The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam GrantExploring the Paradoxes of Human Nature | The Curiosity Shop
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
70 min read · 13,585 words- 0:00 – 4:20
Intro: Paradoxes, Dad Jokes & Big Questions
- AGAdam Grant
In today's episode, we're gonna try to do two things simultaneously. We're gonna try to unpack paradoxes, and we're also gonna try to learn to tolerate dad jokes.
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
Maybe too tall of an order. We're gonna talk about, uh, each of our favorite paradoxes, uh, why groups go to places no one wants to go, uh, why sometimes optimists end up shooting themselves in the foot. Uh, we're gonna talk about the new anti-grade inflation policy at Harvard and what we think of that as teachers. Uh, we might even talk about Twilight and, uh, why it might be underrated. [upbeat music]
- BBBrené Brown
Hello, Adam.
- AGAdam Grant
Hey, Brené.
- BBBrené Brown
How are you?
- AGAdam Grant
I'm good. How are you?
- BBBrené Brown
Good. I mean, I'm gonna ask you a question, um, about your, your monthly stress cadence. A lot of people, especially the m- mothers I know, um, we believe that May is often more nutty than December. All right, do you have wild Mays in your house?
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah. I, I, I just think it's, it's America, not the house.
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, really?
- AGAdam Grant
There's just, there's just too much, there's too much going on. Like, we're moving toward the end of school. Uh, we're doing, like, holidays that should be times to celebrate, but there's so much to plan for, for Memorial Day, for Mother's Day. Just, it feels like a lot crammed into 31 days. You?
- BBBrené Brown
I mean, yeah, yeah, exactly. I think it's... We've had two birthdays, a graduation, no, two graduations, two birthdays, um, Mother's Day. We're still kind of in wedding debriefing, you know? Um, anxiously waiting, videos and, and photographs, that kind of fun stuff. And then also the wrap-up of school, kids moving out of dorms and apartments, move- You know, it's just, yeah, it's a, it's a transitio- it's a, it's a weird transition month, I think. So it's been a miz- a busy m- a busy May for me.
- AGAdam Grant
Same, and, and so busy, in fact, that Allison and I just celebrated our 20th anniversary and neither of us remembered.
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs] Tell me you've been married a long time without telling... Yeah, yeah. Like, oh.
- AGAdam Grant
Guilty as charged.
- BBBrené Brown
Guilty as charged, yeah. No, we've, we've, um, we're guilty of that too. Well, happy anniversary.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs] Thank you.
- BBBrené Brown
You know I'm a big fan of your wife, and just, I'm gonna plug and you're gonna be like, "Don't do that." I don't care. Um, Allison is a writer and a poet, and she's got a book coming out in the fall that's a collection of poetry about her experience with breast cancer, and the name of the book is Lump. Um, I got to read an early... I'm a big poetry fan, as many of you know, and I got to read an early copy of it, and it rearranged me internally. Um, it's some of the most beautiful poetry I've read in my life, so highly recommend and can't wait till it comes out.
- AGAdam Grant
Oh, well, thank you. You- It was so kind of you to read and, and support it, and I was blown away by it. But I'm a little biased, so your validation means a ton.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. I think, I think the first line of my endorsement is, "This is why we invented poetry." Like, this is to take on topics like this in a way that actually leads us right to something we're gonna talk about today, um, the paradox, the, the beauty and the brutality of our bodies. Um, and so yeah, so I love Allison. Don't forget your anniversary moving forward, dude. Unacceptable.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Give it to me. I'll put it on something. I, I, I'll, I'll, I'm gonna text you next year.
- AGAdam Grant
I just want the record to show I remembered before she did.
- BBBrené Brown
Okay. S- so noted, Mr. Grant. Dr. Grant.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs] [upbeat music] This show is brought to you by Geico. Trust is foundational. It's at the heart of every relationship, every decision, and every leap worth taking, and it's something you build over time through everyday consistency, follow-through, and care. Geico gets that. It's why they've spent decades showing up for their customers again and again with real savings and genuinely great customer service from people who truly care. Trust is everything, and it feels good to have it. It feels good to Geico.
- 4:20 – 10:15
What Is a Paradox?
- BBBrené Brown
We're gonna talk about, in this episode, one of my favorite topics in the whole world, and probably a, a lot of other stuff as it comes up, but we're gonna talk about paradox, the power of it. He's got a paradox he's gonna share with me that I've never even heard of, which is crazy 'cause it's named after a, a, a city in Texas. I'm gonna share my favorite paradox, and then we're gonna talk about why they suck for us and why they're great, paradoxically. But I'll start with this.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
While we were getting the cameras and everything situated, Adam goes, "I've got a dad joke about paradox, but I can't bring myself to do it." I'm like, "You have to do it as soon as we hit record." He goes, "No, I'm gonna do it now." I said, "Well, then do it now." And he's like, "We're gonna talk about paradox, and we are a pair of docs." Um, and it was a pretty bad dad joke, but I'm-
- AGAdam Grant
It's terrible
- BBBrené Brown
... I, I'm outing you here, but it is so to know [laughs] Erin's laughing, but Erin, but Erin is also a dad joke guy, so, um, paradox. That's funny. All right. Where do you wanna... Well, let's start here. Tell me how you think about paradox. Like, how do you define it? Uh, is there, uh, is there research you go to in your head around it? Let's start there.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I think about paradox as two opposites coexisting, and I love the work of Marianne Lewis and Wendy Smith on explaining how those paradoxes are actually often the source of our best ideas, our most important decisions, but they can drive us crazy too.
- BBBrené Brown
So tell me a little bit about that research. I don't, I'm not that familiar with it, to be honest with you.
- AGAdam Grant
They, they make a compelling case that a core leadership skill is being able to do both/and as opposed to either/orAnd, you know, I, I always see that and think, "Yeah, that's also a core parenting skill, friendship skill, marriage skill." Like, so many of the challenges that, like, that we don't know how to get out of are, like, to me, at their heart are, like, okay, I'm pushing against two opposites, trying to resolve in favor of one, and I need to hold them both in tension.
- BBBrené Brown
I love that. I think that's not far from... I think about paradox definitely when I think about my teachers, with one exception, the majority of them are probably spiritually oriented. So I think about Richard Rohr. I think about Carl Jung. I think about Joseph Campbell in some ways. Um, but I also do think about Jim Collins, um, in terms of how my obsession with paradox plays out in leadership, and we can talk about some of Jim's work later, 'cause it's been very informative for me. Um, I wanna read something to you. Um, so start with a couple of quotes that I love, if we can just ground us. And one of the things I think is interesting, besides being a paradox, which is so bad. I mean...
- AGAdam Grant
It didn't get better the third time. [laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
But you're still laughing. You're so cute.
- AGAdam Grant
I know. I, I love it. It's like, it's like, it's like a good pun.
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, I don't know. Um, it is a good... I do love a good pun. I, I can be punny. But, um, yeah. I'm gonna g- I'm gonna give you, um, down to a five scale. Um, I'm starting to believe we don't have the discernment for 10 scales. I'm gonna give you four stars on that paradox dad joke.
- AGAdam Grant
Okay.
- BBBrené Brown
It's pretty funny. It's pretty good. It's clever. Um-
- AGAdam Grant
So-
- BBBrené Brown
Here's, here's the thing
- AGAdam Grant
... the, the bar has been lowered.
- BBBrené Brown
The... [laughs] Potentially.
- AGAdam Grant
It just happened right now.
- BBBrené Brown
Potentially.
- AGAdam Grant
I think you mean four out of 10.
- BBBrené Brown
No, I think it's pretty, it was pretty good. It was fairly smart. Um, one thing that happened before we came on, if it's okay for me to talk about, Adam, is that I said, "I might share kind of how I think about paradox. You share, and I'm gonna bet yours is probably not gonna be as spiritual as mine." And you were like, "Safe bet." But then I said something that you, resonated with you, and I wanna push on it a little bit before I read some Richard Rohr to you. Um, I experience you... I, I, I definitely don't think you're a religious person. I know that you're not a religious person. But I do experience you as a spiritual person, um, because the way we d- the way spirituality kinda emerged in our data is the belief that we're inextricably connected to one another by something greater than us. For some people, that's God. For, for a lot of people, it's not. Um, but you do seem to move through the world with the belief that we're inextricably connected to each other.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I can't deny it. [laughs] Does that mean I'm spiritual? That's, it's a realization for me.
- BBBrené Brown
I, oh, I don't know.
- AGAdam Grant
I've never-
- BBBrené Brown
I don't know what-
- AGAdam Grant
'Cause I've never connected to the concept at all before until you described it that way.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, I think for me, like, the human spirit or spirituality is a... Like, I believe personally that we are inextricably connected to each other by something greater than us, and for me, that's God, but it's also nature. It's also love. Um, we should talk about that sometime on the pod because you definitely, the way you try to show up with people and the way you talk about even your work, I mean, new book called Vibe. That's an-
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah
- 10:15 – 19:02
The Grace Paradox
- BBBrené Brown
favorite paradoxes from him is what I call the grace paradox, which is in almost everything he does and teaches, he comes back to this idea, and it's a very loving message, that we grow spiritually much more by doing things wrong than by doing everything right. And thank God. I, I, like, for me, literally. But he argues that... Now, this, see if you can, see what you think about this. He argues, this is Richard Rohr, that many core spiritual truths are inherently paradoxical, and that the dualistic mind, which is wired for clear, logis- logical distinction, struggles with these realities. And this is a direct quote, "We must learn to accept paradoxes, or we will never love anything or see it correctly." That he insists that learning to love paradox is essential for wisdom, forgiveness, and healthy relationships, and he uses the metaphor of an untarnished mirror to describe those who can receive the whole picture, including light, darkness, and all the subtle shades in between, rather than insisting on clarity or certainty at the expense of truth's complexity. Thoughts?
- AGAdam Grant
Oh, I love it. I mean, I'm just, I'm just thinking about all the paradoxes that fit within that. Like, I wanna live in the moment and plan for the future.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
I wanna take care of others and make sure I'm not sacrificing myself. I want to have autonomy and community. Um, and-
- BBBrené Brown
Those are beautiful
- AGAdam Grant
... all, I mean, all, all of these things. Like, you can't-
- BBBrené Brown
You are like-
- AGAdam Grant
... choose one over the other.
- BBBrené Brown
You are five minutes from becoming ordained-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
... as a really, as a really loving Jesuit deacon. I don't wanna do anything that's gonna oust, uh, Allison or the kiddos, so I'll, I'll make you a, a deacon. Um, but-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
... you, but yeah. We're gonna, we're, we're gonna, as the podcast evolves, um-Okay, what's your-
- AGAdam Grant
You, you-
- BBBrené Brown
Go ahead
- AGAdam Grant
... you and Malcolm Gladwell both, like, pushing me in the Jesuit direction, and-
- BBBrené Brown
Malcolm Gladwell?
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah. He, he loves Jesuit priests. He did a whole podcast about, like, the, the Jesuit view of, [laughs] of wrongdoing, and I found it captivating and really compelling.
- BBBrené Brown
I think it's 'cause I was raised by a wild pack of Jesuits. Like, um, we lived in New Or-
- AGAdam Grant
A wild pack [laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
I thought you were gonna say of wolves.
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs] No, a, this was a wild pack of Jesuits. Um, so I lived in New Orleans growing up and went to Holy Name of Jesus Elementary School. Um, and this was during the heavy liberation theology days, and Jesuits would be moving, like, from different parishes around the country, coming through New Orleans to go do liberation theology work on behalf of poor people in Central America, and bearing witness to a lot of the really violent kind of government authoritarian killing of groups of people, especially indigenous people. And so a lot of times they would stop at our house as a way station, and I just remember that's where I learned the F word, um, and had never seen anyone bounce a quarter into a shot glass before that. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
And I was, I was a young, and, and it was, and talk about paradox, it was such a wild paradox. Like, ooh, I'm not sure about this, about Catholicism as I'm experiencing it as a kid. And then I saw these Jesuits who were such radical political activists. So that's how. Yeah, and you want me, do you want me to tell you how I got, I got, got converted to Catholicism?
- AGAdam Grant
I do now.
- BBBrené Brown
We were Episcopal. Yeah, we were Episcopalian, and we, my dad got transferred to New Orleans and was working during the day and going to law school at Loyola, um, at night. And which I look back now as a grownup and l- and like, wow, I, all I, all I remember are cigars, coffee, and the smell of highlighters. That was, like, my dad's whole personality. Um, and so one day I was in class and they pulled me out, and they pulled me into this room at Holy Name of Jesus, and a man walked in. I thought it was God. He had, like, a whole outfit on. They don't call them outfits, but you know what I mean, like a whole, like a whole getup. And he had a freshly copied, a freshly copied piece of paper l- from a mimeograph that you could smell that, that was the Nicene Creed. And he said, "I wanna go over this with you." And I said, "Okay." And kinda line by line he asked me what I thought it meant. I think I was in second grade. And the Nicene Creed's pretty deep theology. And so at the end he said, "Congratulations, you're Catholic. We'll send a note home."
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
And so, so yeah. So then-
- AGAdam Grant
Wow
- 19:02 – 27:04
The Abilene Paradox
- BBBrené Brown
All right. Let's jump in to... You're going to share, uh, you, we were, I was at, I was at the grocery store, and we were talking, and you asked me about the Abilene paradox, 'cause there was something we were talking about. And we were having, I wouldn't say an easy conversation, but I would say a meaningful conversation, right? Would that be fair?
- AGAdam Grant
Definitely.
- BBBrené Brown
Hard and meaningful, another paradox. Um, tell me about the Abilene paradox. I'm so curious.
