How To Become More Courageous

“Fear creates the gap between who you are and who you can be. Courage closes it,” explains Margie Warrell, PhD, author of the book, The Courage Gap: 5 Steps To Braver Action. 

“To clarify, closing your courage gap is not about 'de-risking' your life or sheltering from problems—natural and human created. Rather, it is about bringing the bravest version of yourself to every situation,” adds Dr. Warrell. 

That includes actively taking on rough problems, doing what is unpopular, facing storms head-on, and maybe even reshaping the broader landscape in the process.

Dr. Warrell empowers us to recognize that courage is a learnable skill accessible to everyone, regardless of how risk-averse, timid, or defensive we may be. 

Additionally, for leaders, The Courage Gap provides a guide to operationalize and scale the courage mindset across your team and organization to deepen trust, dismantle silos, foster innovation, accelerate learning, and unleash collective courage toward a more secure and rewarding future. 

This is not another book on why courage is important; it is a research-backed, step-by-step guide to teach us how to close the gap between thinking and doing, hesitation and action—the courage gap. 

“Closing your courage gap is not a short course but a life-long endeavor. It will stretch you in ways and humble you in others,” shares Dr. Warrell. 

Drawing on cutting-edge research woven together with stories that compel head and heart, The Courage Gap will help you bridge the think/do gap between what you’ve been doing and what you can do; between where you are and where you want to be—in your career, relationships, leadership, and life. 

More specifically, Dr. Warrell will help you develop your mastery in the two essential dimensions of courage: 

1. Management of fear.
2. Willingness to act in its presence, amid real or perceived risks. 

Further, as you read the book you will learn about the powerful 5-step roadmap to reprogram the self-protective patterns of thought and behavior that sabotage success to bring your bravest self to your biggest challenges and boldest vision. Those five steps are:

Intention: Focus on what you want, not what you fear. Your desire for a positive outcome must exceed your fear of a negative outcome. 

Belief: Rescript what’s keeping you stuck, stressed, or living too safely. Rewrite the self-protective stories magnifying the perception of risk and siphoning courage to act. 

Connection: Embody and breath in courage. Transform the psychology of fear to the physiology of courage, connecting to the power of your presence and to people who help you "walk taller."

Action: Step into discomfort. Practice the “one-brave-minute” rule, embracing "growing pains” to override your “inner wimp” (even the most heroic have one). 

Learning: Find the treasure when you trip. Forgive your fallibility and mine the lessons in every miss-step, struggle, and setback. 

Applying these five steps will:

• Ignite passion and unlock the potential fear holds dormant.
• Rewrite the scripts that have kept you stuck, stressed, and living too safely.
• Reset your “nervous” system and embody courage in critical moments.
• Transform discomfort as a cue to step forward and expand your bandwidth for bold action.
• Reset your relationship to failure and make peace with the part of you that wimps out.

An additional piece of advice from Dr. Warrell is, “Be led by your values, not your emotions. When your values are clear, courage becomes easier.” 

Dr. Margie Warrell, Leadership Coach and Author

Dr. Warrell shares these additional insights with us: 

Question: In leadership or entrepreneurship, what are effective ways to demonstrate courage among those around you so that everyone on your team is more open to change? 

Dr. Margie Warrell: 

Be real about what challenges you. 

Courage takes vulnerability. One of the most powerful ways of demonstrating courage is to lower the “got it all together” masks we often wear as a leader or business owner. Lowering this mask is being real about what challenges us, where we’ve fallen down, and what sometimes keeps us from getting back up. 

People on our teams will play it safe unless they feel safe to do otherwise. By showing that you sometimes mess up, that you don’t always get it right, you make it safer for them to try things that may otherwise not. 

Learn something new and share your fumbling up the learning curve. 

The reason that we often resist taking on learning new skills is that we have to go through the phases of the learning curve that can be socially embarrassing and uncomfortable. It’s why people who haven’t learned to swim as kids don’t try to learn as adults—they have to flap around in the water like a 3-year-old. So, take on learning a new skill and share your experience of moving from conscious incompetence to conscious competence. 

Say Sorry. 

We all mess up. We all fall short of being as patient, organized, or calm as we’d like to be. When you do, own it and apologize to those around you. Not only do you win trust by being real and humble, but also you demonstrate a willingness to embrace your fallibility which, in turn, creates an opening for braver action. 

Share your discomfort. 

You cannot lead from your comfort zone. Share how you treat discomfort as a cue to move forward, not to retreat. It will help others follow suit. 

Question: What is one specific action that anyone can take today to start closing the courage gap—between who they are and who they want to be? 

Dr. Margie Warrell: 

Start where you are with the next decision you face. 

Ask yourself, “What would the bravest part of me do right now? “Then do that. It doesn’t matter how small or insignificant it is or how uncomfortable you feel. Just take action. Courage is a muscle. You have to put in the reps. When we practice courage in small ways it expands our capacity to take action amid our fears and the risks in larger ways. 

___

Dr. Margie Warrell (pronounced Mar-gee), is a five-time best-selling author, keynote speaker, leadership coach, and Forbes columnist. With twenty-five years of experience living and working around the world, she has dedicated her life to helping others overcome fear and unlock their potential. 

She is Senior Partner at Korn Ferry and Advisory Board member for the Forbes School of Business & Technology. 

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.