Brené Brown

Brown has studied the topics of courage, vulnerability, shame, empathy, and leadership, which she has used to look at human connection and how it works.[9] She has spent her research career as a professor at her alma mater, the University of Houston's Graduate College of Social Work.[10]

Brown's TEDx talk from Houston in 2010, "The Power of Vulnerability", is one of the five most viewed TED talks. Its popularity shifted her work from relative obscurity in academia into the mainstream spotlight.[11][12][13][14] The talk "summarizes a decade of Brown's research on shame, framing her weightiest discoveries in self-deprecating and personal terms."[14] Reggie Ugwu for The New York Times said that this event gave the world "a new star of social psychology."[14] She went on to follow this popular TED talk with another titled "Listening to Shame" in 2012. In the second talk she talks about how her life has changed since the first talk and explains the connection between shame and vulnerability, building on the thesis of her first TED talk.[15]

She also has a less well-known talk from 2010 given at TEDxKC titled "The Price of Invulnerability." In it she explains that when numbing hard and difficult feelings, essentially feeling vulnerable, we also numb positive emotions, like joy.[16] This led to the creation of her filmed lecture, Brené Brown: The Call to Courage, which debuted on Netflix in 2019.[17] USA Today called it "a mix of a motivational speech and stand-up comedy special."[17] Brown discusses how and why to choose courage over comfort, equating being brave to being vulnerable. According to her research, doing this opens people to love, joy, and belonging by allowing them to better know themselves and more deeply connect with other people.[18]

Brown regularly works as a public speaker at private events and businesses, such as at Alain de Botton's School of Life[13] and at Google and Disney.[14]

She is, as of 2021, the author of six number-one New York Times bestsellers: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness, Dare to Lead, and Atlas of the Heart. She discussed Daring Greatly with Oprah Winfrey on Super Soul Sunday in March 2013.[19] The book's title comes from a 1910 Theodore Roosevelt speech, "Citizenship in a Republic", given at the Sorbonne.[20] Her most recent work, Atlas of the Heart, was published in November 2021, with the goal of helping readers expand their emotional vocabulary—the language they have to communicate their feelings.[9]

Brown wrote a chapter of advice in Tim Ferriss' book Tools of Titans. With Tarana Burke, she co-created You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience, an anthology of essays by Black individuals discussing the trauma of white supremacy as well as the experiences of Black love and Black life.

In 2020, Brown began hosting the Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead podcasts.[21] Unlocking Us alternates between interviews with guests and solo episodes where Brown talks alone, directly to listeners. In solo episodes, she tells stories from her life, explains learnings from her research, and supplements it with summaries of other related social science work. Interview guests have included grief expert David Kessler, singer Alicia Keys, writer Glennon Doyle, and activist Tarana Burke who started the Me Too movement.[22]

In 2022, Brown's interview with Debbie Millman was featured on the Storybound season 5 premiere.

Brown is CEO of "The Daring Way", a professional training and certification program on the topics of vulnerability, courage, shame, and empathy.[23] She appeared as herself in the movie Wine Country.[14][24] Her five-part docuseries, Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart, was released on HBO Max in 2022.[25]