Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / The 3 Ingredients of a Meaningful Life + Why Most People Miss Two: with NYU Professor Suzy Welch

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The 3 Ingredients of a Meaningful Life + Why Most People Miss Two: with NYU Professor Suzy Welch · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:03
Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
0:05
Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
0:11
Speaker 1: closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
0:16
Speaker 1: Danielle Robe and each week, my guests and I come
0:19
Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
0:22
Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
0:28
Speaker 1: And who says?
0:30
Speaker 2: So?
0:30
Speaker 1: Come curious, dig deep, and join the conversation. It's time
0:36
Speaker 1: to question everything. Happy New Year. Cue the music, to
0:46
Speaker 1: the fireworks, to that tiny flicker of excitement in all
0:52
Speaker 1: of us that comes with a fresh start. So, whether
0:55
Speaker 1: you're listening to this on January first, or even a
0:58
Speaker 1: few weeks into the year, I'm wishing you a truly
1:01
Speaker 1: beautiful twenty twenty six, I'm wishing you one where you
1:04
Speaker 1: don't just do more, but you understand yourself more deeply
1:07
Speaker 1: as you move forward. Because if I track my own
1:10
Speaker 1: professional success, I think it has only expanded or risen
1:15
Speaker 1: at the rate of my personal growth. I really believe
1:18
Speaker 1: that they're tied together, and that's what today's episode is about. Honestly,
1:22
Speaker 1: it's one of my favorites of all time, I think
1:24
Speaker 1: because it's going to help so many people. But before
1:27
Speaker 1: we begin, I want to tell you a story about
1:28
Speaker 1: our guest. I want to set the stage. Susie is
1:33
Speaker 1: the kind of woman who's been accomplished in every room
1:37
Speaker 1: she walks into. She was a business journalist, she was
1:40
Speaker 1: the editor at the Harvard Business Review, a familiar face
1:43
Speaker 1: on the Today Show. And she's someone who has lived
1:46
Speaker 1: great love, the kind that she talks about with so
1:51
Speaker 1: much tenderness and honesty, the kind that I'm on the
1:54
Speaker 1: hunt for, honestly. And then, right before COVID her great love,
1:59
Speaker 1: her husband Jack, she was in real despair and she
2:03
Speaker 1: didn't want to leave her home in upstate New York.
2:06
Speaker 1: Her friends would call her and say come visit, and
2:09
Speaker 1: she was just walking her dogs for hours and thinking,
2:12
Speaker 1: trying to understand who she was without the life that
2:16
Speaker 1: she built with him. And somewhere inside that grief and
2:19
Speaker 1: all those phone calls she was avoiding, she made a
2:22
Speaker 1: decision that changed the course of her life. She went
2:25
Speaker 1: back to school and got her PhD and started teaching
2:28
Speaker 1: at NYU Stern. So the class she teaches is called
2:31
Speaker 1: Becoming You. And when she initially proposed it to the
2:35
Speaker 1: dean at NYU It was a pretty simple concept but
2:39
Speaker 1: kind of radical in execution. It was the class that
2:43
Speaker 1: she wished she had taken herself, a class about values,
2:46
Speaker 1: about aptitudes, about building a life that actually fits. They
2:50
Speaker 1: expected maybe twenty students and it filled instantly. The dean
2:54
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I guess we'll expand to forty boom
2:57
Speaker 1: filled instantly. Then they expanded to and they capped it
3:02
Speaker 1: for her first semester. Today, it's the most requested class
3:05
Speaker 1: at the entire university. And I think it's because it
3:08
Speaker 1: answers a question that so many of us, if not
3:11
Speaker 1: all of us, carry loudly or silently. Why do I
3:15
Speaker 1: feel so capable and still lost or unsure? After this interview,
3:21
Speaker 1: I went to Susie's three day intensive, which is the
3:24
Speaker 1: adult version of the class that she teaches at NYU,
3:28
Speaker 1: and it was one of the best days of my year. Yes,
3:31
Speaker 1: I loved being back at school. And I also think
3:33
Speaker 1: it's because it did not tell me who to be.
3:36
Speaker 1: I know who I want to be and what I
3:38
Speaker 1: want to do, but it gave me a language, a vocabulary,
3:42
Speaker 1: a way to name what matters to me and why.
3:45
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm so excited to bring Susie to you,
3:49
Speaker 1: because so many of the emails and calls I get
3:51
Speaker 1: sound like this. I want to do this, but I
3:55
Speaker 1: don't know how. I feel stuck. I know what my
3:58
Speaker 1: passion is, but I don't know how to get from
4:01
Speaker 1: A to Z. I feel intuitive, but I can't make
4:04
Speaker 1: a decision, and I try to help. I'm not a
4:06
Speaker 1: career counselor, but I do think that I'm a good
4:09
Speaker 1: listener and pretty intuitive, and I think that sometimes I
4:13
Speaker 1: do help. But when I found Susie's work, I got
4:16
Speaker 1: so excited because she doesn't just empathize or listen. She
4:20
Speaker 1: has an entire framework and it's not wo wo, it's practical,
4:24
Speaker 1: and it makes everything feel possible. So I bet on
4:27
Speaker 1: the road to finding yourself and becoming you have probably
4:30
Speaker 1: received a lot of advice. I know I heard it,
4:33
Speaker 1: take the stable job, say yes to every opportunity. And
4:36
Speaker 1: I think maybe the most common advice of all is
4:38
Speaker 1: follow your passion. And yeah, it all sounds great, the platitudes,
4:42
Speaker 1: do what you love, and you'll never work another day
4:44
Speaker 1: in your life. Right. Well not, according to Susie. She
4:48
Speaker 1: actually believes that advice is at best unhelpful and at
4:52
Speaker 1: worst quietly damaging.
4:54
Speaker 2: This is the problem is that people are told to
4:56
Speaker 2: live their purpose. Daniels. I hate this. I mean, this
4:58
Speaker 2: is sort of what I exist for with my work,
5:01
Speaker 2: is that everybody's told to live their purpose, but no
5:03
Speaker 2: one's told how. And I can't stand it. It's almost
5:06
Speaker 2: more punishing to tell people, Oh, you feel like you're
5:09
Speaker 2: releasing them, go live your purpose, and then you leave
5:11
Speaker 2: them hanging.
5:13
Speaker 1: So today we're tackling two big questions. What does it
5:17
Speaker 1: actually mean to live your purpose? And why do so
5:20
Speaker 1: many capable, ambitious people feel completely lost trying to find it.
5:25
Speaker 1: I feel so passionate about this that I'm going to
5:27
Speaker 1: do something I've never done before. I'm going to add
5:30
Speaker 1: a code to Susie's three day intensive to the bottom
5:33
Speaker 1: of the show notes. And I'm also going to link
5:35
Speaker 1: her book because if you can't make it to New
5:37
Speaker 1: York for her intensive, which I cannot recommend enough, please
5:41
Speaker 1: get the book. You will not regret it. It is
5:44
Speaker 1: Oh everything she does is so good. Okay, it's time
5:48
Speaker 1: to question everything with Susie Welch. Susie, I think that
5:57
Speaker 1: this book should be mandatory reading for every single young person.
6:01
Speaker 1: And this book is really based on the class that
6:04
Speaker 1: you teach at NYU's Stern School of Business. And you
6:07
Speaker 1: said you pitched it as quote the class I wish
6:09
Speaker 1: I had taken in business school myself. And the methodology
6:13
Speaker 1: is based on a premise that our purpose lies at
6:15
Speaker 1: the intersection of values, aptitudes, and areas of interest that
6:19
Speaker 1: resonate with us. Okay, So what do you think is
6:22
Speaker 1: the main way that people are getting their purpose wrong
6:25
Speaker 1: in today's society? Because that word is just thrown around.
