Who Am I Really? Susan Mazonson on Self-Discovery & the Courage to Become Yourself

What if the person you're still becoming is more important than the person you thought you were supposed to be?

In this deeply personal and reflective conversation, Susan Mazonson joins The P-I-G to share the lifelong journey that led her to ask a simple but transformational question: Who am I really?

For decades, Susan built a successful life as a corporate leader, entrepreneur, innovator, and problem solver. Fiercely independent and determined to prove herself in environments where strength was often defined by traditionally masculine traits, she learned early to rely on herself and keep moving forward.

But beneath the accomplishments was a deeper story.

A story shaped by the sudden loss of her father at age fifteen, the shifting family dynamics that followed, the expectations she placed on herself, and the lifelong process of understanding who she was beyond achievement, titles, and external validation.

Together, we explore:

• How losing her father during adolescence shaped her identity, independence, and worldview
• The hidden cost of always feeling the need to prove yourself
• Why she spent years downplaying the feminine qualities that would later become some of her greatest strengths
• Building a successful career and discovering that achievement alone wasn't enough
• Caring for her aging mother and witnessing extraordinary growth, courage, and transformation late in life
• The power of curiosity, self-awareness, and lifelong learning
• Letting go of expectations that no longer fit
• Understanding ourselves more deeply so we can better understand others
• Why becoming isn't something we finish—it’s something we continue

Throughout the conversation, Susan shares stories of family, loss, resilience, reinvention, and the unexpected lessons that emerge when we remain open to growth—even when life unfolds differently than we imagined.

This episode is a reminder that transformation doesn't have an expiration date. And that some of life's most important discoveries may still be waiting for us.

Learn more and explore additional resources:
thePIGpodcast.com/episodes/susan-mazonson

Transcript

Becoming Never Really Ends

Kellie 0:03

Most of us spend part of our lives trying to become who we think we're supposed to be. And sometimes, after years of chasing success, meeting expectations, or checking all the right boxes, we discover there's still another question beneath it all. Who am I really? Today's conversation is about transformation. Not the kind that happens overnight, but the kind that unfolds over a lifetime through curiosity, courage, self-discovery, and a willingness to keep growing.

Erin 0:32

In this episode, Susan Mizanson invites us to rethink what it means to learn, evolve, and reinvent ourselves. She challenges the idea that growth has an expiration date and reminds us that some of our most meaningful discoveries can happen long after we think our path is already set. This conversation is a beautiful reminder that becoming isn't something we finish. It's something we continue. One insight, one experience, and one brave step at a time.

Kellie 0:59

Welcome to The P-I-G, where we explore life, love, loss, and legacy through real conversations and meaningful stories with purpose, intention, and gratitude. Where Kellie and Erin, sisters, best friends, sometimes polar opposites, but always deeply connected by the life and love of the woman who taught us that growth doesn't stop when life gets hard. That's where it actually begins. Our mother, Marsha.

Erin 1:32

This journey for Kellie and I has come as a result of us unboxing our story, our story of our sisterhood, our grief journey. And so what The P-I-G podcast has become and stories of life, love, loss, and legacy, has really come from a place of us unpacking our own story, our own relationship, our own lived experiences. What we have found is that in even talking to our guests about stories of life, love, loss, and legacy is that everybody's story tends to fall into at least one of those categories. And sometimes it touches all four. But our story starts the day I was born. It actually starts before that, if you want to know the truth of it, because Kellie was the only one on this planet who knew she was having a little sister. Everybody else thought I was a boy. And Kellie was like, nope, I'm having a sister. And so our relationship probably stems from even before the day I was born. But the true unpacking of our story really started when we started working on the Boxes project. Chris and our mom. And so all of that to say, Susan, we are so glad that you are here. We are so grateful that you're joining us today. And we really want to know where does the unboxing of your story begin?

The Mirror That Changed Everything

Susan 3:00

That's gorgeous. Thank you for sharing that. And also the reference to in the boxes that she left, if I may. It's really poignant and something I will never forget. And it got me to sense where that moment might have happened. I think we can see a lot of unboxing along the way when we connect the dots. But if I had to pick one moment, it was when this beautiful woman who I went to as a coach to rebrand me decided she says, no, we're going to see how you're wired first. Let's see what lights you up, what makes you tick. And I just went with it. I didn't have a clue where that was going. What it did was it shined a mirror to who I truly am, the truth of who I am. And that happened way later in my life, if you will, after a great deal of ostensible success. And the qualities that she, I should say, excavated through me, of course, ended up being the qualities that I saw in my mother years hence. If you look at unpacking again, there was a lot of different unpacking, peeling the onion or however, you know, right? But that started my own unpacking of who I am through all those layers and all those decades since I was like four. I remember that. And illuminated this beautiful, incredible sense of possibility, a sense of curiosity, sense of awe in actually humanity. Because I saw some things in myself that I didn't see as part of possibilities in life and who I'm here to be and contribute. You know, it wasn't about a curing disease or a big, big thing that way. It was the small things of showing up who I truly am, the truth of who I am, and honoring that and recognizing the gifts underlying all of that and being able to bring those forward to others with others.

Erin 4:55

Yeah, because so often we don't see those things in ourselves. It takes somebody else asking those questions or pointing out those things within us for us to recognize that Kellie and I have these conversations all the time.

Susan 5:14

And each time you sort of chip away, yeah. You know, they're just a little more and more can be revealed in who we are because there's endless depth. We're infinite beings. I mean, we get to woo-woo, but yeah, we absolutely are.

Erin 5:27

And not only that, the other thing that Kellie and I talk about often, and we're so grateful that we have had tools and resources that have actually put language to who we are, how we operate in the world. And that has been for me a result of other people introducing me to words that describe me, my thoughts, my actions, my behaviors, things that I wouldn't necessarily describe myself as.

Susan 5:57

I love that, Erin. What I'm hearing in all of this is we need each other. We can't do this alone. One of my mentors has this amazing saying, Claire Zammitt - I'm gonna give attribution to this quote - "We cannot become ourselves by ourselves."

Erin 6:13

Oh, I love that.

Susan 6:14

I thought it was someone totally different, you know. The coach had a page, and I was on this upper right quadrant, you're profoundly wired this way. And I'm like, who's that woman? I thought I was this other thing. And it was like, wait, that really is who I am. But you know, all of the layers of origin story, cultural biases that we live in, particularly as women.

Kellie 6:37

Generational story.

Susan 6:38

Oh my gosh, yeah. It just was just sort of clouded, and this is how it is, and we box ourselves, right? And now we're talking about the unboxing, which is so, so beautiful. I think it's essential for moving humanity forward in a way that's more like who we really are. I think a lot of it brings us back to childhood and and that awe and that curiosity.

Kellie 7:00

So, Susan, when you ran this assessment work or you did this work with this mentor, this coach, and that was the beginning of your unboxing story. What did that reveal to you? Because how old were you when you did that? And you said it took you all the way back to being a little girl.

Susan 7:17

Yes. What it did first is immediately I did recognize that those qualities really are me. And the other side of that is I spent my previous long life in decades suppressing that, devaluing those qualities. Right. Yeah, I'll say the word. I said I devalued them as being feminine, and feminine is weak. And I will not ascribe to that.

Erin 7:42

I would love for you to dive deeper into that. Like, what did that actually look like in your life? Was that being defined by your career? Like, where were you in life? Were that aha moment, that big reveal, what did your life look

The Playground Line And Gender Expectations

Erin 7:57

like then? And then what shifted?

Susan 7:58

Well, actually, I'm gonna take you back, and I promise I won't go through all the years, but I'm gonna take you back to the playground.

Erin 8:04

Oh, yay, I love it.

