Which scars to show
I got thinking this week after a music journo said something like this:
You're human > you make mistakes > you need to leave them in.
He was talking about music and the TikTok demo trumping the polished single. Why? Because the demo still has you in it. There are parallels elsewhere.
The trouble is that leaving yourself in often feels uncomfortable. It's so easy to hide behind the polish. The question becomes: To edit or not to edit?
Until I was 35, projections of strength were the only setting I had. Then something happened.
My first daughter was born three months early, put straight into a hospital incubator, barely alive, and I discovered I had no idea how to show anyone, including myself, that I was scared. Things unravelled. But trauma can follow the same pattern as muscle: tear apart, rebuild stronger.
But is life a competition for who can be the most human, human? Or is there a Goldilocks zone for vulnerability, same as everything else worth doing? Not too little. Not too much.
Remember The Ice Man, Wim Hof? Habituation, stress inoculation and so on. Cold showers are one thing. His breathing technique, rapid hyperventilation especially near water, is another. For some, it ended in shallow water blackout. <Insert joke about not trying this at home>
Stress has a dose. Push too far and it stops being adaptation and becomes risk. Discomfort doesn't kill you. The dose might.
The brilliant Will Storr has written about our appetite for downfall – we love watching someone get punished almost as much as we love watching someone succeed. So the unedited wreck, dignity removed, might just be better content for the people itching to feel superior.
Founders, and by proxy their brands, have the same dial to turn. Sam Altman may be the most publicly self-critical CEO in tech. He regularly talks about AI's dangers, his company's mistakes and the industry's failures. For some, admirably honest; for shareholders, an uncomfortable amount of uncertainty.
Imagine Nike practised radical vulnerability right now. The turnaround's slower than we'd like, China is weak, the stock is half where it used to be. No spin. I'd call that drowning rather than bravery. Or the "radically transparent" investor deck that talks the round out of closing.
If it’s flawless, I don't trust it. All wound, and I'm not sure I trust that either.
And let’s be honest: it’s a privilege to be able to ‘bring your whole self’ IF it comes with little inherent risk.
Some people, some brands, don't have the luxury of being vulnerable. For those who do, the skill is knowing which scars to show.