[00:00:00] In today’s episode of the I Hear You podcast, we’re talking about another foundational element of healthy relationships: vulnerability.

[00:00:09] You take vulnerability out of a relationship and you’re left with a dry, transactional connection. It’s like trying to keep a plant growing without water. It just doesn’t work. So today we’re going to talk about what vulnerability is, what it looks like and why it’s so valuable. We’ll clear up a couple of misconceptions, explore a handful of tips on how to increase our willingness to get vulnerable, and last of all, talk about what we can do if we feel our partner isn’t very vulnerable. This is another foundational episode, as I mentioned and there’s a lot packed in here, so let’s get to it.

Let’s Talk About the Real “You”

[00:01:04] One of the more difficult parts of a relationship is letting the other person see the real you. And I mean, the real you, not the half real “you” that you post on Facebook or Instagram or the first, second or third date “you” that is on your very best behavior and has everything put together. I’m talking about the imperfect you, the one with flaws, fears, hopes, dreams, passions and insecurities, the you that you see and know all too well. Oftentimes it’s the you that you’re afraid to let the other person see. And yet consciously doing that, consciously allowing somebody else to see the real you, in all of its glory, is vulnerable and it is powerful. It is connecting or it at least opens up the opportunity to connect.

The Importance of Vulnerability

[00:01:57] So why bother, though? Why get vulnerable, why let people see the real you? Well, I have a few thoughts on that. First, it’s because that’s the person you are. If you want to feel true, lasting connection with someone, you need to feel that they love you for who you are, not for who you pretend to be or even who you’re striving to be. Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t strive to grow and improve and take care of yourself. It doesn’t mean you can’t dress well and use makeup and what have you. It simply means that none of that matters in a relationship if you don’t feel you are worthy of love and respect exactly as you are.

[00:02:36] We can have no true, meaningful connection without vulnerability. Because if we haven’t allowed somebody else to see the real us, if we haven’t confided in somebody, if we haven’t shared our fears, our concerns with them. If we haven’t let them see us when we are imperfect, how can we ever really know if they love us? How can we know if our connection with them is authentic, is sincere? We can’t. And as much as uncomfortable as that might sound, getting vulnerable, much of the world agrees and Brené Brown is very well known in this circle, of course, on her work on vulnerability. She’s one of the pioneers, you could say. And I would say the leading researcher is the leading expert now on vulnerability and her TED talk titled “The Power of Vulnerability,” I’ll link to that video in the show notes, it’s one of the top ten most viewed TED talks of all time. So, when I say much of the world agrees that vulnerability is important, that’s some data right there to back it up. The fact that that many people watch and rewatch and share that video that talks all about the power of vulnerability, that says something. And to, quote, take a little tiny snippet from that that video, Brené Browne says, “True belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world.”

[00:04:08] Now, I want to acknowledge here that that is much easier said than done, especially if you have tried opening up before, perhaps in a previous relationship and have had your feelings disregarded, or shot down, or responded to in a disappointing way. One of the quickest ways people shut down their vulnerability is when they feel invalidated or criticized for feeling the way they feel. So it is difficult to put ourselves out there, to share a feeling, to share a concern, or to ask for something or to assert themselves or our state an opinion and then be lambasted for that, to be criticized or ridiculed.

Vulnerability Isn’t Always Easy

[00:04:45] So it’s no question, no wonder why many of us do close off, why a lot of us do struggle with vulnerability because we’ve had a bad experience or maybe many bad experiences. And what sane person would keep opening themselves up to feeling like an idiot? What sane person would keep doing, keep asserting themselves or keep asking for certain things if their history tells them that’s dangerous. So it’s not easy necessarily. And yet I’m not going to back down from the fact that it is still critical. And so if you fall into the category of somebody who does not like getting vulnerable with people, doesn’t like sharing your feelings, doesn’t like asking for things. Well, keep listening because you’re not alone, welcome to the club. I struggle with this. Most of us struggle with it. And so that is why we’re dedicating an episode to this topic. Because just because you have had about experience and just because this is difficult for you does not mean you can’t change it. And I hope by the end this episode, you’ll have hope. You’ll be excited about it, you’ll see the value that it can bring to your relationships and hopefully you’ll walk away with some easy action items that you can implement right away to start improving.

