Learning To Rise PDF

part four LEARNING TO RISE When we fume the courage to walk into our story mud own it, we get to write the ending. AND WHEN WE DON'T OWN OUR STORIES OF FAILURE, SETBACKS, AND HURT---THEY OWN US. **We have to teach people how to land before they** **ing how to hit the ground without hurt...

part four LEARNING TO RISE When we fume the courage to walk into our story mud own it, we get to write the ending. AND WHEN WE DON'T OWN OUR STORIES OF FAILURE, SETBACKS, AND HURT---THEY OWN US. **We have to teach people how to land before they** **ing how to hit the ground without hurting yourself. I haven't** **experienced this personally, but I've watched. The same is** **true in leadership---we can't expect people to be brave and** **risk failure if they're not prepped for hard landings.** One of the most unexpected findings that emerged from the leadership research is about the timing of teaching skills for ris­ ing or resilience. Often, leaders and executive coaches gather peo­ ple together and try to teach resilience skills *after* there's been a setback or failure. It turns out that's like teaching first-time sky- divers how to land after they hit the ground. Or, maybe worse, as they're free-falling. Our research shows that leaders who are trained in rising skills as part of a courage-building program are more likely to I 241 \| engage in courageous behaviors because they know how to get back up. Not having those skills in place is a deterrent to braver leadership, and teaching people how to get up once they're already on the ground is much more difficult. This is why we teach falling and failing upfront. In fact, in our organization, we teach falling as part of courage-building during onboarding. It's our way of saying, "We expect you to be brave. That means that you should expect to fall. We've got a plan." While the merits of failing and falling have received some global attention in the last couple of years, I seldom see the "fall forward" or "fail fast" slogans put into practice alongside actual reset skills and honest rumbles about the shame that almost al­ ways accompanies failure. Mere slogans, without teaching skills and putting systems in place, are a half-assed attempt at normal­ izing that leaves people thinking, "God, this is painful, but I think I'm supposed to feel innovative. Now I have shame about feeling shame. Better keep that a secret." Today, with millennials making up 35 percent of the Ameri­ can labor force (the largest represented generation), teaching how to embrace failure as a learning opportunity is even more impor­ tant. I've been in the university classroom for twenty years, and I've observed that the resilience and bounce of some students have decreased while the exposure to trauma for other students has increased. On the one hand, we were (and are) constantly in­ tervening, constantly fixing, constantly helping some kids. As the head of my son's school said, "Many parents have gone from heli­ copter parents to lawnmower parents. Instead of preparing the child for the path, we prepared the path for the child." That's defi­ nitely not courage-building. On the other hand, we've raised our kids on a steady stream of pervasive and systemic violence against marginalized communi­ ties, a vitriolic social media environment, and monthly active shooter drills at school. Today, some young adults are overpro­ tected while others are grossly underprotected. Some are para­ lyzed by perfectionism and what other people think, while others have found it physically and emotionally safer to shut down and/ or armor up. Either way, it feels like weTe failing young adults, and it's easy to understand why many of them are entering the workforce without grounded confidence and rumbling skills. Millennials make up 48 percent of our staff, and including interns it's 56 percent. They are all very different people, but as a group I experience them as curious, hopeful, always learning, painfully attuned to the suffering in the world, and anxious to do something about it. Because perspective is a function of experi­ ence, as a group they can struggle with patience and understand­ ing how long it takes to cultivate meaningful change. It's our job to help give them the experiences that broaden their perspectives. When they complete our Daring Leadership program as part of their onboarding, almost every millennial who works with us has told me some version of "I never learned how to have these kinds of conversations. I never learned about emotions or how to talk so openly about failure, and I've never seen it modeled. When you're used to using technology for everything, these hard face- to-face conversations are awkward and so intense." The only ex­ ceptions are employees who have had experience in therapy, which is one reason we have a special reimbursement program for mental health visits on top of our regular health insurance. My experience is that millennials and Gen Zers lean in and learn hard. They're starving for the ability to put courage into practice. I'm a pretty typical Gen Xer, and I'm starving for it too. I think we all are. But I do think some of us got more of it growing up than we've modeled and taught today's young adults. Here's the bottom line: If we don't have the skills to get back up, we may not risk falling. And if we're brave enough often enough, we are definitely going to fall. The research participants who have the highest levels of resilience can get back up after a disappointment or a fall, and they are more courageous and tena­ cious as a result of it. They do that with a process that I call Learn­ ing to Rise. It has three parts: the reckoning, the rumble, and the revolution. My goal for this part is to give you the language, tools, and skills that make up the essentials of this process so you can im­ mediately start putting this work into practice. The research is profound in its potential impact: It's almost a neurobiological hack for your brain. I'm going to walk you through this process with a story, because I don't think there's a better way to intro­ duce the reckoning, the rumble, and the revolution. The Ham Fold-over Debacle A few years ago, in the midst of growing my companies, I decided that within a three-week period in September, I would launch a new company, go on a book tour, and skill up fifteen hundred peo­ ple who were trained in my work. I decided in February that this was a great idea. As we've discussed, the part of my brain that accounts for timing is missing, which seems to be a scientific fact. When I made this announcement to my team and Steve, they all pushed back, but I had a secret weapon that I was keeping to my­ self: *By September, I'm going to be an instructor-level Pilates* *person and ready to run some half-marathons. That way I'll* *have ten times the energy I have now, and this will be easy peasy,* *lemon squeezy.* August arrived. Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult. The wheels had completely fallen off my life, both at home and at work. I'd been to one Pilates class that I hated. And I was still run/walking the same three-mile route I had for years. I com­mandeered the dining room of my house, which looked like a crime scene. Things were taped up all over the wall; piles of loose paper and boxes covered every inch of our table. I had stacks of stock photos and font sheets to sift through for a new website, and training materials everywhere. It was pure chaos. I was sitting in the dining room, on the brink of collapsing in tears, when I heard the back door open and Steve come in. He walked down the hall, headed into the kitchen, set his bag down on the breakfast room table, and opened the refrigerator. The first thing I heard him say was "We don't even have any damn lunch meat in this house." In the past, when telling this story to an audience, I've asked them for their reaction to his "damn lunch meat" comment. With­ out fail, women in the audience shout out comments that range from "Get your own lunch meat!" and "It's always our fault!" to "Give her a break!" One woman shouted, "Leave him!" That felt like a strong choice. In reality, my first thought was *What did he just say?* I clenched my jaws and tightened my fists. *I can't believe he would* *be so shitty.* I walked into the kitchen and said, "Hey, babe?" But not in the nice way. I did it with the voice and tone that have launched a thousand fights in kitchens across the globe. He responded, with a little wariness and a little hopefulness, "Hey. What's up?" "You know the big ol' truck you drive?" I asked. "Yeah \..." he responded, wariness overtaking hopefulness. "I bet if you point it west and you go about a mile and a half, you're going to run into a big-ass HEB grocery store. I bet if you go in there and you give them your credit card, they'll give you a bag of ham." At this point, I was very pleased with myself. He looked less impressed and more worried. "Did you leave your credit card at HEB again?" *Dammit. You're killing my jam here.* "No, I did not lose my credit card. I'm just saying that you can get your own lunch meat." He looked at me with genuine worry. "Geez. Are you okay?" "Yes, I'm okay. I understand that it's six thirty, and you're pissed off that there's no dinner on the table. I get it." "Wait, wait, wait, what?" "I understand it's six thirty. You're hungry. Dinner is not on the table. I get it." "Okay, Brene, what's thirty times three hundred sixty-five?" *Oh, my God. On top of everything else, he's math-shaming* *me! This is a total takedown.* I looked at him with that look that you get when you feel just a little bit unhinged. *You wanna dance? Let's dance.* In my most sarcastic voice, I answered, "I don't know, Steve, what is thirty times three hundred sixty-five?" Completely refusing to engage, he said, "I don't know either, but it's the number of days we've been together, and in that num­ ber of days, not once, not whatever that big number is, have I ever come home and seen dinner on the table. Not once." He went on. "Number one: If I came home and dinner was on the table, I would think one of two things was happening: You're leaving me, or someone in our family is really sick. Number two: When we cook dinner, we normally do it together. Number three: Who has done the grocery shopping in this family for like the last five years?" *Dammit to hell. This is not following the script for the movie* *in my head.* I shrugged and kicked at the ground like a toddler. "You, I guess. You buy the groceries." Still calm and more curious than pissed, he said, "Right. I get the groceries. So what's going on?" There's a sentence that hovered over my data for about ten years, but I never investigated it because it didn't saturate across all of the interviews. However, when I was interviewing and cod­ ing data for *Rising Strong,* the research participants who demon­ strated the highest level of resilience used some form of these sentences: **The story I'm telling myself\...** **The story I make up \...** **I make up that...** If you put one rising skill into practice, start with this one. It's a game changer. In fact, I'm so sure of it that I'll risk the possibil­ ity of overpromising by saying it has the power to transform the way you live, love, parent, and lead. Just watch how it works. Back in my kitchen in Houston, I looked at Steve and said, "Look, the story I'm telling myself right now is this: I am a half­ ass leader, a half-ass mom, a half-ass wife, and a half-ass daugh­ ter. I am currently disappointing every single person in my life. Not because I'm not good at what I do, but because I'm doing so many different things that I cannot do a single one of them well. What I'm making up in my head right now is that you want to make sure that I know that you know how bad things suck right now. It's like you need to announce how sucky things are in our house on the off chance that I---the purveyor of everything that's currently sucking---happen not to know." Steve looked at me and said: "You know what? I get it. I know you're making that up because that is your go-to story when you're in a hard place, and you are in a harder place than I have seen you in years. The work you have in front of you is beyond human scale. You are so far under the water, you can't even find your way up right now. So here's what we're going to do. I'm diving down. I'm going to find you, and I'm going to pull you to the surface, because when I'm that lost, you always find me and you pull me to the sur­ face. And then we'll feed the kids Chick-fil-A for day number four. Maybe we'll add some spinach just to make our way into parent­ ing purgatory. And then we will sort this out. We will sort this out together." By this point I was crying. "Thank you, I'm just so over­ whelmed, and I don't know what to do next. I can't dig myself out of this. It's so much. People are depending on me." Steve gave me a long bear hug, and when I pulled away to wipe the snot off my face, I looked up at him and said, "Can I ask you an honest question, though?" He said "Yeah. Of course" as he pushed the hair off my face. "Why the big proclamation at the refrigerator? Why the 'We don't even have any damn lunch meat in this house' announce­ ment? Was that a jab? It's okay if it was. I get it. But was it a little dig at me, or maybe just the situation?" "Let me think about it." Steve is a very sincere guy, and I thought he'd come back with "Yeah, I'm kind of sick of the stress. It was a little passive-aggressive." But instead he said: "I am so hungry." "What do you mean?" I asked, totally confused. "I'm just hungry. I said it because I'm hungry. I got stuck with a patient at lunch, and on the way home today I thought to myself, we probably won't eat until seven. I'm gonna make a ham fold- over." "And \... ?" I asked, still confused. "And nothing. That's it. I'm hungry for a ham fold-over." Ah, the ham fold-over debacle. I'm guessing every person with this book in their hand or everyone who is listening on audio has experienced the equivalent of a ham fold-over debacle. You make yourself the center of something that has nothing to do with you out of your own fear or scarcity, only to be reminded that you're not the axis on which the world turns. That's not just one of the oldest maneuvers in history, it's our brain at work. Ironically, trying to keep us safe. Holding this story in mind, let's break down the three-step process for Learning to Rise. The Reckoning, the Rumble, and the Revolution The Learning to Rise process is about getting up from our falls, over­ coming our mistakes, and facing hurt in a way that brings more wis­ dom and wholeheartedness into our lives. As tough as it is, the payoff is huge: **When we have the courage to walk into our story and** **own it, we get to write the ending. And when we don't own our** **stories of failure, setbacks, and hurt---they own us.