Everyone Must Get…"Pwned"

Foreign.

Welcome to becoming you. This is Susie Welch, your host. I'm a professor of management practice at NYU Stern School of Business in New York City. And I'm really happy you're here because this is a podcast where we're talking about you. Okay, we talk about me, but we talk about you also, and we talk about becoming you and how to become your best authentic self. It's not a podcast about happiness, by the way, per se, because I think happiness is an outcome of a productive, meaningful, fulfilling life. That's what we talk about. So I'm going to start off today with a story about a friend and I who had what a big fight. We had a big fight, but we worked it out. And I want to talk about how we did that, and I'm gonna talk to you about a song I love and why. We're gonna have a little music moment. And a little bit later, when my team tries to stump me with questions, they're going to throw some out at me and they're going to ask me about parties, something I think I have a little expertise in. So stay with us. Super glad you're here.

Look, you know what? I had a crazy important experience this weekend, which I'm trying to process, so I'm going to process it with you. And it involved one of my favorite topics, actually, in the whole wide world. It's something I talk about a lot, which is fresh. In fact, I had this idea that I really wanted to develop a class at NYU about friendship. I want to call it. It was going to be called Relationship Capital. It took a back seat when becoming you as a book. And a. A class in a lot of different forms took off in a way that made research around friendship really hard to fit in. But friendship is a great. Of great interest to me because I come from an Italian family where family comes first and your primary relationships with are all supposed to be family. And very early on in my life, I started presenting as a person who thought that friendships outside of your family were really important and could be really enriching. And it was. It was culturally not accepted within my family at the beginning. Now my sisters have a lot of friends, but it's always like, I grew up in Italian family, where the question always was like, why would you do something that wasn't with a family member? And so I always been a little bit against the grain that way. That's not a true Vol. Italian families, of course, but I'm just saying it wasn't mine, so. So the. Here was the experience. This Weekend. I've had a longtime friend. We've been friends for 25 years. She's brilliant, brilliant businesswoman, and I've always admired her and respected her enormously. She's internationally known. You would know who she was if I said her name, but I'm not going to to protect her privacy in mine in this case. So. Although what privacy do I have on these podcasts? Basically zero. But I don't desire any. So for years, we've been very close and really shared some very important moments and important experiences. And I consider I've considered her extremely close friend. But in recent years, our friendship has become very, very rocky. And she and Hay had different version of the events about why our relationship has become rocky. But one of the crazy things is that here are two extremely mature, thoughtful women who operate in a very difficult way. Workplace in a work environment, surrounded by a conflict. And that we've learned very well how to negotiate and to navigate and to how to fix conflict. And we have not been able to fix the conflict in our own relationship. And the source of it is different from her point of view and mine. And we ended up doing a business deal together, which I would not recommend you do with friends, but we ended up doing a business deal together. And when the business deal did not work out, I felt that she said hurtful things to me and. Which she does not agree with. But there was a second mitigating factor, which was somewhere along the way, she asked me to please speak to her son about a business dealing. And she felt that I said hurtful things to him and then to her about him. Isn't this kind of schoolyard stuff? Of course I have my version of the events. We always do. We always tell the story of our life with ourselves at the center as the hero. And I didn't. I think I. My version of events is I told her son the truth. And then I. If I said to her unkind things about her son, that was boneheaded and wrong. Of course, my memory of it is that I didn't exactly do that, that I just spoke the truth and we have to hear hard things about our children and whatever. It ended up both of us being hurt. And so for a few years, we've bumped along.

