1186: The Hidden Cost of Undersharing with Leslie John

Pete Mockaitis
Leslie, welcome!

Leslie John
Hi, thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to chat about oversharing, and could we start at the beginning? Could you make the case for oversharing? I think even the word itself seems like it’s a bad thing, oversharing.

Leslie John
I know, I know it’s off putting, and it’s a cheeky title, my book, The Underrated Power of Oversharing. It’s, “Ooh, la la.” So let me just disarm things right off the bat. There is still such a thing as TMI, as oversharing, and there’s lots of oversharing that is not good.

The point of the cheeky title, and my cheeky point, is to say that, oftentimes, what we think is oversharing is just sharing, and sharing is incredibly helpful for our relationships, for our well-being, and, of course, in the workplace.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So what we think is oversharing could just be sharing. This reminds me, we’ve had guests who’ve said, “What you’re calling micromanaging is really just managing.”

Leslie John
That sounds like rationalization that a control freak would use, but I’m kidding. No, but when I’m teaching my PhD students, it is true, like, to really teach someone, you got to get really micro. So I agree with that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so tell us, then, could you maybe orient us with an example of what’s something that some might call oversharing that you think is just great level of sharing?

Leslie John
Well, so here’s something that I shared at work. which was, and I was junior, too. So I was a baby academic, just starting out, and it was a conference, a work conference, and it was late at night, a party, and we were all gathered around, myself, a bunch of junior people, and then two super grand poobah senior people, who we were all desperately trying to impress.

And someone came up with the great idea of saying, “Let’s go around the circle and…” it never ends well, right, “…and share our most embarrassing story ever.” So most people, you know, they started, they’re like, “Oh, you know, like, I worked too hard and, like, one day I got caught working at an odd hour of the day,” or, “Oh, my gosh, there was a typo in this abstract of a fancy academic paper I published. The horror!”

They’re just these, eyeroll-y, like humble brags, right? Like, they’re not actually embarrassing moments, what people were sharing. They were just kind of trying to present themselves in some, there was like a form of posturing, right?

But, for whatever reason, I decided to go for it and share my, actually, most embarrassing story ever, which is also in the book, you’re welcome. But it basically entails me going into grand detail about an episode where I peed myself on stage in the front of, like, a thousand people.

And so I told that story in lots of graphic detail, and people cringed afterwards. And the next morning, I woke up and I’m like, “Oh, my God, I’ve been canceled. That was career suicide. It’s like I poured gasoline all over my body and lit a match, like, the end.” So it really felt like a tremendous overshare TMI moment.

But, thinking back, those two grand poobahs, they became my closest mentors. They opened doors in academia that I didn’t even know existed. And, you know, they’re close, I’m close with them.

And they said, “It’s not, ‘in spite’ of what you shared that night, it’s partly because of it, because you were real and you were actually funny, even if it was at your own expense and you weren’t a robot. And we want to work with people, we’re drawn to people who are actually human and maybe have the humility to joke about themselves.”

I don’t know. I don’t want to flatter myself too much, but that’s an example of something, like, sharing an actual embarrassing story in a work context to people that are way higher status than you. Like, they didn’t even know I existed. That was the first thing they knew about me.

So I think that’s, like, a pretty strong example in the sense of, like, pushing some skepticism that we may actually have about this idea that oversharing is redeeming.

Pete Mockaitis
I think that says it so well, right? Well, I’ve accidentally had an accident as a grown-up as well.

Leslie John
Tell more.

Pete Mockaitis
It was, um, we had a lot of luggage, and a young child, and a long mass transit ride.

Leslie John
Yep, this is a setup. This is, yep.

Pete Mockaitis
And it didn’t seem like I had an opportunity to exit, and so that happened. No one else seemed to notice.

Leslie John
And to be clear, it wasn’t your child.

Pete Mockaitis
No, no, it wasn’t. Okay. So it happens to the best of us. And to your point about we like working with people who are actually human.

Leslie John
Yeah, that’s apt today, right? Whew, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
I think that says a lot, because I have, even before AI, I remember back in the day when I was on the other side of the career fair for the first couple times, you know? So I was with Bain & Company back at the University of Illinois, trying to get some sharp young associate consultants in the mix.

Leslie John
Yep, fancy schmancy.

