You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.

That's really part of being a grounded theory researcher - putting names to concepts and experiences that people have.

Then I tell my own story. The two things that people really need to transform is language to understand their experience and to know they're not alone. It's the combination of the researcher-storyteller part.

I think a lot of us are looking for the same thing. I feel very lucky to have a definitive moment where I know everything shifted in me, and it was the moment I read that quote. Because I thought, A. That's everything I know about vulnerability. It's not winning, it's not losing, it's showing up and being seen. B. That's who I want to be.

Men walk this tightrope where any sign of weakness illicits shame, and so they're afraid to make themselves vulnerable for fear of looking weak.

Guilt: I'm sorry. I made a mistake. Shame: I'm sorry. I am a mistake.

I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let’s think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow—that’s vulnerability.