{"id":20090,"date":"2013-01-14T04:00:43","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T10:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhyatt.com\/?p=20090"},"modified":"2013-01-14T04:00:43","modified_gmt":"2013-01-14T10:00:43","slug":"courage-is-not-the-absence-of-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fullfocus.co\/courage-is-not-the-absence-of-fear\/","title":{"rendered":"Courage Is Not the Absence of Fear"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&rsquo;t like conflict. In fact, sometimes I think I am <em>conflictaphobic.<\/em> (I just made that word up.) I will do almost anything to avoid it.<\/p>\n\n<p>As a result, especially early in my career, I would keep my real opinions to myself. I didn&rsquo;t want to get in trouble. I thought that if I just complied with the system and kept my mouth shut, I would get ahead.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->This was a pretty good strategy for a while. But it didn&rsquo;t really work once people were counting on me to lead.<\/p>\n<p>Why didn&rsquo;t I want to speak up? I could feign altruism by saying, &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to hurt other people&rsquo;s feelings.&rdquo; But that would be a lie. The truth is that <em>I was afraid.<\/em> It was all about me.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"singlespace\">I didn&rsquo;t want to be embarrassed.<\/li>\n<li class=\"singlespace\">I didn&rsquo;t want to lose face.<\/li>\n<li class=\"singlespace\">I didn&rsquo;t want to be wrong.<\/li>\n<li class=\"singlespace\">I didn&rsquo;t want others to think less of me.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, I kept quiet. Funny thing is I kept finding myself in situations where I <em>had<\/em> to speak up. If I didn&rsquo;t, someone would pay an awful price for my personal comfort.<\/p>\n<p>Years ago, soon after I became head of one of our publishing divisions, I had to confront one of my authors. He was pleasant and cooperative when I spoke with him. But he was demanding, uncooperative, and downright nasty to my staff. Finally, one of them came to me in tears and said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry, but I just can&rsquo;t take it any more.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>I had to make a choice.<\/p>\n<p>I could let it go, hoping he would improve without intervention &#8230; or I could speak up. I wrestled with it all night. I tossed and turned. I got sick to my stomach. I played out every scenario.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, things came into focus: I could either be brave and call him on it, or I could be a coward and stop growing as a leader.<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, I decided to confront him. The next morning I called his cell phone. I was shaking so much, I could barely hold the phone.<\/p>\n<p>I went over the facts. I told him that his behavior was unacceptable. I explained that he would call each of my staff and apologize. He would then send flowers to the person he had offended the most. And if he didn&rsquo;t? I would stop publication of his book and send him packing.<\/p>\n<p>I was dead serious, and he knew it. To my surprise, he did exactly what I had asked.<\/p>\n<p>I learned an important lesson that day. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the willingness to act <em>in spite of<\/em> my fear.<\/p>\n<p>My people also learned an important lesson. They learned that I was willing to stand up for them, even at the expense of my own comfort. It drew us closer together as a team.<\/p>\n<p>Frankly, I still find it difficult to be brave. I don&rsquo;t consider myself to be a courageous person. But now having several of these experiences under my belt, it is a little easier. Now I just notice the fear, pull up my big boy pants, and lean into the situation.<\/p>\n<p>If I can do it, you can, too.<\/p>\n<div class=\"reminder\">Where do you need to find the courage to speak up? What&rsquo;s holding you back?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the willingness to act in spite of my fear. Here&rsquo;s how I learned this invaluable lesson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":20093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[363,697,18,1151,33,1152],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Courage Is Not the Absence of Fear<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the willingness to act in spite of my fear. Here\u2019s how I learned this invaluable lesson.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fullfocus.co\/courage-is-not-the-absence-of-fear\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Courage Is Not the Absence of Fear\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the willingness to act in spite of my fear. 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