One of the things that I say that maybe pisses people off more than anything else I say, whether it's leaders, parents, is that we cannot give people what we don't have and we can't ask people to do what we're not doing.
And that makes people crazy.
And I get it as a parent, especially because, you know, when I tell parents, you can't raise a child with a greater sense of resilience than your own.
You can't raise a child with more self -compassion than what you have.
They get twitchy, they get crunchy, and yuuh!
But when I tell people, I'm not sure that you can love a child more than you love yourself.
People get hostile.
So what if daring to be open and real unlock not just your greatest potential, but also pretty much everything good and every relationship or experience you could ever have?
What if the thing that so many of us fear most that others will discover how flawed and human and real we are is actually the gateway to the life we so desperately want to live?
And what if choosing courage over comfort opened the doors to a world and a life you never imagined?
These are just some of the questions that I dive into with Brené Brown.
So Brené has spent the last two decades studying the transformational power of vulnerability, author of six number one New York Times bestsellers.
Brené's really inspiring research on courage, worthiness, and shame has enlightened millions worldwide.
And a research professor at University of Houston, she's a leading voice on topics like empathy, resilience, and living a wholehearted life.
Her groundbreaking TED Talk on the power of vulnerability has now been viewed over 60 million times.
And I really love Brené's ability to translate complicated academic concepts into just accessible language and stories.
And speaking of stories, she is a deeply compelling storyteller who will draw you and then open your heart in no small part by sharing hers with you first.
In fact, the conversation that unfolded between us moved both of us to tears at various point.
Brené was so beautifully real, raw, candid, and wise.
As a best of episode, every part of this conversation is as relevant today, maybe more so given the current climate than it was the day we talked.
As Brené notes, there is incredible power in the willingness to be seen in owning our stories.
We can own our lives.
A willingness to face uncertainty, vulnerability, and emotional exposure together is what allows communities to truly connect.
So listen in, as Brené and I explore the courage and compassion that emerge when we dare to be open, real and seen.
The conversation that unfolded really did leave me changed.
And perhaps it will inspire you to pursue an idea you've kept to yourself for too long.
So excited to share this best of conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.
Hi, this is Farnoosh Tarabi, host of the webby winning podcast So Money.
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Awesome to have you here with us.
I'm excited to be here.
Thank you. One of my fascinations with you is you present.
So like when I first saw your TED Talks, I was blown away, as were millions and billions of people.
You present as this radiant, wise, snarky, funny presence.
And I'm always curious when I see that somebody is somebody who's so strong and so powerful and so full of life.
Is this something that you sort of like stepped into later in life or were you the kid who sort of manifested this also?
No, I was not a definitely I was not the kid.
I think I stepped into it much later in life.
And I think what I stepped into was understanding that the weird introverted pattern scene person that I was, what I stepped into is a sense of I like that person.
And I want to be that person.
And but I think I dreaded being that person growing up.
I think I thought, Oh, something's off face because it's not like, you know, I grew up watching, you know, I went to Greece 25 times when it came out, you know, like I wanted to be that person.
I wanted to be Olivia Newton -John with a cigarette in the cat suit, you know, winning over John Travolta.
Like I didn't want to be the I didn't think, you know, I'm awesome.
I'm 13. I'm going to be a qualitative researcher and study things that scare the shit out of people right on you.
I thought like I want a date with a quarterback because that's how I was raised.
And so the things that about me that I love now, I were painful probably then.
Like I've always seen things in patterns and I didn't know that there was like a job like that.
That's what qualitative researchers do.
So I just thought maybe I was a part of the underworld or something or something.
I thought it was like, I thought it was weird and I didn't fit in really.
So have a sense of belonging.
I mean, which is probably a more common experience than most people own up to.
Yeah. I think that makes me in the majority for sure.
I just, yeah. At what point do you start to realize in your life that that in fact, that does make you in the majority?
When I started doing this work, I mean, I think that's.
That's the gift of doing this work is that I know no matter how bleak the feeling, how desperate the feeling, how weird the experience or smell or idea that none of us are alone.
Some, I did a radio show on Wisconsin public radio a couple of days ago and a caller called in and shared a Tiknal Han quote with me that just brought me to my knees.
It said, our purpose, and I'm kind of probably going to butcher it a little bit, but our sole purpose here is to get over the illusion of our separateness.
You know, and I think that's what my work is like, we're all in this together.
And I had no idea that the things that made me feel so much on the outside were the things that would ultimately, when I stepped into some self -worth, be the things that connected me the strongest to other people.
That makes sense. Yeah.
I mean, I think it does.
I'm curious also whether it was an evolutionary experience for you to realize this or whether there were moments, you know, were there sort of like decisive moments or experiences with people or things that made you say, okay, I'm starting to get that there's a different way to live in the world and I want
to be a part of figuring that out.
No, there was a decisive moments there were.
Yeah. I'm not like a slow unraveling kind of person.
