137. Authenticity vs. Privacy
There is so much pressure to be authentic.
In the self-help world, the business world, the dating world, and more.
Experts of all kinds herald the importance of being yourself.
And listen, being yourself is great. You’re lovely and the world benefits when it gets to know you.
But that doesn’t mean you owe the world everything, every detail, every thought that crosses your mind.
You don’t owe your mom, or LinkedIn, or your first date access to every part of you.
You’re allowed to have privacy.
You’re allowed to simmer on ideas before you share them.
You’re allowed to have things you never share.
If it feels good to you to be an open book, then be one.
If you’d prefer to keep things to yourself, but you’re wondering if it’s ok to do so, consider this your permission slip.
As with so many things I teach, this comes down to your values, to who you want to be as a person.
If there’s something you want to share but you’re afraid, maybe it’s worth stretching to be a little more honest and authentic than feels comfortable.
And if there’s something you think you “have to” share but you’d rather not, maybe it’s worth soothing yourself through the discomfort of keeping the information to yourself.
There are no single right answers.
There’s just you deciding what you want to do, who you want to be, and then learning how to live into that.
That’s what we’re talking about on the podcast this week.
And that’s what I help you do in my coaching packages if you want more thorough, customized support.
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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
How to balance authenticity and privacy.
Why you’re allowed to have limits about information you share.
How keeping things to yourself is not the same as lying.
An exercise for giving yourself permission to have privacy, or to examine where you’d like to be more authentic.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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How to Be an Adult in Relationships by David Richo
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about authenticity and privacy.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y'all, how are you doing today? I hope you're having a glorious Wednesday. I'm having a good day and a pretty good week. This last weekend I got to go on a beautiful nature walk with some new-ish Sacramento friends who I'm really enjoying. And then we went out for lunch afterwards and we had amazing Mexican food. It was so delicious. And I just feel really nourished and delighted by that.
I have been working hard to build a community over the last few years since I've moved here, and it's so fun that it’s working, right? It's happening, it's coming together. And to be fair, it's been coming together the whole time. But today, right now, this week, at this moment in my life, I'm just feeling really pleased about it and really proud of myself and really cozy and connected to these people that I've met and made friends with and built relationships with.
And, of course, let me also take a moment to say caveat, when I say I've worked hard, it's true in that I've put myself out there and I've been on Bumble BFF and I've gone on the Bumble BFF friend dates, and I've done that, and I've followed up and da, da, da. And also, a big part of being consistent is not fucking doing shit on whatever the thing is you're trying to be consistent on.
So there's been also big chunks of time where I haven't worked on it. And there's been chunks of time where I've laid on the floor and cried about how much I miss my Seattle friends. And there have been so many times when I've questioned like what the fuck was I doing moving states to somewhere I've never lived and setting up my friend community, not totally from the ground up because I did already have a few Sacramento friends, but sort of closer to the ground up?
So I just wanted to say that and give you a little behind the scenes because I think sometimes it can be easy to look at somebody who's succeeding or doing something and be like, oh, she's so consistent, she's always positive about it. And she's confident, she's so kind to herself all the time. And the reality is sometimes. And also the behind the scenes is I'm obviously a human being also.
And the things I teach on the podcast, I think they're so helpful. I think they're beautiful concepts and they have truly changed my fucking life. And also, I just want y'all to know, deeply, deeply, deeply, that I'm not over here doing them perfectly.
I'm over here thrashing around through my life trying to make it into something beautiful and meaningful for me. And a lot of the things that I come to talk to y'all about, it's because something's not been working in my life for a long ass time. And I spend a lot of time thinking about it and writing about it, then I have an insight, and then I come share it with you.
Obviously, a lot of the stuff in the podcast also is I'm coaching a client and they're working through something and then I come and talk to you about it. But I want to be just really clear that I don't have it all figured out. I know some shit for sure, and I know how to get things done in a lot of areas and ways. And also I'm just like y'all, right?
It's like we had that podcast a few weeks ago called it's not you, it's we, right? It's like we're all kind of doing the same stuff a lot of the time and trying to meet each other and connect with other people and like feel good about ourselves and navigate our own inner emotional landscape and all the things.
