Courage: Enabler for People with Disabilities or Perceived Differences

Increasing your courage to take calculated risks can improve your general well-being and attitude in life. Learning to transform the negative reaction of fear of failure to a positive sensation of opportunity can enhance your chances for success. I believe people with disabilities, or perceived differences, get more opportunities to demonstrate and practice courageousness.

 As a person who went completely blind instantly, lost the ability to walk for one year and had the opportunity to overcome other obstacles has provided me many opportunities to practice courageousness. When it is essential to adapt to living life with a new disability, experiencing traumatic life changing events or being perceived to be different than others can aid in increasing the ability to demonstrate a courageous attitude. I believe this is true because you are somewhat forced to learn the skill of courageousness, instead of having the option to choose when you will take risks and practice courageous behavior.

I listened to an excellent dialogue called Courageous Leadership with Bill Treasurer online at the Global Dialogue Center. This reinforced the value of adding courage to our skill set to help propel us to our next level of success. 

Valuable Leadership Skills and Attitudes I Learned from Listening to Courageous Leadership:

• Increasing your courage requires taking calculated risks.

• Accept the fact that you will fail at times when you extend yourself out of your comfort zone to take on new opportunities. This is particularly true when you’ve not attempted a certain task, or you are not completely skilled “yet” in your next opportunity.

• Leverage past experiences to increase your skills in courageous and effective leadership. If you have a disability, or are perceived to be different or have experienced other challenges, you probably have plenty of past experiences where you have demonstrated courageousness you can recall to get strength and courage to handle your next risk with less apprehension.

• Have the courage to provide your own opinion regardless of how uncomfortable you might feel, even if you are the only person who verbally agrees with your opinion. Keep in mind if you have had unique life experiences, you will have certain skills nobody else has in the group, and therefore unique and valuable opinions.

• Work and live your life with confidence and courage to increase your performance. Working in fear, anxiety and intimidation leads to poor performance and distorts your judgment and can impact your health negatively.

Additional Resources to Inspire Courage: 

What did you learn from listening to Courageous Leadership? How will you demonstrate and practice courageousness in your personal and professional life?

We look forward to hearing from you as we take our calculated risks to grow our courageous skill set together.

Bill

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author,
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wdtipton
Facebook: http://profile.to/wdtipton
Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdtipton

Comments

[Stephanie Sparks]

Wonderful summary! It looks like this Dialogue had some great tips for everyone - not just those of us with challenges. I have often heard others tell me that I'm courageous. I don't think of myself as such. I always respond with the statement that I want to live, really live, Life (with a capital L) and, if I didn't try the things I do, I would not be living. Often being courageous is confused with being foolhardy. These two words are not inclusive. It is possible - actually advisable - to take all necessary precautions when undertaking a risk. However, taking precautions does not mean NOT taking the risk. One of my mottos is: Hope for the best and prepare for the worse.

To quote a famous tag line: Just Do It!

[Fred Oliveri]

This is an excellent example of not letting fear take over your life. When you get knocked down, get up and get on with it.

[Debi Roberts]

Bill, Thank you for your encouragement.
Courage is a great topic. This often implies that there is a foe or great conflict involved. More often than not the foe is our own self doubt. I believe it takes courage to conquer this self doubt. We can en"courage" each other to push ourselves beyond the self doubt and out of our comfort zones. Sometimes it takes only one person to help us believe in ourselves. Let's all try to be that one.