Shame vs. Embarrassment | As the Crowe Flies | Episode 10

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] And everyone in the crowd was like, what in the hell is going on here? Who are we gonna listen to now As the cold flies on the Vance Scroll podcast? Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. On Fridays, I sit down to share some thoughts, philosophies, concepts that can help you become a tangibly better communicator. And this week I want to talk about two social signals that are always around us that we see all the time, but that unless you stop and think about the subtle difference between the two, that you may miss some important components in the way that human beings interact with one another. And those two ideas are the difference between shame and embarrassment. These are two things that we see a lot in the world. Well, we probably see embarrassment a lot more frequently than we see shame, but it's really important to sit down and think about what is the difference between those two things and why does society and the people that we're interacting with or that that we engage with, why do they play a role in whether or not we feel shame or embarrassment? So a few years ago, I was invited at the very last minute to be the fill in keynote speaker for a conference of farmers that produce eggs. These are farmers from all over the United States and they have been in the egg industry for years and years and years. And they have these conferences just like every other industry does, where they bring together people to try and learn more, hear about what's going on out in society, what's going on with new technologies, just be exposed to new ideas.

Vance Crowe [00:01:37] And then they also spend time networking and probably working out business deals. These are really common. And so I was not surprised to get this last minute invitation. Somebody had been invited and they couldn't make it. So I was there a few days later, I'm down in Florida and I'm going to give this presentation and I'm there on the last day of the conference where the idea of the conference organizer has been to bring in some people that can talk about the way consumers are perceiving modern agriculture. And by the time I get into the ballroom, there's only two speakers left. There's the head of sustainability of a major fast food chain that every single person in the world has heard of. And me and the head of sustainability had retired from his job. And now he was going around and talking with various parts of the agriculture industry and consumers to talk about what is the leading edge of sustainability, of treating animals properly, of doing the right thing so that consumers would wanna buy your products. And so he was giving a speech and he stood up and he was every bit as charismatic and interesting and engaging as you would imagine the head of sustainability for a major fast food chain could be. So he is going through his presentation and everything is going great. In fact, all of the farmers sitting in the room are on the edge of their seat. They deeply want to know what is it that consumers are thinking. Do you know things about the way their behaviors are changing or about what they want is changing. So they're leaning forward and they're listening and hanging on every single word that he's saying.

Vance Crowe [00:03:09] And you can tell that he can feel this energy. And as somebody that goes out and gives a lot of speeches, I know what it is to feel that energy, right? You're right there. You're getting excited, you're feeling confident. People are kind of laughing with your jokes, they're hanging on your word, there's an electricity there. And so he starts saying things a little bit more impromptu and probably feeling that confidence that lets you say things that you haven't thought all the way through. But you know the audience will probably give you a little leeway if you say something kind of off. So he is going along and he's really excited about his talk and he starts saying things about his life and the work that he's done and some of the accomplishments he's had. And then he goes to say something that I'm sure in every other audience he had ever spoken to when he said it, there would be an uproar of clater and excitement and happiness, and everybody in the room would be on board with him except for when he said it in this room. It was the equivalent of him running face first into a band saw. And nobody saw it coming, least of all him because he stands up in front of all of these egg farmers. And he says very proudly. And it was after these years and years of work that I finally convinced my employer, one of the largest fast food chains in the entire world to change their entire supply chain, to have only cage-free eggs. Almost instantaneously after he said this, you could feel the room change gears. Their emotions changed entirely. And instead of being wrapped in attention, you started hearing murmurs and noises coming from the crowd, things that definitely did not indicate that they agreed with him.

Vance Crowe [00:04:48] And in fact, a little old lady probably in her seventies sitting right behind me, couldn't contain herself after she'd been kind of murmuring to her neighbor and kind of getting upset. You could hear her shout out, people will die because of you. The crowd then ramps up their anger. And you can watch this man on the stage be completely shocked, totally turned upside down from what he was expecting to happen. And to his credit, he tried to figure out, wait, why is the audience reacting this way? And he started to get one person's opinion in another. And the crowd was so upset with him that he was claiming a victory over something that they saw as completely different from him that they weren't having it. And he wrapped up his presentation more than 30 minutes early, quickly closed everything up, said, thank you very much for your time. Walked off the stage and left the ballroom. I had never seen anything like this. So after the man leaves, you have to ask yourself, what's going on here? Why were these farmers reacting in this way? Everyone else would assume that this was one of the great contributions a person could make to society or to the world of modern agriculture. But to these farmers, they saw that there was a much bigger picture that he was taking credit for something that was not so simply and obviously good. You see, they are the ones that have known that automation. The fact that you've put chickens into cages may feel really sad or even kind of inhumane.

