Brené Brown: The Rage Bucket Theory

20:29Brené Brown:But you know what? I see you. I think you want to play pickleball. I think you do. I like the clothes. The shorts are freeing. the shorts I mean there's a great excuse to wear the shorts and not have to explain yourself to anyone I need to see what shorts you're talking about first here's shorts oh what kind of shorts do you wear oh you wear short shorts are we talking like are they short shorts Larry Bird Celtic shorts no no no that's his friend no no no yeah my friend who wears like the shorts you're right you're right Lawrence wears the short shorts yeah Lawrence wears the short shorts no no I don't have the short shorts because the short short guys can be a menace on the court like we yeah no no no I don't have the short shorts I just have the shorts his shorts are short But five, seven or nine inch shorts.

21:14Brené Brown:What's your length? Seven. Oh, you're good. Okay. I see. You like your legs. Yeah, but Eugene is still like, for him, that's still short shorts. That's a short short. Yeah, I'm like. But are you more like an Adam Sandler short guy? Yeah. Yeah. But not too much over the knee because it kind of squashes me in. But to the knee? But almost, just almost by the knee. Just enough. Two fingers. Can I borrow him to go shopping and play pickleball? Any time. I'm going to put you in some nine-inch athletic shorts. Right. And then we're going to play pickleball. No long socks. I'm with you. I can't do long socks.

21:48Brené Brown:But can you do ankle socks? Are you a no-show guy? I can do an ankle sock and a push to solidify our relationship because I'm giving you just a little bit just to show you that I trust you. I'll go secret socks any day. Tucked in. No one can see. I'm good. But if you're saying, okay, Eugene, if you're going to go with these socks, I would feel like you're trying to get involved in my world. Because I like submerging myself in people's worlds. If you give me a nine-inch hem on your short, I'll give you no-show socks. Give me a seven and maybe I'll... Do a crew? Wow. You saw it here first. I did see it here first.

22:29Yeah, yeah. That is impressive deal-making.

22:31Brené Brown:No, we're playing. Like, I will fly back here to play. That is impressive, impressive deal-making. Sorta. if he wishes out. But wait, wait, wait. But I want to know. Let's go back to the sports thing. Wait a minute. Okay. One thing I wanted to say because I'm like, I just want to finish. I want to go back to when the news was a loss leader. It was interesting. It was a financial loss leader, but it was an equity builder for trust in the network. Yes. Yes. Say that again. Okay. So news was a loss leader financially, But it's – so its only job really was to build equity in the network so that other people didn't have that job, which I think is part of – I don't want a talk show host being tasked with building equity in trust.

23:27Brené Brown:You're not wrong. Right. You're not wrong. I don't want that. Something has failed. Something has failed. And A, I don't believe you to begin with. You're in a bit. You're in a bit right now. But the news, when the news's job was to build equity through public trust without regard to financial encumberment, I guess, we were better. I think we were better then. And then pickleball, I do play six days a week. And it's been one of the most fun because I was a tennis player for 40 years. And I follow a lot of sports. I follow Go Birds. I'm an Eagles fan. I'm a huge Liverpool fan. And in fact, I just did.

24:06Brené Brown:No ways. Eugene has just been thrust into. Oh, Eugene, I'm sorry. This feels like a trap. And I didn't. Let's hold hands, Eugene. Come on. I swear I didn't do this to you. Walk on. Walk on.

24:24This can't be happening. Eugene, I'm so sorry. Hey, you love pickle and you're a Liverpool fan.

24:31Brené Brown:Yeah. In fact, I was just on a podcast in the UK. and they handed me their phone and they said, hit play and it was Steven Gerard saying, hey, Renee. Yeah. Wow. I got goosebumps when you said that. Yeah, me too. Anfield, baby. Ride or die. I'm dying. If those are the options to pick me down inside. I've never had anyone actually respond to ride or die with, I'll choose death.

25:02Don't go anywhere because we got more What Now after this. Picture this. You're about to take off for a long flight and suddenly you realize the Wi-Fi is out. Ladies and gentlemen, the Wi-Fi is not working. You've already seen most of the in-flight movies and the book you brought feels more like homework than pleasure. This, my friends, is when you'll love having YouTube premium. Downloading videos before a flight is a must. You can be sitting 30 ,000 feet in the air halfway through a fascinating interview, a travel documentary, or a cooking series you've somehow become emotionally invested in.

25:38No Wi-Fi, no problem. You also get ad-free viewing and background play. So if you need to shut off your screen to rest your eyes or devote your attention to eating those little Biscoff cookies without getting crumbs everywhere, you can still keep listening to your content. And honestly, a long flight might be my favorite time to have YouTube Premium because suddenly you have something you almost never have on the ground, hours to yourself. So before a flight, you can almost build your own entertainment system. Maybe there's an interview you've been saving because it's two hours long, a documentary somebody told you about, a live performance you never got around to watching, something completely random you've always wanted to understand.

26:18That's the fun of it. You get on the plane with this little world you've chosen for yourself, and for the next few hours, you can go wherever your curiosity takes you. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Sign up now for your free trial at youtube.com slash premium. Terms apply. Cancel anytime.

26:58The Healthy Way to Bank. Learn more at HACU.org. Federally insured by NCUA. APR equals annual percentage rate. See website for requirements and details. Hey, Chicagoland. The Wayfair store is in your neighborhood at Edens Plaza and Wilmette. Finally, you can feel the fabric, sit on the sectionals, and even open the refrigerators.

27:16Brené Brown:Plus, our in-store designers will help you bring it all together with free one-on-one design support for any project on any budget. Yep, we said free. Oh, and did we mention the cafe? So what are you waiting for? Come see all that's in store. Visit the Wayfair store today at Edens Plaza and Wilmette. Wayfair, every style, every home.

27:42So I want to know, going back to sort of where we started this, is when people take you seriously, is there a way, because I don't know, when did you become Brene Brown? And what I mean by that is you're Brene Brown, But then at some point, you become Brene Brown. You're not just Brene. You're not Ms. Brown. You're Brene Brown. And people, Brene, Brene Brown, Brene Brown, Brene Brown. Then you're in an airport. So Brene Brown, Brene Brown, my life, Brene Brown. And then a company leader, Brene Brown, Brene Brown, Brene Brown. I'd love to know when that happened and how weird that was for your life.

28:18Because it fascinates me because of the thing we're talking about, right? You know an athlete is somebody who plays the sport that they play. And then we are shocked in society when they do anything human outside of what they do. Does that make sense? Yeah. Spotted, NBA superstar drunk at a party. And you're like, why is that a thing? Why is that a thing? Because we only see them in one space. We only see them in one world. We now make them one idea. You are a fixed, metastasized idea of a human being. And anything beyond that is wrong. Can be you. Yeah. And also, can be you. No, no, it can't be.

28:59I think the minute that happens, let me think about another word.

29:03Brené Brown:I wish there was another word for dehumanizing that wasn't dehumanizing. Because I want to save dehumanizing for the really big catastrophic trauma. Oh, yeah. I hear what you're saying. Yeah, but I wish there was a word that was like reductive. Yeah, it's reductive. It's flattening. It's flattening, yeah. And so I think, oh, yeah. No, I get that. I don't know. But whenever I became that thing that you're talking about was really shocking for me.

29:39Brené Brown:Because when you are a public person, this is what my therapist has taught me, and I think it's been helpful. When you're a public person, you become like a screen on which shit is projected from other, you know, you become the screen. and people project all their shit on you. And so if I say something like, if I say something on social about ice and then the next thing I know, I'll get a picture of all my books on fire in someone's backyard. And they'll say,

30:11Brené Brown:they think they know me to the point that there's any dimension of me that's not aligned with who they want me to be or who they think I need to be in order to have been helpful to them. Then it's like a solid, it's actually weird. It's actually like betrayal. They feel betrayed. So they burn my books in their backyard and they say, fuck you. I hope you die. I hope your family dies. I can't, you know, my daughter, you know, our family went through this thing and you were so helpful and now you've changed. And I'm like, I don't think I've ever written a book that if you really read it, not for what you needed, but for who I am, you would never be surprised by anything I said or posted.

30:55Brené Brown:Ever. If you had not squeezed the life out of me to pluck from me what you need, you would never be surprised. Like, I got arrested in a protest for the first time when I was 16. Like, this is not new for me. And so, and I think it's happened both the far right and I think the far left. Oh, definitely. Yeah, the far left is, you know. That one was harder for me because I had a lot of identity tied up in that. And so, but I, when I became that thing, I just really had to, I had to go away for a year or two. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, for sure. Oh, wow. Yeah. And then I had to think, do I want to stay away?

31:38Brené Brown:Because I really love this, more pickleball. Yeah.

31:43Brené Brown:but then I thought let's see if I can do it another way and then choose from a place other than fear if I want to go away because right now I'm running I'm not walking I'm not walking towards something I want I'm running from something that I'm afraid of yeah so now I'm in that I'm in that decision making thing right now what do you mean? I know exactly what you mean I get it do you get it? yeah I think we all do Because with proximity, you get a clearer view of if I gave the person what they really wanted, does it actually change their life? So if someone says, I wish you would die and go away, and you do go away, you look back and you go, if I was away, what really changed?

32:26But then you go from being away, I don't like being away. Because you've let them choose for you. I have let them choose for me, for sure. I've been in that space where there was something I couldn't confront really. And I would listen to what people were saying, which was an idea that they had about me. The thing that you spoke about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of once they've made you the person that they think you are. And you stray a little bit because of what news say or an ex says about you. And you start believing it and you go, let me be away so there's nothing to talk about. Right. But then you go, I'm still living while being away.

32:56Right? I'm still living while being away. That's the hardest part. Yeah, I'm here still. I'm still here. Yeah, I didn't delete myself. I've deleted myself from your existence Right But I'm still here Then you go okay Then I decided to live loudly And say And it was on One of the episodes that we first did together Where I would say all the things That people were always misconstruing about me And things that were true about me That were deeply hurtful That I went through Then I felt so liberated Because I felt like I was actually saying it From a point of honesty Not from a point of defending myself Defensive

33:29Brené Brown:Oh god yeah That's the worst part That's the word. I mean, it is. And then because it's like, oh, betray yourself last. Yeah. Like, you know. Yeah. Because at some point when you're defending yourself, you're going to lie about yourself. You have to. At some point you're like, and then that thing happened. Yeah, but I know why that thing happened. And you keep going back and back and back in the real roles. Further, further, further until you go, I can't go anymore. But when you're telling the truth, it's quicker, it's better, and it's liberating. It's like that deep sigh that I felt after we did that episode.

