Rising Strong

When was the last time you tried something brave and found yourself face down in failure—or heartbreak? In Rising Strong, Brené Brown argues that this moment of collapse isn’t the end of the story—it’s where transformation begins. Drawing on more than a decade of research into vulnerability, courage, shame, and resilience, Brown contends that the ability to rise strong after a fall is not a superhuman trait. It’s a process—a learnable practice—that defines how we live, love, parent, and lead.

Brown calls this process the physics of vulnerability: when we choose courage over comfort and show up in the arena of life, we will inevitably fall. But getting back up—rising strong—requires reckoning with our emotions, rumbling with our stories, and writing new endings. Her message is both personal and universal: struggle is not a sign of weakness, but a doorway to deeper strength.

The Anatomy of Falling and Rising

Brown structures the book around three core stages: The Reckoning (recognizing what we feel and getting curious about why), The Rumble (owning our story and questioning the false narratives we build), and The Revolution (transforming our lives by integrating these lessons). Each stage represents a move toward authenticity and wholeness, replacing shame and fear with meaning and intention.

Her stories—ranging from a marital argument that nearly derails a vacation to professional missteps and moments of shame—illustrate the messy process of confronting reality. Through these real-life examples, she models what it means to be both brave and brokenhearted, inviting readers to see vulnerability as strength, not a flaw.

Why Vulnerability Is the New Measure of Courage

Brown’s starting point is vulnerability—the willingness to show up and be seen when we can’t control the outcome. Building on her previous work in Daring Greatly, she insists that vulnerability is not weakness, but rather our most accurate measure of courage. Using Roosevelt’s famous “Man in the Arena” speech, she frames life itself as that arena, where we inevitably get bloodied and bruised when we dare greatly.

But most people are taught to either avoid emotion (by armoring up) or minimize struggle (by pretending everything’s fine). Brown argues that these defensive strategies are exactly what disconnect us from meaning. Rising strong, then, begins with turning toward the discomfort that we instinctively avoid. Her guiding principle: “We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both—not at the same time.”

The Story as a Source of Healing

Underlying every fall, Brown shows, is a story—one we tell ourselves about what happened, who’s to blame, and what it means about us. Because we are “wired for story,” our first instinct after a disappointment is to fill in the blanks. But these early drafts are often confabulations—emotionally charged, half-true narratives shaped by fear and shame. Our brain rewards certainty, even at the cost of truth. Thus, Brown teaches us to pause and write down “the story I’m making up,” a deceptively simple yet powerful tool that opens the way to rumble with reality instead of defensively rewriting it.

As she learns while working with organizations like Pixar and the U.S. military, storytelling is more than a metaphor—it’s how we integrate experience and emotion into wisdom. Connection, empathy, creativity, and spirituality all come through the stories we own. Unowned stories, in contrast, own us.

A Revolution of Wholeness

The ultimate goal of Rising Strong is not just personal growth but cultural change. Brown calls for a “wholehearted revolution”—a movement against shame, scarcity, and perfectionism, and toward the integration of our messy, imperfect selves. This revolution begins in our individual lives, in marriages, families, workplaces, and communities, wherever people have the courage to say: “Our stories matter because we matter.”

By the end of the book, Brown has given readers both a framework and a mirror: a framework for processing failure and hurt with compassion, and a mirror showing how resilience and creativity emerge precisely from our willingness to stumble. Vulnerability becomes not a risk to avoid, but the birthplace of love, courage, empathy, and meaning.

“People who wade into discomfort and get up again are the real badasses,” Brown writes. This is the heart of Rising Strong: the conviction that daring, falling, and rising again is not just how we become resilient—it’s how we become fully human.

In the book’s opening chapter, Brené Brown lays out what she calls the “physics of vulnerability”—the unbreakable emotional laws that govern courage, failure, and growth. Her argument is simple but profound: if you’re brave enough often enough, you will fall. You cannot be courageous without being vulnerable, and you cannot be vulnerable without risk, uncertainty, and emotional exposure.

The Inevitability of the Fall

Brown insists that daring is not an acknowledgement of possible failure but of certain failure. “When we commit to showing up,” she writes, “we are actually committing to falling.” Every time you enter the arena—whether launching a new idea, opening your heart, or telling the truth—you also sign up for setbacks. Courage may transform you, but it will not protect you from falling.

Her husband Steve, she explains, knows when she’s mourning this truth—those days when she misses her early-career fantasy of certainty—because she will hide in her study listening to the singer David Gray’s “My Oh My.” The song’s refrain—“You know I used to be so sure”—captures the grief of realizing that conviction and certainty are illusions. To live wholeheartedly is to exchange reassurance for aliveness.

Storytelling, Connection, and the Biology of Bravery

We recover not by retreating but by connecting—because humans are wired for story. As neuroeconomist Paul Zak’s research shows, stories trigger oxytocin and cortisol, the brain chemicals that build empathy and connection. Brown calls story “the language of the soul,” arguing that our drive to make meaning out of our experiences is biological, not optional.

