Brené Brown: Braving the Wilderness and How We Can Belong to Each Other and Ourselves

In this episode of MarieTV, we do have some adult language. So if you do have little ones around, grab your headphones now.

In this episode of MarieTV we do have some adult language. So if you have little ones around, grab your headphones now.

Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business and life you love. And you are in for such a treat today. We are sitting down with one of my friends who is quickly becoming a cultural icon and we’re gonna have a very important conversation about topics that are relevant today and for the rest of your life.

Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston where she holds the Huffington Foundation Brené Brown endowed chair at the graduate college of social work. Brené’s TED talk is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world with over 30 million views. She spent the past 16 years studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy, and is the author of three number one New York Times bestsellers: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, and Rising Strong. In addition to her writing and research, Brené is the founder and CEO of Brave Leaders, Inc., an organization that brings evidence-based courage building programs to teams, leaders, entrepreneurs, and culture shifters. Her latest book, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone, is available now.

Brené!

Hi!

Hi! Oh, my gosh. I love you so much.

I love you too.

We’ve wanted to do this I feel like for so long, and I’m so appreciative that you said, “Girl, can you come to Texas?”

Did you go to Buc-ee’s?

I went to Buc-ee’s.

I made her come just – I made her come just for the ice house and the gas station.

I – so short aside before we get into the amazingness. Okay? The amazingness of this new book, which this is my galley copy and you can see guys, I have all these little orange tabs in there.

So as an aside – come to Texas, driving around last night, I have never seen a gas station so big in my life. And I heard about Buc-ee’s, and I go into Buc-ee’s, and I was like this is a wonderland of goodness.

Yeah. It’s like tires, raincoats, fudge.

Squeaky pigs.

You got it.

And then the one thing, which I will show you guys, we might actually cut it in, is a – it’s this beautiful stone piece where you put a wine bottle on top and then it’s a spigot. And I was like that’s the kind of gift a girl like me needs.

You gotta trust Buc-ee’s.

You gotta trust Buc-ee’s.

My husband and I are always waiting to see if it goes public. I’m like the day – we’re buying in.

So, okay, getting to the real, real stuff. I want to start, first of all, this book is incredible. I texted you that it made such an impact on me. I think this is the message of our time and I’m so glad we’re gonna get to peel into it.

I want to start with the Maya Angelou quote that you share. “You are only free when you realize you belong to no place – you belong every place – no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.” Let’s dig in with, what does true belonging mean and why this message? Why now?

You know, Maya Angelou has been my most steadfast counselor for my entire life. I discovered her probably 30 years ago when I was in college and I leaned into her work. You know how when you find those people that just are unsparing and honest in their work but they also bring you joy and comfort? She’s that for me. And I love everything she does, except for that quote. That quote has pissed me off for decades. And I never understood this idea that you’re free when you belong nowhere.

And as a social scientist I know that belonging – I know this for sure. Like if you ask me the one thing I know for sure, 200 thousand pieces of data, I know in the absence of love and belonging there’s always suffering. That I know for sure.

So this quote from her about belonging everywhere, which is really nowhere, is what sets us free, was so troubling to me. But then I starting digging in and I started trying to understand, what does it mean to belong? And I never thought of the concept of belonging. I thought belonging was like we have a crew.

Like a posse.

Yeah. A posse, a squad. And belonging to something you kind of negotiate with external groups of people, but it’s not. What I found very quickly is the rest of that actual quote is part of an interview that she did where she – with Bill Moyers where she ends up saying, you know, he ends up pushing a little bit on and saying, “So are you saying that you belong nowhere and to no one?” And she said, “I belong to Maya.”

And what I found is that true belonging is a spiritual practice and it’s about the ability to find sacredness in both being a part of something but also the courage to stand alone. And the people – for those of us who struggle to have the courage to stand alone, especially when we know that it risks – we’re risking that sense of being a part of something because we disagree.

Yes.

Because we have a different opinion, because we love something different, that is the mark. That’s the mark of true belonging. To be able to say, “yes, I am a part of something bigger but I also will stand alone when I need to.” And then it was like, “Oh, shit. You belong everywhere and nowhere, and that is liberation.”

