Courage, which I have written about before, I believe is simply taking one step more then we thought we were capable of making. This to me takes away so much of the fear element in stepping outside our comfort zone. It makes growth and learning less daunting and scary, and more doable.
I recently listened to a podcast ‘The Knowledge Project’ with guest Paul Assaiante, a coach who has had the most successful run of any coach in the history of college athletics. It’s a fascinating listen about how to face your fears. The thing that really stuck with me is the simple story of how lions hunt their prey.
The story Paul tells us, which is the basis of his book, Run to the Roar, is that lions who hunt in packs do it this way; the group of starving hunters finds their prey and take cover some distance away. With them in their group they have a lioness who is old, weak and maybe even toothless. What she does have though, having had years of perfecting it, is the most incredible roar -the best and loudest of the lot. This lioness will position herself near the prey on her own. When she roars what happens? The prey gets scared, turns, and runs away from her. The lioness’ roar scares them right into the path of the group of young assassins. Paul uses this to get us to understand that facing our fears probably is a lot better then running away from them. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ Most likely we are running towards an old toothless lion if we run to the roar.
What does it look like to take a step towards the roar and not hiding away from that which scares me? How can I embrace the uncomfortable, and sometimes downright scary? What toothless lion have I been putting off facing?
Silje Howes 