You Left Yourself Behind | The 7 Questions That Help You Find Yourself Again | Michelle Chappel

I begged my parents for a piano and they never got one. They never noticed that I could do this, and so I forgot all about it.

At 4 years old, she would walk into people's homes, play the piano as if she was trained for it.

I remember it felt like being in a room full of light.

And then for 15 years, she forgot all about it. She got a PhD from Princeton, and one afternoon while she was sitting in a class on music perception, It all came back to her.

I had outscored everyone, all the graduate students, all the professors, and even a dean who had studied classical violin for 20 years.

And here's the part that should worry you. The thing you're great at might not be the gift that you were born with. Michelle has a PhD from Princeton in cognitive psychology, and then one day she left it all, her professorship, to pursue a career and become a rock star. Yes, her friends thought, her colleagues thought that she'd gone mad, and even her mother doubted her.

It's not like the world necessarily applauds you when you follow your own particular path.

But she actually became an award-winning rock star, and she has these 7 questions that help you identify the gifts that you've left behind. And I answered all of those 7 questions on camera and discovered something I had buried at 12 years old. In our conversation today, we talk about why as children we bury the gifts that we've been given, how to de-identify between the roles that you have and the gifts you were born with, and the 7 questions that will help you identify what you left behind. And if you're really good at the work that you do right now and are freaking bored out of it, then this one will hit you hard. As a cognitive psychologist, a career coach, and award-winning songwriter, you've spent decades uncovering this truth that we don't need to become something new. We just need to remember who we were before the world convinced us to be someone else. Double-click on that statement for me, Michelle. What does that mean?

That's very well put. Yeah, I think we all come into the world with natural gifts and talents and abilities, and we tend to forget what they are because we're conditioned to fit in. So there's a lot of different ways that that happens, but as we grow into adults, we leave pieces of ourselves behind, our true selves behind, and we forget all about them, but they're still there. Those pieces are still there and they, they're waiting for us to discover them. And my definition of authenticity, because I know a lot of different people have different definitions, but I think an authentic person is someone who does the work to reclaim those gifts and talents that they were born with and arrive into the world as their full selves.

What makes it important, Michelle? Because I'm always sitting in the shoes of a listener who might not agree with what you and I are saying. So my mirror neurons are getting all fired up, are ignited right now with what you're saying because I believe in it. But here's someone who feels, oh, there's so much to do. There's a household to manage, there's a job to complete, there are kids to raise, health to take care of. I don't care about who I was. What should we tell them right now so that they feel, okay, this is a conversation worth listening for in the next 45 minutes?

Yeah, no, that's a good question. I think one of the reasons that you should care is because it drains your energy to suppress these gifts. It takes a lot of energy from you. It also can make you feel a little empty. It's hard for you to find out what your purpose is if you don't know what your gifts are. It's harder to find direction in life. So you might be doing okay, skimming the surface, paying the bills, but somewhere deep inside, I have a feeling that you might feel like something's missing or you were meant for more. And so doing this work, and it's fun too, that's the thing, reveals a part of yourself that you don't know. But also you get all this energy back because you're not suppressing it anymore. You can figure out what your purpose is, you know where you want to go moving forward. It just makes life a lot better.

I'm convinced. I'm convinced that I'm going to be here for the next 45 minutes and listen to you and this conversation. Let's go to that 8-year-old Michelle, the young girl growing up wherever you were. If that 8-year-old Michelle comes to meet you right now, that little kid from the past to your present self, what kind of a dialogue will happen between the two of you, Michelle?

She would say to me, sing. Don't forget that you love music. Don't forget. Don't forget. Remember that you love music. This is who you are. This is what makes you come alive. This is a big piece of who you are and who you're meant to be. And the reason why she's telling me that is because I did forget. I completely forgot.

Yeah.

And I'll just give you a little bit of a background if that's okay with you. So when I was 4 years old, I used to walk up to pianos and play them as if I was classically trained. We didn't have one at home. This would be at friends' houses. And I don't know how I was able to do that, but I was able to do that. And I remember once one of my little friends was sitting on the piano bench next to me and said, how are you doing that? What does it feel like? And I remember it felt like being in a room full of light. I was just completely alive. It was just so easy and natural for me. So I begged my parents for a piano and they never got one. They never noticed that I could do this. And so I forgot all about it. It wasn't reinforced. And so I just left it behind and I went on to get a PhD in psychology at Princeton, completely forgetting that I had this musical gift. And it was not going to leave me alone though. As they usually don't. They usually come back to try to get your attention years later.

