Transparent

Transparent people are vulnerable. They are less stylish than the people who don’t talk much and keep things for themselves. They are no mystery.

Transparent professionals are even more vulnerable to the danger. “Why should I tell you the way I work, what I can do or what I can’t do for you? Everyone is going to eat me alive.”

Two scenarios

Well, all these are nonsense. We grow up learning how to hide things or ourselves. Why? When someone is hiding he either has done something bad e.g. being illegal or he realizes he is weak to certain aspects.

I don’t care about the first scenario. All my life I ‘ve been honest in my work. Others have cheated me, I didn’t cheat anyone. The only thing I should care is to take precautions. Apart from this, I don’t give a damn about those people. They caused troubles and they should find a way to solve their own problems.

Let’s focus on the second scenario: “I am not good in this and that. If I reveal my weak parts, I will lose.” Fair enough. But show me someone who ‘s good in every thing he does. There isn’t such a person. Here it is the difficult part. Covering up things will give you some time. It is your choice how you will use it. You may use it to become better and gain some more time. In order to become even better. And so on.

On the other hand you may use this extra time to rest and try to leave everything behind. In reality you can’t leave anything behind. It will come back. And then what? I used to follow this approach for some years. I realized it wasn’t an effective way to evolve. So, I changed.

Switch to transparency

This “learn and evolve” thing is more than it looks. It changes you. You find no peace, you become egoist, you become tough and you ruin the weekends of the people around you. You don’t realize it until you live into that mode. But when you do you become transparent.

Transparency means trust. I don’t hide from you. I don’t know everything but there are two or three things I do know well. It is my knowledge which makes me an egoist. You can count on me. You know that I ‘ll find a way to help you, because your problem is mine too and I don’t avoid problems anymore. On the contrary I rush them. I tend to be tough at certain moments because above all I am tough to myself.

I have a huge ego and thousands of weak moments. My ego exists because I am good at what I do. My weaknesses spring from the fact that I learn new things every day and I need some work to do on them. What you see is what you get. It’s your choice.

Photo by matratze in Flickr.