Pete Mockaitis
And whenever I heard people say, “Well, hello, I am looking to merge my interests in accounting and finance in a high-impact…” And I was, like, “Are you really? Is that, like, what’s in your heart of hearts, your burning desire?”

Leslie John
Yeah, I love it.

Pete Mockaitis
And so I’d be like, I would much appreciate, even if it feels offensive. I was like, “How on earth are companies paying half a million plus a month for a team of five, young folk like you to do stuff?” I’d be like, “Now that’s a real question.”

And I would find that person memorable and interesting and want to have a closer look at that resume application.

Leslie John
Right. And, in fact, there’s data to support this, too. There’s research on job. I love this example of job interviews because job interviews, you know, it’s easy to say when you’re in a high-status position, everybody loves and respects you. You have a lot more leeway of what you can share often, except for immoral things, which is we’re in a higher-standard category, but setting those aside.

But when you’re junior and you’re being evaluated, and it’s super competitive, like a job interview, even then, it can benefit you from being a little bit more open. Not talking about, like, your rashes or like trauma. Like, not… like a little bit more open. A little bit of authenticity, a little bit of humanity. And that’s a great example.

And so this research study, they got transcripts of people in job interviews, and then they looked at, they analyzed the transcripts, and they looked at what predicted getting the job. And they found that among the people that were qualified, it was the candidates who were real that got the jobs, who answered the question, like, you know, that dreaded and kind of unfair question of, like, “What’s your biggest weakness?” And people are, like, usually, “Oh, I work too hard.”

The ones that answered, and a real weakness, like, or a real perceived weakness like, “You know, sometimes I’m quieter in meetings, that’s because I spend a lot of time listening and processing.” Like, something, “So sometimes I’m misunderstood,” right?

So that kind of answer is what I mean by being a little bit more open in that situation, right? So key, of course, is reading the room and understanding the situation.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that is a juicy bit of research. Do you have more like that?

Leslie John
Well, in fact, I do have lots of juicy research. I actually insulted the Harvard prof that was interviewing me in my Harvard interview. So that research, when I read it, I’m like, “Oh, redemption, there’s method to my madness.”

Because when I was interviewing, I, inadvertently, sassed the interviewer. I, inadvertently, made a comment about his weight. And so, like, super meanie move. But it’s kind of sassily delivered in the moment.

And, again, one of these, like, my face turned bright red. I’m like, “Oh, my God, they think I’m a horrible person. Why did I do that?” You know, sometimes when I’m nervous, I just blurt things out. It’s a tick or something. I don’t know.

But then three days later, they called me. It was Harvard. And they said, “When you sassed us like that, we thought you’ll fit right in here. Our students are tough, so you got to have the hutzpah.”

So, you know, it easily could have gone the wrong way, but the point is these things are not as risky as we often perceive them to be. And even when there is something negative that comes out of it, like, you know, you’re at a party, you say something a little bit offside, you feel, or like you’re in the workplace and you feel like you insulted someone.

You can always go back to them and say, “Hey, I’m worried about how my comments went over, right?” So it’s not like this one-shot thing that it’s oversharing. And then you can see, even there’s a benefit to that because now, okay, maybe you shouldn’t have said the thing, but now by approaching and talking, now you’re forging a relationship with the person.

The person respects you because you’re asking them questions, you’re hearing them out, you’re learning about each other, right? So it’s, like, even those moments that feel cringe-y and overshare-y, there can be an upside.

And when I was writing the book, it made me reflect on all these funny moments in my life where I thought, “Oh, my God, what did I do?” And looking back, I realized the long game. There was always some amazing redemption to them, so much so that like every single one of these things I would do them all over again.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so this is eye-opening. And we’ve heard the acronym TMI, too much information. You also introduced the acronym TLI, too little information. How should we be thinking about the concept of TLI?

Leslie John
I think TLI is way more common and way more problematic, actually, than TMI. TLI, too little information, you know, we didn’t even have a word for it. That’s how, like, much we’ve ignored this problem.

It’s not to say TMI isn’t real. For sure, there’s still TMI, but the more I learned and the more I really practiced opening up more, the more I realized, “Wow, this societal fetish with TMI, or the societal, it’s like the greatest social sin, TMI, right?” That’s how we treat it.

But it’s really not the bad, like, of course, sometimes you really can. You can get canceled. You can get fired for telling your boss, “You have a hidden disability,” whatever. All these things. Of course, of course, of course.

