What should I do with my life?

If that is a question you've asked yourself, I'm hopeful my next guest may be able to guide

you.

Susie Welch is not just an award-winning NYU professor, three-time best-selling author and

entrepreneur.

She's also one of my go-toes. Susie is

quite frankly, the one. Susie combines the knowledge and insight she's gathered during her

40-year career as a journalist, professor, and seeker, and created simple steps to help you and me

identify our true purpose. But here's the thing about Susie. While

she's Harvard educated, her advice is consumable for everybody. Her warmth and wisdom have made her

a mentor and a motivator to so many, from students to CEOs. So as you listen to this conversation,

I encourage you not to try to answer every burning question

you've ever had about your life, but instead, take one baby step closer to honing in on your

purpose, to open your mind to possibilities and become the you you've always envisioned.

I'm excited to dive into the topic myself, and I cannot wait for you to join me.

I'm Hoda Kotb. Welcome to my podcast, Making Space.

Okay, I just want to say, as I sit down with you in this moment, Susie Welch, one of my favorite people, that this, I feel sort of weird because this is my very first interview since we had the big goodbye and I get to sit with you.

I love it. I'm honored. I can't, I mean, it feels awesome. And the big goodbye was such a sob fest. I had like total withdrawal symptom the next day. I was like, wait, something's wrong. You know what's cool, though? Here's what I've learned from watching you is like your life has been a series of jumps, jumping from place to place, jumping from solid ground to ground that was shaky and you weren't sure, jumping out of a relationship, into a relationship, out of a job, into a job. And it takes courage to do that. Well, sometimes I was pushed total. Let's just because you were pushed. Okay, two ways to go. But I want to back it up. I just want people to know you for those who don't. There's a reason that I love you and I've loved you for a long time. But I want to go back to the beginning when you were just a kid and you were thinking yourself, you're in grade school, you're in middle school, you're in high school. Like, what was the thing that you wanted to do? Or did you have an idea when you were that young? First of all, I love being here and I love you. Okay. The great irony of the fact that I

teach a class called Becoming You, which is about planning your life, is that I never planned my life,

okay, until I stopped and I wanted to paint a self-portrait and figure out which direction to run next, okay?

And so I was a person who grew up in a hippie household. You know, my mom was an artist, my dad was an architect,

they had like these psychedelic parties, it was the 60s, and they just were with hippie people.

...