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TED Talks Daily

(#4) Elise's Top Ten: The power of vulnerability | Brené Brown

with Brene Brown

Published September 20, 2025
View Show Notes

About This Episode

Host Elise Hu introduces a replay of Brene Brown's seminal TEDxHouston talk, which explores her research on shame, vulnerability, and what she calls "wholehearted" living. Brown explains how a sense of worthiness is the key factor that separates people who feel love and belonging from those who struggle for it, and describes how embracing vulnerability-rather than numbing it or seeking certainty and perfection-leads to greater joy, connection, and authenticity. She closes by urging listeners to let themselves be seen, love with their whole hearts, practice gratitude and joy, and believe they are enough.

Topics Covered

Vulnerability Shame Personal Development Relationships Mental health Gratitude Happiness Parenting and child development Religion and spirituality Political polarization

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Quick Takeaways

  • Brene Brown's research on connection led her to identify shame-understood as the fear of disconnection-as a key force that unravels our ability to feel loved and to belong.
  • The only thing that separated people who felt a strong sense of love and belonging from those who struggled for it was that they believed they were worthy of love and belonging.
  • Brown describes "wholehearted" people as having the courage to be imperfect, compassion for themselves and others, and the willingness to embrace vulnerability as necessary rather than avoid it.
  • She argues we often cope with vulnerability by numbing emotions, seeking rigid certainty in religion and politics, perfecting ourselves and our children, and pretending our actions don't affect others.
  • Because we cannot selectively numb emotions, attempts to avoid feelings like shame, grief, and fear also dull our capacity for joy, gratitude, and happiness, trapping us in a cycle of disconnection.
  • Wholehearted living involves letting ourselves be deeply seen, loving with no guarantees, practicing gratitude and joy especially in moments of fear, and believing "I am enough."
  • Brown shares that confronting her own vulnerability led to what she calls a breakdown or spiritual awakening and required sustained therapeutic work rather than quick strategies.
  • She suggests that raising children to know they are imperfect, wired for struggle, and still worthy of love and belonging could transform many of the problems we see in society.

Podcast Notes

Host introduction and playlist context

Elise Hu introduces TED Talks Daily and herself

Elise states that listeners are tuned into TED Talks Daily and identifies herself as the host, Elise Hu[2:03]

Explanation of the Top 10 TED Talks playlist

Elise welcomes listeners back to her "top 10 TED Talks," describing it as TED's first-ever podcast playlist[2:05]
She notes that all talks in this playlist are shared from the archive and dropped on the feed all at once[2:11]

Why Brene Brown's talk is featured

Elise describes Brene Brown's original TEDx talk from 2011 as famous, a classic, and probably a favorite for many listeners[2:20]
She notes that, like Sarah Kay's earlier talk in the playlist, Brown's first TEDx talk changed the trajectory of Brown's career[2:30]
Elise shares that the talk changed how she understands bravery and that Brown's take on shame helped shape global understanding of emotional vulnerability[2:39]

Brene Brown's opening story: researcher vs storyteller

Event planner's struggle to label Brown

Brown recalls that a couple of years before the talk, an event planner called her about a speaking event and said she was struggling with how to write about Brown on the flyer[2:52]
The planner wanted to call Brown a researcher but feared that label would sound boring and irrelevant and keep people from coming[3:06]
The planner instead suggested calling Brown a storyteller, which triggered Brown's academic insecurity[2:20]

Brown's reaction and reconciliation of roles

Brown jokes that being called a storyteller made her think she might as well be called a "Magic Pixie" and feels an internal conflict about the label[3:31]
She reflects and decides to draw on her courage, recognizing that she is indeed a storyteller because she is a qualitative researcher who collects stories[3:46]
• Brown describes her work as collecting stories and suggests that "maybe stories are just data with a soul"
She proposes the compromise label "researcher storyteller" to the planner[3:57]
The planner responds that there is "no such thing," but Brown adopts the identity of researcher storyteller anyway[4:04]

Framing the talk: expanding perception through research on connection

Introduction to the research that changed Brown's life

Brown notes that the event theme involves expanding perception and says she'll tell stories about a piece of research that fundamentally expanded her perception[4:16]
She explains that this research changed the way she lives, loves, works, and parents[4:18]

Brown's academic background and desire for control

Influence of a research professor

As a first-year doctoral student, Brown had a research professor who told the class, "If you cannot measure it, it does not exist"[4:29]
Brown interprets this as appealing directly to her, given her inclination toward measurement and order[4:33]

