The last time the Obamas came to the UK, in 2009, I was lucky enough to report on Michelle Obama's visits - one to a Maggie's Cancer Care Centre in London, and the other to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School in Islington. I remember then hearing her speak to young girls at the school where many pupils speak English as a second language. She told them the world needed strong young women to pave the way for the future, and told them: "We are counting on every single one of you to be the best you can be!"
That speech moved everyone in the room, and I guarantee would have had a lasting effect on those girls.
And the best part is, the First Lady didn't leave it just there. She's apparently kept in touch with the school, having pupils over to the Whitehouse, and last week she took some to Oxford University for a visit. And if we were thinking she'd struggle to follow her first speech, there were no worries there.
There's something about the way Michelle Obama speaks that surely doesn't just keep me riveted, but must have the same effect on people, young and old, everywhere. There is an honesty and straightforwardness, and a way of expressing things with thought and feeling without seeming like spin, or a pre-rehearsed set of soundbites.
At Oxford University, Mrs Obama echoed her inspiring words of 2009, telling the girls it doesn't matter about their background.
"Success is not about the background you are from, it's about the confidence you have and the effort you are willing to invest...
"You just have to work hard...you just have to push yourselves. This doesn't come easy for anyone."
Those words should serve to inspire all of us - whether we're 13 or 30. It is easy to think our own path is predetermined, that there is little we can do to change it. And in a country where the gap between the richest and the poorest seems ever-widening, where some people can afford a £19 milllion pad in Kensington, while the average person can't afford 173 square feet, the world can seem an unfair and uninspiring place.
But for the time that she speaks, Michelle Obama manages - for me at least, and I'm sure many others - to inject hope that anything is possible, a hope we all need to be reminded of sometimes.
And she speaks from experience: when she tells people not to be guided by their background, the lady who grew up in the south side of Chicago but managed to get to both Princeton University and Harvard Law School means what she says. She speaks of well-meaning people suggesting she may not have fitted in, that it may not have been a good idea, but she listened to their advice then chose not to take it. And now look at her - successful in her own right, as well as being married to potentially the most powerful man in the world.
Regardless of whether you are pro or anti-American, whether you agree with Obama's politics or not, the world does not have enough Michelle Obamas. There are not enough women who will stand up and tell young people (and even older people) to stand up, grab life with both hands, and do anything they want to. She never says it will be easy - "hard work" is a phrase well-used by Mrs Obama - but it is always possible. And perhaps with more people inspiring us, and our youth, in that way, we could see a new generation of people who think anything is possible, a generation of hope where the majority think that we can change the world we live in for the better, rather than relying on a minority to do the job.
Keep going Michelle, even if you just convert a few more people each time you speak, that's got to help. We need more people like you in this world, so bravo!
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