Vulnerability is Sexy***

***As long as you’re reading or hearing about vulnerability – yes, it can sound sexy.  Just try Googling “vulnerability and sexy.”  I get it – and I’m grateful to folks like Brené Brown, Seth Godin, Todd Henry, and others have championed the benefits of this undervalued state that invariably accompanies creativity.  Their writings have been great encouragement to me.

But the difference between contemplating vulnerability and being vulnerable is the difference between reading about skydiving versus jumping out of an open airplane door at 13,000 ft.  The warm glow of the idea of vulnerability evaporates in the wake of the actual being vulnerable.  The starkness of the blank page, the risk of a live performance, the unsculpted, uncrafted block of raw marble that is the first stage of creation is often more intimidating than inspiring, more immobilizing than energizing.

At some point in the creative process – whether in the initial blows of the chisel, the long middle stretch of rewrites, or during the final polishing stages before releasing the work – odds are you will experience self doubt or disillusionment.  Even the temptation to chuck it all as self-delusion, not worth another minute of your time or energy is more probable than possible.  Any songwriter, author, or startup entrepreneur familiar with going from nothing to something has had to grapple with these dogged opponents.

Again, watering holes, places we can go for encouragement and support are great.  I’d be lost without them.  The aforementioned authors have pulled me out of a slump more than a few times.  But don’t be surprised when all the great advice and encouragement you’ve taken in completely abandons you.  It’s par for the course.  Again, it’s the difference between the dreaming and the doing.  Scott Belsky drives this home powerfully in his classic book “Making Ideas Happen,” based on Thomas Edison’s famous quote: “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

The outcome of creative vulnerability can also be wonderful and rewarding – but, again, that’s not vulnerability.  An outcome, by definition, happens once you’ve “come out” of being vulnerable.  Completing work, when you know you’ve dug down and given it your best, can be immensely satisfying.   The endorphin rush of a particularly high risk night onstage, the gratification of knowing you’ve honed an original idea to completion are great pleasures, however fleeting.  My heads up is:  don’t be surprised by the down sides.  The disticntly unglamorous, unsexy vulnerability that accompanies creativity can arouse your every insecurity, dredge up quotes from your harshest critics, heckle and harass you until you render it powerless by simply not giving up.