I want to use the Wikipedia definition of courage. Courage is the ability and willingness to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation.
Physical courage is courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, death, or threat of death, while moral courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, or discouragement.
When I was researching this specific topic I never put much thought to the difference between physical and moral courage. I think that I have always combined the two together.
Great leaders are always faced with decisions that directly affect their courage. Great leaders are seen and known as great leaders because they stand out from the crowd. They stand tall because they know without a shadow of doubt that they can hold their head high and be confident that they have made good judgment calls.
The fact is that every great leader will be challenged by others. They will challenge their integrity, honesty and even their morals. It is up to the great leader to always make sure they are making good, even righteous decisions.
We all know what is right and wrong. It is what we do with our right and wrong decisions that identifies how courageous we are.
Many will do anything it takes to shred you of every bit of integrity and moral values you have, but it will depend on how courageous you are to fight and stand up for what you believe in.
My invitation to you is that you look back on your life and identify how you have lived your life, how you have made decisions and how others perceive you. I would invite you to think before you act and respond instead of reacting.
Believe You Can!
“If you don’t feel something strongly you’re not going to achieve.” George Walker Bush
George Walker Bush was an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd President of the United States of America. Bush graduated from Yale, was a good business man and also co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team. Bush had to deal with probably the biggest terrorist threat to our nation. He also dealt with Hurricane Katrina that obliterated many Gulf States. Bush was a popular president to many, but also had many enemies due to some of his decisions.
There is much to say about Bush. Here is a man that for the most part has seen success in his life. He obviously worked very hard to achieve the great results he had.
I want you to think for a minute about a time that you achieved success. It does not need to be a huge success. It can be something as small as getting a great grade on a college paper, or even successfully asking a man or woman on a date. What did it start with? What did you envision? Did the plan you envisioned work? What was the end result?
I am of the opinion that you cannot achieve something if you don’t have some type of vision or belief to know what the end needs to be. Or you want it to be. Many people go through life on an average or standard routine. They are satisfied with their job, they are always putting themselves down, they always hang out with people that put themselves down and really do not want anything more. A great leader is never satisfied, never gives up and always wants to challenge life to see what life gives back.
In order to attain this understanding that you cannot achieve or succeed in life without a self-belief or some self-esteem that you are capable of achieving anything you put your mind to. I want to tell you some of the concepts that I do in order to believe in myself and achieve what I put my mind to.
- Envision the goal you want to complete. It needs to be very detailed.
- Start preparing yourself for the thing you want by going over in your mind the details of the event.
- Create a detailed plan and envision yourself actually completing the event. This is very important because your mind is very powerful; it will help you to come up little details that you may not have thought about.
- Practice in your mind what you are going to say to those you need to communicate with and practice what you will say to various objections you may incur.