Show Outline

INTRODUCTION

• Intro - Oprah introduces Brown

BLOCK A - THE ORIGIN OF THE BOOK

• Intro 2 - Struggle is what makes us

• About daring greatly - Origin story with Oprah

BLOCK B - CONNECTION

• Connection and shame - The voice: “I’m not good enough”

BLOCK C - WORTHINESS & VULNERABILITY

• Research of worthiness - The courage to be imperfect

• Therapy for vulnerability - FUNNY! “I just need some strategies:

• What does daring greatly mean - being vulnerable, to be yourself, to succeed

about the book

You can pick up Brené’s ‘Daring Greatly’ at all good outlets.

Daring Greatly is not about winning or losing. It’s about courage. In a world where “never enough” dominates and feeling afraid has become second nature, vulnerability is subversive. Uncomfortable. It’s even a little dangerous at times. And, without question, putting ourselves out there means there’s a far greater risk of getting criticized or feeling hurt. But when we step back and examine our lives, we will find that nothing is as uncomfortable, dangerous, and hurtful as standing on the outside of our lives looking in and wondering what it would be like if we had the courage to step into the arena—whether it’s a new relationship, an important meeting, the creative process, or a difficult family conversation. Daring Greatly is a practice and a powerful new vision for letting ourselves be seen.

TRANSCRIPT

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Mike Parsons:
Hello and welcome to the Moonshots Podcast. It's Episode 63. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons and, as always, I'm joined by the man with a plan, none other than Chad Owen himself. Good evening, Brooklyn.

Chad Owen:
Good morning, Sydney. Now, what you listeners don't know is that Mike and I have been powering through some technical difficulties to get this episode out to you. But we are determined to bring you our second show from Brené Brown despite fire alarms, multiple microphones, technical challenges. But we're here and we've got some great content for you.

Mike Parsons:
Yeah. And look, I have to thank you, Chad, for bringing Brené Brown to us. She is incredibly unique as an author because she has the ability to talk about things that we just plain old don't want to talk about. And the previous show was great, where we looked at The Gifts of Imperfection which, for me, was really all about the courage and the ability just to be yourself and just appreciate-

Chad Owen:
Dealing with your inner critics.

Mike Parsons:
Yeah, dealing with those little voices, right?

Chad Owen:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), the voices.

Mike Parsons:
There's all those voices that... mm-hmm (affirmative). So I thought that was really insightful and has really opened up a whole new world of thinking for me. And I'm really excited to get into our second of three shows that we're doing on Brené Brown. Chad Owen, where are we going to go today?

Chad Owen:
We're picking up her book, Daring Greatly, which was spawned from the TED Talk, which we had pulled some clips from in the previous show. But I think she went from nobody knowing, or not many people knowing, who she was to millions of people knowing who she was, exposing all of her work and vulnerabilities out for the world to see. And we've got some really fantastic clips around vulnerability, connection, shame, and so many more topics that, I think you're right, it's just things that are maybe not on our radars when we're thinking about how to be well-rounded entrepreneurs and innovators.

Mike Parsons:
Well and it's interesting because, much like Simon Sinek did, Brené Brown talks about a lot of things that are really important to our success, both at work and personally, yet we spend so little time really discussing. In the previous show she talked a lot about stepping into the arena as a metaphor really having purpose and trying to realize your dreams, your ambitions, and not ending up at the end of life wishing you had really gone for it. She's really kind of set up this idea of stepping into the arena, really going for it.

Mike Parsons:
And I think Daring Greatly is a wonderful book for those that have made that decision, how you can go out there and not let the world pull you back, how you can get past the naysayers and so forth. And I think her work is so remarkable. I think we join her at this book where she's had a very successful TED Talk. It's catapulted her onto the world's stage because nobody was daring talk about these things, yet she was willing and prepared to do it.

Mike Parsons:
Look, I'm really excited about the show because I think what we can enjoy is a whole series of clips that take us through the origins of the book. We can explore what it means to find connection with ourselves and with others. And what we've got is some great clips around the ideas of worthiness and vulnerability. And, if this all sounds really, really, really heavy duty, I'm not going to lie. This is pretty dense stuff. But we do have one or two funny clips because Brené Brown is so great at, I mean, she is quite prepared to be self-deprecating and admit her follies. So we've got some funny clips as well. So it's a real treat, this show. There's lots and lots ahead.

Chad Owen:
Yeah. So, who better to give us an introduction into Brené than Oprah herself? So we've got this fantastic clip where Brené was invited onto Oprah's SuperSoul Sunday show. And so yeah, let's hear Oprah introduce Brené.

Oprah:
Born in San Antonio, Brené Brown is a fifth-generation Texan. The oldest of four, Brené was raised with tough, old-fashioned, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps Texas values. It wasn't until her mid-twenties that she discovered a deep-seated passion for teaching. And after earning her Bachelors, Masters, and Ph.D, she became a professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work.

Oprah:
Her research focuses on vulnerability, courage, shame. It led Brené to reexamine her own life and gave her the strength to open up about her own spiritual awakening in a 2010 TED X Talk, a regional version of the famous idea-sharing TED Conference that spotlights innovators and thought leaders.

