800 Inspiring Brené Brown Quotes: Empowered Leadership (2023)
1. “There is an incredibly important, uncomfortable, and brave discussion that every single leader and every organisation in the world should be having about privilege.”
2. “We can spend our entire life betraying ourself and choosing fitting in over standing alone. But once we've stood up for ourself and our beliefs, the bar is higher. A wild heart fights fitting in and grieves betrayal.”
3. “Nothing silences us more effectively than shame.”
4. “We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we're afraid to let them see it in us. We're afraid that our truth isn't enough - that what we have to offer isn't enough without the bells and whistles, without editing, and impressing.”
5. “The opposite of belonging is fitting in.”
6. “Mastery requires feedback.”
7. “I’m not perfect and I’m not always right, but I’m here, open, paying attention, loving you, and fully engaged.”
8. “We desperately don’t want to experience shame, and we’re not willing to talk about it. Yet the only way to resolve shame is to talk about it. Maybe we’re afraid of topics like love and shame. Most of us like safety, certainty, and clarity. Shame and love are grounded in vulnerability and tenderness.”
9. “Stay in your own lane. Comparison kills creativity and joy.” – Rising Strong
10. “What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.”
11. “The Ham-Foldover Debacle:.....you make yourself the center of something that has nothing to do with you, out of your own fear or scarcity, only to be reminded that you're not the axis over which the world turns”
12. “I only share when I have no unmet needs that I'm trying to fill. I firmly believe that being vulnerable with a larger audience is only a good idea if the healing is tied to the sharing, not to the expectations I might have for the response I get.”
13. “I don't have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness - it's right in front of me if I'm paying attention and practicing gratitude.”
14. “One woman said, "Shame is hating yourself and understanding why other people hate you too.”
15. “Setting boundaries and holding people accountable is a lot more work than shaming and blaming.”
16. “If we want to cultivate hopefulness, we have to be willing to be flexible and demonstrate perseverance. Not every goal will look and feel the same. Tolerance for disappointment, determination, and a belief in self are the heart of hope.”
17. “Here’s the bottom line: If we want to live and love with our whole hearts, and if we want to engage with the world from a place of worthiness, we have to talk about the things that get in the way—especially shame, fear, and vulnerability.”
18. “The mark of a wild heart is living out the paradox of love in our lives. It's the ability to be tough and tender, excited and scared, brave and afraid -- all in the same moment. It's showing up in our vulnerability and our courage, being both fierce and kind.”
19. The opposite of scarcity is not abundance; the opposite of scarcity is simply enough. Empathy is not finite, and compassion is not a pizza with eight slices. When you practice empathy and compassion with someone, there is not less of these qualities to go around. There’s more. Love is the last thing we need to ration in this world.
20. “THIS IS ONE REASON WE NEED TO DISPEL THE MYTH THAT EMPATHY IS ‘WALKING IN SOMEONE ELSE’S SHOES.’ RATHER THAN WALKING IN YOUR SHOES, I NEED TO LEARN HOW TO LISTEN TO THE STORY YOU TELL ABOUT WHAT IT’S LIKE IN YOUR SHOES AND BELIEVE YOU WHEN IT DOESN’T MATCH MY EXPERIENCES.”
21. “I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”
22. “…In its original Latin form, sacrifice means to make sacred or to make holy. I wholeheartedly believe that when we are fully engaged in parenting, regardless of how imperfect, vulnerable, and messy it is, we are creating something sacred.”
23. “We cannot grow when we are in shame, and we can't use shame to change ourselves or others.”
24. “Numb the dark, and you numb the light.”
25. “When I let go of trying to be everything to everyone, I had much more time, attention, love, and connection for the important people in my life.”
26. “When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.”
27. “The origin of the word "courage" comes from the word "cour", which mean heart, and it means to completely share your story with your whole heart.”
28. “Nothing has transformed my life more than realizing that it’s a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands.”
29. “Living with air pollution increases your odds of dying early by 5 percent. Living with obesity, 20 percent. Excessive drinking, 30 percent. And living with loneliness? It increases our odds of dying early by 45 percent.”
30. ““Integrity is choosing courage over comfort.” – Rising Strong
31. “We either own our stories (even the messy ones), or we stand outside of them—denying our vulnerabilities and imperfections, orphaning the parts of us that don’t fit in with who/what we think we’re supposed to be, and hustling for other people’s approval of our worthiness. Perfectionism is exhausting because hustling is exhausting. It’s a never-ending performance.”
32. “Anger, blame and avoidance are the ego’s bouncers.” – Dare to Lead
33. “good friends aren’t afraid of your light. They never blow out your flame and you don’t blow out theirs—even when it’s really bright and it makes you worry about your own flame.”
34. “There are too many people in the world today who decide to live disappointed rather than risk feeling disappointment. This can take the shape of numbing, foreboding joy, being cynical or critical, or just never really fully engaging.”
35. “Courage is contagious. A critical mass of brave leaders is the foundation of an intentionally courageous culture. Every time we are brave with our lives, we make the people around us a little braver and our organizations bolder and stronger.” – Brené Brown
36. “Judging has become such a part of our thinking patterns that we are rarely even aware of why and how we do it. It takes a great deal of conscious thinking or mindfulness to even bring the habit of judging into our awareness.”
37. “Sometimes when we dare to walk into the arena the greatest critic we face is ourselves.”
38. “I THOUGHT FAITH WOULD SAY, “I’LL TAKE AWAY THE PAIN AND DISCOMFORT,” BUT WHAT IT ENDED UP SAYING WAS, “I’LL SIT WITH YOU IN IT.”
39. “Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”
40. “Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly, or unknowingly, attach judgment to giving help.”
41. “How much we know ourselves is extremely important but how we treat ourselves is the most important.”
42. “Like the word hope, we often think of power as negative. It's not. The best definition of power comes from Martin Luther King Jr. He described power as the ability to effect change.”
43. “If we want people to fully show up, to bring their whole selves including their unarmored, whole hearts—so that we can innovate, solve problems, and serve people—we have to be vigilant about creating a culture in which people feel safe, seen, heard, and respected.”
44. “Choosing authenticity is not an easy choice. E. E. Cummings wrote, “To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody but yourself—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight—and never stop fighting.” “Staying real” is one of the most courageous battles that we’ll ever fight.”
45. “It sure is. Every time I find courage, I have this experience. Really encouraging.” – Top pick by: THNK Faculty Ien van Duijnhoven
46. “Healthy striving is self-focused: ‘How can I improve?’ Perfectionism is other-focused: ‘What will they think?'”
47. “When we hear people referred to as animals or aliens, we should immediately wonder, “Is this an attempt to reduce someone’s humanity so we can get away with hurting them or denying them basic human rights?”
48. “There will be times when standing alone feels too hard, too scary, and we’ll doubt our ability to make our way through the uncertainty. Someone, somewhere, will say, ‘Don’t do it. You don’t have what it takes to survive the wilderness.’ This is when you reach deep into your wild heart and remind yourself, ‘I am the wilderness.’”
49. “WHERE PERFECTIONISM IS DRIVING, YOUR SHAME IS RIDING SHOTGUN.”
50. “Hope is a function of struggle. If we’re never allowed to fall or face adversity as children, we are denied the opportunity to develop the tenacity and sense of agency we need to be hopeful.”
51. “The opposite of scarcity is not abundance; the opposite of scarcity is simply enough. Empathy is not finite, and compassion is not a pizza with eight slices. When you practice empathy and compassion with someone, there is not less of these qualities to go around. There’s more. Love is the last thing we need to ration in this world.”
