This Speaking Habit Makes Conversations Harder Than They Should Be
VVinh Giang
ManagementMental Health
Transcript
00:00:00What if being too nice to other people is making you a more resentful person?
00:00:04I want you to think about this because it was one of the three biggest lessons I took away from
00:00:08reading Brene Brown's book Dare to Lead. In this video I want to share with you three lessons I
00:00:13wish I learned decades earlier. How to turn vulnerability into your biggest strength,
00:00:18how to deal with criticism and disrespect, and how to actually have conversations you've been
00:00:23avoiding. My name is Vin and for more than a decade now I've taught millions of people around
00:00:28the world to become better communicators. And this year I too became an author. So to celebrate I'm
00:00:33sharing the biggest lessons from the communication books that have helped shape the teacher and person
00:00:38that I've become. And this is book number four in this series Dare to Lead. Before I read Brene's
00:00:44work on vulnerability I had a very different idea of what vulnerability meant. I believed vulnerability
00:00:49was a weakness. Talking about my struggles, about sad things, that's weak Vin. And asking for help,
00:00:56no way. I didn't want to show others that I didn't have my life together. But when I read this book,
00:01:01it completely changed how I viewed vulnerability. Which leads me to the first lesson of the book.
00:01:07It's not a weakness, it's a super powerful connection. Growing up, most of my role models
00:01:12were males. My dad and my uncles. But they were never taught how to be vulnerable. They would bottle
00:01:17things up and suffer in silence. And because that was the version of masculinity that I grew up around,
00:01:23I learned men don't talk about pain. Men don't ask for help. Men stay strong. So for a long time,
00:01:31I never wanted my family to see me struggle. I never wanted to look like the leader who didn't
00:01:36have all the answers. I just arrived at the office earlier. I would stay later, work harder. And I
00:01:42definitely never said, hey, I'm struggling. I need a bit of help. I thought that being the strongest
00:01:47person in the team was the most valuable thing that I could offer everyone. But there was a cost.
00:01:52If you never let anyone see that you need help and support, eventually, you discover that you don't
00:01:57have anyone you can feel you can go to for support. I was surrounded by people and I still felt incredibly
00:02:03lonely. And even worse, I started to resent those that I was there for. I would think to myself,
00:02:08I'm always there for you. Why are you not here for me? And the answer to that was pretty damn simple.
00:02:14They didn't even know I needed help because I never asked for help ever. That's what Brené's work helped me learn.
00:02:21Vulnerability is a weakness. It's saying, I don't know. It's saying, I need help. This hurt me. Hey, I'm scared.
00:02:29This might actually fail. And one of the moments that helped me understand this was during one of my communication
00:02:34workshops. I was telling a story about my grandmother and how much I missed her. And while telling it,
00:02:39I became emotional, really emotional, to the point where I had to pause the class abruptly and go
00:02:45backstage to cry. That was the exact thing I'd spent most of my life trying to avoid. I felt ashamed. I
00:02:52felt weak. I felt like I'd let my students down. Yet something surprising happened in that moment.
00:02:57My students didn't think less of me. They came towards me. They told me about their grandparents.
00:03:02Some told me that my story about my grandmother inspired them to visit their grandparents more.
00:03:07The story didn't bring down the mood. It opened up a beautiful conversation. And I think that's where I
00:03:13learned the difference between vulnerability and emotional dumping. It requires judgment, trust,
00:03:18and boundaries. Brene uses this beautiful distinction between sharing from your wounds versus sharing from
00:03:24your scars. An open wound is still bleeding. You may still need privacy, support, and time to understand
00:03:30what happened. Whereas a scar says, this hurt me, but I can share it without making you feel responsible
00:03:35for healing me. Now, I absolutely got this wrong when I first started learning how to be more vulnerable.
00:03:40I shared way too much. I was sharing wounds. I went from I'm fine to would you like every unprocessed thought
00:03:47I've had since childhood? A lot of people, me included, try vulnerability once. Feel awkward or receive a bad
00:03:53reaction and decide, I'm never doing that again. But sometimes bad feedback is useful feedback. Maybe
00:03:58that person wasn't the right person to share it with. Maybe it wasn't the right moment. Feedback doesn't
00:04:03always mean stop. Sometimes it means calibrate. And this connects deeply to why I wrote my book,
00:04:10Before We Forget How to Connect. People can't connect with parts of you that you never allow them to
00:04:15experience. The emotion that's in your voice, the expression that's on your face, and the stories that
00:04:21require courage to tell. These are all ways of becoming more visible. And because courage isn't something you
00:04:28develop by only reading about it, we've created a special pre-order bonus. So if you pre-order
00:04:33before we forget how to connect this month, you'll get a free ticket to join me live from my online three-day event,
00:04:39Break the Mold. You'll be invited to turn your cameras on, jump onto the virtual stage, and practice using your voice,
00:04:45expression in a supportive environment. The link is below, or you can scan the QR code on screen.
00:04:51So vulnerability was the first thing I got wrong. The second was who I let into my head. One of the
00:04:57most powerful ideas in Brene's work comes from Theodore Roosevelt's famous man in the arena speech.
00:05:03The central idea is that the credit belongs to the person who's actually in the arena. The person showing
00:05:09up, trying, failing, getting knocked down, and getting back up. Not the person sitting safely in the stands,
00:05:16shouting criticism from the sidelines. And I needed this lesson desperately. I first started creating
00:05:22content around 2009, and I stopped very quickly. A few hate comments came in, and I couldn't handle them.
00:05:29One stranger could write eight words, and now those eight words lived rent-free in my head.
00:05:33And over the years, as more people began following our work, the criticism grew too. People commented on
00:05:40my appearance, my acne scars, and the way that I would dress, and that what I taught was too simple
00:05:45and obvious. And the biggest mistake I made was treating every comment as though it carried the same
00:05:51weight. I'd received feedback from a mentor who'd spent decades speaking, creating, and teaching.
00:05:57And then I would receive feedback from an account called DonkeyDestroyer793 and emotionally value them
00:06:03equally. Brené helped me understand that not everybody shouting from the stands deserves a seat
00:06:09at the strategy table. That doesn't mean we ignore all criticism, okay? Some feedback hurts because it's
00:06:14true. I still ask mentors for their honest thoughts, and their feedback still stings. But they're in the
00:06:21arena with me. They understand the work. They've risked failure themselves. They want me to improve.
00:06:27Not just to simply bleed. When receiving feedback, I've learned to ask, is this person doing work I
00:06:33respect? Do they care about the work? Or do they just enjoy throwing tomatoes? Because if you listen
00:06:40to everybody, eventually you stop hearing yourself. And writing my book was a brand new arena for me.
00:06:47The stage is an arena that I understand. I love public speaking on the stage. I have my voice, my body
00:06:53language, and my facial expressions. But writing took all of those tools away. All I had left were words
00:06:59on a page. Once I handed over the manuscript, I started noticing every single weakness, the repetition,
00:07:06the filler words that I write, but I don't say. Writing made me feel like a baby giraffe. I was technically
00:07:13alive, but my legs weren't doing what I wanted them to do. I had learned the skills of writing while writing
00:07:19the book. And it was so damn hard. But it was also wonderful. Now I'm recording the audiobook this week. So I
00:07:27finally get one of my tools back. My voice, the baby giraffe finally has a microphone. Yay! Look, don't wait until
00:07:36you're fearless before you enter the arena, even if it's the book arena, a damn scary one. To be honest, I have
00:07:42no business being in the book arena. I've never written before. I was scared poopless. But I did it anyway,
00:07:48because I understood that it's not about becoming fearless. It's really about showing up scared and then doing
00:07:54it anyway. And gradually it becomes less scary. In other words, you'll gradually fear less. But the lesson that took me
00:08:03the longest wasn't about being seen or being judged. It was about the conversations I refused to have. And I
00:08:10refused to have those tough conversations because I was being too nice. And by being too nice, I was being
00:08:17unclear with what I wanted. Which brings me to lesson three from Brene. Clear is kind. Unclear is actually
00:08:24unkind. For most of my life, I wasn't simply unclear during difficult conversations. I avoid having them
00:08:31completely. I worked with a team member years ago who regularly let me down. Work wasn't completed. I'd have to redo
00:08:38things. Deadlines were missed. And every time it happened, I told myself, "Don't say anything, Vin. Don't hurt their
00:08:44feelings. They're a good person. Just fix it yourself." And I did. Again and again and again. Until one day I just lost it.
00:08:50All the feedback that I should have given calmly over many months arrived at once. I exploded. I lost my temper. And I
00:08:59destroyed the working relationship. More painfully, I damaged the friendship that was underneath. He was an awesome
00:09:05person. But because I avoided the discomfort of being clear early, I eventually gave him the cruelty of my accumulated
00:09:12resentment. I told myself I was protecting his feelings. But I was also protecting myself. So I chose short-term
00:09:19comfort and created long-term pain. And I think part of my fear came from experiences where people had used
00:09:25honesty as a permission to be cruel. So I thought there were only two options. Say nothing or say something brutal.
00:09:33Looking back, I could have said to the team member, "Hey, over the past month, three pieces of work have
00:09:39missed the agreed deadline. And I've had to redo parts of it myself." Those are the observable facts.
00:09:45Then, "I'm feeling stretched. And I'm worried this pattern is affecting both the work and our relationship."
00:09:51That's the impact part. Next, "Can we talk about what's getting in the way and what needs to change from the both of us?"
00:09:57That's an invitation into the conversation. It's clear, it's honest, and it's still human.
00:10:02Compare that with saying nothing for six months and then yelling, "You never do anything properly."
00:10:08One gives someone a chance to respond and improve. The other makes them wonder whether you've secretly hated them since February.
00:10:14And this is what I think connects all three lessons in Dare to Lead.
00:10:18Vulnerability asks you to tolerate the discomfort of being seen. Entering arenas asks you to tolerate the discomfort of being judged.
00:10:25Clarity asks you to tolerate the discomfort of an honest conversation.
00:10:29Leadership isn't avoiding discomfort. It's about learning to hold discomfort without immediately transferring over to everybody around you.
00:10:37I used to think strength meant never needing anyone, never letting criticism touch me, and never having an awkward conversation.
00:10:44Now, I believe strength looks very different. It's asking for help before you start to drown.
00:10:50Showing your work before you know how other people are going to receive it.
00:10:53And caring about someone enough to be clear with them before frustration becomes resentment.
00:10:58Brene's work helped me build deeper relationships.
00:11:01It helped me understand that vulnerability wasn't the thing weakening my connection with people.
00:11:05The armor I was using to avoid vulnerability was.
00:11:08So Brene, thank you so much for this incredible book and all your wisdom.
00:11:12I recommend her books constantly in my workshops.
00:11:15And Dare to Lead is a brilliant place for you to start on your vulnerability journey.
00:11:19And if you want to go deeper on my work on communication and connection,
00:11:22Before We Forget How to Connect is available for pre-order now.
00:11:25The link is below and the QR code is on screen.
00:11:28And your pre-order bonus, don't forget, gives you a free ticket to join me for three days at my event, Break the Mold.
00:11:34That's book number four.
00:11:35And if you missed the previous video where I spoke about crucial conversations,
00:11:40click here for the three biggest lessons that I learned from this book.