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Susie Welch (2:58)

I'm going to say. Can I say two classes?

Vivian Tu (3:01)

Yeah.

Susie Welch (3:01)

Okay, give me two. They both were. When I was at HBS, I went to Harvard Business School. And I would say pure on corporate finance. You have to know the numbers. You have to know how to.

Vivian Tu (3:10)

Boring, but important.

Susie Welch (3:11)

And they're not that boring once you get into them because they just tell human stories. But I also, that same semester, took a class about novels, about business and just the human nature that business is just a human story. And to learn both of those at the same time, I was like, okay, it's all coming together.

Vivian Tu (3:28)

Quantitative and qualitative.

Susie Welch (3:30)

Yes.

Vivian Tu (3:30)

You gotta have both.

Susie Welch (3:31)

Yes.

Vivian Tu (3:32)

You have obviously had such a fantastic and fascinating career journey from journalist to business exec to bestselling author to NYU professor. Like, what's been the most surprising financial lesson you've learned along the way?

Susie Welch (3:46)

I learned it really early.

Vivian Tu (3:47)

Ooh.

Susie Welch (3:47)

Actually, I was very young. And a friend of mine, I think I was lamenting not being able to get the first house I was gonna buy. And he said to me, there's no last best deal.

Vivian Tu (4:00)

Wait, wait. There's no last best deal? Can you explain that to me?

Susie Welch (4:06)

Yeah, I think. I mean, I didn't get it at first. I was like, no, no, this is the last best deal. This house is amazing. They'll never be a house. It's inexpensive again. It's perfect. It's in the perfect location. And he was a very wise person who had been on. Actually, he was a Wall street not girly, but guy. E. And he just said, that's not how it goes. There's no last best deal. And you make such dumb decisions in your life thinking it's the last best deal. And you do it even in a relationship. But you do it buying stuff. You do it when you're looking at clothes on sale. You do it when you're looking at a job and the job's not quite right, but you don't think you're going to get another job offer. But the truth is there's no. There is no last best deal. And you've got to be sensible about it. You cannot be Impulsive. There's no. That has saved me. That little line has saved me from more stupid decisions over the years than any other piece of advice. Not that I have not made stupid decisions. I have. But that one has saved me.

Vivian Tu (5:03)

Wow. That's like rewiring my brain right now.

Susie Welch (5:06)

No, it's so true.

Vivian Tu (5:08)

Cause it's almost like scarcity mindset, right?

Susie Welch (5:10)

Yes, but he was saying, like, you know, other deals come along, and you've got to understand that there are gonna be other opportunities. And the way your emotions get played with, I mean, the world is manipulating you into thinking that there is a last best deal that's on a sale, on a house, on a job. And it's manipulating that so that you buy or you do something against your best interest. That's what the world can be manipulating you into. And you have to just hold firm in knowing another deal will come, another option will come. If there's a oh to it, listen to it.

Vivian Tu (5:45)

I love that. And speaking of opportunities, you are someone who is very much seen as a guiding mentor in the career space, and you often talk about not necessarily just getting the right job, but getting the right job for you and liking it and having the skills for it. Can you actually talk to me a little bit about what your value Bridges tool is and what that means?

Susie Welch (6:11)

Yeah, let me talk to you about it. I mean, you talk about creating your best life financially and having the money, the service you serve to humanity is Gigantor. And I thank you. Can't touch the hem of your skirt on that. You know, I come at it a different way, which is that you need to find your purpose, which is. Which often ends up being work that you like. Maybe not love, but really like. And then everybody's always telling you to find your purpose, though. They're telling you that from when you're a little kid. And then they stop, and they don't tell you what your purpose. They don't tell you what purpose even is. So I. The class I teach at NYU Stern at the business school, is about where you find your purpose. And my premise is that your purpose lies at the intersection of your values, your aptitudes, and your economically viable interests. These are three gigantic data sets that, frankly, we just never access. But the class and the book and everything else is about excavating these three data sets. So the first data set is your values. Well, frankly, I have research that shows only 7% of people can even define a value. They mix them up with virtues. Okay, you say, what are your values? Oh, kindness Integrity, courage, resilience. I'm like, that's great. Nobody disagrees. Those are virtues. Everybody should have more of them. Values are choices. And I have a values inventory. There's 16 personal values. They range from how big a life you want to how much money you want to how important love is to you. And it says, There's 16 values. And we measure those values with a tool called the Values Bridge, which anyone can take on you. Go to thevaluesbridge.com after we excavate your values, we look at what your aptitudes are once again. Almost no one knows what their aptitudes are until they're like, 40, and the world has kind of finally told them. But in fact, there's kind of nine big intellectual aptitudes. Are you a generalist or a specialist? Are you a brainstormer or an idea supporter? These sort of like, how is your brain wired? What comes more easily to you getting to be better at it? And then another part of your aptitudes is your personality, because you know as well as I do that you can really be great at a job because of your personality or you can really suck at a job because of your personality. So the second big data set are your aptitudes, and then the third is what is the work that calls you intellectually or emotionally, but also pays you according to how much you want to be paid? Because money really matters, but it matters more to some people than others. And, I mean, you're talking about being fiscally very responsible. But the facts are, some people, what that means is having a helipad for each child, okay? And for other people, it means, you know, having enough for one vacation a year. And you got to know that about yourself because it's not created equally for everybody. So that's what we put those three data sets together. We come out with your purpose. That generally leads to very robust careers because it takes all the data into account.

Vivian Tu (8:56)

What is your perspective on telling people to search for their purpose versus searching, like, following your passion?