Susan 8:05

Very provincial town in the North Shore of Boston. You know, I walked to school far away, walk home, you know, those days. Every time when I walked to school and I crossed the street into the playground, this was a big old elementary school with a dirt playground, the street roads were going parallel and across and perpendicular, and here we were. And when I got to that playground, the girls were on one side, the boys were on the other side. You could not cross over that line. And the boys were having a blast, right? Playing their footballs, running around, jousting. And the little girls who had to wear dresses with their little shoes were doing their hopscotch and jump rope and all of this. And I had to wear a dress too. And I felt so constrained, being so limited by those activities that I didn't want to be part of. And actually, I was quite athletic and I worked on my athleticism. And when the boys saw that, a couple of times I would catch a football if it was coming over on the other side, you know, and throw it back and they go, Wow. I wanted desperately to be part of that circle. That's where I belong. There was one day when the big old principal of the school came out, and the boys were saying, Mr. Zigathy, can can Susan come across? Because I asked too. I said, "Yes, I really want to go, you know, be there." No, that's the line, right? The dirt side was the girls, and that other fun grass up area was the boys, and they fought for me to play with them.

Erin 9:37

Wow.

Susan 9:38

And he said, "Okay, for just this one time." So this was those days, and I got to cross the line. It was one of the biggest days of my life. Yeah, what did that feel like? I was in heaven. It's like it's where I wanted to be so desperately, and fought being a girl just because of the place in the world. Because we had to be quiet, we had to be the good little things, we had to wear these clothes, we had all these rules. And honestly, I saw my mother, who was very feminine, I saw it as weak. She was quite emotional. You know, my dad, he was very kind and very wonderful, but he was the one that was the glue in the family. So he was sort of like my hero, the one that I was to follow, so to speak. Yeah. So that's that was the origin. And every decision I made in my life was to prove that I belonged in the masculine power circle.

Erin 10:32

And it started on the playground.

Susan 10:33

It started on the playground. It's kind of a metaphor in a way. And it was galvanized when my father died very young, very suddenly. That galvanized me to be this fiercely independent woman. I was not going to take anything from anyone. I was not going to ask for anything from anyone. I was going to be the old cowboy thing. Yeah. You know, independent, do it all your own, prove that you can do that. Well, that's how I lived, kind of lived my life that way. I perceived myself that way and I did the things to get there. The fact is, now here's where it comes full circle when it was this big who is this woman thing, is that those internal qualities of connectedness and love and truth, those qualities is what ultimately made me successful. Right. In other words, without those relational qualities with clients, with people who I was doing research with and speaking with, I I did tons and tons of interviews and things. It was a certain business I had for many years. It was exactly those feminine qualities that I gave the sidebar to that was really driving the train. And that recognition was just this incre I'm feeling the relief, even just sharing this with you. It's incredible relief.

Kellie 11:48

It was almost like a moment of permission.

Susan 11:50

Oh, yeah.

Kellie 11:51

Right. Awakening, stepping back into my authenticity, embracing what I have. As Erin and I talk about so many times, is sweeping the crumbs underneath the rug and just letting them sit there without lifting the rug up because they're safe. You may know they exist and they're under there, but they're safe. They're protected. And you don't have to look at them.

Erin 12:13

They can exist, but you don't have to actually manage them. You don't have to deal with them. You certainly don't have to look at them. They can just be tucked away and safe is exactly right. And just undisturbed. Like that's just where they live.

Kellie 12:29

The cool thing about your story, Susan, and what you shared though, is like us, you were able to lift up that rug. And what you saw under there was actually authentic and beautiful. It wasn't negative, it wasn't anything to be embarrassed or ashamed about. It was, oh, that's actually the crumbs or the remnants of who I once was, which is who I actually am. And now I can step into that greatness. Yes.

Susan 12:58

Bingo. That's beautifully said. I might use that...

Kellie 13:02

All yours, Susan. All yours!

Susan 13:03

That's great. That's great.

Erin 13:05

She says a lot of beautiful things.

Susan 13:08

You know, it's interesting because I often you use "I swept under the rug," but now you're putting it in a context that I see it even more clearly and beautifully about, oh, that's the real deal.

Erin 13:21

I have so many questions that I want to ask, and I'm sure that they will all come to the surface throughout our conversation. But I would love to know first on the playground that day when you were allowed to go to the other side. Can you take us back to a couple of things? One, well, I think you already described really how you felt and what that really meant for you that day. But I would love to know if it was really just that once, or if you were continued to allow to go across the playground and play with the boys. And then also, what did that look like off the playground? When you were back in the classroom, what did the interaction then with those boys look like? And what was the reaction from the other girls? Mm-hmm.

Susan 14:12

This was intermittent little snippets of the playground scene here and there, but it was not a full recognition that I'm one of them. I know this is sounds very weird, but I don't even remember truly interacting with the girls that much. I was actually pretty much of a loner. Sometimes I would be a teacher's pet or, you know, a smart kid in the room type of thing, because I I had some of that, and I guess that was part of my identity to some extent. But I was pretty much of a loner. I have not really learned, even as a little girl, how to sort of be and play and be open and you know, sort of let go. I always felt sort of a little constrained, you know, it was sort of this independence that I felt I was building. Sure. So they're not happy memories, I will tell you. So I mean, I'm being quite, you know, honest. Sure.

Erin 15:05

You know, so that's really interesting. But you have siblings, correct?

Susan 15:10

Yeah.

Erin 15:11

Are you the oldest?

Susan 15:12

Yes, I'm the oldest. My sister was born five years later, and I became like this big sister taking care to a certain extent. There's another part of that where she was actually the little frilly feminine girl. So she was a feminine girl that actually got more attention from our father. And so I felt like, hmm, you know, I'm sort of following in his footsteps-ish. People always thought that I was more I looked very much like him, you know. He was a very warm, loving guy, but still that generation didn't do a lot of hugging and a lot of connecting in certain ways. Mostly he took care a lot, helping my mother and stuff, even after he working 12 hours a day. And but my little sister was as cutesy. And once she became this cutesy little girl who loved all the frilly dresses and had this these little Shirley temple curls, I really rejected that. You know, it was like, you know.

Erin 16:02

Did that feed your identity as being independent and more of a loner and just kind of doing your own thing and living in that world?

Susan 16:10

Yes. Yeah.

Erin 16:11

That makes sense.

Susan 16:12

It's interesting. I this is the first time I'm seeing it, but that's very true. First time I'm really seeing it in that light. And then there was a little brother. And of course I was thrilled. You know, I have this little boy. I was eight when he was born. I actually had a lot of fun with this little boy. I actually used to dress him. I would take him out and when he was real little, and I'd buy him these little boy clothes, you know. And it was sweet for a while. It was not long thereafter that my father died, and the household was very chaotic. It was a whole different dynamic. And, you know, my brother became very rambunctious. And in those days, oh, we have to control the boys. You know, I see it now. I'm like, oh my God, we have to fuel that fire, you know, fuel the fire of all children, you know. So we had some stuff going on there where he was being constrained and became, you know, really difficult to be with. Sure. I'm saying this as I'm talking about my family and you bring on the podcast, which I think is fine. But I'm... I haven't gone to this depth. So that was a kind of a short-lived thing. And I still had to needed to step into a parent-like role at 15 when my father passed away so quickly, that I was just surviving with my mother. I would help her and take care of things, but it wasn't with this loving, warm, spacious way. And once I was ready to be off to college, I was really happy. I was very happy. I had to make a decision during those times. Now, I could either choose to stay in this environment and help my mother and see things through and go through all of that, or go off on my own. Well, you know what I chose, because I had already chosen independence, you know. So I worked a lot outside during high school to become as financially dependent as I could. I actually was. I put myself through school and everything else, not to brag or impress anyone, but it was just a product of how I saw myself. And I manifested it in those ways.

Erin 18:12

Sure. Although that is very impressive that you that you did put yourself through school. That's commendable for sure.

Kellie 18:19

Can you take us back, Susan? It's so interesting. I'm trying to put together the pieces of your early childhood leading up to the time that you leave. Can you take us back to and describe the essence of your family when it was the five of you? You're the oldest. You have a sister that's five years younger, and a brother that's three years younger than that. So you're the oldest, the oldest child. I get that. What was that cohesive family unit like for you? And then can we talk about what happened when your dad passed? Because it was very sudden, was very unexpected, and life flip-flopped that day. Then it's a new family dynamic. Are you open to sharing that?

