Suzy Welch Opens Up about New Book on Finding God’s Purpose in the Pain
Suzy Welch is known by many different titles, from being the wife of the influential GE CEO, Jack Welch, to being a professor at NYU to being a mom. However, for Suzi, the title that she is most proud of is that of a Christ Follower. In a sit-down interview with Crosswalk Headlines, Welch opens up about her faith in the loss of her husband, who she speaks of fondly.
"It's still raw. It's been five years. I miss him every minute," she says. Welch is a new author of the book Becoming You, hoping to help all leaders step into their authentic selves.
Crosswalk Headlines: When you wrote this book, where were you?
Suzy Welch: I could tell you exactly where I was. I was standing in the woods in Nantucket, walking my dogs with my daughter Eve. Her hand was gripped around my forearm, and she was saying, 'Mom, you must write the book.' I went on a walk with Eve; she's 30 years old and an art therapist. I was complaining to her that many people wanted me to write the book and that my students wanted me to write the book so that their parents could go through the process. The publisher of my previous books wanted me to write the book because there was so much excitement about the methodology. I just heard a lot of noise where people would go through the methodology and then say, but we got to disseminate this. I didn't want to write another book because writing books is hard, and I've done it before, and I just really didn't want to do it. And then I was walking with my daughter, who is a very gentle person who doesn't like competition or achievement, she's just a very beautiful, soft person. I said, you know, they're trying to force me to write this book. Everybody wants me to write the book. And she grabbed me by the forearm, and she said, 'Mom, you must write the book because people need this. Their lives are changed by it, and you can't keep it to the 600 students who take it a year. It's not right.'
As soon as she said those words, I thought she was correct, and I knew she was right. I went back to the house, and I called my publisher, and I said, okay, I must do this.
CWH: How soon did you start writing after the call from your publisher?
SW: To be honest with you, I sat down, and I started writing. I thought, what was wrong with me? It is a great pleasure. It's a great joy to be able to share this, to be able to share what I know works, and to be able to touch people's lives in this way. That's when I knew I had to write it.
CWH: What was the book teaching you while you were writing it?
SW: There were a lot of moments of joy writing this book because I was able to solidify what I was teaching. I took this body of work and showed all the reasoning behind it without the pressure to know that I was grading people or that I was trying to get people through the program in three days. I teach it on the NYU campus, it's open to the public in these three-day classes. I'm rushing people through the process in three days because that's all the time most people can give you. I thought this is just a beautiful experience to dig deep, to explain the genesis of it, and to reflect on where it came from and why it works. At the moment, pretty early in the process, I thought, I love doing this.
CWH: You're very authentic in the book; you even talk about you getting fired. What was that like?
SW: It was a blessing for me, it was very painful going through it. I always start my classes with my students, my management students, walking into the room saying, who here has been fired? And everybody, sort of like three people, will sheepishly raise their hands. And I say, I can't wait till you're all fired because it really teaches you something. It teaches you, number one, that you'll live and that things will get better, and that's a very good life lesson to learn, that the center will hold, and that we have this inner resourcefulness that will always get us through. It does force you to have this kind of reckoning.
Photo Credit: ©Instagram/SuzyWelch
Originally published June 17, 2025.
