Margie Warrell - Stop Playing Safe

It's why, in this VUCA world we inhabit, the thinking and behaviours that got you to where you are today will be insufficient to take you to where you want to be ten years from now. As the world has changed, so too must you change how you engage in it.

I have written this book because I hold a deep and unwavering belief in our potential as ‘human becomings’ to create lives rich in meaning and to move all humanity to higher ground. Yet in my work that spans many countries, cultures and continents, I constantly encounter people trapped inside prisons of their own making, hemmed in by the borders of their own imagination, living under the long shadow of fear.

The truth is that you have all the resources within you to create a deeply meaningful and rewarding life, regardless of what you've done (or failed to do) before, or what is going on in your life right now. However, if you sometimes wonder otherwise, you're not alone. Global employee surveys tell us that millions of people think that what they do each day doesn't matter and that they are powerless to change their environment. The cost to the commercial bottom line is in the billions. The cost to the human spirit is immeasurable. Underlying this disengagement is fear in many guises — of failure, success, rejection, exposure, not having enough … of not being enough.

Countless business books are filled with strategies for becoming a more proficient networker, strategist, salesperson, negotiator, ‘hi-po’ employee and leader. Very few address the deep-seated fears and complex interplay of unconscious cognitive biases that form the human condition, and that keep us from applying them.

While this book is written for you, the individual, it will benefit any team, enterprise or organisation. After all, organisations are made up of people. As such, people are their number one resource and the fear that stifles their potential — their creativity, collaboration and collective ingenuity — is their number one threat. No organisation can compete in today's world unless those who are part of it feel emboldened to ‘push the envelope’ of possibility. This entails risk and demands courage.

This book comprises eight chapters, divided into three parts.

Part I: Core Courage ( chapters 1to 3) forms the foundation for all good decision making and forward-leaning action.

Part II: Working Courage ( chapters 4to 7) provides concepts and practical strategies to be more courageous and effective in handling the challenges and seizing the opportunities in your work and life.

Part III: Take Courage ( chapter 8) is where the rubber hits the road as you make the changes that prompted you to pick up this book in the first place. Part IIIwill set you up for success, creating an environment that emboldens you to take smarter risks and pave new pathways toward your biggest future and a better world.

Back in 2019, none of us could have imagined in our wildest dreams that in 2020 the world would be knocked off its axis with the cascading crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet in the midst of having to deal with challenges we never expected, much less planned for, many people discovered within themselves more courage, tenacity and resilience than they knew they had.

None of us can know what challenges the years ahead will bring. The world is changing so fast, it's hard to imagine what it will look like two years from now, much less 20. All of which begs the question: what mindset will you adopt to navigate the uncertainty ahead? Because in the end what matters far less than the challenges you face is the mindset you bring to them.

As uncertain as this time in human history is, one thing remains certain: only those who are willing to fling their arms wide to the full spectrum of human experience will be able to seize the opportunities that surround each of us every single day. In the end, there is no success without the possibility of failure. As Helen Keller said, ‘Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.’

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.

AMELIA EARHART

If we do not believe within ourselves this deeply rooted feeling that there is something higher than ourselves, we shall never find the strength to evolve into something higher.

RUDOLF STEINER

You've read the stories. Of the accidental hero diving into a frozen river or lifting a car many times their body weight to rescue a total stranger. Of the desperate mother walking hundreds of miles under the blistering sun to seek help for her child.

In the face of impossible odds, people have tapped into reserves of seeming superhuman power, unlocking strength, courage and steel-like determination that would otherwise have lain dormant. And often not just for their own sake, but for the sake of someone else. Sometimes even a complete stranger.

Perhaps you've experienced such a moment in your own life where you've tapped into a deeper source of power and courage within you; perhaps that almost surprised you. Maybe you found yourself in your own ‘impossible’ predicament, but resolved that nothing was going to stop you.

A personal crisis. A ‘must achieve’ goal. A ‘mission impossible’ you just had to pull off.

Your task was compelling. Your focus lasered. Your potential ignited.

Purpose does that. It's like the energy of light focused through a magnifying glass. While diffused, unfocused light has little use and less power, when its energy is concentrated — as through a magnifying glass — that same light can set fire to paper.

Focus its energy even more, as with a laser beam, and its power is magnified enough to cut through steel.

A clear and compelling sense of purpose enables you to harness the resources within you to cut through the barriers around you and accomplish the extraordinary. Purpose focuses your energy — physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual — towards an end goal that compels you out of your comfort zone and pushes you forward regardless of the obstacles.

Of course, few people feel that burning fire in their belly every day of their lives. But it is imperative to connect to what ignites that inner spark within us if we want to take our lives to the next level and forge a more rewarding future than what we might otherwise be on track to do.

Given we are wealthier today than at any point in human history, there is clearly a marked difference between ‘well off' and ‘wellbeing'. Unlike animals, which are driven simply to survive, we humans crave more from life than mere survival. Without an answer to the question ‘Survival for the sake of what?', we can quickly fall into disillusionment and distraction and spend our precious years living with a lingering sense of despair. Adam Grant described this state of languishing as ‘the neglected middle child of mental health’ — the void between depression and flourishing. The kind of living that isn’t fully living.

The alarming increase in rates of substance abuse, depression and suicide, along with the growing reliance on antidepressant medications, seems to indicate many are doing just that. Employee engagement statistics point to a crisis of purpose on an unprecedented scale.

You are capable of achieving inspiring things and living a deeply rewarding life that lights you up and elevates all around you. Yet the instinctive desire for safety — wired into the back recesses of your brain from our hunter-gatherer days — will always pull hard against, well, your desire for pretty much anything else. Let's face it, it's far easier to stick on your current path than to put yourself ‘out there’ and risk making a royal fool of yourself — at least in the short term.