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The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam GrantThe Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant

Protecting our Attention, Time and Humanity in a World that Won’t Slow Down | The Curiosity Shop

In this solo episode of The Curiosity Shop, Brené Brown turns to questions and comments from her LinkedIn community to explore what it means to protect our humanity and attention in a world moving faster than ever. She digs into why human discernment is far superior to AI discernment and why "work slop" costs leaders real cognitive bandwidth . Brené also unpacks Aiko Bethea's idea that transformation requires grief, reflects on what her conversation with Rebecca Lowe revealed about preparation and presence, and explores how pausing and active listening are essential parts of meaningful conversation. Along the way, she explains why she often wears two watches and she shares the story behind the only time she's been fired. #brenebrown #thecuriosityshop Don't miss a video! Subscribe NOW: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCuriosityShop About The Curiosity Shop: Research professor Brené Brown and organizational psychologist Adam Grant are partnering on a new weekly podcast grounded in an unflinching commitment to learning and unlearning. At a time when public discourse rewards certainty over inquiry, The Curiosity Shop features two of the world's most sought-after experts on connection, change, and leadership making the case for slowing down, asking better questions, and embracing informed complexity over easy answers. Bringing together their left and right brain sensibilities — she’s a qualitative researcher; he’s a quantitative researcher — they explore some of the defining questions of our time, unpack the research reshaping how we live, lead, and love, and dive deep into the ideas, evidence, and cultural moments intriguing them the most. New episodes drop every Thursday. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Connect with The Curiosity Shop: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecuriosityshop/ Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1730985049 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3oEPsPKDhPVoNNL7pH5db6?si=e2483abb4eed4b03 Connect with Brené Brown: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brenebrown/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brenebrown/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brenebrown/ Connect with Adam Grant: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamgrant/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adammgrant/ X: https://x.com/adammgrant/ ============================= Chapters: 0:00 Welcome to The Curiosity Shop 1:00 Using AI for Drafting vs. Proofreading 6:06 The Hidden Cost of Work Slop 14:17 Why Brené Wears Two Watches 17:56 Why Transformation Requires Grief 25:48 Preparation vs. Presence 28:11 When Preparation Creates Freedom 31:31 Preparation, Presence & Pausing 37:40 Has Brené Ever Been Fired? Show Notes: https://thecuriosityshop.com/podcast/brene-brown-on-protecting-our-attention-time-and-humanity-in-a-world-that-wont-slow-down/ Brené Brown on Human Discernment Over AI and Mastery Over Polish | The Curiosity Shop https://www.youtube.com/@TheCuriosityShop

Brené Brownhost
Aug 20, 202641mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:001:00

    Welcome to The Curiosity Shop

    1. BB

      Hi, everybody. Welcome to The Curiosity Shop. I am solo today. Um, as, uh, many of you might know, uh, Adam and I both teach in MBA programs, and he is teaching his MBA intensive at Wharton right now, and I'm starting mine actually tomorrow. I'm recording this on the Monday before the podcast drops, and so I'll go into my intensive on Tuesday. So you may see him also doing a solo episode, so we're covering for each other while we teach. I thought I would use the podcast today to kinda do an AMA, take questions from LinkedIn, um, on the podcast. We have... I have a great LinkedIn community, as does Adam, um, so always getting tons of comments, questions, really productive, helpful feedback, um, on The Curiosity Shop. So I thought I'd answer some questions today. We'll jump in. [upbeat music]