So I just wanted to tell you all that. And I think it really leads into this week's podcast too because what I want to talk to you all about is privacy and authenticity.
So something I see a lot is that people really want to be authentic. And there's all this stuff about how being authentic is so important. And listen, I do think it's important to be authentic, but something I see happen sometimes is people think being authentic means they're not allowed to keep anything to themselves. And that gives me a little bit of pause.
So last week on the podcast we talked about changing your mind and I referenced David Richo and his book, How To Be An Adult. And I'm going to reference it again because in addition to what I talked about last week, he also in that book talks about how adults are allowed to keep things to themselves.
And I think that, when I read that in the book and Alex and I talked about it – Because if you didn't listen to last week's episode, Alex gave me that book as a present because that's the kind of people we are. We give each other books called How To Be An Adult by psychologists and we're like, “I love this, read it,” Right? That was Alex giving it to me.
Anyways, I think before that, in my life I kind of had this idea that if I am deeply connected to someone, I have to tell them everything. And I especially think I had this idea that if I'm in a relationship with somebody, like a romantic relationship, I have to tell them everything.
Not like everything, everything, like when I poop. But everything, everything, like everything that's related to them. Like if I were on the street and I saw a stranger and thought they were attractive, I would have to confess that to the person I was dating, otherwise I was hiding something from them.
And I remember Alex really being like, no, I think you're allowed to have your own private life. You're allowed to have your own private thoughts. You need that space to have between you and yourself to kind of simmer and sift through things, think things over, and just let things exist there. And then you need the autonomy to be able to decide what to bring forth. And I was like, what? I did not know that that was something that I could have and that that could be okay.
And I think that's really interesting, too, because I think it ties into, like a lot of us have assumptions about what it means to be in a relationship, what it means to be in a good relationship, what it means to be a good partner in a relationship. Obviously, the same thing about the workplace, right? We have assumptions about what it means to be good at our job, what it means to be good at relationships with others, blah, blah, blah.
And so I had this assumption that I had to tell the other person everything. And when Alex and I had an explicit conversation and we also had the book and the contents of the book to discuss, I kind of got this other viewpoint.
And we were able to have an agreement together where I was like, “Oh, I'm allowed to have this space for me to privately think my thoughts and she knows I have that. And I know that she has that. And for her, she was like, that's not debatable. She just gets to have that. So I was like, oh, I get to have it too. And I mean, relationships are made up of agreements between two people. So you get to decide for yourself.
But I actually think it is really important now that Alex shared the idea with me and reading about it in the David Richo book, and really giving myself that space the last, I think, I guess like five years, I do think it's really important. And it's important to be able to balance, like I bring my authenticity to the relationship, I bring my true being to the relationship. And also I'm allowed to have things that are just for me.
And just because I have something that's just for me, doesn't mean I'm lying or keeping a secret or stuff like that. Although there have been times when she's asked a question and I'm like, “What do I say?” Because I don't want to lie, that's not really who I want to be as a person. But I'm like, oh, this is my private information. So sometimes I'm like, I don't want to share that, which feels so uncomfortable to me.
I was not socially conditioned to say, “I don't want to share that” and have that feel okay. So I'll be honest with you, it doesn't always feel okay to say that. I'm like, oh. I feel so many uncomfortable motions, like I'm going to spontaneously combust. But you know what? I don't spontaneously combust. And the more I do that, the more I get better at it and then we can also have a dialogue around that.
I think so many people don't realize that they're allowed to have limits. And it's like boundaries are such a big thing now, like they're so popular and talked about on the internet. And I think that's because so many people, it's just never been modeled to them that they can just be like, “That's private information and I don't want to share that with you.”
And so then they over give and over give and over give, and then that feels terrible, they feel resentful, and then they have to go learn about boundaries. Anyways, I’m a little bit off topic.
So, authenticity and privacy. So what I kind of wanted to offer to you is like, where in your life are you giving more authenticity than you want to because you think that's what you have to do to be a good person, to be good at your job, to be a good partner, to be a good parent, to be a good whatever?
And where are you not giving yourself permission to have privacy where you'd really like privacy? And how would you need to think about things in order to be able to give yourself the privacy that you would like?
Now, of course, this goes both ways, too. And you may be giving yourself a lot of privacy and maybe you're a person who wants to be giving more authenticity and that feels really vulnerable. It's so interesting, isn't it, that both of them can feel vulnerable? Being authentic can feel super vulnerable. But being private and telling someone else that you're going to keep something private to yourself, that can also feel super vulnerable.
It's almost like being a human is going to feel pretty difficult no matter what you do. I'm making a joke because obviously I teach that and yeah, I've really found it to be true in my own life too. So when I'm teaching this concept in coaching calls, a lot of times the first example I use is someone is like, “Oh, do I have to tell my significant other this thing that I don't want to?” And I'm like, “Well, do you tell them every time you poop?”
And people always look at me like I'm fucking nuts because, first of all, I'm doing something taboo. I'm breaking a social norm by talking about pooping. But second of all, many people feel very comfortable keeping information about pooping super private. And a lot of people won't even admit they poop if you talk to them directly, right?
When Alex and I started dating, I remember I only talk about pooping because my best friend Monet talks about pooping. And that's not a secret because if you've ever followed her on Twitter, she is always talking about how like she has poop tweets. Like she'll tweet about pooping and then see which followers leave, right? So that's what made me comfortable talking about it.
When Alex and I started dating, she was not comfortable. And I mentioned it and she looked at me like I was insane, right? That was her privacy, she didn't want to talk about that shit with me. So, again, it can kind of go both ways and people are allowed to have their privacy.
But when you're thinking about forcing yourself to be more authentic or show more than you want to, I think this is a good example because there's been so many times where I'm not going to tell. I'm pretty comfortable talking about pooping, I'm talking to you about it now.
But there's a lot of people in front of whom I'm not going to say like, oh, I have to go poop, right? I'm going to say like, oh, I need to go to the bathroom or I'm going to say something else to allow me to get out of the situation so that I can go do that. And that is something where I think, again, people feel more comfortable having privacy.
And so I love that example because if there's somewhere else in your life where you want to hold something private, but you don't feel comfortable, thinking about it through the lens of bodily functions might be something that allows you to see there are certain times when we don't give people all the information and we're allowed to do that without like it being that we're lying or misrepresenting.
Now, here's the thing, only you get to decide what the line is. Only you get to decide what goes into the privacy bucket and what goes into the authenticity bucket. And if this is something you've been struggling with, it might be interesting to kind of just make two lists of like, what do I keep private currently? And what do I share currently?
And then I would look at those lists and say, is there anything I'm sharing that I actually really don't want to share? Is there anything I'm keeping private that I actually really don't want to keep private? And then it comes down to if there's something you're sharing that you want to keep private, what's the plan for that, right?
Do you need a new thought? Like, it's okay to keep this information private. Like I'm allowed, that's part of being an adult is that I'm allowed to keep this information private. Or is it like you need a plan, like when someone asks you a XYZ question, you have some kind of pre-written response of what you're going to say so that you don't just answer them.
I'm very much like a talking talkerton, as you probably know from listening to me on the podcast. So if someone asks me a question, if I haven't thought ahead of time about what I'm going to say, I'll just probably tell them like every single thought I'm having in my head, even if I didn't mean to.
This actually happens to me all the time, where someone will say something and I'll go like, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And later I'm like, I didn't need to say all those words. I could have kept some of that private, right? And maybe even I wanted to keep some of it private, but I wasn't prepared enough to actually then do that because it's my default.
Which let me be clear here. I don't think a default is necessarily a natural state, although I think that's what a lot of other people would say. But since we all have social conditioning, and since we were all taught to be how we are, we didn't just choose, probably some combination of choosing and being taught. I think that's my default state, not my natural state.
I don't think something that I've been doing for 20, 30, 40 years is necessarily more natural than something I could teach myself to do now because it's the collection of what I've inferred, what I've been taught, and how I've been based on past decisions, and I don't necessarily see that as being natural. Okay, that was a caveat and an aside.
So if you are sharing more than you want to, if you want to not share something, what new thoughts do you need to have? What feelings of discomfort probably do you need to be able to tolerate? What's your plan for tolerating those? And then, what do you want to do differently? And plan that out ahead of time, and maybe even rehearse it so that you're able to do it?
