Your Life Coach Has One Question for You. Do You Know the Answer?

You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. You can't handle the truth. Oh, my God. We all. Well, most of us know that incredibly famous line from A Few Good Men. And it's such an intense moment where they're fighting about the truth. And you know what the hardest truth to handle is? It's the one about ourselves. I said it. It's about ourselves. Hi, I'm Susie Welch. This is Becoming you. This is a podcast about you and about the process of becoming you. It's all about the ing. We are all in the process of becoming you. And today we have, like, such a fab show. I'm levitating. Look, I just spent a couple of days locked in a room, very happily, by the way, with 50 of the greatest life coaches and educators in the country, if not the world, actually, 50 people who just. All they do is they're purpose doulas. All they do is help people figure out who they are. And they're really good. And they were there to be certified in the Becoming youg methodology. That's how we had them all together. And at one point. Point I asked them, what is the one question you want to know about your clients or the students you're working with or the people going through midlife crisis or the people pivoting? And all 50 of them shared their one killer question, the one thing they want to know about you. And I'm here today to share with you five of those best questions, questions that made me gasp, like, I think you will gasp. And my question for you is, do you know the answer to these questions about yourself? Do you know them? I'm Susie Welch. This is Becoming youg. All right, let me set the scene again. Let me set the scene. We're on the campus of NYU Stern School of Business. That's where I'm a professor of management practice. I teach management, but I also teach this class called Becoming youg, which is about the process of Becoming youg. We cover a lot of territory in that class, figuring out who you are and who you want to be. One of the exciting things about Becoming youg is that as a methodology, other people want to learn it and teach it. The great thing was that there was sort of a groundswell of people who said, we'd really like to be certified in this methodology. And we said, okay. And we went through the process of putting together the first cohort of 50 people. And they came from places like New Zealand and Amsterdam and Monterey, Mexico, and all across these beautiful United States of America. These were some very profoundly experienced life coaches who have a lot of experience in practice with individuals who are pivoting or questioning or any number of things, but that would land you with a life coach. So this was like, on the third day, and I said, look, I can't believe I'm here teaching you. Which is kind of bizarre because you could teach me a lot of things. And so I said, will you. Let's help each other. Let's crowdsource for a second. And I had everybody go out into the hallway and literally do a voice memo of the one thing they want to know about the person sitting across from them. When the person walks in and says, I don't know my purpose, or I want to know my purpose better, or I'm lost, I'm in pain, or help me tweak, or any number of things that purpose doulas bump into. And so I asked these purpose doulas, what is the one thing when somebody presents to you? And they went their separate ways, and the variety of questions was insane. And we went over them, and I had to ask myself, do I know the answer to this question about myself? And the first one comes from a life coach from California. Let's hear from Heather.

Hi, my name is Heather Whitaker, and I work as a clarity and reframe coach. And when I'm helping you find your purpose, the one thing I want to know about you is, why don't you have what you want? The reason why I ask people that is because they typically know whether it's a fear, it's an event, which Susie calls like the poor horseman.

Heather's a magnificent coach, by the way. And there's so much to unpack in that question. Why don't you have what you want? And frankly, I want to stop right now. And if you're listening to this, I'm just going to give you a second to ask yourself that question.

Why don't you have what you want?