  2. 1:006:06

    Using AI for Drafting vs. Proofreading

    1. BB

      Um, the first question is from Scott, and I just thought this was really interesting. And he is referring to back to the episode that we did on AI, commencement speeches, and why human thinking still matters. And so Scott wrote on LinkedIn, "I'd argue that writing isn't an exercise in thinking, but drafting is. I have found that when using AI to write a first draft, it's hard to get away from sounding as if it were written by AI. The cognitive load of the first draft has been lifted, and you can't get that processing time back. That being said, is it appropriate to turn to AI for proofreading and critique once a first, second, or third draft has been completed?" And there's a co- I'm gonna start here. I am not the czar of AI ethics, the over lordess of what's right or wrong with AI. I think we're all navigating and finding our own way. Um, what I thought was interesting about this question and this idea that Scott poses is I do think there's a difference between drafting and writing, and I do think drafting is more of an exercise in thinking than sometimes polishing or making the draft pretty. Um, I, you know, I think you have to do what works for you, and I ha- I think it's about developing self-awareness for each one of us about at what point have I turned over my discernment to technology? And wherever that line is for you, that's a line I don't think we should be crossing because human discernment is so far superior to AI discernment. Um, so to me, it's the discernment question, and the reason why I think about that is sometimes I'll do one, two, or three drafts, and if I turn over too early, the problem for me would be word selection. Sometimes I'm sitting on a draft 'cause I'm like, "God, this is not the right word to describe what I heard from that research participant, um, in terms of how they were feeling." And so that word choice to me still belongs in discernment. Dangling modifiers, not so much. Um, I don't, you know, uh, uh, I mean, most of us have been using some kind of word processing, you know, whether it was Microsoft Word or I miss WordPerfect, um, but I'm old. That's Aaron laughing that I miss WordPerfect.

    2. SP

      Sorry.

    3. BB

      I mean, as an academic, like, it, it was literally one day you came into the office and all of the WordPerfect was gone. It was like, it was, it was a dark day. Um, but for me, word selection is really important. I think in terms of grammar, I think it's okay. Um, but you have to decide for yourself. I, I think the line is where does responsibility and discernment end, and where does passing it off start? Um, so thank you for that comment. I really love the distinction between drafting and writing, and at what point is it going from thinking to polishing. And one thing I would also be aware of is when I have put a very beautifully, I thought, crafted paragraph into AI just to see what would happen, it changed it, and I went back to what I wrote, um, because I didn't like the level of frictionlessness. Is that a word, frictionlessness? I think it is. Frictionlessness read as bullshit to me. It read as nothingness. It read as, you know, when you get a chocolate bar and you're excited 'cause it's supposed to be creamy in the inside and fluffy, but it's nothing. That's how it reads, so just a thought. Okay, this is from Christie also on LinkedIn. Oh, I thought I'd share this. Um, "Dearest Brené, your work means so much to me." Thank you. Giving you a heart. Um, "Seeing your ears filled with technology has me wondering how present you are really when you're chatting with your guests on the podcast." Um, I, I don't know if what you mean by that with my ears being filled with technology means I have my AirPods in, but that's how I hear my guests. So it's not, we're not in a Cyrano situation where someone's saying, "Pause. Take a deep breath. Look left, and then repeat after me. There was a man from Nantucket." Like, I don't, like I, I'm, this is, that's how I hear the guests. That's the only way I can hear them so we can record the podcast. Um, okay,