34:01That episode was long. It was like three hours because we had hung out before and then we did the episode and we hung out after. And the relief I felt of knowing that I said what I wanted to say and I didn't care because I've experienced the worst from people who say, this is who you are and this is what you did and da-da-da-da-da. And I gave them the thing that they wanted. I went away. But I told the truth and I said, I'm not going anywhere. Okay. This is so powerful.

34:25Brené Brown:Can I ask you a question?

34:30Brené Brown:So when the people are thinking, when you think about the people, one thing that you said that I have a question about is who people think I am. Do you think it's who people think you are or do you think it's who people need you to be in order to work out their own shit, in order to, you know, feel better about themselves? is it really, is the struggle really about who people think we are? Or is it really about who people really need me to be? Absolutely, yeah. Do you know what I mean? Because if it's about who people think we are, I spend a lot of time trying to work to change that. Oh, no, like, let me go in the comments and say, oh, actually, that's not true.

35:17Brené Brown:But then I realized, well, this is a fucking losing battle because this is not about who people think I am. This is about who people need me to be. People need me to be this. Because if I'm not this, it's confronting to them in a way that's uncomfortable. Yeah. And I think one of the—that's so powerful. I think one of the most unfair things that people can ask from other people is not honesty, is not reliability, is consistency. As a human, I can't guarantee that I'm going to be consistent in anything. In liking you as a partner, in being consistent at my job, or loving the job the same way again or walking the same path, I cannot promise that I'm going to be consistent.

35:56But what I can promise is I'm going to do it from a place of love. So whatever it is that I change in my ways, I would make someone go, you're not the same person anymore. And I'm like, yeah, but I'm not doing it to hurt you. I'm not doing it to hurt myself. I can promise you now that I'm not going to be consistent in this, but I'll try to do it from a place of love. And that's what I've had to do. And I've had this conversation with my daughter. And I said, there's things that we used to do together, I'm not going to be consistent with. You'll look at it and go, hmm, we used to do this consistently, and now you're not doing it anymore.

36:26And I'm like, yeah, whatever change happened and whatever path I chose to be consistent on and venture on, I'm doing it from a place of love. But I realized that I couldn't be this reliable, consistent person to everyone because it was those small little roles that everyone assigned. And when I strayed a little bit and everyone go, what are you doing?

36:50so it's really wow i i find i find one of the more fascinating aspects of life is that we can all solve a rubik's cube using completely different techniques at the end we we always you know most people end up in the same place but you find we all got there in different ways. So somebody figured out like a trick to align the things in one direction. Other people just kept moving the pieces around until they got like all the lines. Someone just went, I'm going to take the colors off completely.

37:27Brené Brown:I'm going to peel the stickers off. Line them up and put them back on. So some people, but the point is we're all trying to get to the same place. What I'm genuinely eternally grateful for, even in this conversation we're having here is I had one of the stranger interactions with people online because I never engaged with the comments section, but I would engage with the commenters in the section. Like in a DM or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, got it. And I've told you this story before, but like when I was very early on starting The Daily Show, people were just like, this person shouldn't be here.

38:05We hate him already. He's terrible. He can't say, he doesn't say women properly. because in South Africa, we say like, when we're talking about like, we say women, that's plural for, but Americans say women. Yeah. But we say, we pronounce the O more, you know, and people are like, can't even say the word women properly. And it was like this whole thing. But it was everything, right? And then there was one commenter who was more prominent than others in the mix. And I DM'd him and I was genuine because I was new to this. I went, hey, why do you hate me so much? And I'll never forget this guy from Canada.

38:40And he went, his response, it was actually beautifully effusive. He was like, hey, Trev. Hey, buddy, I don't hate you at all. He said, I'm just joining in with what everyone's saying and it's fun and we're piling in. And he wrote it out. I could probably still find it in my DMs. He wrote it out. And can I tell you, I'm eternally grateful to him because he was honest enough to be aware of what was actually happening. Because someone might be like, you know why. or did they try and like put it back on you? He was like, oh yeah, you've done nothing wrong. We're a mob. And as a mob, we're coming for you.

39:16It's a lot of fun. And this is what the internet does. Welcome to the internet, buddy. And he was like, just for the record, I think you're very funny. I do think you're going to fail on The Daily Show, but I think you're very funny and I wish you the best of luck. And I just went, what is happening here? And I know this sounds crazy, but just that interaction gave me a third way to think of it. I went, it is not that the person, people think I'm this way. It is not even that they need me to be this way. I have just happened to step into the spot where somebody was about to drop a bucket of water.

39:55You happened. Does that make sense? Yeah, you happened into the spot. Yeah, the right spot. So the way I started thinking of it is I went everywhere, all the time in our lives as people, we have buckets that we're filling with water. and that water is whatever emotions they may be. We've got a bucket of love. We've got a bucket of anger. We've got a bucket of hate. We've got a bucket of disdain. Whatever these things are, we've got these buckets. You're the water balloons. I like that. You are a water balloon kind of guy. Accuracy.

40:21Brené Brown:I can already see it. So we're filling them up. We're filling them up. We're filling them up. Or they're being filled up. They're being filled up. And if you're not aware of it, they get filled, they get filled. And then at some point you tip it out. whoever's there when the tipping happens gets all of it they just get all of it and and this person made me realize sometimes we make it seem like the bucket is being tipped on us it's just being tipped and we're there it's just being tipped and you are perfectly positioned for the tipping to happen and so i find sometimes it happens in life a parent will fill up their bucket with you know oh for sure you know it's like all the things that frustrate them for and work and this and and then the kid will be there at the moment that they're tipping the bucket charge you little shit all the shit and then the kid's like oh man wow i'm drenched and hate i don't think i deserve this much water for what i did right and now you the tipper and you're going ah i mean the same thing happens on the internet though is you when you open the app on a day and your bucket is filled in a certain way you will find the thing to tip into because it's there already yeah so if you're in a good mood you'll be shocked at how quickly you scroll past the bad stories and when you're in like a rage you know and you open that app and you're gonna find and then you go like you know what take this bucket here you go how dare you study law kim kardashian who the hell do you think you are why did that make you angry yeah genuinely what are you angry about yeah what what what what offended you so much she thinks she can go and be a lawyer but why are you angry yeah what are you actually angry about especially when it's like a complete random person on the other side of the globe and so what it taught me was and maybe there's like a component of spiritualism about it was genuinely i'll go like oh it's it's not about you but like in a really wonderful way yeah i was like it's it's not it's just not about you really not yeah it's not about you it's not about you but maybe maybe that's the thing it's not about you outrage offers us a chance to be mean without taking responsibility definitely like yeah why but why not yeah explain no you can see it by the way i also think we need it though being outraged yes i think i think in society this is why i love sports and this is why i think sports is one of the most important things society has same i it's the it's the reason i believe people should go to stadiums i that's why i think tickets should stay cheap they should be affordable so people can go okay i believe that there should be multi multitudes of sport you know why because it is a place where it is appropriate for you to hate and you let that hate out god kill you i get that out the field are you piece of shit And you can then be like, all right, let's go home, Billy.

43:16Come on, come on, boys. I've never looked at it like that. Yeah, because we are getting fewer and fewer spaces and places in society where we can tip out our buckets in a safe and acceptable way. When can you tip off your bucket? You know, like you can't even fight as kids anymore, so you can't tip off that bucket. So when does that happen? It can't. When can you swear at somebody? You can't, you can't. So you can't tip that bucket. when can you and if you can't I feel like we just become more and more and more oppressed the feeling you get you've seen me if I watch a Liverpool game with Ryan and Ryan's wife will always say she'll be like why do you do this to yourself and I go because it's amazing I get to ride a rollercoaster of emotion I get to swear I get to be angry I get to be joyful I get what a in 90 minutes I get to ride a wave of emotions that if we're honest in the grand scheme of things doesn't really affect me.

44:14I think that's a beautiful thing in life. I think it's worth preserving for people. But now we have fewer and fewer avenues for it. And one of the last ones is social media where people anonymously can just come and be like... Outrage. Yeah. Anger. Sports fans usually, when their team wins, they go, we won. Yeah. And when the team loses, they go, we lost. Yes. What's up with that? Unge na api? I'll tell you where Singenagupi Singenagupi means where do you enter How do you enter into it Yeah because why did we lose Why did we win 12th man Can I tell you That's another reason I love sports

44:54Brené Brown:Yeah we're there We take for granted Oh no we're there Wait what is Anfield without the fans What's UT football without the fans So 12th man phenomena is a real thing 100 % You're experiencing all the emotions Oh I work with a lot of sports teams Yeah, no, you, yeah, I mean, you have to, the 12th man is such a real thing that if you're playing an opponent that has a strong 12th man element, I would say 12th person because I'm a women's sports person too, but 12th person, let's say 12th man, fucking hell, I can't, I don't know, 12th man. Financial Times article. What the 12th man? Buy 12th man.

45:39Manish. 12th person. 12th person. You know, can I tell you the funniest thing about that? This is like just perspective to that. So my mom lives the most offline existence of most human beings I know. She almost lives apart from time for the most part, right? And sometimes I like to engage my mom with things that current society is like dealing with. Just to see how she processes it almost from an off the grid perspective. Right, right, right. Right? The cabin in the woods. Yeah, completely. And I'll just be like, hey, what do you think about? And one of my favorite ones was asking her about this.

46:16And I said, you know, I'll say this like I'll poke her, but not in like an agitating way. But I'll be like, oh, should we not also say, you know, because it's person? And then my mom goes, she literally said to me, she went, not even fighting. She's like, what do you mean? The man covers everyone. Then I'm like, no, it doesn't. Fire man. And then she's like, spell woman for me. And then I was like, W-O-M-A-N. She's like, what's at the end of it? She's like, we're using the abbreviation for everyone. She's like, I've never thought of it like that. She's like, yeah, fireman. She's like, because it's like human.

46:51So I'm taking all of this. And she's like, woman, human, man. She's like, it's all. We've just gendered the last part. She was like, I would. She's like, no, you would gender. I'm not. It's just the abbreviation. And I was like. That's interesting. Yeah. And she was like, I don't know why there's a problem. Yeah the 12 men Sounds better than 12 person Nish Human Yeah but it's also For me It just gave me a perspective That I didn't have Yeah yeah Where I went Huh Human Human And my mom genuinely Was processing it from that lens She was going The end of If you want to make If there's a dog That fights fire We'll call it a fire dog If there's a human That fights fire We'll call it a fire man that's how she was doing it yeah she was going the end of hue the species at the end yeah the species of the man part yeah the man is not gender no no that's in her head that's not how she was doing it and i was like damn what a interesting way yeah that isn't that linguistically it's

47:50Brené Brown:really interesting i would say when we make a dollar for the dollar then i'll let go of the the gender neutral but until while we're making the 74 cents i'm gonna be going 12th person well I don't give a shit whether it sounds good or not. And if it would have started 12th person, it would sound normal now. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, but that's language. Everything is going to sound weird until it's normal. So, but the 12th person, the stands or as a player is so significant that it changes the training weeks leading up to games where that phenomenon is the strongest. I always show this great clip when I'm talking to leaders, and I think it was Colorado going to play Oregon.

48:33Brené Brown:And their stands are so nuts that for the week leading up to the training, they just put the Oregon fight song on huge stacks of speakers at the training and follow the players around. Because you can't hear, it's so demoralizing. You can't hear the play calls. You know, when it's third down, I'm a Longhorn fan, so University of Texas. Third down, it just says on the big thing, make noise. And we get so loud that they can't hear the play call. So they're probably going to, if they can't hear the play call, how fast or slow the pocket collapses around the quarterback will change. And that means they will probably try to run the ball instead of throw the ball.

49:16Brené Brown:And if we're in like a short yardage situation, I mean, it just gets very complicated. It gets messy so 100 i mean i think you saw that at the derby you know liverpool you saw that it's just it's very if you love football you can you can watch people fighting back tears that are fans of the other team in anfield when when they sing you'll never walk oh yeah yeah it's something it's it's man it's magic have goosebumps goosebumps have goosebumps it's like pickleball you can't even you can't even you know who you know who said it the other day actually was um they asked um wow they asked uh Luis Enrique the coach of PSG PSG they said hey we we read a story that you snuck in to a Liverpool match right after you retired from playing football you came and you watched the and then first he was taken aback then he's like oh he's like who asked that question and he's like that's good research and then he's like yeah I just wanted to come to Liverpool to to experience it and he says oh he's like it's not just a stadium he says it was he's like you feel their fans you feel it's a cathedral yeah it it makes the people feel different i've seen teams lose because the fans got nervous yeah the fans start being like and then the players are like yo stop that man just you feel that on stage as a comedian but you think about that sometimes you're telling a joke and there's an audience that is completely comfortable and with you you'll you'll go to the craziest places with that joke yeah and then sometimes there's audiences where as soon as you you go down then they're like oh boy eugene we don't don't don't don't we're gonna lose our jobs eugene and then you go damn if i go i'm going alone do i want to go alone but when an audience is with you that's when i mean you know you know oh you make magic that you couldn't make you guys are shifting my perspective and it's i know it's a sports analogy but now i'm starting to get a little bit and about how you describe the 12th person I've always looked at sports As exclusive Instead of inclusive So I've never looked From the field to the crowd Thinking this thing is bringing them together They're having a hot dog, they're meeting up They're dressed the same, they agree on what the play should be I've always looked at why do those people Get to do what they like And the rest of them have to watch them Oh wow, that's how you've seen it I've always seen it like that So I've never understood Why would everyone come to watch these people, few people doing what they like?

51:49And then the rest of them don't have the opportunity to do what they like. I've always looked at it as exclusive instead of inclusive.

51:56Brené Brown:So this is really interesting because, okay. I think I disagree with some of the things you said from a different perspective. Do it. Okay. Yeah.

52:13Brené Brown:So I'm going to go back because there were so many things that I'm going to know. When we, I interviewed you at a conference, like was it a year and a half, two years ago? Probably, yeah. Yeah. I've not stopped thinking about that conversation. And I really have beef with you on one of the things you said because it really changed my worldview. Oh, I love it. It really pissed me off. Let's do it. So I don't want to leave with this unfinished business this time. So one. That's what we're going to call this episode, Brene Brown, unfinished business. that's what we're gonna call it i'm gonna need you in some seven inch shorts if you're gonna be with me i want some short shorts baby i want like i want like larry bird five inch yeah okay um so i don't know that i disagree with you but i'm trying to make sense of things so one the the collective bucket is full and you're in the right place at the wrong time and you're going to catch the stuff flowing from the bucket, whether it's hate, sometimes it's love.

53:15Brené Brown:Sometimes you're the right place to catch the love. Okay. So I absolutely experienced that. And like I had to fight when I had to fight not crying when you were talking about it, because I have been in the exact right place at the exact wrong time and really caught rage, just buckets and buckets and buckets of rage. so I think that's true the other thing that is weird that I've never had a conversation about in my life because I didn't want to admit to my team not anyone meant to my therapist that I had dm'd a couple of people on occasion and said man it's really hard to hear that you think this about me right and I'm curious about can you help me understand what you're basing that on like where How did that happen?

54:01Brené Brown:I want to know. And it's always been like, oh, my God, Brene Brown is DMing me. And then it's like they share their screenshot. And I love her. And she really, you know. And then I've never once had someone come back to me with never once. I've only probably done it so small sample size four or five times. But it's always been kind. And, you know, and so that's weird. The thing that I would say about the inclusive versus exclusive and the collective dumping of emotion is one thing that we haven't talked about yet that I think is neurobiologically hardwired is belonging. Mm-hmm. True. And so genuine belonging is very, very difficult because belonging doesn't ask us to fundamentally change who we are.

55:06Brené Brown:It requires that we be who we are. So if y 'all are friends and I can't get a brief from my team on y 'all and know exactly what to say because then I'm not being myself. And if you like me for that, I know it's fraught. Because the second I'm myself, then I'm doomed. Genuine belonging really requires the capacity for people to stand on their own and be alone. And if you can stand on your own and be alone and then be yourself, and then there's real connection. So genuine belonging is tough. One of the fastest neuro hacks to belonging is collective schadenfreude. No ways. That is one of the... It gives us full body feelings of belonging.

55:56Brené Brown:We are going to connect mutually in watching this person fall. And it gives us all kinds of goosebumps. It gives us all kinds of sense of we're together. And what I say is, I don't really know you, but our connection, the three of us, is we hate the same people. We're at the public square for a hangout. Yeah, we're at the public square for a hanging. And there's a couple of things that are happening in that public square at the moment. One, we're gathered. One, there's a ton of adrenaline. Two, we're very limbic in the part of our mind that's very fight-flight. We're also mitigating each other's shame about enjoying this.

56:41That's what a mob, you said this with firing squad.

56:44Brené Brown:Yeah, we're mitigating each other's shame. So the collective schadenfreude about watching someone, especially who's got celebrity or a platform fail, it's not lasting or meaningful. It's kind of like you're hardwiring it. I mean, hotwiring it like you hotwire a car if you're stealing it, right? But it's there. So that's one thing I would say is I don't think we can forget the counterfeit connection we get from collective schadenfreude. And in a world where so many people are in pain and need, don't have what it takes to forge real connection because we're so lonely right now, it's a surefire way to get it.

57:27It's just absolutely a Faustian bargain, right? We've never been so alone in a room full of people. Right. Open your phone, dozens of people. Right.

57:38Brené Brown:You're right. We've never been so alone. Right. And so we're so alone. So we are so, and again, neurobiologically hardwired for connection in the absence of connection, there is always 100 % of the time suffering. And so we're suffering. And so to be with a group of people, even in the comment section, it's a hit. It's just a hit of connection really quickly. It is corrosive and damaging over time because we know it's not real, but it can give us something quick. So I would say we should really think about the collective schadenfreude and need for belonging that we're getting. The second thing I would say is one of the things that worries me a little bit about, and I get criticized for this a lot, and I think some of the criticism has been helpful because, I mean, when I wrote Strong Ground, it probably has probably the last leadership book I'll ever write, and it came out last year.

58:36Brené Brown:It probably has 30 sports metaphors in it, like chapters built. I mean, there's a chapter called the Tush Push. It's based on it because I think sport is leadership theater. It's everything. Yeah. Right. I think it's life theater, to be honest with you. Oh, it's life theater. It really is. And so the one thing I would say is dangerous is us collectively coming together to find a place to empty our rage bucket, for me, is the best of sport and why sometimes I find it indefensible and the worst of sport. Interesting. So we know that the busiest day of the year for domestic violence hotlines is Super Bowl Sunday.

59:19Brené Brown:I did not know that. Yeah. We know more women are beat by male partners on Super Bowl Sunday. Are you being serious? Oh, yeah, 100%. Yeah, 100%. We know that, and I'm talking about this honestly because I came from kind of a baller family. We were athletes. My dad played football in college. But I also grew up with a very complex father who Sundays were not safe in our house. Damn. Based on how the games went. Because we weren't, you know, American. and we grew up with NFL was like our premier league, right? So I would also say that giving ourselves permission to feel hate or rage in sport is really dangerous.

1:00:08Brené Brown:So right now what I'm seeing with college football teams that I work with are, and I hate to be the downer in this, but I think it's a really important conversation. The realistic, yeah. The real in this, it's not even down. are these 18 to 22-year-old kids that are playing college football that are, and we'll get into a really hard topic here, that are getting death threats every day because betting has become such a problem. It's a scourge. It's a scourge, right. It's a scourge. And fuck the people who do it. No, no, it's a scourge. And that market to young boys who are lonely and need the hit.

1:00:48so these football players many of them who've trained and worked their whole lives for a lot

1:00:52Brené Brown:of them it's their way out it's their way to a college education are getting you know really death threats every day that hey your fumble cost me my parlay and so sometimes you know as a UT football huge fan season ticket holder sometimes I have to put myself in a trance to get through a game when I'm seeing the, you know, 240 pound guy yelling at the 19 year old kid that you're a loser and your ass out there. And, you know, and I'm like, these are kids. Like it's, I think sports is the best of us, but I also think it's the worst of us. I agree completely. Look at the racism in European football.

1:01:37Brené Brown:Like, I mean, just... So... I think people should take more accountability for their buckets. Oh, that I completely agree with. Yeah. No, what I was referring to is the person who has been drenched. I was talking about like how as a person who catches it. The person who catches it. You've experienced it in your life. You've been a child. You have been a spouse or a partner. You've been an employee. employee you've been a citizen you've been a bystander you whatever it is you've been somebody who has experienced a drenching and all i was referring to is the thing that helps me even though the drenching doesn't necessarily change is just trying to remember that that bucket could have hit anyone could have hit anyone and it just makes it helps me remember it because i think sometimes what happens in life interesting what sometimes happens in life is we without knowing it ask ourselves or blame ourselves or question ourselves or infer anything about ourselves because the thing happened what did i do to bring this on anything ah man i wish i hadn't crossed the street that day i shouldn't have been walking i i shouldn't you know because we've been raised in many worlds you know depending on your culture as well so many of us have been told that we are the masters of our universe that when it rains it's raining on me i shouldn't have been it's like but what this that's why i say it's a little it's some of it is almost a little spiritual because when i was when i was in bhutan and there were monks who articulated it way better than i had ever been able to like fumble through it they sort of made me realize they were like oh no no no the thing is not happening to you in that way you are there so it is it is happening you know and And so we think of - Oh, I got chills.

