Brené Brown

I'd resisted reading any of Brene Brown's books thinking that I'd already absorbed all of her teaching I needed from her magazine columns. When I saw this available as a library audiobook, I decided to give it a listen. I'm glad I did.

It's hard to review this kind of book as I feel like it's either going to strike a chord with a person or not. For me it did, and I going to try to apply some of her recommendations to myself, work, and family.

Part of the reason I had resisted reading Brown's books for so long is that she has built her niche as "shame" researcher. Personally I hate that term, and I hate the connotations around it. I also have little tolerance for people who always seem themselves as victimized. I found this book to be much less about that, and much more about connectedness, willingness to take healthy risks, authentic relationships, and the like.… (más)

“Rising Strong” is the third in a series of recent books Brene Brown has written about the importance of vulnerability and authenticity in one’s life. Here she once again synthesizes her years of research, innate understanding of human behavior, and personal stories into a highly readable, relatable, and actionable self-improvement book.

In her earlier works, Brown references the times in our lives when we will all feel like failures, either personally or professionally. In “Rising Strong” she digs deep into that space between failure and recovery – the “Act 2” as she calls it – because she sees it being glossed over in our culture:

“On a cultural level, I think the absence of honest conversation about the hard work that takes us from lying face down in the arena to rising strong has led to two dangerous outcomes: the propensity to gold plate grit and a badassery deficit…We much prefer stories about falling and rising to be inspirational and sanitized…We like recovery stories to move quickly through the dark so we can get to the sweeping redemptive ending.”

With examples from her research and her own life, Brown outlines several case studies of people who spent a lot of time in “Act 2”, and the strategies they used to do the hard work required to really get back up and go on. She breaks these into three sections: Reckoning (recognizing something is wrong and getting curious about one’s own feelings); Rumble (reality-checking our first response to a problem and digging deeper); and Revolution (fundamentally transforming your story).

As I reviewed my notes from the book I realized that I had probably highlighted more sections in this book alone than I had in many other books combined. The material is completely engaging and her style is honest and authentic. 4 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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