November 4, 2025 • 38 mins
In today's episode, Laura interviews Suzy Welch, a New York Times best-selling author, business journalist, and television commentator, and also an NYU professor. She and Laura talk career advice and she provides thoughts and advice on finding your purpose -- a topic she talks about in her new book, Becoming You, as well as her popular course at NYU.
You can learn more and find Suzy Welch at suzywelch.com.
In the Q&A, a listener with young kids writes in wondering how to NOT travel to her extended family for Thanksgiving (without offending her relatives).
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome the best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in early November of twenty twenty five.
I am going to be interviewing Susie Welch. We're delighted
to have her here at the best of both worlds.
Susie teaches at the New York University Stern School of Business.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
She is the author of the book.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Becoming You, which is all about finding your purpose in life. So,
Susie has a long career of writing about business related
topics and business leadership, and one of her big ideas
a couple of years ago was I think this is.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
The title of one of her books.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
It is ten ten ten, and that is when you
were choosing what to do, you ask yourself how you
will think about it in ten minutes, how you will
think about it in ten months, and will it matter
in ten years now. I had to look that up
because I first thought was it was ten hours, ten days,
and ten years, but I guess it's ten minutes, ten months,
ten years. So I'm curious, Sarah, is there anything big
(01:34):
that you were thinking about and wondering about ten years
ago that turned out not to be something that you
are thinking about now.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I was just like, Okay, this is twenty fifteen, and
what would have been kind of stressing me out? What
would I have been ruminating about then? And I think
there were like two things that came to mind. One
is that I was always worried about having to miss
work with my kids getting sick and like did I
have enough layers?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
And I had a full time nanny, so.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I don't know, I just felt I just remember being
like every single day, like being nervous that like the
shoe would drop in the morning and I miss work
and something bad would happen. So that's interesting, definitely not
something I worry about now. And then also one of
those things where like in retrospect, like if I had
missed a few days, like what would have happened?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Nothing?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
And then the other thing is I do feel like
that I would have certain clinical dilemmas that would stress
me out so much, like, oh, I don't know what
to do, Like this is so hard. I'm like internalizing
the patient and like I now am at a point
when so yesterday I was working and we have this
junior colleague that's like one or two years I think
she's like a year at a fellowship now, and she's
(02:40):
always coming to my office with this worried look on
her face and asking me these questions. And the questions
never seem hard to me. I'm always like, oh, do this,
Like it does make you realize that when you're new at.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Something, it's really really hard.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
And I'm not saying my clinical job still doesn't have challenges,
because of course it does, but it is totally easier.
Recognizing that is really fun.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, yeah, I know that we get better at what
we do, which is a wonderful thing for sure. With
another decade of experience under your belt, Well, mine is
a little bit more lighter than that. I was thinking
of this ten years ago. I had been wanting to.
I we had this episode about wanting a bigger kitchen
recently with Kate Strickler. Right, So, ten years ago, I
was really unhappy with my kitchen. I wanted to renovate it,
(03:24):
but it seemed like a huge thing to do. I
didn't really have experience with doing a whole lot of
renovation and what that would involve, and so I was
very nervous about the process and all that. We finally
finally did it in twenty eighteen, which, you know, you
realize you should have done it years ago, But of
course none of that mattered now because we wound up moving.
(03:46):
We bought a different house in twenty twenty, which then
I had renovated a whole different kitchen, although probably learned
some lessons from the first one, and it probably helped
to have renovated the kitchen to sell that house, although
I'm sure that the people who bought it have probably
ripped everything out and done their own things, So none
of it was really worth all this angst that I
(04:07):
probably put into it. So, yes, kitchen angst, that was
your practice kitchen. It was my practice kitchen. But if
it was going to be my practice kitchen, I should
have done it so much before twenty eighteen. I should
have done it the second we moved into the house
if I didn't like it, but live and learn.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Turns out you can change things that you don't like.
Life moved on.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
But anyway, Susie has all sorts of great career and
life advice. So we're very excited to hear from Susie Welch. Well,
Sarah and I are delighted to welcome Susie Welch to
this show. So Susie, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for
having me.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, we are very excited to talk with you. So
maybe you could tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Okay, Well I'm sixty six, so this could take a
while to you know, get yourself a hot toddy and
sit back, all right. I'm a professor Management Practice at
NY Eastern School of Business, where I teach MA but
I also teach a class called Becoming You about that
process of figuring out who you are in what direction
you should go. And I also teach the CITTMYU in
open enrollment. So I've taught it to people of all
(05:10):
ages from around the world. I'm also the mother of
four and I have two little grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Oh that's a wonderful, full life. Yeah, full life for sure.
And you've had quite a very career. This stint at
NYU is only the latest of a long string of things.
I mean, you want to list a few. I know,
crime reporter, look at my career.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Makes perfect sense to me. I mean maybe when you
get to a certain point in your life. It Look,
you've had a lot of jobs, you know what I mean,
I'm four decades into this working thing. Look, I start
off as a journalist, and in those days, you started
on the crime desk, and I did. That's how they
started journalists in nineteen eighty one. I don't know a
reporter who didn't start that way. And I started as
(05:52):
a crime reporter. It's filled with fabulous stories. I love it.
I learned a lot about human nature. I always say
to my kids, you know, if you want to learn
about human nature, really quickly, be a crime reporter in
Miami in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
So I didn't want to rest to pull off now
right it is, But I mean that's good retrospective advice.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
But that exposure to the real world is good stuff. Yeah.
I happened to love to write, and so that was
a lucky combination. And I was buffing along happily and
successfully as a crime reporter until one day I was
serendipitously reassigned to cover business. I had no interest in it.
I didn't want to do it. I went kicking and screaming,
and yet that was the open job, and it was
(06:30):
a promotion. I went into it and I thought, I'm
going to fail. I know nothing about this thing business.
I had been a fine arts major in college. I
had covered crime, and I didn't know what they were
talking about, but I thought it was very interesting. I
thought whatever they were talking about seemed to be important.
These were people who definitely understood why the world was working.
(06:50):
And I was like, wow, I know nothing about this
at all. And so in those days, there was no
Internet to go find out about business. There was no anything.
You couldn't read enough books to understand what business was.
I cooked up this crazy sigmate where I went and
I interviewed so of the top business CEOs in the
New England region. I was working in Boston at the time,
(07:10):
but it wasn't enough to go interview CEOs at all,
and so I did that. You know what seemed to
be a normal thing, which is I applied to business
school to learn about business. And you know, one of
the great mysteries of all times how I was accepted
at business school, but I was. I went to HBS
and I had a fantastic time there. I learned a
ton about business. It ended up I had something of
an aptitude for it, and I became a business journalist.
(07:32):
So this all makes sense to me. I mean, so
you know, sure you see on my resume that I
started as a crime reporter. I ended up working at Baine.
But it kind of made sense. When you go to
business school, you generally graduate into a job in consulting
or banking. I went the consulting route. I did it
for seven years. I learned a ton about business. I
kind of got my sea legs underneath me. And then
I combined the two. I was recruited away to come
(07:53):
run the Harvard Business Review because they thought, oh, look
there's a person who has a basic understanding of business
but also can write. To go get her. And they did,
and I had a great run there. And then I,
in the process of doing that, met my husband who
at the time had just retired as a cooge and
we decided I got fired for writing a story about him.
But whatever, this is ancient history now, I don't think
(08:14):
it would happened today. And then I joined forces with Jack.
We wrote a couple of business books together, we had
a TV show, and then I ended up going and
doing work on my own, writing a business column for
oh Oprah's magazine, writing my own books about business and
decision making, and then I ended up having two shows
on CNBC about business and careers. So again it makes
(08:36):
sense to me. Okay, I get that it looks like
it's a but you know I was. I was pivoting
along with the times. I wrote my original newspaper stories
on a manual typewriter, and I kept on having to
be it, just like everybody to day has to pivot.
