How long can you hold your breath? That's what it feels like when you're not living one of your top values: like being underwater, searching for a surface you can't see.

This week on Please Advise, Suzy talks to Michelle, an architect and firm partner in her early 40s with three kids in first, second, and third grade. Michelle took the Values Bridge last year and found the results transformational, but one thing surprised her. Her top values are a tie between Eudemonia (wellbeing, self-care, balance) and Beholderism (a love of beautiful things), yet work has always felt central to her life. Her question: can work or family be how you live your values, even if they aren't values themselves?

Then Michelle shares a number that stops the conversation: a 72% Authenticity Gap on Eudemonia, which is the distance between how much she wants to live that value and how much she actually does. Suzy's rule of thumb is that anything over 50% means the house is on fire.

Why is the gap so big, and what closes it? Suzy's diagnosis comes from a value Michelle barely mentioned, and the prescription is surprisingly doable.

Have a question for Please Advise? Submit it here.

As a Becoming You podcast listener, use code PODCAST for 50% off The Values Bridge. 

You are always growing and evolving and so are we. Sign up for the ⁠Becoming You newsletter⁠ for fresh new content in one tidy package.

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You can follow and tag Suzy on:

• Instagram: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• Linkedin: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

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• YouTube: ⁠@suzywelch_⁠

• X: ⁠@SuzyWelch⁠

Suzy is obsessed with her grandchildren. Completely, unapologetically obsessed. But for most of her life, she didn't organize her decisions around family, and for a long time that came with a question a lot of people are afraid to ask: Does putting myself before my family make me a bad person?

Becoming You is about figuring out what actually matters to you so you can make better choices about your work, your relationships, and your life. One way to get there is the Values Bridge, Suzy’s scientifically validated assessment that identifies the values that really drive you, not the ones you think you're supposed to have. In this 16-part series, Suzy is exploring those values one at a time. This week: Familycentrism, one of the most emotionally loaded values of all. 

Family therapist Vienna Pharaon joins Suzy to unpack why family comes with so many expectations and why the "black sheep" is often just the person with lower Familycentrism. Then Becoming You certified coach Lola Persons gets personal about loving her family fiercely without building her life around them, and why she calls it "not the Brady Bunch, but it's okay."

Because maybe the question was never how much you love your family. Maybe it's how much of your life you want to organize around them, and whether we can stop judging the people who answer differently. Where does Familycentrism fall for you? Take the Values Bridge to find out, with a discount code in the show notes.

As a Becoming You podcast listener, use code PODCAST for 50% off The Values Bridge. 

Find Vienna Pharaon on Instagram, Substack, and find her book "The Origins of You" here, along with her quiz here.

Find Lola Persons on LinkedIn here.

You are always growing and evolving and so are we. Sign up for the ⁠Becoming You newsletter⁠ for fresh new content in one tidy package.

Want more Becoming You? Check out the ⁠Becoming You book⁠.

You can follow and tag Suzy on:

• Instagram: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• Linkedin: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• TikTok: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• YouTube: ⁠@suzywelch_⁠

• X: ⁠@SuzyWelch⁠

Jes is 27, works in the nonprofit sector, and has a not-so-secret dream: she wants to be a writer. The problem, as she sees it, is a values conflict — she wants her work to be seen, but she doesn't want to be famous, and she wants to make money, but writing doesn't pay unless you're willing to put your whole life on display.

This week on Please Advise, Suzy starts down that path with Jes, but the conversation doesn't stay there. Underneath the values question is a harder one nobody had asked yet: does Jes actually have the aptitude to be a writer, or does she just love the idea of it? Suzy calls in some radical candor to find out.

What emerges isn't "don't chase the dream." There’s a sharper, more useful answer, and Suzy helps Jes map out a path that actually aligns. It's a conversation about ambition, honesty, and the difference between an interest and an aptitude. As Suzy puts it, an interest without the aptitude to back it up has another name: a hobby.

Have a question for Please Advise? Submit it here.

As a Becoming You podcast listener, use code PODCAST for 50% off The Values Bridge. 

