Living the Life of a Filler
I can’t get enough of the human-interest stories that news programs produce. I think they are fascinating. These stories provide a glimpse into real lives, and they demonstrate the truth that every person has a story worth telling.
Thanks to the Today Show, I got to learn a little about Mr. Tyrone Curry. He is a Vietnam veteran, a high school janitor with 35 years on the job, the high school’s track coach, and the winner of a $3.4 million lottery.
There are many aspects of Mr. Curry’s story that I found fascinating to learn about, but the one theme that really jumped out to me was how focused he was on supporting other people. He’s spending $40,000 this summer to build a state of the art track field for his team. He wants to build a better tennis court complex to support the tennis coach and team.
One example soared though. One of his senior students lost his mom to a heart attack quite suddenly. The boy’s father isn’t around, and the honor student started to flounder. The young man was just going through the motions of life and didn’t see how his future could get better. And one day Coach Curry pulled him aside and walked down the track with him. In a few words, he reminded the boy that he wasn’t on his own. Mr. Curry is going to pay for this young man’s college education.
It seems to me that Mr. Curry understands the importance of supporting and encouraging other people. When Curry’s dream to become a teacher was cut short 35 years ago due to budget cuts, he found a way to stay within the education field by becoming a janitor and coach. He shifted his medium, but his purpose remained the same. Mr. Curry is a living example of what we would call a “Filler.” He looks for ways to encourage other people to succeed in the face of challenge, to be courageous, and gets so much fulfillment from that act of support.
I love these real life examples of how people support one another. Have you had a person encourage you at critical moments of your life? Tell us about your experience.
Also, if you want to learn more about Mr. Curry, head over here at MSNBC.
Courage is Local
In every town in America there are mementos that connect the community to courageous heroes from the past. In one town it might be a sacred display honoring fallen veterans. In another it might be a plaque designating the spot where the local hero was born.
I’ve gotten to see a good number of these vestiges of courage while traveling on business. I’ve stood solemnly at the gravesite memorial of Martin Luther King, Jr., in Atlanta, Georgia, right next to the Ebenezer Baptist church where he did most of his preaching. Off the coast of North Carolina, at Cape Fear, I’ve read a plaque that points to the spot where a ship perished. Closer to home, in my hometown of Asheville, I’ve read the plaque that honors Kiffin Rockwell, an ace fighter pilot from World War 1.
Last week I got to do something really special, and it definitely connects to the idea of courage. I attended an event at Pearl Harbor, on the USS Missouri, the battleship where the Empire of Japan surrendered at the end of World War II. Dubbed “Mighty Mo”, the ship fought at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, suffered a direct hit to her starboard side during a Kamikaze raid, and even served during Operation Desert Storm after being reactivated in 1991. This ship is practically a floating museum of courage.
The USS Missouri is only one courage remnant that locals on the Hawaiian island of Oahu can draw inspiration from. There are plenty of others, and not just at Pearl Harbor. As with most communities, big and small, there are artifacts that honor courageous people. While in Hawaii, I also saw a statue honoring Duke Paoa Kahanamoku, a five-time Olympic swimmer and the person most credited with populating the sport of surfing, and another paying homage to King Kamehameha, who conquered and unified the Hawaiian Islands and established the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Courage is easy to find if you make finding it your goal. I promise you that you won’t have to look very far. Just look for the plaques, gravesites, dedications, walls, and monuments in your own home town. When you realize how much courage surrounds you, it becomes easier to put your own courage to work.
Bill Treasurer is the originator of the new organizational development practice of courage-building. He is the author of Courageous Leadership: A Program for Using Courage to Transform the Workplace, an off-the-shelf training toolkit that organizations can use to build workplace courage. He is also the author of the internationally bestselling book, Courage Goes to Work. Bill has led courage-building workshops for, among others, NASA, Accenture, CNN, PNC Bank, SPANX, Hugo Boss, Saks Fifth Avenue, and the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Learn more at www.couragebuilding.com.
The First Virtue
Here’s the deal, if you resolve yourself to live a courageous life, by making courage the foundational virtue of your life, all of the other virtues – like compassion, justice, patience, and honor – are strengthened and emboldened. Courage is The First Virtue because it makes all the other virtues possible. Aristotle said that. And many others have echoed that idea throughout the ages, from Winston Churchill to Martin Luther King.
Let’s be clear from the get-go, courage is NOT fearlessness. Think about those times when you put your courage in action. Wasn’t your pulse thumping, your palms sweating, and your stomach teeming with rioting butterflies? That’s not fearlessness. It’s the opposite. When you exercised your courage you were full of fear. Courage is not fearlessness, it is fearfulness. But, and this is key, rather than running away from fear, courage carries on in spite of it.
While courage may be the first virtue, it is also one of those human qualities that we admire when we see it, partly because of its rarity. We admire it in others because its presence in them heightens the awareness of the lack of it in ourselves. The courage they have is the courage we’d like to have. Rarely do we describe ourselves as being courageous, mostly because we are keenly aware of the big gap between the courage we have exhibited and the courage we’d like to exhibit. Most of use want, and need, more courage.
Which brings us to the purpose of this blog; to build people’s courage; collectively, individually, and thoughtfully. Think of it as a Courage Laboratory where we can come together and share ideas about how to build each other’s courage. Let’s face it, this world can be a terrifying place. The news media seems hell-bent on reminding us of that every day. In such a world it is important to put courage inside of each other – to encourage one another. Going forward, The First Virtue will be a repository of encouragement; offering tips and ideas for living and working courageously.
To make this work, we need to hear from you! Please share your stories with us. What role has courage played in your life or career? What examples can you share about when you wish you had acted with greater courage? Who do you admire for their courage? What tips can you share to help build people’s courage? Send us your thoughts!
