Ever felt like you're on display for merely indulging in your passions, only to be misunderstood or judged? This episode is a heartfelt journey through the landscape of vulnerability, where we wear our hearts on our sleeves and invite others to do the same. Our discussion orbits the seemingly impenetrable personas of public figures and circles back to our own, often raw, experiences. We navigate through the societal pressures of authenticity and how revealing our true selves can foster profound connections and a sense of genuine belonging.
Amidst our confessions, we tackle vulnerability's shadowy counterpart – shame, especially through the lens of an enneagram type eight. Assertive characters like us sometimes sidestep vulnerability, armoring up to evade the quagmire of shame. Yet, in sharing a personal tale of game night, we uncover a truth; even the most self-assured among us crave the intimacy of one-on-one connections where our defenses can fall away. It's in these spaces that we gamble on vulnerability, betting on the chance for deeper understanding and kinship.
In the digital realm, we grapple with the double-edged sword of personal exposure on social media. From posting a single pizza photo to divulging life's hurdles, we question the pursuit of acceptance versus the simple joy of sharing. This episode doesn't shy away from the discomfort that can accompany vulnerability, but it also celebrates the bravery it takes to peel back the layers of our lives. As we contemplate the delicate dance of privacy and honesty online, we learn that the path to self-acceptance and authentic connections is paved with the very vulnerabilities we sometimes fear to show.
Ever felt like you're on display for merely indulging in your passions, only to be misunderstood or judged? This episode is a heartfelt journey through the landscape of vulnerability, where we wear our hearts on our sleeves and invite others to do the same. Our discussion orbits the seemingly impenetrable personas of public figures and circles back to our own, often raw, experiences. We navigate through the societal pressures of authenticity and how revealing our true selves can foster profound connections and a sense of genuine belonging.
Amidst our confessions, we tackle vulnerability's shadowy counterpart – shame, especially through the lens of an enneagram type eight. Assertive characters like us sometimes sidestep vulnerability, armoring up to evade the quagmire of shame. Yet, in sharing a personal tale of game night, we uncover a truth; even the most self-assured among us crave the intimacy of one-on-one connections where our defenses can fall away. It's in these spaces that we gamble on vulnerability, betting on the chance for deeper understanding and kinship.
In the digital realm, we grapple with the double-edged sword of personal exposure on social media. From posting a single pizza photo to divulging life's hurdles, we question the pursuit of acceptance versus the simple joy of sharing. This episode doesn't shy away from the discomfort that can accompany vulnerability, but it also celebrates the bravery it takes to peel back the layers of our lives. As we contemplate the delicate dance of privacy and honesty online, we learn that the path to self-acceptance and authentic connections is paved with the very vulnerabilities we sometimes fear to show.
What are we talking about? Vulnerability is the plan. Is that what it was originally too? I think so.
Jake Sebok:Well, last week's was the power of vulnerability.
Frank Sloan:Oh, right, of course it became something different. Yes, tai Lopez and Grant Cardone, the most vulnerable of people.
Noah German:Yeah, I forgot that. That turned into something else.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, exactly, yeah, all right, so we started with the least obviously vulnerable people of the world.
Noah German:I will say I felt pretty vulnerable when Tai Lopez was on that screen and there's a we're in a room with a glass door and people could see that Tai Lopez is on the screen. Yeah, I could see that. I felt pretty vulnerable.
Jake Sebok:Yeah, we talked about that, because what if it was David Goggins?
Noah German:What will people think of me?
Jake Sebok:I think that's what it is is that we have walked past this room whenever other people were watching David Goggins on an American Flag show. I know, and we judged them harshly.
Noah German:I do think we should spend some time thinking about what could have been the reason for David Goggins being on this screen, not in this podcast.
Frank Sloan:but sometime you walked past this room and found David Goggins.
Jake Sebok:Yeah, the very first day, whenever we did our first podcast over on the house.
Noah German:With an American flag in the background. I think, yes, yeah, like it was.
Jake Sebok:Yeah, so I mean we are going to talk about vulnerability today. I don't, I don't see any reason to hedge it, because last week we did, and you guys watched the video.
Frank Sloan:I've watched it as many times in my life, but none recently. No, it's, I watched it recently.
Noah German:I know it was.
Jake Sebok:I really enjoyed that, actually because I haven't seen you in a group situation in quite a while, uh-huh. And then I was like, oh yeah, this is what 10 years ago was like. It's just interesting to see you interact in a group environment as opposed to like a one, a very close knit environment.
Noah German:I was involved for a while, yeah, and I got really hot and I walked out of the room.
Jake Sebok:This is in no way supposed to be a judgment. It is a beautiful quality about who you are as a unique individual. I just hadn't seen it in a while and I forgot about it, yep.
Frank Sloan:I also found it um surprising when I walked in the other room to be by myself and there's.
Noah German:You were still by yourself. I was watching.
