Lead With A Courageous Spirit

And Transform Your Dreams Into Reality

This is your chance to build a skill that allows for all others

A courageous spirit enables you to show up in life and work with determination and a will to tackle tough stuff. Courage enables you to pursue your dreams and desires with focus, determination and passion.

A courageous spirit is not gender-specific.

Contrary to the typical stereotype, women are courageous to the core. If you doubt this, try doing something deceitful, harmful, or distrusting to a child and watch the fury of a mother descend upon you. Try objectifying women, and you will look into the eyes of a lioness on the hunt. We’ve seen this happen in our family on many occasions.

Personally and professionally we know women who are willing to stand up and stand out for what they believe in with unwavering commitment, concentrated intention and relentless perseverance. Underestimate a woman’s strength, determination, and grit at your own peril.

What It Means to Have a Courageous Spirit

Being courageous isn’t about being fearless—it’s daring to step into fear. It’s about embracing the uncertainty, the risk, and the exposure before you. It’s about making the decision, over and over again, to keep going even when it’s uncomfortable, when it’s awkward, and when it’s messy.

Courage is the resolve to get up every time life knocks you down. Because every time you rise, you grow stronger, wiser, and more capable and more compassionate. Every time you rise, you expand your impact—you grow your resilience and you increase your capacity to take on “hard” things, “tough” stuff.

As Maya Angelou said: “Each time you get up, you’re bigger, taller, more refined, more beautiful, more kind, more understanding, more loving.”

Courage in practice is…

taking on (embracing) the next really “hard” thing by being tough on standards AND tender hearted with people.

Here are five strategies for developing a courageous spirit to tackle the tough issues ahead.

What follows are excerpts borrowed from our most recent book, Life By Design. Not By Default.

Chase hard, not easy

When opponents attack and life throws you a challenge don’t lie down or run; face, embrace, and attack the challenge. Study the issue, seek council, do your homework, know your stuff, engage in due diligence, and step in fully prepared. Chase hard, not easy.

The playing field is hard. The sidelines are easy. The playing field, not the sidelines, is where you test your skills and flex your courage muscle.

Right now, in the game of life, where are you? Are you on the field or on the sidelines? Are you chasing hard or easy?

A critical step for developing a courageous spirit is to prepare, know the rules of the game, know the standards, know your stuff.

Hard is becoming a subject matter expert an MVP. Easy is winging it.

How can you say “no” to easy and chase hard by becoming a subject matter expert or the MVP of the game you’re in? What will it take to embrace the next needed hard thing so you can step into the game with skill, confidence and competence?

If you want to stand out and be exceptional, chase hard, don’t chase easy.

    Take Charge of Your Thoughts

    Fear is natural, but how we respond to it determines our trajectory.

    Practicing self-awareness and using the S.T.O.P. method can help you face what’s ahead, regain control and rise strong:

    • SIT with the situation and stay calm.

    • THINK critically about your next step.

    • OBSERVE the bigger picture and recognize patterns.

    • PLAN a course of action with courage and clarity.

    Then, apply the E.P.I.C. framework to reframe your fears:

    • EVIDENCE: Question if your fear is based on facts or assumptions.

    • PERVASIVENESS: Determine how much of your life this fear actually affects.

    • IMPACT: Assess the real consequences of taking a risk.

    • CONTROL: Identify what’s within your power to change and act on it.

    Fear thrives in the midst of uncertainty, but action creates clarity and mitigates fear. The more you move, the less fear controls you.

    Consider Hard a Proving Ground

    Shift your perspective of hard. Hard is what creates meaning in your life. Hard is where your potential gets unlocked. Hard is a proving ground that makes you stronger. Think about one or two of the hardest things you’ve experienced. It is likely they produced character strengths in you.

    Maybe you went through bankruptcy and said, “Because I went through that financial crisis, I watch the numbers more closely now. I don’t let anyone have control of the books, and I stay ahead of my bills and taxes.”

    Perhaps you’ve walked up to the edge of divorce. And a few years later, you could say, “My spouse and I worked through those hard times together, we are stronger, better, and more in love today than ever.”

    Your job that had the “appearance” of security. Then you walked out “nonessential” and unemployed. That security was an illusion. Yet, the illusion paved the way become an entrepreneur with the freedom to be your own boss, the freedom to schedule your own day.

    Ask yourself, “How am I stronger mentally, emotionally, physically, or spiritually because I went through the crucible? Am I more resilient because I made it through the crisis? Am I more confident because I have a skill today that I didn’t before the hard time made me stretch and grow? Am I more empathetic because a hard thing allowed me to identify with others doing hard things? Am I more grateful because I know how hard life can be?

    Hard is hard, but hard strengthens our character and makes us more resilient. Realizing dreams is on the other side of hardship.

    Lead with a Tender Heart

    Your heart must be in the right place to succeed at anything. Once you engage your the heart it immediately signals the brain it is safe to shift from survival to creative. Courage is a powerful balance of right and left brain engagement. Courage is the ability to engage with both hard and soft/ IQ and EQ skills! Courage grounds you to be tough on standards yet tender with people. 

    Your heart is a multiplier, it wants to give, add, serve and empower.

    When your heart is involved, you’re ALL IN. You don’t do it because it’s a job. You don’t do it for a paycheck. You do it because it’s your passion, it’s a calling, and you’re committed to affecting change. 

    Ask yourself: Am I a multiplier or a divider?

    • A tender heart is strong, not weak. It sets others free and multiplies impact.

    • A tender heart is contagious. It creates a ripple effect of generosity and purpose.

    • A tender heart develops more courageous leadership. The best leaders don’t take power—they empower & enable others.

    Courageous Leaders Dispense Hope

    Cynicism. Negativity. Doom and gloom. These are the enemies of ingenuity, hope, and perseverance that we all need to tackle the tough challenges in life.

    Every successful business needs people who dare to embrace and spread hope. Hope is like oxygen. We can’t survive without it.

    Hope is not a strategy, but it is a powerful emotional asset that, when summoned, can pull you out of a funk. 

    Great leaders dispense hope. They help us realize we can make tomorrow different. They remind us we can rise strong together. As social beings, we seek understanding in times of uncertainty through the actions of others. It is a leader’s faith in us, in what we can achieve, that inspires us to do whatever-it-takes to rise strong.

    • A Courageous Spirit Wakes the Dead

      When it comes to building a business, there has to be something so alive in you that it stirs something that needs to be awakened in your people.

      When people bump into you, what spills out?

      A higher calling?

      A commitment to a cause? Crusade?

      An invitation to change the world?

      When someone tells you about a new idea or a big dream in their life, what would happen if you were their biggest advocate? Could it be that optimism is contagious? What if encouraging them drew them out of their comfort zone to explore, to step into the adventure?

      Let us remind you, there are plenty of naysayers and devil’s advocates out there willing to “bloviate” and hold people back. But what if your confidence and enthusiasm are exactly what they need? It may be less about the dream and far more about who you help them become in the process of pursuing the dream.

    Without hope it is almost impossible to be creative, move forward, and stand tall. And that is why every courageous leader throughout history has been a dispenser of hope.

    So what’s next? Live Boldly, Lead Bravely.

    To achieve your dreams, you must cultivate a courageous spirit. Success doesn’t come to those who wait—it comes to those who take risks, rise after failures, and push through fear with resilience. Chase hard, reframe failure, and serve to multiply.

    When you embrace life’s challenges with a courageous spirit, you become a beacon of hope for others and together you stand out and rise strong.

    It’s time to boldly spread courage and hope!

    What in your life could benefit from a courageous spirit?

    Who in your life needs a dose or two of hope?