Daring Greatly Part 11

I couldn't swallow. I couldn't think clearly. All of a sudden, I'm ten years old and I'm on the blocks getting ready to swim for the Memorial Northwest Marlins. My dad is the starter, and he's giving me the win-or-die look. I'm in the lane closest to the wall-the slow lane. It's going to be a disaster. Moments earlier, as I was sitting on the ready bench contemplating making a run for my banana-seat bike leaning against the fence by the diving boards, I overheard the coach say, "Let's just swim her up an age group. I'm not sure she can finish the race, but it will be interesting."

"Mom? Mom?? Mom!!! Are you listening to me? Will you help me? Will you talk to the coach and see if he'll put me in another race?"

The vulnerability felt unbearable and I wanted to scream, "Yes! You don't have to swim any event that you don't want to swim. EVER!" But I didn't. Calm was one of my new Wholehearted practices, so I took a deep breath, counted to five, and said, "Let me talk to your dad."

After the kids went to bed, Steve and I spent an hour debating the issue and finally agreed that she would have to take it up with her coach. If he wanted her to swim that race, she needed to swim it. As right as the decision felt, I hated every minute of it, and I tried everything from picking a fight with Steve to blaming the coach to venting my fear and discharging the vulnerability.

Ellen was upset when we told her this, and even more upset when she came home from practice and told us that her coach thought it was important for her to get an official time for the event. She folded her arms on the table, put her head down, and cried. At one point she lifted up her head and said, "I could just scratch the event. A lot of people miss their heats." A part of me thought, Perfect! But then she said, "I won't win. I'm not even good enough to get second or third place. Everyone is going to be watching."

This was the opportunity to move the levers-to redefine what's important to her. To make our family culture more influential than the swim meet, her friends, and the ultracompet.i.tive sports culture that is rampant in our community. I looked at her and said, "You can scratch that event. I'd probably consider that option too. But what if your goal for that race isn't to win or even to get out of the water at the same time as the other girls? What if your goal is to show up and get wet?"

She looked at me as if I was crazy. "Just show up and get in the water?"

I explained that I had spent many years never trying anything that I wasn't already good at doing, and how those choices almost made me forget what it feels like to be brave. I said, "Sometimes the bravest and most important thing you can do is just show up."

Steve and I made sure that we weren't with her when her heat was called. When it was time for the girls to get on the blocks, I wasn't sure if she'd be there, but she was. We stood at the end of her lane and held our breath. She looked right at us, nodded her head, and snapped her goggles into place.

She was the last one out of the pool. The other swimmers had already left the deck, and there were girls standing on the blocks ready for the next heat. Steve and I screamed and cheered the entire time. When she got out of the pool, she walked over to her coach, who gave her a hug, then showed her something about her kick. When she finally made her way to us, she was smiling and a little tearful. She looked at her dad and me and said, "That was pretty bad, but I did it. I showed up and I got wet. I was brave."

I wrote the following parenting manifes...o...b..cause I need it. Steve and I need it. Putting down the measuring stick in a culture that uses acquisitions and accomplishments to a.s.sess worth is not easy. I use the manifesto as a touchstone, a prayer, and a meditation when I'm wrestling with vulnerability or when I've got that "never enough" fear. It reminds me of the finding that changed and probably saved my life: Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting.

The Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto Above all else, I want you to know that you are loved and lovable.

You will learn this from my words and actions-the lessons on love are in how I treat you and how I treat myself.

I want you to engage with the world from a place of worthiness.

You will learn that you are worthy of love, belonging, and joy every time you see me practice self-compa.s.sion and embrace my own imperfections.

We will practice courage in our family by showing up, letting ourselves be seen, and honoring vulnerability. We will share our stories of struggle and strength. There will always be room in our home for both.

We will teach you compa.s.sion by practicing compa.s.sion with ourselves first; then with each other. We will set and respect boundaries; we will honor hard work, hope, and perseverance. Rest and play will be family values, as well as family practices.

You will learn accountability and respect by watching me make mistakes and make amends, and by watching how I ask for what I need and talk about how I feel.

