ReThinking: Brené Brown on courageous leadership

Summary

Podcast Summary

WorkLife with Adam Grant – "ReThinking: Brené Brown on Courageous Leadership"

Host: Adam Grant (TED)
Guest: Brené Brown
Date: September 30, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Adam Grant hosts Brené Brown for a live, candid conversation exploring her latest research and new book, "Strong Ground." Together they dissect the evolving definitions of courageous leadership, the crucial role of vulnerability, how to identify and operationalize core values, and why care and connection are non-negotiable for effective leaders. The discussion is both intellectually rich and delightfully relatable, with memorable, actionable moments throughout.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From Knower to Learner: The Hallmark of Courageous Leadership

• Learning vs. Knowing Culture: Brené observes a shift away from valuing curiosity and learning toward idolizing certainty, which stifles innovation and growth.
  • "When I talk to senior leaders...what I'm looking for are candidates who have exquisite questions and are really hungry to solve the problem. We have to shift the thinking there a lot." (04:42, Brené Brown)
• The Joy of Pursuing Mastery: True fulfillment for leaders and teams comes from the passionate pursuit of solving problems, not from having all the answers.

2. Asking Great Questions: A Learnable Skill

• Grounded Theory Approach: Brené shares how her methodology, grounded in Glaser & Strauss’s research, starts with understanding people's real concerns rather than projecting assumptions.
  • "The questions I ask are really about getting to what your main concern is, not what I think it is or what the world portrays it as." (07:48, Brené Brown)
• Breakthrough with Leaders: She encourages leaders to tackle tough conversations by focusing on what they want (winning) over ego protection.
  • "What's more important to you – to protect your ego or to win?... Playing not to lose is always losing." (08:43, Brené Brown)

3. Courage is Connection and Care (Not Command and Control)

• Care & Connection Prerequisite: Genuine concern for those you lead is essential for sustainable high performance.
  • "If you do not care for and are able to connect with the people you lead, you will never see performance, period." (02:50, Brené Brown; 09:46 expands on this)
• Practical Strategy for Young Leaders: When managing up, clarify and play back your understanding of priorities, then ask for the freedom to lead your team your way.
  • "Can I play back what I think you're saying?... I need permission to lead my team. That's exactly how I would do it." (11:33, Brené Brown)

4. Values: Identifying, Sacrificing, and Living

• Values as Sacrifice: Values aren’t just what matters to you—it's what you're willing to give up for.
  • "I think it's not just what you care about, it's what you sacrifice for." (17:18, Elise Hu)
  • "My two values are faith and courage. Those are two areas where I would be willing to sacrifice and do that on a regular basis." (18:42, Brené Brown)
• Operationalizing Values: Values must translate into daily behaviors. Identify two core values (“the home base and the fire for everything else”), then define what living and violating them looks/feels like.
  • "I'm not a fan of a value not operationalized into behaviors... I know I'm out of alignment with my courage value when I'm in resentment." (20:30, Brené Brown)
• The Four Skillsets of Courage:
  1. Living into your values
  2. Rumbling with vulnerability
  3. Building trust (including self-trust)
  4. Ability to reset after setbacks
     (21:47, Brené Brown)

5. Turning Values Into Actionable Behavior

• Behavioral Translation: Define specific actions that represent your values—e.g., speaking directly to people instead of about them as a mark of courage.
  • "I don’t talk about people. I talk to people... That’s courage in action for me." (25:37, Brené Brown)
• Hard Conversations: Brené credits “the story I’m making up” framework for addressing interpersonal issues, counteracting the brain’s tendency to jump to negative conclusions.
  • "The story I’m making up is... I just want to check in with you." (29:41, Brené Brown)

6. Vulnerability, Fear & Armor in Leadership

• Popular but Rare in Practice: While vulnerability is now a popular buzzword, few genuinely practice it.
  • "Just because the concept is more popular doesn't mean the behavior is more popular. Everybody's afraid. We're all afraid all the time." (45:09, Brené Brown)
• Armor and Self-Protection: Fear leads to behaviors like micromanagement and perfectionism; leaders must be aware of when they put on emotional armor.

7. Self-Awareness and Embodiment

• Feelings as Physical Signals: Real self-awareness includes attunement to your physical sensations (“they call them feelings because you feel them first”).
• Alignment Feels Different: Living your values might be hard but is energy-giving; violating them is superficially easier but leaves you depleted.
  • "In my values, very difficult but in some way energy giving—outside of my values, on the surface easier, but absolutely depleting." (33:36, Brené Brown)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "If you do not care for and are able to connect with the people you lead, you will never see performance, period." (02:50, Brené Brown)
• "Playing not to lose is always losing." (08:43, Brené Brown)
• "The story I'm making up is..." (27:20, Brené Brown) — on framing tough conversations honestly and reducing defensiveness.
• "Values aren't just what you care about, they're what you sacrifice for." (17:18, Elise Hu)
• On Executive Presence:
  • "I have zero interest in looking, acting, behaving like the people who built the tables that I'm not supposed to be at. Yeah, none." (39:04, Brené Brown)
• On Founders and Delegation:
  • "Productive challenge is a function of trust. Micromanagement is a function of distrust." (40:41, Brené Brown)

