Olympic gold medalist Simone Manuel has had a lot of moments she'll remember for a lifetime — for instance, becoming the first American woman to win both the 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle [1] at the FINA world championships in July 2019 — and meeting Michelle Obama [2] is high up on the list. "When I met Michelle Obama and Barack [3] for the first time, I bawled. I'm not afraid to say it," Simone told POPSUGAR.
Michelle has been known to give great advice [5], and the first thing she told Simone was that she was proud of her and all of her accomplishments. Then she told her, "Keep doing what you're doing, keep working hard. I'm watching you." "It wasn't super pressing advice, but just a couple of words that meant a lot and I keep close to me," Simone said.
You don't have to be an Olympian to feel inspired by Michelle's words. We're definitely going to remind ourselves to keep up the hard work whenever we need a boost of motivation because Michelle could be watching us, too!