Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Brené Brown, Vulnerability: The Key to Courage

Episode Date: May 1, 2019

Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston and has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. She is also the author of five #1 New York Times bestsellers. Her TED Talk "The power of vulnerability" has been viewed nearly 40 million times and Netflix has just released her special, "Call to Courage." In these speeches, and in our conversation, Brown explains why you can’t have courage without vulnerability. The Plug Zone Website: https://brenebrown.com/ TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en Netflix Special: https://www.netflix.com/brenebrown ***VOICEMAILS*** Have a question for Dan? Leave us a voicemail: 646-883-8326 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to 10% Happier early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. From ABC, this is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, gang. I would say that vulnerability is not a, historically speaking, has not been a character trait to which I have aspired. I think there are probably a couple reasons for this.

One is just my personality and biases. I think there's probably a little bit of gender stuff in there. I don't know a lot of guys personally who wake up in the morning and think I'm going to be vulnerable today. and think I'm going to be vulnerable today. I think another part of this is that, at least speaking for myself, I had no idea until recently, until I did this podcast, in fact, what vulnerability actually means. I now understand it and have an entirely different view on the subject, and that's because our guest this week, Brene Brown,

has been studying vulnerability for years and talks about it in a way that makes it much more comprehensible and attractive to me at least and i don't think i'm alone here because she's a mega best-selling author she has a new netflix special called the call to courage and that's really her argument that that vulnerability it's not some oversharing or something like that. It's actually the prerequisite for courage, which is why Brene spends a lot of time talking about vulnerability and teaching vulnerability to people in executive suites at the CIA and even the special forces, the Seattle Seahawks. She really talks to high achieving people about the importance of vulnerability. I learned a ton. We'll get to her in just a second. Before we do, though, I want to dive into one significant piece of business,

one announcement this week, which is that we have launched in 10% world, we are launching a major brand update. So you'll be noticing big changes, especially in the app. If you've refreshed the app any time recently, you will see that it looks quite different. So we've reinvented our look. We've launched a new logo, a whole new visual design. The folks who initially launched the app, myself included, are not known for our sense of style. So the app looked the way it did, which was fine.

But now it looks immeasurably better. What we're not losing, however, we are not losing our humor and realness. That stays. It's just that we're adding a sheen of some aesthetic improvements. But it goes deeper than that because we're also launching a few new features that are worth mentioning quickly. One is we have a new night mode in the sleep tab on the app. The sleep tab is one of the most popular things we do. It now is in night mode. So if you go to sleep using a meditation, you're not going to have to worry about the glare of a bright screen on your phone.

The other thing we're doing that is the thing about which I'm most excited is we've got a whole new type of content we're launching on the app. So heretofore, it's all been meditation. So videos that teach you how to meditate and then guided audio meditations. Now we have a whole new section called talks. At least that's what we're calling it for now. And if you listen to podcasts, which obviously you do because you're listening to this, I think this is right up your alley. What we've done is we've recruited our teachers to record a whole slew of bite-sized zaps of wisdom that you can listen to. They're like five to ten minutes long. You can listen to them outside of your daily meditation practice, or if you don't have time to meditate at all, you can put on one of these talks or I prefer the term zaps of wisdom while you're brushing your teeth, while you're walking to work, while you're in your car, while you're cooking, while you're exercising, commuting, whatever. And it's a great way – well, the way I think about it is meditation is a hard habit to establish and even if you've established it, it's easy to sort of hit plateaus or to go into a trough where you're just wondering, what am I doing here?

Is this worth it? Am I making – is it making a difference? It is hearing from people who have traveled this path for a long time and know a lot that can put the whole thing in perspective, can reconnect you to the philosophical and intellectual infrastructure of the practice that can keep you in the game. I think it's a key factor in keeping you in the game, at least from my own experience. And so these talks will be from meditation teachers, but we're also going to be recruiting all sorts of people, including scientists, to talk about issues that go well beyond the cushion, from relationships to the science of stress, sleep, on and on.

Really excited about this new section. Go check it out. Final thing I want to mention is that we've done a lot of work in the app around improving accessibility to make the app usable for a broader range of people who have different abilities. So you can now change the font size. You can enable captions on the course videos and meditations. And it's easier to navigate through the app using VoiceOver. Last thing I want to say about this is that it has been a massive lift

for the scrappy little team at the 10% Happier app. I guess we're not that little anymore. But anyway, we're scrappy. And I just want to – it's involved everybody in the organization, but I want to shout out two people in particular, Eva Breitenbach, who's been the, who has spearheaded the move, and then Jeremy Borthwick. Those two, Eva and Jeremy, have just devoted an enormous amount of time to this, and it's great work. So thank you to both of you. Okay, back to Brene Brown. She is a research professor at the University of Houston. She has spent two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy.

She's written five number one New York Times bestsellers, including Daring Greatly and Braving the Wilderness. And she has a new special on netflix called the call to courage i will admit that i was not particularly drawn to bernie because i knew that she was all about vulnerability and i wasn't particularly interested in that uh so historically i didn't know much about her but samuel johns one of the producers on the show has been really interested in in her for a while and when she launched this new netflix uh special was very recent, he had me watch it. I really liked it. And so we brought her in to come on the show.

She's very funny and incredibly smart and really reframed a lot of issues for me in ways that I'm still – I can still feel her ideas bouncing around in my mind. So let me tell you what we cover. I can still feel her ideas bouncing around in my mind. So let me tell you what we cover. We talk about what is vulnerability actually and why it is the prerequisite to courage. We talk about how she discovered that through her research that vulnerability is so important in a happy and healthy life and how that discovery rocked her world and sent her into therapy because she so did not want to practice vulnerability in her life. She goes on to speak in detail about ways in which we can operationalize these ideas around vulnerability in our own lives and how she did it in her life, how it changed the way she shows up

at work, in her personal life, with her husband, and also as a parent, she has two children. So she goes in-depth on all of this. She talks about how setting boundaries is vulnerability, which it was counterintuitive for me, but really interesting to think about. And in fact, she talks about the six myths. There are six things that people think vulnerability actually is, but it is not, including the notion that vulnerability is just sort of wanton, blatant, oversharing. No. We talk about the problem of people getting too comfortable,

which she calls the great pandemic of our time. We talk about the disutility of shame, another area that she has gone in-depth in her research, shame, and how we often armor up in response to shame and how that's, in her view, the wrong move. We talk about the power. There's this one secret phrase that she has found that in her work and professional life has made a massive difference, and that is the story I'm telling myself, dot, dot, dot. So she talks about how using that phrase can elevate the quality of conversation and communication in interpersonal relationships. We talk about how to take hard feedback. We talk about how to take hard feedback. I was really impressed by her willingness to share a story about her, some tough feedback she had received from people with whom she works. I don't know if she's ever told that story before, but I was really impressed by her ability to talk about it because I know personally how hard that is. And we talk, of course, about her meditation practice. But since that's not a huge part of what she's got going on, we kind of save that until the end. So enough from me.

Here we go. Here's Brene Brown. Such a pleasure to meet you. I really enjoyed watching you on Netflix. Thank you for making time for this. It's great to meet you too. So you, I was just looking at your bio and it says, I've spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. And I'm just so curious, how and why did you come to these four emotions?

It actually makes perfect sense in my mind. So I have a bachelor's, master's, and PhD in social work. And so as a social worker, my big takeaway from the $100,000 of school loans for that experience was connection is really what matters. It is like we're neurobiologically, spiritually, physically, mentally hardwired to be in connection with each other. So I was very interested in understanding more the anatomy of connection. It's such a gauzy word, right? What does it mean? And so when I started interviewing, and I had had some experiences around shame, some personal professional

experiences around shame. I think I grew up in a pretty shame-based environment. And then when I was in undergrad, I worked in residential treatment with kids that had been removed from their parents and would grow up in residential treatment until they aged out. from their parents and would grow up in residential treatment until they aged out. And we had a clinical director there that used to say, you cannot shame or belittle people into changing. And the first time I heard him say it, I was like – I actually scheduled a meeting with him. I was just like a direct care person getting my bachelor's degree at the time.

And he's like, what's up? And I said, you can't shame or belittle people into changing. I said, you understand that's the way the world works, right? And he kind of laughed. He said, what do you mean? I said, parents, schools, media, marketing, that's the way the world works. And he goes, maybe, but as a clinician of 30 years, you cannot shame or belittle people into meaningful lasting change. So I think I went into my social work career kind of holding that shame thing right there. And then I got the connection, the big dose of connection through my degree. So I wanted to study what is connection? Does

shame have a role? And I spent six years like really looking at that. And then at the end of that six years, I had all this data and I was like, oh my God, I know so much about shame. But inside the data that I have already is the answer to another question, which is, there are actually people who wake up in the morning and say, I'm enough. No matter what gets done and what is left undone, no matter how imperfect I am, I'm enough. Like what do those people have in common? Because that was like a very strange notion to me. I was not one of those people. And so I started looking in the same data set at, and I call them the wholehearted people because I'm an Episcopalian and there's a line in the

Book of Common Prayer that says something about loving with our whole hearts. And I was like, I would describe these as people who live in love with their whole hearts. So as I started getting into that data, what started emerging very clearly was the central variable that they shared in common was the capacity and willingness to be vulnerable. And I was like, oh, my God, this is bad news. This is awful. I wanted the answer to be, they were shame researchers. The answer to wholeheartedness is you know a lot about shame. So then that took me to courage and vulnerability from there. So that's the long trail. What kind of change did these conclusions make in your own life?

And what kind of change did these conclusions make in your own life? I had like a massive breakdown, really. I did like I literally had to put the data away because you have to lock it up under like human subjects protocol. I had to lock it up, put it away, and then go find a therapist. and then go find a therapist. Because up until that point in my life, I had spent my entire life trying to outrun and outsmart vulnerability. I was not raised to believe that vulnerability was anything but weakness and kind of the first step to giving people something to hurt you. We didn't do vulnerability at all.

So was that a problem in your personal life, in your parenting, and in your marriage? I didn't think so. I didn't think so at the time. I remember this is a story that – I've been thinking a lot about this story because I've never told it before. But I remember in the midst of this kind of breakdown period and I was just I was always proving and trying to be perfect and like wow I'm super tight so I was kind of the alpha parent you know and like people would call me and say hey are our daughters allowed to get their ears pierced yet I'm like no one more year and then they say our, can our kids watch this movie?

I'm like, yes, but only with parental support. Like I was that, like kind of the alpha mom. Had the answers. I had the answers, but I guess terrified on the inside all the time. And I remember, it's a funny story. I remember being at a, it was Easter Monday. Like this was Easter Monday, I don't know, 10 or 12 years ago. And being at a yogurt shop with Ellen after school and I was –

Ellen is your daughter. Ellen is my daughter. She's a sophomore in college now. And I remember thinking, God, look at all these moms and daughters with their kids and everything is monogrammed. I should get more stuff monogrammed. And my phone rang and I was like, should I answer it? I'm having this moment with my daughter. And I was like, hello?

And there was a woman on the other end. She said, Dr. Brown? And I said, yes. And she goes, where are you? And I said, I'm in Houston. Where are you? And she goes, it's Jenny, the event coordinator. And I said, hi, Jenny.

And I thought to myself, God, these event coordinators are just like an anxious bunch of people. And she goes, no, wait, where are you? And I said, I'm in Houston. And she goes, there are 2000 people coming to see you tomorrow morning, including the governor of the state. Why? We just got a notice from the travel agent that you missed your flight. And like, this is, this is like a reoccurring nightmare for me. And so I was like, what? And I said, my flight's on the 23rd or something at 3 o'clock. And she goes, it's the 23rd. It's 430. Oh, no. And I remember like time slowed down.

And I just was like, and I got in the car and Ellen was in the back seat. And she's like, are you okay? I'm like, mom made a big mistake. Mommy made a big mistake. And I was like texting my husband. And I remember he came home to drive me to the airport, like left patients in the waiting room. He's a pediatrician.

And he's like, you're falling apart, Brene. And I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm good. And I said, oh my God. And I started crying. He's like on the way to the airport. He goes, what's wrong? I'm like, normally when I go out of town, I make all the food in advance and I put Ellen's

school clothes up, like with little clothespins that say Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And he goes, and I said, and there's nothing to eat in the house. I've made nothing in advance. He goes, I don't mean to kick you while you're down, but we don't really eat that crap while you're away. We basically get pizza every night and I let Ellen wear whatever she wants, you know? And I was like – and that was kind of the height of the breakdown. I was like my life is unmanageable. Like I'm – things are not working. And so I stayed in therapy for a couple years and kind of tried to deal with the perfectionism and it was all about the vulnerability. It was all about I couldn't manage uncertainty. So can you help me understand what you mean specifically and granularly when you say vulnerability?

And then I guess the second part of that question would be how did you and how does one operationalize that? Yeah. So the definition of vulnerability that emerged from the data is the emotion we experienced during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. So vulnerability is that an affect, an emotion that we feel when we feel uncertain, at risk, or emotionally exposed, meaning we may lose control of our emotion or we're showing an emotion and we can't perceive what people think of us because of that emotion. So that's vulnerability. Uncertainty, risk, emotional exposure. And I think the best way to think about operationalizing it is most of us, in order to kind of stay safe during vulnerability, especially growing up,

developed effective armor. Like how did we learn to manage uncertainty? And uncertainty is much more threatening as a child than as an adult, right? Because, I mean, your survival could be at risk. So over the years, we learned to armor up. And there are many different forms of armor. Perfectionism is one. Cynicism is one.

Control is one. Power over. I mean there's a lot of different ways we armor up against uncertainty. I'm thinking I've checked all those books. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so what we know now – and it was interesting because I just finished a seven-year leadership study. What we know now – and it was interesting because I just finished a seven-year leadership study. And as part of that leadership study, we wanted to see if we could measure courage and vulnerability in people.

So we worked with MBA and EMBA students at Wharton, at UPenn, Kellogg at Northwestern, and Jones at Rice. And we developed this instrument. It's an instrument to measure daring leadership, like how courageous of a leader are you? But the questions all relate back to vulnerability, meaning can you tolerate uncertainty or do you default to action bias? Can you stay in problem solving or do you just need to fix anything? Do you talk – if you have something difficult to say, do you talk to people about it or about people? And it's really about the capacity to be in vulnerability. And I'm on the wrong side of some of those.

Me too. Me too. But I'm working on it. Like I'm aware of my armor and I mean do work inside big companies like the Facebooks, the Googles, the CIA, special forces. Like I do a lot of leadership work and what's been really – what was really interesting is it would take me a long time to convince people that vulnerability was OK until about a year and a half ago when I was at Fort Bragg. And I just asked this simple question that came to my mind, which is, can anyone in here, all special forces troops, can anyone in here give me an example of courage in your life or in someone else's life that wasn't defined by uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure? And finally, someone stood up and said, mini tours,

there is no courage without vulnerability. And then I thought, wow, is that a fluke? And then you could see the emotion well up in these soldiers. Then the next week, I'm with the Seattle Seahawks, doing some work with Coach Carroll. Asked the same question. They took a minute.

