December 6, 2007Celebrate your heroes!
A version of this was first published in Outside the Lines Dec 2005
My first hero
Growing up in Australia the son of an Englishman, one of my first heroes was King Richard I, the Lionheart. “Coeur de Lion” … it had such a fantastic, romantic ring to it, and as an 8-year-old his story was a stirring one.
Thirty years later things look a little more complex. The questions raised by the Crusades aside (no small thing considering the state of the world today), he really had a terrible work-life balance and spent only 6 months of his ten year reign in England.
The metaphor of the heart is so powerful - and it shows up in words such as courage, core and encourage. And this for me gets to the essence of heroism. I’m not much for the outward show of glory. I’m more drawn to those quiet acts of courage, that inward moment of stepping forth into the unknown to try something out and see what happens.
The Hero’s Journey
All of us are surrounded by heroes. All of us have walked a hero’s journey.
Joseph Campbell first described the Hero’s Journey, recognizing it as the basic blueprint for all stories, including the ones we live out in our own lives.
As I lay out the journey Campbell describes, I want to acknowledge my own heroes - some of whom I know personally, and one I don’t.
The first stage
There are basically three stages to the Hero’s Journey. The first is the Departure. It is when the hero first hears the call to adventure - the first hint that something is going to change.
Often the call is initially refused - the notion of leaving the safety of what is known is too scary to contemplate. But the call persists, and eventually the hero - often with the help of a Mentor - accepts the call and crosses the threshold into this new and special world to begin the journey.
One of my heroes I don’t know:
I’m thrilled that Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Gurteen Bank, won the Noble Peace Prize this year. He invented microcredit, a way of lending money to the poor. This seemingly simple process has allowed people - mainly women - with no possibilities to suddenly have possibilities. And by creating economic independence, Yunus has started to change the very social structure of these societies.
The second stage
