The Danger of a B+ Life

Hi and hello and welcome to becoming you. I'm Susie Welch. I'm a professor of management practice at the NYU Stern School of Business and I'm the director of the Initiative on Purpose and Flourishing. And this is a podcast about flourishing. It's a podcast where each week we consider the journey to your purpose and really, to be quite blunt about it, we attempt to help you answer the tiny little question, what should I do with my life? And to that point. Exactly. Exactamundo. This week's episode is called the Danger of a B plus life. B plus good enough. Great on some days. So. So most of the time, overall, pretty good. And I'm saying B plus, not B minus or C minus. You know, actually those aren't as dangerous as a B life because a B minus life or a C plus or C minus life, they stink so much that you actually get away from them faster. And that's not what happens with a B plus life. That's when we just tend to hang out around and wait and wonder, oh, is it really good enough? And we hold onto, hmm. I mean, we can hold onto the. Of a B life for years or decades. We can. Now becoming you as a method, which is what it is, it's all about preventing that. It's about saying there's actually an A life for you. There is. There's an A life for you. And becoming you as a methodologies, just very briefly, for those of you who are new with us and welcome if you are. It excavates your values and your aptitudes and your interests, and it looks at the intersection of them and it says that's. That's your A life. That's your purpose. And it gives you the data from the excavation of your values, your deeply held beliefs, the principles of your life, your aptitudes, what you're really good at, and your interests. Well, that's pretty self explanatory. And you look at that and you figure out what you should be doing with your life that would make it a life of A plus flourishing. Now, how many people are actually doing that, do you think? Well, I happen to have some answers to that question because I did some research on it and not very many. A lot of people are not living A plus lives. And there's a good reason for that. It's the human condition. I mean, there'd be no literature, there'd be no art, there'd be no rock and roll music, there'd be no emo, that's for sure. If everyone was living an A Plus life. There'd be just nothing. There'd be nothing on tv. I mean, it's all about people crawling or dying to get to an A plus life. And so part of it is the human condition is everyone has constraints and, you know, spouses get sick or they act like ass hats and. Or kids need us, or the economy really stinks, or there's bad luck or there's like a geopolitical event that blows up your life. Look, life is life. And we all see people. I'm gonna. We see them all over the Internet with these perfect, gorgeous lives. And there's like really six of them. Okay? That's one of the reasons that it's the human condition. That's part of it, but there's another big part of it. Otherwise we wouldn't have this podcast. And the reason why people don't live their A plus life and hover in their B plus life, I just have to put it out there. It's because they don't know their values or their aptitudes or their interests, but especially their values. Okay? You can kind of know your aptitudes, what you're good at, because the world tells you, oh, you're really good at soccer. Wow, you're very good at math. You find out your aptitudes with a little bit more directness and your interest. You kind of figure them out. Like, you're really fascinated by science, or you're really, really interested in museums or whatever, okay? But the values, part of your. Of what you really care about, man, the world is organized for you not to know what your values are. Because I call these the four horsemen of values. Destruction that get in the way of you knowing your values. One of them is expedience. Okay? You go live the life that's easier. Then there's financial, you know, there's economic security. Like, you just go do what's going to make you the most money, and you sort of travel away from your values without knowing it. And then there's expectations. What your family expects you to do and what you expect you to do and what a teacher expects you to do, what your culture expects you to do that takes you away from your values. And finally, events just take us away. And so here's the pod today. If you think I don't know where I'm going with this. I do. I do. I'm going to tell you. I'm going to share with you a question that we use in becoming you to start the process of uncovering your values. Now, overall, in the becoming youg Methodology. We have seven exercises in all to pull back and expose your values. But damn, this one's great. I love this one. I had to come up with it in 2009 because I wrote a book called 10-10-10. It's a decision making system, which is taught, by the way, at Harvard University. I also teach it at NYU Stern School of Business. It's a decision making system. And I could talk to you about it another time, and maybe I should. And we actually have a podcast on 10-10-10, so go find it. Go listen to all my podcasts instantly, I beg of you. But I would say that 10-10-10 is a decision making system that works a lot better when you know your values. Well, when I went on the road for the book tour and that book did incredibly well, thanks be to God. And when I went on the road and did a big book tour for 10-10-10, people would say to me, okay, I buy your story about this decision making system, but I don't know my values. And my publisher said to me, hey, Susie, can you come up with a way for people to know their values? And I said, okay. And I came up with three questions. And what we're going to talk about today is one of the questions that's wildly powerful and effective. I still use it as part of the becoming you methodology. And we're gonna focus on it in this podcast today. And then after we focus on that question, we're gonna talk to somebody where this question revealed that they had a B plus life. And we talk together. Her name is Paige, and we discussed what she should do with her B plus life to turn it into an A plus life. So I really wonder if you'll agree with where we landed together, Paige and I, which, full disclosure, had something to do with me telling her my opinion in no uncertain terms. I don't beat around the bush. I tell her what I think she should do with her B life. So before we talk to Paige and I force my opinion upon her, let's talk about that question. And the question is this. What would make you cry from regret on your 85th birthday? What would make you cry from regret on your 85th birthday? I mean, you gotta go there, you gotta imagine yourself there. You gotta close your eyes and say, okay, I'm 85. Guess what? You have to imagine that you've lived a long life and you're 85 and something's making you sad. What unfinished work is it? What unrepaired relationship, what unlived dream are we harboring? It's a values revealer, this question. It really is. I have heard hundreds and hundreds of answers over time because I've done it so many times. And recently I actually put it out on Instagram, and we got gajillion answers. We actually got some voice memos from some listeners. So take a listen. Let's hear from Doris.