Yeah. So “braving,” which has shown up in previous work but I feel like it’s so perfect here. Can you walk us through? For anyone who is not familiar with the acronym and what it means, what is braving and how does this help us stay connected to ourselves and others?

So braving is all about trust. And so probably three or four years ago in a lot of my leadership work, I probably – and this is something people don’t know about me. I probably spend 90% of my time inside big organizations working with c-suite teams. That’s what I do most of the time. And so in working with leaders, one of the things that kept coming up is trust. Trust building in teams. Building trust in a culture.

The thing that’s hard about trust is if I work for you and you call me in and I’m like really upset because I got passed over for a promotion and you say to me, “Look, Brené, you’re doing great work but there are some trust issues.” The minute you say anything that I can perceive as “I am no longer trustworthy or you don’t trust me,” we go completely limbic. We go completely out of listening with our prefrontal cortex to listening, you know, to fight, flight, freeze, defend. Because our trust is our integrity. It’s who we are.

So I kept wondering, like when we talk about trust, what are we actually talking about? Like, what can you – what could you call me into your office and say to me that would be more helpful, more impactful and productive than “we have trust issues” or “I don’t trust you?” So we dug into the data to figure out what is trust, what do we mean when we say trust?

And what I found are there are seven elements that we’re talking about when we talk about trust. And these are observable and measurable. These are what we can talk about with each other.

So “braving” is the acronym we use. B is boundaries. You set boundaries. When you don’t know what they are, you ask. You’re clear about what’s okay and not okay, which is, as you know, so hard for people.

Yeah.

Boundaries are really hard.

Reliability is the R. You do what you say and you say what you do. The big, hard thing about reliability is you’re not hustling for worthiness, so you’re not completely over committing and not delivering.

Yes.

That’s the reliability issue.

A is accountability. You don’t back-channel and blame. You hold people accountable in a straightforward way.

V, which I think is really interesting, is the vault.

Oh, the vault. Can we talk about the vault for a second?

Yeah, the vault.

The vault is so huge because in this culture and in this time, I say this with my friends all the time. Like “I’m gonna tell you something and it’s got to stay in the vault.”

Right.

It has to stay in the vault. And once that goes, if anyone violates that, and I’ve had it happen before, something shuts down in me.

Oh, it does. It’s hard to come back from it. What people don’t understand about the vault that’s really interesting to me too is that you call me in and you – “I don’t understand why I got the position.” You say, “look, we’ve got some trust issues that we need to work through. Specifically I want to talk about confidentiality in the vault.”

And I look at you like, “Marie, I have never shared a single thing that you have told me in the 10 years we’ve known each other.” And you look back at me and say, “yes, but you come in here on a regular basis and share things with me that are not yours to share.”

It’s the other side of confidentiality. It is not only do you not talk out of school between us. You don’t come in here and say, “Hey, look. I know what’s going on with John. Blah, blah, blah.” Or, “This is what’s happening with…” you know.

So – because when I do that – and I do that to get connection with you, I do that as a bid for connection, let me tell you what’s going on that you don’t know about. But when I walk out of the office, you trust me less because I’m using stories that are not mine as currency.

Yes.

So we’ve got the vault.

Then we go to I, integrity, which is choosing courage over comfort. Practicing your values. And this is a big one. I think we have this in common, and I love this about you. It’s choosing what’s right over what’s fun, fast, and easy.

Yeah.

You know, we have a culture of fun, fast, and easy. We have a culture of people who don’t do discomfort. And that’s – I’ve never achieved a single thing in my career or life comfortably.

Absolutely, 100%.

Yeah. And then we go to N for nonjudgment. You can ask for help without feeling judged and I can ask for help without judging myself.

And then Generosity, which I think is probably the biggest, hardest one for me sometimes. Which is when something happens I assume positive intent. So if things go sideways between us I’m like, “Dammit, Marie. I’m so pissed off.” I go and say, let me assume the best. “Help me understand what happened, Marie. I thought we had a plan around this.”

Yes.

And I give you a chance, a benefit of the doubt, before I launch into my anger.

Yeah. I think that one’s probably the most difficult for me as well. The one I can see where I instantly jump to conclusions or I can watch my mind go to the worst possible scenario. I did it with my family the other night. Like my parents weren’t responding to a particular text and I made up this entire narrative about what that meant until they were like, “Oh, we were just putting away groceries.” And I’m like there. It happened again.

We do it all day every day. I mean, I have a story. You know, that’s human nature. That’s wiring. In the absence of data we will always make up stories.

Yes.

And so I think for Braving the Wilderness, the whole idea of the wilderness being those times when we stand alone and those times when we go out on a limb, the times we walk away from what we know, our ideological bunkers and our beliefs, braving is the tool to help us manage the wilderness.

It’s so useful and it’s so concrete and it’s a checklist.

Yeah, it’s a checklist.

It’s like we can hold that – I can hold that for myself just to say “am I in alignment with me and am I feeling good about how I’m moving through the world?” And that brings me, I think one of the most impactful, and there’s so much wisdom in this book, but what I want to move on to is people are hard to hate close up. Move in.

This concept of rehumanizing not dehumanizing, it got me in the heart. It got me in the gut. Especially what’s happening now in our world. There’s something that you wrote and I want to read it because it is the core of ways that I’ve struggled in the past few years not knowing how to approach conversations, not knowing how to invite people into a conversation, and to really take a hard look at my own biases and my own angers and how I would like the world to be.

You wrote, “If you are offended or hurt when you hear Hillary Clinton or Maxine Waters called a bitch, a whore, or the c-word, you should be equally offended and hurt when you hear those same words used to describe Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway, or Theresa May. When the President of the United States calls women dogs or talks about grabbing pussy, we should get chills down our spine and resistance flowing through our veins. When people call the President of the United States a pig, we should reject that language regardless of our politics and demand discourse that doesn’t make people subhuman.” I want that to be everywhere.

God, it’s so hard!

It’s so hard.

It’s like I wanna take your iPad and just like “researcher heal thyself.” Yeah, it’s hard as hell because let me tell you about dehumanization and my concern about it and as I’ve witnessed it. Dehumanization is a very slippery, dangerous process, and I’ll tell you where it starts.

We are actually hardwired neurobiologically to not hurt one another. It goes against our human nature to treat each other, you know, to be violent, rape, torture, degradation, humiliation. It actually goes against who we are. And we’re wired that way to protect the species. We’re a social species. We need each other. We’re completely dependent on each other.

The process of dehumanization is the process that we use to slowly, primarily using words and images, nothing more. Dehumanization is the process of slowly moving people out.

I want to use this table as an example, or this coffee. So here’s a group of people that we want to harm. It’s a group of people that we hate, a group of people that a leader has told us here, this tea right here, is the cause of all your pain and suffering. So we hate these people and we want to hurt them and we want to see them diminished. But they’re within this moral, protective zone that we have as humans. So slowly over time we start using words and images of them that dehumanize them, that move them slowly and slowly and slowly into what we call moral exclusion. They no longer are protected by what we believe is human basic rights. And we see the process of dehumanization at the core of every genocide recorded in history. The Nazis used I think the word is untermunchen. It’s subhuman, to describe Jews. Every conflict you can see. And so what’s happening in our country right now from the leadership to the resistance.

Yup.

No one has high ground here. We are slowly allowing ourselves to start using dehumanizing language to describe people with whom we disagree.

Yes.

Which then makes it okay to physically hurt them. And when we use dehumanizing language, it says much more about us than the people that we’re railing against. And I think honestly it chips away at our soul.

I agree with you 10,000%. That’s why this hit me so hard, because I’ve found myself using language that, once I started to make this connection through your work I was like – it was like these lights came on. And I said, “Oh, my God. This is so true. This is so right.” So I’m so happy that we’re talking about this, because I have never heard anyone talk about this, about dehumanization and rehumanization and a way that we can start to enter these really difficult conversations, and we’re gonna keep going into that. But to retain our dignity and the humanity for the people that we disagree with.

Yeah, and I think, here’s the thing, dehumanization is not a social justice tool. It is emotional offloading. It is gratuitous. It is self-indulgent. It is a way to offload our anger, our fear, and our rage, but it has nothing to do with social justice.

