Have you ever had a role model? – E06

Do you feel a lacking of a role model when everybody around you has somebody they admire? Or maybe you feel following one person’s idea, values, technology would limit you?

Welcome to episode six.

Listen to “06 – Have you ever had a role model?” on Spreaker.

Transcription

This is the podcast 8 Minutes to Success. I’m Kinga Panufnik and I invite you to spend the next 8 minutes with me.

On my way to success I’ve learnt a lot from others. That is why I’ d like to share my personal experience with you.

Welcome.

One day at school I was told to write an essay about who my role model had been and why. I was a little confused because I realized that I couldn’t find anybody I could say “This is my role model. This is somebody I look up to and I want to act as they act.”

I’ve had many people who were my teachers, masters, coaches, guides. I had learnt from many but I couldn’t choose just one. I knew I didn’t have one.

My friends had found them pretty easily, they chose somebody from their  families, some of them chose a famous person that they admired and followed.

I found myself lacking someone, an individual that I agree with, that inspired me, that I could say that in my life I followed this person’s rules. And I’ve been without this figure for many years thinking that I have missed something.

After some time, I realized that there are two groups of people.

First, there is a group of people who have had a clearly defined role model for many years. They admire one person, have studied their attitude and they follow their approach and their way of life. Very often this group’s mission is to promote the values, or knowledge of their role model. In business terms it can even be a technology that we have implemented, or a know-how. We stay with this approach for years waiting until our role model makes a certain change and this encourages us to change our way too. And these people become professionals in their field.

People from that group – usually when they were children they usually had a strongly defined role model and they got used to following that person’s wisdom. Later in life they like to keep on track, keep up the know-how, and follow clear truths. From my observation we can find them in jobs like doctors, teachers, or the army. They are people who work in a world with established procedures.

In the second group, there are people who do not have one role model. They seem to be unstable, sometimes following one thing, one kind of knowledge, one point of view for some time, being clearly in favor of it and then they change their mind in some time later. But this is how they develop.

They don’t have an exact role model, they’d rather call them teachers. They learn a lesson from this person but they apply in a more flexible way. They can stay in one – already organized system for some time, but later they might either change that system according to new ideas or even leave the organizations. Even if they stay and change the system, this is only temporary, because their own ideas are constantly evolving. They master a system and develop it sometimes making many mistakes along the way.

Luckily people from both groups are among us. In many professions as colleagues, bosses, friends, and business partners. We can see that even the children from one family can be different. And I’ve realized this is good. Our variety as people makes the world diverse. Some people treat changes as easy and some as hard. It is good to be conscious of that.

Some of us are good implementers and some are good pioneers. If we feel good with that role it’s ok, but when we don’t, maybe it’s time to adjust to our nature and change something?

However in both groups there are some dangers. It’s good to take a step back and not to treat everything too seriously. We shouldn’t become extreme in our behavior.

For example in the first group a danger is that they can follow one guru blindly without reflecting at all about their values, or their point of view, for example people who blindly follow a political leader, or a business leader who might even exhibit a harmful behavior.

In the second group the danger is that they don’t show enough respect to the people from whom they’ve learnt something – to feel that when they’ve achieved some success they themselves are Gods. It’s good to be grateful to everybody who has contributed even a little piece of knowledge, and sometimes even a hard time if this has given us a chance to change ourselves for the better.

As long as having a role model makes you happy, and doesn’t harm others it is fine. However be careful not to follow one person uncritically. We’ve had such examples in history when people blindly followed a political leader like Hitler or Stalin.

However, following one person who has discovered something new for the world like C.G.Jung, Bert Hellinger, or even Edison with his new technology of artificial light, can spread their ideas around the globe and raise society’s standard of living. Many people who work using these ideas promote and deliver them to other people.

Thanks to those who follow their role model and popularize the ideas and values of these wise people, new technologies can be implemented and then in the future can be developed often by those who do not have a clearly defined role model in their life.

Such people though, use the ideas and knowledge of others to create their own inventions. For example, taking the example of C.G.Jung who build on previous idea’s developed by Freud.

And a challenge for you for the next week,

Look at yourself and find out if you can identify your preferences. Do you like chaos and change or do  you prefer order and peace? Do you feel comfortable in your life? With yourself?

Look in the mirror from a distance and think if the person you can see believes in their values, and the way they behave. Is it coming from themselves or is this person following a pattern of behavior borrowed from someone else? Maybe from their family, teachers, some authority, but not themselves? It is very good to discover that truth in ourselves.

I wonder what your observations are.

Whatever you can see, if you are satisfied or not, you hold the key to your own success and happiness because it is you – who has the real power over yourself.

That’s all for today, see you next time.

Bye, bye.

This was 8 Minutes to Success. If I’ve left you wanting more that’s great. It’s much healthier to stay a little hungry rather than eat too much and feel sick. I hope you will listen to my next episode. To avoid missing any I recommend that you sign up for the newsletter on my website www.8minutestosuccess.com and the next episode will be sent to your email straight from the production line. Don’t be afraid I won’t be bringing this out every day. Don’t forget to subscribe. Would also be nice to get some comments from you and if you feel it’s worthy you can share it with your friends. Take care. Bye, bye.