The big pivot really wasn't to academia, which happened after
my husband died and I needed a new beginning and
(08:59):
it seemed to make some sense to me, and it
was calling me, and I thought, I'm going to give
it a try. I have this idea, this class I
want to teach coll becoming you, And YU was a
very entrepreneurial place, and they said, we'll let you try
it here. We'll watch you closely, but we'll let you
try it here. And it worked out really well.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Absolutely well, we're going to get to becoming you and
all the things people might learn about themselves as they
are becoming you.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
But I want to back up.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
A little bit because a lot of our listeners are
moms with young kids who are also working big jobs.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yes, that's why we are best at both worlds.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
And so I understand that your stint at Bain also
corresponded with you having like four small children.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
I did write as a timeline, So I.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Wonder if you talk a little bit about the logistics
of your life then the various strategies you employed so.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
To make me work. You know. Look, first of all,
I can't swear on the show. Yeah it was the
s show. Yes, it was the absolute horror show. Is terrible.
I can't I paint a pretty picture of it. It
was really hard and at the time my first marriage,
which I was in my children with my first husband,
who was a very dear friend of mine now, but
he wasn't at the time. Our marriage was a disaster,
(10:11):
and so I had a lot of stuff going on.
I would say this, I'll describe it to you and
how bad it was and how I did logistically. It
doesn't go like that anymore because it doesn't happen that
there's a firm that doesn't have a partner track for mothers. Okay,
But when I was at Vain, you had your kids,
and you basically pretended you didn't have kids. The trick
was to not show your motherhood anywhere. These days have gone.
(10:33):
They're gone. I have many good friends now who are
being who are happy parents. Okay, But in those days
nineteen eighty eight, the trick was my first kid. In
nineteen eighty nine, I had four kids in five years,
and I was succeeding if I never talked about them
and no one ever saw it. And I still traveled
four days a week along with my case team. We
(10:55):
had my fourth child, a case team meeting in the hospital.
My team came. That was an important thing. I was
holding the newborn baby. They sat around my bed and
we talked about work. But these were really different times.
The way I did it logistically was I had a nanny,
I was making a good salary Baine, and my husband
was working as well, and so we had enough money
that I had to live in nanny and she remains
(11:15):
a dear friend of mine. She helped me raise my kids.
She was a young irishwoman. How she knew so much
about kids, I don't know. But I loved her and
the kids loved her. And she was with us for
eight years, which is a long time in nannydom. And
you know, on my sister's help, My mom helped, everybody helped.
We all helped each other. Both of my sisters were
not working, so I could lean on them, but that's
(11:36):
you know, you can't lean too heavily on people. And
my mom stepped in, but she had a lot of
grandchildren to step in for. But I wouldn't wish it
on anybody. It was hard. Yeah, And look, one of
the reasons I went to Harvard Business Review when they
came to recruit me after that was that in the interview,
I asked the editor in chief how much travel is
there with this job? And she said she thought I
(11:58):
wanted travel, so she said, unfortunately, lay none and I
said I'll take it. I said, I'll take take it.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Sign me up.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
I know that seemed like and it was actually when
I didn't have to travel four days a week. It
was a lot better. But you know, I'm still a
working mom. I have four children and they're in their thirties.
But if your kids are still young and you think
they're ever going away, you're so mistaken. They never go away.
In their twenties and thirties, they become very dear friends
of yours. Their problems become bigger, Their friends become characters
(12:28):
in your life. Their partners become characters and important individuals
in your life. I'm unbelievably close to my kids' partners.
Their lives are critically important to me. And so I'm
still a working mom. I mean last night, my daughter
who's thirty five, wrote me a text we were gonna
have dinner together, and I wrote back to her, go
away because I was still I was like I was working.
(12:48):
The difference is that you could really talk to them
about working a way they understand.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
So let's talk a little bit before we go to
our first commercial break about this idea of becoming you
so you wind up with your job at NYU. We're
going to teach this course on how people are going
to find themselves.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I guess is how we're to talk to your purpose. Yeah,
find their purpose.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
And you joke in the book that you didn't really
find your purpose till you were sixty, that this was
your ultimate purpose.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So I mean, is this really something people can.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Do at any time of life? I mean we can,
we can figure those out. So yes, I mean I've
taught the Becoming You Methodology to people from ages sixteen
to seventy eight and with great success. Okay, so when
you're dead, you're done, is I like to say. And
until then you're living, and so you can get closer
to living your purpose, which is it feels exquisite. It's
(13:40):
a really beautiful thing. It's wonderful, and so I highly
recommend it. But why would you ever stop trying?
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
So, the Becoming You methodology, it's somewhat from what I
can understand from your book and all that is that
it's a sequence of tests where you are figuring out
your various values, your aptitudes, you are figuring out your personality,
and you are putting all this together.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
And so it's three data sets. That's a good job.
Thank you for summarizing that way. Look, you gather data.
There's three data sets. The first is your values, which
we rank from one to sixteen. We get really nobody
really knows what their values are. They think there's only
two values, there's sixteen, and we do a very we
do a series of exercises. But then there's just one
big test called the values Bridge, which I developed in
(14:25):
my lab, that ranks your values for you from one
sixteen in a way that is scientific and research based
and removes your identity and all sorts of other issues
from it, which is very nifty, but also tells you
how far you are from living your values. It also
measures that that's always a very big moment to get
that data back. The second set of data that we
excavate are your aptitudes, and so we do both cognitive aptitudes,
(14:47):
which are your the big six. You know whether or
not your generalist or a specialist, a brainstormer or contributor.
So we test for those, and then we also look
at your emotional aptitudes, which are really your personality, and
we don't let you tell us what your personality is.
We have the world report on your personality because the
underlying premise of becoming you is that your personality is
(15:09):
how people experience you. So that's the second set of
data your cognitive and emotional aptitudes. And then the third
set of data is your economically viable interests. That's the
work that calls you emotionally or intellectually or both and
also pays you according to it. Or desired affluence value
is so like everybody has a different value that they
(15:32):
place on money, and so we've already discerned that through
the first sets of tests, and so then we look
at this third thing. We sort of open the aperture
on all the different kinds of work and different industries
that exist, and then we put it all together and
we identify what's called your area of transcendence, your purpose.
Sometimes people will come up with two options. Typically it's
one option. There's a lot of technology involved in this process.
(15:55):
There's a lot of tests that we've developed, assessment tools
that we've developed in the lab that make it easier
on peace because it's a lot of data to gather.
But we think we've helped a lot and then you've
got it. And tens of thousands of people have gone
through this process now, and for some people it's a
little tweak. Okay, yes, I'm so close, I just need
to do X. And for other people it's like got
to get out the TNT kind of stuff. There's a
(16:15):
very big reinvention or very big change that has to
either be done or considered. I mean, sometimes people walk
away and say I need a year to think about this,
and other times people say it's it. I've been waiting
for this conviction and this clarification and I'm going to
go do this. So I've seen everything at this point
with it. It's exciting. Yep.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Absolutely, all right.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Well we're going to take a quick ad break and
then I will be back with more from Susie Welch. Well,
I am back talking with Susie Welch, who is the
author of Becoming You, host of that podcast, also teaches
(16:56):
at NYU, which is helping many people discover their purpose
in life.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
So Susie, I had to laugh when I.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Was going through some of your things and Becoming You,
of learning about your different values and all that. I
think I'm highest on agency, which makes sense.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Did you take the test I have?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I did not go through a completely I will.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Because maybe look, sometimes people are really right, like I
knew my top values before I took it, but I'm
and maybe you do, but you think you're high on agency,
which is the value that it reflects how much self
determination matters to you. Do you often feel like you
want it? You want to drive all the decisions.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
And I cannot work for anyone else, says I can't
even do group exercise classes because I don't want people
telling me what to do.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Okay, I'm seeing the agency. I think you're right, and
that really matters, Like it matters in so many ways.
It matters in terms of your career and you already
know how it plays out, but it matters in relationships too.
It's a little bit concerning for me when I do
the Becoming Us methodology, which is when people do becoming
you together, there's a couple and both people have high agency.
It's fine if both people have medium, or both people
(18:02):
have low, or one has high and one has low.
But in a marriage, for instance, where both people have
high self determination.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
It gets complicated, gets complicated for sure, what are you
sort of off the charts on of the different app
So my.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Top value is cosmos. That's the faith value of a
faithful person, And so this reflects how much your faith
is an organizing principle of your life. And so my
number one value is cosmos, and it has been across
all the years of us testing the tool. My second
value is radius, which is the value that reflects how
much you want to create systemic change in the world.
