Why VULNERABILITY is the Key to COURAGE: Embracing DISCOMFORT & Speaking Out | Brené Brown EP 619

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11Most men that I know, played sports with, would never watch The Power of Vulnerability, TED Talk. Or they would never read books from you or Oprah that I'm aware of. Because they would talk bad about female leaders trying to talk about vulnerability. They would say, that's soft, that's weak. I don't watch that stuff, I don't read that stuff. When really that's the stuff we need the most, in my opinion. And I think it's changing. I think I told you earlier that I think 50 % of the readers of Daring Greatly are men. And the vast majority of leaders who bring me into organizations are men. And I'll tell you why.

0:44I can flip it for you on a dime. So it used to take me when men would say, this is how the call would go. Hey, we'd love for you to come in and work with our leadership team. We saw your TED Talk. We thought it was great. Are you available? And I'd say, sure. What do you want me to talk about? And they'd say, anything but vulnerability and shame. and I would say, so what do you want me to talk about if I don't talk about vulnerability? And they'd say courage. And then I would say, okay. Then I would try to spend like a half an hour explaining the relationship between vulnerability and courage.

1:13Yeah. Because all men want to be brave. Isn't vulnerability courage? Vulnerability is courage. So I only have to ask - Isn't vulnerability power? Yes. I have to ask one question to flip the whole thing. It's this. Vulnerability is defined as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. Can you name one act of courage that you've ever been involved in or that you've ever even witnessed that did not involve uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure? And it's a loaded question because I know the answer is no. I've stood in front of Navy SEALs and Special Forces military personnel and said, give me an example.

1:49I want you to try hard to give me an example of courage that didn't require vulnerability. and in 10 years, I've never had a single person be able to come up. I've even had two guys come up to me who were in the military that said, we're going to think about it and get with you. And I said, oh my God, I said, do it. I would love it. Give me an example of courage, even on the field that doesn't involve vulnerability. If you think you're being brave and it doesn't involve risk or uncertainty, you're not being that brave. If you know how it's going to turn out, it's not courage. And so in that moment, people go, oh, but I want to be brave and I don't want to be vulnerable.

2:27And I'm like, therein lies the great dilemma of our time. Yeah. No one wants to be uncomfortable. No one wants to be vulnerable and everyone wants to be brave. And it just doesn't work like that. Right. And anytime we try something new, we've got to, we've got to be uncomfortable. Yeah. It's vulnerable. I mean, when I ask people, what is vulnerability? People would say, initiating sex with my wife, sending my child out the door who thinks he's going to make the first chair in orchestra and knowing he's probably not going to make the orchestra at all. Getting fired, starting my own business, saying I love you first in a relationship, trying to get pregnant after my first miscarriage.

3:03I mean, like vulnerability is, it's uncertainty. It's not knowing, but doing it anyway, because it's the brave thing to do. The problem is, I think that the greatest shame trigger for men is do not be perceived as weak. And in our culture, we believe that vulnerability is weakness. So you don't have to skip too many steps before you go, hey, it's shaming to be vulnerable. Men do two things in the face of shame, pissed off or shut down. Put on a mask. Put on a mask. Yeah. What we're learning and what people are starting to see very quickly is you cannot be a courageous leader if you're not vulnerable.

3:48If you're not willing to have hard, uncomfortable conversations, give hard feedback, receive hard feedback. Excavate issues like Charlottesville that no one wants to talk about. Discomfort is the great enemy of courage. My motto is choose courage over comfort because you can't have both. And if you think you're being brave and you're super comfortable, you're not being that brave. Is there an area of your life right now where you don't feel you're courageous enough? or something you've been wanting to say to people that you haven't said fully or holding back on? I think the Charlottesville Facebook Live today was hard.

4:22Was it? Yeah. Oh, yes. My voice was shaking. I was shaking. In fact, we got here today and we knew we were going to film us together, but we were going to film some other stuff first. I said, I just need to do the Facebook Live because I don't want to lose my courage. And I think that's hard because when you talk about race and privilege and power, first of all, I'm going to get like, you know, death threats and people are going to say, you know, all that stuff. You're wrong either way. You're wrong either way. Right. But the, the ability that I have to opt out of speaking out about it because it doesn't supposedly affect me is the definition of privilege.

4:58So I don't believe we can opt out of it. And I know that I'm white, upper middle class, really educated, Judeo-Christian straight. I know that I've got blinders on that no matter how hard I work, I will say something that is not right. And people will come back and they will fire off against me around it. And it will hurt, but I'd rather take the chance and it hurting and learning. But it's scary to talk about this stuff today. Do you think? It's really hard. And I try to come from a place of like super authentic and loving of all humanity all the time. I was raised by, you know, I had two great parents, but my mom and two older sisters were really the ones who came back to me after they would go on a date with a guy.

5:45They'd be like, Lewis, never do this on a date. You know, always treat women this way. So I've always tried my best. Yeah. You know, I'm imperfect in so many ways and constantly make mistakes with people. Yeah, me too. But most of my team, I was telling you before, most of my team is women. I think 80 % of my team is women. And they get paid more than the men on my team, not because they're women, but because they produce better results. and my business is based on results. I've got people of different ethnicities. I've got people of different sexual orientations. And I had someone tell me last week, they said, you know, white male privilege is a thing and I think you need to incorporate more values into your organization so that you're not living from this white male privilege place.

6:27And I was thinking, I was hurt by this because I get it, I'm white. There's nothing I can do based on the way I was born. There's nothing I can do. I can't change the way I was born, but I can choose to determine how I want to live, how I want to show up on the way. So I'm constantly trying to be mindful of speaking out more. Because I think that's what a lot of my friends are saying about Charlottesville. If white men aren't opening up and talking about this more, it's not going to come across to the people that are, I guess, marching with torches, which blows my mind that this is happening still.

6:59I think we need to do a lot more listening and hear from the people who have been affected by this the longest. I think we do need to speak out. I think white silence around these issues is death. I don't think we can come in and save the day. I think we need to come in with humility and curiosity and say, this is what I think and I want to learn. And if I make mistakes, let me know and I'll try to make them better. And I think we need to take responsibility. It's easier sometimes for me in my life to just keep asking questions, just keep reading, just keep talking about it. And when I am so uncomfortable that I don't want to do it anymore, just to keep doing it.

7:43Because to remember that my discomfort is, you know, that's my privilege.

7:53Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

8:48Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.