6:29
Speaker 2: Let me quickly say how they get it wrong. Number one,
6:31
Speaker 2: no one knows what values are, and then they don't
6:33
Speaker 2: know what their values are. They mix values up with virtues,
6:35
Speaker 2: they borrow the values of the person closest to them,
6:37
Speaker 2: they live by their parents values. So number one, no
6:40
Speaker 2: one knows their values. I like actually research that shows that,
6:43
Speaker 2: but nobody disagrees with me. So number two, most people
6:46
Speaker 2: don't know what their aptitudes are, and they don't even
6:48
Speaker 2: know what aptitudes are. They think they are skills or
6:50
Speaker 2: areas of expertise. And you got to figure those things out.
6:53
Speaker 2: And finally, the third area is I've changed the language
6:55
Speaker 2: on it. It's economically viable interest. And that's the areas
6:58
Speaker 2: of work that call you intellectually and emotionally but also
7:02
Speaker 2: can pay you all right. And so the problem with
7:05
Speaker 2: that area is that people just have a very closed
7:08
Speaker 2: aperture about what's out there. They don't know there's one
7:10
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty five industries and eleven hundred types of jobs.
7:13
Speaker 2: They don't know that there are twelve mega trends. And
7:16
Speaker 2: so the methodology forces you to figure out your values
7:19
Speaker 2: and rank them one to sixteen, absolutely identify your cognitive
7:23
Speaker 2: and emotional aptitudes within the shadow of a doubt, and
7:26
Speaker 2: it opens your aperture to see what's out there and
7:29
Speaker 2: at the intersection of all those data sets. Both at
7:32
Speaker 2: NYU and then when I teach it in open enrollment,
7:34
Speaker 2: we end up giving you the five jobs that are
7:36
Speaker 2: right in your area of purpose. And people are like,
7:39
Speaker 2: thank you very much because I was wondering about that.
7:41
Speaker 2: Because everyone wants to live their purpose. Who doesn't. It's good.
7:45
Speaker 2: It's hard to get there, though, I mean, there's no hack.
7:48
Speaker 2: I mean, the class is not easy and the work
7:50
Speaker 2: is not easy. There's no silver bullet for this, But
7:52
Speaker 2: why would there be for the most important thing in
7:54
Speaker 2: your life?
7:54
Speaker 1: Your class and the book requires a lot of excavation,
7:57
Speaker 1: and so people are on different life paths and I
8:01
Speaker 1: think sort of levels of evolution. Do you find that
8:05
Speaker 1: there are groups of people that just can't finish the
8:08
Speaker 1: book or can't finish the class because of that.
8:11
Speaker 2: No, generally, because it's pretty addicting once you start it.
8:13
Speaker 2: I mean, we make it fun and now it's easy
8:16
Speaker 2: to find your values because we finally find when I
8:18
Speaker 2: see we, I mean becoming you labs. I've got a
8:20
Speaker 2: great lab of psychometricians and data scientists, and we finally
8:24
Speaker 2: created a digital test. It's one hundred questions and it
8:27
Speaker 2: ranks your values for you. It used to be that
8:30
Speaker 2: we had to do all these different exercises, and they're
8:32
Speaker 2: all in the book and they're really fun. But finally
8:35
Speaker 2: it took too much time, and I bit the bullet
8:37
Speaker 2: and we created the test, the values Bridge, and so
8:39
Speaker 2: now there's no excuse. You can find your values out
8:42
Speaker 2: in twenty two minutes.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I can imagine there's probably research about how
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Speaker 1: living in alignment with your values increases happiness, et cetera.
8:49
Speaker 2: Do's a couple of things. One percent increases happiness is
8:52
Speaker 2: a pretty fleeting thing. That's what the research would show you,
8:55
Speaker 2: it's circumstantial because you could have everything to be happy
8:58
Speaker 2: and then, like you know, some you love could get sick. Okay,
9:01
Speaker 2: but it does increase your chances of having a meaningful,
9:05
Speaker 2: productive life, which most often leads to happiness. And then further,
9:09
Speaker 2: if you are living your purpose, there's incredibly good research,
9:13
Speaker 2: replicated research that shows that you're much more likely to
9:17
Speaker 2: stay in your job and be productive in your job,
9:20
Speaker 2: and so actually living your purpose is very good not
9:22
Speaker 2: just for individuals, but for businesses and therefore society.
9:25
Speaker 1: I'm curious about your journey into purpose. I know in
9:29
Speaker 1: the book you write Discovering your Purpose as a journey.
9:32
Speaker 1: It's hard, it's messy, it's joyful, it's exhausting, it's exhilarating,
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Speaker 1: it's bumpy, scary, and life giving. I felt so connected
9:41
Speaker 1: to all of those words. Before you were a professor.
9:44
Speaker 1: You began your career as a reporter for the Miami
9:46
Speaker 1: Herald in nineteen eighty one. How would your life have
9:50
Speaker 1: been different if you had this methodology when you were
9:53
Speaker 1: just starting out in your career.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I would have avoided a lot of bone
9:58
Speaker 2: headed detours and valleys that I did not need to
10:01
Speaker 2: go through. I probably wouldn't have even been a reporter,
10:04
Speaker 2: although I'm grateful for that experience, because if you want
10:07
Speaker 2: to learn about human nature at its best and its worst,
10:10
Speaker 2: you should be a crime reporter in Miami in nineteen
10:13
Speaker 2: eighty one, because this was during the Mariial boat lift
10:16
Speaker 2: and the riots, and the headline in NEWSWEK magazine was
10:19
Speaker 2: the city is on fire, and it was. And I
10:21
Speaker 2: was there in those years, and I learned about people
10:24
Speaker 2: at their absolute best and people at their absolute worst.
10:26
Speaker 2: So it was a very short course in human nature
10:29
Speaker 2: that everybody should go through. But reporting was not the
10:32
Speaker 2: right career for me because I'm a very sincere and
10:34
Speaker 2: optimistic person who generally actually thinks most people are good,
10:38
Speaker 2: and that does not make a great reporter. Where cynicism
10:40
Speaker 2: really matters and skepticism does, and a kind of certain
10:44
Speaker 2: desire and comfort with being on the outside looking in,
10:48
Speaker 2: and I'm a girl who wants to be on the
10:49
Speaker 2: inside looking out with all the muppedes, And so I
10:53
Speaker 2: was a much better fit for business, and I found
10:55
Speaker 2: business very accidentally. I was a crime reporter. I didn't
10:58
Speaker 2: know what else to do. I was really good, so
11:00
Speaker 2: I kept on being encouraged to do it, and I
11:02
Speaker 2: could have probably had a whole career in it, although
11:04
Speaker 2: it felt like I was wearing a suit that was
11:06
Speaker 2: the wrong size. That's how we know we're not living
11:08
Speaker 2: our purpose each day we're putting on a suit that's
11:10
Speaker 2: too big or too small. And I bumped along doing
11:12
Speaker 2: it mainly because I was encouraged to keep doing it,
11:15
Speaker 2: and it was paying the bills. I didn't come from
11:17
Speaker 2: a family with any means, and so it was paying
11:19
Speaker 2: my bills. And then I was very serendipitously reassigned to
11:22
Speaker 2: cover business because the business reporter quit. I should go
11:25
Speaker 2: find that business reporter and kiss him. And then my
11:27
Speaker 2: boss called me and he said, what do you know
11:28
Speaker 2: about business? I said, absolutely nothing, dead nothing. My father's
11:32
Speaker 2: an architect and my mom's a potter, and I know nothing.
11:34
Speaker 2: I have no idea what goes on in those buildings.
11:36
Speaker 2: And I pointed to all the buildings. At that point,
11:37
Speaker 2: i'd moved to Boston, and I said, you know, I
11:39
Speaker 2: don't have any idea. And he said, come on, you
11:40
Speaker 2: must know what debt is and I said, oh, yeah, yeah, no,
11:42
Speaker 2: I know what debt is. Dead is like when you
11:44
Speaker 2: owe eogle money. And he said, what's equity? And I said,
11:47
Speaker 2: I have the whole idea. And they made me the
11:52
Speaker 2: business reporter anyway, because I was the only warm body available.
