Secret #89: The Power of Oversharing with Leslie John
Recommended Episodes
We’re often warned about the dangers of TMI, but Leslie John’s research suggests we may be overlooking the costs of TLI—too little information. Leslie explains how under-sharing can affect our wellbeing, relationships, and even our effectiveness at work, and why we tend to remember the immediate cringe of saying too much while barely noticing the opportunities we lose by saying too little.
Together, Leslie, Emma, and Chris explore what it takes to reveal ourselves well: knowing what we’re feeling, paying attention to reciprocity, understanding why we want to share, and recognizing that the line between openness and TMI changes with context. They also discuss intimacy, disclosure at work, psychological safety, and why occasionally feeling a little uncomfortable about what we’ve shared might actually be a sign that we’re expanding our capacity for connection.
Highlights:
Under-sharing can cost us connection, trust, and opportunities.
Feeling truly known requires allowing other people to know more of who we actually are.
We tend to overreact to the immediate discomfort of oversharing and under-react to the quieter costs of saying too little.
Reciprocity is one of the best clues for knowing whether to share more or pull back.
Before disclosing, consider why you want to share and what you hope it will accomplish.
At work, transparency can provide many of the benefits of openness without requiring deeply vulnerable disclosure.
Occasionally experiencing a little “TMI cringe” may simply mean you’re practicing sharing beyond your usual comfort zone.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:41 Meet Leslie John
01:53 TMI vs. TLI: Are we actually under-sharing?
05:51 The hidden costs of saying too little
09:16 Under-sharing, missed opportunities, and trust
11:31 Why feeling known matters in relationships
14:56 What if you don’t know how you feel?
16:34 Journaling and putting feelings into words
19:51 The disclosure dilemmas we face every day
25:40 How to read the room before sharing
27:27 Reciprocity: the biggest clue for when to share
32:53 How mutual disclosure creates connection
36:27 How sharing changes in long-term relationships
42:29 Know why you’re sharing
44:04 How much should we reveal at work?
45:30 Transparency vs. vulnerability
49:31 Psychological safety and leadership
54:01 Why a little TMI might actually be good
More about Leslie John:
Leslie John is a behavioral scientist and professor at Harvard Business School whose research explores how people make decisions about what to reveal and conceal. Her work examines self-disclosure, privacy, trust, and interpersonal communication, including the consequences of both oversharing and under-sharing. She is the author of Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing
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[00:00:00]
[00:00:41] Meet Leslie K John
[00:00:41] Emma Waddington: Welcome to Life's Dirty Little Secrets. I'm Emma Waddington
[00:00:45] Chris McCurry: And I'm Chris McCurry. And today our guest has two decades studying something most of do dozens times a day without ever thinking about it: deciding what to say and what to keep to ourselves. [00:01:00] Leslie K. John is the James E. Burke Professor Business Administration at Harvard Business School, a behavioral scientist with a PhD in behavioral decision research from Carnegie Mellon. Her work on privacy, self-disclosure, and decision-making has been published in the leading journals in her field and covered everywhere from The New York Times to The Economist. Her new book is Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing, and it makes an argument that runs directly against the advice most of us were raised on. For example, my mother would often advise before an important ev-event, "Keep a smile on your face and keep your big mouth shut." So welcome, Leslie, to Life's Dirty Little Secrets.
[00:01:48] Leslie John: Oh, what a lovely intro. Thank you. It's so great to be here
[00:01:51] Emma Waddington: Yeah, it Oh, thank you for being here.
[00:01:53] Too Little Information
[00:01:53] Chris McCurry: So we're all familiar with the pitfalls of TMI, too much information.
[00:01:59] Chris McCurry: But your [00:02:00] research suggests that there could be TLI, too little information,
[00:02:03] Chris McCurry: what you describe as under-sharing.
[00:02:06] Chris McCurry: So what led you to this insight, and what constitutes under-sharing?
[00:02:11] Leslie John: Oh, that's such a great question.
[00:02:13] Recovering Privacy Expert
[00:02:13] Leslie John: Well, the truth is I am a recovering privacy expert. Maybe I'm recovered at this point, I can safely say. But that is to say, for the first half of my professional career, I studied all the mistakes people make largely online with oversharing,
[00:02:29] Leslie John: right? We all know
[00:02:30] Leslie John: these horror stories.
[00:02:31] Leslie John: We see them of people who, vent about their boss on Facebook, forget that their boss is a friend,
[00:02:38] Leslie John: and get fired, and so on. There's so many stories like this, and those are real mistakes. But as I maybe matured and also took a bigger zoomed out picture of my work, I realized that that was not wrong, but it's also not right in the sense that, yes, we overshare a lot, especially online.
[00:02:58] Leslie John: It's a very peculiar place for [00:03:00] us.
[00:03:00] Leslie John: But in life
[00:03:03] Leslie John: as a whole, there's very
[00:03:04] Leslie John: important reasons why we open up, and once I looked at my research and that of others from that lens of, "Hmm, maybe the question isn't are we oversharing, but rather are we sharing enough?"
[00:03:16] Leslie John: I started to realize that I think the much bigger problem in professional and personal lives is actually under-sharing, not oversharing
[00:03:27] Chris McCurry: And so what are the the dynamics between oversharing and under-sharing that would, that would suggest that we might wanna do a little more sharing?
[00:03:36] Leslie John: Yeah.
[00:03:37] Guinea Pig Oversharing
[00:03:37] Leslie John: Well, it's interesting because when I wrote my book,
[00:03:41] Leslie John: it took me a long time, took me four years.
[00:03:43] Leslie John: Part of it was because as I wrote my book, I used myself as a guinea pig.
[00:03:48] Leslie John: It's funny because as I-- when I did the scientific research, I... It sounds crazy to say, but I didn't actually really apply the work myself.
[00:03:58] Leslie John: It's this maybe bias that we [00:04:00] researchers have of like, you wanna be objective, and so you never really think about yourself as, as potentially a human that could use this work. And then when I wrote the book, so I believed the work, but I hadn't
[00:04:11] Leslie John: internalized it 'cause I wasn't
[00:04:12] Leslie John: really doing it. And then when I wrote the book, which is a very different
[00:04:15] Leslie John: endeavor, it's-- I wanted it to be a non-boring but
[00:04:19] Leslie John: accurate book, I started
[00:04:21] Leslie John: thinking, "Oh, what if I use
[00:04:22] Leslie John: myself as a guinea pig?" And I just kept trying to share a little bit more than I thought I should. And every time I pushed it, it was like I had more friends, I had more influence at work, and it was like-- So I really, I really realized how much I was missing out by not sharing.
[00:04:40] Leslie John: And the second thing as I wrote the book was I reflected on moments in my own life to date where I had that gut-wrenching feeling of, "Oh my goodness, I've overshared," right? We all know that cringey, it's like I just poured gasoline all over my body and lit a match. It's just, "Ah, did I say that?" And [00:05:00] when I thought about it in a more metered way as time, like looking back, I thought, "Wow, that sucked in the moment.
[00:05:06] Leslie John: It was cringey." But every single one of these cases, there was a long-run benefit, and that benefit massively outweighed the momentary cringe factor.
[00:05:15] Leslie John: And I share some of these stories, you're welcome, in the book partly 'cause I think they're funny and I like self-deprecation. But, but the bigger picture is like, even though something can be cringey and feel TMI in the moment, but it can also be net-net the right thing to do
[00:05:30] Emma Waddington: I love your examples in the book, and I
[00:05:33] Emma Waddington: think,
[00:05:33] Emma Waddington: I really enjoyed-- I mentioned it before we started recording, I really enjoyed the audiobook. I really recommend that people listen to you because as you're telling the examples, I felt the feelings. I could really put myself in your shoes.
[00:05:48] Emma Waddington: I think you described them very well. Anyway, the examples are fantastic.
[00:05:51] Costs of Under Sharing
[00:05:51] Emma Waddington: before we go into some of those fabulous ones I was just thinking, so what would be the cost of too little information? Can we give an [00:06:00] example?