Susan 19:09

Yes, to the extent that you know, we remember selectively. Yes. Like I said, I almost wish I could sort of go back there and see a little movie thing. It was survival. It felt like survival day to day. Mom was easily triggered, so to speak. I think there was a felt sense of lack of safety to some extent, what was gonna throw her off. You know, it wasn't dangerous. It was just what was gonna throw her off. And a lot did. It was very, very difficult for her to manage the three of us. Yeah, but particularly manage the little one. That was really, really hard.

Sudden Loss And Fierce Independence

Susan 19:45

I remember like yesterday, the day that I was informed that he died, I was it was past midnight and I was babysitting for the two of them, and the there was a knock at this door, and I had I had some really weird sense that something was up. Isn't that weird? I remembered having this weird sense that something was foreboding, and then there was this knock at the door. And it was a neighbor who had been out bowling with them. And I saw her face, I said, Oh my god, I just knew it. And she came in, I remember she just wrapped her arms around me, and she said, Your father just dropped dead in the bowling alley. Oh my gosh. I mean, the unthinkable, but I think that I thought it. I think that I thought it. I can even feel it in my body. My heart was pounding, my head was like a rock. We lost our rock. He was the rock of the family. And when he was around, things were wonderful, they were gorgeous. We were with ease together. And when he wasn't, it's difficult. And so it was like it felt like being thrown into a black hole, like those nightmares you have, like when you're sort of falling into a black hole. I always still have that image of feeling that way. So yeah, it was yeah, it's quite profound actually when you days with you.

Erin 21:51

Sort of the root chakra, you know, like... Well, everything changes. Everything shifts in an instant in an instant without preparation.

Kellie 22:04

Yeah.

Erin 22:05

Because I even think about Kellie and I losing our mom. And I was 17, so similar age. I was 17 when our mom died, but I'm the youngest. And so that's a different dynamic. And our mom was also sick for a long time. You know, she battled three cancer diagnoses over a 12-year period of time. There's such a different dynamic when you have that preparation. Nothing can really prepare you to say goodbye to that person, but you do what you have the conversation. There is a level of anticipation. You know that that time is coming. And so it's a different, it's a different dynamic in grief, I think, when you lose somebody suddenly like that.

Susan 22:53

Yes. And I remember people used to say, since you were, I mean, I'll be thinking about your situation. You were like what, five when your mom perhaps first you said it was a 12-year journey. Oh my gosh. So you were impacted from very, very young. That's a whole other experience, yes, journey that lives with you. I remember distinctly, people would say, you know, in those days, we didn't really talk about this stuff, right? But people would say, Oh, it's so much better for him. You know, he went fast, and it's better for the person, you know, who's past. No, stuff like that. You know, you know. I mean, like, would I have wanted to be instead having years of watching a parent in pain and going through that? Yeah, I don't think that. I had a little bit of that with my mother, but that's another story. It was actually more of a happy story in the end. But it was not really learning how to mourn. We had not mourned the three of us. And so we had very, very different experiences.

Erin 23:56

Yes.

Susan 23:57

And truth be told, and one of the things that I feel a little bit tingy about, or is a cringy, I don't know what what's the right word, is that I did leave them as soon as I was off to college.

Kellie 24:10

Yeah.

Susan 24:10

I was gone and start, you know, making my own way, you know, in that proving myself to the world. Proving the skeleton. You know, like my father.

Erin 24:21

Well, I think that's a cool place to even maybe transition because you did feel like you had something to prove to yourself, to the world, maybe to your family. And you did. You built a powerful life from that place. Let's

Sink Or Swim: Building an Identity

Erin 24:40

dive into that. Let's dive into those years when you left for college. Did you go far away from home? Were you close to home? Where were you?

Susan 24:47

We were back in the North Shore of Boston. I was actually probably between a half hour and an hour away from home, but I could have been in another country. I was a kid in a candy store. I was so happy being in the college. It fit me like a glove. I was in the world with these incredibly fascinating people and diverse thoughts and openness, and we could do anything. And I went where I went was quite liberal. We begun a whole new curriculum, which is still quite well known as an open curriculum. We actually designed our own curriculum individually. It was like, wow, this is amazing, expressing independence. No one's going to tell me what to do, delving in, exploring, having this incredibly rich environment to be part of. This is our 50th reunion year. So I know that you know how old I am. So this is like, you know, an amazing home coming too. So this time is quite timely. So I'm still in this proving mode, of course. And I chose majors, I chose applied math so I can learn how to think, even though I did all this other stuff too, because, you know, like I wanted to be this, like this Renaissance woman. But I still went for the tech stuff and to learn how to think, you know, rational. It was really rational. I did it for graduate school also for at night. I did that. That was another part of the story. And when I decided what I wanted to do, it actually came from there, it was an interesting story from some little thing that happened in a class, and I knew exactly who I wanted to work for and why, and I was going to figure out how to get there. And so I decided, it's called a shocks for jocks class. It was about electricity, and they called it shocks for jocks. It really, really very funny. And it was in the engineering department and given by the most, and still to this day, he's in his 90s, this Dean Hazel ton, I'll name him, was always the most popular professor and human being in that university. He did more than teach shocks for jocks. He really knew people and he helped us and he was there. It was just an amazing human being. One day I was into networking and he put something up. I was all excited about this thing that he was talking about. And he said ATT invented that. And I was like, hyperventilating. That's where I'm going to do. I figured I was going to do something in business. I'm going to work, figure out how to work for ATT. It was the best company in the world at the time. And it was the best managed company and all these things in that day. And I spent days looking through Pendiflex files and this career thing. They didn't have a real career. It was a room that had Pendiflex files in it. I sat there. I sat on the floor. I remembered sitting on the floor going through every single thing. How am I going to take my next move? My next move. I found a piece of paper in a pendiflex. That piece of paper described the summer management development program at AT&T. Oh as a rising senior, between my junior and senior year, I said, this is it. This is it. I will do anything that it takes to be in this program. I forgot what I did, but they hired me into that program. And I was spent this summer as a supervisor. They just throw you in the deep end, right? They gave me a job as a supervisor of its operations area of a mainframe where all the wires are connected, you know, the old frame. And I literally supervised people that were old enough to be my grandparents. Wow. You're just thrown in the deep end. Let's see what you do. See how you didn't have many, many women. It was crazy. And so I always like to think about this. That's what I do. I jump in the deep end. It was an amazing experience. They did ask me back for the program ongoing after senior year. And that's the start of my career. You know what this program was called? The tagline to this program was sink or swim.

Kellie 28:32

It's so funny because I was about to say sink or swim earlier when you said they always jump in the deep end. I'm like, sink or swim. And that was the name of the program. That's fantastic. That is awesome.

Susan 28:43

Right? That was that little tagline.

Kellie 28:45

Yeah.

Susan 28:45

High risk, high reward. I'm like, yes, that's me.

Kellie 28:48

So because I can play on that side of the playground. I prove that to myself already. And so I'm proving it to myself and to all of you again, right now. I can swim. I'm not going to sink and I can play on that side of the playground.

Erin 29:04

Yes. I was going to say the same thing. I was going to ask a question about that, which was do you remember feeling like you were leaning into that masculine energy? Was that driving you? That high achieving failure's not an option. Oh, you know, absolutely.

Susan 29:22

Oh, yeah. I bought into that whole thing, like off the charts. I bought into that whole paradigm. And of course, spoiler alert, I'm carrying now the torch of feminine power.

Kellie 29:35

How long did that go on, that early career development? And at what point did you start to feel like something was missing or wasn't working?

Susan 29:48

I will tell you that moment. It's uncanny how this happens. I think about this. I said, I can't believe these moments happen or that moment happens. You know what? Now I'm realizing something. It happens all along. It's just when you get it, right? Yeah. It's not from the outside. It's like when you get it. Awareness. Awareness. Yeah. Awakening. I'll tell you exactly what

Achieving the Dream—and Then What?

Susan 30:10

I was doing. I had built, okay, it's now years later. My dream was to have an apartment on Central Park. This dream from long ago, never even lived in New York. To have a Central Park West apartment with all the beautiful, like marquee buildings and being the park in my living room. It wasn't just, oh, I I built this wonderful thing and look at the view. No, it was the experience that I was creating, you know, that I want to live in. I did it. And I did it by, again, jumping in the deep end, doing what people said is not possible. I bought a small apartment in New York when I moved to New York, a small little apartment at a window with the mirror that could see the park with a little mirror on the side, right? Little thing, one of those things. And then my neighbor was selling his apartment. I bought his. You know, I was renting it out. I was doing this. And then life happens. I got married. I had a baby. And during this time, I'm figuring out how to create my dream. And it took many years, of course, where the right apartments were potential for acquiring however means I did it. This is a whole other conversation. It's a big New York real estate story. There's a rent control tenant in the corner who wasn't going to budge, who was paying low rent for this corner southeast exposure over the park, all that I had ever dreamed of. And I had to convince her I had to create some kind of a deal that would get her out of there so I could purchase her rights to buy the apartment. I mean, this was a three-leg stool where I had to make all the well, it took many years and evenings and evenings of negotiating and bringing some wine and having, you know, all of this one step forward, two steps back. This kind of thing, I just kept going and going and going and going. And I won't tell you the whole result to it. I will say that if anyone had ever told me what it would take to create what I did create, and it wasn't a duplex over the park, I wouldn't have done it. People have tried in the past, and they everyone kept saying, it's impossible, it's all never move, you can't do it, this is crazy. Or I said, so when people would do that, watch me made me right.

Erin 32:12

That lit it. Oh yeah. If somebody tells you you can't do something, it lit it. And it was game over. Right.

Kellie 32:19

For some of us.

Susan 32:20

Right. So that's what happened. It took years, years. So anyway, I hope that's helpful to give the context. So here I was. I made it by the skin of my teeth. I got it done. And I was looking outside of that apartment. And I saw, and it was in the evening time, and I saw all those beautiful lights on those marquee buildings upon the whole exposure of Central Park. And there was one building that years and years ago I aspired to. It was a uh I can't remember now the name. It had a little, it was a certain architecture that was ATT's headquarters decades and decades ago. But I said, That's the building I want to see. Guess what? I saw that building from my apartment, and it was that symbol because I was an Ayn Rand freak. I read Ayn Rand, and I'm like, yes, you know, and the architect and the this and the that and the building thing. And that was my North Star. That was where I was going. I freaking did it. You know, I'm thinking about it. It was all there. And I was like, oh my God, I'm done. And then I got really nervous. Like, what does done mean? Right? I mean, I had just by the skin of my teeth, I get everything with so much effort. And yet, when it happens, it's like this release. And then I went, it doesn't feel like power. Like I'm looking out of the window, I'm looking at this wonderful thing. What does done mean? What do I do now? Wow. Who am I in this? Now what? Is this power? Is this this power thing I'm going for? That's when I said, I've got to talk to somebody. That was the moment. That was your awakening. That was the awakening. I went to talk to Renee Poindexter, who we're friends to this day, and she gave me this little test that showed me how I'm wired that absolutely flicked that switch for me. It was the impetus, the incidence, and the combination of her showing me how I'm wired. And that set me on a whole new path.

Erin 34:24

That was the turning point for you.

Susan 34:27

Yeah.

Kellie 34:27

Yes. Almost stepping from one type of strength into another type of strength. I love that. I think this is the fun part of your story. There are people who go balls to the wall like you did, gripping, clawing, scratching. It doesn't matter how I'm going to get there, but I'm going to prove myself. I'm going to do it well. I'm going to do it right. I'm going to do it within the rules. And I'm going to get there and I'm going to achieve that. And then you do it and it's done. Some people will disappear at that point. Maybe even lose themselves. There are those stories, but your story is opposite of that. You actually had the strength to contact somebody, not knowing where it was going to lead, and said, "Can you help me? Something is missing. Something isn't working." I would love to hear about that experience for you and how that transformed you really from the inside out.

Susan 35:30

Exactly. Exactly. From the inside out. That's how it

Redefining Strength and Feminine Power

Susan 35:35

works. I've come to understand. I dove into this study, I say study, and then the practice of what feminine power really means, the power of the feminine. What is the feminine? There's no real definition necessarily or consistent definition, but there's certain qualities and things that I recognized that was the key to my success to begin with. And then I had to really go deep and get out of my head and learn how to feel.

Erin 36:06

Yes.

Susan 36:07

Right? Learn how to intuit and to trust my body, to trust the feeling, to trust the sensing instead of having to do things perfectly from here.

Erin 36:15

And to change that narrative inside your own mind, because you had stated that in your childhood you saw that feminine side as weakness.

Susan 36:27

Yes, weakness and dependence. Yeah. Needing.

Erin 36:31

But now that femininity is being reframed as strength. And so you have to wrap your mind around that. Yes. And then look at your whole life retrospectively.

Kellie 36:43

And the people in it.

Erin 36:44

And what brought you then to that moment. And that involves, and I know we're going down like a gazillion different rabbit trails here, but that comes with its own grief.

Susan 36:55

Yeah.

Erin 36:56

Because when you have to let go of that old identity and step into this new power, that act of letting go is difficult. It certainly can be. Can be the aspects of it that are probably easy, right? And things that you want to let go and really embrace who you've become. And again, the awareness, the language, you know, that comes with this new identity. Yes.

Susan 37:19

But yeah. I mean, it was really hard. It's true. But I was also exhilarated, right? There was like two sides of this. And oftentimes I go, so I'm holding the exhilaration, just like the apartment. I was exhilarated by that. And then I was like terrified by what's next and what this means and why am I so empty? And the exhilaration of the discovery, the exhilaration of the discovery of what felt like a new world, but it's been inside me all along. Sure. And it was kind of almost like an excavation in some ways. I was also terrified in other ways, you know, that being in the chrysalis, the muck of the chrysalis, right? And to give myself grace during this time of transformation. I mean, we're always transforming, but I'm always transforming. But to this really critical moment where I'm recognizing that now I have the opportunity, the exhilaration of this newness of discovering what's in there all along. And to learn different languages, I had to learn how to feel. I still am, I still practice all the time. I had to learn ways of showing up that were. I mean, I I always felt like I showed up like me, but I might have been a little, you know, like, you know, certain identity that I showed, because I was very career-oriented. A lot of the stuff I did in my world was based on work. And then there was, I also have a crazy side. I've been kind of a party girl, or at least I was, and love it.

Erin 38:48

Yeah.

Susan 38:49

And so it was sort of a lot of paradoxes I experienced. But what I also learned in this process is that couldn't do this by myself for sure. I joined Claire Zammit's practice of the feminine. It's called now the Institute of Women's Centered Coaching. It's women's centered because we do look at the cultural biases and all the things that were sort of driving almost all of us. But but identifying that and naming it and letting it go. What did we replace it with? What we really were replacing it with our true selves and uh recognizing the the gifts and the talents and all of that. It was actually very, very exciting. So I dove in the deep end again, right? And I did the personal part. The personal part is always ongoing, but I also went into the professional programs to be that coach. It's now I'm obligated to bring this to the world, right? I'm obligated to help others, obligated to help others not have to go through what I went through, you know? That's a big part of this whole thing. And to really understand more of the contribution we had to make, to recognize and honor that. And without thinking it has to be the high achiever big thing, you know, honoring one's truth and authenticity first. But also, there's this balance. We don't have to throw away that masculine stuff, we don't have to throw away that sort of power control stuff, yeah. But in some instances, you need to have, you know, that kind of energy. And to create a more balanced harmony.

Kellie 40:20

Yin and yang.

Susan 40:21

Yin and yang.

