The Mindset Mentor - Ep. 18 - The Power of Vulnerability Pt. 2

Episode Date: September 30, 2015

Embracing vulnerability. Vulnerability is a tough subject. As we get older we learn to close ourselves off and put our armor up, and not let ourselves be vulnerable so that we can't get hurt. The problem with that is that in order to have true, deep relationships we need to be vulnerable and others need to be vulnerable. In this episode we talk about the steps to being comfortable with, and learning to embrace, vulnerability. Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Psst, hey, do you want a free motivational e-book called Hack Your Goals, a Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving Success? Go to mwfmotivation.com and download it for free like hundreds of other people already have. Okay, now I'll get you back to the podcast. Welcome to the MWF Motivation Podcast, which I am proud to say has been rated the number one podcast in iTunes new and noteworthy in six different categories, including self-help and business, and is a

podcast designed to help you grow into the best version of yourself in 10 to 20 minutes. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we'll take a life topic, break it down, discuss it, and leave you with thoughts to impact your life and mind. My name is Rob Dial and the podcast starts now. Welcome to the MWF Motivation Podcast. I'm your host. My name is Rob Dial. And if you are a fan of the show or you've never heard of us and you like this episode, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud, however you listen to us. So therefore you can never miss an episode.

And the second thing, if you like this episode, which I'm hoping that you will, I spent hours and hours researching and going in depth and figuring out this subject. If you like it, share it with somebody, especially if you're in a relationship and have a significant other because we're gonna be with somebody, especially if you're in a relationship and have a significant other, because we're going to be talking about vulnerability. And when you're

in a relationship, this is the number one thing to having a true connection is being vulnerable, and it's very hard. And this is actually part two. So if you haven't listened to part one, go back one episode and listen to it. So we talk a little bit more about vulnerability. But what we're going to do in this episode is talk about how to embrace vulnerability. How do we become vulnerable? How do we embrace it? How do we become okay with it? You know, vulnerability is the only real thing that it can allow us to love and to actually be loved, but we run from it from time to time. You know, in this episode, we're going to talk about how to embrace it, how to be okay with it. And the first thing that we

need to realize, I'm going to give you a couple of steps, but first thing we need to realize is that we need to learn being comfortable with letting our armor down and letting people see the true us. You know, like anything else, it's really hard at first, but it becomes easier with practice. The more that you do it, the more that you allow yourself to do it. You know, as adults, excuse me, as adults, I can't even speak and say what it is. As adults, we need to learn how to live with courage, with purpose, with connection. We need to learn how to allow ourselves to be vulnerable because, you know, if you have kids and you're vulnerable and your kids see that, they will then allow themselves to be vulnerable growing up as well. You know, in relationships,

you know, vulnerability is the very last thing that we want people to see in us. We don't want someone in a relationship that's in a relationship with us to think that we're weak. You know, it's the last thing that we want them to see in us. but the catch 22 is it is the very first thing that we want to see in them. You know, we want to see them. We want to see the truth. And we want them to let their armor down and to be their true selves. You know, we want to know them. We want to know the real them, the person that they hide from everybody else. We want to see that person, but we don't want them to see that person for us because we don't want them to see that person for us because we don't want them to think that we're weak. So it's a catch-22. It's hard. So we have to learn to be

vulnerable and be comfortable with it. You know, some people have been wearing a mask for so long that they don't even know who they really are. You know, they don't show it to their friends. They don't show it to their partner. They don't show it to their kids. You know, it's just been so long they've kept that armor up. But one of the things that makes us so much more advanced than any other species is our emotional capacity. And to not open up to emotion, to not allow ourselves to be emotional, to not allow ourselves to be vulnerable, is not allowing us to continue to advance as a species. We're going backwards if we don't do that, or we're just at least staying in the same place.