I have as much as I would like to be.
No, there was a moment.
I mean, I can picture I know what I was wearing.
Like it was in November of 2006.
I was at my outer wooden red painted breakfast stream table.
I was sitting at the table.
I was coding a bunch of new data, asking this new question for the first time, going back into the shame data and saying, well, okay, I understand what shame is and I understand how that operates in our lives.
But what about these men and women who are living wholeheartedly, like who are really all in, what did they have in common?
And I had giant, um, you know, those post -it notes that are poster size.
I had them all over my kitchen and my living room.
I was writing down words and basically what emerged from that process were two lists.
Like here are the behaviors that the whole hearted folks are engaging in and here's what they were trying to let go of.
Here's what they're trying to move away from in their lives.
And then move away from list was it was as if someone described me on a list.
Like I was every, I called it the shit list.
I was everything on that list.
Um, judgmental, perfectionistic, all work.
Um, not only no play no rest, but kind of disregard for play and rest and people who thought it was important.
So you're coming at it from this, like science mind.
Let me just figure this out.
And then you're looking at this and you're like, Oh my, this is personal.
Oh, I, I was devastated.
I couldn't believe that.
I just remember folding my hands up on the top of the table and putting my head down and just thinking, because, you know, I think up until that moment and then the work that followed, I trusted my professional self immensely, but didn't trust my personal self as much.
So I knew that I, I know I'm a good researcher.
And so I knew if these words were emerging, like these qualities were important, these choices, doing something creative, you know, like that's a great example, like creativity emerged is so important.
Comparison emerged as the shame counterpoint to that.
And I was in this comparative person.
You could, I mean, every, I was always comparing myself to other people.
And I was scoffing at creativity.
Like people would say, Hey, do you want to go to a painting class with me?
Or do you want to scrapbook?
And up until that moment, I would say, no, I thought it was flaky and self -indulgent.
And I'm not to really do that kind of crap and the busy working.
So, yeah, it was, it was, there was a moment that shifted.
So I actually want to, I want to kind of go a little bit deeper there, but before that for, you've used the word wholeheartedness a lot.
Talk to me about that.
What is it? What do you mean when you use that, that phrase?
I was trying to figure out a word, one of the, I'm a grounded theory researcher, which means we take, we develop theory from people's lived experiences.
And then our primary job is to language it in a way that resonates with people.
And so I was trying to figure out what's a word for people that I would describe as all in who are just really living and loving entirely.
And wholehearted is language and actually in the book of common prayer, that in the Episcopal church that we use.
And there's this line that says, I have not loved you with my whole heart.
And that was always very powerful for me when I said it.
And so the word that came to mind was wholehearted.
So, which was just kind of fascinating right there too, because you're, you're taking some, a term which comes from a place, which is very not scientific, it's very faith -based.
Super faith -based. And then you're bringing it into like your world, which is like totally linear, like prove it or, or, you know, it doesn't matter, you know, what happens.
You're like, how do you measure that?
No, it's true. And I've received a lot, I got a lot of flack from it too.
From the academic community?
Yeah. Just for the use of the term.
Yeah. You shouldn't name constructs things that are immeasurable.
And so that was hard for me because, you know, one of the things I talk about in the Ted talk is that I used, I had, uh, a little sign in my office when I was a doctoral student in teaching that said, if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist.
Right. And I loved thinking that we could live in that world.
Um, now I have a sign above my study that says, if you can measure it, it's probably not that important.
I love it. Well, it's like the shadow side.
It is a shadow side.
Um, and so I think I didn't care at that point.
I just felt like I was onto something that was super important for me personally.
And it resonated with me.
And you know, what, what else would you call it?
Social adaptability?
It's not, that's not what I was looking for.
I was looking for wholeheartedness.
Yeah. And it's something that the common person can, I mean, I'm sure there's enough ambiguity so that people can kind of like say like, this is how I feel wholehearted supplies in my world, in my life.
But there's enough universality to the term that I think people just kind of get what it's about.
Yeah. And I think that's, I think that's my job as a researcher.
Like one of the things, I've never really talked about this before, but I think you're an interesting, you'd be as, as the uncertainty person, you'd be a great person to talk to you about this, that there is one of the greatest losses I think that is happening in our world today is that academics are shamed
for accessibility. I mean, it makes me teary eyed because it makes me think how much great information we're losing, even whether you buy into it or if it's real or not real, that we're losing the debate in the discourse, because to be accessible is some kind of really like albatross.
It's like, if you're accessible and people understand your work, that means you're not very smart.
Um, and so to me...
So basically you're writing only for people that are in rarefied air.
And, and if you're, if the average person on the street can understand that there's something wrong with what you're doing.
Right. And there's, I mean, and really there's like interesting journal articles that say, the average academic journal article, the average one, not the one that makes them into the Times or something is read by 10 people.
And then I think eight of them are probably just checking to see if they're referenced in it, you know?
