720: The Way Towards a Bit More Bravery, with Margie Warrell

Summary

Podcast Summary: Coaching for Leaders Episode 720

Title: The Way Towards a Bit More Bravery, with Margie Worrell
Host: Dave Stachowiak
Guest: Margie Worrell
Release Date: February 17, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 720 of Coaching for Leaders, host Dave Stachowiak engages in a profound conversation with Margie Worrell, a bestselling author, keynote speaker, leadership coach, and Forbes columnist. The episode, titled "The Way Towards a Bit More Bravery," delves into the critical role of courage in leadership, exploring how leaders can cultivate bravery to enhance their personal and organizational effectiveness.

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Margie Worrell's Journey and Insights

Margie Worrell brings over 25 years of global experience in leadership coaching, extensively working to help individuals overcome fear and unlock their potential. She is the author of "The Courage Gap: Five Steps to Braver Action," a book that continues the themes of her earlier work, "Find Your Courage." Margie's background, including her upbringing in rural Australia and her initial struggles with the English language, underscores her resilience and dedication to empowering others.

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Confronting Fear: The Nightmarish Author Scenario [01:37 – 03:20]

Margie shares a vivid story from her pre-book publication days, highlighting her deep-seated fears:

Margie Worrell [01:51]: "Waking up in the middle of the night... the front page of the New York Times. It was just my photo... it had one headline. It just said world's worst author."

This metaphorical nightmare encapsulates how irrational fears can dominate our thoughts, even when there's no logical basis for them. Margie emphasizes that such fears of judgment and vulnerability are common barriers that prevent leaders from taking courageous actions.

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The Nature of Fear in Leadership [03:21 – 05:00]

Margie explains that fear is an intrinsic human emotion designed to protect us from threats. However, in leadership, this natural response can become a hindrance:

Margie Worrell [04:09]: "Our fear can keep us from doing the very things that would improve our future and add more value."

She underscores the importance of recognizing and managing fear to prevent it from stifling innovation and growth within organizations.

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Insecure Overachievers: A Double-Edged Sword [05:00 – 09:36]

Margie introduces the concept of insecure overachievers, highly capable individuals who excel professionally but grapple with internal insecurities:

Margie Worrell [05:56]: "They are operating and leading from fear of what could be lost... a play, not to lose, protective mindset."

These leaders often inhibit their potential by avoiding necessary risks, thereby limiting their impact and the growth of their teams and organizations.

Dave reflects on his own experiences, resonating with Margie's observations:

Dave Stachowiak [08:39]: "How often we don't even consciously recognize or make peace with the fear that we have, do we?"

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Cognitive Biases: Discounting the Future [14:49 – 17:27]

Margie discusses temporal bias, where individuals undervalue future rewards in favor of immediate comfort:

Margie Worrell [14:49]: "We treat future time more cheaply than we do present time."

This bias leads to procrastination and avoidance of actions that would benefit long-term goals. Margie advises leaders to be mindful of how they perceive time and to prioritize actions that align with their future aspirations over short-term security.

Practical Technique Highlighted: Dave shares a strategy discussed in an Academy session:

Dave Stachowiak [18:33]: "Think about a request you have to commit to three weeks from now... would I still say yes and would I say yes joyfully?"

This method helps mitigate temporal bias by evaluating commitments in the present, ensuring decisions are aligned with long-term objectives.

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Managing Fear-Casting and Worst-Case Scenarios [20:44 – 26:03]

Margie critiques the tendency to focus excessively on negative outcomes, which can paralyze decision-making:

Margie Worrell [21:44]: "Potential losses... loom much larger in our minds than potential gains."

She advocates for a balanced approach where leaders consider both risks and opportunities, fostering a proactive mindset that embraces intelligent risks for long-term growth. Margie emphasizes the importance of not letting fear dictate inaction, as moving forward, even imperfectly, yields valuable feedback and learning opportunities.

Dave adds:

Dave Stachowiak [23:34]: "We can be caught up in rationalizing our inaction... how often we don't even see it as fear."

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Embracing Continuous Courage [31:16 – 32:39]

Margie shares her evolved perspective on courage, highlighting that the journey to bravery is ongoing:

Margie Worrell [31:39]: "There will always be some other gap ahead... opportunities for you to be practicing courage in some way."

This insight reinforces that leadership requires perpetual growth and the willingness to face new challenges with bravery.

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Key Takeaways and Practical Advice

1. Self-Awareness: Leaders must regularly engage in self-reflection to identify and address their fears.
2. Mindful Decision-Making: Evaluate commitments based on present-day values and long-term goals to overcome temporal bias.
3. Balance Risk and Opportunity: Focus on both potential gains and losses to make informed, courageous decisions.
4. Embrace Continuous Growth: Recognize that the pursuit of courage is an ongoing process with no final destination.

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Notable Quotes

• Margie Worrell [01:51]: "It was the front page of the New York Times. It was just my photo... world's worst author."
• Margie Worrell [04:09]: "Our fear can keep us from doing the very things that would improve our future and add more value."
• Margie Worrell [05:56]: "They are operating and leading from fear of what could be lost... a play, not to lose, protective mindset."
• Dave Stachowiak [08:39]: "How often we don't even consciously recognize or make peace with the fear that we have, do we?"
• Margie Worrell [14:49]: "We treat future time more cheaply than we do present time."
• Margie Worrell [21:44]: "Potential losses... loom much larger in our minds than potential gains."
• Margie Worrell [31:39]: "There will always be some other gap ahead... opportunities for you to be practicing courage in some way."

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Conclusion

Episode 720 of Coaching for Leaders provides invaluable insights into the role of courage in effective leadership. Through Margie Worrell's expertise and personal anecdotes, listeners gain a deeper understanding of how fear and cognitive biases can hinder leadership potential. The episode not only identifies these challenges but also offers practical strategies to cultivate bravery, enabling leaders to make impactful decisions that drive personal and organizational growth.

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For more enriching discussions on leadership and personal development, explore other recommended episodes such as:

• Episode 573: How to Protect Your Confidence with Nate Zinsser
• Episode 576: How to Help People Engage in Growth with Whitney Johnson
• Episode 713: How to Grow from Feedback with Jennifer Garvey Berger

Access these and additional resources by setting up a FREE membership at CoachingforLeaders.com.

Transcript

[Dave Stohoviak]

Whether it's painting a vision of the future or giving feedback on the thing that didn't work yesterday, courage is a necessity for Leaders. In this episode, the way towards just a bit more of it. This is Coaching for Leaders, episode 720, produced by Innovate, Learning, Maximizing human potential. Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders. Your host, Dave Stohoviak. Leaders aren't born, they're made. And this weekly show will help you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. Oh, how we all wish to be just a little bit more brave in our work every day in our lives of moving forward on the things that are so important to us, to our teams and to our organizations. And yet, of course, we are all stopped by fear in one way or another. Today, a bit of a nudge for us all, a little bit more toward the side of bravery and how we can start taking some of those first steps to show up in the way we want to. I am so pleased to welcome Margie Worrell to the show. She is a best selling author, keynote speaker, leadership coach and Forbes columnist with 25 years of experience living and working around the world. She has dedicated her life to helping others overcome fear and unlock their potential. She is the author of the Courage Gap, Five steps to braver action. Margie, so to see you. Welcome to the show.

[Margie Worrell]

Dave, Great to be with you too.

[Dave Stohoviak]

I was struck by a story you tell in the book about a nightmare you had before your first book came out. Would you share that story?

[Margie Worrell]

I would say it's probably one I'm having as this book comes out too. So. Yes, in a different version. Yeah, it was my very first book coming out in 2009, so a few years back now. And I, well, as you can probably tell from my accent, I didn't grow up here in the United States. I actually grew up in rural Australia on a little dairy farm. I went to a school that was had one room for the whole school. I was the only kid in my grade. If there were lessons on grammar and syntax, I missed them. So I was always very mindful of, of what I didn't know as a writer, you know, in terms of just the English language. But I was very passionate about writing this book which was called Find your courage. Clearly I'm still on the same theme in many ways. And I remember in the lead up to it coming out, it was coming out around the world through an international publishing house and waking up in the middle of the night. Dave with in my mind's Eye. Emblazoned in my mind's eye was this image. It was the front page of the New York Times. It was just my photo. That was all on the entire front page of the New York Times. And it had one headline. It just said world's worst author. And of course you and I know that if I had have been the world's worst author, the New York Times would not have given me front page billing.

