How To Deal With Vulnerability The Best Way.

Vulnerability is one of the most intangible words.

Even if you know the meaning of vulnerability, you may ask yourself anyway, what is it? Tomorrow it’s exactly 15 years ago since the 9/11 tragedy took place. Probably you connect that tragic milestone for the humanity with the word “ vulnerability .” Every single person involved in the 9/11 tragedy, no matter age, social belonging, gender, nationality, or anything else, were all exposed and affected.

Some feel guilty, others feel shame, desperation, frustration, but typically you feel something that has a negative taste or undertone. But is that really what vulnerability is all about? No, it isn’t, but as we have that perception we seldom talk about being vulnerable.

The researcher, author, speaker and professor Brené Brown, has done a deep research on vulnerability. She is one of the very few persons who has been able to identify and put a label on the word.

Brené Brown says,

“ Vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it appears that it is also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of love”.

The way she adds positive attributes to “ vulnerability,“ changes completely the perception we might have, and balance is created. You don’t need to numb it anymore but have a natural relationship to the word.

How Vulnerability Can Create Bad Habits.

As vulnerability usually is connected with negativism, it is easy to search for consolation in eating non-healthy food, alcohol, drugs, medication and many other things. It’s a way to trying escape from the reality.

In the most developed countries in the world, we face the problems with obesity, addiction, credit card debts and an enormous consumption of medicines. Could the lack of knowledge of how to deal with vulnerability be a factor to count on for these problems?

But if we add on joy, creativity, hope and happiness to vulnerability, you’ll get another scenario.

In Brené Brown’s research, she found that people who dealt with vulnerability in a positive way, they had courage, compassion, and connection as three essential ingredients in their lives.

Love, desire to give without expecting something back and to connect with people, make people comfortable to deal with their vulnerability. They balance whole the time positive and negative things in life and let themselves feel comfortable being vulnerable.

View the TED conference video with Brené Brown, which is a brilliant explanation of vulnerability. The video so far has over 26 million views.

How Can Vulnerability Serve You In Business?

As Brené Brown mention in her video, today all in life tend to end up in a confrontation. Politicians do not do anything else but blaming their counterparty. Religions, which by the way all have a message of peace as their foundation, become more extreme and unfortunately even acts of terrorism backed up by religious conviction, are daily news.

The old traditional offline business also shows a tendency of more sharp methods to conquer the markets and fight the competition back. Regulations and laws become more extensive to keep an acceptable balance in the market. But also to defend the interests of the consumers.

The online business, the marketplace where the future will take place, shows a different pattern. As all the social medias represent the gateway to market, the potential is enormous. With 1.5 billion daily visitors on Facebook and similar figures for all other medias out there, the potential market is big enough to serve us all. There is no need of market share fights. The cake is big enough for each and everyone to get their piece.

Instead, the online business environment is full of groups sharing experiences and marketing tips. It is an honor to help other people to be successful.

Without any doubt, this is the future for business and the humanity to live and work together in the name of peace and prosperity.