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Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave (The Stoic Virtues Series)

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Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave (The Stoic Virtues Series)

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Highlights & Notes

For Hercules, the choice was between vice and virtue, the easy way and the hard way, the well-trod path and the road less traveled. We all face this choice.

“Virtue” can seem old-fashioned. Yet virtue—arete—translates to something very simple and very timeless: Excellence. Moral. Physical. Mental. In the ancient world, virtue was comprised of four key components. Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom.

Courage, bravery, fortitude, honor, sacrifice … Temperance, self-control, moderation, composure, balance … Justice, fairness, service, fellowship, goodness, kindness … Wisdom, knowledge, education, truth, self-reflection, peace .

Aristotle described virtue as a kind of craft, something to pursue just as one pursues the mastery of any profession or skill. “We become builders by building and we become harpists by playing the harp,” he writes. “Similarly, then, we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions.”

There is no deed in this life so impossible that you cannot do it. Your whole life should be lived as a heroic deed. Leo Tolstoy

There aren’t two kinds of courage. There is only one. The kind where you put your ass on the line. In some cases literally, perhaps fatally. In other cases it’s figurative, or financial. Courage is risk. It is sacrifice …  … commitment  … perseverance  … truth  … determination.

“To each,” Winston Churchill would say, “there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.”

Whatever call you’re hearing right now, what matters is that you answer. What matters is that you go to it. In an ugly world, courage is beautiful. It allows beautiful things to exist.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid. William Ernest Henley

What we are to do in this life comes from somewhere beyond us; it’s bigger than us. We are each called to be something. We are selected. We are chosen … but will we choose to accept this? Or will we run away?

There is nothing worth doing that is not scary. There is no one who has achieved greatness without wrestling with their own doubts, anxieties, limitations, and demons.

Fear will make itself felt. It always does. Will we let it prevent us from answering the call? Will we leave the phone ringing? Or will we inch ourselves closer and closer, as Nightingale did, steeling ourselves, preparing ourselves, until we’re ready to do what we were put here to do?

scare is a temporary rush of a feeling. That can be forgiven. Fear is a state of being, and to allow it to rule is a disgrace.

People would rather be complicit in a crime than speak up. People would rather die in a pandemic than be the only one in a mask. People would rather stay in a job they hate than explain why they quit to do something less certain. They’d rather follow a silly trend than dare question it; losing their life savings to a burst bubble is somehow less painful than seeming stupid for sitting on the sidelines while the bubble grew. They’d rather go along with something that will tarnish their legacy than raise their voice ever so slightly and risk standing alone or apart for even ten minutes.

You can’t let fear rule. Because there has never been a person who did something that mattered without pissing people off. There has never been a change that was not met with doubts. There has never been a movement that was not mocked. There was never a groundbreaking business that wasn’t loudly predicted to fail.

The night is dark and full of terrors. We face many enemies in life. But you have to understand: They are not nearly as formidable as your mind makes you think.

Foresee the worst to perform the best.

When fear is defined, it can be defeated. When downside is articulated, it can be weighed against upside. When the wolves are counted, there are fewer of them. Mountains turn out to be molehills, monsters turn out just to be men.

Vague fear is sufficient to deter us; the more it is explored, the less power it has over us. Which is why we must attack these faulty premises and root them out like the cancers they are. We were afraid because we didn’t know. We were vulnerable because we didn’t know. But now we do. And with awareness we can proceed.

Don’t worry about whether things will be hard. Because they will be. Instead, focus on the fact that these things will help you. This is why you needn’t fear them.

It’s good that it’s hard. It deters the cowards and it intrigues the courageous. Right?

Apply yourself to thinking through difficulties—hard times can be softened, tight squeezes widened, and heavy loads made lighter for those who can apply the right pressure. It’s a tricky balance, but you got it.

Don’t bother with “What would I do in their shoes?” Ask: “What am I doing now?” In your own life. With your own fears.

Let us mind our business. Let us put in the work where it matters—not in condemnation or investigations.

