Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
Speaker 1: closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Speaker 1: Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come
Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
Speaker 1: And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join
Speaker 1: the conversation. It's time to question everything. Hello, beautiful people,
Speaker 1: I am. I'm just so happy this summer the podcast
Speaker 1: has grown so tremendously. We haven't seen growth like this ever.
Speaker 1: It's been nuts. And also what's so cool is that
Speaker 1: most people's podcasts get less views in the summer because like,
Speaker 1: people are off their routines and stuff, and ours is
Speaker 1: getting more. So I just wanted to say thank you.
Speaker 1: Every time I zoom with one of you, which I
Speaker 1: try to do like once a week, or any time
Speaker 1: I meet you in real life. I'm just so amazed
Speaker 1: by how smart and just so you're so awesome, like
Speaker 1: by far the smartest, coolest listeners. And I don't say
Speaker 1: that because you're mine. I just say it because it's
Speaker 1: the truth. You all are amazing, and I'm so grateful
Speaker 1: for the Curious Minds Club that we have curated here.
Speaker 1: So I want to get into today's episode. Is there
Speaker 1: anything worse than a hangover? That groggy, cloudy, queasy confusion
Speaker 1: and that looming feeling that you didn't quite act yourself,
Speaker 1: or maybe you acted a little too much like yourself,
Speaker 1: you let that inner monologue slip out a little bit.
Speaker 1: We've all been there, but today we're talking about a
Speaker 1: different kind of hangover, and it's one that does't come
Speaker 1: from what you drink, but rather what you said. That
Speaker 1: is the vulnerability hangover. My therapist at one point called
Speaker 1: it the shame hangover, but I like the vulnerability hangover.
Speaker 1: It's that feeling that you shared a little too much
Speaker 1: and you got a little too deep and now you're
Speaker 1: filled with shame and dread. Researcher Brene Brown popularized this phrase,
Speaker 1: and she explained it in her twenty twelve ted talk
Speaker 1: Do you guys remember that one? She talks about it
Speaker 1: like it's this wave of shame, uncertainty, and self doubt
Speaker 1: and it hits you after you've been a little too
Speaker 1: emotionally exposed, and it can happen kind of out of
Speaker 1: nowhere with friends, at work, and of course in dating.
Speaker 1: And here's where today's guest comes in. Today we have
Speaker 1: award winning Harvard Business School professor and behavioral scientist, doctor
Speaker 1: Leslie John. She wants us to stop and question that feeling, because,
Speaker 1: as she puts it, while we're busy obsessing over the
Speaker 1: risks of revealing too much, we rarely stop to consider
Speaker 1: the cost of revealing too little.
Speaker 2: I come to believe that nine times out of ten,
Speaker 2: what we think of as oversharing is actually just sharing.
Speaker 2: So we treat oversharing as it's this huge social sin,
Speaker 2: but most of the time it's actually just sharing. Like
Speaker 2: when you think about it, almost anything is appropriate to
Speaker 2: share in the right circumstances, with the right person at
Speaker 2: the right time.
Speaker 1: Doctor John shares decades of research on why the conversations
Speaker 1: we avoid and the truths that we push down and
Speaker 1: the parts of ourselves that we keep hidden might be
Speaker 1: doing more damage than the moments we wish we could unsay.
Speaker 1: She really dives deep into this topic in her book,
Speaker 1: Revealing The Underrated Power of Oversharing. So today we're getting
Speaker 1: into it all. Why vulnerability feels so deeply risky, how
Speaker 1: to know when you've shared enough or not enough and why.
Speaker 1: The secret to deeper connections and better leadership and even
Speaker 1: better decision making may not be saying less, but learning
Speaker 1: how to reveal a little more. I want to warn
Speaker 1: you I probably push back more in this interview than usual.
Speaker 1: And I really really enjoyed doctor John's book, but I
Speaker 1: don't know if oversharing has helped me in life. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure we really should be oversharing. Maybe there's a
Speaker 1: time and a place, But listen. I think that's what
Speaker 1: makes this episode so fun. We debate not only was
Speaker 1: I really honest with her, but doctor John really held
Speaker 1: space for my honesty, if that makes sense. She was
Speaker 1: an awesome conversation partner. So it is time to question
Speaker 1: everything with doctor Leslie John. Doctor John, your whole book
Speaker 1: is about revealing, and I'm wondering if I can get
Speaker 1: you to reveal something off the bat. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: your deepest, darkest secret. I want to do that to you.
Speaker 1: But what's something that people wouldn't know from your Harvard bio?
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. The first thing that came to mind
Speaker 2: was my first job was as a mascot for Boston Pizza.
Speaker 2: So one of those big furry guy costs you with
Speaker 2: the helmet was this big. There was like a fan
Speaker 2: inside giant purple monster chef guy. So people would not
Speaker 2: know that from my Harvard profile. Wow.
Speaker 1: I went to the University of Wisconsin and the rumor
Speaker 1: was that all the Bucky the Badgers had tattoos on
Speaker 1: their left butt cheek? Is that the same for you,
Speaker 1: doctor John?
Speaker 2: Fortunately now I actually don't have any tattoos. There's another reveal.
Speaker 1: I was thinking that I should match you, not for
Speaker 1: reciprocity necessarily, but just to connect.
Speaker 2: I think this is perfect because the next one of
Speaker 2: mine is more. So this is good.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's good. Let's see what is a good one
Speaker 1: for me? I think. Okay, here's something I think about
Speaker 1: all the time. There was a test that I cheated
Speaker 1: on in call college. Wow, and I feel awful about it.
Speaker 1: I think about it all the time. I wrote an
Speaker 1: essay ahead of time, and I put it on my
Speaker 1: phone and put it like in between my lap under
Speaker 1: the desk and just rewrote the essay. And I just
Speaker 1: I hate that I did that.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, thank you for sharing that. That is
Speaker 2: so relatable, right, I'm sure many people have cheated on
Speaker 2: high school college tests and just not gotten caught. And
Speaker 2: who hasn't wanted to write like it's a lot.
Speaker 1: But you know what's so funny about it is I
Speaker 1: have a different understanding of cheating as an adult that
Speaker 1: I did as a college student. Like at the time,
Speaker 1: it didn't feel like a big deal, and now I
Speaker 1: think about it and I think it was such a
Speaker 1: betrayal to myself, you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's growth obviously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So I'm curious, from your perspective, what did
Speaker 1: that just do in conversation between two strangers, the reveal
Speaker 1: that we each made.
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel connected to you. I feel a
Speaker 2: sense of kinship, Like what you said is so relatable,
Speaker 2: and it made me think of other things in my life.
Speaker 2: I mean, even what it made me think of is
Speaker 2: and it's this instinct to reciprocate, to match and maybe
Speaker 2: go a little deeper, which is exactly what you did
Speaker 2: the way we started it off. What I thought then
Speaker 2: was how I have this recurring dream. Actually I don't
Speaker 2: think I've told anyone this. It's a recurring nightmare. I
Speaker 2: get it. I feel like I get it. Once a
Speaker 2: month or every other month, or something that I missed
Speaker 2: one of my requirements in college and I am not graduating,
Speaker 2: or that I failed the course, or there's something that
Speaker 2: it's like, I'm about to graduate, I'm supposed to graduate,
Speaker 2: and then you're missing a credit. Like it's this deep.
Speaker 2: It's a recurring thing, right, so it must be something
Speaker 2: deep in my soul. But that's that's one thing that
Speaker 2: I thought of. But yeah, I think like the reciprocity
Speaker 2: that is what you've just demonstrated is so fundamental to
Speaker 2: how we forge bonds with others. When you take that
Speaker 2: social risk of sharing something sensitive, you're showing me that
Speaker 2: you trust me because you're relinquishing controls of the universe,
Speaker 2: and you're implicitly saying, I'm sharing this with you because
Speaker 2: I trust you not to take advantage of me or
Speaker 2: make a fool out of me, and because you did
Speaker 2: that for me, then I trust you, and that trust
Speaker 2: begets trust is like I just gave myself goosebumps? Is
Speaker 2: that bad that I love this stuff? Clearly that's what
Speaker 2: where the core of human connection is. And we know
Speaker 2: that that's really fundamental to who we are and to thriving.