So that's a different value than wanting to help people,
(18:41):
because wanting to help people is often quite an intimate act,
and we call that non city not for oneself, and
it attracts very differently than the value of radius, which
is a strong desire to create systemic change. And for
me that's I have that in many different aspects of
my life. And then my third value is what we
call work centrism, which is the desire for work to
be the organizing principle of your life. I love work.
(19:03):
I've always loved work. When I was a little girl,
literally I would see a woman with a briefcase and
I didn't know what she was doing, but I would think,
I want to be her. I've always loved work. And
we don't allow the word workaholic in the lexicon of
becoming you. People either have high work centrism or lower
work centrism. It's no wrter or no wronger anywhere you are.
(19:25):
We're sort of the judgment free zone. But I definitely
have close friends who have lower work centrism than I do,
and we talk about it and we joke about it,
and we ask each other about it. But it's not
right or wrong. So those are my top three. I
also have high achievement and a high place, which is
the value around where you want to live.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
But is it common for people to have a lot
that are sort of in the middle, Like I feel
like a lot of people there are many things that
we could feel in the middle on right, Like, you know,
you want to be comfortable, but money isn't the driving
force of your life or things like that.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Everybody's different. Everybody has top values and if they're middle,
show up as middle. I mean, the tool force ranks it.
So the way it tests it is it's going to
find out which ones are the top for you and
which ones are the middle, and which are the bottom.
I mean, it's very possible that you have two that
are sort of middling. For sure, you do, yeah, but
you have some that are defining and not defining for
(20:16):
sure all people do. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
And then let's talk about this idea of sort of
following your passion, which I know gets a bit of
a grimace when we put it that way. But you
talk about just in many cases people sort of underestimate
what are economically viable interests. I know, you go on
a whole rant in Becoming You about some TikToker who
(20:38):
was going on about how she had no idea what
she wanted to do with her life, what was everyone
else doing? Somebody please tell her what she should do?
And then she mentions she'd love to have a farm
and rescue dogs. And then she moves on as if
this is nothing that anyone could ever pursue a career in.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Yeah. Look, when it comes to passions, I think there's
this follow your passion stuff and I and my answer
to that is is, yeah, fine, if you're good at it.
If you're good at it, If you're not good at it,
then it's a hobby, all right. I love ceramics. I'm
terrible at ceramics. My daughter happens to be a ceramicist.
So we have a pottery studio in the garage. And
I know how bad I am at ceramics. Do I
(21:13):
love it? And do I do it every weekend? I
sure do, But I'm not going to pursue it as
a career because us stink right, and she's magnificent and
she makes her living doing ceramics because she's so good
at it and she always has been. And so passions
are fine, but most people have some level of affluence
or you know, having money as of value, and so
I or you with the whole becoming you methodology urges
(21:34):
you to do is find what's at the intersection of
your passions, which we would say are values or potentially interests,
and your aptitudes. So that's why there's so much data,
because something's at the intersection of those three super highways,
if you will, and it's where they meet that you
are going to find most likely to find your purpose.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
But you have people that go through and research all
sorts of varying industry. Is that, you know, because people
haven't really thought about it, right, that's right.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
There's one hundred and thirty five industries and eleven hundred
job titles. There's twelve mega trends, and what it's happening is,
I mean, there's research that's just heart stopping in terms
of like kids coming out of high school know about
five jobs can spontaneously, unprompted, name five jobs and two
of those are typically their parents. Then you go to
college and you think, oh, they're going to learn about
(22:24):
a lot more jobs. They don't. They have the five
jobs they used to know about, plus two that they
heard through group think. You know, oh everybody should get
a job and took right. And then you go to
graduate school. Forget it. It's down to two jobs because
the conveyor belt has started, and so so much of
the work of becoming you is opening your aperture to say,
here's what one hundred and thirty five industries are, Here's
(22:44):
what all the job types are, Here's what the mega
trends are. Are you sure that you're looking around and
seeing everything?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I mean?
Speaker 4 (22:52):
One of my happiest stories is about a student I had.
It was going into consulting, as students are wont to
do in the NBA program, and we went through this
process and I could sort of see her eyes drifting away,
and I said to during the break, what's going on?
And she said it didn't dawn on me. I could
take my aptitudes to shipbuilding. I love everything about the
sea and shipbuilding that her It's interesting her brother was
(23:13):
a merchant marine, so there must have been something in
the family, right, And she ended up applying to shipbuilding
companies with her skills. She was very good at logistics
and project management. She got a good job at a
big shipbuilding company based in Mobile, Alabama. That's where a
lot of shipbuilding is in the United States. She was
just transferred to Athens, she got promoted, transferre to Athis
and she's going to have like a fantastic career in shipbuilding.
(23:35):
And it was just like somebody had to say the
word shipbuilding to her, otherwise she was going to go
work in in SaaS consulting and not have nearly the
life of adventure. And actually this for this particular student,
her number one value was scope. Scope is the value
of adventure, change, growth, risk people who just like very
stimulating lives. That was her number one value. And so
(23:57):
she actually her awareness of kinds of jobs allowed her
to express her number one value.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, well there's things we just don't know about. And
if everyone's always like tech consulting and banking, yeah, then
that's right. You know, even if you have skills that
could be applied to a wide variety of countries, I
know there might be something else.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Yeah. I think it really hits people very young. I know,
I saw my sons. You know, I think it's a
mother just thinking. This is about a mother because I
raised four children. I saw them in college with this
group think about what they should be doing, like everybody
was going to do X. And when my daughter, who
was unbelievably talented, everything around TV, starting in middle school
and middle school, she would recast TV shows for fun
(24:36):
and she would like come down to dinner and she say,
I've just recast you know, Malcolm in the Middle with
different actors, and we'd be like, that's weird. And I mean,
she would like say things like we would see a
movie and the family would walk out talking about the
plot of the movie, and she would say, that movie
would have been so much better if so and so
was cast in the lead role. So she went to
college and she studied English and was very involved in
(24:58):
the drama program, casting all the plays, and the whole
time Jack and I, my husband and I were talking
to her about getting jobs in marketing and all these
jobs that were kind of what English majors did. And
then one day I was visiting her in Miami and
she was watching TV with like this look of just
like it looked like she was like praying in an altar.
She was like watching TV and I thought to myself,
the whole life, this child has loved TV. And I
(25:21):
went to the bedroom and I called my husband. I said,
what if TV is not the problem? What if it's
the solution? And he said, what are you talking about?
I said, I think she should go work at Hollywood.
So I went back. He said, Druck, so you shall
do it. I went back into the other room, and
when she stopped watching her show, I said, Sophia, have
you ever thought about taking yourself out of this whole
kind of conveyor belt thing that we've thought of for
(25:42):
you and going out and finding people just like yourselves
and working in Hollywood? And she said, oh, Mom, would
you let me? And like we had been, I know,
talk about moments of I felt sick. I thought, what
a dumb mother move, and I said, would I let you?
Oh my god, I am so late to this game.
And she graduated and she and her dog, Virginia Wolf,
(26:04):
and I got on the plane the next day and
she had in short order eight job offers because she
went around to the interviews in casting and they thought,
who is this young idiot savant? Because she like was
just crazy, she would like recast their shows for them,
and then and she's fifteen years later right now as
we speak, casting two Hollywood movies. So she built a
(26:26):
huge career in casting because it dawned on me to
invite her to consider that there were other jobs besides
the ones we think that are available.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
There's everything, there's everything, absolutely all right.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Well, we're going to take one more quick ad break
and then I will be back with more from Sizie Welch.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Well, I am back talking with Susie Welch.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
We've been talking about the varied careers that are available
in this world, and sometimes we have to just look
a little broader to figure out where our economically viable
interests overlap with our values and our aptitudes. So we
have a lot of probably achievement sevens. Listening to this
people who are very ambitious and who are in that
little kid phase of life. I wonder if there's some
(27:19):
ways that somebody who does have big ambitions and also
who has a full personal life in this modern world
can be smart about going about being visible and being
the one that people are considering for leadership roles.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Well, I think that the kind of rules of how
you get promoted. Have always been the same in a way,
even though this world is crazy and changing underneath our feet.
And I think that it comes down to three things.
