Bren Brown

What's worth doing even if you fail?

Our capacity for wholeheartednes s can never be greater than our willingness to be broken-hearted.

Perfection is crucial in building an aircraft, a bridge, or a high-speed train. The code and mathematics residing just below the surface of the Internet is also this way. Things are either perfectly right or they will not work. So much of the world we work and live in is based upon being correct, being perfect.

Tell your story with your whole heart.

You can choose courage or you can choose comfort, but you can't have both.

When they teach [doctors] how to suture, they also teach them how to stitch their self-worth to being all-powerful.

That's what life is about: about daring greatly, about being in the arena.

The two most powerful words when we're in struggle: me too.

Vulnerability pushed, I pushed back. I lost the fight, but probably won my life back.

There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.

Empathy is the antidote to shame.

I believe a joyful life is made up of joyful moments, gracefully strung together by trust, gratitude, inspiration, and faith.

We can’t practice compassion with other people if we can’t treat ourselves kindly.

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.

Want to be happy? Stop trying to be perfect.

But I don't think it's as dangerous, scary, or terrifying as getting to the end of our lives and wondering, what if I would have shown up?

Guilt is just as powerful, but its influence is positive, while shame's is destructive. Shame erodes our courage and fuels disengagement.

Maybe stories are just data with a soul.

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.

It's not about 'what can I accomplish?' but 'what do I want to accomplish?' Paradigm shift.

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.