Who Cares What THEY Think! Overcome Other People's Opinions and Your Own Self-Doubt with Brené Brown
this past weekend a really good friend of mine who lives in New York called and
said how are you feeling about the ninety nine conference and my answer was
what do you think is the least invasive way to extract eyeball juice from a
first grader and his response was Oh God are you in that place and I said no
really this is here's the idea there is a total pinkeye epidemic in my son's
class and if I could get some of the juice I could give myself pinkeye which
would be a legitimate excuse not to go and I can even like you know do a selfie
with like a big eye and then it would be legit and he said I thought you were
excited and I said I was excited but as I was working on my keynote I realized
that I had kind of tricked myself into believing that this was my tribe and
then I realized like my obsession with fonts doesn't really make me one of you
and he said well why did you know what was going on when you thought you were
one of them and I said I don't know I'm gonna have to think about it and he said
you're a researcher it doesn't necessarily mean that you're not you
know a creative and I said no these are the creatives these are the people that
no one sat with in high school and then everybody wants to be when they grow up
I'm a researcher no one set with us in high school no one still sits with us
so I thought about it and I thought okay so I'm a researcher I study connection I
study vulnerability I study love and then I realized why I thought you were
my tribe I think it's because design is a function of connection there is
nothing more vulnerable than creativity and what is art if it's not love so it
made sense to me to be here and then I thought okay 99% perspiration they said
don't talk about inspirational stuff talk about the how to's so you know my
name sometimes I name my keynote presentations things that will make me
feel better about being here so this one's called sweaty creatives because I
know what it means to be a sweaty creative because I create all the time
when I write the way I translate my research when I talk and I know what the
perspiration feels like and so what I want to talk about today is the
perspiration that no one talks about very often and that's not the
perspiration from the hard work and the laborious part of creating it's the
perspiration from fear from the cold sweat the stuff that pops up on our
eyebrows when it's not supposed to be there because we're presenting an idea
are talking about something that we care about and then we're begging our body
not to sweat like when they said we're filming you against black could you wear
something else I'm like no that 99% perspiration thing I'm down
with that I got that I won't be where I'll be worried I guess my option will
be Navy so I know about sweaty creatives so I want to tell you about something
that changed my life as a creative person and it's a quote from Theodore
Roosevelt and it is completely I mean I know it sounds cheesy and cliche I think
a quote can change your life but sometimes when you hear something when
you need to hear it and you're ready to hear it
something shifts inside of you and so my story is that I am a researcher and I
never thought I would have a big public career and so I did a TED talk that went
very viral and in the wake of that I was kind of everywhere for a couple of
months on every cnn.com NPR it was everywhere and something I wasn't used
to and the marching orders from my therapist and my husband were do not
read the comments online so I read all the comments online
it's a one morning I woke up and there were two or three new articles out and I
started reading the comments and they were devastating they weren't about my
work they were about me they were super personal and they were the things that
creative people play in their mind and then give up doing what they really want
to do like if I asked every single one of you you would try what would you try
if you knew people would never say this about you what would that what would
this be it would those were the comments that
morning of course she embraces imperfection what
choice does she have look what she look at how she looks I feel sorry for her
kids less research more Botox just mean personal attacks the things that really
up until that moment had inspired me to stay very small in my life in my career
just so I could avoid those things so that morning Steve and the kids leave I
stay home I get on the couch and I watch eight hours of Downton Abbey and when
it's over I don't want to turn off Downton Abbey because I then because the
minute you turn off Downton Abbey then it's like soccer practice and dinner and
back to the mean people and maybe should I get Botox and maybe you know maybe if
I stand still when I talk so I get at my laptop and I do a search for who was
president in the United States during the Downton Abbey era have you ever done
that like you're numbing with TV or movie and so when it's over you just
like stay in that space by like learning more about the actors and what's going
on I've been doing this long enough to know this is like you're laughing with
me so I put it in and Theodore Roosevelt
comes up and a quote comes up and I read it and this is what it says it's a quote
from a speech that he gave in the early nineteen hundred's of the Sorbonne and a
lot of people call them in the arena speech and this is the passage that
changed changes my life it's not the critic who counts it's not the man who
points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of Deeds could have
done it better the credit belongs to the person who's actually in the arena whose
face is marred with blood and sweat and dust who at the best in the end knows
the triumph of high achievement and who at worst if he fails he fails daring
greatly so the moment that I read that I closed my laptop and this is what
shifted in me three huge things first I spent the last 12 years studying
vulnerability and that quote was everything I know about vulnerability it
is not about winning it's not about losing it's about showing up and being
seen the second thing this is who I want to be I want to create I want to make
things that didn't exist before I touch them I want to show up and be seen in my
work and in my life and if you're going to show up and be seen there is only one
guarantee and that is you will get your ass kicked
that is the guarantee that's the only certainty you have if you're gonna go in
the arena and spend any time in there whatsoever especially if you've
committed to creating in your life you will get your ass kicked so you have to
decide at that moment I think for all of us if courage is a value that we hold
this is a consequence you can't avoid it the third thing which really set me free
and I think Steve my husband would argue has made me somewhat dangerous it's kind
of a new philosophy about criticism which is this if you're not in the arena
also getting your ass kicked I'm not interested in your feedback I I you know
if you have constructive information feedback to give me I want it and yeah
I'm an academic I'm hardwired for wrestling around with stuff like that
say hey you forgot all this literature hey you should have done this or you
terrible sentence construction over here like let's go let's do it I love that
but if you're in the cheap seats not playing yourself on the line and just
talking about how I could do it better I'm in no way interested in your
feedback so I know about the sweaty creative and so what I want to do today
is I want to talk very specifically about the arena this is where this is
where we swept how many of you know this feeling by just looking at the picture
yeah show of hands how many of you know this feeling so this is what we do down
here like I don't know what you didn't do
down here but what I set up camp down here I like stringing up twinkle lights
I order takeout food I live down here sometimes just dreaming about the day
that I come up and how awesome it's gonna be like but I stay down here a lot
and here's what we do what the arena's right there you can see it the lights
there and the fear is this I'm scared a lot of self-doubt comparison anxiety
uncertainty and so what do most people do when they're walking into the arena
and those things are going to greet them at up top what do you do you armor up
right this is where I would imagine the old days that they got all their stuff
on but God that stuff is heavy and that stuff is suffocating and the problem is
when you armed her up against vulnerability you shut yourself off and
I've said this to audiences before but I have never said it to an audience where
it is more true than today the second when you armor up you armor up in this
hallway you shut yourself off from everything
that you do and that you love because vulnerability is certainly a part of
fear and self-doubt and grief and uncertainty and shame but it's also the
birthplace of these it's the birthplace of love a belonging of joy trust empathy
creativity and innovation without vulnerability you cannot create so what
I think you're asked to do as a creative on a daily basis is walk through this
hall get to the top of the stairs and get naked
of course
get naked get really real put yourself out there and walk out there so people
can see you and see what you've made and see what you're doing so when we walk
out this is what we see lots of seats lots of people but we focus in and we
focus on this the critics I used to think the best way to put your work out
into the world is to make sure the critics are not in the arena but you
have no control over who's in the arena and the best way I have found is to know
that they're there and to know exactly what they're going to say to you because
each of you know the three seats that will always be taken when you walk into
the arena when you share your work with someone the three seats that will always
be taken are shame scarcity in comparison shame completely universal
human emotion we all have it it's that gremlin that whispers you're
not you're not enough or if you're feeling pretty confident like this I
went to dislike innocent when Scott was talking I went back and forth from like
like a ping-pong table with gremlins back from oh my god I'm
not enough I'm not enough - I can do this I can totally that oh who do you
think you are that's the other gremlin that's how it works like look at you you
big for your britches I clearly have Texas gremlins
I don't know that everyone says too big for their britches but that's what
migrant ones say so shame always has a seat the other seat that's always taken
is scarcity what am i doing that everyone what am i doing that's original
everyone else is doing this 150 people are doing that who are better trained
than on trend than I am what am i contributing does this really matter the
third seat always comparison how many of you ever struggle with comparison
comparison is it nightmare you know I made a pact not to talk to anyone in the
green room because what I was afraid that I would end up doing is say so what
are you talking about that's interesting because I'm going
first and so if it sounds super good and I think I suck comparatively I may say
that and then I'm catching a flight to Dallas comparison is always there the
fourth seat I left open for you you got an ad who's in the fourth seat
is it a teacher is it a parent is it a shitty ex-coworker am I the only one
