Unhiding: A Conversation About Disability & Belonging with Ruth Rathblott

H: So, Ruth, we are here today to talk about a topic that is near and dear to my heart and something that you are keynote speaker about, have a book about, and a TED talk about, and that is hiding, and more importantly, unhiding. So where shall we start with this really important topic?

G: I think we start at the beginning, Diann. Like, I think we start where it starts, which is it's not birth, right? It's the first time you notice when you're different than someone. That something is different about you that you may be rejected about, you may find judgment about, and you just feel different and so you recognize that part and you start to hide it. That's the place to start, I think.

H: And this starts pretty early on, it may be that you have a physical difference and we'll talk about yours, or you might have a psychological difference. Or I have a lot of redheads in my life and they'll tell me as soon as they realize that being a ginger made them different, they started becoming self conscious in many respects. So how early do you think it tends to happen for most people because I think most people think there's something different about them or wrong about them.

G: Yeah. I can speak for myself, and I can speak to what people have shared with me. I think our teenage years and our adolescence are some of the toughest times, not just because of hormones and mood swings and things like that, but it's the time where fitting in is magnified. It's an idea that you want to connect with your peers, you wanna be liked. You wanna move away and individuate from your parents. So you find that space to wanna be like your peers and that's truly what happened for me. I left the safe confines of a middle school to go to a big high school. And, you know, we know that anytime you kind of change lanes or change into something new, that's also when difference shows up because you're now trying to fit in and you start to notice where you're different than others. For me, that was the 1st day of high school and I remember waiting to get onto that yellow school bus and thinking about, oh, am I gonna like the kids that I'm going to school with, will I make friends?

And when I sat down and other kids started getting on the bus at different stops, somebody stared just a little bit too long and they noticed my hand, they noticed my limb difference. And for the 1st time, I took my hand and I tucked it into my pocket. Diann, I had never done that before, I had never hidden it so that people wouldn't see it. And I remember thinking it's weird that I'm getting self conscious about this, but it's natural impulse and reaction. And I hid it for the bus ride thinking, oh, I'll just get to school and everything will be okay.I just don't want anyone else on the bus to do that same thing And I got to school and my hand stayed tucked in my pocket. It stayed there that 1st day, that 1st year, that 2nd year, all 4 years. Even when I went off to college thinking, oh, this time I'm gonna show that, you know, they're not gonna know about my 4 year history of hiding my hand. I didn't know how to stop hiding it because I'm part of my narrative about myself.

H: There's so much that's fascinating to me about this, including the fact that you managed to get all the way through elementary school and middle school, without feeling the need to hide. And I'm gonna imagine that your parents must I've done a really good job of normalizing your difference for you. Because I would have expected you're observing the difference and observing other people's reaction to it, I would have I would have guessed it would have been in elementary school. So I'm sure there's some factors that sort of pushed that out till high school. Can you share those?

G: Yes, I think you're absolutely right. My parents did an amazing job at encouraging me to try everything and do everything. And that was advice they had gotten from I was born in the days before sonograms, so the difference was a surprise to my parents, to the doctors and nurses. This was before limb differences were really something that people knew a lot about and they still are figuring things out. And the nurse came over because she saw that my parents were shocked and bewildered. And she said she carried me over and she said, you're gonna take this little girl home. You're gonna love her and treat her like you would any other child. You're gonna treat her as normal and that's absolutely what they did.

So I was encouraged to try everything and get into everything and learn how to ride a bike, learn how to tie my shoes, like do all of those things. There was an instance when I was writing the book that I there was a memory I recalled with my father, which was in 1st grade, there was a bully who had said something apparently to me about my hand, and I went home and told my parents, and let's just say she was taken care of the next day, like and so it didn't happen again. So I never yeah I didn't have the incessant bullying. I was lucky, and definitely privileged in that sense of not having that. I don't think I mean, I ran for student government. I was always in theater. I was in sports. I did everything and what was amazing is that when I got to high school, the hiding stopped me from doing those things, because people were worried about people finding out and judging me.

