Forget Critics! Live With Passion

Have you ever been intimidated from starting anything or afraid to go full out for something because you were worried about failing?

Have you ever shrunk from criticism, rejection or even just the fear of it?

Or have you been the Critic?  Or even… the Gossip?

All of us play both sides of this fence.  We dream, yet lose faith in our dreams before they can become reality and at other times shake people’s confidence.  Today I want you to consider the proper place of the Critic with this beautiful extract of a speech from Theodore Roosevelt…

The Man In The Arena

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.

Theodore Roosevelt

Full Speech Available Here