that ever had one of those the thing is I don't care what people think
I don't worry about the critics in the arena sends a huge red flag up for me
we're hardwired for connection when we stop caring what people think we lose
our capacity for connection when we become defined by what people think we
lose our capacity to be vulnerable not caring what people think is its own kind
of hustle trust me so rather than locking these folks out
from the arena what I'm going to invite you to do this way maybe his reserve
seats for them which doesn't seem like a good thing to do but I have 13,000
pieces of data and I've done this work for 12 years and what I have found and
what I have learned from these folks and then try to apply it my own life that
has changed my life is to reserve a seat to take the critics to lunch and to
simply say when I'm trying to do something new and hard and original and
I'm trying to be creative and I'm trying to innovate to say I see you I hear you
but I'm gonna show up and do this anyway and I've got a seat for you and you're
welcome to come but I'm not interested in your feedback
the other piece that's tough is to me if you're gonna spend your life in the
arena if you're gonna spend your life showing up really showing up there's a
couple things that you need the first is a clarity of values you have to like I
know like when I came out here I knew I could screw this completely up I could
get booed offstage bad things could happen but I don't have a choice because
if courage is my value I have to do this whether it's successful or not it's
irrelevant so a real clarity of values is important
the other thing is you got to have at least one person in your life who's
willing to pick you up and dust you off and look at you when you fail which
hopefully you will because if you're not failing you're really not showing up but
who is willing to look at you when you fail and say man that sucked
yeah it was totally as bad as you thought but you were brave and let's get
you cleaned up and because you're gonna go back in and this is someone who loves
you not despite your imperfections and vulnerabilities but because of them and
they should have great seats in the arena like I forgot for 5/10 for a
decade I forgot to invite these people into my arena because you know it's the
old I always want to say Karl Marx but it's Groucho Marx difference I'm a
social worker we read a lot more karl than Groucho I didn't want to belong to
a club that would let me in I forgot to invite people because I thought if
you're if you're my fan if you're here supporting me how important could you be
like I'm trying to win over the people who hate me you simply love me you
simply hold my hair back when I'm puking you pay bills with me and raise kids
with me how important could you be I'm looking for the stranger in the mall
that's who I'm trying to win over
yes or no okay the last part is so I guess the real specific how to's are
this the world keeps going whether you know it or not the critics are in the
arena whether you identify them and think about the messages that keep us
small they're there whether you do that or not what I have found in my life and
what I've found in my research which fuelled what I did in my life is that
the people who have the most courage who are willing to show and be the most
vulnerable are the ones who are very clear about who the critics are the ones
who reserved seats for them and say I hear you I get it I know where the
messaging is coming from I'm not I'm not in I'm not buying it anymore so to get
very clear the last thing which I think is the hardest is this one of these
seats needs to be reserved for you one of these seats needs to be reserved for
me I need when we look up and we're putting an idea our piece of art our
design forward who do you think the biggest critic in the arena normally is
yourself and so definitely me like I have never watched either of those TED
Talks because it's not in service of the work for me and I try to do things that
are only in service of my work because what would what would it serve for me to
watch it I would sit there and go oh my god suck in your stomach oh my god
that's not what you were gonna say you know we're so self-critical and one of
the things that I think happens and I think this happens a lot it happens in
different professions but I think I see it a lot with creatives is there is an
ideal of what you're supposed to be and what a lot of us end up doing is we
orphan the parts of ourselves that don't fit with that ideal is supposed to be
and what it leaves when we orphan all those parts of us is it just leaves the
critic and so reserved in this seat is this where we came from how we started
our families that's me the oldest of course the lost years the years where I
was so lost and confused and hurt and disillusioned that I thought the only
path to freedom was a flock of seagulls haircut the height of the hair the
closer to God we say in Texas
the people who love us the moments that make us who we are and in that cheer
should be this person the person who believes in what we're doing and why
we're doing it and the person who says
yeah it's so scary to show up it feels dangerous to be seen it's terrifying but
it is not as scary dangerous or terrifying as getting to the end of our
lives and thinking what if I would have shown up what would have been different
so here's just what he creatives thank you all for having me here today I
really thank you for watching this video my friend I hope you really enjoyed it
make sure you leave a comment below and please subscribe to this channel
Who Cares What THEY Think! Overcome Other People's Opinions and Your Own Self-Doubt with Brené Brown
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