- AGAdam Grant
Well, I think, I think we were, we, I- I was starting to wonder if, if we were in the middle of it. So I'll-
- BBBrené Brown
Oh
- AGAdam Grant
... I'll tell you the original story, and then-
- BBBrené Brown
Shit
- AGAdam Grant
... we can, we can connect the dots.
- BBBrené Brown
Shit. Okay. Oh, wait. I, I got nervous.
- AGAdam Grant
Uh, don't, don't be too nervous.
- BBBrené Brown
Okay.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I think the sooner you recognize it, the easier it is to, to escape it.
- BBBrené Brown
Okay. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
So go back half a century.
- BBBrené Brown
Okay.
- AGAdam Grant
It's a scorching hot day in Texas.
- BBBrené Brown
Okay.
- AGAdam Grant
A family decides they're gonna take a long drive, and their car does not have air conditioning.
- BBBrené Brown
Okay.
- AGAdam Grant
Uh, but the- they wanna go out to dinner. They decide to take the drive to Abilene, which I had never heard of. You apparently have.
- BBBrené Brown
Of course, yes.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Hot as hell.
- AGAdam Grant
Uh, anyway, they, [laughs] yeah, they take the drive, they have dinner, they drive back. The whole, the whole thing is a four-hour trip, and they're all overheated, they're exhausted, and they just sit there in silence. They can't even say a word, and then one of them starts venting about just how unpleasant the whole experience was. And they start pointing fingers, and then each person says, "But I didn't wanna go. I thought you wanted to go." "Well, no, no, no. I, I didn't wanna go either. I thought it was you." And even the person who suggested the trip in the first place says, "I didn't wanna go. I, I was just trying to come up with something for us to do, but I wasn't into it. I just, I thought other people were excited about it." And it turned out that everybody went because they assumed everyone else wanted to go, and nobody voiced their real preference. This happens so often. It happens in team meetings. It happens on family vacations. It, it happens when friends get together and try to figure out what they wanna do. And I think, [laughs] I think we might have been doing it too, but, um, I'm, I'm so curious to hear your, your reactions to, to the Abilene paradox, 'cause it's, I mean, it's such a, it's such a common and familiar example of, like, we're m- we're misreading other people's preferences. We're assuming a norm existing when it doesn't.
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, I think, what a great story. I mean, I, I... Not, not only is the paradox... I think I held my breath the whole time you were telling the story 'cause all I could see is the six of us in our fricking station wagon-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
... with no AC. Um, but-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
But you would have had to add three or four instances of, "Don't make me pull this goddamn car over."
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- 27:04 – 30:45
How to Avoid the Abilene Paradox
- BBBrené Brown
how... If, if, if it's not a family of six getting in the hot station wagon and to drive to Abilene for a steak dinner, if it's a group of six friends and they're thinking, "Hey, we're, we're all broke. We have two days off," what is the practice that interrupts the Abilene paradox?
- AGAdam Grant
So ideally, what they would all do is brainwriting, where they each jot down the ideas they're genuinely excited about and then submit them anonymously. Um, like, [laughs] even do, do it on a piece of paper, you know, throw it in a hat, and then shake it up and, and go around and read them. And then they could do an anonymous vote or they could each have a veto, but something to surface their independent preferences without having to [laughs] like, necessarily own them because otherwise they're starting to worry about, "But what does everybody else wanna do?" And maybe even sometimes implicitly conforming to that.
- BBBrené Brown
Okay, so, so if it's a group of young folks, they may not get out the Post-it Notes and write anonymously and do that. What's the conversation? Could, could, could something... I, I could see that really working well with a team, actually. Um, especially when everyone is like, "Let's go do this" as a team, as a team, you know, relationship builder and, and everyone's like, "Oh, yeah. G- yeah." Um, and then when it's everyone's like-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
... no one wanted to do that, including the person that put it together. So, but, like, w- what am I gonna do with Steve? Like, I can't cut out magazine letters and send a cryptic note to him that like-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
... [laughs] here's, here, party of one, here's my preference. I mean...
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
But I will tell you, it took us 15 years of getting this wrong to get it right, and it was hard. And so the whole what would really be fun for you, especially if someone was vulnerable enough to make a bid for connection and tee up a fun idea, that's absolutely... And sometimes you just have to give o- you, sometimes you'll have to, like, "Yeah, that's fun for you. Me being with you while you're having fun is perfect for me."
- AGAdam Grant
Oh, I love that.
- BBBrené Brown
But if we're looking for something... Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
I love that.
- BBBrené Brown
But if we're looking for something we both love, you know?
- AGAdam Grant
I, I mean, first of all, yeah, I want you to have fun, and if you're having fun, I'm gonna have fun. I love that. Like, that-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... that's a mark of, of a real connection.
- BBBrené Brown
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I'm also thinking about the way we've solved this in our family. So [laughs] w- even, you know, even when it comes to, like, choosing what movie we're gonna watch, right? How many times have we watched a movie [laughs] that nobody wanted to see but people, like, everyone thought somebody else was excited about it? Um, what we do now is we just rotate. So Allison chooses the movie this week, then it's Elena's choice next week, then Henry, then Joanna, then me. And that way, [laughs] like, one person is in charge, and they actually get to pick something they genuinely want.
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, and I love that 'cause it's such a great insight, especially with our... You know, you have a house full of teens. Um, it's, it's... And, and almost teens, right? A tween.
- AGAdam Grant
Very close.
- BBBrené Brown
A... Yeah. And so it's, I always think that's such a good insight.Um, into, like, what they're thinking about, what they like, how they're seeing the world. Um, so I really love the idea of you get to pick. Um, but you have to-
- AGAdam Grant
Sometimes we have to use a, a 20-minute rule though, which is [laughs] you can't say you hate it or you're bored until you've been through at least 20 minutes [laughs] of the movie, because otherwise you're judging it too
- 30:45 – 38:38
Guilty Pleasures: Twilight, Pitch Perfect & Eurovision
- AGAdam Grant
soon.
- BBBrené Brown
I, I have a great family story about this. Somewhere [laughs] along the line, I don't know what year it was, it was right when this thing came out, so we could probably look it up. Right when Pitch Perfect came out, and you could watch it on Apple or TV, so whatever, Ellen was like, "Let's do that." It was a holiday movie. And I said, "Okay." And we made it 20 minutes or 15 minutes into it, I'm like, "I can't even watch this. This is, this is, this is so terrible." Because it's, it's like when the college kids are tabling, and it's super inappropriate and not funny. It's cringey, and we've talked about that, my, my cringe problem. Um, now, if a song or something from Pitch Perfect or even a, a, a scene from that comes on, I know every word of dialogue by heart. I've seen it 100 times.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
And Ellen will be like, "I cannot. I cannot even... I cannot even... You don't even sing that song. You have lost all privileges to do anything Pitch Perfect-y-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
... in front of me, because I teed it up as the family movie. We got into it, we were into it for 10 minutes, and you exited. And now you're like, you know every word."
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
She's like, "I'm not having it." So I like the, I like your rule.
