Ep5 Be your own role model
Welcome to The Belinda Esterhammer Show! This is a podcast about the art of winging it - whether it’s business, marketing, startups or life… well sort of. This week I want to talk about why you don’t need a role model and why should instead be your own role model.
Since the outbreak happened and with everything that's been going on right now in the world I've been seeing more and more calls for influencers to be canceled and people not giving them the benefit of doubt anymore when they are behaving wrongly on social media. While I disagree with cancel culture, I applaud to people finally taking celebrities and influencers off their pedestal.
I get asked frequently in interviews who my role model was when I was growing up and I either say I had none or I'd say Belinda Esterhammer and while some might think it's a joke, it's half true. Here’s why.
I grew up in a small village in the Austrian Alps, by small I'm talking 6,000 people. My mom is from Hong Kong and my dad is from Austria, and growing up I had no people to look up to that I perceived were like me. I quickly learnt to be ok with being different and to have a voice even if nobody cared to hear it. Ask me teachers.
Honestly, I tried defining role models or idols but I could just never find that person out there that really spoke to me 100%. Don't get me wrong there are so many people that I admire for certain things they do but I would not be able to wholeheartedly say: This is my person. This is my role model. And adding on to growing up – I want to clarify that I had people who did well in certain aspects in their life and that I admired but I never idolised anyone when I was young. Apart from Sailor Moon but that’s a different story.
Why do we actually have role models?
Many people have role models and often they're famous or someone they know - to motivate and inspire them. They often guide them through their lives. They’re someone they look up to and they strive to become like them. I agree that having people with positive impact to look up to is important, as they influence what we do and who we become eventually. Positive role models influence our actions and inspire us to strive to unleash our true potentials and to become a better person. It’s good for kids to have positive role models or people they should look up to because they model their behaviour after adults and their environment.
But there a reason though this saying exists:
Never meet your heroes, because they will disappoint you.
I don’t have role models because role models are problematic and this saying shows it. Don’t put people on a pedestal and idolise them. Everyone at the end of the day is an ordinary person and some happen to have an extraordinary gift in a certain field in their life. It’s easy to just look at the person you see on TV or in media AND THINK YOU want to be like them, but even extraordinary people have plenty of flaws.
Another saying is that our idols have feet of clay.
This means that people you look up to have serious faults and weaknesses which you didn’t know about before and the pain of disenchantment can be profound.
We like to think that successful people, who do admirable work are admirable individuals. After meeting them in person and finding out they are not we have issues to comprehend how we admired them in first place. There are so many examples, the most talked about is still Steve Jobs, he was an innovator and disrupter. I admire much of his work. However, I’m also aware of how he had 2 sides – “the good Steve” and “the bad Steve”. His huge personality didn’t just inspire people but also tore them down.
So instead of role models DIY your person to look up to.
Instead of thinking of role models as a whole, think of your WHY first and then look around your life and see who is doing well in certain fields. Look around and see if there are any prominent people that are where you want to be. Learn more and see how they got there. A role model doesn’t just have to be one person, it can be many different great traits of different people moulded together. Again, there is no perfect person that does it all well.
It's much better to admire someone’s journey and path in life rather than the person they then become once they are successful. I am fascinated by rags to riches stories as that really shows the true character of people on how they became the person they are today. Those stories are packed with learnings and resilience. Richard Branson has dyslexia, Oprah Winfrey got fired from a news reporter job, Jack Ma got rejected from KFC. The journey and incredible rise of these people is what interests me.
And again, as amazing as these stories are, I don’t put these people on a pedestal.
“Don’t compare yourself to other people” is something we get told a lot. So why should I compare my unique journey and life to a so called role model? Be a role model for yourself. You are special in your own way and you can stand out from the crowd. If you meet great people learn from them and grow as a person. I really believe that if we all are putting our best foot forward and striving to be our best self we are fine.
In closing, I want to say that while I don’t have one role model per se, I have many people in my life that I admire for certain traits or obstacles they’ve overcome. I love to look at people and just wonder what their life story is and what struggles they had to go through. People fascinate me, not just the ones that are a big shot but look around you when you walk down the street, there are street cleaners, office workers and shop clerks who deserves the same respect and admiration from you and who often have amazing stories to tell of how they overcame obstacles or are fighting through them right now.
Pictures © Vicky South
I think that’s my issue with role models, you often just hear people looking up to the big shots or famous people but they forget that everyone around them is worth learning from.
The concept of having one role model is outdated. If you feel lost and need someone to look up to, I can recommend this. Ask yourself where you are right now and where you want to be short term (1 year) and mid term (3-5 years). Then think of a person you have access to (this can be a boss, co-worker, someone you know from a networking event, etc.) who can help you to get from A to B. Get in touch with this person and meet them for coffee and learn from them. Maybe a mentorship evolves out it this. You need to have that one role model or person to look up to. You can DIY and make this fit for you.
Until next Friday,
Belinda
Join me every Friday where I will share my thoughts, tips, hacks and generally anything you can imagine around life, business, marketing and my world and how to wing life. You can listen, find, download, share and worship this podcast anywhere you can find podcasts and if you feel the urge to get in touch with me drop me a message!
And in case you wondered why this podcast is about the art of winging it, it’s because I’m winging right now.