Annali: My Hero

I did a training on leadership the other day.

  It started with John Wayne riding off into the sunset

  after, once again, single-handedly conquering the bad guys.

That powerful image has inflicted immeasurable 
  damage on the self-image of many, many people,
  robbing them from discovery of their inherent greatness.

Beleaguered with a diminished sense of self-efficacy, 
  they cower from expressing their own greatness, preferring
  instead to hide in the safety of self-deprecation and other-adulation. 

In this story, people are born to be common,
  some more so than others, young women for example.
  Life, it seems, conspires to keep them from shining their light.

This plight leads me directly to the topic of courage.
  To step outside what is expected of you, to reach beyond,
  to have the audacity to believe that you can be something more...

This requires courage, in the truest sense of the word.
  Because, you see, courage is not reaching for something that
  you know you can do, or that you have the wherewithal to accomplish.

Courage is stepping into the unknown, even when you feel
  ill-equipped to do so, and you aren't sure if you can be successful,
  and especially when you have struggled or failed in previous attempts.

True courage requires no small amount of faith and daring.
  It requires a willingness to fail a hundred times before you succeed.
  It requires humility in the face of the daunting challenge you have accepted.

There is a person whom I think of when I think of courage.
  That person is my daughter, Annali, a beautiful young woman
  who has suffered many blows in the pursuit of her vision for her life.

Despite the challenges and her past experiences, she has
  dared to step, once again, onto the path leading to her dream.
  She knows the journey isn't easy, but she is committed to it and to herself.

She takes the risk, knowing there will be failures and successes.
  She faces her own fears and history...and dares to walk past them.
  This, my friends, is courage personified, in the flesh, in real life, in action.

We don't know what lies ahead of us, or within ourselves.
  But, we are called to find our greatness, to dig deep and stretch
  to the stars to discover our greatness, and then to gift it back to life.

Look around you to find those with daring souls, like Annali.
  Know that they are human, beset by fears and quirks, just like you.
  Then, be inspired by their courage, and seek your own to live life with the

ALL of who you are.