[00:06:00] Emma Waddington: because, as Chris said his mom would tell him, I think most of us probably see that as a bit of a virtue somewhere along the lines, is that there is a bigger risk in saying something wrong than not saying anything at all.
[00:06:14] Emma Waddington: But that's actually erroneous, right? There is a cost to too little information, so perhaps we can start there with thinking about what are some of those costs.
[00:06:24] Leslie John: And yes, and to your point, like it often is virtuous to keep mum, especially I'm thinking in corporate environments, right? Like tact is
[00:06:32] Leslie John: wonderful, right? So it's not say anything but what would be tangible? So if we go back to actually Chris's, childhood,
[00:06:40] Chris McCurry: Well, please
[00:06:41] Leslie John: childh- I know, the, the mo- your most favorite thing ever to talk about.
[00:06:45] Well Being and Expression
[00:06:45] Leslie John: you know, if you think about what are the risks of under-sharing, I think when- where my mind immediately goes is actually well-being. And, and that's where-- So there's this study that I encountered as I was working on the book that looked at [00:07:00] preschoolers who,
[00:07:01] Leslie John: What they did with the preschoolers is they got the preschoolers to watch a scary video, and as the children watched the video, the researchers
[00:07:09] Leslie John: videotaped
[00:07:11] Leslie John: their faces. So they wanted to see how much did the children express?
[00:07:15] Leslie John: How much did they let out? Were they super guarded and constrained, or did they just let their, their feelings show on their faces? So they measured that, and they also measured galvanic skin response, right? So we know the grand tradition of psychological research. I know. It's like you imagine these little kiddies with sensors on their finger.
[00:07:33] Leslie John: It was done in the '70s. I don't know. yeah.
[00:07:36] Chris McCurry: get this past
[00:07:37] Leslie John: Yeah, IRV, the
[00:07:39] Chris McCurry: subjects committee? Yeah.
[00:07:41] Leslie John: I know. I know. So they, that's like how sweaty your, your hands are. Of course, wh- when we get anxious, sometimes our, we have these physiological effects. So they essentially wanted to see what is the relationship between letting it out on your face, showing feeling, and physiological stress. And what they found [00:08:00] in children, like three and four-year-olds, that the more the children let it out, expressed on their faces, the less stressed they were. Which, to your point about the dangers, like it suggested that holding it in is literally bad for your, your well-being. And of course, there's been many, many studies since with true experiments and older people, younger people that, that show the same thing.
[00:08:23] Leslie John: It's, it's, it's bad for our well-being. The thing that then really, really struck me about this work is that I have two little children. I have two boys, four and six,
[00:08:32] Leslie John: and in this study, the researchers tracked the children for a couple years after. Now, at this time of the, the first results, there was no gender differences. Boys were just as expressive as girls. But you can see where I'm going with this. Just a couple years later, the boys were suddenly, there were gender differences, and they were suppressing. Which really shook me, right? It suggests that boys are, nature, nurture, [00:09:00] whatever the combo is, they're, they learn
[00:09:03] Leslie John: to withhold, and that's not good for them.
[00:09:06] Emma Waddington: No.
[00:09:07] Leslie John: lots of other dangers of over- of under-sharing that we could
[00:09:10] Leslie John: talk about. But when you ask like what's, what's a core danger, I think th- that's where my mind goes.
[00:09:16] Missed Opportunities and Trust
[00:09:21] Leslie John: The other, the other, the other kind of set of, of dangers are often missed opportunities. So if
[00:09:23] Leslie John: you don't really-- If you're never real at work, if you're never a little bit edgy or a little bit unguarded, your colleagues don't quite trust you. Friendships that flounder, romances, even long-term relationships, this is
[00:09:35] Leslie John: something that can happen in long-term relationships. We think we know the other person more than we do. We're overconfident, and then we stop asking and we stop sharing, and then you wake up 12 years later
[00:09:47] Leslie John: and you don't really understand who you're, who you're with, right?
[00:09:50] Leslie John: And, and it kind of is this thing that makes you slowly grow apart. But that's, in fact, one of the challenges of why we make this mistake of under-sharing, because the [00:10:00] nature of the mistakes are often not visceral, right? Missed opportunities in life is not, even to explain it is a bit cognitively complex compared with when you overshare, the sting is immediate and visceral.
[00:10:14] Leslie John: You get immediate negative social feedback. So there's this, it's kind of a hostile learning environment. We overweight in the sense that we overreact to mistakes of saying too much, and we under-react to mistakes of not sharing.
[00:10:28] Emma Waddington: Yeah. Because if you haven't, like you're saying, you d- don't have a response. If you haven't said something, there's no response to shape your behavior. But it's a more long-term. And it was... Yeah, you were saying about the not being known.
[00:10:42] Emma Waddington: You talk about that in the book, how important
[00:10:44] Emma Waddington: it is for humans to feel really known and understood, and I do quite a bit of couples therapy, and
[00:10:50] Emma Waddington: often that's the biggest pain point in
[00:10:52] Emma Waddington: relationships, is not feeling like your partner really knows you.
[00:10:56] Emma Waddington: And so that's, that takes effort to feel really [00:11:00] known, and it requires lots of sharing. In fact, daily chit-chatting, daily updating. And friendship is built in that way. So
[00:11:10] Emma Waddington: as you were talking about the too little information, not being known is incredibly painful and lonely.
[00:11:15] Leslie John: Yeah,
[00:11:16] Emma Waddington: And, it, it takes, effort to feel known, but
[00:11:20] Emma Waddington: if you withhold information, if you don't talk about how you're feeling and who you are, then you won't get to feel known by anyone.
[00:11:27] Emma Waddington: You
[00:11:28] Leslie John: Right,
[00:11:29] Emma Waddington: know, that under-sharing
[00:11:30] Leslie John: right.
[00:11:31] Feeling Known in Love
[00:11:35] Leslie John: And in relationships, one of my favorite set of studies is Bill Swann's self-verification work where he looks at, among other types of relationships, romantic relationships, and being known is so important. Feeling like your partner knows you for who you really are is so important such that couples are happier when they feel their partner knows them warts and all, so imagine two couples. One couple is [00:12:00] my husband thinks I'm a goddess all the time. He has these super positive illusions, right? Which is, sounds like it feels good. I would be happy with that. But it turns out Bill Swann has found that people are happier when if I have low self-esteem, and my husband, instead of thinking I'm a goddess all the time, he's like, "Oh, Leslie, sometimes you have low self-esteem."
[00:12:20] Leslie John: Even the
[00:12:21] Leslie John: negative stuff, it's like if, if
[00:12:22] Leslie John: idealization maybe works in the beginning, but over time, you actually feel more comfortable and love and intimate when you feel your partner really knows you, especially your flaws, right? That's really
[00:12:35] Leslie John: what p- what knowing someone is.
[00:12:37] Leslie John: So that I find fascinating.
[00:12:39] Chris McCurry: Well, it's,
[00:12:40] Chris McCurry: it's, it's knowing all that and I still wanna be with you
[00:12:43] Leslie John: Exactly. Exact- that's Exactly. why. Right, that's
[00:12:46] Leslie John: why it's so compelling. You're so right. Yes.
[00:12:49] Leslie John: I have... He loves me even though I have stinky feet? Oh my gosh, like it's swoon.
[00:12:55] Emma Waddington: That is so true. The basis of romance
[00:12:58] Emma Waddington: know-
[00:12:58] Leslie John: Yep, totally. The, [00:13:00] the kernel of everything.
[00:13:02] Chris McCurry: Ja
[00:13:03] Emma Waddington: And I guess that helps us to think about trust, right? How do you build trust
[00:13:08] Emma Waddington: in a, in relationships or in any way in any kind of relationship, not just romantic, is this ability to... And actually, the, the Gottmans talk about, the first couple of years you're in this sort of dance of mostly fueled by oxytocin, and it's only after the second year where you start to have some conflict.
[00:13:30] Emma Waddington: And, there's that tension, the disagreements, some rupture, and that rupture is where you create the trust, the
[00:13:39] Emma Waddington: ability to have the hard conversations and come back and still be there and make a mess of things and give too much information. And that's how we build trust. We don't build trust when things are really pretty,
[00:13:53] Emma Waddington: and clean, and neat.