H: And that's one of the things that parents really come to terms with at puberty, and the changes that are going on in the brain and with the hormones that literally shift our focus exclusively to fitting in with our peers.

G: So it's a healthy development, though. It's healthy development and necessary.

H: But for you, it marked a distinct transition from self acceptance to questioning.

G: Questioning. Yeah and how do and I will say one of the things that I looked back at is, and I now advise parents about when I talk to parents about teenage years and difference, is creating space for those conversations because all of us at some point will feel different. How do we start to have conversation, safe conversation with especially our immediate family, if they feel safe around it, right and that's where I think I've talked to my father about it. Unfortunately, my mom passed before my journey of unhiding really unfolded. And my father, though, I said the 1 piece that I feel like was missing while all of that encouragement engagement of me in activities was the space to have conversation because they noticed I was hiding. And but you have talked about it differently. How could it have been a space to say, why are you hiding like, what's going on because that's not the Ruth we knew so let's talk about it.

to and so, yeah hindsight is: 2020

H: And that is the first step of the process that you've developed to help other people understand that they are hiding and how to begin the process of unhiding. And I think something we had talked about previously, is that you actually because you are resilient, because you are resourceful, and because you had all those early childhood years develop those traits and those skills, you actually got pretty masterful at hiding. Like, you were very clever, not just by avoiding being seen and avoiding having your difference observed, but you got some pretty crafty ways of hiding in plain sight. I'd love you to share those as well.

G: Yeah. No, people are always interested. They're like, how did you hide? I mean, I hid Diann for 25 years. I got really good at hiding and so I hid what started out with that hand in the pocket. That was one technique. I also hid with longer sleeves. So winter was a great season because and I think about it now as we start into the winter of life, it was colder so I could wear longer sleeves and people wouldn't notice, but I also wore longer sleeves in the summer, and suffered through some really hot summers with longer sleeves and turtlenecks, and it that was a second technique. And then 3rd is even behind bags, I would carry book bags or bags and hide it behind that, like, in the fold between myself and the bag thinking no one would see it and they didn't. I will say it got so intense that even during, and I imagine your listeners will might have their jaws open at this one, even during intimate encounters I hid so my partners…

H: Wow. You know what, that makes sense. Because during intimate encounters is when we are at our most exposed and vulnerable.

G: Yes, and, it lacked definitely the pockets and the longer sleeves. And so, yeah, it was I would find ways to hide that way too. And when you think about it, when you're hiding, even in any circumstance, including those encounters, you're not really present then. You're not really enjoying it. You're thinking about being found out so your world becomes that obsession with that.

H: Your focus is not on the engagement and the experience, the focus is on the camouflage and the distraction, which is and being found out. And do you think because we're not just talking high school, we're talking you had a long track record of hiding that followed you into your career, into your relationships, into every corner of your life, was there a place during the hiding years where you could just drop the mask and unhide? When you were alone or did you have those moments too.

G: Absolutely, and I think most of us do and for me, it was, for me, it was college where I advocated outside of my dorm room, the dorm RA's office to say I need a single. I need to have a space where I can just be alone. So that I because having a roommate and I'd had I'd gone to boarding school, so I had roommates and it was intense. It's 24/7 thinking about the hiding and I so in college, I got smart for myself and I said, I need a place, to just be by myself. And that became my dorm room so that I could, in that space, not worry, you know, lock my door, know that I was in this safe place, and then let people in that needed to know about my hand. It was in my agency.

H: One of the things that we talked about in a previous conversation was this it's almost perverse in a way, but when we believe there's something wrong with us, and that the difference that is ours makes us in some way less than other people. Obviously, we have to cover it up, we have to hide it. And our personality and our identity develops around that hiding and it develops around that inauthenticity in a way. And we even become proud about how well we're able to hide. I happen to have a difference that's, neurodiversity and I remember being very proud of what I called passing for normal.

