Brene Brown on The Power of Being Vulnerable

hi there i'm jonathan fields my guest today is Brene brown renee is a research professor at the university of houston focusing on human potential vulnerability shame and connection wholeheartedness and leadership she's featured in two extraordinary TED talks said near Times bestselling author and her current book is called daring greatly which is an incredible piece of work that we're going to go into so awesome to have you here with us Ben I'm excited to be here thank you great so um I want to go through a whole bunch of different things with you and I want to get into the currents or like topic that you're exploring but one of my fascinations with you is you I have many fascination is um you present so like when I first saw your TED Talks I was blown away as were millions and billions of people you present as this radiant wise snarky funny presence and I'm always curious when I see that somebody somebody who's so strong and so powerful and so full of life is this something that you sort of like stepped into later in life or were you the kid who sort of manifested this also no I was not a definitely I was not the kid um you know a shame and vulnerability researcher so we teach what we hug from somewhere I mean it's like you have to be forward to know that there's the I think no I I think I stepped into it much later in life and I think what I stepped into was understanding that the weird introverted pattern seeing person that I was what I stepped into is a sense of I like that person and I and I want to be that person and but I think I dreaded being that person growing up I think I thought ah something's off base because it's not like you know I grew up watching yeah I went to Greece twenty-five times when I came out you know like I wanted to be that person I wanted to be Olivia John with a cigarette in the catsuit you know winning over John Travolta like I didn't want to be the I didn't think you know I'm awesome I'm 13 I'm going to be a qualitative researcher and study things scare the out of people right on yeah I thought like I want to date with a quarterback yeah because that's how I was raised and so the things that about me that I love now I were painful probably then like I've always seen things and patterns and I didn't know that there was like a job like that that's what quality of researchers do so I just thought maybe I was a part of the underworld or something or so I thought it was like I thought was weird and I didn't fit in really so have a sense of belonging I mean which which is probably more common experience than most people own up to yeah I think that makes me in the majority for sure and it's like I just yeah so at what point do you start to realize in your life that that in fact that is that does make you in the majority when I started doing this work I mean I think that's that's the gift of doing this work is that I know no matter how bleak the feeling how desperate the feeling how weird the experience or smell or idea that whenever us are alone some I did a radio show on Wisconsin Public Radio a couple days ago and a caller called in and shared a tick not Hahn quote with me that just brought me to my knees it said and our purpose and I'm kind of probably going to butter it a little bit but our sole purpose here is to get over the illusion of our separateness you know and I think that's what my work is like we're all in this together and I had no idea that the things that made me feel so much on the outside were the things that would ultimately when I stepped into some self-worth be the things that connected me to strong us to other people that make sense yeah I mean I think it does I'm I'm curious also whether it was an evolutionary experience for you to realize this or whether there were moments you know we're there sort of like decisive moments or experiences with people things that may you say okay I'm starting to get that there's there's a different way to live in the world and I want to be a part of figuring that out now there was a decisive moment there were yeah I'm not like a slow unraveling kind of person as much as I would like to be no there was a moment I mean I can picture I know what I was wearing like it was in November of 2006 I was at my outer wooden red painted breakfast room table I was sitting at the table I was coding a bunch of new data asking this new question for the first time going back into the shame data and saying well okay I understand what shame is and I understand how that operates in their lives but what about these men and women who were living wholeheartedly like who are really all in what did they have in common and I had giant you know those post-it notes that are poster sized I had them all over my kitchen in my living room and I was writing down words and basically what emerged from that process were two lists like here are the behaviors that the wholehearted folks are engaging in and here's what they are trying to let go of here's what they're trying to move away from in their lives and then move away from list was it was as if someone described me on a less like I was every I call it the list I was everything on that list judgmental perfectionistic all work and not only no play no rest but kind of disregard for play and rest and people who thought it was important so you're coming at it from this like science mind I'll let me just figure this out and then you're looking this you're like oh my this is personal oh I was devastated I couldn't believe it I just remember folding my hands up on the top of the table I'm putting my head down and just thinking because you know I think up until that moment and then the work that followed I trusted my professional self in min slate but didn't trust my personal self as much so I knew that I know I'm a good researcher and so I knew if these words