It has happened every time. While each of Brené Brown’s books builds upon her earlier ones, and much information is repeated, each successive volume has brought me a great new gift. Each has brought me old gifts: reminders of the secrets I learned previously and perhaps lost sight of, or left unintegrated into my current life. And they bring me new gifts: truths I had not realized before, about human nature and about myself.

I would like to share the best new gift I received from reading Brown’s most recent book, Dare to Lead. It’s a research-based lesson about values, including instructions on figuring out what your own values are. Here’s some information that Brown shares about values:

“We have only one set of values. We don’t shift our values based on context. . . . The research participants who demonstrated the most willingness to rumble with vulnerability and practice courage tethered their behavior to one or two values, not ten.”*

One or two?! That’s not very many. Can you name your one or two core values, off the top of your head? I couldn’t. Sure, I could come up with ten or twenty values that I hold dear; but I had no idea which one or two of them I prioritized—or should prioritize, if I want to stay true to myself.

So Brown’s next move was helpful for me. She provides a list of dozens of values and encourages the reader to circle those to which he or she feels a particularly strong personal connection. I circled 17 of them. Then, she says, force yourself to select the one or two of these that are most essential to who you are. To my surprise, I immediately knew which two they were. It wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Brown has posted her list of values online here. I invite you to take these steps for yourself, right now, before reading the rest of this blog post. (She welcomes you to write in your own values if you think of some you like better than the ones listed.)

Did you do it? Did you learn something about yourself? Here’s what Brown says she learned about herself upon doing the exercise (she always does what she asks her readers to do):

“My two central values are faith and courage. I hated not circling ‘family.’ But as I dug in, I realized that while my family is the most important thing in my life, my commitment to them is fueled by my faith and courage.”

Something similar happened to me. My two core values are truth and wisdom. I hated not circling “creativity.” But I realized that, for me, being creative is not an end in itself. I don’t engage in creative writing for its own sake, but in the service of truth and wisdom. (Another creative writer might feel differently about this, and that’s okay!) I also hated not circling “curiosity”—but again, my curiosity is due to my search for truth and wisdom, not the other way around.

It was also a profound experience to think about the difference between truth and wisdom. I truly could not choose one or the other of these values; for me, they are intertwined like yin and yang. Seeking the truth can be a lonely—even toxic—endeavor, if not tempered by wisdom. And seeking wisdom can lead one astray, if not tempered by truth. Truth is facts; wisdom is knowing how to act in light of those facts.

At this point in Dare to Lead, Brown provides further information about values, as well as more exercises for the reader to do. Her goal is to help the reader not only identify his or her one or two core values, but also act in ways that are consistent with those values. I found all of this immensely useful, as well: do check it out if you get a chance.

What are your one or two core values? Tell me which ones you selected, if you feel comfortable sharing them. I’m so curious to know which ones you chose!

*Rumble with vulnerability is Brené Brown-speak for having hard conversations in which you put yourself out there and express yourself honestly, while being openhearted and generous with your interlocutor(s).

“You should be ashamed!”

It’s common to hear outraged people say or type these words. The underlying postulate of the expression is as follows: someone who has wronged someone else should feel bad about him- or herself, and this bad self-feeling will spur them into acting more altruistically next time.

According to Brené Brown, research shows that this postulate is false. Feeling ashamed does not help a person become more altruistic. It’s quite possible, she explains, that guilty feelings will lead to positive behavioral changes—but shame is of no use in that regard. In her recent book Dare to Lead, Brown very simply explains the difference between guilt and shame:

In other words, feeling guilt is making a negative judgment about certain actions you have taken in the past, while feeling shame is making a negative judgment about yourself as a person. The difference is huge. In the first instance, you have the freedom to make better choices in the future, because the judgment is strictly about the past. In the second instance, you are not likely to start behaving differently, since you believe you are permanently, irredeemably bad.

Things get even more interesting when Brown shares the outcomes that research has found to be associated with each of these emotions:

“While shame is highly correlated with addiction, violence, aggression, depression, eating disorders, and bullying, guilt is negatively correlated with these outcomes.”

So in order for someone’s behavior to change—whether that’s someone else or yourself—the answer is to feel guilt (if applicable), never shame. I have been testing this on myself since I first read about it in Brown’s 2012 book Daring Greatly. Previous to that time, I had been walking around the planet feeling shameful for being alive. Literally! It’s astonishing what can happen when, anytime you notice yourself feeling ashamed, you ask yourself whether you should actually be feeling guilt—or whether you’re just beating down on yourself unnecessarily. Either way, I find that it’s helpful to bat away that wretched shameful feeling, give yourself a pat on the back for trying (even if you just failed!), and think about what you might do better next time.

In this passage, Brown takes things a step further and points out that people in power who seem shameless are likely actually shameful—and that therein lies the problem:

“In our political chaos, people throw around the word shameless when they see someone make a self-serving or unethical decision, . . . attributing unconscionable behavior to a lack of shame. This is wrong and dangerous. Shame isn’t the cure, it’s the cause. Don’t let what looks like a bloated ego and narcissism fool you into thinking there’s a lack of shame. Shame and fear are almost always driving that unethical behavior.”