But on the whole, in so many circumstances, we hold back when it would benefit us so, so much to open up a little bit more.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So that’s handy to remember. There’s a foil, an alternative set of letters to think about when TMI fears are in our brains. So can you maybe give us some guidelines in terms of, in a way, it’s an art. You can have too little information. You can have too much information.

We might be calibrated a bit too conservatively, and it’d be in our interest to share a bit more and to be a bit more disclosing and revelatory and human. But how do we gauge things and get that dial where we want it to be?

Leslie John
Yeah, great question. So the first, I love where you started in that revealing wisely, figuring out how much to share, what to hold back, how to share it, there’s a lot of science to it, but it’s also an art and I think, most of all, it’s a skill. But, oddly, it’s not a skill we’re, like, taught in school.

My kids just started school. It’s not a skill we’re taught. We’re taught math, arithmetic, but yet, this is really important, figuring out what to share and what not to share, because if we do it well, the rewards are so great.

We get well-being, we get friendships, we get close relationships, we get influence in the workplace, for example, we get respect, admiration, all these things.
So, yes, it’s a skill, and so the first thing to say is that, like any skill, you have to do it to get better at it. You have to practice. And what typically happens is we don’t even open up at all. Like, we don’t even get to practice because we don’t even consider saying the thing.

So we have to start doing it more so that, then, we can learn, like learn by doing. So that’s number one, it’s a skill. And it also means, like, when we do screw up, like have some self-compassion, to get all therapy-y. Have some self-compassion because you’re going to get it wrong because you have to fail to learn how to do it. Okay.

But, in terms of, like, if I was a listener, I’d be like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But give me the tools, give me the tips.” So what I would say is one really good guide that you can use in any situation almost, the time when I would say it doesn’t apply is in, like, a very close established relationship where kind of these norms of reciprocity fall away, but I digress.

The tip is the principle of reciprocity, which is, essentially, what it sounds like. You want to be aware of, “Is there a back and forth of information exchange? If I start revealing something, is the person, my acquaintance, my colleague, my boss, are they saying something back? Or are they just saying nothing? And am I continuing to go on and on and on?”

You typically don’t want to be in a situation where you’re doing all the sharing and the other person isn’t reciprocating. If they’re not reciprocating, that is information. I mean, unless you’re in a unique context where, like, your boss is interviewing you and asking for feedback or whatever.

But, typically, in a given conversation, you want to follow this principle of reciprocity. And it also means, when someone says something to you, like, I’m thinking you’re on the playground and the kids are playing and they’re happy and they’re smiling, and they say, what I would say is a little reveal.

Usually, in these situations where, like, we make small talk and we just say, “Oh, they’re having so much fun.” But that’s super boring. What would it mean to reveal a little bit more there? What it would mean would be to say something like, “They’re laughing so hard. I don’t even remember the last time I had a big belly laugh.” Like that’s a little reveal, okay?

And so that’s like an olive branch. And then the person I’m with, ideally, they’re going to then share, like, the last time they belly laughed, and then maybe I’ll share some, like, mildly embarrassing story, right?

You see, you want to go back and forth mutually, gradually getting deeper and deeper. So the dynamic of reciprocity is really key. So, anytime, we’ve all been in those situations where, like, you’re on the receiving end, and someone’s just like dumping and dumping and dumping and it’s like dysregulated, you don’t want to do that.

So reciprocity is a principle that you can, like, use and apply tomorrow.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s really handy in terms of you’re offering a little bit at a time instead of all at once and observing the response and seeing, with the reciprocity. And what’s interesting is, sometimes, even then, if you’re not getting much back, that doesn’t necessarily, I’m thinking about my own experience.

I don’t think that necessarily means, “Oh, you’re dead in the water. Don’t share anything with this person.” It could just mean they’re tired, they’re distracted, they’re bored, they’re not that interested in what you had to say with regard to laughter.

And yet, you might very well share more, and it’s totally cool. So I guess my thought is the reciprocity guideline is a handy one, and I’d say, well, you tell me, expert, it’s a fairly safe and conservative one. Does that sound right?

Leslie John
Yeah, that sounds totally right. And, yeah, it’s also a guideline. And like any guideline, sometimes it behooves us to break it. It’s also worth noting that, in that situation where you’re saying something, you reveal something and they don’t say anything back, that’s a moment where we are prone to overreacting where we’re like, “Oh, I said too much.”