Um, and so to me, I had no interest for that for this reason.
It's an interesting backstory.
When I did the shame research, because I'm a qualitative researcher, I would sit down like we're sitting down and collect data and talk to people about their stories.
It was the first time I'd ever done research when people, when we were done with the interview, looked at me pleadingly and said, when you figure this out, you're going to tell me, right.
And my answer in the beginning was no, I'm going to publish it in something that you'll never have access to.
Ouch. Right. That was my, I didn't say that, but that's what I thought.
And then I thought, you know what?
I'm not going to do that anymore.
You know, I don't want to, I don't want to spend my time.
I mean, I still have to do it and I probably should do it more.
Um, but I don't want to spend my time doing something that's not, in my opinion, moving people forward.
And if I can't pick it up and read it, and my friends can't pick it up and read it, and I have to look upwards and the thesaurus to sound smart, I'm not doing it anymore.
It's not why I'm here.
It's not in service of my work.
And my faith is really an organizing principle in my life and it pushes up against that value.
So that's kind of how wholehearted, I was scared at first.
That, I would imagine it would be.
Yeah. I mean, because you're really bringing two worlds together in a way where each world probably has substantial data about surely the validity of the other one.
And also, um, and like you said, especially because you operate in your own, your living, like in an academic setting.
So, you know, that's gotta bring on a lot of fear.
It's like, yeah, am I going to be drawn that in my profession?
That am I gonna like, just am I going to be still there, but I'll be the laughing stopping of my profession for the rest of my career, you know, versus is this work so powerful that it needs, it's, it's the work that they can't not do and it must get out.
Yeah. And I think it's interesting because grounded theory in itself is very controversial, I think in a lot of academic places, because, because you don't start with existing theories and prove and disprove them, you start from people's lived experiences, you often come up with conclusions that bump
up hard against what's already established in literature.
So, and I love it because Glaser and Strauss who developed the, yeah, I think they were like spirited in terms of my approach, they said use names that resonate with people.
And so one of the ways we measure the accuracy of our theories is resonance fit, do people see themselves in their lives and their stories, and the narratives that you're creating with your data?
And I love that. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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Terms apply. The entrepreneur in me and the writer in me looks at that model.
And that's actually, that's the model that actually builds the most successful businesses.
But it's the exact opposite model that most entrepreneurs start with.
Most entrepreneurs get an idea for product or service or solution, and then they go looking for a market.
And they're like, okay, who are the people that we can sell this to?
And whereas, you know, rather than saying, okay, let me just reach out to a community that I feel like I want to be in service of and have really deep, intense conversations with them.
And maybe I'm part of that community.
You know, so let me start with my own experience, and then with the experience of people in this community and find out what are they feeling?
What are they not feeling?
What's the conversation that's already going on in their head?
And can I build messaging and solutions around that in a way that can be, make me of further service to them and in doing so, create a living, a career, a business that builds around that?
And in my experience, I love that.
Those are the people where not only individually do you really come alive, but those are the businesses that have profound impact in the world.
And that kind of catch fire, because you're not trying to sell something to anybody.
You're simply caring about them so deeply that you take the time to understand what they need and then just giving it to them.
And so many times people don't do that.
And so really, so from the business side, it's this interesting overlay with what you're saying, the approach to how you research.
I have never thought about that until this exact second.
But I love that. And I think it's exactly grounded theory because what's interesting, I never thought of entrepreneurship, I think, of I've got a really cool thing.
Right, exactly. I mean, I don't go find nobody who wants it.
Yeah. But in grounded theory, the whole thing is it's called trust and emergence, is the axiom.
Trust in what emerges from the data.
Trust in people's lived experiences and their perception of those experiences.
But what you do is the goal of grounded theory is to find out what is the main concern of a group of people you want to know more about and then your theory should explain how they're trying to continually resolve that concern.
So it's very much in line.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like entrepreneurship.
I like it. No, it is.
I mean, the really good entrepreneurs know that you come in and you're probably going to start out.
We're human beings, so there's no way we can start the process without certain assumptions.
You know, they're just going to be there.
But the most successful people will always be the ones that are open to serendipity or open to the market proving them wrong and then listening to what the market says is right and then deciding whether they actually want to create that or not.
It's the exact same.
So it's gotten, now I want to learn more about sort of like your whole methodology.
No, I'll give you something because it's exactly the same.
And in fact, you evaluate a theory that's a grounded theory.
One of the codes we live by is, and it's so much in line with entrepreneurship now that you point this incredible thing out, a theory can never be as good, is only as good as its ability to work new data.
So like a business would only be as good as its ability to address the evolving and changing needs of the market.
Right? Which is where a lot of bigger companies get in huge trouble because they started and maybe they were actually really certain they understood the pain points, the needs of a market when they started and they served that beautifully.
But markets aren't stationary, you know, like things.
