by Thembe Khumalo
Maya Angelou says that courage is the most important of all the virtues, because “without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.” Of all the virtues required in our nation at this time, courage is probably the one we need the most, and not just courage but consistent courage. Here are my thoughts on how we might begin to find our courage:
1. Nobody is born with it
As babies we are born with fear — fear of falling and fear of loud noises. We learn to exercise courage in spite of these fears. We become accustomed to our environment and then we begin to take control of small pieces of it until at last we become independent. My point here is that we are not born with courage. We come into it by overcoming first the small immediate fears, then larger more threatening ones. With each victory we feel somewhat surprised and delighted by our strength. “Did I do that?” we exclaim subconsciously, and that delight provides us with energy for the next conquest.
So, when we look in awe at those we consider courageous, we need to bear in mind that they were not born that way. When you think of Margaret Dongo, or Strive Masiyiwa or Soneni Gwizi, you may think they were born with some special quality that you don’t have. The truth is, that special quality is available to all of us. We are not born with it, but we can come into it.
2. Follow your fears
In Ndebele we have a saying, “Ubumnyama obungela mpisi”. Loosely translated this means a darkness with no monsters. When we are afraid, we have a sense of all kinds of terrifying things that might happen, but they often remain undefined and therefore all the more frightening. If we take the time to follow our fears to their logical conclusion, we might find that actually the thing we fear the most isn’t so very terrible after all. Whatever it is you are afraid of, ask yourself what will happen if you try it. When you have the frightening answer, ask yourself, “Then what?” and then keep asking the question “Then what?” until you get to the point where we answer, “Then nothing.”
3. Permission to be passionate
In polite society, those who display too much passion are often frowned upon. We like decorum and we applaud dignity. While I’m all for dignity and decorum, I value passion more. You see, when someone is driven by passion, they are far more likely to act in the face of their fears than when they are driven by reason and logic. Passion opens up new doors of possibility and drives us towards the things we want most — even if those things come at a high cost. As Japanese actress Midori Komatsu put it, “Passion is what drives us crazy, what makes us do extraordinary things, to discover, to challenge ourselves. Passion is and should always be the heart of courage.”
4. Free to fall
When my children were babies, I read somewhere that children who are encouraged to climb grow up to be more confident adults. Why? Because they learn how to fall. What this simply means is that the more you try and fail, the less frightening the prospect of failure is. If we want to build our courage, we have to do things we are afraid of over and over again. If we are unsuccessful, we realize that the failure is survivable, and we learn to make more and better attempts. In this way, courage is like a muscle — the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.
5. A chance to change
Finally, courage can come from solidarity. Brian Kagoro says, “the issue is not so much fear — the issue is inertia; an inability to build solidarity among the afraid.” I love the Wikipedia definition of inertia: Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its state of motion; this includes changes to its speed, direction, or state of rest.” Sometimes this is all fear is — a resistance to change.
If we want to build courage, we have to be willing to make those changes — changes to our speed, direction, or state of rest. And if we come together with others who are willing to make similar changes; well, then we will have a real chance at exercising our courage. We will have not just company, but we can then also develop a system for holding each other accountable and we can en-courage one another, borrowing and lending our courage as and when it is needed.
Thembe Khumalo is one of Zimbabwe’s leading voices when it comes to brand-building, business growth and personal development. A winner of multiple awards both at home and in the region, she is the founder and Managing Director of Brandbuilder, a high-performance brand strategy firm that helps entrepreneurial leaders and SMEs achieve visibility and growth through comprehensive brand strategy, creative execution and social media content strategies. Known for her clarity and courage, Thembe Khumalo’s leadership track record includes board positions in listed, unlisted and not-for-profit entities. With more than 20 years in the media and communication industry, she delivers a network of high-level relationships across many industries in several African countries. | thembekhumalo.com | www.brandtobuild.co | askus@brandtobuild.co
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