I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
—NELSON MANDELA1
Patriotism runs high in Bladenboro, North Carolina. This was especially so in the years following World War II. Barry Bridger was adopted in 1945 by H. C. Bridger, Jr., the son of the founder of Bladenboro. Barry had faint recollections of the war, but as he grew up, he knew he wanted to serve his country, just like the adults he loved had done around the globe during the war. His stepbrother, McCrea Bridger, flew in the Ferry Command in World War II and served as an early inspiration for Barry to someday join the military. Barry went to high school at the Sewanee Military Academy in Sewanee, Tennessee. There, his interest in military service was further strengthened, and he matriculated at the University of North Carolina in 1958. With the advent of the jet age and early space exploration, Barry eagerly joined the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at the university and, upon graduation in 1962, received his commission as a second lieutenant in the US Air Force. Flight school and assignments to operational Air Force fighter squadrons soon followed. The US involvement in the Vietnam War was rapidly escalating, and Bridger, now a captain, was soon flying combat missions over both South and North Vietnam.
January 23, 1967, is a day that Captain Bridger will never forget. Flying with the 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron based at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Bridger’s F-4 Phantom fighter plane was disabled over North Vietnam. Forced to eject, he was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese and soon found himself in the infamous Hỏa Lò prison, known among its American prisoners as the Hanoi Hilton. Thus began an ordeal of 2,232 days as a prisoner of war (POW), which would end with his repatriation on March 4, 1973. His character, forged by his parents and loving community as a youth, now faced a test.
Conditions at the Hanoi Hilton were horrible. Bridger and his fellow prisoners were chronically underfed. Poorly clothed, even in the relatively mild weather of the dry season, they were often cold. Things were worse during the monsoon season, when the mean high temperature in Hanoi exceeds ninety degrees Fahrenheit and lows often drop only to the low eighties. Worse was the humidity, averaging 85 percent during the monsoon, resulting in a heat index exceeding 130 degrees on many days. Rodents, insects, and even snakes were common. It was the perfect recipe for illness, and many of the prisoners suffered continually from intestinal distress and other chronic diseases. Hard enough for a healthy person to endure, these ailments were potentially deadly for the POWs.
The prisoners were subjected to frequent torture and physical abuse, sometimes so extreme that it crippled them for weeks or months at a time. The guards could come get them at any time, without warning. There was no safe time to relax, to heal, and to get their heads together. And there was no end in sight. By the time Bridger was released, he had been a POW for six years and forty days. Others endured for even longer. Army captain Floyd James Thompson was captured on March 26, 1964, after his observation airplane was shot down. Thompson has the dubious distinction of being the longest-held American POW during the Vietnam War, spending nearly nine years (3,278 days) in captivity, the last six years of which were in the Hanoi Hilton. The uncertainty of when, or even if, they would ever be released added to the horror of their situation and, for some, led to despair and hopelessness.
Years later, long retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel, Bridger recalled his experience:
If you were captured by the North Vietnamese, you were placed into a concrete box. You had no idea what was about to happen. You were all alone with your thoughts and values. Eventually you were taken to an interrogation and given two choices. Cooperate fully with the North Vietnamese camp authority, or go to the torture chamber.2
Bridger received numerous awards and medals for his experience and service to his country. One was the Silver Star, which is the third-highest award that the US Air Force bestows for valor (the highest being the Medal of Honor). His Silver Star citation illustrates what he endured while recognizing his character strength of devotion to duty to enable him to persevere under such conditions:
This officer distinguished himself by gallantry and intrepidity in action in connection with military operations against an opposing armed force while a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam. Ignoring international agreements on treatment of prisoners of war, the enemy resorted to mental and physical cruelties to obtain information, confessions and propaganda materials. This American resisted their demands by calling upon his deepest inner strengths in a manner which reflected his devotion to duty and great credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.3
We conclude Barry Bridger’s story with something he said on his return to the United States after more than six years as a POW. His statement summarizes his character and his honorable service as a prisoner of war: “Now I’ve come home with the satisfaction of knowing I served with honor.”
