Moment 90 - The Incredible & Unexpected Power Of Vulnerability: Matthew Hussey

What is real vulnerability? So often when we say that we are being vulnerable we are still giving a version of ourselves that we want and choose to show to the world. In this moment Matthey Hussey discuses the difference between a curated social media style vulnerability where you still have control, and genuine vulnerability. To be truly vulnerable means taking the risk of opening up to the world a part of yourself that you never wanted anyone to see and you cannot know if people will like. But Matthew says the reward for taking this step is huge, as it represents the start to deeper and richer relationships. Listen to the full episode here - https://g2ul0.app.link/xK3A11jtBsb Matthew: https://www.instagram.com/thematthewhussey/?hl=en https://twitter.com/matthewhussey? Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Steven Bartlett?

  You know, you historically not posted a lot on social media about your relationship situations. You've been, as you said in your own words on that wonderful proposal announcement post you did. You'd been quite a private person. One of the lines in that, that post you did when you announced that you and Audrey had become engaged was, "And finally, thank you for teaching me how to love in a way that I was too scared to before." I found that quite intriguing.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  I, I think like a lot of men, I struggled with genuine vulnerability.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  We all have our fake version of vulnerability.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  The, you know, it's the version of going for a job interview and saying, "What's your biggest weakness? I work too hard."

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Everyone's got their PR version of vulnerability. It's vulnerability if on some level it just makes me feel like I'm expressing a part of myself that you might not like, or you, you know, I can't control your reaction to this. And I had been in relationships in the past where I had revealed an insecurity.

• 1:16Steven Bartlett?

  Like?

• 1:19Speaker 01

  I was jealous of somebody, you know, I felt threatened by somebody else.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  And it was fed back to me that that was unattractive.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  And in my mind, that, that kind of stuck. I think there is a, especially in a lot of men, there is a kind of, there's a kind of double thing going on in their head where they go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that's really important, but I'm not saying that." Because if I say that, she's not going to think I'm cool anymore. I've spent a lot of time curating this sexy, alpha, cool image that has attracted this person. You really think I'm going to jeopardize that by showing an actual weakness? Something that, and again, I'm not talking about the weakness of I cry in movies. That's not vulnerability. That, you know that's going to be cute.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  You know that she's gonna see that and go, oh my god, he's sensitive too. That's not vulnerability.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Real vulnerability is, this is something that I never really wanted anyone to see.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  And

• 2:37Speaker 01

  and I'm taking a risk that when you see this, you're gonna still think that I'm what you want.

• 2:46Steven Bartlett?

  Have you got something in mind when you say that, like you had a conversation with Audrey and you think, nah, this is one of the things where I wouldn't normally have had the safety.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  I think that for me, times when I was anxious, I would normally bottle those up. I'd keep them to myself. I wouldn't express what I was anxious about or what was doing that to me.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Times if we were arguing, where I wouldn't really be honest about why I was upset. I'd give the kind of strong version of why I was upset, the PR version.

• 3:23Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  But I wouldn't give the real reason I was upset that went to the core of me not feeling enough. Of me not feeling good enough, of me feeling scared, of me feeling like something was being triggered that I didn't know how to handle.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Sometimes even when I was in pain and there would be other situations from my past where I would kind of not wanna reveal how much pain I was in with my head. Because I was worried that someone might determine this is not, I can't, I don't wanna deal with this. So I'd kind of keep it to myself. For a lot of guys, their experience of growing up wasn't one where being vulnerable would have been rewarded. And then you add on to that, the additional layer of as a guy, we've been culturally led to believe that being the caricatured alpha male, that's what women want. And some of our experiences have confirmed that.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  We lost out to the guy in high school who was much meaner than us. And who we knew was not a very nice person, but he had his pick. And that that's quite scarring for a guy. Cause you go, what does that mean?

• 4:42Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  What do, what do I, so I have to be more like that? And so we close parts of ourselves down and, and then it's, and then, you know, God forbid you come across or have a relationship with someone who confirms that.

