Courage Is Calling

Fortune Favors the Brave (The Stoic Virtues Series)
by Ryan Holiday | Portfolio © 2021 · 304 pages

This is our fifth note on one of Ryan Holiday’s books. As I told my wife Alexandra after reading the first part of this book “Ryan is truly an INCREDIBLE writer.” As in, an ASTONISHINGLY compelling writer. He has truly mastered his craft—which is why he’s one of the world’s bestselling living philosophers whose books have sold more than four million copies. The book has three parts: Part I on Fear; Part II on Courage; and Part III on The Heroic. It’s packed with Big Ideas. Let’s explore a few my favorites now as we strive to show up with more Wisdom, Self-Mastery, COURAGE, and Love—not someday but TODAY.

Let us not wait for other people to come to us and call upon us to do great deeds. Let us instead be the first to summon the rest to the path of honor. Show yourself to be the bravest of all the captains, with more right to leadership than those who are our leaders at present.
Xenophon

Listen

Big Ideas

“Courage calls each of us differently, at different times, in different forms. But in every case, as they say, coming from inside the house.

First, we are called to rise above our fear and cowardice. Next, we are called to bravery, over the elements, over the odds, over our limitations. Finally, we are called to heroism, perhaps for only just a single magnificent moment, when we are called to do something for someone other than ourselves.

Whatever call you’re hearing right now, what matters is that you answer. What matters is that you go to it.

In an ugly world, courage is beautiful. It allows beautiful things to exist.

Who says it has to be rare?

You picked up this book because you know it doesn’t.”

~ Ryan Holiday from Courage Is Calling

As we discussed in the last couple notes, I took 18 months off of creating new Notes as I was deep in CEO-creative mode getting Heroic launched. The first book I bought when I knew I’d be hammering more Notes? This one.

As I’ve said many times, Ryan Holiday is one of my favorite writers and thinkers and philosophers. We’ve covered a bunch of his other great books including: The Obstacle Is the Way, The Daily Stoic, Ego Is the Enemy, and Stillness Is the Key.

And... As I told my wife Alexandra after reading the first part of this book in my AM1 Deep Work time block this morning (before finishing it in the next two), “Ryan is truly an INCREDIBLE writer.” As in, an ASTONISHINGLY compelling writer.

He has truly mastered his craft—which is why he’s one of the world’s bestselling living philosophers whose books have been translated into more than forty languages, spent more than three hundred weeks on bestseller lists and have sold more than four million copies.

I rarely unconditionally encourage you to get a book. Get this one. (here.)

The book has three parts: Part I on Fear; Part II on Courage; and Part III on The Heroic.

Of course, it’s packed with Big Ideas. Let’s explore a few of my favorites now as we strive to show up with more Wisdom, Self-Mastery, COURAGE, and Love—not someday but TODAY.

The Choice of Hercules

“For Hercules, the choice was between vice and virtue, the easy way and the hard way, the well-trod path and the road less traveled. We all face this choice.

Hesitating only for a second, Hercules chose the one that made all the difference.

He chose virtue.

‘Virtue’ can seem old-fashioned. Yet virtue—areté—translates to something very simple and very timeless: Excellence. Moral. Physical. Mental.

In the ancient world, virtue was comprised of four key components.

Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom.

The ‘touchstones of goodness,’ the philosopher king Marcus Aurelius called them. To millions, they’re known as the cardinal virtues, four near-universal ideals adopted by Christianity and most of Western philosophy, but equally valued in Buddhism, Hinduism, and just about every other philosophy you can imagine. They’re called ‘cardinal,’ C.S. Lewis pointed out, not because they come down from church authorities but because they originate from the Latin cardo, or hinge.

It’s pivotal stuff. It’s the stuff that the door to the good life hangs on.”

That’s from the first pages of the Introduction in which Ryan introduces us to the four cardinal virtues and lets us know that this book on Courage is the first in “The Stoic Virtues Series.”

I love that story about Hercules. And, of course, I love the four cardinal virtues and the concept of areté. Let’s chat about each.

First, Hercules.

As we discuss in this +1 and in our Notes on How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, Donald Robertson tells us about the Choice of Hercules. I also share the story in Objective I of Heroic Basic Training (get the app and check it out if you haven’t yet!) in which I establish the fact that the challenge to know the ultimate game we’re playing is 2,500+ years old.

Here’s the short story.

Once upon a time, a young Hercules was walking on a path and came to a fork in the road. At which point two goddesses appeared.

