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Tim FerrissBrene Brown Interview (Full Episode) | The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast)
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EVERY SPOKEN WORD
70 min read · 14,470 words- 0:00 – 8:20
Intro and Brené's Two Answers to "What Do You Do?"
- TFTim Ferriss
Optimal minimal At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Can I ask you a personal question?
- TFTim Ferriss
Now we're just sitting at Berkeley kind of What if I give you algebra?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
I'm a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
- TFTim Ferriss
The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is brought to you by Vimeo Pro, which is the ideal video hosting platform for entrepreneurs. And in fact, a bunch of my startups already use Vimeo Pro, including Wealthfront, who uses it to explain how Wealthfront works. TaskRabbit uses it to tell their company story. And there are many other names you would recognize among their customers, Airbnb, Etsy, et cetera. Why do they use it? Well, Vimeo Pro provides enterprise level video hosting for a fraction of the usual cost. Features include gorgeous high quality playback with no ads, up to twenty gigabytes of video storage every week, unlimited plays and views, and a fully customizable video player, which can include your logo, custom outro, et cetera. You also get VIP support. And you get all of this for just one ninety-nine per year. That's seventeen dollars a month with no complicated bandwidth calculations or hidden fees. And you can try it risk-free for thirty days. So check it out, vimeo.com/business. That's V-I-M-E-O.com/business and use promo code Tim to get twenty-five percent off. That's a special discount just for you guys. So check it out, vimeo.com/business, promo code Tim. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront, and this is a very unique sponsor. Wealthfront is a massively disruptive, in a good way, set it and forget it investing service led by technologists from places like Apple and world famous investors. It has exploded in popularity in the last two years, and they now have more than two and a half billion dollars under management. In fact, some of my very good friends, investors in Silicon Valley, have millions of their own money in Wealthfront. So the question is why? Why is it so popular? Why is it unique? Because you can get services previously reserved for the ultra wealthy but only pay pennies on the dollar for them. 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But I've been so impressed by Wealthfront that I've invested a significant amount of my own money, at least for me, uh, in the team and the company itself. So I am an investor and hope to soon use it as a client. Now back to the recommendation. As a Tim Ferriss Show listener, you'll get fifteen thousand dollars managed for free if you decide to open an account, but just start with seeing the portfolio that they would suggest for you. Take two minutes, fill out their questionnaire at wealthfront.com/tim. It's fast. It's free. There's no downside that I can think of. Now, I do have to read a mandatory disclaimer. Wealthfront, Inc. is an SEC-registered investment advisor. Investing in securities involves risks, and there's the possibility of losing money. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Please visit wealthfront.com to read their full disclosure. So check it out, guys. This is one of the hottest, most innovative companies coming out of Silicon Valley, and they're killing it. They've become massively popular. Just take a look, see what portfolio they would create for you, and you can use that information however you want. Wealthfront.com/tim. Hello, my friends, you muscular little Oompa Loompas. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. My name is Tim Ferriss, and my job is to deconstruct world class performers, people who are the best at what they do, and to tease out the habits, routines, findings that you can apply to your own life, whether they are people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, chess prodigies like Josh Waitzkin, directors like Jon Favreau or Robert Rodriguez, and hedge fund managers, military strategists, everyone in between. Today, we have a researcher, Dr. Brené Brown, and you can say hi to her on Twitter, @BreneBrown, is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work, and her two thousand and ten TEDx talk, The Power of Vulnerability, has more than twenty million views. It is one of the top five most viewed TED Talks in the world, which is very hard to pull off. She has other talks with millions and millions of views. So once you're lucky, twice you're good. She is very good. She has spent the past thirteen years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame, all of my favorites. [laughs] Brené is the author of two number one New York Times bestsellers, Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection. Her brand new book is titled Rising Strong, and in it, she writes, "If we are brave enough often enough, we will fall." This is a book about what it takes to get back up, and she interviews some very interesting folks, top performers in the corporate world, startup world, military world, and gathers data to support the recommendations and conclusions in these books. So I have a copy of Rising Strong and encourage you to check it out. She's also the founder and CEO for The Daring Way, which is an organization that brings her work to organizations, schools, communities, and families. And without further ado, I want to let you enjoy this wide-ranging conversation that touches on some Sensitive topics, you might say, with Dr. Brené Brown. Brené, welcome to the show.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Thank you. I'm excited to talk to you.
- TFTim Ferriss
And my fans are excited to hear all of your wisdom and dig into your research.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, and I suppose we could, we could start with some context for those people who are not familiar with your work. When you are asked the question, what do you do, how do you answer that?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
It real- it... I actually have two answers. I, I... One if I want to keep talking, and one if I don't. So if I don't want to keep talking, I usually will just say, "I'm a shame researcher," and that scares people.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
[laughs] And then they usually go on. They, they usually say, "So, what do you think about the Texans this season," or something.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Um, and then if I'm in a normal conversation, I'll say that I study vulnerability and courage, shame and worthiness.
- TFTim Ferriss
And-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
That's, that's kind of terrible, isn't it, that I do that?
- TFTim Ferriss
I, I don't think it's terrible. I think that you can do kind of a reverse George Costanza when you don't want to talk to someone if you're trapped on a plane or something.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
So I'm s- so instead of saying, you know, picking the most interesting thing to get them to admire you and say you're an architect-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
... you can be like, "Oh, yes, no, I'm a..." [laughs] You know, you could bring up something extremely awkward, right? [laughs] Like, uh, you know, I, I research, uh, you know, off-color sex trafficking or something.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
And then depending on who you're sitting next to, suppose it could be a good character check, right? [laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
It, it's a totally, it's a total character check.
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh, okay.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Because if they launch in-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah
- BBDr. Brené Brown
... after they hear I study shame, um, then that kind of bites me on the ass a little bit.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
But it works pretty well.
- 8:20 – 13:31
How the TEDx Talk Came to Be
- TFTim Ferriss
so, so speaking of script, and, uh, I, I am not the only one who's been impressed with your presenting ability, but it seems like one of the ways that you really hit the mainstream map was through TED, and, uh, specifically, I guess it would've been the, The Power of Vulnerability, although that, that has more than 21 million views now, and, uh, some of your other presentations have more than five million views. So certainly, uh, you know, once you're lucky, twice you're good. You're good at this. Uh, could you give people an overview of the components that make a hit speech or TED Talk? Because you're, you're clearly good at it. It's not a one-hit wonder. How did The Power of Vulnerability come to be? How did you decide on the, on that, on the content, and rehearse it, and so on? Just the, the, the genesis story, I think, would be very interesting.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Um, yeah, I'd love to share it, 'cause it's been a, a huge learning for me. So the TEDx Talk was kind of a combination of an accident and an experiment. Um, the curators of TEDx Houston asked me to open their first event. Um, and they called, and they were really excited, and I asked, I said, "Sure, I'd love to." I was really excited. Um, and they, Javier Fadul is the curator, and I said, "What do you want me to talk about?" And, you know, when you study things like shame and vulnerability, people can get very prescriptive about what they want you to say and what you, they don't want you to say. Um, it, it really has no bearing actually on what I do say, but they like to think in the beginning that they're going to control some of that. And so I said, you know, "Do you have any i- thoughts?" And his answer was, "Be awesome, have fun."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And the day before the... Yeah, which is, you, you would think it's liberating, and, but it's also kind of terrifying.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. Right.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And so, yeah, so then-
- TFTim Ferriss
The, the blessing and the curse of no constraints.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Exactly. Exactly. And so I was on a flight home the night before, a long flight with my husband and kids, and I looked at Steve, and I was like, "I think I'm gonna experiment tomorrow." And my husband looked at me and he said, "That sounds like a terrible idea."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And I said, yeah. And I said, "No, I think I'm going to actually be really vulnerable while I'm talking about vulnerability." And he said, you know, again, "Not sure that's a great idea." So I went to the TED event, and I experimented. I really kind of put myself out there. I talked about my own breakdown, spiritual awakening. I talked about having to go to therapy and how much I really hated that, and I kind of thought it was bullshit, but like I had to do it. Um, and I really put myself out there, and I remember driving home and thinking, "I will never do that again."
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
I mean, I literally had, I literally had what I thought was one of the worst vulnerability hangovers of my career.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And I was so grateful. You know, I have to tell you, Tim, I was so grateful that there were only 500 people there and that it was recorded at University of Houston, where I've taught for 20 years, so most people kind of are like, "Oh, yeah, that's Brené." I don't have any memory of that being recorded, and I, and I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure maybe the universe just aligned and thought, you know, "Let's not let her know that this is being recorded." So when it came out on the TEDx, you know, on the TEDx site, I was pretty mortified, and Steve's, you know, Steve's like, "No one's gonna watch it. Don't worry." And then several months later, Chris Anderson called and said, "Hey, we're, we don't usually put the TEDx talks up, but we really, we love your talk and we wanna put it up." And I, I, I think the conversation went like this, which is an interesting form of leadership. I think I said, "No, uh, I'm flattered, but no thank you." And he said, "I think December 23rd will be great." And then that was that.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And so it went up on December 23rd. [laughs] And again, Steve was like, "Don't worry, Brené. I don't think that, I mean, people are not gonna see it." And it went like one, two, one million, 1,000,001, three million, and I was like, "Oh." And so if I look back, so my learning, my takeaway from that experience was this. If I'm not a little bit nauseous when I'm done, I probably did not show up like I should've shown up.
- TFTim Ferriss
That's great. That's, that's, uh, that's, that echoes advice from, I believe it's Neil Gaiman in a commencement speech, Make Good Art, where he talked about, you know, when you feel like you're walking down the street naked and extremely uncomfortable, maybe you're starting to get it right. [laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
I'm para- I'm paraphrasing of course, but that's a, that's a really good, uh, that's a really good point. And how did you... I mean, your delivery was so spot on. How did you rehearse? Uh, or did you? I mean, maybe you're just, uh, maybe that is a language that you're naturally fluent in, presentation that is. But, uh, h- how did you prep for it?
- 13:31 – 15:19
Presenting Without Rehearsing: Connection Over Performance
- BBDr. Brené Brown
I don't rehearse at all. In fact, rehearsing is really... So when I rehearse in the traditional way we think about rehearsing, it's about what I'm gonna say and when I'm gonna say it and how I'm gonna say it. And so if I do that, what ends up happening, and I've tried a couple times, I get so, like prefrontal cortex, I get so wrapped up and, "Oh, wasn't I supposed to pause here?" and, "Wasn't I supposed to do this there?" that I am not, I'm not connecting. And so for me, it is use images as the arc, understand what image, every image means to me, and what I wanna wrap around that image, and then require that the house lights are on so I can see people's faces.
- TFTim Ferriss
That's a good rule. That's a really good rule.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah, so that thing where they're... You know, and I, I rarely, rarely allow any of my presentations to be videotaped. Um, very, very rarely. Because one, if they're taping you, you have to be super hot under the lights and the audience has to be dark, and then it's performance, not connection for me. Um, and then secondly, I don't feel like it's anyone's business what happens between me and an audience at any given s- moment.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
I mean, I just really feel like that's in a, that's a moment.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, and I think that comes, it, I mean, I'm, I'm speculating here, but from a lot of experience teaching, right? Being in-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... in front of students as opposed to viewing yourself as being in front of an audience. Uh, which, which I think enables a very different relationship with the people you're trying to communicate to or communicate with.
- 15:19 – 20:28
Defining Vulnerability and Courage
- TFTim Ferriss
And to, to provide perhaps a little bit of connective tissue for people who are curious about your research, um, you mentioned vulnerability, you mentioned shame. Uh, h- how should we define these terms just for the purposes of this conversation, and so people can understand, and how did you research them?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
You know, I think the best place to start when we're talking about kind of what words mean, at least the way I use them in my work, is to really start with vulnerability. Um, because I think if you can get your head and heart wrapped about, around vulnerability, the others make a lot more sense. Um, so to me, I don't know how you were raised and how the listeners were raised, but I was raised to believe that vulnerability is weakness. Um, that you wake up in the morning, you armor up, you go out into the day, you kick some ass. Um, you don't let people see your emotions. You mitigate uncertainty and risk as much as you can, and that's the way you live. And so from the very earliest stages of my research, you know, 13 years ago, that is not how vulnerability emerged in the data. Um, vulnerability emerged as not weakness, but probably our best measure of courage. So when we asked people, you know, "What is vulnerability?" They would say things like, "It's the first date after my divorce. It's trying to get pregnant after my second miscarriage. It's sitting with my wife who has stage four breast cancer and making plans for our three-year-old and five-year-old. It's starting my own business. It's taking my business public. It's getting fired. It's firing someone. Um, it's getting promoted. It's missing the promotion." And so it ca- became very clear to me early on that the simplest definition for vulnerability is really uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. Vulnerability is about the willingness to sh- show up and be seen when you have zero control over the outcome. And I think if you ask people to close their eyes and think about the last time they saw someone doing something truly brave, it is very easy to see how vulnerability underpins all acts of courage.
