Speaker 1: Welcome to the Becoming You Show, where limits get torched
Speaker 1: and possibility takes the mic.
Speaker 2: I'm Leah Rowling, human in permanent.
Speaker 1: Beta, neurostrategist, mom to three amazing humans, married to one
Speaker 1: legendary soul, and your no-fluff permission slip to stop waiting.
Speaker 1: Every week, we rewire brain patterns, smash hand-me-down mindsets, and
Speaker 1: dive into the daring, identity-shifting conversations most people dodge. Ready
Speaker 1: to turn potential into proof?
Speaker 2: Grab your pen. Your next chapter starts now.
Speaker 1: Hello, my beautiful friend. Welcome back to the Becoming You Show.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Leah Rowling, and welcome, welcome. If
Speaker 1: you've been here all month walking through these words with
Speaker 1: me week by week, I.
Speaker 2: Want you to know that it means something to me, right?
Speaker 1: Showing up for this kind of work like four weeks
Speaker 1: in a row is not nothing, right?
Speaker 2: And if this is your very first episode, I welcome
Speaker 2: you to. This is it.
Speaker 1: This is the finale of what I'm calling now the
Speaker 1: rant series, right?
Speaker 2: Week one was raw. Week two, authentic. Week three, necessary.
Speaker 2: And today, the fourth word, which is truth. And at
Speaker 2: the end of today, like I promised at.
Speaker 1: The very start of the month, I'm going to put
Speaker 1: all four of these words together and hand you this framework.
Speaker 1: But first, we need to have an honest conversation about vulnerability, right?
Speaker 1: Because I don't think that there's a word that we
Speaker 1: use more right now except for maybe authenticity, but understand less.
Speaker 2: I want you to think about it.
Speaker 1: It's on every book cover, every podcast, every leadership training,
Speaker 1: every relational self-help book, right? And I think we have
Speaker 1: somehow collectively drifted very far from what the word actually means.
Speaker 2: And what it means is, Matters. Language matters. Words matters.
Speaker 2: Definitions matter.
Speaker 1: Because if we get it wrong, right, by way of
Speaker 1: just definition, by way of our own understanding, right, we
Speaker 1: do the wrong thing when we're trying to be vulnerable.
Speaker 2: It's the same with boundaries.
Speaker 1: If we don't understand what boundaries are and what they're not,
Speaker 1: and we think they work this way and then they
Speaker 1: don't work, then we just think that boundaries don't work.
Speaker 2: Same thing with vulnerability, right? We wonder why.
Speaker 1: It didn't do what quote unquote vulnerability is supposed to do.
Speaker 1: So somewhere along the way, I think vulnerability got confused
Speaker 1: with visibility. We started believing that sharing is the same
Speaker 1: thing as risking.
Speaker 2: And it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not. You can share everything and risk nothing. And
Speaker 1: call it, oh, well, this is me being vulnerable right now. Right?
Speaker 1: And a lot of what gets applauded as vulnerability right now, online,
Speaker 1: in relationships, on stages, in masterminds, is exactly that.
Speaker 2: Share. Everything share. Sharing. But really nothing is at risk.
Speaker 1: There is no emotional burden that is required on the
Speaker 1: other side.
Speaker 2: Of that share. We're not becoming more emotionally resilient in
Speaker 2: that vulnerable act. We're just sharing. So we're going to.
Speaker 1: Start with some of what I'm calling fake versions, not
Speaker 1: in a rude way, but because you can't recognize, some
Speaker 1: of us can't recognize the real thing until you can
Speaker 1: recognize what I'm bringing forward as fakes. What vulnerability is it?
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm calling fake. I'm not calling it
Speaker 1: fake is a bad thing, and I'll bring that forward too,
Speaker 1: but I'm calling it not vulnerability. What vulnerability is and
Speaker 1: what it is not. And then we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about what real vulnerability actually is and what it can do,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, what it can do that fake versions can't.
