Welcome to Litsy!

Something that I didn‘t initially add into my review is that this book was great as a buddy read, I think that really helped push me through some of the lengthy, more texbooky, dense and informative sections throughout it.

I appreciate Brene‘s ability to intertwine blunt truths, crass language and informative, scientific, data driven leadership topics with emotions and feelings.

She‘s one of the best to ever do it!!

The poetry of being human. When we understand that, and respect it in ourselves and in one another, we don‘t have to look for strong ground outside ourselves—together we become the strong ground.

And no one transforms alone. All of us need encouragement and support. In a world where time is seen as the great unrenewable resource, it‘s often the most valuable gift a leader can give.

Leadership is not a position to earn, it's an inherent power to claim.
It's not the privilege of a few, it is the right and responsibility of all.
Leader is not a title that the world gives to you- it's an offering that you give to the world.

Leadership is volunteering at the local school, speaking encouraging words to a friend, and holding the hand of a dying parent. It's tying dirty shoelaces and going to therapy. Leadership is taking care of yourself and empowering others to do the same.

If you‘re not a leader on the bench, don't call yourself a leader on the field.
You're either a leader everywhere or nowhere.
Every woman is the leader of her own life. Do not give up that power.
Claim it. Value it. Use it.
The picture of leadership is every woman who is allowing her own voice to guide her life and the lives of those she cares about.

You are allowed to be disappointed when it feels like life‘s benched you. What you aren‘t allowed to do is miss your opportunity to lead from the bench.

“The human capacity for finding strong ground depends on the ability to be both tough and tender…Anything that sees our human spirit as one or the other is halfhearted.�

Locking in is about paying full attention, going “heads down� to get it done, and making a commitment to limiting distractions.

Holding yourself accountable is looking at your intentions and your impact. It's asking the question, "Could I be doing better- and how?" and then answering truthfully.

Holding yourself accountable is foundational to becoming your aspirational self. It's what's going to susrain you to keep doing the work. It's going to cause you to look at yourself, and look deeper than just the surface of the words you speak and into the actions you take (or don't take).

Transformational change isn't just about feeling better about yourself and having clarity within. It's not just about my sense of personal I peace. It's about stepping up. It's about holding the whole picture together.

To be anchored, we must identify what we want,who we want to become, and what truly matters to us.
We do that by stating our core values, getting clarity on who we truly want to be (and peeling that apart from who the world wants us to be), and understanding our own internal emotional landscape.

Living and leading this way absolutely requires constant intentionality, learning, unlearning, and a vigilant pursuit of our aspirational selves and collective well-being.

In transformative spaces, we invite accountability, and we navigate the feelings of discomfort, shame, pain,and even grief that can come with it so that we can get to the good part: being seen, being heard, and being in connection. In transformative spaces, we cannot dismiss ourselves, and we cannot look away from others.

If we don't know the stories and values, the strengths and struggles of our people and their communities, we don't know them.
And, if we don't share ours, they
don't know us.
This means no care and no connection. No team.

As leaders, we have a responsibility and a tremendous opportunity to learn, unlearn, and explore. And not on our terms, but in community with others. Caring for and connecting with the people we lead is an irreducible requirement of courageous leaders.

No one is fearless. They‘re disciplined in their courage. No one is egoless. They practice humility—they‘re disciplined in their humility. These are choices.

Connection is why we're here; it is the strong ground from which we can stabilize and find solid footing in an unstable world, and it provides the foundation for us to grow, push,change direction, and leap.
In the absence of connection, there is always suffering. When we lose that contact with our strong ground and the shared strong ground of community, we lose parts of our humanity.

The energy that exists between people when they can give and receive without judgement; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.

Empathy is a skill set that allows us to connect with peoples struggles without taking on those struggles.

Empathy is not connecting to an experience, it‘s connecting to an emotion.

If there‘s too much compassion or empathy, there will be resistance to the cruelty.

Compassion is fueled by understanding and accepting that we're all made of strength and struggle no one is immune to
pain or suffering.
Compassion is not a practice of "better than" or "I can fix you" it's a practice based in the beauty and pain of shared humanity.

We can't surge forward with certainty into a world of no surprises, but we can expect surprises and learn from them and even profit from them. We can't impose our will upon a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone.

Systems thinking leads to another conclusion however, waiting, shining, obvious as soon as we stop being blinded by the illusion of control. It says that there is plenty to do, of a different sort of "doing." The future can't be predicted, but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being. Systems can't be controlled, but they can be designed and redesigned.

Grounded confidence is accepting and embracing learning and unlearning, practicing and failing, and, at its core, is driven by discipline and the joy of mastery.
Once we witness how courage can transform the way we lead, we can trade in the heavy, suffocating armor that keeps us small for grounded confidence that lifts us up and supports our efforts to be brave and connected.

Our attention and our thinking are hot commodities right now. If we‘re going to maintain our personal autonomy, not to mention our democratic society, we‘re going to need some muscle.

The word failure is imperfect. Once we begin to transform it, it ceases to be that any longer.

What we gain by looking at mastery, invention, and achievement is the value of otherwise ignored ideas-the power of surrender, the propulsion of the "near
win," the critical role of play in achieving innovation,and the importance of grit and creative practice.

If we each have the capacity to convert the excruciating into an advantage, it is because this creative process is crucial for path making of all kinds.

Brilliant inventions and human feats that have come from labor—an endeavor that offers the world a gift from the makers soul—involve a path aided by the possibility of setbacks and the inestimable gains that experience can provide.

Building up and breaking down: We exist in this constant cycle. In fact, it is the cycle that allows us to exist.

Anger is a powerful emotion that is often ignited by a sense of injustice. It can serve as a powerful catalyst for courage, love, change, compassion or justice if we tap into its power to transform. But when we just hold on to it, it‘s crushing.

In a world that has moved beyond traditional boundaries, the goal isn‘t to get the future right—it‘s to get your decisions right in the present.

True leaders develop other people.

Making the invisible visible, naming what no one has named, and saying unsaid stuff are the tools of transformation.

And this is, without question, the greatest challenge of a transition. People are the strong ground on which big change happens; therefore, people must always be the priority in transformation.

“……if you break the spirit of the people who are providing the strong ground for transformation, you will fail.�

If you want transformation, but you‘re not ready, willing, or able to break anything, you will fail.

Power over is a desperate attempt to maintain a very fragile ego.It's a desperate scramble in self-worth quicksand.
When people are hateful or cruel or just being assholes, they're showing us exactly what they're afraid of. Understanding their motivation doesn't make their behavior less difficult to bear, but it does give us choices.

When we operate from a place of power within, we feel comfortable challenging assumptions and long held beliefs, pushing against status quo and asking if there aren‘t other ways to achieve the highest common good.

Our work requires courage, and when we‘re pulled between our fear and our call to courage, we need shared mindsets, skill sets, language, tools, and daily practices that can support us through the rumble.

You don‘t need to change who you are, you need to meet the moment by being who you are and confronting the realities we‘re facing today with new mindsets and skills.

A leader is anyone, regardless of title and position, who holds themself accountable for finding potential in people and ideas, and who has the courage to develop that potential.

The curse of knowledge is that it closes our minds to what we don‘t know. Good judgement depends on having the skill—and the will—to open our minds.

Our convictions can lock us in prisons of our own making. The solution is not to decelerate our thinking—it‘s to accelerate our rethinking.