Brené and Adam Grant on the Paradox Tug of War and Leadership Theater

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0:58Brené Brown:Hi, everyone. I'm Brené Brown, and this is Dare to Lead. I am back for my second episode with the one and only Adam Grant. And we are digging into Strong Ground, my new book on leadership. And I'm excited to be here. And I'm always nervous to see what Adam's going to ask me today. How are you, Adam? Nervous. Yeah, I get kind of nervous. Nervous? Well, I dared to read. So I have so many new questions for you. I loved our conversation about values. I had no idea we were going to go there. I've been thinking about it. And I don't think we should underestimate the helpfulness of the near enemy, far enemy Buddhist concept when we think about our values.

1:47Brené Brown:So like, what are the values that we really hold the most dearest. We're always clear on the opposite of those, the far enemy of those values that we hold most dear. But the one, those near enemies, the ones that dress up and masquerade as the value, but also at the same time protect our ego and our kind of armor, those are the ones I think to really watch. I was just thinking about this. So if we take the value of generosity, Is it fair to say that the far enemy is selfishness or greed, but the near enemy is actually self-sacrifice? Oh my God. I'm disoriented. It's so weird that you said that because I had a word that came up when you were saying it, but I was like, I could never say that.

2:43But the word that came up for me was martyrdom. Same thing? Same thing. Except yours adds, the martyrdom adds an element of needing the recognition for having suffered for someone else's benefit, which is maybe even worse.

3:04Brené Brown:I'm like, I'm in a swirl of words, which is where you and I always end up. We always end up in this weird swirl of like, what do things, you know, what do constructs really mean? So the value or the virtue would be generosity. The far enemy would be selfishness. And the near enemy would be kind of a self-sacrificing martyrdom. What I would be looking for in this equation, see if this checks out for you, is generosity just kind of like pulling way back to basic research. a capacity for generosity, I think, would be measured by someone's ability to be other-focused. Selfishness is completely self-focused.

4:01So using the words other-focused and self-focused, what would the near enemy be? To me, it's some kind of like, is some kind of fake other focus that's really, like, I can even see control going there. Is it Anne Lamott who says that help is the sunny side of control? Yes, one of my favorite quotes of all time.

4:31Brené Brown:Help is the sunny side of control. Yeah, that's what I think that's, I mean, I literally have that on a post-it note in my study at home. Because I can find myself doing that under the guise of generosity. and it's really, let me, let me help you with this. Let me help you with this because I want to control the outcome because it'll be better for me if the outcome is this. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, for me, sure. I, for sure. I can do that. Oh, that's a, that's a different framing than the one I was imagining. Yeah. No, like, which is go ahead. Go ahead. Nope. I want to hear yours. No, I can just say, I'll be glad to, you know, I'll be glad to hit some serves with you.

5:15but I need you to get your, I need you to speed up your serve, dude. We're not winning in this mixed doubles.

5:19Brené Brown:You know, like, you know. Note to self, don't play doubles, Nick Bernet. Note to self if you do work on serve. But I do think there is, like, let me volunteer to help with the family dinner. Not because I want to help you, but because I want to control how it goes. you might be you might be a little uncharitable to yourself there why do you want to control how it goes you want everyone to have a good dinner experience right

5:52Brené Brown:um probably i mean no i want to i want to control who sits where so i don't have to talk to certain people so that's nice you might be being overly nice to me but no uh i think ann lamont i mean just, I think because a lot of what informs Anne's thinking is her recovery. And so I think a lot of, for me, a lot of what I have to watch out about offering to help is really wanting to control. I mean, so I think that's where I go, but I do think this near enemy

6:26concept is super helpful when we're talking about values, right? Yeah, I do too. And I think before we leave the generosity part of it behind, my framing of the near enemy of generosity being self-sacrificing martyrdom was a little different, which is, here, I'm going to go above and beyond to do this thing for you so that I can feel like a good person. So I can feel like I'm not falling short of my values, as opposed to thinking about what's actually best for you.

6:59Brené Brown:Oh, yeah. Okay. I got it. Oh, shit. Yeah, I can do that. I can do that too. It's identity validating. It's affirming as opposed to figuring out what's actually helpful here and sustainable for me to give. And it's actually not other focused. No, no, it's not. Okay. So let's, let's talk about this idea of, of paradox because, you know, as, as I think about the relationship between a value and its near enemy. All of those pairings are paradoxical. Yes, for sure. We think of generosity and self-sacrifice as being cousins, right? They're connected by a concern for others. And maybe one is a healthy expression of that and one is an unhealthy version that becomes self-focused, but they're related.

7:58And I think that I have a bunch of questions for you about paradox, but I guess the first one is, so I'm reading Strong Ground and I'm realizing there's a physical paradox in the book that you unpack so nicely, which is you have to do a bunch of work that's going to take you a step backward to strengthen your core in order to then accomplish the goals that you want. And accepting that paradox is not easy, that I have to feel weaker in order to get stronger. No, it's terrible. So talk to me about how you become okay with that as somebody who's always wanting to be moving forward.

8:45I'm not trying to avoid the answer.

8:48Brené Brown:I want your opinion on this. I'm going to answer your question with a question. I'm like looking in here, like one of my favorite, I share four of my favorite writers on Paradox. Two of them kind of more spiritual, and then two of them very business, you know, Jim Collins and James March. Like, let's just look at some of Jim Collins's paradoxes, which I think are great. So he talks, Jim talks a lot about the tyranny of the or and the genius of the and. So in Jim's work, he talks about purpose and profit, freedom and responsibility, discipline and creativity, empirical analysis and decisive action, philosophical, visionary, futuristic thinking, and superb daily execution.

9:43Brené Brown:So he talks about what leaders and teams risk if they don't get comfortable with the and and the paradox and they fall to the tyranny of the or, which reading the same things I just read to you would be purpose or profit, freedom or responsibility, discipline or creativity. One of the things I'm very curious about, and I think I maybe unknowingly wrote from this belief is... I don't think it's easy to resolve paradox if you don't understand the concept of paradox. I think if you're just faced with seemingly opposing ideas and you can't recognize the schematic of, oh, this is a paradox, and my job is to hold the tension of both until something better than either emerges.

10:42Brené Brown:that our cognitive wiring for certainty and clarity overrides our ability to hold the tension. What do you think? Yes. Yeah. I have no further thoughts, Your Honor. No, but I really... No, I think that's exactly right. I think that it's a little bit like... It's like one of the horror findings from emotion research that you write about, which is sometimes naming it is the best way to tame it. Yes. You have to be able to recognize and articulate that you're in the middle of one of these tensions in order to handle it effectively. And so often it's like you're playing a good, it's like you're in the middle of a tug of war and you don't realize that you're pulling against yourself.

11:34Brené Brown:Yes. Oh my God, that's such a good visual.

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12:45Brené Brown:I share in the chapter my own real experience of this, and I'm still struggling, struggling with it. I told my coach the other day that I wanted to change my value, that I wanted to change one of my values. And she said, you know, courage or faith. And I said, oh, maybe I'll just add a third. And she's like, I'd be very curious to hear what it's going to be before we go down that path. And I said, I want, I value as highly as I value like faith, which is very high and courage, unfindability. And she's like, what does that mean? I said, I do not want to be findable. I don't know. I don't want anyone to know where I am.

13:28Brené Brown:I don't want anyone to be able to reach me, you know? And we immediately dropped back into this work that I've been doing over the past five years, which is discipline and freedom.

13:43I want freedom. I do not want my life to be defined in 30-minute scheduling blocks. Therefore, I schedule shit. I don't schedule anything. and so my calendar looks amazing

14:04Brené Brown:but actually I have obligations I just refuse to put them on the calendar so I schedule over them I double schedule it's chaos I'm you know I cry and so until just this last year I've started to really understand the paradox that I'm in of I need more freedom and that's not going to be solved by unfindability. It's going to be solved by discipline. And I resent the fuck out of that. Why?

14:44I

14:51I'm not sure.

14:53Brené Brown:And I just, so I started scheduling like my hair appointments for six weeks out. I started scheduling all of my games, you know, my pickleball games. I started scheduling my downtime. And what it's meant is I play six days a week. I don't have to call my hair salon crying. I'm like, oh my God, please get me in. I've got to do something. And, you know, and it's been good, but I'm still wrestling with, there's got to be an easier way. Oh, okay. So the paradox in here that's jumping out for me is in order to gain freedom, you have to give up some control. In order to gain freedom.

15:39Yes. I'm not built that way. I want freedom and control and no discipline. I think you know what I think we're pushing up against too I think I've spent my whole life subscribing to the belief that the definition of freedom is no discipline

16:06you know and so now I want the freedom to enjoy the last 20 or 30 years of my life

16:13Brené Brown:in a very different way than what happened to my mom and my grandmother with dementia and frailty. And so I'm disciplined. I'm at the gym. I'm lifting weights. I'm working out. But I'm paying for my freedom with discipline. And I think there's a part of me that just... Rebels against that. Yes, that's the right word. It feels like an active rebellion. Yes.

16:43But it's like... how many of us do things to be rebellious and we're the only one hurt by them?

16:58Do you know what I mean? It reminds me of that definition of resentment,

17:01Brené Brown:that resentment is drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Oh, wow. Oh, I haven't heard that before. That's good. Yeah. So I do think the power of paradox is... just like our conversation about rigidity and discipline, I think the power of paradox is it introduces a relationship between two concepts that we didn't understand existed.

17:36Does that make sense to you? It does. I think the part that I struggle with, and this is one of the ways that Strong Ground really pushed me is I just don't want to believe that the trade-offs are inherent. Like, okay, what's the integrative solution? How do we get the best of both worlds? So let's take a practical version of this in your life. So my solution to the paradox of, you know, I want, basically, I want to control my time, but I also want to have flexibility and freedom is Paul Graham's idea of maker days versus manager days. So two days a week, I basically fail my calendar with all the things that need to be done.

18:26And then the other three days are pretty empty is the goal. It doesn't always work out that way. But that's the template that I try to work from. And so what What I feel like I'm doing is I'm trading two days of freedom for the rest of the week of freedom. But that seems to me to be discipline and freedom because Paul Graham's idea is a discipline practice. It is. You're right.

18:52Brené Brown:I mean, I'm not sure there's a productivity, and I've looked at all of them, because rather than doing, should I actually just watch YouTube videos on productivity schemes? um i mean come on if you haven't if we can't even be friends if you haven't wasted 30 minutes doing that like come on i've never watched a productivity video in my life oh god and you're so freaking productive i know it makes me crazy how productive you are sometimes um but i do think paul's idea of maker versus manage maker versus manage right yeah maker versus manager yeah um is a disciplined is a discipline. You're right.

19:34It is. It's a practice. It is a practice. And I guess what it does is it makes the paradox more tolerable, but it doesn't make it go away. No. Because you're trading.

19:47Brené Brown:When you say you're trading a couple days for more freedom, I still clearly see you in this heart of discipline versus freedom paradox. Discipline and freedom. Yeah, that's right. So you're just going to have to accept it then. I cannot. I mean, I am, you know, yeah, because it's like, I'm going to have to get underneath. I love, I'm grateful that you use the word rebellion, because I'm going to, I'm going to do some investigating in my coaching work to understand what that's about. I think I need to do that. And I think that's helpful. They'll be helpful for me. So thank you. I think the thing about strong ground that the whole concept for me is a paradox in itself that I never thought about until after I finished the book, which is strong ground offers tethering, connection, and stability, but it's also the platform for explosive movement and change.

20:55You know, on the back of the book, I think we wrote something like,

20:59Brené Brown:when people ask me how far, fast, or high do you think we can go as a team or as an organization, the first question I find myself asking now is, tell me about your relationship with the ground. Then we can talk about that. And I mean, I think that's why there's a chapter on the tush push. I think that's why I think about Simone Biles and the physics of what she can do is all about her relationship with the ground. I think about, you know, springboard diving. Like, how great could a diver be if they had no relationship with a board? It's the single hardest part of the sport. Oh my God, is it really?

21:41The flipping and twisting and the rip entries, all of that is far easier than timing and rhythm and balance on the board. So a diver's strong ground is the board. Absolutely, or the platform. Yeah, if you're on tower. But that was one of the things that jumped out at me when I was reading the book. is like, yeah, even these activities where like what we think is the defining strength is being up in the air. It's all about ground.