Why The Bravest Leaders Are Afraid All the Time | Brené Brown (E401)

0:00Parles-tu français?

0:01Brené Brown: Hablas espagnol? Parli italiano? If you've used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation-based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55 % off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com slash acast. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash acast. Rules and restrictions may apply. A password manager should be the first security purchase you make for your team.

0:43Why? Because compromised passwords are the number one way bad actors attack companies. And small businesses are their favorite targets. But unlike a lot of security challenges, passwords actually have a pretty simple solution. 1Password lets you manage all your business's credentials, so you can feel confident that your data stays secure as your company grows. Find out more at 1Password.com slash special offer and start securing every login. Shipping, billing, admin, payroll, marketing. You're managing all the things, so why waste time sending important documents the old-fashioned way? Mail and ship when you want, how you want with Stamps.com.

1:22Print postage on demand 24-7 and schedule pickups from your office or home. Save up to 90 % with automated rate shopping. That's why over 1 million small businesses trust Stamps.com. Go to Stamps.com and use code PODCAST to try Stamps.com risk-free for 60 days.

1:44thanks very much for being here can i be so bold as to start with a line of yours that i think is powerful and important for our audience which is the opposite of courage is armor and i think so many people listening to this will not even understand that maybe they're living with a suit of armor and then if they realize they are i think they may well not have the courage to be able to take that armor off. So what could we talk about now to allow people who are living behind a suit of armor to finally let go of it?

2:14Brené Brown: It's a powerful place to start because I think it's the underlying premise of all of my work. So when I first started researching courage, my hypothesis was, I call it DAW, D-A-W, dead ass wrong. My hypothesis was that fear got in the way of us being brave with our lives, with work, sport. We really, if we face too much fear, we couldn't be brave. When I started the research, what I realized is the most courageous people I interviewed, whether it was a CEO or someone behind the pitch or someone running their family, the bravest people that we talked to were afraid all the time. And in fact, one CEO told me when we were checking data, Listen, if you're going to make a list of folks that you're going to call daring leaders and you're defining that as not being afraid, don't put me on your list.

3:06Brené Brown: I'm afraid every day. And so I was like, shit, like what is – what's getting in the way? And the more we went back into the data, what we realized is to be afraid is to be human. What happens when we go into fear is that we often reach for armor to self-protect. and we can get into this in a minute, but it's interesting about how this plays into age. So for me as a leader, I have arsenals, all kinds of arsenals. I have my leadership arsenal where I keep my armor. I have my mom arsenal where I keep my armor. I've been with my husband for 40 years. I have that. But like when I'm leading and I get afraid and I reach for my armor, I micromanage.

3:54Brené Brown: My perfectionism gets ramped up. One of the things I just learned, and this is like I've been doing this work for 30 years. I just learned six weeks ago that something I thought was a strength and can be at times is also armor for me. So I am very well known amongst my team for being incredibly decisive. And I have studied decision making. I studied a lot under Bob Iger and his idea of being both thoughtful and decisive, right? So my coach and I were talking about something, and she said, I want to invite you. And, you know, as soon as you hear that, you're like, not an invitation to be self-reflective.

4:41Brené Brown: Jesus, no. So she's like, I want to invite you to consider that sometimes your decisiveness is not smart, not strategic, in a way that you're coping with anxiety. Right. And you're making very fast decisions so you can tap out of a level of uncertainty that none of us are really wired to handle, which is – I'm like, that's my line, dude. Like, that's what I tell people. so I've been thinking about it a lot especially because my team and I are running a lot of pre-mortems now so we'll sit in a room for those of you not familiar with the concept Gary Klein we'll sit in a room and we'll come up with a strategy or an idea and then a pre-mortem as opposed to like post-mortem you're dead how'd that happen a pre-mortem is it's six weeks or six months from now this has completely failed what do we think we'll be talking about And when you run a premortem, you start with very divergent thinking.

5:37Brené Brown: You'll say something wild. You'll say something wilder. And you have to have a real tolerance for divergent thinking before you get to, like, shared understanding of some of the big barriers that we should be talking about. So, armor is the barrier. We reach for it. We all have our own arsenals. I think, you know how babies have developmental milestones? I think the developmental milestone of middle age is armor. I think it's when the universe pulls you close by the shoulders, looks your dead ass in the eye, and says, you're getting close to dead. The armor's no longer serving. I think, yes, you needed this when you were young.

6:28Brené Brown: maybe even needed it in your 30s, your kind of accomplishment and acquisition period, but this is killing you now, and it's dragging you around, and it's preventing you from really growing into your gifts. I need you to take the armor off. You're a grown-ass person. You have other tools. Take the armor off. And I think this is the work we would do with leaders, and it's painful. So can I ask,

6:53Jake Humphrey: there's two things that jumps out there, Brené. One, that you have a coach. I love hearing that because I'd like to explore what your rationale was for recruiting and yeah and having a coach but secondly what was the armor then that your decisiveness

7:07Brené Brown: was was protecting my decisiveness protects my discomfort of vulnerability and uncertainty like if I just decide something I don't have to stay in the vulnerability you know vulnerability by definition is uncertainty, risk, and exposure. If I can get really decisive, shut it down, we're pulling the money from that funding, put that team on something new. I don't have to sit with the things that good leaders sit with, paradox, complexity. I don't have to sit with it. I can just decide and move on. So my overly decisiveness could be reckless. And as a founder, it's not like I report to anybody, you know?

7:53Brené Brown: And so I'm defaulting to too decisive, not thoughtful enough because the thinking is stressful. Leaders, organizational leaders, are the only high-performance people in the world, the only, where coaching is not completely expected and mandated. Imagine supporting a football team that has no coaches. I mean, like, you know, and so to me, I was just doing an interview with the Wall Street Journal with the CEO. We're in year three of a huge transformation, and they are winning. I mean, they are really winning by every performance metric. And someone said, I just don't understand how you do this.

8:37Brené Brown: One in the audience was tech leaders in the audience. And I said, one, you have a CEO who has prioritized winning over ego. They will rethink, relearn, and redo and apologize and change course in a heartbeat if it means winning. And two, her senior leadership, 200 senior leaders, have amassed over 3 ,000 hours of coaching individually. And we don't have access to the coaching conversations for confidentiality reasons. But we do have an analysis of the topics, and they are difficult feedback, managing through change, performance feedback. You know, we need help. Like if you worked for me and I had to give you some really tough feedback, you can be assured that before I sit down with you, I have role-played that with my coach.

9:33Brené Brown: And you can be assured that she has said, you're being an asshole. You're not ready. I'm like, no, I got to do this now. No, you don't. Do you need this person? Yes. Does this person contribute a lot of value? A ton. Would you want to do this without this person? No. Can you win without him? No. Then you're not ready. I have a coach. I have a therapist. Because coaching is not therapy. You know, like when it gets to family of origin stuff. And look, I've been to the UK. Y 'all have these issues too, trust me. And I have a mentor. and the mentor really will sit down with me and help me go through strategy and talk about really serious like strategy issues, revenue issues, growth issues.

10:17But my coach, when I did the research for Strong Ground,

10:22Brené Brown: for the new book, I was asking a very specific question. What is the future of leadership? Again, I don't care what you're leading because I interviewed as many coaches as I, probably more senior leaders than coaches, but a lot of coaches, a lot of athletes. What is the future and what is the skill set that we need to ready ourselves for the future of leading? And it was a big, it was like, it was the hardest chapter I've ever written in my life. It's an 80-page chapter that's broken down into little pieces. But at the very top of that, the thing that no matter what you know how to do, you will not win if you, not in this environment, not today.