Speaker 1: So reading your book, I just the little girl in
Speaker 1: me felt so validated because I've built an entire career
Speaker 1: around connection and only in the last few years can
Speaker 1: sort of retrace my steps as to why. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that stood out to me was that
Speaker 1: you write about how we often played games like two
Speaker 1: Truths in a Lie or truth or Dare or never
Speaker 1: have I ever? I loved games growing up, and you
Speaker 1: say that they actually give us permission to share something
Speaker 1: about ourselves, and it feels a little safer to participately.
Speaker 1: Can you explain why that structure like a game makes
Speaker 1: vulnerability feel less risky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think because inherently the frame of
Speaker 2: a game is playfulness, and when we play games, we
Speaker 2: are playful. When we play games, when we lose, or
Speaker 2: when we get a little bit competitive yours truly, we
Speaker 2: forgive each other, We laugh, we realize it's not super serious,
Speaker 2: and so I love having that mindset in general of
Speaker 2: revealing it's a game, it's it shouldn't feel so high stakes,
Speaker 2: and I have ideas on how to make it less
Speaker 2: high stakes. But by explicitly making these disclosure games two
Speaker 2: Truths and a Lie, I think they really embody that
Speaker 2: that real need to make it playful.
Speaker 1: The high stakes environment that you just mentioned that doesn't
Speaker 1: exist in games, I think very much exist in social media,
Speaker 1: and I had so many questions around it as I
Speaker 1: was reading your book, because people are truly sharing their breakups,
Speaker 1: their diagnoses, their grief, their family drama, their dating lives,
Speaker 1: their morning routines. Sometimes I watch strangers online and I'm like, wait,
Speaker 1: who am I watching doing this intimate stuff? I know?
Speaker 1: And why some of it feels like a gift because
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I'm normal people do that too, and
Speaker 1: some of it feels like they're revealing too much. So
Speaker 1: do you feel like in twenty twenty six or this year,
Speaker 1: we're becoming more honest or are we just more exposed?
Speaker 2: Oh that's such a great question. I don't know that
Speaker 2: we are becoming more honest. I do think the exposure, well,
Speaker 2: the exposure point is apt because you know, we have
Speaker 2: so many more media to open up to and it's
Speaker 2: so easy to do so. But I don't think exposure
Speaker 2: is like true revealing or honesty or vulnerability necessarily right,
Speaker 2: especially on social media. A lot of the times it
Speaker 2: feels performative. Now that's not to say like social media.
Speaker 2: Can you can like podcasts, shares little videos as a
Speaker 2: viewer of those, they can still do a lot. They
Speaker 2: can be very reveally, you know they can. For example,
Speaker 2: when people share sensitive intimate things make me feel less
Speaker 2: alone in the world or right, they can have really
Speaker 2: positive impacts. So it certainly can be reveally. But just
Speaker 2: because someone confesses like a confessional does not equal to
Speaker 2: me revealing if that makes.
Speaker 1: Sense sense, Well, it does. But I'm wondering if you
Speaker 1: feel like it's shifted the way we make decisions, because
Speaker 1: you're a decision scientist and I know you spent years
Speaker 1: learning about what people decide to reveal.
Speaker 2: Right, right, yes, so say more, say more about this
Speaker 2: idea of the shift.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to tell you an unhinged story.
Speaker 2: Oh amazing, I love it. I have so many I know.
Speaker 1: I was out to lunch and I really like this friend.
Speaker 1: So I want to preface this. But she told me
Speaker 1: a story about past date she had, and he told
Speaker 1: her that he had this very rare diagnosis, and ultimately
Speaker 1: she told me her first thought she's a person on
Speaker 1: the internet, and so her first thought when he told
Speaker 1: her this was, oh, this is going to be my story,
Speaker 1: this is my journey. He's going to die young, and
Speaker 1: my story on the internet is going to be that
Speaker 1: I am like a young widow and that's my journey.
Speaker 1: And I had like a sort of guttural reaction to it,
Speaker 1: And I know she was kind of kidding, but I
Speaker 1: do think that she's actually touching on something that a
Speaker 1: lot of young people think about nowadays, which story something
Speaker 1: happens immediately and then they think, ooh, how am I
Speaker 1: gonna share this online? I think it's really shifted what
Speaker 1: we share because there are rewards for sharing.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was that one woman I forgot her name,
Speaker 1: but she shared like one hundred videos on TikTok about
Speaker 1: how this guy broke her heart and she ended up
Speaker 1: with a TV pilot and signed to a major agency.
Speaker 1: And I think that started a wave of things where
Speaker 1: people thought, Wow, I could really change my life by
Speaker 1: sharing this deep, dark story or secret. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's good or bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know, that's great. Yeah, I think so
Speaker 2: it's interesting because the digital world, it's a very foreign
Speaker 2: context for us. If you think, if I just go
Speaker 2: super psychology here in evolution. Narrowly speaking, this is not
Speaker 2: a medium that we are adept at navigating, right. We
Speaker 2: know we've been interacting face to face for a very
Speaker 2: long time, and so when it comes to deciding what
Speaker 2: to share and what not to share, it's super confusing
Speaker 2: online because it's a comp the rules are completely different,
Speaker 2: Like you don't you know, if you're standing and giving
Speaker 2: a lecture talking to your beeat, you can see the people,
Speaker 2: you can feel their presence. If you're posts like you have,
Speaker 2: you cannot see the people. Like that's a huge disconnect
Speaker 2: between how we've evolved to manage these things and how
Speaker 2: it is online. So it's a completely foreign medium. We
Speaker 2: don't really know what we're doing. And on top of that,
Speaker 2: there's lots of design factors that are actually nutging us
Speaker 2: to share more, right, that make it easy to share
Speaker 2: a ton. And I'm with you in that it's there's
Speaker 2: good and bad and you kind of have to take
Speaker 2: the bad with the good or the good with the
Speaker 2: bad in the sense that there are there are studies
Speaker 2: of people who you know, they feel very lonely and
Speaker 2: they've not able to get support, and then there's groups
Speaker 2: like patients like Me or whatever social media groups that
Speaker 2: help them to share what they're going through and feel
Speaker 2: less alone in a way that they never would have
Speaker 2: that otherwise. And so to the same point about the
Speaker 2: woman who shared, was it a bunch of breakups? Yeah,
Speaker 2: not to make it seem like, oh whatever, a bunch
Speaker 2: of breakups breakups.
Speaker 1: Well, it was like this guy who had cheated on her.
Speaker 1: It was like a one story cut into a bunch
Speaker 1: of different parts.
Speaker 2: Oh, so that like the people that receive that see
Speaker 2: that they feel less alone. This is something that people
Speaker 2: feel ashamed of when you get cheated, like people who
Speaker 2: get those of us who have the misery of being
Speaker 2: cheated on, like you kind of blame yourself and like
Speaker 2: all these things. And so for someone to have the
Speaker 2: courage to say that, and maybe one of the reasons
Speaker 2: they said it is because these barriers of anxiety and
Speaker 2: sharing are reduced somewhat in social media. Right, you can
Speaker 2: get into problems obviously because it's permanent, oddly per and
Speaker 2: all this, But the good of it is that she
Speaker 2: had the courage to share something, and the people that
Speaker 2: saw that they felt way less alone. And so that's
Speaker 2: a very the facilitative kind of decision, right when the
Speaker 2: environment around you is helping you to share, and that's
Speaker 2: what I found in my research, where like lots of
Speaker 2: design factors of digital context of social media like really
Speaker 2: do make us feel a lot more comfortable revealing, which
Speaker 2: can backfire, but it can also do a lot of
Speaker 2: good to your point, And I think, like when we
Speaker 2: think about how do we make the right decisions, I
Speaker 2: think an important thing to consider is what is our goal?
Speaker 2: What's our north star, what's our drive, what's our guiding force?
Speaker 2: And maybe this woman part of it was to vent
Speaker 2: catharsis and that so many studies have shown that saying
Speaker 2: something out loud, writing a diary, saying to the world
Speaker 2: in a post that helps you. The act of putting
Speaker 2: your swirling, angry thoughts into words helps you to process them,
Speaker 2: to feel better. It lowers your blood pressure, it increases
Speaker 2: weird Like, there's so many benefits. I think a key thing, though,
Speaker 2: is knowing your goal of why you're doing this right,
Speaker 2: Like are you doing it? What's your purpose? And is
Speaker 2: this way of doing it the way of accomplishing your purpose?
Speaker 2: Because so often we just kind of say things, we
Speaker 2: run through life without thinking through the decisions of what
Speaker 2: we're sharing and when we're not sharing.
