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

by Ryan Holiday

“Though an army besiege me,” Psalm 27 reads, “my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.”

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.

There’s almost no accomplishment that is possible without calling some attention on yourself. To gamble on yourself is to risk failure. To do it in public is to risk humiliation.

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.

We don’t get to succeed privately.

Stoics were strong. And brave. And did their duty—without complaint, without hesitation. With courage, they carried the load, and willingly did so for others when it was necessary. But it’s a mistake to assume that they were somehow superhuman, that they never struggled, never wavered, never needed for anything. They had to—as we all do—ask for help when they needed it.

We are at the mercy of fears we dare not articulate, paralyzed by assumptions we refuse to put to the test.

progress—hope—depends on the courage of the unreasonable man.

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.

“The intervention of human will in the chain of events has something irrevocable about it,” de Gaulle had written before the war. “Responsibility presses down with such weight that few men are capable of bearing it alone. That is why the greatest qualities of intelligence do not suffice. Undoubtedly intelligence helps, and instinct pushes one, but in the last resource a decision has a moral element.”

the decades to come, de Gaulle and his wife were the victims of thirty serious assassination attempts. After one, their car riddled with machine-gun fire, the windows shattered, all the tires blown out, Yvonne emerged, unscathed, and calmly inquired about the groceries she’d recently put in the trunk. De Gaulle mocked his assassins’ aim, saying, “These people shoot like pigs.” This was a family that mastered fear, transcended it even.

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.

The world is asking you about your courage. Every minute of every day. Your enemies are asking you this question. Your obstacles are too. Because we need to know. Are you one of the cowards? Are you someone we can count on? Do you have what it takes? 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.”

“If not me, then who? If not now, then when?”

Each of us is unique.

Each of us has our own skills, our own set of experiences and insights. We each receive our call. If we don’t answer it, then we deprive the world of something.

If you don’t start that business, who will?

Likely no one, likely never. And if someone does, it won’t be you—it will be different. It will not be as good. It will not be what you bring to the table. The belief that an individual can make a difference is the first step. The next is understanding that you can be that person.

“Know-how is a help,”

more mental comfort,”

“more personal satisfaction,

learn your job because knowing how to handle yourself will make you feel better.

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.

With practice, you go through the actions in your mind. You build the muscle memory of what you do in this situation or that one. You learn how to fortify and are fortified in the process. You run through the drills, you play your scales. You have someone ask you purposely tough questions. You get comfortable with discomfort. You train at your T-pace for deliberate intervals, raising your threshold as a runner. You familiarize. You assemble your rifle with a blindfold on, you work out with a weight vest on. You do it a thousand times, and then a thousand times more while there is no pressure so that when there is, you’ll know exactly what to do.

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.

We get started. We do what we can, where we are, with what we have. It adds up.

To know the truth and not say the truth . . . this is to betray the truth.

To succeed in life, in foreign policy, in a complicated and messy world, a leader must learn how to make decisions with courage and clarity. No equivocation. No vacillation.

Whatever you’re not changing, you’re choosing.

You can’t beat a problem by debating it, only by deciding what you’re going to do about it and then doing it.

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.”

They’ll try to punish you. Which is why, day in, day out, you have to defy them. You have to be combative. You have to be determined. You have to be confident. No, that’s not how this is going to go. No, what you’re proposing is not “best for everybody.” No, I am not going to keep my mouth shut. No, this isn’t over. No, I’m not going to “tone myself down.” They’re going to call you crazy—because courage is crazy. We have to be willing to look that way, to be true to who we are anyway. We can’t just not be afraid to be ourselves. We have to insist on it.

Seize the Offensive

A philosophy of offense. Of initiative. Of intimidating the enemy rather than being intimidated, of striking fear—striking, period—rather than being struck by it.

the trait that all great soldiers must have: “A sincere desire to engage the enemy.”

Whatever it is, whatever you’re doing, you must pursue it aggressively.

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.

Stand Your Ground

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.

Courage Is Contagious

You don’t have to be the smartest guy in the regiment. Or the biggest. Or the best shot. You don’t have to have all the answers. You just have to keep yourself in check. You have to do your job in the moment, let your training guide you. You do what’s right, what is immediately in front of you, bravely, calmly, clearly.

“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.

The perks of leadership come at a cost. The tax on courage is steep. You will take heat.

You make the move, you own it. You say it, you stand behind it. You order it, you accept the blame.

I’m doing things my way, according to my own code, no matter what you say.

“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

audentis Fortuna iuvat in the Aeneid; fortis Fortuna adiuvat in one of Terence’s plays; ‘τοῖς τολμῶσιν ἡ τύχη ξύμφορος from Thucydides. To Pliny, the Roman admiral and author, Fortes fortuna iuvat. Fortune favors the bold. Fortune favors the brave. It favors the big plans. It favors the risk-taking. The decision to lead the charge. The decision to break ranks. The decision to try something new. The decision to accept the crazy challenge. To ask them to marry you, to take that trip, to raise your hand, to throw that long ball because with the game on the line you’re no longer worried about interceptions. While the odds are often against these choices, know that the momentum of history is secretly with you. The crowd is with you, ready to cheer when you win. The more you put yourself out there, the more luck seems to come your way.

All the great commanders and entrepreneurs of history were successful because of the risks they took. Because while they may have been scared, they weren’t afraid. Because they dared greatly. They entered the arena. They rolled the dice. They had guts.