A couple minutes later, Michael Bennett said, no, there is no courage without vulnerability. And just the other day, someone sent me a picture. A couple minutes later, Michael Bennett said, no, there is no courage without vulnerability. And just the other day, someone sent me a picture of LeBron James who writes the Roosevelt quote that I use to kind of as the epigraph for vulnerability and courage on his shoes. Like, if you're going to be brave, you're going to know uncertainty and risk and emotional exposure. And if you think you're being courageous and you're comfortable, you're probably not being that brave. Can you reproduce that Roosevelt quote from memory?

Yeah, I can. I can. It's not the critic who counts. It's not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done it better. The credit belongs to the person who's actually in the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who in the end, while he may know the triumph of high achievement, at least if he fails, he does so daring greatly. Question – well, let me start with you. When you went through the therapy and tried to make some of these changes in your own life, embracing vulnerability, how did that look when the rubber hit the road in your lived experience? What would your husband tell me if we gave him the mic?

Or your kids? They would say that my husband would say, my husband would just say, thank God, probably. But I'll tell you what my therapist would say i i remember so it was an interesting time because let's see i'm gonna i'm sober so i'll be 22 years sober in may like in a couple weeks and so thanks big deal yeah it was a big deal and it was a really weird deal for me because um i had a very high bottom like i did a genogram, which is like a family map that social workers and counselors do for my last project in my MSW program, my master's in social work program.

And I had to call my mom to help me figure out the family tree. And it was like, oh my God, there's so much alcoholism. And she's like, yeah, it's really bad. I mean, it was just like, I couldn't believe it. And I was like, this is awful. And then I had to prepare. I was wild. And so I was like, this is not worth it. This is not worth, this is ravage my family. Like this is not worth it. And so I remember going to like my first AA meeting and they're like, nah, you're not drunk enough to be here. And then I went to an OA meeting. They're like, no, we think you belong

over the codependents. And I went over there and finally I got like the sponsor you're supposed to get the first week. And she's like, you've got the poo-poo platter of addictions, like a little bit of everything. And I was like, so what am I supposed to do? And she goes, I think you should stop drinking, smoking, interfering in your family's life, and eating.

I was like, what's left? What's left? Yeah. And so I was newly, so part of this I think was brought on by like I was really kind of working a really rigorous spiritual program at the time and having this breakdown. And I remember one day telling my therapist. Her name is Diana. I said, I need you to give me something. And she's like, what do you need?

I said, I need an anti-anxiety medicine. Like I can't – if I'm not drinking and I'm not eating and now I'm going to try to be vulnerable and I'm losing control right now. Like I need some kind of medicine. And she goes, tell me why you think you need it. And I said, because I'm like a turtle without a shell in the briar patch. Like everything is scary and hurts. And every time I move, it's like I feel something terrible. And she said, well, let's work on getting out of the briar patch.

And I was like, huh? And she goes, before we give you the shell, which for you has been drinking or food or perfectionism or work, before I give you another shell, let's try just moving out of the briar patch. And so I think when the rubber hits the road, it was reexamining my life and just saying no to a lot of things I was afraid to say no to. Like I can get into scarcity. Like what if you ask me to come on the show and I say no and then then everyone stops asking, do you know that feeling? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm not going to say yes to the show, but other than that, you can say no freely. Yeah. No, but you know what I mean? Like those kinds of things. And like, what if I don't agree to do something and then will people think I'm not grateful? And then, so not disappointing people, not having good boundaries. And so that's what the, for me, the vulnerability is there's nothing more vulnerable when you're raised with like the good girl, perfectionistic, take care of everybody, you know, problem that weight to say no and set boundaries. And so I started having to set really hard boundaries with my family. I'm the oldest of four.

I had to start setting boundaries at work, which I kind of suck at still, but I'm getting better. But I just had to start saying no. It's interesting because setting boundaries doesn't seem like vulnerability. Really? No, think about it. Think about you've got a parent. I'm trying to make up a scenario. You've got a parent that you love and who loves you and you love to see your parent with your child,

but your parent talks to your child in a way that you and your partner have decided not to speak to your child. So you have to say, look, here's what's okay. I love you all together. Here's what's not okay. You can't use that language when talking to my child. Who do you think you are? You're still alive. We did pretty good. Boundaries are always vulnerable because you're going to disappoint people. Oh, it's in the setting of the boundary.

Yeah, it's in the setting and it's in the holding of them and the maintaining of them. Like here's what's okay. Here's what's not. I mean as a leader. You're revealing what you care about. Yeah, you are. And it's choosing self-respect over making other people happy. Most of us were not raised that way.

Right? Like. I might have been. Were you? Well, yeah, but I think there are downsides to it which we can get to. Okay, yeah. So I was raised more like be polite, make people come, you know, and so. There might be some gender stuff in here too.

Oh, no question. There's all kinds of gender stuff and privilege stuff. And so I think, yeah, and there's Texas stuff in there, you know. So, yeah, so I started setting boundaries. I started saying no. I started, you know, I had to weed through some friends. Yeah, which I started setting boundaries. I started saying no. I started – I had to weed through some friends. Yeah, which is hard. But what about the control?

These are not my words. These are the words of your sponsor. Interfering in the lives of your family, being so wound tight, making sure that all the meals are cooked before you leave and the clothes are picked out. That continued? I let go. Oh, you leave and the clothes are picked out. That continued. I let go. Oh, you let go. I really let go. Yeah, I let go.

And I let go. I let go of the family stuff first because it just wasn't. First of all, obviously, it's not helping. And then I just started to let go and it was excruciating. Yeah, because, you know, that behavior where you're trying to control everything and it's like help disguised is like – it's not really help. Like I'm trying to manage everything for the best possible outcome for me. So I was imagining vulnerability more as – and this may be one of the myths because in your Netflix special, you talk about the – I think it's six myths of vulnerability. But I thought it was more like just like wanton sharing.

No, I'm not a fan of wanton sharing. No. In fact, I think one of the big myths is vulnerability is disclosure. That's one of the six myths. It's not. I do think it's important to share and to build trust, but I think vulnerability minus boundaries is not vulnerability at all. It's inappropriate sharing, oversharing, shock and awe, desperation, but it's not real vulnerability. I mean, it's like when leaders say to me, like, I believe what you're saying. How often should I cry? What should I disclose? And I'm like, oh, man, you may believe what I'm saying, but you don't get what I'm saying at all.

What I'm saying is if you want to be a leader who believes in vulnerability, like, for example, a lot of times I go into companies because they're having struggles around innovation and creativity. But they've set up these perfectionistic cultures where failure is completely punished. And so you can't expect people to innovate and create if you don't allow people to fail because by definition, innovation is iteration, failure, and iteration. Like that's the definition. And so it's not about personal disclosure. In fact, a lot of people use personal disclosure as armor. Like I just met you. I really like you.

Like, we have some things in common. Here's my deepest, darkest secret. And what I'm really doing is testing to see if you'll still be around or confirm my thinking that no one really cares about my struggles. You know, that's armor. So vulnerability is not that. It's about the ability to manage uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure without armor. And one of the things that was really interesting in the leadership study is my hypothesis,

which was wrong, was that fear was the greatest barrier to courageous leadership. But it's not fear because the courageous leaders that we interviewed were like, I'm afraid all the time. I mean, I'm afraid all day long. The biggest barrier to courageous leadership and courage in general is not fear. It's armor. What do we do when we feel exposed? How do we self-protect?

And how do those pieces of armor keep us from growing into who we're supposed to be? But isn't the armor donned out of fear? Sometimes. But not always. out of fear? Sometimes, but not always. That's not always the driver. Could it just be habit? It can be habit. It can be control.

It can be a lot of things. I think the armor, but it's not, it's, look, one of the biggest findings for me, again, raised fifth generation Texan, we grew up believing you're either brave or afraid.

And what I believe is absolutely true based on just now topping 400,000 pieces of data is that you can be brave and afraid at the exact same time, at the exact same moment, and most of us are. And so it's not fear that gets in the way. It's succumbing to needing to armor up that really gets in the way. Does that make sense? Fear is not the problem. It's giving in to the fear. It's giving in, and the result of giving in to the fear is armor. Actually, it's about kind of embracing your fear fear or as you say, embracing the stuff.

Last night, we did this really cool event here in New York and a woman stood up and she was shaking and she said, you know, I just finished my first book. I'm writing really honestly about addiction and parenting and my life. And she's like, I just feel like I'm screwed if it does well because people will know more about me, and I'm screwed if it doesn't do well. And I'm just, I feel sick. And I said, congratulations. And I said, that's what courage feels like. And she goes, oh, but it's so uncomfortable.

And I said, I know. That's what brave feels like. And I said, let me ask you this. Do you feel alive? She goes, oh, yeah, I feel alive from head to toe. And I said, I know that's what brave feels like. And I said, let me ask you this. Do you feel alive? She goes, oh yeah, I feel alive from head to toe. And I said, that's courage. Like, I think the great pandemic of our time right now is comfort. That somehow we believe that we are entitled to be comfortable. And I've never done anything really meaningful in my life that was comfortable. You know, just never. My mother, who's kind of a trailblazing physician, advanced pretty high in the hierarchy at Harvard Medical School before there were a lot of women

there. And she likes to say, you know, you're out front when you have arrows in your butt. I mean, that's it. I mean, that's it. No one out front isn't beat up a little bit. I mean, and so and what scares me, I think about I mean, there's many there's many reasons I'm hopeful today as a researcher kind of sitting across from people for the last couple of decades. But I think what scares me today that's relatively new is I see an increasing number of people opting out of love because of their fear of grief, opting out of courage because of their fear of failure, opting out of courage because of their fear of failure, opting out of belonging because of their fear of disconnection.

Like, and I think somehow it was that we've been sold a bill of goods that somehow we deserve or entitled to not hurting. And no one knows how to hurt. And so instead of feeling pain, we cause pain. Instead of feeling uncomfortable and just kind of writhing in it a little bit and breathing through it, that's why we – like there's an interesting intersection with our work, I think. We don't know how to handle the immediacy, the physiology of vulnerability.

Interesting, I did some work with a company, probably one of the fastest rapid growth companies in the United States right now. And I spent a day with 20 senior managers. And the minimum tenure in this room was probably 25 years. And we did these role plays. And about half of these folks, very senior people, tapped out of the easiest role play. I brought three in increasing difficulty. Tapped out of this role play because they said it was too uncomfortable.

And it was a really easy role play. What did it involve? You had to tell someone on your team that the cologne or perfume that they were wearing was giving other team members headaches. And it went from that role play to a role play where I'd have to sit down from you and say, Dan, I know you've been working your butt off for the last six months and you really wanted project lead. But the team decided to give it to someone else.

And I want to be honest with you about why. There have been some issues around reliability that have been around for two years. And no one has ever given you that feedback. People have just passed you along from team to team without ever giving you the opportunity to work on this. And I'm here to stop that. I'm here to say we need to own – because so often … That was so well delivered. Oh.

I have an advantage because I know the role play. But I have to do it in front of people a lot because they're like there's no possible way to do this without being a jerk. And your point is there's vulnerability in that even though the person saying those words is the one with the power. It's the vulnerability in being honest. Yeah, because you can be an a**hole. You could like gear up and be like, hey, you didn't get it. Work harder. Or you could be avoidant and just pass them along.

And just pass them along. Right. But the vulnerability, like one of the big things I talk about in Dare to Lead, the leadership book is clear is kind, unclear is unkind. You know, like when we are not clear with people and we make up a million stories about, well, it hurt their feelings. It's all about our comfort. Clear is kind. Here's the thing. I believe in you.

We got some work to do. I think we can do it together. I think it's going to take six months. Here's what it Here's the thing. I believe in you. We got some work to do. I think we can do it together. I think it's going to take six months. Here's what it looks like operationalized, just really clear. Here's what's okay. Here's what's not okay. Let's dig in. Clear, kind.

But that's vulnerable. And you have no idea how many people can't do that. But it's not the stereotypical version of vulnerability, which is what I like about it. It is real vulnerability. It's not the mythology. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. And I don't know.

Someone asked me the question and I don't know the answer to it on Twitter yesterday or something. Why do you think these myths surround vulnerability? And do you think there's a gender thing here, that vulnerability is seen as weakness? And the thing about it is that there are women who struggle with this as much as men, for sure. And I think it's about shame because the greatest shame trigger for men is perceptions of weakness. And for women, it's don't be imperfect. Be perfect and take care of everyone while showing no effort. And so vulnerability is just right in the face of both of those.

Does that make sense? It does. I'm just thinking like is that the thing that would trigger the most shame for me? I think the thing that would trigger the most shame for me would be that I'm somehow irredeemably selfish. What do you mean? Give me an example. Just don't care about anybody except for myself. Stuff in that area would be the worst.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I got some stuff around there too. It's not necessarily weakness. Well, it's a kind of weakness. It is. It's not the – where I think most minds would go immediately when you think of weakness. No.

Yeah. where I think most minds would go immediately when you think of weakness. No. Yes. I think that's why a lot of male leaders will say things to me like, so should I cry? And I'm like, I don't know. If you cry or cry, if you're not, don't fake cry. I mean there's nothing worse than fake vulnerability that that will bite you in the butt every time. Have you ever had a 360 review? Okay. So I had one recently.

I'm writing a book about it. And some of the listeners to this show will be familiar because I've talked about it a little bit. And a couple of the findings go directly to what – first of all, it was devastating. It was like a 41-page, 16 people anonymously interviewed for an hour, 41-page report. It was horrifying. And I went into a lot of shame immediately after reading it for an extended period of time, and I can still go back to it. This happened, I would say, nine months ago. And a couple of the things that came up, one was lack of clarity and feedback.

So a kind of cowardice there around just telling people the truth in a kind way. And if I did tell them the truth, it was often in an unkind way, which was clear, but probably the signal wasn't received because there was too much. Could be heard, yeah. The bigger one, though, the number one complaint, if memory serves,

was emotional guardedness, which goes right to what you're talking about. And I've wondered, and I still wonder, what do I do with that? Because I'm not a crier. And I know you're saying, you're not saying go cry. But I don't know what emotional, lowered emotional guardness would actually mean.

It's a tough question to put to you because you don't know me. I don't know you. Yeah. I guess I would ask myself if I got that feedback. I guess I would ask myself if I got that feedback. I guess the only thing I would ask myself, I have mixed feelings about 360s, first of all. Oh, really?

