​Some days are busy and long. Most days, I guess. Other days contain an entire year, and they leave you in a kind of stunned wonder. Welcome to my Tuesday.

But before I describe it, let me set some context. On a snowy day in 2021, I came inside from a woods walk with the dogs, and I told my son, “I think I’ve come up with a class to help people figure out their purpose.” He listened to me explain it – my memory is I was breathless and scared – and he quietly replied, “I think that’s great idea, Mom, I think you should call it ‘Becoming You.’” 

On Monday night this week, I flew into Aspen. I did not know the ten people I was going to meet, but they knew me from my book. Each year, this group – five married couples – gather to share their challenges and fortify their marriages. One of them had reached out to ask if I would join them this time, to do Becoming Us.

Yes, Becoming Us – that’s Becoming You for couples. Believe me, such an extrapolation of Becoming You had not dawned on me in 2021. But it emerged almost immediately after I started teaching the idea, and little wonder, really. Almost no one finds their purpose on an island. Usually we live, work, and change in an ecosystem of family and friends and colleagues (and even dogs).

For every good reason, I will leave out all details of my eight hours with this group of remarkably good humans, except to say our focus was on The Values Bridge, and what each person’s results suggested for them as a person, parent, leader, and spouse. There were moments of insight and joy and laughter, and some other very tough moments. Let me just leave it there. They cried, I cried, and together, we grew.

​Was there insight, joy and laughter? Actually, yes. These are great people too, and passionate about building strong organizations that keep employing people in meaningful work. They want to understand Gen Z desperately, and our findings, they told me, are extremely helpful in that way. True, there were no tears, but definitely some grimaces. I will admit there was no hugging at the end, but lots of hearty handshaking. 

Like Aspen, I loved every minute of it. And like Aspen, I will never stop being amazed by what grew out of that little seed of an idea born in the woods among mighty oaks reaching for the sky.

This week, my little sapling reached for the sky too, and I reached with it, filled with gratitude for the love all around me that has made it possible. Yes, I’m talking to you. 

Hate of the Week

​What the heck, Aspen is insanely beautiful. Who knew? Oh, I suppose I knew. People talk about it all the time. But I guess I wasn’t listening. Argh, I hate that my life is in a state where I literally blow through everywhere I go. Eight hours in Aspen, three hours in DC, one day at home in New York, and then off to Philly soon to install The Values Bridge at a university there, before heading to Indianapolis to talk about Becoming You with the coaches of NBA. Good grief, this high Scope girl is living on a plane lately. 

Someday, I am going to slow down and smell the mountain air.

But not right now. And I don’t hate that at all.

​I write a lot about values in this newsletter, but the work of Becoming You is composed of you excavating two other data sets, your cognitive and emotional aptitudes and your economically viable interests.

To that end, I am spending a lot of time this summer elevating my curriculum with deeper and richer information about megatrends – that is, the areas of the economy that are poised to explode with opportunity in three to eight years. Once upon a time, AI was a megatrend, and some people got aboard it early, much to their career’s delight. My hope is that with Becoming You’s new content, which we will share on our upcoming learning platform, more people will get aboard more rocketships, if they so desire.

What say ye to this use of my time and energy? Megatrends are absolutely fascinating to me, and my NYU Stern students will tell you that I am practically levitating as I teach this portion of the course. But they are MBAs, already with a vested interest in business. How about you, though? Are you intrigued by a deeper understanding of what kind of jobs and industries lie ahead? How much, a little or a lot? I would love to be guided by you here, so drop me a line at hello@suzywelch.com.

But don’t worry, I will never stop working on every aspect of Becoming You. How could I? It keeps taking me where I need to be. It keeps helping me become me. I hope that’s happening for you too, every day of the week.

With love,

What's coming?

Can You Heal a Wound Your Father Never Knew He Left? with Vienna Pharaon, MFT

As the famous poem goes, “They f-you up, your mom and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.” If Father's Day has ever felt more like something you just get through than something you celebrate, this episode is for you. This week on Becoming You, I sit down with the brilliant Vienna Pharaon — licensed marriage and family therapist and author of The Origins of You — for a conversation about what happens when your relationship with your father is complicated. And why that has been so hard to say out loud.