The Harvard Professor Who Discovered Courage Has Nothing To Do With Being Fearless | Ranjay Gulati

Key Takeaway

Start building your courage muscle by taking small, intentional steps toward uncertainty. Like firefighters who gather information before entering a building, you can 'act your way into knowing' by breaking big, scary decisions into smaller ones. Each small step you take teaches you something new and updates your understanding, transforming paralysis into progress. Remember: sometimes doing nothing is riskier than doing something that might not work out perfectly.

Episode Overview

Business professor Ranjay Gulati explores courage as a trainable skill rather than an innate trait. Drawing from research and stories ranging from his mother's confrontation with an armed intruder to Simone Biles' Olympic comeback, he presents nine strategies (the 'Nine C's') for developing courage by learning to work with fear rather than being paralyzed by it.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Harvard Professor Who Discovered Courage Has Nothing To Do With Being Fearless | Ranjay Gulati from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Ranjay Galati, welcome to the show. Thank you, Dan. Pleasure to be here with you today. you today. you today. Pleasure to have you here. Well, let me start with an obvious question. What why are you so interested in the subject of courage? You know, I think I may have I you know, you first you don't know what you're studying and why. You know, it's what we call retrospective sense making. You look back and say, "Oh, now why did I do that? that? that? Uh what was I thinking?

Uh how did I end up here?" And this is one of those projects where if you ask me 5 years ago, "Ranjay, you're going to write a book about courage." I'd say, "You're crazy." I mean, why would I want to write a book about that? about that? about that? Um but now that I look back, in hindsight, it makes sense. Uh you know, my mother was an entrepreneur. My father was a military officer. You know, so I have parents who were, you know, exemplifying courage in their own very distinct ways.

One was physical courage in the armed forces and combat. My mother, as an entrepreneur, and then, you know, um some of my own experiences as well that I had. I came to realize that, you know, courage is a universal currency. We all kind of kind of kind of admire it, but we don't really know what it is. it is. it is. And I have some moments of embarrassment, too. So, honestly, I think I studied it for myself. I never thought I'd write the book, even. I was really wanting to know more about it out of my own curiosity.

Like, maybe I can become more courageous. Not too late. When you say you have your own moments of embarrassment, what do you mean? So, one of the moments I talk about in the book was when I was 14 years old. My mother My mother My mother had by now built a very successful fashion business working with a couple of fashion houses in Paris. And she achieved kind of her dream, which was to buy a piece of land where she was going to build her own home.

She hadn't until now had a home. It was a beautiful piece of land that she found. And then a developer decided he wanted it and started chasing her for the the the Uh I was home from boarding school one sun weekend and the guard from her gate came and said, "There's a gentleman on the door insisting on seeing your mom. Can you talk to him?" So, I went to the gate. He was from the developer, a big burly fellow. And he said, "Ma'am, I want to see your mother." I said, "No, she's not going to see you, so don't waste your time." He said, "No, tell her last time we'll bother her.

5 minutes. We'll never bother her again." So, I went to my mom. She said, "Okay, 5 minutes. Bring him in." And she told me, she said, "You stand at that door and make sure he's out of here in 5 minutes." minutes." minutes." I said, "Okay." So, I bring him him into the living room. He sits down opposite her on the sofa. I'm at the door. And he very immediately he takes out a checkbook uh with a blank signed check and a piece of paper. He says, "Ma'am, we're not here to negotiate.

to negotiate. to negotiate. We'll give you whatever you want." Mother immediately pushes back, says, "It's not about the money. I don't care about money. I'm not selling this land. It's really not about the money." Immediately he gets belligerent and says, "I am going to make you sign this today." today." today." So, I was shocked. My mother was shocked. She said, "Excuse me. Please leave now." leave now." leave now." So, she then leans back and he pulls back his blazer like I am. And he had a gun tucked in his waist.

Now, I am at the door. I'm 14 years old, pretty big kid by then. But I'm like confused. I'm thinking, "Should I call the guard? Should I jump him? Maybe he's bluffing. Can I take him on? My mother, my sister, what am I going to do? You know, what am I doing? My mother, 5 ft 1 in tall, without hesitation, leaps out of her sofa seat, walks across the table, and slaps him across the face. He didn't even see it coming. And she said, "How dare you come into my house and first you try to bully me and now you threaten me with a gun.

Get out of here now." Now, it was strategically brilliant in hindsight because it got him off guard. Her security guard from the gate heard the commotion, came running in. This guy was so rattled, he ran out of there forgetting his checkbook behind. Now, I I was embarrassed because I froze. froze. froze. I didn't know what to do. And by the time I'm 14, I was always feeling like, you know, I'm the boy, the man, protect my mother, you know, I had all these kind of illusions about myself.

myself. myself. But I was always ashamed of the story because I did nothing. Now, I asked my mom afterwards. I said, "Mom, that was crazy. Weren't you scared? Did you see his gun?" his gun?" his gun?" She said, "Absolutely, I was scared. But just because you're scared doesn't mean you do nothing." And that kind of stuck in my head. And I I I was at one level ashamed of myself, but I was also kind of in awe of my mother. That's an amazing story and I pre- pre- pre- Oh, no, I'm sorry.

Go ahead. You had something to say. No, it was it I I I I hid that story. Honestly, I never told anybody that story till I wrote this book because I was a little ashamed of my own self uh in this context. It's an incredible story and I'm glad you're telling it. And I And I And I absolutely agree with your mother uh that that that you know, and and this is something you say in your book, that, you know, courage is being afraid and doing it anyway.

anyway. anyway. Um Yeah, and yet uh to me, you know, you could have made a move move move that got you and your mother killed. So, you know, what what's the other there's also some expression about um what something like discretion is the better part of valor or whatever. You know, like there there is some wisdom to I don't know about freezing, but at least contemplating contemplating contemplating uh carefully so that you don't provoke the guy with a gun to kill everybody. So, you know, Dan, uh the first essay I could find on courage was written by Aristotle, who was describing the ideal soldier.

soldier. soldier. And way back then, he made a distinction between courageous and reckless. Mhm. In fact, he had cowardice at one extreme, reckless at the other extreme, and courage was in the middle. It was intentional, thoughtful action. Now, there's a bit of a 20 Monday morning quarterbacking here because if the action works out, then it was courageous. If it didn't work out, then you say reckless. So, I grant you that. Uh but in her mind, she realized she said said said she did look at the calculation.

She said that, "Look, if I hadn't gone to him right away, his next move, what was his next move? His next move was to take the gun out. And she said, "The next move was not to point it at her because he needed her signature. He was going to point it at me." me." me." And she said, "Then I knew I had to sign the document." the document." the document." So, she said, "I had a very narrow window." And, you know, now let me tell you where it goes back to, though.

The larger point is fear is a natural human response. It's biologically hardwired in us. It's a primitive emotion that activates the amygdala. the amygdala. the amygdala. It's the survival impulse. So, we need it. But it paralyzes us. And so much of our life, so many things we do. By the in one of your episodes you talked about silence, being quiet, not speaking up. Even having worry, anxiety, all these things tie back to fear. There's a diffuse manifest fear. And we don't have a way to cope with fear.

fear. fear. And and and you know, Winston Churchill said, "Fear is a reaction, courage is a decision." decision." decision." So, what happens is what I came to realize is that, you know, if you're going to if any of us, myself included, I'm going to live a more complete life, I need to find a way to learn to live with fear. Engage it. Not be ashamed of it. it. it. And this ability to learn to accept fear for what it is, but not be overwhelmed by fear, was the journey I had to go through and I was trying to understand it better as I wrote this book because, you know, I think too much too many of us live our life through a lens of fear.

Well, I'll speak only for myself. It's a very prominent player in my psychology. I do I do want to come back to this this difference between courage and recklessness, though, and and what you said about how it the Monday morning quarterback, you know, what um what um what um there's a way in which your mom's actions could have backfired in ways in which would have led us to describe it as reckless. reckless. reckless. So, how how can we think about being on the right side of that line when we're in a an acute situation?

There's no easy answer to that, first of all. But let me tell you the default answer that is not the right answer. Most of us, in times of when we when was the fear impulse activates, activates, activates, so let me first start with point of origin of fear and then I'll get to your point, actually. Where does fear come from? Fear originates in uncertainty. What is uncertainty? It's not same as risk. Risk is where you know the distribution of outcomes. There's 10% chance of this, 30% chance of this, 50% chance of this, and you're playing the odds.

Uncertainty is I don't know. Early days of COVID. Right? Or job dislocation. Or a diagnosis of a very deadly illness. Or even something more simple like college applications. Where am I going to go? What am I going to do? of finding a spouse? spouse? spouse? So, there are some things that have a risk element to it and the uncertainty By the way, you should see New York Times and others that talked about we're in an uncertainty crisis today. We have geopolitical uncertainty, we have technological uncertainty, we have environmental uncertainty, we have health uncertainty.

health uncertainty. health uncertainty. There's uncer- So, uncertainty is everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. Which means fear is everywhere. Now, how do we deal with this fear in a reasonable way? Because the default answer to fear is not fight or flight. It's freeze or flight. Sometimes doing nothing is riskier than doing something that might not work out. My mother's calculus was doing nothing was not an option. But, it required her to deal with her fear. Because she could have just sat back and waited it out to see how this plays out.

plays out. plays out. But, you should have seen if you saw all this guy's violent outburst, you would have known that he wasn't going to stop. I am not leaving here till you sign this. this. this. So, this thing was going south very fast. fast. fast. on us. on us. on us. And um And um And um So, I think you're right. There is always going to be a fine line here. And not every courageous story we know ends up with a happy ending also, right?

Alexei Navalny is an amazing story of courage in going back to Russia. Even though he'd been poisoned before and he didn't think Well, I guess he he he died in prison in Siberia. He knew that. that. that. But, he felt he had to do it. He felt morally compelled to do it. So, not every courageous story ends up with a with a with a happy kind of story at the end of it. And and but the question is that how do we learn to tame fear?

How do we learn to understand a fear? And how do we learn to then take the best course of action we possibly can versus fear clouds judgment, fear clouds the amygdala, fear clouds the prefrontal cortex. cortex. cortex. And we are just paralyzed. You know, great story is Salman Rushdie, you know, he's getting stabbed on stage and he's paralyzed. So, paralyzed. So, paralyzed. So, how do we shake ourselves out of that? Um [snorts] Um [snorts] Um [snorts] I think what you're you're Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. No, no.

I think what you're saying is that there's um there's um there's um that's very it can be very hard in the moment to draw the line between courage and um recklessness. Um Uh and often it's only clear in hindsight based on the result. Um Um Um Uh but Uh but Uh but what we want what the most important thing to do here is to learn how to tame our fear so that we can make the best decision possible fully understanding that um that um that um uh uh uh there may be outcomes we don't like.

Uh we are taking a risk often of hopefully a calculated risk when we act out of courage. Exactly. In fact, you know, I uh uh uh Tom Cruise who does most of his own stunts even though he doesn't have to. You know, after one of his particularly dangerous stunts for Mission Impossible where he drove a motorcycle off a cliff six times six times six times uh and parachuted into the valley uh and somebody asked him like, "Aren't you scared doing this?" And he said, "Absolutely, I'm scared.

It's just that I've learned how not I've learned it's that I don't mind being scared." being scared." being scared." Hm. Hm. Hm. So, you know, so what I've discovered is these people who are courageous as we characterize them, they somehow instinctively instinctively instinctively [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] have created a system in their own minds about learning to tame fear, even sometimes trick fear. They have a relationship with fear that somehow allows them not to be paralyzed by it. Now, I tried to find the social science research around it saying like, "What are these people doing here?" And I was looking not at like famous characters only, right?

I was looking at Brandon Say, Brandon Say, Brandon Say, a cashier at a dance hall in California when a mass shooter came in. Uh uh Captain Sullenberger who landed the plane in the Hudson River. But, not just people like that who are in the moment courageous. I also looked at Frances Haugen who was my former student who spent 1 year agonizing over whether she should be the whistleblower at Facebook. Facebook. Facebook. And so, there is sometimes there are instinctive in-moment courage, some are more intentional deliberate courage.

