Brené Brown: Listening to shame

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  • “Vulnerability is not weakness”
  • “[It] is our most accurate measurement of courage; it fuels our daily life”
  • “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change”
  • “You gotta dance with the one who brung ya”
  • “TED is the failure conference; very few people here are afraid to fail and have failed miserably many times”
  • “The credit goes to the man in the arena”
  • “Shames drives “Never good enough” and “Who do you think you are?””
  • Regarding men and shame, a male attendee shared that “You say to reach out, tell our story, be vulnerable… but [the most important women in my life] would rather me die on top of my white horse than watch me fall down. When [men] reach out and be vulnerable we get the shit beat out of us and don’t tell me it is [from other guys] it is the women in my life who are harder on me than anyone else”.
  • “Shame is an epidemic in our culture”
  • “Empathy is the antidote to shame”
  • “Me too; the two most powerful words when we are in struggle”
  • “Vulnerability is the path back to finding each other”

Brené Brown: The Power of Vulnerability

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  • “An ordinary life as become synonymous with a meaningless life”
  • You can’t hear what she has to share too many times and in too many ways and this presentation is another great one
  • “Love and belonging are irreducible needs of [humans]”
  • Research shows that: “Our capacity for whole-heartedness can never be greater than our willingness to be broken-hearted which is terrible but truthful”
  • “Vulnerability is the path to [everything good about being human]”
  • “Empathy fuels connection; sympathy drives disconnection”
  • “I know what is like down here and you’re not alone” (Empathy)
  • “You wanna sandwich?” (Sympathy)
  • “Sympathy is how we respond when we don’t want to be vulnerable”
  • “Blame gives some semblence of control even if it blaming ourselves”
  • “Blame is discharging pain”
  • “Accountability is a vulnerable process”
  • “Empathy is not scripted; it is about being present and engadged”
  • “Rarely can a response make something better. What makes something better is connection”
  • “Shame is I am bad; guilt is I did something bad and the outcomes are hugely different”
  • “Shame corrodes the part of us that believes that we can change”

Two Easy Ways to Kill a Paper Tiger

There are two easy ways to kill a paper tiger.

The quickest way is with fire. It destroys the tiger; nothing remains. Maybe the fire gets out of control and destroys the torch-bearer, too. You never know.

The slowest way is with water. Draw a warm bath where the tiger is safe and gets some rest along with the opportunity to finally heal its wounds. You might end up with a friend afterwards and you might not; and you will definitely end up with a kitten at the end.