Examples of Healthy Vulnerability

[00:06:01] So let’s explore some examples here. What does vulnerability look like? Well, we are emotionally vulnerable any time we open ourselves up to opinion, to rejection, to disagreement or ridicule, etc. So, for example, being vulnerable is being willing to say, “I love you” first. Doing something with no guarantees that it’s going to work out or that you’re going to be successful. Vulnerability looks like going all in in a relationship, knowing full well that it might not work out. Vulnerability might look like initiating or asking for sex with your partner. That’s not easy. It might look like asking someone for help. Maybe it’s starting a company and telling everybody about it, knowing full well that it might fail. It can be vulnerable to share your hopes or your dreams with someone, certainly vulnerable to share your fears or your insecurities.

[00:07:01] It’s vulnerable to ask someone’s opinion, especially if it’s about your clothes or about how your presentation went or about how you’re showing up. And of course, it’s vulnerable to share an unpopular opinion because again, you’re opening yourself up to other people’s criticism, other people’s opinions as well. I could go on and on. There’s truly an endless list of vulnerable situations and it’s going to be unique to each individual. What’s vulnerable for one person might be very easy for another person. So at the end of the day the examples don’t really matter too much.

What we’re getting at here is that it’s anything that you are sharing with somebody that’s real, that’s authentic to you, that is difficult for you to share. So the key point to remember here is this, that until we are willing to risk rejection, disagreement, ridicule, we forfeit the opportunity to experience the opposite; acceptance, agreement, praise and connection. We can’t close ourselves off to one and remain open to the other. So all healthy relationships require that we open ourselves up to the chances that people could respond very positively or very negatively. Alfred Lloyd Tennyson once wrote, “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” That, I think really sums up the value here or the importance of vulnerability. If we want to be open to connection, if we want to be open to true love, we also have to let ourselves be open to the possibility that we might not be loved, to the possibility that we might get hurt.

[00:08:40] And I want to take a moment here to just jump in with one quick caveat here. That embracing vulnerability does not mean you’re opening yourself up to abuse. It doesn’t mean you’re opening yourself up and sharing everything with everyone because you can and ought to be selective in what you share and with whom. You’ll want to be reasonably confident that the person that you’re talking with will be respectful and validating. And you’ll want to keep things appropriate for that relationship, be it romantic, platonic or professional. So I want to just be clear here with that, that as we talk about vulnerability here, I’m not saying you’ve got to share everything in your life with everyone you talk to, that’s just weird, it’s socially inappropriate. However, you will find that balance and you’re gonna hit and miss every now and then. But the goal here is to be as open as you can, while still maintaining proper boundaries to give other people a chance to connect with you, to give other people a chance to see you and show you that they love you, they care about you and they want to connect with you. So we’ve talked about how important vulnerability is and the power that it has.

Vulnerability is Not Weakness

[00:09:50] I want to transition now for a moment and talk about how not only is vulnerability a necessity, it is a a source of power and strength, it is a marker to me of someone who is courageous and strong, it is not weakness. That is probably the single greatest belief and false belief I will say that society buys into. And men, especially not always men, but oftentimes we as men feel like vulnerability and emotions are not manly. That it’s not cool or not tough to feel emotion or to show emotion, to talk about emotions. And that’s flat out false. In my opinion, a true strong man and woman, for that matter, is somebody who can be vulnerable. Somebody who is confident enough in their own self to share things with people that they might not like, somebody who’s confident enough in themselves or trusting enough in their relationships to share things that they are a little scared of. So vulnerability is not being a pushover, it’s not being codependent and it’s not opening yourself up to abuse or other harmful action, as we mentioned just a moment ago. Vulnerability is simply allowing others to see the real you. And it’s asking for what you want. It’s allowing yourself to hope and dream and take risks. So think about what we consider courage and bravery. I looked up the definition right before hitting record here and it essentially means doing something that frightens you.

[00:11:29] Thus, fear and uncertainty are at the very core of courage and bravery. In other words, to buy into this idea that we shouldn’t be scared and that we shouldn’t feel uncertainty and we shouldn’t feel fear and if we do, then we are weak, is just false. Because if we are to be brave and courageous, we have to have fear. It’s not brave if you just go do something and you were never afraid of it in the first place. There was no courage there. So weakness is being so afraid of something that you never take the risk. Weakness is burying the fear and avoiding it and going, oh no, I don’t want to go there. Instead of addressing it or acting in spite of it. So some of the greatest men and women I’ve known are the most authentic, sincere and you guessed it, vulnerable. And when you pair vulnerability with a solid understanding of codependency, of boundaries with strong communication skills, validation, etc. all the things we talk about on this podcast, you become a very strong person indeed.

Vulnerability in Business

And it’s funny because literally just this morning, even before I remembered that I was going to record an episode on vulnerability, I was at the gym and I had a conversation with a coworker on this very subject. We were talking about validation.

[00:12:48] And this guy is a very strong man. I don’t know how much he can bench press, how much he can deadlift. He’s a big dude and he’s strong. He’s also a very kind, generous person. And it was funny because we were talking about the power that validation has in the workplace. And he was sharing with me an example. But it actually, in my mind, really highlighted the power of vulnerability. And it’s simple, but I think it helps illustrate the power that even simple vulnerability can have outside of even a romantic relationship.

[00:13:24] So he was talking to me about how they had a particular vendor who was claiming that they didn’t receive a pretty sizable order of product. And I think it was a year or two ago that we sent the invoice and that we got confirmation of delivery. And since then, they’ve been denying it and saying, no, we didn’t get it or we can’t find it or whatever. I don’t really know all the details. All I know is that it was a major source of contention. And they had a lot of phone calls and a lot of arguments and they were trying to figure out how to handle this. And my colleague told me, he said, you know, a week or two ago, I hopped back on the phone with this guy and we started going the rounds again.

[00:14:05] And he said, “you know, man, this document here says that it was delivered.” And then he immediately jumped back and said, “that’s not what it means!” And the argument started going again. And so my colleague said that he then raised his voice and he started to match this guy’s anger. And then after a moment, though, he caught himself and he realized that this wasn’t going anywhere. And so he took a breath and he said, “hey, man, listen, I’m not mad at you. I’m just frustrated with the situation.’ And the other guy, he said, paused as well. And then he let down his guard and he said, “you know what? You’re right. I’m frustrated, too.” And they were able to talk at a much more level headed, more even keeled level throughout the rest of that conversation. Now what’s funny is he said after another phone call or two, the guy actually said, you know what, I’m just going to pay this. It just makes most sense if we just get it taken care of. Thank you for being good to work with. Also, by the way, if you’re ever in the area, give me a call and let’s go grab a beer. Now, again, very little, simple story here. But if you look at it, what was it that made the difference? What was the turning point in that argument? Well, it was my colleagues willingness to get vulnerable. He didn’t have to spill all of his emotions on the table. All he said was, hey, I’m not angry at you, I’m just frustrated with the situation. He’s admitting that he’s frustrated, he’s admitting he’s upset and he’s baring his heart just a little bit to this other guy and saying, come on, here’s where I’m at. Here’s how I’m feeling. And that’s that’s a key point to hone in on there, that when we are becoming vulnerable with somebody, when we are showing vulnerability, oftentimes it’s around any emotion and just admitting how we’re feeling. And in this particular instance, that was disarming enough that the other guy said, you know what? OK. You know, I imagine in that moment what happened is that in the other guy’s mind, a switch flipped, and instead of seeing my colleague as the enemy and as a brick wall or something that he has to push through, he was reminded that he was, in fact, human.

[00:16:19] And oftentimes that’s what vulnerability opens up to us. That’s how it benefits relationships, is that it reminds us all that we’re dealing with other humans. We’re dealing with people who do struggle with things, people who have their own fears or uncertainties, people who are imperfect. And we are all allowed to be imperfect. So not every situation is going to play out like this. He just as easily could have said, look, man, I’m frustrated and the other guy could have just jumped on that and kept beating him down and trying to get his point across. It can happen like that. It can also just as easily play out the way that it did here. And how cool is that? That that little turning point there, along with the validation and other work on both parties, they were able to resolve something that had been going on for one to two years. And not only was the issue resolved, a friendship actually came out of it, literally. The guy that was once his enemy, so to speak, literally invited him out to go have a beer. That to me is pretty incredible. And yet I’ve seen things play out like that quite frequently. Not just in my romantic family or friend relationships, but also in corporate relationships, relationships with vendors and with clients. Validation, vulnerability and a lot of things we talk about on this podcast can help you turn almost any relationship around.

How to Become More Vulnerable in Relationships

[00:17:41] OK, enough with the why, though. Let’s get into the how. If you are struggling with being vulnerable, how do you increase it? What first steps can you take to become more vulnerable with those closest to you? Well, I’m going to focus on four today.

Tip #1: Tell Someone You’re Struggling With Vulnerability

[00:18:00] Tip number one is to tell someone you’re struggling with vulnerability and that you want to improve it. This is vulnerable in and of itself, and that’s why it’s step number one, because that that requires humility and it is putting ourselves on the line a little bit there. So if you say, you know, maybe you’re talking to your spouse, maybe you don’t want to talk to your spouse, maybe, but maybe you can call up a buddy of yours or a girlfriend or a sibling or just a coworker, whoever you feel most emotionally safe with. Step number one is to simply admit that you’re struggling with it and perhaps even ask for suggestions or help. That’s up to you. You don’t even have to go there, simply admitting that it’s a struggle for you, perhaps a weakness is vulnerable and that very act helps you become more comfortable with it. Now, that’s assuming, of course, that the person you’re talking to is emotionally healthy, a tie in validation again here. One of the the core responses that we’re hoping for when we’re vulnerable with somebody is validation. So I have mentioned a couple of times here now on the episode that you want to be careful to be vulnerable with people who are emotionally healthy.

[00:19:17] And what I mean by that is somebody who’s not going to immediately jump in and try to fix it. They’re not going to shoot you down. They’re not going to criticize you. They’re not going to invalidate you and say, oh, don’t be scared. Oh, don’t do this. Oh, it’s all gonna be OK. Because even though they mean well, they are saying to you all that emotion that you just shared with me. It’s wrong. It’s bad. Don’t feel it. That’s not what we need. So we’re gonna talk about that later on today when we talk about how to help somebody else become vulnerable with us. But that validation piece is what we’re looking for. So step number one on how we help ourselves become more vulnerable as to first simply admit to somebody that we’re struggling with it and we want to work on it.

Tip #2: Explore The Fear

[00:20:01] Tip number 2, explore the fear. What I mean by that is that if you are reluctant to open up to someone, chances are high that it’s because you’re afraid of something. So explore that. What is it? What are you afraid might happen? What what might they say? What might they not say? And dig a little deeper. Are past experiences influencing this? Is it challenging to open up to everyone in your life or just your partner? Or just your parent? Or just your colleagues? Get curious about it and do so in a non-judgmental way. So again, I keep I promise this is not just a constant plug for my book, but I keep working validation it everywhere because it helps everywhere. And and so as you are exploring the fear, validate yourself. Be careful to not judge what you’re feeling and say, oh, well, OK. I know that I don’t wanna be vulnerable because of my past partner, but that’s stupid because I know I’m not married to them anymore or I’m not dating them. So I shouldn’t let that impact me.

[00:21:04] Stop that. That doesn’t help you if that’s a core, perhaps even traumatic experience that’s stopping you from being vulnerable, recognize it. Appreciate it for what it is. If it was a big deal, even if it feels like a big deal to you, let it be a big deal. Call it what it is. Because that’s the first step in healing it. So tip number two is to explore the fear. Get curious around why you struggle with opening up to people.

Tip #3: Baby Steps

[00:21:34] Tip number three is to take baby steps. Open up about small things. You don’t have to lay it all out on the table immediately. You don’t have to dive into all your past childhood drama. You don’t have to lay out to everybody why your weekend sucked in vivid detail and everything you’re struggling with and so on and so forth. You can start small, practice the small vulnerabilities, almost test the waters before opening up about bigger things. So that might be as simple as admitting to a friend or your partner when an interview for a job didn’t go as well as you had hoped. It might look like admitting to your friends at a theme park that you are terrified of roller coasters. It’s simply saying that and then hoping they don’t make fun of you for it. And they may or they may not, and it’s neither here nor there. That’s a baby step toward being vulnerable. And just going, you know what? I just really don’t like them. That’s part of who I am. Take it or leave it. Or it could be as simple as, you know, when somebody asks how your day is going. Not just saying “fine,” but instead saying, “you know, it’s been pretty difficult day because of this” or, “I’m having a fantastic day because this, this and this happened.” Both are vulnerable because you are sharing with somebody how you are feeling.

Tip #4: Focus On The Reward

[00:22:51] And tip number four for increasing your willingness to be vulnerable is to focus on the reward. As we’ve already discussed, you cannot have the good without risking the bad. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. So rather than focusing on what all the pain that you’re trying to avoid and allowing that fear to control you, retrain your brain to focus on the potential upside of that risk. Go after what you want instead of hiding from what you don’t. Now, again, depending on where you’re at and all of this, that it’s gonna be easier for some than others. Nevertheless, I strongly encourage you put some effort into that because it is worth it. Vulnerability is worth everything you get from it is worth it. Think back to what we talked about the very beginning, you want to know people care about you and like you for who you are. And of course, it’s terrifying if you’ve been putting up a facade your whole life, to think about the possibility that some people in your life might not love you for who you are. That is not fun. And we do not want to deal with something like that. Get real about what’s more difficult, is it more difficult to deal with a few people who you thought cared about you and turns out they don’t and you have to distance yourself or sever ties or find someone new, surround yourself with new friends? Is that more difficult than putting on a facade, putting up an act your entire life? Think about how freeing it would feel if you could just say what you what you thought.

[00:24:29] Obviously, with some tact and insight you don’t want to just walk around blurting out every thought that goes through your mind, but feeling confident enough in your own skin to dress how you want to dress, to say what you actually believe or what you actually feel to laugh at things that you think are funny, to go see movies that you enjoy watching to show up otherwise in a way that is authentic to yourself and not worry about what the rest of the world thinks about you. That to me is as modern social enlightenment to truly get to the point where you don’t care at all about what other people think. I’m certainly not there. Nevertheless, the better we get at being vulnerable and sitting in the discomfort, the closer and closer we get to that level of freedom.

[00:25:15] So tip number four is to refrain or to retrain your brain, to focus on the reward. The potential upside, why get vulnerable? Well, because I could have a much stronger relationship with my spouse. I might finally feel connected to my children. My friends might open up more to me, or I might better understand them. Find the reward, find the “why” and let that motivate you.

What If My Partner Struggles With Vulnerability?

[00:25:43] OK, that’s all fine and well, some of you might be saying, but I am quite vulnerable. I’m comfortable with just talking to people, I share what’s on my mind, I spill my feelings out on the table and I’m good with that. What I’m struggling with is the fact that my partner isn’t vulnerable. What if I’m struggling with not feeling like my my siblings connect with me. What if my parents just never share anything with me, and I can tell that they’re bottling all this emotion up inside, but they won’t spit it out. They won’t talk to me and I want to. What do I do if that’s my situation? Well, to that, I have two suggestions. Not four, but two, because every situation is unique. And yet there are definitely ways to create a space and offer an invitation to help your partner or this other person in your life open up and showing them the path to building that deeper connection with you.

Tip #1: Bring Awareness

[00:26:46]  So tip number one here is first to bring awareness around it. And this means talking about it and sharing with that person that you want to feel connected to them. You want to connect better with them. And yet you feel like they’re closed off. Now, I want to be clear here and caution you against accusing them of being closed off. So I phrased it the way I did there deliberately that you want to connect better with them and you feel like they’re closed off. That’s just sharing your feelings, your perspective. And then ask if that perceptions accurate. Say, “You know, I feel like you’re closed off. Do you feel like you can share things with me? I mean, do you feel comfortable sharing or not? You know, I’m just curious how you feel about all of this.” And that gives the other person a chance to say, well, yeah, I feel comfortable. You know, I always share things with, maybe that’s how they feel. More often than not, if you’re to this point having this conversation, they’ll probably say, well, I don’t want to always feel like I’m complaining. Or they might say, well, I just I don’t know, it’s just easier for me to just suppress it or kind of push it or ignore it and things go away, that’s worked well for me.

[00:27:59] I don’t know how that conversation will play out, but if you want something to change, you have to assert yourself. You have to start the conversation and extend the invitation. So bringing some awareness around, talking about it, asking the other person, sharing with the other person, that you feel like you want them to be more open and then asking how they feel about that is the first step toward bringing more vulnerability into that relationship.

Tip #2: Show Them They’re Safe

[00:28:26] Tip number two, and this really will come before, during and after that conversation, is to show them that they are safe with you. This other person is far more likely to open up to you if they feel emotionally safe and that they can trust you with their feelings. So that of course begs the question, how do you show someone that they’re safe confiding in you?

[00:28:49] Well, first and foremost, practice not fixing their problems. This is something I hound in my book. It’s something I hound every time I go and I do corporate training’s or I speak on the topic of validation because most of us fall into this trap. We assume that when somebody is sharing something with us i.e. being vulnerable with us, that they want a solution. And so many of us jump in with that solution. So if they say, I just feel I feel like I totally like made a fool of myself at that high school play.

[00:29:21] Most of us will jump in and say, no, you didn’t. It was great, it was fine. You’re all good. Don’t worry about it. So on and so forth. Well, that’s invalidating. Right? That, again, is shooting down whatever they just shared with you and said that’s bad, that’s wrong, you shouldn’t feel embarrassed. And while we think that that’s helpful, actually what it’s doing, is it well, I won’t say it’s doing this, but chances are likely that that person will then not confide in you the next time.

