How This Podcast Could Fail

Brené and Adam have a bracingly honest conversation about what could go wrong in their collaboration, and how to set new teams, partnerships, and friendships up for success. They discuss the science of avoiding failure and building alignment, and practical strategies for navigating differences—including their own clashing instincts around minimalism vs. maximalism and sarcasm vs. trashtalk. The episode closes with what each of them is listening to, watching, and reading right now. You can also find The Curiosity Shop on YouTube and Instagram (@thecuriosityshop). Chapters: 00:00 - How Brené Inadvertently Launched Adam into Podcasting 02:57 - Interpreting Sarcasm 16:08 - How to Prevent Failure 28:57 - How Could This Partnership Could Go Wrong 38:42 - Learning From Differences 52:05 - How to Align Teams 1:02:00 - Closing Questions Show Notes: Brené and Adam on What They Will Never Agree On - The Curiosity Shop Episode 1 Unless You’re Oprah, ‘Be Yourself’ Is Terrible Advice - Adam Grant 2016 NYT Op-Ed My response to Adam Grant’s New York Times Op/ED: Unless You’re Oprah, ‘Be Yourself’ Is Terrible Advice - Brené Brown 2016 LinkedIn How to Love Criticism - Adam Grant 2018 WorkLife with Adam Grant Adam Grant on The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know - Brené Brown and Adam Grant 2021 Dare To Lead Podcast Brené Brown on What Vulnerability Isn’t - Adam Grant and Brené Brown 2023 Re: Thinking Ted Audio Collective Hypervigilance in Mary Poppins (1964) The art and science of trash talk with Rafi Kohan - Adam Grant 2024 Work Life With Adam Grant Performing a Project Premortem - Gary Klein 2007 HBR Evaluating the Effectiveness of the PreMortem Technique on Plan Confidence - Veinot, Klein, & Wiggins 2010 ISCRAM Conference The Economics of Gender Differences in Employment Outcomes in Academia - Donna Ginther 2006 National Library of Medicine Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System - Donnella Meadows 1999 The Donella Meadows Project Academy for Systems Change Narcissists: Are We Surrounded? On Science Vs: - Wendy Zukerman 2024 Science VS Podcast Human Raised: Nurturing Connection, Curiosity, & Lifelong Learning in the Age - Dana Suskind, MD 2026 Book The Killing Stones A Detective Jimmy Perez Novel - Ann Cleeves 2025 Book Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's fall drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon Fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  When you shop Kroger delivery, you can expect the savings you love and fresh groceries delivered right to your door. From delicious produce to everyday essentials, enjoy the convenience of delivery and the trusted selection you've come to know from Kroger. Because bringing you fresh, quality groceries is what we do best. Right now, enjoy free delivery on orders of $50 or more with your digital coupon. Restrictions apply. See site for details. Kroger, fresh for everyone.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  I'm Anna Garten, and each week on Happy Hour, I invite new and old friends for a drink and a fun conversation at my kitchen table in New York City. On this week's episode, I'm joined by Chloe Mal. We talk all about her taking on the top job at Vogue, finding her personal style, and her favorite lunch order in the iconic Conde Nast cafeteria. New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Cheers.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  Welcome to The Curiosity Shop.

• 1:40Adam Grant?

  A show from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  Hi, everybody. This is The Curiosity Shop. I'm Brené Brown. Welcome.

• 1:51Adam Grant?

  I'm Adam Grant. I'm excited that we're here again. That was, the first episode was much more fun than I expected.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too. I was kind of nervous. Were you nervous at all?

• 1:59Adam Grant?

  I wasn't nervous going in, but I started getting nervous when we started talking about our fight argument. What do you call it, a dust-up?

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:09Adam Grant?

  Because I wasn't sure how that was going to go.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  And we had never, it's weird that we just did it on a podcast as opposed to doing it like in person, but...

• 2:17Adam Grant?

  It felt like we had to talk about it because it's the origin story.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  It is the origin story.

• 2:22Adam Grant?

  I actually, do you know I started podcasting because of that fight?

• 2:26Speaker 02

  What?

• 2:27Adam Grant?

  I've never told you this. Okay, so 2016, I write that New York Times piece. I quote you, you write your strongly worded smackdown. I respond, you respond. I didn't know what to do at that point because I felt like it was unresolved. I was, I was really upset that you clearly thought I was, you know, not a respectful person, not a careful scholar. And I also, I felt like there was a lot more to explore in the, in the differences between our views that we hadn't gotten to.

• 3:08Adam Grant?

  And I reached out to Ted and I said, hey, two of your speakers are having this very public debate. Have you ever thought about doing, uh, instead of just people doing monologues, like a debate at Ted? And they said, no, but this would make for a really interesting podcast.

• 3:28Brené Brown?

  You're kidding.

• 3:29Adam Grant?

  No. And so that, that, that was my first conversation ever about podcasting. And the thought was that Ted was going to host it and you and I, somebody was going to moderate and that we were going to have a conflict mediator, try to reconcile our differences because I was so, I was so upset.

• 3:47Brené Brown?

  I had no idea of any of this.

• 3:49Adam Grant?

  I, I was, I was so distraught at the thought that it would just be left hanging and that we wouldn't, we wouldn't work it out. And then it was very clear that you did not want, did not want to engage from the signals you had sent. And I also, I think it stung enough that I was like, you know what? I don't want to, I don't want to have a relationship with her. And that morphed into, I'm going to create a podcast with, with Ted.

• 4:14Brené Brown?

  If you watched his great podcast, you're welcome.

• 4:16Adam Grant?

  That was all you, Brina.

• 4:19Brené Brown?

  For the win.

• 4:20Adam Grant?

  But, but here we are.

• 4:22Brené Brown?

  Yeah. Is that wild?

• 4:24Adam Grant?

  Literally 10 years later, doing a podcast together.

• 4:28Brené Brown?

  And.

• 4:30Brené Brown?

  It's been mumpy.

• 4:31Adam Grant?

  Very mumpy.

• 4:32Brené Brown?

  Building.

• 4:33Adam Grant?

  Sometimes literally.

• 4:33Brené Brown?

  Yeah. Okay, yeah, because we didn't tell us, we didn't get into this part. So we, you know, this is kind of like the part two. We do the, you invite me to do the work with you. We do the work together with the women's sports team.

• 4:54Brené Brown?

  What happens from there? Are you, I invite you on the podcast. I loved our conversation on the podcast and it became one of my most downloaded podcasts of my whole series.

• 5:05Adam Grant?

  And then you were the first episode of the new podcast I launched. We did, so we did one where I got to interview you. And then we started doing the, the rotating conversations with Simon Sinek.

• 5:17Brené Brown?

  You and Simon Sinek, yeah.

• 5:18Adam Grant?

  And we did a bunch of those and it was, it was fun. And I, I think we also started then overlapping more events as opposed to, oh, you were there two days ago and then I showed up or you were there last year and then I did this year.

• 5:32Brené Brown?

  We started seeing each other more.

• 5:33Adam Grant?

  Yeah.

• 5:33Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 5:33Adam Grant?

  And then we ended up on a flight together.

• 5:36Brené Brown?

  Then, oh, but before we got on the flight, the night before, we were on stage together for the first time.

• 5:42Adam Grant?

  Oh, and that did not go well.

• 5:44Brené Brown?

  That did not go well.

• 5:45Adam Grant?

  Well, I think it, I think it went well for the audience. I don't know that it went great for us.

• 5:48Brené Brown?

  Yeah, it went well for the audience. I think we got into a conflict that I think was supposed to be fun, but it didn't feel fun for me.

• 5:59Adam Grant?

  And I, I was completely oblivious to that.

• 6:01Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 6:01Adam Grant?

  I thought, I thought we were just having a, a fun debate.

• 6:03Brené Brown?

  Yeah. And then I was like, God dang it, here we go again.

• 6:08Brené Brown?

  And the next morning we had to get on a flight and I was frustrated and we had a really, we were having kind of a tension-filled conversation about it. This is my memory of it. And then we hit turbulence and then I looked at you and you said, are you okay? Like very tersely almost, are you all right? And I said, no, I'm scared. And you said, and you weren't, you were so kind. You weren't judgy at all. You went, you said something like, oh, are you, are you afraid of flying? And I said, no, I'm afraid of dying. Um, which it feels like I think we're going to do right now because this is engineering. And from an engineering perspective, this should not be happening. And then you were just kind of like, no, from an engineering perspective, this makes total sense. And then you kind of talked me through it.

• 6:52Brené Brown?

  And then I was like, okay. And then we had a good conversation about what, what about that stage dynamic worked and what didn't work? And I think it's because we're different enough that I see you in a way where you're one of the most earnest people.

• 7:13Adam Grant?

  But.

• 7:14Brené Brown?

  No, no, that I've ever met. So I can find myself being less armored with you very quickly because, so, so when you say something that's funny and like sarcastic or zingy, which is like how I grew up, um, and what, and what I am very good at it. I'm actually really good at sarcasm and do it with a couple of my friends nonstop. But when you do it, I don't know, I, because you're so earnest. I think you're saying something really like, oh shit, he's mad. Or, oh man, he thinks I'm, he's, he doesn't think I'm smart or something like that. And you're being sarcastic just to, for levity.

• 7:54Adam Grant?

  Yeah, exactly. To not, to not be overly earnest.

• 7:57Brené Brown?

  To not be, because you don't, you don't want to be overly earnest.

• 7:59Adam Grant?

  No, I don't. I want to, I, I, I hope, you know, it comes across that I care about people and, uh, and honesty and integrity are important to me. But I also have a little edge and I don't want to sound like a Pollyanna.

• 8:11Brené Brown?

