Brené Brown On: How To Succeed Without Being a Bullying, Bullshitting, Power-Hungry Jerk Face

A toolkit for navigating your fears, finding your "core," and having sovereignty over your nervous system. Brené Brown https://brenebrown.com/ is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. She is the author of six #1 New York Times bestsellers and the host of two award-winning podcasts. In this episode we talk about: The inspiration behind her new book (it involves a fateful game of pickleball) The importance of building a strong "core" rather than operating from a place of dysfunction or fear How to achieve sovereignty over your nervous system Brené's "above the line" / "below the line" practice How language acts as an indicator light for our emotions The role of our values and how to operationalize them Why we shit talk other people How to build your capacity for paradoxical thinking And more Related Episodes: You're Doing Feelings Wrong https://www.danharris.com/p/brene-brown-says-youre-doing-feelings-65e?utm_source=publication-search Vulnerability: The Key to Courage https://www.danharris.com/p/vulnerability-the-key-to-courage-1bb?utm_source=publication-search Join Dan's online community here http://www.danharris.com/ Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD Additional Resources: Values Exercise https://brenebrown.com/resources/living-into-our-values/ Get ready for another Meditation Party at Omega Institute! This in-person workshop brings together Dan with his friends and meditation teachers, Sebene Selassie, Jeff Warren, and for the first time, Ofosu Jones-Quartey. The event runs October 24th-26th. Sign up and learn more here http://eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party-2025! To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris Sponsors: AT&T: Staying connected matters. That's why AT&T has connectivity you can depend on, or they will proactively make it right. Visit att.com/guarantee http://att.com/guarantee for details. Function: Our first 1000 listeners get a $100 credit toward their membership. Visit www.functionhealth.com/Happier http://www.functionhealth.com/Happier or use the gift code Happier100 at signup to own your health. Odoo: Discover how you can take your business to the next level by visiting odoo.com http://odoo.com/. Modern management made simple.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:32Dan Harris?

  It's the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

• 0:46Dan Harris?

  Hello, everybody. How we doing? If you look around today, too often, the exemplars of success and status and power are bullying, blustering bullshitters. But actually, it is possible to succeed without being an asshole. In fact, I would argue you're more likely to succeed and that the success will be even more delicious if you're doing it with, and now I'm going to use some cliches, but if you're doing it with integrity and with values. My guest today is going to talk about how to take these sometimes anodyne or boring terms like integrity, values, et cetera, and operationalize them in ways that will give you confidence and boost your odds of success, however you define success.

• 1:31Dan Harris?

  To be clear, when I use the word success, I'm using the word not only professionally, but also personally. Again, how you define success is up to you. But I think, and my guest thinks, that it is best achieved with a calm nervous system. Or as my guest says, in a state where you have sovereignty over your nervous system. Said guest is Brene Brown. I'm sure you've heard of her. She's huge. She's a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation Endowed Chair at the Graduate College of Social Work. Brene is also the author of six number one New York Times bestsellers, and she's the host of two award-winning podcasts. She's got a new book out. It's called Strong Ground, and it's all about how to move through life from a position of maximal strength.

• 2:14Dan Harris?

  In this conversation, we talk about the inspiration for her new book and involves a fateful game of pickleball. You'll hear her explain that. We talk about the importance of building a strong core rather than operating from a place of dysfunction or fear. We talk about nervous system management, the above the line slash below the line framework. I've been thinking a lot about this. She'll explain it, but it's extremely helpful. How language acts as an indicator light for our emotions. In other words, if you're mindful of how you're talking, you can learn a lot about how you actually feel. The role of values, as I mentioned earlier, how to understand them, how to figure out what yours are and how to put them to work in your own life. Something called common enemy intimacy and

• 2:55Dan Harris?

  the urge to shit talk. How to build your capacity for paradoxical thinking, which she calls an elite skill, and much more. Let me just say this is our final week and final episode of our reset series. Every week this September, we've been talking about how to reset one aspect of your life. This week, it's about resetting your relationship to change, uncertainty, and the future. In other words, how to move with some degree of grace through a chaotic world. Shout out to the great Eleanor Vassili, who architected this series. Thank you, Eleanor. She's one of our ace producers. I also want to say that today's episode comes with a custom guided meditation from our teacher of the month, Vinnie Ferraro. Said meditation is all about how to stay calm in chaos. As Vinnie says, meditation is not about escaping chaos.

• 3:40Dan Harris?

  It's about remembering where your ground is, even in the middle of a shit show. He didn't say shit show. I added that, but he does. He does have a potty mouth, which I do like about him. As you may know, our custom meditations are only for paid subscribers over on dan harris dot com. Paid subscribers also get weekly live video meditation and Q and A sessions every Tuesday at four Eastern. I'm doing the next one solo, but sometimes I do them with our teacher of the month. A heads up, our teacher of the month for October will be my close friend, Sebene Selassie. And by the way, if you want to meditate with me and Seb in person, we're doing our annual meditation party retreat at the Omega Institute over the weekend of October 24th. I'll put a link in the show notes. Okay, we'll get started with Brene Brown right after this.

• 4:24Dan Harris?

  My wife Bianca just went on a major shopping spree on Wayfair.com, one of our favorite spots to buy stuff for the home and a longtime sponsor of the show. Thank you, Wayfair. Bianca did the readout on what she bought. A lot of kitchen stuff, like platters, serving platters, and espresso cups. Basically, she's prepping for all of the hosting we are going to do throughout the holiday season. We'd love to host something that makes us very happy. And it's much easier when you've got some great stuff that you've acquired through Wayfair.com. We love Wayfair, and Wayfair has something called Wayfair Verified, which helps you create a home that stands up to real life with quality products, great value, and trusted reviews. Products are hand-vetted by product specialists using a 10-point quality inspection.

• 5:09Dan Harris?

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• 5:41Dan Harris?

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• 6:25Dan Harris?

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• 6:42Dan Harris?

  Brene Brown, welcome back to the show.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  I'm excited to be here. I always leave our conversations stumped by something. I do.

• 6:51Dan Harris?

  I don't know how to take that because I say something incomprehensible.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  No, but normally something fairly provocative. For me, I mean, it's, yeah, so for me.

• 7:03Dan Harris?

  Well, I will say that you, you are consistently are like most popular guests. So I'm really grateful to you for coming back. Thank you.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  Well, thanks. I'm excited to be here and I'm excited to see where we go because it's always a mystery.

• 7:16Dan Harris?

  We'll see. I'm going to start at an obvious place though, because there is a story behind your most recent book. And the origin story of the book is that you had a pickleball injury and I didn't know you could get hurt playing pickleball, which I think of as like just a larger version of ping pong. But fill me in.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  You know what? I was a really snobby tennis player. I played tennis for probably 30 years. And it took me maybe three years to try pickleball because I was like, no, I don't do that. No, uh-uh. And then it took me 30 minutes to become completely addicted. And three months to join 14 different pickleball places so I could play. I'm an absolute addict. I love it so much. I think for me, it's a pretty physical game. It's not as physical, of course, as tennis, but

• 8:16Speaker 02

  it's a faster game and it's a lot of lateral movement. And, you know, I just didn't think that really at 59, which I love being, because like, who would have guessed I would have made it this far? Not me. I'm super competitive. I play in an advanced league. And who would have thought that I'd get to be really competitive at a sport again? I was playing, what is today? It was like three or four, probably Friday, I guess of last week, and I was playing open play in kind of an advanced level. And I was playing with this 30 year old kid. And I said, dude, lock in. And he said, he's like, it's pickleball. It's fun. I said, lock in. It's fun when we win. And then we, we won. We came back and

• 9:00Speaker 02

  won like 11, seven or something. And I said, do you want to stack together? And he goes, no, you're kind of scary. I was like, this shit I don't need. So I was playing pickleball, and I got hurt. I love the first line of the new book. It's my favorite first line of any book I've written. It is, writers should have to request a permit if they want to use the word writh. Because I always used writh metaphorically, like I was writhing in uncertainty. No, if you've never writhed in pain, like you should not be using this word. Because I, I was like, on the ground for half an hour.