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Lightning Round Highlights (37:47 - 44:49)

• Dream Dinner Party: Brené picks her family, not celebrities.
• Worst Career Advice: “Executive presence” means little; she critiques its use as a discriminatory cover.
• Changing Her Mind: Rethinking the lines between healthy founder involvement and micromanagement.
• Advice for Younger Self: “Nothing wasted”—embrace nontraditional, winding career paths.
• Boundaries & Empathy: True friendships are reciprocal; avoid enmeshment under the guise of empathy.
  • "A good friendship, love, friendship, whatever, is reciprocal..." (44:49, Brené Brown)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Guest Introduction, Leadership Philosophy – 03:17-05:39
• Advice for Asking Great Questions – 06:11-08:35
• Care & Connection in Leadership – 09:46-12:02
• Translating Values into Behaviors – 17:18-21:45
• The Four Skillsets of Courage – 21:47-23:26
• How to Have Hard Conversations – 27:20-30:55
• About Founder’s Control and Delegation – 40:07-42:17
• Vulnerability in Leadership – 45:09-46:34

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Tone and Takeaways

The tone is warm, honest, and approachable. Both Adam and Brené mix academic rigor with humor and openness, modeling the very vulnerability and courage they advocate. Listeners are left with both practical scripts for difficult situations ("let me play back what I heard," "the story I'm making up is…") and deeper insights: true leadership demands courage, connection, consistent self-reflection, and a willingness to be seen—even (or especially) when that's hard.

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For First-Time Listeners

This episode provides an accessible yet deep dive into Brené Brown's leadership philosophy: prioritize learning over knowing, codify and operationalize your values, cultivate care and connection in every sphere of leadership, and let vulnerability be your superpower, not your liability. Whether you’re managing people, leading organizations, or just trying to thrive in your own work life, the insights here are essential and actionable.

Transcript

[Brene Brown]

Hi TED Podcast listeners. It's Elise Hu here from TED Talks Daily. Thanks for making our podcast part of your routine. We really appreciate it and we want to make your favorite TED podcasts even better. We put together a quick survey and we'd love to hear from you. It only takes a few minutes, but it helps us shape our shows and get to know you, our listeners, way better. Head to the episode description to find the link. Thank you again for listening and for taking the time to help our shows.

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[Adam Grant]

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[Adam Grant]

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[Brene Brown]

If you do not care for and are able to connect with the people you lead, you will never see performance, period.

[Adam Grant]

Hey, everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking My Podcast with TED on the science of what makes us Tick. I'm an organizational psychologist, and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.

[Elise Hu]

Brene Brown is a researcher and storyteller.

[Adam Grant]

Who'S changed the way I think about vulnerability, shame, empathy, and leadership. She hosts the podcast Dare to Lead where I've loved being a recurring guest. And she's given some of the most popular TED talks of all time and written six number one New York Times bestselling books. I hosted Brene for a live conversation in the Authors of Wharton series to talk about her brand new book, Strong Ground.

[Elise Hu]

Brene Brown, so excited to have you at Wharton.

[Brene Brown]

Thank you. Nice to be here.

[Adam Grant]

She delivers a powerful message about courageous leadership that the world desperately needs. And our back and forth made my brain buzz and my heart tingle in the best possible ways.

[Elise Hu]

So I was at an event last week in New York. Someone came up to me and after having asked a brilliant question, said, you're my second favorite author. And I was very flattered. And then I was like, wait a minute, who's the first? And the answer was Brene Brown. I was just glad to be on the list.

[Brene Brown]

Well, first of all, people are laughing so hard at us. I was trying. Not with us, not at us, literally. Someone said, I love the podcast. I think of y' all as smart people. And it's so weird to watch you change your minds.

[Elise Hu]

Isn't that what learning is?

[Brene Brown]

To me, the most joyful thing is learning the pursuit, the passionate pursuit of mastery. Like really having a problem to solve or a strategy to figure out that you almost don't want to figure it out because trying to solve it is so much fun and that's so uniquely human. I just, I'm wondering why that's fallen out of favor a little bit. I'm wondering why the value has shifted from courage is being a knower instead of courage is being a learner. That's not going to serve us right now. When I talk to senior leaders all over the world and they're saying, boy, it's really problematic when people come in and they act like they know everything. What I'm looking for are candidates who have exquisite questions and are really hungry to solve the problem. And so I think we have to shift the thinking there a lot.

[Elise Hu]

I'm inclined to agree with you on that. And asking questions is one of the things that you do best. So I think for those who have not been following Brene's work Since you were 4, I think when I first became acquainted with your work, it was when you were introducing yourself as a narrative researcher, as somebody who studied stories. And I was just blown away by both the breadth and the depth of the questions that you ask people. And I've always wondered how you come up with your questions. You just said, hey, asking great questions is a skill. Can you teach it to us?

