Every virtue has two ditches that take it beyond virtue and into vice: one ditch is deficiency and the other one is excess. Courage, which is a commonly used virtue for entrepreneurs, is no exception.
Take for example Andre Agassi. What a wonderful career he has had in tennis, winning eight major tournaments that included a career grand slam.
This past weekend he played his last US Open. The word courage seemed to come up every five minutes on TV and in every story written about his efforts this year. For those of you who are not tennis or even sports fans, Agassi played this last year with a severely injured back. But, he played on, in spite of his father publicly stating that he should not.
He was touted as a hero. “Give Agassi credit, he retired swinging”, was one headline.
While he has shown great courage in the past with his comebacks, playing through injuries, and with his incredible work ethic, this weekend Agassi went beyond courage and into the vice of recklessness. Even the commentators who marveled at his “courage,” would say in the next breath that this last tournament could cause serious permanent physical injury.
So why did he go on? It was not the money — he and his wife have more than they can spend. It was not to win another major — even Agassi knew he could not win again in a major.
Sadly, I think society has convinced many of us that being Herculean even when there is no hope of success is somehow noble and good. But this is not true. Every virtue, even courage has limits.
There are good lessons here for the entrepreneur. When taken too far, risk taking can become reckless. Staying with a deal or sticking with a major decision even when it is clear that the best course of action is to move on is not courage, it is recklessness. Taking risk just for the sake of taking risk is not courage, it is recklessness.
Courage has two ditches. And Andre Agassi strayed off the road of courage into the ditch of recklessness.
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