Speaker 1: But you've written that oversharing is sort of underrated. So
Speaker 1: how do you tell the difference between reveling that connects
Speaker 1: us and revealing that sort of performs connection.
Speaker 2: So we treat oversharing as it's this huge social sin,
Speaker 2: but most of the time it's actually just sharing. And
Speaker 2: when we think about, like, how do you distinguish between
Speaker 2: the two, what's in the service of connection versus what's
Speaker 2: more performative? I think a key part that makes it
Speaker 2: of the service of connection is well the sincerity of
Speaker 2: the goal, right and the situational awareness of reading the room. Like,
Speaker 2: when you think about it all, almost anything is appropriate
Speaker 2: to share in the right circumstances with the right person
Speaker 2: at the right time, even like talking about STDs okay, well,
Speaker 2: doctor's office super appropriate. Maybe late at night when you're
Speaker 2: joking around about funny things that have gone through your
Speaker 2: life or funny mishaps with STDs. I don't know, Like
Speaker 2: you can see that even this thing that's very normally
Speaker 2: taboo most contexts, in the right place, at the right time,
Speaker 2: it's entirely appropriate and in fact refreshing. And what I
Speaker 2: found again and again in my research and in my
Speaker 2: personal experiences is that the line like between like sharing
Speaker 2: and oversharing. It's further than you think. So you can
Speaker 2: go further than you kind of initially think you can
Speaker 2: in terms of sharing. So my guidance to people is often,
Speaker 2: these are the words that I live by, reveal a
Speaker 2: little bit more. A lot of the time. It's not
Speaker 2: dump everything unannounced, unfiltered, unprocessed, with no prompting. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's what we do at the beginning. It's restros, it's
Speaker 2: reading the room, it's and it's a little bit more,
Speaker 2: not a lot more. Like one example might be this
Speaker 2: is the thing, okay, so this people might often think
Speaker 2: that's so oversharing feelings in the workplace, right, talking about
Speaker 2: your feelings. And here's an example of when it's a
Speaker 2: little bit more and super helpful. So a friend of
Speaker 2: mine was recently telling me how she was at work
Speaker 2: and they're sitting around they're in a meeting in person,
Speaker 2: and one of those meetings that's super frustrating, it's not
Speaker 2: going anywhere, just kind of exasperated, but like everyone is
Speaker 2: like holding it in and not expressing her frustration, just
Speaker 2: kind of pretending. But then she thought, no, I'm going
Speaker 2: to reveal a little bit more so. She just said,
Speaker 2: you know, everyone, I'm feeling quite frustrated. So this is
Speaker 2: something that we don't typically share in a worry like frustration,
Speaker 2: a strong feeling. Right, we think that's an overshare. But
Speaker 2: when she said that, she said, the whole meeting changed.
Speaker 2: Why Because it turns out, if you're feeling something strong
Speaker 2: and you're in the same I'm experiencing the same reality.
Speaker 2: Other people are feeling the same thing, and it's a
Speaker 2: gift to say, to name the thing. And then like
Speaker 2: it was like this collective sigh of relief and then
Speaker 2: they made progress.
Speaker 1: So okay, So I have a question about that because
Speaker 1: I've I know that that feeling, that collective side. It
Speaker 1: takes one bold person in a group of people to
Speaker 1: say something, right. I've been at like girls' birthday parties
Speaker 1: where it's like twelve women and one person like says
Speaker 1: a big omission. Like I had a friend who the
Speaker 1: other day told all of us, like, I feel so ashamed.
Speaker 1: When I was sixteen, I like hooked up with my
Speaker 1: best friend's boyfriend and I think about it all the time,
Speaker 1: and it started this amazing conversation and she was so
Speaker 1: nervous to share. Yeah, yeah, that was beautiful. But we
Speaker 1: all know each other and trust each other at work, right.
Speaker 1: I have to tell you my experience, no matter how
Speaker 1: beautiful the environment is, is that the less you share,
Speaker 1: the better. So I'm kind of interested in hearing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why you know, maybe it's a power dynamic.
Speaker 2: Right, There's a lot of things. Can I ask you
Speaker 2: if you remember? You might not remember, like, yeah, a
Speaker 2: time when you feel like you got burned at work
Speaker 2: by sharing.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times if I share, people
Speaker 1: feel close to me, and there's like boundaries that I
Speaker 1: want to keep at work. Actually, yeah, and so there's
Speaker 1: sort of a weird uh dynamic there.
Speaker 2: Sometimes yep, totally.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've been like specifically burned badly?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, So okay, so that what you're describing
Speaker 2: to me is something super healthy, I think, which is
Speaker 2: the desire to have boundaries. And people differ also in
Speaker 2: how strong they're like how much they want their personal
Speaker 2: non work life to be known at work, which is
Speaker 2: completely fair, and there's we have lots of we differ
Speaker 2: in that individually. We also differ, like the kind of
Speaker 2: work we're in differs for how how the comfort in
Speaker 2: that so again the context changes, but I guess I
Speaker 2: would it's hard for me to think of an example
Speaker 2: of when saying something a little bit more revealing in
Speaker 2: the right context, whatever the norm while respecting the norms right,
Speaker 2: So whatever the norm is just squeaking a little bit,
Speaker 2: That's what.
Speaker 1: I mean, Not like ten steps. Because in your book,
Speaker 1: you really do you make the case that people often
Speaker 1: regret what they conceal, not what they reveal.
Speaker 2: Totally totally they do. I mean, concealment in and of
Speaker 2: itself is bad for our health. If we're actively keeping seekers,
Speaker 2: if we're ruminating like it's bad for our mental and
Speaker 2: physical health. But when one of the reasons why I
Speaker 2: think people often have a little bit of reaction to
Speaker 2: whoe you're telling me to share my feelings sometimes at work,
Speaker 2: which is totally valid, is because this the skill of sharing,
Speaker 2: the skill of revealing. Wisely, the learning environment for that
Speaker 2: is quite hostile when you think of it. What do
Speaker 2: I mean by that? Well, when you tmi it to
Speaker 2: verb it, when you cross that line, you get immediate
Speaker 2: negative visceral feedback. You see cringes discussed on their face,
Speaker 2: people leaving you. There may be mean things said to you,
Speaker 2: like it's horrible, and so because of that, we understandably
Speaker 2: live in fear of a disclosure hangover, right, that gut
Speaker 2: wrenching feeling that we've said too much and we've you know,
Speaker 2: it's career suicide, which is super valid. But the problem
Speaker 2: is that and this was why, Like, as I was
Speaker 2: reflecting on some of my own experiences and writing the book,
Speaker 2: I thought about my TMI experiences and I write about them.
Speaker 2: As you know, it's not just because my brand of
Speaker 2: oversharing is performative, funny, self deprecating. It was also intentional
Speaker 2: in the sense that when I was writing the book,
Speaker 2: I realized even these super horrible TMI moments, when I
Speaker 2: take the long view, there was a huge benefit. But
Speaker 2: yet that benefit of opening up you do not get
Speaker 2: the visceral positive feedback. You just get the something people
Speaker 2: can cringe, which is what you see, and they can
Speaker 2: secretly admire you, respect you, your guts, right, And so
Speaker 2: that makes it really hard for us to learn because
Speaker 2: we just see the negative. So of course we don't
Speaker 2: want to do it. And so that's why I think,
Speaker 2: and this is it's interesting because you know, I've studied
Speaker 2: these decisions and what we share and what we don't
Speaker 2: in privacy for twenty years now, and it wasn't until
Speaker 2: I actually was writing the book that I finally internalized
Speaker 2: the science and really started using it in my life.
Speaker 2: Because when I was researching it more, I was like
Speaker 2: a dispassionate researcher, Right, you don't want to get too involved.
Speaker 2: But then when I started writing the book, which is
Speaker 2: much more of a personal and life reflection exercise in
Speaker 2: interviewing people, that made me realize, Wow, in order to
Speaker 2: get over this hostile learning environment, you got to do it.
Speaker 2: You got to force yourself to say a little bit
Speaker 2: more a lot of the time and then yeah, people
Speaker 2: might cringe, but also reflect maybe there was a benefit.