The quote that I think deals best with this, with embracing vulnerability, is to be the change you want to see in the world. You know, if you want people around you to be more vulnerable, you might have to be the vulnerable one first. It might have to happen that way. You know, you're the one listening to this episode, not them. So you might have to be the one that's vulnerable first

in order for them to open up and be vulnerable. This episode, it might be a really good one, like I said, to share with people. Listen to it yourself, share with your significant other, and then maybe talk about it. That might be something good because the first step to it yourself. Share with your significant other and then maybe talk about it. That might be something good. Because the first step to it is understanding vulnerability, to being open, to being open and vulnerable, and to believe that you are enough.

The first thing that I would say is you need to believe that you are enough in order to allow yourself to start being vulnerable. Believe that you're enough. Believe that you're good enough. Believe that you're pretty enough. Believe that you're pretty enough. Believe that you're fit enough. Believe that you're successful enough, that you're smart enough, that you're thin enough. Believe that you are enough as a person alone. Once you start believing in yourself, it's much easier to start being vulnerable and to show that person to people. You know, you might not be exactly where you want to be in life. You might

not be as fit as you want to be. You know, say physically, you might not be exactly where you want to be in life. You might not be as fit as you want to be. You know, say physically, you might not be exactly where you want to be, but yet it doesn't mean that you can't start thinking of yourself as at least fit enough on your way to becoming even better. So tell yourself that you're enough. When you believe that you're enough, it makes it easier to be vulnerable because you're comfortable with the person that you are. You don't have to hide. Learn to be confident with that. When you can look at yourself in the mirror and you can be happy with the blemishes, with the scars, with the stretch marks, you know, with the fat, whatever it might be, well then it's okay for you to show that person to other people. You have to believe that you're enough first. So you're perfect just the way that you are. Allow yourself to be happy and stop hiding.

That's the first step. You know, for me, I'll give you a perfect example of being vulnerable. If you didn't hear episode, I think it was episode 14, where I talk about my father and the stories growing up. You know, I wanted to be vulnerable and have my listeners know who I am and see that, you know, this person that I'm listening to is vulnerable. And, you know, I want my listeners to have a connection with me. So I need to show them that I am a real person that struggles with stuff, with emotional stuff, with parent stuff. You know, after I recorded it then then it was very hard for me to put on social media. I struggled with this because to put something like that on social media for all of my friends, every person I've ever grown up with and who has ever known me, you know,

to see what, see that side of me and to know the emotional side of having an alcoholic father, you know, I learned to hide it all away when I was growing up. When I was a kid, I learned to hide all my emotions. My father died on a Thursday. We went up to Tennessee. We buried him on a Sunday. And I was back to school on Tuesday. And I acted like nothing even happened.

I hid it from everyone. Even some of my best friends had no idea that my father had passed away because it's hard for a guy to be vulnerable, especially a 15-year-old high school sophomore, to be vulnerable. So I hid it from everybody. You know, I tried not to show that emotional side of me. So when it was time to put the episode, episode 14, talking about my alcoholic father on social media and to put the episode up for people to hear, you know, it took me an extra day to put it on social media because, you know, I didn't want to, I wasn't comfortable being that vulnerable at first. And it just so

happened I was reading this book that I'm speaking about, Daring Greatly, which talks about being vulnerable. It just happened to be the exact same time. And as I was putting up on social media and as I was struggling putting up with social media, I just kept telling myself, be vulnerable, be vulnerable, because I didn't want to share my quote unquote weakness. I didn't want to show I was weak. I didn't want to show my emotional side. You know, that was when I was struggling with being vulnerable. And then in the upcoming days, the days, you know, after putting the podcast out, I had all of these people reach out to me and, you know, tell me how courageous I was to share my story. So for me, I was scared to quote, show my quote unquote weakness. But then after I shared it, everyone started telling me how great the episode was, how great it was to,

to hear all of these different things and to hear that somebody else had been through having a, an alcoholic father or an alcoholic parent or see that somebody else has struggled with the same stuff that they have. So what I was afraid to put out and saw myself as my weakness, my vulnerability, people saw as being courageous. So I kept telling myself, be vulnerable,