Brown's social work background and personality

Brown details that she has a bachelor's, master's, and is pursuing a PhD in social work, surrounded by people who believe "life's messy, love it"[4:48]
She contrasts herself as "life's messy, clean it up, organize it, and put it into a bento box," revealing her preference for structure[5:01]
She notes that a common saying in social work is "lean into the discomfort of the work," whereas her mantra was to "knock discomfort upside the head" and get all A's[5:18]
This makes her feel she has found a career where she can approach messy topics but make them less messy through understanding and coding them[5:36]

Initial focus on connection as the core of human life

Why Brown started with connection

After ten years as a social worker, Brown concludes that connection is why humans are here and what gives purpose and meaning to our lives[5:58]
• She notes that people in fields like social justice, mental health, and abuse and neglect all converge on the importance of connection
She emphasizes that the ability to feel connected is how we are neurobiologically wired[6:10]
Based on this, she decides to start her research program with connection[6:18]

How discussions of connection reveal disconnection

Brown compares this to performance evaluations where one critical comment dominates attention over many positive ones[6:29]
When she asked people about love, they responded with stories of heartbreak[6:42]
When she asked about belonging, people shared their most excruciating experiences of exclusion[6:47]
When she asked about connection, the stories she heard were about disconnection[6:55]

Discovery of shame and its link to vulnerability

Encountering an unnamed force that unravels connection

Within about six weeks, Brown encountered an unnamed phenomenon that unraveled connection in a way she had never seen[7:02]
She steps back from the research to identify this force and determines that it is shame[7:08]

Defining shame and its universality

Brown defines shame as the fear of disconnection: the concern that something about us, if known or seen, will make us unworthy of connection[7:19]
She asserts that shame is universal; everyone experiences it[7:31]
The only people who do not experience shame, she says, lack the capacity for human empathy or connection[7:33]
She notes that no one wants to talk about shame and that the less we discuss it, the more of it we have[7:37]

Vulnerability as the core of shame

Brown explains that under shame and the "I'm not good enough" feelings lies excruciating vulnerability[7:45]
• She lists common self-judgments such as not being thin enough, rich enough, beautiful enough, smart enough, or promoted enough
She states that for connection to happen, we must allow ourselves to be really seen, which is vulnerability[8:05]
Brown openly admits that she hates vulnerability and sees this as a personal challenge[8:11]

Brown's attempt to outsmart vulnerability through research

Plan to deconstruct shame and vulnerability

Brown frames vulnerability as something she hopes to "beat back" with her measuring stick by deconstructing it through research[8:15]
She sets out to spend a year thoroughly understanding shame and how vulnerability works so she can outsmart them[8:25]

Scale and duration of the research effort

Her planned one-year project becomes six years of work, involving thousands of stories, hundreds of long interviews, and focus groups[8:59]
Participants even send her journal pages and stories, creating thousands of data points[9:03]
Brown develops a theory, writes a book, and feels she has a handle on shame, but senses that something is still not okay[9:20]

Key finding: worthiness as the distinguishing factor

Dividing participants by sense of love and belonging

Brown mentally divides interviewees into those with a strong sense of love and belonging and those who struggle and wonder if they are good enough[9:38]
She discovers only one variable separating the two groups: the people with a strong sense of love and belonging believe they are worthy of love and belonging[9:38]

Motivation to understand worthiness and disconnection

Brown recognizes that the fear of not being worthy of connection is what keeps people out of connection, and she feels compelled to understand this better[10:09]

Identifying and analyzing "wholehearted" people

Creation of the "wholehearted" category

She pulls all interviews where she observed worthiness and examines what those people have in common[10:23]
With a manila folder and a Sharpie, she labels this subset "wholehearted," describing these as people living from a deep sense of worthiness[10:47]

Intensive data analysis process

Brown conducts a four-day intensive data analysis, pulling stories and incidents and looking for themes and patterns[10:59]
She notes that her husband took their children out of town because she enters a "Jackson Pollock"-like mode during this kind of research[11:08]

Traits of wholehearted people: courage, compassion, authenticity, and vulnerability

Courage redefined as telling one's story with a whole heart

Brown explains that the original definition of courage comes from the Latin "cor" (heart) and meant telling the story of who you are with your whole heart[11:37]
Wholehearted people share a sense of courage understood as the willingness to be imperfect[11:43]

Compassion and self-kindness

They practice compassion by being kind to themselves first and then to others[11:49]
Brown notes that we cannot effectively practice compassion with other people if we are not kind to ourselves[11:55]

Authenticity and letting go of who we think we should be

Wholehearted people experience connection as a result of authenticity[12:02]
They are willing to let go of who they think they should be in order to be who they are, which Brown says is necessary for connection[12:04]