• 9:41Dan Harris?

  Wow.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  They finally got me to my car. I thought I'd been stabbed. Like, I couldn't breathe. I was seeing stars like on a Tom and Jerry cartoon. And it was like, of course humiliating. I got to the car, and finally, three weeks later, I could make it to a trainer that everyone recommended. They're like, he's really tough, but he's great. And I was thinking, oh, this man's gonna be no match for me. Because I haven't met a trainer that I can't, I can't distract with something that'll get me out of a lunge or something. This guy was not to be distracted. And he looked at me and he, we did this test. And he said, he was a functional strength training guy. His name is Tony. And he said, you scored

• 10:22Speaker 02

  a 10 on your test. And I was like, hell, yeah, I did. Let's go. Let's lift, let's lift some heavy shit. And he goes, out of 22. It means you have, yeah, it means you have no core. And you're absolutely prone to being injured. And I think your injury is a compensatory injury. And I was like, what does that mean? And he's like, you really, literally have no core. So you're using inefficient muscle groups and your arms and legs and your back in place of the big muscle groups like your lats and your stomach and your glutes that you should be using. And it was humbling, to say the least. But somewhere in the first couple of months of us working together, he looked at me one day and I said, I just don't think I have lats. I think maybe I'm missing them.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  I can't find them because I was doing like a lat pull down. And, and I was like, this is killing my neck and my shoulder. And he's like, you're not supposed to be using your neck and your shoulder. Find your lats. And he always called me brown. Find your lats brown. And then he looked at me and he said, he looked down and he said, find the ground. And I said, I see the floor, like, what the hell do you want from me? And he said, find your ground.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  And he said, move away from the machine. He said, find the ground. And I said, I don't, I don't know. He just kept saying, he said, I want you to use your mind and your body to find the ground. I couldn't wait to talk to you about this because it was a really big unlock for me. Because in all the work I've done with a therapist, a coach,

• 11:54Speaker 02

  I've had to do a lot of embodiment work because I'm told all the time that I live in my head. And it's true that I'd, I'd rather think my way through something than feel my way through something. But in this case, he said, use your mind and your body and find the ground. And he said, I want you in an athletic stance. Like you're getting ready to receive a serve from someone that hits the ball really fricking hard. So I kind of just got in athletic stance. And he said, I want you to feel the ground through the bottom of your feet. And then I kind of stood up and I'm like, I'm here. He took both of his hands and gave me a push on my shoulders and I fell over backwards. And he said, you haven't found the ground. Find the goddamn ground. And I was like, okay.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  So I got in athletic stance and this time I used my mind and kind of talked to my body and said, push in, find the ground. And he kind of gave me a push again and I didn't move. And he's like, there's your ground. And so he's like, let's go back. And he said, I want you to use your mind and your body to find the ground. And then I want you to recruit the right muscles for this job. Use your mind to talk to your body. And for some reason, that minute, I just said, come on, Brene, strong ground, strong ground. And I found it. I found it when I started throwing like, you know, the medicine ball against the wall. I could just, I, I understood what it meant to be fully connected to the ground.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  And how it felt like such a source of strength. And the more I worked out with him, and the more he would say things to me like, the ground is your source, you know, stability, agility, balance, also explosive action. And then you take my life outside of the gym. And I am working 60 hours a week inside of organizations with CEOs and their direct reports on these kind of skill set and mindset transformations. And it just hit me one day that Tony's rule was we don't build on dysfunction. You're not going to move heavy shit because you think that's cool.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  We're going to figure out what's going on with your body. You're going to ground in, you're going to find your ground, and then we build on function. And I thought, oh, my God, every organization that I'm working with right now is building on top of dysfunction. No one's tethered. No one is standing in strong ground. And organizations and teams need to find a way to build their core and stop using inefficient muscle groups to try to do really deep thinking, deep connecting, and deeply human work. A metaphor was born, Dan. That's it.

• 14:43Dan Harris?

  Well, I love it. I mean, it's the controlling idea, the controlling metaphor for the book. It's reflected in the title. I guess the natural question, which we'll explore over the course of this interview, is how do you translate that into a life, an individual life and

• 14:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:59Dan Harris?

  the life of a collective organism, be it a corporation or a nonprofit or a family. And that's really what the book's all about and what this conversation will be about. Does that all sit well with you?

• 15:10Speaker 02

  It does. I mean, I think it makes a lot of sense because, you know, I have a pretty, I think people are surprised when they find out kind of how I spend my days. You know, I think people have a vision of me that's very separate than, from leadership and organizational development work. And so I'll get off a call and someone on my team will say, how was the call? And I said, it was, it's really tough, you know, trying to make some big decisions, trying to help this, this kind of senior leadership team think through localizing supply chains because of the tariff issues right now. And my team will look at me and they'll think, did we miss the part where you became a supply chain

• 15:54Speaker 02

  consultant? And I said, no, because I'm not a supply chain consultant. What I'm listening for is how is what you're trying to do driven by scarcity and fear versus kind of what I would call above the line thinking around creativity and wholeness? And how is it going to impact people? So when I think about work and I think about leadership, I always tell myself, people are people are people and systems are systems, whether it's a family system, an organizational system, a team system. I think because I have such deep training in systems theory as a social worker, there's not very much that I learn from,

• 16:39Speaker 02

  you know, being inside an organization that I can apply as a parent or a partner. It's like, well-connected, seen, heard, and well-respected people are unstoppable. When you use fear to lead, to partner, to parent, it brings out the absolute worst in us.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  And it's hard not to be afraid today, all day, every day. And so I think whether I'm inside an organization or I'm talking to my family, in general, I don't think people are okay right now. I think people are dysregulated, distrusting and disconnected. And so it was funny because we're going to translate the work into kind of our everyday being. And then on the other side, I just was talking to a COO of a company that we're doing work with. And he's like, it's interesting that you're talking about the nervous system in a business book. And I said, you should sit in one of your meetings and observe it as not a member.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  Like nervous system management is a very big deal right now in every aspect of our lives. Overwhelmed, huge issue right now, whether you're at work or at home. People are people are people.

• 18:00Dan Harris?

