Once Upon A Time in Utopia

Hey, it's Susie Welch. Welcome to the Becoming youg Podcast. I'm so glad you're joining this week.

Becoming you is a methodology that I teach at the NYU Stern School of Business. It's a methodology to help you answer the question, what should I do with my life? It's either an immediate answer that you can use Becoming you for, or it can be like a lifelong tool for self discovery. It's based on the premise that your purpose, your area of transcendence, as I call it, is at the intersection of your values. Use your aptitudes and your economically viable interests. And so that's sort of the whole kind of big picture y thing. But today I'm just going to talk about an experience I had which is part of Becoming youg World and a bunch of different thoughts that came to me because of it. It's all around a trip I took down to Texas with Hoda Kotb and her team from the Today show for what was dubbed a wellness weekend. You know, Hoda is one of the most remarkable people in the world. She's truly an icon. I've had the great joy and honor of knowing her for 20 or so when I first appeared on the Today show. And after I appeared, I think I was like promoting my book 1010 10. So it was a long time ago. And she called me up afterwards and said, hey, would you come on the show? And I meant, I said, well, I was just on the show. And she said, no, I mean on the show more regularly. And thus began my life as a contributor to the Today show, where I've learned so much and grown so much and been a part of the community that goes with it. But I was on the Today show a few months ago, and afterwards Hoda called me up and she said, hey, I'm doing this wellness weekend down in at Mirval in Texas with a bunch of people who were opening it up, women to come and think about wellness, both emotional and physical. And would you come and speak there? And it was like, whoa, are you pranking me? This is like gigantic. Thank you so much. I said yes immediately. And when I got down there, it was the first thing I'll tell you about it. It was like a love in of epic proportions. Around 200, 300 women there, all there to learn about wellness and to be with Hoda. And I don't think they were coming for us. I wasn't the only speaker. Maria Shriver was another speaker, and there were a few other speakers as well, and they were all fantastic. Hoda was the main attraction because she has a magical quality about making people feel seen and heard and cared for that is 100% genuine, I might add. So I was speaking Saturday. I was the last speaker before the final event on Sunday, and everybody was having a lot of different. You could go get a massage, you could get a pedicure, you could go do breath work, you could do take yoga. And then it was interspersed with speakers. So I will say, the first night I got there, two amazing things happened. One was. I don't know, I was just in this space where everybody was being incredibly nice and open. We were all there for the same reason. But at the opening event, we were just milling around, and I just thought, I'm gonna be just totally open to meeting complete strangers. And I just, like, literally walked up to group after group and just introduced myself. And we got talking. And one of the immediate things I just picked up on is when people are in a place where the expectation is that you're just gonna be good and kind to each other. Everybody was so warm and so welcoming and so open to con with strangers. And it was like by the end of the night, I don't know if you've ever had this experience. Like, we were all besties, and it felt different and special from our usual worlds because everybody had there was there with this huge open heart. I'm going to go someplace with this particular thought, but just bear with me. Also that night, I was sitting at a table with a group of women. One was from Texas, one was from Delaware, actually. Also at my table was the amazing Wendy Suzuki. She's a neuroscientist who is a dean at nyu, and she teaches about the psychology of exercise. And I'm just going to summarize. All of her brilliant thinking is saying, get off your arson. Exercise. Exercise. I. And I needed to hear it more than anybody. And we're all sitting together. There were five or six of us. And one woman said to the other woman, do you feel something eating your feet? And I said, yeah, my feet are getting bitten, too. And then somebody said the word sugars. And I didn't know what that was. I had to Google it. It's a little red bug that lives in the grasslands of Texas and other Southern states. And, oh, my God, I called my dermatologist and told her I was about to amputate my own right foot to get the cause. It was itching so badly, by the way. I feel completely better now. Anyway, so there was sort of two things that happened at once. One Was that I got a kind of run in with, like, a. With the chiggers. But the other was. I had this run in with complete strangers who, within a matter of minutes, we were sharing sort of really intimate stories and conversation and granting each other the great grace of best intentions. Like, everybody just assumed that the other person who was there was a good person and was a fellow traveler. Okay? So that kind of happened the first day, and then the next day went on. And I was kind of getting nervous as Saturday went on, because I knew I was going on for my. With my fireside chat with Hoda at the end of the day. And the speakers who went on before me were so fantastic. And I'm sorry, but I'm like, a vaguely. Not vaguely. What a lie. I'm, like a wildly competitive person. And I was like, okay, they're really, really good. I'm gonna suck. And everybody's gonna say, okay, well, everybody was better than Susie. And, you know, all these very normal, healthy thoughts. And I saw Maria Shriver go up, and she's an icon beyond icons. And she was spectacular and got a standing ovation. And I was like, okay, fine. Everybody's gonna be very nice, and I'm gonna certainly get some n. But, you know, she killed it, and Wendy Suzuki killed it. And I was kind of. I wasn't. I wasn't scared because I've given so many