Imperfect Courage

When was the last time you did something that terrified you—but did it anyway? Jessica Honegger’s Imperfect Courage begins with that question. She argues that courage doesn’t mean fearlessness; it means daring to act while fear still sits beside you. Honegger’s journey—from pawning family heirlooms to fund her startup, to creating Noonday Collection, a globally impactful fair-trade fashion company—is proof that bravery isn’t pristine or polished. It’s messy, sincere, and rooted in compassion. Her core message: live a life of purpose by leaving comfort and going scared.

At its heart, Honegger contends that courage is a choice we renew daily, a posture that opens us up to purpose, connection, and growth. We live bubble-wrapped lives—safe, insulated, and risk-free—but in doing so, we starve ourselves of meaning. Through stories of her own discomfort, failure, and triumph, Honegger invites you to peel away the layers of fear and comfort to uncover your calling. She says, “Amidst safety the world has never before known, the greatest spiritual struggle many of us face is being willing to take off our bubble wrap.”

Courage Begins Where Fear Lives

Early in the book, Honegger recounts the terrifying moment she pawned her jewelry to afford a website for Noonday. It’s raw, embarrassing, and symbolic of the messy birth of courage. She had no MBA, no investors—just faith and a vision to connect artisans in vulnerable communities with customers in the United States. Her decision to act “going scared” embodies the book’s recurring theme: action precedes confidence. Courage doesn’t bloom in comfort; it grows through risk, heartbreak, and uncertainty. (This echoes Brené Brown’s work in Daring Greatly, which identifies vulnerability as the birthplace of courage.)

Faith and Purpose Intertwined

Though rooted in her Christian worldview, Honegger’s idea of “calling” transcends religion: your purpose lies where “your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet,” a phrase adapted from theologian Frederick Buechner. For her, this calling manifests through conscious capitalism—using business as a force for good. The Noonday Collection creates dignified work for artisans worldwide, marrying entrepreneurship and empathy. Her faith reframes fear as a god-given opportunity to trust more deeply, but her lessons speak to anyone seeking meaning beyond success metrics.

The Three-Part Journey

Honegger organizes the book into three parts: The First Step, Better Together, and A World Changed. The first section explores internal courage—the battle against perfectionism, judgment, and self-doubt. The second celebrates relational bravery—declaring we thrive through connection and sisterhood, not competition. The final section transforms courage outward—using our power, pocketbook, priorities, proximity, and perspective to create global impact. Across these threads runs one constant: the courage to act imperfectly.

Why It Matters

In a culture obsessed with flawless execution and fear of failure, Imperfect Courage offers liberation. It reminds you that meaningful lives aren’t built through comfort, but through imperfect steps taken with empathy. Honegger’s own transformation—from a mom in Austin’s guest bedroom to founder of a global company empowering 4,500 artisans—illustrates how ordinary choices create extraordinary ripples. You don’t need fearlessness to change the world; you just need to show up, trembling but willing.

“Perhaps the hero’s journey is not for a few brave people after all but an invitation to us all: to rally our courage and go do the thing we’re meant to do.” —Jessica Honegger

By the time you finish this book, you’ll understand that courage isn’t about eliminating fear; it’s about transforming it into fuel for compassion, creativity, and community. You’ll see how embracing vulnerability, stepping into your own story, and widening your circle can help you live fully awake to life’s purpose. As Honegger writes, “You simply need to draw near.” That is imperfect courage defined.

Jessica Honegger insists that true courage begins with authenticity. Before you can pursue purpose or impact, she says, you must step into your real story instead of performing a perfect one. Many of us live someone else’s script—trying to be who we think we should be. In Chapter Three, she confronts this trap head-on, revealing her own battle between her curated “should story” and her messy, truthful one.

From Pretending to Presence

Honegger’s “should story” sounded polished: a fashionista with a degree from Parsons, an MBA, and a sleek office. The reality? She hated shopping, started Noonday from a guest-bedroom-turned-warehouse, and wrestled through diapers and debt. By tearing up her false narrative, she discovered her real power—the freedom that comes from embracing imperfection. Her insight mirrors Parker Palmer’s words that open the chapter: “Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic selfhood.” (Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak explores similar ideas about vocation as living your truth.)

The Courage to Quit Pretending

When Honegger attended entrepreneurial gatherings, she felt inferior next to venture-backed founders. She hid her Texas roots and her mom identity to fit in. But eventually, she realized that hiding didn’t earn belonging—it erased her. If you can’t accept your story, she argues, it’s impossible to accept anyone else’s. Shame over your imperfections breeds judgment instead of empathy. “If I am unable to resonate with my own story,” she writes, “especially the parts I find unflattering, I can’t resonate with the story of someone else.”

Rejecting Perfection Culture

As a mom, Honegger faced a relentless internal voice—the “Itty Bitty Baloney Sauce Committee”—telling her she was failing. Her perfectionism manifested in guilt, comparison, and exhaustion. Yet she learned that good motherhood could include entrepreneurship and self-expression. This realization dismantled the either/or narrative (“good mom or successful woman”) and replaced it with and—good mom and driven leader. She reminds readers that perfectionism isn’t a virtue but an addiction (a point Brené Brown also makes): it feeds shame and keeps you from growth.

Owning the Messy Middle

Honegger’s stories—from renting a nanny and feeling guilt, to being frozen by fear before a business trip—illustrate that courage flourishes not in control but in surrender. She quotes her friend Jen, who reminds her: “Your kids will be better, not worse, for having a mama who flies around the world to serve.” By embracing paradox—the tension between ambition and mothering—she learns that flourishing means leaning forward when gravity pulls you back. “Lean in,” she tells her kids while skiing, “don’t brace yourself with your wrists.” It becomes a metaphor for life: resisting perfection’s impulse to control outcomes.

Why It Matters

Stepping into your story isn’t self-indulgent—it’s transformational. It frees you to serve others authentically. When Honegger accepted her imperfect journey, she was able to connect deeply with artisans, ambassadors, and her own family. Her willingness to live in truth transformed Noonday from a side hustle into a global movement. For readers, this chapter is a reminder that courage isn’t found in pretending—it’s found in honesty. The act of owning your story is the first act of imperfect courage.

To act courageously, Honegger teaches, you must first believe you’re worthy of belonging. In “Own Your Worth,” she unlocks the universal struggle many women face: chasing worth instead of embracing it. Through candid stories spanning gym insecurities, childhood weight shame, and her daughter’s body-image questions, she reframes worthiness as something innate—not earned, achieved, or perfected.

Breaking the Jump-Rope of Comparison

When Honegger recalls her elementary gym teacher tying her to a faster classmate with a jump rope so she could “keep up,” she realizes she’s been living like that ever since—tethered to unrealistic standards. It’s a profound metaphor for the female condition: dragged through life by ideals of beauty, success, or motherhood. “When we chase our worthiness instead of embracing it,” she writes, “we eventually run out of breath.” This lesson echoes Maya Angelou’s insight that each of us comes from the Creator “trailing wisps of glory.”

Rejecting Cultural Myths of Beauty

From her 1980s Weight Watchers experiences to witnessing women equate thinness with success, Honegger exposes how beauty standards imprison authenticity. Citing Tina Fey’s satire of impossible ideals and C.S. Lewis’s reflection on the human longing for divine acceptance, she argues that our pursuit of belonging through beauty is misplaced. Worth isn’t found in the mirror—it’s found in acknowledging that we are “very good,” as Genesis describes humanity’s creation.

Accepting Your Imperfect Design

As Noonday’s artisans transform irregular materials into stunning pieces, Honegger sees a metaphor for self-worth. Water buffalo horn and hand-tanned leather are “perfectly imperfect.” The same applies to people. In one tender scene, she and Ugandan artisan Jalia experiment with makeup; Honegger encourages Jalia to “treat yourself as worthy.” The result is radiant—an acceptance that adornment enhances, not defines, beauty.