It was really important to me that people didn't know about my difference. So I behaved as though It were not there, and I tried to cover up the evidence. I had a lot of anxiety about being found out, but I was pretty successful at it. And that became a big part of my identity, is sort of like pulling one over on people. Which as I look back now, I don't really think I fully appreciated at the time the cost and the consequence of that to me. Do you think you were aware of what it was costing you to hide during the years that you were very successfully hiding?

G: That's a really good question. I don't think I was aware of the toll it was taking on my mental health, on my physical health. No, I don't think I knew how exhausting and lonely it was. I think part of what I also hear you saying, Diann, is the stories that we tell ourselves about our difference are so much worse than the actual thing itself. So that magician part of our lives or the con of our lives, right? Like we think we're actually doing other people a favor by not sharing this out, by not becomes that's the sense of pride of like, okay, people will like me because I'm giving them what they want to see.

H: Yes.

G: And what I believe about myself like, I made people believe that I had 2 hands, that was the image. I never disrupted that image. I mean, I had many people ask at different points like, oh, how come your hand is always in your pocket or, oh, that's strange. But it becomes that masterful piece of, I'm gonna let you believe what you need to believe that I have 2 hands. Like, I'm not because the other to me was so the idea of having people see my one hand was so monstrous and awful for me that I wouldn't let it be seen. I remember going to a therapist and wanting to talk about it and he said, well, can I see it? And it took me weeks for him to be able to see it.

And at one point, I mean, because I really believed he would think it was so awful and monstrous that he wouldn't wanna see me in therapy anymore, that's how bad it was. It’s not the reality like and it and even though I guess the other part of hiding, and maybe you've experienced this too, Diann, and your listeners have, is even people can tell you, oh, it's not that bad. It's, oh, you're fine. Like, oh, don't hide your hand, don't hide your personality, don't hide your family background, your like, don't hide. And yet we've created sometimes those stories in our head that are so much worse than the thing itself that we don't believe when people tell us, Oh, you don't have to hide.

We have to get there ourselves, and that's why that first step that you mentioned is about acknowledging it. It's about to yourself, doing the and I call it self centered work, not in a negative self centered way of really going in and saying, what is it that's holding me back, holding me back from having those beautiful, authentic relationships with people, having that relationship with myself? What's keeping me from thriving and just feeling connected? And that's the work of the first step, and it's not an overnight process. It doesn't show up and all of a sudden you say, think I'm gonna unhide tomorrow because I tried that many times. I mean, every time I would start something new, I'd say, alright. This time, you're gonna show up as your 2 handed self. Well, no, I showed up as hiding because that was my go to, that became comfortable.

H: It was your default and it fit well with your belief system at that time. Something you said a few minutes ago that was so fascinating to me and I hadn't honestly considered until I heard you say it. I completely understand and resonate with needing to hide because we don't think that other people will accept us as we truly are. But you believed that your difference was so unacceptable that you needed to protect people.

G: Yes. There's definitely an element of that.

H: Which is it's interesting because it's now that we've done this work, we understand that sort of deciding what other people can handle, deciding for them what they can tolerate, what they are willing to accept, what their reactions will be. That's not kind. That's not generous. It's actually arrogant. That we…

G: That's not realistic.

H: No. No. And in reality, I mean, we're saying, hey, it's better to unhide, and we're gonna go into that a lot more and go through the steps that you've uncovered on how to unhide. But the reality is that some people won't be able to handle it some people whatever the difference is. Some people you will get the negative reaction. It won't be as bad as what you've always told yourself it would be, but there will be people who won't be able to handle the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we also have to be prepared for that.

G: Yes and I will say that the hiding makes other people sometimes comfortable because they don't have to deal with it, right? So they don't have to deal for me, they don't have to deal with disability and asking a question or staring too long or being uncomfortable and thinking, oh, well, wait, how did that happen? Like all the questions and all the thoughts about disability, they don't have to deal with if I hide and so that is a space that I absolutely believe. That's one of the benefits and I don't see it as an arrogance thing in the in that sense of like, you know what there are people to your point that are gonna say some things that are not okay and so being prepared for that, yes.

