There is something interesting about courage.
We often associate it with dramatic moments—standing up to an opponent, making a difficult decision, taking a major risk, or doing something that scares us. But most of the courage required to build a meaningful career and life is much quieter.
It is having the difficult conversation.
It is admitting you were wrong.
It is trying something new when what you've always done has worked reasonably well.
It is asking for help.
It is saying no when saying yes would be easier.
It is making a decision based on what you believe is right rather than what will make you popular.
And sometimes, it is simply getting up the next morning and trying again.
Over the past several months, we've been exploring the Inner Game—the part of our professional lives that happens beneath the numbers, titles, strategies and circumstances.
We've talked about identity, discipline, resilience, relevance, presence, purposeful selling, humility and growth.
Those qualities matter. But eventually, they lead us to a question:
What are we willing to do with what we've learned?
That's where courage enters the conversation.
Courage Isn't the Absence of Fear
I've never believed courageous people are people who aren't afraid.
I think courageous people have simply learned that fear doesn't always get to make the decision.
After more than four decades in business, I've had plenty of opportunities to learn this lesson. There have been decisions I got right and decisions I got wrong. Opportunities I pursued and opportunities I should have pursued sooner. Conversations I had when I didn't know exactly what to say—and conversations I probably should have had much earlier. And times when I should have just stayed quiet.
Experience doesn't eliminate uncertainty.
If anything, experience sometimes makes us more aware of all the things that could go wrong.
That's why courage becomes increasingly important.
At some point, we have to be willing to say, I don't know exactly how this is going to turn out, but I know what I believe is the right thing to do.
That's courage.
The Courage to Change
Last month, we talked about humility and staying coachable.
But humility without action can become simply an interesting idea.
We can listen to feedback. We can recognize that something isn’t working. We can learn from younger professionals, colleagues, clients and people outside our industry.
But then comes the hard part.
Are we willing to change?
There is comfort in familiarity.
We’ve built our businesses a certain way. We’ve developed habits. We’ve found approaches that worked for us. We’ve accumulated knowledge and experience. Eventually, those things can become part of our identity.
But yesterday’s success is not a guarantee of tomorrow’s relevance.
Sometimes courage means letting go of something that once worked so we can make room for something that might work better.
That doesn’t mean abandoning everything we’ve learned.
It means having enough confidence in ourselves to evolve.
The Courage to Be Yourself
There is another kind of courage that becomes more important as we get older and more experienced.
The courage to stop performing for other people!
Early in our careers, it’s natural to compare ourselves with others. We measure our success against the person down the hall, the competitor across town, or the professional whose numbers always seem better than ours.
We wonder whether we’re doing enough.
Eventually, if we’re fortunate, we begin to understand that success isn’t about becoming someone else.
It’s about becoming more fully ourselves.
That requires knowing what we value and being willing to live by those values — even when doing so costs us something.
Integrity sometimes costs.
Kindness sometimes costs.
Patience sometimes costs.
Doing the right thing sometimes costs.
But the Inner Game isn’t ultimately about winning every transaction.
It’s about being able to look in the mirror and respect the person who is playing the game.
The Courage to Make a Difference.
Purpose gives courage somewhere to go.
When we know WHY something matters, we’re more willing to endure the discomfort required to pursue it.
That’s true in business, but it’s also true in life.
Perhaps your purpose is building a great company.
Perhaps it’s serving your clients at a level that genuinely improves their businesses.
Perhaps it’s creating opportunities for the people who work with you.
Perhaps it’s mentoring someone who is just beginning a career.
Perhaps it’s simply being the kind of person your family, friends, and colleagues can count on.
Purpose doesn’t have to be grand to be meaningful.
But whatever your purpose is, there will be moments when living it requires courage.
You will have to speak.
You will have to act.
You will have to risk.
You will have to change.
And sometimes, you’ll have to stand alone.
That’s when the Inner Game becomes very real.
A Different Definition of Success
I’ve come to believe that one of the best measures of a successful career isn’t simply what we accumulated.
It’s what we became.
Did we become courageous?
More thoughtful?
More useful?
More generous?
More resilient?
More willing to listen?
Did our success make us better people — or merely busier ones?
Those are difficult questions. But they’re worth asking.
Because eventually, every career moves toward a point where the numbers become less important, and the story becomes more important.
Who did we help?
What did we learn?
What did we stand for?
And when something mattered, did we have the courage to act?
The Practice Box
- Identify one conversation you’re avoiding. Have it. Approach it with honesty, respect, and curiosity.
- Name one change you know you need to make. Don’t solve the entire problem. Take the first step.
- Ask yourself where fear is making your decisions. What would you do differently if fear wasn’t in charge?
- Define one thing that matters more than being comfortable. Then make a decision that reflects it.
- Take one courageous action this week. It doesn’t have to be dramatic. It just has to matter.
The Pursuit
As this Inner Game series begins to draw to a close, I’ve been thinking about why these subjects matter so much. The answer isn’t that mastering the Inner Game makes business easier. It doesn’t.
There will still be difficult clients, disappointing results, changing markets, unexpected setbacks, and uncertain decisions.
What changes is how we meet them.
We become more aware of ourselves.
More disciplined. More resilient. More relevant. More present. More purposeful. More humble.
And, ultimately, more courageous.
Perhaps that is what we’re really pursuing—not a career without difficulty, but the capacity to meet difficulty as the person we want to become.
The goal isn’t to eliminate fear.
It’s to decide that something else matters more.
How did I show up today – and is that aligned with who I want to become?
That’s the Inner Game. And the Pursuit continues.
Paul Kiewiet MAS+ is the author of Summit: Reaching the Peak of Your Potential and a Hall of Fame leader in the promotional products industry. Over a career spanning more than four decades, he has helped thousands of professionals grow their businesses and their leadership capacity. Through his monthly Pursuit of Purpose column, Paul explores the mindset, discipline, and character that sustain long-term success and fulfillment.