Speaker 1: So no matter what the social setting is, yeah, the
Speaker 1: cost is different if you're with your friends versus your
Speaker 1: family versus at work. But for instance, at work, the
Speaker 1: benefit of me saying more is what someone thinks I
Speaker 1: have a good idea, or maybe I'm a little closer
Speaker 1: to a person. At work, the cost of me saying
Speaker 1: too much is like I'm ostracized from the group dynamics,
Speaker 1: they think my ideas are bad, my boss doesn't trust
Speaker 1: me with certain information, Like it just feels like it
Speaker 1: totally outweighs it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. The risks are very very real,
Speaker 2: and it's really important to keep abreast of those. And
Speaker 2: you're right. What I'm saying is that I think those
Speaker 2: disclosures that really burn you one we overestimate their frequency
Speaker 2: because of this hostile learning environment. We pay attention to
Speaker 2: that we don't pay attention to when it goes well,
Speaker 2: So we actually have a warped sense in our minds
Speaker 2: going in of the risks. It's not as risky as
Speaker 2: we perceive it to be, despite the fact that the
Speaker 2: risks can be catastrophic. But then it's like, oh, is
Speaker 2: this just something that's nice to have, Like, Okay, we
Speaker 2: share a laugh, but what if I want to get promoted,
Speaker 2: Like I'm not going to share career limiting things. And
Speaker 2: my answer to that is we've actually found that when
Speaker 2: you share a little bit more, and I give you examples,
Speaker 2: it actually causes people to trust you more at work.
Speaker 2: So when you're in a high status position and you
Speaker 2: share a little bit some of the things you're working on,
Speaker 2: for example, it doesn't have to be anything about your
Speaker 2: personal life. It could just be like I'm working on
Speaker 2: my organizational skills. That's what I mean by a little
Speaker 2: bit your teams. Like we've shown this with many many
Speaker 2: leaders in companies. Your teams trust you more, they're more
Speaker 2: motivated to work for you, they do better work, they
Speaker 2: give you better, more useful feedback. So like in another
Speaker 2: study done by a colleague of mine, they asked leaders
Speaker 2: in companies to you know, the old three sixty feedback,
Speaker 2: and it's really hard, as you, I'm sure know, as
Speaker 2: you go up in status, it's harder to get honest feedback.
Speaker 2: And so what do leaders do. They say, please be honest.
Speaker 2: I could take it. And in the study, what they
Speaker 2: did was they tried they got leaders to do something
Speaker 2: different to ding ding ding reveal, to actually proactively say
Speaker 2: something that shared, to say something that they were working on.
Speaker 2: And when they did that, the employees actually gave useful,
Speaker 2: constructive feedback that literally makes the leaders better. So that's
Speaker 2: an example of what I mean by how it's not
Speaker 2: just like the touchy feely connection love, in which I
Speaker 2: mean I'm a hopeless er, magical I love, but I
Speaker 2: also happen to work in a very competitive type a
Speaker 2: place with a lot of status norms, a lot of
Speaker 2: gender issues, a lot of stuff going on. So I'm
Speaker 2: the first to agree with you in being like, there
Speaker 2: is huge risk and we want to mitigate that. But
Speaker 2: I'm also saying, as someone who is in that climate,
Speaker 2: I have found huge benefits.
Speaker 1: But does the reverse if your low status does at work?
Speaker 1: Because yes, I think a lot of people would say,
Speaker 1: don't show your weaknesses at work.
Speaker 2: Totally, totally, Okay, this is another fabulous question. So yes,
Speaker 2: you have to be more careful. For sure, you have
Speaker 2: like a smaller latitude when you are in a low
Speaker 2: status position if it's a very strong, hierarchy kind of
Speaker 2: place and a conservative, buttoned up right, like all these
Speaker 2: contextual factors. But still, here's an example. So suppose you're
Speaker 2: in a job interview and you get asked the question
Speaker 2: what's your biggest weakness? Okay, and like, suppose you're pathologically messy,
Speaker 2: So obviously you're not going to say I'm super messy,
Speaker 2: Like that's the kind of the interview's done. You're exactly right, right,
Speaker 2: what do people typically do well? They say, oh, I
Speaker 2: work too hard, like they do some kind of annoying
Speaker 2: humble brag thing. Right, that's not good either. In fact,
Speaker 2: studies have shown that it's the candidates who are a
Speaker 2: little bit real, not a lot real. Like you're not
Speaker 2: saying you're pathologically messy, But if you answer, if you're
Speaker 2: asked that question, what's your biggest weakness? And here's what
Speaker 2: you could say in an interview, that shows what I'm saying. Well,
Speaker 2: sometimes I struggle a little bit with organizational skills, but
Speaker 2: I've actually developed a system so that it keeps me
Speaker 2: always on track. And I'd be happy to teach that
Speaker 2: to colleagues if you'd like.
Speaker 1: So it's an honest and yeah.
Speaker 2: In that situation, like that's a really high stakes, right,
Speaker 2: it's a lot of things. It's honest, it's saying something
Speaker 2: very real. It's controlling the frame, the controlling how you're
Speaker 2: communicating it, right, But but the mere fact that you're
Speaker 2: saying it that models self awareness. When you do that,
Speaker 2: you're you're perceived as being much more on top of
Speaker 2: it then if your messiness was just exposed. Right. So,
Speaker 2: but yeah, there's a there's a whole suite of things
Speaker 2: that I did there, and that's really important. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's not just saying I suck at organization.
Speaker 1: Now, So how do you know when you're in the
Speaker 1: Goldilocks principle, when you're in the sweet spot, can you
Speaker 1: tell during that moment or if you have to wait
Speaker 1: until afterwards.
Speaker 2: I love that question. So I you get I think
Speaker 2: that you gotta like if you're someone who is like
Speaker 2: reasonably socially skilled, which most of us are, I think,
Speaker 2: trusting your gut, being observant, watching, looking, looking at people's reactions.
Speaker 2: So often we're really in our heads, say the thing,
Speaker 2: and then try to look and observe instead of like
Speaker 2: criticizing or ruminating. Like I know it's easier said than done,
Speaker 2: but look around, see listen, So pay attention. And the
Speaker 2: more you do that, the more you will be attuned
Speaker 2: to the responses and what's unsaid and what's said and
Speaker 2: if it went well or not. Of course, over time
Speaker 2: you get even more feedback. You can also talk to people.
Speaker 2: I do that with my close friends. I wouldn't do
Speaker 2: it to someone who interviewed me, but my close friends
Speaker 2: I'll be like, hey, was that too much? Or what
Speaker 2: if I was I holding back? What if I said
Speaker 2: that with it right? So it's I think a really
Speaker 2: important thing on the Goldilocks principle is you there's no
Speaker 2: absolute because depends on so many things. Who's in the room,
Speaker 2: what the norms are, what country are in, what your
Speaker 2: goals are, whether people slept that day, whatever, all these things.
Speaker 2: It's always moving right. And so that's why I think
Speaker 2: being really sensitive to observing the responses and then afterwards
Speaker 2: thinking about it being like reflecting and experimenting. So you
Speaker 2: have to switch it up to get a variance in
Speaker 2: how people respond so that you can really tell. One
Speaker 2: of the things I love to say people and I
Speaker 2: practice in my own life is if you never feel
Speaker 2: like you made someone cringe, if you never feel like
Speaker 2: you got to the line across the line, you're not
Speaker 2: doing it enough. You're not going far enough, Like you
Speaker 2: got to get to the line to know what the
Speaker 2: range is. And most of us like a massively restrict
Speaker 2: but why you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: So because I feel like, and I guess it's funny,
Speaker 1: is you're talking to a person who is like, I'm
Speaker 1: a very measured, thoughtful type of person, and I'm laughing
Speaker 1: at some of what you're saying. Because my mom is
Speaker 1: an oversharer by nature, and people love it about her.
Speaker 1: Like my mom is when she walks in a room,
Speaker 1: she is.
Speaker 2: Beloved, love people to meet your mother.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you guys love each other. But she will tell
Speaker 1: like if there is a woman who is dealing with
Speaker 1: a weird thing on her toe, she will tell you
Speaker 1: about the time she dealt with the weird thing on
Speaker 1: her toe.
Speaker 2: Like she has no she just wants.
Speaker 1: To feel normal. And it's been a gift in my
Speaker 1: life because I think she does it on purpose with me,
Speaker 1: Like she'll, you know, go to the doctor and say, Danielle,
Speaker 1: I just want to tell you about dense breass, like
Speaker 1: I have dense bress. Here's what it is, you know.
Speaker 1: And so she's trying to share me too.