And then also the opposite, right? If there's something you're keeping private that you want to share, what's the new thought you're going to need? Like it's okay to talk about money because money is another taboo topic. It's obviously not taboo around here, I talk about money all the time. But for a lot of people in “polite” company it's very taboo. And even in a lot of people's families people just don't talk about money, which I think has a lot of negative results.
So maybe let's say in this example, you want to talk about money, right? So you might need a new thought, like it's okay to talk about money. Again, what's going to happen with the feelings, right? You're probably going to need to be able to feel uncomfortable and do something anyway.
Anytime we're learning to do a new action that we're not already doing, we're generally probably going to need to be able to tolerate the feeling of discomfort. That's usually the price of admission. All discomfort is not created equally. If you're tolerating discomfort, make sure you're tolerating it in alignment with your values and who you want to be. Don't just tolerate discomfort for discomfort’s sake. That's also how we get ourselves in situations we don't want to be in so don't do that.
And then again, if you want to share something you've been keeping private, what new thoughts do I need? How am I going to tolerate the sensation of emotional discomfort that's going to come up for me? And then what's my plan for how I do that, right? Do you need a script? Just like we might need a script to not share things we want to keep private, we might need a script to share things we want to start sharing because, again, it's not our default and it's not our practiced way of being to do that.
So it's not going to roll off the tongue or “come naturally.” Usually, when people say something comes naturally, what they actually mean is they've done it a lot of times before. So it's actually more like it's practiced, right? So if you don't have practice at something and it won't “come naturally,” the way you build that for yourself is by practicing, right?
Write it out ahead of time, practice saying it five, or six, or 10, or 12, or 48, or 50,000 times, right? Find a friend that you feel comfortable being silly with and practice with them. Practice in front of the mirror. Record yourself practicing on a video Zoom by yourself, whatever you need to do.
And then also, of course, a caveat, right? At the end of the day, you're an adult and you get to do whatever the fuck you want for whatever reason you want. So you get to decide what you want to share. And you get to decide what you want to keep private, right? You get to choose when you're being authentic, and what being authentic means to you, and when you're being private and what being private means to you.
And also, what I want you to think about is not just what you want to do, but who you want to be and what your values are and what your intention is. Because sometimes we'll be like, “Well, I feel like I should tell my partner this, but I don't want to tell my partner that.” Right? But it's like, who do you want to be as a partner? Do you want to be the kind of partner who talks about that shit or not, right?
Because it can really go either way. Like I don't know, maybe you made a bet with your friends and lost a lot of money, and you don't want to tell your partner. And so you're like, “Oh, Kori said I can keep this private,” which, again, you're an adult, so you can. But is keeping it private, is that in alignment with who you are? Is it in alignment with who you want to be? Is it in alignment with your values? And is it in alignment with the agreements you and your partner have made about money, right?
So what I'm basically saying, to be super fucking clear, is don't take this teaching and use it as permission to violate your own values or to violate who you're trying to become. This teaching, like all teachings on the podcast, is for you. Not to be used against you. Right? So it's for you to become the person you want to become and to give yourself permission to become that person.
And honestly, a lot of what we do on the podcast is about you trying to do super fucking hard, uncomfortable things so that you can be that person. So everything I'm talking about here, some of it is about being more comfortable in that it's about coming more into alignment with who you want to be and how you want to live your life. And not living your life according to whatever culture says you should be.
But often, it actually means having more uncomfortable conversations and feeling more uncomfortable and doing more difficult things. Because generally, that actually is what's in alignment with your satisfied as fuck life. So another way to say this is, I'm talking about you building habits and patterns for the long term, not what's just going to be easiest for you today, on a Wednesday.
I feel like I'm giving y'all a little bit of a lecture and a rant right now. So I apologize, but I can just see this information being kind of taken sideways, and I want to make sure it's not. I mean, listen, do whatever you want because, again, you're an adult.
But I want to be very clear about where I stand, which is that this is to help you become who you want to be and to show up in the way you want to show up and to give yourself permission both to be wildly authentic and loved as the wildly authentic version of you. And to also give you permission to keep some things private and have some things that are just for you if that's actually in alignment with your deepest values and what you would like to have happen and part of your satisfying as fuck life.