If I knew that I lived in fear and never spoke about my dreams or made better decisions and just settled for a life that I never imagined.

For myself, this is actually somebody who's saying at her 85th birthday, she would actually cry because she'd had a B plus life. I mean, can this be more stark that she just sort of settled? I call this phenomenon the velvet coffin, where we just sort of get into this very comfy, cozy position, and it's, you know, we just kind of die there, having never lived a life. There's actually a value associated with this, which is called scope, about living a big life. Scope is the value that reflects how big, exciting, stimulating, and even chaotic our life will be. And I hear in this that her. She'd cry for the very reason of never having found that exquisite A plus life. I love that one, Doris. Now let's hear from Kathy that I had minimal friends there to celebrate together with me and each other. Okay? So she's had her life. Here she is, she's 85, and what she's crying about is she just doesn't have any friends there. And, you know, we can, in our B plus lives, have just enough friends, but there's a yearning in us for more community and more connectivity. There's a value around this, by the way. It's called belonging, and it is the friendship value, and it's a big one. And again, what she's saying is that I had not enough friends. The phrase not enough is a big alarm bell saying, bing, bing, bing, B. All right, next, let's hear from Tatiana.

Never pursuing my singing dream. And it's crazy because there's nothing keeping that from happening. So any obstacles that I think are there are imaginary.

Yeah. Okay. So she actually sees her a life. Tatiana sees her a life. It's somehow it's singing. It's just her sharing her gift with the world. And she doesn't even see what the opticals are. And she's not grabbing it. She's just satisfied with the B. I think her life is pretty good, but it's not an A. Okay, once again, let's hear from Marina.

I don't want to cry from regret by not learning how to speak Italian. My parents, or both from Italy, they came to America, had their children, and When I was 10 years old, my father said to me, marina, your biggest regret in life will be not learning how to speak Italian.

There's so much in this, Marina. Actually, I grew up in a household where my grandmother and mother spoke Italian to each other. One of my great regrets, actually, is that I didn't learn Italian. It's not what's going to make me cry at my 85th birthday of other things for that, but the B plus life being explain right there is one that she didn't live into her value of family centrism. And you know, she'll live if she gets to 85 and she doesn't speak Italian, but she'll have this big regret. She didn't go for the A. And again, this question just pulls back the gap between the B life most of us settle for. What I'm hearing is just so much yearning for closing that gap. I have a whole slew others. I'm just going to read a few of them to you because they're just so amazing. And I bet you're going to be able to relate to some of them. That I didn't travel like I had planned to. That was from Gary. I. That I didn't fulfill my purpose to serve people. Amanda, you know, I'm sure her life is just fine, but that I didn't fulfill my purpose to serve people. That I never wrote that book that I kept thinking about, says Lisa. Mm. Okay. Had a good life. Just never did this one big thing. That I didn't make the world better, says Ann. You know, the B is all about settling and not living into the richness of what it's like when we live, the purpose that awaits us and is available to us. And I get it. It isn't easy. If it was easy, I wouldn't have to teach a class on it and everyone would have it. I totally get it. That I didn't build a family that's a big one. That I had an estranged relationship with my siblings. So easy to get estranged and stay there, isn't it? And that is a life where we settle. All of this is about this. I'm just hearing echoes. Echoes of B plus. B plus. B plus. So let's get Paige in here, shall we? So Paige lives and works in Columbus, Ohio, and she has a very good job in marketing. There's just one problem.