11:01Brené Brown: The number one thing is self-awareness. Do you know who you are? When you walk out of a meeting or off the pitch or the oval and you say to yourself, God, I was just a total asshole. What's going on? Can you answer that?

11:20Jake Humphrey: Yeah.

11:21Brené Brown: You know?

11:22Jake Humphrey: Yeah.

11:22Brené Brown: And if you can't manage yourself, you can't manage people. And I don't know anyone who's got the skill to manage themselves without help.

11:34Jake Humphrey: So how do you recruit then? So when you're looking for a coach or a mentor or, as you say, even a therapist, what's the criteria you use to select somebody that you feel can raise your self-awareness and help you?

11:49Brené Brown: I mean, word of mouth is really important. So I usually get recommendations. So I think my mentor, my coach, and my therapist all came from word of mouth. So people I trust and people with whom I probably share values. So I'm a social scientist, so I want someone who's research-based. If you get super woo-hoo, I'm tapping out in a heartbeat. I'm like, no, we're not going to do this. If you seem grifty, like if you're trying to sell me something, I'm not going to do that. But I need someone for me who knows what they're doing, keeps up with the research and the literature, is tough and holds me accountable.

12:36Brené Brown: And my style of person probably wouldn't work for everyone. It probably makes some people squeamish, but I'm hard. I know it's hard to believe. And does this same conversation apply to people who are not leading teams in work or leading teams in sport but are leading a family at home? Yeah. I mean, yeah. Like, life is tough. And people are not okay. Period. People are not okay. Y 'all know that. In order to be as successful as you are, you've got to be tapped into the vibe in the world. People are not okay. I think they're only listening to our podcast because they're not okay. Like they're coming to look for answers for problems in their life, right?

13:16We're all selfish. Yeah.

13:18Brené Brown: Self-motivated, right? Yeah. So people are not okay. And I think this idea, I mean, I've been sober for 28 years. And one of the things that they say a lot in the program is to think the same thinking. I mean, Einstein said something similar about war and peace. But to think the same thinking that landed me here can get me out. Right. It's just not right. I need to be challenged about what's happening. I mean, I think you look at the UK. I mean, look at the UK penalty kick curse that happened for so long, right? I mean, I hate to get personal, but here we are, right? I know. He made a sad face if you're just listening.

13:57Brené Brown: Who solved that? A kicking specialist? No, Pippa Grange, a psychologist. That's who solved it. You have the best kickers. You know, some of the best kickers. Some countries would dispute. dispute, but some of the best penalty kickers in the world. But it came down to the ability to manage anxiety and reset under pressure. You look at Djokovic, you look at some of the Venus and Serena, you look at, are y 'all familiar with the book, The Inner Game? Yeah, I'm obsessed. And I I use it a lot when I work with leaders. So kind of the heart of the book for me anyway is the formula that performance equals potential minus interference.

14:46Brené Brown: So I'm a very – I'm an ex-competitive swimmer, ex-tennis player, pickleball player. And I'm super competitive.

14:57Brené Brown: And what I've realized is I can continue to skill up, which is potential. but the biggest problem I have on the court is interference. Like if you call a ball out that was clearly in, I'm going to lose. Even if I'm a point away from winning. I'm going to become so distracted by that shitty call that you made. Yeah. Or even if you're across from me and I don't like the way you're treating your partner, I won't be able to get over it. Like focus is my problem.

15:33Jake Humphrey: Okay.

15:33Brené Brown: Do you know what I mean? So I think when we talk about this incredible inter-game formula and that there's two games going on, no matter if you're watching center court at Wimbledon, if you're watching my beloved Liverpool, if you're watching the Eagles, the University of Texas Longhorns, Hook 'Em, it doesn't matter who you're watching. at some point you're going to have to ask yourself as a coach, do I have a potential problem or do I have an interference problem? And if you have an interference problem, not the game that you can see, not like poor defense against set pieces, but a real interference problem, a skills athletic coach is not trained to deal with that.

16:24Brené Brown: that requires someone from sports psychology that requires you know that requires a different kind of coach and that's what i'm talking about if you look at the super bowl the chiefs played the eagles the chiefs were going for a three-peat against the eagles but like if you had a tape recorder underneath the eagles bench and you had a tape recorder underneath the chief's bench i guarantee if you would have recorded what was happening on the sidelines and did a qualitative or quantitative analysis on it, you would have heard the absolute difference between playing to win and playing not to lose.

16:59Brené Brown: The Chiefs were playing not to lose. You get into negative emotional contagion, rumination. You can't let go. It's like, what are we doing? What are we, we fucking, we're sucking out here. What are you doing, man? Get your, watch your ball handling. Why'd you turn over the goddamn ball? You know, that's what you would have heard. But I think if you looked at the Eagles, if you listen to the Eagles sideline, we've got this. We were trained for this. We know how to do this. Reset. Back to basics. Come on, back to basics. We know this. Hold the line. Back to basics. Like that rumination, Djokovic will talk about how kind of mindfulness and self-compassion really, you make a mistake and you say, I made a mistake.

17:50Brené Brown: I made it because I'm human. That's hard. Let it go. Ready for the next point. But that's what coaching is. I hate how pathologized help seeking is.

18:01Jake Humphrey: Why do you think that is the case?

18:04Brené Brown: It's this kind of male-dominated thinking that help is weakness. Yeah. That asking for help is weakness. And that, you know, I'm a fifth-generation Texan, so we know this very well. It's like death by rugged individualism. Yeah. You know, I can go it alone. Like, what are you, Whitesnake? Like, you know, like, you can't go it alone. Like, here I go again on my own, walking down the only path. You know, like, no, that's romantic for 30 seconds, and then you're just an asshole. I feel like since I was, I'm now, what, am I, 47? It definitely wasn't spoken about when we were at school, right? It just wasn't.

18:52No, no, no. But for the last 10 or 15 years, I think male mental health has been spoken about loads. Male vulnerability has been discussed all the time. We keep telling each other. men are talking more yet we have this conversation against a backdrop of the the most likely thing to call damien and i as a man under 50 in the uk's suicide right that's that remains a fact uh 20 of young people in the uk are suffering a probable mental health disorder like it's there are issues starting young and remaining here why have we as men not been able to unpick this this vulnerability problem i feel like this entire podcast for six years has sat here and tried to tell men to open up and to share and it's not weakness and that like joy can be found on the other side of vulnerability yet men are still taking their own lives at an alarming rate like what what what more needs to be said or like is this totally unsolvable well i'm going to start

19:46Brené Brown: by saying i don't think it's unsolvable but then i'm going to follow that very quickly by saying i am not an expert in death by suicide or a lot of the factors that attribute to that so i want to be really careful because one thing that I have found that's increasingly scary for me is on the one hand, I'm so grateful for podcasts like yours. And it's one of the reasons why I wanted to come on it. I think you have a lot of important, deep and resonant and critically important messaging. And two, I think a lot of people, especially in the US, have turned a lot of the self-help into a grift and are talking outside of their areas of expertise.

20:27Brené Brown: So I want to be really clear that I don't have a level of expertise. I don't have any expertise in this. And it's a very serious issue. And the variables contributing to suicidal ideation, thinking about it or are complex, from a macro perspective, I believe that we're making headway when the culture turns against what's happening. So, for example, in the U.S., you have political leadership that absolutely exemplifies toxic masculinity, right? Right. It where there's an active campaign to vilify empathy. They're systemically, you know, removing brilliant black women from the workforce in the U.S.

21:17Brené Brown: They're trying to, you know, they're trying to get us back into the kitchen barefoot and pregnant. Like this is really happening right now. I think much more so in our country than it is yours. What that tells me is when people are acting like that, it tells me on a micro or a macro level exactly what you're afraid of. Right? When you act like that, you're telling me exactly what you're afraid of.

