The Strength of Vulnerability

I'll admit it.

I'm the guy who tears up watching American Idol.

Show me someone with a powerful backstory, a parent who gave up everything, a dream that almost didn't make it, and I'm reaching for a tissue before they even open their mouth.

My wife just smiles. She knows it's coming.

For a long time I wondered if I should work on that. Hide it better. We grow up hearing the same things. Be strong. Keep it together. Be a man.

I used to think about that last one a lot. What does it actually mean? Because if being a man means never letting something move you, I've never once qualified.

And the older I get, the less I want to.

Every time I walk onto a stage I tell stories that are still real to me. My health. My family. The moments that broke me open and the ones that slowly put me back together. No matter how many times I've told them, there are places in those stories where I still pause.

Not because I forgot what comes next. Not because I'm fighting something back.

Just because it's still real.

I've never apologized for those pauses. They're not a flaw in the presentation. They're the whole point.

If my story no longer moves me, why would it move anyone else?

Something I've noticed over the years: people rarely come up after a keynote to tell me my delivery was good. What they tell me is what they've been carrying. A diagnosis they haven't told anyone. A relationship that's fraying. A grief they've been pretending is already behind them.

They share it not because I said something perfectly. But because watching someone else feel something gave them permission to feel it too.

That's the thing about vulnerability that took me a long time to understand. We spend so much energy trying to appear unaffected by life, the social media posts, the “I’m fine” moments. And in doing that, we miss the one thing we're all actually looking for.

Connection.

The moments we most want to hide are often the exact moments that make someone else feel less alone.

I've never wanted to become someone who can tell my story without feeling it. Because the day I stop feeling emotion is the day I stop connecting with people.

And I don't think that's just true for me on a stage.

I think it's true for all of us.

Maybe we've had vulnerability backwards this whole time. We treat it like something to push through, manage, or eventually overcome. But what if it's not a weakness to move past? What if it's actually the thing that moves people toward each other?

It's worth saying again, the day I stop feeling emotion is the day I stop connecting with people.

I don't ever want that day to come.