Today's subject courage, who has it, who needs it, who wants it, how do we access it and.

When is a good time to use it? I just threw a lot of questions out there at you. That's what we're going to be covering today. I have some stories about courage and courageous people. And I have some definitions of courage. And some resources and texts textbooks that I'm going to share with you.

One of them I want to pull up, definition of Courage as a noun, the ability to do something that frightens you. All right. Anybody doing anything that is scary, ever tried something new, some new skill coming to work with me to learn how to sing can be terrifying. Just tapping in [00:01:00] to find your voice. examples of courageous people. Obviously, first responders, anybody who is in any type of service industry, dealing with constant crisis is an example of somebody who is courageous strangers.

Just good citizens that are standing by when something goes down that step in, they're not thinking, where's my courage? Do I, can I do this? You just get into this state of can I help? And an example, actually, I'm going to share a story with you here. I've never actually shared this with anybody when I was 7 years old.

And the example of courage here is actually my mother, seven years old, and some of I grew up, I had a lot of upper respiratory issues, a lot of health issues I had asthma, and our home was it's, on fire, basically. And it was my [00:02:00] asthma that woke me up and was able to get our family out of the house.

But the courageous person in that story, and I'm brushing over a lot and I can't go too deep because I don't have a lot of time. I try to keep these lives right around 20 minutes, max 25. And I don't want to get too deep because it, I don't know what that's going to spark on the camera here. And the story.

And the courageous person here really is that my mom is the one who went back into the house after we were all out to go get my sister and this is before the fire department has arrived and it's complete chaos. It's the middle of the night. It's very disorienting, very frightening. But. It was my mother who actually went back in realizing, where are all my kids?

To go back in and grab my sister who was fast asleep. Now, how my sister could have slept through all of that chaos. I have no idea. She was always a good sleeper. But, this is a moment, as a parent as a family member, you don't think [00:03:00] twice you hear these stories of, adrenaline.

Somebody's stuck under a car and people go and lift up the car to get them out. Anyway, these are examples, but I wanna bring it. We're closer to home, a different example of courage and with regards to using our voice and I'm getting my toenails done the other day and I'm sitting there and the gals working on me and this little girl, junior high age, maybe she had to be in seventh or eighth grade because we came in.

She was asking for donations for their auction, the school auction, and you could tell she was a little bit timid and. She, parks her bike and she comes on in and she asks the owner about some gift certificates. And I thought that was very brave of her. And then she left. And then the woman who is working on my nails says, wow, I could never have done that.

I still wouldn't be able to do that. I don't have the courage. to go in and ask for something like that. And certainly when I was in junior high, never would have considered absolutely [00:04:00] terrifying to go in. The question here is, how, what is it? That some of us have it, some of us don't, but the secret is that we all have that inner ability.

We all have that deep down. Now, how we tap into it I think that the first thing to address is it. It's a We're not always thinking about whether we're courageous or not. When you're in an instance, you're either stepping up to the plate to get into service, or you're turning around and running the other way out of fear.

So when it comes to our voice, mindset and what keeps us from speaking up, what keeps us from, seeing something and not saying something.

You're in a situation, you see something, absolutely in your gut, this is not okay. We don't say anything. coming back to how to tap in that for today, there's, there are three things that I [00:05:00] have found. If I'm in a situation and it's uncomfortable and it's hard to do this. It's it's it's like lifting weights, right? It's like lifting weights. It's an, a muscle that we exercise detaching from the outcome.

Whatever it is that's going on, especially if you don't have any control over it, right? How anybody in situations right now that feel really out of their control, I'm going to put both my hands up because there are a lot of moving parts. Just this time of year, we've had, all kinds of, natural and weather effects and people all over the world being affected by all kinds of things.

It just, it's always going to be something, right? So my first. First point, first tip for today is you're in a situation, you, if you get attached to the outcome it's, we're not going to get anywhere. So the first, my first recommendation would be detach from that outcome. Detach from what [00:06:00] it is that you're wanting to happen in that situation.

Now if it's a crisis, you're not thinking about this stuff you're in action. You're just getting in there to help. Or like I said you're running the other direction. The other piece of this is that whatever is going on, let's say, for example, that you have to do a presentation. We spoke a little bit about this last time.

Maybe you've been asked to lead a meeting and you're just, you're terrified. It's not in your wheelhouse of your skills. You're not comfortable there. So this is one of those situations where If you can get yourself prepared, go in, you're going to, with the mindset that you're going to do your best, you're going to leave the rest behind, but if you go in and you're prepared, Again, courage to step up and do whatever it is that you have to do in front of this other group of people and detach from the end outcome.

It's a hard thing to do. One of the things that helps us do that is accepting, there's your other [00:07:00] key word today vocabulary, detachment. acceptance, accepting, however, it's going to go down. Live performances, live anything, live today, right now, anything can happen. So it's that willingness to just be able to go with the flow.

It's a hard thing, especially for, doers type A personalities that just, they just get in and get it done. from the outcome.

Accepting, however it's going down, accepting whatever the end result is going to be. And the third part of that, getting into service, and I've spoke of this before, when we are thinking about ourself, when it's about us, what we look like, what we sound like, what if I mess up? What if I forget my words?

What if I don't want to look like a fool. I don't want to sound like an idiot. All those tapes, anybody relate? All those tapes playing. And across the board, thousands of clients, we all [00:08:00] deal with this at some point. But when you can make that shift from just being of service to who it is that you're presenting, you're speaking, you're running a meeting with, you're getting on a stage, true story, I have a client Derivacat.

