Invictus

Nelson Mandela: What is your philosophy on leadership? How do you inspire your team to do their best?
Francois Pienaar: By example. I've always thought to lead by example, Sir.
Mandela: Well that is right. That is exactly right. But how to get them to be better than they think they can be? That is very difficult I find. Inspiration, perhaps. How do we inspire ourselves to greatness, when nothing less will do? How do we inspire everyone around us? I sometimes think it is by using the work of others... A Victorian poem. Just words, but they helped me to stand when all I wanted to do was lie down.


INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley