Daring Greatly: Why Courage Starts with Risk

In Daring Greatly, Brené Brown redefines vulnerability, not as weakness, but as the key to courage, connection, and creativity. This episode explores how embracing discomfort transforms how we lead, love, and live.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Have you ever found yourself, maybe late at night, just
feeling like the sheer volume oflife is, well, overwhelming?
Oh yeah, that feeling. You're juggling work, maybe
family that endless To Do List, and underneath it all there's
this kind of quiet nagging ache,a little whisper saying you're
maybe just not quite enough. That rings so true for so many

(00:23):
people. It's almost universal, that
quiet fear. Well, if that resonates with
you, if you sometimes feel like you're constantly striving for
something, maybe perfection that's always just just out of
reach, then you are definitely in the right place today.
Absolutely. We're embarking on a really deep
dive into a topic that, let's behonest, many of us kind of
instinctively shy away from. We really do.

(00:45):
But paradoxically, it holds the key, or at least a key to living
a more courageous, more connected and, well, a truly
wholehearted life. We're talking about
vulnerability. It's remarkable, isn't it?
How widespread this feeling of inadequacy is, or the fear of
not measuring up yet. How rarely we really let
ourselves, you know, explore it,understand where it comes from,

(01:06):
how it impacts us. And this fundamental human
experience, this shared struggle, is precisely what
makes the book we're exploring today so incredibly impactful,
so transformative, really. Absolutely.
So today, our mission, our deep dive is to extract the most
profound, the most actionable Nuggets of knowledge from a
truly pivotal book. It's daring greatly by the

(01:29):
phenomenal research professor Brené Brown.
She's amazing. Her work, it's just changed so
much. For years, she's meticulously
studied courage, shame, empathy,worthiness, all the big stuff.
And her insights have genuinely changed the way millions of us
understand ourselves, how we navigate relationships, how we
parent, how we even lead. It's really a journey into the

(01:50):
very heart of what it means to genuinely show up in our lives,
you know, flaws and all. And right at the core of this
book, kind of anchoring its entire philosophy and giving it
its title, is this incredibly powerful metaphor.
Yeah, the Roosevelt quote. Exactly Theodore Roosevelt's
iconic Man in the Arena quote. It's a passage Brown comes back
to again and again. She emphasizes that the real

(02:13):
credit, it belongs not to the critic.
You know the person on the sideline.
Right pointing fingers. Exactly.
But to the individual whose faceis marred by dust and sweat and
blood, who strives valiantly, who airs, who comes short again
and again because, well, there'sno effort, without error, no
kidding. And who spends himself in a
worthy cause? It's all about having the

(02:34):
courage to actually step into the fray, into the arena, no
matter what the outcome might be.
Right. It's not about the detached
observer, is it? The one pointing out every
little stumble or mistake from, you know, the safety of the
stands? Not at all.
It's about the person in the arena.
Messy, imperfect, totally committed.
Brown really hammers home that there's no effort without error

(02:55):
and shortcoming. And I think that's key.
This isn't just celebrating those huge grand heroic
gestures, which is maybe your first thought when we hear that.
That's often how we interpret itinitially, like big historical
moments. Exactly.
But it's something far more intimate, isn't it?
Far more universal. Precisely If we connect this to
the bigger picture, like you said, Brown isn't just

(03:16):
celebrating the kind of huge heroics that make headlines,
though Obviously those take courage, too, sure.
But she's really underscoring the profound, often quiet,
everyday courage it takes just to show up as our authentic
selves in our own lives. Just showing.
Up. Yeah.
In our families, our workplaces,our communities.

(03:36):
It's about the vulnerability of simply being there, being seen,
even when it feels, well, terrifyingly exposed or
imperfect, like you might get judged.
And what makes Brené Brown so incredibly relatable, I think,
and why her work connects so deeply with so many of us, is
her own startling honesty, her candor about her relationship

(03:56):
with vulnerability. Oh, absolutely.
She doesn't pretend it's easy. Not at all.
She opens the book with this admission.
That just makes you lean right in, she says.
I freaking hate vulnerability. Agrees.
It's such a great line. Right.
She even jokes about her therapist saying I'm sure she's
had tougher cases. But that immediate, almost
visceral honesty, it just sets such a raw, authentic tone for

(04:19):
the whole book. She really doesn't pull any
punches about how excruciating she finds uncertainty, risk, the
fear of getting hurt. It's so refreshing.
It's quite the paradox though, isn't it?
The world leading expert on vulnerability initially couldn't
stand the stuff. Exactly.
And her path to this research? It wasn't planned.
It was actually quite accidental, pretty unexpected.

(04:39):
She talks about this big career pivot she made.
From AT&T, right? Yeah, leaving a management
position at AT&T, which is quitea leap, you know, corporate
world, to academia, to go back to school to become a social
worker. She admits that at first she
really liked the idea of fixing people and systems.
Which is a common motivation, I think, that desire to sort
things out. Very common, almost heroic

(05:01):
anyway. But by the time she was
finishing her master's degree, she had this huge, almost
inconvenient realization. Social work, she learned.
It wasn't really about fixing anything or anyone.
It was and still is about contextualizing and leaning in.
Leaning into the messiness. Precisely her word for it?
Messy. It's about embracing that

(05:21):
discomfort of ambiguity, of uncertainty, and just holding an
empathic space for people to find their own way through it.
Wow. Talk about a fundamental shift
in perspective from fixing to leaning in.
Huge shift. And this embracing of the messy
approach, it LED her down an even more unexpected path.
She started out studying connection, which, like you said

(05:42):
earlier, sounds pretty straightforward.
Yeah. Connection sounds nice.
But her research participants? They kept, as she puts it,
derailing her. When she asked them about
meaningful connection, they didn't just talk about joy and
belonging. Oh no.
What did they talk about? Their stories are just saturated
with experiences of heartbreak, betrayal, and maybe most
profoundly, shame. That deep, primal fear of not

(06:04):
being worthy of real connection.They weren't just connecting,
they were struggling to connect.So almost by accident.
A sort of beautiful, uncomfortable accident.
She becomes a shame and empathy researcher.
Exactly. She spent six years immersed in
this work, developing this really robust theory about what
shame is, how it works in our lives, how we can build

(06:26):
resilience against it when we feel like we're not enough.
But to really understand shame, she realized she had to study
its opposite. She needed to look at people who
are resilient to shame, who do believe in their inherent
worthiness. She lovingly calls them the
wholehearted the. Wholehearted.
I like that, yeah. What did these people have in
common? And what she discovered was,
well, it was nothing short of a revelation.

(06:48):
What was it? These wholehearted individuals?
Consistently, they identified vulnerability as the absolute
catalyst for courage, compassion, and connection.
They attributed everything from their professional successes to
the strength of their marriages,their proudest parenting
moments, directly to their ability to be vulnerable.
Whoa. OK, so the very thing she
initially hated. The thing she freaking hated?

(07:09):
Turned out to be the secret sauce, the keen for a meaningful
life. That's exactly it.
Which brings us to this really memorable anecdote in the book
that just perfectly highlights the irony of her whole journey,
her TEDx talk going viral. Oh right, the vulnerability talk
itself. Yes, she shares that she was
initially terrified when she found out her talk on the very

(07:32):
topic of vulnerability was goingto be featured on the main Ted
website. Which is a huge deal for any
academic, right? A dream come true.
Absolutely. I highly coveted on her.
But Brown found that having a video on vulnerability become
this global phenomenon, it ironically left her feeling
uncomfortably and ironically vulnerable and exposed.

