Insights on courage: Powerful learnings from Florence Nightingale

“I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took excuses.”

– Florence Nightingale

These words are timeless. Accountability is one of Nightingale’s key principles, both for herself and for those she was working alongside to solve the important problems of her time. Here are the others I felt were incredible and worth sharing today:

According to Florence Nightingale, a biography from Cecil Woodham-Smith, SHE…

• Worked shoulder to shoulder with the team, jumped right in and was eager to help in what seemed like any way, and under any conditions. Her attitude and selfless spirit made the difference!
• Used her influence to drive critical change. She came from a wealthy family, but she overcame their resistance of her chosen career, then used her network to achieve success.
• Used real data and questioned it… In doing so, she was able to use this to amplify her message and make decisions.

Her timely reference by Ryan Holiday (see Sunday’s blog) on the topic of courage was a stand out. As a health care leader, I was aware of Ms. Nightingale but hadn’t studied her life. I hope you might find this as helpful as I did. These are powerful reminders to all of us that serving and leaving a legacy of worth requires courage and doing things in a way that is often challenged. (Can you imagine that a woman was actually able to make such and impact at this time in history?) It sometimes doesn’t feel good and often feels like a very uncomfortable hike up a rocky mountain or hillside. I feel that the lessons above give us practical advice for building courage.

Some questions to leave you with on this insight:

• Is there an opportunity in any part of your world to be more accountable? Are you accepting excuses from yourself or others that are relying on you to be strong and courageous?
• Is your spirit one that is focused on the team? Are you willing to be uncomfortable to get important work done? (When was the last time you were uncomfortable WITH your team solving big problems?)
• What is important to you? Have you used your influence, resources or gifts to the best you can to help solve the small and big challenges we face? If not, what can you do today to move in that direction?
• Are you seeking data and quality information when you are addressing an area that is important to you? Have you asked good questions and been rigorous about ensuring that you have reviewed not just good, but trustworthy information? How can you move past headlines to the root of the issues?

I hope that you will have a WONDERFUL wrap to this week and that you will always find the courage (It’s okay to borrow it from time to time) to do whatever it is that sets your soul on fire.