justin-timberlake-acceptance-speech-iheartradio-music-awards-2015

I didn’t watch this live, but sure do appreciate the things Justin Timberlake had to say while accepting the Innovator Award at the I Heart Radio Awards. (Pardon one of the words he uses if you watch the entire speech imbedded below) – but hear the rest. I especially loved his quoting one of my all time favs Teddy Roosevelt. In fact, it was a TR quote that inspired me to start this blog. Fun that TR still inspires folks toward the greatness to which he tirelessly aspired.

Quotes from JT that just might be worth sharing with your kids:

“Growing up in school no one called me anything close to an innovator. They called me different. They called me weird. And a couple other things that I can’t say on t.v. Thankfully my mother taught me that being different was a good thing; that being different meant you could actually make a difference.”

He went on to talk about what inspired him along the way like a Steve Jobs quote about staying hungry and dreaming. Then, he lauded not only hard work, but hard work with excellence and never giving up.

“When I was a teenager, I read some words that I found extremely powerful that I’ve been carrying with me ever since, and those words were from Theodore Roosevelt, the 25th President of the United States:

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 who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows 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 fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

(Excerpt from the speech “Citizenship In A Republic” delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910)

Good stuff.

Thanks for walking the road with me.

-Kay

Here’s a video of JT’s speech:

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