- AGAdam Grant
Oh, I love that. Yeah, I would, I, I really hope you're not gonna diss Pitch Perfect. It's a favorite in our house.
- BBBrené Brown
Oh my God, it's a favorite. I've seen all of them, and I don't even care. Pitch Perfect 37, it doesn't matter how bad they get, I'm in. Any group of people singing together, it's for me.
- AGAdam Grant
I can't, I, I-
- BBBrené Brown
And we'll talk about that later.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah, we should.
- BBBrené Brown
We should make a note on, like... 'Cause we, you and I had a conversation off, off podcast line, where we were talking about things that we love to watch or listen to that other people thought were lowbrow and not high art, and that we didn't give a shit. We should talk about that paradox.
- AGAdam Grant
Let's talk about it.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, we'll do it right now. Let's just go. So do you wanna confess to the world what movie and book series? [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
All right. All right. So [laughs] when, when we were expecting Joanna, uh, I, I remember Allison, Allison's always loved vampires. And it's the closest I've ever been to being able to get her to love superheroes or fantasy or, you know, any of the genres that I, I love that involve superpowers or, you know, some kind of magical world. And so, like, vampires are my closest connection to that. They kinda have superpowers. And she told me she was loving this book.
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
And I started reading it, and I couldn't, [laughs] I couldn't put it down.
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
It was Twilight. I read the whole series. We watched all the movies together. I actually really love it.
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs] Do, do you hear Aaron laughing?
- SPSpeaker
Sorry.
- AGAdam Grant
You c- you can laugh at me, but there's some... [laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
There... I, I, I d- I don't even know how to defend this. I, I'm just gonna say-
- BBBrené Brown
I, I don't hate you
- AGAdam Grant
... there is an incredible, there's an incredible scene in one of the Twilight movies that just, that, that was not in the book, that could not have been written, and it was one of the only moments I've ever felt that a movie was better than a book, and it, it sort of blew my mind.
- BBBrené Brown
What scene is it?
- AGAdam Grant
It's the, ah-
- 38:38 – 43:08
Aesthetic Chills & The Big Five
- BBBrené Brown
Yes. And I have, I don't know if this is true, 'cause I saw it on, so, on TikTok, but, um, have you ever seen that TikTok that says if you get really bad goosebumps when you listen to music, you're part of a small group of people, like neurobiologically? I don't know if that's true or not, but I do, I'm a goosebumpy person with music. So any, any kind of show, it doesn't matter what it is, that has that-
- AGAdam Grant
Oh, you're-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... speaking one of my lang- love languages, Brené. Aesthetic chills.
- BBBrené Brown
What? Aesthetic chills.
- AGAdam Grant
So Costa and McCrae, who did a lot of the pioneering work to create the Big Five personality traits, um, in personality psychology, um, they actually identified a- those aesthetic chills, the, like the goosebumps or shivers on your spine when you're appreciating art, music, poetry, I would add natural beauty as well, as a universal marker across cultures of being open new, to new experiences. And so, like, somebody who's open-minded and open-hearted is more likely to get those chills. Sound familiar?
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, I, like, I'm, at, at this point, I'm like, "Why even shave my legs?" [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
I mean, this is really-
- AGAdam Grant
I'm, I'm not going there. I'm sorry.
- BBBrené Brown
No.
- AGAdam Grant
That, that is-
- BBBrené Brown
This is-
- AGAdam Grant
... not my terrain.
- BBBrené Brown
This is a real s- thing for me, because I sha- I, you know, I shave my legs every day in the shower. Um, and then I'm like, "What's the point?" Because s- I'm gonna get goosebumps at some point today, 'cause something is like, it might be a cardinal and it's really close to me. Like yesterday, I saw, what's it called? The bird with the b- the beak that goes into the honey. A, a hummingbird. And I was like, "How are you staying still but flapping so furiously?" And then I went, "Ooh, I got chills. That's so cool that that works like that." Um, and then, I, then I've got razor stubble. What's the point? I, I am very, I am the most, I am a very goosebumpy person. Um, Bergheim, the music, I, I can't even listen to the whole album, because I just walk around my house going... [shudders]
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Um, yeah. They may study me. I might be an outlier. So it's interesting, the goosebump thing, 'cause I, I think... I'm not a churchgoer anymore at all, so I think you can be a spiritual person and not go to church, for sure, I think. But when I went to church, I went for, I had a lot of goosebump moments, and that's probably why I went. So I think passing the peace, like peace be with you, and passing the peace with strangers felt so antithetical to the world that we live in, that it was meaningful to me. I mean, to look people in the eye and say, "Peace be with you," like, is a really important thing for me. Um, singing and the collective effervescence of singing with strangers, um, and then going to the rail to take communion. We, I eventually left the Catholic Church and went back to the Episcopal Church. Um, mostly my head went. My, my mystical Catholic heart is still wrapped up there. But, um, going to the rail to take communion, again, breaking bread with strangers, like, I could see them down the rail and be like, "There's gotta be something bigger than us in this moment. There is, 'cause we're breaking bread together." [upbeat music]
- AGAdam Grant
This show is brought to you by Geico. You know, so much of what we explore on this show comes down to one question: Who shows up? Not when it's easy, not when it's convenient, but when it actually counts. We talk a lot about trust on this show, and here's what I've come to believe. Trust isn't built in the big moments. It's built in all the small ones that prove someone will be there for the big ones. And honestly, the people and things we trust most are the ones that are consistent day in and day out. That's what I keep coming back to. Whether it's a relationship, a community, or yes, even the insurance you choose, the question is always the same.When it counts, will they be there? That's what I appreciate about GEICO. When something goes wrong, you know they'll show up. Real people who care, straightforward coverage, and the kind of service that makes a hard moment easier to get through. We don't walk around thinking about who's in our corner until we need someone in our corner, and that's when you can count on GEICO. When it matters most, it feels good to have someone show up. It feels good to GEICO. I wanna hear about your favorite paradox, or least favorite.
- 43:08 – 46:48
The Stockdale Paradox Explained
- BBBrené Brown
Okay. Now I'm gonna tell you about this paradox, and then I'm gonna go backward to where I learned it and where I learned a lot of the paradoxes, and this is not a spiritual, uh, genesis, ba-dum-bum-tss. Um, that was funny. D- I mean, how come you can't... [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs] I'm trying to be quiet.
- BBBrené Brown
It was funny.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Did you get it? Spiritual genesis?
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs] It's good. It took me a second.
- BBBrené Brown
Thank you.
- AGAdam Grant
I'm like, wait, is this, is this Phil Collins Genesis? Or-
- BBBrené Brown
No, this is Genesis genesis. Um, okay. So my favorite slash least favorite, but most important paradox, and the one that I spend, I, the one that I have taught to probably every senior leader I've worked with over the last decade is the Stockdale paradox. You familiar?
- AGAdam Grant
I, I've heard about it a little. Not much.
- BBBrené Brown
Okay.
