Tiger Sisters - The Science of Happiness: Lessons From NYU’s Most Popular Class

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

We sit down with NYU professor and NYT Bestselling author, Dr. Suzy Welch, whose new book “Becoming You” redefines what authenticity and ambition truly mean. This episode is for anyone who’s built the “perfect” life on paper yet still feels out of sync – and wants a clear framework for working, loving, and leading with purpose and integrity.We share: ✅ How Suzy’s test helps align who you are with how you live ✅ How to recognize when you’re living a B+ life ✅ The “Four Horsemen of Dream Destruction” – and how to stop them from running your life ✅ The myth of work-life balance ✅ Two money principles that will save you decades of regret❤️ 15% off code for Tiger Sisters fam to try out the Values Bridge: TigerSisters15❤️‍🔥 You can find the Values Bridge here: https://thevaluesbridge.com/?utm_source=sw&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=products_page🐯👯‍♀️ We’re the Tiger Sisters — Your Wall Street & Silicon Valley big sistersDecoding Money • Power • Love✨ New episodes every Monday | Shorts all week ✨🎯 This episode is sponsored by Read AI, a meeting co-pilot that takes notes, analyzes meeting sentiment, and shares smart next steps for you and your team. Try our favorite productivity tool free for 30 days: http://read.ai/tigersisters💌 Want to partner with us? Sponsorships: [e-mail]⏰ Timestamps0:00 The B-plus life vs. being “exquisitely alive”1:07 Meet Suzy Welch2:21 The Values Bridge3:47 Cherie’s Values Bridge results: Radius and Achievement7:56 The most controversial value: Eudaimonia10:15 The importance of Voice13:52 Beholderism and the desire for harmony18:01 Why shared values matter more than chemistry19:29 Belonging and Place20:40 Belovedness24:40 What shapes our values25:45 The Four Horsemen of Dream Destruction28:41 How language is a bridge to self-understanding29:42 Ad Break: Read AI31:16 Crisis, clarity, and becoming yourself35:20 The myth of balance – and why Jensen Huang was right39:25 Money advice: “There’s no last, best deal”40:24 The sunk-cost fallacy – and owning your mistakes43:11 Applying “no last, best deal” to love44:46 Finding balance in partnership49:58 Suzy on writing her next chapter56:04 Approaching the world with fearlessness57:30 Wrap-up👀 Newsletter: https://cherieluo.substack.com/Why trust us?▫️ Cherie Brooke Luo – 100M+ views demystifying big tech, finance & MBAs▫️ Jean Luo – ex-Goldman, ex-Snapchat exec, 50+ AI patents, startup investor▫️ Together: 4 Ivy degrees • built billion-dollar products • two startups — decoded for youWhat you’ll get (and keep):▫️ 🚀 Ivy League cheat sheets – no $250K tuition required▫️ Personal finance playbooks – salary jumps, investing, money psychology▫️ Networking scripts – behind $100M+ deals, job offers & VC intros▫️ Real talk with unicorn founders, VCs, and billionaires▫️ Mindset resets – clarity minus the pricey life coach▫️ Lifestyle, wellness, and productivity hacks that actually work💛 LET'S CONNECT:~ CHERIE ~🤳🏻 Instagram – / cherie.brooke📱 TikTok – / cherie.brooke✍🏻 Substack – cherieluo.substack.com👩🏻‍💻 LinkedIn – / cherie-luo~ JEAN ~🤳🏻 Instagram – / jeanluo_👩🏻‍💻 LinkedIn – / jeanluo👉 Hit Subscribe & tap the 🔔, then WRITE A REVIEW and rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ on Spotify & Apple Podcasts!Share this with someone who deserves to be seen as a leader.🎵 Music: Sammy Signal – https://open.spotify.com/artist/2HsyknHuxhT8RoZfn5rqMS 🛍️ Items: 🍵 Sisters Matcha – www.sistersmatcha.com🌀 Everything else – https://amzn.to/3z0dx5b

I feel like I'm like totally naked in front of you. I feel like. It's pretty vulnerable all the way. Yeah. I hear you. We have become so habitualized to living B plus lives. I mean, I think I was living a B plus life. And I didn't realize it because there were so many aspects of it that from the outside looked like an A or an A plus life.

You would have been around 45 and one day you would have been found yourself in your car crying uncontrollably. And you would have said, what have I done? Sometimes the outside world is the one confirming to us. Our life is perfect. And we know inside. And we've got like this kind of, uh, we know how much we're actually living the life we want. We know because when we're living it, we feel exquisitely alive. And so it usually is a crisis where people are fired or go through a divorce or have a breakup of some kind that's.

And they'll say, wait, okay, I can't take it anymore. I mean, look, there's four things that destroy you living your own life. I call them the four horsemen of dream destruction. But it captures these things. It captures self-care, recreation, pleasure, and sex. Susie, welcome to Tiger Sisters. So happy to be here. We're so excited.

So Susie Welch has lived a dozen chapters, editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review, bestselling author, professor at NYU Stern, and podcast host. Her hit course and new book, Becoming You, have become a movement, pushing people to face the hardest question there is. Are you really living your own life or living through someone else's script? May I say that becoming you, the question it actually is? answers is what should I do with my life, which it leads you to ask is the life I have right now, the life I want. So it's all the really easy, fun questions. Yeah, just a little bit. Just a light day. I think it's kind of a conversation. Yeah. There's more. Okay. So Dr. Susie Welch, yes, that's right. Doctor has spent her entire career cutting through the myths about money,

power, and love to help people live their lives with purpose. And also we've been playing it cool since the beginning, but we're truly fans of yours. Oh, really, we love everything you do. Like, we think you're so fabulous and we want to be you. And I also want to get my Ph.D. And I'm so, like, there's just a, okay, all right, all right. Well, it's a mutual fan club right here. All right.

Big loving. And so in becoming you, you introduce the value bridge. And it's a framework that you've developed that helps you figure out who we are and what we want to do. And so we've shared our values bridge results with you. We've taken the test. and please be honest, what is wrong with us? And what is that thing you understand about us?

And what is right with us? No, I can't wait to do this. I mean, it's, you have very exciting results, very interesting. I was a little taken aback by your results, and so we will go deep dive into them. So the class I teach, becoming you, excavates three data sets, your values, your aptitudes,

and your economically viable interest, because you need all of that data to synthesize and then come out with your purpose in the class. Then one semester, the wait list was 800 students. And so it was, and now I teach it in mega sections. Yeah. Because who is, if you can find for me, the one person who doesn't ask the question, wait, what should I do with my life?

Or is this the right thing? I don't know where that person is. So I put together a great team of engineers and psychometricians and developers. And we created this tool, the values bridge, which rank orders your values from one to 16. And it tells you which values you hold. and how much you're living them. Yeah.

