Be Your Own Hero — Create Your Career Success

Last week I received an email that had some great career success advice.  It was a challenge from Robin Sharma to “Be your own hero.”  Robin Sharma is an internationally-known speaker on sales leadership, peak performance and creativity and the bestselling author of several motivational books.  You should check out his website: http://RobinSharma.com

I really like the idea of being your own hero.  I think it is a great way to get yourself on the road to the life and career success you want and deserve.  I like it so much that I’m sharing Robin’s thoughts with you here.

Be Your Own Hero
By Robin Sharma

So many of us have heroes. Leaders, artists or entrepreneurs that inspire us. People who have made an impact, people who have shown us a better way, people who have overcome outrageous odds.

Yet, the interesting insight about heroes is that they have the human imperfections and weaknesses that we do. They have their bad days, they feel despair, they get knocked down (in fact, heroes get knocked down more than the rest of us).

Yet, in spite of their human frailties, heroes find a way to change the world.

Here’s my challenge to you — be your own hero. Ask yourself, what would it take for me to show up in the world like my heroes?

You may never discover a life changing medicine, invent a best-in-class product or win the World Cup. But, you can show up every day with discipline, compassion and extraordinary commitment.

Go through the following steps to take the hero’s journey.

1. List three to five of your heroes.

2. For each hero write down the traits that you admire. Is it Steve Nash’s selflessness on the court? Is it Martin Luther King’s commitment to civil rights? Is it Richard Branson’s vision?

3. Then translate these traits into your life. Can you be more selfless at work? Can you make an unshakeable commitment to doing the right thing? Can you create a powerful vision for your life and pursue it?

4. Write these traits down on a card or better yet on a picture of that hero. Remind yourself to act like that hero. This way your hero becomes your mentor — even if you’ll never meet them.

5. Then go into your days and live like the hero you are.

Rosa Parks is one of my heroes.  Her quiet dignity and strength have always been an inspiration to me.  That’s the first two steps Robin suggests.

I have made the following commitments to translate these traits into my life….

• I will conduct myself with dignity at all times.  I will pursue my work with passion and intensity, but that passion and intensity will be visible only to me.  I will not let others see my victory dances, nor my despair in defeat.
• I will always look for the learning in every defeat and setback I encounter.  I will be strong enough to recognize what I could have done differently and will do differently in similar situations in the future.
• I will persevere.  I will not back away from what I think is right, nor will I let others’ opinions get me down.
• I will be like Rosa Parks, dignified and strong.

I will print these commitments, find a picture of Ms. Parks and hang them both on the wall in my office.  I will create a PowerPoint slide with these commitments and the picture of Ms. Parks. (Step 4).  I will look at these commitments every day – one my wall when I am in my office and on my computer when I am traveling.  I will use these commitments to give me strength when I feel like quitting or lashing out at someone.  I will be a better person, and a career success because I will willingly undertake my own hero’s journey.

The career success coach here is simple common sense.  We all need heroes to help us become the life and career success we are meant to be.  It’s good to identify your heroes and act like them.  Robin Sharma goes one step further when he suggests five steps for being your own hero.  1) List three to five of your heroes.   2) For each hero write down the traits that you admire.
3) Translate these traits into your life.  4) Write these traits on a card or better yet on a picture of that hero. Remind yourself to act like that hero.  5) Then go into your days and live like the hero you are.  Being our own hero is the best way to become the life and career success you deserve to be.

That’s my career advice on becoming your own hero.  What do you think?  Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.