During times of uncertainty and vulnerability, their values were an important support to them, a ‘North Star’ that helped guide them through periods of darkness.

wherever perfectionism is driving us, shame is riding shotgun.

I don’t like talking into the void. I need to see enough faces to know if we’re in sync. Are the words and images pulling us together or pushing us apart? Are they recognizing their experiences in my stories? People make very specific faces when they’re hearing something that rings true for them. They nod and smile and sometimes cover their faces

The next year brought Braving the Wilderness, a book about the courage to belong to ourselves as a prerequisite for true belonging, and the dangers of spending our lives trying to fit in and hustle for acceptance. It was a topic I felt called to research and write in the midst of increased polarization, rampant dehumanization of people who are

Get clear on whose opinions of you matter.

what I call “the physics of vulnerability.” It’s pretty simple: If we are brave enough often enough, we will fall. Daring is not saying “I’m willing to risk failure.” Daring is saying “I know I will eventually fail, and I’m still all in.”

Empathy is not connecting to an experience, it’s connecting to the emotions that underpin an experience.

Once we start to build vulnerability skills, we can start to develop the other skill sets.

We avoid tough conversations, including giving honest, productive feedback. Some leaders attributed this to a lack of courage, others to a lack of skills, and, shockingly, more than half talked about a cultural norm of “nice and polite” that’s leveraged as an excuse to avoid tough conversations. Whatever the reason, there was saturation across the