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The Cure for Nihilism with professor Suzy Welch | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

Sometimes in life, we choose the wrong path. When we feel like we're living a lie, it's hard to know what to do next. That’s where Suzy Welch comes in. She’s obsessed with helping people create lives worth living. A professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Suzy teaches a popular class called “Becoming You,” where she takes students down a brutal, but liberating, journey to live as their authentic selves. According to Suzy’s research, purpose is the key to unlocking the real you, but finding that purpose is often trickier than we imagine. I had a blast talking, and debating, with Suzy about what it means to craft a purpose-driven life. In this conversation, she shares with me the difference between passion and aptitude, the reason luck is overrated, and why so many people struggle to know their own values. To learn more about Suzy and her work, check out: her book, https://www.suzywelch.com/books/ and https://www.suzywelch.com/podcasts/ + + + Simon is an unshakable optimist. He believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together. Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Simon has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. Simon is the author of multiple best-selling books including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together is Better, and The Infinite Game. + + + Website: http://simonsinek.com/ Live Online Classes: https://simonsinek.com/classes/ Podcast: http://apple.co/simonsinek Instagram: https://instagram.com/simonsinek/ Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/simonsinek/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonsinek Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonsinek Simon’s books: The Infinite Game: https://simonsinek.com/books/the-infinite-game/ Start With Why: https://simonsinek.com/books/start-with-why/ Find Your Why: https://simonsinek.com/books/find-your-why/ Leaders Eat Last: https://simonsinek.com/books/leaders-eat-last/ Together is Better: https://simonsinek.com/books/together-is-better/ + + + #SimonSinek

Suzy WelchguestSimon Sinekhost
May 6, 202535mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 0:35

    From banking to fashion: a student’s purpose breakthrough

    1. SW

      I had a student, he was in banking. He was living his parents' values, not his own. Just as he had long suspected he was an artist in banking. Well, his interests really were beautiful women and fashion. And he said, "My purpose, my area of transcendence is to dress Kim Kardashian." When he first said it, the class like burst into laughter. They thought he was joking, and he said, "No, I'm not kidding. I'm gonna make the clothing that make women impossible not to look at. I've been living a lie." So I said to him, "What are your parents gonna say?" And he said, "They're probably gonna say at last, because I've been miserable for 10 years." [upbeat music]

  2. 0:35 – 4:27

    Suzy’s path to teaching: grief, return to work, and the NYU class idea

    1. SS

      Here's a story. A smart, hardworking person spends years of their life chasing an ambitious goal. They structure their life, career, and identity around this one particular outcome, only to realize it was never really what they wanted. That's where Suzy Welch comes in. Suzy has lived many lives. Broadcast journalist, best-selling author, consultant, and now professor of the class Becoming You at NYU's Stern School of Business. Her students learn what it means to become their most authentic selves. Becoming You is also the name of Suzy's podcast and new book. I had a blast talking with Suzy about what it takes to create a purpose-driven life, and why sometimes it takes a midlife or even a quarter-life crisis for people to find the path they want and need to be on. This is A Bit of Optimism. Suzy, I, I have heard so much about you.

    2. SW

      I've heard so much about you.

    3. SS

      How long have you been teaching?

    4. SW

      Uh, four years.

    5. SS

      So what made you wake up in the morning and say, "You know what? Think I'd like to teach"?

    6. SW

      It would've been beautiful if that's had how it had gone. What had happened was I'd had a long, and many would say, successful career in broadcast journalism, and then I had run a tech, uh, startup, and then my husband got very sick, and I had to pull back on my work to take care of him. And then he died, and I actually went to the woods of Upstate New York with my children. It was during the pandemic. And in fact, I thought I'd never work again, and my actual thought was, "I will never actually return to the world again." I was gonna stay up in the woods and walk my dogs for the rest of my [chuckles] life. And that felt like logic at the time. I now can look back, it was five years ago, and I could think, "Oh, that was grief." But it felt like a great deal of logic. And so in the middle of this, I was lost. And then, uh, uh, thanks, um, to the goodness of Hoda Kotb, I had sort of an intervention where they called and asked me to come back on the Today Show. And I went back on and I n- had this realization. I'm thinking, "Oh my God. I must return to the world." So being back at work was this incredible gift, and I was like, "I'm-- I've got to be back at work. I, I actually, I actually can't stay in the woods." I had this idea for this class about, the class that eventually did become Becoming You, about how to think about your life more intentionally. And right in that moment, in this act of incredible, uh, I, I don't know what it was. Uh, y- I happen to believe in God, so I'm gonna say it was that, but, uh, I understand that others might not. But this incredible thing happened where a friend wrote me and he said, "Hey, I'm just checking in on you. By the way, I'm teaching at NYU Stern right now," and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I stared at it. Like, I stared at that email, like, and my... I had a physical reaction. Like, my body was like, "Ah, that is it. That is the purpose I was waiting for." So I jotted some notes down about what this class might be. Now, I had gone to business school myself. I understood what a business school curriculum was. I understood what you learn and you don't learn. So I found my way into the office of the dean of NYU Stern Business School because, uh, we had mutual connections and because I've been swimming in this world for 40 years. And I described the class to him, and he said, "You know, we don't have that class." I said, "I know. I looked at the s- curriculum." And he said, "Well, do you think you could create that class?" And I said, "We-- I could try."

    7. SS

      Yeah.

    8. SW

      And I did, and we thought we'd try it as an experiment, and the next thing you know, it kinda, uh, was very popular, and-

    9. SS

      Mm

    10. SW

      ... it took off. And they came to me and said, "Look, we'd like you to teach this many more times this semester."

    11. SS

      Yeah.

    12. SW

      "And, um, we're wondering if you'll join the faculty."

    13. SS

      Well-

    14. SW

      And I did, and that's why I teach both management and that class, so...

  3. 4:27 – 5:50

    Two myths about purpose: it’s not easy and it’s not “woo-woo”

    1. SS

      So what I'm so curious about is, is what are the misperceptions that people have about what it means to l- live a life with purpose, on purpose, becoming their full self? W- I'm just so curious what the big misperceptions are of the journey-

    2. SW

      Okay

    3. SS

      ... that you take them on.

    4. SW

      Two gigantic misperceptions. [sniffs] One is they think the journey's gonna be easy. They just need somebody to sort of tell them what to do. It's a very hard journey. The second is that it's woo-woo, that it's new age-y, that it's kinda soft and fuzzy, and you're gonna sort of float to your purpose, whereas in fact, this is the hardest work of our lives, is painting our self-portrait. Well, guess what? Uh, as the great philosopher since the beginning of time would tell us, knowing yourself is the hardest thing to know.

    5. SS

      Yeah.

    6. SW

      And so I take them on this journey that's brutal, frankly. The nickname for my class, Simon, the nickname for my class is the class where everyone cries, okay?

    7. SS

      [laughs]

    8. SW

      Um, [laughs] and you know, look, the biggest crybaby is me because they're up there telling their stories. At the last capstone of the class is they get up and they tell the story of their lives, the narrative of their lives for the next 40 years.

    9. SS

      Wow.

    10. SW

      They tell the story of what their lives will be. You know, there's not a dry eye in the house. I mean, people are sobbing, and I am sobbing in the back row trying to p- keep it together. Because when people are invited to figure out what their purpose is, and then they discover it, which happens in my class every semester, they're liberated.

    11. SS

      Yeah.

    12. SW

      Uh, they're free to go run in the right direction. Is there anything more emotional?

  4. 5:50 – 6:39

    How you know you’ve found it: purpose as a felt, embodied experience

    1. SS

      Yeah. When did you learn yours?

    2. SW

      About age 60. I've always been in the neighborhood of it. The day I stepped into the classroom to teach Becoming You and I saw what was happening in front of my eyes, and I saw, um, all of my valuesAll of my aptitudes and all of my interests in the same moment all converging in teaching students, I, I could have levitated. And sometimes when I'm teaching, I think I am levitating. I'm so happy.

    3. SS

      Yeah.

    4. SW

      I feel exquisitely alive. And people sometimes say to me, "How will I know if I'm living my purpose?" It's like, that's sort of like asking, uh, if you know when you're in love. You know-

    5. SS

      Yeah

    6. SW

      ... when you're in love 'cause your body tells you.

    7. SS

      Practically speaking-

    8. SW

      Yeah

    9. SS

      ... what specific things changed in these people's lives-

    10. SW

      Yes

    11. SS

      ... the decisions they made, very practical, very specific-

    12. SW

      Oh

    13. SS

      ... after your class?