I mean, really just simplify it right down. And I
have a little acronym for it, which is PI. It
comes down to the quality of your relationships with people,
(27:54):
and quality is the key word there. It's like how
authentic are you? How collaborative kind are you? It ends
up that most people actually appreciate decent people, So just
the quality of your relationships with people be number one.
The second and you can't escape it. It's the hardest one,
which is your ideas, Like how good are your ideas?
How often do you have them? And if you don't
have a lot of good ideas yourself, how good are
(28:15):
you as a midwife of other people's ideas That can
cover for you if you don't have very good and
you can get by without ideas, but it's hard to
get promoted without really good ideas. And then the third
area is execution, which is you know, I think women
are much better at this than men in general, which
is that you say what you're going to do and
then you do it, and you typically do it better
and faster than you say you're going to do it.
(28:37):
And I think that there's no hack, there's no shortcut
for it if you just have high quality relationships with people,
high quality ideas. And that takes a lot to have
high quality ideas, because it means you have to be
very hyper aware of trends and other new ideas. You've
got to be very current, and you know these things
don't typically just pop. You've got to cultivate the field
(28:58):
where the good ideals ideas grow, and you just have
to be so people can make break their careers on
execution and the consistency of your execution, and in that execution,
sort of owning the outcomes if it doesn't go your
way or if it does, to share the credit where
credits due. So I think this is whether you have
kids or don't have kids. That's the hard It's incredibly hard.
(29:20):
Kids make it harder because you're distracted because you have
this whole other life going on in your head. I mean,
you're work focusing on this things, but half your brain
is focusing on your kids also achieving that in their lives.
Are my kids friendships doing all right? Is my kid
doing okay? In school. Is my kid engaging with the world?
And is my kid adulting in a way? You know
(29:41):
with execution? Is my kid adulting in a way I
want to see? And you're living those two parallel lives,
and it's just an accident of biology that those two
things happen over happen to overlap for fifteen years from
when you're twenty five to forty five. Your work needs
to watch you mind, body, and soul, and so do
your children. And you just suit up and you do
it every day.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Suit up, put on the suit, and get to work.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
So, Susie, are there any routines you have right now
that are helping your life, your daily life be better.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
I'm a founder and so I have a startup. We're
only fifteen people, but we're in startup mode and we've
been going out of this for about a year, and
so I don't have any routines. I do have like
sort of life practices which are identity in very good stead.
You know that I use the word routine, so I
mean I wish I had a routine. I mean I
say I have life practices. I have time every day
(30:34):
where I pray and I express gratitude for just the
incredible amount of good fortune I've had in my life,
and also for the things that didn't go my way.
I mean, I lost my husband. I am still processing that,
even though it's been six years, and I try to
make sense of it. I have definitely have friends and
family who feel like how much I work is my
(30:56):
lack of ability to process it. But I do think
they're not disconnected. And I you know, I have dogs
and I spend time with them, and I talked to
about I know this is going to sound crazy given
the fact that my kids are in their thirties, except
for people who are listening who have kids in their thirties.
I talk to all four of my children every single day.
I never miss a day where I talked to me.
I talk to my kids every single day. Sometimes it's
(31:17):
really short and sometimes it's it's longer. I often talk
to their This morning, I was not able to talk
to my son because he runs a big company and
this is the thirty six year old, and I texted him.
We usually text at six thirty in the morning. And
I talk to my grandchildren, then that's absolutely something that
the day does not happen unless I talk to my
granddaughter at six thirty in the morning. I do that
(31:38):
every day, and so I talked to his wife instead.
I try to find time to reconnect with my humanity
when I'm not working. Excellent.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Reconnecting with humanity is good.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Well, Susie, thank you so much for joining us. Where
can people find you?
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Well, I have a social media I'm mainly on Instagram
and LinkedIn Susie Welches use z y and I have
a newsletter which you can subscribe you for free on
my website Susielch dot com. And if you want to
find out more about Becoming You, you can go to
Becoming You labs dot com. That's where it describes all
of our programs and workshops and webinars and stuff like that.
(32:13):
So you can't miss me. I'm all over over.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
There, all over the place. Wonderful. Well, please check that out.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Everyone's Susie Welch, author of Becoming You, who teaches a
course by the same name.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
We can all become better versions of ourselves. Thank you, Susie.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
I'm glad it was on. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Well, we are back after hearing all sorts of advice
from Susie Welch on building our careers, making space for life,
finding our purpose. So, Sarah, here's this week's question. Is
it okay to not travel to visit extended family for Thanksgiving?
We always have, but with little kids it is a
(32:51):
pain to travel, the airports are crowded. I'd like the
extra days at home. I'd kind of like to start
our own traditions. Is there any good.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Way to handle Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I mean, I definitely don't think that anybody is obligated
to be the traveling party in any family on any year,
and I think these things can be negotiated and discussed
year by year. I do think what can be helpful
is figuring out if there are times of the year
that you will make an effort to see that part
(33:22):
of the family, either making it easy for them to
come to you, or perhaps you choose some other times
of the year, like, oh, we don't really want to
travel for Thanksgiving, but we plan on coming President's Week
and fourth of July. And I say that because those
are two times we're planning to hit Philadelphia, not during Thanksgiving,
when I would much rather stay here. So yeah, I
(33:46):
think that making sure that there are times that you
are going to connect is one thing that very much
helped if you don't want to connect at a specific
time because of other logistical challenges.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
What are your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Well with that, though, I would say there's often this
gap in sort of extended family vibe and logistics and
things between when it was easier for all the adult children,
like young adult children to land at say the parents'
house for holidays, and then when people start building their
own families and become a lot less mobile, right, and
(34:20):
there can be this lag and people are still in
their mindset of like, oh, it makes sense for everyone
to come to us, but it's like, no, if somebody
has three small children, it does not make any sense
for them to come to you. It makes way more
sense for parents who are adults to get on a
plane and go to them. And yet there can be
a lot of lag and sort of this understanding or
(34:41):
you know, sometimes people just don't like to travel, so
they've been excited about the fact that people come to
them and think that's the natural way of the world,
but it isn't so anyway. That to be said, if
it is your side of the family that you go
to see or Thanksgiving, obviously you can simply say that
you are not coming. You are not coming this year.
People are welcome to come to you. They can come
(35:01):
for Thanksgiving, they can come for Christmas, they can come
for X, Y Z other times which you have identified
which would be great.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
You know, come beyond in May.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
When we have for a million things going on, So
come for a kid performance or a kid getting honored
or something.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, And if people ask why, like how could you
do this, to say, well, it's very challenging for us
to travel with three small kids. You are welcome to
come to us and just keep repeating this line over
and over again until they either do, like they buy
a plane ticket, or you'll have to figure out at
some point, you know, if the kids are older, then
you'll get back on a plane and go visit them again.
(35:37):
But I think you are allowed to set these boundaries.
You're allowed to make your own choices. And then if
it's on your partner's side, then obviously that person needs
to have this conversation. And assuming you are both on
board with this idea that you do not want to travel,
then they just need to repeat that script with their
family over and over again until it sinks in people
(35:58):
buy a plane ticket or they don't. They have to
make their own decisions in life too. But then yes,
you should start making your own traditions if you had
decided you're not going to travel. Cooking Thanksgiving meal is
not that hard. Honestly, people get a little bit like, ooh,
it's so intimidating. It's not really that intimidto if you
only choose a couple of dishes to do, Like green
(36:19):
beans on their own are not hard to cook, right,
Like mashed potatoes also not that hard to cook.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
You can also take the whole thing out from whole
foods or something like you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
You don't have to though, that's even the thing, Like
you stick a turkey in the oven and it cooks
like it takes a while to cook, but it does.
In fact, heat will cook meat over the course of
several hours. So you'll be okay, just cook your green beans, like,
get some corn bread, put it in the oven, mashed potatoes,
You've got a meal, right, Like that was not that
much harder than cooking an average weekend meals. So and
(36:51):
then think about what else do you do? Are they
like holiday things you want to start doing over the weekends?
Are there parades you want to go to is they're
a really cool thing at the Children's Museum. Yeah, you'll
start building your own traditions and then it'll feel a
little bit more not just that you're not doing something yet,
you're not going to visit family, but that you are
truly building your own stuff that hopefully you can incorporate
(37:12):
other people into when they start to come visit.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
You love it.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
We also do a friends giving that's a fun you
tradition that you can add on to a family event
or do on your own.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Absolutely well, this has been best of both worlds. I
was interviewing Susie Welch. We will be back next week
with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Please join us next time for more on making work
and life work together.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome the best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in early November of twenty twenty five.
