Guess What? Sometimes Guilt is a Choice.

Foreign.

Hey, everybody. Hi. Welcome to Becoming youg. This is Susie Welch. I'm a professor of management practice at NYU Stern School of Business. And Becoming you is a podcast about, let's see, Becoming you. Yeah, it's about figuring out who you are standing still so you can figure out you should change direction or actually just run faster the direction you're going. So, anyway, this week's show, I'm really psyched about it. I'm actually going to tell a deeply huge, humiliating story. But there's a point to it. And a little bit later, I'm going to talk about guilt and how to live without it. Actually one of the hardest things we'll ever do. And finally, I take on a reader question later on in the show about my personality. I'm going to go there. So stay with us and enjoy. Here we go.

Well, hi, everybody. I hope you've had a great week. I was working very late last night with one of my private clients, and it was an incredible experience. I just mentioned it briefly because she's been going through the becoming you process. And it was that moment where it all comes together. And we had the big eureka about what she should be doing with her life. And I was reminded by how excited and joyful that experience was about why I do this work, about why I do Becoming youg. I mean, everybody has a choice. Well, okay, that's a bigger question about whether everybody has a choice about what they can do in life. Because there's a lot of things get in the way of us having our choices around that. But, you know, there are other things all of us can do. Maybe not a wide array for everybody, but an array. And we had this moment, and I could see her future, and so could she. After some very hard work around values and aptitudes. We're not completely done, by the way.