Susie Welch (9:03)

Hate. Hate. Just if you want to trigger me or make my. Just if you want to upset me at a dinner party, just mention passion, okay? So I'm not adverse to people following their passion if they're good at it. Okay? It's like, yeah, I like singing, okay? I love singing. But I've actually been in church and had people turn around and say to me, please lower your voice. Stop singing. I'm bad, okay? I'm just bad. And so I say that, like, this is why I like my system. But I like systems, period. Maybe because I'm a business school professor, but I like knowing what your values are. That's kind of what your passion would be, what you love to do, or your interest would be a passion. Like, I love dogs. Did I go into dog care? No, I did not. I had other aptitudes. So you've got to look at the intersection of all that data. So passions are fine if you have the aptitudes, and you may not. So if you have a big passion and you don't have the aptitudes, that's what we call a hobby. Okay, so go do it as a hobby. But if you gotta make money at it, you better be good at it.

Vivian Tu (10:04)

You gotta be good. There's something else that you mention in your book, Becoming youg.

Susie Welch (10:08)

Yes.

Vivian Tu (10:09)

The authenticity gap. What is that?

Susie Welch (10:12)

So can I nerd out on you for a little bit?

Vivian Tu (10:14)

Yeah. Okay.

Susie Welch (10:14)

All right, so look, we all have values. I would say we all have. There are 16 human values, and it's how much we want. And like, let's just use the example of value of scope. Do you want a big, huge, exciting life? Do you want to be Bianca Jagger riding in on a white stallion at Studio 54? Or do you want to have a feed on TikTok that goes, you know, I like this little life. And then have like a child in a very tweed pinafore? Okay, how big, exciting, and you could be somewhere in the middle, or you could want to be like, the most interesting person in the world, or you could really want a life with a lot of psychological safety. And you know what you're gonna be doing in one year from today at 2:00 clock in the afternoon and everything in between. Okay? That's the value. Now, you may be living it or not. Okay, we call that expressing it. I mean, I may have very, very, very high scope. I want to be Bianca Jagger, but I have a job as a librarian and I have six children. I can't live my value of scope. The authenticity gap is the term we use to describe the variance between the value that you hold and how much you're actually living it. Values Bridge and the tool that I developed for my class and which you can take, it tells you on every single value how much of an authenticity gap you have. So one of your values is maybe going to be affluence. I'm sure everybody who listens to you has affluence somewhere in there at Financial Security, and it may be your number three value. And your authenticity gap could be very small. 3%. So you're pretty close to having the amount of money you want. Or it could be your number one value and you could have a 100% authenticity gap, meaning I want to be much richer and everything in between. Definitely. We tested, we've had 55,000 people have taken the test to date and we sort it by generation. And in Gen Z, affluence is the fourth highest value. So I mean, there's a lot of desire for affluence among Gen Z right now and most generations, but not as.

Vivian Tu (12:02)

Much as Gen Z. Yeah, and I think that's starting to really, really express in society because one, we are getting fed social media and people want more stuff, and stuff costs money, experiences cost money. Can you give us an example of like, how this plays out for someone who isn't necessarily in their 20s? Like say I'm in my 40s or my 50s. I'm listening. And without even taking this test, which by the way, everybody should actually use this tool and make sure you're taking this. But I already know I'm like 100% off of the life that I want. I have a huge authenticity gap. How does someone look at their life and say, this isn't what we discussed, friend. Like, how do I fix it?

Susie Welch (12:44)

I see it every single day. I just finished teaching. I teach Becoming youg in these three day intensives on the NYU campus that are open to the public. And so every single time I go through one of these, and I'll tell you something, the vast majority of students are in their 40s and 50s because you get to your 40s and you're like, oh wait, this is not what I was hoping for or what I expected. And then you have this moment of reckoning and you say, I've got to fix it. So the first step is to find out which of the values are not being lived. You know, is it money or is it. There's a value called beholderism, which is a desire to have things look beautiful, including yourself. This is a very high value for a lot of people. I mean, I have it as a high value. I want my homes to be beautiful. I want my hair to be beautiful. I spend lots of money. It is.

Vivian Tu (13:23)

By the way, your hair looks beautiful. Beautiful today.

Susie Welch (13:25)

I mean, you can spend a lot of money on making your house and yourself look beautiful. And some people don't care about this value at all. For instance, my eldest son, okay, you know, he just has put on the same T shirt, like when he graduated from college. He hasn't Taken off. But he's a game designer, so that's okay. So. And they. A bunch of people have low beholderism also, that costs. And so what happens is people see their values and it's work. The work of our life is closing the authenticity gap on all of our values as best we can. Sometimes we can't because we have constraints. For instance, we have children or we have a spouse who lives in a city where we can't get a job. Or we just don't have the. We don't have the aptitudes to do the work that we think would fulfill us. In which case you have to start figuring out what is the next best thing to do. It's work, though. I mean, they're talking about the. You know, this is what we. You know, I have been with people who have gotten back the results of their values bridge and they've gotten. Literally, if you average all of the values authenticity gaps and we weight your top values more heavily and they look at it and the results show that their overall values authenticity gap is 98%. I've been in the room when that's happened, and it's a look of just complete desperation and despair. And they say, I'd be horrified. Yeah, no, they say, what do I do? What do I do? And usually what they say is, I knew it, I knew it. I knew it. Because that's the ache, the gut feeling like, this is not the beautiful life I was imagining that was gonna be so available to me. And then we have to back out what's broken and actually systematically start fixing it. And it's on you. I mean, no one is gonna fix your life for you.

Vivian Tu (14:56)

Do you think there's ever a point where it's too late?

Susie Welch (15:00)

No, never, Never, never, never. I mean, I found my purpose at 60. Okay? At 60. So I'm a person who's like, keep on going. And I've taught this, you know, it's.

Vivian Tu (15:10)

So crazy because you're quite accomplished.