Some involve physical courage meaning it's physical danger, some are moral courage. courage. courage. Um the word courage gets associated a lot and is confused. So, I was trying to say my my biggest learning was that courage is accessible to all. It's a skill, it's a muscle we can all acquire. acquire. acquire. It's not just the purview of the Tom Cruises of the world uh or the Navalnys of the world or these people who somehow did it. did it. did it. There's a method underlying what they do and we all can learn it, too.

And you know, you know, you know, it and and I think given the uncertainty in the world around us and the manifest fear that comes with it, I think it's important to think about courage as a currency we all need today. We need to resource ourselves to not let fear paralyze us in the world we are trying to navigate and live through right now. Okay, so if the operating thesis of the book is that courage is a a trainable skill, not an unalterable factory resetting, the the how of that you divide up into nine steps or nine C's, uh nine uh words that begin with C, uh words like coping and confidence and commitment.

So, let's start working through some of these C's. We may not get through all of them, but um uh let's do as many as we can in the time we have. Uh the first of the nine C's is coping. coping. coping. What do you mean by that? So, you know, um I should preface that by saying historically human beings when they'd encountered uncertainty and fear, they you know what they did? They prayed. A belief in a higher power. The most effective way humankind for thousands of years has found to deal with uncertainty is to pray.

A belief in a higher source is being there for me is an important way in which people kind of cope. Now, there are other ways in which people also understand this. And I found the following among most of these people. these people. these people. Which is um you know, if you look at how people operate, we don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. Now, what do I mean by that? We all look at the world through a lens of meaning and identity.

Why am I here? So, Brandon Say who's a slightly built young man in this dance hall in California California California when a and he's a pacifist by his own admission, never ever got into a fight, always ran away whenever there was a fight in school. In fact, he and his friend had joked one time that if we ever saw a mass shooter, what would we do? They both agreed they'd duck or hide. Well, a mass shooter walks into his dance hall where he's working at the cashier behind the window.

Now, his first instinct tells him to hide under the table hoping he won't see him. him. him. But, then he surprises himself because the next thing he knows is he has walked around the table and he's in a full-blown fist fight with the gunman. And somehow he magically Now, you're right, this could have gone really bad. But, somehow he manages to pull the gun away from the gunman. So, I asked him like, "What was that?" And he said, "You know, I was thinking my grandmother started this dance hall.

My mother worked in this dance hall. I'm like a family custodian of this dance hall. And my mother and grandmother up there right now somewhere and they'd be looking down and seeing me hiding under a table. I couldn't do it. I knew I had to do something." Or you look at Captain Sullenberger who landed the plane in the US Airways flight in the Hudson River, had 90 seconds to do it. it. it. The Katie Couric asked him, "What were you thinking when you had to do that?" He said, "I realized in that moment that my 40 years of flying, my entire life up to that moment had been a preparation to handle that moment.

This was it. This was my moment." When I talked to Suma Jain, a physician in New Orleans in the middle ER physician in the early days of COVID, a young doctor who has two kids at home, young kids at home, and is worried she's going to bring COVID back home and give it to her family. And the decision she has to make is should she stay home or come to work? She said, "This is my Olympic moment. I trained trained trained as a physician to do this.

I had no option. I had to do it." So, a sense of kind of conviction. So, coping is one thing where you cope through belief in a higher power. Conviction is another thing where you believe in something. So, I went from coping into conviction in the conversation over there. So, [snorts] I I people find ways to cope. cope. cope. Um I'll also add one more Yeah, so those are the two I would start with. I discovered that most of these people people people had a personal belief.

Now, I'll go back to my mother. My mother was a self-made woman in a very very very male-dominated society male-dominated society male-dominated society where she had to fight against all kinds of gender odds to do what she had done. And she'd been pushed around by a lot of these people in business and government and so forth. Uh and so this guy showing up was just another man showing up trying to bully her saying, "I'm taking away your land and you can't do anything about it." So it it it touched her at a very personal level.

It was about her identity. "Who am I? I am here. I worked for this. You've come into my house and you're trying to bully me in my house taking away my hard-earned land because you can't. Not going to let you do it." So it starts from that kind of place where you have a conviction or a belief. And And And some of us have beliefs, some of us don't. What do we stand for? What do you believe in? And so I found coping and conviction were two kind of adjacent ways in which these people resource themselves.

I mean, Frances Haugen Haugen Haugen did not want to whistle-blow because it would blow up her career, a hard-charging Harvard MBA. And she was talking to her parents and she said, "Why me, Mom? Let somebody else do it. There's a lot of people at Facebook who should be doing this. Why should I do it?" And her parents flipped it around and said, "If not you, then who?" And she was like, "Yeah." But that story also reveals another C. Which is courage rarely happens alone. It rarely is be we put in the Hollywood portrayal is one of like James Bond, Jason Bourne the solitary hero.

It's usually a collective effort. collective effort. collective effort. So I can, you know, so I've talked about you know, the first one. I've talked about conviction. about conviction. about conviction. I'm not talking about connection. Now, it's interesting for each of these resourcing tools resourcing tools resourcing tools it wasn't just like all connection. I found that there were four aspects of connection. connection. connection. People looked for resource support. They looked for information support. They looked for moral support. And they looked for, you know, feedback support. feedback support.

feedback support. So if you look at how Frances Haugen did it um you know, she found all these forms of support from her network of people. Her family was one. A friend of hers who was a priest was another one who gave her feedback. A lawyer at a firm that specialized in whistle-blowing was another one. A Wall Street Journal editor was another one. one. one. So it was the collective that gave it to her. But you know, the the modern-day version of courage we tell is one of the solitary solo effort.

solo effort. solo effort. Um so as I got into each of these Cs, I found there was social science research. And it tied into the stories in ways I hadn't fully appreciated. Even the characters didn't. I couldn't If I told when I told Frances Haugen, I said, "You know, how did you do it?" She didn't She said, "Well, I don't know. I was talking I didn't want to do it. And I go, "What happened then?" She goes, "Well, I went home. It was COVID times. I went home.

I'm talking to my parents. I'm talking to this friend of mine who's a priest. They encouraged me to explore it further. I found this law firm. I called this lawyer. this lawyer. this lawyer. The lawyer said talk to this general uh Wall Street Journal editor. I then started talking to all of these people. people. people. That went on for a few months. And then I finally said, "I'm going to do it." And um you know, so it was interesting to see that these were not and and and um so it was in these are I've talked about three now with you.

