I feel like I’m in a Brene Brown era of life. Just gobbling up the content. Shame comes with a negative connotation, deservingly so. It’s a. hard emotion to master because it’s an emotion that tells us that we are not enough. That enough is so diverse. We are not good or cute enough or don’t try hard enough. We limit our value as people when we believe we don’t matter and our lives are incompetent.

Let’s not confuse shame with guilt. Guilt is a temporary feeling after something bad is done. Guilt is “did something bad.” The shame is, “I am a bad person.” Shame tolerance comes from the need to be vulnerable. Vulnerable actions are something we just don’t see, especially at work. We’d like to think that most of our shame hits us in childhood. Most of us treat school as a competition, which worsens if you join a sport. We feel shame when we spend the first day or night sleeping together. It doesn’t end when we become full-fledged adults.

Shame in the Workplace

If school is a competition and sports is a competition, why wouldn’t you treat work the same way? For some people, work is finally where they can “win.” Whatever win means. We use work to shut up the doubters like the teacher who said you wouldn’t succeed. It’s also a way to silence any self-doubt that you may have.

Working and becoming a leader has not been an easy task for me. Most of it is because I’ve defined what success means incorrectly. Success traditionally meant the final day where I could finally put the stake in the ground as a competent person. No one, absolutely no one, can tell me anything. I’m successful! Success is achieving what I’ve achieved, getting recognition and added power.

Success like this comes with a price. If not checked, you could be working excessive hours, failing in relationships, conducting unethical activities, and neglecting your health. We pay the price for the success because it quiets shame. It doesn’t matter where you work. I’d love to work for a nonprofit, but even there, you can find employees who think their cause or mission is better than that of a sleazy salesman or banker.It’s all shame. What if I told you that his type of devotion to quieting your shame has done work into the worst parts of a religion. Welcome to the church of Success, where if you don’t work hard or make too many mistakes, you are unworthy under the eyes of the higher powers. Doesn’t sound too farfetched.