[Brene Brown]

I can. And I will definitely not take credit for it. I will definitely go back to Barney Glaser. Glaser and Strauss.

[Elise Hu]

Grounded theory.

[Brene Brown]

Grounded theory. So I'm a grounded theory researcher. And Anselm and Strauss were trying to develop a methodology for studying children who were dying. And back when they were trying to do it in the early 60s, there was a pact when a child was dying that the nurses, physicians and parents and religious folks, clergy, would not tell the child they're dying. They would keep that information from the child. So Glaser and Strauss were trying to figure out, how can we talk to these children about their experiences when we can't let them know what's happening? So they came up with this idea of just a spill question, which became the real heart of grounded theory, which is, tell me about your illness. And the children would say, I'm dying and it must be really terrible because not even my parents will tell me about it. Yeah. So in grounded theory, we start with the main concern of the population, and then the theory we develop is how the population is continually resolving that concern. Does that make sense?

[Elise Hu]

Yep.

[Brene Brown]

And how we continually resolve those concerns is the basic social process that becomes a grounded theory. Is this too nerdy? I don't know.

[Elise Hu]

We have to ask you.

[Brene Brown]

Oh, shit. I mean, who am I asking here? So to me, the questions I ask are really about getting to what your main concern is, not what I think it is or what the world portrays it as. That's the way I work today. So if I go into an organization and I'll spend three weeks just asking questions, I'll just look at a CEO and say, what's on your heart and mind? If you sit up straight in bed at 4 o' clock in the morning, what are you worried about? And then that's what I'm trying to resolve. Yes, I'm listening to investor calls and yes, I'm looking at Data, performance data, and engagement data. But what I really want to know is what is keeping you up at night and how do we go after that?

[Elise Hu]

I would say the typical CEO I encounter is not that excited to talk about the thing that they're stressed about. How do you break through that barrier?

[Brene Brown]

Fifth generation Texan, you know, why am I here if you don't want to talk about it? I got shit to do and places to be. So we can either talk about it or I can go home, you know, like, I don't get it, but I think for me, I often talk about playing to win versus playing not to lose. I'm not everybody's cup of tea, as you can imagine. But I just say, look, what's more important to you to protect your ego or to win? And if you want to win, we're going to have to have these hard conversations. And if you can't have these hard conversations and you continue to play not to lose, let me tell you what that looks like, both on a field and in an organization. Playing not to lose is always losing.

[Elise Hu]

How do you adapt that to the MBA and undergrad students in the room? So it's harder for them to go to their boss or their boss's boss and say, hey, do you want to succeed here or do you want to protect your fragile ego?

[Brene Brown]

I would definitely send that via text. I think the strategy is actually the same. And I was talking to a recent MBA graduate at UT at McCombs. McCombs has a big program for vets who want to come back and get their mba. And we were talking about how care for in connection with the people you lead is an irreducible prerequisite of courageous leadership. If you do not care for and are able to connect with the people you lead, you will never see performance, period. You might do well in a very short period of time. But we both know, like, if without genuine care for and connection with, you don't. And so he asked this question. He said, you know, I come from a setting in the military where caring for and connecting to is a fairly low bar, which I think is true because we both do work in the military like they even the Air Force has, without deep affection for the troops you lead, we will move the soldier or we will move you. And so he said, that's how I lead, but it's not accepted by my boss or the senior leaders. And I said, then I would change the focus of the conversation. Here's how I would do the conversation. I would say, if you work for Me, I want us to win, and I want to contribute to the win. Help me understand what that looks like. What do you need me to do to win? And then Adam would say, here's what we need to win. We need to reduce churn here. We need to increase growth here, and we've got to solve these two problems here. Then I would do this always. Can I play back what I think you're saying? Always the playback. Here's what you're saying. We need to reduce churn. We need to grow this thing by 3% a quarter for the next two quarters, and then we have this problem that we need to solve around supply chain. That's not directly me, but here are the three things I can do to help. And then your boss says, that's exactly right. Okay, I'm going to be on it. I want to ask you one thing. I have a way to win with my team that I think makes me the most effective leader and drives the most performance and trust in my team. I'm clear on what you want. I've played it back for you. I need permission to lead my team. That's exactly how I would do it.

[Elise Hu]

That's powerful. Can you just accompany a bunch of our students to their jobs when they graduate?

[Brene Brown]

No, I don't work for anybody. That's why. But if you're like, oh, is that how leaders talk to each other? Hell, no. Like, one out of a thousand people I meet would have that conversation. Right? Like, it's a rare thing. So you know who I go to? This is why we're such a cute couple on the podcast, because I don't remember anybody's name, and I'm like, who's that dude? Researcher. Baylor. And you're like, the first article came out in 1977.

[Elise Hu]

Try me.

[Brene Brown]

Negotiating FBI.

[Elise Hu]

Chris Voss never split the difference.

