Its not the critic who counts. Its not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or how the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena. Whose face is marred with blood and sweat and dust. Who at the best, at the end, knows the triumph of high achievement - and at the worst, if he fails, he fails daring greatly. -Theodore Roosevelt So the moment that I read that, I closed my laptop, and this is what shifted in me. First, Id spent the last 12 years studying vulnerability, and that quote was everything I know about vulnerability. It is not about winning, its not about losing, its about showing up and being seen. The second thing: This is who I want to be. I want to create. I want to make things that didnt exist before I touch them. I want to show and be seen in my work and my life. And if youre going to show up and be seen, there is only one guarantee. And that is: You will get your ass kicked. Thats it, that is the only guarantee. If youre going to go into the arena and spend any time in there, especially if youve committed to creating in your life, you will get your ass kicked. So you have to decide, at that moment - I think for all of us - if courage is a value we hold, this is a consequence. You cant avoid it. The third thing, which really set me free (and I think Steve, my husband, would argue has made me somewhat dangerous) is kind of a new philosophy about criticism which is this: If youre not in the arena, also getting your ass kicked, Im not interested in your feedback. Thats it. I mean, if you have constructive information to give me, I want it... But if youre in the cheap seats, not putting yourself in the line, and just talking about how I could do it better - Im in no way interested in your feedback. ...The thing is, I dont care what people think, I dont worry about the critics in the arena sends a huge red flag up for me. Were hard-wired for connection. When we stop caring what people think, we lose our capacity for connection. When we become defined by what people think, we lose our capacity to be vulnerable. Not caring what people think is its own kind of hustle - trust me. So, rather than locking these folks out from the arena, what Im going to invite you to do is reserve seats for them. Which doesnt seem like a good thing to do, but I have 13,000 pieces of data, and what I have found and what I have learned from these folks and applied to my own life and its changed my life - is to reserve a seat, and take these critics out to lunch, and simply say when Im trying to do something new and hard and original and Im trying to be creative and Im trying to innovate, and say, I see you, I hear you. But Im going to show up and do this anyway. And Ive got a seat for you and youre welcome to come, but Im not interested in your feedback. -Brene Brown
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 00:56:37 +0000
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