Please Advise: I’ve Had 30 Jobs and Still Haven’t Found the One

Becoming You with Suzy Welch

In this episode of 'Please Advise,' host Suzy Welch helps a mid-50s Atlanta-based woman named Suzie Sunshine—despite having held over 30 job

Key takeaways

Childhood passions in early adolescence are strong predictors of adult purpose.
Fear-based decisions (like avoiding acting due to financial insecurity) can derail long-term fulfillment.

Main topics

Career dissatisfaction despite high productivity
The impact of early life decisions on long-term goals

Notable quotes

"I was fascinated with all things TV and drama. And I used to say, I am going to be an actress when I grow up."

"Once I read that, I told myself, well, maybe that's not for me."

Conclusion

Suzie Sunshine's journey reveals that purpose isn't found in a single job, but in

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) Susies of the world, unite! Can you believe that for most of my life I hated the name Susie? And I will tell you why. In 1959, the year I was born, apparently every third mother and father in the United States of America decided to name their daughter Susie. And thus, when I was in elementary school and in high school and in college, it was like Susie S, Susie R, Susie M, all over the place, everybody was Susie. And if you weren't Susie, by the way, you were Linda. And it just felt like, oh my God, they were just so... Many of us, like clones or lemmings as Susie's were everywhere. And of course, that meant my name was constantly being spelled wrong. Anyway, being named Susie was also just, it's just so cute. You know, and I do not find myself cute. This is not my identity to be cute. I'm a serious intellectual, for God's sake. But there I was, Susie. And then until I got married, I was Susie Spring. That was my maiden name. That's very cute. So no. But. Hello, I've come to complete peace with my name. I love my name, which leads me to tell you that my name is Susie Welch, and this is Please Advise. Yes, I have another podcast. It's called Becoming You. I hope you're listening to it every single minute. I mean, that is where I talk about the Becoming You methodology for purpose discovery that I teach at NYU Stern School of Business and all around the world. Speaker 4 (1:12) This once weekly podcast is called, as I said, Please Advise. And each week I answer listener questions live. No practice, no script, no prep, and therefore always a surprise or two or three occurs. And this week is no exception because I'm talking to another Susie. Isn't that cute? She even calls herself Susie Sunshine at one point, which I just love. I actually just love her, period. She may even feel familiar to you because she has never ever had a job. that has settled her spirit, to use her phrase. She has never had a job that she loves. And I hope you're sitting down because she has had 30 jobs and she is done with that. She's in her mid-50s and she's ready to find the job that is right for her at last. But she's worried because underneath it, all this brightness and optimism, and she's really delightful, you're going to love her. She's wondering if that's even possible for her. She wonders. Am I just a hopper? Am I just a wanderer? Am I a flitter? Am I somebody who never quite lands? Is there, she wants to know, hope for her to find the right job for her? And oh, oh, oh, there is. There is. I knew it. As you will soon hear, I heard it. I knew it. And I say it the minute we started talking. And it wasn't because she was another Susie. It was because I could sense from the get-go. that this Susie was willing to do the work of discovering just what she was meant to do. And I think the answer we get to in the podcast that follows will delight you as much as it delighted me. It is unexpected, but I think it's perfect where we get to. So let us dive in with Susie and Susie in this week's episode of Please Advise. I want to know something right away that's super important, which is how do you spell Susie? Speaker 3 (2:53) I spell mine S-U-Z-I-N. Speaker 4 (2:55) Okay. All right. So, you know, I'm S-U-Z-Y. And like, I want to just ask you just for confirmation here, like how many times a day do you get your name spelled incorrectly? Speaker 3 (3:04) Oh my goodness. Speaker 4 (3:06) That's a lot. A lot. It's like, you know, even my own mother writes S-U-S-I-E to me and is like, Mom, it's been S-U-Z-Y for about 60 years now. But whatever. It matters not. We are the, you know, Team Suzy. Hello, Suzy. I'm so glad to talk to you and I'm so excited to hear your question. I love talking to people individually like this. And I, you know, I know if it's your question, it's somebody else's question. Can you tell me around about how old you are? I am Speaker 3 (3:34) mid-50s. Speaker 4 (3:35) Okay, gotcha. Mid-50s. We do have global listeners. Are you in the U.S.? Speaker 3 (3:38) Yes, I am. Atlanta. Speaker 4 (3:40) Okay. I hear a little bit of Atlanta in your