Frank Sloan:I know Like oh this is the by yourself room. Stop coming in here, people. There's four corners, okay. We don't have to be here together and then he said, if you would have came earlier we could watch this brown video together. And I'm like you don't understand why I'm here at all.
Noah German:We should have just cast it and everyone watched.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, we should have. I agree it's interesting.
Jake Sebok:I think at the time that I first watched it, it was um like ground breaking and provoking from the very beginning. And this time I was like where's the meat of this video? Oh yeah.
Frank Sloan:That's just because of how you've changed, I think that's 100%. There are humans that this is pure meat. This video, I mean, they just couldn't need it more.
Jake Sebok:Yeah, 100%.
Frank Sloan:I think Many of us have changed about that area, yeah.
Jake Sebok:So, for me, I think about vulnerability as it relates to um, to a sense of belonging and a sense of like actual acceptance and authenticity. I think about it in terms of the way that it allows you to provide others with an opportunity to love you for who you are, which which is something that we don't often think about. We think about the ways that it takes courage to be vulnerable, but we don't think about how the people in our lives that we have intimate relationships with don't actually have the opportunity to embrace us for who we are unless we put ourselves out there. And I think also that the biggest thing that I've seen in my life recently, and what vulnerability does for me, is that, whether we want it to be true or not, there is an ongoing narrative in our lives, not only about whether or not we are acceptable as who we are, but whether or not the people in our lives are capable of accepting us for who we are.
Jake Sebok:So I think, oh, my friend, what a douchebag. That guy would would never want to, you know, be considerate of my feelings or anything like this. But then I put myself out there and I say these are my feelings and I watch it happen and that person is actually caring for me and I say it rewrites a narrative about the other people in my life and about the world around me and like it. It's kind of scary to think that maybe people are genuinely good and would actually make the right decision given the opportunity. So those are the sort of three things that I think about and how vulnerability affects our lives and the way we relate to the world.
Noah German:I looked up the crib notes, edited too. Oh, you want to take it. You take it. You're our host. All right, as the host, I'm here to tell you the cliff notes, crib notes.
Frank Sloan:Key idea number one is shame is a universal experience. Key idea number two is courage and self-compassion allow us to embrace vulnerability. And key idea number three is vulnerability leads to joy and meaningful connections with others. And I tried to say these in the way that was least vulnerable. Do you think it worked? Noah, you seemed vulnerable to me. Oh man, it was very vulnerable.
Noah German:What's um? What comes to your minds whenever?
Jake Sebok:you think of vulnerability, like for me, when I think of vulnerability, I think of again that shame component. Like for me, I've always felt shame around having any sort of emotion. It feels like it is an inconvenience to the people around me. So when I share something that I'm not familiar with, I feel like it's a good question to me share something that I'm feeling. I feel extraordinarily vulnerable, like I'm revealing something about myself that I wanted to keep secret. Is there, like, what thought arises or what situation arises whenever you guys think of vulnerability?
Noah German:It's a good question. No, for me if shame feels like a key piece. I don't identify heavily with shame and I even was having that thought when I rewatched the Brene Brown thing, because she talks a lot about shame and I was struggling. I guess, I mean, intellectually, I can connect them. Of course I understand what she's saying, but for me that's not the, I don't think that's the feeling. What it is I'll have to think about for another moment, I think, to properly verbalize.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think about like being on video. Essentially it's the one that comes to mind first, Not my favorite thing to do.
Noah German:What's the? That's an interesting one, because I don't like that either for myself.
Frank Sloan:Yeah.
Noah German:And I'm trying to be honest with myself about the shame thing that I just said I don't identify heavily with. For you, what is it that you don't like about being on video? I?
Frank Sloan:Tend to like to be a solution to things, and that is like a living being, hmm.
Noah German:It's interesting. I. I mean I for sure now this does probably tie more to shame, but it doesn't feel Quite like vulnerability to me and maybe I can work back around to what I mean by that, but for sure, when I was Bigger, I didn't like being. I didn't like photos of myself. I definitely didn't like being on video, but I still don't, even now, really like those things. I'm more okay with them because I've made myself okay with them.
Noah German:I was, you know, we've talked before on the podcast about, back in the day, me getting snapchat to make myself Mm-hmm, as a sort of immersion Therapy kind of yeah, I'm going to sit in photos of myself to people who know me and be okay with that. People are seeing photos of me. I think that was really good for me and it was really healthy. But he is. Even now I don't love photos of myself, but it's not I. I. That makes me wonder if the reason was because I was bigger or if it's something else, because I'm definitely not the same size that I used to be well, and those aren't even mutually exclusive.
Frank Sloan:I'm sure that sure it's probably a couple things bigger, just as the most surface possible reason someone could come up with like yeah. Most humans don't want, like don't love video, but if you're Obese or something, then that seems like, yeah, I just don't like to be on video because I'm obese. If you remove that and you still don't like to be on video, that just was a surface reason.
Noah German:I don't love hearing my voice. Yeah, nobody seems to really like that.
Frank Sloan:I think people can get there, but yeah, it's not by default for most.
