What Courage Is NOT! It pains my heart to see many misunderstand what a true Courage is. It’s my advice to you that you will relax and read through this article careful as I explain to you what courage is not. Few people regard facing an average workday as a courageous feat because their notions About courage are too restricted. Traditionally, facing fear under perilous circumstances is Our only understanding of “courageous.” Running into a burning building to save a pet, pushing a pedestrian out of the way of a speeding car, jumping in front of a bear to divert its path, throwing yourself on a grenade to save your squad or tackling a fleeing criminal are readily accepted instances. And, these heroic or amazing acts are rarely associated with women. Most ideas about courage lean toward instinctual reactions to sensational, life-threatening incidents that require split-second decisions. A local radio announcer reiterated this stereotype on his program. He defined courage as “the man who pulls a guy out of the Potomac River when a plane goes down or the guy who runs into a burning building to get some kid out—that’s courageous, not some woman who teaches in a hard-luck school in the ghetto for twenty-five years because ‘they need her’ or some kid who sends in his pitiful allowance to the Red Cross when there’s a flood in Africa, or the guy who tells on a cheating boss. These are nice people, but they’re not really courageous! Real courage takes a lot of muscle and split-second thinking.” I prefer a more enlightened understanding of this virtue and how it will empower us to take effective steps toward fulfilling lives and careers. For over a decade, I have researched the behaviors and nuances of the misunderstood virtue called courage, and I am convinced that our culture’s limited understanding of courage holds us all back, especially Africans and women. From a more enlightened perspective, we gain a deeper understanding of the African and feminine behaviors of courage and how they will make us more effective in our lives, including in the workplace. The traditional understanding of courage limits it to physical bravado displayed in extreme situations. Such situations require split-second decisions and immediate reactions, but this article does not discuss these heroic reactions to danger. This “courage in the face of danger” is quite different from and detracts from true courage, which persists far longer than any split-second reaction. It seems as if most of us believe that only larger-than-life personalities are capable of responding with courage. Yet, for the vast majority of the world’s “everyday people,” life provides daily instances of courageous acts. For me, the common understanding of courage is more accurately labeled as heroism, “ignoring the threat to your own personal safety and putting the lives of your fellow human beings ahead of your own.”1 True heroism often involves risking your life. During 9-11, “The true heroes were those who saw a purpose bigger than themselves in the heat of the moment, when the natural instinct was for self-preservation.”2 Notions of courage as extreme or dramatic heroism diminish the opportunities to substantiate and display true courage—the courage that also underscores your life. Author Marilyn Thomsen once said, “While it takes courage to achieve greatness, it takes more courage to find fulfillment in being ordinary. For the joys that last have little relationship to achievement.”3 I hope this article on what courage is not will help give you a clear understanding of what courage is not and give you and insight of what a true courage is.