Yeah, I’m on a self-help kick. I’m 40; it’s the developmental work of my age. (So says the author anyway.) I crave the inner peace and relief from perfectionism promised by this genre, but the snappy lists, catchy aphorisms, and presumed energetic/auric spirituality that typifies much of it makes my teeth hurt. Thankfully, Brené Brown offers my logical, rational mind a way to process all the woo that is self-help. Hard data and quantifiable patterns are interwoven with the snappy lists and catchy aphorisms, and there’s rarely, if ever, any mention of energy or auras. Everything comes with a healthy dose of humor and self-awareness; no one is taking themselves too seriously here. Plus, all that data was gathered through story-collecting so it is warm and humanized rather than cold and inflexible as data can sometimes veer. That works for me.
This book is very organized, and it’s presented in a repeating format that makes it easy to follow and retain. It’s several (but not too many) bite-size, perfectly-prepared pieces, so it goes down easy. On one hand, that makes it a good intro to her work, on the other, it lacks the density and data of her other work that for me, lends it more legitimacy and makes it more convincing. I’m a sucker for a checklist though, and this ends up being a really great, short, “in a nutshell,” review of Brené Brown’s foundational work, almost like a table of contents for all the books she subsequently published expanding on the ideas she first articulated here.
Brené Brown, Checklist Style
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown