You Don't Get an A for Effort

Previously released on Dare to Lead, this is part of a special six-part series with Adam Grant on Brené's book, Strong Ground. Brené and Adam unpack the difference between effort and excellence, why coaching matters more than judgment, and how unclear priorities can quietly derail even the hardest-working teams. From there the conversation moves further into prioritization, a consequential 2x2 decision-making framework, and how leaders inadvertently signal the wrong priorities through their emotional reactions. Circling back to effort, they also discuss why the first question leaders should ask when results fall short is whether they set their team up for success in the first place. Plus, Brené has a real-time realization that her own team may not be aligned on what's actually consequential. Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know – Adam Grant, 2021, Viking Strong Ground: The Lessons of Daring Leadership, the Tenacity of Paradox, and the Wisdom of the Human Spirit – Brené Brown, 2025, Random House No, You Don't Get an A for Effort – Adam Grant, 2024, The New York Times Mindset: The New Psychology of Success – Carol Dweck, 2006, Random House Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation and Performance – Mueller & Dweck, 1998, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology What Having a “Growth Mindset” Actually Means – Carol Dweck, 2016, Harvard Business Review “Both/And” Leadership – Wendy Smith, 2016, Harvard Business Review Genius of the AND – Jim Collins, n.d., JimCollins.com Reversible and Irreversible Decisions – Shane Parrish, n.d., Farnam Street The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You – Elaine Aron, 1996, Broadway Books Sensory-Processing Sensitivity and Its Relation to Introversion and Emotionality – Elaine Aron, 1997, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Above/Below the Line Practice – Brené Brown, 2025, BrenéBrown.com Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis – Stephen Karpman, 1968, Transactional Analysis Bulletin (Origin paper for the villain/rescuer/victim model of conflict) 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.

• 0:00Adam Grant?

  Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. The Curiosity Shop is on summer hiatus, but stay tuned as we'll be back with brand new episodes July 30. In the meantime, we're revisiting some of our favorite conversations. Today's episode was originally recorded during Brene's Dare to Lead series on Strong Ground. In this episode, we tackle a question every leader eventually faces. What do you do when someone's giving their all, but the results just aren't there? We talk about the difference between effort and excellence, and how great leaders coach people toward meaningful growth. Let's dive in.

• 0:33Speaker 01

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• 1:19Speaker 02

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• 1:49Speaker 03

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• 2:21Brené Brown?

  Welcome to The Curiosity Shop.

• 2:22Adam Grant?

  A show from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

• 2:31Brené Brown?

  Hi, everyone. I'm Brené Brown and this is Dare to Lead. And I am back for episode six of this special series with my friend Adam. Hi, Adam.

• 2:41Adam Grant?

  Hey, Brene.

• 2:42Brené Brown?

  How's it going?

• 2:44Adam Grant?

  So far, so good, but we'll see where this goes, won't we?

• 2:48Brené Brown?

  Yeah. I, you know, you're one of the, so there are several, there are teachers in the book, and the teachers in the book, we include you, are folks who I thought their work was, their impact on the book and my research and my thinking was so big, it was more than just kind of a paragraph. It was, I wanted to share a lesson directly from you. So Think Again is one of my all time favorite books. And so I share an excerpt from Think Again in the book. Were you surprised to see yourself come up in yet another chapter?

• 3:20Adam Grant?

  It was. It's such an honor to be featured at all. And I, you know, I of course skipped through the part that I wrote, not wanting to reread my own writing.

• 3:29Brené Brown?

  Oh, yeah, that's horrible. I don't do that either.

• 3:32Adam Grant?

  The worst. I had so many edits when I got into the first paragraph alone. I was, yeah, I can't do this. That's enough rethinking for now. And then, and then I thought I was home free. And I'm just, you know, sailing along, couple hundred pages, and all of a sudden I came across my name.

• 3:49Brené Brown?

  You're in, yep, you're in the chapter called "The Big Reward." And so I talk about your op ed. Let's get everyone caught up. So you wrote an op ed for the New York Times titled, "No, You Don't Get an A for Effort." Tell me about the origin of this op ed. Tell me the premise.

• 4:11Adam Grant?

  Okay, this started when I was teaching a week long course for brand new MBA students. And at the end of the class, a couple of years ago, I got several grade complaints that were worded completely differently from any prior grade grubbing I'd come across. And different students wrote different versions of, "I'm not happy with my grade because it doesn't reflect the effort that I put into this course."

• 4:42Adam Grant?

  I was so surprised to read that because we don't grade effort, we grade excellence.

• 4:49Adam Grant?

  Leaving aside the fact that in a week-long course, there wasn't a lot of room for Herculean amounts of effort.

• 4:58Adam Grant?

  And I was really curious about why they expected to be rewarded for hard work alone as opposed to mastery. And what finally crystallized for me was that

• 5:12Adam Grant?

  some of these students had been, they'd taken the wrong lesson from Carol Dweck's work on growth mindset.

• 5:17Brené Brown?

  Say more. This is really, this is so interesting to me.

• 5:21Adam Grant?

  Well, there's a whole generation of, you know this well, of parents and teachers who were told, don't praise ability, praise effort. Because if you tell a kid, you're really smart. When they fail, they're going to think, well, I didn't have the cognitive horsepower. I don't have the talent to succeed at that. Whereas when you praise kids for effort, when they fall short of a goal, they learn, oh, I need to try harder. And that's much better for their resilience. It's better for their persistence. Ultimately serves their growth. But if you take that too far and you only praise effort, what you're essentially doing is you're rewarding students for only their inputs and ignoring their outputs.

• 6:05Adam Grant?

  You're telling them, you should keep beating your head against a brick wall as opposed to saying, huh, that strategy is not effective for me. Let me find a different one. And I guess where I landed as I was working through this this puzzle was, I think we should be praising effort that leads to progress.

• 6:27Adam Grant?

  We don't, we don't just want to look at how, you know, how much energy you expend or how long you persist. We want to ask, did that move you forward? Is your effort, is it fueling your growth? And if not, it might not be the right effort.

• 6:44Brené Brown?

  It's so powerful to me. And so there's, there's, there's 10 directions we could take this conversation. And I'm going to write one of them down because I want, if we have time, I want to circle back to it.

• 6:58Brené Brown?

  Let me write and make myself a note. Okay. So I read that op ed when it first came out. I agreed with it wholeheartedly.

• 7:09Adam Grant?

  But.

• 7:10Brené Brown?

  No, and.

• 7:11Adam Grant?

  Oh.

• 7:12Brené Brown?

  You know, my commitment to the paradox. Not, you know, Jim Collins would say the tyranny of the or or the genius of the and. I'm going to go with and. And. What I have found. Working inside of organizations. Is kind of dualistic thinking. That either says, I am going to praise and reward effort. Even when the outcome is bad. Or on the other side. This is a perversion of the original growth mindset thinking.

• 7:53Brené Brown?

  And if I see you putting a ton of effort into something, but the deliverable or the outcome is subpar. Then you get nothing from me. And so my thinking is that we should be rewarding effort. With. Time. With our time. And so. If I see you, we'll take the student example. If I see you. Really busting your ass. You're in class, you're taking notes, you're present, you're asking compelling questions. You have an active role because you're both teaching MBA programs.

• 8:38Brené Brown?

  You have an active role in your group. You are all in and you're spending a lot of time and energy. Trying to move the ball down the field. And the ball's not leaving the 50 yard line. You know, it's just, I'm not going to call that a touchdown. I'm not going to reward that with seven points. Because the ball's still on the 50 yard line. I'm also not going to dismiss you for how hard you're working. Because I see you working. What I am going to reward you with is my time. In trying to sit down with you and say, I see your effort. Let's talk about why the ball's not moving.

• 9:19Brené Brown?

  Let's see, and this is really hard because I think in the dualistic situation, where you can just give them nothing, or you can give them seven points. Both of those answers are easy for you as the score giver, because it takes no investment from you.

• 9:44Adam Grant?

  Right, you're just a judge, you're not a coach.

• 9:47Brené Brown?

  You're just a judge, not a coach. That's exactly right. You're a scoreboard, not a coach. Right, that's it. So to me, when I work with leaders, I always say, if you see effort, don't reward it and call it excellence or success, because that's a lie, and that's usually about your own comfort. And also, don't ignore it, because, man, one day, you're going to wish you had someone that put that much effort into something. Reward it with your time. So I'm curious about your take on that.

• 10:16Adam Grant?

  Oh, I find that very compelling. I think that's what's needed, because if somebody is putting in the energy and they're not getting the result, then that's the ideal moment for coaching.

• 10:28Brené Brown?

  Yes, that's coaching.

• 10:30Adam Grant?

  That's when they need somebody to say, okay, you're working really hard. Let's talk about what it would look like to work really smart. Or it seems like, you know, we actually haven't given you the training that would allow you to master this area of expertise. So we want to invest in that and invest in you.

• 10:52Speaker 02

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• 11:22Speaker 03

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• 12:21Brené Brown?

  I need your help with something.

• 12:23Adam Grant?

  Oh.

• 12:24Brené Brown?

  This is so exciting. I didn't think we were going to come here, but I'm so excited about it. One of the, so one of the questions I get a lot from leaders, especially, actually, all the way from kind of first-line managers all the way up to C-suite leaders, is, "I'm working so hard. I'm busting my ass, I'm working 60 hours a week, and I'm not moving the ball." And when we get underneath why there's so much effort and no result, I'm not exaggerating right now at all.

• 13:08Brené Brown?

  In this context of geopolitical crisis, tariff issues, volatile markets, changing strategies, horrific supply chain issues, the problem identification always lands on prioritization, the lack of prioritization skills. No one's teaching it, no one's talking about it, the communication around it is terrible. What can you tell me or teach me about prioritization?

• 13:44Adam Grant?

  Oh, that's such an interesting question.

• 13:47Brené Brown?

  It's such a crisis right now, everywhere I go. It doesn't matter what industry I'm working in, even, even in, even with sports teams I'm working with right now. Are we, should we be prioritizing toughness or discipline? Should we be prioritizing accountability? You know, and, and I think there's probably a swirl of those things that all are related to each other. But what do you, what would you tell a leader that said, I'm working so hard? I'm not seeing the results because the priorities from on high are shifting daily.

• 14:19Adam Grant?

  Huh, I think, I'm thinking out loud here, but

• 14:22Brené Brown?

  I love it.

• 14:23Adam Grant?

  I think the, maybe the best lesson I've gotten on prioritization came from a conversation I had a few years ago with Jeff Bezos. Who, you know, whether, whether you love or hate him and whether you're an Amazon fan or detractor. I think Jeff has been remarkably effective at being clear on his priorities. And

• 14:44Brené Brown?

  I don't think you can argue that, no matter how you feel. Yeah.

• 14:47Adam Grant?

  Yeah, exactly. You might not agree with what the priorities are, but he's clear on them.

• 14:50Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 14:52Adam Grant?

  And I was, I was asking him how he decides what to prioritize. And I came away from that conversation with a two by two that I think about maybe once a week. And I don't even have a real job. So this has to be much more relevant for leaders than it is for me. But Jeff said the two questions he asks himself when he's making a decision are, one, how consequential is it? How high are the stakes? And then two, how reversible is it? Is he walking through a door that's going to lock behind him? Or is it a revolving door?

• 15:26Adam Grant?

  And he said, there's only one quadrant there that I spend real time and energy on. It's the highly consequential irreversible decisions because they really matter. And you can't easily undo them next year. So imagine Amazon made a huge investment in the cloud.

• 15:44Adam Grant?

  He's not going to wake up one morning and say, you know all those billions we poured into cloud computing? Just kidding, I want them back. It's not an option. He said with those decisions, he does not want a first mover advantage. He considers that a disadvantage. He will procrastinate as long as possible because he wants to see other people make commitments and make mistakes and learn from those. And also, he wants to gather enough information, you know, qualitative and quantitative data to try to figure out what the right, important, semi-permanent commitment is. And he said, I don't waste a lot of energy on the other three quadrants. If a decision is less consequential or more reversible, I will act quickly on the best information I have and just stay open to doubting what I know.

• 16:27Adam Grant?

  I will delegate it to other people. And I think that for me, this framework has, I guess it has two applications. One is in our own lives to ask, what are the consequential irreversible decisions? Let's prioritize those. The other stuff probably doesn't matter that much. And two, this is a question to ask up the hierarchy. Right? If you feel like you're putting in a ton of work and the leaders above you are not delivering on giving you clarity, right? Asking them, hey, we've got a lot of things we're being asked to do here. Which are most consequential for you? Which are most irreversible for you? Do you agree that those are our top priorities? What do you make of all that?