I want you to know joy, so together we will practice grat.i.tude.

I want you to feel joy, so together we will learn how to be vulnerable.

When uncertainty and scarcity visit, you will be able to draw from the spirit that is a part of our everyday life.

Together we will cry and face fear and grief. I will want to take away your pain, but instead I will sit with you and teach you how to feel it.

We will laugh and sing and dance and create. We will always have permission to be ourselves with each other. No matter what, you will always belong here.

As you begin your Wholehearted journey, the greatest gift that I can give to you is to live and love with my whole heart and to dare greatly.

I will not teach or love or show you anything perfectly, but I will let you see me, and I will always hold sacred the gift of seeing you. Truly, deeply, seeing you.

You can download a copy of this manifesto from my website (www.brenebrown.com).

FINAL THOUGHTS.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly....

-Theodore Roosevelt In the nine months that it took me to shape and prune a dozen years of research into this book, I've revisited this quote at least one hundred times. And truthfully, I normally come back to it in fits of rage or with tearstained desperation, thinking, Maybe this is all bulls.h.i.+t, or It's not worth the vulnerability. Just recently, after enduring a few really mean-spirited anonymous comments from a news website, I pulled the quote down from the pinboard over my desk and spoke directly to the sheet of paper, "If the critic doesn't count, then why does this hurt so much?"

The paper didn't respond.

As I held the quote in my hand, I remembered a conversation that I had just had with a guy in his very early twenties. He told me that his parents sent him links to my TED talks and he really liked the idea of Wholeheartedness and daring greatly. When he told me that the talks inspired him to tell the young woman he's been dating for several months that he loved her, I winced and hoped for a happy ending to the story.

No such luck. She told him that she thought he was "awesome" but that she thought they should date other people. When he got back to his apartment after talking to his girlfriend, he told his two roommates what had happened. He said, "They were both hunched over their laptops and without looking up one of them was like 'What were you thinking, man?'" One of his roommates told him that girls only like guys who are running the other way. He looked at me and said, "I felt pretty stupid at first. For a second I was mad at myself and even a little p.i.s.sed at you. But then I thought about it and I remembered why I did it. I told my roommates, 'I was daring greatly, dude.'"

He smiled when he told me, "They stopped typing, looked at me, nodded their heads, and said, 'Oh. Right on, dude.'"

Daring greatly is not about winning or losing. It's about courage. In a world where scarcity and shame dominate and feeling afraid has become second nature, vulnerability is subversive. Uncomfortable. It's even a little dangerous at times. And, without question, putting ourselves out there means there's a far greater risk of feeling hurt. But as I look back on my own life and what Daring Greatly has meant to me, I can honestly say that nothing is as uncomfortable, dangerous, and hurtful as believing that I'm standing on the outside of my life looking in and wondering what it would be like if I had the courage to show up and let myself be seen.

So, Mr. Roosevelt...I think you nailed it. There really is "no effort without error and shortcoming" and there really is no triumph without vulnerability. Now when I read that quote, even when I'm feeling kicked around, all I can think is, Right on, dude.

APPENDIX.

Trust in Emergence:

Grounded Theory and My Research Process

Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar.

Traveler, there is no path, the path must be forged as you walk.

This line from the Spanish poet Antonio Machado captures the spirit of my research process and the theories that emerged from that process. Initially I set out, on what I thought was a well-traveled path, to find empirical evidence of what I knew to be true. I soon realized that conducting research centering on what matters to research partic.i.p.ants-grounded theory research-means there is no path and, certainly, there is no way of knowing what you will find.

The most difficult challenges of becoming a grounded theory researcher are: Acknowledging that it is virtually impossible to understand grounded theory methodology prior to using it, Developing the courage to let the research partic.i.p.ants define the research problem, and Letting go of your own interests and preconceived ideas to "trust in emergence."

Ironically (or maybe not), these are also the challenges of Daring Greatly and living a courageous life.

