How You Actually Figure Out Who You Are with Suzy Welch

25:25And we finally validated it seven times and we let the, made it available to the public May 6th. And since then, 100 ,000 people have taken it, which is very exciting. And I think it does a marvelous job in separating people from their identity, which is what gets in the way or gets in the way of talking about what our real values are. it rank orders your values from one to 16. It has 94 % efficacy. So I'm super proud about that because I'm not woo-woo, as I said earlier, and I wanted a really good test. I've seen so many different reactions to the test where people will say, this can't possibly be my values.

25:55And I would say, okay, why don't you go join the support group for people who say this can't be your values, because it really are your values. And then they come around and they say, okay, these are my values. I'm not living them or I don't like them. So that's a long answer to say, how do you find your values, you have to be expertly tested on them because self-reporting does not work. Because I literally, one of my biggest problems was I would ask my students, I have 16 values in my inventory. Alport Strang has 19 and Schwartz has 17, but I have 16. So I say, here are your values. And I literally would have my students kind of rank order them based on the exercises.

26:29And then I would see them manually move the values around because, oh God, I couldn't possibly have family centrism at 11. What an ass I am. But the facts are, it was at 11. And so you kind of have to trick yourself into understanding what your true values are. That's the answer. And what if you do a frank and honest analysis, and you find out that your values suck? I mean, there are people who have values that suck. So then what? Well, they suck in what way? The thing is, I'm a values agnostic. If your values are not hurting anybody, your values are your values. We're not talking about virtues here.

27:04Everyone should have virtues. Everyone should have more fairness, kindness, goodness, decency, courage. Those are virtues. I'm not in that business. I have an esteemed colleague, John. He's in the business of virtues. I don't do research into virtues and I don't talk about them. Everyone should have more of the virtues. I'm talking about values, which are choices about how you organize your life. And if you're not hurting anybody, you should have exactly the values you want. And we should all be able to talk about. So let's take the value of work centrism, which is how much you will use work to organize your life.

27:35Okay. And so I happen to have very high work centrism. I like work for work's sake. I have very low eudaimonia, which is self-care. I don't give a damn how I feel or look, whatever. And so I don't want to pick on people who have lower work centrism. If I did that, I wouldn't talk to any of my own children. And I don't want to be picked on for having high work centrism. This is a value. I want work to organize my life. It's not better or worse. This is not the 1800s where like how industrious you were was a virtue. And so your values only suck if you're hurting somebody with them. Okay? So you could have very low belovedness.

28:10That's the value for how much a partnered relationship matters to you. By the way, since you're a man, I can tell you right now you have much higher value of belovedness than most women do because that's what the data is showing us. But let's take the value of belovedness. That's the value you place. That's how much you want to organize your life around an intimate partnered relationship. If you're in a partnered relationship with somebody, if you have low belovedness and your partner is high belovedness, they're probably feeling a lot of pain. Okay. But if you're not in a partnered relationship, by all means, have low belovedness.

28:41It doesn't affect anybody. You can live your life the way you want it to, be James Bond, travel around the world, whatever. I think you've got to think about your values in the ecosystem. If you're not hurting anyone with your values, who are we to judge? Well, yeah, but first of all, just for clarity, you said that men have a higher degree of belovedness. You can't believe it. Yeah, I can't believe it either. No, I know. I mean, and some of the data is shocking around belovedness. We're just replicating it right now to make sure we're right because, and I think we are, because we cut it by profession and by gender.

29:16And we're finding out some very interesting things. And what if your values are hurting people? Then what? I mean, you know, if you're a fascist dictator, your values are hurting people, right? Well, those aren't values. I don't think those would be around a fascist dictator. Those are politics. I mean, values are things like how big a life do you want? That would be scope. What value do you place on a personal relationship? That's belovedness. How much do you want work to organize your life? The one thing about the values bridge is it's for normal, healthy people. It doesn't take into account people who have psychoses or psychological issues.