Susie Welch (15:13)

Yeah. It always looks good from the outside, doesn't it? I mean, I am a person who spent. I mean, one of the reasons why I love teaching Becoming youg is because I am like the poster child for somebody who could have done it sooner. And it was after, you know, I came up with the idea. I had spent my life as a business journalist. I had been a covering. I ran a magazine for business about business. I had. I had been on the Today show and CNBC talking about careers, and I'd really kind of. I was considered a career expert. I wrote a book about decision making, which related to careers. And I was a person who was not drinking my own Kool Aid because I like to put it sort of all under a big hashtag and call it love. And the reason was I had four children. I had a husband with a big career, and I also had voices in my head that were preventing me from betting on myself. I was like, why would I bet on myself? I mean, the moment I finally stepped out and stepped into my purpose, I literally, like, I was alone in my room at night, and I thought, for the first time in my life, I'm gonna do this terrifying thing. I'm gonna bet on myself. So I think there's a lot of reasons that we don't. But from. Of course. And I was happy and I was accomplished. Was I in my area of transcendence, or was I living how I'm living now, doing work that I just. I don't even want to sleep. I love it so much. No, that I had to finally work my way, too. But it is never too late. I mean, I've taught becoming you as a methodology to people up until, like, the oldest person, I think, is 78 years old. So.

Vivian Tu (16:39)

Wow.

Susie Welch (16:40)

Yeah.

Vivian Tu (16:41)

What if someone were to take, you know, this values bridge assessment and realize that some of their values were just naturally mutually exclusive from others? So say, like, I really want to help people. I want to be a teacher.

Susie Welch (16:56)

Yeah.

Vivian Tu (16:57)

But also, what was the word you use? Beholder.

Susie Welch (17:00)

Yeah, that's right. Right. But high beholderism. Right?

Vivian Tu (17:02)

High beholderism and high desire for athletes not laugh was like, teachers don't make a lot of money, typically.

Susie Welch (17:10)

Hit the nail on the head in that very, very often. 90% of the time. The values bridge reveals that you have values that are in conflict, and we actually give you a score that tells you how high your conflict is. You know, I know it, and, you know, I see people get it, and they see the conflict scores, you know, very high, and they say, typically, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. Right. But now you see which ones are exactly in conflict. So the tool identifies which one of your values. So, look, I have students. The number one value for many generations is something that we call eudaimonia. And let me just explain what that means and why we call it eudaimonia. It's self care, and it's personal flourishing. It's recreation. It's pleasure. For some people, it means sex. Okay? It's stuff that makes you feel good. And this is not a generationally. This is A newer value. The reason why we call it eudaimonia is there's two reasons. Number one is in previous values inventories, it's called hedonism. And I think that's very judgy, don't you? Yeah, I mean, I think it's like, yeah. Is self care hedonism or is it self preservation? I don't want to be the judge of that. And so people didn't like saying, finding out. So the other previous inventories call it hedonism. But eudaimonia is the Greek word for flourishing. And so this is all about personal flourishing. It doesn't happen to be very high value for me, but I am surrounded by people for whom it's the number one value. Okay? So very typically, people will take the values bridge and their number one value will be eudaimonia, which means that the number one thing that is driving them, that is motivating them, are activities like self care, pleasure, recreation, things that feel very sweet, that delight you. Okay. That feel good no matter what they are. And it could be going to a rave or it could be reading a book, it could be knitting or it could be whatever. And then the number two value is affluence. And then their number three value is achievement, which is the value of having success. Other people can see you can't.

Vivian Tu (19:02)

You can't hop on all the time, make a ton of money and have success.

Susie Welch (19:05)

That's right. And then they look at the results and they say, they say things like, no wonder I'm so unhappy. Or they say, like, the first thing that happens is they get mad at someone besides themselves and they're like, you know, really, this is not how it should be. And I'm usually the first line of defense. And they say, well, this kind of sucks, okay? I don't like this. And I say, look, I did not make these rules. And maybe someday there's going to be a world where you can have eudaimonia as number one and affluence and achievements as two and three. And it's gonna. That's just typically not how it works, that usually you have to repress or suppress eudaimonia to achieve those other two goals. Or alternatively, you can be a grown up and you can say, because my eudaimonia is so high, I'm actually not going to have the affluence and achievement that I would like, but I'm making that choice. So once you find out your values are in conflict and you will, you will find out some values are in Conflict. You're going to have to make some choices and make some trade offs. Now, one of the things you can do when you take the test is if somebody you love or you're in a relationship with, like your partner, they take it also. You check a little box and your values come up next to each other. And you also find out which one of your values are in conflict with your partner's values.

Vivian Tu (20:14)

I'm forcing my husband to take this as soon as we home.

Susie Welch (20:16)

I know. So one of the values is called belovedness, and that's how important your relationships are. So your one partnered relationship. So belovedness. Some people really, their whole life is around their relationship, their romantic relationship, their spouse, their boyfriend, whatever.

Vivian Tu (20:31)

I would say it's really important to me.

Susie Welch (20:32)

Okay. So it's probably gonna pop as one or two for you. If you think it is. You're gonna kind of want that to be for him too. Okay. Cause a lot. But it may come out in his as number 11, 12, 13, 14. And I think that what ends up happening, that happens in relationships all the time. And the couples point a lot of fingers and they say you're this, you're that. But actually it's about this one value that you have different levels of. And you can either work that out or you can be mad about it. But my daughter's getting married and she and her fiance took the values bridge and I was just praying, please God, let their values be the same. And their top six values were exactly the same. I was very relieved. They both shared everything. I think you kind of want that. Can you have a happy relationship if your values don't match? Yes. But it's more work. It is, Yeah.