And it just plays sometimes it's like when we look at have you ever written a paper for a teacher and then you get it back and all you look for are the red marks, right, the things that they're saying that are negative. That's what sometimes with all the positive that I've heard about my hand, like, oh, it's cute. Oh, I shouldn't hide it, all those things. I always wait for the other shoe, right, which is the, oh, somebody's gonna say something. Even in dating relationships, guys would be like, it's fine, like, when I would finally tell them. And but I'd wait for the, okay, and, but, you know, and it didn't come, but still, I had such a strong belief system that this was negative, that I was gonna prove them wrong. I was gonna put up those walls even higher because it was a wall, they were all walls.

H: How did you look at your and I definitely want to ask you next about the benefits of hiding because I think that I mean, we are kind of dipping our toes into that, but I think that's really interesting, thing, because there are some benefits. But during the hiding years, did you ever look back to yourself as a young girl and think, I didn't think this was a big deal then and what did you think of that? Did you think you were just ignorant? Did you think that you were naive? Did you think that your more mature self realized it actually was a problem all along? Like, I'm wondering what the hiding adult thought about the unhidden girl.

G: Yeah. I don't think she gave I mean, that's an interesting way of looking at it. I don't think she gave her a lot of credence or a lot of time? I think he was very spent I spent a lot of time in the hiding conversation and not so much in how come this was so bad and this wasn't like this before. In writing the book Singlehandedly, I absolutely went there and thought about like, hey, here was this kid. She did everything, she I just believed a different narrative in high school, that yeah I didn't look back at her, as a teenager. I thought about her then and present and even in the 25 years that followed that, I may have glimpsed at her and said, oh, how come? But, yeah, I didn't do a lot of work on her, and thinking about her.

H: Well, you did say that hiding, like in the first step of hiding is understanding, that it's exhausting and lonely. And so with that much energy going into hiding and maintaining the hiding, it's all encompassing.

G: It's all encompassing. You know, it's when I was writing the book, it's funny. I had a friend and I was interviewing different people. I think this was even when I did the TEDx is I asked some of my girlfriends from college, like, how did you guys talk about it? Like, did you have conversations about this without me there? Like, how were you managing through this and one of them shared a story of how we were on coming back from a road trip and we were heading to a friend's house to have dinner. And I got, I guess, nervous and I said, will you sit next to me at dinner? And she said, yeah, I don't know why you're thinking about dinner already. Like, we still have hours to go on this road trip.

And I said, because this seems like a family that's gonna wanna sit down and say grace, and they were gonna have and I don't want anyone to be surprised or grossed out or shocked by having to hold my hand will you sit next to me? You don't even have to really hold it, you could just kinda hold my arm and she said, Ruth, I had no idea how much foresight and forethinking, you had to do all the time like, you were constantly thinking about situations. You were 2 or 3 steps always thinking about how is this gonna show up? You're constantly worried about it so that's the exhaustion part is it's not just what you think about it, it's how you're gonna handle if someone finds out or how you're gonna handle to maneuver around it so that nobody finds out.

H: And that adds to whatever amount of discomfort and planning that goes into just having a disability period.

G: Right. Right. Right. On top of it right you don't actually and I think in some ways, you don't actually get to know your disability because you're always worried about hiding it. You're always worried about, you don't actually get to accept it because you've spent so much time worried about it and forecasting those next steps, so as not to get discovered. And that that's the beauty, Diann, of the work that I do, which is I use my hand as a tool to talk about this idea of hiding because most of us are hiding something, and it keeps us disconnected from each other and from ourselves. It keeps us from the things that we really love doing because we're worried someone's gonna reject us or judge us. And so, yeah, as we've talked about, there's a lot of downside and energy that's spent in hiding and to your point, there's some benefits too, right? Like I got certainty, like I knew how to control something. At one point, I had a prosthesis when I was a teenager. I had it I had a prosthesis twice in my life. One when I was a baby, that was a different story, but, and that was helping me crawl. This was as a teenager because my parents started to notice that I was hiding it.