Oprah:
Much to Brené's surprise, sharing her fears resonated with people. Not just in that Texas auditorium but around the world, garnering more than eight million views on ted.com. Brené has written three books now based on her groundbreaking research: I Thought It Was Just Me, The Gifts of Imperfection, and her New York Times #1 Bestseller, Daring Greatly.

Chad Owen:
Yeah so this intro from Oprah, one, is great because Brené is a fellow Texas, two, she's on Oprah who, if you're new to the show, go back into the archives and you'll find one of our shows on Oprah herself. I can't remember exactly which show it is, but I think it's probably the first dozen shows we did, was-

Mike Parsons:
Yeah. Yeah. Good job trying to remember, Chad Owen. We're now, like, 60+ into it and you're trying to remember whether it was Show 12 or 13. I mean, that's some brain power.

Chad Owen:
Oh! It was Show 5.

Mike Parsons:
Oh! Oh, very good.

Chad Owen:
But what's fascinating to me about Brené is her background as a sociologist and researcher and academic, when comparing her to some of the other authors and people that we've profiled here on the show. So I think the rigor of her research and findings is very interesting and fascinating.

Mike Parsons:
And we love a little bit of rigor and getting insights in our day jobs, Chad. And I really love that she's almost what I would call forensic about searching for true behaviors that people display and sort of unpacking them.

Mike Parsons:
This next clip really takes us to the origin of the book, and here's Brené Brown talking about the role that struggle has to do in making us who we are.

Brené Brown:
I think we lose sight of the beauty. The most beautiful things I look back on in my life are coming out from underneath things I didn't know I could get out from underneath. You know, the moments I look back in my life and think, "God, those are the moments that made me," were moments of struggle.

Speaker 5:
In a culture where we like to fix or prevent vulnerability, Brené Brown is reviving the knowledge that our struggles make us who we are. And it's based on data, social scientific research she conducted first into shame, and then into qualities that distinguish lives with a strong sense of worthiness. She's frank about the resistance her own findings awakened in her, a classic American perfectionist who wore exhaustion as a status symbol. She also discovered a stark gulf between what we want to be true, and what is true, in vulnerability between men and women. And she exquisitely, uncomfortably describes the difference between making our children happy or raising brave, engaged human beings.

Chad Owen:
This reminds me of the stoic saying, "The obstacle is the way," or "The struggle is what makes us who we are." But the topics that she's talking about I think are often the most important things that are left unsaid, whether that's in a founding team, or a startup, or a leadership team, or even just a day-to-day team that you find yourself working in. Because this idea of kind of you know out-sized expectations and shame around wanting to feel connected with others, I think it goes kind of to the root of where many problems arise when it comes to working together.

Mike Parsons:
Yeah, and I think this is a really good point, Chad, where we can talk a little bit about why we chose Brené Brown and the reason that authors like herself and Simon Sinek really matter so much. And that is that we often, in work particularly, talk about the skills of what has to happen. So we talk about, "Do you have the right technology skills? Can you use the software? Can you get something from A to B?" And so it's a very functional, utilitarian discussion about getting the job done.

Mike Parsons:
And we preoccupy ourselves with best practices and ROI and all those sorts of things. But the interesting thing is so much of the real magic or the real disaster in a sports team, in a founding team, in a family, comes down to how we treat each other and how we feel. And the craziest thing of all, Chad, is that the way people feel about each other on any team construct is the fire, the engine, the fuel that will determine their success. Yet so little that is done to discuss, to talk about, to understand this essential thing, yet we'll talk about spreadsheets til the cows come home. It's crazy.

Chad Owen:
Yeah. In a way, it's taking care of people as people and taking care of them emotionally is what's going to create sustainable growth and productivity in the teams. Because if you're not addressing those kind of fundamental emotional needs, you can kind of put a Band-Aid on a problem but it's not going to sustain you in the long run.

Mike Parsons:
That's so true.

Chad Owen:
And I think that's a big reason why people aren't staying in jobs as much as they had used to, is because they're not getting that foundational support from the teams and leadership.

Mike Parsons:
Yeah. And that brings us to the reason why it's so important to understand the origin of this book, because I think Brené's journey reflects a lot of what we have all found and discovered in our work path. And so let's have a listen to her now really getting into the point at which she started this adventure about daring greatly.

Oprah:
So I'm excited about Daring Greatly.

Brené Brown:
Me too.

Oprah:
And I'm excited about you talking to this audience because you watch SuperSoul Sunday.

Brené Brown:
I do.

Oprah:
You talking to this audience about what it means to dare greatly. This came out of the TED Talk, right?

Brené Brown:
Yeah. It was born of the TED Talk and it was born of just a dozen years of vulnerability research. And the title itself was a very personal moment in my life.

Oprah:
Yes.

Brené Brown:
Yeah.

Oprah:
The Theodore Roosevelt quote?

Brené Brown:
The Theodore Roosevelt quote.

Oprah:
Yes. Would you give us that quote?

Brené Brown:
I will give you the quote.

Oprah:
Which is at the beginning of the book.

Brené Brown:
Yeah. Can I tell you a little bit about what the story is behind the quote?

Oprah:
Yes.

