But her research hasn’t
just helped change the lives
of others—it has personally
transformed Brown, who
describes the start of her own
wholehearted journey as a
“breakdown” in her ;rst TED talk. “I cannot
talk about wholeheartedness and not live it,”
says Brown, who alongside her pediatrician
husband, Steve, is raising their two children:
Ellen, 16, and Charlie, 9. “I don’t miss ;eld
hockey games and homecomings and basket-
ball games; I’m pretty much in
the stands for those. I’ve got
carpool this week. The
magic is in the normal
moments. Someone
asked me, ‘What
is it like for your
kids to have this
well-known
mom?’ and [my
kids] just want
to know where
their goggles are,
and if I can take
everyone to the
movies on Friday.
I’m Mom.”
She receives thou-
sands of speaking requests
each year, but turns down 95
percent of them in order to maintain balance. She says she travels one to two
times a month for work and also teaches a
graduate school course each year.
And while working and researching put
her in her happy place, she forces herself to
make rest and play a priority, although she
says it doesn’t come naturally to her.
Aside from raising her children, Brown
says she’s been clear on her goal since she was
pregnant with her daughter while earning her
Ph.D. She told her husband, “I hope my leg-
acy [will be] that ‘she changed the conversa-
tion’ and that ‘she gave us words to talk about
the things we need to talk about.’ Because I
think that we are dying to get back to our-
selves and to each other. I don’t think we can
;nd our way back to each other until we ;nd
our way back to ourselves. A lot of us have lost
dared to go a;er a goal. And in her personal
fashion, it’s ;lled with stories to prompt the
reader’s self-re;ection process. She discusses
an interviewee who struggles with his perfec-
tionism and his feelings of shame a;er put-
ting his team in a bad position at work, along
with her own struggle to look the homeless in
the eye, realizing the subconscious judgments
many of us make about giving and receiving
help. In fact, much of her book is told through
many of her own struggles. “It’s de;nitely my
most personal book to date,” she says.
“To me, there’s no more profound ;nding in this book
than the role creativity
plays in integration of
information. Everyone wants to know
… ‘How do I integrate [this infor-mation] into my
life and how
does it become
how I live?’ And
I’ve never been
able to answer
that until now: It’s
clear to me that it’s
creativity. You want to
move stuff from your
head to your heart? You’ve
got to use your hands. You’ve
got to write about it; you’ve got to
build something out of Play-Doh about it;
you’ve got to integrate it through creativity in
some way. We were just born makers.”
Living research
;e more exposure Brown’s work received,
the more emails she would get requesting help
beyond what her books could o;er. Today, she
employs a six-person leadership team who
help her run ;e Daring Way (thedaringway.
com), an organization that certi;es independent practitioners of social work, therapists,
counselors and leadership coaches in her
research methodologies. “[;e Daring Way]
felt like an ethical imperative,” says Brown. “It’s
a really tough part of the work. It’s one reason
I have a team, because we want to make sure
people get the resources they need.”
Daring to set boundaries
is about having the courage
to love ourselves, even when
we risk disappointing others.
–Brené Brown
What do shame
and vulnerability
look like?
Common shame triggers
IN HER TED talk “The Power of Vulnerability,”
Brown explains that shame feels the same
for men and women, but that it’s organized
by gender.
“For women, the best example I can give
you is Enjoli, the [1980s] commercial. ‘I can
put the wash on the line, pack the lunches,
hand out the kisses and be at work at five to
nine. I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in
the pan and never let you forget you’re a
man.’ For women, shame is ‘Do it all, do it
perfectly and never let them see you sweat.’
I don’t know how much perfume that commercial sold, but I guarantee you, it moved
a lot of antidepressants and anti-anxiety
meds. Shame, for women, is this web of
unobtainable, conflicting, competing expectations about who we’re supposed to be.
And it’s a straitjacket.
“For men, shame is not a bunch of
competing, conflicting expectations. Shame
is, one, do not be perceived as what? Weak.”
Examples of vulnerability
• Sharing an unpopular opinion
• Standing up for yourself
• Asking for help
• Saying no
• Starting your own business
• Helping your 37-year-old wife with her
stage 4 breast cancer make decisions
about her will
• Calling a friend whose child just died
• Signing up your mom for hospice care
• Saying “I love you” first and not knowing
if you’re going to be loved back
• Getting fired
• Trying something new
• Presenting your product to the world
and getting no response
Excerpted from Daring Greatly, by Brené Brown
Vulnerability
is the birthplace
of connection and
the path to the
feeling of worthiness.
–Brené Brown
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ourselves in being who we think we’re supposed to be. And vulnerability is the only way
back. If we don’t have language and conversation, we won’t ;nd our way back.” C