Below is an overview of the design, methodology, sampling, and coding processes that I use in my research. Before we jump in, I want to acknowledge Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss for their pioneering work in qualitative research and for developing grounded theory methodology. And, to Dr. Glaser, who was willing to commute from California to serve as the methodologist on my dissertation committee at the University of Houston: You literally changed the way I see the world.

THE RESEARCH JOURNEY.

As a doctoral student, the power of statistics and the clean lines of quant.i.tative research appealed to me, but I fell in love with the richness and depth of qualitative research. Storytelling is my DNA, and I couldn't resist the idea of research as story-catching. Stories are data with a soul and no methodology honors that more than grounded theory. The mandate of grounded theory is to develop theories based on people's lived experiences rather than proving or disproving existing theories.

Behavioral researcher Fred Kerlinger defines theory as "a set of interrelated constructs or concepts, definitions, and propositions that present a systematic view of phenomena specifying relations among variables, with the purpose of explaining and predicting the phenomena." In grounded theory we don't start with a problem or a hypothesis or a literature review, we start with a topic. We let the partic.i.p.ants define the problem or their main concern about the topic, we develop a theory, and then we see how and where it fits in the literature.

I didn't sign on to study shame-one of the most (if not the most) complex and multifaceted emotions that we experience. A topic that not only took me six years to understand, but an emotion that is so powerful that the mere mention of the word shame triggers discomfort and avoidance in people. I innocently started with an interest in learning more about the anatomy of connection.

After fifteen years of social work education, I was sure of one thing: Connection is why we're here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. The power that connection holds in our lives was confirmed when the main concern about connection emerged as the fear of disconnection; the fear that something we've done or failed to do, something about who we are or where we come from, has made us unlovable and unworthy of connection. I learned that we resolve this concern by understanding our vulnerabilities and cultivating empathy, courage, and compa.s.sion-what I call shame resilience.

After developing a theory on shame resilience, and getting clear about the effect of scarcity on our lives, I wanted to dig deeper-I wanted to know more. The problem is that there's only so much you can understand about shame and scarcity by asking about shame and scarcity. I needed another approach to get under the experiences. That's when I had the idea to borrow a few principles from chemistry.

In chemistry, especially thermodynamics, if you have an element or property that is too volatile to measure, you often have to rely on indirect measurement. You measure the property by combining and reducing related, less volatile compounds until those relations.h.i.+ps and manipulations reveal a measurement of your original property. My idea was to learn more about shame and scarcity by exploring what exists in their absence.

I know how people experience and move through shame, but what are people feeling, doing, and thinking when shame doesn't constantly have a knife to their throats, threatening them with being unworthy of connection? How are some people living right alongside us in this culture of scarcity and still holding on to the belief that they are enough? I knew these people existed because I had interviewed them and used some of the incidents from their data to inform my work on empathy and shame resilience.

Before I dove back into the data, I named this study "Wholehearted Living." I was looking for women and men living and loving with their whole hearts despite the risks and uncertainty. I wanted to know what they had in common. What were their main concerns, and what were the patterns and themes that defined their Wholeheartedness? I reported the findings from that study in The Gifts of Imperfection and an academic journal article that will be published in late 2012 or early 2013.

Vulnerability has consistently emerged as a core category in my work. It was a critical component in both my study on shame and my study on Wholeheartedness, and there's even a chapter on it in my dissertation on connection. I understood the relations.h.i.+ps between vulnerability and the other emotions that I've studied, but after years of dropping deeper and deeper into this work, I wanted to know more about vulnerability and how it worked. The grounded theory that emerged from this investigation is the subject of this book and another academic article in press.

DESIGN.

As I've mentioned, grounded theory methodology, as originally developed by Glaser and Strauss and refined by Glaser informed the plan of research for my studies. The grounded theory process consists of five basic components: theoretical sensitivity, theoretical sampling, coding, theoretical memoing, and sorting. These five components were integrated by the constant-comparison method of data a.n.a.lysis. The goal of the research was to understand the partic.i.p.ants' "main concerns" related to experiencing the topic being examined (e.g., shame, Wholeheartedness, vulnerability). Once the main concerns emerged from the data, I developed a theory that explains how the partic.i.p.ants continually resolve their concerns in their daily lives.