  Right, no, right. And so, um, yeah, so it was, it's just like getting, that getting to know people today, especially, I would not consider myself an easy person. I'm a, I'm a pretty complex person.

• 8:25Adam Grant?

  Pretty complex?

• 8:27Brené Brown?

  Almost.

• 8:27Adam Grant?

  Understatement.

• 8:28Brené Brown?

  Almost as complex as you. And you're.

• 8:29Adam Grant?

  Much more.

• 8:30Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I knew you were going to say that because you see yourself as simplicity. What you see is what you get. You're like the wizzy wig guy. You're not.

• 8:37Adam Grant?

  I don't know if that means because.

• 8:38Brené Brown?

  You know, like what you see is what you get. Like you're, you're just, you're not complex.

• 8:42Adam Grant?

  I, I, I think I'm straightforward. Am I not straightforward?

• 8:45Brené Brown?

  No.

• 8:46Adam Grant?

  Why not?

• 8:47Brené Brown?

  Because.

• 8:50Brené Brown?

  There's a distance between some things about you that I think are genuine and some ways that you are always self-improving. And like, I don't think overly earnest is Pollyanna, but that's your read on it. I think it's unusual and awesome. Yeah. And so, but you know, like the sarcasm thing, I'm really careful about, I'm, you know, the other thing is I'm a word person. Like words, like you've noticed this.

• 9:17Adam Grant?

  Oh, yes.

• 9:19Brené Brown?

  Like words.

• 9:19Adam Grant?

  I thought that was one until I met you.

• 9:22Brené Brown?

  I don't know what that means, but it doesn't sound good. I'm like a word person, but like, you know, the Greek origin of the word sarcasm, to tear flesh.

• 9:31Adam Grant?

  That's biting.

• 9:31Brené Brown?

  Yeah. And I also think it's like, last episode, we talked about how you're, how I really complimented you on your ability to repair and apologize. And you talked about coming from a divorced family. I also come from that. And so, but I also come from one that was very,

• 9:52Brené Brown?

  as the, oh, yeah, the oldest daughter thing, which you probably should stay aware of because you've got an oldest daughter and I've got an oldest daughter, right? But like, that when teasing broke out in my family, our sarcasm broke out. I was immediate like, oh God, like there's a scene from Mary Poppins when like the admiral's getting ready to blow the cannon. And the housekeepers run around and make sure everything, nothing falls off shelves. So soon as sarcasm and teasing started in my family, I got hyper vigilant because this is going to end in tears for somebody.

• 10:23Adam Grant?

  That, that makes so much sense. And I come at it from a completely different place, which is I think about, and there's a whole body of research on pro-social teasing.

• 10:32Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 10:32Adam Grant?

  I would never, I would never tease you if it weren't a sign of affection.

• 10:37Brené Brown?

  So I, so, so, so how do we reconcile this too? Because sports shit talk is my love language.

• 10:44Adam Grant?

  Trash talk.

• 10:44Brené Brown?

  I love trash talk.

• 10:45Adam Grant?

  And this is in the same category as that for me.

• 10:47Brené Brown?

  I love trash talk. Okay, next time you say something that I'm like, whoa, I'm like, are you shit talking me? And you'll be like, yeah, I'll be like, okay.

• 10:55Adam Grant?

  I see you. Maybe, or I could just do it less.

• 10:57Brené Brown?

  No, no, let's try it. We'll just try it. Okay, because I do love, I am such a trash talker.

• 11:04Adam Grant?

  You are.

• 11:05Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 11:05Adam Grant?

  You are. And that makes it seem like, I mean, I think this, this kind of sarcasm is a, it's at least a near cousin.

• 11:11Brené Brown?

  It is definitely a first cousin.

• 11:12Adam Grant?

  A trash talk.

• 11:13Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 11:13Adam Grant?

  And so it seems like it would, it would elicit the same reaction, but it doesn't. So.

• 11:17Brené Brown?

  Because, because I'm telling you, there's a.

• 11:22Adam Grant?

  There's a trigger there.

• 11:22Brené Brown?

  No, there's a.

• 11:29Brené Brown?

  We'll see if we leave this in the podcast or not, because I, I think Adam's been diagnosing me over the last month.

• 11:35Adam Grant?

  I don't diagnose anyone ever.

• 11:36Brené Brown?

  I'm just telling you that you have round edges.

• 11:42Brené Brown?

  And sarcasm has sharp points. And so there's a disconnect, like there's a disconnect for me, because you're not a pointy person. He's convinced that I have shape synesthesia.

• 11:52Adam Grant?

  I think you might.

• 11:54Brené Brown?

  Because I see everything in shapes. And so like, so for, for pointy shape, for pointy people, I'm expecting it, but from round people, I'm not.

• 12:05Adam Grant?

  Okay. And so let me, let me see if I can translate that into psychology language. I hear that, what I hear is I'm, I'm a, personality wise, I'm a highly agreeable person. And that is.

• 12:18Brené Brown?

  Hell, no.

• 12:20Adam Grant?

  Interpersonally, not intellectually. I care about social harmony.

• 12:24Brené Brown?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 12:27Adam Grant?

  But I will debate ideas.

• 12:29Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 12:30Adam Grant?

  Endlessly.

• 12:31Brené Brown?

  Okay, so say it again, but caveat the agreeability.

• 12:34Adam Grant?

  Yeah, maybe, maybe I'll, I'll, I'll try to be more specific on this. So I think within, within agreeableness, I, I probably lead with a fair amount of warmth and trust.

• 12:46Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 12:46Adam Grant?

  And then there's this sort of harder, like the sarcasm is more disagreeable. It's more adversarial and it, and so it doesn't fit.

• 12:56Brené Brown?

  No.

• 12:56Adam Grant?

  No?

• 12:57Brené Brown?

  I don't think.

• 12:58Adam Grant?

  Okay. Play, play it back a different way.

• 13:02Brené Brown?

  I think.

• 13:03Adam Grant?

  Round and pointy then?

• 13:05Brené Brown?

  I think you mean what you say and you say what you mean.

• 13:12Adam Grant?

  Oh.

• 13:14Brené Brown?

  You do not mince words. So if you look at me and go, nice cowboy shirt, Dolly Parton, then I'm like, you know, because like, so I, I, it's not, I, I can't match you in the word agreeability in any context.

• 13:32Adam Grant?

  I score off the charts on agreeableness.

• 13:34Brené Brown?

  Yeah, no, I can't. I think you are, is it sincere or straightforward?

• 13:41Adam Grant?

  Yeah, yeah, that, that's in the honesty humility axis, interestingly.

• 13:45Brené Brown?

  Yeah, is it? Say more, tell more people what that means.

• 13:48Adam Grant?

  One of, one of the, the models of personality that has kind of emerged along with the big five is Mexico, which reinterprets some of the, you know, the standard extroversion, emotional stability, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and then adds this honesty, humility trait, which is about being straightforward and sincere and having, having integrity. And I aspire to be all of those things. And so you're saying the sarcasm does not fit in with those things and it feels like a conflict for you.

• 14:16Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 14:17Adam Grant?

  Okay. So that's so interesting because the way that I look at that is different, which is I'm all those things and therefore everyone will know not to take my sarcasm at face value.

• 14:27Brené Brown?

  Oh, I think that's a, that's a, that's a wily assumption, Adam Grant.

• 14:33Adam Grant?

  I've been making it as long as I can remember without realizing it until now. So thank you for pointing that out.

• 14:38Brené Brown?

  That's a wily assumption. So I think there's a new Texas

• 14:45Brené Brown?

  measurement tool called the bullshitter analysis. This is not true, there's not, but there should be, which I would score off the chart. So I am like a, I'm like a storyteller, kind of like that kind of gift of, yeah. Um, I'm trying to see if gift of gab works for me. Yeah, maybe, but I would just be more storyteller, bullshitter, how are you? Like my dad would be like, how you doing, old son? And, you know, you'd say something like, well, I'm doing okay. I got a broke arm. Damn, I had brakes bigger than that on my eyeball. You know, like that's how my dad, that's how, that's what I come from. And so when I'm, when I'm. So my dangerous area around sarcasm is not when I'm in a bullshit sports talk thing.

• 15:30Brené Brown?

  Like on the court, I'm very, like, if there's a celly, I do it. It's obnoxious as hell.

• 15:36Adam Grant?

  That's why we can't ever get out of court.

• 15:38Brené Brown?

  We probably can't play tennis or kick a ball.

• 15:40Adam Grant?

  It might be the end of our friendship.

• 15:42Brené Brown?

  It could be the end, especially if we ever played as devil's partners. Because if you're gonna come over on my side and take a ball, you damn well better end that point.

• 15:49Adam Grant?

  I would, obviously.

• 15:52Brené Brown?

  Okay. All right, so the thing with sarcasm that's hard for me, for people, I think, is not when I'm in my banter mode, but I can be, I know this, you'll find this surprising, a very intense person.

• 16:05Adam Grant?

  What?

• 16:06Brené Brown?

  I know.

• 16:07Adam Grant?

  Never.

• 16:07Brené Brown?

  Shocking.

• 16:07Adam Grant?

  Never had a clue.

• 16:08Brené Brown?

  Yeah, so when I'm intense, I cannot use sarcasm with people.

• 16:13Adam Grant?

  Because it comes on too strong?

• 16:16Brené Brown?

  It comes on as passive aggressive meanness.

• 16:18Adam Grant?

  Oh, okay. Yep, I can, I can imagine that.

• 16:20Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 16:20Adam Grant?

  So, okay, so I'm curious for our listeners, we have, we have new listeners, right?

• 16:25Brené Brown?

  I hope so.

• 16:26Adam Grant?