were emerging like these qualities were important these choices doing something creative you know that's a great example like creativity emerge is so important comparison emerged as the shame counterpoint to that and I was in this comparative person you could I mean every I was always comparing myself to other people and I was scoffing at creativity like people would say hey do you wanna go to a painting class with me or do you want a scrapbook and I've been told that moment I would say no I thought it was flaky and self-indulgent and not a mom to really do that kind of crap busy working so yeah it was there was a moment shifted so and actually want to I want to kind of go a little bit deeper there but before that for you use the word wholeheartedness a lot talk to me about that what is it what do you mean when you use that that phrase I was trying to figure out a word one of the on the grounded Theory researcher which means we take we develop theory from people's lived experiences and then our primary job is to language it in a way that resonates with people and so I was trying to figure out what's a word for people that I would describe is all in who were just really living and loving entirely and wholehearted is language and actually in the Book of Common Prayer that in the Episcopal Church that we use and there's this line that says I have not loved you with my whole heart and that I was always very powerful for me when I said it and so the word that came to mind was wholehearted so which was just kind of fascinating right there too because you're you're taking some term which comes from a place which is very not scientific it's very faith-based super faith-based and then you're bringing it into like your world which is like totally linear like prove it or no it doesn't matter you know what happens you know like how do you measure that no it's true and I have received all I got a lot of flack from it to hear from from the academic community huh yeah just for the use of the term yeah you shouldn't name constructs things or that are immeasurable and so that was hard for me because you know one of the things I talked about the TED talk is that I used I had a little slide in my office when I was a doctoral student in teaching that said if you can't measure it doesn't exist right and I loved thinking that we could live in that world now I have a sign above my study that says if you can measure it's probably not that important I love it looks like a shadow shot it is the shadow side and I think I didn't care at that point I just felt like I was onto something that was super important for me personally and it resonated with me and you know what else would you call it social adaptability not that's not what I was looking for I was looking for wholeheartedness yeah and it's something that the common person yeah I'm sure there's enough ambiguity so that people can kind of like say like this is how I feel pull hard and supplies in my world in my life but there's enough universality to the term that I think people just kind of get what it's about yeah and I think that's I think that's my job as a researcher like one of the things I've never really talked about this before but I think you're interested you'd be as as the uncertainty person maybe a great person to talk to you about this that there is one of the greatest losses I think that is happening in our world today is that academics are shamed for accessibility hmm I mean makes me teary-eyed because it makes me think how much great information we're losing even whether you buy into it or if it's real or not real elite that we're losing the debate in the discourse because to be accessible is some kind of really like albatross it's like if you're accessible and people understand your work that means you're not very smart and so to me so basically you're writing only for people that are in rarified air and and if you're if the average person on the street can understand it there's something wrong with what you're doing right and there's I mean and really there's like interesting journal articles that say again the average academic journal article the average one not the one that makes it at the Times or something is read by ten people and then I think eight of them were probably just checking to see if they're referenced in it you know and so to me I had no interest of that for this reason it's an interesting back story when I did the Shane research because I'm a qualitative researcher I would sit down like we're sitting down and collect and talk to people about their stories it was the first time I've ever done research when people when we were done with the interview looked at me pleadingly and said when you figure this out you're going to tell me right and my answer in the beginning was no I'm going to publish it and something that you'll never have access to ouch right that was my I didn't say that but that's what I thought and then I thought you know what I'm not going to do that anymore you know I don't want to I don't want to spend my time I mean I still have to do it and I probably should do it more but I don't want to spend my time doing something that's not in my opinion moving people forward if I can't pick it up and read it and my friends can't pick it up and read it and I have to look up words in the thesaurus to sound smart I'm not doing it anymore it's not why I'm here it's not in service of my work and my faith is really an organizing principle in my life and it pushes up against that value hmm so that's kind of how wholehearted I was scared at first that I would imagine would be yeah I mean because you're really bringing two worlds together in a way where each world probably has substantial doubt about its relate the validity of the other one and also like you said especially because you operate in your own you're living like in an academic setting so you know that's got to bring on a lot of fear it's like you know am I going to be drummed out in my profession that am I going to like just get am I going to be still there but I'll be the laughingstock of my profession for the rest of my career you know versus is this work so powerful that it needs it's it's the work that it can't not do and it must get out yeah and I think it's interesting because grounded theory in itself is very controversial I think in a lot of academic places because because you don't start with existing theories and proven disprove them you start from people's lived experiences you often come up with conclusions that bump up hard against what's already established literature so and I love it because Glaser and Strauss who developed the I think they were like spirited in terms of my approach they said use names that resonate with people and so one of the ways we measure the accuracy of our theories is residents that do people see themselves in their lives and their stories and the narratives that you're creating with your data and I love that because if it doesn't ring true then which kind of fascinating for me also because the entrepreneur and me and the writer me looks at that model and that's actually that's the model that actually builds in most successful businesses but it's the exact opposite model that most entrepreneurs start with most entrepreneurs get an idea for product or services solution and then they go looking for a market right and they're like okay who are the people that we can sell this to and where's you know rather than saying okay let me just reach out to a community that I feel like I want to be in service of and have really deep intense conversations with them and maybe I'm part of that community I'm very likely I am you know so let me start with my own experience and then with the experience of people in this community and find out what are they feeling what are they not feeling what's the conversation that's already going on in their head and can I build messaging and solutions around that in a way that can be make me of further service to them and in doing so create a living a career of business that that builds around that and in my experience I love that those are the people where not only individually do you really come alive but those are the businesses that have profound impact in the world and that kind of catch fire because you're you're not trying to sell something too heavy buddy you're simply caring about them so deeply that you take the time to understand what they need and then just giving it to them and so many times people don't do that and so really so from a business side it's this it's this interesting overlay with what you're saying the approach to how you research i I've never thought about that until this exact second but I love that and I think it's exactly grounded theory because what's interested I never thought it I hope the Entrepreneurship I think of I've got some really cool thing right exactly go find somebody wants it yeah but in grounded theory there's the whole art the whole thing is it's called trust and emergence is the axiom trust in what emerges from the data trust in people's lives experiences and their perception of his experience but what you do is you the goal of grounded theory is to find out what is the main concern of a group of people you want to know not know more about and then your theory should explain how they're trying to continually resolve that concern hmm so it's very much in line yeah yeah I made it it's kind of like entrepreneurship I like it no it is I mean like that the really good entrepreneurs know that you know you come in and you're probably gonna start out you're you there's were human beings so there's no way we can start the process without certain assumptions right you know like they're just going to be there but the most successful people will always be the ones that are open to serendipity or open to the market proving them wrong and then listening to what the market says is right and then deciding whether they actually want to create that or not exact same yeah so it's gone I know I want to learn more about like sort of like your whole methodology now I'll give you something on because it's exactly the same and in fact you evaluate a theory that's a grounded theory one of the one of the the codes we live by is and it's so much in line with entrepreneurship now that you've pointed this incredible thing out a theory can never be as good it is only as good as its ability to work new data hmm so like a business that would only be as good as its ability to address the evolving and changing needs of the market right which are a lot of big bigger companies get in huge trouble because they started and maybe they were actually really served they understood the pain points the needs of an market when they started and they served that beautifully but markets aren't stationary you know like things they're living breathing beats that move and change and morph especially the last four or five years yet in a profound way and I've talked to so many people who are pasty what you probably consider a classic entrepreneur like real big established businesses and they're their businesses are shrinking fast and they're just thinking we're going under you know rather than well no actually all the assumptions that we built around are no longer valid so we actually we don't have to just keep trying to you know like work on that same model we can actually look for where the pain points and the conversations have moved too and see if we can adapt to what we do and how we do it too though though those new needs a lot of people don't want to do that they're so vested in the way things were right and they they're terrified and this is so curious what you think about this also most people who start