11:55
Speaker 2: And about two months into it, I'd gone to enough
11:58
Speaker 2: business press conference and covered enough stories that I thought,
12:02
Speaker 2: holy guacamole. I found my people. I loved the builders,
12:07
Speaker 2: I loved the entrepreneurs. I just loved the people were
12:10
Speaker 2: trying to create jobs and I wanted to be a
12:12
Speaker 2: part of that. I loved everything about it. And so
12:16
Speaker 2: I didn't know anything about business, truly, I didn't. I mean,
12:19
Speaker 2: I was so out of my leg Oh my god, Danielle.
12:21
Speaker 2: I'd be at press conferences and they could have been
12:23
Speaker 2: speaking urdu. I just was like, what are they say?
12:26
Speaker 2: And so I decided to go to business school. And
12:29
Speaker 2: I thought, well, I'm here in Boston. Let me apply
12:31
Speaker 2: to Harvard Business School because it's the local one. And
12:34
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, one of the great mysteries
12:35
Speaker 2: of human kind is that they took me and I
12:37
Speaker 2: got there and I found out, much to my shock,
12:40
Speaker 2: that I had an aptitude for it. And this was
12:42
Speaker 2: the beginning of me thinking, Gee, wouldn't have been cool
12:45
Speaker 2: if I'd known my aptitudes before I found everything out
12:48
Speaker 2: the hard way, and Becoming You was designed to help
12:51
Speaker 2: people skip a lot of that nonsense, so to get
12:54
Speaker 2: you right to the point.
12:55
Speaker 1: That word becoming is one of my favorite words in
12:58
Speaker 1: the English language. I love that you named your book
13:03
Speaker 1: using that word. One of my favorite books in the
13:05
Speaker 1: world is a Tale of Two Cities. And as I've
13:07
Speaker 1: gotten older, I've tried to figure out why. I think
13:10
Speaker 1: there's a few reasons. There's a lot of rooting for
13:12
Speaker 1: the underdog. I like history. I think there's romance to it,
13:17
Speaker 1: believing the best in people, fighting for something larger than yourself.
13:21
Speaker 1: But mostly it is that first line, which is it
13:24
Speaker 1: was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
13:27
Speaker 1: and I live in the contradiction. I love it, I
13:30
Speaker 1: eat it up. I think the mess is interesting, and
13:32
Speaker 1: I think becoming is one of those very rare words
13:36
Speaker 1: that holds that contradiction. It's like you are evolving and
13:40
Speaker 1: you are already enough. There's a message in your book
13:43
Speaker 1: and in your work in general, that the word becoming
13:46
Speaker 1: I think holds true, which is you're constantly evolving, You're
13:50
Speaker 1: always getting better, and there's no finality in it. And
13:54
Speaker 1: becoming is that I think.
13:55
Speaker 2: You're always getting maybe not better, but actually always getting
13:59
Speaker 2: closer to the pre and you were born to be
14:01
Speaker 2: and meant to be, you know, like Joan of Arc
14:03
Speaker 2: my spirit animal had on her sword, I am not afraid.
14:06
Speaker 2: I was born to do this. And there is this
14:09
Speaker 2: moment where we may not even need to get better,
14:11
Speaker 2: We just need to get realer, more ourself, more closely
14:15
Speaker 2: aligned with our values and what we were born to
14:17
Speaker 2: do intellectually and emotionally, and drawn ever closer to the
14:21
Speaker 2: stuff that calls us intellectually and emotionally. And we may
14:24
Speaker 2: be glancingly close, or we may be very far away,
14:27
Speaker 2: but that's the journey. I think, the journey to becoming ourselves.
14:31
Speaker 1: Has the journey for you always felt worthwhile.
14:35
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't know if it's ever felt easy, But
14:37
Speaker 2: then again, I'm a person who's sort of a favorite
14:39
Speaker 2: quote is Dosvsky's suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.
14:43
Speaker 2: So I mean I think that I kind of came
14:46
Speaker 2: along because of my family background, being all artists and writers,
14:50
Speaker 2: knowing that there was something inherently tough in this journey.
14:53
Speaker 2: A great poet, Arisa White says everything good emerges from
14:58
Speaker 2: intimacy with the knowledge of your own story. And I
15:02
Speaker 2: understood that this was the journey, was to understand yourself
15:05
Speaker 2: so that you could have compassionate self awareness. And then
15:08
Speaker 2: when you have compassionate self awareness, it turns into compassionate
15:12
Speaker 2: awareness of others. And I got that that story was
15:15
Speaker 2: not easy, pasy, it wasn't basic. They had to fight
15:18
Speaker 2: for it, and I was willing for the fight. So yeah,
15:20
Speaker 2: it always felt worthwhile. But I've cried alone in my car.
15:23
Speaker 2: I've dropped my kids off and sat there and waving
15:25
Speaker 2: and smiling at them and then put my head on
15:27
Speaker 2: the steering wheel and just said, this is really tough.
15:30
Speaker 2: I mean, when my husband got sick, I had a gigantic,
15:33
Speaker 2: you know, to year pity party where I thought, why me?
15:37
Speaker 2: Why us? Why him? Why now? And it takes a
15:40
Speaker 2: long time to get to the place of understanding and
15:43
Speaker 2: peace with that stuff.
15:44
Speaker 1: I also think the rhetoric in our culture doesn't help.
15:46
Speaker 1: Sort of the idea of everything happens for a reason
15:49
Speaker 1: really feels like bs when you're going through something like that.
15:52
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, there's so many things that are told
15:55
Speaker 2: to people that's damaging or dangerous. So that's why I
15:58
Speaker 2: always say it's better to be the author of your
16:00
Speaker 2: life than the editor. You got to put the pen
16:02
Speaker 2: in your hand, and you know stuff is going to
16:04
Speaker 2: happen to you. It is going to happen to you.
16:06
Speaker 2: But sometimes we underestimate how much we can take the
16:08
Speaker 2: story back.
16:09
Speaker 1: There's this exercise in your book that's this conversation is
16:13
Speaker 1: making me think of and it's for your students to
16:15
Speaker 1: flip the script. So you list five people whose lives
16:18
Speaker 1: you'd want if you couldn't have your own, and then
16:21
Speaker 1: you notice their patterns. Can you explain what some of
16:24
Speaker 1: your students have learned about themselves from this practice?
16:27
Speaker 2: This is the whose life do you want? Any way? Exercise?
16:30
Speaker 2: But what it does is it separates you from your identity.
16:33
Speaker 2: It separates you from a lot of stuff because say, okay,
16:35
Speaker 2: look you can't have your life, whose life do you want?
16:38
Speaker 2: And I let you do two things. One is you
16:39
Speaker 2: have to list all the reasons why you want that
16:41
Speaker 2: person's life, and you have to be very honest. You know,
16:43
Speaker 2: if it's good legs, write down good legs. If it's
16:45
Speaker 2: boatloads of money, write down boatloads of money. But right,
16:47
Speaker 2: the real reasons. But I also give you this escape
16:49
Speaker 2: hatch where you can write down what you wouldn't take.
16:51
Speaker 2: Otherwise we couldn't do it because we never want anybody
16:53
Speaker 2: else's life completely wholesale, and so you know, you'd leave out,
16:56
Speaker 2: oh they never had a dog, or I'd leave out
16:58
Speaker 2: their messy divorce, or I'd leave that estrangement from their
17:01
Speaker 2: daughter or whatever. And then if you do it, and
17:04
Speaker 2: some people do five people and some people do ten people,
17:06
Speaker 2: it's amazing. Patterns always emerge. You know. You notice, oh,
17:10
Speaker 2: everybody they wrote down is famous, or everybody they wrote
17:13
Speaker 2: down is an entrepreneur, or everybody wrote down is very
17:16
Speaker 2: rich or very beautiful or has beautiful stuff, and oh wow,
17:19
Speaker 2: everything that they left out always was that they didn't
17:22
Speaker 2: have kids, or always was that they had too many
17:24
Speaker 2: kids or whatever. It never ceases to amaze me how
17:26
Speaker 2: stunned people are by what they put down. And I mean,
17:28
Speaker 2: I do a lot of work saying don't edit yourself.
