Brené on the Anatomy of Trust

Hi everyone, I'm Brane Brown and this is Unlocking Us. (upbeat music) I'm sitting here with Barrett, how's it going? Hi. We played pickleball this morning. I know, I'm really down on my game this morning. (laughs) Why? We won the first one. I think it was really distracted and so I was just kind of like, I don't like when I'm distracted, I wanna be in the game. Yeah, you can't be distracted and do well in pickleball. No. I thought I was gonna get in around the pole and ATP and hit my leg instead. (laughs) That's how distracted I was. So around the post is, post whatever, pole, but around the post is like, when someone hits it so wide, you don't have to hit it back over the net, you can actually go around the post and back in their court. And I thought it was very awesome that you tried that today. I hit my leg, there is nothing awesome about it. She hit her leg with a different. ADP, ADP, oh, oh! (laughs) She hit her leg with the paddle, right? Yeah. 'Cause you have to do some fancy footwork to make that work. They make it look so easy to pros do. But then what was really funny, she said, (laughs) He said, I heard my leg and I heard my ego. (laughs) True. Oh, a little bit of the Brown family competitiveness this morning. Speak for yourself. (laughs) No. Speak for both of us. (laughs) Mormons are having a moment, but some in the church wonder if that's actually a good thing. I'm not so concerned about Mormonism kind of being radicalized. I'm actually more concerned about it becoming so obsessed with assimilation that it kind of loses sight of what it actually is. What happens when faith goes mainstream? That's this week on Explain It To Me. Find new episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) Megan Rapinoe here. This week on Touchmore, our Captain America Hillary Knight is joining us to talk about her story about career. And the March Madness bracket is out and we have thoughts and predictions to share. Plus, we're also taking a look at the NWSL's Blockbuster Opening Weekend. Check out the latest episode of Touchmore, wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. All right, it's been a full-on fall, yes? - Yes. - So I went straight from writing Atlas of the Heart into preparing for HBO. - Yes. - Lots of podcasts. Let me tell you something that used to say, I heard this the first time I wrote a book, they were like, the work begins when you turn in the book and I'm like, oh, screw you. I'm like, that cannot be true, 'cause I'm, you know, that does, and it's actually kind of true. There's a lot of weird stuff that happens after you turn a book in. So it's been really busy and nuts, but I've also been playing, I have protected my pickleball time. - Yeah, you have, you done a good job. - Like, no joke. - Like I had to make it almost non-negotiable. - Yeah. - And I'm playing a lot of pickleball and I'm still grumpy and tired. So could you only imagine? - No. (laughing) - Brood. - And oh my god, now? - It's the holidays. - Oh my god, how? I don't know how it happened, but let me just tell you this. When is this podcast coming out? It's coming out right around the corner, right? - Yep. This podcast is gonna be coming out on Wednesday. (laughing) (laughing) - What's wrong with you? - I'm like, every one of these podcasts. (laughing) (laughing) - Where's Pugs Drug Y'all? - It's trying to find the calendar. - It's coming out Thursday, June, our fall break, the 24th, right? - It's Wednesday, yes. - It's a 24. - It's coming out on Wednesday. (laughing) - This is where we are, y'all. - Yeah, this is where we are. Yeah, it's coming out on the 24th. And I don't even know why that was relevant, but I thought it was gonna be something important. Oh, it's gonna be, if you're in the US, it thinks giving week, it's fall break for us. And let me just tell you this. Hold your holiday cards, right? - Yes. - I don't wanna get a holiday card from you in the next week. It's overachieving, it's rude, it's not thoughtful, makes the rest of us feel like shit. Yeah, I'd like it a couple days after Christmas with at least one return to send her wrong address on it. - With a happy holidays marked out, happy new year. (laughing) - That's how our Tuesdays end. - Yeah, that's it. - I am very grateful that this Thanksgiving week. - Me too. - I'm so grateful for, well, I'm always grateful. I'm really, let me just start with you 'cause you're sitting right here. This will be awkward. The brown family. - We're even sharing a mic. - We are sharing a mic. I just keep thinking we need to get closer to it. Like, you know, a star is born. And I'm in it, you have to come really, - I'm not going there with you. - Okay, whatever. I'm grateful for you. - Me too, I'm grateful for you. - You put up with a lot of craziness. (laughing) - It's fun. - Sometimes. - Most of the time. - It's hard. - Sometimes. - Yeah, she's really good at like when I like start crying or I'm like, I can't do it, I'm really overwhelmed. She's really good at, okay, well, we don't have to do it. We can just not do it. And I'm like, of course we have to do it. You know what, no, they're all choices, Brunei. That's pretty