Kellie 40:22

Yeah.

Susan 40:23

And that I think is our work. I say the big our work in the world. And when I say that, we don't all have to practice certain things, but I think we all need to be much more self-aware and the balance and the energy that we all have, because that's a gift, you know. And how do we how do we show up at that?

Kellie 41:30

What did that process really look like, feel like for you? And you were married and had a family at the time. And there was still this connection to your mother and her reality and the shift that's gonna come with her next, after this, but this really lays the foundation for what's to come with her.

Susan 41:54

Absolutely, Kellie. It's absolutely a profound reckoning with who she is. I'm not gonna say who she was, who she is when it was then, and she's no longer with us in body,

Watching Mom Bloom In New York

Susan 42:10

certainly in spirit, but who she really is, even then, which I never could have recognized, I never could have understood. We dependent need before the shift. Before the shift, before the shift. What transpired in this process, trying to remember the times, it's actually very coexisting time-wise, overlapping. Mom needed some help. She was 85 years old. She was up in North Shore of Massachusetts. She went back with her be near her twin sister, which really maybe I don't know if it's acermated as a word, added fuel to the fire in terms of the less independent and more, you know, taking back seat and all of this kind of right.

Kellie 42:52

To her twin sister? She took more of a backseat to her twin sister?

Susan 42:56

I think in the world.

Kellie 42:57

Ah, okay.

Susan 42:58

She seemed that way. It was certainly a backseat in the family when my father was there for sure. You know, I mean, she just, I don't think ever felt good enough type of thing, which we all go through this. But she was, you know, as that generation, I think, was really ratcheted and certainly not exposed to the personal development stuff, you know. And what I discovered in this process is she is all about that. How did I discover this? She had fallen a couple of times and my siblings weren't close by. And I said, you know, New York City is a great place for the elderly. A great place. You can be independent. You walk in the street, you have a walker, you know, the systems are all set up in a very beautiful way. Should we try it? I said, let's give it a try. And she did. She just went for it. I got her an apartment in my building, set her up for living in New York City. Well, she has her independence, but we're still nearby, sort of opposite end of the building. She took to the streets. She walked up and down Broadway and made friends with the proprietor. And would come home and tell me who this and that and what she did. I'm like, what? She made this Mr. Rogers neighborhood. Who is this woman? Right? Just like I was asking myself, who is this woman? Now I'm saying to my mother about my mother, who is this woman?

Kellie 44:16

Wow.

Susan 44:17

So she's doing this kind of thing. And it wasn't all roses. I mean, it was difficult, you know, come to know how to be with each other in this and a new place and a new environment. And I had been gone for decades. But then I saw her. I remembered, walked out of the apartment building for a moment, and I remember just looking down the street. And I see this little lady coming, you know, like just really kind of pumpkin. And I said, Oh my God, it's my mother, you know. And then she comes up to me and she's all excited. I've had an energy business. She talked about the energy business to the proprietor. So she went to the organic cleaners and said, I have your card. There is you have to call them. And I'm like, What? This is my mother. This is totally who she is. She's entrepreneurial. Connecting. She is connecting. Connecting. Kellie, it was about the connectedness. She connected with her twinkling eyes and her heart and her smile. She was not in her head. She was in her body and her heart, in her heart. And that's how when she passed the store and the proprietors come out and give her a hug. And I'm like, you know, I've been here for 35 years. I've never seen any of these people. So, you know, it was this whole thing. So after that, I said, This is amazing. This is too much. So I got her business cards with a it was green energy, and her name was Gert. So I said, Gert goes. Oh my gosh. Oh, I love that. You know, at GMU. She had her own email address. So she was happy as a clam. She was now doing business. And I'm like, oh my gosh. And then we would take her to all these wonderful cultural things. She just sucked it up. The theater, the arts, celebrity sighting. She, after a theater, I wait, I would never do this otherwise. But here I am with my mother. We waited till the celebrity came out of the back door and this little, you know, not here, a woman.

Erin 46:03

Nobody's gonna say no to that.

Susan 46:05

Sure. And kept pictures. And then we'd go to, you know, to eat. We'd be eating nice places. We'd like to explore different kinds of foods. She wouldn't eat anything that didn't look right to her. She would not eat, like she would have a very but she started eating like black ink squid and other things, and she would never, what's this? This is delicious. I'm like, holy moly. She opened up all of who she is. She lost a lot of weight because she was walking.

Erin 46:30

Wow.

Susan 46:31

She bought new clothes and she exercised. Well, I said, she has some real style. I never recognized that. I actually put these on on purpose. These are earrings she bought me in Sax Fifth Avenue when she came to visit, you know. These are these have got to be at least 40 years old when she came to visit, right? Aren't they great? I never saw her stylish. I mean, she knows she never ate right, you know, overweight, all of this, but she just became she was the full expression of her authentic self.

Erin 47:00

Wow.

Susan 47:01

In this environment. So I'm watching this. I'm going through my own work, you know, and with her. So sometimes what I would do is it was a lot of work that I was doing, and a lot of the stuff was online, and then COVID happened and all this, but but a lot, a lot of it was online because it was a global practice. A lot of people doing this together. So I put her next to me, and I'd be doing my work, listening to Claire and making notes. And my mother, I saw my mother would be like riveted at what she was saying, riveted. She's talking about the barriers and the breakthroughs and how you speak to people. She was like, she was saying to herself, yes, oh yeah, yeah, that's it. That's it. All I knew mom was watching soap bars. I grew up as a little girl and she watched soap. And here she is ratcheted into this incredible, incredible.

Kellie 47:54

Using her brain, moving to New York City and having all of these experiences stretched her in a way that she had never been stretched, and stretched in a very different way than losing her husband, becoming a single mom to three kids between the ages of eight and 15, insecure, unstable. Like, what do I do now? How do I handle this?

Erin 48:18

Yes.

Kellie 48:19

I think it's also a beautiful statement to it is never too late in life to learn, to grow, and to become your greatest possibility.

Susan 48:29

Bingo. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, absolutely. And when you speak about when you wrap legacy in this and the idea and what I got from you, Kellie, when we were first in Neil's class, and you were talking about living your legacy. And I said, "Yeah, that's it." That really sparked something bigger for me when you talked about that. And I'm seeing now these circles of awakening and transformation of seeing who you really are. And then watching my mother while I'm going through this become herself and coming together in a way that was so profound, I couldn't have imagined having a relationship like that with my mother and seeing her as she truly is.

Kellie 49:15

And what a gift. You know, we heard you earlier in our discussion talk about I can't wait to leave home, to prove myself, to get out there, to do it all on my own, to escape my family, escape my home. And ultimately, all of that came full circle.

Susan 49:32

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Kellie 49:34

Warm fuzzies.

Susan 49:36

Yeah.

Erin 49:36

It's so beautiful. It's just so beautiful. And also a testament to the power of being open to what can be. Oh my gosh. Right? But you were open to that. She was open to that. And it changed everything for the two of you. It completely transformed your relationship with her.

Kellie 50:05

Absolutely.

Susan 50:06

Yes. Yes.

Kellie 50:07

At the same time that you were transforming your relationship with yourself. And she was transforming her relationship with herself. There were so many transformations going on at the same time. What a legacy for all of you to live in real time together.

Susan 50:24

Oh my gosh. Yeah. The legacy to live it in real time. Yes. Mom was always very curious and joyful too, underlying that sort of romanticness. There was a lot of laughter underlying the pain of what we experienced in the early days. I used to think her curiosity was being nosy, and I even called it suffocating. When I witnessed how she articulated with her body, with her sense, with her words. That curiosity was a connecting force. And it with the connectedness is what kept her alive till virtually 100 years old. And that she always expressed this joy. She's also getting more attention in the city, right? And it's the kind of attention I think she always craved. And it was happening for her because she truly was able to express who she is and it created that energy. We and I don't know if I want to go there right now, but I'm going to, because I just is a stream of consciousness. Is that right? Let's go. Let's go. So she passed six days before her 100th birthday. We needed to figure out with my sister, we were figuring out the tombstone and the accoutrement and the ritual and what are we going to do? What matters to us? And when we looked at the traditional, like dad's stone was there, said age 44, right there, right next to him, wasn't her plot. And I looked at this stuff and I said, is this a way to honor mom? To use that old traditional

Curiosity, Joy & Living Legacy

Susan 52:00

stuff that no one understands, a lot of Hebrew letters and phrases and things, and they all say the same thing. And I'm like, no, we change on her side, curious and joyful.

Erin 52:11

That is amazing.

Susan 52:13

Yeah. Loving mother, wife, grandmother. And I felt that if you look at the legacy when you pass, I mean, she what she's left, that those qualities I truly believe are the most important. Connecting what curiosity does, and it keeps you growing and connecting. That I think is a huge lesson for everybody. I think that's one of the ways we're able to honor that. And when I see it in my soon-to-be five-year-old grandson, I see that what I thought was childlike and naive, maybe it was childlike and naive, and it's fabulous to be childlike and naive in the moment in our lives.

Erin 52:54

I'm sure your grandson is curious and joyful. And what a gift for you too. Kellie, you spoke to it earlier. It has changed now your family's legacy. It has changed future generations.

Susan 53:12

Yeah. It's sort of like when I saw the bookend thing. Like mom is close to a hundred and Ariane was like three or two, then he's gonna be five. And I literally played with them the same way. Yeah. Like I would play my mother the same way I would play with him. And I saw myself in this. I said, isn't this fun? You know, that's cool.

Kellie 53:33

To be in that yeah, that's really cool. The concept of maturity keeps popping into my head as we've been having this dialogue, you know, and the different stages of maturity as we go through life. And some of us mature sooner or later, or we think we're mature, but we're not really, we're actually immature and we mature later in life. But that perspective of here I am renewed and redefined, because that's the process that you went through to get to this place with your mother. And now you're in a place of authentic awareness and observation, and you have the maturity to be neutral and hold space for a 100-year-old and a two or three-year-old at the very same time and see them both for their own unique magnificence. Kind of neat to just think about that.

Susan 54:31

That is the experience that I had, Kellie. And I think it goes back to being in the moment with the unconstrained. She wasn't encumbered by you know mores and norms and things, you know. And she did get dementia. That actually added to the playfulness, right? She was less constricted about the way things should be. We had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun. So yeah. And the grandson is just, I can't wait. I'm gonna see him next week. He's like all imagination, all playing. Whoopi, come play with me. Yes, come play with me. Would you play with me? Of course. He's like, what? You know, the gif of that, it brings me to another land, which I still need more of for myself to let go of things that I still get hung up on. Yeah, I still do that. Sure. Maybe less and less.

Erin 55:35

We all do that, but now the narrative has been rewritten, right? So you are living in true alignment, right, with yourself above all else.

Susan 55:47

I'd like to think that. Beautiful. Thank you for naming that. I don't know that I would take credit that I'm perfectly aligned, but I'm much more aware and I know the difference.

Erin 55:57

Yeah.

Susan 55:58

Right. So when I'm like out here, oh oh, let's get centered. That's what's really happening here. Be my someone gave me this term instead of saying my best self, my favorite self.

Erin 56:08

Oh, I love that. Isn't that cool? That's really cool. Yeah, that's really cool.

Kellie 56:15

Because that can actually shift over time. Your favorite self when you were younger had one perspective of power, and your favorite self now has a different perspective of power. Absolutely. How would you define power today versus how you defined it back then?

Susan 56:34

Mm-hmm. It's a gorgeous question. Thank you for asking it. The power that we mostly grow have grown up with and is still the dominant power today, the power over the control, the command and control, needing to know, hierarchical, da-da-da-da. Knowing, right? The knowing. Our world has shifted. So it's not just about me, oh, my concept of this and that. It's what is the world needing? What is the world screaming for? And that different kind of power, in my opinion, is about creating conditions for people around you to be their favorite selves. Seen, heard, valued, yes, but to be in a space where they can make their best authentic contribution based on their points of view in the world. And I do believe that in the spaces we're in, and if you look at just the business world, for example, as an easy proxy, is we need highly diverse points of view and approaches. And we need a way that we can all be with each other in the space that honors that and that has guidelines that we call shared commitments, where how we are with each other, respecting that, not talking over and under there. So when things in meetings and in spaces go a little sideways, you could say, oh, remember this agreement we made commitment we made about how we are in this space. This is kind of going a little bit this way. Can we come back? You have to create the guidelines where we're all able to make those contributions coming from who they truly are. Yeah. So it's that self-awareness first, how we are with the others and how we relate to the world around us.

Erin 58:18

Yeah, because it's not just about our experience, right? But then there is a collective experience as humans, as women, as leaders.

Susan 58:30

Yes. It's interesting because in the old days, it was like, I'm gonna prove it. I will prove it. I don't need anything else, you know. I'm not gonna ask, I'm gonna do it. Now it's absolutely flipped. I can't do these things by myself. The world is uncertain, the world is volatile. Yes, right? All of the ambiguity and anxiousness and all of these things require those feminine qualities that we can't know, right? Because no one knows. What we do know is we have each other. And that together with that collective wisdom, called collective ageless wisdom, if you will, even the younger people and the elders, we need us all to contribute to the solutions and the next steps in whatever side of action we're in, a community or team, organization, what have you. Family for that matter.

Erin 59:22

Absolutely. It's so interesting the timing of this conversation because I've actually been seeing a lot on social media, even specifically LinkedIn, actually, because it's a you know, quote unquote, more professional platform. Right. I've been seeing more discussion, I feel like, recently about how leader, how do I want to word this? I think as a society as a whole, we're kind of finally starting to see that there's been this connection and tie between leadership and control. And as a fellow connector, right? That's who I am, is trying to find my own way in this space of connectedness and the importance of being rooted in connection. That it's not about control. How can we better connect to your point as people in families in the workplace? Like that human connection needs to happen across the board in all areas of our lives.

Kellie 1:00:38

Yes, and support one another's feminine and masculine qualities that live inside of all of us to different degrees, men and women, all shapes and sizes.

Susan 1:00:51

Absolutely. Yeah, all genders. All genders. All genders. We live in this crazy binary thing. Yeah, no question,

Culture Change Through Empathy

Susan 1:01:00

no question. That's actually my work in the corporate space in terms of culture shifting and transforming leadership. What does it really mean? We're now in the middle of a full series of un-leadership conversations. Even the term leadership has got to be kind of rewritten or something. Working with some thought leaders.

Erin 1:01:19

Yeah, let's talk about that. That's such an important conversation that needs to be had.

Kellie 1:01:25

How is the work that you're doing today - and feel free to share anything about it that you would like to - different than the work you did previously? We know the underlying change and the shift, but how does that change the way that Susan shows up? Yes. Not just personally, we've heard a lot about that, but professionally now in the work you do today versus the work that you did then.

Susan 1:01:51

The work I did then, I ended up actually riding an amazing wave of entrepreneurial opportunities in the industry that I ended up in, as I know about the ATT thing. And how that happened is the industry was very disrupted. It went to deregulate it. And the whole series of things. I was writing the I was actually writing a business plan for this thing before this thing was around. And uh for a big company.

Kellie 1:02:16

This thing being the cell phone that we can see on the screen that those listening cannot see. But yeah.

Susan 1:02:23

Right, right, right, right.

Kellie 1:02:24

This thing that all of us own that is within two feet, statistically speaking, yeah, within two feet of our being, 247, 365.

Susan 1:02:36

Yeah.

Kellie 1:02:37

Continue.

Susan 1:02:37

Yep. Thank you.

Kellie 1:02:39

Carry on.

Susan 1:02:40

Thank you. One of the first projects I did as a consultant in this industry that was getting torpedoed because they had been, you know, 100-year-old monopolies. How are they going to compete? One of the first things I did was how new technology like this is going to impact their business. And actually did some real deep dive into going into wireless. Other technologies are going to highly disrupt in what the impact that would be. 20 years later it happened, yes. But the work was serious. It was really consuming. It went very deep, right? We got hired because we had contacts in the industry. And we went really deep to help the incumbents, telephone companies, and the suppliers to them, how to compete and what were the models coming through? What was all this new stuff happening? So it was really a quite phenomenal time. So this was serious business, and this is what we were going to do, these deliverables, and this is how we did it, and da-da-da. It was very masculine, so to speak. Except in the doing, I actually use my feminine qualities to get the input and the insights and the things. But that said, when I saw the world moving in a different direction, now becomes the people part matters. Now it's the people part. Before it was the doing. It was tell us what to do, who's doing what, what's our next step, da-da-da. And I would never imagine being part of the people part of the organization. Right? I said, oh, well, you know, I hate to say it this way, but that's my thinking. I do important things. Okay. That's not me. So that was another very big transformation. And as I was uncovering this, who I am, what really matters, the authenticity of things, I realized, oh my God, we have to bring these principles into the corporations. And that was my dream as I was learning this stuff, and we're doing it. This time, very differently. Instead of me doing solo and then hiring these contractors that didn't have very much visibility to the rest of the thing, it was not transparent. I have a collective, and the collective is involved in everything. Everything, very transparent. And we take each challenge that the client has and we uncover, we we mine the intelligence, I just mine harvest, then a better term harvest, the intelligence of the collective that I formed as the business. It's called Team Innovate Global. And we facilitate deep conversations with the client. There's some secret sauce here in the innovation piece. What we found is this masculine headspace that has been running the corporations and creating this approach paradigm needs to shift. We need to bring the C-suite, traditional men, you know what it all looks like. We need to bring them out of here, no more PowerPoints, no more spreadsheets, and get them into here. Now, how do we do that? Right? Sit there and tell them I have to meditate, not to start. No. What we've been doing is bringing art into the C suite. So I'll give you an example. Just like the research I was doing before on behalf of the clients, the really deep down research, we go into the organizations, do really deep research, and excavate some of the stories across functions, across life. Levels across geographies, and we come up with some pretty amazing stories. We don't tell those stories and say the implications are this. We create theater, a fictitious company with monologues of actors that play certain roles, like roles that the C-suite has mostly very limited visibility to, like a young female engineer, for example, or a middle manager who is, you know, has another uh other backgrounds. People with different backgrounds, they don't have visibility to. They have no idea about their lived experience. But when we have them watch a piece of theater, they're struck. It reaches their hearts. It's like a Trojan horse. It's like we don't tell them what they're doing. No. We just do it and we see the reaction. And what happens is, almost to the T, if we do it right, they'll look at this stuff and have this incredible, what we're calling an empathy shock. The empathy shock is, oh my God, I didn't realize that that's what it's like to work here. Is that really what it's like to work here? Is the ultimate question. Because they care, right? If they care. Right. So you work with a willing, right? Right. Again, create conditions. Create conditions for people to be able to safely express themselves. Which isn't often present in the C-suite or up and down. So what happens because we're all human is when you now start to feel things and you start to sense some empathy, you can start to speak about what you couldn't speak before. You hear what might not have been safe to say before. And that's part of the secret sauce of my next my next ride.

Kellie 1:08:35

What I love about the description of the work that you're doing is that in encapsulates your entire beautiful life story and life experience, right? The full circle that we've talked about is what now you're bringing into organizations to affect culture at the very deepest level that gives those who are participating in the culture a chance to express not just their humanity, but their voice. And they're discovering both of those in the process.

Susan 1:09:10

Yes. They being the C-suite, so to speak, as well as the people that we have had conversations with prior that are deeper into the organization. Yes. Because the power of creating that space for people to be seen, heard, and valued. I know it's a little bit of a cliche, but it's not. It's serious. To be seen, heard, and valued is how we always leave conversations and with a door open, with space open. I think part of it and part of the reason my success, my external success from before, is that I always made sure that, first of all, people were generous with their time with me and others that I had brought into the spaces to find out information, research, for example. And I always made sure that they left feeling that they had gained something. And they gained something in the conversation because we had expertise. Like I had a lot of expertise and a lot of because I was in the industry for a long time and you know, really did a lot of research and a lot of connections that were trusted. Trust.

Kellie 1:10:15

Trust is fundamental.

Susan 1:10:16

Fundamental. And then would always leave something for them with them, something that was useful and meaningful, you know, they walked away with. And that's of course fundamental to our radical conversations that we have in the spaces today in a different vein. It's more cultural shifting base. And hopefully it has a transformational impact. Again, transformation is a little bit overused, but when you see C-suites that have been group thinkers, you know the group thing, right? Where everyone's patting them, they know everyone they start sounding the same. When you see them going deeper and start to share what's bothering them or what would not come out before, that is beginning of transformation. It's definitely more fulfilling and creating this amazing work of art where we knew all this stuff. And when I say work of art, I mean previous projects and stuff on the other side.

Erin 1:11:06

Yeah.

Susan 1:11:06

You know, now the art in this case, I was sort of calling the projects or the binders or whatever we would give, or the presentations, I'm calling that art. But the real true art of excavating the feelings and the sensing and the stories without attribution, with keeping everyone safe.

Kellie 1:11:23

So creating that self-awareness and emotional awareness, and then being able to bring that to the surface and articulate it.

Susan 1:11:34

Yes. And what we would do is, you know, you would have a bit of a debrief from when this sees we can't keep saying that, but a leadership team, so to speak. We would open it up. Hey, how did that feel? What did you know, what's going on? And then they start, and then we would leave some reflection. What about this time and that time? So then they're opening to reflect, and then they're open to looking at their annual reports and the public-facing

Growth Edges, Language & Staying True

Susan 1:12:00

stuff and understanding what those words mean that they say, but are not, they don't really get how to be that kind of people to create cultures like that. Now they start to really connect the dots that way. And that is really fulfilling. Really fulfilling.

Erin 1:12:17

Oh yeah. When you watch people connect those dots and discover that there is actually a connection and a relationship between thinking and feeling and doing that's powerful. And that is how cultures change.

Susan 1:12:38

Yeah. Yeah.

Kellie 1:12:39

After all of this time, Susan, what still feels challenging?

Susan 1:12:46

I'm sort of at a bit of a crossroads. How much of this all in right do I do in the workspaces? I also coach women primarily. The other real fulfilling part is women who sense the bigger things out there for them, right? And may feel a little constrained, but they need to break through the constraints that they're seeing, you know, the beliefs that are old, like the stuff that I did and am still doing every day.

Erin 1:13:13

Yeah.

Susan 1:13:14

And that's extremely fulfilling to see that greatness in others and to have them see that in themselves and create a way for them to build that sense of their own authenticity and a pathway to sustain that. That's transformation too. That's really it's part of a work. It's interesting. I look back and I and I remember how aggressive that I had been in being out in the work for, you know, needing people and getting the work, doing the work. It's very, very consuming. And I think probably one of the challenges is staying that course, because I also find other projects that I'm very, very interested in. Similar kind of things. You know, it's about bringing people together in ways that they might not have been together before and to see the magic that happens from there. And that you can do that in many, many different spaces. So I tend to want to do it here and there and the other place. And I'm also working on this big reunion and, you know, that kind of stuff. I said it the other day to someone, am I following like the shiny object thing? And one of them who knows me quite well, who's actually instrumental in my transformation, said, Absolutely not. What's happening here is it's all coming together. All these things that I had been thinking about and experimenting with and creating masterminds and that magic in the room when people come together that you wouldn't think they're transforming themselves in the spaces with the right people. But I'm always awed by the magic of the dynamic of people having conversations with the right paradigm and the things that I described before. It is magic, and it really takes the conditions for the conversations to happen. Power with, power to, not power over.

Erin 1:15:02

And the language in that is critical. It's very important.