17:30
Speaker 2: This is not for anybody but you. No one's going
17:32
Speaker 2: to see your results, but you be honest, whose life
17:35
Speaker 2: do you want? And sometimes they're very sheepish and they'll say, like,
17:38
Speaker 2: my number one person is Cardi B. Is that bad?
17:40
Speaker 2: And you're like the person saying it will be like
17:42
Speaker 2: a guy in a suit, you know who works on
17:44
Speaker 2: Wall Street and I'll say, what was it about Cardi
17:47
Speaker 2: B's life? And he's like, you know, she doesn't edit
17:49
Speaker 2: herself for anybody. She's utterly authentic. She's this, she's that.
17:53
Speaker 2: And I say to them, you know, like, this is
17:54
Speaker 2: the value of voice, which is authentic self expression. This
17:58
Speaker 2: is really showing up in your voice of her. How
18:01
Speaker 2: do you feel about your own authentic self expression right now?
18:04
Speaker 2: And usually what you hear is like, I got none.
18:06
Speaker 2: And so this is the case of a person who
18:08
Speaker 2: has voice is a value but is not able to
18:10
Speaker 2: express it. So this exercise shows us two things. It's
18:13
Speaker 2: sort of what we want out of life, what we
18:16
Speaker 2: don't want out of life, and often really surfaces how
18:19
Speaker 2: close we are to living the life we want.
18:22
Speaker 1: As I'm listening to you, I'm just thinking about I
18:25
Speaker 1: think the most common question I get in my DMS
18:27
Speaker 1: or on LinkedIn or on email is I want to
18:31
Speaker 1: feel really fulfilled in my career. How do I find
18:33
Speaker 1: my purpose? And you're really giving everybody a roadmap. It
18:36
Speaker 1: doesn't have to feel so obscure.
18:39
Speaker 2: This is the problem is that people are told to
18:41
Speaker 2: live their purpose. Daniel, I hate this. I mean, this
18:43
Speaker 2: is sort of what I exist for with my work,
18:45
Speaker 2: is that everybody's told to me to live their purpose, but no
18:48
Speaker 2: one's told how. And I can't stand it. It's almost
18:51
Speaker 2: more punishing to tell people, oh, you feel like you're
18:54
Speaker 2: releasing them, go live your purpose, and then you leave
18:56
Speaker 2: them hanging. It's like saying you got to go to
18:58
Speaker 2: New York and then not giving them a tip it.
19:00
Speaker 2: And so it's like, okay, here, you want to live
19:03
Speaker 2: your purpose. I have a really non woo woo, not
19:06
Speaker 2: easy way to do it, but it's a way, and
19:08
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of people have done it and it
19:10
Speaker 2: has ninety two percent efficacy, which we've tested because we
19:13
Speaker 2: wanted to make sure. We were just spewing here and
19:16
Speaker 2: people asked, does it work, and finally I thought, let's
19:18
Speaker 2: test if it works. There's tools for that. So I
19:20
Speaker 2: wanted to tell people how. I wanted to know how,
19:23
Speaker 2: and there was no one telling me, and eventually I
19:25
Speaker 2: had to figure it out. It feels great to be
19:27
Speaker 2: able to save people that journey.
19:29
Speaker 1: There's a sentence in your book from a pastor. You said,
19:32
Speaker 1: a pastor of mine once reminded me that it was
19:34
Speaker 1: okay to not be one big thing in life, but
19:36
Speaker 1: to give yourself the grace to be a series of commas.
19:39
Speaker 1: I need more information on that because I actually and
19:43
Speaker 1: this could be a sort of limiting area in my life.
19:46
Speaker 1: So I'm open and aware. But I feel as if
19:50
Speaker 1: our culture shares a lot about the multitudes of people
19:53
Speaker 1: and that you can be a multi hyphen it and
19:55
Speaker 1: be a bunch of things. And in my experience, it
19:59
Speaker 1: takes a lot of time and energy and love to
20:02
Speaker 1: be really good at something, and when you spread that around,
20:07
Speaker 1: you kind of become just Okay, all.
20:10
Speaker 2: Those multi hyphenateds were just one thing at a time,
20:12
Speaker 2: and then they lived for a while and they became
20:15
Speaker 2: multi hyphened. I mean, if, like, if you're an egot,
20:17
Speaker 2: right Emmy Grammy, Oscar Tony person, you know you got
20:21
Speaker 2: your Tony by fully dedicating yourself to being on Broadway
20:25
Speaker 2: for like twelve years. Okay, you're an Oscar winner, you
20:27
Speaker 2: like practice your It's very hard to get those and
20:30
Speaker 2: all of those people were experts in their area to
20:32
Speaker 2: become multihiphenis. I don't like myself the strategy of flitting
20:37
Speaker 2: from thing to thing. I think it's a very fast
20:39
Speaker 2: way to flit yourself right into complete dissatisfaction in a
20:42
Speaker 2: sense that you're nothing. So I think what was happening
20:45
Speaker 2: I remembered that conversation very well, which is you're going
20:48
Speaker 2: to shift through different things as you discover yourself. I
20:51
Speaker 2: think what he was counseling against. I know what he
20:54
Speaker 2: was counseling against was just thinking that you'd ever arrived.
20:56
Speaker 2: We never arrived. That's why the book is called Becoming You,
20:59
Speaker 2: not Okay, because you are always becoming you, and sometimes
21:05
Speaker 2: we have to travel through some stuff to get to
21:07
Speaker 2: that set. I mean, look at what I travel through
21:09
Speaker 2: across my life to get to where I now am
21:11
Speaker 2: living my purpose. I don't adhere to the strategy where
21:14
Speaker 2: you can be everything. I mean, I have a name
21:15
Speaker 2: for it in my class. I call it the cow
21:17
Speaker 2: Bell syndrome. And I named it for the student who
21:19
Speaker 2: came up to me and said to me after class
21:21
Speaker 2: one day, Look, I grew up on a farm. I
21:23
Speaker 2: really love farmed animals, and sometimes I just wonder why
21:25
Speaker 2: I'm not a vet. I love them, I want to
21:27
Speaker 2: be with them, I love taking care of them. But
21:29
Speaker 2: then when I go to bed at night, I dream
21:31
Speaker 2: about ringing the bell on Nasdaq when my tech company
21:34
Speaker 2: goes public. And I said, well, these are two things
21:37
Speaker 2: you can't be at the same time. Which is it
21:39
Speaker 2: going to be? Are you going to be taking care
21:41
Speaker 2: of the cows or are you going to be ringing
21:43
Speaker 2: the bell? And he said, well both, and I said no.
21:47
Speaker 2: So I named the cow bell syndrome form because you
21:49
Speaker 2: have to wake up as one thing every day. You know,
21:51
Speaker 2: you cannot wake up as sort of a Broadway performer
21:54
Speaker 2: and a tech entrepreneur on the same day. You just
21:56
Speaker 2: it's too exhausting. You can be more than one thing
21:58
Speaker 2: in your life, and in fact, you kind of have
21:59
Speaker 2: to do, because the world does not stand still.
22:13
Speaker 1: I remember what year was it, twenty twelve. It was
22:17
Speaker 1: a while ago. Anne Marie Slaughter wrote a piece in
22:20
Speaker 1: The Atlantic about women having it all, and she had
22:23
Speaker 1: just quit a very high profile job, and she basically
22:27
Speaker 1: resigned to the idea that she wasn't going to have
22:30
Speaker 1: it all the way she thought she was when she
22:31
Speaker 1: was growing up. And you have this quote in your
22:34
Speaker 1: book that not only did it give me chills, but
22:36
Speaker 1: every producer that worked on this episode was like, this
22:40
Speaker 1: is the quote, do you have the book by you
22:43
Speaker 1: by any chance? I? Okay, it's on page forty three. Okay,
22:47
Speaker 1: I love love for you to read it instead of me.