  Yeah, sometimes think you could change the title of the Human Resources Department to the Nervous System Management Department.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  I think that's really interesting that you say that because I probably would have agreed with that more five years ago than I would today. Where I think today, part of liberation, in my mind, paradoxically, is connection to other people for sure, but also a sense of deep agency around our bodies and our nervous systems and our attention. And I'm not so sure that that's anyone else's job. And I'm not sure that I would farm it out to anybody.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  So I would love for Human Resources and other leaders to create cultures and environments where I don't have to protect my nervous system every day. But if and when I do, I would hope that everybody could do that on their own. Because to be able to have some sovereignty around our nervous systems is such a superpower. And when you watch people do it, there's such resistance to it. But when I see it, man, I just respect it. I'm in awe of it. And, and we've, we've really, in our organization, we've adopted some very serious practices around it. It's become, it's the systems in which we work that are as predictable as payroll.

• 19:36Dan Harris?

  Can you say something about those practices? I'd love to dig in on that.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think one of the, and I'm still like, I wrote this book, it feels like 10 minutes ago. So I'm still gonna go, it really does. It's, it random house said, this book is for right now, so we're gonna make it happen right now, which was not good for my nervous system, actually. Or anyone that works on the book, but I think I want to get this attribution right. So can I tell a story about it?

• 20:10Dan Harris?

  Please.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  Have you ever had that thing where you wish you would have never said that something changed your life, so you could talk about how much something changed your life? And everybody'd be like, oh, man, she never says anything changed her life. So this really was, without hyperbole and exaggeration,

• 20:29Speaker 02

  the woman that got on this call with my coach was not the woman who hung up on this call. Like, it changed the way I lead. It fundamentally reorganized my marriage to my husband, and we've been together, if you count dating, almost 40 years.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  We have two kids in their twenties. It's changed how I parent them and they use it now. So I got on the phone with my coach Courtney, and I'll keep the language clean, but I was just like-

• 20:57Dan Harris?

  Don't keep it clean.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Okay, great. I was like, fuck. I was such an asshole in this meeting. What is wrong with me? Like, there's times I show up as a leader where I know that I need to pull everyone back together and apologize for how I showed up and own it and be accountable. But I was such an asshole that I don't ever want to see these people again. Like, I, I, this is, I don't know what's happening. And she said, tell me about what happened. And I said, this happened and this happened, and I said this, and then they said this, and then people put their heads down and I got more intense. And she said, it sounds like you were really under the line. And I said, what do you mean? And she said-

• 21:44Speaker 02

  There's a concept that's very powerful from coaching. And we call it above the line or below the line behavior. Above the line, below the line leadership, just in general, anywhere. I said, well, what's the line? And she said, fear. And she said, when we operate from below the line, we fall into the drama triangle. So that's Stephen Cartman's work. So below the line, we take on roles that are usually one of three. Hero, victim, or villain.

• 22:23Speaker 02

  And immediately I was like, shut. And she said, let's talk about some of your language from the meeting. Fuck it, I'll do it myself. No one gets how hard this is on me. I don't care if I'm the bad guy. Right there. Screw it, I'll do it myself. Hero. No one understands how hard this is on me. Victim. And I don't give a shit if I'm the bad guy. Villain.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  And I was like, oh, my God. And I said, what does it mean to be on top of the line? And she said, there's nothing wrong with fear and you can be in fear. And when you're in fear and you name it and you're driving, you're above the line. And when you're above the line, you go into David Emerald's kind of empowerment triad, which is coach, challenger, creative. So tell me more. Let's walk through this. This is not my experience of this. Help me understand. So I was like, okay. So below the line, when I've recognized that I'm taking on this hero shit,

• 23:33Speaker 02

  victim, villain, I'm below the line. When I can stay in a place where I know I'm in fear, but I can stay above the line enough to stay into kind of coaching behaviors, challenging behaviors, like.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  Let me ask some questions about that. I don't think I'm tracking. Have we thought through this, like productive challenge or creative co-creating? So I want to give you the right attribution for this because it's a wild attribution story. So it comes out of Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

• 24:03Dan Harris?

  I don't know what that is.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  It's a book and I've got it like, I don't have my readers with me, but I want to make sure. Robert Kiyosaki, I would say it's a finance wisdom book. And then Carolyn Taylor wrote the book Walking the Talk. And she really introduced it to the coaching community. Then it was in the book Conscious Leadership, which kind of really blew up. And so what happens in my organization now, it happened this morning on a Zoom call with my leadership team. Someone, I checked in with the person, I said, you're being quiet. And she said, I'm so far under the line right now. And I said, okay, let's circle back in 10 minutes. So everybody's got off and we actually said, let's give it 30 minutes.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  And we got back on and we always start the timeout with, tell us how you got under the line. And the answer is usually really tough. And so in this case, she said, you made a comment like, oh, when we get this shit done. And this shit that you're referring to has been a hundred percent of my time and my team's time for four months. And it felt so dismissive and I'm eating, drinking and breathing this, this task. And it felt hard. And I said, that would have felt hard for me too. I appreciate you sharing how you got under the line and I apologize. And then we moved on. I mean, I can tell you that two days ago, I was talking to my husband.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  I said, I texted my son, I haven't heard back yet. Oh God, you know what? This is ridiculous. Like, you know, like if you want to be treated like an adult, you've got to text like an adult. He just looked at me and I said, I'm under the line, right? And he goes, yeah, it's easy to get there though. I get it. And I said, okay, I am under the line. Why are you scared? I don't know. It's just, I loved having him home all summer and now he's back in school and feels lonely a little bit. And he's like, yeah, we had a hundred fishing trips this summer and it feels, it's hard. I said, it is. And I said, it's pretty okay for a 20 year old not to text you back within 30 minutes. But I'm under the line. I don't know. I can't tell you really, Dan, like when I work with leaders,

• 26:12Speaker 02

  what they say to me, I didn't, I didn't develop this. I'm just the, I just share it and help people think through it, what it means to people. Like I was talking to a senior vice president and he shared this in front of the entire, his entire cohort of leaders, a hundred and something leaders in a huge company. I just asked the whole group. I said, what kind of tools are you putting in practice and how's it working? What's landing? What's sucking? And one of the most stoic kind of top leaders said, I was giving feedback to direct report and I just stopped in the middle and said, I'm under the line. This is not productive. And the guy was giving feedback to, said, I am so far under the line. I've missed the last 10 minutes of this conversation. And

• 26:55Speaker 02

  he said, I really appreciate it. Can we step away from this for a couple of hours and come back? He said, yeah. Like, we're just human, you know? And I think to have language that says, I'm in some fear and I'm not driving right now. Fear's got the wheel. I'm not even riding shotgun. I'm tied up in the trunk right now. I'm just along for the ride at this point. And I gave some examples in the book. I shared my personal examples, which was somewhat humbling, of the language I use when I'm under the line. My hero is always, I'll do it myself.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  My victim is no one understands. And my villain is really, I don't give a shit what you think. This is how we're gonna do it. Like, I go full on bad guy. And sometimes, as someone who studies, you know, metacognition and self-awareness, I would say that sometimes, my language, I know that I'm in fear by what I'm saying before I know what I'm feeling.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  So when I recognize that drama triangle language, I'm like, oh, I'm scared right now.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  Does that make sense?

• 28:15Dan Harris?

  Yeah, it's like the, the, well, it kind of goes back to what you were saying before about having trouble finding your ground initially with the, with your trainer. For you, the sort of intosception or somatic awareness isn't going to be the, the most salient thing. It's going to be what's coming out of your mouth. And that's kind of the mindfulness bell for you.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  It is. And so when I see myself like, oh, I'm embarrassed to say, but it's, it's deeply human and flawed. Yeah. And that's me deeply human and flawed. Hi, my name is Brene. I'm deeply human and flawed. Hello, Brene. But every now and then, when I can see myself, like my veins sticking out in my neck and I'm saying something like, we're packing parachutes here. 90% is not good enough. Do you want to jump out of a plane where the excellence rate is 90% for packing parachutes? And I'm like, oh, my God. I'm like, Michael from The Office, like, what are you doing?

• 29:20Speaker 02

  But I can be scary when I'm scared.

• 29:23Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Brene Brown talks about how to put the below slash above the line practice into work in your own life and relationships and why paradox is an elite level skill.

• 29:42Dan Harris?

  This time of year, you know what I love? Overshirts. I think that's the technical term for them, these kind of heavy shirts that are like part sweater, part shirt, and you can wear them over another shirt or as I'm doing right now, over a T-shirt. And you know who makes and sells great overshirts? Quince, our longtime sponsor. I was on quince.com the other day and I bought the overshirt that I'm wearing right now. It's a handsome shirt that I love and it will be a go-to for me. And I literally just came in the mail right before I walked into my studio to record this ad, so I'm very excited about it. Quince focuses on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather.

• 30:23Dan Harris?

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• 31:05Dan Harris?

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• 31:49Dan Harris?

  Bombas socks are a winter go-to as well. Merino wool and cashmere blend socks for warmth, fuzzy socks and plush gripper socks for cozy vibes at home. They also, of course, make socks that you can exercise in. I am a heavy user of Bombas socks for working out. I also wear them when I'm wearing sneakers out and about because they look good and they're really, really comfortable. And the best part about Bombas, for every item you purchase, they donate an essential clothing item to somebody facing housing insecurity. One purchased equals one donated, with over 200 million donations and counting. Head on over to bombas.com/happier and use the code HAPPIER for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash happier and use the code HAPPIER at checkout.

• 32:37Dan Harris?

  I just love that you're open about your flaws and failures and foibles. And I just relate to many of the things you're describing yourself. I can interpolate back to my own behaviors as a leader and can cringe and hopefully laugh at them in myself. Let me just dig in a little bit on the above slash below the line practice. Very practically, so I can see how it works within an organization. That seems very clear. You just get in the habit of it's a shared language and you get in the habit of calling it out in yourself and inquiring about it in others. What about for an individual? How do I make this a part of my life? How do you make it a part of your life to use this as a kind of guiding heuristic?

• 33:23Speaker 02

  I mean, at work, it's a system we put in place that is kind of a collective capability. At home, we've also built it into a system. So I think about James Clear. We don't rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems. And I think inside of my family system, inside my friend's system, I, you know, I work with both my sisters, which is one of the most amazing and sometimes hard things in the whole world. We all do a lot of therapy and one of the sisters is a therapist, which is a real pain in the ass on occasion.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  She's like, do you have feelings about that? And I'm like, oh God, fuck off. Okay, no, I don't. I do, but I don't want to talk to them about you with you. But I think I use it the same way at home. I listen for the language of hero, victim and villain. I really listen for that language. And to me, I think it's become part of my marriage lexicon.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  Like, it wouldn't be unusual for me to say, well, what about this? And Steve's like, no, dude, you know what? Not now and not in an hour. Maybe in four, I'm so under the line right now. We're not talking about this right. I cannot talk about this right now. Like, it's a way for us to say, I'm not in a co-creating, coaching, challenging space. Fear is driving right now. This is not going to be helpful. And so to me, I just look for the same language. The topic might change, but I am scary when I'm, I can be scary when I'm scared at home. And I can be scary when I'm scared at work. I just, I look for that language.

• 35:14Dan Harris?

  It sounds like you look for that language in yourself and in others as a sort of mindfulness technique to figure out when you're in the toilet of fear.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think I look for it as much in others. Cause I don't know that I would be as keen in recognizing. It's interesting because I think about, you know, writing Atlas of the Heart, which is a book really about emotional granularity, emotional awareness. And so we went through kind of this long research process to figure out what are the emotions you need to be able to name and identify and talk about. And in that research, I got really deep into neuro-linguistics and how language doesn't just communicate emotion. It actually impacts and influences emotion.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  So I think I have become very aware of what my language is telling me about my feelings, which is not my deepest level of self-awareness. Like what you said, the somatic response to my emotion is not, I haven't thought about to this moment, so I'll have to try this on to see if it even makes sense. But I always think about people in the triad of emotion, cognition, and behavior. So thinking, feeling, and doing.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  But I'm starting to understand the power of something else that maybe you would slide under cognition or thinking, but maybe you would put under, I don't know where it belongs, actually, but language to me is, you know how you have engine problems in your car and your indicator light goes off? Language is my indicator light. Yeah. And I'll tell you one of the things, like, as you're talking about reset, when we were researching stress and overwhelm and how they're the same and how they're different, I was shocked by what I learned.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  So, stress is kind of this feeling of whack-a-mole. Things are popping up very quickly and I'm on top of it, but I probably can't sustain it for very long. That's stress. Overwhelm, John Cabot's definition, I think, is the best. The world is unfolding faster than my nervous system can manage. And I love his work because, you know, he learned about mindfulness and he learned about overwhelm at MIT and his applications were so thoughtful around how humans work. And one of the things that he proposes is that one of the only cures for overwhelm

• 38:11Speaker 02

  is nothingness. So when I was doing that research and looking at studies, what I really started to understand is if you are stressed and you say, "God, I'm so overwhelmed," your body and your nervous system says, "Oh, we're overwhelmed," and we just stop functioning, as opposed to labeling it correctly. So the way I talk about the language and neuro-linguistics is if you love nothing more in your life than my chocolate chip cookies, and you came to my house and said, "Hey, Brene, will you make me a batch of your chocolate chip cookies?" And I said, absolutely.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  And I followed my recipe to the T. And you tasted and they're like, oh, God, they're delicious, but they're not exactly. And I said, well, everything's the same. I just used a different bowl. That's the power. Language has the ability to change the ingredients of how we feel.

• 39:15Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 39:17Speaker 02

  So now, one of my mindfulness practices, which has really been amazing for me, is if I use the word overwhelm, I am personally disciplined and committed to stop whatever I'm doing for 10 or 15 minutes and walk the parking lot, get on the treadmill, meditate. I don't really meditate. I'm more of a contemplative prayer person, so I do a lot of contemplative prayer. But if I'm going to say I'm overwhelmed, then I am going to acknowledge that the only way back is nothingness. So I'm very careful when I use that word.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  And so the story I told in Atlas of the Heart was I waited tables for like eight years and bartended. And there's a saying in restaurants that I'm, you're in the weeds. Like if you and I were waiting tables together, I'd say, hey, Dan, I'm in the weeds. Can you take tea to table 34 and drop some bread off at table 35 for me? And you get in the weeds four or five times a night on a busy night in a restaurant. There's another term that in eight or nine years of bartending and waiting tables, I've only used maybe once or twice. And that is when you walk into the kitchen and the door swings closed behind you and you look at the line manager who actually runs a restaurant. The line manager of a kitchen always runs a restaurant. And you look at that person and you say, I am blown.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  I've probably done it twice in a decade of doing that work. And the protocol where I worked, when you say I'm blown, is it's literally like an emergency drill. Someone takes your order book. They call a hostess. The hostess comes back and says she's got table 35, 36, 37, and a big top on 38. And you have to leave the restaurant for 15 minutes.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 41:06Speaker 02

  You can go into the cooler. Or I was a smoker. Or you can go outside in the parking lot. And it's like they understood neurolinguistics 20 years ago. And so this for me ties to above the line and below the line in the sense that I'm looking for the language that tells me I'm not okay.