Okay, this sounds like a super basic teaching, but I actually think it's pretty deep. So if it doesn't make sense to you or you're struggling with it, that's okay, listen to some other podcasts and come back or listen to it multiple times. And if you want to talk about it more deeply with me, this is exactly the kind of shit that we talk about in one-on-one coaching and it's exactly the kind of shit we talk about in SAF.
And we have another round of SAF coming up in the fall and I would love to have you in it. Or if you would rather have more private coaching, you want to keep more things private, then I would love to coach you one on one as well. So scoot on over to my website, sign up for a consult call and let's talk all about what's going on in your life and what you want to have going on in it, what would be like just fucking insanely delicious. And then let's make a plan to make it happen.
All right, y'all, that's what I have for you this week. Thank you and have a great week. Bye bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y'all, how are you doing today? I hope you're having a glorious Wednesday. I'm having a good day and a pretty good week. This last weekend I got to go on a beautiful nature walk with some new-ish Sacramento friends who I'm really enjoying. And then we went out for lunch afterwards and we had amazing Mexican food. It was so delicious. And I just feel really nourished and delighted by that.
I have been working hard to build a community over the last few years since I've moved here, and it's so fun that it’s working, right? It's happening, it's coming together. And to be fair, it's been coming together the whole time. But today, right now, this week, at this moment in my life, I'm just feeling really pleased about it and really proud of myself and really cozy and connected to these people that I've met and made friends with and built relationships with.
And, of course, let me also take a moment to say caveat, when I say I've worked hard, it's true in that I've put myself out there and I've been on Bumble BFF and I've gone on the Bumble BFF friend dates, and I've done that, and I've followed up and da, da, da. And also, a big part of being consistent is not fucking doing shit on whatever the thing is you're trying to be consistent on.
So there's been also big chunks of time where I haven't worked on it. And there's been chunks of time where I've laid on the floor and cried about how much I miss my Seattle friends. And there have been so many times when I've questioned like what the fuck was I doing moving states to somewhere I've never lived and setting up my friend community, not totally from the ground up because I did already have a few Sacramento friends, but sort of closer to the ground up?
So I just wanted to say that and give you a little behind the scenes because I think sometimes it can be easy to look at somebody who's succeeding or doing something and be like, oh, she's so consistent, she's always positive about it. And she's confident, she's so kind to herself all the time. And the reality is sometimes. And also the behind the scenes is I'm obviously a human being also.
And the things I teach on the podcast, I think they're so helpful. I think they're beautiful concepts and they have truly changed my fucking life. And also, I just want y'all to know, deeply, deeply, deeply, that I'm not over here doing them perfectly.
I'm over here thrashing around through my life trying to make it into something beautiful and meaningful for me. And a lot of the things that I come to talk to y'all about, it's because something's not been working in my life for a long ass time. And I spend a lot of time thinking about it and writing about it, then I have an insight, and then I come share it with you.
Obviously, a lot of the stuff in the podcast also is I'm coaching a client and they're working through something and then I come and talk to you about it. But I want to be just really clear that I don't have it all figured out. I know some shit for sure, and I know how to get things done in a lot of areas and ways. And also I'm just like y'all, right?
It's like we had that podcast a few weeks ago called it's not you, it's we, right? It's like we're all kind of doing the same stuff a lot of the time and trying to meet each other and connect with other people and like feel good about ourselves and navigate our own inner emotional landscape and all the things.
So I just wanted to tell you all that. And I think it really leads into this week's podcast too because what I want to talk to you all about is privacy and authenticity.
So something I see a lot is that people really want to be authentic. And there's all this stuff about how being authentic is so important. And listen, I do think it's important to be authentic, but something I see happen sometimes is people think being authentic means they're not allowed to keep anything to themselves. And that gives me a little bit of pause.
So last week on the podcast we talked about changing your mind and I referenced David Richo and his book, How To Be An Adult. And I'm going to reference it again because in addition to what I talked about last week, he also in that book talks about how adults are allowed to keep things to themselves.
And I think that, when I read that in the book and Alex and I talked about it – Because if you didn't listen to last week's episode, Alex gave me that book as a present because that's the kind of people we are. We give each other books called How To Be An Adult by psychologists and we're like, “I love this, read it,” Right? That was Alex giving it to me.
