Vulnerability and Shame at the Fringe of our Social Universe
Many of us, whether looking for the next job, a career move, striving for the promotion, landing the important contract/deal or improving the diversity of our lives, have thought about how and where we should go about this. As we look for ways to accomplish this, we encounter hurdles, both internal and external, and wonder why it’s so hard to make this work.
Recently, I came across a couple of TED Talks that provide some interesting insights on this. Each individually, are excellent, and address their topics in a very clear and helpful way. But, together, they allow us to understand some of the hurdles we may face and how to more effectively deal with them.
The first is a TED Talk given by Tanya Menon, Associate Professor at Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University, titled The secret to great opportunities? The person you haven’t met yet. Tanya lists three excellent strategies to help explore the fringes of our social universe and expand our network.
1) Use a more imperfect social search engine - Step out of your social habits. Take a different train or route of walking to work. Use a bathroom on a different floor. Sit for lunch at a different table or with different people. And as you go along this new path and meet new people, fight your automatic filters and choices. Plan the randomness.
2) Be courageous in traveling your social universe - When experiencing trying times, it is difficult to develop these new connections on the fringes of the social universe. Dr. Menon proposes a couple of suggestions:
Look at your list of connections on Facebook or LinkedIn to remind yourself of the breadth of your current network
Remind yourself of the value you bring – network from a position of strength
3) Reach out to people as partners and not resources - Many times, our interactions are transactional. It can lead to such phrases as: “I owe you one” or “You’re a great resource”. To truly connect, one needs to eliminate the transaction and find a way to collaborate.
So, with these strategies, one would think the process should be relatively simple and straightforward. However, many still face difficulties and hurdles in executing them. And this is where I came across a TED Talk by Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, called Listening to shame, which I believe may shed some light on these challenges and how to possibly overcome them.
When we are faced with a difficult decision, or a challenging life event such as job loss, how we react can be shaped by what we think of ourselves. Is there a fear of making a mistake? Is there a loss of our identity? Is there a fear of trying something new?
Brené does a great job of highlighting our need to acknowledge our vulnerability and talk about shame.
Acknowledge Vulnerability
She did an interesting experiment at her TED Talk where she asked her audience “How many of you honestly, when you're thinking about doing or saying something vulnerable think, "God, vulnerability is weakness. How many of you think of vulnerability and weakness synonymously? The majority of the audience raised their hands. Then she asked the audience “This past week at TED, how many of you, when you saw vulnerability up here, thought it was pure courage?” The entire audience raised their hand. She states that “vulnerability is our most accurate measure of courage.” Being able to deal with one’s own failures, shortcomings, doubts, and change is all about vulnerability”.
Talk about Shame
But we also need to talk about shame. Brené calls it the swampland of the soul.
When you’re heading into a meeting to pitch your idea or going into the interview and thinking to yourself – ‘I’m going to knock this out of the park’, shame is the voice inside your head telling you: You’re not good enough; You’re not qualified enough; You don’t have a CPA; You never finished graduate school; Your last idea failed; No one is going to read my LinkedIn article; and many more as I’m sure that each of you have your own personal voice.
Shame, or the fear of shame, stops us in our tracks. It prevents us from hearing and accepting new ideas, pursing new careers or expanding our network at the Fringe of the Social Universe.
We need to talk about shame. Because in secrecy, silence and judgement, it grows exponentially. But if it’s exposed, shown the light of day, doused with empathy – it can’t survive.
So, acknowledge your vulnerabilities, talk about shame and explore the fringes of your social universe to drive your career, find your new job or expand the diversity of your life.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Brené’s TED Talk that sums it up nicely:
If we're going to find our way back to each other, vulnerability is going to be that path. And I know it's seductive to stand outside the arena, because I think I did it my whole life, and think to myself, I'm going to go in there and kick some ass when I'm bulletproof and when I'm perfect. And that is seductive. But the truth is, that never happens. And even if you got as perfect as you could and as bulletproof as you could possibly muster when you got in there, that's not what we want to see. We want you to go in. We want to be with you and across from you. And we just want, for ourselves and the people we care about and the people we work with, to dare greatly.