Examining Courage

We all have people in our lives who we think are courageous. We’ve read about people in great heights today and in the past who’ve had the courage to stand up for an unpopular belief for that time. Though a common practice for evaluating people like to binary determine if someone has courage or not, I’ve come to wonder whether if everyone can be courageous in a particular element that fits their predilections.

Rich Barton, Co-founder of Zillow, told Brad Gerstner, Founder of Altimeter Capital, that he lacked the courage to be an entrepreneur. Does that mean entrepreneurs are more courageous than investors? My gut tells me the entrepreneurs will say “yes” and so will the investors. To which I don’t agree. One’s level of courage isn’t as clear cut as a pissing contest where the hydraulic pressure of one’s urethra can leave a visual footprint of superiority.

The more entrepreneurs I speak with, the more I am amazed at the courage they have. Furthermore, the more I’ve been investing the more respect I have for the courage the best have. Maybe this is why there is a comparison of courage between entrepreneurs and investors. The average entrepreneur needs a certain amount of courage to start and push on for a few years compared to the average investor who could be a closet indexer. It’s true. Most investors aren’t impressive and aren’t able to deliver great returns but failed entrepreneurs still need a certain amount of courage to take on the journey. There really is no risk for someone taking on the career of an investor. It comes with the cushiest pillows to break any fall. Courage seems to be reserved for the investors who make the unpopular bet on some conviction others can’t see.

This modality seems to be applied in other professions and people in various parts of their lives. Whether it’s standing up for something that spurred a social movement like Rosa Parks did or Stephen King writing a horror fiction about a teenage girl getting superpowers from her period or realizing you were a dick to someone you met and you find them to apologize the next day. Yes, I did list all of these examples and no I don’t think one is superior than the other in regards to courage. I think it’s all relative and each is an act of courage for the individual who is living it and that’s really all that matters. Those who are not in the "arena" may have a right to have an opinion but their opinion does not matter.

I firmly believe that each person has received feedback that they were courageous to do something. Maybe it was once in the playground or in a conversation with a loved one or feedback from work. Whenever it was, what the comment pertained to is probably worth examining. Because how courageous one is doesn’t really matter but what one had courage in does. It’s the existence of it that matters.

That thing we "apparently" had the courage to do. It’s worth examining. It probably reveals a lot about what we value. What we think is important. What we consider a priority, so much so that we can take a stance against the norm, the convention, the status quo. This is something we can all hope to learn from the courage of others and ourselves.