Daring Greatly.

There is so much that I liked about Daring Greatly by Brené Brown, which I read as part of the BlogHer Book Club. First, there's the quote from Theodore Roosevelt that inspired the title:

“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 errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…” -- Theodore Roosevelt

I love it.

And then there's the author, Brené Brown. I'd never heard of her before reading this book but now I think I love her. She's a Ph.D. researcher from Texas (she currently does her research at the University of Houston) who gave the most-viewed TED presentation. She's a shame and vulnerability researcher who talks about living wholeheartedly. And she does so in a non-selfhelpy way.

She rocks.

And so does this book.

The idea is this: People are afraid of feeling vulnerable. We're afraid of getting hurt, of being criticized and made-fun-of. We're afraid of not being enough, of not being perfect. And we're all kinds of afraid of messing up our kids and our relationships. This fear of vulnerability stops us from daring greatly -- from doing the big (and the little) things that create full, rich lives. What we fear holds us back from living wholeheartedly.

I'm not going to go in to all that Brown writes about in this book because this review would be pages and pages long and no one wants that. Instead, I'll say this: Daring Greatly is worth reading. Brown provides information about how to come to terms with vulnerability and the negative cultural pressures that make people feel like they are never enough -- and that they never have enough (time, money, whatever).

It's a great book. For real.

Have you read Daring Greatly or any of Brown's other books? What did you think? 

How do you dare greatly in your life?

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Felice




This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.