Jake Sebok:Well, I can, I can speak to that a little bit. I mean, I've I've never been obese, but I still don't want to be in front of a video. For me, at least, what I think it is is that I don't like to present myself as an authority in any sort of sphere, because that makes me vulnerable to Someone disagreeing with me and saying who are you to speak to? This, you know, problem or whatever. You know you don't have a degree and this, you know, you know I disagree entirely.
Jake Sebok:Yeah and I don't like that it opens me up to that sort of yeah, you don't have opinions.
Frank Sloan:It does make you vulnerable to that. It also makes you vulnerable to what else. People do agree with you or do find you to be authoritative, or do you think it's a?
Noah German:is it being wrong, feeling like you're wrong, or is it conflict?
Jake Sebok:Is it well? Actually, I think what Frank said is is probably a lot of what it is. I was going through these exercises for this intensive and one of the questions you could choose to write things out was what are you most afraid of? And I actually put this I'm afraid of being in a position of authority, of being the one that other people Looked to for answers. And what's funny is I'm a very confident person. I'm pretty good at problem-solving, I'm very assertive whenever the time comes, but I've always done that because I had to be you don't want to be on the hook for it and well, I Don't even know if that's true.
Jake Sebok:What I think it is is that I've had a context of always being put in those positions Outside of my will to be there, and it feels like the universe happening to me. It makes me feel like a victim whenever I'm in a leadership position, so it probably takes some recontextualizing to say, okay, I'm actually stepping into that intentionally and I do believe in myself and and I will take us to the next stage.
Noah German:Yeah, makes sense I think about. I told you guys recently that there was that I told my boss there's a particular client, there's a particular way a client speaks to me. That sort of triggers me mm-hmm.
Noah German:And I finally had to tell my boss like, hey, you're gonna have to deal with this guy because it just makes me Feel triggered, it makes I don't even know how to explain it fully just doesn't make me feel good, mm-hmm, and that I think that's vulnerability. But I this is where I, I Don't see the shame connection, because it doesn't feel like shame to me and I'm not saying it always has to be, but it never connects back to shame. I don't think that's it. It's. I don't feel I I just don't feel any connection to shame with that.
Jake Sebok:So it's vulnerability because it puts you in this position to either be accepted or not accepted, like, hey Boss, I don't want to be in this position. And then your boss has this opportunity to say, okay, I'm gonna take it, I'm going to try to care for you, or too bad deal with it, so that that is a vulnerable position. But you're saying, like it doesn't relate to back to your identity or something, yeah, you weren't like a shame to say I'm uncomfortable with this and I don't want to have to deal with it.
Jake Sebok:Not in any way. Didn't bother me, I didn't know about that.
Noah German:Until I did other work. But I still don't see any connection to shame. For me it was. I Just didn't know about it. I didn't fully. I hadn't fully processed all those things. I didn't fully, I hadn't fully processed all of that. What in it didn't. I hadn't fully processed things enough for it to even trigger me, because I've been dealing with this guy for going on two years and it didn't start triggering me until the last couple months.
Jake Sebok:Okay, so I have this. I have an interesting thing. Bear with me for a couple of minutes.
Noah German:Yeah.
Jake Sebok:I'm gonna set a stage in 30, because he's never said a couple.
Frank Sloan:What does he mean?
Jake Sebok:I'm gonna set a set of stage for conversation had no thoughts earlier and Then hopefully it'll provide you know, a framework for talking about this in a little bit of a different way. When I first was going through my separation, I read the book Atlas of the Heart by Brunet Brown actually, and it was one of the first times that I had really engaged with vulnerability in a Sort of like one-to-one battle sort of way like I'm actually doing some work with this and one of the things that really stuck out to me was her definition of Acceptance, and she said that one of the things that surprised her most in the research was that the opposite of acceptance Was something that actually sounds much like a synonym synonym to acceptance and that was fitting in. That's the opposite of acceptance, and the distinguishing factor here is that with acceptance, you are wholly you, you have not changed anything, you've presented yourself exactly as you are and with fitting in, you have changed, removed hidden pieces of yourself in order to be accepted by a group. So it's not true acceptance. And I thought that was really interesting, because she then goes on to say that there is a direct correlation correlation between our Ability to feel truly accepted and our ability to be vulnerable.
Jake Sebok:I have to actually Present myself as who I am In order to watch others accept me for that person holistically. That, to me, was revolutionary, because, as an enneagram 7, I had been deep in this unhealthy place as the one, and shame was a Ruler in my life. It was a driving factor in my life. What I did or didn't do was based on what other people would think of me and and who I wanted to be. And this is the piece where I wanted to have this conversation, because, as an eight, one of your Defense mechanisms almost is to be that prickly person is to say this is who I am.
Noah German:I'm going to aggressively assert myself as all of it, and either you accept me for all of it or you don't, right last night, when Andrew and I were playing that card game and you guys wanted to start the gift exchange, he was like alright, I guess we can stop. And I looked at him in the eye and I said don't let them control you. I.
Jake Sebok:Like that. I do think that's a big piece, though is like, in a way, the exercise that I had to do when I read that book To sort of allow myself to be accepted is one that you have almost adapted to From a young age, which is like, hey, I'm not gonna be accepted by most people, but if I am accepted by anyone it's going to be holistically, and maybe that does have that direct correlation with shame. You don't have a lot of it.
Noah German:Sure yeah.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, I don't think you. I'm like this is a guest summit and it's totally a guest of it. I don't know if it's right or not, but I would guess that you have a strong override to shame so that you, you wouldn't tolerate it. So if you know it's about to come, you're going to make sure you don't get there. It's, and I've heard you describe. I feel like I've heard you describe it. Maybe I'm not getting in some detail, right, but when, with the like I have to clean the house thing, there's such a strong override to shame, and that's. It's literally what I meant when I asked why did you feel you had to do it? Like what? Like you didn't want shame for your family or Something there was. But to me I would be like I'm gonna clean some major areas or something, then I'm gonna go to bed and it's gonna be okay.
Noah German:Yeah, I mean, it wouldn't be personal shame, for sure it was protecting the way I described. It would be protection, yeah, but yeah, maybe protecting my family from shame, I guess. Yeah, don't think of it in those terms, but it wouldn't sure and it wouldn't have been personal shame. I don't care if people see the house.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, and I mean like I think that the override here is so strong that you probably Haven't spent much time with shame. Like you. You probably don't know what it looks like or what the tech is doing it looks like, or what the texture of it is or what shape it might take. I mean, I I have this in other areas. They're just like if, if our character structure is such that we develop strong like Overrides, then we don't go in those areas and so Using language like shame is like what I don't even know what that is. It doesn't seem like something that's related to being courageous or vulnerable, because it's I don't know. You can build a world where it's very unlikely that you would end up in shame. Sure, and I think you do.
Noah German:Yeah, it's possible.
Frank Sloan:Something like that maybe.
Frank Sloan:I don't know, but shame it. I mean, I don't know. Vulnerability to me is like this thing that happens when there is Pressure to be caught like. It feels like there's pressure to be, to fit in or something to become, to be being something, and the reality of your humanity is that you aren't sort of holding up to the standard. And the choice to tell the truth feels like vulnerability to me. It feels like courage if feels like, just, I mean, you're just telling the truth, that's all it is. But it feels difficult. It feels like people are not going to be okay with it if I tell the truth and then Whatever happens happens, and oftentimes what happens is people say, oh yeah, me too.
Noah German:That's how it is. Let me draw one more. While I'm thinking about it, I'll let me let me draw one more picture, paint one more picture About the eight and vulnerability and this is I don't know the answer to this even though I'm an eight this is more of a hypothesis, but you know, you were talking about me interacting in groups and I was thinking about that in relation to vulnerability and I actually think that eights really like vulnerability.
Noah German:Okay and I think that's the reason we like small, one-on-one sort of interaction, because we like the feeling of connection this brunette brown talks about.
Noah German:you have to have connection, that's what we're all striving for, which is not untrue. For me, connection doesn't come in a group of 10 people, sure, if I'm standing in a kitchen talking 10 people, it smells, it feels like small talk to me and there's only so much of it I can take before I have to walk into the other room, um, because it's not deep enough. There isn't, there's not a depth to it, and so I think an eight is really truly looking for vulnerability, um, in in one-on-one connections and like it's not hard for me, uh, I don't think to be Vulnerable with, like Amy, for instance, like because I want to connect with her and it doesn't. It feels like something I want, yeah, but I'm just not interested, and if it's On a superficial level, Sure.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, I think you're right. I also think there's a shame override there when I mean I can't think of a good example and there's no way you would say it anyways. But if you were to In that large group in the kitchen, say, I'm feeling really lonely without Amy here, the risk of shame in this is super high. The.
Noah German:I don't think is super high though I don't think that I would have a hard time saying that.
Jake Sebok:Well, it's funny actually. I'll interject real quick because as you were talking about your experience With vulnerability as an eight, something from like five years ago came up in my mind. I had totally forgotten you used to talk About vulnerability as a shield like this is actually a, a mechanism where you will Make yourself vulnerable almost Proactively, because if you do that, no one else can expose a vulnerability, and I, I guess the other way that I want to position this a little bit is that I think the way you deal with shame, vulnerability, all that stuff, is sort of an anomaly in the world, so like we could spend a lot of time talking about this, but I think it may actually be instructive or Insightful to compare and contrast these and get almost a more holistic view of it.
Noah German:Yeah, and that that is. That is still vulnerability. It is just being in control of it again, and eight doesn't like to be out of control. We don't necessarily have to be in control, but we don't like to be controlled. Yeah, so it feels much better, like you said, just to get out, or maybe you said it just to get out ahead of it. Just to say and I'm not talking about Vulnerability, I'm talking about anything.
Noah German:Yeah so Just to say all right, let's just deal with this thing, as opposed to Feeling like you get stumped on me.
Jake Sebok:Sure, I view. I view most sort of psychological states attenuum. I could be wrong or right about this, or a little bit of both, but I think there's a normal range of most states and I see those those expressions as being either deflated on one side or inflated on the other. I think, in terms of vulnerability, most people have this shame mechanism, which is the sort of deflated form of it, and then yours, by contrast, would be that sort of inflated form. When I think about Vulnerability and and why it's so hard for most people, it's really due to this biological Imperative.
Jake Sebok:We are social animals, and that doesn't just mean we like to talk and congregate. It means that it is more likely for us to survive in the wild if we have people helping us. For that reason, we have deep genetic fears of being outcast from our social group. If I behave in a certain way and my mom says go to your room, I don't even want to see you right now, oh Would that deeply gets into Jake's heart and says I can't be that because I won't. I might not survive If I continue to behave that way. I think that's sort of the, the mechanism that we're looking at here and how it typically works for you, though, I mean, is almost on the other side and it's like hey, I'm the one you know at the Negotiating table here. If you want me, your son, to be a part of this and you do because you want, you want a son Then you'd better accept me as the person I am, or that sort of thing.
Frank Sloan:Yep.
Noah German:Sure, I can see that.
Jake Sebok:So, frank, you you primarily are feeling that vulnerability in your life right now and in terms of the, the video thing you described it like, okay, this is the way I perceived what you described, because this, the way it expresses in my life, is like I have developed this sort of Intellectual world. I can exist as this concept in my mind, but whenever I actually get into the real world bloody, sweaty, human Experience yeah.
Frank Sloan:I don't really want to be that yeah, well, here's the thing I the thing that I think most Would be valuable for the people who follow me online, mm-hmm, is to share live feed of me working out. Okay because it's like it's the Most human thing you can imagine, like the sets aren't perfect. I sigh, I'm tired, something like I just grueling sometimes, mm-hmm, and there's this idea that like I'm doing it perfectly, or something.
Frank Sloan:Mm-hmm like I'm just showing up to the workouts and my energy is high and I always want to do that or whatever. Yeah that ain't it, and I mean, I talk about that sometimes, but there's nothing. That's like an Hour and a half live feed, like you can just watch me if you want.
Frank Sloan:Yeah but it's not pretty and that's vulnerability like, and there's a risk of shame because, you know, I'm not like some fitness guru. I don't look like a fitness person, mm-hmm. There's tons of risk of shame in that, but that's like the ultimate expression of vulnerability and there's super high risk of shame. Yeah, so I Don't know. I try to give you the most extreme example.
Jake Sebok:So for something that is so Terrible, that feels so terrible to engage with, there's a reason to do it right, and that that was one of the things that Brené talked about in that video.
Jake Sebok:That is like one of the most viewed TED talks of all time. Yeah, that is like the courage to Present myself as who I am and to be seen has value and reward that is greater than the pain you will undergo to actually do it. So for me, like I said, there are multiple benefits to it. The first is sort of personal and my own feeling of being cared for. If I tell you I'm uncomfortable, I feel offended. As Terrible as that feels to me to actually put that out into the world and say I'm a real human and you know like there's this part of me that doesn't want to be a real human to watch my friends and my family say that's okay, I feel that too, but you're accepted. That has this huge benefit for me personally and I feel like comfortable and safe in the world, which is Almost an unfamiliar feeling in my life to feel safe.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's. That is incredible and that's a and that's a part of it. There's also Like you have very loving people in your life yeah.
Frank Sloan:I think there's a level of vulnerability where you find out that some people don't like you, hmm, and don't accept you, and I mean, that's the coolest thing about sharing online for me, yeah, is getting all of the truth, like I'm a person who really values the truth and authenticity, and so when I post something and you know like I post I'm really gravy, a cinnamon roll or whatever something's basic I get like everything on the spectrum like yeah eat it, man, you deserve a reward, and I get.
Frank Sloan:You're just lazy. You need to do cardio when you feel like this and and everything in between, and I don't know. I think that's the cool part about being vulnerable, as you get all the responses.
Jake Sebok:I experienced something like that because you're totally right when I was more in the dating world and like it's so interesting to watch the Evolution of Jake. Whenever he was first separated and going out into the dating world, he was still pandering to the people that he wanted to be accepted by, like, oh, you're really hot. Oh, that's what you like, I can be that. And Slowly but surely it was like no, no, no, no, that was that was the lesson that you learned already. Don't do that. Be exactly who you are. And that's what I found.
Jake Sebok:I had this one chick who was like I was typing as the person I am and she looked at it and she said Jake, that's too long, I'm not going to read that. If you can find a way to describe what you're saying in fewer words, I'll pay attention to you. I went to respond to that and apparently she saw the little dots bouncing too much and she unmasked with me. Depending on how I viewed that interaction, it was either the greatest gift in the world or like a freaking spirit of the heart. When it happened, I was like, oh, awesome, great, that that's a filter, isn't it to be who I am? I'm not going to be for everyone and it filters out the people that I don't want in my life, and then I end up with more loving people in my life.
