I spent a large part of my career creating things.
Businesses, ministries, festivals, videos, commercials, documentaries, newscasts, articles, radio stations, a book and even a BMX track.
At every stop along the way, I was met with critics. Some I paid attention to. Others I tried to ignore.
I say “tried” because I always took the criticism more personally than I should have. It stung.
I used to joke that some people have the gift of criticism. They never seem to achieve anything. Build anything. Start anything. Win anything. But they’re always right there…ready to let the people who are actually doing something know that they are doing it wrong.
Of course I did stuff wrong. If you do things, you are going to things wrong now and then. But I always thought that was better than doing nothing. And way better than doing nothing but criticizing people who are.
Shout out to all of you leaders, and producers, and starters, and owners, and followers, and builders, and doers. Keep doing! And take a minute to read this most incredible quote from Theodore Roosevelt, delivered in a speech in Paris on April 23, 1910. It’s as true today as it was then and I hope it encourages you.
As a friend named Herman used to say to me, “Don’t let them steal your joy!”
“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 the 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.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
Roosevelt’s remarks hung on my office wall for many years…
“The person who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The person who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever seen before.”
―Albert Einstein
#truth We’ve traveled a similar path in this regard, i.e., doing something we believed in and pushing to make it work while others critiqued and cajoled us along the way. And, like you, I’ve turned to “The Man in the Arena” to reboot when the inner doubts were feeling too intense…and discovered it’s always worth pushing ahead—he lessons earned when it doesn’t go as we envisioned are often the most valuable and serve as fuel for the next effort.