Dare to Lead

by Brené Brown

try to understand things that happen to us, translating messy, difficult experiences into language essentially makes them “graspable.”

Writing down your SFD doesn’t give it power—it gives us power. It gives us the opportunity to say, “Does this even make sense? Does this look right?”

these are the questions that risers need to rumble with: 1. What more do I need to learn and understand about the situation? What do I know objectively? What assumptions am I making? 2. What more do I need to learn and understand about the other people in the story? What additional information do I need? What questions or clarifications might help?

3. What more do I need to learn and understand about myself? What’s underneath my response? What am I really feeling? What part did I play?

“Hey. Tough meeting today. You were quiet, and I’m making up that you were pissed about your team having to do all of the work for the next sprint. Can we talk about that?”

The power of “the story I’m telling myself” is that it reflects a very real part of what it means to be a meaning-making human.

Without real conversation around feedback, there is less learning and more defensiveness. Because it’s human nature to turn on some level of self-protection when dealing with setbacks and receiving feedback,

The difference—the delta—between what we make up about our experiences and the truth we discover through the process of rumbling is where the meaning and wisdom of this experience live.

In our office, we probably check the stories we’re making up with each other ten times a day. Now it’s shortened to “I’m making up that they’re still holding the redline because their lawyers haven’t reviewed it yet,” or “I’m making up that no one is going to want to sit through that presentation on Friday afternoon.”

When we own a story and the emotion that fuels it, we get to simultaneously acknowledge that something was hard while taking control of how that hard thing is going to end. We change the narrative. When we deny a story and when we pretend we don’t make up stories, the story owns us.

This is the Story Rumble process: Bring as many of the courage-building tools, skills, and practices we’ve discussed into the room as you can—especially shared language, curiosity, grounded confidence, your integrity, your values, and the trust you’re building.

We fail the minute we let someone else define success for us. Like many of you, I spent too many years taking on projects and even positions, just to prove I could do it. I was driven by a definition of success that didn’t reflect who I am, what I want,

When things are going really well in our family, what does it look like? What brings us the most joy? When are we in our zone?” For my family, the answers included things like sleep, working out, healthy food, cooking,

we were achieving so we could buy more joy and meaning, but those require time, and time—that precious unrenewable resource—is not for sale.

Joseph Campbell’s wisdom: “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” Own the fear, find the cave, and write a new ending for yourself,

“To love at all is to be vulnerable”: C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves: The Much Beloved Exploration of the Nature of Love