Frank Sloan:Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, I mean they're they're pros and cons are dangerous, like I. I like the other views, even when I'm opposed to them, because there's probably some element of truth in them. The other day, someone said something like Lay off this Philosophical crap and get back to get your ass back to work. That's what we love about you, or something. And and I'm like, well, I'm. I responded to it. I'm like, yeah, I mean, the philosophical crap is what informs me coming back to work. So you're gonna get both.
Jake Sebok:That's who I am.
Frank Sloan:But I Don't know. I mean, you should be vulnerable. That's, that's my takeaway from any like. And I have to go back through this all the time Because I find myself like, oh, I got it locked in and then I realized there's a whole area that I'm afraid to share, or that I wouldn't Tell others about, or yeah like it's a constant work to look at the corners of your life and be like what am I not Sharing about who I really am?
Frank Sloan:For me, it's always worth sharing yeah, it's always worth telling the truth but just part of humanity that your focus isn't on the corners, and and when you see that there are parts of you that don't match what everyone knows about you, you ought to, I think you ought to Try to set the record straight or something. Sure, that's what vulnerability is for me.
Jake Sebok:I don't know, and that is sort of what I view your sort of Mechanism for approaching the world. Noah is like it is a filter. It is hey, this is who I am, and you're almost ensuring that if someone is sticking around, it's not because they thought you were someone you weren't. It's because they saw who you were and and they were still Interested in staying there.
Frank Sloan:Yeah.
Jake Sebok:So the that's the personal side. I also see this and, and I don't know, this also feels personal, but it's another side of it, and it is when I am vulnerable I allow the projections that other people put on me To be shifted right. So if they are projecting on to me the information that I've given them and I've been hiding things, I get to set the record straight, just like you said, and that's what we just talked about, but it's bi-directional. I am also projecting information and stories and narratives under the people in my life, and One of those narratives that's quite clear if I'm hiding things is that if they knew this, they wouldn't accept me, and that says something about that person.
Jake Sebok:That person is rigid, that person is incapable of Loving beyond these conditions. So when I am vulnerable, when I say, frank, I was hurt by something that you did, and then I watch you say, oh Gotcha, I didn't realize that was happening, let me do something a little bit different in the future. I go Frank is a loving person, and that Is the antidote to a particular type of mental poison that I have that I didn't realize I had, which is I don't believe people are capable of actual, unconditional love.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, don't need it. Don't eat that poison man.
Jake Sebok:Yeah, but I mean it's interesting.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, it's good antidote, for sure if it.
Jake Sebok:If it's so, if it's such a terrible sort of step forward to be vulnerable For me, I have to find reasons to actually put myself in that position, like last week. We had a sort of uncomfortable conversation and it was weird because it was something that had happened in the past. It was already forgiven, there was no path toward atonement, there was no nothing that could be done to change it, and yet I still felt within me this need to sort of share the way that I was offended and how I wanted it to be different in the future. And there were so many moments when I almost just said just suck it up, jake, just deal with it. But the thing that made me want to express it anyway was to know that my internal narrative will forever be locked down to believing that a person is a certain way unless I give them the opportunity to be something different.
Frank Sloan:Yeah.
Jake Sebok:And that's huge. Like you've said before, your mind is like the only thing that's going to be with you for your whole life. You might as well make friends with it. Well, I was allowing my mind to potentially believe something falls and then I couldn't trust it. I want to be able to trust that guy.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, yeah, it made sense to me and it found it to be helpful to share that internal narrative, because I do think we had reached a point of resolution that was okay enough, that anyone would like. There wasn't a bet, there wasn't a way we weren't going to move forward. That wouldn't be okay out of that. I really think that. But if we just brute-forced it, then the detail wouldn't be present for me to know why it's important not to allow it to recur or something, and I think that detail is important.
Jake Sebok:Yeah, Noah, do you see any of that in your life? I'm trying to think of, okay, if I have the deflated version of vulnerability and it's actually hard for me to get to that place and you have the inflated version, do you feel like you have more of that? Do you feel like you see people taking the opportunity to accept you for who you are, or is that something that's just so normal that you don't even think about it?
Noah German:Yeah, I don't think much about it. I don't generally feel not accepted. I'm also not really shooting for acceptance. I mean it's not like a massive goal in my life Probably was more when I was younger. For sure, I'm almost 40, and I'm just not that interested in it anymore.
Frank Sloan:I mean, you put that gigantic pizza on Facebook, were you?
Noah German:On Facebook. I don't think Facebook exists with my name on it.
Frank Sloan:I know I'm talking about. When you put that gigantic pizza on Facebook, what were you seeking? Was I?
Noah German:looking for acceptance. No, I thought it was the size of my body. I want to post a photo of this.
Frank Sloan:I know, and you hoped people would like it.