The bums in Washington … The bureaucrats in Brussels … The fools back in corporate. Yeah, they’re cowards. But what about you? What are you doing?

If we are going to indict anyone for their cowardice, let it be silently, by example. Waste not a second questioning another man’s courage. Put that scrutiny solely on your own.

This is how it goes, whether you’re a billionaire or an ordinary person, no matter how physically tough or brilliant you are. Fear determines what is or isn’t possible. If you think something is too scary, it’s too scary for you. If you don’t think you have any power … you don’t. If you aren’t the captain of your fate … then fate is the captain of you.

We go through life in two ways. We choose between effective truths: that we have the ability to change our situation, or that we are at the mercy of the situations in which we find ourselves. We can rely on luck … or cause and effect.

He said they could choose between two attitudes, one that said, “What is going to happen to me?” And the other that said, “What action am I going to take?”

Scholars remind us that the opposite of andreia—the ancient Greek word for “courage”—is not cowardice. It’s melancholia. Courage is honest commitment to noble ideals. The opposite of courage is not, as some argue, being afraid. It’s apathy. It’s disenchantment. It’s despair. It’s throwing up your hands and saying, “What’s the point anyway?”

If we don’t believe in anything, it becomes very hard to find anything worth believing in. We make our nihilism true, just as we do when we buy the lie that we have no agency; or alternatively, that while we don’t control what has happened, we do control how we happen to respond. If you fear that there isn’t anything you can do, chances are you will do nothing. You will also be nothing. A protected, self-justifying nothing.

All growth is a leap in the dark. If you’re afraid of that, you’ll never do anything worthwhile. If you take counsel of your fears, you’ll never take that step, make that leap.

No one can tell you that your plan will succeed. No one can tell you what their answer to your question will be. No one can guarantee you’ll make it home alive. They can’t even tell you how far down the hole goes. If they could, if it wasn’t scary, everyone would do it. And then it wouldn’t need to be done by you, now would it?

You are here for such a brief time. On this planet. In this job. As a young, single person. Whatever. How do you want to spend it? Like a coward?

If fear is to be a driving force in your life, fear what you’ll miss. Fear what happens if you don’t act. Fear what they’ll think of you down the road, for having dared so little. Think of what you’re leaving on the table. Think of the terrifying costs of playing small. The fear you feel is a sign. If courage is never required in your life, you’re living a boring life. Put yourself in a position that demands you leap.

“At the top,” Acheson would observe, “there are no easy choices. All are between evils, the consequences of which are hard to judge.” But this is what scares us. Making the wrong decision. Screwing things up. The potential unintended consequences. What about this? What about that? If I get it wrong? If people disagree? If something else happens? Should you stay? Go? Should you say something? Should you try it this way or that way? But what if it doesn’t work? So many choices. Few of them easy. None of them clear. Scary choices, torturing you, as Shakespeare said, “like a phantasma, or a hideous dream.” We tell ourselves we’re thinking, that we’re weighing our options, that we’re making progress. In truth, we are paralyzed with fear. Overwhelmed by options. By second guesses. By that hatred of making mistakes. So what we’re really doing is making ourselves miserable.

As the song goes, even if you choose not to decide—even if you put things off—you still have made a choice. You are voting for the status quo. You are voting to let them decide. You are voting to give up your own agency. “What cowardice fears most of all,” Søren Kierkegaard said, “is the making of a resolution, for a resolution instantly dissipates the mist.”

Sure, it’s possible to stand back and let things get sorted out. We can wait to pick a side or a winner. Maybe it’ll pay off. Maybe history will leave us blameless. Maybe. But deep down, you will know. The fear leaves a stain.

We like to think we can have an extraordinary life by making ordinary decisions, but it’s not true. It’s actually all the ordinary decisions—the safe ones, recommended by every expert, criticized by no one—that make us incredibly vulnerable in times of chaos and crisis.