  5. 6:39 – 7:58

    The Becoming You method: values-first excavation and why most people don’t know theirs

    1. SW

      Oh my God, do we have 17 hours? Um, so look, I do this excavation process. It's a 13-step process. They do, uh, seven exercises to uncover their values. I mean, no one knows their values. I've conducted research. I-

    2. SS

      Yeah

    3. SW

      ... I had long suspected that people d- didn't know their values. And so once I finally got onto the faculty at NYU and I had the NYU research apparatus at my hands, I conducted research. Guess, Simon, how many people actually can identify with any kind of specificity their values?

    4. SS

      I would venture a guess to say 10%.

    5. SW

      7%. Very good. That's the best guess I've ever gotten. Usually people are sort of all over the place. 7%, and we did a large study, double blind, blah, blah, blah. 7% of people. Usually people sort of name virtues. Um, they name skills. They don't even know what values are. Why? We are never taught values. We're taught the volume of a cylinder in high school, but we're not taught what a value is or how-

    6. SS

      Yeah

    7. SW

      ... important it is. So I think that there's 15 human values. That's part of my own research, the Welsh Bristol Values Inventory. If you'd like to read my PhD thesis, I'll send it right to you. But I do believe that there's 15 human values. Well, uh, please read it. I mean, then you'd, then there'd be two people who read it, you and me.

    8. SS

      [laughs]

    9. SW

      And my thesis advisors. [laughs] And, uh, and, and we have different levels of these s- 15 values, and you can come out of this process with a list of your own-

    10. SS

      Yeah

  6. 7:58 – 10:08

    Real outcomes: blowing up careers vs. making targeted tweaks

    1. SW

      ... ranked. I would say 50% of the students take TNT to their lives and completely change their careers. I had a student, he was in banking. I mean, I can tell you a million stories. Let's take him. He was, he was brought up to be a banker. He came from a family of bankers. He went to London. He worked in banking for five years. He went through the process. He found out he was living his parents' values, not his own, nothing like his own. Figured out what his values were. We did a lot of testing. He found out his aptitudes. Oops, just as he had long suspected, he was an artist in banking, okay?

    2. SS

      Yeah.

    3. SW

      And then he found out his interests. Well, his interests really were beautiful women and fashion, okay? And he was in banking. He stood up in front of the class to tell the story of his life going forward, and he said, "My purpose, my area of transcendence," as we call it, "is to dress Kim Kardashian." When he first said it, the class like burst into laughter. They thought he was joking, and he said, "No, I'm not kidding. I'm gonna make the clothing that make women impossible not to look at. I've been living a lie." And he totally blew up everything. I was standing in the back of the class like waiting for his parents to call the dean to say, "You must fire this professor 'cause she just blew up my son's life." So I said to him, "What are your parents gonna say?" And he said, "They're probably gonna say at last, because I've been miserable for 10 years." And I had a student, uh, who was in consulting. Miserable, miserable, miserable. After she went through this entire process, she decided to go into business in Denver with her sister. Her parents had been immigrants, uh, from Jamaica. They'd come over. They had cleaned office buildings at night, okay? There's a whole army of beautiful people who do this in New York City. Her parents had been two of those people. They saw how corrupt the business was, how many layers there were, how the people who were doing the cleaning were constantly getting ripped off. And after she went through this process, she left management consulting, and she and her sister started a company that actually, right now, they're trying to transform the entire office building cleaning. It's called Sisters Cleaning Service, and they're trying to reinvent this business so that more of the money falls down to the people actually cleaning the toilets, okay?

    4. SS

      Love.

    5. SW

      Uh, love. Love her, love her sister.

    6. SS

      Love.

    7. SW

      And they want to have a very small service-

    8. SS

      So, so basically what you're doing is amplifying passion.

    9. SW

      Yes, I think I am identifying it, okay?

    10. SS

      Yeah.

    11. SW

      Because a lot of people don't know their passion.

    12. SS

      Yeah.

    13. SW

      They don't. They're in search of it.

    14. SS

      Yeah.

  7. 10:08 – 10:41

    Passion isn’t enough: aligning interests with aptitudes and values

    1. SW

      Now, a lot of times people have passion, and I don't want them to do it, and they shouldn't do it because they don't have the aptitudes. That's why I talk about purpose, because I think that y- your, your values are part of your passion. That's what you really believe in. Your interests are sort of part, or your interests are part of your passion.

    2. SS

      Yeah.

    3. SW

      But we do this middle work, which is what you can actually do, okay? You may wanna be a singer, but if you don't have Mariah Carey's voice for-

    4. SS

      Right

    5. SW

      ... get it. Okay, so I strongly, uh, it wouldn't be my process-

    6. SS

      Yeah, a, a passion for something and a talent for something are not the same thing.

    7. SW

      No, but you gotta have the overlap.

    8. SS

      Yeah. Yeah.

    9. SW

      And it's gotta match your values also.

    10. SS

      Yeah.

    11. SW

      And I'm-

  8. 10:41 – 12:54

    The PIE theory of sustained success: relationships, ideas, execution (not luck)

    1. SS

      I've always believed that, like the, the sort of this zero sum formula for success, which is, uh, talent, uh, plus hard work plus luck, right? Like, like winning the lottery is all luck, n- no hard work, no talent, and it works. You see people who they work so, so hard and they're talented, but they just can't get a break, you know?

    2. SW

      Can I give you a different construct?

    3. SS

      Please.

    4. SW

      I'm gonna give you another theory and see what you think about it. I've been testing it for many, many years, and I've tested it on every successful person I've ever talked to, and I like my theory. So here it is. I, I call it the pie theory of long-term success. Okay, we're talking about sustained success because frankly, luck is a wash. You'll have good luck and you'll have bad luck, okay?

    5. SS

      For sure.

    6. SW

      All right, so here's my theory. Let's take luck out of it because luck cancels itself out over time, all right? The chances of your long-term su- sustained success are a function of three things, P-I-E. The quality of your relationships with people, how good you are to people, how well you listen, how trustworthy you are, how deep you are with people, how authentic. Okay, so P, the quality of your relationships with people. That's number one.

    7. SS

      Mm-hmm.

    8. SW

      Then there's I, ideas. The quality of your ideas, how original your ideas are, or how much you champion other people's ideas.

    9. SS

      Mm-hmm.

    10. SW

      I, ideas, okay? So how smart you are or how, how much you s- can relate to a customer that you can feel their pain and come up with an idea. And then the third is E, and that's execution, and it's whether or not you get s-Can I swear on this show?

    11. SS

      Yeah.

    12. SW

      Uh, uh, whether you get shit done, okay? It's like whether you get stuff done, do you do what you say you're gonna do? Do you finish what you start? It's really a matter of integrity in many ways, okay? That E. Because the world is just suffers, uh, the, the, with these people who say they're gonna do things who don't walk the talk, okay? So at the end of the day, your long-term success as a human being, as a leader, as a business person, as a friend, as a mother, as a lover, as everything-

    13. SS

      Yeah

    14. SW

      ... is a function of the quality of your relationships with people, the quality of your ideas, and the quality of your execution. Luck has nothing to do with it.

    15. SS

      Yeah.

    16. SW

      'Cause luck cancels itself out. That's my theory.

  9. 12:54 – 14:23

    Debating luck: timing vs. agency in Simon’s TEDx story

    1. SS

      I wanna go back to that luck idea. You know, luck has definitely been a part of my journey.

    2. SW

      Yeah.

    3. SS

      You know, I gave my first, my TEDx talk-

    4. SW

      Yeah

    5. SS

      ... the one that went viral, at a time when there weren't that many TEDx talks.

    6. SW

      Right.

    7. SS

      So if I were to do it today when there's literally tens of thousands a year, you know, there's no way that that, that that talk would've, that that talk would've popped and went viral like it did. There's just no way.

    8. SW

      I disagree. I disagree.

    9. SS

      Was it done in a time where there was a lot less competition [laughs] ?

    10. SW

      I... Okay, that's very humble of you, okay? Humble. But you know what? It was a fricking great idea. That's why it went viral.

    11. SS

      I mean, yes, it's a great idea. Thank you. But there... Given the quantity of TEDx talks that are out now, there are other great ideas that people are talking about-

    12. SW

      Right

    13. SS

      ... around the world, and they just don't go viral like they did when I did mine-

    14. SW

      Okay

    15. SS

      ... which was just a matter of timing.

    16. SW

      Yeah, but-

    17. SS

      It just was

    18. SW

      ... okay, I'm just gonna push back more, okay? 'Cause I don't... When my students come to me and say, "It's all luck. I wanna give up," I don't like-

    19. SS

      I didn't say it was all luck

    20. SW

      Okay.

