Brené Brown

Hello, and welcome to happy place with me. Fearne cotton. Today. I'm meeting someone who has been at the top of my dream list of guests. Since happy place began, many years ago. I am beyond excited to be chatting to brene

Brown. The thing to understand is that the opposite of perfectionism is healthy, striving are striving for excellence. So for people who are successful,

At striving for excellence. Perfectionism is not the path. It's the greatest barrier. So what perfectionism is is actually one of our most dangerous defense mechanisms against shame judgment belittlement

failure. Brenna is a research professor at the University of Houston and a spent the last two decades, studying courage, vulnerability, shame and empathy. I'm sure you've probably read at least one of her five. New.

All times best-selling books and you'll definitely have struggled to be a person on the internet without coming across have phenomenal, tedx talk, the power of vulnerability. It's had over 50 million views, 50 million, the Mind boggles prepare your mind to be blown further during this chat, because we've got into some really interesting stuff about focusing on our interior World, rather. They're taking cues from the exterior world all the time. And why perfectionism is

Actually an unhelpful defense mechanism. I'm just going to also add okay. As a disclaimer that for the first five minutes of this conversation. I am like, well excited, I talk too much. I talk too quickly. I'm trying to get every thought I've ever had about brene Brown out into the open. That's just a warning and then you will feel that naturally about 50 minutes in. I just get into a little rhythm and I feel more at peace with myself and my life and I talked less and a bit more slow.

A

so sorry about my excitement. I was well excited.

Right. I cannot wait for you to hear this. This is the show.

Hey, Bradley Brown. Hi Fern. How are you? I don't know how to express how I am. Because let me tell you this brene. When I started doing this podcast near enough to four years ago. I wrote a dream list of guests and you were at the top. So not know. What do I do though? I just give up. I'll stop. I'll stop after

this. Oh, please, you better not.

I won't, I won't, but I am. I'm deeply thrilled. So, thank you so, so much for coming on you. Well, today, you happy.

You know, I am well and

happy and that's not every day right now. So I will take it. I'm well and happy excited to be with

you. Good. I'm so glad and thank you from the bottom of my heart, for writing, all of your beautiful books. I've read them all over the years and very recently got a copy of atlas of the heart, which I loved reading as well. And this book is a map for us to navigate life, which we need. We need more maps. We need so many Maps because I think more than ever, we all

I feel a bit lost and I wonder why you think that is

hmm. Well, I can't speak for how it is there. But here I mean, I think it's close to the same. It's just been a shit show for the last 18 months. I mean, it's been really in many ways disastrous. I mean we have had so Much Death so much loss so much disruption. It's been tumultuous. It's been confusing and scary and hard with the pandemic I think.

It's interesting because I think we feel untethered and I think we're looking externally for kind of that port in the storm without understanding that. What will tether us and keep us from feeling adrift is inside of us, not external to

us. The pulse is inside the harbor is in here and you're so, right? Because I found myself sort of

grappling with that and looking for this sort of, you know, life raft somewhere. You know, I've been very lucky. I've managed to keep working throughout many of my friends have not had the same sort of setup, but still just the the feeling of uncertainty and the feeling of fear and wanting to look for that that place of safety and you know, very much like yeah, that's what your whole book is about is is looking at the inside World rather than it's always looking at the exterior while the whole time and then again deeply fascinating.

Eight. And I'm such a huge fan of yours. Like many people are, because you have that wonderful combination of combining data and your work. As a research Professor with your own real-life anecdotes and experiences to sort of backup. Okay. This is what you maybe the date, or the science says, but this is how I feel and it's such a potent combination that has just helped so many people and best scene in your Ted Talk, which is one of the most viewed, TED Talks out there. I've probably watched about 50 times myself.

Because so many of us have dealt with shame and I certainly lost quite a few years of my life to shame and feeling like I was really drowning in it. And I wonder if the conversation is even more relevant today because cancel culture exists and I really struggle with this one because you know, a lot of the work that I do is I want to help people feel less alone and you know shame certainly isolates you and ostracize has you. But how can we expect ourselves or others to eradicate? Shame?

