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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Brené Brown
Read between
November 15 - December 16, 2012
Learning and creating are inherently vulnerable.
To reignite creativity, innovation, and learning, leaders must rehumanize education and work.
Shame breeds fear. It crushes our tolerance for vulnerability, thereby killing engagement, innovation, creativity, productivity, and trust.
85 percent of the men and women we interviewed for the shame research could recall a school incident from their childhood that was so shaming, it changed how they thought of themselves as learners.
Shame can only rise so far in any system before people disengage to protect themselves. When we’re disengaged, we don’t show up, we don’t contribute, and we stop caring.
Here’s the best way to think about the relationship between shame and blame: If blame is driving, shame is riding shotgun.
If blame is a pattern in your culture, then shame needs to be addressed as an issue.
A daring greatly culture is a culture of honest, constructive, and engaged feedback.
Today’s organizations are so metric-focused in their evaluation of performance that giving, receiving, and soliciting valuable feedback ironically has become rare.
It’s even a rarity in schools where learning depends on feedback, which is infinitely more effective than grades scribbled on the top of a page or computer-generated, standardized test scores.
People are desperate for feedback—we all want to grow. We just need to learn how to give feedback in a way that inspires growth and engagement.
I believe that feedback thrives in cultures where the goal is not “getting comfortable with hard conversations” but normalizing discomfort.
“We believe growth and learning are uncomfortable so it’s going to happen here—you’re going to feel that way.
“If you’re comfortable, I’m not teaching and you’re not learning. It’s going to get uncomfortable in here and that’s okay. It’s normal and it’s part of the process.”
the heart of valuable feedback is taking the “strengths perspective.”
Most of us can go through the majority of our “faults” or “limitations” and find strengths lurking within.
Vulnerability is at the heart of the feedback process.
I would never talk to a client across a desk; I would walk around my desk and sit in a chair across from the client so there was nothing big and bulky between us.
How would education be different if students, teachers, and parents sat on the same side of the table?
If we’re not willing to ask for feedback and receive it, we’ll never be good at giving it.
The Daring Greatly Leadership Manifesto To the CEOs and teachers. To the principals and the managers. To the politicians, community leaders, and decision-makers: We want to show up, we want to learn, and we want to inspire. We are hardwired for connection, curiosity, and engagement. We crave purpose, and we have a deep desire to create and contribute. We want to take risks, embrace our vulnerabilities, and be courageous. When learning and working are dehumanized—when you no longer see us and no longer encourage our daring, or when you only see what we produce or how we perform—we disengage and
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That’s why parents are so critical of one another—we latch on to a method or approach and very quickly our way becomes the way.
the heated discussions that occupy much of the national parenting conversation conveniently distract us from this important and difficult truth: Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting.
the question isn’t so much “Are you parenting the right way?” as it is: “Are you the adult that you want your child to grow up to be?”
Joseph Chilton Pearce writes, “What we are teaches the child more than what we say, so we must be what we want our children to become.”
By pushing away vulnerability, we turn parenting into a competition that’s about knowing, proving, executing, and measuring rather than being.
If Wholeheartedness is the goal, then above all else we should strive to raise children who: Engage with the world from a place of worthiness Embrace their vulnerabilities and imperfections Feel a deep sense of love and compassion for themselves and others Value hard work, perseverance, and respect Carry a sense of authenticity and belonging with them, rather than searching for it in external places Have the courage to be imperfect, vulnerable, and creative Don’t fear feeling ashamed or unlovable if they are different or if they are struggling Move through our rapidly changing world with
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we can’t give our children what we don’t have and so we must let them share in our journey to grow, change, and learn
perfectionism is not teaching them how to strive for excellence or be their best selves. Perfectionism is teaching them to value what other people think over what they think or how they feel.
So often we think that we earn parenting points by being critical, put out, and exasperated. Those first looks can be prerequisites or worthiness-builders. I don’t want to criticize when my kids walk in the room, I want to light up!
childhood experiences of shame change who we are, how we think about ourselves, and our sense of self-worth.
we can’t shameproof our children. Our task instead is teaching and modeling shame resilience, and that starts with conversations about what shame is and how it shows up in our lives.
You can’t claim to care about the welfare of children if you’re shaming other parents for the choices they’re making.
I have little tolerance for debates that casually use the terms abuse or neglect to scare or belittle parents who are simply doing things that we judge as wrong, different, or bad.
I think the key is remembering that when other parents make different choices than we’re making, it’s not necessarily criticism. Daring greatly means finding our own path and respecting what that search looks like for other folks.
one of the best ways to show our children that our love for them is unconditional is to make sure they know they belong in our families.
fitting in and belonging are not the same thing. In fact, fitting in is one of the greatest barriers to belonging. Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be in order to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.
Pema Chödrön, who writes: “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”
Parenting perfection is not the goal. In fact, the best gifts—the best teaching moments—happen in those imperfect moments when we allow children to help us mind the gap.
What do parents experience as the most vulnerable and bravest thing that they do in their efforts to raise Wholehearted children?
letting their children struggle and experience adversity.
Hope is a function of struggle. If we want our children to develop high levels of hopefulness, we have to let them struggle.
Raising children who are hopeful and who have the courage to be vulnerable means stepping back and letting them experience disappointment, deal with conflict, learn how to assert themselves, and have the opportunity to fail. If we’re always following our children into the arena, hushing the critics, and assuring their victory, they’ll never learn that they have the ability to dare greatly on their own.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out 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 errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst,
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Daring greatly is not about winning or losing. It’s about courage.
It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful. —Brother David Steindl-Rast
