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On Courage

Feb 2026 Sezai on stage

The Bosphorus Defense Industry Summit on 2024.

I was never anxious while getting on stage.

I always believed that outworking self-doubt was the answer to fear. If I had something worth sharing and could communicate it clearly, that was enough.

But that day felt different.

The speaker before me was Adnan DALGAKIRAN, chairman of Dalgakıran Kompresör founded in 1965, a cornerstone company in industrial manufacturing.

He spoke about what we should focus on in our lives. I guess he was addressing the students at the summit, but I took the opportunity to listen closely before stepping on stage myself.

I remember how clearly he stated the value of recognizing the software running in your mind.

"Before interpreting something, a worthwhile effort would be to determine where it sits in your mind. How did it get there? If a problem appears really big, maybe it's about how you positioned it."

Looking back, this feels closely connected to the Ponzo Illusion.

Then he checked a few bullet points on his phone and left the room completely still.

And I thought: How am I supposed to follow that?

I decided I wouldn’t.

I wasn’t there to top anything. I was there to offer something else. Every angle has an advantage, and I was going to use mine.

So I told my story.

Fast forward to February 2026.

Working with software feels different now.

As the tools I use become more capable, a question keeps coming back to me:

In this era, what will remain valuable for a very long time. As an individual contributor, how can I make use of this wave.

There are many ways to answer this. But the people I’ve seen have the greatest impact (Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, Patrick Collison, Jeff Bezos etc.) tend to converge on similar traits:

This is not a complete list, but it is a useful mirror. All of these traits are learnable.

Still, lists only take you so far. So I asked myself a different question.

What is the one word that sits beneath all of this?

The answer is simple.

Courage.

You do not get to be courageous once and call it done. You have to show up as a brave person every single day.

Courage is choosing to engage with what is in front of you. It is choosing to become more resourceful, regardless of the outcome.

Some people carry this thought quietly:

“One day I’ll have enough security to tell the truth.”

But courage isn’t born from security. If there’s no risk, there’s no courage. Waiting for zero risk is a contradiction.

Telling the truth is a form of courage. So is agency.

Agency is permissionless action, the movement without approval.

It’s choosing to befriend what you don’t know instead of clinging to what you do. Because there’s far more you don’t know than you ever will. And over the long run, that’s the more productive friendship.

Another important question is, "Why be courageous at all?"

Because voluntary exposure to what terrifies you changes you. That’s where growth lives.

Carl Jung put it best:

What you most want to be found will be found where you least want to look.

Let's face our fears and become more than we are.