One barged in front of the other and falsely claimed that her friends called her Eudaimonia. (Her real name was Vice.) She promised Hercules a life of ease and luxury without any hardships.

The second goddess, Areté, was, as Robertson puts it: “a less boastful and more modest woman, who nonetheless shone with natural beauty. To his surprise, she wore a grave expression. She warned him that her path led in a very different direction: it would be long and difficult, and would require a great deal of hard work. Speaking plainly, she told Hercules that he would suffer. ... ‘Nothing that is really good and admirable,’ cautioned Arete, ‘is granted by the gods to men without some effort and application.’ Hercules would be called upon to exercise wisdom and justice and to face mounting adversity with bravery and self-discipline. Overcoming great obstacles through courageous and honorable deeds, the goddess said, was the only true path to fulfillment in life.”

Vice vs. Virtue. This is (ALWAYS) the ultimate choice. Our hero, of course, chose the path of virtue and became the mythic hero most admired by the Stoic philosophers.

Of course, we are given the same choice. ALL DAY. EVERY DAY.

Which leads us to the cardinal virtues. As Ryan says: “North, south, east, west—the four virtues are a kind of compass (there’s a reason that the four points on a compass are called the ‘cardinal directions’). They guide us. They show us where we are and what is true.”

Amen to that. As you know if you’ve been following along, I modified the ancient cardinal virtues into our modern Heroic cardinal virtues: Wisdom + Self-Mastery (vs. Temperance) + Courage + Love (vs. Justice).

The (VERY!) first thing I had our team design when we were developing Heroic was the virtue compass—which, as you know if you have the app—is accessible from every screen in the app. Wisdom in the north position. Self-Mastery in the south. Courage in the west. Love in the east.

Then we dropped the virtues science says are most highly correlated to flourishing as sub-points between the cardinal virtues. Hope is a blend of and sits between Wisdom and Courage. Gratitude is a blend of and sits between Wisdom and Love. Curiosity is a blend of and sits between Love and Self-Mastery. Zest is a blend of and sits between Self-Mastery and Courage.

You can scroll from virtue to virtue and access Quotes and Tools to embody more of any given virtue you may need more of in any given moment. And, each virtue has its own declaration.

Here’s to having our virtue compass ready at hand as we know the game we’re playing and how to play it well—not someday but TODAY.

There is no deed in this life so impossible that you cannot do it. Your whole life should be lived as a heroic deed
Leo Tolstoy
Aristotle described virtue as a kind of craft, something to pursue just as one pursues mastery of any profession or skill. ‘We become builders by building and we become harpists by playing the harp,’ he writes. ‘Similarly, then, we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions.’
Ryan Holiday
Man is pushed by drives. But he is pulled by values.
Viktor Frankl

Part I: Fear

“What forces prevent courage? What makes something so prized so rare? What keeps us from doing what we can and should do? What is the source of cowardice? Fear. Phobos. It’s impossible to beat an enemy you do not understand, and fear—in all its forms, from terror to apathy to hatred to playing it small—is the enemy of courage. We are in a battle against fear. So we have to study fear, get familiar with it, grapple with its causes and symptoms. This is why the Spartans built temples to fear. To keep it close. To see its power. To ward it off. The brave are not without fear—no human is—rather, it’s their ability to rise above it and master it that makes them so remarkable. In fact, it must be said that greatness is impossible without doing this. Of cowards, though, nothing is written. Name one good thing that did not require at least a few hard seconds of bravery. So if we wish to be great, we must first learn how to conquer fear, or at least rise above it in the moments that matter.”

As we discussed, like all of Ryan’s books, this book has three parts.

That’s the introductory page for Part I: Fear. After that prelude, we get our souls rattled with 21 micro-chapter-lessons on how to master our relationship with fear.

We kick the party off with a story about Florence Nightingale who grew up in great privilege in the 19th century. As Ryan (brilliantly) tells the story, on February 7, 1837, at age sixteen, she received what she later referred to as the “call.” A call to be of service to the world.

And then she ignored that call for SIXTEEN YEARS.

Which, as Ryan points out, is EXACTLY what tends to happen in the typical Hero’s Journey. Hero is called to adventure. Hero refuses the call.

But...

If we are to fulfill our destiny, at SOME POINT (!) we need to answer that call.

That requires courage.

And...

That begs the question: Are YOU being called to a Heroic adventure? Is now a good time to answer the call and give us all you’ve got?

P.S. Ryan thanks his “tireless mentor” Robert Greene in the acknowledgments. As I read the book, I was struck by just how often Ryan came back to the sense of DESTINY that many of history’s greatest heroes felt for their chosen missions. I was also reminded of parallel wisdom in Robert Greene’s brilliant book Mastery. If you haven’t read *those* Notes yet, get on that.

Here’s how Greene puts it: “Let us state it in the following way: At your birth a seed is planted. That seed is your uniqueness. It wants to grow, transform itself, and flower to its full potential. It has a natural, assertive energy. Your Life’s Task is to bring that seed to flower, to express your uniqueness through your work. You have a destiny to fulfill. The stronger you feel and maintain it—as a force, a voice, or in whatever form—the greater your chance for fulfilling this Life’s Task and achieving mastery.

What weakens this force, what makes you not feel it or even doubt its existence, is the degree to which you have succumbed to another force in life—social pressures to conform. This counterforce can be very powerful. You want to fit into a group. Unconsciously, you might feel that what makes you different is embarrassing or painful...

At all costs you must avoid such a fate. The process of following your Life’s Task all the way to mastery can essentially begin at any point in life. The hidden force within you is always there and ready to be engaged.”

P.P.S. It’s not possible for us to chat about The Hero’s Journey without chatting about Joseph Campbell and Finding Joe. If you haven’t read our Notes on The Hero with a Thousand Faces, A Joseph Campbell Companion, Pathways to Bliss, and The Power of Myth, check those out.

And... If you haven’t watched Finding Joe yet, the documentary on Campbell and the modern hero’s journey by my friend Pat Solomon (who was inspired to create it after reading Notes on Campbell btw), you can watch that for free on YouTube here.

Note: I happen to be in it alongside Deepak Chopra, Laird Hamilton, Robin Sharma, etc. I also happen to be the guy in the film who addresses this issue about answering the call!!

What fear does is deprive you of your power by making you think you don’t have any. If you don’t believe you can do something, it’s not only unlikely that you can do it, it’s guaranteed that you won’t even try. Which is why we need more people to break out of this mentality.
Ryan Holiday
Fear, before you’re actually in the battle, is a normal emotional reaction. It’s the last step of preparation, the not knowing . . . This is where you’ll prove you’re a good soldier. That first fight— that fight with yourself—will have gone. Then you will be ready to fight the enemy.
Army Life (Handbook), 1944

Part II: Courage

“Courage is the management of and triumph over fear. It’s the decision—in a moment of peril, or day in and day out—to take ownership, to assert agency, over a situation, over yourself, over the fate that everyone else has resigned themselves to. We can curse the darkness, or we can light a candle. We can wait for someone else to come and save us, or we can decide to stand and deliver ourselves. Which will it be? Every hero faces this choice. Our discrimen—the critical turning point. The moment of truth. Will you be brave? Will you put yourself out there? What will you reveal your character to be? If cowardice is failure to do your duty, then courage is the decision to step up and do it. Answering the call. Overriding fear and seizing your destiny. Doing the thing you cannot do because it needs to be done . . . with fortitude and spirit, guts and grit, even if you have no idea if you’ll succeed. This will not be easy. But we cannot fear. We must, as Shakespeare said, ‘meet the time as it seeks us.’ Our destiny is here. Let’s seize it.”

That’s the prelude to Part II on Courage in which we get 27 micro-chapter-lessons on how to cultivate our ability to APPROACH rather than to AVOID our challenges.

We talked about Courage in our last Note on Admiral William H. McRaven’s The Hero Code. As you may recall, McRaven walked us through the power of ten virtues.

The #1 virtue? Courage.

As he tells us: “None of us are immune from life’s pain and disappointment. But if you doubt for even a second that you have the courage necessary to confront the evil in the world or that weakness that resides deep inside all of us—you’re wrong. ...

We all have our lines in the sand, those fears that keep us from being courageous. But all you have to do to overcome those fears, those obstacles, those challenges in your life is to take one step forward. Just one. Take one step forward and get on the helicopter. Take one step forward and fight injustice. Take one step forward and challenge the bullies. Take one step forward and face your inner demons. And if you take that one step forward you will find the courage you seek, the courage necessary to overcome your fears and be the hero you long to be.”

