The last month – since presenting at Digital Leap and writing the first part of this series for Hilborn – has been an exciting journey.

I’ve been asked what it means to be brave and how to manifest it in the day-to-day. How it translates from personal to professional and back again. I’ve even been contested that our sector is already brave and inspired enough.

The most wonderful part about this very simple idea of being brave is that it can and should be interpreted in a multitude of ways that relate specifically to YOU.

My brave and your brave will undoubtedly be very different things. There is nothing wrong with that. There is actually something intrinsically beautiful in our ability to take the same concept or idea or challenge and interpret a different meaning or result.

The warriors we fight for are the beneficiaries of our causes. They are also the ones who need us to be warriors too. They are the ones for whom we get up every morning and do what we do – this is what Be Brave means. It’s everything from the small actions to the big decisions to even the things that we actively decide not do.

This is not meant to diminish the plight of those we help – it’s meant to inspire a new guard willing more than ever to take chances they never would’ve before.

Digital warriors are made by being strategic and understanding the importance of taking risks.

For those of you craving more than the powerful rallying cry or inspirational mantra, here are my top five tactical steps you can take tomorrow on your path to becoming a Digital Warrior:

1. Don’t get caught up in the jargon or the fancy turns of phrase. Everyone is an expert as long as they know the words of play, it’s much more important to understand the substance behind them.
2. 2.     Don’t get distracted by “the next big thing”. It can’t be predicted, though we will never stop trying! Better to pay attention to what the market is actually doing vs. what marketers think they will be doing without any data to back it up.
   
   
3. Do challenge yourself and your colleagues to think about how to do things differently.
   It’s not just an Apple thing, it’s a nonprofit thing – we’re experts at finding effective ways to overcome challenges, digital must be no exception.
4. Do ask yourself how to make the next project you’re working on integrated. Integration isn’t just a lot of ads in different places. It’s about developing a strategy that is consistent with your audience’s needs and your organizational objectives – it just so happens that we are now living in an age where a strategy without digital is no strategy at all.
5. Do open your mind to measured risk, such as a new multi-channel campaign focused on donor acquisition. Find the “risk” that you and your team can rally behind, bring to the finish line and learn from – that’s really being a Warrior.

Yes, we must pay heed to all the old and new things around us, as professionals and digital warriors – but we must first remind ourselves how we became the warriors that we are and how that can be translated across any medium or channel or challenge.