233. The Good, the Bad, and the Invulnerable

Foreign welcome to another episode of at the Table with Patrick Lynchione, where everything we talk about is related to organizational health and the world of work. I'm your host, Pat Lynchoni, joined by the full team today. We got Cody, Bo, Tracy, who are all doing fine. Karen sitting next to me passing me notes. Matt's behind the glass producing this. Cody, what's the topic today?

The Good, the Bad and the invulnerable.

That's right. And the title alludes to the fact that we replace the word ugly from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the movie with invulnerable. Because what we want to talk about today is the ugliness of invulnerability. Now, we talk about invulnerability all the time. In fact, it's one of the foundational elements of being vulnerable, is how we build trust on a team. And trust is at the basis of the pyramid for building a team. And so it's so critical that we learn how to be vulnerable with one another because it engenders trust and openness and honesty and humility, and that is essential to a team. And just recently I've been thinking about when you meet a person who is generally invulnerable, who doesn't admit that they have problems or that they make mistakes, there is something really repellent about that. And, and, and I, I want to unpack this with you guys because I think if we all understood that, and we all struggle with being invulnerable sometimes, if we understood how that came across to others and how repellent that was, we almost titled this people repellent, you know, because we repel others when they know that we're not open to who we really are. When we can't recognize the truth in ourselves, it's a real boundary. It's a real limitation to our relationships. And that's what we want to talk about today because it's so important to our teams and to us in our personal lives as well.

This is going to be so fun to talk about and probably convicting because it's easy to see in somebody else when somebody else is guarded, that it's ugly, but harder to see in ourselves. So I wonder if we first click into that a little bit. What is it about invulnerability that is ugly, that seems to repel us or not draw us towards people?

It's a great question. It's a fundamental question to all of this, and I think it's that. Well, Tracy, you said something as we were preparing about how it makes you feel crazy.

Yeah, because you said it's denying truth. It's denying the truth, and it really is crazy making. When someone is sitting in front of you denying what is true.

And I think that makes us. I've come to the conclusion, as this term gaslighting, has come up more in society, that when you're talking to somebody and you have to pretend something is not true, that you know they see and you see, but you're pretending it's not, it does kind of question your sanity. Like, is this a real conversation? And am I. Am I allowed to speak freely and openly and kindly but about something. I see. And when we can't do that, it makes you feel kind of nuts.

Yeah, it. I think that there's maybe two things that are very similar. One is the. I don't want to talk about that. The other is I'm not willing to look over there. Meaning there are some things that I know about myself that I'm not ready to share with other people. And there are some things that I've sheltered or protected myself from having to look at. That's actually a. I don't even have the insight about that yet because I've been unwilling to even look over there. Does that make sense?

Yes. You know what's so funny? I think that, Bo, you just made me think about. We call this the good, the bad, and the ugly. You know, what's the good? You know what's an attractive thing is when you meet somebody who is really in touch with who they are, and they acknowledge it, and they say, hey, I know I do this, and it can be annoying. Immediately they become more attractive because you're just like, wow, so you know that, and you're comfortable enough to tell us that. And now I don't feel like I have to pretend it's not true. And I don't have to protect you from that. They literally become more attractive. So the good, the power and the beauty of being vulnerable is that it opens up the relationship and it makes you want to be with that person. But when you meet a person and you realize that you can't do that, you kind of like, I don't really want to spend more time with them because I have to pretend. And that makes me feel kind of gross.

I love that you teed up this conversation because we've talked countless times about how this is a team killer, but invulnerability goes even into your personal life. I love the. What you just said is like. Like, I was just drawing A two by two matrix. On one side is vulnerable, on the other side is self aware. And it's like the top right. Somebody who's vulnerable and self aware. I want to be around those people all the time, you know, Oh, I love it. But, but the people that are not vulnerable and it goes, it goes into everything. Like Pat, you and I have that we share this. We often will come to work and we'll talk about fights that we got into with our wives, which doesn't. Is seasonal. We get into it occasionally.

It's not all the time, but nobody avoids it. And when people, yeah. Keep going.

But, but, but we often talk about like our friends who, who are unwilling to say or don't bring it up or say no, we never fight. It's harder to be around them because it does. Like you said, Tracy, it kind of makes you feel crazy or insufficient or something's wrong with me. When we know this is all happening, we all do this, right? And so there's just some level of attraction to people who are willing to say, like, hey, you know what? I wasn't the best guy last night. Here's what I said. And I need to go home and.