Vivian Tu (21:16)

I say this all the time when it comes to money. It's like, you don't have to be debt free. You don't have to come from a similar background, but you better value a dollar the same way.

Susie Welch (21:23)

Yes. And the values which will tell you that, because it will show you where you are on affluence. If it's where it is 1 through 16. And it'll show where they are in affluence. And actually this causes problems in relationships. I mean, what you say is exactly true. If one member of the relationship, like money is the driving motivation. And then for the other person, it's like, money, sh. Money. You're gonna fight about it for the next 40 years.

Vivian Tu (21:46)

That's so real. Oh, man. All of my employees who are listening to this, we will also be taking this in the workplace. So I can about You.

Susie Welch (21:54)

It is. It happens all the time. Yeah.

Vivian Tu (21:58)

And I want to pivot now. So once people take this assessment and they have a better understanding of themselves, now we got to talk a little bit about how to use it to our advantage to actually differentiate in the workplace. And you talk about this a lot these days, the job market, let's be honest.

Susie Welch (22:14)

Yes, it's brutal.

Vivian Tu (22:15)

Heinous.

Susie Welch (22:16)

It's brutal. It's brutal. I mean, I look into the faces of my students and I think they're scared and they should be. And look, they're NYU Stern, mba. So they're in better shape than most and getting jobs. But it's not easy out there. And the reason is, there's many different reasons, but one of the reasons are the employers are scared to hire because nobody knows what AI is going to do.

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Vivian Tu (23:08)

And oftentimes we're given advice to, you know, kind of, you know, go with the flow, don't stand out. You actually say the opposite. You say differentiation is good.

Susie Welch (23:16)

Yes.

Vivian Tu (23:17)

Talk to me a little about how standing out across the crowd professionally translates into making more money, more success, more promotions, more everything.

Susie Welch (23:26)

All right, so let me talk to you about some data that is kind of mind blowing. I love it. And I wrote about it for the Wall Street Journal, which is that we now know what the top values are for every generation. And so my students are generally Gen Z or Gen Z. Ish. And so we know that their top values are. Their top three values are eudaimonia. Number number two is voice, which is authentic self expression. They want to be themselves in the workplace. And the third is a value we call non sibi, which is helping other people, not for oneself, non sibi. And so those are actually kind of, they want self care, they want to be authentically expressed, their full true selves. And they want to help other people. And that's kind of beautiful. And I said, okay, fine, I get it. I teach these students, I know them in my bones. And then I was thinking, yeah, but I'm on a lot of public boards and when I'm sitting around in the boardroom, I'm hearing people say we cannot hire, we cannot find anybody. And I'm thinking, yeah, but there's a lot of people out there that are looking for jobs. So I thought, let's do some research. I have something called Becoming youg Labs. Great data Scientists and so forth. And let's do some research on what hiring managers are looking for. And we gave them a list of all the values and we said this was 2100 hiring managers with a lot of experience in knowledge industries, banking, consulting, anything in tech. What is the top value you're looking for? And they checked off the top values they were looking for with the top three values they're looking for are.

Vivian Tu (24:45)

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Can I get.

Susie Welch (24:46)

Yes, yes, go ahead.

Vivian Tu (24:49)

Like a crazy work ethic.

Susie Welch (24:50)

Yes. Okay, so that's number three.

Vivian Tu (24:53)

I feel like I'm on Family Feud.

Susie Welch (24:55)

Yeah, I know how you feel.

Vivian Tu (24:57)

Someone who is a good team player.

Susie Welch (24:59)

Yes. That. Well, that would fall under scope. That's number two.

Vivian Tu (25:01)

Okay. And.

Susie Welch (25:05)

I don't know, you know what, it's achievement. They want to win. Oh, winners and winnings. Right. So they want, number one, achievement, wanting to win. That's what the number one was. They want people who want to win. Number two, people who have high scope, wanting, stimulation, learning and so forth. That would be team. That could fall under team. And then number three, they want some people who are high on work centrism. They work for work's sake. Okay. Well, if you look at Gen Z's top three values and what they're looking for, so we actually crunch the numbers to find out we have all 55,000 data points when you crunch the numbers to say what percentage of Gen Z Has those top three values that hiring managers want? It's 2%. It's 2%. So I went around to all the top Executives I know, CEOs and others, and I ran all the numbers by them and I said, what do you think about these numbers? And typically what you heard was, I knew it. I thought, you know, maybe it's even lower. And I said, no, it's 2.03%. Okay. We've crunched these numbers. And they said, well, this is what it's like. It's like water, water everywhere, but never a drop to drink. And other executives said, we just want to find those 2%. So look, if you're in that 2%, my, my advice to you is when you go into job interviews and you're writing your resume, identify as in the 2%. I mean, if you want, like you can't, you Know if you. But it's an incredible thing to differentiate yourself and say, look, I live inside your head. Dear hiring manager, you're looking for somebody who really values winning, scope, activity, action, learning, and also work centrism. Working like a, you know, working like a savage. I got those values, you know, show them the results of your test. I've got those values. So you may have to train me in some stuff, but I've got the raw material you're looking for. I say, say it. Say it. Say it. Say it.

Vivian Tu (26:48)

Really?

Susie Welch (26:48)

Yes.

Vivian Tu (26:49)

You don't think it's kind of corny to be like, I am a hard worker?

Susie Welch (26:52)

No, I don't think there's anything. No. And you know what else I don't think is corny? I think when you're in a job, say, I want this job, everyone thinks it's cringe. I interviewed somebody today, and at the end of the interview, I said to him, do you want this job? And he goes, oh, yes, yes, I'm very interested. I'm very interested. I know I can do this job. And I was like, why did I have to ask you if you want it? Okay. You know, why make your. Why make them. Yes. Hey, I really want this job. I know it feels cringe, but you're fighting out there with a lot of other people, and you gotta make your case.