[Dave Stohoviak]

Right.

[Margie Worrell]

Such is what our fear can do, particularly when we find ourselves in situations where we're feeling exposed to judgment, we're feeling vulnerable. The fact that it's completely illogical, irrational, and would literally never happen is beside the point. My fear of this being exposed as the world's worst author, making a fool of myself in front of the world, certainly in my sleep, my imagination went off the reservation. And so, yeah, I share that story in my new book, the courage Gap. Because often our fear of what we don't want, our deepest fears, can keep us from doing the very things that would improve our future and add more value and help us lead others better, too.

[Dave Stohoviak]

Thanks for sharing that. And ironically, the book was titled find your courage. Right? Like, how funny.

[Margie Worrell]

No, no, no. Irony lost, I can assure you.

[Dave Stohoviak]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it's so funny because as you were, as you were sharing that story, I was thinking back to, like, so many times where I've had something similar happen. And, like, it's really fascinating what our brains do to us. Like, logically, we know that that is not going to happen. And yet the emotion is so real, it captivates us. We worry about it. It wakes us up in the middle of the night. And it is so human, isn't it?

[Margie Worrell]

Oh, it is so human. And we humans are wired to feel fear. I mean, we wouldn't be here as a species if our brains weren't exquisitely wired to be on alert for any pot threats to our sense of safety, but also to our sense of status and standing. And so often our fear is telling us, be careful. Don't put yourself out there. Don't do the very things that maybe would actually add a lot of value, would be hugely, obviously rational things for us to do. But our fear would much rather we stay safe, play it small, avoid the limelight. And so we humans are just always going to have a tendency to, well, I say catastrophize or fear, cast what the future may hold. And, you know, there's a lot of science that backs up that our brains are wired to do just that.

[Dave Stohoviak]

You write in the Book. Through my work with insecure overachievers, I've repeatedly witness how people rise in the ranks because of what they do, but cap themselves because of who they are. What does that look like?

[Margie Worrell]

Well, what does it look like? It looks like people who are incredibly intelligent, capable, have immense expertise, who are very driven to achieve. They have achieved a lot. That's why they rise in the ranks. They absolutely are outstanding and excel and distinguish themselves in terms of their ability to achieve results. And so they find themselves in these very senior positions. And yet often there is a deep, often unfaced, certainly not resolved, fear of being inadequate in some way that drives them. And that fear has driven them to work so hard to outwork others, to do the things that they've done. And yet that insecurity, that vulnerability that hasn't been fully explored and dealt with can actually undermine the decisions they make, how they engage with other people. They can be operating and leading from fear of what could be lost. And let's face it, the higher you climb, the more there is to lose. And so instead of operating from what I would call a play to win, courage mindset, they're much more likely in subtle ways to be operating from a play, not to lose, protective mindset. That doesn't mean that they're not willing to take business risks. But in those, sometimes in very critical moments when stepping up, speaking up, leaning forward, maybe pushing back on something, saying a hard truth, going against the grain and what's popular would actually be the game changer for transforming their businesses, for opening up new opportunities, et cetera, they lean back because of fear of being exposed. And so I think this, this phrase, insecure overachievers. There's a lot of people, I've worked with, many of them, and you know that they're not, they're great people, they're awesome people, but sometimes they've been so busy in the process of doing and doing and doing, they haven't stopped for very long at all to look within themselves and go, who is it that I want to be? And what's getting in the way of that? And I think any area of our life, anything that we feel that makes us feel vulnerable, that we haven't explored, if we haven't really made peace with that and done our work on that, then it's going to drive us avoiding that exposure and what makes us feel vulnerable.

[Dave Stohoviak]

You have a paragraph in the book that I circled and highlighted more than any other because perhaps it, perhaps because it speaks to me a bit, but also because I Think it speaks a lot to our listening community and the folks you and I work with every day. And you write, the smarter we think we are, the more cunningly our fears work in the background. Working with insecure overachievers has taught me that fear has many faces and only occasionally expresses itself in overt knee shaking trepidation. More often it hides behind intellectualized emotions, a false sense of urgency, being hyper controlling or constant posturing and name dropping. And I read that and I thought, wow, like, I see some of that in myself. I see some of that in the people I work with every day. And like how often we don't even consciously recognize or make peace with the fear that we have, do we?