SAMPLE.

Theoretical sampling, the process of data collection that allows for the generation of theory, was the primary sampling method that I used in this study. When using theoretical sampling, the researcher simultaneously collects, codes, and a.n.a.lyzes data and uses this ongoing process to determine what data to collect next and where to find them. In line with theoretical sampling, I selected partic.i.p.ants based on the a.n.a.lysis and coding interviews and secondary data.

One important tenet of grounded theory is the idea that researchers should not a.s.sume the relevance of ident.i.ty data, including race, age, gender, s.e.xual orientation, cla.s.s, and ability. Although the relevance of these variables was not a.s.sumed, purposive sampling (intentionally sampling across ident.i.ty data) was used with theoretical sampling to ensure that a diverse group of partic.i.p.ants were interviewed. At certain points during my research, ident.i.ty data indeed emerged as relevant, and in these cases purposive sampling continued to inform the theoretical sample. In categories where ident.i.ty did not emerge as relevant, theoretical sampling was used exclusively.

I interviewed 750 female partic.i.p.ants, approximately 43 percent of whom identified themselves as Caucasian, 30 percent as African-American, 18 percent as Latina, and 9 percent as Asian-American. The female partic.i.p.ants' ages ranged from eighteen to eighty-eight years, with a mean of forty-one. I interviewed 530 men, approximately 40 percent of whom identified themselves as Caucasian, 25 percent as African-American, 20 percent as Latino, and 15 percent identified as Asian. The mean age of the men interviewed was forty-six (the range was eighteen to eighty).

Although grounded-theory methodology often yields theoretical saturation (the point at which no new conceptual insights are generated and the researcher has provided repeated evidence for his or her conceptual categories) with far fewer than my total 1,280 partic.i.p.ants, three interrelated theories emerged with multiple core categories and numerous properties informing each category. The nuanced and complex nature of shame resilience, Wholeheartedness, and vulnerability necessitated the large sample size.

A basic tenet of grounded theory is "all is data." Glaser writes, "The briefest comment to the lengthiest interview, written words in magazines, books and newspapers, doc.u.ments, observations, biases of self and others, spurious variables, or whatever else may come the researcher's way in his substantive area of research is data for grounded theory."

In addition to the 1,280 partic.i.p.ant interviews, I a.n.a.lyzed field notes that I had taken on sensitizing literature, conversations with content experts, and field notes from my meetings with graduate students who conducted partic.i.p.ant interviews and a.s.sisted with the literature a.n.a.lysis. Additionally, I recorded and coded field notes on the experience of taking approximately 400 master and doctoral social-worker students through my graduate course on shame, vulnerability, and empathy, and training an estimated 15,000 mental health and addiction professionals.

I also coded over 3,500 pieces of secondary data. These include clinical case studies and case notes, letters, and journal pages. In total, I coded approximately 11,000 incidents (phrases and sentences from the original field notes) using the constant comparative method (line-by-line a.n.a.lysis). I did all of this coding manually, as software is not recommended in Glaserian-grounded theory.

I collected all of the data with the exception of 215 partic.i.p.ant interviews that were conducted by graduate social-work students working under my direction. In order to ensure inter-rater reliability, I trained all research a.s.sistants and I coded and a.n.a.lyzed all of their field notes.

Approximately half of the interviews were individual meetings and the other half happened in dyads, triads, and groups. Interview times ranged from forty-five minutes to three hours, with an average of approximately sixty minutes. Adjusted conversational interviewing was utilized because it is regarded as the most effective grounded theory approach to interviewing.

CODING.

I used the constant comparative method to a.n.a.lyze the data line by line, and then I developed memos to capture the emergent concepts and their relations.h.i.+ps. The primary focus of the a.n.a.lysis was identifying the partic.i.p.ants' main concerns and the emergence of a core variable. As I conducted additional interviews, I reconceptualized categories and identified the properties that inform each category. I used selective coding when core concepts emerged and the data were saturated across categories and across their properties.

