Hey there! Here’s one leadership idea and one resource I’ve found beneficial this week:
1 idea: Nothing to hide, lose, or prove
I recently finished reading Rulebreaker, Susan Page's fascinating biography of Barbara Walters. What began for me as an impulsive grab off the library shelf turned into a sad and insightful portrait of someone who had a lot to hide, a lot to lose, and a lot to prove.
Barbara Walters was a pioneer in television journalism. In 1976, she became the first woman to co-anchor a nightly news program, inspiring generations of women to dream of new career possibilities. Her revealing interviews with world leaders became legendary, cementing her in history. Upon her retirement in 2014, ABC acknowledged her historic contributions by naming the news building after her.
But being Barbara Walters was not as fun as it sounds. Even though she’d chosen a public career, Walters felt like she had a lot to hide from the world. She deceived people about her father’s failed businesses, lied about her own health problems, and covered up one of her three failed marriages. When given the choice between authenticity and conveying a (false) image of success, she did what most of us would do: hide the truth.
Walters also lived with a lot to lose. Growing up with an unreliable father who bankrupted the family multiple times, Barbara was stingy with her own success. As other women rode her coattails into the industry, she saw them as threats rather than allies. When Diane Sawyer joined her network, Walters was so concerned about losing splashy interviews to her younger rival that she would often try to persuade Sawyer’s guests to cancel on Diane and sit down with her instead. Coworkers learned not to share too much about what they were working on for fear that she would steal their stories. Her relentless competitiveness may have gotten her to the top, but it also made her a difficult coworker.
And even long after Walters had established her legacy, she still felt like she had lots to prove. She continued to work furiously into her mid-80s due to her fear of irrelevancy. Rather than enjoying retirement with friends, family, and mentees, she secluded herself in her New York City apartment to avoid being photographed by the paparazzi looking old. When ABC honored her by naming their news building after her, she complained that the golden plaque they'd chosen was too small. Coworkers described her as driven, smart, ambitious, and hardworking—but none of them ever felt like she was joyful.
Walters’ tragic combination of success and misery captures a concept from Ken Davis: true freedom comes when you have nothing to hide, nothing to lose, and nothing to prove. If wealth or fame or a long life brought freedom, Walters would have had it all. But as her example shows, true freedom is more intangible than material or social status. Freedom is internal, not circumstantial.
Imagine seeing your deepest secrets posted on a roadside billboard—and instead of succumbing to crippling shame, you shrugged your shoulders and went about your day.
Imagine your health failing, your bank account disappearing, and your closest relationships withering—but rather than slipping into depression, you found joy in what remained.
Imagine that the people you admire most thought you were a failure, or incapable, or irrelevant—but in place of defensiveness, you simply felt peace.
This is what true freedom looks like. And while we may never experience absolute equanimity in these areas, we can all take a step toward greater freedom today.
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What do you have to hide, lose, or prove?
How would your life be different if you no longer felt defensiveness in those areas?
What could you do to get one step closer to freedom there?
1 resource: Serenity prayer
When the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr first penned the Serenity Prayer in the 1930s, he had no idea that it would become a mainstay of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. His prayer for serenity, courage, and wisdom can be just as lifechanging for the rest of us who are not attempting to break the chains of addiction. To follow the heart of this prayer is truly to live with nothing to hide, lose, or prove.
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