Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead Paperback – 1 Jan. 2015

This is an amazing life changing book. Brene Brown captures attention through her authentic telling of her own story about coming to terms with shame. I use this book in my coaching practice and I've even bought additional copies for my coaching clients. It is a powerful and unsettling book that creates a mirror for the reader. Some of my clients can't read past page 8 without feeling overwhelmed by the reality of the message for them personally. Shame and it's corollary of needing to be in control all of the time are so common, but so destructime. They both feed the sense of resistance that Steven Pressfield talked about in the War of Art. It is amazing to me that we have to learn to be vulnerable in the 21st Century if we want to get the most from our lives. I would recommend this book to every school, to inform pupils and staff and help build their shame resilience.

Brene gives you so much to think about and makes so much sense. An informative read and one that may open your eyes, as to the "why" we behave in the manner that we do. Highly recommended.

Daring Greatly is an easy read, not bursting at the seams with difficult to understand terminology. lt comes across as an extension of Rising Strong, but so what. Most of us have an experienced an event, that we've exhausted over and over, similar to Daring Greatly...However, it is thoughtfully created, the narrative flows really easily and is often a page, after page turner! From a personal point of view it felt Brené Brown was writing and talking about me.lnteresting and informative book.

This review of Brown's book takes a perspective of Christian Mission to the majority World, especially Africa. The author of this review has spent nearly 30 years, while serving in Africa, encouraging other missionaries to be vulnerable. Hence his fascination with Brown’s observations on vulnerability.In summary, Brown tells us that many problems in family, school, and organization are caused through inadequate recognition of the power of shame. Rigid machine-likeness that characterises today’s modern results-oriented society, stultifies innovation, relationship, joy, and creativity, and results in disengagement. Manoeuvring through shame, by enacting appropriate levels of vulnerability, in necessary combination with profound spirituality, results in healthy overcoming of shame, which brings about wholeheartedness. In parts of the majority world, especially Africa, taboos supporting traditional customs backed by the power of ancestors, are driven by the power of shame. (Brown makes no reference to majority world contexts. As mentioned above, this review endeavours to translate her book into some majority world contexts.)Vulnerability, which is “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure” is also “the core of all emotions and feelings” and “creativity, Innovation, and learning”, Brown tells us (p33, p187). Her analysis adds, to me, clarification to an already clear need for vulnerability in intercultural relationship. Intercultural missionaries often struggle to win the trust of people they are reaching. Vulnerability, says Brown, is a prerequisite for winning trust (p47). I agree. That is a profound, and very challenging, observation. Brown tells us that vulnerability is a prerequisite for love and for belonging. Those who fear vulnerability, she emphasizes, become cruel, cynical, and critical. The functioning of effective feedback loops requires vulnerability. Brown’s observations ring true. The giving and receiving of feedback can bring extreme relational volatility. While feedback-loops are essential for organisational success, what to one person may be positive feedback, may not be so received by another! Only vulnerability can guarantee feedback effectiveness.Brown is a shame researcher. Her studies of shame took her to analysis of vulnerability. Someone is shamed when their identity is linked to their failings. Missionaries who fear vulnerability fear an appearance of failure in the eyes of their supporters. They fear being enveloped by the very poverty that they supposedly come to resolve. These fears undermine vulnerability. A solution, Brown tells us, is self-compassion. This leads to wholehearted living, which is dependent on having a healthy spirituality, Brown (who is a Christian) tells us. Vulnerability, and the resultant trust by nationals, love, and belonging, can be achieved if missionaries separate their failings from their identity. Then they can be forgiven. ‘Guilt’ is ‘I have failed’. Unlike shame, guilt can be forgiven. The much more destructive shame is ‘I am a failure’, causing someone to give up and disengage (p66). Missionaries who intend to minister over a long term need to learn that God can forgive their failings – they may be guilty of some things, but they need not be ashamed.Brown talks of a gap needing to be filled. The gap is between what we say, and what we do. The gap can be overcome through honesty, which can only arise from a readiness to be vulnerable. Dis-honesty, in this sense, results in withdrawal, through disengagement.Many of Brown’s examples draw on the US educational sector. Teachers shamed when students’ results are too low, disengage from profound upbuilding-relationships with students, in favour of simply passing on information needed in examinations. So also, missionaries being set on achieving the kinds of results recognised by Westerners, especially by donors, pre-empts vulnerable engagement with majority world cultures, that could in the long run be the most innovative and profoundly transformative. Vulnerability, which includes refusal to be victim to shaming mechanisms (considered by Brown to be Gremlins; which should remind us of evil spirits), could transform mission approaches. Such a link, between Brown's writing and potential missionary fruitfulness, should not surprise us: Brown works with profoundly Christian paradigms in all but name, implicitly positioning us in a position where we should become vulnerable to God himself.

I heard so many good things about this book that I had really high expectations. I wasn't disappointed.For a start, the quote by Theodore Roosevelt from which the title of the book is taken and which is the premise of its contents, is awesome and powerful and uplifting all by itself. Add to this the results of Brene Brown's research, her candid stories and personal experiences of vulnerability and you have a compelling argument for risking failure and allowing more openness, honesty and bravery into your life both at work and in your home. What I love most about this book and all Brown's work is that it changed the way I had previously seen vulnerability. I now see vulnerability as a sign of courage rather than weakness; it is a sign of what it means to be alive. Thank you Brene Brown I feel so much braver now.