[00:13:55] Leslie John: Completely
[00:13:56] Emma Waddington: think that feels, that's pretty important,
[00:13:59] Emma Waddington: and [00:14:00] the risk of not sharing and not being open and honest and authentic
[00:14:05] Leslie John: Yeah, I think of conflict as it's such an opportunity in relationships. It sucks, it's super uncomfortable, but if you're able to navigate it, wow, the p- opportunity to, to get even closer. 'Cause yeah, conflicts are so often misunderstanding or miscommunication, and if you get past the defensiveness and the hurt oh, it can be... You're totally right. It can make you-- I just gave myself goosebumps.
[00:14:28] Leslie John: But it's so hard.
[00:14:30] Leslie John: Our lizard brains go crazy.
[00:14:31] Chris McCurry: Well, it is, it is a leap of faith
[00:14:34] Leslie John: Yes
[00:14:35] Chris McCurry: that
[00:14:35] Chris McCurry: step and say, "This is how I'm feeling right now," or, "This is, what I'm thinking right now,"
[00:14:40] Chris McCurry: or,
[00:14:41] Chris McCurry: "This is what, what you just did evoked in me."
[00:14:44] Chris McCurry: Because, we don't know and,
[00:14:47] Naming Feelings Tools
[00:14:47] Leslie John: even found on the We Don't Know, I even found-- So as I was writing this book, I made several realizations about myself, including, so when I was learning, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, yeah, this, I should do this [00:15:00] with my husband more. I should share more about my feelings." And, and I realized, wow, I don't actually know how I feel. Like sometimes the issue of under-sharing is not just a communication issue, but that's a doozy and that's really tough. But for me, it was a more core issue, which is that I literally did not know how I felt.
[00:15:20] Leslie John: I remember this, this session with my amazing therapist
[00:15:24] Leslie John: where I was kvetching about something. I don't even remember what it was, which maybe is a good thing. And I was saying cognitions. I'm like, "Oh, well, I think this about it, and all these other people, they might feel this way." And, and he kept saying, "Okay, but how do you feel? How do you feel? How do you feel? How do you feel?" And I kept-- And then until finally I said to him, true story, I'm a card-carrying psychologist, and I said to him, "What is a feeling?"
[00:15:49] Leslie John: And then he gave me this emotions wheel, which is such an amazing tool, and I have one in my book, as actually, the one I made for my book is even simpler than the one that's out there 'cause I needed a [00:16:00] lot of remedial help. But it essentially helps you to take these swirling unidentified feelings and think about them in a more precise way.
[00:16:08] Leslie John: So,
[00:16:09] Leslie John: It's really
[00:16:09] Leslie John: interesting, the depths of this problem sometimes.
[00:16:12] Emma Waddington: It's complicated. It's complicated. And you're absolutely right. You've got to start with knowing what you want to say
[00:16:20] Journaling and Brain Benefits
[00:16:20] Chris McCurry: I'm thinking about journaling
[00:16:22] Chris McCurry: and sometimes just, talking to ourselves,
[00:16:25] Leslie John: Oh my gosh, yes
[00:16:27] Chris McCurry: as free, as freely as possible can, can be an insight into how we're feeling and thinking.
[00:16:33] Leslie John: It's so interesting, isn't it?
[00:16:35] Chris McCurry: Emma knows that I'm always throwing quotes around,
[00:16:38] Chris McCurry: Mark Twain.
[00:16:39] Chris McCurry: But this was-- I can't remember where I heard this. I think it was E.M. Forster, the novelist, in "Essay," he said, "How can I know what I think until I see what I say?"
[00:16:51] Leslie John: Oh, wow. That's a great quote.
[00:16:55] Chris McCurry: Yeah.
[00:16:55] Chris McCurry: How can I know what I think until I see what I say?
[00:16:58] Chris McCurry: 'Cause sometimes when we're [00:17:00] journaling, you
[00:17:01] Chris McCurry: know, we-- stuff comes out of the end of the pen that you
[00:17:03] Chris McCurry: go like, "Whoa, I didn't know I thought that," or, "That's a nice
[00:17:07] Chris McCurry: way
[00:17:07] Chris McCurry: of describing that." But, but sometimes we just have to get it out there and take a look at it, and we can always go,
[00:17:14] Chris McCurry: "Well, let, let me try that again. That doesn't sound quite right."
[00:17:17] Chris McCurry: But we have to take
[00:17:18] Chris McCurry: that-- We have to take the leap
[00:17:20] Leslie John: Right, and it's not intuitive until you do it.
[00:17:23] Leslie John: So, so there's tons of you may be familiar with fascinating work on even in neuroscience on what does that process look like. It's like, well, what about-- I'm thinking in my mind, what's the difference between just thinking versus writing it down?
[00:17:35] Leslie John: It seems trivial, right?
[00:17:37] Leslie John: But it's of course not trivial. The
[00:17:39] Leslie John: process of taking those things swirling around your head and, and putting words on it, which is what writing it down or saying it out loud, that it forces that. That process invokes your prefrontal cortex, your more logical, reasonable side of your brain, and so it, it literally makes-- It, it makes you-- I like to think of it as it makes you become the CEO of your [00:18:00] thoughts.
[00:18:00] Leslie John: Yes, I'm a business school professor, right? It gives you-- It-- And, and what I love about this too is that you don't need to even try. It's not like you don't have to think about it and say, "I need to try to process my feelings. I need to make sense of it." Nope, just write them down.
[00:18:13] Leslie John: That process
[00:18:14] Leslie John: Does-- And there's, of course, been many studies on this.
[00:18:17] Leslie John: I'm thinking of James Pennebaker, Pennebaker's seminal work on disclosive writing, where people essentially journal,
[00:18:24] Leslie John: and
[00:18:25] Leslie John: the people who journal, he randomizes to journal versus does not. The people who journal, they have better subjective, higher subjective wellbeing, and even there's sometimes physiological metrics.
[00:18:35] Leslie John: He did a study with HIV patients, like randomizing them to do this diary, diary writing or not, and then he, again, this is another one of these studies that was done a while ago, drew their blood, and the
[00:18:47] Leslie John: ones randomized to the writing task had, what was it? I'm not an immunologist, but it had, they had like higher T cell counts.
[00:18:54] Chris McCurry: Probably, yeah.
[00:18:55] Chris McCurry: Probably lower, lower cortisol too
[00:18:58] Leslie John: Yeah.
[00:18:58] Emma Waddington: I think it was Dan [00:19:00] Siegel that said... Was he the one that said you have to name it to tame it?
[00:19:04] Leslie John: Oh, that's another good quote.
[00:19:06] Emma Waddington: It's like, yeah, he does that for children.
[00:19:09] Emma Waddington: I, that stage with me, you've gotta name it to tame it
[00:19:12] Chris McCurry: Well, in just, emotional vocabulary, there's a difference between
[00:19:17] Chris McCurry: being anxious and being nervous
[00:19:20] Disclosure Dilemmas Daily
[00:19:20] Emma Waddington: I really wanted to touch, just coming back to these ideas of disclosures, I love the concept of disclosure dilemmas. I think that's such a cool phrase. And in one of your interviews you did this little thing that I thought was really smart, where you talk through all the disclosure dilemmas you might have in a day.
[00:19:40] Emma Waddington: And I thought that was such a good way of depicting the opportunities we have to disclose and how
[00:19:47] Emma Waddington: our day would go if we did versus if we didn't.
[00:19:51] Emma Waddington: So I thought maybe we could do a little bit of that for our listeners in
[00:19:55] Emma Waddington: case they haven't listened to that episode. Because it's true, we have all [00:20:00] these opportunities throughout, throughout the day, and it is a dilemma.
[00:20:04] Emma Waddington: And,
[00:20:05] Emma Waddington: you know, in the book you also talk about how some of us have a more optimistic temperament and tend to disclose more. And some of us, have a, I don't know, what would you say? Less optimistic, more anxious
[00:20:18] Emma Waddington: And will disclose less. And yet, the idea is to perhaps think a bit more of the cost of not disclosing.