Speaker 2: I have dense breast too, thank you.
Speaker 1: See, I feel colossic, but I'm the opposite. So I'm
Speaker 1: wondering is this a personality trait? Because and I will
Speaker 1: add to this, my dad and I yell at her
Speaker 1: and say, like you over shared in a scenario where
Speaker 1: it was harmful to us or harmful to herself, and
Speaker 1: she doesn't care.
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it. Okay.
Speaker 2: So there's I've been taking notes because, as you know,
Speaker 2: my mind wanders constantly. I'm so the first thing about
Speaker 2: the goal, right, Like I think I love that you're
Speaker 2: pressing me on that because it's like, what is the goal?
Speaker 2: The goal like your mom to make people feel comfortable
Speaker 2: because she also must derive joy from making people feel
Speaker 2: comfortable and safe, and not all people feel get to derive
Speaker 2: the joy out of that, but she does, and so
Speaker 2: that's that's good. But like for me, I'm obviously completely
Speaker 2: sold of like connection, love, friendship, Like but what if
Speaker 2: what if your goal is not? I guess I'm saying, like,
Speaker 2: why wouldn't you want to do it? You are like
Speaker 2: two aliens trying to talk to each other, like why
Speaker 2: wouldn't you want to do something that helps you build,
Speaker 2: nerve and sustain nourishing, incredibly vital friendships, deep love and romance,
Speaker 2: influence as a leader, well being health like your physical health,
Speaker 2: Like why wouldn't you? How are you not sold?
Speaker 1: So in certain contexts, I do. Like my best friends
Speaker 1: from college, I tell them everything and I want them
Speaker 1: to feel normal about their thoughts and vice versa, and
Speaker 1: I have no but I trust them implicitly, right, And
Speaker 1: I just trust me trust.
Speaker 2: Because you've been doing this. But I see what I know,
Speaker 2: but it's not for everybody, So I think so can
Speaker 2: I just tweak that a bit. I think it is
Speaker 2: for everybody, but the goal is not. It's not that
Speaker 2: every person I meet I want to be friends with
Speaker 2: I can't sustain that and they can't either. In fact,
Speaker 2: there's a very I really only have like seven really
Speaker 2: really close friends.
Speaker 1: That's a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, but like I've pruned it recently because
Speaker 2: it's too many.
Speaker 1: And you know who got the hats.
Speaker 2: I know if they're not listening, but they well, so
Speaker 2: this is something that I did not share. It's not
Speaker 2: that I this is something not to say, Like I
Speaker 2: didn't say, hey, I'm pruning you. I just waited a
Speaker 2: beat to respond to things, and then it just kind
Speaker 2: of I feel like that's the kinder way. And and
Speaker 2: who knows, maybe they're relieved because maybe they're pruning me too.
Speaker 2: It's probably mutual in many cases. But but but I
Speaker 2: get My point is, like for your friends, revealing is
Speaker 2: central to friendship. If you want to have influence in
Speaker 2: the workplace, it can help. If you're feeling you don't
Speaker 2: have influence and you want more, some strategic disclosure can
Speaker 2: help you when you do it well, when you practice
Speaker 2: and you.
Speaker 1: Well being like that's that one's pretty I like the
Speaker 1: idea of strategic well being.
Speaker 2: I think, well, it is pretty honest. I mean, the
Speaker 2: friendship is unsaleable to you. I mean to me, what
Speaker 2: you're saying is like, yeah, it's great, but I can't
Speaker 2: do it to everyone because I don't want to do
Speaker 2: it to everyone because I don't I don't want to
Speaker 2: be and I can't be friends with everyone. I love boundaries.
Speaker 2: I love boundaries are amazing. I love that. Like my
Speaker 2: assistant doesn't know a lot about me, Like that's awesome.
Speaker 2: I love that. And she loves that too. I'm sure
Speaker 2: like it's weird to like it's kind to to withhold
Speaker 2: often it's kind. So I'm totally with you.
Speaker 1: So do you feel because like you call this the
Speaker 1: disclosure to level a lot, and I like that phrasing.
Speaker 1: And I've been sort of like cheeky for you. But
Speaker 1: what do you think people like me are afraid of?
Speaker 1: Will happen if they reveal too much? And please be bad?
Speaker 2: So I think, I mean, as a nerdly decision scientist,
Speaker 2: I've done a lot of studies on this, and what
Speaker 2: I find is when I ask people disclosure dilemmas, So
Speaker 2: think of it like, Okay, do you tell your boss
Speaker 2: you have adhd well, I could get accommodation, but I
Speaker 2: could get fired, like sadly, you know, it's the world.
Speaker 2: That's a real dilemma. Do you tell your spouse about
Speaker 2: that old fling don't know? Do you tell your teenage
Speaker 2: kids about your partying ways? These are real dilemmas. And
Speaker 2: the thing is when I ask people whatever the dollar
Speaker 2: they're facing, when I say, okay, now think about it,
Speaker 2: talk to me out loud, what are you thinking about?
Speaker 2: The number one thing that people think about are the
Speaker 2: risks of revealing. They're like if I, like, suppose someone
Speaker 2: at work you had a brilliant idea and you hear
Speaker 2: them talking to the boss and they're like, oh, it's
Speaker 2: a group ideas what they say, and like a part
Speaker 2: of you dies inside, right, and you know, the old
Speaker 2: me wouldn't even consider saying anything. And if I did,
Speaker 2: I'd be like, well, of course I'm not going to
Speaker 2: say anything. They'll think I'm petty, it will be bad
Speaker 2: for my relationship. I'll think I'm insecure and all these
Speaker 2: things and those are super super valid, right, But the
Speaker 2: problem is that we only think of the risk of
Speaker 2: revealing because I even say to people like anything else,
Speaker 2: anything else. So you've talked about the risk of revealing
Speaker 2: anything else, like it does not come to mind. But
Speaker 2: then when I say, okay, can you tell me about
Speaker 2: some of the risks of not saying something well in
Speaker 2: this scenario, then you're like, ooh, okay. Then it's a
Speaker 2: total different frame that makes you think differently. Well, if
Speaker 2: I don't say something, I'm going to be passive aggressive.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to feel heard. I'm going to ruminate.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll be passive aggressive. That's bad for the relationship too.
Speaker 2: So you start seeing there's risks on both sides. And
Speaker 2: then you might think, and I'm just going to get
Speaker 2: carried away because I love revealing. You might then be like,
Speaker 2: that might let you leap to the bona fide benefits
Speaker 2: of revealing. You might say, wow, you know, if I
Speaker 2: could figure out how to say this, which there's lots
Speaker 2: and lots of coaching out there, books on how to
Speaker 2: say hard things. If I could figure out how to
Speaker 2: have the convo, I think maybe that would be good
Speaker 2: for my relationship because they would respect me more, they
Speaker 2: would admire that I had the guts. Maybe they like
Speaker 2: I've actually been for this dilemma, and so I can
Speaker 2: speak that I did say it and it ended up
Speaker 2: strengthening the relationship. It doesn't always happen. There's certainly risks still.
Speaker 1: In what dynamic in a family work dynamic.
Speaker 2: And this was with a peer of mine who we
Speaker 2: were working on a paper. It was my idea, and
Speaker 2: I you know, in academ it's so annoying you have
Speaker 2: to like fill out when you submit a journal an article,
Speaker 2: you have to fill out like credit lines of who
Speaker 2: did this? I hate, I hate the attribution of credit
Speaker 2: like that. I think that is petty. But given that
Speaker 2: we were doing it, didn't say my name on the idea,
Speaker 2: and so this was someone who was who was the
Speaker 2: same staff as me. Would I have said it to
Speaker 2: someone higher status? To me? The math comes out if
Speaker 2: I do this analysis, I call it a full Ford
Speaker 2: quadrant reckoning the risks of revealing, the risks of not revealing,
Speaker 2: the benefits of revealing, and the benefits of not revealing
Speaker 2: all four things. So I would it come out the
Speaker 2: same way if it was higher status. But that's me,
Speaker 2: like I'm drinking the kool aid, so to speak.
Speaker 1: What was in your quadrant?
Speaker 2: The risks of revealing what I would put there is
Speaker 2: people might think I'm petty, the person's going to hate me,
Speaker 2: bad relationship. The risks of holding that reveling yeah, are.