22:52
Speaker 2: Oh dear God. I tried. I could not have it
22:56
Speaker 2: all all at the same time, because no one can,
22:59
Speaker 2: not Kandice Bushnell, not Jeff Bezos, not Bill Gates, not
23:04
Speaker 2: even Taylor Swift, whose album The Tortured Poets Department should
23:08
Speaker 2: have been titled The Tortured Superstars Department to reflect all
23:12
Speaker 2: the stuff she hates about being spectacularly famous and rich. Yes,
23:15
Speaker 2: even Taylor makes trade offs, so Toada Becoming You is
23:19
Speaker 2: designed to help you do the same, because I believe
23:21
Speaker 2: it wouldn't be worth a red scent in any real
23:23
Speaker 2: world any other way.
23:24
Speaker 1: How do you think people feel when they read you
23:28
Speaker 1: cannot have it all.
23:30
Speaker 2: Relieved because they've been trying. They've been trying, and they
23:33
Speaker 2: want permission to understand you can't. I think it's such
23:36
Speaker 2: an exhale, especially for women, to say it's okay, I
23:41
Speaker 2: don't have to live that picture. I can only do
23:45
Speaker 2: what I can. And I think it actually opens the
23:48
Speaker 2: door for you to have more because you just stop
23:51
Speaker 2: dancing as fast as you can. You know, you say, Okay,
23:55
Speaker 2: I made some trade offs, and I'm going to live
23:57
Speaker 2: with the trade offs I made. This is the best
23:59
Speaker 2: potible life for me. I am as close to the
24:03
Speaker 2: person I'm meant to be. Now, there appears in your
24:05
Speaker 2: life where trying to have it all is agonizing, and
24:09
Speaker 2: it really hits you when you've got young children and
24:11
Speaker 2: you're trying to build your career. There's this crazy accident
24:14
Speaker 2: of biology, which is that there's sort of fifteen to
24:17
Speaker 2: twenty years where your children need you heart, mind, and soul,
24:21
Speaker 2: and your company needs you heart, mind and soul. And
24:24
Speaker 2: that's sort of twenty five to forty five, just when
24:26
Speaker 2: your kids are like, I need everything about you every
24:29
Speaker 2: single minute to be fixated on every need that I have,
24:32
Speaker 2: and you want that because you love them. At that
24:34
Speaker 2: exact time, if you have decided to stay in the workplace,
24:37
Speaker 2: your company is watching to see if you're going to
24:39
Speaker 2: go to the next level, and your company wants every
24:42
Speaker 2: drop of your energy, blood, sweat, and tears, and that
24:45
Speaker 2: absolutely for many women, completely overlaps at the same time
24:50
Speaker 2: and for twenty years. For those of us who decide
24:52
Speaker 2: to stay in it we suit up every day like
24:54
Speaker 2: Danaris going into wester oas for battle for the Game
24:57
Speaker 2: of Thrones fanatics like myself, and we suit up every
25:00
Speaker 2: day and fight that battle. And then your kids grow
25:03
Speaker 2: up and they're like, oh, what are you doing here?
25:05
Speaker 2: And they go away and you suddenly can breathe again
25:09
Speaker 2: a little bit. But then they come back after college
25:11
Speaker 2: because you're a good rent. They're older and wiser by
25:14
Speaker 2: that time. But that's our life, and it's in that
25:16
Speaker 2: period where one day it's such a mess and such
25:21
Speaker 2: a you know what, show that when you finally give
25:24
Speaker 2: yourself permission to say, it's not all going to work
25:26
Speaker 2: out for me. I'm not going to actually be super
25:28
Speaker 2: mom and super employee all exactly on the same day
25:32
Speaker 2: that you can finally start to breathe again and you
25:33
Speaker 2: do yourself some grace.
25:34
Speaker 1: You write that success really comes down to three things.
25:38
Speaker 1: I think everybody is going to be curious about what
25:41
Speaker 1: those are.
25:41
Speaker 2: It's professional success, Okay, I mean I think outside of that,
25:44
Speaker 2: there's other things. So for professional success, it really boils
25:47
Speaker 2: down to three things. The first is the quality of
25:49
Speaker 2: your relationships with people. And that's when most people kind
25:52
Speaker 2: of get they get you've got to be trustworthy, you've
25:53
Speaker 2: got to be likable, you've got to be good company,
25:56
Speaker 2: you've got to be a good collaborator. So it's the quality,
26:00
Speaker 2: not the quantity, but the quality of your relationships with people.
26:02
Speaker 2: All the quantity kind of matters to The second is
26:05
Speaker 2: the quality of your ideas. You can't sleep on that.
26:08
Speaker 2: You got to have good ideas, and that's why you've
26:11
Speaker 2: got to stay current and read and learn about things
26:14
Speaker 2: and know people, and you got to have some good
26:16
Speaker 2: ideas at work, or you have to be a very
26:19
Speaker 2: good shepherd of other people's ideas. So you may not
26:22
Speaker 2: be a gigantically original or creative person yourself, but if
26:25
Speaker 2: you're a midwife to other people's ideas, you can make
26:27
Speaker 2: up for that. And then the final unsung one is execution,
26:31
Speaker 2: which is if you get stuff done, if you do
26:33
Speaker 2: what you say you're going to do, if you do
26:35
Speaker 2: it early, if you do it better then you say, like,
26:37
Speaker 2: if you are reliable in getting stuff done, And women
26:41
Speaker 2: are just generally better at this and men. No shade
26:43
Speaker 2: on men, but I mean, I think this is where
26:44
Speaker 2: women really excel. I use the initials pie people, ideas
26:47
Speaker 2: and execution. And if you can hit it on those
26:50
Speaker 2: three things, it's pretty hard to hold you back.
26:53
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen a person who has those three
26:55
Speaker 1: things not accomplish their goals?
26:58
Speaker 2: Yes, for a couple of reasons. Sometimes it's because they're inconsistent,
27:03
Speaker 2: so they hit on all those cylinders one day and
27:05
Speaker 2: then don't the next day. One of the untold sort
27:08
Speaker 2: of truths about business is part of success is just
27:12
Speaker 2: showing up as the same person every day. And what
27:15
Speaker 2: really hurts you is if you're sort of one person
27:16
Speaker 2: one day and another person the next day. You know,
27:18
Speaker 2: if people can count on you as the same person
27:20
Speaker 2: every day, you're better off.
27:22
Speaker 1: See a lot of people in creative fields fight with
27:25
Speaker 1: an idea that you talk about in the book, which
27:27
Speaker 1: is a successful life and a meaningful life. What is
27:31
Speaker 1: the difference between those two things.
27:33
Speaker 2: I don't know if there is one. I mean, for me,
27:34
Speaker 2: that's what success is a meaningful, productive life. And I
27:37
Speaker 2: put productive in there because that matters to be because I
27:39
Speaker 2: think helping other people is a productive thing. A life
27:42
Speaker 2: where you feel like you're authentic and you're also connected
27:44
Speaker 2: to something larger than yourself, that's about as good as
27:46
Speaker 2: it gets. And again, I'm not in the happiness business.
27:49
Speaker 2: I'm not in the happiness industrial complex, as I lovingly
27:52
Speaker 2: call it, because I myself am a person who had
27:55
Speaker 2: everything to be happy, and then my husband got sick
27:58
Speaker 2: and I understood that a lot of time happiness is
28:00
Speaker 2: not in our own control. So I like people to
28:03
Speaker 2: go for meaningful and productive life. I think happiness is
28:06
Speaker 2: usually the byproduct, but not always.
28:08
Speaker 1: Your husband is the late Jack Welch, who was the
28:12
Speaker 1: CEO of General Electric. He was known to be one
28:16
Speaker 1: of the most influential CEOs in the world. I'm curious
28:19
Speaker 1: when you met him, if you knew that he was
28:22
Speaker 1: going to become this very influential, powerful man. Did you
28:26
Speaker 1: feel it in him?
