Love of the Week

Oh, there are so many profound things I could write about at this moment, but I feel compelled to zero in on the dancing woman in the blue dress.

Dancing and singing woman, actually. And clapping.

I encountered her yesterday on the way to work. I don’t think I was running late, but as a New Yorker, it is my duty to treat the sidewalk as if I am always running late, head down, shoulders hunched, sneakers pounding, dodging and weaving around any slowpokes who might be taking in the day. I mean, puhleez! To quote Fran Lebowitz, “Pretend it’s a city!”

It was in this mode that I first sensed, and then heard, and finally saw the dancing woman as she passed me. She was actually moving faster than I was, but not from your typical Gotham ferocity.

No, she was powering along from joy – joy of the sheer, unmitigated variety.

She had her headphones in, and they must have been playing some very uplifting music, as she was singing and dancing and clapping along, breaking into a full-on skip every few steps.

And as I trailed in her wake, I saw the most amazing thing happen. People started cheering for her as she loped by. No kidding. I even saw one person try to high-five her. Their hands missed, but they beamed and waved at each other anyway. It was impossible to miss that no one in her path was unaffected or looked away. Including me. I was like, “You go girl!” I dare say, I even uttered that out loud.

Then she was gone, turning left onto 60th and bopping into an office building.

I am realistic enough to wonder if this woman is less endearing in large doses. Perhaps her cheerfulness drives her co-workers crazy. But I think there is also a chance that she is the person every office needs, not to mention every family and every community.

Because joy is contagious. I’m not just saying that as a bromide; social scientists have proven it again and again, and you know it to be true in your bones anyway. The same thing goes for negative energy; it’s a contagion. Energy vampires drain the good vibes out of every group they’re in. Why? Isn’t this thing we do, life, hard enough as it is?

So I’m here for the dancing woman in the blue dress. Not only did I love starting my day with her, I want to be more like her, more often. I may not be singing – that would be criminal – but the random sharing of joy is a thing I can do. Maybe, couldn’t we all?

Hate of the Week

There is literally nothing to hate about friendship, but I do hate how hard it is for people to make friends these days in our hyper-connected world, in which everyone we do know and don’t know is just a click away. Isn’t it ironic?

Our own data from The Values Bridge shows that the friendship value, Belonging, ranks 8th for the general population. That’s dead center of the list, coming after self-care, self-determination, self-expression, family, and even trailing Scope, the value of excitement, and Beholderism, the value of aesthetics. For Gen Z, it is even a bit lower, an interesting data point given how many of our friends we tend to make in school.

You know I am a total values agnostic. If you’re not hurting anyone, your values are yours to live. But I wonder sometimes if all of us, pretty much collectively, are hurting ourselves and each other by not leaning more into Belonging, and prioritizing it. OK fine, this is a bit of a feint. Because I don’t just wonder. I wish we all made more time for friends, myself included. The other day, out of the blue, I called an old friend, a woman I love with all my heart, to catch up after two years of both of us being too busy to say hi. It was one of the most beautiful conversations I’ve had in a long time, both of us bemoaning how much we missed each other, and how dumb it was that we let the time get away. We will never get it back.

You can hear me opine about friendship on my new podcast on Belonging, but even better than that, you can hear about this value from one of the world’s leading scholars on the subject, my brilliant NYU Stern colleague Julianna Pillemer.

And actually, more than a colleague. Julianna and I are friends – and how much better is that? Maybe I will go call her right now.

Hmm of the Week

I had dinner this week with a daughter of a friend who is 24 and working in executive search because she has no idea what to do with her life. In college, she majored in Psychology, which taught her only one thing, how to study psychology. “Useless,” she dubbed her education.

After we decided she should read Becoming You – yay! – we moved onto another pressing matter, feedback she had received from the firm’s partners that she was presenting as “too bubbly.” She is, in fact, bubbly. But she is also serious, thoughtful, and incredibly smart. She asked for my advice. Here it is for your consideration.

Giggle exactly 0% in the office. You can smile occasionally, but no raucous laughter or, God forbid, guffawing. Develop a thoughtful and engaged “resting” face that is not bitchy at all. And avoid the Gen Z stare at all costs.

“I’m sorry to report that for you to be taken seriously at this moment in your life in a corporate setting, you are going to have to leave your bubbly self at home.”

She nodded solemnly and did not push back.

Later that night, I found myself laying in the dark wondering if I had steered my young charge into the inauthenticity abyss, or guided her toward survival alley. Maybe, I finally figured, I’d done both at the same time. Because sometimes the process of becoming someone new involves letting go of parts of ourselves that no longer serve us.

But I ask for your take on this matter too. I truly seek your views at hello@suzywelch.com. Send them, and I promise I will cheer and clap and dance as they come in, although I will not sing.

I will leave that to the lady in the blue dress; may she cross your path this week.

The Three Things Working Against Your Friendships

I was standing in my kitchen when the phone rang. My best friend's voice was different before she even said a word. "I can't be friends with you anymore," she said — and hung up. It was the last time we spoke for fifteen years.

There's no word for that kind of loss. No apparatus, no ceremony, no bereavement leave, no language for losing a friend the way there is for a marriage or a family. This week on Becoming You, we dig into why, and discuss everything you need to know about The Values Bridge value of Belonging.

Also in this episode: Rachel Gillman Rischall of The Connection Code about what it's like to live with Belonging as a top value; the three biggest eurekas I had preparing for this episode; NYU Stern's friendship expert Julianna Pillemer to discuss the surprising science of friendship at work; and finally, a conversation with Sue Jacobson, the friend from that phone call, to talk about what really happened, why it took fifteen years to find out, and what brought us back. Come along, my friends.

Tune in Here!

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