52. “Want to be happy? Stop trying to be perfect.” – Brené Brown
53. “The mark of a wild heart is living out the paradox of love in our lives. It’s the ability to be tough and tender, excited and scared, brave and afraid — all in the same moment. It’s showing up in our vulnerability and our courage, being both fierce and kind.” – Brene Brown
54. “Empathy is a strange and powerful thing. There is no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It’s simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of “You’re not alone.”
55. “Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.”
56. “What I've learned through my work and what I heard that night in Newtown makes one thing clear: Not enough of us know how to sit in pain with others. Worse, our discomfort shows up in ways that can hurt people and reinforce their isolation. I have started to believe that crying with strangers in person could save the world.”
57. “The ability to hold something we’ve done or failed to do up against who we want to be is incredibly adaptive. It’s uncomfortable but it’s adaptive.”
58. “Brave leaders are never silent around hard things.”
59. “[...] we need to cultivate the courage to be uncomfortable and to teach the people around us how to accept discomfort as a part of growth.”
60. “Perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it’s often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life-paralysis.”
61. “when men feel that rush of inadequacy and smallness, they normally respond with anger and/or by completely turning off.”
62. “WHEN WE’RE BUSY PLEASING, PERFECTING, AND PERFORMING, WE END UP SAYING YES A LOT WHEN WE MEAN NO.”
63. “Grace will take you places hustling can’t.”
64. “When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice.”
65. “Steve said, You have a squad, but it's small and not everyone in your squad is going to agree or do the same thing.”
66. “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”
67. “Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling.”
68. “If leaders really want people to show up, speak out, take chances, and innovate, we have to create cultures where people feel safe—where their belonging is not threatened by speaking out and they are supported when they make the decision to brave the wilderness, stand alone, and speak truth to bullshit.”
69. “To love ourselves and support each other in the process of becoming real is perhaps the greatest single act of daring greatly.”
70. “how often we all try to solve problems by doing more of what’s not working—just doing it harder, grinding it out longer. We’ll do anything to avoid the lowest of the low—self-examination.”
71. “Connection is why we’re here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.” – Brené Brown
72. “UnMarketing: “Don’t try to win over the haters; you’re not the jackass whisperer.”
73. “We put so much of our time and energy into making sure that we meet everyone’s expectations and into caring about what other people think of us, that we are often left feeling angry, resentful and fearful.”
74. “Self-compassion is key because when we’re able to be gentle with ourselves in the midst of shame, we’re more likely to reach out, connect, and experience empathy.”
75. “Mindfulness: Taking a balanced approach to negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time. Mindfulness requires that we not “over-identify” with thoughts and feelings, so that we are caught up and swept away by negativity.”
76. “Joy seems to me a step beyond happiness. Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you’re lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love. — ADELA ROGERS ST. JOHNS”
77. “Shame tells you that you shouldn’t have even tried. Shame tells you that you’re not good enough and you should have known better.”
78. “When I see people stand fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall down, get back up, and say, ‘Damn. That really hurt, but this is important to me and I’m going in again’—my gut reaction is, ‘What a badass.’”
79. “I’ve come to believe that creativity is the mechanism that allows learning to seep into our being and become practice. The Asaro tribe of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea has a beautiful saying: ‘Knowledge is only a rumor until it lives in the muscle.’”
80. “For me, that strong back is grounded confidence and boundaries. The soft front is staying vulnerable and curious. The mark of a wild heart is living out these paradoxes in our lives and not giving into the either/or BS that reduces us. It’s showing up in our vulnerability and our courage, and, above all else, being both fierce and kind.”
81. “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. —JAMES A. BALDWIN”
82. I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage, or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.
83. “I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.”
84. “Living BIG (boundaries, integrity, and generosity).”
85. “When we shut ourselves off from vulnerability, we distance ourselves from the experiences that bring purpose and meaning to our lives. Myth #1: Vulnerability is weakness.Myth #2: “I don’t do vulnerability.” Myth #3: We can go it alone. Myth #4: Trust comes before vulnerability.”
86. “When someone shares their hopes and dreams with us, we are witnessing deep courage and vulnerability. Celebrating their successes is easy, but when disappointment happens, it’s an incredible opportunity for meaningful connection.”
87. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” – Brené Brown
88. “Group A defined the challenge of anxiety as finding ways to manage and soothe the anxiety, while Group B clearly defined the problem as changing the behaviors that led to anxiety.”
89. “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. —Maya Angelou”
90. “We are hardwired to connect with others, it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.”
91. “Dehumanizing and holding people accountable are mutually exclusive...Challenging ourselves to live by higher standards requires constant diligence and awareness.”
92. “Never underestimate the power of being seen”
93. “When we pretend that we can avoid vulnerability we engage in behaviors that are often inconsistent with who we want to be.”
94. “the only thing I know for sure after all of this research is that if you’re going to dare greatly, you’re going to get your ass kicked at some point. If you choose courage, you will absolutely know failure, disappointment, setback, even heartbreak. That’s why we call it courage. That’s why it’s so rare.”
95. “There is absolutely no innovation without failure.” – Dare to Lead
96. “Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be in order to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.”
97. “A study published in the October 22, 2014, issue of the journal Neuron suggests that the brain’s chemistry changes when we become curious, helping us better learn and retain information. But curiosity is uncomfortable because it involves uncertainty and vulnerability.”
98. “What makes this constant assessing and comparing so self-defeating is that we are often comparing our lives, our marriages, our families, and our communities to unattainable, media-driven visions of perfection, or we’re holding up our reality against our own fictional account of how great someone else has it. Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison.”
99. “Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It's not something we have or don't have -- it's something we choose to practice.”
100. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.”
101. “For many of us, our first response to vulnerability and pain of these sharp points is not to lean into the discomfort and feel our way through but rather to make it go away.”
102. “To know that you can navigate the wilderness on your own--to know that you can stay true to your beliefs, trust yourself, and survive it--that is true belonging.”
103. “Laughter is evidence that the chokehold of shame has been loosened. Knowing laughter is the moment we feel proof that our shame has been transformed. Like empathy, it strips shame to the bone, robs it of its power, and forces it from the closet.”
104. “Vulnerability is basically uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.”
105. The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.
106. “It’s crazy how much energy we spend trying to avoid these hard topics when they’re really the only ones that can set us free.”
107. “Although I love all of Brené Brown’s quotes on leadership, I feel this one is closest to my lived experience.” – Top pick by: THNK Faculty Grant Davidson
108. “We are worthy of love and belonging now. Right this minute. As is.”
109. “Studying leadership is way easier than leading.” – Dare to Lead
110. “When I see people stand fully in their truth, or when I see someone fall down, get back up, and say, ‘Damn. That really hurt, but this is important to me, and I’m going in again’—my gut reaction is, ‘What a badass.”
111. “choose courage over comfort”
112. “You will always belong anywhere you show up as yourself and talk about yourself and your work in a real way.”
113. “Guilt=I did something bad.
114. “Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you.”
115. “What we know matters but who we are matters more.” – Brené Brown
116. “True belonging is not passive.… It’s a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable, and learn how to be present with people without sacrificing who we are.”
117. “If you’re comfortable, I’m not teaching and you’re not learning.”
118. “The more difficult it is for us to articulate our experiences of loss, longing, and feeling lost to the people around us, the more disconnected and alone we feel.”
119. “When a group or community doesn’t tolerate dissent and disagreement, it forgoes any experience of inextricable connection. There is no true belonging, only an unspoken treaty to hate the same people. This fuels our spiritual crisis of disconnection.”
