This is part three of Christie Jenkins’ five-part series on bravery. It is inspired by her chat with Crista Samaras, the founder of Brave Enterprises.
Trampolining was my first sport. For 17 years, I did flips every day.
“Does it feel like flying?” people ask me.
From their view, I get why. I’m often 10 meters in the air, upside down – and if I do my job right – it looks effortless.
The reality is, it’s not as easy as it appears.
We experience G-forces of up to 8.4G – more than an F1 driver or airforce pilot.
You have to generate torque mid-air to twist multiple times.
You speed up your rotation by pulling into a tight tuck or pike to make triple somersaults happen.
It’s physically demanding.
But even tougher? It’s scary as hell.
If you watched Simone Biles balk during her routines at the Tokyo Olympics, you may have heard the term “the twisties.”
Think of each skill in an athlete’s mind as following a single neural pathway. A double front with a 1.5 twist has one set of neurons that light up to make the trick happen.
A double front with a 2.5 twist lights up another set.
The twisties happen when you take off planning to do the first trick – and accidentally do the second. The beginnings are so similar that your neural pathways get crossed.
Now imagine jumping 10 meters in the air, about to take off, and not knowing which trick your brain will choose.
Terrifying.
Scary.
The twisties have happened to me more than once.
I’d get on the trampoline, start bouncing, tell myself I was ready to do the trick… And then, on takeoff … just … stop.
In gymnastics, we call that balking – when fear overrides muscle memory. When overthinking replaces confidence.
I was too scared to start.
And so my coach was faced with the question:
How do you teach bravery?
This is part three in my five-part bravery series:
- World-first research on bravery. 7 findings that will overturn your beliefs
- Bravery > confidence: Don’t fear less, brave more
- Bravery is not a feeling, it’s a skill. 5 techniques to master it
- The only 3 questions you need to make brave choices
- Why I refuse to talk about impostor syndrome (and you should too)
The courage quotient
In post one, we defined bravery as:
Bravery = Fear + Action
The most important thing to know is: ‘Fear’ and ‘action’ are independent variables.
No matter how much fear you feel, you can still act.
In post two, we saw that the amount of fear we feel – and therefore the amount of courage we need – is influenced by two factors:
- The level of risk (more risk = more fear)
- Our level of skill (less skill or competence = more fear)
In my case of the twisties, my fear was exceptionally high.
And I couldn’t bring it down.
Not by reducing the risk – trampolining is an inherently dangerous sport. One of my teammates was already a quadriplegic.
And not by increasing my competence — technically, I could already do the skills. I was just too scared to take off.
I couldn’t change how much fear I felt.
But willingness to act?
My coach taught me how to turn that dial up.
He taught me how to train bravery.
This is how.
5 science-backed ways to build bravery
1) Witness brave in action
“Come over here,” said my coach.
“But that’s the gymnasts’ side of the gym,” I said. We trampolinists had our own section.
“There’s something you need to see,” he told me.
Many trampolinists start in gymnastics and transition later. I never did. My mum knew I was going to be too tall for a sport where the average height is about five feet.
So when we walked over to watch the gymnasts training on the beam, I had never done a single trick on it – and honestly, I never wanted to. The beam is solid wood, just 10 centimetres wide.
I’d take the trampoline any day.
“Watch,” said my coach.
A solo athlete was on the beam, eyes fixed ahead. She rubbed her hands on her legs; her toes clenched and unclenched with nerves.
“You’ve got this, Annabel,” one of the gymnasts called out.
“She took a bad fall on her layout last month,” whispered another. “It’s always terrifying the first time trying it again after injury.”
Annabel looked over at her teammates … took a deep breath … and then launched into a series of flips.
All on a 10-centimetre plank of wood.
The smile that lit up her face when she landed was huge.
Watching her be brave made me want to be brave, too.
To build bravery, witness other people doing brave things.
You can:
- Watch someone do something you fear.
- Watch someone do something they fear.
The science shows both work.
“History has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.”
– Michelle Obama
2) Be honest with yourself
Fear has a tendency to expand.
I was scared of one trick on the trampoline. But then I started to doubt myself on other tricks – and question whether I could even continue in the sport.
Fear wants to expand.
Especially if it stays in your head.
My coach brought in a sports psychologist to work with me.
“What are you scared of?” he asked, jumping right in.
“The half-out trick,” I told him. “It’s a double front with a half twist.”
“Okay, that would scare me too!” he said. “But let’s get more clarity — which part of the trick is scary?”
“What do you mean? I can’t do the trick. I can’t even take off right now.”
“Well, are you scared of the tuck position?” he asked.
“No, of course not. I do that in dozens of other tricks,” I said.
“Is it the landing? Are you worried you might land wrong?”
“No – if I get through the trick in the air, I know the landing will be fine.”
“What about the takeoff?”
“No – that just requires physical strength and focus.”
It turned out I was only scared of a tiny microsecond within the trick – the exact moment where there’s a ‘blind spot’ as you flip upside down and twist at the same time.
Clarity matters. Generalised fear feels overwhelming. Specific fears feel actionable.
I could drill and visualise every part of the trick – except that tiny moment – without fear.
It made the fear smaller.
To build bravery, be honest about the specific thing you fear.
Only then can you make a plan to get through it with action.
Scared of going up to a stranger? Is it their reaction you’re worried about, or the people you know watching on?
Scared of speaking on stage? Is it that you’ll forget your words, the audience will laugh, or you’ll disappoint your mum? Which is the truly hard part?
Scared of calling someone out for discrimination? Are you worried about how they’ll react, the consequences for your career, or the judgement from your peers?
“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.” – Brené Brown
3) Be self-reflective
“Get out your training diary,” my coach told me.
My training diaries are where I write exactly what I did — every trick, drill, and rep — for every single training session. I have 17 diaries. One for every year I did the sport.
“Here’s a highlighter,” he said. “Go through your training diary and highlight every single time you did something difficult or scary this year.”
I looked back over more than 200 sessions.
And I highlighted over 50 things.
It turns out, I was brave every single week.
So maybe I could be brave this week too.
To build bravery, reflect on the times you’ve already been brave.
“Self-reflection encourages great bravery. Rationalisation is your greatest enemy.” — Awa Kenzo
4) Be motivated with encouragement
I trained in a squad of six athletes.
That week, I went back to basic drills – takeoffs, single somersaults, body positions in the air, and skills into the foam pit.
Effectively, I was relearning the skill I was scared of from scratch.
The best part?
Every other athlete in my squad did them with me. They didn’t have an issue with the trick, but they wanted to encourage me.
At the end of the week, my coach called me over to the trampoline and said:
“It’s time.”
“Now?” I asked. I hadn’t done the trick all week, and the fear was still a pit in my stomach.
“We’re all here to support you,” he told me.
Every athlete stopped their training, walked over to the side of the trampoline, and started cheering me on.
To build bravery, let others encourage you.
It might be the little push you need to start the scary thing – and starting is always the hardest part.
“Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.”
– Oprah Winfrey
5) Take brave actions
Techniques one to four are all about increasing your willingness to act.
Ultimately, you still have to act.
Bravery = fear + action.
“Here’s the deal,” my coach told me. “You have to do five of the trick every training session.”
“Five…?” I trailed off. Once felt terrifying. Five times felt overwhelming.
“Yes,” he said, unyielding. “It will get easier the more often you are brave.”
To build bravery, do brave things.
My coach threw in a bonus: each day I hit all five attempts without balking, the entire squad got to pick a strength exercise to skip.
I wasn’t just being brave for me – I was being brave for them too.
I didn’t miss a single day.
Like anything else in life, the more you practice being brave, the easier it becomes to take brave action.
“What you feel doesn’t matter in the end; it’s what you do that makes you brave.”
– Andre Agassi
The advanced course: Training to run towards fear
Most of us don’t have truly dangerous jobs. We don’t have to run towards gunfire, into collapsing buildings, or complete triple somersaults 10 meters in the air.
So the five strategies above are usually sufficient.
But if you want to get more advanced?
Now we get into neuroscience.
And the lesson from science is this: fear is a cue – the same as any other stimulus.
- When we feel hunger, we eat.
- When we feel happy, we smile.
- When we see someone yawn, we yawn.
- When we feel embarrassment, we blush.
- When we’re rejected by a friend, we feel hurt.
- When we touch a hot stove, we pull our hand away.
The first part is the stimulus.
The second part is our response.
When we feel fear, the typical response is fight, flight, or freeze.
However, advanced practitioners of bravery know one truth – explained beautifully by Viktor Frankl:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
– Viktor E. Frankl
TLDR: You are not stuck with automatic fear reactions.
Here’s how to train yourself to run towards fear:
- Step 1: Expand the ‘space’ between stimulus (fear) and response.
- Step 2: Choose a new response. Lean into curiosity, calm, authenticity, or action.
- Step 3: Repeat it with training. ‘Neurons that fire together wire together.’ With enough practice you can change the wiring of your brain to use fear as a signal to respond with curiosity or action.
This is how habits are built in every part of our lives. We change our wiring.
This is how to build a bravery habit.
“Build your bravery rather than wasting your time trying to reduce your fear. Fear is real. Fear is fuel. Fear is your damn cue for brave action.” ~ Crista Samaras
The ultimate goal: Bravery as an identity
“Are you a brave person?”
If you were asked this, what would your honest answer be?
If it’s not ‘yes’ today. It can become ‘yes’ over time.
First, we develop bravery as a skill. Use the above five techniques to increase your willingness to act in the face of fear.
Second, we develop bravery as a habit. Choose a new response for when you feel the stimulus of fear, and rewire your brain with repetition until it becomes automatic.
Finally, we develop bravery as an identity. It becomes a foundational piece of our character that shapes decisions, career, relationships, and self-perception.
We go from, ‘I can do brave things’ to ‘I am a brave person.’
To do this only requires two things:
- Many many brave actions over time
- Self reflection on those actions, where you give yourself credit for being brave
The research on growth mindset proves that:
“The hand you’re dealt is just the starting point for development… Your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way – in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments – everyone can change and grow through application and experience.” ~ Carol Dweck
The most powerful thing about building a brave identity is that when fear arises, we know we will choose courage.
Not because we have talked ourselves into it.
Not because we made it an automatic habit.
But because it is who we are.
“‘What keeps you up at night?’ A reporter once asked General James Mattis. ‘I keep people awake at night.’ he said.”
Be bold, be brave
The goal is not to eliminate fear. We can’t.
The goal is to increase our willingness to act.
First train the skill of bravery.
Then make bravery a habit.
Finally, create your identity as a brave person.
- Christie Jenkins is the managing director of Techstars Sydney. This is the 3rd in a series of 5 essays on bravery. Read more at christiejenkins.com.au
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