Vance Crowe [00:06:21] But there are many benefits, which is why they do it. For example, if you have hens in cages, it means they can lay an egg and the egg can be dropped out automatically onto a conveyor belt and taken out of the barn. So you don't have to have humans reaching in and being exposed both to the chickens and the chickens being exposed to the humans. There are a lot of diseases that can spread between chickens and humans, salmonella, e coli, and various other influenzas that the more interactions that chickens and humans have, the higher the likelihood that this will happen. Also, if you have cage-free eggs, the eggs are laid out in the open and other chickens are walking around and they can spread their feces on them. So there are more and more diseases exposed to on these eggs. So the farmers were sitting there saying, you are the person that brought on these changes that could potentially expose many, many other people to illness and possibly death. And those kinds of things are the things that destroy our industry. So he went from being a position that was really high to being all the way at the bottom among these farmers. And so after the crowd breaks for their networking, the mc comes over to me and he's clearly frazzled. His face is bright red, he's just trying to get through the day and he asks, Hey, can we accelerate your speech? Just let's go in, let's get it done and and get off and, and we'll just wrap up for today. Thanks for coming down here. We'll just do it really quick. And I'm like, Hey man, sure. I know that this has gone really, really rough and there are going to be a lot of questions for this mc about why did you bring in this guy that created so much consternation in our industry?

Vance Crowe [00:07:59] Now, there are probably a lot of ways that they should have handled that or could have handled that, but they went from thinking this was a person that was on their team to then thinking this was a person taking credit for somebody that had caused so many problems in their industry. So sure they could have done better, but they were just reacting to what was put in front of them. So the mc feeling responsible for this, just after the 30 minutes of networking is up, he goes up on stage and starts to read my bio. And you can tell with the speed that he's doing this, he's not really interested in paying too much attention to who he's about to invite on here. He just wants to get it done. He probably just wants the day to be over. So he reads through my bio super quick, and as soon as he's done and he's walking off the stage and I'm walking on, you can tell that that air of tension has not dissipated at all. Because now as I'm walking up, even though there's just been an introduction read about me, it's a slow one or two person clap as I come on stage. And so now I'm presented with the situation where I have to figure out how am I going to handle this. And so I stand up and I do something I've never done before. I opened with an apology and the apology went like this. I am really very sorry to have to do this. I am grateful that you've invited me here. It's always an honor to be invited to speak in front of a group of farmers that are coming together to try and make their industry better and try and do things in the world.

Vance Crowe [00:09:34] But I really feel like I need to make a small correction from what just happened. And now you can tell people are looking at one another. They don't know what's going to happen. They don't know what I'm going to say. And so I turn to the guy that's just read the introduction. He's sitting in the front row, his face is getting even redder than it was before because now he thinks, oh no, what's happening? And I said to him, I'm really very sorry to have to do this, but I do need to make a slight correction on the way that you read my introduction. You see, I was a deckhand on an ecotourism ship, not an ecoterrorism ship. The crowd burst into laughter and instantly all of that tension evaporated from the room because everyone completely now understood who I was and what I was doing there in his haste to get the presentation going and to try and end the day. The mc had stood up and told everyone in my bio, instead of reading it closely, he said, and Vance was a deckhand on an ecoterrorism ship. And everyone in the crowd was like, what in the hell is going on here? Who are we gonna listen to now? But by me making a joke about it, it lightened the mood and all of a sudden it said, MC, don't worry about it, man. We get it. Mistakes happen and we're gonna turn this into a lighthearted thing. My joke allowed his fear and anxiety and embarrassment, that red face that peeking through his fingers to see what are people thinking of me? It allowed it to evaporate and it told everyone in the room the mistake that I just made is not me.

