What’s Worth Dying For? Well, A Little Yellow Doxie Apparently.

Foreign.

Hi, it's Susie Welch. Welcome to the podcast this week. So happy you're with us. Thank you for listening to that really cool bop that we lead in with, which happens to be made by my grandson, Joe Welch and his band. Pretty catchy, don't you think, isn't it? Stuck in your head? Stuck in my head. All right, well, I'm really glad you're back and I'm really glad I'm actually here because I had a near death experience this weekend. I don't know about anybody else, but, yeah, I learned so much from it. So just to dive right in with it, so to speak. I took the dogs for a walk in the woods on Saturday morning. It was, like, bucolic. It was gorgeous. I go up to the countryside and my thought was like, I really needed to hear myself think I was gonna go out in the woods. And I take the dogs. They're completely off leash. This is the. The way it is. It's perfectly fine out in the woods. I do occasionally worry about seeing a. A bear, but that didn't happen. And I was counting on the bigs, the two big shepherds to protect me if I saw a bear. But no. And we took this gorgeous walk and I was like, ah, I can hear myself think. I can breathe. I'm just taking in this beautiful sunshine. And then as we get close to the house, I start throwing the stick for the big dogs into this pond that we always walk by. And in that process, the dogs become completely encrusted with filth and pond muck, and it's disgusting. And so then to get them, when we get home to clean them off, what I do is I have a pool there, and I. I throw an orange ball into the pool over and over again. And the dogs, the big dogs jump in and they get themselves cleaned off. And that's my fast way of doing it. And then I bring little Pierre inside and I just put him in the kitchen sink and I hose him down. So everything was going along beautifully. It's actually like taking pictures of the woods, which I typically don't do. I was just like, God, isn't it so lucky? Don't we all need to be outside? Don't we all need just to take. Take some time every week? This is. I'm speaking to myself here, by the way. Don't we each need to take some time every week just to stop doing? This is my crime. I just never stopped doing. So I got back, I was throwing the ball repeatedly, a pool, and the dogs are like, they're like, amazing. I don't know if you've ever seen shepherds fly into a pool. They sort of launch. They sort of lay their, like rocket ships. They take off and they fly towards the center of the pool, and they dive in, and then they grab the ball because you're giving them work to do because they're German shepherds and they must be working. And they swim to the side of the pool. Pool. And while this is going on, Little Pierre, who's 11 pounds, is circling the pool barking his brains out, filled with excitement, overjoyed at just to be a part of what his big brother and sister were doing. And I thought, okay, I'm now exhausted. It's been a really long walk. And I threw one last ball into the pool. And Audrey, the female German shepherd, goes running to get the ball in the middle of the pool. And as she's charging towards the middle of the pool, somehow heard two back paws scoop underneath Pierre, who was standing at the side of the pool. And she lifts off, and he is lifted off underneath, like, with her paws to carrying him. And then she's flying to the middle of the pool, and she deposits him in the middle of the pool as she dives in, and she kind of collapses in the middle of the pool on top of him. He goes under, and he's in the center of the pool, and he sort of floats to the top. And I'm staring at him, and I think I've seen him swim in shallow water before. So I stare at him at the side of the pool, and I said, come up here. Come on, come on. And he's looking at me, and he's clearly struggling terribly. And he's his little paws. And he's staring up at me. And then he's horizontal for a little while. And then he goes completely vertical. He goes vertical. He just picture a hot dog going vertical in a pool, if you would. And he just starts to sink like a stone towards the bottom of the pool. Basically. It was like watching the Titanic go down. Okay, horizontal to vertical. And they start sinking. And I'm sitting there completely clothed, actually wearing kind of a winter coat because it was still cool out. And I've got my phone in my favorite thing, my fanny pack around my waist. Yep, that's the height of cringe. That's my number one cringe behavior. Besides wearing clogs, as I've previously revealed, I also wear a fanny pack all the time. And I have my phone on. I'm wearing my watch and everything like that. And I see my dog drowning. I mean, he was definitely drowning. And I could see his little mouth was open. He was taking water in. And I literally said out loud, well, here goes. And I threw myself into the pool. I dove into the pool completely dressed, wearing a hat. And as I approached him, he was nearing the bottom of the pool. He was on his way down. I actually thought maybe he had already drowned. And I grabbed him and I swam to the top of the pool. And I, fully clothed, not so easy to swim. And I hoisted him outside of the pool for a second. I was, like, really concerned. He kind of seemed a little lifeless. And then he hacked. He hacked, and he started really hacking a lot, and he kind of came back to life. And the big dogs were, like, circling around like crazy, barking. And then Pierre seemed okay. And I climbed out of the pool soaking wet, and I immediately ran with him, with. And got him into a towel and kind of tried to get the water out of his