Vivian Tu (27:22)

Wow. And you've gotta be, like, really, really firm and, like, make them believe it.

Susie Welch (27:26)

Yeah. And, well, you wanna be. Look, you don't wanna sound like an asshat. You wanna be like a real. You wanna be a real human being. But it is a real human being to say, can I say something that's maybe kind of cringe? And I think I've got the right stuff. I mean, this is your shot. If you want the job, say it.

Vivian Tu (27:41)

I mean, talk about authenticity.

Susie Welch (27:44)

Right there. Yes, that's right. That is so authentic, to be vulnerable like that. Yeah.

Vivian Tu (27:49)

You mentioned the number one skill or thing that these employers are looking for is achievement. They want winners. They want people who want to win.

Susie Welch (27:55)

It's a value. They want people to want to win.

Vivian Tu (27:58)

Yes.

Susie Welch (27:59)

Okay, so obviously then we start talking about aptitudes, and they want people with certain aptitudes. But frankly, the job market and work is changing so much. Who knows what aptitudes are going to be needed in six months? So people. Companies are going to be hiring more and more for values, for raw material. And that is. Those are values. That's achievement, work, centrism, scope, you know, this. This hunger to get along with people, agency, Belonging. All the other values that represent really well at work. Yeah.

Vivian Tu (28:26)

So achievement is obviously so, so important.

Susie Welch (28:29)

Yes.

Vivian Tu (28:30)

Talk to me a little bit about a B life. I once heard you mention a B life and I was like, what is she talking about? Can you explain to me what a B life is?

Susie Welch (28:38)

Yes. Every time I'm now ready for the hate, because every time I mention the B life, people's heads explode. And I kind of get it. And what I say, it's a dangerous thing to have a B life. And here's what I mean. First of all, the only person giving your life a grade is you. I'm not talking about being graded by your parents or society or teachers or partners. It's the grade we would give our own life if we were forced to grade it. And it's a dangerous thing because when we are, it's good enough, which is a B plus, you just settle and you can live there for a really long time. And then a moment of crisis comes. Like, for instance, sometimes you see it when somebody gets a very difficult diagnosis and they've been living a B plus life, and they think, why didn't I fight for the A life while I still could? And so I want you to live an A life if it's available to you, an A plus life before you're sort of having a moment of reckoning. And the thing is, it's scary and hard and you have to. To fight for your right to have an A plus life. I get it. But the problem with the if A life, if your life is kind of mediocre, B minus, usually we claw our way out of it because that's kind of unsustainable.

Vivian Tu (29:44)

Like C plus is really bad.

Susie Welch (29:45)

Whatever you're trying to change, you're trying to get out of it. B. When you start getting towards B and B, which is pretty good. Good enough. I can live. Could be worse, man. You could live there for a decade, and that's a lost decade. If you work to get the sort of more exquisite life of an A plus life, which is just living your values much more fully and really leaning into this precious gift.

Vivian Tu (30:09)

I'm obsessed with that. Because if your life's really good, you're incentivized to keep it there.

Susie Welch (30:13)

That's right.

Vivian Tu (30:14)

If your life's really bad, you're incentivized to change it. But if your life's just okay.

Susie Welch (30:18)

That's right. You can stay there for a really long time.

Vivian Tu (30:20)

You tread water.

Susie Welch (30:20)

Yeah. Quietly making everyone around you miserable. Wow.

Vivian Tu (30:27)

This is all so mind Blowing. Let's talk about it over, like, a scope of, like, time. So how do you think the people's relationship with time, money, happiness changes as you go through each generation? Maybe we say, like, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s.

Susie Welch (30:43)

It used to be that people thought they could postpone joy. And so it used.

Vivian Tu (30:47)

Well, you talk to me about that.

Susie Welch (30:47)

Okay. Well, when I was coming along, okay. Cause I'm kind of older, right? When I'm coming along, you. You front end loaded your life, and you did a huge amount of work and you made a huge amount of sacrifices in your 20s and your 30s and your 40s. And you thought, I'm gonna go reap all of that good stuff in my 50s and 60s. And sometimes that was possible and sometimes it wasn't. Okay. What's happened after Covid is that there's a lot of people who say, I'm not postponing anything anymore. Cause we never know when the bottom's gonna fall out. And they want to reap earlier. But the problem is it's pretty hard to reap if you haven't sowed. So I think. I think actually all of society is working this time question out. I mean, this is a huge question you ask. I think each individual is right now trying to work out when do they harvest. And I think everybody kind of has said, well, I wanna harvest earlier. And then the oldsters are like, you can't harvest if you haven't planted. And so I think that was quick. Yeah, that's right. And you know, it's not possible typically.

Vivian Tu (31:45)

So we just talked a little bit about timing of, like, harvesting. We all want to enjoy life now, but let's talk about timing in terms of taking risks. What are the smartest times throughout your life and your career for you to be making those career changes, to be reevaluating your values and seeing like, hey, if things don't line up, I need to make a big change. When do we do that?

Susie Welch (32:07)

Well, look, your values are pretty set by age 25. So. And.

Vivian Tu (32:11)

Oh, wait, wait. Okay, so 25.

Susie Welch (32:12)

Yes.

Vivian Tu (32:12)

I shouldn't be doing this at 21.

Susie Welch (32:14)

I think that you'll get a directionally very good answer. 21. But the research is not complete on this yet. That a lot of things go into forming our values. Our parents, our friends, our life experiences, trauma. Okay? A lot of our culture, our society, politics, all form. And it's a big stew when we stir it up and sort of by, I'd say 22 to 25, your values are pretty set. And what changes is how much you express them or don't express them. Okay, So I think that. But you should revisit it every couple of years or every two years to say, look, where am I? Especially how much am I living it or expressing it? You asked another question that was just like, when is it good to take a risk or a bet on yourself? And the answer to that depends on the person. I waited too long myself. I didn't bet on myself until quite late in my life. It was a bunch of different reasons. It was voices in my head. It was all sorts of stuff. And when I finally did it, I was like, what did I wait so long for? But by that time, I had a reasonable view that I had the stuff to succeed. I had really good experience. I had seen my way through a couple of crises and so forth. But you're not gonna. The truest thing in the world is no risk, no reward. I mean, you can always look, there's two types of people in this world. Here's another one. The same person who said to me, there's no last best deal also said to me, there's two types of people in the world. There are owners, and there are employees. And at a certain moment, you have to decide if you want to be an owner and if you want to be fabulously rich. That's typically what you're going to have to be. And by an owner, I mean you're going to have to be an entrepreneur who starts their own thing or. Or a person who's. I think the word he used is like, an owner or being owned. You know, being an employee. And when you figure out how much money matters to you, that's an easier decision to make. But if you're gonna be an entrepreneur, at some point, you're gonna have to make that leap, and you're gonna be poor before you're rich. But I always tell the story of when I was at hbs. There was at the end of the year when you graduated at Harvard Business School, back in the old days, they published your name. Get a load of this. They published your gpa, your grade point average. They published where you were going to work.

Vivian Tu (34:22)

What?

Susie Welch (34:23)

Yes. This is the old days. 88. They published where you were going to work, and they published your starting salary. What? Yes.

Vivian Tu (34:31)

That is kind of crazy, but, like, also amazing, because then, you know what?

Susie Welch (34:35)

Everybody's starting salaries, okay? So they did that in the olden days, and they did it in rank order. So it started with a person with the highest salary. Didn't do it. Rabbling. Nice. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, so this is the olden days. Well come to the end of the year. Of course, this was not shocking at the time because it was part of what we did, right? So There were these seven guys in my class, class of 88, who oddly had had their GPA and then there was no information on where they were going to work or what they were going to make. And these were like BMOCs. These were like finance Bros. These are guys who had been a Goldman.

Vivian Tu (35:07)

Wait, what is a bmoc?

Susie Welch (35:08)

A Big man on campus.

Vivian Tu (35:09)

Okay, okay, sorry about that.

Susie Welch (35:11)

And these were like, like, you know, chest thumping famous guys on campus. And I was like. So I said to a friend of mine, I called them the Magnificent Seven because they, these fabulous guys. And I said, wait, what's going on with the Mag 7? There's no, there's no job, no number. And he said, yeah, I heard they're all moving out to Silicon Valley. And I said, now remember we were writing our finals in those days by hand. And I said, said, what's Silicon Valley? And he said, I think it's near San Francisco. And I said, oh, why? Why are they moving there? And he said, I think they like golf. And I was like, I mean, we had no idea. But they were betting on themselves. They all went on to become billionaires. I mean, they all went out to Silicon Valley in 88, joined or started.

Vivian Tu (36:00)

Companies for the, or made Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley.

Susie Welch (36:02)

They did. They did. And they said, screw the voices. We don't care what it says in the graduation. I cared so much what it said in that grad. It was gonna say Bain and it was gonna say that starting salary. And it did. And they didn't care. They bet on themselves and they left. Now these were very, very talented guys, but they, they all were. And I think they did all like golf, but that's not why they were going. I know. It was incredible. What a lesson I learned from that. What a lesson. They were just zero Fs given. They were going out to where the, you know, they just went out to. This was a megatrend and we had no idea. And they just walked right into it. I mean, I still think about the guts that it took.

Vivian Tu (36:42)

Yeah. Wow. When it wasn't cool to be a Silicon Valley tech bro, we didn't even.

Susie Welch (36:47)

Know what Silicon Valley was. I mean, Sandhill Road had no meaning to us, okay? It was a nothing. It was just the beginnings of the beginning.

Vivian Tu (36:57)

Have you ever seen someone take like a risk? And it didn't yes, I've taken risks.

Susie Welch (37:05)

And it haven't paid off. So a couple of years ago, my son and my late husband's grandson started a music tech company together called Quadio. And it looked like it was gonna grow. It was a music streaming service for college artists. So if you were a student. Oh yeah, we thought it was really cool. And so did everybody else at the beginning. And it grew like unbelievably, started like 2018 and it took off. There were like 55 employees and at a certain point they were making enough money that I kind of went in to run things because these were 21 year olds and the next oldest employee was like, and then there was me. And it was going incredibly well. But our business model was based on word of mouth, virality and in person concerts on campuses. And then Covid came and it just blew up. It just blew up. And we made a bunch of bets. When our business model was blowing up, we made a bunch of bets and we didn't bet correctly and it all blew up. I mean, it was terrible. I mean, some of the worst phone calls I've ever made in my life, probably the worst phone calls I've ever made in my life was calling the investors and saying, I lost your money. I mean now the biggest loser was me because I invested my own money in it and maybe that helped them feel better. But you know, to a person, except for one person, all the rest said, I'd bet on you again. Susie, this happens in business. You tried your hardest. We saw you killing yourself to save it. You did everything you could. And then one other person was really, really mad. And still, it is still really, really bitchy to me.

Vivian Tu (38:31)

We just talked so much about entrepreneurship. Yeah, I'd love your perspective on, you know, there has been data that's shown that like the easiest way to become a millionaire is actually not to be an owner. It's to find a strong paying job and climb the ladder. So, you know, high paying industries, law consulting, business tech, things like that. What is your perspective on trying something scary that could really, really blow up in your face versus if you are in a situation where, where you are able to get one of those jobs that has a six figure starting salary, you know, mid level employees can, you know, be promised seven figures. Like how do you weigh the benefit of that? Because sure, if you don't have anything like, you know, if you're not gonna be hired into one of these industries, it's a lot easier because the opportunity cost is less.