29:49So if a fascist dictator took it, that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about people who are trying to figure out how to balance a lot of things that they want all at the same time. Yeah, they need Susie Wells volume two, which is unbecoming you. But yeah, right.

30:06Oh, don't suggest that to my publisher, please. I think that people definitely look at their values and sometimes say, oh, my God, look at my values. I don't want to be this person. And then the conversation is, well, why not? That's the person you are. How did it happen? And so that's a separate conversation. Most people look at their values and they say, oh my God, this is so me. And then the next thing I ask them to look at is the data that shows how close or far they are from living their values. And a lot of times they're very far away and that hurts. Okay. Enough about values. I'm exhausted.

30:39So now - I know, I tell you, I have that effect on people. Let's talk about aptitude now. Okay. First of all, define an aptitude for me. There's two different kinds of aptitudes. The first aptitude is pretty easy to understand. It's cognitive. It's like, it's your wiring. It's pretty set by the time you're 15. Are you a generalist or a specialist? Are you a diagnostic problem solver or a fact checker? This is our intellectual proclivities about how we do work, organize information, think. And there's 50 aptitudes that could be tested. I focus on six big ones, like are we 3D visualizers or abstract thinkers?

31:16Because it's very painful to be a person who is a future focuser, which is one of the aptitudes, in a job that rewards people who are present focusers, people who like to-do lists and tasks. And if you're in a job that needs you to be focused on the big, hairy, audacious goal and you're a to-do list person, that's painful. So aptitudes are your inborn cognitive proclivities. And you can lean into them or you can lean away from them. But just like, you know, it's much more comfortable to write with your dominant hand your whole life, isn't it? If you want to sign your name with your dominant hand, your cognitive aptitudes are like the dominant hand of your brain.

31:52You're either a specialist or a generalist. You're either a brainstormer or an idea contributor. And so there's just a bunch of different pillars of your brain you should be aware of what comes most naturally to you. It doesn't mean you're perfect at it. It just means you get better at them more easily. But can't aptitudes develop? To take a surfing analogy, 10 years ago, I sucked as a surfer. Today, I suck a lot less. I would not say I have a natural aptitude for surfing, but by sheer determination, I have made progress. I'm not saying that there's any reason not to lean into the stuff you're not as good at and work relentlessly to get better at it.

32:32But you're not a professional surfer, are you? No. I wouldn't think you made your career in the stuff that you have to relentlessly work on. So look, I have worked for 30 years to be a better golfer. I started off mediocre and now I'm slightly better than mediocre. I love the game. I play it as much as I can. I love it. But for me, it's hard work to be good at golf. When I make a putt, this is a reason to cry softly into my hands because it's such an achievement of hard work. One of my four children was born a professional golfer. picked up a club and we just looked at him and he was doing things like at six years old that the pro at the club said to us, we can't teach what your kid has.

33:15Okay. Which one of us guys should become a professional golfer? I'm not saying don't do anything that you don't have an aptitude in. I'm just saying it's a hobby. All right. If you're not good at it. And I'd say like, you want to build a thriving, successful career, play to your strengths. But of course, when you start to lead, you got to use all of your aptitudes and you've got to work on the ones you're not as good at, but you're better off and it's a lot less painful. I mean, the number of times I've had students or people come to me and say, I just found out for the past 15 years, I've been a specialist in a generalist job.

33:49No wonder I can't get ahead. This is data we need to know about ourselves. And yet a lot of times we back into it and we find out the hard way when we get fired. You know what I mean? It's good to know what you're good at. Up next on Remarkable People. But I would just say a lot of people go into consulting because it's the path of least resistance. It's got the most money and there's a conveyor belt right into it. I do have a little bit of a problem with people being consultants before they've actually lived life. Like I always had like a little uh-oh that like we had 24-year-old consultants telling 55-year-old plant managers what to do.