  How many people, because we, we process this differently. I, I'm curious about how many people look at these things like you do and say, wait a minute. Like, you're, you're, you know, you're a straightforward, kind of clear, sincere communicator. And therefore, you shouldn't be sarcastic because that's not who you are. And how many people look at it like I do and say, I interpret that behavior through the lens of what I know about your personality. I wonder which is more common. And I obviously think mine is more common and you're the outlier. And I'm excited to find out if I'm wrong.

• 17:01Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I don't know. Well, let's pose it on LinkedIn and have people weigh in.

• 17:04Adam Grant?

  Oh, we can, we can just have people comment on YouTube now.

• 17:07Brené Brown?

  Oh, that's right.

• 17:08Adam Grant?

  And on Spotify.

• 17:08Brené Brown?

  Wait, do we have comments open on YouTube? We do not have comments open on YouTube.

• 17:12Adam Grant?

  All right.

• 17:12Brené Brown?

  We could talk about that later.

• 17:13Adam Grant?

  Yeah.

• 17:13Brené Brown?

  We should have a podcast on that.

• 17:15Adam Grant?

  We should.

• 17:16Brené Brown?

  We should have a podcast on comments.

• 17:17Adam Grant?

  Yes.

• 17:18Brené Brown?

  I've got a lot of thoughts.

• 17:18Adam Grant?

  Let's do that.

• 17:19Brené Brown?

  Because I've got them closed everywhere.

• 17:20Adam Grant?

  And I have them open.

• 17:21Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 17:21Adam Grant?

  So, uh, yeah.

• 17:23Brené Brown?

  Yeah, okay.

• 17:23Adam Grant?

  Let's add that to our list.

• 17:26Speaker 00

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's fall drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon Fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  When you shop Kroger delivery, you can expect the savings you love and fresh groceries delivered right to your door. From delicious produce to everyday essentials, enjoy the convenience of delivery and the trusted selection you've come to know from Kroger. Because bringing you fresh, quality groceries is what we do best. Right now, enjoy free delivery on orders of $50 or more with your digital coupon. Restrictions apply. See site for details. Kroger, fresh for everyone.

• 18:27Speaker 05

  I'm Bridget Reed.

• 18:28Speaker 06

  And I'm James Walsh.

• 18:30Speaker 05

  The Alexander Brothers moved in a world of multimillion-dollar homes, exclusive parties, and powerful people.

• 18:36Speaker 06

  Behind that glamorous lifestyle were years of rumors and allegations that they were committing sexual assault.

• 18:43Speaker 05

  In our reporting for New York Magazine, we investigated what people knew and heard from women who came forward to tell their stories.

• 18:50Speaker 06

  Now, that reporting is the basis for a new three-part docu-series, The Wolves of Real Estate: The Alexander Brothers.

• 18:58Speaker 05

  You'll see exactly how privilege protected them and how they were finally stopped.

• 19:03Speaker 06

  Stream all three episodes now, only on Peacock.

• 19:11Adam Grant?

  I think this is a great segue to the topic of today's podcast, which is, we've already started talking through the thing we didn't get to last episode, which is, how could this go wrong? And one way I think this partnership could go wrong is if I am sarcastic in ways that lead you to feel attacked and then you either get defensive or attack in reverse and then we end up in the kind of, I think, prosecutor spiral that we got into 10 years ago.

• 19:40Brené Brown?

  Okay, so.

• 19:41Adam Grant?

  What do you think?

• 19:42Brené Brown?

  I think that's absolutely true. I want to break it down for everyone listening because my hope is that we can do this honestly together and I'm sure it'll have some strange and weird entertainment value for folks listening to us figure out where we could fail. But I also want to share this as a tool that we both believe in. So let's walk them back a little bit and let's talk about, this is a pre-mortem. And this is Gary Klein's book. It came out in HBR. I wrote down the date. Do you know how old this is?

• 20:11Adam Grant?

  I mean, the research on it even dates back a couple of decades now.

• 20:14Brené Brown?

  Does it? Yeah. So 2007 was the big, famous HBR article, Harvard Business Review, where he introduced this idea of a pre-mortem. And the pre-mortem, the way, and we both use it and we both teach it and you and I are inside working with senior leader teams all the time. And when I teach them this, it goes to shit in 15 minutes when they try it.

• 20:38Adam Grant?

  Fast, but it's so important for them to try it.

• 20:41Brené Brown?

  It's so important for them to try it and we'll talk about why it doesn't work as we do it. So this is a pre-mortem. The idea, it's two things, I think, together. It's a risk assessment. So Adam and I are going to do a pre-mortem on the curiosity shop. So we're gonna, it's a form of doing a risk assessment. And it's also, and this is a researchy word, so we'll talk about it, prospective hindsight.

• 21:06Adam Grant?

  Prospective hindsight, nailed it. It's another paradox.

• 21:08Brené Brown?

  Yeah, which I love. You know, I love a paradox.

• 21:11Adam Grant?

  I know.

• 21:11Brené Brown?

  I never met a paradox I didn't love.

• 21:13Adam Grant?

  It's true. I've come around on those too.

• 21:15Brené Brown?

  Thank you.

• 21:15Adam Grant?

  They're, I think they're really useful. It's being able to see the future in the present, basically.

• 21:22Brené Brown?

  So prospective, looking forward, hindsight, looking backward. So the question that I use for a pre-mortem, go ahead.

• 21:31Adam Grant?

  No, go ahead.

• 21:31Brené Brown?

  The question I use for a pre-mortem and how I teach teams to use it is, we're sitting at this table and, you know, we have this new project. It's six months from now and it's gone to shit. We have absolutely, this project has absolutely failed.

• 21:44Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 21:46Brené Brown?

  What will we be talking about around the failure of this?

• 21:51Brené Brown?

  What are the topics that we'd be talking about then that we should be addressing now?

• 21:55Adam Grant?

  We do this very similarly.

• 21:56Brené Brown?

  Okay, tell me.

• 21:57Adam Grant?

  So I do a little bit of, a little setup around it.

• 22:00Brené Brown?

  Okay, great.

• 22:00Adam Grant?

  Where I like to ask, how many, how many of you do postmortems after you fail? And everybody goes up.

• 22:08Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 22:09Adam Grant?

  Yeah, we know the importance of after-action reviews and debriefing. And, you know, my reaction to that is, that's a great process, but it is the dumbest time to do it. Why would you wait till you've, you've already failed?

• 22:20Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 22:20Adam Grant?

  What, why, you'd love to have a time machine at that point. Why not have that conversation upfront and try to anticipate and prevent some of those mistakes? And

• 22:29Brené Brown?

  Oh, I love that setup. I'll be borrowing that.

• 22:31Adam Grant?

  It's all yours.

• 22:31Brené Brown?

  Okay.

• 22:32Adam Grant?

  Uh, what I, what I, what I find really powerful about pre-mortems, and I, I think this is one of the lessons of Gary's research is, they make people better at seeing around corners, but they also give people the permission to talk about the things that could go wrong that they're afraid to admit.

• 22:45Brené Brown?

  Amen. So say those two things again. I call them, I call them the turkey peak, because in the military, when you look around a corner, because we both work with the military a lot. Um, you know, you're doing the, around the corner. So say, say the two things why you think they're great.

• 23:00Adam Grant?

  Yeah. So I think the first thing is, I, I go farther out. I usually ask three to five years.

• 23:04Brené Brown?

  Okay.

• 23:04Adam Grant?

  If, you know, if, if the decision you're making right now, or the project you're launching is, is just an unmitigated disaster. What are the most likely causes? And so then you have to start looking in places you haven't looked before. It widens your, it takes you out of tunnel vision. It gives you better peripheral vision. I think that's the first thing. And then the second thing is, uh, it's a conversation where you're supposed to talk about the risks.

• 23:25Brené Brown?

  Yeah, the invitation.

• 23:27Adam Grant?

  Exactly. And the way you said, risk assessment, I never, I never crystallized it, but that's exactly what you're doing. You're inviting people to say, here's what I'm concerned about. Here are some issues that we haven't talked about that really could be a problem.

• 23:41Brené Brown?

  I gotta tell you that my favorite thing about being in the room with teams I'm working with when they run a pre-mortem is the quiet, more introverted.

• 23:54Brené Brown?

  Usually highly analytic people who are often told that they are constantly raining on people's parades around enthusiasm and group projects will be the first to raise their hand and say, I think we'll be examining the assumptions around these data.

• 24:13Adam Grant?

  Yes, and I see also people who tend to be more defensive pessimists than strategic optimists, who have learned to self censor because they're dragging people around with their worrying. All of a sudden, they have a voice. Same for people who tend to be highly disagreeable, who have been taught to sand down that edge, can say, oh, well, this is a point where people are actually willing to hear my critique because we can still do something about it.

• 24:42Brené Brown?

  The thing, go ahead.

• 24:43Adam Grant?

  No, no.

• 24:44Brené Brown?

  No, go ahead.

• 24:44Adam Grant?

  Okay, just before we dive into the specifics, I've never thought about this before, but this has so many applications outside the workplace. I think that when friends become roommates for the first time.

• 24:58Brené Brown?

  Oh, God, yes.

• 24:58Adam Grant?

  They should do a pre-mortem. I think that marriages, the pre-mortem conversation, that's more important than the pre-nup conversation.

• 25:06Brené Brown?

  It is 100%.

• 25:08Adam Grant?

  How could this relationship go wrong? I think when you have a child, I think it would have been so valuable for Alison and I to sit down and say, if we were to mess up parenting, what are the biggest mistakes we think we might make and how do we avoid those?

• 25:22Brené Brown?