Kind of phony, which was kind of checking in with each other, intermittently, wishing each other well. You know, I heard at one point her husband wasn't feeling well. So I communicated with her, saying, I hope he was feeling better. When a really good friend of mine who I've spoken to Spoken about on this podcast before fell very ill. She checked in on my friend, and so we did the kind of phony things to bump along, and I actually thought the relationship was gone. I thought it was broken. And I felt sad about it because I think she's an incredibly special person, this friend of mine. Well, then something happened, and that was yet another friend of mine needed medical help and was not getting medical help. And my first friend, the center of this story, happens to have a lot of connections in the city where this friend needed medical help. And so I called my friend and I said, you're the last person I want to ask a favor of, but I need a favor from you. This friend needs a doctor, this certain doctor's appointment. And she immediately got my friend a doctor's appointment. But she said to me, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why am I the last person that you would want to ask a favor of? And I said, well, because of all the stuff that's happened. And she said, let's get your friend taken care of, and then let's unpack that. And I said, okay, when I see you, we will. Because you know what? I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to unpack it. I just felt like, this ship has sailed. This friendship is not going to work out. I can't take it. It's. I got a lot of friends in this world. This one didn't make it, and I'm just gonna let it go. I don't wanna be yelled at. I have my version of the events, and I thought it was over, but she called me this weekend. First she texted me, and then she called me and she said, actually, I do wanna work it out. I wanna talk about what happened and what went wrong. And then she said something very wise, which is she said, this is gonna be a very dreadful conversation for both of us. It's gonna be very awkward and uncomfortable. We keep on walking away from the problem. Let's walk right into it. I'm going to say my piece, and you say your piece. Then let's talk to each other about it, and then let's bury it and move on, because I miss you. And I was just blown away by her incredible grace and maturity and humanity. So she said her piece. It was very hard to hear because if what she said was true, I was a d. Okay, I was a jerk to her son. I shouldn't have been. Just shouldn't. Should never say something negative about somebody's kid to them. What a jerky thing to Do. I don't know why I. I know why I did it, but it's not really relevant. And then I said my piece, but my stance was one of just apologizing and trying not to be defensive. I said, here's how I experienced it. Here's what hurt my feelings. And she let me say my piece, and she received it. Then we talked about it back and forth. It was not a pleasant conversation. And this is why we don't actually settle differences, we. With people, because it makes us say and experience things we don't like. It makes us get into a cold shower. But sometimes you feel really good after a cold shower, right? And we did it. We did that very hard work. It was a long call. I mean, I actually, like, was in almost physical pain when we were having it. Like, if you were in the room, you would have seen me sort of curled in the fetal position in my chair as we were having it. We fought through it. I mean, we forged through it, and we did it, and.