** I call the research participants who had the highest level of resilience and reset *the risers.* It just fits, plus I always think about "the arena" when I hear the chorus to the song "Riser" by Dierks Bentley: *I'm a riser* *I'm a get up off the ground, don't run and hider* *Pushin' comes to shove* *And hey, I'm a fighter* THE RECKONING We are emotional beings, and when something hard happens to us, emotion drives. Cognition or thinking is not sitting shotgun next to behavior in the cab of the truck. Thinking and behavior are hog-tied in the back, and emotion is driving like a bat out of hell. *Picture me at the dining room table when Steve makes the* *damn ham announcement.* Risers immediately recognize when they're emotionally hooked by something: *Hey, something's got me.* And then they get curious about it. We don't have to pinpoint the emotion accu­ rately---we just need to recognize that we're feeling something. There will be time to sort out exactly what we're feeling later. Some of the ways risers talked about knowing they were hooked include: I don't know what's happening, but I'm coming out of my skin. I can't stop playing that conversation over and over in my head. How did I end up in the pantry? I feel(disappointed, regret­ [ ] ful, pissed, hurt, angry, heartbroken, confused, scared, worried, etc.). I am(in a lot of pain, [ ] feeling really vulnerable, in a shame storm, embarrassed, overwhelmed, in a world of hurt). My stomach is in knots. I wanna punch someone. The reckoning is as simple as that: knowing that we're emotionally hooked and then getting curious about it. The challenge is that very few of us were raised to get emo­ tionally curious about what we are feeling. Whether it is a failure, a sideways comment from a colleague, a meeting that is full of disconnection and frustration, or a feeling of rising resentment when asked to do more than someone else, we're hooked, and we weren't taught the skill that the most resilient among us share: Slow down, take a deep breath, and get curious about what's hap­ pening. Instead, we bust out the armor. While most of us get busy sucking it up, ignoring our feelings, or taking out our emotions sideways on other people (marching into the kitchen loaded for bear), the risers are getting curious about what's really going on so they can dig in, figure out what they are feeling, and why. It's kinda like thinking before you talk, but it's feeling before you swing or hide. How do we recognize that we've been snagged by emotion? From the wisest part of us---our body. We call emotions *feelings* because we feel them in our bodies---we have a physiological re­ sponse to emotions. Risers are connected to their bodies, and when emotion knocks, they feel it and they pay attention. For example, since put­ ting this work into practice, I learned that when I'm emotionally hooked, time slows down, my armpits tingle, my mouth gets dry, and I immediately start playing whatever has happened on a con­ tinuous loop in my head. Now when any of those things happens, I try to pay attention and take it as a cue. My cue is personalized just for me: *Something's going on. Get curious or get crazy.* If I think back to the ham fold-over debacle, the clenched jaw and balled-up fists were probably a good sign. *Sigh.* Here's the hard news about this process. Very few people make it through the reckoning, for one reason: Instead of feeling our emotions and getting curious, we offload them onto others. We literally take that ball of emotional energy welling up inside us and hurl it toward other people. I'm going to share the six most common offloading strategies from *Rising Strong.* As you read through them, ask yourself two questions: *Do I do this?* and *How* *does it feel to be on the receiving end of this?* Offloading Strategy \#1: Chandeliering We think we've packed the hurt so far down that it can't possibly resurface, yet all of a sudden, a seemingly innocuous comment sends us into a rage or sparks a crying fit. Or maybe a small mis­ take at work triggers a huge shame attack. Perhaps a colleague's constructive feedback hits that exquisitely tender place, and we jump out of our skin. I learned the term *chandelier* from Steve. It's used within the medical community to describe a patient's pain that is so severe that if you touch that tender place, their response is involuntary. No matter how hard they try to hide the hurt or how distracted they are by other things, they jump up to the ceiling, or chandelier. The chandeliering I'm describing is the emotional equivalent, and it's especially common and dangerous in "power-over" situa­ tions: in environments where, because of power differentials, people with a higher position or status are less likely to be held accountable for flipping out or overreacting. This type of volatility creates distrust and disengagement. For example, someone might maintain their prized stoicism in front of customers or other people they want to impress or in­ fluence, but the second they're around people over whom they have emotional, financial, or physical power, they explode. And because it's not a behavior seen by many of the higher-ups, their version of the story is usually perceived as truth. We see power- over chandeliering in families, churches, schools, communities, and offices. And when you mix in issues like gender, class, race, sexual orientation, or age, the combination can be toxic. Most of us have been on the receiving end of such outbursts. Even if we have the insight to know that our boss, friend, col­ league, or partner blew up at us because something tender was triggered, and even when we know it's not actually about us, it still shatters trust and respect. **Living, growing up, working,** **or worshipping on eggshells creates huge cracks in our sense** **of safety and self-worth. Over time, these cracks can be ex­** **perienced as trauma, whether this happens at work or at** **home.** Offloading Strategy \#2: Bouncing Hurt Pain is hard, and it's easier to be angry or pissed off than to ac­ knowledge hurt, so our ego intervenes and does the dirty work. The ego doesn't own stories or want to write new endings; it de­ nies emotion and hates curiosity. Instead, the ego uses stories as armor and alibi. The ego says "Feelings are for losers and weak­ lings." Like all good hustlers, our ego employs crews of ruffians in case we don't comply with its demands. Anger, blame, and avoid­ ance are the ego's bouncers. When we get too close to recognizing an experience as an emotional one, these three spring into action. It's much easier to say "I don't give a damn" than it is to say "I'm hurt." The ego likes blaming, finding fault, making excuses, inflict­ ing payback, and lashing out, all of which are ultimately forms of self-protection. The ego is also a fan of avoidance---assuring us that we're fine, pretending that it doesn't matter, that we're imper­ vious. We adopt a pose of indifference or stoicism, or we deflect with humor and cynicism. *Whatever. Who cares? None of this* *matters anyway.* When the bouncers are successful---when anger, blame, and avoidance push away real hurt, disappointment, or pain---our ego is free to scam all it wants. Often the first hustle is shaming others for their lack of "emotional control." The ego can be a conniving and dangerous liar when it feels threatened. Offloading Strategy \#3: Numbing Hurt We talked a lot about numbing in the section on the armory. The important thing to note here is that in addition to numbing being a popular form of armor, we can offload emotion through it as well. Offloading Strategy \#4: Stockpiling Hurt There's a quiet, insidious alternative to chandeliering, bouncing, or numbing hurt---we can stockpile it. We're not erupting with misplaced emotions or using blame to deflect our true feelings or numbing the pain. Stockpiling starts like chandeliering, by firmly packing down the pain, but instead of unleashing it on another person, we just continue to amass hurt until our bodies decide that enough is enough. The body's message is always clear: Shut down the stockpiling or I'll shut you down. The body wins every time. Midlife and midcareer are when we often start to see the ef­ fects of having stockpiled emotion for too long. The body is hold­ ing down the emotional fort, and as a result, we can experience many symptoms including anxiety, depression, burnout, insom­ nia, and physical pain. Offloading Strategy \#5: The Umbridge I named this strategy after J. K. Rowling's character Dolores Um­ bridge in *Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,* and I find it to be one of the most difficult offloading strategies to experience. Played brilliantly by Imelda Staunton in the films, Umbridge wears cutesy pink suits and pillbox hats, adorns her pink office with bows and trinkets decorated with kittens, and is a fan of tor­ turing children who misbehave. Rowling writes about her, "A love of all things saccharine often seems present where there is a lack of real warmth or charity." Too many cheery claims, like "Everything is awesome" or "I just never really feel angry or upset" or "If you're just positive, you can turn that frown upside down" often mask real pain and hurt. What's true but seems counterintuitive is that we don't trust peo­ ple who don't struggle, who don't have bad days or hard times. We also don't develop connection with people we don't find relatable. When light and dark are not integrated, overly sweet and accom­ modating can feel foreboding, as though under all that niceness is a ticking bomb. Offloading Strategy \#6: Hurt and the Fear of High-Centering Don't google the term "high-centered." More than likely you'll pull up an image of a cow stuck on top of a fence, legs dangling on both sides, unable to go forward or backward. It's disturbing. I learned the term because my grandmother's driveway in San Antonio was two parallel cement strips with a mound of dirt and grass in the middle. Every now and then, my grandmother would say, "The dirt and grass are getting too high. I'm gonna get high-centered in my car," and we'd dig out and flatten that center strip with a shovel. High-centered here meant that the center of the car would be higher than the four tires and she'd get stuck. One reason we deny our feelings is the fear of getting emo­ tionally high-centered---that is, getting stuck in a way that makes it difficult to go forward or backward. If I recognize my hurt or fear or anger, I'll get stuck. Once I engage even a little, I won't be able to move backward and pretend that it doesn't matter, but moving forward might open a floodgate of emotion that I can't control. Recognizing emotion leads to feeling emotion. What if I recognize the emotion and it dislodges something and I can't maintain control? I don't want to cry at work, or on the battlefield, or when I'm with my students. Getting high-centered can be the worst because we feel a total loss of control. We feel powerless. STRATEGIES FOR RECKONING WITH EMOTION This is going to sound weird, but the most effective strategy for staying with emotion instead of offloading it is something I learned from a yoga teacher. And from a few members of the mil­ itary Special Forces. It's breathing. The yoga teacher called it box breathing. The soldiers called it tactical breathing. Turns out they're the same thing. Former Green Beret Mark Miller explains tactical breathing this way: 1. Inhale deeply through your nose, expanding your stom­ ach, for a count of four. 2. Hold in that breath for a count of four. 3. Slowly exhale all the air through your mouth, contracting your stomach, for a count of four. 4. Hold the empty breath for a count of four. We don't take enough deep breaths at work. We don't pause enough and check our body. I'm a breath holder, and sometimes, when things get really hectic and I'm in firefighting mode at the office, I just stop and trace a square on my desk: *In for four, hold* *for four, out for four, hold for four.* I swear just two or three of these breathing sessions rewires me. I even taught my kids and students how to do it. Breathing is also the key to another strategy for reckoning with emotion, and one of the most underrated lead­ ership superpowers: practicing calm. I define calm as creating perspective and mindfulness while managing emotional reactivity. Calm is a superpower because it is the balm that heals one of the most prevalent work­ place stressors: anxiety. When it comes to anxiety, my greatest teacher is psychologist Harriet Lerner. In her book *The Dance of Connection,* Dr. Lerner explains that we all have patterned ways of managing anxiety; some of us respond by ouerfunctioning and others by underfunctioning. Overfunctioners, like myself, tend to move quickly to advise, rescue, take over, micromanage, and get in other people's business rather than look inward. Underfunc- tioners tend to get less competent under stress. They sometimes invite others to take over and often become the focus of family gossip, worry, or concern. They can get labeled as the "irrespon­ sible one" or the "problem child" or the "fragile one." Dr. Lerner explains that seeing these behaviors as patterned responses to anxiety, rather than truths about who we are, can help us under­ stand that we can change. For those of us who overfunction, our work is to become more willing to embrace our vulnerabilities in the face of anxiety. For folks who underfunction, the goal is to work on amplifying strengths and competencies. Whether we over- or underfunction, practicing calm creates the clearing we need to get emotionally grounded. The bad news is that anxiety is one of the most contagious emotions that we experience. This explains why anxiety can so easily become a function of groups, not individuals. It's too contagious to stay con­ tained in one person. We've all had the experience of one person sending a group into a tailspin. The good news? Calm is equally contagious. Over the past twenty years, the most proficient practitioners of calm that I've interviewed all talked about the important (and weird) combina­ tion of breathing and curiosity. They talked about taking deep breaths before responding to questions or asking them; slowing down the pace of a frantic conversation by modeling slow speech, breathing, and fact finding; and even intentionally taking a few breaths before asking themselves a version of these two ques­ tions: 1\. Do I have enough information to freak out about this situ­ ation? 