Future Here Now: Learn to Be Brave

Signals

Navigating the uncertainties and upsets that come with the kinds of profound change we are experiencing requires something very old-fashioned of all of us:

Bravery.

That’s a hard word to define, even though we know it when we see it. Being brave is about sticking to your convictions even when doing that puts you at risk, about taking an action that you believe is right even when it’s dangerous. To most of us, brave means Rosa Parks, Amelia Earhart, firefighters, Oscar Romero, etc.

But bravery also comes into play when we’re facing psychological or social risk - taking a stand that friends or family don’t understand, earning disapproval from a boss, pushing against a social expectation.

Most of us only have to make a choice about the first kind of bravery a couple of times in our lives, if at all. The second kind of bravery impacts us sometimes daily, especially when we’re in a period where old systems don’t fit anymore and the new ones haven’t yet taken hold.

The Industrial Era expected most of us to be cogs in a machine, do what we were told. Not independent actors in a VUCA world. So we didn’t learn a whole lot about how to be brave, especially the little everyday kind of brave.

How do we learn to be brave? These three stories