Grounded theory researchers are required to conceptualize from the data. This approach is very different from traditional qualitative methods that yield findings based on thick description of data and partic.i.p.ant quotes. To conceptualize shame, Wholeheartedness, and vulnerability, and to identify the partic.i.p.ants' main concerns about these topics, I a.n.a.lyzed data line by line while asking the following questions: What are the partic.i.p.ants describing? What do they care about? What are they worried about? What are the partic.i.p.ants trying to do? What explains the different behaviors, thoughts, and actions? Again, I used the constant comparative method to reexamine the data against the emerging categories and their related properties.

LITERATURE a.n.a.lYSIS.

For the same reasons the grounded theorist allows the research problem to emerge from the data, a full review of the significant literature is conducted after the theory is generated from the data. The literature reviews done in quant.i.tative research and traditional qualitative research serve as b.u.t.tresses on both sides of research findings-literature reviews are conducted to support the need for new research, the research is conducted, findings emerge independent of the literature, and the research is again supported by the literature to demonstrate its contribution to the researcher's profession.

In grounded theory, data b.u.t.tress the theory and the literature is part of the data. I learned very quickly that grounded-theory researchers cannot go into the literature review thinking, The theory has emerged, I'm done, how does it fit? Instead, the grounded theorist must understand that the literature review is actually a literature a.n.a.lysis and it is not separate from the research but is a continuation of the process.

The references and related research quoted in this book both supported and informed the emerging theories.

EVALUATING GROUNDED THEORY.

According to Glaser, grounded theories are evaluated by a.s.sessing their fit, relevance, workability, and modifiability. The theory has achieved "fit" when the categories of the theory fit the data. Violations of fit occur when data are forced into preformed categories or discarded in favor of keeping an existing theory intact.

In addition to fit, the theory must be relevant to the action of the area. Grounded theories are relevant when they allow the core problems and processes to emerge. Workability is achieved if the theory can explain what happened, predict what will happen, and interpret what is happening in an area of substantive or formal inquiry. There are two criteria for evaluating whether a theory "works"-the categories must fit and the theory must "work the core of what is going on." Working the core means that the researcher has conceptualized the data in a way that accurately captures the partic.i.p.ants' main concerns and how they continually address those concerns. Last, the principle of modifiability dictates that the theory can never be more correct than its ability to work the data; thus, as the latter reveals itself in research, the former must constantly be modified.

As an example, I look at the various concepts that I presented in this book (e.g., the armory, minding the gap, disruptive innovation, etc.) and ask, "Do these categories fit the data? Are they relevant? Do they work the data?" The answer is yes, I believe they accurately reflect what emerged from the data. Like shame resilience theory, my quant.i.tative colleagues will test my theories on Wholeheartedness and vulnerability and we will push the knowledge development process forward.

As I look back on this journey, I realize the deep truth in the quote I shared at the beginning of this chapter. There really is no path. Because the research partic.i.p.ants had the courage to share their stories, experiences, and wisdom, I forged a path that defined my career and my life. When I first realized and resented the importance of embracing vulnerability and living a Wholehearted life, I would tell people that I was hijacked by my own data. Now, I know that I was rescued by it.

PRACTICING GRAt.i.tUDE.

It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is grat.i.tude that makes us joyful.

-Brother David Steindl-Rast To my literary agents, Jo-Lynne Worley and Joanie Shoemaker: Thank you for believing in me and in the work.

To my manager, Murdoch Mackinnon: "You're a great copilot. Here's to landing more planes."

To my writing teacher and editor, Polly Koch: I literally couldn't do it without you. I'm so grateful.

To Jessica Sindler, my editor at Gotham: Thank you for your wisdom, insight, and the super-fun sleepover. I feel like I won the editor lottery.

To my publisher Bill s.h.i.+nker and to the entire Gotham team, Monica Benalcazar, Spring Hoteling, Pete Garceau, Lisa Johnson, Anne Kosmoski, Casey Maloney, Lauren Marino, Sophia Muthuraj, Erica Ferguson, and Craig Schneider: Thank you for your talent, patience, and enthusiasm.