Confidence Isn't What Creates Courage
What if courage isn't something you're born with—or something you build through confidence? Dr. J.J. Peterson reflects on the people who quietly give us the freedom to take life's biggest risks and why the safest leaders often create the bravest people.
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Confidence Isn't What Creates Courage
Every Fourth of July, I find myself thinking about my dad.
Part of that is because I grew up in a town called Independence, Missouri, where the Fourth wasn't just another holiday—it was the biggest day of the year. My dad would wake up before sunrise to save our family's spot along the parade route before heading to the fire station to help with the annual pancake breakfast. He worked the fireworks stand to earn a little extra money for our family and later helped set up the fireworks display that brought the entire town together that evening.
Some of my favorite childhood memories happened on the Fourth of July.
As I've gotten older, the holiday has become more complicated. Patriotism doesn't always mean the same thing to me that it once did. But those memories of my dad have never changed. They remind me of home, and they remind me of a lesson I didn't fully understand until years later.
We often think of independence as standing on our own, needing less from other people, and finding the confidence to make difficult decisions by ourselves. The older I get, the more I wonder if we've misunderstood what makes people courageous in the first place.
Sometimes We Forget Who's Really on Our Side
Growing up in a small town had its advantages, but it also meant there wasn't much room to disappear.
My father was the pastor of the largest church in town. He volunteered with the fire department, served as the police chaplain, prayed before football games, and had married or buried someone in almost every family. People waved when they saw his truck. They stopped to talk with him everywhere we went. He was deeply loved by our community.
As his oldest son, there were times when I wondered where I fit into all of that. I never questioned whether my dad loved me, but like a lot of teenagers, I wasn't always sure we were on the same side.
That uncertainty came to a head one night when I was in high school.
A group of friends and I were standing in a parking lot after one of them had peeled out as she drove away. A police officer decided he wanted to know who had been behind the wheel. He questioned all of us, and when I refused to give up my friend, he changed his approach.
He reminded me that I was the pastor's son.
He told me how disappointed my father would be if I didn't cooperate. Then he threatened to call my dad and tell him that because I wouldn't help, I'd be spending the night in juvenile detention.
I was terrified.
Not because of the police.
Because I believed him.
I thought disappointing my father would be worse than anything the officer could do.
Eventually, we worked out a compromise that allowed everyone to go home, and I decided not to tell my parents what had happened.
At least, not intentionally.
A week later, family friends mentioned the whole story while they were visiting our house. My dad learned about it sitting in our own living room.
He didn't lecture me.
He didn't raise his voice.
He simply told me to go upstairs.
For days afterward, I waited for the conversation I knew was coming. I replayed every detail of that night in my mind, trying to figure out how I would explain myself and justify the choices I'd made.
The conversation never came.
The Moment I Finally Understood My Dad
Later, my mom told me why.
The silence wasn't because my dad was angry with me.
It was because he was angry with the officers who had tried to use him against me.
The very next day, he'd gone to the police station and confronted them. He made it abundantly clear they were never to put me in that position again.
I don't know that I've ever forgotten that moment.
As a little kid, I always imagined my dad and I were on the same team. We'd fight the bad guys together. Somewhere along the way, though, I'd started believing that maybe we were standing on opposite sides. That maybe he was judging me more than protecting me.
Finding out what he had done reminded me that I'd had it backwards all along.
He wasn't standing against me.
He was standing for me.
Looking back now, I think that realization shaped far more of my life than I understood at the time.
The Greatest Gift My Parents Ever Gave Me
When people look at my life, they sometimes point to decisions that seem courageous.
Moving to California for college.
Living in a tent while helping build homes outside the slums of Tijuana.
Touring the country as an improv comedian.
Leaving a career that no longer fit the person I was becoming.
From the outside, those decisions can look fearless.
But I don't think fearlessness is what made them possible.
What made them possible was knowing that if everything fell apart, I could always go home.
My parents used to joke that they didn't appreciate being called my "worst-case scenario." But what I meant wasn't that moving back home sounded appealing. What I meant was that I never believed I would have to face failure alone.
The greatest gift they gave me wasn't protection from failure.
It was the freedom to risk it.
They created a home I could leave.
The older I get, the more extraordinary that feels. They didn't hold on so tightly that I was afraid to explore, nor did they push me away and expect me to figure life out on my own. They gave me something far more valuable. They created the kind of home that quietly said, "Go see what's possible. And if it doesn't work out, you'll still belong here."
I don't think we appreciate how much courage grows from that kind of security.
Leaders Shape the Courage of Other People
The older I get, the more I realize this isn't just true in families.
It's true in leadership.
Whether we're leading a company, a team, a classroom, or simply the people closest to us, we're constantly communicating something about what happens when people fail.
Do they lose our respect?
