Engineering a Remarkable Life Part 2: Choosing Love, Work, and the People Who Shape Your Life | Lessons from Joel Peterson

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That's like why we do tiger sisters. Okay, guys, class is in session. I'm Sheree. I'm Jean. And where are the tiger sisters? We are your Wall Street and Silicon Valley big sisters. And we're a top 10 business podcast bringing late-night sister talk meets boardroom strategy. Hi, TigerFam. Welcome back to engineering a remarkable life part two based on the legendary class taught at Stanford's business school by the late great professor Joel Peterson. And this is part of Sheree's master class series. So we are diving deep into engineering a remarkable life part two. This was one of my favorite classes that I took at Stanford's business school, also taught by one of my favorite professors who passed away sadly a few months ago, but we are so honored and grateful that we can take his lessons and share them with you because his class and his lessons, his takeaways, they're things that I think about on a daily basis. I literally quote professor Joel Peterson, probably daily. Yeah. And his legacy lives on in you and in all the students that he taught. And now it's being projected all the way to all of you guys through this episode. In part one, we talked about the first pillar, which is a person to be. It's a lot of reflecting on your family history, your values to figure out who you are before we dive into part two, right? So part one is very inward looking. And then part two is about the two pillars. One is called someone to love and the second one is called work to do. And it's basically about constructing your life and your relationships and also your career life. Guys, we are going to get into some really intense, incredible questions such as how do you intentionally build meaningful relationships instead of just hoping they happen? How do you choose a life partner, no big deal? How do you build a family? And how do you create meaningful work? I can't believe you guys talked about this in a business school class. Why? Because I went to Harvard Business School and we never talked about anything like this. Did you talk about it with your classmates? I mean, like late night or like occasionally, but it was never a class. It was never part of any curriculum. It was never so deeply considered and constructed and like set up with exercises and assignments to do. Nowhere near this. Yeah. Well, I got two credits. Two credits about thinking through this, for the need for this. Yeah. I mean, look, so Stanford is considered the more like emotional touchy-feely school. So it's like no surprise that this is the type of curriculum that people are engaging with and looking for. I think it's deeply unique. Yeah. Okay, guys. Part one, someone to love. So I think we can read directly from Professor Peterson Slides. He wrote, "In 1938, Harvard researchers embarked on a decades-long study to find out what makes us happy in life. The researchers gathered health records from 724 participants from all over the world and asked detailed questions about their lives at two-year intervals. Contrary to what you might think, it's not career achievement, money, exercise, or a healthy diet. The most consistent finding we've learned through 85 years of study is positive relationships, keep us happier, healthier, and help us live longer. Period. Period. I mean, that's why on Tiger Sisters podcast, we talk about money, power, and love. Love extends to romantic love, but also platonic love and family love, friends love. And self love? Yes. And so I'm not surprised at this study at all. I think we all cut. It sounds kind of cheesy. Like we know it deep down, right? Like relationships that you have in your life really shape you. And so I think in this part where we're talking about someone to love, Joel said in class, the person that you choose is, as your partner, is the most important decision that you'll make. That's something that Jean and I talked about. Backed by research. Backed by research. Backed by a Harvard study. In 1938. In 1938. That's a long study, guys. But I mean, that's actually a pretty interesting study that they did it in intervals of every two years. Every two years, yeah. That's like, that's legit, guys. I appreciate the rigor in that study. I love that he talked about in class, the importance of finding the right partner, because that decision influences how you feel every single day. Are you stressed or do you come home and feel relaxed and you're with your person who can relieve that stress? And Professor Peterson took it one level deeper and he actually invited his wife, Diana, into our class. And she was there for one of his lectures where he basically talked about her. And it offered us a way to ask her questions, because we have like 12 straight weeks of Professor Peterson kind of telling us how he's done things, but we can hear from his other counterpart, how he's engineered his life. And I like, it sounds like what this is is he gives you guys basically a framework on how to think about choosing a partner, right? And like what sort of role they should play in your life and how you decide if it's worth it to bring this person fully into your life and build a life together. Or