Hey, bravehearts! Great to be with you again today.

As you know, my latest book is out and I'm super excited about it. It's called, “The Making of a BraveHearted Woman: Courage, Confidence, and Vision in Midlife.” In the book, I talked to you about the 5 fortitudes that women have to have at any age, but especially as we approach midlife, we've got to have the fortitude of these five things. So that leads us to the question ~ what is fortitude? I want to talk to you about that today.

I love the word fortitude. One of the early readers of my book was looking at it and perusing it. She was saying, As you were defining fortitude, I was saying me. Me. Me. And me again. I'm Fortitude. That's awesome. That's what we want for every woman who is going to be reading this book. If you don't have Fortitude, you don't think you have Fortitude, you will by the time you get done reading this book because Fortitude is strength. It's character. It's strength of mind. I have put together kind of a love child, if you will, of meaning for the word fortitude.

If fortitude, strength of character, and strength of mind all kind of came together, I have taken creative license and I meld together some of the nuances of that word to create my definition. Okay, are you ready? Here we go.

Fortitude is formed from bravery, virtue, and consistent grit to relentlessly execute with discipline the keystone habits of a successful woman. So that's a lot, right? Wow. Okay, let me say it again. It's bravery, virtue, consistent grit, discipline, and keystone habits. So let me break down this definition on this episode and give it to you like this.

If you take virtue, virtue is high moral. excellence and standards. You know, I am a huge proponent of having goals, something to reach for, something that moves you ahead. A goal is something that you want to achieve, but you also have to have standards and high moral excellence or standards. I will never drop below this. Let's say my goal is to save a hundred dollars a week, but my standard is I'll never save less than 50. My goal is to do a hundred pushups a week, a day, but my standard is I'll always do 20. Do you see the difference there? So with virtue, you will have standards that say for you and of your life. I'll not drop below this. Are you clear on your standards? Do you know what they are? Do you know how to draw standards for yourself?

Standards are like the bumper guards at kiddie bowling. They will not let you end up in the gutter. You have to have standards. Then we talked about consistent grit and you all know if you've been hanging around. Your BraveHeart mentor, you know, I love the word grit and glitter. I often sign my letters that way or my emails that way because I have discovered in my life it takes grit, stamina, courage, and resolve to keep on going. It takes grit to dig in and not be afraid to get that dirt under your nails. Like I'm going to be gritty. I'm going to be tenacious. I'm going to hang in there. I'm going to be resilient and I'm not going to quit. This is the endurance that we need. The strength of character that says this thing is worth it. My life is worth it. My health is worth it. My relationships are worth it. I'm going to be gritty. Consistent grit is all part of fortitude. Then keystone habits.

Now, a keystone habit is a habit that produces a chain of other great habits once you do it. It's like the domino, the first domino to fall. So a keystone habit, when I do that, I go click, click, click, click, and all the others take place. For example, You know that I have a morning routine in which I call 606 Rise. I also now have the 606 Passion Planner and Journal available to you. You can read about that in the show notes. But when I start my morning routine, 606 Rise, it sets off a chain reaction. It is a keystone habit. What else do I do when I start 606 Rise? Of course, I greet God. I journal. I look at my goals. I capture the tasks that I have to do that day or that week. Then I also exercise. I pray. I read the Bible. I meditate. All these things that happen. Yeah, my morning routine is about two hours long. That's why I start at 6 a.m. I don't usually have to get out the door usually till 9 a.m., so it allows me the time that I need, but that is a keystone habit.

Fortitude involves the keystone habits that you have to have to be successful. Then relentless discipline. What is everything else if you don't discipline yourself into action? I can have grit, and I can have virtue, and I can have standards. But it all comes together when I do the work. Make yourself do what you have to do. When you have to do it when you need to do it. If you blend all of those words, you're going to find fortitude. So in my book, I talk about the five fortitudes you have to have.

In other words, the 5 areas where you need virtue, grit, habits, and discipline. I want to share those with you. I'm going to go in-depth later on with you. But right now, the 5 fortitudes you have to have are these, and they're going to spell BRAVE. Isn't that good of me to give you an acronym that spells BRAVE so that you can remember what they are?

All right. Fortitude number one, you have to claim a bold vision. That's the B, bold vision. If you see nothing, you can expect nothing. You're going to be successful. You've got to have the fortitude to say, I am going to see into the future if you will. I'm going to prophesy into the future. I'm going to get God's dream for my life. I'm going to awaken my imagination to understand what it is God has for me in my future. I'm going to claim that vision. I'm going to speak that vision out of my mouth and I'm going to depict that vision by cutting out pictures and putting them on my vision board, looking at it, and focusing on it every single day. What do you see for yourself? That's the B. Bold vision, I see.

The next fortitude that you have to have is to cultivate a real identity of what I believe about myself. The number one shaper of all of your life is your identity. It's the keystone for everything else. What you believe about you. I can tell you you're wonderful. I can tell you you're great ‘cause you are. I can tell you that you look amazing. You're smart and talented and God loves you. All of that is true. But if you don't believe it to be true about yourself, you will not claim the things that are waiting for you. You will never rise above the assessment that you place on yourself. The evaluation that you place on yourself. In other words, you can't have a million-dollar future. Hey! You can't even have a thousand-dollar future with a ten-cent mentality. You've got to have a real identity that says I know who I am. I break it down for you in the book. So that's the R in BRAVE.