[Brene Brown]

Thank you. Okay. He knows everybody's name. I can say the carpet is centered. And you're like, 15 years of research on carpet centering would show. I mean, this is why I love talking to you. It is really true. It's like, you're really good at contextualizing in imper. We've worked on this.

[Elise Hu]

I'm shaking my head at carpets.

[Brene Brown]

Okay. But you're really good at doing this.

[Elise Hu]

Thank you, Brene.

[Brene Brown]

You're welcome.

[Elise Hu]

Brene told me I was bad at accepting compliments, and a lot of people have given me that feedback, and I take pride in being someone who takes feedback well. And now I'm stuck. I have to say thank you.

[Brene Brown]

There's so Many things to compliment you about.

[Elise Hu]

Enough. Okay, so.

[Brene Brown]

Okay. I was doing work with the FBI hostage negotiators because a lot of their work is about emotional resonance, understanding emotion. Right. If I had to give one takeaway from Chris's work that I think is really helpful, it's this. Whether hostages or the hostage taker, whether they live or die, often comes down to two words. You're the hostage taker and I'm the negotiator for the FBI and you're telling me what's going on? Like shit. Okay, so let me get this right, Adam. You can never get a fucking break. They took your kids, your wife left you, they shit on you at your job, and nothing ever goes your way, no matter how hard you work. And if you say back to me two words. That's right. There is a connection now that changes all of the variables about survival. It's a human being. Like we are neurobiologically hardwired to be seen and heard. And that's right. Is really a big part of. Of being able to play back. So what's missing for I think new MBA students, new business students in general, just younger leaders, new people leaders is the playback. So if I say to Adam, so all you really care about Adam is me reducing churn. And Adam goes no, reducing churn is part of a three legged stool. I need you to churn. But we have got to have growth. We have to have ARR for three quarters. The that looks like this. So that part is missing when you're managing up. Does that make sense? It's a really big part of getting clarity. I hear you. I can play back for you accurately what's happening.

[Elise Hu]

The other thing I love about this is it's classic motivation theory. I'm thinking about Victor vroom expectancy theory. So many people, when they try to motivate someone, they project their own motivations onto them. As opposed to saying, if I want to motivate you, I've got to know what you value.

[Brene Brown]

That's it.

[Elise Hu]

And so by starting the conversation with that leader and asking, what does success look like for you? I'm now in a better position to ask you for what I want because it's aligned with your values and your goals as opposed to at odds with or unrelated to what you care about.

[Brene Brown]

That's it.

[Adam Grant]

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[Adam Grant]

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[Brene Brown]

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[Elise Hu]

We'Re going to talk about your new book, Strong Ground. And I think that values are one of the most important parts of this book. You push us all to identify our two core values. As you know, I've been struggling with three generosity and excellence or integrity. And I would love you to walk us through how to figure out what your values are. Maybe I'll just start by saying for a long time I thought about values just as guiding principles and I said it's what you care about. And I think that was incomplete. I think it's not just what you care about, it's what you sacrifice for. One of the ways that I've become clear about what my values are is to look at the things that I give up and why. I saw myself sacrificing time hanging out with my friends to to field people's requests and help them. And that made it clear to me, okay, I'm giving up time with this group of people that I really like because I want to make a contribution here that says to me that being helpful is really important to me. I saw myself in a couple of situations that I regret now, wandering into situations where I thought I was probably going to fail and I was willing to sacrifice my ego because I really wanted to get better. And I saw, okay, that's some combination of excellence and integrity. And so I guess my first question for you is, what do you think about this distinction of values aren't just what you care about, they're what you sacrifice for.

[Brene Brown]

I think I'm gonna use it from this split second board.

[Elise Hu]

Okay, I think it's yours.

[Brene Brown]

I'll send you a quarter every time I say it. When we were doing the qualitative interviewing of daring leaders who care about performance and culture equally, who care about people and impact, they were so clear and could speak so quickly. And they never had more than one or two core values. And when I would dig in that they would say, no, that's important to me. But these two are where everything else is forged. Like, yes, I care about a lot of things, but these two values, this is where the rubber hits the road. So my two values are faith and courage. And those are two areas where I would be willing to sacrifice and do that on a regular basis. Like, ah, Jesus, I want to hate your guts, but I'm going to sacrifice hating you because I have to find God in everybody's face.

[Elise Hu]

And you roll your eyes as you say, I do.

[Brene Brown]

God has told me nothing about enjoying the practice at all. But I am willing to sacrifice a lot of things, including my self righteousness, for my values. And I think it's a beautiful and a different way of thinking about where things are forged. So when we give people this ginormous list of values, the two places where they really struggle the most was one, they're like, are we talking about personal values or professional values? I was like, you only have one set, just your values. And then the other question is, I need 15. And so we always say, circle 15. And then start asking yourself what two are, the home base and the fire for everything else. And we've never had anyone not be able to get there. And we've probably done well, we know we've done it with at least 160,000 people because that's the data.