They're living, breathing beasts that move and change and morph, especially in the last four or five years.
We've seen that in a profound way.
And I've talked to so many people who are past the probably considered class of entrepreneurs like real big established businesses.
And their businesses are shrinking fast and they're just thinking, we're going under, you know, rather than, well, no, actually, all the assumptions that we built around are no longer valid.
So we actually, we don't have to just keep trying to, you know, like work on that same model.
We can actually look for where the pain points in the conversations have moved to and see if we can adapt to what we do and how we do it to those new needs.
A lot of people don't want to do that.
They're so vested in the way things were.
And they are terrified.
And this is, I'm so curious what you think about this also.
Most people who start businesses, they start and then they accept that a certain amount of uncertainty and risk and fear and anxiety and all this stuff and failure.
And very often it's because part of the dynamic is they don't have a whole lot to lose in the beginning.
Right. Then they build something substantial.
Now they do have a lot to lose.
So when I was talking about like that business that now has to adapt to a whole different thing, now that they're in a place where they don't have, there's a lot to lose if they, you know, sort of like guess wrong or they become incredibly fearful in the way that they didn't or they're not able to move
through the fear and the change and the uncertainty in a way that they were much more able to.
When they started a business, it really ties in, I think, with a lot of your exploration and vulnerability.
Yeah. I, you're going to be hard -pressed to get me shaking loose this parallel between business and I'm so obsessed with it now.
It's so fascinating because, you know, the axiom again of trust in the emergence is, I think what I've seen in my experience, talking to businesses and talking to not just entrepreneurs, but big corporations is they don't, they don't trust in the process that brought them success.
They start to trust in the product of the process, right?
And they lose their trust for the process, which is trust in emergence, trust the people you're serving.
And so the same is true with researchers.
Like for me, the minute I say, I don't care what emerges from this interview with Jonathan, I've already got a theory out there in the academic literature.
This has got to hold up.
And the minute I shift, my work is dead.
It no longer rings true.
It's not innovative.
It's not exciting. And so, but, you know, Barney Glazer, one of the founders of grounded theory calls it the drugless trip.
You have to have a real, oh, you have to have a real comfort with uncertainty and vulnerability to do the kind of research I do.
He lose a lot of, like I mentor a lot of doctoral students and sit on a lot of dissertations for grounded theory folks who get halfway through and think this is too uncertain.
I want to go back to the take an existing theory, prove or disprove it with data, write it up, be done.
I don't want to do, I don't want to trust in emergence and let something new and that we haven't talked about yet emerge.
I don't have the stomach for it.
You know, and so, so for me, the vulnerability piece, and I get that because I was that person.
And so, I think we're all that person.
Yeah. And that's important because right.
It's not like, you know, I mean, maybe there are these freakish people, you know, like this really thin slice of humanity that just doesn't feel it or their brains or soft wires in the beginning to process it differently.
But most of us, it hurts.
It does hurt. And, you know, and to say I wasn't one of those people is exactly against like, I have the four myths of vulnerability and daring greatly.
And the first one is that it's weakness.
Yeah. You know, and I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.
And so, I think one of the reasons we lose tolerance for it or we don't, we can't sit with the process is because we've been raised to believe that being vulnerable and walking into a meeting with, you know, funders or whomever or whatever your situation is and saying, I don't know.
I mean, some of the most incredible examples that I read and include in the book are about business people who stand up in front of their leadership and say, I don't know what to do next, and you may know more than I do, I need your help.
That's powerful. Yeah.
And that is the single most terrifying thing that I think any leader could do, but also that, you know, maybe the most powerful thing they could do simultaneously.
But like you were saying, though, people think it's all, if I do that, I'm weak.
Right. Pete Fuda, who is a leadership, he's a researcher in Australia and Sydney and he studies transformative leadership.
He does long case studies over five and six years studying leadership and how it transforms with an organization.
And he has this great article that was in Harvard Business Review where he uses metaphors to talk about what transformative leaders share in common.
And one of them is the snowball.
And he tells the story of a CEO, a new CEO who kind of came aboard and was very directive, very instructive, and things really started unraveling.
And he decided to kind of risk vulnerability and stood up in front of, brought all those leaders together and said, I'm getting feedback that my style, the way I communicate and give you feedback is pushing innovation down.
I need your help. I need to know how to be better at this.
I need to know how to work with you.
And what Pete found in his research, not only in this case, but across the cultures he was studying, is that it created this huge snowball effect.
If those leaders in turn felt permission to stand with their teams and say, I can't do this without you and those people.
And then it created this thing that took off through the culture.
And what it shook loose was it got so big and fast, the momentum of it, that it shook loose all the drag.
That people that were not willing to say, I need help, I don't know, I'm in over my head, couldn't hold on anymore in the pressure.
Is that fascinating?
Yeah, it's amazing.
And it also really speaks to this top down, you know, like idea that it all comes from the people that are at the very tip top.