Creativity, she adds, is the bridge from knowing something intellectually to living it. Quoting an Indonesian proverb—“Knowledge is only a rumor until it lives in the muscle”—she encourages us to use art, writing, and making as ways to integrate our learning into our lives.

No Home and No Way Back

After you fall, you can rise again—but you can never return to who you were before you were brave. Vulnerability, once experienced, “changes the emotional structure of our being.” This transformation often feels like loss: you may miss your old naivete or wish you could unsee the truth. But the price of awakening is awareness—you now know when you’re showing up and when you’re hiding.

Brown introduces what she calls Straddling the Tension: that uneasy space between wanting to go back and being pulled toward greater courage. Every daring act creates this tension—it’s proof that we’re alive and growing.

The Role of Connection and Spirituality

Throughout this process, we need others. “No one goes it alone,” Brown stresses. Rising strong may be personal, but it’s never solitary. Even the fiercest individuals—leaders, artists, parents—depend on moments of sanctuary with fellow travelers. Asking for help, she says, is not weakness; it’s a form of courage.

Brown closes the chapter by asserting that rising strong is a spiritual practice. Without a sense of connection to something greater than ourselves—whether called God, nature, community, or creativity—we lose perspective. Spirituality affirms our shared humanity and reminds us, as Rumi said, that “we’re all just walking each other home.”

“You can choose courage or you can choose comfort,” Brown writes, “but you can’t have both. Not at the same time.” The physics of vulnerability begins and ends with that truth: courage transforms us, failure refines us, and vulnerability connects us.

The first step in rising strong is The Reckoning—facing the emotions that come with disappointment, failure, or heartbreak. Brown defines reckoning as “walking into our story.” It’s about becoming aware that you’re emotionally triggered and choosing curiosity instead of avoidance. Only by reckoning with emotion can you chart a new course through pain rather than letting it chart one for you.

Recognizing Emotion Before It Owns You

Most of us are taught to suppress or discharge strong emotions—anger, shame, grief—rather than engage them. Brown warns that ignoring hurt doesn’t make it go away; it festers and eventually drives behavior unconsciously. “When we deny our stories,” she writes, “they define us.”

Instead of reacting automatically, she suggests developing awareness of the body’s early signals: tightness in the chest, racing thoughts, numbness, or excessive busyness. Naming these sensations creates enough space to respond intentionally. “We can’t chart a new course,” she says, “until we know where we are.”

The Power of Curiosity

The second part of reckoning is getting curious. Curiosity is uncomfortable because it means surrendering certainty. Yet, as Einstein once said, “Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” Brown, citing psychologist George Loewenstein, notes that curiosity arises when we perceive a gap between what we know and what we want to know. It’s a gentle but persistent drive to close that gap.

Instead of numbing emotion, Brown encourages questions: Why am I so reactive? What story am I telling myself? What’s underneath my anger or sadness? Over time, curiosity becomes an act of courage—choosing inquiry over blame, reflection over defensiveness.

Off-Loading Hurt and Its Consequences

Brown describes five common ways people dodge the reckoning by “off-loading hurt:”

• Chandeliering: Suppressing emotion until a minor trigger causes an explosive overreaction.
• Bouncing hurt: Using anger, blame, or avoidance to mask deeper feelings of fear or shame.
• Numbing: Escaping discomfort through alcohol, food, work, or busyness—attempts that also dull joy.
• Stockpiling: Hoarding resentment until the body or spirit shuts down from the internal weight.
• High centering: Getting stuck between denial and expression—unable to fully engage or move on.

These coping strategies offer temporary relief but eventually erode connection and integrity. True reckoning demands vulnerability—the willingness to stay with discomfort long enough to transform it into learning.

Permission and Presence

Brown suggests tangible tools for engaging emotion, starting with writing “permission slips” (“Permission to feel sad and take a break”). This small ritual signals to our brains that emotion is safe. She also advocates for mindfulness practices like tactical breathing to regain calm and awareness, a technique used both by soldiers and yoga practitioners alike.

The reckoning, in Brown’s words, “sounds easy but is deceptively simple.” It requires practice and self-compassion. The goal is not to avoid pain but to know it intimately—so it no longer controls you in the shadows.

As Yoda tells Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, “In you must go. Only what you take with you.” Brown uses this metaphor to remind us that walking into our story means confronting what we carry—our fear, shame, and longing—but the reward is regaining authorship of our lives.

If the reckoning is about recognizing emotion, the rumble is about owning the stories those emotions create and digging deep to find the truth. This stage, Brown writes, “is where wholeheartedness is cultivated and where change begins.” It means challenging the “shitty first drafts” our minds write under stress and turning those primitive narratives into sources of wisdom.