talks, but I was definitely feeling like, yikes. I really got this crazy spot on the lineup where I am going on after these two. Two incredible speakers. And the only thing that's ever come close to it is at one time, I went to give a speech in Kansas, and it was gigantic. I mean, like, there were, like, 5,000 women there. And when I walked in, I knew I was going on in an hour, and I thought, oh, I'll catch the speech right before mine. So I walk into the bathroom, the back. God, still want to die with the story. I walked into the back of this gigantic convention hall, and up on the stage was none other than Maya Angelou. Okay? She was giving the speech before me, and in the middle of her speech, she burst into song. She was singing a gospel song, and the audience was, like, fainting from their love for her. And she was, like, people were, like, climbing to the mountaintop with Maya Angelou, and she was, like, reciting poetry, and people were, like, falling over. And I was like, oh, my effing God. I mean, is there anything worse in life than going on after Maya Angelou? And I want to tell you, there really Is not. And I, like, the whole time she was speaking, it's like, I love her, and I want to be really in this moment enjoying my Angelou, but I'm going to go on up on stage after this. She brought down the house. Everybody was, like, screaming and cheering, and, oh, my God, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. And I thought, I'm like, I am just dead. Why don't they just all, like, roll up and just go home right now? And so anyway, I go up on stage, I'm introduced, and I actually, in a completely unplanned way, I looked at the audience and I said, I just want to die, because I can't believe I have to go on after Maya Angelou. Like, I just. Just blew up the front of my speech. I told the truth, and I said, like, I am a small little peon piece of dirt worm next to her, and I hope you listen to what I have to say. I have a totally different speech, and I'm not going to sing. And then I said, maybe I will. And I sang. And they. It brought. I mean, people laugh their heads off. I have a terrible voice. I mean, it was all in the moment. And again, I trusted the audience, and I just went with the truth. And it worked out. And actually, that speech kind of worked out great because the audience was so sweet and so good. And maybe it was because of Maya Angelou filling them with love and hope and softness. They were filled with love and hope and softness for me. And I, too, ended up getting a standing ovation, but I'm sure not one that was. I mean, maybe they just felt sorry for me at that point because I was on after Maya Angelou. But I think it was. There was some heartfelt stuff in it. Maybe I just had the crowd because they all felt for me the fact that I had to follow the great. Anyway, that was a tangent I wasn't planning on going on. And. But let me go back to the fact that I felt a little bit of that, okay, when I was down at the Hoda event in Texas, because I was going on after these incredible women. And. But, you know, I thought, hoda's going to carry the day because she gives such a good interview. You know, she's one of the greats of the business in terms of giving interviews. And we were going to have a fireside chat up on the stage. So we are in makeup right before we're about to go on, 10 minutes before we're about to go on, and Hoda's been in makeup all day. So she just needs a touch up. And I'm getting my full face done. And she comes in, she blows in sort of 10 minutes before supposed to go on. And she goes, you know, Susie, I have this idea. Go with me here. And I was like, yeah, what? What? And she said, instead of me doing a Fireside Chat with you, sort of Q and A, why don't you just get up and teach your class? And I was like, say what? And she said, yeah, let's blow up the Fireside Chat. Why don't you just get up and I'll introduce you, and then why don't you just speak for an hour and teach your class? And I was like, oh, is this negotiable? She said, not really. And we had a good laugh. And I said, I don't know if I could do without my slides. And she said, just teach your class. You're great at it. And then she kind of laughed. And I got my face done. I was sort of staring in the mirror as I was getting my face done, and I was like, you know what? I trust the audience. I know my stuff. I'm just gonna do it. I mean, I'm at this sort of point of my life where, you know, I. If you just kind of go with the truth and you speak your truth, you're. That's gonna mainly carry the day. And I had already kind of gotten to know some of the women there. Now, there were a lot of women, you know, several hundred, so I couldn't know too many of them. But as the day had gone on, I realized this interesting thing about all of them. Actually, two really interesting things. Number one, they all wanted me to succeed. They all wanted me to. They wanted everybody around them to. There was no win loss thing. There was no you win or I win kind of thing. There was no zero sum game. It was just a. It was just a sum sum game. And if I went up there, they wanted me to be my best self, and they were rooting for me. And so often we think people are rooting against us, but they aren't. Okay, maybe they're rooting against themselves, because that's human nature, but they're rooting for you. And so I got up there, and I actually started by telling the audience, look, this was gonna be a fireside chat until 10 minutes ago, so go with me here. I don't have my slides, and I'm going to do my best teaching the class. And then I just. I said to Hoda, do you mind if I Stand up. And she said, stand up and just let it rip. We were supposed to be sitting down. And I just did it. And I just spoke actually with no notes, no nothing for an hour from my heart about this Becoming youg stuff, which I love. And I felt the audience's love for me. I loved the audience. Love is a pretty powerful thing. And I felt their love back for me. Ended up to be a wonderful event. Maybe one of the best that I've ever had. And then there were questions from the audience. And many women.