businesses they start them in the accepted a certain amount of uncertainty and risk and fear and anxiety and all the stuff and a failure and very often it's because the part of the dynamic is they don't have a whole lot to lose in the beginning right then they build something substantial now they do have a lot to lose so when I was talking about like that business that now has to adapt to a whole different thing now that they're in a place where that they don't have there's a lot to lose if they you know sort of like guess wrong or they don't they become incredibly fearful in a way that they didn't or they they're not able to move through the fear and the change in the uncertainty in a way that they were much more able to not when they started a business really ties in I think with a lot of your exploration of vulnerability yeah I you're going to be hard-pressed to get me shaking loose this parallel between business and I'm so obsessed with it now it's so fascinating because you know the axiom again of trust in the emergence is I think what I've seen in my experience talking to businesses and talking to not just entrepreneurs but big corporations is they don't they don't trust in the process that brought them success yeah if they start to trust in the product of the process but right you know and they lose their trust for the process which is trust in emergence trust the people you're serving and so the same is true with researchers like for me the minute I say I don't care what emerges from this interview with Jonathan I've already got our theory out there in the academic literature this has got to hold up and the minute I shift my work is dead and no longer rings true it's not innovative it's not exciting and so but you know Barney glaze are one of the founders of grounded Theory calls it the drugless trip you have to have a real oh you have to have a real comfort with uncertainty and vulnerability to do the kind of research I do you lose a lot like I mentor a lot of doctoral students and sit on a lot of dissertations for granted Theory folks who get halfway through and think this is too uncertain I want to go back to the taken existing theory prove or disprove it with data write it up be done I don't want to do and I don't want to trust in emergence and let something new and that we haven't talked about yet emerge I don't have the stomach for it but you know and so so for me the vulnerability piece and I get that because I was that person and so I think we're all that person we're all that person yeah and that's a certain which is right so it's not like you know I mean maybe there are these freakish people you know they this really thin slice of humanity that just doesn't feel it or their brains or soft wires in the beginning to process it differently but most of us it hurts it does hurt and you know and to say I wasn't one of those people is exactly against like I have the four myths of vulnerability and daring greatly and the first one is that it's weakness yeah you know and I define vulnerability as uncertainty risk and emotional exposure and so I think one of the reasons we lose tolerance for it or we don't we can't sit with the processes because we've been raised to believe that being vulnerable and walking into a meeting with you know funders or whomever or whatever your situation is and saying I don't know and some of the most incredible examples that I read and include in the book or about business people who stand up in front of their leadership and say I don't know what to do next and you may know more than I do I need your help that's powerful that and that is the single most terrifying thing that I think any leader could do but also that like that may be the most powerful thing they could do simultaneously it's really interesting but I think like you were saying though it people think it's it's all if I do that on week right Pete Fuda who is a leadership he's a researcher in Australia in Sydney and he studies transformative reasons transformative leadership he does long case-studies over five and six years studying leadership and how it transforms with an organization and he has this great article that was in Harvard Business Review where he uses metaphors to talk about what transformative leaders share in common and one of them is the snowball and he and he tells the story of a CEO a new CEO who kind of came aboard and was very directive very instructive and things really started unraveling and he decided to kind of risk vulnerability and stood up in front of brought all of his leaders together and said I'm getting feedback that my style the way I communicate and give you feedback is is pushing innovation down I need your help I need to know how to be better at this I need to know how to work with you and what Pete found in his research not only in this case but across the the cultures he was studying is that it created this huge snowball effect if those leaders in turn felt permission to stand with their teams and say I can't do this without you and those people and then it created this thing that took off through the culture and what it shook loose was it got so big and fast the momentum of it that it shook loose all the drag that people that were not willing to say I need help I don't know I'm in over my head couldn't hold on anymore in the metro that fascinating that it's amazing and it also really speaks to the top down you know like idea that it all comes from the people that are at the very tip-top you know if that one person yeah like if you know have a CEO and and she or he doesn't actually say okay I'm owning this myself nobody else in an organization will own it and the reverse is true too you like sames know well effective that person steps up and says yeah I don't know which way is up right now but we're all really smart let's see if we can figure this out together