Yesterday marked my 30-year sobriety birthday, and I wanted to celebrate by sharing one gratitude for each decade.
1. My sobriety will always be the most important thing I do, because it allows me to fully love—and be loved by—the people who matter most in my life. I’m grateful for it every single day, even when it feels like a street fight.
2. Five years ago, a woman approached me in an airport and thanked me for writing about sobriety as a superpower. She said it helped her get sober. I’m grateful for all the people whose words helped me along the way. Before boarding her flight, she asked if I’d accept a gift from a stranger. I said yes. She handed me her first AA chip. I carry it in my purse every day. We were never strangers.
3. My favorite line from the AA Big Book reads: “That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.”
Understanding and keeping in fit spiritual condition has been a decades-long challenge for me. I wrote about it in the final chapter of Strong Ground and I thought I’d share that full chapter with you today as a “thank you.” Link in profile or go to the home page of brenebrown.com.
Today I am sober af and I am grateful. ❤️
Episode 8 of @thecuriosityshop drops today! @adamgrant and I unpack two of the most unproductive and undermining communication moves in workplaces and families:
1. The “invisible army” of we all think… and,
2. The bullshit disclaimers that start with “I don’t mean to be rude, but…”.
I wrote about these communication hedges in “Strong Ground” and why they’re absolute trust-crushers at home and work. Rumbling on these hedges with Adam was too fun to call “work.”
If you’re a leader who is experiencing the invisible army approach from your team, consider getting curious about why they feel that they need the protection. If you’re a leader using the invisible army with your direct reports, it’s time for some coaching.
You can download the new episode wherever you listen to your podcasts or head to the link in my bio!
@adamgrant and I are tackling shame in Episode 6 of @thecuriosityshop .
The first step of shame resilience is recognizing shame and identifying the trigger.
Can we physically recognize when we’re in the grip of shame, feel our way through it, and figure out what messages and expectations triggered it?
Our research participants with the highest levels of shame resilience can recognize the physical symptoms of shame—they know the physiology of it, and that’s a huge cue to pay attention.
When I feel time slow down, my mouth gets dry, and I struggle with tunnel vision and wanting to disappear, my saying is, “This feels like shame. I will NOT talk, text, or type until I get back on my emotional feet.”
When we have understanding and awareness around shame, we’re less likely to default to our shame shields, or what Linda Hartling and her fellow researchers at the Stone Center at Wellesley call strategies of disconnection:
Moving away: Withdrawing, hiding, silencing ourselves, and keeping secrets.
Moving toward: Seeking to appease and please.
Moving against: Trying to gain power over others by being aggressive, and by using shame to fight shame.
Like all armor, these are appealing forms of self-protection, but they move us away from our authenticity and wholeheartedness.
You can download the new episode wherever you listen to podcasts or head to the link in my profile.
We’re wired to grab onto certainty—especially when the world feels off the rails—and that shapes how we show up both at work and in the world.
Professionally, it can push us toward fake clarity, bad bets, and leaders who perform confidence instead of telling the truth, and it’s a huge driver of burnout.
As citizens, it makes us more vulnerable to simplistic narratives, misinformation, and empty promises from authoritarian leaders that actually raise the real risks we’re facing.
Increasing our capacity for uncertainty requires disciplined skill‑building, self-awareness, practice, and grace. A ton of grace. ♥️
You can download the new episode wherever you listen to podcasts or head to the link in my profile.
This is our reminder of what courageous leadership and teamwork looks like. Mission impact is the flywheel created by imagination, strategy, operational excellence, and meaningful human connection.
@nasaartemis is the very best of us. This why we can’t stop cheering and crying and pumping our fists in the air.
This is possible. 🚀❤️🚀
What happens when our confidence outruns our competence? Spoiler alert: hard learning for me transitioning from tennis to pickleball (which is one of many examples for me personally). 🫤
@adamgrant and I start episode 4 of the new podcast with @eileengu ‘s extraordinary example of metacognition at the Olympics and use it to explore how we think about our thinking, Dunning–Kruger, and why our brains are so bad at judging what we actually know.
From the court to public speaking and project planning, we dive into calibration, the planning fallacy, “the twisties” and “the yips,” and how politics, cancel culture, and attacks on empathy weaponize our worst cognitive habits.
Episode 4 is a playbook for practicing better thinking—without losing our nerve when we temporarily get worse on the way to getting better (which is so tough and requires major stick-with-it-ness for me)!
You can download the new episode of @thecuriosityshop wherever you listen to podcasts!
@adamgrant and I talk about the dangers of narcissistic leadership and how, through a vulnerability lens, these behaviors are often driven by the shame-based fear of being or appearing ordinary. We also dive into the research on why this extremely high level of ego fragility can lead to unpredictable behaviors that drive fear, anxiety, and exhaustion in teams (and citizens).
The episode was filmed and recorded at SXSW last month, and the audience was amazing!
You can download episode 3 wherever you listen to podcasts or watch on YouTube!
One of the greatest joys of my career has been working with the amazing people at @nasa , including taking a large team of astronauts through the Dare to Lead program (top pic). Such a privilege! I am cheering on Artemis II today and grateful for the thousands of people who have worked tirelessly to make this happen (including my dear friend, sister water polo mom, and aeronautical engineer, QJ)! God speed, Artemis II! Photo credit: NASA astronaut Jessica Meir took the photo of an Artemis program patch floating in the International Space Station’s cupola.
We just dropped Episode 2 of @thecuriosityshop podcast. @adamgrant and I both love Gary Klein’s pre-mortem tool and we regularly teach it to teams. We decided to do our own pre-mortem in this episode: If this podcasts fails, what will be talking about then that we should talk about now? Prospective hindsight is tough. One thing that came up is how different we are! Including our design approach! You can watch on YouTube or download where you listen to podcasts! ♥️
