Brene talks about the Ted Talk speaker "Michigan Engle wale," and reminisces that he explained how he was driven to create some technology to test anemia because people were dying unnecessarily. He said "I saw this need. So, what I did is I made it" and everybody just burst into applause and he said, "it didn't work and then I made it 32 more times, and then it worked." She says that Ted Talks is like a failure conference because very few people here are afraid to fail and no one that gets on the stage has not failed. Brene says that the world doesn't understand that because of shame. She cites a great quote by Theodore Roosevelt "the man the arena quote" -
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
That's what life is about "daring greatly about being in the arena." However, when we put our hand on the door and we think "I'm going in and I'm gonna try," this shame is the gremlin who says "uh! you're not good enough.... you never finished that MBA... your wife left you... I know your dad really was in .... I know you don't think that you're pretty enough or smart enough or talented enough for powerful enough..." Shame is that thing and then if we can quiet it down and walk in and say I'm gonna do this, we look up on the critic that we see pointing and laughing, 99% of the time is us. Shame drives two big tapes "never good enough" and "if you can talk it out of that one, who do you think you are." The thing to understand about shame is it's not guilt.