good. - Yeah, that's true. - Very helpful. So thank you. - You're welcome. - For being my, my person all the time. - You're welcome. - I'm also just grateful to our broader team. - Oh, they're so kick ass. - God, they're kick ass, everything. - Yes. - Like what a miracle. I wake up every day and go, how did this happen? Like we just have a team of what, 30 people? - Yeah. - And they're just incredible. And it's been hard because we're on a book, we call it a crash when you turn in a book and the publisher turns it around really quick. We've been on a book crash, unpacking palettes and palettes and palettes of books. Literally the UPS person. (laughing) - You're so grateful that he was on vacation this time during our book delivery. - Yeah, 'cause he's just like, I just can't, I couldn't handle it. 'Cause we get a lot of books here. So today's the 24th, if you're listening to On The Day, it came out. The book's gonna come out at Los Atta Hard 1130. - Yep. - And we're not doing a traditional book tour this time because kind of COVID stuff. - Yeah. - Which I did do a small event last night. It was my first in-person event since March of 2020. And it was so fun. - It was fun. - I was in it to win it. - Yeah, it was really good. So I can't wait to see y'all. 2022, I'm coming to a city near you, hopefully. - I'm just saying amphitheater. - Yeah. - I don't even know where that came from. - What is it? - I don't know. - Okay, I'm coming to an amphitheater. That's like a rock and roll tours. - That's what we need. - Yeah. - Me and some rock band from the 80s are coming to you. - But I'm gonna try to get out in 2022, for sure. I'm messing your faces. But no traditional book tour this year. We do have an event on December 2nd at 8 p.m. Eastern time. We are partnering with over 150 independent bookstores around the U.S. and Canada. I have to say that one of the things that's been really hard for independent booksellers during COVID is that book tours are a big part of their revenue strategy. And so we're doing our virtual book tour with them. You can go on Bernabreown.com on the episode page and figure out how to get a ticket. - Yes. - And guess who is? - Oh, yes. - I love this. Who's interviewing me for this and I'll be in conversation with Priya Parker, who she's amazing. - And just a reminder for the book event, you buy a ticket and you get a book. - Yeah, and if you've already bought a book, that's okay, 'cause you can just get another book and then gift that book. See? - Yep. - You see how that works? - That's great. - Yeah, that's about a selfie. - Oh my God, and it's a beautiful book. So to give it away, I mean, even our team already has their books and they're all like, oh my God, it's a beautiful coffee table book. It's just so beautiful. You've never done a four color book before. - I haven't and it was so fun, except it got a little dicey there 'cause you'd be like, you know, we need four more chapters from you and I'm choosing a palette for the quote cards in the book. They're like, tough shit, we need your chapters. I got really into the aesthetic of it, but it is, it is a really beautiful. - It's a beautiful. - Yeah, and it's incredible. And big shout out to everyone who worked on that 'cause that was a thing. So we are going to, for the podcast this week, we are going to share the anatomy of trust with you. We have been talking about trust a lot. Over on Dare to Lead, we interviewed Charles Faltman who wrote the thin book of trust an essential primer for building trust at work. Do you know someone told me that it's not primer? It's primer. - Oh really? - Mm-hmm. I say bourgeois and sort of bullshit, but I don't know. I'll just say the thin book of trust, an essential primer primer for building trust at work. Barrett and I also did two episodes on trust in the workplace. And so I did a talk at UCLA at Royce Hall for Oprah's Super Soul Sessions where I talked about the fundamentals of trust and I really walked through braving for the first time. So that's what I'm sharing with y'all, this Thanksgiving. And so I think it's helpful because it's not using the acronym braving for trust isn't just a work thing. It's also, it's just a life thing, right? - Yeah, I mean, even in the event that you did last night, we touched on parenting and like even talking about braving from a parenting perspective was so great last night. - Yeah, it's very helpful because, It's really hurtful when you've got trust issues with your kids and you just use that big gauzy term of trust. They don't know what it means. We don't even know what it means, but if you can get really granular and behavioral and operationalize the elements of trust and say, "This is where we're struggling," or, "This is where I'm struggling." Super helpful. So enjoy. If you're celebrating a fall break or Thanksgiving this week, we're grateful for you. And here's the anatomy of trust. [Cheering] [Cheering] [Cheering] [Cheering] [Cheering] [Cheering] [Crying] This isn't my intention right now. Don't cry before you start. [Laughter] Oh, it just feels like an incredible understatement to say how grateful I am to be here with all of you. I feel like I have a relationship with many of you on social media, and you were like, "Team minus two days." I'm like, "It's coming! We're going to be together." So I am so grateful to be here with you. I'm going to talk about trust. And I'm going to start by saying this. One of my favorite parts of my job is that I get to research topics that mean something to me. One of my least favorite parts of my job is I normally come up with findings that kick me in the butt and make me change my entire life. That's the hard part. But I get to dig into the stuff that I think matters in my life and the life of the people around me. And the topic of trust is something I think I probably would have eventually started to look at closely because I study shame and vulnerability. But there's a very personal reason I jumped to trust early in my research career, and it was a personal experience. One day my daughter, Ellen, came home from school. She was in third grade, and the minute we closed the front door, she literally just started sobbing and slid down the door until she was just kind of a heap of crying on the floor. Of course it scared me and I said, "What's wrong, Ellen? What happened? What happened?" And she pulled herself together enough to say, "Something really hard happened to me today at school, and I shared it with a couple of my friends during recess. And by the time we got back into the classroom, everyone in my class knew what had happened. And they were laughing and pointing at me and calling me names. And it was so bad that the kids were being so disruptive that her teacher even had to take marbles out of this marble jar. And the marble jar in the classroom is a jar where if the kids are making great choices together, the teacher adds marbles if they're making not great choices, the teacher takes out marbles. And if the jar gets filled up, there's a celebration about the class. And so she said, "It was one of the worst moments of my life. They were laughing and pointing and Ms. Bacchum, my teacher kept saying, "I'm going to take marbles out." And she didn't know what was happening. And she looked at me and she just with this face that is just seared into my mind and said, "I will never trust anyone again." And my first reaction to be really honest with you was, "Damn straight." You don't tell anybody anything, but your mama. Yeah, right? That's it. I mean, that was my. That was my. You just tell me. And when you grow up and you go off to school, your mama will go to, I'll get a little apartment. And the other thing I was thinking to be quite honest with you is, "I will find out who those kids were." And while I'm not going to beat up a nine-year-old, I know their mama's. That's the place you go to. And I'm like, "How am I going to explain trust to this third grader in front of me?" So I took a deep breath and I said, "Ellen, trust is like a marble jar." She said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "You share those hard stories and those hard things that are happening to you with friends who over time, you filled up their marble jar. They've done thing after thing after thing where you're like, "I know I can share this with this person." Does that make sense? And that's what Ellen said. "Yes, that makes sense." And I said, "Do you have any marble jar friends?" And she said, "Oh, yeah, I totally hand in Lorna our marble jar friends." And I said, "And then this is where things got interesting." And I said, "Tell me what you mean. How do they earn marbles for you?" And she said, "Well, Lorna, if there's not a seat for me at the lunch cafeteria, she'll scoot over and give me half a high-need seat." And I'm like, "She will?" And she's like, "Yeah, she'll just sit. She'll just sit like that and so I can sit with her." And I said, "That's a big deal. This is not what I was expecting to hear." And I said, "You know Hannah on Sunday at my soccer game?" And I was waiting for this story where she said, "I got hit by a ball and I was laying on the field and Hannah picked me up and ran me to first aid." And I was like, "Yeah." And she said, "Hannah looked over and she saw Oma and Opa, my parents, her grandparents." And she said, "Look, your Oma and Opa are here." And I was like, "And I was like, boy, she got a marble for that." And she goes, "We know not all my friends have eight grandparents." Because my parents are divorced and remarried. My husband's parents are divorced and remarried. And she said, "And it was so nice to me that she remembered their names." And I was like, "Hmm." And she said, "Do you have marble jar friends?" And I said, "Yeah, I do have a couple of marble jar friends." And she said, "Well, what kind of thing does they do to get marbles?" And this feeling came over me and I thought the first thing I could think of because we were talking about the soccer game was that same game my good friend Eileen walked up to my parents and said, "Dianne, David, good to see you." And I remember what that felt like for me. And I was like, "Certainly, trust cannot be built by these small and significant moments in our lives. It's got to be a grander gesture than that." So as a researcher, I start looking into the data. I gather up