Like, we think we attribute it to something we did or said, maybe we said too much. And that is so, like, unless you said something really clearly offensive, it’s usually not the case. It’s informative. You should take note of it.

It could be that they’re tired, it could be that they’re bored, it could be that they don’t want to start another friendship, or, like, all kinds of reasons, and they’re all legitimate. And it, most importantly, gives you information. It’s like, “Okay, maybe they’re not down,” or, “Maybe it’s not interesting. Maybe I’ll ask them a question.”

Like, asking a question is a really good way of, then, if you’re kind of trying to understand and you sense that they’re, maybe, you could bring them into a dialogue with you. So question-asking is another great tool you can use to kind of prompt.

Like, if you say something and you feel like you’re kind of stonewalled, you could ask a question like, “How did you experience that?” or something like this, and see what they say. And if, again, they’re like terse, that’s more evidence.

It’s kind of like we’re amateur scientists going through the world and trying to figure it out. And I think this is to the point that, like, being really cognizant of the situation and how people act and using that to guide our behaviors is really important.

There’s also certain things that people often ask me, “Okay, are there things that are TMI that I should just never share?” Of course, we all know what the taboo topics tend to be, you know, sex, politics, finances, religion.

I wouldn’t say those are off topic, per se, because there’s really a situation for anything, in my view. What I would say is, so it’s really hard to give like topical advice, but what I would say is one, two red flaggy things. One is gossip, especially at the workplace.

So gossip, even though it can be fun and juicy to do, I don’t advise it because it’s not so nice. And it actually makes you look bad. So when you say negative things about other people, people implicitly associate those negative things with you as well. It’s one of these kind of subconscious biases we have.

So it makes you look bad. So don’t gossip. It’s unkind. It’s not your information to share. So that’s one rule of thumb I give.

One of the things that people often ask, “What are things that we tend to undershare?” Like, “Hey, I hear you that you’re saying we should share a little bit more a lot of the time, but what the heck does that mean? How do I do it?”

And one really easy low-hanging fruit way to start is with praise. So think about the things, positive things that come to mind. Like, for me, as a nerdly academic, I’ll be walking down the hall at work and I’ll see a colleague whose paper, academic paper, I just read, and I’ll think, like, “Oh, I love that study. I love the study design. I love the paradigm. Like, yes, I’m a real nerd.”

But we often keep those things to ourselves. But if we say them, so praise, say, “Hey, Josh, I love that paradigm. Mwah! Chef’s kiss.” Like, a specific and sincere piece of praise, that’s a kind of sharing that is very much low-hanging fruit, that we so frequently undershare.

And it’s kind of a one-two punch because, one, the person will feel good. Again, must be specific, must be sincere, right? I’m not talking about vacuous praise. Specific and sincere, they feel good.

Also, you can then start to be strategic, right? Like you can reinforce good behavior as a leader by praise. And it also makes you feel good. Tons of research on this. The giver. It also makes you look good. Again, the same principle with gossip, how saying negative things makes you look bad, saying good things makes you look good.

And then what I have found is that when I’m doing this, applying this, again, because like I’m my own guinea pig in all of this, I have found that it makes me a more positive person. And at the risk of sounding toxically positive, like I am happier because I notice the good things way more often because I’m so in the habit of, like, praising people.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, and it is just a good feeling in terms of you say something and then they’ll have a response, a reaction, like, “Oh, thank you.” You know, like they were surprised. They weren’t expecting that. There’s some delight and it’s just great. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, that was a nice moment of connection we got to share together and I feel good that I helped someone else feel good and, yay, you know?”

Leslie John
Yay! That’s right. Yay all around.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you know what’s really interesting about when say praise is, I think it gets to this core emotional resistance here that… because, in a way, like praise doesn’t feel super duper disclosive. Disclosive? Disclosing? In that, in terms of, for me, personally, all I have shared is an opinion and perhaps among the safest of opinions. It’s like, “Hey, this thing you did, I thought was good.”

And yet, there’s still a similar emotional internal sensation going on with resistance to doing a praise versus resistance to sharing a thing. I suppose vulnerability is the approximate English word we’d use. Can you talk about this emotional stuff here?