  You know, it's interesting because Steve and I have had, we didn't call them pre-mortems, but when I was pregnant with Ellen, our oldest, we basically spent, I can remember, it was so powerful, I can remember where I was sitting and what I was wearing when we basically went through what now I know was a pre-mortem about when, yeah, because I was about, it was a wild day, actually, I was probably. Eight or nine months pregnant, I was very pregnant. And he asked me a question on a walk about, I was so scared because I was in my PhD program.

• 26:04Brené Brown?

  And when I told the then head of the doctoral program that I was pregnant, his response was, we thought you were going to be someone. Yeah. And so it got very tricky because I got really smart assy and very much like, hey, it's a baby, not a lobotomy. And like, I, I was, like, I was very defensive, obviously.

• 26:27Adam Grant?

  You should have been.

• 26:27Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 26:27Adam Grant?

  Because such an inappropriate comment.

• 26:29Brené Brown?

  Yeah. And you.

• 26:30Adam Grant?

  As if you can't have a career and a child.

• 26:32Brené Brown?

  Yeah, although the research at the time, which he pointed out was like, uh, parenthood and getting married were really good for male untenured professors and very bad for female untenured professors, you know? So that was true. Everybody needed a wife, you know? And so, so I was really scared and defensive. And what ended up happening was I got hyperemesis. So I got that thing where my progesterone levels were very high. And so I threw up every day. I had to take a leave of absence from, from the PhD program. And it was interesting because it was a female tenured professor who said, you have sat in my class and thrown up in the trash can for the last, the last time. She said, I've had several miscarriages that I attribute specifically to the stress of academia.

• 27:17Brené Brown?

  We will be here when you are better. And you, and you know, and I, I was sick for the first trimester and then I came back. But it was this, this layers of stuff. But that prompted this hard conversation where Steve said, what do you want from your career? And that's when I said, I want to start a global conversation about shame and vulnerability.

• 27:36Adam Grant?

  Wow.

• 27:37Brené Brown?

  So that was 27 years ago. And then I, and he said, who do you think we want to be? And where do you think, who do we not want to be as parents? Because we had no models of what marriage looked like. There were great things our parents did and a lot of things we wanted to do differently because we just have more information. So we had a long conversation and wrote it down, actually. Like where, where we would look back and think this is not what we want to do or who we want to be.

• 28:05Adam Grant?

  Wow.

• 28:06Brené Brown?

  Yeah, so we actually, I, I, so.

• 28:08Adam Grant?

  You did the pre-mortem.

• 28:09Brené Brown?

  We kind of did the pre-mortem. Yeah, it was, um, because we said things that we, things that we heard growing up that we don't ever want to say. Because I said so. This is my house.

• 28:20Adam Grant?

  Yeah.

• 28:21Brené Brown?

  You know, we wanted to say yes every time we could. You know, just things that we were trying to. We, and the biggest thing that Steve said in that moment, who's a pediatrician, said, there was a difference between trauma and adversity.

• 28:38Brené Brown?

  We had a lot of trauma growing up, both of us. We didn't want that for our kids, but we didn't want to overcorrect and protect them from adversity.

• 28:45Adam Grant?

  Can you just flesh out what the difference is and how you've done that?

• 28:50Brené Brown?

  I think trauma sets us back and adversity makes us stronger. And so I think they were about real assessments of, is this uncomfortable? Or is this actually unsafe?

• 29:03Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 29:04Brené Brown?

  You know, is this something where you can learn and feel protected? Or is this something where you will feel unsafe? You know, and I think trauma is about unsafety.

• 29:14Adam Grant?

  Yeah, that's a really helpful distinction.

• 29:15Brené Brown?

  Yeah. I go back to Shelley Urum from Harvard. I saw her, uh, one of those things where, you know, you don't go to a hotel lobby and someone gives a presentation all day, like a seminar.

• 29:29Brené Brown?

  And she did this thing about what is trauma and what isn't that I'll, that we use to inform our parenting a lot. She sat on a, she had someone sit on a chair and she popped a balloon in front of them and they didn't like it very much. But then she, she said, I'm going to tie your hands and legs to this chair and do the same thing. And that person said, absolutely, I can't do that. And she said, that's the difference.

• 29:51Adam Grant?

  Control.

• 29:52Brené Brown?

  I don't have any control over my own wellbeing. And so I thought, I don't know if that's official, just for all the therapists out there and all the trauma experts, I am not one.

• 30:00Adam Grant?

  Me neither.

• 30:01Brené Brown?

  We are not, you know, social worker psychologists went to the research side, not the clinical side. But I thought the loss of control and safety were interesting. So we did.

• 30:09Adam Grant?

  That's very powerful.

• 30:10Brené Brown?

  Yeah, we did pre-mortem. One of the things I've also done, which I'll be interested in your, in your take on this, I do them with my class. So if this class ends up in your mind being a failure.

• 30:21Adam Grant?

  Oh.

• 30:21Brené Brown?

  When it's over.

• 30:22Adam Grant?

  Wow.

• 30:22Brené Brown?

  Even though we only have 15 weeks together a semester, what will we be saying from your perspective and mine?

• 30:28Adam Grant?

  What do your students say most, most often on that?

• 30:30Brené Brown?

  The, the learning that comes out of a qualitative analysis of what mine are and theirs are is if they don't take equal responsible, responsibility for their learning.

• 30:40Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 30:41Brené Brown?

  That they are passive in the, that my job is to teach, their job isn't to learn.

• 30:47Brené Brown?

  It will also be a failure if my job is to come in from a consumer perspective to make them happy.

• 30:53Adam Grant?

  Right.

• 30:53Brené Brown?

  And, and not challenge them into discomfort.

• 30:58Adam Grant?

  That's so interesting.

• 30:58Brené Brown?

  So we do a pre-mortem even when we teach.

• 31:00Adam Grant?

  I didn't even realize I've been, I've been doing the results of it without, without having the pre-mortem conversation. I take the post-mortem from the mid-course and like end of semester evaluations that I get every year. And then I open the next year's class by saying, like, one of the common ones is there are always complaints that we don't have enough debate in class because people are afraid of challenging me.

• 31:21Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 31:21Adam Grant?

  And they're also afraid of, you know, damaging their relationships with their new classmates, especially with MBA students.

• 31:27Brené Brown?

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:27Adam Grant?

  Undergrads worry about it too, though. And so I say, look, I don't think we have enough debate in the classroom. And then I give them a mechanism, which is they can hold up a pen if they disagree. And that way I will jump the line and call on the people with the pen up so that they, they get to, you know, to bring in some of that productive dissent.

• 31:44Brené Brown?

  But that's pre-mortem-informed.

• 31:46Adam Grant?

  Yes.

• 31:47Brené Brown?

  Pedagogy, right?

• 31:47Adam Grant?

  It is, yeah.

• 31:48Brené Brown?

  Teaching, yeah.

• 31:48Adam Grant?

  I, I never thought to do the actual pre-mortem.

• 31:51Brené Brown?

  I think, I, I like anything that's a parallel process.

• 31:53Adam Grant?

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:53Brené Brown?

  You know, that we're doing it, but we're also kind of learning it.

• 31:56Adam Grant?

  Okay, so let's do it.

• 31:57Brené Brown?

  Let's get you in.

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• 33:30Brené Brown?

  So if this fails, we'll take, I mean, because unfortunately, the time, the time for these failing is pretty quick. So it, let's say it's a year from now, 12 months from now. And this has not worked out. What are, what, we were like,

• 33:45Adam Grant?

  We should brain right this.

• 33:46Brené Brown?

  You want to brain right?

• 33:47Adam Grant?

  Most likely causes.

• 33:48Brené Brown?

  Yeah, yeah, y'all can watch us.

• 33:50Adam Grant?

  So we already covered the, kind of the sarcasm attack spiral.

• 33:55Brené Brown?

  What, what's the broader category for that?

• 33:58Adam Grant?

  I think the, the broader category is, I mean, from my perspective, tell me if this is right, is the disagreement doesn't come from a place of care.

• 34:07Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 34:08Adam Grant?

  And respect.

• 34:09Brené Brown?

  So we will fail if disagreement doesn't come from care. Yes. I, I, can I add one?

• 34:18Adam Grant?

  Yeah, please.

• 34:18Brené Brown?

  Okay.

• 34:19Adam Grant?

  Wait, wait, I want a little more time.

• 34:20Brené Brown?

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 34:21Adam Grant?

  To capture other ways we can fail.

• 34:22Brené Brown?

  Do, do, do.

• 34:24Adam Grant?

  I've got three more.

• 34:26Brené Brown?

  While we're writing these down, I want to say, one of the reasons why it's important for us to do this is because when you start a podcast, we're building a business that is a podcast. We're not just talent that's been hired to do something that somewhat, we're building actually the business of the podcast together. So all of a sudden, we have found ourselves being co-founders. You know, so we're navigating the founder, hard bullshit and a co-founder thing. So that's why this matters. It's not like we can be.

• 34:56Brené Brown?

  It's not like we can show up and anchor the news and be like, and today, and then thank you, and then like walk out there and be like, I hate you. And then we just come back in the next day. We're behind the scenes, building

• 35:09Adam Grant?

  Which we

• 35:09Brené Brown?

  A sustainable business.

• 35:10Adam Grant?

  Which we didn't agree on when we started.

• 35:12Brené Brown?

  No.

• 35:12Adam Grant?

  And there might still be a little bit of, of tension.

• 35:15Brené Brown?

  There's been hard because I've been like, we need to invest more time in this. And he's like, maybe, you know, I'm like, dang it.

• 35:21Adam Grant?

  That's, that's on my list. No surprise.

• 35:23Brené Brown?

  Yeah, me too.

• 35:24Adam Grant?

  Okay, hold on. I got one more that I think I want to capture here, which is.

• 35:29Brené Brown?

  Okay.

• 35:29Adam Grant?

  Okay.