(07:53):
She'd always felt safer, she said, flying right under the
radar. So this sudden massive public
recognition specifically for herwork on being seen, it just made
her feel incredibly exposed. That's such a profound irony,
isn't it? The very act of advocating for
vulnerability forces her into it.
On this massive global stage. The.
Ultimate twist. It really is, and it perfectly

(08:13):
illustrates that vulnerability isn't just some abstract concept
for researchers or philosophers.It's this universal experience
that affects everyone, even the expert.
Totally. It solidifies its importance,
its constant presence in our lives.
And it makes you wonder if she felt that exposed.
What is it about our broader culture that makes us all feel

(08:35):
like we're constantly on display, like we're constantly
coming up short? Somehow this really ties into
what she calls the scarcity trap, doesn't it?
It absolutely does. Brown observes that we're all
just, well, frankly sick of feeling afraid.
Yeah, there's a lot of fear out there.
We're tired of the national conversations, the Daily News
cycles that seem perpetually focused on what should we fear

(08:57):
and who should we blame? Right.
It's exhausting. Deep down, she says, we actually
want to be brave. We yearn to dare greatly to step
into that arena we just talked about, but something powerful
holds us back. And that's the scarcity trap.
That's the scarcity trap. It's a really powerful idea.
Brown defines scarcity not just as, you know, lacking material

(09:18):
things, not having enough money or food.
It's more pervasive than that. It's a cultural phenomena, a
culture where everyone is hyper aware of lack, where everything,
safety, love, money, resources, it all feels restricted or
lacking somehow. Like there's never enough to go
around. Exactly.
And as a result, we spend a ridiculous amount of time

(09:39):
calculating what we have, what we want, and maybe most
destructively, what everyone else has compared to us.
That constant comparison. There's never enough problem.
It's something we all wrestle with, I think, even if we don't
put that label on it. Brown uses this fantastic and
actually quite funny anecdote toillustrate the kind of cultural
confusion that can happen when we're caught in this comparison

(10:01):
trap trying to project some kindof image.
Oh yeah, the cat story. Exactly, she was on stage and
said something like you can't swing a cat without hitting a
narcissist. Thinking it was just a common
phrase. Right, just a common idiom.
But afterwards she gets this flood of emails from audience
members who are genuinely concerned about animal cruelty.
I agrees. Oh dear.

(10:21):
She had to look it up. Turns out it's actually an old
British Navy reference. Something about the difficulty
of using a Cat O9 tails whip in the tight quarters below deck.
Which, as she says, is not greateither.
Not great either, but it perfectly captures how our
everyday language and how we interpret it can lead to such
unexpected confusion, especiallywhen we're maybe not fully

(10:42):
present or caught up in our own stuff.
And that lighthearted example, it really underpins the broader
point about the constant comparison, doesn't it?
Yeah, this relentless assessing and measuring, the author
explains. It leads us to measure our
lives, our worth, our happiness against these unattainable,
media driven visions of perfection.
Or against what she calls fictional accounts of how great

(11:04):
someone else has it, like looking at social media feeds.
Exactly. We're perpetually measuring
ourselves against this yardstickthat in reality, doesn't even
exist. It's a race we literally can
never win because the finish line keeps moving.
Or worse, it just disappears entirely.
And what's really thought provoking here is how she
connects this constant comparison to something that

(11:27):
seems so innocent, even comforting, like nostalgia.
Well, that's interesting nostalgia.
Yeah, she argues that looking back with longing, you know, for
the good old days can actually be a dangerous form of
comparison. How so?
Because we often compare our current complex, messy lives to
this memory that nostalgia has completely edited and idealized.

(11:48):
It's a version of the past that probably never truly existed in
that perfect form. I see we romanticize it.
Totally, we hear ourselves say. Remember when those were the
days, and without even realizingit, we set ourselves up for
disappointment in the present. It's a subtle but really
powerful trap. That makes a lot of sense, and
this whole culture of comparisonand scarcity, it brings us to a

(12:08):
really fascinating reframe she offers on narcissism through
that vulnerability lens. Right, because she doesn't
suggest we're suddenly surrounded by people with, like,
clinical narcissistic personality disorder.
No, not necessarily. Instead, she sees narcissism, or
maybe narcissistic traits fueledby the culture, as a profound

(12:29):
shame based fear of being ordinary.
Fear of being ordinary. Wow, it's that deep human
yearning we all have to be extraordinary to be noticed, to
be lovable, to genuinely belong.That fundamental need.
But in the scarcity city culture, that need gets twisted
somehow. Exactly.
It gets tragically confused and twisted into this desperate need
for grandiosity, for entitlement, for constant

(12:51):
external admiration. Brown admits how incredibly
seductive it is to use that celebrity culture yardstick to
measure the smallness of our lives, to reach for whatever we
think will offer us the most protection when we're hurting,
even if ultimately just leads tomore pain and deeper
disconnection. So it's like a desperate attempt
to feel more than enough, precisely because we secretly

(13:12):
fear we're not. Enough.
That's the core of it. It's driven by that underlying
shame. And this really raises an
important question, doesn't it? How does humanizing this
problem, seeing the shame underneath it, rather than just
slapping a label like narcissiston it?
Yeah. How does that shift our
perspective? It's just it dramatically, it
moves us away from that easy US versus those damn narcissist

(13:33):
mentality, right? And it allows us to see it not
just as some inherent character flaw in a few bad apples, but is
a powerful cultural influence that actually effects all of us
to some degree. We all feel that pressure.
We do, and when we understand the underlying shame and fear
that might be driving those behaviors, even the really
challenging ones, it changes everything about how we perceive

(13:56):
them, how we respond. It can actually foster
compassion. So where does this pervasive
scarcity culture actually stem from?
What are its roots? Well, Brown explains that
scarcity really thrives what shecalls shame prone cultures,
cultures that are deeply steepedin comparison and fractured by
disengagement. OK, shame, comparison,
disengagement, those are the keyingredients.

(14:16):
Exactly. And this is where the emotional,
the psychological, the societal threads really start to weave
together into this complex tapestry of disconnection.
She makes a powerful, almost chilling analogy here.
What is it? She says worrying about scarcity
is our culture's version of posttraumatic stress.
Wow, PTSD from scarcity. Yeah, she connects it to the

(14:39):
collective trauma of major societal events, things like
911, the multiple wars we've been through, the recessions,
the catastrophic natural disasters we've all witnessed.
Things that shake our sense of safety.
Absolutely. Even if we weren't directly
involved, their widespread impact is torn at our collective
sense of safety and security. We've experienced them as a

(15:00):
shared cultural trauma. And it's not just the big
headline grabbing events either is.
It No, not at all. When it comes to things like the
staggering numbers of unemployedor underemployed people in
recent times, Brown points out that every single one of us has
either been directly affected bythat kind of economic
insecurity, or we're close to someone who has.
It's true, it touches everyone. It creates this pervasive sense

(15:23):
of fragility, of insecurity thatjust permeates our daily lives,
makes us constantly aware of what we might lose or what we
don't have. And what's the consequence of
all this, this collective trauma, this scarcity mindset?
Well, the profound consequence is this, instead of coming
together to heal, to process ourshared experiences, which
fundamentally requires vulnerability and connection.

(15:45):
Which is hard. Which is really hard.
Instead, we often become angry and scared and at each other's
throats. This scarcity mindset isn't just
affecting the big picture, the larger culture.
Brown found the exact same dynamics playing out in
families, in workplaces, in schools, in community cultures.
It's this pattern of defensiveness and fear rather

(16:05):
than open, compassionate engagement.
And the ultimate cost, the tragic cost of living in this
scarcity culture. It's our willingness to own our
vulnerabilities and therefore our ability to genuinely engage
with the world from a place of inherent worthiness.
So scarcity erodes vulnerabilityand worthiness.
Directly. If we're constantly worried
about not having enough or not being enough, if we're always

(16:27):
comparing and judging ourselves and others, then we simply
cannot truly show up and dare greatly.
We stay stuck on the sidelines, observing, critiquing, maybe,
but never truly participating inour own lives.
It makes perfect, albeit painful, sense when you connect
those dots like that. OK, so if we want to move beyond
the scarcity trap, if we want tostep into that arena of daring

(16:51):
greatly, we have to tackle some of the biggest roadblocks.
The myths. The myths we've all been taught
about vulnerability. Brown dedicates a whole section
to systematically debunking these, starting with maybe the
most pervasive, the most damaging 1.
Myth #1 Vulnerability is weakness.
She calls this the most widely accepted myth and, critically,

(17:12):
the most dangerous. And it's everywhere, isn't it?
We've been conditioned through countless messages, subtle and
not so subtle, to believe that showing any sign of emotional
exposure or uncertainty or risk,well, it makes us weak,
susceptible to attack, or just plain inadequate.
It's a narrative that's just deeply woven into the fabric of

(17:32):
our society. And, Brown argues, we've gotten
this point where instead of recognizing and respecting the
immense courage it actually takes to be vulnerable, right,
our own fear and discomfort about being vulnerable often
translates into judging and criticizing others who do dare
to show up. That.
Way it's easier to judge than tofeel it ourselves.
Exactly. But she challenges this
perception head on with a reallypowerful truth.

