Learning to be Courageous

David Maister has an interesting post on "Teaching Guts."

Here's my own take on learning to be courageous:

• You become courageous by doing courageous things. When you look at organizations that teach courage, such as the military as well as police and fire departments, what you find is they train people to act illogically. For most of us, if danger or unpleasantness is over there, logic dictates that we head in the opposite direction. The courageous person learns to move toward danger. You only acquire that by doing courageous things and slowly gaining confidence in your ability to deal with such matters. You drill yourself to move automatically in such circumstances.
• You aren't courageous if you are without fear. The courageous person is not fearless. If no fear is present, then there is no courage. The act becomes as courageous as my moving a paper from one stack to another. Only when fear is being controlled or overcome is there courage.
• The courageous person often learns that the best way to confront a fear is to move directly at it. What you discover is that your own imagination can be far more frightening than the actual event. The courageous person is not unimaginative, but he or she knows that imagination can be a deceiver.