Courage + cowardice
Today's message is a bit different than usual. But stick with me, I think it'll be interesting.
Sometimes, creativity just seems to be nothing more than combining disparate or unexpected ideas. Just a good ol' game of connecting the dots.
So, that's what I'm doing today. Weaving together several quotes from very smart people as a way to deliver a message.
Let's kick it off with this quote from Brian Collins:
The opposite of courage is not cowardice. The opposite of courage is conformity.
Here's an example of courage over conformity so powerful I'm just going to directly quote it so I don't screw it up. It's from The Daily Dad (January 8):
On April 1, 1933, shortly after coming to power in Germany, the Nazis held a boycott of all Jewish businesses. It was the first small persecution of many to come. But too many mothers and fathers who had talked to their kids about doing the right thing simply went along with it.
Not everyone, of course. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's ninety-nine-year-old grandmother, for instance. On that day, she was out shopping and she refused to be told whose businesses she could support. She ignored or dodged the Nazi troops stationed in front of stores and shopped wherever she liked. Their grandmother "marching past Nazi gorillas" came to be seen in the Bonhoeffer family as "an embodiment of the values they sought to live by.
That embodiment wasn't lost on Dietrich, who ten years later would lose his life plotting to assassinate Hitler. Even though he was a pastor, even though he had plenty of opportunities to escape Germany and live in peace and freedom in London or America, he stayed. His grandmother's example guided him, showed him how to live by his values.
DAMN.
Yeah, obviously in the grand scheme of life and humanity, telling Nazis to fuck off is more important than your branding.
But that's not the point.
The point is if this little old lady had the courage to stand up to Nazis, the least you could do is have the courage to live up to the values and words of your company.
That story is an incredible example of the trickle-down effect that's possible when embodying a system of values.
Your brand guide or brand book can say all the flowery woo-woo shit in the world, but none of it will matter if nobody embodies it.
Even better than a brand guide is when a CEO or any other HBIC level folks are walking, talking embodiments of the brand.
A brand and its people need to have the courage to live up to their words.
Otherwise, all you have are fancy words in a book or in a slide deck.
And, I don't think I need to explain to anyone that slide decks are not what inspire people.
Another dot to connect from C.S. Lewis:
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.
And one from Maya Angelou:
Without courage we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency.
FREAKING FIRE EMOJIS
All those values, those aspirational mission and vision statements, the big words you say about your culture...
All that shit is pointless if you're not willing to be about it.
✌️Rvw
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