21:45Brené Brown: To me, that means we're getting closer. We're getting closer and closer. And I think we need to not be dissuaded. These conversations matter. Yeah. Talking to, I mean, I think partially what's happening with loneliness, and this I have studied, is John Cacioppo at Chicago was a loneliness researcher. He died a couple years ago.

22:15Brené Brown: I want to make sure you can share the link to his TED Talk with the podcast notes. Yeah, we can do that. If people hit the link at the bottom in the description, it'll be there. It's really powerful because he's the one who kind of pulled all the research together that talked about loneliness is more deadly than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, kind of things like that. But one of the things that he said to me – or not to me. He said – I felt like it was to me, but it wasn't. I didn't know him. But I quote his research a lot. is that because we're a social species, what it means to be the best of the best is to be not a hyper-independent person, but to be a person on whom others can depend.

23:03Brené Brown: That is, that's the top of us. That's why people weep when they watch Ted Lasso. that's why people love the anti-hero that's why so we have in our minds told ourselves to need no one to want nothing that's what it means but as a social species we die when that happens yeah and then to become a person on whom others can depend that's what it means to me to be a good man and is that really what you're saying if there are if there are you know we do have a lot of male listeners to this show if there are men listening to this who do feel um that they're in a place of loneliness yeah your recommendation is for them to connect to connect somehow just to connect why do you find that so hard as men because the armor because if you see me i'm not lovable if you see me and you know me and let me tell you something Let me just say something super hard.

24:10Brené Brown: The number one shamer of men around vulnerability is not other men. It's women. It's women who say, you know, because we too were brought up in an environment of what you're supposed to look like and act like and be like. And so we all have, you know, show me a man who can sit with a woman and struggle and not try to fix it, but just listen. I'll show you a guy who's done his work. Show me a woman who can sit with a man in real vulnerability and love it and love him and prize that as strength. I'll show you a woman who's done her work.

25:00Jake Humphrey: you're so fucking wise

25:02Brené Brown: I don't know about that

25:03Jake Humphrey: but there's a brilliant line in your book I've quoted to so many people about that like there's no app for transformation no because we're in this fast moving like what's the solution now so if there's somebody listening to this that's like I need to do the work what's the first step

25:22Brené Brown: I mean first of all I don't know enough about I don't know enough about the NHS here What I would say is it's become a point, the healthcare is so shitty in the U.S. right now that it's hard to do your work because a lot of it's not covered by insurance. But I would say, you know, if you can find a coach or a therapist, they're different. And I would think of it just very, like, crudely. A coach is going to help you set goals, help you get to them, help you understand what's getting in the way. If you've got family of origin work you need to do, like mom and dad raise, I think we need both. That's probably more of therapy.

25:57Brené Brown: Not a lot of coaches go into like – or probably should – are not trained to go into trauma, recovery, those kind of things. So you've got coaching, goal setting. I want something different. That can be super helpful and enough. Therapy, something different. I love group work. Like join a men's group. Hang out with your buddies. When you're with your buddies, have a real conversation. You know, do a book club that's an interesting book by a tough guy who's honest. Whatever your gateway drug into vulnerability needs to be, I think that's it. The other thing I would say is social media is incredibly dangerous.

26:45us.

26:46Brené Brown: We have to remember that like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, whatever your drug of choice is, these are not connection tools. These are communication tools. You may be able to communicate with old friends, but if you want to connect with them, that feels and looks different. They're communication tools, not connection tools. And there's a real difference there. So So, for example, if I lose my job and I go into LinkedIn or Instagram and say, lost my job today, it takes zero vulnerability for someone to say, that's really tough, mate. I'm wishing you the best. But imagine if I called you and you said – first of all, you're going to be like, why is someone calling me?

27:30Brené Brown: Someone dead because I'm not texting you. You're going to be like, hello? Hey, do you have a minute? What's up? Everything okay? I mean, I'm okay, but I lost my job today, and I'm in deep struggle.

27:46Brené Brown: Let's say I'm a guy or a woman. I don't even want to tell my partner or my wife. She's going to panic, and I'm going to have to take care of her through this because she's pregnant, and now I don't have a job, and I can't even take care of me through this right now. So I'm going to have to talk to her, and I just need someone to talk to. Do you know the courage it takes to do that? And if the first line back from another guy could be, dude, it's a brave call. I'm so fucking glad you made it. I'm in the middle of a meeting right now. I just stepped out. I will be out of here in two hours. Can we meet wherever?

28:26Brené Brown: Can we meet for dinner? Can we meet here? Can we grab a pint? Whatever it is. Not 12 pints because that's not helpful. And that's an issue here. But, you know, or if you work for me and you come to me, I'm like, hey, everything okay? And you're like, not really. My wife had a miscarriage yesterday. And my first comment is, Jesus, that's hard. I'm so grateful you told me. Thank you for sharing that with me. And then I just simply say, what does support from me look like today? Yeah. And you say, you know, I know we've got this big deadline, and I feel like I can be here and get it done. I'd love to be able to check out early.

29:12Brené Brown: Absolutely. How comfortable are you letting the team know? I'm not comfortable at all. Okay. Let me just tell the team that you're going to be here for the next couple of hours. We're going to wrap up this, and you're going to be taking the day. But again, I appreciate the courage to tell me, and I'm here to support.

29:28Jake Humphrey: And what do you find happens? because I think people want to know that's the first step. What are the consequences once you come with that vulnerability and you greet it with that understanding and empathy?

29:42Brené Brown: Well, first of all, we know from every study done over the last 15 years that trust and vulnerability are the primary drivers of performance in teams. Trust and vulnerability are not the primary drivers of a good culture on a team. They're the primary drivers of performance on a team. Okay. So if you're listening going, what kind of bullshit is this? What about performance? Performance. Performance. Okay. So one thing it's doing is it's building trust in this team. It's building trust between you and your manager and your leader. And the thing is, I wouldn't say that to anybody. I would say that to someone who I believe has earned the right to hear it.

30:25Brené Brown: There are a lot of people that get to work every day. I mean, I think 80 % of people die never having experienced a great leader on the field or in the office. Why? Because people need coaches and people need to do their work. I mean, that's why. So, but if I've seen a glimpse of you that I know you have a capacity for this, you're going to see me as a human being. And let me tell you this. Like we use – I just did Diary of a CEO, Stephen Bartlett, and he brought out this marble jar. And it's like – it's the metaphor we use for trust. Like trust is a marble jar. And it's – you gain trust not by big moments but like a lot of little marbles in the jar over time.

31:10If you have marbles in the jar with me and I have them with you, I can share this.

31:15Brené Brown: I mean vulnerability and trust, slow stacking. It's not like, hey, second day on the job. I just want to let you know. Partner had a miscarriage. I'm holding back tears. I don't know you yet. I don't know if you're going to use it against me. I don't know if you're going to tell people. I'm going to be careful. So trust your gut, but no one has ever done a single brave thing in the world with no uncertainty or risk. I mean, I used to really struggle teaching vulnerability to leaders until one day I was working with special forces in the U.S. And I was standing in front of them. They had all had multiple deployments.

31:56Brené Brown: And I said, you know, and they kind of were looking at me like, why is the vulnerability lady here? And I said, you know, the definition of vulnerability is uncertainty, risk, and exposure. The emotion vulnerability, I feel vulnerable, is when we feel uncertain or at risk or exposed. I said, can anyone in this room, theoretically some of the bravest people in the world, can anyone in this room give me an example of courage that doesn't require vulnerability? And it was one of those quiet periods. It was 30 seconds but felt like a lifetime. and then all of a sudden heads started to drop into hands and people started moving and getting very physically uncomfortable and one kid stood up and said, three tours.

