The Courage Gap explores fear and courage, walking readers through five steps to help them shift their focus, rewrite the stories they tell themselves, regulate fear, step into discomfort, and learn from the moments when things fall apart. Why was this an important book for you to write?

Because I’ve watched too many capable people—including myself—stay stuck in the space between knowing and doing. This wasn’t because we lacked the ability to take action but because our fear kept us stuck in place, distorting the risk-magnifying the danger of acting, minimizing the cost of staying put, and shrinking our courage to step forward and back ourselves fully.  

Over 25 years coaching many diverse people across the world to meet their challenges and navigate change, I’ve heard countless versions of the same story: “I knew what I needed to do, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.” The woman in the soul-draining job. The parent avoiding a hard conversation. The person with a dream who keeps finding reasons to wait.

What struck me wasn’t that people feel fear—we all do—but how often they mistake its source. They think they’re being prudent when they’re actually protecting their identity in some way, avoiding disapproval, or clinging to what’s familiar because it feels safer and less confronting than making a change.

Finally, I wrote this book because often we end up suffering more over time from not taking the brave action we know we should be taking than by risking what we fear. That suffering shows up in many forms – ongoing tension and hurt in relationships, the quiet ache of unfulfilled potential, roads not taken, words left unsaid. Right now, when everything feels uncertain, that gap has never been wider. This book offers a practical step-by-step path to move through it.

How did you come up with your five-step process for helping people reprogram their patterns of thought and behavior that are self-sabotaging?

By distilling a lot of research and insights from broad spheres as well as watching what actually worked—not just with clients, but in my own life when fear and doubt have grown really loud or when I’ve come to a moment and hesitated for fear of being ‘exposed’ as not wholly worthy of sufficient in some way. The five steps are a synthesis of research, and experience, and observing people who consistently lead brave and meaningful lives. 

The people who closed their courage gap followed a pattern: They shifted focus from worst-case scenarios to what becomes impossible if they don’t act. They chose the mindset they would operate from, rewriting their stories—recognizing narratives about risk were often inherited or outdated. They regulated fear instead of waiting for it to disappear (it never does). They braved awkward moments we are wired to steer away from, and stepped into discomfort incrementally through small acts of bravery. And they learned from setbacks, seeing them as information rather than proof they shouldn’t have tried and made some semblance of peace with the fact that they are innately fallible and a ‘work in progress.’ As I wrote in the book, extending grace and compassion inward, forgiving our ‘unfinished selves’ is a foundational act of courage that can be profoundly transformative.

It’s not linear—it’s messy. But the sequence matters because you can’t regulate fear you haven’t acknowledged, and you can’t step into discomfort if you haven’t challenged the story that discomfort equals danger.

How can implementing the ideas in your book help shape better leaders and encourage growth?

The book helps anyone—leaders, parents, people in transition—close the gap between who they are and who they’re capable of becoming.

As I wrote in the book, sharing a story of my childhood on my parents’ farm, “Growth and comfort can’t ride the same horse.” That is, growth doesn’t happen without exertion or discomfort. It happens when you speak up with a shaky voice. When you try something new, knowing you might fail. When you have the difficult conversation instead of letting resentment build.

The book helps people distinguish between real dangers and magnified fears. Your brain evolved to overreact to threats, which kept ancestors alive, but now makes a tough conversation feel as dangerous as a physical threat. It makes starting something new feel riskier than staying in a situation that’s slowly diminishing you.

When you recognize that fear of judgment isn’t actual danger, or that doubt isn’t incompetence, you can take action despite fear rather than waiting for it to disappear.

For anyone leading—a team, a family, their own life—this matters because people become what they’re willing to confront. Those who act despite fear create environments where others feel permission to do the same. That permission to be imperfect while stepping forward? That’s how everyone grows.

What is one thing that you hope readers take away from your book?

That not only can anyone become a braver version of themselves, but that courage isn’t the absence of fear—it’s choosing to act while fear tags along.

Most people wait to feel brave before acting. But courage doesn’t work that way. You don’t eliminate fear; you change your relationship to it. You learn to distinguish between real dangers and magnified fears.

The shift I want readers to make: 

When you ask “What’s the risk?” also ask “What’s the cost if I don’t act?”

That reframe—from “What could go wrong?” to “What will definitely go wrong if I don’t?”—unlocks stalled decisions, avoided conversations, deferred dreams.

I want readers to finish with a quiet push toward things they usually avoid. Not because fear disappeared, but because they realize staying stuck hurts more than stepping forward. The courage they think they lack isn’t something you’re born with—it’s something you build, one uncomfortable step at a time.

If readers take even one brave action they’ve been avoiding, that changes something fundamental. Not just for them, but for everyone who would benefit from them showing up more authentically and backing themselves more boldly – toward their bold goals but also in meeting their biggest challenges too. We all have them. 

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