Three Words That Can Change Your Life. Say Them Today.

You've got to do it with me. Ready? Okay. Hello. This is. That's. I said once was all. Oh, hello, it's Susie. This is the becoming you podcast, and I'm joined in the studio for one night only with my very best lifelong friend, Sue Jacobson. And we. That. You know, Sue, I don't even know why we make that sound to each other all the time. Why?

I think it's Lena Lovich. My lucky numbers 1. I'm having so much fun. You found that.

Okay.

And you. And basically, now you're gonna kill me. But you constantly find, like, what you. You discovered Madonna.

I did. Okay. Oh, my God. This podcast may not work, my friends. Okay? So listen. Halt speaking for a moment. Okay. All right. Welcome to the podcast. If you're joining us for the first time, please stay, please stay. And if you're visiting, it's my fault. You know that sue is my best friend, and we've actually were friends because we were tennis counselors when we were 18 years old. Sue was my boss for one brief and shining moment of my life. I've been her boss since then. Wouldn't you agree?

Unfortunately, yes.

Okay. And look, we're here to talk about something so important. Sue actually spoke in my class at NYU Stern last night because I. This is a podcast about something that sounds so easy but is so freaking hard. But here's the most important thing about it. It can change your life. What we're going to talk about today can and will change your life, and it will change the life of the people around you. I taught it in my class in management last night, and it's about this. The skill, the actual teachable skill of showing people that they matter. Oh, you think you do it. You think you do it. But there's such an overconfidence bias on this. It's frightening. And so I want to talk about mattering. I'm actually borrowing heavily from the work of a fantastic professor at the University of Colorado, Zach Mercurio. He has a book about mattering. I highly recommend it. I teach his work to my students who are going out into the world to be bosses. Maybe even your boss someday. Or maybe it's my boss someday. How to show the people that work with them how they really matter. Because when you feel like you matter, everything changes. And I've just. I'm just telling this little anecdote before we get going. Sue came to my class and we demonstrate. I did each one of these three skills that we're going to have on the pod today. Sue demonstrated them with me. But this morning, I was meeting with my students in our reflection group, which we have after class, and one of the students said, I actually brought the techniques that you and I showed in class last night. He said, I took the technique home. I used it on my wife. I think he said, I reduced her to tears. She was crying. She was like, you know, where is this coming from? And he said, it was so effective, and the impact was so huge on him and on his wife. This act, this technique of showing people they matter, that he was gonna go to work and do it with colleagues today. And I am so happy. But I'm telling you right now, if you listen to this podcast today, for the next 20 minutes or so, you're gonna learn three techniques that really quadruple the impact of what you're doing. It's so little. What I'm about to talk about, what we're about to demonstrate. It feels so little, and it's so huge, and I couldn't do it with a better person. All right. By the way, Becoming youg is a podcast that. Helping you figure out what to do with your life. We sometimes go off on tangents. It all comes back to what you're going to do with your life. But frankly, no matter what you want to do in your life, you want to be more impactful, you want to connect to people better. That's kind of a given, no matter what. And so I'm going to file this podcast under expanding your impact, expanding your reach. So stay with us on becoming you. And again, welcome. If this is your first time, if you're returning, hey, hope you're doing great. All right. Sue and I met, I'm afraid to say, when it was. It was 1977 or 8. The camp was named Camp Wingate. It's on Cape Cod. I went to be a counselor at Camp Wingate because my cute boyfriend was a counselor at the boys camp associated with Camp Wingate. And I got there only to be with the boy. And I show up, and there's the head of the. They told me I was going to teach tennis because I was a squash player. And I bump into this woman, Sue Jacobson, and. And we immediately hit it off. We were not good tennis players, right?

And actually, my side of the story is I see this, like, cool woman my age, like, wearing her boyfriend's striped. Do you remember that red and white rugby shirt? And she was, like, totally cool. And I found out we were going to be working together on the tennis courts. And the short answer Is yes, we were not good tennis players.