[Margie Worrell]

No. Well, because it's uncomfortable work, right. And if we can avoid it, we often do. Until, till things start falling apart and we go like, what's getting in the way? You know, sometimes we plateau. It's like what got you here isn't going to get you to that next level. And it's not, not about working harder. And sometimes that's what, you know, has been our success formula. It's like, I've worked really hard, I've done all these things and now I seem to have hit a wall. Or sometimes people actually reach a position of incredible power. But instead of being able to scale the impact that they could make with their expertise, their knowledge, they know how all the things that they, they have at their disposal, they, there's leakages of value around them. They foster fear and insecurity in others. Instead of emboldening others and empowering others around them to be leading change, they make other people feel insecure and unsafe. And so everyone starts operating from this place of self protection versus from purpose and growing value. And it's easy as humans as we go through life, Dave, to feel like, ah, you know, I feel like I've done the work on myself when I say the work on myself. You know, I've done a lot of self reflection, I've done my development, et cetera. But I've also found, and I'm curious about whether you have too, that there's a truth to the saying, another level, another devil.

[Dave Stohoviak]

Yeah, yeah. I have had so many points in my career where I had the thought, especially early on, like, oh, when I hit this title or this experience level or this number of clients or these many followers, whatever the metric was, at whatever point in my career, like, boy, I'll have made it right, Like I'll have really gotten to that point. And at, at some point, at Least for me. Like you get, you do that for a few years and you come to the realization like there is no point. That point doesn't exist. And I can say now like, I'm glad it doesn't because part of this is getting comfortable with the discomfort of fear and learning and being nudged and pushed in new ways all the time, hopefully in appropriate ways where it's not overwhelming. But like that's actually the fear that shows up is one of many for me, healthy indicators of like, okay, I'm learning, I'm growing. So yeah, oh absolutely.

[Margie Worrell]

And if you haven't spent time identifying what makes you feel vulnerable, what triggers your fear, then your decisions are going to be governed by avoiding it. And let's face it, often we're really busy. If you're in a senior role, you've got a lot on your plate, you've got a lot to do, you've got a lot of pressures. There's often easy to rationalize why I haven't got time for this, that self awareness. That's why I think self awareness is such a critical skill to develop. And it's not necessarily one we just develop because we're moving on and we're moving up. We have to really be intentional about that and checking in on ourselves, going, what's going on for me right now? How is it that I'm feeling? Where is my desire to prove myself or to please or to impress or on the flip side to avoid not impressing people, to avoid criticism or judgment, where is that? Sitting in the driver's seat, pulling the strings on the decisions I'm making and keeping me from making the highest point of impact and from forging the change that will ultimately add more value over time and allow my team, my organization to be more secure over time versus just secure right now in the here and now. And I think that me here and now is always, there's always a tension for we later, you know, just that, that self interest and yes, I know we know we shouldn't have self interest be what's guiding us. But let's face it, we humans are wired to be pretty self protective and that, that securing our short term sense of security and status and certainty and control.

[Dave Stohoviak]

Yeah, indeed. I, I can't remember if I said this word out loud, but I was certainly thinking it in the introduction of the word nudge. And I'm thinking about so much of what you teach of one minute of bravery, just small nudges in this direction. And there's a really beautiful part of the book of highlighting some of the common traps that we fall into when fear comes up for us. And also a few nudges on how we can just get a little bit better at nudging a little bit more toward bravery. And one of the traps is discounting the future. And you say the trap of valuing the future more cheaply than the present. Could you say more about that? What does that mean?

[Margie Worrell]

Yeah, well, for most of human history, I think it's like for 98% of human history, we didn't live much beyond 35. If you got into your 30s, you were doing well. Very few people made it into their 40s. And so I often laugh that it's why we said we did marriage vows were for life because that MEANT probably about 15 years versus 50 years that we didn't live that long. And so there wasn't a reason to think about, what's my life going to be like 10 years from now because there wasn't a lot of Runway ahead of us. Our brains have not moved as fast as the technology in the world that we live in. And so we tend to treat future time more cheaply than we do present time. We discount the future. There's something called temporal bias that we have. And if you've ever agreed to do something at a distant point in the future, as I have, Dave, where I've said, sure, I'll meet this person for lunch, or I commit my time to something and then that day rocks up or that week rocks up, and I look at my calendar and I go, oh, why did I do that? Because back in January, May seemed like a long way away. And sure, I don't mind giving up a morning, et cetera. So just, you know, we can all fall into that trap. And so it explains why we value the emotions that we'll feel five minutes from now a lot more highly than the emotions we might feel in five weeks, much less in five years or 10 years. And so this kind of temporal bias drives us to sometimes procrastinate from doing the very things that would improve the quality of our future. We might put off making a change or taking a chance on something because it's like, ah, well, it opens up more insecurity and uncertainty into our lives. It requires us doing things that are awkward or uncomfortable. Maybe it requires us disappointing someone in the near term because we're trying to open up, open up space and bandwidth down the track. But I often say to people, every time you stick with something that's not moving you toward what you most Want at a distant point in time is time that you're investing in something that is not helping you. So just be really mindful about how you're treating time and that you don't discount future time for present day security.

[Dave Stohoviak]

Well, as you were saying that I was thinking of like, boy, all the situations I've fallen into that. And we had a conversation in one of our Academy sessions a while back about this and one of the folks in the conversation is a very senior executive and was running into the constant challenge of never having enough time and schedules and overbooked and all those things. And one of the things that came up in the conversation and tactics that really helped him and a bunch of us also adopted was the practice of thinking about a request that you had to commit to three weeks from now or six months from now or whatever and think about, if I had to work this into my schedule today, would I still say yes and would I still say yes joyfully? And, and how interesting it is. Like sometimes you still have to say yes to something depending on the request and all that, but how interesting it is. Like when you bring it in just the thinking into the present moment, it has a way of like preventing the discounting of the future as much. And it's really, it's a fun practice to try and it's helped me to make better decisions.

[Margie Worrell]

Oh yeah, that's a great technique. I think we should all practice that. I'm taking it myself and I'm going to run with it. Let's face it, I think the answer to many things would be no, particularly when you add in the word joyfully. Would I? And I get it. Sometimes there's things we just need to do and they're not necessarily making us feel like clicking our heels in the air, but so often we don't think through how will this impact the future ahead of me. And yeah, there's one part of it because we're not thinking about it the future the same way we do the present. But often there is a fear of short term uncomfortable emotions and a fear of disappointing people. And I know myself, I had a friend, coach say to me a few years back, she said, mikey, how recently have you disappointed someone? And I had to think about it. I'm like, huh? And I was kind of going through where did I disappoint someone past? And what I realized and what she was getting at is I haven't been disappointing people enough. And when I say that, it's not that I want to disappoint people but if we are really prioritizing our times on the highest value activities, that means that we're taking charge of our calendar. That means that we are inevitably going to prioritize what's important to us versus what's important to maybe some of the people around us, which will in turn mean that some people feel disappointed. And so we need to manage that. And obviously we can say no to the request without having someone feel that we don't value them. But we have to be really thoughtful about that. And I think that's a really important thing. I actually was just talking to a CEO client yesterday and he said how everyone wants some of his time and he wants to give everyone his time. And as he's trying to scale his business to the next level, he's really struggling with that. And it's because he hates disappointing people. And so for him, part of his work is to become more comfortable with disappointing people, but being, being reconciled to why in time, that actually serves sometimes the very people that may feel disappointed.

[Dave Stohoviak]

Yeah, indeed. Well, speaking of disappointing people, one of the other traps and suggestions you have is to reel in what you call fear casting and the worst case scenarios. What is it that's problematic about that? Because a lot of the call of leadership for us is of course thinking through what could go wrong, guarding against that, just doing the due diligence of leading an organization. Well, where does it become problematic?

[Margie Worrell]

Well, it's problematic because we humans are driven by emotion much more so than logic. And every anxious, fearful thought comes from us thinking about an unwanted future state where our brains are going into a future point in time. We're going, I don't want that to happen. Oh, I don't want that to happen. And we are twice as sensitive to what could go wrong versus what we want to make more right. And I'm sure you're familiar with the work of Daniel Cunningham that we hate to lose more than we love to win.