Let’s watch out for the use of the word shame, both on the Internet and in the streets. And let’s watch out for the feeling of shame in our hearts. These things are not needed here on earth. Sometimes we make mistakes. But we are not bad people. We’re just trying to find our way.

Conjure up the feeling of guilt: what does it feel like? Conjure up the feeling of shame: what does it feel like? Can you inwardly sense the difference?

I am not sure how to write this blog post. The topic is too big and mind-blowing to easily encapsulate in such a short form. But I’ll try. Plus, I’m afraid my language is going to get too corny and New Agey to be taken seriously. But please try to understand.

In all honesty, this blog itself might not have come into existence, had I not discovered an amazing author and university professor who not only conducts in-depth research into courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy, but also shares her results with the public through delightful and accessible books.

I would even go so far as to say that, since I was falling into a terrifying rabbit hole during the years when I first encountered her, I might today be dwelling at the bottom of it, had I not had the breakthrough realizations she pointed me toward.

I have read many life-changing books over the years. But at the tiptop of my best-of list, when it comes to life-changing-ness, at least as regards my life personally, are the six incredible books published by Brené Brown between 2007 and 2018.

How to Be a Courageous Leader

Brown’s most recent book, Dare to Lead, came out last year and instantly hit #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists.

Dare to Lead applies the results of her research over the past couple decades to the topic of leadership. Brown also conducted new research about leadership and details her findings in the book. While her other books were written for a general audience—with the exception of her first one, I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t), which focuses on women—Dare to Lead approaches the concepts from the vantage point of leaders. In the context of this book, a leader is anyone who takes on a leadership role in any aspect of life. This includes not just executives, managers, military commanders, healing professionals, teachers, and the like, but also people who act (or seek to act!) as leaders amidst their families, friends, and communities.

For the most part, the book offers the same lessons Brown has been preaching for years—fascinating, practical, empirically based stuff—just packaged differently. As it turns out, the qualities needed to be what Brown calls a “wholehearted” person are the same as those needed to be an effective leader. This is another way of saying that wholeheartedness involves leadership, and leadership involves wholeheartedness.

This book is also different from Brown’s other books in that it seems to be intended as a companion piece to in-person trainings. This is just speculation on my part; it just reads that way. I could be wrong. But my understanding is that Brown, in addition to being a university professor, bestselling author, in-demand speaker at events around the world, and wife and mother, is also CEO of a company that conducts trainings for organizations and individuals. These events spread the word to helping professionals and other leaders about her research findings. The book seems designed to be read before or after an event. That being said, it can be understood by anyone, whether you have read all of Brown’s other books and heard her speak, or are encountering her for the first time.

The book does pack an awful lot of information into 300 pages. I do not know how it would feel to read it without having encountered her teachings in the past; would it be too much? Having read all of Brown’s other books, I sometimes thought while reading this one, “I’ve heard this before. Let’s move on!” At other times, I thought, “I’ve heard this before; but this is a great reminder, and I wish she would spend more time here, instead of rushing on to the next topic.”

The bottom line is, Dare to Lead is chock-full of research-based profundity as regards managing the complexities of living and, despite troubles and pitfalls, emerging, in the end, balanced and in control. But if you have not read anything by Brown, you may wish to begin at an earlier juncture in her oeuvre to experience the different topics in a more in-depth way.

In What Order Should I Read Brené Brown’s Books?

You can’t go wrong; any order will work. But if you haven’t read any Brené Brown, or have time to read only one or a few of her books, I recommend moving through them in this order:

1. Daring Greatly (2012)
2. Rising Strong (2015)
3. The Gifts of Imperfection (2010)
4. Braving the Wilderness (2017)
5. Dare to Lead (2018)
6. I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t) (2007)

Daring Greatly and Rising Strong go together as a set. The former shows how to dare to put yourself out there and be seen. Then, when you inevitably fall, the latter shows how to get back up again. If you read nothing else by Brown, read these two. They offer a solid, practical structure for navigating life courageously—like all of your favorite heroes throughout history have.

Read The Gifts of Imperfection next. Or, you may want to read this one first. This little book sets out ten guideposts for wholehearted living. It’s a short read, but every guidepost is potentially life-altering. You can go through each one and compare its research-based conclusions to the patterns that you and the people close to you typically engage in. Are they the same? You’re good. Different? Maybe a change would be advantageous (or maybe even, as in my case, several huge, dramatic changes).

Braving the Wilderness delves into the paradox that in order to truly fit in, you must stand alone. It also examines the increasing political polarity we have seen in the U.S. in the twenty-first century from the wholehearted perspective.

Dare to Lead puts everything together in the context of leadership.

I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t) was Brown’s first book, originally self-published as Women & Shame. Its style is more scholarly than the others’.

What Does Research Say About Courage?

Brown has been researching courage for decades—and the results are in! Her amazing news is that courage is not something you were either born with or permanently lack. No—courage is a skill you can practice and learn. Here’s what Brown says in the introduction to Dare to Lead about her research into courage:

“The most powerful part of this process for us was seeing a list of behaviors emerge that are not ‘hardwired.’ Everything . . . is teachable, observable, and measurable, whether you’re fourteen or forty. For the research participants who were initially convinced that courage is determined by genetic destiny, the interview process alone proved to be a catalyst for change. . . . Time can wear down our memories of tough lessons until what was once a difficult learning fades into ‘This is just who I am as a person.'”