1:03:38We always think of everything in the world focused on us. Like it's got a point of view. We are at the center of it. We struggle to consider the possibility that we are on the periphery of anything. That's why I said when the extraction happened, when I stepped back, I was like, these things are still happening. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, that's what I mean. Yes. That's what I mean. So to come back to it, I love what you're saying. Nailed it. because that thing, that's one of the biggest things that we always have to work on in a society is going, hey, just because your bucket got full doesn't mean that now, you know what I mean?

1:04:15It's the same. We do it with trash, funny enough, in real life. We go like, just because your trash is full, you can't just go dump it in the streets. Find a place. There's a legal way to go and get rid of your trash. There's a correct way that society has determined. You cannot just dump your, no, no, no, no, no. Just because your toilet is full doesn't mean you can like go pour it in the hallway of your apartment building oh well but there's you get what I'm saying there's there's rules about this but what I'm saying is where do you think what I'm saying is I wish in society to your point actually I wish we spent more time discussing and trying to figure out the emotional spaces for dumping the emo like because we we forget that nobody teaches us these things nobody teaches anybody these things unless you really go out and look for it.

1:05:03Brené Brown:Not the emotional offloading. No one teaches you these things. But you do know, even a child is taught how to throw their trash away. Hey, hey, hey. You don't put that on the ground. You go and you put it inside the trash. No, no, no, no. We don't throw it out the window. We go and we put that. You don't throw it at another person. We're going. And just at a very young age, you learn that the trash you have is meant to go into that vessel over there. In Japan, when I was there, it was even a higher level. That's nuts. They were like, no, no, you keep your trash. and you take it home with you and then you deal.

1:05:34There's no one who's going to come fetch bins in the street. But they're the same people that disappear into a forest and never come out. So now, but it is that actually. It's that extreme. They've gone like one extreme. So what I'm saying, I wish we had exactly your sentence. I wish we had more of learning and teaching each other how to throw our emotional trash away in a bin and not at a person and not on the floor. Does it make sense? It totally makes sense. That's the accountability to what you're saying.

1:06:01Brené Brown:No, I want, so that's why, okay, yes. That's why I think sports could be a dangerous place to do it because depending on how dirty your trash is, it still can be dangerous. What's the composting plan? Like what, so I could say easily, but this is not accessible for everyone. I could say I have tons of bins full of shit. Yeah. So therapy has, therapy has, and coaching has taught me to compost my stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's not accessible to everyone. I know. I think I figured this out. I was having a conversation this week and I said that composting plant for that discourse is healthy disagreeability with people that you like.

1:06:41Yeah, I do agree with that.

1:06:43Brené Brown:Oh my God, that's good. Say that again. Healthy disagreeability with people that you like. Okay, wait a second. Yes. And I'm going to compost it because I'm going to have healthy disagreeability. A hundred percent. For someone that I like. Is it someone you like or is it someone you trust? Both. It could be someone I love, someone I like, someone I trust. Essentially, fundamentally, it's get along with. Yes, I do know the one thing that could, that scares me the most that you said at the beginning was belonging. I know that's not threatened by us not agreeing. It's not threatened. But that is so rare.

1:07:20I'm never going to not belong here anymore just because we had this healthy... The fact that you like Liverpool and I like nothing is healthy. because it's a disagreeability that's healthy. It doesn't threaten the way you think of me. I will never not belong here anymore in this friendship. So I'm training that muscle and I'm learning a little bit of rejection here and a little bit of being wrong here and sometimes giving in because I've learned that sometimes in those healthy disagreeabilities, people go, oh, I see.

1:07:49Brené Brown:Okay, I am having such a moment. I do love you even though, and we'll go to Anfield after Pickleball. You will never walk alone. he looked me dead ass in the eye and said that like you meant it I got goosebumps when you said it thank you walk on

1:08:10what is he doing? he's such a troll

1:08:12Brené Brown:he knows exactly to be to be an excellent troll you have to be willing to delve into the depths of the things that you wish to troll about That's Eugene's level of dedication He'll learn players, coaches Games, everything So that he can fully participate In the level of trolling that he needs to Yeah, I mean, I felt like You just did something where it's like I'm like, hey, and they're like, oh, I'm bleeding Like, I just got shivved Like, yeah But I didn't even feel it go in No, no, no, no, no, really gently It's the smile Yeah, it's the shivving versus the shanking

1:08:57okay i am okay so what's so weird is she's my shoe yeah can you put that shit away um

1:09:04Brené Brown:yeah this yeah yeah okay got it and you're five inch short

1:09:11Brené Brown:okay so so i'm like i'm i'm connecting things that are like maybe true maybe let's just try it on And so you said something when you listed all the things that are happening as we disagree. Like, ooh, I'm kind of, I'm taking one to the chin. I'm giving one. I'm being forgiven. I'm forgiving. There's some grace. Like that back and forth that happens, right? When you belong and you can really disagree. one of the things that i'm tying that to when you said you know we're not kids are not fighting anymore which is probably good that you know we're not like you know like to the to the degree that like when i was raised where you oh yeah yeah there's degrees of everything yeah right exactly but i will say one of the things that's really one of the things that's really coming up for me is the research on the importance of play and physical play and kind of shoving down play.

1:10:14Brené Brown:You know, I'm swinging from the bar and I kick you and then you, you know, because one of the things it does when we're young is play teaches us a lot about how to develop relationships in the context of learning how to push, how to be pushed, how to forgive, how our choices actually impact other people, and how we can wrestle and have fun and enjoy it. There's a line, right? And kids are not playing anymore. Kids are on screens, they're not playing anymore. So I think I'm just curious about like,

1:10:54it goes back to even our conversation about sanitized

1:11:00Brené Brown:sanitized interviews or weaponized interviews we just don't know how to get in there and shove around a little bit and become better human beings sorry yeah no no i was going to say so so even with you know what i love is is the framing that you're using there with the kids i think we take for granted how adept kids are at actually understanding that play delineates from life. So if you remember being a kid, there are things that would happen on the playground or in a play setting that would hurt you, that would make you angry, that would make you happy, that whatever it was. But in a strange way, you knew that that wasn't your life.

1:11:45Brené Brown:That's 100 % true. Does that make sense uh-huh so you you could say with a kid i mean you're a father but you could like say with a kid you could go what happened and then it's like oh they were playing don't push while you're playing though but there was this weird there was this line where you sort of like knew that that happened in the playland even though it was real but it happened in playland yeah and then you can now come back to normal life where it is not happening right you hurt your knee doing yes yes yes yes yes yes that thing happened there the person pushed you there context and while it is still not acceptable it is more acceptable that it happens there so if a kid pushes you on the playground when i at least when i was growing up they would deal with it differently to if a kid pushed you in class yeah for sure don't play rough right but in class it was like no no no now you're fighting right this is full on no okay i don't know where this is going but this is so true okay yes that's true but do you get what i'm saying 100 so what what i'm guys real yeah but it happened there.

1:12:43In a context where it was

1:12:44Brené Brown:normalized. Yes. And it was almost not real. That's the main thing for me is that it was almost not real. Maybe that's where because I'm starting to realize here there's a pattern of the effects of things that we feel say for example you're in a relationship. Yes. And then you are being vulnerable to this person. Yeah. And then they throw it back at you. Oh God. Later on. Yeah. No it happened there. Yeah. When I was feeling this. But now you bring it here. So that scar is real. That pain is real, but it's at the wrong place. We're not at the playground, so you're not allowed to shove me. And then the fall won't be associated with play.

1:13:23Yeah, it's not. Yes, the fall now is real because now you've taken what should be happening there and it's happening here. So the best way I can, if I go back to sports, this is what I will say. One of the things I try to remind myself of is the fact that there are many things happening in the world that are merely magnifying glasses on a symptom, but they're not the cause. So where I'll go back on the sports thing is I'll go, it is sad to say, but it's probably true. I don't think domestic abuse changed because of sports. I don't know the numbers, but if I was to bet, I would say I don't think that domestic abuse changed because of sports.

1:14:00Brené Brown:No. I still go back to the bucket. I go, that man uses the sports to fill his buckets. who's in the house with him, his wife and kids. Unprocessed rage. But the buck, he used, so that sports game became the thing that like, all right, now I've got the excuse. Unjustified outrage. It's the excuse now. But the excuse would have come from anything and anywhere. And so that's why, so maybe this will help, like what I love about it in the right ways. One of the things that has gone down in soccer, at least over the years. Racism has gone down. There's still many instances, but it's definitely gone down in football and footballing.

1:14:44Another thing that's gone down is violence.

1:14:46Brené Brown:I agree. Right? So the hooligans. Yeah, it's really, really, it's really gone down. There's still definitely cases, but it's not what it used to be. And again, this is just me and my observation of the game. I think one of the things we take for granted in the sport, and I'll show you why I think this is important. is I think when athletes themselves saw and treated each other like humans beyond the uniforms, I think the teams and the fans also started seeing that as a possibility subconsciously or consciously. And what I mean by that is - I agree. If your team is playing on the field and they go punch the other team, something went wrong on the field and then they start punching, I believe you are more likely to feel like It is apt for you to go and punch someone outside Because they're wearing another uniform Right That's what I believe Right If they do it first Yes Oh I think violence is normalized then Yeah you go like For sure sure sure You're like this is what we need to do to the other Yeah this is normalized Because the people I look to They do it I will go outside and I too shall do it But when you see them Helping each other up Hugging Talking after the game just like not having that thing to give the other person a breather sort of what happened in was it one of those big WrestleManias at Madison Square Garden where like I think it was like was it Bret Hart I don't know who was breaking off it might have been like who's the guy with the kick again what was his name They Say I'm Sexy Shawn Michaels yeah when they were like they were breaking off remember I had to do the move distinctly gravitate to They Say I'm I thought it was the rest of the song Sexy I don't know how to Sexy damn sexy cognizant bias no the world of science we call that leave me alone so I'm like fascinated no no no like about Wimbledon no I know it's a long explanation but this is what I mean no I'm tracking in that moment yeah what the wrestlers did was so some wrestlers were breaking off to a different federation it was like live and yeah yeah yeah and then on the night they stopped in the middle of a fight and they went and they hugged each other and they were like I'm going to miss you.

1:17:00But they were like enemies on the wrestling scene.