I mean and it's so funny too because I've had so many conversations I'm sure you have also what sort of management teams leadership people in there like how do we get the people under us to buy this or to in this way or to create in this way and like the first question well are you behaving in that way or acting in that way like no no this isn't about me right it's like naxi it is right you know but you keep everything that you're saying and this is as a parent you know this right that me that's like a well you know like you can't say do this if like then you're doing something completely different kids your kids you looking at me like mmm right so same thing in organizations it's the same dynamic but people don't see that now I think one of the things that I say that maybe pisses people off more than anything else I say whether it's leaders parents is that we cannot give people what we don't have and we can't ask people to do what we're not doing and that makes people crazy and I get it as a parent especially because you know when I tell parents you can't raise a child with a greater sense of resilience than your own you can't raise a child with more self compassion than what you have they're like they get twitchy they get crunchy and give but when I tell people I'm not sure that you can love a child more than you love yourself people get hostile yeah but because people want to say you know that's crazy I love my kids way more than I love myself and it's often the parents of very young children who say that what's interesting to me is it's the parents of teens who say oh god I get that because what happens is fourth fifth grade certainly middle school beginning of high school what our kids start to become us in some ways or we see our partners and things that bug the crap out of us about our partners emerging our kids are the things that bug us about us but that self compassion that compassion turns to judgment like what do you mean you don't have anyone to sit with at lunch and rather than saying oh god I remember that let's talk about that you say well pull your hair back and wear some of those cute outfits I bought you and then maybe your friends will want to sit with you and that's your stuff yeah and I think we've all like you know as you're saying this I'm like scanning right now oh I don't let go cat like it consider myself a pretty really compassionate you know like the open guy but I'm like I'm sure there's been so many things where I've just reacted without even realizing that I'm reacting because of a cap on my own capability to deal with my own stuff and it's manifesting in my response to other people like you know which is it's not easy to own that now that I've done it I mean you know it's people say well we can't all be you know shame free all the time like you and I'm I think to myself I've never been a parent and not been a shame researcher I mean I started just around the time my daughter was born right before and I've done it because we're human and I think that's why I think you know I talk a lot about the gifts of imperfect parenting I think it's those moments where I mean I remember telling Ellen one time she she was doing this whole thing about she wore a side ponytail she came home with a different ponytail I said hey what happened your side ponytail she said I'll check it out because my friends thought it was terrible and I said but I thought you loved it and she said yeah but you know they gave me a hard time and so I went into the hole like you have to do what you love not what other people think and then five minutes later I'm telling Steve you've got to pull the Christmas lights out of the yard what are my neighbors gonna think yeah and Ellen's five feet away from me you know and she said I don't understand this obsession what she's the ponytail the lights huh you know I'm like he's keeping you honest oh my god you're right it's just rhetoric hmm you know if I tell my daughter your body's beautiful you know our value would probably be to say something like this is the body that that gave you and it's strong and wonderful and you know and then she walks in and I'm using a lot of hateful self-talk about my jeans not fitting which one do you think matters the most but it's the same with leaders you know if leaders say to teams you know hey we want innovation so we all expect failure fail often fail quick clean it up and move on but they see a leader scared to death of failing scared of trying scared of being uncertain or vulnerable then the message is that other stuff is lip service this is about perfection and even if it stifles creativity we can't be wrong right so one so one of the big things is that people perceive vulnerability as weakness yeah and and seems like the answer is you got to own the change and you basically have to say okay yep but I mean how do you do that I mean if you're somebody where you're you know let's say you're a leader you're a parent you're just a career you're an artist you know and you want to do something and and you're terrified of being vulnerable you're a human being living in the world who's terrified of opening up and revealing who you are you like going into the uncertainty the risk yeah how do you make that jump well I think I think the first place is I mean it may be different whether you're a cognitive person or a feel your way through person but I think for those of us who think first and feel second which would be me I think getting clear on what vulnerability isn't isn't is really important for this reason 12 years of research I cannot find a single example of courage of moral courage spiritual courage leadership courage I can't find a single example in our data I've courage that was not based on sheer vulnerability and so I think one of the things we have to do first of all is dispel these myths I mean and get clear on our