Episode 2: What does courage look like?
Welcome to the That Took Courage Podcast where we slow clap for courage, provide commentary and offer recommendations around communication challenges.
I want to open this episode with a controversy from my own community.
I picked up my phone yesterday morning to social media buzzing as a result of something a small coffee shop in my community had posted on it’s reader board. The message was transphobic and hateful. I won’t spread their words but if you are curious, I’ll drop a link in the episode notes.
Now, as an observer of this controversy, I saw a community react mainly as I would hope my community would. Messages condemning the business. Messages encouraging patrons to shop elsewhere. Messages of love and support for the trans community.
As a communications expert, I also had another immediate reaction. At some point, the human owner of this business made a decision to use their voice to post something inflammatory. To gain attention. If I talked to that human being, I imagine that they might tell me that they did it because of a personal conviction or belief. Some idea that they needed to take a stand. I imagine that they understood that the statement would result in lost business. And…maybe to the business owner… this felt like courage.
But it doesn’t look like courage to me. And I wanted to find some kind of definition, some kind of guide that might help me explain why that was true. If you set out on a similar journey using any modern search engine, you will likely land on Ryan Holliday. Someone I find particularly insightful. A good guide when it comes to moral virtues and wisdom in general. If you haven’t read his work on stoicism, I highly recommend it. Holliday recently wrote a whole book about courage, “Courage is Calling.” Again, highly recommend this work.
As I was re-reading some passages from Courage is Calling, I was struck by Holliday’s assertion that there may not be a good “guide,” That courage may be something that we know when we see…but may be hard to nail down. I was willing to accept this.
Until I remembered something else. I don’t spend time in traditional Christian churches anymore but I have sat in my fair share of pews throughout my life. I find that there is some wisdom from religious texts that I lean on. This morning, I remembered something that feels relevant to this discussion of courage and that is this: there is a famous verse in Corinthians about love. It lists the qualities of love. This morning, I used that framework to help me think about courage by simply replacing the original “love” with the word “courage.” When doing so, here is where we end up:
Courage is patient,
Courage is kind.
Courage does not envy,
Courage does not boast,
Courage is not proud.
Courage does not dishonor others,
Courage is not self-seeking,
Courage is not easily angered,
Courage keeps no record of wrongs.
Courage does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
Courage always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
By this standard, I would counsel the coffee shop owner to apologize. By this standard, I would counsel the coffee shop owner to understand their voice differently in the future and to accept that courage does not dishonor others…their post was certainly dishonoring to fellow humans. I would counsel all business owners to say hard things and to say them with courage. Courage measured by some ancient wisdom available to google-seekers everywhere.
Do you have an opinion on this particular coffee shop example? How would you counsel this business owner, or other business owners in the future who may want to say something courageous?
If you have a communications related question or a scenario you want broken down, get in touch by visiting thattookcourage.com
