Now on Audible

Many of you have told me the same thing: you want to read The Things We Hide, but you never sit still long enough to read.

I get it. I spent years of early mornings driving between dairy farms, and the windshield time is where most of my learning happened, albeit back then it was all sports!

So The Things We Hide is now on Audible. Listen on the drive, at the gym, or while you finally sit through a whole football game. I hope you enjoy the added commentary I shared while recording it.

Listen now: https://a.co/d/0fvVRuQR

Most of us carry two versions of our story.

One is what happened, and one is what we tell, trimmed until it is safe enough for whatever room we are standing in.

The edited version is usually true. It just leaves out the part we are afraid will change how people see us.

I had my first acceptable answer by middle school.

I was a tiny kid, and a boy a year older named Mike did not like that I was friends with his girlfriend, who was in my class. He and a couple of his buddies took me into the library, shoved me up against the wall, and told me to leave her alone.

When anyone at home asked how school was going, I said fine, and I kept saying it for a long time.

Today I tell that story to my boys, and we laugh about it. Back then it was evidence for the question I carried everywhere: where do I fit, and do I have any value?

Fine was a lot easier to say than that question.

I got very good at fine. It came with me onto dairies, into board meetings, and home to my own kitchen table, a ready answer for anyone who got close enough to ask what was really going on.

One of the four walls I write about in The Things We Hide is isolation, and the leaders behind it are usually easy to like and hard to know because they've already edited every answer for approval.

The belief holding that wall up for me was simple: if people saw the whole story, they would decide I did not fit.

Every acceptable answer bought me a little approval and a little more distance, and over the years the distance got wide enough that the people closest to me knew the polished version of me best.

What you hide controls you, and the acceptable answer is one of the quietest ways it does.

What you face transforms you, and that usually starts with saying the unedited version out loud to one person.

Tori DaCosta leads inside a Fortune 50 company, founded Journey Stone, and holds an executive MBA from Emory. Two months before finishing that program, she sat in her quiet time asking why something still felt missing, and the first story that came to her became chapter three of her award-winning book, No Name Bastard: How Our Lives Teach Us What We Can Control, Manage, and Influence. When her mother read the manuscript, she told Tori, “My goodness, I didn’t know you felt this way.”

Here are three takeaways from my conversation with Tori.

1. The Story You Hide Still Runs the Room

A hidden story can sit right behind real confidence and competence, and as Tori put it, “it’s not gonna let go of its grip until you are willing to face it, identify what it is, and truly just grow from it.” Write down the answer you give when someone gets close to the part of your story you edit, then tell one person you trust the unedited version this week.

2. Nice Is a Fear With Good Manners

Tori coached a well-liked leader whose whole identity was being nice, and the story attached to it said “it is not nice to cause friction for others in any regard,” so the hard conversations and the accountability never happened. Underneath it was a fear of not being liked, so look at the conversation you have been calling unkind and ask whether it is really about them or about whether they will still like you.

3. Give Your People Permission to Be Human

Tori once told her team to check their personal lives at the door, until she found an employee alone in the break room on the phone about her daughter, apologizing for being away, and she called a reset meeting to tell everyone, “please know that you have permission to be human.” That employee became more loyal and better at her job, and Tori pairs that care with clear expectations communicated often, so bring both into your next team meeting.

Near the end of our conversation, Tori shared what she told her daughter, who is getting ready to live on her own: the easiest way to find out whether someone really cares about you is to not do what they want and watch how they respond. It took her years to learn and about thirty seconds to pass on, and it is the exact test every acceptable answer is built to avoid.

That is the work of The Things We Hide: naming the walls we build to stay acceptable so we can finally be known. If you have been meaning to read it and never sit still long enough, it is waiting for you on Audible.

Listen now: https://a.co/d/0fvVRuQR

One more thing. If the book has helped you say something you've been editing out, would you take two minutes to leave a review on Amazon? It is how the next leader who needs it finds it.

Grab your copy or leave a review: Amazon.com

Did you catch last week’s podcast? If not, listen to it here.