The Most Motivating Speeches of All Time

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This is one of the most important and powerful speeches I have ever read! This section of the speech is an excerpt on page 7 of the 35 page speech given by former President Theodore Roosevelt on April 23, 1910 in Paris. This excerpt has been used to fire up teams, inspire courage in the underdog, and ignite confidence for all. Whatever your performance is, you need to read this!

Here are a few lessons I learned from this speech:

1) “it’s not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles” Don’t listen to the cheap seat feedback. Don’t listen to the people that are observing you from afar and are not actually close to you, you know who they are, so STOP LISTENING TO THEM! And start listening to the voices of those that are close to you, those that actually know and care about you.

2) “credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena” The person in the arena is the person that is trying, the person that’s actually doing something, the person who choose to try to be better than they were before. This person is not perfect or without fault, they might fail but they are trying to do something to better themselves

3) “There is no effort without err and shortcoming” This is amazing! Whenever you TRY something new or difficult you will be faced with shortcomings and make mistakes, it’s all a part of the process. I like to think that if things are difficult than your doing something right, easy roads build easy people. Don’t be easy!!!

4) “fails daring greatly” If you fail make sure your failure is because you dared greatly! Don’t fail the easy little things, succeed in the little things and remember that if you fail the difficult hard things, at least you tried and dared greatly!

5) “never be with those cold and timid souls who neither knew victory or defeat” WOOOOOOOW!!!! Teddy is droppin knowledge bombs here!!! The worst place you can be is in the middle, on one side is victory the other side is defeat, don’t be in the middle! If you are victorious, great! Now you know what to do and how to win! If you were defeated, great! Now you have a blueprint for next time and what to execute so that you avoid defeat next time! Don’t be in the middle!

Choose to be in the arena, choose to act, choose to do something difficult, choose to try harder than before, choose to try and dare greatly!


Questions to ponder:

  • Who do you know that exemplifies this speech? Why?

  • What was your favorite quote from this speech? Why?

  • What is one thing you can do on a daily basis to “dare greatly”?

Corporate, Injury Rehab, AthleticsChristyan GudjenovComment