- AGAdam Grant
Tell me more.
- BBBrené Brown
So I'm gonna walk you through the story. I'm actually gonna read it to you. Um, I got... The, um, and I, I write about it in this book. I also write about it in Dare to Lead 'cause it's just an important one. So this is, I read about this from Jim Collins, and Jim Collins sits down across from Admiral Jim Stockdale, who spent eight years as a prisoner of war. And he was tortured more than 20 times during his imprisonment from 1965 to 1973. And while he was a prisoner of war, one of his survival mechanisms was committing to taking care of other prisoners of war, their physical wellbeing and their spiritual wellbeing, and to help them find, stay alive and find hope. And when Jim Collins interviewed Stockdale, he asked him h- this question, which I think, you know, Jim is a, Jim is also a grounded theory researcher, so Jim and I talking about the rabbit hole. Ugh. We have a three-hour podcast on grounded theory methodology.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Um, there's 12 people who think it's the best podcast that's ever existed, and they're all grounded theory researchers.
- AGAdam Grant
I mean, have Glazer and Strauss ever been the subject of an entire podcast before? [laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
This will be the first. This was the first probably. So Jim sat down across from Admiral Stockdale, and this was his, what we would call in grounded theory his spill question, and the, the, the, the tenacity of this spill question. Who didn't make it out? And Stockdale replied, and this is, of course, referring to the prisoner of war years, "That's easy. The optimists." Stockdale, yeah, Stockdale explained that the optimists would believe that they'd be out by Christmas, and Christmas would come and go. Then they'd be out by Easter, and that date would come and go, and the years would tick by like that. He explained to Collins, this is a direct quote from Stockdale, "They died of a broken heart." Here's the Stockdale paradox. Stockdale told Collins, direct quote, "This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be." So I mean just let me say it again. It's cr- you must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutiful, brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
- 46:48 – 49:47
Gritty Facts vs. Gritty Faith
- BBBrené Brown
So that Stockdale paradox for me, when I was trying to, as kind of the founder of our organization, I was trying to put it into action in our company. We ended up calling it gritty faith and gritty facts. I want them in equal measure every time we talk about something. And let's say, Adam, you were on my team and you were a gritty facts guy. I want gritty faith from you, too, and when you present your f- uh, you know, I don't want people to be pigeonholed by here are the facts people on the team and here are the faith people on the team 'cause I need everyone to build muscles at areas that you don't have them.
- AGAdam Grant
Oh.
- BBBrené Brown
Does that make sense?
- AGAdam Grant
That is so helpful. Yet not only does it make sense, uh, where, where have you been? In every... I, I feel like about half the people I work with think I'm a gritty facts person, and the other half think I'm a gritty faith person because I'm always trying to add the one that's missing and-
- BBBrené Brown
Oh my God, you're kidding
- AGAdam Grant
... get people to understand we've gotta do both.
- BBBrené Brown
So you're filling in the gap.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah, yeah, but, [laughs] like, but then you get pigeonholed as-
- BBBrené Brown
Right
- AGAdam Grant
... like, the person who's always complaining or, you know, like, being a negative, what is it, a negative Nancy? A nervous Nelly? Why, why are these all women, by the way? But-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... or, you know, or-
- BBBrené Brown
Well, we can't bullshit that. A, a nervous Nell. No, Nell's a girl. A nervous Nelson.
- AGAdam Grant
Neil?
- BBBrené Brown
Neil.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
A nervous Neil.
- AGAdam Grant
Or-
- BBBrené Brown
Um
- AGAdam Grant
... or you get, you get kinda, like, you get stereotyped as a little Pollyanna because-
- BBBrené Brown
Mm-hmm
- AGAdam Grant
... you're saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I s- I get that there are problems, but I also believe that we can solve them, and otherwise, why are we here?" How do you get, how do you get teams to recognize that they need both?
- BBBrené Brown
This is it. We talk about the power of this, we talk about the power of this-Paradox. And I would say, and I just want... Let me just pause. I'm gonna take a pause and come back. It's gonna be weird, but I'm gonna take a pause. Again, Pollyanna, a girl's name. I've had it with this shit. Um, I love that you called it out and not me. So we're going to, we're go- we're, Adam and I are making a commitment together right now. We're gonna be... We're not even gonna change the names. We're just gonna find a new way to talk about them, because I had not realized until you called it out in this second, that all those negative things, all those negative attributions are connected to women's names, and that shit matters. Like, so we're gonna stop. Let's stop doing that. Okay, back to this. You and I are in weird rooms, yes or no? We- we're in weird, weird rooms together sometimes with like-
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah
- BBBrené Brown
... the people that are making big decisions, um, and running the companies that feel like they're taking over and leaving us decisionless. Um, both, I think.
- 49:47 – 51:04
Why Leaders Need Paradoxical Thinking
- BBBrené Brown
The one leadership skill that I would say in the last 12 months has risen almost to the top of what I think we need to be teaching leaders, students, is paradoxical thinking, exactly what we're talking about today. That you've got to be able to be, you know, in, in recovery we'd say a rigorous inventory of what's true, and maintain hope about what can be changed and different. And when I say hope, I don't mean, like, fluffy, gauzy hope. I mean C.R. Snyder hope. Like, hope, hope is, hope is three pieces: goal setting, pathway, meaning tenacity. Here's how I'm gonna get there, and if it doesn't work, I'm gonna do something else. And then agency, I believe in my ability to do this. So how can you hold both a, a rigorous inventory of what's true, here's where we really are, and this is tough, and let's build a capacity for hope by setting goals, paths to those goals, and increasing agency about our ability to get there? That's what I teach. That's what we teach leaders.
- 51:04 – 55:39
MLK’s “I Have a Dream” Speech
- AGAdam Grant
I mean, you just, you just gave a near verbatim analysis of part of the power of the MLK I Have a Dream speech.
- BBBrené Brown
Say more.
- AGAdam Grant
Have, have you seen the Nancy Duarte analysis of this?
- BBBrené Brown
I have. Incredible.
- AGAdam Grant
It's so good, and what I had not seen until she made it so clear is exactly what you're describing now, which is that he, he spends most of the first part of the speech just talking about the brutal reality of what is, and describing, like, the, you know, the sort of the, the check, like, that could not be cashed, right? The promissory note that, um, that, you know, basically was, um, was not good, and talking about this, you know, this situation that is completely unacceptable. And it takes him 11 minutes of his 17-ish before he even says the word dream, because he has to first make it clear that the, the present is not okay before people will accept his vision of a better future.
- BBBrené Brown
So the brutal facts.
- AGAdam Grant
First, in his case, because they were so brutal.
- BBBrené Brown
Right. And then-
- AGAdam Grant
And but then the toggling. Like, here's what is, but here's what could be. But in order for, to get from here to there, here's what we need to believe and do. It's, I mean, it's, it's the dimensions of hope. Y- I, I think you captured it much better than, [laughs] than I just did, but it... You could overlay what you just said onto the arc of that speech, and it mirrors so beautifully.
