Summary
Joe and Brett explore vulnerability — the V in VIEW — defining it as speaking your truth even when it’s scary. They distinguish vulnerability from weakness, timidness, and manipulation. Somatically, vulnerability means embracing fear (jumping off the cliff) rather than trying to escape it (saying whatever gets you out of the situation). The episode covers how vulnerability builds empowerment, dissolves self-judgment, aligns your world around your truth, and paradoxically protects you from being taken advantage of.
The conversation moves through vulnerability’s role in healing shame (both past and current), how letting judgment break your heart open eventually makes it stop bothering you, and how vulnerability applies in business — from sales to leadership to brand authenticity. They address the common fear that vulnerability means weakness, the confusion between vulnerability and manipulation, and how vulnerability practice evolves over time from big scary leaps to deeper and deeper layers of authenticity.
Joe emphasizes that vulnerability is deeply personal — what’s vulnerable for one person may be second nature for another. The compass: find where your fear and your truth intersect, and step into that space.
Key Concepts
- Vulnerability is speaking your truth even when it’s scary
- Embracing fear versus avoiding fear is the key distinction
- Vulnerability aligns the world around your truth instead of your presentation
- Letting judgment break your heart open is the path through
- Vulnerability actually protects you from being taken advantage of
- What’s vulnerable is personal, not a universal morality
- Vulnerability transforms business performance
Key Quotes
“If it’s not your truth, it’s not vulnerable. And if it’s not scary to say, it’s not vulnerable.”
“The amount that we judge ourselves is far greater than what other people judge us for.”
“Fear is what allows us to be taken advantage of — not vulnerability.”
“The more you’re vulnerable, the more you’re setting up the world to see you for what you are.”
“If your hand is always in a fist or always in a receiving position, both of them are stuck. You really want that flexibility, and vulnerability gives you that.”
“What’s the scary thing that’s true for me right now?”
Transcript
foreign the vulnerability is not something that can be like it’s not a morality right it’s not like this is the place to be vulnerable this is not it’s in every moment you can feel where your fear and your truth are together and that’s the vulnerable action welcome to the art of accomplishment where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease my name is Brett Kistler I’m an adventurer entrepreneur and a self-exploration Enthusiast I’m here with my co-host Joe Hudson Joe is a business coach who spent decades working with some of the world’s top Executives and teams developing a unique model of human patterns that underpin how we operate with ourselves each other and the world a good entry point into this model is a mindset called view vulnerability impartiality empathy and wonder through understanding and cultivation we learn to easefully drop into the view State of Mind deepening self-awareness and increasing our connection with the world around us to learn more about this podcast or courses visit art of accomplishment.com to associate vulnerability with weakness we fear that being deeply vulnerable will open the door to being dominated or taken advantage of by others what’s the difference between vulnerability and timidness and how can unprotected vulnerability be a sign of strength and courage vulnerability is the v in View and the topic of today’s episode so Joe what do you mean when you use the word vulnerable what do I mean by the word when I use vulnerable um it means speaking your truth even when it’s scary that’s what I mean by vulnerable if it’s not your truth it’s not vulnerable and if it’s not scary to say it it’s not vulnerable okay so somatically how how do we tell the difference between saying the scary thing and just saying something well scared oh wow that’s a great question um the difference for me in is somatically is that in one of them I’m embracing the fear and then the other one I’m trying to get rid of the fear so if I’m saying the scary thing then I’m embracing it I’m saying oh here’s fear and I’m going to actually feel this in my body I’m going to open up to this thing I’m going to jump off this Cliff if you will and I’m going to say the thing and it’s kind of it’s not overcoming but it’s facing and feeling your fear whereas if you’re just saying something while you’re scared that’s more like what do I say to get out of this situation right so then that one you’re trying to avoid the fear you have it but you’re trying to get rid of it so this is this embracing of fear versus avoiding of the fear that’s that’s the benefit of a vulnerability practice it’s one of them yeah I mean so there’s something that happens when we embrace the fear or we face it if we say okay yeah I’m happy to feel this fear one of the things that often happens is it shifts to excitement but also it’s a deeply empowering move it’s a deeply empowering move to say oh I can feel this I don’t have to cower to this emotional experience and I don’t have to avoid it and I don’t have to push it away I can actually embrace it I’m powerful enough to embrace this this emotion that most people want to reject and so that that’s one of the benefits but another one of the benefits is that what you notice often when you start especially when it comes to judgment when you start being vulnerable about things that you judge yourself on which is one of the ways that you can be vulnerable you start realizing that most people aren’t going to judge you for it right so you can be like Oh I’m lazy and then and then you notice like most people don’t maybe even think you’re lazy and then those who do maybe are like yeah that’s part of who you are and I’m okay with it there’s the amount that we judge ourselves is far more far greater than what other people