As President, I would read 10 letters a day sent to me by ordinary Americans. At the Obama Presidential Center, we’ll have some of the letters I read — and responded to — every night. I still get emotional reading them, and it’s one of my favorite exhibits.
When the parents are knocked out but the real babysitter is on duty 🐶❤️
This good boy is not letting anything happen to the baby. Peak loyalty right here!
Who needs parents when you have a dog like this? 😂
Michael B. Jordan’s advice for anyone feeling stuck in life
“When you’re feeling the most trapped and down and nothing can go right, those are the moments that define you. People quit right before they get what they’ve always wanted”
“Having the name Michael Jordan, knowing there was another Michael Jordan who was the best ever got me teased and picked on. For a moment, it made me not want to play sports but then I was like nah, I’m going to compete. It gave me a healthy chip”
“For the people who are listening who feel like they can’t change their circumstances, just hold on. Just endure. Look at things differently. Challenge yourself to see the glass half full”
“Find something that resonates with you, find your intuition within that thing and be obsessed about it”
This baby went from sad/confused to absolute JOY the second those glasses went on.
First time seeing the world clearly. That smile says everything.
♥️ Heart = melted.
Who else is obsessed with these moments?
Hope isn’t blind optimism — it arises in the face of uncertainty. If you look at our history, we’ve gone through some rough patches. But we tend to come out on the other side of them stronger than before.
This breakdown is important and the diplomatic work you're describing is exactly what the government should be doing.
But I think there's a framing problem worth naming.
When we position monetisation as something platforms grant us, we've already handed them all the leverage. They move when the data is right for them, not when it's right for Zambia. And even if they do unlock monetisation, they set the rates, the eligibility criteria, and they can change both at any time.
The more powerful play runs parallel to the diplomatic route: build the infrastructure that routes creator payments through local ecosystems entirely. Brands brief local creators directly. Creators get paid through a local platform. The money never needs Meta or ByteDance to flip a switch.
Then something interesting happens when there's already a functioning, growing creator economy in Zambia, the platforms have a commercial reason to compete for it. We stop petitioning them. They start chasing us.
The lobbying and the local infrastructure aren't competing strategies. But right now we're doing one without the other, which means we're building leverage for them, not for us.