Brené on Strong Ground Ask Me Anything, Part 2 of 2

Summary

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Dare to Lead with Brené Brown

Episode: Brené on Strong Ground Ask Me Anything, Part 2 of 2
Date: November 5, 2025
Podcast Network: Vox Media Podcast Network
Special Guest Mentioned: Adam Grant (Not present in this specific episode segment)

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Overview

This episode serves as the concluding chapter of the special "Strong Ground" series, centered on Brené Brown’s new book. Brené addresses a flood of listener questions about the “above and below the line” practice—a cornerstone from her work that tackles how individuals and leaders can effectively navigate fear, reaction, and resilience in a world full of complexity and instability. She candidly shares personal and professional examples while explicitly connecting her framework to the work of past thought leaders, emphasizing attribution and the evolution of this powerful tool.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. The “Above and Below the Line” Practice

• Foundational Concept: The "line" represents fear.
  • Above the line: Aware of fear, but acting intentionally—“driving with awareness.”
  • Below the line: Unaware, acting from fear—fear is in control, typically without conscious acknowledgment.
• Key Roles & Dynamics:
  • Below the line behaviors: Hero, Victim, Villain (aligned with Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle).
  • Above the line behaviors: Creator, Challenger, Coach (drawn from David Emerald’s Empowerment Dynamic).

“The line that we’re talking about when we say above, below the line, the line is fear.”
– Brené Brown (04:13)

• Evolution and Attribution:
  • Originated by Robert Kiyosaki; further developed by Carolyn Taylor and the Conscious Leadership Group, incorporating the Drama Triangle and Empowerment Dynamic frameworks.
  • Brené emphasizes the importance of giving proper credit to those who shaped the practice.

2. Practical Application & Real-Life Scenarios

• Personal Example—Handling Mistakes at Work
  • Brené reenacts her typical “below the line” response to an email error (“I’ll do it myself. Clearly no one understands…”), showing shifts between hero, victim, and villain mindsets (10:16-11:05).
  • Contrasts with her “above the line” response: taking a pause, naming her fear, and stepping into creator, challenger, or coach roles (11:20 onward).

“I want you to notice the language: Hero—‘I’ll do it myself.’ Victim—‘No one understands.’ Villain—‘Who’s gonna take the blame for this?’”
– Brené Brown (10:45)

• Cultural Transformation
  • Highlights the ripple effect when entire teams or organizations apply this practice: permission to pause, increased trust, and deeper honesty.
  • Example: a senior leader admits being “below the line” during a feedback session, prompting a productive break and mutual acknowledgment of emotional state (13:53).

“This five minute act of courage is how organizations create strong ground.”
– Brené Brown (15:12)

3. Recognizing Fear & Emotional Triggers

• Fear as a Hidden Driver:
  • Brené discusses how fear often masquerades as anger, especially in environments (like family) where fear is less acceptable.
  • The linguistic “tells” of hero, villain, and victim help her identify when fear is the root issue—even before she consciously feels it.

“Sometimes as soon as I hear myself say something close to one of these things, I know I've got a below the line problem.”
– Brené Brown (16:32)

“Easy does it, Brené. You can be really scary when you’re scared.”
– Brené Brown (17:44)

4. The Practice of Growing “Strong Ground”

• Deliberate Practice & Vulnerability
  • Emphasizes the “muscle building” metaphor: just as physical strength grows through strain, leaders grow resilience by repeatedly working through discomfort and fear.
  • Draws inspiration from Bonnie Choi’s writing about muscle: strength is built through cycles of breakdown and regrowth.

“You get stronger by surviving each series of little breakdowns... In fact, it is the cycle that allows us to exist.”
– Quoting Bonnie Choi, read by Brené Brown (19:50)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [04:13] “The line that we’re talking about when we say above, below the line, the line is fear.”
• [10:45] “I want you to notice the language: Hero—‘I’ll do it myself.’ Victim—‘No one understands.’ Villain—‘Who’s gonna take the blame for this?’”
• [11:57] “The awareness of being below the line, naming it and pausing is the big win. That's the door prize, baby.”
• [13:53] Story of a senior leader pausing a difficult feedback conversation:

  "On the team's call, I just stopped us and said, 'I’m below the line. This is not productive. Can we pause and circle back in an hour or so?' ... This exchange sounds simple, but it took courage, vulnerability, and skill."

• [15:12] “This five minute act of courage is how organizations create strong ground.”
• [16:32] “Sometimes as soon as I hear myself say something close to one of these things, I know I've got a below the line problem.”
• [17:44] Self-reflection: “Easy does it, Brené. You can be really scary when you’re scared.”
• [19:50] Quoting Bonnie Choi: “You get stronger by surviving each series of little breakdowns, allowing for ... regrowth, building up, breaking down.”

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment / Highlight | |-------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:13 | Brené introduces the episode and the focus on the above/below the line practice | | 04:00-09:07 | Deep dive and framework explanation—definitions, roles, and evolution | | 10:16 | Brené’s personal, real-time example of the practice | | 12:00 | Application in team culture and leadership, acknowledgment of practice | | 15:12 | Organizational transformation through this practice | | 16:32 | Recognizing fear through language, hidden emotional cues | | 19:50 | Metaphor of muscle-building and resilience, quoting Bonnie Choi |

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Tone & Style

• Direct, warm, and humorous: Brené’s signature vulnerability is present throughout—reading from her book, sharing personal examples, and employing candid self-reflection.
• Actionable and relatable: Focused on making complex emotional dynamics tangible and practical for listeners at home and at work.

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Summary

In this pivotal episode, Brené Brown distills her years of research and personal experience into a lucid, actionable explanation of how to lead—both ourselves and others—through complexity by bravely confronting our fear. The “above and below the line” practice is both a diagnostic and a developmental tool, enabling awareness, pausing, and courageous action.

Listeners walk away with concrete language, memorable metaphors, and real-world techniques for fostering cultures of trust, self-awareness, and collective growth. The practice isn’t magic—it’s a muscle, and, as Brené reminds us, building muscle is “the cycle that allows us to exist.”

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For those new to the idea or the series, this episode is a practical masterclass in emotional intelligence—a must for any leader, parent, or human navigating uncertain times.

Transcript

[Roloff Botha]

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[Brene Brown]

Hi everyone, I'm Brene Brown and this is Dare2Lead. We are coming to the very final episode in our special podcast series On Strong Ground. As usual, I want to thank my good friend Adam Grant for doing the first six episodes with me. I want to thank all of you for listening submitting great questions for the ama. I have to say, of all of the questions that we received, so many of them were about the above and below the line practice. So what I thought I would do is with the permission of Penguin Random House Audio, I am actually going to share the audio from the book on the above and Below the line practice with you as the final podcast. It'll walk you through everything I learned from my coach Courtney. It'll walk you through the attribution of the practice. I think it's helpful. You know, I talk about a lot of skill sets and mindsets that make up the future of leadership. And this is the kettlebell exercise that I think really hits, you know, 1012 of those with one practice if we can integrate it into our daily lives. Again, thank you so much for joining this special eight episode series on Strong Ground. I appreciate this community. I appreciate your great questions. Stay awkward, brave and kind. Chapter 12 the above below the Line Practice in our work there are three or four tools that consistently receive the highest feedback from Dare to Lead participants. Again, in our strength training metaphor, these are definitely the kettlebell workouts, the ones that strengthen many areas at the same time. The above Below the Line practice is a highly praised tool, and it builds strength across every single one of the grounded competence tool sets and mindsets that we'll talk about in chapter 15. It also facilitates accuracy in the grounded thinking tools. Too good to be true. I thought so, too. But now, after using it for the past year, embedding it in our organization, and teaching it to hundreds of leaders, I believe it's that good. I was introduced to this idea by my coach, Courtney. She is an extraordinary coach, an incredible thinker, and possibly a dangerous mind reader. Often when I say something to her like, nah, that's not really an important detail of the story that I'm trying to tell you right now. Can we just focus on this other part? She'll pause and smile. Then there's this awkward silence until I finally concede and say, all right, all right, we can go back to that little detail for just a second if it's going to make you feel better. Again, nothing but a slight smile. And then I'll finally give up and acknowledge that that moment that I'm dodging is not a small part of my story at all. It's the entire story of why I was either proud of how I showed up or why I will have to circle back and apologize for something I've done. On one such occasion. I told her about a really terrible meeting I'd had earlier that day, and she said, it sounds like you were below the line. I asked her what she meant, and in the course of 10 minutes, she reorganized how I show up at work, with my kids, and in my marriage. I am not exaggerating one bit. I was even weepy when we got off the call. When she asked me why, I told her I think I'm really emotional for two reasons. One, this is gonna help me every single day. It's gonna make me a better partner, better mom, leader, and a better person. And I'm sad that I'm just learning this. Like, I'm sad I didn't know about this sooner. I teach it the way that Courtney taught me and how she's actually teaching it to our senior leaders right now. She does a lot of coaching across our leadership team. So the line that we're talking about when we say above, below the line, the line is fear. And when we're above the line, we feel fear and we acknowledge it. And we're not unknowingly acting from it. We're feeling it, and we're able to maintain the wheel. We're driving with awareness. When we're below the line we're acting from fear, and our behaviors are mostly outside of our awareness. Fear is driving below the line. Our behaviors typically fall into one of three roles, the hero, the villain, or the victim. These align with Stephen Cartman's model of the drama triangle that he developed in 1968. Above the line. Our roles are normally creator, challenger, and coach. And these are based on David Emerald's 2005 empowerment dynamic. This framework has evolved over the years, and I'm going to keep it very clean and straightforward in my explanation, but I want you to pay attention to the attribution. If you look on your PDF, there'll be an image that that kind of shows this practice, and on the image there's the attribution. I'm gonna read it to you right now because it's really important that we give credit where credit is due. So it's got a story, it's got a wild history. It appears that the concept of kind of above and below the line originated with Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Then Carolyn Taylor talked about it in her book Walking the Talk. Taylor acknowledged Kiyosaki as the source of her introduction to the idea. She goes on to explore the above the line, below the line concept in depth, and she applies it to leadership and organizational culture. Then the conscious leadership group, which is Jim Detmer, Diana Chapman, and Kayleigh Warner Klemp, popularized the framework among coaches and leadership consultants in their book the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. They also advanced this concept by adding Stephen Cartman's drama triangle and David Emerald's empowerment dynamic. So this is just a practice that I think has been so meaningful for people over the years that they have taken it, added to it, made it stronger and stronger. But the attribution's always important, so I want you to understand it. So let me just go over. But since you're not looking at the visual, let me go over it with you as you're listening. So you've got a line. The line is fear. Above the line, we're in fear, but we're driving. We're aware of it. We understand we're in it. And we're aware how it may or may not potentially move our behaviors and our thinking. When we're below the line, we're in fear, and it's driving, and we're not even riding shotgun. We're like, hogtied in the trunk, like it is driving. It's changing how we think and we feel, how we're showing up when we're above the line. We're kind of our best selves and we're working out of one of three positions. We're doing great creator work. We're challenging and productive. Challenging or we're coaching. Under the line, we usually fall into a hero, victim or villain stance. And this is where things get really dice.