32:44Brené Brown: There is no courage without vulnerability. The very next week, I was with the Seattle Seahawks. Pete Carroll was still the coach. And I asked the team, the players, give me an example of courage on or off the field that doesn't require vulnerability. And of course they were like, can we huddle up? And I was like, huddle up. So they kind of got together and they came back and they were like, no, there is no courage. There's no courage without vulnerability. And these are 350-pound guys who could lay the three of us flat in under four seconds. Like these are tough-looking guys, right? But there is no courage without vulnerability.

33:23Brené Brown: And so somehow we have all been raised to be brave and taught not to be vulnerable. That calculus does not work. If you think you're being brave and there's no risk or uncertainty, you're not being brave. Hard stop. We'll be right back after a quick word from our partners.

33:57If you've used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation-based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55 % off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com slash acast. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash acast. Rules and restrictions may apply. Shipping, billing, admin, payroll, marketing. You're managing all the things.

34:38So why waste time sending important documents the old-fashioned way? Mail and ship when you want, how you want with Stamps.com. Print postage on demand 24-7 and schedule pickups from your office or home. Save up to 90 % with automated rate shopping. That's why over 1 million small businesses trust Stamps.com. Go to Stamps.com and use code PODCAST to try Stamps.com risk-free for 60 days.

35:03Brené Brown: Security and compliance done wrong is a giant headache. Security and compliance done right, that's Vanta. Vanta helps you earn trust and speed up growth. No spreadsheets required. For startups low on time and resources, Vanta becomes your first security hire. using AI and automation to get you compliant fast and unblock big deals. For enterprises, Vanta is your AI-powered hub for compliance and risk, bringing together data from across your businesses and automating workflows so you can prove trust at any moment. Vanta scales with you at every stage. That's why top companies from startups like Cursor to enterprises like Snowflake choose Vanta.

35:41Brené Brown: Do security and compliance right. Get started today at vanta.com slash TED Audio.

35:50I think it's such an important and powerful message for people and I think about like you and I've done this podcast for six years right and I still think we are two guys that wear armor

35:59Jake Humphrey: don't you oh massively yeah definitely and I tell you one thing that I think is interesting is I like I come from a world where I was a kids tv presenter before right if you're going to present kids tv for a living you actually do need to wear some armor because like it's an embarrassing job at times but you are like a you're like an expert in mindset and behaviors you work with the biggest sports teams in the world but still as you've just said wear armor which i think shows how difficult it is to not to not have a suit of armor i think you're better at dropping the armor making yourself vulnerable than i am i think i i hide behind it why though favorite judgment I grew up in a boxing gym, so fear was very real in that environment, but being too confident, too sure of yourself, showing off, you'd soon get knocked down from it.

36:54Jake Humphrey: Physically? Yeah, and emotionally. So the idea of not blowing your own trumpet, the idea of not trying to get too high on your own supply. But you're not in the boxing gym anymore, are you? No, no, no, but it's a lesson of life. It's a survival tool.

37:10Brené Brown: And I would also say, as someone who's academically trained, we're taught that. Like, if you're going to go in and work for coaches, you better go armored up.

37:22Jake Humphrey: Yeah.

37:23Brené Brown: Because if they sense weakness, even if all your work with them is about vulnerability. Right. Like, if I'm going to go work with a coach, let's say I'm going to go work with Arnie Slott, I have to be tough. Like, even if I'm going to not end up talking about football at all, I'm going to be talking about the folks on the pitch, right? The players. I've got to be tough. I've got to be armored up. I've got to prep for hours and hours, even though I'm going to try to move the conversation from running a 4-3-3 to how are we grieving the death of this player. Like, it doesn't matter. I've got to go in.

38:00Brené Brown: so I think one of the things that's interesting about the new research is the question is and listening to the podcast when we vetted y 'all because y 'all went through a tough vet process on our end because sometimes I can get on a guy's podcast and it can be it can be shitty right and so especially if it's got a sports bent yeah and if it's two guys as well yeah I mean again I'll run you in a foot race but but I am wearing cowboy boots I can't wait for this race Of course you're wearing cowboy boots. You're a Texan. I won't be able to outrun you, but I can manipulate you into thinking it starts in a different place where I'm going to be or something.

38:39Brené Brown: You'll break down my armor, leave me crying on the pavement and just run off of the judge's cap of the road. I could make you cry. Yeah. But I think you're both in the vet. I think you're both...

38:56Brené Brown: Not that it matters, but I think you're both a very good balance of strength and vulnerability. And I think that paradox is what's hard for people to hold. So the question becomes, if you're going to take off your armor, any of us, and I'm also often the only woman in a room. The number of locker rooms I've been in is obscene. Like, put some clothes on, dudes. It's different at this age because I'm like, pick up your stuff.

39:26Brené Brown: But what do we replace the armor with? Are we going to go streaking naked through the world? No, because the world is not a safe place. Right? It's not a safe place. So the question becomes, what do we replace the armor with? And I think what we replace it with is the skill set that I'm calling grounded confidence in the new work. And it's a very robust skill and mindset collection that includes things like self-awareness, emotional granularity, anticipatory thinking, strategic thinking. Like we are going to be – if you want to – this is what's happening. Like, I've never talked about this publicly, but I'm just going to go right now.

40:02Brené Brown: We talk about the crisis with men right now. And, you know, in the U.S., the brocasters, you know, are talking about, well, and I mean, it's just a heated thing going on right now, too, with Diary of a CEO. Like, women don't want to get married. Women don't want to have babies. You know, men are falling behind academically and university. You know, I come maybe from a different perspective on it because I have a son and a daughter, you know. And what I would say is just like being – just like coming to terms with some privilege around whiteness is really tough. I think coming to terms with some privilege around what it means to be a guy, just things where I really would stop my daughter multiple times at the shopping mall and say, stop.

40:57Brené Brown: Just look at me. Who's behind me? Who's next to us? What cars are in the parking lot right now? Just things like that that, yes, to some degree with my son, but you have to raise a daughter carefully in the world, right? But you have to raise a son carefully in the world too. And if we're asking people to be more vulnerable, the question becomes, okay, I'll take off the armor. What am I going to replace it with? So, for example, if I were to tell – I gave a commencement address. I said, lastly, stop ghosting people. It's chicken shit. It's cheap. It's chicken shit, and it's easy. I wish I wouldn't have said it.

41:43Brené Brown: And I'll tell you why. Because I didn't have time in a commencement address to teach them the skills to not have to do that, to teach them how to do the text that says, I really appreciated. I mean, let's be honest. I really, you know, I know we hooked up last week. I'm sorry if I was not clear. I'm not interested in a relationship. And I want to be really upfront with you out of respect. That's it. But if we say don't ghost, and then we don't teach the skills that replace the armor, how do we do it? If we tell guys, be vulnerable. Yeah. Do you know how long it takes me to teach a 50-year-old senior leader with 30 years of tenure how to have a difficult conversation without being a dick?

42:38Brené Brown: Months. months how to have a kind, respectful, straight shooting, straightforward, hard conversation. It is a skill set.

42:49Jake Humphrey: But give us a quick synopsis on what that skill set requires for anyone listening. And what do they do? Like what is being a dick?

42:58Brené Brown: Well, I'm going to give you, I'll give you an example. So this here, here's a really great takeaway for the, for the people watching or listening. One of the greatest coaching tools that has ever come my way in my whole life, it's changed my life as a leader, as a mom, as a partner, as a friend, is it comes from Robert Kawasaki, went to Carolyn Taylor, and then went to the Conscious Leadership Group. And it's above and below the line. This has changed more lives of work we've done than I think anything we've done, besides reframing armor and fear. So here's the line, and the line is fear. And when you're above the line, you're in some fear, but you're driving.

