Confident with being vulnerable…

I had a very engaging and interesting conversation recently with a lovely gal – let’s call her Camilla. Hmmm, maybe I should back up a bit… I love to share information… information tends to find me always…anyway. I got some insider news on a job and decided to post the job information to my network.

Camilla reached out to me to get a better sense of the role… although I didn’t feel like I could shed any more light on the position, I discovered that I had a lot more information about it … anyway, this is not the point. The point is that during my conversation with Camilla, she made a point of acknowledging how open I was even to the the point of being vulnerable but that my vulnerability came with significant confidence.

Interesting! The truth is – I am entirely comfortable with being vulnerable. But this got me thinking… Camilla pointed it out as something that isn’t seen all that often, and almost praising me for being comfortable with being vulnerable.

I got to thinking – why am I so comfortable with being vulnerable! Then it hit me – I simply embrace the fact that I don’t know everything. I never will. But I will always seek out smarter people to associate with. I will always remain a perpetual student. I will always be ok with failing.<I absolutely believe that it doesn’t matter that you fail… but what you do when you fail>.  I will always be ok letting people know that I don’t know something as my mission in life is to continually learn. Which by default means…. I have loads to learn!

I think I would experience far more anxiety trying to present myself as all knowing, all being, all wise. Correction – I would give myself a friggin heart attack if I had to live up to that sort of a reputation. So, the lesson I saw in all of this is that if you are true to who you are, you by default feel comfortable in your skin, and ultimately are confident with being vulnerable….then I saw some very clear parallels

… between this mini lesson and that which I have learned from the world of Social Media. The rules of engagement in that world are:

1. 1. Be a student first. Listen. Study. Listen and then listen some more.

2. Transparent. Be true to who your brand is. Trying to maintain something that isn’t accurate in the online space will most definitely retaliate by hunting you down, knocking you over and leaving you with a thorough a** whooping. If you’re putting your toe in the water and seeing a backlask… don’t run… humble yourself and engage the conversation – which leads me to my next point…

3. When you goof. You best be first in line to say so… followed by an apology and a “why it won’t happen again” – you’ll be amazed at how well this bodes for you.

4.And as per a previous post… be smart and follow your audience. Once you find them… see point 1 above.