So they got me a cosmetic prosthesis, which looked just like my hand. And I remember going to high school with it and going to my 1st dance and so worried that this prosthetic was gonna fall off. And that fear of I couldn't control it. If somebody went to reach for my hand, they might pull it off. It wasn't attached, like you know, it's stuck on ish. And so I got used to, you know what, I would so much rather be certain of what I'm hiding and know that I can control it. And like we talked about before, the other benefit that I absolutely see, and I'm so curious how you think about this, but it's that, again, that comfort that you allow for other people. They don't have to be uncomfortable. That's another benefit. The challenge with it, with both of those, is that they are exhausting and they are lonely and they take a toll. And the more you hide, the harder it is to stop hiding. And like lying, I say like, when we tell that little white lie and then it gets harder to get out of it, that's what lying is like. That's what hiding is like.

H: I can't speak to having a physical disability, but I will tell you that I and many of the people that I know and people that I work with have what we might call invisible disabilities. And I think everything that you're saying is a 100% relevant and resonates because it gets built into both your worldview and your self-concept. I was astonished to read in the book, The Big Leap, which is now 20 years old and I still love and recommend this book, that there's something, about upper limit issues. The number one upper limit issue that, according to the author, every person has, is called the fundamental flaw, and that is the belief that there's something wrong with them like and I don't know if it's universal. I'm gonna guess with this many people on the planet, there's gotta be somebody out there that doesn't believe there's something wrong with them. But if the majority do, and that gets woven into their self-concept and their worldview, then possibly, everyone's hiding like, everyone for one reason or another. That's kind of scary to contemplate.

G: Or it's kind of beautiful to contemplate because then we could do something with it. Do you know what I mean? Like, if we know that we're all hiding something, then we can take, we're not alone in this. So we can say, okay, I felt like that, you felt like that, we can actually lower our shoulders right? Because and we can exhale to be like, oh, wait, I'm not alone in this other people are hiding too. There's comfort in the numbers so what do we do with it right? How do we create those safe places so that we can acknowledge it, we can move it forward and create that place that people feel like they can bring their best self forward or their full self. I caution on authentic self often because I'm sure that we're set up for that.

In workplaces or communities, we don't have the skilled therapists like you, Diann, or the coaches right? We don't have that in workplaces and communities often that is accessible to everyone. So, yeah, how do you how do we offer support around it because if we know that most of us slash all of us are hiding, how do we start to have that conversation? So it opens that's what it does for me is it says, all right, there's some legitimacy, that's what's happening. I can tell you in all the few years that I've been speaking now and I speak globally about this idea of unhiding and hiding, I've only had 2 people tell me that they are not hiding anything. And the 1st time it came up, I said to the person, that is great.

Now you can be an ally to all of us who are hiding like, you can because if you're not hiding, lucky you because most of us are, and how do we create that space? And that was I think people really appreciated that answer because the other piece is, are you willing to be introspective enough? Are you willing to be self centered enough to go there and think about yourself? And maybe it's too scary because as I said, unhiding is a journey. It is not an overnight process. We do not wake up and say, I'm hiding this and tomorrow I'm gonna stop because we beat ourselves up more when we try to do that.

H: Well, you have 4 steps that you guide people through and the first one is that you actually acknowledge that you are hiding, and that requires the willingness to be vulnerable and the willingness to be introspective. And that might be a really big ask for a lot of people because just the vulnerability and the introspection alone will stop people. But if they are willing to do that and they can ease into it, they can go in the shallow end and sit on the stairs as long as they want. They don't have to jump off the diving board into the deep end right away, they can ease into that acknowledgement and acceptance. How do they start with that? How do they even recognize that, oh, I'm actually hiding?

