Time Scarcity and Pocket Presence

The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant

Vox Media Podcast Network

July 9, 2026

Show Notes

Previously released on Dare to Lead, this is part of a special six-part series with Adam Grant on Brené's book, Strong Ground. The conversation opens on time scarcity, the devaluation of future time, and whether hope is actually a strategy. From there they discuss how great leaders don't need all the right answers (just the right questions) and the difference between executive presence and pocket presence. While digging into how the five C's of delegation build the situational awareness and critical thinking that pocket presence requires, Adam has a breakthrough realization that pocket presence isn't just an individual skill, it's a collective capability. Executive presence, they agree, is "party of one."

ResourceSlack and Propensity to Discount Delayed Investments of Time Versus Money – Gal Zauberman, 2004,Journal of Experimental Psychology

Timefor Happiness – Ashley Whillans, 2019,Harvard Business Review

Can We Afford to be Time Poor? The Hidden Tax of Time Poverty – Celestine Rosales, 2024,The Decision Lab

The Will and the Ways – C. R. Snyder, 1991, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

HopeTheory: Rainbows in the Mind – C. R. Snyder, 2002,Psychological Inquiry

GoldenEggs and Hyperbolic Discounting – David Laibson, 1997, The Quarterly Journal of Economics

Some Empirical Evidence on Dynamic Inconsistency – Richard Thaler, 1981, Economics Letters

FutureSelf-Continuity: How Conceptions of the Future Self Transform Intertemporal Choice – Hal Hershfield, 2011,Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

The stranger within: Connecting with our future selves – Cynthia Lee

April 9, 2015,UCLA Newsroom

Wenormally think of a weakness as a strength you lack, but it can also be a strength you overuse – Adam Grant, July 10, 2018,LinkedIn

StopOverdoing Your Strengths – Robert Kaplan, 2009,Harvard Business Review