The Courage That Doesn't Look Like Courage
Day 97 - 103 / 1000
The thing that scares us is not always the big dramatic leap.
Sometimes it is the quiet decision to stop hiding from the life we actually want.
This week is about fear, failure, staying small, and the kind of courage that keeps showing up even when no one claps.
Here is what has been on my mind this week:
The Dark Room
Where the Fear Lives
Failing Out Loud
The First Hundred Days
The Practical Fear
Staying Small
Quiet Courage
1. The Dark Room
What is the most embarrassing fear you still carry with you?
When we think about fear, it can bring up many different things in each of us.
That is for a very simple reason. We all fear different things.
The most embarrassing fear of mine is that I am still a little bit afraid of darkness.
But I think I would frame it differently now than when we were kids.
The fear is not really about darkness itself. It is the fear of the unknown.
When a place or a situation feels out of control, the fear kicks in.
In the modern world, there are lights almost everywhere we go.
And if there are not, we have a phone or a watch that can turn on a flashlight.
But what about the moments when we have no control over the light?
Those moments when you do not know where you are going, where to step next, or what to touch to get through the space can feel quite uncomfortable.
And maybe this is not only about a dark room.
Maybe it is also about life.
Maybe it is about those moments when we are moving forward, but we cannot see the next step clearly yet.
We are not sure where the floor is.
We are not sure what will happen if we reach out and touch what is in front of us.
That kind of fear can be embarrassing to admit, because from the outside it might look small.
But inside, it can still cost us something.
What is the fear you would feel almost embarrassed to admit out loud?
2. Where the Fear Lives
What would you do if you were certain you would not fail?
I would build a business that gives me the lifestyle and opportunities I want.
So simple.
But if I tried and failed anyway?
That is where the real answer sits.
I would do it anyway, because if building a business is what it takes to get me closer to the life I want, then so be it.
Any failure on the way would not only be part of the risk and the hustle.
It would also bring knowledge that would be hard to get otherwise.
There is no such thing as certainty in life.
The chance that you will fail at something sooner or later is probably close to 100%.
But I do not want to take that as something negative.
We all fail at some point in our lives.
The real lessons are often hiding behind those failures.
It is the moment when you hit the bottom, put yourself back together, and decide to go ride again.
There is no such thing as certainty in life.
I have been asking myself if I am waiting for some perfect condition that will never arrive.
The perfect amount of money.
The perfect timing.
The perfect confidence.
The perfect plan that somehow removes the possibility of looking stupid, losing time, or having to start again.
But maybe that gap is exactly where the fear lives.
Not in the dream itself.
In what I think it would mean about me if I tried and failed anyway.
Maybe that gap is exactly where the fear lives.
So maybe the question is not only what I would do if I knew I could not fail.
Maybe the better question is what I would still do if failure was part of the price.
What would you still try if failure was not a verdict on who you are?
3. Failing Out Loud
What scares you more, failing in public or succeeding in private?
Let me go first.
For me personally, it is hard to answer, because I do not really mind failing in public and I would not mind succeeding in private either.
When I look at it through this lens, neither of them feels that terrifying.
Failing in public might sound scary because we imagine ourselves in all sorts of public settings where we get humiliated for some mistake of ours.
But even if we fail in public, people usually forget in a matter of days or weeks and move on.
No one is thinking about us as much as we think about ourselves.
So why be terrified?
I repeat this often in my writing, mostly as a reminder to myself.
Failure is just a lesson that can help us be better next time.
Not an opportunity to give up on life straight away.
The same principle applies to succeeding in private.
You might think that if you succeed and no one knows about it, it somehow counts less. But why is that?
Maybe because you wanted fame with that success.
Maybe because you wanted external appreciation from others.
Maybe because you wanted recognition for what you built.
And the answer is almost the same as with failure.
No one is thinking about you as much as you think about yourself.
People do not care about your success in the way you imagine they do.
Most of the time, they just picture themselves in your shoes and wonder how it would feel for them.
It comes down to one simple outcome for me.
Being terrified is already a kind of failure.
Betting on yourself, trying your best, and not giving up, that might be the real success story.
I mean, what else are we going to do with our time anyway?
What if it takes months or years to achieve?
What if nobody claps for it?
What if it happens quietly, slowly, privately, without the dramatic moment we imagined?
Maybe that still counts.
Maybe it counts even more.
Which one would scare you more, failing in public or succeeding in private?
4. The First Hundred Days
What does it mean to cross the first real milestone of a promise you made to yourself?
This week, I officially crossed the line of 10% of my 1000-day challenge.
Day 100.
It would be cool to write about something special, because it is a big milestone.
So I want to use this opportunity to look back on the last 100 days.
I wrote about many things.
Personal stories, wins, losses, breakthroughs, important life lessons, fear, and more.
I believe that what I shared will be valuable for someone else on their journey through life, while they are figuring things out too.
During the past 100 days, I missed one day of writing during a busy period of traveling.
At first, I felt bad. I felt like I betrayed myself, like I failed.
But then I remembered what I wrote to myself on Day 0.
It is going to be difficult. It is going to contain struggles, lack of motivation, questions about why I even started and put more pressure on my shoulders again.
I will be tired. I will be on the road. I will lack sleep. I will lack ideas, and my thoughts are going to be hard to put in order.