Susan 1:15:06

Yes. Words. Oh my gosh, the meaning of words. Yeah. I surprise myself every day. I'm like, where did that word come from? You know, like target or let's shoot for this, or right. I don't like that anymore. That's we gotta find other ways to be with each other. Criticism, for example, when we do our work and we do some debriefing and stuff, right? We don't say constructive criticism or our weakness, right? So instead of saying weakness, with your growth edge. Yes. Who's the growth edge? Right. Yes. Now I used to laugh at this when I first learned it. Oh, that's ridiculous. Why do you say these things? Now it's essential. It's part of the common language. Yeah. Yeah, right. And you know, in the Christian thing, we say, well, what's our you know, self-directed feedback? How do you think you did? What might have been different? And then asking permission for developmental feedback. First, it's affirmative feedback, and then the developmental feedback is perhaps try this or that, maybe. You know what I'm saying? It's sort of in a way that and take it or leave it, it's your decision. And instead of like grill them, this wasn't right or that wasn't right, and who said what, and you don't you're supposed to know this. No, we we don't know and want to know. We're curious and we try things.

Erin 1:16:25

Yeah.

Susan 1:16:25

And the good old Carol Dweck taught us that - Carol Dweck, the uh Growth Mindset, isn't that gorgeous? You know, if we could all just just say it's not failure, it's learning.

Kellie 1:16:35

Right?

Susan 1:16:36

Right. And that's part of the workplace culture thing, too.

Kellie 1:16:39

Yeah. And I love how that translates into real life. You know, I even think about the conversations that we have here, the stories that we unbox, right? The story is never over. Your mother's story wasn't over when your father died. In fact, it was just beginning, and she went through several transformations.

Susan 1:17:03

Yes.

Kellie 1:17:03

Each one of you lost your father; your story wasn't over. That just became a part of your story that then led to several transformations that over a life's experience have brought you to where you are today. What did your mother ultimately teach you about life and growth?

Susan 1:17:26

When she was watching PBS with me that day when she was it was 94 and Friday night, and she looked at me because we were watching some esoteric interviews, Christiane Amanpour and some others, and she just looks at me, "Susan, I'm growing. I think of myself differently, and I think of others differently." At 94 years old! That's what I learned the definition of transformation is when your beliefs shift.

Kellie 1:17:52

Yeah.

Susan 1:17:53

You see things differently.

Kellie 1:17:54

Yeah.

Susan 1:17:55

That brought me to my knees. I mean, I

Kellie 1:17:58

I bet. I'm sure it did.

Susan 1:18:00

She taught all of us the power of simple things like smiling, laughter, curiosity. I think the fuel that keeps us going and connected. And connection is what kept her alive to a hundred years old.

Erin 1:18:17

Yeah.

Susan 1:18:18

There's no doubt in my mind. There was nothing that she ever did health-wise that would have brought her to 100. So I think that is the biggest lesson. I find it incredibly profound. And I really want to tell the story because I think it's so helpful for people to hear that we're never done. When I thought I was done looking out of my Central Park window and felt terrified because of it. What does that mean? Yeah. Being done? No, you're not done. And my mother's soul lives on. She's never done.

Kellie 1:18:53

You know, as human beings, we really were born to live in community. To have impact and to be impacted. To give, to receive, yes, to teach, to learn. Yes.

Susan 1:19:07

Oh my gosh.

Kellie 1:19:08

To grow, to fall. You know, it's all part of the experience. And when we do that together in connection through community, that's where I think where our real humanity shines. And that's one of the beautiful things that I've heard throughout your story today is that really, if there is one word to sum it all up, it's the word that you are out in the world using, and that's transformative.

Erin 1:19:32

That's cool. That's really beautiful. It ties back to the yin and yang. That's what it is. Yeah. That we talked about earlier. Yeah. And we've talked about it in past episodes, you know, joy and sorrow coexisting. All of these things, they coexist hand in hand. Yeah.

Kellie 1:19:54

What does it mean to you, Susan, to live your legacy today?

Susan 1:19:59

I feel again elated about it that I really feel who I truly. And I still have that tinge of is it enough? Am I really making the impact? I have that going a little bit on the side. And the challenge of owning the greatness, owning my own greatness and not being so impacted by what others are thinking. Lovely. A lot of room to grow, that's for sure. Having this conversation with you, both Erin and Kellie, also helps me to see things in a deeper way. And the circles of coming back, full circle, and seeing that, living it in real life. What a gift that is. And to revel in that and to cover that, to embrace it and to spread it and to take ripples of it, to take slivers of it, and to recognize what I'm here to do, who I'm here to be is most important.

Kellie 1:20:59

Yeah.

Susan 1:20:59

And recognizing that how I'm showing up really matters.

Erin 1:21:04

Well, I want to say how grateful I am that you showed up in the way that you did for this conversation today. This was so extraordinary. You are doing really incredible work. You are living your legacy. And everything that you shared and the stories from your childhood and your mom. Like you just continue to give the gift of yourself to this world. I am deeply grateful that you have become part of our legacy and our journey and our story. And our community. It's a privilege to create a sacred space where people feel safe. And you are doing that in your work. And it's what we are desperately trying to do with this podcast is to hold space for people and stories and impact. It all matters. It all matters. It really, really does. So thank you for being here today. Thank you for being so transparent and open. It's just been pure joy. We ask all of our guests what your P-I-G is. You know that ours is purpose, intention, and gratitude. Yes. But as we close this conversation, what's your P-I-G?

Susan 1:22:36

Connectedness, truth, and love.

Erin 1:22:40

Yes, it is. I can see it in you. I can hear it in your words, and I know that you are living that. That's really beautiful. Thank you.

Susan 1:22:49

My heart is very, very big. And being here with you, it's hard for me to find the words to express that for me. This has been a gift. It's an incredible gift to see things even bigger in terms of how we not just navigate the world, but how we impact each other. I'm so grateful. True gratitude is life-changing. And I am so grateful to be in this space and so embrace your whole purpose of this, your intentionality, and the gratitude, because that is a big driver in all of us. And thank you for this.

Questions That Spark Self-Discovery

Kellie 1:23:28

Susan, I have one last question for you. If someone listening right now is at the beginning of their journey of self-discovery, or there's something inside of them stirring and saying, I don't know if I'm quite being completely authentic. What would you want them to know? What would you say?

Susan 1:23:48

I would, I would probably ask them a few sort of provocative questions and see what their response would be. You know, like, when was a time that you felt like you truly loved? Or when was a time that you did something that you felt was courageous, was beyond what you might have done before, this sort of thing. And then just listen. And that listening will reveal a lot of their essence, their greatness, who they truly are as a beginning. Everyone has greatness in them. Yes. And I think we need to start there and recognize that.

Kellie 1:24:25

What a great exercise. Even if somebody just did that with themselves in their own mirror, did that with themselves, with a journal, with a confidant, a best friend, a coach, somebody that they can really trust. A family member, sister or brother, maybe a mother. Good reflective exercise.

Susan 1:24:44

You're bringing out the simplicity of it. The simplicity of sharing and opening and listening and revealing that greatness. We're setting the conditions for people to show who they really are.

Kellie 1:24:57

And to dialogue with ourselves and with others. Thank you. Lovely conversation.

Susan 1:25:03

Thank you so much.

Share The Show & Stay Connected

Kellie 1:25:33

We hope today's conversation offered you insight, encouragement, or even just a moment to pause and reflect on the story you're living and the legacy you're creating.

Erin 1:25:42

If something in this episode moved you, please consider sharing it with someone you love. A small share can make a big impact. You can also join us on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn and connect further at theP-I-Gpodcast.com.

Kellie 1:25:57

And if you're enjoying this podcast, one of the most meaningful ways you can support us is by leaving a five-star rating, writing a short review, or simply letting us know your thoughts. Your feedback helps us reach others and reminds us why we do this work.

Erin 1:26:12

Because The P-I-G isn't just a podcast. Thanks for being on this journey with us. Until next time, hogs and kisses everyone!