If you're a person who doesn't have what you want, why don't you have it now? Heather actually refers there to the Four Horsemen. I've talked about the Four Horsemen a few times on this podcast, and in my book Becoming youg. But if you're new and you've not heard me talk about the Four Horsemen. The Four Horsemen are four dynamics that typically destroy our dreams. The first one is expectations, which is there's just a lot of cultural and societal and familial family expectations around Us telling us what to do. And so we are too scared to say no to those expectations because there's a voice in our head saying, maybe they're right. Maybe people who get their MBAs don't become Roomba teachers. Or maybe people from my socioeconomic or cultural background don't become teachers, they become engineers. There's just so much noise. The expectations noise is massive. And it starts when we're kids. I mean, it starts when our parents start telling us what we're going to do when we grow up. So expectations. The other is expedience. Don't have what I want because it would take. It would be too hard. It would cause too much friction. I'd have to blow up my life. Somebody would be mad at me. And we take the path of least resistance. And I totally get it, why life is so freaking hard anyway. Why would we choose the path of most resistance? Most of our lives, we try to avoid that path. The third E is events. Life happens. We have kids, we move, we get laid off. And events get in the way of us having what we want. And the final thing is just money. It's financial, economic security. I don't have what I want because I also want to have my kids in private school. I don't have what I want because I also have a mortgage or student debt. And so these things are real, and they really get in the way. And you know, what I like to do in my own practice is I like to push on people about how real these four horsemen are. Like, you're scared of telling somebody something like, I cannot tell my mother. I don't want to be a doctor. And you know what the scary part is? Just when you tell her. And then after that, it's over. I'm just going to end this Heather's question with a poem. It's by Lewis Simpson. He won a Pulitzer Prize, and it's a beautiful poem. He's no longer with us, but here it's called Ed. Ed was in love with the cocktail waitress. But Ed's family and his friends didn't approve, so he broke it off. He married a respectable woman who played the piano. She played well enough to have been a professional. Ed's wife left him. Years later at a family gathering, Ed got drunk and made a fool of himself. He said, I should have married Doreen. Well, they said, why didn't you? Oh.

I mean, I was probably 55 when I first read this poem. And I thought, that just sums it all up, doesn't it? I mean, regret is a Terrible emotion and regret happens when we don't answer this question, when we don't dig in, when we don't stare with both eyes, our heart, our soul, our everything, into the question that Heather asked, which is, why is it that you don't have what you want? And I want to know if you know the answer yourself.

Let's move on to the second question from the life coaches and educators that were gathered for the certification. Here it is. Hi, I'm Annie Maxfield. I'm a career coach and facilitator, mostly with PhD students. The question I would ask for somebody looking for their purpose is, why now? So Annie is a career coach at the University of Texas. Her question is so apt, why now? You know, this question applies to everybody when they find themselves with a therapist or a life coach or staring at somebody across the table in HR or looking for another job. I mean, a lot of times when you're looking for your purpose, the way it presents, if it's not presenting, like as a fight with your spouse, that's another way it presents, or with a partner, but it presents with you looking for another job because what you have is not working. And this question, why now? Is so. Oh, God. It's subtle, it's little, but it's saying, what was the precipitating event? Okay, so I was on the subway the other day, and a person came and sat down next to me and asked, are you Susie? Blah, blah, blah. I said, yes. And she's a listener of this podcast. And she said, I can't believe I met you. I just ordered your book. I've got to get out of my job. And I said, why? Basically the same thing, I guess, why now? And she said, I don't respect my team. So this tells me so much as a person in the purpose business. I mean, it tells me that what matters to her, you know, when she's seeking her purpose, maybe the number one thing she's looking for is for the people that she's working with to have some kind of moral rectitude that is very resonant with her. So the why now? Why is it a precipitating event that you must leave your job because you don't respect the people? There's so much in that now question. And I. I can so relate to this. I can so relate to this because the first and only time I found myself in front of a therapist, it was a very interesting why now? Moment. So it was when Jack, my late husband, was dying, and he'd been in Hospice. And of course, I didn't know it at the time, because we don't know, but the end was very close. I didn't know. All I knew is that the downward spiral of his hospice was.

Harder and harder and harder. Of course it was. And I'm not the only person who's gone through this kind of thing. I don't set myself to say that I am. I just want to say that if you've not been through it, the very end is. I've never. You know, when they say so and so died peacefully at home, I'm like, oh, really? That happens? Because it's hard at the end. It is okay for most people. And I. I was in that. And I was working at Quadio, which was a startup that I was drawn into my son and Jack's grandson. And I was there a couple hours a day helping them. Jack thought it would be good for me to get out of the house, and I was there. And a really good friend, maybe she's listening, Pam Goldman, called me to ask me a very random question about something totally different. And she asked me the question, and I couldn't answer her. And I actually could not put a sentence together. And she said, suze, what is wrong with you? And I said, I'm trying to answer you. And I couldn't answer her question. And she said, I'm sending an Uber for you right now. I want you to go downstairs, get into the Uber. I'll text you the name of the driver, and you need to come over here. She works at Langone Medical center, and you need to see somebody. I did what she said. I went down. There was an Uber. I went over. She was waiting for me. And she walked me to the office of a therapist. And I went in, and he said, why are you here? And I said, I think I'm having a crisis. And, I mean, I was having a crisis, and I think actually I was having a nervous breakdown.

