Today’s Bell-work — Vulnerability

I recently started writing in a journal again. It gave me an opportunity to think back about the last time I had sat down and written in a journal. Turns out it was 21 years ago, in high school.

Every morning it was the same. The bell would ring, we would shuffle into class, take our seats and open our wide ruled composition books and wait. The year was 2000 and I was a sophomore in high school arriving in my English class. A classmate would walk up to the front of the class with a CD and place it in the CD Player, pick a song of their choice and hit play. We would spend the next 10 mins listening to that song, and writing.

Fast-forwarding a couple of decades and a couple of Bréne Brown books later, I see that same memory as a study in vulnerability.

Here’s what it looked like when it was your turn to pick the music.

1. The realization that it was your day to pick the music.
2. The agony of deciding the song.
3. What if they hate the song?
4. What if they judge the song?
5. Do I pick something cool and relevant like Eminem, or can I go with 90 Degrees (both relevant choices of the time)
6. Would it make sense for me to pick this song?
7. I like this one song on the radio, now I have to wait to hear it and record it.
8. Do I have the CD w/ the song? Who had a CD? Would they let me borrow it?
9. Maybe I should ask my friends, and see if they think I should pick a different song.
10. Day of — What do I wear? I have to walk up in front of the class.
11. Hours before — the anxiety of the moment coming up. I hope people like it. I like it. or. I don’t even like it, but I hope others like it.
12. Walk in the class, and your name is up on the board. — gulp.
13. Walk up to the CD player in front of an otherwise silent class
14. Hit play
15. Watch people’s reactions.

Bréne Brown has talked about vulnerability, shame, and courage at length now. One of the ways she defines it is to call it, “uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.” This task of picking the song for the class has all three elements.

I call these individual moments I’ve listed that we go through as moments of micro-vulnerability. The collection of them has led to the bravery of being able to press play.

Recognize that facing vulnerability takes enormous courage. I am proud of every single classmate who walked that short walk to the front of the class to that CD player and pressed play. Such bravery!

Another lesson I wish I had known then, and I still continue to reiterate to myself now is to let go of the constant worry about what other people think of you. Most people are focused on their own internal struggles, not you. The fact of the matter is, 90% of the time my journal entry had some nonsense about an assignment or an argument I had with my mom that morning, or how Justin Timberlake looked in the music video of that one song I’m listening to. Typical adolescent stuff.

Don’t worry about being a perfect-in fact, don’t even consider it. No one is perfect. There isn’t a perfect song, a perfect pitch deck, a perfect ROI, or a perfect product.

Go out there, be brave, be confident in your choice of song. Lead with intention, and don’t be ashamed to start over. Chances are your name will come up again in a few weeks, and you get a chance to play a new song.

For the curious, I had the opportunity to play a couple of songs. I chose “Country Grammar” by Nelly & “Semi-charmed life” by Third Eye Blind. I had a friend burn me a CD and did not know all the lyrics, and certainly didn’t understand most of Country Grammer.