We were only slightly better than the kids.

And a visiting day of the parents were like, these are the instructors of our children.

I want a refund. Exactly.

Like, really say what?

So the funny thing is that sue and I went to totally different colleges and our lives would have never crossed if we had not ended up at Wingate. And we became incredibly close friends. And I've probably had more laughs with you, with any person in my life. I've also had many, many, many tears with you over the years. Cause we've been through so much. To hell and back. We'll talk about some of that today. We're gonna have to. We did have a terrible rupture in. In our friendship, which grew out of a misunderstanding. And one of the great successes and joys of my life is that we were able to save our relationship. Thanks to you. Thanks to you. You came back. We'll talk about it. I think today friendships do that. You know, the belonging is the value that we have in the values bridge, which is part of the Becoming youg process. That it is about friendship. And it's not a very high value for most Americans. Belonging is. Yes. It's in the bottom five for most Americans. Belonging. Okay. And that's about friendship. You know, our phones have become our friends. Is maybe one reason it's hard to be friends in this day and age as another reason. But if you've ever had a really good friend, you know how it can enhance and change your life.

It's the best.

It's the best. So the. This podcast, I think as we demonstrate the different techniques of mattering, you may get a flavor. I think, really you can. Mattering was designed by Zach Mercurio to help bosses be better bosses. But it is all about being. It's absolutely applicable to being a better friend, a better wife, a better mother, a better anything. The act of showing people that they matter, which is. Sounds easy again, but I'm gonna tell you it's quite hard. Is it's the most important thing you can do as a person. Changes things. All right.

Yes.

Do you want to say sue, by the way, in her life, went along and built an incredible career. She's the mom of two amazing kids, and she's married to a wonderful guy named Michael, who's a doc. And you got kicked in the butt really hard when we were really close friends and I was running on the treadmill and the phone kept on ringing. This is back when we had phones that were across the room instead of on top of us at all times. And I thought, well, what is going on? And the phone wouldn't stop ringing. And it was you. And what did you say to me when I picked up the phone at.

Last, I said, it happened. I've been fired. And what do I do? And yes, I said, you said, get in the car and drive out to meet with me right now. I got in the car and drove up to your Nantucket, took the ferry over, and you and Jack pulled out a piece of paper, an envelope, actually, and you and Jack, literally, which I still have, wrote down the game plan. And you both were like, it's about time. You need to start your own business.

That's right. What else did I say to you when you said, I've been fired? What did I say, Sue?

You said, this is going to be one of the best days of your life. And yes, I will admit it again, you were right.

Yes. Can't say that enough.

Yeah, you love that.

No, but I love that I said to you, this is going to be the best day of your life.

You were so right. I would have been there forever. Stuck in a mediocre job.

We had been telling you a long time you were about to get fired.

And you trying to look.

So sue went on to build a magnificently successful communications business, largest in the mid Atlantic states. Congratulations for that. She's the CEO, so we have stayed friends, but we also often give each other business advice. Let's get on with the mattering stuff, shall we?

Okay, let's do it.

