Dad began teaching me chess when I was 7 years old. I was 16 before I finally won a game and 22 before I beat him again.
I only recently learned that many of Dad's friends and relatives told him back then that he was a bastard for not letting me win occasionally -- to boost my ego and keep me interested. When I asked him how he responded to them, he told me he always replied, "Winning doesn't build courage. Losing does."
Looking back over the many successes I've had in my life, I can see that the courage to keep trying despite failure after failure was one of the most important things the old coot ever taught me. If it weren't for that lesson, Cindy never would have married me. (I spent seven years asking her for a date before she finally said, "Yes.")

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Last year a business owner hired me to coach one of his salesmen for six months. In the very first coaching session I asked the salesman, "How much do you want to earn during the next year?"
His smiling response was "$45,000 would be good."
Pausing for a few seconds, I puzzled, "Why not half a million?"
He sat back in his seat, crossed his arms, dropped his eyebrows, lowered his head, scowled just a bit and mumbled, "That'd be okay."
I ended the session and gave his boss back the fee.
I had a similar thing happen with another salesman not long after the first guy, only he practically jumped out of his suit when he said, "That'd be GREAT!"
He hasn't hit half a million yet, but he's getting close.
I simply don't enjoy working with people that lack the courage to dream big. (And I learned the hard way that you can't give people big dreams.)

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It takes less emotional energy to achieve scary-big dreams than it does to achieve puny ones, because courage is self-energizing -- it actually keeps you from tiring or wearing out.

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I'm convinced the difference between a true leader and a pretender is the courage to let those around you take the credit.

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As long as I have my mental faculties, I will continue working. I simply enjoy it too much to retire. There's nothing courageous about this. I just felt like saying it.

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The most important person in my life is my courage partner, because she never lets me hide.
Who's your courage partner?

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Here's a crazy idea. If you have a scary-big dream and the courage to let me push you way out of your comfort zone, I'll make a deal with you.
Write me a one-time, skin-in-the-game check of $15,000 and I'll be your personal courage partner, idea partner, and sales and marketing coach, mentor, trainer, etc., for as long as it takes you to achieve your dream.
I don't care if it takes the rest of my life. I don't care how much energy I have to expend or how many ideas I have to contribute. I'll be your unlimited-access courage partner as long as you stay committed to and passionate about achieving your dream.
And I'll never ask you for another penny ... ever.
The first person to make this leap of faith wins.

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Just writing these thoughts on courage makes me want to try something I've never tried before. (Besides the crazy commitment I just made.)
I was at a National Speakers Association meeting last Saturday, and one of the subjects discussed was creating effective direct-mail pieces that will catch the attention of radio program directors and get them to interview you on the air. (When a professional speaker gets interviewed on a good radio program, it's like bookings in the bank.)
That conversation spawned a really silly question in my mind: "What if the ‘brochure' you ‘mailed' to the program director was actually you?"
Seriously, what if you somehow dressed up like you were a package and "mailed" yourself to the program director?
I can see the writing on the package already:

• Package Contains Courage -- Open At Your Own Risk
• Perishable Contents
• Time-Sensitive Material
• Do Not Bend (This one is my favorite.)
• Press Here For Audio (I like this one too.)

This afternoon I'm going to figure out how to make myself look like a package. Then sometime soon I'm going to walk into a local radio station and see if I can get the program director to "open me."
Best-case scenario, I'll be on the air soon getting interviewed about courage and creativity.
Worst-case scenario, I'll have an amusing story to tell you during a future visit.
That's one really cool thing about courage: It gives you tons of stories to tell.
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Gill E. Wagner, Sage of Selling
President of Honest Selling
Founder of the Yellow-Tie International Business Development Association