Role Models: Focussing on the Success of Others

Stories taken from the lives of others are frequently offered to us as inspirational examples.  These may be religious figures or people from history as well as those who stand out within our own lifetimes as having achieved something unique whether in business, sport or the arts.   

Every age has its icons, and increasingly many aspects of our popular culture also produce a steady stream of people whose lifestyles, irrespective of their achievements, are held up as something for us to aspire to. The motivation behind these popular promotions is often overtly financial, encouraging us to buy into an idea, whether explicitly through purchasing products or implicitly through encouraging the routine viewing of programmes that generate income less directly.  Whether we pick from the selection offered or seek out our own, there are both positives and negatives in focussing on the lives of others in this way.

It is also common for those who are regarded as having been successful to speak directly about their lives. There is an established lecture circuit and regular opportunities to entertain through after-dinner speaking. Whatever the venue, singular people are paid to talk about what they think lies behind their success.

However, these stories about other people often lack detail.  The Entrepreneur seen by those outside their business sector can be viewed as having exceptional skills, which the better informed will recognise as common-place.  Potted histories can never tell the whole story and do not always provide sufficient context to support proper scrutiny.   More importantly they also tell a story that is being evaluated retrospectively.

It seems to me that these attempts to identify specific skills result instead in identifying personality traits, which are often too vaguely defined to be of any wider value and so remain elusive.  Success is often a well-judged, or lucky, response to an external situation.  Where this has a positive outcome we have a role model, where the outcome is negative we are an unlikely to hear about it.

Many of us who have struggled with formal education delight in reading about successful people who dropped out of the established system for education or work and still achieved a position of respect. However, there are many more people who took the same route without a positive outcome whose names we will never know.

While extremes of performance or endurance can be inspiring they can also be daunting.  What may begin by making us feel that anything is possible may, when the euphoria has passed, reinforce a belief that this is the case for other people but not for us.  

I have experienced a cycle that began with interest which turned into admiration. The admiration changed to inspiration, which for a short time could possibly have become motivation.  However, the differences between our stories soon started to emerge in sharper relief leaving me more deflated than before.

It is interesting to consider the lives of successful people but by their nature they are unique stories, often about unique situations, so their particular route to achievement cannot be replicated.  Our own life stories are unlikely to correlate in factual detail with any of them, not least because we are reading about an interpretation of the past.

When viewed as examples of how people have overcome emotional or spiritual difficulties, such stories can be inspiring and can reach across time.  Rather than focussing on the events of the story, their emotional responses show us something that we can relate to in a way that can produce a positive outcome. Identifying with personal qualities, their values, emotion and commitment can be helpful; trying to replicate their story or particular circumstances is a dead-end.  Connecting with the passions and values of others will enrich and inspire us.  Using the stories of the lives of others as a route map will lead us nowhere.

Rather than focussing on the lives of others in search of a role model, I believe it is more useful for us to draw inspiration from any parallels in our emotional lives.  Considering the actions of people at the extremes inspires awe but is unlikely to inspire action.  Perhaps our role models should be ordinary heroes, not examples of the best but of the best possible.

I do not think it is useful for us to focus for long on stories about the success of others.  Each path is different and the limits of our possibilities and the efforts required to achieve them are seldom the same.  It would be sad for their imagined voices to drown out our own.  

© 2014 Michael Golding