My friend John is an accomplished speaker who is known for being inspirational. He was born a congenital amputee and despite his situation has become a great success in business and giving presentations. To hang out with John is like hanging with the coolest kid in class, the best man at the wedding, or the Captain of the football team. Not only has he overcome obstacles in life, he has become a leader of people and ideas. You might say John is brave and certainly confident.
John and his wife Andrea stayed with my family this year because he was returning to his High School to accept the Alumni of the Year award. During breakfast the morning of the award ceremony, John was visibly nervous about this event. The most confident person I know in the world seemed to have lost his confidence over a short visit to his school and friends from decades ago. A person who gives two hour speeches about success is worried about a two minute acceptance speech. Why? What could John be concerned about? Have you ever had that sinking feeling when returning to a place in time?
A business friend Mary grew up poor and never attended college. After high school, she got married and began a family. While her new family struggled to make ends meet, Mary was very aware of the power of money and the role it played in her life. Sick of not having what she felt was enough, she pushed herself to learn about and work in the financial services industry. She showed absolute courage and commitment to growing her own wealth, took risks, and eventually started her own business. By all visible accounts, she is a great success story.
When I met Mary, she was expressing to me she never had enough, was worried about loosing it all, concerned about being poor. Her courage had shifted to fear. This was not the first time I have heard this story about someone beginning in scarcity, achieving abundance, and then shifting back to scarcity. While Mary was growing her aspirations, she could take risks with the feeling of nothing to loose. Once achieving her goals, she then behaved like someone protecting something. Her growth had stopped and decline set in. Why did Mary loose her confidence?
These two examples of brave people holding onto fear are important to understanding courage and confidence. The fact is, without fear courage can not exist (Goud, 2005). Maslow described this fear and courage paradox as the Jonah complex. It’s the overlapping contradiction between failure and success. Maslow believed that fear comes from the fear of greatness, fear of really reaching our potential. It’s a pull between the challenge of risk and overcoming obstacle and actually achieving something great. John is on the path to achieving greatness, and struggles with the actual possibility of doing so. He likes being recognized, but this acknowledgment raises the bar of expectation on himself and what others expect of him. His two minute acceptance speech is paralyzing while the pursuit to this award is easier and completely fulfilling. For John, courage is not standing in front of 300 people talking for hours, but accepting recognition for having achieved something. The bar is higher, and he must face a new challenge of achieving more. Undoubtedly, once his two minute speech is over, he became more confident and set out on the rest of his success journey.
For Mary, her success resulted in accomplishment, self actualization, and happiness, for a time. Just as we may buy something for ourselves to feel good, once attained we realize it is only a fleeting pleasure. Mary’s goal, fueled out of fear and passion for helping people gain wealth, once satisfied turned into obligation. She moved from satisfying her own needs and values to doing what was expected of her. What was expected of her now was to maintain an income and appearance of what her clients expected of her, what they expected was success. Like John, Mary was recognized as accomplished by herself and others. However, John’s mission based on his values still needed to continue the journey to actualization. Mary’s journey had ended, yet she did not change course or create new goals for herself. To help others through financial fulfillment turned from growth to maintenance, and she was on a road that was no longer rewarding to her. Her confidence and courage was gone because she no longer held the fear needed to produce them. The fear was expectation of others, so her courage was focused on maintaining what was expected of her.
In Stephen Crane’s (2006) Red Badge of Courage, the hero only gained confidence and courage when he had nothing to loose. At first the fear paralyzed him, and then he adopted values from his situation, and charged into battle. John started his journey with a disadvantage that he transformed into purpose to set forth his journey. After each failure he gained new wisdom that fueled his confidence, commitment and courage. He may have acted out of some fear, but leveraged it into purpose. Today he inspires others, and until that is accomplished, he is unstoppable. Mary also began her journey of success at a disadvantage, and directed her fear towards overcoming. Very satisfying for a time. She now embraces her success, and is putting her fears into perspective, and shaped new values. Her new uncertainty is transforming her journey into a new direction. Both friends are inspiring to me as I shape my own journey.
Crane, S. (2006). The Red Badge of Courage. Sterling Publishing Inc.
Goud, N. (2005). Courage: Its Nature and Development. Journal of Humanistic Counseling, Education and Development (44).