We thanked each other. We expressed our love for each other. And then she very definitively said, I want to put this behind us. It's over now. Let us go back to being friends. I've said my piece, and so have you, and let's just go forward. And I said, I really, really would like that to happen. And I didn't know if it would, but guess what she did after that? She wrote me a long text saying, this is what I heard you say. This is what I said. I apologize for my part in it. And then she made some very interesting observations about me. So she showed me her friendship by sort of talking to me about me and said, let's keep talking. And I felt a great deal of gratitude to her. And I thought, have I been that good a friend to other people when there's been conflict? I mean, what she did was so hard. And for the record, she initiated. Not me, Mrs. Susie, be a friend to everybody, Welch, which I tell you to be. That hard work of saving a friendship is very important. We talk a lot about saving relationships with people we're married to or in other kinds of relationships with. But I. A friend is worth fighting for. And I want to just reflect on one thing she did that made it all work, which is that she set the stage by saying, this is going to be a very hard conversation. This is how it's going to go. I'm going to say my piece, you're going to say your piece. We're going to disagree with each other, and then we're going to put it behind us. She did everything absolutely right. And she invited me into a conversation that I knew the outcome, like the outcome was going to be. We were going to put it behind us when it was done. And it was fantastic. And so I'm really grateful. So then a funny thing happened. We did that. And I can't wait to see her when I am able to and to continue on the road forward and to actually try to turn around and be that kind of friend to somebody else. Right now, I'm good with all of my friendships, so I'm not needing to do that. But I hope to follow her lead if I ever need to do it. And to talk about things that are really hard. But then a crazy thing happened. About a few hours later, I got a call from a friend of mine who's 89 years old. And actually he was a really close friend of my husband's. Not mine so much, but I knew him, of course, because he was really close friends with my husband. My husband would be 89 right now, actually, if he was still living. And he said, you know what? I'm just checking in on you. Cause I haven't seen you for a while. How you doing? And we caught up. He also happens to be. He's a widower. And we talked about the experience of losing your spouse. And we compared notes on how crappy it is. And just kind of jokingly, like, just. He asked me, does it ever get better? I was like, I have bad news for you. And we had a good laugh over it. And we just chatted about our kids. And then he has had in his life an experience of somebody dying by suicide. And so have I. And we talked about that because I will be saying a prayer for that person at the memorial service on her birthday coming up. And I said to him, I've got a big thing coming up. I'm going to. I've been asked to say a prayer for this beautiful person who's with us no longer. And he lost somebody very close to him also by suicide. And so we talked about that, and then we said goodbye. And I thought, yet another great person showing me what it is to be a friend. He was just checking in because he hadn't seen me for a while. Have I done that lately? Have you done that lately? And so I was reminded twice in one day of how friendship uses all these skills that we have. One is sort of the hard work of having a very difficult conversation about a very raw and terrible disagreement or whatever. And the other is just Sort of a flyby where you check in and say, how you doing? And we. And we don't do that enough either. And so I am always talking again about how important our friends are and building your friendships and not ever to network. That's something I say constantly. Don't network. Invest in your friendships. And I was schooled in good friendship behavior twice in one day, and it was a great knock upside the head. So guess what I'm doing? I'm turning around. I'm talking to you about it. I'm saying, have you done that? Have you walked right into the fire of having a hard conversation with a friend that you love and miss but that you're estranged from? Or have you checked in on somebody that you just haven't seen? My conversation with that guy was probably 5 minutes, 6 minutes max. I feel great about it. It reminded me of how great he is and how much we should help each other. And so I'm gonna. I'm talking to you about it, but I'm gonna do both of those myself going forward over the next week. Just think about people that I should be reaching out to, because, look, friendships. Your family's great. Your family's very, very important. Your family's kind of fraught. You know, there's that fantastic Alan Larkin poem, which is your mom and dad, they eff you up. They don't want to, but they do. And they don't say F. Okay? They say, the real world. Your mom and dad, they you up. They don't mean to, but they do. It's so true. We're so screwed up by our families. We can love our families desperately. I love my children desperately. But family can cause you a lot of pain. Your friends are kind of your get out of jail free card, right? They're fantastic because they don't have to be everything to you, but we have to maintain those friendships. We really do. And that is the end of today's sermon on friendship. I was just really. Those two things happened both on Saturday. Speaking of things that happened this Saturday, for those of you who are regular listeners of this podcast, Susie did not come back. Susie the swan, my beloved swan, who was my avatar on the pond, who was the single swan who lived on my pond, flew away during the fireworks. I was bemoaning her departure, I think two episodes ago with the fireworks and just my feeling of great loss when Susie the swan. I know it's weird that I named her after me. Okay? I kind of do it to freak people out. But I loved her and she's gone, and she's still gone. I'm still holding out hope that she returns because AI told me she would. And so I'm betting on you, AI. I'm counting on you, AI. And being right about this, you're supposed to be right about a lot of things. Please be right. That swans do return to their habitat because we miss you, Susie. Okay, Go be a friend.

We've got a question from the community. I love them. I love them.

First question. I love the Whose life do I want? Exercise. But what if there's no one's life that I want?

Whoa. Really? I would just say something's up. Okay, so here's somebody asking about an exercise that I have. It's going to be described fully in my book, which now comes out in less than a year, May 2025. It's coming, though. I have an exercise where to help you figure out your values. I ask you to make a list of people whose lives you'd take if you couldn't have yours. And you have to take. You have to write on this list why you want their lives, but also what you wouldn't take. Okay? So, for instance, you could say, I love how powerful they are, what a great job they have, how much money they have, but, oops, I don't want that divorce. Okay? So this. After you have a few people on this list, you start to see patterns. Like, for instance, on mine, almost everybody in my list is a woman who's got a job that sets the agenda, helps people have conversations. Okay? Like, Martha Stewart's on my list. Hoda Kotb's on my list. Mary Erdos is on my list. Okay? There's a real pattern there. Um, and so this is a. A very useful exercise. I use it in the classroom all the time to help people, to soften up people, to do the values bridge and to start thinking about their values. So this person is saying, cool exercise. I can't think of anybody. And I'm going to say, you're defended. Sorry. Okay. I think you're defended. You're not letting yourself. I mean, I. When the only time I see this, I wonder how old this person is. Because the only time I've ever seen this happen is when I did this exercise with people who were in their 40s and 50s in a very advanced finance program at NYU. Why they let me loose with these finance executives, I don't know, but they do. They invite me in. And I went in, and there were a couple of students of men in their 50s, and they were like, I can't do this. I can't do it. They were kind of paralyzed by it. And so what I am going to invite you to do is to stop being so rigid, if you would, about the dreaming, okay? Nobody is actually ever going to make you have these people's lives. But. But let's just play a game. And the game is you have to choose somebody else's life, okay? So Even if it's 50% of what you want, write that down and say, okay. And then write down, look, it's not whose life it is. It's the reasons, okay? And just write down what you like about that person's life and what you don't like. And so I'm gonna say loosen up. And to allow yourself to dream a little. This is not a verdict on the life that you have not being good enough. Congratulations. If your life is so great, you wouldn't want anyone else's. Guess what? My. My life is so great, I wouldn't want anybody else's. Okay? That's the supposition going into the exercise. Nobody really wants to trade lives with anybody. I mean, most people are like, you know what? It's got its flaws, but I'll keep it, okay? Most people are pretty wedded to their lives. So let go and allow yourself to dream a little bit so that you can just start that process towards thinking, is there anything missing from my life? Allow yourself to do that. That is my answer to that question. Thank you for asking it, though. Love it. Love that you're engaging with the exercises. What do we got?