• 4:56Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Now you really feel like I need to be that guy.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  And, and it can take a lot of rewiring and deconditioning to get to a place where you go, oh, the, if I keep, if I keep being this way, I'm actually gonna attract, I'm just gonna continue to attract people who do value the wrong things, who are looking for an Instagram man.

• 5:23Steven Bartlett?

  Can you do that from the jump though? I was just thinking about some of my friends in my head and I was thinking they're gonna hear that. And I know some of my friends who are actually probably scared of, especially at the start, in the dating phase of laying it out. So they come, they put the makeup on, they get the hair done, they go get the tan, whatever. And their objective is I just need to keep this fucking person. And I believe the way to keep them is just, you know, keep trying to be that sexy, perfect. At what point do you go from sexy, perfect to, listen, I'm, you know, pretty fucked up in a number of ways?

• 5:54Speaker 01

  I think that we have to, there's a way to, firstly, vulnerability in the beginning of dating isn't.

• 6:04Steven Bartlett?

  Sexy.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Well, vulnerability is, is, can be really attractive, but not in a way where you've exposed all of your wounds and the things you don't like about yourself instantly.

• 6:16Steven Bartlett?

  And offloaded, I guess.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Exactly. There's a, you know, it's fine to talk about something that you're working on or in a, even in a playful tone, kind of nod to something that you're not very good at. But that's not the same. I remember being on a TV show in Australia where I, there was this one woman, she was an amazing woman, but every time she went on a date, it would just be a kind of. All on the surface, laughing and just on the surface, on the surface, on the surface, on the surface. And I was like, part of the problem is these guys that go on dates with you, by the end of the date, they don't feel connected to you in any way. And the reason

• 7:00Speaker 01

  they don't feel connected to you is because there's no real vulnerability at that stage. So I said, the next date, I want you to actually connect and be a little vulnerable. Now, what she did with that advice is went on the next first date and told the story of her dad getting in a car accident that changed her whole life in a really awful way at the time. And I was, I had to say at the time, when I said vulnerability, I didn't mean go and tell the story of the worst thing that's happened to you in your life. Vulnerability can be paying someone a compliment, because in a way, when you pay someone a compliment, you're handing them

• 7:45Speaker 01

  a little power, right? Not in a bad way, but you're saying like, there's something great about you and I'm acknowledging it. And now you know that I think that you're great in some way. Or it can be laughing at somebody else's joke, or it can be talking about something that you really enjoy doing that's a little bit nerdy that you, you know, I might not put on social media all the time, but it is something I actually do in my spare time that's kind of geeky. But I love it. Sometimes, or even if it's not geeky, if it's just something you're super passionate about and you talk about something with passion, that's a vulnerable act. To express that you're passionate about something is vulnerable, because they may not think that

• 8:26Speaker 01

  thing is cool, or even just to be passionate is to be vulnerable. You might think that my passion is too much, or you might think it's silly, or so you could be vulnerable about the right things early on. And the more someone gets to know you, the more you can kind of let them in on some of the things that you struggle with. Vulnerability isn't necessarily revealing all of our insecurities all at once. And one important reason for that is because when we tell an insecurity, if I tell you something I don't like about my face, I'm telling you what to think about my face.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  I'm not letting you have your own opinion of my face. You can take the view that there's some part of your body, or there's something you're not a fan of in yourself. You can take that opinion, but you don't get to be the opinion for everybody else.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  The reason we're saying it is because we're almost trying to beat them to it. You know, let me just tell you that I don't like this thing about myself, because then I'll feel better that it's out in the open. But I'm presupposing what you're gonna think about it.

• 9:41Steven Bartlett?

  That's an awful quality people have, that self disparaging thing. It's really insidious in many ways.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  And that isn't vulnerability. That's a different thing from vulnerability. Vulnerability can be acknowledging that there's something that you don't like about yourself all the time. That can be an act of vulnerability, but you have to suspect yourself if your instinct with someone you don't know that well is to immediately go to that place.