Top voices on courage: Seth Godin, Friedrich Nietzsche, David Heinemeier Hansson, Adam Grant and 10 others.
Our reading of what a group of claims have in common, one level above a korrent: a korrent is our reading of what somebody said, a view is our reading of what several korrents share. The claims are printed under it, so the sentence can be checked against them.
Nobody is filed under a view — claims are. A person is named here because a dated claim of theirs sits under it, and somebody whose claims sit under two views appears under both.
Max HodakJason LiuAdam GrantSeth GodinBrendan GreggDavid Heinemeier Hansson
Tim HarfordDavid Heinemeier HanssonSteve CoastSean CarrollFriedrich Nietzsche
A viewour reading
Their wordsYou don't have to overcome your fear in order to do things that are hard or which frighten you. You can do them scared.
Their wordsIt is not really a test of courage, or if it is, maybe all tests of courage are really tests of imagination, a test that asks, Can you imagine a world beyond this?
Their wordsWell, the biggest enemies of freedom are fear and greed, so you make sure that they don't stand in your way. If you imagine the worst thing that can happen to you and then make yourself be comfortable with it, there is nothing more left to be afraid of.
Their wordsArtists and warriors live and die by one primal emotion. Fear. Fear stops us from beginning our work. Or carrying it forward in the face of adversity. Or completing it when we’re so, so close.
Their wordsOf course, we may think we’re looking at our fears, dead on, but it’s more likely we’re just seeing a distraction, a shadow of what’s actually holding us back. Because once we’re truly clear about the fear, it fades.
Their wordsThe only way to get rid of the fear is to stop doing things that might not work, to stop putting yourself out there, to stop doing work that matters. No, the right question is, "How do I dance with the fear?" Fear is not the enemy. Paralysis is the enemy.
A viewour reading
Their wordsThere are unfortunately no tricks to cultivating this ability. You can’t read your way to it. You can’t think your way to it. You just gotta do it. You make the pitch. You get up on the stage. You deliver the pre-game speech. You give the toast. And then you do it again and again.
Their wordsIt is scary to get up there. But it gets less scary the more you do it. Confidence is built by competence, there’s no way around it.
A viewour reading
Their wordsAnd so um in order to succeed your judgment has to be differentiatedly good. Now the reality might be that you don't know if your judgment is good yet. And so um one way or another you will have to find out and that means making decisions that make sense to you even when you are totally alone in that realization.
Their wordsTaste isn't consensus. It's not judgment first, either. It's easy to be a critic. Curiosity has to come first, because without curiosity you never broaden your horizons.
Their wordsHave the courage to share important ideas and rigorous evidence even when people find them upsetting, and do the right thing especially when no one is watching.
Their wordsCourage, on the other hand, is the commitment to take risks and work hard to make something better than most people think it needs to be.
Their wordsIt isn't easy dealing with peer pressure and a room of warm and friendly staff begging you say something, anything nice about their terrible product for fear of losing their jobs -- and realizing you must be brutal to their faces otherwise you're not helping the vendor or your own company.
Their wordsToo often, we get hung up on how risky it feels, and fail to focus enough on how generous the work is. Generosity is a great antidote to fear.
Their wordsStanding for something is a risk, so it takes courage and conviction. We admire people who fight the fights worth fighting, and so too with companies.
A viewour reading
Their wordsAll too often, politicians are turning their back on the most beneficial policies because they lack the political courage or the political skill to introduce them.
Their wordsFew people have the courage to admit their life and work isn't that complicated.
Their wordsThere seems to be a million reasons and two opposing forces keeping us in inaction: fear and vanity.
Their wordsThe intrinsic lure of the work is diminished by the extrinsic reception to the work.
Their wordsAnd if you just wanted to be methodologically conservative and say, “That’s a step too far; I don’t want to buy it,” I’m sympathetic to that. I think that you’re just wimping out, I think that you should have more courage, but I get the impulse.
Their wordsThe sad truth is that most of us are cowards whenever we can be. We usually know what needs to be done, but we shrink from the responsibility to do it.
Their wordsEven the pluckiest among us has but seldom the courage of what he really knows.
Their wordsA man should not play the coward to his deeds. He should not repudiate them once he has performed them. Pangs of conscience are indecent.
Matched by wording, not yet read into a view. The archive grows on its own, so this is where new claims wait for somebody to read them.
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