judge us for for the most part and so every time we act vulnerably we get to see that we get to position what are the voice in our head tells us is wrong with us compared to what the world tells us is wrong with us so that’s another thing that’s like incredibly useful about a long-term vulnerability practice but the the main thing that a vulnerability practice gives us that’s outside of those two things that we just talked about is that allows us to find Our Truth you find out um that as you speak your truth even though it’s vulnerable your world starts aligning around your truth instead of your presentation of yourself and all of a sudden it brings you closer to yourself so you’re the more You’re vulnerable the more you’re setting up the world to see you for what you are to respond to you for what you are and over time the world changes and you and around you because you’re not willing to accept certain things that you were when you weren’t being yourself or you’re willing to say things that you weren’t willing to say when you weren’t being yourself and then all of a sudden you can start understanding yourself more and more more clearly see yourself more clearly because you’re more in alignment and you’re more aware of your um in the subtle ways that you’re not aligned so that’s the biggest benefit of of a vulnerability practice so what you said about finding that others won’t judge us for the same things we judge ourselves for that seems true but it also must be true that people will judge us for some of the things that we judge ourselves for and even some things that we don’t judge ourselves for so it can’t always be true that everything about us will be accepted and what do you have to say to that yeah it’s totally true yeah yeah you’re we’re going to be judged all the time um I think what what you’d there’s a couple things about that the first thing is that you notice is that what people are judging you for is really not about you it’s about what they judge themselves for and that becomes pretty apparent if you allow yourself to open to their judgment you know oftentimes I work with people and they’re like people are judging me I’m like yeah look around there’s somebody here judging you no doubt about it um and just allowing that in for people changes something it’s like oh wait I’ve been running away from this my whole life and it’s happening all the time right so there’s some way in which allowing yourself to be open for the judgment um helps you know is one of the benefits of the vulnerability but the other thing is that um there’s kind of a current shame and past shame that happens right and oftentimes when you’re being vulnerable past shame can be recognized and and seen and people don’t need to be ashamed of it I think a great example of this is there’s a couple movies out there one is called the work and one is called what I want my words to say to you and their kind of group process work in prison and you are sitting there with these prisoners in this movie who are telling you like their innermost work and you know they’re Killers you know they’ve like slashed people open and you’re just sitting there like oh like you you have this empathy for them you don’t want them to feel shame they’re doing the work and so there’s a way in which that passion which is what you know is really not useful for us as people it really helps resolve that and heal that because generally a lot of people have some acceptance for that if you are being vulnerable about it right if you’re being all harshen hardcore about it they may not but current shame is the more likely place where people aren’t going to immediately um not judge you like I’m stealing from your house at this exact moment right like that’s less and and that’s because current shame is actually quite useful it’s our signal that oh this isn’t what we’re doing right now isn’t isn’t what we want to be doing it’s not in alignment with who we are that’s what current shame is for past shame is this idea that if like I brutalize myself then it’ll somehow change the way that I act in the future which tons of studies show that that’s just not true and it’s not really useful and it’s and it’s what really condemns us to repeat that pattern it’s a form of resistance and so that pattern persists and so on one level yes people are definitely going to judge you and there’s some benefit in that because you get to see that they’re really just judging themselves especially in the past shame and you also the other benefit is oh right it really helps you point out the current shame that’s going on the shame for what you’re doing in this moment or in this day so that’s another that’s another way to look at it this is interesting to me because a lot of the expected reaction that for somebody that we might imagine can receive criticism and can receive judgment the expected response we think of from a strong person is just to let it roll off their back and that’s not vulnerable that’s that’s like that’s protected so what is it what’s the difference between letting judgment in in a way that doesn’t produce unnecessary shame or just trigger and bring up and dredge up past shame and bring it into the present moment yeah right it’s it’s letting it break your heart you know if like if you think about if you feel in your body anytime that you’re judging somebody it’s you can feel the discomfort of it you can feel that it’s an avoidance of feeling your own emotions or your own insecurity or your own deeper feelings like there’s a exercise that we do where people um basically say what they’re judging somebody for and then they identify the feelings underneath that that judgment is holding at Bay so what it is is to actually feel your feelings feel the judgment is to let it in and when you say somebody rolls it off their back that seems like a strong thing for us when it’s strong when it’s natural when you’re not like okay I’m gonna let that roll off my back where it’s like you just don’t notice it it’s like that famous saying that if you’re trying