the doctoral students who've worked with me, we start looking and it is crystal clear. Trust is built in very small moments. And when we started looking at examples of when people talked about trust in the research, they said things like, "Yeah, I really trust my boss. She even asked me how my mom's chemotherapy was going. I trust my neighbor because if something's going on with my kid, it doesn't matter what she's doing, she'll come over and help me figure it out." You know, one of the number one things emerged around trust in small things, people who attend funerals. This is someone who showed up at my sister's funeral. Another huge marble jar moment for people, I trust him because he'll ask for help when he needs it. How many of you are better at giving help than asking for help? So asking for help is one of those moments. So one of the ways I work as a grounded theory researcher is I look at the data first, then I go in and see what other researchers are talking about and saying because we believe the best theories are not built on other existing theories but on our own lived experiences. So after I had looked at this, I said, "Let me see what the research says." And I went to John Gottman who's been studying relationship for 30 years. He has an amazing work on trust in betrayal. The first thing I read, trust is built in the smallest of moments. And he calls them sliding door moments. Sliding doors is a movie with Gwyneth Paltrow from the 90s. Have you all seen this movie? So it's a really tough movie because what happens is it follows her life to this seemingly unimportant moment where she's trying to get on a train. And she makes the train but the movie stops and splits into two parts where she makes the train and she doesn't make the train. And it follows them to radically different endings. And he would argue that trust is a sliding door moment. And the example that he gives is so powerful. He said he was lying in bed one night. He had 10 pages left of his murder mystery. And he had a feeling he knew who the killer was, but he was dying to finish this book. So he said, "I don't even want, I want to get up, brush my teeth, go to the bathroom and get back in and not have to get up. I just want, you know, that feeling when you just want to get all situated and read the end of your book." So he gets up and he walks past his wife in the bathroom, who's brushing her hair and who looks really sad. And he said, "My first thought was just keep walking, just keep walking." And how many of you have had that moment where you walk past someone and you're like, "Oh God, they look avert your eyes." Or you look at caller ID or your cell phone and you're like, "Oh yeah, I know, she's in a big mess right now. I don't have time to pick up the phone, right?" Yes or no. This looks like guilty laughter to me. So he said, "That's a sliding door moment and here's what struck me about his story because he said, 'There is the opportunity to build trust.'" And there is the opportunity to betray. Because as small as the moments of trust can be, those are the moments of betrayal as well. To choose, to not connect when the opportunity is there, is a betrayal. So he took the brush out of her hand and started brushing her hair and said, "What's going on with you right now, babe?" That's a moment of trust, right? So fast-forward five years, and I'm clear about trust. And I talk about trust as the marble jar. We got to really share our stories and our hard stuff with people whose jars are full. People who've over time really done those small things that have helped us believe that they're worth our story. But the new question for me was this, what are those marbles? What is trust? What do we talk about when we talk about trust? Trust is a big word, right? To hear, I trust you or I don't trust you. I don't even know what that means. So I want to know, what is the anatomy of trust? What does that mean? So I started looking in the research and I found a definition from Charles Feltman that I think is the most beautiful definition I've ever heard. And it's simply this, trust is choosing to make something important to you, vulnerable to the actions of someone else. Choosing to make something important to you, vulnerable to the actions of someone else. Feltman says that distrust is what I have shared with you that is important to me is not safe with you. So I thought that's true. And Feltman really calls for this, let's understand what trust is. So we went back into all the data to find out, can I figure out what trust is? Do I know what trust is from the data? And I think I do know what trust is. And I put together an acronym, Braving, B-R-A-V-I-N-G, Braving. Because when we trust, we are braving connection with someone. So what are the parts of trust? B, boundaries. I trust you. If you are clear about your boundaries, and you hold them, and you're clear about my boundaries, and you respect them, there is no trust without boundaries. Or reliability. I can only trust you if you do what you say you're going to do. And not once. Reliability, let me tell you what reliability is in research terms. We're always looking for things that are valid