One month ago a client told me that he thought I was very brave.
He told me that I had a lot of courage, and until today I dismissed the comment because for me, being brave means overcoming all your fears or overcoming extraordinary challenges, like climb the highest mountain in the world, or my case, entering in an aquarium with a lot of snakes.
Never came to my mind that I was demonstrating bravery every day, but the reality is that we all do. When we started our internal campaign, talking about InnoWave’s values, I realized that different perspectives may coexist for the same values of courage, ambition and bravery.
Make Decisions
The dictionary definition of courage is “the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain…without fear.” however if we look at a more entrepreneurial spectrum, we deal every day with several obstacles and a multitude of fears as a part of our daily lives and for the most part, we dismiss our ability to overcome these as not worthy of acknowledgement.
For the past few years, I’ve been giving a training session at InnoWave focused on Stephen R. Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. One thing I’ve learned through my path, is that recognizing your courage and bravery, no matter how insignificant the situation may seem to you, is empowering, it fuels your self-confidence, personal and professional power and this is the reason why all InnoWave leaders should continue to recognize every act of courage from their employees.
It’s true that when we become part of this ” world of work” or in a new company or a new challenge, we always have the following fears:
- “Afraid of becoming stagnant and complacent.”
- “Afraid of not being in control.”
- “Afraid that I won’t be able to get the job done.”
And there is no harm in having these fears, but it is also true that we can be afraid of joint construction of the following habits:
- Remind yourself that fear isn’t always helpful
- Have confidence in yourself, believe that your ideas are good, express your ideas and defend your view
- Embrace failure as part of the pathway to success
- Calculate risk-taking, re-think risk and think big
- Take initiative, show initiative and save time for your company
- And most important of all ‘remember to breathe’ important activity in decision making
In January I turned 10 years working at InnoWave. During my career path, I went through so many different functions, always challenging myself every day and I was afraid so many times but I always continued to do my best, I worked hard for 7 years to reach the Manager position. My main job role at the moment was due to a lot of courage aligned with ambition and bravery, for sure and obviously for all the recognition over time of my teams, peers and leaders. I love the following quote from one of Rocky Balboa’s films “But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”, so never give up on your desires and goals.
Challenge yourself
Challenge yourself , challenge your team leader, don’t be passive but active, find places where you can bring value and help to grow your organization and outside of work always try to put your stamp on everything you do because only then you will have a happy life and happiness feeds our soul.
by Tiago Correia, Head of Staffing