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Cultivating a Sense of Courage

January 6, 2012 By 14 Comments

A few months ago I woke up to an awareness about myself. I didn’t “wake-up” to this in the morning, I woke up to this when I realized I was feeling stagnant.

The awareness: I had completely fallen into a comfort zone.

A comfort zone is a place or state of being, whereby life is “easy,” comfortable, things are moving along pretty smoothly. But in reality, it’s stagnant. Nothing major is happening. There isn’t anything to push you into higher growth, everything just… is.

Comfort. It feels good. It’s nice. Safe. Warm.

But dangerous.

It’s the place where dreams are deferred, plans are postponed, and life is in the lead. It’s going with the flow and you don’t even know where the flow is going.

So, how does one break their comfort zone rut?

Courage.

Courage by definition is doing something that frightens you. Now, I don’t think you need to sky dive or heli-ski or include any other apparatus that sits high above the ground.

But, I do think we have to ask ourself, What is the biggest, baddest, scariest thing I could do today? Wait for an answer, and then do it.

Courage is about foregoing the little baby steps and leaping to a path of your higher calling.

Courage is defining what you want – and then initiating the biggest payoff activity you can.

Simply put, courage is going for it. No. Matter. What.

So I ask, can we cultivate the courage to pursue our dreams? Or will we find ourselves stuck in the cushions of comfort?

Like everything else in life, courage is a choice.

The choice is yours (and mine too!).

How are you being courageous? Share in the comments below.

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What’s so Sexy About Being Real?

December 6, 2010 By 1 Comment

Real, Realness, Authenticity Sitting in Starbucks last week and talking with some friends and colleagues about life, business, and love – the subject of raw authenticity came up.

I love the story of Julie Powell, a woman from New York who hated her job and her life and who became determined to cook every recipe in Julia Childs French cookbook and blog about it. Her blog was real, raunchy, and raw. She spoke of her sex life, things that went wrong, and her awful co-workers. She then got a book and movie deal. Go figure, being real pays off.

Over our latte’s we wondered – could we be so REAL?

Then another blogger came up, one who has a big following and who decided to partake in a sexual romp with someone other than his partner and blog about that experience. Holy Cow! Did I peak your interest? You are probably wondering just who the heck is this blogger and where can you find them?

Which leads to my point. Being real is sexy. (Not sexy in the I want to romp with you kind of way, but sexy in a pulling, I-want-to-know-more,-curiosity-kind-of-way.

People need and crave “realness” from others. There’s already so much fluff and surface bullsh*t out there that we are starving to know the truth.

“Hello, how are you?”

“I’m well, how are you?”

“Great, thanks.”

Blah, blah, blah.

Let’s get to the meat. Let’s get to the nitty gritty, let’s lay it out on the table. Life sucks, Life’s hard, Life’s fantastic ,I just landed a great gig, I’m sad, I’m anxious, I hate my job, I hate my boss, I’m in love with m boss.

Whatever it is. Whatever that realness is for you, wouldn’t it be great if we could just get there?

Realness is sexy because people can relate to real.
Realness is sexy because we need to know we are not alone.
Realness is sexy because it’s how we know we are not a freak.

Granted, I don’t think you should wear your tragedies on your sleeve nor should you be a classic “dumper” of bad news – what I am saying is that the more we just be who we are, the more we just allow ourselves to be free to be ourselves, the more people will gravitate towards us. Yeah, some may run because rawness is too scary, but the majority will clamor over you – they’ll want to take that with them, they’ll want to be real too.

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Developing a Thick Skin

August 30, 2010 By 1 Comment

On Saturday night we headed down to the Rockies game. It was a great evening as the sun went down and the stadium cooled off. I watched the game and the thousands in the crowd as I cracked open peanut shells fighting for the treasure inside.

The Rockies were up by a few runs and the pitcher for the Dodgers had hit a few of the batters. The catcher and 3rd baseman came to meet him on the mound.

Meanwhile, the stadium started seeing “nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah – hey, hey, hey goodbye!”

As the crowd caught on to the chant it grew louder and louder and the pitcher was finally replaced. Participating in this past time for a moment, I put myself in the place of this professional Major League Baseball pitcher.

Could you imagine EVER having to deal with something like this during your entire life? How scarred would you be hearing thousands upon thousands of people telling you to go home. While, it’s a part of the sport and the crowd energy – it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t or couldn’t affect the player.

It got me to thinking, is my skin thick enough? Could I withstand thousands of people chanting at me to go home and yet still get up again tomorrow and have the courage to do it all over again? There are days when a client criticism, even if constructive, can send me into a spiral of self-doubt.

This incident just made me realize how easy I have it compared to some of big athletes and others in the public eye. Regardless, to achieve your dreams you need more than thick skin, you need the courage to pick yourself back up and start all over again.

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