Newscaster David Brinkley once said, “A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”

If this is true, which I believe it is, how are you doing at laying a firm foundation in your life? What do you do when others say hurtful things to you? Most people want to retaliate with hurtful words, but we all know you can’t fight fire with fire. What we do with the bricks that are thrown at us is determined by how well we handle criticism. There are those that respond to criticism by breaking through it and then there are those who respond to criticism by breaking down. One of the ways we get distracted in our life is that we can become consumed with others opinions and criticism. Everyone will have an opinion about the way we perform, but we do not answer to them, we answer to God. We cannot allow the critics and naysayers to tear us apart.

Never let what others say about you become louder than what God says about you.

Never believe what others say about you over what God says about you. There will always be those that will judge our performance negatively no matter what we do. It is never good enough for them, not the way they would have done it, never the “right” way. Theodore Roosevelt said this at the Sorbonne lecture in 1910…

“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 knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold timid souls who have… known neither victory nor defeat.”

We will never be able to perform our very best if we live in fear of the crowd. We have to outlast our critics and be committed to give our all. Critics will come and go, but we must live with ourself at all times. When you truly give your best performance, you can live with the truth that you did your best. Never let the critics control your destiny, let your performance prove your destiny. When you are committed to give your all and perform at your highest level, others will notice and see your faithfulness.

Critics are great, if you use their bricks to build your foundation of success.

~ Adapted from my book…LIFE RULES