Speaker 1: And then we're going to put the whole month together.
Speaker 1: So that's the roadmap for the conversation. So fake version
Speaker 1: number one, I'm just going to call it performed openness,
Speaker 1: performed openness, okay?
Speaker 2: This is the confession that's already been edited, right?
Speaker 1: It's the story, as we talked about in episode one,
Speaker 1: that's already fully processed, already survived, already resolved, shared with
Speaker 1: an audience that is guaranteed to approve of it, right?
Speaker 1: It's the raw and honest post that went through 11 drafts.
Speaker 1: It's I've never told anyone this, told to 40,000 people.
Speaker 1: It's the retreat share, right? Where by the time you're
Speaker 1: at the front of the room, you know your story
Speaker 1: is going to land because you've told it three times
Speaker 1: before to warm rooms. And I want to be 100%
Speaker 1: fair here. I'm not knocking storytelling. Sharing your story, storytelling matters.
Speaker 1: There's so much healing that comes from sharing your story. right,
Speaker 1: a well-told story about surviving something, wow, powerful, can.
Speaker 2: Reach somebody that no amount of framework or methodology could.
Speaker 2: And it's real. And I'm for it. And I do it. Like,
Speaker 2: this podcast does it. But I'm not here calling it vulnerability.
Speaker 2: Let's call it what it is. It's storytelling. Because by
Speaker 2: the time the camera turned on, the risk was already over.
Speaker 2: The outcome was already known. The wound was closed. What's
Speaker 2: being shared is now the memory of a risk, not
Speaker 2: the risk. Does that make sense? And there's nothing wrong
Speaker 2: with sharing the memory of a risk.
Speaker 1: But if we call it the same thing as taking
Speaker 1: a risk, we start believing that we've done something, we
Speaker 1: have it. And then we wonder, perhaps, we wonder why
Speaker 1: our relationships aren't deeper than they are. Why our marriages
Speaker 1: don't feel more connected than they could. Why we don't
Speaker 1: feel more known. Because sharing the finished story doesn't do
Speaker 1: what taking a risk does. Those are different actions with
Speaker 1: different outcomes. So that's fake version one. Fake version two is,
Speaker 1: this one's just a little bit sneakier.
Speaker 2: It's kind of that strategic sharing. And again, there's no
Speaker 2: judgment on this podcast. I do all of these things.
Speaker 2: That's why I know them, okay? The strategic share is this.
Speaker 2: The sharing that has a job, okay? Right? It's maybe
Speaker 2: sharing your deepest history on a second date, right?
Speaker 1: Because you want the feeling of closeness without the time
Speaker 1: it takes to build it, right? It's leading with your wounds,
Speaker 1: leading with your scars, leading with your identity so people
Speaker 1: now know how to handle you better, how to handle
Speaker 1: you more gently, right? It's... Telling your story, right? Before
Speaker 1: we talk about.
Speaker 2: Who you are.
Speaker 1: Because when you do that, it's generally kind of awkward
Speaker 1: for then people to hold you accountability, right? The story
Speaker 1: gets there first, so the accountability can't. And people can
Speaker 1: feel it, right? They can't always name it, but there
Speaker 1: is a felt difference between being invited into something that.
Speaker 2: Is very heart provoking.
Speaker 1: There's some risk there in the invitation versus being very calculated,
Speaker 1: being very managed. Being invited feels warm, being managed feels off.
Speaker 2: And when people feel managed, they pull back. So then
Speaker 2: the very strategic strategy creates the exact distance it was
Speaker 2: trying to prevent. And honestly, that's the sad part.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've had this conversation with clients So many
Speaker 1: times they're wondering why their relationships aren't going deeper. And
Speaker 1: when we look at it, they're doing this. They're sharing
Speaker 1: a lot, but none of it is actually risky. It's
Speaker 1: all sharing that's been calibrated, that's been calculated, that's been
Speaker 1: performed so that they can mitigate the very risk that's
Speaker 1: required to call it vulnerability.
