Brené Brown: The Call to Courage

She spent 20 years studying courage,

vulnerability, shame, and empathy,

wrote five New York Times number one best sellers,

and her TED Talk is one of the most watched in the world.

Please welcome Brené Brown.

Hey!

Hi!

Hi!

Oh, my God. Hi!

Hi, everybody.

Whoo!

-Hi! - Hi!

How-- How's it going?

It was so funny. I'm backstage. They're like,

"Can we take your purse?" I'm like, "No."

- -It's, like, totally a Texas thing

where I always have to have my purse and an exit plan.

Uh, like, I'm not sure until I walk out here that I'm actually going to do it.

Uh, but I am so happy to be with y'all tonight.

And I have to say, honestly,

the older I get, the more I realize that time is the big, precious,

unrenewable resource.

Um, yes or no?

- -Yeah.

So, thank you for spending it with me tonight.

I really appreciate it.

I think we're gonna have some fun,

talk about some hard stuff, laugh a little bit,

and hopefully learn something from each other.

I'm always laughing when I'm listening to the bio.

That, you know, "She studies shame,

empathy, courage, and vulnerability."

You have no idea how handy that comes in my life. So...

Really, not just in my work, but in my life

because how many of you know...

I recognize some of y'all, so I know you know me,

but how many of you know that I'm super introverted?

- -Like, yeah.

-Where are all the introverts? Like... -

It's super handy when I'm traveling because I'll be sitting next to someone,

and sometimes I'm in the mood to chat, and sometimes I'm not.

So they'll say, "So, what do you do?"

And if I'm not in the mood to chat, I'll be like,

-"I study shame. What do you do?" -

And they're just-- They're just like...

- -

Um...

And then recently, it was really funny, 'cause I was like,

"Oh, I study courage and vulnerability," and the guy was like,

"Oh, opposite ends

of the spectrum."

And there's that minute where you're like, "Do I engage or do I not engage?"

I was like, "No, actually, they're the same.

You know, courage-- You can't really--

You can't really be brave without vulnerability."

And he's like, "Ha! Yeah. No, the opposite ends."

Now, I can understand why it's complicated for some people to get that.

It took me 20 years of trying to disprove that I had to be vulnerable,

um, to be brave,

but I really--

This came to life for me

when we started looking at covers for Daring Greatly,

which was the first book where I wrote about courage and vulnerability, right?

So I say to them,

"Let's make sure we really capture the spirit...

of vulnerability and courage,

that we really have to put ourselves out there."

And they're like, "We've got it.

Do you need to see the cover?"

And I was like, "Uh, yeah. I need to see the cover."

So they sent me the cover.

I've named that piece "White Guy on a Wire."

I was like,

"I would never buy that book."

Had I known what was coming next,

this would have been the cover of Daring Greatly,

I guarantee it, because...

I go back and I'm like, "That's not gonna work.

I don't want a white dude on the front of the book, period."

Uh, especially with, like, a 1980s briefcase.

Uh... And so then, I get an email that says...

"This is it. We all love it."

And I'm like, "Oh, man. Dude.

Don't use your invisible army with me.

Like, I'm a shame researcher.

Like, you can't do the "we all love it" thing with me.

Like, I will drill you down till you are crying.

And, who is the "we"?

Unless you've got a mouse in your pocket, that is chickenshit, like...

No "we." Just like, "I love it."

So I'm looking at it like, "Oh, God. We all love it.

We all think this is it. We're all excited.

We're all behind it."

So you know, right?

I'm gonna test...

your empathic powers here.

If you're really highly empathic,

there'll be no laughter.

I was like, "What?"

I-- Okay, so here's the thing.

Like every woman born in this country,

I've had to do my share of body image work.

And I have.

To the point where I am dangerous, I like myself so much.

Like, I-- I'm good with everything. Right? Yeah.

- - Pretty good.

Okay.

But the chance...

of my name being under an elephant ass

on the front of a book is zero.

That-- Zero. There is zero opportunity for that to happen.

So it seems, like, crazy, right?

You're like, "These are early concepts, and people are trying to--"

But let me show you.

This book has been translated into, like, 32 languages.

Let me show you some of the actual covers

of how people have conceptualized

the relationship between courage and vulnerability.

This is the Korean. This is the real, actual--

The funniest thing about this

is it was on my-- my kitchen table in my house

when my daughter and her friends got home from high school one day,

and her friend was like,

"Oh, my God. Does your mom know Johnny Depp?"

Which I do not.

Okay.

I totally love the Swedes, I really do. Like, I just love them.

But they got the saddest cover in the whole world.

Aw!

Okay.

Why did you do that involuntarily?

Because this is a sign, internationally, for, like, abuse and neglect.

And then...

...we have the cover

that completely jacked with my kayaking game

because I love to kayak.

I'm a water person, right?

So when I saw this Lithuanian cover,

I couldn't get in a kayak for six months.

Yeah. Yeah.

This is not what I had in mind, but this is what people think. Okay.

Here's where Daring Greatly actually comes from.

Teddy Roosevelt.

So the day the book came out,

my husband put pictures of Teddy Roosevelt all over our house

because the epigraph,

the quote that kind of is the spine of Daring Greatly,

comes from Teddy Roosevelt.

So I woke up in the morning.

I was like, "Oh, my God. That's so sweet." And my kids were like...

-"Is that Opa? Is that Grandpa?" Um... -

So here's the story.

How many of you have seen the TED Talk on vulnerability?

- - Okay.

I wish I could take credit.

It was me. It's not that I can't take credit for it,

but it was a complete accident.

So here's what happened.

The curators of TEDx Houston--

this is the first people to get the license in Houston--

call and say, "Hey, we got the TEDx license.

Would you like to open up TEDx Houston?"

And I was like, "Yes! My God, yes. Thank you!

What do you want me to talk about?"

'Cause normally, when you spend your career

talking about things like shame and fear, and scarcity,

people get super prescriptive

about what they want you to say and what they don't want you to say.

And this guy was like, "You know what?

Whatever you want. You have fun. Just crush it.

Just have fun and just-- Whatever you want."

-I was like... -

"All right. I'll crush it, dude. I'll do that. Okay."

So I'm on a flight the day before TEDx Houston,

coming home from Maui, where I had spent

four days with CEOs from Silicon Valley

talking about the importance of vulnerability.

Talking about courage and putting yourself out there.

And I turned to Steve, my husband, on the flight.

My kids are passed out. They went with us.

And I said, "I'm not going to do my normal talk tomorrow at TEDx Houston."

And he's like, "What?"

And I said, "I'm not gonna do my normal talk

on variables mitigating self-conscious affect."

And he's like, "Why not?"

And I said, "I'm gonna be vulnerable and talk about vulnerability.

I'm just gonna put my whole self out there." And he's like,

"Why? Why would you do that?"

Which I think was a legitimate question.

And I said, "Because I just spent four days with these people

trying to convince them to be vulnerable and put themselves out there,

and then I'm gonna walk on the stage in my academic armor, you know, like,

'This is the variable that, you know.' Um, because that's my training."

And so, I was like, "I'm not gonna do that.

I'm gonna just be vulnerable."

So I got up there and, as many of you know, I was vulnerable.

I talked about how I'm scared of vulnerability, how I hate it,

how when it emerged from my data

as the key to wholehearted living and loving,

I totally had a breakdown.