Got Courage? The Hidden Power of Choosing Your Professional Self

I’ve been in rooms lately—boardrooms, classrooms, and community spaces—where people are doing the hard work of serving others.

And in each of those spaces, I’ve found myself holding space for something even harder: the quiet, confronting question I have been asking each leader, teacher, and individual seeking to really make a difference or wanting a different outcome — “Are you truly serving… or are you just pleasing?”

It’s a question that lingers.
Because while service expands us, pleasing often exhausts and frustrates us.
And the line between the two can get blurry when we’ve built our success on being dependable, capable, and kind.

In many of these conversations, I’ve introduced a distinction that helps bring clarity to that line—a concept I have learned that’s new to many but deeply transformative once it clicks.
It’s the difference between our social self and our professional self.

Your social self is the version of you that runs on autopilot.
It’s the one shaped by expectation, habit, and history—doing what feels safe, what earns approval, what keeps the peace. It’s often the self that pleases.

Your professional self, on the other hand, is the one you consciously create.
It’s the version of you that operates with intention and integrity.
It’s rooted in authenticity, guided by your values, and fueled by courage.
It’s the self that serves.

That distinction may sound simple, but it’s powerful.

It reminds me of Jeff Olson’s book The Slight Edge, where he writes, “It’s easy to do—and it’s easy not to do.”

That’s the nature of real growth. Small, courageous choices compound over time.
Each one either moves you closer to who you’re becoming or keeps you circling the same loop.

Becoming your professional self isn’t about waiting for a breakthrough or a bolt of inspiration.
It’s not about getting permission from someone else to step into your potential.
It’s about the moment-by-moment work of awareness and choice.

It’s about pausing long enough to ask:
👉 Who am I being right now?
👉 Who do I desire to be in this moment?
👉 What choice aligns with that version of me?

For those who wrestle with imposter syndrome or feelings of “not enough,” this is your roadmap back to power.
You don’t have to fake confidence or wait for external validation.
You can create your professional self—deliberately, courageously, and authentically—by aligning your choices with your values.

That’s what courage really looks like.
It is not always the big, flashy moments—but the quiet, unseen ones.
The ones where you choose calm over chaos, truth over comfort, purpose over performance.

And here’s the thing—most people won’t even know the work you’re doing on the inside.
They won’t see the micro-decisions, the restraint, the reflection.

But you’ll feel it.

And that alignment—the one you build in silence—will always find its way to the surface.

Every day, you are both the sculptor and the clay.
Every moment, you have another chance to choose courage over comfort, authenticity over autopilot.

So before you move on to the next task, take a breath, slow down and ask yourself:
Am I serving… or am I pleasing?

Because how you answer that question—moment by moment—shapes not just your work, but who you become.

Got courage?