Madeline @anti_nihilist: How do I find balance btwn bleeding on page & revealing too much/showing weakness? Will admitting my failures help/hurt business?
ANSWER:
Kamal discusses this a little in his book, “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It”. Specifically the discussion of how much should one reveal and if you reveal too much, there’s the fear that people will judge you or look down on you.
I mentioned to him at the time that I don’t write something UNLESS I am worried that people will judge me. Else I’m not really hitting the edge of where I think I can deliver value. It turns out that your maximum value is delivered right at the point where you are worried you are saying so much that people will judge you.
Note that doesn’t mean reveal everything. I reveal a lot in this blog but certainly not everything. I don’t want to hurt anyone for instance. The few times I said something that did hurt people, I pulled the posts down or changed them to respect privacy.
We live in a “self-help” society. Where people are hypnotized into thinking that striving for greatness is the only way to live. And “Greatness” is defined in various ways: non-stop happiness, productivity, financial success, love success, etc. The problem is is that life is mostly struggle. And that attempts at greatness are often met with failure. We need to give ourselves permission to fail. Not only fail at a business, or at love, but even the little things – failure to remember an important date, or failure to treat the ones around us with love and respect 100% of the time. Nobody is perfect.
Reveal enough so that we can see how you are not perfect. How you learned from it (or not). How you still moved on and tried to be honest. Honesty gives your words power. It makes your clients and friends trust you. I can tell you that because of this blog I have had more business opportunities than I ever would’ve thought possible. And if you look back on my posts you will see every failure and miserable embarassment possible. And yet, that’s how I built trust. And you will too.