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Friday, March 23, 2012

Confidence and Courage

Last night I was watching the two Brene Brown Ted Talks videos back-to-back. Her 2010 Ted Talk on her research into shame and vulnerability http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html was a huge Internet success, and listening to her follow-up lecture is insightful on several levels. Check out the second talk, just up this week on the TED site: http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame.html

I was taken with Brown's humor and honesty. She describes the word courage as a word that comes from the Latin word for heart, and that when the word first entered the English language it was used to "tell the story of who you are with your whole heart."

When I first saw the magnificent David while visiting Florence a few years ago, I was struck by the nearly palpable presence of the young and courageous David as he steps forward to approach the giant, Goliath. The tension and movement is amazing contained in a piece of large, static marble. I was telling a good friend about my experience and I remarked, "What was so clear was his courage!"

I remember to this day that she spoke in a low, calm tone and said, "It was not his courage, it was his confidence that you saw." I was surprised and asked her to explain the difference. "Courage would mean that David faced his fear and overcame it to fight the giant. What David had was confidence, meaning 'with faith'. That's what confidence means, literally." I remembered the Spanish word for faith, "fe" as in Santa Fe,  or holy faith.

Brene Brown's talks remind me that we do well to consider and study the ideas of courage and vulnerability and to hope we have the confidence to be our whole-hearted selves facing our own Goliaths.



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