All right. I want to describe very briefly what the mattering framework is from professor Zach Mercurio. Just think of it this way. Its initials are nan. The first N stands for noticing. That's a certain technique. We'll go into it and we'll demonstrate it. The second A stands for affirming. Affirming is not. You did a great job. Affirming is like, thanks. It's not that at all. We're going to talk about what affirming really is. And the second N is. Is needing. When you actually let your vulnerability show and you talk truly about how much you need somebody. And actually, I surprised sue in class last night and I talked very honestly about that. We're gonna recreate it here. And the third part is needing. When you really let yourself get very vulnerable. Hard to do. And you say stuff about how much you really do need somebody. This is how it's done. You know, it's funny, when we were doing this in class, sue, remember when the students were going through each one of these exercises, and they would do it, and then they would announce what they did, and I would say, have you done that in real life? And every single time, they said, no. Because, I mean, you may be listening to this right now, driving in your car, gardening or whatever, giving your dog a bath, and you may be thinking, yeah, I do that stuff all the time. But it's in the details. So let's talk about it. So the first one is noticing, and this is when somebody is speaking to you, that you do two things. You actually see them in the details, and you hear them in the details. We are so bad at this. And when I say in the details, I mean that we don't try to get them to a solution right away. We don't try to get them to. We don't try to evaluate them right away. We actually hear what they're saying, and we observe it and then speak back to them in a way that makes it very clear we've actually heard them. So one of the examples that Zach uses in his work is to say that when we see somebody in the hall or we talk to an employee, we say something like this, how's work going? And the person typically says back, fine. Some ups and downs. But there's a lot of other alternatives, like, what do you know? You're not noticing anything about them. You're checking the box that you checked in with somebody that you work with or your kid comes home from school. How was school today? It's fine. How'd the test go? It's good. Harder than you thought it was good. And then you think, okay, I checked in. I did my best. But imagine if we change this into active listening. You know, nobody but nobody gets educated on how to do active listening. But that is. That's really hard. Active listening is when you. Somebody's speaking, and as they're speaking, you're listening not to have a statement or retort, but to ask a question about what they just said. I mean, that's active listening. They're speaking, and you're thinking, how could I further open this up? All right, so let's. Let's practice. Okay. Hey, Sue.

Yes.

Yesterday you came into town, and you had a lot of different things on your plate to do. You live in Philadelphia. You came in. There was just a lot going on. What was the most fun for you yesterday, and what was the hardest thing for you yesterday?

The most fun thing for me yesterday, and probably one of the highlights of my life, was when you said some very beautiful things. About me in your class. The difficult thing yesterday is a colleague of mine was, like, called me up and was like, sue, we're doing great stuff, but I'm stressed, and we gotta, like, somehow find a way to navigate everything. And so I love this person. And I was like, let's, like, figure it out. Because I want her to be happy because she means a lot to me personally and professionally. She does extraordinary work. So when she said that to me that she was stressed, I felt like I kind of had a punch in the gut.

Did you feel just a punch in the gut, or did you feel any other emotions that maybe you're not talking about? Like, maybe. Were you mad about it?

No, I wasn't mad.

Were you confused by it? No.

Yes. I was not confused. I was caught off guard because I'd like to think I'm not a bad. As, you know, I'm not a bad read of people, and I clearly didn't see it coming. So that is where I felt like, come on, sue, you're better than that. You should have known that this person felt that way. You should have been more reactive. And why wasn't I paying attention?

Do you feel like you might be beating yourself up a little bit always? Yeah.

Yeah. You know that.

Yeah.

Yeah. But in a good way. Because I want to be. You know, this is like a kind.

Of conversation that I normally would not have with Sue. I mean, when sue and I actually had a conversation, I was. She came downstairs after that incident with her employee happened. We sat down. We were immediately talking about solutions. I didn't in any way talk to you about your emotions. I mean, all of what you just saw is actually the act of noticing, of listening and, like, soliciting more information, observing the details, opening it up, and being so selfless in your communication so that you felt very noticed, you felt very cared for, you felt very, you know, look, I was trying to see you. I was trying to hear you in an incredibly active way.

Always.

That is always. That is not what happened. When we were talking at lunch yesterday about this incident, I was like, what's the solution? What's wrong. Wrong with her? And you know what else I asked you? Who can fill in for her? I mean, I was right to the solutions noticing, which is the first part of this framework, this mattering framework asks you to suspend yourself for a moment and enter the reality of the other person and pull out the details of their experience in a way that they feel thoroughly seen and heard.

I love that.

We should do it more.

Yes.

I mean, I don't know how we've managed to stay friends all these years.

Without doing well, because I actually think we do instinctively do it sometimes. To your point earlier, it's how we communicate with each other. Sometimes we're like, okay, we gotta get to the school.

