audentes fortuna juvat
“Fortune favors the bold” (Latin Proverb)
In one of my earliest jobs, I had a boss who drove a car. It was a reliable car, but it wasn’t anything fancy. It certainly didn’t match his likely six-figure income. That completely unremarkable car made an impression on me.
To be fair, I don’t really care about cars. For me, they are completely utilitarian. Does it get me from Point A to Point B? Does it have air conditioning and heat? Those are really the only questions I ask. But even so, I remember that car, precisely because it was unremarkable.
It was almost as if my boss was saying, “I don’t need to bolster my ego by driving an expensive vehicle, even though I can afford it.” I respected that.
It’s that type of bold decision that can infect others with courage. The courage to be different, the courage to make the right decision in spite of potentially negative consequences.
But I want to be clear: When I say, “bold,” I don’t mean, “brash.” Certainly, those words might occasionally overlap, but I want to distinguish them. We are in an age that demands boldness be highly visible, very loud, and almost always offensive. Boldness, however, is not always those things.
Bold can be quiet.
Bold can be steady.
Bold can be humble.
Bold can be subtle.
That might seem like a contradiction, but it’s not. In a world where everything is dialed up to 100%, subtleties stand out in stark contrast.
What we forget oftentimes, however, is that there are multitudes of people longing to be bold, but they need someone else to go first. They need to be bolstered by someone else’s example. They need permission.
You have the opportunity to give others permission to be bold. By making decisions confidently and joyfully, you are signaling to them, “Come on in, the water’s fine.” Even when you face backlash, meeting it calmly and resolutely makes an impression on others. They realize it’s possible to survive criticism. They realize they can handle adversity without being a jerk to people. They realize the wounds aren’t fatal. And it emboldens them to make better decisions, too.
So drive the “okay” car. Don’t drive a car at all. Live in a small house. Start that business you’ve been talking about for years. Wear socks that don’t match. Buy thrift store clothes. Let your gray hair show. Go out without makeup every once in a while.
Whatever form your “boldness” takes, make those decisions confidently, not for the purpose of drawing attention to yourself (that’s not boldness; that’s narcissism), but to give others permission to make their own bold decisions. And when they do, you can cheer them on. Because caring about other people? Now that’s bold.