the alternative is to be, as Emma Watson said, self-partner, which is also very legitimate, especially if you aren't finding someone who meets these criteria. And I think through all of this, there is like no judgment at all on how you approach finding a person or not finding a person, but it is just putting another layer deeper of being very thoughtful about it and very intentional. Yeah. I'm very curious, once we talk about the actual framework that he taught, I'm very curious as to what your general class's reaction was to it. So in class, Professor Peterson talked about his life and his own personal example with his wife, Diana. And he actually brought up a chart on how he does things and how she does things, because I was wondering, I was like, how do you teach love? It's not really so much taught as it is him showing an example of how he's done it. And one that just sticks in my mind is that he says they are complimentary in a lot of ways. And it's not really that opposite to track, but it's more just complimentary. And one way, he is what he calls a striver. He is someone who is always trying to do new things, climb new mountains, go to Kilimanjaro, plan exciting trips, and bring his family around the world and go, go, go, go, go and do. Diana, which he really appreciates, he calls her roots. He's someone who's going out there. She is a tree that keeps them rooted in their family, in their home, in their traditions. And he finds that that balance really works for them. Okay, so he gave that as an example of him and how he formulated his lifelong relationship with his wife. Yes, and how it works for them. And then the second example that he gave is that when they were raising their kids and they have seven kids, he was someone who is very disciplined and, you know, got all of his kids to do all these sports and be also achievers and strivers like him, but Diana, which he had a lot of, like, warmth and appreciation for was that he's like, when their kids were little, there were toddlers, she would literally get down to their level and like sit with them on the floor or talk to them at their level so that they felt like they were on the same plane. Whereas like he was coming from, you know, above, she was coming from at the level. So these are just examples that he brought into his own personal life in ways that they are complimentary. And he also shared that when you are building a life with someone, you all have the family history, which we did in part one. He has his family history. She has her family history, but it's up to both of them to come together to choose what customs and family history. They decide to bring with them into their partnership and into the next generation. And so I really appreciated hearing him talk about that because I hadn't ever thought about it that way and it is just such an intentional way to be like, okay, take stock of what I have, take stock of what you have and here we're going to choose the best of both and bring it forward and break those generational traumas. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a very valuable exercise from my experience as well. But so then was his sort of lesson that you should find someone who you think is complimentary to you or it wasn't really his lesson. He was just saying like, that's what I did, so that's something you guys could consider. It's more the latter. It's what he did and it's something that you consider. should consider. But also, it's kind of, I really like it because it reminds me of, like, hiring for the places where you need help. Or, like, you know, if I am someone who is a startup founder and I'm good at ABC things, I should find someone who is good at XYZ things that I'm not good at. So it kind of reminded me of that a little bit. Yeah. Not to bring it to the workplace, love into the workplace and workplace into the love, but I really felt like that applies. Okay. So this entire section about love, he taught you guys or he shared his own experiences. And then how did you guys, I guess, like operationalize that or turn that into learnings for yourself? Yeah. So one point that Professor Peterson was very adamant on is operationalizing love, which he admitted in class sound so counterintuitive. Like love is supposed to be like so romantic and flowy and, you know, cutesy. So, like operating lives together, that's like the ultimate operation. Totally. And like operationalizing is like very strategic and businessy and like not lovey-dovey romantic. Yeah. But when he talks about love, he extended this section into the people you love in your life, not just your romantic partner, but the relationships that matter the most to you. So it's, it could be that partner, it could be your family members, your immediate family members, and it could be the friends and people closest to you. Okay. So then let's get into the mini exercise that we have for people to do that. Hi, Tiger Fam. Take five seconds to subscribe to the Tiger Sisters podcast because when you subscribe, you are notified every single time a new episode comes out. Also, as you guys might know, we have a newsletter. So please sign up for the newsletter. The link is in the description, or you can also find it at TigerSistersPodcast.com. Thanks guys. Now back to the show. So okay, the