  3. 6:0614:17

    The Hidden Cost of Work Slop

    1. BB

      another LinkedIn from Peter. They, and this is going back to the AI commencement. As you can imagine, lots of comments. Um, Peter says, "The hidden cost of work slop is that it makes the receiver become the quality department for someone else's thinking. AI can clean the sentence, but it can't prove the sender understood the problem. That's where discernment shows up, in the gaps, the assumptions, the weak logic, the missing context. For leaders, this becomes a real operating issue. Polished work now needs a stronger test. Did this move the task forward or just move the effort downstream?" Oh, I love this. I should've been like, "Peter, meet Scott. Scott, meet Peter. Share answers." Peter's gonna answer Scott's question. Um, "Polished work now needs a stronger test. Did this move the task forward or just move the effort downstream?" Um, I, yeah, I have to say that, um, in thinking about some of the AI work that I've received, um, I'll give you a very specific example. I asked for a two ba- a two-page brief on whether we should make a move or not, and the, when the brief came back, it said, "We should hesitate to make this move because this new platform doesn't do X, Y, and Z. It's limited to doing A, B, and C." And the thing that was so distressing to me is the platform doesn't do X, Y, and Z, but neither do we. The platform did not do something that we have never done, never been interested in doing, and so there was no discernment about whether we should make the platform move by the people who wrote the piece, clearly, because they also know that we don't do X, Y, Z. Um, and I think for me, you know how Kubler-Ross has kind of these stages of grief? 'Cause she doesn't kinda have these Kubler-Ross has stages of grief. What I wanna say is the linear nature of those stages as first presented has been very much called into question. Um, it'd be so nice if we could sequentially go through grief, but we cannot. Um, there is a kind of Kubler-Ross effect that I have a- on the receiving end of an AI work product that's missing discernment, which AKA also known as work slop. That's a hard word for me because I don't know how to use that term. I don't know how to use that word, giving feedback to someone without sending them straight into a shame spiral because if someone called anything that I did, if anyone used the word slop, it would be very hard for me to stay in my prefrontal cortex and not go into fight, flight, freeze. Um, or punch ya. Uh, so when my stages around it are, I read it and I go, "Oh, shit, I'm so mad. This is so crappy." Then I go to, "Do they even care about what we're trying to work on here?" Then I, then I say, "Oh, they're not using AI well. That's my fault. I haven't trained my team on doing it well," which is true. Um, and then I go to, uh, "Maybe I can't trust this person because I actually turned to them for discernment, and now there's no discernment." It- it's a lot of bandwidth, and so one of the things I talk to leaders about all the time, especially around deliberate recovery, there's a chapter in Strong Ground called Locking In, Locking Through, and the whole purpose of that chapter is, hey, we all know how to lock in, but do we know how to lock through? And locking through when we get home at night is really hard because we're not just context shifting, we're dimension shifting. And so one of the things I say to senior leaders is, "You leave for work with 100 bucks in your pocket, you, like 100 cognitive dollars, and every time there is cognitive switching," you're, you're, you're locked in, you're working on something, and someone comes up and asks you something that's completely unrelated, and you have to look up and say, "Hold on just a sec," da, da, da. "Okay, tell me. Okay, yes, that's a good question. Um, I'm wondering if we need to look at this data first. Okay, yeah, yeah, have a great one." Na, na, na, na, that, that cost you five bucks. We can sometimes control our spending by turning off messaging on Slack or Teams. That helps. Um, most of us have our phones there 'cause I'm looking for kid calls or Steve or, um, when I was caregiving for my mom, care, you know, caregiving calls. But when a caregiving call came in that said, you know, I'm locked in, "Hey, your mom's refusing to go to physical therapy today," oh, that's like a, that's like a griefy, shitty, sad dimension shifting. That cost me 40 bucks. Um, that cost me, that cost me 40 bucks 'cause this thing I'm still working on, now I gotta go here. Now I'm in my feelings, and they're hard, and, you know, and I have to make calls, and can I hand it off to my sister? And it's gonna cost them 40 bucks. I think if you think about cognitive spin during the day and protecting our thinking, our deep thinking, protecting our attention, which- All the shitty algorithms are trying to steal. Um, when I get something that is kind of work sloppy, it's expensive for me because I'm paying $5 to notice the lack of discernment, then I'm paying $5 to wonder if someone cares, and I'm paying 10.50 to, to wonder if I'm a sucky leader 'cause I haven't trained them how to use it well. You know, so I think this question about are, are you giving me something that's moving the task forward, or have you just moved the effort downstream or back to me? This is the question. [upbeat music] Support from the show comes from Boll & Branch. Small discomforts, when left unaddressed, can compound into greater ones. That's true anywhere, but especially when it comes to getting a good night's sleep. Maybe your bed sheets slip off the corners too much or your pillow is far past its prime. Whatever the case, you can finally upgrade your bedding with Boll & Branch. They make everything your bed needs. Their signature organic cotton sheets are incredibly popular. 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  4. 14:1717:56