Speaker 2: So they can mitigate The risk of feeling something, right?
Speaker 2: Feeling uncomfortable, feeling rejected, feeling misunderstood, right? And the other
Speaker 2: person can tell even if they can't articulate it. They
Speaker 2: just know that something is off and it happens enough.
Speaker 2: So do you tell? So how do you tell?
Speaker 1: In other words, how do you tell the difference from
Speaker 1: the fake and the real? And there's just, there's one test,
Speaker 1: one test. I'm sure there's more than this, but this
Speaker 1: is my favorite test. It works almost every time on anybody,
Speaker 1: including yourself, right? The question is, what could you actually lose?
Speaker 1: So if you ask that about any moment of so-called vulnerability,
Speaker 1: what was on the table? What was actually at risk?
Speaker 1: What did you stand to lose?
Speaker 2: Understanding? Acceptance? Tolerance?
Speaker 1: Did you risk feeling her at their rejection, at their misunderstanding?
Speaker 1: If the answer, if the honest answer is nothing, like
Speaker 1: nothing was at risk, if the audience was guaranteed to
Speaker 1: be friendly, to be supportive, right? If the story was
Speaker 1: already resolved, if the approval was basically handed to you,
Speaker 1: then that wasn't vulnerability.
Speaker 2: That was visibility. And again, It's fine.
Speaker 1: It has a place. It's just a different thing. So
Speaker 1: I want you to try this on yourself. I want
Speaker 1: you to think about a moment recently where.
Speaker 2: You thought you were being vulnerable. I really want you
Speaker 2: to picture it.
Speaker 1: Maybe even said it out loud. This is me being vulnerable.
Speaker 1: And then I want you to ask, what could I
Speaker 1: actually have lost? Was there a real risk that this person, again,
Speaker 1: wouldn't understand you, would think less of you, would leave?
Speaker 1: Or did you know that, again, this room was going
Speaker 1: to be safe because those moments are different? The safe
Speaker 1: one is nice. The safe one is warm. But it's
Speaker 1: not the same as the other. And it doesn't do
Speaker 1: what the other one does. And that's what I wanted
Speaker 1: to get into. Real vulnerability is truth with something at stake.
Speaker 1: So telling someone the truth before you know how they'll
Speaker 1: take it. Asking for what you actually want. The promotion,
Speaker 1: the change, the.
Speaker 2: Second chance, right? When no is a real possibility and
Speaker 2: you'd have to live with the no.
Speaker 1: Admitting you were wrong to somebody who could actually hold
Speaker 1: it against you, who might bring it up in the
Speaker 1: next argument.
Speaker 2: Trying the thing in public. When failing in public is
Speaker 2: a genuine possibility. Launching it, publishing it, saying it first.
Speaker 2: Saying I'm not okay with somebody whose opinion of you
Speaker 2: actually matters to you, right? Not to the internet or
Speaker 2: to the business, but maybe to your dad or.
Speaker 1: To your sister. Do you feel what all of those
Speaker 1: have in common? In every single one, there's a moment
Speaker 1: where the words leave.
Speaker 2: You and you don't know what's coming back. You don't
Speaker 2: know what's on the other side of that request, of
Speaker 2: that conversation, of that apology, of that, of that.
Speaker 1: Of that.
Speaker 2: Right? That's the whole thing. That's the whole thing. Which
Speaker 2: also means if the moment is fully safe, if there's
Speaker 2: nothing at risk, it's something else. So I want to tell.
Speaker 1: You a moment in like my own life. And I'll
Speaker 1: keep it very general because I really want to get
Speaker 1: to the framework. But it applies here. There was a
Speaker 1: season a few years ago where I had to say
Speaker 1: some things out loud in a relationship that really mattered
Speaker 1: to me. that I was genuinely afraid to say. I
Speaker 1: genuinely did not know how she was going to take it.
