Everyday Courage and Choice | Thomas Sullivan | TEDxHultBoston

Thank you. Thanks very much. It's a pleasure to be here. You know, I think in every culture we tell stories about the heroes of our culture. I think in every culture we honor and respect acts of courage. And I think every person in this room and every person who's alive has at one time or another experienced what it's like to feel fear. Today I want to talk to you about courage. I want to talk to you about courage in a way that's both global and very personal. In fact, maybe I hope it's much more personal for you. I hope that this talk gives you a chance to challenge your definition of courage, maybe surprise you, maybe cause you to think a little bit differently about what it means to act with courage. And maybe if it's really successful today, you'll think of ways that you can now act with courage in your own life. About a year ago, I was with my wife and 2 daughters. We had made a trip, a 3-day weekend up to New Hampshire, not quite as far as Quebec, but we went skiing and we had a wonderful weekend. It was a 2-hour drive and on the way back we were so happy to have done this We're spending this weekend together, taking this time. And we get, you know, 2 hours is a pretty long drive. And as we got closer and closer to home, I think we got a little bit more tired. And now we were happy for a different reason. We were happy because we were coming to our house. And as we came home, I thought of my wife. And I thought of, what are we going to do? So my wife, when we travel, and particularly when we go to New Hampshire, she will often pack as though we're going on an Arctic expedition. Right. So the car was full, not just us, but there was lots in there. So when we pulled into our driveway, we parked on the side and opened and propped open the side door of our house. And I began to carry the bags inside. And I carried the first ones, you know, into our house, up the stairs, and then up onto the second floor where our bedroom is. As I was coming down and reached into the car and taking out another set of bags, I heard loud noises down the street. It was not unusual where I live. There's often groups that walk by and they're jovial and saying lots of things. But I carried the bags into the house, and as I got towards the front of the house, and I was going to go upstairs, I noticed the sound was now much louder, and I heard my dog barking aggressively, which he never does. So I dropped the bags, I went out of the house thinking what I was going to do was grab the dog and keep him away from anybody that he might be bothering. But what happened was the sound, as I came out onto my porch, had now moved down into the driveway. And I heard these— I heard a male voice, and I heard the dog barking and growling aggressively. So I came around the corner of the house, and I looked to where the door was propped open. My wife was standing there, and I saw a young man walking in the doorway. We have 2 sons. And I thought, is that one of their friends? Because my sons weren't home. It wouldn't be unusual for one of their friends to show up. But then my wife said this, who are you and why are you coming into my house? At that point, I stopped thinking and started running. I ran by my wife and I shouted to her, call 911! I continued into the house and the man had gone towards the front door. And I followed him, but he went out of sight. And as I went into the front area— I keep a bat at the front door— and I looked down for the bat, except it wasn't there. The only thing I could think of at that moment was, my sons always take my tools, and they never put them back! But that thought was gone in a second because I turned to face the man who was coming towards me. Things got physical, and I thought the only thing I wanted to do was get him out of my house. Fortunately, the door was open because that was where I had exited. He and I wrestled our way out the front door, fell onto our porch, and we grappled for about 3 minutes. It took 3 minutes for the police to come, which is a miraculously short period of time. When they arrived, the incident was basically over. Why am I telling you this? Because when I described what had happened to my family and my friends, they said one of three things to me. They said, "Wow, you were a hero!" Or they told me, "You must have been really courageous. You were courageous." Or they said, "You were really lucky." I'd like to think all three of those things are true, but I'm pretty sure I can only say with certainty that I was lucky. I'm not so sure if I was courageous. Courageous. So let me tell you a little bit about what I mean when I say that. Most of us think of courage in heroic terms. If you think about it, you can think about people who might act with courage, and you might think of people in the battlefield or in the military who exhibit physical bravery or put themselves and their lives at risk. Or you might think of first responders and firefighters who do that. You know, those people do incredible things. They're inspiring and admirable. But if you talk to them and you ask them about why they did what they did, first of all, they rarely want to talk about what they did. Secondly, they don't talk about it in terms of courage. They'll say, well, I did what I was trained to do. Or they'll say, I did what any other person would have done in that That situation. That's right. situation, or I did what I had to do. They don't look at it as a piece of courage. And so I want to talk to you about this notion of courage in a different way. See it as more akin to everyday courage. I don't want to diminish in any way those who risk their lives, are willing to self-sacrifice, and face physically challenging and risky situations. 