• 17:06Brené Brown?

  God, I could talk to you for 12 hours about this. This is like what I, it's, it's what I talk about every day with folks. And so it's really interesting to me. I think that, okay, I have like a lot of questions. So we're talking about rewarding effort with our time and our thought partnership.

• 17:34Brené Brown?

  And I brought up the example of prioritization.

• 17:39Brené Brown?

  I have a question for you, and we're getting pretty technical in this conversation, but I think that's helpful because I think a lot of leaders listen to our conversations. And I think it's part of, you know, I think one of my favorite things about my conversations with you is we can talk about the morality of ordaining yourself to decide who lives and dies, and we can talk about very specific prioritization challenges in leadership. So I love that. So thank you for that.

• 18:04Brené Brown?

  I wonder if, depending on where you are in an organization, if part of rewarding effort with time is leaders helping coach leaders on how to make decisions and appraisals of what's consequential and what's not, what's reversible and what's not. Because I would imagine if I'm in the C-suite, I have a different understanding of what's reversible and what's not reversible. I have a different understanding of what's consequential or not than if I report up to someone who reports up to someone who reports up to someone who reports up to the C-suite. Does that make sense?

• 18:50Adam Grant?

  It does. It does. So how do you think about doing that?

• 18:54Brené Brown?

  Well, I'm thinking right now about 4,634 misses in my own organization, based on what you just said, that have happened over the last two weeks. Because what I'm thinking right now in real time, I'm almost like, I'm almost breaking into a sweat, is I have not talked to my teams about what feels consequential and reversible and irreversible and not consequential. I have not shared, I have not done mission critical communications, which is a part of the book. I have not shared with them what I believe is consequential and inconsequential and what's reversible and not reversible. I do not think my team is aligned.

• 19:41Adam Grant?

  Sounds like a conversation worth having.

• 19:43Brené Brown?

  Yes, because I, because what I do see is, and what I hear leaders talk about all the time, is action over impact, which can feel really shitty. That's really shitty feedback to give someone. Like, hey, listen, I see a lot of your work, but I feel like you're engaging a lot of action over impact. And I wonder if that diagnosis is wrong, because my mindset is different about what's consequential and reversible.

• 20:15Adam Grant?

  Yeah, if they, if they have a different idea about what's important and what can be undone, then they're gonna, they're gonna invest their action in other things.

• 20:25Brené Brown?

  Yeah, because I'm getting stuff that is coming up to me that feels inconsequential and totally reversible.

• 20:32Adam Grant?

  Wow. And, okay, so I'm curious about why that is. I know there's the, what's the, what's the famous parable about when Bob Rubin was the Treasury Secretary and he made an offhand comment in a hallway about gold, and then this rumor starts spreading like wildfire. Rubin loves gold. And all of a sudden, people are spending all this time analyzing like gold markets and pricing and like people, people overweight the offhand comments that leaders make. They're constantly trying to infer what's important by observing

• 21:12Adam Grant?

  your behavior and observing your attention. Is there a signal you sent that said this thing that's inconsequential and reversible is actually really important to me?

• 21:25Brené Brown?

  Yeah, I'm having an IRL meltdown, real time, folks. This is what it looks like. Yes, because I'm, I can be.

• 21:41Brené Brown?

  I can be undisciplined

• 21:46Brené Brown?

  in my emotional reactions

• 21:50Brené Brown?

  to anything that doesn't meet our value of beauty and excellence. And that can be perceived as life or death consequential.

• 22:04Brené Brown?

  And therefore, people are spending wild amount of time, amount of time

• 22:11Brené Brown?

  on something that I had an emotional reaction to

• 22:16Brené Brown?

  because there was a dangling modifier.

• 22:21Brené Brown?

  And

• 22:24Brené Brown?

  I'm making that up because I'm, I'm never really sure what that means, but like I,

• 22:29Brené Brown?

  yes, it's about my emotional responsiveness and going under the line

• 22:37Brené Brown?

  and being undisciplined in my responses. And then my response is perceived as, oh shit, this is life or death for Renee.