voice. Why don't you just ask your question, and that will take us to places that we need to go. But go ahead. I'm dying to hear your question. Speaker 3 (3:50) Okay, Susie, I am hoping you can bring sunshine my way. I have had over 30 jobs in my lifetime. And as you heard earlier, I'm only in my mid-50s. The issue is not getting the job. It's landing one that really matches what you always talk about. My values, my interests, my aptitude, and for me, a paycheck. I want to enjoy what I'm doing and I also want to be paid what I'm worth. Am I destined to be a job hopper or is there hope? for someone like me. Speaker 4 (4:31) Look, here's the good news. I know exactly how to answer your question. You are not alone. You are in a legion of people who find themselves like not even in their 50s, but their 60s or 70s saying, I still haven't found what I'm looking for, to quote the great U2 song. So let's go there. I'm going to ask you some diagnostic questions, and we're going to figure some stuff out about you. Just for those people who are listening to the Becoming You Please Advise podcast for the first time, the Becoming You is a methodology that's designed to help you. answer the question, what the heck should I do with my life? And we do that by excavating three data sets, if you will, your values, you already named them for us, Susie, your values, your aptitudes, and your interests. And at the center of that lies your purpose pathways. Usually it's more than one, but it's usually not 30. I want to ask you a diagnostic question for somebody that I always ask. This is a question I often ask. People who are like you. And again, you're not alone. There's probably people around you who have said things like, when are you ever going to settle down into one job, right? Have you heard that? Yes. And what do you say when they ask you that? I said, I've learned that I'm multi-passionate. As a matter of fact, it may all be a function of your personality, but we're going to get there. Let's just, and there's a certain personality type for which this is the norm. Let me ask you what might feel like a really funny question, but please just go with me, all right? Can you go back to when you were a child? Where'd you grow up? in West Florida. Speaker 3 (5:51) I know you did some time in Miami, Florida. Yeah, Speaker 4 (5:55) so you were in Florida. And did you grow up like, can you just tell us a little bit about your mom and dad and your family? What were their professions? What was going on in the house in terms of work and career? Speaker 3 (6:06) My mom was the type that stayed on a job for almost 25 years in a role she really didn't like, but it paid the bills. My dad was somewhat of a hopper as well. But they were very traditional and they taught me to, you know, go to college, get settled in a career and you'll live happily ever after. And I think part of me is going against what they taught me. And I'm hoping maybe you can diagnose that. You Speaker 4 (6:39) know what? I feel so confident. And maybe I'm going to kick myself later for saying this. I feel so confident that we're going to get to an answer for you. Okay. I want you to go back to when you were a little girl in that household. And you were sort of before you start editing yourself. We start editing ourselves pretty early, sixth or seventh grade. Okay. We start saying that can't happen. That's not what we do. But I want you to go back to like when you were fifth or sixth grade. And tell me, was there something that you dreamt of doing when you grew up? Like, I want to be a blank. Was there anything that when you were that age kind of called you or not? Speaker 3 (7:10) I was fascinated with all things TV and drama. And I used to say, I am going to be an actress when I grow up. However, what happened, I read an article. I don't know if you remember the Parade magazine. I do. I don't remember the actor's name. But they talked about how they love what they did, but they went through a lot of times where they couldn't get a gig. And so they couldn't eat or they had to eat the same thing over and over. They lived in a crappy place. And once I read that, I told myself, well, maybe that's not for me. So I got to figure out something else to do. Speaker 4 (7:50) Look, there's good research that's beginning to suggest, amazingly, that kids who are in seventh grade are the best predictors of what you should do with your life because they've not yet edited themselves. And one of the four horsemen of values destruction has not galloped in to steal their dreams, okay? It seems that when we are young and unedited, we actually kind of know what our values might be. We know what we're actually kind of good at, and we know what calls us. And then the rest of our lives, we spend running away from all of those things. Why do we do that? We do that because, Speaker 1 (8:22) well, sometimes we bump into the fact that we're actually just not good at it. But Speaker 4 (8:25)