discuss girl power and the importance of women’s education with Glamour’s editor-in-chief, Cindi Leive.
During the discussion, Obama revealed an important piece of wisdom that she wishes she had known when she was 15:
“My advice to girls is always this — and this is what I tell my daughters every day — do not be afraid to fail, because that oftentimes is the thing that keeps us as women and girls back, because we think we have to be right. … It’s not the failure; it’s what you do after you fail. Do you let it each you up? Do you quit? Do you give up? Or do you let it bolster you? Does it serve as the challenge in your mind to do more, to take some risks, to step outside of your comfort zone?”
The first lady also stressed how important it is for women to support each other:
“We’re sometimes taught in our societies that we have to compete and we have to hold each other back in order for one of us to succeed. That is not true. We need each other. And all over the world, we have to be a team of women and girls who love each other and value each other and cherish one another. Because if we don’t cherish each other, no one else will. So let’s start there and start working together, and find a way that we’re going to lift up some other girl in our lives. Maybe it’s a little sister, a neighbor. But you can be a mentor today. So do that. Do that work now. Get in the habit of that.”
Michelle Obama’s last piece of advice for success? Don’t pay attention to the haters. “You have to learn how to, as we say here, ignore the haters,” she said. “You got to keep them out of your life. You have to surround yourself by people who lift you up. And if it’s one voice, keep that voice close to you.”