    Why Brené Wears Two Watches

    1. BB

      Um, okay, [laughs] "Julie, what's up with the two watches? Are you doing double time?" [laughs] Okay. I often wear two watches. Um, [laughs] I'm not keeping double time, but that's funny. I like it. Um, I did a podcast with Richard Rohr, and then I wrote the forward to the republication of his book, Falling Upward, about the second half of life, about midlife. And one of the things that is very true to me, not only am I a word person and a spiritual person, I think about my life in both chronos and kairos. And so chronos is clock time, sequential, quantitative, measured. This is my... And I, and I do, I have to say, I don't take any ad dollars from Apple, but I do love my Apple Watch. Um, I like getting points for... Oh my God, it's ringing. That was crazy. Hold on, let me turn it off. Um, I could've called somebody. I do love my watch though, but mostly I love 'cause I can find my phone with it, and then I can record my workout times. And I have most notifications turned off, but I really do love the chronos of it. I like that it's quantitative. It's m- it, it measures stuff for me. Um, it's sequential. And then this is my grandmother's Elgin watch from the '50s, and this is kairos. This is another word for time, like chronos means clock time. Kairos means deep time, God time. Um, it's actually Homeric in origin, I think. Um, vulnerable, vital openness is what kairos means. Um, an openness and a vulnerability to stay in receiving for something that can only happen on spiritual time. And so I wear both. I also love watches and I just don't... I don't know. I'm not keeping double time. I'm keeping chronos and kairos. Deep time, God time, how many calories did I burn, and where the hell is my phone? That's it. Um, but I did like the d- and you know what I call this? I call this my pair of clocks 'cause it's a paradox. [laughs] Okay. Ooh. All right. Um, that is not a dad joke. That is a mom joke. Um, okay. Here's a question from Lauren. This is on the episode where we shared a recording of Aiko Bethea, friend, leadership, senior leader coach, um, thinker. She wrote a new book called, um, Anchored, Aligned, Accountable, and it's about self-leadership. The two of us did a talk together, um, on a stage at a Better Up event, and we recorded it and shared the talk as a podcast. And if you've never listened to a coaching session IRL, like in real life or in real time, this is a coaching session. It was so hard. I was in tears. I was so worn out after it. You could've heard a pin drop in the room. But it was such a beautiful example of what a skilled coach, like, Aiko looks like.

