On Vulnerability

The first time I encountered the concept of vulnerability was at Unreasonable Institute, a Boulder (CO) based accelerator, in 2015. I was intrigued by an organization where people could bring their whole selves, and be truly authentic. I will write more separately about how it influenced our practice of vulnerability in Jeeon, and where that led us to.

But I have also striven to practice vulnerability in my day-to-day life since then, as part of my quest to be more authentic, and want to reflect critically on my own practice to find out where I have room for improvement.

Let me start with the textbook definition. According to Brene Brown’s landmark book Daring Greatly (here’s a great summary and review) — in my own words:

Vulnerability is about living wholeheartedly and with authenticity, which often involves leaning in to your fears, insecurities and feelings of shame to follow your heart and do the right thing. It is the courage to show up and engage, often times exposing yourself to great uncertainty and risks.

The good news is that, according to this definition, I have indeed done things in the past 7 years that I can be proud of, even though they were incredibly scary and risky at the time. A few examples:

• Taking the leap to start Jeeon to work on developing the informal sector, because I believed in the cause, even though I had a steady role at mPower that I was comfortable in and this was a taboo topic in global health.
• Skydiving even though I had a fear of heights. This helped me overcome my acrophobia and go on several high-altitude Himalayan hikes.
• Shutting down our flagship Telemedicine program in 2017 without any back-up plan once I realized it was not going anywhere, and against opposition from most team members, my co-founder, and even my life partner (who was working at Jeeon at the time).
• Having to lay off people I deeply admired and cared about, without running away from the responsibility of being kind and caring to them.
• Acknowledging I was having a breakdown at the Acumen seminar in 2020, and taking time out from sessions to process it in my room, at the risk of judgement and disappointment from other Fellows (to their credit, most were only supportive and empathetic)
• Getting the team’s buy in to go all out with COVID response in 2020, acknowledging that it may come at the cost of Jeeon’s long-term survival.
• Supporting Sarah wholeheartedly through the process of applying for her Masters, knowing at the back of my mind throughout that it may mean eventually uprooting myself from my social and professional life in Bangladesh.
• Sending an email earlier this year acknowledging to my community of champions and supporters that Jeeon has failed in its mission.

At the same time, reading more and listening to a great podcast of Brene Brown with Adam Grant (thanks to my brother Risalat for suggesting it to me) raised a few important questions. I realized that I was not defining Vulnerability as these acts of courage in the face of uncertainty and fear, but rather the process of sharing my true feelings and thoughts with my team members, friends or community of Jeeon’s supporters. While that is sometimes indeed a component of vulnerability, is it possible that for every time I was actually vulnerable in the last 7 years, there were many other times when I was using vulnerability (at least my interpretation of it) as a shield, a cop-out or even a strategic tool?

What do I mean by that? A common misconception about vulnerability, which I seem to have fallen prey to, is that vulnerability is about disclosure. My superficial and quite literal definition of vulnerability has been to be honest and disclose my inner drivers, insecurities and fears with people, sometimes even relatively new acquaintances. In doing so, I sought to give these negative emotions less power over myself, help myself be understood by the other party, and create space for greater mutual respect and dialogue. Indeed, it helped me build rapport with people much faster, insofar as it lowered the guard from the other side and allowed us to see each other as fellow humans. It has been a powerful tool to connect with people and become friends quickly. At Jeeon, I used to write a monthly mailer to a large community of champions and well-wishers, supporters, investors, partners and staff, and I would often openly share the “good, bad and ugly” that we were going through, which was admired and appreciated by a lot of people in a world full of alpha-male know-it-all CEOs.

However, listening to the podcast made me wonder if I was truly taking a risk, exposing myself emotionally, or facing uncertainty each time I was doing so — which is what vulnerability essentially entails. For example, was I using vulnerability as a strategic tool for rapport building in social situations, and as a cop-out mechanism by sharing deep internal problems of Jeeon with virtual outsiders? Or simply to be admired by others as an “authentic” person?

Brene also talks about how “vulnerability without boundaries is not vulnerability”. I don’t think I had very clear boundaries of what I would or would not share on my monthly mailer. Sometimes, I would openly write about having a 2-month runway for my business, and I would talk about it with my team as well, with the goal of treating them as the adults they were, and showing them that we were all in it together. But it is indeed possible that my team members might have felt overwhelmed with that degree of existential uncertainty, and my being “vulnerable” in front of them was not necessarily the right thing for me to do as a CEO in that situation.

I don’t still know the answer to these questions, but posing them here should make it tangible and let me mull over them better. But already, I started to notice that a few of my weaknesses may sometimes get in the way of true vulnerability:

• Ego / Narcissism : I sometimes tend to gloss over my mistakes and not own up to them enough in front of those affected. Saying sorry more often and showing genuine effort to make amends may be an area of improvement.
• Self-consciousness: Sharing an unpopular opinion or going out on a limb to stand up for myself or others is something that requires a high degree of confidence in one’s own self worth, and an internalization that other people’s opinions of you don’t define you. I seem to be not doing too well on this front in recent times, although I used to be more confident before (perhaps as a facade — as Brene Brown says, underneath the overconfidence and self-aggrandizement, narcissism is actually the fear of being ordinary).

So what takeaways does this reflection so far leave me with for the future:

1. Learn to recognize the moments where there is a knot in my gut, or a racing heart, that tells me what is the right but also scary and uncomfortable path, and choosing to lean into that anyway.
2. When sharing my inner feelings and private experiences with someone, ask myself if this person is really part of my inner circle of trust, and whether they will understand and empathize with where I am coming from. Also be clear why I am doing it — to build rapport with them, to support them in processing their own struggles with something, or to seek pity/sympathy/admiration.
3. Really dig deep into my own values to put words and descriptions to what I am and what I believe in, and try to articulate situations where my actions may currently be misaligned with them, so that next time I am more true to myself in those situations.
4. Try to draw a clear line between the practice of vulnerability VS using vulnerability to be “liked” and “admired” by others. Get over my self-consciousness and ego and be vulnerable to show my true self regardless of how its perceived by the other party. This may mean disagreeing more often, saying no to loved ones, or standing up for myself or my friends.
5. Acknowledge to myself and others that I am fallible and am often wrong, but at the same time know internally that asking for forgiveness or apologizing won’t make me less worthy of love or belonging. That I am “enough” as I am.