Conspiracies, Confabulations, and the Brain’s Need for Certainty

When we’re hurt or afraid, our brains race to make meaning. Neurologist Robert Burton calls this “the dopamine reward for closure.” Stories are how we reclaim order amid chaos—but that drive for order can produce half-truths or outright fictions. Brown distinguishes between two types of false storytelling: conspiracies (stories that assign malicious intent to others) and confabulations (stories we honestly believe but are false).

For instance, after her husband Steve didn’t respond affectionately during a swim, Brown’s first story was that he was repulsed by her body. The truth—he was battling a panic attack about their kids’ safety—was far different. This realization became one of her life’s most profound marital lessons: “When in doubt, start with the most generous assumption possible.”

Writing the Shitty First Draft (SFD)

Borrowing from Anne Lamott’s classic Bird by Bird, Brown encourages us to write our “shitty first drafts”—raw, unfiltered accounts of what we’re thinking and feeling. This tool isn’t about accuracy but awareness. By capturing our initial narratives in writing, we can revisit them with curiosity rather than judgment.

Her basic template includes six prompts: The story I’m making up...; My emotions...; My body...; My thinking...; My beliefs...; and My actions... Writing or even speaking these sentences out loud exposes the gap between what happened and what you assumed happened—the delta. In that space lies growth.

Rumbling with Shame, Boundaries, and Integrity

Brown’s own rumbles include realizing that compassion without boundaries leads to resentment. In a story about sharing a hotel room with a disrespectful conference roommate, she discovered that assuming people are “doing the best they can” transforms anger into empathy—but only if we hold firm boundaries. This synthesis became her formula for Living BIG: Boundaries, Integrity, Generosity.

• Boundaries: Be clear about what’s okay and not okay.
• Integrity: Choose courage over comfort; align actions with values.
• Generosity: Extend the most generous interpretation of others’ behavior while honoring your own truth.

This framework helps transform relationships—from families to workplaces—by replacing resentment with accountability and compassion.

From the Fall to the Delta

In mathematical terms, Brown calls the difference between the story we make up and the truth we eventually discover the delta. That fertile space of discomfort is where learning and meaning take root. Like the river deltas that teem with sediment and life, this messy middle is overflowing with transformation. We begin to understand not just others, but ourselves—our triggers, our shame gremlins, and our deepest values.

“The delta is where we need to do our work,” Brown writes, “because that’s where growth happens.” The rumble is not about being right—it’s about being real.

The final stage of the process, The Revolution, is where rising strong becomes more than an individual tool—it becomes a way of life. Brown defines a revolution as “deep, tumultuous, groundbreaking, no-turning-back transformation.” When we reckon with our stories and rumble with our truths long enough, the result is nothing short of revolutionary because it rewires how we live, love, and lead.

From Process to Practice

Mastering the rising strong method isn’t about one-off recovery moments; it’s about everyday embodiment. The revolution begins when your first response to conflict or pain becomes curiosity (“What’s the story I’m telling myself?”). When this reaction becomes habitual, your life changes because fear no longer dictates your narrative.

Brown’s teams at The Daring Way model this mindset through what they call the 5 Rs: Respect, Rumble, Rally, Recover, and Reach. These principles govern how they problem-solve, admit mistakes, and integrate learning. For example, during one leadership meeting, an employee said, “The story I’m making up is that the project I’m working on is no longer a priority.” Instead of guessing his boss’s intentions, he named his fear—and clarity emerged. This, Brown says, is how organizations “turn struggle into strategy.”

The Story Rumble at Home and Work

Rising strong is contagious. In her marriage, Brown and her husband Steve use “the story I’m making up” moments to defuse tension before it festers. Even their kids use this language to express fears—whether about friendships, homework, or parental restrictions. By helping children recognize that their narratives might be incomplete, parents teach emotional literacy and resilience.

Brown extends this practice beyond families to workplaces and communities. At the University of Houston, her social work students deconstruct stereotypes and biases through story rumbles exploring race, privilege, and identity. The same principles apply anywhere courage and curiosity meet discomfort: empathy grows, shame diminishes, and connection strengthens.

Wholehearted Revolutions Begin with Small Acts

The revolution isn’t about grand gestures; it’s built in small moments of truth-telling and empathy. Brown envisions a world where vulnerability is not seen as weakness but celebrated as wisdom. Where failure isn’t hidden but mined for meaning. In her “Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted,” she calls for a collective uprising:

“We are the authors of our lives. We write our own daring endings. We craft love from heartbreak, compassion from shame, grace from disappointment, courage from failure.”

Brown’s revolution is quiet but potent—a movement of people willing to tell the truth about their struggles and get up wiser. The gift isn’t in avoiding pain but in reclaiming our power as authors of our own stories. Rising strong isn’t about triumph over failure—it’s about the courage to fall, feel, and rise again, over and over.

The final question she leaves readers with is deceptively simple: Can we lean into the vulnerability of emotion and stand in our truth? Every daring answer, Brown promises, changes not just a person’s life but the culture they touch.