Daring Greatly

   Brené Brown is an acclaimed researcher and public speaker, perhaps best-known for her viral TED Talks, "The Power of Vulnerability" and "Listening to Shame". Her book Daring Greatly expands on these ideas, tying her extensive studies and research in worthiness and shame with empathy and vulnerability, but this last is the main focus.

   Vulnerability tends to be seen as an undesirable, even feared state of being to be avoided at all costs. Vulnerability is most often seen as weakness. In the second chapter of Daring Greatly, Brené Brown debunks this perception as the biggest myth that is believed about vulnerability. She does this by providing a long list of examples that display an act of vulnerability (p. 35-37):

• Sharing an unpopular opinion
• Standing up for myself
• Saying no
• Helping my thirty-seven-year old wife with Stage 4 breast cancer make a decision about her will
• Initiating sex with my wife/husband
• Calling a friend whose child just died

   Her list goes on for a page and a half more examples of what is regarded as vulnerability, to which Brené applies a questions: "Do these sound like weaknesses" (p. 37)? And her answer is a resounding, satisfying and powerful no. She writes "vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage", two things which may be uncomfortable but would never be considered weaknesses.

   This is only a few pages out of the larger picture of this book as a whole, but Daring Greatly is brimming with page after page of these brilliant, powerful sections about honesty, courage, and emotion. There is an entire chapter on applying this knowledge to parenting, and another on education and work. Brené's other book, I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn't), takes the concept of shame that she writes about in Daring Greatly and delves even deeper into the studies and research that she has compiled over the years, specifically surrounding shame in the lives of women. Daring Greatly is a compelling precursor, guaranteed to make you pause and redefine your patterned, maybe harmful, ways of thinking.

--Elise T--

   For more information on Daring Greatly by Brené Brown, visit our website here.