[00:20:24] Emma Waddington: So shall we give
[00:20:25] Emma Waddington: some examples? I don't know if you have any from even today
[00:20:30] Leslie John: Sure. I mean, I can walk... W- it's interesting because when Chris, in the intro, you said we make decisions of what to share, what not to share dozens of times a day, I'm like Up, up, like hundreds, thousands. I don't know. Once you start saying, you're like everything, every moment of
[00:20:47] Leslie John: Well, how do you discretize, if that's a word, the decisions?
[00:20:50] Leslie John: But 12 is certainly more than most people would think, I think. That would be a cool
[00:20:54] Leslie John: study just to ask people, "How
[00:20:55] Chris McCurry: Could be multiple dozens
[00:20:57] Leslie John: The, but
[00:20:58] Leslie John: the key thing that it's, it's [00:21:00] important this, this, this is it a lot, is it very few, because we systematically underestimate. We don't
[00:21:05] Leslie John: appreciate how many, because
[00:21:08] Leslie John: we default to silence.
[00:21:10] Leslie John: We,
[00:21:11] Leslie John: like our default is to not share. S- it's so ingrained in us that we don't even often consider the possibility of sharing. We don't even think of it as a decision. So we could, I could take you ... I, I'm gonna do, 'cause I'm a nerd, I'm gonna do this little tally I've got on the back of my sheet here. Just a little, I'm gonna start, and one is gonna say said, and the other column's gonna say unsaid.
[00:21:31] Leslie John: And what I'm going to do is just walk you through the first, I don't know, half day of, of any mundane life, of maybe a day of my life that I'm sure people can relate to, but... And I'm gonna record the things that I said, the things that I
[00:21:45] Leslie John: revealed, I'm gonna put a tick, and the things that I did not reveal, but I could have. 'Cause I wanna surface these opportunities. I want us to have more realization of the times when we're actually censoring and we're not
[00:21:58] Leslie John: realizing it. So okay [00:22:00] let's say you wake up in the morning, I wake up in the morning, one wakes up in the morning. I'm standing in front of the mirror beside my husband, brushing our teeth. Say, "Good morning, deary." Okay. "I love you," maybe. We're, we've only been married seven years, maybe we're still honeymooners. Um, so I said that, and then, but then as we're brushing our teeth and my mind wanders and I think, "Oh, look at myself in the mirror. Geez, is that, is that a zit? How come, like I'm in my 40s, why do I still have zits?
[00:22:25] Leslie John: Ugh, yuck. I wish I, I wish I, I, just don't feel so good about my body today. Gosh, but I'm also getting old. What's up with this?" So these are like these thoughts that I think about, but I don't say them. The thought didn't even occur to me. Then later on, couple half hour or so later, we go down to the kitchen, the kids are frolicking. So you see this bathroom scene. Already there's three things I didn't say, and there's one thing I said. And
[00:22:51] Leslie John: this is an example where if I had said that,
[00:22:55] Leslie John: how I felt about my body,
[00:22:57] Leslie John: number one, the act of [00:23:00] communicating that would make me feel understood, like my
[00:23:02] Leslie John: partner knows me.
[00:23:03] Leslie John: Like ding, ding, ding, intimacy. Even if he says nothing at all, but he wouldn't say nothing at all. He'd say something reassuring probably, which would, would make me feel better. Maybe we'd have a laugh about how, or how we're excited to grow old together, whatever. But you can see, I just gave myself goosebumps again.
[00:23:18] Leslie John: What's wrong with me? So
[00:23:19] Leslie John: you can see that that's a huge missed opportunity, and this is a great example I think because- Your spouse. If you cannot say these things to
[00:23:26] Leslie John: the person in the world that you arguably should be able to share anything that you that troubles you. If you can't do that, if you can't do it
[00:23:34] Leslie John: then, then that's a problem.
[00:23:36] Leslie John: But then even if you go later on into the day and, you get to work, which is a trickier situation for disclosure dilemmas, even here we would benefit for, from sharing more, and we suppress a lot. You, y- in your office, maybe when you get in, you're having a bad day and your assistant says, "How are you doing?"
[00:23:51] Leslie John: You say, "I'm great." You don't say, "I feel like crap." Fine. That's fair enough, right?
[00:23:56] Leslie John: Again, you don't wanna burden people, especially status [00:24:00] asymmetries. But then you get into the sanctity of your office,
[00:24:03] Emma Waddington: S,
[00:24:03] Leslie John: sanctuary of your office, and your
[00:24:05] Leslie John: bestie comes in and they're like, "How you
[00:24:06] Leslie John: doing?" And you say, "I'm good. I'm really excited for
[00:24:09] Leslie John: this presentation." But what you don't say is, "I'm also feeling a little nervous, and maybe we can practice the first few lines," right?
[00:24:16] Leslie John: So that's another situation where probably could, would be safe to share more. I'm, I, I, I won't bore you more with more examples of
[00:24:24] Leslie John: this day, but I'm sure we can relate to this.
[00:24:26] Leslie John: I'm already six-three, six unsaid, three said. The point isn't that all of the unsaid need go in the said, right? Nobody
[00:24:35] Leslie John: wants that. But I think the number one issue is that we don't even code those missed opportunities. We don't even think of them as "Oh, I could have told my work bestie how I actually feel, and maybe that would've been better, and maybe then I would've been more confident," right?
[00:24:48] Leslie John: We don't,
[00:24:49] Leslie John: we don't realize that, so I wanna
[00:24:51] Leslie John: surface this, this bias, and then we can consider the dilemma that it is, right? And it really is a
[00:24:57] Leslie John: dilemma. But at least we should think about it.
[00:24:59] Reading the Room Reciprocity
[00:24:59] Chris McCurry: [00:25:00] in the work that Emma and I do clinically, we talk a lot about context
[00:25:05] Emma Waddington: Hmm.
[00:25:06] Chris McCurry: Being context sensitive or context sensitivity. So it's basically reading the room.
[00:25:12] Chris McCurry: So can you say a little bit more about
[00:25:14] Chris McCurry: reading the room
[00:25:16] Chris McCurry: and 'cause there's probably a long list of things to
[00:25:19] Chris McCurry: consider, but, are-- Is there a cheat sheet of here are the
[00:25:24] Chris McCurry: two or three important
[00:25:25] Chris McCurry: things to consider before you
[00:25:27] Leslie John: Yeah
[00:25:28] Chris McCurry: what
[00:25:28] Chris McCurry: you're thinking of saying?
[00:25:30] Emma Waddington: I just wanted to say something that you mentioned as well in the book that I thought was so spot on, that knowing when to share is both an art and a science,
[00:25:39] Emma Waddington: and I think it's absolutely true. When we're thinking about context, I think, it is, it is complicated.
[00:25:44] Emma Waddington: You can't just turn around and decide you're gonna share everything.
[00:25:48] Leslie John: To that, I would add, I think it's also a skill.
[00:25:51] Leslie John: It's revealing as a skill, like we've never been, we don't, we're not taught it, we're never taught even to think about it that way, and I think that's one of the points about like [00:26:00] reading the room and yes, context.
[00:26:01] Leslie John: I mean, there's no single, the line of between TMI and TLI is constantly shifting. It's never fixed, which makes it fascinating. It totally depends on the context. And I think sometimes we're, we're wanting, just the way you phrased the question 'cause you're human and I want the same, is like what's the one hack?
[00:26:18] Leslie John: What's the one thing?
[00:26:19] Leslie John: I will tell you that in a moment, a one thing answer, but overall it's releasing there isn't, there isn't a one size fits all. That's because it's a skill, and the way we read the room and get better is by doing it. We need to keep practicing, practicing, doing it, doing it, doing.
[00:26:35] Chris McCurry: Well, we, we get, we get shaped
[00:26:38] Leslie John: Right, we get shaped. We get shaped. Okay, so what's the number one thing though, with that being said? The number one advice I would give for reading the room for context is the clue of reciprocity. So if you're-- Think about it. Whenever you're in a situation, maybe think about it on the, if you're on the receiving end.
[00:26:57] Leslie John: You're, they, let's say you're on a first date. [00:27:00] Oh. And the person just talks and talks about
[00:27:02] Leslie John: themselves the whole time.
[00:27:04] Emma Waddington: yeah.
[00:27:04] Leslie John: That's-- You might not be able to articulate what it is that made the date not good, but you will feel it that, "Hmm,
[00:27:12] Leslie John: that wasn't so good." And that's because reciprocity is so important.
[00:27:16] Leslie John: It's, it's such a good way of guiding whether we're saying too much or too little. So now that you're aware of it, you can be like, okay, you never wanna be, never, well, never say never. But you, you typically as a rule of thumb don't wanna be in a situation where it's all one-sided. So if you
[00:27:30] Leslie John: find yourself on a first date, in a job interview talking to a team where you're the one that's revealing everything and you're not getting anything back, that's, that's a red flag.
[00:27:40] Leslie John: So
[00:27:40] Leslie John: having that, and the way-- And then, then you could say, "Well, what if they're just not sharing?" Well, that's interesting actually if you're
[00:27:46] Leslie John: doing all the sharing and they're not saying anything that like take note of it.
[00:27:49] Reciprocity Starts Connection
[00:27:49] Leslie John: But I think more substantively you can, you have control. You can a- you can ask someone a question, right? And
[00:27:56] Leslie John: get that reciprocity going.
[00:27:58] Emma Waddington: Mm-hmm. [00:28:00] And that's super powerful, isn't it?
[00:28:02] Emma Waddington: And
[00:28:02] Emma Waddington: if you share,
[00:28:04] Emma Waddington: something that is a little more vulnerable, chances are that that will
[00:28:08] Emma Waddington: open them up to be a bit
[00:28:10] Emma Waddington: more vulnerable. Like I see
[00:28:11] Emma Waddington: that,
[00:28:12] Emma Waddington: we see that and we feel that really regularly. And that piece around,
[00:28:18] Emma Waddington: What did you call it in the book? Pass the torch, right? yeah
[00:28:22] Emma Waddington: I was reading that section of the book, and then I had a situation where this person came to speak to me, and I wasn't too sure why they wanted to meet with me, and then they spoke a lot about themselves.
[00:28:33] Emma Waddington: And I'm quite used to people talking a lot
[00:28:37] Emma Waddington: about themselves. I do that for a living. But usually the context is a therapeutic session not a passing conversation. But sometimes
[00:28:46] Emma Waddington: because I am a bit of a cue, I am a bit of a context, when people hear what I do for a living,
[00:28:51] Emma Waddington: it creates a context where people feel safe and comfortable to
[00:28:55] Emma Waddington: speak just because of what I do for a living, which I always find really quite [00:29:00] interesting.
[00:29:01] Emma Waddington: But you're right that that reciprocity is really quite key. So if you find yourself that you're speaking,
[00:29:07] Emma Waddington: you know, the bulk of the conversation, then chances are
[00:29:10] Emma Waddington: you need to take a pause and ask a question and
[00:29:12] Emma Waddington: be curious,
[00:29:13] Emma Waddington: for it to continue to feel comfortable and safe
[00:29:16] Therapy Talk and Boundaries
[00:29:16] Leslie John: And that's so interesting, the therapy, right? That is such a, that is a exception, right? In therapy,
[00:29:23] Leslie John: like it would be weird if I asked my therapist questions.
[00:29:27] Leslie John: And
[00:29:27] Leslie John: also that. I have
[00:29:29] Leslie John: Oh yeah. Is that a taboo? And have you been asked like inappropriate questions
[00:29:34] Leslie John: What are the questions that would make, what would be okay versus what are the ones that are like,
[00:29:39] Leslie John: "How dare
[00:29:40] Emma Waddington: question.
[00:29:40] Emma Waddington: I mean, it depends your school of thought, a lot of this.
[00:29:44] Leslie John: Right. Yeah, I
[00:29:44] Leslie John: know that therapists disagree on how much it is appropriate
[00:29:48] Leslie John: for a therapist to reveal. And that's why I, I was also really enjoyed that section where you talked about the confidentiality sort of clause and,
[00:29:55] Emma Waddington: when we tell people that, this is gonna be super safe and all [00:30:00] your sort of secrets are gonna be protected, it does not create as much trust.
[00:30:04] Emma Waddington: And I, I was
[00:30:05] Emma Waddington: thinking about how does that work in therapy?
[00:30:08] Emma Waddington: But we can talk about that later. But
[00:30:09] Emma Waddington: I think, fascinating
[00:30:11] Emma Waddington: I don't know. I've been asked so many questions. Sometimes I feel-- I have said to clients that sort of appear to be a bit anxious that you're free to ask me questions. This is a really odd setup if you haven't done it before, where I'm the
[00:30:23] Emma Waddington: one asking all the questions and you don't ask any questions.
[00:30:26] Emma Waddington: If you feel
[00:30:27] Emma Waddington: that there's something you'd like to know about me, my
[00:30:29] Emma Waddington: background, my training, I'll let you know if I feel comfortable answering, but you're welcome to ask.
[00:30:35] Emma Waddington: And the vast majority have been tame,
[00:30:39] Emma Waddington: Tame. I've had a few a bit uncomfortable, and I've chosen not to answer. But mostly, people say, "Oh, yeah, where are you from?
[00:30:47] Emma Waddington: What's your accent?" 'Cause I have such a strange accent.
[00:30:50] Leslie John: huh.
[00:30:52] Emma Waddington: Things like that. But yeah,
[00:30:54] Emma Waddington: it is a very odd
[00:30:55] Leslie John: I'm thinking of I just read Dolly Parton obituary one [00:31:00] op-ed by Jad Abumrad. He's, the brilliant journalist. He said, I was lucky enough to interview Dolly Parton a dozen times on two continents, and she began nearly every interview with some version of this: 'Ask me anything you want to ask me, and I'll tell you what I want you to hear.'" I love that. Isn't that so good? Then he says, "It was genuinely funny, funnier each time she said it, and she'd punctuate each punchline with a staccato giggle that'd swoop upward in a pitch, ending in a glassy register that was uniquely hers." Oh,
[00:31:33] Leslie John: so
[00:31:34] Emma Waddington: Aw. Yes. So sweet.
[00:31:37] Context and 36 Questions
[00:31:37] Leslie John: The context is really important, and I think that the reciprocity rule when people are like-- 'cause it, it is when you just say context matters, situational awareness, read the room, people are like, "Okay, but what should I look for?"
[00:31:46] Leslie John: I think that being more aware of the balance of who's sharing and the ebb and flow,
[00:31:52] Leslie John: and that you want to kind of reciprocate when you want to get there together
[00:31:57] Leslie John: is an important thing to think of. And, and one of the f- [00:32:00] the foundational findings that undergirds this, this point is, of course, Arthur Aron's work on the questions.
[00:32:08] Leslie John: I mean, it's on The New York Times often. This every Valentine's Day I feel like it goes viral, the 36 questions to fall in love. And in this seminal set of studies, he actually-- The studies he ran, they weren't to get people to fall in love per se, it was actually because he wanted to study friendships in the lab, dyadic friendships.
[00:32:27] Leslie John: And it's logistically challenging to do this, right? 'Cause you have to it's hard enough to get one person to show up for, to the lab. You have to then get friends to show up together and schedule, and
[00:32:36] Leslie John: then friends come with all the, all these different histories that introduce noise.