Do they lose their place?
Or do they know that while they may be challenged, corrected, or coached, they won't lose their belonging?
The leaders who have shaped my life weren't simply the ones who believed I could succeed. They were the ones who reminded me that my value wasn't determined by whether I succeeded.
That kind of leadership creates people who are willing to speak up, try new things, take responsibility, and pursue opportunities they otherwise would've avoided. It doesn't eliminate fear. It simply gives people the confidence that they don't have to face fear alone.
A Different Way to Think About Independence
Every Fourth of July still reminds me of Independence.
Not just the holiday.
The town.
My dad.
The fireworks.
The pancake breakfasts.
But it also reminds me that I no longer think about independence the way I once did.
For years, I assumed independence meant standing on your own, needing less from other people, and proving you could make it without anyone else's help.
Now I wonder if the opposite is true.
Maybe independence isn't the absence of connection.
Maybe it's what's possible because of connection.
We admire people who take extraordinary risks because they appear fearless. But I don't think fearlessness is what separates them from everyone else.
More often than not, they're carrying something many of us forget we already have.
The knowledge that someone is in their corner.
The confidence that they're loved.
The freedom that comes from knowing they don't have to stand alone.
Perhaps confidence isn't what creates courage after all.
Perhaps it's belonging.
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[00:00:00] The Myth of Fearless Leaders
Dr. J.J. Peterson: For a lot of us out there, we have forgotten that we have people who love us. We often think that the people who are beside us all the time, they don't say it, but maybe they're a little against us. Or we think, "You know, the universe is out to get me. Like, everything is against me." And what I'm here to say to you today is
Welcome to Badass Softie, a podcast for leaders who are unapologetically ambitious and want to lead with heart because you're allowed to chase big goals without losing what makes you human. I'm your host, Dr. JJ Peterson, and we are in the week of Fourth of July, and Fourth of July always makes me think of my dad.
Uh, I grew up in a small town called Independence, so Fourth of July was clearly a big deal. And more than that, it was actually a really big deal to my dad. Every year, he would wake up before the sun, and he would take our camping chairs down to Main Street to secure a prime spot under some shade on the parade route.
And then after he did that, we were all still asleep, he'd head over to the firehouse, where he would start setting up and prepping for the famous fireman's pancake breakfast that pretty much fed the whole town. He, uh, he loved fireworks. We often worked at a fireworks booth to make extra money for our family.
He loved, you know, watching us set them off in the driveway, and he actually was almost always a part of the crew that would go down and set up the whole fireworks show that they would set off, um, you know, on the Fourth of July down on the riverfront. Everybody would see. My dad would set it up, and he would light it off.
He loved it. And, you know, when I talk about that, uh, the Fourth of July and kind of that hometown, like, parade and everything, it... In a lot of ways, uh, you know, I, I look back on those moments, and my childhood was pretty idyllic. And I think a lot of even my most favorite memories are from the Fourth of July.
And, you know, side note, y- you know, I have to admit that I've gotten older. How some people approach the holiday and patriotism and how they speak about it leaves me with some mixed emotions, um, about the holiday itself, but i-
[00:02:27] When You Feel Like You're Alone
Dr. J.J. Peterson: if I'm most honest, I still love a good Fourth of July because of my childhood and because of my dad But to say that everything was always smooth sailing with me and my dad would be a little misleading because, you know, a small town or a, a place where everybody knows your name sounds great as a theme for a bar, but isn't always as fun when you are the closeted oldest son of the pastor of the largest church in this really close-knit community.
'Cause not only was my father a pastor, but he also bowled in the local league. He was a volunteer fireman, served as police chaplain. He prayed with the high school football team before every single game, home or away. You know, my father was very well-known, but on top of that, he was also just beloved 'cause he had n- we said often, you know, he, he had either married or buried somebody in almost everybody's family in town.
Uh, he did so many weddings, you know? And if I drove my dad's Suburban through town, I got honks and waves, and a few people would kind of like jokingly bump me when I was at a stop sign or, you know, I'd be driving down the road and people would pretend to swerve into me, you know, if I'm pulling into a parking lot, you know, just 'cause they thought I was him, that he was...
He, people loved him. My father loomed very large in our small town of about 8,000 people, and if I'm honest, there were times where I resented him for meaning so much and giving so much to our community and feeling like maybe it was at the expense of our family 'cause I, I wasn't sure if he noticed me or watched out for me with so many other people he had to care for.
Now, I, I never had a bad relationship with him, but I did often wonder where I fell on his span of vast attentions 'cause he had a lot of them.
[00:04:28] A Lesson I'll Never Forget
Dr. J.J. Peterson: There was one time, though, when I was in high school, my friends and I were hanging out at the marketplace parking lot on Main Street late at night, as we did, and m- my friend Jenny Pointer needed to make it home before curfew.
And in her typical kind of, like, wild ways, as she was leaving the parking lot, she peeled out, and smoke was everywhere, noise was everywhere. We were all laughing. But it turns out that just down the road, a police car had spotted her and turned on their lights and tried to catch her before she got all the way across town to her house.
And when I say all the way across town, it was only a couple blocks. So they didn't catch up to her. Now, what you need to know is we knew all the police officers in town by name and reputation, and everybody feared crossing paths with Palmer because you knew if you ran into him, you were going to get busted for something.
Because in a town where, you know, the greatest crime you could commit was moving somebody's lawn chair before the Fourth of July parade, we had a number of officers who felt like they needed to create action when it wasn't needed. And, uh, most of them were older brothers or fathers of people who we went to school with, and it was hard to give the respect deserved while they were in uniforms because we had just been with them at a backyard barbecue.
So they often felt the need to demand it kind of by being jerks. And to be honest, Palmer was the worst of them. He once pulled my brother over, lights blazing, siren blaring, and got out of his car with his hand on his gun- Now, the only problem with this scene is that my brother was a freshman in high school and pushing his friend Jesse Rutledge down the street in a shopping cart.
That was Palmer. So just as we're about to get into our cars to leave the lot because it was getting close to curfew, we see Palmer turn on his lights and pull into the parking lot. And even though we were all only a few feet away from his car, he used his megaphone to instruct us to stay put. He and his partner then got out, and they had returned to question us and ask us about who was driving the car.
Of course, we didn't tell be- you know, s- and some of my friends started smell- uh, smarting off, which did not sit well with our interrogators. So they ended up dividing us up into groups to try to get something out of us, but none of us broke. Because getting pulled over by a cop in a small town is nothing compared to being labeled a rat in a small town, and none of us were going to risk that kind of social suicide.
Now, Palmer recognized me, and like spotting a weak member of the herd, he approached to pounce on the one with the crippling conscience. So he takes me aside, he separates me from my friends, and began to talk to me in a more friendly, kind of calm tone, and he's like, "Look I know who you are. You're a good kid.
Just tell me who it was and we will let you guys go. And besides, we already know who it is. We know her car. We just couldn't find it to prove it, and she's not in trouble. She's not in trouble. We just wanna talk to her. And, and I was, like, shaking, but I did not break. And when my silence confirmed that I wasn't going to cooperate, he began to get a little more aggressive and share with me how he knew that I was the pastor's son.
He knew my dad personally, and he shared how much my father would be ashamed of me for not cooperating. And if I didn't tell him who had peeled out, not only would he tell my dad, but he would be giving him a call to wake him up because then Pastor Stan Peterson would have to get his oldest son from juvenile hall because now that they had been questioning us for 15 minutes, it was after curfew, and we were all going to get hauled in.
I, I was terrified. I could either give up my friend and lose all my friends or risk the wrath of my father and all my friends' parents by going to juvenile hall. I was convinced my father would not only be disappointed in me but ashamed of me for not doing the right thing. So after a few more minutes of pleading with the officers to let us go, I came up with a plan, and I worked out a deal where I used a payphone to call my friend.
Yes, we had payphones back then, and I let the officer talk to her and warn her, give her her warning over the phone. It took a couple of times to get her on the phone, but after convincing her to talk to the police to get us off the hook, she agreed, and the officers let us go, and she didn't get a ticket.
Now, I never said a word to my dad because I was convinced that officer was right, that my dad would be upset if I didn't help them get my friend. Just kinda hid it. Well, what did I say? Small town. So the next week, our friends, the Andersons, were at our house and in front of my parents asked me about the incident 'cause their son had been part of the evening, and they were, like, laughing at it and talking about Palmer like the whole thing was a no big deal.
But the silence that kind of followed clued them into the fact that I had not shared the story with my parents yet. Now, I tried to play it off like it was no big deal, you know, laughing with the Andersons at the absurdity of all of it, but I could tell that my dad was not only shocked, but he was upset.
And he didn't say much, uh, not in front of the guests. Uh, but he just kind of nodded to me and basically said, "It's okay. Go upstairs." So Even though actually he never mentioned the incident again, I kept waiting for the hammer to drop. For days, I lived in fear that I was going to get punished, so I'd constructed these arguments and speeches in my head, going over them again and again, trying to find out just the right combination that would justify why I had shamed my father twice, once in front of the police and once in front of his friends.
And my tone in my fake arguments ranged from angry to apologetic, but mostly I thought through different ways I could bargain my way out of punishment, but the conversation never came.
[00:10:49] Knowing Someone Is On Your Side
Dr. J.J. Peterson: I found out later from my mom that his silence that evening when he found out was not a result of his anger against me, but against those who would use him against me.
