Is Radical Honesty Worth It?
“Honest conflict has more social value than dishonest harmony.”
-Joe Rogan
Hey friends, Mak here.
John, my friend and also the CEO, asked me to write an article for this month’s newsletter. Said he wanted to encourage me to take on more of a leadership role.
I don’t like leadership roles. My dad played that role and I learned to play the role of silent obedient soldier.
He’d walk into the room and I’d hop to attention, ready for action, with a quick “yes sir” ready at the lips like a racehorse ready at the gate.
It was a pretty effective strategy...
I’ve mostly avoided playing leader, even when in a leadership position. I don’t like the responsibility. I like to just stand back and let people do shit the way they want to and get all pissy when they do it wrong.
(As we’ll soon see) it’s not a very effective strategy.
John suggested the topic of this article be about why we find it so difficult to be radically honest. I say “we” because even as a Radical Honesty Trainer, I can make being honest pretty difficult.
Is telling the truth worth it?
I’m with Victoria in a flat in northern France. She was a volunteer at my eco-lodge in Costa Rica where I run Radical Honesty retreats and has been to some of my intro nights. I ask her what she finds difficult about being radically honest.
“I often ask myself if it’s worth it,” she says.
She goes on to tell me that she means she’s afraid of hurting people and pushing them away, losing people she cares about over something she can probably live with.
That sounds very reasonable, I think.
After all, we shouldn’t sweat the small stuff.
If we care about someone, we shouldn’t let little things get in the way of the relationship. Nobody wants to look petty. Plus, I don’t want them to feel bad when they didn’t do anything wrong. Right???
Conventional relationship thinking
Fuck. I know better than that. That sort of conventional thinking gets chalked up as wisdom because it sounds really nice and elevated at first glance.
Unfortunately, it collapses under scrutiny.
It doesn’t hold water.
It’s bullshit.
Experience has taught me that when I don’t sweat the small stuff, that small stuff becomes big stuff.
And because we haven’t practiced getting over stuff when it’s small, we’re ill-prepared to clean it up when it gets big.
It’s like a tropical jungle mold on my nice leather city shoes. What started as “just a little green mold, don’t sweat the small stuff!” eventually became $300 of hand-crafted garbage in the garbage.
Sweating the small stuff in order to get over it
Back at my eco-lodge, a Ukrainian couple had just taken over running the kitchen right as our hospitality manager had left on a 10-day vacation during which I was left to manage on my own.
The food was delicious and beautiful, especially for amateur cooks. They were nice people and they seemed to be responsible, buuuuuut the kitchen was a bit messy. Shit was a little disorganized and cluttered, food was spoiling.
“Maybe I should have a chat with them... Nahhh, screw it, they’ll be gone in a few weeks, it’s not worth it.”
Over the course of about a week of telling myself not to sweat the small stuff, I was getting more and more pissy and avoidant and resentful and passive aggressive. I made less and less eye contact and started holing myself up in my makeshift office behind the bar.
And then they came to me. “Can we have a chat in private?”
Fuuuuuck.
My stomach sank and tried to fold in on itself and disappear. I knew it. They overheard me being bitchy about the kitchen to someone else and wanted to call me out on it.
“We just wanted to check in and see how things were going from your point of view. We’ve felt a bit of distance and tension and we’re wanting to know if you’re happy with our work. We think communication is key.”
God... DAMMIT! How fucking humiliating. The fucking boss. Mr. Certified Radical Honesty Trainer. Getting called out for his fakery by his own volunteers.
Come to find out, we as a management team had given them basically no direction and they were just as frustrated about the state of the kitchen as I was, we just hadn’t made it clear to them that the kitchen was their domain and that they had our permission to make it their own, to enlist help as needed, to call other kitchen helpers out when they made a mess. Basically, we didn’t let them know what was expected of them, something I wouldn’t have found out if we hadn’t had the conversation.
From resentment to appreciation
After that honest conversation, I got over myself. I enjoyed being around them. They were happy and would dance for hours while cooking beautiful food and as the weeks went on, the place got organized and CLEAN. I’d hear them playfully barking orders in their thick Russian accents and then flash me a wink and a smile and I’d just laugh and think, “I would probably still be avoiding that conversation because I told myself it wasn’t worth it.”
When they left a few weeks later, we gave each other big warm hugs and beaming smiles and we told each other how much we appreciated our time together and all the good food we ate.
And then they told me I should go to Russia, where people don’t need to sit in a personal growth circle to learn to be more honest with each other. It’s just part of the culture: they say what’s on their minds.
-Michael Alan Kolb
Michael Alan Kolb, aka Mak, is a Radical Honesty Trainer who lives at his Eco Lodge & Retreat Center, Cascada Elysiana, in Costa Rica. His upcoming Radical Honesty workshops are listed below.