mini exercise on operationalizing love is to think about five to seven people in your life, and then you think about what are your objectives for your relationship with them, and how are you going to measure it? So you create once again a table with three headers. You have your person, you have the objective, and then your measurement. So maybe you can tell us a little bit more about an example of how to do this, because it sounds really clinical. Yeah. Why does it sound so clinical? But yeah. I love, I love tables guys. I love visualizing things. So I think this table, I mean, it does sound clinical, but like, just to be real with it, like love can be lovey-dovey, but if you just let it remain flowy, and you don't really have objectives or ways to measure it, then it can fall by the wayside. So I'm saying maybe there's like a happy medium, like between these two states, but I like being able to have an objective and a way to measure it. I think what's also cool about this is because you have to identify five to seven people in your life. You can also kind of take an account of like, who am I spending a lot of my energy on? Who matters? Yeah. And then also once you list them all out, then you can sort of see like, oh, am I spending more energy on someone that like, I'm not my objective is not to be like super, super close with this person, but I just happen to be doing it and I didn't even realize it. Or maybe it's the opposite. It's like, hey, I really want to build my relationship with this person, but it turns out I only talked to them once a month or something. So I think it's a good, again, like it's a good accounting exercise at the very least. Totally. It's a way to put things down on paper and see what's up. Right. So an example here, I had a person who I'm very close with. It's one of my best friends, Isha, shout out Isha. I actually wrote this in 2024. So it hasn't been updated, but this is just an example. So Isha is the person in the column. The next column objective was to reignite our friendship. So this is someone I care so, so deeply about one of my best friends and just admittedly, candidly, when I was at business school, we were long distance best friends. She was in New York. I was at school as a student and she is a very badass bitch founder in her own right entrepreneur. And we both have very busy schedules. And so for me, I wanted to prioritize my friendship, and I still do with her and reignite our friendship and, you know, be best friends again. Be very close best friends again. Be like more active best friends, more active in each other's lives. Exactly. And so the measures that I put into place, or I wanted to put into place, and these are some examples that you can steal and take with you, is monthly calls, yearly meetups and trips. Usually we have like a yearly ski trip that we do together or a way to come together. The third example is like small touch points. So whenever I see an article or a meme or something I want to send to her, because like I'm always thinking of her, you know, she's my BFF. And I'm like, hmm, Isha would enjoy this and send it to her. And then this one, which I didn't do, but I really like the idea of is monthly cards written. Why are you laughing? Because you're so extra. Well, I mean, I love this because I'm extra for the people I care about. So this list doesn't have like 18 people. There's only, I don't know, six of them. Actually, I have an ex best friend here. So cross that out. Cross that out. But that was more time to spend on the other people on the list. Exactly. I mean, I love Isha because she is someone in my life who she always remembers the birthday card for me. And I've actually like looked through my drawer, and there's like so many birthday cards that she's written for me. She planned my last birthday where it was basically like a batch, my like, bachelorette, but not. And there was a lot of planning that she did for that. She's like one of my BFFs, the homie, the BFF. And so it does sound extra, but I'm like, I need to write that monthly card to use the monthly card. But these are just some examples of a person objective and a few measures that you can do to operationalize that because like if you're not doing the monthly calls or the meetups, then like a lot of those things life gets busy. And you can really forget. I really appreciate those examples because I think that is what is hardest about doing these exercises is when you have to start from scratch and you like don't know what to write. So I think maybe just to help people, I'm just going to read out all the different objectives and measures just that people have somewhere to start with. So here are some of the ones not specific to a person, but one is you had maintain homeostasis relationship. You had reignite our friendship. You had deep in relationship. Learn more about her past. To know each other better, grow deeper in love, reignite our friendship. And then some of the measures were weekly calls, weekly face times, all the ones you listed for Isha, weekly hangout time, plant trips together, weekly dates, or monthly get together and quality time. So those are some really good options that you guys can choose from when you're doing this exercise yourself. Thank you for reading my chart and revealing all