But we are getting really close in. Some really important ideas were emerging and some exciting possibilities. And it had been a long day, and there was a little piece of me that was thinking, why am I doing this late at night after a full day? And it made me think about the genesis of the whole becoming you process. And I was actually gonna tell that story this morning because. Or this. It's morning for us, maybe it's night for you. But I'm gonna tell. I would like to tell that story. Cause it still matters. And it's the origin story. You know how in startups they all have, like, an origin story? For instance, I was writing in my book how Jeff Bezos was driving across the country in 1994 with his then wife, Mackenzie Bezos. And he had this eureka in the car ride that he didn't just have to sell books online at that point. He had this big idea. You could buy books online in 1994. That was radical, okay? Then as they were driving in the car, he got this idea that you could sell everything online. Like you could sell a blender online and you could sell pajamas online. I know it seems so pedantic. I mean, but this was revolutionary, okay, in 1994, and that origin story is told over and over again to Amazon's new employees that there was this car ride and its idea came to him, and he got out of the car and he sort of looked out into the distance and he saw the horizon, and he thought, this is a new day. And every company has that origin story. Every good company does. Despite the fact that my company is minuscule. I just. The origin story of becoming you actually takes place in 19, right around the same time, a little bit later than when Jeff Bezos had that had his moment in the desert. I guess it goes like this. It was 1997, I believe, and I was a young, ambitious, hardworking mother at that time of three children in Boston. I was working for the Harvard Business Review, and I was a senior editor. I had my eyes like the other senior editors. I wasn't the only one on being the editor in chief, okay? There was a good editor in chief at that time, and that was not going to happen in the near future. But I was trying to build a ladder to that role, and I was working very hard, and I had these kids. Actually, let me take it back. I had four kids by then, okay? I did, because Eve was born in 1995, okay? So I had four kids, and I was working constantly, working really hard. And of course, like many young couples, my then husband and I were living beyond our means. That's what happens when you're young and you're both working and you have hope for the future. But we bought a house that was a little bit too expensive, and we had cars that were a little bit too expensive, and we had kids that were a little bit too expensive, and everything was just a gigantic stretch. And. And then, as it always goes in life, we got a big leak in our roof. We lived in an old house. It was a lovely house, but it was really old and everything was always breaking. We got a leak, and I remember seeing the water coming in through our bedroom and thinking to myself, this is not going to be inexpensive. And it was so expensive and so there. A huge amount of scaffolding went up on our house. And I remember neighbor driving by saying, I sure am glad it's my. Not my house with that scaffolding. And I remember writing the checks for it. Well, right in that period, I got a phone call from a company, an insurance company that was looking for a keynote speaker for their big annual convention in Hawaii. And they said, we'd love to have you come be. Would you be interested in being the keynote speaker at this Hilton event? And there's gonna be about a thousand insurance reps there. This is how we thank them every year. And they come on in and we do all these exercises, but mainly they play golf and drink from tiki bowls. And we have one very serious day. And would you give a speech the sort of pressing issues in management? And you know, it didn't dawn on me at that moment to think to myself, gee, a bunch of drunk insurance executives. What would they be dying to hear about the, you know, the pressing issues in management or not? But I asked how much I would be paid and the sum was $8,000. And at the time it was just, this was like a gift from God. This was like the heavens opened up and angels sang because I needed money so badly for that roof. And we were feeling, look, my husband at the time and I were fighting about everything at that point. But money, of course, was top of the list. And he accused me of being the reason why we were living beyond our means. And I accused him and it was terrible. So I here was this offer for $8,000 to go speak in Hawaii. Did I stop and think to myself, I have four children under the age of seven and I'm working a full time job and a trip to Hawaii and back was going to be in any way impinging on my life? No, I did not think that. I thought, show me that money. I was a desperate woman. So I said, yes, I'll take it, I'll take it. And then I went to my boss and I made the case about why it was so good for me to miss some days from work to go to Hawaii. And basically, wasn't this fantastic for the Harvard Business Review? I was repping for the company? I was out there, Harvard Business Review editors were out there talking about pressing issues in management. And she was like, yeah, that's a really good idea. I think you should do that. We won't even count it as time off. This is very good. She did say that your fee for the speech should come then to The Harvard Business Review. And I was like, with tears in my eyes, said, do you really think that that's the case? And she cut me a break, and I got to keep the money. And I then got the. I started to think about the logistics of this, and my husband was working all the time also, and I didn't. I had a nanny. But the idea of me going out of the picture was absolutely very. A very difficult one logistically, to take one of the key players out of the universe that we had built of. Of soccer and origami classes and all the other getting the kids to school and all this other stuff. So I came up with this brilliant idea. Here was the brilliant idea that popped into my head. I was going to take two of the children with me, okay? That would leave only two children at home, and the family ecosystem could probably handle that. And I thought, okay, everybody at home will be really, really happy about that. But let me check that out with the speech company or the insurance company. And I called her back and I said, look, I'm going to bring my two children. And she immediately said, no, no, no, you cannot do this. This is. You have to come to the luau. You've got to give the speech. We are buying you. This is not a family vacation. And I said, my kids are practically little adults. They're just incredibly mature, and you won't even notice they're there. And she said, I don't like this. I'm not even going to tell them about it, but I'm a working mother myself, and I'll let you do it, but don't let us see those kids. And I said, not a problem. You will not see the children. And then I went home and I said to my kids, the two older ones, Roscoe and Sophia, I had the most exciting news. Mommy's taking you to Hawaii. This is so exciting. I didn't say to them, like, we're going to go to Hawaii for a day in, like, a round trip, was going to be three days flat. I mean, it was insane on its face. I flew out one day, was going to give the speech, do the lu out. Like, literally fly back, you know, a day and a half later. It was an incredibly. Everything about it was demented, but I just was like a bat out of hell. Okay? So the kids were not actually all that excited about going to Hawaii. They didn't want to be taken out of school, and they didn't want to be disrupted from their routines. By the way, Jorge, whose wife is about to have a baby, and kids love routine, okay? You think you're going to have this exciting wildlife with the kids, okay? So kids are like dogs. They just want you to do the exact same thing every single day. Anyway, I took them out of the routine and off we went to Hawaii. Everybody being promised that this was going to be perfect because I apparently was seven people all at once. I wrote my speech, I packed my suit with the bow shirt. We wore those in those days. And off we went. And of course, I didn't count on Sophia getting unbelievably sick on the plane. She actually still sort of gets travel sickness. And she got incredibly sick on the plane to the point that when she like threw up for the 400th time, I remember the stewardess saying, oh no, oh no, oh no. And me saying, oh, yes, oh yes, oh yes. So she got there, she got sick. I said, let's go to the beach, kids. And they were like, okay. You know, they just traveled all the way from Boston to Hawaii. Let's go to the beach, kids. And Roscoe was very blonde and very blue eyed. And so I kind of wrapped him up and put sun lotion all over him. And I was not gonna let that kid get sunburned, but I did give him sun poisoning because I baked him up like a little convection oven and he just broiled inside of all the things I covering him in. And he got really sick. So I had two sick kids and this vacation was not going very well for them. And my sort of time with the client was already off to a bad start. But, you know, I just was going to fight through it. I mean, I almost was having an out of body experience about it. I mean, I. I just was going to get this done because I needed that money. And I actually was very happy they'd asked me to give a speech. I mean, I. Here I was. I want to just back up for a second and say I was a highly educated person who from the outside looked like she had her act together, okay? I'd gone to Harvard, undergraduate and graduate. I had what looked to be a very happy marriage with a great looking guy from the outside. We lived in a very nice house in a very nice suburb. And if you looked at me, you would have said, isn't she lucky? Okay? But I was an absolute train wreck, okay? So the day of the speech comes in and it's. It's rocky, okay? Things are bad, the kids are sick. The client is not seeing enough of me. They've already made that clear. And the day the speech comes In. I'm just going to hit the ball out of the park on the speech. That's my big idea. I had my slides, I put on my bow shirt and my suit, and I said to the kids, I'm going to. Mommy's got a very, very exciting event for you. And there was a hula dancing class for kids. And my decision was to. To warehouse my kids in a hula, hula dancing class while I was giving the speech. Okay. And you know, there's a lot of things that happen in life and you can let go of them after years and you can sort of get through them, but there's one thing I'll never get over in my life. And that was the look that my son gave me when I dropped him at age 7 in a hula dancing class that was going to require him to put on a grass skirt and go topless with a bunch of little girls who were screaming their brains out. And he looked at me in a way that I thought, gee, have I raised a serial killer? I mean, look in his eyes was scary. And I said, bye, bye. Have a great time. And I ran to the convention hall. And sitting in the convention hall were a thousand insurance executives on two sides. There was a center aisle, and they didn't want to be there at all. They'd rather be off golfing or surfing or drinking or doing whatever they wanted doing. But there they had all piled in because they had to. And I got up there and I gave a speech about pressing matters in management. I want to tell you a hilarious aside about that. I was talking about pressing matters in management, and you couldn't do that in 1994 without mentioning Jack Welch, who was the CEO of GE. If you had told me at that time, hey, by the way, you're going to marry that guy who's on one of your slides, I would have said, what are you talking about? But lo and behold, I was up there giving a speech that included a lot of references to my future husband. Just bizarre. Anyway, I'm up there and I'm giving the speech. It's not going very well, and they're not enjoying it very much. And why would they? Because it was boring. And. And I had not yet really learned how to give a speech. And as I'm coming towards the end of the speech, I am looking down the center aisle of the lecture hall, and there was a glass. There were sliding glass doors at the back, and I saw these two little figures pressed up against them, literally banging on them and mouthing words that could only be Mommy. And they were. They had made a jailbreak, okay? They'd made a jailbreak, and they'd come to track me down. And, you know, I don't know if anybody's seen the Graduate, but there's a scene at the end where he breaks into her wedding. The main character breaks into his wedding, and he likes screaming her name from the back of the church. It was sort of like that. Somebody opened the door for the kids, and they came barreling down the center aisle. In my speech, during my speech, there were no cell phones. Then, thank God, No Twitter then, thank God. Although I sort of wish in a way, that somebody had actually caught it all on tape. Anyway, they came barreling down the center aisle screaming my name, and they actually ran up on stage and they grabbed my legs. That actually happened. And you hear my cell phone binging right now. That's probably one of my children communicating with me, because somehow, despite all these abusive episodes, all these dreadful episodes in their life, they still. They've come to forgive me. And like me, in any case, they came running down the aisle screaming my name and hugging my legs, and that was the end of the speech. And people didn't laugh. This would have been like, people, you know, if this happened in today, people would have laughed and cheered. It would have been hilarious. It would have been a meme. It would have been funny. People would have thought, oh, my God, been there, done that. But this was just a bunch of guys, and this was 1994, and they didn't find it amusing at all. And I don't think I even got applause. I mean, in my memory, I definitely did not get applause. I'm wondering if maybe somebody did. I don't think so. And I ran off the stage, and I kind of gathered my kids up into my arms. I was abjectly ashamed. I had screwed up terribly. I felt badly, terribly for my children that I'd done that to them. I didn't even look up to see the client looking at me because I didn't want to know what that looked like. And I ran back to my hotel room. And you would have thought what a normal person could have and should have done at that moment is pack her bags, give the money back, and go home and learn the lesson. But, no, I got changed. And that night I took the kids to the beach. And that night I attempted to go to the luau. And I was not a welcome person at the luau. And the story about what had happened had gone wild. The hot fire through the whole Group. And I was sitting alone because no one would sit with me. I was sitting alone at a picnic, and why would they? I was such a loser. I was sitting alone at the picnic table, and the wife of one of the attendees came up to me, and she looked down at me. I was sitting and she was standing, and she looked down to me and she said, you working mothers, I don't know how you do it. And I said, ha, ha, ha. And then she walked away. And I made it through the luau. I don't know how my memory is that no one spoke to me or looked at me. And I packed my bags and I went home the next day. They did pay me, but they paid me because they were good people. Before I went home that night, after I put the kids to bed, I think I gave the kids ice cream for dessert. I paid the babysitter. She left. And I sat out on the little balcony that went with my hotel room. And I.