lungs. And, yeah, we all lived happily ever after, and we were fine. He was actually really out of it for the rest of the day. Obviously highly traumatizing to him. Him super traumatizing to me. And I. It's funny, I immediately sent a video and sent it to my kids, and I was soaking wet, and I said, look, this is what just happened, this traumatizing experience. Pierre almost drowned. I jumped in and saved him. And everybody said, oh, my God, Thank God you were there to see it, Mom. And my answer was, well, it would have never happened if I hadn't been there, because it was this freak moment of me, me throwing the ball into the pool and then this crazy thing. If you can kind of imagine if you've ever seen a bird of prey swoop down and, like, take a bunny off the ground and then, like, carry the bunny up. It's sort of what it looked like when Audrey captured Pierre with her back paws and was, like, lifting him off. She was almost. It was almost like he had been captured by a bird of prey. And then he was dropped in the middle of the pool. Anyway, it lasted. And actually, I tell this story one because I want you to know that I'm the number one hero of the entire universe, and I would die for my dog. But also because, you know, it actually gave me some thought as the day went on about what we would actually do that for. Like, what would you actually fight for? What would you actually jump into a pool for? To save. What would you actually stand on principle for? So there was this recent debate. I think I saw it on Twitter or one of the social media platforms where a woman wrote, I asked my boyfriend if he saw two people drowning our cat or a perfect stranger, who would he save? And he said, I'd save our cat. And she wrote, should I break up with him? And that was pretty mixed. Everybody was like, well, like, what's the problem? Wanted to save your cat? Who. You know. And other people were like, he'd save a cat over a person? And I. You know, I think you probably know where I come down on this one. So I thought, okay. Like, as the day went on, I started to think, well, what? Like, what have I stood on principle for? What have I actually, besides, like, saving Pierre? Like, I always say that when I was raising my kids, I had one goal for them and one goal only. And it was not where they got into college, and it was not what sports teams they played on. I'm the only mother in the world who ever got on her knees. And I'm not joking. I got on my knees, and I literally prayed to God that one of my kids would not make the varsity of a certain sport he was trying out for, because I actually didn't want to go do all the travel to go to all the varsity games. Anyway, he made it, and I sucked it up and went and watched him swim all over the fricking place. Anyway, what I really wanted for my kids when they were growing up was that if they were driving down the road and they saw a car pulled over to the side of the road and it was a mother and a kid and she had a flat tire, that they would be the people who pulled over. Like, I just wanted that value judgment. If I. If they did that, if they were the people pulled over for somebody on the side of the road, a mom with a kid, or just a woman who was. Who's obviously in need of help, then I had done my job. And I recently asked all four of them, like, if you saw this, would you pull over? And they're like, of course we'd pull over. So I thought, okay, great. Not everyone would. So I started to think, what would we stand on principle for? And I actually came up with this little exercise, which I'm really looking forward to doing in my class, becoming you at NYU Stern. Hello. If my former students are listening, you're all former now, because we're in summer break, and I can't wait to see my new students in the fall. But I have this new exercise, which I think is a really good one for surfacing. Values. And Values is Something we talk about all the time in class, like, what are your values? Because you can't really decide, in my humble opinion, what you want to do with your life unless you really have a hard reckoning with yourself about what your values are. What are you really? What are the beliefs underlying your actions? What really galvanizes you? And we do so much virtue signaling around values. Oh, I really believe in family. I really believe in community or whatever. And then you get right down to what people believe in are things like, you know, having three cars and five vacations a year, whatever. And these are all fine. It's just there's a lot of. Sometimes there's just a lot of inauthenticity around values. So one of the things I do in my class is I come up with a lot of activities and exercises to help people determine what their values are. It's hard work. It's not easy to know what your values are. Sometimes we spend our whole lives figuring out our values, and then sometimes we have like a shocking experience like a divorce or a death occurs, or you get fired from a company or. And you find out what your values are because you're faced with a very huge crucible moment. And so I already knew that I had a value of loving my dogs very much and actually loving them in a way that it really drives my life decisions in many ways. I really. They're truly my companions. And I love animals in general and had a lifelong commitment to animals. But to sort of not have thought about two things I might do before I threw myself into the pool certainly clarified for me my strong values there. But here's the new exercise I have, which is to think about something that you do or have done and just spontaneously fill in the blank on this one. I make no apology for.