120. “I once heard theologian Rob Bell define despair as “the belief that tomorrow will be just like today.” When we are in struggle and/or experiencing pain, despair—that belief that there is no end to what we’re experiencing—is a desperate and claustrophobic feeling. We can’t figure a way out of or through the struggle and the suffering.”
121. “When the culture of an organization mandates that it is more important to protect the reputation of a system and those in power than it is to protect the basic human dignity of individuals or communities, you can be certain that shame is systemic, money drives ethics, and accountability is dead.”
122. “But as poet Mizuta Masahide wrote, “Barn’s burnt down / now / I can see the moon.”
123. “Cruelty is cheap, easy, and rampant. It’s also chicken-shit. Especially when you attack and criticize anonymously—like technology allows so many people to do these days.”
124. “Get Deliberate: When I’m flooded with fear and scarcity, I try to call forward joy and sufficiency by acknowledging the fear, then transforming it into gratitude. I say this out loud: “I’m feeling vulnerable. That’s okay. I’m so grateful for ____________.” Doing this has absolutely increased my capacity for joy.”
125. “An experience of collective pain does not deliver us from grief or sadness; it is a ministry of presence. These moments remind us that we are not alone in our darkness and that our broken heart is connected to every heart that has known pain since the beginning of time.”
126. “Everyone wants to know why customer service has gone to hell in a handbasket. I want to know why customer behavior has gone to hell in a handbasket.”
127. “Sufficiency isn't two steps up from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn't a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn't an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.”
128. “At the end of my life I want to be able to say I contributed more than I criticized.”
129. “Every semester I share this quote by theologian Howard Thurman with my graduate students. It’s always been one of my favorites, but now that I’ve studied the importance of meaningful work, it’s taken on new significance: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
130. “Daring greatly is not about winning or losing. It’s about courage.”
131. “IN FACT RESEARCH SHOWS THAT THE PROCESS OF LABELING EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE IS RELATED TO GREATER EMOTION REGULATION AND PSYCHOSOCIAL WELL-BEING.”
132. “We believe that the most terrifying and destructive feeling that a person can experience is psychological isolation. This is not the same as being alone. It is a feeling that one is locked out of the possibility of human connection and of being powerless to change the situation.”
133. “Do not think you can be brave with your life and your work and never disappoint anyone. It doesn’t work that way.”
134. “The opposite of belonging is fitting in.”
135. “I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let’s think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow—that’s vulnerability.”
136. “Each of the stories we tell and hear is like a small flicker of light - when we have enough of them, we will set the world on fire. But I don’t think we can do it without story. It doesn’t matter what community is in question or what the conflict appears to be on the surface, resolution and change will require people to own, share, and rumble with stories.”
137. “The universe is not short on wake-up calls. We’re just quick to hit the snooze button.”
138. “Joy is probably the most vulnerable emotion we experience in our lives.”
139. “Across our research, nostalgia emerged as a double-edged sword, a tool for both connection and disconnection. It can be an imaginary refuge from a world we don't understand and a dog whistle used to resist important growth in families, organizations, and the broader culture and to protect power, including white supremacy.
140. “Shame resilience is the ability to say, “This hurts. This is disappointing, maybe even devastating. But success and recognition and approval are not the values that drive me. My value is courage and I was just courageous. You can move on, shame.”
141. “Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.”
142. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.
143. “We cannot teach people to reset effectively when they’re on the ground. You cannot teach someone to reset when they’ve already fallen.” “The reason we blame, is a real need for control.”
144. “If you can’t ask for help without self-judgment, you cannot offer help without judging others.”
145. “If we’re going to put ourselves out there and love with our whole hearts, we’re going to experience heartbreak.”
146. “No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.”
147. “True belonging has no bunkers. We have to step out from behind the barricades of self-preservation and brave the wild.”
148. “We feel love and we know pain. We feel hope and we know struggle. We see beauty and we survive trauma. We don’t all have the protection of privilege and the luxury of anonymity. We’re trying to build connected and loving lives while we pack lunches, drive carpools, go to jobs, and push into as many moments of joy as we can.”
149. “Want to be happy? Stop trying to be perfect.”
150. “Oversharing? Not vulnerability; I call it floodlighting. ... A lot of times we share too much information as a way to protect us from vulnerability, and here's why.
151. “I wish doing the right thing was the easy thing, but it rarely is.” – Dare to Lead
152. “Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared.”
153. “Here’s how I see the progression of my work: The Gifts of Imperfection—Be you. Daring Greatly—Be all in. Rising Strong—Fall. Get up. Try again.”
154. “...In its original Latin form, sacrifice means to make sacred or to make holy. I wholeheartedly believe that when we are fully engaged in parenting, regardless of how imperfect, vulnerable, and messy it is, we are creating something sacred.”
155. “Sharing appropriately, with boundaries, means sharing with people with whom we’ve developed relationships that can bear the weight of our story. The result of this mutually respectful vulnerability is increased connection, trust, and engagement.
156. “FOR ANXIETY AND DREAD, THE THREAT IS IN THE FUTURE. FOR FEAR, THE THREAT IS NOW–IN THE PRESENT.”
157. “In terms of teaching our children to dare greatly in the “never enough” culture, the question isn’t so much “Are you parenting the right way?” as it is “Are you the adult that you want your child to grow up to be?” Our stories of worthiness—of being enough—begin in our first families.”
158. “We’re not having tough conversations.”
159. “Cruelty is easy, cheap, and rampant.”
160. “What’s the difference between shame and guilt? The majority of shame researchers and clinicians agree that the difference between shame and guilt is best understood as the differences between “I am bad” and “I did something bad.” Guilt = I did something bad. Shame = I am bad. Shame is about who we are, and guilt is about our behaviors.”
161. “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.” – Brené Brown
162. “Character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life—is the source from which self-respect springs. —Joan Didion”
163. “The imperfect book that gets published is better than the perfect book that never leaves my computer.”
164. “It’s not about ‘what can I accomplish?’ but ‘what do I want to accomplish?’ Paradigm shift.”
165. “Nelson Mandela wrote, “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
166. “Living a connected life ultimately is about setting boundaries, spending less time and energy hustling and winning over people who don’t matter, and seeing the value of working on cultivating connection with family and close friends.”
167. “In the end, the cure for numbing is developing tools and practices that allow you to lean into discomfort and renew your spirit.”
168. “Stillness is not about focusing on nothingness; it’s about creating a clearing. It’s opening up an emotionally clutter-free space and allowing ourselves to feel and think and dream and question.”
169. “To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn’t come with guarantees – these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain. But, I’m learning that recognizing and leaning into the discomfort of vulnerability teaches us how to live with joy, gratitude and grace.”
170. “I’m a cusser (likes swearing) from a long line of matriarchal cussers. I’m super comfortable with that.” – Dare to Lead
171. “But what we know now is that when we deny our emotion, it owns us. When we own our emotion, we can rebuild and find our way through the pain.”
172. “Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.”
173. “We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.
174. “To create is to make something that has never existed before. There’s nothing more vulnerable than that.”
175. “Feeding people half-truths or bullshit to make them feel better (which is almost always about making ourselves feel more comfortable) is unkind.”
176. “As a vulnerability researcher, the greatest barrier I see is our low tolerance for vulnerability. We’re almost afraid to be happy. We feel like it’s inviting disaster.”
177. “Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it’s often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.”
178. “When we find ourselves zigzagging – hiding out, pretending, avoiding, procrastinating, rationalising, blaming, lying – we need to remind ourselves that running is a huge energy suck and probably way outside our values.” – Dare to Lead
179. “DON’T TRY TO WIN OVER THE HATERS. YOU ARE NOT A JACKASS WHISPERER.”