Noah German:That was like 20, that was like 25 years ago or something. Did you hope people would like it? No, I don't think so.
Frank Sloan:I think some part of you hoped they would like it.
Noah German:Maybe that's an interesting one. The whole social media thing is still very interesting to me because I still just don't care that much. Amy and I made this account together and it's fun to post things one more together. I barely look at Instagram still. If we're together and creating photos and stuff to post, there is an element of that feels forced to me in some way.
Noah German:That's sort of like the Snapchat thing where I'm like I'm going to try to share what I'm doing on this trip because I think maybe there are some people who care and I don't think I care that much. I care a lot more in context of Amy, in context of the relationship, because I care about that a lot. She comes from a very much more connected culture and mindset, so that makes me care more about putting things out there to show people, hey, we're on a trip and we're having a good time and these are the things that we've done together. I care a lot more about that. But that's also why I don't generally post when I'm here separated from her, because it just doesn't feel that important.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, I think it could be valuable. I don't know what the point of your social is, but if it's to, I think there's. What I'm trying to say is that I think there's value in authentically sharing the difficulties of a long distance relationship that you could both do. That would really help other people. But if that would only be valuable, if you wanted your social to do that.
Noah German:Yeah, we've talked about that. I really, truly think the struggle for me is that I'm just not that driven by helping other people, so my first thought is not, oh, this is a hard thing that Amy and I have to deal with. I should share this because maybe other people feel it. That thought doesn't happen for me.
Frank Sloan:No Well, yeah, I don't think it does for most, but it would increase connection. It would increase your following. It probably could increase your feeling of connection with the world. Maybe so, but it's never like. When I experienced difficulty in life, my first response is not like I should share this difficulty with the world. When I do, it's usually very fulfilling, but it's never like this is the stuff. It's like this is the stuff I don't want to talk about. That's what's really like.
Jake Sebok:I think honestly too, though, like last week we had the conversation about how do you sort of you, frank, you want to potentially create a course about behavior change, and I talked about this resistance in me to put something out into the world that is in some way not talking about the difficulties that are coupled with the path forward, and I think that discussing those difficulties and putting them out there is the antidote to that problem. It is saying, hey, here's a solution. But also it's not like you just do it. You put in some computer code and the computer always does it the same way. No, you are a human. You are going to have days where you crave a cinnamon roll. You are not going to have perfect form in your workouts. It is going to be tiring. Some days you might not do the thing, like definitely, there's all that. I think that's the reality of the situation and we do live in a real place.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, I agree Because I, I'm sorry, go for it. Does Brené talk about in that video the outcome where you are vulnerable and the result is shame, or is it all sort of focused on that you will be loved and understood? I can't remember.
Jake Sebok:I don't think she really talks much about what you just said.
Frank Sloan:Yeah.
Jake Sebok:It is possible, though, isn't it Absolutely? It is sort of what I was thinking, and that is like. Here I'll be vulnerable, I'll try to be in authority on my own story for a second, and that is hey. If you find yourself in the situation where you're identifying with any of these words and you say I want to practice more vulnerability in my life, what does that look like? I would say awesome. Start to develop your own understanding for yourself. Journaling is a really great way to do that.
Jake Sebok:The tendency whenever you realize that you've been suppressing yourself can sort of be to go to the extreme other end and to start aggressively putting yourself out into the world. I would resist that a little bit. I would also acknowledge that if being vulnerable with the people around you isn't something you've done a lot, you're going to be awkward like a toddler taking their first steps. Some of your words are not going to come out correctly. So the way to sort of make this a positive experience for you is to take those first steps toward vulnerability in the safest place that you can find. Find a person that you know is going to be loving and accepting. Also, if it seems like they are not understanding, you acknowledge that maybe your words are the problem and the way that you're expressing is the problem, and that if they don't understand you, that's not a sign that they don't accept you. It may just be a sign that the words are a little bit off, and that's okay. It takes practice.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, yeah, they're always too s like there are two humans involved in any interaction and that other person can be wrong about how they react. Like it may not even be core to what they believe. They just may be reacting out of a defense mechanism. I mean, I don't know, I had a early relationship in my life where I sort of wanted it to be romantic and the other person didn't, and I expressed that and their reaction was like no, I don't, you know, I think we should be friends or whatever. And then for like a decade, they tried to undo that decision. But it was a meaning like they're just.
Frank Sloan:There are all these factors that play into this vulnerability on both sides, and so I don't know. What I'm getting at is that you should be open to letting the other person revise their draft. That's what I mean, because what they say to you may not be what they mean. Yeah, I've seen that a lot of times in life in all kinds of different areas, where someone's instant reaction is like I've seen it a lot where people's intuition is like this is what we should do, this is, you know, this business will work, or this idea will work, or we're all aligned, and someone says I'm not in, and then they slowly walk that back because they were in. They just had some defense mechanism involved or something and I don't know. Just be open to revisions, I think on both sides 100%.
