Getting Started With Brené

A collection of conversations, writings, and resources that get to the heart of my work.

During my 20 years as a researcher, I have found that the most difficult and most rewarding challenge of my work is how to be both a mapmaker and a traveler. My maps, or theories, on shame resilience, wholeheartedness, vulnerability, and leadership have not been drawn from the experiences of my own travels, but from the data I’ve collected over the past two decades—the experiences of thousands of men and women who are forging paths in the direction that I, and many others, want to take our lives. Read more about my story here.

Featured work

  • My moment to “dare greatly,” as Theodore Roosevelt once urged citizens to do, came in June 2010 when I was invited to speak at TEDxHouston. The video of that talk has now been viewed more than 55 million times.

    This 2010 TED Talk stemmed from my faith in my research and what emerged from the data—that vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center of meaningful human experiences.

  • Sharing a talk that I did for Oprah’s Super Soul sessions where I uncovered the fundamentals of trust. What is trust? The data says there are seven parts of trust, and we organize these into the acronym BRAVING.

    Breaking down the anatomy of trust into specific behaviors allows us to more clearly identify and address breaches of trust. I love the BRAVING checklist because it reminds me that trusting myself or other people is a vulnerable and courageous process.

Conversations

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  • Illustration of a woman in warm autumn clothing and scarf, falling onto fall leaves.
    Article

    The Midlife Unraveling

    People may call what happens at midlife “a crisis,” but it’s not. It’s an unraveling—a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you’re “supposed” to live. Here’s the story of my unraveling.

  • Row of blue school lockers
    Article

    Teachers: Our Most Daring Leaders

    As the guardians of spaces that allow students to breathe and be curious and explore the world and be who they are without suffocation, teachers are some of our most important leaders.

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    Article

    Pressing On With Purpose

    I’m not here to make people comfortable or to be liked. My purpose is to know and experience love. This means excavating the unsaid. In the world and in me.

  • Riding a bike over an urban bridge between buildings
    Article

    Own Our History. Change the Story.

    Our collective stories of race in the U.S. are not easy to own. But I believe that if each of us holds space for honest conversation where we listen more than we defend or offer false comfort, we can do this—we can write a brave new ending to one of the most painful stories in our history.