[00:32:41] Leslie John: So he came up with this way to try to induce friendship. It was-- And the way he tried to do it, which he was very successful at, was through this 36 questions. So he grouped people together. He randomly assigned people into dyads, so he
[00:32:56] Leslie John: put people into groups of
[00:32:58] Leslie John: two. He gave them [00:33:00] this sheet of
[00:33:00] Leslie John: questions that started very shallow "What's your zodiac sign?" And ended very deep "What's a big regret you have in life?" So they gradually went deeper, and he said, "Here's the sheet of questions. What I want you to do is work through them. Don't skip any. Go in this order, back and forth." So one person answers, the other, then the next one. And the people
[00:33:21] Leslie John: who did that relative to the control participants who
[00:33:24] Leslie John: didn't, he said, "Just make, just get to know each other," didn't give them this task, didn't give this task of mutually
[00:33:30] Leslie John: escalating self-disclosure. The control subjects at the end, they weren't friends. The ones that had done the task felt liking and the bud of
[00:33:40] Leslie John: a friendship with each other. Then the really imp- in terms of like this importance of it really does matter that you reciprocate and get there together, he did ano- Of course, we social scientists study these things ad nauseam. We do a million different variants, but the one that really mattered here is that in another version he said, "Oh, [00:34:00] what if we have one group of people do it one fell swoop?" So one fell swoop means one person in the pair says, answers all of them, and then the next person answers all of them, the
[00:34:10] Leslie John: one fell swoopers.
[00:34:11] Leslie John: Versus the other is
[00:34:12] Leslie John: like the way, right, going both answer the first, both answer the second. And so that difference made a big difference. It was the one fell swoopers didn't feel close. It was-
[00:34:22] Leslie John: You gotta reciprocate, you gotta
[00:34:23] Leslie John: get there together. It's the, the giving and taking that that's what
[00:34:27] Leslie John: makes the, the connection and trust
[00:34:29] Emma Waddington: and I was thinking of Reese and Shaver's work on intimacy that's exactly that, right? That's how you build
[00:34:35] Emma Waddington: intimacy. You've gotta reci- you've gotta reciprocate. You've gotta
[00:34:39] Emma Waddington: receive, What... Well, you need to share openly, but that needs to then be received with
[00:34:45] Emma Waddington: care,
[00:34:46] Leslie John: Yeah.
[00:34:47] Emma Waddington: and interest, and curiosity, and then reciprocated.
[00:34:51] Emma Waddington: And it's that interaction, 'cause if it's
[00:34:52] Emma Waddington: just you, exactly like, if you're having a monologue, you won't feel that connection and that intimacy [00:35:00] because it won't feel like it's landing or
[00:35:01] Emma Waddington: it's being understood, or you're being seen, or you're starting to get known.
[00:35:05] Leslie John: Yep.
[00:35:06] Reciprocity in Long Relationships
[00:35:06] Leslie John: And it's, it's really interesting too, thinking about kind of how reciprocity changes and evolves over the course of a relationship. So like
[00:35:14] Leslie John: in relatively new relationships the, the reciprocity is very important as in back and forth, back and forth. But the longer you're with someone, then immediate reciprocity feels often weird, right?
[00:35:27] Leslie John: Like imagine I come home from work and something really horrible happened at work, and I share, and then my husband's "Oh, okay, and then this traumatic thing happened to me in childhood," or whatever, right? The matching is weird there once you're really, really intimate. You don't wanna match in the moment.
[00:35:39] Leslie John: It's everybody knows, both partners know that there's space,
[00:35:43] Leslie John: that you will be there when the other person needs it. And so it's kind of interesting because at the beginning it's really foundational, the reciprocity, but over time that need for immediate reciprocation, the tit for tat, it really fades away.
[00:35:57] Leslie John: It's kind of a marker of mature relationships in a way.
[00:35:59] Chris McCurry: [00:36:00] Yeah,
[00:36:00] Chris McCurry: there's a, there's a trust there that,
[00:36:02] Chris McCurry: uh, I've been heard and I don't need that confirmation right away
[00:36:06] Emma Waddington: There's a knowing, isn't there?
[00:36:08] Ruptures Repairs and Leaning In
[00:36:14] Emma Waddington: And I think just thinking about that sort of the taking risks in relationships when you overshare with some of those examples that you were saying in your day, let's say you say to your partner, I'm feeling really ugly," and your partner doesn't say anything back.
[00:36:24] Emma Waddington: You
[00:36:24] Emma Waddington: know, that's a little rupture,
[00:36:25] Leslie John: it
[00:36:26] Emma Waddington: and there's a risk of that. There's always a risk
[00:36:28] Emma Waddington: that you will share something and it won't be received correctly. that's one of the things that, you know, when we're doing therapeutic work, when I'm doing work with therapists, you have no guarantee that just because you share something, it's gonna be received well,
[00:36:42] Leslie John: Yes.
[00:36:42] Emma Waddington: that it's worth the risk.
[00:36:44] Emma Waddington: And the thing is, well, not always. It depends the context. Let's put that there,
[00:36:48] Emma Waddington: too. But, But, what happens is that in that incident with our partner, we share something and they didn't reciprocate, they didn't say anything. If we have enough trust and
[00:36:59] Emma Waddington: [00:37:00] confidence in the relationship, we can turn around and go, "Hey, are you all right?
[00:37:04] Emma Waddington: That's
[00:37:04] Emma Waddington: strange that you didn't say anything. Is everything... Are you, are you listening or are you, you
[00:37:08] Emma Waddington: know, thinking about something else?" that sort of pulls them back into the conversation. Or, if you were really upset to go, "Hey, I needed some attention there," that,
[00:37:19] Emma Waddington: "I'm upset." And maybe your partner turns around and is really defensive, and then you have a good old row,
[00:37:25] Emma Waddington: but then you can turn it around.
[00:37:27] Emma Waddington: And I think that takes learning.
[00:37:30] Emma Waddington: You know? I think you said something about the beautiful mess that the reality is that, being human is very messy. Relationships are very messy. And so these disclosures and these repairs, these ruptures and these repairs
[00:37:44] Emma Waddington: come about through learning how to
[00:37:47] Emma Waddington: do that, through skill, just like you said and not
[00:37:51] Emma Waddington: through omission 'cause you don't learn anything from omission
[00:37:55] Leslie John: Totally. And the, and, and I think embedded in what you're saying there is this [00:38:00] counterintuitive point that sometimes, oftentimes the solution to feeling like you overshared is actually to share more, not less. And
[00:38:09] Leslie John: what I mean by that, you-- this is so perfectly relatable where, you get vulnerable with your spouse and you share something and you don't, you're not met with an empathic or whatever response you were hoping for. And so you feel, "Ooh, I shouldn't have said that," and,
[00:38:24] Leslie John: "They don't care about me," and all these things going. Your head goes crazy. Well, that, you may think, "Oh, I shouldn't have said that," but then the answer is to lean into that and say, say more and say, "Oh,
[00:38:33] Leslie John: I'm feeling a little upset that you didn't respond in the way that I thought you might respond," right?
[00:38:37] Leslie John: It's revealing more. And, and so often
[00:38:40] Leslie John: we we pull back when we should be leaning in, as much as I hate the w- that saying, leaning in. And the other thing I wanted to emphasize about what you were saying is We don't-- Well, I don't like risk. I'm risk-averse in general. I think a lot of people are.
[00:38:56] Leslie John: But I think on the leaning in, it is [00:39:00] precisely because of the social risk that there is reward.
[00:39:03] Leslie John: It's precisely because you're do- you're taking a risk, you're taking a real social risk of sharing something. Why is that the thing that's so important? Because when you take the social risk, you are
[00:39:13] Leslie John: demonstrating that you trust the person on the receiving end, right?
[00:39:16] Leslie John: When you share something sensitive, you're implicitly communicating,
[00:39:20] Leslie John: "I'm sharing this because I trust you to not make a fool of you."
[00:39:22] Leslie John: And that, when you're on the receiving end, feels so good,
[00:39:26] Emma Waddington: உம்
[00:39:26] Leslie John: and then we reciprocate. It's I dare say it's instinctive. So it's without the social risk that you do not, the reward is not possible. So when I started reframing it in that way, I thought, "Oh, okay, there's-- Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, I could get burned, but it's completely necessary."
[00:39:43] Leslie John: It's actually the whole point of it.
[00:39:45] Leslie John: And then the other thing I was thinking is I'm thinking of like in, what's a classic,
[00:39:49] Leslie John: "Oh my gosh, I shared too much," and I, I I sting, saying I love you to someone. If you're in a relatively newer medium relationship and you're the first person to say, "I love you," [00:40:00] a lot of people are nervous about that for good reason.
[00:40:02] Leslie John: Why? Because if you say I love you and it's not requited, that really, really stings. Well, you could think of it this way. Yeah, that's, th-there is a social risk, and that could, there's a potential for sting. But if it's not requited, there's a benefit, too, of you get information, right? It's better to find out.
[00:40:20] Leslie John: It's easy for you to say this now, but I know it's hard in the moment, but over time, I think that's a real gift is people reveal who they are even in non-response, and
[00:40:29] Emma Waddington: And
[00:40:29] Know Your Sharing Purpose
[00:40:31] Emma Waddington: the, the other piece that I was thinking about when thinking about whether to disclose more or less is also know your purpose.
[00:40:37] Emma Waddington: You know, you talk about that too, right? This idea that why am I sharing this? Am I
[00:40:42] Emma Waddington: sharing this to, help someone understand me better, know me better, know me deeper, or am I just offloading?
[00:40:50] Leslie John: Yeah, I love that. Yep.
[00:40:52] Emma Waddington: and I think we need to be honest,
[00:40:54] Emma Waddington: right, with ourselves about what the purpose is. What's the function, as we would say as
[00:40:59] Emma Waddington: [00:41:00] psychologists, and to be clear on that.
[00:41:02] Leslie John: And I think that, that would be maybe the second piece of advice, like the, on the reading the room, line's always moving, what guidance, like one is reciprocity and a second really important is know yourself and know your purpose.
[00:41:17] Leslie John: 'Cause if you are honest with yourself, which requires brutal honesty, am I doing this to seek attention or am I doing it for to communicate who I am? If you really are able to get clear on what your core purpose is, then I think that really helps you make better decisions
[00:41:32] Chris McCurry: Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's asking yourself, "What am I hoping to achieve
[00:41:36] Chris McCurry: here?" Or as, as, we might say in our nerdy psychological way, "What is the function of this behavior?"
[00:41:43] Chris McCurry: and sometimes it's not always noble
[00:41:46] Leslie John: Yep, totally
[00:41:48] Emma Waddington: And I guess that would help with the disclosure hangover that, you, you, you talk about. If you were really honest with why am I sharing this, and then maybe it didn't land properly, but at least it, you, if you were trying to it's in the service of [00:42:00] being more authentic or in the service of, building a close relationship, like saying, "I love you," and it wasn't reciprocated.
[00:42:08] Emma Waddington: You will... It will sting, and it feels better if you knew why you were doing it.
[00:42:15] Leslie John: Completely,
[00:42:16] Emma Waddington: a stronger rationale, like I think that's really important with our disclosure dilemmas. And so perhaps before we end, ' I'd love to talk a little bit about work environments because I think it's different, right? If we talk about reading the context reading the rooms work is different. And I do notice that, that there is a sort of movement away from, perhaps the sort of 1980s, 1990s, and before, where people were really quite different
[00:42:46] Emma Waddington: at work. They weren't
[00:42:47] Emma Waddington: really bringing their true selves to work.
[00:42:50] Emma Waddington: There's been a, I'd say, pretty big swing towards being more open and honest and disclose more about how you're feeling about your home life. [00:43:00] But it's also much more risky. So I
[00:43:02] Emma Waddington: thought we could
[00:43:02] Emma Waddington: end with talking a bit about, what does revealing at work look like?
[00:43:07] Emma Waddington: how is it different? yeah. the whole, the whole reciprocity thing would be different
[00:43:12] Leslie John: Yeah.
[00:43:13] Leslie John: I mean, the work is a much more risky, it's more competitive. It-- you
[00:43:17] Leslie John: have, like, often strong status hierarchies, gender stuff going on like the interaction of gender and work stuff. So it's very complex, and it is risky. That being said, in many studies we've found that even still being a bit more open can be helpful. But I-- one way to think about what guidance might I give to someone who's like, "Okay, yeah, sure, I should reveal more at work. What does, the heck does that mean?"
[00:43:47] Transparency Versus Vulnerability
[00:43:47] Leslie John: what I would think of is the difference between transparency and vulnerability.
[00:43:53] Leslie John: So I
[00:43:54] Leslie John: think of vulnerability as like sharing like raw, unprocessed feelings, [00:44:00] sharing really, really sensitive stuff. Transparency is really wonderful because I think it's like you get a lot of bang for your buck with it in the sense that you get a lot of benefits and you mitigate the risks. What transparency is sharing your cognitions, essentially sharing, that's very nerdy, right? Sharing your thoughts,
[00:44:19] Leslie John: sharing how your mind works, sharing how you think through problems at work, being more transparent about the way your brain works. That is generally a lot safer and is you get benefits of being open and bonding without, saying, "Hmm, I have ADHD," right? Like that's
[00:44:37] Leslie John: sharing something really sensitive about your medical history or your emotions is more dangerous. But transparency, if I was to give you a concrete example, okay, so suppose your boss says to you, "Hey, I notice you've been really quiet in meetings." And the truth is that, sometimes you feel really uncomfortable speaking up. So one version, what would the vulnerable answer be? Is like, "Oh, I have a lot [00:45:00] of anxiety about speaking up in public. I'm worried I'm being judged." Don't do that. That's vulnerable. What would be a-- but also don't give a fake answer of "Oh, okay," or, "No, I'm not," or defensiveness, right?
[00:45:12] Leslie John: That's not helpful either. Transparency is really helpful there. You can say to your boss, "Oh, I hear what you're saying. The way my mind works is I like to l- really listen intently and process what others are saying before I speak up.
[00:45:26] Leslie John: Now, if you want me to speak more on the, off the cuff, for sure, I'm happy to do that, but that's my thinking, my thought process behind why I'm sometimes quieter," right? Like also true, but not messy emotions, right? Much more metered sounding, much more in control. And so that's what I mean by transparency versus vulnerability and the opportunity that transparency presents.
[00:45:48] Leadership and Psychological Safety
[00:45:48] Emma Waddington: you quote a, an interesting study about leadership and how, and, and I've talked to that in, some of the work that I've done with corporates where, you know, leaders who are more honest [00:46:00] about some of their challenges, some of their indecision, some of their doubts, actually build more confidence and more trust
[00:46:08] Emma Waddington: than leaders who are, overconfident and then mess up.
[00:46:13] Emma Waddington: And I find that really interesting
[00:46:15] Emma Waddington: because it doesn't make sense.
[00:46:17] Leslie John: and in our studies, what one example of what we've done is we've asked managers to write essentially
[00:46:24] Leslie John: what they would say about themselves when they introduce themselves to a group of new hires, or if they're having like a off-site retreat, what they would say about themselves.
[00:46:33] Leslie John: And w- everything people write is like their positive traits, desirable qualities, and positivity. Nobody shares the negative stuff, right? 'Cause it's like, why would you share something negative? And then when we force them, we do an experiment and we say, "Okay, half of the people do what they normally do," and the other half we say, "Now can you share a weakness that you're working on?" We're not saying give us your childhood trauma. We're saying share, you know, I'm working on my time management skills. [00:47:00] They could be better. That's what I mean by sharing a weakness. That's like a metered weakness.
[00:47:04] Leslie John: We don't think of sharing that, and when the, when the managers do that,
[00:47:07] Leslie John: their employees are much more motivated to work for them relative to the persons that's just "This is great.
[00:47:12] Leslie John: This is amazing. I love working here." Right? Because they're more relatable and they're more real. And as leaders, when you're in a high-status situation at work, you do have more leeway to share than when you're in a more lower-status situation of like a job interview, right? You have more leeway because people already perceive you to be competent. And so actually you get a lot of benefit, maybe even more benefit or less risk at least from being a bit more open about some things.
[00:47:42] Emma Waddington: And how does this relate to a hot topic at the moment, which is psychological safety? A lot of organizations are really wanting to build psychological safety
[00:47:50] Emma Waddington: and research about, how more psychologically safe or radically radical candor,
[00:47:56] Emma Waddington: which is the other term, how that creates context where [00:48:00] people are willing to take risks.
[00:48:01] Emma Waddington: And so there is more innovation, more creativity people
[00:48:05] Emma Waddington: feel more at ease able to speak up when mistakes are made.
[00:48:10] Emma Waddington: how do you create those psychologically safe environments if we're thinking about being measured
[00:48:17] Leslie John: Yes. I like that. I like measured candor. Radical candor scares me a bit 'cause it sounds
[00:48:22] Leslie John: unsolicited feedback or you have to be very careful of course. But yeah, I think this is where I think leaders have a huge opportunity in creating psychological safety because when a leader shares something that they're working on, a weakness or whatever, that has disproportionate gains to s- trust and safety relative to when a lower status person does the same.
[00:48:45] Leslie John: When a leader models it, and we know there's, there's, there's tons of fascinating data on this. Like for example, in the '90s, remember when Magic Johnson
[00:48:54] Leslie John: revealed that he was HIV positive, this like revered player?
[00:48:58] Leslie John: That like hugely destigmatized [00:49:00] HIV and it it caused people, many more people to get tested who otherwise probably would not have been tested.
[00:49:07] Leslie John: Another is Angelina Jolie's, a little bit later, like in the 2000s, her op-ed that she had had a double mastectomy because she was BRCA1 positive. Like that, there've been studies of that too s- that showing that that caused people to get tested and then to get really important preventative care.
[00:49:24] Leslie John: So when someone who's super high status, be it a movie star, be it a famous athlete, be it a leader in a company, when you open up a little bit
[00:49:32] Leslie John: more, other people then feel much more safe and comfortable
[00:49:37] Leslie John: to then... So it's, I think it's one of the most powerful ways to make, build psychological safety. And by contrast, what we sometimes do when we wanna make people feel safe and comfortable, we say, "You can trust me.
[00:49:48] Leslie John: Just open up. There won't be..." What do
[00:49:49] Leslie John: we start? We start assuring, and that
[00:49:52] Leslie John: backfires, or at least is not helpful. You gotta model by
[00:49:57] Leslie John: showing, by revealing.
[00:49:59] Emma Waddington: It is [00:50:00] interesting because I do see that organizations are moving more into being open about mental health issues and encouraging people to talk more openly about how they're feeling and how they're
[00:50:11] Emma Waddington: doing. And I do think it's more risky than it appears.
[00:50:15] Emma Waddington: You know, you create this false sense of safety.
[00:50:18] Emma Waddington: you really need to know that you're safe from experience, not simply because you're being told that you're safe. And, yeah. Yes,
[00:50:29] Emma Waddington: absolutely. And I think some people are really vulnerable and could potentially be put in situations where they do disclose when it's not safe to do
[00:50:37] Emma Waddington: so, because they're being told that we're a sort of, an inclusive organization or whatever else
[00:50:42] Leslie John: Yep. Completely. Completely. Yep.
[00:50:46] Emma Waddington: Um, but yeah, this is, this has been
[00:50:49] Emma Waddington: great. I
[00:50:50] Chris McCurry: goes back to your example, Leslie, of, running your, the first part of your presentation with a colleague before you [00:51:00] do it.
[00:51:00] Chris McCurry: I th- I think perhaps finding a trusted colleague that you could say, "I'm thinking about disclosing this.
[00:51:07] Chris McCurry: What do you think?" And
[00:51:09] Chris McCurry: see if you can get some feedback on that.
[00:51:12] Emma Waddington: Yes. Because it is, it can be unsafe.
[00:51:16] Emma Waddington: And I think, gender or minority groups are particularly
[00:51:20] Emma Waddington: at risk,
[00:51:21] Emma Waddington: even though the, a lot of these narratives suggest that you're less at risk, I think it's still something that you need to be, treading carefully
[00:51:28] Leslie John: Cause once you say it, you can't put the genie back in the bottle
[00:51:31] Emma Waddington: That's right. And I do see this trend that is Well, actually, the
[00:51:36] Emma Waddington: US is spearheading it,
[00:51:38] Emma Waddington: making these sort of claims that there is safety, but actually real safety takes experience
[00:51:44] Leslie John: Yep
[00:51:45] Emma Waddington: has been brilliant.
[00:51:46] Final Thoughts on Practicing Disclosure
[00:51:46] Chris McCurry: final thoughts
[00:51:47]
[00:51:48] Leslie John: I mean, the thing that I live by is to reveal a little bit more a lot of the time and practice and see what happens. And, when I started my job, I gave my job [00:52:00] offer to a seasoned economist who studies how people negotiation, and she said, Linda Babcock is her name, she said, "Leslie, if you always get what you ask for in a negotiation, you're not asking for enough."
[00:52:13] Leslie John: And I think revealing is the similar thing. If you never get to TMI, if you never cross the line, if you never feel a
[00:52:20] Leslie John: touch of cringe, you're not doing it enough.
[00:52:23] Leslie John: so in some sense, occasionally when you feel TMI, that's good 'cause you know you've, you
[00:52:28] Leslie John: expanded the range. Most of us, I think, live in a restrictive disclosure range.
[00:52:33] Chris McCurry: Right. It's that zone
[00:52:34] Chris McCurry: of
[00:52:34] Leslie John: you can cut the negotiation example that I... My mind was wandering, but like it's,
[00:52:38] Leslie John: if you
[00:52:38] Chris McCurry: no, it's good. Well,
[00:52:40] Chris McCurry: it's, it's the zone of proximal development
[00:52:43] Leslie John: Yes. Oh, yes. Love that word,
[00:52:46] Leslie John: phrase.
[00:52:47] Leslie John: Yeah.
[00:52:48] Chris McCurry: like right.
[00:52:48] Chris McCurry: at the edge of our comfort zone, That's Where
[00:52:50] Chris McCurry: we
[00:52:50] Chris McCurry: learn the most.
[00:52:52] Chris McCurry: That's where
[00:52:52] Chris McCurry: we get the
[00:52:52] Chris McCurry: feedback
[00:52:54] Emma Waddington: Yeah
[00:52:55] Emma Waddington: And it's uncomfortable, my goodness, you
[00:52:57] Emma Waddington: know? I sometimes think that, we're very [00:53:00] privileged in our position 'cause I'm used to hearing lots of disclosure, and I feel quite
[00:53:04] Emma Waddington: comfortable with disclosure as a result.
[00:53:07] Emma Waddington: And I think,
[00:53:08] Emma Waddington: if anything, when I heard, one of your podcasts and you were recommended by one of the Psychologists Off the Clock, awesome, our fabulous podcast
[00:53:17] Emma Waddington: sisters and brothers I thought, "Of course revealing's better,"
[00:53:22] Emma Waddington: right?
[00:53:23] Emma Waddington: Coming from a psychologist, right? Of course.
[00:53:26]
[00:53:26] Emma Waddington: But it's so much more complicated, and in the context of a clinic room, it's relatively safe. I wouldn't
[00:53:33] Emma Waddington: say it's 100%
[00:53:34] Emma Waddington: safe. It depends. It depends
[00:53:36] Emma Waddington: the clinician. It depends how you're feeling. I mean, there's so many factors. But it is an unusual context.
[00:53:42] Emma Waddington: But yes, I think it is a bit of a, an art, a science, and a skill, like you
[00:53:46] Emma Waddington: said, and we need to keep practicing to to really get the benefits from it because
[00:53:50] Emma Waddington: initially it's ... It can be quite icky
[00:53:52] Emma Waddington: thank you so much. Yes.
[00:53:55] Chris McCurry: you. This has been fabulous. And,
[00:53:57] Emma Waddington: has been absolutely wonderful. We'll put [00:54:00] all the references to your
[00:54:01] Emma Waddington: book, and I really recommend your audiobook
[00:54:04] Emma Waddington: 'cause you
[00:54:04] Emma Waddington: did a terrific job
[00:54:06] Emma Waddington: reading it.
[00:54:07] Chris McCurry: And we'll have that in the show notes. And if there's anything else that you think would be of interest to our listeners in
[00:54:15] Chris McCurry: terms of resources or articles or whatever, you could shoot those to us in an email and we'll get them in
[00:54:21] Chris McCurry: the show notes
[00:54:22] Leslie John: Super. Thank you so much
[00:54:24] Chris McCurry: You're
[00:54:24] Chris McCurry: very welcome. Thank you
[00:54:26]
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