• 41:28Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  Does that make sense?

• 41:31Dan Harris?

  It makes complete sense, and I think it's really something that anybody listening can operationalize is is trying to be mindful of the language you're using because it's not only telling other people something, it's really telling you something. And if you're mindful of it, you can take effective action to, as you said before, have some sort of sovereignty over your nervous system.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. Let me tell you, the gift and curse of midlife, that shit's gonna win. Your nervous system's gonna win.

• 42:01Dan Harris?

  Hmm.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  It is undefeated. Nervous system takes the W every time.

• 42:09Dan Harris?

  Meaning when you were younger, it was easier to override?

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Hmm. When you're younger, I think your body is more resilient, probably. And so the gift of midlife is you're going to get very strong messages around how you are taking or not taking care of your nervous system. Insomnia, addiction, sleeplessness, just not functioning, I mean, getting hurt. For me, strong ground wasn't just about finding my lats and my glutes and my core, you know, it was also about what I want to be firmly planted in, like really just pushing down into are my values and how I want to show

• 42:56Speaker 02

  up in the world and how I want to be the person that walks in a room that brings calm and perspective, you know, not fear and anxiety. Because we know that anxiety is one of the most contagious affects of all human affects. Some people who study anxiety would argue that it's never anxiety is never a function of individuals, that it's always a function of groups because of the contagion factor.

• 43:22Dan Harris?

  Hmm.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  I don't think they're wrong.

• 43:25Dan Harris?

  It tracks for me. Okay, so you just used a word that has come up repeatedly in this month of programming we're doing around resetting, and that is values. And I've, I historically have had something of a allergy to the term, in part because a lot of religious right figures used it in, you know, in my younger days as a reporter, family values, et cetera, et cetera. And in part because it just seemed sort of anodyne, I didn't know what it meant. But I've become convinced that it's actually extremely compelling and extremely useful. So could you talk about what you mean by values and then how we can learn what ours are and turn them into solid ground?

• 44:11Speaker 02

  Yes, and so what I would say to you is, let me just take a deep breath. I'm staying above the line in real time.

• 44:22Dan Harris?

  Am I driving you below the line?

• 44:24Speaker 02

  No, the conversation about how the term is used and how people throw the words around. So.

• 44:29Dan Harris?

  Oh, I see.

• 44:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, is just, it's, it's really tough. Okay. So I think values are guiding principles. What we have found in our work is that leaders who develop teams that are defined by discipline, trust, accountability, caring, the things we really want to see in high performance, respectful, accountable teams. What we learned from that research that started about 15 years ago and has been validated for the last 15 years and all the data we've collected is they can really point to one or two values, but not more than that, that they really hold on to as guiding principles.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  And so when we take people through a values exercise, we'll give them a list of maybe, I don't know, 70 values. And we'll ask them, we'll start a process where they're trying to define what their one or two core values are. And there's a lot of resistance because they're like, I don't want one or two, there's 20 things on this list that speak to me. No one wants to skip family. Everyone wants to circle family, everyone, you know? And so we said, you know, circle 15 or 20. But in the end, I want you to think about everything you've circled. I want you to ask yourself one question.

• 45:48Speaker 02

  What are the one or two values that you hold sacred? Because they are the place where everything else that's circled is forged. In your essence, these are the two things where how you treat your family, how you show up for your family, how you prioritize your family. This is forged, you know? And so people get there and it's a, it's a very shocking experience for a ton of folks. I'd say it's one of the, one of the big things that we do in our work and the courage building work. And for me, like my two values are courage and faith. Then the next step is where it gets really hard. And this is why values can be such a bullshit conversation.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  I want you to operationalize those into what observable behaviors fall under these and what observable behaviors do not fall under these. So when we go into organizations, over the last, I don't know, eight years, we've taken 160,000 people through Dare to Lead. It's a courage building program, 45 countries. Of the number of organizations I've been in, fewer than 10% of the organizations have operationalized their values into measurable observable behaviors. So they'll have integrity and they'll put that shit on a poster and hang it in the break room. Always an eagle. What does it mean?

• 47:13Speaker 02

  You know, like, huh? Like, you know, fly fast and pick up vermin with your feet. I don't think that's probably what they mean. So what do they mean? So like in our organization, integrity is a value, but we define it. One, we don't talk about people. We talk to people. Two, we create meetings and time and space for everyone to speak. Therefore, we do not have meetings outside of the meeting. These are what we expect from you. We give feedback directly to the person using examples in a coaching, you know, like we're, we're very specific. You either do them or you don't. Here's why I think when you're talking about like the far right use of the word values

• 47:56Speaker 02

  or you're talking about organizations who do not operationalize values. Here's why values gets and deserves a bad rap.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  People don't want to operationalize them into actual behaviors and ways of being because that introduces accountability. So let's say you're the CEO of an organization and you say, you know, the values for this company for the last 50 years have been these five things. And now, under my leadership, we're going to operationalize those into behaviors. And I don't care how much revenue you bring in for this company. If you're not acting in a way that's aligned with the values of what it means to work here, you don't get to work here, no matter how much you bring in. Well, that's a rarity. So sometimes, better left, not operationalized. Does that make sense?

• 48:51Dan Harris?

  It does make sense.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, and the same thing for politicians. Better left, not operationalized. You know, I can tell you for sure, like, as a Christian, I'm like, I don't know when you're talking about, like, you are pissing Jesus off here, folks. Like, he was very clear, operationalize those values. What you're doing here is espousing bullshit. So I think approaching values with, I don't like cynicism, because I think cynicism's kind of a form of armor, in my experience. Skepticism and curiosity is important, because values not operationalized with no accountability

• 49:35Speaker 02

  mechanism is just nothing. Better not to have them.

• 49:40Dan Harris?

  How do we go about figuring out what our values are and then making sure that we're actually living them?

• 49:48Speaker 02

  We have a values exercise on the website that you can just download. It's got the list of values and you can follow it through. We ask really interesting questions, I think, that are actually, in some ways, somatic in nature. So we ask people to write down and share a time where they were fully in their values and what that felt like for them, what the context was, what decisions they made. Was it comfortable or uncomfortable, how they felt afterwards? We ask them to do the same thing. What comes up for you and your body when you're misaligned, when you're not aligned with your values? Like, so for me...

• 50:24Speaker 02

  You would have been a really good Catholic priest because I feel like I'm in confession. But I think it's the voice and the face.

• 50:32Dan Harris?

  I dressed as a priest for Halloween in college once, which was probably a cancelable offense.

• 50:38Speaker 02

  Straight to hell, dude.

• 50:39Dan Harris?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Probably see you there.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  I think for me, I know that I'm outside of my biggest indicator light. And it is like an ooga, ooga light is resentment. When I am not practicing my values of courage and faith, I get into deep, deep resentment. So I can take you on that long trail, but like I've been sober for too many Christmas, 28 years.

