Brené Brown, Quotes

We are so busy that the truth about our lives can't catch up.

Vulnerability is the absolute heartbeat of innovation and creativity. There can be zero innovation without vulnerability.

Are you the adult that you want your child to grow up to be?

When we're defined by what people think we lose the courage to be vulnerable.

We're raising children who have little tolerance for disappointment

We are a culture of people who've bought into the idea that if we stay busy enough, the truth of our lives won't catch up with us.

Knowledge is only rumor until it lives in the bones.

Cool is the emotional straightjacket. It makes us less available for connection which makes us less equipped for leadership roles.

I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive.

We can only belong when we offer our most authentic selves and when we're embraced for who we are.

If you can't say it to me in front of my kids, don't say it.

I believe joy is a spiritual practice we have to work at.

I became Vulnerability TED, like an action figure - like Ninja Barbie, but I'm Vulnerability TED.

You can’t dress rehearse the bad moments.

There is no intimacy without vulnerability. Yet another powerful example of vulnerability as courage.

Hope is really a thought.

I'm an academic. I'm hardwired for a good debate.

Authenticity is also about the courage and the vulnerability to say, "Yeah, I'll try it. I feel pretty uncomfortable and I feel a little vulnerable, but I'll try it!"

I think a lot of us are looking for the same thing.

I am a storyteller and a researcher, and I'm sorry the world has a hard time straddling the tension of those two things, but that's who I am.

That's really part of being a grounded theory researcher - putting names to concepts and experiences that people have.

The opposite of "never enough" isn't abundance or "more than you could ever imagine." The opposite of scarcity is enough...

Rather than risking feeling disappointed, they’re choosing to live disappointed.

To be forgiven is to be loved

Given the dark fears we feel when we experience loss, nothing is more generous and loving than the willingness to embrace grief in order to forgive. To be forgiven is to be loved.

Women most often experience shame as a web of layered, conflicting, and competing social-community expectations. The expectations dictate who we should be, what we should be, how we should be.

Creativity is the way I share my soul with the world.

When you look away from a homeless person, you diminish their humanity and your own.

Denying emotion is not avoiding the high curbs, it's never taking your car out of the garage. It's safe in there, but you'll never go anywhere.

Compassionate people are boundaried people.

Courage originally meant "To speak one's mind by telling all one's heart.

Ordinary courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line. In today’s world, that’s pretty extraordinary.

When shame becomes a management style, engagement dies. When failure is not an option we can forget about learning, creativity, and innovation .

Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves,  even when we risk disappointing others.

Courage has a ripple effect. Every time we choose courage, we make everyone around us a little better and the world a little braver. And our world could stand to be a little kinder and braver.

You can't claim to care about the welfare of children if you're shaming other parents for the choices they're making.

Requiring accountability while also extending your compassion is not the easiest course of action, but it is the most humane, and, ultimately, the safest for the community.

You’ll also wonder how you can feel so brave and so afraid at the same time.

There is no question that engagement requires sacrifice, but that's what we signed up for when we decided to become parents.

When you shut down vulnerability, you shut down opportunity

Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare ourselves and our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.

To know shame is to be human. And to have the capacity for empathy is also to be human.

Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it- it can't survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes.

When you judge yourself for needing help, you judge those you are helping. When you attach value to giving help, you attach value to needing help.

Everyone wants to know why customer service has gone to hell in a handbasket. I want to know why customer behavior has gone to hell in a handbasket.