I make no apology for, like, where would you go with that? Like, what first comes to your mind? I make no apology for.

Thinking that it's perfectly okay for somebody to try to save their cat over a human being. Or I make no apology for taking every single day of vacation I have. I make no apology for being estranged from my parents. I make no. I'm just making that one up. I don't happen to be strange from my parents, although there have been moments when I'm sure all of us have considered being estranged from our parents at one time or other because you are in this incredibly tight relationship with your parents with lots of highs and lots of lows. And so what you would first answer. It's a little bit like that exercise That I had. I've had two other exercises that we've talked about on this podcast. One being I have to. And what comes to your mind says a lot about your values. And also I don't know what happiness is, but I know I'm never sad when I blank. And I think this is in the same category. What comes to your mind the first one or two times can be quite revealing about your values. Let's test it out on my crack team who's here with me today. Sorry, guys. You got your microphone over there? Let's try it. I'm going to do some. Yeah, yeah. I am going to try it on you guys and then I'm going to analyze what your values might be from it. All right, Anybody want to go? All right. I make no apologies for.

For spending as much of my life working as I do.

Yeah, I make no apologies for working as much as I do. Right. I mean, it is clear because I know Hallie, who's getting married in September, by the way, knowing Hallie, that work is a gigantic priority for her, which I heartily, heartily endorse as she works with me. And also work is a huge priority of mine. Huge value of mine is work. I was just talking to a friend the other day and she's about to go on a 10 day vacation doing something just delicious sounding in Europe. And I thought to myself, this, that in concept to me is really great and something I should be doing. On day three, I'd be flying home to work. It's my value, it's my personality, but it's also what animates me. Okay, so you make no apology for how much you work. Isn't it lucky that you're getting married to somebody who also makes no apology for how much he works? I would say definitely, if that's a value of yours, find somebody who has that same value. Otherwise, trouble. Trouble. Okay, I make no apology for.

I make no apology for living across the country from my family.

Ah. So, I mean, interestingly to me, I make no apology for living across the country from my family. This is such a revealing statement because it's about independence, it's about agency, it's about chasing your own dreams, and it's about where family falls in the list of your current priorities. Right. And it's like you make no apology for it. I'm doing it because, like, why are you doing it, Eliza? Because the work here at Team becoming you is just so fascinating.

Exactly. Becoming you is only in New York.

Yeah, that's right. Could only be here in New York. So, I mean, I think just try this out. I'm actually gonna crowdsource it. I'll do a reel about and see which ones I get. But I think it's a really interesting thing to actually even just sit with people who are in your family ecosystem or who you work with and compare notes. I look forward to doing this with my students because I bet I'm going to get some really different answer ones. I actually. I have one that I thought about this weekend because I was really ruminating on this. On Sunday, I went to church. And actually going to church in this day and age in the Northeast is a kind of countercultural thing. I mean, when I lived down in Palm beach, everybody went to church on Sunday. When I was growing up, everybody did also. But as time goes on, fewer and fewer people do go to church. I still do. And it's really important part of my life. And I get questioned about it all the time. And there's even members of my family who think it's a little wacky. I'm definitely an outlier in my own family in this way. But I thought to myself, I may make. I have no apologies about going to church, even though. And I. You know, I remember somebody. I mentioned going to church to somebody the other day, and they mentioned the Crusades to me as a reason why I should not be going to church. And I said, okay, well, like, that's actually not my. My church was not involved in the Crusades. So here I am, though, actually being asked to apologize for going to church. I make no apologies for it. Again, countercultural. Not for everybody. I don't. Obviously, you can do whatever you want. I don't hold it against people or just as I hope it's not held against me. But I make no apology for that. So there's one of mine. And actually, just to finish this thought, it speaks to one of my actual values, which is around my faith. So I love this as a little exercise. And I can't wait to roll it out to my classes. And maybe when I do one of my free webinars, which are coming up, and if you've not been to one of my free webinars, they're totally free. 30 minutes. I talk about the Becoming youg methodology. I just do it. Cause I love you. I think I'll try it on the webinar coming up. And if you're interested in that, you can register for it, I think, on my website. Okay. All right, well, let's take a little breather. This is the part where I just stop and drink something. We play a little bit of music for you, and we'll come right back with some more cool things to do.