30 years ago, I was responsible for a building in New York. I must have been 5. But, uh— 30 years ago, I was responsible for a building in New York, and I remember one day there was a fire in the building next door. And I took the firefighter up to the roof of our building so he could go over to the building that was there. We got to the top of the stairs and I opened the door. When I opened the door, I flung it open, and almost immediately I had to throw my hand in front of my face because the heat was so intense from the flames coming out of the building next door. What happened next left me with an open jaw in awe. The fireman walked right by me, pulled out his axe, and proceeded to chop down the chain-link fence between my building and the building next door. And then he left. Onto the roof next door. Now, I don't think that that was anything less than amazing, but I'm not sure if I— if what he did was something that required courage. I think if you asked him, he might say something like, I did what I was trained to do. Everyday courage doesn't involve physical risk and physical bravery. Here's my firefighter photo. Everyday risk is much closer to home. In fact, I don't want to let ourselves off the hook to think about courage in heroic terms. It's too easy to do that. It's too easy to say, that's a hero. I'm not a hero. I don't need to act with courage. I think everyday acts of courage are much more common than we think. So I'd like to give you a definition of courage. This definition of courage, a definition of everyday courage, comes from the work of a friend and a colleague, Dr. Cliff Bolster, who looked at this topic and said, you know, when courage is present, when people really act with courage, there are 4 elements to it. There's fear, the presence of fear. There's the perception of negative consequences. And there's the sense that we're acting for something greater than ourselves when we act with courage. And finally, There's choice. All 4 of those things are present, we have a chance and a possibility for courage. If we look at fear for a second, you know, I think of courage and I almost always go back to someone I grew up with. We went to high school together and we ended up going to the same college together. Her name's Anne Greene. And I remember when we went to college, we joined the same company. It was a student-run company. We made all decisions together. All the students were participants in running the business. We kept the books, we bought and sold product, we made hiring and firing decisions. There were no adults, let's say, involved. But we did everything. And I remember one time we made a bad hire. We hired somebody who turned out to be quite manipulative and would often pit us one against the other. And she— this person would sabotage. decisions that we had made. And I remember we were at one meeting, and I was sitting right beside Anne, and this always sticks with me. And this person had done something that again sabotaged a decision that we had just made. I think I knew we were all frustrated, but we didn't say anything. Maybe we were too young, maybe we were too idealistic, maybe we just didn't have the experience. But I remember At that moment, my friend Anne started to speak, and she said, just a second, I have to interrupt. I can no longer go on. I can't continue to work with you like this. I was stunned. She said what I wanted to say, but I was too scared to say it. And everybody had that same thought, because within 5 minutes, we asked the person she was talking about to leave the room, and we made a decision to fire that person. And when she said that, I watched her. I was sitting right beside her. I heard her voice tremble. I saw her shake as she said it. She acted in the presence of fear. But I didn't. And so this is an important distinction when you think about fear. I'd like you to think about this. When you act courageously, the point isn't to overcome fear. The point isn't to not have fear. Without fear, there is no courage. There's no call for courage. The point is, how do you act when you're in that moment of feeling fear? Second element of negative consequences. You know, when we're faced with those kinds of situations that seem risky to us, we are always making calculations about whether or not we should act. You know, we're always looking at what's the cost and what's the benefit. And sometimes the risk looks like it's pretty dangerous, right? It might be actually physically dangerous to us or emotionally dangerous to us. We can see the negative consequences that are there. Sometimes we're about to do something that might cost us our job. Or sometimes we're about to do something that might cost us our respect. And reputation with our peers. So we're always thinking about that. And when we're acting with courage, that is present. You may have heard of this study about people who— and their fears. What do they fear most? You know, and number 1 on the list is public speaking. Number 2, somewhere down the list, I don't even think it's number 2, is death. Death. Right? It's kind of crazy. But if you think about it for a second, it also makes sense. You know, I know I have been humiliated. I know I've been embarrassed in front of my peers. I don't want to experience that again, like in public, right? And hopefully not today either. But I've never experienced death, right? So I don't know what it's like to die, but I don't want to be embarrassed again. So it makes sense in that way. You know, our students from Hult inspire me all the time. They come here, most of them don't speak English as