The second question is, is authenticity at work overrated?

Yeah. Is authenticity work overrated? Yes and no. Okay? Authenticity is great, but you got to understand that authenticity has its limits, all right? And I don't want to see your worst self, okay? If you're being authentic at the office, and that means authenticity, and you're an ass, okay? If you're a pompous person, if you're a jerk, if you're moody, I don't want it, okay? One of the great things about work is we don't have to. We don't have to get just stuff you bring to your poor family, okay? So authenticity is living your values and being your true self. If you got a weird sense of humor, being allowed to, you know, display it, if it's not inappropriate, that's okay. Okay? If you like your nail art and that's how you self express, okay. All right? But if we're talking about your authenticity being, like, bringing extremely smelly food into the office. That's gonna make other people sick. Not. Okay. Okay. We work in community. And so authenticity is. Has definitely been overused. And some people actually have very high desires for privacy. Right? In. In the values bridge, we talk about scope. Scope is you want a big, exciting life, but oftentimes when you have that life, you give up privacy. Okay? And some people really love privacy. They don't want anybody to know anything about them that they don't tell them. And I actually have a client who's in cybersecurity, and she knows all the things that can go wrong when people know everything about you. And she has a very high on privacy because of the work she does. So you can't blame her. Right? And so authenticity is fine, within bounds. And that your bad traits and your traits that are not going to be accepted by the community in general because they're either distasteful or deeply personal. Like, do not cut your fingernails at your desk. Don't put that under the rubric of authentic. That's just gross. All right? And don't do it. Do it at home. But if authenticity is. I love a certain kind of music, I'm not gonna blare in the office. But when people start talking about music, I'm gonna mention it. People should have open minds and say, oh, really? That's. I didn't know that sort of cool music. Bring those parts of yourself that are interesting and good to work and leave the bad parts of your authenticity to the people who love you so much that they'll tolerate them. Okay? When I talk about authenticity, though, writ large, it's about living out your values. So in other words, if you really believe in social justice as one of your values, which would be sort of a combination of radius and voice in the values bridge rubric of social justices, then do work that allows you to express those values. Okay? And even if you work at a place like Goldman Sachs, they have ways, even at Goldman Sachs, for people to participate in activities that would fulfill their values of social justice, believe it or not. And so seek to fulfill your values. And. Because authenticity just is not about personal habits. It's about living out your values fully and being aligned with them. Thank you for that. Fantastico question. I appreciate it. All right, what do we got? Sophia?

How can I build and make friends as an adult as we evolve? Because I tend to lose people along the way.

Oh, my God. Well, this is apropos exactly of my opening. We did not even plan this. I mean, I started this off by talking about friendship and this question is right to the point, which is, how do I. What is the words exactly? How do I make and build. Read it again, though.

How do I build and make friends as an adult as we evolve? Because I tend to lose people along the way.

