In many of the talks about her journey with self-discovery and self-mastery, Brené Brown cites a quote by Theodore Roosevelt as one of the most life-changing statements of her life. The quote goes like this:
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.”
I agree that this Teddy Roosevelt quote does its job. It motivates. It makes you want to stand up and act, jump without a net, carpe diem, and bravely go after all of the secret desires of your heart. But feeling motivated does not make you a player in the arena. Failure does.
To me, the arena is the playing field where you create. It’s the place where players turn the secret desires of their heart into reality and into a basis of financial support for their lives. The space to create is true freedom because you control your time and can dedicate yourself to your real work.
Unfortunately, many people think that just feeling inspired to go after a dream is enough to put them in the arena. So they take the online courses and maybe join a Facebook group or two focused on their creative endeavor. But that doesn’t put you on the field. When you first enter the arena, you won’t know your on the field until you fail.
Although it is life-affirming and exhilarating at times, the creative process and earning a living from the fruits of that labor is not all sunshine and rainbows. If you go after your dream, you will fall down hard before you make it to the other side. In fact, it seems like succeeding and failing go hand-in-hand when you are on the field. So we’re all on the same page, here’s what playing in the arena looks:
In the arena, failure isn’t easy like getting an F on an elementary school spelling test. Failure feels like you’ve just been stomped on by a bull. And the hallmark of any great player on the field is that they get up and keep going no matter what.
Like with any game, though there are losses, there wins in the arena too. So if you stay on the field long enough and hone your craft, you will eventually win. That’s not positive thinking. That’s just probability and math.
In addition to the inevitable win, if you stay on the field long enough, you’ll get some secondary benefits that you never knew you needed. And there’s no better way to describe these secondary benefits than by using Steven Pressfield quotes.
As Pressfield notes, the truly free individual is only free to the extent of his own self-mastery…[T]hose who will not govern themselves are condemned to find Masters to govern over them. If you don’t want to spend your life face down on the ground in pain while you pursue your creative dream, you have to master yourself. That means showing up to do your work every day no matter what.
You thought you knew yourself, your fears, and your limitations, but you really don’t know who you are until those limitations are tested. Entrepreneurship makes you learn about yourself in ways you never imagined. “An artist’s identity is revealed by the work she or he produces. Writers write to discover themselves… whether they realize it or not. But who is this self…? It is none other than the ‘second you’ — that wiser ‘you,’ that true, pure, waterproof, self-propelled, self-contained ‘you.’”
Before we turn pro, our life is dominated by fear and Resistance. We live in a state of denial. We’re denying the voice in our heads. We’re denying our calling. We’re denying who we really are. We’re fleeing from our fear into an addiction or a shadow career. What changes when we turn pro is we stop fleeing.
Our enemy is not lack of preparation; it’s not the difficulty of the project, or the state of the marketplace or the emptiness of our bank account. The enemy is our chattering brain, which, if we give it so much as a nanosecond, will start producing excuses, alibis, transparent self-justifications and a million reasons why we can’t/shouldn’t/won’t do what we know we need to do.
The artist on her journey confronts no foes that are not of her own creation. Her fear is her own. . . She has created them mentally. She can defeat them the same way. Entrepreneurship teaches us that fear will always be there, and we have to act in the face of that fear anyway.
The professional does not wait for inspiration; he acts in anticipation of it. He knows that when the Muse sees his butt in the chair, she will deliver.
Our work is a practice. One bad day is nothing to us. Ten bad days are nothing. In the scheme of our lifelong practice, twenty-four hours when we can’t gain yardage is only a speed bump. We’ll forget it by breakfast tomorrow and be back again, ready to hurl our bodies into the fray.
The professional shows up every day. The professional stays on the job all day. The professional is committed over the long haul. For the professional, the stakes are high and real. The professional is patient. The professional seeks order. The professional demystifies. The professional acts in the face of fear. The professional accepts no excuses. The professional plays it as it lays. The professional is prepared. The professional does not show off. The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique. The professional does not hesitate to ask for help. The professional does not take failure or success personally. The professional does not identify with his or her instrument. The professional endures adversity. The professional self-validates. The professional reinvents herself.
More than anything else, entrepreneurship is a journey into self-discovery. The moment you decide to step out and pursue the dreams of your un-lived life, you learn just how much real freedom is going to cost you. That price is worth it because you inevitably learn who you really are and what you were meant to do with your life.
What are your thoughts on entrepreneurship and self-discovery? Has an aha moment smacked you in the face recently while you worked on your business? I’d love to hear more. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Thanks for sharing all the links in your email. Very informative and thought-provoking articles.