Our

Lives knowing that cancel culture exists,

I feel like I want to look behind me to see if someone back there has the answer. Like I just, I mean this is, this is my new, this is my new Theory. I've been really thinking about this over the last six months, a lot. I think.

We're so shit at holding people accountable that all that we turn to canceling and shaming and vitriol and name calling because we either don't know. How are we're not willing to do the really rigorous vulnerable work of holding people accountable. Like we don't know how to do that. And so what we do instead of saying when you

Aged in this Behavior are when you said this or when you took this action, it hurt me or it hurt other people. And I'm going to hold you accountable for that. We just blast them and so, there's no learning. There's, I mean, it's it's incredible. The absence of accountability is so overwhelming, but it's so pervasive. It's like, asking a fish to describe water. Like we really can't.

Even we don't even understand it. So what we do is we just get rid of people

is that because we're doing it to ourselves but we're not holding ourselves accountable for things with responsibilities. We're shaming ourselves daily. Therefore, it's so easy to do it to other

people. I think that's a really important Insight because I think look, when I, I'll give you an example. This is a real example, so I have probably maybe 10 or 11 million people that follow across all my social media channels. It's a lot

And I wrote a post. I don't know, maybe nine ten months ago. I can tell you exactly when it was, it was a year ago because it was the first podcast I recorded with the duplass brothers JM Arc du plus. And I said something about, Mark duplass being my spirit animal and within seconds on social, I had just this massive kind of God burning. You can't say that. That's really hurtful. You know, I don't think.

You must not have everything from, you must not know that. That's really terrible appropriation of indigenous people to you fucking asshole. I'm not following you anymore. Like I mean every it's from in death threats like that. Always, you know, when you have that many people it's the range of Sanity. Yeah, and I remember my team coming to me and saying we'll pull down. The post will pull down the posts and I said, no, we're not going to pull down the post. We're going to address it. So I just got on

On and said I'm going to edit this post in the comments. I apologize to the people that this hurt. I did not understand that or know that but I know better now, so I'll do better now. Thank you for teaching me. And for those of you impacted by this regardless of my intention. I apologize. And you don't see people what you normally see is when people do that and they get people, you know, they call get called out for it.

They either go into deep shame and and what shame looks like on the outside is justifying, rationalizing, blaming or shutting down, but they don't lean in gem saying?

Well, I do, because I'm, I can only relate to what I've been through myself. But when I was in a big patch of shame, my option was shot down. I just closed off shutdown, but I think the only way I've been able to move through it and not carry that bag of shit around with me anymore is to face.

Face it and to not pretend that the stuff didn't happen that I don't want to think about. And to look at what I might have been accountable for versus the stuff that people just projected onto me, right? And again, it goes back to, you know, understanding, I guess accountability. And also, you know, the thing that you're an expert in which is looking at vulnerability and apologizing or even if it's not public, but it's just to yourself.

Apologizing for the harm, you might have even done to yourself. I think that all of those feelings, it's so uncomfortably exposing but essential I think if, if we're to move through this stuff and not just lug it around forever because we can we can pull that stuff into, you know, to the Future decades. And decades ahead will still be carrying around that shame and less. I guess we do face the monster that we've shot away somewhere.

I mean, yeah, it was

You know, I started as a shame researcher 20-something, you're 21 years ago, I guess. And I first started studying just women and shame. And I remember interviewing people, you know, in their 50s 60s that their whole lives were defined by it. I mean, really defined by it. And for those of you listening thinking, okay, what is she talking about? Was shame. I'm talking about this deeply painful experience a believing

That were flawed and somehow Unworthy of love and belonging and connection. That something we've done or failed to do. Makes us unworthy and it's very different than guilt. Guilt is, I did something bad and shame is, I am bad. And we know from, you know, now probably going on 60, 70 years of research that guilt is helpful. Guilt is when I hold a behavior up against who I want to be in my values and cognitive dissonance. It creates a psychological

Discomfort we're like shit. That is not who I want to be as a daughter as a partner as you know, a professor or leader. And I need to I need to bring things into alignment. Shame is a whole different thing. Shame is

I'm not enough.

And I absolutely believe people lead entire lifetimes defined by

it. Yeah, I mean absolutely. And you say in the book, you know, the antidote to it is empathy which we can all. See how that plays out beautifully with human connection. And somebody saying I see you, I hear you or I've had the same situation happen to me, you know, I was very lucky that I was on the receiving end of that sort of empathy, but I wonder if you have to have perhaps a small side dish.

Of self-worth in there for you to reach out in the first place because it does require you to be even more vulnerable, because you have to, then tell someone what you're feeling shameful

about. I think the good news is, I think what you need is probably self-compassion. Yeah. I think you need to give yourself permission to be human, to be both kind and cruel to be, you know.

To get it right into really. Fuck it up. Sometimes to be connected to be lonely. Just, you have to, I think it's self compassion that I love. You know, when I think about self-compassion, I always think about talk to myself. Like I would talk to someone I love and when I hold up, how I talk to myself, when I screw something up, first is how I talk to my children. It's just it's night and day, you know, if I

If my kids make a mistake, I'll first say, you know what? It's okay, you're human making mistakes is a part of this is part of this is a part of who we are. Yeah, you know when I make a mistake personally, I think to myself God you idiot. God you're so stupid and I would never ever talk to my kids that way

if you think it's getting worse because the notion of perfectionism is ubiquitous, you know, now more than ever. It's and we can see we can't see it, but we think we can see it on social media. This

We're delusive Perfection that will never quite reach and therefore self-compassion is sort of dwindling because we think we're missing the mark constantly because there's this amazing Perfection that will never quite get to.

It's really interesting that you brought out perfectionism at this point in our conversation because what people don't understand is that where perfectionism drives us. Shame is there. So perfectionism is a function of Shame. Yeah.

Yeah, it's really fun. It's such a painful lesson to learn. Like

I'm I'm processing it as you're saying it going. Of course. This is why I keep fucking

up. No, I mean it is so it was really funny a million years ago. When I when I thought it was just me first came out. I did like a had a little microphone on my kitchen table at home. And I did a little read along and someone emailed and said, oh, man, I know this book is an imperfection in women. I mean, on shaming women, my friends.

I don't really do shame, but we have a lot of perfectionism. If you ever decide to do anything on perfectionism, will you send an email blast out? And then there was like a 5-line signature like her name or title or company but then under the signature, there was a little PS. It said the two are not related. Are they? Yeah, and so I wrote back to the

bottom uses.

Yes, and the bad news is, yes, because let me let's break down perfectionism because it's so helpful to understand it. So the thing to understand is that

In the research and data and by social psychologist, a neurologist and neurobiology people. The opposite of perfectionism is healthy. Striving are striving for excellence. So for people who are successful at striving for excellence, perfectionism is not the path. It's the greatest barrier. So what perfectionism is is actually one of our most

Most dangerous defense mechanisms perfectionism says to us. Hey, Fern. If you look perfect, work, perfect and do it all perfectly. I can help you avoid ever feeling, judgment, blame, criticism, or failure. You just need to do it all perfectly. I'm right here we can do that. So what it is, it's a defense mechanism against Shane judgment. Belittlement failure. So we try to do it and a visibly. We

All because Perfection doesn't exist, but for those of us and it's really a, it's really a process addiction. Because for those of us, myself included, who struggle with perfectionism when we make a mistake, or when we inevitably regardless of how. Well we do something feel shame criticism blame.

We don't say to ourselves man. This shit does not work. I'm not doing this. We say I wasn't quite perfect enough. Yeah, what a horrible. Little vicious circle were vicious. Yeah, so then we double down. So I call perfectionism the 20-ton Shield. We think we carry it around to keep us from being hurt. But what it actually does is it keeps us from being seen and it is so addictive.

Yeah, this plays in beautifully to how you start the book in the opening section by saying you have been aware from a very young age that when you were observing Dynamics happening around you and your own family, or otherwise, you could clearly see that people would do anything to avoid pain which fits into all the things you've just described Perfection is tripe attempting to Shield us from yes, and and that will lead to us then perhaps causing someone else pain.

Maybe shutting down and hiding that we many different manifestations, but all of them will inevitably cause more pain and we kind of know that we also sort of ignore it when I was thinking about this and reading it, I was like, okay. Yeah, none of us like sitting in pain. I don't want to feel pain. I don't want to sit in it. But most of all, I like, whether that's mental or physical, most of us will survive it. And I know not everybody does, but most of us in everyday, painful situations Will Survive, it will see it through. So, what is, is there a fear beneath that what

Is the the base fear that stopping us from sitting in pain or being in pain?