(17:54):
She says to feel is to be vulnerable.
To believe vulnerability is weakness.
It's a believe that feeling is weakness.
Wow. Say that again.
To believe vulnerability is weakness is to believe that
feeling is weakness. Right.
And if we shut down our emotional lives because we're
afraid of the discomfort or the potential cost of vulnerability,
we don't just avoid pain, we inadvertently walk away from the

(18:16):
very things that give purpose and meaning to living.
It's a profound paradox, isn't it, truly?
While vulnerability absolutely involves, you know, taking
risks, living uncertainty, opening ourselves up to
emotional exposure, and let's bereal, that's inherently
uncomfortable. It really is.
Brown explains that it is also, at the exact same time, the
cradle of the emotions and experiences that we crave most

(18:39):
deeply. Like what?
Love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, creativity, all the
good stuff. It is, in essence, she says, the
source of hope, empathy, accountability and authenticity.
So if we avoid vulnerability, we're actually avoiding
everything that makes life feel rich and vibrant and meaningful.

(19:00):
That's the take away. If we really grasp the
implications of this, it's a total game changer, isn't it?
If we build these walls around ourselves to shut down
vulnerability, we don't just protect ourselves from potential
pain. We think we're protecting
ourselves. Right, but we effectively cut
ourselves off from everything that makes life worth living.
Think about how that impacts every single part of your life.
Your relationships, your work, your parenting, your capacity

(19:21):
for simple joy. It's like building this
impenetrable fortress around yourself to keep out the
perceived bad stuff. Yeah, but you inadvertently lock
yourself inside and all the goodstuff is completely inaccessible
too. You end up isolated even if
you're surrounded by people. Exactly.
And Brown's research participants?
They describe how vulnerability actually feels with such vivid,

(19:43):
universally relatable imagery. Oh, I remember these.
They're powerful. Right, they called it taking off
the mask and hoping the real me isn't too disappointing.
Or where courage and fear meet. The tightrope.
Yeah, some described it as halfway across a tightrope or
sweaty palms and a racing heart.Many referred to it as the

(20:05):
terrifying point on a roller coaster when you're about to tip
over the edge and take the plunge.
And others just called it free falling.
It's clearly not a comfortable feeling, is it?
But across the board, it was described as this achingly,
profoundly necessary thing. And the uncomfortable truth that
comes out here, which I think somany of us can relate to on a
really deep level, is perfectly captured by Brown's observation,

(20:28):
she says. I want to experience your
vulnerability, but I don't want to be vulnerable.
Oh, that it's hard. Right vulnerability is courage
in you and inadequacy in me. I'm drawn to your vulnerability,
but repelled by mine. That double standard, it's
rampant in our society and, let's be honest, often within
ourselves too. Totally.
We admire it and others. We're drawn to authenticity, to

(20:49):
people who are brave enough to share their struggles.
But we often shy away from it oreven judge it in ourselves.
It's this bizarre kind of cognitive dissonance we live
with. Directly into what Brown
identifies as myth #3 about vulnerability.
OK, what's myth #three? Vulnerability is letting it all
hang out. The oversharing myth.

(21:09):
Exactly. In our current Let It All Hang
out culture, you know, fueled bycelebrity oversharing, reality
TV, endless social media performance, there's a valid
question people often ask Can there actually be too much
vulnerability? Is that a thing?
It's a fair question. It is, and Brown strongly
counters this by clearly defining what true vulnerability

(21:31):
is and, maybe more importantly, what it isn't.
OK, So what isn't it? She clarifies that
vulnerability, as she defines itand advocates for it, is not
some indiscriminate pouring out of emotion.
It is fundamentally based on mutuality and requires
boundaries and trust. Mutuality, boundaries, trust.

(21:51):
Got it. She's emphatically clear it is
not oversharing, it's not purging, it's not indiscriminate
disclosure, and it's not celebrity style social media
information dumps. That's a crucial distinction
because it often gets lost in all the noise about being
authentic online. It's about discernment, not just
broadcasting everything. Exactly.
Instead, she argues, it's about sharing our feelings and our

(22:13):
experiences with people who haveearned the right to hear them.
Earns are right. I like that phrasing.
Yeah, we don't, or at least we probably should bare our souls
the first time we meet someone, because that's not really about
building a genuine you and reciprocal connection.
What is it then? That kind of behavior might be
desperation, or maybe attention seeking, and it often pushes
people away rather than drawing them closer.

(22:34):
Appropriate discerning, sharing within healthy boundaries.
That's what leads to increased connection, deeper trust, more
authentic engagement. It's a slow, intentional dance,
not some spontaneous emotional combustion.
To illustrate this idea of earned trust and how it's built
incrementally, Brown introduces her family's really charming yet

(22:56):
profound marble jar metaphor. Oh I love the marble jar.
It's such a simple, brilliant way to understand trust.
Isn't it? It captures that incremental,
delicate process of building andmaintaining trust in our
relationships. She shares this really relatable
story about her daughter Ellen experiencing a painful betrayal
back in 3rd grade. Oh no.
What happened? Ellen confided this funny,

(23:17):
slightly embarrassing secret to a friend, something she thought
was safe to share. But by lunchtime, everyone knew
and the girls were making fun ofher.
Classic schoolyard betrayal, so painful at that age.
Totally. Many of us can probably remember
something similar, right? And it led to Ellen's teacher,
who sounds like a truly wise educator, using a physical

(23:38):
marble jar in the classroom to illustrate how collective good
or bad choices impacted the whole class.
Brown then takes the simple, tangible metaphor and applies it
beautifully to individual relationships.
Showing how trust is this slow, layered, often kind of invisible
process. Exactly.
Every small act of reliability, of showing up, of being

(23:59):
trustworthy, it adds a marble tothe jar.
So Ellen quickly learned who hermarble jar friends were.
She did. They were the ones who kept
secrets, who told their own secrets back to her.
That mutuality piece. Oh yeah.
Remembered her birthday. Who included her in fun things?
Who who knew when she was sad, even if she didn't say it?
Who checked on her when she was sick?
Little things. So small, consistent acts of

(24:20):
kindness and reliability. Right.
Brown gives her own adult examples too, like when her
friends remember her moms name months after meeting her just
once. That small act of remembering
made Brown think she cares. She's paying attention.
It adds. A marble.
It's like every single tiny act of connection, of reliability,
of showing up. It adds a marble, making the jar

(24:41):
heavier and heavier with trust. It's those small, consistent
gestures that really build the foundation.
But what about the really big marble spills?
This raises a really important question.
What truly erodes trust? Yeah, what does the most damage?
Brown argues that often it's notthe huge, dramatic, single act
of betrayal, like a big lie or affair or some public shaming,

(25:03):
that causes the most pervasive, lasting damage.
Those are obvious, painful marble dumps, for sure.
We see them. We know what they are.
We tend to think of trust being shattered only by those grand
dramatic betrayals, the kind yousee in movies or read about.
Exactly. But Brown reveals that the more
insidious and often more damaging betrayals happen when,
as she puts it, the people we love or with whom we have a deep

(25:26):
connection, stop caring, stop paying attention, stop
investing, and stop fighting forthe relationship.
Oof, that's heavy. It's not a single event then,
it's a slow fade. It's a gradual, quiet
withdrawal. This covert betrayal causes
trust to slip away slowly, almost imperceptible, and this
slow, painful hurt starts to seep into the relationship.

(25:48):
And what makes that kind of slowerosion potentially more
dangerous, maybe more agonizing,is that it often feels crazy
making. How so?
Well, there's no event, no obvious evidence of brokenness,
so you can't easily point to thesource of your pain or
confusion. You just feel the emotional
distance growing, the lack of investment, that slow fate of
connection. And you start to doubt yourself.
Exactly this disengagement triggers our deepest, most

(26:11):
primal fears of being abandoned,of being unworthy, of being
unlovable. It's like a slow leak in a tire
rather than a sudden blowout. You know something's wrong, but
it's hard to pinpoint exactly when or how it started, and the
damage can become pretty extensive before you even fully
realize it. That's a powerful image.
OK, so if vulnerability is the path to connection, and shame is

(26:31):
that deep, gut wrenching fear ofdisconnection, then what's the
ultimate defense against this dark art as Brown calls shame?
Right, she brilliantly uses thatHarry Potter metaphor, doesn't
she? Inspired by a man who connected
her work to Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Yeah, and she sets the stage with her powerful twinkle light

(26:52):
quote. What is it again?
Only when we're brave enough to explore the darkness will we
discover the infinite power of our light.
It's a beautiful way to frame the challenge of confronting
something as difficult as shame.It really is, and she outlines 3
core findings about shame that are just fundamental to
understanding it. 1st, and this might be uncomfortable for some

(27:13):
people to hear, we all have it. Everyone, everyone.
Unless, as she jokes, you lack the capacity for empathy, which
essentially means you're a sociopath.
So in that context, she quips, this is the only time that shame
seems like a good option. OK, so we all have it.
What's second? Second, we're all afraid to talk
about shame. It's a secret, a taboo,

(27:35):
something we often hide even from ourselves.
We sweep it under the rug. Definitely.
And 3rd and perhaps most critically, the list we talk
about shame, the more control ithas over our lives.
It's power absolutely thrives insilence and secrecy.
So at its very core, what is shame?
It's the fear of disconnection, that profound fear that

(27:56):
something about us, something we've done or said or failed to
do, or maybe even just who we are, makes us unworthy of
connection. It's that insidious inner voice.
Exactly the one that whispers I'm not good enough for love,
belonging or acceptance. I'm fundamentally flawed.
It's that feeling of being unlovable, of being utterly
alone in our imperfection. So what's the antidote?