Language, Acceptance, and Dignity

Honegger draws from psychology’s “person-centered language,” showing how words can dignify or diminish. Describe yourself as “a person learning self-care,” she says, not “a failure.” This linguistic humility builds compassionate spaces internally and externally—a concept mirrored by Brené Brown’s research on shame resilience. To love others well, we must first stop shaming ourselves.

Why It Matters

Owning your worth transforms relationships and unleashes courage. When women stop striving for perfection and see themselves—and others—as inherently valuable, empathy replaces judgment. The lipstick party Honegger describes among artisans becomes a symbol of collective confidence and joy. As she writes, “What was happening in those photos... wounded women were standing together to say, ‘In our shared definition of beautiful, we have carved out room for us.’”

Honegger believes that courage multiplies through connection. “Discover the Sisterhood Effect” highlights how women, when they cheer rather than compare, create global transformation. Through moving stories—from a teenage girl in Haiti to artisans in Rwanda—she shows how empathy and collaboration heal isolation and shame.

From Comparison to Connection

The chapter opens with a Starbucks encounter that symbolizes transformation. Instead of shrinking before the “perfect mom,” Honegger chooses to compliment her. In that moment, competition dissolves into sisterhood. She explains that society pressures women to be thin, successful, maternal, and independent—all at once. That impossible mix breeds judgment. Only compassion, she argues, creates space for us all to flourish.

Stories of Shared Empathy

One memorable illustration involves Haitian mothers Wideleine and Ginny—one who gave her child up for adoption and one who adopted her. Instead of resentment, they choose love. Ginny writes to Wideleine: “It is our struggle to reach for possibilities and overcome limitations that define who we are.” Their grace across continents epitomizes the Sisterhood Effect: empathy triumphing over judgment.

Areas of Judgment and How to Heal Them

Honegger invites women to confess their silent judgments (“I judge people for having fancy cars,” “I judge moms who give kids iPads at restaurants”). These aren’t admissions of cruelty but of fear—the fear of difference. Through honesty, compassion can take root. She urges readers to assume positive intent: start with the belief that people are doing the best they can.

Empathy as World Change

Empathy distinguishes sympathy (“I feel sorry for you”) from solidarity (“I could have been you”). When Noonday ambassadors connect with artisans, that solidarity translates into action—funding surgeries, preserving families, creating dignified jobs. This emotional bridge replaces pity with partnership. (Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy later calls this practice “getting proximate to suffering.”)

Why It Matters

The Sisterhood Effect reminds us that women rise together. Compassion is not passive; it’s catalytic. “When sisters stand shoulder to shoulder,” Honegger quotes poet Pam Brown, “who stands a chance against us?” Judgment is replaced with grace; competition is transformed into connection. Once we see one another’s victories as shared triumphs, courage becomes contagious.

In “Commit to Collaboration,” Honegger turns sisterhood into strategy. True impact, she explains, emerges not from independence but interdependence. Drawing on Somali and Ugandan proverbs—“Be a mountain, or lean on one”—she outlines how collaborative cultures foster resilience and community healing.

Building a Manifesto of Unity

After navigating Noonday’s toughest season—a million-dollar over-inventory disaster—Honegger learns that transparency and shared purpose rebuild trust. She crafts a community manifesto proclaiming, “We are better together.” The statement becomes the heartbeat of Noonday’s culture, emphasizing vulnerability, generosity, and shared success as its foundational values.

Learning from Ugandan Collaboration

Stories from Noonday’s Ugandan partners illustrate collaboration beautifully. When artisan Mama Jabal was thrown out by her abusive husband, coworkers quietly replaced her lost belongings piece by piece—a spoon, a mosquito net, bedsheets—demonstrating community support in action. For Honegger, these acts model what Western culture often lacks: non-apologetic interdependence and shared responsibility.

Dialogue and Generous Assumptions

Collaboration thrives through meaningful dialogue. Instead of defensiveness or gossip, Honegger advocates curiosity: “Tell me more.” “Help me understand your view.” She warns that misunderstanding grows when we assume negative intent. Making generous assumptions—believing the best—turns conflict into empathy. It’s leadership through humility, not hierarchy.

