Mentoring in Media 2: "In-Couragement"
Cowardly Lion: "All right, I'll go in there for Dorothy. Wicked Witch or no Wicked Witch, guards or no guards, I'll tear them apart. I may not come out alive, but I'm going in there. There's only one thing I want you fellows to do..."
Tin Woodsman, Scarecrow: "What's that?"
Cowardly Lion: "Talk me out of it!"
I think about encouragement a lot. I mean...a whole lot. But I think courage is misunderstood. And I think it, therefore, gets a bad rap by becoming the lauded domain of the kinds of cartoon heroes we enjoy in DC Comics and Marvel's "Justice League" and "Avengers," respectively.
The average soul sees the exploits of firefighters who run into burning buildings while others run out of them and wilt, thinking: "I could never be brave enough to do something as dangerous as that. Maybe, I'm just a selfish coward deep down inside." I think this unspoken question lay dormant within the bosom of 10,000 and 2 ordinary people, who have never (yet) found themselves "chosen" by fate and crisis to truly show what's within.
In Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, the "Cowardly Lion" is given an emerald-hued container from the Wizard that he must drink. Upon doing so, the lion is promised to know. But is this the old trick of the traveling snake oil salesman? The gift is a placebo, a liquid trick with words that taps the courage that resides within, but until the deep swallow he has no evidence anything is there except the fears that seems to plague a worried cautious mind. The enchanted 1939 film plays on this external gift-giving that signifies internal powers—The Wizard gives him a hero's testimony, a medal that that tells the world that here stands a “lion among men,” a veteran of tested fear, a soul proven to be at his core a selfless and sacrificial citizen.
The Wizard, although a lousy bureaucratic runner-of-magical monarchies, has an insight into the virtues that make us tick:
"You have plenty of courage, I am sure," answered Oz. "All you need is confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty" (Oz, Book, 1900).
The Wizard knows we all have fear. In fact, he's disinterested in this lower power within us that keeps us vigilant, protective, and safe under the best of conditions, but deteriorates into irrational risk-aversion, imagined threats and growth-stunting paralysis and indecision. He knows we sleep each evening atop a powder keg of unexploded readiness to serve, protect, protest, and defend. Only the match light of a nervous crisis stands between most of us and an explosion of hero-making bravery.
Oz knew this, and whether it was the gift of liquid placebo of the century-old book, or the dangling hero's charm of the beloved film, the Wizard is right: all the emerging leader needs is within and the danger is without. And after, only after, do they call you "Hero" (usually with you looking over your left shoulder wondering, "Who are they talking about?!").
Often, after I have stood beside someone in difficult circumstances and have offered my best words or maybe my speechless presence (because sometimes nervously jabbering while another is in pain or confusion is just downright irresponsible), I wonder if these gestures are enough. Something inside me wants to convey that I understand, that I identify, that I empathize, or that I sympathize. Something inside me wants to say: “If I were you, I would be mad, I would be sad, I would be glad, I would be afraid.”
Something inside of me wants to put something inside of them.
I think I know what it is that I'm trying to get across at such moments—I want to lend them my courage. I want to awake theirs like a motorist offering jumper cables, revved engine, and "go sign" that calls out through the open car door window, "Okay, try it now...start yours."
I want to put courage in them. I want to IN-Courage.
Encouragement, mentors, is teasing out, through words, tasks, and deeds, the courage within. Oz, the Wizard, has real problems as a bureaucrat. He has real credibility problems with his literal use of smoke and mirrors. But he's not all bad. He knows things about us, and calls it out when we need it most.
Be a wizard. Put courage in.
Who knows, that woman or man with whom you meet for coffee every couple of months, just might be a sleeping lion?
Also check out Mentoring in Media 1.
Photo credit: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc (MGM)