• 35:30Brené Brown?

  I've got four.

• 35:31Adam Grant?

  I've got also four.

• 35:33Brené Brown?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 35:34Adam Grant?

  Uh, do you want to just compare lists and not explain yet?

• 35:37Brené Brown?

  No.

• 35:39Adam Grant?

  What do you want to do? What do you want to do? You just wanted to say no.

• 35:42Brené Brown?

  No, no, no.

• 35:44Adam Grant?

  You just like the reaction to you guys.

• 35:45Brené Brown?

  No, I don't want to do that.

• 35:47Adam Grant?

  What do you want to do?

• 35:48Brené Brown?

  I, because I don't, I don't want to, like, I'm going to add why I said no to my goddamn list.

• 35:56Adam Grant?

  Please do. I just, I just wanted to hear everything on yours and then have the full picture of which ones should we spend more and less time on.

• 36:03Brené Brown?

  No, and I don't want to leave what you write open to my interpretation. So I want you to go through them and I want to be clear with a playback.

• 36:12Adam Grant?

  Can we do it succinctly though? Before we dive into them. Okay. All right. So the first one is if we're not aligned on what our team is trying to accomplish.

• 36:21Brené Brown?

  I have something similar. Go ahead.

• 36:23Adam Grant?

  Okay, that needs no explanation, right?

• 36:24Brené Brown?

  Yeah, no.

• 36:25Adam Grant?

  Okay, second one is if we end up nerding out and getting too wonky and we lose all the non academics.

• 36:32Brené Brown?

  Okay, true. I didn't have it, but it's true.

• 36:35Adam Grant?

  A third is if we end up being either too timely or too timeless.

• 36:41Brené Brown?

  Agree.

• 36:42Adam Grant?

  Look, no explanation needed.

• 36:43Brené Brown?

  No. And let me just explain what that means because this is like a little bit inside baseball. We've had a conversation where.

• 36:51Brené Brown?

  We want our, we want this to, we want to be with y'all in a way where what we say is timely and feels relevant for your lives, but also isn't like, do, do, do, do, do, breaking news. What are you thinking about the news yesterday? We want it to be timeless and we want it to be relevant and meaning the moment at the same time. So that's what that meant, right?

• 37:11Adam Grant?

  Well articulated.

• 37:12Brené Brown?

  Okay.

• 37:12Adam Grant?

  Yes. And then the, the last one is just not coming up with, I think this is the most minor of the four, but not coming up with a, a communication process that keeps us aligned.

• 37:23Brené Brown?

  Okay. That's, that's very true.

• 37:25Adam Grant?

  I'm firing off quick emails and you have spent five days, you know, writing the perfect text.

• 37:32Brené Brown?

  Yes. Okay. Yeah. So that, that's actually already happened, in case you want to know. All right. So I loved the disagree from not a place of care. That's true. We have not built systems that support the organizational goals.

• 37:48Adam Grant?

  That's a broader version of my last point.

• 37:50Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 37:51Adam Grant?

  I like yours better.

• 37:51Brené Brown?

  But we just don't build the system. So I'm thinking of James Clear's, we do not rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems. So this is also, yeah, we'll just do that. Okay.

• 38:05Adam Grant?

  I disagree with James on that, by the way. I think we do both.

• 38:08Brené Brown?

  Interestingly, I agree wholeheartedly and I've got a three by three sign in our office in Houston that is like spotlighted with plants around it, just to drive home the point. We don't agree on how businesses should be run. I don't know what this says. We didn't give, oh, easy. Oh, I think because of the, I think of because of the season we are in our lives and especially me, I've got a, I've got a, I've got a time on you, age-wise.

• 38:42Brené Brown?

  Because of the busyness, the busyness of both of our lives and the season of my life that I'm particularly in right now, if this is not energy giving, if this is just becomes energy taking, I don't, I think we will call it quits.

• 38:55Adam Grant?

  Oh, for sure.

• 38:55Brené Brown?

  It will not fail, but we'll say it's failed.

• 38:56Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 38:57Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 38:57Adam Grant?

  I think that's right. I have maybe one more to add.

• 38:59Brené Brown?

  Okay.

• 39:00Adam Grant?

  Which is, I think if we don't get good at, if we don't continue to practice the feedback and repair regularly.

• 39:09Brené Brown?

  Absolutely.

• 39:11Adam Grant?

  Cause I, I have built, in the past year that we've been talking about doing this, I have built so much confidence that we can disagree about anything and work it out because we're both committed to fixing whatever mistakes we make. And I think that, that to me is, is sort of vital to whatever might go wrong in the other categories.

• 39:30Brené Brown?

  Okay, I'm having a meta moment. So I will say that I am shocked that when there's a conflict between us, and there have been several, even if I'm frustrated, which I can get frustrated, I think I typed you the word frustrated.

• 39:43Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 39:43Brené Brown?

  One time, yes, frustrated.

• 39:45Adam Grant?

  Which I failed to anticipate.

• 39:46Brené Brown?

  Um, via email.

• 39:49Adam Grant?

  You did.

• 39:50Brené Brown?

  I did. Um, I have a, a very much faster confidence in our ability to become stronger because of our disagreements and our rumbles.

• 40:01Adam Grant?

  Same.

• 40:02Brené Brown?

  Then, then what would be predictable in two people coming together to build a business. Like, it's unusual. But I, I'm going to tell you that I think we have complementary skills here. I think you are much better at apology and repair than I am, and I think I'm pretty good at hard conversations.

• 40:25Adam Grant?

  Yeah, and both of those things need to.

• 40:26Brené Brown?

  And they both have to happen.

• 40:27Adam Grant?

  Yeah.

• 40:28Brené Brown?

  I mean, like.

• 40:29Adam Grant?

  Yeah.

• 40:29Brené Brown?

  You, if you are really good at difficult rumbles and difficult conversations, but you withhold repair, or you don't know how to do it, or apology, it doesn't work.

• 40:41Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 40:41Brené Brown?

  And if you're really skilled at apology and repair, but can't stay in the messiness of a hard conversation.

• 40:48Adam Grant?

  It never, it gets fully resolved.

• 40:50Brené Brown?

  It doesn't get resolved.

• 40:51Adam Grant?

  You learn nothing from.

• 40:52Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 40:52Adam Grant?

  The conflict is going to get repeated.

• 40:54Brené Brown?

  So I think, I think we're good, I think we're really good at those things. So I think, I liked the fact that you said if we continue to do them, I am, is there one thing that we've talked about that you're the most worried about?

• 41:04Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I think, well, I think it's.

• 41:07Adam Grant?

  I think it's the combined category of what it looks like to be a successful team together slash cofound something together. I don't even like calling it a business. I don't want to build businesses. I think of myself as an intellectual entrepreneur. I want to build ideas and share them.

• 41:26Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 41:30Adam Grant?

  Are you going to respond to that or just sit there?

• 41:32Brené Brown?

  That's not how this shit works, dude.

• 41:35Brené Brown?

  Um, okay.

• 41:39Brené Brown?

  Sorry. Oh, an intellectual entrepreneur. Okay, now, okay. So this also reflects how we intervene with the companies we work in.

• 41:54Adam Grant?

  It does. And you have more impact because you are willing to roll your sleeves up more than I do.

• 41:59Brené Brown?

  I don't know about impact. I mean, I don't, okay, well, I, I am deeply embedded and I'm like brought into conversations and sit in strategy meetings where I'm not only observing the behavior of the leaders, but I'm weighing in on how they're thinking about relocating supply chain.

• 42:18Adam Grant?

  And I, you cannot give me a parachute faster to get out of those conversations. I only want to be in that deep if I'm, if I'm running an experiment or doing a longitudinal survey and then we're going to publish research out of it.

• 42:31Brené Brown?

  Got it. And I'm doing that to, I'm doing that, I'm doing that different. I do that. We do Dare to Lead interventions. So Dare to Lead is the work and we go in and work with companies and sometimes these interventions will include 30,000 people and I'll be working at the kind of the C-suite level and the direct reports of the C-suite. But they are very tactical, very messy and very detailed. Like I'm in the detail, I'm in the weeds. I'm embedded.

• 42:55Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I mean, I think I would fall asleep in the first minute.

• 42:57Brené Brown?

  Okay, yeah. I mean, so.

• 43:01Adam Grant?

  Is that the one you were most concerned about?

• 43:03Brené Brown?

  For sure.

• 43:03Adam Grant?

  Yeah. Okay, maybe we should talk a little bit about the logo design as a microcosm of this. Or maybe we shouldn't.

• 43:11Brené Brown?

  No, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, um.

• 43:15Brené Brown?

  Yes, I think we can because we learn so much. I learned so much from you. I wanna, there are parts of the way you

• 43:26Brené Brown?

  move through the world with the same organizations. We work with a lot of the same organizations, which is weird. That I really admire and am moving toward. And so I've learned a lot from you. I mean, I've really learned a lot from you.

• 43:40Adam Grant?

  Same.

• 43:43Brené Brown?

  I think the logo design is an interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. What would you say about it?

• 43:49Adam Grant?

  I think-

• 43:49Brené Brown?

  I'm nervous. I'm anxious about the conversation a little bit, but let's go.

• 43:52Adam Grant?

  I don't know if, I don't know if it's helpful or not. I mean, I was just thinking about a concrete example. I think. So you volunteered to have your team take the lead on designing the logo. And I thought, okay, we, we work really differently. You have an intact team that you collaborate with on almost everything, right?

• 44:08Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 44:09Adam Grant?

  I'm much more autonomous and I have, I have kind of project specific teams that do certain things.

• 44:14Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 44:15Adam Grant?

