Courage is the most crucial 21st-century skill - it's self-generated, not dependent on external motivation.

Building courage requires two parts:

1. Mood generation routine (like Michael Phelps' storytelling ritual)
2. List of difficult tasks to tackle

Your routine should include:

• Personal 'fight song'
• Stories of past victories told with vivid detail

Key principles:

• Always prepare for three-time battles
• Start with hardest tasks when you're fresh
• Courage is 85% mental through storytelling, only 15% physical

Instead of spending energy just staying okay (pure defense), develop self-driven offense. The goal is developing a system for handling hundreds of challenges, not just one.

Eventually, this becomes automatic - you won't need external motivation because courage becomes part of your routine.