43:41Brené Brown: You're aware that you're in fear. You can say, shit, I'm fearful right now. This is tough. When you're below the line, you're in fear, but you are not driving. You're not even riding shotgun. You are hogtied in the trunk. And fear is at the wheel. And fear is driving. We take on one of three kind of personas when we're under the line. and this is from the drama triangle. We become victim, villain, or hero. So if I am, if something's going on at work, someone's made a mistake, let's say, in my job that's publicly facing, hard, because I am the publicly facing person, you know, and I go under the line and I go into victim mode, I say, no one understands how hard this is for me.

44:30Brené Brown: You don't understand how hard this is for me because y 'all's name is not out there. No one's tweeting Acme Brick. They're like, fuck Brene Brown on Twitter. Like, you don't understand how hard this is for me. Very victim. Or I get into hero mode. You know what? I'll do it myself. If I want this done well, I'll just do it myself. Hero. Or villain. I don't give a shit whether you like it or not. Here's what it is. Everything's triple checked. Everything's signed off. I see a sign off before it happens. Are we clear? Are we crystal clear? So very familiar, right? Yeah, very. Very familiar. So hero, victim, villain.

45:05Brené Brown: None of those are helpful because we're under the line. On top of the line, we're in fear, but because we can name it and we know we're in it, we go into one of three roles. Coach, co-creator, productive challenger. These are great roles, right? A coach. Okay. I know y 'all care deeply about the work. Let's walk through how that happened and see if we can find a glitch in the system. because I make up this was not about not caring, but there's a systemic issue we need to address. Let's co-create a solution. Let me challenge the systems y 'all are using right now. You know, so these are effective ways.

45:45Brené Brown: So we were working with a senior leadership group, global company, publicly traded, big company. And there was a guy who, when you walk into a room as a facilitator, you immediately know who's going to be hard. like I would look at you two and probably be like they're a soft touch no I wouldn't be a soft touch I'd be actually I'd probably pay y 'all as helpful to me tough yeah but also open to learning curious and if people see y 'all going they'll go you know what I mean but there are people I walk in that I'm like this guy's gonna be tough and this woman's gonna be like this they're they got their, you know, they got their hands folded across their chest and they're like rolling their eyes.

46:31Brené Brown: And this was one of those guys. Well, about four or five months into our training, he said, I'd like to share something. We were on a big Teams call with all the senior leaders. And these are direct reports of the C-suite. I'd like to share an experience of the above and below the line protocol. I was like, we don't call it that, but okay. I was like, oh God, okay. And he said, I was giving very difficult feedback. And this guy's probably over$4 billion in revenue of a company. Like he probably, in his organization within the company, probably has 10 ,000 people, you know. And he said, so I was given some really hard feedback, and I was angry, as angry as I've ever been.

47:12Brené Brown: And I got about 10 minutes into the conversation. I said, I am officially under the line. I will need to, the protocol says I'll need to postpone our conversation until I'm reflective about why I'm under the line. so we shall postpone from this one moment, you know. And the guy he was talking to said, I am also completely under the line. And he said, I believe the protocol says that we take time out. We understand what's happening. We'll circle back in 30 minutes. So they came back together and he said, this is how I think I went under the line. The guy said, this is how. They had this incredibly meaningful corrective feedback conversation where they both took some accountability about what was going on.

47:49Brené Brown: I don't think he was clear with expectations. I think the other guy made a lot of assumptions. And they didn't share – they were working off different data. Different – they were working off different data. And so interestingly, the guy he was giving feedback to was on the call and said, I'm just going to say that I was the guy receiving the tough feedback. And in 25 years with this company, it was the most courageous active leadership I've ever seen. I would follow this guy into a fire. Wow. If he's willing to do this, there's nothing I'm not willing to do for him. That's incredible. Yeah. And so just the ability, but that's a freaking skill, man.

48:32Brené Brown: That's like, here's an example from the pitch that I think is, that I've been using a lot. Have you ever seen five-year-olds play soccer? Oh, yeah. We've both had five-year-olds that play soccer. Same, same. Both my kids. Like flies around a honeypot. Follow the ball. The bee, the beehive, right? Yeah. Yeah, and it's really funny because at least in Texas, like, first of all, you're paying like a hundred bucks for this. And your kids are like sitting crisscross applesauce on the ground making a chain of daisies. Yet there's always going to be three or four fathers that are like, this is your house.

49:07Brené Brown: Protect your house. And, you know, and the kids are like, and the ants on the farm are, you know, like, it's like, and the dads are like working out all their unprocessed shit. And the moms for sure. The moms are. oh yeah the moms are definitely you should hear my wife at a sports event yeah yeah no like I was raised by a father who was like removed from sporting events but what was really funny is that when he came to see my kids play and I was scared to death and I had to have a call with my dad I'm like my dad's coming he's like this guy like people felt sorry for me and we were all athletes because my dad was so rough and so you know the whistle blows and my kids start and he's like sis He calls me sis.

49:50Brené Brown: Sis, I want to see you for a second. And I'm like, here we go. I was like, this is it. And Steve's like, remain calm. And I was like, yes, dad. And he's like, I don't like the pressure these kids are under. This is horse shit. And I was like, what? And he goes, I'm not going to have any of these. Stop the parents from yelling right now. These are young children trying to grow developmentally. I was like, dude, they put you in parent jail at our games. Like, who are you? I think there's supposed to be something restorative and healing when you see your parents do that but I was like fuck you dude like what is like no but anyway so the pitch and the five year old so what happens what happens when a high ball comes into a five year old like over the shoulder they lift their leg up and try to make contact with the ball over their shoulder with their foot they fall over and this happens until about you know 10 11 12 depending on what kind of how serious the soccer training is that they're getting, right?

50:47Brené Brown: Then what happens is they see a high ball coming in. They anticipate the high ball. They have learned chest control. They come up. They take the ball on the chest. The ball drops. They put their foot on the ball to maintain possession because it's a game of possession, right? They got their foot on the ball. They look down the pitch. They see where the striker is. They don't kick it to the striker. They kick it to where the striker is going to be in two seconds based on where the goalie is in the cage. I mean, if you unfold, that is situational awareness, anticipatory awareness, temporal awareness, systems thinking, trust.

51:32Brené Brown: Like there are like huge skill sets going on there. And so this is what I mean by grounded confidence. You want people to take off armor. Start skilling people up. And the first thing you have to do, I think, with men specifically is to tell them you don't know everything you're going to need to know to win. You are not birthed into this world because of your gender as a pre-wired winner. you two will need to work for it skill up for it take 14 chess balls and lose 13 of them lose possession trying to get that ball under your foot from your chest I remember I used to host Premier League and Champions League football in the UK before that I worked in Formula 1 I remember I think it was my second or third live Premier League game ever Michael Owen, former Liverpool player, was on CoCombs I was the presenter and during the game we would sit and watched the match in the stand.

52:34So I was sitting there with a couple of other people and it was like I was so close to what was going on and the ball dropped to possibly Steven Gerrard and he, as quick as the flash, looked up, saw whoever the striker was at the time at Liverpool and, oh my goodness, kicked the ball so hard at this striker that it would have taken our heads off. The person took it on their chest, spanned the defender, moved it forwards with their right foot, looked up, missed the goal by about an inch and Michael Owen on commentary goes, I'd be disappointed with that. And I'm like, this is at a level that I can't, and it happened, it was so fast, I could hardly see it happen.

