This past week, I’ve a couple of different training sessions for work where ‘inspirational’ people were presented as people we should take advice from and inspire to emulate. Mostly they were sportspeople and billionaires.
They were being put up to show what hard work and determination can do, or how their idea changed the world because the person didn’t wait for perfection and just started, however I simply don’t find those stories inspiring. They’re just not the stories that inspire me.
One program put up a sportsperson, saying he was inspirational as he’s at the top of his field. Here’s the thing, outside of his sport, he doesn’t come across as a particularly nice person. I commented that I didn’t find this sportsperson inspiring and was given a really hard time for it!
Here’s the thing. I don’t find sportspeople, billionaires, and celebrities in general particularly inspiring.
Don’t get me wrong. I can appreciate the talent and hard work that goes in to being an elite athlete, an actor, musician, or whatever. For some billionaires, again, they have a talent to invent the thing that put them on a path to where they are at, but otherwise, I don’t find them inspiring. No one needs to have that much money…
I struggle to get inspired by these people, and sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who feels this way as it seems we are expected to find these people inspiring, and if I don’t, there is something wrong with me. I have spent years looking at those who are put up as inspiring and wondering why I should find them an inspiration.
It’s not that I don’t find anyone who inspires me.
The people who do inspire me are more those that I know personally. Those that I see striving in spite of overwhelming obstacles. Those who are making a difference in their communities without fanfare, and often without renumeration. They are not the people who feature in books or on the news. They will probably never win Australian of the Year for their efforts, although I hope they will.
Celebrities, Sportspeople, and billionaires who I have never met aren’t those that I find inspirational.
It seems it’s not just me… there are others who don’t find these people inspiring. I’m not as alone in this that I thought I was.
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