All of this might and probably will happen at one point of this journey. But this is the last 1000 days of my twenties, so let's make it count.
Here I am.
Still pushing forward.
Maybe that is what these challenges teach us.
Not how to be perfect, but how to come back without making the mistake mean too much.
That one missed day did not erase the promise. It became part of it.
I hope you enjoyed what I shared so far.
I will continue to do my best to share the most valuable lessons from my life, and I hope they can help you climb the mountain together with me.
What promise to yourself have you kept for longer than you expected?
5. The Practical Fear
What is the fear that disguises itself as practicality, maturity, or realism?
What is the one thing you are consciously or unconsciously terrified of trying?
The thing your voice turns into, "That is not realistic."
Maybe it is the business idea you have had for a while.
Maybe it is the trip you have wanted to take since your teenage years.
Or maybe it is the person you have always wanted to talk to.
Many of us are held back in life by all sorts of self-created blocks.
Some of them are irrational.
Some of them are taken from other people.
I am a victim of this myself.
Trapped in the comfort of an ordinary middle-class life, dependent on salary, working for others, and daydreaming about how my life is going to be different one day.
A life designed by me, for my needs and desires.
I have been asking myself for some time now how we overcome this roadblock.
You hear a lot of advice online.
You read books about how to change your life in the direction you want.
You hear success stories from people who started at rock bottom, homeless, defeated, or betrayed, and somehow used those situations to change their lives into something many people would only dream of.
And I have been asking myself if that is what it takes.
Do I really have to get to my lowest point to turn my life in the direction I want?
Am I just too comfortable where I am right now, and because of that, I do not have what it takes to make the steps that would change things?
I do not know.
Maybe.
I guess the only way to find out is to get out of my comfort zone and finally try things out.
Go and try entrepreneurship.
There is this line from Denzel Washington's 2011 University of Pennsylvania commencement speech: "If you don't fail, you're not even trying."
It struck me the first time I heard it, and it still strikes me today, three years later, as one of those simple reminders for life.
Failure in life is not a bug.
It is a feature.
It is just another stepping stone on the climb up to the mountaintop.
What is one thing you might be calling realistic, when deep down it is just fear wearing a clean shirt?
6. Staying Small
What are you protecting yourself from by staying small?
This might be one of the hardest questions I have asked myself so far.
Not what we tell people.
What staying small actually protects us from.
Is it rejection? Exposure? The risk of wanting something we might not get?
To be honest, asking this question myself was everything but easy, especially because I am currently at a point where I am making an important decision in my life.
Or at least I tend to think I am.
I am deciding whether to continue working for someone else while trying to build my personal brand here, or choose the unknown and risky path of entrepreneurship alongside this whole brand-building journey.
It is interesting to observe these moments in my head.
On some days, I am extremely confident and dedicated to the path of entrepreneurship.
I want to dive completely in and just figure things out as I go.
On other days, I ask myself how the f*ck I am going to pay my bills if things do not work out.
And here we are, facing the question from the beginning.
What are you protecting yourself from by staying small?
What I am asking myself right now is this: when is it going to be a better time to bet on myself and take the risk?
What is the worst-case scenario that can happen?
If I fail, will I stand back up on my feet, tall, with my shoulders back, eyes on the horizon, and try again?
Staying small is not going to bring me any further in life.
It is not going to magically transform my dreams into reality.
Because there is one hard truth to understand.
No one is coming to save me.
It might sound harsh at first.
But I have to let it sink in and let it show me that I am responsible for my life.
I write often about how failure, mistakes, and hard times can be the best lessons.
Not because I am trying to motivate you, but because everything I write here is a continuous reminder to myself to keep pushing forward.
For the same reason I mentioned just now.
No one is going to create the life I want for me. I have to do it for myself.
Everything I share in my writing here with you has only one mission.
To help you climb the mountain you chose in your life.
We are all here together on this journey, and all I desire is to help you become better for yourself.
So, what are you protecting yourself from by staying small?
Not the answer you give to other people. The real answer inside you.
7. Quiet Courage
What is the version of courage you have never given yourself credit for?
The ongoing, undramatic kind.
The courage that does not look like courage from the outside, but costs you something real every day.
How many times did you think you were going to give up, but you did not?
How many times did you want to half-ass something, but you finished it anyway?
How many times was there no one to support you, but you still did it?
You might see these things as ordinary.
Because that is just what you do, right?
But just because something does not seem impressive to others around you does not mean it does not take courage to do it all.
The courage that does not look like courage from the outside can still cost you something real every day.
You might have never given yourself credit for it, but you are doing your best out there.
This is just a short reminder to you.
As well as to myself, as I sit behind the computer at 23:42 on Sunday, making sure I wrote my 100 words today.
No one is here to tap me on the back and tell me I did a good job.
Our hard work is not always visible to others. Or they might see it as ordinary.
But that does not wipe your effort away.
You know how hard you work.
You know what it takes for you to keep putting the reps in and not give up.
Me, you, we got this.
What is the version of courage you have never given yourself credit for?
I aim to deliver the most personal stories, insights, and lessons from real-world experiences I have lived through over the past decade.
As I continue building my life and trying to be a better version of myself, I am documenting this journey and the lessons from my life for people who might need to hear them.
Lukáš