I stared out into the different distance. It was a beautiful, beautiful scene. And I should have been feeling tranquility and serenity. I should have been feeling pride for the work I had just done, or if I had just been there alone with my children. I should have been feeling kind of incredible sense of harmony with the universe for being with my kids. Instead, I felt about as low as you can go. I felt I failed as a mom. I felt like I failed as a professional. I felt like my life was completely out of control, and I knew that no one was going to come to my rescue but me. Okay. Now, I happen to have a very strong faith, and I don't know how much of a role that played, but I did ask God if he could help me figure out a way forward that was not this terrible mess. I was in so much pain, and my marriage was so bad at that point that I didn't even call home to tell my husband. Okay, that's how bad it was that I didn't even. I didn't even have somebody to call and say, you won't believe what happened. The worst thing in the world just happened to me. I was just by myself completely. And this started. This was the beginning of the road back. And at that moment, actually, this idea floated in my mind about taking hold of my decisions one by one. And if I could just stop before I made every single decision and apply some kind of discipline to it. And I had recently been talking to a friend of mine whose mother, grandmother, had 10 children, and I said, how did she make it through the day? And he said, she just thought 10 minutes at a time. And I remember hearing that and sort of thinking, maybe I should just think 10 minutes at a time. But that day, sitting out on the porch in Hawaii, I thought to myself, what if I just stop before every decision? Just force myself to do that, for God's sake. And I think, okay, what are the consequences of this decision in 10 minutes and in the immediate future and in 10 months, the foreseeable future, and in 10 years, the life I want to create? I don't know why this idea came to me. Desperate women do desperate things. Desperate women have desperate ideas. And this was the idea that came to me. And I thought that that's it. I called it 10, 10, 10 in my head. I did. I gave it the name right then and there. If you had said to me, guess what? Someday you'll write a book about this and it will be in Oprah's magazine and all these other things, I would have been like, this is just me surviving until tomorrow, okay? But that's what I did. I said, okay. Every single decision, I'm going to stop and put it through this screen. And I started doing it the next morning. And I almost instantly, I mean, literally instantly, felt a difference come over me. I mean, I remember I was at the airport, and the kids were asking if they could do something in the airport. Can we do some, like, go on this little ride that they had for kids? And I remember thinking, in 10 minutes and 10 months a day. And I, like, literally started to apply it immediately. And within a month, it had changed my mind life. I started sharing. People noticed immediately that I was not the frantic, whirling dervish that I'd always been at work. And I started doing it over and over again on everything. It was like I was trying to save my own life. I had thrown myself a life preserver, and people noticed the difference, and they asked me what I was doing, and I said, I have this new tool. And I started talking about it. But pretty soon I realized that the tool needed another layer on it, which was I needed to understand my values. Like, I needed to know what I wanted and what I actually believed. And that was the beginning, 1994, of me thinking about, how do you actually know your values now? For me, the first person I actually asked this to was my pastor. I went, I met with him at our church, and I said, how do you know? And we talked about it, and he was a very, very smart guy. Jim Antol was his name. And we started to talk about what values were, and I started to do my reading on it and boning up on it. And it's really where I sort of became very obsessed, because here I was, 30 something years old, and I couldn't tell you my values, but within a year or two, I really knew them. And actually, the end of that whole story is comes to becoming you, because I now have invented this values rubric, which we're now calling the Values Bridge. I originally refer to it as the Abacus, because that's the tool I used to explain to my students originally. And I mean, that started in 1994 with a disastrous experience on stage with my kids hugging my legs in their hula skirts and me realizing I needed a way forward that was going to establish some kind of order and deliberateness and joy in my life. Believe me, joy was not in the picture at that time. And it was this tool. And the tool grew into understanding that you needed values. And that began all my values work and the values exercises that I developed. And then ultimately the Values Bridge, which is right now with our developers, this firm called Perpetual in New York. Hey, Perpetual people, hope you're listening. You know, it's been.

