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, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt famous speech in Sorbonne, 23.04.1910
Brene Brown is a big proponent of vulnerability. In 2010 she gave a TED talk about the value of being vulnerable and it turned out to be amazingly popular. The book came out from the talk.
My takeaways
Artur, could you please focus and talk about the book? Your digressions about all this are interesting, but lets hear about the book itself!
Being broken-hearted is also courageous. Instead of running away, you have to admit, see and own your moment face-down.
Only when you fall you can see what is up.
You need to admit that „the stories we tell ourselves” are not the whole truth. In every relationship, we all have our internal narratives and you cannot just believe that they are the whole truth. And if you believe you share the story about some facts of your relationship – you need to consult them! You could be very surprised how your significant other can believe in a different story about the same thing.
Integrity is choosing courage over comfort. The proper thing instead of cool, fast or easy.
You need to live your values instead of just talking about them.
You have to own your moment of failure.
Give yourself permission to feel
Actual badass isn’t afraid of talking about the fear and failure. He always stands up after being knocked down. Pretending that you didn’t fail is cowardice.
To rise strong after failure, you have to go through:
- Reckoning ( enough with this shit! )
- Rumbling ( now what? examine your emotions )
- Revolution ( change narratives )
Courageous life
- Cultivating authenticity: letting go of what people think
- Cultivating self-compassion: letting go of perfectionism
- Cultivating a resilient spirit: letting go of numbing and powerlessness
- Cultivating gratitude and joy: letting go of scarcity and fear of the dark
- Cultivating intuition and trusting faith: letting go of the need for certainty
- Cultivating creativity: letting go of comparison
- Cultivating play and rest: letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth
- Cultivating calm and stillness: letting go of anxiety as a lifestyle
- Cultivating meaningful work: letting go of self-doubt and “supposed to”
- Cultivating laughter, song, and dance: letting go of being cool and “always in control”
For teams
- What emotions are the people in our team experiencing?
- What do we need to get curious about?
- What are the stories that the team members are making up?
- What can these stories tell us about the relationships within the team, about communication and team culture?
- What are the key learnings?
- And how do we act on these key learnings?
MANIFESTO OF THE BRAVE AND BROKENHEARTED
There is no greater threat to the critics and cynics and fearmongers
Than those of us who are willing to fall
Because we have learned how to rise With skinned knees and bruised hearts
We choose owning our stories of struggle, Over hiding, over hustling, over pretending.
When we deny our stories, they define us. When we run from struggle, we are never free.
So we turn toward truth and look it in the eye. We will not be characters in our stories. Not villains, not victims, not even heroes.
We are the authors of our lives. We write our own daring endings.
We craft love from heartbreak, Compassion from shame, Grace from disappointment, Courage from failure. Showing up is our power.
Story is our way home. Truth is our song. We are the brave and brokenhearted.
We are rising strong.
More
- The other Brene Brown ted talk
- Brene Brown on Tim Ferris podcast
- Daring Greatly: the other Brene Brown book
My highlights
- badassery deficit.
- Engineers Without Borders
- I want to be in the arena
- shame-based fear of being ordinary (which is how I define narcissism).
- “the story that I’m making up”
- Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.
- A movement fueled by the freedom that comes when we stop pretending that everything is okay when it isn’t.
- MANIFESTO OF THE BRAVE AND BROKENHEARTED There is no greater threat to the critics and cynics and fearmongers Than those of us who are willing to fall Because we have learned how to rise With skinned knees and bruised hearts; We choose owning our stories of struggle, Over hiding, over hustling, over pretending. When we deny our stories, they define us. When we run from struggle, we are never free. So we turn toward truth and look it in the eye. We will not be characters in our stories. Not villains, not victims, not even heroes. We are the authors of our lives. We write our own daring endings. We craft love from heartbreak, Compassion from shame, Grace from disappointment, Courage from failure. Showing up is our power. Story is our way home. Truth is our song. We are the brave and brokenhearted. We are rising strong.
- TEN GUIDEPOSTS FOR WHOLEHEARTED LIVING 1. Cultivating authenticity: letting go of what people think 2. Cultivating self-compassion: letting go of perfectionism 3. Cultivating a resilient spirit: letting go of numbing and powerlessness 4. Cultivating gratitude and joy: letting go of scarcity and fear of the dark 5. Cultivating intuition and trusting faith: letting go of the need for certainty 6. Cultivating creativity: letting go of comparison 7. Cultivating play and rest: letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth 8. Cultivating calm and stillness: letting go of anxiety as a lifestyle 9. Cultivating meaningful work: letting go of self-doubt and “supposed to” 10. Cultivating laughter, song, and dance: letting go of being cool and “always in