Yeah, but look, here's the whole thing about the entire framework. It's so time consuming. This is the pushback from the students. Is this even realistic? Is this even practical? Everything about showing somebody else that they matter is time consuming. What? What? Don't we have anything? We don't have time because we got a doom scroll like me or whatever. I mean, we're called to other things all the time. What? Every aspect of this framework asks you to slow down in your relationships. All right, let's talk about the second part of this technique. All right? And it is affirming. Now, here's how we typically affirm people. Okay, you've just done something great. I'm going to demonstrate how I'm going to affirm you.

Uh, oh.

Thumbs up sign. Hey, you won that new business. Thumbs up sign. Right. That's how we affirm each other. You know, my. The. The kids always get mad because you know how I affirm them? I text them the word, yay. Y A Y. They actually mock me. Yay. Like, that's how I affirm them. But imagine this other way of doing this. You affirm somebody by pointing out in a very specific way the unique thing that they did when they did it and how it had an impact, like, super specific. So when you and I did this in class last night, I used an example of something. Sue was the president of the Chamber of Commerce.

Chair.

Chair.

Chair of the board.

Chair of the.

Sorry, I had to correct that.

Sue was the Queen of Philadelphia. I call her. I'm correct that, too. I call her the Queen of Philadelphia. Affirming. We text each other, we say, great job. I say, yay. Okay? And it's just not enough. And so the story that I told in class was about this time that you were transitioning your leadership at the chamber, and you wanted one candidate. And then you were told that that candidate was not the right candidate. And I watched you in wonder as you asked a lot of people for their opinions. You sought my opinion, but I wasn't the only opinion. You sought a lot of different people's opinions. And you revised your opinion, and you had to then publicly kind of say, I am reversing my opinion, and here's why. You took a hit for it. And I remember I Want to just affirm that I learned so much from you in that because you gathered a lot of opinions, I would have ramroded right through it. I would have made my decision. I would have just picked somebody. I maybe would have, like, forced people to agree with me in this way that I have where I state something very affirmatively, that. But that's not right. And I learned. And I want to affirm that you have a very unique gift. You have a very unique gift of soliciting wise counsel and listening to it.

Thank you for that. But I did make mistakes. I handled the situation poorly because I made the right choice, but I hurt one person. And so, you know, there's even more to that story. But thank you for saying that. Cause I truly did what I believe was what I heard. And I was like, even if it's an unpopular decision, I had to do it.

But I want to affirm that even though it was probably not the best experience for you, that I really learned from you. I really did. And I watched you, and I thought, I need to be more like that in difficult times. I need to take more counsel from other people. Do you feel affirmed?

I do feel affirmed, but I don't want to do it at your expense, because I do think you listen to other people. I think you have very clear feelings about how you feel about things. So you're more. And. But no, you definitely listen well.

Okay. Do you want to affirm me? I would. Come on.

Oh, so. So no, I actually. I really do.

Okay, so you came to class. Go ahead.

And your class. And you were talking about meanings, and I kind of thought, hey, I know everything about meanings.

Wait, just to pause. I teach a class called Modern Family, where I teach this. This topic, this mattering process, this technique. But the first. That class is three hours. In the first hour and a half. I teach something that every manager needs to know best practices in meetings. Okay, so sue was there for the meetings part as well. Go ahead.

Yeah. And so it was awesome. But. And I. And I didn't. You know, I know you're a great teacher. I know you hate compliments, but you're an awesome teacher. It's one of your gifts. And, you know, it's just hang in there with me. But no, seriously. But we get into the meeting section, and you know what I loved, because I've been struggling a little bit with online meetings was when your advice about saying, you know, I. What I want to get out of this meeting is, you know, in this case, I would say I want an Update. I want everybody, you know to give a brief update, and then we would need to solve the following two problems.

Yeah.

What an awesome way to start. Meaning, what a game changer. And the fact that you said that bad meanings can, like, hurt people and, like, hurt productivity and just the whole, you know, working together, it was such an aha moment. But the way you conveyed it was really special. You have this, you know, seriously. And I'm going to get specific. You have this just wonderful way of, like, making it interesting but communicating, like, real facts.

