On this beautiful day my challenge to you is “TO BE BRAVE”. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines brave as “having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty”.
Mental strength is needed if you are going to step out and take a risk. Define your risks, those things that you fear, the difficulties, it will help you understand what they are in order to confront them. Dale Carnegie has some sage advise in his book “How to stop worrying and start living”, in one of the chapters he advises that if you are struggling with a fear you have, then define the worst possible thing that could happen and then think of what you would do if it did happen. This way you have in essence assessed your greatest fear and how to overcome it. In this process it may give you assurance that the risk is not as great as you once believed and you also may realize that you can actually overcome the challenge if your greatest fear fell upon you.
In writing my first book “The New manager” I had many personal doubts and fears. I mean I had invested many years into that book. I delayed and delayed completing it making many an excuse whereas the true reason was that I was afraid it would not be that good. What would the backlash be? I had told so many family members, friends and colleagues that I was writing a book, how would they respond? What if it was a complete failure? Yet at some point my wife got me into completing the book. She managed to get me out of my fear and apathy and into completing the book. The passion I had to finish the book was greater than my fears and the great news is that none of my fears realized. Not one of them.
To date around 1100 copies of the book have been sold and it has received many great reviews. The best of which was that it was chosen as one of the top 6 business books in 2016 by Ian Mann (a best selling author).
I am sure there is something burning in your heart that you want to do, why not be brave and just do it?
God bless
Steven