32 Brené Brown Quotes on How Vulnerability is Key to Life
If it’s worth doing it takes courage and there is no courage without vulnerability. Unfortunately. But the upside is that once you have found a way to put yourself in a vulnerable spot – such as starting your business, writing that book or just admitting to yourself that your life hasn’t turned out the way you wanted it to, yet – life sort of… opens.
Luckily you are not alone out there/here on the other side. Courage researcher and professor Brené Brown is here-there, too. Living a life on the line. Leading by example. Inspiring people to be brave by knowing the science and being brave herself.
All because of that TED-talk she found the courage to do.
These honest Brené Brown quotes are on how to handle criticism when you’re out there on the life-side of life daring greatly, and on why finding the courage to be vulnerable is the key to getting the most out of life.
“I’m going to live in the arena. I’m going to be brave with my life. I’m going to show up.”
– Brené Brown
“And after 400 000 pieces of data, here is what I can tell you for sure: ”If you are brave with your life and you choose to live in the arena, you’re going to get your ass kicked. You are going to fall, you are going to fail, you are going to know heartbreak. It’s a choice. It’s a choice I make every day.”
– Brené Brown
“Today I choose courage over comfort”
– Brené Brown
“You’re going to know failure if you’re brave with your life”
– Brené Brown
“Vulnerability is not about winning. It’s not about loosing. It’s having the courage to show up when you can’t control the outcome.”
– Brené Brown
“Vulnerability is the most accurate way to measure courage. And we literally do that as researchers. We measure how brave you are by how vulnerable you are willing to be.”
– Brené Brown
“There are millions of cheap seats in the world today filled with people that will never once step foot in that arena. They will never once put themselves out there, but they will make it a full-time job to hurl criticism and judgment and really hateful things toward us. […] We’ve got to let them drop on the floor. Don’t grab that hurtful stuff from the cheap seats, and pull it close. Don’t pull it anywhere near your heart.”
– Brené Brown
“You can’t take criticism and feedback from people who are not being brave with their lives. It just will crush you.”
– Brené Brown
“You are neurobiologically hardwired to care what people think.”
– Brené Brown
“The deal is you have to be very specific about whose opinions of you matter. […] Solicit feedback from the people that do give you good feedback […] the people who love you, not despite your imperfection and vulnerability, but because your imperfection and vulnerability. Their feedback matters.”
– Brené Brown
“We’re scared when we see vulnerability in other people.”
– Brené Brown
“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?”
– Brené Brown
“We want it so bad, but we’re so afraid to let ourselves be seen.”
– Brené Brown
“Vulnerability is the center of shame, scarcity, fear, anxiety, and uncertainty. But it is also the birthplace of love, belonging, and love.”
– Brené Brown
“To love is to be vulnerable. To give someone your heart and say, ’I know this could hurt so bad, but I’m willing to do it. I’m willing to be vulnerable and love you.’ And there is an increasing number of people today that are not willing to take that risk. They’d rather never know love than to know hurt, or grief – and that is a huge price to pay.”
– Brené Brown
“And we want belonging. Let me tell you what belonging is. The opposite of belonging, in research, is fitting in. Fitting in is assessing and acclimating. […] Belonging is belonging to yourself first.”
– Brené Brown
“True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are, it requires you to be who you are. And that’s vulnerable.”
– Brené Brown
“Joy is the most vulnerable of all human emotions.”
– Brené Brown
“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.”
– Brené Brown
“When we lose our capacity for vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding.”
– Brené Brown
“Just choose joy sometimes. Just choose a thing that seems frivolous and fun and has no ROI or upside. Just do the joyful thing.”
– Brené Brown
“Stuart Brown who studies play defines play as ’time spend without purpose.’ That’s a panic attack to me.”
– Brené Brown
“No vulnerability, no creativity. No tolerance for failure, no innovation.”
– Brené Brown
“Giving feedback, receiving feedback, problem-solving, ethical decision-making… These are all born of vulnerability.”
– Brené Brown
“Brave leaders are never silent around hard things.”
– Brené Brown
“Vulnerability is –– the definition of it from the data –– uncertainty, risk, emotional exposure. ”
– Brené Brown
“There is no couragewithout vulnerability.”
– Brené Brown
“Here is why we need vulnerability: It is so much easier to cause pain than feel pain. And people are taking their pain, they’re working it out on other people. And when you don’t acknowledge your vulnerability, you work your shit out on other people. Stop working your shit out on other people.”
– Brené Brown
“We are neurobiologically hardwired for connection with other people. In the absence of connection, love, and belonging, there is always suffering.”
– Brené Brown
“Vulnerability minus boundaries: not vulnerability.”
– Brené Brown
“You measure vulnerability by the amount of courage it takes to show up and be seen, when you can’t control the outcome.”
– Brené Brown
“Here’s the thing. I’m not going to bullshit you. Vulnerability is hard. And it’s scary, and it feels dangerous. But it’s not as hard, scary, or dangerous as getting to the end of our lives and having to ask ourselves, ’What if I would have shown up?’”
– Brené Brown