So we call that gap, the authenticity gap. And so what I have now in front of me is the list of your values from one to 16 and how much you're actually living them. I think that I was a little bit surprised by the difference in your values. So should we do it? Yeah, let's dive in. And also just, I feel like I'm like totally naked in front of you. I feel like.

It's pretty vulnerable. It is. Yeah. I hear you. I hear you that there is this moment. And so you're wonderful to go ahead. do it here on the podcast. But you know, part of what you're doing yourselves is you're allowing people to be vulnerable and listening to you and you talk about all the really big stuff. So it's

not just young people who are going through it. I mean, there's people 40, 50 years old who are sitting there saying, whose life did I just live? Yeah. Okay, so that's into it. It's, okay, let's do it. This is office hours, actually. It is. I'm psyched. I love it. All right, Cherie, we'll start with you. Okay. Okay. So your number one value is something that we call radius, and this is a value that reflects how much you want to change the world, how much you want to have systemic change. When I have in class students who present as what we would call social justice warriors, they always are number one on radius. I have a daughter who's an artist and animal rights activist. She's number one on radius. And so, and thank God, the man that she's about to marry is

also that because if you have this value and you are marrying somebody who does not have it, I wish you well, because this is a very strongly presenting value. So there's something in you that seeks systemic change. You're not satisfied with things staying the way they are. You have a dream of in some way changing the world. Does that feel real to you? It does. I've been called a dreamer.

And actually there was a conflict. My boyfriend when I was in my early 20s. We both worked at the same company, but we had different views on how to approach our life. I was like, I have such a big dream of things I want to do. And through my career, create impact. And he's like, would you just be happy, like living in the life? the suburbs with just like a plain house and a dog.

And there was so much derision in that comment, but I'm like, what's wrong with what I want to do? And I hope you are not still with this person. I'm not. I'm not. God is all I can say. I mean, and that's why I said that this value is so strong in how it drives how we live and work that if you do not share it with a partner.

So I should point out that the values bridge, the test itself has a functionality that if another person takes it and you both check a box, your values will come up next to each other and it will give you a conflict or harmony score. So you and this young man would have had like a 100% conflict on it. And I think when my daughter and her fiance took it, they're like, mom, you're home. Come talk to us about our results. And as I was walking towards them because the wedding's already planned, I was like, please God, I'm praying to you. And they had, thank God.

Their top six values were exactly the same. Oh, my God. Yes. Wow. Yes. I like almost wept. Now look, I would have been shocked if they weren't. They're essentially the same human being.

So, all right. And I do think that her value of radius comes through very. clearly actually in Tiger Sisters and is the core mission. Yes. Tiger Sisters is a big reason why we're doing what we're doing is very much driven by her number one core value. And I want to say two things. One is, I think you're exactly right because you could have done anything.

You could have done, you could have been a product manager. There's a million jobs. And you took the job, which had high risk, right? You did a startup, but had the potential for the most impact. Now, radius is also a high value of yours. It's number five. So that's still a core value of yours. It's still very high.

It's not as high as your sisters. But luckily, because you're working together, I'm very happy that you both have radius high up. Okay. All right. All right. So your second value is achievement, which is the desire to have success that other people can see. Now, really interestingly, this makes you different than many people of your generation because typically for people, how old are you?

I'm 30. Okay. Gen Z, for instance, hopping off at age 26. Achievement is a value is number 11. And so I have achievement as number two as well. And this is the desire to have accomplishments and success that other people can see. Either that's in you or it's not. And when I talk about achievement a lot of time with my Gen Z students, they're like, who needs that?

And I'm like, I don't know, my whole generation did. But I think actually it skews at business schools quite high. I think business schools select for it. Let's see where achievement is for you. It's number four. Okay. So you are both very high on achievement and thus the name Tiger Sisters. So I'm very excited about that.

So very now we come to one of the most controversial talked about values. And this is a value that we, that I had to use a Greek name for because it sets people's heads on fire. So the value we call it eudamonia. In Greek, it means flourishing. But it captures these things. It captures self-care, recreation, pleasure, and sex. Okay. So pick from any of those.

They all track together. And you have it as number three. So for core value for you, there is this. desire for, I don't know if it's self-care or if it's fun or recreation or which one of those parts it is, does that resonate for you? It does. Yeah. And I saw that it's in conflict with my desire to achieve. And to have affluence, which comes next. So let's see where eutamone is for you. Now actually, I will say that your eutamonia was lower. It was at eight in the middle. And for me, it's number 15. So I have like, and I'll tell you this about

The whole, one of the beautiful things, in my opinion, about the values bridge is it allows us to talk about people's values without any judgment. You know, these are values and you can be higher on them or lower on them and their choices with consequences. And so when I tell people like, well, eudamonia is number 15 for me. It's like, what's wrong with you? It's like, well, my joy is in my work and my achievement. And so I don't, I don't necessarily like want to, like I don't even know what self-care is. Of course, generationally that's like maybe my self-care is. my dogs, like the amount of fun I have with my dogs. I think it is also a generational, like, reflection of us because I think like her generation, she's on the cusp of Gen Z. She's a

millennial. Like they're all about self-care and they're like work life balance is really important versus like I feel like I went up through the, you know, investment banking like finance world where it was like you have to put like those things on the wayside in order to actually be successful at achievement or all those other things. And I've done this for years. Right, which is like my students and many, many people take the values bridge and they get as top value eutamonia. And then right after it, they get affluence or achievement. And then they're like, oh, that's the reason for the O feeling. Because those are in conflict with each other.

Yeah. And so you definitely, look, the test is going to tell you where you've got your conflicts and your harmonies. Utimony for you is three. It's not number one. And for you, it's eight. Then we have affluence, which is the desire to have wealth. And I think, again, there's a little stink off of this in the, world, right? But why, this is a choice. And if you're not hurting anybody, it's your value. I mean,

have plenty of students who have it is number one. And it's high for me as well. And I think there's no harm. And sometimes people want affluence because they have, it feeds another value. Yeah. Like beholderism, which we're about to come to because that was your number one value. And we'll talk about it. We both have affluence in the top five. And then we have for you, Sheree, voice, which is the desire for authentic self-expression. It's like I want to be me. I want to self-express. I don't want to be in a culture or an environment where I can't let my whole self be present. And again, this is for Gen Z, the number two value. So for you, voice is, it's down at 10, which suggests to me that you have more comfort around fitting in to organizational cultures

and to leaving some of your authentic self-expression not aside but to your private time. Like you don't feel the need. People who have high voice want to be themselves all the time. People with lower voice are like, look, there's a time where I can be myself and it's when I'm... Well, I don't. I feel like I've had to do that my whole life in order to succeed in order to get where I am now. Versus like Shiree, ever since she was very, very young, she was always like a superstar. Yeah. She's always been, even among supported.

Yeah, she's like the younger sister. She's the youngest cousin. She's always the superstar. Like, I don't know how else to say it. She has star power. Yeah. It was always, she always expressed her voice. That's right. It was very much appreciated and loved. And I think, yeah. Well, there's the, you know, there's the interesting comment because what I often see, especially with young women, women up until sort of the 40s. Yeah. is they can have quite high voice, but their authenticity gap is massive.

So they can have voices number one and the authenticity gap is 98%. Meaning they want to do it and they can't. And I had a student company and went a lot of times just crying saying, look at this and she showed me her results and voice was number one, authenticity gap like 98, 99%.

And she said, I wish you could teach a class about how we can do this, how we can be ourselves. I don't even know how to do it. My culture has taken this ability away from me. And I said that, I love the idea of a class on that. That's not, I can't teach that. That's not my area of expertise, but I cheer you on. Well, I think so much of it is environmental, too. And so when you say culture, like my first thought was like work culture. Like the work culture that

Jean grew up in was basically, as she explained, like it was pretty much to like to stifle yourself for the bottom line. Yes. Whereas we're like, you know, growing up, uh, being raised in like a tech company as my first job. It was very much like be yourself. That's right. And we also had like one day off a month to for eudamonia. Right. To like, you know, explore something about yourself outside of work. People who have very high achievement, very high affluence go into investment banking and they have voice very low and they don't care. If you have very high voice, you know, Goldman Sachs is going to be a different kind of fit for you. True. Yeah. And so this is one, so there's many, many good reasons to know your values. One is to have this very candid conversation with yourself about whether you're

living them and if not whose values you are living. And then the second reason is to say, am I working in the right place? Am I going to last here? Because if you don't have, if you have mismatch on values with your organization, you just go to work every day in a suit that's three sizes too small. And it stinks. Well, let's talk about beauty for a second because it's your top value. It's her top value and she's embarrassed by it. Yes. I always don't. Here's what I say. I just feel like I have to explain it. Now let's talk about it for a second. First of all, a lot of people have this value. It's one of the oldest identified values by scholars. We call it beholderism.

It is the value that reflects how much you care about how things look, including yourself. I always say that when people find out that this is their top value, that they need to go into support groups. Okay? And so many, many, I've done this work with many influencers because my life brings me into contact with a lot of influencers. For almost every influencer, it's the top value. And I'm not surprised because there's something very visual about being an influencer that how things look and sound. I will say that to go deeper than that, beholderism is often a proxy for desiring harmony. Okay, you want things to look beautiful.

And my feeling about that is there's not very much we can control in this world. Not very much we can control, but we can control our environment and we can control ourselves. And I often think that's reflected in high beholderism. Now, I don't know where your beholderism is coming from. I think that's so true. You look beautiful, so that's part of it. But this desire that things should have a certain harmony, that the world just works better when things are

elevated. I mean, there used to be a store in New York's that sort of just beautiful interior designs. And I used to call it the Palace of Want because I walked in there. I was like, I want everything. I want my house to look like this. And then when my test scores came back and

Holderism was four for me, I was like, yeah, I know I'm the daughter of an architect and an artist. My home is my palette. It's like I paint on you know, my, you know, canvas is my home. And so beholdersome tends to skew either you have it very high or you have it very low. I think in some ways it's actually very much of a relief to be able to like put a word to it and name to it because there's just so many things about me like, you know, growing up in middle school, I would borrow like dozens of books about interior design. Like when I was like 12 years old and just nonstop read all these books about interior design. And I was like a freak of a 12 year old.

Like who does that? I did that. Yeah. I did that. Well, first of all, my dad was an architect who had a ton of. of books around the house. But when architectural digest would come, I would like go through the pages. Yeah. Like a zombie.

Like, ah, like obsessed. Yeah. And my homes are really curated, you know, very specifically to me, but I really care. And if I walk into the room and like the flowers are a color that's not vibing the rest of the room, I like will carry them

into the kitchen saying this is upsetting me. I mean, I'm really, this is your beholderism. It's, it's, and the great thing is like just celebrated. So many cool people have beholders of very high. So it's not, and again, no value is good or bad. It's just you. Yeah. But it's very good to be able to explain to people. I have super high beholders. I'm just bear with me while I sort of change this place getting, right? Yeah. And I think it's kind of, I also, I've always loved art growing up. I love like all different expressions of art. I think it's

yes. I really, really just like deeply appreciate the sublime. Yes. And that's exactly it. I don't know how else to explain it. Like back when, you know, you could see all the runway shows for free on vogue.com, like, I would, every, every fashion season, I would, like, pour through all of the runway shows. Like, and, like, look at them one by one and just form my own opinions. And, like, that was my happy place. Can I just say, I want to give you some gratuitous advice. Yeah. Which is that the next time you get serious with somebody, give him the test. Make sure his beholderism is up there like yours. Because I think it gets really hard in a relationship when one person has high beholderism and the other just doesn't get it. Yes.

Because it bumps into everything. It sort of bumps into where you choose going to a restaurant. It bumps to like what your house looks like. It bumps into like where you vacation. It just bumps into everything. So check out that. Check out belovedness and check out beholder. Okay, that is so crazy because even before I took this test, I said something to Shree the other day about this where I was like, oh yeah, like, you know, I've been on a couple days with this guy.

I was like, I just don't know if he really like appreciate some of the things that I appreciate. Like if I look nice. Like will he even appreciate that? Like, what's the point if he doesn't appreciate me looking mad? I know I secretly think I developed a dating app by accident. I mean, I was like, I think, oops. But, I mean, I think that I, like I said to you about my daughter and her soon-to-be husband in two weeks, you know, that their top six values were identical. And they are weirdly, like, happy.

Because they just everything, he was reminiscing about the first time he met her. And he went back to the office after they had lunch for the first time. And he said to the people who's working with, I don't know what just happened. And it's like when you meet somebody who's got your exact value, I'll use, you have this feeling like what just happened. But you sort of saying, if I even elevated my beholderism and sort of showed my beholdersom would even care is a bit of a red flag. Yeah. Yeah.

He's like, the worst guest we ever had on. The best. Well, let's see. We'll put this to the test. Well, I think it's interesting, Susie, what you said about control. Yeah. Yeah. That's true.

I mean, of course, you love art and beauty. And you love flipping through those, you know, magazines. But I think there's something to be said about control. Yes. Like having some sort of control over your own life, your environment, when this in this world, like what can you really control? That's right. I think beholderism for people is absolutely a way to make order of a world

that can feel very chaotic. Yeah. Yeah. And especially. But sometimes it's just loving beautiful things. I don't want to, you know, like sometimes, you know, it's just because you love beauty. And it's okay to love beauty.