(28:17):
If shame thrives in silence, what fights it?
Empathy. Brown argues that empathy is the
powerful, truly healing antidoteto shame.
It's that incredibly healing message of you're not alone.
The Me Too moment. Precisely.
She shares this wonderfully relatable personal anecdote
about receiving a really mean spirited, personally attacking
e-mail. Her gremlins.
You know, that inner critic we all battle?

(28:38):
Oh yeah, the gremlins. They were having an absolute
field day just telling her all sorts of negative self defeating
things. What does she do?
Well, she instinctively forwarded it to her husband,
Steve, and he responded simply but powerfully with a serious Oh
man, I know that feeling. He's acknowledging it.
Later, she shared it with her friend Karen, who, in her

(29:00):
typical style, approached it with laughter, saying something
like, seriously, you got that? Who even says that?
So two different reactions. Totally different reactions, one
serious, one humorous, but both offered that profound connecting
power of Me Too empathy, Brown explains.
It's simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment,
emotionally connecting and communicating that incredibly

(29:22):
healing message of you're not alone.
It's about seeing the struggle in another person and reflecting
back their shared humanity. And Speaking of those gremlins,
the book offers such a vivid andrelatable description of them as
the shame tape, those relentlessself doubt and self criticism
messages that just play on repeat in our heads.
They can be so loud sometimes. Oh yeah, she recounts this

(29:44):
memorable anecdote where she wasstruggling badly with writers
block, feeling totally stuck andworthless, and she called a
friend for commiseration. Her friend, knowing Browns inner
world pretty well, immediately asked the perfect question.
What are the gremlins saying? Straight to the source.
Exactly, And her gremlins that day were apparently particularly

(30:06):
vicious. They were saying things like my
writing sucks and no one cares about these topics anyway, and
I'm going to get criticized for this and I'll totally deserve
it. Ouch.
And the ultimate stinging kickerfor any writer?
Real writers don't struggle likethis.
Real writers don't dangle their modifier.
Oh no, not the dangling modifier.
It's so painfully relatable, isn't it?
That inner critic, always ready with some witty, self

(30:28):
deprecating insult designed to keep us small and quiet and safe
from judgment. It's almost like a twisted form
of self protection. It really is.
OK. So, moving on to how gender
expectations play into all this,Brown's work powerfully explores
how shame manifests differently for men and women, often
reinforced by societal norms andexpectations.

(30:49):
Right, she talks about the box for men.
Exactly. For men, she uses the metaphor
of a box. This rigid, often unspoken set
of rules dictating what they should and shouldn't do, and
maybe most importantly, who they're allowed to be.
And the ultimate crushing rule inside this box.
Don't be weak. Don't be weak.
And this box, she explains, has become even more constrained,

(31:12):
more suffocating, particularly since the economic downturns of
recent decades. It's morphed into what she calls
the Wizard of Oz Box. The Wizard of Oz Box explain
that. Think about the wizard behind
the curtain, right? It's that small curtain
concealed space where he stands desperately controlling his
great and powerful image, terrified at being exposed as
just ordinary. OK, so men feel pressured not

(31:33):
just to avoid weakness, but to be great and all powerful.
Yes, to be providers, protectors, unemotional, stoic.
She shares this truly moving andheartbreaking example of a man
who, after being downsized from his job, pretended to go to work
for six months. Oh.
My gosh. For six months.
Six months, every morning, he'd drive across town, sit in coffee

(31:56):
shops, tirelessly searching online for a new job because, as
he told Brown, his wife didn't sign up for this.
He believed in his profound shame that knowing would change
the way she feels about me. Wow, that's devastating, the
isolation of. That it's a devastating example
of the isolating pressure to maintain this impossible facade.
And Brown recounts hearing over and over again from men in her

(32:18):
research. That the women in their lives,
mothers, sisters, wives, colleagues, constantly criticize
them for not being open, for notbeing vulnerable, for not
sharing their emotions, not being softer.
Well, at the same time. Well, simultaneously and often
totally unwittingly, standing right there in front of that
cramped wizard closet, making sure no one sees inside or gets
out. Keeping them in the box they
criticize them for being in. Exactly.

(32:40):
This was a profound moment for Brown herself during one
interview when she had this sudden realization.
Holy shit I am the patriarchy. Whoa.
That's such a powerful, humblingmoment in the book because it
perfectly illustrates how we often completely unintentionally
perpetuate these harmful gender norms, even when we think we're

(33:00):
being progressive or advocating for change.
It's a very subtle but deeply ingrained societal dance.
Brown notes that many men she interviewed use very visceral
physiological descriptions when they talk about feeling pissed
off or shut down. They describe almost a physical
intolerance for shame, criticismand ridicule.
Like it physically hurts. Yeah, it speaks to the deep,

(33:22):
almost unbearable pain these expectations inflict, forcing
them to armor up, often at greatpersonal cost to their health
and relationships. OK, so that's the box for men.
What about women? For women, Brown uses Marilyn
Fry's powerful concept of the double bind, explaining it with
the metaphor of a Web A. Web of double binds.
OK, a double bind is basically asituation in which options are

(33:43):
very limited and all of them expose us to penalty censure or
deprivation. In essence, for women it's often
a constant no win situation. It's intricate web of
conflicting expectations. Can you give some examples?
Because that sounds familiar. Oh, they hit home for so many
women, we're told, for example. Be perfect, but don't make a

(34:04):
fuss about it. And certainly don't take too
much time away from anything else like your family or partner
or work to achieve your perfection right.
Effortless. Perfect.
Exactly. Or another classic she mentions.
Dial the sexuality way up, but only after the kids are asleep,
the dog has walked, and the house is spotless.
But dial it way down at the PTO meeting and geez, whatever you

(34:24):
do, don't confuse the two. You know how we talk about those
PTO sex bots? It's an impossible tightrope
walk, isn't it? Constantly navigating these
contradictory demands, often feeling like you're failing on
all fronts at the same time. Totally.
She even shares her own experience of wanting to
literally hide her TE DX talk despite it being this huge
honor, because of the overwhelming pressure she felt

(34:45):
to stay small, sweet, quiet, andmodest.
She feared the backlash. She feared the mean spirited
criticism that is just so rampant, especially online.
The inevitable judgment that comes with stepping out, with
being visible Shame, she explains, is the very powerful,
often invisible force that enforces these impossible norms,

(35:07):
keeping us perpetually striving and perpetually feeling
inadequate. And a universal shield we use,
regardless of gender, that's deeply connected to shame is
judgment, right? Judging others.
Yes, Brown reveals this profoundtruth.
We judge people in areas where we're vulnerable to shame.
OK, unpack that. We judge where we feel
vulnerable. Think about it, if you feel
genuinely good and secure about your parenting choices, you

(35:29):
probably really don't feel a constant need to judge other
parents choices, right? OK, makes sense.
If you feel truly comfortable and confident in your own body,
you don't find yourself constantly making fun of other
people's weight or appearance. She argues that we're often hard
on each other not necessarily out of inherent malice, but
because we're using each other as a kind of launching pad out

(35:51):
of our own perceived shaming deficiency.
Wow. It's a projection of our own
stuff A. Painful projection, and this
point is starkly illustrated by an incredibly impactful anecdote
from one of her classes. OK, women were discussing body
image and vulnerability, specifically in relation to
intimacy and sex, and one young man in the class, clearly

(36:12):
frustrated by the level of self criticism he was hearing,
apparently slammed his hand downon the table and shouted.
It's not about the back fat. You're worried about it.
We're not. We don't give a shit.
Whoa, he actually said that? He did, and he went on to
clarify with raw honesty what men's true worries often are in
those intimate moments. Things like do you love me?
Do you care about me? Do you want me?