[Dave Stohoviak]

Oh yeah.

[Margie Worrell]

But potential losses, potential losses, which, you know, when we're thinking about the unwanted future, it's often a loss of something, a loss of face, loss of money, loss of reputation, loss of business, loss of market share, et cetera, that, that actually is just weight looms much larger in our, in our minds than, well, if we gain market share, if we make money, it just takes up more mental and emotional real estate. And so that can have us living in this fearful state which drives decisions which are defensive decisions which are risk averse, cautious decisions. And the more uncertainty there is in the future, and let's face it, we're dealing with a lot of uncertainty, the more prone we are to turn our forecasts into fear costs. And so those fear costs instead of like what the market might look like. Yes, we do need to absolutely be looking at what are the potential scenarios, what's the risk factor on this? But if we're only ever looking at everything that can go wrong, it can actually keep us from taking proactive, constructive action and smart bets, risking intelligent failures to grow, share, to forge new ground, to make things more right, to forge the change that's going to transform our business to be thriving five and ten years from now. And so there's always going to be this tension between delivering results right now and transforming for the future. But it ultimately undermines the quality of our decisions. And so we have to be really, really deliberate and careful to be reeling in that fear and going, okay, sure, these are scenarios, but what is it I'm most committed to here? What is it that aligns with our values and where we want to land ourselves in two, three, five, ten years from now?

[Dave Stohoviak]

You invite us also to stop rationalizing inaction and excess caution. Boy, that one speak to me. Because we can get so caught up in that. I know I can. Of like, okay, here's the reason I'm not quite doing this yet. Haven't moved on it. And it gets back to that intellectual thing I think you were saying earlier of like we can rationalize things and we don't even see it as fear, do we?

[Margie Worrell]

No, no. Well, you know, it is mid winter or it is mid summer or I am 50 years old, whatever that may, we can always find. If you're looking for an excuse or a really elaborate, well thought out, put together rationalization for why this isn't the right time, you are 150% going to find it. Right? Our brains are little Einsteins at this. Quickly able to reel off all of the reasons to run for the hills or toe the line or whatever that safer option might be. So that's why we've got to be so careful. Go. You know, what is it that it could cost me if I don't do this? What if this was actually the perfect moment to speak up, step forward, you know, make this bet. And often when we look and think about opportunities, they really come wrapped perfectly wrapped with a big pink bow on top. Often they're a little messy. You know, the timing's not perfect, we not quite sure what we're doing. We may blunder a little bit as we go forward, but that's okay giving yourself permission to go. It's okay that we might be blundering as we go forward, but at least we're moving forward. Because the very process of moving forward into the unknowns, onto the new ground, means that you're getting feedback, you're getting information. Whether or not every step's landing perfectly or not is beside the point. You're getting, you're getting feedback, and you can be taking that on and go, okay, let's iterate, let's adjust course, let's, let's adjust this, let's tweak that. Whereas if you're not doing anything, you're just, you're missing out on all of that valuable information. And so there is, there's often we really do discount, and often we're blind to how it can be costing us when we are operating from a mode of rationalizing our inaction and being excessively cautious. And of course, sometimes being cautious is a prudent thing to do, but we've got to be careful that we don't fall into the trap of just constantly doing that.

[Dave Stohoviak]

Yeah. And especially if we tend to be the kind of person that sometimes moves too slowly on something. I certainly fall into that category, have a lot in my career. In fact, as you were saying that, I was thinking back to when I started the podcast back in 2011. I actually bought all the equipment in 2010 at the end of the year, and I didn't start the podcast until August of 2011. So the equipment sat for like, I think, think nine or 10 months before I actually started. And I could have at the time if we had talked. I had all kinds of good reasons why it took me 10 months between buying the equipment and starting, but the real reason was fear. And it wasn't even like, back to your New York Times example. Like, no one even knew what a podcast was back then. No one was even gonna find it and listen. And in fact, that's exactly what happened. Early on, it was just a side project, but there were some really good reasons for me to start it, just for my own personal, like, things I wanted to do and my own career journey. And yet all of that got crowded out by fear. And I had a perfectly good story for why it took 10 months to do it.

