Showing Up Quotes

“The willingness to show up changes us, It makes us a little braver each time.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“Bravery is the choice to show up and listen to another person, be it a loved one or perceived foe, even when it is uncomfortable, painful, or the last thing you want to do.”
― Alaric Hutchinson

“The formula for success is 2% talent, 8% luck, and 90% of showing up every day.”
― Jeffrey Fry

“The truth is, being a parent is mostly just reacting. Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don't. You give what you can. And at the end of the day, most of it is just being there.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, The Unsinkable Greta James

“At its best, activism is a form of healing. It is about what we do and how we show up in the world. It is about learning and expressing regard, compassion and love.”
― Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts

“All these years later, I'll be back on that dance floor. I will be swaying and the music will fill me and I will be a girl again. My friends will be there, and we'll dance all night, one song after another, and we will be laughing and laughing in each others' arms. I will be thirteen again, or fourteen, or twenty-six, or thirty, breath and rhythm, everyone awkward and ridiculous and perfect. We will be young, we will be alive, and I will be deeply grateful for these friends. I know that I was lucky to find them, the kind of friends who bring you halfway across the world, who fly with you to Puerto Rico, who hold you at your grandmother's funeral, who invite you into their home, invite you into their families, take care of you, check on you, fight for you, who make you want to be better, who give you their time and attention, share their secrets, their dreams, their communities, who show up, who see you, who hear you calling from hundreds of miles away, and slowly, slowly, love you back to life.”
― Jaquira Díaz, Ordinary Girls

“The energy we show up with is more often than not the energy we encounter.”
― Rasheed Ogunlaru

“You get points just for showing up and most of life is all about showing up.”
― Mark Samraj

“No matter how many obstacles we face from birth—the outcome of letting loose love and showing up marks humankind— for success wins human equality, discretely.”
― Kamini Arichandran

“The ethical divide between showing up and coming back loomed large; it made me feel accused. This was respect, I thought: to look and keep looking, not to look away as soon as you'd gotten what you needed.”
― Leslie Jamison, Make It Scream, Make It Burn

“You have to be a man to understand why it’s important to cry and how to be there for others who cry.”
― Drue Grit

“When you are firmly rooted, you can fully stand up for others.”
― Rachel Wilkerson Miller, The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People

“When determining the size or complexity of a new habit ask yourself, "What can I stick to—even on my worst day?"
Start there. Master the art of showing up. Then advance.”
― James Clear

“What we regret most are our failures of courage, whether it's the courage to be kinder, to show up, to say how we feel, to set boundaries, to be good to ourselves, to say yes to something scary.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“No matter what role you play in a meeting, how you show up in that role is critical to the meeting’s success.”
― Emily M. Axelrod, Let's Stop Meeting Like This: Tools to Save Time and Get More Done

“In the context of this book, “showing up” means facing into your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors willingly, with curiosity and kindness.”
― Susan David, Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life

“Recognize and reward people for excellence, not for just showing up.”
― Frank Sonnenberg, Listen to Your Conscience: That's Why You Have One

“Attendance means nothing, bodies are not minds.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“Showing up is most of life’s success!”
― Dr. Mansur Hasib

“A man shows up. For himself and others. He doesn’t run, he doesn’t pass the buck, he shows up. And when he is hurt, or when he has done wrong, or has made his own mistake — a man shows up. For himself and others.”
― Drue Grit

“When you start doing video enough, your people will feel like they know you better and better.”
― Kyle Draper, Rethink Everything: You “Know" About Social Media

“Showing up for others is one of the most powerful things you can do.”
― Naomi Evans, Being an Ally

“Some folks are predictably unpredictable.”
― Frank Sonnenberg, BECOME: Unleash the Power of Moral Character and Be Proud of the Life You Choose

“When no one else believes in you, you gotta depend on what your inner eye is focusing on. Showing up for yourself causes the universe to adjust to your vision.”
― Robin Brown, Glitter Saints: The Cosmic Art of Forgiveness, a Memoir

“Healthy relationships are built on honest communication, mutual respect, and the daily choice to show up with love, even when it’s hard.”
― Ayoub Imilouane

“You won’t find fulfillment in applause or arrival; it rests in the quiet places where you keep showing up, unseen but anointed”
― Dr. Angela L. Hood

“He had people in there, people who needed him to show up.
And show up he would.
He realized that was all it really took to be a hero.”
― Molly Collier, The Paragon

“Persistence is showing up even when you don't feel like it, failing and rising again, learning, adjusting, and pushing forward.”
― Olawale Daniel, SUCCESS AHEAD — Don’t Quit: A Guide to Perseverance and Achievement

“Persistence compounds. One more try, one more day, one more effort—that could be your breakthrough. When you feel like giving in - that little grit to try again despite no assured hope of a change outcome - that moment is mostly when the magic takes place.”
― Olawale Daniel, SUCCESS AHEAD — Don’t Quit: A Guide to Perseverance and Achievement

“If I’d been better schooled back then in the art of accompaniment, I would have understood how important it is to honor another person’s ability to make choices. I hope I would have understood, as good accompanists do, that everybody is in their own spot, on their own pilgrimage, and your job is to meet them where they are, help them chart their own course. I wish I had followed some advice that is rapidly becoming an adage: Let others voluntarily evolve. I wish I had understood then that trust is built when individual differences are appreciated, when mistakes are tolerated, and when one person says, more with facial expressions than anything else, “I’ll be there when you want me. I’ll be there when the time is right.”

Accompaniment often involves a surrender of power that is beautiful to behold. A teacher could offer the answers, but he wants to walk with his students as they figure out how to solve a problem. A manager could give orders, but sometimes leadership means assisting employees as they become masters of their own task. A writer could blast out her opinions, but writers are at their best not when they tell people what to think but when they provide a context within which others can think. Pope Paul VI said it wonderfully: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it’s because they are witnesses.”

Finally, a person who is good at accompaniment understands the art of presence. Presence is about showing up. Showing up at weddings and funerals, and especially showing up when somebody is grieving or has been laid off or has suffered some setback or humiliation. When someone is going through a hard time, you don’t need to say some wise thing; you just have to be there, with heightened awareness of what they are experiencing at that moment.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen