The Courage Playbook

8Crossing the River

Readers of courage: The Backbone of Leadership are familiar with the concept of the River of Fear. If you were in a Courageous Leadership Skills Intensives program, your final exercise would be a simulated crossing of that river. I remember learning to tie my shoes and speak English. Both involved intent, a certain degree of risk taking, and practice. Result? Necessary lifetime skills supported by muscle memory so I'd neither trip on the laces nor remain permanently tongue‐tied. Likewise, physically stepping toward our courage on the far bank of a notional river impacts muscle‐mind‐heart‐memory and installs a kinetic imprinting of the fact that you can defeat your anxieties.

The River of Fear (see Figure 8.1) represents a border between being a good (Honest, Honorable, and Ethical) individual and a courageous person with Courage, Integrity, and Character. It represents our final barrier between uncorrected reactions to our multiplying apprehensions and our practice of the behaviors of courage. It's what separates our former self from our evolving self.

It's also a symbolically dynamic way to depart from unworthy needs of the ego to adopt a bold new core identity that helps others and aids you. In Five Steps to Courage, it's the last exercise we'll do together.

Figure 8.1 Crossing the River of Fear

Source: Lee, Gus; Elliott‐Lee, Diane (2006). Courage: The ...