All The Stuff Your Boss Wishes You Knew, But You Don’t

Foreign.

It's Susie Welch. Hi. Welcome to the show. So happy you're back. If you're back and if this is your first time. Oh, my God, I've been waiting for you. Where you've been. Welcome to the studio here in the Upper east side of New York. I'm here with my team and the dogs and this is becoming you. And this is a podcast that I started because I was hearing from my students at NYU Stern School of Business that the conversation after we finished the class called Becoming youg was not over and that they wanted to keep talking about this process, this methodology that I have developed with others input. A methodology to help you figure out who you are standing still so that when you start moving again, you know what direction to go. And this is our lifelong work. This is not something that happens one time. This is something that happens almost every day as we continually figure ourselves out. I am still figuring myself out. Although my six word memoir is Creating Becoming youg, I became me. So I feel like the methodology works because I am the number one beta tester of it. So becoming you is about figuring out who you are. We do some exercises, we talk about stuff that's on my mind. My team tries to stump me with questions they think I can't answer because I purport to have a lot of answers. And we also take questions from you listeners or also people who follow me on my various social media platforms. And I endeavor to answer them. Okay, shall we get going? Let's do it. I've had a lot on my mind lately because the end of the year, school year is a big time for people. And first there was the commencement speech that I gave at NYU Stern's graduation, which was really exciting and very gratifying. But recently I then went on to the Today show. I hope you caught me. It was on a recent Friday. And I talked about my graduation speech, my commencement speech, but I also spoke about entering the job market, which is on the mind very much of recent graduates and their parents. I mean, so you're leaving school and you're going into a job and this, you know, there's some things that new graduates need to know, but there's some things that all of us need to know about entering the job market. So I thought I'd just spend a few minutes at the beginning kind of talking about the big lies that you're taught in school about work and how you have to undo some of these big lies that have been in your head. And the number one terrible message that school teaches Us that you have to unlearn as soon as you get into the working world. And actually this is not something you learn the first day. This is something you kind of Learned the first 10 years of being out in the workplace is that school is far less ambiguous than the real world. Like in school you've got a class, you know what the class is about because there's a syllabus, you've got a teacher, the teacher tells you what will get you an A. I mean, I like stand up at the beginning of my classes and I say if you do these things you'll get an A. And if you don't do these things you'll get a B or you'll get a C or whatever. A teacher has to be very clear with you. You know what the assignments are, you know what the readings are, you know when the tests are coming and you know like what the curve is and you know what grades you can get on it. If you get a certain number of points and the semesters are a certain amount of time long and school teaches you this. There's a kind of structure and clarity and predict to energy that you put in and what you get out. And except in some very specific sort of banking programs and consulting programs where they have this down to a science, work is actually not like that. Work is very gray and messy. And very often people don't tell you what gets an A or what success looks like or what achievement would look like. If you hit this mark, you'll get this result. And even sometimes when they do tell you that it doesn't happen. And so you go from a world of structure and predictability and clarity. And I know you all have, who are recent graduates, have all your complaints about school and all the problems with school and all the, by the end, by the time you graduate, especially from college, it's gotten so monotonous you could just jump out a window. It's like, oh my God, if I have to sign up and if I have to register one more time, I'll just barf. But you'll miss it when you get to the working world and you've got a boss who's a little bit crazy pants, or there are meetings that get scheduled and then get unscheduled. And then you realize kind of a few weeks in that all the real work is not happening at those meetings that you're in, but there's meetings after the meetings that you're not invited to and suddenly there's sort of announcements and you're like, wait I was in a meeting where we were discussing this. How did this happen? And they're like, oh, well, there's a Sally met with Tom. And they sort of decided, you know, now eventually your memory of school will fade away and that will be the real world to you. But that's the first thing that's probably shocking to people. And hey, if there happen to be any parents out there listening to this and you're talking to your kid about going into the real world, the first thing you've got to say to them is all that stuff that was felt hard and really could be sort of summarized as clarity, predictability, lack of ambiguity, that's all going away. That's the new regime. And you kind of got to get used to it. And, you know, there are corporate programs where it's really lockstep and they have it all lined out and it almost kind of emulates school for a while. You know, there's sort of programs. But if you're going into a startup, if you're going to be in a kind of entrepreneurial venture or you're going to any kind of new company or a company that's run by the owner, you can kiss that stuff goodbye. I have some new graduates in the room with me. Both Elisa and Sophia Borzaleri here. They both have recently graduated. Am I right or wrong? Am I right or wrong?

You're right.

It's scary for them to be right because they work here with me and Jorge. How long ago did you graduate? Been 10 years. All right. Am I right or wrong? You've been out for. We have somebody here who's graduated 10 years ago. Right or wrong. It's true. It's true. And nobody warns you. It's not like your teacher is saying to you at school, guess what? These are going to be the good old days soon. When you knew what it took to get an A. I mean, it is one of the biggest shocks. I mean, this happened to my. One of my sons. Let's have him remain nameless. My poor children. But, you know, he got incredibly good grades and graduated at very top of his class from a very good school. Okay, we're keep letting him remain nameless here, as I said. And he got into the working world and he actually thought you worked Monday through Friday. And they gave the consultants an assignment to do over the weekend. He came home and he told me and Jack about his big weekend plans. And we said, you're gonna get fired if you don't go and do it on the weekend. He was like, come on. Nobody had said to me explicitly, guess what? You have to do this work on the weekend and you get an F. Then he got fired on Monday, and he lived happily ever after. Okay, he did eventually, but that was not a good year. All right, so that is just something I want to say. I want to say one other thing about what you don't realize about the working world. And actually, this is true also. If you've just joined a new company, if you're leaving one company and you're going to a new one, or you're just going to the working world. Companies are like families. They have history. And you come in and you're the new person. And there are skeletons in closets, there are relationships, there are previous hurts. I mean, I. I have to say, this is kind of a dreadful thing. After I got to be very experienced at work over many, many years, when I would start working in a new place, I would think to myself, eventually, I'll find out who in this organization slept with each other. Okay? I mean, isn't that terrible? But it happens, okay? Companies have human beings in them, and human beings do human things. And, you know, you'll be sort of in a meeting and you'll notice two people are really unfriendly to each other, and you'll think, why their work is so aligned. And later somebody will say, well, you know, she used to be married, you know, to. So his sister or his brother or whatever it is. And. And it's a mess, okay? There's all sorts of history, and people have hurt each other's feelings. They've blocked projects people want, or they've had personal relationships that come into the mix. And when you first arrive at a new company, for a little while, keep your mouth shut and your eyes wide open and learn the history. And you may not like the history, but like your family and like you, organizations have history. And that doesn't happen at school. Every semester is new. You go in and the class starts afresh. And, I mean, I do this myself as a professor. Everything's brand new. The slate is wiped clean at the beginning of every semester. But that's not how it is at companies. There's old wounds, old relationships, old agendas. And your job is to be like an anthropologist. When you get to a company, whether you're starting the first day as a newbie out of college or whether you're starting a few years along in your career, you. You gotta be an anthropologist. When you enter a company and find out where all the bones are buried and who buried them. All right. Any thoughts on that from the team here? Curious.

I think that's so true.

Thank you. Oh, thank you. I think that I cold call you. I think it's true, isn't it? But, but did anybody teach it to you in school?

No, I think if anything, I left school being like, I'm so excited to get ready, rid of these, like, rules and them telling me what to do. And then like, the first month after, I was like, where did they go?

Right, I know, I know. I was like, right, that's right. And knowing what, like, who, what everybody's job was like, one time. Sometimes you get to an organization and you think it takes you a little while and you realize who are the fixers? Oh, there's the consigliere for the boss. Right? Right. No, like, everything gets done because of that person. Like, you know, there's a dynamic that I have been very. I was very fortunate in my career to edit about. I didn't invent this incredible idea about the toxic handler. When there's a very bad, unhealthy, unproductive boss in an organization, they often have a toxic handler. A person who's alongside them who is the sort of good guy or good woman. And they. The boss throws thunderbolts and does dreadful things and hurts people. And then there's a fixer all around who cleans up and makes people feel better. And almost every bad, mean, successful boss has a toxic handler by his or her left or right. And the problem is, organizations and bad bosses can go on and on like that for a long time because the toxic handlers are very adept. Then they burn out and they. And they're usually destroyed by the person for whom they're working. That is a very common organizational dynamic. When you see a bad boss who's been in power for a long time, you think, how could this go on? Look to the left or right of that person. You're going to find their toxic handler. This has been a public service announcement. So there's one other sort of thing you have to unlearn when you get into the real world. I'm bad news today, aren't I? I mean, this is sort of like Susie's dark hour. But I mean, look, I happen to really, really adore work. I love work. My organizing principle of my life is work, you know, so I'm not down on work. I'm down on people who are not realistic about work. And so along with the other two things, the sort of lack of ambiguity and the fact that you have to be an anthropologist and find out what the history is of your organization. Here's a cold hard truth about entering the working world is that in school you have a lot of second chances. You know, you can go to your professor. My students do it all the time and say such and such is late. I had a family emergency. Everybody has a lot of family emergencies right around Thanksgiving. And I need five more days, I need three more days. Please give me a second chance. What if I hand it in again and your teacher typically says, okay, I'll see another version of that or I'll give you four more days. That's just kind of the way it goes. And when you get to work and you're in a real company, there are very few second chances and sometimes none, okay? And that is a hard lesson to learn. You think? But wait, I could get this in late at school or I miss my deadline. And I mean, this is a stunning thing. I mean I had a. There was an individual who worked here at our little company who was supposed to do something by 9am and when I woke her up at 11am because she had not yet come into work, I said that was supposed to happen at 9am and she said it's only 11. And that is attitude that comes from school that you can get things in two hours late. So she departed. And I don't know if it will happen again in her new job or whatever, but this is the way the real world typically works. Very few second chances in most organizations. Now look, there were a lot, a lot, a lot of goof ups before that. Goodbye. In that particular situation, there were a lot of things that went wrong and she had actually had. She'd used up all her second chances already. So most companies, when you're new are not going to axe you the first time you make a mistake, but your goodwill gets used up pretty quickly. And let me add this one thing. If walking in the door, you negotiated for a higher salary, which is something I highly recommend against, okay? Because you want to walk in the door with the most goodwill you can have, okay? Because you're going to use it up pretty quickly. If you're new, if you've negotiated for a higher salary, the cost of that is you use up how many second chances you get, okay? So say somebody comes into an organization, you offer them X as the boss, okay? And they say, I'm not coming for that, I need 35% more than that. And you go, oh God, this is killing me. This is not my budget, okay? But I'M gonna. I really want you. I'm gonna bet big on you. And then you come in, and you've kind of held them up walking in the door, okay? And then what happens is they screw up once, and you're gonna be like, what the heck? And then they screw up twice, and you're like, wait a minute. I'm paying you all that money so much more than I wanted to. And by the third time, it's enough, and you're out. Now, if you'd come in at the right salary and you had said, look, I wish I could have more, but I really, really want to work here, your goodwill bucket is much, much larger, and you're going to get more second and third chances. Just know that when you go in there with your guns blazing, asking for more money before you've proven yourself. This is what I don't get about going into negotiating a higher salary. This is very generationally new. I know everybody's told to do it now. I've never done it, not one time in my life. Going in for a job, I thought, I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna blow their minds, and then I'm gonna ask for more money. And that's how I operated. And it always worked. I went in, I proved myself, and then said, well, you can't really lose me. Look what I've done. And they're like, you're right. And then there came the money, okay? But nowadays, it's very, very common for people who have not proven one iota of their worth to go in asking for more money. And those of us who are employers have been like, okay, okay, this is the way it goes today. But there's a cost to it. Don't kid yourself. There is a cost to it. Just, I'm just so depressing today. I'm awful. I mean, if you're turning me off right now, I don't blame you. Let's talk about something happy and cheerful, like Pierre or other things. It's a gorgeous day out, and summer's here. Okay. Yay. All right, that's the bad news. I'm done giving you bad news today. But also, who's going to give it to you if it ain't me? All right. I'm actually really excited. I want to say one thing I'm super excited about, which is I have invented something in my entire life. I have never, ever conceived of myself as an inventor. I've been, like, a writer, a thinker, a journalist, and now a teacher. Perhaps my most satisfying and gratifying identity of my entire life. But as part of being a teacher, I teach people, students, how to figure out what their values are, what their personal values are. And I've struggled with this because I use seven different exercises. And after sort of two and a half years of struggling with this and really thinking about it, I actually invented a psychometric assessment tool on values. And I'm in the midst of working with my team to sort of finalize the invention of it. And then I'm going to work with the research department, nyu, to turn it into a digital tool. And for a person who's not ever had the identity of being an inventor, this is very life giving and very exciting. And it just actually shows you that as Emily Dickinson says in one of my most favorite quotes of all time, we are not older with our years, but newer every day. And so I really, that is for me, like a clarion call that we can make ourselves newer every day. And here I am just trying on this new thing, inventing something, and it's really. Sophia, we worked on it really hard this morning. How's your brain feeling?

Pretty jumbled.

Yeah, I know. Like it was. That's hard stuff, what we're doing. So hard. But if we can crack this and we can do it, this is gonna be like a very. Excuse me. Pompous ass hat alert. Pompous ass hat alert. This could be like really game changing for people who seek to understand their values better, which I would highly recommend people do because it makes life better anyway. All right, that's a good news. I'm inventing something and I'm getting a lot of help from my team and it. But it's super hard work. Don't ask me how I did it. I just did it. It was hard.