28:27
Speaker 2: Well, we fell in love at first sight. I mean
28:29
Speaker 2: it was a total first sight thing which I simply
28:31
Speaker 2: did not believe. And I absolutely was a person who's
28:33
Speaker 2: very realistic. I did not believe it. So I knew
28:35
Speaker 2: he was going to be influential in my life. You know,
28:37
Speaker 2: he was the CEO and I met him, so he's
28:39
Speaker 2: already famous. So when I met him, I feared him
28:43
Speaker 2: because his reputation was so fearsome. And then I walked
28:47
Speaker 2: into the room and our eyes met and I literally
28:50
Speaker 2: staggered backwards, and I like, was what? And the funny
28:55
Speaker 2: thing is I was there to interview him for the
28:57
Speaker 2: Harvard Business Review, whereas the editor I went to him.
29:00
Speaker 2: So we actually had a tape recording of our first meeting,
29:03
Speaker 2: which we dutifully played for each other on every anniversary
29:07
Speaker 2: because it was hysterical that first conversation between us, because
29:10
Speaker 2: we both felt the exact same thing. And like ten
29:13
Speaker 2: minutes into the interview, he told me to turn off
29:14
Speaker 2: the tape recorder so he could ask me on a date.
29:16
Speaker 2: I think that people who met Jack when he was
29:18
Speaker 2: ten years old, though he was destined to be the
29:20
Speaker 2: person he was, he was a pretty strong personality.
29:22
Speaker 1: What it being married to somebody who held so much
29:26
Speaker 1: power personally and professionally teach you about your own power.
29:30
Speaker 2: I think Jack never thought about power. I generally don't
29:32
Speaker 2: like the word power, and I don't think he did either,
29:35
Speaker 2: and he also hated the word legacy. He was actually
29:38
Speaker 2: just a very regular, down to earth guy, Like right now,
29:40
Speaker 2: I perceive that I don't have any power, although I'm
29:42
Speaker 2: told I do. I don't desire power, and he did
29:46
Speaker 2: not desire power. He desired to build a business and
29:49
Speaker 2: create jobs, and so it's an interesting word power. I
29:52
Speaker 2: think people think they want it, but there's nothing really
29:55
Speaker 2: good about having it, you know. It's like, what's so
29:57
Speaker 2: good about it? It doesn't make you a better person.
29:59
Speaker 2: It don't want to be dis genuous here. There's something
30:01
Speaker 2: really awesome about getting every restaurant reservation that you want.
30:03
Speaker 2: You know, that's kind of a cool thing. But maybe
30:07
Speaker 2: that's sort of like where it ends, right. It's like, oh,
30:09
Speaker 2: let's go to such and such a restaurant in two hours,
30:11
Speaker 2: and yeah, you know there was a period in my
30:12
Speaker 2: life where that could happen.
30:13
Speaker 1: So it's funny because most famous people I interview cite
30:17
Speaker 1: that same example and they're like, the rest is kind
30:19
Speaker 1: of whatever.
30:19
Speaker 2: It's a really cool thing, and it doesn't extend anymore
30:22
Speaker 2: to me. Really, So I would say I miss it,
30:25
Speaker 2: but it doesn't make any difference. Really.
30:27
Speaker 1: I asked that question because I actually feel that the
30:30
Speaker 1: men that I have dated have taught me so much
30:34
Speaker 1: business wise and just like being a personal mirror to me.
30:39
Speaker 1: I guess that's where my question was coming from. But
30:41
Speaker 1: you write that Jack and I had a life together
30:43
Speaker 1: that was so complicated and chaotic. There were times it
30:46
Speaker 1: was too much for even me. What did you mean
30:48
Speaker 1: by that there.
30:49
Speaker 2: Are two values? I mean we shared all of our values,
30:51
Speaker 2: but one of his top values was scope, which is
30:53
Speaker 2: the desire for an exciting life. And the other value
30:56
Speaker 2: we shared was radius, which is a desire to change
30:58
Speaker 2: the world. And I have those extremely high, as did he.
31:02
Speaker 2: I think, you know, like the three and four for me,
31:04
Speaker 2: and we both had achievement is very high value. Our
31:05
Speaker 2: values were very similar, and I think that most people
31:08
Speaker 2: who know me would agree that I have more stamina
31:10
Speaker 2: than any other person they know. I sleep four hours
31:12
Speaker 2: a night. I've always been that way, but he out
31:14
Speaker 2: did me on it. One time, it was a really
31:17
Speaker 2: long day. I had woken up at four to be
31:19
Speaker 2: on the Today Show. I was exhausted and done homework
31:21
Speaker 2: with the kids blah blah blah, poor kids. And it
31:24
Speaker 2: was eleven o'clock and we were watching the news. I
31:26
Speaker 2: remember feeling like, oh god, it's already eleven o'clock. And
31:28
Speaker 2: I was climbing into bed and about to pull the
31:30
Speaker 2: covers up to my chin, and he looked at me
31:33
Speaker 2: with like a little mischievous look in his eyes, and
31:34
Speaker 2: he said, want to do a pub crawl and I thought,
31:37
Speaker 2: oh my god, that's what I mean. Okay, that's what
31:39
Speaker 2: I mean. And I said, look, here's the thing is,
31:41
Speaker 2: I adored him, and my marriage was my top priority
31:45
Speaker 2: and I had one unsuccessful marriage and this one was
31:48
Speaker 2: not going to be unsuccessful. And I said, you really
31:50
Speaker 2: want to do that? And he said, yeah, let's get
31:51
Speaker 2: a car and you know, meaning we were not going
31:53
Speaker 2: to drive, and he said, let's get a car and
31:55
Speaker 2: do it. I got dressed up. I remember like thinking,
31:57
Speaker 2: all right, I'm just wearing a black pair of pants
31:59
Speaker 2: and a black turtleneck. I am not even going to
32:00
Speaker 2: think about this. And we had a blast, but I
32:03
Speaker 2: would say he did most of the talking on the
32:05
Speaker 2: pub croll. We went to like five different pubs, and
32:08
Speaker 2: he made best friends at every last one of them.
32:10
Speaker 2: And we crawled into bed at like four in the morning.
32:12
Speaker 2: That's what I mean. He had even outded me.
32:15
Speaker 1: When you look back on stuff like that, are you
32:17
Speaker 1: happy you went to the pub crawl? Yeah you are,
32:20
Speaker 1: because to me, I would feel like not seen, Like
32:22
Speaker 1: I would be like, you had no idea what my
32:24
Speaker 1: day was.
32:25
Speaker 2: I never heard any doubt that he saw me. I
32:27
Speaker 2: was the center of his universe, and he did everything
32:30
Speaker 2: to make me happy. I mean I was his number one.
32:32
Speaker 2: I mean, if I had actually said to him, I
32:34
Speaker 2: don't want to do this, he would have powdered a
32:37
Speaker 2: little bit and gone to bed. But it didn't even
32:38
Speaker 2: dawn on me to say I don't want to do this.
32:40
Speaker 2: He saw me. You're right if there had been a
32:41
Speaker 2: larger pattern of not being seen, but that was not
32:45
Speaker 2: at all. You know, Jack was a person when I
32:47
Speaker 2: met him who didn't like dogs. He'd been bitten as
32:50
Speaker 2: a kid. And he said to me, like, ugh, do
32:53
Speaker 2: I have to buy into this dog thing? And I said, yeah,
32:56
Speaker 2: you do. And I mean nobody became a bigger dog Thanac,
32:59
Speaker 2: than Welch. I mean, he ended up like finding out
33:02
Speaker 2: about dog rescue and becoming deeply involved in it. And
33:05
Speaker 2: one time I was running a fundraiser for dog rescue
33:07
Speaker 2: and he saw me so much like trying to raise
33:10
Speaker 2: money that he got up on stage with the microphone
33:12
Speaker 2: into a huge crowd of people said into the microphone,
33:15
Speaker 2: take out your wallets and give money to my wife's
33:18
Speaker 2: effing charity. Okay, he actually used the full word. He
33:20
Speaker 2: was like, you're not doing this hard enough. Susie, so
33:23
Speaker 2: I saw, I was seen. Thank you for that memory.
33:25
Speaker 2: I loved him doing that. I just stood there with
33:26
Speaker 2: my mouth hanging open. People literally took out their wallets
33:28
Speaker 2: and gave money to my effing charity.