Speaker 2: I will feel unseen, unheard, I will ruminate. I will
Speaker 2: be mad at myself for not respecting myself, for not
Speaker 2: speaking up, for letting it slide. I will think I'm
Speaker 2: not a good role model to people for not speaking up.
Speaker 2: And critically, because relationships are so important to me, I
Speaker 2: saw that holding back also had relatedtional risks. It's not
Speaker 2: just speaking up, it's either way. Then I move to
Speaker 2: the benefits of revealing, and I thought, oh, if I
Speaker 2: do this the right way, if I can find the
Speaker 2: right words, maybe this person will respect me because I
Speaker 2: had the guts to talk about it. Also, it will
Speaker 2: reveal something about that person to me. Like you got
Speaker 2: to think, if you have a reasonable conversation with someone,
Speaker 2: if they're cool, if there's someone you want to keep
Speaker 2: working with, they will listen and not like get pissed
Speaker 2: off at you. So that will be informative data. If
Speaker 2: I want to continue the relationship, we could get stronger.
Speaker 2: And then the benefit of holding back is just like, well,
Speaker 2: this is a really hard day and I just don't
Speaker 2: want to face this today. And that's fine too, Like
Speaker 2: I don't have the time for it, not now, or
Speaker 2: I'm never going to work with this person again, so
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Like also legit, So tell me when you're coming in
Speaker 1: too hot with somebody new. Like in a friendship, you
Speaker 1: talk about building a friendship is like building a fire
Speaker 1: and you're hitting the right balance between TMI and t
Speaker 1: L I too little information? Will you break down the
Speaker 1: best way to spark a fire and friendship.
Speaker 2: That I love this? So start small. One example might be,
Speaker 2: so start small with a small gesture, small offering of
Speaker 2: revealing something small. Give you a specific example, and see
Speaker 2: what they do. If they're receptive, feeling warm, available, socially receptive,
Speaker 2: they're going to reciprocate. I dare say, it's like instinctual
Speaker 2: to do that. They're going to reciprocate if they're if
Speaker 2: they're available, and then you're going to just keep kind
Speaker 2: of going back and forth, reveally, reveally, reciprocating. There have
Speaker 2: been beautiful studies on this, where in fact, the researcher
Speaker 2: Arthur Aronson, he wanted to study friendship, but it was
Speaker 2: annoying getting friends to show up together at the lab
Speaker 2: at the same time. Like it's hard enough to schedule
Speaker 2: one undergrad to come in, it's hard enough to get
Speaker 2: like pairs of friends to show up. So it was
Speaker 2: kind of a logistical nightmare. So for that but now reason,
Speaker 2: he came up with this task that is now kind
Speaker 2: of famous called the thirty six Questions to fall in Love.
Speaker 2: It's often called on the New York Times, but really
Speaker 2: it was made to create artificial friendships. It sounds so
Speaker 2: unromantic that way in the lab. And so what he
Speaker 2: did was he came up with these thirty six questions
Speaker 2: that start super shallow and they get deeper and deeper
Speaker 2: and deeper. And he paired people together who didn't know
Speaker 2: each other, and he said, go through this question one
Speaker 2: back and forth. You answer the first, I answer the first,
Speaker 2: You answer the second, I answer the second. And when
Speaker 2: he did that, people became friendly with each other relative
Speaker 2: to when they just did small talk in the other group.
Speaker 2: They said, one fell swoop it. So one person's going
Speaker 2: to go through all thirty six answers and their answer
Speaker 2: all thirty six, and then the other person's going to
Speaker 2: answer all thirty six when that group that the one
Speaker 2: fell swoopers, they did not feel close. So it really
Speaker 2: is the process of doing it together, a fut step
Speaker 2: gradually deepening together. And because that's how you build trust, right,
Speaker 2: I call myself a recovering privacy expert because for years
Speaker 2: I literally stood on stage lecturing people about how bad
Speaker 2: we are and making decisions about our personal data. How
Speaker 2: bad we are at privacy, Like, shame on us, we
Speaker 2: suck so bad at it. And that's true, Like I've
Speaker 2: done lots of research on how people can be tricked
Speaker 2: into sharing too much online and websites that are going
Speaker 2: to abuse their data they can, we can take, we
Speaker 2: give it all the way to markets. That's true. But
Speaker 2: over the years I've come to appreciate that that is
Speaker 2: not wrong, but it's not right either. It's way too
Speaker 2: narrow right. And because as I was lecturing about telling
Speaker 2: people we suck at privacy in my personal life life,
Speaker 2: did I have all my passwords on a computer on
Speaker 2: a notepad on my computer? Yes, those titled passwords did
Speaker 2: I was? I giving and still continue to give all
Speaker 2: of my data to BuzzFeed quizzes like to find out
Speaker 2: what my baby will look like? If I married a celebrity, yes,
Speaker 2: like so like I was living this double life, so
Speaker 2: it was uncomfortable for one to be being inking group.
Speaker 2: But then there was a study I ran that changed
Speaker 2: everything for me. That really shocked me because it showed
Speaker 2: just how much we are. I dare say, wired to
Speaker 2: prefer people who open up relative to people who are
Speaker 2: really guarded. So in this study, it was a thought experiment.
Speaker 2: So as you know, I'm a decision scientist, and so
Speaker 2: one of the things I do or I specialize in,
Speaker 2: is I set up like difficult decision quandaries for people
Speaker 2: and then if I've designed the experiment, well, the answer
Speaker 2: will illuminate something fundamental. So okay, so listeners, if you
Speaker 2: were in this study, what I'd be doing is I'd
Speaker 2: be asking you which of two people you would rather date.
Speaker 2: And suppose you talk to these people, you interview them,
Speaker 2: and at one point you asked you talk to the
Speaker 2: first person and you ask them have you ever had
Speaker 2: any STDs? And they say, I have had so many STDs.
Speaker 2: I guess they're sdis Now, sorry, I've had so many
Speaker 2: sdis like I can't even keep track of them. Like
Speaker 2: I have I've discovered.
Speaker 1: New ones like, oh my god, they're like you.
Speaker 2: The other person you ask them the same question and
Speaker 2: they say, I'm not answering, And I know you don't
Speaker 2: want to date either, But if you had to choose,
Speaker 2: that's what I specialized in, difficult decisions. So if you
Speaker 2: had to choose, would you choose the revealer, the person
Speaker 2: that came clean about the bad stuff, or the person
Speaker 2: who's the hyder who says I'm not doing this.
Speaker 1: Wow, I can't believe I'm choosing the revealer, right, I.
Speaker 2: Know what's wrong with you, what's wrong with everyone, but
Speaker 2: there's something really right about that. And so I was
Speaker 2: shocked at first, right, like, how can you prefer someone
Speaker 2: who admits the worst possible thing. Well, it turns out that,
Speaker 2: of course, revealing is a really foundational part of connecting
Speaker 2: and human nature, and it's so important to us to connect,
Speaker 2: to create trust, create bonds, and self disclosures is the
Speaker 2: way we do that. That's so important that when someone
Speaker 2: abstains from that activity, like in a really conspicuous way,
Speaker 2: like I'm not answering, when they're a hider, we view
Speaker 2: them with contempt, We view them as untrustworthy, so much
Speaker 2: so that we'd rather date someone, we'd rather hire someone.
Speaker 2: We'd rather sit next to the subway beside someone who's
Speaker 2: like says shady stuff, relative to someone who like is
Speaker 2: like completely conspicuously withholding. So that really shocked me is
Speaker 2: that it's not to say we should always volunteer. A
Speaker 2: lot of oversharing is like unfiltered failure to read the room,
Speaker 2: just volunteering crazy shit. But if you're explicitly asked something
Speaker 2: and the answer might not be so positive, don't saliently withhold.