Hi, we're back. We didn't really go anywhere. I just had a drink of water. So we've been debating, though, in the little break here about this. I make no apology for. And I just want to be clear that this really speaks to stuff, something that you do or have done in the past that you've been challenged on. And you're stating, I make no apology for. Because it was so aligned with my values. Okay. And that's what I'm seeking with this. And you may feel like, yeah, I make no apology for anything about my life, but there have been times in your life where people have questioned things about what you do or you feel like it is not the norm, and that's what we're sort of going for. And you may. This may not be an exercise that works for you, but there may be people who would have five answers to this. I make no apology for. I make no apology for how I raised my children personally. Now. I did for a long time. And then the jury came back in, and they ended up very good friends of mine, and they told me to stop apologizing for the kind of mom I was, and I was a mom who worked all the time. And I apologized to them. I explained to them why I was doing it. I explained to them about my value of work. I explained to them my worldview. And then when they grew up and everything kind of worked out, they said, like, you can stop apologizing. You shouldn't apologize all that time anyway. But society and other people kind of made me feel like I needed to rationalize my approach to parenting, which was really cerebral. I did not get on the floor with the kids, and this was countercultural at the time, at least. I'm really glad, though, to see all different types of parenting. And my. My son and his wife are really different parents than I was with my kids. And it's beautiful. It. Whatever works on that front, really, as long as the kids are safe and happy. Okay, we're moving on to the questions from the audience portion of the podcast. What have we got?

Okay, the first question is, if we're not supposed to network and are only supposed to make friends, what if all my friends are useless?

What if.

What do I do? Yeah, I saw this one come in. It's like, okay, just make friends. My friends are useless, though. How am I ever gonna get a Job, right. Okay. What a great question. Congratulations for having useless friends. Sounds like you're having a really good time. So I have two answers to this question. Number one is your friends may seem useless right now. And time, in the fullness of time, they may remain useless. And if they, and if you love them, then they should still be your friends. And the second answer is just, I have to give you a story. And this is when I was a young girl reporter. After I left Miami, I, I went up to Boston because I followed my boyfriend, who then became my husband, up to Boston. I got a job at the Boston Associated Press and I was covering crime. And there were a lot of really, really good crime reporters in Boston. The competition was fierce. There were other newspapers. We were fighting for every single story and we were all hustling like you would not believe. Well, I, as covering crime, I also had to cover the mayor and the police force and so on. And the police chief at the time had a young kind of useless seeming driver and he was always with the chief of police. And I was always at press conferences. So wherever the chief of police was, I was and always so was this driver. And I just made friends with him because what the heck, we were both young. He was probably my age, 23 or 24. And he seemed completely useless. Why he was the chief of police's driver, I had no idea. But I got to know him, he was engaged. I met him in his fiance for a drink one night and he just became a friend. Absolutely useless. And then I think actually I went to his birthday party. And to make a long story short, 15 years later, he was the chief of police in Boston. And I had him on speed dial. And he was a good friend of mine. And the number of times having the chief of police in Boston on my speed dial came to help me in my life. I can't even begin to tell you. And so we don't know where our friends are going, just like we don't know where we're going. And so you don't know how life is going to turn out. So that's my number one answer is they are useless. Now, as you might be yourself, my dear reader, but watch how life goes. The other thing I'll say is, okay, what's the option then with networking? You meet somebody at one of these gigantic hotel convention centers, you give them a card, they give you a card, and nothing of any meaning passes between you. And then you become connected with them on LinkedIn and then that is not really going to ever turn into a job. And so I would say if, if you feel like your friends are quote, unquote useless, which I would push back on lovingly. I would say in those networking situations, instead of having a mercenary conversation, at least attempt to make the conversations more authentic, more meaningful. Ask something real, say something real about yourself and see if you can turn those networking contexts into actual, true, authentic conversations where you show something of yourself and they do too, and maybe they become friends. And so I think it's just about reeling things up. And by reeling, I mean R E A L I N G reeling things up with the people that you're, quote, unquote, networking with. That is my answer. And go have a good time this weekend with your useless friends, probably doing something much more fun than what I'm doing. All right, we have another question from our audience.

