“They’ve never built a statue for a critic.”
I first heard this quote from Mike Wickett on a motivational tape from Nightingale-Conant. It was the first of many motivational tapes I would listen to over and over while driving over 60,000 miles every year. For some reason, this quote resonated with me.
I don’t remember why I bought my first motivational tape. I do remember how good I felt afterwards — good about myself. Slowly my attitude changed and I became more celebratory about me.
Last weekend I was reminded about the importance of finding celebrators by Maria Popova’s delightful weekly newsletter, Brain Pickings. Celebrators are hard to find and it is too easy to fall into the trap of being critical. But once you find a celebrator, hold on and watch your outlook change.
“Brain Pickings is my one-woman labor of love — a subjective lens on what matters in the world and why. Mostly, it’s a record of my own becoming as a person — intellectually, creatively, spiritually — and an inquiry into how to live and what it means to lead a good life.”– Maria Popova