Courage: The Heart and Spirit of Every Woman [Paperback]

Sandra Ford Walston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 16, 2002

Embrace your courageous spirit! Why do some women have the courage to develop their full potential, fight injustice, embrace faith, and choose their own path? Author Sandra Ford Walston believes that courage is part of every woman’s "heart center." By returning to the original definition–the Old French corage, meaning "heart and spirit"–she shows how this ancient female virtue fits in our world today, and reveals why recognizing ourselves as courageous women is vital to knowing who we are and living life to its fullest.

Courage validates and honors the actions of everyday women by offering inspirational stories about how reclaiming courage has changed their lives–and can change yours. Drawing on your forgotten, yet unlimited reservoir of courage, the process teaches you how to design your own action plan. After looking deep within for your own patterns of behavior, you’ll learn to stop living in the shadow of lost opportunities, change your language to change your life, overcome humiliation and confront abuse, and make conscious choices to live your dream.

Sandra Ford Walston is a woman who has embraced her own courage and transformed her life. In this book, Sandra will be your guide as she shows you, your daughters, your friends, and the men who love you how to reclaim your birthright and live a full, empowered life guided by your courageous heart and spirit.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"To read Sandra Ford Walston's book is to celebrate the brilliance of contemporary women whose lives were transformed by embracing the virtue of courage. Her profound research indicates that every woman has been endowed with this virtue and shows us how to invoke it and manifest it more fully in our own lives."
–Jack Canfield, author of Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul

From the Author

Why Women and Courage?
I wrote this book to help women understand what courage really is, why society rarely recognizes women as courageous, and why such recognition is vital to knowing ourselves. Discovering courage awakens an ancient feminine energy that every woman should utilize. Reading this book and working through the three-step process (see Chapter Six) can be a major step in integrating courage into your life.

Courage: The Heart and Spirit of Every Woman challenges women to expand their self-perceptions and adopt courage as one aspect of a complete self. When a woman recognizes her conditioned responses--when she ceases to be a product of the past and calls upon the aid and comfort of courage--she will tap a reservoir of energy. Then, and only then, can courage serve as the catalyst for transforming obstacles into opportunities.

In this book you will read stories of real women who share their intimate experiences in manifesting courage. The women interviewed come from diverse backgrounds, and there is no correlation between courage and age, ethnic background, or education (see Research and Survey Results on pages 47-48).

The years of interviews yielded the Source Wheel (see page 72), which depicts twelve Behaviors of Courage. Specific action techniques can be used to integrate courage and enjoy the benefits of doing so. A special section called Books Recommended by the Courageous Women has been prepared as an additional resource for your journey.

By fusing courage with their innate energy, all women can enhance their ability to act from their hearts. When confronted with a choice, you can consciously call on courage as a guiding force. And by understanding how other women have used this forgotten virtue, you can gather energy to meet challenging experiences, expand your perceptions, and enrich your life.

Every Woman
All women have had debilitating experiences that compel self-examination and reinvention. Many emotional, physical, and psychological crises are common to women cross-culturally: fear, loss, illness, abuse, betrayal, and low self-esteem. Yet the courage to face and conquer these obstacles is available to every woman.

Courage: The Heart and Spirit of Every Woman is a powerful tool for discovering a new force, acknowledging an existing one, or recovering a lost one. Allow its images to open your mind to a more spirited and joyful way of living. Then take what you need from its passages to fill your heart and spirit. It is for every woman. And every woman is you. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (April 16, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767908007
• ISBN-13: 978-0767908009
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,880,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sandra Ford Walston, The Courage Expert, is the innovator of StuckThinking™ and principal of a 16-year-old learning and organizational effectiveness consulting firm. With thirteen years of original research in integrating courage behaviors, courageous leadership, women's courage and non-gender integral levels of courage consciousness, Sandra focuses on the traps and tricks of the human condition. She believes that integrating courage actions at work leads to a more naturally propelled and happy employee, resulting in reduced attrition, increased team effectiveness and improved bottom-line performance. She has found that there is a direct correlation between the organization's courage quotient and success as it relates to ethical behaviors.

Ms. Walston has trained over 3,800 individuals and customized skill-based training programs including webinars and teleclasses for major associations and Fortune 500 companies, including Caterpillar, Inc., Procter & Gamble, Hitachi Consulting, Qwest, Hensel Phelps, IBM, Wide Open West, US Bank, Nolte Engineers, Wyoming Public Nurses, DIA, Auburn University and Farmers Insurance.