You know, like if that one person, you know, like if have a CEO and she or he doesn't actually say, okay, I'm owning this myself, nobody else in an organization will own it.
And the reverse is true too.
Like same, it's not a little effective.
That person steps up and says, yeah, I don't know which way is up right now, but we're all really smart.
Let's see if we can figure this out together.
I mean, and it's so funny too, because I've had so many conversations I'm sure you have also the sort of management teams, leadership people and they're like, well, how do we get the people under us to buy this or to act in this way or to create in this way?
And like the first question is, well, are you behaving in that way or acting in that way?
Like, no, no, no, no, this isn't about me.
It's like, actually it is.
You know, you can't everything that you say and this is as a parent, you know this, right?
That I mean, that's it.
Well, you know, like you can't say, do this if like then you're doing something completely different because your kids got lucky and be like, Mm, right.
So same thing in organizations.
It's the same dynamic, but people don't see that.
Now I think one of the things that I say that maybe pisses people off more than anything else I say, whether it's leaders, parents, is that we cannot give people what we don't have and we can't ask people to do what we're not doing.
And that makes people crazy.
And I get it as a parent, especially because, you know, when I tell parents, you can't raise a child with a greater sense of resilience than your own.
You can't raise a child with more self compassion than what you have.
They're like, they get twitchy, they get crunchy and yeah.
But when I tell people, I'm not sure that you can love a child more than you love yourself, people get hostile.
Nah, I bet. Because people want to say, you know, that's crazy.
I love my kids way more than I love myself.
And it's often the parents of very young children who say that.
What's interesting to me is it's the parents of teens who say, oh God, I get that.
Because what happens is fourth, fifth grade, certainly middle school, the beginning of high school, when our kids start to become us in some ways, we see our partners, the things that bug the crap out of us about our partners emerging, our kids are the things that bug us about us.
That self compassion or that compassion turns to judgment.
Like, what do you mean you don't have anyone to sit with at lunch?
And rather than saying, Oh God, I remember that.
Let's talk about that.
You say, well, pull your hair back and wear some of those cute outfits I bought you.
And then maybe your friends will want to sit with you and that's your stuff.
Yeah. And I think we've all, it's like, you know, as you're saying this, I'm like scanning right now.
Oh, I'm like, okay, because I know myself, I'm pretty compassionate, you know, like open guided, I'm like, I'm sure there've been so many things where I've just reacted without even realizing that I'm reacting because of a cap on my own capability to deal with my own stuff.
And it's manifesting in my response to other people.
I can, you know, which is, um, it's not easy to own that.
No, and I've done it.
I mean, you know, it's, people say, well, we can't all be, you know, shame free all the time like you, and I'm, I think to myself, I've never been a parent and not been a shame researcher.
I mean, I started just around the time my daughter was born right before and I've done it because we're human.
And I think that's why I think, you know, I talk a lot about the gifts of imperfect parenting.
I think it's those moments where, I mean, I remember telling Ellen one time she, she was doing this whole thing about.
She wore a side ponytail.
She came home with a different ponytail.
I said, Hey, what happened to your side ponytail?
She said, oh, I took it out because my friends thought it looks terrible.
And I said, but I thought you loved it.
And she said, yeah, but, you know, they gave me a hard time.
And so I went into the whole, like, you have to do what you love, not what other people think.
And then five minutes later, I'm telling Steve, you've got to pull the Christmas lights out of the yard.
Do you, what am I neighbors gonna think?
You know, and Ellen's five feet away from me, you know, and she said, I don't understand this, do you understand what she was the ponytail, the lights, you know, I'm like, just keeping you honest.
Yeah. I'm like, Oh my God, you're right.
It's just rhetoric.
You know, if I tell my daughter, your body's beautiful, you know, our value would probably be to say something like this is the body that God gave you and it's strong and wonderful.
And, you know, and then she walks in and I'm using a lot of hateful self -talk about my jeans, not fitting, which one do you think matters the most?
But it's the same with leaders, you know, if leaders say to teams, you know, Hey, we want innovation.
So we'll expect failure, fail often, fail quick, clean it up and move on.
But they see a leader scared to death of failing, scared of trying, scared of being uncertain or vulnerable.
Then the message is that other stuff is lip surface.
This is about perfection.
And even if it stifles creativity, we can't be wrong.
So one of the big things is that people perceive vulnerability as a weakness.
And it seems like the answer is you got to own the change and you basically have to say, okay, but I mean, how do you do that?
I mean, if you're somebody where you're, you know, let's say you're a leader, you're just a creator, you're an artist, you know, and you want to do something and you're terrified of being vulnerable.
Your human being living in the world is terrified of opening up and revealing who you are.
You know, like going into the uncertainty, the risk.
Yeah. How do you make that jump?
Well, I think I think the first place is, I mean, it may be different whether you're a cognitive person or a feel your way through person.
