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What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

Vincent Van Gogh

Trying something new is not easy. That is the point. If it wasn’t new, you’d already know how to do it and would therefore be pretty straightforward for you.

When I was in grade school, I would struggle and struggle with different math or logic problems but never gave up. Once I figured out the answer, it seemed so simple.

Some people finished before I did, but others were still working on the same problems I had just figured out. The answer seemed so simple to me that I could easily explain how to get it to others, only because I had already gone through the trouble of figuring it out first.

But what if I hadn’t kept trying and trying to figure out the answer? Somebody else would have figured it out and they would explain it to me. But what if that person stopped trying too?

This is a pretty simplistic scenario but you can see where I am going here. Let’s try a different thought experiment. What if Isaac Newton stopped experimenting before he discovered gravity? The following Thomas Edison quote exemplifies this scenario:

Results?! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand ways that don’t work.

Thomas Edison

Imagine if Edison stopped attempting to invent the light bulb. What would our world look like today? But Edison was only able to invent the light bulb because Ben Franklin discovered electricity in a lightning bolt and Alessandro Volta invented the first battery over a century before Edison.

Franklin didn’t give up on his kite experiment after he was electrocuted and Volta didn’t give up after the first tests used frog legs as wires. Wired right??

What is courage?

The definition of courage is:

the ability to do something that frightens one

Oxford Languages

So, I have courage when I overcome fear and perform some act anyway. I bet Franklin was scared of lightning after he got electrocuted. He kept pushing even though he didn’t even know what getting electrocuted meant.

Getting back to the present, there are ways we can build up some courage in our daily lives. In our relationships, we might be in the middle of a heated argument or are afraid to bring up a topic that the other person is avoiding.

In these situations, courage is definitely necessary to attempt to mend a relationship so that our lives can be further enriched by interpersonal connections.

During work, introverts have a hard time speaking up during crowded meetings. Just today, I was on a conference call with over 50 people. During the call, the speaker said, “I’ll pause here if there are any questions.”

I definitely was too scared or embarrassed to ask a question to the CEO of the company in front of everyone thinking I’d look stupid or something. But the next person had the courage to ask, and he asked the exact question I was thinking of.

There are so many times in the professional world as well as in school where the person asking the question is not the only person that has that same question. The difference is that someone has the courage to speak up, raise their hand, and ask the question.

Building Up Courage

There are many different mental exercises that I do to build up the courage to do something that makes me scared. For example, at the first holiday party of my first job right out of school, I was super scared to go up and talk to the CEO.

He was waiting in line to get food and wasn’t talking to anyone for the first time all night. I told a colleague that I’m going to talk to him and set up a 30-minute meeting to talk to him more. This colleague gave me the best piece of advice I have ever received when attempting to talk to people I am are scared to talk to.

They put their pants on one leg at a time... just like you Click to tweet

I let that sink in for a second, then walked right up to the CEO and left with an invitation to set up a meeting with him.

Thinking about how they were just like me, with thoughts and emotions made talking to them so much less scary. I was able to take this experience and attempt more courageous professional and personal acts of relationship building and making connections.

All I needed was to have the desire to reach high, have the courage to not give up when I was scared, and have some good counseling along the way.