180. “Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed, and rare.”
181. “Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both; it’s engaging. It’s being all in.”
182. “Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am brave and worthy of love and belonging.”
183. “All too often, I see people choosing the easy path and then wondering why things are not working out, why others are not working along, and complaining about that. Sometimes you have to make tough decisions to ease the path forward.” – Top pick by: THNKer Simone van Neerven
184. “And in case I’m feeling more ornery than usual, I have a little Post-it Note under my tightrope picture that reads, “Cruelty is cheap, easy, and chickenshit.” That’s also a touchstone of my spiritual beliefs.”
185. “We are born makers. We move what we’re learning from our heads to our hearts through our hands.”
186. “If you’re not in the arena also getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your feedback.”
187. “Yes, I agree with Tennyson, who wrote, “ ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” But heartbreak knocks the wind out of you, and the feelings of loss and longing can make getting out of bed a monumental task. Learning to trust and lean in to love again can feel impossible.”
188. “Trust is earned in the smallest moments.” – Dare to Lead
189. “Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty.”
190. “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
191. “The brokenhearted are the bravest among us. They dared to love.”
192. Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.
193. “Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.”
194. “Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day.”
195. “The unraveling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are.”
196. “The problem is that when we don’t care at all what people think and we’re immune to hurt, we’re also ineffective at connecting. Courage is telling our story, not being immune to criticism. Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.”
197. “I’ve learned that power is not bad, but the abuse of power or using power over others is the opposite of courage; it’s a desperate attempt to maintain a very fragile ego.”
198. “We have to find our way back to one another or fear wins.”
199. “The opposite of scarcity is not abundance; the opposite of scarcity is simply enough.”
200. “I believe that owning our worthiness is the act of acknowledging that we are sacred. Perhaps embracing vulnerability and overcoming numbing is ultimately about the care and feeding of our spirits.”
201. “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” – Dare to Lead
202. “I want to live in a world with braver, bolder leaders.” – Dare to Lead
203. “Cynicism and sarcasm are bad in person, and even worse when they travel through email and text.”
204. “It’s not an accidental entanglement; it’s an intentional knot. Love belongs with belonging.”
205. “Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”
206. “True belonging doesn't require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”
207. “Don’t squander joy.”
208. “Maybe stories are just data with a soul.”
209. “Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.”
210. “Only when diverse perspectives are included, respected, and valued can we start to get a full picture of the world.”
211. “I believe that what we regret most are our failures of courage, whether it’s the courage to be kinder, to show up, to say how we feel, to set boundaries, to be good to ourselves. For that reason, regret can be the birthplace of empathy.”
212. “The true underlying obstacle to brave leadership is how we respond to our fear.”
213. “The willingness to show up changes us, It makes us a little braver each time.”
214. “1. What more do I need to learn and understand about the situation? 2. What more do I need to learn and understand about the other people in the story? 3. What more do I need to learn and understand about myself?”
215. “I believe that vulnerability—the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome—is the only path to more love, belonging, and joy.”
216. The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born of our creativity.”
217. “Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from taking flight.”— Brené Brown
218. “You learn how to plant your damn feet is what you do. You bend and stretch and grow, but you commit to not moving from who you are.”
219. “Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It’s not something we have or don’t have -- it’s something we choose to practice.”
220. “I know that these examples are symptomatic of the cruelty culture that we live in today and that everyone is fair game, but think about how and what they chose to attack. They went after my appearance and my mothering—two kill shots taken straight from the list of feminine norms. They didn’t go after my intellect or my arguments. That wouldn’t hurt enough.”
221. “If we are going to find our way out of shame and back to each other, vulnerability is the path and courage is the light. To set down those lists of *what we're supposed to be* is brave. To love ourselves and support each other in the process of becoming real is perhaps the greatest single act of daring greatly.”
222. “Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”
223. “Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending—to rise strong, recognize our story, and rumble with the truth until we get to a place where we think, Yes. This is what happened. And I will choose how the story ends.”
224. “Joy, collected over time, fuels resilience – ensuring we’ll have reservoirs of emotional strength when hard things do happen.”
225. “Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: “Who has earned the right to hear my story?” If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky.”
226. “Either way, anger is a powerful catalyst but a life-sucking companion.”
227. “Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experiences.”
228. “The willingness to show up changes us. It makes us a little braver each time.”
229. “Just because we didn’t measure up to some standard of achievement doesn’t mean that we don’t possess gifts and talents that only we can bring to the world. Just because someone failed to see the value in what we can create or achieve doesn’t change its worth or ours.”
230. “Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.”
231. “How can we expect people to put value on our work when we don't value ourselves enough to set and hold uncomfortable boundaries?”
232. “When we lose our tolerance for vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding.”
233. “I was first introduced to Brené Brown through her book, ‘The Gifts of Imperfection,’ which was an eye-opening read for me. As a perfectionist, the idea that mistakes can be valuable and that you can learn and grow from them has been really important for my own personal development as well as my approach to leadership.” – Top pick by: THNK Program Director Jessica Krueger
234. “Courage is forged in pain, but not in all pain. Pain that is denied or ignored becomes fear or hate.”
235. “Rather than spending a reasonable amount of time proactively acknowledging and addressing the fears and feelings that show up during change and upheaval, we spend an unreasonable amount of time managing problematic behaviors.”
236. “I always bring my core values to feedback conversations. I specifically bring courage, which means that I don’t choose comfort over being respectful and honest—choosing politeness over respect is not respectful.”
237. “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.”
238. “Joy comes to us in ordinary moments. We risk missing out when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.”
239. “when we are in pain and fear, anger and hate are our go-to emotions.”
240. “1. People Are Hard to Hate Close Up. Move In. 2. Speak Truth to Bullshit. Be Civil. 3. Hold Hands. With Strangers. 4. Strong Back. Soft Front. Wild Heart.”
241. “It was a long year. I lovingly refer to it on my blog as the 2007 Breakdown Spiritual Awakening. It felt like a textbook breakdown to me, but Diana called it a spiritual awakening. I think we were both right. In fact, I’m starting to question if you can have one without the other.”
242. “I kept asking myself: What do these people with strong relationships, parents with deep connections to their children, teachers nurturing creativity and learning, clergy walking with people through faith, and trusted leaders have in common? The answer was clear: They recognize the power of emotion and they’re not afraid to lean in to discomfort.”
243. “So often, when someone is in pain, we’re afraid to say, “Yes, this hurts. Yes, this is a big deal. Yes, this sucks.” We think our job is to make things better, so we minimize the pain.”
244. “Daring is not saying, “I’m willing to risk failure.” Daring is saying, “I know I will eventually fail and I’m still all in.”
245. “The gap starts here: We can’t give people what we don’t have. Who we are matters immeasurably more than what we know or who we want to be. The”
246. “Happiness is tied to circumstance and joyfulness is tied to spirit and gratitude.”
247. “Courage is contagious. A critical mass of brave leaders is the foundation of an intentionally courageous culture. Every time we are brave with our lives, we make the people around us a little braver and our organizations bolder and stronger.”
248. “We don’t want to betray anyone - we don’t want to be the first to get curious and ask questions or challenge the stories. We ask ourselves, How can I love and protect my family if I’m rumbling with these hard truths? For me, the answer to that question is another question: How can I love and protect my family if I’m not rumbling with these hard truths?”
249. “Experiencing vulnerability isn’t a choice—the only choice we have is how we’re going to respond when we are confronted with uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. As a huge fan of the band Rush, this seems like the perfect place to throw in a quote from their song “Freewill”: “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
250. “Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.” Connecting the dots of our lives, especially the ones we’d rather erase or skip over, requires equal parts self-love and curiosity: How do all of these experiences come together to make up who I am?”