Well, thank you, Sue.

And I think that that's. That's your differentiator.

So this is, like, to me, so different than you saying, that was a great class. Like, you're actually pointing out that the class had an impact on you, that you're actually going to take one of the practices from the class and put it in. And I will say, it's like you went into the class. Another thing that you said that was really meaningful to me is you said, I went to this class thinking, I know everything about meetings. And then what you said is like. But your unique gift taught me I had more to learn. That is so affirming to me. Thank you for affirming me.

You're welcome. I meant it.

All right, so that's it. So we've done noticing, and then we've done affirming. Again, it's all about the specifics. It's about scheduling time and space to do this. It's about really leaning into it. You do have to be very available to do this. The place you have to be the most vulnerable is in the third one, which is needing. We almost never do this. Kneading is when we let down our guard and we tell somebody how and why they're indispensable to us, how and why they're indispensable. And in workplace settings, bosses almost never do this because they're very scared that if they do this, the people will get on their ass for more money, you know, or they'll get a big head. And so. But bosses can do this in a way that just makes people feel more filled with life. And, I mean, I think we don't do it enough. I mean, every single person on my team is utterly indispensable to me. I don't tell them enough, and I should. By the way, I'm going to do it right now. Issa and Elisa, you're utterly indispensable to me, and I'm going to explain more in details later. All right. But I think that we don't. So we don't do it with the people who work.

That was awesome.

Oh, well, I feel it. We don't do with the people who work for us and work with us enough, and we certainly don't do it enough with the people that we share day in, day and out with. I mean, like, I think. I do think one of the things about living with somebody who is dying is that it forces you to do it. I mean, because Jack and I talked all the. And Jack very much in my mind, because this is his birthday week. You know, we talked all the time at the end about what my life would be like without him. And so I would say to him, well, I can't. This is not possible, because there's not, you know, so you. That life forces you to do it in the worst moments, but in general, we can just bump along and never do it. Like that student I mentioned at the beginning, he went home and said it to his wife. And so I want to recreate what we did in class last night, because I took you by surprise, didn't I?

Still. I'm still shocked.

I'm really glad I did it. And here's the crazy thing, Sue. We're as best friends as best friends can be. And I had never done it before. Can you. I could kick myself, but I did it. All right, so listen, I want to set the context for the listeners, all right? You bump along in life. You bump along in life, and you think your best friend's always going to be there. You think your best friend's going to always be there. And one morning about. It was two years ago now. Was it two years ago? Almost. Okay. One morning, Sunday morning, I think it was, or Saturday morning at like 6am you texted me the kind of thing only best friends text to each other, which is you texted me, have you ever woken up and your tongue was numb? And I was literally. I felt my heart drop into my stomach, and I said, get to the hospital immediately. Get to. I was terrified. It just was weird because, no, you don't wake up and your tongue is not numb, okay? So I said, get to the hospital. And to make a long couple of days short, you ended up actually having a terrible virus that. Almost killed you. It was so scary and bad. Thanks be to God, you were in the right place at the right time in Philadelphia at one of the greatest hospitals in the world. And as soon as they finally. When they finally figured out what it was you, they were able to save you. I was in the hospital room when your husband Michael, who was a doctor, saw the statistic that for what you had and how you had it, that there was only a 9% survival rate, I walked into the room right after he'd found that out, and he said, It's 9% survival. And in one minute, all of our lives, your family's and mine, just came to an incredible screeching halt. You were, with this great medical care, put into an induced coma, and they tried to save you. So, look, the amazing ending of this story is that you made it. You fought like hell. You had the greatest doctors in the world. You were surrounded by love, and nobody fought like you did. It was an incredible story. I am in awe of you. And we made it. You made it. And we watched you and cheered. So I wanted to. I want to say this, and I said it to you last night. Here's what I discovered about how much I need you. When I thought you were going to die, I literally thought to myself, I. This is the bridge too far. I can't go on. I can't go on without this person to complain to about my kids, to talk to, about my work, to laugh with, to. To remember. I can't. And I never told you when you came out of it how scared I was of a life without you and that I need you so much. I've never said those words, I need you. I love you. And it makes me feel very, very, very lucky. And so I wanted, and I said in front of the class, all of these things. And maybe for the first time ever in a management class at any business school, in all times, a student said, shout it out. You're making me cry. And I felt like crying. I didn't know it was going to cry when I said it, but I wanted you to say. And look, just to draw back to 20,000ft. I should have said that to you before, Sue. I think. I thought it was understood. And I think that's why we don't do this act of needing. We think it's understood.

