17: Sally, Indiana Jones & Courage

Welcome: 00:00

Welcome to Leaders Lift, the podcast for existing, aspiring and any and all leaders (and remember we are all leaders in some way shape or form). I'm your host Greg Cunningham and want to say thanks for tuning into episode 17.

Intro: 00:18

Today I'm going to focus in on tying several previous topics together and add to them a bit of courage. We have talked about fear, trusting others, the power of optimism and positivity and today I'll like to tie those into courage and faith. Now when I say faith, I'm not talking about the kind of religious faith you might associate that word with. I want to talk more about faith in ourselves and others, that's probably more about trust vs. the more traditional definition of faith, and the pluses and minuses (spoiler - this kind of faith will fail at times) and then talk about how courage fits into all of this. Stick around for the discussion.

Pre-Roll

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Story Time: 01:21

It's time for good old fashioned story time. Except today, I want to share a story about someone that I believe exemplifies courage, trust and faith. I'm going to call her Sally (names have been changed to preserve the awesomeness of the individual). This is just one example of the courage she has shown over and over and over again as I have been privileged to work with her.

Our company had just made some organizational changes. It was time to actually combine our service desk with another similar group that had been part of an acquisition many years before. The two groups performed similar functions but while we were doing so for mostly internal staff, they were doing it for mostly external staff. As part of this change I was going to report to a new senior leader so we all got together to figure out how best to structure the organization and develop our plans for moving forward.

My management team had been growing pretty steadily as we had significantly increased our work load but as we talked we identified one area where it made sense for me to have another member on my team focused on quality and training. As we talked, it was suggested that I consider Sally, who was a member of the leadership team of the other organization. I think I had only briefly met her at the time and didn't know what she was capable of. But I trusted my new peer (one of the leaders on the other team) that made the recommendation (but that's not why I'm sharing this story).

After about five minutes of discussion, he suggested that he go talk to her immediately and let her know what we were thinking. From what I understand of the conversation, it didn't go great. There were tears. But to put this in context, Sally really only ever worked for him and this organization. She spent one year putting her degree to work but other than that, this was her life. I can imagine how tough it must have been for her to be told that we wanted to make a change and that she would be working for someone new in another group and in another state (this was before remote work was a big deal).

But now we come to the reason I share this story. She stepped up big time. There was enough trust built up (even though I don't think she understood trust then like she does now) that she was at least willing to give it a try.

I met with her before I left town and I will tell you that the decision to bring her onto my team was one of the best professional decisions I have ever made. I hope that she feels the same way.

We had to start at the beginning and build trust but once we started down that path, the sky was the limit for her. While her previous boss and I were very similar in some ways (straight forward, high expectations, supportive, etc.), our styles were very different. Where he focused more on practical skills, I focused on (this will be a surprise) leadership development and she just ate it up. Just to give you an idea of how this played out, when we had to do mass layoffs due to outsourcing, she was the one person I kept on my staff. When I decided to move out of that role, she took it over.

The lesson here: her willingness to show courage and give trust, really made a difference in her career, mine and in the lives of countless others. That's the good that can come from a little courage.

Bonus Story

Sometimes fear can creep in when we least expect it. You know how much I love to ride my mountain bike. Well, this week I decided I needed to go hit some real trails. It's time. Weather is great (as long as you can avoid the massive snow runoff we are having) and I just needed out. So yesterday I spent a couple of hours tuning up my bike. I changed a chain for the first time (sounds simple but remember my fear of making things worse?). I also swapped out the breaks and just basically got the bike ready.

Today as I was loading the truck, I had fear start to creep in. What if the bike is messed up, what if you are so out of shape you won't make it. What if the trails are covered with water. And on and on. It was kind of weird. But maybe it was because it's the first ride of the season.

I still went and it was an absolutely amazing experience. Trails were great. Bike was great. Yes I had to walk some of the hills but that will come in time. And to think that I would have missed all of that if I had let those worries and fears pull me down. This may sound very simple but this and the first story show how fears can impact things big and small and the role that courage, even if it's just a little, can play in helping make our lives more of what we want them to be.

