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CHAPTER FIVE

EVERYDAY COURAGE

Before discovered the five second rule if you asked me to give you examples of courage I would’ve given you a list of history makers. I never would’ve said the courage is what it takes some days to get out of bed, speak to your boss, pick up the phone or step on a scale. I would have told you the courage is a word used to describe acts of bravery. Courageous people in my view, were Nobel Prize winners, Malala Yousafzai, Lymah Gbowee, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, and Elie Wiesel. I would’ve thought about Winston Churchill and Britain standing up to fight against Nazi Germany or Rosa Parks standing up for her right to keep her seat on the bus and Mohammed Ali steadfast in his religious beliefs and refusing to fight in Vietnam. When I thought of courage, I would’ve been reminded of Helen Keller, who triumphed over her own disabilities to advance the rights of others or Sir Ernest Shackleton who overcame shocking, stunning odds actually to rescue the crew of the endurance. Or of Galileo, who challenged the Orthodox Church to advance science.

But after using the rule for seven years and hearing for so many people around the world, I have learned a very important certainty. Every day life is full of moments that are scary, uncertain and difficult. In facing these moments and unlocking the opportunity magic and joy in your life, it requires tremendous courage. Courage is precisely what the five second rule is going to give you. The rule gave José the courage to believe in his value and ask for a raise. As he posted on Instagram: I made a choice in five seconds to talk to my boss about my raise that I much deserved. I was determined I would let them know how much I’m worth. And he was so excited because he asked for and got a raise. And then when he checked his paycheck, he was shocked to see that he was given a bigger raise than he would even asked for, and his boss told him that he was “too valuable” and with no hesitation, not only agreed to what he asked for, but gave him even more.

The rule gave Bryce the courage to put two years into working on and publishing his first cookbook, and he didn’t stop there. He got Barnes & Noble to host a book signing. As Bryce puts it, “you can achieve anything that you’re passionate about and willing to work for. And here’s the crazy part. He was only 15 at the time, when he discovered the five second rule and made all this happen. The rule helped Martin push pass through 9 years, 9 years. How long have you been holding your self back? Martin was holding himself back for 9 years. One excuse after another, slamming on the brakes so hard and now he’s finally going back to school and pursuing a second Masters degree that’s in a give him a much more fulfilling career.

Juanita learned to listen to her inner wisdom, using the five second rule. Instead of thinking about a job search and a company that her friend just recommended, she did something she’d never done before. 54321, she picked up the phone and called right now, right when she learned about the company and guess what she got? She got exactly what you pushed herself to do. She got her dream job. Learning about the five second rule was a turning point for Gabe, and I want it to be a turning point for you, too. After realizing that “I was responsible for everything that happened in my life”, Gabe used the rule to change his life and start his own virtual reality company. And today, he’s in the middle of creating the career of his dreams. One 54321 push at a time.

Another person whose life was changed when she discovered the courage that the rule gives you is Kristin. Her life was forever altered because her boyfriend now has a way to battle his drug addiction. You see, whenever he feels the desire to “go back to one of those drugs” that he used to be addicted to, he uses the five second rule to fight his addiction retrain his mind and take control. He counts backwards 54321 whenever he feels the urge to reach for the drugs and that triggers new behavior and as she puts in his mindset completely changes and he goes about his day. Courage is in fact what I needed to get out of bed. It was scary to get out of bed because it meant facing my problems. You know, I look back on it now and it looks like a cakewalk. But when I was going through it, it felt insurmountable. It was really, really scary, to admit to myself that I was 41 years old and my life and my career had hit a dead end. It was overwhelming to consider that I might not be able to fix this.

Courage is what my daughter needs to put down the pen in her high school history class and raise her hand. It’s what your team needs to escalate their concerns to you and it’s what your kid needs to be able to talk to about what’s really going on. Putting up your online dating profile can feel like an act of bravery, so can blocking an ex on social media, adopting a new technology for your business or walking in the door of your home and facing your problems head-on, instead of pouring a drink and zoning out in front of the TV. That takes courage, too. You know, as I began to write this book and I started collecting stories of people around the world who are using the rule, it became very clear that inside every single decision that you make, there exists five seconds of courage. That can change absolutely everything about your life. And the more the word courage came up, the more I began to wonder if there was something about one of these historic moments of courage that would help me better understand the nature of courage itself.