    21. SS

      I didn't say it was all luck.

    22. SW

      But you captured-

    23. SS

      I said luck was a component.

    24. SW

      It was. You captured the long tail of it, though. Okay? Because then what happened was it kinda went viral, and people went to go find out more about you. And when they went to go find out more about you, you were saying smart, interesting things, and they stuck around. So they went to go watch it another time, and they told a friend about it. Of course, luck plays a role. And any successful business person will say, "I got some really lucky breaks." I get it. But I, I think that when you start believing that luck is everything, you lose how much intentionality and how much agency we actually have.

  10. 14:23 – 24:15

    The cure for nihilism: purpose as a moral choice that spreads life, not “woo-woo”

    1. SS

      So let me ask a somewhat leading question. What's the value of living a, a purpose-driven life? Like-

    2. SW

      Yeah

    3. SS

      ... I mean, taking the woo-woo out of it.

    4. SW

      Yeah.

    5. SS

      Right?

    6. SW

      Mm-hmm.

    7. SS

      Like, and if I'm really cynical, like, who cares?

    8. SW

      That's right. And look, I bump into nihilists all the time. You think I haven't heard that question? I've heard it a thousand times. I had an AMA in class, ask me anything. I, you know, sort of opened it up to the floor.

    9. SS

      Mm-hmm.

    10. SW

      Had a student raise his hand, and he said, "Can I ask you a question?" "Sure." Uh, he said, "Do you ever get tired of teaching this purpose stuff when you know in the end we're all gonna die?"

    11. SS

      Yeah.

    12. SW

      And I basically said to him, "Look, I think we have a moral choice. You know, we can be nihilists or we can be optimists, and I think it's a moral choice to believe in the future and to believe in ourselves and to try to build a life where we're alive, because how we act is contagious. And I don't wanna give anybody the disease that kills your soul. And so we have an actual moral obligation to have the, uh, behaviors and attitude that, you know, that spread joy. Otherwise, I think you're actually morally wrong, I'd go so far as to say." And I'm not judging-

    13. SS

      But does that verge... Just to be... If I put my cynical hat on-

    14. SW

      No, go for it

    15. SS

      ... like, doesn't that verge on woo-woo? Like, that, you know, we have a moral obligation to spread joy. I mean, to a lot of people-

    16. SW

      No, I think-

    17. SS

      ... that, that li- that literally sounds like, you know, we should wear tie-dye and, you know.

    18. SW

      I would say that actually, I think when you start talking about moral imperatives, it's no longer woo-woo, okay?

    19. SS

      Yeah.

    20. SW

      It's like everything is not okay. That's woo-woo. Go put on your tie-dye and, you know, do all your woo-woo stuff. Everything is beautiful. Everything's okay. That's woo-woo. I'm actually drawing a very stark line here, like it's wrong and it's right, and it's actually morally right, okay? To find your purpose, because then you will feel the joy of having your purpose and living your purpose. When we don't live by our purpose, we don't just kill our own soul, we s- kill the souls of everyone around us. You're kind of a murderer, all right? So let me be very un-woo-woo. I think it's like you're like a killer. You're, you're a murderer of other people when you choose-

    21. SS

      Yeah

    22. SW

      ... nihilism. I... That's how strongly I feel about it.

    23. SS

      Well, I mean, the science backs you up, by the way. When people lead without a sense of purpose or cause, it creates stress in, in the system. It creates stress in the people around them. The feeling of stress is, is cortisol.

    24. SW

      Yeah.

    25. SS

      And when we have a lot of cortisol and stress in our bodies, it actually weakens our immune systems and actually does make us more susceptible to things like cancer and, and other-

    26. SW

      Yeah

    27. SS

      ... uh, illnesses. And so, yes, the science would back you up that being short-termist and selfish and a lack of purpose can actually kill people around you. Yes. True.

    28. SW

      I've heard the science argument. It's 100% correct. You can see it with your own eyes. I wanna say one other thing about it, which is further reasoning. You can love business and you can hate business. I happen to love business, and I know there's good people in business and bad people in business, but I believe that business is a force and should be and can be a force for good. So if you're living your purpose and you create an organization where people are empowered to do that, then business grows, and it thrives, and it creates more opportunity for people. So you're actually doing something, uh, for the economy, okay? And for culture and society, 'cause growing, thriving economies are good for everybody, okay?

