I Had A Panic Attack...Actually, Several

Why writing about vulnerability almost killed me!

When I tell you that this was the hardest book I ever wrote, I hope you will believe me. I really struggled putting it all together which is even more reason for why you should get a copy :)

Here’s what Amy C. Edmondson, Professor at the Harvard Business School and Author of Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well and The Fearless Organization (2018) had to say about it.

Vulnerability, in today’s complex, uncertain world is simply a fact. Good leaders don’t shy away from, but instead acknowledge and embrace, this reality. Backed by a study of 100 CEOs and a survey of 14,000 employees, Jacob has put together an invaluable resource to help leaders navigate vulnerability to achieve more, build trust, and drive performance.

A few years ago in December on a cloudy Thursday, a few weeks after signing the contract for my upcoming book, Leading With Vulnerability, I was standing in my bathroom brushing my teeth and I started feeling weird. My body was flooded with adrenaline, my vision became blurry, and my heart started beating out of my chest. My resting heart rate is usually around 57 beats per minute and just standing I was around 130 beats per minute, which is the equivalent of a moderate workout or jog. I thought, “this is it, I’m having a heart attack and I’m going to die,” and I was overcome with fear and dread. I felt like a tidal wave of terror just crashed over me.

I screamed for my wife, Blake, who was wrangling our kids for school, and I told her something was wrong with me. I laid down on the bed and then all of a sudden I started shaking uncontrollably. If you’ve ever seen the Pixar movie “Inside Out'' where emotions are personified by little characters who live in your body, that’s what I felt like. As if there were little creatures who were just pushing all sorts of buttons inside of my body and I had no control. It was absolutely terrifying and the most scared I’ve ever been.

The next few days were really rough because I wasn’t able to hear back from my doctor and I had no idea what was happening to me. Was I actually dying? Was it all just in my head? Not knowing was the worst part.

Things calmed down for a few days until it happened again. I asked Blake to drive me to urgent care, which turned me down because they were at capacity with COVID patients; instead, they gave me the address of a hospital with an emergency room. I forced Blake to drive me there and almost checked myself in but Blake talked me out of it.

Finally, the next day I was able to get an appointment with a doctor. They reviewed my lab results and did an EKG and the result was…that I’m perfectly healthy and my heart is great!

I’m not a vulnerable person and the only human being I know who is less vulnerable than me is my dad. He’s the kind of person who could be sick as a dog and if you ask him how he’s doing he’ll say “great.” He doesn’t believe in showing weakness of any kind. I have Georgian immigrant parents and the Georgian culture isn’t exactly known for being vulnerable or emotional.

I rarely express my emotions or feelings and even have a hard time doing this with family. The phrase “I feel” is very foreign to me but I’m pretty good at saying “I think” or “I know”.

After diving deeper into what could have caused my panic attacks, it became more clear what a large contributing factor was…the very book I was writing that was exploring vulnerability!

The fact that I had committed to writing a book about vulnerability - something that goes against my very nature - gave me a panic attack. My mind and body just couldn’t come to grips with the fact that I was going to have to confront, explore, and dive deep into something I have always stayed away from.

This is the most important and hardest book I’ve written and it’s precisely because it explores such a difficult and foreign topic to me…and to many others…vulnerability.

I realized how powerful vulnerability could be in both a personal and professional environment when done the right way. In my last book, The Future Leader, the theme of vulnerability came up quite a bit and I remembered all of those discussions and conversations I had with CEOs and leaders who shared the importance of connecting with people and creating meaningful relationships yet also needing to focus on business performance. In that book the skill of Yoda (emotional intelligence including empathy and self-awareness) was the skill that leaders struggled with the most as ranked by employees who reported to them.

I also remembered the specific concerns, issues, and questions that leaders had when it came to vulnerability in the workplace. Things like being vulnerable without being perceived as weak, how to actually be vulnerable in the right way, why vulnerability alone isn’t enough, what happens when vulnerability isn’t received well, and many others.

I knew this was a book I had to write because I saw how I struggled with vulnerability and the impact it had on my life and those around me. During my career, I’ve worked with and interviewed over 2,000 CEOs and business leaders around the world and I’ve also seen how much they struggle with vulnerability.

Leading with vulnerability is the single most impactful thing you can do to create connection and drive performance if you know the right way to approach it. That’s the key, THE RIGHT WAY TO APPROACH IT. 

This is a book about you. How you can be a leader who creates trust, connects with your people, unlocks the potential of those around you, and drives business performance. 

I embarked on the most in-depth and comprehensive project on vulnerability and leadership that’s ever been done. For 2 years, I interviewed over 100 CEOs around the world from different industries, including American Airlines, SAP, Hyatt, Northrop Grumman, Dow Chemical,The Home Depot, and dozens of others. Although only 10% of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women, I’m proud that over 25% of the CEOs I interviewed for this book are women. These interviews were done in hour-long discussions and follow-up interviews with a small group of CEOs opting to send in responses via email. I also interviewed the world’s leading psychologists and researchers spanning a variety of fields including emotional intelligence, decision-making, trust, psychological safety, game theory, and organizational behavior.

My discussions with these CEOs were extremely in-depth and personal, so much so, that several of them requested to be made anonymous in the book. They shared stories and insights with me that they have never shared before. I am grateful for their openness, transparency, and willingness to be vulnerable with me. I laughed and cried with them. I shared all sorts of emotions and in-the-moment discoveries that I will forever be grateful for. 

Lastly, I teamed up with global leadership firm DDI to survey almost 14,000 employees around the world representing more than 1,500 organizations, 50 countries, and 24 major industry sectors. This was done as a part of their Global Leadership Forecast Series which is the longest-running global study of leadership aimed at understanding current and future leadership best practices. We also did a follow-up pulse survey with an additional 1,200 participants.

Bringing all of these different perspectives and data points together yielded some truly fascinating insights about leading with vulnerability that I can’t wait to share with you. 

This book will help you understand what it means to lead with vulnerability, why it’s so crucial to your success, your team’s success, and your organization’s success, and how to actually unlock this amazing superpower for yourself and those around you. While the strategies and approaches you read about in this book are specifically focused on leadership at work, they can also be applied with positive impact outside of work as well.

Each section of the book is filled with hard data and stories from the over 100 CEOs I interviewed to back up and support everything you read.

As a current or aspiring leader, I want you to know that vulnerability is not a weakness, it’s a superpower that will transform your life, your team, your company, and the lives of those around you. In fact, you cannot lead through change of any kind without vulnerability. Leadership is not about hiding behind a mask of invincibility, it's about embracing vulnerability.

Billions of people around the world are walking and talking superheroes and they don’t even know it. This is a completely new way to approach being a leader, one that we have all been scared of and didn’t feel comfortable talking about. Going forward, this is the only way to lead.

Are you ready to lead with vulnerability?

If so, then I invite you to preorder a copy of Leading With Vulnerability and go on this journey with me.

If you pre-order a HARDCOVER copy you’ll also get access to some bonuses:

• Get the first three chapters of the book, before it comes out!

• Invite to a private webinar where I will give a sneak peak into the concepts from the book and share some of the research.

• Access to 5 exclusive CEO interviews that I did for the book including the CEOs of American Airlines, GE, WW (formerly Weight Watchers), BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), & Edward Jones

Just send confirmation of your order to bonus@thefutureorganization.com. If you are interested in bulk sales please email me and we can work something out, jacob[at]thefutureorganization[dot]com.