True courage isn't the absence of fear, it's acting despite it. Entrepreneurs building startups need to feel scared, because fear signals you're outside your comfort zone. Accept it and keep creating anyway.
To be brave, you must first be afraid. I didn't really understand what courage was until I guess a little bit later into my adulthood. I used to think that courage was an absence of fear, but it is not. What I've learned is that really brave people are just as scared as anybody else. The question is what they then do with or despite that fear. Bravery is action or continuance in the presence of fear. Many of us who are entrepreneurs, who are building startups, who are building products, who are making things we've never done before, we think that we need to have confidence. We keep being told to hustle and to be brave. And it just— I think we all need to accept the idea that in order to be brave, we must first be doing something that is so out there that it is in fact making us afraid. It is okay to be scared. The question is what you do in the context of that fear. To be brave is not just to avoid fear, it is to overcome it and create.
