Courage is contagious

By M.Farouk Radwan, MSc.

Climbing the hill

The largest hill i ever climbed in my life was 25 meters and wasn't by all means steep. I don't remember i climbed a taller one in my life. My knowledge about climbing hills is very limited as well.

2 days ago i was with some friends in a remote area famous of its mountains and hills. We came across a hill that was about 100-150 meters high and that was very steep. Few of my friends who live in that area decided to climb that hill. For me that was the craziest thing i have ever seen people i know doing.

The hill was so steep, most of those people have never climbed it before and the path that takes people up was only suitable for professionals.

In the first few moments i took the decision to not get up but as i saw many people taking the first few steps i started to believe that its doable.

I approached the hill with my friends and started climbing up but after 2 minutes i looked down and i was scared. I found that the ground is far and that any slip will either seriously injure me or even kill me. I stopped and decided to climb back down.

Here is an image of the hill

Courage is contagious

I turned my back to my friends and decided to climb down and while i was doing so a friend of mine shouted "Farouk, look there is a girl up there doing it, turn around and continue moving"

My Friend's words touched something inside me and i found myself moving forward again. In one second my beliefs changed. I started to believe that its possible to go up because everyone was doing it. I was still feeling afraid but this time the fear was mixed with confidence.

After 10-15 minutes we were at the top of the hill and i found myself face to face with the clouds (The total elevation was 2000 meters above sea level).

A picture on the top of the mountain

We spent sometime on the top, took some pictures and then we started our journey back down. When we reached the ground i felt much more confident about my abilities and i was really happy with the achievement i made.

Lessons to learn from this story

  • 1) Limitations are just in your mind: If my friends weren't with me i would have never ever thought about climbing up and i would have never imagined that i have the ability to do it (see also Success and beliefs)
  • 2) Courage & Fear are contagious: Both courage and fear are contagious. If you surrounded yourself with scared people they will influence you and the same will happen if you surrounded yourself with brave ones
  • 3) Beliefs can change as a result of peer pressure: In most cases most people won't encourage you to climb mountains but they will actually try to scare you and put you down because they are already scared. This is you must learn to filter the real limitations from the ones that are imposed on you by others (see also How to end worrying and fear)
  • 4) You are much more skilled than you think: Your current beliefs about your abilities are not real. There are many more things that you can do even though you think that you can't do them.

After we climbed up i went to the friend who encouraged me and told him "Bro, thanks for letting me discover how Brave i was ;)"

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