despite people living longer today than at any point in history — indicating fewer (not more!) threats to our survival — millions of people today spend their lives living in the shadow of fear, continually avoiding what scares them rather than pursuing what inspires them.
The term VUCA was coined to describe the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous nature of modern life. But let's be honest here — we've never had certainty! However, in our overwired lives today, our news streams bombard us with reasons to bite our nails, stock up on toilet paper and play it safe. Fear has become normalised to the point that we cannot even recognise how many decisions are driven by it.
Yet time and time again history has shown that when fear runs most rampant, brave action reaps the greatest rewards. It's why we must be deliberate not to let fear sit in the driver's seat of our lives. We must commit to being braver — in how we work, live and lead.
Countless times in my own life, from my relatively confined childhood on a small dairy farm in rural Australia to my adult life living around the world from Papua New Guinea to Singapore, I have found that each time I decide to take action in the presence of my fear — to not play life safe — I dilute the power fear holds over me and amplify my own.
The world has weathered one heck of a storm since the first edition of this book. Before the COVID-19 pandemic I used to write about how afraid some people were of killer viruses and how unlikely a pandemic actually is. Well … the unlikely event happened and most of us were caught off guard anyway. It triggered a cascading crisis that dialled up the fear factor in our homes and communities, in our schools and organisations, and at decision-making tables the world over.
Left unchecked, fear can narrow our thinking, derail our decision-making and keep us from seeing, much less seizing, the opportunities that always exist amid disruption, although often out of plain sight. It can also drive us to over-estimate the risks, making us suffer more from our fear than from the source of it.
It's why, in this VUCA world we inhabit, the thinking and behaviours that got you to where you are today will be insufficient to take you to where you want to be ten years from now. As the world has changed, so too must you change how you engage in it.
I have written this book because I hold a deep and unwavering belief in our potential as ‘human becomings’ to create lives rich in meaning and to move all humanity to higher ground. Yet in my work that spans many countries, cultures and continents, I constantly encounter people trapped inside prisons of their own making, hemmed in by the borders of their own imagination, living under the long shadow of fear.
The truth is that you have all the resources within you to create a deeply meaningful and rewarding life, regardless of what you've done (or failed to do) before, or what is going on in your life right now. However, if you sometimes wonder otherwise, you're not alone. Global employee surveys tell us that millions of people think that what they do each day doesn't matter and that they are powerless to change their environment. The cost to the commercial bottom line is in the billions. The cost to the human spirit is immeasurable. Underlying this disengagement is fear in many guises — of failure, success, rejection, exposure, not having enough … of not being enough.
Countless business books are filled with strategies for becoming a more proficient networker, strategist, salesperson, negotiator, ‘hi-po’ employee and leader. Very few address the deep-seated fears and complex interplay of unconscious cognitive biases that form the human condition, and that keep us from applying them.
While this book is written for you, the individual, it will benefit any team, enterprise or organisation. After all, organisations are made up of people. As such, people are their number one resource and the fear that stifles their potential — their creativity, collaboration and collective ingenuity — is their number one threat. No organisation can compete in today's world unless those who are part of it feel emboldened to ‘push the envelope’ of possibility. This entails risk and demands courage.
This book comprises eight chapters, divided into three parts.
Part I: Core Courage (chapters 1 to 3) forms the foundation for all good decision making and forward-leaning action.
Part II: Working Courage (chapters 4 to 7) provides concepts and practical strategies to be more courageous and effective in handling the challenges and seizing the opportunities in your work and life.
Part III: Take Courage (chapter 8) is where the rubber hits the road as you make the changes that prompted you to pick up this book in the first place. Part III will set you up for success, creating an environment that emboldens you to take smarter risks and pave new pathways toward your biggest future and a better world.
Back in 2019, none of us could have imagined in our wildest dreams that in 2020 the world would be knocked off its axis with the cascading crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet in the midst of having to deal with challenges we never expected, much less planned for, many people discovered within themselves more courage, tenacity and resilience than they knew they had.
None of us can know what challenges the years ahead will bring. The world is changing so fast, it's hard to imagine what it will look like two years from now, much less 20. All of which begs the question: what mindset will you adopt to navigate the uncertainty ahead? Because in the end what matters far less than the challenges you face is the mindset you bring to them.
As uncertain as this time in human history is, one thing remains certain: only those who are willing to fling their arms wide to the full spectrum of human experience will be able to seize the opportunities that surround each of us every single day. In the end, there is no success without the possibility of failure. As Helen Keller said, ‘Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.’
PART I CORE COURAGE: BUILD YOUR FOUNDATION
Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.
AMELIA EARHART
1 KNOW YOUR WHY: Decide how you will measure success
If we do not believe within ourselves this deeply rooted feeling that there is something higher than ourselves, we shall never find the strength to evolve into something higher.
RUDOLF STEINER
You've read the stories. Of the accidental hero diving into a frozen river or lifting a car many times their body weight to rescue a total stranger. Of the desperate mother walking hundreds of miles under the blistering sun to seek help for her child.
In the face of impossible odds, people have tapped into reserves of seeming superhuman power, unlocking strength, courage and steel-like determination that would otherwise have lain dormant. And often not just for their own sake, but for the sake of someone else. Sometimes even a complete stranger.
Perhaps you've experienced