I think it's both for you. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So those are your top values. Let's just talk briefly about your bottom two values because sometimes those tell us a lot of things also. Okay. Okay. So your bottom value, your lowest value is something we call belonging, which is sort of a, it's like kind of community. It's clubs. It's hanging with friends. It's just wanting to be part of affinity groups. And so oftentimes people with high voice as you have have low belonging. And so, does that sound right to you? Yeah. I think so. It's just, I don't really believe in like groups or like group dynamics. I'm like much more like deep one-on-one relationships with people. Right. So this is 100% tracks with what you're saying. Your second to bottom one is place, meaning if it's a low value, it means you could live anywhere,

that you're not, okay, I have to live in this one city. Like for me, place is very high because when I leave New York City, I hyperventilate and feel like I must get right back. And so I love to travel, but I'm like, it's not New York. And that gives me very high place. And so it sounds to me like with this value that you're, you're fine with where you're living, but you're not like it does not have to be one place. I think so, especially recently with so much moving, like leaving Palo Alto, coming to L.A. I think I'm in a time in my life where place will not rank high.

Yes. I'm looking to, right now, I'm looking where your belovedness is. So let's talk about the value of belovedness before we look at your values. So belovedness is a very interesting value because it reflects how much you want to be in an intimate partnered relationship. And it's very interesting to hear the cultural narrative about how much you should want marriage in a way. I mean, I think this is about a relationship that is marriage or like marriage. And women like us have gone through professional schools and we've been told it's the career, it's the career.

And many, and that's fine and it's true for many of us. But oftentimes there are women who do not feel able to say, but I also really want to get married. Yeah. And it shows up in their results. Yeah. It shows up and they come in and they've been like girl bossing it, go bossing it. And then belovedness pops it, number one. And there's a 98% gap.

So for you, if you don't mind me saying, your belovedness is at eight, which sort of puts it in the middle. Like you might want a partner relationship, but it's not your driving, organizing principle. You're not choosing your job or your location or your weekend activities on finding this partner that you're a partner for your life. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds true. I think that's right. where I am in this state and life.

Shall we see where belovedness is for you? Yeah. Okay. And the answer is, it's 11. Pretty low. So, yeah, let's hear. What are your thoughts on your belovedness? So my thoughts are that I am surprised because I consider myself to be like a very romantic person.

And I like I love the idea of romance. I love being in romance. I love being in partner relationships. I think that it's low now because I recently broke my engagement. about a year ago with someone that I was together for eight years. Okay. So I think it's more of like a snapshot in time. This is exactly why.

Yeah. So for me, belovedness was very high. And then my husband died. And it went to, it's number 16 for me now. And I think when you've been through a seismic event involving love, belovedness will shift. Yeah. And you have deprioritized it because of what was certainly in some level a traumatic event for you. Yeah.

And so I would not be surprised if we were to revisit with each other instead. six months or a year that it would move back up. Yeah. And I think it's also a response to, I feel like, in the past, over, you know, the course of that eight-year relationship, it was very high in my values. And I think maybe it was, I was like over-wading it. I think it might have been over-expressed. Yeah. Right. And it may be one of the reasons I don't want to go, you know, get too personal, but it may have been overexpressing it was part of why the engagement ended up breaking. Yeah. And I mean, if you had to guess while you were in that relationship, belovedness was maybe one or two, probably over-expressed by quite a lot. Do you, can you, in your mind's eye, imagine what your partner's belovedness was?

Definitely not as high. Yeah. Because he's a much more, like, even-keeled. He's just not naturally like a romantic person. Right. He's just like very even-keeled, like not very expressive at all in terms of emotions. I think like radius, belovedness with your partner should be about the same level. So if you both have belovedness in the top five, fantastic.

If you have it in the bottom five, also fantastic, because you both are going to prioritize the relationships, the amount. But woe to the couple where the one person has belovedness in the top and the other has it in the bottom. Sure. And all you're going to do is fight about how important the relationship is. I actually love this framing. Like, we love frameworks just like you. Yes, I do.

I actually think this is really interesting because I think recently I experienced a relationship where the other person, this guy, like belovedness was super high. on his. Like he was just like super expressive with how much he liked me. He was like really open with like PDA. Like he just wore his heart on his sleeve and I was very receptive to that. Like I was it was very positive

to experience such a different expression from the other person. Right. And it was like more aligned with I think what's right for me. I think your natural belovedness is quite high. I think right now it's down lower because you're working out. And now our values though I think are pretty

stable from sort of age 25 on because a lot of things go into forming our values and then they all go into a big stew and mix it up. So what goes into forming our values? Our parents, our culture, our society, experienced trauma. And then by age 25, you kind of are who you are. But then a seismic life event can switch our values around. Someone's having a child going through divorce. I mean, all these different things. But what changes is how much we're living them or not living them. And the goal is to be living them. But that's kind of the work of our life, is to work out the conflicts and to live our values fully. But becoming you, the methodology itself says, doesn't say go live your values. It says figure out your values, then figure out your aptitudes because you could

want to be Celine Dion or whatever and have a very bad voice. And so you have to also know, you can know your values, but then you have to know what you're good at and not. And by that, I mean your cognitive strengths and also your personality strengths because you could be good at a job because of your personality and you can be so bad at a job because of your personality. I mean, look, there's four things that destroy you living your own life. I call them the four horsemen of dream destruction. And they all start with ease. So the first one is expectations, which is around like what your family's expecting and what you expect.

Then the second D is expedience because sometimes it's just easier. They come and they recruit you or the job sitting there. It's your next door neighbor's brother, has a job that you can fill it. It's not really perfect for you, but it's easy. And you just do things that are easier. And we go against our values all the time because it's just the path of least resistance. And the world is pretty hard anyway. Yeah.

So we do the easier thing. Yeah. Then there's events. And events are like, you got laid off. So you do something else. And then it's not quite right. It's just stay. And events can push us, you know, getting married, having a baby.

There's all sorts of events. And then the final is economic security. And we make all sorts of decisions based on money. Yeah. Even though sometimes money doesn't actually matter to us all that much. I mean, for Gen Z, affluence is not actually. all that high. Stability is much higher, much higher. And we have a value for stability. It's called scope. Let's see where you are with scope. That's about, if you have high scope, you want a very big,

highly stimulating, you don't really care that much about just stability for stability's sake. Okay, so, Jean, you are at six, meaning it's not a, it's actually pretty close to the top that you want stimulation, excitement, you want kind of a big life. Yeah, yeah. That's what this would say. That's right. And you on scope, it's pretty low for you. You know, that there's something about, it tracks kind of with your eutamonia, a low scope and eutamonia track together in that you have a more comfort with having a life where you have some predictability. I think so. I mean, like I like the occasional. Occasional. Occasional, like, oh, this is a new experience.