34:24I was like, yeah, you've never had a bead of sweat on your forehead. And so this is making me uncomfortable. So you're right. You're right. I'm not consulting the biggest friend. And I see the place for it and so forth, but I think there's other things if we just open our eyes to them.

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36:08Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki. All right, so now backing up a little bit, let's talk about the roadblocks to finding this intersection of values, aptitude and economic viability. What stands in our way from getting to it? Well, I think there's four big, I call them the four horsemen of purpose destruction. I think there's four big dynamics that get in the way, get between us and our purpose. And the first one is expectations. We build a life around what's expected of us. And that can be expected of us by our parents, our society, our culture, our time, our generation, our partner, or ourselves.

36:52Sometimes we are our own worst enemy saying like, I had a student one time who just every single time she did the methodology, it came out she should be a Roomba teacher. And she did it three times and I kept on saying Roomba teacher. And finally, she came to my office hours. She was in complete tears. And she said, why does it keep telling me this? And I said, I don't know. You keep putting the data in and that's where it comes out. And she said, I can't be a Roomba teacher. I have an MBA. And I was like, well, I'm not sure there's legislation that actually prevents that, but okay. But these were her own expectations about what she was going to do with her MBA.

37:19She went off to be a consultant. Okay. So I'll hear from her in a few years. So there's expectations and they're real. And people live their whole lives for other people. And then it's like the great talking head song. You wake up and you say, what is this beautiful house? What is this beautiful life? My God, what have I done? And I play that song for my students and they have no idea who the talking heads are and I feel old. So there's expectations. Then there's expedience. And a lot of times we don't live our purpose because it's so hard. It's just easier. It's easier not to live your values sometimes because they create friction or they create change or they piss off people who love you.

37:56They don't want you living your non-sibby so much because it gets in the way of how much time you spend with the family or whatever. So there's expedience and a reduction of friction. Then there's life events where you get fired or you have a baby or somebody gets sick or you get sick and it just floats you away from the life you were supposed to live because you were just trying to get by and you had your head down, just getting through one day at a time. And I had that for decades because I had four young children. I was working full time. I wasn't thinking about my purpose. I was thinking about survival.

38:27And I'm a lucky person. I'm a privileged person. And I was still thinking about just getting through the days. And then there's finally economic security and behavioral economics as well as I do, which basically boils down to the fact that we make decisions based on a number, even if we don't care about wealth. So we'll say, I'm going to take this job because it pays more, even though the job that pays less is absolutely immediately upon a purpose. And we'll do it even if affluence just doesn't matter to us because we're wired to prefer hard data and numbers are hard data. So virtually everything gets in the way of us living our purpose.

39:03You know what I mean? It's like life is set up for, the world's coming for our purpose. And you have to fight, to paraphrase the Beastie Boys, you have to fight for your right to live your purpose. It's hard. One of the things that I noticed reading your book is you sure seem to have a negative attitude towards becoming a consultant. Like over and over. Over and over. He said, yeah, he became a consultant. I knew that wouldn't last. That's right. Okay, so let me explain myself. You're not wrong. Look, here's my problem. McKinsey's never going to sponsor my podcast. No, they're not. No, but look, I have so many friends at McKinsey, but there's a conveyor belt into consulting from business school.

39:39and you've got some of the brightest, shiniest minds. And then the consulting firms come and they paint this picture of like Nirvana, of like the Holy Land. And oh, they offer more money than the kids can have ever seen. And they've got a lot of debt and they get on the conveyor belt. And consulting is great for some people, but it shouldn't be taking 80 % of a class of MBAs because there's other wonderful things they could and should be doing if they just got off the conveyor belt. So, look, I worked at Bain for seven years. I loved it there. I still have good friends there. And it is a great firm, which I would recommend if you needed consulting.

40:16But I would just say a lot of people go into consulting because it's the path of least resistance. It's got the most money. And there's a conveyor belt right into it. I do have a little bit of a problem with people being consultants before they've actually lived life. Like I always had like a little, Oh, that like we had 24 year old consultants telling 55 year old plant managers what to do. I was like, yeah, you've never, you've never had a bead of sweat on your forehead. And so this is making me uncomfortable. So you're right. You're right. I'm not consulting's biggest friend. I see the place for it and so forth, but I think there's other things if we just opened our eyes to them.