Brené Brown:
I had done TED, and I was everywhere all of a sudden for the first time. I was on cnn.com, I was doing NPR interviews. And my therapist tells me, "Don't read the comments." My husband says, "Don't read the comments." But I read the comments.

Oprah:
Oh no.

Brené Brown:
Right. So one day I was reading the comments, and I was devastated.

Oprah:
I know. I've read comments before. It's just devastating how nasty people can be.

Brené Brown:
It was devastating.

Brené Brown:
And they were comments like, "Of course she's embracing imperfection. If you were Brené Brown, you'd have to. What choice would you have?" Or, "Less research, more Botox." Or, "Maybe you'll be worthy in 20 pounds." I mean these kind... and then they're anonymous.

Oprah:
Yes.

Brené Brown:
Which is such chicken crapola. I'm not going to cuss during my thing today. I'm sorry, it's just chicken. So I send Steve to work and I send the kids the school.

Oprah:
Your husband, Steve.

Brené Brown:
My husband Steve. And I stay in my pajamas and I sit down on the couch, and I watch about 10 hours of Downton Abbey reruns and just numb myself out. I eat some peanut butter. I'm just sad. And when it was over-

Oprah:
Because you read the comments.

Brené Brown:
Because I read the comments and I was like, "This is not worth it, man. I'm not doing this anymore. I can't."

Oprah:
Were these comments posted on the TED Talk?

Brené Brown:
No, no, that's very curated, which I really appreciate. These were like anonymous on news websites.

Oprah:
Oh I know. Those are the worst.

Brené Brown:
Right. Like the cesspool of humanity.

Oprah:
Yes. Those are the worst.

Brené Brown:
Right. Yeah so, I'm done with the Downton Abbey and I'm like, "I don't want to go back to my world where all that hurt is." So I get out my laptop and I start Googling, like, "Well, what was happening in the US during the Downton Abbey period?" And Theodore Roosevelt's quote comes up because he... yes.

Brené Brown:
So I read it and it says, "It's not the critic who counts. It's not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit goes to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, and who errs and fails and is sometimes victorious. But when he fails at least he does so daring greatly."

Brené Brown:
And it changed my life, that moment. You know how when you hear something and you're ready?

Oprah:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brené Brown:
And three things happened to me in that moment. The first was, "That is who I want to be. I want to be courageous. I want to be daring."

Oprah:
You want to be the man in the arena.

Brené Brown:
I want to be in the arena.

Oprah:
Yeah.

Brené Brown:
The second thing is, "Oh my gosh, this is everything I've ever learned about vulnerability." It's not winning. It's not losing. It's showing up and being seen." And the third thing which was really helpful for me is from that second, that millisecond forward, I made a commitment that, "If you are not in the arena getting your butt kicked on occasion, I'm not interested in your feedback."

Oprah:
Whoa! I love that.

Brené Brown:
Period. And anonymous comments? You're not in the arena, man.

Oprah:
You're not in the arena.

Brené Brown:
Put your name on it. Own it. If you've got something constructive to say, own it and put it in there.

Oprah:
Yeah. Say that to me in person.

Brené Brown:
If you can't say it in front of me in person, and in front of my kids, don't say it. And if you can say it to me in person in front of my kids, duck.

Mike Parsons:
Wow! What a powerful, powerful quote. I had never heard of this, Chad, have you ever heard of it before?

Chad Owen:
Oh yeah, it's one of my favorites.

Mike Parsons:
Oh man.

Chad Owen:
I discovered it probably not too long before Brené really popularized it with her TED Talk and the books. I haven't memorized it like her, but yeah, I think this idea of the man or the person in the arena is a fantastic...

Mike Parsons:
I love it. I mean, I'm just looking at the quote here: "The credit belongs to the man who's actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, and who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds," I mean, I could go on. This is such a powerful quote. This is, I mean it really is a bit of a Braveheart moment, isn't it? It just forces you, "Am I going to have a go? Am I going to step into the arena? Am I going to try and be my best or not?"

Chad Owen:
I think it's an amazing encapsulation of the entrepreneur's, innovator's, hero journey, is it not?

Mike Parsons:
Oh, absolutely. Yes. I mean, where you face your greatest demons. And this is where I think great sportsmen, great entrepreneurs, those that have had wins and losses, really do love connecting after their careers. Because I feel like there's a certain knowingness that if you've stepped into the arena, you can look somebody in the eye and go, "I know the challenges you've faced, and I know the courage that it took to step into the arena." And I think there's a certain knowingness amongst those that have tried, those that have put themselves on the line. I mean this is something you should just read every morning, right?

Chad Owen:
Yeah. It's definitely a quote that I come back to quite often. Or at least parts of it. And I mean, she took her book title straight from it.

Mike Parsons:
Yeah. Yeah. And this captures the whole spirit of the book, and the greatest way in which this affects me is that when I face challenge, and when I face obstacles, and you find yourself weighing up, "Should I or shouldn't I?" I always think about this idea of, well, "At the end of my time, do I want to be laying there saying, 'I gave it everything. I tried my best. I stepped into the arena'"? Or do I want to be there saying, "I wish I'd had..."