The day after that dinner with the Andersons, he had gone down to the station and cornered those officers, chewing them out for pitting us against each other. He told them in very specific terms never to do it again. My mom wasn't sure what the exact threats were, but a man with my father's influence in a small town can make life very difficult for police officers who already were not well-liked.
Guess what? I never had a problem with Palmer again. When I was younger, I, uh, as a little kid, I, I really did always feel like my dad and I were the s- on the same side. We played together. We, we fought against the bad guys together, but when I got a bit older, there were times where I felt like that changed for me, where, where sometimes we were maybe on the opposite side, that he was almost against me.
I knew he loved me, and I knew he would protect me. I knew he would provide for me, but that moment when I heard that he yelled at the cops for me is when I was reminded that he would fight for me, too. I'd forgotten we were on the same side, and while there were moments I didn't often show it as a weird teenager, I actually never doubted it again.
[00:12:21] Where Real Courage Comes From
Dr. J.J. Peterson: And that knowledge that my dad would always be there for me might be the single thing that helped me accomplish so much in my life. Because every time I got ready to take a scary leap, like when I chose to go to California to college or live in a tent outside of the slums of Tijuana to help build homes for the disadvantaged, or sell my house and tour as an improv comedian, or even quit my job so I could come out of the closet without causing a huge scandal, I knew one thing: I could always go home.
Now, what's funny is my parents didn't always love the fact that I would use that in explanations 'cause I would say things like, in front of them, I might say, "I may lose my house and my car and everything, but worst case scenario, I can always live with my parents." Uh, they didn't take offense because they assumed that just because I assumed I could move home.
They took offense because I was calling them my worst case scenario. But it's true. No matter what, I knew that my dad, my parents were always there for me, and that was the greatest gift they ever gave me. And the funny thing is, they didn't give me that gift by holding on too tightly. They gave it to me by creating a home I could leave, I could venture out from And when I look back on my life, there's a lot of decisions that didn't make much sense on paper, like moving to California or living in a tent or touring as a comedian, quitting my job.
I've spent a lot of my life walking towards things that scared me. But maybe bec- that's because I never really believed that I was walking alone. Somewhere in the back of my mind was the knowledge that if I fell apart, there was a place for me. Not just a house, a place, people who loved me, people who were there for me.
[00:14:17] Independence Through Connection
Dr. J.J. Peterson: As I've gotten older, I've started to realize that for a lot of people, that's pretty rare. Not rare because people don't love each other. Most people do, more than they know even what to say often, more than they know how to show. But every now and then, when somebody makes it unmistakably clear, when they tell you how much you are loved, when they tell you how much safe you are, they don't always have to say these words, but what they're really saying is, "You can go, you can explore, you can risk failure, and no matter what happens, you're still one of us."
And for a lot of us out there, we have forgotten that we have people who love us. We often think that the people who are beside us all the time, they don't say it, but maybe they're a little against us. Or we think, "You know, the universe is out to get me," like everything is against me. And h- what I'm here to say to you today is you have people who love you.
You do. The universe is not against you. And because of that, I think that there's an opportunity for you to be able to take some risks you might have been holding back from taking. And the reason I think that it gives you f- i-it gives you freedom, it gives you independence, and I, honestly, th-that's-- I know this feels a weird thing to say, but I think that's why I think about my dad a lot around the Fourth of July because of the fireworks and the firemen breakfast and all those things, you know.
But it's more than that I grew up in that town called Independence. And independence is often thought of as being self-sufficient, standing on your own, needing less from people. But I'm not so sure. Maybe independence isn't the absence of connection. Maybe independence is what's possible because of connection.
Maybe the people who help us become the most free are the people who make us feel the most loved. And if there's one thing I've learned in 50 years, it's that the world is a lot friendlier than it sometimes appears. There are more people on your side than you think. There are more people cheering for you than you realize.
[00:16:48] Creating Safety for Others
Dr. J.J. Peterson: My dad gave me that feeling, and I know that I have so many other people when I pause for five seconds that give me that feeling, too. And when I can think about that all these years later, it still helps me lean into independence. So before we go, let me leave you with this. May you never underestimate the power of making someone feel safe.
May you be the kind of person who reminds others that they are not alone. May you create the kind of safety that gives people the courage to explore, to risk, to grow, and to become. May you remember that you have more people on your side than you can think and more people cheering for you than you realize.
And may you discover that true independence isn't found in standing alone, but knowing you are loved. The universe is on your side, and you're going to be okay. Because we believe you can be both ambitious and kind, fun and driven, powerful and deeply human. Your leadership can inspire, your success can have soul, and your ambition can make space for everyone.
That's why you're a badass softie. We'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. Follow and subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Badasssoftie.com is crafted by Fruitful Design & Strategy.