251. “Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It’s the fear that we’re not good enough.” – Brené Brown
252. “Dig deep—get deliberate, inspired, and going.”
253. We are born makers. We move what we’re learning from our heads to our hearts through our hands.
254. “Connection doesn’t exist without giving and receiving. We need to give, and we need to need.”
255. “Wholeheartedness. There are many tenets of Wholeheartedness, but at its very core is vulnerability and worthiness; facing uncertainty, exposure, and emotional risks, and knowing that I am enough.”
256. “Grief seems to create losses within us that reach beyond our awareness–we feel as if we're missing something that was invisible and unknown to us while we had it, but now painfully gone.”
257. “The more we diminish our own pain, or rank it compared to what others have survived, the less empathetic we are to everyone.”
258. “What we know matters, but who we are matters more.”
259. “Speak Your Truth. Follow Your Wild Heart”: How Brené Brown Learned To Cope With Cruelty Online – Vogue
260. “Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we’re all in this together.”
261. “We are so afraid that if we let ourselves feel joy, something will come along and rip it away from us and we will be sucker punched by pain and trauma and loss.”
262. I will not be a mystery to my daughter. She will know me and I will share my stories with her—the stories of failure, shame, and accomplishment. She will know she’s not alone in that wilderness.”
263. “Diminishing trust caused by a lack of connection and empathy.”
264. “What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?”
265. “I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness—it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.”
266. “If you want to make a difference, the next time you see someone being cruel to another human being, take it personally. Take it personally because it is personal!”
267. “Therefore, we need to be selective about the feedback we let into our lives. For me, if you’re not in the arena getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your feedback.”
268. “Shame keeps worthiness away by convincing us that owning our stories will lead to people thinking less of us. Shame is all about fear. We’re afraid that people won’t like us if they know the truth about who we are, where we come from, what we believe, how much we’re struggling”
269. “For anxiety and dread, the threat is in the future. For fear, the threat is now—in the present.”
270. “To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing. —Aristotle”
271. “The majority of shame researchers agree that the difference between shame and guilt is best understood as the differences between “I am bad” (shame) and “I did something bad” (guilt). Shame is about who we are and guilt is about our behaviors.”
272. “Revolution might sound a little dramatic, but in this world, choosing authenticity and worthiness is an absolute act of resistance. Choosing to live and love with our whole hearts is an act of defiance. You’re going to confuse, piss off, and terrify lots of people—including yourself. One”
273. “we don’t judge people when we feel good about ourselves.”
274. “When we can let go of what other people think and own our story, we gain access to our worthiness—the feeling that we are enough just as we are and that we are worthy of love and belonging.”
275. “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.”
276. “[…] I did not learn about vulnerability and courage and creativity and innovation from studying vulnerability. I learned about these things from studying shame.”
277. “We're going to need to intentionally be with people who are different than us. We're going to have to sign up, join, and take a seat at the table. We're going to have to learn how to listen, have hard conversations, look for joy, share pain, and be more curious than defensive, all while seeking moments of togetherness.”
278. “I assumed that people weren't doing their best so I judged them and constantly fought being disappointed, which was easier than setting boundaries. Boundaries are hard when you want to be liked and when you are a pleaser hellbent on being easy, fun, and flexible.”
279. “Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surender to uncertainty. We have to ask questions, admit to not knowing, risk being told that we shouldn't be asking, and, sometimes, make discoveries that lead to discomfort.”
280. “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”3”
281. “Communicating our expectations is brave and vulnerable. And it builds meaningful connection and often leads to having a partner or friend who we can reality-check with.”
282. “Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart.”
283. “Don’t try to win over the haters; you are not a jackass whisperer.”- Brené Brown
284. “As Rumi says, “We’re all just walking each other home.”
285. “Perfectionism never happens in a vacuum. It touches everyone around us. We pass it down to our children, we infect our workplace with impossible expectations, and it’s suffocating for our friends and families. Thankfully, compassion also spreads quickly. When we’re kind to ourselves, we create a reservoir of compassion that we can extend to others.”
286. “Vulnerability is not about winning, and it’s not about losing. It’s about having the courage to show up and be seen.”
287. Nothing has transformed my life more than realizing that it’s a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands.
288. “Courage originally meant "To speak one's mind by telling all one's heart.”
289. “I believe in this. I preach this. I live by this. Fun fact: I have a tattoo that says EXPERIENCES. My life is driven by my experiences and it has made me empathetic. When you are empathetic, you are stronger.” – Top pick by: THNKer Khushboo Chawla
290. “Even to me the issue of "stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest" sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices.”
291. “Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives.”
292. “When we’re anxious, disconnected, vulnerable, alone, and feeling helpless, the booze and food and work and endless hours online feel like comfort, but in reality they’re only casting their long shadows over our lives.”
293. “Shame and self-esteem are very different issues. We feel shame. We think self-esteem.”
294. “There is a line. It’s etched from dignity. And raging, fearful people from the right and left are crossing it at unprecedented rates every single day. We must never tolerate dehumanization—the primary instrument of violence that has been used in every genocide recorded throughout history.”
295. “Courage is not staying quiet about things that make us uncomfortable.”
296. “Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.”
297. “Even to me, the issue of ‘stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest’ sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices.”
298. “We don’t have to be perfect, just engaged and committed to aligning values with actions.”
299. “Self-kindness is self-empathy.”
300. “Talk about your failures without apologizing.”
301. “We all need to be seen and honored in the same way that we all need to breathe.”
302. “I understand how grandiosity, entitlement, and admiration-seeking feel like just the right balm to soothe the ache of being too ordinary and inadequate.” – Daring Greatly
303. “I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.” – Brené Brown
304. “the idea that we’re “wired for story” is more than a catchy phrase. Neuroeconomist Paul Zak has found that hearing a story—a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end—causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human abilities to connect, empathize, and make meaning. Story is literally in our DNA.”
305. “I’ve spent over 20 years studying the emotions and experiences that bring meaning and purpose to our lives, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s this: We are hardwired for connection, and connecting requires courage, vulnerability, and conversation.”
306. “What do we call a story that’s based on limited real data and imagined data and blended into a coherent, emotionally satisfying version of reality? A conspiracy theory.”
307. “Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can't ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment's notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow - that's vulnerability. Love is uncertain.”
308. “You are only free when you realize you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”
309. “We're raising children who have little tolerance for disappointment”
310. “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” – Brené Brown
311. “Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we’re all in this together.” – Brené Brown
312. “Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.”
313. “In order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen, really seen.”
314. “I think the dilemma exists because art, among all the other tidy categories, most closely resembles what it is like to be human. To be alive. It is our nature to be imperfect. To have uncategorized feelings and emotions. To make or do things that don’t sometimes necessarily make sense.”
315. “What we know matters but who we are matters more.”
316. “The mark of a wild heart is living out the paradox of love in our lives. It’s the ability to be tough and tender, excited and scared, brave and afraid—all in the same moment. It’s showing up in our vulnerability and our courage, being both fierce and kind.”
317. “To see and to be seen. That is the truest nature of love.”
318. “We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don’t function as were meant to be. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache … The absence of love and belonging will always lead to suffering.”
319. “When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary.”
320. “...sometimes when we are beating ourselves up, we need to stop and say to that harassing voice inside, "Man, I'm doing the very best I can right now." ”
321. “Let go of who you think you should be in order to be who you are. Be imperfect and have compassion for yourself. Connection is the result of authenticity.”