I am going to be interviewing Susie Welch. We're delighted
to have her here at the best of both worlds.
Susie teaches at the New York University Stern School of Business.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
She is the author of the book.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Becoming You, which is all about finding your purpose in life. So,
Susie has a long career of writing about business related
topics and business leadership, and one of her big ideas
a couple of years ago was I think this is.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
The title of one of her books.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
It is ten ten ten, and that is when you
were choosing what to do, you ask yourself how you
will think about it in ten minutes, how you will
think about it in ten months, and will it matter
in ten years now. I had to look that up
because I first thought was it was ten hours, ten days,
and ten years, but I guess it's ten minutes, ten months,
ten years. So I'm curious, Sarah, is there anything big
(01:34):
that you were thinking about and wondering about ten years
ago that turned out not to be something that you
are thinking about now.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I was just like, Okay, this is twenty fifteen, and
what would have been kind of stressing me out? What
would I have been ruminating about then? And I think
there were like two things that came to mind. One
is that I was always worried about having to miss
work with my kids getting sick and like did I
have enough layers?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
And I had a full time nanny, so.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I don't know, I just felt I just remember being
like every single day, like being nervous that like the
shoe would drop in the morning and I miss work
and something bad would happen. So that's interesting, definitely not
something I worry about now. And then also one of
those things where like in retrospect, like if I had
missed a few days, like what would have happened?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Nothing?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
And then the other thing is I do feel like
that I would have certain clinical dilemmas that would stress
me out so much, like, oh, I don't know what
to do, Like this is so hard. I'm like internalizing
the patient and like I now am at a point
when so yesterday I was working and we have this
junior colleague that's like one or two years I think
she's like a year at a fellowship now, and she's
(02:40):
always coming to my office with this worried look on
her face and asking me these questions. And the questions
never seem hard to me. I'm always like, oh, do this,
Like it does make you realize that when you're new at.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Something, it's really really hard.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
And I'm not saying my clinical job still doesn't have challenges,
because of course it does, but it is totally easier.
Recognizing that is really fun.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, yeah, I know that we get better at what
we do, which is a wonderful thing for sure. With
another decade of experience under your belt, Well, mine is
a little bit more lighter than that. I was thinking
of this ten years ago. I had been wanting to.
I we had this episode about wanting a bigger kitchen
recently with Kate Strickler. Right, So, ten years ago, I
was really unhappy with my kitchen. I wanted to renovate it,
(03:24):
but it seemed like a huge thing to do. I
didn't really have experience with doing a whole lot of
renovation and what that would involve, and so I was
very nervous about the process and all that. We finally
finally did it in twenty eighteen, which, you know, you
realize you should have done it years ago, But of
course none of that mattered now because we wound up moving.
(03:46):
We bought a different house in twenty twenty, which then
I had renovated a whole different kitchen, although probably learned
some lessons from the first one, and it probably helped
to have renovated the kitchen to sell that house, although
I'm sure that the people who bought it have probably
ripped everything out and done their own things, So none
of it was really worth all this angst that I
(04:07):
probably put into it. So, yes, kitchen angst, that was
your practice kitchen. It was my practice kitchen. But if
it was going to be my practice kitchen, I should
have done it so much before twenty eighteen. I should
have done it the second we moved into the house
if I didn't like it, but live and learn.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Turns out you can change things that you don't like.
Life moved on.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
But anyway, Susie has all sorts of great career and
life advice. So we're very excited to hear from Susie Welch. Well,
Sarah and I are delighted to welcome Susie Welch to
this show. So Susie, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for
having me.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, we are very excited to talk with you. So
maybe you could tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Okay, Well I'm sixty six, so this could take a
while to you know, get yourself a hot toddy and
sit back, all right. I'm a professor Management Practice at
NY Eastern School of Business, where I teach MA but
I also teach a class called Becoming You about that
process of figuring out who you are in what direction
you should go. And I also teach the CITTMYU in
open enrollment. So I've taught it to people of all
(05:10):
ages from around the world. I'm also the mother of
four and I have two little grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Oh that's a wonderful, full life. Yeah, full life for sure.
And you've had quite a very career. This stint at
NYU is only the latest of a long string of things.
I mean, you want to list a few. I know,
crime reporter, look at my career.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Makes perfect sense to me. I mean maybe when you
get to a certain point in your life. It Look,
you've had a lot of jobs, you know what I mean,
I'm four decades into this working thing. Look, I start
off as a journalist, and in those days, you started
on the crime desk, and I did. That's how they
started journalists in nineteen eighty one. I don't know a
reporter who didn't start that way. And I started as
(05:52):
a crime reporter. It's filled with fabulous stories. I love it.
I learned a lot about human nature. I always say
to my kids, you know, if you want to learn
about human nature, really quickly, be a crime reporter in
Miami in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
So I didn't want to rest to pull off now
right it is, But I mean that's good retrospective advice.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
But that exposure to the real world is good stuff. Yeah.
I happened to love to write, and so that was
a lucky combination. And I was buffing along happily and
successfully as a crime reporter until one day I was
serendipitously reassigned to cover business. I had no interest in it.
I didn't want to do it. I went kicking and screaming,
and yet that was the open job, and it was
(06:30):
a promotion. I went into it and I thought, I'm
going to fail. I know nothing about this thing business.
I had been a fine arts major in college. I
had covered crime, and I didn't know what they were
talking about, but I thought it was very interesting. I
thought whatever they were talking about seemed to be important.
These were people who definitely understood why the world was working.
(06:50):
And I was like, wow, I know nothing about this
at all. And so in those days, there was no
Internet to go find out about business. There was no anything.
You couldn't read enough books to understand what business was.
I cooked up this crazy sigmate where I went and
I interviewed so of the top business CEOs in the
New England region. I was working in Boston at the time,
(07:10):
but it wasn't enough to go interview CEOs at all,
and so I did that. You know what seemed to
be a normal thing, which is I applied to business
school to learn about business. And you know, one of
the great mysteries of all times how I was accepted
at business school, but I was. I went to HBS
and I had a fantastic time there. I learned a
ton about business. It ended up I had something of
an aptitude for it, and I became a business journalist.
(07:32):
So this all makes sense to me. I mean, so
you know, sure you see on my resume that I
started as a crime reporter. I ended up working at Baine.
But it kind of made sense. When you go to
business school, you generally graduate into a job in consulting
or banking. I went the consulting route. I did it
for seven years. I learned a ton about business. I
kind of got my sea legs underneath me. And then
I combined the two. I was recruited away to come
(07:53):
run the Harvard Business Review because they thought, oh, look
there's a person who has a basic understanding of business
but also can write. To go get her. And they did,
and I had a great run there. And then I,
in the process of doing that, met my husband who
at the time had just retired as a cooge and
we decided I got fired for writing a story about him.
But whatever, this is ancient history now, I don't think
(08:14):
it would happened today. And then I joined forces with Jack.
We wrote a couple of business books together, we had
a TV show, and then I ended up going and
doing work on my own, writing a business column for
oh Oprah's magazine, writing my own books about business and
decision making, and then I ended up having two shows
on CNBC about business and careers. So again it makes
(08:36):
sense to me. Okay, I get that it looks like
it's a but you know I was. I was pivoting
along with the times. I wrote my original newspaper stories
on a manual typewriter, and I kept on having to
be it, just like everybody to day has to pivot.
The big pivot really wasn't to academia, which happened after
my husband died and I needed a new beginning and
(08:59):
it seemed to make some sense to me, and it
was calling me, and I thought, I'm going to give
it a try. I have this idea, this class I
want to teach coll becoming you, And YU was a
very entrepreneurial place, and they said, we'll let you try
it here. We'll watch you closely, but we'll let you
try it here. And it worked out really well.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Absolutely well, we're going to get to becoming you and
all the things people might learn about themselves as they
are becoming you.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
But I want to back up.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
A little bit because a lot of our listeners are
moms with young kids who are also working big jobs.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yes, that's why we are best at both worlds.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
And so I understand that your stint at Bain also
corresponded with you having like four small children.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
I did write as a timeline, So I.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Wonder if you talk a little bit about the logistics
of your life then the various strategies you employed so.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
To make me work. You know. Look, first of all,
I can't swear on the show. Yeah it was the
s show. Yes, it was the absolute horror show. Is terrible.
I can't I paint a pretty picture of it. It
was really hard and at the time my first marriage,
which I was in my children with my first husband,
who was a very dear friend of mine now, but
he wasn't at the time. Our marriage was a disaster,
(10:11):
and so I had a lot of stuff going on.
I would say this, I'll describe it to you and
how bad it was and how I did logistically. It
doesn't go like that anymore because it doesn't happen that
there's a firm that doesn't have a partner track for mothers. Okay,
But when I was at Vain, you had your kids,
and you basically pretended you didn't have kids. The trick
was to not show your motherhood anywhere. These days have gone.
(10:33):
They're gone. I have many good friends now who are
being who are happy parents. Okay, But in those days
nineteen eighty eight, the trick was my first kid. In
nineteen eighty nine, I had four kids in five years,
and I was succeeding if I never talked about them
and no one ever saw it. And I still traveled
four days a week along with my case team. We
(10:55):
had my fourth child, a case team meeting in the hospital.
My team came. That was an important thing. I was
holding the newborn baby. They sat around my bed and
we talked about work. But these were really different times.
The way I did it logistically was I had a nanny,
I was making a good salary Baine, and my husband
was working as well, and so we had enough money
that I had to live in nanny and she remains
(11:15):
a dear friend of mine. She helped me raise my kids.
She was a young irishwoman. How she knew so much
about kids, I don't know. But I loved her and
the kids loved her. And she was with us for
eight years, which is a long time in nannydom. And
you know, on my sister's help, My mom helped, everybody helped.
We all helped each other. Both of my sisters were
not working, so I could lean on them, but that's
(11:36):
you know, you can't lean too heavily on people. And
my mom stepped in, but she had a lot of
grandchildren to step in for. But I wouldn't wish it
on anybody. It was hard. Yeah, And look, one of
the reasons I went to Harvard Business Review when they
came to recruit me after that was that in the interview,
I asked the editor in chief how much travel is
there with this job? And she said she thought I
(11:58):
wanted travel, so she said, unfortunately, lay none and I
said I'll take it. I said, I'll take take it.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Sign me up.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
I know that seemed like and it was actually when
I didn't have to travel four days a week. It
was a lot better. But you know, I'm still a
working mom. I have four children and they're in their thirties.
But if your kids are still young and you think
they're ever going away, you're so mistaken. They never go away.
In their twenties and thirties, they become very dear friends
of yours. Their problems become bigger, Their friends become characters
(12:28):
in your life. Their partners become characters and important individuals
in your life. I'm unbelievably close to my kids' partners.
Their lives are critically important to me. And so I'm
still a working mom. I mean last night, my daughter
who's thirty five, wrote me a text we were gonna
have dinner together, and I wrote back to her, go
away because I was still I was like I was working.
(12:48):
The difference is that you could really talk to them
about working a way they understand.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
So let's talk a little bit before we go to
our first commercial break about this idea of becoming you
so you wind up with your job at NYU. We're
going to teach this course on how people are going
to find themselves.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I guess is how we're to talk to your purpose. Yeah,
find their purpose.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
And you joke in the book that you didn't really
find your purpose till you were sixty, that this was
your ultimate purpose.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So I mean, is this really something people can.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Do at any time of life? I mean we can,
we can figure those out. So yes, I mean I've
taught the Becoming You Methodology to people from ages sixteen
to seventy eight and with great success. Okay, so when
you're dead, you're done, is I like to say. And
until then you're living, and so you can get closer
to living your purpose, which is it feels exquisite. It's
(13:40):
a really beautiful thing. It's wonderful, and so I highly
recommend it. But why would you ever stop trying?
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
So, the Becoming You methodology, it's somewhat from what I
can understand from your book and all that is that
it's a sequence of tests where you are figuring out
your various values, your aptitudes, you are figuring out your personality,
and you are putting all this together.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
And so it's three data sets. That's a good job.
Thank you for summarizing that way. Look, you gather data.
There's three data sets. The first is your values, which
we rank from one to sixteen. We get really nobody
really knows what their values are. They think there's only
two values, there's sixteen, and we do a very we
do a series of exercises. But then there's just one
big test called the values Bridge, which I developed in
(14:25):
my lab, that ranks your values for you from one
sixteen in a way that is scientific and research based
and removes your identity and all sorts of other issues
from it, which is very nifty, but also tells you
how far you are from living your values. It also
measures that that's always a very big moment to get
that data back. The second set of data that we
excavate are your aptitudes, and so we do both cognitive aptitudes,
(14:47):
which are your the big six. You know whether or
not your generalist or a specialist, a brainstormer or contributor.
So we test for those, and then we also look
at your emotional aptitudes, which are really your personality, and
we don't let you tell us what your personality is.
We have the world report on your personality because the
underlying premise of becoming you is that your personality is
(15:09):
how people experience you. So that's the second set of
data your cognitive and emotional aptitudes. And then the third
set of data is your economically viable interests. That's the
work that calls you emotionally or intellectually or both and
also pays you according to it. Or desired affluence value
is so like everybody has a different value that they
(15:32):
place on money, and so we've already discerned that through
the first sets of tests, and so then we look
at this third thing. We sort of open the aperture
on all the different kinds of work and different industries
that exist, and then we put it all together and
we identify what's called your area of transcendence, your purpose.
Sometimes people will come up with two options. Typically it's
one option. There's a lot of technology involved in this process.
(15:55):
There's a lot of tests that we've developed, assessment tools
that we've developed in the lab that make it easier
on peace because it's a lot of data to gather.
But we think we've helped a lot and then you've
got it. And tens of thousands of people have gone
through this process now, and for some people it's a
little tweak. Okay, yes, I'm so close, I just need
to do X. And for other people it's like got
to get out the TNT kind of stuff. There's a
(16:15):
very big reinvention or very big change that has to
either be done or considered. I mean, sometimes people walk
away and say I need a year to think about this,
and other times people say it's it. I've been waiting
for this conviction and this clarification and I'm going to
go do this. So I've seen everything at this point
with it. It's exciting. Yep.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Absolutely, all right.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Well we're going to take a quick ad break and
then I will be back with more from Susie Welch. Well,
I am back talking with Susie Welch, who is the
author of Becoming You, host of that podcast, also teaches
(16:56):
at NYU, which is helping many people discover their purpose
in life.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
So Susie, I had to laugh when I.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Was going through some of your things and Becoming You,
of learning about your different values and all that. I
think I'm highest on agency, which makes sense.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Did you take the test I have?
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I did not go through a completely I will.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Because maybe look, sometimes people are really right, like I
knew my top values before I took it, but I'm
and maybe you do, but you think you're high on agency,
which is the value that it reflects how much self
determination matters to you. Do you often feel like you
want it? You want to drive all the decisions.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
And I cannot work for anyone else, says I can't
even do group exercise classes because I don't want people
telling me what to do.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Okay, I'm seeing the agency. I think you're right, and
that really matters, Like it matters in so many ways.
It matters in terms of your career and you already
know how it plays out, but it matters in relationships too.
It's a little bit concerning for me when I do
the Becoming Us methodology, which is when people do becoming
you together, there's a couple and both people have high agency.
It's fine if both people have medium, or both people
(18:02):
have low, or one has high and one has low.
But in a marriage, for instance, where both people have
high self determination.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
It gets complicated, gets complicated for sure, what are you
sort of off the charts on of the different app
So my.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Top value is cosmos. That's the faith value of a
faithful person, And so this reflects how much your faith
is an organizing principle of your life. And so my
number one value is cosmos, and it has been across
all the years of us testing the tool. My second
value is radius, which is the value that reflects how
much you want to create systemic change in the world.
So that's a different value than wanting to help people,
(18:41):
because wanting to help people is often quite an intimate act,
and we call that non city not for oneself, and
it attracts very differently than the value of radius, which
is a strong desire to create systemic change. And for
me that's I have that in many different aspects of
my life. And then my third value is what we
call work centrism, which is the desire for work to
be the organizing principle of your life. I love work.
