TSSI #16 - Courageous Character: real life tales of bold decisions
Read Time: 3 minutes
Courage is a crucial component of personal growth, goal achievement, and leadership.
It’s a driving force behind the pursuit of excellence and living a fulfilling life.
Whether you're an athlete pushing the physical limits of endurance or an entrepreneur navigating the uncertainty of business, it's a fundamental trait to achieving high-performance.
"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
Elon Musk's audacious ventures, including SpaceX and Tesla, have redefined industries.
"When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor." - Elon Musk
His fearless pursuit of ambitious goals and willingness to invest his own fortune into high-risk endeavors exemplify courage.
However, there's one thing wrong with the sentence above...
Can you spot it?
The word "fearless". There is no such thing as fearless courage.
"Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared." - Eddie Rickenbacker
Courage is all about taking action despite the presence of fear.
If there's no fear, then there's no need for courage.
Brené Brown, in her book, Daring Greatly (must read), states that there is no courage without vulnerability.
What is vulnerability?
Vulnerability is opening oneself up to uncertainty, criticism, and emotional exposure.
True courage involves being willing to show up, be seen, and take risks even when there are no guarantees of success.
In 2020, during the first covid lockdown, I was trying to stay in shape for some UK based tennis tournaments.
I was taking a yoga class when I lowered myself down into a single leg squat. As I got to the bottom, I heard "click, click, click".
A few minutes later, I had a sickly feeling in my stomach and an inability to straighten my right knee.
A week later, I got a call from the doctor reporting that I had a bucket handle tear of the medial meniscus that required surgery.
A few months later, post meniscus repair surgery, I was still getting swelling and discomfort. Even walking up the stairs it hurt.
Another MRI showed that half the repair hadn't healed.
Another surgery needed.
By this point I was crushed.
Even before the injury, I'd been struggling.
For the previous 7 years of pro tennis, I'd lost thousand of dollars and had major doubts.
Doubts, even without these surgeries.
But I plucked up the courage to try to overcome it.
I worked for 8 months to get back.
13 months since the original injury.
And I ended up winning 4 of my first 5 futures doubles events and returned to the singles court.
This was a moment during my career that I'm really proud of.
It took real courage to persevere and come back to chase my dream even though it meant facing uncertainty, with no guarantees of success.
Unfortunately my doctor told me bad news towards the end of the year.
He said, "if you keep going with singles, your knee is going to fail on you".
5 months later, it did.
I tore more cartilage in the same knee.
I was done.
It took more courage again to make the decision to hang my bats up and move into my next chapter.
It was scary.
Playing tennis was all I had ever know. But I had the take a leap & jump into the unknown.
I flew across the pond to start the next chapter.
Those were a few moments, in the face of fear and vulnerability, that I had to show some courage in the last few years.
Here are some more examples of being courageous:
Dreaming big & believing in your ability to achieve lofty goals
Going all-in to achieve a goal that you might never reach
Stepping onto the playing field with no guarantee of success
Investing in a business that might fail
Admitting your mistakes to the team (key for leadership)
Saying "No" to opportunities that don't align with your core values
Firing a poor employee, even though you know it will hurt them
Pitching investors and risking rejection
Choosing high-risk strategies in sport that might backfire
Choosing to ask out the girl, and risk being embarrassed
These tales of courage remind us that it's not the absence of fear but the ability to act in the face of it that defines individuals.
Whether on the court or in the boardroom, courage is a trait that will define your success.
So, the next time you face a daunting decision, remember these stories and choose to be courageous.
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