Are You Courageous? Calling Upon Your Courage

Most people spend their entire life stressed without ever giving a single thought as to what it is they really want or what's important to them. See, I'm here to cut through all that noise, connecting you to yourself and the life that you were meant to live. I used to slave away at a corporate job that I hated, but I broke through the social norms and pursued my passion. As a result, I own my own coffee company. I'm espresso sommelier, and I get to travel the world. You, too, can live a life that you love, but it starts with getting clear about what you want. It starts with a new decision. I'm your host, Donnie Rouse, and you are listening to the podcast One Life. Are you courageous? So let me ask you a question. Are you courageous? When you think of courage, what exactly does that evoke? What does that mean to you? And do you identify yourself as a courageous person? See, identifying yourself as a courageous person is going to impact the actions you take. Because when you have the identity of a courageous person, now all of a sudden you're willing to step forward, you're willing to take some more risks, you're willing to put yourself out there. In order to understand whether or not you are a courageous person, it is very important to understand what exactly is the definition of courage? In my one life blueprint, the kind of like my visualization guide for my life, one of the virtues that I live into each day is courage. And the definition I gave for courage was taking action in spite of fear. Meaning when you recognize fear, you take action regardless. But even though, even with that definition, if you'd asked me, donnie, do you consider yourself to be a courageous person? I would say yes, but in some part of me, I would probably think otherwise. I'd probably say, well, yeah, but not really. So basically what I was saying was that I wasn't. But I know I had taken some courageous action. But then I heard a different definition of this, and that definition was more of a quantifying phrase for courage, saying, if you are not scared, if you are not afraid, then it's not courageous. Meaning if fear is not present, if you're not feeling scared, then the action you take is not a courageous action. When I heard this, it made me think about the just looking over the last year of my life, not even the last year crap, leaving the last six months and looking over the different trials, the different actions I had taken. So let's go. Let me tell you. So prior to this, I wouldn't really identify as a courageous. Well, I mean, I Know, I've taken courageous action, but I wouldn't go out and say, well, it's part of my identity, right? But then when I heard this definition, I started to look at my life. I started to look at my move to Miami, remembering all of the internal struggles, the strife that came along with that, Some of those being, like, leaving all my friends and my family up in Connecticut and coming here and almost knowing nobody, with the exception of maybe a couple people also taking action on my one life blueprint course. It had been something that I had wanted to do for years, but then all of a sudden, I took the action. And every step in this process was. Had some, you know, some fear kind of like mingled around with it. And the fear is really just stepping out there. The fear was putting something out there and it not being perfect, but I did it anyways. And then I look for. While I'm here in Miami beach, not knowing many people, there's been a lot of times where I had to step out of my comfort zone and there was a fear of, oh, well, am I going to be judged? Are these people going to be kind? That required me. I needed to act in spite of that fear. And as a result of doing that, now all of a sudden, you know, like, I have friends here in Miami beach that I wouldn't have had had I not taken that courageous action, had I not acted in spite of the fear that I was feeling. So now when you say in the. The. The mindset shift happened when I realized the. The second. You know, the second part was the qualifier saying that if. When you're scared and you take action, that's courageous. If there's no fear, if there's no scared, then it's not a great Saxon. Once I realized that, I started reflecting back on everything in the last year and realizing, man, like, I actually really put myself out there. Like, I actually do take a lot of courageous action. So let me ask you a question. What courageous actions or where? Aren't you giving yourself credit for the courageous actions that you've taken? Look back in over. Just. Let's look back over the last year, and let's just look at some of the trials you had where you were probably scared shitless, where something threw you off your rocker, but you had to act, and you did act. And as a result, you were in a very different place. Now, were you. Did you. When that happened, Were you giving yourself the identity of someone who is courageous or someone who takes courageous action? And with this new definition of what qualifies someone who's courageous? Does it shift your identity? Does it make you look at yourself and feel, do you feel different? And the reason why I'm even here talking about this is because everything you want in your life, every result you want, every desire, every relationship, it all is gonna require you to take new, courageous action. Because courageous action has to become a part of your everyday life. Because in order for you to get anywhere, you have to step in that discomfort. And that discomfort is just another way of saying into your fears, into the scaredness. But if you can identify yourself as someone who takes courageous action, when you identify as someone the experience of being afraid and realizing that, you take action, and then what the results are after that, once you step out of the fear, the fear disappears, right? Once you step into it, once you've actually taken the action, the fear disappears. And then sometimes it comes back, but then you take another action and it disappears again until you make it part of your identity, and in which case it doesn't bother you anymore. I'll give you one last example. This podcast is the perfect example of that. I had been very, very active for a very long time, and sometimes a week will go by where something will be going on in my life and I'm not able to come on here and record. I used to try batching, batching content for the podcast, but then I didn't really like doing batching because one, because I liked coming on when I felt inspired. Because if I'm feeling inspired, if I want to share a message, I come on here and you feel my energy. But if I'm trying to batch content for the sake of just going further, faster, meaning having it so this way I don't have to sit down every day instead of doing, I don't know, five episodes in an hour and a half, doing, like one episode in an hour, it just allows me to extend and go further out. But the issue that I was having was I was, you know, I would do maybe batch a couple episodes, like a bunch of episodes, but then as a result of going back and recording the next month, I would feel foreign to it. Like, I would like, oh, my God, where do I start? And I would start getting self conscious about going on there. Am I being, Am I being. Am I presenting this right? And it would just, it wouldn't feel as fluid. And so, you know, but nevertheless, even with those feelings, I still come on here. I still hit that live button, as you can see here. Like, if you're watching this live, everything I do is live, because I know that once I go live, there's no turning back, right? Once I'm streaming, I'm here once in a while, have a couple some technical difficulties, but once I go live, I'm here with you and there is no going back. I might fumble over some words, I might cuss, but I'm here and I move forward with it. And I tell you this because sometimes when I'm going to press that button, when I'm going to press the streaming button, I'm feeling, you know, I feel like that apprehensiveness. I feel a little scared. There is. I'm like, oh, I'm not ready yet. And I go to press it and then I'll like, I'll pull back my finger, but then I press it and then I'm on. So look for those examples in your life where you notice it and courage only takes three seconds. One of my favorite actions is, well, actually courage only takes one second, meaning you identify what it is that you're afraid of and where you want to go. You say one and then you just go off in that direction and you take the action. So let's just one last time, let's just look at your life. Notice where have you taken courageous action? Where were you scared? But you move forward anyways and what was it you were afraid of? And after you look at what you're afraid of, once you actually took the action, what happened to that fear? And then what is in your life as a result of taking the action, as a result of conquering that fear, as a result of stepping forward despite being scared? Sometimes all you need to know is recognize the pattern that when you're scared and you take action, the fear disappears. And now you have something that is beneficial to your life as a result of it. So that is hope. All I have got for you guys today. I hope you enjoyed this post. I hope this inspires you to just look at your life, look for the courageous action you've taken and to take some more of that in the future. Because the life that you want depends on it. Thank you so so much for tuning in. If you have any questions, you could send them to me via my website@www.donnyrouse.com. again www. O n n y r a u s.com there you could comment, you could drop me an email. And as always, remember guys, you get one life. Live fully, live passionately, and most of all, live now. God bless you guys and I will see you again soon.