• 51:16Speaker 02

  One of my favorite parts of the big book, the A big book, is talking about the gift of sobriety being the gift of neutrality. You're neither running toward the thing you want the most, nor are you running away from it. You just have a sense of peace about it. And they outline the condition for neutrality in the big book. And it's that you have to be in fit spiritual condition. So when I think about faith as one of my values, if I am not in fit spiritual condition, I am not practicing my value of faith. So for me, that means it's a high bar. It means eat well, sleep well, move well, love well, connect well.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  And so I find when I am overworking, not eating food that makes me feel good and strong, not sleeping enough, not connecting with the people I love the most, then I am outside of my values. I'm not in fit spiritual condition. And it's taken me 20 years of practice around this to get it right. And I don't have it right. No, no, no, let me, like, you can leave it in here, then you can watch me like anxiously change it.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  It's taken me 20 years not to totally fuck it up.

• 52:38Dan Harris?

  Right.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  Which is a far thing from getting it right, but I'm getting better at it. I see now that in order to live into my value of faith, I have to be in fit spiritual condition. That means I have to really watch moving well, eating well, living well, loving well, connecting well.

• 52:58Dan Harris?

  Let me try something. I'm always listening for what, what can a listener do right now after they finish this conversation? Or if they, even if they pause it and.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:09Dan Harris?

  So I'm going to try to, I'm going to say something and you tell me if I'm right. Or if I'm close, or you just correct me, whatever, a part of it or all of it. But so if values are really important, and I, and I agree with you on this, figuring out exactly what your values are, that's a very individual thing. And, and we should go to Brene's website and I'll put a link in the show notes to use Brene's system. But one useful, I'm going to use this fancy word that I'm probably not even using correctly. heuristic here is like the body is barometer. Like the body, if you're tuned into it, can tell you what behaviors, what mindsets feel good and conversely which feel bad.

• 53:52Dan Harris?

  And that can direct me toward my values. It can also tell me when I'm living outside of them. And in order to be attuned to this, you need to take care of yourself so that you've got some sort of spiritual fitness or mental clarity, or what the Buddhists would call sampejana. Anyway, is that okay as a rough summary?

• 54:10Speaker 02

  That's great. I mean, I think it's that summary. I think you don't need, again, it's a free PDF and you can download it. If you just want to get a list of values to start working from and some questions to think about. But I think understanding the one or two deeply important essence of who you are, values, the only thing I would change, just, and I wouldn't change, I wouldn't have changed it before our conversation, but I'd probably change it now.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  It's just clunky. I would say values that are operationalized and where you're holding yourself accountable, those are important. Values alone, just words.

• 54:50Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 54:51Speaker 02

  Values minus discipline and accountability really mean nothing and they're actually weaponized to your point earlier. And that also is part of my faith, you know, faith without works, values without operationalizing just doesn't work for me at all. And, and I think everybody listening right now, if they thought about it, if you just got really still and thought of a time where you were operating outside of your value, what did that feel like for you? Like it's a queasy, terrible. I mean, how do you feel, Dan? Well, like if you're operating outside, if you, if you find yourself going, shit, I am so far outside of what is right for me right now, you know, how does it feel?

• 55:33Dan Harris?

  Sucking chest wound, you know, like it just feels totally like I've been hit by a truck and I feel shame too, at the same time.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, one of the things that was really interesting in my coaching, because I have a coach and I have a therapist, I actually have two leadership coaches and a therapist. But one of the things that I thought was really interesting is I was operating outside of my values around something. I didn't recognize it because I wasn't being outside of my integrity or unethical. So I didn't have that shamey feeling, but how it showed up for me was absolute Mack truck exhaustion. Like I had been run over by a Mack truck. And my coach said, she really helped me understand that like, there can

• 56:30Speaker 02

  be operating outside of your integrity or what you think is morally right or wrong. But there can also just be operating outside of your values, which can still be ethical and moral. It just sucks your energy. So one of the things I'm looking for in my life right now is what gives me energy and what depletes me. And often what gives me energy is not just aligned with kind of how I think of my purpose, but also how I think of my values. You know, and so there's a whole spectrum of bodily feelings I can get when I'm outside of my values. It can range from just my helping someone out of generosity and loving kindness

• 57:15Speaker 02

  or out of perception, management and guilt.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  Tell me what that laugh means. That was a scary laugh.

• 57:26Dan Harris?

  It shouldn't be scary. It was a laugh of rueful recognition.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  Rudeful recognition.

• 57:32Dan Harris?

  Because I've done the exact same thing.

• 57:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so when I'm helping someone out of generosity and loving kindness, it can be really hard, but it's energy giving. When I'm helping someone because I think the only value I bring in our relationship is being the helper and the fixer and the handler of all things, then that sucks me dry.

• 57:55Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  And I will end up in resentment. And that's not a good, that's not a good look for me. That is like, I don't remember who said the quote resentment is drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. I am not a good person. No one's good in resentment, but I think I'm particularly, I know just enough about myself for it not to be fun.

• 58:17Dan Harris?

  Yep.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  You know, if I find myself talking shit about somebody or being critical, I can't even enjoy it anymore. Sucks.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  Do you know what I mean?

• 58:28Dan Harris?

  I do. I'm just, you know, as I often do when I'm listening to you, just interpolating back through my life and thinking about those exact moments where I've done those exact things. And I think talking shit about somebody is one of those moments where I recognize I'm not living my values.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  Same.

• 58:45Dan Harris?

  And yet it's so seductive.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, because it's, oh, it's so seductive because you know what we call it? In our work, we call it common enemy intimacy.

• 58:56Dan Harris?

  Yeah, there we go.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it's such a political vibe right now, too. It's like, I don't know you. I'm not going to invest time gain to know you, but dude, we hate the same people, so good enough for me. But then, if I happen to disagree with you on something, it's over. So I think we talk bad about people with other people to hotwire connection. And I get it. It's just any kind of relationship that's built on that is counterfeit at best. But I think it's so hard because it's such a, I'm so good at it.

• 59:33Speaker 02

  Really? I said that seriously because I actually thought about it. I'm really good at it. Really. I can be funny and shitty and sarcastic. I had a therapist one time tell me, because sarcasm is a, is a real family of origin thing. And we, we all, we feel like we've done our work in our family when we move from sarcasm to shit talking. Shit talking, we're never going to let that go. So that's, that's our peak performance thing. But she told me, I just want to remind you that the root of the word sarcasm in Greek is to tear flesh. Just know that you come from a family where

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  when it's over, someone's crying. And that's not fun. So we've just taken to shit talking. Like, you know, when we play cards or dominos or, you know, we're big sports people. So that's as good as we're going to get this time around. I feel like when I can look at my kids and say, look, I moved the football down the field 10 yards. You can take it from here. I got you from sarcasm to shit talking.

• 1:00:37Dan Harris?

  I want to just make a distinction because when you're talking about shit talking among the Brown family.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:43Dan Harris?

  You're talking about gentle ribbing, not shit talking about somebody else who's not in the room.

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no, no, no. Because one of our, one of our things is we don't talk about people. We talk to people.

• 1:00:53Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  And it's such a bummer. It sucks.

• 1:00:58Dan Harris?

  But when I said shit talking earlier, I meant trashing somebody who wasn't in the room and I feel outside of my values.

