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

The Emotion Few Talk About, But Many Feel

From classrooms and locker rooms to workplaces and social media, Adam and Brené trace how shame and humiliation are used to control behavior and even fuel violence. They explore what causes shame, why our self-protective responses backfire, and how we can handle it more effectively. They also unpack the messy overlap between imposter syndrome and cultural pressures toward self-doubt. You can find The Curiosity Shop on ⁠YouTube⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠ (@thecuriosityshop). 0:00 - Introduction 2:10 - The One, Two, Threes of Shame 8:52 - The New Research on Humiliation 14:04 - What Is Humiliation? 18:30 - Why Don’t People Outgrow Shame? 29:09 - How to Help People Out of Shame? 38:05 - Reconnecting Your Prefrontal Cortex Post-Shame 42:55 - How Does Shame Relate to Imposter Syndrome? 50:10 - Biggest Takeaways About Shame, Guilt, Humiliation, and Embarrassment Why Feelings of Guilt May Signal Leadership Potential - Marina Krakovsky, 2012, Insights by Stanford Business (Introducing the work of Schaumberg) https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/why-feelings-guilt-may-signal-leadership-potential Unwanted identities: A key variable in shame-anger links and gender differences in shame - Ferguson et al., Sex Roles https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226845367_Unwanted_Identities_A_Key_Variable_in_Shame-Anger_Links_and_Gender_Differences_in_Shame Humiliation: Causes, correlates, and consequences - Elison & Harter, 2007, from The self‑conscious emotions: Theory and research https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312630733_Humiliation_Causes_correlates_and_consequences Healing Humiliation: From Reaction to Creative Action - Hartling & Linder, 2016, Journal of Counseling & Development https://www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/hartling/HealingHumiliation2016.pdf Shame and Humiliation: From Isolation to Relational Transformation - Hartling et al., Stone Center for Developmental Services and Studies https://www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/hartling/HartlingShameHumiliation.pdf Strengthening resilience in a risky world: It’s all about relationships - Hartling, 2003, Women & Therapy https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233230821_Strengthening_Resilience_in_a_Risky_World_It's_All_About_Relationships Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome - Ruchika Tulshyan & Jodi-Ann Burey, 2021, Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women-they-have-impostor-syndrome How imposter syndrome can be your superpower - MIT Sloan Office Of Communications, 2025 (Introducing the work of Basima Tewfik) https://mitsloan.mit.edu/press/how-imposter-syndrome-can-be-your-superpower Unmasking the Impostor - MIT Sloan Office of Communications, 2025 (Tewfik, Debunking 4 myths) https://mitsloan.mit.edu/press/unmasking-impostor Listening to shame, Brené Brown, 2012, TED https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN1DORYYV0 The Power of Vulnerability, Brené Brown, 2011, TED https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o

Brené BrownhostAdam Granthost
Apr 23, 202657mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Brené Brown and Adam Grant unpack shame, humiliation, and empathy’s antidote

  1. Brown distinguishes shame (“I am bad”) from guilt (“I did something bad”), arguing guilt is often adaptive while shame attacks worthiness and belonging.
  2. They revise earlier thinking on humiliation, presenting research linking humiliation (as internalized public shaming) to aggression and violence when paired with bullying or rejection.
  3. The episode explains why many adults don’t “outgrow” shame, pointing to perfectionism, past conditioning, and possible hardwired sensitivity to self-criticism.
  4. They offer a concrete shame-resilience model: shame grows with silence, secrecy, and judgment, but cannot survive empathy and being “seen” in connection.
  5. They connect these dynamics to workplaces and culture—fear of irrelevance, favoritism, gossip, and productivity-based worth—and to debates about imposter syndrome as both personal experience and systemically engineered message.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Use the “self vs. behavior” test to separate shame from guilt.

Shame collapses identity into global defect (“I am bad/stupid”), while guilt targets a specific choice (“I did something bad”)—and guilt is more likely to drive repair, learning, and responsibility.

Update your mental model: humiliation can be dangerous, not protective.

Brown retracts her earlier view that humiliation is “less dangerous” because it externalizes blame; newer evidence links profound humiliation to suicidal/homicidal tendencies and suggests violence is more likely when bullying includes humiliation.

Embarrassment is often survivable because it carries belonging cues.

Embarrassment tends to be fleeting and, crucially, comes with the sense that “I’m not alone”—a social buffer shame lacks.

Track “unwanted identities” to find your shame triggers.

Shame commonly ignites when you’re cast into an identity you reject (e.g., “bad mom,” “high maintenance,” “not worthy”), so naming what you do and don’t want to be perceived as becomes diagnostic and therapeutic.

Recognize shame as a body/brain state before you try to ‘think’ your way out.

Brown describes shame pulling people out of prefrontal functioning into limbic reactivity (time slows, tunnel vision, tingling), so first steps should be regulation and reconnection—not clever comebacks or complex reasoning.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

One, we all have it; two, no one wants to talk about it; and three, the less you talk about it, the more you have it.

— Brené Brown

Shame is I am bad and guilt is I did something bad.

— Brené Brown

Humiliation is internalized public shaming.

— Brené Brown

If you put shame in a Petri dish, it needs three things to grow exponentially into every corner and crevice of your life: silence, secrecy, and judgment.

— Brené Brown

This is not my shame to carry.

— Brené Brown (quoting Gisèle Pelicot)

Shame vs. guilt definitionsEmbarrassment and the “not alone” signalHumiliation as internalized public shamingBullying + humiliation links to violenceShame resilience: silence/secrecy/judgment vs. empathyShame shields (move away/move toward/move against)Unwanted identities and past hauntingsImposter syndrome: individual vs. engineeredWorkplace shame triggers (irrelevance, favoritism, comparison)Shame as a cultural/market force

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