Read On: Apr 2017
Reading Time: 6 hours
Rating: 8/10

Summary

Researcher and thought leader Dr. Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision that encourages us to dare greatly: to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly, and to courageously engage in our lives.

Notes

• Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both; it’s engaging. It’s being all in.
• What we know matters, but who we are matters more. Being rather than knowing requires showing up and letting ourselves be seen. It requires us to dare greatly, to be vulnerable.
• Vulnerability isn’t good or bad. It the core of all emotion and feelings. To foreclose on our emotional life out of a fear that the costs will be too high is to walk away from the very thing that gives purpose and meaning to living. Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.
• Vulnerability is based on mutuality and requires boundaries and trust. It is about sharing on feelings and our experiences with people who have earned the right to hear them.
• Don’t attach you self worth to something you create. It’ll lower you risk tolerance. If your creation is not received well, you will feel shame and regret trying. If you product succeeds, now shame controls your future life, as you will continue to try performing to please. Your effort should not identify who you are. Regardless of the outcome, you have dared greatly.
• The difference between shame and guilt is the difference between ‘I am bad” and “I did something bad”. Guilt is on uncomfortable feeling, but its influence is positive and it motivates meaningful change. Shame is destructive and corrodes the very part of us that believes we can change and do better.
• Shame resilience is about moving from shame to empathy - the real antidote to shame. Self- compassion is critically important because when we’re able to be gentle with ourselves in the midst of shame, we’re more likely to reach out, connect and experience empathy.
• Shame resilience requires cognition, or thinking, but when shame descends, our rational brain (prefrontal cortex) gives way to the primitive fight-or-flight part (limbic system) of our brain.
• Softening into/Enjoying the joyful moments of life requires being vulnerable. Practising Gratitude is the antidote to foreboding joy.
• Perfectionism is the belief that if we do things perfectly and look perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgement and shame. Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around, thinking it will protect us, when in fact it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from being seen. It crushes creativity.
• The space between our aspirational values, and practiced values creates a disengagement divide.
• Shame can only rise so far in any system before people disengage to protect themselves. When we’re disengaged, we don’t show up, we don’t contribute, and we stop caring.
• Blame is simply the discharge of pain and discomfort. We blame when we’re uncomfortable and experience pain -when we’re vulnerable, angry, hurt, in shame, grieving. There’s nothing productive about blame, and it often involves shaming someone or just being mean.
• Without feedback there can be no transformative change. When we don’t talk to the people we’re leading about their strengths and their opportunities for growth, they begin to question their contributions and our commitment. Disengagement follows.
• One of the bravest things parents can do for their children is to let them struggle and experience adversity. Children with high level of hope have experience with adversity. They’ve been given the opportunity to struggle and in doing that they learn how to believe in themselves.