  5. 17:5625:48

    Why Transformation Requires Grief

    1. BB

      So this is a, a question from that episode. "Aiko said something I keep pondering, that transformative change requires grief, a loss of innocence, of community, of how you once saw yourself. We talk a great deal about psychological safety as a condition for inclusion, but almost never about grief as a requirement for it. What strikes me is that children can move through exactly this kind of loss naturally through play, conflict, repair, before the armor goes on and the calculus of self-protection takes over. My question is whether you think organizations are capable of making space for that grief, or whether the demand for productivity makes genuine transformation structurally impossible in most workplaces." Damn, uh, Lauren, this is such a beautiful question. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna kind of play it back in different words so everyone's tracking. Aiko Bethea said that transformation requires grief. Lauren is asking, "Is there really space in organizations for grief? And if there's not a space for grief, is there really a space in organization... Are transformations even possible?" I, I think this is a question of our time. I, I, I think as someone who has led many deep transformations in organizations over the last 20 years, and I mean really hard transformations where we've taken, you know, entire organizations, 30,000 people, through a process to change, to, to build new skills, to change mindsets, to examine mental models, to change system sets, to bring in coaching. What I can say is if there's not space for grief and loss, there is not space for change. Aiko is 100% right, and Aiko and I do these transformations together, so, um, you're not gonna get a different answer from me, and you're not gonna... You know, she's, she's taught me so much about this. And I, I thought I'd give an example maybe. Um, oof, this is hard. One of the things that differentiates in transformations whether something's gonna have to be... Is it a full transformation? And a lot of times I think we have transformation fatigue in organizations 'cause we call everything a transformation. Look, a strategic change, an adaptive change, an incremental change are not transformative changes. You, you're in a transformative change when shit has to be broken, and then you have to rebuild new things and watch every minute of the rebuilding so you don't rebuild exactly what you tore down. And it's in that deconstruction, that breaking of old systems, and then rebuilding new systems, and fighting the human urge to rebuild what we've just broken, that's where the grief comes. And, and, and the less you're willing to grieve that loss, the more likely it is you'll just create new systems that replicate what you broke. So very recently we were doing, I think, one of the hardest things that would qualify. If I go into an organization and we have to change mental models, bam, that is transformative work. Um, let me see if I can draw this. Erin, do you think we can catch this on the, on the camera? And I'll describe it to the people listening. Um, let's see. I'm gonna, I'm gonna draw this for us. So you have this iceberg, and you see a problem, and the problem is above the wave. So we see problems, and they're above the water. Underneath... And so if you're audio listening, hey, I, I'm an audio listener too, so I'll, I'll be- try to be thoughtful and make sure you don't miss anything. So the problem is that we, we... It's visual. We can see it. Underneath the water is the rest of the iceberg, and that first strata is behaviors, then systems and structures, and then, at the very bottom, mental models. Um, if the lower you make the change, the more leverage and the longer the change lasts. So if you see a problem and you just address the problem but nothing underwater, you're... Good luck. Two weeks maybe. If you see a problem, address behaviors, you may get three months. If you see a problem, address behaviors, and structures, and systems, maybe six months, nine months, a year if you're super lucky. If you see a problem, think about the behaviors that underpin the problem, the systems and structures that are built that feed the problem, reward the problem, uh, punish challenges to the problem, and then you talk about the mental models that underlie everything, then, then that's transformative change. That's really breaking. It's excavating and breaking. So recently we were excavating mental models in my own organization about just what are some of the mental models that we're working off of that are no longer serving. And the excavation of those was so painful. Oh my God. That's why people hate it. And people hate it because transformation requires a change in mental model. A mental model is the way I see the world and the way that I make sense of the world, and it's the way I make sense of the value that I contribute to our relationship, or an organization, or my team. So they're, they're very protected. We do not want to change them. And there was a moment where I was looking at some Post-it notes of mental models that were no longer serving us, and in that moment, what I saw was, as the founder and the person that holds the most power and authority, there had been moments when I was in pain or fear and I was under the line and I said something, and that became a mental model off which people worked for two years. And, ugh, there's grief attached to that for me. And as we start to excavate across my organization, there's grief attached to it. I'm not the only one that has set mental models that are not helpful from a place of pain, or fear, or anxiety, or scarcity. Mine concretize faster because of my position, but there's this great quote that says, "Sometimes we have to let go of what we planned in order to really embrace what is." And that's transformation, you know. We had a plan, the world changed, we changed. What we thought we needed to be able to do changed. And so if you don't make room for grief and other emotions, hope, sometimes despair surfaces, um, in the midst of transformations, anxiety, fear, scarcity. If you don't make room for everything that we know that comes with change, then call it something else, but don't call it a transformation. It's a beautiful question, Lauren. Okay,

  6. 25:4828:11

    Preparation vs. Presence

    1. BB

      moving to the podcast with Rebecca Lowe, um, who w- led the largest soccer, um, announcing effort in American history. She was at the table with the big... [laughs] Some of the biggest, most well-known players and egos in soccer, and y- we interviewed her about what it took and what it takes to be, you know, the face of announcing for Premier League Soccer and for the World Cup that just ended. And we talked a lot about preparation, and this is a comment from Carlos, and a question. I mean, just for all of you, I'm a LinkedIn... I know people say that, that... Some people like it, some people don't love it. I, I love any place where there's accountability 'cause your name's attached to your comments, and I just... And I, I... Comments are open there for me, um, and I comment there all the time and engage with folks. And I just wanted to say I really appreciated, um, I d- not appreciated, appreciate in, in real time, in both chronos and kairos I do, both, both, both clocks. Um, really appreciate the thoughtfulness, um, and the productive challenge and the pushes and the I disagree. Um, and every now and then someone's shitty to me or shitty to another person and, you know, that's life and that's what blocking is for. But I do really appreciate the real debate and discourse. Um, and you can see they're thoughtful. These are from LinkedIn. Like, they're just... I could put these together and it'd be a leadership manual. Um, so Carlos writes... Oh, one thing we said in the c- just to give you the context, we said that more the, more important than executive presence is preparation, and they're often not always combined, and that while Rebecca has presence, you cannot underestimate her preparation. I mean, I'm gonna tell you, if you, if you took a... If you did a deep dive on her prep, it's insane. And she, she does it and she's done it for years. The Olympics, Premier League football, the World Cup. She uses 10% of it, but she doesn't care 'cause she feels grounded and it gives her permission to have fun and let loose. Um, and so that's the context for this. So Carlos

  7. 28:1131:31

    When Preparation Creates Freedom

    1. BB

      writes, "The distinction between presence and preparation is important. I have noticed that what looks effortless in strong leaders is often the visible result of a great deal of invisible work." Smart. That's beautiful. "Preparation does more than improve performance. It reduces the mental noise that appears when the pressure rises. When we know the material, the context, and ourselves well enough, we have more attention available for the room, the people, and what's unfolding in real time. That's where presence becomes more than confidence. It becomes capacity." Wow. Preparation builds capacity, not just presence. Let's go. Um, Carlos asks, "Do you think the best preparation ultimately creates the freedom to be less attached to the preparation itself?" Yes. Listen to this question. I mean, I, I like, I, I, this is just... I heart people. Um, not always, but hear. Um, "Do you think the best preparation ultimately creates the freedom to be less attached to the preparation itself?" Yes, because when I am only moderately prepared, I am white-knuckling the notes. I am praying while people are talking. I'm literally like, "Dear God, don't let them go into this area that was on page seven of seven of my prep notes and I only got to page five." You know? Yes. It, it allows for active listening. It allows to go off-script. It's fun. I'm grounded. From this place of strong ground, I can go anywhere. I feel stable enough to be explosive. I feel tethered enough to reach. Um, this is it. I'm gonna read Carlos's line again. "The best preparation ultimately creates the freedom to be less attached to the preparation itself." Paradox, Carlos, winner. Love it.

    2. SP

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  8. 31:3137:40

    Preparation, Presence & Pausing

    1. BB

      [laughs] We have two left. One cracks me up. Okay. Um, this is from Artie referencing the Rebecca Lowe podcast. "Preparation can create a kind of freedom in the moment because you're no longer using your attention to figure out what comes next. You can listen, respond, and stay present. How much of we, what we call presence is actually the result of preparation?" Okay, so I want to... Three Ps here. I wanna talk about presence, I wanna talk about preparation, and I wanna talk about pausing. Um, I do think a lot of what we call presence is really the result of preparation. I also think if I look back 40 years on my career, I have seen and felt in my bones presence in equal measure in both preparation, as someone who's been interviewed a lot and done a lot of interviews, there is a connection that only happens as a result of the freedom that preparation gives you. There is also, of equal importance to preparation, 'cause you can't prepare for everything, and if you work from the mindset that you can o- you can, you need to be prepared for everything, you lose, you actually lose kairos. Remember that the definition of kairos is a vulnerable, volatile opening. It's deep time and God time. You can't prepare for it, and it's just something that unfolds at a different level, um, a different spiritual level, and that it's about seizing that. And so that 50% of the presence I have felt and experienced was prep, but 50% was pause. I'll add a fourth one to that, a fourth P, which is maybe playback. So I've been in interviews, and I've been interviewing people where something just comes up, and we find ourselves down a rabbit hole that we didn't plan for. There was no way to prep for it. It's a beautiful moment. Um, I think, I can think off the bat conversations with, uh, President Obama, with Brandi Carlile, um, with Richard Rohr, with Bono. Um, I can think about how Aiko coaches in that moment in that podcast with me. The pause, as someone who is doing the interviewing, and I got a litt- I get a lot of shit for it. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna kid you. Um, a lot of people called Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead the pause casts because people would say in the beginning, "Oh, man, I thought my ears went out," or, "I, I, I thought that... I thought I hit stop on my phone," um, but it was just you being, doing nothing. I'm thi- I'm thinking, folks. Um, the pause is, I need to think about this and, and what it really says to me is, I don't wanna be thinking about my response while you're talking. I wanna stay in deep active listening while you're talking. Then I'm gonna need a beat to think about what I wanna say back. And the pause is another form of presence, in my opinion. And some people just edit the shit out of those on podcasts, and I'm not for it because I am not interested in conversations that don't look and feel like human conversations. I think the playback is also a tool. It's a tool that we teach when we do Dare to Le- Tr- Dare to Lead transformation. So I might say to Barrett, Barrett s- might say, "Hey, look, I'm really curious about the all-hands that you wanna have today at 4:30. And, you know, one of my really big concerns is we need to, we need to have some very strategic communications with individuals before this all hands, and do you think we're gonna have time? Because here's what I'm worried about." And I'm thinking about it, and then I say, "Can I play back what I think you're asking?" And she'll say, "Yeah." I say, "We've got this meeting scheduled at 4:30. We're gonna make some announcements. The ethos for how we work is no one is ever, no one, never, no one ever learns something new that affects them directly in a group setting. So we wanna reach out to some individuals and have one-on-one conversations with them, answer questions that we can answer before we have a group meeting where we share information." And she'll say, "Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking." I'm like, "Okay, that's helpful." Um, and then we'll think about it. Maybe this brings us full circle to Aiko, AI and discernment. My pair of clocks. Um, I just winked. I don't know why. My pair of clocks, doing devil time. Yeah, he's zooming in. Um, maybe it just comes back to what's best about us and what's best about the human spirit is our own discernment, our own pause, our own deep thinking, and our own deep time. Those are the things I think we need to protect above all else. Um, yeah.