Now, the first person that came to my mind when I thought about courage was Rosa Parks. You probably know the story of how Rosa Parks sparked the modern American civil rights movement on a chilly December evening in 1955, when she quietly refused to give up her seat on the bus for a white passenger. Her moment of courage teaches us all that it’s not the big moves that change everything. It’s the smallest ones in your everyday life that do. Now she didn’t plan what she did that night. Mrs. Parks described herself as the kind of person who “tried to be as careful as possible to stay out of trouble”. The only thing she planned on doing that evening was to get home after a long day at work and have dinner with her husband. It was just an evening when she boarded that bus, like any other evening on her commute home, until one decision changed everything. Curious about that moment and that decision, I dug in and researched everything I could find about Mrs. Parks from the national archives, biographies, radio interviews and newspaper articles. What I found is incredible.

Just weeks after her arrest on December 1, 1955 she gave a radio interview to Sidney Rogers on Pacifica radio and the national archives website has a recording of it. I listened to it, over and over and over again. Here’s how Rosa Parks described that historic moment in her own words. As the bus proceeded out of town on the third stop, the white passengers had filled up the front of the bus. When I got on the bus, the rear was filled with colored passengers and they were beginning to stand. The seat I occupied was the first of the seats for the Negro passengers, take as they-on this route. The driver noted that the front of the bus was filled with white passengers and there would be two or three men standing. He looked back and demanded the seats that we were occupying. The other passengers very reluctantly gave up their seats, but I refused to do so. The driver said that if I refused to leave the seat, he would have to call the police and I told him just call the police. Then the radio interviewer asked her the million dollar question. Here is the question: what in the world ever made you decide to be the person who after all these years of Jim Crow and segregation, what made you at that particular moment decide you were going to keep that seat? She replied, very simply, I felt that I was not being treated right and that I had a right to retain the seat that I had taken as a passenger on that bus. He pressed her again, noting that she’d been mistreated for years. I mean, she had ridden this bus every night home after work. She knew the driver you guys. He wanted to know what made her decide in that moment. She paused and she said, the time had just come that I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed, I suppose. He asked her if she planned it. She said no. He asked her if it just sort of happened and she agreed. Just sort of happened.

Now, this is a critical detail. Rosa Parks didn’t hesitate or think it through. It happened so fast, she just listened to her instincts. Her instincts were signaling her. You’re not being treated right and she pushed herself to follow them. Now, since she didn’t hesitate, there was no time to talk herself out of it, was there? Imagine if she had stopped and thought about it. She didn’t. You know, coincidentally four days later in that same city of Montgomery, Alabama on December 5, 1955 there was another five second decision that changed history. The Montgomery improvement Association was formed in response to Mrs. Parks arrest and a 26-year-old black preacher was voted by his peers to lead the 381 day bus boycott that ensued. On being nominated to lead the boycott that night, the young preacher would later write: It happened so quickly that I did not have time to think it through. It is probable that if I had, I would’ve declined the nomination. Thank goodness he didn’t stop and think. He would become one of the greatest civil rights leaders of all time. His name Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King was pushed into the spotlight by his peers. He was nominated and he didn’t stop and think. Rosa pushed herself. They both experienced the power of a push. It’s a moment when your instincts, your values and your goals align and you move so quickly, you don’t have time or reason to stop yourself. Your heart speaks. You don’t think. You listen. You listen to what your heart tells you to do. Greatness, it’s not a personality trait. It’s inside all of us. It’s inside of you and sometimes it’s really hard to see it. I mean, Rosa Parks was described by everybody who knew her as quiet and shy. She never thought she would “be the one” to do such a thing. And you probably don’t think you’re the one to do such a thing either. Dr. King, he famously struggled with self-doubt and fear in the beginning days of the civil rights movement.