Mike Parsons:
And I can tell you, Chad, just the feeling of saying, "I wish I had tried" and "I wish I had dared" is such, like I have such a physical response to that. That's what gets me over the line, that's what stops me from getting off-track. What gets me on-track is the feeling, is regardless of my legacy, I always want to know in and of myself that I stepped into the arena and that I tried my best. And what Brené Brown is helping us do is like, you don't want to get to the end and say, "I wish I had tried a bit more."

Chad Owen:
No, and what we have coming up on the show are clips that I think will speak to those of us who maybe find ourselves on a late flight home or at the office before anyone else shows up. And it's those little voices in our head that tell us things, that get us to believe things that maybe aren't necessarily true.

Mike Parsons:
That's right. That's right.

Chad Owen:
And it's those thoughts that we think, like, we're the only ones that have them. Like, "Oh, I'm the only one that's struggling with this and so that's why maybe I can't share it with someone else." But what I love about Brené's work is she's interviewed thousands, if not tens of thousands, of individuals and has understood that it's a universal thing to struggle with these issues of worthiness, vulnerability, connection, and shame.

Mike Parsons:
Yes. And before we kind of get into the second half of the show where we really get into unpacking this and starting to discover how we can better understand this and get the courage to step into the arena, I do want to remind everybody that we have had some great feedback from listeners recently. And I just want to say how much we really appreciate the emails, the reviews, and so forth. I have to say that our ratings and reviews on iTunes are off the charts and I'm very grateful to everybody who's contributed. And I also wanted to say that we are very, very grateful to all of you who listen and share and reach out to us. And Chad, if someone's keen to connect with us here at the Moonshots Podcast, where should they go?

Chad Owen:
The quickest way to get in touch is to email us at hello@moonshots.io. But you can also go to moonshots.io, find all of the previous episodes, check out Oprah, Episode #5. There's also a contact form. And you can even get a preview of some of our upcoming episodes.

Mike Parsons:
Yeah. We even have a complete list of all of the planned and upcoming shows. So you can give your thoughts and comments, you can follow us on any of the good old social media, you'll get us there.

Mike Parsons:
And a special shout out, I want to call out one of our listeners that reached out to us last week. Now here's a fellow Sydney-sider like myself, and I want to say thank you to, I'm going to try and pronounce this name correctly, Chad. You got to help me here. I think it is Hugh Yayfa from Sydney. He loves the podcast and he's been digging not only Simon Sinek but Cal Newport.

Mike Parsons:
Interestingly, Chad, how similar is the sort of forensic nature of Brené Brown and Cal Newport? Like, they're both these deep academics that validate their ideas. That's kind of interesting, right?

Chad Owen:
Yeah. I think Brené's the more hardcore academic. It's very hard to refute her body of evidence when it comes to this research.

Mike Parsons:
Sure, sure. But we digress. Back to Hugh Yayfa and he was really interested in getting into one of our most popular shows, which is Discovering Your Why. And he sent us lots of great feedback and he asked us for some tips and tricks, and it was great to be able to help him out and just great to know that we have listeners all over the world. It's such a buzz to see that these themes of how we make ourselves better as not only entrepreneurs and founders, but as innovators, speaks to so many people. So thank you to one and all.

Mike Parsons:
But now we've got an action-packed second half of the show where we've got worthiness and vulnerability topics, all these big, stinky topics that nobody really likes to talk about in public. But before we get into worthiness and vulnerability, Chad, where shall we go?

Chad Owen:
I've learned a whole lot from Brené in talking about some of these sticky emotional subjects. And I love how she kind of unpacks like what leads to different emotional states or different emotional reactions. And I found it fascinating this connection that she makes between shame and connection, connecting with other people.

Chad Owen:
And so we've got a great clip. Again, going back to those voices in our head that says, "I'm not good enough," and maybe that's one of the sources of our shame.

Brené Brown:
So where I started was with connection because by the time you're a social worker for 10 years, what you realize is that connection is why we're here. It's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. This is what it's all about. It doesn't matter whether you talk to people who work in social justice, in mental health, in abuse and neglect. What we know is that connection, the ability to feel connected is, neurobiologically, that's how we're wired. It's why we're here. So I thought, "You know what? I'm going to start with connection."

Brené Brown:
Well, you know that situation where you get an evaluation from your boss and she tells you 37 things that you do really awesome and one thing that you kind of, you know, an opportunity for growth? And all you can think about is that opportunity for growth, right? Well, apparently this is the way my work went as well. Because when you ask people about love, they tell you about heartbreak. When you ask people about belonging, they'll tell you their most excruciating experiences of being excluded. And when you ask people about connection, the stories they told me were about disconnection.

Brené Brown:
So very quickly, really about six weeks into this research, I ran into this unnamed thing that absolutely unraveled connection in a way that I didn't understand or had never seen. And so I pulled back out of the research and thought, "I need to figure out what this is." And it turned out to be shame. And shame is really easily understood as the fear of disconnection. "Is there something about me that, if other people know it or see it, that I won't be worthy of connection?"