All certainty is uncertain. You’re not safe. You never will be. No one is. In putting safety above everything, we actually put ourselves in danger. Of being forgotten. Of never coming close. Of being complicit.

No rule is perfect, but this one works: Our fears point us, like a self-indicting arrow, in the direction of the right thing to do. One part of us knows what we ought to do, but the other part reminds us of the inevitable consequences. Fear alerts us to danger, but also to opportunity. If it wasn’t scary, everyone would do it. If it was easy, there wouldn’t be any growth in it. That tinge of self-preservation is the pinging of the metal detector going off. We may have found something. Will we ignore it? Or will we dig?

But what will our customers think? But what if our competitors use this against us? What if it doesn’t work? Will people be mad at me? Damn them all. Decide to testify. Decide to go all in on the new venture. Take the creative risk. Decide to answer the reporter’s email. Decide to say what you’re hesitant to say. They say not to take counsel of your fears, but perhaps that’s exactly what we should do. We should listen closely and then do the opposite.

By definition, each of us is original. Our DNA has never existed before on this planet. No one has ever had our unique set of experiences. Yet what do we do with this heritage? We push it away. We choose not to be ourselves. We choose to go along, to not raise any eyebrows.

Be a cop. Be a soldier. Be a philosopher. Be another musician in a long tradition of rock music. Hold somebody’s hand. Just make sure that underneath, you are being yourself. That you are not letting fear shut you up or put you down. That you are not doing what everyone else is doing simply because they are doing it. Be original. Be yourself. To be anything else is to be a coward. Don’t let the opinion of cowards influence what you think or do. The future depends on it.

While most of us will not make our living on the screen, we all have to face this reluctance to be seen. Our fear of what other people think, of embarrassment or awkwardness, is not the same fear that holds a man back from running into battle, but it is a limitation, a deficiency of courage that deprives us of our destiny all the same.

The comedian Jerry Seinfeld once noted that people rank public speaking as worse than the fear of death, which means, quite insanely, that at a funeral the average person would rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy.

You put on the tights. You push through the stage fright—the fright that persists even after you’ve mastered the art of public speaking. You enter the witness stand. You deliver the hard news to the assembled employees. You just learn to stop thinking about what they think. You’ll never do original work if you can’t. You have to be willing not only to step away from the herd but get up in front of them and say what you truly think or feel. It’s called “public life” for a reason. We don’t get to succeed privately.

When we defer to fear, when we let it decide what we will and won’t do, we miss so much. Not just success, but actualization.

“Don’t be ashamed to need help,” Marcus Aurelius wrote. “Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what?”

When the student asks a question, what happens? They learn something they didn’t know. When the friend reveals a vulnerability to another, what happens? The friendship gets stronger. When the employee admits the workload is too much, what happens? A hire is made and the company gets more efficient. When somebody has the courage to speak about something shameful that was done to them? Society is propelled into action. Someone can help them stop it. Sometimes just the ask itself is a breakthrough. The admission unlocks something within. Now we’re powerful enough to solve our problem.

We’re in this mission together. We’re comrades. Ask for help. It’s not just brave, it’s the right thing to do.

Fear, before you’re actually in the battle, is a normal emotional reaction. It’s the last step of preparation, the not-knowing … This is where you’ll prove you’re a good soldier. That first fight—that fight with yourself—will have gone. Then you will be ready to fight the enemy. Army Life (handbook), 1944

O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted! To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand! To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face! To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance! To be indeed a God! Walt Whitman

Courage is the management of and the triumph over fear. It’s the decision—in a moment of peril, or day in and day out—to take ownership, to assert agency, over a situation, over yourself, over the fate that everyone else has resigned themselves to. We can curse the darkness, or we can light a candle. We can wait for someone else to come and save us, or we can decide to stand and deliver ourselves. Which will it be? Every hero faces this choice. Our discrimen—the critical turning point. The moment of truth. Will you be brave? Will you put yourself out there? What will you reveal your character to be? If cowardice is failure to do your duty, then courage is the decision to step up and do it. Answering the call. Overriding fear and seizing your destiny. Doing the thing you cannot do because it needs to be done … with fortitude and spirit, guts and grit, even if you have no idea if you’ll succeed. This will not be easy. But we cannot fear. We must, as Shakespeare said, “meet the time as it seeks us.” Our destiny is here. Let’s seize it.