But I think for those of us who think first and feel second, which would be me, I think getting clear on what vulnerability is and isn't is really important.
For this reason, 12 years of research, I cannot find a single example of courage of moral courage, spiritual courage, leadership courage.
I cannot find a single example in our data of courage that was not based on sheer vulnerability.
And so I think one of the things we have to do, first of all, is dispel these myths, I mean, and get clear on our values.
I mean, for me, I don't.
It doesn't hurt less when I get criticized when I put myself out there or when you put yourself out there, people who are trying to, you know, during Great Leas from the Roosevelt quote, you know, it's not my favorite quotes, by the way.
It is, I said, yeah, as soon as I saw that, I was like, I know where that's from.
You do? So I love that.
Yeah, it's not the critic who counts.
It's not the man who points at the strong man as he stumbles or how the, you know, points out how the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit goes to those of us who are in the arena, who, I mean, to totally paraphrase, getting her, their asses kicked sometimes, falling on our faces, failing, sometimes victorious, but at least when we're failing, we're doing greatly.
I think when I talk to people who've made the transition from, I really want to put these homemade journals on Etsy, but I'm really afraid to do that.
I really want to ask my boss for this promotion or this raise.
I really want to share this idea at the PTO meeting next week.
When I asked people, where did you muster up the courage?
How did you script the courage to do this?
The answer was always.
I got very clear that being courageous was more important to me as a value than succeeding.
Hmm. And so to me, it comes down to an area of your work that I think is so important.
Really serious intention setting and very clear values alignment.
You know, and I think it is very necessary to have people in our lives who, when we dare greatly, when we're vulnerable, when we try something new, and it doesn't work out, and we come up short, who are willing to look at us and say, but you were brave.
I think those people, having those people around you are and that's, I'm sure you've experienced the same thing.
I've had so many conversations with people where they said, I don't have those people.
Yeah. What do I do?
Because every time I do this, like everybody around me lines up and says, told you, so you're an idiot.
You know, like I knew you were going to fail.
And, which is, which is kind of interesting because to me, one of the potential great equalizers there is the technology, the potential to use technology to flatten the world and find people like that.
And it's not the same thing as the people who live in your neighborhood.
You can hug and kiss and like, just have a cup of coffee with.
And it's not the same.
I would love to say it is because you know, like I live in breathing that world a lot, but it's not.
But I think it helps it to have access to a small group of people who may be dotted in five different countries, but they're deeply committed to each other and share the same value set to me.
I've seen that help people who live in a small town somewhere and are in a family where they were, that approach to life is completely, um, rejected.
Um, yeah, but I think, I think it's a very, it's, it's a tough problem.
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Terms apply. One of the things that I look at is, I think a lot of times it's, part of it is what we tell ourselves, but I think a lot of it is the questions we ask ourselves also around our ability to sort of unlock action in the face of perceived weakness and vulnerability.
I think so many of us always focus on is what if I fail?
Rather than, what if I succeed?
Right. And what if I do nothing, which is very often the most terrifying answer of three.
No, there's no doubt.
I mean, something you said about people who are surrounded by communities who are critical, I told you so, you were so stupid to do that.
One thing that I think it's really important and I feel ethically bound to say to people a lot of times about the work is be clear that when you start to dare greatly, when you start to be vulnerable and take chances, you are going to be holding a very uncomfortable mirror up from people.
And a lot of times if you're surrounded by people who say, I told you so, or who are critical, it's because daring greatly to watch someone be vulnerable and risk, to watch someone walk headlong into uncertainty, is so uncomfortable for people who are not willing to do that, to be, that they're dying to
see failure. And to point it out as confirmation that my way of living is okay.
And the whole dotted around like, I think there was a group of women, we call ourselves the love bombers.
There's a group of women, they are artists, photographers, writers.
I got a call one day from them probably five, six years ago.
They said, you don't know us.
We know you from online.
I think you read our blogs.
We read yours. We're going to gather together on the Oregon coast.
Would you like to join us?
And I was like, oh, hell no.
That's not ... I was voted least likely to show up with a group of hippy girls that are smoking clothes and doing art.
I was like, no. And my husband was like, I think you might need this.
I was like, are you kidding me?
He said, I think you should go.
And it really changed my life because again, it was technology and I totally agree with what you said.
When I'm throwing up in sick, these are not the people who hold my hair back.
They're not the people who bring the cast roles over in hard times, but they are a group of people who where we made agreement that we would be vulnerable and brave together and that we would create a space for each other where we never had to shrink when we were really proud of what we were doing and our
successes. And we never have to puff up when we were feeling small and ashamed that we were all going to be brave together and take our licks.
And so I think that's really important.
It was life changing for me.
And so I think if you are in a small town, I think World Domination Summit.
Great example. I think a lot of people go to that just because they fly from all over the world because they can't find those people and it's like their one time every year where they can be on the ground with like -minded people and then they take that with them.