- BBBrené Brown
I think that's why, I think that points very specifically to the dangers of jumping in at minute 12 and denying the brutality of white supremacy that's laid out in minutes one through 11.
- AGAdam Grant
Yep.
- BBBrené Brown
That, that, that's, that's not, that's not gritty facts and gritty faith.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
That's empty.
- AGAdam Grant
It's... Yeah, it's, um, is it blind faith? Is it delusional optimism?
- BBBrené Brown
I think it's comfort. I think it's privileging comfort over reality.
- AGAdam Grant
Yep.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. And I think it's also-
- AGAdam Grant
Well, well said
- BBBrené Brown
... I think it's comfort, and I also think it's protection of... It's basically saying, "I don't have to do anything uncomfortable. We just need to dream better."
- AGAdam Grant
Yes.
- BBBrené Brown
"I don't have to self-examine, interrogate. I don't have to look at structures of power. I don't have to do any of those things, 'cause everything's okay, and let's dream about something even better." As a, you know, and I think that's, um, that's how systems are not only maintained, but fortified.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
And so-
- AGAdam Grant
So-
- BBBrené Brown
... that, that's, that's really... And I will tell you that, like, when you take the Stockdale paradox and you teach it, there are probably three or four times in the Dare to Lead work, especially because we use the Stockdale paradox often around issues of power and identity, so the fact that you brought up the speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is so apt. There are three or four times in Dare to Lead where the resistance is like, if I'm in the front of the room facilitating, the resistance feels like a tsunami. Um, and I even probably change, s- Barrett gave me this feedback, my physical stance when I'm talking about this stuff, to more of an athletic stance, 'cause I'm almost bracing for what's coming. Um, I am, I, I, I'm being, I'm acknowledging the brutal facts of what's getting ready to happen while trudging forward with the hope that we can get there, and I don't even need everyone to get there. I just need the majority of people to get there, and not at the expense of the people in the room that live that experience. So-I think the resistance to the Stockdale paradox is, "I can't do both. I'm going to pick." And if it's just the, the dreamers, they pathologize the brutal fact people very quickly.
- AGAdam Grant
Yes. Yes.
- BBBrené Brown
Does that make sense?
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah. Yeah, I've seen it over and over again.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, and it doesn't matter what it's about, whether it, you know... And so, yeah, I think this is a... It's
- 55:39 – 57:32
Candor Over Consensus
- BBBrené Brown
interesting because to straddle the tension of the Stockdale paradox is to build capacity and strength to hold two things at one time. To, to, to live into the Abilene Paradox also requires a new skill set, which I think for me is I'm allowed to ask for what I want and still be cared for. You know? I can still say, "Hey, I have to be honest, this does not sound fun to me. It's really-"
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah
- BBBrené Brown
... "hot. I get carsick. Um, this is... I'd love to do something with y'all that's fun and a break from, like, the shit that we've got going on right now. The four hours in the station wagon to a steakhouse is not something that's gonna bring what I'm looking for to me. I wanna connect with y'all for sure, but that's not gonna do it for me."
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah, and I, I think that requires all of us then to care, it requires all of us to care more about candor than consensus.
- BBBrené Brown
That, yeah. And it's really interesting, 'cause underpinning both of these and underpinning everything Richard Wurz taught about paradox is if it's more important for you to be comfortable, if, if you choose comfort over courage, if you choose what you know over stretch, paradox is not going to be for you.
- AGAdam Grant
There's a paradox in that, too, I think.
- 57:32 – 1:02:06
Comfort vs. Courage
- BBBrené Brown
Same one.
- AGAdam Grant
Which is, well, there's a short-term conflict between comfort and courage. You j- you j-
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, God, yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... you just described one.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
But in the long run, I think the courage makes you less uncomfortable, because you're not confronted with having violated your values.
- BBBrené Brown
100%. The thing is that, and this is something we talk about a lot in our work, is-
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah
- BBBrené Brown
... choosing... I don't know. I'm just having a thought as it's coming to me in real time. Like, this is a skill set. I don't think a lot of people, unless you were raised in a household where this was kind of named and normalized in that tension... I, I remember when, man, I think it was Ellen was in fourth grade, and she came home and she was kind of distraught. And when I asked what was going on, her favorite teacher had been kind of shitty to somebody in her class. And she said, you know, "I really liked her. She was my favorite teacher." And I said, "She's not your favorite teacher anymore?" And she said, "She was kind of mean today to somebody in class." And it was just that moment where you had to do, like, what's the fourth-grade equivalent of asking the question, do you think both things can be true? Do you think she can be a great teacher and one of, and your favorite this year, and have a moment when she was unkind to somebody? And she said, "No, uh-uh." And I said-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
... you know, and that's when I had to say, like, "Do you think you've ever been unkind to me?" She said, "Yes, probably." I said, "Do you love me?" And she said, "Yes." And I said, "Both things can be true." And she's like, "Can I watch TV?" You know, she just said-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
... that like this was this... And I said, "You can, but w- one of the things we have to know is both things can be true. We can have moments where we're not our best selves, and we can still be, you know, I, I can still be possibly your favorite teacher." Um, and she said, well, this was like I gave birth to Buddha, um, "How many times can you do that?" How many times?
- AGAdam Grant
Is there a quota? [laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, can you be unkind?
- AGAdam Grant
It's like, okay-
- BBBrené Brown
And-
- AGAdam Grant
... we've, we've got two columns.
- BBBrené Brown
Yes.
- AGAdam Grant
Checking them off. Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, yeah. And I said, "That's a really good question, because I wonder if it becomes a pattern of behavior-
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah
- BBBrené Brown
... if she would still be your, your favorite teacher." And I said, "Is it a pattern of bever-" She said, "No, it was kind of I was like, I was shocked or surprised." And I said, "It could be a bad day," you know? And so kind of teaching that non-dualistic mind, and I have to tell you this, and I, I, this is controversial. I think that's college and university-level education at its best.
- AGAdam Grant
That should not be controversial at all. That is, [laughs] that is what higher education is supposed to do, is to teach us to confront and accept paradoxes.
- BBBrené Brown
Like, that's it in a nutshell, right? How good do you think we are at doing that?
- AGAdam Grant
Not good enough. If, if, if you can't accept paradox, what you're constantly doing is, is-... closing your mind to, to, to the full picture, right? You're, like, you're, you're faced with a, okay, like, which of these stories is true? Um, which of these values is important? Um, as opposed to saying, "How do we align them? How do we hold them in tension together?" That's a, I think that's a pretty dangerous way to operate.
- BBBrené Brown
How do you teach people... I'm thinking about you and I both teach in MBA programs. How do you teach or talk about the fact that h- straddling the tension of a paradox is not about resolving by combining, it's about holding until something completely new and unthought of emerges? H- how do you teach that ex- explicitly and-
- AGAdam Grant
No. No, but we probably should. Do you?