Almost 30 years. Okay, almost 30 years, this journey for me. And it may sound new to you, but, man, it was a long time in coming. And so that's the origin story of it. I mean, it started then. I mean, there have been so many twists and turns along the road, and to be where we are now, it's made me have such an appreciation for people who stick with things and persevere. I mean, I want to tell you, along the way, I wasn't thinking to myself, I am developing a school of thought around values. I mean, a lot of time I was thinking, like, I'm just trying to get by. And then it changed to, I am helping people get by. And that somehow feels very, very, very good to me, because if somebody had been able to help me, that would have been awesome. And if I'd been able to hear them, I suppose, and so kind of come full circle to be that life preserver. I hope, to somebody. I got a DM today from one of my Instagram followers who said, I'm at a really pivotal crossroad in my life right now, and I know a lot of my friends are, and I wonder if we can talk to you about that. I'm excited to talk to them about it. I think. I'm putting together a class in New York City right now for non NYU students to talk about becoming you in New York. City, because I know the need is out there. We'll put it on my website when we figure out the exact dates. Three days of intensive becoming you because it feels really good to be that lifeline to other people going through this process and say, look, here's a tool. There's 10, 10, 10, which I'm really proud of. And I'm rewriting that book for coming up out. But becoming you grew out of October. 10-10-10. And they go together. They're two, really. I mean, for me, they are the tools and I hope they are for other people, too. There's lots of great tools out there. Those are the ones I like. And that is the. Pretty much the end of the story. It's put Pierre to sleep. Okay. He has completely snoozed out on it. Sorry, Pierre, but I hope it didn't put you. I hope it didn't put you to sleep. Anyway, that is the Hawaii story and we live to tell about it. And the kids are great, by the way, and doing fine. And I can assure you that Roscoe, who's now a father himself and I is never, ever, ever going to put one of his kids in a hula dancing class.

