In her book "Daring Greatly" (2012), Brené Brown, a professor, and researcher at the Graduate School of Social Work from the University of Houston, defines vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. Through her research, she concluded that accepting vulnerability, within us and others, makes us more creative. It connects us with passion and a sense of purpose, which paradoxically makes us stronger, having more resources to deal with adversity and capable of generating solutions.
In another book, "Rising Strong" (2015), Brown considers vulnerability not as a weakness but as a great sign of courage. It has been this courage, namely telling the truth, that we have demanded of our governors as we went home to be quarantined. We didn't want any white lies, we wanted the truth, harsh as it might be. As the vulnerability, the lack of resources, of the SNS (The Portuguese National Health Service) was recognized, private companies immediately reoriented their production to offer masks, visors, alcohol hand sanitizer to those who were in the front lines. The first ventilators ever produced in Portugal have also appeared.
Recognizing our vulnerability is not giving up. Quite the opposite. It is opening a door to solutions. In coaching, the greater the courage to recognize one's vulnerabilities, the greater the transformation that occurs. This confrontation with the truth generates a transformative and creative energy that generates answers and solutions that didn't exist before.
Parallel to the real threats of the pandemic - from the risk of infection to the serious socio-economic consequences - several creative solutions also emerged. The pandemic has placed all organizations, leaders, and their respective teams in a zone of tremendous vulnerability. The energy generated by these emotions and the opportunity from gaining awareness is immense. This opportunity to evolve into a greater level of awareness and purpose should not be wasted due to any lack of vision, fear, or loss of contact with our innermost and subtler intelligence.
The journey of a hero, the collective archetype referred to by Joseph Campbell (an American author, renowned for his work in comparative mythology) in his book, "A Thousand Faces of A Hero" (1994), has been widely used in cinema and literature. This archetype corresponds to the idea of a normal person becoming a hero (who exists within all of us) through the way they overcome the tests and challenges that life poses, reaching superior levels of wisdom. This possibility of transformation, inherent to the great challenges in life, is imminent in our collective subconscious and it emerges spontaneously, as it is happening with the professionals in the front lines, whose merit elevated them to the status of heroes.
To be able to connect with the hero that is within you, I won't leave any recommendations nor answers. Instead, I invite you to do a reflection based on the following questions, which will make you aware and pursuant to any transformations that you are prepared to go through:
This phase will come to pass, but as it was mentioned by Yuval Noah Harari, professor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of the book "21 lessons for the 21st Century" (2018), in an article from the Financial Times, 20th of March, T"The World After Coronavirus": "this storm will pass. But the choices we make now could change our lives for years to come".