of my objectives and measures. No, yeah. Well, see, I see I'm on this list, but you don't have the objective listed. I don't remember if I didn't have an objective or if I took it out because I knew you were going to see this list. Rude. How could you not remember? No, I really don't remember. I can check the original. Objective. Maintain homeostasis relationship. No, the objective with Jean, actually, if we were to do this in real time to operationalize our friendship and our love, the objective is to which I think we've done, but not intentionally. Maybe it's like happened subconsciously is like how do we be co-founders and co-hosts and all those, you know, all the multi things that we are sisters and roommates and all those things together without pissing each other off? Actually, that's the baseline. How do we do that in a way that is fulfilling and exciting and like energy giving? Yeah, and sustainable and fun and like something that we want to actively continue doing this, not just because it's our mission and like we think it's our life's work, but because it's fun and enjoyable. It's enjoyable. Yeah, so I would say that's the objective. If I were to write that down, the measures, we need to go to therapy. We need co-founder therapy. Hey, guys, so you might notice we are in an incredible studio right now. Thanks, Spotify. And if you are not noticing because you're listening, watch on Spotify. Turn on your video. See this amazing studio. Check out the lighting, guys. It is so good. When you're watching on Spotify, you get so much more of the in-person experience with Jean and me. You see the banza. You see our facial expressions and it's way more engaging. Turn on your video and check us out. So talking about operationalizing love, obviously we have that table where we talked about ways to think about the objectives and the measures, but now I'd like to turn to romantic love. Yeah, and this is again what Professor Peterson said is the most important relationship in your life if you choose to have a partner. And so for this one, he also had an exercise that we can share with you guys, which is pretty simple. You've probably heard of it before, but it's basically many exercise number two is to list out all the attributes of your life partner, but it's not just what you want. It's actually two different lists. one is must have and what is nice to have. Yeah, and so we can just read out some of the attributes here and you can decide if it goes into your must have or you're nice to have column. This is all for you to consider. So I think, like Dean said, in these examples, it's helpful to hear things, so then you can figure out like, oh, I've never actually thought about that and where does it go. So this is all very personal to you, I would say. What does stacked booty mean, like a big butt, like a cute butt, like a cute butt? Is that a nice to have or must have, nice to have? Okay, shared values. Physically attractive, strong work ethic, parallel politics, family compatibility, common roots, friends and associations, great sense of humor, great gene pool. And then in parenthesis, hybrid vigor, what does that mean? It means that when you have kids together, they have, it's like a good mix of genes because when you have more diversity in the genes, then you have a stronger child. Devotion and fidelity, basically loyalty, loyalty, these hoes and loyal. These hoes are loyal, similar tastes, smart, shared vocations. So these are just some attributes to think through. I think the one that is very top of mind for me, but I haven't actually ever considered, but now in this political backdrop, we probably should is parallel politics. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, honestly, that's not something that I had ever encountered until the last couple years. Like it had never come up for me, but then when it came up, it was like, oh, well, because I guess, yeah, I never really considered, I mean, it always seemed such an obvious given, but now it has been made even more obvious in my face. Yeah. I mean, in your experience, in your life experience as a coastal lead, it never came up. I'm just kidding, guys, sort of. I feel like all of these are mostly less habs, but I'm single, so maybe that's why. I think these are just some examples of must-have versus nice-to-have, because some of these things fade over time, right, physically attractive. I think that's what might attract you to someone to begin with, but over the course of 20, 30 years, those things change for people, so, yeah, I don't plan on that. She needs that disport. We need that disport. Not sponsored. Why don't we move on to the third pillar and the final section of the video, which is work to do. So basically, once you know who you are, which was part one, and then once you know who you're building your life with, which is, we just went over, then the next question is, what is the work that you're doing? And I know that Joel was very much about the concept that work isn't just about earning money. It's not just about progressing in your career. It's about purpose. Yes. And he has this incredible quote that I go back to often, is that building a great career means helping others to become a respected member of a winning team doing something meaningful. That's a