And I was there because I. Here was the answer. I was there then because I had thought that it was very important to show the world that I could handle what I was going through. I mean, of course I can look back at this and think, why. Why did I feel the need to show the world that the world didn't care and want to know that? And I thought, oh, I need to be strong for my kids. But in fact, it was a great help to my kids when I wasn't strong anymore because it meant they could be weak with me. So I think the why now, I learned in that moment, so much about myself that I finally got help when I was. I mean, I don't know what would have happened. I don't know what would have happened if Pam hadn't called. Maybe somebody else would have said, oh, I think Susie can't find her way to the door and would have gotten me some help. But I think this, why now Tells us so much about ourselves. So my question for you, just to turn this on you, is that if you are feeling like you're not living your purpose right now, what precipitated that feeling? What precipitated the feeling like it's just not working for you? What? Was it an event? Was it a person? Was it a realization? Is it a vague, uh, oh, why now? I think this question from Annie is so astute and I need to ask it more often. When I'm meeting with my students in office hours, I need to ask it more often because I think it says everything.

Hi, my name is Javier Laureta. I work as a student mentor at tecdemonterrey. When I'm helping you find your purpose, the one thing I want to know about you is what would bring you peace even if you don't get the results you want?

Okay. You know, this is so profound, this question from Javier.

And because I think it actually speaks to something. It speaks to the work that we all do when we're trying to help somebody figure out their purpose, which is what are your non negotiables? What would bring you peace even if you don't get the results you want? So what would you do even if it didn't have the final outcome you wanted? Damn, this is a great question. I think it goes right to our core values. I gotta believe that when Javier asks this, people have to pause and really think about it. But for me, I have a guiding principle in my life. I remember the moment I heard it. I was in. Jack and I were in crisis with a person in our family. True crisis. And we were feeling like we couldn't be in relationship with this person anymore. I have to be vague. I'm sorry. It's not like me, but I do. And we went to go see our pastor because we were broken hearted about it. We went to go see Jimmy Scroggins, our Life. And Jack said. And I said, we just don't think we can go on. We have to break relations. And Jimmy said, I am begging you not to do that. It is always better to be in relationship than to be estranged and do everything you can to stay in Relationship with people, it's the only road back. It's the only way we keep talking. It's the only way we can ever mend things. Once you become estranged, it's forever. And I've been by so many people's bedsides when they've been dying and they are dying. Regret is that they never got back into relationship with somebody. It wasn't worth the pain. And we stayed and we fought hard and we stayed in relationship and I remain in relationship with this individual. And we don't see eye to eye on virtually everything, but we are still talking. And I'd say that what would bring me peace even if I didn't get the results I wanted would be that I stayed in relationship, even hard relationships with the people I loved and cared about. And I may never get them to see the world the way I see it. I may never get them to do the things I wish they would do.

And but if I but would bring me peace was that I stay that I fought the good fight and I stayed in relationship. So my question for you is Javier's question for you. Do you know it? What would bring you peace even if you didn't get the results from it? I think that's your non negotiable. I think that's your life mantra. I think that's. Those are your. That's really about who you are at the core. That's about you and this is about becoming you. And this is. Susie Welch will be back with two more questions after a break.

Hello, we're back. I'm Susie Welch. We're back with Becoming youg and these fantastic questions that life coaches have for you and I think you should have for yourself. Let's move on.

So, hi, my name is Jacquemine Flemings. I work as a performance coach and I always ask the question, what really bores you? What really sucks the life out of you? And it tells me a lot. So can tell me about if somebody is very, for a long period of time in their competence zone or their zone that I actually quite excellent at, but there's no challenge anymore. So they get a bit bored. It can tell me also things about their aptitudes because they might be doing work that is not really aligned with their aptitudes or with their values and that's why they feel disconnected from it. And I always think of boredom as being disconnected, whether it's disconnection from your environment or it's disconnection from yourself.

