Why is it that we’ve all got heroes that many of us haven’t ever met? If heroes are just ordinary people who do something extraordinary, how can they be so ubiquitous and uncommon all at once? I think this video goes part of the way to answering that question.

That was you when you were four. What on earth happened?

For a start you learned that you weren’t superhuman, that you couldn’t really fly and jumping off walls might actually hurt. You learned that you made mistakes and that sometimes people would laugh at you. You learned to be careful about what you said, not to stand out, to fit in. Most importantly though you learned to stop believing in yourself.

Then you grew up and you learned to worry about the important things in life like; Does my bum look big in this? And how many friend requests have I got on Facebook today? You learned how to put your best face forward. And you were saved by the greatest invention known to every the lost hero. The delete key! You might not be a hero anymore, but you could be ‘super’.

You know we’ve got this notion that we’re inspired by the extraordinary stuff that we see happening around us. We’re so focused on the ‘big what’, that we’ve lost sight of the truth about what really inspires people.

Being successful isn’t about what you do, it’s about how you do it.

Heroes touch us by being masters of how. Seth Godin shows us how to inspire. Bono shows us how to be passionate. Richard Branson shows us how to believe in our dreams. And Steve Jobs showed us how to live before we die. You see real heroes aren’t always out there doing extraordinary things every day. They’re often doing stuff you and I could do, if we chose to.

Every Person you impact you leave a heart-print, or not,
and that is your legacy. ~ Oprah

I’d like to propose a new definition of the modern hero. A hero is an extraordinary person doing ordinary things. You have the potential to reach out to people every day and how you do that is what makes your ideas matter.

Image by Charles Van Den Broek.