[Elise Hu]

We have only 160,000 over six years.

[Brene Brown]

Yeah, but we know that people get there. But then what's really exciting is that's where they think they leave it. And I'm not a fan of a value not operationalized into behaviors. Neither are you. And that's what most organizations we go into have all the posters and have done none of the work. Like integrity with an eagle, huh? What does it even mean? And so then we have people operationalize their values into behaviors, find indicator lights when they're out of alignment. So for example, for me, I know I'm out of alignment with my courage value when I'm in resentment because I'm probably not being brave enough to ask for what I need or want or I'm not setting a boundary. I'm not being brave in some ways if I'm in resentment. And so that work becomes. It's actually a trick that we do when we first started doing dare to lead work. In organizations, the four skill sets of courage have held. They've held through Covid and all the new data.

[Elise Hu]

Tell us what the four are.

[Brene Brown]

Living into your values. The ability to rumble with vulnerability, meaning to be able to be in uncertainty, risk, and exposure, and to stay grounded, emotionally regulated, and make good decisions. The ability to build trust with others and self trust. No one talks about self trust, which is a big thing. And often the first casualty of failure, and then the last is to be able to reset. Can you be responsible for your own bounce after failure, disappointment, and setback? So these are the four skill sets of courage. When we first started teaching it, we taught Rumbling with vulnerability first and the college students in a course that I taught at ut. At the end, we asked for feedback, and they were like, dude, you need to teach values first. I was like, why? We actually. We did the feedback as a class so they could experience saying hard things to me that were productive and respectful, and we could say things to each other and they could learn how to be in a hard conversation. And I said, tell me why. And they said, you had to convince us that vulnerability was something we needed to experience and manage. But if you did values first, people would understand intrinsically that if they wanted to live into their values, they would need to be vulnerable and courageous, and you wouldn't have to convince anybody of anything. They're choosing courage. They're choosing generosity. They're choosing excellence. If you want those things and you want to live into those things, then diving into uncertainty and risk and exposure is not optional.

[Elise Hu]

I love that. It reminds me of an exercise I've been doing for years with students and also with leaders. And I'm going to put you in the hot seat for this one. So, okay, you just mentioned vulnerability. Why is vulnerability important to you?

[Brene Brown]

Because my value is courage. If there's no uncertainty, no risk, and no exposure, you're not being that brave.

[Elise Hu]

Why is courage important to you?

[Brene Brown]

Because the word courage, in its original definition, kur, meaning heart. And the original definition of courage was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. We are nothing without our story. And to not tell it honestly pulls all the meaning out of our lives. So to me, I want a meaningful life, and I'm going to have to be brave to do that.

[Elise Hu]

Why do you care about having a meaningful life?

[Brene Brown]

I'll be failing this fucking class. Because what's the point if you're not? Wow, that was hard.

[Elise Hu]

It's supposed to be hard, but when somebody has a long list of values, I just. We pick a value and we go through the why, why, why process, and eventually they just kind of throw up their hands and say, because that's who I am, or because that's important to me, or because otherwise, what's the point? And at that point, I know we've reached a terminal, as opposed to instrumental value. So many of our values are in service of other values. Right? The terminal values are. No, this is core. So I think you landed courage as a core value.

[Brene Brown]

I see you, Adam Grant.

[Elise Hu]

What does that mean?

[Brene Brown]

It was irritating but effective.

[Elise Hu]

Okay, but then to your point, yeah, it is annoying. I think it has more comedic effect if you do it this way. But it's much friendlier when it's like, oh, that's interesting. Tell me more about why that's important to you. We want to then go the other way and say, how. How do you live that value? And that's where you get to your behavioral standards.

[Adam Grant]

So I would love to hear you.

[Elise Hu]

Talk a little bit, because I have been just floored by how specific and.

[Adam Grant]

Clear and actionable these are.

[Elise Hu]

Can you take us from. Okay. My core value is courage to how do you come up with behaviors that would fulfill courage and violate courage?

[Brene Brown]

I think the hardest one that I'm working in every day because it's so valid. I don't talk about people. I talk to people.

[Elise Hu]

And how did you come to that as a behavior that was key to courage?

[Brene Brown]

I think it was from the integrity hangover that I would have after I talked about somebody with someone and thought, a, the person I was talking about deserves more respect than this, and B, the person I was talking to should, in fact trust me less so as a leader instead of shit talking you. And I'm frustrated. I'm going to get unfrustrated first and then I'm gonna talk directly to you. So that's courage in action for me.

[Elise Hu]

Wow.

[Brene Brown]

Yeah. I don't wanna be that person. And I would say I have more hard conversations a day than 90% of the people I know seen it.

[Elise Hu]

I can vouch for it. I've been the beneficiary of it.

[Brene Brown]

Oh, we have had a hard conversation or two. Yeah. I go in knowing that I'm very messy and imperfect, and I will have had a part. Whenever's not going well, I have a part.