(19:03):
I've always loved work. When I was a little girl,
literally I would see a woman with a briefcase and
I didn't know what she was doing, but I would think,
I want to be her. I've always loved work. And
we don't allow the word workaholic in the lexicon of
becoming you. People either have high work centrism or lower
work centrism. It's no wrter or no wronger anywhere you are.
(19:25):
We're sort of the judgment free zone. But I definitely
have close friends who have lower work centrism than I do,
and we talk about it and we joke about it,
and we ask each other about it. But it's not
right or wrong. So those are my top three. I
also have high achievement and a high place, which is
the value around where you want to live.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
But is it common for people to have a lot
that are sort of in the middle, Like I feel
like a lot of people there are many things that
we could feel in the middle on right, Like, you know,
you want to be comfortable, but money isn't the driving
force of your life or things like that.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Everybody's different. Everybody has top values and if they're middle,
show up as middle. I mean, the tool force ranks it.
So the way it tests it is it's going to
find out which ones are the top for you and
which ones are the middle, and which are the bottom.
I mean, it's very possible that you have two that
are sort of middling. For sure, you do, yeah, but
you have some that are defining and not defining for
(20:16):
sure all people do. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
And then let's talk about this idea of sort of
following your passion, which I know gets a bit of
a grimace when we put it that way. But you
talk about just in many cases people sort of underestimate
what are economically viable interests. I know, you go on
a whole rant in Becoming You about some TikToker who
(20:38):
was going on about how she had no idea what
she wanted to do with her life, what was everyone
else doing? Somebody please tell her what she should do?
And then she mentions she'd love to have a farm
and rescue dogs. And then she moves on as if
this is nothing that anyone could ever pursue a career in.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Yeah. Look, when it comes to passions, I think there's
this follow your passion stuff and I and my answer
to that is is, yeah, fine, if you're good at it.
If you're good at it, If you're not good at it,
then it's a hobby, all right. I love ceramics. I'm
terrible at ceramics. My daughter happens to be a ceramicist.
So we have a pottery studio in the garage. And
I know how bad I am at ceramics. Do I
(21:13):
love it? And do I do it every weekend? I
sure do, But I'm not going to pursue it as
a career because us stink right, and she's magnificent and
she makes her living doing ceramics because she's so good
at it and she always has been. And so passions
are fine, but most people have some level of affluence
or you know, having money as of value, and so
I or you with the whole becoming you methodology urges
(21:34):
you to do is find what's at the intersection of
your passions, which we would say are values or potentially interests,
and your aptitudes. So that's why there's so much data,
because something's at the intersection of those three super highways,
if you will, and it's where they meet that you
are going to find most likely to find your purpose.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
But you have people that go through and research all
sorts of varying industry. Is that, you know, because people
haven't really thought about it, right, that's right.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
There's one hundred and thirty five industries and eleven hundred
job titles. There's twelve mega trends, and what it's happening is,
I mean, there's research that's just heart stopping in terms
of like kids coming out of high school know about
five jobs can spontaneously, unprompted, name five jobs and two
of those are typically their parents. Then you go to
college and you think, oh, they're going to learn about
(22:24):
a lot more jobs. They don't. They have the five
jobs they used to know about, plus two that they
heard through group think. You know, oh everybody should get
a job and took right. And then you go to
graduate school. Forget it. It's down to two jobs because
the conveyor belt has started, and so so much of
the work of becoming you is opening your aperture to say,
here's what one hundred and thirty five industries are, Here's
(22:44):
what all the job types are, Here's what the mega
trends are. Are you sure that you're looking around and
seeing everything?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I mean?
Speaker 4 (22:52):
One of my happiest stories is about a student I had.
It was going into consulting, as students are wont to
do in the NBA program, and we went through this
process and I could sort of see her eyes drifting away,
and I said to during the break, what's going on?
And she said it didn't dawn on me. I could
take my aptitudes to shipbuilding. I love everything about the
sea and shipbuilding that her It's interesting her brother was
(23:13):
a merchant marine, so there must have been something in
the family, right, And she ended up applying to shipbuilding
companies with her skills. She was very good at logistics
and project management. She got a good job at a
big shipbuilding company based in Mobile, Alabama. That's where a
lot of shipbuilding is in the United States. She was
just transferred to Athens, she got promoted, transferre to Athis
and she's going to have like a fantastic career in shipbuilding.
(23:35):
And it was just like somebody had to say the
word shipbuilding to her, otherwise she was going to go
work in in SaaS consulting and not have nearly the
life of adventure. And actually this for this particular student,
her number one value was scope. Scope is the value
of adventure, change, growth, risk people who just like very
stimulating lives. That was her number one value. And so
(23:57):
she actually her awareness of kinds of jobs allowed her
to express her number one value.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, well there's things we just don't know about. And
if everyone's always like tech consulting and banking, yeah, then
that's right. You know, even if you have skills that
could be applied to a wide variety of countries, I
know there might be something else.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Yeah. I think it really hits people very young. I know,
I saw my sons. You know, I think it's a
mother just thinking. This is about a mother because I
raised four children. I saw them in college with this
group think about what they should be doing, like everybody
was going to do X. And when my daughter, who
was unbelievably talented, everything around TV, starting in middle school
and middle school, she would recast TV shows for fun
(24:36):
and she would like come down to dinner and she say,
I've just recast you know, Malcolm in the Middle with
different actors, and we'd be like, that's weird. And I mean,
she would like say things like we would see a
movie and the family would walk out talking about the
plot of the movie, and she would say, that movie
would have been so much better if so and so
was cast in the lead role. So she went to
college and she studied English and was very involved in
(24:58):
the drama program, casting all the plays, and the whole
time Jack and I, my husband and I were talking
to her about getting jobs in marketing and all these
jobs that were kind of what English majors did. And
then one day I was visiting her in Miami and
she was watching TV with like this look of just
like it looked like she was like praying in an altar.
She was like watching TV and I thought to myself,
the whole life, this child has loved TV. And I
(25:21):
went to the bedroom and I called my husband. I said,
what if TV is not the problem? What if it's
the solution? And he said, what are you talking about?
I said, I think she should go work at Hollywood.
So I went back. He said, Druck, so you shall
do it. I went back into the other room, and
when she stopped watching her show, I said, Sophia, have
you ever thought about taking yourself out of this whole
kind of conveyor belt thing that we've thought of for
(25:42):
you and going out and finding people just like yourselves
and working in Hollywood? And she said, oh, Mom, would
you let me? And like we had been, I know,
talk about moments of I felt sick. I thought, what
a dumb mother move, and I said, would I let you?
Oh my god, I am so late to this game.
And she graduated and she and her dog, Virginia Wolf,
(26:04):
and I got on the plane the next day and
she had in short order eight job offers because she
went around to the interviews in casting and they thought,
who is this young idiot savant? Because she like was
just crazy, she would like recast their shows for them,
and then and she's fifteen years later right now as
we speak, casting two Hollywood movies. So she built a
(26:26):
huge career in casting because it dawned on me to
invite her to consider that there were other jobs besides
the ones we think that are available.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
There's everything, there's everything, absolutely all right.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Well, we're going to take one more quick ad break
and then I will be back with more from Sizie Welch.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Well, I am back talking with Susie Welch.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
We've been talking about the varied careers that are available
in this world, and sometimes we have to just look
a little broader to figure out where our economically viable
interests overlap with our values and our aptitudes. So we
have a lot of probably achievement sevens. Listening to this
people who are very ambitious and who are in that
little kid phase of life. I wonder if there's some
(27:19):
ways that somebody who does have big ambitions and also
who has a full personal life in this modern world
can be smart about going about being visible and being
the one that people are considering for leadership roles.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Well, I think that the kind of rules of how
you get promoted. Have always been the same in a way,
even though this world is crazy and changing underneath our feet.
And I think that it comes down to three things.
I mean, really just simplify it right down. And I
have a little acronym for it, which is PI. It
comes down to the quality of your relationships with people,
(27:54):
and quality is the key word there. It's like how
authentic are you? How collaborative kind are you? It ends
up that most people actually appreciate decent people, So just
the quality of your relationships with people be number one.
