Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Brené Brown

Melysa G., Cowardly Lion, 2011

(March 9) My note on the book in the library system says: “recommended by Jillian Michaels on Instagram,” which kind of surprises me now because I thought I got the urge to read it from the Glennon Doyle Melton book, as well as Facebook or Instagram posts by Elizabeth Gilbert… they are all interwoven, these women… they reference each other in their books, they regram each other’s Instagrams, they support each other’s causes… and they like to quote Leonard Cohen lyrics and some specific poems that I didn’t enumerate as carefully... It’s interesting there’s this cabal... there’s probably an official name for them, but I call them the “self-improvement memoirists”… Brené Brown is not so much a memoirist, but she frequently tells stories about herself to illustrate a point, and you can tell it’s because she knows that self-revelation helps people buy a concept (and, initially, identify with and like an author).

Pages 36-37 caused a lot of anguish for for me… tears streamed down my cheeks as I read these stories of people’s shame and humiliation… not because the stories were so terribly horrific (and anyway they are about events that everyone experiences in one form or another)… but just because in that moment it hurt so much to think of people going through all this sorrow and pain all the time, all over the world…

However, although there were passages that were very strong for me and I agree with every insight Brown offers and every recommendation she makes, I couldn’t rate the book above 2.5. Brown tries to rally respect and scientific cred for her conclusions about human behaviour by constantly using academic terms -- she uses the word “research” a lot, and loves buzzwords like “evidence-based” and “research-based.” She reminds us repeatedly that she has master’s and doctoral degrees and that she consults with a lot of people who have degrees as well...

From my point of view though as a lapsed academic, she stretches the meaning of “research” quite a bit. What her work has really been is talking to people (“research subjects”) to find a comment that proves a psychological barrier or condition exists, then interpreting the cause and cure for the problem using the big-picture wisdom of a leading expert in psych stuff (consulting them is more “research” as well).

I think what she’s saying is so great, so insightful and so useful, that it doesn’t need this propping up... but, so, because she props so hard I have to feel suspicious about it.

She is even worse with this in Braving the Wilderness.