their first language, they come from lots of different cultures, many of them don't come from a business background and they feel out of place. They feel like they're less than often. But succeeding in a business school, it means participating In class. They have to do the work. They have to read. They have to study. And they have to come to class prepared to do a dangerous thing. They have to raise their hand. Okay? And I can see the quiet ones. You know, I see their face. And I know they're sort of half raising their hand, like, maybe please don't call on me. Or if you do, please don't let me be a fool. But I watch them and they do it. They do it. You know, and afterwards, oftentimes the one who takes the action sits down and just like breathes a sigh and pretty much they're gone for the rest of the class, right? They're not going to be any use. But when they do that, they miss something, which is how they inspire not only me, but I know they motivate their classmates. I know they inspire those other quiet ones to take that act. I know it because the other quiet ones come up and tell me. They tell me that. The third thing is acting in an interest greater than our own. You know, if you do the calculus about choosing an act of courage or not, oftentimes it doesn't add up. It doesn't make a good case to act with courage. So what is it? Why do people do that? And this is one of the things I think that's really important to think about. People do it because they're trying to do something that is more important than their own self-interest. They're trying to do something that needs to be done and no one else is doing it. And in a way, this is a way for you to encourage yourself. When you're faced with those courageous— those moments where you can choose courage or you can I would choose caution. Make sure you're tuned into this. Make sure you're tuned into, why am I about to act? Yes, it might serve you in some way, but ultimately you're acting for something greater than your own self. I have the privilege of working with somebody who inspires me all the time. His name is Reverend Jeffrey Brown, and he has spent 25 years of his life dedicated to making our community safer. He does this by working with gang members who are committing violence. He engages with them on the street in their territory, which in itself is a bit of physical bravery. But I think he shows some— another piece of courage. I think he shows the courage of over 25 years of facing an almost insurmountable problem, the courage of quiet persistence. He does what he does and experiences Setbacks, real setbacks, like life and death setbacks when he works with the young people that he works with. But he does the work that he does because he wants to save our children. Last element of courage is the aspect of choice. This one's pretty simple. No choice, no courage. Okay? And we're always faced with a choice. Do we act with Courage, or do we act with caution? If we have to do it, it means we have no choice. It does a funny thing to us, I think, psychologically, when we have no choice. It reduces the emotional content of fear. It also makes us less responsible for the possible negative consequences. I'm having to do this. And it eliminates that act of requiring courage from us. So I'd like you to think about this piece of choice for just a moment. Try and remember the last time you were faced with a situation where you could have acted— where you could have acted with courage, but you didn't. I think all of us can do that. This piece of choice is important. It's important for what happens in the moment where courage is called upon. But it's also important for what it does to us when we choose to act with courage. If we act with caution, it's a way of protecting ourselves. We're no longer exposed. We don't take a risk. And we don't have any chance of becoming who we could be. When we act with courage, you know, the question is always going to be, why would we do it? Right? There's lots of downsides to doing it. Well, one thing is we get stronger. When we act with courage, we call on parts of ourselves that are not called on when we act with caution, maybe underused or unused parts of who we are. You can all think of something that you do today— just think for a second— something you do today that once you were afraid to do, but today you're not. I mean, can everybody think of that? You were once afraid to do this thing. You do it today and there's no fear involved. Once it took courage, now it doesn't. It doesn't because you've built yourself up. You're stronger. The other thing that courage does, it encourages and inspires others. It's always got that, that beautiful aspect that sometimes we see and sometimes we don't see. And it turns potential into reality. When we engage ourselves, we are, in a way, building and fulfilling the potential that we have, in a way that acting with caution does not allow us to do. So, situations that call for everyday courage— I can't tell you what yours are, because courage for me is not courage for you. Fear for you is not fear for me, and vice versa. It's a very personal phenomenon. But there are situations that pop up all the time, I think, in life. And if you look at these— this list, you might find something on here that pertains to you, and you might not. But I'd just like you to take a look at it. And I'd like you to ask this question, answer this question, or at least ponder it. Where is courage called from, from you today? Where is courage called for from you today? And maybe, what difference would it make if you acted? Thank you. Lastly, I want to let you know I'm really glad I did not find that bat. Thank you very much.