Go Help Yourself: A Comedy Self-Help Podcast to Make Life Suck Less · Misty Stinnett & Lisa Linke

RE-RELEASE: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brené Brown

·55 min·3 clips

Brene Brown says authenticity is “the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be.”

Lisa Linke and Misty Stinnett start with the familiar Go Help Yourself setup and frame the episode around a Brené Brown book. The tone stays loose, funny, and blunt from the start. The book gives them a way into the habit of treating total independence like a virtue. Brown’s argument about receiving and giving help becomes the episode’s center of gravity. The hosts tie that idea to the bigger pattern of calling self-sufficiency a moral win. They do not let it sit there without jokes and a fair bit of skepticism. One of the clearest threads in the discussion is how awkward it can feel to accept real help without feeling exposed. They describe that feeling as vulnerable, uncomfortable, and more unsettling than ordinary emotional openness. The conversation stays grounded because both hosts speak from personal experience instead of making the lesson abstract. They also bring in a key distinction from a previous Brown book, Daring Greatly. Not everybody deserves your vulnerability. That reminder keeps the episode from sliding into blanket encouragement. They make clear that being open is not the same thing as giving yourself to people who have already shown they will misuse it. The discussion then returns to the book’s larger theme of connection. Brown’s idea that receiving with an open heart and giving with an open heart are linked gives them another point to wrestle with, both in agreement and in pushback. The hosts sit with the tension between wanting support and feeling uneasy about asking for it. They also talk through the shame that can come with saying you are not okay. The episode pays special attention to the emotional cost of pretending you can handle everything alone. Rather than tidy that tension away, they leave it complicated. That fits the show’s broader style, which mixes book summary, personal reaction, and ethical questioning. The ending returns to warmth without losing the edge. They sign off with the show’s playful blessing of courage, compassion, and connection. The result is part review, part therapy-adjacent banter, and part defense of asking for help without pretending it is simple.

As heard by us

A funny, candid take on vulnerability, help, and the self-sufficiency myth behind a lot of self-help.

Lisa Linke and Misty Stinnett give Brene Brown's The Gifts of Imperfection a comic, candid reading that keeps its focus on the book's central tension: self-worth can get tangled up with never needing help.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play if you want comedy self-help book club energy, with cussing and a skeptical edge.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Go Help Yourself: A Comedy Self-Help Podcast to Make Life Suck Less