[Elise Hu]

I want to pick up on two things there. The first one is, I think of maybe all the sentences you've ever written. The one that I find myself referencing the most, including when we teach difficult conversations. Here is the story I'm making up is. I think about this all the time whenever I go to give someone some feedback or raise an issue that might be a little bit touchy or contentious. Okay. The story I'm making up is. Can you just walk us through how to apply that?

[Brene Brown]

I think that our brain is wired for story. We know that that's not like an advertisement. It's, like, literally wired for narrative. It's how we've taught and communicated since the beginning of human history. When something hard happens, because our brain is wired for survival above all things, it looks to understand what's happening with a story. And the brain does not like a messy story. The brain likes a very clear story. But bad guy, good guy, dangerous, safe, on your side, against you. So the minute you can give your brain a story that has the bad guy who's against you and what's dangerous, you're literally rewarded chemically with more calm. So let's say Adam and I are in a meeting, and I work for Adam, and we walk out of the meeting, and I say, great meeting. I'll see you this afternoon. And Adam looks at me and goes, what the fuck? And just walks away. How many of you would be hooked by that if that was your boss, like, triggered? Like, oh, shit. And so immediately, what the brain says is, what's happening? What's happening, what's happening? And the way it normally plays out is, oh, my God, I pissed him off. I did something in that meeting. I should have not shared those sales numbers with a client. Oh, my God. What's going on? How many times a day do you think that happens in organizations? A lot. So what we found that fourth quality of courage, the ability to rise, the ability to reset. What those folks had in common more than anything was the ability to check the stories they're making up. And so the first question you ask is, do I know what's happening and do I have enough data? And let me tell you, neurobiologically, they're like, we don't give a shit. Give us a story. Tell us who's who. Tell us who is against us. And so what would happen if I went into my office and I thought, oh, God, I don't know what's going on? That was pretty scary. I need to calm down. For me personally, I know I'll need to walk. I'll loop the parking lot. I'll walk the office. Okay. Hey, Adam, do you have a sec?

[Elise Hu]

Yeah.

[Brene Brown]

When we were leaving the meeting today and I said, have a great day, you looked at me and you were like, what the fuck? And the story I'm making up is something happened in that meeting that really pissed you off. And I just want to check in with you, and if we've got something to clean up, I'd love the opportunity to clean it up. And then Adam looks at me and said, oh, my God. That meeting was scheduled to end at 10 o'. Clock. We went to 11:15. I have Zumba every Thursday at 10:30. Why were these meetings going so late? Yes or no? And you're like, wait, what about the part where I'm the center of your world and everything you do and say is about me? You know, and so be really honest here, which you are actually never anything but in my experience, to be honest, which is kind of a pain in the ass sometimes.

[Elise Hu]

Thank you.

[Brene Brown]

Yeah, you're welcome. That compliment he accepted. As a leader who works for you. I knock on your door and say, here's the story I'm making up. Do we have something to clean up? Do you respect me more or less?

[Elise Hu]

More.

[Brene Brown]

Trust me, more or less.

[Elise Hu]

More. Because I know that if there's ever an issue between us, you're gonna bring it to me, as opposed to me wondering what you're thinking but not repeating or maybe gossiping about behind my back.

[Brene Brown]

Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

This reminds me of something I've been so curious about for a long time and never asked you, which is sometimes I find it helpful to go into a conversation like that when I've made up the story and I'm worried about how it's going to go and just say to the person, I'm actually afraid to have this conversation with you. And I've found that enormously helpful in lowering their defenses. And I'd love to hear your explanation of why.

[Brene Brown]

It's like walking in, hey, good to see you. Vulnerability card. I'm a little anxious about talking to you about this, but you're important to me, and this is important to me, and I think it's honest and authentic and it's showing. You're leading with your humanity. You're not leading with your prosecutor. You know, you're not leading with any of your friends. Right. You're just leading with community.

[Elise Hu]

That tracks for me. I think the other thing that sometimes happens is the other person immediately wants to disown being terrifying.

[Brene Brown]

Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

You shouldn't be afraid of me.

[Adam Grant]

You can tell me anything.

[Elise Hu]

And they actually have to prove that they're open, even if they weren't before.

[Brene Brown]

That gets a little trickier. Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah. And then I'm like, wait, no, no, I don't want this to be manipulative. I'm just trying to. I'm trying to level with you that this is a hard conversation for me to have.

[Brene Brown]

Yes. That's why I love the story I'm telling myself right now. Or to say, anxious about having this conversation with you, but it's important to me. If you say scared, you could push a certain personality type into defensiveness because what they could go is, Jesus, you think I'm an asshole. And they could just derail you. So I think part of this is the self awareness and the relational awareness of knowing what is your relationship with this person.

[Elise Hu]

That's helpful. Thank you. Okay. I want to follow up on one other thing that struck me as you were talking about turning values into behaviors.

[Brene Brown]

Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

Which is, I think you've just given us a clue to a different way of living our values than I've always thought about it. I've always had people. I've seen people make a list of their values and then, okay, let's write down and talk through. What does it look like to uphold them, what does it look like to violate them? And there's something both overly cerebral about that and also it's undergrounded in people's day to day experience. And I think what I just heard you tell me is you kind of do a mini qualitative study of yourself. You observe, take the next week or two and think about the moments where you felt like that wasn't me or I failed at courage today. And then build the list from the ground up.

[Brene Brown]

Yes.

[Elise Hu]

I love this idea.

[Brene Brown]

Yes. Because we ask two questions. Share a time when you were outside of your values and what it felt like in your body. Share a time when you were in your values and what it felt like in your body. And so one of the things that's really interesting is the whole disembodiment thing that we are just not connected to our bodies is also part of strong ground. Like, we gotta get reconnected. If I was hiring for one quality, it would be self awareness. And I don't think you can have deep self awareness if you're disembodied because a lot of your self awareness comes from your body. Like they call them feelings because that's where they happen first, right? You feel them. And one thing that we see a lot after we take people through dear to lead and they talk about all the exercises is and this is like I would not say this is empirical, I would just say this is anecdotal is in my values very difficult but in some way energy giving outside of my values on the surface easier, but absolutely depleting. Does that make sense to you? The paradox of this was easier to piss and moan about somebody than to talk to them, but left me feeling hollowed out versus I had to have a hard conversation. I had to practice it for two hours with my coach. I didn't sleep the night before, but when it was done I had more energy and I think that's about alignment.

[Adam Grant]

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[Elise Hu]

Okay, you ready for a lightning round?

[Brene Brown]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

All right, who's at your dream dinner party? Alive or dead?

[Brene Brown]

My mom, my grandmother, and my immediate family.

[Elise Hu]

Wow. Everyone always picks celebrities.

[Brene Brown]

Oh, we don't give a shit. No.

[Elise Hu]

All right, worst career advice you've ever gotten.

[Brene Brown]

I'm gonna talk about a subject we both hate. Executive presence. I don't like executive presence because I don't know what it means. The research feels unclear and there are a lot of people in navy suits with red ties that command attention are saying jack shit or worse. And there are a lot of really quiet people who don't look like a lot of the people in navy suits with red ties whose brilliance we all need. And so I texted you and I said, I'm getting ready to take on executive presence in this book. Should I do it or not? I got the three dots on the iPhone. And then what did you text back?

[Elise Hu]

I think I texted back something to the effect of yes. Can you do a smackdown of charisma too? Because they're both cover for discriminating against women and introverts.

[Brene Brown]

Yeah. And I was like, let's go. As the only woman at the table for a long time early in my career, I have zero interest in looking, acting, behaving like the people who built the tables that I'm not supposed to be at. Yeah, none.

[Elise Hu]

What is something you've changed your mind about lately?

[Brene Brown]

I can get really ramped up about my founder energy and get really proud of it. Like, yeah, fuck you. I'm gonna pick all the fonts, I'm gonna check all the emails, and then I'm gonna cry for six hours, get in a fight with my husband, and not get out of bed because I'm gonna check all the emails and pick all the fonts. And so I'm really changing my mind about where those lines exist.

[Elise Hu]

It sounds like you should read a book called the Gifts of Imperfection.

[Brene Brown]

And then I'm going to rethink our friendship.

[Elise Hu]

Ouch. No, I actually think it needs a sequel about delegation and micromanagement and control, which I think is an extension of perfectionism.

[Brene Brown]

It is. And the thing that I wrote myself, like, have you ever written anything? And then you're like, eat the page yourself, dumbass. Like, tear this page out and just eat the page you wrote.

[Elise Hu]

No, I've never thought about it that way. But in tech, they call it eating your own dog food. Right?

[Brene Brown]

Is that. I don't know.

[Elise Hu]

Yeah, you have to use the program that you coded and then see if it works.

[Brene Brown]

Oh, got it.

[Elise Hu]

Okay.

[Brene Brown]

Yeah, that. Productive challenge is a function of trust. Micromanagement is a function of distrust. And I'm rethinking where I'm being productive in my challenging with my team and where I'm not trusting. And what I'm learning is I'm not trusting because I am not doing a good job painfully pulling the context that people need to do their jobs out of my brain, because it's really exhausting for me. I have a thousand things in my brain about right now, tomorrow, five years, three years. Like, I have all this, like, crazy stuff in my brain as a founder, and then I don't share the context of it. You know, I should eat a chapter because there's a whole chapter called mission Critical question mark. And the answer is mission clarity. And that means everybody on your team in your organization should be able to draw a straight line from what they're doing to the larger context in the organization they can't see every day. And that's time and discipline.

[Elise Hu]

It also sounds like. I mean, this is a classic founder challenge, right? You're blurring the line between founder and owner.

[Brene Brown]

Say more.

[Elise Hu]

Just because you're a founder doesn't mean you have to own everything.

[Brene Brown]

It's not even computing.

[Elise Hu]

I mean, you can create something and then just hand it off to other people. Right.