Competition as Healthy Collaboration

Interestingly, collaboration doesn’t exclude competitiveness; it redefines it. At Noonday’s ambassador conferences, success is celebrated collectively. Honegger compares it to her exercise class: “Julie’s presence makes me work harder.” Healthy competition inspires excellence without envy—measured against your best self, not others.

Why It Matters

When collaboration replaces isolation, courage becomes community-wide. Shared joy, mutual support, and circular empowerment dismantle scarcity thinking. In a collaborative culture, division doesn’t divide—it deepens connection. As Honegger writes, “Either we’re in this thing together, or else we aren’t in it at all.”

Expanding compassion beyond comfort zones lies at the heart of “Widen Your Circle.” Honegger urges readers to stretch empathy until it envelops the world. Through stories of rescue, injustice, and awakening, she shows how seeing humanity in others ignites courage and social change.

Connection Over Charity

After saving her son Holden from drowning, Honegger reflects on the privileges that allowed his rescue—CPR training, 911, accessible hospitals, and insurance. Then she contrasts it with Uganda, where a friend’s artisan, Mama Sham, faced paralysis without help or funds. The difference, she realizes, is not grace but access. “Empathy,” she writes, “is what moves us when we feel like standing still.” Sympathy pities; empathy acts.

Learning from Mistakes

Honegger candidly shares her youthful attempts at charity—handing out lollipops to Kenyan children who couldn’t read her English books or treating recovering addicts as “summer projects.” These moments reveal how good intentions can still reinforce power imbalances. Only through listening and humility did she learn that helping isn’t about making people “more like us” but about restoring their dignity.

Entrepreneurship and Dignity

At a training camp with Food for the Hungry, Honegger learns that poverty is not just material—but relational. She adopts the view that sustainable development empowers image-bearing humans to live out their full “humanness.” Entrepreneurship becomes the antidote to dependency, inspiring dignity through work. (She quotes Ben & Jerry’s founders: “Business is the greatest force for good in the world.”)

Linked Prosperity

Noonday embodies this principle through “linked prosperity”—everyone connected to the business thrives together. Artisans earn fair wages, ambassadors build flexible careers, and customers participate in empowerment through ethical shopping. Rosario, a Guatemalan woman who lifted her neighbor Alicia from poverty by teaching her to bead, exemplifies how widening your circle transforms generations.

Why It Matters

Widening your circle demands courage and empathy. It’s not about fixing the world but seeing it. Each act of inclusion—whether funding a surgery, teaching a skill, or forging friendship—ripples outward. As Honegger concludes, “The solution to the problems we see? It’s not others. It’s us.”

In one of the book’s most practical chapters, “Leverage Your Power,” Honegger reveals how to activate courage through influence and intention. Using the five dimensions of empowerment—Power, Pocketbook, Priorities, Proximity, and Perspective—she turns lofty ideals into tangible actions.

My Power

Honegger challenges readers to examine privilege without shame. Whether it’s social capital or voice, power must flow through you, not stop at you. She recalls marching alongside her Black friend Tasha in Austin’s MLK parade after realizing her presence mattered. Meanwhile, Ugandan artisan Jalia used her voice to help an abused colleague, Nakato, win justice. Both acts show that power is relational, not hierarchical.

My Pocketbook

Generosity becomes a discipline of abundance. Honegger describes how she and her husband reframed giving: instead of “How much should we give?” they asked, “How much is enough to keep?” Whether donating to friends in crisis or supporting job creation abroad, giving transforms fear of scarcity into trust and freedom.

My Priorities

You must “not harvest to the edge of your field,” she says, referencing Boaz in the Bible. Leave margin for others—space in your calendar to respond to real needs. During one visit, her Ugandan partner Jalia stopped mid-errand to help a dehydrated man on the roadside. That pause changed his life. Margin invites miracles.

My Proximity

Echoing Bryan Stevenson’s call to “get proximate,” Honegger urges closing the distance between privilege and pain. For her family, this meant living in a diverse Austin neighborhood and enrolling her kids in public charter schools. She reminds readers: “You can’t heal what you refuse to approach.”