33:30
Speaker 1: So you used your becoming New method on your own
33:44
Speaker 1: life after Jack passed away, that obviously changed everything. Can
33:49
Speaker 1: you talk about how your life and your reality transformed
33:53
Speaker 1: after that?
33:53
Speaker 2: Well, he died at the beginning of the pandemic. He
33:56
Speaker 2: had been sick a long time, and then he died
33:58
Speaker 2: on March first, and then the pandemic struck two weeks later,
34:01
Speaker 2: and I went up to the woods with my kids
34:03
Speaker 2: and their spouses and all of our dogs. We all thought, Okay,
34:06
Speaker 2: who knows what's going to happen to the world. But
34:07
Speaker 2: then the pandemic ended and the kids went back to
34:11
Speaker 2: their lives and I was up there in the woods
34:13
Speaker 2: walking the dogs, and luckily the Today Show called and
34:16
Speaker 2: asked me to come back on. And when I got
34:18
Speaker 2: onto the set of the Today Show again, it was
34:21
Speaker 2: still Jota and Jenna then, and I said, oh my god,
34:25
Speaker 2: I actually need to come back to work. I need
34:27
Speaker 2: to work again. But I didn't want to go back
34:28
Speaker 2: to TV. I needed something full time and more me,
34:32
Speaker 2: and I felt like there's something missing there. So I
34:35
Speaker 2: had been working on them Becoming You methodology at that
34:37
Speaker 2: point for around fifteen years, and one night my kids
34:40
Speaker 2: were visiting for dinner and I said, I have this
34:42
Speaker 2: idea to teach this methodology and they knew what it
34:45
Speaker 2: was because I've been talking about it for so long,
34:48
Speaker 2: and I said, I just don't know what to call it.
34:50
Speaker 2: And my son, who was I think about thirty or
34:52
Speaker 2: thirty two at the time, said I think you should
34:54
Speaker 2: call it Becoming You, mom, And I was like, that
34:56
Speaker 2: is exactly what I should call it. And so I
34:59
Speaker 2: took them methodology to NYU and said, would you be
35:02
Speaker 2: interested in possibly having a class on this? To my
35:05
Speaker 2: great gratitude, they said, we'll give it a trie and experiment,
35:09
Speaker 2: and none of us could have predicted what would happen
35:11
Speaker 2: when the class got offered and went from there. But
35:14
Speaker 2: I was the first beta tester of the methodology because
35:16
Speaker 2: I was trying to figure out my values, my aptitudes,
35:19
Speaker 2: and my economically viable interests. I mean, I did every
35:22
Speaker 2: exercise with the students that first semester, and I went
35:25
Speaker 2: through the entire process with them, and as they were
35:28
Speaker 2: having their eurekas, so was I. And luckily my eureka
35:32
Speaker 2: led me to exactly what I'm doing, which is being
35:34
Speaker 2: a purpose doula and helping people find their own purpose.
35:37
Speaker 2: That is what I was meant to be doing.
35:39
Speaker 1: You write in the book that it can be fearsome, humbling,
35:41
Speaker 1: and occasionally embarrassing to admit who we are, but we
35:44
Speaker 1: truly do need to know so that we can set
35:47
Speaker 1: out on the journey towards who it is. We must
35:49
Speaker 1: become confronting yourself. People avoid it their entire lives. Why
35:53
Speaker 1: do you feel like they're willing to do it with
35:55
Speaker 1: Becoming You?
35:56
Speaker 2: They don't want to reforce them. This is why the
35:59
Speaker 2: nickname of the class is the class where everyone cries. Look,
36:02
Speaker 2: it's the most popular class, so I must be doing
36:04
Speaker 2: something right. But people cry a lot in Becoming You.
36:08
Speaker 2: And I mean I almost like know when it's coming.
36:10
Speaker 2: It's sort of like twenty minutes into the first class.
36:13
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, You're not gonna do it without help. So
36:15
Speaker 2: we force people to do it. And that's what all
36:18
Speaker 2: the tests are about, that's what all the exercises are about.
36:21
Speaker 2: And I don't believe in self reporting. Nobody can self
36:24
Speaker 2: report on their values, or their aptitudes, or their personality.
36:28
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the hardest parts of the class
36:29
Speaker 2: is when we have to take a good, hard look
36:31
Speaker 2: at our personality. That's one of our aptitudes is our personality.
36:34
Speaker 2: You can be great at a job because of your personality.
36:37
Speaker 2: You can be terrible at your job because of your personality.
36:39
Speaker 2: So we got to find out what your personality is. Oh,
36:41
Speaker 2: people want to tell me what their personality is. I'm sorry,
36:44
Speaker 2: that's not the way it works. Your personality is not
36:46
Speaker 2: the list of words used to describe yourself. Your personality
36:49
Speaker 2: is how the world experiences you. You can say I'm good,
36:53
Speaker 2: I'm kind, I'm loyal, I'm a great listener, and the
36:55
Speaker 2: world can be experiencing you as hostile and disingenuous. And
36:59
Speaker 2: so we do three to sixty feedback for everybody, and
37:02
Speaker 2: you got to do it, and then we give you
37:04
Speaker 2: self awareness score because you take the exact same questions
37:06
Speaker 2: that your raiders are taking and then we compare them.
37:09
Speaker 2: And everybody goes in thinking they're going to get one
37:11
Speaker 2: hundred percent on self awareness. That does not happen.
37:14
Speaker 1: There's no way. I mean, it struck me when you
37:17
Speaker 1: talk about integrity that you think that oftentimes people think
37:20
Speaker 1: they have more integrity than they actually do.
37:22
Speaker 2: They always do. They always think they're more integrity, and
37:24
Speaker 2: they always think they've got more self awareness. Like the
37:26
Speaker 2: typical person says I have ninety eight to one hundred
37:28
Speaker 2: percent self awareness, and the typical self awareness hovers around
37:31
Speaker 2: fifty six percent. Okay, but their people get twenty percent
37:35
Speaker 2: self awareness on the tests. You ask such a great
37:37
Speaker 2: question and the answer is, to be brutally honest, almost
37:40
Speaker 2: no one does it, and so we have to kick
37:42
Speaker 2: their ends lovingly with testing. Otherwise you're just gonna get
37:46
Speaker 2: gobbly gooped. You know what you get when you don't
37:47
Speaker 2: do what we do, which again this is not an
37:49
Speaker 2: easy process. Is you get magical thinking? Do you ask
37:52
Speaker 2: people what's your purpose? They say stuff that's just simply
37:55
Speaker 2: not possible. I want to be Seline Dion, but they
37:59
Speaker 2: can't sing I want to be a famous influencer. Well,
38:02
Speaker 2: you don't have an idea. And the thing about influencers
38:04
Speaker 2: is they're filled with ideas. They've got something that people
38:07
Speaker 2: want to hear them talk about. And it's like, we
38:10
Speaker 2: got to be real. Your dreams matter, but your dreams
38:13
Speaker 2: have got to be achievable or otherwise they're not.
38:15
Speaker 1: A purpose that I think speaks to the third portion
38:18
Speaker 1: of your book, which is economic valability. And I hear
38:22
Speaker 1: you and Scott Galloway wave this flag more than anybody
38:25
Speaker 1: else on the internet, which is, do not follow your passion.
38:28
Speaker 2: Unless you're give at it, unless you're great at it.
38:30
Speaker 2: I mean, on my head explodes. If you want to
38:32
Speaker 2: trigger me at a dinner party, say I just told
38:34
Speaker 2: my son to follow his passion and the host has
38:36
Speaker 2: to leave me outside so that I can recapture my breathing.
38:38
Speaker 2: I mean, fine, if you're great at it, okay, But
38:42
Speaker 2: if you're not, it's a hobby, okay, have it as
38:45
Speaker 2: a hobby. And my daughter is a saramitist. She's a potter.