I can't handle it. I can't it. And it's anticipatory anxiety. Right? It's the anticipation. It's the culture that says.

If you this gets very much into your work, you should feel ashamed for feeling anything. But happy. Yeah, we're what you tell us, is you got to sit through some hard stuff. Happiness is not happiness, is not the goal. The goal is to be real, be in whatever is lean into it. And then happiness is often the product of that work.

Yeah. I loved reading your

Happiness, because obviously this podcast is called happy place. I'm fascinated by happiness. I also had a huge period of my life where I was very, very unhappy, which was the Catalyst for all of this quite frankly. And it's something that I think, you know, culturally were obsessed with and it sort of plays into every part of life and how we imbibe information and advertising and all sorts of things, but we still seemingly get it. So wrong, is that because we're waiting for these big firework moments that have almost been sort of

Promoted to us. And we're missing the little tiny nuanced, bits of happiness, or Nuance bits of life. I guess that create

happiness. Yeah, I think we're so busy. Chasing X down extraordinary moments. Yes, that we miss all of the happiness and joy. That's contained an ordinary moments. And I think I was one of those people to I think I used to have especially maybe in my 30s a real.

Fear of a small life and it's interesting because I in the interviewing I've done as a researcher. I've done interviews and focus groups with people who have God, they've just survived, you know, genocide a focus group of parents of kids who were killed are young adults who were killed on 9/11 kids who have died of cancer, really?

Be hard, people have survived very hard things and I remember in those interviews. No one talked about the grief of missing what they believed would be the big extraordinary moments that are not going to happen. Now, what people said to me was they were things like

God, I miss the sound of the screen door slamming, when my kids went to the backyard to play, I missed the text. I would get from my mom, where you could make, you couldn't make heads or tails of what she was saying. Like, she didn't really understand how to use the text and she tried to use code with the Emoji, and it would make me crazy. She blow up my phone at work and I would kill for just one more text from her. Yeah, you know, and it's these everyday ordinary moments.

That and this is the this is like I have just even get Goose Bumps talking about it that we steamroll right over those moments looking for big moments. But yet when we inevitably experience loss and grief in our lives, it can really be defined by the loss of normalcy.

Yep, you know, God, those moments that I didn't even pay attention to.

That put a smile, maybe not on my face, but on my heart are gone now. And I never stop to count them.

As meaningful,

we've all got take heed of that because we don't do it daily. We might try might do a bit of mindfulness. I go for a walk. Look at the trees, but it's not embedded into our everyday life and it's really moving hearing. You talk about that and those those conversations that you had with people that have been through incredibly tough stuff. And but it's interesting. When looking at pain. I really enjoyed again reading how you view it and

How? I don't know, if you're communicating with it. It's communicating with you. But is it, is it pointy? Is it signposting to us where the healing is needed? What is that communication? That pain has with us.

It's a teacher, you know, it's and it me tell you something. I am not. I am like voted least likely to like, Embrace pain and say, oh, you're here. What can I learn? You know, I'm like, fuck you get out of here for like for like weeks and then I'm like, okay, you're not leaving. What do you want?

Asshole. Yeah, you know, like, that's I'm much more of that approach, but I think starting with this, if you think of pain as energy it's not going anywhere. And so it's much easier in our culture today to cause pain, then to feel

pain. So it's so easy. I mean, on this laptop, I could do it right now to anyone. I wanted. It's the easiest thing in the

world. Oh God, me too. It's so seductive and like and you know, and

Wouldn't by the way,

I would, but then I will delete it before I hit put before I publish. But I would, I would, I would I like to do it just because I've honed the craft to the point of excellence. And so, as a shame researcher, I only need to know you for about 20 minutes to bring you to your knees. Really? Because I can I can. Oh shit. Yeah. No, I mean I can

receive minute 30 I

can see what makes people vulnerable. I mean, it's what I do for a living and so

But in this world, where everybody puts their vulnerabilities out, we know how to hurt people. And so when we've got pain, we've got this energy in us. It's so much easier to ball it up our fashion, it into a weapon and hurt other people as opposed to. And unfortunately, I mean, unfortunately, most of us often lash out at the people. We love the most who are the closest are partners.

