Photo Credit: YouTube
Monday’s are exceptional days of the week. You may enter it with one focus or resolve and then discover a golden nugget that takes you a very different direction. It happened to me this morning.
My temptation was to vent frustration over a situation where leadership leans toward being restrictive, exclusive, and narrow in focus. Aren’t you glad I am not writing about that today?!
[I’ve written previously about negativity and how to turn it around – here, here, and here. No matter how consequential the issue, criticism won’t get us where we want to go.]
As I pondered how to address the topic in a positive, redemptive way, I came across a wise friend’s Facebook post that pointed me to an edited video of a talk given by author and vulnerability researcher Brené Brown.
She was addressing an audience of young “creatives”. She encouraged them to “show up and be seen”, but in so doing, there is a consequence. We will, at times, get our behinds busted, so to speak.
She referenced a riveting speech that President Theodore Roosevelt gave in 1910, shortly after he left office. I do not remember ever hearing this speech until today. Below is the excerpt that Brown quoted:
“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
I was deeply humbled by the wisdom of that speech.
Our leaders all have their own arenas. You have yours. I have mine. It is not my desire to exit the place where I am called to serve, to create, to fight battles meant for me…just to become a critical or negative spectator in another’s arena.
There are times when our battle is made harder by another…by one who could alter our circumstance, who could provide assistance, who could hear our cry for help…and doesn’t heed. It happens.
Yet…it doesn’t take away the cause I’m meant to hold dear…and the one for which I am to fight. It certainly doesn’t warrant me leaving my battle to judge his or hers.
Brené Brown gave a strong warning to both the unengaged leader and the critical employee:
“If you’re in the cheap seats, not putting yourself on the line, and just talking about how I could do it better, I’m in no way interested in your feedback.” – Brené Brown
Scorching, right?
This Monday my thinking and life direction went a different way than at first it was headed. Are there times when we speak to leaders, imploring them to consider another way? Of course…but never so much that we take our eyes off our own work…our own arena.
Let’s get after it!
YouTube Video – Brené Brown – The Man in the Arena Speech (edited)
YouTube Video – Brené Brown – Why Your Critics Aren’t the Ones Who Count
“Citizenship in a Republic” – Theodore Roosevelt speech, April 23, 1910
Wow, what a great speech. And gut punch haha. Had never heard it before either. Thanks for sharing it!
It is always encouraging for me to hear messages from the past which are as up-to-date as anything spoken today. In fact, even more timely because too much of what we hear today won’t last into another century. Glad we can retrieve wisdom from the past.