to be patient you’re not patient but it’s just as strong if not stronger to lean into it and feel that judgment let it break your heart it doesn’t mean that you have to grovel at the floor for the person which immediately is what people’s brains go to that this now you’re just a groveling weak pathetic person which is like incredibly um far from the truth because the one of the greatest strengths that most people don’t have is the ability to actually just feel their emotions they’re just constantly trying to manage them because they’re really scared shitless of their emotions and then the other thing just to say uh is that if you think about vulnerability and you think about like the Catholics have confession and um the AAA has its version of you know making amends and and talking about all the things that you did while you were you know drunk and like this is a huge part of almost all healing work right his vulnerably admitting to yourself and to others what you’ve done and to see that you’re not doomed for it to see that there’s salvation or repentance or whatever you want to call it that that you can still be loved inside of this and if we don’t share those things we there’s no way that the shame can kind of come out of the closet and be seen and be loved so on one big facet then of vulnerability is this letting judgment in in a way that breaks our heart open instead of sending us into into a shame cycle and also there’s the vulnerability in feeling the pain behind the Judgment that we have for others what other kinds of vulnerability are there oh let’s see asking for what you want that one’s usually really vulnerable for people drawing boundaries can be incredibly vulnerable for people uh expressing yourself you know singing or sharing your poetry can be very um I think the most vulnerable thing for almost all of us is letting the love in is like really dropping our guard and dropping our wall of protection and really allowing love to come in that’s an incredibly vulnerable thing to do especially if we’ve been taught which most of us have that love is criticism or love is abuse her love is rejection and also speaking of rejection it’s just allowing yourself to be rejected like you said with the Judgment really when you allow judgment in and you feel it all the way it’s the same thing as saying I’m allowing myself to be rejected and you let that break your heart open and and as you do let that heartbreak what happens this is the weird part about it is that if you really let that heart break in and you really feel the pain of it what happens is it just starts to not bother you I had a several experiences where there’s been something where let’s say let’s say it’s a lot like judgment where I noticed that oh when people judge me I kind of get my defense goes up I kind of my chest it expands a little bit and I maybe look down on them or something and I’m like you know I don’t want to do that anymore I want to really let that break my heart and I did you know for uh weeks months I’m trying to think it’s probably about six weeks can I be crying in odd places and all that crazy stuff and now when people judge me like there’s just like no very seldom or reaction there’s still sometimes a reaction when it’s somebody who I like deeply love and respect and they do it and then I’ll notice maybe I get defensive or maybe my heart still breaks but the tremendous amount of judgment that you get particularly in a position like this tons of people you know have an opinion and want to judge what you’re saying and doing which is absolutely they’re right it’s like it’s no it doesn’t even cross my Consciousness anymore and that’s what the Heartbreak provides it provides you the courage to love more deeply there seem to be good game theoretic reasons to keep our fears and intentions closer to our chests sometimes and how do we how do we speak Our Truth and share our internal world like this without being taken advantage of well the first thing to say is that like I said just a little bit earlier boundaries are um are vulnerable too right when you draw a boundary if you draw it in the way that I think about boundaries which is not asking somebody else to be different but saying what you’re going to do differently like hey if you’re going to yell at me I’m going to leave that kind of a boundary often what you’re saying is are you going to reject me for being myself that’s what the boundary is saying and accepting that they might do that right and and so it’s incredibly vulnerable to draw that boundary and also when you’re really capable of stepping into that vulnerability you’re less likely to be taken advantage of most people are taking advantage of because there’s something in them that says no this isn’t right I know this isn’t right but if I say that I might get rejected and the vulnerable thing is to say it and find out if you get rejected so vulnerability actually protects you one other way to kind of look at this a little bit is that most of the time when people are taking advantage of it’s because they’re avoiding Their Fear right so I might be poor my whole life and therefore I’ll listen to this person or I’m I’m scared that I’ll procrastinate my whole life so I’ll buy this thing from this Guru or I want to make the money so I’ll believe that my boss is going to promote me when they don’t promote me right it’s fear that allows us to be taken advantage of not vulnerability and if you really vulnerably say wow I’m I just noticed that I’m curious if I’m going to be taken advantage of here wow the chances of you getting taken advantage of are a tremendous amount less you know so my experience is that people think about it differently is because when they were young they loved unconditionally and it hurt and so they think that they’re going to be hurt if they’re loving and vulnerability in the end of the day is an opening up to your to your love to your openness to your truth of Who You Are and so people associate that with a pain but it’s it’s actually the fear that drives the being taken advantage of so far more so what makes this you kind of touched on this just now but let’s dig into a little bit more about what makes this so counterintuitive to most of us if vulnerability really is strength and if voter vulnerability and and embracing our fear is the way out of being taken advantage of what makes so much so many of us have this this block um it may have been the case when we were kids that something happened but we’ve grown up now what what makes that persist yeah so we’re kids and we’re not accepted for who we are as kids that’s just a very if if there’s very few if any people get like just fully accepted for who they are you know don’t have a temper tantrum don’t cry don’t get angry don’t get sad don’t be scared man up you know lift up your chin it’s like what we are is not fully accepted calm down don’t get so excited blah blah blah and so what that makes us feel is it makes us feel helpless as kids right it’s like this deep helpless feeling of weight this is who I am and I’m not supposed to be this way and and I’m having love removed from me if I’m myself which does it feels really bad to not be yourself and it feels really bad to get your love removed from you from your parents where you know your entire biology is designed to get the love from your parents and so you start to feel scared and you also feel like you’re wrong and so that’s the memory that lives with us and it controls us so we don’t like want to we don’t want to feel that as I think we’ve discussed before there’s different waves of brain waves there’s Alpha and beta and Theta and Theta is that dream state it’s that kind of where you go into hypnosis and and kids from zero to seven zero to eight they’re in Theta all the time so this is the programming the programming is don’t be yourself in these ways because if you do you’re going to feel really helpless you’re gonna feel scared and you’re gonna feel wrong and so when we start to be ourselves that’s what that’s the feeling that we have to move through and when you move through it two or three times it’s done you just gotta move through it three or four times two or three times you’re finished it’s not very many times that you have to move through it then the system has changed itself it’s like muscle memory more than anything else right so this this muscle memory this a relationship to vulnerability is imprinted on us when we’re young by other people and a lot of this seems Seems like it’s about other people and their effect on our vulnerable our imprint of vulnerability but now when we’re doing this work from the inside out do we need somebody else around to be like to be on the same page with us to be vulnerable how do we develop this vulnerability from the inside out when it was patterned on us from the outside in yeah so one of the things that I’ve noticed is that when people have a really strong access to their emotions they care less and less what um other people think so people who have like a really strong ability to feel their anger have a fluid anger and a fluid sadness and fluid fear that they care less and and it’s because they’re incredibly related the vulnerability vulnerable thing to do when you’re by yourself is to allow yourself to feel whatever you’re feeling like right now in this moment you can close your eyes and there’s something in your system emotionally uncomfortable and you can lean in and open to it embrace it and welcome it and that’s the same feeling of vulnerability because if it got rejected as a kid we’ve rejected it internally as well and so allowing ourselves to feel it and embracing that intensity and it can be done in really literally every moment of the day that’s showing yourself that these feelings that you have this truth that you have is acceptable it’s it’s a great way to grok that like oh there is nothing wrong with me the thing that we think is wrong with us is resisted emotion emotion that we think we’re not supposed to have um so internally it’s jumping off the same Cliff it’s like oh I’m I’m gonna allow myself to feel this feeling it’s the same when you’re being vulnerable and you’re speaking your truth you’re like oh I might feel rejected oh I might feel judged oh I might feel abandoned and is allowing yourself to feel these feelings whether it’s internal or external so what’s a what’s a specific example of one of these one of these feelings these uncomfortable feelings that we might find if we do this exercise and then a vulnerable action that might come from embracing that feeling yeah so so the feelings are some of the ones I’ve mentioned like rejection or abandonment or uh anger can be different for everybody but what can be even more different is what the action is that’s vulnerable right so for me it was very easy to move to fight if I felt attacked and what was Far harder more vulnerable for me you know some years ago was to say ouch to say that hurt to say I’m sorry those were far more vulnerable actions because I felt like I would be attacked if I did that but there are some people who always say I’m sorry and so their more vulnerable action might be to stand up for themselves so it’s really different the vulnerability is not something that can be like it’s not a morality right it’s not like this is the place to be vulnerable action it’s really a very personal thing and you were talking about the the fight part like how how does vulnerability look in the face of outright direct hostility like perhaps there’s no physical danger that you’re in but you’re in the face of strong aggression yeah so again that’s different for everybody you know like the The Story Goes that say Gandhi got shot and he forgave the person before he died that might be a great Act of vulnerability but it might not I mean that’s the crazy part that might have been like second nature for Gandhi um so it’s really about seeing what your truth is so if you’re in like outright attack the vulnerable thing might be to say I don’t want to engage with you and that that could be really like if you learned as a kid