By Dr. Jeffrey Lant | Submitted On 15 Oct 2016
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I had been expecting this call for some time. I knew that she was working hard, too hard. She was distressed, distraught, unhappy.... wondering if her extraordinary efforts were appreciated, wondering in fact whether they were regarded and understood by anyone, much less everyone. It is a call every winner makes at one time or another, for every winner knows dark moments.
I listened to the onrush of heated, passionate language until it was spent. I am a good listener, and I know how to bide my time until the crucial moment of response is reached.
It had now arrived.
And I simply said, you are a champion.
You are a person condemned to dream more, to do more, to be more. The world will often admire you... but it will never understand you.
For champions are often cheered and emulated but the engine that drives them is something, at the last, that only another champion can truly know.
No one knew this better than Theodore Roosevelt, the celebrated "Teddy."
Theodore Roosevelt began life (born October 27, 1858) as the pampered and sickly son of well-known, socially prominent New York parents. Coddled, indulged, he came to despise his life because it gave him so much and demanded so little. He didn't like the person he was, much less the drone he was en route to becoming.
And so Teddy Roosevelt discovered the West... and himself.
Roosevelt selected as his venue of choice the Badlands of the Dakotas, rough, wild, dangerous... the perfect finishing school for Roosevelt as important as Harvard College, from which he graduated too easily in 1880.
Here, the country of real men, Roosevelt with his sissified ways, affected speech and seigneurial manners gave universal offense to democratic frontiersmen. They regularly walloped Roosevelt as an apt symbol of the American nobility they would never be and he so obviously was.
Teddy got knocked down.
Often. Painfully. And, so the crowd thought, hilariously.
But there was that something in the man that made him keep getting up... and getting up again, actually smiling his high octane grin.
It was a thing that champions know that lesser folk do not: it was the knowledge that he could persist... and even smile... indeed especially smile... when down.
Ahhhhhhhh.
Having been knocked down enough to know better... he took his new found knowledge and self esteem... and the all important insight that he could manage and inspire men... he took all this and returned to New York. There he did what all champions do: he began, determined that each step should help him ascend higher still.
Pushing himself, inspiring others, determined to see how far he could rise, he went from the State Assembly (1882), then Secretary of the Navy (1897) and in due course (after that famous romp up San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War), Governor of New York (1899).
An unabashed progressive determined to root out the prevailing graft and cynical cronyism of both parties, Roosevelt rattled cages. Thus the staid, appalled Republican establishment decided to serve the Empire State they loved by... getting rid of the most effective governor in years. And so the wire pullers arranged, as wire pullers do, to bury him; this time in the Vice Presidency of the United States, a better, more secure place for oblivion than any penal institution.
Or so they thought.
One bullet on December 14, 1901 into the body of President William McKinley liberated Roosevelt and launched him, like a missile into destiny. He was ready. Sure of himself, esteemed by the nation, he invented and applied nearly every aspect of the modern presidency.
Including the media gaffe.
Just after he had been reelected president in 1904, Roosevelt was casually asked by a reporter whether he would run again. The President, young, at the height of his powers, a marvelous engine for change in the land, made the biggest mistake of his life. When asked if he would run for re-election in 1908 (as he might have) he said no... and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he rued them; as he rued them for the rest of his life. That's why he was in Paris in 1910, discussing civic involvement and champions... rather than breakfasting in the White House, at work to mold a better America.
The speech that day was entitled "Citizenship in a Republic", but it came to be known as "The man in the arena" speech, because of these words, inspirational, insightful, a clarion call for every man and woman alive, words no champion must ever forget:
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
He knew what he was talking about.
And so I passed his words, etched deeply in my mind, to my dear friend and colleague, who for an instant thought her many good works, her stamina, her empathy, her care and consideration had gone unnoticed. But she was wrong... for we had all noticed, and admired; every day seeing what a true hero does: setting the objective; working daily to achieve the objective; shucking off failures and disappointments as an inevitable element of success.
But the most important element of success and of all true champions is to share heart and spirit, not just tactics and techniques, with a world so desperately in need of them.
Here this woman, a champion among champions, truly excels. She understands that from champions who are given much, much is expected. And here, with a generous nature, she never stints, as so many can attest and so many more will come to know.
This is why we honor her today
January 13, 2011.
Linda Elze, we admire you so.
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Visit http://worldprofit.com for details on our Home Business Training Program. Signin FREE as Dr Lant's guest .or. mine at InstantComputerBiz.com a worldprofit dealer, John (João) D'Silva proprietor/ webmeister Check us out anytime for marketing tips and a free subscription to our cutting edge newsletter.
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