>> Definitely, yeah.
>> So what do you think is the difference between,
I mean a lot of people face adversity and it flattens them.
>> Yeah.
>> Why in your case did you, or what made the difference, or
what is about you, the choices that you make, that you have made,
that you continue to make, that puts you on the track to creativity and
bravery as opposed to being flattened?
>> I think it's hard for people to exhibit bravery if they
can't use it, or can't find a way to use it and
are always getting shut down for what their ideas are.
And I'm really grateful that I've had a number of bosses
that understood this about me and that nurtured that about me.
And that allowed me to run with an idea.
And the thing is that it's a numbers game.
Like you can, if your thing is coming up with ideas and trying to put them
out there, eight or nine out of ten of them are just going to be bad.
[LAUGH] And so being okay with that,
I think is a critical, critical thing.
But at the end of the day, I think what's useful for
people who have the strength is that, you can be accused
sometimes of being prideful, because who are you to speak
when other people might be more qualified than you, etc.
But for me it was useful to realize
that Plato, Marty Seligman.
[LAUGH] All of these people, at the end of the day
they are just people who are just putting out their ideas.
And I study with Marty, and not all of his ideas are great too.
So to have that modeled, as like, you can try out ideas and
they can be bad, and that's fine.
>> So Jare, we tend to identify bravery with the victor, right?
So the person who comes out on top is the one who is obviously brave.
But I think I hear you saying something different, I think I hear you saying
that you can actually not come out on top in this particular context, and
be the braver person.
>> Yes.
I have a loving relationship with failing.
Failing for me is a sign that I've tried.
The biggest fear that I have is to clam up and not try.
There's been times in my life when my stutter was worse and
I didn't share my ideas, because I was worried that I would look stupid,
or the ideas would be bad, or I couldn't explain them well.
And that was always way worse at the end of the day.
It made me feel way worse at the end of the day than I tried to share something,
to explain something, or to speak into someone's life.
I think a big way that some people are brave is the willingness
to be unconventional in how they encourage someone to really
like take them aside and be like “you are very good at this.”
I think good mentors are often brave, where they like step into that role and
they're not ashamed to really try to speak to someone's life.
So I think there's a number of ways to be brave and it often involves, and
I've done that before, and it wasn't received that well by the person.
[LAUGH] And you gotta roll with that, but so
many times it is really spoken to people in really met
them at a critical time and you just have to go for it.
>> Chris Peterson used to say that our signature strengths often times get us
into trouble.
Have your strengths gotten you into trouble?
>> Oh, yeah!
I mean, I've already said like I've,
[LAUGH] I've failed many times.
I just had a dissertation committee meeting,
and I was brave in how strongly I stated one of my
opinions about a domain of psychological literature.
It turns out I didn't really know what I was talking about.
And I got called out for it.
And that's fine, and then you're like, oh, I need to learn.
I need to learn more and you keep going.