2\. If I do have enough data, will freaking out help? In addition to curiosity and breathing, don't forget permission slips. Sometimes we have to give ourselves permission to feel--- especially if we come from a family where exploring and discuss­ ing emotion was either explicitly off-limits or just not modeled. Imagine how different my conversation with Steve would have been if I had paid attention to my anger and hurt, taken a few deep breaths, and become curious. The Rumble: Conspiracies, Confabulations, and Shitty First Drafts If the reckoning is how we walk into a tough story, the rumble is where we go to the mat with it and own it. The rumble starts with this universal truth: In the absence of data, we will always make up stories. It's how we are wired. Meaning making is in our biology, and when we're in struggle, our default is often to come up with a story that makes sense of what's happening and gives our brain information on how best to self­ protect. And it happens a hundred times a day at work. Our orga­ nizations are littered with stories that people make up because they don't have access to information. If you've ever led a team through change, you know how much time, money, energy, and engagement bad stories cost. Robert Burton, a neurologist and novelist, explains that our brains reward us with dopamine (that "aha" moment) when we recognize and complete patterns. Stories are patterns. The brain recognizes the familiar beginning-middle-end structure of a story and rewards us for clearing up the ambiguity. Unfortunately, the brain rewards us for a good story---one with clear good guys and bad guys---regardless of the accuracy of the story. The promise of that *Aha! I've solved it!* sensation can seduce us into shutting down the uncertainty and vulnerability that are often necessary for getting to the truth. The brain is not a big fan of ambiguous stories that leave unanswered questions and a big tangle of possibilities. The brain has no interest in *Maybe I have* *a part* or *Am I blowing this out of proportion?* The part of the brain that goes into protection mode likes binaries: Good guy or bad guy? Dangerous or safe? Ally or enemy? Burton writes, "Because we are compelled to make stories, we are often compelled to take incomplete stories and run with them." He goes on to say that even with a half story in our minds, "we earn a dopamine 'reward' every time it helps us understand something in our world---even if that explanation is incomplete or wrong." **The first story we make up is what we call the "shitty first** **draft," or the SFD.** (If you're not comfortable with *shitty,* I call it the "stormy first draft" with kids. They totally get this concept and love talking about their SFDs because, after a hard experi­ ence, it gives them the opportunity to confirm that we love them and that they still belong.) The idea of a "shitty first draft" comes from Anne Lamott's exceptional book on writing, *Bird by Bird.* She writes: The only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts. The first draft is the child's draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. When it comes to our emotions, the first stories we make up--- our SFDs---are definitely our fears and insecurities romping all over the place, making up worst-case scenarios. For example, *Steve is a total jerk. He doesn't think I'm capable of running my* *business and being a great partner and mother. He's sick of me* *and the stress. The past thirty years have been a giant lie.* Instead of plowing into the kitchen like a bull in an emotional china shop, I wish I had noticed my reaction to the ham comment and become curious about the emotions enveloping me. Had I taken the time to surface my SFD, I could have walked in and said, "I heard the ham comment, and the story I'm telling myself is that you're sick of me and all of the stress of my work right now." I've known Steve for more than thirty years, and I'm 99 per­ cent confident that he would have pulled me in for a hug and said, "I know you're overwhelmed. What can we do?" Yes, the conflict worked out okay, but relationships can take only a certain amount of what I pulled in the kitchen before they're affected by it. In our SFDs, fear fills in the data gaps. What makes that scary is that stories based on limited real data and plentiful imag­ ined data, blended into a coherent, emotionally satisfying version of reality, are called conspiracy theories. Yes, we are all conspiracy theorists with our own stories, constantly filling in data gaps with our fears and insecurities. In work cultures where there's a lot of change and confusion afoot, teams go crazy with SFDs. However, if you are operating in a culture of courage, you give people as many facts as you can, and when you can't tell them everything, you acknowledge that you're telling them as much as you can and that you will continue to keep them in the loop with information as you have access to it and have permission to share. Clear is kind. And clarity absolutely re­ duces story making and conspiracy theories. Daring leaders ask for SFDs. They create the time, space, and safety for people to reality-check their stories. In the past, when we've had to let people go, we've met privately with the immediate team affected, made the announcement to the larger group, then invited people to come see us during a blocked-out time to "talk, ask questions, and check SFDs." Keep in mind: You can spend a reasonable amount of time attending to feelings and fears (and conspiracy theories), or you can squander an unreasonable time managing unproductive behaviors. In addition to attending to conspiracy theories, we also have to watch for confabulations. Confabulation has a really great and subtle definition: *A con­* *fabulation is a lie told honestly.* To *confabulate* is to replace miss­ ing information with something false that we believe to be true. In his book *The Storytelling Animal,* Jonathan Gottschall ex­ plains that there's growing evidence that "ordinary, mentally healthy people are strikingly prone to confabulate in everyday situ­ ations." In one of my favorite studies described in his book, a team of psychologists asked shoppers to choose a pair of socks from a set of seven pairs and then to give their reasons for choosing that par­ ticular pair. Every shopper explained their choice based on subtle differences in color, texture, and stitching. No shopper said, "I don't know why this is my choice," or "I have no idea why I picked that one." All of them had a full story that explained their decision. But here's the kicker: All of the socks were identical. Gottschall explains that all of the shoppers told stories that made their deci­ sions seem rational. But they really weren't. He writes, **"The sto­** **ries were confabulations---lies, honestly told."