be vulnerable, be vulnerable, allow yourself to be vulnerable. And then I did, and it came back with even more positives than I could possibly have thought of. So that's the first thing. Make sure that you know you are enough. That's the first step. The second step to embracing vulnerability is allow yourself to experience joy. And what do I mean by allow yourself to experience joy? Some people say that joy is the greatest feeling that you can have. But then when they get into the situation

where they, at the most joyous moments of their life, they don't allow themselves to fully 100% get into it. You know, the happiest moments in their life, they hold themselves back from, you know, getting 100% into it. That 100% joyful moment because they're too busy about thinking other things. You know, I hear a lot about parents and they, you know, they let their kids out on the

first day of school. They take them to the first day of school and it's, it should be such a happy moment. You know, their kids growing up, they're so proud of them, but then, you know, they start to worry. They worry about, you know, they're already here. It seems like just, you know, they're, they're going to school already, you know, and by 18, they're going to be leaving and going off to college and start to worry about their kids, you know, going off to college. They start to worry about their kids in elementary school and they might get bullied. You know, I've heard of parents that watch their kids sleep and they think, oh my gosh, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. This child is so beautiful. And then they worry about losing that child. They're in such a joyous moment,

but they get so worried and they don't allow themselves to experience the joy that they should. You know, they ruin great moments in their life because they're too worried about what could happen someday. Not what's going to happen, what could happen someday. You know, they don't want to be let down in those joyous moments. So they don't, you know, they don't want to be let down in those joyous moments. So they don't, you know, they don't want to be let down later on in life. So they don't allow themselves to experience those joyous moments fully. They don't want the possibility of that joy possibly leaving them. So once again, they put on the armor, they start to worry. So the first, excuse me, the second step is to allow yourself to completely experience joy.

The third one, and this is a hard one for me, is to stop trying to be perfect. If you want to allow yourself to embrace vulnerability, stop trying to be perfect. As somebody that completely admits myself as being a perfectionist, this is a hard one for me. Because as perfectionists, we believe that if we do things perfect, and we try to be perfect, and we do them perfect, we can avoid or minimize the pain of judgment and blame and shame. You know, perfectionist, perfectionism is not self-improvement. It's not trying to become the better version of yourself. It is at its core trying to earn approval of other people by looking perfect. You know, we can't be perfect. There's no possible way. So we try to look perfect for

other people because that would, you know, not being perfect or not looking perfect would allow ourselves to be vulnerable. It could be seen as a weakness. Perfectionism is not the key to success. It actually hampers success. It's directly correlated. Scientific studies have found that people that are perfectionists, oh crap, I'm a perfectionist. I got to say this. It's correlated to depression, to anxiety, and to addiction because they try to be perfect,

but it is impossible to be perfect. You know, perfectionism is self-destructive because we're trying to get to a completely unattainable goal. We are not perfect. We will never be perfect. So remember this quote, if you're a perfectionist and you keep trying to do stuff and you keep trying to put out there, but you're not done yet, it's not perfect yet. Remember this quote, and I try to do this as much as possible, especially this podcast where I know I make mistakes and I know that there's a cough every once in a while. I know that, you know, I could do better every single time. Remember this quote, done is better than perfect. You know, if you're doing reports, if you're doing a book report,

done is better than perfect, whatever it might be. If you're a perfectionist, remember it. Done is better than perfect. So that's the next step. I think that was step three. Step four and the last one is to stop numbing. And this is an interesting one. What do I mean by numbing? Numbing yourself so you don't feel vulnerable, that you can take the vulnerability away.

What do I mean by numbing? Drinking, smoking, keeping yourself too busy. You know, people feel that if they keep themselves too busy, they, you know, they won't allow the truth to catch up to them. You know, people come off of work and they smoke a cigarette or they drink a couple drinks or they eat a piece of drinks or they eat a piece of cake because they want to, you know, minimize their feelings, you know, and I don't mean alcoholics. I don't mean that you come home and you drink and you're an alcoholic. I mean the

