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

by Ryan Holiday

And if your decision happens to be wrong, or you make a mistake, then decide again, with the same kind of courage and clarity.

The well-behaved rarely make history.

And while the powers that be might have called these people difficult, history has come to call them something else: iconoclasts. Some of us are afraid to be different.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what your track record is. What matters is the moment—sometimes even less than a moment. Do you do it? Or are you too scared?

Results are never certain. You may not succeed, but you do have to try. Because the failure to act? That is a certainty. Those few seconds stick to us like a scarlet letter. “I was afraid” is not an excuse that ages well.

In the civilian world, we call this initiative. In sports, we call it a will to win. And borrowing from the brutal world of war, we get this expression: killer instinct. It is impossible to have a killer instinct without courage.

This is true for the most oppressive of opponents. They’ll beat on us so long as we let them beat on us. But when we bring the fight to them, when we start choosing our battleground, focusing on where they are weak? Now we at least have a shot. Whatever it is, whatever you’re doing, you must pursue it aggressively.

The combat historian and U.S. Army officer S. L. A. Marshall would say that “no matter how lowly his rank, any man who controls himself contributes to the control of others. . . . Fear is contagious but courage is not less so.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

The cynical streak in us runs deep. We want people to grow up. Get real. Get over the fairy tales. But without this belief, without the courage to go on despite the condescension, the criticism, the futility of it, where would we be?

As General Mattis said, cynicism is cowardice. It takes courage to care. Only the brave believe, especially when everyone else is full of doubt.

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.

“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.

So it is important we understand that courage, as a virtue, must be weighed against the equally essential virtue of moderation.

Courage, he said, was the midpoint between two vices—cowardice being the best known, but recklessness being equally dangerous.

Courage is about risk, but only necessary risk. Only carefully considered risk. This is why the truly brave are often rather quiet.

Our model is not the hot-headed but the cold-blooded. Grace under pressure is also expressed as cool under pressure for a reason. Caution and care are not antonyms for courage but complements. Make sure you package them together.

Forget fatalism. Take control of your own life, as Nightingale did. Reject the pessimistic view that we are at the mercy of forces beyond our control. Yes, you can do something. You must. If nobody believes in the great man of history theory, how will history be made? Who will make it?

Violence is rarely the answer—but when it is, it’s the only answer.

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.

Knowing what it takes to leap ourselves, we ought to admire it when we see it in others. We should let it inspire us too—no situation is hopeless, we’re never without agency. We can always bravely pack up and move.

The thing about duty is that we have a choice not to do it, of course, but at the same time, we know that really, there is no choice. Or rather, there is only one choice.

If we only did what we were sure of, if we only proceeded when things were favorable, then history would never be made. The averages have been against everything that ever happened—that’s why we call it the mean.

Most of our brave ancestors and predecessors are gone now, and yet does their example not return to us? Does their memory not float above us, to be reached for whenever needed?

There’s courage and then there is heroism, the highest form of courage. The kind embodied in those who are willing to give, perhaps give everything, for someone else.

A strange paradox: Those without a strong sense of self are unlikely to be brave, yet the highest form of bravery demands a kind of selflessness that is, in some cases, suicidal.

And so those three hundred soldiers who sacrificed, as the soldiers at Gettysburg did, as the RAF did, became more than men. They became almost like gods.

Sure, not all selflessness requires the ultimate sacrifice, but there is no selflessness without sacrifice.

If courage is rare, then this kind of heroism is a critically endangered species. If courage by itself is unreasonable, then love in this higher form—the truly selfless kind—is insane. It is baffling in its majesty. It is real human greatness. It is us transcending logic, self-interest, and millions of years of our own biology to find quarter, however briefly, in a higher realm.

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?

It’s good to be brave. The world does want to know if you have cojones. But the why, the where, the when of it counts. The cause makes all.

Yes, we must be willing to negotiate. We’re willing to compromise. But run away? No. We avoid the petty fights so we can be ready for the ones that matter.

Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, Bear ’t that th’ opposed may beware of thee.

It’d be wonderful if we cherished our heroes, if we rolled out the red carpet for our creative geniuses. Instead, we put them through the gauntlet. We torture them. We drive them away.

“Every prophet has to come from civilization,” Churchill would explain, “but every prophet has to go into the wilderness. He must have a strong impression of a complex society . . . and he must serve periods of isolation and meditation. This is the process by which psychic dynamite is made.”

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.

That’s who we were put here for anyway. Our duty was never just to be the best ourselves, but to help others realize their best. Even if, as is sometimes the case, this effort comes at our own expense.

The only certainty is that if we hesitate at the moment of crisis, we’ll accomplish nothing and save no one.

This remains true today. Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever is going on. There’s more you can do. 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.

a leader must have real skin in the game.

The leader risks themselves for us. They step to the front. They make their courage contagious.

“We should cherish the body with the greatest care,” Seneca said. Same goes for our profession, our standing, the life we have built for ourselves. “We should also be prepared, when reason, self-respect, and duty demand the sacrifice, to deliver it even to the flames.”

All businesses, like people, have competing duties. But ultimately there are things bigger than dollars, and as humans we answer to something beyond the boardroom,

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.

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.