Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability

"They fully believed that being vulnerable made them beautiful. ... They talked about the willingness to say 'I love you' first."
http://www.ted.com Brene Brown studies human connection -- our ability to empathize, belong, love.

How has this video been useful to me?

As a coach I sometimes struggle with being vulnerable when working with clients.

Yet the most powerful experiences I had with clients so far were all moments when I dared to be vulnerable, mostly when I felt something was going on that I didn't understand. Basically being vulnerable came down to honestly paying respect to the not-knowing-stance.

At one point (10:00) Brown says that happier people tend to embrace vulnerability and they describe it in terms of "The willingness to say 'I love you' first".

When I see my teachers (Luc Isebaert, Myriam Lefevere, Anton Stellamans, Liselotte Baeijaert, Hélène Dellucci and others) at work, that's what strikes me the most: they set the stage for solution focused work by saying 'I love you' first.

Not the cheesy kind of 'I love you' but the kind of empathic joining with our common human condition. In that sense they are all more or less like 21st century pragmatic buddhists who say: 'I love all people, but I sometimes hate what they do, yet that won't keep me from loving them'. And try to make it happen.

Hope you enjoy this talk.