Say I'm sorry, you know, you know, that's so important. I didn't even think about that. When people are, are vulnerable, it makes you feel like you're allowed to recognize your own imperfections and not feel bad about that. But when you're around people that don't admit that they have imperfections, it only makes yours feel heavier and it brings about a feeling of shame as opposed to empathy. Does that make sense? Cody, I love your two by two matrix. This is great. One on the one axis is vulnerability and the other one is self awareness. Do you know something? If I meet somebody who's got an issue but they're not aware of it, I have a lot of grace for them because nobody's told them and they need to be aware. But when you meet somebody and you think, oh, they're just not self aware and you let them know and then they're in denial of it and you realize, oh, you know that, but you won't admit it right away. I'm like, I don't think I can have a very deep relationship with that person.

There's a guarded vulnerability that I experience sometimes in others. I'm sure it's true in me too. One version of that is I'll be vulnerable to a point. Another version of that is I'll tell stories that are self deprecating, that Ended well. Right. Like, I'll talk about stories in the past that got cleaned up. And yet we all love underdog stories, and we all love. We love movies where there's somebody who has to overcome something, but we forget people like to be with us while we are in the business of overcoming. So they don't just want to hear about our highlights, about how we overcame. They like being with us while we're in the mess in the middle of it. Yes.

Yes. Because it gives you permission to realize if things are messy for me, there's hope. And I do not need to despair about the situation I'm in right now or the problem I have.

The other thing I've noticed as we're having this conversation is now I'm in my late 30s, and oftentimes we talk about how hard it is to build relationships when you get older, to build meaningful relationships when you get older. And I think it's directly tied to the level of vulnerability that happens up front. Because probably twice in the last year, so much of relationships feels like fencing. If you're not vulnerable, you're like, kind of keeping your guard up. And that's why it takes two, three, four years until guys start having real meaningful relationship because they're keeping their guard up for too long. And even a couple of times in the last year, I've met people where I've said, hey, can we do that thing where we skip two years of talking about sports and. And the weather and we go to more meaningful things? Because I really want to be friends with you, you know, and that's a vulnerability. What I'm realizing in this moment is how it will fast track relationships. The. It fast tracks teamwork and when a leader is vulnerable. But you think about it in your personal life, and this is. This is the secret sauce to deeper, more meaningful relationships quicker.

And it's such an accelerator. You're right, Cody. That's so insightful. And I think about the people I've met, like, and sometimes I meet people like our authors or speakers that do what I do. And, you know, you meet them and you think, are we just going to pretend that we've got it all figured out? And John Gordon is one of my favorite people in the world. He's an author and speaker. Fantastic. Amazing stuff. I love his books. I love what he says. When I met him, he said, because he's a very positive guy, and he has the potential to make you feel a little uncomfortable because he's so like, yeah, you gotta be positive. And he said to Me, because, you know, Pat, I used to be really negative, and my wife. It frustrated the crap out of her, and she said, you better learn to be more positive. And that's when I said, oh, so you actually can relate to people when they're not that way. And. And the things you're telling me now are. You're telling me from a place of vulnerability. You're not saying, I'm just a positive guy. You're saying, I actually drove my wife and myself crazy by being negative, and this is how I learned it. And I thought, you are not trying to present yourself as perfect. I want to hear what else you have to say. But if you talk to somebody who says you should be like, my perfect family, you're like, oh, that's. Nobody's got a perfect family, so I can't even relate to you.

Cody and I had a friend who would talk about vulnerability as taking off the mask. And I'm curious, Pat, your insight on when to take off the mask, and I guess how much of the mask to take off, because there is a. I don't know, an appropriate pace for how and when to be vulnerable and the right environment to be vulnerable. So let's talk about that. How do you. Maybe the question is, how do you start?

Yeah. Well, there's. There's common sense, and there's emotional intelligence that. Go on. You're sitting on a bus next to a person, and you're like, I think I'm gonna tell them my life story and tell them all my problems. That's. That's just. You know, we don't have that relationship. But when you're working with somebody or you do want to build a deeper relationship, revealing things about yourselves that are not necessarily positive is a way to say, I trust you enough to give you this and take a risk. And. And Karen looked up the word vulnerability, and it has to do with wounds, and we all have wounds, and we want to make sure that the people we're with can admit that they have them too. And as Cody said earlier, but when you're with somebody that goes, no, I don't have any, I think everything's fine. You're like, okay. I think we've just gone as deep as we go. They're not relatable. You know, we want to relate to others and have them relate to us. And when somebody is hiding their imperfections, it's a real challenge.