You say it's important to find a job that lets you bring your whole self to work, but how would you know that the job is going to allow you to bring your whole self to work before working there?

Yeah. Okay, so how do you know if you're going to be able to be authentic at work before. Before you join? And I think that you're kind of cooked with this one because a lot of times you just have two or three interviews and you don't get to see what it's really like and you don't want to sit there in the interview and you don't want to say, am I going to be able to bring my whole self, my real authentic self to work? And then the people across the desk are like, what exactly do you mean by that? You know, and it's a pretty dicey thing to discuss before you start. So luckily the vast interweb has something called Google and you can actually find out a huge amount about companies, even small ones, by Googling. You can look at Glassdoor and see what the people. Now, Glassdoor skews towards incredibly unhappy employees. Typically, only unhappy exiting employees write in Glassdoor. And so if you want to hear the worst things people are saying about a company, look at Glassdoor or just look around, look at Reddit and go to all the different places where people talk about their experiences at different companies and do your research. Oh, my cousin Sandy's brother in law, Tom used to work at that company. Well, let's see if we can find Tom and just have a quick, quick conversation with him. So don't guess, use research, check out some of the resources online to find out about the company. And then, I mean, it's a Pretty vague question to say, you know, can I bring my whole self to work? And I think a different way to ask about it is, you know, are there any characters at XYZ Co. You know, do you know about people personally? Like, what if somebody was to come to work and they. I mean, I would be very behavioral in my questioning. What if somebody was to come to work and announce that they were vegan? Would that. How would that go over? Is there like a wide band of acceptance for people's kind of individuality at this organization? And see what you can find out. I think if you ask the direct question, can I bring my whole self to work? You're not going to get a good answer. So do your research and ask behavioral questions. Do you think that's a useful answer, team?

I was also thinking your go to question of asking who shouldn't work here.

Should also get at that. Another great way to get at this, because it's like, it's a total ambush, okay. Is when you're in the interview process to ask the person who you're interviewing with, hey, I. I have a question. You've really helped me understand. What kind of people should work here, what kind of people shouldn't work here? And sometimes, because this is such an unusual question, you really see them stop in their tracks and they're like. But sometimes they answer very honestly. Like they might say right away something like, well, people who don't want to work 80 hours a week do not belong here. Are they. You sometimes get a surprisingly honest answer. Now, that may not tell you how authentic you can be on the job, because it may be, okay, the number one value is if you work 80 hours a week, you could basically wear your garbage pail into the office every day on your head, and they'd be cool with it. But I would actually be quite specific. Like, you know, whatever it is about your whole self, maybe it's an issue around sexuality and you're. You want to know if you are going to be able to be openly gay at this workplace. I mean, you're going to have maybe have to bring that up in the interview process because if they are, then it's going to be perfectly fine conversation. Or you might just sort of say, well, this weekend I'm marching in a pride parade and da, da, da, and see how they react. If it matters that much to you to make sure that you're in a place where that's open and affirming in that way, then you got to bring it up. You've got to Bring it up. You do not want to live a life hiding who you are in any workplace. It's not worth it. Can't hold your breath that long.