[Margie Worrell]

Of course you had a good story. I don't doubt it. I bet it was a beautiful story. And you know what? I'm sure when you've been working with leaders as I have, they often have great stories for why they're not doing the very Things they know if you really were really, really honest, you know, that there would be value when you taking that action. And so, but it's like, ah, well, I got a lot on. There's a lot of uncertainty. I don't have the right team in place. You know, there's a lot. The market's pretty volatile at the moment, yada, yada, yada. Absolutely. And you know what? 12 months from now, that's still going to be true. So I think waiting for perfect conditions is, is always going to have a hidden tax that we pay, which is why I often say just you don't have to jump test what is it? Don't test the depth of a puddle with two feet. But you know, wait, step on in anyway and give yourself permission to be figuring it out as you go along. You know, a distinction that I like to share is we can never control the quality of the output from what we're doing. I mean, there's always going to be factors we may not see. We saw back several years ago. Suddenly, like a pandemic happened or something shifts in the market, a new technology, things. There's always going to be things that can come along that we could probably never predict. There will also be things that maybe we just didn't give enough thought to or we under indexed on, et cetera. So we can never fully control the quality of the output of our actions. We can only ever control the input. But if we're not taking action, doing the input, then we're not going to get the output that we can then learn from and go, okay, well this worked, this didn't work. And so there is just immense value in, by actually moving forward, even though we're not 100% sure what we're doing. And the key for leaders is to make sure you're shortening those learning cycles, that you're fostering a culture of learning where failure isn't brushed under the COVID where people can talk about what worked, what didn't work, where that learning can be shared across teams, across divisions, and everyone can be a little bit wiser in terms of how they can apply that learning. And so I always think, just approach things with curiosity, with purpose, knowing that there is often a much bigger price to doing nothing than your brain wants you to think.

[Dave Stohoviak]

Yeah, there's a beautiful couple of sentences near the end of the book where you write, if your courage held the paintbrush, what picture would it paint on the canvas of your life? What vision for your future ignites purpose and passion and excitement within you? It doesn't have to raise eyebrows or win accolades. You don't have to aspire to climb the mountain or into the C suite. What does matter is that it inspires you, even if it scares you. The the best visions always will. I read that and I was thinking about it and like how true like so often it's the both and right it's the inspiration and the fear. They go hand in hand. And if you're inspired but a little fearful, that's a good, that's a good indicator that you're betting in the right direction.

[Margie Worrell]

Oh, absolutely. As I, as I've written in the book, you know, interpret your discomfort as a cue to move forward and as a sign that you're on the playing field of your life versus, to quote Brene Brown, sitting in the cheap seats. I really believe that if you're not regularly feeling a little, I'm not quite sure how this is going to go, a little afraid, a little vulnerable, a little uncomfortable, then you're playing it too safe. And any worthwhile endeavor is always going to require you to be breaking ranks with what feels comfortable and feels a sense of security in the present moment. And so yes, I encourage everybody who's listening this to just be asking yourself, where do I need to step it up in pursuing the highest uncomfortable good?

[Dave Stohoviak]

You are coaching lots of leaders, doing keynote speaking, consulting, working with organizations, helping them through this. And you have studied courage and bravery so extensively over the years. And I'm curious, as you put together this, this new book and have of course reflect on lessons of the prior books, what, if anything, have you changed your mind on on this?

[Margie Worrell]

A key thing I've changed my mind on is that there's ever an end point that when it comes to the courage gap, that any of us ever get to the other side and stay there permanently. And I somehow I used to think that at some point we arrive and I believe that actually if we're living meaningful lives, we will, there will always be some other gap ahead of us that, that will always be being maybe a silent invitation in our lives, in different aspects of our lives, to be leaning in, to be practicing courage, you know, risking vulnerability in new ways and that it doesn't matter how smart you are or how accomplished you are, how many feathers in your cap, how high you've climbed, there will always be opportunities for you to be practicing courage in some way in your life.

[Dave Stohoviak]

Margie Worrell is the author of the Courage Five Steps to Braver Action. Margie, thank you so much for your work and for nudging us all.

