Finding the Goldilocks zone between oversharing and simply sharing confounds many of us. Avoiding the inevitable wincing cringe attack that follows an unreciprocated share does similarly so. Luckily, Harvard Business School professor Leslie John is here to school us in the art of sharing just the right amount in her book Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing.

John makes a compelling argument that withholding can keep us from deeper friendships, greater success at work, finding a partner, and not to mention, it is just plain bad for our health! Drawing on over a decade of research, the book shares moving personal stories, including from John’s own life, which makes sense because the things we are most often worried about sharing feel especially singular and private. When we share them, hopefully others reciprocate, and so we deepen our relationships and find (hopefully) the ever-elusive “good life.” 

Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing offers much scientific evidence for how to make disclosure decisions bravely and wisely, not just recklessly oversharing but rather thoughtfully revealing. One major finding is that people often underlook the downsides of concealing–a function of our tendency to overestimate the strength and duration of emotional events, John ably demonstrates.

In fact, rather than being concerned about TMI, we should be equally if not more concerned about TLI–too little information. “The sting of TMI fades faster than we think and is replaced by the ache of TLI.” A body of research indicates that people most often regret things they didn’t do (60%, in fact). We tend to underestimate the cost of keeping a secret, which is linked with negative physical and mental health. James Pennebaker’s 1980s research on expressive writing vividly illustrates the therapeutic benefits of self disclosure, for example.

So, how do we handle disclosure decisions with confidence and aplomb? Well, John shows us that, yes, some people are seemingly naturally better at it because they have a high disclosure flexibility–the ability to dial openness up and down depending on the situation. The rest of us might just have to rely on the good old four box pro-con decision matrix that, believe it or not, was “invented” by Benjamin Franklin when he was giving a friend advice on relocating–yes, pedestrian as it might sound! John’s demonstrates a decision aid that is a smidgeon more complicated because it also considers the con of too little information, as well as the con of too much information. Obviously, you’re not going to have a full four-quadrant reckoning for every decision, but it may help in making some big ones.

Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing also points out that some decisions feel significantly more difficult than others. When a decision is reversible, we stay in a state of cognitive and emotional limbo. A decision to reveal is irreversible, but one to conceal is. Withholding, while seemingly safer, keeps the decision perpetually open leading to a cycle of rumination and delay.

The book features chapters on disclosing in the workplace, in friendships, and in relationships. In that chapter, perhaps not too surprisingly, John suggests that staying mysterious, at least initially, is best because sharing a lot off the bat may make you seem unselective. The research of Dr. Mike Norton found that online dating profiles with the least information garnered the most interest. Could this be affirming the old saw that familiarity breeds contempt? Norton’s research shows that although people believe that learning more about others leads to greater liking, more information about others leads, on average, to less liking. In other words, ambiguity—lacking information about another—leads to liking, whereas familiarity—acquiring more information— can breed contempt. When you put a lot of stuff up there, prospective dates will find things they really love and relate to, but the more info you have, the more chances they’ll find stuff that makes them think, “That person’s not for me.” And it turns out that seeing something that you can’t relate to or is dissimilar to you in those early stages is more of a turnoff than finding points of similarity is a turn-on.

Being vulnerable and revealing ourselves is clearly a part of the eudaimonic pursuit, but finding a balance between too much and too little isn’t easy. Luckily, we don’t need some special disclosure dilemma solving savancy to get there, this book evinces.