Okay, we're back. You know, I went on this long riff on our last one about graduation. I was about to give my graduation speech at NYU Stern, the MBA program. I gave my graduation speech, which I talked about last time, about what I was going to say now that the experience is over. I'm reflecting on it. I did have four minutes. The whole time, I wished I had longer. And my basic feeling is, maybe the only person who could be great in four minutes is Beyonce and possibly Taylor Swift. I tried. It's hard. Those big rooms are very, very hard. And, I don't know, People are very nice. This is the problem with giving speeches, is afterwards, everyone tells you you're great. I've never given a speech in my entire life that somebody said wasn't great. And that's absolutely not the truth. I'm not great every single time. How could I possibly be? But everybody says you're great. That's the convention. So you almost never get true, honest feedback. I did have one speech experience that I got terrible feedback on. And the only reason I got it was because my children were in the audience. And so I went and I spoke at a bank. My kids were in town. They went to see me speak. And what I was saying did not land at all with this audience. And there was a little bit of confusion beforehand about who the audience was and what my message was supposed to be. So there was a bit of miscommunication, which led to me having sort of a very personal and intimate kind of conversation with people who were money managers. This was just, note to the audience, don't ever try that. And so it didn't really work at all. And, like, afterwards, I saw my kids. I knew I bombed, knew I bombed, knew it was terrible. And I saw my kids immediately afterwards, and they were like, man, that really sucked. That was terrible. Worst audience I've ever seen. No one laughed at any of your jokes. And I was like, yeah, fully aware. Thanks. But I will tell you that the organizers told me my speech was great. They were like, you rocked. And I was like, I did not rock. It did not work. I own 90% of it. I think 10% of it was not understanding exactly who the audience was. Just a little on you. But it doesn't make any difference. The main point of this is that with public speaking, which we all have to do and get really good at what we all have to do and get really good at in life is you almost never get honest feedback about it. That the absolute go to in society is to tell people who've done public speaking that they've done a great job. It's very hard. But you know how you get really good feedback? You should watch a video of yourself publicly speaking. You'll hate it. It's the worst thing, one of the worst. I can't even watch myself on tv. There's lots of clips of me on TV which you can look at if you've really, truly got nothing left to do in life. And absolutely, you've watched every single thing ever on tv. You could watch clips of me on the Today show and on cnbc. I can't even watch those clips. It's very, very hard to watch yourself. But that's the best teacher for how you're doing in public speaking. And I have one last tip which was given to me by the great Susie Orman. She's one of the greats, by the way, Susie Orman. If you don't follow her, you should. But she gave me a great tip. She saw me give a speech once. For some reason, I think we were on the same, same lineup at some big women's conference. And after I got off the stage, she ran over to me and she said, that was a good speech. Of course she did, as that being the convention. But she also said, when you get up on stage and before you start speaking, even if you've just been introduced for five minutes, say your name. Start every speech by saying, hi, I'm Susie Welch. And she said, I get up there, everyone knows who I am, and I say, hi, I'm Susie Orman. And then right after that, I went to Downtown and I went to go see a famous, famous newsman at the time, Peter Jennings. He since passed away, but he was very famous at the time. He was the anchor of ABC News. And he got up and gave a speech and he looked at the audience. Every single person knew him as if they were related to him because he was an anchor of a major evening news show. And he said, good evening, I'm Peter Jennings. And we all knew it. And I thought, oh, this is actually a fantastic trick. So I offer it to you every time you speak in any kind of public setting, to start by saying your name. It's very centering, and for some reason it just really sets the tone. There is a gratuitous, fun fact that I'm offering today. All right, we're moving on. After a little tiny break, here's the music, and we'll be right back.

All right, we've reached that moment of the show where I have my crack team, the Three Furies, here try to stump me with questions they think I can't answer. All right, let's do it. What's the first question, gang?

If you could spend 24 hours inside the world of any painting, which would you choose?

Oh, my God. And why inside of any painting? Stand by while I. You stink. I know I am. I think you might have stumped me. I mean, there's so many things. Oh, wait. No, it's not. I know the answer instantly. How could I not know the answer? It's the Joan of Arc. I knew it. She knew it. It's Joan of Arc. So this is a very obscure artist. Jules Bastien Lapage. He's like an obscure. I mean, you know, very obviously he's got a painting at the metal, so he can't be that obscure. But it's not like you're going to go to art school and study Jules Bastien Lepage. That painting was 1897. It's a huge painting at the Met. When was that painted? When was that hanging?

