The things you don’t want people to know about you

In a podcast episode, Suleika Jaouad said:

If you want to write a good book, write what you don’t want others to know about you. If you want to write a great book, write what you don’t want to know about yourself.

I’m not trying to write a book (I did that once and it went badly), but I’m down with the concept. So starting with the easier part, I made a list of the things I don’t want people to know about me (and no, I’m not going to post it – yet).

The list is crazy long, and it’s still growing. It made me worry: is everyone’s list that long? Is “there are too many things I don’t want people to know about me” another thing I should add to the list of things I don’t want people to know about me?

In the spirit of not taking anything personally, my list should be empty. I shouldn’t care what people know about me. But wow is that hard.

How long is your list?