40:49Well, I would say that the way you feel about consultants is how I feel about venture capitalists, that people want to go in to become venture capitalists and they've never started a company. They've never run a company. They've just been cranking Excel spreadsheets their whole life. That's right. They like the identity stuff around. They like saying they're a VC. Just like a lot of people love saying they want to be an entrepreneur. I get a lot of students who say to me, Professor Welch, I just want to be an entrepreneur. And I say, that's fantastic. What's your idea? And then they'll say this, they'll say something in tech.

41:20And I say, anything beyond that? And I, and they say, no, no, no. And I say, okay, well, I can't wait till you have your idea. But they love the identity of being an entrepreneur. And they don't understand that part of that identity is not sleeping at all for years on end. You should tell those people to be consultants, but anyways. They don't sleep either. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about this conveyor belt consulting. So if I'm a college graduate, recent college graduate, or about to graduate from college, what is your advice about your first few jobs out of college? Well, number one, you got to go into them with a grain of salt, knowing that there'll be a fantastic story down the road.

42:04I do think that I wouldn't take a first job without knowing what my values and aptitudes were, because you can just waste so much time. That's where the most boneheaded detours occur at the beginning of your career because you use your first few jobs to figure out your values and aptitudes when you don't have to. There's tests that exist and you can do it and find out. So like I had a student one time who after the semester is over got office hours. That's unusual after because the grading is done. So she got office hours and she said, I'm going into investment banking. I don't know if you remember this, but my top value was family centrism.

42:35My second value was belonging. And then she listed off her aptitudes and I said, what are you doing? And she said, yeah, it doesn't really make sense, does it? And I said, no, not really. And she said, well, I'm just gonna make some money. And then in a few years, I'm gonna start having my family. And I was like, why, why, why, why, why? Because those are really good years that you didn't have to blow at a place that you were never gonna like or even love or even like. And so I think if you're about to graduate from college, you can't know anything about the world coming for you, but you can know about yourself.

43:05You've got to paint a portrait, a self-portrait of yourself standing still before you start running. So you know what to run towards instead of being all willy-nilly. Like your father's co-worker's uncle has a job at St. Louis in a small consulting firm. And you're like, there's a job. I'm going. And I get it. But I would not advise that. Yeah. It's better to reconcile with her father and go into the appliance business, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. As a story from my book, it proves it absolutely does. Sometimes you have to do that hard work, but he couldn't have done it unless he had actually done the work of understanding who he truly was.

43:44All right. So now more advice. What do you say when people say that achieving work-life balance is very important to me? It is to them, but you can't make the assumption it is to the person you're talking to. 20 to 30 year old person. I say, okay, I just hope affluence isn't a very high value of yours. I think that work-life balance has consequences. And if you are willing to accept those consequences, then that's great. I think you've got to understand that two things. Number one is everybody does not have the same definition of balance. There's a great video going around of Jensen Huang being asked about his work-life balance.

44:22And he said, I think I love my balance. I work all the time. And the audience laughed. But that's his work-life balance. And I would say my work-life balance is probably pretty close to that, sort of 99-1. 99 % work, 1%. And I feel perfectly balanced. I don't have any negativity about my balance. But you might look at it and say, yeah, I want it to be exactly the opposite. 99 % surfing, 1 % working. And I would say power to you. That's your balance. I think the one thing we have to understand about whatever balance equation we settle into, we just have to be understanding that there's no perfect solution.

44:59Every single one of them has consequences. My students often take the values bridge, the test, and they'll come out with their number one value being what we call eudaimonia, which is self-care. Okay, self-care, pleasure, leisure, personal flourishing. And their second value will be affluence, money, being rich. That happens all the time. And then they'll come down to the front of the room after class and they'll say to me very sheepishly, Professor Welch, my number one value is eudaimonia, self-care. And to affluence, is that a problem? And I'll say, do you promise not to shoot the messenger?