** Confabulation shows up at work when we share what we be­ lieve is factual information, but it's really just our opinion. It's when I look at my colleague and say, "We are all getting laid off in September. This whole group is being shut down and let go." Ev­ eryone panics and asks me how I know. "I know, I heard, I know it's true." The information might have no basis in truth, none at all; it's a confabulation. I believe it's true, but it's really my fear, com­ bined with what might be a little bit of data. And it's dangerous. With the SFD, we need to stop and capture that first story, that conspiracy, that confabulation, that scribbled mess in our heads. "Oh, my God, she looked at me like that in the meeting because she doesn't trust me. She thinks my ideas are stupid, and she is probably plotting to get me taken off this project." It is incredibly important to grab hold of those before the myth making gets completely out of control. Today, I try to use my phone to capture my SFD before I act on it. I write it out when I have the opportunity simply because 70 percent of the risers we interviewed write down their SFDs. Nothing elaborate, just some variation of: **The story I'm making up:** **My emotions:** **My body:** **My thinking:** **My beliefs:** **My actions:** James Pennebaker, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, has found that because our minds are designed to try to understand things that happen to us, translating messy, difficult experiences into language essentially makes them "graspable." Storytelling is another vehicle for sharing the story you're making up. If you have a friend or colleague you trust who has the skills and patience to listen, you can talk through your SFD. Writing down your SFD doesn't give it power---it gives us power. It gives us the opportunity to say, "Does this even make sense? Does this look right?" Writing slows the winds and calms the seas. And if you're completely mortified by the thought of someone finding your SFD because it's blarney, pissy, immature, and a full-on rant, you've done it well. Unfiltered is powerful when it comes to the SFD. The author Margaret Atwood writes, When you are in the middle of a story, it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreck­ age of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard are powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else. To move from what Atwood calls "a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood" to a true story that you can address, these are the questions that risers need to rumble with: 1. What more do I need to learn and understand about the situation? What do I know objectively? What assumptions am I making? 2. What more do I need to learn and understand about the other people in the story? What additional information do I need? What questions or clarifications might help? Now we get to the more difficult questions---the ones that take courage and practice to answer. 3. What more do I need to learn and understand about my­ self? What's underneath my response? What am I really feeling? What part did I play? Answering \#1 and \#2 means having the courage to address the conspiracies and confabulations. Answering \#3 requires emo­ tional literacy---being able to recognize and name emotions---the same skill set required in empathy and self-compassion. Imagine how powerful it would be to catch ourselves making up an SFD, rumble with it for a few minutes, then check it out with a colleague: "Hey. Tough meeting today. You were quiet, and I'm making up that you were pissed about your team having to do all of the work for the next sprint. Can we talk about that?" *FYI: If you walked up to me and said that, my trust and re­* *spect for you would skyrocket.* Let's say my response is "No, I'm not mad at all. I'm exhausted. Charlie's sick and he was throwing up all night. But I appreciate you checking in." This gives you the opportunity to practice empa­ thy: "I'm sorry. That's hard. Can I get you a cup of coffee?" Now let's walk through the situation of this alternate reply: "Yes. I'm super frustrated! This is not our project and we don't have the resources to own the work. It's total bullshit." This gives you the opportunity to say, "Okay. Let's sit down and talk about it." Win-win. Either way, this is connecting and trust-building. It sounds like a cure for lunatic behavior, but this making up stories and conspiracy theories is something we all do. Gottschall writes, "Conspiracy is not limited to the stupid, the ignorant, or the crazy. It is a reflex of the storytelling mind's compulsive need for meaningful experience." The problem is that rather than rumbling with vulner­ ability and staying in uncertainty, we start to fill in the blanks with our fears and worst-case-scenario planning. I love this line from Gottschalk "To the conspiratorial mind, shit *never* just happens." The power of "the story I'm telling myself' is that it reflects a very real part of what it means to be a meaning-making human. It's disarming because it's honest. We all do it. This is why it works across diverse environments and with all people. For example, we recently facilitated the Daring Leadership program at Shell, with an elite deep-sea engineering team called SURF (Subsea Umbilical Risers and Flowlines). Gwo-Tarng Ju, or GT as he's more commonly known, bravely led his executive leadership team through the work. Like GT, who has a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering, most of the leaders were engineers or project managers. Part of the focus of our work together was examining how their leaders give per­ formance feedback or lead setback debriefs as directives rather than facilitating conversations that lead to a deeper under­ standing of skill gaps, communication issues, and structural barriers. After spending time drilling down on the differences between systemic vulnerability (which is not good) and relational vulner­ ability (which is a prerequisite for courageous leadership), the team started building skills that enabled them to engage in diffi­ cult conversations with one another and their direct reports. Speaking to this new skill set, GT writes: We have been able to achieve more constructive perfor­ mance feedback sessions after learning the rising skills of reality-checking the stories we all make up during conflicts or setbacks. Circling back also allows us to gain clarity and minimize the negative emotion that often frames the feed­ back process. By surfacing dilemmas swiftly and construc­ tively, leaders can help resolve conflicts in a timely manner. This is critically important given the complex and high-risk environments where we work. Without real conversation around feedback, there is less learning and more defensiveness. Because it's human nature to turn on some level of self-protection when dealing with setbacks and receiving feedback, it's important to circle back with employ­ ees to ensure that the intention of the message matched what was actually heard, and to reality-check SFDs. And for organizations that use a forced ranking system in em­ ployee evaluations, it's essential to create a culture in which cir­ cling back and checking out stories is safe and built into the evaluation process. You can do this by scheduling two meetings--- one for the initial conversation and one for the story checking. Another example comes from Melinda Gates, whom you met earlier. Melinda is someone who often sees curiosity and asking the right questions as a leadership superpower, and her story res­ onated deeply with me. She writes: For the longest time, the story I was making up was, *That* *expert is ignoring me or condescending to me because I'm* *not Bill.* But after years of feeling that sting, I started to realize that something else was underneath. I was worried that I didn't know enough science to lead world-renowned experts in global health. And it kept me from asking ques­ tions and from fully engaging. I was feeling like an impos­ ter in a new field in which I didn't have a degree. Once I was able to face the fact of my insecurity, I was able to start chipping away at it. What I now believe is, *I* *know just the right amount: enough to ask good questions,* *and not so much as to be distracted by minute details.* Re­ writing that story means that I feel confident asking seem- ingly "stupid" questions, because I've learned that they are rarely stupid and often the most important ones to raise. Both of these are great examples of finding the courage to own hard stories so we can write new endings. In addition to affecting trust and connection in relationships and teams, the stories we tell ourselves can also crush our self­ worth. The three most dangerous stories we make up are the narratives that diminish our lovability, divinity, and creativ­ ity. The reality check around our lovability: Just because some­ one isn't willing or able to love us, it doesn't mean that we are unlovable. The reality check around our divinity: No person is ordained to judge our divinity or to write the story of our spiritual worthiness. The reality check around our creativity: Just because we didn't measure up to some standard of achievement doesn't mean that we don't possess gifts and talents that only we can bring to the world. And just because someone failed to see the value in what we can create or achieve doesn't change its worth or ours. THE DELTA The difference---the delta---between what we make up about our experiences and the truth we discover through the process of rumbling is where the meaning and wisdom of this experience live. The delta holds our key learnings---we just have to be willing to walk into our stories and rumble. In the ham fold-over debacle, I had to rumble with shame, vulnerability, and trust. My key learnings: (1) When I'm strug­ gling and things are falling apart, I'm much more likely to shame and blame myself. I can't think of even one instance where Steve has done that to me. (2) I have to get better at asking for help. \(3) I sometimes offload emotion---I'm especially good at bouncing hurt with anger. Because I had the "I'm making this up" tool and was starting to put what I had learned researching *Rising Strong* into practice, Steve and I were able to take an angry almost-fight during an ex­ tremely stressful time and turn it into a moment of connection and trust. As we start to integrate what we learn from the Learning to Rise process into our lives, we get better at rumbling. In our of­ fice, we probably check the stories we're making up with each other ten times a day. Now it's shortened to "I'm making up that they're still holding the redline because their lawyers haven't re­ viewed it yet," or "I'm making up that no one is going to want to sit through that presentation on Friday afternoon." It's so much more honest, vulnerable, and disarming than making proclamations that are really just conjecture. Personally, I have found that sometimes the Learning to Rise process takes five minutes to get from "facedown in the arena" to the delta to key learnings---but sometimes it takes five days, and for the big life stuff it can take months. The more you practice rumbling with vulnerability, the better and faster you get. When we own a story and the emotion that fuels it, we get to simultaneously acknowledge that something was hard while tak­ ing control of how that hard thing is going to end. We change the narrative. When we deny a story and when we pretend we don't make up stories, the story owns us. It drives our behavior, and it drives our cognition, and then it drives even more emotions until it completely owns us. THE STORY RUMBLE One of the most useful applications of the Learning to Rise pro­ cess is how we can use it when an organization, or a group within an organization, experiences a conflict or a failure or a fall. We call this the **Story Rumble.** Everyone who reads this book and puts the work into practice will have the basic tools for the Story Rumble. If necessary, you can even train people to facilitate the process or bring in one of our Certified Dare to Lead Facilitators to help. We've used this in the wake of failure to understand and address growing frustra­ tion and resentment on a team and across teams, and, most re­ cently, to get to the bottom of a major project stall. This is the Story Rumble process: Bring as many of the courage­ building tools, skills, and practices we've discussed into the room as you can---especially shared language, curiosity, grounded confi­ dence, your integrity, your values, and the trust you're building. You'll need them all, and you'll marvel at how they pay off. 1. Let's set the intention for the rumble and make sure we are clear about why we're rumbling. 2. What does everyone need to engage in this process with an open heart and mind? *Container-building is impor­* *tant, even if there's established trust in the group.* 3. What will get in the way of you showing up? 4. Here's how we commit to showing up: *from \#2 and \#3.* 5. Let's each share one permission slip. *More container-* *and trust-building.* 6. What emotions are people experiencing? *Let's put it out* *there, and let's name emotions.* 7. What do we need to get curious about? *Building more* *trust and grounded confidence by staying curious.* 8. What are your SFDs? *The Turn & Learn is very helpful* *here. These are vulnerable rumbles, and having some­* *one with more influence go first, versus having every­* *one write their thoughts down and put them up on the* *wall at the same time, can change the outcome for the* *worse.* 9. What do our SFDs tell us about our relationships? About our communication? About leadership? About the cul­ ture? About what's working and what's not working? *Stay* *curious, learn to resist needing to know.* 10. Where do we need to rumble? What lines of inquiry do we need to open to better understand what's really hap­ pening and to reality-check our conspiracy theories and confabulations? 11. What's the delta between those first SFDs and the new information we're gathering in the rumble? 12. What are the key learnings? 13. How do we act on the key learnings? 