Connecting with honesty

Honesty’s a tough cookie to crack in relationships. There are some who believe you should always be honest no matter what the consequence. Yet extreme honesty uninvited can wreck and ruin relationships.

Few people set out to be dishonest in their connections and yet they withhold things they’re less happy with, pull punches on feedback and through this mislead their connections into believing things that aren’t exactly true. That’s not a good recipe for success either.

When we don’t know our connections terribly well we don’t know their appetite or sensitivity to honest feedback and it’s really hard to even ask this and get an honest answer ironically as people will tend to say yes I love honesty even when they don’t really want completely open direct feedback.

So how do we wrestle with this contradiction? We need to negotiate honesty as we build our connections - connecting at a human level and that's what this episode is all about.

I'm Ian, I help introverts and quieter folk thrive in a world built by extroverts and have their own quietly successful career, filled with ambition with less of the noise.  You can find full transcript, back episodes and resources you can use for free - and how to reach out if you want me to help you personally at www.ianbrowne.com