45:30And they say, well, what? And I'll say, look, I didn't make the rules. Okay. But I'm going to tell you what the rules are because I'm old. And the rules are, unless you're spectacularly good at what you do, having a huge amount of fun and taking care of yourself and putting yourself and your pleasure and leisure first and making a huge boatload of money is actually quite difficult. For mere mortals, you may be the one person who does it, but don't go into it thinking you were going to be that person. Who is in the Susie Welch Hall of Fame for becoming themselves? who's fully living in their area of transcendence, I would say I can list a couple of people.

46:11I think Jamie Dimon is. And one time I was giving a speech, JP Morgan, and he was giving the speech after me and he was standing in the back of the room. And after I was done sort of explaining the whole thing and took questions from the audience, he went up next and the person who was interviewing him said, Jamie, you just heard Susie Welch describe area of transcendence. Are you in yours? And he said, damn straight or hell yes, I am. And so I would say that he is. And I'm lucky enough to know him personally as well. And I think he's a person who's fully living his purpose. He's living his values, his aptitudes and his interests full on, 100%.

46:40I would say another example would be a woman named Kitty Block. She's the CEO of Humane World for Animals. That's formerly Humane Society. And she's a person who is living every value and every aptitude and every interest completely fully. So I bump into them. We call these people transcendence. I think I am right now too. If somebody asked me that question, I would have said Jane Goodall and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Yeah, I would say they both are. You can feel it. You can feel it off of people. They're doing the work they should be doing and the work they want to be doing. And they're so darn good at it.

47:12I'd put them there too. And my last question is, it's actually stolen from you. But, you know, part of what I learned from Steve Jobs is you got to, it's a talent to know what to steal from people. So I'm giving you that caveat. I'm stealing this question from you. Who, Susie Welch, would you trade lives with? Well, the good thing about that exercise in the book is that it allows you to name four or five people. So you don't have to come down to just one. And I would say the reason why we do that is because we also allow you to throw out something. But I really admire, I admire Hoda Kotebe. I love what she does with her life.

47:53I think she does so much good for people. And I love her joyous energy. I think Mary Erdos, who's the vice chairman of JP Morgan, is a huge idol of mine. She is a great leader. I think I admire tremendously Martha Stewart and her resilience and the company that she's built, the growth and jobs she's created for people by remaining completely true to herself. I've always been a huge admirer of Oriana Fallaci, who is no longer with us, who was an Italian journalist who lived completely according to her own values and aptitudes and interests long before it was okay for a woman to do that. So I have that collection of people, But honestly, I kind of love my life.

48:30And so I'm sticking with it. I didn't exactly hear you mention any of the tech bros from Silicon Valley there. Yeah, no, I actually did not throw their names in there. That's true. You know, I'm not of Silicon Valley the way you are. And so they are not the first people that come to my mind kind of out here in New York. And so maybe I'm going to use that as my excuse. Susie, believe me, they are not the first people who come to my mind. Yeah. When that question is asked, don't worry about it. All right, Susie Welch, thank you so much. Let me get your book again. Hold it up. Here. This is Susie Welch's book, Becoming You.

49:09And the next book is going to be Unbecoming You. I look forward to that book. That might have a bigger market. Oh, man, it might. That's scary to think of. Oh, Susie Wells, thank you very much for being on my podcast. Well, you're great. And thank you for having me on. It's so fun to talk to you. So I would need to thank the Remarkable People team, which is Madison Neismar. There's Tessa Neismar, who does the research for us. There's Jeff C., who's co-producer. And Shannon Hernandez, who's our sound design engineer. So that's it. And that's the Remarkable People team. And we all want to reach out.

49:50And thank you, Susie, for being on our podcast. Thank you for having me.

49:57This is Remarkable People.