Okay, great question. Sometimes we do lose friends along the way as adults because we have no more overlap. Okay. When we were in college together, it was very easy to be friends because we had. We're taking all the same classes and we went to the same bars, and there's just affinity. There's, you know, there's actually a whole world of study around different types of friends. And there. There's one type of friend that's called your affinity friend, and that's just somebody who's around doing all the same things as you. And then you graduate from college and you think, I didn't really like them very well. Okay. I mean, I have a friend that I made during the pandemic, and we spent a lot of time together because we were living near each other at the time. And when the pandemic ended, I was like, we just don't have anything in common at all. We had the pandemic in common, and that. That happens. And so I. But as I said in the opening portion of this podcast, friendship is a complete art. And people will fall away unless you do those two things I spoke about at the beginning. The one being confronting and walking into and unpacking and working through friendships that are on the rocks. Okay. It's much easier to let them go. You know, this question says they. They drop away. And I wonder if what's going on is you're not facing into some kind of injury and. And healing it, number one. And the other is, you know, you gotta do some work. You gotta pick up the phone. I mean, my good friend Peter Esterstone, who's just an expert friend, he has a million jillion friends. Why he's so good at being a friend. And out of the blue, if I haven't heard from him for a week and a half or two, he will email me or call me and say, I just wanted to hear your voice. You wanna go for a walk? He's just good at keeping up friendships. It's a skill. It's an art. It's a discipline. And so that's why people are falling away. Now, sometimes friends fall away. Cause friends are hard work. But you don't want to be at your 75th birthday crying because you're alone. Okay? And so do the hard work and the discipline. Now everybody sort of has a perfect sized friend group. Some people want a jillion friends and 10 are really close and the rest are sort of arm's length. And some people just want five close friends, four close friends, and you got to know that about yourself. But I'd encourage you, regardless, to push that circle out a little wider because. Because friends are a wonderful, and B, there's actual research studies that show there's a direct link between our health and the number of friends we have. There's research study after research study that showed that the more communities you're a part of, actually it adds years to your life. So for your health, keep working on those friendships, for your mental health and for your physical health, friendship is the theme. All right, thank you for that fantastic question. It's so easy to go inside of ourselves and become our own best friend. Do not recommend. Do not recommend.

Listen up. This is the portion of the show where I talk about a song I want you to go listen to. And so Jorge will put in here. I'm going to be so corny right now because I'm going to suggest a song from Hamilton. Don't lie. The music from Hamilton is from freaking great, okay? I know it's a Broadway musical and I'm, you know, like, Broadway musicals are cheesy music generally or whatever, but there's some great. Some of the greatest music of all time has come out of a Broadway, okay? With the exception of Cats, which I think was some of the worst music of all time. No offense to everybody who loves Cats, but my God, that's bad music. Although it's catchy and once you hear it, you can't get it out of your head. But you know, Hamilton, if you've not seen it or seen the Disney production of it online, if you ever get to New York, this is one of the great pieces of. Of art made in my lifetime. Lin Manuel Miranda is just genius. A genius. I have a picture of me with him somewhere because before he was famous, I was at a fundraiser and I was seated next to him and Hamilton had not. In the Heights had been on and Hamilton had not yet hit the popular consciousness. And I chatted with him like he was a regular person, but he was not. And I did manage to take a selfie, though. That was genius. If I can find it, I wonder where it is. It was 5,000 phones ago. The title of the song is Non Stop. Aaron Burr and Hamilton are singing to each other. And Aaron Burr, who, as those of you know, the show is just very skeptical of Hamilton. He thinks he's a upstart, he thinks he's a striver. He thinks he doesn't draw within the lines. He thinks he's a jerk and he hates him. Of course in the end, kills him. No surprise, not a spoiler alert. Everyone knows that Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton. But at one point Hamilton is like writing something frantically. I think it's some government document lost to my 9th grade history class. And Burr sings to him. Why do you write like you're running out of time?

Why do you assume you're the smartest in the room? Why do you assume you're the smartest in the room? Why do you assume you're the smartest in the room? And that attitude may be your doom. Why do you write like you're running out of time? Write day and night like you're running out of time Every day you fight like you're running out of time. She born for fighting. In the meantime.