Let's do questions from the community. Thank you for sending in your questions. I love your questions. Hey, I want to say about questions. A lot of people ask me this one question. If I do private consults, if I would coach people one on one. I get that like every day. And I want to tell you I'm really honored and I'm really touched that somebody would want to work with me one on one. I don't do that right now. I am experimenting and thinking a lot about ways that I could teach becoming you to people who are not at nyu. I'm thinking about it. I don't have the answer or the solution to that yet, but I am not doing one on one at this point. I do offer one on one certification of the 10-10-10 process which is I wrote a book about it's a decision making tool and that's something I do one on one but not career consulting. I do do these webinars that are 100% free online and I'm there. It's me live and I for 30 minutes I talk about stuff. I teach the becoming you method from 20, 30,000ft and I take questions at the end so come to that please and you can find out when the next one is. I think it's June 18th, right? June 18th at first 5pm Eastern Standard Time. Go to my website, sign up and register. Some people come to all of them and some people come to one of them and that's another way to get more gratuitous advice from me. What is a question from the community team?

Okay, first question. I love my current job but it has crazy hours and doesn't pay. Amazing. But I love my team and the work. I just got a job offer for a position with a 35% pay increase in normal hours. But I get the feeling it won't be as fun but, but I could really do with the extra money. What should I do?

Don't do it, don't do it. I just went through this with somebody who I love very very much. Will also remain nameless because she's a blood relation who did exactly this. She was in work that she adored, passionate about it, interesting to her, emotionally meaningful to her, fantastic friends, gig, work, a lot of periods of downtime, had to go on, unemployment between gigs, hated that for her identity and it was just very inconsistent and it was very hard and terrible, terrible money. Went to corporate America, got a job with 35 about percent more money but the work was meaningless and had no emotional or intellectual interest and after almost two years kissed it goodbye and went back to the meaningful work. Look, life is too short to be doing work that doesn't have meaning. Now I will say I know that money matters. I mean I have not had money in my life and I understand that 35% more can, can mean the difference between sometimes kind of how often you eat and what kind of gifts you can give your friends and how often you go on vacation and so you're making a trade off. And so there's two things that I would suggest. Number one is I would go to your boss and I would say I have this offer and I want to tell you going into this conversation, boss, this is super important what I'm about to say. Very, very important what I'm about to say. Go into your boss and say, I want you to know something. I'm not going to take this offer. I love this work too much. I love my colleagues here too much. I'm not taking it, but I'm showing it to you, telling you I'm not taking it because I hope that in the spirit of fairness that you will think about increasing my salary and they're not going to give you 35% more. But they may say, holy cannoli. Now if you hold them up, they'll say, if you say I'm going, unless you match this salary, you're probably gonna go. But if you go to your boss and you say, I've got this offer and I'm not taking it, you're probably gonna get something, a bump up 15%, 20%. And if you got that, you'd probably be very happy to stay with the work that you absolutely love. So that's the first strategy I would say, but I'm not, I'm telling you right now, don't go try to hold them up and say, I'm taking the job if you're not gonna take it, unless you really are gonna take it. But if you're not, then say, I'm not taking it, but I got this offer. Can we have a conversation about what I'm making now? If they don't give you that after you've shown them that and you've assured them that you're not leaving, then next time you get a really good offer, I'd think twice again, I would have a totally different answer for you then if they didn't give you more money when you did this very, very high integrity, goodwill thing to do. So that's my answer to you. Good luck. I am so happy that you have work that you love and that you find meaningful. Do you know, I hope you know how lucky you are that that's a very, very huge gift to have and you've probably done amazing things to earn it. So I would be very careful about giving that up. All right, good luck. Keep us posted. I wish you'd. Right, can you write back and tell us what happened? Whoever if. I hope you're listening to this. Let us make sure that we send a link to this podcast to the person who sent this in because maybe that person will let us know what happened. Okay, next question please.

Hi, Professor Susie, I just saw your video on getting fired. I've been fired twice and it has absolutely crushed my self confidence. The first time I got fired I realized I was a not great fit for the role beyond a point due to a lack of experience. The second time, I had put in my blood, sweat and tears and worked hard like a dog and still got fired, saying my performance didn't match with other peers. I feel lost in my career right now and therapy didn't help. How would you advise?

Oh, I'm so sad for you. Thank you for writing and for your candor. And I thank you and I love you and I'm sorry this is happening to you. So, number one, I think you should come to my webinar and listen to me talk about becoming you. Because what I am sensing from these two stories that you've told are that you are not in the right work at this moment. You're not exactly sure of your values, your aptitudes, or the areas of work that interest you. Because I am feeling a mismatch with the first one. You yourself say, okay, look, I just didn't have the skills or the capabilities for the job. And they let you go. And. And you said, okay, you got it. And I was writing the other day in a LinkedIn post that failure is just another word for finding out there's something you need to learn. Okay, and you found out with that first firing, I just didn't have the competencies for this job. And you got it. And it doesn't sound as quite. I mean, it hurts. It's embarrassing. This is an absolutely apropos of nothing, but also getting divorced is embarrassing. Nobody ever tells you that. My first marriage did not work. And the hardest part was telling people because they were like, oh, what happened? This is absolutely an aside. Okay, so. But getting fired is very embarrassing and it's soul crushing. I get it. But the first job, we get it. You didn't have it. Let's talk about the second one. The second one's more interesting to me because you worked incredibly hard. You sweated it. You threw your whole self into it, and it still wasn't enough. And what this says to me is two things went wrong. One is the organization itself didn't tell you. Your boss didn't tell you. There was no clarity around what it took for you to get an A. Because it sounds to me like you were working hard enough to try to get that A at work. Okay? And so maybe you just didn't know. And the other is that you did know and you gave it your all. But compared to the other people there, you didn't come up to the same level of results. And again, this is about aptitudes. This is, to me, a Gigantic mismatch between what you can do well and what the job needed you to do well. And I think that you cannot take this personally. Very, very hard. I know what I'm saying is like, okay, you cannot blink your eyes. I get it that you're gonna take it personally. It's like when I'm a writer by trade and I've had editors say to me, this paragraph just doesn't work. Don't take it personally. I was like, how can you not take it personally? I wrote the paragraph. Okay? This is sort of the position you're in is they told you you weren't good enough. But I want you just to think about the sentence this way. You weren't good enough at this job. You just haven't found the job you were meant to do yet. You need a becoming you experience where you figure out what your are, what your aptitudes are. And I'm not selling you anything because I got nothing to sell. Okay? Because you can't get this unless you go to nyu, right? So I think. But come to the webinar. Let us be together in an environment where I can walk through what I mean by figure out your values, figure out your aptitudes and figure out what areas interest you. I think it's time for you to wipe the slate clean and try a different kind of work. And I would if I was you. Invest the money it takes to actually pinpoint what your actual aptitudes are, what you're actually good at. I think you probably are not gonna have a hard time figuring out what your values are. You obviously want achievement, you want success, you want a full time job. I think you probably got a hold on your values. But there are tests online. There's a test called youscience.com I believe it's under $40 to take it. It's an hour and a half long test and it actually will give you a very fulfilling report about what your aptitudes are. I have no skin in this game. I don't make any money off of this, okay? It will tell you what your actual aptitudes are and it will actually suggest the kinds of jobs that match with your aptitudes. And if you don't like you science, type into your Google search bar aptitude test. And there are others. I just happen to believe this one is very good. So why don't you start there, Get a clearer sense on what you're good at. Because you may be working in jobs because you're just not aware of other kinds of jobs. That you may be able to do. So I'm sitting here because I'm trying not to say, please don't take this personally, because I know it feels very personal. I would say take this as a sign that you need to get a clear sense, a clear, very strong sense of what your aptitudes are, what you're really good at, what you're naturally gifted at, and then start again by looking at, you know, maybe fields quite far. And there's so many people who have, like, taken big left turns, big right turns in terms of what area they're in. And maybe you're sitting there thinking, I have to be in the healthcare field because of X, Y and Z. I majored in X, My parents are in Y. There's X. Company is hiring, but you may not need to be in health care at all. Okay. And there's something else entirely for you. Let's talk about what an aptitude is. This is a word that I'm actually currently doing research at nyu, and one of the things we're finding out is people don't know what aptitudes are. That's perfectly understandable. I myself didn't know until I started really studying. An aptitude is a gift, a skill, a trait, an inborn competency that makes you better at some things than others. Okay. So, for instance, a very good example of an aptitude is spatial visualization, like how well you see things in 3.3D, you are born, and by the time you're 12 or 13, it's pretty much set, like how good you are at special visualization. You better be very good at that if you're going to be an architect. Okay. Another strong aptitude is diagnostic problem solving. So in this world, a lot of information is thrown at us, and you can. There's a scale for how naturally good you are at taking information without writing it down and coming up with a solution in your head. Okay. That you can do the diagnoses in your head. And this is not actually related to IQ necessarily. It is like just how good we are in our brains, how we're wired in a way to synthesize information and make decisions. Now, there are people who make decisions in a totally different way, but people who are very strong on diagnostic problem solving are naturally better in different jobs than others. And this is the beauty of these aptitude tests is they sort of say, okay, if you're sky scoring very high in spatial visualization, these are the fields that. Where you're going to have natural ability. And if you score high in Diagnostic problem solving, then you may be much better in these fields. And there's seven or eight actual inborn aptitudes that you've really got to get your arms around what you're really good at. Some of them are like, for instance, numerical reasoning, which is how quickly you work with numbers. All right? You've got to know that. And it's possible, say, let's take the job you were in. Maybe there's a very, very high need for, from numerical reasoning, like real computational speed. And you always get the answer, but you don't get it as fast as it needs to be gotten for that job. And they're not gonna sit there and say, her numerical reasoning is too slow. They're just gonna say, you're just not as good as everyone else. But the underlying problem is numerical reasoning. And you need to get yourself into a field where that is not an aptitude that's necessary. Okay. And so it's important to get a hold now then, as opposed to those aptitudes that I'm talking about, which are these really inborn skills that you're either very strong on or you're not, which really drive kind of overall success in certain kinds of work settings. Right. Like, say I was low on communication and the ability to articulate ideas. I mean, it would be a very bad idea for me to be in teaching and podcasting and all those things that are completely dependent on my verbal cortex acuity. All right? And I'm terrible at art. Like my ceramics, My spatial visualization is like below zero. It's. I couldn't on that test for spatial visualization. I was literally guessing the answers. No idea. Terrible. And when I make ceramics, it looks like. It looks like a four year old made them. I love doing it. I just can't become professional at it. Okay. My daughter, by contrast, is a professional ceramicist, and her spatial visualization is off the charts. Okay. This is. She was born that way and I was born that way. Thank God. I decided not to go into architecture or art in any way. But I have some abilities with my verbal cortex, and I can talk fast and think fast and write fast. And luckily, I was drawn into fields where you're rewarded for that. Okay. And so you need to get a hold of that now, look, then there are developed competencies where you really can be trained. You can learn a technique and you can be trained in it, and that's sort of separate, but you're going to be trained more easily or with more difficulty based on those inborn aptitudes. Which you really need to understand about yourself, your life is if you had to spend your entire life signing your name, your first name and last name with your non dominant hand, that's what it feels like to work in a field or in a job that is not matched with your aptitudes, okay? But if you can find the job or the industry or the field that rewards you for your inborn aptitudes, it's. It's like signing your name with your dominant hand. That's what you want. That's what you gotta go find. It doesn't now what will happen over time. You'll get this job and then that job and this job and then that job, and eventually you'll figure out what your natural aptitudes are. You don't have to wait. Take a test. Take a test. It's really worth it.

Time for my secret mentor crush. Once again, I did actually see my real crush crushed this week. It was so embarrassing. I was at the Today show studios, and in the other green room was Darius Rucker, the guy from Hootie and the Blowfish. I just. He was in the next green room. I was losing my mind. I think. I think he's got the most beautiful voice in the world. I love his music. Look, I'm such a super fan of him. Get a load of this. I'm such a super fan of his on social media that his social media team followed me back, okay? They followed me back because I liked everything. And they're like, oh, look at this poor woman. So then I walked into his dressing room at the Today show. He was signing books. He just has a book out. That's why he was on the Today show. And I came in, I said, I'm your biggest fan. And he took up. He looked up at me and he said, like, basically the bubble of his head was, what's this old lady doing in my dressing room? And he did shake my hand. Cause I forced him to. But I didn't get the picture with him. So anyway, I did meet my real crush. But my actual. Let's be serious here. My mentor crush has become my thesis advisor. So I'm getting my PhD. Why? Because I am. It's something with an identity issue for my therapist to figure out. Even he's kind of stymied by it. But my thesis advisor is a professor at the University of Bristol in England, where I'm getting my PhD and his name is Graham Abbey. And I was working on that tool that I said I invented, and I was writing about it, and I was writing about it in third person in this very kind of stilted academic language. And. And I said, screw it, I can't do this. And I started to write about it in my normal, natural Susie voice, the way I've written my entire life as a business journalist and an author of books. And I wrote about it in this very natural way. And I said, let me just tell you the story of this tool. And I did this whole kind of. I just blew up the academic way of approaching it and I wrote about it to my thesis team and I said, I'm sorry to be using this voice. And he wrote back and he said, I don't mind that you're using your natural voice. I would just like you to explain. I respected him so much and I learned so much from that interaction. That's what it's all about with mentors, is that they've just taught you something in the moment. He's a mentor to me anyways, but he taught me to ask a question of an apology, which is sort of when somebody apologizes, to ask, why do you feel the need to apologize? And I need to do that more and to be sort of more open minded and more empathetic when people apologize and help them sort of open it up into sort of a. Instead of this sort of rote thing that it usually is, I apologize, I accept it, or I don't accept it to have a larger sort of more meaningful conversation around. He taught me that this week. I'm grateful to him. I do have to think about why I have the need to use that first person voice in writing in my thesis. But I haven't figured that out yet. But I'm very glad I was asked the question and I learned from it. Thank you, Professor Abbey, for that.