Right. So moving on, staying in the same zone, another really powerful passage. “Is there tension and vulnerability in supporting both the police and the activists? Hell yes. It’s the wilderness. But most criticism comes from people who are intent on forcing false dichotomies or shaming us for not hating the wrong people.” This is where I see so much pain and conflict, especially because, you know, I run an online business. I’m paying attention to conversations on social media. And even when someone is trying to open up a conversation, I see so much misunderstanding and “if you’re not with us you’re against us,” and there’s no room for nuance.

No.

And I’m wondering if you can speak to this a little bit, because it was in the section about conflict transformation and how do we stay brave when having these difficult conversations? I know it’s a lot, so we’ll go…

No, no. It’s like, you know, I don’t know the answer to all of it. What I do know is – because it’s scary. It’s scary for me and you. I have a bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD in social work. Like, I was trained in this language, in these conversations. I’ve studied dehumanization for 10 years and still when I go do a Facebook Live around something that’s happening, I’m scared to death. Because here’s what I know. I know that I’m not going to do it perfectly.

Right.

I know that not only the people who oppose my politics and my beliefs are going to come after me, but I know that the people who I believe that are my allies are going to come after me because I’m gonna do it imperfectly.

Yes.

But opting out of speaking out because we may get criticized, to me is the definition of privilege. Like “I don’t really have to speak out because there are no crosses burning in my front yard, my kids seem pretty safe. You know, I’m not getting pulled over, I’m not – everything seems fine.” So to opt out because it’s safe is what privilege is.

And so the way I think we have the conversation is you stay grounded in your humility and curiosity and you say “here’s what I believe. Let me spare you coming back and telling me how imperfect it is by saying right up front I know it’s gonna be imperfect.”

Yeah.

“But I’m not going to let my imperfection move me away from the conversation, because it’s too important.” And here’s the thing that I live by and here’s the thing that I invite people to live by. At the end of the day, at the end of the week, and the end of my life I want to be able to say that I contributed more than I criticized. And so if all you’re doing is criticizing people who are trying to engage in conversations that heal and bring hope, shut up. I mean, really just don’t talk. Because it’s not useful. It’s not useful.

I loved, you know, this is gonna air a little bit later than when we’re taping it.

Yes.

That’s how the world of video works. But you recently did a Facebook Live, we did one yesterday, and I watched it and I just thought it was so wonderful because I was looking through the comments and I loved seeing, you know, where there were places where people were taking issue with a particular word or a particular phrase. And there were so many people that were coming in and saying, “Hey, I’d actually love to discuss this with you. You can PM me.” But there was a quality in the intention of that that did not feel accusatory. It felt like an invitation. It felt like, “hey, I want to share a viewpoint with you that you may not have considered before.” And it almost brought tears to my eyes, because I haven’t – I’ve seen so little of that.

It’s amazing. It was amazing, right?

It was amazing.

And we’re talking about 10,000 comments.

Yes.

But here’s the thing, that’s hard fought. We absolutely – we don’t curate the comments, we – but we police them. And I’m very clear about that.

Can you talk about that distinction? Because I think especially in our audience and I know, you know, you and I have so many friends in this space, people who are authors, people who lead companies, people who have the privilege of having an audience, and I think they would love to hear from you. I certain – that’s why I’m asking these questions. To have tools. Because a lot of folks are like “I want my so and so who I admire to speak out.” And I think what you said is so key here, that you’ve been studying this for 10 years and you walk into these conversations still feeling really nervous.

Oh, my God. Oh, completely vulnerable. In fact, when I taped that Facebook Live on Charlottesville, my voice was sharking for the first 10 minutes of it. Like I didn’t know if I was gonna be able to make it all the way through.

I didn’t notice that, just so you know.

And it was a full schedule taping day of other things. And it was scheduled to be taped in the afternoon. I said, as soon as I got there in the morning, I said “I have to do this now because it’s so heavy on my heart and I’m so afraid that if I give myself time I’ll rationalize myself out of doing it.”

Yeah.

So for me it’s about this. This is my space on Facebook. You can have your – everybody can have their own space. In my space, you can disagree, we can debate, we can argue, but you’re not going to shame other people. You’re not going to name call and you’re not going to put people down. If you do, I’m probably gonna ask you once not to do it, and then we will ban you from the page.

And I do not think there are enough spaces in the world right now. There are some people who do it really well. TED does it really well. Because it’s kind of comments are moderated I guess is the right word, by the people who comment there, the community. So they’ll vote you off the island I guess if it’s too inappropriate. But I’m not gonna tolerate that, because it doesn’t contribute.

