Courage

Courage is not the absence of fear. That is a child’s definition.

Courage is what you do while the fear is in the room with you.

The people we remember as courageous were not unafraid. They knew exactly what they stood to lose and stood anyway. They walked toward the thing every instinct told them to walk away from, and they did it with the cost fully understood.

You do not need a movement to need courage. The same muscle moves smaller weights every day.

The hard conversation you have been avoiding. The truth you have not told. The risk you keep almost taking. The standard you have not enforced because you knew it would cost you. The person you know you should become and keep postponing.

Each one is a small test of the same muscle.

Courage requires three things.

• Strength to carry the weight.

• Faith that the work is worth doing whether or not it is rewarded.

• Action — because strength and faith without action is just rehearsal.

Most people have two of the three. They have the strength. They have the faith. They never move.

Move anyway.

Fear does not leave first. Fear leaves second, behind the action that proved it wrong.

The one who waits for fear to disappear before they act will wait their whole life. The person who acts despite the fear will look back and find the fear was smaller than the thing it was guarding.

Do the hard thing today. Just the one.

Then tomorrow, do the next.

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” — Muhammad Ali