AES101 To Dare Greatly

The credit belongs to the man in the arena.

Whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood

Who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again.

Who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause.

Who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement

And who, at worst if he fails…

At least fails while daring greatly.

-Theodore Roosevelt-

That’s what life is all about.

About daring greatly, about being in the arena.

When you walk up to the arena, and you put your hand on the door, 

and you think “I’m going in and I’m going to try this.”

Shame is the gremlin who says “You’re not good enough”, shame is that thing.

And if we can quiet it down and walk in and say “I’m going to do this!”,

We look up and the critic that we see pointing and laughing, 99% of the time is who?

Ourselves.

I know it’s seductive to stand outside the arena and think “I’m going to go in there when I’m bulletproof and when I’m perfect.”

But the truth is that will never happen. And even if you got as perfect as you could be, and as bulletproof as you could possibly muster when you got in there, that’s not what we want to see.

We want you to go in. We want to be with you and across from you.

And we just want, for ourselves and the people we care about…

To dare greatly.

-Brene Brown-