Most of us, thankfully, will never have to fly a combat mission over enemy territory. By virtue of being human, each of us inevitably faces situations requiring moral courage, grit, or integrity and—perhaps when you least expect it—physical courage as well. It takes moral courage to deal with a life-threatening illness. Equally important are integrity and honesty. In many ways, doing something that is physically brave is easier than being consistently honest and of high integrity. A police officer chasing an armed suspect must have physical bravery. The brave act is over, and you move on. But we face challenges to our integrity and honesty daily. You can’t let your defenses down. Foul up just once and it may take years to regain trust and confidence among others. In this spirit, West Point cadets are taught to choose “the harder right” over “the easier wrong.”4
For Bridger and his fellow POWs, moral courage—standing up for what is right even when it may cause you harm—enabled them to persevere and endure. These values came from their upbringing, their spiritual beliefs, and from values of honor and integrity inculcated in them from their military training and culture. Their focus was on others, not themselves. It is difficult to imagine the resolve it took to sustain this focus for the long months and years of captivity. As Bridger observed:
For America’s Vietnam POWs, the depravity and evil of our existence ravaged our minds and bodies; but the values of a good heart, the strength of our spirit was empowered by each selfless act to rally around those in greater need than ourselves. It was a point of honor, therefore, to remain in the torture chamber as long as possible to deny its use for a fellow POW.5
There is more to understanding the strengths of the gut than simply recognizing the distinction between physical and moral courage. Psychologists Paul Lester and Cynthia Pury point out three factors that must be present for an act to be considered courageous.6
The courageous act must involve a conscious and deliberate decision. Captain Bridger volunteered to serve in the Air Force and chose to be a fighter pilot. He put himself, by conscious choice, into harm’s way. This applies equally well to moral courage. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood by his values, risking personal harm and ruin, for the betterment of others. Certainly, he showed remarkable physical courage. But his moral courage was what inspired his generation and generations to come.
History is full of such iconic figures. Some are household names such as Florence Nightingale or more recently, Mother Teresa. Others are less well known, such as Sophie Scholl. Scholl’s story is both inspiring and illustrative of the power of moral courage. Scholl was a Munich university student who joined her brother and friends to set up an underground resistance movement in World War II. Arrested by the Nazis in 1943, she was executed by guillotine on February 22, 1943. Like all youths of that period, Scholl was indoctrinated with Nazi propaganda, but she quickly identified with the anti-Nazi views of her father and her older brother, Hans. Outraged after learning of the mass execution of Russian prisoners of war on the eastern front and the mass murder of Jews, Scholl and a small group of dissenters began writing and distributing pamphlets calling for passive resistance of the Nazi regime. Scholl was arrested for distributing these pamphlets, found guilty of treason, and executed, along with her brother Hans and another student, Christoph Probst. Sophie’s words, reflecting her utter devotion to fighting the evils of the Nazi regime, echo to this day: “What does my death matter if, through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action.”7
Daily, moral courage makes a tremendous impact on the quality of our lives. The actions of the student who stands up against bullies in school may not make the headlines or the history books, but is essential nonetheless, as the foundation of a civil society.
To be considered courageous, the act must be done in pursuit of a goal that is valued by society. Captain Bridger’s physical and moral courage was motivated by his love of his fellow POWs and for his country, not by personal gain. In contrast, some people engage in foolish and dangerous behaviors that serve no higher purpose. Watch America’s Funniest Home Videos or spend some time watching YouTube videos. A fad among teens is the Bird Box challenge—driving while blindfolded and livestreaming it or putting it on social media. Driving while blindfolded is not courageous; it is simply foolish!
True courage requires you to have some skin in the game. This may be physical, moral, or both. Captain Bridger refused to cooperate with his captors’ demands to divulge sensitive military information or to make statements that would sully the reputation of his country. He could cooperate with the enemy and compromise his oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, or he could refuse and go to the torture chamber. He chose torture or even the prospect of death rather than sacrificing his values.
Another exemplar of courage is Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat assigned to a Lithuanian consulate in 1939. Recognizing the peril they faced under Nazi rule, many Jews fled to Lithuania in hopes of finding refuge there or as a waypoint to other destinations. To travel legally without a visa was nearly impossible, especially for Jews. Seeing the persecution of Jewish people, and anticipating even more draconian actions, Sugihara repeatedly asked his superiors for permission to grant individual Jews and Jewish families transit visas so they could escape. Each time he asked, he was denied.
So, by his own choice, at great personal risk, and for a noble cause, Sugihara defied his superiors and issued transit visas to Jews as fast as he could write them (a task done by hand in those days). In every spare moment, day and night, he wrote visas. He did this from July 31 until September 4, 1940, when the consulate closed and he was forced to leave. As he left, he gave his visa stamp to a refugee, so more visas could be issued. Sugihara’s actions are estimated to have allowed six thousand Jews to escape the Nazis. An estimated forty thousand descendants of these Jewish families came into the world because of his selfless actions.
Why did Sugihara do this? He could have faced imprisonment or even execution from his own government for defying orders. His family could have suffered as well. When asked why he did this, he replied simply, “We had thousands of people hanging out the windows of our residence, there was no other way.” Nine years before his death in 1986, he said, “I told the ministry of foreign affairs it was a matter of humanity. I did not care if I lost my job. Anyone else would have done the same thing if they were in my place.”8 Others see his courage in a different light. In 1984, Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the Holocaust, recognized Mr. Sugihara as a Righteous Among the Nations, an honor bestowed to non-Jews who risked their lives during World War II to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis. To this day, he remains the only Japanese citizen to receive this honor.
The three attributes of the moral virtue of courage are indeed important considerations, but we think there are several more.
Consider the case of Brendan Marrocco. One of the deadliest threats to American soldiers in Iraq was the explosive-formed projectile (EFP), a shaped charge designed to penetrate armor by deforming a metal plate into an armor slug. It is used along with other roadside bombs, called improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
On the evening of April 11, 2009, the night before Easter Sunday, a patrol in Salah ad Din province was returning to their base when the second vehicle in the convoy triggered an EFP, which immediately penetrated the door of a mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle (known as an MRAP). These vehicles are armored to protect occupants against many of the IEDs. As the war progressed, the enemy developed the EFP into a roadside IED, designed to penetrate the MRAP’s door and create a deadly metal spray inside the vehicle. This EFP tore into the driver’s arms and legs and severely wounded both the gunner and vehicle commander.
The driver was Private First Class Brendan Marrocco, from Staten Island, New York. Brendan’s injuries were significant. Both of his arms and both of his legs were mangled, and the artery in his neck was severed. He suffered significant injuries to his face, including a broken eye socket and broken nose, the loss of eight teeth, shrapnel in his eye and face, severe lacerations, and burns to his neck and face. His left eardrum was pierced. When the attack occurred, the unit immediately called for a medevac to Tikrit, where the combat support hospital (CSH) was located. Unfortunately, the initial weather call, during a dust storm, would not allow a helicopter to fly to the attack site. Medevac pilots take the weather call as a recommendation, but they knew the severity of the attack and that three lives depended on getting these soldiers to the proper medical care as soon as possible. So, without hesitation, knowing the risks of flying at night in the middle of a dust storm, the pilots cranked up a helicopter for the forty-five-minute flight to the attack site, loaded all the injured soldiers, including Brendan, and evacuated them to the CSH in Tikrit.
Upon arrival at the hospital, one soldier had already died, and the medical team did all they could to save the life of the driver—Brendan Marrocco. Word spread across the base that the wounded soldiers needed blood transfusions, and more than 150 soldiers lined up to donate blood to keep their brothers-in-arms alive. The medical experts worked feverishly to save Brendan’s life. A couple hours later, they rolled Brendan into the recovery room. He was alive, but the drastic measures needed to save his life left Brendan with no arms and no legs. His head was wrapped in gauze, and he was covered by a blanket to keep him warm. Brendan would not wake up until a few days later, when he finally got to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, but the care and compassion from the CSH medical team were overwhelming. Throughout the night Brendan received fifty-nine pints of blood donated by his teammates.
While he was still in the recovery room, the medical team determined he needed upgraded care at another hospital, in Balad, located outside Baghdad. With the dust storm ongoing and visibility zero, air control would not give a green light for the flight to Balad. Nonetheless, the medevac team and in-flight nurse loaded Brendan into the helicopter and flew him to Balad, where he received another eighteen pints of blood and additional care. Brendan was shortly moved to Landstuhl, Germany, then to Walter Reed, where he finally regained consciousness.
Fast-forward to November 2009. Caslen received word that Brendan and his family were flying to Hawaii to participate in the Twenty-Fifth Division’s homecoming activities. Brendan’s platoon arrived home a couple days before his scheduled flight, and instead of Brendan meeting the platoon on their arrival, the platoon decided to meet Brendan when he arrived in Hawaii from Walter Reed. The platoon (about twenty-five soldiers) all received gate passes at the Honolulu airport and were able to walk to the arrival gate for Brendan’s plane. When the airplane arrived, the last passenger off the plane was Brendan. With the entire platoon waiting, arms outstretched, everyone yelling and cheering, there came Brendan with two prosthetic legs and two prosthetic arms, walking unassisted down the jetway into the arms of his platoon. There was not a dry eye anywhere, and against all odds, the platoon celebrated the reunion with their wounded brother-in-arms.
In December 2012, Brendan underwent a thirteen-hour operation to transplant two arms from a cadaver donor, and today he has partial use of both arms, where before he had only two stumps. His mental and physical toughness are examples of the tenacity needed to overcome adversity and to persevere in the direst situations life has to offer.
Brendan’s story is a great example of strengths of the gut. Men and women who in the direst circumstances persevere over long periods draw strength as they continue to move forward. Despite what life has thrown at them, with mental and physical toughness and grit, they see their way through the challenges and overcome obstacles.
Courage is not a flash in the pan. As with Brendan, your character strengths of courage play out over the long haul. We hope you never have to endure challenges like Brendan’s, but the day-to-day courage needed to persevere and succeed in life is no less an exemplar of what is meant by the moral virtue of courage.
At the end of Band of Brothers—the book by Stephen E. Ambrose—the grandson of Sergeant Mike Ranney asks him if he was a hero in the war. In a poignant reply, Sergeant Ranney said, “No, but I served in a company of heroes.”9 While most of us would have disagreed with his assessment (Sergeant Ranney was clearly a hero himself), his response was typical of people who have displayed great courage.
Other examples come to mind. Captain Sullenberger, after landing US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River when his Airbus A 320 lost its engines following a bird strike, was the last person off the aircraft as he helped passengers and crew onto life rafts and rescue boats. Afterward, the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators awarded Captain Sullenberger and the entire crew the Master’s Medal. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg gave them the keys to the city, and they received high praise from both New York governor David Paterson and President Barack Obama. In 2016, Tom Hanks starred in the movie Sully: Miracle on the Hudson. Directed by Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood, the movie was a huge box-office success. And what did Captain Sullenberger have to say about his actions that day? Downplaying his personal courage of that moment, he said, “We all have heard about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations. They act courageously or responsibly, and their efforts are described as if they opted to act that way on the spur of the moment.… I believe many people in those situations actually have made decisions years before.”10 That is, he attributes his heroism that day to years of training and experience, not some sudden rush of personal courage.
The US military confers its highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor, to soldiers, sailors, marines, or airmen who display great courage on the battlefield. A citation describing the heroic actions that resulted in the award accompanies each Medal of Honor. Psychologist Nansook Park analyzed the content of these citations for 123 Medal of Honor recipients, from World War I to the current conflicts. She identified a number of character strengths that were consistently mentioned in these citations, including bravery (not surprisingly), self-regulation, perseverance (grit), leadership, teamwork, creativity, and kindness. More than anything else, Park found that humility was the character strength infused throughout the narratives. Like Sergeant Ranney from Band of Brothers, Medal of Honor recipients will deny being a hero and will always point to the men and women serving with them as the true heroes.
Humility is a strikingly consistent trait among the courageous. They readily admit that training helped them in their moment of truth and that their love of others motivated their actions. If you meet someone who self-proclaims to be a hero or highly courageous, think again. The person probably is not.
When beginning her doctoral studies in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania under the direction of the eminent psychologist Martin Seligman, Angela Duckworth asked herself why highly talented people often failed to rise to the very top of their fields, and why others with perhaps less talent achieved great things. Reflecting on her time as a Marshall scholar, she observed, “All of the Marshall fellows were really smart, but not all of them go on to achieve exceptional things.”11 As Duckworth describes in her bestselling book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, she turned this simple question into a years-long quest to unpack the relationship between talent and grit, which she defines as the passionate pursuit of long-term goals.
Duckworth’s first task was to develop a reliable measure of grit. With scores ranging from very low (1 on a 5-point scale) to very high (5 on a 5-point scale), she began testing different types of people to see how grit contributed to completing difficult tasks. You can take the grit test yourself by answering ten simple questions at angeladuckworth.com/grit-scale. Before reading further, go ahead and take the test. You will get instant results, showing your rank among the hundreds of thousands of people of all ages and descriptions who have taken the test.