Embracing vulnerability as fundamental and beautiful

Wholehearted people fully embrace vulnerability and believe that what makes them vulnerable also makes them beautiful[12:21]
They do not describe vulnerability as comfortable or always excruciating; instead they see it as necessary[12:43]
Examples include being willing to say "I love you" first, to do something with no guarantees, and to breathe through the wait for medical results like a mammogram call[12:54]
They are willing to invest in relationships that may or may not work out, considering this willingness fundamental[13:03]

Brown's personal breakdown and confrontation with vulnerability

Conflict between her research mission and the findings

Brown feels that the conclusion-that living requires vulnerability and relinquishing control-betrays her allegiance to research aimed at control and prediction[13:31]
She describes this as a crisis because her mission to control and predict led to the insight that one must stop trying to control and predict[13:45]

Breakdown or spiritual awakening and seeking therapy

This conflict leads to what Brown calls a breakdown and what her therapist later calls a spiritual awakening[13:57]
She puts her data aside and decides to find a therapist, noting that several friends react by saying they would not want to be her therapist[14:07]
Friends warn her not to bring her "measuring stick" into therapy, underscoring her tendency toward evaluation and control[14:27]

First therapy session and naming the problem

Brown meets with a therapist named Diana, who often works with therapists[14:54]
She tells Diana she is struggling with vulnerability, which she knows is at the core of shame, fear, and the struggle for worthiness[15:06]
Brown also notes that vulnerability appears to be the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging, and love, and says she thinks she has a problem[15:18]
She explicitly tells Diana she does not want to address family or childhood issues and instead just wants some strategies[15:35]
When Diana responds that the situation is neither good nor bad, Brown realizes the process will be difficult and comments, "this is going to suck"[15:57]

Year-long struggle with vulnerability

Brown says the work took about a year and describes it not as a gentle surrender but as a "year-long street fight" with vulnerability[16:30]
She contrasts herself with people who can readily walk into vulnerability and tenderness and says she does not even associate with such people[16:12]
She characterizes it as a slugfest where vulnerability pushed and she pushed back, ultimately losing the fight but winning her life back[16:34]

Returning to the research: how we deal with vulnerability

Studying the choices of wholehearted people versus others

After her personal work, Brown returns to her data for a couple more years to see what choices wholehearted people make around vulnerability[16:44]
She also asks what the broader population is doing with vulnerability and whether she is alone in struggling with it[16:57]

Finding: we numb vulnerability

Brown concludes that one major pattern is that people numb vulnerability[17:06]
She uses social media to ask people how they define vulnerability and what makes them feel vulnerable, receiving about 150 responses in ninety minutes[17:13]
Examples of vulnerability include asking a spouse for help when newly married and sick, initiating sex with a partner, risking rejection, asking someone out, waiting for a doctor's call, getting laid off, and laying off others[17:25]
She emphasizes that we live in a vulnerable world and one way we cope is by numbing vulnerability[17:41]

Consequences of numbing and the inability to selectively numb

Brown notes that adults in the U.S. are the most in-debt, obese, addicted, and medicated cohort in history and suggests numbing vulnerability is a huge contributing cause[17:57]
She explains that you cannot selectively numb emotions: you cannot choose to numb vulnerability, grief, shame, fear, and disappointment without also numbing other emotions[18:41]
She gives a humorous example of dealing with painful emotions by having "a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin" and says she knows this is relatable[18:27]
When we numb hard feelings, we also numb joy, gratitude, and happiness, leaving us miserable and searching for purpose and meaning[18:41]
This leads to feeling vulnerable again, prompting further numbing, creating a dangerous cycle[19:08]

Other strategies we use to avoid vulnerability

Making uncertainty certain

Beyond addiction, Brown says we also respond to vulnerability by turning everything uncertain into certainty[19:19]
She observes that religion has shifted from a belief in faith and mystery to a focus on certainty, summarized as "I'm right, you're wrong, shut up"[19:26]
She connects increased fear and vulnerability with this drive for certitude, pointing to contemporary politics as dominated by blame rather than discourse or conversation[19:45]
Brown cites research describing blame as a way to discharge pain and discomfort[19:55]

Perfectionism of self and children

We also attempt to perfect ourselves, which she says does not work, giving a cosmetic example of moving fat from our butts into our cheeks[20:03]
She identifies the most dangerous perfectionism as the perfection of our children[20:14]
Brown argues that children are hardwired for struggle at birth, not for perfection[20:22]
She rejects the parental mindset of seeing a baby as perfect and trying to keep them perfect and track them toward elite achievements like a fifth-grade tennis team or admission to Yale by seventh grade[20:31]
Instead, she says our job is to tell children: "You're imperfect and you're wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging"[20:39]
Brown suggests that a generation raised with this message would resolve many of the problems we see today[20:46]

