The Arena

In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt gave the famous "Citizenship in a Republic" speech in Paris. Today, that lesson is more commonly known as "The Man in the Arena," and it's been at the forefront of my mind recently.

"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

After recently rewatching Brené Brown's talk, which focused on listening to shame, I haven't been able to get the "arena" out of my mind.

• How many people criticize something without putting themselves in a fight?
• How many potshots do you take from people sitting in the 'cheap seats'?

There are many naysayers out there, and truth be told; there is power from just taking action. It's about speaking up, asking someone for help, pitching a new idea, or even as simple as trying out a new way of working. Just go for it! Our time is limited on planet Earth - kick some ass while you're here!

But, oh, those critics...

"If you're not in the arena also getting your ass kicked, I'm not interested in your feedback." — Brené Brown

While the reference (from both Brené and the original speech) is directly aimed at those that aren't willing to take a chance and critique a person who is actively trying to make a difference, I've been starting to recognize that sometimes the most prominent critics are, in reality, are the ones that reside in our heads.

You know who I'm talking about; that little voice urges you to choose the easy path — the inner critic.

Understanding where that inner critic comes from is essential rather than instinctually caving to it. Perhaps you had a prior experience that ended negatively; that voice is trying to prevent you from feeling new pain. Inner critics are often built up from negative experiences where you failed in the past, or perhaps that critic recognizes that the road ahead will be a slog with just too much damn work, and it's better to accept things the way they are.

But the truth is that the secret to doing anything of value is to want it bad enough to overcome those voices. You don't need to tell the inner critic to shut the fuck up and go away, but instead, you need to calmly place it in the back seat of the car instead of letting it be the driver. Don't let that internal criticism shut down your creativity and prevent you from taking risks but instead, I find a lot of value in understanding why it's telling you those things.

Reframe your relationship with it the things that are preventing you from being in the arena. Stop letting them speak from the sidelines.

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new." - Socrates (but not the one you're thinking of)

So, I'll wrap this week with an ask of yourself - Are you ready to get yourself dirty? To task some risks? To fail? To be in the arena?

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Mind Benders 🤯

Quotables 📚

Matt Birchler had a fantastic post entitled [Macho Man], where he talked a bit about 'the emotional struggles of men.' and shared this clip of 'Macho Man Randy Savage's best late-night moment.'

Brain Dump 🧠

Here are a few articles and videos that resonated with me over the last week:

• Sit back with a whiskey and digest what Om Malik describes as 'the always-connected Internet is an insatiable beast. The more you feed it, the more it is wanted.' an essential understanding when exploring streaming providers and their ability/needs to pump out more content than ever and the quality that suffers because of it — [via Arnold's Docuseries: A Case Study in Online Content Pollution]
• More thinking along the concept of a "personal board of directors", and the leveraging of a CRM. It roots itself (and warrants me to do an update to the original post) on asking yourself an incredible question: "What type of conversation do you want to have?" — [via The Benefits of a 5-Person CRM: Why Keeping Track of Your Best Relationships Matters]
• The Astra Carta] is an effort as part of the Sustainable Markets Initiative that is a 'roadmap for the private sector to lead the acceleration of sustainable practices across global space-related industries.'. Recently, the seal designed by Sir Jony Ive, was unveiled and defined as 'a structure that is similarly defined by sacred geometry, overlaid with astronomical motion and heavenly bodies.'. A beautiful masterpiece. — [via The Astra Carta Summarium]
• I've been continuing to remove any form of legacy PKM tools from my workflow, and this interesting video goes into some of the problems with personal productivity tools. The author agrees with my biggest pet peeve: 'too many systems are designed to make you look busy rather than actually get work done.' He takes it one step further around the issues with these systems, how they've been designed for 'neurotypical brains,' and the issues it causes with individuals with ADHD. — [via Avoiding Toxic Productivity Advice for ADHD]
• Another area that will have to deal with ChatGPT is homework. There is no easy way to detect the output of the more recent GPT4 models and some of the rethinking that educators need to do. — [via The Homework Apocalypse]
• In a 2023 conspiracy theory, 'Disney prepared The Hall of Presidents in Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World just before the 2016 election, the company was anticipating a Hillary Clinton win'. Given we know the outcome of that election, it's not surprising that they had to move fast to update the animatronic. — [via Anonymous Disney Imagineer Purportedly Confirms Donald Trump Animatronic Is Hillary Clinton]
• This post about the journey this author took on 'spending less time in front of screens' and his discovery of 'fewer, better things' resonated with me and some changes I am making in my life. — [via A Little History of Fewer Better Things]
• 'We may do or avoid things because we assume other people think the same' is a common belief regarded as the 'false consensus effect.' I liked the author's advice to 'go for it' if you've been avoiding something. — [via How to Do the Thing You've Been Avoiding]
• With the recent Orcas whale attacks, combined with the almost weekly sighting of Orcas from our "life 2.0" place, I've been spending more time reading about these amazing creatures. Apparently, like humans, they have cultural fads. In 1987, 'one orca from a group known as the Southern Residents began swimming with a dead salmon on its head, and within three weeks, individuals within ALL THREE pods in the area were observed sporting veils of dead salmon'. Incredible! — [via Orcas Once Wore Salmon Hats In Underwater Fashion Trend]
• This has been making the rounds - a game that 'consists in creating a password that follows increasingly unusual and complicated rules.' A fun one reminding us of some of the absurd things password defaults ask of us. — [via The Password Game]
• Wow - 30 Maps to Rethink the World - provides some great visuals on why maps, viewing a 3D sphere on a 2D plane, cause some pretty significant distortion on the reality of things. — [via Maps Distort How We See the World]

This Weeks Vibe 🎸

'Ikigai' is a Japanese concept that is a combination of iki, meaning 'alive' or 'life,' and gai, meaning 'benefit' or 'worth.'

When combined, the term roughly means 'that which gives your life worth, meaning, or purpose.' But it's also important to recognize that ikigai isn't just referring to one's purpose, but how it fits in with society in general.

'No one can compete with you on being you.' – Naval Ravikant

In that vein, I just returned from a week in Wales at the amazing Do Lectures. It's tough to describe the magic from a small gathering of fantastic humans, but the conversations there reaffirmed and re-energized my own Flow.

It's been a long and bumpy road to try and figure out my ikigai, to figure out that intersection of passion, talent, and potential, but I'm feeling closer to it than ever before.

It was a good week. No, check that - it was a fucking great week.

More to come as I process this all, but I am grateful for the new friends I met and those who have been with me all this time.

Be well. ✌🏻