  But they're not with me all the time. They just have a book team and I have a podcast team and they're all kind of separate, right? And so the fact that you have this intact team, I thought, wow, it's, it's really generous of you to volunteer to do this. And also you have much more aesthetic sensibility and care about design details. And I don't know the first thing about any of it. So it makes sense on all levels. And then you said, you sent me a draft, which I superimposed my mental model of how design works, which is most of my design is book covers. And we just come up with 20 or 30 ideas and it's, you know, it's very little thought initially put in because we want to look at a whole bunch of ideas. And then align on which directions we like before we do any refining or, you know, improving.

• 45:00Adam Grant?

  And so I thought that's what I was getting and I was hypercritical, I think. And that was not what I got, right?

• 45:09Brené Brown?

  No, you got, you, you, you got the best iteration of probably 50 hours of work.

• 45:14Adam Grant?

  And I felt so terrible, so terrible because I, I thought it was maybe an hour or two of work that had gone into it.

• 45:22Brené Brown?

  But let's, let's get underneath-

• 45:24Adam Grant?

  Yeah.

• 45:25Brené Brown?

  what was really happening there because this is where shit goes bad in real life.

• 45:29Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 45:29Brené Brown?

  In, in our partnerships with our kids and our teams. What was really going on there is I do have an intact team. I but I have a very new team, some new people. I mean, I've been, you know, the CEO of a company for a long time.

• 45:47Brené Brown?

  I knew how you felt about business building.

• 45:54Brené Brown?

  So I tried to protect you from it, which is my my therapy and business coaching work for fricking decades.

• 46:07Brené Brown?

  By just giving you something final. And then being and and the what you sent to me was not shareable with a creative team that had been working hours and hours for that.

• 46:21Adam Grant?

  No, not even close.

• 46:22Brené Brown?

  Yeah, because like if you lead a creative team, you're, you know, it's just different. And so I think what came out of that was me saying to you, you said something like, how are you in an email or what are you feeling?

• 46:37Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I tried to guess if you're emotions and missed the mark.

• 46:40Brené Brown?

  And I just said, I'm really frustrated.

• 46:42Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 46:42Brené Brown?

  Um, and then we had a conversation which was, I am trying to find more space and time and flow and freedom in my life. Um, I am like, I've I've won the parenting lottery that I have adult kids who want to hang out with me and Steve.

• 46:58Adam Grant?

  Yeah.

• 46:58Brené Brown?

  Um, I am going to play pickleball, tennis, whatever, six days a week, not tennis, but I'm playing pickleball six days a week. Um, I'm going to have a different life right now. I want to write and do deep thinking. And I said, I don't want to lead this business by myself. And I don't want to protect you from the sausage making because if we're going to be in this together. But I teed up an idea to you, which was, why don't we not build a business? And let's just be like the talent and let somebody else own the podcast and own the business.

• 47:28Adam Grant?

  Neither of us wanted to do that.

• 47:29Brené Brown?

  And you were like, I don't want that. Then I said, well, then we're signing up to build a business. And how are we going to do that? And then you said, I'm going to take equal responsibility for the sausage making.

• 47:38Adam Grant?

  Yeah.

• 47:39Brené Brown?

  And that was one of the best things that's ever happened for me.

• 47:44Adam Grant?

  I mean, I'm committed.

• 47:45Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 47:45Adam Grant?

  And I, I've, you know, you, you talked about, well, I, one of the things I've learned from you is you not only have, you know, really great collaborative relationships. There's a lot of joy.

• 47:58Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 47:58Adam Grant?

  In the, in those, in those relationships.

• 48:00Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 48:00Adam Grant?

  And I think your life is more full.

• 48:02Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 48:02Adam Grant?

  Because you work with people that you really like and care about. And I do that, but I do it in, in pieces. And I thought, oh, it would actually be fun to have a team that's more complete and be part of that team. And I need to learn how to do more of that because my mantra for a long time has been, I want to try to have maximum impact with minimum interdependence. Like, I want to be as autonomous and free as possible. And that doesn't work when you're trying to build something collaborative that, that really makes a difference. So I think, I'm on board for that. I think we still have different ideas about how a team can work most effectively and efficiently together. And that's what we're going to have to work through.

• 48:39Brené Brown?

  And we're doing, we're doing it later today. Cause I, you know, and, and so I think

• 48:46Brené Brown?

  I have a lot to learn from you.

• 48:49Adam Grant?

  Same.

• 48:50Brené Brown?

  And I, and I want to do that. I, I think, I think, well, I think as long as we are honest about,

• 49:02Brené Brown?

  I think what will kill us both and kill the business is self-expectations.

• 49:06Adam Grant?

  Yes, that's a great phrase, self-expectations.

• 49:09Brené Brown?

  Yeah. I write about that in Dare to Lead.

• 49:11Adam Grant?

  Yes.

• 49:11Brené Brown?

  Stealth expectations. We put things on the table. We talk about the why behind them.

• 49:19Brené Brown?

  I invest a lot of time upfront with teams or try to, or believe I do, and I'm not very good at it because I actually want to be an intellectual entrepreneur. And that's why when we got to the point where I thought you were locked into that and not being a co-business owner, this shit's not going to work because I'm moving out of that into the intellectual entrepreneur part, like, and so I can't take that on.

• 49:43Adam Grant?

  Well, so I think one of the lessons from that was I need to bring people to the table to our team. So it's not just me as an appendage on your team, right?

• 49:50Brené Brown?

  Right, and I can't be translating things from critical autonomous intellectual to how teams can hear things.

• 49:59Adam Grant?

  No, and I think that that was one of the mistakes that I made, which I knew I was making in the moment, and I still chose to make it, and I'm not proud of that.

• 50:09Adam Grant?

  So you sent this design, which was beautiful, and I failed to say that, right? I had a question about whether it represented what our show was gonna be. And I gathered some feedback and other people had the same reaction independently. And so I thought, okay, I need to get that efficiently to you. And Alison happened to be looking over my shoulder when I was writing the email, and she said, "You can't say that to Brene. You can't." And I said, "Why not?" And she said, "You need to really spell out that you appreciate, you know, the quality of the work and you just have these questions." And I said, "I can't have, I can't have a real both partnership and friendship where I can't be honest, and I have to walk on eggshells and couch things and pull punches.

• 50:55Adam Grant?

  And I've found it really efficient in my collaborations to just be direct and ask other people to be direct, too." And she said, "You're gonna regret this," and she was right. Because I could have been, I was trying to be clear, but I didn't do it in a kind way.

• 51:09Brené Brown?

  So I think what's interesting here is I don't, I would back, so if I were watching this happen with a team that I was working with, what I would say is you were not, you missed an essential part of Scrum or Agile process, which is what does done look like?

• 51:31Adam Grant?

  Yes.

• 51:31Brené Brown?

  And so if we, if I would have said, "Okay, my team's happy to handle, how involved in iteration do you want to be?"

• 51:39Adam Grant?

  I should, yeah, if we'd had that conversation, I would have said, bring me in early.

• 51:43Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 51:43Adam Grant?

  So that I, you don't end up, you know, going, yeah, spinning in an unproductive direction collectively.

• 51:48Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 51:49Adam Grant?

  And also, I'm probably less likely to reject it because I feel some ownership over it.

• 51:53Brené Brown?

  And you are a minimalist.

• 51:55Adam Grant?

  Big time.

• 51:55Brené Brown?

  I'm a maximalist. Like, if you like, like, there's that great meme on Instagram, like, I hate minimalism. What is minimalism? Maximalism? Like, I want my house to look like a Texas brothel. Like, I have 7,000 product, I mean, not products, uh, fabrics and textures. I have like a lion couch.

• 52:12Adam Grant?

  Less is more. I'm looking for elegant simplicity.

• 52:15Brené Brown?

  Yeah, no, and I'm looking for, who lives here? And I bet they chain smoke. That's what I'm looking for. When people walk in my house. Like, that's what I'm looking for. So.

• 52:26Adam Grant?

  You and my grandma would have gotten along so well.

• 52:28Brené Brown?

  I, I wish she was here so I could have a cigarette with her and just talk about.

• 52:33Adam Grant?

  I mean, you would be like this.

• 52:34Brené Brown?

  I love that. So I think what happened, so I will see a conflict breakout like this on a team, and I will go way back into the process, which I would have said, if you're co-building a business,

• 52:51Brené Brown?

  you're not communicating enough. You're not saying, let me bring you into, and I'm going to give you an example of what happened for those of y'all listening. I thought, like, when I think of curiosity shop, I think of Eel, I think of Dickens, I think of a curious, you know, you were very clear about no taxidermy, but I really think about, hey, um, which, you know, I grew up in a deer blind, basically, so it's not, you know, I think about like weird shit everywhere, shelves full of interesting things. Your, your agent, Richard, wrote about it beautifully when we were conceptualizing the name, like this place where you get lost in the weirdness and the awe and the wonder of a million things. So we sent you a graphic that had, well, that robot

• 53:30Brené Brown?

  to represent, you know, AI. We had, um, uh, viewfinder on an old 1970s viewfinder, if you're a kid and grew up with one of those. It had all these things on it. And you're like, and what's all, you know, I basically, you know, what's all the pawn store bullshit on here?

• 53:48Adam Grant?

  Looks like a show about, like, antiques.

• 53:50Brené Brown?

  Antiques, right. And maybe we should have a this or that. And, and so for me, I was like, whoa. We picked those things very specifically. The robot represents AI. The viewfinder perspective taking. The, you know, and so we had really thought about them. So where we were off and where I think we're in danger is, and I'm going to introduce a new concept.

• 54:18Brené Brown?

  One of the hardest things about Strong Ground when I was writing it was this idea of what, how do we future ready leaders? And what is the, what is the collection of mindsets and skillsets that we need to be ready? And one of the things that I've seen up close and personal with everybody in senior leader, I mean, every single senior leader with the exception of engineers,

• 54:40Brené Brown?

  is a real lack of systems thinking.