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:01:04Dan Harris?

  But shit talking, like making fun of somebody, that is my love language and I will never drop that.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, same. Like we, I, my sisters, again, both of them work with me. One's a therapist and one of them sent me a meme the other day that said, "You're my sister and I love you. When you fall, I will always be there to pick you up right after I laugh."

• 1:01:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, oh yeah, so different kinds. I think talking, we can be really, not pious, but one of us will say to the other on occasion, "Oh, man, this is nothing. This is like a pig in shit. I love this. Let's talk about her bad." Or, "I wonder if we should just take a deep breath and not do that. It sounds like you need to have a conversation with somebody." And then I'll be like, "You know what? You're right and fuck you."

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  And then they'll say, "Yeah, fuck you too. Love you. Love you too." That would be, that would be a Brown sister call. You would fit right in.

• 1:02:02Dan Harris?

  No, I love that. I love that. I don't know if I can keep up with you guys, but I love it.

• 1:02:08Dan Harris?

  Coming up, much more with Brene Brown.

• 1:02:27Dan Harris?

  My wife Bianca just went on a major shopping spree on Wayfair.com, one of our favorite spots to buy stuff for the home and a longtime sponsor of the show. Thank you, Wayfair. Bianca did the readout on what she bought. A lot of kitchen stuff, like platters, serving platters and espresso cups. Basically, she's prepping for all of the hosting we are gonna do throughout the holiday season. We'd love to host. It's something that makes us very happy and it's much easier when you've got some great stuff. That you've acquired through wayfair.com. We love Wayfair and Wayfair has something called Wayfair Verified, which helps you create a home that stands up to real life with quality products, great value and trusted reviews. Products are hand vetted by product specialists using a 10-point quality inspection.

• 1:03:12Dan Harris?

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• 1:03:44Dan Harris?

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• 1:04:46Dan Harris?

  All right, a couple more things I want to touch on before I let you go, before we run out of time here. Sure. So just to reset, we've been talking about the theme of strong ground and we've talked about some ways to be on strong ground in our lives, like achieving some degree of sovereignty over our nervous system through the above or below the line practice. Then we talked about the role of values as a sort of act of courage and a way to stay solid and grounded as we move through the world. The other thing or another thing you talk about in the book is paradox.

• 1:05:21Dan Harris?

  What do you mean by paradox and why is it so important? She's rubbing her hands together, people, just so you know.

• 1:05:27Speaker 02

  I am rubbing my, I mean, yeah, I mean, it was so funny because when I told Ben, my editor, the subtitle is going to say, The Tenacity of Paradox. And he's like, no, it's not. And I said, no, it really is. I mean, I'm like, there's like book seven, so it's going to say that, you know? And he's like, oh, my God. Are you saying the tenacity of paradox? Because you write about paradox in every single book. And I said, yes, and no. And he's like, okay, you're such a smart ass. I really can't, I can't, I can't handle it.

• 1:05:56Speaker 02

  I spent most of 2024 and 2025 in these kind of weird rooms with tech leaders and kind of cultural people, just watching and listening. And one of the things that I noticed that they had in common was a deep, deep capacity for paradoxical thinking, for the ability to stay away from this kind of dualistic either or, hold two ideas that are seemingly

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  opposing, and straddle that tension long enough for something incredible to emerge, something different, a different way of thinking about things. And it was interesting to me, this is part of a bigger conversation that would take us in on a crazy thing, but it was interesting to me to see where we're losing ground in terms of reading and thinking and liberal arts education, where we're losing ground in that area, an elite few are doubling

• 1:07:12Speaker 02

  down in those areas. It's like when they asked Steve Jobs, I bet your kids love the iPad. And they said, there's no technology in our house. We talk about art and history, you know? And it's like, Part of the reason I wrote this book and went into this mega chapter around kind of the skillsets I think we should be thinking about for the future, including paradox, is I'm seeing this not so subtle shift around a very few people developing really complex deep thinking skills and then looking at the rest of us and saying, don't worry your pretty little head about this kind of stuff. Just keep scrolling, you know, and I think it starts to me with paradox.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  It starts with, you know, I think about my friend Jim Collins, who wrote From Good to Great. And I think about how he talks about the tyranny of the or and the genius of the and, and how we're able to, just from like, in an organizational perspective, just give you some examples, purpose and profit, freedom and responsibility, discipline and creativity. And so for me, Carl Jung said, the paradox is the greatest spiritual gift of people. And it's the only thing that comes anywhere close to capturing what it

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  means to be human. You know, in a very simple terms, there's small moments where my kids might come home, you know, when they were in fourth or fifth grade and say, you know, I hate my teacher. She was so mean to me today. And I would say, you know, yesterday you talked about how much you really cared for her and liked her. Well, I did, but she was mean today. And then to have a conversation of can both things be true? Can we care for someone deeply? And also, in a moment that we're not proud of, treat them in a way that doesn't reflect how much we care about them. Have you ever done that? And my kids

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  would say, yeah, I have done that. When I got invited to the popular table, I didn't save a seat for my friend. But you care about her, right? You really, you love her, actually. Yes. And you did something kind of crappy. Yes. Both things can be true. You know, now we need to reconcile that. And maybe we need to have a conversation. But, I mean, raise your hand if you've never been an asshole to someone you love. Like, we have all done that. This paradox, and the one I talk about in the book for me has been really actually costly

• 1:10:02Speaker 02

  to me personally and to the team that I lead, which is my desperate need for unfindability. Like, I can look down at my calendar and see my entire life until I die, scheduled in 30-minute increments. And I think it's why I am a swimmer, because it's like the self-deprecation, whatever that the chamber where no one can touch you, you can't, no one can call me when I'm in the pool, swimming laps, you know? I fear one day that I'm gonna be coming in for like a flip turn, I'm gonna look up and my team's gonna be standing there, you know, like, hey, in which case, I'm just gonna, I don't know what I'll do. I'll probably say, hey, what's

• 1:10:44Speaker 02

  up? I probably won't do anything dramatic. But I think for me, I've spent the last five years reconciling the paradox of discipline and freedom, that when I leave getting my hair cut or highlighted, and the person at the front desk says, would you like to schedule your next appointment? And I go, hell no, baby. I'm living free. It's a nightmare, because what, it's gonna happen predictably in six weeks. I'm gonna call crying, beg for the person to make, you know, Saturday or Sunday, can I come at four in the morning? You know, and it's like, and don't put stuff on my calendar, because I don't like the way it feels. And then I schedule shit on top of it, then I've got two things to do. What I'm

• 1:11:26Speaker 02

  starting to learn in the prime of my youth is how to straddle the tension of discipline and freedom, and to put my pickleball schedule on my calendar, to put my meditation and prayer on my calendar, and not go into five-year-old, under-the-line Brene, where I'm like, if I had to schedule my meditation, I mean, how fucked up is that? Well, if it's important, you'll be disciplined in making sure you have time to do it, right?

• 1:12:01Speaker 02

  And it's not, it's not like some productivity scheme. It's just, I want to do things and I want time for myself and I have to be more disciplined. So to me, one of my favorite leadership paradoxes from James March, who was at Stanford, and he said, leadership is poetry in plumbing. You have to be able to cast a vision that's so poetic that people are inspired by it and want to do it. Then you have to build systems that are operationally excellent enough to deliver against that vision. You know, and everyone wants to go to work and be the poet, but you know, it's equal parts poetry and plumbing.

