"Worry More About What You Want To Do And Less About What You Want To Be" - President Obama On YALI 2016

I enjoyed listening to the President slaying Africans in their shenanigans with reference to bribery and the business world. The Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) which took place at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington, D.C. He gave advise on young Africans getting into politics.

Thank you so much, Mr. President.  I want to start by saying thank you so much for this opportunity.  I think you’ve done a great job as a President, and you inspire a lot of us Young African Leaders.  (Applause.)  Also, I want to say that back home. I’m Nigerian.  Where I come from there are lots of bottlenecks and barriers to the youths participating in politics -- because politics we see as a platform that offers change we desire to implement.  So what is your advice, being in the White House for eight years, coming as a young (inaudible) to the White House and after eight years the things you’ve seen from where you came from and now -- what advice do you have for young Africans who aspire to run for office?  And what do you think they can do to make a difference even when they get to political office?

And secondly, this is -- just use this opportunity to say a big shout-out to my wife, Admaz (ph).  And I promised her if I get a chance to talk to you, I would say hi on her behalf.  -  Falah Ano  

The President's response:

Okay.  So you see, he’s keeping balance.  (Laughter.)  Making sure he can go back home and say, hey, honey, I’ve -- (laughter) -- I was looking after you.  

People here in the states -- we have a White House interns program, and I often talk to young people after they complete their internship at the White House.  And they ask me a similar question:  What advice would I give for people who are interested in public service and politics?  And obviously, each country is different.  Some countries are more challenging because democratic policies are still not so deeply entrenched; oftentimes there’s not as much turnover in government because people, once they get in, they don’t want to leave.  In part, by the way, that also has to do with the lack of opportunity in the private sector.  

One of the reasons why you want to have a country that has a good, strong government but also a private sector is if you don’t have a good, strong private sector, then the temptation for people to stay in power in government -- because that’s the only way to make a living or to succeed -- that becomes a strong temptation, and that then leads to the temptation to corruption or to suppress opposition, or to not have honest elections.  Because you’re hanging on -- because if you lose, you’ve got nothing, right?  (Applause.)  

And one of the good things about the United States is that, look, you run for office, if you lose, there’s other ways of making a living.  It’s not a tragedy.  And, no -- and it’s interesting -- I mean, there were times where -- during my political career, there were times where I thought, you know what, this isn’t going all that well.  And I remember when I ran for the United States Senate, I had already lost a race to be in Congress.  I had been in the state senate for eight years.  It was putting enormous strains on my family because I was traveling a lot.  And I thought to myself, you know what, this is it -- if I don’t win this U.S. Senate race, I’m getting out of politics, I’m going to go do something else.  And I was comfortable with that view.  

It also meant that once I became President -- and people have talked about, for example, in my first term when I was trying to get the health care law passed, and the politics of it were not going well, and people were very angry and oftentimes misinformed about what it would do -- I decided, look, even if this means that I don’t get a second term, I’m going to go ahead and do it anyway.  And part of the reason was because I said, if I lose I’ll be upset, it’ll be a little embarrassing, but I’ll be okay, and there’s no point in me being in office if I can’t actually do something with the office.  (Applause.) 

Now, that leads me to the main advice that I would have for those of you who are interested in politics or government.  I always say to young people:  Worry less about what you want to be and worry more about what you want to do.  (Applause.)  Because those are two different things.  

I think one of the problems we get sometimes here in Washington is we have people -- not everybody, and maybe not even the majority -- but there are people here who -- they had in their mind very early on, “I want to be a congressman.”  And then they’re doing everything they can to be a congressman, and then once they become a congressman, they don’t know why they’re a congressman.  (Laughter.)  All they know is they want to stay a congressman.  

And so this is true not just in politics; I think this is true in business, as well.  The most successful businesspeople I know, they don’t start off saying “I want to be rich.”  What they say is, “I want to invent the personal computer.”  And then it turns out, wow, Steve Jobs, or Hewlitt and Packard, Bill Gates -- you guys did a really good job, and it just so happened that it made you really rich.  But there was a passion about trying to get something done.  It’s certainly true in politics.  

So if you want to be in politics, my advice to you would be, why?  What is it that you want to do?  (Applause.)  Do you want to provide a good education to young people?  Do you want to alleviate poverty?  Do you want to make sure that everybody has health care?  Do you want to promote peace between ethnic groups in your country?  Do you want to preserve the environment?  And whatever it is that you want to do, start doing it.  Because you don’t have to have an office to do that.  (Applause.)  You can start a program to help young women in your village get an education.  You can decide in whatever part of Nigeria you’re from that you’re going to go back and try to promote health and wellness programs for young people.  And the experience you get from actually doing these things then will inform the nature of why you might want to go into politics.  

First of all, it may turn out that you are making such a difference and having such an impact without going into politics that you decide, I don’t want to do that, I want to keep on building what I’m doing.  If you do decide to go into politics, you will have not only the experience but also the credibility with the people you want to represent, because they’ve seen you actually do something useful.

And the last point I would make is, politics is a little bit like going into acting, or being a musician.  And what I mean by that is you can be really talented, but maybe the timing is off. Maybe you didn't get the lucky break.  And so you can't guarantee that you're going to be elected or successful in a particular office.