Right. But then I'm like, oh, I can come home and go to my gym classes. Yes, that's right. That's definitely showing up here. Right. And we all have a different level of want and need. and desire for disruption and people with very high scope are like, I'll take the chaos because it's the fun of it or the excitement of it or the, I have a student who had scope is her number

one value and she said, I just want to touch everybody's brain. I remember saying that. I was like, if I could, you were the poster child for high scope. Yeah. And she has a life where she's designed everything around that. And luckily her husband has high scope also. Otherwise, I think he's quite miserable. Yeah.

Yeah. How do you feel? Do you feel seen? I feel so understood. I feel like with the top five and also my bottom two that we went through, I'm like, I, in taking this test, it was very much like I poured my heart into it, answered everything super honestly. And the results like reflect that. I think it's such good data to have, isn't it? And it allows you to talk to each other.

Well, this is my scope value speaking. Well, look, this is, you know, with my high, you know, with my high value of radius, I da-da-da-da. I mean, it is a it is a way to understand yourself and then understand those around. you is this language you know so we actually we say that all the time it's like having the vocabulary to actually express something that's what's really powerful about values bridge is it gives you the vocabulary to put a name to something that you know in your heart yeah but you're like how do I express this and then now that we have the shared vocabulary you we can actually like like the word eudamonia I never knew that word before yeah look at it's very intentional that we named it the bridge

right because when you have a language you can build a bridge to understanding I mean we struggled with the name. But the minute the bridge came to me, I was like, that is the name. And when I was guest lecturing at Stanford last year, a student came up to me afterwards. And she said, you know, all of your work reminds me of this Wittgenstein quote. You know you're at Stanford when somebody comes up because of that. She said, reminds me of this Wittgenstein quote, the limits of my language are the limits of my world. Yes. And I said, that's exactly right. Is this opens up a world of self-awareness and compassion and conversation, which is the thing I dig about it. So this episode of Tiger Sisters is

brought to you by Read AI. Yes, and it's not just another note taker. It's like an AI co-pilot that can read, transcribe, and summarize your meeting notes. It reads the energy and vibe of your meetings to give you the next smart steps. I'm obsessed because it's like having a chief of staff that manages your inbox, your work meetings, basically your entire work life. Yeah, last week I missed a meeting and I was able to type, what did I miss? And Read AI was able to give me the top takeaways, the key point, and also the sentiment. It was kind of like magic. And it works across Gmail, Teams, Notion, Salesforce, Zoom, basically wherever you do your work. And you know me, I never give apps access to my Gmail because that's super private, but I actually made an exception for Read AI because I personally

know the founder, David Schimm, because we used to work together at Snapchat. And you guys might remember we actually interviewed David Schim on season three of Tiger Sisters when he was talking about his new startup, which is actually Reed AI. And now Reed has over 4 million users. Wow. Wow. And they're giving Tiger Sisters listeners a 30-day enterprise trial, which is worth $30 and that does not require a credit card to sign up. We don't know how long this 30-day free offer is going to last. So if you're at all curious, try it right now. Go to www. read.a.i slash tiger Sisters for a free 30-day extended trial and you don't need to put in your credit card. Sign up through our link because then they'll know that we sent you.

We're obsessed with Reed AI and we think you're going to love it too. Susie, thank you so much for going through our values, bridges with us. We want to turn the conversation now to you. And we talk about money, power, and love on the Tiger Sisters podcast. And we want to go through some of those questions and, you know, go through your brain and learn a little bit more about how you think about these things. I can't wait. Great.

So in becoming you, you talked about how the process usually starts with some sort of crisis. Like we talked about maybe a traumatic event, a quarter life crisis or midlife or some kind of reckoning. Why is it that it often takes a big seismic shift for this to happen? Because we have become so habitualized to living B plus lives or B, you know, we can bump along in a life that's kind of a B or B plus for a really long time and just keep telling ourselves something's going to do. change or it has to be that way. And we just let it go. I mean, and sometimes we let it go until we're in our 50s or 60s and then we say, wait a minute, the clock is actually ticking now and I'm going to fix it because B is not good enough. I want to just try it. But other people go all the way to the end that way. And so sometimes we have to be shoved into the kind of self-examination that we need.

And so it usually is a crisis where people are fired or go through a divorce or have a breakup of some kind that's, and they'll say, wait, okay, I can't take it anymore. It's no longer B or B plus. It's actually C or C minus or D or it feels like F. And I mean, I kind of troll on Reddit. There's all these feeds where people are like, I hate my life and everything. And I like, you know, just I have to hold myself back from typing in just do becoming you because they would ban me. But there are people who hit a crisis point and that's when they start the work. And, you know, my loving advice is to do it before that happens and save yourself the time. And, you know, and do it before it really becomes an absolute crisis.

As a tiger sister, hearing you say a B or B plus life, I'm like, I need to clutch my pearl. I know, I know. But you know, people do it. Yeah. And they do it for a really, really long time. And it feels okay. And they make a lot of excuses. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think I was living a B plus life for a long time. Yeah. And I didn't realize it because there were so many aspects of it that from the outside looked like an A or an A plus life. like all of the, you know, just like, oh, like you look like you're in a beautiful couple. Right. You have this incredibly high powered job. Like you live in LA.

Like there's just so many things that I think I almost let society or societal expectations like dictate and like tell me that I was living in A life or an A plus life. And it wasn't until I'm actually really like grateful now for that sort of like crisis moment. Because it's like you like not until you like crash that you're like, wait, why was I on this road in the first place? was I driving down this road? Like it would have been, it would have kind of been like a really underwhelming life that was like not an expression of my true self.

That's right. You would have been around 45 and one day you would have been found yourself in your car crying uncontrollably. And you would have said, what have I done? And so you do have to kind of crash. Sometimes the outside world is the one confirming to us.

Our life is perfect. And we know inside. And we've got like this kind of, and then we hear all this confirming stuff. Oh, you got it all. And it comes from our friends and our parents, and they are just checking the boxes for us. But we know how much we are actually living the life we want. We know because when we're living it, we feel exquisitely alive.

And that is so good. Yeah. But if you've never experienced it, you don't want to go back and get it because you don't even know what it is to begin with. So a lot of stuff gets in the way of us going big. Yeah. We had an episode recently where Gene and I talked about settling. Like, how do you know if you're settling? I saw that episode.

It was great. And I thought, wow, this is all about the four horsemen of values destruction. If you want to know which one of the horsemen is taking away your life, we actually have a free quiz. You can take. It takes two seconds. And it will tell you, oh, it's expectations. It's expedience. Or it's all four.