So what a fantastic question. Boredom is such a good diagnostic and she's absolutely right. It tells you if you're working in alignment with your aptitudes and. Or your values. Okay, both could be going on. When I see this, I thought about, like, when I was at Bain right after I graduated from Harvard Business School, I did what Everybody did. Like 90% of us, we went to. 90% went to banking or consulting. I went to Bain, very big deal. One of the big consulting firms. I was very proud, making a lot of dough, which I really needed because I was in debt. And I had been trained at Harvard Business School, like my colleagues, to do whatever consultants do. So when I showed up, I was good at the work. I was good at the work and I did not like it at all. It was so tangential to what I was actually good at. I had no language for this. I had no words for it. I had no idea. All I knew was I was watching the clock. I was really thinking about my kids a lot that were home. I was fidgety, but I had other values. My values right then were affluent. I needed money. Some of you might remember my daughter Sophia, who comes onto this show sometimes, and she's so much fun to be with. And I tried to get her to work at Quadio, the music tech company I mentioned earlier. And she was home because Jack was sick and the kids came home when he was in hospice. And I tried to come get her to come work in writing. And she had been a casting director. And she used to complain on the way home every day. I'm so bored. This was deeply offensive to me. But, you know, she was just. She was doing work that did not match her aptitude. She should be in casting and startup, actually, just in terms of lifestyle. Startups are not for her. And I should have listened better. Boredom is an absolute symptom of not living your purpose. It is. And so you gotta ask yourself if you want to get right at it, what bores you? All right? Because that's the flip side of what excites you and what makes you levitate. The way I levitate when I'm teaching. When I'm teaching, I don't even know what time of day or night it is. I don't know where I am. I'm so happy and alive. I mean, when I was teaching the certification class, the day was it. It was 9am and then it was 5pm and I don't remember anything in between. I was so excited. And that's the work you want. That's when you feel exquisitely alive. So to this incredible Question. Ask yourself. And take pause and listen to yourself. What really, really bores you? All right, let's move on to our last question.

My name is Dr. Alvin Curette. I work in student development for the NASAM center at the University of Texas at San Antonio. When I'm helping you find your purpose, the one thing I want to know about you is what world problem is pulling you to solve it?

What world problem is pulling you to solve it? Oh, my God. When I heard this, I was like, shut the front door. He's asking, what work gives you meaning no matter what you're doing? How are you connected to a problem bigger than you? When we get frustrated is when we don't think that our lives are in any way connected to the bigger world problem. In any job. You could be working in a factory, and you could be saying, I am contributing to the success of this factory, and that makes my community a better place with more jobs. And I'm building my community by working here. But your work has got to, in some way, be connected to your heart. It's got to be connected to your soul. And that is purpose. I got to put this into the Becoming youg curriculum because just asking people, what world problem is pulling you to solve it? In what way do you want to be bigger than yourself? And that's my question. I want to leave you with. With this particular episode of becoming you. What world problem?

What social problem, what cultural problem? What problem bigger than you.

Is calling you, is pulling you to solve it? If you haven't told yourself that truth, the time has come for you to tell yourself that truth. It doesn't have to be a political problem or geopolitical problem. It can be very personal. And, you know, the problem that calls me is that I think that when people don't live their purpose that they are unhappy. And I don't like that. Because I know one thing about when people have joy, and that's that they spread it. It's a contagion in all the right ways. And I wonder what. What is calling you that's bigger than you? And how can we find a way to have your life and career connected to it? That is such a good question, and the one I want to leave you with. This is becoming you. I'm so glad you spent this time with us going over these questions that you gotta ask yourself. And then maybe you're gonna turn around and ask them of somebody you love. And you'll have a really good conversation about it. If that. If we've achieved that today. In the studio, man, that would make me really happy. I can't wait to see you next week. Until then, have a great, great day and week and keep becoming you. I'm Susie Welch.