Anyways, I think before that, in my life I kind of had this idea that if I am deeply connected to someone, I have to tell them everything. And I especially think I had this idea that if I'm in a relationship with somebody, like a romantic relationship, I have to tell them everything.
Not like everything, everything, like when I poop. But everything, everything, like everything that's related to them. Like if I were on the street and I saw a stranger and thought they were attractive, I would have to confess that to the person I was dating, otherwise I was hiding something from them.
And I remember Alex really being like, no, I think you're allowed to have your own private life. You're allowed to have your own private thoughts. You need that space to have between you and yourself to kind of simmer and sift through things, think things over, and just let things exist there. And then you need the autonomy to be able to decide what to bring forth. And I was like, what? I did not know that that was something that I could have and that that could be okay.
And I think that's really interesting, too, because I think it ties into, like a lot of us have assumptions about what it means to be in a relationship, what it means to be in a good relationship, what it means to be a good partner in a relationship. Obviously, the same thing about the workplace, right? We have assumptions about what it means to be good at our job, what it means to be good at relationships with others, blah, blah, blah.
And so I had this assumption that I had to tell the other person everything. And when Alex and I had an explicit conversation and we also had the book and the contents of the book to discuss, I kind of got this other viewpoint.
And we were able to have an agreement together where I was like, “Oh, I'm allowed to have this space for me to privately think my thoughts and she knows I have that. And I know that she has that. And for her, she was like, that's not debatable. She just gets to have that. So I was like, oh, I get to have it too. And I mean, relationships are made up of agreements between two people. So you get to decide for yourself.
But I actually think it is really important now that Alex shared the idea with me and reading about it in the David Richo book, and really giving myself that space the last, I think, I guess like five years, I do think it's really important. And it's important to be able to balance, like I bring my authenticity to the relationship, I bring my true being to the relationship. And also I'm allowed to have things that are just for me.
And just because I have something that's just for me, doesn't mean I'm lying or keeping a secret or stuff like that. Although there have been times when she's asked a question and I'm like, “What do I say?” Because I don't want to lie, that's not really who I want to be as a person. But I'm like, oh, this is my private information. So sometimes I'm like, I don't want to share that, which feels so uncomfortable to me.
I was not socially conditioned to say, “I don't want to share that” and have that feel okay. So I'll be honest with you, it doesn't always feel okay to say that. I'm like, oh. I feel so many uncomfortable motions, like I'm going to spontaneously combust. But you know what? I don't spontaneously combust. And the more I do that, the more I get better at it and then we can also have a dialogue around that.
I think so many people don't realize that they're allowed to have limits. And it's like boundaries are such a big thing now, like they're so popular and talked about on the internet. And I think that's because so many people, it's just never been modeled to them that they can just be like, “That's private information and I don't want to share that with you.”
And so then they over give and over give and over give, and then that feels terrible, they feel resentful, and then they have to go learn about boundaries. Anyways, I’m a little bit off topic.
So, authenticity and privacy. So what I kind of wanted to offer to you is like, where in your life are you giving more authenticity than you want to because you think that's what you have to do to be a good person, to be good at your job, to be a good partner, to be a good parent, to be a good whatever?
And where are you not giving yourself permission to have privacy where you'd really like privacy? And how would you need to think about things in order to be able to give yourself the privacy that you would like?
Now, of course, this goes both ways, too. And you may be giving yourself a lot of privacy and maybe you're a person who wants to be giving more authenticity and that feels really vulnerable. It's so interesting, isn't it, that both of them can feel vulnerable? Being authentic can feel super vulnerable. But being private and telling someone else that you're going to keep something private to yourself, that can also feel super vulnerable.
It's almost like being a human is going to feel pretty difficult no matter what you do. I'm making a joke because obviously I teach that and yeah, I've really found it to be true in my own life too. So when I'm teaching this concept in coaching calls, a lot of times the first example I use is someone is like, “Oh, do I have to tell my significant other this thing that I don't want to?” And I'm like, “Well, do you tell them every time you poop?”