G: Yeah. And I don't wanna promote my book, but I do will say in my book, Diann, it's a series of questions, right? It's reflection questions on the idea of when have you felt different in your life? How do you understand difference? Where are you hiding? Because I take people through my journey of hiding with reflection questions. And then I offer also for people to journal and to go to therapy and to think about those spaces in their life of, are they at the place in their life where they are totally satisfied with how it's going in terms of their 4 pillars? Are they satisfied with their work situation. Are they satisfied with their relationships? Are they satisfied with their recreational activities? And are they satisfied with their health? And if you can answer yes to all of them, great.

But if there's something that's nudging at you or, I don't even what's the right word bothering you a little bit, then spend some time in the introspection. And one of the tools I have on my website is a place to share your story because the beauty of acknowledging it, even to yourself and writing it down, is that you can't unsee it then. Then you it's about saying, okay, this is something that's coming up for me. Now what do I do with it right like now what happens? And that's the gift that we can give ourselves is start to acknowledge it so that you can move it forward in your life.

H: So the 1st step is the acknowledgement and once we've identified, okay, this is an issue for me, I'm accepting that. I'm not gonna deny it. I'm not gonna resist it. I'm just gonna be with that. But that's not enough to really start the process of unhiding because then you'd be the only one that knows.

G: Right. No and so the 2nd step becomes identify and invite 1 person in to tell. And I imagine for some of your listeners, and Diann, you too, when I say that step of invite someone in, someone who you trust, someone pops to mind. There's somebody that you're go to who you say, I could tell them about this or I could tell them about this podcast I just heard and say, oh, on the Driven Women Entrepreneur podcast. I heard this woman talking with Diann about that she hid for 25 years many of us are hiding, if not all of us.

I wanted to tell you about something I'm hiding right? Like, you're about, and that allows for you to say it out loud to 1 person. It just takes 1 person to be able to say it out loud because now you've said it to yourself. You say it out loud to that 1 trusting person, and then you start to the 3rd step is you start to build community around it. You find the shared experiences of those who have either been in a similar situation of what you're challenged with or challenging yourself with, and you start I mean, that's what happened to me. I invited somebody in, he taught me how to learn to love my hand, how to hold it, how to look at it. And then I started to find as that changed how I started to see myself because then what happened is I was able to start to see disability with a different vantage point and viewpoint.

I started to actually seek out people with disabilities and limb differences like mine. And I went and I Googled limb differences and Diann, whole, frame of people with my hand showed up. And, I mean, that was super powerful to realize, again, I wasn't alone in this. I had thought for so many years I was the only one that had this hand or that had ever hidden it. I thought I invented hiding so, like, that's where the arrogant shows up is I thought I invented hiding. And what I realized by meeting others with limb differences, many had done the same things, whether sleeves or the pocket or behind the book bag. And we had all felt like we were on a in an island by ourselves and so that's the power of community. It's building that community of people with shared experiences and realizing you're not alone.

And then the 4th step is after you've gotten through acknowledging and inviting someone in and building your community is sharing out your story. And it doesn't have to be going on a podcast like we were talking about with you, right, or going on to Oprah or Doctor Phil or even a town hall. It can be with just a few close friends and share your story because what happens when we start to share our story is others see themselves in our story and then think about their own path of what they need to acknowledge, invite, and build, and then share their story. It becomes this really beautiful loop and powerful loop, almost like a flywheel and so that's the power of unhiding. That's the community that I'm building out is the space that people can feel safe to acknowledge their differences and that we actually start to value different experiences and differences overall and disability.

H: We say we do I mean, so many companies, and I'd like to take it to like the responsibility of companies, the educational system, you know, the larger culture. We have disability mandates. We have laws. We have protections. But what we don't have is a culture that teaches people how to do this. We legislate these things. We say, oh, if your child has a disability, they have certain rights in the education system. You can ask for certain accommodations. That's not really the kind of help that's going to make it possible to unhide. In fact, that's emphasizing the disability. And I'm not saying these things are bad, these things are good. These things are necessary. But in many respects, there's a lot deeper work that we need to do culturally and individually right?