That is the thing about courage: Just like fear, it is contagious.

Still, it is essential that we understand that courage is more than just the stand. It’s more than just the choice of Hercules, between the easy road and the hard one. One then has to walk that hard road.

“What everyone seems to ignore,” de Gaulle would say, “is the incredible mixture of patience, of slow development, of obstinate creativity, of trick questions, the dizzying succession of calculation, negotiations, conflicts, trips that we had to carry out to accomplish our enterprise.”

The kind of person who goes their own way, who refuses to accept defeat, who believes faithfully in their own agency, who is brave enough to assert their autonomy even at the risk of death or dissolution is not the kind of person who is easy to boss around or force to compromise.

When we follow our destiny, when we seize what is meant to be ours, we are never alone. We are walking alongside Hercules. We are following in the footsteps of the greats. We are guided by God, by the gods, by a guiding spirit, the same one that guided de Gaulle and Napoleon, Joan of Arc, Charlemagne, and every other great man and woman of history. Courage may call for us to stand alone, alone against the incredible adversity, even against what feels like the entire world. But we are not afraid, because we are not actually alone when we take that stand. For behind us, as there was for de Gaulle, there is a great empire. And we must know that if we fight hard and long enough, we will find everyone is with us.

The world is asking you about your courage. Every minute of every day. Your enemies are asking you this question. Your obstacles are too.

Seneca would say that he actually pitied people who have never experienced misfortune. “You have passed through life without an opponent,” he said. “No one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”

The belief that an individual can make a difference is the first step. The next is understanding that you can be that person.

Although fear can be explained away, it’s far more effective to replace it. With what? Competence. With training. With tasks. With a job that needs to be done.

What we do not expect, what we have not practiced, has an advantage over us. What we have prepared for, what we have anticipated, we will be able to answer.

What we are familiar with, we can manage. Danger can be mitigated by experience and by good training. Fear leads to aversion. Aversion to cowardice. Repetition leads to confidence. Confidence leads to courage.

Know-how is a help. But it’s preparation that makes you brave.

Start small … on something big. Eliminate one problem. Move things one iota. Write one sentence. Send one letter. Make a spark. We can figure out what’s next after that.

“He who does something at the head of one regiment,” Abraham Lincoln reminds us, “will eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a hundred.” Better to win a small battle than continually to defer for some larger, perfect battle in the future.* The struggle continues. We play our part. We get started. We do what we can, where we are, with what we have. It adds up.

In the words of the decorated Navy SEAL Jocko Willink, to get over the fear, you go. You just do. You leap into the dark. It is the only way.

Are there risks? Of course. It’s not unreasonable to be worried about them. But there is no chance of success if you do nothing, if you don’t even try. No one can guarantee safe passage in life, nothing precludes the possibility of failing or dying. But if you don’t go? Well, you ensure failure and suffer a different kind of death. Later, you’re going to wish you did something. We always do. Which means, right now, you gotta go.

We claim we debate so we can get to the right decision, that we need more information. In truth, we are delaying. We don’t want to leave the comfort of the status quo. We don’t want to have to own the consequences.

There’s a great expression: Whatever you’re not changing, you’re choosing. Later, you’re going to wish you did something. Whether it’s leaving an abusive relationship or starting a company, don’t fight it—decide it. Now.

You can’t beat a problem by debating it, only by deciding what you’re going to do about it and then doing it. Not a decision for decision’s sake, of course, but the right call, right now. And if your decision happens to be wrong, or you make a mistake, then decide again, with the same kind of courage and clarity.

Some of us are afraid to be different. Most everyone is afraid to be difficult. But there is freedom in those traits. Freedom to fight, aggressively, repeatedly, for what we believe in. To insist on a higher standard. To not compromise. To not accept that the “matter has been settled.”

