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Who's Your Hero and What Would They Do?

Written by: Curt Skene

Article Overview: What can you learn from the people you admire. What do they have in their life that will help yourself in yours?

Who's Your Hero and What Would They Do?

On September 11th, 2001 New York City faced an unprecedented crisis with the attack and collapse of the World Trade Centre. Never before had any North American city faced such a tragedy, never before had a country seen such purposeful devastation.

As a leader, how can one find the inspiration, the power and the wisdom to rise above and lead during such a horrendous time in history? Rudy Guilliani, then mayor of New York City, was faced with that exact dilemma. Somehow in a crisis, he needed to find the power, the commitment, and the insight to carry a world that was in immense pain! Rudy Guilliani knew he couldn't do it alone so when he went home that night he sought out the wisdom of his own personal hero, by re-reading much of what had been written by Sir Winston Churchill.

I share this brief story with you because it allows me to introduce this month's powerful question, "Who is your hero and what would they do?" Imagine for a moment that you stepped into the shoes of someone whom you greatly admire. What do you think they would do if they were facing your challenges? You see, a hero is someone who shares your values and beliefs but is also someone who has another skill, characteristic or ability that you desire.

For many of us, our parents have played the hero role for much of our lives. I know when I feel challenged I often find myself wondering what would my Dad/Mom would do in this situation. Who else might play the hero role for you? Sports stars, movie stars, friends or relatives are just a few of the many possibilities. Have you ever noticed how many business books are sharing the insights of people who have succeeded in their goal? Could any of these people be your hero? Who even said your hero had to be a person? Why couldn't your hero be a company? Ask yourself, what would Wal-mart, Microsoft or Ben and Jerry's do if they were in your situation!

In order to apply this question, just ask yourself, "who is my hero (and yes you can have many!)" Write down their name and then ask yourself why are they your hero? Are they more knowledgable, driven, committed, caring, dedicated? What is it that you think they do better than you? If your hero is more compassionate, then ask yourself how can you show more compassion with the situation you are facing. If your hero is more caring than ask yourself how can you be more caring. When you model the skills and abilities of someone you admire, you soon develop them yourself.

Try using this approach on a situation you currently are facing. I will bet you the results will be incredible and it will open you up to new possibilities that have escaped you in the past.

Brainstorm Activity
Make a list of all the heroes in your life and write them down.

Ask yourself, why exactly are they your hero? What is it that they have/do?
Reframe your own thinking to ask yourself what you would need to do to become more like them.

One final note, whenever I present this question, undoubtably someone tells me that they don't really have a hero in their life. If that is you, ask yourself, "why not?" as we all need heros in our lives to inspire and motivate us.

Related Articles
  Help Your Clients Be Heroes
  Courage
  Create Hero’s Everywhere
  The Heroes Control Their Business
  Article # 20 Are You An Entrepreneur Making 7 Figures Per Month From Home?

Article Tags: ben and jerry, business books, collapse, devastation, horrendous time, immense pain, mayor of new york, mayor of new york city, movie stars, personal hero, rudy guilliani, september 11th 2001, sir winston churchill, sports stars, time in history, unprecedented crisis, values and beliefs, wal mart, winston churchill, world trade centre



Related Forum Posts
Are you a Support Hero Or a Support Zero - Are you a support Hero or a support Zero ?? Many websites fail not because they have bad products or their prices are to high but simply because they forgot to have a decent support system for their visitors. Support needs to be high on the agenda if your business venture is to survive in this day and age and I'm not just talking about setting up an FAQ page and hoping for the best as a lot of sites do, I am talking having people on hand to answer questions and provide the old fashioned form of support that says so much about a company. We have all tried to contact a certain company on the telephone only to find ourselves running around in circles listening to extensive menus and robotic voices telling us to push button 1 or to hash 4 only to find yet another menu and another bot telling us to choose yet another number, finally doing a full circle and listening to the first menu all over again. Or we have managed to successfully navigate through the menus only to find we are on hold for ages before we finally get to a real person who invariably hangs up on us, requiring that we suffer through the whole painful process yet again. Your website is no different if visitors cannot find their way around and they decide to hit the contact us link and leave an email requesting assistance you can be sure they don't expect to wait days or weeks for an answer and nor should they, it is in your own best interests to deal with their inquiry as quickly as possible the most they should have to wait is 24 hours before an answer is sent to them. There are a few sites i could name that provide the worst level of support i have ever seen one of them a forum where the support is so bad that the boards regularly get spammed with porn or pirated designer wear or illegal drugs for sale, these posts can remain there for weeks before a moderator or admin decide to remove them, customers there fair no better they pay a premium to have their articles submitted but scanning the forum it is filled with angry complaints from people that have paid good money months before yet their articles remain pending approval, this sort of laziness on the part of the site owners and operators is criminal, they are taking money under false pretenses their advertising states rapid inclusion and distribution yet by the time they finally approve the poor authors article the information it contains is months out of date. The bottom line is that the better you support your visitors the more sales you will make and you will be referred to other people your clients know, you and your site are rated and classified by the level of support you are willing to provide so it's important you aim to be a support hero otherwise one day you'll find your sales drop to zero.


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