And settling is real. Yeah. So, Susie, on this podcast, we talk a lot about balancing ambition and fulfillment. So when it comes to money, what do you think people most often get wrong about the connection between wealth and happiness. And like there's so many, you have so many terms within. Yeah, I know. It's a whole, it's a whole industrial complex around this. Okay. So first of all, can I just take issue with the word balance, which I don't actually believe in because it suggests that you should have the same amount of everything. You should have, you know, work and your personal

life should be balanced. But who's deciding what that balance is? You know, that you should have, everything should be in balance. Like, you know, I want to work all the time. And I want tons of money, okay? And I don't, and I, and who's to tell me I should be having more fun? Go take a hike. I don't want to. I don't want to go water skiing this weekend. This is my fun.

This is, this is, and also that's like balance. So I worry about people believing that there's some kind of perfect for everybody kind of balance. Like you should be doing more of this or doing more of that. It's actually super personal. And Jensen Heng of Navidio was asked recently, how's your work life balance? and he said, I love my work life balance. I work all the time.

And I mean, I was like, preach. Now, I get it that that's not for everybody. And I don't want people to judge me about my work life balance, just like I don't want to judge anybody. And like, I have four adult children. Their view about work and balance is different than mine. And I say, that's perfectly fine. It's groovy. Live your values.

Live your life. But understand there are consequences. If one of your top values is affluence, it's, you know, and you want to also have a lot of eutamonia, you're going to have to figure that out because they don't typically track together unless you have inherited wealth. I think that the thing you've got to figure out is not how to have balance, but you've got to figure out what is your balance. Yeah. You know, how much do you want of each one of these? This is why I like the rank ordering because sometimes people say, yep, that's it. I can't lie anymore. I want I want luminance. I want

fame. I want money. I want achievement. And look all the way down here is eutamonia. I've been lying about this to everybody. And I want the permission to say to people, I'm not playing with you this weekend. I'm going to work because I like it. Yeah. Yeah. And we got to give ourselves permission to have the balance we want to have our definition of it. I just had a light bulb moment right now. Good. That, let me see if I can process this live. But I think it has to do with my belonging being literally my last value. Like when I'm like scrolling on Instagram and I see people's stories of like, oh my God, they had this bachelorette with like 20 women there. I'm like, oh, That's nice.

Like, wonder what that must be like to be, like, surrounded and have that community. And it's gorgeous. And there's these photos. And then, like, for a second, I feel like bad because I'm comparing myself to that person. But if we go back to my values bridge, I'm like, I don't really care for that. That's not how I want to live my life. Before social media, you wouldn't even seen those pictures, so you wouldn't have cared. I mean, I think it's social media puts it in your face.

But belonging is not a high value is yours. It doesn't mean that you don't want some of it, but you want it a lot less than some other things. like radius is your top value. You would trade off clearly having high impact work with hanging out with a bunch of bridesmaids. Okay? It's my daughter is number one radius. She's a total person who wants to change the world in a lot of different ways. She's about to get married.

No bridesmaidsmates. Okay? Let alone no bridesmaids parties, no bridesmaids. Yeah. Okay? I mean, it's just, that's not who they are. And her husband, her soon-to-be husband also has a high radius. It's the most, you know, this is a wedding that's actually about their value of radius.

I mean, it's about, and everybody there is going to be like them. It's going to be quite the event. There's not, there's no partying beforehand. There's no like, you know, Bachelor party. Are you kidding me? They find that very, you know, that's just not who they are. Yeah. Right.

So it's not who I am actually. And I don't know why. I mean, like, yeah. Because there's societal culture to say it is. But now you can just hold up your values of results and say any other low belonging people here like me. Yeah. You know, so.

Okay. So our next question on money is if you could sit down with your younger self, what's one piece of money advice you wish you had known earlier? There's two great pieces of money advice that I would love to share. The first is there's no last best deal. This has saved me from so many stupid purchases, so many stupid decisions is the whole idea of the person who's trying to get you to buy something is to get you into a frenzy where you think it's the last best deal. I mean, that's what advertising does.

That's what realtors do. That's what all sorts of people do. And you have to sort of say, nope, there actually is no last best deal. there's always going to be another deal. And if you're a person who's interested in investing, the whole idea that people trying to sell you the stock or whatever it is that you're investing in is to make you feel like it's the last best deal.

And so this for Frayne, there's no last best deal, has saved me so many wrong turns, especially around real estate, right? There's never going to be a better house than this. It's never going to be at this car. And you know what, there is? There's going to be another house and there's going to be another good deal.

So that's very, very centering. The second one piece of advice, I think I learned it from watching people around me and people now tell me it's one of the most distinctive characteristics about how I think about money is just to fight back against the Sun Cross fallacy and just to the cut your losses. I made a mistake. I made a financial mistake. Get out. Get out now. And so this has happened with real estate. I one time bought a house. I thought it was the right house. I was there for two years. I thought this is in the wrong place. And the house doesn't feel right to me for a bunch of different reasons. I have. had fixed it up and poured some real money into it. And I remember calling my friend saying, I'm selling this house. They'd all visited it. And they were like, how can you do that? And I said, because I made a mistake.

I'm out. And I may take a hit, but there's no point pouring more money into this pit. And so I think sunk cost goes across so many different financial decisions. And it goes into sort of job decisions as well. And so cutting your losses and the ability to openly say, I made a mistake, I own it. Hello world, I made a mistake. I own it. And then move on. I think with my children, I taught them that. And when I see them make wise decisions, financial decisions, I think, okay, that's one thing I taught them. Yeah. That second one is so powerful. And I think it's a lot harder than what you give yourself credit for because we are wired. Yeah. I mean, this is what the work of decision scientists would show you. We are wired to have some cost and love for just boring more money on our problems, thinking we're saving face, we can fix it. It is so common that to fight it is a discipline. But it's true about relationships too. Yeah. And it feels like in a way like you're going against yourself.

Absolutely. Because you had made this decision. You had done so many things following that decision to reinforce that that was the right decision. So then like changing and doing the opposite of that or reversing it. You're like, who am I? It's like almost like you have to. But it's a lot of a badass thing to do. Yeah. I mean, it really is. It's like to really own your mistake and publicly say to everybody, look, I made this mistake. I took the wrong job. I moved to the wrong city. I mean, you know, I invested in this wrong thing. I'm getting out. I'm getting out now. And I'm going to take my hit and I'm going to move right on with the lesson learned is so empowering. And the earlier you learn to do that, the better. It's really powerful. Yeah. And at the end of the day, I think when people see that, they respect you more for it, not less. And you actually sort of get this incredible kind of rush off of it. yourself saying like I did that because you realize how hard it is look it's all part of the wisdom project that's what I say about my mistakes I just gathering wisdom here wait I'm gonna I'm gonna adopt that I'm gonna it's great all part of the wisdom project right no covers up all your mistakes

I mean I and they are that is how I've got my wisdom not what I did right you know what I did wrong of which there's a long list and then okay last note about this I feel like that there's no last best deal I feel like that actually can also be applied to love and romance absolutely I I mean, absolutely, you, because when you think this might be the last guy or girl, you settle. Okay. And then you say, look, nobody else is coming along. I was friends with a woman. She was in a relationship for a really long time.

