The Tush Push With Brené Brown: Leadership Moves One Inch At A Time

The Tush Push with Brené Brown isn’t about grace under pressure. It’s about getting shoved one yard forward while pretending it’s a leadership strategy. Welcome to inspirational turf burns


If you’ve ever wondered what real-world courage looks like?

Brené Brown’s Strong Ground reminds us it’s less about bold leaps and more about the slow, sweaty crawl of progress. 

Think less halftime speech, more NFL physics lesson meets therapy session.


The Tush Push With Brené Brown

The Tush Push: The Slow Crawl Of Courageous Leadership

If you thought leadership meant grand vision boards and stirring speeches, Brené Brown’s Strong Ground is here to tell you otherwise. 

Real progress often looks like the NFL’s infamous “tush push”.

Awkwardly slow, and entirely dependent on the people pushing you from behind.

This is daring leadership at a snail’s pace: one inch forward, bruised egos and muddy cleats included. 

Because leadership isn’t about sprinting toward greatness.

It’s about inching toward it with grit, humility, and a team that refuses to quit.

Groundbreaking stuff — literally


Leadership, Physics, And The Power Of The Push

In Chapter Two of Strong Ground, Brown takes inspiration from the NFL’s “tush push” (also known as the “Brotherly Shove”). 

It is where a quarterback crouches down and his teammates literally shove him forward for a few precious inches.

It’s teamwork, physics, and stubbornness all rolled into one gloriously unglamorous move.

Even astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson gets in on the action, explaining how the play embodies Newton’s laws of motion:

  • Inertia: The team that moves first keeps momentum.
  • Force: Power comes from mass and acceleration — everyone pushing in sync.
  • Action and Reaction: Push against the ground, and the earth pushes back. Progress happens because everyone stays grounded.

Brown uses this sports-meets-science spectacle to show that leadership is a contact sport

It’s about balance, humility, and knowing that forward motion only happens when everyone’s grounded — literally and figuratively.

In this same book, Brené Brown also discusses negative capability in relation to vulnerability, explaining it as the ability to tolerate uncertainty, mystery, and doubt.


What the Tush Push Really Teaches Us About Leadership

Underneath the turf and physics, The Tush Push with Brené Brown delivers one powerful message:

True leadership isn’t solo heroics. It’s teamwork, trust, and the willingness to be shoved gently or not toward something better.

You don’t leap. You inch.

You don’t soar. You stumble forward.

And if you’re lucky, you move far enough to call it growth.

Because sometimes the bravest thing a leader can do is stay grounded while getting pushed.

In other chapter, Brené Brown explores the thrill of victory and agony of defeat.


The Science Of Not Face-Planting

At its core, The Tush Push with Brené Brown is about honest leadership. 

It’s not glamorous. It’s not fast. But it’s real.

Progress doesn’t always look like a touchdown. 

More often, it’s the messy middle — the push, the resistance, and the shared effort that keeps a team moving forward, inch by inch.

That’s the quiet power of Strong Ground: courageous leadership that’s steady, grounded, and built on the strength of those pushing alongside you.


Strong Ground, Strong Team

In Newtonian teamwork, every member’s footing matters. 

As Brown puts it, finding your strong ground comes down to two things:

  1. Your own foundation — values, curiosity, and humility.
  2. Your connection to others — people who are grounded, aligned, and pushing in the same direction.

Because when everyone’s grounded, you don’t just move the ball — you move together.

And maybe that’s what daring leadership really is: 

The slow, awkward, utterly human art of being shoved toward greatness, one inch at a time.


Don’t stop at the one-yard line!

Keep your momentum going with more Brené Brown–style leadership plays that’ll move you forward one inch (or insight) at a time.

Every inch has a story — but the real game plan starts here.

👉 Read the full Brené Brown Strong Ground Review and see how courage, teamwork, and corporate chaos collide.



I'm Snarky Suzie — sass-slinger, snark architect, and curator of the Snarkinary word vault.

I write because therapy’s expensive and sarcasm is free.

“Don’t Give a Snark!” — Snarky Suzie

Snarky Suzie

◆ SNARKINARY ◆

Snarky Word Of The Day

Snark Starts Here

Snarky Quotes:

  • • “Be yourself. Unless you’re awful."
  • • “Speak your truth. Maybe less often.”
  • • “Follow your dreams, unless they are stupid.”
  • • “Rise and grind... or just rise and complain.”
  • • “Seize the day—before it seizes you with problems."
  • • “Don't quit... your day dream.”

Popular Posts

Blog Archive