values I mean for me I don't it doesn't hurt less when I get criticized when I put myself out there or when you put yourself out there people who are trying to you know during great leaves from the Roosevelt quote right you know my favorite quotes by the way it is obvious in social channels like I know where that's wrong you do totally I love that yeah it's not the critic who counts it's not the man who points to the strongly and as he stumbles or how the points out how the doer of Deeds could have done them better the credit goes to those of us who are in the arena who I mean - totally paraphrase getting her ass is kicked sometimes falling on our faces failing sometimes victorious but at least when we're failing we're doing great Lee I think when I talk to people who've made the transition from I really want to put these homemade journals on Etsy but I'm really afraid to do that I really want to ask my boss for this promotion or this raise I really want to share this idea at the PTO meeting next week what I asked people where did you muster up the courage how did you screw up the courage to do this the answer was always I got very clear that being courageous was more important to me as a value than succeeding and so to me it comes down to an area of your work that I think is so important really serious intention setting and a very clear values alignment you know and I think it is very necessary to have people in our lives who when we dare greatly when we're vulnerable when we try something new and it doesn't work out and we come up short who are willing to look at us and say but you were brave yeah I think those people having those people around you or certain and that's I'm sure you've experienced the same thing I've had so many conversations with people where they said I don't have those people yeah what do I do because every time I do this like everybody around me lines up and says told you so you're an idiot you know like that's how you're going to fail and which is which is kind of interesting because to me one of the potential great equalizers there is technology the potential to use technology to flatten the world and find people like that and it's not the same thing as the people who live in your neighborhood you can hug and kiss right and like just have a cup of coffee with and it's not the same I would love to say it is because you know like I live in breathing that world that's not but I think it helps it to have access to a small group of people who maybe you know five different countries but they're deeply committed to each other and share the same value said to me I've seen that help people who live in a small town somewhere and are in a family where there were that approach to life is completely rejected at but I think I think it's a very it's a tough problem one of the things that that I look at is I think a lot of times it's part of it is what we tell ourselves but I think a lot of is the questions we ask ourselves also around our ability to sort of unlock action in the face of perceived weakness accountability I think so many of us always focus on is what if I fail right rather than what if I succeed right and what if I do nothing which is very often the most terrifying answer of three no there's no doubt and I mean something you said about people who are surrounded by communities who are critical I told you so you are so stupid to do that one thing that I think it's really important and I feel ethically bound to say to people a lot of times about the work is be clear that when you start to dare greatly when you start to be vulnerable and take chances you are going to be holding a very uncomfortable mirror up from people that a lot of times if you're surrounded by people who say I told you so or who are critical it's because daring greatly to watch someone be vulnerable and risk to watch someone walk headlong into uncertainty is so uncomfortable for people who are not willing to do that that they're dying to see failure and to point it out as confirmation that my way of living right is okay and the whole dotted around like I think there was a group of women we call ourselves the love bombers and there's a group of women and they are artists photographers writers I got a call one day from them probably five six years ago they said you don't know us we know you from online I think you read our blogs we read yours we're going to gather together on the Oregon coast would you like to join us and I was like oh hell no like that's not yeah like I was voted like least likely to show up with a group of hippie girls okay like doing art like I was like no and my husband's like I think you might need this are you kidding me he said I think you should go and it really changed my life because again it was technology and I totally agree with what you said what I'm throwing up and sick these are not the people who hold my hair back they're not the people who bring the casseroles over in hard times but they are a group of people who where we made agreement that we would be vulnerable and brave together and that we would create a space for each other where we never had to shrink and we were really proud of what we were doing on our successes and we never have to puff up when we were feeling small and ashamed that we were all going to be braids together and take our looks and you know and so I think that's really important it was life-changing for me and so I think if you are in a small town I think world domination summit yeah great example I think a lot of people go to that just because they fly from all over the world because they can't find those people and it's like their one time every year where they can like be on the ground with like-minded people and then they take that with them I think a lot of things can start out digitally yeah and then it'll it stays in sort of this ethereal kind of