Speaker 2: So that was shocking to me. The second study that
Speaker 2: shocked me was a study in neuroscience where what they
Speaker 2: did was they my colleagues put people in a brain scanner,
Speaker 2: an fMRI machine. So we know an fMRI machine when
Speaker 2: you do task in it tells the researchers the areas
Speaker 2: of your brain that are activated. And so what they
Speaker 2: did was they brought people in and they had half
Speaker 2: of the people just answer normal trivia questions as they
Speaker 2: scan their brain. The other half of the people they
Speaker 2: gave them trivia questions about themselves. So like, if you
Speaker 2: were in the scanner'd be like, what's your favorite ice
Speaker 2: cream flavor? Or what's your favorite movie? Or do you
Speaker 2: have an enemy like these kinds of things. And what
Speaker 2: they found is that the people who got to self disclose,
Speaker 2: the pleasure centers of their brain were activated. So that
Speaker 2: means like the same areas that are active when we
Speaker 2: have sex, when we eat something delicious, are active when
Speaker 2: we do this thing of personal self disclosure, which told
Speaker 2: me that this is like intrinsically rewarding and important because
Speaker 2: nature has a way of making what's important and good
Speaker 2: for us pleasurable. Right.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about this in the context
Speaker 1: of dating, because I think and even in relationship, it's
Speaker 1: it's where a lot of people think about disclosure for
Speaker 1: the first time, if you're on a first date.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I went on a date years ago with somebody who
Speaker 1: was like, I just I'm like sick of dating. I
Speaker 1: just want to put it all out there. And he
Speaker 1: told me like, here's my background with dating, and here's
Speaker 1: my trauma and here's the and I was like, whoa, buddy,
Speaker 1: I'm so freak Tom. I TM, I like, you can't
Speaker 1: mess up the bill that you've just taught me. You
Speaker 1: need to got that together, and.
Speaker 2: So many of these things you've been talking about. The
Speaker 2: great examples you've had as we've been chatting, are failures
Speaker 2: of like it's too big of a step, Like the
Speaker 2: colleague who comes and says something to you and you're like,
Speaker 2: I don't want to share. Of course, you don't want
Speaker 2: to share because you don't want to share when someone's
Speaker 2: like gone way too far from the get go.
Speaker 1: It's like, right on a feel makes you feel weird.
Speaker 1: So how about on dating apps in terms of your research? Like,
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example. I I'm on the apps
Speaker 1: and I had a friend call me and say that
Speaker 1: her friend had just tried this and she was recommending
Speaker 1: I do it where I have photos and I have
Speaker 1: a few lines and that's basically it. I'm very concise
Speaker 1: in there, yeap. And she said, do the opposite, be
Speaker 1: super specific, say everything you are and everything you're wanting,
Speaker 1: and see who comes your way.
Speaker 2: I would not advise that. The reason I wouldn't advise
Speaker 2: that is because I think you're going to get people
Speaker 2: who are spending way too much time looking at the apps,
Speaker 2: which is a bad sign, and people who are like
Speaker 2: then they feel like they know you because they've read this,
Speaker 2: and then they get infatuated and then they're like but
Speaker 2: they don't actually know you. You have to meet the
Speaker 2: person to know them. So what I found, and this
Speaker 2: isn't just like what I found. There's been studies, so
Speaker 2: let me six to data. There's studies on like, so,
Speaker 2: how many personality traits should you reveal about yourself? Like,
Speaker 2: should you reveal all your traits? Are just a few
Speaker 2: of them? So the answer to this question is you
Speaker 2: should only reveal a few of them, and you should
Speaker 2: reveal the ones that are unique but also relatable, so
Speaker 2: things that kind of a positive obviously for the most part,
Speaker 2: or you could have something a little edgy in there,
Speaker 2: but you want to have fewer traits, like maybe like
Speaker 2: three personality traits. Because there have been studies where they
Speaker 2: did this. They actually varied how the number of traits
Speaker 2: people put on their profiles. And what they found is
Speaker 2: that when you're first looking and finding, if you're interested
Speaker 2: in the person, you're looking for points of similarity largely,
Speaker 2: and so if you see something a point where you're
Speaker 2: dissimilar that's super off putting dissimilarity. Dissimilarity looms larger that like,
Speaker 2: dissimilarity is more of a turnoff than similarity is a
Speaker 2: turn on. So it's actually we're looking for similarity, which
Speaker 2: is great, and if we see dissimilarity, we're like, oh,
Speaker 2: they're not for me. And so the more traits you put,
Speaker 2: the more chances someone will find something dissimilar right, just
Speaker 2: probably statistically speaking, the less likely it's gonna fascinating, Right, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: True in real life, like, yeah, we're in conversation.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent, like this is this is in the
Speaker 2: initial stages right over time, like it's not so so fragile,
Speaker 2: so instable, but like in those first and these are
Speaker 2: amazing studies with real people, real life, real profiles, and
Speaker 2: then like rigorous experiments to back it up. So yeah,
Speaker 2: that's like a pretty clear and I lived by it
Speaker 2: myself and in fact, when I saw my husband, I
Speaker 2: met my husband on Tinder, so it can work. It's ironic.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: The reason I I and I was looking for a
Speaker 2: long term relationship. The reason why I know it's hilarious.
Speaker 2: It's so ironic because I the reason we met on
Speaker 2: Tinder was because Tinder, at the time I don't know anymore,
Speaker 2: but had this setting where if you paid whatever the
Speaker 2: premium was, you could make it so that the only
Speaker 2: people that could see be seem my profile are the
Speaker 2: people that I've swiped right on. I have to swipe
Speaker 2: right to show up out, which was essential to me
Speaker 2: because I was teaching MBA stues. I was like the
Speaker 2: same age as my students then, so I'm like, I
Speaker 2: cannot have them.
Speaker 1: Seeing me on so smart.
Speaker 2: So that and it was ironically Tinder the only affidab
Speaker 2: that future.
Speaker 1: Wow, And that was really good reveal because I found
Speaker 1: that so endearing.
Speaker 2: It's funny because my husband is kind of embarrassing. People
Speaker 2: are like, where did you meet? I'm like Tinder, But
Speaker 2: I remember being very impressed by his profile because he's
Speaker 2: like his name was C. Like his name is Colin,
Speaker 2: but it just had C. And then he had like
Speaker 2: three awesome, alluring and relatable facts.
Speaker 1: I just was like, tell me more hilarious. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: when I was twenty one, I was dating an older guy.
Speaker 1: I think he was probably like thirty three, much to
Speaker 1: my parents' schagrin. They hated it, but I was so
Speaker 1: infatuated with him and I said I love you first.
Speaker 1: It was the only time in my life in a
Speaker 1: romantic setting that I had said I love you first,
Speaker 1: and he didn't say it back. Said something like thank you.
Speaker 1: So I remember watching Sex in the City and they
Speaker 1: had this great line that said, I love you has
Speaker 1: the shelf life of milk. If it does it, if
Speaker 1: it's not reciprocated and all, it's spoiled, it's amazing.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that. That feels very true.
Speaker 1: I thought so, and I started thinking, Okay, I have
Speaker 1: a week. If he doesn't say it back, I'm out.
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of people you probably didn't
Speaker 1: know he did say it back, but I don't think
Speaker 1: he meant it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I also think that. So now I'm getting
Speaker 2: really nerdy on this because then I'm like, wait, maybe
Speaker 2: we should walk this back and be like, no, if
Speaker 2: they don't say it right away, then it's out, because
Speaker 2: it's like, surely if you love someone like, you're not
Speaker 2: going to just all of a sudden in the week,
Speaker 2: like what's wrong? Why can't you say it now? So
Speaker 2: maybe it's right. I think you're right, Neat it has
Speaker 2: a couple of hours.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's hilarious, So tell me about I love you,
Speaker 1: because I think that a lot of people feel like
Speaker 1: that's a disclosure, and that's so nerve wracking.
Speaker 2: It's a that's a really big one.
Speaker 1: Well, is the fear that I love you is that
Speaker 1: we said too much or that it revealed an imbalance.
Speaker 2: So most people fear saying I love you, and they're
Speaker 2: scared because thank you, right, that's the worst, right, Like totally,
Speaker 2: it's like the kind of the worst rejection we could get.
Speaker 2: And we're exquisitely sensitive to social rejection. Like I'm sure
Speaker 2: if we scan our brains with people who are not
Speaker 2: being requited, that like the pain areas of the brain
Speaker 2: would like up, like it's super bad. Yes, so obviously
Speaker 2: because of that, we're scared of it. But what I
Speaker 2: have learned by doing research on this is that this
Speaker 2: is another example of like hostile learning environment, Like, yes,
Speaker 2: that risk is real, and yes it sucks, but first
Speaker 2: of all, we're overestimating the likelihood that they're going to
Speaker 2: reject us. I think, in fact, I've done surveys on this,
Speaker 2: and I've asked people, hey, if you said I love
Speaker 2: you to someone, When you said I love you to someone,
Speaker 2: did they say it back? And eighty six percent of
Speaker 2: the people said yes, they set it back. And so
Speaker 2: for me, when I was in my mind making me
Speaker 2: feel better, you know, for me, just for me. I'm
Speaker 2: such a pessimist, and maybe I don't know if it
Speaker 2: says something that I don't have game or something. But
Speaker 2: like before I did that study, I'm like, oh, it's
Speaker 2: going to be like twenty percent, twenty percent of the
Speaker 2: time people are going to say but eighty six percent,
Speaker 2: I'm like, they'll be those i'd bet on that. I'd
Speaker 2: bet on that ads are good, right, odds are good.
