Why Demonstrating Courage Changes Everything

Demonstrating courage is a key habit of high performers. Now, I'm not talking about the courage it takes to start a social movement that will lead to your eventual martyrdom. No, this kind of courage is composed of the acts that, at the end of your life, you can look back and feel proud of. Those times when you face uncertainty and real risk, where the stakes mattered, where you stuck your neck out for someone else and came out the other end alive. Not on top. Not successful. That's not what matters in courage. Success in courage is only dependent on whether you made that difficult decision and stuck with it.

I work very closely with the High Performance Institute, a world leader in high-performance research. We are obsessed with breaking down what makes high performers tick — the values, drivers and habits that create them. Courage stands out as one of the six habits of high performers. Here's why.