And how did that happen? Because what's intriguing is that here's a little kid who loves music innately, and you want to, you're almost like pulled by the piano, but the parents, which happens in so many cultures, are not fully listening to the child yet. And so then you go down that path, a PhD at Princeton. So where did music then find you?

So it was at Princeton, actually, and we had a speaker giving a talk on music perception. I was studying perception, and this happened to be on music. And so what the speaker did is she would play 2 pairs of melodies like la la la la la la la la, and we were supposed to say whether they were the same or different. And I remember thinking to myself, this is so easy. Oh my goodness, does She knows she's at Princeton. I mean, this should be difficult or we should be learning something here. And so, um, afterwards we went around and compared scores on how we did on this test. And I had outscored everyone, all the graduate students, all the professors, and even a dean who had studied classical violin for 20 years. And I thought to myself, hmm, maybe I should pay attention to this. I took it for granted. I thought everybody else, I was hearing music in my head all the time, but I just thought everybody else could too. And that's when it started to get my attention.

That's fascinating. And so, and I don't know where, like, what's your hypothesis or what have you uncovered over the years that as a child, when you were pulled into music, was it in your DNA? Was it in your, like, where was that coming from?

I really think I'm sort of a fan of Carl Jung, and one of the ways that he looks at the world, and I see it too, is that people come into the world with a purpose and a set of gifts to fulfill that purpose. And so I think I came into the world with that gift. I don't know if it's in my DNA exactly. Nobody in my family actually was that musical.

Hmm.

A little bit, but it wasn't played that much in my home. A little bit, but not like other people's homes. I think it was just a spiritual purpose, spiritual gifts. Yeah. And I want to say that, you know, people, I forgot about them. And I could tell you that that was when I remembered them, when that perception test happened. But actually, I did dabble playing guitar. And there was like a moment after I graduated from high school where nobody was home and I strapped on the guitar and I started singing. I heard my voice. It was so amazing. It was like, like this secret blossom of sound just filled the room. It was reverberating. And then I just forgot about it. And I would, I would say that I had 2 or 3 or 4 little events like this that happened, but it's so easy and everybody does this. This is why I'm sharing it about myself is you get a little hint, but you just forget about it because it doesn't fit who you think you are. Or you, maybe you've been shamed for doing that thing or criticized for it and you just shut it back down. It's like it bubbles up and then you put it back down. So I think that event at Princeton was a culmination of a lot of little events that were trying to get my attention all along, if that makes sense.

It, it 100% does. And, and what I'm thinking is that these gifts get buried because the world is wanting you to be someone else, and then that identity becomes so strong that you wanna go down that path. which in your case, you went and did that PhD. And if it were not for that class, so what I'm going to is, is it only external events that can help me go back to my roots, my talents, my gifts, or is there something that we can do to help someone uncover those?

I think actually just internally for oneself, I think sometimes they bubble up all on their own. Maybe in a dream, or you might find yourself humming a tune or what, you know, I'm using music as an example because that's what I do. Um, I would say for helping other people find their gifts, the funny thing is, is, uh, and you may have noticed this too, but your friends often see things about yourself that you can't. They often, you know, like for example, they may come to you for advice about something. This is one of the clues I give to people about what their gifts might be.

Mm-hmm.

And, um, that's because they see that you can answer that question, but you may not be able to see it yet. So there are little clues like that, um, that you can do, or you can help others remember by just saying, I really like that, you know, you're, you're really good at whatever it might be. Uh, like, uh, crossword puzzles. I've seen people, I'm okay at them, but some people are like wizards at them. And that's a superpower. So just even just noticing it and calling it out and saying, that's cool that you can do that.

Mm-hmm.

raises awareness and I think, you know, yourself.

It's fascinating. And I'm like, a lot of my conversations here are also influenced by that. I parent 2 boys who are like now 15 and 12. And so I'm seeing gifts in them that then I feel I don't wanna bury them. So, so let's, in our conversation today, let's try and uncover what, what that gift maybe for me will be, and we'll, we'll go down that path. But what I want to really come to first is why do people lose themselves? Because it feels really painful to imagine that we are losing ourselves in our early childhoods or in our early experiences.

What happens there? It happens in, yeah, it happens, I would say at 3 levels. It happens in the family, it happens in school, and it happens in a culture that has particular values that may not value who you are. So for example, in a family, a lot of times it's dysfunctional families, but it can also be functional families. You take on a family role that isn't who you are.

Mm-hmm.

Um, it's who you need to be in the moment. So I could give you a quick example. I worked with someone who was a therapist and he was very burned out on being a therapist. He, you could just see he was so tired of it. He wanted to close up his practice, but he didn't really understand what was happening. Or where he should go. And when we looked into, you know, family roles, that's what I was starting to understand. His parents argued all the time when he was a little boy and he took on the role of the mediator. So, but that isn't really who he was. That wasn't his true gift. It's just the role that he needed to play growing up. And so, because he was so good at getting people not to argue, he started doing couples therapy.

Wow.

With people thinking that that was his calling, but it was burning him out and he wasn't enjoying it because it was more like a knee-jerk reaction than it was a true gift. And I won't go into a lot of details, but I did try to get him to stop doing that and try other things. And eventually he did leave that career and he got a master's in education and became a social studies teacher. And he's a phenomenal teacher. Students absolutely love him. That was his true gift. So That would be an example of a family role. Also, it happens in school. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. And so, so part of me is thinking then how much agency do I have on who I become? So as a young boy, if I'm born in a family that's dysfunctional, or if I'm born or growing up in a school or a culture that's, that's not supportive of my gifts, how much agency do I have then, Michelle?

You have agency, but it helps to know that that happened to you. And that's why I wrote a book about it. That's why I'm on your podcast, because I think a lot of people don't realize that that happened to them. They just know that something's missing. They feel empty. Um, they're having a midlife crisis, but this happens very early in life too. Um, I mean, you know, school, you might have a teacher criticize you for something sometimes. Because I have been a professor, I have known teachers and professors to actually be jealous of their students' abilities. So you never know where this criticism is really coming from. And then you get criticized and, you know, you call that a horse. It doesn't, you know, say a drawing or something, you know, and then you carry that forward and you stop drawing. So you, but you don't know why. So we do have an, we do have agency. And I think it's part of the reason why we're here. is to reclaim who we were meant to be. Um, and so I think there's an internal drive to do that. Um, I think Carl Jung would definitely say there's an internal drive to do that, but it helps to be aware that you left parts of yourself behind to really conform. Um, because we, you know, to belong to a society, you sometimes have to let parts of yourself go to conform. And, uh, we all do it and there's, You know, and so life is a journey and I think it's exciting actually to reclaim those gifts because when I've worked with people and they do, my gosh, they sometimes they look 10 years younger. It's really incredible. They have so much energy and drive and they're smiling again and they change their life paths because, oh, I didn't know I, you know, I could paint. I didn't know I could write stories that I was a good writer on and on. Um, so it's a, it's a, it's a journey worth taking. Um, so the agency comes from the drive from within to individuate, become your individual self, the person you were meant to be, not the group idea of who you are. That's from the inside, but it helps to have other people who are on that journey too, and, uh, be surrounded by people who are good at helping you get there. So I think we do have a lot of agency actually.

Wow. I'm, I'm gonna repeat the statement you said. I wrote it down in my notes. So we are here to reclaim who we truly are, and there's an inner drive to get us to that journey.

Yes. Yes. Yeah, I think that's why, like I said, maybe you are paying the bills and maybe you've got the kids all fed and you wake up in the morning and you go to work, but if you're feeling unfulfilled, That adds up over the years. And eventually these parts of yourself, Carl Jung, and I don't completely agree with him here because I've seen it happen with my younger clients, but Carl Jung says the second half of life, like you, okay, you got the job, you had the kids, you did all, you checked all the boxes. Now you can do the work to be who you really are. You can, you know, but I'm noticing with my younger clients, um, in 20s, early 30s, Gen Z, you Young millennials, they're already looking for purpose. So I think in the day and age that we live in now, they tell me that life is short. I think that is kind of hastening them to do the work now. And I just love it. I just so want to empower them to do that work. So, yeah.

It's fascinating, right? And our audience, Michelle, is between, say, 25 to 45 years old. So they're people who are either at the start of that journey or are in that state that you're describing as midlife crisis, I think what's really important for us to really define and really clarify the symptoms. So if someone's living someone else's version of success, what symptoms would they notice?

They are burning out usually. They are, again, the word empty. They They're restless, they're bored, they're feeling not good enough, oddly, because it isn't who they are. Um, I— they may really not like their jobs. A lot of the people that I talk to, Gen Z and millennials, don't like their jobs. Um, you feel purposeless, uh, directionless, um, a little meaningless. And maybe a little bit, but some Bits and pieces of all of those things, um, I think would be an identifier. I think a lot of, um, our younger generations right now are very much looking for purpose. So I would say, um, I see that a lot and it encourages me. So that's another indicator. You don't feel like you know your purpose, but you really want to know what it is and you want to, you kind of want to find it now. You don't want to wait. And what I'm seeing with my clients is they want to find it in their work. And my age group, we'll just put it off until, you know, we retire and then we'll find it. But the younger generation, I never liked that, by the way. I didn't. That's why I left my career as a professor early to become a musician, because I knew I needed to follow my calling, you know. But I'm seeing in the younger generations, I think they're, they're, that would be the main thing is they're feeling directionless. They don't like their jobs, a little meaningless, and I really want to find purpose.

