Chris Brogan - Its Not About the Tights: An Owners Manual on Bravery

TABLE OF CONTENTS

It's Not About the Tights. Copyright 2013 by Chris Brogan / Human Business Works.

This ebook was produced with http://pressbooks.com .

A HEROIC JOURNEY

A THOUGHT ABOUT BRAVERY

Ultimately, that is the definition of bravery: not being afraid of yourself. Chogyam Trungpa, founder of the Shambhala Buddhism lineage.

THE PART NO ONE READS: AN INTRODUCTION

My obsession with superheroes started around age 5. My grandfather was a successful candy salesman in Augusta, Maine, and he used to take me around on his route sometimes (as often as hed succumb to my begging). Along the way, hed buy me comic books (as often as hed succumb to my begging). I credit these with my lifelong love of reading, plus part of the head start I got in learning how to read better (my parents get the rest of the credit, as they are voracious readers and as they encouraged me to read to myself from an early age).

You cant read about superheroes all the time and not fall in love with their simple truth. There are bad guys and good guys and secrets and powers and all kinds of lessons that just arent all that tricky to figure out.

What I loved most about superheroes was that they were there to save us. Spider-Man would frequently swoop in and web up a car that Rhino had lobbed at standers-by for no particular reason. Batman was always out punching crooks in the teeth while trying to get back something he will never replace. The Hulk? Well, he proved that rage could conquer your bigger monsters.

Truth be told, I could write for hours about superheroes, and I would, but I also just titled this book, Its Not About the Tights.

Why?

Because I have to tell you something that was very hard for me to learn.

You are the superhero youve been waiting for.

Yep. All of that hope that someone will come and save you or that they will finally notice you? Its one of the oldest stories in the book. You need zero radioactive spider bites to be brave. You need not let someone drop a gamma bomb on you. You dont have to come from Krypton.

But, not unlike Batman, youve got to use whatever past you came from as part of the origin story that shapes the hero you will become. Meaning, in spite of his murdered parents, Batman chose to grow strong, learn detective skills, and invest in personal tools to accomplish his quest. He couldve used all that money to build himself a pleasure palace and drown himself in forgetting. But he chose to go forward and take on the world.

No matter what your background, you have to choose to be brave. Its not a gift someone can give you. You cant buy it. You can pretend to be brave, but that will just cause you further trouble eventually. You have to choose it. Often. As often as possible.

Theres this kind of superhero story that is told quite often. Spider-man has to stop some criminal while hes without his costume. Superman has to tackle some bad guys while without his powers. Over and over again, superheroes are stripped of what it is we think makes them heroic and brave.

They do this for one reason: to prove that its not about the tights.

A costume doesnt make you brave. Spider powers dont make you brave. You make yourself brave. Your choices, the ones you feel are the right ones, are what make you brave.

And you are invited right now, today, to commit to making more of those choices than ever before.

Welcome to day one. Your bravery is yours to claim. You are the superhero youve been waiting for.

Me? Im just here to talk with you. Call me your sidekick. (But while youre doing that, Ill be saying, Im Batman!)

ONE MORE THING

Though this is an ebook, Im all about the interaction. If you want to email me directly, email me at chris@hbway.com . If you want to learn more about my company, go to http://humanbusinessworks.com . If you want the very best advice I give every week for free on Sundays, grab my free newsletter at http://hbway.com/nl . I love connecting with people!

If you really want to go deep into what this book covers, check out Brave New Year , which is an eight week course that started with an active community of over 150 (and growing!) very hard-working people who are, like you, looking to make bravery a big part of their success plan for this year.

A CONFESSION

I want to start with a confession of sorts, with the hope that it will disarm the one potential fear I have about writing this book for you. (Yes, Im starting a book about bravery with a confession about fear.)

Im not brave all the time. I do not succeed at my goals all the time. There have been times (many) when I havent chosen to be brave. There will likely be more times in my life (hopefully fewer) when I will not choose to be brave.

And in this, our first lesson:

Bravery is not perfection.

You and I will learn a lot about bravery along this journey, and we will learn even more about ourselves. And yes, Ill learn more about myself on this path, too. Because thats a truth about bravery as well.

Bravery is discovery.

A few years back, I converted to Buddhism, and my experience with it has been mostly secular in nature, if that can be understood. I like the tools of Buddhism. Im not as worried with the larger theological questions. I like that it teaches me to try and be a little less biased, a little more compassionate. Thats where the two above-mentioned concepts come from, in part. But you dont have to be a Buddhist to be brave. Theres no cornered market on bravery in any specific religion or belief system.

I suppose thats true, too.

Bravery is part of your belief system.

There are many things that we believe that we do or dont practice ourselves. Some we support. Others we abhor. But we believe that they are real, that they exist. So, whether or not youre willing to own your bravery, can you agree that it exists? That its part of what you believe?

Thats a start.

CONFESSION

So back to my confession. Sometimes, I am not brave. Sometimes, I havent made the right choice. I will likely make choices that are less brave again at some point in my future. And I will seek to forgive myself. I will learn. And Ill do what I can to work on my bravery again.

There. I have confessed. Lets move on to the next part.

Bravery is about moving forward, because we can never go back.

A QUICK ASIDE ABOUT GURUS AND SEEKING GUIDANCE

Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up. Pablo Picaso

Sir Ken Robinson stated in his landmark 2006 TED talk that what kids have over adults is that theyre not afraid of being wrong. Theyll take a stab at anything. Its only as we grow up that we learn to be afraid to be wrong.

One wish I have, with all my heart, is that you learn to be wrong again.

Theres a documentary I want you to look up and watch. Its called Kumare , and it was created and produced by Vikram Gandhi. Hes a smart guy raised in the US, who later in life, decided hed like to figure out his spirituality, as we sometimes tend to do. He went back to his native homeland of India, saw the gurus there, and decided that he didnt really see anything all that interesting in what they were doing.

When he came back to the US, he felt that the gurus here werent all that much better. In fact, he just had this huge overall feeling that they were fakes, that they didnt have anything over anyone else. And so he set out to prove that people will quite often believe most anyone, because were so willing to think that its only us that dont have the answer. He created Kumare, a fake guru, and set about teaching people this one simple thing: the guru you seek is already inside you.