322. “Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.” – Brené Brown
323. “You share with people who've earned the right to hear your story. ...You have to earn the right to hear my story. It's an honor to hold space for me when I'm in shame.”
324. “I firmly believe that regret is one of our most powerful emotional reminders that reflection, change, and growth are necessary. In our research, regret emerged as a function of empathy. And, when used constructively, it’s a call to courage and a path toward wisdom.”
325. “Sometimes the most dangerous thing for kids is the silence that allows them to construct their own stories—stories that almost always cast them as alone and unworthy of love and belonging.”
326. “Trust is a product of vulnerability that grows over time and requires work, attention, and full engagement. Trust isn’t a grand gesture—it’s a growing marble collection.”
327. “You can’t fully grow and contribute behind armor.”
328. “Empathy is connecting to the emotions that underpin an experience.”
329. “But true belonging is not something we negotiate or accomplish with others.… It’s a personal commitment that we carry in our hearts.”
330. “Being ourselves means sometimes having to find the courage to stand alone, totally alone.”
331. “PEOPLE WILL DO ALMOST ANYTHING TO NOT FEEL PAIN, INCLUDING CAUSING PAIN AND ABUSING POWER.”
332. “Mastery requires feedback.”
333. “To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn’t come with guarantees—these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain. But I’m learning that recognizing and leaning into the discomfort of vulnerability teaches us how to live with joy, gratitude, and grace.”
334. “But true belonging is not something we negotiate or accomplish with others.… It's a personal commitment that we carry in our hearts.”
335. “We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we’re afraid to let them see it in us.” – Daring Greatly
336. “When we're suffering, may of us are better at causing pain than feeling it. We spread hurt rather than let it inside.”
337. “Hope is really a thought.”
338. “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”
339. “Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.” – Brené Brown
340. “Serpentining is the perfect metaphor for how we spend enormous energy trying to dodge vulnerability when it would take far less effort to face it straight on.”
341. “At the end of my life, I want to be able to say I contributed more than I criticized.”
342. Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.
343. “Rising strong after a fall is how we cultivate wholeheartedness in our lives; it’s the process that teaches us the most about who we are.”
344. “‘Lame’ (is) a word we’ve banned in our house, along with ‘loser’ and ‘stupid’.” – Daring Greatly
345. “We're a nation hungry for more joy: Because we're starving from a lack of gratitude.”
346. “I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.”
347. “What’s the most significant barrier to creativity and innovation? Kevin thought about it for a minute and said, “I don’t know if it has a name, but honestly, it’s the fear of introducing an idea and being ridiculed, laughed at, and belittled.”
348. “As neuroscientist Antonio Damasio reminds us, humans are not either thinking machines or feeling machines, but rather feeling machines that think.”
349. “There is a quiet transformation happening that is moving us from 'turning on each other' to 'turning toward each other.' Without question, that transformation will require shame resilience. If we're willing to dare greatly and risk vulnerability with each other, worthiness has the power to set us free.”
350. “Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending—to rise strong, recognize our story, and rumble with the truth until we get to a place where we think, Yes. This is what happened. And I will choose how the story ends.” – Brené Brown
351. “If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.”
352. “Worrying about scarcity is our culture's version of post-traumatic stress. It happens when we've been through too much, and rather than coming together to heal (which requires vulnerability) we're angry and scared and at each other's throats.”
353. “DARING IS NOT SAYING “I’M WILLING TO RISK FAILURE.” DARING IS SAYING “I KNOW I WILL EVENTUALLY FAIL, AND I’M STILL ALL IN.”
354. Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning and purpose to our lives.
355. “When we stop caring what people think, we lose our capacity for connection. But when we are defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable.”
356. “Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
357. “Vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it appears that it’s also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love.”
358. “A crisis highlights all of our fault lines. We can pretend that we have nothing to learn, or we can take this opportunity to own the truth and make a better future for ourselves and others.”
359. “Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.”
360. “Just because someone isn't willing or able to love us, it doesn't mean that we are unlovable.”
361. “Our world needs us to show up and stand up for our beliefs. I just hope we're civil and respectful. When we degrade and diminish our humanity, even in response to being degraded and diminished, we break our own wild hearts.”
362. “We humans have a tendency to define things by what they are not. This is especially true of our emotional experiences.”
363. “There’s nothing more daring than showing up, putting ourselves out there and letting ourselves be seen.”
364. “I don’t trust a theologian who dismisses the beauty of science or a scientist who doesn’t believe in the power of mystery.”
365. “True belonging never asks us to change who we are. True belonging requires us to be who we are.”
366. “There is an incredibly important, uncomfortable, and brave discussion that every single leader and every organisation in the world should be having about privilege.”
367. I don't have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness—it's right in front of me if I'm paying attention and practicing gratitude.
368. “We can talk about courage and love and compassion until we sound like a greeting card store, but unless we’re willing to have an honest conversation about what gets in the way of putting these into practice in our daily lives, we will never change. Never, ever.”
369. “When people don’t know their value they’re hustling for their worth.”
370. “You can choose COURAGE or you can choose COMFORT, but you cannot choose BOTH!”
371. “The courage to be vulnerable is not about winning or losing, it’s about the courage to show up when you can’t predict or control the outcome.”
372. “No regrets" doesn't mean living with courage, it means living without reflection. To live without regret is to believe you have nothing to learn, no amends to make, and no opportunity to be braver with your life. (P.211)”
373. “Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you really need to do, in order to have what you want. — Margaret Young”
374. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.” – Brené Brown
375. “Requiring accountability while also extending your compassion is not the easiest course of action, but it is the most humane, and, ultimately, the safest for the community.”
376. “The level of collective courage in an organisation is the absolute best predictor of that organisation’s ability to be successful.”
377. “Worrying about scarcity is our culture’s version of post-traumatic stress. It happens when you’ve been through too much, and rather than coming together to heal (which requires vulnerability), we’re angry and scared and at each other’s throats.”
378. “Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it’s often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.” – Brené Brown
379. “How many of you want more love, intimacy, joy, in your lives? You can’t have that, if you don’t let yourself be seen. How can you let yourself be loved if you can’t be seen?”
380. “GOOD FRIENDS AREN’T AFRAID OF YOUR LIGHT. THEY NEVER BLOW OUT YOUR FLAME AND YOU DON’T OUT THEIRS–EVEN WHEN IT’S REALLY BRIGHT AND IT MAKES YOU WORRY ABOUT YOUR OWN FLAME.”
381. “Our identities are always changing and growing, they’re not meant to be pinned down. Our histories are never all good or all bad, and running from the past is the surest way to be defined by it. That’s when it owns us. The key is bringing light to the darkness - developing awareness and understanding.”
382. “We’re brave and afraid all day long...it’s the choice we make while we’re holding the tension of those things.”
383. “If you can't say it to me in front of my kids, don't say it.”
384. “Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.”
385. “But those who are able to distinguish between a range of various emotions “do much, much better at managing the ups and downs of ordinary existence than those who see everything in black and white.”
386. “It’s not fear that gets in the way of us being brave, it’s armour.”
387. “We want to be part of something, but we need it to be real - not conditional or fake or constantly up for negotiation.”
388. “You are responsible for the energy you bring into this room.”
389. “A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all women, men, and children. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved,”
390. “If you own this story you get to write the ending.”
391. “We need to trust to be vulnerable, and we need to be vulnerable in order to build trust.”
392. “What we don’t need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human.”
393. “The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It's our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.”
394. “At the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of my life, I want to say that I contributed more than I criticized.”
395. “Empathy fuels connection; sympathy drives disconnection.”
396. “Compassion is not a virtue – it is a commitment. It’s not something we have or don’t have – it’s something we choose to practice.”