53:13It was like, my eyesight had gone blurry, right? And that was the time when I thought the level that these people are operating at is not, this nonsense that we see all the time, oh, they were born to play football. They were born to dance in the ballet. They were born to act. high performance are made they're not born right and i and i wonder whether that's why you love the sports analogies and talking about sport as much as you do because you see these people that have forced themselves to be the best that they can be this is not by accident no and i think it's

53:46Brené Brown: like sport is leadership theater in real time so in four you know i can watch two quarters of football and see exactly how strategy, training, operational excellence, the ability and capacity to reset teamwork, I can see how it, you know, what do I have to do, like sit in an organization for like four years like with a camera on my head? Like, no, you can see, we have so much to learn from sport. And I think as organizations and the world increase in complexity, there's even more transferability of skills. I think this is an interesting, well, an F1. Yeah. Like, I'm a big F1 fan.

54:40Jake Humphrey: My world, yeah, me too.

54:42Brené Brown: I'm a Williams racing fan.

54:43Jake Humphrey: Can I tell you, though, Bennett, that I'm lucky enough to work in sort of sport with elite sports, and I quote and attribute you a lot, and I'll tell you the one that resonates when I speak about you in these sort of dressing rooms and boardrooms is the messy middle.

54:59Brené Brown: Oh, yeah.

55:00Jake Humphrey: So I often refer to it as, you know, the Rossworth Moss Cantor, the Cantor's Law, that everything looks like a failure in the middle. I say, but Brené calls it the messy middle, which resonates. Would you tell me, and I always, I don't think I've failed to get people that go, I recognise that and want to explore it. So this does resonate in sport. It does carry on. But would you explain to our listeners and our viewers what is the messy middle and how we navigate our way through it?

55:30Brené Brown: So what's interesting about this is, boy, I learned so much. You know, my mom was a big Joseph Campbell person. So I kind of rolled my eyes a lot growing up. Like, oh, my God, my mom and Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. And, you know, and now she died a couple of years ago. But I think about her all the time about how great. I wouldn't – she's part of the through line to the story about why I'm sitting here, you know. But I'll tell you what's interesting. I did a lot of work with Pixar.

55:59Jake Humphrey: Right.

56:01Brené Brown: And I thought I knew a lot about storytelling until you work with Pixar, right? And one of the things that's really interesting that people don't talk about, and this could be very helpful for your work about The Messy Middle, is in the three-act story, right? That everyone has, you know, Katniss. It doesn't matter what hero you're looking at. So act one of a three-act story is they give you the land that you're living in. So you start to understand. So I'll use Harry Potter as an example because it's ubiquitous. We understand that there are wizards and muggles. We understand that Harry's parents are gone.

56:43Brené Brown: We understand we're starting to learn about the rules of the land. You know, there's Hogwarts and there's this. The end of Act One, there's always an inciting incident, like a real problem comes. The thing about the messy middle in Act Two, and I was actually brought into Pixar to help them work through an Act Two of one of their films. The thing about Act 2 that is so interesting through the history of story across culture is our protagonist, our hero, will try to solve the problem by any means that does not include vulnerability.

57:27Brené Brown: so if you want to know why people slide back to one it's because you cannot make it through the messy middle without vulnerability people think it's just fight and people are like I got a lot of fight in me the real challenge to act two and the only way to solve the entire problem of the journey is with absolute vulnerability. Harry must understand that without Ron and Hermione, he is nothing. Without asking for help, he is nothing. Without facing his grief, he can't win. So all of Act 2 is the fight of rejecting vulnerability to win. And the very end of Act 2 is the acceptance of vulnerability as a key to winning the fight.

58:19Brené Brown: I love it. I mean, let me ask you this. If you were betting people, would you bet, even if it wasn't money, but would you bet on a team? Okay, you have two teams. You have a team. I'm going to use American football. You have a team that has two guys on the defensive line are out, and you've got a backup quarterback. You've got the exact same injuries on the other team, but they're not acknowledging them. They're just letting hurt players play. I would never, always the first team, acknowledge the vulnerability. trained up some people to put him on the line. You know, that's why the messy middle.

58:59Brené Brown: In transformation, one of the things I talk about a lot is, and Voyles, Williams Racing, is a great example. Like, I play a podcast when I'm in front of senior leaders of him. Do you? Oh, yeah, I do. Because he said... Our podcast with him or someone else's? No, someone else podcasts with him. I don't know. I don't think it's him because I only see him. Was it you?

59:25Jake Humphrey: Yeah.

59:26Brené Brown: Was it y 'all?

59:27Jake Humphrey: We were looking at him when he first went in and he said, break everything.

59:31Brené Brown: Break everything. That y 'all? Yeah. Holy shit.

59:35Jake Humphrey: There's a full circle moment there coming out. No. Wait.

59:39Brené Brown: There's no such thing as synchronicity. Well. This is like a total for me is like a God wink. Please listen to the full episode on your flight back to the US. It was amazing. I only would say, so, I mean, like, literally, if you looked on my laptop right now, it'll be, it's in my deck. Break everything. And because I was like, I took like six years of French and I was like, do you really say carte blanche? Like he did. He's very posh. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's like, no, really, they have carte blanche from me. Like then he goes back. But yeah, and that pad goes, I don't care about 24. I don't care about 25.

1:00:09Brené Brown: I don't care, you know, about, I mean, I know the whole thing by heart. Break everything, you know. And so. Can I just say one thing? our producer spoke with your team yesterday and said Brene has got an amazing story about transformation in Formula 1 we don't know what it is but let's find out and now we find out it's the story it's our own conversation

1:00:28Jake Humphrey: it's you're the story

1:00:31Brené Brown: you're like a TikTok thing is this play about me I just thought it was about y 'all I love this and then of course finished fifth in the construction club so this goes back to the messy middle. So I play this when I talk about transformation, because you're going to

1:00:51Jake Humphrey: have to break some shit for real transformation.

1:00:54Brené Brown: First of all, in organizational context, transformation is very overused as a term, which drives transformation fatigue. If everything's transformation, then nothing's transformation, right? Sometimes it's just strategic change, adaptive change, incremental change, not sexy, but we should call it what it is. transformation requires breaking, right? It just requires breaking. Then this is a cue y 'all's podcast. I play this. And what I say about the messy middle is breaking is hard because you have to break at the same time you protect things that you never want to break. And making those decisions will be clear to some and not clear to others.

1:01:34Brené Brown: It'll cause a lot of hostility. And it did in Williams Racing. Like the breaking and not caring and the experimental stuff was probably hard for a lot of their folks. I mean, because if you attribute their wins, their fifth place finish, I mean, you had the car, Carlos and Alex. You had some interesting engineering changes, right? But really what you really had was high-level experimentation and breaking. The reason why the middle is messy is because I always say in transformation, you're going from the tomb to the womb. Something is dying. Old ways of working, old mental models, old mindsets are dying.

1:02:18Brené Brown: And then there's the womb and new things are being birthed, right? The thing about the tomb and the womb is those are both dark places. And you're not sure whether you're in the tomb or the womb because there's no twinkle lights or anything. That's just dark. Having given birth, I can tell you that there's some darkness in here. I mean, not in darkness as in like negative, but like what's happening right now to my body. This is like an alien movie.

