In 2014 wrote a hugely successful article called “Dead Babies & Brutal Fuckin’ Honesty” on the Live More Awesome website, I then did a TEDxSalon talk titled “Brutal Fuckin’ Honesty” about the contents of that article, both were all about being outwardly honest. I then realised that that was only half of the story and that inwards honesty was even more important. So I wrote an entire section of my latest book on ‘brutal fuckin’ honesty’ and how we need to turn it inwards on ourselves.
That’s the most important thing.
Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. Sometimes it’s hard to actually acknowledge that you’re fucking up, that you’re not where you need to be, that it’s actually you who needs to change. It’s hard. I get it. Brutal fuckin’ honesty is hard. But it’s so very important.
Without that internal honesty, you can’t see what to change, you can’t see the problem. And if you can’t see the problem then you can never create the solution.
Now let’s get to the swearing…
I speak at corporate companies a lot. There are people from all walks of life that don’t like me saying ‘fuck’. I can understand their position, but I’ll explain why it’s absolutely necessary for me to use it like this; pretty much all of us are honest people right? We don’t lie and steal and cheat? We tell the truth. We’re honest… But that’s not really enough…
The next level is brutal honesty. We’ve all been brutally honest occasionally. We’ve said something brutally honest to our loved ones or our boss, we’ve got it off our chest and we’ve felt so much better about it. That’s great. But it’s not enough…
We need brutal fuckin’ honesty… And though it may not come across perfectly on the page, when you hear me say it you’ll realise that I say that word softly, with depth, with compassion and with vulnerability. It’s this next level, raw honesty that shows us there is no further to go, we can’t hide from or ignore the truth about ourselves, this is where the buck stops and where we have to see ourselves as we truly are.
This is clarity. This is the place that growth comes from, that healing comes from and most importantly, this is the place that change comes from…