Let's do that exercise then today. So if I'm a client of yours, and I'm going to try and dive deep into all that you ask and be really vulnerable here, and it will be really uncomfortable, I'm pretty sure about that. But I want to put myself there because I feel it is in service of someone who's feeling all of what that you just said, burning out, empty, restless, not good enough. they don't like their job, life feels meaningless to them. I want them to get to that state of feeling bliss because that's how I define what I get to do, Michelle, right now, which is, yes, there are gaps. Yes, I would want a lot of more things to happen in that outer impact, but from the inside, I feel really at peace. And so let's try that. Let's try that.

Okay, so you want me to ask you my little magic questions?

Let's, let's go for it. Let's do the magic questions one by one. And to everyone who's listening, feel free to pause the podcast before you hear my sound. When Michelle completes a question, write your answer down and then listen to mine, write your answer down and then listen to mine. And I think by the end of it, I don't know, Michelle, I'm taking a little bit more liberty here. If you put those answers into an LLM of your choice, maybe it's Claude, maybe it's ChatGPT, I think you'll get to know a lot about yourself. And I'm going to do that same thing, Michelle, after. So yeah, let's go for the magic questions.

Okay. There's 7 of them and they make an acronym, uh, EMPOWER. So the first one is easy. What comes naturally to you that you may take for granted? And one of the ways to know is compare yourself to others. And you might notice that, like in my example, it was easier for me to tell the difference between those melodies than everybody else around me because that was a superpower. So what comes naturally to you? I already know one of the answers about you, but that's the question.

Thank you. Okay, so this is the cue for the listeners to pause and think about what comes naturally to you. For me, Michelle, I think connecting with people, their feelings, their emotions, their thoughts, And being present to them, to take on stories from them that I can then absorb, grow as a human being. That comes really naturally to me. And then as I'm thinking more about it, taking care of people, which is what I have as a role in my family. I love to play that role of the guardian that I'm always present. Sometimes that comes in the way of me being present to myself, but I'm learning to be present to myself equally. So yeah, connection, talking to people, that just comes naturally to me. It's super easy.

Yeah, I would've said that too. I think that's why you have this podcast. You're really good at it. And, you know, I had mentioned to you before that I, uh, one of the things I like about the way you do your podcast is that you don't necessarily have a script. of questions in front of you that you go with, uh, the flow. And that's a, that's, uh, shows that you are present, you know? So yeah, I totally see it.

Thank you. Yeah. Question number 2.

Okay. Um, M, E-M, M is moment. So what do you do that puts you in the moment? That time disappears when you do it and you emerge kind of feeling blissful afterwards. And I'll just give you a quick example before, so that your listeners can think about this, but I worked with a woman who wanted to be a writer. It turned out that that wasn't really working for her. And I asked her to change gears. She didn't know exactly how. She went on a walk. She walks are great for this. She had a hit to buy a sketchpad and some you know pencils, and long story short, she became a painter, and she would go up to her attic in the evenings to paint, and and her husband would make her dinner, and she would go up there after work to paint, and she would come down like at ten at night, and it kept her dinner warm. So it's that kind of thing. She's List out, lost track of time. That's the question.

What did you do, or what do you do that puts you in the moment, puts you in that state of flow?

That's right. Flow. That's right.

Yeah. I'm feeling a little challenged here, Michelle, and I'll be honest. So there are a lot of things that can put me in a state of flow. But I think there is a lot of distraction that I'm personally going through as well. And what I mean by that is that while I talk to you, after I'm done with this podcast recording, there's something else that will be calling to my attention. So I am in the moment here, but then there'll be something else that will call my attention. I'll have to go and give myself fully to that. So that's one. Running is coming to mind. I don't know why. I don't know if that— is in a way a good answer. Running is something that puts me in a state where, where I can go on for hours without feeling— yeah.

Yeah. Running. And, and I, yeah, it, you know, it doesn't have to be like something that's work-related. It can very much be a hobby. Like running wouldn't be it for me. This is why it's into— our superpowers are different, but I have something like that that's also athletic. I think you're in the flow when you, I mean, you're in the flow when you do the podcast. That's why you're able to move from one question to the next rather than reading something that you've prepared before. You're able to go with it. I see you being in the flow. I've listened to a couple of your podcasts. You are in the flow when you do them. So I can see it.