14. How do we integrate these key learnings into the culture and leverage them as we work on new strategies? What is one thing each of us will take responsibility for embed­ ding? 15. When is the circle-back? Let's regroup so we can check back in and hold ourselves and one another accountable for learning and embedding. Own the story and you get to write the ending. Deny the story and it owns you. The Revolution I'm not afraid of the word revolution, I'm afraid of a world that's becoming less courageous and authentic. I've always believed that in a world full of critics, cynics, and fearmongers, taking off the armor and rumbling with vulnerability, living into our values, braving trust with open hearts, and learning to rise so we can re­claim authorship of our own stories and lives is the revolution. Courage is rebellion. In fact, in 2010,1 wrote: *Revolution* might sound a little dramatic, but in this world, choosing authenticity and worthiness is an absolute act of resistance. Choosing to live and love with our whole hearts is an act of defiance. You're going to confuse, piss off, and terri­ fy lots of people---including yourself. One minute you'll pray that the transformation stops, and the next minute you'll pray that it never ends. You'll also wonder how you can feel so brave and so afraid at the same time. At least that's how I feel most of the time\... brave, afraid, and very, very alive. If you asked me to boil down everything I've learned from this research, I would tell you these three things: 1. The level of collective courage in an organization is the absolute best predictor of that organization's ability to be successful in terms of its culture, to develop leaders, and to meet its mission. 2. The greatest challenge in developing brave leaders is helping them acknowledge and answer their personal call to courage. Courage can be learned if we're willing to put down our armor and pick up the shared language, tools, and skills we need for rumbling with vulnerability, living into our values, braving trust, and learning to rise. 3. We fail the minute we let someone else define success for us. Like many of you, I spent too many years taking on projects and even positions, just to prove I could do it. I was driven by a definition of success that didn't reflect who I am, what I want, or what brings me joy. It was sim­ ply accomplish-acquire-collapse-repeat. There was veiy little joy, very little meaning, and tons of exhaustion and resentment. In *The Gifts of Imperfection,* I wrote about the importance of a "joy and meaning" list and the power of actually thinking through these questions: When things are going really well in our family, what does it look like? What brings us the most joy? When are we in our zone?" For my family, the answers included things like sleep, working out, healthy food, cooking, time off, weekends away, going to church, being present with the kids, a sense of con­ trol over our money, date nights, meaningful work that doesn't consume us, time to piddle, time with family and close friends, giving back, and time to just hang out---real white space. What was shocking for me and Steve was comparing this list to how we had defined success: There was no time for joy and meaning because we were too busy achieving. And we were achiev­ ing so we could buy more joy and meaning, but those require time, and time---that precious unrenewable resource---is not for sale. Make your joy and meaning list and make sure that you use it as you define success for yourself. I stray from my list way too often, and I'm still adding to it---it's a lifelong practice. But it's been the best filter for making choices when bright and shiny op­ portunities come my way. Now, I can ask myself if taking some­ thing on moves me closer to what brings me joy and meaning. This alone is a revolutionary act. As you think about your own path to daring leadership, re­ member Joseph Campbell's wisdom: "The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." Own the fear, find the cave, and write a new ending for yourself, for the people you're meant to serve and support, and for your culture. Choose courage over comfort. Choose whole hearts over armor. And choose the great adventure of being brave and afraid. At the exact same time. More than any other book I've written, this one was a serious crash and a huge team effort. Everyone on these pages has touched this book in a significant way. I am deeply grateful. The BBEARG Team To Ellen Alley, Suzanne Barrail, Cookie Boeker, Ronda Dear­ ing, Linda Duraj, Lauren Emmerson, Margarita Flores, Cydney Ghani, Barrett Guillen, Sarah-Margaret Hamman, Zehra Javed, Jessica Kent, Charles Kiley, Hannah Kimbrough, Bryan Longo­ ria, Murdoch Mackinnon, Madeline Obernesser, Julia Pollack, Tati Reznick, Deanne Rogers, Ashley Brown Ruiz, Teresa Sample, Kathryn Schultz, Anne Stoeber, Tyler Sweeten, Meredith Tomp­ kins, and Genia Williams: Keep being brave, serving the work, and taking good care. You make me a braver person and I learn from all of you every single day. Thank you. \#theworkwedo To Murdoch: Let's do the damn thing! The Random House Team To my editor, Ben Greenberg: Thank you for making me laugh and helping me make sense of my thoughts and words. Charlie nor­mally doesn't like it when I go into book-writing mode, but now he just wants you to come back to Houston so y'all can eat Torchy's and play Fortnite. To the Random House team of Gina Centrello, Susan Kamil, Andy Ward, Molly Turpin, Theresa Zoro, Maria Braeckel, Melissa Sanford, Erin Richards, Leigh Marchant, Jessica Bonet, Benjamin Dreyer, Loren Noveck, Susan Turner, Joe Perez, Sandra Sjursen, Emily DeHuff, Lisa Feuer, and Karen Dziekonski: It's a great privi­ lege to work with such a wholehearted team. Thank you. To Elise Loehnen: Deeply grateful for your gifts. I know it's all brains, hard work, and practice, but you make it feel like magic. The William Morris Endeavor Team To my agent and friend, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh: Thank you for always believing. \#pickles To Tracy Fisher and the entire team at William Morris En­ deavor: I'm grateful for the guidance and grind. The DesignHaus Team To Wendy Hauser, Mike Hauser, Jason Courtney, Daniel Stewart, Kristen Harrelson, Julie Severns, Annica Anderson, Kyle Ken­ nedy: Thank you for the rumbles and the art. I'm proud of our partnership and the work we do together. To Kristin Enyart: Thank you for rocking it! Our house is your house. The Newman and Newman Crew Thanks to Kelli Newman, Linda Tobar, Kurt Lang, Raul Casares, Boyderick Mays, Van Williams, Mitchell Earley, John Lance, Tom Francis, and Dorothy Strouhal. The Home Team Love and thanks to Deanne Rogers and David Robinson, Molly May and Chuck Brown, Jacobina Alley, Corky and Jack Crisci, Ashley and Amaya Ruiz; Barrett, Frankie, and Gabi Guillen; Ja­ son and Layla Brown, Jen, David, Larkin, and Pierce Alley, Shif Berhanu, Negash Berhanu, Margarita Flores, and Sarah-Margaret Hamman. To Polly Koch: I miss you. To Ashley and Barrett: I never take for granted that we get to work together every day. Thank you for laughing with me and keeping it uncomfortably real. To Steve, Ellen, and Charlie: You are my heart. To Lucy: You are my weird dog. And my heart.