• 22:47Adam Grant?

  So coming back then to where we started the conversation, you inadvertently rewarded effort on the wrong, the wrong things.

• 22:57Brené Brown?

  I don't know. Well, I don't, I don't know if I rewarded effort on the wrong things or

• 23:01Adam Grant?

  Sorry, let me say that differently.

• 23:02Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 23:03Adam Grant?

  Sorry. No, no, that's not what I mean. What I meant is

• 23:07Adam Grant?

  through, through having an emotional reaction, you signaled that a different kind of effort would have been rewarded.

• 23:14Brené Brown?

  Yes. Yes.

• 23:16Adam Grant?

  But it's not actually the effort you wanted.

• 23:18Brené Brown?

  No, it's not. And in a more disciplined response,

• 23:27Brené Brown?

  I would have been more focused on systems than people and we would have corrected systems. Not having, you know, and not making people feel like stuff is more consequential and irreversible than it actually is.

• 23:42Brené Brown?

  Does that make sense to you?

• 23:44Adam Grant?

  Yeah, yeah, it does. So how do you think about course correcting on that? Because it's what's interesting is it's reasonable to assume that if you have a strong emotional reaction to something, that's highly consequential for you. And separating those two things is not always easy for people. Why would you emote about something that doesn't really matter?

• 24:06Brené Brown?

  Oh, because I think that's probably a huge difference between you and me. Like, I am an emotional being. I am a.

• 24:15Adam Grant?

  Are you a highly sensitive person in the Elena Aaron sense?

• 24:18Brené Brown?

  No, no, but I am.

• 24:24Brené Brown?

  I do want.

• 24:29Brené Brown?

  If we send something to someone I'm working with and misspell that person's name,

• 24:39Brené Brown?

  that can feel irreversible and consequential to me.

• 24:45Brené Brown?

  But normally, I think the response to that is,

• 24:51Brené Brown?

  should be above the line where I'm a good coach, I'm a good challenger, I'm a good creative. What systems do we have in place to make sure things have a second set of eyes? What's the proving channels that we're using? You know, that's the answer to that question. Not, I need six people spending 60 hours for three weeks on the mailing list.

• 25:14Adam Grant?

  Yes.

• 25:15Brené Brown?

  Does that make sense?

• 25:17Adam Grant?

  Yeah, it does. So this is, this is an interesting example of, of something that

• 25:27Adam Grant?

  it reflects, it reflects on your values.

• 25:33Adam Grant?

  And therefore, it's worth spending some time on, but it's not consequential in the capital C sense.

• 25:39Brené Brown?

  It's not consequential, nor is it like reversible in the capital R. Like, and it's interesting because I'm working with a company right now. And the CEO is really talking about.

• 25:54Brené Brown?

  Experimentation and reversibility. And leaders are having a hard time seeing the same things as reversible as what he thinks are reversible, like pricing, or, you know, we can try something. But I think if you're heading that market, it feels very different, you know? And so it does go back to, I never thought, I never thought when we award effort with time and thought partnership.

• 26:27Brené Brown?

  I think we have to start by when we see effort as a leader, and maybe even as a college professor. When we see effort that is not leading to success or mastery, maybe one of the first things we need to do is reflect on our own part in that.

• 26:52Adam Grant?

  Yeah. Yeah, did I send you a message explicitly or implicitly that this was the, this was the effort I wanted?

• 27:00Brené Brown?

  And this is how we measure success.

• 27:07Brené Brown?

  This is, this is the effort we're looking for in service of this mission completion.

• 27:14Brené Brown?

  Does that make sense?

• 27:15Adam Grant?

  It does. It does. I, you know, it's so funny. My first organizational psychology class, when I was a junior in college, I remember just falling in love with the material and thinking, I want this to be my future career, not knowing what that would look like, and studying really hard for the midterm and getting a B plus. And I was crushed, crushed, like this, this is my thing, and I didn't ace it.

• 27:47Adam Grant?

  And I remember sitting down with the head TA and asking her, why did all the preparation that I did not result in an A or at least an A minus? And she said to me, look, our expectations are really high in this course. And you regurgitated a bunch of material. We wanted you to think about novel ways of applying the material. So this was, this was not a test of whether you know the course concepts. It's whether you can use and extend the course concepts. And I studied very differently for the, the next test and did much better on it. Because she had taught me how to redirect my effort.