Brené Brown:
The things I can tell you about it, it's universal. We all have it. The only people who don't experience shame have no capacity for human empathy or connection. No one wants to talk about it. And the less you talk about it, the more you have it. What underpinned this shame, this "I'm not good enough," which we all know that feeling. "I'm not blank enough. I'm not thin enough, rich enough, beautiful enough, smart enough, promoted enough." The thing that underpinned this was excruciating vulnerability. This idea of, in order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen, really seen.

Brené Brown:
And you know how I feel about vulnerability. I hate vulnerability. And so I thought, "This is my chance to beat it back with my measuring stick. I'm going in. I'm going to figure this stuff out. I'm going to spend a year. I'm going to totally deconstruct shame. I'm going to understand how vulnerability works, and I'm going to outsmart it."

Mike Parsons:
Hmm. It's so funny, Chad, that the idea that Brené Brown is bringing up here is, I think we all feel obliged to project an image of confidence and that we're indestructible. But the true irony is we do this in order to be accepted and to be popular and to be part of something. Yet what Brené is bringing to us is, "Guys and girls, you need to be yourself. You need to be vulnerable and to share this. Because it's at that point not only do you understand yourself, but that is the greatest point of connection with others." Whoa. That is some heavy-duty stuff, Chad Owen.

Chad Owen:
Yeah. I mean, this is what I meant when it's like the deep, dark times when you think no one else is watching. It's this idea you don't want people to see you for who you really are. But that's not how you're going to do your best work and be your best self, and that we can actually prevent ourselves from connecting if we hold onto this shame.

Chad Owen:
And again, shame is not a word that maybe I had ever really thought about and said, "Oh, well, how would you define shame?" But the fear of disconnection I think is a very apt definition of shame. And I think it's helped me understand, again, how maybe I project a certain persona in some situations, whereas I'm much more comfortable being vulnerable and being maybe more of my true self in other situations.

Mike Parsons:
Yeah. And to build on that, I would just say that I think when you're around the right people, have the courage to be yourself, the good, the bad, the ugly. And you will find that people have the capacity, the right friends will have the capacity, to accept you for who you are and see the best in you and will love you for all of your quirks and strange oddities. And if, when people see the real you, and it's not a good fit, well great. Then you just know, "Hey, there's not a fit here. I'm going to move on. Let's not get too hung up on this." But I think this is really powerful because we are so busy being somebody else, yet Brené Brown is telling us, "Just be yourself. All in."

Chad Owen:
This concept of shame is also really tied to not only vulnerability, but this idea of worthiness as well. And all of this circles around the quote that she led with, and that you elaborated on and repeated, this idea of getting into the arena. And I think if you had to describe what it takes to get into the arena, certainly courage would be one of those things. And so we have a great clip from Brené talking about having this courage to be imperfect.

Brené Brown:
So what I did is I took all of the interviews where I saw worthiness, where I saw people living that way, and just looked at those. What do these people have in common? And I have a slight office supply addiction, but that's another talk. So I had a manila folder and I had a Sharpie and I was like, "What am I going to call this research?" And the first words that came to my mind were "wholehearted." These are kind of wholehearted people living from this deep sense of worthiness.

Brené Brown:
So I wrote at the top of the manila folder and I started looking at the data. In fact, I did it first in a four-day, very intensive data analysis where I went back, pulled these interviews, pulled the stories, pulled the incidents. "What's the theme? What's the pattern?" My husband left town with the kids because I always go into this kind of Jackson Pollock crazy thing where I'm just like writing and going and kind of just in my researcher mode.

Brené Brown:
And so here's what I found. What they had in common was a sense of courage. And I want to separate courage and bravery for you for a minute. Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language, it's from the Latin word "cor," meaning "heart." And the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. And so these folks had, very simply, the courage to be imperfect. They had the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others. Because as it turns out, we can't practice compassion with other people if we can't treat ourselves kindly.

Brené Brown:
And the last was they had connection, and this was the hard part, as a result of authenticity. They were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were, which is, you have to absolutely do that for connection.

Brené Brown:
The other thing that they had in common was this: they fully embraced vulnerability. They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful. They didn't talk about vulnerability being comfortable, nor did they really talk about it being excruciating, as I had heard earlier in the shame interviewing. They just talked about it being necessary. They talked about the willingness to say, "I love you" first. The willingness to do something where there are no guarantees. The willingness to breathe through waiting for the doctor to call after your mammogram. The willingness to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. They thought this was fundamental.

Mike Parsons:
Hoo-ha, Chad Owen, "the courage to be imperfect." There is a lot to say inside of this. When you hear this in this kind of pursuit of worthiness and finding the courage to be imperfect, how do you start with your relationship to this idea? What comes to mind first when you hear her speaking?

Chad Owen:
I think what's speaking to me, and I would guess with much of our audience as well, is this concept of being kind to yourself first so that you can be kind and compassionate to others. It's building on this idea from the last show of we are our own worst critics. Getting beyond that can be very hard sometimes, and it can kind of blind us to celebrating our true successes and celebrating the things that are working, the things about us that are good and positive. And so I think, for me, it's just being reminded to take some time, to pause and reflect, and be kind to yourself first, and that that will pay dividends in all of your relationships and connections with others.