397. “Art is all just perfectly imperfect.”
398. “Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language — it’s from the Latin word cor, meaning heart — and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.”
399. “When I look at narcissism through the vulnerability lens, I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary. I see the fear of never feeling extraordinary enough to be noticed, to be lovable, to belong, or to cultivate a sense of purpose.”
400. “We are not here to fit in, be well balanced, or provide exempla for others. We are here to be eccentric, different, perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece, our little clunky, chunky selves, to the great mosaic of being. As the gods intended, we are here to become more and more ourselves.”
401. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”
402. “Show up for people in pain and don’t look away.”
403. “Shame can only rise so far in any system before people disengage to protect themselves. When we’re disengaged, we don’t show up, we don’t contribute, and we stop caring.”
404. “Hope is not an emotion; it's a way of thinking or a cognitive process.”
405. “People will do almost anything to not feel pain, including causing pain and abusing power;”
406. “After doing this work or the past twelve years and watching scarcity ride roughshod over our families, organizations, and communities, I'd say the one thing we have in common is that we're sick of feeling afraid. we want to dare greatly. We're tired of the national conversation centering on "What should we fear" and "Who should we blame?" We all want to be brave.”
407. “Daring leaders work to make sure people can be themselves and feel a sense of belonging.”
408. “Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we’re all in this together.”- Brené Brown
409. “Grief seems to create losses within us that reach beyond our awareness--we feel as if we're missing something that was invisible and unknown to us while we had it, but is now painfully gone...Longing is not conscious wanting; it's an involuntary yearning for wholeness, for understanding, for meaning, for the opportunity to regain or even simply touch what we've lost.”
410. “Not enough of us know how to sit in pain with others. Worse, our discomfort shows up in ways that can hurt people and reinforce their own isolation. I have started to believe that crying with strangers in person could save the world.”
411. “Those who feel lovable, who love, and who experience belonging simply believe they are worthy of love and belonging. I often say that Wholeheartedness is like the North Star: We never really arrive, but we certainly know if we're headed in the right direction.”
412. “Vault: Learning how to keep confidences, to recognize what's ours to share and what's not. The challenge is to stop using gossip, common enemy intimacy, and oversharing as a way to hotwire connection.”
413. “Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we are supposed to be and embracing who we are.”
414. “We love the truth because it’s increasingly rare.”- Dare to Lead
415. “One of the reasons we judge each other so harshly in this world of parenting is because... we perceive anyone else who's doing anything differently than what we're doing as criticizing our choices.”
416. True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.
417. “Neither one of us could really articulate how we felt until I heard Lamott referencing Paul Tillich and telling the audience, “The opposite of faith is not doubt—it’s certainty.” Steve and I didn’t leave religion because we stopped believing in God. Religion left us when it started putting politics and certainty before love and mystery.”
418. “People are hard to hate close-up. Move in.
419. “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” —Aesop.
420. “when I’m prioritizing being liked over being free, I was much sweeter but less authentic. Now I’m kinder and less judgmental. But also firmer and more solid. Occasionally salty.”
421. “Today I choose courage over comfort.”
422. “Joy comes to us in moments—ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary. Scarcity culture may keep us afraid of living small, ordinary lives, but when you talk to people who have survived great losses, it is clear that joy is not a constant.”
423. “Healthy striving is self-focused: “How can I improve?” Perfectionism is other-focused: “What will they think?”
424. “Believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect.”
425. “Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting.”
426. “THE MORE DIFFICULT IT IS TO ARTICULATE OUR EXPERIENCES OR LOSS, LONGING, AND FEELING LOST TO THE PEOPLE AROUND US, THE MORE DISCONNECTED AND ALONE WE FEEL.”
427. “Because we are compelled to make stories, we are often compelled to take incomplete stories and run with them.”
428. “Believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic.”
429. Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we’re all in this together.
430. “It’s not what you do; it’s why you do it that makes the difference.”
431. “Courage is contagious. My friend Katherine Center says, "You have to be brave with your life so that others can be brave with theirs.”
432. “Perfectionism is not a way to avoid shame. Perfectionism is a form of shame.”
433. “People are hard to hate close up. Move in. Speak truth to bullshit. Be civil. Hold hands. With strangers. Strong back. Soft front. Wild heart.”
434. “Worthiness doesn’t have prerequisites.”
435. “When we feel good about the choices we're making and when we're engaging with the world from a place of worthiness rather than scarcity, we feel no need to judge and attack.”
436. “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
437. “Of all the things trauma takes away from us, the worst is our willingness, or even our ability, to be vulnerable. There's a reclaiming that has to happen.”
438. “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”
439. “I could never step lightly enough or run fast enough to get away from the cracking, so I made everything around me so loud that it drowned out the sound.”
440. “Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.”
441. “to the conspiratorial mind, shit never just happens,' the complexities of human life are reduced to produce theories that are 'always consoling in their simplicity”
442. “badassery”
443. “Writer Mary Jo Putney says, “What one loves in childhood stays in the heart forever.”
444. “Depression and anxiety are two of the body’s first reactions to stockpiles of hurt. Of course, there are organic and biochemical reasons we experience clinical depression and debilitating anxiety—causes over which we have no control—but unrecognized pain and unprocessed hurt can also lead there.”
445. “Of all the things trauma takes away from us, the worst is our willingness, or even our ability, to be vulnerable. There’s a reclaiming that has to happen.”
446. “Here’s what I found: Men and women who live Wholeheartedly do indeed DIG Deep. They just do it in a different way. When they’re exhausted and overwhelmed, they get Deliberate in their thoughts and behaviors through prayer, meditation, or simply setting their intentions; Inspired to make new and different choices; Going. They take action.”
447. “To practice courage, compassion, and connection is to look at life and the people around us, and say, “I’m all in.”
448. “Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. Think about how often we compare our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.”
449. “Laughter is the evidence that the chokehold of shame has been loosened. Knowing laughter is the moment we feel proof that our shame has been transformed. Like empathy, it strips shame to the bone, robs it of its power and forces it from the closet.”
450. “Connection is why we’re here. We are hardwired to connect with others, it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering. I wanted to develop research that explained the anatomy of connection.”
451. “Whenever I'm faced with a vulnerable situation, I get deliberate with my intentions by repeating this to myself: "Don't shrink. Don't puff up. stand your sacred ground." Saying this little mantra helps me remember not to get too small so other people are comfortable and not throw up my armor as a way to protect myself.”
452. “Courage is like—it’s a habitus, a habit, a virtue: You get it by courageous acts. It’s like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn to courage by couraging.”
453. “Numb the dark and you numb the light.”
454. “Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes, they mean it. They're compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment.”
455. “• Belonging is being somewhere where you want to be, and they want you. Fitting in is being somewhere where you want to be, but they don’t care one way or the other. • Belonging is being accepted for you. Fitting in is being accepted for being like everyone else. • If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, I fit in.”
456. “There will be times when standing alone feels too hard, too scary, and we’ll doubt our ability to make our way through the uncertainty. Someone, somewhere, will say, “Don’t do it. You don’t have what it takes to survive the wilderness.” This is when you reach deep into your wild heart and remind yourself, “I am the wilderness.”
457. “i am enough”
458. “Why do we insist on dress-rehearsing tragedy in moments of deep joy? Because joy is the most vulnerable emotion we feel. And that’s saying something, given that I study fear and shame. When we feel joy, it is a place of incredible vulnerability—it’s beauty and fragility and deep gratitude and impermanence all wrapped up in”
459. “We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.” – Brené Brown
460. “In the absence of data, we will always make up stories.”
