Hope and bravery

I was reading this by Seth Godin in Tribes, “ …leaders work to change things…It requires bravery…following the rules to make a living doesn’t. It might be hard work but it feels safe.” (I have obviously cherry picked the parts of this I want but don’t think it is out of context. The page number is p73 for those of you — and me!- who like to check references!).

Apply this to our own lives. Are we being our own leaders or are we settling for the same old, same old? We can be working incredibly hard in work that we hate. Commuting, getting stressed, doing work we do not give much of a fig about.

We may get an ‘A’ for effort…

I think bravery comes from hope that things could be different, that the effort we make could actually change our circumstances. It’s not about adjusting our attitude, it’s about changing our world.

And having at least a flicker of belief that we really could.

…really could.

It’s not safe…

I think that is a factor that keeps a lot of people stuck. Quite rightly too; especially for older folks like me, if we have family, bills, mortgages and the like, we need a certain degree of safety.

So in this aspect I part company from Seth. You may be wise to stop reading at this point as many more people know who Seth Godin is than who Richard Ingate is.

To me it is important to keep it safe. I am not even going to start if it’s not safe — after all I’m not a kid anymore.

But we are not talking the safety of death here! Death is safe, nothing else is going to change.

Think about the safety of a trained rider. Riding a motorbike is never going to be the safest thing in the world but if you get the training, you can stack the odds very heavily in your favour.

Take hope for a ride — be just a little bit brave. Remember what you wanted for your life.

Don’t settle — start.