38:48
Speaker 2: She makes the most gorgeous pottery. My mom was a potter,
38:51
Speaker 2: and we are constantly in the family pottery studio. This
38:54
Speaker 2: is our family activity like some families like play frisbee,
38:56
Speaker 2: but no, we go into the pottery studio. And so
38:58
Speaker 2: I'm terrible. I'm absolute terry. I mean, but I still
39:01
Speaker 2: make pottery. And that's why it's a hobby. And everybody
39:03
Speaker 2: Christmas gets the results of my hobby and they're very
39:06
Speaker 2: sweet about it. But I'm not trying to make a
39:07
Speaker 2: living doing it. And that's why you've got to understand
39:10
Speaker 2: what jobs you can do that can pay you what
39:13
Speaker 2: you want to be paid.
39:14
Speaker 1: I feel like I need it for different interviews with you,
39:16
Speaker 1: because I have all these questions for you about interviewing
39:20
Speaker 1: and getting hired. But I think, over archingly, without getting
39:24
Speaker 1: into the weeds, the big question that so many people
39:26
Speaker 1: have is that our world is changing so rapidly right
39:30
Speaker 1: now that a lot of people can't even predict what's
39:33
Speaker 1: going to be happening. And technologically, politically, I think pivoting
39:38
Speaker 1: is probably more important than ever. What advice from your
39:41
Speaker 1: book do you think will stand the test of time
39:44
Speaker 1: as the world is rapidly changing.
39:45
Speaker 2: Oh, I hope it also the test of time. It's
39:47
Speaker 2: meant to, But I would say that the world is
39:50
Speaker 2: the world of pivots. If somebody took the Becoming You
39:52
Speaker 2: Immersive and he said, I'm just looking for a job
39:54
Speaker 2: with security, and I said, you're not going to find it,
39:57
Speaker 2: but let's just go from there. I mean, nobody knows.
39:59
Speaker 2: I don't know, but here's the thing. You can know something,
40:03
Speaker 2: and that is you can know yourself. I mean, that's
40:05
Speaker 2: what Becoming You gives you. It gives you a user's manual.
40:07
Speaker 2: It tells you what your values are, It tells you
40:09
Speaker 2: what your aptitudes are, and it tells you what kind
40:11
Speaker 2: of work you're drawn to emotionally and intellectually. That matches
40:14
Speaker 2: your affluence value. And so if you know yourself, you
40:17
Speaker 2: can plug yourself into any world. Right, if you know
40:19
Speaker 2: who you are and so you can't know the world,
40:22
Speaker 2: but you can know you. So no matter what happens
40:24
Speaker 2: in the world, you can place yourself in it with
40:27
Speaker 2: more ease. Maybe it won't be easy, but you say, okay,
40:29
Speaker 2: the world went that way. My values are x, Okay,
40:32
Speaker 2: my aptitudes are why. Okay, I see the place for me.
40:35
Speaker 2: But if you go into the crazy changing world and
40:37
Speaker 2: you're guessing you are so far behind, you got to
40:41
Speaker 2: go in armed with such self knowledge. I mean, now,
40:44
Speaker 2: in Becoming You, I just started at this semester, students
40:47
Speaker 2: are coming out with literally a thing called their user's manual,
40:49
Speaker 2: which is like a book about them that lists their
40:52
Speaker 2: values and their aptitudes and actually gives them the best
40:56
Speaker 2: answers for typical interview questions based on their values and
40:59
Speaker 2: their aptitudes. You need a user's manual now because the
41:01
Speaker 2: world's way could do it.
41:02
Speaker 1: That is really good advice. I have some rapid fire
41:06
Speaker 1: questions for you. Okay, God, the best investment you've made
41:13
Speaker 1: in yourself dogs a detour that was important in your life.
41:17
Speaker 2: Every failure?
41:19
Speaker 1: Do you believe in failure? You think they're all pivots.
41:21
Speaker 2: No, they're not all pivots. Failure is failure. Sometimes you
41:23
Speaker 2: just really blow it, but you learn a lot.
41:26
Speaker 1: What's something that you wish more people asked you about
41:29
Speaker 1: my faith? I wish I would have asked you more
41:30
Speaker 1: about that. That's for part two. A piece of financial
41:33
Speaker 1: advice that you wish you knew at twenty years old.
41:35
Speaker 2: I think I knew when I was twenty two, and
41:37
Speaker 2: it was great advice. I heard it when I was
41:38
Speaker 2: twenty two or twenty three, and it's this, there's no
41:41
Speaker 2: last best deal. Okay. People who are trying to get
41:44
Speaker 2: you to buy something or do something are always trying
41:46
Speaker 2: to convince you that this is the last best deal.
41:48
Speaker 2: There is no last best deal. That's the best financial advice,
41:51
Speaker 2: and it saved me a thousand times.
41:53
Speaker 1: What's one thing that you learn from your students at NYU.
41:56
Speaker 2: They teach me every single day. Gentleness, how scared it is,
42:01
Speaker 2: how important it is for people like me to say
42:03
Speaker 2: everything is going to be okay, even if you think
42:06
Speaker 2: it's not going to be okay, Even if it isn't
42:08
Speaker 2: okay for a little while, things are going to be okay.
42:11
Speaker 1: One thing that every woman should try once you know.
42:13
Speaker 2: I am of the belief that you should just continually
42:15
Speaker 2: do things that are really hard. So I would say,
42:18
Speaker 2: hard stuff, just keep doing it.
42:20
Speaker 1: A question that you like to ask yourself?
42:23
Speaker 2: Does this match my values?
42:24
Speaker 1: I think that we all know something that other people don't.
42:27
Speaker 1: So if you could teach me one random thing today,
42:30
Speaker 1: something that you think I need to hear, what would
42:33
Speaker 1: it be?
42:33
Speaker 2: In general, it's always better to be the author of
42:37
Speaker 2: your life than the editor. And we so easily fall
42:41
Speaker 2: into being the editor, and we let other people write
42:43
Speaker 2: our stories for us. And so I'd say, know yourself
42:46
Speaker 2: well enough that you can keep the pen of your
42:48
Speaker 2: life in your own hand and write that story for yourself.
42:52
Speaker 1: What's a book that changed your life? Something you think
42:55
Speaker 1: everybody should read.
42:56
Speaker 2: There's two novels I really love one is The Corrections
42:59
Speaker 2: by Jonathan Franz, because it's just about how families behave
43:03
Speaker 2: and it actually is a book that asks the question,
43:05
Speaker 2: can you rewrite your narrative that your family has written
43:08
Speaker 2: for you? Because our families write stories for us, and
43:11
Speaker 2: can you rewrite the story? And it really asks that.
43:13
Speaker 2: It doesn't have a very positive answer, but I beg
43:15
Speaker 2: to differ, but I think it's an important one. And
43:17
Speaker 2: then I love the book Piece Like a River. It's
43:19
Speaker 2: a beautiful novel. It asked the question if miracles really
43:23
Speaker 2: can happen? And I think it's worth pondering, and it
43:26
Speaker 2: asks it in a very intelligent, thoughtful, provocative way, and
43:30
Speaker 2: I think we should always be open to wonder. And
43:32
Speaker 2: so both those books on door.
43:33
Speaker 1: Thank you for those. I haven't read either of them. Okay,
43:36
Speaker 1: my last question to you is the question everything card game.
43:40
Speaker 1: Feel free to tell me when to stop stop. Okay,
43:43
Speaker 1: what do you want to be known for?
43:45
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, it's so hackney to say this, but
43:47
Speaker 2: that I help people. I mean that I helped people
43:52
Speaker 2: wage peace. I think the peace of the world starts
43:54
Speaker 2: in us, and if we are at peace with ourselves,
43:57
Speaker 2: then we turn and we just help the person next
43:59
Speaker 2: to us. Can be a very disconnected, discordant, acrimonious world
44:03
Speaker 2: right now, and so if I just started one chain
44:05
Speaker 2: of somebody finding peace so that they could share peace,
44:08
Speaker 2: that would be good enough.
44:09
Speaker 1: You are one of the most special people I've ever
44:12
Speaker 1: had the privilege of speaking to. I'm so grateful for
44:14
Speaker 1: your time.
44:15
Speaker 2: I'm honored.
44:21
Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day,
44:24
Speaker 1: to have a good day. I'll see you next week.