During my early school days, I was part of that small group of students who were afraid to speak in front of a bigger group, got bullied, and resisted to speak against anything wrong happening with them. I didn’t even feel confident enough to take help from my parents on this matter.

Years passed by and I opened up with my dad. He understood my problem, helped me fight and standup against anything that is wrong. He always used to tell me to think

what worse could happen and just go for it. He never fought my fight instead pushed me to tackle it. I used to fall again and again and he gave his hand each time to bring me up. But you might not know this Siddharth if you have known me for less than 12 years. Now you may know the one who is not even hesitant to tell the _CEO _of the company in front 400 employees that his policies are flawed.

Courage is not something you get in the gym, its a mind thing, its about how you think and how you see things. It is something you have to grow inside you. I remember, Gumla always used to say, “ladai ki liye jigar chahiye hota hai, dum nahi”. And it is okay, if you lack it because you can always train yourself to build it. When I look around there are so many cases when one needs to show the dare. I will talk about the ones I feel are very important.

  • Injustice happening around. Be it work, school, society, country or any place around, it is likely that at some point of time some one will do something wrong with you. And it is your responsibility to voice out against it. But what happens if something catastrophic happens over your reaction? We need someone around us on whom we could trust, on whom we could rely if something goes wrong. But then it is hard to find people around on whom you could trust.The problem is real! Having said that I have also realised that if you have the attitude of not tolerating injustice then somehow things fall in place and you do find like minded people on whom you could rely. So in nut shell the idea here is that you need that attitude and you will have to believe that things will align in place for you.
  • Express liking for person. Reminds me of the FOSLA group in college 😀 Everyone goes through that phase of life when you have a liking for a person of opposite sex but not enough courage to tell him/her. There are questions in your mind which stop you. What if she says no? What if she stops talking to me? What will happen to our friendship then? To these question I would say ask yourself a few more questions. Am I not being fake by not expressing what I _actually _think? What if she says yes? If she stops talking or discontinues her friendship just because I expressed, then is that friendship even worth having? So go and let people know that you love them. We all got limited time here and do not let those mean negative thoughts stop you. Suzy Kaseem rightly said –

Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.

  • Overwhelmed by other person’s personality. Now this is yet another case where one gets dominated by the person may be because of his physical build, status, designation, aggression or may be just his style and could not gather the strength to speak with or against him. To this I have a nasty (I mean really nasty) trick to play with your brain. The goal you want to achieve is that you need to make your brain believe that he is just another human being and nothing more. So the trick is – Imagine the person naked_. _When I say naked, I mean unwaxed, unshaven absolutely naked with no clothes/spectacles/makeup or anything. Your brain will then actually realise that he is just another man. Nothing more than that. It might sound very very weird (or sexual to some 😛 ) but the idea is simple and it works. Let your brain know that there is nothing different in him to be daunted about. Trust me, it works 🙂 And after a few trials you will not even need this trick, it will come naturally to you.

Having said all this it is absolutely necessary to mention that this daring does not come out of thin air. It has to have the base of the values you believe in life. In my case and this context those values are :

  • Have good intentions
  • Do the right thing
  • Speak truth

If above three conditions are satisfying for a case, then I do not fear, I feel strong !

When I show courage its not that I never failed, not that no one rejected my proposal, not that I never got beaten up, not that it does not hurt, it does, every time. But I am able to look myself at the mirror every morning without any regret. I could tell myself that I fought and fought well. And thats what counts ! I would leave you all with the message by Robin Sharma –

When in doubt, dare.