I think a lot of things can start out digitally and then it stays in sort of this ethereal, kind of supportive level.
But then you can meet somebody and spend three days with them.
And then when you leave, it's a very different dynamic.
It's totally different.
And I think, yeah, like I would have never, I don't think I've ever done, I know before or since anything like I might talk at World Domination Summit.
Like, I would never have tried something so crazy and out there had I not been, you know, around people who were there to explore how brave am I willing to be, you know?
And so I do think there's something about that.
I think one of the other myths about vulnerability that you pointed, that you touched on was the idea that we can go it alone.
You know, that's still even in a world where people are pretty awake and conscious about connection.
It's still a very highly regarded ideal.
You know, this is where I quote Whitesnake in the book, you know, like, here I go again on my own.
Like, we all want it.
I love your case to music.
As like an old brush, you know, like, fanatic.
Yeah, I'm a rushed fanatic too.
And so that's one thing that's in the soap on about the book.
People are like, most of the guys were like, dude, you quoted Rush.
I love it. It's like the ultimate philosopher.
Neil Peart! I know.
World peace. I think you could bring world peace.
I think so. But, no, I think this idea that we can go it alone and that I think we need people not only to support us, but I think we need people to try on vulnerability with, to try it on and say, hey, Jonathan Sprenay and I think I want to do this.
I did that with Chris going back to WDS World Dynamics on that night of rehearsals.
I was there. I said, I'm seriously thinking about closing by doing a duet with you from the Glee version of a Journey song.
And he was like, uh, no.
And his wife was like, yeah, there's no way he said, we're going to do that.
And I'm like, okay.
Then I thought, okay, good.
I was like, okay. So I just kind of moved away from it.
And then I hear him like from the backstage go, but you are writing a book called Daring Greatly.
So are you going to do it or not?
And he's like, I'll do it if you do it.
And, but that's what I mean by trying it on.
Because there was no doubt.
I was seriously afraid.
I thought it would, I put it at best 50 50 that anyone else would sing along.
And I thought, are you going to be okay if it's just you and me the whole time?
And Chris goes, it's going to be a long song.
If that happens. And I'm like, well, I'll tell the guy, the AV guy to fade out.
But it was a thousand people.
Staying on their chairs, you know, in the aisles playing air guitar.
It was fun. And so, and it turned into this, an extraordinary moment.
It was one of the best moments of my life.
I mean, it was. And I think, I mean, that's part of the message, right?
Is that that's what you miss out on.
Where you're not willing to go to that place.
It is. And I read it, everyone, you know, cause I still get, you know, comments from people that are like, don't stop believing or suck it.
You know, like I still get those.
But, every now and then there'll be a comment like that's the cheesiest thing I've ever heard of.
And. It doesn't. I feel total neutrality about that, not even the need to defend it or anything.
Cause my thought was you weren't there, because it was from people who weren't there.
You didn't share that with us.
And that's okay. Because if you were there, it was fun.
You know, and we sang together like we were 13 in the back of a car.
Stink it out on a Friday night.
So, but I think you have to have a tribe to try on that stuff with.
Yeah, I totally agree.
It's, it makes, it's, it's, it's almost impossible for a lot of it.
Not everybody. I think some people are kind of wired.
I think so, yeah. But I don't think that's most people.
I don't. And I, you know, I think the other thing that's important about that tribe that has really shifted in for me in the last year.
Is I no longer really even, I have no intake at all of any feedback or criticism from anyone who's not in the arena.
So unless you are in your own capacity and your own world and your own life, getting your ass kicked on occasion, I'm not interested in what you have to share with me about my work.
What flipped that switch?
A profound respect from myself and other people who are out there trying to do work and trying to walk into uncertainty and vulnerability and are really risking.
Um, because it is so easy to make a life and a career out of sitting in the bleachers and making fun of people and putting them down.
And so I think a profound respect for those of us who are out there.
And what I realized too, in my own life, is the people who are doing that are in their own arena.
I don't care what it is.
You don't have to be a writer or speaking in public.
I don't care if you're a teacher, you know, like my sisters or teachers, you know, in my opinion, they walk in the arena every morning at 7 30.
Right. And so what I have found, not only as my personal life, but professionally is the people who are in the arena and who are showing up and letting themselves be seen give feedback that is far more constructive and far more helpful and mindful about what people can hear and not hear.
And I mean, and I love, I mean, I'm an academic at heart, so I love debate and discourse.
I love it when people email me and say, saw your talk, parts of it I liked, but you were completely remiss in not mentioning these three areas of the literature.
How can you talk about vulnerability without quoting so and so about closeness or something?
I love that. That makes me better.
It makes my work better.
People who make fun of me, I make fun of other people or say hateful things.
People who say, I feel sorry for your kids.
You know, people who say, if I looked like you had embraced imperfection too, that those kind of comments that you get, you know, I just, I hate to get binary because it's not, it's who I'm trying not to be.
