Who’s Your Hero? 

When you were young up it may have been famous people, superhero’s, maybe Jesus, your parents, the Fresh Prince of Bell-Air? Maybe a grandparent, I thought my grandpa was a hero. My parents were hero’s, my brother was a hero most of my life growing up. A few teaches at a young age, Ms. Davis and Mr. Hall in elementary school made it possible to think outside of what was possible, they truly changed me as a person. They were hero’s.

Superhero’s are those special individuals that make the impossible possible. They do what others can’t conceive of. Sure sometimes they fly or turn green, but more often than not Superhero’s are the ones who’ve been through the most, they’ve been down and out, horrible things have happened to them, but still some how they survive. They’re resilient. Not indestructible, resilient. It’s the destructible nature that makes them a hero, the immense possibility of failure is the precise reason it creates greatness. Superhero’s are all around us.

Why do we forget about our hero’s at one point? Why do we just try to live life without striving to be a modern day Superman? 

I think we need to bring back hero’s. Life sucks some days, life REALLY sucks some days, if you have a hero, you’re subconsciously shooting for something, you want to be your favourite hero. Life doesn’t suck so much to the young kid dreaming about being Wonder Women. I say dream away, set a crazy awesome goal, trying to be something in the future builds confidence. Confidence leads to self-esteem, that’s very healthy.

When I was young I always looked up to my coaches

I always looked up to my coaches when I was young. They were my hero’s. I truly think I got into coaching because of the way I looked at my coaches when I was young. They taught me so much and I could never thank them enough, that’s what hero’s do, they help without looking for a thank you. Cal Toffan was a role model as well as a coach, he taught me a way to think competitively about sport. Gary Brotzel who coached me for like 5 years in hockey I learned a lot from. Evidently he’s the president of the Regina Redsox baseball club, still volunteering his time and still a role model for the younger generation.

In University Irfan, Schnell and Al Derges to me were hero’s, they gave me hope that there was a better way to do business. Hero’s give us hope, a reason to create something different. Hero’s change us for the better.

One of my all time hero’s will always be Guy Kerbrat. We coached Volleyball together for 9 years and I think he’s the happiest person in the world. I’ve never met someone more happy than Guy, I’ve also never met someone who volunteers more than Guy. Correlation, causation? I’m not sure but I don’t think it’s just a coincidence, volunteering makes you happy.

Who are your hero’s today? It’s okay you know, everyone should have people they look up to, no one talks about it nearly enough! 

In business I have hero’s; MacLeod, Branson, Musk, Jobs, Wozniak, Sinek, Collins’, Gladwell, Christensen, Sharma, Zuckerberg, Dubner, Levitt, Heath Brothers, Bezos, Godin, Gilbert, Pausch, Draplin, and Frankl. Thinkers, creators, entrepreneurs, change agents, call em what you want, they changed things, they can’t be ignored.

In business it was stories about people like Steve Wozniak when Apple first started that made believe in hero’s again. When Apple went public everyone was made a millionaire in the company basically overnight because of the popularity of Apple’s stock. Everyone became millionaires with the exception of a few newer team members. Woz feeling bad for them gave shares out of his own pocket to ensure they were well compensated. He literally gave away his own money so other people could enjoy in the success. That’s what hero’s do.

What a story, what a moment of character. I will always look up to Woz for that.

I told Brandon about that story the same day I read about it. Some day I want to be like Woz. 

Barbra Lee is also a hero of mine. You can read more about here story here: Could you stand up to an overwhelming majority who disagrees with you? She had over 50,000 hate mail letters delivered to her door when she was in congress all because she was the only one in Congress to vote against the US using any means necessary to rid the world of those responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks. 

That takes courage. We shy away from making small decisions that make others judge us, Barbra did something that she believed was right. Ten years later the US admitted it was wrong for what they did, Barbra was right. 

Anyone that has done something that wasn’t necessarily in the most popular vote but was the right thing to do has always come under fire. It’s hard to do the right thing, it’s even harder to do the right thing the majority of the time. But you can do it, it takes courage, faith, and a unrelenting belief in what you set out to accomplish.

Keep the faith

Remember, you’re someone’s hero. We all are. Whether you have no one in the world to talk to or you’re the most popular person in Texas, you are someone’s hero. 

There is someone some where in the world that looks up to you. No matter who you are I bet I can find some hero tendencies in you. All you have to do is believe.