• 28:27Adam Grant?

  And I'm realizing now I failed to pay that lesson forward to the students who told me that their grade did not reflect their effort.

• 28:38Brené Brown?

  God, that's such, that's such, that's such a great example.

• 28:43Brené Brown?

  I mean, it's such a great example of rewarding effort with a conversation with you about, yeah, you're smart. I get it. You, you understand the material. Interesting to see the transferability of your knowledge to different contexts. And how can you apply it and get creative with it? Like, this is what I'm talking about. So I, I do think,

• 29:05Brené Brown?

  I do think we reward effort with both our time. Well, I think we reward effort with our time and we start.

• 29:17Brené Brown?

  I think I'm going to start, I don't know what anyone else is going to do. I'm going to start when I see effort, but I see the ball not moving down the field. I want to start with myself and say, did I set this person up for success? With a clear understanding of what are the priorities? What's consequential? What's, what's reversible and what's not? And what is success going to look like? I think that's, that's really.

• 29:45Brené Brown?

  And then work with them because they may have a full understanding of that and still not be moving the ball downfield. And I think that's, that happens a lot, especially with young leaders and new people and students.

• 29:55Adam Grant?

  I, I really want to hear the postmortem on how this conversation goes. It's, it's making me think, just thinking about your example of, you know, if we misspell someone's name.

• 30:07Adam Grant?

  I'm realizing now, as you've talked about that, there's nuance in the reversibility concept that I hadn't seen before, which is, in technical terms, that is not a reversible mistake. You cannot unsend the email. You can't take back the letter.

• 30:24Brené Brown?

  No.

• 30:25Adam Grant?

  The error was made. But the impact is reversible. You can, you can show, you know, you can show remorse to the recipient. You can let them know what a priority it is for you to get it right. And then, as the saying often goes, the best apology has changed behavior. You can demonstrate to them, moving forward, you're not going to make the same mistake. And that, I think, can reverse the impact, even though the event itself is not reversible.

• 30:53Brené Brown?

  I think that's true. I think that's absolutely true. And I'll just do a full confession here, since we, since like the Adam Brene confessional. This should be the new podcast, you know, with we each have the little collars on. Take a picture of ourselves in a confession booth, which will take me back to Catholic primary school. The confession for me is if I can be above the, you know, below the line is kind of hero, victim, villain. Oh, my God, you screwed this up. You have no idea how hard this is on me. I'll do it myself. Above the line is coach, challenger, and creative. So my job as a leader, and I can be not good at this.

• 31:34Brené Brown?

  That's my way of saying I can be really shitty here, is I can clean it up with a note to the person and say, you know, so sorry, we did this. I apologize. Or if I can stay above the line, I can say, we misspelled them. I'd love for you to reach out and make it right. Which is so much more rewarding for that team member who did it, because then they get to clean it up and they get to not be the person who made the mistake and didn't show up again to clean it up. And so, but let me tell you what we're talking about here. If I pulled back from this conversation and asked myself, well,

• 32:18Brené Brown?

  a group of leaders had lunch on Thursday and listened to this conversation, what's going to, what's going to be their first comment?

• 32:27Brené Brown?

  Their first comment to each other when the podcast is over is they're gonna say, "Well, that shit takes a lot of time." Getting that right takes a lot of time.

• 32:37Adam Grant?

  Thankfully, we recorded a podcast about that very excuse.

• 32:41Brené Brown?

  Yeah, we did. Well, like a self-

• 32:44Adam Grant?

  Do you wanna, do you wanna, you wanna invest a little time now?

• 32:47Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 32:47Adam Grant?

  To save a lot of time later. Your choice.

• 32:50Brené Brown?

  That's it. I love it. Our podcast is gonna become like a self-referencing system. We're gonna close the whole loop and we're just gonna be like, "If you disagree with this, see Podcast 1A and we'll, we'll take you on there."

• 33:05Speaker 02

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• 33:36Speaker 03

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• 34:06Speaker 06

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• 34:13Speaker 02

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• 34:30Brené Brown?