Yeah, for sure. Say more. I don't think they're the, I think a 360 review is super helpful. How they're handled and done, I don't think is really helpful. Because you mean you get the results and you're on your own? Well, you get the results and you're on your own. And I've never really sat across from anyone that's had a 360 that didn't push them into shame. And shame is usually not a catalyst for growth and

change. Right. So luckily, this 360 was done by a very skillful sort of Buddhist inflected company, and there's been ongoing one-on-one coaching and very strenuous pushing away me from shame. Yeah. So I think if I were you, like this is why the 360 is hard. I'd rather be in a culture where people can have these conversations

directly in the eyes of the people that are giving the feedback. Because I would say, help me understand. Like I would want examples and I'd say, help me understand what it might look like if I were less emotionally guarded. How would I show up different with you or for you? What makes it scary? What makes my armor scary around that for you? What makes me, am I difficult to approach? Like I would ask a lot of questions because I think in those questions, that's where the real heart of change is. where people on my team sat me down and said, there is an emotional intensity about you

when you're fired up about something, when you're really mad. It's very hard to be across from. And we're used to it, but some of the more junior people are not used to it. And we know that it's important for you to have a culture where people can speak up and disagree. If you don't do something with that, you're not going to have the culture where people can speak up and disagree, if you don't do something

with that, you're not going to have the culture you want. Wow. So Brene Brown, the queen of vulnerability, couldn't run afoul of her own. No, yeah, because I would never dub myself the queen of vulnerability. I would say I'm a vulnerability researcher who's working on it every day. Yeah, that was unfair on my part. But basically I meant like the person who has popularized this concept in a way that has really gotten into the culture, perhaps the most prominently.

Maybe that would be a more fair way to put it. So I apologize for the glibness. But it's so interesting and I think very important that you're willing to say this because just because you've named something and described it and advised people effectively doesn't mean you're advertising yourself as an avatar of perfection. Oh, my God, no. I think that's why people resonate with a TED Talk and hopefully with a Netflix special because they see me struggling. I'm, you know, like, yeah, I mean, like, you know, Steve and I have been together for 30 years and we have two amazing kids. But like, I'm like, you know, Charlie will come in and say, hey, this happened at school.

And I'm like, that's I'm trying to do this like Buddhist thing from Pema Chodron where compassion is not a relationship between the wounded and the healed. It's a relationship of equals and that compassion is knowing your darkness well enough that you can sit in the dark with others. So I use a light metaphor, a light switch metaphor with my kids where if they say something hard is going on, I try not to run and flip the switch on. I just try to sit with them in the dark and teach them how to feel that and be in that. That's really good. It's really powerful. And my husband's a pediatrician, so he uses it a lot too.

Because sometimes parents will say, how do I fix it? And he'll sit with them in the dark and teach them. The biggest gift you can do is teach them how to feel the disappointment and feel their way through it, to teach them how to feel the grief. And so I'll say, Charlie, and he'll be like, can you fix it? And I'm like, you know, I can't, but I can be with you in it.

And I can tell you about how I felt before when something like this has happened to me. And then he'll be like, okay, well, I think I'm going to have some alone time. And then I'll walk out and look at my husband like, you better fix this crap right now. I mean, you fix it, you call those teachers and you tell them right now that I will have them arrested. Like, like, like, like, I go crazy. Like I'm a human being. Like,

there's that emotional intensity. There's emotional intensity or like, like, this friend of mine's daughter got like, somebody asked her to a homecoming dance and then called her and said, I decided to take someone else. I didn't know she would say yes. And they got someone better. And so the vulnerable response would be like, I really hear that. That's really hard. It's hard to see our kids in pain. But I was like, oh, no.

I know someone who knows the Jonas Brothers. I'll have them come pick her up, and then we'll show that little jerk. And she's like, that poor kid is like 14. I'm like, oh, no, I'm going to beat him up. So no, I'm just a normal person that – the only difference between me and probably even like my dad or people that were just like, don't be vulnerable, sis. It's dangerous. I'm aware of what I'm doing. But it's still my first – it's still my default.

How did it feel when you got that feedback from your team? I was super grateful. Did it hurt? You know, there was a twinge of – I mean I recognize that in myself. And I recognize that in a lot of leaders that I work with too, that emotional intensity. that I work with too, that emotional intensity. No, it didn't because I trust them. And I think we have this culture at work that we've worked really hard on.

And so like that story, the saying, the story I tell myself, that we say it 20 times a day. Can you say more about that? Because you talk about this in the special, and I think it's really potentially very powerful. So can you just talk a little bit about that expression, the story I tell myself? Yeah, it was interesting.

When I was doing the research for Rising Strong, first of all, this sentence, like the story I'm making up, the story I'm telling myself has floated around in the data for over a decade, but it never really saturated. And for a qualitative researcher, I'm looking for data that saturates across, like that I see it so much, it's predictably going to come up in everything. And so, but then when I started doing the research for Rising Strong, which is about, okay, so you're brave and vulnerable. The only guarantee is you're going to fall and no failure and just, you know, setback and disappointment. How do people get back up? Is there a way that people have found that works? So every single one of the research participants that we would really classify as highly resilient,

like the highest resilient, use some form of this sentence. And as I started digging into it, it made total sense because when something difficult happens, so let's just do a scenario here. I work for you and you and I get out of a meeting and I look at you and I'm walking back to my office and I'm like, hey, good meeting, Dan. And you look at me and go, what the hell, Brene? And you just give me this terrible look and then walk in your office. Everyone I know would be triggered by that, right?

Right. And so the brain says, my job is to support you. And survival is my only thing I care about. There's no close second. What's going on? I can, you know, tension, anxiety. It's not just like a saber tooth running after us. It's, it's the part of our brain that's like fight, flight, parasympathetically freeze. And it still perceives vulnerability, emotional risk as threat. And so

the brain, if you give the brain a story and you help the brain, you know, because we know now through PET imaging, the brain recognizes the narrative pattern of beginning, middle, and end. It explains why we've used story to teach and communicate since the beginning of time. You give the brain a story that helps it understand what's safe, what's dangerous, what's okay, what's not okay, who's after you, who's for you. You get a chemical reward. If I can say, oh, Dan hates me. He's always hated me. He's never trusted me.

He hated what I shared. He hated my presentation in that meeting. The brain will be like, okay, chemical reward. We know what's happening. We know he's not safe. We know how to protect you. The problem is that the reward happens regardless of the accuracy of the story. And then more nebulous and gauzy the story is, the less the reward. It doesn't want something like, hey, what's up with Dan? Maybe it's not about me. No reward. So what I found is that – so I pick up the phone.

I call Lauren, my colleague. Hey, do you have a meeting with Dan today? Yeah, in an hour. Don't go. Cancel the meeting. I don't know what's going on with him. He's going nuts. I think I'm going to – you may get fired today.

How many times a day do you think that happens in offices where people start? I mean, have you ever led a team through change? I've never had anybody report to me in my profession. You had. Okay. So like in the absence, this people can take this to the bank in the absence of data. We make up stories. Yes. I've done that a million times. Yes. Because we're right. Because we're a meaning making species. Yes. The great example is you're in a hard text conversation and you get the three dots and then nothing and then nothing. And then an hour later, still nothing. You've got a huge narrative built up about what's happening, right? Where that person is probably just like, you know, going for the run or, you know. So I come back to you, I knock on your door.

Hey, Dan, you have a second. Sure, come in. We got out of the meeting today and I said, have a good day. And you kind of looked at me like you were pissed off. The story I'm making up is something happened in that meeting that you didn't like. And I wanted to see if there's anything we need to clean up. And you look at me and go, that meeting was scheduled till 11 o'clock. We got out of there at 1230.

I have Zumba at 1130 every Thursday. And I'm like, but what about the part about me? And you're like, no part about you. I mean, how often do we do this with our partners? Do you mean like, hey, I'm just trying to think of what I would say if my partner said she had Zumba. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, like I'll say, Steve, I'm like, hey, I've got the like, you know, I've got the Pediatric Society meeting tonight. You don't need to go. Oh, OK. Are you mad? I'm like, no. I mean, like, if you don't want to take me to your party, like if, you know, if you don't like what I'm wearing, that's fine.