- TFTim Ferriss
Sure.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And yeah, I mean, I just think it's about really, it's about putting yourself out there, and which is, is increasingly difficult to do in this very hypercritical, unforgiving kind of media culture. And so vulnerability is showing up and being seen. Um, courage to me, you know, I love the word courage because the, the root of the word is cor, and the Latin for cor is heart. And when courage first came into the English language, the original definition was to tell the story of your, of who you are with your whole heart. That was an act of courage. Um, so to me, courage is really about choosing what's right over what's easy, practicing your values, not just professing them, and choosing to be brave over being comfortable.
- TFTim Ferriss
And these, uh, I, I, I love this type of, um, contextual kind of prelude. It's not a prelude, but it's, uh, defining because I think it's so important for any important conversation, and certainly I think for most conversations, to make sure that the people in the conversation are talking about the same thing. [laughs] Right?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah. Oh, it's-
- TFTim Ferriss
It's-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
... the key to everything, right?
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. And, uh, that starts with defining very, very... And I've noticed, for instance, even in my own relationships, something as seemingly clear as honesty, I want you to be honest, say, in intimate relationships, are actually can, can have, uh, no pun in- or no, uh, allusion intended, but you know, 50 Shades of Grey, right? I mean, there are-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Right
- TFTim Ferriss
... it, it can mean something very-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Totally
- TFTim Ferriss
... different. You know, is, is omission a lie, or i- are we talking about a misrepresentation of truth, right? And, uh, it's, it's, it's really critical, and I like your description because, you know, courage, I remember thinking when you were, when you were, uh, walking us through this, uh, Cus D'Amato, who was Mike Tyson's primary trainer who, who, who, uh, who brought him to the pinnacle of his success, uh, would tell Mike, who was terrified before going into the ring, uh, in the dressing room and so on, that it, you know, the hero and the coward feel the same thing. It's how the how- it's how the hero responds that makes him different. And, you know, the, the, you can't be courageous unless you are exposing yourself to a perceived risk, which by definition makes you vulnerable, even if you're thinking about it in the very literal kind of physical sense. So the, the, uh,
- 20:28 – 28:29
Understanding Shame, Empathy, and Guilt
- TFTim Ferriss
I'd, I'd love to segue to, to shame because I was reading-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... uh, an a, one of, uh, your alumni publications and, uh, you can correct this certainly if it's not accurate, but a quote of yours came up that I thought was, was really insightful and worth exploring a bit, and it said, "Shame hates to have words wrapped around it. If we talk about it, it loses its grip on us." And I was hoping maybe we could, uh, you could elaborate on that and, uh, help us to, to then understand shame.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah, and I think that, that quote, um, is so powerful because it's so true. Like, I often, when I talk about shame, I often like to personify it and say, you know, shame is a very formidable foe. You know, shame is this intensely painful belief or experience that something is wrong with us, that we are flawed, and that we are unworthy of love and belonging, and we all know it. Everyone knows that warm wash that comes over you that makes you feel like you're not enough. Um, we have 50 years of data that really show us, in my mind unquestionably, that the only people who don't experience shame are people who don't have a capacity for connection, who, people who don't have a capacity for empathy. So if we are capable of having connection, we know shame because shame is the fear that we're not worthy of connection. And so the thing about shame that makes it so difficult is it needs three things to thrive in our lives. If you take a Petri dish and you put shame in a Petri dish, and you douse it with secrecy, silence, and judgment, it grows exponentially. It will, it will grow into every corner and crevice of our lives. If you have the same amount of shame in a Petri dish and you douse it with empathy, shame can't survive empathy. Empathy is a very hostile environment for shame. And so to understand shame, I think what resonates mostly with people are the two kind of tapes that shame drives. The first is you're not enough, and you can fill in the blank. You're not thin enough, pretty enough, strong enough, powerful enough, rich enough, promoted enough, loved enough, awesome enough. You know, you're not enough. Um, and then if we can somehow get a handle on that and say, you know, like, "Okay, I've got, you know, I have this big presentation," and you've got this shame gremlin in your ear saying, "You're not enough. You're not smart enough. There are gonna be, like, 100 MBAs in that room. What do you know about business? You're not enough." If you can wrestle that thing down, the other tape that shame drives is, "Who do you think you are?" Um, so it creates this amazing vice that our self-worth gets caught in, um, and just squeezes us from both sides. And so shame, and shame is really visceral. I mean, if you, if you just say the word to people, people can feel it.
- TFTim Ferriss
No, definitely. And you mentioned, you know, fear of disconnection. I mean, I wrote down when I was doing some research before this call, you know, being shunned, question mark. And, uh, I, I'd love to ask you, because a, a question that came from some of my listeners was, you know, uh, what is the evolutionary need of shame or, or why did that develop in human beings? And it seems-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... to me like shame can serve a useful purpose, right? If you are ashamed of the fact that you think about molesting a child, that seem, that serves a societal function, right? Um, so-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
I would argue no.
- TFTim Ferriss
You would argue no?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
I would argue no.
- TFTim Ferriss
Okay.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Absolutely not.
- TFTim Ferriss
Okay. All right. Well, l- I'd love for you to expand on that because, uh, I, that's, that's, uh, I, that's an interesting viewpoint. So could you, could you expand on that?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Shame, I think if you look at shame from an evolutionary biological perspective, um, I think it did absolutely serve a function. So Tim, you lead the dinosaur back to the cave. It eats my entire family and my whole clan. This is the second time you've done that, so we are literally going to shun you from our collective, which means you'll be alone, which means death, right?
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And so because you're dangerous. Uh, um, just not, not unlike if we see even in the animal world today, some pack animals, if there's a sick animal among them, will literally, you know, approach it as a group and back it off a cliff, um, for the sake of the, the pack, right?
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
So, so that makes sense. As we've evolved, um, as we've evolved neurobiologically, as we've evolved, shame becomes a very, a profoundly dangerous tool, um, for people who have the emotional understanding that we have. So now what we see is you can change a behavior sometimes, especially with children, on a dime with shame, but it's like hitting a thumbtack with a 500-pound anvil. You are going to crush that thumbtack in the process of doing that. Um, so what we see now is we see shame highly, highly correlated with addiction, depression, aggression, violence, suicide, eating disorders, very highly correlated. Um, what we see as the inverse is we see guilt, and shame and guilt are very different. Shame is I am a bad person. Guilt is I did something bad. So you go out on Thursday night, you get wasted. You're so hungover on Friday, you sleep through your alarm clock. You miss a really important meeting. You get to work late on Friday, and your self-talk is, "Jesus, I'm a loser. I'm an idiot. I'm such a loser." That's shame. If you get to work on Friday, same scenario, and your self-talk is, "Dude, I cannot believe I did that. That was such a lame thing to do. That was such a stupid thing to do." The difference is shame is a focus on self. Guilt is a focus on behavior.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
People who are, who are very guilt-prone, who say, "You know what? I got a bad grade. I'm not a loser, but that was a loser idea to not study and go out last night."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
They have their relationship with addiction, depression, violence, suicide, bullying is inverse. Meaning the higher the level of guilt, the less likely it is to experience these outcomes. So the most dangerous, if you look at shame and guilt in a criminal population, the most dangerous people have the highest levels of shame proneness and the lowest levels of guilt proneness-
- TFTim Ferriss
That makes perfect-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Because guilt is holding up some-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Does that make sense?
- TFTim Ferriss
It makes perfect sense.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
So guilt is holding up something we've done against who we wanna be or something we've done, thought about doing, or failed to do up against our values, who we wanna be, what we think is right, and guilt is s- the psychological discomfort created by the cognitive dissonance between our behavior and who we wanna be, and it's healthy and adaptive.
- 28:29 – 31:47
Shaming Children and Training Based on Positive Reinforcement
- TFTim Ferriss
I was, uh, having a conversation with Josh Waitzkin, who's been on this podcast as well. He was the basis for searching for Bobby Fischer, so he was known as a chess prodigy as a child.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Oh, yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, he is a tremendous dad, a really amazing parent, as a, as a young boy, and he has a very particular parenting style, and he always focuses on rewarding effort and not labeling his son smart. So for instance, he'll say, "That was a really good job. You worked really hard. You did A, B, and C that resulted in D." As opposed to, "Wow, you got a great grade. You're so smart." Because then when the kid gets a bad grade, it's viewed as this-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Exactly
- TFTim Ferriss
... it, th- this unsolvable, unfixable personal failing, and it seems to correlate to the difference between shame, i.e. I am flawed, I'm a broken toy that cannot be fixed, versus guilt, like, "Wow, I really fucked that up. Bad on me, but next time I'll do something different." Uh-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
It's usually different. Hu- and you know, the thing is, think about this. I have a 16-year-old and a 10-year-old. You know, they get caught being dishonest with me, and I say, "You know what? You're a liar, and you're grounded." When you tell somebody they're a liar, that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. What, what... If you're a, if you're a liar, if I'm a, if I, Brené Brown, am a liar, what option is there for growth or change?
- TFTim Ferriss
Well, not only-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
That's who I am
- TFTim Ferriss
... right, not only that, but what incentive is there not to lie if you're-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Right
- TFTim Ferriss
... branded as such, right.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
So when, when you talk about the person who is thinking about committing violence or assault on a child, do I want that person to be more ashamed? No, because I have a feeling, I mean, there's, there's, you know, in your example, I guess there's pedophilia, which can be an organic, real issue, but the majority of what we see are people who are so deeply shame-based committing horrific crimes. So look, if I thought shaming people, no matter how, h- I mean, I hate to say this, but I'll just be honest. If I thought shaming people, no matter how- ... hurtful and painful it is, if I thought that kept people safer, I'd be all for it. It just doesn't.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. Right. Well, it's, you know, it's interesting because I've been, uh, training a, a rescue pup for the last few weeks, uh, brand-new rescue pup, and she was at a kill shelter in South Carolina and, uh, suffered a lot of-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... abuse, but really got into looking at, uh, mammalian training and looking at everything from dolphin training to polar bear training to dog training, and y- the fact of the matter is, you know, negative reinforcement, um, or punishment-based training doesn't work that well, or at least at the very best it's very slow compared to a lot of the positive reinforcement-based training, you know, whether it's using, you know, clickers for conditioning and so on, because you can only reinforce a behavior, uh, that, that has oc- that has, uh, that has occurred, right? And when you... I, I think that the, the shame just seems to tie to me, uh, in an interesting way to not understanding, uh, what is malleable and what is not. And I'd, I'd love to-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah
- 31:47 – 39:32
"I Am Enough" vs. Competitive Drive
- TFTim Ferriss
... come back to the I am enough, uh, because, uh, in your, your book, uh, y- one of your several books, but The Gift of Imperfection, one of the best book titles of all time, by the way, so well done on that. Uh-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Thank you
- TFTim Ferriss
... [laughs] has been described as the lifelong journey from, uh, what will people think to I am enough. Now, what I'm so curious to hear about, and then, and then I'll, I'll leap forward to Daring Greatly, uh, and I'll just read this, this quote, uh, from which I believe that the title was, um, was adapted. So this is Theodore Roosevelt. "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how strong- how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly." Now, what I have had as an internal conflict for a very long time, and this was brought to the surface, uh, most noticeably the last year and a half through meditation. So I, I practice transcendental meditation in the mornings and, uh, have friends who practice Vipassana, transcendental, different types of meditation.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
And these are type A driven competitive people, and we've, w- I've had the conversation repeatedly, uh, the same conversation with different people about whether that removes a competitive edge, and the reason being that you decide I am enough, you're content, therefore you do not have discontent driving you to achieve big things that are, for most of us, pretty high on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? It's like we, we have shelter, we have food, so in reality, like in, in almost every capacity, we have enough, we are enough. So how do you balance the, the, the well-being of having a mindset of I am enough versus the, at least with a lot of my, my peers and friends in Silicon Valley, the kind of discontent that seems to drive so many of those people to accomplish great things?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
So I would go back to your really important insight from the beginning of our conversation about defining terms. I'd also go back to kind of the insights that you're learning from doing your training, um, with your rescue pup, which is, does to me I am enough... I mean, I'm a competitive type A person too, which probably doesn't come as a surprise. The oldest of four, you know, very ambitious and, you know, I'm, I'm that person too in many ways. Um, I think the soul or the center of my ability to keep putting myself out there and trying new things, even when I fail, and I have had some big failures, um, I think the soul of my healthy competitiveness and my ambition is the belief that I am enough.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Um, because I'm starting, and I think when I don't believe I'm enough, I engage in behaviors not to push myself, not to grow and stretch and learn, not to strive for excellence, but to prove to other people what I can do. Um, but when I start from a place that, you know what, I'm enough. I'm imperfect, I'm afraid, I'm, you know, super vulnerable, but that does not change the fact that I'm also brave and worthy of love and belonging, and when I start from that place, um, I am completely unleashed. So I think one of the things that's really important to help kind of define here, because I'm not like, you know, on the couch binge-watching TV five days a week, um, writing nasty-ass comments on other people's accomplishments on, you know, Twitter and Facebook and saying, "Look, fuck you, I'm enough." Like, that's not what I'm talking about.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
You know?