I would cry at my 85th birthday if I never lived in New York City. And if I never found the courage to start something of my own. I've recently realized that I need to get off the corporate hamster wheel and I want to start something of my own, start building my own brand. But I'm trying to find the courage and get past the embarrassment. But it's something I've realized I absolutely to do to fulfill my life's purpose.

Oh, all the words absolutely need to do. And you look, she's got a very good life. Let's be very economical here. Okay. Paige is pretty happy in Columbus being a marketing manager. She is. But she would like to be something so much bigger. She would like to be Paige the self improvement brand for people who have walked her journey. Listen up. She's going to tell us a little bit more about it.

I'm definitely very middle class, like small town middle class background. Not a lot of like financial education, not a lot of that. So when I went to college and saw how some of my friends from bigger cities with parents from like white collar jobs were living, I was like, I want that. I and I always wanted that. I never felt like I fit in in my small town. I couldn't wait to leave. I wanted to get out of Ohio, which I did for a few years. But I've always been drawn to like a big city experience and I've kind of had to figure out how to get that and how to build the wealth on my own. I want to help people like my nephews and others kind of have that foot up that I didn't.

Oh, I love this. So page the brand. Okay. Which you're kind of building on the side. And by looking at your values, I know that you have some kind of yearning in you to build something bigger than what you're doing right now. Paige the brand is a person who takes her life experiences and her own yearning and your successful journey to build a life of a life closer to what you dreamed of when you were growing up to share that knowledge and that wisdom with others. Like to say I came, I had middle class upbringing. And you sounds like you have no animosity or hostility towards it, but you wanted more more and you found a way to do it. And you think that there's not enough education for people where you were to, you know, you were sort of self taught on how to do this by observing other people. Yep.

Yeah. And I think also I want to connect with people because I think it's a lonely place to be. I know I felt a lot of shame in my journey and so if I Can share my journey and make others feel less alone too, with where they're at. That's like really where I'm from. Coming, coming from.

I guess.

We'll have more of our conversation with Paige in a moment. Hello, this is Susie Welch, and this is Becoming youg. Let's rejoin Paige as we talk about her answer to the question, what would make you cry from regret at your 85th birthday? I love your vision. What I am struck by, though I keep on coming back. Your values are like in a pile in my lap. And I keep on looking at voice. Okay. Voice is a reflection of your authentic desire to be authentic. Okay. And some people want to fit in. They want harmony. They don't want to stand out. But voice is a measure of how much you want your self expression. Your story told, your inner life outer. And you know, what you're just saying confirms this to me so much, which is that I had a lot of shame. I mean, just admitting that shows you have so much authenticity. And I don't want other people to have it. And I want to show them the journey away from that. Right. This is extremely noble and explains your high radius score also. But you have a high variance and the variance suggests that you're not there yet. Now, here's the problem for you, Paige, is that you have a very comfortable life right now. Baby is the kind of life that allows people to stay in what I call the velvet coffin. Okay? Very comfy. You don't want to push the lid open. It's good. Your house is nice. Columbus is lovely. You've got friends. And yet this is the Beauty of the 85th birthday question. It is the beauty of it, because it forces you to imagine that you got yourself out of the velvet coffin and you did what you wanted to do. And when you get to that 85th birthday, what you're crying from is that you did not live that dream of Paige sharing her authentic journey with the world to help other people. And that that was work that was left undone. And you had the B plus life. And I think what this is telling me is that you yearn for the A life. And don't we all? Somebody asked me in class today, literally shouldn't ask me today, how will I know when I'm living my purpose? And I said, it's a little like being in love. No one has to tell you, okay? There's no test for you're in love. You know it. Your body's telling you. You know your body's telling you. Cause you can't Focus on anything else and your heart's pounding out of your chest. I don't like the word happiness very much. I admire deeply a lot of the people who are in the happiness space. But I think happiness is an outcome. And dare I say it, the way you know you're living, your purpose is you're really happy. You're happy in a way you're not typically happy. You're exquisitely happy. You wouldn't rather. You just can't do anything else. And I think you're. You've gotta be. Plus life, it's dangerous. It's dangerous to have a B life. I'd be happier in a way if you had a B minus life because you'd be more inclined to go after your purpose. Okay, this is why I love this question. I keep on saying it over and over again. It just reveals so much. It's like a gut punch to say, okay, I literally put myself there and I'm crying because I didn't achieve it. So I. What's stopping you?