Mike Parsons:
And it's funny, isn't it, that so much of the way in which we connect and interact with the world around us starts with ourselves. And in fact, the third book that we're going to cover in Brené's series, Braving the Wilderness is all about connecting with yourself so you can connect with others. So you can see there's a nice story arc of the three books we've covered. We've got The Gift of Imperfection, which is really about coming to terms with yourself. Daring Greatly is getting that individual, that self, to take a step into the arena. And the third one, this Braving the Wilderness book, is really all about relating to the world and the people around you. Your community, if you will.

Mike Parsons:
As I've said, there is so much in that I just love the fact that the challenge she's giving us in that clip was, "Look, have the courage to accept that you're imperfect. Have the capacity to find that in yourself first." Almost, "Forgive yourself first so that you can go out into the world."

Mike Parsons:
And when you go out into the world, that's where you go and step into the arena, get things done. And sometimes we need to check in and get someone's point of view, maybe get some support, ask some advice, some counsel. And Chad, we've got a great clip coming up on that, and this is the idea of vulnerability.

Mike Parsons:
But before we get there, Chad, before we go to being vulnerable towards others, how do you think, taking on board what Brené's saying, what advice do we have for each other and our listeners about the courage to be imperfect? About the capacity for us to be worthy for ourselves first?

Chad Owen:
Well, here, I'm going to put our money where... what is it?

Mike Parsons:
Money where your mouth is?

Chad Owen:
I'm going to put the money where my mouth is because I think you and I are actually working on this as soon as last night in terms of when we're checking in with one another in our work. Just pausing and asking one another, "How are you?" Not is, "How's the work going? How can I help?" But, "How are you?" And I think that just because you had asked me that, we had a much more meaningful conversation that I think is going to be much more helpful for us going forward, not only in our work but in our working relationship and our friendship going forward.

Chad Owen:
And so I think I experienced the power of vulnerability just in our conversation last night. And it was really just simply taking a moment to acknowledge one another in our, for lack of a better way of describing it, our emotional state and our emotional needs and where we're struggling in that and how we can support one another in that way. I think, like the power of the check-in, I guess, is what I'm in to.

Mike Parsons:
Yeah. And maybe what you're getting to is like, "Let's ask ourselves and our dearest friends, 'How are you?' and give them permission to say, 'You know what? Not so great.'" Because how often do we get into like auto response, "Yeah, great. Awesome. Fantastic. Really busy." You know, they're all just stock-standard answers.

Mike Parsons:
Create time and space for people, and maybe even create time and space for yourself to actually say, "You know what? This thing's fine. This thing's good. But this other thing stinks. It causes me anxiety; it causes me stress; I'm disappointed; I'm frustrated; I'm angry," whatever is the appropriate way, create the space and be crazy, maybe we have to lead in conversations with others around us by sharing first. I mean, that's a classic parenting tip. If you want your kids to talk to you more about what's happening in their lives, start by talking about your day. And perhaps in this case we need to start making ourselves vulnerable, not only to ourselves but to those around us, to help them be vulnerable in return.

Chad Owen:
Yeah, but Mike, I just want to feel better and I want like... right? So, like, just tell me what to do to feel better.

Mike Parsons:
Give me the shortlist and I'll go and buy all the ingredients.

Chad Owen:
Yeah, give me the strategies.

Mike Parsons:
And this next clip, Chad, is totally that. This is Brené Brown talking about her own personal journey and the fact that she is an author on vulnerability and worthiness and courage and all these great topics. It's not that she's perfect, and she's quite ready to admit that. So off she went. She's clinically trained as a psychologist, and you can go to a psychologist for a psychologist. And this is her personal story. It's pretty hilarious. But also, I think we all fall victim over, "Okay, yeah, I know I've got some problems. Just tell me what the answer is." But the truth really is we need to go and find it. So let's have a listen to Brené Brown talking about her journey into vulnerability.

Brené Brown:
So I found a therapist. My first meeting with her, Diana, I brought in my list of the way the wholehearted live. And I said down and she said, you know, "How are you?" And I said, "I'm great," you know, "I'm okay." And she said, "What's going on?" And this is a therapist who sees therapists because we have to go to those because their BS meters are good.

Brené Brown:
And so I said, "Here's the thing, I'm struggling." And she said, "What's the struggle?" And I said, "Well, I have a vulnerability issue, and I know that vulnerability is kind of the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness. But it appears that it's also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love. And I think I have a problem and I need some help." And I said, "But here's the thing. No family stuff. No childhood shit. I just need some strategies." Thank you.

Brené Brown:
So she goes like this. And then I said, "It's bad, right?" And she said, "It's neither good nor bad. It just is what it is." And I said, "Oh my God, this is going to suck." And it did and it didn't. And it took about a year. And you know how there are people that, like, when they realize that vulnerability and tenderness are important, that they kind of surrender and walk into it? A) That's not me and B) I don't even hang out with people like that.

Brené Brown:
For me, it was yearlong street fight. It was a slug fest. Vulnerability pushed; I pushed back. I lost the fight but probably won my life back. And so then I went back into the research and spent the next couple of years really trying to understanding what they, the wholehearted, the choices they were making and what are we doing with vulnerability? Why do we struggle with it so much? Am I alone in struggling with vulnerability? No.

Chad Owen:
So she didn't get her strategies, but it sounds like it worked out in the end.