You know, they cried as they spoke because they had questions about life change and reinvention, which is stuff that I talk about a lot. And their self doubt around it and what do they do. And women who are in their 50s, some of them saying like, I don't know what it means to start again. How do I start again? Where do I even go with this? Show me some techniques and pathways to that. And they were so much in receive mode. And it started this kind of virtuous circle that was the whole weekend was all about, okay, so that was over. I felt an enormous relief. My God, did you hear me exhale? Because that was a loud exhale. And the night went on.

And it was our final dinner. And I looked and I saw this person approaching me out of the corner of my eye and coming towards me. And I didn't recognize her. I hadn't spoken to her before and I. I couldn't tell how old she was, maybe in her 60s or 70s. And she seemed very urgent. And she came up to me and she was sort of bending over towards my chair and she said, I have to speak to you. I have to speak to you. Can I speak to you? And she was so urgent. I said, of course, of course. And for a moment or two or three, actually was longer than that, she grabbed my hands, I held her hands. And we were sort of. The world stopped. And she started to pour out her heart to me, telling me that she'd just lost her husband. It was a very sad situation. He died unexpectedly of a heart attack when he was on a business trip. And she started to just tell me how it happened in her story. And she was looking in my eyes. I was looking in her eyes. If you had. If somebody had dropped a bomb on the. Where we were having that dinner, I wouldn't have seen it or felt it. I was so with her. And her. She was so with me. Here's what she said after she sort of set the context. She said, I don't know who I Am. I don't know who I am. I don't know who I am. And I loved her so ardently. And I said, let's go sit over here. I knew this was not gonna be a short conversation. We held hands, we walked over to a private place. We sat down with each other. I don't know how long we spoke. I think it was. It must have been two hours. And she told me sort of what their marriage had been like, how they met. I heard the whole story of her life. And she said, you know, I lived for my husband and my children. I loved it. I have no regrets about it. The children are grown. I mean, they're helping me a lot now. Thank God. When her husband died, he had not left her with a lot of surprises, a lot of debt, a lot of shock. I mean, that definitely very sadly happens. He had left her in good shape. Their house was in order. What was not in order was her heart. And she said that she just had realized something she'd never hoped or expected to realize, which was that over the past 40 years, she had totally subsumed who she was to other people. And now she was suddenly on her own. And she didn't know what her values were. She didn't know what she was good at. She didn't even know what her interests were outside of her husband's interests. And she was like, I feel like I've fallen off the edge of the Grand Canyon and there's no bottom and I'm just floating and I'm floating and I'm going to hit the bottom. And I'm so glad I met you because I need to find a parachute. And I was able in the next hour to kind of walk her through some thoughts. And I gave her some sort of practical tips around widowhood, which we could do a whole podcast on that. And you know, for instance, that she needs to get in a widow group. I mean, this is very important if you are facing widowhood. I could not have made it without my widow group and my widow friends. But anyway, we spoke about that and we spoke about becoming you, to be honest. And she was. She was. I don't want to use the word happy because this is not a word I use use to describe her, but she was relieved. She was relieved that there was a. A methodology. And I think if there's anything that becoming you kind of that makes me the proudest is that it is not woo woo. It is this very kind of, here's a methodology. If you are feeling lost, even if you just Want to pivot. And it's not lost, but you're sort of wandering. There's a methodology. I think, if anything, that's its contribution. And I gave her my cell phone number. I gave her everything. And I want to stay in touch with her and I want to continue to talk to her about her journey to discovering herself. But it was sort of a moment where I just had. I was filled with love for her sadness, for her joy for our finding each other and for her courage in walking across that crowded room and just finding me at the table with all the speakers. It must have been kind of a weird thing to walk up to, all of us, people who had been up on the stage all day and just say, I have to talk to you. And she did that. She came out of herself enough to do it. She threw herself a lifeline. And then I was so happy to be there to catch it. And I went back to my room. I cried because of that