The one big difference I see between people who make things happen and those who don’t, it’s audacity! Bold in your face, there for the world to see – audacity! They take risks. They are the ones, willing to leap forward. They move things along, not by gentle nudges but by emphatic pushes that propel things forward, whether you like it or not, or whether the world thinks it’s outrageous… it makes no difference to them. They may not have the money, the resources or even the smarts, but what they have is the audacity to believe they can make it happen. And they do. So, if there’s one quality you need to incorporate this year, let it be, plain and loud, in-your-face Audacity!

Audacity should be your mantra for 2024. Add it to your vocabulary. Add it to your vision board. Just have the audacity to believe in yourself. Have the audacity to go make room for yourself at those tables at which you belong. Have the audacity to tap back into those dreams that have been sitting dormant inside of you for far too long. Have the audacity to believe you deserve a life of financial freedom and rest. Have the audacity to believe the feeling of knowing the world is yours. Grab those boots and walk a mile. Set forth in the world breaking those constrictive chains of social norms.

Do what is right, do what is needed without apologies, without justification. Be curious, be inquisitive. After all, nothing ever came from doing nothing! Examine your choices, they make your life. Start with the people around you. Are they your anchors or stones around your neck? Examine your life from time to time. What you needed yesterday is not necessarily what you may need today. Ideate! Ideation helps you find solutions where there are questions.

Most successful people succeed not because they have the agency, the power or money. That may go a long way at first. But they have, what we call, audacity. The audacity to ask, the audacity to demand, the audacity to pursue, the audacity to believe. The rest is loose change. Audacity works hand-in-hand with opportunity, and to have that, you need to put yourself out there. You cannot expect favour and gifts from people all year long. Favour and opportunity are random, they are seldom and sparingly granted. How you use these makes up your life.

Audacity is putting yourself out there and making things happen. I tried looking up the web to see a word that can describe the ability to make things happen. Several popped up – ‘to accomplish, to achieve, to create, to engender, to generate, to produce’. Basically, all of these words mean: ‘the consequence of having the ability, to ask, demand, command, or simply speak up. Nothing however works as well as ‘Audacity’.

Audacity has two connotations – the Oxford dictionary states that it can be ‘rude or disrespectful behaviour’ or even impudence. And then, there’s the other, which is the one I’m stressing on – ‘the willingness to take bold risks’. Some common synonyms of audacity are cheek, chutzpah, effrontery, gall, nerve, temerity. While all these words mean ‘conspicuous or flagrant boldness’, the word audacity implies a complete disregard of restraints commonly used or imposed by convention or prudence.

Audacity fits into the new-age definition of boldness or daring behavior – it implies being confident or arrogant enough with not much regard for personal safety, conventional thought, or restrictions. It’s a person confident enough to walk on the other side of politeness and conventional behaviour. I call audacity a bold fearlessness. Bold here, being an honorable quality. Audacious people are shockingly confident, sometimes rude, but what they are not, is tame or timid. They never let go any opportunity that may serve them well.

Audacious people make things happen. They do, they say, they ask. They may come across as arrogant but they are focused on being achievers. You can recognize them anywhere, walk into a room, visit a courtroom, you will meet the old bulls and the young tigers. The climb up the totem pole was not easy and not without its challenges. But they succeeded because they believed that not everything can always be copacetic here. And most of all, their dreams and ambitions dictated that, they didn’t, couldn’t and wouldn’t be, ‘Just another footprint in the sand!’