Speaker 1: I genuinely thought that the relationship that I had pretended
Speaker 1: that we had, right?
Speaker 2: That's another key.
Speaker 1: It was pretending that we had it because the relationship.
Speaker 2: As itself was built on things that I was too
Speaker 2: afraid to say.
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know how they were going
Speaker 1: to land. And in hindsight, It turned out fine. But
Speaker 1: in the moment, standing there, I did not know. And
Speaker 1: saying those things to this particular person was one of
Speaker 1: the most uncomfortable things that I've had to do. But
Speaker 1: it's also one of the reasons, right, that I have
Speaker 1: the relationship with her that I have right now. Because
Speaker 1: the conversations that couldn't happen, right, while I was still
Speaker 1: managing the truth, started happening the very minute that I stopped.
Speaker 2: And I allowed for the truth to be told. And
Speaker 2: not in a way, and we'll get to that, but
Speaker 2: not in a way that, you know, was blaming or
Speaker 2: shaming or anything. It was just my truth that she
Speaker 2: could have rejected. She could have stomped on. She could
Speaker 2: have said, I'm out on this. Like, I'm out on this.
Speaker 2: This is not, I don't agree with this.
Speaker 1: And if this is your perspective and this is your
Speaker 1: mentality and this is what you're bringing to this relationship,
Speaker 1: I'm just out.
Speaker 2: That absolutely could have happened. That's the real risk.
Speaker 1: And it's why this matters, getting this definition right.
Speaker 2: This is not a vocabulary lesson. Real risk is what
Speaker 2: creates real connection. It's one of the very few things
Speaker 2: that does.
Speaker 1: So I want you to see that this is not
Speaker 1: just in romance and friendships and in family.
Speaker 2: This is leadership. This is the leader who says, I
Speaker 2: don't know. Or I got that one wrong. That's on me, okay?
Speaker 2: That's truth with stakes. And it builds more trust than
Speaker 2: any speech that you can give, any values that you
Speaker 2: can share, any mission statement that you can frame, right?
Speaker 2: Because the team relaxes. Not because now they know their
Speaker 2: leader is fallible. They already knew that. We all are.
Speaker 2: But because now they know that their leader can say it.
Speaker 2: They can say that they are fallible, which means the
Speaker 2: leader is safe to be around, which means they can
Speaker 2: be honest too. Truth is contagious that way. Guess what
Speaker 2: else is? The absence of it. This is parenting, right?
Speaker 2: Letting your kids watch you actually apologize without a lecture
Speaker 2: attached to the end of it, right?
Speaker 1: Not, I'm sorry, and here's what you should learn from this.
Speaker 1: Or I'm sorry, but let me justify what I did
Speaker 1: because I'm the parent.
Speaker 2: It's just I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: That teaches them more about being human than any lesson
Speaker 1: you could plan. Any curriculum that you could invite their
Speaker 1: character into because they see it.
Speaker 2: They file it. And years later, when they mess up
Speaker 2: and they will, they know apologies are possible. Because they
Speaker 2: saw one. They saw one in you. This is business.
Speaker 2: The honest pitch, the real number, the I need help, right?
Speaker 1: Anywhere people are trying to build something together, this is
Speaker 1: the skill underneath it. And it's the ones who can
Speaker 1: do it that move faster than everyone around them. Because
Speaker 1: they're not spending energy managing perfection, managing all of the
Speaker 1: ways that people could infer.
Speaker 2: Experiences are truth, right? All that energy that goes into
Speaker 2: keeping the appearance.
Speaker 1: Up, right?
Speaker 2: All of that energy, that energy is available for the
Speaker 2: actual work when you're willing to be truthful. And that's
Speaker 2: why the most effective people in any room over time
Speaker 2: are the ones who tell the truth.