lot. Let that sink in. I'm going to repeat it again. It's by empowering and helping others to become a respected member of a winning team doing something meaningful, because if you don't have one of those, like one of those is missing, it doesn't really work out, right? Because to be a respected member, there are different ways to make people feel like they belong and they, they're doing meaningful work. And also part of a team that is winning. If you're part of a losing team, that's a lot harder. That's a different problem to solve. But to be a respected member of a winning team doing something meaningful. And this obviously comes from his perspective of his career, where he has been in management roles for decades, leading organizations of hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands of people. And so I think having this very simple framework can help orient to like, what are we actually working on? Yeah. I mean, and I think that these three simple elements very much touch on human nature, right? Like everyone wants to be respected, everyone wants to feel valued, and no matter what you're doing, I think so much of life is about finding value and really caring about what you do. And like seeing how your work contributes to XYZ goal in the world. And I think that for a lot of people that helps them find meaning in their life. And instead of just living day to day, they're living with a broader kind of goal in mind. Totally. And I think I really like this perspective of empowering others, of helping others building a team. Like, you're not building a team to serve yourself. I think a lot of it is when you are a manager, you are trying to, it is your responsibility, if you are a good manager, to build up the person on your team, to help them develop. I agree. And I think another important realization is that in any career, which is hopefully very long lived, they're always incredible highs and they're always incredible lows. Yeah. So Joel talked about this in terms of like surviving versus thriving. I think the thriving is very easy to talk about because it's very fun. And people post on Instagram and LinkedIn about the thriving part. The harder part to talk about is the surviving. And so just anecdotally, like I hadn't really heard of people talking about career downturns. Like people don't really like to highlight the places and times that they failed. But Professor Peterson gave us many examples and I'll share one with you of when he's had a career downturn. There was one point where it was a huge low in his life where he was sued by someone he used to work with, by his previous company. And it was a lawsuit and he shared with us that you want to do everything possible to not be in a lawsuit. I've never been in one knock on wood and I won't be in one. But like he's like, share that with me and it's like imprinted in my brain that like you want to do everything you can to prevent that from happening to not be the person that is sued to not be sued. If there are threatens of lawsuits, you want to do everything you can before you get to the actual lawsuit. But he was based side lesson. Side lesson. Don't get sued. He says it's miserable. He basically said he had the worst decade of his, he's like, I had a really bad decade. He's literally a quote from his class, whereas me as a 27 year old being like, what do you mean? A bad decade. Like that's even possible, like bro, like that like really scared me, but also like showed me how long life can be that he had a big downturn. And because he had a big downturn in his life where he was sued by his previous employer company. And it lasted for 10 years. The lawsuit. I'm pretty sure the lawsuit was extended, but it was just like a bad decade overall. It was super stressful because like it's always, it takes up so much of your mind share. It's always in the back of your mind, the litigation that's going on. But because of that downturn that he had, he ended up starting his own investment firm. That's called Peterson Partners now, Peterson Ventures. And like something great came out of something bad. But he said he was basically in survival mode for a decade. So what was the lesson he was trying to impart to you guys through this story? Is that like life is long and you may over the course of your 70 plus your life have a bad decade? Is that the takeaway that like things will turn around, but things might also be bad for a while? Yes. A quote that he had was that rain will fall on your fields. And this applies to work. He have a work example, but then he also talked about health. You might, there might be a health scare or a death in a family, which rain will fall on your fields. It's not something that we think about often because it's so sad and a bit depressing of thinking about all the bad things that will happen. But in the case of, for example, knock on wood, a death of a loved one or a family member, the person that you partner with will have to get you through a very big, hard time in your life. Kind of tying all these lessons together, rain will fall on your fields and you're figuring out ways to fortify yourself before that happens so you can get through survival. So it's kind of like two parts of his lesson. It's more, I feel like one takeaway is, you know, life has up in ups and downs and everyone will experience them. And so sort of like prepare yourself to get through it. Or don't be, just be, just know that it will happen and like don't let it ruin you. You'll come out of it at some point. Yes. And then I guess the second part of the lesson is going back to the life partner part. It's like that is the person that you will probably rely on the most. And like you guys will have to be each other's anchors in getting through both the highs and the lows. Absolutely. And kind of to bring it back to a point that you've made, I think in part one that like, there are parts of Joel's curricula that feel quite traditional and parts that feel more new age, something that he mentioned that is very traditional that falls, I think, into the traditional camp. I appreciate because I learned it, but he says that he himself does this and he has required his children to do this is memorization and. So he says in difficult times and he brings up like POW prisoner of war examples that a lot of them got through imprisonment by memorizing things to keep them sane. And so that's something that actually Joel does. He like knows the entire Gettysburg address by heart. He knows Bible verses by heart and he knows even some of I think like he speaks, he speaks he spoke French so he memorized things in French as well. And so and he requires many of his children to memorize specific iconic works of literature. It's just so that they have that strength within them feels quite traditional, but I'm like damn. Yeah. Like the recitation of memorized phrases. I mean we did that when we were younger. Yes. What did you memorize? A lot of Chinese poems. Let's hear it. I don't know if you get me through a period of these suggestions, yeah, basically. That's all I know of one of them. It's a Chinese poem about a goose. A swan. Yes, but that's all I know about it. Yeah. But yeah, I mean I guess it is traditional, but it is it's a consistent across many cultures. Yeah. Hey guys, so it's come to my attention that many of you don't know. Jean and I have a matcha brand called Sisters Matcha that we created and founded ourselves. What? No way. A matcha brand? Yeah. We started it in October, 2024. Jean and I have worked and lived on this matcha farm in Japan. It's sourced from wazuka, Japan, which is an hour and a half outside of Kyoto. And the brand means the world to us. It is a small family owned farm and we actually travel back to the farm and hand pick the matcha ourselves. And you can find out more about Sisters Matcha to try it, check it out, buy it, buy it, definitely buy it. Exactly. Definitely find it. And that's Sisters Matcha dot com and already back to the show. Okay, guys, so we've reached the end of engineering or remarkable life. Both part one and part two. Thank you guys for coming with us on this journey. We hope that you guys have some takeaways and if not that, some reflections. And I want to say on behalf of myself and our community. Thank you Sheree for allowing us to be your student and for sharing your learnings and for being so vulnerable and honest and sharing all of your, like, list attributes and allowing us to read them out loud so that people can use them. I did not consent. As individuals. I think it's really, really valuable. And I think, yeah, we're just so appreciative that you're putting yourself out there for us to help us grow and to learn from the late Joel Peterson who, you know, will never have a chance to ever learn from him directly. So learning through you is just, um, is really beautiful. Yeah. Oh, thanks for saying that. It is kind of like an honor to like, yeah, totally. Well, it's an honor for me, not for you. It's an honor for me. I was saying it's an honor for me. Wait, but it's an honor for me. But I was, it's like an honor to be able to share this because if like one person who's watching this, like, has a, uh-huh moment or reflection that makes them feel more aligned with themselves and tune with themselves, um, and how they think about a person to be work to do and a person to love. Mm-hmm. That's like why we do Tiger Sisters and this is very like Sheree Core. Like I love doing these reflections and digging deep and digging in. Um, I know it can, it can feel really hard to do in the moment, but I think we are better for it if we spend more time with ourselves and seeing ourselves, examining ourselves so that we can grow. I also think from what I know about, um, Professor Peterson through you, I think that this is an honor for him, that you are continuing to share his legacy, his life learnings, all of these frameworks that he took the time to put together, to share with as many students as he could, and now you're like taking that to a whole new level, to share it with people that have never, ever gotten to know him, um, and like would never otherwise be able to take this class at Stanford, myself included. Yeah. So I just think this is really, really cool. And I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and appreciate it because it was a lot of work to put together. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to this episode of Sheree's Masterclass Engineering a Remarkable Life, part two, and if you haven't seen part one, go watch that now. Thanks guys. We'll see you next time. Bye.