and reliable. Any researchers here or research kind of geeks? There's 10 of us. OK, so we would say a scale that you weigh yourself on is valid. If you get on it, and it's an accurate weight, 120. OK. So that would be a very valid scale. I would pay a lot of money for that scale. So that's actually not a valid scale, but we'll pretend for the sake of this. That's a valid scale. A reliable scale is a scale that if I got on it 100 times it's going to say the same thing every time. So what reliability is is you do what you say you're going to do over and over and over again. You cannot gain and earn my trust if you're reliable once, because that's not the definition of reliability. In our working lives, reliability means that we have to be very clear on our limitations, so we don't take on so much that we come up short and don't deliver on our commitments. In our personal life, it means the same thing. So when we say to someone, oh god, it was so great seeing you, I'm going to give you a call and we can have lunch. Yes or no? No. It was really great seeing you. Moment of discomfort. Goodbye. [LAUGHTER] Right? But honest, honest. So B, boundaries are reliability. A, huge accountability. I can only trust you if when you make a mistake you're willing to own it, apologize for it, and make amends. I can only trust you if when I make a mistake, I am allowed to own it, apologize, and make amends. No accountability, no trust. V, and this one shook me to the core, vault, the vault. What I share with you, you will hold in confidence. What you share with me, I will hold in confidence. But you know what we don't understand? And this came up over and over again in the research. We don't understand the other side of the vault. That's only one door on the vault. Here's where we lose trust with people. If a good friend comes up to me and says, oh my god, did you hear about Caroline? They're getting a divorce. And it is ugly. I'm pretty sure her partner's cheating. You have just shared something with me that was not yours to share. And now my trust for you, even though your gossiping and giving me the juice, now my trust for you, is completely diminished. Does that make sense? When you think of the most influential American politician of the 21st century, you probably think of a man. But there's one woman who might fit the bill. She never thought she'd be in politics. But when on to break what she calls, the marble ceiling. Then they'd say, why don't you all just make a list of things that the women want and will do those? What? This is in this century. Really? So the marble ceiling-- it's not a glass ceiling. It's a marble ceiling. And they all had it lined up. But you go next and I'll go next and I'll go next. And we're like, well, you know what? We've been waiting over 200 years for breaking in line. Nancy Pelosi, the longtime democratic speaker of the house, live on stage at South by Southwest in Austin. Today explained every weekday and now on Saturday's two. [MUSIC PLAYING] So the vault is not just about the fact that you hold my competences. It's that in our relationship, I see that you acknowledge confidentiality. Here's the tricky thing about the vault. A lot of times, we share things that are not ours to share as a way to hotwire connection with a friend. Right? If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit next to me. You know, that's our-- yes or no. Like, our closeness is built on talking bad about other people. You know what I call that? Common enemy intimacy. What we have is not real. The intimacy we have is built on hating the same people. And that's counterfeit. That's counterfeit trust. That's not real. So the vault means you respect my story, but you respect other people's story. I, integrity, I cannot trust you and be in a trusting relationship with you if you do not act from a place of integrity and encourage me to do the same. So what is integrity? So I came up with this definition because I didn't like any of the ones out there, and that's what I do when I don't like them. I look in the data and I say, what's integrity? Here's what I think integrity is. Three pieces. It's choosing courage over comfort, choosing what's right over what's fun, fast, or easy, and practicing your values, not just professing your values. I mean, that's integrity. [APPLAUSE] In non-judgment, I can fall apart, ask for help, and be in struggle without being judged by you, and you can fall apart and be in struggle and ask for help without being judged by me, which is really hard because we're better at helping than we are asking for help. And we think that we've set up trusting relationships with people who really trust us because we're always there to help them. But let me tell you this. If you can't ask for help and they cannot reciprocate that, that is not a trusting relationship, period. And when we assign value to needing help, when I think less of myself for needing help, whether you're conscious of it or not, when you offer help to someone, you think less of them too. You cannot judge yourself for needing help, but not judge others for needing your help. And somewhere in there, if you're like me, you're getting value from being a helper in relationship. You think that you're worth, but real trust doesn't exist unless help is reciprocal and non-judgment. The last one is G, generosity. Our relationship is only a trusting relationship. If you can assume the most generous thing about my words, intentions, and behaviors, and then check in with me. So if I screw up, say something, forget something, You will make a generous. assumption and say, yesterday was my mom's one year anniversary of her death and it was really tough for me and I talked to you about it last month and I really was hoping that you would have called. But I know you care about me. I know you think it's a big deal. So I wanted to let you know that I've been thinking about that. As opposed to not returning calls, not returning emails and waiting for the moment where you can spring, well you forgot to call on this important, you know. You'll make a generous assumption about me and check it out. So we've got boundaries, reliability, accountability, the vault, integrity, non-judgment and generosity. These, this is the anatomy of trust and it's complex. Why do we need to break it down for a very simple reason? How many of you in here have ever struggled with trust in a relationship? Professional or personal? It should be everybody statistically, right? And so what you end up saying to someone is, I don't trust you. What do you mean don't trust me? I love you. I'm so dependable. How do we talk about trust if we can't break it down? What understanding trust gives us is words to say, here's my struggle. You're not reliable with me. You say you're going to do something. I can on it. You don't do it. Or maybe the issue is non-judgment. But we can break it down and talk about it and ask for what we need very specifically instead of using this huge word that has tons of weight and value around it. We can say, here specifically what's not working. What's not working is we've got a boundaries issue. So one of the things that's interesting I think is one of the biggest casualties with heartbreak and disappointment and failure in our struggle is not just a loss of trust with other people but the loss of self-trust. When something hard happens in our lives, the first thing we say is, I can't trust myself. I was so stupid. I was so naive. So this braving acronym works with self-trust too. So when something happens, I just recently went through a really tough failure. I had to ask myself, did I honor my own boundaries? Was I reliable? Can I count on myself? Did I hold myself accountable? Was I really protective of my stories? Did I stay in my integrity? Was I judgmental toward myself? And did I give myself the benefit of the doubt? Was I generous toward myself? Because if braving relationships with other people is braving connection, self-trust is braving self-love, self-respect. The wildest adventure will ever take in our whole lives. And so what I would invite you to think about when you think about trust is if your own marble jar is not full. If you can't count on yourself, you can't ask other people to give you what you don't have. So we have to start with self-trust. There's a great quote from my angelo that says, "I don't trust people who don't love themselves, but say I love you." She quotes an African proverb when she said that and she said, "Be wary of the naked man offering you a shirt." And so a lot of times, if you find yourself in struggle with trust, the thing to examine first is your own marble jar. How you treat yourself because we can't ask people to give to us something that we do not believe were worthy of receiving. And you will know you're worthy of receiving it when you trust yourself above everyone else. So thank you all so much. I'm so honored to be here. Thank you. Okay, I hope you all enjoyed that. A big shout out and a big thank you to Oprah and the SuperSoul team. You can follow the SuperSoul podcast wherever you listen to your podcast. You know that every episode that we do of both Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead has a page on Branay Brown dot com on the new Branay Brown dot com. Yeah, new beautiful Branay Brown dot com. Check it out. We are leveling up our like aesthetic game. Yes, we are. Yeah, you know, beauty and excellence is one of our values here at Beburg, which stands for Branay Brown Education Research Group. But I think about it so much now after interviewing Sarah Lewis on Dare to Lead about aesthetic force and the importance of like beauty and aesthetics. Yeah, important. So we on our new website, which is so gorgeous and shout out to the team that made that happen. Totally. Big, big, big lift. So we're going to join us for the atlas of the heart, live virtual launch on December 2nd. And stay awkward, brave and kind, y'all. We're grateful for you. I'm going to say bye. Bye. Bye. [music] Unlocking Us is produced by Branay Brown Education and Research Group. The music is by Carrie Rodriguez and Gina Chavez. New episodes is soon as they're published by following Unlocking Us on your favorite podcast app. We are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more award-winning shows at podcast.voxmedia.com.