Courage is Calling:Fortune Favors the Brave
by Ryan Holiday
Why You Should Read This: Courage is about putting our limiting fears behind us to achieve our goals. Here is the link to the Audible version of the book.
No one will EVER accuse me of being a stoic, but I find that author Ryan Holiday (who I met at my first National Business Aviation Association Conference in Austin, Texas)’s link between the present and the ancient stoic philosophers to be thought provoking. Like his three prior books, Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave is filled with vignettes of how people throughout the ages – Florence Nightingale, Frank Serpico, Ulysses S. Grant, John Adams among them, handled leadership inflection points with wisdom provided by the ancient stoics.
While Fear is the Mind killer (thank you Dune for that indelible mantra), Courage is the antidote and we often conflate courage with physical strength or morality – but it is NOT just that. He writes: Courage is Risk. It is Sacrificecommitmentperseverancetruth...determination.
Each succinct chapter provides an opportunity to evaluate what being courageous is. This is personal to the author because at the very end, he shares his own experiences when he did not possess courage. He further articulates what happened when he did speak out, which was the catalyst for his departure from the corporate world and into one where he continues to find inspiration and shares with others.
How You Can Apply This: A key take away: FEAR is an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real. Courage can take many forms and you do not need to be a corporate whistleblower or an Olympic athlete to possess courage, but I hope that the examples that the author highlighted provide you with a framework to face whatever fear is holding you back so that you gain (or maintain) the fortitude to face it.
As a member of IAWA, you are part of a community and I hope knowing you are in the company of many enables you to define what courage means for you and that you embrace it frequently. And you never know who has been in the shoes you are standing in now, so this is an opportunity to be curious and build your network.
Additional Materials For Reinforcing What You Learned: If you want to reinforce what you gained from this book by listening to a podcast, you might enjoy: Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead podcast. Her opening podcast for the Dare to Lead series highlights the need for courageous leadership and what that means today.
You may also want to conduct a deeper dive by reading any of the Harvard Business Review articles on Outside of your Comfort Zone; Inclusive Leaders, and Unethical Behavior.
This book review was written by Shelley A. Svoren, VP – Leader Development for IAWA and who is the CEO + Founder of Infinite Branches. You can DM her on LinkedIn.