My Perspective

Finally, she embraces paradox: “Never scorn the rich, never glorify the poor.” Both sides need dignity. Life’s contradictions don’t resolve—they expand your empathy. The more tension you carry, the more meaning you cultivate. Whether grappling with global injustice or domestic comfort, living awake means embracing the and.

Why It Matters

Leverage is not domination but stewardship. Each reader possesses resources—voice, vocation, money, compassion—that can be invested for others’ thriving. As Honegger writes, “God has a plan to bring justice—and his plan is us.”

Courage fades without endurance. In “Quit Trying,” Honegger warns against burnout disguised as hustle. She reframes effort from frantic striving to faithful commitment. To live bravely, we must trade short-term intensity for long-term devotion.

Commitment Over Effort

“I don’t want you to try,” Honegger tells her team. “I want you to commit.” Commitment corners comfort. Whether rebuilding Noonday after financial struggles or nurturing her family amid chaos, she discovers that sustainability depends on pacing. Stay the course, even when turbulence hits.

Pacing and Self-Care

Burnout, she confesses, once left her with shingles and exhaustion. Through therapy, Sabbath practice, and exercise, she learns rest’s radical power. Quoting theologian Tim Keller: “Don’t justify too little Sabbath by saying you’re ‘in a season’—when that season never ends.” Her self-care ritual becomes spiritual stewardship, not indulgence.

Balance and Boundaries

Ambassador Rebecca’s story personifies healthy balance. After years of overwork driven by self-worth, Rebecca redefines success: consistency, not volume. Likewise, artisans prefer smaller, steady orders to occasional windfalls. Economic and emotional sustainability intertwine.

Effort Versus Outcome

Honegger emphasizes growth mindset over perfectionism—echoing psychologist Carol Dweck. Celebrate effort, not just results. “You can’t be bad at something you’ve never tried before,” her son wisely says. Progress emerges from persistence, not performance.

Why It Matters

Purposeful living requires rhythm. Rest fuels courage, and commitment cultivates resilience. To build enduring impact, Honegger insists, you must prioritize wholeness. Hustle can spark change, but only sustained, gentle strength—the kind that refuses to quit—builds a flourishing world.

In her concluding chapter, Honegger offers a vision of what imperfect courage can achieve: a flourishing world where women are empowered, children are cherished, and communities thrive through connection. She returns to Uganda—where it all began—to witness transformation firsthand.

Full-Circle Transformation

Surrounded by ambassadors, artisans, and her family, Honegger celebrates seven years of partnership with Jalia’s workshop. Each face tells a story—Bukenya, once homeless, now a production manager and homeowner; Latifa, a single mother turned entrepreneur; Mama Jabal, free from abuse and rebuilding her life; and Mama Sham, healed after a life-threatening illness. These lives embody Noonday’s mission: business as restoration.

Empowered Ripples

Every artisan’s success ripples outward. When Noonday ambassadors in Seattle or Austin sell jewelry crafted in Kampala, they amplify human dignity through ethical connection. Honegger witnesses faith turned tangible—an echo of Isaiah’s verse that inspired the company’s name: “Then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.”

Planting for the Long Term

Visiting Jalia’s new farm, Honegger helps plant an avocado seed—a symbol of hope that will bear fruit in seven years. This act represents enduring commitment to growth, sustainability, and regeneration. “Maybe,” Honegger says, “flourishing isn’t just survival—it’s planting for the future.”

The Invitation to Act

In the closing pages, Honegger extends a literal invitation: “Your presence is requested.” She urges every reader to accept their place in changing the world—not despite fear, but with it. Everyone has gifts to bring—whether compassion, skill, empathy, or voice. Together, she says, we shine light “like it’s noonday.”

Why It Matters

A flourishing world grows from imperfect seeds of courage and community. By affirming dignity through collaboration and action, each person participates in renewal. As Honegger concludes, “You don’t need fearlessness to change the world; you just need to show up, trembling but willing.”