The concept of vulnerability has been elevated to near religious status in modern self-help culture, and I m often surprised how many men love the idea of vulnerability. In this episode, I talk about the dangers of vulnerability without discernment, and why it s not courageous.
00:02:19.540So we need to exercise discernment and really figure out if what a person is talking about or the words that they're using is actually going to be beneficial for them in their life.
00:02:36.100Real strength has always included emotional awareness.
00:02:40.740Strength is not emotional awareness, but it's always included an element of emotional awareness.
00:02:45.820Because if you're emotionally aware, then you can shore up your weaknesses.
00:02:50.320Another one you often hear is that stoicism is just being dumb and covering your emotions.
00:02:55.800That's a misrepresentation of what stoicism is.
00:02:59.240The great Stoics, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, they never said be numb.
00:03:05.160They never said suppress your emotions.
00:03:07.620What they advocate for is understanding your emotions so you can do something productive with them.
00:03:13.100And masculinity generally is not about suppression.
00:03:17.120It's not about keeping things bottled up, keeping things bottled inside, not opening up, not being honest, not being humble.
00:03:23.420We talk about these things every day for the past 10 years.
00:03:26.080Leadership in your life has always required a level of empathy.
00:03:31.560But modern vulnerability, as it's commonly practiced, and you may not believe this about the way you're viewing it, but the way that it's commonly practiced is that it's drifted away from those roots.
00:03:44.180Because today, often when I hear people say vulnerability or vulnerable, what they're saying is that you should just express everything you feel immediately, because that's going to help you somehow.
00:03:56.880Or that you should process your emotions out loud in public spaces, in many cases, virally.
00:04:03.740You know, I see videos all the time of guys on Instagram literally sobbing, breaking down sobbing in their car.
00:05:29.120And I don't share, contrary to what you might believe, everything that I might be experiencing on a daily basis.
00:05:35.540Just because you feel something doesn't mean that it needs to be shared all the time, everywhere, with everyone, especially in real time, especially without any clarity or focus.
00:05:47.960Because there's a difference between, you know, I'm struggling and I'm taking responsibility for what I'm struggling with.
00:05:54.600And I'm struggling and now everyone else in the world needs to share this with me.
00:05:59.380They need to carry my emotional burden.
00:06:01.980And that's what happens when you don't have clarity and direction around what you're feeling is you're asking your wife or your kids or your friends or your colleagues or your followers to carry this emotional burden with them.
00:06:16.700Now, some people will, and frankly, some people should.
00:06:20.900I believe that your wife should help you carry the emotional weight of leading the family.
00:06:34.480But when men are taught that the more that you share, the more evolved that you are, like the more virtuous that you are, you don't get connection from that.
00:08:27.680Now, if you have a reason for sharing it, if it needs to be known, if you want to include people in the process, if they've asked you to share it, then that's different.
00:08:36.480But that's the discernment I'm talking about.
00:08:39.040So again, number one is that this idea that vulnerability is just, is good inherently, but it's not.
00:15:42.500Or burdening somebody else with the responsibility that you as a father and a husband and a community leader and a business owner were called to lead.
00:15:53.020I think a man who leads well will say, you know what?
00:17:07.040Not everything you think and feel needs to be communicated all the time.
00:17:12.960One of, I think, the most dangerous ideas floating around today is that if you don't express everything that you feel, you're being inauthentic, disingenuine.
00:20:05.200And discipline is not the enemy of authenticity.
00:20:07.780Just because you don't share everything you're feeling in the way you're feeling at every given moment doesn't mean you're inauthentic or disingenuous.
00:20:39.120I am torn up that my business went through a bankruptcy, but I'm using that as fuel to be better, to improve, to learn about entrepreneurship, to learn about the back end of business and to make my next business venture better.
00:20:55.120It's way more honest than the man who says, I feel like this, so now everyone else has to deal with it too.
00:21:52.020So I'm not just going to blab my bullshit to everybody, but I am going to share how I'm feeling with the people who've earned a right to hear it.
00:22:00.520The woman in my life, my children, friends, potential business partners.
00:23:23.720And I'm grateful and gracious when I respond back.
00:23:26.820I don't, like, chastise them for using the word vulnerability because I know what they're saying.
00:23:31.620But when I share what's going on in my mind, even if it's hard for me to share, even if it's something that exposes weakness in me or something I don't want to share, it's in service to growth of the organization and you as the people I care about.
00:23:44.200But performative vulnerability, which is what you often see, it's those weirdos who cry in their car.
00:23:51.760Like, they'll set up a camera and then they'll cry about some issue.
00:25:16.360And yet we've created an environment through structure, through systems, through brotherhood, through the law of numbers, that even though there's threats that exist, we're secure.
00:25:50.580It's challenging each other effectively and powerfully.
00:25:53.260It's places where vulnerability actually leads you somewhere towards action, towards correcting yourself, towards growing and overcoming hardship and challenge.
00:26:03.760So what men, I think, need more than anything instead of vulnerability is we don't need to be told to open up indiscriminately.
00:26:29.720You don't need to be relieved of whatever you're feeling.
00:26:34.500It's very likely that whatever you're feeling is justified, whether it's sorrow or grief or shame or maybe not shame, but guilt at least, is justified in a lot of cases.
00:26:45.680I have guilt and sadness every day to varying degrees.
00:26:50.620You know, it's not overwhelming or consuming, but every day I have sadness and sorrow and loss and guilt about the way I've showed up in different aspects of my life.
00:27:05.100I want action over the idea of just expressing myself.
00:27:09.620I want a real brotherhood, men that I can rely on, men that I can count on.
00:27:14.400I had a guy call me just the other day, and I won't tell his name because it doesn't need to be shared, but he's probably listening to this podcast, and he called me yesterday.
00:27:33.700And I was honest with him because it was earned.
00:27:36.300We had a really good, gosh, hour-long conversation about what I was dealing with and what he was dealing with, and we both walked away edified.
00:27:43.040So I'm not saying you can't share, but it has to have purpose because a lot of times people just broadcast everything and hope that that's the right way of doing it.