Once the event is underway, everything else comes naturally. Fulfilling your responsibilities. Putting one foot in front of the other. You drop out of college, then throw yourself into your new career. You file the divorce paperwork and begin rebuilding your life. You walk into the office of the SEC to make your complaint. You’ll be too busy to be afraid. Momentum starts working for you—not against you.

“I was afraid” is not an excuse that ages well.

We can’t just hope to be brave when it counts. It has to be something we cultivate. No athlete just expects to hit the game-winning shot—they practice it thousands of times. They take that shot in scrimmages, in pickup games, alone in the gym as they count down the clock in their head. There is that clichéd bit of advice: Do one thing each day that scares you. As it happens, it’s not bad. How do you expect to do the big things that scare you—that scare others—if you haven’t practiced them? How can you trust that you’ll step forward when the stakes are high when you regularly don’t do that even when the stakes are low? So we must test ourselves. We make courage a habit.

The Spartans never asked how many of the enemy there were, only where. Because they were going to attack anyway. They were in it to win.

Whatever it is, whatever you’re doing, you must pursue it aggressively. When you operate out of fear, when you’re on our heels, you have no shot. It’s simply not possible to lead that way. To succeed, you must take the offensive. Even when you’re being cautious, it must come with the assumption of constant advance, an insistent move toward victory always. You have to demand control of the tempo. You have to set the tempo—in battle, in the boardroom, in matters both big and small. You want them to fear what you are going to do, not the other way around.

Once you dine on courage—and freedom—and have stood up for yourself, the taste of fear is much harder to tolerate.

We cannot tolerate abuse, constraints, or injustice. We can’t hide from our problems. We can only step to them. Submission is no cure. Nor can we expect outrages to magically go away on their own. We must draw the line, somewhere—if not right now, then very soon. We must demand our sovereignty. Insist on it. Each of us has more power than we know.

One man with courage makes a majority.

As Marshall said, “The courage of any one man reflects in some degree the courage of all of those who are within his vision.” You make a difference when you are brave. Because you make others brave in the process.

This is the rule: You decided to go. Now you have to own what happens. No excuses. No exceptions. That you carry your own weight in this world, that is all we ask. That you own your own actions. Certainly when you’re a leader. The buck stops with you. Always.

If you’re going to speak out: Sign your name. Sign your name on everything you do. That’s the brave—no, the basic—thing to do. You break it, you buy it. You make the move, you own it. You say it, you stand behind it. You order it, you accept the blame. This is the source from which self-respect springs and leaders are made.

It has been said that a Stoic is someone who says “Fuck you” to fate. That’s right. They resist. They fight. They will not be made to do the wrong thing. Especially under pressure.

Never accept the foregone conclusion. Only a loser stops battling their opponent before the match is over. Fight for every yard. Fight for you.

“If they can force you,” Seneca has Hercules say in one of his plays, “then you’ve forgotten how to die.” Remember that.

Fortune favors the bold. Fortune favors the brave. It favors the big plans. It favors the risk-taking.

A bold operation is one in which success is not a certainty but which in case of failure leaves one with sufficient forces in hand to cope with whatever situation may arise. A gamble, on the other hand, is an operation which can lead either to victory or to the complete destruction of one’s force.

A little boldness now is worth a lot more than death-defying courage later. The former needs a lot less of fortune’s favor to succeed than the latter.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has talked about how he doesn’t do “bet the company bets.” Because he doesn’t have to—it’s complacency that puts you in a position to have to take huge risks. It’s the company that, after years of ignoring the trends, finally has to change or die. It’s when you’re making up for earlier deficiencies that you have to gamble everything. Better, he says, to consistently make good bets every day. Calculated instead of careless. Incremental instead of incredibly dangerous. Do the hard thing now. Be steady and courageous today, in everything that counts. You’ll have to trust that it’s not as risky as you think. That you are not as alone as you think. There is something behind you on this, even if it doesn’t feel that way. Fortune is here. Fate is smiling upon you. But she tires quickly. She will resent you if you make her wait. Better risk now than gamble later. In either case, boldly proceed.

