14. EMOTIONAL & INTELLECTUAL INTELLIGENCE (SHAME, GUILT)

Brene Brown, the TED talk-star offers a lot of honest sense about vulnerability and shame. 

Teasers:

'Two things I've learned:' 

1. Vulnerability is not weakness. (Majority need to learn this). Emotional risk: it's the most accurate measurement of courage. When business groups invite me they want something about  'innovation, creativity and change'. So I begin: 'Innovation, creativity and change begins with vulnerability.' 

2. We have to talk about shame. But it's a key conversation-stopper: 'What do you study? Shame'. 'Oh...' End of conversation. Shame is the swampland of the soul: you don't have to live there, but you must put on galoshes and wander around. Shameful topic: Race - you can't talk about that without talking about privilege - and that involves shame if you're honest. 

Man in the Arena quote (Theodore Roosevelt): '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, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.' 

Many of us are taught to believe we're never good enough... ('Who do you think you are?)

Shame is about self: I am a mistake. 

Guilt is about behavior: I made a mistake. 

For women: 'Do it all, do it perfectly, and don't let them see you sweat.'

For men: 'Do not let them perceive you are weak.'

Shame is an epidemic in our culture... But empathy ('me, too')  is the antidote to shame... 

The way back to each other is along the path of vulnerability...