Pretending our actions do not affect others

Another way we avoid vulnerability is by pretending that what we do does not affect other people[21:10]
She notes this occurs in personal life and in corporations, citing events such as bailouts, oil spills, and product recalls[20:57]
Brown says people want companies to be authentic and real and to simply say, "We're sorry. We'll fix it."[21:14]

An alternative path: embracing vulnerability and believing we are enough

Letting ourselves be deeply seen

Brown proposes another way of living: to let ourselves be deeply and vulnerably seen[21:31]
She stresses the importance of allowing our true selves to be visible rather than hiding behind defenses[21:29]

Loving with our whole hearts despite risk

She urges people to love with their whole hearts even though there are no guarantees, noting that this is especially excruciating for parents[21:34]

Practicing gratitude and joy in moments of fear

Brown recommends practicing gratitude and joy in moments of terror when we question whether we can love or believe this deeply[21:45]
Instead of catastrophizing about what might happen, she suggests pausing to say, "I'm just so grateful," because feeling that vulnerable means we are alive[21:59]

Believing that we are enough

Brown identifies believing "I'm enough" as probably the most important element of this way of living[22:07]
She argues that when we work from a place of believing we are enough, we stop screaming and start listening[22:18]
This belief makes us kinder and gentler to the people around us and to ourselves[22:24]
Brown concludes her talk by thanking the audience[22:32]

Outro from Elise Hu and series context

Identifying the talk and its place in the playlist

Elise notes that the talk listeners just heard was Brene Brown at TEDxHouston in 2010[22:32]
She explains that this is the fourth of ten talks from the TED archives reposted as part of the first podcast playlist of her top 10 TED Talks[22:45]

Preview of upcoming talk and production credits

Elise says the next talk will shift focus from inner lives to the wider world with George Monbiot[22:54]
She notes that TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective[23:04]
Elise lists members of the production and editing team and mentions additional support roles[23:18]
She signs off by stating her name and thanking listeners[23:16]

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Believing you are worthy of love and belonging is the key factor that enables deep connection; without this internal sense of worthiness, you will continually struggle to feel connected, regardless of external circumstances.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your life do you quietly question whether you are worthy of love or belonging, and how does that affect your relationships?
  • • How might your behavior change in a specific relationship if you fully believed you were already worthy of love and connection there?
  • • What is one daily practice you could adopt this week to remind yourself that you are enough as you are?
2

You cannot selectively numb emotions: when you avoid feelings like shame, grief, and fear, you also dampen your capacity for joy, gratitude, and happiness, trapping yourself in cycles of disconnection and emptiness.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What emotions do you most often try to avoid or numb, and through what habits or distractions do you usually do it?
  • • How could allowing yourself to fully feel one uncomfortable emotion this week open up more room for positive emotions in your life?
  • • What specific numbing behavior are you willing to experiment with reducing or pausing for the next seven days, and how will you track what you feel instead?
3

Wholehearted living requires the courage to be imperfect, practicing self-compassion, and choosing authenticity over who you think you "should" be, even when that feels risky.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In what situations do you most feel pressure to present a perfected version of yourself rather than who you really are?
  • • How might treating yourself with the same kindness you offer a close friend shift the way you show up in a current challenge?
  • • What is one concrete way you can act more authentically in an upcoming interaction, even if it feels a bit vulnerable?
4

Our attempts to avoid vulnerability often show up as rigid certainty, blame, perfectionism, and pretending our actions don't affect others, but these strategies erode trust and meaningful connection.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where do you find yourself insisting on being right or assigning blame instead of staying in open, uncomfortable dialogue?
  • • How could acknowledging the impact of your actions on others change the way you lead, parent, or collaborate at work?
  • • What is one perfectionistic standard-about yourself or someone you care for-that you are willing to relax or reframe this week?
5

Letting yourself be deeply seen, loving with no guarantees, practicing gratitude in moments of fear, and believing you are enough create a more grounded, kind, and connected way of living.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What part of yourself are you currently hiding from others that, if shared wisely, could lead to more authentic connection?
  • • How might consciously pausing to feel and express gratitude during a stressful moment change your response in that situation?
  • • What is one relationship or project where you can choose to show up more wholeheartedly-investing fully even though the outcome is uncertain?

Episode Summary - Notes by River

(#4) Elise's Top Ten: The power of vulnerability | Brené Brown
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