“Be not afraid of greatness,” Shakespeare said. Let it enter your blood and spirit. Fight for it.

safety. She called for help. She comforted. She cared. That’s what heroes do. We won’t always be successful, but we have to try. We can’t harden our hearts or turn up our televisions. We don’t need to wait for some enormous moment. It’s about what we do every day—for ourselves, for other people.

The freedom of the modern world, the freedom of your success—this is not freedom not to care. It is not permission to be indifferent. Yes, you have a lot going on. Yes, most of the evil in the world is not your fault. Still, you don’t get to close your ears to the screams of an innocent person downstairs.

As Gies explains, we must have the courage to help, even if it’s a hopeless battle. “Any attempt at action is better than inaction,” she reflected years later. “An attempt can go wrong, but inaction inevitably results in failure.” We have to try. Because if we don’t, who will? We can’t just bemoan the darkness of this world we live in. We have to search for the light. We have to be the light. For our nearest neighbors. For one another.

So it is important we understand that courage, as a virtue, must be weighed against the equally essential virtue of moderation. Indeed, Aristotle used courage to illustrate the concept of temperance. Courage, he said, was the midpoint between two vices—cowardice being the best known, but recklessness being equally dangerous.

Courage isn’t about measuring dicks. Or idle bravado. It doesn’t mean forsaking a motorcycle helmet because you think you’re invincible. Courage is about risk, but only necessary risk. Only carefully considered risk.

Although agency is something that every person is born with, few of us choose to assert it. We accept the limitations that other people put on us. We listen to what they tell us is feasible or not. We, upon reviewing the odds, make them an effective truth.

What fear does is deprive you of power by making you think you don’t have any. If you don’t believe you can do something, it’s not only unlikely that you can do it, it’s guaranteed that you won’t even try. Which is why we need more people to break out of this mentality.

Each one of us has within our hands the power to end our own captivity. Each one of us has the means to assert our agency. It begins with a choice, but it is ensured by action. Few men of accomplishment, da Vinci noted, got there by things happening to them. No, he said, they are what has happened.

“Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence,” he said, “I would advise violence.”

Sometimes physical courage is required to protect moral courage. There will be moments when we are at risk—or someone we love is at risk. Kind words will not cut it. Poise will not protect us. What will be called for is intensity, aggression, a demonstration of force. In these moments, we cannot shy away. We cannot shrink. We cannot be bullied. We cannot do nothing. In those moments, we’ll have to hit back, and we’ll have to hit hard. We must raise our fists. We must make our stand. Lest we end up on our knees.

Do you know what happens when we avoid the hard things? When we tell ourselves it doesn’t matter? When someone fails to do their job in the moment, or kicks a tough decision upstairs or down the road? It forces someone else to do it later, at even greater cost. The history of appeasement and procrastination show us: The bill comes due eventually, with interest attached.

High, but not insuperable, hurdles are the perfect opportunity for the brave to win stunning victories.

As Longfellow wrote: Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.

Imagine that your own ancestors—of blood and of bravery—are standing here, watching you, protecting you. Remind yourself what they would do right here and right now. You can’t let them down. So be braver. Right now. Here, in this decisive moment.

In the world’s broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If courage—moral and physical—is the act of putting your ass on the line, then the definition of the heroic is very simple: It is risking oneself for someone else. It’s putting it on the line not just for your own benefit but for the benefit of someone, something, some larger cause. Is this not one of the greatest expressions of the human species? In those situations where real danger lurks, where hope has disappeared, nobody cries for a manager. Nobody cries for the calculated reasoning of a logician. They cry for action, for a hero—for someone to save them, to step up and do what we cannot do for ourselves. And in answering this call, the hero enters, however briefly, a higher plane. They touch the face of the gods. Megalopsuchia. The Stoics called it ”greatness of soul.” Courage plus, we might call it. De Gaulle was once asked what he meant when he spoke of France’s “grandeur.” He answered: “The road one takes to surpass oneself.” This, this is the bravery that we hold up above the others. Because it is so rare, so much more profound, something we see only fleetingly. To get there, we must triumph over fear, we must cultivate courage in daily life, and we must be ready to seize the opportunities life presents us—however big or small. Our need for heroes is great. Will you be one?

