“I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist, though I hungered to be one,” Patti Smith wrote in her memoir, Just Kids. “Hungered” being the operative word.
That’s a mighty, inexorable feeling.
And “hunger” it was not for my daughter, Eve, always artistically inclined, but ambivalent. Once, after she spent a high school semester in a program for budding creatives, she reflected, “I don’t know what I want to be, but I know I don’t want to be an artist as much as the other kids here do.”
And yet, an artist she did become, a ceramicist, to be exact. She was just so good at it. Her beautifully thrown bowls and mugs and vases, made ever more beautiful by the glazes she invented herself, practically sold themselves. Within two years, she was something most artists never are: self-supporting. |
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And yet, something else burned inside of her. I came upon her in her studio one afternoon, expecting to see her at the wheel. Instead, she was intensely on her phone, advising a social justice organization she had long supported. Afterward, she told me she was thinking of getting a part-time job in the field.
“The truth is, Mom,” she said, “I make pretty pots for a living.” It was beginning to feel like not enough. True, as an artist, she was living her values of Voice, which is the desire for authentic self-expression in The Values Bridge lexicon, and Agency, the desire for self-determination. But her #1 value, the one that truly defined her and always had — Radius, the yearning to change the world — was nowhere to be seen or felt.
A few days later, Eve found me in my office. “I’m glad you’re sitting down,” she said. This is never an auspicious start to a conversation with a child.
But it was auspicious indeed, in all the right ways. Eve told me she had decided to become an art therapist. “It’s just all of me, all at once,” she said, “I can do art, which I do love, but I can also help people in profound ways, ways that break generational cycles of pain. That’s the person I need and want to be. It’s the person I should be.” |
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If this is not a Becoming You story, I don’t know what is.
This week, almost three years after that conversation, Eve graduated from NYU’s renowned Art Therapy program at the Steinhardt School. I won’t tell you about the big award she received because she would kill me.
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But seriously — I love every single thing about her journey. She worked hard, but with unrelenting joy and curiosity. The whole time I was like, “I am watching the 'Becoming You' movie before my very eyes!” It’s the same journey I want for everyone because of its happy ending — authentic selfhood.
That, to steal Patti Smith’s perfect word, is what we all hunger for. |
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Fine, fine, fine. I loved every single thing about the Becoming You Three-Day Intensive that just wrapped up. The people! The learning! The fun! The insights!
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I just hate that it’s over. Many people depart the program on a kind of high. I get that, and I see it, and I celebrate it. For me, I go home afterward, yes, a little high, but also a little exhausted, and soon a recurring thought settles in: “Where did all my friends just go? We were just getting started…” |
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I also feel this way at the end of the semester, when teaching my MBAs is over. Even though I bitch and moan about grading — I have more than 200 students across Becoming You and Management — the pause in living your purpose, well, it’s harder than other pauses. You’re not like, “Hooray!” You’re more like, “Where am I? Who am I?”
It gives me such a heart for people who do not get to live their purpose at all. The absence I feel when it's gone, even briefly, tells me how glorious it is to have — and that I am fighting the right fight with Becoming You.
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Does my entire life happen on the subway? I’m sure, with this newsletter, it can seem that way. But a lot happens there.
For instance, this week I crammed myself into a jam-packed car, only to find myself literally pressed up against a couple that was clearly in an argument. They were in their 30s, professionally dressed, nose-to-nose, and mad as hornets. I did not want to overhear, but I had no choice.
I could instantly tell they were fighting over two values: Achievement, a value everyone recognizes, and Eudemonia, the value of self care and wellbeing. When I got off a few stops later, they were literally cancelling a vacation.
I cannot stand it. I cannot stand that so many couples could and would be helped by having a shared, healing language of values, but they don’t know one exists. So, I would love to urge couples to attend the upcoming Becoming You One-Day Intensive, which is all about values. You don’t need to be sniping like my subway friends, not at all! Indeed, you can be madly in love. Everyone and anyone can live life more fully by knowing their values.
Just like my beloved evermore-becoming daughter, Eve. |
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What's coming?
→ June 2026 One-Day Becoming You Intensive here
→ Becoming You Certification Program here
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My Only Regret: I'd Do It All Faster ft. Danielle Robay
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It started with a question from a student that stopped me cold: "When you look back on your life, is there anything you regret?" Yes. I would have done everything faster.
This week on the podcast, I sit down with the Queen of Questions herself, Danielle Robay — journalist, host of Question Everything and Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club. We wrestle with one of life's most loaded questions: have you been moving through your life too fast, or too slow? And does it even matter, if you don't know who you are yet?
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