I Read a Bunch of Brené Brown Books So You Don’t Have To

Welcome to my new blog. It’s been ages since I’ve blogged and it probably didn’t help that Wordpress stopped letting me Edit so Andrea tried to help me fix it and ended up accidentally deleting it. Anyways, a fresh start. So today let’s talk about one of my favourite topics: books. 

I go through audiobooks so fast that I often go onto my library app and grab whatever is available. That’s how I found Dare to Lead by Brené Brown. I’d heard nothing but good things about her and I already had Atlas of the Heart, another one of her books on hold so I decided to get this one and give it a go. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with self help books where I love reading them but then I end up hating them–it’s a totally healthy cycle! Anyways…

I read Dare to Lead and to be completely honest with you it kind of went in one ear and out the other. I couldn't relate to it at all. It’s very corporate and as the title suggests, it’s about leadership and I am certainly not a leader. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. I had been hearing nothing but great things about Brené for years and I know so many people love her work. When I worked at Indigo, her books were constantly flying off the shelves. 

Then Atlas of the Heart became available at the library after I had it on hold for six months. I was burned by her once, but I had been so excited for this book that I thought I owed it to Brené to try again. 

I’m so happy I did because I ended up loving the book and she very much redeemed herself in my eyes. Where Dare to Lead  was about leadership, Atlas of the Heart was about emotions, which is something I’m way more interested in. I’m not going to spoil the entire book but just a couple things I want to share a couple things that really stuck with me. One was the difference between jealousy and envy. Envy is when you want something someone else has; jealousy is when you’re afraid someone is going to take something away from you. I had been using the terms interchangeably and this was pretty eye opening. She does a lot of taking two emotions and comparing them and it’s pretty cool. She talked about how when we’re in the heat of emotions we usually can only define three (sad, mad, and glad) but there’s so many out there to define. 

The other thing from that book that really stuck with me was a story she told about working at a restaurant. They had a rule where you could say “I’m in the weeds” or “I’m blown”. If you’re “in the weeds” people ask you how they can help and they give you a hand with whatever you need. Definitely helpful if you’re struggling but know what you need. When you say “I’m blown” no one asks you what you need. They just take over all your duties for ten minutes while you go cry in the bathroom and pull yourself together. After ten minutes you go back out and carry on. I had never heard of this for burnout and being overwhelmed before and it’s something I’d love to employ into my own life. 

So now that I had read two of her books and really didn’t care for one but loved the other, I became obsessed. I put every book I could find of hers on hold at the library. Daring Greatly was up next. I gave this one a solid three stars. It didn’t speak to me as much as Atlas of the Heart but I liked it way more than Dare to Lead. It was a pretty solid book about vulnerability and courage. She talked a lot about shame and guilt and the difference between them and how they can be harmful or not. Shame, she argues, is harmful, but guilt can be a motivator. It was quite enjoyable but not eye opening enough that I’m going to be carrying lessons from it with me. 

Rising Strong was next and this was another one I had heard a lot of good things about when I worked at Indigo. I quite enjoyed it. My main takeaway from this one was that everyone is doing their best and the whole debate about that. She speaks to forgiveness and bravery. It was probably the most personal of her books I’d read and I did connect with it. 

At this point I was experiencing a bit of self-help fatigue (is that even a thing?) from reading so many of them and they were all starting to meld together, but Braving the Wilderness became available on my shelf so I read it too. She published this one in 2017, two years after Rising Strong and one year after Dare to Lead, and it really seems like she didn’t have enough material for another book so soon. This book was much shorter than the rest and I honestly can’t tell you if I really learned anything from it. This is probably what I get for reading so much over the span of like a week. 

Last but not least, an audiobook of Rising Strong as a Spiritual Practice became available so I grabbed it despite my fatigue. It’s more of an interview with Brené and it’s only three hours long. It’s pretty much the same stories and lessons as Rising Strong so I don’t recommend reading both, but if you want a shorter version of Rising Strong this is a good option. 

So that’s the end of my journey for now. I do have The Gifts of Imperfection on hold as well, and I’m actually very excited for that one, but other than that I’ll be taking a little bit of a break. I don’t love all of  Brené’s books but I definitely think she has some interesting stories and some eye opening ideas. I will definitely be interested in reading what she writes in the future.