G: Absolutely and I have a few thoughts on that as tangentials, which is, one is I recognize first and foremost the privilege of being able to unhide. Like that is it is a privilege to be able to unhide because there are certain segments in our country and around our world that it is unsafe to unhide right now. And recognizing that is really important because how do we create a safe the North Star is how do we create that safe place for everyone to feel safe to unhide? And that's the goal here and so as I build out what I'm calling the Institute For Unhiding, it's thinking about it from an education standpoint in terms of young people well, it's thinking about it from the corporate level.

And so wouldn't it be wonderful if in schools and in corporations and in community, events and charities and nonprofits that we had a manifesto, an unhiding manifesto that at this workplace or at this school or at this nonprofit, we actually value difference. We value different experiences, and it is safe place, psychologically safe place to be yourself and what does that look like? And so it's funny, Diann, because I think If we break down, there's education and let's say workplace as 2 separate pieces. Education, it's interesting, we give children a message about difference very young.

H: Yes, we do.

G: And there's a beautiful thing about kids, and I've had it many times. You may have too, and your listeners may have too, which is kids are naturally curious. You know, comes from a beautiful place and a good place. Sometimes it's abrupt. Sometimes it feels unfiltered. And so kids will come up and they'll say, oh, what happened to your hand and I will say, oh, this is the way I was born you know, every one of us has something different, what's different about you? Before I can sometimes even get that what's different about you statement out, a parent or a guardian or someone watching that child will immediately come over and say, I'm so sorry. We don't ask about things like that. Stop, that that was not nice. So we've messaged 2 things to kids. We've messaged, don't be curious, which is a beautiful childhood thing and we can use it as a teaching moment to talk about difference.

And the second thing, Diann, that we've signaled is we don't talk about disability. Disability is a bad thing so we are now those adults that were given that message as kids. And so we've raised it so how do we break that barrier around disability? Being able to talk about disability, being able to say the word disability is such a big thing for some people. And so how do we create conversation so that disability becomes a proud word, a strong word, something that is a community? It's part of an identity. Not all of an identity it's a piece of it. How do we start to, in the education system, own that space and similarly, in the corporate space.

How do we start to value difference, and how do we have leaders go first in this unhiding? Because that's where culture starts and I wasn't always a great leader in terms of I delegated culture a lot. And so recognizing that leaders need to go 1st and talk about what it is in their lives they're unhiding. Let's break that old school mentality of leadership to be one of, wow. I don't I can be vulnerable. I cannot people don't have to be at arm's length to be connected to me. I actually don't have all the answers. That's really good leadership and so that's actually what my 2nd book is about and that I'm working on right now is this idea of Global leaders and unhiding and why it's important to culture. That's the part I wanna see in companies.

H: Because you're absolutely right, in order for us to all be able to thrive in an unhidden way, we have to get to the educational system and corporations. And you're absolutely right, it has to start with leaders. And they are probably not going to be happy about that initially because they are probably hiding things themselves and have been trained to do so for many, many years. And parents are gonna need to raise their kids differently.

G: Have education around that too, right, because that's a space you know, it's funny, I had and I just wrote about this on LinkedIn 2 days ago, which is timely in the sense of I had a leader come to me and say, Ruth, I love what you're doing and you're unhiding talk and I get it. She's like, and I will never unhide to my staff. And I said, why and she said, because I don't trust them to not use it against me. And I said, wow so they either have you have the wrong team or they have the wrong leader because that is a really toxic work environment to not trust your team, and I understand it all too well. And I also understand the responsibility I had as a leader to build culture and to trust my team and for them to trust me. And sometimes that had to start well, not even sometimes. That had to start with me, that and I didn't always understand that. I often, as I said, delegated it out, and leaders sometimes do that.