    29. SS

      Yeah.

    30. SW

      So I also believe that there's this capitalistic argument and economic argument for it. There's no downside to it.

  11. 24:15 – 28:16

    Living purpose without perfect conditions: individual choice, leadership, and meaning-making at work

    1. SS

      I think about your two examples of the, the, the banker. And by the way, any parents that push their kids to go into banking, I think that's a form of child abuse.

    2. SW

      [laughs] I agree.

    3. SS

      But, uh, the ones, the one who went from banking to fashion and the one who, who started the business with her sister-

    4. SW

      Consulting, yeah

    5. SS

      ... both of them changed from living a life where they were in a what about you, what are you gonna do, what are you gonna advance? And then they turned into, "No, I'm gonna do this for other people."

    6. SW

      Yes.

    7. SS

      And the passion came from the desire to take whatever the thing they had was, desire, passion, love, purpose, whatever it is, and they did it for someone else. And then that sense of, "I found my thing," came when it was a, a, a giving, a pushing.

    8. SW

      Yes.

    9. SS

      Not just a pulling or a taking.

    10. SW

      Now, I wanna say that you can be a banker and a consultant, and you can be giving back, 'cause the way you can do it is you can be a mentor to somebody else. You can be helping the people that you work with. You can really be helping customers. I mean, I don't think that those professions necessarily don't allow service. You can do that work. And say you have, say you're caring for an elderly parent, you need money and so forth, and you go into banking for financial reasons. You can commit your life on the weekends to acts of service. I just don't think they're mutually exclusive. I don't think everybody... can have a job where-

    11. SS

      But hold on, hold on

    12. SW

      ... audience members-

    13. SS

      Hold on. Let me push you a little bit here.

    14. SW

      Please.

    15. SS

      Your whole thing is that this idea of the true you, the purpose you, is, is beautifully integrated into all that you do. So to bifurcate your life, that I do banking during the week and I do this life of service on the weekends, is inherently not a purpose-driven life.

    16. SW

      I think I'm a realist, and that is that some people simply have to work for money, and they don't have... You know, they go to a factory, and they put their foot down on a lever over and over again all day long because that's what they do. And it's very hard to find purpose in those jobs, but some people have to have those jobs. That's the only skill they have.

    17. SS

      Oh. Oh, I gotta take you on a tour.

    18. SW

      Okay, okay. Great.

    19. SS

      I've gotta take you to see Barry-Wehmiller, which is an, an American manufacturing company.

    20. SW

      Yeah, I 100% know that there are companies that can do it.

    21. SS

      The job itself is not purpose-driven, right? P- as you said, putting your foot on the lever and making the machine go is not unto itself purpose-driven. But they show up to l- they show up to work with the desire to take person, take care of the person to the left of them, to the right of them, and the job is incidental. The job is the place in which they get to show up-

    22. SW

      Yeah, okay

    23. SS

      ... and live a life of service.

    24. SW

      I, I say, in this we are in agreement, in that there are-

    25. SS

      Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay

    26. SW

      ... pe- that you can create that work in a company. And you know what? It's the job of the leader to make meaning of it. The j- the leader needs to say-

    27. SS

      Yeah

    28. SW

      ... "This is how your work contributes to the greater good. You are not just putting your foot down on the lever and over to, over again. When you do that, you are part of this work." But man, that takes a leader. That takes a great leader explaining the purpose of it.

    29. SS

      Or someone who has a terrible leader, but someone who has made the choice to live a purpose-driven life-

    30. SW

      Yeah

  12. 28:16 – 31:49

    Purpose in community: why group discovery accelerates transformation

    1. SS

      Without a doubt. You know, I agree with you about the duality of the Maslow thing, and I think he had it slightly wrong-

    2. SW

      [gasps]

    3. SS

      ... uh, when he f- articulated the first model. 'Cause he said the lowest level is food and shelter.

    4. SW

      Hmm.

    5. SS

      And the third level up is relationships-

    6. SW

      Yeah

    7. SS

      ... and community. The mistake Maslow made is, human beings, we live in paradox, which is every moment of every day we are both individuals and members of groups. And when you look at the hierarchy of needs, food and shelter, M- Maslow was only thinking about us as individuals. As an individual, yes, food and shelter absolutely comes first. But as a member of a group, social relationships are more important. I've never heard of anybody dying by suicide because they were hungry, but I have heard of people dying by suicide because they were lonely.

    8. SW

      Hmm.

    9. SS

      Right? Um, and stories of people who, who want to be in community before they die. Those two models, it's... What he articulated, that hierarchy of needs, I would argue is for an individual, and for a member of a group-

    10. SW

      Yeah

    11. SS

      ... it's in a different order. And at the top, this idea of self-actualization, even unto that self, like, "I am self-actualized at the tip of a pyramid, looking down upon all you unactualized people," you know. What about shared actualization? The genius of your class is not that you're helping someone find their purpose, it's that they're going through it as a class.

    12. SW

      Yes.

    13. SS

      That they have shared actualization, and they-

    14. SW

      Yeah

    15. SS

      ... support each other, and they cry with each other, and they hold-

    16. SW

      That's right

    17. SS

      ... each other, and they celebrate each other.

    18. SW

      Right.

    19. SS

      And I would argue that success of finding your purpose isn't just going through the process, but it's going through the process with others, and being in service to others as they look to find their own.

    20. SW

      And you make a perfect point, and I'll tell you why. I, a while ago, stopped taking private clients because I, I intuitively knew in my bones it was something that had to happen in group.

    21. SS

      Yeah.

    22. SW

      And there's something that happens in that room. Like, I teach it in groups. I teach it outside of NYU as part of NYU. It's an open enrollment c- course, and we do 60 people at a time. And they come in as strangers, okay?

    23. SS

      Yeah.

    24. SW

      We do, we do the whole course in three days. They come in as strangers, and they go out as incredibly close friends. They stay in touch with each other. Something happens in the discovery process together. It forges relationships and friendships like you cannot believe.

    25. SS

      That makes sense. To go through an individual experience with a group, I mean, that's, that's kinda what group therapy is, right? Like, if you, if you go to Alcoholics Anonymous, you're going through something for yourself in community. And it goes right back-

    26. SW

      Yeah

    27. SS

      ... to where we started, which is the amplification, right? I, as an individual, will help amplify the benefit to the group-

    28. SW

      Right

    29. SS

      ... and the group will hel- help amplify the benefit to me.

    30. SW

      Yeah. I have a cowbell that rings like crazy, and I had to get-

  13. 31:49 – 35:43

    Gifts are for giving: service, love, and the heart of management

    1. SS

      When I do a why discovery with someone, the thing that they're always surprised to learn is that a why fundamentally, it is something uniquely yours that you give to the world.

    2. SW

      Mm.

    3. SS

      Like, my why is to inspire people to do the things that inspire them. It is who I am, it is core to my being, it is what lights me up, it's what excites me and inspires me. But fundamentally, it is something I am, I wake up every day to give away.

    4. SW

      Yeah.

    5. SS

      And that's why they call what we have gifts.

    6. SW

      Yes.

    7. SS

      Because gifts are for giving. It's not something you received.

    8. SW

      Right.

    9. SS

      It's something you're supposed to give away.

    10. SW

      I know.

    11. SS

      Your gifts are for giving away.

    12. SW

      I think our whys are similar. My... I always say, "My purpose is to help you find your purpose," and it's the same kind of feeling. This is why I levitate.

    13. SS

      Yeah.

    14. SW

      And you know exactly what I'm talking about.

    15. SS

      Yeah.

    16. SW

      That feeling you must have when somebody finds their why. It's like a drug. You gotta have more of it.

    17. SS

      Yeah.

    18. SW

      You gotta have more of it. It's like, oh my God. You know, it's just, oh, I gotta... To see somebody have that discovery, if everybody knew what that felt like, they'd want more. They'd want it, too.

    19. SS

      We've all had that experience, right?

    20. SW

      Mm-hmm.

    21. SS

      For actors who stand on a stage-

    22. SW

      Yes

    23. SS

      ... to feel the energy of an audience. For someone to, a parent to teach their kids how to ride a bicycle, and the first time you let go of the seat without training wheels.

    24. SW

      Oh, yeah.

    25. SS

      The elation you get to see someone accomplish something by themselves, for themselves, with your help. Like, we've all had that feeling-

    26. SW

      I know it

    27. SS

      ... of elation and levitating when we get to be there to support and see someone else thrive.

    28. SW

      Yeah.

    29. SS

      It's sustainable. Whereas, you know, any great accomplishment-

    30. SW

      Yeah

Episode duration: 35:46

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