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[Brene Brown]

Let'S breathe some life into the concept by sharing some real examples. And these are hard to share because they're very real. So my teammate says to me, hey, Brene, we accidentally copied the wrong person on an email, and there was some confidential information about Josh's new book in the email. The book is under wraps and we're not really sure how to handle it. Me, I go immediately below the line, Jesus, this is not the first time this has happened. No one understands how shitty I look when we do this. Look, people trust me with early drafts of their work, and then this is how we treat them. I mean, you know what? From now on, I'll do it myself. Clearly, no one understands how fricking hard this is on me. It doesn't make you look careless. It makes me look bad. Oh, I wish that didn't sound familiar, A. But B, I want you to notice the language. Hero. I'll do it myself. Victim. No one understands. Villain. Who's gonna take the blame for this? Now let's do the same scenario where someone says, hey, Brene, we've accidentally copied the wrong person on an email. There was some sensitive and confidential information about Josh's new book in that email. We're not sure how to handle it. So then here's my response. Holy shit. Okay, you know what? This puts me below the line. I'm going to need a minute. I come back 10, 15 minutes, because I know that's what it takes. Me personally, I know I'm gonna have to take a walk. I'm usually gonna be in the parking lot. I'm gonna come back, I'm gonna acknowledge that I'm in fear. I'm gonna try to drive and not let fear drive. So I come back and say, all right, let me just start by saying these situations are rare and I know that people are very careful. I'll be really frank. I can go below the line in a second with this because people trust me and I take. And I also know that our team takes that seriously. Can we dig into how this happened and how we can put some kind of system in place that'll protect us against this happening again? In this situation, I'm a challenger. How do we fix this? A coach. We should look for patterns. Creator. We need to build systems that support people that we trust who are doing good work. I think what's critical to understand when you're using this tool is that the awareness of being below the line, naming it and pausing is the big win. That's the door prize, baby. Like, taking the time I need is my strength and courage. This is my practice. And I think in an organization, when a critical mass of people start practicing this strategy, it is a culture changer. As I'm reading this book to you right now, I'm just going to share a little aside for the audiobook listeners. We are in like big time, pre launch mode and things are stressful and we're trying to get everything ready. And I bet twice a day in meetings, someone right now will say, you know what, I'm under the line. And we just take a break and we come back and we come back 10 minutes later and we talk about how they got under the line and what we could do differently. And we thank them for their courage and their, you know, self awareness and insight. In the book I write just a few days ago, on a call with more than 90 senior leaders, and this is one of the best stories of this is why I love my work. I'm on a call with more than 90 senior leaders. One of the most senior leaders shares a story about going below the line while giving hard feedback to a direct report. He says this to the entire group. On the team's call, I just stopped us and said, I'm below the line. This is not productive. Can we pause and circle back in an Hour or so. He told his peers that his direct report responded with, ooh, I'm below the line as well. I appreciate the timeout. An hour will be great. This exchange sounds simple, but it took courage, vulnerability, and skill. These types of exchanges create trust, respect, and honesty. This is what transformation looks like. This is what it means to break old ways of communicating and risk trying something new. This is what it looks like when a critical mass of people are building new muscles at the same time. This five minute act of courage is how organizations create strong ground. I call this next section Fear and Friends. I have found out that I am the most challenged to remember this practice when I don't immediately recognize that I'm in fear. Because fear, fear is showing up for me as anger. Anger is a powerful emotion that's often ignited by a sense of injustice. I mean, it can definitely serve as a powerful catalyst for courage, love, change, compassion, or justice if we tap into its power to transform. But when we just hold on to being pissed off, it's crushing. In most cultures, it's more acceptable and even safer to be pissed off than it is to be in fear or feel sad or feel vulnerable. When it comes to my kids, 90% of my frustration turns out to be fear underneath. Kind of what I might say out loud to Steve about why are they going there? What are they doing? Is the voice. If they get hurt, what if they're not safe? What if they can't pull this thing off that's really important to them? I grew up in a family where being pissed off was fine. Being in fear was not okay. It's taken a lot of unlearning and my above, below the line practice has helped me in a very unexpected way. I recognize the hero, villain, victim language before I even know what I'm feeling. Sometimes as soon as I hear myself say something close to one of these things, I know I've got a below the line problem. I'll do it myself. Oh, my God, I am so on my own here. Nobody gets it. This is so much harder on me than it is on other people. You know what the problem is? I just care more if other people gave a shit. It'd be better. I could go really quickly into villain. I don't give a shit whether you like me or not or I'll be the bad guy. I don't care. When I find myself in that language, that's when I can say something to myself like, oh, my God, I'm in some fear. Maybe I'm pissed off, but I must be in fear or this is my favorite thing. I say to myself, easy does it, Brene. You can be really scary when you're scared.

[Host of Unexplainable Podcast]

A few years ago, this researcher was trying to get people to relax by sitting in a silent room for 15 minutes. But they hated it.

[Brene Brown]

People would rather listen to sounds of people vomiting, nails on a chalkboard, et cetera, rather than simply sit in silence.

[Host of Unexplainable Podcast]

I got obsessed with this experiment, so I decided to make a whole series for Unexplainable about the way our brain processes sound. Like tinnitus.

[Brene Brown]

It's like you're just trapped. There's nothing else to do. Like no way to escape it.

[Host of Unexplainable Podcast]

Or what audio illusions show us about how hearing works.

[Brene Brown]

It just seemed that the world had.

[Host of Unexplainable Podcast]

Just turned upside down, or how astronomers are making new discoveries by listening to space.

[Brene Brown]

I thought those sounds were bothersome. And at that moment, everything transformed into beauty.

[Host of Unexplainable Podcast]

The sound barrier from Unexplainable, a four part series about the limits of hearing and the ways we can break through. Follow Unexplainable for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.

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[Brene Brown]

Yeah, they do.

[Host of Today Explained Podcast]

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[Brene Brown]

Testosterone.

[Host of Today Explained Podcast]

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[Brene Brown]

Let's bring that bass back.

[Sierra AI Representative]

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[Host of Unexplainable Podcast]

Give him a big T finish.

[Brene Brown]

Building up and breaking down. If you've ever practiced anything, playing the guitar, making free throws in basketball, yoga, a new language, drawing. You know, it's hard and it requires deliberate practice. That uncomfortable stretching and failing and learning and moving forward a slow inch at a time. As adults, so many of us are torn between the achiness of muscles that are atrophying from not trying new things and the reluctance to subject ourselves to the vulnerability and awkwardness of not being good at something. This practice that I'm talking to you about right now transformed my life. I have seen it help many, many people and I have never ever seen anyone master it from the get go. It's a practice. As a former competitive swimmer and someone who fell in love with my husband a lifetime ago when we were coaching swimming and lifeguarding together. I love Bonnie Choi's beautiful book why We Swim. As soon as I heard that she had a new book out titled On Muscle, the stuff that moves us and why it matters. You can only imagine my excitement as we think about our own above, below the line practice and how it can be a part of finding our strong ground. I find these words from Bonnie's new book inspiring. Bonnie writes, the way you build muscle is by breaking yourself down. Muscle fibers sustain damage through strain and stress, then repair themselves by activating special stem cells that fuse to the fiber to increase size and mass. You get stronger by surviving each series of little breakdowns, allowing for regeneration, rejuvenation, regrowth, building up, breaking down. We exist in this constant cycle. In fact, it is the cycle that allows us to exist. When it ceases, so do we. Dare to Lead is produced by Brene Brown Education and Research Research Group. Music is by the sufferers. Get new episodes as soon as they're published by following Dare to Lead on your favorite podcast app. We are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award winning [e-mail].