I think the other thing that comes to mind is the word risk. You know, relationally, it's very risky to share what Your wounds are to be vulnerable, you know, and you even think, like, obviously, we've seen this happen on teams before. Even one person who's invulnerable in a setting can change the entire dynamic of that team. The same is true, you know, if you've ever been around a campfire sharing wounds or worries or being vulnerable, and even one person around the campfire is unwilling to do that, it can change the entire dynamic of that experience. And so it is very risky. And when you throw something out and it's a risk to you, and people don't receive that and are willing to risk the same thing, it can. That's when I think those relationships get kind of clammed up. We put the mask back on.

One of the exercises we do with executive teams is that we go around and have them tell us their personal history story, which it takes. Like, they literally have two minutes. Just tell us what. Where'd you grow up? How many kids were in your family? Where did you fall? In that order? And then what was the most difficult challenge of your childhood? It doesn't have to be like. It's just like, what was. What was hard about being a kid? And inevitably, when we go around, there'll be somebody who will say, yeah, I don't think I had any big problems. And. And. And sometimes that's actually true. So what I always do when that happens is said so. And you're not. You're not saying, like, they're literally saying, gosh, I think as a kid, I had a pretty idealistic childhood. We weren't poor. My parents stayed together. I felt loved. And. And I'm like, okay, so I want to make sure that everybody else around the table knows they're not doing that to project a false image of being better. A lot of times they're kind of apologizing. They're like, man, I'm hearing these great stories about all the things you guys have overcome in your life. And they're like, I feel kind of bad because I don't have anything to offer. Which is a very different thing than say, nope, I'm fine. I'm fine. And when you know that a person's hiding something, it's true in all kinds of relationships. Dating is the same way. In fact, I heard a great story just yesterday. A friend of mine has a friend. It really is a friend. I'll call the guy Fred. And Fred was doing a lot of dating online, and he stopped doing it. He goes, it wasn't good. And we said, what was bad about Fred's? Dates. And here's what my buddy told me. He goes, fred said that he went out with a number of women who online. And he took. And two of them, he went to a parking garage, and they opened the door, and they dented his door by hitting one of those, like, concrete pylons. And. And me and my friend who were in the car listening to this were like, that seems kind of shallow. But then I realized it was because they didn't apologize, and it wasn't that he was worried about getting a dent in his car. He's like, they didn't even have the courtesy to say. They didn't even acknowledge it. They didn't even say, I'm sorry. Oh, no, I dented. I might have dented your car. And it was their invulnerability that actually turned him off to them. So I thought that's kind of what provoked this. I thought, why would a person be turned off by somebody who did that? Well, of course, if they can't acknowledge they might have made a mistake, you feel like, well, they're not trustworthy.

I happen to know Fred, Pat, and I know that Fred is younger. And I'm just curious, how does age and maturity play into this?

Well, I actually think that Fred is mature because it wasn't about his car door. It was about them not being the kind of person that could say, I'm sorry.

No, no, no. I mean, the age group that Fred is in, the folks that Fred is dating, they're a younger age group. So how does age play into this and maturity?

Well, I think it can play into it. Although you and I, we all know people in their age that are invulnerable.

Sure.

And they have a really hard time.

I do think that younger people struggle with this.

Yes. And. And that's really why we're doing this podcast. For anybody listening, what we want to say is this. And so if a young person were listening to this or, you know, people in your life, encourage them to be vulnerable because they do not really understand the ugliness that they portray in themselves when they're not. And when we all know, like, yeah, I should probably admit that it's like, no, no, no, you don't understand. It's four times more powerful, the repellent that you're putting off when you don't acknowledge things. And I learned something in social psychology when I was a kid. One of my favorite classes, and that was they said, if you want a girl to like you. In my case, it was like, don't Ask her if you can carry her books. This is really interesting. They said, ask her if she'll carry yours. In other words, what they meant by that is this. When you say to somebody, I need your help, you're actually being vulnerable to them. And that's not manipulative. When you go to somebody and say, I need your help, people are actually attracted to people that are honest about their. But we're taught, like when you're dating, to be perfect, to be everything, and to always do the. And that actually just makes people feel like you're not real. So vulnerability has always been attractive to people. And yet we grow up when we're young, and sometimes it continues when we get older thinking that, no, I need to hide those vulnerabilities. And it really is deceptively ugly.

Yeah, Yeah. I think, Tracy, I'll make a comment about that age thing, which is in your teens and your twenties especially, you're still figuring out who you are. And it's very tempting, especially in your 20s, to think, I am defined by my last win or my most recent mistake. And we have to be able to learn we are more than just our last mistake. And actually, the cure for that is vulnerability. The secret sauce. To be able to speed your way through defining yourself as more than your mistake is to have a group of people where you can be vulnerable about who you are. There's another category about vulnerability that we haven't talked about yet, which is it's easy to talk about the things in the past or to think vulnerability is only the things that have happened in the past. But I think it's very vulnerable when people talk about their wants and dreams and hopes for the future. In fact, I find that really compelling and winsome when people are willing to be open and say, hey, here's what I'm dreaming about for the future. Here's what I want for myself. Here's what I hope is different. There's something about that that actually is vulnerable because you're putting out there something that might not happen. And I just find it very winsome and life giving when people do that.

So you just said it twice. I was gonna ask you anyway. What is winsome? I mean, it's a word that people use a lot. I find church people use it a lot, and I really have never used it, and I'm not sure exactly what it means. So do you have a definition for that? But I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but it's one of those words that I think nine out of 10 people would go, yeah, I don't know what that means.

I think it's, you win some and you lose some.

Oh, Karen just looked it up. What does it mean?

I just looked it up.

Yeah. Oh, attractive or appealing in appearance or character?

I would have said it's like being attractive or appealing in appearance or character.

Probably very nice. Now I knew you know what it meant because you weren't being fake, but it's just one of those words. Oh, okay. So that's awesome. So what we're saying here is we underestimate the attractiveness of being vulnerable. I don't think that was building on your point, though.

Bo, he talked about the future. There is a vulnerability in saying, hope what you hope for. Because even putting that out there as a, hey, I hope this happens in the future is a risk, because what if it doesn't happen? Or happen? Are you disappointed? You know, Pat, you talked about one of the exercises that tees up vulnerability. We've done this both with clients and with friends, is like a version of that called the four H's, which is like, tell us about your home. Tell us about your hero who. Who is in your life that you look up to. Tell us about a heartbreak that you've had in your life and then tell us what you're hoping for in the future. And. And some of the. A lot of those questions have implicit vulnerability. You know, the home and who's your hero? Why is that the case? And what's a heartbreak you've had and what do you hope for? And I think sometimes that last one, Beau, is sometimes the scariest. It's easy to talk about, oh, this happened in the past, but to be able to say to people close to you, here's what I hope is true a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, and expose yourself that way is inherently vulnerable. For sure.

Absolutely. And Tracy, you're absolutely right. And you're right, Tracy. Younger people, that's harder to do when they're young, partly because they don't know who they are or what they're supposed to be hoping for. And if you're wounded, it's so scary to think about opening yourself up to that again.

Sure. And I think it's also. It's just countercultural. I have young kids and it's just. They are. I feel like they're told, like, protect and put your guard up.

And it's just young adult kids, just.

To be young adult kids. Yeah.

Not like a 4 year old. Be more vulnerable.

So if Somebody's listening to this and they're like, gosh, I wish I was more vulnerable. And we've given a couple practical things they could do. How do we root out invulnerability in ourselves?

Wow. Well, Karen just wrote me a note that I think relates to. She just circled it too. I think that what we first have to do is really filter out self awareness. We gotta. The people around us that we work with and we care about, we have to say to them, I really want to know how I come across to you and who I. I don't want you to think you have to keep me from understanding things about myself that might be difficult. So we have to ask people and demonstrate to them that we're serious, that we want them to educate us about things we might not know. The Johari window, you know, like the thing about ourselves that we don't see. So the first thing is root out any lack of self awareness you have. But the other thing is, I think you have to actually. And you can do this at work easier than at home because we have these kind of exercises. We do an exercise with teams. I did this two days ago with an executive team where you go around the table and you just. And I say to them, you tell us what you think your biggest fault is as it results, as it relates to the relationships on this team. And it's so interesting. It's so interesting. I didn't think I was going to talk about this, but the people that say that nail it. The people that say, oh, yeah, I know I do this. Everybody else, like, lights up and they're like, so, you know, you do that? And they're like, oh, yeah, I don't like it. And I know I do it. It's really attractive. And then if a person says, oh, well, sometimes I'm late for meetings. And you're like, oh, crap, is that as deep as you're going to go here?

Yeah, it's really.

People are just like, oh, no. So. So I would say. And somebody else said when we were preparing this, this call, just know that other people see it more than you realize. If you think you're hiding something. Okay, I'm going to tell the most embarrassing story that ever happened to me at work. Right. I was. And I've said this before on a podcast thing, but I was leading an off site and it was a busy day and I had Mexican food the night before. We all know where this is going. And a little fart came out. Okay, it did. And I was with eight executives And I was like, I don't know if they heard that or not, but if they did, and I pretend I didn't do it, that's horrible. And I just said, wow, I just farted. And they laughed and in fact they gave me a standing ovation. They all stood up and applauded me, right? But I remember that moment where I was like, man, I kind of hope they didn't hear me, but if they did and I don't acknowledge it, I look like a fool. So that's a really ridiculous, stupid, crazy example. But it's vulnerability in its ugliest form.