The next fortitude is the able mindset. You've got to choose a mindset that says I can do it. I am able. I am capable. I am gifted. I am qualified. I am talented. This is how you think. I think about my mindset that says I can do it. So this fortitude allows you, and I give you 7 mindsets that are essential for you, but this mindset is right here. I mean, makes all the difference in your life. You're in and it goes hand in hand, right? With your identity and your vision. If I don't have a mindset that says, I'm not a victim, but I am a victor. I am not stingy, but I'm generous. I am not I'm not afraid. I'm not fearful. I'm not in scarcity, but I'm in abundance and overcoming. If I don't have that mindset, then I can believe things to be true about me and I can even see a vision, but I'm not going to have the fortitude to go after my dream. I'm going to quit. I'm going to get discouraged. I'm going to get beat up. I'm going to feel like a victim. Life is happening to me instead of happening to me. So this fortitude of a mindset, a set mind in seven areas that says, I am a winner. I am an overcomer. I am the top. I'm not at the bottom.

Okay, the fourth fortitude where you have to have virtue, standards, grit, tenacity, and make it your habit is in virtuous talk. That's the V in this brave acronym that I'm giving you virtuous talk. What I say. I speak what I want. You know, a moment ago I said that you need to prophesy your future. You do that with your words. If you say, I'm fat and I'm ugly and nothing good ever happens to me and I'm broken. Oh, my body is so sore and I'm getting old and my metabolism doesn't work. If you say that, you're going to have it. You're going to get more of it. I can't tell you exactly why that works. I just know that it does. What you think about, you bring about, what you speak about, you create. Do you just make more of it? Why not instead of speaking? Maybe even what is speaking what should be believed that what you speak and what you think and dwell on and say is God's plan for your life? He's just waiting for you to come into agreement with it by speaking it out of your mouth. I am. I am a sought-after speaker. I am a number one best-selling author. I am a woman who is loved by her husband and her children. I am contagious with joy. I am a gritty, tenacious, audacious woman. I am in the right place at the right time. I am favored by God. Doors of opportunity always open before me. I am God's gift. I’m blessed. I am God's daughter. I am loved. You see, virtuous talk. I'm going to live in that reality. Why not open up your mouth today and agree with God? Why not get rid of all the negativity, the criticism, the fault finding, the accusations, the gossip? We don't need to line up with the enemy. We've got no business doing that.

The fifth fortitude, commit to excellent actions and habits. I do hard things. Just. As a way of repeating myself for your benefit to learning the 5 fortitudes: bold vision, real identity, able mindset, virtuous talk, and excellent actions. I do hard things. You know, it's okay to do hard things.

I had a guest recently on this podcast where she pushed herself at 53 to do a half Ironman. a triathlon. She did not know how to swim at the time and you know she had to swim over a mile, 13 in swimming. At 53 years old she taught herself, trained, and became an athlete. Before that, she had a knee that was out. She had a knee replacement surgery. She was a hot mess, but she had an able mindset that said I think I'm able and because of that she took the limits off of her life and now she ranks as number seven in the entire state of Virginia in her age group in triathlons. That's an amazing thing, friends. That was running 13 miles. She wasn't even a runner.

What could you do if you put your mind to it? You can do hard things. Don't shy away from hard things. Don't give yourself a pass on everything hard and everything uncomfortable and everything. Your body was meant to move and groove and to run and to walk and to stretch and to grow and to reach. Do not be sedentary. Keep going and don't let your mind be sedentary. Don't let that old lady get inside of your mind. Don't start thinking about the fact that, Oh, I'm too old. I don't see any great future for me. At the only vision that you have.

Are you getting your hip replaced? Are you in a nursing home? Are you overweight? Get that vision out of your mind. Get that out of your spirit. Satan wants to give you a scary vision. You're going to go blind. You're going to go deaf. You're going to have Alzheimer's. Get that vision out of your mind. That's not for you. You are a bravehearted woman. You have a keen mind. You have a glorious, amazing future ahead of you. You have a youthful spirit because you're being renewed, just like the eagle is being renewed. So are you. You have a mindset that is sharp and competent and able and capable. You can do challenging, tricky things because you're even growing and getting sharper by the minute. Can you feel it? So can I. That's who you are.

All right, so you need fortitude and then you need those five fortitudes. It's kind of a phrase that I coined. I call them fortitudes in five areas. What is fortitude? It's strength. It's grit. It's virtue, it's discipline, all rolled up into one. It is that that can do spirit. Just like Joshua and Caleb had in the Old Testament, God said to them, that they have a different kind of spirit. These two cats, I can use these guys. Because they think differently, they act differently, they speak differently, and they believe about themselves differently and that's you. That's what I've got for you today!

Again, I mentioned my journal, The Planner. Now I'm calling it a bunch of different things here on this podcast. Here's what it is. 606 Rise is the name of the morning routine. And this is the 606 Rise Planner. And it is more than it's more than just a calendar. It's a passion planner that will help you organize your future. So you can get yours today. I'd love for you to have it. Check it all out in the notes. Love all of you!

Look forward to being with you all the time. Dawn Damon, your BraveHeart Mentor, says to you, that it is time, my friend, for you to find your brave and live your vision!