Chapter 11
Courageous Living
I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
Mahatma Gandhi, nonviolent revolutionary
Be Courageous!
Bill Treasurer, high-diving, Speedo-wearing, fear-carrying courage consultant
“You have cancer.”
Few words fill the brain with as much unsettling confusion as cancer. Pretty much everything my doctor said after that was a jumble. “Positive biopsy … tumors … unusual for your age … radical surgery …”
One comment did get through, however: “If you don’t treat this, you will die.”
There are advantages to running a courage-building company. Courage is an attractive subject, and it certainly has attracted some marquee clients to Giant Leap. Conversations become electrified when they turn to the subject of courage. It is a subject that pulls people forward and upward, elevating them to higher ideals and standards. But there are disadvantages to running a courage-building company, too. Courage is a subject with considerable mass and gravity. My proximity to the subject seems to have attracted an unusually large number of challenging life experiences. I sometimes wonder if, when God found out I was going to devote my life to helping others to be more courageous, he thought, “Is that so? Then I guess Mr. Treasurer is going to need some lessons in that area. Angels, start the conveyor belt!”
Not that God causes cancer. That was likely traceable to my male ancestors. Most men who get prostate cancer, the deadliest cancer among men after lung cancer, don’t have to look too far up the ladder of their male lineage to find another cancer heir.
When I started writing this book, I had no idea that the subject of courage would hit me in such a personal way. But I guess I should have expected it. When I wrote Right Risk, I was grappling with the decision of whether to leave Accenture to start my own company. Writing the book helped me to work myself through the risk. Fortunately, according to the many correspondences I received after the book was published, the book helped many others to take purposeful risks, too.
But leaving a company is one thing; having cancer at forty-five years old is another. It brings a new dimension to the idea of courage that I hadn’t considered—namely, the importance of persisting through suffering. The hard part about having cancer is living with a giant scythe-shaped question mark hanging over your head. This isn’t some momentary or episodic act of courage. This is courage stretched and extended over a vast sea of unknowingness. Even for cancer “survivors”—a designation you receive only after five consecutive years without a cancer reoccurrence—there is no definitive sense of resolution. The hungry bastard can always come back. Nope, this is a kind of courage you have to settle in with for the long haul.
The Most Important Motivational Fact
One courageous entrepreneur I’ve had the pleasure of working with is Sara Blakely, the founder of SPANX, a billion-dollar international retail powerhouse. Sara is a kindred spirit and an amazing person. She breaks every stereotype you could have about a person who founded an international retail enterprise. She is kindhearted, unassuming, down-to-earth, and generous. She is also courageous. Part of her courage stems from her refusal to let fear hold her back. She gets afraid as much as everyone else (she would say more), but she presses forward despite her fears.
Sara and I had a long talk once about the sources of courage and why some people seem more willing to accept the challenges that courage inevitably brings. We agreed that the answer is the most motivational fact of all, which I’ll share with you in a moment. It has to do with life’s fragile and fleeting nature.
It turns out that one of the reasons for Sara’s willingness to respond to life and business with courage is that she had, in her own words, a “shift in consciousness” as a result of a horrible tragedy that occurred when she was sixteen. As she was crossing the street with one of her best friends, a car veered out of control and smashed into the girl, killing her instantly. Sara’s mind reeled with shock as she tried to comprehend the enormity of what had just happened.
Sara describes the tragedy as her personal 9/11. One moment she was laughing with her lively friend; the next she was watching her die. In a visceral way, the tragic event taught Sara how fragile, chancy, and potentially brief life is.
Tragedy, if you let it, can offer you life-seasoning lessons. Over time, Sara has come to believe that an acute awareness of your own mortality can be a liberating thing. The knowledge that life can end instantly—and at a time over which you have absolutely no control—provides reason enough to live courageously. When you know that your tomorrows are not guaranteed, you stop using “I’ll do it tomorrow” as an excuse to postpone your dreams.
So what is the most motivational fact of all? You guessed it: You are going to die someday!
Living a Life You Can Be Proud to Call Your Own
In 2008, a movie called The Bucket List was released, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. The two play terminally ill cancer patients who escape from a hospital, setting out to accomplish a list of adventurous things before they kick the bucket. The movie’s premise connects directly to courage. When you become keenly aware of life’s brevity, you become more willing to live it courageously.
This idea, that the knowledge of your mortality can inspire courageous behavior, was also captured in Tim McGraw’s chart-topping country song “Live Like You Were Dying.” The song tells the story of a man who, after learning he has cancer, starts living in a courageous way. He goes skydiving, mountain climbing, and even bull riding. But he also loves with more depth and forgives with more generosity. What makes the song so powerful is that it is based on McGraw’s own life experiences. The country singer is the son of New York Mets baseball legend Tug McGraw. The song was written just after the elder McGraw died of brain cancer. The singer had taken care of his father during his illness.