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
I'm talking about a belief of self-worth that I am enough not based on what I do, what I accomplish, what do I, you know, prove or produce. I am just enough, and if you start from that, that's the healthy center, I think, of most, most of the most awesome achievements we've seen, and I spend a lot of time in Silicon Valley too, and what I can tell you, and I know, I, I would bet- I wish we could have a bet right now. I would bet you a lot of money-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
... that if we listed the names of 10 people, which we're not gonna do-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
... you could tell me which of those folks are operating... And 10, 10 competitive, ambitious, just like crazy fighters out there in the arena, and we listed 10 names, you could tell me the five who are motivated from a place of being enough, but wanting to strive for excellence and learning, and the five who are trying to fill a hole in their self-worth and who are dangerous.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah, no, for sure. And I think, I guess the, in my mind, when I think, I'm just imagining this list of 10 people in my head. When I imagine the people who fall into the less self-destructive category, uh, who have, who are operating from a place of I am enough, I guess I would, in their cases, say that per- in the, if I could hear their sort of subconscious internal mantra, it would, it would, i- in, in my mind, it would seem to be, and maybe this is the same thing, but, uh, closer to I am g- I'm good, or I'm really good, but I can be better. Uh, not I am flawed, uh, I need to impress everyone around me to make them validate me.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
Uh, but f- the, I guess I'm just struggling with the word enough, but I, I, I understand the, the point of it. Um, and I think it's, th- this is something that I struggle with, right? I mean, I'm extremely, personally, I'm very hard on myself. I mean, I have always sort of been of the mindset that, you know, second place is first loser, and extremely competitive. Uh, and that has-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
... not always been the healthiest thing for, uh, me in all sorts of different capacities. Um, but I don't n- the... L- let's, let's sort of tackle this from a slightly different angle. So the, the Daring Greatly, uh, the question that, uh, I think is raised in that, that book, among others, is, you know, have you dared greatly today? And, uh, please feel free to take this in any direction, uh, because, uh, you obviously know more about your work than I do. But how, what is a good way to evaluate that? And do you ask yourself this type of question on a daily basis? Do you have, uh, um... I'll leave it at that. I could, I could make this a 12-part question. But, uh, how does someone determine if they've dared greatly? And is, how often would you suggest someone kind of check in and ask themselves that?
- 39:32 – 46:09
Daring Greatly, Reading the Comments, and Perfectionism
- BBDr. Brené Brown
So I think for me, daring greatly, and y- you know, that, that quote from Theodore Roosevelt, um, I even got teary-eyed while you were reading it. Um, you know, it was a life-changer for me. Um, it was right after the TEDx Houston talk had gone viral. I was kind of everywhere on the internet at that time, and, you know, everyone, you know, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Huffington Post, were all writing about this, who is this person at the University of Houston with this TED Talk going viral? And as you can imagine, um, all these online stories had online comments that were-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Of course
- BBDr. Brené Brown
... like, yeah. And so my husband and my therapist were like, "Don't read the comments." Um, and so I read all the comments one day.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And yeah, I really, I sat down and just read them for like an hour. And I think, you know, if you ask, if you're listening to that, like if you're a listener right now, you know, if you close your eyes and think about... We all have the shame triggers. We all have two or three things, we have, most of us have more, that you could overhear somebody, you could overhear someone saying about you that would be s- so painful and so hurtful that you don't know if you could survive it. Most of us have those things. And so for me, up until that point, you know, I, those things really dictated my life. I was like, "Look, I'm gonna engineer this career to kind of be small and safe. I'm gonna play right under the radar, because I am not willing to put myself out, out there and get criticized like I know is happening." And so the problem with staying small, um, is it's always served up with resentment and pissed offedness. Um, because we're not using our gifts, we're not in our power, and there's always a price for that.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And so to me, when I read that quote, you know, when I looked at the comments, they were things like, "Of course she, you know, ex- of course she embraces imperfection. What choice would you have if you look like her? I feel sorry for her husband and kids. More Botox, less research. You need to shake loose 10 pounds before you talk about being worthy." I mean, just like really shitty, hurtful stuff. Um, and then I came on, I came upon that, I mean, like the next 30 minutes after reading all that, I came upon that comment. I mean, that quote from Theodore Roosevelt. And you know, in that moment, what I realized is, you know what? I do want to live a brave life. I do want to live in the arena. And if you're going to live in the arena, the only guarantee is you will get your ass kicked. Um, and the second thing is that daring greatly is being vulnerable. So when you ask yourself, did I dare greatly today? The big question I ask is did I, when I had the opportunity, did I choose courage over comfort?
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
You know, when things went sideways between Steve and I this morning over, you know, who was gonna pack the lunch for my son, did I just go into the old pattern of rolling my eyes and walking out of the kitchen, or did I choose courage and say, "I'm sorry, I'm feeling really overwhelmed with the book launch tomorrow, and um, I'm sorry. I really apologize, that was hurtful." Did I choose courage or did I choose comfort? And so to me, that's the question we ask, um, about daring greatly. And I think, you, you know, and I think one of the things that you said, Tim, really when you're talking about your friends and this idea of being enough, one of the things that really turned my life upside down, there were four or five things in the research that have taken me a long time to get over and get through, and one of them was the difference between healthy striving or striving for excellence and perfectionism.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And I've always been perfectionistic about my stuff, and what I learned in the research was that perfectionism is very outwardly defined. It's dictated by what will people think, and healthy striving is dictated, or striving for excellence, is internally motivated. And so perfectionism is really, I call it the 20-ton shield, and I think a lot of when we're talking about those 10 people, five of whom work from this place of, of wholeness and the other, I think what a lot of times we're talking about is the difference between perfectionism and striving for excellence. And I think perfectionism is this 20-ton shield that we carry around, and it's a defense mechanism classically that just says, "If I live perfect, love perfect, work perfect, and accomplish perfectly, I can reduce or minimize shame, blame, criticism, and judgment."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And so we carry this thing around thinking it's protecting us, but what it's really doing is keeping us from being seen.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And so I think when I ask myself personally, have I dared greatly today, sometimes for me it is the question of was I enough or am I trying to get everything perfect so that I can somehow think I'm mitigating criticism and judgment.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. Well, I also find, uh, and I haven't really thought about it in these terms before, but if you, if you look at, say, um, I think it's Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice, where he talks about, um, maximizers and s- I think it's satisficers. Uh, but if I try to correlate that to my own experience being, I think, very much a perfectionist and that, uh, of my, my friends, um, the, the people who are perfectionists, um, very often are so future-focused that the perfection once achieved is viewed as the trigger that will sort of solve their guilt, shame, discontent-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... et cetera.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Oh, yeah.
