I asked Bec what’s the difference between being vulnerable and oversharing, particularly in a professional setting, and she referred me to this fabulous podcast between Brené Brown and Adam Grant.
It’s well-worth listening to the entire episode, but here is the key section if you were wondering the same thing.
Adam: How do I figure out what appropriate vulnerability is and how do I know whether it’s safe to be vulnerable?
Brene: So I would say you’ll never succeed in a performative culture if you don’t have some of the things that really are vulnerable, like curiosity.
If you pretend like you know everything in a performative culture and you’re not a learner, that house of cards is going to collapse at some point.
So, what I think people are asking is how much is too much to share about my feelings? And that always leads me to this very simple sentence – vulnerability minus boundaries is not vulnerability.
Are you sharing your emotions… your experiences… to move a work connection or a relationship forward, or are you working your shit out with somebody? And work is not a place to do that.
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