To me, when I first saw this, I was like I was wanted to scream at the stage because I was born running out of time. I mean, like, you know, some of us feel like we're running out of the time. Out of time, all the time. And I want to say that this is the value of urgency and scope that I talk a lot about. Companies have values of urgency all the time. I. This is urgency is, is captured in scope and radius in the values bridge and, and Alexander Hamilton wanted to have a huge impact on this world and he wanted to have a big and exciting life. And he had, because of that, he had a ton of urgency in everything that he did. He wrote and he wrote and he met people and he made laws and I don't know if you have that in you. I do, I do. And maybe too much and maybe too much of the time. Cause it can be very exhausting to be around me, correct team and correct children and I mean I'm. One of the reasons why I was such a good match with Jack was he surpassed me in these qualities and he wore me out, if you can believe it. But we were kindred spirits, okay? In that I got it and we got each other. He was maybe a 10 on this and I was a 9.5, so we were pretty darn close. So I love this song. I'd love you to go listen to it first because it's just a freaking great song. Listen to the whole Ding Dang album or listen to all the songs. They're great soundtrack I think is the word I was looking for. But when you listen to this one, just reflect on yourself about your intensity level. Like, do you relate to that song or does that song kind of turn you off? Because guess what? That's a way of figuring out your value around scope. You knew I was going to get back to values, and I did. It's about scope and it's about radius. And it's a way to like how you feel about it, how you feel about him asking that question and how you would answer that question. Are you, quote, unquote, writing like you're running out of time, or are you kind of taking the long meandering route? And they're both perfectly legitimate ways to live. But it's a value, how you live. If you live fast or slow, that's a value. It's good to know it about yourself because it's good to talk to people about it and to say, this job doesn't work, for instance, not because they're a bunch of jerks. This job doesn't work because they are going fast. And I personally go slow. No judgment, just a mismatch of values. Or you may think, God, the people at unnamed academic institution where I work sure. Move more slowly than I do instead of just saying they're jerks. And just the truth is they don't have the value of going fast, but I do. And we just have different values. That's why they're in academia and why I spent my whole career out of it. And I'm really glad that I'm in it for what it is, but I get that we have different values. And so I think it's really good to understand where you stand on this value. And that song is just a banger as far as Broadway musical songs can be bangers. But I told you about Moby a few times ago, so if you want a banger, go listen to Moby again. Okay. All right, that's it for Listen up. Music can teach us so much, can't it? You know, one of the things about that song, it just makes me think about how in one of my classes, my class on management, I tell a story about how when I was made the boss of hbr, uh, the first thing I tried to do on the first day was fire somebody because he'd been bad for so long and I just wanted to get him out. And I almost got fired myself for it. Like that night, HR called me and said, you actually don't become boss and fire somebody the first day in a one on one meeting. Which is what I did. And then I played for the class, the unbelievably great Miley Cyrus song. I came in like a Wrecking Ball. And that is just not a way to be. And that is the problem with being a person who's writing like they're running out of time is that you come in like a wrecking ball. I wonder if I could do a whole show just stringing together the titles of songs. But in any case, I. I have seen this trait of mine backfire, and I've had to learn not to come in like a wrecking ball. Although I'm often Wrecking Ball like, but less, but less. And if you were to take my management class at nyu, you would get to hear so many good songs like, I came in like a wrecking Ball. And it's funny because I wanted to show the video, but you know, that video, if you ever get your eyes to lay on it, there's not very many clips of it that you can actually show in a classroom at nyu. So I just throw up a picture of Miley who. Who's so beautiful, and I just let the music play with her face on the screen. Okay, that's the end of Listen up. Somehow we got from Hamilton to Miley Cyrus. And maybe I'll just mention Pitbull here also for the hell of it.

All right, what do we got? Rapid fire questions. Is that where we're at, team? Let's do it.

What is your favorite paint in the woman and dog art collection?

Oh, so, you know, thank you for asking about that. I have a. I have for years and years and years been collecting. And collecting is a really fancy word for me, just meaning buying paintings of women with their dogs. And I want you to know something. This is not a fancy art collection. I mean, some of these paintings have cost $25. I've just liked them. And some were more expensive than that. But over the years, because actually, in all cultures and all types of art and in all eras, the there have been paintings of women with their dogs. And here's the reason why, sadly, my friends, is that in the history of humankind, in the history of humanity, in many, many cultures and over many, many eons, for some women, their only chosen relationship was with their dog. Okay? In many cultures, women were obligated to be with certain men because of certain socioeconomic reasons, because of parents or whatever. I mean, there are just whole centuries where you grew up as a girl and you had friends and then you were told what man you were going to make your life with. And many of my Paintings are actually of young women. I have a fantastic painting of a woman from the 16th century, a Dutch painting, and she's 13 years old. And it's the painting that they sent her off with a portrait of hers. She was sent off to be married off to some nobleman in Brussels. And it's just her, all of her stuff, and her dog, okay? And so I feel for these women because I have never been forced into a relationship with a man in my life. And I'm so grateful. We live in a day and an age, and men should be grateful for this, too, that we choose who we get to be with. Everybody should be grateful for it. But I look at these paintings of women with their dogs, no matter where they're from, and it's about this beautiful, chosen relationship we have that.

