Ranjay Gulati

Get out of here now.

Now, it was strategically brilliant in hindsight because it got him off guard.

Her security guard from the gate heard the commotion came running in.

This guy was so rattled, he ran out of there forgetting his checkbook behind.

I was embarrassed because I froze.

I didn't know what to do.

And by the time I'm 14, I was always feeling like, you know, I'm the boy, the man, protect my mother, you know, I had all these kind of illusions about myself.

But I was always ashamed of the story because I did nothing.

Now I asked my mom afterward, I said, mom, that was crazy.

Weren't you scared?

Did you see a gun?

She said, absolutely, I was scared.

But just because you're scared doesn't mean you do nothing.

And that kind of stuck in my head.

I was at one level ashamed of myself, but I was also kind of in awe of my mother.

I hate that story.

Honestly, I never told anybody that story till I wrote this book because I was a little ashamed of my own self in this context.

So you know, Dan, the first essay I could find on courage was written by Aristotle, who was describing the ideal soldier.

Way back then, he made a distinction between courageous and reckless.

In fact, he had cowardice at one extreme, reckless at the other extreme, and courage was in the middle.