Brené Brown wants you to know it’s OK to feel vulnerable.
In fact, she encourages you to embrace your vulnerabilities and realize they’re a strength rather than a weakness.
A research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, where she holds the Huffington Foundation Brené Brown Endowed Chair, Brown rose to fame after her 2010 TED Talk, “The Power of Vulnerability.” Her messages on self-acceptance and living unapologetically have resonated with people throughout the world (Oprah and Katie Couric count themselves among her many fans). Eleven years after her TED Talk, her lecture now ranks as one of the top five most watched TED Talks, with more than 50 million views.
A New York Times bestselling author, Brown breaks down what it means to be vulnerable in her audiobook, “The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings on Authenticity, Connection and Courage.” She explains how in our culture, we often associate vulnerability with emotions we want to avoid such as fear, shame and uncertainty.
“We lose sight of the fact that vulnerability is the birthplace of joy, belonging, creativity, authenticity and love,” Brown says in her book.
In both her TED Talk and book, Brown discusses how embracing and revealing our vulnerability to others can actually prove beneficial and bring purpose and meaning into our lives.
Photo by Randal Ford
Daring To Be Yourself
After spending almost two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame and empathy, Brown, 55, now shares her research through her storytelling skills and inspires people to lead their best lives.
Last year, Brown began facilitating a new leadership training program centered around courage, trust and vulnerability at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. As a visiting professor of management, Brown uses skill sets from her book “Dare to Lead” to train a new generation of business leaders.
Brown and her research team at the University of Houston interviewed more than 150 business leaders from all over the world to learn what makes an effective leader.
“We learned that it’s not fear that gets in the way of courageous leadership, it’s armor, what we do to self-protect when we’re afraid,” Brown said in an address to more than 18,000 HR professionals attending the Society for Human Resource Management 2019 Annual Conference and Exposition held in Las Vegas. “For some of us, when fear takes over, we’re a wreck. We go into “Transformer” mode, ready for battle. Other people are aware they’re armoring for self-protection and choose to keep their shields off and remain vulnerable — and better able to lead bravely and humanely.”
Brown went on to say that daring leadership can be taught by developing these four skillsets: rumbling with vulnerability, living into our values, braving trust and learning to rise.
Brown admits the lessons she’s learned through her research have also impacted how she lives her own life.
“I trusted myself deeply as a professional, but I didn’t have a lot of self-trust personally,” she said in an interview with Origin magazine. “I was learning from other people what it meant to live and love with your whole heart and move away from comparison, judgement, perfection and exhaustion and then thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m not doing that.’”
In addition to sharing her findings through her books, “The Gifts of Imperfection,” “Daring Greatly,” “Braving the Wilderness,” and “Dare to Lead,” Brown launched two podcasts last year, both exclusively on Spotify.
In her first podcast, “Dare to Lead,” Brown hosts conversations with change makers and leaders including former President Barack Obama and two-time Olympic medalist and retired American soccer player Abby Wambach. The podcast builds on research from Brown’s book of the same name and discusses leadership strategies for people at all stages of their careers.
Photo by Kara Trail
Brown’s second podcast, “Unlocking Us,” features conversations that she says “unlock the deep human part of who we are, so that we can live, love, parent and lead with more courage and heart.” Past episodes feature notable authors including Roxane Gay and her wife, Debbie Millman; philanthropist and author Melinda Gates and football star and author Emmanuel Acho.
In 2019, Brown filmed the Netflix special “A Call to Courage,” which the streaming service describes as “a discussion of what it takes to choose courage over comfort in a culture defined by scarcity, fear and uncertainty.”
Part of Brown’s appeal is how she candidly discusses her own vulnerability and how relatable this makes her to others. She’s not just a researcher presenting facts, she also practices what she preaches. In a 2019 interview with Vanity Fair magazine, Brown recalled how reading some of the hateful online comments about her TED Talk had hurt.
“I don’t let the feedback from the cheap seats stop me from putting my work out into the world,” Brown said. “But it can definitely hurt me.”
Photo by Peter Yang
Resiliency During Tough Times
Over the past year, Brown’s message of courage and sage advice have helped many come to terms with the uncertainties surrounding the pandemic. In a 2020 interview with LinkedIn’s “This Is Working” podcast, Brown spoke about how the pandemic has changed her and what comes next.
“I think we will come back to gathering in person, when possible, with a new passion, and a new sense of gratitude about being with each other physically,” Brown told LinkedIn. “I know that I will never take that for granted again.”
For those who experienced job loss as a result of the pandemic, Brown added that this can be a huge shame trigger. “Job loss right now is not about you,” Brown said. “It’s about a broken system and a pandemic that also revealed huge inequality fault lines across our countries and organizations.”
Brown recommends that people struggling with feelings of rage, powerlessness, grief and heartbreak talk to someone rather than letting their feelings fester.
“To be human and an adult, we’ve all had these experiences,” Brown told LinkedIn. “Reach out and connect with other people and talk about how you’re feeling and know you’re not alone.”
For Brown, this means confiding in her husband of 27 years, Steve, spending time with their two children, Ellen and Charlie, and ensuring that, as she wrote to her over 3.3 million Instagram followers, “social distancing doesn’t have to mean social disconnection.”
As Brown told the Texas Monthly, the first Sunday after churches closed their doors in March 2020 over fears of the coronavirus, Brown was longing for both communion and a sense of community. She knew she wasn’t alone.
Deciding to livestream an inclusive service open to her many followers of different faiths, Brown held what one follower dubbed “the church of Brené.” It was an informal affair, with technical issues and a recording of Willie Nelson singing “Amazing Grace,” but above all, there was a sense of coming together and a realization that despite the country facing one of its greatest challenges, there was still hope.
Photo by Aaron Pinkston
In an interview with “The Current,” a Canadian radio show, Brown cautioned against pushing yourself to control things at home as a way of not being able to control world events and the pandemic. “I work a lot to begin with, but I feel lately as if I’m on Zoom calls from 6 in the morning to midnight,” Brown said. “I think we’re all hitting that moment where we are weary in our bones and are physically tired. I would tell people, ‘You’re not alone, we’re all struggling to find our footing.’”
Brown says it’s important to realize the pandemic won’t last forever and to be realistic about your expectations. “We’re not going to do this well, this is all new to us and we don’t know what we’re doing,” she told “The Current.” “I mean, I’m in my 50’s and I keep waiting for the grown-ups to show up and lead us through this, you know, where are the adults? And then I realize, ‘Ah dang, that’s me.’”