Leslie John

So I think of vulnerability is, like, kind of it’s really deep sharing. It’s emotional openness. It’s saying, “Oh, I feel really anxious about public speaking. I’m really nervous to give this presentation. My mouth is feeling dry. I’m feeling anxious.” That’s vulnerability.

Most of the time we’re not being vulnerable at work. Sometimes, it behooves us to be vulnerable, but we still need to be very cautious because it is a very risky talking about feelings, negative feelings. Anxieties can be very risky, especially at work, but there’s also huge reward when done the right way.

What I think is a great low-hanging fruit in the workplace is transparency. Transparency is cognitive openness. Transparency is sharing how your mind works, how your thought process works, kind of bringing people under the hood of explaining why you think the way you think, how you came to a certain conclusion.

That’s the kind of revealing that is, really, you get a lot of bang for your buck because it’s relatively safe because you’re not, like, talking about deep, difficult emotions, but you’re opening up because you’re opening up about how your mind works.

So, imagine, for example, your boss comes to you and says, “Hey, I noticed you were really quiet in that meeting,” which I guess is a criticism. And one of the reasons you were quiet is because you’re nervous about speaking up and you don’t know if your ideas are good.

So you could say, you could be vulnerable, and you could say exactly that. I don’t recommend that because that would diminish you, potentially, in the boss’ eyes. But what you could say to them instead, so instead in these situations, we think we either have to do that or just kind of, “Uh, okay, you’re right,” grin and bear it, which also is not great.

Instead, what I’m suggesting is transparency here would be really helpful. If you said something like, “Yes, I realize that and, you know, the way my mind works is I really like to spend time listening and really processing what people are saying. And that’s why I’m a little quiet at first because, then, I have more to contribute when I feel I’ve really processed it. Now, I’m happy to speak off the cuff if you’re telling me you’d like me to get in sooner. That’s great feedback.”

That’s what I mean by being transparent, right? And this is a way where the default, the standard is to just be like, “Okay, boss, yep, you’re right.” That doesn’t really advance you. Saying, “I have anxiety and I don’t think my ideas are good,” that’s dangerous.

But being transparent and saying, “Huh? Well, it’s good observation. The reason why is because I need to process my thoughts,” that actually strengthens you and makes you come across as thoughtful, you know, as mature, and so on.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s a handy distinction there in terms of vulnerability versus transparency. And it seems the key difference there is you’re not sharing the deepest emotional secrets of your inner life, but you are sharing something real and of significance about you and your operations.

Leslie John
Yes, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I’m curious, any other key things you want to be on the lookout for as you’re observing people, their receptivity, their dynamics, their openness? You clued us into checking for reciprocity earlier, which is pretty handy. Are there any other things we should be on the lookout for that could give us some handy indicators?

Leslie John
Well, I think that checking for the feeling of TMI actually is important, or the feeling, or the cues that you’ve crossed the line, you know, which we’re quite exquisitely attuned to. You know the cringe-y face or the averted gaze, shocks even, gasps.

And the reason, I think, we should pay attention to that is not because we should avoid it, but I think we should learn from it. And I think we spend too much time beating ourselves up and feeling ashamed over it when, instead, if you sometimes get there, if you sometimes get that reaction, this may sound crazy, but it’s kind of a cause for celebration because you know you’ve gotten there. You’ve gotten to the limit.

So often, so many of us, we’re in this restricted range of how much we share. We share a very restricted range and I want us to widen up and expand our range.

But if you never experience that, you’re not going too far. And the goal in the end is like, for me, I’m like total emotional intimacy, like with my spouse. I can tell him anything, like that’s the goal. And total guardedness in, say, like a deposition, right? You want the full range. And most of us are kind of stuck in a really small range.

Interestingly, there’s that one analogy is one piece of career advice I got about negotiating, was if you always get what you want in a negotiation, you’re not asking for enough. Sometimes, it’s good to not get what you want because you know you’re pushing it, just like that with revealing. Sometimes, it’s good to feel like you’ve pushed it because then you know where the line is.

Pete Mockaitis
I love that so much. I’ve got a friend who just recently has been, you know, landed two above $50,000 consulting engagements.

Leslie John
Sweet.

Pete Mockaitis
And before, he had never asked for that high a price. And so we’re like, “Oh, great job. Great job.” And it is, it is sort of like eye-opening for him, like, “Whoa! This is possible? I guess this has probably been possible for years, I’ve just never asked. That’s really interesting.” And you see the world.