Let's do some questions from the community. Let's do it. All right, what do we got?

First question.

How can you not be bogged down by guilt on choosing to live a life different from your loved ones? Yes. What a fantastic question. Thank you, Elisa. Guilt is a choice. Guilt is a choice. I was racked with guilt. I remember one time literally being unable to do my work, actually sitting in my office. Eve was probably a year old. So I had one year old and then all the others. Probably at that point, that would mean that I had a 4, 3 and 2 year old as well. And just sitting in my office paralyzed, paralyzed by thinking, what am I doing here when I've got a one year old at home? And my sisters were both coming at me saying, what are you doing at work when you've got a one year old at home? I had these four children. I'd had them on purpose. Then why was I at work 40 hours a week? And I remember I was so paralyzed that I picked up the phone and I called a classmate of mine from HBS who'd also been a Baker scholar. And I noticed and she'd gone to Bain, and I had noticed that she had three children and never seemed to be exhibiting what guilt looked like. And her name was Wendy Miller. And I called her and I said, how do you do it? Give me Some tips. And she said, oh, Susie, haven't you realized guilt is a choice? Your kids are going to be fine. It's not how many hours you work, it's what kind of parent you are and your authenticity and your love for them and just choose not to feel guilty. And what she was saying, I was like, what? It's a choice. And she was so right. And I've lived by that since then. Because if you are clear on your values and your values are clearly not your family's values, okay? And you've chosen to live with them, then what you need is a language to talk to your family about your values. That's not judgmental, that's not accusatory, that's not scolding, which is to say, I love you. Here are my values. Let me talk to you about them. I value scope. For instance, this is one of my favorite things about the values bridge is it gives people actually non personalized language to talk about their values. Instead of saying like, I believe, blah, blah, blah, you can say, my value is scope. That means that I am seeking a life with a lot of stimulation, excitement. I'm willing to take the downsides of that because I value the idea of a big, exciting, stimulating life more than I value some other things. And so this is the beauty of identifying our values and knowing them and being able to talk about them is to say to the people in your ecosystem who don't share your values, can we all agree that everybody should not have the exact same values? I bet we can all agree on that. And even though people might secretly be thinking, I want everybody to have my values, they know intellectually that that's just absurd. What a bore the world would be if everybody had the exact same values. And we learn from people who have different values and so forth. Once you know your values, you can talk to people about them. And it was, what a breakthrough it was for me. One of the most important moments of my life when I was able to say to my kids, I want you to know something. I don't just go to work. I value work. I love work. Work gives me meaning. I believe in what I'm doing at work. And one day you'll grow up and you'll be gone, but I'll still be here. And I want to continue working. And I don't want to take an exit ramp right now because the, the on ramps are very hard for 45 year old women, okay? And I want to keep working because my work, you don't want to know me when I'm not working, kids, so work with me on living out my values, just as I will spend the rest of my life work with you on living out your values. And this was a breakthrough moment for me. My kids were really young, and they were sort of a little bit like, what? But they got the gist of it. And so what a liberating, incredible experience it is to identify your values. I was actually doing this with one of my clients yesterday where we. I presented the 15 values of the values bridge, and she was able to really paint a values profile of herself, to see the portrait of her values. And in a way that was like, whoa. We could so see why she was not vibing with her company because it was fulfilling none of her values. None. And so it's very, very important that you know your values and your company's values so you can find out where the disconnects are, if any. So that's how you don't feel bogged down in guilt. I get it. I mean, some things are unavoidable. You just. There are going to be moments where there's real conflict, but you need to figure out your values and then be able to talk about them in a way that allows you to step away from the guilt. And good luck with that. That's the work of our life. But it is totally, totally possible. Thanks for asking. Really glad you did. What else have we got? I'll take one more from the community.

