Embrace This “Weakness” To Unlock Your Musical Superpower

Do you struggle to put yourself and your music out there? You're not alone. A lot of musicians struggle with this. They fear being judged and criticised. This is often why they engage in perfectionism, to try to eliminate the risk of being criticised.

Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor who has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. She has a lot of wisdom and insight to share on this topic.

She describes perfectionism as a 20-ton shield that we carry around thinking it’s protecting us from judgement and criticism, but what it’s really doing is keeping us from being seen. And you can't build your audience if people can't see you, right?

So, what does it take to move past this, to put yourself out there? The answer might shock you.

Vulnerability. Yes. Vulnerability.

Unfortunately, we've been led to believe a myth that vulnerability is weakness, that it's a liability. So if vulnerability isn't weakness, what is it?

Brené Brown defines vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.

Now, you might be thinking “That sure sounds like weakness to me.”

She goes on to say that vulnerability is the willingness to show up and be seen when you have zero control over the outcome. It's about putting yourself out there, which is increasingly difficult to do in the hypercritical media culture that now exists.

She says something else very interesting: there is no creativity without vulnerability.

There's nothing more vulnerable than creativity. Think about it. You're expressing your innermost thoughts and feelings through your music. You can't do that without uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.

Think about the artists you really admire and idolise, and especially about the performances that have moved you the most; the transcendent performances that really touched your soul and made you fall in love with those artists. Ask yourself what was it about that performance that you responded to, that moved you at the deepest level? I can almost guarantee that it wasn't something technical, like a flashy guitar solo or some minute production detail. It was something emotional, probably in the lyrics or in the singer’s voice, or the combination of both of those.

The most memorable performances, the ones that affect us most profoundly, give you goosebumps, bring you to tears, the ones you tell people about years later and remember for the rest of your life are the ones where the performers pour out their emotions. They're raw, they don't hold anything back, they leave it all on the stage. I submit that the defining characteristic of the greatest performers is their vulnerability. They're willing to put themselves in that position of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. They couldn't have created those profound moments and given you that emotional experience without being vulnerable.

So, far from being a weakness or a liability, your vulnerability might be your biggest asset as an artist to create connection with your audience. If you're not vulnerable, you're holding back. You're putting up a barrier between you and them that prevents true connection.

Here's the good news: you've already got the wiring to be vulnerable. You're doing it in your writing, recording, and performing. You just need to copy and paste that over to showing up on social media, being on camera doing Facebook Live videos, and releasing your music.

Let that vulnerability seep into the rest of your music business. Be willing to show up and be seen and have people judge you.

There's another aspect of this I think it's important for you to understand. As an artist, as a creative, as a singer, as a songwriter, as a performer, you are a vulnerability leader.

A vulnerability leader. Leaders go first. As an artist, you are the leading edge. You are the tip of the evolutionary spear that makes it OK for other people to be vulnerable, to express their emotions, to show up and be seen in all their messiness and imperfection and humanity. That takes courage. By you demonstrating the courage to be vulnerable, it gives them the courage to be vulnerable too.

Courage is not the absence of fear; it's acting in the presence of it.

Courage and vulnerability are inextricably linked. They share some of the same DNA. There is no courage without vulnerability.

Vulnerability underpins all acts of courage because courage always involves uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure, just like vulnerability does.

A useful distinction here is to realise that you don't have courage; you DO courage. Change it from a noun to a verb. It's an action you take, not a quality you inherently have.

And if it's an action you take, that means you have a choice. A choice between courage and comfort.

Brené Brown says you can choose courage or you can choose comfort, but you can't choose both.

Courage is about choosing what's right over what's easy. It's about practising your values, not just professing them.

Vulnerability is hard and scary and dangerous. But it's not as hard as getting to the end of your life and having to ask yourself: “what if I'd shown up?”

Brené Brown has a useful metric to know if you're showing up. She says if you're not a little bit nauseous when you're done, you probably didn't show up like you should've shown up. You're playing small. You're choosing comfort over courage.

Do you think it was comfortable for all of those legendary artists we revere to be so vulnerable in their lyrics and their performances? No, of course not. It required courage.

Part of your sacred duty as an artist is to get your music to the people who need to hear it; the people who will be touched, inspired, transformed by your music. Don't deprive them of that experience and connection.

Be willing to be vulnerable. Be a vulnerability leader. Show up, be seen, do courage.