Courage is the Golden thread

Episode 2 - DG & Jay

Last week DG said “Courage is the golden thread that weaves all the other values together” and I know that courage underpins a lot of DG’s framework so in this blog I am going to focus on that, using the chat we had in Episode 2.

When we hear of courage we often think about those massive moments where we are courageous, jumping out of a plane, public speaking or taking action in those big moments but I love the way DG talks about the importance of having a plan. There is depth to the courage, there is a plan in place, they have a mentor and they have done the work and in many ways the outcome is guaranteed.

There is a continuum of courage and recklessness. In some occasions recklessness can come from comfort, someone who is comfortable may not do the preparation that is required because they don’t want to feel the anticipatory anxiety about what could go wrong. In this case they may procrastinate, put things off and then all of a sudden the moment is on them and they jump in, but without the plan, without the work and the worst outcome here is they actually achieve the result.

By result I mean, win the game, or achieve the outcome they were after, as this can fool them into believing that they don’t need to do the work, they don’t need to have a plan because they just proved it. I often hear people using outlier situations as proof, “what about this player who doesn’t do the work and he is still good…” I see this as a reflection of this person being scared of the work, in case they don’t make it, they don’t want to go all in and prepare and plan with courage because what will that mean to their identity when it doesn’t come off?

I recognise this because I recognise this in myself, I am fully aware that the most courageous thing I can do is go all in and expect nothing, and I have to work really hard to avoid this trap. It actually lead me to an acronym that I use now which is SEA and I have written a blog about that too, which can be found here