And I love that you don’t know the boundaries until you hit them, and they may very well be far beyond your world. And when you told that story, it’s like, it’s funny. What came to mind is, and I haven’t thought about this in years, but I was at a gathering. We were on a beach.

I was at a gathering, and we had a lot of college friends. We got together because we were in the same academic minor program. And so we had a lot of classes together back in the day. It’d been years. We all got together. I thought, “We’re all friends here, you know?” Something came up, so I shared a story of a pretty wild, well, supernatural healing miracle, which is, I guess, that’s in our zone, right? Religion?

Leslie John
What? Wow, can you tell it? Everybody wants to know now. Can you tell it? Very meta.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, a friend and I had a series of visions appear to us, and then we prayed for someone to be healed, and she informed us that she was.

Leslie John
Wow! What was her ailment? Like, what?

Pete Mockaitis
Suicidal depression and self-harm. So it was wild. It was perhaps the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me.

Leslie John
Wow! Wow! That is amazing.

Pete Mockaitis
And so very cool. And so I was just excited to tell the story because it’s something kind of related came up and I thought, “Well, some people don’t want to hear this, but, hey, we’re all friends here.“

And so I went ahead and told the story. And there was, like, it was exactly what you described, and it caught me off guard because people kind of looked away and it was like, “Uh.”

Leslie John
Because are they like, “This is like woo-woo”?

Pete Mockaitis
I guess. I don’t know. It was weird, I thought, “We’re all friends here. What’s going on? We go way back.”

Leslie John
Yeah, I think it’s cool. I have so many follow-up questions.

Pete Mockaitis
“We go way back.”

Leslie John
And I think we don’t know anything. Like, time travel is, like, we do not know the half of it, so.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, but what was so fascinating, to your point, it’s like the people were looking away. It was like, “I guess maybe I shouldn’t have shared that. Oopsies!” And then I actually got a follow-up text message hours later from one person who was in the group, but she didn’t say anything. She was like, “I really appreciated the story you shared. It meant a lot to me.”

Leslie John
Amazing, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
And it was so fascinating because it’s, like, “I guess I did the wrong thing here. But for her, it was very meaningful. So I guess I didn’t,” but she didn’t say anything and it’s so fascinating, like, what’s under the surface. Yeah.

Leslie John
Right, because it would take so much courage for her in that context. You know, a dear colleague of mine, his name is Amit Goldenberg, and he does work on, like, emotional contagion, and he’s done this fascinating work on how your reaction is anchored to the most negative reaction in the group.

Like, implicitly, we act as if the one negative review is representative, but it’s just that, an outlier. It’s really interesting.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. So it’s really intriguing what can be happening beneath the surface. And I love what you have to say, is you got to bump up against the wall a few times to really know the boundaries because who knows?

Leslie John
Yep, do it. Right. Right.

Pete Mockaitis
Like, if I never shared certain things, I could be, much like our consulting friend, leaving all kinds of money or value or benefit or goodness on the table.

Leslie John
Money on the table. I know. I was thinking the same thing. Totally. Totally. And, you know, I’ve also found it gives me more kind of self-compassion, and also like the right mindset, which is that, “I’m going to fail sometimes. It’s okay.”

And sometimes it’s actually hilarious, the failures, right? Like, it’s less serious than we need it to be, than we often think it is. It’s not this high-stakes zero-something.

Sometimes there are very high-stakes reveals, but the vast majority of the time, it’s very low stakes, which makes it a great place to practice, right? You know, most of our disclosure decisions are pretty low stakes. The accumulation of our lives, it matters, but this is a great way to practice.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that really rings true. And I might suggest, it’s good for us to be humbled a few times just for our own, just so we’re not too, you know, puffed up, chest, annoying, obnoxious, in the course of living our lives and relating to people, as well as, of course, finding the boundaries, the true limits of sharing.

Tell us, Leslie, any other big things you really want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Leslie John
We talked a little bit about how when you’re in a job interview or like you’re not necessarily a manager and it’s a little riskier to open up. But as you kind of move up the ranks, as you become more managerial, more in a leader position, you have a lot more latitude, generally, to be more reveal-y.