You call a date, get a date. He's like, Jesus, I just am saying like, I know you're busy. I know you're flying out tomorrow morning. And these things are so like, I'm like, are you sure? And he's like, okay, what story are you making up for today? And I'm like, and then we do it together all the time now. But the stories that we make up, because we're making them up to self-protect, the stories we make up grab our greatest shame triggers, our biggest fears about ourselves,

and just explode them in order to assure maximum protection. So whatever that shame trigger is for me, you know, like, oh my God, there's a pediatric dinner tonight. I don't have the right thing to wear. And so you don't think I have cute clothes to wear tonight he's like wear your jeans i'm wearing i don't care like you know he wears a yveta and jeans every day and cowboy boots to work like he could care less what i wear um but i'm making up that story because i'm in a bad place because i'm packing to go to new york the next day and i have no cute outfits to wear on your podcast you

know like that that's it's that's how it works. And with kids, I know you have a teenager, right? I have a four-year-old, yes. He acts like a teenager. Oh, you have a four-year-old. So I have a 13-year-old. He said to his mother last night, Daddy hates you and I know because I called him and he told me. So he acts like a teenager. That's four.

But that's the beginning of the what's the pecking order of love here? I was like, wow. His game is strong. His game is strong. Wow. Wow. You better get some of these skills right now.

You better skill up. No. I'm worried that I know where he's getting it from. That's my shame place. That's the story I tell myself, that he's going to be not a nice guy because daddy's not a nice guy. He's never seen me do any of that stuff and he certainly didn't call me. No, that's totally normal. He's just manipulating his mother.

That's totally normal. Yeah, that's four. Yeah. That's such a great – that's like – it's so funny. It's a great thing about me married to a pediatrician is like – I'm like, this is what happened today. It's just the – he goes – he's like, oh, trying on that behavior is so developmentally appropriate. Great news. Yes, yeah, yeah. You know? I'm like, really? He's like, oh, trying on that behavior is so developmentally appropriate. Great news. You know, I'm like, really?

He's like, great news. I was like, I think that's a BS frame just for me, but I'll take it. It's a better story. Yeah, no, but like I have a 13-year-old and 19-year-old. And so teaching them kind of we call it SFD for – You can say whatever you want. We'll bleep it. Yeah, no, SFD. You can say whatever you want. We'll bleep it. Yeah.

No, SFD, first draft. And for kids, stormy first draft, churches. So the first draft is the first story we make up. And so when my kids are on social media, are they like, everyone's doing this but me. Everyone was invited but me. Yeah, that everyone gets fractions but me. I'm like, do we know that for sure? Is that a story you're making up? And you're like, well, it's a story I'm making up.

I'm like, okay, how do we check it out? And so you use this in your office culture, which made that intervention with you. It sounds like that. Yeah. It's because we, we, we tell, we're truth tellers really. And it's when people come in and work with us or they're new, they're like, I've never worked somewhere like this. Like we'll just say like when they gave me the feedback, I said, okay, I'm going to call time out, which is a big part of our culture. Cause if you're going to have clear, kind, hard conversations,

you have to get permission to call time. I'm going to call time out for a second. I'm feeling a little shamey because I don't want to be that person. But can we circle back in 30 minutes? And they're like, yeah. So I just kind of walked around the parking lot and took it in.

And I came back and I said that that had to have been really hard to tell me. So I really appreciate it. I will think about it and I will work on it. And I have seen that intensity and I kind of know when I get into it. I don't want to make you responsible for my behavior. But is there any way you can give me a sign when it's happening if I am missing it? And they said, yeah.

And I said, OK. But they've all been on the receiving end of that. And so it's I think we should pull out this partnership right now. We had a partnership with a big media partner that we were negotiating. I said, we should pull out this partnership right now. And he's like, we haven't even inked it yet. We don't have a contract yet. And I was like, yeah, this is just BS. Like, I'm out.

And he's like, okay, what's going on? And I said, well, the story I make up is that they've had the red line. They're not getting back with us. They're not interested. So I'm going to pull out before they say they're not interested. And he said, okay, super helpful. They've had the red line for two hours. It's 62 pages.

We will not hear anything from them for at least five or six days. I was like, oh, okay. He's like, do you still want to back up? No, I'm super excited about it. But I'm just like, he's like, you know, so we are always the story I'm telling myself. The story I make up is you didn't do that last night because you disagreed with us going in that direction. And the person will say, I did it last night. I turned it into your assistant and I don't know where it is, but that's not, you know, so we're constantly checking things out.

I love that. I think it's great because, you great because I am – I have kind of two jobs. I work here at ABC News where I do anchor a couple of shows and technically nobody really reports to me. And then I also have a startup company, 10% Happier. We have a meditation app and I'm actually now really starting to get pretty granular about corporate culture and I'm learning a lot. I've never really been in a kind of management position. They need you. I don't actually have an executive role in the company. I'm a co-founder, but I'm interested in all this

because, and I've got a lot out of your Netflix special on this level of like, how do you create a culture where there is, I think the term of art is psychological safety, where people feel safe speaking up and you can be on the right side of clear and kind. And yeah, it's all super interesting. More 10% Happier after this.

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When you visit Audible, there are endless ways to ignite your imagination. With over 750,000 titles, including bestsellers, there's a listen for every type of listener. Discover all the best in audiobooks, podcasts, and originals featuring authentic Canadian voices and celebrity talent. Check out Audible Canadian Originals, including The Downloaded, a sci-fi adventure featuring Brendan Fraser and Luke Kirby. A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. Before we go, and I'm just mindful of the time because I promised to get you out of here. There are two things I wanted to talk about.

One is I just wanted to circle back to something. I've asked none of the questions on my list in front of me because you said so many interesting things. I'm just responding on that. So now I don't have to prepare for anything ever. You said something about people who are wholehearted. They wake up in the morning and feel like I'm good enough no matter what happens. Is that a skill somebody can build toward or is that a factory setting? No, that's a skill. Like, I mean, the factory settings can forecast how much work it's going

to take to get there, but it's definitely a skill set. It's definitely like, I think, I feel like I'm working toward it. I feel like I'm further than I was 10 years ago. Hopefully, I'll, you know, I feel like my kids have it so much, they're so much closer than I am because Steve and I have been trying to be very intentional about not using shame to parent, about really trying to make some different decisions than I think how we were parented, parents doing total best they can. They could with us. But I think it's absolutely, for anyone to get there. I mean, and one of the big parts, and I've heard you talk about this with other people, you've got to constantly check the

narratives. Like we believe what we tell ourselves about ourselves, you know? And so if someone couldn't love you, didn't have the capacity or didn't want to love you, it doesn't make you unlovable because people didn't see value in what you produce or create doesn't make you less valuable. Like we have to really challenge the narratives that we have bought into and we built our lives around them. So I think if we can challenge the narrative and learn how to be uncomfortable in emotion, I think almost anything is possible. Here's the final question, and maybe we'll have more time after this. We'll see. But I was told going into this that you didn't have much of a meditation practice. And so we always on this

show start with, hey, how'd you get into meditation? But I didn't do that with you because somehow I've been led to believe that you don't meditate. But then in our little chit chat before we started rolling, you told me that you might. So say more about that, if you will. I don't know. Does it have to look a certain way? No. Okay. Do something quiet, alone, and rhythmic on a daily basis or I would probably die.