Vance Crowe [00:11:08] It's not who I am. I just made a mistake. And when everybody laughed, it allowed him to have that separation. So let's break down this difference between shame and embarrassment. What's going on as far as a social signal? Well, embarrassment is an experience that you have where everyone around you recognizes that you made a mistake and that you are distinct from that mistake. You are separate from it. So imagine the person that is carrying their tray walking into a cafeteria, they trip and fall, food goes everywhere, plates are crashing all around, and they fall on the ground. As soon as that happens, you know, they put their hands over their face and their face gets a little bit red and they start peeking out from behind their fingers to say, people, what are you gonna think of me? And then there's always that person that we perceive to be a jerk starts clapping, and then the person stands up and maybe takes a bow and then you know, kind of curtsey, and then people clap and, and everybody kind of understands that the thing that you did that you fell, it's not actually you, it's just you missing the mark. And by them clapping and cheering and you taking a bow, you're having that social interaction that says, we get it. We know you're separated from this mistake that you made. Shame on the other hand, does not operate like that at all. Shame is one of those experiences that we have when we believe that people can see deep into our souls, that people can somehow see who we are and what we've done for what it really is. And anybody that has ever had their soul laid bare in front of others to be judged, knows what it's like to feel like you wanna crawl into a hole.

Vance Crowe [00:12:49] You wanna hide away. You don't peek out from behind your fingers to see if other people are looking at you. You don't care. You assume that they have seen deep into you, and all you wanna do is get away from that experience. Now laughter in all of these experiences plays a really important role. If you laugh at somebody that is feeling a little bit embarrassed, you are actually doing them a kindness. Now, I'm not recommending that you mock them or that you put go out of your way to make them feel bad. But by clapping or laughing, you allow everyone else in the room to make a social signal that says, we all agree the thing that you did there is not who you are. But if you were to clap or cheer at someone's shame, you would be made to feel just as ashamed as that person is. Because everyone in an experience where they witness somebody that has done something that is shameful, everyone wants to be away from it, they want to avoid it at all costs. These two signals are close together, embarrassment and shame, but they never quite meet. And it's really important for you to understand the difference between these two things because it will help you when you encounter a circumstance to understand how should I approach this person that just did something that is now trying to determine should I feel shame or should I feel embarrassment? And then you can start to think if I'm, if this person is feeling embarrassment, is there anything I can do to help speed them from the point where they have to acknowledge to everybody I made a mistake?

Vance Crowe [00:14:24] And then get past it? And if somebody feels shame, well then you need to ask yourself, what role should I play here? What kindness can I do for a person that just wants to get away, that knows that people have straight into them and can feel that sense of maybe I'll never be good enough again. Maybe I will never have the esteem of the people around me. These can be heavy ideas, but it's why you should be aware of what's going on. And in fact, now that you know the difference between shame and embarrassment, you're gonna see it all the time. You're gonna see it in the cracks and crevices of life. And you're going to start being aware of how you have been socialized to treat these two experiences completely differently. And you didn't even know how to describe the subtle difference between those two. So this week, if you are keeping up with the journal, it has been a fantastic experience. I keep getting photos, I love it. You can always send them to me at Vance Crow on Twitter. But if you are writing in your journal, I want you to pick out an experience that you saw sometime this week that was either embarrassment or shame. It could be yours or somebody else's, but try and describe why. You can tell the difference between whether it was shame or embarrassment. And then think about now that you know the subtle difference between those two things, is there something that you could have done that would've made that situation better? Is there a kindness that you could have done for another person? Is there something that you could have done to have sped yourself along with the embarrassment?

Vance Crowe [00:15:57] Or if you felt some form of shame or watch someone else feel shame, what could you have done to make it so you didn't encounter that experience so that you didn't have to feel that way? I don't have any answers here. I don't think that there are any direct ones, but it will help you to sit down and think about the nuance between these two things because shame and embarrassment are social experiences that we see every day in our lives. And the better that you can understand it, the better you can interact with the with the rest of the world this week. If you're looking for somebody interesting to interact with on Twitter, I would suggest Lyle Benjamin four on Twitter. The reason I like Lyle is because out of nowhere, he has started tweeting at me some subjects that I may want to cover on the podcast and people that I might want to interview. This is so valuable to somebody like me that's both a creator trying to put together these podcasts, but also working full-time, doing consulting and giving speeches. It is so helpful to me to have people like Lyle suggest ideas and to interact and to talk about the things that he liked and what he wants to see more of. So I recommend following Lyle Benjamin four, and if you've got any ideas for the show, make sure you drop by my Twitter and share 'em with me. So if you're watching on YouTube, I'm glad you're here. I'm gonna start trying to put these bonus episodes up on YouTube instead of just the podcast. You may just enjoy listening to the audio that you can find that at the Vance Crow podcast. And tune in this Wednesday because I'll have an interview with an expert.

Vance Crowe [00:17:29] And those are always fun to figure out what discipline have they learned so deeply that they have something to share with people like you and me. So thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next week.