I just jumped jumped ahead a little bit here. But um But um But um I'll tell you my favorite though. Can I get to my favorite one? Sure. Um there's two actually. So I'll just lay it out for you. This one actually the first one is called comprehension. And it comes from research by a University of Michigan professor Karl Weick. Karl Weick. Karl Weick. And he was studying firefighters. And what he found is that firefighters don't just run into a building. That's reckless. Right? reckless. Right?

reckless. Right? They're not running into a building. Um what they do is they observe the building from outside. They see how fast the fire is going. They try to find out if somebody need to be rescued. be rescued. be rescued. They see if there's anything combustible there and they form an initial hypothesis about the whole thing. Then they go into the building. As soon as they go into the building, they gather more information. And as they go in, they and each time at each step more they go in, they're updating their belief.

It's what we call acting your way into knowing. Most of us want to know before we act. That's why we say, "Let's be deliberate. Let's be cautious." Sometimes [snorts] there's no way to know without taking action. So ancient mariners used to do point-to-point navigation. So if you're making a big decision sometimes you break it down into smaller decisions. decisions. decisions. And each small step you take, you're taking it in order to learn more. And one of the case studies I looked at there was an extreme example was um of this plant in Japan where the nuclear meltdown happened.

meltdown happened. meltdown happened. And how everyone froze. But the plant manager says, "Look, we're going to figure it out." And how they do small small steps to get more data more data more data to understand what to do. Mind you, they have 36 hours to get power back up or there's going to be a meltdown. meltdown. meltdown. And there's already another meltdown happening at another plant 8 miles away, the Daiichi plant. Everyone talks about Fukushima. They talk about Fukushima Daiichi. No one talks about Fukushima Daini.

Now, how did Masuda get his team to figure this out? They do one one small thing at a time. "Hey, let's get out there to see what the situation looks like. Come back and report. Hey, let's get some more data." So sometimes you have to act your way into knowing. into knowing. into knowing. That was my learning from that particular illustration of that. Now Now Now I'll add to that another point which is I call confidence. I don't like that confidence word. word. word. It comes from research by a Stanford professor named Albert Bandura.

Bandura was also interested in fear. And he recruited Stanford undergraduate students who were terrified of snakes. Um technical term is ophidiophobes. And he was going to convince them over a period of several weeks with slow exposure showing them videos and all to ultimately hold a snake. Actually a corn snake. They're harmless, don't bite. But they're 6 ft long. They've looking They look scary. [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] So So So half the students dropped out half as the study progressed. The other half who stuck in there eventually held a snake.

What's most interesting is not that they did it did it did it but how this simple study transformed how they thought about themselves. It made them realize that if I can overcome one of my worst nightmare fears, snakes I can do anything. And he called this research self-efficacy. self-efficacy. self-efficacy. What in local parlance we would call can-do mindset. can-do mindset. can-do mindset. I can do it. Now, you see that with entrepreneurs. Not all, some entrepreneurs. entrepreneurs. entrepreneurs. No matter how many setbacks come their way and the business is failing, they're running out of cash, everything is going wrong.

I don't know how I'm going to get it done. I can do it. I got it. I'll figure it out. So So what I was trying to do was understand how these people resource themselves resource themselves resource themselves um [snorts] um [snorts] um [snorts] in different ways to to to to really to really to really take on fear. I'll give you one last one and then I'll promise to shut up. shut up. shut up. Is calm. Is calm. Is calm. And this one you've dealt with in some of your episodes.

Because one way to think about calm is meditation. meditation. meditation. The modern-day psychology psychology version of this is what is called emotional self-regulation. So sports psychologists are all over this. Because what is their number one job? To keep their player calm in the face of a very stressful situations. [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] Whether they're playing golf or they're playing professional tennis how do you keep And I found the most interesting example here was Simone Biles. Biles. Biles. Who in the Tokyo Olympics actually got what in Olympics they call the twisties.

She couldn't do it. Here's somebody who did moves named after her that nobody else can do. Who just Who just Who just for reasons unknown withdrew from the Olympics the day the Olympics was starting. Caused all kinds of media backlash, unpatriotic, this that and the other. She was on the cusp of her greatest moment and she said, "I can't do it." And then how she goes away for 3 years, comes back in Paris and cleans up again. How do these people resource themselves resource themselves resource themselves and do that?

And that's where calm comes in and there's a whole bunch of strategies inside the calm chapter where I talk about how do these people and meditation is a very important part of that story too, by the way. But there are other tactical things they do do do as well. as well. as well. Have you ever invested in something that seemed incredible at first but did not live up to the hype? That happened to me back in the '90s when I invested in a company that made the Palm Pilot.

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to ask you about that. Yeah. It's very interesting. Adele, the famous singer, is terrified of public singing. So, she has a ritual before every performance, she takes out a photograph of Celine Dion, who's her hero. And just by looking at that, it calms her down. her down. her down. Uh I interviewed a Ukrainian commando at the front line who used to be a lawyer till 4 years ago. And he [snorts] said that on the front line, he has a whole set of morning safety rituals he does.

That he believes invoke a higher power that he believes are going to protect him in this moment. So, rituals serve several purposes. One is it invokes a higher power that we believe is going to protect us. It also is a very useful distraction technique. It normalizes things. You stop thinking about the situation. So, you compartmentalize. So, if you look at Captain Sullenberger, Captain Sullenberger, Captain Sullenberger, what do pilots do immediately when this thing happens? He starts to make a checklist. And pilots do that because checklist you stop thinking about the situation, I'm landing the plane on the Hudson, no pilot has ever done this before, the last time a pilot tried to do it, the plane flipped and half of them died.

I have to do that in the next 90 seconds. No, he's just going through his checklist. checklist. checklist. Here's my checklist. Step number one, step number two, step number three, step number four. number four. number four. [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] So, how these people find ways to tame their fear, their fear, their fear, outwit their fear, is interesting. is interesting. is interesting. And and I've given you extreme examples but but but you know, I've come to realize [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] most of us in our lives, we're living our fears, not our dreams.

