Atlas of the Heart

Clinical social worker, research professor and speaker Brené Brown has gained renown for helping leaders get comfortable with emotional vulnerability with her best-selling books The Gifts of Imperfection and Dare to Lead, and her wildly popular TEDx Talk, “The Power of Vulnerability.” Brown’s latest book arose out of research showing that, on average, people reach for only three words — “happy,” “sad,” and “angry” — when describing in-the-moment emotions.

In an interview on CBS, Brown asks, “What happens to us, and what happens to the connection that we have with ourselves and other people, when we have to shove really diverse experiences and emotions into just three big buckets?” The cost, she suggests, is that you lose the ability to understand and connect with yourself and other people, maintain emotional stability, and live a rich, balanced emotional life.