Susie Welch (39:19)

It all comes down to your values. Okay? So I mean, if your value is. So there's a value I talked about, it's called scope, and that is about whether you want to. And you could have a value of low scope that you want a predict, predictable life with high visibility, high predictability, high self control, then one of those jobs is fantastic. You're going to slowly climb up the ladder as long as you continue to show up really well in your relationships with people and your ideas and your execution. There's just three routes to success, by the way. People, ideas, and execution. And you can slowly but surely climb that ladder and make a really good living that way. And that's fine if your values are lower. Skills and affluence is not off the charts, but it's a pretty high but moderate value for you. Maybe it's number six or seven, that's fine. It all is about like. It's not. There's no absolute answer to that. The answer is all in you. What do you want in the relative ranking of your values? So say your top value is something we call belonging. That's friendship. Okay? And for some people, that's the number one value. It's not a lot of people, it's only 11% of people have that as their top value. Then when you're looking at that duality, you're looking at, do I go be an entrepreneur or do I join an organization and stay with it? Well, the answer's obvious. Your top value is belonging. Go join that corporation and stay with it, make a zillion friends because you're all part of the same company, right? But if your number one value is excitement, scope and its agency, which is self determination, then you're gonna have to go be an entrepreneur. Otherwise you're gonna have a huge authenticity gap. So the answer is just completely in your values.

Vivian Tu (40:53)

Are there any values or aptitudes that are most commonly found across, like, the most successful people you've met?

Susie Welch (41:00)

Well, I think that without a doubt, those three values of achievement, scope and work centrism are present in all of them. And in fact, the most successful people that I know and met, and I've been really lucky in my life to meet super successful people because I was married to somebody who was successful himself as a CEO and knew a lot of them. And so I kind of like, boom, one day, suddenly Matt started meeting them all. To a person almost none of them care about. They're just not driven by money. They're just not. Ken Langone's not driven by money. For instance, you Know, I think driven by helping people, driven by success and winning. Winning is fun. Giving people jobs is fun. You know, he was a poor kid, for instance, and he just was like, it's the first money he got. And Jack was the same way. My late husband was the exact same way. It was like, you know, he just was not about that. Money only was a measure of success, of the win. And so they share this desire for achievement. They generally tend to like people and want to be around people and get a lot of energy off of people. And they just work constantly. And if there was seven days a week, and if there was an eighth day, they'd work it too. That tends to be pretty present across the board.

Vivian Tu (42:12)

I love that. So this is a money podcast. I have to ask you, you've held so many different job titles, but these days, can you break down your different income streams for us? Where are you getting what percentages from where?

Susie Welch (42:25)

Okay. I am a professor at NYU Stern, and so that's my day job. And I have a professor's salary. And I feel so grateful to have that job. So that's one. I have a wonderful speaking business where I travel around the world and unbelievably, people pay to hear me talk.

Vivian Tu (42:42)

No, that's incredibly believable, by the way.

Susie Welch (42:44)

Yes, thank you. So then I do. I have a whole separate business where I have created the values Bridge. And that's an income stream because there's a free version. But unfortunately, engineers are not free. So there's also a paid version, which is better. And so that's an income stream. And we're very fortunate that that tool is really taking off. And then I have a great income stream from teaching becoming you in open enrollment to the public. And I split some of that revenue with nyu, but otherwise, that's also an income stream. That's mainly it. I don't have, like, any passive income like real estate or anything like that. I live in my homes and I'm like, I'm still a hardworking person. Like, I still earn my money with my activities.

Vivian Tu (43:29)

Are you investing any in, like, startups, businesses, anything like that?

Susie Welch (43:33)

Yes, I do invest. I invest, but I have good help. Okay, So I use a bank, and they help me a lot. And they check in with me all the time. And I look at it and I trust the experts on this, and I ask great questions. Cause I know which questions to ask. And then there are certain causes that I really believe in. But I believe that capital capitalism can be the force for good. So, for instance, I Invest in a lot of. I'm a vegan. I invest in vegan businesses and businesses that help take animals out of the food system. So I invest in those companies and I'm trying to teach my children how to invest. And so we have a foundation. And so what I do is I allow them. Each Christmas time, I give them a certain amount of money and I say, I want to see where you would put this money to help social causes. And then I talk to them about their decisions. So that's actually the funnest part of it, is helping my kids understand better how to. How to spend money wisely.

Vivian Tu (44:25)

Yeah, that's great. Nobody needs any more junk in their stocking.

Susie Welch (44:28)

Yeah, I know. And they're too old to have stocking.

Vivian Tu (44:30)

Yeah, exactly. But even so, I feel like that's such a great Christmas gift because it's the gift that really does.

Susie Welch (44:35)

Yeah, no, they love it, actually. It's their favorite thing to do. Yeah.

Vivian Tu (44:38)

Okay, so now, yes, we are getting into our rapid fire. So just tell me the first thing that comes to mind when I ask you this question.

Susie Welch (44:43)

Okay.

Vivian Tu (44:44)

Best money advice you've ever received?

Susie Welch (44:46)

Well, can I go back to the. There's no last best deal. That was a very. That was such a good one. I mean, it's.

Vivian Tu (44:51)

Yeah, that's a good one. What is the worst financial decision you've ever made?