I think one, my job is pretty demanding. So my actual full time job, it kind of takes away from the amount of time I'd like to spend making content and building my own brand. And then also it's strange because I don't have a fear of being seen by strangers as much as, like, sharing my story with strangers as much as I do with the people I know and love. Which is weird because a lot of them know the story. But then it's like, I don't want to offend, you know, any of my family members or anything. And that's sense. And I don't want to come off like, I know so much better than everyone else. So that's. I would say those are the two biggest things.

So the first is your job is very demanding, so you don't have the time. Right. And the second is you're afraid that if you make this change, your family will misinterpret it as a certain kind of arrogance. So with the first one, I'm going to say that again. This is the problem with having a B plus life. It's so good, it's so demanding. And like, the sacrifice of putting it aside to do what you really want to do is a very big sacrifice. Very unfortunately, that when we want to pivot in the way that you're sort of suggesting, we have to take a hit up front. Okay. We have to sort of say, all right, I'm going to take a pause on my very demanding job and I'm going To commit to this for a year. Not forever, but for a year. And we're going to see if it works. Okay? So I don't know. You could start at small scale, but it sounds like your job is very all consuming, so you may not be able to do it unless you decide to commit. The second thing about your family I'm not so worried about because they know you. One of the surprising things that happens when people discover their values and I say, well, what's going to happen when you tell your family? There's usually like this pause and then they say, I think my family might already know. And I think it's just a matter of messaging it properly, saying, I love you. And I'm so proud of where I come from. I think I have a message that will help other people and I'd like to chase that. And I would never would have been able to if I hadn't had your support along the way. So far, I think it's a messaging thing. And as I always told my kids when they were growing up and they would say, I don't know how to tell, blah, blah. I say, there's words for everything and there are words for everything. So you'll be able to do that. The harder part is this decision you need to make. Really, Paige, I don't know any other way to put this. Whether you bet on yourself, that's what it would be. And so I guess only you really know how compelling that 85th birthday dream is. And you might be a person who says, look, I'm balancing all my other values. I'm looking at my eudaimonia, which is really good. Good. I'm looking at my affluence. You're pretty close to how much money you want to have. Your other variances are pretty low. There's nothing that's scaring me a lot. But only you know in your heart of hearts what your heart wants and how hard. Like, only you had a vision in your mind of how hard you were crying at that 85th birthday. When you visualized it, was it sort of like, oh, well, I never really sort of started, you know, with a page platform where I help people. Or was it like, oh, my God, I didn't do only, you know. And I think that's what you gotta look at and decide.

Yep. No, it was definitely a hard cry because I also can't imagine just doing what I'm doing for the rest of my life. So that's kind of what awoke all of this, I guess.

Uh, oh, I kind of think you might have an answer. I don't want you to postpone. I don't want you to postpone this. I think try it. That's my advice. And the only reason why I feel bold in saying that to you is I've tried so many things, and so many things have succeeded and so many things have failed. And when we try bold things, we just learn and we grow. It's not going to kill you. You're going to learn a lot about yourself. I don't want you to have. It was a hard cry. That's the most important line you've said in our conversation. I don't want you having that hard cry. And that's the beauty of this question, is that it reveals so much to us about our values. Your values bridge confirmed everything you've just said. So yay. Yay for the tool, but yay for you. And I'm excited about your future. I want you to just take the heels of your hand and push open that lid of that velvet coffin and go for your A plus life. I want that for you. I want it for you. Knowing your values is the power of it is releasing this kind of. This kind of knowledge about ourselves and pivoting is hard. Reinvention is hard. You can only do it when you've got a lot of data. I think we have some data. We have some data.

Yeah. Yeah. I was very happy when I found your podcast when it came across my TikTok, because a lot of my focus has been on values, with your finances and your spending, and that's how you take control of your budget. And then I was like, wait a second. This is, like, goes with your whole life, too.

I'm so glad. All right, well, this has been fast, and I would love to be able to check in with you in six months and where you are. So be fear me. Fear Susie coming to find you. I am the AOT police. I'm the purpose police, babe, and I'm coming for you. So know that I wanted to check back in with you and hear what you're doing and hear what you've decided. But I think for me, I hope for you, too. Very clarifying. Very clarifying. And that's the power of finding out your values. Yes.