So that's one. So being in the moment is while, A, having conversations like these with whoever I'm having this conversation. And then second is running, which is maybe a conversation with myself. So conversation is something that I think is a common denominator here. I love it. For those listeners who are listening, if you don't have your answer yet, it's okay. There's no perfect answer. I've been on the journey of introspection and reflection for the last 20 years, so they come easy, but Michelle has a point to share with us.

Yeah, well, I was just, oh, I guess I had my finger up. Yeah, if you only get one answer to one of these questions, that's good. But if you're able to come up with an answer, any answer for all of them, What we'll see at the end is the interesting thing is to look at if something came up more than once, but all of it matters. Like running, you might think, ah, what's, why is that important? Oh, that's very important because I believe in a balanced life. So maybe you're in flow while you're doing your work here, but I would say, make sure you run, uh, you know, in the day to kind of restore your balance. And in fact, it's very, very necessary. People do better at work when they use their gifts on the side as well. So running is, is really important for you to know. And so this is, this is the kind of thing where people will let that drop off because they get too busy, but it's actually exactly what you need to do to live a really good life and to do well at work and to be a better partner. Yeah.

Hmm. Beautiful. Let's go to the next question. P.

Okay. P is for passion. What enlivens you? What do you feel passionate about? And I'll just go back to that woman I was talking about who thought she should be a writer. This is for your listeners. She thought she should be a writer because her father was a writer. So here, when, what makes you come alive? Don't think about what your parents do, what your friends do, maybe what your coworkers do. This is a personal— answer. And for the woman I was talking about before, it ended up being painting and she had to go on a little journey to get there, but she had a hint about the sketching. So just to let you know, it might come in hints, little bits and pieces like that. But yeah. Hmm.

So, so P is for passion. And the question here is, what are you passionate about?

Yeah. What enlivens you? Like when you do it, you feel a little bit more alive. That's another way of looking at it.

Yeah.

Or even inspires you?

Hmm. It's— maybe there's an influence here, or maybe that's what I've found, that I've found my gift in life. But again, the word conversations is hitting me again and again. They enliven me. They make me feel I'm passionate about helping someone feel heard, feel valued, and feel that I've gained something from that conversation with Utkarsh.

Yeah, I see it. I feel it. Yeah, that's why you're doing this. Again, you're really where you should be. That's not surprising, actually. But do you see how you brought up the connection thing a couple times before? I'm just saying this for listeners as well. Sometimes it'll come up, but it might feel slightly different in the context, but you start to see there's a through line.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm loving this. I'm loving this. Um, oh, we're on—

oh yeah. Oh, we're— oh, right. Oh, opinion. Yes. What do people ask you for your opinion about? And you, just quick story for the listeners again. I was working with a woman. She was a housewife. She just felt so bad about herself. She thought that she was just worthless. And, you know, and I looked at her one day and she was dressed so well. And I said, you have such a great fashion sense. And she said, anyone can, you know, shop. And I'm like, we, I looked at myself and I was wearing this hideous outfit. like this horizontally striped shirt that was green and purple that hung down to my knees. And we both looked at me and we started laughing and it was so obvious that I couldn't. And I ended up asking her opinion. This is why I'm telling this story. As a rock star, I asked her to help me figure out what clothes I was going to wear for my CD cover because I knew I was helpless and useless at it. And that's when she started to realized she was really good at fashion. So what do people ask you for advice about or your opinion on?

I'm seeing a pattern here. Um, people come and ask me for, Utkarsh, how do you find so much joy in everything you do? How do you find, how do you find the sense of purpose in what you do and how do you— like, my Monday morning energy is infectious and it is irritating to others, Michelle, to say the least, because I am like—

Why?

I'm like a bunny on— I'm like so excited about Monday morning that yes, I get to go back to work that I've had coworkers who are like, Utkarsh, what's wrong with you? We're on our Monday blues and you're just like super excited. So I think people come to me asking like, How do you manage to live like that?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're living on purpose. You're living a fulfilling life. So they're asking you how they, it sounds to me like they're asking you how they can do that as well, which is kind of what we're talking about right now. So it all comes full circle.

These are such good questions. I'm going to, I'm going to pause for the listeners. So listeners, I hope you're with the journey. With us on this journey, because we started with what comes naturally to you, what do you do that puts you in the state of flow in the moment, what enlivens you, and then what do people find you for and ask you for opinion? And I think these are really 4 powerful— and we have 3 more to go, but these are really powerful 4 questions. And if you're being honest with yourself, you will identify things that I'm pretty sure that you've buried over the last 20, 30, 40 years.

