Author: Carter LeCraw, American Values Investments
Covestor model: American Heroes
We have decided to add “Courage” to our list of values that describes American Hero Companies. The complete list is now Integrity, Humility, Diligence, Caring and Courage. Courage is important when launching new products, changing operating procedures, or, just doing the right thing in the midst of financial pressures. Courage is truly critical to a company’s long term viability and success.
As we discussed whether or not to add this value the question arose, “What is courage?” I began looking at several definitions and most dealt with the basic concept of “acting in the presence of fear.” The problem with this definition is that it could be used to describe actions by perpetrators of all sorts of evil acts and even terrorism. The only two ingredients needed for the standard definition is “fear” and then “action”.
Thank goodness I came across the following definition from the MacMillan dictionary: “Courage is the ability to do something that you know is right or good, even though it is dangerous, frightening, or very difficult.” As you can see this definition adds the third critical element of “proper motive”. Thank you, editors of the MacMillan dictionary; the word “courage” should, indeed, be reserved for good and noble actions.
But, courage is not only for our definition of American Hero Company, it is for us at American Values Investments, and in particular, me. I confess, I have, at times, allowed my fears to keep me from doing some of the things necessary to give our company greater opportunity to move to the next level. Yes, we have come a good ways, but I think we could be further along. With God’s strength, I hope to face those fears with more courage in the future.
In addition to adding “courage” as a value we added definitions to each of the five values. We also attached to each value a Scripture verse. Here is a link to our updated American Hero Company research standards.