Little Lift Recommendation: 06:35

Todays book recommendation is Reaching Your Next Summit by Manley Feinberg II. Not that it's all about courage but the stories are amazing examples and never would have happened if Manley hadn't had the courage to tackle some new things and to go after experiences that to me are almost unfathomable. He is and avid rock climber, thus the title, and ties things into reaching that next milestone on your journey. I've been in conference sessions where he spoke and those are incredible as well. I'll put a link in the show notes

Intro to Courage: 07:25

With that great story as background, let's introduce today's topic. While I really want to focus on courage, I have to connect that with several other topics as they really are inseparable. A couple of weeks ago, we dove into fear and then last week I talked about relevance. One of the great things about relevance is that it can help you overcome fear. It's amazing what happens when you can align your higher purposes (what you want out of life or who you want to become) with something that has brought fear into your mind or hear. Let's say that one of your goals in life is to lead a large organization (let's not focus on the why you want to do that but assume it's for a good reason). You have been working at the same company for a decade and have moved up to a great position but maybe you have hit a ceiling. So what do you do? Well, you can sit around and wait for something to possibly come up. That's the easy thing to do. It's comfortable and probably the easiest thing to do. But then you leave to change whether you will get the opportunity you really want. (I have experience with this so trust me when I say leaving this kind of thing to chance is not a good idea).

So you start thinking about applying for this great opportunity someone that knows your goals sends your way. But then the fear comes in (all the ones we talked about). Fear of failure. Imposter syndrome. And more. So you recognize the fear and start trying to work through it, including identifying the relevance in applying for this position and how it aligns to your much broader purposes. Is that enough? Maybe it is sometimes. But just for our example today, let me make it more difficult.

You apply for the position, cause you have nothing to lose there. After a few interviews you get super excited and it seems like everyone on the hiring side thinks you are a great fit. In an interview with a senior executive, they mention how impressed everyone is, to the point that they would like you to consider a position leading an entire division. Awesome, fantastic! And then they mention that the position is a brand new position, opening a brand new office - and it's overseas!

Pausing for a moment - some of you might think this is an opportunity of a lifetime. But since this is my example, I get to tell you that our main character has only worked at this one company, never even traveled overseas and does not speak the language. So the fear kicks in.

In this extreme scenario, no matter how much this aligns with your higher goals, there is going to be some fear, trepidation, worry, anxiety, etc.

In our personal lives, there are also situations where we can find the relevance but that is not enough by itself to overcome our fear. If you recall the story I told about dropping out of college. I knew it was the right thing at the time. It aligned with my higher purposes. But there was still a lot of fear. Fear of others reactions. Fear of failure. All of that was a challenge.

Do you remember Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? He is standing on the edge of a huge rock drop off but the Holy Grail is in a cave on the other side. There is zero evidence that there is a way across. But his dads research told him to take a leap of faith. He did (in spite of his fears) and made it across.

All three of these scenarios had alignment with higher purposes, meaning and relevance. But in order to move forward, they still required courage. Courage to take one step. And then another. And then another.

So let's talk about courage and tie it in with some of our previous topics.

Mid-Roll

Before we do that, just want to encourage you to check out the shownotes. Besides links to all of my standard resources (my website, youtube channel, social media channels, etc.). I also have a link to sign up for my email list, the link to my feedback form and for things like my book recommendations. Check them out.

Heavy Lifting on Courage: 11:43

A common definition of courage is something that allows you to move forward without fear. To me that definition implies that you have found something that has pushed fear aside so that it no longer exists. I don't think that is the case at all. I think courage is something that help us move forward in spite of fear, doubt, worry, anxiety, etc.

mission. My mission was from: 1994

How did I find the courage? Well, there are a couple of things to think about here. Let's first talk about relevance. At the time, one of my medium purposes was to continue to progress in my career. What I realized is that if I wanted to continue to progress at that company, I had no plans to go elsewhere, this trip was not optional. Also, I was pretty sure that the result of this trip would be that I would actually get an expanded role in the organization. So there was alignment with my career goals at the time. That started to help me work through the fear and I started to move my thoughts away from all the things that could go wrong and started getting excited about the positive outcomes of the trip (seeing new countries, proving that I could handle a more strategic role, advancing in my career, etc.).

The second thing ties in with the discussions we have had previously on planning, especially how plans can help us work through fear. In this case, I realized that I didn't have to make the full plan. The vendors that were hosting us had done this hundreds of times and had provided us with plenty of information to build out our own version of the plan. So I started working through the various recommendations and requirements that I was given. I got the vaccines, I made sure I had all the medicines, I knew what to pack and what not to pack and I just kept working through all of the plan items. I even threw in some emergency preparedness knowledge to supplement what we were doing. As I worked through that plan, I found it easier to push the fear aside.

Third, and we will talk about this in a bit, I had built up good relationships with a few of the other leaders that were going, especially the consultant leading the trip. Those relationships of trust helped me realize that when things didn't go perfectly I wouldn't be on my own. That is actually one of my biggest concerns about unfamiliar situations in general, having to tackle them by myself. But in this case I would be around others I trusted.

I know there were a bunch of other things that we did to get ready but those are the three that I remember the most. And those three are the ones that allowed me to muster the courage to push my fears to the back and get on the airplane.

So to recap - I had to find relevance in what I was doing, I needed to get educated, build a plan and execute on it and then I had others that I could rely on.

I hope this example helps you get a better idea of what I mean by courage being the ability to move forward inspite of fear and all of its synonyms. If you think back two episodes to the one on fear and my suggestions for how to overcome it (recognize it and how negative it is, begin focusing on the positives, remind yourself that most decisions are not final, get educated and then build a plan that has enough flexibility built in to be adaptable) I want you to realize that what we are really doing when we work to overcome fear is doing what needs to be done to build up our courage until the courage is stronger than the fear. That's what I had to do in this example.

What Courage Does for Us: 16:37

Building up courage like this not only helps us overcome fear, but it can also help us tweak our attitude when it needs it. What do I mean by that? When we are afraid it is generally driven by negativity. Those negative drivers can easily work that way into our attitudes. We become negative about a situation, person, opportunity, etc. So when we build courage to overcome fear, it can also have the side effect of us being more positive and optimistic. Positivity and optimism can improve our performance and help us better handle key situations.

Let's go back to my travel example. If I had not worked through the fears that I had but somehow still got on the plane, what would the trip have been like? This reminds me of one of my favorite shows when I was a kid (and now). The A-Team. Mr. T played BA in the series and he had a huge fear of flying. Every time they needed to get on a plane, they had to knock him out. Not sure why I thought of that right now except that maybe some of you can relate.

Anyway - back to the example.

If I had spent that entire trip worried about food, transportation, water, getting sick, etc. would I have been focused on the real reason of the trip? Would I have been able to do those things to prove that I could handle the next opportunity I felt I had a shot at? Would I have built up the kind of partnership we would need to have with whichever vendor we chose? The answer to all of those questions is absolutely not. I would have just been trying to curl up in a ball (or stow away on the plane to return home).

Now those fears didn't go away. We had one member of the team get pretty sick. I ended up eating all kinds of new foods (and some did not sit well). We stayed in hotels guarded by military personnel. I almost got stuck at an airport check point. All of these kinds of things reminded me that the fears I had worked through were still there. But I was able to go back to the preparations we had made, remind myself why I was there and work with others to make it a success.

The end results of working through all of this was that I had a once in a lifetime experience, I did advance my career and I made several other trips back there, some of which were by myself (which I realized I enjoyed - just didn't want that the first time) that were also successful. All of this because I was able to build up just enough courage to move forward.

That leads me into the next sub-topic. When we think about building up courage what do we want the courage to do. I already mentioned that I don't believe that courage eliminates the fear or the worries. If it doesn't eliminate them, what does it really do. Here is my take:

I believe that we build up just enough courage to take the first step. Then the second one. Then the third. And then maybe to take the third one again because you took a step backward. But what happens when we allow courage to push fear aside enough to start moving is that we build up momentum. And once you get good momentum, it's pretty hard to stop. It's like your parents telling you that Saturday is the day for you to deep clean your room and you try to stay in bed as late as possible. But eventually you get drug out of bed (maybe by the ear) and you have to start cleaning. Once you get going you pick up momentum and then by the time it's done, you realize that the result is a good thing. I don’t know if that makes any sense so let's go back to my trip.