And we found that when managers open up a bit more, like say to their teams the things they’re working on, as in weaknesses, like, “I’m working on my organizational skills,” or whatever, it doesn’t occur to managers to share this, but when they do, their employees are far more motivated to work for them.

And bigger picture, the dreamy version of saying this, is that people, when you are in a higher status role, you have a lot of power to change things for better. And the examples I’ll give you there are the heavy-hitter ones of Magic Johnson and Angelina Jolie.

So Magic Johnson, in the early ‘90s, some of us might have like flashbulb memories, some of us may be too young. But, essentially, you can still watch it on YouTube. Magic Johnson suddenly had an announcement to make, everybody was waiting, nobody knew what it was going to be.

Superstar Lakers player comes into the hotel conference room and announces that he’s retiring effective immediately because he has HIV. And, at the time, you know, the early ‘90s, this was like very stigmatized disease. It was “the gay disease,” and there was a lot of stigma that got in the way of, you know, acceptance and compassion and help.

And when he did that, he de-stigmatized it and he motivated people who would, otherwise, not get tested to get tested. There’s lots of studies on how, when after that announcement, the uptick, major upticks in testing.

Similarly, Angelina Jolie, that op-ed she wrote in the Times about 20 years ago, about how she had decided to have a double mastectomy because she has the breast cancer gene. And that, in and of itself, caused many, many, many more people to get screened and detected and to get the preventative care they needed. So it’s really life-changing stuff, it can be.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Yes, thank you. And now can you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Leslie John
One that I recently encountered that I love, it’s a quote by Dolly Parton, seems very apt, a journalist who, Jad Abumrod, who interviewed her a lot, he said that she told him, “You can ask me anything you want, and I get to answer it however I want.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well said. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Leslie John
So one of mine is this crazy awesome, a crazy thought, seemingly, crazy, I don’t know, a thought experiment where I put people into a dilemma, where I made them make a choice. And the goal of the study was to see just how important it is to open up and just how much we hate people who, or distrust people, who withhold information.

And the idea was to show that, sometimes, it can be better to say, to reveal, even really bad things about yourself relative to opting out of answering, to refusing to share. So what we did in this study was, if you were a participant, I’d give you two prospective dates, two dating profiles.

And imagine one of the dating profiles, the person had been asked, “Have you ever had any STDs?” And the person answered it and said, “Oh, I have had so many STDs, I can’t even count. I’ve made new STDs, I’ve discovered.”  So all the STDs. So, like, super bad.

The other person. I know this is a super weird experiment.

Pete Mockaitis
This will be the clip we use to share for the episode, Leslie.

Leslie John
But there is reason behind the madness. I love my job. Okay, so then the other person, they were asked the same question about their STD history, and they said, “I’m not answering that question. Just not answering.” So who would you rather date? Who would you rather date?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I saw you deliver this at a keynote, Leslie.

Leslie John
Nice.

Pete Mockaitis
So, you know, both are very concerning.

Leslie John
You wanted that on the record, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
But I guess that’s the thing is you’re forcing me to make a choice. So, I mean, I suppose I’ll take the one who owned it, because, then, at least, I figure, “Okay, we can have a conversation about this.”

Leslie John
“We can work with it,” yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
As opposed to the other one, it’s like, “I guess this is off the table, and it’s probably not good and you were not allowed to talk about it. So I guess I have to pick the one,” yeah.

Leslie John
Yeah. Right. And so that’s what most people pick. First, when we first got that, it was to my astonishment, because I’m like, “Wait, you’d rather someone who is admitting like the worst possible thing relative to someone who’s just like, ‘I’m not answering’?” Like, maybe they’re not answering because, out of principle, that they’re like, “This is a ridiculous question.” We don’t know.

But, yet, that’s not the inference we make. The inference we make is like, “Ooh, we can’t trust them. They’re a hider.” And so we distrust people who hide, who conceal, so much so that we’d rather date someone, we’d rather hire someone, we’d rather be colleagues with someone who admits to things, even if they’re kind of bad, relative to someone who, like, very conspicuously withholds.

And I think that’s because revealing sensitive information, revealing personal information, is a way we show the other person that we trust them. Because it’s like, “I wouldn’t be sharing this if I didn’t trust you. I’m sharing you this because I trust you,” right? That’s what it’s saying, the meta communication, right?

