I’m planning on improving my reading habits this year. I spent most of last year writing my novel and reading went by the wayside. Silly really considering how the two hobbies are so intimately linked. Reading helps to fire up the creative juices, shows you what the market is reading and adds vicarious experiences to the imagination’s toolbox. I have never been in prison, on the inside of the bars at least, but by reading about someone who has, I can start to understand a little of their experience. I’ll be rotating my books between crime fiction, non-fiction and something from a genre in which I have no intention of writing, to be chosen at the time.

     Anyway, that’s the general idea, now onto this week’s review.

   Brene Brown is a Professor at the University of Houston’s college of Social Work. Daring Greatly: How the courage to vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent and lead (let’s just call it Daring Greatly shall we?) is the culmination of years of work researching vulnerability, courage, leadership and shame.

    I picked this book up after watching one of her TED talks on the subject of vulnerability. Issues of vulnerability and shame are important in the creative community. The idea of a launching a book petrifies a lot of people so much that they often never start one. This is especially relevant in the digital world where everyone sees, knows and comments on everything. I wanted to find out if her work had anything to offer me as a writer.

     Brown’s key idea is about living a whole-hearted life. This involves having meaningful relationships with each other, nature and our work. The only way to truly have any of this is to be vulnerable and accept that you may fail whilst trying. The fear of failure tends to keep us stuck in the same old habits and afraid to form new ones. Brown suggests cultivating a belief in our own worthiness, connect with others with a sense of love and belonging and to live a courageous life by ‘Daring Greatly.’

    I really enjoyed the book. Some have bemoaned it’s lack of statistical data and ‘evidence’ in the book. Diagrams, tables and pie charts are generally the norm in non-fiction psychology books, but the absence of them here doesn’t let the book down at all. Brown’s research consisted of interviewing candidates about their experiences and to turn that into a dataset wouldn’t do the life stories she gleaned justice. I found a connection with the anecdotes and interview excerpts that I’ve never had to a pie chart. Even those pretty 3D ones.

    This book really did resonate with me. Certain concepts like ‘foreboding joy’ (the feeling something bad will happen whenever something good just has) and the idea of being in the ‘arena’ have had positive effects on how I work, see myself as a writer and my relationships with the important people in my life.

     I highly recommend Daring Greatly for everyone. Everyone has something to gain from reading this book.