1:17:04Brené Brown:They were the rivals. I love those human moments in sports. They're my favorite. But so many people in wrestling and the fans, they were so angry because it broke the thing that they were trying to maintain. Do you know what I mean? Directly in the camera. Yeah, they let their humanity out a little bit. But more than that, for me, what I think was the people, especially the fans that night who were there, I think they were angry as well because you've taken away our sort of like, not that people are going to go punch each other. I don't think wrestling at hooligans. But you've sort of put the emotional responsibility back on us now.

1:17:39To check ourselves? Because you can't go that they hate each other and beat each other. So you're like, so my rage is just my rage. It's not a, does this make sense?

1:17:49Brené Brown:Yes, 100%. It's my thing. It's not their thing. And so when I extrapolate it further, I go world leaders. I don't think you can take for granted how in the United States, people always talk about people are more polarized people. Yes. But you know what we should never take for granted is the fact that over the past few decades, fewer and fewer politicians from opposite sides of the aisle, because there's only two here for some crazy reason, don't come out together and do things together and show each other together and be They don't. And one of the worst examples of this for me was when, I think it was like Chris Christie was fighting, you know, up against Hillary Clinton back in the, I was like, but these people, they're like friends.

1:18:38They get along. It felt like wrestling. But I was like, but their fans don't know. The fans don't know that they can argue about law and still get along. the fans don't know that they're arguing in congress but then they go have lunch together the fans don't know this theater but but i'm just saying it's in theater right no but i'd say even right okay theater yeah but i'm saying even beyond theater let's even give them the benefit of the doubt yeah it may not be theater it's an aspect of what they do when you when you work in government you argue against the other side you fight against the other side that is part of the job you're playing a sport of fighting politically.

1:19:21But it would be nice if you showed that you also see them as humans when you're not fighting, because I do think then your fans in the stands would go, oh, Mitch McConnell goes for lunch every day with Chuck Schumel, whoever it is. No, it's why people lose their mind

1:19:38Brené Brown:when they see George W. Bush and Michelle Obama. Yeah, people are like laughing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because now they seem like outliers because they do that. when they get along, but that used to be normal. And I think if the fans don't see it, if the people don't see it, we take for granted how much it's monkey see, monkey do. Yeah, but I think when I look at sports, sometimes I look at how, because I like watching boxing, but there's one referee, I don't know his name, but whenever he's officiating a fight, he also has blood on his shirt. Damn. Have you seen that referee? I don't watch boxing.

1:20:13He gets in there and he's like, what does he look like? He's got a mustache. Yeah. I know him I think I know him Yeah he's the only He's the only referee Is the black guy Yeah yeah yeah Yeah I know the guy I know the guy you're talking about It feels like He's been in the game He's been in the game It feels like he can't take a side Because you don't know Whose blood that is Yeah yeah yeah But it also I've seen it with football as well There's coaches who are calm Who will just sit there Or with their hands behind Or will just calm the players down But there's other coaches Who are like Yeah they're in the game And then the fans get instigated You know and The outrage becomes more But the coaches where I feel like if something wrong happens in the field, they're the first person to go, yeah.

1:20:53They take responsibility for the men that they lead. And I think that's what's missing right now. There's not enough emotional refereeing that people who know better can do. People who can stand up for each other, who can get themselves bloodied, although not needing to. But then they can get in there and go, this doesn't need to be said. That bucket does not need to be spilled. And it wasn't your fault that it was spilled on you. Can I challenge this a little bit? I agree with you but I actually don't think it's a false thing I think it's an amplification thing I would argue there are as many people online who are putting out positive as negative right people not bots and things so let's exclude that because a lot of the internet is just fake it's like 40 % it's a crazy number of like things

1:21:34Brené Brown:I get a thing from Instagram that literally will say 51 ,000 of your followers are bots please delete like yeah yeah so there's a large portion I'm keeping them Mina. There's a large portion. Every fan, Matt.

1:21:51Talk to me, bot. HP2811.

1:21:57So let's exclude that part, the fake part of it. I'm saying the people online. If I, again, if I was just to guess, I would think you probably find it's an equal amount, maybe even more positive. But I think those people don't get amplified. I think the person, especially in the digital world we live in feeling it even in the political etc i think the people who step in to try and referee moments the people who try and do that i don't think they get amplified

1:22:23Brené Brown:they really really don't no i'm i'm like fixing to square up like i know i oh okay

1:22:34Brené Brown:i agree with everything you're saying and i agree with everything you're saying please come live at our house yeah yeah i will um bring pickleball Yeah, we'll make a net. I'm so frustrated right now that I think everything you're saying is true. I think – I wish there was another name for liberal democracy besides liberal democracy because people hear the word liberal as the adjective to the type of democracy and they go just freaking crazy. But democracy. I think democracy depends on what you're describing. I think that's I think democracy depends on what you're describing. Democracy depends on people understanding that we are not hating that politicians are not hating each other.

1:23:22Brené Brown:They are lunching, but they're debating politics or debating. You know, that is I absolutely believe that authoritarianism depends on the vilification and dehumanization of political opponents. So when Trump, you know, whatever his thing, true socials. It reminded me of your joke. Don't put me back in that. Let's move on. Don't put me back in it, please. You own this freaking platform. Why do you have to have the real doll at real doll. 47, 32. Anyway, but I think like when Robert Mueller died. Yeah. And he said, I'm glad he's dead. Like, that is not – that could be pathology, but it's also authoritarianism from the playbook.

1:24:16Brené Brown:Oh, for sure. It absolutely depends on that. But what's scarier to me is democracy depends on understanding that policy differences can exist between people who see each other as humans with different ideas about how to achieve the same goal. And what I think is interesting about this tying sport back into that, where you see those coaches, and this is incredible. So when you look at the research on two types of teams, a team playing to not lose versus a team playing to win. So I'll take you right back to kind of the Birds and the Chiefs Super Bowl. Yeah. Yeah. One of, and this is what's so interesting about what you're saying about amplification.

1:25:13Brené Brown:One of, if you blindfolded me and put my back to the field, it doesn't matter the sport, and just had me listen to what it sounds like on the bench from Team A and the bench on Team B, I could predict probably with 90 % accuracy the winner based on the contagion of emotion in the sideline. So negative contagion, the coach that's losing his shit, that kind of stuff. Negative contagion is one of the biggest predictors of a team playing to not lose. No way. Right. So let's say you – let's say – let's take American football. So I fumble the ball. Yeah. And I come back to the sideline and you're like, what the fuck, dude?

1:26:06Brené Brown:That is so negative contagion. So amplification, it is amplification because we know that all of the social media platforms, we know that we can keep people on the platforms longer through negativity than positivity. We know commercially incentives, again, aligned incentives, right? So the more vitriol and hate, the longer I stay on. We also know that in general, negative rumination and emotion lasts longer than positive emotion. But if I get off the field and then you hit my helmet and say, you're good. You're good. After I've dropped the ball and caused a turnover. You're safe. I'm safe. Yeah.

1:26:47Brené Brown:And it actually predicts winning. It predicts score. So one of the things that just happened, like I'm a huge Spurs fan. Let's go. I love the Spurs. I love Pop. I love Tim Duncan. I love David Robinson. I love Wimby. I love the Spurs. I love Ginobili. Like, let's go. So in a press conference, I could cry around and tell this story. And first of all, like watching David Robinson and Tim Duncan on the sidelines, watching the Spurs right now. Intergenerational joy. I mean, I just cry when I see it, literally. And so during a press conference, they asked Wimby, is it really scary for you, this threat of seeing those guys on the sideline?

1:27:31Like, just legends, right?

1:27:34Brené Brown:These legends. And he said, no, it just feels safe. I feel held. Like, if I fall, there'll be someone there. Look at Tim Duncan. Tim Duncan goes to rehab with Popovich every day. Wow. I mean, this is like, this is not soft bullshit. This is what it means to win. Positive emotional contagion. Love. Care. That's winning. And people don't get it because they're so afraid that it's not masculine and it's not tough. But love is what wins. Leading with it, yeah Leading with love Yeah We were saying this the other day We were saying Kids get taught this Almost instinctually And automatically from their parents To lead with love But just using two words That lynch everything in Thank you And please So before you have to say The thing that you're thankful for You have to say thank you for And before you have to ask for anything And be vulnerable And open yourself up You have to say May I please have Da da da da da And then we as people, as we grow older, we find ways not to use those words and lead with love first.

1:28:54Right? 100%. So you'd be like, yeah, yeah. For that thing, yeah, you know what I mean. But you're like, no, you could have said thank you for that thing. Or may I please have this thing. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, this, yeah. So you're avoiding leading with love. And you're avoiding vulnerability. Yeah, because you know that once, he said this the other day, he was like, once you've said may I please. Oh, you're open. You're open. And then you've put the request last. So you were like, me, my need, and the request. May I please have whatever it is. And that's not what we want. And I feel like adults can just go back by just using those two words again.

1:29:32Please and thank you.

1:29:34Brené Brown:I think they're functions of love. And they're functions of love. I think hard. They're functions of love. They're functions of vulnerability. I haven't thought about it enough, But I guess where I'd be curious is, do they require a level of safety? They definitely do. I think, yeah. No, a thousand percent. They definitely do. Because each one requires you to, in some way, shape, or form, humble yourself, right? There is a humility. Yeah, because thank you for opens you up to debt. It does. It immediately opens you up to debt. Neither one of us like that. We don't like that over here. We don't like debt.

1:30:13Brené Brown:I don't want to owe you just shit. You owe me a pickle game. You're different because you're wearing short shorts. Yeah, you see, there's no debt. Now it's paid. But you see what I'm saying? Paid in full, baby. People take that for granted. One of the reasons thank you can be so hard is because it opens you up to debt. Thank you for looking after me when I was sick. Thank you for coming to my birthday party. Thank you for loaning me that money. Thank you for calling me. thank you for because we live in a world where somewhere along the line we've been taught whether it's internally externally whatever that debts have to be repaid you know a Lannister always pays his debts and so now it hits against hyper individualization there you go so now for me if I say thank you for sure damn okay you've got it now it's a debt you got me now and maybe your parents taught you that for instance so you go like hey thank you for fetching me from school mom and then your mom goes yeah next And now when I ask you to clean your room later, you better do it.

1:31:13Ah, damn.

1:31:15Brené Brown:So you know what? There's a meme right now for Mother's Day that I freaking hate. Yeah? It's thinking about not saying thank you to your mom. This is how long an epidural needle is. You see, it's debt. Yeah, it's debt. That's what I mean. But love is not duty. Yeah, but this is what I mean. Love is not duty. Yes But it is death This is what I mean So all these things Same thing Open you up Please I mean you are completely At the mercy Bare open yeah You are completely At somebody's mercy It's easier for me to say Yo Eugene Are you going to finish that Yes Now I'm almost doing you a favor You going to finish that No Alright man Let me handle that for you I didn't You didn't do anything for me Are you going to finish that You're not going to finish it So I will finish it Whereas if I go Eugene can I have the rest Please may I have the rest of your drink.