- TFTim Ferriss
Whereas the, uh, the people who are striving for excellus- excellence are better at celebrating the little wins, accepting the small defeats and sometimes the large defeats, uh, and tend to be a bit more present state focused. And you mentioned, you know, vulnerability, um, and you, and, um, the sort of components, right? So facings, whether it's un- uncertainty, risk, and so on. Um, and I, I've seen it described elsewhere as, you know, stopping, controlling, and predicting, uh, the... It seems very much akin to certain tenets in, say, Stoic philosophy, uh, of which I read a lot, uh, whether it's Marcus Aurelius or Seneca-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Mm-hmm
- TFTim Ferriss
... et cetera. A-
- 46:09 – 49:43
Influences: Philosophy, Grounded Theory, and Inspiration Everywhere
- TFTim Ferriss
and, and there are a lot of common threads th- in Buddhism, of course, that would, um, talk about how, how fruitless it is and futile it is to try to eliminate suffering, uh, completely because the, the, we are almost by definition experiencers of suffering, right? And, and coming to terms with that. What, uh, which, which thinkers, philosophers, or schools of thinking or philosophy most resonate with the insights you found in, in the data, in your research?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Ah, my God, E, all of the above. Like, I mean, it took me, it took me from Marcus Aurelius to liberation theology. Um-
- TFTim Ferriss
What is liberation theology?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Oh, uh, uh, it's a, it's a Catholic, um, kind of a Catholic theology of social justice, um, that has its, had its stronghold in beginning in Central America. But I mean, I think it has just... One of the things about being a grounded theory researcher that I love and hate is we don't start with an existing theory and then go try to prove or disprove it. We build a theory from people's lived experiences, and then we do the literature review and see where it fits and where it doesn't fit because the idea between, behind grounded theory is if you start with a, an existing theory, you're just kind of paying homage to, they would say, the theoretical capitalists that came before you, and that it's people's lived experiences that really matter. And so people often comment in my books, they're like, "H- how is it that you're quoting..." I, I do quote Marcus Aurelius, I think, in one of my books. "How are you quoting him, and then how are you quoting Pema Chödrön, who's an American Buddhist nun?"
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
"And then you're quoting Disney, a Dis- you know, Pixar movie from Toy Story." And to me, I, I have no division or, and very little tolerance for, like, the highbrow versus lowbrow inspiration. Um, I think if you're paying attention, you can find truth and inspiration anywhere and everywhere. Um, and so to me, I'm all over the place in the literature, and I, I think the people who really depend on polarity will hate this, but really some very strong common themes across Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, m- you know, Islam, um, Joseph Campbell. I mean, I think I end up finding myself in some just profound truths from a lot of... I mean, I was reading something yesterday, um, in the data, and it made me pull out my book by Cabran. So I think it's- Rumi.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Mary Ol- Mary Oliver, Neil Peart, the, the drummer for Rush. Like, I was, uh, something came up-
- TFTim Ferriss
Right
- BBDr. Brené Brown
... and I was like, yeah, I was like, I didn't know if you knew, so I had to put it in there. But, um, I was like, this is when you choo- when you choo- when you don't make a choi- when you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. And I think, I don't know that anyone says it more eloquently than Rush, you know? I don't know what to say.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. Neil, yeah, just as a, uh, side note, if people want to see just a beast of a drummer, then you can, [laughs] you can search on YouTube-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... for some videos of this guy. Oh, my goodness. What a just monster on the kit. But-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And a poet, you know? So I find my inspiration kind of everywhere.
- 49:43 – 1:02:47
Oversharing, Boundaries, and Masculinity
- TFTim Ferriss
And, uh, let's, let's talk about misinterpretations of vulnerability for a second, uh, and I think maybe I'm getting a little, I'm probably projecting my own prejudices here, but, um, is it vulnerability... There, I think there are some people who misinterpret being vulnerable and the benefits derived from being vulnerable with, uh, incessant oversharing of-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Mm
- TFTim Ferriss
... emotions or-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah
- TFTim Ferriss
... inner dialogue or doubt. Uh, what would you say to those, what would you say to those people? Maybe my diagnosis is off, off base, but there's some, there are a lot of people who just kind of pour out every concern, worry, fault, mistake, uh, and, and, um, okay it with the, the label of vulnerability. Um, so I'd just love to hear your thoughts on that, uh, word salad that I just dropped on you. [laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
No, I love it, and I'm tracking 100% because I, yeah, it's, you know, there's a very simple formula in my head. Vulnerability minus boundaries is not vulnerability.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
It can be desperation. It can be oversharing. It can be manipulation. It can be a lot of different things, but it's not vulnerability.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Um, we always have to hold awareness of boundaries and roles in our minds around vulnerability. We share with people who've earned the right to hear our story, and we stay mindful all the time of the role we're in. So one of the great examples I can give you is I'm with 50 CEOs from Silicon Valley, and we've spent a long weekend together. And toward the end of maybe the first day, one of them says, "I came here thinking that I would never, you know, believe in vulnerability or accept it, but I am 100% on board. So I want to make sure I understand that I should stand up in front of, you know, my investors, my VCs, you know, and say, 'Look, I am in over my head. We are bleeding money, and I do not know what to do next.'"
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And I said, "You know, only if you don't want another round of funding should you do that."
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
I mean, no, that's, that's super in- that's not appropriate. But let me, you know, let me ask you this. If you had, you know, if you had, I don't know, $50,000 invested with this leader-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- BBDr. Brené Brown
... wouldn't you be praying to God that he's sitting across from someone saying that?