All right, now we've entered the portion of the program. Well, my team tries to stump me with questions. This is secretly my favorite part of the. Because they have stumped me. You have stumped me. Like you asked me my favorite vegan protein. I mean, like what? I just. I have no frickin idea. Okay. All right, let's do it. What's the first question?

Team, what person do you think knows the majority of your secrets?

Well, I'd say Jack knew most of. I mean, Jack knew all my secrets. So I had a good marriage and in a good marriage, I'm gonna go right out there and say there's no secrets. That's why you have a marriage, in a way, is that there's somebody who's totally on your Team. We had no secrets from each other, so he did. But he's now gone. And I would say my kids probably do. My kids probably do. I think that people like mine. I'm not a big secret keeper, probably to my great deficit, and that I am an oversharer. I really am. And I think that secrets always get found out anyway. You have to ask yourself the question about why you're keeping them. I mean, I think there's some things you want to just keep to yourself, I suppose. But I wouldn't do that without asking yourself, why am I feeling like I must hide this from the world? I mean, if you're hiding it, there's a reason. If the reason is I don't want somebody to be hurt because of it, then I get it.

But.

But if you're hiding it because you can't face into it yourself, then maybe there's some kind of issues around sort of shame or regret that you would want to engage with.

So that was a deep answer.

It is deep. Did you. Okay, all right. I would say the answer was Jack. And then after that, I got very deep on you. Sorry. All right, what are the. What else we got? All right, what is it?

The oldest item you own?

I have several items from my early childhood. Really early. I mean, I have. My mom has the gown I was baptized in, so, I mean, that's really young, but, like, just sort of to keep. I have a jewelry box that my brother gave me when I was five years old, and it's. It's in my bedroom. It's. Come with me. Every single place in the world. I have that. That's so. That's 59 years old. And I have. I think I have a cross that my grandmother gave me, which is probably 60 years old. That's in my jewelry box. I hold onto things. I have all my old diaries. I mean, I started writing diaries when I was nine years old. I had a diary called Vinnie. Why. Why would you name your diary Vinnies? Dear Vinnie. You know, today we watered the, you know, petunias. I mean, it was. What a bore. I had the most boring life, but I felt it was necessary to document it. And you know what that says? I was a writer. I had to write it down. I had to write everything down. I wrote in my diary religiously every night of my life from when I was 8 or 9 in until I was still writing it. And when I was having children, then the children made me too exhausted to continue writing in a diary when I've been literally 30 something years, right. I was writing in my diary every single night. I still have them all. I still have every last one of them. I still have many, okay? So go figure. I mean, one day I want to read them all. I haven't read. I mean, I. The one I. The one time I did sort of flip them open, and there was one from. In my girlish handwriting, I think it was 1971. It must have been in my very girlish handwriting. It said, dear Vinnie, war is over. And it must have been the day that the Vietnam War ended. And there was so much celebration on the tv. And, you know, there were only three channels in those days, and the whole world kind of celebrated at the exact same time. And there was just, you know, three people telling you the news. And it was. It was beautiful. I mean, I think it was a. I was 11 or 12 years old. I said, like, war is over. And it was, like, with big, curly handwriting.

I know. I'll read them all someday.

That'll be an episode.

Yeah. No, I mean, I don't know what I'll find out. I mean, in my first. In my diary, When I was 14 years old, my first husband appears. So that would be sort of wild for my kids to see someday. So anyway, reader. I married him. So. Okay, yeah.

If right now you were told that you had six months left to live, oh, good God. What is the first thing that you would do?

Eat ice cream.

I need bread.

I need.

I'd have a marshmallow again. I mean, oh, my God. I would just eat pizza. I would eat spaghetti. I would just eat three meals a day. I mean, I am an almond mom. I mean, honestly. I'll say. I'm hungry. I'm gonna have some blueberries and almonds. I'm so. It's awful. Awful, awful, awful, awful. And actually, I walked by an ice cream store with Sophia, with my daughter yesterday, and I said, look, people are eating ice cream. And she said, you can eat ice cream. You know that, right? And I said, really? Like, what does it taste like? I don't recall. People look like they were really enjoying it. Like, there was a guy who's, like, putting a spoon of, like, like, pink stuff in his mouth, and he looked happy. And I thought, what does that feel like?

What does it taste like? I'd have a brownie. All food related.

You know why? Because. You know why? Because I've done everything else that I've wanted to do in my life. I have, I have. I've had. I have. I mean, I have. I've Been very, very, very. Is there anything. I've been traveling.