The belief that an individual can make a difference is the first step. The next is understanding that you can be that person.
Ryan Holiday

Part III: The Heroic

“If courage—moral and physical—is the act of putting your ass on the line, then the definition of the heroic is very simple: It is risking oneself for someone else. It’s putting it on the line not just for your own benefit but for the benefit of someone, something, some larger cause. Is this not one of the greatest expressions of the human species? In those situations where real danger lurks, where hope has disappeared, nobody cries for a manager. Nobody cries for the calculated reasoning of a logician. They cry for action, for a hero—for someone to save them, to step up and do what we cannot do for ourselves. And in answering this call, the hero enters, however briefly, a higher plane. They touch the face of the gods. Megalopsuchia. The Stoics called it ‘greatness of soul.’ Courage plus, we might call it. De Gaulle was once asked what he meant when he spoke of France’s ‘grandeur.’ He answered: ‘The road one takes to surpass oneself.’ This, this is bravery that we hold up above the others. Because it is so rare, so much more profound, something we see only fleetingly. To get there, we must triumph over fear, we must cultivate courage in daily life, and we must be ready to seize the opportunities life presents us—however big or small. Our need for heroes is great. Will you be one?”

Welcome to the prelude for Part III: The Heroic.

Courage is a powerful virtue. In fact, as C.S. Lewis put it: “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

Yet...

Courage in and of itself is not enough to be Heroic. We can be courageous in pursuit of less than noble ends.

But...

Take Courage and add LOVE—a noble commitment to something or someone bigger than yourself and... we have the truly Heroic.

It’s been too long since we chatted about the ancient etymology of the word hero. Let’s return to our Notes on Christopher McDougall’s great book Natural Born Heroes where he tells us: “And what Plutarch taught them is this: Heroes care. True heroism, as the ancients understood, isn’t about strength, or boldness, or even courage. It’s about compassion.

When the Greeks created the heroic ideal, they didn’t choose a word that mean ‘Dies Trying’ or ‘Massacres Bad Guy.’ They went with hērōs—‘protector.’ Heroes aren’t perfect; with a god as one parent and a mortal as the other, they’re perpetually teetering between two destinies. What tips them toward greatness is a sidekick, a human connection who helps turn the spigot on the power of compassion. Empathy, the Greeks believed, was a source of strength, not softness; the more you recognized yourself in others and connected with their distress, the more endurance, wisdom, cunning, and determination you could tap into.”

Here’s to creating that Heroic strength for two, powered by Love.

Be original. Be yourself. To be anything else is to be a coward. Don’t let the opinions of cowards influence what you think or do. The future depends on it.
Ryan Holiday
We like to think we can have an extraordinary life by making ordinary decisions, but it’s not true. It’s actually all the ordinary decisions—the safe ones, recommended by every expert, criticized by no one—that make us incredibly vulnerable in times of chaos and crisis.
Ryan Holiday

What will it be, Hero?

“There is only one way we can repay them for this.

It’s by adding to it our own deeds, by picking up their ‘unfinished work.’ We must continue the tradition we have been part of, whether we know it or not. We must follow Hercules.

It begins by choosing virtue. Not virtue signaling, but virtuous living.

We can learn about virtue all we want, but when we get to the crossroads, there we will have to make a choice. ...

Whether it’s from the Bible or from Hercules or East of Eden or Faust, the parable’s message is the same: We have a choice. We choose between cowardice and courage, virtue and vice.

Courage calls us in our fear. It calls us to each act of bravery and perseverance our duties require. And it calls us beyond ourselves to a greater common good.

It’s our decision how to answer the call. Not just once but a thousand times in life. Not just in the past and the future but right now, today.

What will it be? Can you be brave? Who and what will you be brave for?

The world wants to know.”

Those are the final words of the book.

We have a choice.

Will we, as Abraham Maslow put it: Step forward into growth or back into safety? Forward into growth? Or back into safety?

+1 or -1. +1 or -1. +1 or -1.

That’s destiny math right there, my friend.

And... Know this: We don’t make that Heroic choice a thousand times in a life. We make it a THOUSAND TIMES EACH DAY.

Or, if you prefer Steven Pressfield’s perspective on it in The Artist’s Journey, we get to make that decision TEN THOUSAND TIMES each day.

So... What will it be?

Is TODAY the day for you to answer the call and fulfill your destiny?

With Wisdom + Self-Mastery + Courage + Love, I say: HEROES UNITE!

Let’s change the world. Together. One person and one virtuous act at a time.

TODAY.

What we’re willing to give— that full measure of our devotion, to the effort, to a stranger, to what must be done—that’s what takes us higher. That’s what transforms us from brave to heroic. Maybe for a moment, maybe to just one person, maybe to be enshrined in the history books for all time.
Ryan Holiday

About the author

Authors

Ryan Holiday

NYT Bestselling Author of The Obstacle Is The Way & more.
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