• 1:12:44Speaker 02

  So I, I think this whole idea about both things can be true. Like right now, Steve and I are in a new season in our lives because we're empty nesters for the first time and it's so wild.

• 1:13:01Speaker 02

  And I told him the other day, like, I'm kind of having fun with you and I miss the kids. No, I, I'm not having fun with you. Actually, I really just miss the kids. And he's like, okay, miss both things can be true. And I said, I guess those things are pretty true. It's like, hi, I'm Brene. Nice to meet you. We met when we were lifeguarding 38 years ago, you know, in coaching swimming. And I still cry every now and then when I walk by my kids' rooms, you know, but both things are true and it's okay. And I'm big enough to hold all that. You know, and I'm a very paradoxical person, which people don't like about me in many ways.

• 1:13:40Speaker 02

  Like people have a hard time reconciling the fact that, you know, I grew up hunting, still love to shoot skeet, fishing is my favorite thing to do.

• 1:13:52Speaker 02

  I'm a massive football fan.

• 1:13:55Speaker 02

  I identify, I mean, I don't know that I would say I'm a Christian, I'm Episcopalian, which I think is a code word for something else, like maybe progressive Christian is what's code word. And I'm also pretty very progressive in my politics. And people are like, you have to choose whether you're progressive in your politics, or you like to go tubing. And I'm like, no, like, I'm not going to do that. You have to choose between, you know, believing these things about bodily autonomy and racism and homophobia. You have to choose between those and feeling like you're a patriot. No, I actually don't. You may need me to, but I got plenty of room in here for both those things. I wouldn't

• 1:14:38Speaker 02

  be doing my job as a patriot if I wouldn't pissed off right now. So I don't think neurobiologically, just to be really frank with you, I don't think we are neurobiologically hardwired for paradox. Our brain is wired to get to clarity and certainty and sacrifice almost anything it needs to, to get there very quickly. And I'm not the only complex person. I just happen to be a public complex person at times, which I don't love. But we're all complex, you know? And if you listed everything down, people would say, well, this doesn't make sense. Why are you over here in this column? How can you teach your son to shoot

• 1:15:19Speaker 02

  skeet and be radically pro-gun reform? Well, if you have five minutes, I can explain it to you.

• 1:15:27Dan Harris?

  Can you just say a little bit more about why you think paradox is such an elite level skill, especially as we head into a world where intelligence increasingly may be, you know, something that we farm out to machines?

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  Yes, I can talk about that. But before we do it, what is the sign off that you use on your social posts and stuff?

• 1:15:49Dan Harris?

  Endure peace, motherfuckers.

• 1:15:51Speaker 02

  It's like one of my favorite things about you.

• 1:15:56Speaker 02

  Because that is very paradoxical, right?

• 1:15:58Dan Harris?

  Yes, it is paradoxical. Yes, you're right.

• 1:16:01Speaker 02

  Right. And honestly, that's who we are. It is such a crazy thing to understand how deeply human paradox is, but how difficult it is for us. And one of the things that I would say for me is I can't move into non-dualistic thinking or non-binary thinking when I'm under the line and when I'm afraid. When I'm under the line and when I'm afraid, I just want straightforward, linear, dualistic thinking. And that's where we are right now, politically, spiritually, economically.

• 1:16:43Speaker 02

  You know, we're so afraid right now that anything that brings complexity with us, that really, like, if you're listening, you can't see me, but I'm holding like two fists up and I'm like creating tension between the two. So I'm like almost shaking, like, to hold the tension of paradox right now, when we're exhausted and overwhelmed, we have to have a fully operating nervous system to do that kind of work. And so to get to your question, I mean, personally, I believe that income inequality and greed are absolutely at the root of a lot of the pain and trauma that we're experiencing today collectively as a nation and a world. I mean, I just think, I think that is in the top one or two,

• 1:17:26Speaker 02

  along with probably very, very deeply embedded patriarchal and racist. People just don't want to do the work of interrogation and ownership where we need to do it. And interestingly, I think the paradox is very blustery people presenting themselves as super brave and masculine when they're scared of everything that feels uncomfortable. Like to me, what does courage look like to me? Courage looks like to me is turning around, looking pain in the eye and saying, yeah, this is our history. Yeah. Unacceptable, painful, violent. And we will know better and we will do better and we will start by owning it. That's to me what courage looks like, not running from it because it makes us uncomfortable.

• 1:18:12Speaker 02

  I think when we talk about the haves and have nots, one of the things that I'm seeing in addition to wealth is thinking and learning. And it's, it's interesting because it doesn't surprise me that, you know, some are arguing that education is a pillar of democracy, while others are saying it's unimportant. And I think that's going to serve a bunch of people who are exercising power over right now. But I think there have been two and a half times in my life where I have felt I have quit doing something and when I quit, I felt so disoriented, I had a hard time getting out of bed. One was when I got sober, was so disorienting for me.

• 1:18:56Speaker 02

  I thought it was going to bring clarity, but it just brought like, I don't know who I am. I don't even know, I don't know what's important to me. I don't know if I fucking like Jethro Tull. Like the dude I'm dating likes it, but I don't know, like, you know, my, do I like the cowbell? I'm not sure where I fall on this, you know? It was disorienting to me. The second was when I got off social media for a year recently, disorienting. Like, I don't even know what I think about some of these issues. I know what I'm supposed to think and I know where I'm punished for thinking the wrong thing, but I don't know really who I am and what I believe. The halftime was I did a three-month intensive AI project.

• 1:19:38Speaker 02

  And when it was over, I felt hollowed out, like the same way drinking and social media left me feeling. And so what I would say is this is a really, the reset that you're talking about, I think, is foundational. What I hope we explore after the reset is how do we become more interested and more active in deep learning, deep connection and deep thinking? And what's getting in our way and who benefits by that?

• 1:20:18Dan Harris?

  Let me just say in closing, I really appreciate you making time to do this and not to gas you up too much, but I look up to you and admire you. So it's always great to talk to you.

• 1:20:28Speaker 02

  Well, you know what? I feel the same way. And I was really excited about the invitation. So thank you. I think the universe puts your stuff in front of me right when I need it. And I appreciate what you're doing. It almost feels subversive, which is exactly, it really does. It almost feels what you're doing is subversive while acknowledging our somewhat burly humanity, which is my favorite part of it.

• 1:20:53Dan Harris?

  I appreciate you.

• 1:20:55Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:20:59Dan Harris?

  Thanks again, Renee. I'll put some links to our past interviews with Renee in the show notes. Don't forget today's episode comes with a custom guided meditation from our teacher of the month, Vinnie Ferraro. The meditation is all about how to stay calm in the middle of chaos. It's only for paid subscribers over on danharris.com. Paid subscribers now also get weekly live guided meditation and Q and A sessions on video every Tuesday 4 Eastern. The next one is on September 30. I'll be doing that one by myself, although sometimes I do it with the teacher of the month. Also, if you want to meditate with me in person, I've got a weekend long event coming up at the Omega Institute the weekend of October 24th. Link in the show notes. Finally, thank you as always to everybody

• 1:21:40Dan Harris?

  who works so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

• 1:22:15Dan Harris?

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