Tag: dare to lead

3 Questions To Ask Yourself To Identify Your Top Two Life Values According to Brené Brown

I learned a new life trick and my insides are bursting with giddiness to share. The life trick is about how to identify your top two life values in order to help you show up “in the arena” with tools to rumble with vulnerability, by filtering your responses or actions through those two life values, a.k.a. living into your values.

But first, let’s define a few Brene-isms for those of us who aren’t familiar with her lingo.

What does rumbling with vulnerability mean?

  • Vulnerability is defined as the emotion we experience during times of uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. Brown describes to rumble as “a discussion, conversation or meeting defined by a commitment to lean into vulnerability.  It’s to stay curious and generous. In a rumble, you stick with the “messy middle” of problem identification and solving.

What does showing up in the arena mean?

It’s based on this Theodore Roosevelt quote:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

  • Showing up in the arena means to put ourselves out there for who we truly are and stand for what we believe in.

“A value is a way of being or believing that we hold most important”

What does living into your values mean?

  • It means that we do more than profess our values we practice them. We walk our talk — we are clear about what we believe and hold important, and we take care that our intentions, words, thoughts, and behaviors align with those beliefs.

In order to live into your values, you first have to be able to name them. Below is a list of values to get you started, write down 10-15 that jump out at you before narrowing your list down to your top two.

Yes, two, because according to Jim Collins, “if you have more than three priorities, you have no priorities.” Brown writes, “At some point, if everything on the list is important, then nothing is truly a driver for you. It’s just a gauzy list of feel-good words.

Before you start writing, consider these 5 statements from Brené to help chose:

  1. You only have one set of values. They don’t shift based on personal or professional.
  2. You can only pick two values. Circle 10-15 first and work down to your top two; you can’t stop until you’ve picked two.
  3. Your two core values will correlate with the others you circled.
  4. Be careful to not circle words that resemble something you’ve been coached to be, words that have never felt true for you.
  5. A value is your North Star. It’s precise and clear. They’re the beliefs that are most important and dear to you, that help you find your way in the dark, that fill you with a feeling of purpose.

When I finished I had circled the max limit of fifteen and panicked trying to image pairing it down to two core values. A few rogue words that never felt true to me did get entered in the mix, once I noticed this and eliminated the two it did start to feel more manageable.

I won’t lie; it took me one full day to cement my final two. So take the time you need. This doesn’t have to be done today, instead make your goal to physically write down your top 10-15 first.

Three Questions to ask yourself According To Brené:

  1. Does this define me?
  2. Is this who I am at my best?
  3. Is this a filter that I use to make hard decisions?

How did I wrangle down the rest of the vocab words? I thought back to uncomfortable situations and nailed down when I felt it went right or wrong. If that didn’t work, then I tried to imagine myself feeling backed into a corner emotionally and asked myself, would I filter my response through this value?

This helped narrow it down to four or five, and then I slept on it.

I’m having to fight the urge to make everyone I’m in contact with do this exercise, so I can have a better understanding of where everyone is coming from because I’m a learner (which made it to my top 10) and appreciate context.

This exercise gave me clarity not only about myself as a person but as to what I can do when my face is marred by dust and sweat and blood while striving valiantly in the arena. I hope it has given you some clarity, too.

Everything you have ever wanted, is sitting on the other side of fear. (17)

COME BE MY FRIEND ON INSTAGRAM. I’M HILARIOUS OR BE MY PENPAL/DEAR DIARY SERIES 👇👇 & SIGN UP VIA THE LINK https://bit.ly/2wMpE29

Proof It Changed My Trajectory

As I often tell teachers–some of our most important leaders–we can’t always ask our students to take off the armor at home, or even on their way to school, because their emotional and physical safety may require self-protection. But what we can do, and what we are ethically called to do, is create a space in our schools and classrooms where all students can walk in and, for that day or hour, take off the crushing weight of their armor, hang it on a rack, and open their heart to truly being seen. 

