Brené Brown: Daring Greatly (2012) 📙

Meine Notizen

Rehumanizing work

• „If we want to reignite innovation and passion, we have to rehumanize work. When shame becomes a management style, engagement dies.“ (S. 15)

What we know vs. who we are

• „What we know matters, but who we are matters more. Being rather than knowing requires showing up and letting ourselves be seen. It requires us to dare greatly, to be vulnerable.“ (S. 16)

An ordinary life is a meaningless life?

• „I see the cultural messaging everywhere that says that an ordinary life is a meaningless life.“ (S. 23)
• „I know the yearning to believe that what I’m doing matters and how easy it is to confuse that with the drive to be extraordinary.“ (S. 23)

The opposite of scarcity is enough

• „The counterapproach to living in scarcity is not about abundance. In fact, I think abundance and scarcity are two sides of the same coin. […] The opposite of scarcity is enough […].“ (S. 29)

Putting our ideas out into the world

• „To put our art, our writing, or photography, our ideas out into the world with no assurance of acceptance or appreciation – that’s also vulnerability.“ (S. 34)

Our truth isn’t enough?

• „We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we’re afraid to let them see it in us. We’re afraid that our truth isn’t enough – that what we have to offer isn’t enough without the bells and whistles, without editing, and impressing.“ (S. 41)
• „Here’s the crux of the struggle: I want to experience your vulnerability but I don’t want to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is courage in you and inadequacy in me. I’m drawn to your vulnerability but repelled by mine.“ (S. 41f)
• Das stimmt! Und es ist so paradox: Das, wonach wir uns am meisten in Anderen sehnen, wollen wir selbst nicht geben.

What’s worth doing even if I fail?

• „Then, seconds before I was introduced, I thought about a paperweight on my desk that reads, „What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?“ I pushed that question out of my head to make room for a new question. As I walked up the stage, I literally whispered aloud, „What’s worth doing even if I fail?“ “ (S. 42)
• „The willingness to show up changes us. It makes us braver every time.“ (S. 42)

Life is asking me

• „[…] vulnerability is life’s great dare. It’s life asking, „Are you all in? Can you value your own vulnerability as much as you value it in others?“ “ (S. 43)

We can’t do it on our own

• „We simply can’t learn to be more vulnerable and courageous on our own. Sometimes our first and greatest dare is asking for support.“ (S. 56)

Sharing something that you’ve created

• „Sharing something that you’ve created is a vulnerable but essential part of engaged and Wholehearted living. It’s the epitome of daring greatly.“ (S. 63)

Your self-worth is not on the table

• „With an awareness of shame and strong shame resilience skills, this scenario is completely different. You still want folks to like, respect, and even admire what you’ve created, but your self-worth is not on the table.“ (S. 64)
• „Yes, it will be disappointing and difficult if your friends and colleagues don’t share your enthusiasm, or if things don’t go well, but this effort is about what you do, not who you are. Regardless of the outcome, you’ve already dared greatly, and that’s totally aligned with your values; with who you want to be.“ (S. 64)

Meine Hypothese: Ist Scham der Auslöser für ES?

• Andere beschreiben Scham so: „When I feel shame, I’m like a crazy person. I do stuff and say stuff I would normally never do or say.“ (S. 76)
• Oder: „Sometimes I just wish I could make other people feel as bad as I do. I just want to lash out and scream at everyone.“ (S. 77)
• Oder: „When I feel ashamed, I check out mentally and emotionally. Even with my family.“ (S. 77)

You’re not alone

• „[…] that incredibly healing message of „You’re not alone.“ “ (S. 81)

Men and shame

• „Here’s the painful pattern that emerged from my research with men: We ask them to be vulnerable, to let us in, and we plead with them to tell us when they’re afraid, but the truth is that most women can’t stomach it. In those moments when real vulnerability happens in men, most of us recoil with fear and that fear manifests as everything from disappointment to disgust. And men are very smart. They know the risks, and they see the look in our eyes when we’re thinking, C’mon! Pull it together. Man up.“ (S. 95)