And they may be unlike you because your answers are repeating. They may repeat or they may not. And they all matter. They all matter. In your case, they're repeating quite a bit. Sometimes I work with people where they don't. Um, I've only worked with one person so far in my, and I've worked with thousands of people where all 7 questions had the same answer. Um, so it's So it can be mixed and matched. And the interesting thing, well, you know, I'll just say it now in case I forget about it later. 2 interesting things to ask yourself are, did something come up more than once? Definitely pay attention to that. And even if it didn't, or if it did, if there's something that seems like it has a particular juice to it right now, like, oh, that, like running. Oh, I haven't done that in a while. I want to do that again. Something that gets your attention.

Yeah.

I would say that that's something that's bubbling, right? It's right near the surface, is trying to get your attention. And that would be the one to go for if you want to follow up.

Love it. Um, W.

Okay. W is weird. What makes you weird? I know, weird in a good way. You know, this is, and I'll give you a quick story on this one too, to give it some context, but, um, what makes you weird? weird compared to maybe people around you. Um, and so I'll— a quick story. I worked with a woman who, um, was a tech writer in high tech in Silicon Valley, and yet she wore bunny slippers, uh, brightly colored dresses, and she had long blonde hair that hung down to her hips. I mean, she was quite a character, you know.

Wow.

And so I'm like, okay, this is an artist, but here she is in Silicon Valley. So she's like writing these tech manuals. And what's interesting is that she, in the, in the margins of the tech manuals, she's writing ideas for scripts, like movie scripts. And so I, yeah. And I'm like, you know, so she's weird at tech, in high tech, right? Why does she dress this way? But she's doing the work, but what she's doing on the margins is she's writing scripts. And so I asked her to consider taking those marginalized writings and putting them in your center line of vision and seeing where that takes you. And so long story short, she ended up taking a year off from work. She wrote, directed, and produced a movie, and that did very well. And now she lives in LA. So her tribe— she was weird in Silicon Valley, But in LA, she fits right in. So that's why it's one of those clues. It was weird for me to want to sing at Princeton, but singing was right for me. So sometimes weird is not bad. It's just an indicator that maybe you're, you could move to a different tribe.

Yeah.

So what, what makes you feel weird?

I think there's this strong idea of trust in the universe, the eternal optimism, the being really minimalistic where I feel like I really don't want anything. I need a few things which I have. And so yeah, that puts certain people around me in an uncomfortable space, which I'm absolutely okay with. That's my weird.

Yeah, I like it. I mean, I think the minimalist part, well, I don't know what it's like in Australia, but I know that in the United— although I've been there, um, and I really like Australia, but, uh, here in the United States, it's like buy, buy, buy, fill your house full of things. So it's countercultural. Um, the spiritual element is wonderful. Um, yeah, that's wonderful. I, I applaud it. I, I never learned about Carl Jung when I went to Princeton, and I also went to Georgetown, because he is too spiritual for those psychologists. They were more scientists. And so I learned about him later in life. So that also made me weird. But see, these are the things that make you you, that make you uniquely who you are. And when you embrace those things—

Yeah.

It's an earlier question, but you feel more alive.

I agree. And before we move to E&R, you know, a question that's popping up and poking in my head, and I wanna ask this right now. This word authenticity, right? It's been misused, abused, overused. But my hypothesis is that authenticity is still really difficult for adults. Where does that come from?

Well, you know, my definition, I have a particular definition, and that is that Uh, authenticity is when you're able to reclaim some of these gifts and be your true self by using those gifts. So for example, me becoming, um, a rock star for a while, that was a very authentic, weird move for me to make. Why is it hard? My, um, the people I went to that I was teaching with, my fellow professors thought I was crazy. My mother thought I was crazy.

Mm-hmm.

It's not like the world necessarily applauds you. When you follow your own particular path, uh, there's a lot of pressure on us to conform. I think it takes a lot of courage to be able to reclaim these parts of ourselves that we probably pushed away in the first place because we were trying to fit in. It's hard to do, but the payoff is so great. It's totally worth it.

Here's a listener who's listening to us right now. I love it. It feels like therapy to me right now, Michelle. Send me the invoice later. I'll pay for this session.

You know, be careful what you say.

So you said, you said when you can reclaim your gifts, that's what authenticity is. I'm loving this conversation. And the world does not applaud you. for being that authentic true self, and it takes a lot of courage, and it is hard to achieve because there's others around you who are saying, why are you on this path? Conform.

That's right.

Where does one keep— and, and, and, oh, the, the, the, the cherry on the top that you at the end said was that, that the reward is, is huge. It's, it's— how does one quantify that reward? Because I don't think the world really understands quantifying that reward yet. Because we can reward title, we can reward a bigger Tesla, we can reward a big bank balance, but how does one reward what is at the end of being yourself, Michelle?

