Passion Struck with John R. Miles - What Does It Mean to Be a Person of Courage w/ John R. Miles EP 214

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

In this week's Momentum Friday episode of Passion Struck with John R. Miles, I explore what courage is and what it takes to be a person of courage. I will discuss different examples of courage and how courage is displayed in different situations. I will explore why courage is one of the most important qualities you can have in life and how it will enable you to face your fears, doubts, and disappointments head-on and continue moving forward. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-person-of-courage/  Brought to you by Shopify. Discover the number one eCommerce platform for all Businesses. Start, run + grow your business with Shopify®. Sign up for a FREE trial at SHOPIFY DOT COM SLASH “passionstruck”, --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  --► Prefer to watch this episode:  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Did you hear my interview with Robin Sharma, a multiple-time #1 New York Times bestselling author and one of the leading experts on personal mastery and leadership? Catch up with episode 209:  ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m  * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_sruck_podcast Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/ 

Coming up next on the PassionStruck podcast, I want you to ask yourself a question. 20 years from now, when you tell stories about your life and how it turned out, what kind of man or woman do you want to be? Think about how you want to tell your story, and then let that drive you to do what's next. Do you want to be a person of courage or not? Welcome to PassionStruck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people, and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become

the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become Passion Struck. Hello everyone and welcome back to Momentum Friday, an episode 214 of Passion Struck. Thank you to all who come back to this show weekly to listen and learn how to live better,

be better, and impact the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here or you would like to introduce this to a friend or family member, please go and check out our YouTube channel at John Armiles where we have well over 400 different videos, including exclusive content you will only find there. Please go and subscribe. In case you missed my interviews

from earlier this week, we are doing two in honor of veterans, and in this case both of them happen to be former Army veterans. The first was with Jeff Struker, who's a former Army Ranger and Chaplain. Today he's a pastor, author, speaker, and podcast host. I also had on Scott Delusio, who served in the Army National Guard, and he is also an author and podcaster. I also wanted to acknowledge our fan of the week, Marissa Franco, who writes, Fascinating, John's Warm and Common Presence. Takes us through fascinating topics with fascinating people, like on Free Will, Loneliness, and all things physical and mental health.

You will learn a ton. Marissa, thank you so much for your review. They go such a long way in helping improve the popularity of the podcast, and also helping us more importantly, grow this passion-struck community. Now, let's talk about today's episode. Two weeks ago, I talked about the importance of forgiveness, and it had an unexpectedly strong response. It's been a while since I've gotten such an overwhelmingly positive reaction from people.

This tells me that understanding how to forgive is an important topic for many, many people. But I also received a lot of questions about forgiveness and its link to courage. Most of these questions were variations of, does it take courage to forgive others or myself? Or, what about trauma? Is overcoming trauma something that requires courage? Or what constitutes someone who possesses courage versus cowardice?

These are all great questions, and for this week's episode I will tackle them by examining the difference between bravery and courage. I will then dive deep into what it means to be a person of courage through the lens of forgiving another person as well as how it impacts overcoming trauma. I will end by discussing the attributes that make up a person of courage. In the words of the great John Wayne, courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway. Today, we also celebrate veterans from our armed forces who risked it all to protect the freedom we experience today. So many of them have shown courage in the face of overwhelming fear. And let's face it, one day of honoring these men and women, for their service is nearly not enough.

I will use the story of one veteran to illustrate how she became a person of courage in overcoming her wounds for more. Thank you for choosing PassionStruct and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. After witnessing the events of September 11, 2001, Nancy Schillero enlisted in the United States Marine Corps after walking by a recruiting poster. In May 2004, now, Corporal Shurillo deployed to Ford operating base, Alasad,

as an embarkation specialist and participated in Operation Phantom Fury, the second battle of Fallujah. In February 2005, she was injured in a mortar attack where she lost consciousness and had multiple lacerations and bruises, both to her face and to her right hand. Lance Corporal Shurillo was originally treated from minor traumatic brain injury and returned to duty.

However, in the weeks that followed, she continued to experience blurriness in her right eye. Upon returning to the United States, the problems with the right eye persisted and she now started to develop headaches. She was checked out by a civilian medical facility and was diagnosed with pink eye. However, she decided to go to the VA when the symptoms persisted. Upon further examination, her doctors determined that her retina was fully detached, and a spreading infection further compounded her issues. After going through multiple treatments at the VA, Nancy finally lost full side of her eye in July 2005. She went through four surgical attempts to try to save her eye. However, it was removed in November 2005. Following the loss of her eye, Nancy faced

a much more difficult struggle, which resulted in her going into isolation. She recalls, I stayed by myself, I didn't want anyone to look at me. I wanted my eye back, and I was mad at the world. Nancy ended up turning to prescription medications and alcohol, and went into a deep depression that lasted several years. Nancy faced a crossroad. She could either continue down this self-destructive path or become a person of courage, face her demons and take back her life. She decided to go to the White Plains VA to explore treatment options for TBI and post-traumatic stress disorder. While at the VA, Nancy met a Reajesma counselor and a psychologist who threw persistence, helped turn her life around 180 degrees. The counselor knew that she was abusing drugs and alcohol and would not let her off the hook.