1:32:09Yeah. You've opened yourself up. I'm dead, bro. You've given me enough time to even decide what I want to say to you. I'm dead.

1:32:15Brené Brown:It's a signal. It's two. And boy, we hate this. We love death by rugged individualism in this country. But it is a signal to please and thank you of something we're not good at, which is interdependence. Yes, completely. Yeah. Interdependence. I need you and you need me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm going to use a language. Because like, say something like, Thanks for taking care of me when I was sick last week. Say that to me. Thanks for taking care of me when I was sick last week. Yeah. It was nothing. Yeah. Like, as opposed to, you're welcome and I'm so glad you're better. Hmm. Damn. You know, it's, or.

1:32:56Brené Brown:Yeah.

1:33:01Brené Brown:When my kids were growing up, we really taught them that when someone said, I'm sorry, to never say, it's okay. Say more? So we always taught them to say, thank you. I appreciate the apology. Like, just say thank you, that I appreciate that. So, like, let's say. Yeah, but why? I'd love to know the why. Because it's not okay. It was not okay. It was an offense. It was not okay, actually. And so it's not my job to make you feel better. And I appreciate you making repair. So let's say you say to me,

1:33:43Brené Brown:Brene, I'm sorry that text came off as shitty. So you say that to me. Brene, I'm sorry that text came off as shitty. Thank you. I appreciate it. so the first time i had to apologize to one of my kids for kind of losing my cool i went and i said you know i'm really i think he was 10 i said i'm really sorry about how i showed up um i think i got scared and i wasn't my but my best self and i apologize my son looked at me and He goes, thank you. I was like, goddamn, you're grounded, dude. I was like, I'm smart. Every parenting team that was set by my parents. That's so funny. Who would have killed me in that moment.

1:34:28Brené Brown:That is so funny. When he said, thank you, I appreciate it. I was like. He didn't absolve. He wasn't like, it's okay, mommy. No, no. You're doing your best and I know what you're going through. No, no, no, no. It was like, thank you, I appreciate it. I literally had to like close this door and be like, I was like, what the fuck? But I really, because like, you know, you see brother, I have a daughter and a son and, you know, Ellen might waylay Charlie, you know, and then it's like, how do you think it feels for your brother? Right. It probably hurts. I'm like, right. So what do we need to do next?

1:35:04Brené Brown:And this is like such a pain in the ass because like I'm cooking and taking a work call. I have to pause everything. And it's, you know, I was raised like, tell your brother you're sorry, I'll kick your ass and you'll be grounded for six weeks, you know. So then I had to sit down and say, how do you think that feels, this and this, you know. And so then, okay, Charlie, I'm sorry. Thank you. Okay. Repair. See, that scenario that you painted, though, is one that I often mourn when I think about the cost of hyper-individualism and extreme capitalism, the way we experience it now, it's made us trade without realizing our independence, but then also our level of connectedness.

1:35:51Dependence, yeah. Literally what you're saying there, I'm cooking, I'm on a call, and I'm looking after the kids. And then I can't help but extrapolate that to everything in society. I go, how many people are cooking, taking a call, looking after the kids? And then we expect them to be more patient in traffic. Do you get what I'm saying?

1:36:12Brené Brown:This is how my bucket gets filled, actually. That's what I'm saying. That's exactly what I'm coming to. This is my rage bucket. There you go. Because you're cooking, you're taking a call, you're looking after the kids. And then on top of that, you've got your work. You're cooking, you're taking after the kids. And you've got this, you get what I'm saying? And you've got the patriarchy and fascism. There you go. Whereas when we look, not to like some magical concept, to a thing that many peoples were doing all over the world, I'm constantly shocked at how few adults you need to look after groups of children.

1:36:44Yes. We take that for granted. Even now, people have a babysitter for their child. A babysitter for a child. That's true. You know that you go to places where one adult can look after like a squad of like 15 to 20 kids and it's fine. That's how I was raised. it is fine but we don't we we've like we've forgotten what that load does like if you if you live in a community if you if if you if we didn't and i understand why these things exist but if we didn't live in a community where you know like the emotional boundaries between our spaces also like enforced our physical ones you realize like one person could cook and go like i'm gonna cook and now all the kids are in one place and then the person's looking after all the kids and then other people are helping with the cooking and then other community yeah but i but people sometimes treat it like you you're pitching like a weird commune type but i'm like but we used to like do this we had the ability to do this and life is a constant balance between how much do i have to myself time privacy etc and how much do i get to bear with others because it's necessary yeah and if we get that balance wrong and i think we're getting it wrong especially in the west what it then means is your bucket is going to fill up so much faster and we're just going to have less time to be because everyone is doing the work that each person needs to do when one person could have been doing a bunch of work for a bunch of people giving them time off giving them you know where i realized that funny enough one of the craziest realizations for me i love speaking to people who've been married for long and people who've been divorced and people, one of the most fascinating conversations I had was with a man who got divorced.

1:38:34Him and his wife were married for like 25 years. They got divorced. And he even said, he was like, the reason I asked him was because we were in the same vehicle being transported to a hotel. And he was on FaceTime with his ex-wife and they were laughing and chatting and blah, blah, blah. And share, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, bye, bye, bye. And then we started talking, you know, just conversation. One thing led to another and he was like, oh no, I'm divorced. That's my ex-wife. I was like, damn, you guys seemed pretty cool. He said, yeah, I'm really lucky. We had a great divorce, as great as a divorce can be.

1:39:07He said, but now we always joke about how we're living our best lives, me and her. I was like, what do you mean? And he said because we didn't realize the whole time when we were married That we didn't have to do all the work together We could give each other a break And one of us could work and one of us could rest And he's like now we do that So now when I'm working with the kids she's completely free When she's working with the kids I'm completely free And we joke and go why didn't we do marriage like this Because one of the things that drained them was the fact that they were constantly doing it.

1:39:45They were up at night. Then they were at school things. Then they were at, then they were at, then they. So both people are getting tired doing a job that one person can do. And then when they now split the labor, they're living their best lives. That's true, actually. And my brain genuinely finds these connections through all things in society. Genuinely, like all things, all things in society. We don't understand how much we can be helping each other with just things, but we haven't been sold that as a feasible way to live and then we wonder why we experience the effects that we do.

1:40:17Brené Brown:I mean, I think that's true. I mean, Steve and I will be together for 40 years. You have a husband? Yeah. So what was this whole flirting thing about then? Well, were we flirting? I thought we were going somewhere, you and I. Now you bring up Steve.

1:40:36You really have to be careful about how.

1:40:39Brené Brown:Wait, I want to know what was flirting. No. Because we were going to play pickleball together? No, he's joking. This is the troll. Welcome to my life, Renee Brown. Welcome to my life. I mean, if I have to flirt with you to get you on the pickleball court, I'm not above that. Oh, man, Eugene. Goodbye, Steve.

1:41:03Don't press anything. We've got more What Now? After this. At Healthcare Associates Credit Union, our auto loans run on compassion so you can move with confidence. Whether you're buying a new or used vehicle or refinancing your auto loan from another lender, our low rates mean affordable financing with no payments due for 90 days if you qualify. Spend less time worrying about your car payment and more time getting to the things you love. Auto loans from Healthcare Associates Credit Union, the healthy way to bank. Learn more at HACU.org. Federally insured by NCUA. APR equals annual percentage rate.

1:41:37See website for requirements and details. Do you remember in school when your teacher had a favorite of everything? A favorite marker, a favorite element, and yes, even a favorite student. Who wasn't me, so let's move on. I want to talk about their real favorite thing. Kleenex tissues. According to teacher lists, Kleenex is the number one facial tissue trusted by teachers. They're silky soft to help prevent skin irritation. And now, with Kleenex Snap and Go, you can take them anywhere. Stock up on the ultimate classroom favorite. For whatever happens next, grab Kleenex. Hey, Chicagoland, the Wayfair store is in your neighborhood at Edens Plaza and Wilmette.

1:42:14Finally, you can feel the fabric, sit on the sectionals, and even open the refrigerators.

1:42:19Brené Brown:Plus, our in-store designers will help you bring it all together with free one-on-one design support for any project on any budget. Yep, we said free. Oh, and did we mention the cafe? So what are you waiting for? Come see all that's in store. Visit the Wayfair store today at Edens Plaza and Wilmette. Way fair, every style, every home.

1:42:45You know, actually, there's something I was wondering the other day. You work with a lot of company leaders, right? Like CEOs and everything. I was wondering if you have any intimate conversations with them about how they, or rather what role they should be playing in a country that's falling apart at the seams.

1:43:03Brené Brown:Yeah, I have. Yes. Yeah, I mean, I do. Let me go back to Steve because I want to tell you something about the connection you made in that car ride. Yeah? I think that saved my marriage. Like what you're talking about. And I fought it tooth and nail. People always say, like, y 'all been together for 40 years. You know, what's the secret? And I always remember someone asking Paul Newman that about his marriage with Joey. And he said, neither one of us wanted to get a divorce at the same time. And I think, you know, when you're talking decades that there's some truth to that. But I also think that, I mean, I hate this for you, but he's an amazing guy.

1:43:47Brené Brown:Just really sweet. Just a kind, strong, but very loving person, pediatrician.

1:43:57Brené Brown:but every day he just saw woman after woman after woman drowning in resentment and rage and grief with a baby on the hip and a stew on the stove and you know and then every now and then you know a husband would come in and say oh here's my note about what I'm supposed to ask you and could you write everything that we need to do on a note. And he was also raised by a single mom, and a Latina single mom. Sweet. He had firsthand, firsthand. Yeah, he had very firsthand knowledge. And I remember when we had our first daughter, I was still in my PhD program. And I said, oh, God, your baby's crying. He's like, I got it.

1:44:45Brené Brown:And I said, no, I need to get up with you. And he said, I don't understand. And, you know, and I remember this is like, this is so related to it. I remember going to a therapist before we even had kids. And so I think I'm going to get a divorce. Like this is, I just don't think this is working. And she said, I could see that. And I said, right, right. Like I left this like therapist certified problematic. And then she's like, he just likes you so much more than you like you. I can see how that would be frustrating Yo Wait I love why we're pointing at him Is this what makes him undateable by his therapist?