Sometimes we'll spare our children, but go straight for the partners. And you know, it's that saying that I think is true in many ways, you know, hurting people can hurt people healed, people heal people.

Yeah, that's lovely.

Yeah. There's this great scene from Steel Magnolias, where, you know, this character played by Sally Fields has just buried her daughter and she's walking and she's raging and she's sobbing.

And she turns to her friends and you know, she's like I just want to hit something. I just want to hit something so hard. I just want to cause pain. I want to hit something and the wonderful Olympia. Dukakis grabs. This woman that's in the group of people that no one likes, you know, played by Shirley MacLaine who she's such a asshole in this movie. Your name, her nickname is Weezer and she just kind of grabs her by the shoulders and puts her right in front of Sally Fields. It says, just hit her just just hit her right in the face, you know, and I think I think about that scene all the time from still.

Magnolia's because I think most of us in our culture, find it much easier to be angry than to be sad.

Oh, yeah. I'm for me is sort of right there. I can tap into it. But I know if I dig around enough I will get to sadness and that will probably leave me then to empathy for other people in the dynamic, but I have to there's a bit of work to be done before I get to that place for sure.

There's a term that I wasn't so familiar with in the book, which was personalization will certainly use in this context where if we're in a dynamic and something's gone wrong that we think. Oh my God, it's me. It's all about me. It's me. I've got this wrong. I'm flawed. I am wrong. How do we know when it's personalization versus actual accountability, where we have messed up? And we do need to actually make a change or apologize or whatever. They action might be to follow

Yeah, this is really important because I think had this goes to, this goes to the data that we have. That when we are, I mean atlas of the heart, is constructed. Very strategically. The front is kind of why, you know, my story about emotion that you mentioned, why just survival for me was understanding how people's thoughts and behaviors and emotions were linked. My parents. The people around us. The middle is an exploration of 87, different emotions, and experiences, and in

End of a framework on how we build connection with each other and I think what's really important is this idea that if we don't have the language for what we're feeling and we're overwhelmed by emotion that we cannot name. Articulate will have a very difficult if not impossible, time understanding whether we should be

Tapping into accountability or normalizing, a behavior to your point because we don't have the language, you know, we don't have the language for it. And so if let me think of an example because this is such an interesting Nuance question that you asked. So if on that post to 10 million people, I use the term spirit animal, which is absolutely inappropriate appropriated from indigenous.

U.s. People's if I go into shame, which I did.

My first response was not like, hey, it's okay. Bird a you're human. You're here to learn and get it. Right. My first response was fucking a Jesus God. Whose fault is this? Who saw this? Who let this happen? Let me. Who can I blame, like, I'm a blamer. Like, who can I blame then? My second response was. Oh my god, get say anything anymore. Like, get over it. Jesus Christ, you'd sensitive ass motherfucker. I mean, like, that's these are

I'll just I'm being totally

honest and I'm loving every second because we've all been there. We've all bloody bin there. We just might not say out loud.

Yeah, so I don't know if you're going to bleep me a lot but that those are my response. No, we don't do bleeping a great. Oh, yeah. Your first beer and your British. I forget y'all so much better at this and we are, we're, so we're far Fowler, but then apologetic, which is gross. So then I'm like, okay shit man. I'm blaming II am. I'm blaming people.

Well, I'm rationalizing, and then I'm hearing myself. Say, you can't say anything anymore everybody. So sensitive. Oh my God. Now I sound like an old white Trump supporter, like what the shit is happening here. And so in that moment, I'm like, oh God. I'm in shame. I'm in shame. And so I have a rule when I'm in shame, which is don't talk text or type to anybody.

Well, I love in that. Yeah. I'm having that.

Yeah, don't tell.

Stacks are tight because I can be mean.

You know, we have 33 kind of pattern responses to shame. We know this from the research. This is from research from Wellesley the Stone Center there. We move away by hiding secret. Keeping. We move toward by people-pleasing. Are we move against by using shame and anger to fight shame. I'm usually a move against her.