Shaming someone we love

• „And shaming someone we love around vulnerability is the most serious of all security breaches. Even if we apologize, we’ve done serious damage because we’ve demonstrated our willingness to use sacred information as a weapon.“ (S. 105)

Showing up is enough

• „Showing up, taking risks, and letting myself be seen is enough.“ (S. 116)

Desaster planning

• „I had considered my constant disaster planning as my little secret. I was convinced that I was the only one who stood over my children while they slept and, in the split second that I became engulfed with love and adoration, pictured something really terrible happening to them. I was sure that no one but me pictured car wrecks and rehearsed the horrific phone conversations with the police that all of us dread.“ (S. 120)
• „If, like me, you’ve ever stood over your children and thought to yourself, I love you so much I can barely breathe, and in that exact moment have been flooded with images of something terrible happening to your child, know that you’re not crazy nor are you alone. About eighty percent of the parents I’ve interviewed acknowledged having that experience.“ (S. 121)
• „We don’t want to be blindsided by hurt. We don’t want to be caught off-guard, so we literally practice being devastated or never move from self-elected disappointment.“ (S. 121)

About joy

• „Joy comes to us in moments – ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.“ (S. 125)

Don’t apologize for what you have.

• „Don’t apologize for what you have. Be grateful for it and share your gratitude with others. Are your parents healthy? Be thrilled. Let them know how much they mean to you.“ (S. 125)

Perfectionism

• „Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving for excellence.“ (S. 128)
• „Perfectionism is a defensive move. It’s the belief that if we do things perfectly and look perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame.“ (S. 129)
• „Perfectionism is not self-improvement. Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval.“ (S. 129)
• „Healthy striving is self-focused: How can I improve? Perfectionisms is other-focused: What will they think?“ (S. 129)
• vgl. Seth Godin: Perfectionism is hiding.

Criticism and cruelty

• „If we are the kind of people who „don’t do vulnerability“, there’s nothing that makes us feel more threatened and more incited to attack and shame people than to see someone daring greatly. Someone else’s daring provides an uncomfortable mirror that reflects back our own fears about showing up, creating, and letting ourselves be seen. That’s why we come out swinging. When we see cruelty, vulnerability is likely to be the driver.“ (S. 167) 

Shame is effective

• „We learn shame in our families of origin, and many people grow up believing that it’s an effective and efficient way to manage people, run a classroom, and parent. For that reason, shaming someone who’s using shame is not so helpful.“ (S. 191)

Shame in a system

• „Shame can only rise so far in any system before people disengage to protect themselves. When we’re disengaged, we don’t show up, we don’t contribute, and we stop caring. On the far end of the spectrum, disengagement allows people to rationalize all kinds of unethical behavior including lying, stealing, and cheating.“ (S. 192)

Blame

• „There’s nothing productive about blame, and it often involves shaming someone or just being mean.“ (S. 195)

Normalizing discomfort

• „normalizing discomfort“ (S. 198) im UPG = Willkommen im Club! Es ist ganz normal, dass Sie sich Sorgen machen. Ich bin seit 6 Jahren selbständig, und ich sagen Ihnen: Das bleibt.
• „The simple and honest process of letting people know that discomfort is normal, it’t going to happen, why it happens, and why it’s important, reduces anxiety, fear, and shame.“ (S. 199)

Learning is uncomfortable

• „If your’re comfortable, I’m not teaching and you’re not learning. It’s going to get uncomfortable in here and that’s okay. It’s normal and it’s part of the process.“ (S. 199)
  • Eine Beratung, die nicht auch stellenweise „uncomfortable“ ist, ist verschwendete Zeit, weil nicht gelernt wurde!?
  • Nobody said it was easy…

Victory is not getting good feedback

• „We should remember, though, that victory is not getting good feedback, avoiding giving difficult feedback, or avoiding the need for feedback. Instead it’s taking off the armor, showing up, and engaging.“ (S. 206)