Jake Sebok:One of the things that you hear a lot in these sorts of conflict dispute. You know formula are, use I feel language, and it sounds cliche. There's a part of me that's like, oh, come on, but it's so essential because something that you can recognize about yourself is sometimes I feel things that I don't even necessarily agree with. So if I'm using I feel language and the other person is using I feel language, all of a sudden I can say okay, you can feel that. That doesn't mean that you hate me. It means you know that we're we're both viewing this, this central issue, in different ways and we just need a little bit more work to get on the same page. That doesn't take the feelings away, like there's still forgiveness necessary and stuff like that, but it's that first step toward like okay, I can love myself enough to say I'm not perfect, so I can love the other person and say they're not perfect and and we can work toward understanding.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, do you think it was good stuff?
Jake Sebok:Yeah, I like it. Vulnerability, I mean, it really has been a central goal of mine. A long time ago I may have even been you, frank, asked me like what, what's my number one like goal in life, or what do I really aspire to in life, and I remember my answer was I just want to live authentically, like I want people to look at me and say that guy's authentic, and I agree with that. Still, I think that really is my greatest desire. I didn't realize yet. I didn't realize for several years that that would take understanding myself better. You know, you have to know who you are in order to express it in the world. But over the last year and a half or so figuring out how to be vulnerable, taking those first baby steps that were so awkward, and trying to figure out how, you know, put myself out into the world in a way that is generative and not aggressive, generative and not gratuitous is has been a process and an exercise, but it's been one of the most fulfilling things I've done.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, that's good, that's legit. What's one of the most fulfilling things you've done?
Noah German:I don't know, working towards freedom.
Jake Sebok:Yeah, I think that's even another way to say. That is like freedom from the prisons. I didn't even know I was in.
Frank Sloan:How about you? I mean, I haven't done it yet, but I'm getting there. At some point I'm going to become a person who has default reaction to dive into problems as opposed to backup and assess, to dive into the world, to the being, to whatever. So I don't know, I'm getting there, it's happening more percent of the time, but I don't even think it's majority yet.
Jake Sebok:That's cool.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, but it's fulfilling the percent change. It used to be like zero percent of the time. I would just be like, all right, let's fix this, let's get to it. The doing is more important than the puzzling.
Jake Sebok:Yeah.
Frank Sloan:So it's not that I don't value the puzzling, I just already am good at that, so I need very little time to do it. It's a bad assumption that I need to understand how everything in the world works first, because I've been doing that for a lot of years, pretty much already know Most of the systems are similar. I mean, I don't mean I already know. I mean I already know the structures, it's relationships between all these things. Just need to understand them a little bit. Anyways, that's it, something like that.
Jake Sebok:I like that. That is cool. You and I definitely share that sort of quality. I view it through the language of the Enneagram is like this five, this sort of intellectual for so long I've just existed in my head. It is weird. I mean, we started this conversation and you said what are you thinking? I've become a lot more mindful over the last couple of years and really put in a mindfulness practice and today, during some of that conversation, I had to do some reflection and thought and that was very intellectual. I almost feel this chemical change at the moment where I'm in this room. It almost feels like a heavy sort of suppression of the intellectual and I'm just like almost having a hard time accessing it today.
Jake Sebok:Maybe sleepiness is a good thing sometimes.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, I was too this morning when we were coming here and I was planning on walking here still.
Jake Sebok:Yeah.
Frank Sloan:I was like I had been meditating for what must have been 35 minutes, just intentionally focusing not on anything other than what I was choosing. I was like, oh, why is Jake leaving the house? It seems early and I was just wrong about the time by 15 minutes or so. So your question. I was like what? Why are you asking me this? Where are you going? Oh, you're going to the place we need to be in four minutes, okay, that's fair.
Jake Sebok:I like it. Yeah Well, I really liked this conversation. I do have to get going, but it was a good one.
Noah German:As well.
Jake Sebok:It's been an ongoing theme in my life for quite a while and it's very fulfilling being vulnerable. Being vulnerable is very fulfilling.
Frank Sloan:Yeah, I think we should talk more about what's like to not be fulfilled by it. Sure, I think that it's way lower percentage than anyone ever fears, but it is a real thing, so that should be a separate conversation probably.
Jake Sebok:Sure, I also have plenty of experience with that, so yeah, All right.
Frank Sloan:Well, thanks everyone for listening. Now do you have any final thoughts or do you want to close this in prayer?
Noah German:No, bob Bob. I think that was what David. That was a what's that show, the Price is Right reference.
Frank Sloan:Oh really. Mm-hmm, you're the host, oh yeah.
Jake Sebok:You're Bob Barker.
Frank Sloan:I'm the Bob Barker of the Unbecoming Platypus podcast.
Jake Sebok:You are.
Frank Sloan:What a thing to think of me, as I really like us to play Plinko sometime, okay.
Jake Sebok:Yeah, we could do that.
Frank Sloan:Yep. Thanks for listening, Bob thanks Kev.