She was 55. And he was terrible to her. He was terrible to her. And I said, why are you staying? And she said, who else is there going to be? And she said, I just got to, he's going to be the best guy I can get. And it was, it was disaster to see the relationship. Well, I would go home to my husband and say, one day he's going to leave her for.

a younger woman and, you know, she should have cut her losses and so forth. And that is exactly what happened. And she actually now is happily found somebody else. And so it all worked out. It took a while. But we do this in relationships all the time. We say, look, I'm just not meeting that many other people. This is the last best deal.

If you're settling, as you have said before in the podcast, that never leads anywhere. It never leads anywhere good. It just does not. There's no last best deal. There's no last best deal. I'm going to be repeating this. It's great. We need a t-shirts, right.

It should be our mantra in the morning. We, like, wake up and look in the mirror. There's no last best deal. To ourselves. I love that. I love it. Should we jump into love? Yeah, let's jump into love.

You can ask me about love. Okay, I know that it's intensive. But, you know, I, you can go ahead and ask me about it. Don't be afraid. If you talk about money, power, and love, don't be afraid to ask me about it. It's okay. So, Susie, you and your late husband, Jack, Both had such storied careers in the professional realm.

I'm sure you get this, you know, this question a lot. And this was long before you got married. So how did you balance being partners in life while also collaborating on work on such a high level? Yeah, it was intense. Yeah. I mean, it was really intense because we lived together, loved together, raised the children together, and worked together. And the way we did it was we had very similar values. We talked constantly.

You've never met two chat, more chatty people than us. I mean, we were both very verbal. And so we could be talking about things all the time. We also knew our lanes. And this was huge. Like, I was never CEO of GE. I never managed 400,000 people. And he had never written a, you know, book after book after book.

He had never edited. He had never done a lot of the stuff that I knew how to do. And we agreed that we deeply, respected each other's areas of expertise and we let each other be good at what they were good at. And we believe that we would really learn from each other. And he had like the, I think what really helped was he had the deepest respect for me. He used to say to me all the time, you're the smartest person I've ever met. And I'd be like, that cannot possibly be true, Jack. And so he respected me and I really respected him. And that helped a lot. But, you know, I think that at the end of the day,

he had very high agency as a value. He was used to being a CEO. He drove every bus. He was in charge. And I have very low agency. I'm super collaborative. I am always kind of like I think every idea should be heard. I love consensus.

This is all kind of part of my personality. And I think it was very fortunate that he had high agency and I had low. I think in our marriage, had both of us been very high agency, it would have, there would would have been a slightly different story. And I just, I had this. technique when we disagreed, which is often shocking to other women when I mention it. I did it for a really long time. And then one time I mentioned it in passing and it freaked out the group of women I was with. So juicy. So when he started saying something that I really disagreed with, inside my head,

my mantra was, maybe he's right. And I didn't get my dukes up. And I didn't like start to disagree. I just thought maybe he's right. I'm just going to hear him out with the assumption he might be right. And so sometimes he'd come at me with like, really like, we're not going to X, Y, and Z vacation. I've changed my mind. We're taking the kids to blank. And my immediate visceral reaction would be something like, that's the worst idea I ever heard. It's wrong on so many levels. And then I would immediately transfer into maybe he's right.

And I would say, why do you say that? And I would have this very open mind about it. And then he would pour it all out and I would hear him. And sometimes he was right. But other times, because I had a really good attitude, non-defense attitude, about it, I would say, okay, well, here's where we differ. And I would go through the ways that we differed. And a lot of times, he would say, oh, God, I never thought of that, Susie. All right. But it was my lack of defensiveness that allowed those conversations to happen. And I think it feels like, you know,

okay, you know, to use a word that sets people's heads on fire, it sounds kind of surrendered, right? Like the surrendered wives are always like, whatever you say, dear, is right. But I just went in with the supposition that he loved me. I trusted him. He wanted what was right for us in the marriage and he'd never hurt me and that maybe he was right. And it's also, it's not like we didn't disagree, but when he came at me, I always started from a stance that I wanted to hear what he was saying. Wow. When I hear that, two things come to mind. One is like the immense amount of self-regulation. Because like the way that you described it, it's just like, of course, like everyone's first instinct to be like, what are you talking about? Well, also coming from,

person where like I feel like the three of us are often right. We we don't like you know yes posit our our opinions that are not well researched right right we're not impulsive people right right so yeah the self-regulation to like have that immediate thought and then to stop yourself yeah yeah yeah to bring like a new perspective and then I think the second thing is um assuming good intent yes I think that's so it's so deep and it's it's huge and it's huge, it's actually just as a life lesson changes everything. And I think I, I learned that a lot from Jack. He was really that way. Jack just, he, you know, that cliche, you know, strangers of friends you just haven't met. He totally thought the whole world was just waiting to be his friend.

He like went out into the world every day, like, where are all the friends I could meet? I remember going to a party one time where we didn't know anyone and he said, could anything be more exciting? And this was so his personality. And I agree. I like meeting people too. But assuming good intentions can change the trajectory of your life in your career. It can. And you know, sometimes you get burned. Sometimes people don't have good intentions. But many, many more times you end up having relationships and conversations that you

wouldn't have had if you went in with your dukes up. So, okay, Susie, you recently said on your podcast that you are ready to go on and write the next part of your story. Yeah. Do you remember saying that? Yeah. We're going to die for it. Okay, go for it.

Do you remember the next thing you said? I said I might go on a date. Yeah. I did it. Oh my God. You went on a date? Can we talk about it? Yeah.

Yeah. I think, you know, here's the terrible truth, right? The date reminded me about how much I love my husband. So it was... Is that terrible? Yeah. Okay. It's terrible.

Okay. Like, nothing to recommend widowhood, okay? But I would say that it... I had a couple of days afterwards where I was sad because he was a perfectly good guy. I'm a very nice guy. And actually, we had some things in common. Really, some things really in common. Like, we both, like, every single day, like, get the same...

feed from this devotional and we both read that one and so we had some serious things in common and it was a perfectly lovely conversation but sort of two hours into it

he said to me I do not think you're ready and I said yeah and he said I just don't think you're in a place in your life where you're ready for this are you ready? He said are you ready to be loved by a man besides Jack and I thought how astute

I thought like you know he's really smart and I said I actually don't know the answer that question. He said, well, why'd you give it some thought? Are you already friends? No, but we knew people in common. But he knew enough in those two hours because I actually realized that I referenced Jack like 30 times on the date.