The vulnerability of not knowing

• „[…] the unwillingness to engage with the vulnerability of not knowing often leads to making excuses, dodging the question, or – worst-case scenario – bullshitting. That’s the deathblow in any relationship […].“ (S. 207)
• „After my talk, one of the mentors came up to me and said, „I’ve been in sales my entire career, and let me tell you, there’s nothing more important than having the courage to say, ‚I don’t know‘ and ‚I messed up‘ – being honest and open is key to success in every part of our lives.“ „(S. 207)

Gay Gaddis: Entrepreneurship is vulnerable

• „When you shut down vulnerability, you shut down opportunity.“ (S. 208)
• „By definition, entrepreneurship is vulnerable. It’s all about the ability to handle and manage uncertainty. […] You have to create  a vision and live up to that vision. There is no vision without vulnerability.“ (S. 208)

A terrible myth

• „It’s a terrible myth to believe that once we have children, our journey ends and theirs begins. For many of us, the most interesting and productive times in our lives come after we have children.“ (S. 220)

Guilt vs. shame

• „As it turns out, there’s a significant difference between you are bad and you did something bad. And, no, it’s not just semantics. Shame corrodes the part of us that believes we can do and be better.“ (S. 224)
• „But it also means explaining these concepts to our kids. Children are very receptive to talking about shame if we’re willing to do it. By the time they’re four and five, we can explain to them the difference between guilt and shame, and how much we love them even when they make bad choices.“ (S. 225)

Parenting values debate

• „You can’t claim to care about the welfare of children if you’re shaming other parents for the choices they’re making.“ (S. 229f)
• „When we feel good about the choices we’re making and when we’re engaging with the world from a place of worthiness rather than scarcity, we feel no need to judge and attack.“ (S. 230)

Fitting in vs. belonging

• „[…] one of the best ways to show our children our love for them is to make sure they know they belong in our families.“ (S. 231)
• „One of the biggest surprises in this research was learning that fitting in and belonging are not the same thing. In fact, fitting in is one of the greatest barriers to belonging. Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be in order to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.“ (S. 231f)
• „I get to be me if I belong. I have to be like you to fit in.“ (S. 232)

Engagement

• „Engagement means investing time and energy. It means sitting down with our children and understanding their worlds, their interests, and their stories. Engaged parents can be found on both ends of all of the controversial parenting debates.“ (S. 237)
• „There is no question that engagement requires sacrifice, but that’s what we signed up for when we decided to become parents. Most of us have so many competing demands on our time that it’s easy to think, I can’t sacrifice three hours to sit down and review my son’s Facebook page or sit with my daughter while she explains every detail of the fourth grade science fair scandal. I struggle with that too.“ (S. 237f)
• „I Wholeheartedly believe that when we are fully engaged in parenting, regardless of how imperfect, vulnerable, and messy it is, we are creating something sacred.“ (S. 238)

Letting our children be disappointed

• „[…] children are not learning how to handle adversity or disappointment because we’re always rescuing and protecting them.“ (S. 238)
• „It’s not that our children can’t stand the vulnerability of handling their own situations, it’s that we can’t stand the uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure, even when we know it’s the right thing to do.“ (S. 238)
• „Hope is a function of struggle. If we want our children to develop high levels of hopefulness, we have to let them struggle.“ (S. 239)

Daring greatly

• „Daring greatly is not about winning or losing. It’s about courage.“ (S. 248)

The risk of feeling hurt

• „And, without question, putting ourselves out there means there’s a far greater risk of feeling hurt. But as I look back on my own life and what Daring Greatly has meant to me, I can honestly say that nothing is as uncomfortable, dangerous, and hurtful as believing that I’m standing on the outside of my life looking in and wondering what it would be like if I had the courage to show up and let myself be seen.“ (S. 249)

Siehe auch: Brené Browns The Daring Greatly Leadership Manifesto