Working in a soap factory in Huddersfield. I was in my late teens, so I was basically hungover every day.

I haven’t really had a job. I used to work at my dad’s garden centre in my late teens, but it was just messing around.

Putting ball bearings into Mum roll-on deodorant bottles in a factory, one summer when I was 17.

Cleaning men’s toilets in the Swan hotel in the Cotswolds.

One of the things that Michelle and I are proud of is that we came through the White House with our souls intact. Everybody has heard: Power corrupts. I do think if you are placed in such an artificial situation, and your office has great importance, there is a tendency for people to want to please you. To not be as honest with you. We fought against that.

I would end every night reading these ten letters. It made the numbers and the policies very concrete and very specific. And I was reminded that the choices we were making were affecting millions of people. I found that to be very useful.

My daughters are something, and they just surprise and enchant and impress me more and more every single day as they grow up. And so these days, when we talk, we talk as parent to child, but also we learn from them.

Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. I had a tendency sometimes to make excuses for me not doing the right thing.

I was raised by a heroic single mom, wonderful grandparents -- made incredible sacrifices for me. … But I sure wish I had had a father who was not only present, but involved. Didn't know my dad. And so my whole life, I've tried to be for Michelle and my girls what my father was not for my mother and me. … I want to be a better father, a better husband, a better man.

People ask me sometimes, who inspires you, Mr. President? Those quiet heroes all across this country -- some of your parents and grandparents who are sitting here -- no fanfare, no articles written about them, they just persevere. They just do their jobs. They meet their responsibilities. They don't quit. I'm only here because of them. They may not have set out to change the world, but in small, important ways, they did. They certainly changed mine.