D. E. R. I. V. I. C. A. T. She's if any, I can't imagine, but if there are any streamers, or you have kids who are streamers or gamers she's actually a cartoon character is what holds her placeholder for her profile, but very talented young woman. Anyway, she got invited to present. She's going to be singing at the Twitch con in San Diego this weekend.

Very talented. Anyway, we're working on her set. She's getting ready to do her show and she's very concerned about not looking like she's having a horrible time. So we're running her set and she's, we're getting all hung up on what's going on up here at the jaw, the lips, the shape of her vowels, all the technical stuff.

And as [00:09:00] soon as I was able to share with her your audience. Is there because they love you. They want to see you. They want to hear your stuff. They want to get to know you, right? They like you are ready. They want more of you. They are not concerned if you are using open forward placement when you're singing your songs.

or not. They're already there because they want to be with you. And as soon as I was able to help her make that shift, at least in that moment, we'll see what happens on Saturday. But in that moment, it was such a shift to take to. The pressure off of herself and to get back to number one, she was invited to come and be a presenter at this event.

Number two, the people that will be in her stage area are there because they already know her, like her, want more of her stuff, want to get to know her more. And it just, when we take that. Attention or that focus off of us and put it back onto why we're there. I'm here with you right [00:10:00] now. I'm here because I, my goal in my remaining years of my life on this planet. Besides being a good partner to my husband a supportive mother to my kids, my, in my professional life, my remaining years are to get this voice stuff into as many people's hands as possible, men, women, they, their, I, it doesn't matter to me.

human beings, living, breathing human beings. This is my goal. So I'm coming back to right now, I'm sweating again. This stuff always you've seen my struggle, but it doesn't matter because. My goal, my job, all you ladies that have been pushing a pin in it.

Sloan, I can't work with you. I don't [00:11:00] have the time. You're doing this on your, if you can't make that one hour live that week, it's going to be on replay. And it will be available for a little while after, not super long. Other excuse, I just don't have the money for it. Okay, you have no excuse this time because this, it's free.

You're getting my top notch grade A stuff I've been doing for over two decades now with thousands of people for free. And there's a whole other long list of all kinds of reasons why you wouldn't be able to participate. But regardless if it's a time issue, it's going to be on the replay.

Money can't be an issue because I'm not charging for it. And it's a way to open the door to give access. To all of you who have been wanting to work with me, but haven't been able to for one reason or another, this is an awesome opportunity for you. So coming back to the reason I keep showing up every week doing these lives, regardless of the technology working or not, whether you can get in or out any of that, it's not about [00:12:00] that.

It's about me getting the information to you. I feel like I was all over the place today. I really didn't cover everything I wanted to. Detachment. Detach from the outcomes. Accept whatever's going on, whatever it's going to look like and be in service and don't worry about yourself. That, these are three simple ways to tap into that inner courageous self, whether you feel it or not.

Remember, feelings are just that, they are just feelings. They're not. Always real. Sometimes it's our perception of what's going on in an instant. And on that note, I am going to share with you this, the author is unknown and it's it's, anyway, I'm going to read this. This is something that I use with my speaking clients and it's titled Courage.

And I loved it so much. And again, the author is unknown, but I'm going to end on this note because I got to go. Courage is the measure of our heartfelt [00:13:00] participation. Listen to that. It's the measure. It's a measurement of our heartfelt participation with life with another with a community, our work and a future to be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or to do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities is.

of those consequences. Ah, that's deep. I wish I knew the author. To be courageous is to seat our feelings deeply in the body and in the world. To live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist, friends. With things we find we already care deeply about. With a person, a future, a possibility in [00:14:00] society, there's a big one.

Or with an unknown that begs us on, always has begged us on. So here is my call to action for you today. What is one thing, one thing you can do today just to exercise that courage muscle. And it could be just like the little girl who came in asking for donations to the fundraiser, right? That was really courageous of her.

For you, it might be, gosh, just saying hello to the person behind you at the grocery store in line. For others, it might be speaking up at the next board meeting or management project management meeting. Other people. It might be, gosh, if you're a singer, go hit up karaoke this weekend. One song.

I challenge you to do one song, [00:15:00] something you already know really well, something that the crowd might already know. Cause when you get some other people singing along with you, it makes it a little easier and definitely always a little more fun. So just one thing I tell you, my one thing right now that I'm really having to as excited as I am for this event that's coming up and all of the great things.

It's the unknown, I it's a, this is something new. It's putting me on a much bigger platform. I'm just at the platform. I'm afraid it's not, I can't wait to hang out with whoever's going to be showing up. It's just the unknowns.

What's it going to look like? How, the tech, how, thank God. I don't have to worry about that. I have a whole team running all of this from the backend for me. So for that, I'm eternally grateful. But that is, that's what I've got. That's my courageous thing. Not knowing what it's going to look like, how it's going to go down, but I'm moving forward anyway, because it is so important to me.

To get the information out there. I want you. To want and use [00:16:00] the information that I have to share with you. 20 something years expert in voice and confidence. I'm not going to say there isn't anything I haven't seen yet, because as soon as I say that I'm going to be shown something I've never seen before.

All right. I got to sign off and go friends. Go to your call to action, share this with a friend or a family member, go get your free gift. And I'm going to see you back here next Wednesday as we continue this series on communication, confidence, courageously.