Mike Parsons:
Yeah, she had to work a little bit hard. But it's so great to have her share that even she struggles with her own topic of expertise. I mean the irony is so, so very thick. But it's so important that what she presents to us there is how prescriptive we can be of the solutions for things like this. But we so often underestimate the immensity of our emotional state. When we talk about shame and worthiness, vulnerability, and the courage to be ourselves, the courage to try and be the best version of ourselves, the challenge to help others be their best. I mean, this stuff is so... there's so little language, there's so little standards for talking about this, compared to best practices of, you know, generally accepted accounting principles, you know? It's like, oh my gosh, we've all got the training wheels on with this kind of stuff, don't you think, Chad?

Chad Owen:
Yeah. What I'm taking away here is vulnerability is just about putting yourself out there. And so here she is, someone who's trained that's like, "Maybe I should go and talk to a therapist about this so that I can understand vulnerability not only in my research, but how it relates to me and my own life." And she says that it won her life back, so clearly there were some things that were going unaddressed with her, and even though she steeped these things all day long, getting that outside perspective and third-party counsel was very empowering for her.

Mike Parsons:
It was. And it shows you that if she needs a little help along the way, however we find our help, we should be open to it. If you imagine, Chad, that one of our listeners is listening to this and saying, "Hoo. You know, I really do want to step in the arena but I'm really struggling with feeling very vulnerable here. I'm not sure if I'm worthy. I don't want to be rejected for my failure," what sort of things do you think we can all do in finding our own source of guidance and help when we want to do that? I mean obviously, "Read this book!" sounds like a good start. But what are some of the practical things you think we can adopt as practices as we go on this journey, Chad?

Chad Owen:
I think we have to start small. So don't sign up for a TED Talk as your first moment of sharing your vulnerabilities. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. But I would encourage all of us to pick a partner. It can be your life partner, it could be a business partner, it could be a team member. Or a sibling or a family member. Pick someone that you make the small commitment to start sharing some of these feelings around connection and shame and vulnerability. And I think going back and forth you'll understand that it's maybe not so hard to do and you'll start to see some of the benefits.

Chad Owen:
And then maybe you can do it in the team context, or you can do it in the company context, or you can do it in the family context. But I think starting small is probably the best way to tackle this. And, of course, you can always seek out a therapist and do talk therapy. I'm a big believer in it. We saw Brené do it, so that's also an avenue if you have the means.

Mike Parsons:
How about this, Chad? What about just writing down that little voice in the back of your mind, like having the courage to start writing down what that thought is?

Chad Owen:
That's even easier because then you can burn the pages afterwards. No one ever has to read them.

Mike Parsons:
I find writing just such a great medicine for so many things going on in my head.

Chad Owen:
I'm going to steal your journaling idea, Mike. That's... Just write it down.

Mike Parsons:
Super, super. Well listen, we've got one more clip, Chad, and we're sort of now getting into what we have to do, what's required, what's the context of daring to be great, stepping into the arena. And as Steph Curry kind of says, "Being the best version of ourselves." So I think it might be time to dig into this last Brené Brown clip. And it's really going after this question of, "What does daring greatly mean?" What does it look like? What does it feel like? And how might we like to think about it? So let's get into this inspiring little clip of Brené Brown answering the question, "What does daring greatly mean?"

Oprah:
So what does it mean, then, to dare greatly?

Brené Brown:
To me, it means the courage to be vulnerable. It means to show up and be seen, to ask for what you need, to talk about how you're feeling, to have the hard conversations. You know, when we asked people, in the research, "What is vulnerability to you?" And let me tell you, I was raised that vulnerability is weakness, like most people.

Oprah:
Most people think vulnerability is weakness.

Brené Brown:
Right.

Oprah:
And you know what? After reading Daring Greatly, what I realized, and The Gifts of Imperfection, what I realized, first of all, is I live in the space of vulnerability. And that is what has made me so successful, is my vulnerability with the audience.

Brené Brown:
For sure.

Oprah:
And I think that vulnerability is sort of the cornerstone of confidence. I think it's the cornerstone because-

Brené Brown:
I believe that.

Oprah:
Because unless you can allow yourself to take the risk, to be open, to live as a wholehearted person, when you can do that, you recognize that you're really just like everybody else. And that gives you the confidence to be yourself, which is all you really need in life, is to be more of yourself.

Brené Brown:
That's it. And I do believe, you know, coming from vulnerability is weakness, when we asked people, "What is vulnerability?" and they said things to us like, "The first date after my divorce." "Trying to get pregnant after my third miscarriage." "Sitting with my wife who has Stage 4 breast cancer making plans for our young children." You know, the biggest examples that came up from the research was picking up the phone and making a call to someone who's just had a great loss.

Oprah:
Oh, yes.

Brené Brown:
And I thought about that in my own life, like, you know, there's the phone. I walk up to it and I'm like, "What am I going to say?"

Oprah:
"What am I going to say?" That's what everybody fears, what am I going to say.

Brené Brown:
That's going to make it better?

Oprah:
Yeah.

Brené Brown:
There's nothing I can say except, "I'm here, I'm hurting with you. You're not alone." But you know what? I'll call in an hour. And then I come back in an hour and I'm like, "Oh man, it's dinnertime. I'm going to bake a casserole. I'm going to make an expensive casserole!"