Supersedes words, right? I remember Jack saying to me one time, I wish our Happy. He was referring to our dog Happy at the time. I wish Happy could talk. And I said to him, she tells us everything we need to know. Because dogs don't need to talk to us to tell us everything they do with their eyes and their behaviors and their head tilts and their tail wagging and their. Just their relationship with us. God, I hope you like dogs, because if you haven't, you've tuned out by now. So. And I guess this is true of cats. I don't know much about cats, so I have good friends who love cats. And so, okay, wait. The question was, which was my favorite one of all of these? There's a very small painting as you turn the corner to go from the second floor to the third floor. All these paintings are in my stairwell in my townhouse in New York. And it's a very, very small painting. It's by a living artist who no one knows. And it really. This painting was, I think, under a hundred dollars. And it's of a woman with a dog's head in her lap. It's a small painting. It's probably about as big as my hand. And there's just something about the authenticity of that dog's head in her lap that is about the relationship very deeply. It's a very intimate painting and a very poetic one. But you know what? I'll have to tell you something. I could walk up that staircase, I could stand in front of every single one of those paintings and tell you why I love it and what's different about it. The ones from Korea, the ones from Jamaica, the ones from la, the ones from, you know, every country that you can think of. I Could tell you why I love it. And one time I sort of spontaneously said to one of my kids, my paintings are my friends. And they were like, that's sad, Mom. But my paintings are my friends. And in particular, my paintings of my womb with my dogs. I don't know what I would do without my dogs. They are very important companions to me and animals in general, I love very, very much, and that's why I don't eat them. Okay, what do we got? Next question.

If you were to throw a themed party, what would the theme be?

Oh, I want to throw a themed party. I'm dying to do it right now. I mean, and Hallie's stopping me. Okay. I want to throw a party on Labor Day. I want to throw a party about work. I want to celebrate going back to work. Okay. Is that effed up? I'm mental. Okay. So Labor Day's come in, and I think nobody really celebrates labor for what it's all about. Labor. I love labor. I'm a management professor. I want to throw a Labor Day party. I also want to get rid of the apples in my orchard. I got a lot of apples. I inherited this orchard. I think it's very, very beautiful, but nobody needs 6,000 apples. Okay. And I would like to invite everybody to come pick apples at my house on Labor Day and, like, have a bluegrass band and a vegan barbecue and just had opened. Everybody come. And then Hallie's like, everybody's traveling on Labor Day. She just doesn't want to do all the invitation. I don't know what she's. I know my parties are a pain in the arse, but everybody has a good time, so. Okay. My theme party would be Labor Day. Come as your favorite boss. I don't know. I would just, you know, come as your favorite management professor. So I would like to throw that theme party. We'll keep you prized on whether or not that party occurs. I wanted to, like, send out a whole bunch of invitations saying, who would celebrate work? Susie would celebrate work. Come celebrate work at Susie's Labor Day party. And it might be just me and the dogs. Okay. But that's my idea for a themed party. And would you guys come. Jorge, would you and your wife come to my Labor Day party? Maybe. Oh, for God's sake. I pay this guy. Maybe. Okay. That's okay. Yeah. All right. Backpedaling furiously. How about you, Eliza? Traveling to my Labor Day party.

I'll check my schedule.

This is terrible. This is actually a tragic event. Okay. What about you, Sophia?

No comment.

No Nobody. This is, I think, what Holly's trying to do. She's trying to prevent me from having a party where I got a lot of leftover corn, okay? This is a sad, sad event. You know who. Who's going to come to that party? You know who's going to come? My dogs. Okay? And that's why I love my dogs, because my dogs are coming to my party. And maybe, you know, I keep on talking about friends. Maybe I can scare up some friends to come to this freaking party. But if you want to come to my Labor Day party, send me a dm, okay? Because I might just invite strangers that I don't know off of the Internet to this party, because otherwise, it's just going to be me and my dogs out in the countryside on Labor Day, and I'll be feeling sorry. Sorry for myself being alone in Labor Day. All right, that's my theme party. I'm liking it more and more with the three of you saying you're not coming. You're going to be missing a very good party.

A sad and tragic event, and a sad and tragic way to end this episode of becoming you. I love you all so much for tuning in. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for being here, and see you next time. Bye.