There is this diffuse fear that most of us don't even see it and it really undermines our ability to make choices, choices, choices, take actions take actions take actions that might allow us to live to our fullest potential. You know, daily choices choices choices that that that paralyze us. paralyze us. paralyze us. And um And um And um and so my realization was fear you know, some have described fear as the master virtue that unlocks all other virtues. And um and I I I is the master virtue.

Yeah, courage. I'm sorry. Courage is the master virtue that unlocks all other virtues. virtues. virtues. And and that without courage, you can't really experience other virtues because courage without and Now, having said that, I also wrote my first chapter was on cowardice. And the reason I wrote that was I realized that we tend to shame fear. We tend to shame cow- coward is one of the worst words you can use to describe somebody. But I think it's important to start this journey by first recognizing that fear is normal.

You got to name it to tame it, first of all. all. all. There's a lot of shaming around fear. Don't be scared. I should I remember doing that to my kids myself, right? I I don't want to go to the basement, Dad. It's scary. I'm like, "What do you mean it's scary? Get down there." And we do it much more to boys than girls. There's a gender bias here. So, So, we create a very antagonistic denial relationship with fear. Which doesn't even allow us to I think fear has to be our friend.

You know, I got to like, "Okay, fear, I feel it. I'm I'm okay fear, I feel it. I'm I'm okay with being scared." We don't see that in modern-day media. We talk We look at you know, the heroic characters we read about and see. Um we never hear about them being scared. Mahatma Gandhi, you know, amazing individuals. amazing individuals. amazing individuals. He before he started his political career, he was a lawyer in London. And when he he was terrified of public speaking. When he went for his first case case case in front of a judge, he froze.

He couldn't speak. He just couldn't speak. The judge threw him out, admonished him, threw him out, told his client, "Go find another lawyer." another lawyer." another lawyer." So, it made me realize that people find ways to resource themselves to take on things that are the most terrifying things even. And I think if they can do it, there's hope for us. Maybe we can learn something from them. Agreed. Let me just go back to the beginning of the the nine C's, which was coping and when I brought it up with you, you you, you you, you you talked and and it and this came up later as well, this idea of a higher power or faith.

But you in the book, I believe you talk about the fact that coping can that there are two strategies that may seem up to be in opposition. There's the um hyper-rational um hyper-rational um hyper-rational uh move of what you call risk hunting, which I'm hoping to get you to describe. And then there's also this faith in a higher power. Um yeah, how do these work together? How how do you think How should we think about operationalizing operationalizing these ideas in our lives? Great catch. Great catch.

Great catch. I skipped over that. Um Um Um So, I found there were two ways in which people cope with fear. Coping wise. Coping wise. Coping wise. One was a a belief in a higher power. And and this has been there for thou- Even the most ancient of drawings that historians and archaeologists have found show people praying to a higher power. It's something that is very universal and by the way, in times of uncertainty, even in modern times, they find that people's attendance of religious institutions goes up.

So, our belief in higher power increases when there is more uncertainty in our lives, it seems. [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] And looking for ways to The other approach I find is interesting and I don't know if they're necessarily in opposition to each other. The next one people sometimes lose it. I'm going to get more data. I'm going to gather more data and more data. And I'm going to try and turn this uncertain situation into a certain situation. I need to understand this completely. completely. completely. And somehow I am going to nail this down.

down. down. Think about how um you know, somebody getting a really difficult health diagnosis. Some will pray and say, "I hope, you know, I'm going to be okay. Take care of me, God." They'll also go to the doctor and try to see what they need to do and they'll understand their options. But then you have others who go like the extreme. extreme. extreme. I'm going to research this like a PhD and I'm going to find out every single person, the specialist. I'm going to go talk to 10 different physicians.

I'm going to analyze this like crazy. I am not going to take your word for it. And I believe in my efforts to gather more information, I will also calm down a little bit. Cuz I'll feel more in control. You see, uncertainty activates in the human brain a sense of loss of control. Early days of COVID. I don't know what's going on. Don't know what's going on. I have no control over the situation. And that then cascades into fear. So, this was [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] I don't think they're in opposition to each other.

each other. each other. But, they're two ways in which humans respond. I think And if you look at modernity today, I think society started at a at a at a what was considered magical thinking, uh belief in a higher power, towards a more rationalistic society where we are now saying get more data. Then the answer lies in facts and data more than in magical thinking as they call it. call it. call it. And um and I think both are both are both are powerful ways to cope with fear.

Cuz ultimately, we're trying to make sure that fear doesn't paralyze us. We're trying to say, "Hey, fear, I got you. I'm going to not let you take over my thinking. I want to be able to think clearly. I've got a higher power on my side. I've got the data on my side. Okay, now let me process further." So, that's why I put coping as that first first first way so because it's a powerful hijack. Fear run amok really really really does a number on us. One of the other strategies one of the other strategies you talk about, and I'm not sure which C this falls under, is um storytelling.

Telling yourself a story about the situation and your role within the situation. the situation. the situation. You know, when I talked about um right in the beginning when I said one of the first things I noticed about courageous people was [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] how they craft a self-narrative. How they craft a self-narrative. What I said to you earlier, we don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. And so, we look at the world through a lens of meaning and understanding. And that is a very powerful way in which the journey into courage starts.

So, what do you believe in? [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] What are you meant to do? Why are you here? Sullenberger saying, "My entire life was a preparation for this moment." Brendan Say, saying, "You know, my mother, grandmother are watching me." What I wanted to point out was here is that that that when I get into the Cs, commitment is where I talk about the stories we tell ourselves. not all of the characters, but most of these people these people these people have a self-narrative. You know, we all have a self-narrative in our head.

Who am I? Why am I here? What am I meant to be doing? be doing? be doing? Some of us are more familiar with that self-narrative. Others are not tuned into it. And it turns out this self-narrative that is in our head really shapes how we think about ourselves, how we look at situations. My mother had a self-narrative, "I'm a self-made woman, and no one is going to push me around. I have worked really incredibly hard to get to where I am, and I am not going to let anybody take it away from me." So, what is our self-narrative?

What is important to us? And I think you know, Suma Jain, the physician down in New Orleans, saying, "I trained to be a physician to help people, and now when people need my help in the most critical of moments, I'm going to stay home stay home stay home because I'm too scared?" So, you know, she had to really resource herself with that kind of self-narrative. Other times, other people give us the narrative. You know, Francis Haughen's Sam parent saying, "If not you, then who?" So, you know, we we have a kind of a narrative in our heads.