It is and was understood. But when you said that to me last night, I almost passed out. I still haven't gotten over it. I told you that this morning. And I said to you this morning, I hope you know I feel the same way about you.

I do.

And I think that. So, yes, I think we knew it. But to hear it was so. It was transforming. It was just a beautiful thing. So, thank you.

But that's it. To hear it. I had to say it for you to hear it. And it is Transformative. And I want to say that the most hysterical thing about the whole thing is that you were dying to tell a funny story. You thought you were going to tell a funny story about that. When I started to talk about the hospital experience, which, of course, I told to the class with your permission, you thought you were going to be able to tell the class the funniest story of your entire sickness, and you were too overcome to do it. So we'll tell it now.

All right, so this is the part I remember.

Yeah, I don't know if you remember.

It exactly, but I remember that you basically came into the hospital room for the first time.

No, it wasn't the first time.

Was it the first time, really? Well, for me, it was.

You were coming out of your comfort. I mean, I had been there six times before that, Sue. Okay.

And so, you know. And you basically said. I think the words were, get up, bitch.

No, it wasn't bad. It wasn't that exactly. I walked in, you had. You were completely hooked up in every possible way, and there was a sweet, unsuspecting nurse sitting there. And I walked in, and I looked over at you with all the tubes and everything, Everything, everything like that. And I said, you just knock this off. Knock it off. The time has come. Get your ass out of bed. Knock this off. We've had enough. This nurse was like, calling security. Ch. Who is this woman? But you needed a little. Because it was.

That's what I needed. That's what I needed because, well, I wanted you. You have to understand, I was in denial. I'm still in denial. And, you know, I'm like, we're getting over this right away. So for you to come in and say that means you're like, let's get moving and get out of it.

Well, you had been sick for quite some time at that point. I mean, you had been in the coma for a while, and you would just come out of. And I mean, you couldn't. At that point, you still couldn't smile. You couldn't talk. I mean, you were like. I think you were trying to smile, but I think you saw, like, you felt the nurse next to you. And then I said to the nurse, she's my best friend, you know? And the nurse was like, okay, I'll leave you. Anyway, you wanted to tell that story to the class. I'm so glad the class didn't hear that story. I'm gonna, like, recommend, as we bring this podcast to a close, that you make a list of five people that you should do Mattering with.

I love that.

Okay, I'm not doing it with you because I've already done it with you. Okay? So I'm gonna do it.

Get out.

But I think you should make a list of to five, six people that you should do mattering with in this very detailed way that you notice them, you hear them, you see them, that you affirm them in a way that says, these were the things, the special things you did when you did them. And this is how it impacted me. And then you just let your guard down and say, I need you. I need you anyway. I need you.

So thank you for.

You're welcome. All right. Now, I needed you to be on this podcast with me because I could not have done it alone. So, anyway. All right, well, I am so glad that you were here to hear me and sue reminisce about the old days, but also maybe, you know, give you some kind of stuff to do with people you love, your bestie and I just to continue to grow these beautiful things that we have, these relationships. That is what it's all about. All right, I love you.

And I love you, too.

I love my audience and my listeners so much. While I'm at it, I'm gonna tell you two over there, love you. And so we're. Let's wrap it up for becoming you. I can't wait to see. See you next week. Please stay with Becoming you and we'll see you next time. I'm Susie Welch.