Yes.

Now, if someone says like, “Hey, Brené. You’re wrong and I totally disagree and this is why I disagree,” then I’m gonna answer. I can’t answer all of them but I’m gonna answer as many as I can and we’ll debate it. If they come on and say, “I hate you and I’m gonna, you know, I want, I hope you get killed,” you can delete it. I mean, like it’s just…

Yeah.

Why contribute?

Yup.

And I know – so I don’t think it’s curated, but there is a homeowner’s association.

Yeah. No, I think it’s really important. We do – it’s a different thing because it doesn’t tend to go into those content areas, but in our B-School community I have such a strong stand for kindness and be like, “But why?” And I’m like, look, negativity is toxic. We can debate ideas, we can talk about different strategies, but we will not trash talk people, we will not trash talk other programs, other businesses. No. Like, let’s keep it – and it’s amazing how much forward progress and healthy conversations and true growth can happen when you take care of that safe space.

Yeah. It’s Jill Bolte Taylor who said, “take responsibility for the energy you bring into a room.” And I feel like what people don’t do online in social is they don’t take responsibility for the energy they put out into the world. And in the worst case scenario what they’re putting out in the world is actually disembodied from their identity. They’re – it’s anonymous.

Yeah.

So I respond to nothing that’s anonymous. So if you’ve got some kind of flower icon and your name is like Lily from…

Sassy Pants.

Yes. Sassy Pants 123, I’m not responding to you, because you’re not in the arena. You’re not showing up. You’re not being brave. So I’m not gonna have the conversation.

Yeah. And I think what I’ve been watching too is I think it’s so much more effective, you know, when people – there’s also like this call out thing happening. And I think there’s probably a distinction to be made between holding people accountable and shaming people, because it’s not a way to open up a conversation. You’re not gonna get folks to actually engage and then possibly grow and come together when you’re making them wrong.

No. I mean, shaming – look, shame never drives positive behavior. What shame drives is rage, anger, rationalization, and blame. And so if you’re looking at kind of the white supremacists and the KKK and the Nazis who are marching around towns and you say, “Let’s just shame them,” like, let me tell you. If they weren’t ass-high in shame already, they wouldn’t be marching through town spewing hatred. Is it my job to heal them and take care of them? Nah. No. But I’m not going to contribute to it. I’m not gonna say, “Look, they’re on fire. Let me throw some gasoline on it.”

If there’s no – and the other thing is, when I – when you shame people, it hurts you. Like, it hurts you. It’s part of – it’s hard to shame people without dehumanizing them too. I’m just not going to do what.

What I am for is holding people accountable. And that … but the thing is, and this is – this is the hard part, holding people accountable is not as much fun and does not deliver the emotional satisfaction that raging against people and shaming people do. So when you post something, some hideous meme about the white trash, you know, khaki Izod wearing you know, it feels good. Like, you feel “like look at me.” You know, your anger has someplace to go. It does nothing but to contribute to the vitriol. It does nothing. Nothing.

And so shame begets shame in the same way that violence begets violence. It’s not the answer. Is the answer to coddle – and so this what people say. “Oh, Brené doesn’t want us to shame anyone. She wants us to coddle people.” Well, if the only two tools that you have in your tool bag are shame or coddle, that’s a sorry-ass tool bag.

You need to upgrade your tool bag.

Yeah. There’s like 500 things between…

You need to go to Buc-ee’s.

Go to Buc-ee’s.

Get a big basket.

Get you a Texas sized toolbag that has things like, you know, curiosity, accountability, social justice.

Yes. I think that’s interesting too. And one of the things that I try to hold true, I am so not perfect at it. I fuck up all the time. But I try and promote what I’m standing for. You know what I mean? Giving people a concrete action. “Okay, what can we do?” I think that’s just intrinsic to my DNA. I’m a doer.

Yeah.

And I always want to do something. I go how can we direct ourselves collectively? Like what are the actions we can take right now that will help move the conversation or help move things forward?

So I think one of them is start having the conversations with your kids, with your neighbors, with your partner, with your colleagues. Start having the conversations. Don’t go in as the teacher. Go in with curiosity and generosity. What do you think about what’s going on? Questions like this.