You are always growing and evolving and so are we. Sign up for the ⁠Becoming You newsletter⁠ for fresh new content in one tidy package.

Want more Becoming You? Check out the ⁠Becoming You book⁠.

You can follow and tag Suzy on:

• Instagram: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• Linkedin: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• TikTok: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• YouTube: ⁠@suzywelch_⁠

• X: ⁠@SuzyWelch⁠

There may be no value more contentious than this one — so contentious that Suzy Welch almost didn't include it in her own methodology at all.

This episode is the next installment of an epic 16-part deep dive, one episode for each of the 16 values in the language Suzy created with the Values Bridge, her scientifically validated assessment tool. This week's value is Cosmos — faith, in any tradition, not one in particular — and it's the most polarized value on the entire Values Bridge at that. 

Suzy sits down with Ryan Burge, professor at Washington University in St. Louis, author of “The Vanishing Church,” and the researcher behind the Substack “Graphs About Religion,” to unpack the state of faith in America today. Suzy also gets personal, telling the story of her own faith journey since age 14, and confessing something she's never said on the podcast before. Tune in for more.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review! Take the Values Bridge yourself and find out where Cosmos falls for you, with the link and discount code below.

As a Becoming You podcast listener, use code PODCAST for 50% off The Values Bridge. 

Find Ryan Burge's Substack "Graphs About Religion" here, his book "The Vanishing Church" here, and X, LinkedIn, Instagram.

You are always growing and evolving and so are we. Sign up for the ⁠Becoming You newsletter⁠ for fresh new content in one tidy package.

Want more Becoming You? Check out the ⁠Becoming You book⁠.

You can follow and tag Suzy on:

• Instagram: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• Linkedin: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• TikTok: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• YouTube: ⁠@suzywelch_⁠

• X: ⁠@SuzyWelch⁠

Lily is 68, newly retired, and bored out of her mind. What she really wants now is to do something so scary it keeps her up at night.

This week as season 1 of Please Advise continues, Suzy talks to Lily, who's had more lives than most: news anchor, reporter, road manager for a band touring Quebec, medical claims specialist, full-time felting artist (yes, a piece of hers once went to Stevie Nicks), and, most recently, a coordinator at the VA. She's got the courage, the resume, and even a vision board, but one thing keeps holding her back: a very low tolerance for financial risk.

Suzy digs into Lily's values, aptitudes, and interests, and lands on the breakthrough — which isn't even the idea itself. It's Suzy's reframe of how to get there. Stop imagining the five-day version and start with the five-hour one. Small experiments, low risk, real data, one step before the next.

It's a conversation about courage at any age, the difference between dreaming big and starting small, and why it's never too late to place the chips on yourself.

Have a question for Please Advise? Submit it here.

As a Becoming You podcast listener, use code PODCAST for 50% off The Values Bridge. 

You are always growing and evolving and so are we. Sign up for the ⁠Becoming You newsletter⁠ for fresh new content in one tidy package.

Want more Becoming You? Check out the ⁠Becoming You book⁠.

You can follow and tag Suzy on:

• Instagram: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• Linkedin: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• TikTok: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• YouTube: ⁠@suzywelch_⁠

• X: ⁠@SuzyWelch⁠

Christina hates office politics. Who doesn't? But after 20-plus years in corporate marketing, she's started asking herself a much harder question: What if the problem isn't the politics — what if it's her?

This week on Becoming You, Suzy talks to Christina, a brand management veteran who recently quit her job, unsure whether she's actually cut out for corporate life at all, or just tired of playing a game she never wanted to play. Suzy shares her own bruising run-in with office politics from her early career days, before turning diagnostic on Christina's story.

And it points toward one particular next move: Stop trying to survive inside a culture that will always clash with who you are, and go build the one that won't. It's a conversation about self-awareness, entrepreneurship, and the difference between throwing in the towel and finally stepping into your authentic self.

If you liked this episode, please leave a review!

As a Becoming You podcast listener, use code PODCAST for 50% off The Values Bridge. 

You are always growing and evolving and so are we. Sign up for the ⁠Becoming You newsletter⁠ for fresh new content in one tidy package.

Want more Becoming You? Check out the ⁠Becoming You book⁠.

You can follow and tag Suzy on:

• Instagram: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• Linkedin: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• TikTok: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• YouTube: ⁠@suzywelch_⁠

• X: ⁠@SuzyWelch⁠

Two Suzy’s walk into a podcast. One of them has had 30 jobs. The other is here to help sort through what job is next. 

This week on Please Advise, your host Suzy Welch talks to a fellow Suzy — Atlanta's own "Suzie Sunshine" — who has found herself stuck with where to turn next. Now in her mid-50s, with her children grown, and with over 30 jobs in her lifetime, Suzie Sunshine is nowhere near ready to slow down, but isn’t sure which is the best path to take. 

Your host Suzy goes straight into diagnostic mode, tracing the story back to a seventh-grade dream of acting, a magazine article that scared her off it, and a quiet, decades-long override by one of the Four Horsemen of Values Destruction. Suzy walks through Suzie Sunshine's top values and lands on an answer that actually has nothing to do with another job title at all.

It's a conversation about entrepreneurship, courage, and betting on yourself when you think the clock is running out — and a reminder that it is never too late to become you.

Have a question for Please Advise? Submit it here.

As a Becoming You podcast listener, use code PODCAST for 50% off The Values Bridge. 

You are always growing and evolving and so are we. Sign up for the ⁠Becoming You newsletter⁠ for fresh new content in one tidy package.

Want more Becoming You? Check out the ⁠Becoming You book⁠.

You can follow and tag Suzy on:

• Instagram: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• Linkedin: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• TikTok: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• YouTube: ⁠@suzywelch_⁠

• X: ⁠@SuzyWelch⁠

How do you make a fun, upbeat podcast about a value that makes literally everyone uncomfortable — the people who have it and the people who don't? That's the challenge Suzy Welch sets for herself this week on Becoming You.

This episode is the next installment of an epic 16-part deep dive, one episode for each of the 16 values in the language Suzy created with The Values Bridge, her scientifically validated assessment tool. We all hold these values, ranked 1 to 16 in a different order for each of us, and understanding the language can change everything. That's because values aren't virtues like happiness or honesty — they're choices about how you live your life, and there's no good or bad, right or wrong, about which ones you hold.

This week's value is Radius: the drive to change the world in big, systemic ways. Suzy explains why so few of us have it (just 10%, ranking 14 out of 16 values) and reveals the single most shocking data point in the Values Bridge dataset about it. Suzy also draws a hard line between Radius and its frequently confused cousin, Non-Sibi — the value of helping people one-on-one — and explains why wanting to change the world doesn't necessarily mean wanting to help people individually.

Then Suzy goes to 20,000 feet with Dr. Jay Van Bavel, professor of psychology and neuroscience at NYU and author of The Power of Us, to debate whether Radius is a value or an identity — and to unpack why movements built around Radius so often turn on themselves. Finally, Suzy sits down with Kitty Block, CEO of Humane World for Animals, whose own Radius story involves twenty veterinarians, a runaway dog, and a face full of bruises.

Take the Values Bridge yourself and find out where Radius falls for you. Link and discount code below.

Find Jay Van Bavel on LinkedIn, X,  and his book, The Power of Us. 

Find Kitty Block at Humane World for Animals. 

As a Becoming You podcast listener, use code PODCAST for 50% off The Values Bridge. 

You are always growing and evolving and so are we. Sign up for the ⁠Becoming You newsletter⁠ for fresh new content in one tidy package.

Want more Becoming You? Check out the ⁠Becoming You book⁠.

You can follow and tag Suzy on:

• Instagram: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• Linkedin: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• TikTok: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• YouTube: ⁠@suzywelch_⁠

• X: ⁠@SuzyWelch⁠

"I want the old you back." Sometimes that's how the people closest to you respond when you start actually living your values — and it's exactly what this week’s caller Brie is running into with her own family, on this episode of Please Advise.