Speaker 1: Not because it's morally superior, although some might argue that
Speaker 1: it is, but because it's operationally faster.
Speaker 2: So let's put the whole month together, my friends.
Speaker 1: Week one, raw, stands for R, raw, unedited. The version
Speaker 1: of the truth that didn't get cleaned up first, right?
Speaker 1: That you already haven't run a thousand times. Okay, two, authentic.
Speaker 1: That's A, unperformed. Who you are underneath the story about
Speaker 1: who you are. Under the labels, under the conditions, under
Speaker 1: the applause.
Speaker 2: Underneath the expected....
Speaker 1: Emotional response that you get every single time you tell
Speaker 1: that story and you make it mean that that's just, well,
Speaker 1: that's just who you are, okay? Week three, necessary, yours.
Speaker 1: What is mine to do here? Not what's fair, not
Speaker 1: what should have happened, yours. And today, truth, right? Truth
Speaker 1: with something at stake, said live. before you can manipulate
Speaker 1: how it lands. Raw, authentic, necessary truth. It spells rant.
Speaker 1: That's the framework. Your rant is your raw, authentic, necessary truth.
Speaker 1: And I picked that word on purpose because think about
Speaker 1: what we have been taught about ranting. Right?
Speaker 2: It's shameful, right? Nobody wants to be the ranter. Calm down.
Speaker 2: Calm down. Don't make a scene. We learn to smooth
Speaker 2: every truth down. before we say it in company. And
Speaker 2: look where it got us. Really, I really want you
Speaker 2: to think about it.
Speaker 1: And again, and I'll get to this in a minute.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about being dramatic for the sake of
Speaker 1: being dramatic. I'm not talking about raging. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about having a curse show and pointing fingers.
Speaker 2: And, no. I just, I want you to think about
Speaker 2: where this idea got us. It got us in rooms
Speaker 2: full of very composed people carrying things they never said.
Speaker 1: Marriages where the truth hasn't been in the room in years.
Speaker 1: Workplaces where nobody says what everybody knows.
Speaker 2: Friendships that have gone, I don't know, half real for
Speaker 2: a decade. Very superficial.
Speaker 1: Very superficial because where would we begin if we actually
Speaker 1: allowed ourselves to tell the truth? So I want to
Speaker 1: flip it. Your rant, the real one, is the most
Speaker 1: valuable thing you're carrying. It's the thing that you haven't
Speaker 1: said in any room. It's where you kind of get
Speaker 1: defensive when somebody gets anywhere near it. It's where you
Speaker 1: go quiet. It's where the resistance lives.
Speaker 2: Everybody has one.
Speaker 1: Every single person listening to this right now has a
Speaker 1: sentence in them that they have never said out loud
Speaker 1: to the person it belongs to, even if that person
Speaker 1: is you.
Speaker 2: I know you know yours. It kind of moved a
Speaker 2: little when I said it out loud. Just observe it.
Speaker 2: Just witness it.
Speaker 1: Years of coaching has taught me about that unsaid sentence.
Speaker 2: It's expensive. You're paying for every single month. You are.
Speaker 2: Every judgment... you're maintaining, every defense you're running, every old
Speaker 2: argument that you're keeping warm, every truth that you're managing
Speaker 2: instead of saying, all of it slows your life down, right?
Speaker 2: You're working way harder than you need to. And you're
Speaker 2: tired in a way that sleep doesn't fix. Ask me
Speaker 2: how I know.
Speaker 1: And a lot of that is the carrying, right? The
Speaker 1: rant said once all the way to empty. is how
Speaker 1: you put it down. Not perfectly, not safe, not safe.
Speaker 1: There is a risk here, but said true. So here's
Speaker 1: your final assignment. It's the one this whole month has
Speaker 1: been building toward. Everything else was practiced for this. One
Speaker 1: truth to one real person this week. Before you know
Speaker 1: how it lands, before you know how it's going to
Speaker 1: be received, okay? Not to an audience, not in a post,
Speaker 1: not in a journal, right? We did the journal in
Speaker 1: week one. Okay, now it's time to go further. A person,
Speaker 1: the actual person, right? Where this truth of yours belongs.
Speaker 1: This is not ranting for the sake of being dramatic.
Speaker 1: This is not scene making it, right?
Speaker 2: This is not raging at this person. It's yours. It's yours.
Speaker 2: Said live. I want you to understand, right?
Speaker 1: That the stakes are real here. So maybe you start
Speaker 1: with something that is a little bit more survivable, right?
Speaker 1: I don't want to send you into your hardest conversation,
Speaker 1: but there's a ladder here. Can you start with something
Speaker 1: honest and maybe small sized, right? Maybe the friend that
Speaker 1: you need to be straight with, that you haven't been
Speaker 1: honest with.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's the.
Speaker 1: Ask that you've been swallowing at work. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: that I was wrong. That's a year overdue.
Speaker 2: Start there. Start there.
Speaker 1: The real version, right? The one with stakes doesn't break you.
Speaker 1: I promise you, it builds you. Every time you say
Speaker 1: a true thing and live through the landing, you become
Speaker 1: a little more permanently somebody who can say true things.
Speaker 1: And somebody that can say true things at the right
Speaker 1: time to the right person, wow, that person is free.
Speaker 2: Free. Not free of fear. Fear still shows up, right?
Speaker 2: Free of the carrying, free of the managing, right? That's
Speaker 2: what's That's what free actually is.
Speaker 1: And if you're sitting here right now thinking, Leah, I
Speaker 1: know exactly what my rant is and I've known it
Speaker 1: since week one and I don't have anywhere to bring it,
Speaker 1: then hear this last thing.
Speaker 2: This is why the inner lab exists.
Speaker 1: It's my membership and it's built to be exactly that place.
Speaker 1: Because understanding these four words, that was this month. Living them,
Speaker 1: that takes a space. where you could actually do the work,
Speaker 1: where you bring the real thing and you say it
Speaker 1: out loud and you get feedback and you get direction
Speaker 1: and you get coached forward instead of circling it alone.
Speaker 1: We all spend so much time in our life, in
Speaker 1: our life, and almost no to little time working on
Speaker 1: our life. Inner Lab is where you work on it.
Speaker 1: Every week with me, with the people that are doing
Speaker 1: this brave work that you're doing, your rant deserves a room.
Speaker 2: Come bring it, right?
Speaker 1: The link is in the show notes. And if you're
Speaker 1: not in the membership already, I will welcome you in there.
Speaker 1: This rant, as I mentioned, is wildly costly. It is
Speaker 1: wildly costly.
Speaker 2: It takes up.
Speaker 1: So much clutter in your mind. Rumination on who they
Speaker 1: should have been, right? When really who should have been
Speaker 1: is the person that's brave enough to be honest.
Speaker 2: We're talking about.
Speaker 1: Clutter next month in the inner lab. This rant is
Speaker 1: part of that mental clutter that until released creates so
Speaker 1: much overwhelm and exhaust and frustration unnecessarily.
Speaker 2: And it's painful. You, you deserve better. I hope you'll
Speaker 2: join us in there. So I'll see you next week
Speaker 2: on the show. Have a beautiful one, everybody.
Speaker 1: Take care. Bye-bye. If this episode cracked something open, Good.
Speaker 2: Let it.
Speaker 1: And then head to LeahRollingCoaching.com and grab the tools to
Speaker 1: rewire the story.
Speaker 2: And reclaim your future. It is yours.
Speaker 1: And then share this with someone who's still waiting to
Speaker 1: be chosen, still waiting for permission and remind them they
Speaker 1: don't need a breakthrough, that.
Speaker 2: They are the breakthrough. Until next time, my beautiful friends.
Speaker 2: Invest in you and keep becoming.