Gates of Fire, the epic historical novel of this battle by Steven Pressfield, is today passed from soldier to soldier, person to person, as a kind of tribute to that example. The central question of the book was: What is the opposite of fear?

We are mistaken to see the Spartans as mere warriors, just courageous fighters. As Pressfield concludes, the opposite of fear—the true virtue contrasted with that vice—was not fearlessness. The opposite of fear is love. Love for one another. Love for ideas. Love for your country. Love for the vulnerable and the weak. Love for the next generation. Love for all. Is that not what hits us in the solar plexus when we hear Leonidas’s final, tearful words to his wife before he leaves? “Marry a good man who will treat you well, bear him children, and live a good life.”

As the poet Lord Byron said: ’Tis the Cause makes all, Degrades or hallows courage in its fall.

Courage is not an independent good. Heroes have a reason. What good is a deed if done for its own sake? What weight does bravery have as a parlor trick or as an exercise of vanity? Or of unquestioning obedience? What if it’s done for the wrong thing?

The difference between raw courage and the heroic lies in the who. Who was it for? Was it truly selfless? Was it for the greater good? There is a logic to heroism, even as illogical as it is to override your own self-preservation.

Gandhi had said he’d rather choose violence than cowardice. What he and other nonviolence practitioners chose instead was something even more magnificent and heroic. It took even more courage to do battle without weapons, to fight with one’s soul and one’s spirit against armed and angry enemies. Imagine the courage of young Malala Yousafzai, targeted and left for dead by the Taliban, for trying to go to school. “Even if there was a gun in my hand and he was standing in front of me,” she said, “I would not shoot him.” Is that not tougher than the toughest warrior?

Remember: Nobody gets credit for things that didn’t happen.

Don’t give up hope. Don’t give up on them. They know not what they do. You, on the other hand, do know. This desert, this wilderness was given to you to cross. It’s part of your journey. To struggle makes the destination glorious. And heroic.

A hero is not someone simply braving the elements, alone. It’s not you against the world. It’s not you angry at the world. It’s about what you’re willing to do for the world.

Love makes us heroic.

What unified whole are you a part of? What is the love that’s powering you? Country? Cause? Comrade? That’s the flip side of what about me. That’s how we rise above our limits.

In sports, there are two types of athletes. There are those generational talents, those feats of genetic and physical excellence who can make plays and take our breath away. Then there is another type, a little less gifted, a little less impressive to watch, but without them the game would not be possible.

Remember: One drop starts the overflow. One play starts the comeback. One person saying one word can stop a retreat … or start one … can calm a mob or unleash one. Anyone can be that person. You can give that work, make that play, be that drop.

“Happy is the man who can make others better,” Seneca writes, “not merely when he is in their company, but even when he is in their thoughts.”

A hero is a person who does what needs to be done, not just for themselves but for others. That is, a hero makes their own luck—events don’t just happen to them. Shakespeare said that we meet the time as it seeks us. But we have to seek the time and the moments too. We can’t be passive. We can’t wait. We must reach out.

Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.” Our hands are never as tied as we think. There is always something a hero can do, always someone they can help.

We have to make our own luck, big or small. Just because we don’t hear a voice like Nightingale, doesn’t mean we aren’t called to something, locally or globally. Curse the darkness or light a candle? Bemoan the calm seas or build a motor? We will our purpose into existence. We choose to be heroes. And if we don’t, it’s on us.

A leader cannot sit in some ivory tower or behind thick castle walls. They cannot protect themselves from every danger and risk while they let their followers or employees or soldiers take the brunt of what the world throws at us.