[00:29:49] Because as we start to establish a pattern of always trying to fix things or invalidating or shooting down whatever the other person has shared with us, that trains them to say, well, I don’t really want to talk to them. I don’t want to be vulnerable with this person because I know what I’m going to get.

[00:30:04] And what I’m going to get is not what I want. Now, most of us are not conscious enough around the fact that what we want is validation. And yet, if you can, because that’s part number two here of helping, showing someone that they’re safe with you is getting really great at validating them. So check in with yourself. If you haven’t listened to my episode on validation or read my book, I encourage you to go do so and then get real with yourself. Are you validating? Are you listening? Are you showing respect to this person who’s not being vulnerable to you? Because if you have a history of trying to fix them, then you really need to start there by showing them that you’re changing and you recognize that. And then this is an opportunity for you to be vulnerable with them and say, you know what? I recognize that historically I’ve not been very validating. I recognize that historically I’ve not been a great source to confide in. And I want to change that because I want you to feel comfortable confiding in me. You know this is a conversation that might be great to have with your children. If you are a parent of teenagers especially, and you feel like, yeah, that’s kind of me, I’ve been invalidating and asserting myself my opinions over theirs.

[00:31:20] If you want then to start opening up to you again, this is a fantastic conversation to have. So to sum up the two points there, two ways to help the other person become more vulnerable with you is to one, bring awareness around it, to talk about it with them in a very safe open space. And tip two, is to show them, not just tell them, show them, that they are safe with you. And again, that will come with time. But that has everything to do with validation. Everything to do with letting them have the space to just talk and showing them that you accept it. Do those two things and it will at least help get a little closer. I’m not going to say that’s going to fix it because again, every relationship’s different depending on where you’re at. You might want to suggest couples therapy or not even couples if it’s just a family member. You know, it’s perfectly fine to talk to your parents or talk to your kids or whomever, then say, hey, would you be open to just chatting with a professional about this? So wherever you are, if this is just a simple friendship that you want to improve all the way down to you’ve been married for 50 years and you recognize that this is a weak point in your marriage, there are things that you can do to start introducing vulnerability into your relationships.

The Invitation

[00:32:35] Okay, I feel like I’ve been talking a million miles an hour here. I want to start wrapping up this episode and of course, do so with an invitation. And that’s this: pick one person you’d like to connect better with today. And share a less than perfect part of yourself. Share an embarrassing story, tell them how you’re feeling in that particular moment or ask for help. I promise you the risk is worth the reward. So that’s the invitation. Pick somebody in your life and share something today that’s less than perfect. Something that’s just a tad outside your comfort zone and then see how they react. Because that’s one of those little baby steps toward vulnerability. That is the building block of a much stronger sense of self and a much greater sense of personal and interpersonal connection. And so with that, we wrap up. Of course, this is a high level overview of the topic. I do not claim to be an expert on the topic of vulnerability. Of course, if you want more information on that, the most obvious source is Brené Brown.

[00:33:41] I will include links to her books and talks in the show notes at my website michaelssorensen.com as well as links to other articles and episodes related to the topic.

A Quick Thank-You

And also, I want to take a moment to give a shout out to those of you who accepted my vulnerable moment a few episodes ago where I shared how difficult it is to keep this podcast running. And I asked for feedback. I honestly still sometimes struggle with wondering if that was too vulnerable to say, I think to myself sometimes, “Does that make me sound unconfident? Was that unprofessional? I wonder what people think when they listen to that.” And it was just a simple comment saying, gee, this is a lot more work than I expected. So if you’re finding value in it, please do let me know. And yet, sharing that uncertainty in that moment opened me up to significant encouragement and really fueled my desire to keep producing. So thank you to those of you who reached out to me and who shared with me how this podcast and these episodes are helping you in your life.

[00:34:46] And I’m also happy to say that I now have a small team helping me with this show and I’m getting into a groove that’s making this much more enjoyable. So many more to come. The show’s not going anywhere because there is still so much that I want to share, so much that I’ve learned from my years of therapy, my years of research and everything more that I’m still uncovering. So I’ll end today’s episode with the usual requests for ratings and reviews on the show.

[00:35:11] It only takes a minute or two to scroll to the review section in your app and hit a star rating, and that plays a significant role in helping others find the show and benefit from the principles. To those of you who’ve already done so, thank you. You are now one of my favorite people. Looking forward to chatting again next week.

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