Alexei Navalny's decision to go back to Russia was based on his own self-narrative. And so, you look at some of these people, people, people, you know, they they have a narrative about themselves like, "I am this is who I am. This is what I believe in." They have convictions about some things that they hold dear. All of us are willing to do more for our families than we are for ourselves. ourselves. ourselves. We had this conviction. And so, we will. By the way, in the book I talk about this Chinese uh teach teacher who's teaching primary school kids in China during an earthquake, earthquake, earthquake, and the whole building starts to shake, and he runs out of the building first, abandoning his kids who are terrified five-year-olds not knowing what to do.

And later when he was confronted by the media like, "You're the first guy out of the building, and the kids were sitting there by themselves not knowing what to do." And he was like, "Oh, like, "Oh, like, "Oh, I believe in self self-preservation first." first." first." And he even said, "If my mother was in there, I'd save myself before my mother." mother." mother." So, the media went after him like crazy, you know, because his belief was me first. So, how do we create a belief system in which in which in which there are some fundamental beliefs that we hold dear, and then we can remind ourselves of them when we have situations of uncertainty?

Cuz these are like moral anchors that we can lean on in times of uncertainty uncertainty uncertainty and say, "That's who you are. That's what I believe in. These are my guiding principles." And people call them values. They are values, but beneath values is purpose. Why am I here? So, I found that these people who have convictions, not only do they have a strong set of values, but they have great clarity about their purpose, why. Intention, what in Sanskrit they call dharma. dharma. dharma. Dharma is all about understanding the why question.

Most of Hinduism and Buddhism and all the spiritual threads over there were try If you understand your why, then everything else falls into place. into place. into place. You you raised this question, um but I want to push you on it. How do we get a sense of what our moral anchors are that in a way that would give us sustenance and resources and resourcing in times of fear and uncertainty? So, here's the thing I think is the last the worst time to try to figure that out is during a crisis.

Right. Right. So, So, So, it's not the ideal moment to do that thing, "Oh, I'll deal with that when I have to deal with a situation." You ain't going to be able to deal with the situation. the situation. the situation. I think I think I think you know, you know, you know, it's interesting. One of my colleagues studies white-collar criminals and studies all these people who have are white-collar meaning they had high-paying, high-powered jobs who end up in jail. And it's interesting. One of the common themes is they never clarified their own moral anchor and principle belief in advance.

in advance. in advance. They were like they said, "I'm very pragmatic. pragmatic. pragmatic. I figured out my moral principles in the moment as situation demanded." And that's the worst recipe not to only land yourself in jail, but also you don't have a Then you don't have a ready-made resource you might need to take bold action. What do you believe in? Why are you here? I I look at some of the most insightful people I've met. They have great self-awareness and self-clarity. And self-awareness and self-clarity is And I go back to the why question.

I think moral principles and values are great, great, great, but the ultimate unlock is the why question. Why am I here? And if you get to the why question, a lot of things fall into place. I was meant my I was meant to do this. I had to do this. I didn't see any other option for myself. myself. myself. And then I think we all have to ask ourselves, "What do you believe in? What's important to you?" I mean, can I just give you an a sports example of this?

It's very interesting. I I have a side hobby and interest in sports coaches. I used to be an athlete, and it's very interesting to me to see how coaches how coaches how coaches work with players to make them perform better. better. better. As one professional coach told me, if he said, "I take a professional athlete who is self-driven, determined, has pushed themselves to the limits to rise to the top, and become one of the top athletes in the world, the world, the world, and then I get them.

And my job is to show them how to be even better. How do I do that? This person has pushed themselves as hard as they could, as far as they could. could. could. And these are teams This is football, so it's a team sport. He said, "You know, all this time they pushed themselves for themselves. themselves. themselves. And you can do a lot for yourself. Self-interest drives you very far. He said, "My job is to connect them to something more than themselves. I want to connect them to their teammates, to each other.

I want to connect them to the team as a collective, collective, collective, feeling proud of the team. I want to connect them to me. They're playing for me as a coach. So, now you're no longer playing just for yourself. for yourself. for yourself. You're playing for each other. You're playing for the team. You're playing for your coach. And and when you start to play do something for something bigger than yourself, yourself, yourself, you up your game. And the Marines do this, too, by the way. way.

way. Semper Fidelis. Semper Fidelis. Semper Fidelis. In the Marine Corps, you're not you're fighting for each other. Always faithful. Always faithful. Always faithful. Some even talk about it as relative fear. The fear of letting your teammates down is greater than the fear of dying. So, So, So, I think we have to understand how these kinds of people find interesting ways to deal with this thing we call fear, which is a natural human impulse. And once they find their way to work through fear, through fear, through fear, you know, you know, you know, I know you know the work on regret.

You know, and know, and know, and research by research by research by some Cornell professors like 25 years ago showed that people have much more regret in life about inaction about inaction about inaction than action. than action. than action. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And So, I feel that if we can only resource ourselves in dealing with fear, a lot of opportunity a lot of things open up for us. One, us. One, us. One, Uh there's another C I want to dig in. You made a reference earlier to the fact that we can draw a lot of sustenance.

We can build a sense of resourcing in moments of uncertainty uh through the C of connection through other people. And you you referenced that there are four types of support that people fall back on. Can you uh double-click on that? Sure. Sure. Sure. I must give you an embarrassing example of this. of this. of this. So, for So, for So, for 15 years, one of my favorite leadership case studies that I teach in the classroom is about the South Pole explorer Ernest Shackleton. [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] So, Shackleton in 1913 goes down to the South Pole and he's going to navigate from one end of the pole to the other.

And somehow he and his 28 men, they get stuck on ice. And And And in the in the winter comes and the winter's minus 70°. Somehow they survived the winter, but at the end of the winter when summer's coming, the melting ice crushes the ship and sinks it. it. it. And now they only have three lifeboats, 21 ft long, in the roughest sea on the planet, even today, to cross the Ross Sea. Sea. Sea. It's really really hard journey. And there's nobody down there. And these guys survived for 2 and 1/2 years and somehow magically he brings them all back alive.

So, this we teach the I have video we have video here I permit of camera then. I'll show the video. And the whole case is about Shackleton did this and Shackleton he did this and Shackleton did that. As I was researching this book, I thought, "Oh, let me bring Shackleton in as one of the case studies." So, I bring Shackleton as one of the case studies. As I'm researching it, I find that in his own memoirs, he explains that he could never have done it alone.

He had three people in what he called his support squad. And these were his inner circle. And what kind of support did they give him? And then I said, "Let me read what he talks about." And I connected it to these four forms of support. First one, First one, First one, moral support. moral support. moral support. Boss, you can do it. There was so many times that Shackleton actually lost his own self-confidence. I don't know if we can make it. I don't cuz he made a number of wrong calls along the way.

He started doubting his own judgment. And so, he got moral support from them. The second thing was information support. One of them was the captain. One was his second first officer. They had also been down there and they were giving him information that he was missing. That was important. Resource support. Resource support. Resource support. They were able to tap into resources in the ship and outside saying, "Okay, we're going to go and find food. We're going to go and do this. We're going to do that." do that." do that." And the last one was feedback support.

They gave him real-time feedback saying, "Boss, the people need to see you out there. there. there. We don't want to see you being scared and nervous." So, it was interesting across all of them how these s- heroic characters that we like to teach I taught it as this Shackleton is a James Bond kind of hero. Actually really leaned on other people for support. for support. for support. I went back if you look at Mandela. You look at Gandhi. You look at Martin Luther King. You look at any of these modern-day heroes as well.

They all had a support squad. So, one of the questions we can all ask ourselves is, ourselves is, ourselves is, who's your support squad? Who do you lean on in times of uncertainty? uncertainty? uncertainty? Who do you count as your inner support squad? squad? squad? So, So, So, that I think becomes a really important question to ask ourselves. A special especially in an era of social isolation and atomization and hyper hyper hyper uh individualism and uh uh uh um um um perfectionism and all of this stuff.

The the the culture is not is not uh guiding us in the right direction on this one. So, I just want to emphasize that what you're pointing out is really important. So, So, So, just to reset here, we we you know, the your your your overarching thesis is that courage is a uh a skill that we can develop uh and the how of that is these nine Cs. We've been talking about the first of the the first six of the nine Cs uh coping, uh confidence or conviction, commitment, connection, comprehension, and calm.

The the the last three uh clan, charisma, and culture are really about how to engender courage in an organization. You touched on this a little bit um not only through Shackleton, but also through your interest in sports coaches. But what what should those of us who are in leadership positions either in a workplace or in a family or in a friend group uh know about how to get this as you call master virtue into uh into the culture? culture? culture? So, you know, as somebody who's been around organizations for a long time, I have learned one thing.

Context matters. Context matters. That we are all social creatures. We respond to the social cues in our context. We are individual creatures, too, but we uh as much as we don't want to believe it, especially in America, we don't want to believe we are in any way socially influenced. We believe we're hyper-individualists. hyper-individualists. hyper-individualists. Context matters. Context matters. Context matters. And and I think what I would say is that so, as as we look at context even in a family, we have a context. We create as a family, the parents create a context in which behavior is manifest.

What's acceptable, what's not. We role model it. We we penalize some things and we recognize some things. So, how do we create a context in which courage is not only recognized, but you know, cherished and encouraged? Um and learning to be bold is something that we not only tolerate, but we actually support. That to me was the And I tell you what context matters like one of the companies I wrote a case study on, the leader when he was going to change the organization, he said somebody gave him advice and said, "You can't turn sheep into wolves." So, he said, "What do you mean?" He said the advisor said, "Cull the sheep and hire some wolves." And he disagreed with it vigorously.

And he said, "I'm going to turn sh- turn teach sheep to be wolves." And he led this most incredible turnaround turnaround turnaround without laying off a single person. The same organization, the bottom-rated bank in Singapore, nicknamed from DBS it was called damn bloody slow. bloody slow. bloody slow. It was the worst-rated bank to the number one bank in the world in 10 years. years. years. And he said, "Without laying off anybody." So, he said the same con- How do you change the context in which people So, I think we have to never, you know, I think not to underappreciate how context shapes our behavior.

So, those three chapters are really to for anybody thinking about what is the context you can create in which people will find the ability to act more courageously. That's really That's really That's really what I was trying to get at there. Now, for the individual, the question I should ask is we should all opt and self-select to be in context that encourage courageous behavior. behavior. behavior. If if we go some if you want to be courageous, courageous, courageous, you know, some organizations do not. They stifle it.

Others do. Others do. Others do. Um let's pick one that everybody knows. Netflix is something I talk about in the book. book. book. So, right now we look at Netflix and say, "Oh my god, how do these guys do it?" They took on Blockbuster which had 7,000 stores. They knocked out Blockbuster out of business. business. business. Then they shut down all their DVD rental warehouses which they had used to knock out Blockbuster and moved into streaming. streaming. streaming. Then they said, "Oh, streaming is costing us too much money because we have to pay Disney and everybody else.

Let's make our own content." Uh oh, then by the way, uh if we're making our own content, let's make content in India and Turkey and South Africa and Brazil and everywhere else. And you're like, "Who are these guys?" And then eventually they have to take compete with Amazon, Apple, Apple, Apple, Disney, Paramount, Disney, Paramount, Disney, Paramount, and they're still winning the streaming war. war. war. And you're like, "Who are these guys?" And Reed Hastings was asked, who was the founder CEO, founder CEO, founder CEO, "What do you do as CEO?" And you know what he said?

"I do nothing." Because he said, "I've created a context in which they encourage experimentation, experimentation, experimentation, ex- ex- ex- trying new things, failing, learning." He wants them all to take bold action. So, that's the thing I think you have to You know, so how do we create a context in which people They call it context not control. They call it freedom with responsibility. Right? So, those are the kinds of things these people are able to do is to create this kind of courageous action. courageous action.

courageous action. I looked at the Marine Corps also. Like, how do you get a young soldier fresh off the street? You know, we can't rely on patriotism necessarily because we're not fighting a war for our borders. It's not like our neighbor is invading us. Right? It's not like Ukraine, Russia. So, how do you get someone to you know, risk their life in a faraway place from home? So, context. So, context. And I think context really can elevate And sports teams do the same thing. So, I wanted to see these contexts that where people The context really elevates us us us to do things we didn't think we could do.

do. do. The number of athletes I talked to who said, "I didn't think I could do it." Coach K is a great example, the great Kentucky-Duke game Kentucky-Duke game Kentucky-Duke game where where where 2.1 seconds left in the game and you know, and Duke is behind by a you know, by a point. And it's impossible. They can't get the ball across the court. And And And how Coach K gets them to kind of rally around and say, "You can do it. I know you can do it." And so, And so, context context context is hugely important I think for all of us.

