My piece on the productivity trap left you staring at your to-do list with a little more suspicion, good. Many of you wrote to me saying you’d tried that simple experiment: pick one meaningless task, strip away the rush, and ask what it would feel like if it actually mattered to you. The replies were beautiful—some funny, some raw, all honest. One reader, a project manager in Lisbon, told me she closed her laptop, walked naked to the balcony at sunrise, and suddenly saw that the report she dreaded wasn’t “admin” at all; it was the one place her voice could nudge an entire team toward less wasteful practices. That’s the thread we’re picking up today. When we dare to show up without the usual armor, something shifts—not just in us, but in everyone around us.
Years ago I was invited to speak at a small conference. The dress code said “business casual.” I arrived in linen trousers and a crisp shirt, feeling like a fraud the moment I stepped into the lobby. Everyone looked polished, guarded, slightly exhausted. During the first coffee break I escaped to the garden behind the venue, slipped off my shoes and socks, rolled up my trousers, and just stood barefoot on the cool grass for five minutes. Nothing dramatic. But when I walked back in, something in my posture had changed. I spoke differently that afternoon—less scripted, more direct, willing to admit what I didn’t know. Afterward, a woman approached me in tears. “You said out loud what I’ve been afraid to say for two years,” she whispered. “My team thinks vulnerability is weakness. I’m burned out pretending otherwise.” We exchanged emails. She started small Monday-morning check-ins where people could say one true thing before diving into the sprint. Six months later she wrote again: absenteeism down, creativity up, trust through the roof. All because one person risked being a little less armored.
That’s the misconception I want to gently dismantle today: the idea that professionalism requires hiding. We’ve been taught that to be taken seriously we must project certainty, competence, and emotional neutrality. Suits, titles, flawless slide decks, perfectly curated LinkedIn posts—these are the textiles of modern work. They signal “I’ve got this,” even when we’re falling apart inside. But here’s what twenty-five years of living naked whenever possible has shown me: the moment the cloth comes off, three things almost always appear in its place—authenticity, vulnerability, and, almost magically, empathy.
Authenticity shows up first. Without logos or cuts or colors to announce who we’re supposed to be, we’re left with nothing but the truth of the moment. I’ve sat in naturist circles—sometimes five people around a campfire, sometimes fifty at a festival—and watched strangers become friends in minutes because no one is performing status. The same happens at work when we drop the performance, even metaphorically. You admit you’re overwhelmed instead of sending the fifteenth “on it!” reply. You say “I need help understanding this” instead of nodding along. You share that the deadline feels brutal not because you’re lazy, but because your mother is ill. Suddenly the mask is off, and people exhale. They remember you’re human. They remember they are, too.
Vulnerability follows quickly on authenticity’s heels. It’s terrifying at first—our culture has convinced us that showing need equals losing power. But vulnerability is the only door through which real trust ever walks. Brené Brown’s research (which I reread every now and then while lying naked on the living-room rug, because why not?) shows that vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and connection. In naturist settings I’ve watched a CEO cry about his divorce while a university student listened without judgment, and the next day that same CEO mentored the student on starting a social enterprise. No one exploited the tears; everyone protected the space that allowed them. That’s the model we can borrow for offices, workshops, Zoom calls, farms—anywhere humans try to make something together.
And then comes empathy, the quiet miracle. When I see your body exactly as it is—stretch marks, scars, freckles, asymmetry—I stop comparing and start relating. The same thing happens when I hear your unfiltered story. Last year I coached a remote team spread across four continents. We began each weekly call with a “naked check-in”: ninety seconds, no slides, just “What’s alive for you right now?” Within three weeks people were talking about grief, childcare chaos, excitement over a new love, fear of layoffs. The quality of their strategic thinking improved dramatically because empathy had replaced competition. Deadlines were still met—often earlier—because people started helping each other instead of guarding territory.
You don’t need to be literally nude to create this (though I won’t pretend it isn’t the fastest shortcut I know). Here are three gentle ways I’ve seen it work in very clothed environments:
- Private naked reflection before public clothed action. Every now and then I sit bare on the couch of my study for a few minutes and ask: “What am I afraid to say this week? What do I actually care about in this project?” Writing the answers without clothes keeps me brutally honest. The next morning I take one small truth from that page into the world.
- The ninety-second vulnerability round. Borrowed from a friend: start any meeting with one lap around the table (or chat) where each person finishes the sentence “Right now I’m feeling…” No fixing, no advice, just witnessing. It takes four minutes and saves hours of misunderstanding later.
- The “no-status” ritual. Once a month my mastermind group meets on Zoom with cameras off for the first half hour. Voices only. You’d be amazed how quickly hierarchy dissolves when no one can see who’s in a mansion and who’s in a studio flat. We make better decisions when we’re just souls talking.
These aren’t radical overhauls; they’re small stitches in the fabric most of us are already weary of wearing. And they scale. Empathy becomes an unfair advantage.
Philosophically, this is ancient wisdom wearing modern skin. Marcus Aurelius wrote in his tent, probably half-naked in the heat, that we’re here to help each other. The Lakota saying “Mitakuye Oyasin”, all my relations, applies as much to a Tuesday stand-up as to a sweat lodge. When we bring our authentic, vulnerable, empathic selves to work, we’re not being unprofessional; we’re being deeply human in the way our ancestors always were before capitalism sold us the emperor’s new clothes.
So here’s your invitation this week: choose one small moment, one email, one meeting, one conversation, and show up a little more naked than usual. Say the thing you’ve rehearsed in the shower. Admit the doubt. Ask for the help. And notice what happens when someone else exhales and says, “Me too.”
I’ll be waiting to hear how it goes.
Strip Nude, Stay Nude, Live Nude and Share the Nude Love!
