Scarily Transparent

My former Director of Communications once called me scarily transparent.  I actually take some pride in that description.  I try to be truthful with people.  The truth can sometimes be scary.  In fact, if there's one thing that I've learned in the past 4 1/2 months, is that being completely honest has some interesting sequelae.  I believe that I've not communicated with over sixty journalists and reporters.  One thing that matters when talking to a journalist is honesty.  At the same time, the type of honesty I'm talking about can make one sound pretty bold.  That boldness might turn some people off.  On the other hand, especially with all the news every day, bold is what gets you quoted.  It's a bit of a double edged sword.  At the same time, it's who I am.  I've blogged about the importance of being who I am, and in this regard, I can not change that.  Nor, do I really want to.

Since staying in my upper level seat at the Forum as a boy, rather than move to better seat during halftime, I've always had trouble with breaking rules or being dishonest.  I believe that they both go hand in hand.  The interesting thing about rules is that nothing is fully black or white in the world.  There is always grey.  I generally have no trouble with grey, and that's an interesting side light to my transparency.  I think it's because, when I operate in the grey, I'm transparent about it!

There's a lot of people who don't like to hear the truth.  There are a lot of reasons for that.  There are people who don't tell the truth.  One of the reasons for that is fear.  Fear of failure. Fear of being "called out" for failing. Fear that others will find out that they didn't do their job.  Some people are really good about shading that truth.  I often wonder if those people actually believe what they say.  I'm sure that in many ways we've all been there.  We've all had the opportunity to rationalize a decision.  Still, I'd like to think that most times, that is not who I am.  I understand that being scarily transparent can make people around you uncomfortable.  I can live with that. At the end of the day, it's about whether I'm comfortable.