#1197 Comcourage

I had a lot of fun preparing for our Carpe Diem session on Love for our Mastery Series.

There was a mini-fireworks display of epiphanies as I wrapped my brain around how we can help people become Professional Lovers of Wisdom (and Professional Optimizers!) while redefining our sense of what Love means with a focus on creating Soul Connections.

Check out the Mastery Series session for the full download.

Today I want to chat about a word I think we should add to our official Heroic Dictionary.

First, quick context.

As we’ve discussed, Barbara Fredrickson tells us that we should upgrade our sense of “Love 1.0” that usually only extends to our family and closest loved ones to a Love 2.0 that includes all the “micro moments” of connection we can create with others throughout our day.

I love that (😉) and say, why stop there?

Let’s extend Love to ourselves, life and everything in it.

Which leads us to think about Love 0.0 (for ourselves), Love 1.0 (for our families), and Love 2.0 (for those micro moments).

Then I say we should add “Love 3.0.”

We call that Heroic Love.

The essence of this kind of Love?

ENCOURAGEMENT.

In a couple +1s back in the day (this one and this one), we talked about the fact that compassion literally means “to suffer with.”

Of course, compassion is a virtue but…

Let’s remember that Aristotle tells us that COURAGE is the #1 virtue we need to put all the other virtues in place.

Which is why I think ENCOURAGEMENT is a super-underrated virtue. It gets WAY less airtime than compassion yet, I’d say (without diminishing the importance of compassion), that it’s AT LEAST as important as compassion—ESPECIALLY in times like those we’re now facing.

YES. We need compassion.

And…

We need to move beyond “suffering with” others in the middle of challenging times to HAVING COURAGE TOGETHER during these extraordinarily challenging times.

Enter: Our new word…

Comcourage.

To have courage together.

Here’s the definition for compassion: “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others: the victims should be treated with compassion.”

Etymologically, compassion comes from the Latin com + passio. It literally means “to suffer with.”

Here’s my proposed definition for comcourage: “fierce belief in the strength of others to meet their challenges combined with a willingness to act together in the presence of fear to conquer and grow from those challenges: the aspiring heroes facing challenges should be treated with comcourage.”

Etymologically, comcourage comes from the Latin com + cor. It literally means “to have heart with.”

Let’s remember: Just like the heart pumps blood to our arms and legs and other organs, COURAGE vitalizes all our other virtues.

So…

Let’s inject some courage into the lives of our loved ones and all those around us.

Let’s be willing to face challenges together.

Heroically.

TODAY.