It is a feeling of peace. It is a feeling of life direction. It is not being torn in two. Because you're doing the thing or you're being the person you are meant to be. And it's, you know, it's not like you do it 24/7. I mean, sometimes you have to work on it a little bit and then you kind of go back a couple steps and then you do it again. But the reward is, I mean, it's just like I said, I've worked with people who look 10 years younger. They're, they're smiling. They change careers that fit them, careers that, that, that fit their values, that, um, are purposeful and meaningful. Um, so they're making money, but they're making money doing something that they love maybe, or at least like a lot more than what they were doing before. If we want to talk about, you know, more of the career side of it, but also just on the, um, hobby side of it. I mean, they pick up a gift, maybe they do it maybe a couple of hours a week. That's how I started out when I was a professor. I would just write songs, you know, just a couple hours a week. But it fills you with this amazing energy and then it just sort of starts something rolling where you just start making different choices in your life naturally that seem to be putting you more in alignment with who you're meant to be. And then you meet more people who are more like you. You feel like you belong being who you are rather than having to hide who you are to belong.

Love it. Love it. So to everyone who's listening, answer these magical questions because what lies at the end, it'll take a lot of tears and toil and sweat and blood, but at the end what lies is bliss, is joy, is what all Michelle is saying. We can get to E from that EMPOWER framework. We are on E, Michelle.

Okay, this is a really good one. It's right up there. This is our double E. This is our second E. I was gonna say it's right up there with easy, but that's also because it starts with an E. What did you do early in life when you were a child or even a teenager, preteen, or even young adult? Now, you may have trouble remembering this, um, but let me give you an example of somebody. Um, this is not somebody I worked with, but somebody that I had on my podcast. Uh, his name is Rudy and he remembered very early in life, he came from, um, very poor family. They had to tear bread in half to feed the kids. It was a very hard, hard life. And one of the things that brought him a lot of joy that he did early in life is that he would braid his sister's hair while they were asleep. And he would always look at fashion magazines and hairstyles. So he knew very early on that he, you know, but he's somebody I, I interview people who knew their purpose early. So he was able to remember. A lot of us are not. But I'll just give you an example of something from me that is more of a symbolic clue, just in case for listeners, this is more, um, if this might jog your memory better than the Rudy example, because he knew why he was here. Um, I used to put Band-Aids on dolls. And you'd be like, okay, what is that about? And I only figured this out recently, actually, at an author event when I was talking about this. I realized I was a healer. I was a wounded healer. I already, I already knew I wanted to heal people, but it was like a symbolic bandaid. What, you know, it's kind of like what we're doing right now is my bandaid. So it can be something like that. It can be that you like to take things apart. It could be so many different things, but what did you like to do early in life?

That's a tough one. As you were sharing this, and for the first few minutes in the 40 minutes of this podcast, my mind was going left, right, and center because it was going through memories of our childhood home. It was going through interactions with my sister, my parents. It was going through interactions with friends at school. And wow, I didn't expect that. And as I was thinking through that, what popped up really loudly for me was that I loved very early in life to make people laugh.

Oh.

And that was such a, like, it's such a, I'm getting goosebumps all over my body. And when you spoke about the bandit, so making people find joy, be happy, and laugh in that, like, as a, 12-year-old, I did not have Viktor Frankl or Carl Jung to quote to them, or Rumi. Today's kids do have that too. Yeah, but I want to make people laugh and make them feel, yeah, just comfortable. I think that's what's popping up.

Yeah, I can see that. And that's with other answers.

Okay.

The last one is R for rewarding. What is intrinsically rewarding to you? So much so that you would do it for free. This is a big, big fat clue. My friend that I interviewed, Rudy, hmm, had a chance to get a scholarship to be an architect.

Hmm.

And his family really wanted him to take it because they were poor, but he knew he wanted to be a hairstylist. And even though he would make a lot less money, that's what he became. And here's the fun, fun, fun fact about this question, that often when you find that thing that you would do for free, you end up making good money at it because Rudy is now Um, a top-dollar stylist that you have to pay. I can't afford them, for example. But here, the clue is you would do it for free anyway. This is a big, big one.

Yeah, I think the answer is right in front of me. Um, this podcast, I've, uh, this will be episode number, I think I'm just taking a guess, our episode 80 releases this week, Misha. And when this goes out, I'm sure it'll be episode 97.

Wow.

