# 41: Courage Is More Important than Genius
Story behind the Passage
On some days, writing is fucking hard. It does not happen to me very often but it does. The only thing that makes you go on when something is hard is habit. Habit liberates you from thinking about “should I or should I not and just skip it today” — whatever that “it” may be.
Whenever I have days when I do not feel like writing but I have to (because this blog is my habit), I try to think of any topic that might have occupied my mind or touched me in some way on this particular day. Usually, these days when writing is hard are quiet days when not many conversations happen and not many things touch me.
Today, the only thing that I could come up with is courage. I do not really know why. Maybe it was because I rode the horse this afternoon and I wondered what it would be like to be sitting on one of these really huge horses that are 15 inches taller than mine. Would that take more courage? And I read an article about a local education association in my suburb where one of the members of the steering committee had resigned from office because she had discovered irregularities that her colleagues are still trying to conceal. Does that take courage?
I think, it is not even a particular reason that makes me think of courage today. Rather, since I have been running my own business for two years now, courage is a constant topic in the back of entrepreneurs’ minds but we never actually see it that way. Only when I sometimes tell others about what I do, “regular” employees somewhere or even civil servants, they often go like: “Wow, you are so brave.”
Honestly, I hardly ever think of it that way but as soon as they say things like this, I know it is true — at least kind of. But the reason why some people become entrepreneurs, especially the very young ones, is because they falsely assume that it is easy to found your own business — at least easier than climbing the ladder of success in some corporation. I do not think you can easily compare the two but entrepreneurship definitely is not easy.
But it is fun.
It is fulfilling.
There is really no alternative if you are that kind of person.
The reason why I then grabbed the book Zero to One by Peter Thiel today is because that book might or might not be a reason why some people think that startups are rockets that reach unbelievable heights within the blink of an eye. Actually, the book does not suggest that if you actually read it carefully but many of these Silicon Valley myths circulate because some people never read entire books and just pick up one title or one slogan which then becomes the ultimate message of the book.
Instead of talking about startups in detail, I only want to talk about this passage on courage now because it jumped right at me when I opened the book to find something relevant for my writing today. And in fact, I am pretty happy I found it because it does trigger many thoughts.
My Learnings
“Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.” You know, having grown up in Germany, I have learned a lot about the history of the Berlin Wall and Reunification. Even though, I was too young to ever go to the GDR myself when it still existed (well, I was six when the wall came down, so I could have gone but we simply never went as a family). But I watched many movies about this history and saw many documentaries. And there is always this one question I ask myself: “Would I have had the courage to flee?”
One thing I am pretty sure of is that I would have spoken up and ended up in jail. But again, all this “would have” and “could have” is bullshit. One cannot know about any hypothetical alternatives. All these scnearious just exist in your thinking and that in itself is fine because we all create our own “reality” in our mind. But it says nothing about my actual courage.
What I know, however, is that the lack of courage pisses me of a lot. And I really mean: a lot.
I know this because in these movies about the GDR, for example, when there is some scene about an injustice done to someone — well, this entire system relied on injustice, of course — and I see that all others are just quietly watching the “hero” and/or the “victim,” it makes me so angry. Really, the parts in movies in which extreme injustice is being displayed make me cry much more often than some romantic scenes or tragic deaths. All these things are also very touching but if I am really being honest to myself — I always try to be — it is injustice that moves me most.
So, obviously, I am linking injustice to the lack of courage here because it is usually one person only who shows courage and all others are standing around watching and trying to stay out of the situation; trying to not be held responsible for anything. This really freaks me out. This is why the tears that usually come up when I see this — not just on television, also in real life — are caused by anger, not by sadness in the first place.
I once was on the bus and there was this lady from Africa sitting in one of the seats with her child next to her. Most other seats were empty, so there was plenty of room. And then this old guy, probably 70 or older, came in and immediately headed for exactly the seat that the lady was sitting in. He just pointed at her with his finger and commanded: “Get up, you anti-social pack, you do not belong here anyways, go back to your country, do not take my seat.”
I was furious. I looked at the lady and she first tried to ignore him. I was glad, she did not just get up immediately without resisting. But she did not want any big argument either. The guy repeated what he had said and looked as if he was getting physical. I simply could not resist. In these moments, I just act like a robot, I cannot hold back. I stepped up to him and told him to take one of the other seats. “You have no right to be talking to any human being like this,” I said while furiously starring him in the eye. Then he responded something and I only remember that I had to repeat what I had said for a few times before he finally gave in and went to some other seat.
I have no idea why I just remembered exactly this episode because there were so many similar ones in my life. Probably, it is because this was the most recent one. I do not know. In any case, I know that in these situations, I always use the word “right.” As a society, we are talking so much about personal rights during the Covid pandemic now. But to me, the moments when you are immediately confronted with someone else whose rights are being violated in that very instance, that shows me the full magnitude of the word.
So, how is all this related to “genius” and the sentence above?
Well, I sort of sidetracked myself here. But maybe not. I completely agree with this finding that courage is more important than genius. In fact, genius — whatever that means — is worth NOTHING if you do not have the courage to use it, to apply it. Applying something always goes along with some public visibility. Be it on the bus, in some political regime or in your own business environment. As soon as you start applying your brain power, you are under observation — your own self-critical observation and the one by others.
In other words: If you fail with whatever you are doing, it will be noted. And this might immediately endanger the status of your “genius.” Since humans are vain, they always worry about their genius. But that is stupid. And as soon as you become an entrepreneur, you notice how stupid this is. To the contrary, your brain is even disturbing you very often because you are trying to make things more complex without you even noticing this. And complexity means difficult to implement. Then you are where you started: you still need a lot of courage to do anything at all and move forward.
If I continue thinking about this from a really big picture perspective, all history was made by people who were courageous. If they were more intelligent, had more genius than others, we will never know. But they, in contrast to all others, decided to take action to start wars, end wars, rescue people, kill people, tear down walls, help people flee, etc. So, courage is the one and only factor that decides over practically anything in human interaction.
You know what?
Should we not turn courage into a school subject?
When did we even stop teaching courage?
Reflection Questions
1) Who taught you to be courageous?
2) Choose three of your role models: What exactly makes them special? Think of their special features, not their achievements.
3) What is a step that you do not dare taking so far? Which mentor could give you more information on this particular step?