So, the word is out! I wrote a short ebook which I’ve already shared with my email letter subscribers. Today I want to make sure you have the opportunity to receive it for free in your inbox, and to tell you a bit more about it.
The book is titled 7 Days of Courage: Finding Brave In Your Everyday Life. It’s a workbook that reflects on seven aspects of practicing courage, with practical applications for each day of the week.
I hope that 7 Days of Courage will come in handy whenever we feel the need to work through some fear, or when we are about to face an important challenge. Courage will hopefully expand your definition of what it means to be brave, and show you little opportunities throughout your everyday life to choose courage.
Why Courage?
I believe that at every crossroads, we have a choice to make: the choice between comfort and courage. And while we would all like to think we would choose courage, I’m not so sure that I would always be able to. You see, courage is practiced, trained, cultivated, built– it’s not a force we can simply conjure up when necessary. If I want to be brave in those moments of intense pressure, I need to start being brave everyday.
I also believe that courage is what we need in order to change the world. I have been inspired and convicted lately to think about how we talk about change. Don’t so many of us recognize the world’s problems, but also fear the world’s problems? How can bring about real, personal transformation to our neighborhoods and communities, if we are afraid to reach out and touch those neighborhoods and communities? Certainly not by analyzing them and proposing programs alone– we’re going to have to enter in.
And entering in will take a whole lot of courage. We can talk about living intentionally, chasing our dreams, and changing the world all day long, but we will have to take the plunge eventually. And this doesn’t mean telling someone else to do it for us; we have to do our part and play our role in what we desire for the future. And courage can’t be borrowed.
The inspiration to be brave
I’ve met a lot of brave individuals and I appreciate their stories. Most recently, I’ve been inspired by people who live in intentional community.
These friends– whether in neighborhoods in the US or overseas– have chosen to live with and provide resources for under-resourced populations. They create access in those communities, and leverage their own resources for the benefit of those who have less.
They don’t just give money. They don’t just volunteer. They live out this courage everyday, year after year.
While not everyone has to live this way, I believe that we all need that type of radical, life-giving, self-denying courage.
The courage to be more
Ultimately, I hope that 7 Days of Courage will be a beginning for you and me. I hope that once we begin to practice courage in these simple– and yet potentially challenging– ways, we will see more opportunities for courage in other areas of our lives.
I believe that courage can grow, and that we can progress from bravery in our personal circles to bravery in our communities. As I say in the book, courage with little things eventually becomes courage with big things.
Our community of courage
If you download the book (which I hope you do), you’ll find that it’s quite interactive! I share my own reflections on the challenges in each section, and I invite you to share your reflections with me.
I did this because I understand that your circumstances are different from mine. I know that you and I face unique struggles for which we both need courage.Even if our stories are distinct, however, the desire to overcome our fears is something we have in common. So let’s build community around that! Let’s choose courage together.
Sign up and download: 7 Days of Courage
