Love of the Week

There are very few things you can be sure about in life, but I can be totally certain, 100%, that I never, ever – ever, ever – wanted to play golf. Thank God, I did not have a choice.

When I met Jack in 2001, he was one of, if not the best, amateur golfers in America, who openly disdained dogs as annoying, yappy distractions. I was a crazy dog lady, who derided golf as the weekend panic room for guys who didn’t want to help with the laundry.

So we made a deal. No, I mean, literally, we made a deal. Jack said, “Suzy, I need you to love what I love, and I need you to play this game with me all the time like you love it, and if you do that for me, I will love your freaking dogs forever and ever amen.” Except, he didn’t exactly use the word “freaking.”

I thought that was a reasonable trade, so I said yes. Then a funny thing happened. Jack fell in love with dogs. Not just our dogs, whom he obsessed over like a first-time grandmother, but all dogs, to the point of opening a dog shelter which bears his name. “What a dope I was!” he once exclaimed to a reporter about his transformation, “I missed 70 years of the greatest kind of love you can have on earth.” I was standing right next to him when he said this, by the way.

Meanwhile, I had the same kind of reaction to golf. It wasn’t instantaneous, because golf is so hard and I was no natural, to put it mildly. But within a year, I got it. I totally and completely got it. Golf was not a sport but an 18-hole existential endeavor that tested your heart, mind, body, and soul. I didn’t just want to play every day. I woke up dreaming of playing every day.

I know those closest to me predicted I would stop golfing when Jack died, and in fact, I did. Just passing a golf course in a car could make me cry. But two years afterward, close friends swung by my house unannounced one summer morning, grabbed my clubs from the garage, and ordered me to get in. “Let’s just cry it out, Suzy,” they said. And that’s what we did. But we also laughed, and remembered, and gripped each other's hands in silence at his favorite hole.

Then I made a par, and I was back.

Being back meant I needed a new favorite partner and, happily, he was just two inches away from me, my son, Marcus, who does happen to be a natural. Jack and I used to marvel at his swing speed, and I still do. That said, I did beat him on one hole this past 4th of July weekend. (One, yay!)

Look, there are so many things to love about golf, but this story is not really about the sport, I don’t think, now that the words are down. It’s about the saving forbearance of friends and family, the journey of making peace with your memories, and the astonishing ability of the heart to repair itself, time and again.

That, I might tenderly suggest, is the long game of our lives.

Hate of the Week

I don’t hate my obsession with Erling Haaland, but it is getting to be embarrassing.

It would, for instance, be mortifying to calculate how many hours I’ve spent watching mash-ups of his goals, his silly faces, and his press conference quips. A friend sent me a reel about his Birkin Bag collection. Watched that. Another friend sent me a post about his physical resemblance to a scallion, see photo evidence. Watched that one too, along with 15 million other people.

And you know I have taken Erling’s Values Bridge assessment in my head a few times, and can now conclude that Workcentrism must hold his #1 spot, because I mean, have you seen the 50,000 videos about that guy’s practice routines?

Yeah, well, I have.

Hmm of the Week

I woke up this morning to yet another post about the future of work, a topic about which very few people know anything you can hang your hat on.

Indeed, mention the future of work, and most people feel fear and even some despair. That’s because, to quote myself in the Wall Street Journal, “All the old college-to-job conveyor belts are broken.”

One of our key goals here at Becoming You Labs is to help you identify the new conveyor belts, or more accurately put, the emerging pathways to the future. Indeed, our upcoming online learning platform will introduce you to all 135 industries and 12 identified megatrends with the goal of opening your aperture about most promising opportunities ahead. We expect to have that online experience ready for you by September. Until then, check out this LinkedIn post and email me here at hello@suzywelch.com if any of these jobs sound real to you – and if they beckon.

Because sometimes embracing the future means we must also loosen the grip on our past.

I join you there,

What's coming?

→ Becoming You Certification Program here

The Insult That Changed My Life Could Change Yours — and Probably Should. Part 2

Last week, I told the story of the time I got publicly humiliated at Harvard Business School. This week? Revenge. In Part 2 of this three-part series, I pick up where the insult left off, and trace what happened in the immediate aftermath: the fire it lit inside me, my very Sicilian response, and making sure no one ever had to guess what my brain was capable of again - and I urge you to do the same. We dive into the first of four ways to identify your cognitive aptitudes, featuring the aptitudes expert and creator of YouScience, Betsy Wills.

Tune in Here!

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