And people always look at me like I'm fucking nuts because, first of all, I'm doing something taboo. I'm breaking a social norm by talking about pooping. But second of all, many people feel very comfortable keeping information about pooping super private. And a lot of people won't even admit they poop if you talk to them directly, right?
When Alex and I started dating, I remember I only talk about pooping because my best friend Monet talks about pooping. And that's not a secret because if you've ever followed her on Twitter, she is always talking about how like she has poop tweets. Like she'll tweet about pooping and then see which followers leave, right? So that's what made me comfortable talking about it.
When Alex and I started dating, she was not comfortable. And I mentioned it and she looked at me like I was insane, right? That was her privacy, she didn't want to talk about that shit with me. So, again, it can kind of go both ways and people are allowed to have their privacy.
But when you're thinking about forcing yourself to be more authentic or show more than you want to, I think this is a good example because there's been so many times where I'm not going to tell. I'm pretty comfortable talking about pooping, I'm talking to you about it now.
But there's a lot of people in front of whom I'm not going to say like, oh, I have to go poop, right? I'm going to say like, oh, I need to go to the bathroom or I'm going to say something else to allow me to get out of the situation so that I can go do that. And that is something where I think, again, people feel more comfortable having privacy.
And so I love that example because if there's somewhere else in your life where you want to hold something private, but you don't feel comfortable, thinking about it through the lens of bodily functions might be something that allows you to see there are certain times when we don't give people all the information and we're allowed to do that without like it being that we're lying or misrepresenting.
Now, here's the thing, only you get to decide what the line is. Only you get to decide what goes into the privacy bucket and what goes into the authenticity bucket. And if this is something you've been struggling with, it might be interesting to kind of just make two lists of like, what do I keep private currently? And what do I share currently?
And then I would look at those lists and say, is there anything I'm sharing that I actually really don't want to share? Is there anything I'm keeping private that I actually really don't want to keep private? And then it comes down to if there's something you're sharing that you want to keep private, what's the plan for that, right?
Do you need a new thought? Like, it's okay to keep this information private. Like I'm allowed, that's part of being an adult is that I'm allowed to keep this information private. Or is it like you need a plan, like when someone asks you a XYZ question, you have some kind of pre-written response of what you're going to say so that you don't just answer them.
I'm very much like a talking talkerton, as you probably know from listening to me on the podcast. So if someone asks me a question, if I haven't thought ahead of time about what I'm going to say, I'll just probably tell them like every single thought I'm having in my head, even if I didn't mean to.
This actually happens to me all the time, where someone will say something and I'll go like, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And later I'm like, I didn't need to say all those words. I could have kept some of that private, right? And maybe even I wanted to keep some of it private, but I wasn't prepared enough to actually then do that because it's my default.
Which let me be clear here. I don't think a default is necessarily a natural state, although I think that's what a lot of other people would say. But since we all have social conditioning, and since we were all taught to be how we are, we didn't just choose, probably some combination of choosing and being taught. I think that's my default state, not my natural state.
I don't think something that I've been doing for 20, 30, 40 years is necessarily more natural than something I could teach myself to do now because it's the collection of what I've inferred, what I've been taught, and how I've been based on past decisions, and I don't necessarily see that as being natural. Okay, that was a caveat and an aside.
So if you are sharing more than you want to, if you want to not share something, what new thoughts do you need to have? What feelings of discomfort probably do you need to be able to tolerate? What's your plan for tolerating those? And then, what do you want to do differently? And plan that out ahead of time, and maybe even rehearse it so that you're able to do it?
And then also the opposite, right? If there's something you're keeping private that you want to share, what's the new thought you're going to need? Like it's okay to talk about money because money is another taboo topic. It's obviously not taboo around here, I talk about money all the time. But for a lot of people in “polite” company it's very taboo. And even in a lot of people's families people just don't talk about money, which I think has a lot of negative results.
So maybe let's say in this example, you want to talk about money, right? So you might need a new thought, like it's okay to talk about money. Again, what's going to happen with the feelings, right? You're probably going to need to be able to feel uncomfortable and do something anyway.
Anytime we're learning to do a new action that we're not already doing, we're generally probably going to need to be able to tolerate the feeling of discomfort. That's usually the price of admission. All discomfort is not created equally. If you're tolerating discomfort, make sure you're tolerating it in alignment with your values and who you want to be. Don't just tolerate discomfort for discomfort’s sake. That's also how we get ourselves in situations we don't want to be in so don't do that.