Reflecting back on the radio that night in 1956, you know what Rosa Parks said? The interviewer actually asked her about this, about, you know, did you plan this and you know, did you think it through? And Mrs. Parks said, I hadn’t thought I’d be the person to do this. It hadn’t occurred to me. Probably hasn’t occurred to either what great things you might accomplish and be capable of at work or in your lifetime. I wanted to tell you Rosa Parks example because it shows you that we are all more than capable of finding the courage to act out of character when the moment matters. Yes, it’s true, as Rosa explained on air in 1956 that she was pushed as far as she could stand to be pushed, by a system of discrimination, but in that singular moment, she was pushed forward by something way more powerful, herself.

That’s what courage is. Courage is a push. The kind of push we give ourselves when we stand up, speak up, show up, go first, raise our hand or do whatever feels hard, scarier in certain. Do not look at your heroes in history, in business, in art, in music and assume that somehow, somehow they’re different than you. It’s not true. Courage is a birthright. It’s inside each and every one of us. You were born with it and you can tap into it anytime you want. It’s not a matter of confidence. Courage is not a matter of education or status or personality or profession. It is simply a matter of knowing how to find it when you need it. And when you need it, I guarantee you, you are going to be alone. It’s going to be just you sitting there, in a meeting at work, standing in your kitchen, riding the subway, you’re gonna be looking at your phone or thinking about something and all of a sudden, it’s gonna happen. Something’s gonna go down and your instincts, they’re gonna come alive. You’re gonna have this urge to act. Your values, there gonna tell you what you should do. And your feelings, you know what your feelings are gonna do?Your feelings are gonna scream, no. That is the push moment. You don’t have to have the answers. You just have to make a decision in the next five seconds.

Dan was alone at his computer, thinking about registering for summer classes. You see, he wants to earn his college degree but at the age of 44, the idea of starting as a freshman, is nothing short of terrifying. Courage is what Christine needs. She’s sitting in a marketing meeting in Plano, Texas. She has this great idea to share but she wonders. Is this gonna sound stupid? Tom, he’s alone. He’s standing in a bar in Chicago. That’s the moment he sees her. He can’t look away. Now, he can either turn back towards his friends and pretend to care about the football game they’re discussing or he can find the courage to start walking toward her. The entire sales organization of a financial software company feels discouraged right now in Nashville. They’ve hit their numbers three years in a row and quotas they just got raised again.

Alice in England, she needs to push yourself out the door to go for a run. She’s inspired by her friend on Facebook. But boy oh boy, does she feel discouraged by how long it’s been since she exercise last? And halfway around the world, Patel, he cannot stop thinking about a friend whose son just died in a car accident. He doesn’t know what to say, and the thought of losing his own son terrifies him. He tells himself, okay, it’ll be easier if I just wait a few days. But the urge, the instinct to pick up the phone, to stop by the house, to go see his friend, to do something lingers and scares him. In China, Sy has just signed on as a distributor for a new skincare line. Now, she’s got at least a dozen people she wants to call and she’s alone as she looks at her phone and hesitates. What if they think I’m being pushy?

In Queensland, Todd knows exactly what he wants to do with his life and it isn’t studying law, it’s physical education. He’s sitting alone in taxation class but before Todd can take control of his future, he’ll need the courage to face his parents disappointment. And Mark, Mark is lying in bed in Auckland. It’s 10:30 at night and he turns and he looks at his wife a she’s reading her book. He would love to make love to her, but he assumes she’s not the mode. He really wants to lean toward her, kiss her shoulder but he’s terrified of getting rejected. He needs courage to lean toward her after so many months of feeling like a roommate.

These stories are real and are just the tip of the iceberg. They highlight the struggle between our desire to change our lives and our fear of it. They also reveal the power that every day courage has to transform everything. Seth Godin once wrote, a different part of our brains is activated when we think about what’s possible, rather than what’s required. I believe the same is true when we think about being courageous, rather than focusing on the fears that stop us. It’s the difference between focusing on the solution rather than the problem. And that tiny, tiny switch is mentally liberating. There’s something powerful when you frame my struggle to get out of bed, Patel struggle to call his friend, a sales organization’s struggle to embrace a higher sales goal, and Alice’s struggle to exercise as acts of every day courage. After all, courage is just a push. When you push yourself, you may not change the world, the laws or spark a civil rights movement, but I guarantee you, you’ll change something equally as important-you’ll change yourself.