Suzy Welch

LEWIS HOWES: This is 5-Minute Friday.

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LEWIS HOWES: I’m very excited about today’s guest. I had a lovely time connecting and interviewing Suzy Welch. And for those who don’t know who Suzy is, she was the former Editor-in-chief of the Harvard Business Review, is a work-life columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine. She’s the co-author with her husband, Jack Welch, of the New York Times bestselling book called Winning in the Welch Way which published in Business Week Magazine and internationally by the New York Times Syndicate. She’s involved in several non-profit organizations dealing with education, homelessness, and animal rights, and she is a mother of four children.

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SUZY WELCH: The answer that we give to this question is it revolves around this concept called Area of Destiny and we urge people to do the really hard work, the really hard analysis of figuring out what their area of destiny is and then going there. Just not think about jobs and do not think about industries really as much to think about area of destiny. So just to explain that concept, the idea of Area of Destiny, we first came to it five or six years ago. We were at church, and a pastor named Terry Smith was visiting our church. He actually runs the church called Life Christian Church in West Orange, New Jersey, Terry Smith. And he was preaching about living the abundant life, and he mentioned this term “Area of Destiny” which we immediately started to, in our minds, started to think about the business applications of it, then he talked about the abundant life existing at the intersection of what you’re uniquely good at and what you love doing.

Let’s just step back from that for a minute and just talk about it. So everybody is uniquely good at something, okay? Even though it may not feel like that on some days, but you’re uniquely good at something. A person can be uniquely good at making strangers feel welcome or solving very complex math problems at two variables, if there’s such a thing. Or say, in my case, I’ve always been sort of good at taking complex, sort of academic concepts and boiling them down into very regular vernacular. So I mean, everybody’s sort of uniquely good. [inaudible] uniquely good, it means you’re not the best person in the world but if you’re better than the vast majority of people at something. And then, if you think about that sort of super highway what you’re uniquely good at, and then take the other super highway which is what you love doing. Is it being with other people? Is it talking? Is it watching TV? Is it walking alone on a beach? Is it reading? Is it travelling, okay? And if you think about your calendar over the past month, what were the things that you were doing that just turned your crank. And you intersect that, what you’re uniquely good at and what you love doing. It creates this beautiful, rich, emotional, and intellectual real estate that is this area of destiny. And if you can get there, and everyone can. I mean, I’ve talked about Area of Destiny in front of, at this point, ten of thousands of people and I mean, I love to look at the faces in the audience as people suddenly realize, “Oh, yeah. Well, I’m nowhere near my area of destiny, but I sure as heck know it. I know where it is.” And so, if you’re just coming out of college or if you’re floating around and if you feel like you’re in a suit that’s too small or you just can’t breathe, or you just hate the day, you got to just sit down and think about what your area of destiny is.

Sometimes, when I say it’s hard work, you need to ask people, “What am I uniquely good at?” And, or if you know what you’re uniquely good at, you need to ask people, “Am I uniquely good at this?” And you need to just determine that, then you start thinking about jobs and industries. That’s the beginning, that’s the beginning.

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LEWIS HOWES: Hey guys, if you enjoyed this inspirational clip from a past episode of the show then you’ll love the free book I’m giving away right now. It’s called The Millionaire Morning. It includes some of my best tips for starting off your day with a millionaire mindset. Get your free copy at themillionairemorning.com and just pay shipping. Again, check it out right now. Themillionairemorning.com.