(36:33):
Am I important to you? Am I good enough?
Oh my God. It was a moment, Brown recounts,
that brought the entire room, both men and women, to tears.
He summed it up by saying, when you want to be with us in that
way, it makes us feel more worthy.
We stand a little taller, believe in ourselves more.
That's such a powerful, visceralreminder of how much we project

(36:55):
our own insecurities onto others, creating these false
narratives about what they're thinking.
Totally. And it underscores how universal
that desire for worthiness, for belonging, for connection, truly
is. It cuts right across all gender
lines. OK, so we've talked about shame.
It's different forms, the role of gender.
Now let's explore what Brown calls the Vulnerability Armory.

(37:15):
Right, the Shields we use. She vividly describes it using
the setting of a middle school cafeteria, where our emotional
armor becomes like a second skin, right?
Why middle school? Because, she says it's an age
where armor is most easily spotted before it molds
perfectly to our adult shapes and becomes almost undetectable
even to ourselves. We create these elaborate,
custom made Shields to protect ourselves from the inherent

(37:37):
discomfort, the uncertainty, thepotential pain of being
vulnerable. They're like psychological force
fields. And while our individual armor
might be custom made tailored toour specific insecurities, Brown
identifies 3 really common vulnerability Shields that
almost all of us incorporate into our personal Armory.
OK, what's the first one? The 1st, and maybe the most

(37:59):
insidious, is foreboding joy. Foreboding joy?
That sounds like an oxymoron. It is.
It's defined as the paradoxical dread that clamps down on
momentary joyfulness. It's like this mental alarm
system that goes off when thingsfeel too good, too happy.
So you feel joy, but then immediately feel dread.
Exactly. She gives 2 extremes for this.
Rather, startling Phenomenon 1 is what she calls rehearsing

(38:23):
tragedy. Rehearsing tragedy?
Like what? For example, parents who are
utterly overwhelmed with love for their children are
simultaneously flooded with terrible, intrusive images of
something awful happening to them.
She found that 80 percent, 80% of parents she interviewed
admitted to doing this. Wow, 80% why do we do that?

(38:44):
It's as if we're trying to beat vulnerability and inevitable
pain to the punch, to prepare ourselves for the worst possible
outcome, believing that if we'veimagined it, maybe it won't hurt
as much if it actually happens. It's a defense mechanism against
that emotional exposure of pure joy.
OK, that's one extreme with the other.
The other end of the spectrum for foreboding joy is perpetual

(39:05):
disappointment. This is where some people are so
consumed by this dread that theynever even allow themselves to
feel joy in the first place. They just live in
disappointment. They prefer, she says, to stay
in an unmoving state of perpetual disappointment.
And the rationale behind it is disturbingly logical in a
twisted way. What's the logic?
It's easier to live disappointedthan it is to feel disappointed.

(39:28):
You sacrifice joy, but you thinkyou'll suffer less pain.
You preempt the potential heartbreak of joy being taken
away by never fully embracing the pleasure to begin with.
That sounds exhausting and sad. Totally.
It's a calculated, albeit self defeating, defense mechanism.
So what's the daring greatly strategy for combating this

(39:49):
pervasive, foreboding joy? There must be 1, right?
There is, and it's surprisingly simple yet profoundly
challenging in practice. Practicing gratitude.
Gratitude, OK. It's not just an emotion Brown
found through her research. It's a deliberate spiritual
practice that, when cultivated consistently, builds deep
resilience and hope. It allows us to actively soften

(40:10):
into the joyful moments rather than immediately bracing for
disaster. So instead of waiting for the
other shoe to drop, you just appreciate the moment.
You appreciate the moment you'rein, you're present and thankful
without immediately projecting future pain onto it.
She shares this really touching and powerful story about her
daughter Ellen as a first graderthat illustrates this
beautifully. Oh yeah, What happened?

(40:30):
They were on a paddle boat together, and Ellen at one point
just stopped pedaling. She sat perfectly still, closed
her eyes and had this quiet, radiant smile on her face, just
completely immersed in the pure joy of that moment.
Wow, like she just knew. Exactly.
Brown observed that Ellen was intuitively understanding and
embodying owning joy, a concept that took the author years of

(40:52):
research and practice to cultivate herself.
Ellen, in that moment, understood instinctively that
you shouldn't squander joy by rehearsing tragedy.
Instead, by leaning into it, appreciating it, you actually
build the very resilience neededfor life's inevitable
challenges. That's a powerful lesson from a
child. OK, so foreboding joy is SHIELD
number one. What's #2.
The second common shield in our vulnerability Armory is

(41:14):
perfectionism. Perfectionism.
A classic. And it's important to
distinguish this from healthy striving for excellence.
Brown defines perfectionism as aself-destructive and addictive
belief system. It's fueled by this deeply
flawed thought. If I look perfect and do
everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful

(41:35):
feelings of shame, judgement andblame.
The belief that perfection will protect us.
Right. But, she stresses emphatically,
perfection doesn't exist. It's an unattainable, illusory
goal. It's like chasing a mirage in
the desert. You'll never reach it.
And here's the crucial point Brown makes about it.
Perfectionism doesn't actually lead to achievement.
It actively hampers it. Really.

(41:57):
How so? It's correlated with
debilitating conditions like depression, anxiety, addiction
and what she calls life paralysis or missed
opportunities. That paralyzing fear of failing,
of making mistake, of being criticized, it keeps us firmly
out of the arena. We don't dare greatly if we're
terrified of not being perfect. So it holds us back instead of
propelling us forward. Exactly.

(42:17):
And the real kicker? The profound insight here is
that perfectionism is a form of shame itself.
Perfectionism is shame. Where we struggle with
perfectionism, she asserts. We struggle with shame because
at its core, perfectionism is all about fearing we're not
enough, or fearing not being seen is enough.
It calls to mind that beautiful Leonard Cohen lyric, doesn't it?
There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

(42:40):
Exactly. It's such a poetic way to frame
the absolute necessity of imperfection.
Trying to be perfect only sets us up for more shame, more
judgement, more pain, because we're constantly chasing this
impossible ideal that makes us blind to our own unique beauty
and strengths, our own light. OK, so foreboding joy,
perfectionism. What's the third common shield?

(43:02):
The third common shield, and a very pervasive one in our
society, is numbing. Numbing like checking out.
Yeah, this involves doing almostanything to escape this
combination of condemned isolation and powerlessness that
often accompanies feelings of shame and vulnerability.
It can manifest in a myriad of ways, some really obvious, some
incredibly subtle. Like what kinds of ways?

(43:22):
Well it can lead to serious issues like addiction, substance
abuse, compulsive shopping, gambling, eating disorders, but
also things like depression, bullying others, self injury.
It's essentially any behavior orsubstance we use consistently to
avoid feeling uncomfortable emotions.
Zoning out on social media for hours, maybe binge watching TV,
overworking. Anything to avoid feeling.

(43:44):
Anything to avoid feeling. And Brown shares her own very
honest, numbing history, which again, makes her so relatable.
What was her experience? She recounts how in her late
teens she consciously started drinking and smoking, not
necessarily the party hard, but often just to look busy and
minimize her feelings of vulnerability when she found
herself alone at a table while other girls were asked to dance.

(44:06):
Oh, wow, that's specific. Yeah.
For her, she realized looking back, vulnerability led to
anxiety, which led to shame, which led to disconnection,
which led to Bud Light. It was a coping mechanism, a way
to manage the excruciating discomfort of feeling exposed
and not enough. And the key insight here, the
truly liberating understanding, is that it's not what you do,

(44:29):
it's why you do it that makes the difference.
Right, that's crucial. It's about the intention behind
the behavior. Exactly.
She introduces this concept of shadow comforts, those things
that feel comforting in the moment that give us a temporary
reprieve from discomfort. Like scrolling Instagram or
eating that plane of ice cream. Right, but ultimately they're

(44:50):
only passing their long shadows over our lives, leading to more
disconnection or even harm down the road.
It requires really profound selfexamination to figure if our
choices are genuinely nourishingour spirit and building
connection, or if they're simplyproviding a temporary escape
from difficult emotions, ultimately deepening that
scarcity trap we talked about earlier.

(45:10):
That takes honesty with ourselves.
Yeah. OK, so those are the big three
Shields for boding joy, perfectionism and numbing.
Did she mention others? She does.
Beyond those 3 core Shields, Brown also touches on several
other fascinating, often subtle shielding tactics we employ.
There's the Viking or victim worldview.
Viking or victim? What's that?
It traps us in this desperate black and white framework.

(45:32):
You see yourself and maybe the world as either dominating and
powerful, the Viking, or completely powerless and at the
mercy of others, the victim. So there's no middle ground.
Exactly. There's literally no room for
nuance, for growth, for transformation, or just for the
messiness of shared humanity. It creates the suffocating,
boxed in feeling because there are only these two extreme,

(45:55):
often unhealthy roles to occupy.OK, what else then?
There's flood lighting. Flood lighting sounds dramatic.
It is. It's a misuse of vulnerability,
often masquerading as authenticity.
This is when someone purges or blurts out way too much
information, often highly personal or emotionally charged
details, without proper boundaries or consideration for
the listener. Like TMI, too much information.

(46:17):
Totally. It overwhelms the listener and
paradoxically causes disconnection rather than
building intimacy. It's not true vulnerability
because it lacks that mutuality and earned trust we talked
about. It's actually a form of armor
often used unconsciously to control the narrative or
manipulate emotional responses. Interesting.
So it pushes people away. Often, yeah.
And related to that, there's also the smash and grab.

(46:39):
Smash and grab sounds. It's using vulnerability as a
manipulation tool, purely to gain attention or sympathy.
It's often seen in celebrity culture, maybe, where public
displays of emotion or confessions seem carefully
curated for maximum impact or personal benefit.
It's not about genuine connection, it's about a
calculated exchange. Got it.

(47:01):
Any others? One more really vivid 1
Serpentining. Serpentining like a snake.
Exactly. You know, like in that movie
where the character is advised Serpentine shell, Serpentine
running frantically in a zigzag pattern to dodge bullets.
Yeah, I know the one. It's that constant zigzagging in
conversations or life, never truly settling on a firm stance

(47:21):
or opinion, all to avoid potential criticism or cynicism.
It's an attempt to dodge real feedback or engagement by never
staying still long enough to actually be hit or challenged.
Wow, that's a great visual for avoiding vulnerability.
OK, so we have all these Shields.
How do we deal with the criticism and cynicism that

(47:42):
often makes us put them up in the first place?
Yeah, that cynicism she describes as almost the currency
of the realm. In middle school, high school,
and frankly, in much of adult society too, Brown offers 2
simple but incredibly powerful strategies that have guided her
own life and work. OK, what are they?
First, she quite literally carries a small laminated list

(48:03):
of names in her wallet. These are her stretch mark
friends. Stretch Mark friends, I love
that. Isn't it great?
These are the precious few people whose opinions truly,
deeply matter to her, And to be on that exclusive list, they
have to meet certain criteria. Like what?
They have to love her for her strengths and her struggles.
They have to know she's genuinely trying to live
wholeheartedly, but also that she's totally uncool sometimes.

(48:27):
These are the friends, she says,with whom our connection has
been stretched and pulled so much that it's become part of
who we are. A second skin.
And there are a few scars to prove it.
Wow, those deep tried and testedrelationships.
Exactly. They are the ones who have
earned the right to give her feedback, whose love and trust
are unwavering, whose opinions actually count.

(48:47):
So focus on the opinions of those few who really matter.
What's the second strategy? The second strategy comes from
her friend Scott Scratton, who gave her this blunt but
absolutely essential advice. Don't try to win over the
haters. You're not the Jackass
Whisperer. Agrees.
That's brilliant. The Jackass Whisperer.
Right. It's a profound reminder not to

(49:08):
discount the opinions and love of your precious stretch mark
friends in some futile attempt to gain the approval of
strangers or those who are just being deliberately mean, cynical
or nasty, online or elsewhere. It's about discernment and
protecting your energy, choosingwhere to invest your
vulnerability and attention. Exactly.
Invest in those who truly value you, not the anonymous critics.

(49:30):
Makes perfect sense. OK, so we've explored scarcity,
vulnerability, myths, shame, andour armor.
Where do we go from here? How do we cultivate change?
This brings us to what Brown calls mining the gap, which is
all about cultivating meaningfulchange and engaging with the
world differently, with more authenticity, more courage.
Minding the gap. OK, what does that mean exactly?

(49:50):
She defines minding the gap as paying deliberate attention to
the space between where we're actually standing and where we
want to be, and, crucially, practicing the values that we're
holding out as important in our culture.
So it's about aligning our actions with our stated values,
walking the talk. Precisely.
It's a truly daring strategy because it requires embracing

(50:11):
our own vulnerability and cultivating shame resilience,
both individually and collectively.
It forces us to show up as leaders, as parents, as
educators, as citizens in new and often uncomfortable ways.
Because it's easier to say what we value than to actually live.
It Oh, absolutely. As Brown eloquently puts it, we
don't have to be perfect. We just have to be engaged and

(50:32):
consistently committed to closing that gap between our
spouse values and our actual actions.
It's about closing that chasm between who we say we are and
who we actually are in practice.And she offers a really simple,
yet incredibly profound definition of culture.
Well, she does. Just the way we do things around
here, that's culture. So simple, but so true.

(50:53):
And she points out that while many leaders and organizational
theorists endlessly debate whether culture eats strategy
for breakfast, everyone deep down agrees that who we are, our
collective values and behaviors,is at least as important as what
we want to achieve. The culture is the living,
breathing manifestation of our values.

(51:14):
Which leads us to a critical distinction.
Brown makes the difference between aspirational values and
practiced values. Right.
Aspirational values are what we say we believe in.
They're the things that live in our best intentions, may be
beautifully written on a company's mission statement or
earnestly delivered in lectures to our kids.
The ideal version. Exactly.
Practice values, on the other hand, are how we actually live,

(51:36):
how we truly feel, behave and think in our daily lives,
especially when we're under pressure and no one's looking.
Minding the gap means rigorouslyexamining the discrepancies,
often painful ones, between these two sets of values.
And when there's a big unaddressed gap between our
aspirational values and our practiced values, what happens

(51:56):
then? That leads to what she calls the
disengagement divide. Disengagement, she argues, is
not just a symptom, but the issue underlying the majority of
problems we face in our families, in schools and
organizations. Why do we disengage?
We disengage to protect ourselves from vulnerability,
from the painful sting of shame or hypocrisy.

(52:18):
Or we disengage when we perceivethat our leaders, or maybe our
parents or those we look up to, aren't living up to their end of
the social contract. It's basically a withdrawal of
trust and effort. We check out.
She provides some incredibly relatable family examples of
this. Right?
Yeah, showing how easy it is foraspirational values to diverge
sharply from practice. Once.

(52:38):
Oh yeah, they really hit home. For instance, a mom tells her
kids constantly that honesty is paramount.
Always the best policy. OK, aspirational value honesty.
Right, but then maybe she rationalizes not paying for a
few sodas that didn't scan at the grocery store check out,
perhaps saying it wasn't my fault they missed it.
They're making a mint anyway. So the kids hear the words, but

(52:59):
they see the behavior, and there's the gap.
Exactly. A gap is formed.
Or imagine a dad who tirelessly preaches respect and
accountability to his children. Value.
Respect. But then when his son
intentionally breaks his brother's brand new toy, the dad
is too busy to deal with it properly.

(53:19):
Maybe he just shrugs it off witha dismissive boys will be boys
instead of insisting on an apology and helping the son make
amends. So the immediate action or lack
of action speaks louder than thelecture.
Volumes louder. It creates this chasm between
what's said and what's actually done, leaving the children
confused about what's truly important, what the real rules

(53:40):
are. There's another poignant example
she shares, too, about gratitude.
Oh right, involving parents who constantly feel unappreciated by
their children, lamenting their lack of gratitude.
Yeah, my kids just don't appreciate anything I do for
them. Yet these very same parents
might routinely yell at each other, use put downs, maybe
habitually tease family members to the point of tears.

(54:00):
They are, in essence, looking for behaviors in their kids.
Gratitude. Respect that their children have
literally never seen consistently modeled in their
own home. That hypocrisy creates this huge
unspoken disengagement divide built on a foundation of unmet
expectations and unspoken pain. And this whole concept of
minding the gap, it extends powerfully beyond the family,

(54:23):
right into work and education. Absolutely.
Brown makes a compelling case here for what she terms
disruptive engagement. Disruptive engagement.
What does that mean? Is it about causing trouble?
Not trouble for its own sake. It's about having those honest,
often uncomfortable conversations about
vulnerability and shame within organizations and schools.
These conversations, she argues,are absolutely necessary to

(54:46):
reignite creativity, innovation and learning.
Without these brave, sometimes messy discussions, critical
issues just remained hidden, festering below the surface.
She uses a great analogy for shame and organization.
Oh yeah, the termites. Shame in organizations, Brown
warns, is like termites in a house.
It's hidden, it's insidious, andit's silently eating away at the

(55:06):
very infrastructure of trust, psychological safety,
productivity until, as she grimly puts it, the stairs
suddenly crumble. Only then, when there's a major
failure or crisis, do we realizethe deep seated problem that's
been ignored or covered up. Exactly.
She shares the heartbreaking story of Sylvia, an event
planner who, after making one single mistake, found herself on

(55:29):
the company's informal losers list.
This completely eroded her confidence, crushed her spirit,
and ultimately led to her quitting.
Shame destroyed her belief in her own worth within that
specific environment. Then there's Ashley's story to
the teacher. Right Ashley, a dedicated
teacher who is in a total shame meltdown.
Despite working tirelessly, spending her own money on

(55:50):
supplies for underprivileged kids, pouring her heart and soul
into her students, she felt completely unsupported and
unappreciated by her administration.
There are hundreds of teachers like me, she cried to Brown.
And do you read about that in the paper?
No. Highlights how shame and the
fear of speaking up about it caneffectively silence and
disengage even the most committed, passionate

(56:10):
individuals. It leads to burnout, loss of
talent, all sorts of negative consequences.
And Brown also incisively tackles the deeply ingrained
blame game that often happens inthese shame filled environments.
Right. What's her take on blame?
She states unequivocally, if blame is driving, shame is
writing. Shotgun blaming and finger

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pointing are more often than notclear symptoms of unaddressed
shame in organizations, schools and families.
Blame, she clarifies, is simply the discharging of pain and
discomfort. It doesn't actually solve
anything. Absolutely nothing productive
about it, it's just a corrosive emotional reaction.
If blaming becomes a consistent pattern in a culture, it's a
huge red flag that shame needs to be addressed at a systemic

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level. And directly related to the
blame game is what she calls cover up culture.
These are cultures, whether in corporations, governments, even
religious institutions, that depend heavily on shame to keep
people quiet and compliant. They prioritize the reputation
of the system, or maybe those inpower, over the dignity,
well-being and accountability toindividuals or communities.

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Protecting the institution over the people.
Exactly. Brown argues that if you look at
any major incidents fueled by cover ups, you'll consistently
see this pattern. Shame is used to silence dissent
and protect the status quo. It creates an environment where
true accountability is stifled and genuine progress becomes
impossible. So if we want to move away from
blame and cover up and towards more authentic engagement, what

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does that look like, particularly around feedback?
This brings us to feedback as a profoundly vulnerable act.
A truly daring, greatly culturedBrown argues, is characterized
by honest, constructive, and engaged feedback.
Easy to say, hard to do. Very hard.
And Brown points out something critical here.
Vulnerability is at the absoluteheart of the feedback process

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for everyone involved, not just the person receiving the
feedback. But also the person giving it
and even the person asking for it.
Yes, it requires an incredible amount of courage to both give
feedback honestly and constructively, and to receive
it openly without getting defensive.
And even just asking for feedback takes vulnerability.
One of the biggest mistakes people make in feedback, Brown

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observes, is armoring up. Armoring up like putting on
defenses. Yeah, we subconsciously get
ready to rumble, as she puts it,to protect ourselves from the
perceived threat of vulnerability.
We often assume only the receiver of the feedback is
exposed. But honest engagement, with its
inherent uncertainty, risk, and potential emotional exposure, is

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genuinely difficult for all parties involved.
It takes courage to truly listenwithout defending, and courage
to speak uncomfortable truths with care.
She introduces a really powerfuland transformative metaphor for
how to approach feedback differently.
What is it the metaphor of sitting on the same side of the
table? Sitting on the same side, yeah.
OK. How does that work?
It's a shift in posture, both literally and figuratively.

(59:04):
It means saying through your actions and your words, I'm
ready to sit next to you rather than across from you.
I'm willing to put the problem or the feedback or the issue in
front of us rather than letting it sit between us.
So it gets collaborative, not adversarial.
Exactly. This collaborative, non
adversarial approach fundamentally fosters growth and

(59:24):
learning. Rather than triggering
defensiveness, shame or resentment.
It reframes the challenge as a shared 1, something you're
tackling together. This concept really raises an
important practical question though.
How can we actually apply this in a real world scenario where
people are often deeply afraid to admit they don't know
something or that they're struggling, especially at work,

(59:47):
right? It sounds good in theory, but
how does it play out? Brown was once asked by a sales
student a great question. Does being vulnerable mean
admitting to a potential customer?
Hi I'm new and I really don't know what I'm doing.
Yeah, that probably wouldn't go over well.
Exactly. The other students in the class,
she recounted, looked at her as if to say, yeah, that seems

(01:00:07):
incredibly lame. Are we really supposed to do
that? It perfectly highlights our
ingrained aversion to admitting perceived weakness in
professional settings. So what did Brown advise?
Don't do that. She wisely advised against that
specific direct admission to thecustomer.
That's probably not helpful. However, she stressed the
profound value of sharing that feeling of not knowing that

(01:00:30):
vulnerability with a trusted mentor or a colleague.
OK. Being vulnerable internally
within the team. Precisely this internal
vulnerability helps you stay engaged.
It allows you to seek guidance and avoid the temptation to cut
corners or just check out from the difficulty because you're
too ashamed to ask for help. The stress of pretending to know

(01:00:50):
everything, of being unable to ask for help, is precisely how
organizations lose talented people and individuals burnout.
It's about being strategically vulnerable to the right people
who can support your growth. And she gives a powerful
leadership example that really embodies this philosophy, right.
Yes, Christine Day, the former CEO of Lululemon, they
explicitly focused on finding the magic makers within her

(01:01:12):
organization. And she had this philosophy of
allowing mistakes, famously saying if you screw up, you
clean it up. So mistakes weren't career
Enders. No, this profound shift from a
controlling, potentially shame based culture to one that dare
to engage with vulnerability, fostering an environment where
mistakes are seen as birthplacesof creativity and trust.

(01:01:34):
It led to massive growth and innovation for the company.
It's a concrete, powerful example of how daring, greatly
embracing vulnerability at an organizational level truly pays
off not just emotionally, but intangible business results too.
Wow. OK, let's move now to perhaps
the most intensely vulnerable, emotionally charged arena for
many, many people parenting. Oh boy, yeah.

(01:01:55):
Deep End Brown acknowledges without any hesitation that
parenting is by far her boldest and most daring adventure, and
she describes it flat out as an absolute shame and judgement
minefield. Agrees.
If you're a parent, you know exactly what she means.
The judgement is intense from others and from ourselves.
And she hits on a profound, often uncomfortable truth here.

(01:02:16):
Parents frequently judge other parents choices not necessarily
out of malice, but because of their own deep seated
uncertainty and self doubt. It comes back to our own
vulnerability again. Right, as she puts it with
painful accuracy. If doubt lurks beneath my
choices, that self-righteous critic will spring to life.
And not so subtle parenting moments.

(01:02:37):
It's the subtle, almost unconscious way of trying to
confirm that at the very least, I'm better than you.
Or I'm doing it right. Precisely when we're feeling
deeply insecure about our own decisions.
It's a defense mechanism, that shield of judgment again.
So what does this all mean for us as parents trying to navigate
this minefield? What's the daring?
Greatly. Approach Brown offers a profound

(01:02:58):
insight that, honestly, should probably be tattooed on every
parent's heart, she says. If we want our children to love
and accept who they are, our jobis to love and accept who we
are. Wow, it starts with us.
It has to. We simply cannot effectively use
fear, shame, blame or judgment in our own lives or our
parenting approach if we want toraise truly courageous,

(01:03:19):
compassionate and resilient children.
Our kids are watching us, absorbing everything.
We are their first, their most influential map makers for
navigating self worth and belonging in the world.
And what's fascinating here is how Brown directly connects our
own internal struggles, our own journey with worthiness and
shame, to our children's development of shame,
resilience, compassion, and connection.

(01:03:42):
The very things that give purpose and meaning to our lives
can only be learned if they are experienced first hand.
And where do kids first experience that?
Our families, our homes. They are the very first and most
formative opportunities for children to experience these
crucial elements. If compassion and connection
aren't modeled consistently at home, how can they possibly
internalize it? How can they learn it?

(01:04:04):
She talks about those subtle, often unconscious prerequisites
for worthiness that we sometimespass down right.
Yes, those unspoken rules. For girls, it's often about
being thin, nice, and modest. For boys, it might be about
being emotionally stoic and putting money and status first.
These messages get absorbed. And perfectionism in parenting,

(01:04:24):
how does that impact kids? She notes that perfectionism in
parenting is incredibly contagious.
It teaches children to constantly value what other
people think over what they think or how they feel.
It effectively turns them into pleasing, performing and
perfecting machines, always seeking external validation
rather than developing internal worth.
That's a heavy burden for a child.