He forced her to face her fears and to take action to improve her situation. Nancy desired a life where she could use her ordeal and what she had learned from it to help other veterans. She understood that in order to change her life, she had to possess faith in the future and the willpower to intentionally choose to change. Over time, Nancy stopped using all drugs and alcohol and developed a healthy lifestyle. And although she still experiences balance and headache issues, today she works full time for the Wounded Warrior Project and was recertified as an EMT. She got married and has a daughter. In 2011, she also realized a lifelong dream by climbing the Mount Kilimanjaro summit

with two other Wounded Warriors who were both amputees. When asked about her ordeal, Nancy says, I wasted three years in severe depression. If I can give veterans out there any advice, I'd say be courageous and get help as early as possible. In the words of author, Brené Brown, Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen. As Nancy's story illustrates, Courage is about undertaking something in the service of others. The desired outcome behind purge makes the risk worth taking,

something that is so meaningful to us that we take the chance, despite the known danger. This is the Passion Struck Podcast. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Shopify. Hear that little chit-chin? That's the satisfying sound of another sale on Shopify. They're all in one commerce platform trusted by millions of entrepreneurs to create their online store. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere,

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for free. Sign up for a free trial at Shopify.com slash passion struck all lower case go to shopify.com slash passion struck to start selling online today. SHOPIFY.com slash passion struck. Thank you so much for listening to the show. I love hearing from all of you. And I love the fact that you all have been great to our sponsors because they're the ones that keep the show going as well. You can check out all the sponsors at passionstruck.com

slash deals. You'll find all the codes and URLs, all those things are there. So please consider supporting those who support this show. Now back to the Passion Struck podcast. Well that begs the question, what is the difference between courage and bravery? I believe the issue that we confuse can be summed up simply. People mistake bravery for courage. We most often use both courage and bravery to describe heroic events. And even though the words appear interchangeable, they have very different meanings. Bravery is showing the moral and mental strength to face fear and overcome danger. Need an example of a brave act? Imagine a firefighter charging into a house to fight the flames. They have little fear or consideration of what might happen to them.

They are in a mission that they believe is for the better good, so they put a side fear and self-concerned, regardless of the physical danger that they might meet. There's a strong era of pride that shrouds the concept of bravery. Courage is similar to bravery, but different in a significant way. It comes with a high degree of choice and foresight, whereas bravery is typically more instinctive. Bravery doesn't involve as much thinking, and manifests as second nature to those who possess it.

Whereas courage is more of a virtue, where the axe that one performs comes from the heart. Courage doesn't necessarily appear from the absence of fear. In fact, being courageous involves typically taking steps despite the fear. It's knowing fully that something will be dangerous, uncomfortable, or challenging, but doing it anyway. For example, think about a student who consciously defends another student who is being cyber bullied, realizing it may also result in them being bullied, or Darnela Frazier filming the killing of George Floyd with her smartphone, knowing the potential

repercussions that she might face, or Nancy Schillero, who dared to face her personal demons and recover and heal from trauma so that she could help others. In all of these examples, the person mustered the conscious choice to act instead of ignoring the situation, but they acted anyway because it was the right thing to do. That's what Courage is. In the words of Harry Hollywood, Courage is acting at a self-respect for doing the right thing,

to not act or to do something different other than the right thing is soul murder, not being true to oneself and others leaves one diminished and in some ways less human. Courage entails a cause. Most commonly love, passion, empathy, and concern. Courage results from mindfulness and is one's decision to push forward into the unknown despite one's fears. Once we separate bravery from courage, it becomes clear why we must handle them differently. Now let's explore how a person of courage relates to forgiveness and trauma. We'll first go into the courage to forgive. As I discussed in my episode on forgiveness, it doesn't harm

someone else when you fail to forgive a person who has hurt you, it harms you. Why then is it so hard to forgive others? I think it has everything to do with building up a defense within yourself, to shield yourself from the pain of being harmed again. In doing so, you are protecting yourself and at what cost? Holding on to the grudge is even more damaging than the pain that someone has caused you in the first place. How freeing it would be if you could just utter three words, I forgive you, and experience a true release of pain. How do you find the courage to forgive when the offense stays in your mind, body, soul, and emotional state? I believe it begins and ends with courage. Having the strength to overcome resentment, fear, bitterness, and anger, it is a conscious choice

to take those steps of genuinely forgiving another person. Forgiveness requires letting go of the past and moving on. It takes a person of courage to care for your mental health and set yourself free. And it's vital to understand that you possess some good in the worst version of yourself and some iniquity in the best version of yourself. When you discover this, you are less prone to loathe your offenders. It takes a person of courage to say that you are sorry and an even stronger person to forgive. For this reason, developing and maintaining a capacity to forgive is essential. Your mistakes are forgivable if you dare to admit them.

