After reading three other Brené Brown books, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to dive in for more. Is there anything she could say that I hadn’t gotten from the other books? There had already been some overlap between them; my reading pile is so high. I wasn’t sure if I had mental space for more.

But I made space for Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. And Brown filled in the missing pieces of the shame puzzle, fleshing everything out into a tough, but satisfying meal.

There were parts of all three of the other Brown books that really resonated with me, but I found this one to be the most valuable and applicable to me overall.

An unexpected benefit was the parenting section. I’ll be honest. I know Brown mentions parenting in all her books, but that wasn’t why I was reading them. I was strictly looking for help with personal development and my marriage relationship. I knew if I threw improving my parenting on the table that I’d get overwhelmed and either quit or become paralyzed.

What I found with this book was an idea I could truly embrace: Instead of worrying about getting parenting right, we should instead strive to be the adults we want our kids to grow into (p. 217-219).

When I read that, I thought to myself, I think I can do that.

When I was finished with the book, the little stack of sticky notes I started out with had become a ticker tape parade throughout the book of places that I wanted to come back to.

Even while I was reading, I knew that I wanted to re-read it.

Brown’s work on shame and vulnerability has a place in every area of our lives, and the book provides plenty of food for thought. It gave me tips for homeschooling. I thought about how I wanted to approach my friendships. I went to Brown’s website to look at the reading guide for the book and check out The Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto.

Sometimes giving all these ideas names makes it all feel a little cheesy, but I don’t think that means it’s any less important or valuable. If cheesy names give us a way to talk about vulnerability and shame and ways family, work, and school culture could be better, then by all means, we should label the heck out of the ideas.

This is a book I would buy extra copies of to lend out to anyone who was willing to read it. I don’t really want to part with our copy just yet.