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3 Ways to Use Vulnerability to Your Advantage

3 Ways to Use Vulnerability to Your Advantage

by Kathy Seaton

VunerabilityI’ve found myself thinking about how authenticity and fear can actually help me at work. I found a TED Talk from Brené Brown that speaks to The Power of Vulnerability, which was relevant to me. Although the content of her presentation had nothing to do with business, her points are truly valuable and transferable as we face the inexorable fight for power as leaders.

These takeaways are simple, so I’ll try keep it terse.

  1. Discomfort. Brown tells you to lean into discomfort—which on its on makes me sweat. Excruciating pain and anxiety—yeah, sign me up for that!

She means that we need to understand where our weak points are and dive into the reality of those fears. Are they real? Do they exist? Or have we just built them up in our heads.

The bottom line is that we all have disruption in our minds but we have to forge on and get through it.

It’s like trying to drive a Formula One car in Monaco when you can barely drive 65 miles per hour on the freeway. Go as fast as you can, without worry, and believe that you won’t hit the wall, but can come out on the other side. It’s possible, although I’m not suggesting that you pull a Michael Schumacher on the 405 freeway.

  1. Guarantees. So I have this super hot neighbor. He’s gorgeous, he smells good, he’s super smart, he drives a nice car, and he’s got game. So I decide that I’m going to ask him out. I can’t do it in person, so I text him and wait. And I wait. I have a libation and I wait. Waiting absolutely sucks. I’m having a break down, or some kind of awaking, which sounds better, haha.

I know, intrinsically, that there are no guarantees in life. But I’m somehow bound for a struggle. I’ve been born to make myself perfect and I think that I have control when really I have none. I toil over what has happened, but if I look back, there’s nothing there. All I have is this moment.

But I try so hard to predict everything. At work I feel like if I can’t measure it, then it doesn’t exist. I’m always walking around with a ruler. I’ve become addicted to answers. Sound familiar?

This notion is NOT the birthplace of success and creativity. To truly lead, we need to put the guarantees aside. Its time to put down the yard stick and just go for it. We know that there are rules, but let’s commit today to break them. Yell right in the face of “no guarantees” and swing for the fences. Because if we don’t at least try—then we fail.

By the way, he did text me back. And we did go out. And it was a kick ass time.

  1. We think we’re connected—email, text, Facebook, Twitter.

But are we really making true connections? We’re not. There’s something in fear that keeps us disconnected, always building walls around us for protection.

I’m not good enough to be promoted. I’m not strong enough to find the solution. I’m not honest enough with myself to get through a performance review.

We live disconnected because it’s easy and how we’re wired.

But if we brought ourselves into the “now” and became connected we would find purpose and meaning in our professional and personal lives. This means breaking it down—which sounds very clique but very true. By allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to judgment we can become better co-workers and exceptional leaders.

Connected, we can find better opportunities, strive for much higher levels of success, and realize the great potential in the projects and teams that we manage. It comes down to this—we need to find a sense of worthiness and belonging.