This document discusses leadership and vulnerability. It summarizes a talk given by Brene Brown and Bailey Heckel on increasing one's leadership quotient through vulnerability. The key messages are that vulnerability is a sign of courage, not weakness; being vulnerable in the workplace can either help or hinder depending on the situation; and that learning from failures through reflection helps build resilience.
20. • Masters Social Work
• Research Professor in shame
and vulnerability
• Author of 3 #1 best sellers
• 2010 TEDx Power of
Vulnerability top 5 most
viewed talks
Brene Brown
21. • Former VP Operations
Lululemon (2016)
• VP Brand Operations
Coldwater Creek
• Lives in Hayden Lake, Idaho
• Aspiring speaker
Bailey Heckel
33. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man
stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit
belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again
and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who
does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great
devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the
end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least
fails while daring greatly.
- Theodore Roosevelt
34.
35. If you are not in the
arena getting your ass
kicked – then I’m not
interested in your
feedback!
41. Ashley Good, CEO Fail
Forward
Failure Happens.
• We help your organization
learn, innovate and build
resilience.
• Failure report cards
• Conference on intelligent
failure
IQ – competence — aptitude, knowledge, capacity, dexterity, judgement, problem-solving. Becoming smart about the things that matter.EQ – character — work ethic, honesty, fairness, balance, humility, lifelong learning, empathy, passion, compassion. Becoming a better person on the qualities that count.XQ – execution — visioning, communicating, coaching, motivating, influencing, negotiating, selecting, de-selecting, prioritizing, executing.
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Research professor studies vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame.
Author three #1 New York Times Bestsellers: Rising Strong, Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection.
Founder and CEO of The Daring Way and COURAGEworks – an online learning community
Brené’s 2010 TEDx Houston talk, The Power of Vulnerability, is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world, with over 25 million viewers.
Bailey story
Bailey is about consciousness in commerce – so believes what Brene has to say HAS TO show up in the workplace.
Her vision is to see companies being more ‘heart centred’ and talking more about courage, compassion, vulnerability, relationships.
As a professional her mission is to show up and talk and share her truth which ideally will inspire others to do same.
Rising Strong builds on the themes in Brene’s other books which are all important:
Power of vulnerability lays the ground work
Gifts of imperfection message is “be you”
Daring greatly is about “being all in”
All her books are based on her work in these key areas:
She defines Vulnerability as follows:
“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.”
Being open. Stepping out. We might get judged, criticized. We might fail.
Yet we are brought up to believe vulnerability is weakness?
Are you crying? There’s no crying in baseball! There’s no crying at work.
We have to suck up those emotions and carry on. Vulnerability free zone.
Yet vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change. Nothing more vulnerable than being a pioneer, creating something that doesn’t exist or adapting to change.
Ask: When you see someone stepping out there taking a big risk and being vulnerable – how many of you think that is courageous?
Brene also talks a lot about shame and here’s how she defines it.
Stories we tell ourselves
Comparing ourselves against others and feeling – we can never measure up
Feeling unworthy of love, belonging, success
She talks about the courage, compassion and connection to wake up in the morning and think
It’s going to bed at night thinking, ‘Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”
The thread through these themes and all Brene’s books is pursuit of wholehearted living.
“Engaging with all aspects of our lives from a strong sense of love, connection, compassion, generosity and worthiness. People who do this are whole-hearted people.
Emphasize all aspects – work & life. How we relate to each other.
Can you imagine if we all lived our lives this way – how much it would change our relationships? How much it could revolutionalize the world?
Bailey – Example
What was it you did that felt so vulnerable and why did you define it that way. What happened?
7 minutes – few examples:
Inside out: Feelings - Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness. (from the movie Insideout – they lived in Riley’s head.
Rising Strong is a book that explores emotions/feelings/the stories we tell ourselves. Struggled with relevant in business world? Is it too touchy feely? Will this be like a group therapy session?
I’m the logical one
We can’t compartmentalize life/work – because we bring our whole selves to work. We are emotional beings and we interact with other emotional humans – we laugh, collaborate, react, argue, judge.
Dis-service if we think emotions don’t belong in the workplace or if this only applies to women.
This is not your typical business book but it has huge implications in the workplace on how we all show up and work together. Implications for how we lead, create and innovate.
Asking you to be badasses and wade into this with us.
Now covered foundation for book – let’s look at Rising Strong
Simply it’s about – Be brave. Fall. Get up. Try Again.
Slows down the falling and rising process. Dissects what happens in between. How we deal with hurt and disappointment. The choices we have and make and their consequences.
What do we learn when we fall.
It gives insights into how a fall can profoundly change us.
It asks what do the women and men who have successfully staggered to their feet and found courage to try again have in common?
Brene uses the metaphor of the arena in Daring greatly and rising strong.
The arena is where you show up. Where you live your life. Where you are seen. It’s putting yourself out there. As a parent. As a professional.
Two kids: Comedian. Writer. Stepped into the arena.
Her inspiration was a quote from Theodore Roosevelt which I’m going to show and read to you – pivotal.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
This is the tunnel area – where you are before you enter the arena.
The dreaming the planning about stepping out into the arena.
Comfortable. Dark. No risk if you stay here.
Won’t get judged/criticized/won’t be wrong/laughed out.
We give too much power to those who sit in the cheap seats, criticizing, judging. Love how Brene puts it…
To show up is to be brave
To be vulnerable is our greatest measure of courage
By staying in the tunnel, staying comfortable we reduce risk but we keep our lives small.
You can choose comfort or courage – but you can’t have both at the same time.
What would change? What would be different?
Our facedown moments come in all varieties – getting fired, passed over for the promotion, letting down your partner, blowing a big opportunity, bad judgement call ….. Fill in the blanks
There’s no innovation learning or creativity without failure.
But failure is painful.
“In those moments when disappointment is washing over us and we’re desperately trying to get our heads and hearts around what is or is not going to be, the death of our expectations can be painful beyond measure.”
We need to embrace the difficult emotion of falling.
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Failure – a big word. But a huge opportunity.
In the book Brene talked about Ashley Good shows us how to embrace failure.
She was working in Ghana with Engineers without Borders Canada. Attempted.
Frustrated with the missed learning opportunities she published a collection of failures and published them in a glossy report.
Solving the worlds biggest problems requires innovation and learning – so she chose achieving the mission over looking good.
She started Fail Forward is social enterprise with the mission to help organizations develop cultures that encourage the risk taking, creativity and continuous adaptation required for innovation.
Brene Brown says we are wired for stories…. So a fall and a rise is your typical hero’s journey story
We want to deal with the fall and the triumphant rise. We’re impatient to get to the redemptive end. But by doing that we don’t talk about the failure so we miss opportunities to learn.
When we trip in public – we jump up again brush it off continue on.
Never mind if knee is skinned/we ignore it. I’m okay
The reckoning
The rumble
The revolution
In the rising strong process.
Brene Brown talks about this realization – her org runs a three day course on daring greatly. The second day drags. Get’s hard. Not comfortable. It sucks and no matter how they look at changing in the content in day two is essential for it all to hang together.
Day two is the middle
The middle is where you work through the process – you can’t go back to where you were but you need to go through to get to the end and rise.
It’s scary in the middle
This is where the Rising Strong process it is and it has 3 parts.
Brene says.
You may not have signed up for the hero’s journey but the second you fell down and got your butt kicked, screwed up, suffered a disappointment or felt your heart break – it started.
Hurt happens to everyone.
The reckoning is where we walk into our stories.
And why do we want to do that?
This is abut owning your truth.
When we deny our stories or disengage from tough emotions they don’t go away – instead they own us, they define us.
Brene says our wholeheartedness depends on the integration of all our experiences.
To deny the falls, failures, setbacks – means missing opportunities to learn from them and integrate them into our lives.
Biggest lessons are in our falls.
The Reckoning asks us to recognize our emotions. What are we feeling
I want to hide… punch a wall…. Eat ice-cream….
I feel….. Name emotion
My stomach is in knots
Recognizing emotion means developing awareness about how our thinking/feeling (including physiology) and behaviour are all connected.
Second – the reckoning asks us to get curious about those emotions?
So why do I want to punch a wall?
Ice cream won’t solve anything – what’s going on?
What’s going on with my stomach?
We tend to steamroll over emotions – I hate my boss and my company. Or deny or disengage.
Fear holds us back …. But when we feel and get curious about our emotions we can learn/build strength
So don’t talk about the event details – just the reaction and why you reacted that way.
What were you feeling?
How were you behaving?
Insights?
.
Reckoning is how we walk into our story; the rumble is where we own it.
The goal of the rumble is to get honest about stories we’re making up about our struggles, then challenge these assumptions to determine
what’s truth
what’s self protection
what needs to change
This is where wholeheartedness is cultivated and change begins
Many communicators in the room we know this – that’s why communicating is so important.
This is how we are wired – it is part of our most primitive survival wiring.
We come up with stories that make sense, feels familiar and offers us insights into how best to self-protect.
But what the rumble is doing is us choosing to feel uncertain and vulnerable as we rumble with the truth – it’s a brave choice.
We make up stories in our head…and run with them.
My boss example.
Brene Brown and her leadership team use this as a basis of communication
Example: Noticed person in her group was becoming quiet – when asked why person said “I keep asking tough questions about these ideas and I’m starting to make up that I’m being perceived as not excited or not a team player”.
Talk about honest. But it isn’t accusing either. Just asks people to clarify the story.
In the rumble you face a lot of emotions and scenarios…. It’s where the insights come and the true story emerges.
What if they were doing the best they can?
Revolutionary change fundamentally transforms our thoughts and beliefs.
It’s where we own our story and own the truth.
Allows us to write a new, more courageous ending transforms who we are and how we engage with the world.
Those who rise strong integrate the key learnings that emerge from the process into their lives.