Suzy takes two listener calls this week. First, Ana, 44, back on the job hunt after a sabbatical, doing everything by the book: networking, applying, staying intentional. Yet still hitting silence. Suzy walks through Ana's values and aptitudes and lands on the real problem: it's not her, it's her tactics. Suzy shares her advice after years of being on both sides of the desk. 

Then Brie calls in. She's gotten clear on her values and is living more aligned with them than ever, except her family isn't sure what to make of the new her. Suzy names what's actually happening: Brie's family is confusing values with virtues, and reading her growth as a rejection of them. Suzy walks through her own version of this story, including a hard-won truce with her own kids over Workcentrism and Achievement, and makes the case that naming your values out loud, to the people who love you, is what keeps you close instead of growing apart.

As a Becoming You podcast listener, use code PODCAST for 50% off The Values Bridge. 

You are always growing and evolving and so are we. Sign up for the ⁠Becoming You newsletter⁠ for fresh new content in one tidy package.

Want more Becoming You? Check out the ⁠Becoming You book⁠.

You can follow and tag Suzy on:

• Instagram: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• Linkedin: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• TikTok: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• YouTube: ⁠@suzywelch_⁠

• X: ⁠@SuzyWelch⁠

Suzy continues her deep dive into the 16 values from the Welch-Bristol Values Inventory with Beholderism — our desire for beautiful things: our homes, our clothes, our stuff, ourselves. It's the #4 most prevalent value in the general population, #2 for women overall, and yet it's one of the values people are most likely to feel ashamed of.

Suzy walks through the data on who has it and who doesn't, shares the story of the time her Beholderism led her to knock on a Finnish mayor's door, and sits down with legendary interior designer Elizabeth Lawrence of Williams Lawrence. Then Dr. Evelyn Welch — historian, MBE, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol, and Suzy's friend of 52 years — joins to explain why beauty and consumerism have been linked since long before the Renaissance.

If you've ever felt silly for caring how things look, this episode is your permission slip.

Find Elizabeth Lawrence on Instagram @elizabeth_m_lawrence and @williams_lawrence_interiors.

Elizabeth Lawrence and Bunny Williams: Decoration available here.

As a Becoming You podcast listener, use code PODCAST for 50% off The Values Bridge. 

You are always growing and evolving and so are we. Sign up for the ⁠Becoming You newsletter⁠ for fresh new content in one tidy package.

Want more Becoming You? Check out the ⁠Becoming You book⁠.

You can follow and tag Suzy on:

• Instagram: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• Linkedin: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• TikTok: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• YouTube: ⁠@suzywelch_⁠

• X: ⁠@SuzyWelch⁠

This week on Becoming You’s Please Advise series, your host Suzy Welch takes two more listener calls. Erin is a 55-year-old single mom of three, working a job in HR that's quietly hollowing her out, and she wants to know: does she stick it out until she knows exactly what to do next, or does she leave now? Suzy walks through Erin's top values and lands on a piece of advice that has nothing to do with a resume: Stop building the website, and start building the business.

Then Suzy talks to Parnian, an executive and entrepreneur navigating the "messy middle" of career, marriage, and family planning all at once, who asks how women can better lean on each other to get ahead. Suzy's answer takes an unexpected turn into a new definition of resilience, and a hard line she draws for her students: Don't network, make friends. It's Suzy at her most personal, weaving in stories from her own divorce, her PhD, and a friendship that changed the entire trajectory of her career.

Real questions, real answers, no scripts — Please Advise Season 1 continues.

As a Becoming You podcast listener, use code PODCAST for 50% off The Values Bridge. 

You are always growing and evolving and so are we. Sign up for the ⁠Becoming You newsletter⁠ for fresh new content in one tidy package.

Want more Becoming You? Check out the ⁠Becoming You book⁠.

You can follow and tag Suzy on:

• Instagram: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• Linkedin: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• TikTok: ⁠@suzywelch⁠

• YouTube: ⁠@suzywelch_⁠

• X: ⁠@SuzyWelch⁠