New · Published 1 September 2026
Courage Mind the Gap
Ralf Schneider · Please stand free of your comfort zone
You know the moment. The meeting where you had something to say and didn't. The conversation you rehearsed in the shower and never started. The gap between what you think and what you actually do. This book is 56 short provocations — honest, uncomfortable, occasionally funny — about that gap. It was written to be passed on. If it's in your hands, someone thought of you.
Buy on Amazon Signed copies & team boxes
56
Provocations
70
Colour illustrations
3 formats
Hardback · Paperback · Kindle
What this book is
Not a methodology. A mirror.
That gap between knowing and doing has a cost. In boardrooms, it's how smart organisations go blind. In relationships, it's how people who love each other become strangers. In life, it's how you wake up one day and realise you've been living someone else's version of brave.
Courage: Mind the Gap is not a self-help book with a five-step plan disguised as wisdom. It's 56 short provocations designed to make you stop, think, and perhaps recognise something you've been pretending isn't yours.
The London Underground runs through it as a metaphor: six lines, named stations, tunnels between them. But the real journey is the two-second gap between knowing what's right and actually doing it.
Open anywhere. Read one page. Close it. Think about it for the rest of the day. Or read it cover to cover on a train and text someone: "You need to read this." Or leave it on a colleague's desk without a note. They'll know why.
"This book was written to be passed on. If it's in your hands, someone thought of you."
Published
1 September 2026
Hardback
£24.99
Paperback
£17.99
Kindle
£9.99
Pages
152 · 70 colour illustrations
Publisher
Rowanvale Books
Get the Team Discussion Guide
Free with the book
Ten provocations from the book with ready-to-run team questions — a 45-minute session, no slides, no workshop jargon. Free by email, wherever you bought the book.
One email with the guide. After that, occasional courage, no spam. Unsubscribe any time.
Interested in receiving the free Team Discussion Guide?
Board anywhere · Exit anywhere Six lines. Fifty-six stations.
Six lines. Fifty-six stations.
One journey across the gap.
The Gap Line
The meeting where nobody speaks. The email you didn't send. The two-second decision. The gap itself — named, priced, recognised.
The Heart Line
What courage actually is. Not an eagle on a poster — a heart, doing what hearts do. Fear as a compass, not an enemy.
The Four Steps Line
Step Up. Step In. Step Forward. Step Together. The practice behind the provocations — breathe in, hold, speak, share.
The Jester Line
The Circle Line of corporate life: seven deadly excuses, the field guide to corporate cowardice, how courage dies in organisations. Round and round.
The Everywhere Line
Courage above ground: kitchen tables, hospital corridors, the friend you lost. Where most courage actually lives.
The Future Line
When courage goes wrong, what the algorithm can't decide, and the letter you'll never send. Mind the gap. Then close it.
Get the book
Available from 1 September 2026 in hardback, paperback and Kindle. Kindle Unlimited subscribers read for free.
£24.99
Hardback
£17.99
Paperback
£9.99
Kindle
Signed copies
Personally signed and dedicated copies, posted directly from the author — for you, or as the gift with a hint.
A forthcoming book goes deeper into the method behind the provocations — the Four Steps of Courage, and the research: 191 senior leaders, four years of measurement. Start with the free 2-minute Courage Scan