The second and you can't escape it. It's the hardest one,
which is your ideas, Like how good are your ideas?
How often do you have them? And if you don't
have a lot of good ideas yourself, how good are
(28:15):
you as a midwife of other people's ideas That can
cover for you if you don't have very good and
you can get by without ideas, but it's hard to
get promoted without really good ideas. And then the third
area is execution, which is you know, I think women
are much better at this than men in general, which
is that you say what you're going to do and
then you do it, and you typically do it better
and faster than you say you're going to do it.
(28:37):
And I think that there's no hack, there's no shortcut
for it if you just have high quality relationships with people,
high quality ideas. And that takes a lot to have
high quality ideas, because it means you have to be
very hyper aware of trends and other new ideas. You've
got to be very current, and you know these things
don't typically just pop. You've got to cultivate the field
(28:58):
where the good ideals ideas grow, and you just have
to be so people can make break their careers on
execution and the consistency of your execution, and in that execution,
sort of owning the outcomes if it doesn't go your
way or if it does, to share the credit where
credits due. So I think this is whether you have
kids or don't have kids. That's the hard It's incredibly hard.
(29:20):
Kids make it harder because you're distracted because you have
this whole other life going on in your head. I mean,
you're work focusing on this things, but half your brain
is focusing on your kids also achieving that in their lives.
Are my kids friendships doing all right? Is my kid
doing okay? In school. Is my kid engaging with the world?
And is my kid adulting in a way? You know
(29:41):
with execution? Is my kid adulting in a way I
want to see? And you're living those two parallel lives,
and it's just an accident of biology that those two
things happen over happen to overlap for fifteen years from
when you're twenty five to forty five. Your work needs
to watch you mind, body, and soul, and so do
your children. And you just suit up and you do
it every day.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Suit up, put on the suit, and get to work.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
So, Susie, are there any routines you have right now
that are helping your life, your daily life be better.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
I'm a founder and so I have a startup. We're
only fifteen people, but we're in startup mode and we've
been going out of this for about a year, and
so I don't have any routines. I do have like
sort of life practices which are identity in very good stead.
You know that I use the word routine, so I
mean I wish I had a routine. I mean I
say I have life practices. I have time every day
(30:34):
where I pray and I express gratitude for just the
incredible amount of good fortune I've had in my life,
and also for the things that didn't go my way.
I mean, I lost my husband. I am still processing that,
even though it's been six years, and I try to
make sense of it. I have definitely have friends and
family who feel like how much I work is my
(30:56):
lack of ability to process it. But I do think
they're not disconnected. And I you know, I have dogs
and I spend time with them, and I talked to
about I know this is going to sound crazy given
the fact that my kids are in their thirties, except
for people who are listening who have kids in their thirties.
I talk to all four of my children every single day.
I never miss a day where I talked to me.
I talk to my kids every single day. Sometimes it's
(31:17):
really short and sometimes it's it's longer. I often talk
to their This morning, I was not able to talk
to my son because he runs a big company and
this is the thirty six year old, and I texted him.
We usually text at six thirty in the morning. And
I talk to my grandchildren, then that's absolutely something that
the day does not happen unless I talk to my
granddaughter at six thirty in the morning. I do that
(31:38):
every day, and so I talked to his wife instead.
I try to find time to reconnect with my humanity
when I'm not working. Excellent.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Reconnecting with humanity is good.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Well, Susie, thank you so much for joining us. Where
can people find you?
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Well, I have a social media I'm mainly on Instagram
and LinkedIn Susie Welches use z y and I have
a newsletter which you can subscribe you for free on
my website Susielch dot com. And if you want to
find out more about Becoming You, you can go to
Becoming You labs dot com. That's where it describes all
of our programs and workshops and webinars and stuff like that.
(32:13):
So you can't miss me. I'm all over over.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
There, all over the place. Wonderful. Well, please check that out.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Everyone's Susie Welch, author of Becoming You, who teaches a
course by the same name.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
We can all become better versions of ourselves. Thank you, Susie.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
I'm glad it was on. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Well, we are back after hearing all sorts of advice
from Susie Welch on building our careers, making space for life,
finding our purpose. So, Sarah, here's this week's question. Is
it okay to not travel to visit extended family for Thanksgiving?
We always have, but with little kids it is a
(32:51):
pain to travel, the airports are crowded. I'd like the
extra days at home. I'd kind of like to start
our own traditions. Is there any good.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Way to handle Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I mean, I definitely don't think that anybody is obligated
to be the traveling party in any family on any year,
and I think these things can be negotiated and discussed
year by year. I do think what can be helpful
is figuring out if there are times of the year
that you will make an effort to see that part
(33:22):
of the family, either making it easy for them to
come to you, or perhaps you choose some other times
of the year, like, oh, we don't really want to
travel for Thanksgiving, but we plan on coming President's Week
and fourth of July. And I say that because those
are two times we're planning to hit Philadelphia, not during Thanksgiving,
when I would much rather stay here. So yeah, I
(33:46):
think that making sure that there are times that you
are going to connect is one thing that very much
helped if you don't want to connect at a specific
time because of other logistical challenges.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
What are your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Well with that, though, I would say there's often this
gap in sort of extended family vibe and logistics and
things between when it was easier for all the adult children,
like young adult children to land at say the parents'
house for holidays, and then when people start building their
own families and become a lot less mobile, right, and
(34:20):
there can be this lag and people are still in
their mindset of like, oh, it makes sense for everyone
to come to us, but it's like, no, if somebody
has three small children, it does not make any sense
for them to come to you. It makes way more
sense for parents who are adults to get on a
plane and go to them. And yet there can be
a lot of lag and sort of this understanding or
(34:41):
you know, sometimes people just don't like to travel, so
they've been excited about the fact that people come to
them and think that's the natural way of the world,
but it isn't so anyway. That to be said, if
it is your side of the family that you go
to see or Thanksgiving, obviously you can simply say that
you are not coming. You are not coming this year.
People are welcome to come to you. They can come
(35:01):
for Thanksgiving, they can come for Christmas, they can come
for X, Y Z other times which you have identified
which would be great.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
You know, come beyond in May.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
When we have for a million things going on, So
come for a kid performance or a kid getting honored
or something.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, And if people ask why, like how could you
do this, to say, well, it's very challenging for us
to travel with three small kids. You are welcome to
come to us and just keep repeating this line over
and over again until they either do, like they buy
a plane ticket, or you'll have to figure out at
some point, you know, if the kids are older, then
you'll get back on a plane and go visit them again.
(35:37):
But I think you are allowed to set these boundaries.
You're allowed to make your own choices. And then if
it's on your partner's side, then obviously that person needs
to have this conversation. And assuming you are both on
board with this idea that you do not want to travel,
then they just need to repeat that script with their
family over and over again until it sinks in people
(35:58):
buy a plane ticket or they don't. They have to
make their own decisions in life too. But then yes,
you should start making your own traditions if you had
decided you're not going to travel. Cooking Thanksgiving meal is
not that hard. Honestly, people get a little bit like, ooh,
it's so intimidating. It's not really that intimidto if you
only choose a couple of dishes to do, Like green
(36:19):
beans on their own are not hard to cook, right,
Like mashed potatoes also not that hard to cook.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
You can also take the whole thing out from whole
foods or something like you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
You don't have to though, that's even the thing, Like
you stick a turkey in the oven and it cooks
like it takes a while to cook, but it does.
In fact, heat will cook meat over the course of
several hours. So you'll be okay, just cook your green beans, like,
get some corn bread, put it in the oven, mashed potatoes,
You've got a meal, right, Like that was not that
much harder than cooking an average weekend meals. So and
(36:51):
then think about what else do you do? Are they
like holiday things you want to start doing over the weekends?
Are there parades you want to go to is they're
a really cool thing at the Children's Museum. Yeah, you'll
start building your own traditions and then it'll feel a
little bit more not just that you're not doing something yet,
you're not going to visit family, but that you are
truly building your own stuff that hopefully you can incorporate
(37:12):
other people into when they start to come visit.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
You love it.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
We also do a friends giving that's a fun you
tradition that you can add on to a family event
or do on your own.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Absolutely well, this has been best of both worlds. I
was interviewing Susie Welch. We will be back next week
with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Please join us next time for more on making work
and life work together.
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