[Margie Worrell]

Thanks for having me on, Dave.

[Dave Stohoviak]

If this conversation was helpful to you, three other episodes I'd recommend one of them is episode 573, how to protect your confidence. West Point's Nate Zinsser was my guest on that episode. We talked about the trap a lot of us tend to fall into when we think about confidence, of thinking of ourselves as either confident or not confident. And of course the reality is confidence is dynamic not only in different areas of our life and work, but also over time. We don't just become confident and then stay confident. It is something we continually need to work on. In that episode, Nate discussed some of the research and practice behind how to actually protect our confidence. Well, of course. So key of being able to do things with more courage and bravery. Again, that's episode 573. Also recommended episode 576, how to help people engage in growth. Whitney Johnson was my guest on in that episode. We talked about the S curve that she teaches and the growth stages and learning. And of course the challenges is that the early stages are often some of the hardest. It takes a bit of confidence and courage and bravery. Yes, all of those in different forms to be able to take those steps forward. We talked about how to do that. What are some of the tactics to keep in mind and also the big picture, how to think about growth. Episode 576 for that and then finally, I'd recommend the recent episode with Jennifer Garvey Berger, episode 7 13, how to Grow from feedback. She reminded us in that conversation that feedback should not just be a one way conversation, a leader or manager giving feedback to someone else, but it is a dialogue, the opportunity for us all to learn together and learn from each other and seek and solicit feedback. And the reason many of us don't is because it's scary, it's fearful. What are people going to say? What happens when I find out the thing that I'm not good at that oftentimes affects our confidence and of course our courage and our bravery to be able to step into those conversations. We talked about how to do that and I think it pairs so beautifully with this conversation, episode 7 13. For that, all of those episodes of course you can find on the coaching4leaders.com website and I'm inviting you to set up your free membership so you can access a whole bunch more. One of the things we've done in the episode library is provide the resources to be able to search by topic for the entire Library since 2011. And one of the topic areas is personal leadership, where this episode is going to be filed under Personal leadership. So key because leadership is not about us and yet it does start with us taking the first step. Leaders do have the responsibility to move first and what that means at the start is looking inward of challenging ourselves, of nudging ourselves forward to have a little bit more courage and bravery on all kinds of aspects of our skills and also working with others to ask for help. It's one of the reasons that the personal leadership area is inside of the free membership. It's one of the many subject areas inside Set up your free membership to get full access, just go over to coaching4leaders.com once you set up your free membership, one of the other resources you'll get each week is my weekly guide. It comes to you on email. I always highlight the key points for from every episode, the related episode links that I just mentioned a moment ago, plus a bunch more oftentimes resources I found online that I think are relevant for you to know about that will help you to continue to lead well, and some of the wisdom from our past guests always featured there too. It's one of the many benefits inside of the free membership. For details, just go over to coaching4leaders.com, set up your free membership and you'll have full access to everything. And speaking of having more courage, one of the reasons that that we don't have courage is because we don't want to make mistakes. We want to don't want to do stuff that, you know, we make a big mistake and we find it embarrassing or it challenges our identity. That's happened to me many times, as I know it's happened to you. And I talked about one of those mistakes in one of my recent journal entries, a big mistake I made. And more importantly, how did I recover from it? Because that's the real question. It's not if we're going to make a mistake. Of course, we all do. But but once we make a mistake, how do we actually recover? And what are some ways to do that? Well, I expanded on that on a recent journal entry. It's one of the many benefits inside of Coaching for Leaders Plus. To find out more, just go over to Coaching 4 Leaders plus and you can get my weekly journal entries every week delivered to your inbox. Plus several of the other benefits inside of Coaching for Leaders plus Coaching for Leaders is edited by you, Andrew Kroger Production support is provided by Sierra Priest this coming weekend on our Saturday Cast. I'm glad to welcome Jess Britt who's one of our fellows. We are going to be having a discussion about how to lead engaging meetings. It'll be a fun conversation. And then next Monday, Rebecca Hamkus and I explore where to start when your organization is in survival mode. I hope that's not the case for you, but if it is an important conversation next Monday, thanks as always for joining in and I look forward to seeing you for both those conversations in the next week.