The parent doesn’t just tell their kid to face their fears, they have to show them what it means to do that in their own life.

We can’t be afraid or we won’t be able to do what needs to be done. But also, by this fearlessness—willingness to represent the cause, in the flesh, against all dangers—we show everyone else that they’ll be okay as well.

We said before that fear asks, “But what if …?” It worries about the cost—mostly to ourselves. A hero doesn’t think about that. They accept the bill that comes due for doing the right thing.

Taking the hit for someone, something else. That’s what heroes do. A coward thinks of themselves.

One must be willing to lose everything. There is no such thing as half a risk.” That’s a damn good definition of heroism too.

Why should I quit? he said. I’m not the one doing anything wrong.

Sometimes we are called to go. But sometimes destiny demands that we stay—that we go back willingly into the jaws, that we stay and fight. For our jobs, our cause, or our life. For our family. For our neighbors. And heroes do this at great cost to themselves.

When we decline to get involved, to risk ourselves or our reputations, we have to understand that it is not just our own careers or life at stake. Two thousand years ago, long before the famous quote about what evil needs to prevail, Marcus Aurelius was reminding himself that “you can also commit injustice by doing nothing.”

It’s heroic to take that bad bargain. If we don’t do the right thing, who will? And if somebody doesn’t do it, how many will suffer? We can’t keep silent. We can’t remain passive. We have to be willing to take them on. It’s the only way we can help.

I refuse to accept that the vault of justice is bankrupt. I refuse to accept that man is unredeemable. I refuse to accept that I can’t make this better. I will not stop until I create some meaning out of this suffering.

Remember: Leaders are dealers in hope. Nobody wants to live in a world without a tomorrow, without a reason to continue, without some dot on the horizon they’re aiming at. And if we want that, we’re going to have to make it. For them and for ourselves, heroically.

Whatever we do, we cannot surrender to bitterness. We must reject the heresy of despair. We can’t give up on ourselves or on other people. We have to tell ourselves a story—about history, about our lives—that emphasizes agency, progress, the chance of redemption. We hope against hope against hope. That is the seed of all greatness. It is the key to a better tomorrow.

It’s from the soul that the hero draws their real power. It’s not about who has a bigger army, the better weapons, or who has the stronger case or the bigger budget. The one who won’t ever quit will be the winner, if not now, then later, if not in this life, then in the next.

No one is saying they can’t eventually beat you, only that surrender is a choice. Quitting on your cause—that’s on you. Resistance unto … whatever you’ve got left to give. Hemingway reminds us that while it is certainly possible to be destroyed—by life, by the enemy, by a bad break—no one can defeat us. That’s our call. That’s in our power. And it only happens when we give up. The only way to lose is to abandon your courage. Defeat is a choice. The brave never choose it.

In one of Hemingway’s most beautiful passages, he writes: If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break, it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.

The virtues are like music. They vibrate at a higher, nobler pitch. Steven Pressfield

Courage is not something you declare, like bankruptcy, it is something you earn, that becomes part of you.

It begins by choosing virtue. Not virtue signaling, but virtuous living. We can learn about virtue all we want, but when we get to the crossroads, there we will have to make a choice.

Whether it’s from the Bible or from Hercules or East of Eden or Faust, the parable’s message is the same: We have a choice. We choose between cowardice and courage, virtue and vice.

It’s our decision how to answer the call. Not just once but a thousand times in a life. Not just in the past and the future but right now, today. What will it be? Can you be brave? Who and what will you be brave for? The world wants to know.

Events happen. But if you’re not willing to make decisions—hard decisions—as you grow and things change, then you’re a coward.

To give in to fear is to deny the talents and skills that got you where you are in the first place. It’s to deprive yourself of the agency you were given at birth.

I’m not perfect. I haven’t always been as courageous as I wish I was, clearly. But as I have gotten older as a writer, one thing has become increasingly clear to me: Our obligation is to the truth—whether people like it or not.

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