Hi, Professor Welch. I have a question that may be intimate. Are you always on, or is this you? Genuinely. I believe my profession of HR asks for too much of me and it's not sustainable, or I won't be as successful in it if I don't mask or aren't always on. I'm trying to align my profession with my values or the genuine me.

Yeah. So I'm not. It's. I am always on 99 of the time. I mean, I turn off a little bit. Like, I, you know, I play a lot of games on my phone at night. Okay. I do. I lay in my bed with my dogs, and I like. I go through. I do wordle connections. Now there's this new one where you make words like. It's called. I forget what it's called. I do the crossword every single day. I've done the crossword every single day of my life. Okay? So I do have. I do turn off and recharge, but I am more on than most people. But guess what? I don't think it's a value. I think it's my personality. I think I was born very high intensity. I have a huge amount of stamina. I mean a frightening amount. It's always kind of wigged people out. I wake up at 4:45 every morning. I these are things I didn't ask for and I didn't kind of will. They just exist. Okay. So I think that if you are feeling that you're in a job that is asking you to be always on in a way that feels unnatural, that's a mismatch between your work style and the company you're at. Okay. You know, one of the things that's always very notable to me is that the work style in academia is not a match for my energy level. Like academia, they take five days to get back on emails and meetings are very a different energy level than what I'm used to in business. Okay. You know, if I write an email to one of my Brunswick colleagues and this is pure business, they're there, you know, I'm going to get an answer and it's going to be very quick. And in academia, I mean I can wait five days to get an answer to a simple question. And so I think this is about work style and I think you have to a be at a comfort level with how on you are and you have to be sustainable with how on you are. Some people are introverted. They just need more time to process. They don't draw energy from other people. Again, I've said this before. Four of my children, four out of four are introverts. So I certainly am used to this. They don't draw energy out of going into a party where they don't know anyone the way like, oh goody, I won't know anyone. I mean that turns me on. I'm a textbook extrovert. Okay. Again, it just came with the package. I was wired that way. I couldn't change it. And so you need to find a company. I'm not sure it's about hr. I think it's about a company's culture and about what intensity level you need to be. And I would find a company that where you can be where you where it's a match. Okay. And I don't recommend you ever feeling like you have to wear a mask at work. I don't recommend you ever having a Persona at work. It's just very, very hard to hold your breath or be a phony for any period of time. And you know what? It's exhausting and it's enervating and it's soul killing. So assess who you are in terms of on ness and off ness and then either.

Work to make that happen at your own company by saying to people, hey, look, I'm a bit of an introvert. I process offline, work with me on this, or eventually try to get yourself towards a part of your company or another company where it's a better match with your energy level. And you know what? You can be low energy and brilliant and effective and productive and you can be high energy and be a complete dope and buffoon. So there's no linear connection between your energy level and how productive you are as a performer. So I don't want in any way suggest to be on like me is going to help you in any way. It can turn some people off. It really can. So your energy level is your energy level. Your stamina is your stamina. I mean, obviously high stamina is going to be helpful in many situations, but other times you do things like, you know, try to go to Hawaii with two children, okay? Because simply because you know you can. Okay? That's what happens with stamina. You just, you do a lot of crazy stuff because you know your body can. Okay, so I'm not. And that's not always. And maybe your brain shouldn't be doing it, but you do it because you can. Okay? I mean, I, there were times where definitely as a runner, I just ran way too many miles because I knew I could. And I'm telling you, my back's paying the price for today, so I hope that's helpful. I've actually never been asked about that and I really love that question. Thank you for letting me expound on it. Appreciate you. And I hope it was helpful. If it wasn't, you know what? DM me again and we'll try to, we'll try to get to the bottom of it.