Oprah:
We've all done that. We've all done that.

Brené Brown:
Right. And then what happens when an hour turns into a day, turns into a week? And then it's a month later and you run into that friend at the grocery story, and you didn't call.

Oprah:
Well you know what? Just to show up. That's all people want.

Brené Brown:
That's it.

Oprah:
Is for you to show up and say, "I don't know what to say, but I'm here."

Brené Brown:
"I can't fix this, but I'll walk through the pain with you."

Oprah:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Brené Brown:
But then what is the feeling that we get when we make the call and we hang up? To me, that feeling is when I'm aligned with my values. And courage is my value.

Oprah:
Absolutely.

Brené Brown:
And you can't get to courage without walking through vulnerability. Period.

Mike Parsons:
Whoa! Chad, that one. There was a lot... I think I say this after every Brené Brown quote, "There was a lot in that one." Where do we want to start on breaking that one down?

Chad Owen:
Again, I love how she breaks down a concept like courage. And she defines it as wholeheartedness. I really like that concept. I think that's what I'm taking away from this last clip, is how to be wholehearted, worthy, or feeling worthy in life. Because all of moments that they talk about are very difficult.

Mike Parsons:
Yeah. It really comes down to... I really understood, that like, success lays in the capacity to be yourself and to be vulnerable and when you can think, feel, and do in total alignment with who you truly are. And I think she really closed it out very, very inspiringly. Like, your success comes when those things are in alignment, when you're being to yourself and to others, and knowing that you won't always be in that state of flow and harmony. In fact, you'll face a lot of challenge in getting there, but always striving for that alignment between the values and the things that you do and things that you think.

Mike Parsons:
Wow. I mean, it's like we need two or three shows just to digest one book from Brené Brown, Chad. I mean this is heavyweight stuff.

Chad Owen:
Yeah, I mean, there's so many more concepts that Brené talks about not only in this book, but in her wide breadth of work. I know she's spoken on things like Imposter Syndrome and many, many others. But we're not leaving Brené just yet. We have one more show coming up with Brené.

Mike Parsons:
That's right. We're going to go into one of her most recent books, Braving the Wilderness. And it's a great build as we talked about it earlier in the show. Braving the Wilderness is about connecting with others. Daring Greatly is about you living up to your wildest ambitions and dreams and stepping into the arena. And The Gift of Imperfection was really about the courage to be yourself. What a great triumvirate of books. I mean, that is some exciting stuff. Where do you expect things to go in the next show, Chad, when we get into Braving the Wilderness?

Chad Owen:
Well, I think we had close to 25 clips for this show. I'm sure we'll find far too many to fit into the next. I'm very impressed by her articulateness of her ideas. She's talking about things that people don't often talk about, and she talks about them in a very approachable way. I think that's what I like most about not only her public appearances, I mean she even has a Netflix special now, but also in her writing as well. It's very approachable and understandable. And I'm learning a lot about how she's sharing all of her knowledge with her authors and her audience.

Mike Parsons:
Yep, inspiring stuff. And quite challenging, actually. I think Simon Sinek is also an author that challenges us, but I think Brené Brown takes it a whole level further into the deepest, darkest caverns of our subconscious and exposing some things that really need to see the light of day. And I think that's a special gift.

Mike Parsons:
Chad, this show's been intense. It was like, if the show prep wasn't enough of a challenge, getting all the microphones and cell phones working, then the fire alarm at WeWork was going off. Let's just double down and then we got an onslaught of big ideas around how we might dare to be great. I mean, hoo. I'm exhausted, Chad, and I still haven't got to the office yet.

Chad Owen:
I know, I know. And I've still got some preparations for our Thanksgiving holiday here in the States to get done before hitting the road to spend some connection time with family.

Mike Parsons:
Well I think you go armed with so much inspiration from a great book. And I hope that you, all of our listeners, got lots and lots of little special nuggets, little gems, little rough diamonds that you can polish up from Brené Brown and her book, Daring Greatly.

Mike Parsons:
Chad, it has been wonderful. I think this has been just another great stop along the way on the journey of the Moonshots Podcast. So I want to say thanks to you. What are you most looking forward to on Thanksgiving? Is there a particular dish that you're really eyeing up and thinking, "I could have me a double portion"?

Chad Owen:
I'm making a brand new dessert, I'm attempting a cranberry tart. And my wife is making an apple pie. Can't go wrong with American apple pie. So looking forward to that. I'm a sweets person. I've got an insatiable sweet tooth, so I'll be eating all of the sweet things.

Mike Parsons:
That sounds so damn good. Any Christmas or Thanksgiving lunch that comes with two desserts, not just one, I'll take a ticket to that one. So I hope you, Chad, enjoy yourself immensely over this Thanksgiving break. I can't wait to do the third and final show for Brené Brown. It's been wonderful thus far.

Mike Parsons:
I want to thank you. I want to thank our listeners. We have got to the end of another Moonshots Podcast. Thank you for all of your thoughts, comments, emails, social likes and comments. You can find us at moonshots.io. Thanks again, and that's a wrap.