Page 76 - Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success

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C OURAGE I SN ’ T THE A BSENCE OF F EAR

courage to begin with. They are all winners. Being fired in
front of millions of people isn’t easy, but that’s part of the deal
and they persist anyway. Most of them say the experience was
worth everything they put into it, whether they won or not.
Hemingway wrote the now familiar phrase, “Courage is
grace under pressure.” Think about it. Some days we are faced
with challenges that we’d rather not have to deal with, but we
get up and deal with them anyway. That’s courage. It requires a
certain poise. Maybe it’s not heroic, maybe every day isn’t going
to bring a calamitous situation, but it’s an example of bravery
that we can all understand.
Self-confidence is a component of courage that we all need.
Sometimes we need a push in the right direction. I worked with
a young executive who had never done any public speaking, so he
decided he wasn’t any good at it. He told me so, and I thought to
myself, “He hasn’t even tried public speaking, and he tells me
he’s no good at it!” I had a feeling he’d be good at it. A few
months later when I realized I wouldn’t be able to make a dinner
engagement that included a short speech, I told him he’d have to
step in for me. He told me, “I don’t do public speaking.” I said
to him, “You do now.” End of conversation. Do you know what?
He’s become an accomplished speaker. Courage isn’t the absence
of fear, it’s the conquering of fear.
The phenomenon of stage fright is a good example. I read an
article recently about how common stage fright is, even among
professional actors. There are a lot of very accomplished and
famous performers who deal with it regularly, sometimes for
decades. They don’t let their fear get in the way of their passion.
I’m used to speaking in front of tens of thousands of people, and
I find it enjoyable, but I’ve often had people ask me if I get nerv-
ous. I don’t. I just go out and do it.
Winston Churchill was a great orator, but I read that he
spent a lot of time developing this skill. He wasn’t a natural in
the beginning, but he worked at it until he mastered it. He

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