And so okay. I'm in shame. Don't talk, text or type? Don't talks text or type. I'm probably going to have to cry before I'm back on my emotional feet which pisses me off even more? But it's okay. So then I come through the shame and then I'm like, okay I was able to because I was able to name what I was in and not respond in a way. That moved me, out of my values and really did some damage. Now. I'm back on my emotional feet. So now I get

To choose who I want to be my crazy ass emotions are not choosing for me. I'm choosing and that's why.

Having a vocabulary for emotion and experience, that's as expansive as our actual emotions and experiences is vitally important because language is a portal.

It's our most important portal. Actually, language is a portal.

Two new choices, Second Chances and that's what happened for me that day, but I didn't go into some kind of like what should I do? I'm lovely. And imperfect. I went into a sure. I swing first and ask questions

later. Yeah. Yeah. I I very much relate to everything you've just said and there are situations like a even think of now where I guess you.

Get humble, you need to get to that place, where you're then able to put yourself in a vulnerable space to apologize, or whatever is needed. Next stuff is hard, but it's essential, it's essential. And also, like you've just described with, you know, using all of this wonderful language this lexicon, we have now relating to emotion. It's liberating, essentially, because like, you say, with them, we've got more options, lot more choices. Who do I want to be? How do I want to respond to this rather than this is so boring. I'm just being angry again.

N because it gets quite tedious.

I mean, but think about this, think about this so early. Probably I don't know, maybe 10 11 years ago as part of a curriculum that we ran. We surveyed over 7,000. People named make a list of all of the emotions that you can recognize in yourself as you're feeling them and accurately named the average number was

three. Wow. Yeah. Happy.

Add sad. Imagine. I mean this is this is the example I use in the book. I mean, imagine you've earned you've got a pain in your shoulder from playing me in pickleball. Will say that you've got to paint in your. You got a pain in your shoulder that so excruciating. That, when it radiates, it literally takes your breath away. You see stars and it started small, but now it's basically defining your life.

You can't sleep at night. You can't get your cute sweater over your head. You, I mean, and it's all you think about and you just are either in pain or anticipating pain. You finally get an appointment with the orthopedist. You go in and she looks at you and says, hey Fern, what's going on? And the moment you try to tell her, there's duct tape, over your mouth and your hands are tied behind your back and use in. She says, come on. I need to know where it hurts. Can you not show me where I may understand? Can you not show me where it hurts?

Like, I need you to tell me what's going on. Human nature says that you'll respond in one of two ways. You'll start thrashing about in her office knocking, stuff off shelves and just just out of rage and Desperation or you'll just start crying and slumped down on the floor. Because you've got a pain that you can't articulate. You can't share, you can't ask for what you need. When The Human Experience of our of our emotions, get shoved.

Ain't you happy sad or mad? We are that person.

Yeah. Yeah, I get it. And I'm and that's why this book is a map. It's a map of us going like, you know, I had discoveries going. Oh, yeah, that's what that is, you know, and and there were some times I was completely new to, which was so interesting as well. And you mentioned this, by the way, I saw that, you're obsessive pickleball. I've never heard of it, but I'm intrigued by pickleball. It's a ball with holes in and you is like, tennis.

It's like tennis ping pong and badminton.

Baby, okay. I

don't know if that's over here yet. Or maybe I'm just, I've been living under a rock and everyone's playing pickleball and I told her about it, but I'll need you to get it. I'll beat you to get, it started over there so that

when I come we can

plug doing it. Okay. Well that can be one of my very many missions in life people bull. So you mentioned this a moment ago and it was actually something I underlined in the book when you're talking about the importance of connection and and human connection to alleviate many different emotions that we might feel.

And to do that, we need to at first, of course, be connected with ourselves. I think a lot of people listening to this will go. Am I connected to myself? Am? I is there a disconnect? Do I know? How do we work that one out if we're not sure if we're connected authentically to ourself or not.

I think the first question is a question of embodiment. Are we connected with our bodies? Yeah. Can we feel what's happening? I mean, they call them.

Since feelings. Yeah, because we feel them in the body first. The body is the first indicator light of what's going on. So, for me, when something shaming happens, you know, let's go back to the Instagram post and I see the very first comment that says, Jesus pray. What were you thinking? This is so hurtful immediately. I know for me. Shame means time slows down. I go into town.

