The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant

Marking a major personal milestone, Brené shares what led her to 30 years of sobriety and Adam asks what it taught her about change. From there, they pivot to why Brené can’t tolerate the cringe of The Office —and Adam’s take on how to engage with it. Finally, they deliver a masterclass on the art and science of ending social interactions, sharing the ultimate shortcut to a graceful exit. This is great! 

You can find The Curiosity Shop on ⁠YouTube⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠ (@thecuriosityshop).

0:00 - What Are We Talking About Today?

5:00 - Sober AF: Celebrating 30 Years of Sobriety 

16:30 - Grieving for Joy

28:22 - Why Can’t Brené Watch The Office?

43:18 - Loving or Hating Violating the Rules

49:30 - The Art of Leaving Conversations Respectfully

1:03:40 - The Shortcut to a Graceful Exit

1:08:39 - What Adam and Brené Are Watching Now

Gottman Institute - Research and History - Drs. Julie and John Gottman (Founded 1996)

The Love Prescription, Part 2 of 3 - Brene Brown with Drs John and Julie Gottman, 2022, Unlocking Us Podcast

The Power of Vulnerability - Brené Brown, 2010, TED Talk, TEDxHouston

Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong - Johann Hari, 2015, TED Talk, TEDGlobalLondon

The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior - Dai, Milkman & Riis, 2014, Management Science

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead - Brené Brown, 2012, book, Gotham Books

I Love Lucy: Job Switching - Arnaz, 1952, CBS

The Office: Scott's Tots - B.J. Novak, 2009, NBC

Benign Violations: Making Immoral Behavior Funny - McGraw & Warren, 2010, Psychological Science

Office Ladies - Fischer & Kinsey, 2019-present, Audacy (Podcast)

Do Conversations End When People Want Them To? - Mastroianni et al., 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage - Brown & Levinson, 1987, Cambridge University Press (Book)

Want to Improve Your Relationship? Start Paying More Attention to Bids - Logan Ury, 2026, Gottman Institute

The Virtues of Gossip: Reputational Information Sharing as Prosocial Behavior - Feinberg, Willer, Stellar & Keltner, 2012, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Jury Duty - Eisenberg & Stupnitsky, 2023-2026, Amazon Prime Video (Television Series) 

Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat - Eisenberg & Stupnitsky, 2026, Amazon Prime Video (Television Series)

The Madison - 2026, Sheridan, Paramount+ (Television Series)

Landman - Sheridan, 2024-present, Paramount+ (Television Series)

Opening Up Closings - Schegloff & Sacks, 1973, Semiotica

Closing the Conversation: Evidence from the Academic Advising Session - Hartford & Bardovi-Harlig, 1992, Discourse Processes

Collaborative Strategies in Chinese Telephone Conversation Closings - Sun, 2005, Pragmatics

Ending Social Encounters - Albert & Kessler, 1978, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order - Erving Goffman, 1971, Basic Books (Book)

Sorry for Your Kindness: Japanese Interactional Ritual in Public Discourse - Ide, 1998, Journal of Pragmatics

Getting Down to Business: Talk, Gaze, and Body Orientation During Openings of Doctor-Patient Consultations - Robinson, 1998, Human Communication Research

Negotiating Last-Minute Concerns in Closing Korean Medical Encounters - Park, 2013, Social Science & Medicine

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Do you find yourself defaulting to “Preacher” mode when you’re under pressure, or starting to act like a “Prosecutor” when someone challenges your ideas? Brené and Adam unpack four mental modes – Preacher, Prosecutor, Politician, and Scientist – to explore why we often cling to being right rather than getting it right. In this episode, they discuss how these defensive stances are shaping our response to AI, Brené’s “bounce” method for emotional hypothesis-testing, Adam’s go-to “strategy of small losses,” and ways to stay curious when the stakes are high.

You can find The Curiosity Shop on ⁠YouTube⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠ (@thecuriosityshop).

0:00 - Introduction and Emoting

3:00 - Thinking Under Thread

11:00 - Testing Your Gut with Small Experiments

22:30 - The Integrity of Commitment: The Making of This Podcast

27:15 - Four Thinking Modes: Scientist, Preacher, Prosecutor, Politician

33:57 - When Opinions Become Beliefs

42:48 - The Social Costs of Changing Our Minds

51:30 - A Missing Mental Model: Teacher

59:30 - Wrap up

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know - Adam Grant, 2021, Book

Eric Ries on ‘The Lean Startup’ - Eric Ries, 2011, Knowledge at Wharton

Learning Through Failure: The Strategy of Small Losses - Sitkin, 1992, Research in Organizational Behavior

Affective Forecasting - Wilson & Gilbert, 2003, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology

Atlas of the Heart - Brené Brown, 2021 (Book)

The Science of the Deal - Adam Grant, WorkLife with Adam Grant Podcast

The Power of Vulnerability - Brené Brown, 2011, TED

The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers - Adam Grant, 2016, TED

Beliefs Are Like Possessions - Abelson, 2007, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour

We Need to Talk about Astrology - Adam Grant, 2024, Substack 

The Diplomat - Cahn et al., 2023-present, Let's Not Turn This Into a Whole Big Production & Well Red, Netflix (TV series)

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Brené and Adam discuss the power — and peril — of the words we choose. They dive into two Machiavellian communication tools that often do more harm than good: the "Invisible Army" and "BS Disclaimers". Brené explains why leading with “we” or “but” often comes across as requesting permission to escape accountability, which ultimately sacrifices trust more than anything. Adam explores how these tools can sometimes serve as survival strategies in toxic cultures, leading to a conversation on psychological safety, groupthink, and why precision of language is more important than ever — especially in a world that still judges based on gender and identity.

You can find The Curiosity Shop on ⁠YouTube⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠ (@thecuriosityshop).

0:00 - Introduction

1:10 - The Invisible Army

15:23 - Speaking Up and Pluribus

21:26 - ‘But’ or Escaping Accountability?

40:59 - Responsibility Versus Accountability

46:22 - Judgment Based on Gender and Identity 

1:01:55 - Takeaways From Today’s Episode

Armored Versus Daring Leadership, Part 2 of 2 - Brené Brown, 2021, Dare to Lead (Podcast)

Getting credit for proactive behavior: Supervisor reactions depend on what you value and how you feel - Grant et al., 2009, Personnel Psychology

Plur1bus - Gilligan et al., 2025 - Present, Sony Pictures; Apple TV+ (TV series)

Does Performance Improve Following Multisource Feedback? A Theoretical Model, Meta-Analysis, and Review of Empirical Findings - Smither et al., 2005, Personnel Psychology

Feedback effectiveness: Can 360-degree appraisals be improved? - DeNisi et al., 2000, Academy of Management Perspectives

What Makes a 360-Degree Review Successful? -

Zenger and Folkman, 2020, Harvard Business Review

The bullshit asymmetry [sic]: the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger - Brandolini, A., 2013, Twitter

The power of powerless speech: The effects of speech style and task interdependence on status conferral - Fragale, 2006, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

How Can Women Escape the Compensation Negotiation Dilemma? Relational Accounts Are One Answer - Bowles et al., 2013, Psychology of Women Quarterly

Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve - Fragale, 2024, Doubleday

Strong Ground: The Lessons of Daring Leadership, the Tenacity of Paradox, and the Wisdom of the Human Spirit - Brené Brown, 2025, Random House
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In this episode of The Curiosity Shop, Brené Brown and Adam Grant dive into the return‑to‑office debate and argue that most conversations are stuck at the wrong level. Instead of asking “How many days in the office?”, they ask, “What problem are you actually trying to solve?”

They explore evidence on hybrid work, weak‑tie innovation, culture and belonging, and why some leaders still cling to “butts in seats” as a proxy for performance. Along the way, they introduce a systems‑thinking “iceberg” tool for getting below the surface of policy fights to the patterns, structures, and mental models driving them.

You can find The Curiosity Shop on ⁠YouTube⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠ (@thecuriosityshop).

0:00 - What’s Surprising Us About This Podcast? 

1:49 - Return to Office 

22:06 - Challenging Your Return to Office Mental Model

34:15 - Birth Order

40:18 - Tradeoff Between Authenticity and Editing

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/peps.12641

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/worklife-with-adam-grant-the-dos-and-donts/id1346314086?i=1000565464077

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/workplace/the-real-meaning-of-freedom-at-work-11633704877

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381373698_Hybrid_working_from_home_improves_retention_without_damaging_performance

https://hbr.org/2014/01/to-raise-productivity-let-more-employees-work-from-home

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/seven-truths-about-hybrid-work-and-productivity/

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-effects-of-remote-work-on-collaboration-among-Yang-Jaffe/bff6dabad6d264c0f34678a788e20df1b015656d

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2041386614564105

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44605966_The_Strength-of-Weak-Ties_Perspective_on_Creativity_A_Comprehensive_Examination_and_Extension

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jure/pub/papers/granovetter73ties.pdf

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1802407115

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361135288_Remote_Collaboration_Fuses_Fewer_Breakthrough_Ideas

https://oms-www.files.svdcdn.com/production/downloads/academic/Disrupting-Science-Upload-2022-4.pdf

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4675401

https://www.atlassian.com/blog/distributed-work/intentional-togetherness-research

https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/coming-to-a-new-awareness-of-organizational-culture/

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/10720537.2026.2613112?needAccess=true

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1956-04524-000

https://www.nber.org/papers/w30866

https://www.amazon.com/Originals-How-Non-Conformists-Move-World/dp/014312885X

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1506451112

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From classrooms and locker rooms to workplaces and social media, Adam and Brené trace how shame and humiliation are used to control behavior and even fuel violence. They explore what causes shame, why our self-protective responses backfire, and how we can handle it more effectively. They also unpack the messy overlap between imposter syndrome and cultural pressures toward self-doubt.

You can find The Curiosity Shop on ⁠YouTube⁠ and ⁠Instagram⁠ (@thecuriosityshop).

Chapter Titles + Timestamps:


0:00 - Introduction


2:10 - The One, Two, Threes of Shame


8:52 - The New Research on Humiliation


14:04 - What Is Humiliation?


18:30 - Why Don’t People Outgrow Shame?


29:09 - How to Help People Out of Shame?


38:05 - Reconnecting Your Prefrontal Cortex Post-Shame


42:55 - How Does Shame Relate to Imposter Syndrome?


50:10 - Biggest Takeaways About Shame, Guilt, Humiliation, and Embarrassment

Why Feelings of Guilt May Signal Leadership Potential - Marina Krakovsky, 2012, Insights by Stanford Business (Introducing the work of Schaumberg) 

Unwanted identities: A key variable in shame-anger links and gender differences in shame - Ferguson et al., Sex Roles

Humiliation: Causes, correlates, and consequences - Elison & Harter, 2007, from The self‑conscious emotions: Theory and research 

Healing Humiliation: From Reaction to Creative Action - Hartling & Linder, 2016, Journal of Counseling & Development Shame and Humiliation: From Isolation to Relational Transformation - Hartling et al., Stone Center for Developmental Services and Studies

Strengthening resilience in a risky world: It’s all about relationships - Hartling, 2003, Women & Therapy 

Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome - Ruchika Tulshyan & Jodi-Ann Burey, 2021, Harvard Business Review

How imposter syndrome can be your superpower - MIT Sloan Office Of Communications, 2025 (Introducing the work of Basima Tewfik)

Unmasking the Impostor - MIT Sloan Office of Communications, 2025 (Tewfik, Debunking 4 myths) 

Listening to shame, Brené Brown, 2012, TED

The Power of Vulnerability, Brené Brown, 2011, TED

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