Um us. Um us. Um There's a chapter I didn't write though there and I can tell you about that, the last chapter that never got written. And uh And uh And uh then the Dalai Lama wrote the forward so I didn't write that chapter. I said like, you know, after the Dalai Lama, what am I going to say? Um Um Um is is is ultimate courage is to really look in inwards. I found, you know, even in the Bhagavad Gita and elsewhere they talk about that about that about that the scariest thing for human beings is to look inside.

And so, managing yourself is I think the hardest thing to do. We have all kinds of barriers and resistances. So, I would say I came to realize that ultimate courage ultimate courage ultimate courage o- overcoming this fear is about dealing with our own inner journey as a human being. What are my goals? What are my values? What are my What's my purpose? my purpose? my purpose? You know, what's my legacy? How do I think about myself? Those are scary. For most of us, they're scary questions.

scary questions. scary questions. And that's why we tend to shy away from them. Say, "I'm busy. I don't have time for this. You know, it's like I don't want to deal with this." So, I think think think the inner journey Everything I've talked to you about as courage is an outer journey. But I've come to realize that the ultimate hardest of all is the inner journey because journey because journey because that is so courage can be used in that direction as well. well. well. Mhm. Mhm.

Mhm. Well, I would agree with that in my own experience. Um experience. Um experience. Um You You end the book on a sentiment that I also agree with, which is that and it really is an echo of where we began this conversation that the I believe your words are that courage is a journey, that this is we we don't arrive [clears throat] at some perfect state of courage. This is a skill that develops over time. The words you use, I believe, are boldness begets boldness, that we can really nudge ourselves in this direction step by step over time.

Am I summar- Am I summarizing that correctly? And if so, what would you add? No, I think that's right. I think is people don't become bold overnight necessarily. Sometimes they do, situations demand it. Brandon say the situation demanded it. So, he had to do something in that moment with the mass shooter. shooter. shooter. But But But for most of us I think courage is something that we can think about the snake study I told you about. Right? Where it took weeks and weeks for these kids to slowly overcome and understand their fear of snakes.

And slowly then try to turn that into an acceptable acceptable acceptable situation. situation. situation. There was actually a precursor to this done in the 1940s by some British psychologists who studied bombed this British army bomb disposal squads. disposal squads. disposal squads. Turns out that bomb disposal was one of the riskiest jobs in the British army in those days. those days. those days. And and and and he and these researchers looked at how these people developed systems of coping with that fear. I'll give you one more that was very moving and emotional for me.

I managed to get letters written by Japanese kamikaze pilots to their mothers the night before they went on their suicide mission. And have them translated into English. Almost all of them talk about how scared they were. Because they never signed up to be suicide pilots, remember? The Japanese pilots signed up to be a air force pilot. And they were going to fight the Americans in dog fights. But the Japanese realized that their planes were inferior. They would lose in dog head-on dog fights. And furthermore, they figured that if they could stay far away and have their planes fly with enough fuel for one-way journey, then they could attack the US from further away.

further away. further away. And instead of dropping bombs on aircraft carriers, they would make them crash their planes onto the runway, guaranteeing damage to the runways of American aircraft carriers. So, they were pushed into doing this. So, these people, you know, talking about the fear of death, of death, of death, talking about how they were trying to come to terms with it, saying, you know, "I'm doing it for the country. Maybe I was meant to do this. Maybe I was chosen for this. Maybe this was my purpose.

purpose. purpose. You know, I hope you'll be proud of me. I'm getting a lot of support here from my friends who are also going with me on this. this. this. You know, we're supporting each other. So, So, So, you know, courage shows its face in all corners of the of life. Yeah. Um I interviewed a dear friend of mine mine mine who just unfortunately passed away of cancer. And I interviewed her to just This is about a year and a half ago. And she was a healthy, young, athletic woman who had a cough that wouldn't go away.

And then she eventually went to see her physician who said, "Let's do an X-ray." And they found a tumor in her lungs. lungs. lungs. And this thing then snowballed into a whole set of things. And And it was very hard to hard to hard to She was amazing. You know, we don't use the word courage for people like that. I would describe her as an epitome of courage. courage. courage. Because she was dealing with so much uncertainty. uncertainty. uncertainty. Because there was no clear treatment plan.

plan. plan. You can do this, you can do that. Surgery, radiation, chemo, this, maybe on the one hand, on the I don't know. It's too big. Let's try to shrink it. Let's try this first. Let's try that first. And and how she had to navigate this uncertainty in her life. Until the very end, you know, we all In Buddhism they say, you know, the biggest fear is fear of death. So, you're confronting your mortality. And how do you do it with grace? And I think without reading my book, I think think think she relied on connections for support.

She did comprehension by trying to get more information slowly to understand it. Right? She relied on coping. You know? You know? You know? A belief in some higher power of a higher force. higher force. higher force. Right? So, you can I think part of the issue I think is the word courage is is out there as a lofty word. It's for the the heroic characters out there who do incredible things to save the world. And I think part of the hope I have is we make courage part of our daily vocabulary.

vocabulary. vocabulary. I am courageous. Fear? It's okay. Bring it on. it on. it on. Bring it on. I'm scared, yes. I am scared. It's a scary situation, but you know what? I'm going to figure out some way. I'm going to I'm not going to let it paralyze me. paralyze me. paralyze me. I'm going to find some way forward. Might be reckless. Might not be the right answer. right answer. right answer. But But But being paralyzed is not the answer, either. either. either. Well said. Well said.

Well said. Ranjay Gulati, the book is called How to Be Bold, The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage. Everyday Courage. Everyday Courage. Thank you very much uh for coming on. Really appreciate it. Great to meet you. Thank you, Dad. You are a master of this stuff. Thank you very much. You really know how to take the conversation and