The Courage Playbook

2Step Two: Who Am I, Really? I Admit and Quit the 3 NOs

“Courage is the first of human qualities for it is the only quality that guarantees the others.”

—Aristotle

Thinking I was courageous, I feared conflict. Judging others, I couldn't handle criticism. I denied my weaknesses, made excuses, was quick to resent, to blame, to project my anger onto others, and to then justify things I said or did while knowing they were wrong. I struggled to govern food intake, alcohol, love, and even success. I lacked integrity in how I treated others. Ethical at work, I was comfort‐seeking in private. The tight grip of self‐absorption meant I couldn't hold on to a compelling and noble purpose. Amid all this, there was the irresistible sense that something was chasing me. But studying the frozen mountains of Manchuria, walking in the heat of the Maasai Mara and in the hostile country of my demons, I discovered there was no place on earth where I could either hide from courage or not need it.

In The Lord of the Rings, loyal Samwise Gamgee, committed to helping Frodo reach the Dark Tower and Mount Doom, finds himself exhausted and finally defeated.

But even as hope died in Sam, or seemed to die, it was turned to a new strength. Sam's plain hobbit‐face grew stern… as the will hardened in him, and he felt through all his limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue… he studied the next move. ...