We must be guardians of a space that allows students to breathe and be curious and explore the world and be who they are without suffocation. They deserve one place where they can rumble with vulnerability and their hearts can exhale. And what I know from the research is that we should never underestimate the benefit to a child of having a place to belong–even one–where they can take off their armor. It can and often does change the trajectory of their life. 

– Brene Brown, Dare To Lead

I am proof a safe place changed the trajectory of my life. 

You know that saying, “being welcomed with open arms,” I don’t remember a feeling a sense of welcomeness or openness when I was younger. “Constantly on edge,” is more accurate.

It didn’t feel like I had space to breathe. There was a suffocating pressure to be the best and it left no room for error.

When I think back to where I felt safest as a young adult my Highschool band room pops to the front of mind. I knew who I was in that room and Mr. Ponder was a calm dude who didn’t lead with guilt or shame. He genuinely cared for his students and never picked me apart, or anyone else for that matter.

Unfortunately, the band room wasn’t a day in and day out constant. It took twenty-seven years for me to find my safe place and another two years to trust it. I fought the ‘safe feeling’ because my mind and body didn’t know how to respond, and the two who were creating it for me weren’t the people who I thought should be the ones doing it.

Can I trust this soft place to land when it’s being given to me by my bosses? They’re not obligated by blood or marriage, is this how it should be, is this allowed? ps: I get hung up on shoulds and rules. #workingonit

If you’re like me, you need an example of this soft place to land because it didn’t compute in my head for a long time, so here we go:

My first “oh-shit-I-fucked-up-big” moment came about six or seven months into the new job. I was designing an e-blast for The Knot and spent a full week designing and editing content to create the best call to action, possible. Somehow I didn’t notice until after the email went out I had embedded the wrong link and was sending thousands of people to an incorrect event page.

I almost barfed. The word mortified doesn’t cut it. I quickly edited the page the users were being sent to, to represent the event we were advertising for but it took an hour to correct. Accountability is huge in my book so I prepared myself for a tongue lashing and the possibility I’d get fired.

Ya know what I got? “These things happen, you’re human.” If your mouth is gaping open and touching the floor, #twins. I didn’t know what to do or say, all I remember was feeling uncomfortable and wishing she had shouted at me instead. Wtf am I supposed to do with…kindness and understanding?

And fuck, just had another aha-moment. I’d rather be shouted at? In what world does that make sense. I’ve been following a pattern unbeknown to me until this very flippin’ second. Ready for this? Big breaths…

I’ve been striving for perfection and ultimately falling short, which would lead me to fess up to the ‘leaders’ in my life (bosses/parents) and their response was a consistent shouting and/or belittlement before being ‘allowed’ to move on until the next time it happened, and then the same pattern would occur.

Eventually, I didn’t feel better until someone had followed through on their part. And because I thought this was healthy behavior I’m guilty of shouting to release frustration. How sick am I for thinking it was therapeutic? #workingonit #therapyisawesome

This kind of openness to welcome me as is set the foundation for a soft place to land. Maybe some of you reading are thinking, “no, this is an example of your bosses being lenient.” Tell me what good comes from making a person feel smaller? Do you work harder for those type of leaders?

It wasn’t one instance, either. It’s been a compilation of little moments where it would’ve been easy to criticize or put me down and they choose not too. Instead, they reminded me I was enough and worth it. Constantly filling me up with feeling enough and worth it.

This new space encouraged me to read self-empowerment books, get into therapy, deal with traumas I’d buried, and shed a layer of crushing armor. It felt hippy-dippy at first and not for people ‘like me.’

But guess what? My spirit feels lighter, my life feels happier, and I appreciate my relationship with my Hubs ten times more than I did before. My head comes up for air more frequently instead of keeping my nose on the grindstone.

It changed the trajectory of my life. I’m proof.

Ferris bueller quote

COME BE MY FRIEND ON INSTAGRAM. I’M HILARIOUS OR BE MY PENPAL/DEAR DIARY SERIES 👇👇 & SIGN UP VIA THE LINK: http://eepurl.com/dienvj