Brené Brown: Why Your Critics Aren’t The Ones Who Count

Another useful talk from Brené Brown, which explores creativity, criticism and how she has learned to deal with it. She talks about how important it is that those of us she calls the ‘sweaty creatives’ – or, borrowing from Theodore Roosevelt’s famous words, the ‘men in the arena’ – do not armour ourselves, but rather find ways to stay open and willing to be vulnerable, in the face of the haters, blamers, shamers and gainsayers (and there will always be some).

We second that emotion.

Here’s 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

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