IT'S A SCIENTIFIC FACT THAT VULNERABILITY IS SEXY AND THAT GRATITUDE BEGETS JOY

Brené Brown 's recent TED talk, The Price of Invulnerability

doesn't SO MUCH illuminate INVULNERABILITY as set it on fire with the veracity of an EMOTIONAL ARSONIST

Piqued your curiosity?

1 VULNERABILITY?

It's a scientific fact now, thanks to Brené Brown and 10 years of research, that VULNERABILITY is at the source of?

fear, anxiety and shame?

(in other words very NEGATIVE emotions)

Conversely VULNERABILITY?

is also at the birthplace of?super POSITIVE emotions such as :

belonging, faith, creativity, joy and LOVE

My greatest fear used to be ABANDONMENT (pre 2020) - less so, IF AT ALL now (partly because NOTHING daunts me now, except sharks of course) because I have "been there got the tee-shirt" and isolation is no longer scary.

Actually I found solace there just as one of my heroes Matthew Mcconaughey writes in the incredible book Green Lights, about how he leverages solitary time away from his beautiful family to "go deep" and look into his soul for inspiration.

Naturally, abandonment is the antithesis of BELONGING, which is why when my Narc ran for the hills in the summer of 2019 (she had "supply chain" issues - my money well had run dry due to startup overload - well before the pandemic) - I was temporarily devastated/cast adrift emotionally, spiritually and psychologically. This feeling of hopelessness summer of 2019 was exacerbated by the imminent death of a dear friend (which ultimately struck in October 2019) at the age of 49. Cancer.

If you've been paying attention to earlier blogs, you'll know that I'm an extreme empath ; its still hard 4 years on for me to listen to some of my buddy Alex's favourite tracks, including The Sound of Silence (Simon and Garfunkel) and Hotel California (The Eagles) - he was born in 1969 and it was damn tough when he did both check out AND LEAVE this planet - in contrast to the lyric in that song : "You can checkout but you can never leave".

I posted yesterday about COMING BACK from that LOW (even David Bowie suffered in the late 70s and his GREAT DEPRESSION ultimately inspired 3 incredible albums (in collaboration with @Brian Eno ) :

Low, Heroes and Station to Station -

I can't match his creativity for my COMEBACK but then who can compete with David Bowie?

Anyways, recovery from narcissistic abuse (8 years ending 2019) is ONE of SIX COMEBACKS that I will be posting about here (4 DOWN, 2 TO GO) because I read recently on LinkedIn that a major consulting study had shown that the only thing people are really materially interested in, is...

EXACTLY THAT : YOUR SETBACKS and crucially HOW you engineered your COMEBACK

This is re-iterated by https://businessofstory.com - that resilient brands use "STORY" to transform SETBACKS into COMEBACKS.

Largely because we are wired for STORIES - and SETBACKS AND COMEBACKS are inevitably rich in DRAMA.

As are narcissists...but let's not go back there again!

I have also posted elsewhere about my HUGE....

No, not CoJoNES...

although apparently NASA can see them from space -

clue this is #britishirony : basically I'm a MASSIVE risk-taker on account of the fact that we are all estimated to be 400 trillion to 1 to be alive - see Mel Robbins The Awesomeness Training video on Decoding The Code (YouTube)

So now that I beat those odds, you don't think I'm going to take a risk or ten?

As Jim Rohn exhorted : LIVE ADVENTUROUSLY

Don't live safely and cautiously, purely and myopically chasing longevity (like a horse wearing blinkers) to live a long life; on the contrary

LIVE ADVENTUROUSLY

Definitely MY MO

My riches are NOT reflected in my bank account (yet)...they soon will be because I have previously created value before and I WILL DO IT AGAIN

merely my RICHES are reflected in my EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE - that 'account' is stashed.

The only difference this time : I'm playing REAL BIG because I've discovered something VERY IMPORTANT

I join dots that others can't even see...

Tracey Gillies has assessed my INTUITION as being "unusually high" and @tracey knows a thing or two, maybe better than almost anyone else on the planet, certainly I know of no equal to her insights and wisdom in the ares of spiritual and emotional energies.

VALUE CREATION in 2023 and beyond is a race for INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY - GOODWILL HUNTING I call it in my forthcoming book Wrestling With Unicorns.

The days of the 1990s when 'the floor' on company value was 5-6x EBITDA and the ceiling 10-12x EBITDA for the entire Universe of companies across all industry sectors ; and when

VALUE CREATION was overly fixated on multiple arbitrage

Are LONG GONE :

Now as the 4th IR speeds, proverbially like a bullet train towards the 5th IR

VALUE CREATION is a race to mine INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

And the ceiling on company valuations?

INFINITE

There almost is NO CEILING...

100x revenues never mind EBITDA is not out of the question if the INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY creation rationalises the seemingly IRRATIONAL

Which is why I now only work now with HIGHLY INNOVATIVE -

SUPER SEXY - companies

This is in stark contrast to my "strategy" with the fairer sex, where I'm LASER focused on HEART as opposed to sheer SEXINESS

as I have found the latter can tend to be correlated with "downside", let's call it.

