Books that Change Lives – Daring Greatly

Book Review – Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, 2015 Publication, Brené Brown

First Published: 2012 by Avery

The main theory of the book asks the question – why is being vulnerable a hard thing to do? Vulnerability is defined as uncertainty and risk.

I choose this book for review partly because I love the title; I’ve always loved that quote from Roosevelt about failing while daring greatly. I’ve listened to Brene on TED, and really enjoyed her too.

I agree with Brene when she says that you can’t experience joy or peace without connections to others, but we can’t have these connections without allowing ourselves to be vulnerable.

I guess this book got to me because I don’t like the idea of vulnerability, I would always present my best smile to the world, and one of my most difficult learning curves has been to try to be absolutely authentic at all times. I’m working on it, but I certainly have a little of the control-freak in me, and it’s not always fun to change.

The research behind the book is detailed well and is fascinating. How and why do men and women handle shame differently?

There’s a chapter on parenting which I found really interesting, children have to experience disappointment, deal with conflict, learn how to assert themselves etc. Sometimes we wrap our kids in cotton-wool, and it is not for their benefit – we’re doing it for ourselves.

I love Brene’s personality and humour which comes across here, but maybe more so in her TED talks, I’ll certainly search for a few more of them after reading this book.

I enjoyed it, I felt there were a lot of lessons to learn from it – I just don’t know how to go about starting. In places it’s a little general, and I would have liked a bit more concrete advice about how to overcome vulnerability and shame – but overall, I’d give this book 5 stars!

Books that change lives – Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead – review by a graduate of the Diploma in Executive and Life Coaching