461. “If you trade your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief.”
462. “We're a nation of exhausted and over-stressed adults raising over-scheduled children.”
463. “In order for forgiveness to happen, something has to die. If you make a choice to forgive, you have to face into the pain. You simply have to hurt.”
464. “Let go of who you think you’re supposed to be; embrace who you are.”
465. “In fact, research shows that the process of labeling emotional experience is related to greater emotion regulation and psychosocial well-being.”
466. “Knowledge is only a rumor until it lives in the muscle.”
467. “I’ve also learned that the more we diminish our own pain, or rank it compared to what others have survived, the less empathic we are to everyone. That when we surrender our own joy to make those in pain feel less alone or to make ourselves feel less guilty or seem more committed, we deplete ourselves of what it takes to feel fully alive and fueled by purpose.”
468. “When you are grateful for what you have, I know you understand the magnitude of what I have lost.”
469. “New worlds are important, but you can’t just describe them. Give us the stories that make up that universe. No matter how wild and weird the new world might be, we’ll see ourselves in the stories.”
470. “We don’t have to do all of it alone. We were never meant to.”- Brené Brown
471. “Very few people can handle being held accountable without rationalizing, blaming, or shutting down;”
472. “If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm.”
473. “When we work from a place, I believe, that says ‘I’m enough,’ then we stop screaming and start listening, we’re kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we’re kinder and gentler to ourselves.”
474. “to be the person who we long to be—we must again be vulnerable. We must take off the armor, put down the weapons, show up, and let ourselves be seen.”
475. “No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”
476. “Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.”
477. “We don't have to do all of it alone. We were never meant to.”
478. “Courage is contagious.”
479. “Courage has a ripple effect. Every time we choose courage, we make everyone around us a little better and the world a little braver. And our world could stand to be a little kinder and braver.”
480. “Our work is to get to the place where we like ourselves and are concerned when we judge ourselves too harshly or allow others to silence us. The wilderness demands this level of self-love and self-respect.”
481. “Worrying and anxiety go together, but worry is not an emotion; it’s the thinking part of anxiety. Worry is described as a chain of negative thoughts about bad things that might happen in the future.”
482. “Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light”
483. “We’re all just walking each other home.”
484. Midlife: when the Universe grabs your shoulders and tells you “I’m not f-ing around, use the gifts you were given.
485. “Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them—we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.”
486. “Many of us are willing to extend a helping hand, but we’re very reluctant to reach out for help when we need it ourselves. It’s as if we’ve divided the world into “those who offer help” and “those who need help.” The truth is that we are both.”
487. “‘NO REGRETS’ HAS BECOME SYNONYMOUS WITH DARING AND ADVENTURE, BUT I DISAGREE. THE IDEA OF ‘NO REGRETS’ DOESN’T MEAN LIVING WITH COURAGE, IT MEANS LIVING WITHOUT REFLECTION. TO LIVE WITHOUT REGRET IS TO BELIEVE WE HAVE NOTHING TO LEARN, NO AMENDS TO MAKE, AND NO OPPORTUNITY TO BE BRAVER WITH OUR LIVES.”
488. “Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.”
489. “It’s dangerous to put your self-worth in other people’s hands. Again, no matter what you do, you can’t control other people’s responses. These are recipes for disappointment and hurt.”
490. “There is absolutely no innovation without failure.”
491. “We’re all grateful for people who write and speak in ways that help us remember that we’re not alone.”
492. “If empathy is the skill or ability to tap into our own experiences in order to connect with an experience someone is relating to us, compassion is the willingness to be open to this process.”
493. “Lean into the discomfort of the work.”
494. “Shame is much more likely to be the cause of destructive behavior than the cure. Guilt and empathy are the emotions that lead us to question how our actions affect other people, and both of these are severely diminished by the presence of shame.”
495. “It’s always helpful to remember that when perfectionism is driving, shame is riding shotgun.”
496. “I thought faith would say, ‘I’ll take away the pain and discomfort,’ but what it ended up saying was, ‘I’ll sit with you in it.’”
497. “Daring greatly means the courage to be vulnerable. It means to show up and be seen. To ask for what you need. To talk about how you’re feeling. To have the hard conversations.”
498. “At the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of my life, I want to say I contributed more than I criticized.”
499. “Conflict transformation rather than...conflict resolution. To me, the latter suggests going back to a previous state of affairs, and has a connotation that there may be a winner or a loser. [Conflict transformation has] the opportunity to create something new.”
500. “There’s a great quote from the movie Almost Famous that says, “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”
501. “Heartbreak is an altogether different thing. Disappointment doesn't grow into heartbreak, nor does failure...It comes form the loss of love or the perceived loss of love...Heartbreak is what happens when love is lost.”
502. “Until we can receive with an open heart, we’re never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.”
503. “I'm slowing learning how to straddles the tension that comes with understanding I am tough and tender, brave and afraid, strong and struggling-all of these things, all of he time. I'm working on letting go of having to be one or the other and embracing the wholeness of wholeheartedness.”
504. “Intuition is not a single way of knowing—it’s our ability to hold space for uncertainty and our willingness to trust the many ways we’ve developed knowledge and insight, including instinct, experience, faith, and reason.”
505. “Science is not the truth. Science is finding the truth. When science changes its opinion, it didn’t lie to you. It learned more.”
506. “We run from grief because loss scares us, yet our hearts reach toward grief because the broken parts want to mend.”
507. “Nothing serves as a better reminder of that than the immortal words of my friend Scott Stratten, author of UnMarketing: “Don’t try to win over the haters; you’re not the jackass whisperer.”
508. “Yes, we are totally exposed when we are vulnerable. Yes, we are in the torture chamber that we call uncertainty. And, yes, we’re taking a huge emotional risk when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. But there’s no equation where taking risks, braving uncertainty, and opening ourselves up to emotional exposure equals weakness.”
509. “We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we’re afraid to let them see it in us. We’re afraid that our truth isn’t enough—that what we have to offer isn’t enough without the bells and whistles, without editing, and impressing.”
510. “Connection is why we're here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. The power that connection holds in our lives was confirmed when the main concern about connection emerged as the fear of disconnection; the fear that something we have done or failed to do, something about who we are or where we come from, has made us unlovable and unworthy of connection.”
511. “DIG deep–get deliberate, inspired, and going.”
512. “Taking pleasure in someone else’s failings, even if that person is someone we really dislike, can violate our values and lead to feelings of guilt and shame. But, make no mistake, it’s seductive, especially when we’re sucked into groupthink.”
513. “Generosity is not a free pass for people to take advantage of us, treat us unfairly, or be purposefully disrespectful and mean.”
514. “We run from grief because loss scares us, yet our hearts reach toward grief because the broken parts want to mend. C. S. Lewis wrote, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” We can’t rise strong when we’re on the run.”
515. “We can choose courage, or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.”
516. “stop dehumanizing people and start looking them in the eye when we speak to them. If we don’t have the energy or time to do that, we should stay at home.”
517. “So if we decide to be brave and stay in the conversation, how do we push through the vulnerability and stay civil? ... explicitly address the underlying intentions. What is the conversation about, and what is it really about?”
518. “When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from the parts of our lives that don’t fit with who we think we’re supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving.”
519. “The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.”
520. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.”
521. “Midlife: when the Universe grabs your shoulders and tells you “I’m not f-ing around, use the gifts you were given.”
522. “Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting.” – Brené Brown
523. “Yes, if we care enough and dare enough, we will experience disappointment. But in those moments when disappointment is washing over us and we’re desperately trying to get our heads and hearts around what is or is not going to be, the death of our expectations can be painful beyond measure.”