Drawing wisdom from Theodore Roosevelt, and even Pixar’s Ratatouille, this post reflects on the courage it takes to bring something new into the world.

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My other business is a fledgling board game design studio. Designing a game requires A LOT of playtesting. Sometimes those tests don’t go so well. And sometimes people struggle to filter their feedback. To put so much of yourself into something just to hear people flippantly trash it can be soul destroying.

Imagine that feedback in the world of social media where countless anonymous critics hide behind their keyboards, seemingly revelling in their trolling. It’s not surprising that some might be hesitant to take the risks required to create something new. No wonder the world is full of so much mediocrity.

Be a friend to the new

I’ve therefore got the utmost respect for anyone who has the kahunas to risk the wrath of the trolls in pursuit of creating something radically different. Hats off to the folks at Jaguar, who are taking a big swing at bringing the brand back to relevancy despite the inevitable backlash. Kudos to James Gunn for rebooting Superman, putting him firmly in the crosshairs of the vitriolic Snyderbots. And amen to the unheralded social media executive who has the courage to publish content that is different and entertaining enough to actually captivate their audience, knowing that sometimes this might fall flat and the attention won’t always be what they bargained for.

As Anton Ego puts it:

“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.… But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the *new*. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.”

Dare greatly

And if you, like me, are giving yourself to the pursuit of creating something new and find yourself sensitive to these criticisms, these fine words from Theodore Roosevelt help me reframe my perspective:

“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 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 and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but 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 knew neither victory nor defeat.”

In other words, sod ‘em!