Like, this is a great email I got. She – someone wrote after the Facebook Live and said, “I am so offended when people use the word white supremacists. I could barely get through your Facebook Live. But then when my husband came home I said I want you to watch this so we can talk about it, and so he watched it. And he like kinda shifted a lot and grunted,” and this is a white couple and kind of probably mid forties. And he said, “Well, what do you think?” And he said, “Well,” and then we just started talking about it. My 17-year-old son came home, we started talking about it, and we just started breaking it down and trying to figure out what we emotionally reacted to compared – if everyone did that, the world would be different in 24 hours.

Yeah.

I mean, it really is going to take a million acts of kindness and consciousness to change this. When you’re at work and someone says a joke that’s really anti-immigrant or anti-transgender, instead of laughing and walking away or just not saying anything and walking away, you just look and say, “Jesus.” I mean, you don’t have to say, “I’m really offended and these people are our brothers and sisters,” because people can’t hear that. You can say, “Jesus, that’s not funny.” Or like, “Hey, dude, if you have to hurt other people, you’re not that funny.”

Yeah.

That’s it. I mean, if a million of us did that, if a million people tomorrow just said, “I don’t really understand Black Lives Matter. I don’t really get it. I want to try to understand it. I don’t want to try to protect myself from it or defend against it. I just want to try to understand it.” Maybe 200,000 may change their mind. Maybe 800,000 will keep the same opinion. But there will be a shift in the consciousness of the country just by asking the questions.

Yeah. That’s why your work is so important. Okay. I am shifting gears here.

Okay.

Taking a hard right.

Yeah. I’m going.

One of my other favorite parts of the book was about when you were talking about certain conferences wanting you to like stick to certain topics. Don’t talk about your faith or wanting you to wear certain clothes. Or the one that really got me, of course, is, you know, not to cuss.

Yeah.

And another Maya saying, quote, something she told you, “I shall not be moved.” I would just love to hear about your journey with this, because it’s something that personally I’ve struggled with. You know, I’ve adjusted things on my show because sometimes we just get emails from moms like, “Oh, I watch with my two-year-old.” And so I’m like am I gonna really drop an F-bomb? Gonna try and put warnings. I’m just so curious about your journey with that and how it’s evolved over the years. Like, are people still telling you like, “don’t talk about the faith, Brené, or make sure you don’t drop a little s-bomb?”

Not as much as they were and less than they will be after. I mean, they read this probably, because it’s just – I think, you know, for me the big two things are “don’t talk about faith.” Because when I talk – when I do a lot of leadership work I talk about understanding your personal values, and my two personal values are faith and courage.

And so they say “don’t talk about faith, it’s inappropriate. It’s – this is a, you know, a corporation.” And then I’ll do a lot of work in churches, and they’ll say don’t cuss. And so I just got to the point where I’m like, look, I’ve sat across from thousands and thousands of people over the last two decades of my life listening to the hardest things you can imagine. And the two things that everyone has in common when they’re talking about those things are cussing and praying. If you don’t want me to cuss and you don’t want me to pray, that’s awesome. Ask somebody else. Because what I’m not going to do is get up and bullshit you. And there are a million people in this space who are better than I am, who know different things than I do. Invite them. If you need me to wear a suit, that’s – I totally get it. I’m not gonna do that.

Yeah.

Yeah. I’m gonna wear jeans and boots and probably I’ll wear a nice shirt. But I’m not gonna do that. Because I don’t get up there. When I speak in public, I don’t get up there to talk to my, you know, to talk from my Brooks Brothers self to your Brooks Brothers self. I get up there and when I walk on the stage I’m gonna talk about things that 90% of the people in the audience have never thought about, talked about, and are scared to listen to. And they need to see me as a person. And I’m just that person.

Yeah.

And so I’m not gonna walk in with like a therapist outfit either. Well, I don’t know how you define that, but if clogs are in that then yes, I probably will. Liz Gilbert and I showed up together at an event and we both had like on like a poncho and clogs and like smartwool socks. And we were like, “Hey, camper.”

Yes.

So I do kind of look like a therapist convention. But, yeah. It’s just – I think the clear – I want, if you invite me, I want your event or your leadership team, I want it to be successful.

