Rising Strong Book Summary - Rising Strong Book explained in key points

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Rising Strong summary

Name: Rising Strong
Rating: 4.4 (423 reviews)
Author: Brené Brown

Brené Brown

Everybody falls, but the key is knowing how to get up again

4.4 (423 ratings)

20 mins

Topics

Teamwork Self-Help Confidence

Table of Contents

Rising Strong
Summary of 9 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 9

What’s in it for me? Be brave, fail and rise again.

Perhaps you’ve suffered some major setbacks. You lost your job, maybe, or found out that your partner is having an affair. Or maybe you’ve steered clear of the big shocks, instead enduring a lot of minor irritants, like having your bike stolen or going mind-blank in the middle of a presentation.

Even if you’re not having hard times, you probably know the feeling of stumbling because of some unforeseeable obstacle or some mistake you made. Some people call it “falling,” others call it “failing,” but either way it’s essential to human experience. In fact, in these blinks you’ll find out why being brave always entails the risk of failing. But rather than just shying away from anything that demands courage, you’ll discover that you can actually learn to rise strong.

You’ll also learn

how permission slips can help you recognize your feelings;
how to foster awareness with a “shitty first draft”; and
what expectations or dreams you might need to abandon.

Rising strong starts with accepting risk and being willing to fail.

Time and time again, we find ourselves in situations that require us to take risks in order to learn. Whether it means appearing unprofessional when plunging into a new leadership position at work, or being uncoordinated in front of our exercise class, learning by doing often leaves us feeling quite vulnerable.

Risking vulnerability in this way and failing can be tough. We may feel ashamed, discouraged or even decide never to leave our comfort zones ever again. But keep in mind: the best place to learn is outside the comfort zone! So it’s vital that you’re able to recover from failure. How? By rising strong.

Rising strong is a multi-step process that can help you risk vulnerability and emerge with confidence. Rather than presenting a strict formula to be undeviatingly followed, these blinks explore the basic principles of rising strong, which you can adapt to your own life. Before diving in, though, there are three things that ought to be kept in mind:

Firstly, you’ve got to commit to failure in order to rise strong. This means accepting that you are likely to fail (multiple times!) but bravely agreeing to give your all nevertheless. Secondly, remember that you aren’t the only one experiencing failure. While we can’t ask other people to make our mistakes for us, we can ask our peers for advice about the learning process itself.

And finally, know that rising strong won’t just change your life. Your experiences of recovery after failure can actually have a profound impact on those around you, whether you’re aware of it or not. In this way, rising strong is incredibly powerful. Want to get started? We’ll investigate how rising strong actually works in the next blinks.

The process of rising strong is divided into three steps: the reckoning, the rumble and the revolution.

So how does one actually go about rising strong? Well, it works differently for everyone. To get you started, this blink presents a rough map of the three core steps of the rising-strong process, based on the experiences of people who have found ingenious ways to navigate dangerous waters.

The first step of the process is the reckoning. What does this entail? Well, people who rise strong are willing and able to reckon with their emotions. When something happens that triggers an emotional change in them, they take care to recognize and acknowledge this shift. Then, they take an interest in why it happens, and exhibit a boundless curiosity toward the unique connections between their emotions, thoughts and actions.

Reckon with your emotions by both acknowledging and investigating them.

Know those people who seem to just roll with the punches? The ability of certain individuals to simply dust themselves off and keep on fighting despite the odds is a bit mystifying. But if we take a closer look, a pattern begins to emerge. These people all share one central trait: the ability to reckon with their emotions. You can learn to do so, too, by taking two steps.

The first is recognizing your emotions, a task that’s often more challenging than we realize. Why? Because we’ve trained ourselves to refuse the existence of our own feelings. When a sense of disappointment or anger washes over you, you might find yourself trying to bury the emotion with rational thoughts or distractions.

Question the stories you tell about your struggles to truly learn about yourself.

If you’re like most people, you’re constantly making up stories to make sense of the world and your place within it. Narratives like this allow us to experience a sense of purpose, belonging and identity. However, we can start to feel trapped by the stories we tell about ourselves, too.

The goal of rumbling, the second step of rising strong, helps us keep these stories in check. By scrutinizing our narratives and being honest with ourselves, we can learn far more about the way we are in the world.

The author gained valuable insights for herself after rumbling with boundaries, integrity and generosity.

What does rising strong look like in action? The author illustrates her own rising-strong experience with a brief but telling story.

After agreeing to speak at a conference, the author was informed by the organizers that she would have to share a hotel room with another speaker. The author didn’t feel comfortable with this, but it was made clear that demanding her own room would be out of line. So, wanting to make a good impression, the author agreed to the shared room.

Rumbling with expectations can help us avoid disappointment and begin forgiving.

When was the last time you thought something like: “I knew this would happen!” or “Was that too much to ask?” You were probably experiencing some sort of disappointment, a feeling that we encounter quite often in both our professional and our personal lives.

Whether about a family vacation or a presentation at work, our expectations often come into existence without our even realizing it. And while having expectations is often energizing and exciting, it’s also the source of all that disappointment. When reality doesn’t match our expectations, we often get resentful or unpleasant. But it needn’t be this way!

Asking for help is a sign of bravery, not weakness – and it’s vital to rising strong.

Ever had one of those moments where someone says something and it just sticks with you? At a fundraiser event for supporting the homeless, the pastor of the author’s church said something that rattled her: “When you look away from a homeless person, you diminish their humanity.”

These words suddenly brought an unexplored corner of her own behavior to light. Noticing that she felt discomfort at the pastor’s words, the author began to reckon with herself. Need, privilege and judgment clashed when the author realized that she too looked away from homeless people on the street.

Rumbling with accountability and trust can make your team stronger than ever.

The story of a man named Andrew provides a great example of how rumbling with accountability can restore professional relationships, even when the going gets tough.

Andrew was a senior leader at a small but successful advertising agency, and had earned himself the title of resident strategy expert at his workplace. One of his colleagues even went so far as to say: “Andrew is the reason it all works. His word is gold and everyone trusts him.”

Rising strong is even more powerful when done as a group.

Rising strong can work wonders for individuals. But what if organizations – corporations, small businesses, schools or places of worship – made the rising-strong process part of their culture? We’d see just how powerful people within a group can be when they rise strong together.

The Daring Way is a company led by the author to help professionals face issues of vulnerability, courage and worthiness in the workplace. They do this by making rumbling a part of the workplace. Here’s how that looks:

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What is Rising Strong about?

Rising Strong (2015) is your guide to picking yourself up and dusting yourself off after a failure – and to becoming stronger, braver and kinder because of it. Whether you dream of being an entrepreneur or maintaining a loving relationship, these blinks supply you with the three vital steps to dealing with any struggle.

Best quote from Rising Strong

The truth is that falling hurts. The dare is to keep being brave and feel your way back up.

—Brené Brown

Who should read Rising Strong?

Entrepreneurs struggling with a fear of failure
Team leaders looking for new ways to improve communication
Individuals seeking guidance in dealing with disappointment, resentment and guilt

About the Author

Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. The author of Daring Greatly, The Gifts of Imperfection and I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t), she is also the founder and CEO of The Daring Way, an organization that brings her work on vulnerability, courage, shame and worthiness to organizations, schools, communities and families.

Categories with Rising Strong

Personal Development Motivation & Inspiration

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