1:45:23No no no He's saying this is what we've been talking about Touché That wasn't That wasn't an accusatory snap That's like you hear this That's what he's saying

1:45:37Brené Brown:I read that more We've had this conversation That's his We said liking Trump's everything you have to really like the person because loving them sometimes you love them but when you like someone when you like your sweater when you like your life like is huge you don't love our siblings that's a next level one he liked you more than you like yourself yeah I said fuck you dude you're fired I'll find another therapist but it was true and I think part of it was I think coming from a single mom in a pretty racist San Antonio and a Latina single mom who was hustling and grinding. And then I'm getting my PhD.

1:46:24Brené Brown:I've been, when I told the program director at the time that I was pregnant, his first line was literally, we thought you were going to be someone. Jeez. Yeah. And so I think for Steve, he just thought, you're racing to find a spot under the buckets. you're waiting for the buckets to fall and then running under them to catch confirmation about what you're afraid of like move away from the bucket spill you know to use our language and so i think for me it was and it absolutely comes back to capitalism it definitely comes back to you know patriarchy it comes back to i should be able to do all this at one time really well Never miss a feeding.

1:47:13Brené Brown:Never miss this. And he's like, you know, you've got a grant due tomorrow. You sleep. I'll do this. And then. Did you have a lot of guilt in and around the idea of not doing it? Yeah. And then I would be like, oh, my God, how am I going to do this? I've got this. I'm teaching. The class is going long. And Ellen's got this thing at 3.30. And can you be there? And he said, I can't be because I'm working. Okay, I'll reschedule. He goes, and you can't be because you're working. But then when my daughter turned 16 for Mother's Day, I got a card from her that said, thank you for showing me what it looks like to have a career that's meaningful for you and be a great mom.

1:47:56Brené Brown:That's what I want. And I wish that you didn't feel as bad about it as you do sometimes. Wait, I'm going to do that part better. I know. In other societies and other levels of life, that inconsistency for one parent or the other to be there might have been looked at as irresponsibility. Right. But you allow yourself to be inconsistent about it. I'm not always going to be there on Wednesday or for your doctor's appointments or to pick you up from tennis. I won't always be there, but it doesn't mean I don't love you. I'm leading with love. I'm doing what I need to do, what I love doing. He's also doing what he needs to do and what he loves doing.

1:48:35but the inconsistency of the Wednesday pick up and the Saturday drop off won't be there, but it doesn't mean it's the absence of love.

1:48:42Brené Brown:Oh my God. And this ties right back to what you said, because what happened that specific day? Tell me. My mom went. No, community. Yes. Community. Yeah. And so it was, yeah. Yeah, community. My mom went. Yeah. Or yeah, when I had to put her in, you know, daycare, my sister was like, oh, because I have two younger sisters, I'll pick her up on Tuesday and Thursday. My other sister was like, I've got Fridays. And then when they're, you know, it was like, so we were definitely raised in that. Community. That, and we didn't have the one to 15 ratio. We just had the oldest person to the 13 kids that were there.

1:49:22Brené Brown:So we had the 16 year old taking care. Yes, but that works. Yeah, and then we'd be like. People forget that it works. Deputy parent, best parent ever. Guys, we're still here. This is what I always try and tell people is I go, sometimes in life now we're creating safeguards for things that were never really a problem yeah do you know what i mean they go like right now there's a 15 year old taking care of a seven year old i'm like yeah that and it works it you it works surprisingly well great with yeah but i'm saying like this should not be the permanent solution but we take for granted that as a species we are quite interdependent yeah and it works it is not the nature's way It's just not the anarchy that you sell it as Yeah and it's like Yes but you see And this is where I have like My conspiracy theory mind goes You cannot show people that it works Because then they will not participate in an economy They won't buy the shit they need Because if you learn that your mom or dad Is willing to take care of your kids on certain days Why are you now dipping into an app That finds babysitters for you Why are you doing after care If you know Did you know This is going to blow your mind Both of you I hope you're ready for this.

1:50:32Did you know that someone in your life is willing to drop you off at the airport? No. This is a real thing. I know a lot of people are going to be like, that's not a thing, Trevor. Like Huber? No. You see, it's funny that you said that. You see? I love that.

1:50:49Brené Brown:I got it from both sides. Who are you? You see, but you see what they've done? No, I know. I know. But this is what they've done. I know. What they've done so well is they've made us replace ourselves as the default and now we've thought of the service as the default. That's true. We've replaced each other as the default. Or here's what, yes, and here's what, the other thing that's happening is I feel bad. Yes. Because I couldn't pick you up on Wednesday. Yes, yes. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take my eight-year-old for a splurge at the cosmetic store so she can get eight-year-old facials and eight-year-old lipsticks.

1:51:22Brené Brown:I mean, it's like, it is, there is a, yeah, I mean this, but I hate the late stage capitalism thing because it's just true. But what are we going to do? I mean, like, No, I look, What do you do? I think it, here's the thing that I try and tell people. And that's why I haven't forgotten my question to you. When I have the opportunity to talk to like CEOs or big companies, anyone, I genuinely ask them this question. I go, I said, do you realize, I understand that you live quarter to quarter. I understand this. So maybe you're not the person to speak to, But you do realize that society doesn't live quarter to quarter And over the long term You will have fewer quarters because at some point society is going to turn against you I don't know when But I know that they will Because what you are doing is unsustainable It is unsustainable We now live in a world where we don't even own things that we buy You ever think about how crazy that is?

1:52:21You buy music now Have you ever read the terms and conditions? I do this to myself sometimes just because I'm entertained. It'll be like new terms and conditions and I go read it. You know now on many streaming services where you buy, I'm not saying you have a streaming service, not Netflix. You buy an album or you buy a movie, buy it. You know that you're not buying the movie. You're buying the right to watch the movie or stream it as long as that service exists. That's right. So if they go away, the money goes as well. Yeah, but you don't know this. You think you are buying Bad Boys, the movie, and you have it.

1:52:56You do not have it. You don't even have the right to give it to your friend to watch anymore. We live in a world where now we're not even, this is like the further stage of late stage capitalism.

1:53:05Brené Brown:It's like para-consumption. That's what I mean. Before, at least it was like, okay, capitalism's bad, but at least you were getting what you bought. You got shit. You were getting what you bought. Now they're like, no, no, no, no, no. You do not own your car. You do not own your music. you do not own and it will they will keep finding more and more ways for it to happen and we don't realize that the the infinite of the i tell leaders this all the time i go at some point it's going to come to you trump is a byproduct of this yes you know trump yeah look i think he's very like good at being charismatic he's very good at seeming real on stage and all All these things, all these things, yes.

1:53:46But him and the timing of him had to be perfect.

1:53:50Brené Brown:I believe that's true. Him and the timing of him. Yeah. People love disruptors when something needs to be disrupted. You get what I'm saying? 100%. People don't want to hear that, though. That's really tough for people to hear. Yeah. So people love disruptors when something needs to be disrupted. That's hard. Zoran Mamdani, there's a version of it completely opposite, where you go like, well, how did his thing? Because people then again went, actually, you're right. You can't afford to live in New York. No matter what your job is, it's like only the super, super, super rich are having a good time in New York.

1:54:20Places are empty. People can't live. What's the point of the city anymore? And then they go, and then Zoran comes in and people are like, how could anyone vote for him? Like, yeah, the only reason you don't understand it is because clearly you are living in the lap of luxury and you're so removed from reality that you don't understand the people. Yeah. That's why all the newspapers were like, is Zoran going to destroy New York? It's like, no, that's the question that the boss of your newspaper has, not what the people have. These things cannot go on forever. You cannot extract from people forever.

1:54:52At some point, people go, you know what? No. Look what's happening now. There are cities and counties and places where in America they're going, we're not going to approve the data center. This is a community. The water. The community is going, I know you want to build a data center here. No. oh but ai but they're like eh our electricity prices keep going up nobody comes to us to tell us why or we don't see the benefits our water is running out we don't see the benefits and on top of that it's not even like you're giving us this thing for free and some you still have to subscribe and yeah so why would we actually no no thank you no more and i think the more people realize that the more they are going to do something because they can do something and then that's when business is going to remember like business didn't stop putting asbestos in things because it was fun for them business didn't stop you know or start putting catalytic and converters into cars because it was fun for them but business will always work within the parameters it is given yeah it's a shock it grows as big as its tank it's as simple as that and that's why i like i i find myself wondering, I'm like, is it because, but you literally work with CEOs, you help them, the human side of the company.

1:56:12I would love to know what some of the conversations you are that you have with these leaders in this climate where you go, hey, you realize you're contributing on one end or the other. Either the threads you pull are so tight that people then make more extreme decisions or the example you're setting is so, you know, callous that people then feel like they should be, does this ever come in on that level?

1:56:39Brené Brown:Yeah. I mean, I think it comes in on a daily basis. I think, first of all, I just want to say the attention in the stories and the examples that you're given on something we never talk about, which is the importance of conditions for things to happen. There are very few people talking about what conditions needed to be present for a second Trump presidency. What conditions for Mamdani? What are the conditions? And it's interesting because we... It's just a separate conversation, but I just wanted to say that it's very rare for me to be in a conversation with someone who appreciates that there really is very little that's as important as understanding conditions.

1:57:30Brené Brown:People just don't understand it. Let me tell you how much people don't understand it. I can't wait. One of the most fascinating books I ever read was a book that basically argued, pretty successfully, that all the beliefs you hold are not necessarily beliefs that you hold. They're merely the beliefs that were available to you in the environment that you were placed in. And it shows you how in America, for instance, you just look at mountain ranges that exist across the country and how water fell on either side of a mountain range. And that tells you whether or not somebody is conservative or liberal.

1:58:05Brené Brown:A hundred percent. But I don't think many of the people who are there would think that I am like this or the things I think I believe are actually just primarily influenced by the condition. I was on this side of the mountain. There was less water. Times were harder. Things weren't as, and that is why. Whereas on this side, we had a river. It rained more. It did this. There was more work. There was more. So then I have these views or these ideas. We constantly take for granted the environment. Constantly. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, this is, again, this could go down. We just have to do podcast 47 on systems theory because this is systems theory, like person and environment.

1:58:53Brené Brown:I think if you understand conditions and you understand the neurobiology of the fact that we are not cognitive beings who on occasion feel, we are emotional beings who on occasion think. Damn. I think so. If you understand conditions and person and environment, and you understand emotion and the neurobiology of emotion and everything, emotion, decision-making, emotion, everything, I think we would have a much more clear picture of what we're complicit in, what we're doing, and what's happening. I think for the conversations, I have to be really careful about talking about this and not for NDA reasons, which those are – I got into those ass high at this point.

1:59:39Brené Brown:But it's really because...

