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Brene Brown has spent decades studying courage, and her conclusion is simple: 'You can choose courage or you can choose comfort. You cannot have both. ' She teaches that courage isn't the absence of fear; it's acting despite the fear. It's the willingness to show up and be seen when you have no control over the outcome. For Brown, courage is a muscle that we build through daily acts of vulnerability, not a superhero trait reserved for the few.
"Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen."
"Daring greatly means the courage to be vulnerable. It means to show up and be seen. To ask for what you need."
"To love is to be vulnerable."
"To feel is to be vulnerable."
"If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked, I'm not interested in your feedback."
"Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty."
"Vulnerability is the last thing I want you to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you."
"Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage."
"Courage is contagious. Every time we choose courage, we make everyone around us a little better and the world a little braver."
"Vulnerability is the only bridge to build meaningful connection."
"Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light."
"Joy is the most vulnerable emotion we experience."
"Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it."
"We run from grief because loss scares us, yet our hearts reach as far as our courage."
"The willingness to show up changes us, It makes us a little braver each time."
"Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it."
"When we have the courage to walk into our story and own it, we get to write the ending."
"To love ourselves and support each other in the process of becoming real is perhaps the greatest single act of daring greatly."
"The most dangerous thing to do in a work environment is to stay silent when things aren't working."
"Sometimes the bravest and most important thing you can do is just show up."
"Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them."
"If we are brave enough often enough, we will fall; this is the physics of vulnerability."
"Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection."
"If you want to be significant and make a difference, you have to be willing to be misunderstood."
"The level of collective courage in an organization is the absolute best predictor of that organization’s ability to be successful."
"You are only as free as you are willing to be vulnerable."
"Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it's having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome."
"Strong back, soft front, wild heart."
"Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves even when we risk disappointing others."
"Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change."
"True belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world."
"Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experiences."
"Confidence is not 'I will be liked.' Confidence is 'I will be okay if they don't.'"
"Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind."
"You can choose courage or you can choose comfort. You cannot have both."
Seeing how Brene Brown approaches Courage helps you apply the idea with more precision.
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