The person in the arena

Brown, a researcher who studies shame and courage, takes her title from a speech by Theodore Roosevelt. He praised the person in the arena, the one who strives and risks failure, over the critic who stands on the sidelines.

She describes a culture of scarcity, a feeling that we are never enough: never good enough, safe enough or successful enough. This feeling makes people afraid to show up and be seen.

Her research found that people who live with a strong sense of worthiness, whom she calls wholehearted, embrace vulnerability rather than avoid it.