It’s Christmas. Please don’t ask me about Christmas. OK, ask me. - Becoming You with Suzy Welch

Podcast Summary: “It’s Christmas. Please don’t ask me about Christmas. OK, ask me.”

Podcast: Becoming You with Suzy Welch
Host: Suzy Welch, NYU Stern Professor
Date: December 23, 2025

Episode Overview

This Christmas-themed episode delves into the complexities of faith as a personal value, especially during the holiday season. Suzy Welch—professor, journalist, and self-described “values agnostic”—reflects on the “emotional minefield” of Christmas as someone whose top value is faith (what her Becoming You methodology calls “Cosmos”). She explores the tension between secular and faithful celebrations, candidly shares her personal faith journey, and advocates for compassionate understanding of each other's values, whatever they may be.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Christmas: A Gift and an Emotional Minefield

Suzy opens with her hallmark irreverence and warmth, using Christmas music and humor to segue into the true subject: why Christmas is emotionally challenging for her.
She admits to both “losing her mind in a really good way, and a really bad way” at Christmas (00:26).
Core thesis: For Suzy, and many like her, Christmas highlights the tension between a meaningful religious celebration and the overwhelming secular, Santa-focused festivities.

2. The “Becoming You” Methodology and Values Inventory

Brief explanation of her research-based framework used by over 250,000 people, centered on defining aptitudes, interests, and values (03:10).
Preview of the Becoming You Values Inventory: a list of 16 life-organizing principles. Includes common values (family, achievement) and some less common (eudaimonia, non sibi).
Focus value for this episode: “Cosmos” (faith—not any specific religion, but the belief in a higher power).
Data point: 30% list “Cosmos” in their top five values, 52% in their bottom five, making it a uniquely “barbell” value (05:56).

3. Values Agnostic, Personally Devout

Suzy stresses that Becoming You is “values agnostic”: all values are valid so long as they don’t harm others.
Irony: As a Christian, “Cosmos” is her number one value, yet she almost excluded faith from the survey out of concern it would be divisive or “freak out the non-Cosmos people” (06:58).
Focus groups showed people from many faiths wanted faith included, regardless of denomination.

4. The Secular/Religious Christmas Divide

For faithful people, Christmas is “about the birth of the person on whom your entire faith is founded.” For the majority, it's “a massive gift-giving event with Santa as the main character” (08:09).
Suzy describes the exhausting emotional work of holding both these realities and keeping her faith “pretty silently” to maintain harmony in secular settings.

Memorable Family Anecdote:

Suzy plays a clip of her granddaughter and her first husband excitedly discussing Santa.
She confesses how she holds back interjecting her religious views:
- “You catch me there at the end saying, ‘you know, wait, what happens at Christmas?’ But then I drop it right there because I have spent so much of my life doing exactly that.” (09:49)
Tells of her mother preferring the “music, not all the religious stuff” in Christmas Eve services, juxtaposed with Suzy’s own powerful religious association (10:45).

5. On Not Proselytizing—and the Challenge of Silence

Suzy grapples with the desire to advocate for her own top value while respecting everyone’s difference.
- “None of us should be judgmental or bossy about anyone’s values, no matter what your top value is.” (11:48)
She consults her daughter, Sophia, for a reality check:
- Suzy: “Do I proselytize? Or alternatively, do I keep it in pretty good check?”
- Sophia: “Oh, come on. You keep it in pretty good check, I think… I feel like people are often surprised to learn [faith is your top value].” (12:56)
Suzy reflects on the discipline it takes to not “go stratospheric” with Santa imagery and keep her faith private out of respect for others.

6. Personal Faith Journey: From Outlier to Outspoken

Family background: Jewish atheist father, culturally Catholic but anti-religious mother (14:41).
Early intrigue: Attending Mass as a child, finding the atmosphere mystically appealing but encountering dismissiveness (“Jesus was a troublemaker”) (16:27).
Boarding school breakthrough: Inspired by charismatic preacher Bobby Thompson, joining Bible study, entering faith intellectually before embracing it emotionally (18:00).
University years: Attendance at Memorial Chapel sermons, but still quietly faithful out of fear of rejection from peers and family.
Adulthood “coming out”: After marriage and children, involvement in church community, finally openly embracing Christian identity after years of silence (“When did you become a Jesus freak?” a family member asks critically) (20:32).

7. Christmas as Fulfillment of Top Value

Christmas now a time for fully living out her “Cosmos” value despite the tension with secular traditions—finding joy in the story and meaning of Jesus’ birth, especially Mary’s story (“That whole story fills me with so much wonder and so much astonishment”) (22:08).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“Christmas is like an emotional minefield, and we’re going there.” — Suzy Welch (00:32)
“Cosmos is my number one value. I am a Christian person. But, again, my faith tradition doesn’t matter—for the methodology, it’s about the value of faith, not the specific faith.” (07:40)
“It’s a secular world, okay? And this holding of it is kind of like sticking a finger in my socket.” (08:25)
On holding back her faith in secular environments:
- “I get the looks from everybody in the room and I dropped it right there because I have spent so much of my life doing exactly that.” (09:49)
On childhood religious curiosity:
- “She (grandmother) said that Jesus was a troublemaker. Well, she could have said anything more interesting to me—because I loved troublemakers, and I still do!” (16:47)
On embracing faith:
- “I finally had to decide that I was not gonna live for their judgment and I was gonna be who I was.” (21:36)
“Maybe, maybe that’s what Christmas is all about. And what a great gift that would be.” (22:44)

Important Segments & Timestamps

Opening & Christmas as emotional minefield — 00:01–02:00
Introduction to Becoming You & Values Inventory — 03:05–06:15
Faith (“Cosmos”) as a top value and the barbell effect — 05:56–06:58
The dilemma of including faith in the values survey — 06:58–08:09
Secular versus religious Christmas; Santa anecdote — 08:09–10:34
Discussion with daughter about faith expression — 12:53–13:52
Suzy’s personal faith journey: childhood to adulthood — 14:41–21:36
Living faith at Christmas, and the story of Mary — 22:08–22:44
Closing reflections on understanding others’ values — 22:44–23:24
Episode closes with a Christmas hymn — 23:24–end

Conclusion

In this uniquely candid and thought-provoking Christmas episode, Suzy Welch offers a vulnerable look at what it means to hold faith as your core value while navigating the secular realities of the modern holiday season. She encourages listeners to honor their own and others’ values with openness, humor, and humility, suggesting that this mutual respect might be the greatest gift Christmas can offer.

Quote to remember:
"Maybe the best thing at Christmas is not what Santa brings down the chimney chute, but this act of understanding each other's values with respect and an open heart and an open mind and maybe a reverence for our differences." (22:44)

Transcript

Susie Welch (0:01)

Come, are ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant.

Susie Welch (0:11)

Oh, my God. Merry Christmas. Doesn't that music just get you in the Christmas spirit? I hope so, because this is the Christmas episode of becoming you, as you can tell by my amazing Christmas outfit that I'm wearing. And this is the podcast that exists for the very reason that we believe life is a gift. It is the gift. And to continue this Christmas metaphor, it's a gift to be opened each day with wonder and experience, with great deliberation and intention and joy and all those things. But, you know, I'm not woo woo, and I'm not going to get all woo woo and feely goody on you, because, to be honest, this week we're going to be talking about why I kind of lose my mind a little bit every Christmas. I do. In one really good way, I lose my mind, and in one very bad way, because to me, Christmas, I might be the only person. But Christmas is like an emotional minefield, and we're going there. We're going to go there. Now, how could that be? How could that be that Christmas is an emotional minefield? I mean, we're talking about Christmas, which we all love very much. Who does not love Christmas? Well, I have a reason I don't love it. And we'll find out why very, very soon. And spoiler alert, my issue is Santa, okay? Who I'm troubled by. For instance, okay, maybe I don't hate Santa. Santa, exactly. But I don't like him very much, and probably not for the reasons that you're thinking, okay? So I think by the end of this podcast, whether you like Santa or not might be a bit of a litmus test for you, too. That could happen. But at the very least, I'm hoping you understand something about yourself and other people a bit better whether you like Santa or not. Hello. Hi. The Grinch speaking here is Susie Welch. I'm a professor of management at NYU Stern School of Business. It's definitely not working this week at Stern School of Business because all my grading is done and all my students are home, which is great. And at NYU Stern, I teach a class called Management With Purpose, which is about how to be a great boss. But I also teach a class that's called Becoming youg. Just like this podcast, which was actually started a little bit more than a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, when after class one day, the semester was ended and two students said to me, we're going to miss you over the summer, Professor Welch. And I said, I'm going to Miss you too. And then I said, I know, I'll start a podcast. And they were like, yay. And I said, yay. And here we are. And now you may. And. And I think actually we are very delighted to have discovered that more than those two students apparently wanted to hear that podcast. And if you are one of those regular. One of our regular listeners, thank you so much. You know how much I love you. Thank you. You are a gift to me and to the team at Becoming you Labs. And if you're new to the pod, welcome very much. A special hello to you. Please stick around if you would, next 30 minutes because I think we have a not your usual Christmas episode for you this Christmas. Why? Because I think that this podcast might make you a little uncomfortable. It's actually making me a little uncomfortable. And we've just gotten started because our topic this week is not just Christmas Christmas per se. It is the value that may or absolutely may not underlie Christmas for you, which is faith. Faith. This episode of Becoming youg is about faith. That value. I wish I could cue this scary music here. Wait, we actually can cue scary music. We can. Faith. Faith. This episode of Becoming youg is about faith. All right. By the way, the name of that sound effect is called Mongolian Barbecue. I found it myself. It's a very name. Odd name. But anyway, let's get going now. I want to give you one minute of background about becoming you before we go forward. Just to give us some context here. Becoming youg is a research based, validated methodology to help you find your purpose in life. It has been used by my students at NYU for almost five years. But at this point, because of my book and my travels and so forth and this podcast and other other platforms, about a quarter of a million people worldwide have used the Becoming youg methodology or parts of it. Now, very simply, Becoming you helps people identify their defining aptitudes, emotional and intellectual. And they're defining economically viable interests. And it also helps them identify and rank order their values. Now Becoming you is based on an inventory of 16 human values. And values are life organizing principles. Some of them will sound very familiar to you. Family, centrism, achievement, belonging. Then there's some. There's a value Non sibi, helping people, eudaimonia, self care, work, centrism, agency. That's self determination. And on that list is a value called cosmos. Faith. Not a specific faith, but faith. The belief in a higher power. Now, I don't know where you are in your life and I don't know how you a listener are feeling about faith and how it stands as a value for you. And you know what? For the purposes of this podcast and Becoming youg, it doesn't matter. We have to understand all the values in the world, the ones we have and the ones we don't have, so that we can be in the world with each other, with compassion and understanding. And I might even say we need that now more than ever, given the way the world is. So no matter where you are in terms of your faith, stay with me here, because this is about all of us. It's about all of us understanding all the values. And I actually do have data about all of us when it comes to faith because I have lots of data in general because of the values bridge which 110,000 people have taken. It tells us that 30% of the population overall has cosmos core value. Again, this is irregardless of the faith tradition we're talking about. 30% have it as a top five value and 52% have it as a bottom five. And that leaves 18% having faith of any variety somewhere in the middle. It's really a barbell value if you can visualize that. Either you have it as a top value or you have it as a bottom value. It's only, it's actually the only value like that in the whole inventory. Now, one thing about becoming you, super important to say we are values agnostics. I personally am a values agnostic. I don't care what your values are as long as you're not hurting anyone. Your values are your values to live. My work and the work of Becoming youg Labs is around helping you live your chosen values more fully, expressing them more fully, because that's what leads to an authentic life. But it just so happens, okay, in the context of that, that cosmos is my number one value. I am a Christian person. But again, the my faith tradition doesn't matter. But my faith is my number one value. It defines my life. But here's the irony. I almost did not include faith cosmos in the values measured by the values bridge. After all of my research into values, after all of my studies, after my PhD, everything, why I almost left it out. And here's the reason. Because I was afraid that it would somehow politicize or undermine the acceptance or the credibility of the assessment. I was afraid it would freak out the non cosmos people. And now, as a faithful person myself, I know how faith can be like a lightning rod. It can be very disconcerting to, to non faithful people. It can make people who do not have faith. Think that you're kind of missing a chip. I've experienced that my whole life. But then, here's the truth. I realized I couldn't leave Cosmos out. The values bridge, like every assessment tool, went through a long period of beta testing and validation. And as part of that, we had a lot of focus groups. I attended them all. We had 42 of them. And invariably in the focus groups, invariably, someone or multiple someones would ask, but where's the value of faith, Professor Welch? I mean, the first time it happened, it was a very faithful Jewish student of mine who asked me that. And it came from everybody. It wasn't just Jewish or Christian people. Everybody who asked this question came from a different faith tradition. And after a while, I had to face into this fact that I was leaving out a true value. And we put it into the values bridge, where, oops, it showed up as my number one value. That didn't surprise me because I knew it about myself, but there was a gap because I knew that faith as a value can really trigger people. So speaking of triggering people, what does this have to do with Christmas? Well, for me, kind of everything. At the beginning of the podcast, I said Christmas was triggering for me in some ways, it was an emotional minefield for me in a good way and a bad way. And I want to talk about that. All right, let's start with the bad way. So here's the thing around Christmas. If you are a high cosmos person who happens to be a Christian person, you have to kind of live in a parallel universe. I mean, for you, the holiday is really religious, okay? It's about your cosmos. It's about the birth of the person on whom your entire faith is founded. But for most people, they're celebrating it. Every. Most people around you are celebrating it as, like a massive gift giving event with Santa as the main character. For you, it's really holy. I mean, as holy as it gets. And for almost everyone else, it's like, it's a consumer thing. It's a vacation, it's a party. It's about a Santa fable. And you have to hold this dichotomy in your head and in your heart every waking moment during the Christmas season. And you have to hold it there pretty silently if you want to get along with people. This is a secular world, okay? And this holding of it is kind of like sticking a finger in my socket. I mean, this just happened yesterday. I was visiting with my granddaughter and the topic of Santa came up. And I want to, like, play you a little Clip of the conversation she had with her grandfather, my first husband, Eric. And when they start talking about Santa, he listen to him. He is describing Christmas to her.