H: We have huge problems in the workplace culture at this moment. A lot of smart people are talking about this. We have people talking about, you know, the great resignation, quiet quitting, toxic workplaces. And it really does come down to the fact that people don't feel a sense of safety, and they don't trust that they can be unhidden in the workplace. So we're talking you've got a big mission ahead of you, my friend

G: I know and that's the exciting part too right? That's what what wakes me up every day is, wow, there are spaces that there is work to be done on how do we get because nobody to your point, there's a lot of quiet quitting, there's retention issues, there's bottom line, and we know it's better to have staff on board than have to constantly rehire and look for new talent. Like, that's a big challenge, there's also some leadership challenges of thinking about, you know, this again, we've adopted many of us old school leadership principles that need to be broken, especially in a workforce of today who past COVID have some ideas about how it needs to be. So how do we modify how we're leading and it does. It starts with leaders so it's, there is a lot of work to be done, but I have some really great allies and ambassadors with me and Diann, I think you're one of them with me. Like, you're in this, it's the idea of how do we feel seen and heard and that we belong. That's the idea so that we can thrive.

H: Especially in this time where so much commerce and education is being conducted virtually. We started before we even hit record on this conversation talking about the challenges of a global workplace and virtual communication across teams. Like when people don't have the need or the reason or it's not even possible for them to be in physical proximity to each other, we're starting to have a lot proximity to each other. We're starting to have a lot of issues around what we used to be able to count on in terms of our social awareness and social skills. And I think the time I think this is such a timely conversation and such a timely initiative because I think it's easier than ever to hide, even including behind your Zoom screen. People don't even turn their cameras on.

G: Don't turn their well, talk they don't turn their cameras on. They mute their microphones and sometimes, Diann, they change their background so that we don't see their dirty laundry or their dirty dishes or the people who are walking by, right, that we don't want them to see. Like, we hide parts of our life this way and there's a certain right there's the payoff. There's a certainty to it then nobody has to get to know kind of what a mess my life is behind me. I can present like this, right, together, etcetera and at the same time, it's exhausting because I had a leader who I was coaching say to me, when I work from home, I turn my camera off and mute my microphone.

And I said, why, he said, I have a daughter with mental health challenges and sometimes there are outbursts and I don't want anyone to see that for her, write about her. So don't wanna be seen as a bad leader or a bad father. That's the hiding too. It's like then people don't really get to know you. They think, like, they're seeing a facade of something. That's the danger we've talked about too about social media sometimes, right because we see only one side of somebody, not their full self. And so this allows for us to think about what do we wanna share with the world that would help us feel supported, that would help us feel seen and help us feel like we belong?

H: And given that we are in an epidemic of loneliness, which has been well documented, I think this is one of the initiatives that more and more people need to talk about, and I will continue talking about, and I know you certainly will because we all need each other. I mean, we can get by in our isolated little silos, but we will never thrive if we can't help to create a culture that allows us to be all of who we really are and feel safe doing so and can trust that others are doing that as well. So…

A 100%. I mean, it's funny, the book's title is Singlehandedly, right?

H: I love that so much.

G: It was tongue in cheek in some ways because what I've realized in writing the book and now speaking is you can't do it alone. You can't do it wholeheartedly. The goal here is to have those connections, to build that community, and to embrace it. But when you're hiding, it really becomes hard to build community because you're not showing up as your full self and people are making assumptions about what you're presenting and not your full self. They don't really get to know you.

H: I love that you've said what you gained most of all from hiding was certainty, which I think is another way of saying control.

G: Totally.

H: But it's an illusion of control. And what you have gained in exchange is access to your curiosity, to community, and to genuine connection and I would have to say that's a much better trade off.

G: A 100%. Because that certainty, just like you're saying, can be gone in a minute when someone finds out. Like, it can take down the whole castle of cards. Like, it can be gone whereas the unhiding aspects of curiosity and community and connection and realness to yourself are so much stronger and stable.

H: And they pay dividends over time.

G: A 100% and they're just it's a beautiful life. I mean, you know, it's also interesting. I mean, I named my TEDx, When I stopped hiding, I found freedom because I did. I found freedom o be doing back to the things I like. I got my life back when I stopped hiding. I got back to the things I loved doing and enjoyed doing, and that's what unhiding does. It allows us to have freedom.