Grit is a special form of the moral virtue of courage. Like the other forms of courage we have discussed, it plays out over the long haul. Grit applies best to tasks that take months or years to complete, such as completing college or medical school (and doing your best), sticking with the long hours of practice needed to excel in music or sports, or overcoming lengthy situations that are physically or emotionally challenging. Barry Bridger showed grit in not just surviving more than six years of confinement and torture at the Hanoi Hilton, but also by helping his fellow POWs endure captivity. Brendan Marrocco showed incredible grit by enduring years of surgeries and other medical treatments to recover from his wounds and to adapt to his “new normal.”
In her original studies of grit Duckworth first looked at the relationship between grit and education.12 Who would be grittier, high school graduates or college graduates? That is, do gritty people tend to advance further in education than their less gritty peers? Duckworth examined the grit scores of more than fifteen hundred adults age twenty-five and older. She then computed the grit score for the following levels of educational attainment: some high school, high school graduate, some college, associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, and postgraduate degree (master’s, PhD, MD, etc.). What is your prediction of the results? Would there be a stair-step increase in grit as a function of educational attainment? The answer is a definitive almost! With every increase in educational attainment grit scores rose significantly, with one exception. People with an associate’s degree not only showed higher grit than those with less education, but they were also higher than those who had completed bachelor’s degrees and were equal to those who had completed postgraduate degrees.
This finding gets to the core of what grit means. Maybe you have an associate’s degree. Or maybe you are a college teacher who has taught in associate-degree programs. If so, you will note a big difference between associate-degree students and traditional college students. They are generally older, some have families, and many work full-time while pursuing their degree. Being able to raise children and work forty or more hours per week and make steady progress toward a degree takes a lot more than a high IQ. It takes a passion for the subject and perseverance to undertake a task that often takes more than two years to complete. If you have an associate’s degree, you may be the grittiest person in your circle of friends!
Next, Duckworth wanted to know if grit was related to age. Using the same sample, she calculated the mean grit scores for people aged 25–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55–64, and 65 and older. Here, she did find a stair-step relationship with higher grit scores for each increasing age category. The biggest step, interestingly, was from 55–64 to 65 and older. In this analysis, Duckworth also looked at the relationship between grit and frequency of career changes. Those with the highest grit scores were substantially less likely than their less gritty counterparts to change careers frequently. This is important because it takes time and consistency of effort to achieve great things, and frequently changing careers hits the reset button to zero. In contrast, people who stay in one career or make few changes are able to better use grit to achieve their long-term goals.
Okay, so being older and in general being better educated is associated with higher grit. But so what? Does grit matter in predicting success in difficult tasks? More than a decade of psychological research indicates that it does. For example, among students enrolled in an undergraduate psychology course at the University of Pennsylvania, students high in grit made better grades. Grit did even better than SAT scores in predicting grades.13 More interesting, students with lower SAT scores tended to have higher grit scores, suggesting that smarter students at an elite Ivy League school might be less gritty than those lower in talent. Maybe those with less talent rely on dogged perseverance (grit!) to achieve their goals, rather than simply relying on raw intellectual horsepower.14
A fascinating finding is that among children participating in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, gritty contestants were more likely to advance to higher rounds of the competition. Spelling Bee kids are smart, but among them grit and IQ were not related. That is to say, knowing a contestant’s IQ score gave no information about his or her grit score. Surveys done with the contestants suggested that grittier kids studied more for the Spelling Bee than less gritty contestants. Being smart helped, but the kids who worked harder tended to come out on top.15
Duckworth also looked at a completely different group of people and a task quite different from an academic course or a spelling bee. In July of 2004, she administered the grit test to all incoming members of the West Point class of 2008. West Point is consistently ranked as one of the best colleges in America, but it is much more. New cadets quickly learn about the “much more” part because their first summer is devoted to a challenging and at times grueling program called Cadet Basic Training, better known by cadets as Beast Barracks, or simply Beast. For six weeks they make the transition from civilian to soldier. They are awakened at five in the morning (if you have teenagers, you can imagine the pain inflicted by this change in sleep schedule!), learn military customs and courtesies, and participate in rigorous field training. The weather in upstate New York in the summer seems to always be too hot, too cold, or too wet. Away from their friends and family and cell phones for the first time, many find Beast one of the most challenging situations they have ever undertaken. Most are successful and complete Beast and begin their four years of top-drawer academic study, military and leader development, and physical training. But some don’t make it. Duckworth wanted to know if grit makes a difference in who makes it through Beast. She found that grit was the only factor that predicted who would complete Beast. Grit and SAT scores were not correlated. Being smart didn’t matter when it comes to completing the gut check that Beast represents.
