Michelle Obama dressed local, wearing Longhorn orange and Kendra Scott jewelry (Photo by Gilbert Flores)

The audience in Ballroom D in the Austin Convention Center was looking for excuses to cheer and smile.

“Miche,” they cooed, parroting Craig Robinson’s nickname for his sister Michelle Obama. They applauded when Obama spoke to avoiding hate and bitterness on social media. They laughed when Obama’s guest, Yale University psychology professor Laurie Santos, promised that if you decrease your phone use by 80%, you’d still know about all the terrible things happening in the world.

More than anything though, the attendees seemed to be looking for hope. Obama, Robinson, and Santos spent the better part of an hour trying to give the crowd the answers they sought, as a part of a live recording for Obama and Robinson’s new podcast IMO during SXSW.

“it’s important to call it the way it is. It’s not fine. But hope isn’t that. Hope says things are not fine, but I can actually see at least a few paths for things to get better,” Santos said.

There were also thinly veiled shots at the current political environment and how that might be playing into a mental health crisis among young people in the U.S. “I know a whole lot of these billionaires, and not all of them, as we can see, seem happy,” said Obama, who was sporting a burnt orange suit which would likely earn the approval of Matthew McConaughey.

Instead, they encouraged people to find reasons to be grateful, or even, on a smaller scale, little things to delight in – something that’s particularly important as Santos noted more than 60% of college students report being overwhelmingly anxious. “You see somebody on the train give each other a fist bump,” Santos said. “You walk into a cafe, and it’s playing El DeBarge, like “Rhythm of the Night” – it’s like a great song – that’s delight, right?” Finding those little delights requires a little effort, she added.

“People always ask me and Barack, how did we stay hopeful in, not just the eight years that we were in the White House, but beyond,” Obama said, pointing to accusations they have faced, including her husband not being born in the US. “He wore a tan suit,” Robinson reminded her. (Check out the Wikipedia page on the tan suit controversy if you missed it.)

“Through it all, what kept us sane, and we try to instill this in our daughters, is you cannot live through social media,” Obama said.

So, to anyone feeling hopeless, the message seemed simple: Put the phones down, turn up the volume on a little El DeBarge, and find an escape, however briefly, from a chaotic world.