1:02:47Brené Brown: And circles, circle back, circle. Just for all the men listening, that shit circles back and does it again at menopause. So just look, if you're dating anyone over 40. We're there. We're in the trenches. Yeah, yeah. just look that's real if these bodies can make babies they can do all kinds of crazy shit our first word every morning we wake up is we turn to wives and say I'm sorry for whatever I've done that is an amazing way to start and also if you need it to be like below zero in the house right now yeah like poor Steve my husband was like sleeping wait I was like you're making too much noise and he's like because I'm in a fucking sleeping bag that has zippers on it and I've got a hand warmer that hunters use I'm like and and I this is the way I'd love it this is how I this is how I always pictured it that's what I thought

1:03:39Jake Humphrey: yeah I'm with Steve yeah

1:03:44Brené Brown: but that's real yeah and let me just tell you I just want to go on record since am I the first person to talk about menopause on your podcast I think you're up there yeah but we need to have more of these conversations yeah so here we go go on I'm just going to say, if at between 40 and 50, your balls shrinked and your penises fell off, there would be a lot of investment in fixing that. Billions and billions and billions of dollars. It's the biggest disaster in medical history. Yeah. And so, yeah, just know that it's real and that we don't like – and I saw a commercial because I was watching old people TV.

1:04:32Brené Brown: I was watching like, I don't know, like NCIS or something on the BBC or something. And there's like a commercial for old people because it's like a lot of like women probably my age. But they're like, it's not the menopause. Let's not call – it's just menopause. There's no the. It's not like the Google. Are you on the Facebook? No, that's like, it's just been a pause. But it's real and it's really hard. And usually you hit it right when you've got teens in the house. Like.

1:05:03Jake Humphrey: I think what surprises me is like how much information you have to search out for yourself.

1:05:08Brené Brown: Yeah.

1:05:09Jake Humphrey: You know, like, I sometimes wonder, you know, like you go to the garage and you take your car in and they go. Is this the first time you've ever seen a car? Is this the first problem you've ever faced? Because you work in this industry. You must have seen an engine that doesn't work. Whereas I see doctors, it's like, is it not a pattern? Since the beginning of time. Some of the challenges you come in that you could just go, here's, get this information, take this, here's the tablet. I'm surprised how little joined up thinking there is.

1:05:38Brené Brown: What else do you want to talk about? This is great.

1:05:41Jake Humphrey: Well, thank you for clarifying about the metamidal because I wanted to pay homage to you because I've frequently referenced you, but I wanted you to know that it's like watching meerkats when you mention it. Oh, it is a meerkat moment for me too. Everyone recognizes it, but without necessarily knowing what do we do about it.

1:05:58Brené Brown: So the question is, in order to get a peak of light in the messy middle without going backward, what is the unsaid thing? What are we not talking about right now? What is not in the room that everyone knows needs to be in the room? Because we know from the beginning of the time, the human story is the messy middle is defined when individuals and teams come together to solve a problem but are avoiding the most vulnerable piece. This is especially hard with sports teams because the amount of money involved in sports teams. So to name the thing really has far-reaching financial implications. Just say it out loud.

1:06:45Brené Brown: There will probably be like people walking off saying, shit, man, no one has brought up this because we can't. But that makes people like you and me really toughen our jobs. Because what is the unsaid thing in the room? You want to do that? I mean, you want to win or lose? If you want to win, put the unsaid thing on the table, and let's really talk about what it means to be brave right now. As a Reds fan, what do you think is happening with Liverpool this season? I mean, if someone's expecting some really technical... I mean, so I think what I look at is, what is the analysis of what's happening on the pitch by people who are much smarter than I am around the technical pieces of football?

1:07:30Brené Brown: So why are we conceding? I'm always flagged when we're conceding late in the game. I'm always flagged when, like, the corners in the throat, when there's some poor defending against set pieces. Like that, I mean, what is the theme around what the analysts are saying? And the first thing that comes to me, one of the first things that comes, always the first rubric that I run, is there a cultural – is coming off a championship, that's hard for a team. Like I think about University of Texas football. We went in with – I don't know how familiar y 'all are with American football, but we went in with our quarterback, Arch Manning.

1:08:18Brené Brown: You know, Manning royalty. rated number one in the SEC, which is the big, not the only, but... Yeah, criteria. God's sweet tea in the SEC. You know. And that pressure, and these are 18. I mean, all the football players are not much older. These are 18 to 21-year-old, 22-year-old college kids. The pressure post-championship, the biggest, any team, not just the Liverpool, but any team post-championship, will people think in organizations they'll call it complacency, but it's not complacency. It is, there's a real vulnerability and fear about maintaining status, maintaining the win. And so immediately I would go there.

1:09:06Brené Brown: But then if you look at, and I'm curious because y 'all know football much better than I do. When I look at the three or four things that analysts are saying about Liverpool right now, the word that comes up for me is focus. I'm not, these are all focus issues, and they're especially focus issues if, I mean, this is more of a clop term, but kind of rock and roll football, very intensive physical football, possession, possession, quick turns, drive. that level of focus required for that kind of rock and roll soccer which I think Slott comes from historically too I would associate these problems with that diagnosis but I'm curious if you see a focus issue as well I mean my take on it is that we can't separate the death of Diogo Jota in the summer from Liverpool's struggles, I don't think, from Liverpool's struggles this season they've lost one of their best mates, they're mourning, they're grieving and his brother and his brother and they had no time to recover from that and then the season started and I just think there will naturally be players and this is no criticism of them thinking this isn't very important compared to what happened over the summer I don't think people are talking about that enough it came in such a heartbreaking flash but almost went away as quickly and I think that's the business of sport But I also think, I don't know, I think, and that would ladder up to focus.

1:10:40Brené Brown: Would it? Oh, for sure. For sure that would ladder up. And sport, grief. I mean, grief is a focus killer. Yeah. Yeah, and disconnection. Yeah, I don't know. It's not surprising to me, I don't think. but they don't look as cohesive either and connected.

1:11:07Jake Humphrey: But I think there's something there as well about they lost players last year and they brought in quite five or six players that have come into the squad. So integrating them into the culture and the demands and the expectations, I think you're going to get a different... Can I ask you a line about Jurgen Klopp, which I loved, which is that you said he loved that team into victory.

1:11:29Brené Brown: I think he did. I think that's great. I mean, he just – I was doing the podcast with Raj Bennett and he was talking about how Jürgen Klopp gave him a hug and he's like, you don't understand what a Klopp hug feels like. I'm like, but I can see it on the sideline. Like I think – I don't think there's a lot – I think there's very little space between love and winning. Like I think you can love people into winning. That doesn't mean that you don't have high expectations and accountability. and the way that Klopp and Slott coach, they're very physical. They develop very physical teams. Would you agree?

1:12:11Brené Brown: Like physicality, speed, the ability to turn a ball very quickly.

1:12:19Brené Brown: I also like, one thing I love about Slott that I use a lot in leadership too, along with your podcast,

1:12:30is this paradox of discipline and creative freedom.

1:12:39Brené Brown: So I think one of the things that Slott's really good at is technical precision. You'll learn. You'll play our plays. You'll play our strategy. And then once I think you've mastered that, then you can make creative calls on the pitch in the moment, but you will understand technically what we're trying to do out there. This is not a free-for-all. Although it looks a little loose right now, playground-y. Yeah. Yeah, the back does for sure. Have you got a favorite ever Liverpool player? I mean, for sure, Steven Gerrard. Why? Is there tape of the halftime talk that he gave when they were down?

1:13:15Jake Humphrey: In Istanbul?

1:13:16Brené Brown: Yeah, in Istanbul, Turkey.

1:13:17Jake Humphrey: No, it's sort of gone into mythology, but there was never anything captured.

1:13:23Brené Brown: Yeah, this is the Turkey game, right?

1:13:24Jake Humphrey: Yeah.

1:13:25Brené Brown: Yeah. Against Milan. Milan. Milan, yeah.

1:13:31Brené Brown: I've made up what he says, so I don't really want to know. But that's what I pretend like I'm saying to myself sometimes at halftime. And what is it? Oh, no, I can't say. No, no, no. What about as a footballer? Like, did you, like his, the way he pulled that team and stepped up in the biggest of moments? I probably, I probably, I don't know him as much as a manager since he's taken on those roles. But I think as a player leader, I'm always going to believe in a team who has, the team that has the strongest player leadership. I don't care what's going on on the sidelines. To do what Steven Gerrard did season after season, year after year.

1:14:15He carried that entire city on his back as well as the football team. The season where they were trying to be successful, he was having injections, he was hardly moved, still coming out, still performing. We spoke to him on our show about when he had that slip against Chelsea and he just said, I just laid in the back of the car and my wife drove me home and I cried all the way home and it took me a long time to stop crying. You know, like, what a way for his story at Liverpool to end. You know what I mean? Like, I just think he's the most remarkable guy. Something I wanted to show you, actually.

1:14:51There we go. You can hit play on there. Hello, Brené. Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Spoke to a good friend of mine, G.

1:14:59Brené Brown: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, stop it. Wait, did he say Brené? Yeah, it's for you. Did he? I don't know. Hello, Brené. Where is it? Oh my God, that's fucking good! Spoke to a good friend of mine, Jake. He tells me that you're going to do a few baths with him today. I'm doing a bit of work, so... A bit of work. I'm sure it'll be really interesting for someone like myself. He also tells me that you're a massive red as well. Great choice. Unfortunately, we're not doing too well at the moment, but let's hope the boys pick it up and we can finish the season strong. But looking forward to one day, hopefully being in your company as well.

1:15:36It'd be great to meet you. face to face one day and I just want to send some love and support. Apologies for being in my scruff. I'm looking a bit rough, but it is very early and I'm on the school run. All the very best. Take care. Bye-bye.

1:15:49Brené Brown: Shut the front door. What a great phrase. I'm trying not to cry. That's so sweet. That was so thoughtful. We could talk for hours, but we'd like to finish with some quickfire questions if you wouldn't mind. What are the three non-negotiables that are most important to you, the three non-negotiable behaviors? Sleep well, eat well, move well, connect well, love well.

1:16:14Jake Humphrey: Nice. What's the greatest piece of advice you've ever received and why?

1:16:18Brené Brown: I mean, I think something I, I don't know if it's a piece of advice, but something I hold on to very tightly all the time comes from Atomic Habits. Yeah, by James Clear. We don't rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems. Brilliant. And I think it's framed and there's like light shining on in our office and I have it in my office at home. Brilliant. Why is courage being a learner, not a knower?

1:16:43Brené Brown: Because the future belongs to the curious and curiosity requires a ton of vulnerability and courage to say, I don't want to know, but I care and I'm willing to learn and I'm willing to be uncomfortable.

1:16:55Jake Humphrey: Brilliant. Why does fear have a short shelf life?

1:16:59Brené Brown: Why does fear have a short shelf life? Because neurobiologically, we can't stay afraid for very long. So we either disengage or we hyper-normalize. So fear doesn't last for a long time. So in order to lead with fear, you have to be constantly doing pretty cruel things to remind us that you're dangerous. And the final question, the answer you'd like to leave ringing in the ears of our audience, what is the secret to everyone living their own version of a high-performance life? There is no high performance without high levels of self-awareness. Know who you are if you want to perform. Brené Brown, thank you very much.

1:17:42That was amazing.

1:17:44Jake Humphrey: Thank you. Damien. Jake. Well, here we are, 24 hours later. We actually spoke for so long with Brené, both of us had to go and get a train home, hence the different clothes. But it's actually quite nice to talk now about what we discussed yesterday because it's kind of given us 24 hours just to process the things that she shared with us. What do you think was the most valuable element of that conversation for our audience? Oh, I mean, there were so many nuggets that she offered, but I love the stuff around the armour plating, removing it. I think I see it in so many elements, whether it's, she talks about the intellectual armour, you know, people are like the status armour, people feeling that they've got to armour themselves with knowledge.

1:18:27Jake Humphrey: And yet the ultimate is sometimes just going, I don't know, I'm not sure, what do you think? Make yourself vulnerable, that was really powerful for me. What about you? I mean, I love the idea of when she kind of gave us all these examples of when she sat in front of strong, powerful men, like, you know, massive sports teams, and said, tell me a time when being vulnerable didn't require courage or bravery. And they were like, hmm, I can't think of it. And I think that for too long we had this idea, and if anyone's listening to this, and they still have this concept in their head that if they are vulnerable, if they open up, if they are tearful, if they're emotional, if they expose themselves, then they must be a weak person.

1:19:03She's basically giving us totally the opposite narrative, which is you can't do any of that stuff unless you're brave. Therefore, the bravest people are the vulnerable people, and I think that that is a key point of difference, particularly for guys.

1:19:17Jake Humphrey: Yeah, and I think what she offered that I really took away from it was the hard edge around soft language, if you like. You know, like a phrase we frequently cite on here is psychological safety. It's one of the things that the research tells us, it's almost like a gatekeeper to high performance, you know, that if you don't have psychological safety and you fail, your ability to recover, to be resilient and rebound becomes severely impaired. So what Brene is offering there is the fact that you need to be vulnerable, you need to be able to say, I don't know, I've made a mistake here, I've cocked up and be able to know that you're not going to be demonised for doing that to be able to deliver the hard performance and that's something we can all get a little bit better at so interesting you know Stephen Gerrard sent us that message which he loved I replied and said to him Brene loved it and look what he's responded with Dare to lead he is reading Brene Brown's book Dare to lead but that's a really good example though to me of where like Stephen Gerrard you know this sort of alpha leader for many years at Liverpool, this guy that was at the arrowhead that was taking them, making difficult calls, difficult decisions.

1:20:31Jake Humphrey: He's still got that vulnerability to go, I don't have all the answers. I'm still willing to listen and learn. And his message was lovely as well, wasn't it? That squeal of delight when she realised that one of her heroes... She spoke over it when he said, hey, Brene, didn't she? And then she was like, play that again, play that again. Oh, I loved it. Thank you so much. Really fascinating. and I thought you brought some really smart questions and a great approach to that conversation. Well, likewise, mate, but it was a real privilege to get to see her. We've spoken about her so often over the six years we've been doing this, so to actually get a chance to sit and talk to her was amazing.

1:21:05Jake Humphrey: Cheers, mate. Thank you, mate. That's it for this episode. Don't forget, if you love the conversation with Brené, we've spoken to so many incredible thinkers and leaders on this podcast. Feel free to send it and share it with anyone that you think might benefit from it. I think this is the kind of chat that you're going to come back to time and time and time again. If you don't already, please follow us on here. Please hit subscribe. Please get the episodes before anybody else. But please do come back for another deep conversation next time on High Performance.

1:21:51you want, how you want with stamps.com. Print postage on demand 24-7 and schedule pickups from your office or home. Save up to 90 % with automated rate shopping. That's why over 1 million small businesses trust stamps.com. Go to stamps.com and use code podcast to try stamps.com risk-free for 60 days. If you've used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation-based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket.

1:22:33Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55 % off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com slash acast. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash ACAST. Rules and restrictions may apply. Guys, it's no use putting it off. The best time for an underwear refresh is now. Tommy John underwear is designed for a perfect fit that stays put all day. There's zero chafe thanks to four times more stretch than competing brands. And their innovative horizontal quick draw fly is a game changer. With over 30 million pairs sold, there are thousands of men out there more comfortable than you. Don't settle for less.

1:23:13Go to TommyJohn.com today for 25 % off your first order with code COMFORT. That's TommyJohn.com slash COMFORT. TommyJohn. Comfort perfected.