It's 1879.

1879. Close. So this is. I love this painting so much. And here's the reason why. It's of Joan of Arc. It's at the moment where she is being called into her new life. You can see that the stool where she has been making wool in her backyard. She's a country girl. She's a innocent young woman from a farmer's family with nothing that distinguished her as a young girl. And there's this moment where she's making wool in the backyard. I think there's a name for it. It's like darning or something like that. And she stands up. The stool has knocked over, but she's obviously in such shock, her arm is outreached. And you can see hovering above her, the angels who have come to call her to her new life. Her new life, just incidentally, saving France and protecting it. And she. Which she went forward and did, of course, at the expense of her own life. And when they asked her later was she frightened about what she faced into, she said, I am not afraid. I was born to do this. And so I love that quote so much because I do believe there is something that we were each born to do. Hers was quite dramatic. And I did dress up as Joan of Arc the other year for Halloween. And then I was struck by Covid the day before Halloween. This was tragic cause I had a Halloween party that I was going to throw, but I wasn't very sick. So I put on my Joan of Arc costume and I stood in the driveway of my house in New York City at a safe distance from the sidewalk with candy out in a bucket on the sidewalk. And as children went by, I waved my sword in the air and said, you know vegan M M's and pointed them to them. They. Most kids walked by rapidly saying, we don't like the vegan M M's. And so I though did ask all of them, do you know who I am? And I didn't have a very high hit rate. And then I announced loudly, I am Joan of Arc with COVID And they were like, quick, rapidly running to my next door. My next door neighbor has the best candy in town and she does not serve vegan M M's on Halloween. Anyway, I love that painting. I would live inside of it. Because that threshold moment that Joan is shown at when we are deciding to step into the life that we were born to do is a moment that all of us do face. Some of us run away from it and some of us stare right into it, lean into it, dive into it, grab it like she did. I aspire to be her. She is my secret mentor, crush. This week, she's at all times I have a fake Joan of Arc sword hanging in my office. And it does say on it, I am not afraid. I was born to do this. All very themey here. Okay. You would want your professor teaching becoming you to have that sword hanging in her office and lo and behold, she does. Okay, you were not. I was not stumped by that question. Next.

Okay, this is a trending question on TikTok.

Go for it.

For the past two days, would you rather be alone in a forest with a man or a bear?

Yeah. It's been going on for longer than two days. I mean, this is like. I mean, this has been going on for longer than two days. You know, if you were alone in the forest, would you rather encounter a man or a bear? Have been following this. I think the very, very sad, sad truth is there's not a single woman on the face of this earth who would answer a man. Every single woman. It's sad. Has had an. Sorry, Jorge. We have a man in the room. And I know that if it was a choice between a bear and Jorge, I'd say Jorge. Okay, but if it was just a generic man and you were faced with one or the Other. There's not a single woman in the world, sadly, by age 18, who has not had an experience that would make her answer that question. A man. It's just terrible. We've all been terrified by a man. We've all been scared out of our minds by a man. We've all felt helpless in the face. And it's even for somebody like me who's had privilege her whole life and has been in safe places her whole life and has been. Has had the safety of loving a loving husband and so forth. Even I have had moments when I was a reporter, especially in Miami, where I was alone and absolutely scared out of my mind for my life. We've all had that experience. And even in work settings. When I was a young girl reporter, I was the overnight editor at the Associated Press, and I had 12 men working for me from 11pm to 6 in the morning. And they routinely, as pranks, scared the living daylights out of me. They would like leave to go on their quote, unquote lunch break when they'd all get drunk at three in the morning and they would leave the building and they'd turn off all the lights and they'd leave me by myself in the pitch blackness for an hour. They thought it was uproariously funny. There was no me too in those days. There was no one to go to. My boss would have said, just toughen up. And I did. But I wouldn't wish that for my daughter. So to that trending thing, I think the sad, sad, sad, inescapable answer is, and I hope men are listening. I hope men are seeing all the women who've responded to this and they're saying, what the heck? I had no idea. Now I will say, last thing I'm gonna say about this is that probably one of the top three greatest.