And then again, if you want to share something you've been keeping private, what new thoughts do I need? How am I going to tolerate the sensation of emotional discomfort that's going to come up for me? And then what's my plan for how I do that, right? Do you need a script? Just like we might need a script to not share things we want to keep private, we might need a script to share things we want to start sharing because, again, it's not our default and it's not our practiced way of being to do that.
So it's not going to roll off the tongue or “come naturally.” Usually, when people say something comes naturally, what they actually mean is they've done it a lot of times before. So it's actually more like it's practiced, right? So if you don't have practice at something and it won't “come naturally,” the way you build that for yourself is by practicing, right?
Write it out ahead of time, practice saying it five, or six, or 10, or 12, or 48, or 50,000 times, right? Find a friend that you feel comfortable being silly with and practice with them. Practice in front of the mirror. Record yourself practicing on a video Zoom by yourself, whatever you need to do.
And then also, of course, a caveat, right? At the end of the day, you're an adult and you get to do whatever the fuck you want for whatever reason you want. So you get to decide what you want to share. And you get to decide what you want to keep private, right? You get to choose when you're being authentic, and what being authentic means to you, and when you're being private and what being private means to you.
And also, what I want you to think about is not just what you want to do, but who you want to be and what your values are and what your intention is. Because sometimes we'll be like, “Well, I feel like I should tell my partner this, but I don't want to tell my partner that.” Right? But it's like, who do you want to be as a partner? Do you want to be the kind of partner who talks about that shit or not, right?
Because it can really go either way. Like I don't know, maybe you made a bet with your friends and lost a lot of money, and you don't want to tell your partner. And so you're like, “Oh, Kori said I can keep this private,” which, again, you're an adult, so you can. But is keeping it private, is that in alignment with who you are? Is it in alignment with who you want to be? Is it in alignment with your values? And is it in alignment with the agreements you and your partner have made about money, right?
So what I'm basically saying, to be super fucking clear, is don't take this teaching and use it as permission to violate your own values or to violate who you're trying to become. This teaching, like all teachings on the podcast, is for you. Not to be used against you. Right? So it's for you to become the person you want to become and to give yourself permission to become that person.
And honestly, a lot of what we do on the podcast is about you trying to do super fucking hard, uncomfortable things so that you can be that person. So everything I'm talking about here, some of it is about being more comfortable in that it's about coming more into alignment with who you want to be and how you want to live your life. And not living your life according to whatever culture says you should be.
But often, it actually means having more uncomfortable conversations and feeling more uncomfortable and doing more difficult things. Because generally, that actually is what's in alignment with your satisfied as fuck life. So another way to say this is, I'm talking about you building habits and patterns for the long term, not what's just going to be easiest for you today, on a Wednesday.
I feel like I'm giving y'all a little bit of a lecture and a rant right now. So I apologize, but I can just see this information being kind of taken sideways, and I want to make sure it's not. I mean, listen, do whatever you want because, again, you're an adult.
But I want to be very clear about where I stand, which is that this is to help you become who you want to be and to show up in the way you want to show up and to give yourself permission both to be wildly authentic and loved as the wildly authentic version of you. And to also give you permission to keep some things private and have some things that are just for you if that's actually in alignment with your deepest values and what you would like to have happen and part of your satisfying as fuck life.
Okay, this sounds like a super basic teaching, but I actually think it's pretty deep. So if it doesn't make sense to you or you're struggling with it, that's okay, listen to some other podcasts and come back or listen to it multiple times. And if you want to talk about it more deeply with me, this is exactly the kind of shit that we talk about in one-on-one coaching and it's exactly the kind of shit we talk about in SAF.
And we have another round of SAF coming up in the fall and I would love to have you in it. Or if you would rather have more private coaching, you want to keep more things private, then I would love to coach you one on one as well. So scoot on over to my website, sign up for a consult call and let's talk all about what's going on in your life and what you want to have going on in it, what would be like just fucking insanely delicious. And then let's make a plan to make it happen.
All right, y'all, that's what I have for you this week. Thank you and have a great week. Bye bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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