What's the title of your movie?

What? I Need a Brownie.

No.

No. What?

No. You said you wanted to make a movie.

Yeah, okay, but six months is not enough time.

Yeah, that's true.

Okay, okay.

What cliche do you think holds true?

All right, so this is the last one. Yes. Which cliche? Oh, there's so many cliches who hold true. They. There really are. I mean. I mean, they're. Look, can I just say this umbrella answer? They're cliches for a reason. They're cliches. People keep on saying them because they're true. I mean, and so times have changed and people change, and sometimes it's like that cliche is very damaging and we should let go of it. But most cliches are true because nobody's been able to disprove them. And for better, for worse, they're true. So here's a cliche that's true that blew my mind because I didn't think it was true. Okay. Is that it's better to be a grandparent than a parent. Okay. I was like, oh, come on. That's. Blah, blah, blah. Then I became a grandparent. I was like, this baby is the shiz and I can give her back. Like, they come home from babysitting and she's not my problem anymore. And it was like. It's like I have a friend who said it's that being a grandmother is the most underrated. You know, being a grandparent is the most underrated activity in the world. That people don't tell you how great it is. It is so great. I enjoy that baby. I was on the phone with her this weekend. She smiles at me and then I get off and I do whatever the hell I want. And that. I just think, so. That is a cliche. That is true. And then I would say, you know, like, there's good cliches, like the grass, you know, like, better safe than sorry. You know, I mean, like, it's hard to say. Yeah, I really rather be sorry. I mean, it's so. I. I think that I work every day, assiduously in the becoming universe to make up cliches that people will buy into. Like, it's better to be the author of your life than the editor. And. But the other things I keep saying, I'm in the cliche business, the cliche forming business. Stand by for more cliches from me. All right, that is it for this episode of Becoming youg. I'm so Glad. What? What?

The quote.

Oh, okay. That is not it. Standby. Okay, we got a quote. I'm going to talk about my favorite quote of the week. My favorite quote of the week. Sophia, read my favorite quote of the week, would you?

Culture is how employees hearts and stomachs feel about a Monday morning on Sunday night.

Yeah. Who said that?

Bill Marklein.

I found it on LinkedIn. Right. Yeah, that's what it was. And basically the quote is saying is a quick and dirty definition of a company's culture is how employees are feeling about work on Sunday night. Okay, like I gotta go to work tomorrow. It's Sunday night. I'm going to work on Monday morning. And I'm excited, exhilarated, eager, passionate, can't wait, filled with humor, blah, blah, blah. Or I'm dreading it. I wish I didn't have this job. Sick to my stomach, nervous. This is a thumbnail very fast way to know if you've got a good culture or a bad culture. I just love this because culture, I teach culture and people come into the class and this is at a business school and everybody's got a different definition of culture. They don't when my class is over. But I mean, I. Because I teach culture. Right. But culture is the most important thing. It holds a company together or not. Culture is more important than strategy. Sorry, all strategy professors everywhere. And culture is incredibly important. And if you're a boss and you should ask. I'm going to ask my own employees this. I've got a few of them in the room. How do you feel about work on Sunday night? Just don't feel like you're on the point and actually you can answer any way you want. I don't care. No, but really, it's like, I mean.

We'Re talking all weekend. I'm sending you pair pictures.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. We do send dog pictures on the weekend. But I mean, I think that, I think it's a. If you're a boss, I don't know how you find this out. I mean, because your employees are probably not inclined to answer you honestly if they want to stay employed and they have a negative feeling. But I think you should try to suss out how people are feeling on Sunday night. And maybe you should somebody, if you're, if you care about your organization and people are feeling really crappy about work on Sunday night, you should tell your boss, you should know people are having the Sunday scaries, as they're called. And so I love this definition of culture. I'm going to put it on a slide with whoever said it and I'm going to teach it in my class at nyu. And for anybody who works in an organization, something to think about. We got that letter from that woman who said she doesn't want to give up that job she loves for some extra money that is really meaningful to her. Why don't you ask yourself, dear Person, on Sunday night, how do I feel about my job right now? And the answer, it sounds like the answer is really excited, really engaged, really looking forward to getting back to work. How would you feel if you took that other job? This is a great quote. I love it. I love bringing you new quotes every week because there's so many people out there saying and thinking smart things. So I'm happy to share that one. We have now reached the end of this podcast. I love being with you. Thank you for coming and listening to the Becoming youg podcast. Come back next time and hit that subscribe button. I'm supposed to say that. Subscribe and tell your friends about this podcast. Do it it. And I love you and even though I don't know you and I will see you next week.