What do you mean by rhythmic? Like I'm a swimmer. Okay. So like I just – because I breathe every third stroke. And so it's got to be really quiet. It's got to be – like the way I think about it. I'm a pretty, I'm a pretty spiritual person,

which also happened during that kind of breakdown stuff. I mean, I always, I was kind of raised Catholic or Episcopalian now, but I have a pretty healthy spiritual practice. So I always think about. By which you mean prayer? Both, I think,

because praying to me is talking and then meditation to me is listening. And so I try to listen in a quiet rhythmic space. So isn't that meditation? So I'll give you kind of a technical answer, which is that I think it's great. When I talk about meditation, I'm talking about mindfulness meditation. And mindfulness actually has a specific meaning that I don't know because I really literally don't know because I'm not in your mind as you swim or whatever it is you're doing in these times. Which, by the way, I think can have many, many, many benefits. Cardiovascular, psychologically, exercise can. But mindfulness is kind of a meta-awareness.

It's a knowing that you know, or sometimes people will say, we are classified as a species as homo sapiens sapiens. So the one who thinks and knows he or she thinks. And so mindfulness is the ability to see clearly that you have a mind and are thinking, and you have this voice in your head that's yammering at you all the time. And the mindfulness takes you out of that traffic.

It allows you to see those processes and so that you're not owned by it. Oh, yeah. I definitely meditate. Okay. So in mindfulness meditation, you are systematically trying to focus on one thing. It could be swimming. It could be your breath. And then every time you get distracted, you start again. And what that, the skill that develops over time is, is mindfulness, which is an ability not to be

owned by whatever neurotic obsession just flits through your brain. I definitely do that. I definitely do that. Like as if anything, if anything, if anything comes into my mind, other than the flow of the water over me, then I start over again. So that's – yeah. I'm not as good as – like I've tried walking meditation before. I'm not – interestingly, like I do like to sit still, but I'm working on the meditation thing. But I think swimming is very meditative for me. It's like a decompression chamber. Like you't hear anything you can't see anything it's just you're just

breathing but i it's definitely the meta thinking it's an awareness of my thinking does that make sense yes absolutely and it's it's it's interesting i'm glad i asked i stepped gingerly when you said that because often when people say to me running is my meditation or swimming is my meditation. I say, actually, I think running and swimming or whatever, yarn bombing, whatever it is you do is great. But unless you do it in a specific way, it's probably not meditation the way I define it. But actually, the parenthetical phrase there, unless you do it in a specific way, I think you are doing it in a specific way that would make, would qualify it as mindfulness meditation. I think it is mindfulness meditation, even because I separate that swimming from when I'm like doing timed

fifties or something like that. Like this is really, this is really about, it's, it's a mental practice for me. Yeah, for sure. So I think I do that very much in the water. All right. I actually have a few minutes to ask this one last question I want to ask. We talked a lot about vulnerability as it pertains to sort of professional relationships and parenting a little bit, but we didn't really get into romantic relationships. So in our remaining moments here, what would that look like? You used the phrase in your Netflix special, I believe, the willingness to say I love you first. Yeah. But is that what you're talking about?

I think it's more than that. I think it's like, you know, I just picture almost every couple I know, myself included, that like we go through the day so armored, get stuff done, you know, kick ass, don't let anyone see anything, just do it. And then we climb in bed at night and we're in these big suits of armor, two people that it's like so hard just to be seen. I think having a partner that sees you and that to see and to be seen is the great human need, right? And I think to not be armored with the people that we love, to be able to say, I'm really afraid about this, or this really hurt today, or, but we don't do that. We go home and we keep it on even with our partners, you know, or I'm really scared about what we're hearing about little Sammy or, you know, like to be able to sink into each other as a place of safety and not one more place where we have to prove and perfect and please and worry about what people think.

I mean, I think that's the goal. I think it is. And I do think saying I love you first. I do think say thinking, you first i do think say thinking you know i'm afraid like it was interesting because i mean this is a great example i so it is another piece of feedback that i've received in my life is that instead of getting scared i can become scary like yeah laughing because it feels like something i would do. Yeah. Like I can get like, like if I'm scared, I can get pretty fierce about stuff.

Um, but I was talking with Steve before I came to New York and we were riding the car and he's like, what is the anxiety about Netflix? He's like, I've watched it. You know, I give you real honest feedback.

He's like, I think you crushed it. Um, you know, and I think to be able to go up there and do that and it was meaningful. I think it could change people's lives in important ways. And I was like, no, I just, I don't know. I just, I hate this part. I hate it getting out in the public now and I'm scared. And he's like, well, what are you scared of? And I said, like, I didn't want to say it because I knew what it was,

but I didn't want to say it. And he's like, I'm going to pull over. And I was like, don't you dare pull over. I was like, don't make eye contact with me. I was like, don't make eye contact with me. And he's like, I'm going to pull over and then I'm going to stare at you. And I'm like, oh, my God, you're so mean. And so I was like, if you keep driving, I'll tell you. And I was like, don't look at me and don't say anything after I say it or I'm going to be pissed.

He's like, OK. And I said, I think. It's the anticipatory anxiety of knowing the cheap seat criticism is coming. Like the first couple of days something comes out, it's the people who love your work and they're like, thank you. This is great. Really enjoyed it but then as it goes as it as it radiates out like the pebble in the pond

then people are like you know screw you you know like you know those people come and I said so it's like it's like when you were 10 and you know your brother's gonna frog you in the arm but you don't know when it's coming and I was like and he's like when you were 10 and you know your brother is going to frog you in the arm, but you don't know when it's coming.

And he's like, I am pulling over. And I was like, oh, damn it. And so he's like, that's coming. And he's like, you know that's coming because you've put your work out in the world for a long time and you're super brave. But it's coming and you can choose not to read it and I'll be here and it's going to be okay. And it was worth it. You know, like I get teary eyed saying it like that's vulnerable, you know, as opposed to just getting the car and be like, Hey, yeah, I can load.

Let's go. as opposed to just getting in the car and being like, hey, lock and load, let's go. To really let someone see what scares you. Or with kids, I remember one time my daughter coming home and she had just started high school. And she said, I'm running. She was running for class president of her freshman class. And she came home one day and we were sitting at dinner and we'd go around after Grace and we say

what we're grateful for. And she goes, I'm really grateful for y'all. And I said, and I said, thanks Elle. And we were getting ready to go to her brother. And she goes, because I can tell you how bad I really want this. And, and I'm not going to win. I know I'm not going to win. And I said, And I'm not going to win. I know I'm not going to win. And I said, yeah, you may not win. You may, but you may not. And I said, but when you let people know how bad you want something that you know you may not get, you've already won.

Like, that's brave. Because most of us are like, I don't care. I don't really care. I'm just doing it for the fun of it. Let's see what happens. And then you go cry in your room alone. And then you dry your tears and come out like a badass, you know, and like I didn't really care about it. But to let people know you care about things, like that's vulnerable. It sounds like it was vulnerable on both sides. You and Steve in the car, both were vulnerable because he gave you honest, clear feedback.

And same with you and Ellen. She was vulnerable in admitting how she felt and you were vulnerable in not trying to make her problem go away and switch the lights on for her. You sat with her in the fear. Yeah. Yeah, I listened to what you're saying. Yeah, and I think it's – I think one of the biggest barriers to raising vulnerable, courageous kids, if I think about my own upbringing, is our parents who put too much emphasis on cool. Like cool is a straight jacket. Like Steve and I will be dancing around the kitchen

in our socks or something and my son who's getting ready to be 14, I'll be like, oh my God, stop. And we'll be listening to some very popular song like Old Town Road or something. And she'll be like, no, this is burnt in my vision forever. And we'll stop and get really serious and be like, hey, look, we won't ever do that in front of your friends.