• 54:42Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 54:42Brené Brown?

  Right? A real lack of systems thinking. And so one of the things that systems theory has taught me the most, and it's a very integral part weirdly of social work. Social workers, especially MSWs, masters in social, get there and they're like, okay, how do I help people? How do I community organize or become a clinician? Or whatever they're going to do on the big scale of what is social work? And their first class is like systems theory. And they're like, what the hell? Because we think of communities as systems. We think of families as systems, you know? In systems theory, there's this, especially Dana Meadows' work, and I'm a huge fan of her systems work. There's a big triangle at the top. You is like the iceberg that you see.

• 55:25Brené Brown?

  Underneath the iceberg is a bunch of stuff. If you see a problem and you intervene at the problem, the iceberg level,

• 55:35Brené Brown?

  there's no leverage. You're going to fix a problem. You're going to see it again in two weeks, maybe.

• 55:39Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 55:40Brené Brown?

  As you go down under the water, you go through what are the systems that are not working? What are the behaviors that are not working? And at the bottom, you have mental models. You and I work off different mental models.

• 55:52Adam Grant?

  Very different mental models.

• 55:53Brené Brown?

  Right? So that graphic design was an iceberg issue. But underneath it were mental models.

• 56:04Adam Grant?

  Stealth expectations.

• 56:05Brené Brown?

  Stealth expectations. What's the, what's your mental model about what a graphic should do?

• 56:12Adam Grant?

  Yes.

• 56:14Brené Brown?

  That's going to be our logo. That's going to be that it's ultimately going to be like this with our pictures in it. You taught me about you look at things like, is it going to explain to what people or is it going to immediately?

• 56:27Adam Grant?

  Meaning.

• 56:27Brené Brown?

  The meaning.

• 56:28Adam Grant?

  Yeah.

• 56:29Brené Brown?

  For me, with like the shop and all that stuff, I was trying to create a place of warmth and belonging and comfort where people could come in from the outside and be like, so much vitriol, so much bullshit. This is a place where we can talk and disagree.

• 56:45Adam Grant?

  And this is why we complement each other well, because we want both meaning and feeling.

• 56:49Brené Brown?

  But would you agree that mental model discussions are rare?

• 56:53Adam Grant?

  Rare and vital because, you know, I actually, a light bulb just went off as you were talking about system theory on mental models specifically, which is, I think, part of the reason that I have this knee jerk reaction when we start talking about collaboration processes and getting on the same page. I actually have this when we talk about return to office and remote work too, which we should definitely get to in a future podcast, is my favorite concept from from systems theory is the idea of equa finality, which is a mouthful, but you know it.

• 57:23Brené Brown?

  Yeah, go. Yeah.

• 57:25Adam Grant?

  It's the basic idea that in any complex system, there are multiple paths to the same end.

• 57:29Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 57:30Adam Grant?

  And what I often hear from you is some version of, well, in order to build a successful business, you have to. And I just reject the premise of any sentence that starts that way. Like, no, there are many ways to build a successful business. You've got one that works for you. There may be others you haven't tested. I want to A, B, C, D, E test those. I've got a few that have worked for me that I want to have you try out, right? And I think it's actually not the process. It's the, it's me overreacting to what feels like excessive certainty or narrowness around this is the way.

• 58:05Brené Brown?

  Which is actually a threat to successful, successful systems.

• 58:09Adam Grant?

  And I don't think you mean it that way.

• 58:10Brené Brown?

  No, but I, but I do.

• 58:11Adam Grant?

  I think you're trying to share your experience.

• 58:12Brené Brown?

  I do mean it that way.

• 58:13Adam Grant?

  Oh, you do?

• 58:14Brené Brown?

  I do mean it that way. I mean, I mean it that way.

• 58:17Adam Grant?

  Message received and resisted.

• 58:20Brené Brown?

  Yeah, yeah, no. I actually think I mean it that way.

• 58:24Adam Grant?

  That's so interesting.

• 58:25Brené Brown?

  And I think it's something I need to change. But again, it's deeply personal, which is, if I'm not doing it the way that's a lot of caregiving and time for me, I'm not being the leader that I want to be.

• 58:42Adam Grant?

  And I would, I guess the question I would ask on that is, are you, is this about being the leader you want to be, or is it about being the leader that the show and the team need?

• 58:53Brené Brown?

  Two different questions, and I need to learn more, for sure.

• 58:57Adam Grant?

  Same.

• 58:58Brené Brown?

  For sure. But I think the equanimality, I mean, I think that is a big, that is a big part of functioning systems.

• 59:05Adam Grant?

  And so what we need to then, I actually think naming that expectation, right? I'm always going to assume, I will always assume that things are equa-final. And so if you're attached to a process, I'm going to find it more persuasive if you explain to me, here's what else I tried and didn't work. Or here's, you know, here's the logic. I have a really hard time accepting, it's the parenting point you made earlier. It almost feels like, because I said so.

• 59:32Brené Brown?

  That's so interesting. And you know where I default to that?

• 59:38Brené Brown?

  We're going to wrap up in a couple of minutes, but I will just, this is, this is a new thing we should write down as another podcast episode idea.

• 59:46Brené Brown?

  I thought, I got a lot of mentoring from Bob Iger's work on straddling the line between being thoughtful and decisive. And I've always gotten a lot of praise for being very decisive.

• 1:00:00Adam Grant?

  Decisive.

• 1:00:00Brené Brown?

  Right. My coach recently told me in the last couple of months that she, you know, it was that, you know, can I invite you to think about, you know, fuck. This is my response to the invitation to think about. Can I invite you to think about how your decisiveness may be over decisiveness to deal with anxiety?

• 1:00:27Adam Grant?

  Oh.

• 1:00:29Brené Brown?

  So I think when I am in the yes chef mode, which I know is not good leadership, unless you're in a kitchen, which I've worked in for a long time, waiting tables, but like,

• 1:00:41Adam Grant?

  There's a time and a place for it.

• 1:00:42Brené Brown?

  There's a time and a place for it, right?

• 1:00:45Brené Brown?

  I think I can get overly decisive.

• 1:00:47Adam Grant?

  Yes.

• 1:00:48Brené Brown?

  And when I am anxious or in time scarcity. And I think we built this.

• 1:00:56Adam Grant?

  We scrambled.

• 1:00:56Brené Brown?

  We scrambled.

• 1:00:57Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 1:00:58Brené Brown?

  And got scrappy.

• 1:00:59Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 1:01:01Brené Brown?

  And I can, and I was anxious because I'm also, you know, I got a lot of stuff going on my, my oldest is getting married, which is so exciting. And so.

• 1:01:10Brené Brown?

  I think I get overly decisive.

• 1:01:12Adam Grant?

  So that's a strength overused for you or misused?

• 1:01:14Brené Brown?

  It's a strength overused.

• 1:01:16Adam Grant?

  And I didn't see the anxiety part of it, but it makes so much sense. And my mistake was failing to recognize what was causing it. And instead, just pushing back on the decisiveness.

• 1:01:27Brené Brown?

  I don't know that that's your responsibility to understand it. Cause I, I, I actually, I'm trying to figure out how that would play out for the folks listening in a team. I think I really want to put out an idea that for our next podcasts, we talk about the idea of above and under the line.

• 1:01:46Adam Grant?

  I think we should. I think that's really helpful. And I think, ooh.

• 1:01:54Brené Brown?

  Tell me.

• 1:01:55Adam Grant?

  Well, I'm, I'm just, I think, okay. So in a team, ideally, what I would advise someone else to do, and here we're, we're drinking our own champagne, but it feels more like eating our own dog food.

• 1:02:04Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:04Adam Grant?

  This is way easier to teach than it is to do.

• 1:02:06Brené Brown?

  Oh, my God. Yes. I, yes.

• 1:02:09Adam Grant?

  So what I, what I would advise somebody to do in this situation is what I should have done is I should have gone to you and said, hey, Brene, like, I know you to be extremely thoughtful and nuanced and complex in the way that you think things through. And here you seem like really kind of locked into one direction. Help me understand what's behind that.

• 1:02:29Brené Brown?

  The lead in got me worried because I was like, but here you're being a complete asshole. So the lead in got me worried.

• 1:02:36Adam Grant?

  Okay. So let me try it again. Let me, let me take two, take two. Okay. Hey, I'm, I'm really surprised to see you locked into one direction. That's not how you normally operate.

• 1:02:44Brené Brown?

  Not working.

• 1:02:45Adam Grant?

  Nope.

• 1:02:45Brené Brown?

  No, I think all you would have had to say is if I would have said, what, what happened on the text was, yes, we need to invest a bunch of time upfront with our teams. And you said, maybe the research is, okay, so this, so let me, so if we want to get into it. So I said, I think we need to spend some time upfront and really get aligned with our teams. You said, maybe the research is torn on this, maybe a new, a podcast episode, question mark. And I think. What would have probably been helpful for me is I have a different experience. Are you open to trying?

• 1:03:19Adam Grant?

  Yes.

• 1:03:19Brené Brown?

  What different like curiosity?

• 1:03:21Adam Grant?

  Yes.

• 1:03:21Brené Brown?

  Ironically?

• 1:03:22Adam Grant?

  Yes. That would have been helpful.

• 1:03:24Brené Brown?

  Yeah, curiosity about, um, I have a different experience.

• 1:03:29Adam Grant?

  Yes.

• 1:03:30Brené Brown?

  But would you be open to exploring with me?

• 1:03:33Adam Grant?

  Yeah, I can do that. That's a, that's a much better way to frame it.

• 1:03:36Brené Brown?