For me I had to get that first bit of courage that allowed me to stop thinking about all the negatives of the trip. Then once I started getting excited about the possibilities, I could take the second step, which was to start taking in all the advice and recommendations from those that knew what they were doing. At that point I had momentum and just had to keep reminding myself that I was traveling alone.

Those steps and that momentum made it possible for me to go back a few months later for the project launch by myself. No traveling companions and a totally different itinerary. Was there fear. Sure. Did it hold me back? Nope.

That led me to actually taking others (Sally from the example above) and helping her do some of this same thing.

So what I really want courage to do for me in my life is to help me get started and build some momentum. After that, the sky is really the limit.

Let's emphasize this with two other examples. First let's go back to Sally. She didn't find the courage to jump in feet first. She found the courage to say yes and give it a shot. It took time for us to learn how to work together. Even a year or so later we were still working on some of that. I gave her an assignment and didn't realize that the way I gave it to her would not lead to success. We had to correct that but by then there was so much momentum that it was easy to keep moving forward.

Then think about Indiana Jones about to step out into that huge abyss. He somehow found the courage (I'll explain shortly where I think it came from) and took the first step. And of course because it's Indiana Jones he stepped onto a rock bridge. Now at that point, the camera panned around and we could all see the bridge. But he couldn't. He then had to take a second step, a third and so on. Right at the end he was practically running the last few steps.

So now you have multiple examples and hopefully one of them makes sense to you.

Trust: 22:25

Two final thoughts. The first is around how courage and trust tie in together. This is really about having the courage or faith to trust others. I think this is a key component of developing courage, mostly because it's a myth to think that we can go through life relying only on ourselves. So at many, many points of our lives we will need to find the courage put some trust and faith in others.

One key fear we have to overcome in these situations is the fear that we will get burned or that things won't go the way wed like them too. That's not so much a fear as it is pretty much a guarantee. None of us are prefect so things aren't going to go perfectly and sometimes we just get burned by putting trust in others. But as leaders, this is one area where we need to regularly practice courage.

It could be something as simple as having the courage to let your teenager go out with friends even though the last time it didn't go so well. Or letting them take the car by themselves for the first time. Or giving that in-experienced high potential a stretch assignment as part of their development plan.

Find enough courage to take the first step and then let the momentum pull you forward.

If I go back to the Sally and Indiana Jones examples, both of them allowed their trust in others to help them build their courage. Sally's trust in her manager helped her take the first step. For Indiana Jones, it was trust in his father and the work he had done that helped him step off the edge.

Helping Others Find Courage: 23:55

The last thought is for you to think about you can help others find courage as well. Indiana Jones made it through all of the traps and then threw dirt back over the invisible bridge so others could move forward. Once I had worked through my fears of those international trips, I was able to help Sally go on her first trip. She had never been overseas. She then went on others by herself.

These are good examples of how when we learn to work through our own fears and develop courage, it allows us to help others do the same.

Wrap Up: 24:27

Let's go back to our fictional example above. How would courage to take the first step help to build momentum? Well once you appy and get that first interview, courage builds. Then you have a good first and second interview. Then you momentum picks up. By the time you are told they want you to take a different position overseas, hopefully there is enough momentum and you have been focusing on the potential positives enough that you can keep going and see the potential positives in this new and unexpected opportunity.

We are all going to face fears in our lives. Some we may overcome. That's great. But for those where the fear is going to be ever present, let's focus on building enough courage to take the first step, then the second and enough that momentum starts to carry us forward. Eventually the fear may be only a memory.

Take some time and think about a fear that is holding you back right now. What can you do to build up enough to take the first step? And then the second? And then get on that momentum train until the fear is no longer relevant. I'd love to hear your story.

Post Roll

Thank you for joining me today. Check out the show notes, subscribe, share, give us a review, provide feedback or just join me for next weeks episode.

Until then, find the courage to take a first step this week or lift someone else by helping them do so.