- TFTim Ferriss
Sure. Definitely. 100%.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Right. Right. I don't care if it's, whether it's his therapist, a mentor, an advisor, because what the, what the alternative is if he's really drowning in over his head and bleeding money and doesn't know what he's doing, is to just keep grinding harder and harder on the same things he's doing and not ask for help.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. Right. Totally agreed.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And, yeah. And so when people say, you know, live tweeting your bikini wax, that is not vulnerability.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] I'm sorry about that. It was only once.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah, I mean, if, so if you could hold back a little bit, Tim, we'd really all appreciate it. Um, no, or sharing intimate details of your children's reaction to your impending divorce on Facebook, that is not vulnerability. Vulnerability is the birthplace of intimacy, trust, connection, creativity, innovation. For leaders, it's the birthplace of trusted influence. Um, but it's not permission to overshare.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right. Right. Well, I mean, the, uh, I thought the investor example was great because the... If a, if a CEO or founder gets up and says, it provides the confession that you gave as an example in front of a room that will almost inevitably respond by, say, yanking, um, funding, it's not a, it's not a constructive use of that confession, if that makes sense. Um, and it's, I live in San Francisco most of the time, and it's, it's this, this sort of, this, this, uh, misinterpretation of vulnerability as oversharing is very common [laughs] among the kind of Burning Man, um, spiritual atheist sect. Uh, and it's, uh, I think it's massively problematic. I think it creates, uh, it's, it appears to create many more problems than it solves. Uh, and, um, let me use that as a segue to the, the opposite. I was interviewing a, uh, a well-known strength coach named Pavel Tsatsouline, who's originally from, uh, I think the run- the Ukraine. Um, in any case, former Soviet Union, and I, one of the questions I asked him on the podcast was what, uh, in your, what do you write in your personal journal that you don't often talk about with other people? [laughs] And his answer was, "Well, Tim-" That is a very personal question. [laughs] And he proceeded to tell me that-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
[laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
And he proceeded to tell me that, you know, oversharing is, is a, a big problem in the United States, and I was like, "Well, you know, that's actually... I feel like that's a fair response." And, uh, so I wanted to ask you a question that's based on, um, input from a number of listeners of this podcast. Um, and the... Here's the lead, and I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts. So, [clears throat] there's lots of chatter about over-feminization of boys. Um, how do you, how do you, [lips smack] um, how do you have vulnerability coexist with strong masculine virtues/traits? And I'm paraphrasing here, and I'll just give another sort of contextual example that, uh, may or may, may or may not, um, be interesting to comment on. So, there's an expression in some military training, um, that is suffer in silence, and the idea is if you're going through Hell Week for the Navy SEALs or something like that, and you're carrying logs around and laying down in the freezing cold water, climbing under barbed wire, doing all these just nausea and fear-inducing things, if you complain, like, "My foot hurts," this, that, and the other thing, it will trigger more suffering in the people around you. Um, which I happen to agree with in that context. Um, s- so that's a lot at once, but, but, um, what, what is your thinking on the, uh, the, the so-called sort of over-feminization of boys and masculine virtues/traits versus vulnerability? I mean, how, how do they coexist? Um, and maybe that's not even the right question.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
It's a really good question, and I, I, you know, I work a lot with Special Forces-
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm
- BBDr. Brené Brown
... um, and with the military and, uh, and with vets.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. May I add one more thing? Just-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah
- 1:02:47 – 1:08:28
Daily Vulnerability Practice and Morning Routine
- TFTim Ferriss
as to, com- so speaking of just the challenges that people have with, say, vulnerability, what are some daily practices or exercises that people can, um, can test to help them develop more vulnerability, less shame, et cetera?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
You know, I think it's interesting that you talk about, you know, daily practices because I think vulnerability is a daily practice. And for a lot of us, you know, at least for me, when it, when, when it was new, it was about trying on new ways of being and kind of testing it out. One of the things that emerged from the data is this, this idea of trust and the relationship between trust and vulnerability. And people always ask me, "You gain trust first, and then you're vulnerable with people." Um, but the truth is you can't really earn trust over time with people without being somewhat vulnerable. So it's a little bit of a back and forth. It's a little bit of, um, sharing things that are maybe not super deeply personal but are meaningful to you and seeing how that feels to share them and be open. One thing that you said that I've never thought about until this interview, but it was such a, an remarkable, um, insight from you that I want to go back to when you talk about daily practice, is when you were talking about perfectionism being future-focused, um, and also kind of presenting some struggles about staying in the now.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
I think that's why, and again, I'm just putting this insight together, your insight. I think that's why a lot of people who are that super, uber competitive, um, high-strung, overachieving don't get the same results in their personal lives with their partners and their children as they do in their professional kind of endeavors or their recreational endeavors because our personal relationships with the people we love, those intimate relationships require a presence, a focus on now, that a lot of times professional success does not depend on that as much.
- TFTim Ferriss
That's very true. Yeah, very true.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
You can fly fast, and if, you know, if you're in a little Cessna two-seater, you gotta, you know, you're in the here and now, and you gotta pay attention to every bump and every gauge and pa- you know. But if you're in a jet, you can't afford to be thinking about now. You have to be thinking about five minutes from now. Um, and so I thought it was a really remarkable insight on your part because when I do think about those 10 friends in Silicon Valley or I think about my own life even, I think what the research has changed most is that I think it, it has had a huge impact on my professional success. But more than anything, when I get home, um, I walk into a marriage, into a relationship with kids that is fun- that are fundamentally different than they were before I became okay with vulnerability and okay with less than perfect.
- TFTim Ferriss
What, what does the first 60 to 90 days of, uh, I'm s- 60, 90 days, 60 to 90 minutes of your day look like? Your morning routines or rituals outside of book launch times and things like that. Let's just assume that you have control of your, your optimal day. What, what is the first, uh, what do your morning rituals look like? What does your, your first 60 to 90 minutes look like?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
I wake up, um-
- TFTim Ferriss
What time do you wake up?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Early, 6:30-ish.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Um, I wake up. I, um, do a lot of deep breathing to stave off an absolute desperate need for a hit of data, um, from my phone or from my computer. So I try very hard not to check email or texts because I don't, I sleep with my phone downstairs. I don't sleep with any kind of computer next to me.
- TFTim Ferriss
Mm-hmm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Um, and then, you know, it's really super normal. I wake up kids. I make breakfast. I pack lunches. I go through the calendar with the day. I zip up backpacks. I drive carpool. Um, I usually go from p- carpool to swim. I'm a swimmer, ex-competitive swimmer, so I like to swim. And I swim and walk. Um, and swimming is kind of the trifecta for me. It's meditation, exercise, and therapy.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And then I usually start my day, my workday.
- TFTim Ferriss
And what time, what time, what time do you finish swimming, and how long is the swim session?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Um, if, if I run... My, my best-case scenario is I run and swim. And so I don't swim fast enough anymore, and I don't swim ti- time swim anymore, like, you know, 50s on every 20 or anything like I used to, so it's more [laughs] ... It's, it's not as cardio as it used to be. Um, so I like to run on the treadmill for 30 minutes, and then I like to swim for half an hour.
- TFTim Ferriss
Got it.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And if I was a bike rider, I could be a triathlete. But the bi- the... I tried it once, and the bike, going that fast next to that many people going that fast is really uncomfortable for me.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Yeah, I'd imagine it.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
So I'm a d- I'm a duathlete. [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
A slow duath-
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Um, what, what book, besides your own, have you gifted to other people most? B- b- where, what book d- have you often given as a gift?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Oh, man. I have given so many copies of The Alchemist-
- TFTim Ferriss
Hm. Yep
- BBDr. Brené Brown
... to people that I should get a little royalty on it.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
[laughs]
- 1:08:28 – 1:14:24
Rising Strong and Brené's Research Method
- TFTim Ferriss
speaking of books, so you have a, a new book out, Rising Strong, and it seems to me like this completes a trilogy in a sense. Uh, it seems like the three books go together very well, but could you give people a, a description of the latest book and why you wrote it?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah, sure. Um, I think they do go together, and I don't... I wasn't intentional on that, but I think The Gifts is be you, Daring Greatly is be all in, and this book is get your ass kicked, get up and do it again. Um, this is about just the physics of vulnerability. You know, if you're brave enough, often enough, you're going to fall. You're going to experience heartbreak, disappointment, failure. It's gonna happen. And so going into this research, the question for me was, what do men and women who experience falls and get back up and are even more courageous and more tenacious, what do they have in common? So Rising Strong is about the process that emerged from that question.