It reminds me of one other comment which I've heard you all say many times, which is, the leader does need to go first. It's very scary as the leader to be the first one to lead with vulnerability and to open up because people are looking to you and you have this authority and what if they think less of you? But the group rarely goes deeper than the leader is willing to go.

And I would even say to your question, BO is like, if someone's listening to this, I would do a self audit of like, how many deep relationships do I have at work or in my life? And. And then say, is that a result of like, how vulnerable have I been with those people? And if you're a person who's like, yeah, I just don't seem to connect. It's like, have you been vulnerable? Are you putting yourself out there in a way, Are you telling. There's something about vulnerability that is just telling what you think is true about yourself and even the fear around it. Even practicing the hope thing, you might say, hey, I'm actually scared to share this because I'm worried that if it doesn't happen, it will, you know, it will wreck me. And that that in and of itself is just talk about what's true. It's just like confessing what's true to each other will lead to that.

You know, if anybody's listening to this and they think this sounds awfully soft or very touchy feely, or people that do this with one another get so much more done. They come to work and they're like, I get to be my real self. And I know other people are going to be their real self. I see their car in the parking lot. I'm excited that they're going to be there. And we cycle through disagreements and make decisions better. This is immensely practical. It's also immensely liberating. But there's nothing about this. It's like overly personal. We are meant in relationships to be human with one another and to acknowledge the truth. And so again, it's not that person sitting next to you on a bus. It's not somebody you met for the first time. It's not, you go on your first date, you got to tell them every terrible thing about yourself. But. But it's about growing in relationship at work and at home and in every kind of way. Vulnerability is attractive and invulnerability is pretty ugly. All right, all right, that brings us to the end of this. We have an announcement before we do the unpaid ad. Right.

We do.

Announcement.

Hey. We're going to take the next four weeks and share four of our favorite episodes of this podcast. And so, yeah, for the month of July, we're going to be sharing favorite podcast episodes that we have selected that we love, that we think that you'll enjoy. So you can look forward to that. There'll be repeats if you're a die hard listener, but we think that you'll really enjoy getting to listen to those. And it's going to give us a great break to be able to prep content and get our heads around what we're doing in the fall.

And we have a lot of stuff going on at the office. We're moving offices, we're moving spaces. And so July is going to be nuts. And we thought this would be a great way to do this. You know, reminders are good. It's amazing how many times like, and I don't listen to our old podcast, but people go, you should re listen to this one. And it's. Sometimes it's like, oh, yeah, I forgot. I forgot a lot about that. Okay, so the unpaid ad today I'm really torn between two things. I'm gonna do them both. I'm gonna do them both. And they're completely different. One is Hall's cough drops. And you know, there's generic ones too. But I've always loved halls. I take medicine. I had the flu for two weeks, which just sucked this summer. But even now I'm still coughing. You can have a cough for a month. Drives you crazy. These things more than all the medicine, really save my ass. Oops, did I say that? That sounded not true. But I carry these with me and they just save me. I have speeches to give and I want to cough and I take these. So good old fashioned, simple cough drops. I like that. The other one is for a fast food, a quick service restaurant that I love. Last night my son, who's 18, came home and it was like 10 o' clock at night, and I was about to go to bed, and he goes, hey, dad, I'm going to get food from here. Do you want some? And anytime that somebody asks me about this place, I'm like, yes.

Can we guess?

I know what it is.

We all know.

What is it?

It's Taco Bell.

Taco Bell.

It is Taco Bell. What in the world Is it the fact that my son was going to be getting Taco Bell. I was like, yeah, I'm going to eat that. I'm going to be up later as a result of that. I might not even sleep as well as a result of that. But I love me some Taco Bell. And I don't know how they've done it. I remember when I was a kid, there was one near my grandmother's house. I've loved Taco Bell forever, and I still do. Karen goes to Taco Bell once a week. In fact, Karen every Saturday when she gets in her car, it reminds her it gives her directions to Taco Bell because she's so irregular.

It's one of my favorite stories. I love that.

That's amazing.

So way to go, Taco Bell. You've made food that we love, and I'm a big fan. So if you've never heard of Taco Bell, just check it out, okay?

And if you want to fart in front of your clients, you can eat more Taco Bell.

You brought it right back, Beau. That's awesome. Hey, everybody, thanks for joining us on a podcast today. We'll look forward to some new episodes in August, but we hope you like the reminders in July. And thank you for listening. God bless you all. Bye. Bye.