that uh walking away from somebody was something that was going to get you attacked then that might be the really vulnerable thing and you might do that five six seven times and find out oh I can do that now okay and then now it’s not vulnerable anymore and now now it’s vulnerable now what’s vulnerable might be like oh my goodness yeah please share all that I see you’re really angry at me please share that all with me and then that you might do that for five or six times and all of a sudden that’s not vulnerable anymore and then the vulnerable thing might be like I love you and it hurts that you’re attacking me and I love you I’m not going to stop loving you right and and you you just can’t determine what that is for a person it’s it’s very much what it is for you it’s it’s your truth it’s yours fear it’s not anybody else’s and it could be stop it it could be I’m not going to accept this from you right now it could be literally yelling back it’s very different for every person but if you if you don’t feel like you have the freedom to do all of those things then you’re not free it there’s a saying that says like if your hand is always in a fist or if your hand is always in a receiving position both of them are you really want that flexibility and vulnerability gives you that so a lot of the examples we gave there wasn’t really a clear like it’s it’s it’s really person dependent um so people could find themselves using I’ve seen this happen before people will use vulnerability as a defense or as a way to attract attention or manipulate a situation and it’ll be maybe it’ll be a false vulnerability or maybe they will truly feel that that’s vulnerable for them because it’s just making them feel the fear that they’re in a patterned to feel um what’s going on with that I’ve got a big smile on my face yeah so this is again this um um belief system that weakness is um is vulnerability so what what’s happening there often is that people are using they’re saying oh look I’m weak and it’s making you feel guilty or making you want to take care of them or making you feel like you’ve done something wrong and so it’s really not vulnerability at all when if you think about that moments when you’ve done it right when you’ve you know played weak to manipulate or we all have on some level played week two um to get someone to help us um I think guilting people is one version of this right um if you see we’re not and we’re neither in Our Truth nor are we scared when we’re doing that so yeah so it’s just a confusion over again that that vulnerability and weakness are the same thing so how do you how do you know then if you’re if you’re in one of those situations how do you know if you’re really being vulnerable or if you just are having bad boundaries or trying to control what’s what’s the pointer to that yeah it’s it’s when you are in your truth and when you are embracing fear right and not feeling it but embracing it and and then a good way to know when you’re not being vulnerable is that there’s a guilt involved because almost all the time when we’re manipulating somebody there’s something it kind of feels dirty in US and and that’s like a guilt feeling so that’s another way to know if if you’re doing this to control and you see this all the time nowadays where people control by saying I don’t feel safe right they say I don’t feel safe and that’s like you have to change for me and so we can turn anything into control we can turn boundaries into control we can vulnerability and control and you see people do this too where they’re like I was vulnerable with them and they weren’t vulnerable back as if as if it’s an exchange like if we’re keeping score and that happened you won because you get to be vulnerable so if you’re if you’re keeping score if it’s guilt then you know that you’re not in a vulnerable state got it so vulnerability is already like it’s widely accepted as a directionally correct heuristic for personal relationships and notwithstanding the challenges and you know different relationships people have the definitions of vulnerability but what about in the workplace what happens when we bring vulnerability to the workplace where it’s um it often seems like vulnerability should be or is is expected to be reduced in a workplace is what happens you manage people better you sell better you build better products that’s what happens when you’re vulnerable in a in a workplace it’s kind of interesting to hear you say it ask the question um because I know I know that so many corporate environments are built on a lack of vulnerability um but you know it doesn’t matter what what you look at if you look at the people who are outstanding performers that are really outstanding performers there’s a way in which they’re vulnerable in their work it’s even I know it’s kind of crazy to even say this it’s even in rap music if you look at rap music and at all the belligerents and all the um and the fronting and and saying how cool they are and you know how they’re gonna get everybody else the people who are most vulnerable in their apps are the most successful the ones who actually show themselves like Eminem whatever they are they’re like they’re they’re kind of revealing a part of them their psychology that it would be hard for anybody else to reveal if it was in them um those are often the most successful and it’s just like that all the way around if you there’s um tons of stories there’s a woman in Brazil who you know had her company for work without a paycheck for six months because she was so vulnerable and let them know there’s a Reinventing organizations there’s a story of a of a CEO of a company they lost a third of their business and he vulnerably went to everybody and said I don’t know what to do and the whole company was like hey let’s um let’s reduce our salaries for a third until we can get another a customer in and they got a customer relatively quickly um there’s just so many stories of you know they talk about brand authenticity that’s a vulnerable thing you know I saw the head of the CEO of Patagonia get up and speak one time and he said for brand authenticity I want to tell you what we’re not doing for the environment that we could be doing and he just listed it up that’s how he started and immediately everybody was just like oh wow you really do care about the environment whereas other people are like this is everything I’m doing you’re like greenwashing works if you even think about like the great presidential speeches and they’re talking they’re they’re they’re evoking a vulnerability of like I am responsible for this after all I’m the president yeah or ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country that those sentiments are all these vulnerable sentiments of like opening up our Humanity because it’s our Humanity that creates Connection in all businesses is connection it’s a connection to our thoughts it’s a connection to each other it’s a connection to our customers and so the deeper we are in connection with ourselves with our ideas with our emotions with our customers with the product that those levels of connection it just makes us better in business what tends to happen if you if somebody who’s embarking on this on this journey right now and um bringing more and more of themselves and their vulnerability to their workplace uh what can they expect what’s that going to look like probably a bumpy ride I would say that it’s a bit of a bumpy ride at first because one of the main reasons people fight is is the question of who’s in charge and if you’ve been acting like you know everything all the time and you start being vulnerable people might be like oh is he not in charge anymore and they might test that for a while until they realize you know uh that nope you’re still strong you still are determined you you’re just also being real you’re just creating connection and also most of the time when people start being vulnerable they kind of kind of oscillate between vulnerable and defended vulnerable and defended vulnerable and that kind of creates a confusing signal for the company so it can be a little bit of a Muffy ride but it definitely um turns the corner relatively soon if you commit to it and what happens is you know you know yourself better here’s the favorite famous Drucker quote which basically you can’t manage others if you can’t manage yourself so self-knowledge happens people are more prone to trust you because you’re actually real with them you create like I said deeper connections and and people they follow authenticity if you really look at who we pick as our leaders they can be they can be kind they can be Saints they can be incredibly intelligent but the people that we pick are the people who are authentic you know and the less authentic say a presidential candidate is the more it feels like they’re putting on a show the less likely they are to get elected I like that you pointed out the people that we pick as our leaders because you know in the workplace there’s often an assumption that we didn’t pick our boss but we really did pick our job and pick who’s going you know we did in a sense um now as a leader as a as a boss and I you you’d mentioned that as as people show up to the workplace with more vulnerability they they kind of go back and forth between like clean vulnerability and then you know being messy and that can be really disorienting for people around them as a leader how can you create an environment that allows people that space that slack for messiness as they show up and try to bring more vulnerability yeah that’s a great question um question that a lot of people never get to I would say that the real way to do this is to have really clear boundaries no emotions at people you take accountability for the mess that you make and those are the things that are most useful for the people who are there right so somebody says oh I’m going to be vulnerable and they are vulnerable and you know in a normal business maybe they would say that was unprofessional we need you to be professional like basically take that part of yourself and stuff it um and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing but if you’re it’s just not the most efficient thing and if you’re choosing to be vulnerable and somebody does that same kind of like really big mess it’s I really understand and Karen at the end of the day these are still your responsibilities and it’s still your job to treat your employees your employees or your peers with respect and like how do we accept this part of you and still make sure that all the other expectations are met because I think a lot of the times when people start being vulnerable it does it can allow people to get messy and too entwined in in trying to save each other right and if somebody’s vulnerable with you then you try to save them it can get really quite messy and it’s really the thing is if someone’s vulnerable with you it’s how do you Empower them how do you turn it around so that they see that there’s actions that they can take responsibility for so as an example of this um I was recently working with somebody I was very explicit please do not do this it will hurt a lot of our customers if you do it they went ahead and did it and and I basically said oh I noticed that I’ve lost trust and I don’t want to work with anybody that I don’t trust and the way that I could see rebuilding trust is that you identify what created that behavior in you and you tell me how you’re addressing it so then I can be confident it’s not going to happen again and so it’s just an incredibly clear boundary and and holding them accountable which is the Deep form of empowerment and there is no anger there is no shame there’s no you’ve been bad there was no me trying to save them there was just I actually appreciated them for showing me some things in the conversation that we had prior where I was like oh I really appreciate that you showed me these things and these are ways that I can improve and I still notice I don’t have trust in you I know something you you kind of got to a little earlier was um you know vulnerability is seems to be contagious as you if you show up to to a relationship or a workplace becoming more vulnerable it seems that often others will become more vulnerable too and you can just expect that to happen and that you can expect them to be messy and maybe if you’re doing it from the framework of view in a course you might have more you know more Theory to fall back on on how to like let your messiness be and they might have less so it seems like as we’re preparing ourselves to experience being more Messy as we become vulnerable we can just expect other messiness to show up around us and vulnerability what’s your advice for that yeah well first of all yes messiness is going to show up um but it’s not going to be more messy than what’s happening now so it’s just going to be outed you know it’s just going to be raised to the surface so it’s it’s not that um vulnerability just is going to make your world a mess for a while it’s just gonna like shine light into the corners you haven’t swept and so every one of those messes if it’s approached with more vulnerability and boundaries and that kind of thing then the world gets more and more clean and then there’s less and less friction and then everything happens more and more smoothly so the question that you’re asking though is still is a good one which is like what do you do when you shine the light and see that there’s a whole bunch of dirt and the response is you clean it out and view conversations are a great way to do that uh it’s really working with each other and holding each other accountable with wonder and as we as we continue to practice vulnerability how does how does the way that we express a change over time Beyond this like this early shifting that seems like it might be higher magnitude what what then happens over a longer period a deep authenticity shows up I think about my wife all the time in this right like I watch particularly other women I watch them just kind of sit and and all of my wife often it’s almost like they’re watching a puppy you know the same kind of awe that you see like a puppy with because she’s just like so and you you’ve met her you know like she’s just like so much of herself she’s just like oh you know like tea flowers like she’s so in her world of joy and everybody’s like oh like and that’s what happens is it you’re more yourself and and more yourself means you’re more in love it means you’re there’s more joy in your life and people want to be around that and people are fascinated with that and it it creates awe in people think about it this way think about a friend that you have that you like very much you have a deep love for and there’s just something that bothers you about them right and you put that person in your mind and imagine if that thing that they bothered you with they were just super vulnerable they’re like you know I noticed that I am kind of constantly bragging and I’m really sorry for that it’s not how I want to be with you I don’t want to have to try to make myself feel good or make you feel bad that’s one example just imagine you have a friend like that like what happens in your system if they’re vulnerable like that with you it’s like you immediately want to be around them more you dropped it and you dropped the defense exactly judgment and that’s what it happens so the more You’re vulnerable the more that happens um sales is the same thing there’s um good studies about people who are who care more about the relationship who are actually really driven by serving the people through sales and how much better they do performance Wise It’s not the only thing that makes a good salesperson for sure there’s definitely data that you know challenging people can make you a better sales person but challenging people is a form of care um you know asking questions helps sales we know that but asking questions actually shows a concern for them as well and in a weird way if you look at all of the things that make great sales people they’re all based on the fact that they’re centered on the other person that they’re not about closing the deal it’s about building the relationship it’s about helping the person discover something it’s about entering into their world and so in sales it’s the same thing that it’s like a very vulnerable all those things are very vulnerable moves and and if you look at creating relationships generally you think about the people that you in business that you’re that you want to work with the next time you’re in business like it’s like you’re starting your company and you can hand Pick 10 people that you want to work with and how many of those are based on some level of um connection that you feel with that person it’s probably something like seven out of ten and then the other three are like highly confident in something so that’s another way to look at it the point they brought up about challenging people is interesting there’s a I mean there are vulnerable ways to challenge somebody in their invulnerable ways to challenge somebody but let’s let’s assume that you’ve done it in the most vulnerable way and it’s let’s say it’s sales business you know something um something relatively high stakes and other people are depending on it and you are authentically vulnerable in a way that challenges somebody what if that is received as an attack can you apologize can you say I’m so sorry I had no intention of attacking you I was just hoping that we could discover something together yeah if you’re challenging I mean asking scary questions is is a huge part of view and that is challenging that almost always when that question is really scary it’s really challenging and if you do it with vulnerability and which is the scary part the impartiality empathy and wonder then it’s it’s far less likely to be seen as an attack still it can be seen as attack and then you just go like I’m sorry that I have no no intention of attacking you or you double down and you say what’s making you defensive I don’t understand like what what are you defending you know which would