casual take the edge off drinker or smoker, you know, the person that comes home after a day and says, I'm just going to have a few glasses of wine just to relax. The, oh, I'll have just a piece of cake to relax. I deserve it after such a hard day. You know, what I would ask yourself and actually say is, you know, are you just doing it to relax or are you doing it because you're trying to numb yourself, numb emotions? And I'm sorry to say it, but all of those things, that's hiding. We're hiding from something by smoking the cigarette, by eating the cake, by eating the pizza, by eating the hamburger, by doing what we're not supposed to, by skipping the gym, by taking that drink, by drinking an extra glass of wine. Believe me, I do all of this stuff myself. I'm not perfect. I'm on this journey

with you to try to become better. But we need to be aware that, you know, are we drinking this glass of wine after work because we're just drinking this glass of wine after work? Or are we, you know, numbing something that happened today or something that happened in the past? You know, are we numbing the current moment because the current moment is too hard for us to handle at the point. So those are the steps in order to start embracing vulnerability. Because if we can start doing these steps, we can start feeling the real connection. The purpose of being vulnerable, it all comes down to a real connection. You cannot have a real connection with somebody if they don't see the real you and you don't

see the real them. Because what makes us human is the ability to have that true connection with somebody, the ability to completely love somebody, whether it's a significant other or whether it's just a friend or someone that you're, you know, your mother or father and all these things. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. We as humans, we're hardwired and want connections, you know, emotional connections, physical connections, spiritual connections. We all want to feel seen. We want to feel heard. We want to feel valued. We want to be able to give and to receive without judgment. But all of this requires

the ability to be vulnerable. You know, in order to do all of that, we have to be comfortable with vulnerability. We need to learn that vulnerability is a necessary, in order to do all of that, we have to be comfortable with vulnerability. We need to learn that vulnerability is a necessary thing in order to be truly happy. Allow yourself to be open. Allow yourself to be seen. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. It's not easy, I understand. But like I said, with practice,

it becomes easier and easier. Nobody is going to view you as weak if you allow yourself to start being more vulnerable. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. Believe that you are enough. Believe it. Believe that you're enough, that you have enough, and that you're perfect just the way that you are, and you can allow people to see you that the way that you are. In order to make our deep, lasting, changing relationships, realize that somebody in the relationship needs to first be vulnerable, needs to be courageous and take that first step to vulnerability.

Have the courage for that to be you. Try it. Just try it out once. Have the courage for you to be the vulnerable one first. Don't be afraid of being looked down on. The one being vulnerable is never looked down on. They're always seen as a courageous one and always looked up to.

So the steps that I'm gonna leave you with today, number one and number two. Number one, what relationship are you in that you're not being vulnerable, that you could be vulnerable? Figure out what it is and try it. It's hard. It's freaking hard to be the first to say I love you or to be the first to, you know, tell that person about this really hard situation that you're going through and, you know, hopefully they can help you with it.

You know, number one, step one, allow yourself to be vulnerable. Find a situation where you're not in a true connection, where you have a surface level, you know, connection with somebody in relationship with them, but you know it should be deeper. Allow yourself to be vulnerable to make it deeper. That's the first step for today. And the second one, as always, make it your mission to make this day better for somebody else.

Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better today. If you like this, please share it with a friend. If you're in a relationship, share it with your significant other and then talk about it. You know, ask them what they feel about the episode after they listen to it and allow yourselves to be vulnerable with each other. If you ever need to get a hold of me for anything, if you have any questions on vulnerability, I'm not perfect. I don't know all the answers. I'm going to go ahead and tell you that right away. But I'm 100% open to trying to help you if I can with being vulnerable with anything at all.

You can email me rob at mwfmotivation.com. And I hope you have an amazing day. And so that is it. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you like what you hear, please share with a friend, spread the love if you think it's something they could benefit from. If you want the show notes from today, you can get it at mwfmotivation.com, which is also where you can download our free ebook, which is called Hack Your Goals, The Step-by-Step Process to Achieving Success. And if you want to keep in touch with us, you can follow us on Facebook or Instagram. You can follow us on Facebook or Instagram. Both of those are at MWF motivation.

And if you like what we have, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud, because we make it our mission to give you as much valuable stuff as possible. But thank you so much again for listening. And I hope you have an amazing day.