  Shop Black Friday all month long at blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week. I just want to say, and this will be such a great, you know, great time for you to practice taking a compliment, how much it has meant to me for you to do this six-part series with me on the new book. It really has meant a lot to me, and I appreciate you and I appreciate the conversations.

• 34:53Adam Grant?

  Well, I appreciate that. And I was, I was so flattered that you were willing to have me do this because I've, I feel like most of the learning that I've done from your work has been outside of interaction with you. It's been reading your books. It's been watching your TED Talks. It's been listening to your podcasts. And so to, to have a chance to talk to you about the book right after I finished reading Strong Ground was, it was a treat for me. And I think, I don't know if you remember this, but I think the first time we met, it must have been 2014, I want to say, we were, we were speaking at the same event and you were in a green room. And I walked in, I was like, I don't

• 35:38Adam Grant?

  belong here. I had massive imposter syndrome. Like, I, I should not be talking to Brene Brown. She's too big of a deal.

• 35:45Brené Brown?

  What?

• 35:47Adam Grant?

  And I remember, I remember being so uncomfortable and then thinking, but she's all about courage. So I need to have this conversation. And if that version of me had known that we were going to have a conversation like the series that we've just done, I think I would have been speechless. But you are, you are amazing and making me feel like I do belong. And I appreciate that. More importantly, I think there, there is so much insight in this book. I think, I think it's a book that people need to reread because.

• 36:25Adam Grant?

  I think on a first read, there are so many rich ideas in it that prioritization could be a challenge.

• 36:32Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 36:32Adam Grant?

  And I've started, I've already started to use it as a bit of a reference and say, okay, I need to go back to the empathy misses and look at those because I'm really failing on two of these. I need to revisit the, the, the chapter on paradox because I'm fighting against two things that actually have to be handled in tension. And so I think Strong Ground is a book that, that people are going to rely on over and over again.

• 36:57Brené Brown?

  I really appreciate it and thank you for being a part of the book. Thank you for being a part of the conversation and thanks for hanging with me as I struggle through real time learnings in our conversations. Like I, I'm already thinking like, if I could suck back all the copies of Strong Ground, I'd like to add like four paragraphs, uh, which is not something the book needs. It's already, it's hefty enough.

• 37:20Adam Grant?

  Save it for the next book.

• 37:21Brené Brown?

  Save it for the next book or we'll save, maybe, maybe we'll, maybe we'll do some podcasts in the future because this is too fun for me.

• 37:27Adam Grant?

  I, I always look forward to a conversation with you and I, I think in the spirit of paradox, the sequel to Strong Ground should be called Weak Sky.

• 37:39Adam Grant?

  Don't ever write that book.

• 37:41Brené Brown?

  By Adam Grant.

• 37:43Brené Brown?

  Thanks for every-

• 37:44Adam Grant?

  I hope no one writes that book.

• 37:45Brené Brown?

  No, I hope no one, I, me too, but I do.

• 37:49Brené Brown?

  I guess one way I didn't, one way I didn't think Strong, Strong Ground would show up for me is I hope it is foundational for people in terms of changing their minds. Like I've already changed my mind about some things that I wrote and not that the conclusion is different, but there's a lot of nuance under some of these things that we got, we got underneath in these conversations that I think will make me a better leader and a better person. So I'm grateful for that.

• 38:18Adam Grant?

  Well, I'm, I'm always excited to, to be part of rethinking as it happens in real time. And I think I'm, I'm just excited to see all the impact the book is going to have on people, both in their professional lives and in their personal lives.

• 38:33Brené Brown?

  Well, thank you. Adam Grant, folks, thank you so much.

• 38:40Adam Grant?

  We hope you're enjoying these conversations while we're on our summer hiatus. Again, just a reminder, we'll be back with brand new episodes of The Curiosity Shop on July 30th. Thank you for listening.

• 38:50Brené 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.

• 39:00Adam Grant?

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

• 39:07Speaker 03

  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.

• 39:37Speaker 06

  Afternoon glare totally ruined my watch party for the big game. That's when my buddy recommended Blinds.com.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  With custom window treatments made to fit your style, space, and budget, customers who shop at Blinds.com experienced overwhelming satisfaction. Side effects may include a fuller, deeper night's sleep and a sudden urge to host the watch party again. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Shop Black Friday all month long at Blinds.com.

• 40:04Speaker 05

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