I digress...

Back to Brené Brown and The Price of Invulnerability

Fundamentally, as humans we should be nurturing our capacity to be VULNERABLE

WHY I hear some say...they're always out there aren't they, the NAYSAYERS

And yet in 2023, society as a whole is diminishing it’s capacity to be vulnerable because vulnerability is almost universally perceived as a WEAKNESS.

2 FOREBODING JOY

One of the symptoms of this cultural downwards spiral is?FOREBODING JOY.

A classic example of diminishing vulnerability is GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS - not really embodying the here and now, largely because disappointment has become a way of living for some people…

not just Tottenham ?? fans - checking you’re still with me @Daniel Levy ?

All of which seems to me to be brilliant evidence as to the powerful impact of ENVISIONING a brighter future, our idealistic dream even, albeit Brené Brown doesn't comment on that per se.

I'm going to have to ask her. I'll just WhatsApp her now...kidding!

Unfortunately, I don't actually know her yet. But I'm quite sure that I will eventually, because we are writing, recording and talking about similar things, it's a small World and I'm sure our paths will cross - call it INTUITION.

It transpires that the MOST accomplished strivers are highly flexible and have a capacity for trading off, for compromise...

good news for your author in service here - as this describes ME very well - maddeningly FLEXIBLE to some former colleagues who couldn't PIVOT to save their lives.

Perhaps counter intuitively, PERFECTIONISM is flawed as a lifestyle MO -?

akin to believing in a false God.?

At its core, perfectionism is merely a tool for self protection.

There's an important equation:

FAITH ? VULNERABILITY? ?? EXTREMISM

Spirituality embodies vulnerability because it demands that we truly believe in things that we can’t see.

3 SCARCITY

One of the greatest dilemmas we face is SCARCITY.

That sense that we’re?

NOT ENOUGH?

Even more starkly : that we’re

NOT EXTRAORDINARY ENOUGH?

Example, in today’s world an ordinary life has become synonymous with a MEANINGLESS LIFE

Even worse, the quest for extraordinary can blindside us to the joy that exists in living in the moment.

Evidence: it’s become second nature, even ubiquitous to horde images and messages of SCARCITY.

Example when your gut instinct, your deep inner intuition tells you that the flight you just boarded is absolutely DOOMED.?

Brené Brown relates a story, describing a vivid scenario where her anxiety as a working Mother, crept up almost imperceptibly, one day before a business trip (based around the guilt of PERCEIVING THAT she had abandoned her kids or at least prioritised a work trip over her children's needs).

On this occasion, the day she’s catching the flight, a series of random fleeting occurrences pierce her consciousness - apparently unconnected experiences - which on this day, she processes cognitively, interpreting or perceiving them to be a fatal foreboding - a deathly premonition.

So visceral in fact was the premonition, that even after the pilot had announced “secure doors for take-off” her brain was trying to figure out what actions could secure or guarantee being ejected from the flight - prior to take off - without jeopardising a similarly unpalatable scenario:

indefinitely GOING ON THE AIRLINE EXCLUDED PASSENGERS LIST.

4 THE NUMBING OF VULNERABILITY

Strong evidence of the NUMBING of vulnerability is that the present adult cohort is the single MOST

ADDICTED

MEDICATED

OBESE

DEBT RIDDEN?

of all time.

EVER.

A further SYMPTOM :?

staying so BUSY that the truth of our lives can’t catch-up!

Brené Brown has devoted literally SIX YEARS of her life to studying :

Shame, empathy and courage

And a further FOUR YEARS of her life to studying

Joy, authenticity, love and belonging

It transpires that : AND THIS IS BIG (something you'll rarely hear me say, as I'm simply not prone to exaggeration)

YOU cannot SELECTIVELY NUMB THE BAD STUFF

eg vulnerability, fear and shame of not being enough

WITHOUT NUMBING JOY

READ THAT AGAIN

Further Brené Brown relates that research has shown that addicts are equally as likely to RELAPSE after?

an intensely negative ? experience?

as they are after

an intensely positive? experience?

If VULNERABILITY has a SHARP EDGE (dangerously), nothing has a sharper edge (more dangerous edge) than JOY

To let yourself soften into loving someone deeply or caring passionately about a mission…

THATS VULNERABILITY right there?

CONCLUSION?

The most effective way to nurture vulnerability is to…

PRACTICE GRATITUDE?

You can thank me later.?

But KUDOS to Brené Brown her 10 year studies have scientifically proven that GRATITUDE opens the door to JOY.

I salute Brené Brown - I doff my literal cap because this is EPIC : in fact groundbreaking.

Brought to your “Sunday PM late afternoon/early evening tea and cake”...

powered by me of course.?

Takes a bow. Only kidding.?

Checking that you're still with me.

But seriously Brené Brown THANK YOU

AMEN.

Thoughts?

Answers on a postcard Babyboomers

Use the notes ?? GenXers

#management #scaleups ?#privateequity