And so 97 episodes and we have not made a dollar out of it. And people have asked me, Utkarsh, what is wrong with you, man? In such a crowded market, why are you building a podcast? Why are you investing yourself into something that might not reward anything? And I tell them that I would do it for free. My son, on our way to the school, asks me often that if you win a lottery, and this was his question one day, if you win a lottery, Dad, and you get $1 million, would you still do the podcast? I said, yeah, I'll do it in person then because then I'll have the money to splurge on it. So I think, yeah, I found my answer, Michelle. I found my answer.

It totally makes sense to me. Yeah.

Wow, um, that was, uh, that was fascinating. Um, I'll summarize what I've experienced, but I want you to summarize for us, Michelle, that if, if there's someone who's listening through this whole conversation, 45 minutes into it, and they could reclaim just one part of themselves right now, In this moment, they don't even have to answer the 7 questions. They don't have to do anything. One part. What's the smallest step that you'd ask them to do?

I would ask them to do something small with it. I would ask them to make some sort of an action. So for example, if they remembered that they like running, but they haven't run in a while, maybe go out and run around the block for, you know, a minute or something. Just start. Or if you remember that you used to like to sketch, um, maybe take out a pen and just, just any kind of sheet of paper. It doesn't have to be, you know, a beautiful sketchpad. Um, and just draw something, you know, just do something very, very small. And I'll tell you why that matters.

Mm-hmm.

Because once you start using that gift in the tiniest, tiniest way, Carl Jung talked about these things being repressed in the unconscious. So outside of the light of awareness, when it enters awareness, you are starting to integrate it into who you are. You are starting to bring it into your full self. Just that small action is showing yourself that you are already doing it. And it's like you're welcoming it. You can almost think of it like if it's bubbling here, it's like, I used to run. I like to run.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and if you just like, okay, I'll run around the block. It's like, oh, I got through. I'm up here now. And once that process starts, it continues.

Yeah.

Some— the smallest stuff. In fact, make it small, because if it's big, you won't do it.

Yeah. If you go now to the future state, Michelle, to that 80-year-old Michelle, the one who's reflecting back from that 80-year-old to the present self to where she's right now, if that 80-year-old Michelle comes to you right now, and has one piece of advice on how you can live and lead the rest of your years, what would that 80-year-old tell you to do?

It would be the same thing my 8-year-old told me. I was just expecting that. Do music. Do music. And I'll tell you why, because writing a book, at least for me, is a completely immersive experience. And I put my music to the side and I miss it, even though there's music in my book, songs are in the book. I stopped doing my music and it's so easy for that to happen. And, um, that can make you grumpy. And, uh, and the other thing too, I know your audience is younger, but here's the thing. When you get older, you still have those gifts and maybe you don't do them as well as you used to. I still have a good singing voice. I'm very lucky. Um, but I, you just keep using them, you know, keep using them throughout your life because that's what makes your life.

Yeah.

Meaningful and purposeful. And also, I just wanted to say about the 80-year-old, finding like-minded others is very, it's very, very important. And by like-minded, I don't mean that everybody has to be playing music with you. I mean, everybody is maybe on the journey to find out who they really are. It just, it can be broadened. But when you— I would say the other thing about my 80-year-old's advice to me is Don't go this alone. Surround yourself with people who are like-minded in the sense that they want to go on this adventure too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's so beautiful. Don't do this alone. To everyone who's listening 50 minutes into the conversation, let's listen to the 80-year-old Michelle's advice. Sing, do the small stuff, do it right now, and don't do it alone. If you're someone who's Right now feeling that life's meaningless, there's a midlife crisis, you're burning out, you're feeling empty, then the 7 Magical Questions Empower are your pathway to starting off that journey where you'll start to feel that the reward, which maybe not the world will value right now, but you will value right now, and the world will take notice of that. You will have peace, you will have joy, you'll have smile, and you'll have bliss. The journey's gonna be hard. It's gonna take some courage, and the world might not applaud you on that journey, but take that journey still.

That's why having that community of people that are also on the journey— I've had people who have completely different careers and different creative expressions, but they all like each other because they know that they're all discovering who they are and they value that. And once you find that community, you don't, it doesn't matter anymore.

It doesn't. And finally, we are all here to reclaim who we truly are. And there's an inner drive to help us get there. It's a journey that's worth taking. We're conditioned to fit in. We've left pieces of us behind. But finding those gifts, finding who we truly were, is what the purpose of this life is. If you want to go and work with Michelle, we'll put all the links in the show notes. You can find her LinkedIn, you can find her book, you can find everything about her. This has been such a pleasure, Michelle, to record this podcast with you, and I can't wait for it to go out.

Yeah, I really enjoyed this very, very much.

Thank you. Thank you. And you've helped me find my gift, which is to continue doing the podcast till episode 200 and beyond.

Yes. Yes. Amazing.

This is Utkarsh and Michelle signing off.