And so it's kind of different when you've not been divorced, right? Because sometimes when you've been divorced, you're ready to start again and you're like turning the page. But for me, like, I lost the person I loved. So I did it. I did go on a date and I mean, I'm not adverse to another one. You know, not with that person because he's right. but I have this kind of this desire at my daughter's wedding to dance with somebody.

Yeah. Besides like my son, which is really, like I was at a wedding with him and Eva the other day. And like I know they don't want me dancing with them. They want to dance with each other. Like who wants mom in the group, right? And then I was at another wedding and I was there with my daughter and her husband. And they said, let's dance. And I said, I don't want to do that to you.

So I would kind of like to dance. So that's, it's not. like I want to get married again, but it would be fun to have somebody to dance with. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I love dancing. Yeah, and I like, so do I. Yeah. It's really. I miss that a I know. I know, I know, Jack and I used to dance all the time. Yeah. You want the, like, it was fun. It was fun. Yeah. It was really fun. Yeah. That I missed. Well, I mean, you did the brave thing. It felt brave. In fact, the morning of, I tried to cancel. Yeah. But I called the friend who did the fix up and I said, I think I got and she said, don't.

you can't do that. Not going to do that for you. And so I did it. As I was walking toward it and I saw him on the sidewalk, I was literally the inside my head out, I was saying like, turn around, leave, leave, leave, leave, run, run, run. I mean, it felt really brave.

I kind of hated it. But then the minute we said hello, I was like, I can have a conversation with anybody. Yes. I'm just going to do it. You sure can. Right. I didn't give him the values bridge.

I did not. But I, but I was doing it in my head. And, but I, so. I'm not adverse to it. It's not like I feel like, okay, never again. I'm never going to do that again. Because hope springs eternal. But I, you know, it's hard, right? Because I had a great, great, great marriage. I had a great, great marriage. And so it's like a very hard act to follow. Well, I hope you're proud of yourself. Thank you. Truly, it's kind of like you were saying before, it's gathering wisdom. Yes. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. I'll take that. Maybe I'll say I'm a little proud of myself. I mean, people have been, it's been six years, right? So people have been pushing me this towards this. I mean, I have a girlfriend. It was widowed recently. And like six months later, she went on her first date. And I was like, how are you doing that? And she said, you got to get out there, Susie. And I was like, you do? I mean, you're kind of building an empire now, too. So you have all these different, you know what I mean? I'm building a business. Okay. And I love building a business. I've always loved business so much and becoming you was kind of taken off in a way that is like, you know, started with me teaching this class. And next thing I know, there's like, you know, people doing it all around the world. And since the value. Bridge came out, May 6th, was released to 5, 66,000 people have taken it. That's the beginning of a business, wouldn't you say, right? And so, and we've got other great products that are coming down

the pike. And so I'm building something. Building is fun. Yeah. And talk about radius. Yeah. Right. Oh, absolutely. So many people. You know, you can get emails and DMs every single day from people who say, it changed my life this way, it fixed my life this way, did this for my son or whatever. And I'm like, oh my God. Yes. I'm addicted. I was just going to say that. We get those two. and it's an addicting feeling. It is. Like, it puts you in a flow rate. It's like a drug.

I can't stop doing this. Like, look, all these people are, I don't know, like relying on me sort of. And there's all these other people in the world that haven't been exposed to what we do and we can help them. It's unreal. It's the feeling of it. And when my kids say to me, you've got to take a day off, you've got to take a break, I say, I'm building something. Yeah. And they, and you get that or you don't.

I mean, it's important. It matters. It matters. Yes. I think it does. Yeah. But, I mean, this is like, one of the many reasons why I really admire you. And I almost feel like, I don't know, I feel like we're kindred spirits in some ways because there's just so many ways that you've reinvented yourself and you've done so many new things like throughout your whole life, like getting your PhD.

Yes. Yeah. In your 60s. Yes. That's incredible. Yeah. I think it's crazy. I don't understand it.

Well, first of all, reinvention comes sort of comes with the territory because the economy changes and the world changes and you change. And so, I mean, when I started working as a journalist, we were typing on. like standard, you know, manual typewriters. And you have to keep on reinventing yourself or you're just going to be passed by. And because one of my, because I have the values of achievement and scope, I didn't want that to happen to me. So I kept on, and also I just have a natural kind of personality. I'm an early adopter of technology.

Like I was like one of the first people bought a Blackberry back when there were Blackberries. I was like, this is so cool. Like, you know, and I, so I have that part of me. And I think there's weirdly a kind of fearlessness about how I approach the world. but I think that has actually increased a lot since Jack died, because when the worst thing in the world has happened to you, like what can scare you anymore? Yes.

And one thing that really helped me was when I was fired in my 40s from the Harvard Business Review, and it felt like a public death. I'd never been fired from anything in my life. Then I was fired, and it was reported in the Wall Street Journal. And then I didn't die. And people kind of came around and said, yeah, everybody gets fired. And you'll get over it.

And then two weeks later, Oprah's organization called me, He said, how'd you like to come work here? And I was like, oh, wait a minute. I kind of dig that a lot. And you realize that you could just die a thousand times in your career. And it's on you. You could just be reborn. And just to sort of say, yeah.

But you've got to have the ability to say, yeah, I got fired. I'm not going to try to. I didn't get laid off. I didn't like, and in fact, when I got fired, they said they were going to put out a press release that said that I resigned. And I said, don't do that. You're firing me. I want the truth. I'm going to tell the truth and so should you.

And I mean, I hope if there's anything, you know, that I've given other people the courage to say, look, it didn't work out and I got fired. And then I moved on. I love it when people are candid that way. So, you know, some of my reinvention was quite forced because I had no other choice. But I could have just opted out. And I just opted in. Oh, my God. You're so wise.

I'm so, I'm just absorbing everything. Like you were so, like, filling my cup. I'm so, I love being with you. Yeah. I'm so excited for your futures and you are just, the fact that you're doing this is beautiful. It's fantastic. Thanks so much, Susie. And so for our audience listening, what is the best way they can connect or find your content, your book?

Oh, hello. All right. So, I mean, there's Susie Welch altogether is my Instagram. I'm on LinkedIn. You can, and my podcast is called Becoming You. You can find it on all the platforms. forms and the book is everywhere books are sold and the values bridge is at the valuesbridge.com incredible it's susy with a z yeah s u z-s-y-y-y-y amazing thank you so much i love being here

you ever come to new york you've got to come be on my podcast yeah we'd have so much fun absolutely okay game i'm game yay yay