incredible emotional experience I had with this beautiful, beautiful woman. And I felt so deeply for her. We can be lost and lose who we are anytime in our life. It doesn't take a devastating experience like being a widow. We can be lost in plain sight. We can be going about our daily lives. We could be going to work, and everybody could look at us and think that we are so perfect and our lives are just have. We have it all together and we can be desperately lost. When I was in the. One of the worst places in my life, devastated, I had four young children. I knew my husband had emotionally left our marriage. I was still married to my first husband at the time, and he was gone from the marriage. And I knew the marriage was going to die, and I was in agony over it. We lived on a little street that was called Norman Road. And I used to jokingly call it Normal Road because I wanted to hold the picture up as long as I could. There was nothing normal going on in our house. There was just grief and sadness. And by the way, that first husband is not. Not the villain in all of this. We've become very dear friends. And if you're listening, Eric or Siobhan, Eric's wonderful partner, you know, I love you both very much, and the right thing happened. But I would say that we can be lost at any time in our life and we can be hiding from our. From. From that in plain sight, from other people. There's a way out. I'm glad to be. You know, there's many more ways out than becoming you. All I ask is you find One way. If becoming you is that way, then I'm happy for that. But just find one way.

So the last thought I want to have about the weekend that I had down there, besides that incredible experience, which I'll hold forever in my heart, is that we are at a time in our culture and American history where we feel like everybody's polarized and we feel like there's nothing but strife. And we've come through this election season and a lot of hate has been in the air and a lot of dissonance and people don't talk to each other and families are sort of pulled apart by it, and there's, there's just dreadful rhetoric and, and there's hurt out there. But I saw for two and a half days what it looked like when people assumed best intentions of each other and just presumed presumed love and presumed overlap and humanity. They, they, they went into every conversation believing that the other person had some humanity that they were going to find overlap with. And I want to tell you, that's heaven on earth. That is beautiful. I am sure there were people of every political persuasion at that event. There were people from all around the country. And if you just to eyeball people, you could say, okay, some of these are conservative and some of these are liberal. And it was irrelevant. It was secondary to our humanity. It was secondary to people thinking about, what do we have in common, not what separates us. And I don't want to be Pollyannish about this. Differences are real, but we have to learn to find what our common ground is if we're ever going to get along and we're ever going to have moments like that woman coming across the room and saying, help me, and me saying, I want to help you. We could do that all on a small scale every day if we presume that the other person has some humanity that we, we want to access and we want to touch. And so it was an amazing week, and I think it was for every single person there the last day. Hoda said, this was life changing for me. I hope it was for you. It was for me. And it was all because we gave each other the benefit of the doubt and we reached out to each other and allowed ourselves to be reached out to. So it was a. I just share it with you. Thank you for listening to me talk about it. It's. I'm still processing it, to be honest with you. I mean, I dream someday of doing that kind of thing myself. I mean, Hoda is going to keep doing them. I hope I can continue to be a part of them. But I would love to do, like a becoming you weekend someday. If you want to come to a big becoming you weekend. I'm just coming up with this idea right now, my friends. But if you want to come to a big becoming you weekend where we all get together and I talk and find other people to talk, and we just sort of do this amongst ourselves, let me know. DM me on one of my social media platforms. Instagram's the best one. Really? Let me know. Maybe we'll put something together. This is just an idea that sprung into my mind. My team listening to this is probably right now having kittens. Get over it. I. I like this idea. Okay, whatever. I mean, the dogs will be there. But anyway, all right, that's it for me today. I'm so glad you came. If you're listening to this on Spotify, please give it a review. Give it a good review, would you, please?

And wherever you're listening to, I'm so grateful. Follow it if you can and tell your friends about it. And I hope you come back next week. And until then, I hope you have a fantastic, fantastic week. I love you. Bye. Bye.