- BBBrené Brown
Um, I teach it, I teach it for sure to leaders. Like, so let me, like,
- 1:02:06 – 1:06:48
Jim Collins & The Genius of the And
- BBBrené Brown
I'm gonna go into this book right here. I'm gonna hold it up. Jim Collins, Bill... Can you see it?
- AGAdam Grant
Yep.
- BBBrené Brown
Have you read this by Jim-
- AGAdam Grant
No
- BBBrené Brown
... Collins? Um, it's Beyond Entrepreneurship, and then it's 2.0, hi- his second version of the book, and he lists a bunch of, um, he calls false... Let me just, can I just read some of it to you? I think it's really important. It, this is under a, a, a chapter subheading called Embrace the Genius of the And. "False dichotomies are undisciplined thought. In the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, 'The test of a first state- rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.' Builders of greatness are comfortable with paradox. They don't oppress themselves with what we call the tyranny of the or, which pushes people to believe that things must be either A or B, but not both. Instead, they liberate themselves with the genius of the and. Undisciplined thinkers force debates into stark tyranny of the or choices," which is exactly what you just said, Adam. "Disciplined thinkers expand the conversations to create the genius of the and solutions." Here is, uh, this is stuff they found in their research. These are paradoxes. Creativity and discipline, innovation and execution, continuity and change. I love this. You said this, the, you started the podcast with this. Short term and long term, freedom and responsibility. Listen to this one. I love this. This just freaks people out. Humility and audacity. So beautiful. Purpose and profit, values and results. Um, God, why can't I think of the name of, um... You know him. He's, I think he's a friend of yours. The head of, the Nobel Prize winner that, for Google DeepMind. Um-
- AGAdam Grant
Demis Hassabis?
- BBBrené Brown
Yes. When I saw him speak a couple of years ago, he talked about any departure from AI, any departure from the paradox of AI will land us in severe trouble. Physics and philosophy, regulation and innovation, ethics and building. Like, and I thought that was really beautiful, and I think that's where we are today, and that's why we have to build a muscle. We don't have to straddle them. It's like the farmer's carry.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Do you ever do a farmer, do you ever do a farmer's carry?
- AGAdam Grant
I have, sure.
- BBBrené Brown
Like, you know, where you have to, I think for guys, it's, is it your whole weight? You should be able to, like, your whole weight, so if you weigh 150 pounds, you should be able to walk with 75 pounds in each hand. For, I think, women my age, it might be 50% or something. Um, it's almost like every time I try to do a farmer's carry with kettlebells, I have to think about my form. It's such a disciplined exercise. It looks easy, but it's such a disciplined, kind of, the metaphor is straight up in your values, you know? Engage the right muscles, or you're gonna get hurt. That's kind of the whole metaphor, I think, the farmer's carry for s- straddling the tension of paradox.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah. And it, it, I think it's calibrated to be what psychologists would sometimes call a just manageable difficulty, where-
- BBBrené Brown
Wait, wait, say that word. It's a just?
- AGAdam Grant
A just manageable difficulty. It's a, a-
- BBBrené Brown
A just manageable difficulty. What does it mean?
- AGAdam Grant
I mean, just, just a, it's supposed to be describing a, a challenge that's right at the edge of your capability-
- BBBrené Brown
Sure
- AGAdam Grant
... so that it pushes you, it stretches you, but it doesn't overwhelm, overload, or injure you. And I think [laughs] we, we, we seem to be increasingly living in a world that is afraid to confront those kinds of challenges. Um, and I think our, think our, our universities are responding to that right now, uh, by saying, "Well, like, we can't, we can't ever tell students they didn't do good work, or else they might feel bad." And-
- BBBrené Brown
And it, and it doesn't fit the consumer model
- AGAdam Grant
... Oh, no, it doesn't. Right. Because we have to please the paying customer who signed up for our classes with an A, right?
- BBBrené Brown
You wanna, you wanna talk about the Harvard decision that was just made this week?
- 1:06:48 – 1:09:21
Harvard's Anti-Grade Inflation Policy
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah. We, we can. What did-
- BBBrené Brown
I mean-
- AGAdam Grant
What did you... Well, first of all, what... Does everyone, does every, do our listener, are they all, do they know what happened?
- BBBrené Brown
So it's my understanding... Do we know enough about this to talk about this?
- AGAdam Grant
We can try.
- BBBrené Brown
I think Harvard just came down with a policy that only 20% of students can earn As in any given class.Thoughts?
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs] Well, I mean, this, this conversation's been going on since I was an undergrad. There was a, there was a professor named, uh, people called him Harvey C-minus Mansfield, [laughs] because he gave a lot of C-minuses.
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
And, like, he, he would, like, he railed against grade inflation constantly, and I thought this was a paradox, and I still do. On the one hand, if everybody's getting As, you can start to wonder if the class is too easy and if people are being challenged enough. On the other hand, I think more than 20% of Harvard students are A students, and so setting an arbitrary bar, um, a, a limit, a ceiling on how many can excel in a given class seems ridiculous to me. And frankly, as a professor, I want as many of my students as possible to master the material. And so the way that I've, I've navigated this in my own courses for years is I give extremely hard exams, and the mean on them is, you know, is often, uh, a 65 or 70%, but then I curve upward so that the student who does best is at 100, and then everybody is adjusted from there. And that creates a real distribution based on, you know, who has, who has really learned the material of the class. But it also creates an incentive for everybody to excel and also to help each other. Like, the, I, the, to me, the saddest thing about only 20% of students getting As is everybody's gonna look around thinking, "My classmates are now my competition."
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. This is, this is-
- AGAdam Grant
"We can't study together"
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
"We can't learn from each other. We're not gonna collaborate anymore." Why would you wanna pit students against each other to learn when in real life, learning is a collaborative activity?
- BBBrené Brown
And I have not been inside of an organization in 25 years where the unit of performance analysis is not a team.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
This, this is so, this is so antithetical to the way the world works.
- AGAdam Grant
Completely, and you're solving one problem of giving out easy As while creating a whole bunch of others.
- 1:09:21 – 1:13:19
How Brené Grades Group Projects
- BBBrené Brown
I will be very curious your take on this when I tell you, um, everything we do is group project. Um, and I wanna tell you how I grade those, and I'm gonna, uh, it'll be interesting. So if there are five people in a group, then on the final group project, which, which is the vast majority of the grade and requires a lot of mastery, uh, not only mastery of material but then teaching of material. If there are five people in your group, the maximum points that you can get is 500. I will give you, let's say you earn 350 out of 500, then you have 72 hours to let me know how the 350 are distributed among the five people. The team, the team distributes the points among the five people.
- AGAdam Grant
Wow, so you're forcing them to have the real conversation about who contributed what?