The West Point study (later replicated many times) is telling about just what grit predicts. Adapting to military training and surviving Beast has little to do with strengths of the head (intelligence), but almost everything to do with strengths of the gut. Having a high IQ doesn’t help when you are cold, tired, and wet. But having the tenacity and determination to complete a long and difficult task by simply never giving up captures the essence of grit. And grit doesn’t just matter among West Point cadets. Subsequent research with Army Green Berets shows that grit matters in other extremely difficult training situations.16
Before we leave the topic of grit, let’s see where your grit score stacks up. You learned your grit score when you completed the grit questionnaire. But you may be interested in how you compare to the groups of people that Duckworth studied. Here are some comparison points taken from her original grit research:
ADULTS 25 AND OVER (STUDY 1) |
3.65 |
|---|---|
ADULTS 25 AND OVER (STUDY 2) |
3.41 |
IVY LEAGUE UNDERGRADUATES |
3.46 |
WEST POINT CLASS OF 2008 |
3.78 |
NATIONAL SPELLING BEE FINALISTS |
3.50 |
So what is the takeaway? Simply this. Grit provides a character edge in completing daunting tasks. The best combination is to be smart and gritty. One can’t help thinking here of a famous saying attributed to Thomas Edison: “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”17 For evidence, see Spelling Bee contestants or West Point cadets!
You can build your strengths of the gut and learn to better apply existing strengths. Here are some suggestions.
1. Know yourself. First, assess yourself; you may find you are already strong in physical or moral courage, integrity, and/or grit. Look back at your self-ratings of the twenty-four character strengths introduced in chapter 1, and also look at your grit score. Do any of your signature strengths come from the moral virtue of courage? How does your grit compare to college students, West Point cadets, and others? Reflect on your experiences. Where, when, and under what conditions have you been brave (physical courage), stood up for what is right (moral courage and integrity), or worked hard for months or years to attain a goal (grit)? Once you have self-evaluated your courage virtue, systematically find situations where you can employ one or more of these strengths to succeed in something difficult. It may be hard to anticipate a situation requiring physical bravery, but you can think of situations where you can use your integrity and honesty, your grit, or your zest and vitality. Considering this scenario, develop a plan that allows you to use one or more of these strengths. Doing so will help you succeed in the task and also give you practice being courageous and strengthening those skills, and it will even make you feel better for having done so.18
2. Practice courage. Make it a habit, when faced with a difficult task, to develop a plan to use these strengths in completing the task. What challenges intimidate you? Do this for a variety of tasks. You can do this physically through actions or mentally through imagination and rehearsal. Using these strengths repeatedly and in different situations will make it easier to invoke them when an unanticipated challenge occurs. Psychologists Lester and Pury tell us to practice “hands on courage.”19
3. Look for and be a role model. Who in your family, workplace, or school are exemplars of the virtue of courage? Study their actions and their words; try to emulate what they do. You can learn vicariously by reading about the brave and courageous. The famous psychologist Albert Bandura taught us that learning by observation is one of the most common and powerful ways that we change our own behavior, beliefs, attitudes, and character.20
4. Use social persuasion and feedback. Find others who are in a position to observe and evaluate your behavior and provide you with feedback. Be constructive but honest in feedback you give to others. Maybe you aren’t making any progress on that book you are writing because you are doing email or other tasks. You need feedback from others, or honest insights about yourself, to stay on task. Perhaps your child wants to excel at the violin but only goes through the motions of practice and is easily distracted. Feedback, gently and honestly applied, may motivate him or her to persist in practice.
5. Embrace stressful conditions. By framing stress as something that goes hand in hand with opportunity, rather than something that is inherently damaging and harmful, you can better maintain the attention and motivation needed to do hard things. By learning to work effectively under conditions of physical and emotional stress, you will strengthen your ability to persevere under duress, a hallmark of courage. Soldiers call this embracing the suck.
6. Surround yourself with courageous people. Nansook Park’s study of Medal of Honor recipients showed that social bonds are critical in demonstrating courageous behavior. You will often live up to, or down from, the standards set by the people you associate with. You can’t change your family, but you can choose your friends. If you have friends who fail in important aspects of the moral virtue of courage, maybe it is time to forge new friendships. If others in your workplace fail in these characteristics, it may be time to change jobs.
