A short spoken excerpt by Lori Harder arguing that openly sharing personal flaws and stories—using her disclosure that she did not graduate high school as an example—can unexpectedly inspire, connect with, and free other people. Harder frames vulnerability as a source of permission and relationship-building rather than shame.
When you want to go out in the world and share your own story, you have all of these ideas of why you're not going to be lovable. It's so crazy to think some of those stories are probably things that inspire people now in your life. I didn't graduate high school, and I hadn't told anyone until, like, three years ago. It even took me two years after we were married to tell my husband. And now that's something that so many people relate to me, and they're like, oh, my God, this is so much freedom. Because I didn't either. Like, I had no idea. The thing that is the most shameful is something that people actually love about my story now, and it's giving them permission. And this is in everything that we do in all of our lives. So most likely the thing that someone is sitting there so afraid of is going to free someone or you're going to connect or you're going to gain a best friend or you're going to gain a partner or whatever that looks like.