With over eleven years of experience with finance professionals, she instructs for the University of Denver Continuing Professional Education courses such as "Courage Leadership: Do You Demonstrate It or Are You Stuck?" and she formerly taught for the Colorado Society of CPAs. She is the internationally published author of bestseller "COURAGE: The Heart and Spirit of Every Woman" (Greece and Brazil; 2002), endorsed by Marianne Williamson, Jack Canfield, Harriet Rubin and Neale Donald Walsch, to name a few. Her second book, "STUCK: 12 Steps Up the Leadership Ladder" (2010), is about courage consciousness actions at work that become stalled in StuckThinking™.

Her third book, "FACE IT! 12 Obstacles that Hold You Back on the Job," (2011)is not about how to get a job, but about learning to use courageous techniques to overcome work-related obstacles--things like uncertainty, intimidation, denial, apathy and self-doubt. The premise of this book is that we can change our behaviors when given the necessary tools to take the steps to grow and progress toward a courageous life.

Ms. Walston's articles have been featured in Chief Learning Officer, Training & Development, HR Matters, Malaysia, Zig Ziglar's Newsletter, Personal Excellence: The Magazine of Life Leadership and Strategic Finance. She is certified in the Enneagram, a system of understanding nine different personality types and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. She is a Newfield Network Coach.

Partial List of Highlighted Achievements (letters of recommendation available upon request):
* Denver Health and Hospitals - Designed and delivered over a year intellectual capital programs on self-directed teams and adult self-directed learners to enhance collaboration and support cross-functional teams to provide the best care possible. This project yielded accelerated synergistic production and increased team effectiveness.

* Qwest - Designed and delivered a series of intellectual capital programs for migrating teams with cross-functional representation across the country. The requested I apply the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® as a baseline to flow in and out of team assignments. The teams applied self-awareness to collaborate which diminished breakdowns and misunderstandings, retained/increased quality standards and revenue projections.

* Wide Open West - Designed and delivered a series of Enneagram leadership programs that merged the national leadership team members' courage leadership behavior patterns. Assessed and defined the courageous intentions to achieve revenue projections. Integrating courageous leadership and the Enneagram, team effectiveness increased and yielded greater efficiency.

* All Care - Designed and delivered intellectual capital to bridge the communication and time management preferences between clinical and non-clinical departments to achieve increased revenue, improve retention and morale. Coached the President/CEO to improve morale and applied the five linguistic speech acts as a cross-department communication tool.

* Nolte Engineering Associates - Designed and delivered an Enneagram program for principals and spouses that highlighted the diverse worldviews and increased principal awareness.

* IBM - Presented intellectual courage research called "Courage Leadership: Making It Work for You!" to the top executive women at their annual conference. This presentation yielded an understanding of the feminine behaviors of courage that could be applied immediately.

* Career Service Authority (City and County of Denver) - Designed and delivered a series of training programs including designing and presenting four programs (out of thirteen) to the managers' training series. This generated increased team effectiveness and unity.

Areas of expertise include:
Courage Leadership and StuckThinking™ Facilitator * Executive Coaching * Team and Organizational Effectiveness * Assessing Organizations' Level of Courage Consciousness * Building an Organization Spirited in Courage Leadership * Implementing the "Language of Courage" * Adult Self-Directed Learning * Certified in the Enneagram and Myers Briggs Type Indicator®

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Celebrating Everyday Courage, November 15, 2006

By 

G. Giusti (Sacramento, Ca) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Courage : The Heart and Spirit of Every Woman (Hardcover)

This book celebrates the everyday courage in woman.
It shares several inspirational stories on how woman have had to use courage in their daily lives, from overcoming loss, starting a new job, raising a child, or fighting an illness.

5.0 out of 5 stars The true power of courage ..., September 16, 2009

By 

Green Man (Heart of the Rockies) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Courage: The Heart and Spirit of Every Woman (Paperback)

Most of us don't realize that courage is one of the 4 cardinal virtues of Classical times. Ms. Walston reminds us why this virtue is so important by demonstrating that courage is about acting from the "heart and spirit." Our modern understanding of courage as acts of bravery or heroism has hidden the deeper meaning of courage and serves as a "glass ceiling" when it comes to women recognizing their courage and taking courageous action.

As Ms. Walston points out, the most empowering step that a man or woman can take is to recognize his or her unique brand of "heart and spirit" courage. Having tapped into the power of innate everyday courage, anyone can reap the rewards of a more joyous, fulfilling life.

Especially recommended during tough times.

5.0 out of 5 stars embracing, practicing, and understanding the courage within us, August 25, 2009

By 

Courageous Leader "Karen" (Richmond, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Courage: The Heart and Spirit of Every Woman (Paperback)

This book is an excellent journey that allows women to recognize and embrace courage within. I was deeply inspired by Sandra's interviews with women who shared their viewpoints on what it means to be courageous. This book allows women to realistically look at ourselves and begin the journey of recognizing the strengths (courage) that we utilize internally and externally daily.