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In this episode, Joel and Antonia talk about what it means to have transparent honesty in relationships and business.

In this podcast you’ll find:

  • Jack Welch hires based on integrity, which defines as ‘honesty’.
  • Is transparency the same as honesty?
  • Honesty is telling the truth, transparency is how much information you choose to disclose.
  • Being honest depends upon a person knowing which question to ask, transparency is volunteered information.
  • Is being fully transparent in all areas desirable? Is it an ethic?
  • People like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden have altered how we see transparency and information.
  • Some information shouldn’t be shared with all people since not everyone is responsible for information.
  • The gauge for what should be shared is whether or not sharing it increases the quality of life for the highest amount of people. It’s a cost/benefit analysis.
  • Transparency isn’t necessarily a good thing. It can be neutral, or even bad.
  • It’s most helpful to see it as a tool.
  • Transparency is also about timing. Devolving too much information too soon can be ineffectual.
  • Sometimes people have a right to know information, meaning transparency shouldn’t be a question in those circumstances.
  • It takes balls to be transparent.
  • Being modest about how much transparency you’re comfortable with is important. It’s a muscle that can be built, and something that can be scaled up.
  • Sometimes when we’re being ‘transparent’ we’re performing for others, and so we’re not being truly authentic and therefore not transparent.
  • The more transparent we are, the less judgmental we are of others, since we’re forced to see our own inner lies.
  • You can be transparent, radically honest and still kind.
  • The more honest we are, the more we can identify our ‘You Are Here’ dot, or our accurate starting point.
  • Putting your ‘best foot forward’ doesn’t mean you’re offending ethics. Transparency isn’t always the ethically superior choice.
  • A part of transparency means owning your actions, acknowledging them from the past and owning behaviors in the now.
  • Not everyone is going to be okay with radical honesty. It can feel icky at first.
  • Transparency is one of the best ways to increase intimacy.

Exercises we recommend in this podcast:

For the next week, when someone asks you “how are you doing today?” be honest about how you’re doing.

Practice being transparent about your emotions in your most intimate relationships.

Things we reference in this podcast:

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6 comments

  • Yeodmo
    • Yeodmo
    • October 31, 2015 at 2:28 pm

    I value privacy but my mate believes privacy is code for secrets. So I’m required to read to him every email I send and every responds I receive. I’m required to show him my journal, private thoughts, poem and pieces of art I rather keep hidden. I’ve given up on friends and my creative outlets just so I don’t have to show him. I feel so lonely but my feelings are my own and I’ll share them how I want to share them. If I want to talk to a friend to get their unbiased opinion about my relationship I should be able to keep that to myself without sharing. I don’t want to make erroneous emotional decisions about our relationship so I seek the help of my friend. But knowing that he’ll read about it just makes me angry. Yet he is a liar. He’ll lie about everything even about things that are unimportant like “How’s the weather”. I’m an honest person to a point. My lie is the lie of omission (although hearing your podcast I wonder if this is even true). Sometimes I omit the truth because I’ve forgotten about it and later when I remember and I tell him about it he calls me out on how I’m lying to him. For example I forgot to tell him I went to the store and I talked to a stranger about this or that. He’ll say why can’t you talk to me instead (because you judge me). But I find that when I’m honest with him about every little thing I’ve done in my past he’ll throw it at me like its a pattern of misbehavior. I don’t require this level of honesty from him so he’ll talk to his friends about us, I don’t read his emails or Facebook yet it’s the hypocrisy gets me angry. When he shares about his past it’s to tell me how he his past conquests did this or that with him that I don’t do or how his ex was better at this than I am. I’m sorry but I’d rather be blissfully ignorant about his past. What matters now is the present.

    I writes this now under a pseudonym just so he won’t know I’m talking here (lie of omission). He knows how I feel about all I wrote here, I’ve told him all this before. I just feel like the honesty is one-sided, always skewed in his favor.

  • Charis Branson
    • Charis Branson
    • September 7, 2015 at 2:22 pm

    Thanks for the feedback, Shelley!

  • Shelley
    • Shelley
    • September 6, 2015 at 12:02 am

    Enjoyed this Podcast, really wish we had more people in the world that though like this. Thank you for sharing. I equally think its amazing how you included this in your marriage vows.

  • barbara beston
    • barbara beston
    • June 4, 2014 at 12:26 pm

    First of all I am really enjoying your podcasts, such an amazing amount of information presented in a easy to listen to manner, so thanks heaps.

    I have had a few experiences lately where I feel that i have been duped e.g. someone asks if I am free for a coffee, and I think that is really friendly when the reason for the coffee date was to introduce me to a business concept. Another time to be asked if I was attending a particular social occasion and then when replying in the affirmative to realise that there was a ulterior motive for the enquiry. I would have much preferred the honesty in both situations. Is that to do with my personality type. I am Harmony/Memory

  • Joel Mark Witt
    • Joel Mark Witt
    • June 3, 2014 at 3:23 pm

    Hi Leonie. Thank you for the comment. So how do you decide what information to be transparent with and which information to keep private?

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