Excerpt from Breakthrough Courage: 9 Habits to Conquer Fear and Build a Brave Heart
I am an avid reader of biographies. One person who has profoundly inspired me is Theodore Roosevelt. His story of tragedy and triumph, failure and comeback, is legendary. Many years ago, while reading yet another sketch of his life, I came across a portion of a speech he delivered at Sorbonne University in Paris in 1910. This renowned quote is framed in my study:
“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 in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the 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 he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat.”[i]
Here, Roosevelt is providing us a sketch of his own experiences as a leader, but also prophetically challenging us to face error, mistakes, and failure. He was speaking of what every person must grasp—that to be courageous, one must also embrace fear and failure.
Roosevelt’s vulnerability is refreshing. It’s not easy to acknowledge defeat. Brené Brown writes, “The courage to be vulnerable is not about winning and losing, it’s about the courage to show up when you can’t predict or control the outcome.”[ii]
Everyone fails. Everyone carries shame. And those who can’t acknowledge their failures and shame are carrying more than they know. This life, abounding with demons and malevolent people, will hurt you. You cannot avoid it. Roosevelt makes a succinct point: If you are striving for high achievement in any endeavor, you will have to dare greatly—but with such boldness there will be times of failure. Failure is not inherently good or bad, but it is inevitable.
None of us enjoy admitting our defeats; none of us relish talking about shame, but the counterintuitive nature of vulnerability is that trust is built among bloodstained allies, and your heart is set free through an open spirit.
Habit 4 is the habit of facing the unmentionables of shame and failure. It’s in being vulnerable over these areas we hate to talk about that true, authentic healing can take place. Such courage to be vulnerable brings breakthrough into wholehearted living.
Pastor Steve
[i] Kathleen Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (New York: Alfred P. Knopf, 2002), 359.
[ii] Brené Brown, Dare to Lead (New York: Random House, 2018), 45.
