What is courage?

And what does ‘courage’ feel like?

I’ve been thinking about “courage” lately. Not only what it is usually assumed to be, but maybe is not, and also how it feels in the body. How it moves through daily life. And how different voices—Simon Sinek, Brené Brown, Gabor Maté—have helped me delve into just what this thing called courage is. What does it actually feel like—for me?

1. Simon Sinek: Social Courage

Simon Sinek says courage is social. It’s not something we dig deep inside ourselves to find. It’s relational—like a parachute. External. Offered. We leap because someone or something around us gives us the support to do so. The strength isn’t all ours.

I once did a tandem skydive. Thousands of feet up in the plane, the moment the door opened, it got very real. Terrifying. I felt it in my gut. My legs froze. I spaced out.

Even with the parachute strapped on, it didn’t feel like enough. What got me to the door wasn’t the equipment—it was the tandem guide: his calm confidence, his presence, his voice. Somehow, I could release control. Ease my tight tension. He gave me a reason to trust. He held the license. He’d done this before—many, many times.

And then we jumped.

Those first moments—were they seconds or a minute? I’m unsure. But they are burned into my memory. Before my eyes registered the horizon, we weren’t falling. We were floating. It felt like flying. It remains one of the most exhilarating, alive memories of my life.

So yes, I get Sinek’s frame. Courage is often social. It can be enabled by someone else’s steadiness. I didn’t have to overcome my fear alone. I was safe with another.

2. Brené Brown: Boundaries, Values & Internal Discomfort

Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead centres on courage as vulnerability—the willingness to operationalise our values, to reach beneath our armour, to risk being seen: imperfect, uncertain, open. It’s deeply internal, but still relational. Courage needs safety to emerge.

This one feels murkier to embody. It’s layered. It’s tender.

I’m midway through writing a guided journal about being in the ‘in-between’ of change, uncertainty, transitions… those awful murky places where you can’t see the path ahead and we get stuck and lost. This endeavour too is asking a lot of courage from me. Some of it I find externally, with the steady support of a book coach. But there’s more. It feels vulnerable to write in public. I’m learning from my coach how to be honest. To be really human, on the page. And it’s hard. But I’m doing it.

There’s a need in me (or maybe it’s a value): to express myself creatively and to make a difference by using my particular strengths—the things that light me up and, as Marcus Buckingham puts it, actually strengthen me.

So what is that inner drive that meets the critic and keeps me moving, even when the work is emotionally challenging?

Maybe it’s courage. Part of me feels like I have to put on armour—across my shoulders, my torso—and quell the tension in my belly, just to push through. This feels like a hardening. Something I’ve always thought courage needed. Hardening takes a toll - on our nervous systems, our bodies, our relationships, our sense of worth.

What if something different is required — a challenge by choice? In writing my journal, though I have stalled, procrastinated, thought seriously about giving up, what I’m noticing is that what lets me keep going isn’t grit alone—it’s softness. Brené talks about soft hearts and strong backs, and I get that.

When I step back and ask, how am I still doing this?—the answer is: I care. I want to offer something good. I want to do meaningful work. To express my ideas and share my experience.

My heart softens.

Maybe that’s what courage is too.

3. Gabor Maté: Self-Protection, Compassion & Inner Risk

Gabor Maté offers different language. He describes courage as self-protective—a shield guarding something soft and vulnerable inside. But he also suggests we can meet that courage with compassion. Maybe we can shift from defending against to caring for what’s tender inside.

This feels similar to Brené, but more plainly spoken. More direct and intriguing.

I’ve always assumed courage to be a virtue (e.g. “being 10x bolder” is a good thing). But here he was pointing out that it can be a strategy we choose to protect or defend something deeper. Or at least, that’s how I’m making sense of it.

When I heard Gabor talk about this on a podcast, I was at the gym. I recall feeling curious (I love to learn and consider ideas), but also something else—an easing. A softening. In my heart and across my shoulders. Like I was seen.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how this version of courage might feel in real life. I’m a participant in a training program—a diverse group across cultures, time zones, ages, worldviews, and backgrounds. But something has felt off. I’ve noticed the group getting quieter, and I’ve felt some unease too.

I’m having a “courageous” conversation with myself—not stuffing the discomfort down, not diminishing my experience, but letting it be more part of my present. That alone feels courageous. I’m risking surfacing something deeper: a need to be seen, understood, valued.

I see a few (not mutually exclusive) options:

• Speak up in class, either provocatively or gently, to bring direct or indirect attention to what I’m noticing.

• Reach out privately to the facilitator.

• Connect with other participants to sense-check how the group is experiencing things.

• Hold off on speaking up, and stay open and curious to what may unfold.

Each of these feels courageous in some way. I sense risk, and I feel my underlying motivation.

I wonder—can I bring a little more compassion to myself to help me through this?

Ah yes, there it is—a slight heart-felt softening. A slight body easing. Perhaps I can allow more flow and less force. Maybe I speak. Maybe I don’t. But I can release some of the tension and stay open and present with myself.

How does the idea of courage needing a heart softening land with you?

When and where are you facing discomfort but taking steps anyway?
(This could be about anything, not just the jumping out of a plane things, but a courageous conversation, or a task you’ve been procrastinating or over-thinking - those avoidance tactics are a way of staying safe.)

How does that sense of courage show up in your body?

P.S.

As an Enneagram Six, courage has long felt like both a path and a puzzle. Fear is a familiar strategy—scanning for risk, managing anxiety, staying alert. It’s taken time (and care) to consider what fear and courage actually are—and what they’re for—in the bigger picture of my life.

Lately, I’ve also been wondering how other Enneagram types experience courage.

What does it feel like for Heart-centred types, who lead with emotional intelligence and connection—even if they try not to?

Or for Body-centred types, who move through the world with instinct and gut knowing—even if they don’t fully realise it?

I imagine courage lives in very different places for each of us, and shows up with different textures.

If this kind of exploration interests you, let me know—I may write more about it.