We won't embarrass you. You don't have to dance with us. But in this house, awkward, silly, uncool always rules. You have a place to do that. Steve was right. You did a great job on your Netflix special. Thank you. And I do recommend unreservedly that people watch it.

That means a lot. Thank you. It's heartfelt. Wholehearted even. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. It was great to meet you. I could talk to you for five hours.

Me too. Maybe we'll do it again. I would love that. Thank you. Thank you again to Brene Brown. And go check out her Netflix special, The Call to Courage. It's quick and funny and very smart and interesting. So let's do voicemails.

Here's number one. Hi, Dan. This is Joni. I'm a listener in Utah, and I love your show. My question has to do with how action ties into mindfulness and meditation. They seem to conflict. Like, how do you have goals and aspirations and be ambitious and work toward things,

but also be very happy and comfortable where you are and not have expectations on yourself and on your future and on your workplace? So I'm having a hard time tying the two philosophies together, and I really want to be a growth-oriented person. And so how... I just want to hear your thoughts on that. How do you define it?

How does mindfulness maybe even help you with results? Thanks. It's helped me immeasurably. This is a question we get a lot. I spent a lot, I dedicated huge chunks of a book called 10% Happier to this question with which I was obsessed and still kind of am for years.

We've talked about it on the show before, but we get the question so much, I think it's worth diving back in. And let me just share two little slogans, both of which I've stolen from other people, that have been really useful for me. So just to reset on what the problem is, it seems like there would be a contradiction between working hard, striving diligently toward being successful on the one hand, and on the other hand, being relaxed, having peace of mind, enjoying the present moment, etc., etc.

How can you combine these two? So let me just say generally, I think the answer is that it is totally fine to be relaxed, enjoying the present moment. And I think that ability makes you much more effective than doing what I used to do, which is spending all day long in a spiral of anxiety, of comparing myself to other people and worrying about what's going to happen at work, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So the two slogans that have really gotten me to turn down the volume a little bit on the aforementioned anxiety and turn up the volume on being able to be grateful for what I have, content in the moment, etc., etc. One phrase stolen from my meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, is,

is this useful? So if you're like me, you may spend a lot of time lost in spirals of rumination around, I don't know, something that's happening in your relationship. For me, it's a lot around work. And you may just be playing and replaying nightmarish scenarios in your head or thinking about how am I going to handle this? What should I say during this meeting, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think a certain amount of that is really healthy. Nobody's going to move me off of that position. There's a certain amount of stress that's part of working hard toward a goal.

You notice you're on the 75th run through of all the horrible ramifications of a bad meeting with your boss. Maybe ask yourself, is this useful? That is a game changing ability to be able to knock yourself out of to see when you've crossed the line between useless rumination and what I call constructive anguish. So you want to be on the constructive anguish side of the line, not useless rumination. And is this useful can really wake you up to, all right, actually, I'm starting to waste my time here. I'd be better served by, I don't know, making eye contact with my child and talking to her or him or thinking about something else that would be strategically sensible. And I found that turning down the volume in this way on my anxiety has made me happier and easier to be around and easier, even for me, easier to be around myself, and also increased my resiliency.

The other slogan I would mention to you is non-attachment to results. I think this was introduced to me by two-time 10% Happier guest Mark Epstein, who's a major figure in my first book. Dr. Mark Epstein, psychiatrist. I recommend you go listen to both of his podcasts here and read all of his books because he's brilliant. Non-attachment to results is the idea is that you can work really hard, really hard. I work really hard. But to know on some molecular level that you are not really in control of the results.

We live in a universe where everything's changing all the time. It's entropic and out of our control. And to realize there's so many variables that you can work as hard as you want, but at some point you got to just let it go. As Mark has pointed out, this is true not only in work projects, but with your kids. And knowing that, as hard as it is, can, and I'm going to go back to this word, boost your resiliency because you are, if you're, as Rene says, if you're daring greatly, you're going to fail. You're going to get mud on your face. And you want to be able to wipe it off and get back in the arena.

And you want to be able to wipe it off and get back in the arena. And knowing that you cannot control the results and therefore doing your best to not experience. I've been noodling on these precepts for many, many, many years, and I'm by no means perfect at applying them. But as a North Star, they're incredibly useful. So you – I suspect you're going to get caught up, as I do all the time, in useless rumination or getting overly attached to results. But you may find that if you kind of put this into your mind stream, that it pops up at useful moments and jars you out of unconstructive cycles of thought and emotion. All right,

I hope that helped. Let's do voicemail number two. Hi, Dan. My name is Isabel. I started to meditate this year, although I haven't been able to establish a regular practice. My question is, of late, I am sitting, starting my meditation with a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, and not actually sitting perfectly still, but sipping coffee or tea throughout the 10 minutes or 20 minutes that I'm meditating. Is this okay or is this another distraction? Thank you. Huh. I think a lot of, I suspect that you'd get varying answers depending on the teacher you were talking to.

So I'll just give you my take, which is I wouldn't do that personally. Now, one can drink coffee or tea mindfully and turn it into a mindfulness exercise, a meditation. I mean, meditation or mindfulness just means paying attention to whatever you're doing right now. the cup, the warmth of the cup, the motion toward your mouth, the taste, the swallowing, the placing of the cup back down, the waiting for the next sip. You might notice the desire arise for the next sip, et cetera, et cetera. And then every time you get distracted, which you will throughout, you just start again. Well, that is a form of meditation.

No question about it. However, and I think that's a great thing to do, just to do anything mindfully. But I'm of the view, and again, you may find differing opinions here, but I'm of the view that it makes sense to have a base of formal practice, where all you're doing is sitting with your eyes closed, or some people don't like to have their eyes closed, and you can just kind of keep them open and gaze at a neutral point on the ground. But you're sitting and doing formal meditation. By the way, you can also do formal meditation while standing or lying or doing that super slow walking meditation. But I think having a base where you're doing nothing but the formal practice of trying to focus on one thing and then every time you get distracted, you start again and again and again. And then I think you can use that

to apply it to things like drinking coffee, drinking tea, doing your dishes, talking to somebody, et cetera, et cetera. You can do all of that mindfully to the best of your ability. Just speaking personally after 10 years, my ability waxes and wanes. So yeah, that's my take.

That is not a scolding. I think the fact that you're attempting to do anything in this space for 10 or 20 minutes a day is awesome. But I would tweak it and say maybe do half and half, half a mindful coffee session and half just straight up meditation. And I guess there's a pun there around half and a half that I was not intending. On that horrible pun, maybe I should close the show before I start getting even more deeply into my penchant for dad humor. My dad humor game is tight, by the way. My son sometimes literally smacks his forehead when I make a dumb joke. Okay, thanks everybody for listening. Big thank you again to the folks at 10% Happier who

were in charge of relaunching our brand look and feel, Eva and Jeremy especially, but also Derek, Ben, Jeff, and the rest of the team. Too many names to list. And thank you to the producers of this show, Samuel, Grace, Ryan, and many other folks who contribute. Thank you very much for listening. and many other folks who contribute. Thank you very much for listening. If you're so inclined, we love it when people rate us or review us or talk about us on social media. That really helps getting us new listeners and helps us in the rankings.

And by the way, thanks, everybody, for voting on the Webby. We did win. I think we won two Webby's. One was the jury award and the other was the people's choice. So all you people out there who voted, I appreciate that. They call it the Oscars of the Internet. Just in case my ego wasn't big enough. Now I got two webbies I can brag about. Thank you, everybody. Appreciate it. We'll see you next Wednesday. If you like 10% Happier, and I hope you do, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining

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