Daring Greatly

I just finished reading Daring Greatly by Brene' Brown, and I immediately started reading it again. Then I'm going to watch all of the author's TED talks and read all her other books. I don't usually like admitting to reading self help books, but this one covered so many topics that are important to me (parenting, personal development, marriage, education) that I had to stop pretending to be so cool for a minute.
The title Daring Greatly comes from this quote by Theodore Roosevelt,  "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again...."
My favorite anecdote in the book is when the author's daughter is playing with glitter at school and the teacher tells her "you're a mess!" to which her daughter responds "I may be making a mess, but I'm not a mess." 
I also love Brown's distinction between belonging and fitting in: Belonging is being somewhere you want to be, and they want you.  Fitting in is being somewhere where you really want to be but they don't care one way or the other. 

My head was spinning with so many new ideas and different ways of looking at things, and I felt so empowered after I finished this book, but then my children (well, one child in particular) did her absolute best to take me down a notch. At one point during bedtime something along the lines of  "I'm being bossy to you because you're being so bossy to me. NOW GET ME A DRINK!" was said/yelled. And not by me.

Daring Greatly is by no means a parenting guide, but I think all parents could benefit from reading it. If you've already read it, what did you think? And if you add it to your reading list, please be sure to report back.