So what does all this talk about death and cancer have to do with living courageously? Everything. You and I know that if you knew you had only one more year to live, you would respond to the world very differently than you do today. And that response would be entirely courageous. I’m sure you’d try more things, like traveling to exotic places or learning how to ride a motorcycle. I’m sure you’d make amends to people and open yourself up to trusting them more fully. I’m sure you’d express yourself with less care as to what people think of your opinions. In short, you would behave with more TRY, TRUST, and TELL courage.
Now, dear reader, I recognize that the death-awareness lesson can be carried only so far. This book has focused mostly on applying courage in a work setting. If you really did have only a year to live, you’d probably quit your job and move to Tahiti. The point I’m trying to make is that personally and professionally it is important to live a life, and craft a career, that you can be proud to call your own, because someday both will be gone forever. The life-orienting and potentially courage-inducing fact that you’re going to die someday has to do with accountability. Doing things you can be proud of, saying things you can be proud of, and touching the hearts of others in a way you can be proud of are ultimately ways of demonstrating personal and career accountability. At work and at home, doing courageous things is the best way to honor the life you’ve been blessed with.
All of this relates to how you manage people, too. Your employees are entitled to have a fulfilling career. That’s right, entitled! They bear much of the responsibility for crafting a fulfilling career. But you, as a manager, also bear some responsibility. Helping them to be courageous in the service of the company’s goals is not enough. You have to help them to be courageous in the service of their career goals, too. As a manager, you can do both by holding them accountable to their own potential, and providing them with meaningful and courage-inducing challenges. You have to fill them with courage.
Be Courageous!
I want you to live a long, healthy, and courageous life. And I want you to have a long, prosperous, and courageous career. I really do. What I don’t want is for you to have career and life longevity only to end up sitting on a barstool someday, complaining about all the things you wish you had done. Regrets, especially over things we should have done but didn’t because we were too comfortable or afraid when we faced them, burn hot in our souls. The risks we regret the most are always the ones we didn’t take.
The motto of Giant Leap Consulting is Be Courageous! In my opinion, no two words are more important to life and work. I encourage people to think of those two words when facing challenging situations, intimidating people, or moments of hardship. Be Courageous! when you want to ask for a raise. Be Courageous! when you need to deliver a tough message to an errant employee. Be Courageous! when you suffer a career setback. Be Courageous! when you are thinking about transferring overseas. Be Courageous! when situations or people try to compromise your integrity. Be Courageous! when you or someone else is being bullied. Be Courageous! when you are deciding whether to start your own business. In work and in life, for yourself and for others, in all you do and say, Be Courageous!
The good news is, you’ve already had a lot of courageous life experiences to draw from. In other words, you already are courageous! Courage has been living inside you since the day you were born. You were courageous on your first day of school. You were courageous when you learned how to drive a car. You were courageous when you first kissed someone, and later when you lost your virginity! You were courageous when you left home for college. You were courageous when you said “I do,” and later when you bought a home. You were courageous when you went on your first job interview, became a manager, and led a huge project for your company. You were courageous every time you were afraid and uncomfortable but carried on anyway. All you have to do now is more of what your whole life has been teaching you to do: Be Courageous!
As I mentioned in the last chapter, the workplace needs your courage. But the rest of your world needs it, too. Courage goes to work wherever you take it. Whether at home, in your place of worship, on the racquetball court, in your civic organizations, or in your community, your courage is always needed. Think what the world would look like with less fear and more courage.
Fill Up Your World
So where do you start? Start where you are. Start today. Start now. Start by taking a long, hard look at your life and asking yourself, “Where am I playing it too safe? What areas of my life have become annoyingly comfortable? Which of my fears are outdated or inflated? What kind of experiences am I filling my life with? What actions can I take, will I take, am I taking, to be courageous?”
Start by filling yourself up with courage. Jump First. Do one thing each day that challenges you, discomforts you, or frightens you. Seek out experiences, big and small, that make your palms sweat. Try some, trust some, tell some, fail some. Invite others to join you. Courage works if you work it. So work it.
Coeur, Corazón, Courage = HEART
It’s been over a decade since I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and had cancer surgery. That makes me a cancer survivor, and to this day I remain cancer free.
Cancer taught me an important lesson about how being courageous when facing adversity is made much, much easier with the encouragement of those who care about you. I was profoundly humbled by the outpouring of support I received from friends, loved ones, and clients. They were my community of encouragement and filled me with courage. The entire experience convinced me that I have a lot to live for—like the laughter of my three beautiful children, the tender embraces of my loving wife, fantastic and interesting friends, and an incredibly gratifying career. Cancer enlarged my understanding of courage. I believe my cancer experience helps me to better serve my mission of aiding people and organizations to Be More Courageous.
I’m just trying to live a life that brings me smiles and a faster heartbeat—a courageous life. That goal, and the courage that informs it, was what caused me to become a high diver, write a book about risk taking and now another on courage, take up kayaking, quit drinking twenty-five years ago, make amends with people I had hurt, launch a business, and move to Asheville, North Carolina. Life is about living. The dying part is just a loud stopwatch ticking in the background.
Your stopwatch is ticking, too. So get on with living … courageously!