supportive level yeah but then you can meet somebody and spend three days with them and then when you leave it's a very different dynamic it's intelligent yeah I mean and I think yeah like I would have never I don't think I've ever done I know before or sense anything like I my talk at pearl domination about like I would never have tried something so crazy and out there had I not been you know around people who were there to explore how brave am I willing to be right you know and so I do think there's something about that I think one of the other myths about vulnerability that you pointed that you touched on was the idea that we can go it alone you know that's still even even in a world where people are pretty awake and conscious about connection it's still a very highly regarded ideal mm-hmm you know this is where I quote white snake in the yeah like right here I go again on my own like we all want to love your taste in music as like an old rush really yeah the Attic yeah I'm a rush fanatic too and so yeah that's one thing that's are so fun about the book people like mostly guys like do you quoted rush I like like the ultimate philosophers Neil part I know world peace I think he could bring home peace I think so um but uh no I think this idea that we can go it alone and that I think we need people not only to support us but I think we need people like to try on vulnerability with to try it on and say hey Jonathan's Pranay and I think I want to do this I did that with Chris going back to WDS well foundations on that like the night of rehearsals I was in there you know I said I'm seriously thinking about closing by doing a duet with you from the Glee version of a journey saw and he was like I know and his wife was like yeah there's no way he said we're going to do that and I'm like oh then I thought okay good that's like okay so I just kind of moved away from it and then I hear I'm like from the backstage go but you are writing a book called daring greatly so are you gonna do it or not he's like I'll do it if you do it and but that's what I mean by trying it on because there was no doubt I was seriously afraid I thought it would I put it at best 50/50 that anyone else would sing along and I thought are you going to be okay if it's just you and me the whole time and Chris goes it's going to be a long song if that happens and I'm like well I'll tell the guys 80 guys to fade out but it was a thousand people uh-huh staying other chairs you know in the aisles playing your guitar it was fun and so and it turned into this an extraordinary moment transcendence it was one of the best moments of my life I mean it was and I think I mean that's part of the message right is that that's what you miss out on when you're not willing to go to that place it is and I read it a cottony of everyone because I still get you know comments from people that were like don't stop believing or suck it you know like I still get those but em every now and they'll be a comment like that's the cheesiest thing I've ever heard and it doesn't I feel total neutrality about that not even the need to defend it or anything because my thought was you weren't there because it was from people who weren't there you didn't share that with us and that's okay right and because if you were there it was fun you know and we sing together like we were 13 in the back of a car stick it out on a Friday night yeah so um but I think you have to have a tribe to try on that stuff with yeah I totally agree it makes it's it's almost impossible for a lot of it not everybody I think some people are kind of wired you know I think so yeah but I don't think it's most people I don't and I you know I think the other thing that's important about that tribe that it's really shifted in for me in the last year is I no longer really even I have no intake at all of any feedback or criticism from anyone who's not in the arena hmm so unless you are in your own capacity in your own world in your own life getting your ass kicked on occasion I'm not interested in what you have to share with me about my work what flip that switch a profound respect for myself and other people who are out there trying to do work and trying to walk into n certainty and vulnerability and are really risking because it is so easy to make a life and a career out of sitting in the bleachers and making fun of people and putting them down and so I think a profound respect for those of us who are out there and what I realized too in my own life is the people who are doing that her in their own arena I don't care what it is you don't have to be a writer or speaking in public I don't care if you're a teacher you know like my sisters or teachers you know in my opinion they walk in the arena every morning at 7:30 right so what I have found not only as a my personal life but professionally is the people who are in the arena and who are showing up and letting themselves be seen give feedback that is far more constructive and far more helpful and mindful about what people can hear not here and I mean and I love I mean I'm an academic at heart so I love debate and discourse I love it when people email me and say saw your talk parts of it I liked but you were completely remiss in not mentioning these three areas of the literature how can you talk about vulnerability without quoting so-and-so about close to us or something I love that that makes me better it makes my work better but people who make fun of me I make fun of other people or say hateful things people who say I feel sorry for your kids you know people who say if I look like you had embrace imperfection to that those kind of comments that you get you know I just I hate to get binary because it's not it's who I'm trying not to be but I'm still that person in some ways and I really do believe you're either making the world a better place or you're making