Dare Greatly

I would like to begin this blog post with a quote from the American president Theodore Roosevelt.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

I became aware of this quote when watching a talk by Brené Brown. Prior to the recent talk I watched, she did a TED Talk called The Power of Vulnerability, which I recommend you watch. The TED Talk went viral and inevitably the trolls of the internet began commenting with personal attacks rather than listening to the very wise content of the talk. Brené Brown stumbled on to this quote after reading the horrible comments about her.

Since then she has decided that if you are not in the arena getting your arse handed to you, if you are not putting your work out there, then she is not interested in your feedback. What I would like to advocate for you is that you do two things. Firstly, have the courage to dare greatly and secondly, to ignore feedback from those who are not daring greatly themselves.