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, I've done it for 15 years, and in 15 years I've never had a person come to me and say, "Brené's not showing up to any of the group meetings. She's not pulling her weight. We can't even get her to res- " I was like, "Well, this is the way world, this is the way the world works." And so when it, you know, and so, so let me back into the whole process. We start by saying, "Pick your groups," and then I give them a group cohesion worksheet where they have to answer questions together. This is the grade that I ex- that I really wanna earn on this project. This is when and how I can meet. This is what's going to really frustrate me. I teach them over the line, underline. This is going to take me, underline. This is the group behavior that will take me, underline. This is the tendency I'll need to work on in this group project as a group member. And they go through that project, and then they have the next class period to change and finalize groups. About 20% of students leave their teams after that.
- AGAdam Grant
What a, what a smart way to [laughs] to foster both self-awareness and other awareness, and I think this should be done in work teams, [laughs] not just in your class.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's really helpful because I... It's like a grown-ass person approach, and, and it's easier in g- 'cause I teach in graduate school. I don't teach undergrads. I think it could be really scary for an undergrad who I, I don't know that they have the, they have yet to develop the skills to negotiate some of that. But the other thing I tell them all the time is just, like, in, in anything, you'll need to make sure that the person, if you're, you know, if you've got 350 points to share among five people, and you're gonna give four of them, you know, enough to get an A or a l- you know, a high B, you're gonna have to really think that through. And it's gonna require some communication skills on top of everything else. The other thing I tell them, which is really paradoxical for them, is in a real team at work, I don't want each of you speaking f- for an awkward 10 minutes to make sure you impress upon me the fact that you have contributed. That's not the way the real world... Put your best speaker up there. Put your d- best deck builder on the deck. Put your best, you know, writer to pull all the pieces together. I'm looking at your product.
- AGAdam Grant
Yes. W- we do something very similar with group projects where when there's a, a team presentation, it's not, we're not looking at how much each person speaks, it's were the talents of every member utilized? And that could be behind the scenes, it could be on stage, it could be in ideas, it could be in design. Yeah, sounds like we're, we're, we're, we're driving at the same thing.
- 1:13:19 – 1:14:54
Building the Muscle to Hold Paradox
- BBBrené Brown
I think paradoxical leadership, I do think the farmer carry, the farmer's carry is a really good metaphor for the fact, to be honest with you, Adam, I don't think people have built the strength. I don't think they've gotten their reps in to hold the tension. And I think the more emotional dysregulation, the lack of self a- I mean, I think self-awareness, emotional regulation, mindfulness, I think these are things that allow us to hold, you know, allow us to hold paradox. Would you agree?
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah. And I think they're not always considered when people are, are selected or promoted into leadership roles, but they have a, a big impact on whether people can succeed and survive in those roles.
- BBBrené Brown
Say that again. That feels, like, really important.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs] Does it? You be the judge.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. No, it does. Say it again.
- AGAdam Grant
No, no, I'm just, I'm ju- I'm just thinking like when, when we, we try to figure out who do we want on our team or who do we wanna put in charge, we're often focused on their skills and their competencies, like, to do a task, um, their technical ability. Um, are they a good speaker? And it's really hard to weigh the intangibles of can they see themselves accurately, um, can they hold two opposing ideas and not lose their minds? And then all of a sudden they end up in a position of responsibility or pressure or crisis, and the ability to do that dictates-
- BBBrené Brown
Mm-hmm
- AGAdam Grant
... it dictates, it essentially drives whether they are built to last or doomed to perish.
- BBBrené Brown
I, I mean, just couldn't agree with you more.
- 1:14:54 – 1:19:25
Personal Paradoxes & The Grace of Getting It Wrong
- BBBrené Brown
Maybe we can, if you'll indulge me, I, I wrote this, um, about paradox and I think just to end on a more personal note, something that I've been working on for me, um, and this is, this is kind of how Richard Rohr, how his work has helped me hold paradox within myself. Um, and for me personally, it's loving and accepting the weird contradictions that live in me. I think you and I talk a lot about the contradictions we see between our- between us, but we also talk to each other a lot about the contradictions we see within each oth- like, the contradictions I see in you, and you'll often say the contradictions that you see in me.
- AGAdam Grant
Yes.
- BBBrené Brown
Um, but one of the things I wrote in Strong Ground is, "I am sensitive, but I dislike sentimentality. I'm comfortable talking to 10,000 people, but put me in a cocktail party situation where I have to engage with small talk with two people, I can get anxious and overwhelmed. I love to laugh, but I am actually a pretty serious person most of the time. I can be really scary when I'm scared, and while I've spent my career studying the power of vulnerability, I often dread putting myself out there." And so I think that the grace paradox, Richard Rohr's grace paradox of we become much more spiritually stronger, not from the things we do perfectly and right, but from the mistakes we made and the hard lessons we learn, that's helpful for me.
- AGAdam Grant
That's, uh, I, I love the way you articulated that, and [laughs] you, you're not only full of those paradoxes, you can paradoxically describe them with the words that capture them and lead people who don't even experience them to say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that, that actually feels like me, too," um, which is, which is amazing. You know, just to, just to sort of reframe the Richard Rohr observation in, in an athletic context, like, he, he's making the same point that my diving coach, Eric Best, d- did probably every week of my entire diving career. He would say, "Adam, make it feel wrong. Like, it has to feel wrong in order to get it right because the way you're doing it right now feels right and it's wrong. And so if you want to change, you gotta make it feel wrong, and those adjustments are how you're gonna get it right." And I think a lot of people are afraid of doing things that don't feel easy or smooth or comfortable, and I would just say, you know what? Like, what's the worst thing that will happen if you make it feel wrong? You might actually discover a better way to get it right.
- BBBrené Brown
I love this conversation.
- AGAdam Grant
Me too.
- BBBrené Brown
I appreciate you. Okay. We will be... And I just have to, to, to say, um, Adam, Adam and I are, inside of both of us, I think there's a ton of paradoxes are alive and well, and between us there's a lot of paradox. That is hard, but I appreciate navigating it with you.
- AGAdam Grant
Same. Same. And, uh, I hope I'm not limited to, you know, only 20% As [laughs] in, in the assessments that I give of how this is going.
- BBBrené Brown
Same. Uh, me too. And, um, let's keep, uh, being okay when it feels so wrong. [laughs] Because it... I, I get... I mean, my trainer says all the time, "I don't care if that feels wrong," because the way you're doing it right now is super comfortable and you're not gonna be able to get it, you know, stand up off the floor when you're 70. So it, it's gotta feel wrong right now, 'cause, yeah. So I love that. All right, I'll see you next time. The Curiosity Shop is produced by Brené Brown Education and Research Group and Grant Ed Productions. You can subscribe to The Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app.
- AGAdam Grant
We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. This show is brought to you by Geico. Trust is foundational. It's at the heart of every relationship, every decision, and every leap worth taking, and it's something you build over time through everyday consistency, follow-through, and care. Geico gets that. It's why they've spent decades showing up for their customers again and again with real savings and genuinely great customer service from people who truly care. Trust is everything, and it feels good to have it. It feels good to Geico.
Episode duration: 1:19:26
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