it a worse place I don't feel like there's a lot of neutrality and that's probably a little hard-ass line to take I don't want us all you're either with us or against us not my favorite quote or you know perspective but I do feel like every day our choices have a huge impact on people and someone told me this could be urban legend I don't know maybe you know but I heard that Oprah Winfrey has this quote on her door but it's a quote that I love and it says you're responsible for the energy you bring into this room and I think people are responsible for the energy they put in the world and a fake avatar and a fake name and leaving a comment somewhere is not benign because I'll keep putting my work out there and you will probably keep putting your work out there and several people we know will probably keep but there are people who have amazing gifts who could make the world an incredibly better place who won't put their work out there for that reason you know and that's a loss and whether we know what that work was or not we miss it and grieve it every day there are songs that we need to hear their stories that need to be heard there's work that needs to be seen there's ideas that need to be implemented that we'll never see or know because there's so many people out there who are so reflexively cynical and critical and mean-spirited I like it yeah do you like it you know it's something that I deal with every single day my life first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is I roll out of bed and I sit I meditate for 25 minutes and part of that is because it helps me enter everyday with that sense of equanimity and the ability to when needed zoom the lens out more and look down in myself and and get a better sense for when I'm reacting or responding with deliberation and intelligence it's still really hard thing for me to do because I'm an emotional person and I and and behind because I operate so much of the time as a writer and behind the veil of anonymity that a lot of people had that you were describing the online world I get attacked and I just say I'm always doing myself would this person stand in front of me in a room with my kid next to me and see the same thing right and and I've got to believe that the answer would be no I want to believe the answer would be no because I want to have that level of faith in humanity but sometimes I but it's not easy and I know to your point I know I've had so many conversations with people who do not bring their art in their soul in their heart to the world because they know that there are people out there who will attack them in very very mean vindictive spiteful ways and part of I guess my exploration has been to the point that you were making before I've always been fascinated with phenomenon of people who are even within your close inner circle your family your closest friends either publicly or secretly rallying to see you fail yeah and I think a lot of what so I try and reframe I try and understand you know I wants her to you know maybe was something at a red or an interview that I saw with the Dalai Lama where they asked him what his greatest fear was and his greatest fear was losing compassion for the Chinese blew my mind you know and I'm just singing to myself if if I can if I can try and practice compassion meditate and compassion on a daily level in a way that tries to allow me to step in the shoes of that person who is being this way towards me for someone I love maybe that's the beginning for me but it doesn't make me okay with it I would love to say it does I would love to say I just I'm good I meditate I do my mindfulness and I experience it and then I let it go but but I don't I'm human you know and it hurts but for better that then living in the great Twilight that knows neither victory nor success I think that's the thing I think I've seen the pain and talked to people about the pain of having the anonymous critic but also having the family who's rallying for failure to have the partner who's just chomping on the bit to say I told you so to have the children who are looking at you with disappointment you know but I don't think I've ever seen the greatest pain I've ever seen in my work has is from people who have spent their lives on the outside of the arena wondering what would what would have happened had I shown up that's a pain that to me maybe it's because I'm unfort e6 has become a far greater fear of mine than having to dodge some hurt some hurt feelings sometimes and yeah the what of what if I would have shown up and been seen yeah and I'm in the same place and same age by the way I love it yeah me too I would go back for a lot of money one final question I wrap this up so the name of this project is called a good life project and so when I when you hear that phrase oh and or if I ask you the question to you what does it mean to live a good life what comes up gratitude yeah yeah I think for me a good life is one a good life happens when you stop and are grateful for the ordinary moments that so many of us just steamroll over to try to find those extraordinary moments and so to me my good life is soccer practice and carpool line and tuck-ins and date night and that's a good life for me I mean and and knowing that it's good and acknowledging and stopping that it's good and saying this is good I love that yeah thanks for hanging out okay I guess today has been Burnett Brown awesome human being as you've just experienced incredibly wise researcher and amazing author of a new book called daring greatly that you guys have to check out i'm jonathan fields signing off for the good life project

Channel: Jonathan Fields

Views: 695,785

Keywords: Brene Brown, Jonathan Fields, being vulnerable, good life, success, happiness

Id: Sd3DYvBGyFs

Length: 50min 58sec (3058 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 03 2012