  9. 37:4041:22

    Has Brené Ever Been Fired?

    1. BB

      Okay, our last question is from Penny, and Penny asks, "Have you ever been fired? If so, what did you learn?" Yes, I have been fired. Um, so I worked my way through school, and I had a lot of weird jobs. Um, bartended and waited tables for a decade. I worked at drugstores, retail stores. Um, I didn't have a car, so wherever I... however I could get the... In San Antonio, it's called, the bus is called the Via Via. Wherever I could get the Via Via. Um, so I had a lot of jobs. I picked up a last-minute job cleaning houses, um, because tuition was due, and I was either gonna make some money and pay tuition, or I was gonna get kicked out of school. And I thought I would do a really above and beyond job. So this person had hardwood floors, and I Pledge'd them all. I went through an entire can of Pledge and Pledge'd all the hardwood floors. Um, she came home and fr- and bruised her tailbone. She fell. She... and, and it wasn't just a fall. She said she slid for 10 to 12 feet, which I think is exaggerating-

    2. SP

      Yeah

    3. BB

      ... 'cause I don't know that she had 10 or 12 feet of runway. That she slid for 10 to 12 feet, and then did a gainer, which, again, I question, um, and landed on her ass. Um, and then I was fired from cleaning houses. And so, yes, I have been fired. Um, and what did I learn? I actually, I did learn something from this, which is shiny can never replace mastery. You can make something really shiny, but sometimes shiny is really dangerous, and shiny often hides a lack of actually knowing what you're doing. And I actually had no idea what I was doing, 'cause I grew up in a house that had, like, linoleum floors and carpet. And so I had never really been in anywhere that had hardwood floors. And so instead of, like, calling my mom and asking, or I don't know what sh- I would've done back then. There was no Google or anything. I don't think there was an... I don't even know if there was an internet. So yeah, had a lot of weird jobs. And, um, and I do remember going home that day on the Via Via bus, thinking to myself, "Crushed it."

    4. SP

      [laughs]

    5. BB

      I literally crushed it. I-

    6. SP

      Her tailbone.

    7. BB

      I could see... Her tailbone. Shut up, Aaron.

    8. SP

      [laughs]

    9. BB

      Um, I could see myself in that floor when I left. Like, I, I'm gonna get so many jobs cleaning houses that I maybe quit my other jobs. But the answer was, that's not what I crushed. All right, well, [laughs] on that note, um, thanks for joining the solo episode of The Curiosity Shop. Um, I'm going into my teach, my teaching intensive. Um, Adam's finishing his up. I think he may do a solo episode. We'll see. Um, I appreciate it, and all of these old episodes will be linked on YouTube. You can go back and watch any of them. Um, again, thank you for the great challenge, pushback, debate, discourse. Um, love everything you're putting on LinkedIn and appreciate it. Makes me better. Makes us better. [upbeat music] 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.

    10. SP

      We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.voxmedia.com.

Episode duration: 41:22

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