September 2023

 

I’m not sure whether you’ve heard, but we’ve got a great podcast called Bring a Friend, which will soon release its seventh season. We created it to take the intimate and personal conversations we have as women in the Parlay House community and broaden our reach to include listeners beyond our female, western, adult audience.

Arielle and I have had some amazing conversations with people you’ve never heard of, as well as people who we thought you already knew but added a level of depth and intimacy in their willingness to share their larger stories.

Finding people who are willing to “bare all” isn’t easy.

We live in a society where so much of the way we put ourselves forward (at work, in communities, on social media) is crafted based on what is “expected,” “admired,” and “socially acceptable.”

Those crafted presentations of how we are “supposed to be” leave little room for talking about who we really are underneath the nice, neat wrapping.

What does it take to become someone with the confidence to remove the packaging and include mistakes, regrets, fears and failures in telling our personal stories?

Lately, I’ve started to see some patterns in people who are willing to be exceptionally open and vulnerable on a public stage.

The first person I noticed was Rosalie (Rosie) Silberman Abella.

I heard her speak a couple of weeks ago at the United Nations.

Rosie sits on the Canadian Supreme Court bench. Her speech intended to address the importance of social justice and fairness in our court systems, especially in how it impacts refugees. It was a long day with long speeches, so I expected another lengthy legal address when Rosie approached the podium.

But as esteemed as she is and in the sacred venue where we gathered, Rosie didn’t speak in platitudes. She took her moment in the spotlight to speak her truth as not only someone who has risen to the top of her profession but as the first Jewish woman and refugee to have that role and responsibility. In her speech, she told us about her father, a German lawyer who helped thousands of jews find safety as they were displaced by the Nazis. She cried on stage and had to pause her speech to regain her composure as she re-lived the memories of her own time in a refugee camp and mourned the fact that her dad had not lived to see her own meaningful achievements, which are working to extend his legacy. I had never imagined that a Supreme Court justice who speaks publicly and deals with serious and factual issues all the time would need to pause, wipe her tears, and gather herself so that she could finish. But she did… and had no hesitation to show the depth of her own feelings in front of a packed house that included the Prime Minister of Canada and the King of Spain.

The second person I met at the same event was Berit Reiss Anderson.

We stood next to each other in line at a cocktail party that evening, chit chatting and complaining about the superficiality of most business gatherings. But before I had a chance to learn about her, she showed interest in me and asked about my life. Instead of the standard “what I do for a living” response, I was open with her about the devastating end of my corporate career and how it made me long for deeper and more authentic relationships. I wanted to shift the usual conversations from “what I do” to “who I am, what I long for, and what I celebrate.”

She loved that shift.

In fact, my response lit a fire of connection for us. We bonded about shared experiences, personal insights, parenting challenges and future aspirations. She told me about her marriages that ended because her career took precedence, which led me to talk about my failings as well. We bonded as imperfect “older” women.

It wasn’t until much later that evening that I learned she’s not only a celebrated lawyer, she’s the President of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. For her, the chance to bond and connect in a deep and mutual way was more important than having the opportunity to tell me about her impressive job.

I loved that shift, too.

The third wise woman who crossed my path that same day, albeit via Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s awesome Wiser Than Me Podcast, was Isabel Allende, author of The House of Spirits and numerous other best-selling novels. Eighty-year-old Allende was as open as I can imagine anyone being in a public forum, addressing everything from her mistakes and failures as a parent, the death of her daughter, her sex life at 80, blueberry gummies, and how she thinks about the final chapter of her life. Nothing seemed to be off-limits in what she would disclose or discuss.

What really hit home for me as I listened was that she said she had gotten to the point where she didn’t feel the need to please anyone unless it pleased her to do so… and that to get to this stage of living the life that is truest to herself, she had to prepare to get there by being really honest with herself, not only about her widely-known and highly celebrated successes but also by living openly about the hard truths. The fact that she was not an ideal parent. The fact that she lost a child. For her, being open about her regrets, addressing her mistakes, and thinking about how she shows love to those she cares about freed her to live a more open and authentic life in all of its imperfections.

Three wise women in one day made me stop and reflect.

What does it take to get to this point of seemingly complete comfort and clarity of self?

How does who I am, in all of its human complexity, supersede “what I do” and “what I have achieved that fits the publicly acceptable mold”?

The common thread seems to be having arrived at a place of self-knowledge, self-awareness, and, maybe most importantly, self-acceptance rather than looking for that validation externally.

By including our mistakes, fragility and bruises in our public narrative, each of us has nothing left to hide.

Baring it all allows us to share it all, too.

* * *

How can you practice sharing your whole self more openly to create deeper human connections?

Share it Small:

Start with a single conversation with someone you care about, and acknowledge something you might have done better. See if that opens the door for more understanding and connection.

Share it Big: Speak openly about your own regrets or mistakes in a larger forum, whether it’s at work, in a family dynamic, or on a public stage. Letting your humanity show will signal those around you that it’s safe for them to do the same thing, making space for connections at a deep and meaningful level.

Share it with Me: We all learn from each other. If you have had a revelation, a breakthrough, an insight, or a triumph, we can learn from you so please tell me about it here! I’m collecting stories of these cascades of good for ongoing community building and to track The Parlay Effect in action. I would love nothing better than to hear how you lifted, were lifted, or observed something in others that made you feel good and recognize your power.