Achievements in my life thing that I'm proudest of in my life is that I raised two good men. That I raised these two men who are loving and gentle. They are spectacular husbands. They would lay down their lives for their wives. They are good, good, good men. I don't. I mean, I didn't raise them alone. I. They had great role models. Jack was very involved and I feel very blessed. So obviously some of it was born into them. But I feel like my small contribution to fighting this is that my two sons are great men and will raise great sons themselves. And all of us have to just acknowledge, though, that it's. This is a. This sad. You know, like, I've met, I've seen videos from Men saying, like, wait, I don't get it. Why are they choosing the bear? Don't they know the bears are deadly? It's like, yes, they do. So that is. That's my answer to that one. Sad. Let's think of something funny now.

Pierre. Okay, quick, show picture, Pierre. All right.

What would you attempt if you knew you could never fail?

What would I attempt if I could. Knew I never knew I could never fail.

She stumped.

I am kind of stumped. Okay. I do actually have an answer to this. It's like a little secret, though. I'd actually. I'd love to make a movie. Like a feature movie. Yes, I know. Really? Yeah. Wow.

Do you know what genre of movie?

Yes, I do. Like, I have an idea for a romantic movie. I do have an idea. What? Hi.

Starring who?

I don't know who would actually star. I got the idea long ago because my incredible friend Susan Krakauer, who's a secret mentor crush of mine, the first time I met her, I was going in to get my makeup done at CNBC, we're talking 25 years ago. And she said, you know what movie I want to see? I want to see the movie of you and Jack, the story of you and Jack. And I thought to myself one day, I'd like to make that movie. But Hollywood is a terrifying, scary place where how you succeed is unknown, but all you do is lose money there. I don't know if that. The story of me and Jack could ever be accurately depicted in a way that would ever make me happy. And it's in its authenticity. But I think what an incredible achievement it must feel like to make a good movie, to make a movie that people want to watch, that changes people's minds and uplifts people. Movies are very, very powerful. So, yeah, there, you didn't stump me again. But I will never make a movie, and so I never will.

This has been an uplifting segment of the. Of the podcast.

Who would play you?

Oh, yeah, I'd like to ask you that. Who would play me?

Okay, good answers only lies only write in at us with, who could play me in a movie?

Catherine Zeta Jones.

No, she doesn't talk fast enough. Also print too pretty. But okay, this is a ridiculous thing, but it is sort of fun. And who has not cast the movie of their life in their own heads? Who has not? All right, once again this week. I'm not stumped. Once again.

Okay, we're going to conclude today with one of my favorite quotes of all time, actually, by. Also by one of My favorite writers. Doris Lessing, a great writer, you know, she wrote a lot. And so she. The problem with Doris Lessing is people dig into her and then they'll. They'll be bumping along thinking, God, she's great. She's very underrated. And then she wrote something that gets paid, published it, it's just all not that great, but keep going and persevering with her. She's great. The quote is, whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible. And this is so true. I think about, like when people try to time having children where they say, we're going to wait until after X to have the baby. We're gonna wait till we're out of school to have the baby, or we're gonna wait until we get such and such a job to have the baby. And guess what? No matter when you wait or when. No matter when you do it, having a baby is super hard. And the conditions can be perfect, seemingly. And then something happens like the baby is not exactly, you know, doesn't sit up when you expect or whatever. And so sometimes just to do stuff, you've got to just do it. It's like writing a book. You just have to sit down. If you want to do it, just do it. The conditions are always impossible. Whatever you're meant to do, meant to do. Again, related to your values, you do it now. The conditions are always impossible. It reminds me of one of my favorite bumper stickers. Favorite because I just don't do it enough. And the bumper sticker is don't postpone Joy. I have seen so many people their whole lives long postpone Joy. And it's always a mistake, and so capture that. And whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible. I hope this inspires you. If you're just sitting around waiting for the conditions to be right for you to start a company or call somebody or reconcile with someone or any number of things, try to get funding for a venture, go someplace, do it now. And the conditions are always impossible. Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible. So true. And I hope this inspires you, and I hope it inspires you to come back next week and also to subscribe to this podcast and tell all your friends about it immediately. Do it right now. And I love you very much, even though I don't know you. I do. And I'll see you soon.