Without courage the world would not be where it is today, and it will not be where it needs to be tomorrow. The anonymous student who stood in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square, Elon Musk (eek!), Donald Trump (bigger eek!), Martin Luther King, Ghandi.....the list goes on forever. You may not like or agree with the characters above but one element they do possess is courage and yes, ignorance, idiocy, particularly where one character is concerned! 

In putting my thoughts about courage down on paper I envisaged writing about some physical act like jumping off a cliff with a flying suit on. Cause I do stuff like that and believe me, it requires courage, oh, and stupidity! This kind of courageous act is visible. It is the invisible kind of courage that is really impressive.

I was working in the States recently and in particular there is a lady there that we have worked with for a couple of years. She is called Nadene and she is an amazing person. She is black, Caribbean and moved to the USA at the age of 21 as a self-confident woman from a loving family. She had her children in the USA and her middle daughter, Carlee, at the age of 7 said one day “Mum, I’m different. Look at my gymnastics team picture” Nadene looked and couldn’t see it. Carlee pointed out she was the only black person in the photo. Nadene brushed it off and said “Carlee, that’s ok, it’s ok, it doesn’t matter”....because of course, Nadene had arrived from the Caribbean a self-confident adult and not been exposed to this type of experience, particularly in her formative childhood years. Now, Nadene has courage, courage in abundance and she is sensitive, self-aware and would probably be in the shortlist for Best Mums in the World award. Together with my Mum! So, she stopped herself and thought I cannot just impress and influence Carlee that its ok and not to worry. Carlee has to learn. So, Nadene made Carlee draw pictures of moments, over the next few years, when she felt emotional and Nadene wrote the words. 8 years later they have published their children’s book “I Love My Kinky Hair”, to help others with their emotions and have just completed a mini book tour where Carlee (aged 15 now) presents her story to the crowd, which recently was to a large corporate audience of 60 senior people who are trying to address their D&I issues. Wow-that’s courage, invisible but you can see it! Nadene and Carlee, you are our role models!