Yes.

You know? And if you need me to be someone different than who I am, it’s not gonna be successful.

You need to ask somebody else. Yeah.

A decade ago, I’ve done that.

Yeah.

You know, and then I get offstage, I’m crying, and I’m like, “Oh, my God. I’m a total asshole. I just spent 90 minutes talking about authenticity, you know, in clothes that I only wear to funerals.” You know? Like, I’m not gonna do that.

Yeah. That’s part of the reason too in the early days, like I think it was probably maybe like 15 years ago some folks were like, “Oh, we should do a TV pilot with you. But we want you to be more this.”

Yeah.

“We want you to be…” I was like oh, hell no. This is why I’m doing MarieTV on the internet, because I can do whatever I want.

But that’s the thing that people I don’t think, you know, if I would say to people getting started out in this business who wanna build a platform and speak to people and share wisdom, amen. Do it. We need more of that. And be careful, beware, of shiny objects. Because I’ve had the same conversation about talk shows or about, you know, and I’m like, “oh, that sounds great. And I’m gonna talk to this person who studies dehumanization and then I’m gonna do this. And they’re like, ‘No, no. You’ll be hustling up the Kardashians doing rating …’” I’m like no, no.

Yes.

Like, that I’m not gonna do.

Yes.

Like, I got – yeah. Not that, you know, God bless them.

Totally. But it’s not what you – it’s not a – your unique expression.

And there’s this part from Braving the Wilderness that it really changed me. It’s the practice that came from the book and it is, “don’t walk through the world looking for evidence that you don’t belong, because you will always find it.”

Yes.

“Don’t walk through the world looking for evidence that you’re not enough, because you’ll always find it.” Our worth and our belonging are not negotiated with other people. We carry those inside of our hearts. And so for me, I know who I am. I’m clear about that and I’m not going to negotiate that with you. I will negotiate a contract with you. I will negotiate maybe even a topic with you. But I’m not going to negotiate who I am with you, because then – and this is I think the heart of the book, then I may fit in for you, but I no longer belong to myself. And that is a betrayal I’m not willing to do anymore. I spent the first 30 years of my life doing that. I’m not willing to betray myself anymore to fit in with you. I just can’t do it.

This, I mean, I don’t think I said it. I might have said it at the opening, but I just want to make sure I reiterate it. This is my little galley copy, but this is out now when this is airing. You guys have to get this book for yourself, for everyone that you know and love. And I’m gonna maybe put you on the spot a little bit

Yeah.

If you could be open to reading this last line. I was in tears with this one.

Yes. Oh, yeah. So this is the close of the book. Yeah. Okay.

“I’ll leave you with this. 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.” You are the wilderness.

I love you.

Love you too.

You know what I was gonna say? I am the fucking wilderness.

Amen. She’s gonna make me cry. You are the fucking wilderness. Me too. Yeah. And that’s not comfortable for everyone, but…

It’s not. That’s who we are.

That’s why they call it the wild.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I love this. I love the fact that people are afraid of the wilderness, but when you get out there you’ll find some people like us out there.

And it’s so free.

It’s so free.

And it feels so good.

We’ll be dancing.

I was gonna say, we are gonna be frolicking. With our Buc-ee squeaky pigs and everything else.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you. And now Brené and I would love to hear from you. So this is probably one of my favorite conversations ever on MarieTV. So much ground that we covered. But we would love to know, what was most impactful for you? Whether it was one thing or three things, leave a comment below and let us know.

Now, as always, the best conversations happen over at the magical land of MarieForleo.com, so head on over there and leave a comment now. And when you’re there, be sure to subscribe to our email list and become an MF Insider. You’ll get some exclusive content and special giveaways and some things from me that I just don’t share anywhere else.

Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams, because the world needs that very special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and we’ll catch you next time on MarieTV.

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“Oh, Brené doesn’t want us to shame anyone. She wants us to coddle people.” Well, if the only two tools you have in your tool bag are shame or coddle, that’s a sorry-ass tool bag.

You need to upgrade your tool bag.

You need to upgrade, yeah,
There’s like 500 things between shame and coddle.
You need to got to Buc-ee’s.

Yes!

Get a big basket …

And get you a Texas-sized tool bag.