[Brene Brown]

I need my team and the audience to break eye contact. Yes, I can do that. Yes, I do do that. Yes, I have very capable people. I am not good in fear, and I'm not a good public person. I never wanted to be a public person. And so I can get very fearful and Scarcity based. Yeah. And then I'm not good in those places.

[Elise Hu]

Welcome to the club.

[Brene Brown]

Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

All right. If you were dropped back to your freshman year of college with all the knowledge and wisdom you've accumulated since then, what would be the first thing you would change?

[Brene Brown]

I would just tell myself that there's no shame in this traditional path not being my path because I graduated with my undergrad at 29. You know, I got kicked out of school three times. I hitchhiked, I bartended. I did a lot of things where I learned way more about empathy than studying it. And I think I would just look back and say, nothing wasted.

[Elise Hu]

Wow.

[Brene Brown]

Yeah.

[Elise Hu]

How do you balance setting boundaries versus always being there for a friend or even someone who takes advantage of your kindness?

[Brene Brown]

I think there's two different groups of people because I don't think friends take advantage of our kindness. And I think you really have to start with some self examination. But I think for a long time, I thought the only value I brought to relationships was the problem solver, the fixer, the taking care of things. I'm the oldest daughter of four. You know, like, I have all that set up. And so I think it starts with, it's really good. Despite what a lot of weird people are saying right now, it's really good to be an empathetic person. One make sure that that's cognitive empathy, not affective empathy, meaning you don't want to feel what everyone feels. That's a recipe for disaster and burnout. And it's also the word that I would call it as someone. I've been sober for 28 years. We would call it enmeshment. This is not empathy, because I don't know where I end and you begin. So I would really do a lot of self reflecting around a relationship. A good friendship, love, friendship, whatever, is reciprocal. And if you primarily play a role where you're caregiving and taking care of folks, then that's not about the people you're hanging out with. That's hanging out with yourself a little bit and figuring out that's not the only value you bring.

[Elise Hu]

All right, I have some more audience questions for you.

[Brene Brown]

Okay, let's do it.

[Elise Hu]

This one I'm going to edit a little bit. The question says the concept of vulnerability has become increasingly popular in the business world. I will say, because of you, Brene. You have popularized vulnerability. And the question is, do you find that there's an evolving meaning of it? Has it changed since you gave your first TED Talk?

[Brene Brown]

I don't. Look, just because the Concept is more popular doesn't mean the behavior is more popular. Let's start there. Everybody's afraid. We're all afraid all the time. And fear can be a helpful thing, right? What gets in the way of courage is armor. How do we self protect when we're in fear? What do we turn to? What armor do we put on? I've already said, like, for me, micromanaging perfectionism. I get overly decisive. No, close that down. Shut that. Move her over here. No, hire him. And then I'm like, oh, shit, I think I'm scared. And then I'm like, let's not do those things. And my team's like, we don't write anything down when you're like this. And you can get good performance using fear and shitty behavior for a very short amount of time. But then fear has a very short shelf life because our nervous systems can't handle it for a long period of time, right? So to me, vulnerability hasn't changed. There are more people talking about it, growing people, a growing number of people working at it, and an increased number of people giving it lip service because it has some popularity, which takes five seconds to see through. Like, I see dead people. Like, I see your fake vulnerability.

[Elise Hu]

Renee, thank you. It's always a joy to learn from you.

[Brene Brown]

Okay, thank y'. All. Thank you.

[Adam Grant]

Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is produced by Ted with Cosmic Standard. Our producer is Jessica Glaser. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our engineer is Asia Pilar Simpson. Our technical director is Jacob Winick. And our fact checkers, Paul Durbin. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Roxanne Hylash, Banbam Cheng, Julia Dickerson, Tansika Sung Manibong and Whitney Pennington Rogers. Original music by Hans Dale Su and Alison Leighton Brown.

[Brene Brown]

So I use a lot of sports metaphors, as you know, including a chapter in the new book called the Tush push.

[Elise Hu]

I have a little beef with your tush push.

[Brene Brown]

Let's go.

[Elise Hu]

It's the most boring play ever invented. I think if you love your team, you support the tush push. If you love the game, you don't support it.

[Adam Grant]

It's too hard to stop.

[Elise Hu]

And for the same reason that we moved the extra point back, because it was just too easy to do the chip shot. I think the tush push is too lopsided.

[Brene Brown]

It obviously predates the Eagles as a very kind of classic short yardage play that belongs to the family of quarterback sneaks. To do it well is very rare, actually. The offense gets the snap and they have maybe a half a second advantage in time to move. That's the way leadership works. Imagine being on a team with 10 people who are grounded in their values, grounded in a clear mission, grounded in operational excellence, grounded in clarity of strategy, with a slight temporal awareness against the competitors pushing at the same time. That's freaking exciting.

[Elise Hu]

I can see a bunch of people coming to work tomorrow morning and saying we need more tush push in our strategy.

[Brene Brown]

I see you are thinking again.

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