be another scary question if you’re actually in Wonder not in judgment if you’re not trying to prove yourself right yeah right that points back to the the state of being that view is because you could say what makes you so defensive or you could say really what what makes you what makes you defend against that exactly or you can say oh I see that I I’ve offended you and I really don’t want to offend you and can you help me see what it is that I’ve attacked and what you’re defending because you must really care about it if you’re defending it yeah so so we’ve talked a lot about what vulnerability is and what it looks like um let’s let’s talk a little bit more about the state of being that all of this points to and how we can how we can know when we’re in it and when we’re not in it and what are what are some Compass points that point towards this vulnerability that we can use as we as we walk away from yeah that’s great so intellectually like we said probably several times now that you’re inviting your fear and you’re saying what’s true to you that’s the intellectual kind of you can I guess part of that’s emotional inviting your fear um there’s also kind of a hard opening and the fear can often turn to excitement if you fully Embrace that vulnerability or it does maybe through the process of saying the thing that you want to say so there’s that heart openness that happens and and the from the guts perspective it’s very much like yes yes let’s do this yes there might be a no in the nervous system but the gut is like yeah this is true this is it and and that’s what you can feel those are kind of the ways to feel the vulnerability but the the easiest is just to say oh what’s the scary thing that’s true for me right now yeah I think some of the one of the things that’s in both the fear and the excitement of saying the vulnerable thing is knowing that your idea or your authenticity is about to be tested like knowing that you know the relationship you’re about to find out how real it is for the other person or how how much connection there actually is here yeah or you know you’re about to find out if you’re going to be rejected or not instead of continuing to wonder for a long time while you pretend to be yeah that’s such a beautiful way of putting it it’s true yeah and and the interesting thing that your mind does in these moments is that what your mind does is it seems like that’s the end of you know like oh my God I’m gonna see if I get rejected and then they reject you and then you can double down on vulnerability and you can be like ouch I was really hoping not to be rejected and I I and I don’t want to push you into not rejecting me then they might go oh wait hold on I didn’t I’m not trying to reject you here I just want to be seen in my truth and oh okay what am I missing like it doesn’t end the thing is it just never ends and but but the fear tells us that there’s like this cliff and it’s over at that Cliff oh we’re gonna be rejected but I can’t tell you how many times today today at lunch there’s a uh old babysitter of ours and her mother was sitting there and I saw them and I’d seen the babysitter maybe two or three years back and and she didn’t look happy and so I sorry today and she looked great and I said wow you look great she said oh thanks and I was like yeah the last time I saw you you looked like you were wilting a little bit and it’s just great to see see you look so good and then I’m sitting at lunch with my daughter 11 years older whatnot and um the mother comes over and like chastises me for saying what I said to her daughter and I could feel rejected and I did for a moment I was like ah ouch and and then I walked over and I looked at the daughter and I said I’m sorry if there I had no intention of offending you and I’m sorry if I offended you and she said oh it’s no problem I just couldn’t figure out a time recently where I I felt withered and or whatever felt bad and I was like oh I don’t think I’ve seen you for two or three years she’s like okay the mom was still Twisted about whatever was going on um but the daughter like immediate and then she thanked me oh thank you for apologizing I’m like yeah no problem and it was you know there’s no end there’s just when you want to stop and sometimes it’s really vulnerable to say I can’t do this anymore yeah he has two directions I want to go with that one that reminded me of a story um from about like 10 years ago working on a commercial production job and uh the key actor who was a famous musician at the time uh showed up to set and just looked like death and everybody on set tiptoed around that and just kind of coddled and then he sits down in the the makeup girl like us up and she’s just like wow you look like and he was just like all of a sudden all this tension just released he’s like oh my God yeah I just feel like crap I’ve been having these personal issues and like this and that and the sleep and you just like got to just let it all out yeah exactly yeah I don’t know how many times I’ve like said like wow you’re being an ass but with like a just total joy and like no judgment in the system and the person’s like ah yeah I kind of am fine and then we have a real conversation yeah and it sounds it feels vulnerable to say that though you know which brings another thing to be excited about with vulnerability is the the dropping of pretense you know like you’re about to find out this is probably where part of the fear comes in like that you’re going to have to revise your model of reality because you’re testing it exactly all the time yeah that’s it that’s beautifully said well this has been a great episode Joe thank you so much for your time total pleasure I look forward to the next one Brett likewise take care thanks for listening to the art of accomplishment if you enjoyed what you heard today please subscribe and rate US in your podcast app we’d love your feedback so feel free to send us questions or comments you can reach out to us join our newsletter or check out our courses at Art of accomplishment.com