Let's talk about my secret mentors again. I mean, I think that I'm really excited to talk about this secret mentor because she's going to come on the show, my friends, we're going to start bringing guests on the show just to talk about their purpose and talk about their trips to their area of transcendence. And also because some of them are my friends and they're really smart and they're going to say very interesting, interesting things that I think are going to enlighten you as much as I try to. And I think the first person who's going to come on is Ellen Gendler. Now, Ellen is. She's got a big Internet presence. And if you Care about your skin. You're probably already following her. She's. It's Ellen Gendler, MD. I think she's a dermatologist on the Upper east side. Years and years and years ago, somebody recommended me to her and I, when I went to go see her because why? Because I'm an Upper east side lady, so I think about my skin all the time. And I went to go see her and she was. I mean, you think I'm intense. You think I'm intense, okay? You think I've got stamina, okay? She goes like into Central park and she jump ropes for two hours every morning. I mean, oh, my God. All right. And I looked down when she came into the room and she was wearing clogs like me. And I thought, I have met a kindred spirit. Because how many at that time, we were probably in our 50s. 50 year old women are walking around the Upper east side wearing clogs? Well, at that time there were two of us. Now that Chanel has gone kind of crazy on clogs, there's more of us. But anyway, we became friends and she was my doctor and my friend. I actually spoke to her yesterday about a medical thing that I've been thinking about. She's intense, okay? She's not a one of these doctors with the loving bedside manner. She just gives it to you straight between the eyes, whatever she thinks. And in fact, I'll tell you an interesting story about her. There was a time where I was trying out to be on the View. They were looking for a new person on it, and I got an audition and I went back for several auditions. And at the time, I have to say, Whoopi Goldberg didn't like me very well for some reason or another. And it was awkward and I don't know what it was. She wanted somebody else to be on the show and nobody would talk to me when I was in my dressing room. And it was very high stress. But I wanted the job. I'm not gonna lie. I wanted to be on the View. And at the end of the day, Nicole Wallace got it. I mean, I don't even know where I was in the running. I think I was in the running. But Nicole Wallace got it. She's fantastic. She deserved it. It wasn't like I thought, oh, she doesn't deserve it. She was great. And I went to, I was seeing Ellen Gendler right after that and I was crying. I was crying because I did not get the job. And she said, oh, thank God you didn't get the job. She Said, I thought you sucked on the View. That's what she said to me. She said, I thought you were terrible. I thought you were. You were like. You know, one of these things was not like the other. They were talking in one language. You were in another. I hated the look on your face. You looked angry. You. You looked on the defensive. It wasn't the you. That is good. And she, like, just totally said, this was such a mismatch. Thank God nobody was saying that Me. Everybody was saying, you would have been great. Oh, what a big letdown. In fact, it's an interesting story, because I cried so hard about not getting the job on the View, so hard that Jack could not do anything to make me feel better. And one day, in a fit of absolute frustration, because he tried everything to make me feel better, he said, you know what, Susie? Go get yourself a dog. Because what was going to finally make me feel better? And I went and I got the late, great Happy Welch. I mean, the reason we got happy was because I didn't get on the View. And actually, that's a. That was a trade I'd make any day of my life, because Happy was an epic, epic, epic dog. And she was a great Pyrenees. We lost her a year and a half ago to cancer, but she was a great dog and protected us and loved us for many, many great years. But Ellen Gendler was the kind of person who just tells you the truth all the time. So she's become my secret mentor. She doesn't know it, but we'll talk about it when she comes on the show. And she will say crazy things that will probably make you. You know, I'll talk to her about careers. We'll talk about her career, and you're gonna hear why she's a mentor to me, which is that she just tells the blunt truth. Now, do I have a relationship with her where I say to her, you're my mentor? No, because along with my theory that everyone is a mentor, I learn from her all the time. And I spent a lot of time thinking about that time she just told me she thought I sucked on the View. I thought, first of all, I was deeply offended. And I thought, how dare she speak to me that way? And why am I friends with her? And then I thought, if you go around in this world, just surrounding you with people who tell you things that you want to hear and make you feel good, you are just not going to ever hear the truth. And it was a huge reminder to me that you've got to seek out the Naysayers, You've got to seek out the people who say different things to you. And you can't tune them out as much as you want to. You got to listen to the Cassandras, okay? You've got to listen to the no people and the people who tell you you're wrong. Now, you don't want to lose your self confidence. You don't want to have them beat you down. I mean, I didn't want to lose my self confidence on tv. And I will tell you that after that episode of losing my job on the View, Hoda Kot and asked if I would come be on the Today show. And that was one of the greatest things that's ever happened in my career. So one door closed, as they say, and another opened. But in the process, I got some straight dope from my secret mentor, Ellen Gen.

Now I have the stump me questions from my team. What have you got, team?