And so when we’re on the receiving end of that, it feels so good that someone has trusted us, and then we trust them back. And that mutual trust is the spark of colleague-ship, friendships, romances, and so on. And so it’s so important that when someone doesn’t do it, we really treat them with contempt when they don’t open up.

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s a really great counterpoint to remember, is that if they happen to already know the answer, we will distrust those who hide. I remember once, I was working, and I happened to know this juicy little piece of gossip that a manager, my manager of the project, was moving in with his girlfriend who also worked at the company.

Leslie John
Ooh, scandal.

Pete Mockaitis
So this was, like, that was happening that weekend. And so, you know, on Monday, we were just chit-chatting, and I was like, “Oh, how was your weekend?”

Leslie John
“How was your weekend?”

Pete Mockaitis
And I was like, “I don’t think he’s going to tell me this,” you know. But he might say, “Oh, moving, you know, it’s rough.” Okay, you know, maybe leave out some of the details.

Leslie John
And say, “Where did you move?”

Pete Mockaitis
But he’s just, like, in less than a quarter of a second after I asked the question, I was like, “Oh, how’s your weekend?” “Had a steak dinner.” It’s, like, “Okay, someone was ready.”

Leslie John
Oh, wow. Shut down. Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
He was ready to answer the “How was your weekend?” question. And so, I mean, we weren’t pals, we weren’t tight. I didn’t expect him to say, “Well, you know, my girlfriend and I were taking the next step.” I didn’t expect, but I thought he’s like, “Oh, I moved, and it was kind of a pain how moving is.” But because he shared even less than I thought he would, I was, like, I don’t know, I felt more distant from him afterwards.

Leslie John
Yeah, that’s so well put.

Pete Mockaitis 
Okay. And a favorite book?

Leslie John
I am loving, I just finished it, well, there’s one that I’m reading right now, but the one I just finished was Unreasonable Hospitality. It’s so good. I love it.

And then the one I’m really in, I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but I’m really into true crime right now. One of the books I’m into is Broken Plea: The Explosive Search for Truth Behind the Idaho Murders. I don’t know what these preferences say about me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I was just going to recommend The Onion comedy podcast called “A Very Fatal Murder,” which spoofs the whole genre of true crime podcasts.

Leslie John
Oh, I got to listen to that. There was an SNL a couple years ago, one of their music videos that was “Murder show, murder show, I’m going to watch a murder show.” And it was, like, girls’ night in, and they’re getting all excited because they’re going to watch a murder show. So awesome. So true.

Pete Mockaitis
And could you share a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Leslie John
This is such a boring answer, but I’ve recently encountered zeeg, Z-E-E-G. It’s an amazing scheduling tool. It’s way better than Calendly.

Pete Mockaitis
How so?

Leslie John
Well, so to get nerdy about it, you can make it so that your schedule only opens, only lets people book back-to-back. You can have different meeting types that are easy, like, “Days I’m in office versus Zoom” is a different, like it has a little bit more, a lot more flexibility, actually. I’m not really selling it, I’m sorry, but I love it.

Pete Mockaitis
Impressive. And a favorite habit?

Leslie John
Sleep. Is sleep a habit?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s great.

Leslie John
It’s so, so, so important. Like, I know people say it’s important, but, like, I think there’s not many people that actually prioritize it the way it needs to be prioritized. At least, for me, I’m a wreck if I don’t have enough sleep. Like, my emotions I can’t regulate, I can’t think as well.

And so it’s, like, I’m just very…And with that one amazing tool that I love, I look really weird, but blue light blocking glasses. I don’t know that they actually, it might just be placebo, but, like, I swear by them. I got them on at 7:00 o’clock at night.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I mean, Harvard Business Review featured a human random control trial, showing that it got the job done.

Leslie John
Really?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, better sleep and better performance ratings from colleagues at work.

Leslie John
Oh, wow. Is that new? I haven’t heard this. That’s awesome.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s been around for some years. And is there a key nugget you share that folks seem to really connect and resonate with, they quote back to you often?

Leslie John
Yeah, about my work, one that keeps coming back is to the advice, the guidance. Two things. One, that revealing is a skill. And second is to share a little bit more a lot of the time.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Leslie John
My website ProfLeslieJohn.com, or you can follow me on Instagram or LinkedIn @ProfLeslieJohn.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Leslie John
Praise someone. Give them a specific and sincere piece of praise.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Leslie, thank you.

Leslie John
Thank you so much.