The Exchanges

Q know, this is gonna be a different kind of interview. We wanna have a seat in the cockpit of your mind and, and retrace your life story, and that's gonna require vulnerability. Um, it's not easy for everybody. It's easier for some people. It's easier for maybe me, and maybe you, and maybe some people watching, but how, How do you start? How does somebody start to, to do that?

A Well, the first question is, what's the fear? If you, if we want to talk about the opposite of courage as armor, what is the armor? What is driving the self-protection? I mean, it is really one of the developmental milestones of midlife. To really understand, how did we self-protect as children? Because we didn't belong, we didn't fit in, things were hard, we didn't get everything we needed. What kind of armor did we find when we were young to self-protect? And at some point in midlife, it is our task to say, what no longer serves? What kind of armor am I wearing? What What kind of behaviors are, am I engaging in that were self-protective at one point, but now are getting in the way of me growing into who, to being the parent, the professional, the partner that I want to be. Because it's not just leadership and courage. You know, vulnerability is the birthplace of love, of belonging, of Of intimacy, of innovation, of creativity, accountability. The most vulnerable emotion we experience is joy. Hmm. Joy can be almost terrifying for us because we're so afraid that if we let ourselves lean into it or feel it, we will be sucker punched by pain or disappointment.

AI assessment note: “Well, the first question is, what's the fear?”

Q I wonder, Brene, is, is toughness Compatible with vulnerability? Can you be both?

A You can't be tough if you can't be vulnerable. Vulnerability is a prerequisite for toughness. I'll tell you what toughness is. Toughness is, I made a mistake. I made a bad call. I didn't collect enough data before I made the decision. It cost us a lot of money. It cost us a lot of work. I apologize. I've learned. We need to lean in and fix it. And we need to embed this learning in our culture so we don't make the same mistake again. That's toughness. Toughness is, I hear what you're saying, and I appreciate it. I'm not going to be able to take that on right now unless you help me reprioritize the other things on my plate. Toughness is, I understand this is important to you, but we are family first and family second here. And you've got a mom going into chemotherapy. And what's ok is to prioritize taking care of her. What's not ok is to pretend like you don't need help right now and not allow your team to support in a way that is manageable and strategic while you're going to be out. Toughness is leaning into hard conversations. Toughness is understanding that clear is kind and unclear is unkind. It's choosing To do what you believe is right over being liked. It's taking a stand, and you know your brand is going to take a lot of sh** for that stand, but you also know that it's the right thing to do. So there is no toughness without vulnerability.

AI assessment note: “You can't be tough if you can't be vulnerable.”

Q How important in your view, even in the earliest phases of someone's leadership journey, is it to bake vulnerability into your leadership journey? Ethos. You can understand why a leader might not want to focus on vulnerability initially, but, but do you think that actually is a priority from the very beginning?

A Only if you want to succeed. Like, yeah. We would use a continuum in our work of daring leadership versus armored leadership. So daring leadership is courageous leadership. Um, the, the capacity to be able to stay in vulnerability instead of tapping out, um, to know your values and live into them, to build trust, and to be able to get back up after you get your ass kicked, which you will many times, um, as an entrepreneur. Yeah. I think a entrepreneur and a startup and someone who's in a startup asking themselves, should I be vulnerable? Too late. You just started a business. Too late. You're already vulnerable, so learn how to do it well. So let's look at some of the big markers. Number one, being a knower and being right is armored leadership. Being a learner and being committed to getting it right, that's vulnerable. That's daring leadership. So if you want to be a learner, if you are committed to curiosity, if you're committed to getting it right versus being right, you got to be vulnerable. Yeah. Um, tapping out of hard conversations, like, it's so hard, but that's vulnerable, you know, and what, what is the, what is the alternative? You tap out of them. You don't talk to people, you talk about them. Like, that's not leadership. One of the biggest mistakes is That I, you know, don't start a business if you are not willing to skill up around having tough conversations.

AI assessment note: “Only if you want to succeed. Like, yeah.”

Q and you began early on in your research, going back to when you were doing a PhD, you began to see how, how critical it was for leaders, for all of us, really, to understand the powerful emotions that That play out in the decisions we make, and basically, you came to understand or realize that vulnerability isn't a weakness but a strength. How did you come to that view?

A You know, it's, it's been a really weird journey, and I think Almost all of us were raised to believe that it's really important to be courageous with our lives. But at the same time, most of us were taught that vulnerability is weakness. So on one hand, we're supposed to be brave. And on the other hand, we're supposed to never be vulnerable. Um, you know, and vulnerability has, you know, we just crossed, you know, just crossed the 500,000 pieces of data mark in our research. And wow. Vulnerability has a very simple definition driven by the data. It's uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. So vulnerability is the emotion that we experience when we're, we feel risk, we're at risk, we're emotionally exposed, or we're uncertain. The, the really hard part, and I think this is part of the midlife reckoning, so everyone from their, you know, late thirties till we die, at some point we've got to reconcile that we will never truly be courageous if we're never willing to be vulnerable. I think when you help people understand what vulnerability is and what it isn't, And then we reflect on courageous moments in our lives. That's when we truly understand that vulnerability is the path to courage there. You know, it's the greatest measure of courage. In fact, if I wanted to give you an instrument to measure your level of courage, I would literally be assessing your capacity for vulnerab…

AI assessment note: “Vulnerability has a very simple definition driven by the data.”