1:59:45Brené Brown:I didn't come into the work because I have an expert opinion on how the Strait of Hormuz is going to affect supply chain along with tariff. I have to understand that stuff because I'm mostly just sitting in a meeting trying to understand if a group of people at a table can work well enough together and have the grounded confidence to make hard decisions together. I think a lot of times people who know me well will say, is your work kind of just a Trojan horse for making people kinder and braver to each other? And I'll say, no, it's really about supply chain. Because it's not really. And so for me, I have to be careful because the assessment process for me to work with someone starts with the first question of, you want me to come in and make people braver.

2:00:33Brené Brown:um i'm happy to talk about that from an assessment perspective the opposite of courageous leadership is not fear what gets in the way is armor where you know people who are afraid every day and they still do brave things the opposite of courage is armor how do we self-protect and armor up when we're in fear That's what drives bad strategy, bad human interaction. And so if they're like, okay, we're willing to talk about armor in our company and how we armor up. And I said, great. Then I'm going to talk to the people with the least formal power and ask them why armor is required here. Oh, geez. The vulnerable ones.

2:01:13Right.

2:01:14Brené Brown:I'm going to ask the people that don't look like everybody else, that have the least proximity to power. I'm going to start there. And so I'm really only working with CEOs who say, ask anything you want of anyone you want. Oh, interesting. We need more strategic risk-taking. We need people to be braver. We need more collaboration. We need more productive challenge. I can't have people on teams who are afraid to challenge their boss. Right, right. So I'm like, great, then this is a good fit for me. So what I would say in general and what I see working across companies globally right now is if you are trying to create a place, a culture, and it's interesting because the work that I do, you would think because that's where we start.

2:02:02Brené Brown:We would measure culture, but actually the first things that change when we go into a company, probably not surprising but counterintuitive to some, is actually performance gets stronger. Wow. When you create a workforce of people who feel seen and respected and heard, performance just – and that's whether we're talking – I'm working with a soccer team or I'm working with a manufacturing company. It doesn't matter. When people feel seen, heard, and believed and trusted, performance goes through the roof. Wow. You cannot stop people. So true, yeah. Right. So I'm a hard – I'm not for everyone because we are going to talk about identity.

2:02:40Brené Brown:We're going to talk about power. We're going to have all the conversations you're not supposed to be having right now in organizations. Because if you want to drive performance, we need to talk about that. Because let's say I'm leading a team and we're the AI adoption team. It will never work unless you trust me enough to productively challenge what I'm saying. If you say, hey, Bernie, I'm really excited about what you're excited about. Based on the data I have, I don't think this is going to work. I'm like, okay, Trevor, go. What do you see that I don't see? But I have to believe that I can do that.

2:03:15Brené Brown:You have to believe that you're respected and trusted and your opinion matters, and there won't be the moment where you're vulnerable, and then you'll pay for that later with a promotion or a performance review. So what I always say about the people that I'm working with are these are normally CEOs who care more about winning than their ego. They are willing to have very hard conversations about identity, very hard conversations about power, the misuse of power. They really want to win on all fronts, and they believe that winning will require human beings who are respected and deeply connected.

2:03:48They're not playing not to lose.

2:03:49Brené Brown:They're not playing. That is the metaphor. They're not playing not to lose. And the hard thing is, even right now, if we go into a company that has a lot of success, it is the nature of the C-suite to see the flag planted on the top of the mountain and say, protect the flag. Protect the success. Protect the stock price. Protect the organic growth. Protect the revenue. What's interesting today is that mountain is crumbling from the bottom. So it is full of crap. The fault lines are geopolitical instability, competition, market change, AI. So you can protect that flag, but as you're protecting it, that mountain is just coming down and down and down.

2:04:38Brené Brown:So as a leader right now today, the only choice you have is to look for the next peak and go. And you don't jump from the top of one mountain to the top of the next mountain. You jump from the top of one mountain to the side of the next mountain and you're holding on like this. And all the people you lead are tethered to you. You're taking them with you. You're taking them with you. And I mean, let's just be honest. I think y 'all are smart, fun, but I'm going to take my chances going alone if we have to leap. If you and I have to, if the three of us for some reason have to leap out this window, I'm going to be like, I hope I see y 'all again on the pickleball court.

2:05:19Brené Brown:But it actually doesn't work because if you're my team and the three of us don't make it together. The survival is useless. Then the survival is useless. So then we have to be like, shit, man, we have five minutes. Three of us have to go together. How do we think we do it? Damn. And no idea can be stupid. You're like, we find a giant crane, we swing from it. And then I can't say, shut the fuck up. I'm like, okay, what kind of crane? And this is why I was hoping I could work this in. This is why you saw the world full of people crying and cheering for Artemis too. What we saw were four people from very different lived experiences who looked different, loving each other, kind to each other.

2:06:08Needing each other.

2:06:09Brené Brown:Needing each other, facing complex challenges together, and winning. And definite uncertainty. Defined by uncertainty. Yeah, 100%. That was the bedrock of it all. That was the, yeah. And I'm lucky enough to have taken those four folks, along with all the Earthbound astronauts at the time, through Dare to Lead. Wow. And what I can tell you is when they're problem solving, if you're like, okay, we're on the 20th floor. We're going to have to go. We're going to have to get out the window and we're going to have to go and then we have to stay together. When you're sitting at the table and there's thousands of engineers that are involved in something like Artemis 2, not just engineers.

2:06:50Brené Brown:Yeah, yeah, yeah. When someone says, we build a giant crane and we hang it from a cloud, no one says, dude, shut up. They're like, tell me about the crane. What's the crane made of? The guy goes, Legos. The woman goes, okay, Duplo or Lego Legos? Like, they are, it's trust. They're willing to venture into the unknown. They are willing. Tell me more. Tell me more. Yeah. What would happen if, yeah, what is that? Because then all of a sudden they go, okay, so let me play back, which is one of my favorite tools that we teach leaders. Let me play back what you're saying. We're going to build a giant crane.

2:07:29Brené Brown:It's going to be out of Legos at the bottom but Duplo at the top. It's going to swing from a cloud, and it's going to grab the capsule and get it upright before the Navy can get there and get them out. Is that what you're saying? And you're like, that's what I think we could do. Okay. Don't we have something like that? Don't we have a clown hook crane over in payload that we were working on a couple years ago? And the guy's, well, I mean, it's not a giant crane, but it does operate with a lever like a crane. Okay. Playback. The playback. Because what happens a lot of times, especially in feedback, is I say to you, here's what I think is going wrong.

2:08:05Brené Brown:I think you are doing incredible work. You're saying yes to too much. And you're not able to deliver everything on time because you're saying yes across all these meetings. I want to help you set the right boundaries at the right time. And you're like, okay. And I said, no, no, Eugene, play back what you think you're hearing. And then you say, I'm an asshole. I'm going to get fired. Because that's a lot of times what you're saying. If I carry on this way, I won't be here for long. Right. Okay. So what you heard me saying is if you carry on this way, you're not going to be here for long, right?

2:08:36Brené Brown:So we need to do this again then. Because what I'm saying is you're doing excellent work. You're taking on too much. It's not good for you. And there's no way you can deliver against those things. Play it back again. You're doing too much, Eugene. You're carrying this podcast on your shoulders. Driven is to wear less sweaters. Wait, did y 'all decide on the white t-shirt cardigan? Can I tell you? Can I tell you my greatest joy in life? My greatest joy. You should come here often. Is when I'm wearing the same outfit as one of my friends. Because they hate it. You don't know. I walked out of my apartment and Eugene was there.

2:09:20And I literally went, I was like, Cardigan boys. And his face dropped. You could see Eugene was like, this, he just, I get so happy. I'll start singing to my friends sometimes. Like if I see them and we walk out and we're in the same thing, I'll be like, best friend, best friends. And they're just like, I hate this with a passion. You have no idea how this has messed up the algorithm because since we started shooting this season, I was thinking, I was monitoring the outfits. I was like, okay, t-shirt, jacket, jacket, shirt, t-shirt, jacket. The algorithm. Yeah, yeah, I knew. So today I timed it properly.

2:09:57He's trying to monitor my algorithm. Yes, there's an algorithm here for outfits. And I was like, okay, colors, colors, what are we going now? A bit of taupe here, brown, brown. Okay, now we're going earth colors. And I was like, okay, so a kind of blue and a white, a lot of vibrancy and color and sweater is totally off of my algorithm. Then I was like, there's no way.

2:10:18Brené Brown:This is not your normal fit? No. No way close. Then I was like, I calculated properly. I was like, I know, I know this is not going to happen. He's not going to be wearing anything that has a hint of blue and brightness on it. And why would he wear a jersey or a sweater after all of this time? Because he hasn't done it. We've been... Never. You know why you ended up here, Eugene? Is because you were trying not to dress like me. out of fear. And I got here because I was trying to dress out of love. You weren't walking towards your fit. You were walking away from his fit. Yeah. And that's how we ended up here, my friend.

2:10:56You did the play back in real time.

2:10:58Brené Brown:I hate you. You just invited me back. But I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to confess something. I did, when we sat down, I did try to see if you had a beaded bracelet on because I thought maybe y 'all planned something. Oh, no. Because he does. And I thought maybe that was cute. That you're like... Oh, I wish I had. But I would never do it on Perk. But I thought it was cute. I thought it was like Cardigan Crew magic. Yeah, we're doing deep. We're doing deep. I do have a jingle. I love it, actually. This has been amazing. This has been... Eugene's not wrong. You've got to come back.

2:11:34This is part one. Oh, my God. This is just part one. Pinky Promise. This is part one. Let's go. Part one.

2:11:41Brené Brown:Walk on. Walk on with hope in your heart And you'll never walk alone You'll never walk alone Yeah! Woo! Woo! That's a fufu zola. I need to take a vuvuzela to Enfield just to test my membership this was so much fun thank you Brené for real shout out to Steve yeah thanks shit water what now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM the show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random Other Stuff by Ryan Parduth.

2:12:55Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now?

2:13:20Football season is here and the fantasy footballers are back to help you dominate your league. And this season, we're bringing you five episodes every week. That's more starts, more sits, more waiver wire wins, and more trades. From draft day all the way to your fantasy championship, We've got the rankings, the matchups, the news, and the advice you need to win. The Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Five episodes a week, all season long. Watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Chicagoland. The Wayfair store is in your neighborhood at Eden's Plaza and Wilmette. Finally, you can feel the fabric, sit on the sectionals, and even open the refrigerators.

2:13:59Brené Brown:Plus, our in-store designers will help you bring it all together with free one-on-one design support for any project on any budget. Yep, lease that free. Oh, and did we mention the cafe? So what are you waiting for? Come see all that's in store. Visit the Wayfair store today at Edens Plaza in Wilmette. Wayfair, every style, every home.