Speaker 2: So but you don't find it to suage because it's
Speaker 2: just so terrifying.
Speaker 1: No, because I was in the fourteen percent, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know you were in the right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So hostile learning environment, Yeah, you were in the fourteen percent.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So here's the other thing is that if you think
Speaker 2: about two situations. One situation is you love the person
Speaker 2: you fall in love, you say it and they don't
Speaker 2: say it back. Hm. That sucks. Okay. If you had
Speaker 2: to choose, okay one one one sucking is you know
Speaker 2: where I'm going? Which would you choose? Yes?
Speaker 1: Well, because you're right, the risk of not saying it is.
Speaker 2: Worth the thing that's you're right.
Speaker 1: That's actually so okay. Now I get now, I get it.
Speaker 1: If it if it hurts too much to not say
Speaker 1: the thing. It's important to say the thing, but if
Speaker 1: you can get away with not saying the thing, if
Speaker 1: you're me, you just don't say the thing.
Speaker 2: And if you're you, you say at any rate drop
Speaker 2: hints or I mean no, like I'm still a working progress,
Speaker 2: Like I I talk you know it from the book,
Speaker 2: Like I was too chicken to tell my husband that
Speaker 2: I love it, like when I was in love with
Speaker 2: them for a long time, and then when he said
Speaker 2: it to me, I said, me, you too, Like I
Speaker 2: just like I don't know what to do, Like I
Speaker 2: wasn't a proper reciprocation.
Speaker 1: So for sure you write in your book that everyone
Speaker 1: has a story, but we're the only ones who can
Speaker 1: tell them. Oh yeah, So what do we lose if
Speaker 1: we never share our story with the world?
Speaker 2: I know, I mean we lose. Like this is actually
Speaker 2: comes back to the first question, because I know I
Speaker 2: said I had two in mine. The one that I
Speaker 2: blurted was the fun one about the mascot, but like
Speaker 2: the other one was about life and death and how
Speaker 2: some of my like my father has Alzheimer's and we
Speaker 2: will be losing. I mean, it's the slow process of losing.
Speaker 2: And I'm reminded of that every time I see him.
Speaker 2: But also a friend of mine just lost their father,
Speaker 2: and so it's really really to the same illness, and
Speaker 2: so it's really really salient to me of this importance
Speaker 2: of like getting it out of him right because it's gone.
Speaker 2: And then like your children, the wisdom that the experiences
Speaker 2: that you have, you need to share them for people
Speaker 2: to learn and use them and benefit from them. So
Speaker 2: I think this idea of like heritage and memory, they
Speaker 2: just kind of become more and more important, I think.
Speaker 2: And another thought that I had was on this side,
Speaker 2: I've been reflecting because you know, on parents and losing
Speaker 2: them and how one of the beautiful things about mothers,
Speaker 2: well my mother, but I think maybe people share this
Speaker 2: with their mothers too, is that there's my mother is
Speaker 2: the only person in the world. And I have lots
Speaker 2: of people that I love, She's the only person in
Speaker 2: the world that I can She always wants to know
Speaker 2: all of my successes, every single thing, Like any nice email,
Speaker 2: like I'll like forward her afe you and she'll be
Speaker 2: like keep them coming. She's like I want and she
Speaker 2: like always wants to do. And another friend of mine
Speaker 2: just lost her mother and She's like, that's what I
Speaker 2: miss about her, is like she was the only person
Speaker 2: in the world that really really wanted to know every
Speaker 2: single every single celebration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's beautiful. That's what girlfriends are for. We have
Speaker 1: to fill in those.
Speaker 2: Gaps completely completely. Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Have some funny rapid fire for you. And also thank
Speaker 1: you for sharing all of that, because I think that's
Speaker 1: incredibly relatable. Yeah, okay. The number one reveal that is
Speaker 1: in fact tm.
Speaker 2: I well, illegal stuff like.
Speaker 1: I murdered saw And that's really a good call. I
Speaker 1: had a boyfriend who met my parents for the first
Speaker 1: time and told a story about how he like pushed
Speaker 1: a car over like a mountain or something back when
Speaker 1: he was in high school. And my parents were like, Danielle,
Speaker 1: you need to run. Why did he tell They didn't
Speaker 1: care about the fact as much as they were like,
Speaker 1: why would he tell.
Speaker 2: Your parents that?
Speaker 1: Sting? Yeah, yeah, okay. A secret is only dangerous when dot.
Speaker 2: Oh, it exposes something that hurts someone or puts you
Speaker 2: at risk.
Speaker 1: The thing people most often undershare.
Speaker 2: Their feelings.
Speaker 1: The worst place to reveal something serious first date, the
Speaker 1: hardest thing to say at work.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of hard things, I'm overwhelmed, I'm pregnant,
Speaker 2: lots of things. Maybe I'm pregnant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a reveal that almost always builds intimacy.
Speaker 2: I like you.
Speaker 1: Something people should never reveal in a job interview STDs.
Speaker 2: That's just because that's where my mind is. But like, no,
Speaker 2: like that they're a jerk, that they have that, they're
Speaker 2: like that you're a jerk. So if you're a jerk,
Speaker 2: don't reveal that.
Speaker 1: Hilarious. The cure for a disclosure hangover.
Speaker 2: Is often more revealing. If you said something that you
Speaker 2: feel as cringey or off putting to someone, you could
Speaker 2: stop by their office later on or their cube and
Speaker 2: be like, how are you feeling?
Speaker 1: What is a question we should stop casually asking.
Speaker 2: How are you doing when we don't actually want to
Speaker 2: know the answer.
Speaker 1: Love that answer a public reveal you think people misunderstood.
Speaker 2: Hmm, this may be unpopular, but where my mind went
Speaker 2: to social media and Justine Sacho the really horrible joke
Speaker 2: she made about you know, I don't even want to
Speaker 2: repeat it, but like making a glib comment about HIV.
Speaker 2: And I don't think she's a bad person. I don't
Speaker 2: think she meant I just think she said something stupid
Speaker 2: and glib and didn't read the room and she shouldn't
Speaker 2: be like canceled because of.
Speaker 1: That is oversharing underrated or overrated?
Speaker 2: Oh underrated?
Speaker 1: Finish this sentence. Please, if you want to feel closer
Speaker 1: to someone, reveal blank.
Speaker 2: How you're feeling. I know that's kind of lame.
Speaker 1: But something more women should feel allowed to reveal.
Speaker 2: Pregnancy I wish, I mean in an ideal world, an
Speaker 2: ideal world, and also like struggles with infertility, struggles with
Speaker 2: like feelings on popular feelings. Oh, another one is postpartum.
Speaker 2: Like when my baby came out, I didn't feel love,
Speaker 2: and I was like, what's wrong with me? I just
Speaker 2: felt curiosity and wonderment and awe and I need some sleep.
Speaker 2: I didn't know the person, but like I felt ashamed
Speaker 2: that I didn't feel love. And that's fine. I mean, now,
Speaker 2: of course I'm Google Gaga. But everybody's different.
Speaker 1: What's a book you read that changed your life, something
Speaker 1: you think everybody should read.
Speaker 2: Oh, there's so many. One of them that's changed my
Speaker 2: life is the book called Difficult Conversations. There was another. Oh,
Speaker 2: one that I'm reading right now, which is amazing. Is
Speaker 2: unreasonable hospitality it's so good.
Speaker 1: It's so good. Yes, it's not so good that I
Speaker 1: want to go spend eight hundred dollars at eleven Madison
Speaker 1: Park Tasting Menu. But I love the book.
Speaker 2: I love the book. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: What's something every woman should try once?
Speaker 2: Hmmm, something every woman should try once? Well, I recently
Speaker 2: went snowbollbiling and that was cool. I almost flipped us over,
Speaker 2: but love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, doctor John, thank you for your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day,
Speaker 1: to have a good day. I'll see you next week.
Speaker 2: Stop stop, Shop Shop