Hanging in my house, is one of my favorite quotes. It’s Teddy Roosevelt. Lifted from a speech he gave in 1910. I like it for lots of reasons but, here’s the point. If you’re ever been rejected, knocked down, set back, trampled over, lost anything, lost everything, come up short or flat-out failed, then be encouraged. You’re in good company. Welcome to the human race. The question for me, and the reason this thing is hanging in my house, is not if these things will happen to me, but how will I respond when they do. Anyone can achieve mediocrity, but to dare something great, to try again, to stand back up, to dust myself off…well, that takes something else. And you can’t buy it at Wal-Mart. So, to those of you with ‘marred by dust and sweat and blood,’ my hat’s off to you.
“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.”
FYI—if you’d like one hanging on your wall, you can find it at Michael Podesta
(Note: The folks at Michael Podesta don’t know me and I’m not making anything off this.)