The Truth About Courage

What makes internal barriers so tricky is that they find most of their support in the world around you.

Sure, one reason why you feel the Resistance is that whatever you’re about to do might damage your ego.

Getting rejected, failing, is painful and your ego is trying to protect its self-image.

But humans are social creatures and we all are part of society and different communities.

You might embarrass yourself, people will laugh about your failure, and your social status might be affected.

A key to overcoming these issues is understanding the nature of these forces and reframing them.

An observation that has been immensely useful for me is that I shouldn’t at all care about the opinion of people that make fun of others for failing.

It makes sense to care about the opinion of other people to some extent.

But people that make fun of other people’s failures are people who never take any risks, build anything, or put themselves out there in any way.

So why would I care about their opinion?

These are not people I ever would want to be friends with or collaborate with anyway.

After I finished my studies I wasn’t sure what to do next.

I wanted to give myself a year to try a few things with no clear plan.

However, I was afraid of the gap in my resume.

But then I realized that I never would want to work for a company that has a problem with a gap in my resume anyway.

Many things only appear scary as long as they remain vague.

Once you put energy into making them specific and concrete they lose all of their scariness.

You can do this by bringing them from the shadows into the light by writing them down.

Then you can take a step back to evaluate everything objectively and quickly realize that there is really nothing to be afraid of.

What’s the worst that could happen, really? 

This question alone is often the key to start seeing the infinite possibilities outside of your current comfort zone.

It often seems like successful people have a superhuman level of courage and are crazy risk takers.

But in reality they simply have a more accurate understanding of risk.

Few things we are scared of nowadays put us in actual danger. 

The fear we feel is a result of our evolutionary past.

Your social status within your tribe was everything thousands of years ago.

Nowadays, not so much. 

Who cares if you embarrass yourself in front of a few strangers?

Who cares if a few people are offended by something you created?

There are no consequences beyond feeling awkward for a few minutes.

“Sometimes people fear starting a company too much. Really, what’s the worst that could go wrong? You’re not gonna starve to death, you’re not gonna die of exposure—what’s the worst that could go wrong?” - Elon Musk