- TFTim Ferriss
And, uh, can you describe your, your research method? Uh, how do you find your interviewees? Um, uh, w- what is the sort of interview format look like? Uh, what do you do with the data afterwards, et cetera?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
About 70% of my interviews are individuals and more focus groups in the last data set, and so some of them... Like for example, I went to West Point and sat down with, I think there were six officers who had all come back from active, you know, combat duty. Um, so sometimes I'll do focus groups and, but the majority of them are individuals. A lot of it is snowball sampling, meaning I've interviewed you, Tim, and I'm like, "You know what? I'm real- this is really helpful. I would love to interview some of the folks that you know in Silicon Valley around perfectionism. Um, would you mind doing a warm introduction?"
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Um, and some of them are just kind of calls, like this, this book is a lot about the power of story and the stories we tell ourselves, so I interviewed Shonda Rhimes, the showrunner for Scandal and, um-
- TFTim Ferriss
Sure
- BBDr. Brené Brown
... and so, so, so some of them are just... You know, it's a lot easier to get people now than it was when I first started and I was like, "Hi, my name's Brene, and I would like to talk to you about shame." [laughs]
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
That was, that was slow going.
- TFTim Ferriss
Yeah. [laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Um, but, but now it's more that, you know, I can... Now I just do mostly individual in, in focus groups. And so then I get the data. I, I... We don't record it. I take what we call in the field anthropological field notes. So I capture exact phrases and sentences during our interview. Um, I let participants look at them if they want to when they're done. Some say yes, some say no. And then I code what I learned against what I already know and look for patterns and saturation in the data, meaning if I am trying to study perfectionism and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, I'll start interviewing them, and I'll know that I've reached saturation when I can predict what the next person's going to say.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Because one of the really tough rules of grounded theory research are we don't allow for any outliers. And so if I'm almost done, and then I sit down with you and you say something and doesn't fit with the theory that I'm developing in my head about what's happening, then I have to go back to the drawing board and keep interviewing, because every lived experience is real and matters.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs] Right. So it, it would be like interviewing 100 people in Silicon Valley who are saying they're trying to democratize pizza ordering, democratize, uh, kitty litter delivery, democratize this, and then someone said, "I'm really looking to establish a silo of command and control like a North Korean dictator for X," and you'd be like, "Ugh, all right. Well, then I have to keep going."
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yes.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And but, and so if that happened, then I have to question what I'm hearing. I have to question what I'm hearing from the kitty litter and the other folks.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
And I have to figure out what, what do y'all meaning- what do y'all meaningfully say in com- have in common?
- TFTim Ferriss
And, uh, I mean, it, it seems to me, Rising Strong, uh, is... It's a must-have, not a nice-to-have, right? And I'm, and I'm not saying that the be yourself, dare greatly are nice-to-haves, but if you don't have the resilience to recover from mistakes, you're never going to dare greatly in the first place in, in, in some respect it would seem, right? So if you, if... Would you recommend... What order would you recommend people read your books in? I mean, understanding that this is the, the latest, of course, but what, what's sort of, uh, the ideal sequence?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah, I think, you know, they go together, but they don't... I mean, I think they can each be read independently, so I think sometimes it's helpful to pick up the book based on where you are. When, if you're really struggling with the hustl- with hustling for perfection and hustl- and, you know, proving, and perfecting, and pretending, I think The Gifts is great. If you really are, you know, like the rest of us, sick and tired of being afraid, and you want to be brave, and you want to feel like, what does that look like, I think Daring Greatly is a, is the place to start. And if you find yourself face down in the arena, and you're thinking, "God, I just got my ass handed to me," I think [laughs] Rising Strong would be a good place to start.
- TFTim Ferriss
[laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
It probably makes sense, you know, there's a sequence, so I think if you're just like, "Wow, I'm interested," I would start with Daring Great- I mean, uh, The Gifts. But I think, I also think for your audience it's probably helpful to know that I've spent the last couple of years probably exclusively working with leaders and entrepreneurs, so Daring Greatly and Rising Strong have much more of my research from organizations and from leaders than The Gifts does.
- TFTim Ferriss
Got it. No, that is helpful. Um,
- 1:14:24 – 1:27:18
Rapid-Fire Questions and Closing Asks
- TFTim Ferriss
just a few more questions, and then-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Sure
- TFTim Ferriss
... I know we're coming up on time, so I'll ask just a couple of rapid-fire questions, but the answers don't have to be rapid. Um, and I'm, I'm very curious about this one. When you think of the word successful, who is the first person who comes to mind for you, and why?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
You know what's so weird? I don't picture anybody. I, I picture the word redefine.
- TFTim Ferriss
Hm.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
That, that is such a, that has been such a dangerous word in my research, the word successful-
- TFTim Ferriss
Yep, I-
- BBDr. Brené Brown
... or success-
- TFTim Ferriss
I agree
- BBDr. Brené Brown
... that I don't even use it anymore. Because what does that mean? Like, okay, so I am the CEO of this company. I make a shit ton of money. This is my title. This is the influence and power I have. I'm on my fourth marriage, and no relationship with my adult children.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
So I, I think when I hear the word successful, my answer is, be clear that your ladder is leaning against the right building.
- TFTim Ferriss
Right, yeah. Bad word. Next question. [laughs]
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Yeah, I don't know why.
- TFTim Ferriss
Dangerous.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
I had a strong response.
- TFTim Ferriss
It's a dangerous word. No, no, I, I agree with you. I think happiness is actually r- similar in a lot of words.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Oh, God, yes.
- TFTim Ferriss
That's a, that's a scary, uh, nebulous, dangerous term as well.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Totally.
- TFTim Ferriss
Um, what $100-or-less purchase has most positively impacted your life in recent memory?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Oh, uh, triathlon goggles because, I don't know, for some reason they're softer.
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Um, so then I don't have goggle marks all day.
- TFTim Ferriss
Oh, really? I had no idea.
- BBDr. Brené Brown
Mm-hmm.
- TFTim Ferriss
What, uh, what, do you know the brand of goggles offhand?
- BBDr. Brené Brown
I don't, but they're like the most famous triathlon go- and they're really paddy, and you look like... We all like swam with the Speedo Vanquisher, like little goggles-
- TFTim Ferriss
Sure
- BBDr. Brené Brown
... 'cause that makes you a badass. Um, and the bigger your goggle, the goofier you were, but now it's time for the goofy goggle for me.
Episode duration: 1:27:18
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Transcript of episode 9Fx8hR5DwfM