(01:04:45):
It really is. And one of the very best, most
actionable pieces of parenting advice Brown received, she
shares, was from the brilliant author Toni Morrison.
What was Toni Morrison's advice?Morrison advised that when
children walk into a room, especially when they return home
after a long day at school or being away, parents should let
your face speak. What's in your heart?
Let your face speak. What's in your heart meaning?

(01:05:07):
Meaning, be genuinely glad to see them.
Let your affection radiate from your face.
Rather than instinctively showing a critical face that
immediately scans for imerfections like uncombed hair
or dirty clothes, or maybe unbuckled trousers.
Our affection might be deep and unwavering in our hearts, but if
our face consistently conveys subtle criticism or

(01:05:27):
disappointment, that's preciselywhat the child sees and
internalizes day after day. Wow, that's powerful and so
practical. Check your face at the door.
Exactly. Check your face and Brown makes
a very strong, almost urgent statement about the impact of
shame in childhood. What did she say?
She says shame is so painful forchildren because it is
inextricably linked to the fear of being unlovable.

(01:05:49):
For young children especially, feeling unlovable is an
existential threat. It's a threat to their very
survival. Therefore, she argues, it's
trauma. Shame is childhood trauma.
That's a big statement. It is, she theorizes, and this
is supported by growing research, that our brains store
early shame experiences almost identically to how they process

(01:06:10):
physical trauma, which is why weso often revert to feeling
childlike, small and utterly helpless when we're triggered by
shame as adults. Like that example she gave
earlier. Exactly like the adult
professional feeling exactly like a second grader after being
called an idiot by a condescending boss.
Or the frustrated parents screaming at their child after
striking out in a baseball game,unknowingly repeating a shame

(01:06:33):
based behavior they experienced from their own parent decades
earlier. Those patterns get locked in.
And this hypothesis about shame being processed like trauma,
it's actually supported by recent neuroscience, isn't it?
It is powerfully so. Neuroscience has found that the
same neural pathways in the brain that light up when we
experience acute physical pain, like touching a hot stove or

(01:06:53):
breaking a bone, are also activated when we experience
social rejection or intense shame.
So it's not just a metaphor. When we say rejection hurts, our
brain registers it like physicalpain.
Literally, our brains register social pain as a primal threat,
which underscores precisely why early shame experiences can be
so deeply traumatic, leaving these lasting imprints on our

(01:07:16):
sense of self worth and how we navigate the world.
It's why it physically hurts to feel disconnected or unworthy.
OK, so given all this intensity around parenting, how do we
navigate differences between parents?
Brown gently reinforces that there are a million ways out in
the world to be a wonderful, engaged parent.
Right. Different choices don't
automatically mean judgment or criticism of our own path.

(01:07:38):
Exactly. Daring greatly in parenting
means finding your own path, trusting your own intuition,
and, crucially, respecting that same courageous search for other
families. It's about celebrating diversity
and parenting approaches rather than seeking some kind of rigid
conformity. And she shares another
incredibly powerful anecdote, again involving her daughter
Ellen, that beautifully illustrates how children, in

(01:08:00):
their pure authenticity, can sometimes teach us to mind the
gap. What happened this time?
Bran was feeling genuinely smalland hurt because her name was
listed simply as and others on some celebrity event poster
without her photo alongside the bigger names.
It was a subtle but stinging blow to her professional self
worth. Ouch.
Yeah, that would sting. And Ellen, in her pure

(01:08:22):
empathetic wisdom, immediately responded.
Oh, mom, I think you're the others.
I'm sorry. I know what that feels like.
Wow. And she continued.
When I'm the other, I feel hurt and small and lonely.
We all want to matter and belong.
Oh my goodness. From a child, that's profound.
Isn't it? This powerful response
highlights the deep connection found in shared vulnerability

(01:08:44):
and how children often intuitively grasp these core
human needs. Mattering, belonging.
Sometimes even better than we adults do.
There's another truly insightfulparenting example from the book,
too, involving a mom named Susanwho got caught gossiping.
Oh. Right about the other mom's
filthy house. Yeah, she was saying this in
front of her son. And later her son, with this
wisdom beyond his years, confronted her.

(01:09:06):
He reminded her. You always say that when people
get together and talk bad about someone, just because they are
different, it means they might feel bad about themselves.
Whoa, busted by her own son using her own words.
Totally. And Susan, in what Brown calls a
truly wholehearted parenting moment, took the opportunity to
mind the gap instead of getting defensive or shutting him down.

(01:09:26):
What did she do? She acknowledged her mistake.
She was honest with her son about her own struggles with
what people think, her own insecurities about her house or
her life. She modeled vulnerability.
And how did her son respond to that honesty?
With a simple profound me too. Wow.
It's about being honest about our imperfections, making amends

(01:09:46):
when we mess up, and modeling authentic living for our kids,
even when it's uncomfortable. Especially when it's
uncomfortable. Exactly.
And finally, Brown reveals what she considers her ultimate, most
challenging finding for parents.The thing that requires the most
vulnerability from us. OK, what is it?
The hardest part of daring greatly as a parent.

(01:10:07):
She says the most vulnerable andbravest thing parents do is
letting their children struggle and experience adversity.
Letting them struggle. Oof, that goes against every
instinct, doesn't it? Totally.
It is our own uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure as
parents that makes us instinctively want to jump in
and rescue them to shield them from discomfort, failure or

(01:10:28):
pain, even when deep down we know it's probably not the right
thing to do for their long term growth and resilience.
We. Want to fix it for them?
We desperately want to fix it. She recounts her own personal,
agonizing struggle with her daughter Ellen, who as a young
swimmer really didn't want to swim a particular race.
She was signed up for Brown's instinct.
Her every fiber screamed to jumpin and rescue her daughter from

(01:10:51):
that anxiety. TL Yes, you don't have to swim
any event that you don't want toswim ever.
But she didn't do that. She didn't.
Instead, she took a deep breath,talked it over with her husband,
and ultimately made the incredibly difficult decision to
let Ellen talk to the coach herself.
To let Ellen face her own discomfort and anxiety and
navigate it. Wow, that must been excruciating

(01:11:14):
for Brown to watch. Absolutely.
This agonizing decision, this act of letting her daughter face
the struggle and figure it out herself, despite Brown's
overwhelming desire to interveneand protect, that epitomizes
what it truly means to dare greatly in parenting.
It's about cultivating resilience in them, not just
protecting them from pain. That's a powerful distinction.

(01:11:37):
Wow is right. We've truly covered so much
profound ground today and our deep dive into Brene Brown's
transformative book Daring Greatly.
We really have. It's packed with insight.
From stepping into that arena and understanding what it truly
means to embrace vulnerability not as weakness, but as courage,
to recognizing and starting to disarm those insidious forces of
shame that hold us all back. Navigating that pervasive

(01:11:59):
culture of scarcity. Never enough, exactly.
And ultimately learning how to build more authentic connection
in all our relationships, especially with ourselves and if
applicable, with our children. It's really a comprehensive
journey, isn't it? From that paralyzing fear of not
being enough, towards the liberating courage of simply
being exactly who you are. Absolutely.

(01:12:21):
If we connect this all back to the bigger picture, Brown shows
us with such compelling researchand profound empathy, the true
belonging, genuine courage and authentic joy.
They aren't found by avoiding the arena.
They're not found by shielding ourselves perfectly from the
inherent discomfort and messiness of vulnerability.
Where are they found them? They're found precisely by

(01:12:42):
stepping into it, with our wholehearts embracing the dust and
the sweat and maybe even the blood that comes with truly
showing up in our lives. It's about accepting that our
imperfections aren't slaws to behidden away in shame.
But they're where the light getsin.
Exactly. They're precisely where the
light gets in, allowing us to connect more deeply, more
authentically with ourselves andwith others.

(01:13:02):
So what does this all mean for you?
Listening right now, after absorbing all these powerful
insights from Daring greatly? Perhaps the real dare isn't in
striving for some impossible perfection or in meticulously
trying to avoid any discomfort or criticism.
Maybe, just maybe, the real darelies in being fully,
wonderfully, and perfectly you and having the courage to let

(01:13:23):
that unique light shine through all your beautiful cracks.
So the question to leave you with is this.
What small, brave, active vulnerability?
What tiny step into your arena will you choose to embrace
today?