Why Pretending You're Not Vulnerable Makes You WEAK | Brené Brown

0:00I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. and if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you wanna make it easier, you wanna make it flow, you wanna feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is gonna help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to this episode of The Daily Motivation Show.

0:38Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to The Daily Motivation Show.

0:49One of the cheapest, easiest ways to lead is to give people someone to hate and blame for your misery. And so we have to really watch that in our country right now. So all you have to do when people are in uncertainty and fear is give them someone to blame and give them a reason to blame them and then step back and watch everything just fall apart. And so I think that's happening right now in our country. And so we have to push away the rhetoric. We have to own our pain. And let me tell you, it's not like you tell that story about the football field and it's so prophetic because every crisis we're up against right now, almost without exception, is about our inability, our unwillingness to deal with pain.

1:48If you look at the opioid addiction right now, somewhere, beginning with physicians, sent the message, there's no reason for you to hurt at all. Here's a pain reliever. Here's a pain reliever. And things are not going well in your life. Well, here's a way to discharge hate and pain that'll make you feel better. By drinking or by drinking or sex or drug, whatever. Medicated, addicted, in debt, and obese Americans in history. Like our tolerance for discomfort is zero. Soft. Yeah. Yeah. So here's the irony. Soft. So our tolerance. What we're taught in football. Don't be soft. Don't be soft. So it's actually our inability to be vulnerable that makes us weak.

2:36Yeah, I agree. One of the things I talk about and try to express as many people as possible is to actually put yourself through pain and discomfort every single day. I try to do this physically through working out to try to push myself farther than I want to where I'm like emotionally want to cry. Yeah. Because I just know by conditioning myself to feel pain every single day that when a lot of stuff comes my way, I'm capable of taking it on and processing the emotions as opposed to being like, I just need a drink. I need this. I need that. I've never been drunk in my life, so I don't even know what that feels like.

3:09But it's hard, especially as for myself, I'll speak for myself as a man. It's hard growing up, learning how to deal with those type of emotions. It's really challenging. There's no class in school that says, okay, when you're feeling this way, Louis, here's how you're supposed to act. It's vulnerability. Yeah. Here's how you're supposed to act. Here's the step-by-step process. There's no process that we're taught unless it's our parents or we seek it out. and it's not modeled because i think parents fear kind of soft boys turning into soft men who you know i remember interviewing this guy who was in his 70s and i said what is shame to you and he's like shame is being the kid you can shove up against the lockers yeah yeah shame is being the kid that you shove up yeah being the kid that you can shove up against the lockers yeah yeah you know and it's like but really

4:08we've got to shift it and we've got to shift it i think it starts parenting school athletics is huge huge i mean it's a really i mean let me let me let me do this you're okay let's do the sports thing let's do it okay ready okay two football teams you're gonna place a bet both of them have hurt quarterbacks both of them are playing well both of them have hurt quarterbacks this team over here recognizes its vulnerability and it's going to put in a second stream quarterback this team ignores its vulnerability and pretends like it doesn't exist who are you betting on? depends on the injury oh Jesus hey because I played hurt my whole life you know so it depends I would say that most of us would say you are less likely to win if you do not acknowledge your vulnerabilities as.

4:59So even if you play your quarterback, you've got to make sure your line is ready. Exactly. And you've got to switch the plays up. If it's always hurt, you're going to pass it off. You're going to pass it off. Yeah, exactly. Give them more time in the hole, whatever you're going to do. The team that acknowledges their vulnerabilities is going to be more successful. And is adaptable to change is going to be more successful. Right. Yes. Right. So why do we think, as men, to pretend like you're not vulnerable? makes you the most vulnerable, makes you the most susceptible. I mean, we just have data.

5:31I mean, just like I could fill this whole room with data about you don't get to opt out. Let me ask you this. Do you know a guy in the world? You know a lot of guys, right? Who can say I've existed at this point in my life without being uncertain, at risk, or emotionally exposed. No. Right. You can't not do vulnerability. but you can pretend like you don't, then you're not making choices over the behaviors you engage in when you're vulnerable. Then you don't know when you're vulnerable and then you're acting nutty. And I think you pay major prices when you don't, when you aren't aware or when you're not acting like you're aware.

6:10Yeah. You just act like everything's fine or you don't need help. You don't need support. You don't need to address a situation or grieve or whatever it is. That's when you get hurt the most. It's when you get hurt the most. And you suffer the most. And I think that's when the most anger, frustration, rage, and I guess divergent happens. It all comes back to identity and belonging. Belonging, yeah.

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7:29Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.