How to respond to your critics

Being a leader is tough. There is always someone who thinks it's their job to point out everything you are doing wrong, and not in a constructive way, but in a destructive manner. Think of our current and former President. They certainly have their critics and probably so do you. On those days when you feel as though you can do no right, here is something to think about.

On April 23, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt gave what would become one of the most widely quoted speeches of his career. After he left office in 1909, he spent time hunting in Central Africa before embarking on a tour of Norther Africa and Europe in 1910. He stopped in Paris on April 23rd and delivered a speech called "Citizenship in a Republic", which, among some, would come to be known as "The Man in The Arena".

In that speech, Roosevelt railed against cynics who looked down at men who were trying to make the world a better place. Then he delivered an inspirational and impassioned message that drew huge applause.

"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