But I'm still that person in some ways.
And I really do believe you're either making the world a better place.
Or you're making it a worse place.
I don't feel like there's a lot of neutrality and that's probably a little hard -ass line to take.
I don't want to sound like you're either with us or against us.
Not my favorite quote or, you know, perspective.
But I do feel like every day our choices have a huge impact on people.
And someone told me, this could be urban legend, I don't know, maybe, you know, but I heard that Oprah Winfrey has this quote on her door.
But it's a quote that I love and it says, you're responsible for the energy you bring into this room.
And I think people are responsible for the energy they put in the world.
And a fake avatar and a fake name and leaving a comment somewhere is not benign.
Because I'll keep putting my work out there and you will probably keep putting your work out there.
And several people we know will probably keep.
But there are people who have amazing gifts who could make the world an incredibly better place who won't put their work out there for that reason.
And that's a loss. And whether we know what that work was or not, we miss it and grieve it every day.
There are songs that we need to hear.
There are stories that need to be heard.
There's work that needs to be seen.
There's ideas that need to be implemented that we'll never see or know because there's so many people out there who are so reflexively cynical and critical and spirited.
I don't like it. Do you like it?
You know, it's something that I deal with every single day in my life.
First thing I do when I wake up in the morning is I roll out of bed and I sit and I meditate for 25 minutes.
And part of that is because it helps me enter every day with that sense of equanimity and the ability to, when needed, zoom the lens out more and look down on myself and get a better sense for when I'm reacting or responding with deliberation and intelligence.
It's still a brutally hard thing for me to do because I'm an emotional person.
And behind, because I operate so much of the time as a writer and behind the veil of anonymity that a lot of people had that you were describing the all -nighter world, I get attacked.
And I just say to them, I'm always saying to myself, would this person stand in front of me in a room with my kid next to me and say the same thing?
And I've got to believe that the answer would be no.
I want to believe the answer would be no because I want to have that level of faith in humanity.
But sometimes I, but it's not easy.
And I know to your point, I know I've had so many conversations with people who do not bring their art and their soul and their heart to the world because they know that there are people out there who will attack them.
In very, very mean, vindictive, spiteful ways.
And part of, I guess, my exploration has been to the point that you were making before, I've always been fascinated with the phenomenon of people who are even within your close inner circle, your family, your closest friends, either publicly or secretly rallying to see you fail.
And I think a lot of what I try and reframe, I try and understand, you know, I once heard, you know, maybe it was something I read or an interview that I saw with the Dalai Lama where they asked him what his greatest fear was and his greatest fear was losing compassion for the Chinese.
It blew my mind, you know, and I'm just singing to myself.
If I can try and practice compassion, meditating compassion on a daily level in a way that tries to allow me to step in the shoes of that person who is being this way towards me or for someone I love, maybe that's the beginning for me.
But it doesn't make me okay with it.
I would love to say it does.
I would love to say I just, I'm good.
I meditate, I do my mindfulness and I experience it and then I let it go.
But, but I don't, I'm human.
You know, and it hurts.
But far better than living in the great twilight that knows neither victory nor success.
That I think that's the thing.
I think I've seen the pain and talked to people about the pain of having the anonymous critic, but also having the family who's rallying for failure to have the partner who's just chomping on the bed to say, I told you so, to have the children who are looking at you with disappointment, you know, but I
don't think I've ever seen the greatest pain I've ever seen in my work.
Has is from people who have spent their lives on the outside of the arena, wondering what would have, what would have happened had I shown up.
That's a pain that to me, maybe it's because I'm 46 has become a far greater fear of mine than having to dodge some hurt, you know, some hurt feelings sometimes and yeah, the what if, what if I would have shown up and been seen?
Yeah. And I'm in the same place and same age, by the way.
I love it. Yeah. Me too.
I wouldn't go back for a lot of money.
One final question as you wrap this up.
So the name of this project is called a good life project.
And so when I, when you hear that phrase and, or if I ask you the question to you, what does it mean to live a good life?
What comes up? Gratitude.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think for me, a good life is one, a good life happens when you stop and are grateful for the ordinary moments that so many of us just steamroll over to try to find those extraordinary moments.
Um, so to me, my good life is soccer practice and carpool line and Tekken's and date night.
And that's a good life for me.
I mean, and knowing that it's good and acknowledging and stopping that it's good and saying this is good.
I love that. Yeah. Thanks for hanging out.
Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode safe, but you'll also love the conversation we have with Elizabeth Gilbert about bringing your whole self to your life.
You'll find a link to Liz's episode in the show notes.
This episode of good life project was produced by executive producers, Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields editing help by Alejandro Ramirez, Christopher Carter, crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelly Dell for her research on this episode.
And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow good life project in your favorite listening app.
And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person.
Just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those, you know, those you love those, you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better.
So we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy.
Tell them to listen, then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered, because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together.
Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for a good life project.
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