  Yeah, maybe that, for me.

• 1:03:37Adam Grant?

  It's an invitation.

• 1:03:38Brené Brown?

  It's an invitation.

• 1:03:38Adam Grant?

  Yeah. And it brings a little bit of playfulness too, because you love learning.

• 1:03:42Brené Brown?

  I do.

• 1:03:42Adam Grant?

  It's a feeling to another one of your strengths.

• 1:03:44Brené Brown?

  I do love learning and, um, where I get to think, can get defensive with you sometimes is because I am so embedded on teams and do this work. When your response is, I'm not sure the data don't say that. I'm like, fuck you, dude. Like, that's exactly, that's like.

• 1:04:00Adam Grant?

  That's us replaying our 2016 debate.

• 1:04:02Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:03Adam Grant?

  You're like, here's what I have seen and lived. I'm like, here's the meta-analysis and here's the randomized controlled experiments. And the, the, mostly interesting learning happens in the tension between those two things. Now, I think the, the other thing that I was really struck by here, which, which we can work through as a specific example of this is, uh, I think one of the things I learned from you is you said, I need to spend more time with my teams so that they feel valued and don't feel dismissed.

• 1:04:29Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Adam Grant?

  And I looked at that and I thought, oh, that's one way to do that. But one of the ways I make people feel valued is I respect their time and I don't waste it by dragging them into meetings. And I will instead bend over backward to sing their praises and make it really clear to people like why I'm excited to be working with them and the unique value they're bringing to the table. Like, oh, we're actually, there's a, there's a common value here.

• 1:04:52Brené Brown?

  There's a common value.

• 1:04:52Adam Grant?

  And so we just have really different approaches to that. And we need to figure out which ones are relevant when.

• 1:04:59Brené Brown?

  Yeah, and I think I was really, I was really locked into this is new. We have six or seven people on it. We don't have any systemic communication tool in place. And we do not have alignment across six or seven people about what impact, how we're defining done, how we're defining excellent, what impact is, and we have no shared goals.

• 1:05:21Adam Grant?

  So you're in threat rigidity mode.

• 1:05:24Brené Brown?

  Oh, Jesus Christ. I don't know whether I, it sounds like shit, but what, I don't know what it means.

• 1:05:28Adam Grant?

  No, there's a, there's a classic Barry Stott ad all paper on threat rigidity, which is, you know, under threat, people tend to do the opposite of what a pre-mortem does and lock into the familiar and kind of proven way.

• 1:05:40Brené Brown?

  Absolutely. I was not there.

• 1:05:41Adam Grant?

  Oh.

• 1:05:41Brené Brown?

  No.

• 1:05:42Adam Grant?

  I, I, I, I strike that from the record, Your Honor.

• 1:05:45Brené Brown?

  Yes, that's good. Um, struck but not forgotten. No. Um, I was not in threat rigidity mode. I was in,

• 1:05:56Brené Brown?

  we have on my side, four people excited, running in four different directions.

• 1:06:02Adam Grant?

  Oh.

• 1:06:04Brené Brown?

  We have really big missed balls that were upsetting to you.

• 1:06:08Adam Grant?

  Yes.

• 1:06:09Brené Brown?

  And upsetting to me.

• 1:06:10Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 1:06:11Brené Brown?

  That really almost jacked with our schedules to the point where this was not going to be happening.

• 1:06:15Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 1:06:16Brené Brown?

  And we need to sit down and invest time upfront to getting aligned and putting communication systems. So I was not in threat rigidity. I was in.

• 1:06:24Adam Grant?

  Can I call it cattle herding mode?

• 1:06:25Brené Brown?

  No, no. It, it's much more based in, I think, solid leadership principles that we were in the beginning of forming a new team.

• 1:06:37Adam Grant?

  Yep.

• 1:06:37Brené Brown?

  And building alignment and clarity of mission and purpose. That's what I would say I was in.

• 1:06:43Adam Grant?

  That makes sense.

• 1:06:43Brené Brown?

  And that that's going to require a time commitment.

• 1:06:46Adam Grant?

  Yes, we need to do that.

• 1:06:47Brené Brown?

  Yeah, that's what I think I was in.

• 1:06:49Adam Grant?

  Well, we're, we're about to do that.

• 1:06:50Brené Brown?

  We're, we're, we're leaving this podcast and going into that first meeting.

• 1:06:53Adam Grant?

  Before we wrap.

• 1:06:54Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:54Adam Grant?

  You have some closing questions?

• 1:06:56Brené Brown?

  Oh, yeah. I thought it would be fun if we did this because, um, I, because I'm curious about you, actually. So what are you listening to right now? I just want to know these, these basic questions. What are you listening to right now?

• 1:07:09Adam Grant?

  Right now?

• 1:07:09Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:10Adam Grant?

  I listened to a Science Versus episode on narcissism where they got the, they got somebody who was diagnosed with the clinical narcissistic personality disorder to talk about his experience of discovering that and then trying to overcome it. It was riveting.

• 1:07:28Brené Brown?

  Okay, we'll put in the show notes because I want to listen. What are you watching? Anything you've binged lately or watched?

• 1:07:33Adam Grant?

  Family tradition, Survivor, currently season 50.

• 1:07:37Adam Grant?

  Rooting for, oh, how do I do this without spoilers?

• 1:07:40Brené Brown?

  Oh, you shouldn't.

• 1:07:42Adam Grant?

  At the beginning of the season, I can say that.

• 1:07:44Brené Brown?

  Yes.

• 1:07:44Adam Grant?

  I started out with high hopes for Camilla and for Genevieve and for Christian.

• 1:07:53Brené Brown?

  What do you like about Survivor?

• 1:07:55Adam Grant?

  Survivor is, I mean, it's a giant psychology experiment in trust and collaboration and deception and rivalry and competition. And it's just watching people build relationships while also trying to strategize. It's a, it's a microcosm of what we do every day.

• 1:08:12Brené Brown?

  Okay, any, I just can't. I can't do Survivor, but my kids are obsessed. What are you reading?

• 1:08:21Adam Grant?

  I just finished reading Dana Suskind's book, Human Raised.

• 1:08:25Brené Brown?

  And?

• 1:08:25Adam Grant?

  About how to prepare kids and also protect them in the age of AI. Phenomenal.

• 1:08:31Brené Brown?

  Really? Worth reading?

• 1:08:32Adam Grant?

  Highly recommend.

• 1:08:33Brené Brown?

  Tell me a takeaway.

• 1:08:36Adam Grant?

  I think it comes out in July, so I probably need her permission to do that.

• 1:08:40Brené Brown?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, got it. Okay, okay.

• 1:08:42Adam Grant?

  Okay, what about you? What are you, let me go backward. What are you reading right now?

• 1:08:45Brené Brown?

  I am reading a new book in the Shetland series.

• 1:08:53Adam Grant?

  What's that?

• 1:08:54Brené Brown?

  I read a lot of British mysteries, folks. You get ready. I mean, this is like Shetland, the Shetland Islands. Yeah, so I'm reading a Shetland book right now. It's probably one of my favorite TV series on television. I think you have to watch it on like Acorn or BritBox or something, one of the British import television. I watch a lot of British television. I'm watching, oh my God, I watched Heated Rivalry. Just finished it for the third time.

• 1:09:20Adam Grant?

  Oh, wow, you're all in.

• 1:09:21Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I'm all in.

• 1:09:22Adam Grant?

  Haven't seen it.

• 1:09:23Brené Brown?

  Oh, God, I love it so much.

• 1:09:26Adam Grant?

  Sounds like it's made for Bridgerton fans.

• 1:09:28Brené Brown?

  No, it's, I was just gonna say, I finished Bridgerton and I finished Heated Rivalry, so my life is open now for watching. Both were great, season four, and then Heated Rivalry was good. I was talking to Esther Perel last night about her commentary on why the obsession with Heated Rivalry. And I think not only is it a beautiful love story, but she said every stressful conflict point. In that show was met with very beautiful reparative and corrective behavior.

• 1:10:01Adam Grant?

  There you go.

• 1:10:02Brené Brown?

  So like something hard would happen, you like you have this feeling of like foreboding, like, oh shit, this is not going to go. And then the person shows up and is so wonderful. And it was just, I don't know, it was healing in some way to me. So I love it. Um, and then what was the last one, listening?

• 1:10:17Adam Grant?

  What are you listening to?

• 1:10:18Brené Brown?

  Um, I have been.

• 1:10:21Adam Grant?

  You're gonna say Rory, aren't you?

• 1:10:23Brené Brown?

  Oh, I, I definitely listened to a shit ton of The Rest Is Politics UK version with Rory and Alistair. Um, I have so many bones. We should maybe do like a foursome and just like fight it out, like some kind of maybe devil's tennis, um, take it out on the court. Um, I've, I've been listening to a lot of that. I think it's really helpful to have a non-US political opinion that's more centered on the world. Um, so I think that's interesting. And then, um, Rosalia, the just what a, what a, what a woman. Um, and then also listening to a lot of Tom's Van Zant, which I always go back to.

• 1:11:02Adam Grant?

  We have so little overlap.

• 1:11:04Brené Brown?

  We have very little.

• 1:11:05Adam Grant?

  It's almost like we're different people.

• 1:11:06Brené Brown?

  We're, we're, yeah, but I'm curious about you.

• 1:11:08Adam Grant?

  Same.

• 1:11:08Brené Brown?

  Okay. See you next time.

• 1:11:10Adam Grant?

  Looking forward to it.

• 1:11:12Brené Brown?

  The Curiosity Shop is produced by Brené Brown Education and Research Group and Granted Productions. You can subscribe to The Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app.

• 1:11:23Adam Grant?

  We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.voxmedia.com.

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