The Costco Connection - September 2015

CONTINUED ON PAGE 32

THE LOOMING CLOUDS threatened to form a tornado at any moment, but all was sunny inside Brené Brown’s house in Houston, Texas. When ;e Connection caught up with the much-sought-a;er researcher, author and public speaker, she was preparing to go to Necker Island, an islet in the British Virgin Islands archipelago, owned by Sir Richard Branson, to conduct a leadership retreat with the British businessman and various social entrepreneurs. As she describes her upcoming trip, nearly in the same breath she explains how she had a hectic morning chasing her son’s gecko, Sticky, a;er it had escaped while she cleaned its tank. “You wouldn’t think it, but those suckers are fast!” she laughs heartily.

Brown’s down-to-earth and warm demeanor is immediately apparent as she talks with this reporter across her farmhouse-style kitchen table. Her approachable style makes it easy to forget that Brown is o;en hailed, by academics and the media, as one of the biggest thought leaders of the modern era.

Her ;ndings

In a time when many people are seeking to shi; from busyness to mindfulness, Brown’s contributions are striking a chord. As a research professor at the University of Houston’s Graduate College of Social Work, she specializes in some of life’s toughest topics: feeling unworthy, feeling not good or strong enough, self-perceived shortcomings, trauma, regret, fear, rejection—experiences many of us have but don’t know how to address or overcome. She asserts that embracing tough topics is precisely what most of us need to thrive. Brown’s research is opening a door to normalizing discussion around these topics,

Let go of
who you
think you’re
supposed to
be; embrace
who you are.

—Brené Brown

look like?” on page 33). “When we’re in shame,
we’re not ;t for human consumption. And
we’re especially dangerous around people
over whom we have some power,” she writes
in her latest book, Rising Strong. One way we
deal with it is by lashing out at others for
unrelated events: We miss an important
meeting and we yell at our children. We’re
late for work, so we yell at our partners for
hanging the dry cleaning in the wrong
spot. “It doesn’t have to make sense either,”
she says. “It just has to give us some sense
of relief and control.”
But here’s the key: By addressing these
topics, we can begin to live wholeheartedly.

In her 2010 book, ;e Gi;s of Imperfection,
Brown explains what that looks like: “Whole-
hearted living is about engaging in our lives
from a place of worthiness. It means cultivat-
ing the courage, compassion and connection
to wake up in the morning and think, ‘No
matter what gets done and how much is le;
undone, I am enough.’ It’s going to bed at
night thinking, ‘Yes, I am imperfect and vul-
nerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t
change the truth that I am also brave and
worthy of love and belonging.’ ”
Reviewing Brown’s research is like having
a conversation with your next-door neighbor;
she explains her ;ndings through analogies,
AC/DC lyrics, stories of humbling family expe-
riences and even snarky email exchanges—all
done purposefully. “Stories are just data with a
soul,” she says.

It’s this relatability that attracts everyone
from parent groups to executives in Fortune
In her speech “;e Power of Vulnerability,”
one of the most watched TED talks, with more
than 20 million online views, Brown says, “We
live in a vulnerable world. And one of the ways
we deal with it is we numb vulnerability. And
I think there’s evidence. … We are the most
in-debt, obese, addicted and medicated adult
cohort in U.S. history. ;e problem is—and I
learned this from the research—that you can-
not selectively numb emotion. You can’t say,
‘Here’s vulnerability, here’s grief, here’s shame,
here’s fear, here’s disappointment. I don’t want
to feel these. I’m going to have a couple of
beers and a banana nut mu;n.’ ”
Shame, she says, stems from expectations
of how we think we’re supposed to be, but
aren’t (see “What do shame and vulnerability