No vision, my mouth gets dry, my armpits tingle. I start putting things on a loop that I can't get out of. So I think when we talk about connection to self, it's it's really about self-awareness. Are we connected with our bodies? Do we understand? Like hey, something's off or Jesus. I don't I came out of that that meeting so it's a here's where it's

The difference between you and I work together and we come out of a meeting, and I come out of the meeting and I go God. I came out of that meeting really pissed off and I start searching for what happened in that meeting with me. And Fernando are teams that left me so pest, so angry as opposed to, I came out of that meat. Hey, Fern to have a second. I came out of that meeting like emotionally hooked by something. I don't even know what I'm feeling.

But I came out of that meeting. I'm like, I'm activated around something. I don't know what's going on. And then you and I start having a conversation. And what we realize is what I'm really feeling is Disappointment because I've been working really hard on this project. It was on the agenda and we didn't even get to it

when when let's talk about disappointment because mmm, again, I'll super intrigued by this section of the book and obviously

We set really high expectations. There is a bigger margin for disappointment. Where is the balance? When should we shoot for the stars versus lower? The expectations?

So I don't ever like, lowering the expectations, and I'll tell you why, it goes back to another gut-wrenching. The, the interviews that I did. There are so many people. And I have to say this feels very pervasive to me in the UK. There are so many people that choose to live.

I've disappointed rather than risk feeling disappointment and I'm probably more of a high-low person. So I never knew I don't do that very often, but I will say that I interviewed a man who was in his late 60s. And this was, I think was it for daring greatly. I don't remember, but I remember him saying that his whole life. He never really, he always watched expectations. So he was never too disappointed, but never got too excited.

Whether we're, his wife would get really excited and feel great disappointment. And he said they were in a very tragic car wreck and she was killed on impact and they had been married for 40 years and he said when he came to in the hospital realize that she had been killed, one of the very first thoughts. He had is, I wish I would have leaned into those joyful moments more because I haven't been saved an ounce of pain on this day to day.

And, you know, and so here's what I would say. I think you can have it's more work than having, you know, lowering expectations. What we need are expectations that are intentional and reality checked. We don't have to lower them. But we have to say, you know, I I'm going to get in great shape for my 30-year, High School reunions.

And when I walk in there, people are going to be like, oh, oh, holy shit, right. So, is that a high expectation? No, that's just a bad expectation. I'll tell you why, you can't control how other people react, know you. Do. You have no control over how people are gonna react. So that's just a bad expectation. So, what I think is you can have high expectations but reality check one. Are you clear about why? That's an expectation. Are you?

Lean into your expectation managing how other people respond, you know, and for you know, I think I call them stealth expectations because their expectations, we have not articulated or communicated. I think there there are the killers of relationships with our partners Steve and I have had more painful arguments in our 30-something years together around expectations than probably around anything

else. Did I? I expect my husband to mine.

Read my expectations that I am yet to even communicate with him and I'm still pissed off. I'm

still pissed. I am too. And I mean I tell you the Steve's favorite line that I think that all the time is, hey, I'm happy to be in your movie, but I'll need a script in advance.

Yes. Well, guess what? I've got one here for you that you guys. Yeah, I wrote it. I just

but you know, that's vulnerable because I'll say, you know, I'll say hey I'm going to share something with you that happened at work, and I'm really freaked out about it and I'll need

You to respond calmly. But match my level of freaked out - yes, and he'll be like, okay, I got it and then I'll say here's what happened at work and he'll be like shit that would have freaked me out too. And it's not any. Yeah, let me tell you. Can I tell you a quick

story? Oh my God, that it's just me and my husband. He's got me. Tell me, tell me,

it's terrible. It was like the mean.

A thing, a therapist has ever said, never on been on the receiving end of some mean shit. But okay, so so Steve and I so Steven I get married, were newly married, super stressful. I'm commuting graduate school. He's in his, he's in medical school. We're broke, you know, it's just hard times. And then I wake up our first, my first birthday after our wedding and I come downstairs and when there's a little too, like little Upstairs Downstairs, tiny apartment, and I look around and there's jack shit.