Thank you.

I love talking to Paige. I actually love talking to every member of the Becoming youg Universe because I learned so much from you, and I'm honored. I'm not being cheesy. I mean, I'm not. I'm being very sincere with you. I think A lot about you and I love you and I can't believe you're all along with me on this journey. Which is a thought that has relevance in a moment. I am being cringe. You know, I actually want a T shirt that says I am cringe. Right on. I want one of my kids to give me that for my birthday. But look, I'm grateful to Paige. I think her story is in some ways very universal and a lot of you will probably be able to relate to it. All of us have had a moment in our lives where we have said, it's pretty good. It's baby, but can it be better? And that's why becoming you exists as a methodology. It's to ask you, are you living your purpose? Are you living your life that you were meant to live? We have just this one wild and precious life. And look, you know, if you can get a life that's pretty good, sometimes that's fantastic. Because some people have some very hard lives and some crummy stuff happens, but there is also this option of having a life that's exquisitely alive. And that's what the Becoming youg Process is trying to get you towards. So a week after I spoke to Paige, she sent me a voice message and I'm just gonna read a little bit of it here. She said I won't be walking away from my full time career quite yet. But our conversation made me realize I was hiding behind my job is demanding as an excuse not to go all in on my own project. When the truth is I do have some additional time outside that I could and should be dedicated to be building my brand. Now get this part. This is the part I love, love, love. She says, I was just afraid of being seen. I'm so happy. She went on to say, to have a clear picture of my values now so I can continue to take steps towards my values driven life. Maybe I just love this so much because maybe I just love it so much because I've been Paige. I've been Paige recently. Haven't we all been Paige? But I was paged not too long ago. I mean, I have to tell you this truth, Lily. I almost didn't write Becoming you. I almost didn't write the book which is coming out in May. I had a lot of excuses like Paige. And one of my excuses was I was just too busy with my job teaching Becoming you. And when people said to me and my publisher said to me, could you please write the book? And everybody was saying it to me, I said, I'm Too busy. Exactly like she said she was too busy. And one day, I remember this like it happened yesterday. I was walking with my daughter, Eve, the artist, and we were under a beautiful tree. And I was explaining to her that I was just too busy to write Becoming you. And I was saying, you know, my publisher called me again, and she would really like me to write this book. And I was just making the case to Eve that I couldn't write it. And she took me by the arm. Very rare for a kid to do this. And she turned me towards her and she said, you have to write the book, Mom. You have to write the book because you can't be with everybody. And you have. This is your methodology. You have to own it. You have to step into it. This is not a small thing, Mom. You've got to do it. And you need to write the book now. My kids are never urging me to work more, okay? I mean, they're already worried about how much I work. So to have her say this to me, we were under this tree. Like I said, I'll never forget it. And when she said it, my heart kind of sunk because I was like Paige. I was actually afraid of being seen. I could do it. I was just afraid of failing at doing it. I was afraid of trying for the a life where I put this methodology out there to the world and it not working or people not liking it and how embarrassing that would feel. Oh, her book tank, it fizzled out. She wrote a book. She thought she was. It was. And it didn't work out for her. You know what? People actually never say or think anything like that. People think a lot more about themselves than they thinking about you. But I had my head all up in that. And finally being shoved. The way I tried to shove Paige in our conversation, finally I said okay to going for my A plus life. Okay. And, you know, was it easy? Of course it's not easy. And I had written books before, so I knew how hard it was going to be. All right? But look, I made the decision to put myself out there. That's really what it is to go from B plus to A plus. You have to push yourself from good enough to better. And, you know, it takes acceptance of that. It's going to be hard. It takes fortitude. It takes resoluteness. It takes hope. It takes the ability to step into scarephoria, that intersection of fear and hope. That's where growth happens. You know, I wouldn't be actually talking to you here today, right at this moment. And I would not have talked to Paige if it had not been for Eve grabbing my arm under that tree and pushing me, and me saying, okay, I'm. I'm willing to be pushed. I'm going to be seen. I am going for that A plus life. And that is what I want for you. Because this is the thing for me and for you. I don't want you to cry on your 85th birthday from anything but joy. Becoming you is produced by Jessie Baker and Eric Newsome of Magnificent Noise. Our production staff includes Muskan Nagpal and Kristen Muller, with help from Elisa Zinn, Hallie Reiner, Maddy Paul, and Tanya Jogi. I'm your host, Susie Welch, and this is Becoming youg.