As leaders, we can engage in practices that build the virtue of courage in others. We close this chapter with a story of how a losing football program at West Point was transformed into one of the best college programs in America. Strengths of the gut made the difference. This transformation depended on honing these strengths among players and coaches. As you read this, see if you can identify how West Point leaders and the Army football coaching staff built a culture of courage.
When Lieutenant General Bob Caslen assumed command as superintendent of West Point, his boss, General Ray Odierno, the chief of staff of the Army, publicly directed him, during the assumption-of-command ceremony, “Beat Navy.” In 2013 when Caslen took over, Army had lost the famed Army-Navy game for twelve straight years and had suffered losing records for sixteen of the previous seventeen seasons under five different coaches. General Odierno, a West Point football player himself, knew the importance of transforming the Army football program back to the winning tradition it once had.
When the nation puts its Army in harm’s way, it does not expect its Army to look good or to do their best. It expects them to accomplish the mission and win. But it does not expect them to win at all costs; it expects them to win in accordance with national and Army values. When 25 million people tune in to the Army-Navy football game in December, they do not just see collegiate athletes playing a game, they see the future leaders of our military and our nation. They expect their future military leaders to fight with grit, tenacity, discipline, and mental and physical toughness. As chief of staff of the Army, responsible for the trust relationship between the Army and the American people, General Odierno understood what America expected of its Army and its future leaders.
During the 2013 Army-Navy football game Caslen had an enlightening observation on why the team was mediocre and did not demonstrate the level of character our nation expects of its future Army leaders. The game was played in Philadelphia on a cold, snowy December afternoon. During the game numerous Army players huddled around heater blowers on the sideline, more concerned about keeping themselves warm than staying abreast of the action on the field. General Odierno watched the game from the sidelines as well and noticed the same thing.
At halftime Army was losing 17–0. A television reporter interviewed each coach as he returned from the locker room. She asked Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo if the weather was having an impact on his players or on the game plan. He answered that the weather was of no impact whatsoever. He knew the weather forecast was for a cold, sloppy game day and had made the team practice outside in the elements all the week before. The difference between the future leaders of the Navy, the Navy football team, and the future leaders of the Army, the Army football team, as witnessed by about 25 million Americans, could not have been more different and distinct. The Army players huddled around a heater not paying attention to what was happening on the field, while the Navy players were fully prepared for the elements and were engaged in the game. Guess what the final score was and who won? Navy extended their winning streak another year, 34–7.
Caslen recognized that the Army football team had to transform from a culture of mediocrity to a culture of excellence. To make that happen West Point needed to—as Jim Collins says in his book Good to Great—get the right people on the bus.21
To achieve this, Caslen hired a coach who was familiar with the military academy and had a proven record of building winning programs—Jeff Monken. Because of the military-disciplined life of a cadet, and the five-year obligation to serve after graduation, the nation’s best football recruits are normally more drawn toward universities without these demands. Although Army may play some of the best teams in the country, Army is unlikely to get the best recruits in the country. As a result, Academy players will most likely be a few pounds lighter and a few tenths of a second slower than the players on most of the teams they play. But winning and excellence are not just about being heavier and faster. It is about possessing the character traits of the gut—discipline, mental and physical toughness, tenacity, and the relentless pursuit of excellence.
A team gets the ball on offense eight to ten times a game, and to win, you normally need to put about 30 points on the scoreboard. That means you need to score—either a field goal or a touchdown—on about half of the possessions. An undisciplined team that turns the ball over frequently has fewer opportunities to put points on the board. Fumbling the ball or throwing interceptions are mistakes indicative of a lack of discipline. Additionally, a penalty, which is truly a lack of discipline, can stop an offensive drive in its tracks. But you can coach and teach discipline. Doing so increases your opportunities to score. Playing with discipline reduces common mistakes, is critical to winning, and is a sure sign of excellence.
To measure the toughness of your team, look at the score in the last quarter of each game. In the fourth quarter, the most tenacious, tough, and physically fit players will persevere and dominate when this is needed most. To be more mentally and physically fit than your opponent is a game changer. At the end of the game, regardless of your opponent’s weight or speed, mental and physical toughness are the great equalizers.
To create a culture of excellence, the Army team had to start with character traits of the gut—toughness, conditioning, and discipline. A culture of excellence also depends on learning to play to the upper level of your potential. Think of your performance as a bell-shaped curve. Sometimes you play above your average, and sometimes you play below your average. But most of the plays are average. Average does not enable improvement. Excellence occurs when you play to the upper level of your ability, not only during the game, but also in practice, in the classroom, in study hall at night, and in your private life as well as your public life. Excellence is playing to the upper part of that bell-shaped curve. And guess what? When you perform consistently in the upper part of the curve, that becomes the new average and you find yourself in a zone of excellence. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke basketball coach and West Point graduate, says it best: “My hunger is not for success, it is for excellence. Because when you attain excellence, success just naturally follows.”22
As the new Army football coach, Jeff Monken first walked into the team locker room and inspected each player’s equipment. Any player whose equipment was not laid out exactly in accordance with team standards had to report to Monken and learn why disciplined attention to detail in everything was critical to winning. A couple weeks before spring practice, Monken ran a mat drill in the stadium at 5:30 A.M. A mat drill is one of the most intense physical drills and requires 100 percent effort by 100 percent of the team, every minute and every second. If any player was observed not giving 100 percent, the entire team had to repeat the entire exercise. The team quickly learned mental and physical toughness and the importance of discipline. And they learned the importance of selflessness to the success of the team. The team was learning the character strengths of the gut; traits such as discipline, toughness, selflessness, loyalty, and teamwork took on new meaning and importance.
In his first year, Monken’s team won 4 games and lost 8. Each loss was devastating, but Monken ensured that each player learned from these losses. The following year was a 2-and-10 season, but you could tell the Army team was tougher and more competitive, as seven of those losses were of 7 points or fewer, including a 4-point loss to Navy, decided on the last play of the game. Then in 2016, Army went 8 and 5, including a win over Navy—for the first time in fifteen years—followed by a bowl-game victory. In 2017, Army had a 10-win season, including another victory over Navy and another last-play victory in their bowl game against a Top 25 team. They were even better in 2018, with an 11-win season, the most in Army’s storied history. They beat Navy again, extending their winning streak to three years, and won the Armed Forces Bowl, defeating Houston 70–14.
During the 2018 football season, Army’s annual game against Air Force had special significance. The victor would win the coveted Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy, which meant a presentation by the president in the White House Rose Garden. Near the end of the fourth quarter, Army led by 3 points. With the ball on the 50-yard line, fourth down, needing 1 yard for a first down, and with about forty-five seconds left in the game, Army had a critical decision to make. They could go for the first down and run out the clock, or they could punt, giving Air Force the ball with the chance to tie the game with a field goal or win outright with a touchdown. Failing to get the first down would give Air Force good field position and an even better chance of winning the game.
Most coaches would punt the ball. Going for the first down would be too risky. But not for Monken. He went for the first down and got it by a yard, thus enabling Army to run out the clock and win the game. His decision to go for the first down is indicative of the culture of excellence and grit that is necessary to build a winning program. When asked in a postgame interview why he went for the first down, his reply was simple: “If we can’t get one yard on fourth down and one, then we don’t deserve to win.”23
Coach Monken’s approach to winning and winning honorably are proven and time-tested. They provide a model for how teams and other organizations may transform themselves into a culture of excellence.
Leaders at the highest levels played a role in this amazing transformation. General Odierno, the Army chief of staff, clearly communicated to the incoming superintendent of West Point, Lieutenant General Robert Caslen, that mediocrity on the football field was unacceptable, and that it had a negative impact on the development of West Point cadets—both for the football players and for the rest of the corps. General Caslen assessed the situation, made winning a priority, and hired a coach who had the skills to create a culture of grit, determination, and tenacity. In his first year as head coach, Coach Monken saw players who were anything but gritty. They were sloppy with their equipment. They were more interested in staying warm and avoiding physical discomfort than they were in winning a game. So Monken created situations where players had to follow rules and adhere to strict standards and so increased their grit. He created challenging physical drills that were tied to everyone on the team giving it their best and so built perseverance. Monken developed a team culture that focused on being a good teammate, not in being well liked and friendly, but in all knowing they could depend on each other to practice and play at peak effort.
If this story only mattered to West Point football, it would not be worth telling. Other organizations need to win, too. Corporations must excel to survive. Law enforcement agencies must build a similar culture of courage to serve their communities bravely, but also honorably and with integrity. Schools and universities are no different. Teachers and administrators who possess the moral virtue of courage produce students who have the same traits.
The lesson here is simple. Through effective leadership, improving strengths of the gut is possible. Clear standards, high expectations, rewards for high performance, and, yes, punishing those who fail enable courage in all its forms. These allow individuals, teams, and organizations of all types to win the right way.