This is wonderful to hear, because it means that we can all practice being braver. We can all move toward becoming more wholehearted. Each of us can be the person we always wanted to be; and we can be leaders, guiding others to be the people they always wanted to be.

What Brené Brown Did for Me

As I mentioned above, Brown’s books have been a catalyst for me, resulting in me making several major positive life changes. This stuff is no joke. I feel that I am a completely different person, in completely different circumstances, in comparison to just a few years ago. Some things I found the courage to do include not just starting this blog, but also organizing and hosting a silent book club, learning to be intentional about setting boundaries, and walking away from people who were not willing to respect my boundaries. And I’ve noticed that people reviewing Brown’s books on Amazon and elsewhere have had similar experiences.

I love how Brown ends her introduction to Dare to Lead:

“Basically, and perhaps ironically, we don’t have the courage for real talk about courage. But it’s time. And if you want to call these ‘soft skills’ after you’ve tried putting them into practice—go for it. I dare you. Until then, find a home for your armor, and I’ll see you in the arena.”

LOL.

What have you found the courage to do lately?

In 1987, Michael Jackson’s album Bad was released. Shortly thereafter, I acquired the vinyl record and listened to it over and over, with rapture, watching the record spin on the player in my bedroom and gaping at the sounds coming out of it.

Even as a girl who hadn’t yet graduated from elementary school, I had strong opinions about that album—namely, that it was great. There are no loser songs there. I still think that today, more than 30 years later.

In those pre-Internet days when it was difficult to preview music before buying it, I acquired many other albums that I would not describe as, shall we say, thrillers. Perhaps you, like me, remember hearing a song on the radio and buying the full album, only to be disappointed by every song recorded by the artist other than the one that initially charmed you into a purchase.

In other words, one hit does not a true artist make. I’ve found—not just in music but also in books, clothing brands, cliques of people, and card games—that one article is not enough for one to make a judgement call on the entire set, regarding either type or quality.

Have you ever shown up at a party where you know no one but the host, only to realize that you can’t stand any of the host’s friends, even though he or she is one of your favorite people in the world?

I don’t know Ottessa Moshfegh, but I think she has a cool name—which has been popping up a lot lately in the literary-type magazines I read. According to Wikipedia, she is from Boston, her mom is from Croatia, and her dad is Jewish and from Iran. I greatly enjoyed her novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation; I found it unique and interesting.

As this is the one and only work by her that I have read, I am having trouble conceptualizing her as an artist. Does she usually write about young, troubled women, circa 2000, who try extremely hard to sleep their lives away? I checked out all of her other books from the library. They are sitting right here: in a nice little stack. I would like to tear through them; but then, I have several other stacks of books lying around that are equally enticing, and I would like to tear through those, too. And then there are all the other things I need and want to do in life.

What good and bad experiences have you had in encountering a one and only representative—and then getting to know its fellows?

Sleep. That place to which we all disappear for hours at a time. Drifting off. The mysterious and intangible loss of consciousness. The strangeness of dreams. Waking refreshed . . . or not so much.

As a kid, I was scared of the loss of consciousness that is implicit and inevitable in falling sleep. As an adult, I have, at times, felt even more afraid of the continuity of consciousness that is implicit and inevitable in being awake.

The protagonist of the novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation, by Ottessa Moshfegh, falls into the latter camp. She does not want to experience life. She wants to fade away, to live in the darkest shadows, where she cannot be found—not by anyone, and especially not by herself:

“And that was exactly what I wanted—my emotions passing like headlights that shine softly through a window, sweep past me, illuminate something vaguely familiar, then fade and leave me in the dark again.”

The protagonist adores sleep like nothing else in life. That is a very oxymoronic stance to take. Sleeping, she does not exist. Waking, she fetishizes sleep:

“The bed was a king, low to the ground, and whenever I slept in it, I felt very far away from the world, like I was in a spaceship or on the moon. I missed that bed. The stiff blankness of my mother’s eggshell sheets.”

I am currently coming out of a period of “rest and relaxation” myself. Over the past few years, I have experienced a variety of physical and mental health issues that I am treating with wellness activities . . . and prescription drugs. My doctor recently changed the dosages when I explained that I was sleeping too much at night, sleepy throughout the day, and struggling to get things done. The past couple weeks have been a wonderful period of awakening. And yet, I remember the great relief I felt upon descending, initially, into the sleepiness that would rescue me from my ailments.

One could, I suppose, judge those who use drugs that cause them to descend into sleep as somehow lacking in the vitals of life. Perhaps I and Moshfegh’s protagonist—and I may as well add Juliet and Romeo—are poor, broken, creatures who cannot sustain the light of consciousness as naturally given to us. Or perhaps, as in the case of Rip Van Winkle, intoxicating ourselves to sleep is something that just happens to some of us, beyond our control and comprehension.

Are you feeling sleepy?