Okay, first question. As a little kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Oh, I just, I, I just wrote about this in the book, so I really know. I tried on every different Persona I really liked. When I was old enough to start watching tv, I really dug the judges. I liked those black robes and ordering people around, smacking the gavel down, telling people, shut up, approach the bench. Love that line. I just wanted to do that. I mean, and I actually thought about being a judge. I'm a Libra, so maybe that had something to do with it. But I, I thought about being a judge all the way through college. And then I asked somebody what law school was like and that had been disabused me of that notion immediately because A, torts. Okay, I just, I, I, that's it. A, B and C, torts, Torts, torts. I couldn't do it. And I appreciate a good lawyer. I've tried not to use them in my life, but I knew I couldn't become a judge because of that. I have certain judge like personality traits, wouldn't you say? Yeah, yeah. Too bad about that law school part. So, so I wanted to be a judge. And I actually thought a lot about being a writer because I could write, I was told, and I didn't pursue writing as my profession. Profession. I did become a journalist. And the reason why I didn't, I mean, I thought a lot about writing novels and becoming a novelist and telling stories that way. And the reason I didn't was I knew in my bones, as an extrovert, it was too lonely a life. There are just so many stories about writers going off into the woods and the loneliness of being a writer. And I will tell you as a professional writer, you know, I spend many, many, many hours alone writing. I did that all this weekend alone with the book. I'm just polishing it up so I can get it to my editor, Hollis. It's lonely. And I knew that wasn't the life for me. So I think I found the exact right thing for me. But when I was little it was a judge. And actually I finally got my moment to be a judge, sort of when I was called for jury duty one time. I love doing jury duty. And I was called to be on jury duty and I was elected the forewoman of the jury. And for a few days a bunch of people had to call me Madam forewoman of the jury. And then the trial ended and we acquitted, actually the person who was in the case. And when I went home, I wanted everyone, my children, all to call me Madam forewoman of the jury. I just dug it so much, nobody complied. Okay, all right, so next question, Last question.

I think what's something you believe that most would disagree with?

What is something I believe that most people disagree with? Oh, for God's sake, how much? You could answer these questions better than I do. I could. I mean, I am very contrary. I have lots of out there beliefs. I really do. So I think the biggest cultural disconnect I have with there's two different things that I'm kind of an outlier on. One is that I am like a super can do person. And I think that you can reinvent yourself, you can create the life you want. I think that life is hard. It beats you up, it takes you down. But I do ultimately believe that in self determination and free will and that we can get some version of what we want if we keep on trying. I mean, I'm the anti nihilist. And I think that it's unusual to find somebody as optimistic as I am. I think it's very unusual to find somebody who's can do as I am. And I, it's, believe me, it's not that I haven't been knocked down. Okay, let's just recall that I stood on, up on a stage in front of a thousand men with my children hugging my legs and didn't get applause. Okay? So I, I mean I, it's not like uncrummy things haven't happened and crummy things have happened. I've been beat up, I've been divorced, I've lost my husband, blah blah, blah. I Don't need to give you a litany of things. I've also been very, very blessed in my life. But I'm pretty optimistic about life in general. And that may be a personality trait or that might be my faith. Faith at work or I don't know what it is so. But I'm pretty much an outlier on how cheerful I am. Okay, here's something else I believe that nobody else likes. Which is I think it's super good to wake up at 4:45 in the morning when people hear that. They're like oh my God, what's wrong with you? And like. And okay, it's not. I'm not saying you have to do it, but you can't believe how productive you are from 6 to. And 7 and 8am in the morning. You cannot believe it. So I mean Jack was no big fan of my early rising, I'll tell you that. I mean I used to get out of bed and go work at my computer and then get, go slip back into bed. So he thought that I was like a normal person. And so you don't have to do this. But I'm telling you if you, if your body gets you up at that time, like it gets me up. And Dolly Parton, I might just add Again another 4:45am riser. It's not a bad thing. How do you like that? Do you guys have any, anything else that I think is completely out, out on left field? You've heard of that?

Pitbull is like the best artist of all time.

Okay. I, I'm not as cool. I love Pitbull. Okay. And I'm not going to back down on it. If you want to run as many miles as I've run and you can do it without put Polk. God bless you. Okay. Congratulations. I'm not, it's not possible. I like Timber. How could you run without that song? Okay, I, I mean I also happen to think Britney Spears rocks and walks on water. I adore her, okay. I watch her videos and that's the sad pathetic thing. I love you Britney. Please get better. So I do have a great deal of affection for some really, really teeny bopperish kind of poppy music. But you know, pop music is popular for a reason. Okay. It's, it's, it's pretty good. Anyway, yeah, I, I get it. And I recently had an experience with Pitbull not showing up at a friend's party which would make me wonder if Pitbull is all that. But I'm going to tell you right now that Pitbull's great. And you're not gonna. And I'm not gonna be. I'm not gonna be talked down to about that. Okay. I'm gonna stand my ground. It's embarrassing on a little bit. I guess it's a little bit embarrassing the fact that that's what you would bring up when we're talking about what I believe is a sad thing. Okay. And that's it. That's the story. I'm sticking to it and I will. Thank you for tuning into Becoming youg. So glad you're here. I love you so very much from afar. Don't forget to DM me on Instagram if you want to have a question on the show or just let me know how you think the show is. That's groovy. And that's it for becoming you this week. I'll see you back again next week. Have a great week. Okay, bye.