His first taste of electoral defeat in 1999 when he ran and lost for a seat in Congress under a minority party is U.S. President Barack Obama's most broken moment.

At age 40 and with the state legislature for a long time, Obama felt then that his loss, coupled with the feeling of not getting a lot done, caused him to feel that maybe politics isn't his calling in life, the president told Humans of New York, a popular photography project.

Like Us on Facebook

The project shot the president on Thursday in his White House Oval Office. Obama was interviewed by 13-year-old student Vidal Chastanet, who was accompanied by Humans of New York photographer Brandon Stanton and Nadia Lopez, principal of Chastanet's school. The projected posted the image as well as snippets of the interview on its Facebook page, reports Huffington Post.

"I got beat. I just got whooped," the president recounts, "But the thing that got me through the moment, and any other time that I felt stuck, is to remind myself that it's about the work."

He said keeping focused on the task provided him the path or direction in life and his political career until he made it to the White House.

Obama also points to his mother as the biggest influence in his life, noting that she gave birth to him at 18 and became a separated woman and single mother at 19. Yet, despite these drawbacks in life, she struggled to work and even pursue her PhD degree, which took her 10 years to complete.

It was only when he became older that Obama realized that his mother was also like him with her share of doubts and fears. "To see her overcome tough times was very inspiring. Because that meant I could overcome tough times too," the president says.

Chastanet is a middle school student from a rough Brooklyn neighborhood. He was featured too by the project in January and the photo series became viral and raised more than US$1 million for his school, Mott Hall Bridges Academy in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

The campaign would fund a summer trip to Harvard to expand the horizons of the students and the idea of their potential.

Obama told Chastanet, "For a young man like you, you should never be too afraid or too shy to look for people who can encourage you or mentor you," quotes CNN.

That person, for Chastanet, is Principal Lopez who, one day, lined up all students in the school and told them one by one that each of them matters.

TagsBarack Obama, humans of new york