Susie Welch (44:54)

Oh, how much time do we have? How much time do we have? I definitely over invested in that startup I mentioned to you, Quadia. You know what I did? I invested in marketing before I invested in technology. That was dumb. I thought, oh, yeah, the technology's coming along. Let's just get the sales apparatus up and running. That was dumb. And then I made a really dumb decision that I kind of got saved at last minute, which is I bought a house I should shouldn't have. After my husband died, I made a decision too rapidly, and I would advise anybody who's going through a traumatic life event to go more slowly than they think. But I bought a house that I didn't end up using and it was too far away from the city and I had to unload it and I had tried to fix it up. I got out by the skin of my teeth. But that was a dumb decision. Completely own it. I just moved too fast.

Vivian Tu (45:40)

What is one piece of advice you would give through for someone who is dealing with grief?

Susie Welch (45:46)

Find other people in grief. I would never have made it without my widow friends. I mean, I just had friends who came up alongside me and they had sort of Seen me through the end of my husband's life, and they were able to talk to me about stuff I was going through that no one else could. So I think, find fellow travelers. Don't do it alone.

Vivian Tu (46:07)

What is one thing you always splurge on without guilt?

Susie Welch (46:09)

Oh, shoes. I'm of the hello lover school of thought with shoes. There's a scene in Sex in the City where she sees some blonic Mary Janes and she goes, hello, lover. When I saw that, I was like, yes, I've felt that way about a shoe. So, yeah, I'll get myself some shoes. I love shoes. I don't think small indulgence. And so I think sometimes it's just frivolous and if you feels good.

Vivian Tu (46:35)

Yeah, yeah, I felt that way about a shoe and then it gave me a blister.

Susie Welch (46:37)

Yeah. No, I. I'm not beyond that. Right. Yeah. Every day.

Vivian Tu (46:41)

What's one thing you'll never spend money on again?

Susie Welch (46:46)

Well, from a business point of view, I will never spend money again on marketing until I know the product market fit is real. This was a lesson I had to learn the hard way. You've got to chase growth. You can't. You can't buy growth. You've got to chase growth. The people have got to be saying to you, your product's really good, then you, you can go for it. So I won't spend money on that. And I think this is gonna be very countercultural. But I'm spending less and less money on travel, I think, in my very own. Because I've just traveled so much of my life. I've been to 69 countries. Wow. And you know what? There's no place like home. And I think I've got my three dogs. And I think I'm becoming more of a homebody. There's just sheer joy at home. I mean, there's a time in your life to really travel. And I, you know, with the amount of tiktoks I consume on travel, you would think I was traveling constantly, but I think I'm living vicariously that. But I think I'm spending less and less on it. And I'm. And I'm leaning more into the joy of my homes.

Vivian Tu (47:40)

Are you one of those crazy dog moms that's like, oh, my dog needs to drink filtered water with an ice cube in it and like, human grade food?

Susie Welch (47:48)

No, I'm not that crazy, but all my friends are. Now, I really love my dogs. I have German shepherds. I have a dachshund as well. And I'VE been a dog person my whole life, and I'm on the board of the Humane Society and I'm very involved with animal protection. But dogs are dogs and that's what makes them great. And they do eat good food. And like, I would never. But I would never buy them, like, clothing.

Vivian Tu (48:07)

Yeah.

Susie Welch (48:07)

Okay. I would never, like, I would never put like my dachshund in a tutu or anything like that. You know, they're dogs and that, that's what makes them so great. But they do sleep on the bed with me and, you know. Yeah. I'm probably underselling kind of dog. Mom. I am here. Yeah.

Vivian Tu (48:22)

If you could go back in your entire life, is there anything that you. That you would undo?

Susie Welch (48:31)

No, because it's gotten me here. I mean, there's things I wish hadn't happened. You know, I've lost friends and then of course, the worst grief of all and that I lost my husband. So I wish it hadn't happened. But that was the narrative of my life that was written for me. And so. But because I'm at a place, my children are healthy and now I have grandchildren, you know, it's like that butterfly's wings. I mean, if I changed one thing, I wouldn't be where I am now. I mean, are there things I would. I wish I'd hurt fewer people. I mean, along the way, when we're not our best selves, we hurt people. I mean, I'm sure I was, you know, when I was going through my. I was married before Jack and I went through a divorce. And I'm sure I was unkind to people who were trying to love on me. And I'm sure I was unkind to my sisters who were my best friends and they were very. So I'm sure there's things I could have and should have done better in moments when I was not my, let's just put it this way, best self. But, you know, I consider it all a big wisdom project, you know, that gets you to where you. Where you eventually belong.

Vivian Tu (49:27)

I was just gonna say you are a treasure trove of wisdom and probably the most self aware person I have ever met. I'd be like, I'm perfect. What do you mean? I was never mean to anybody. No.

Susie Welch (49:36)

No. Oh, God. So. So no. Yeah.

Vivian Tu (49:38)

I love that answer. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you. Please tell everyone who's listening where we can find you across social media, where we can read Becoming youg, where we can get it where we can take all of your shots.

Susie Welch (49:51)

It's a shameless promotion. First of all, it's been fantastic to be with you. You are a national treasure and international treasure. You can follow me at Susie Welch on Instagram. That's my major platform. I'm on LinkedIn and TikTok of course. And you can go to susiewelch.com that's a really good place to find out about the book and my newsletter and my podcast. But we also if you're interested in my tools, we have becomingyoulabs.com and that describes all the tools that are part of the Becoming youg methodology. So you can't miss me. I'm out there.

Vivian Tu (50:20)

Amazing. Thank you so much.

Susie Welch (50:21)

Thank you.

Vivian Tu (50:22)

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Net Worth and Chill, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you liked the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Got a burning financial question that you want covered in a future episode? Write to us via podcastorrichbff.com follow Net Worth and Chillpod on Instagram to stay up to date on all podcast related news and you can follow me at your rich BFF for even more financial know how. See you next week.

Susie Welch (50:49)

Bye.