Forgiveness starts by choosing to love yourself and not letting anger poison your heart. So now that we've talked about forgiveness, how does a person of courage overcome trauma? Similar to forgiveness, it takes courage to alter your life, leading you to a safer and more secure place. And it takes courage to embrace your painful emotions and agonizing memory and to seek help to overcome them. These feelings and memories may have resulted from a threat you physically. You may have been exposed to a terrifying situation like combat or traumatic situation such as a car accident or sexual abuse. When you

experience trauma so much of your world becomes about courage, wondering if you've ever even had it, praying that it will help you overcome your pain, possessing the courage inside you to triumph over your trauma. Being a person of courage is the result of knowing yourself. Trauma is something that we never want to occur, but it's better to face it with courage and let it eat away at you and hide from it. Courage is the conscious choice to overcome your trauma, despite the dangers and consequences that it may invoke. You understand them and you choose anyway to face your fears and

improve your life. When you have courage, it gives you the strength to face your pain or grief. It can feel like encountering light in your darkest moment, like finding the key to a door that you thought was locked, or like finding the embrace from another person when you need it the most. You can overcome your fear because you choose to do so. That is why it is so vital to reach deep within yourself and find the courage to move forward, no matter how difficult it may feel in your present life.

So what attributes make a person of courage? In my interview from Leroy this week, Jeff Struker, who's a pastor, author, speaker, and former Army Ranger, who fought in Black Hawk Down said, It's not fear that makes us a coward. All of us get afraid in circumstances like this, being in war. There's something psychologically wrong with you, if you're not scared right now. But what you do when you're afraid,

that's the real difference between a person of courage and a coward. There is then some other component of courage than mere disregard for danger. And cowardice is more than walking away from danger. If we're to examine the subject more closely, we shall find that three moral qualities, self-mastery, faith, and intention, are our test of courage. A man or woman may be brave. Absolutely fearless, yet not possess courage.

Indeed, a person who does not have the feeling of fear can never be genuinely courageous. That is because their bravery lacks moral quality. It is instinctive, like the jungle lion, picking its next prey. It just knows. Such bravery is mirror in difference to a threat. No virtuous moral state is attained without striving for self-mastery. No fear of the unknown is overcome without having faith in the future.

No act is admirable, that is not the consequence of being intentional. The truly courageous person is the one who upon sensing fear possesses faithfulness to duty, the willpower to act and the intentional desire to conquer their fear and faces their enemy head on. As Embrose Redmoon once said, Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear,

and the greater your anticipation of danger, the higher the quality of your courage, and the more that you have obtained absolute self-mastery, the more functional courage is because you more entirely and sensibly appreciate the dangers that you are called upon to overcome. I now want you to ask yourself a question 20 years from now when you tell stories of your life and how it turned out, what kind of man or woman you want to be. Think about how you want to tell your story and then let that drive what you do next. Do you want to be remembered as a person of courage? I have no promise that everything will turn out 100% positively in the way that you

want it because it might not. But if you can decide today what type of person that you want to be on the other side of what fear you face, it will dictate how you face challenges that come your way. You may still go into a situation where you know that you may fail, but you do it because you know of what fear you face. It will dictate how you face challenges that come your way. You may still go into a situation where you know that you may fail, but you do it because you know it's the right thing to do. And you can look back upon your life knowing that you lived as a person of courage. I hope you enjoyed the show and I wanted to thank everyone who wrote in this week and especially those who listened. Thank you so much. A transcript can be found in the show notes. Videos are on YouTube at John R. Miles.

Avertise your deals and discount codes during one convenient place at passionstruck.com. Slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show and make it free for listeners. I'm at John R. Miles on both Twitter and Instagram and you can also find me on LinkedIn. You're about to hear a preview of the PassionStruck podcast with Max Baserman, who is the Jesse Isador Strauss professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Max is the author or co-author of 13 books, including his new book, which releases next week called Complicit. I think we would all be well served to think about which of those groups do we want

to be in. So, if we end up in a situation where our firm is acting in inappropriate ways, we're assigned to a consulting project where our client is acting in the various ways, how do we want to behave? And I think that a lot of us would have greater clarity about who we want to be and we don't stop to reflect on that enough. Remember, we rise by lifting others. So share the show with those you love. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with somebody else who can use the advice that we gave here today. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And until next time, live life, hash and struck. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw