Part 11: “In Search Of Heroes Book 1″ What is your definition of heroism? by Ralph Zuranski
Craig Garber: The definition of heroism, to me it’s someone who makes life better either by eliminating some of the existing pain your going through or by giving someone a chance to enhance their life in some way, shape, or form. An unexpected opportunity also.
Troy White: I think first it’s getting the big picture. What is your dream? Who do you really want to be? If you had nothing holding you back, unlimited powers, who do you really want to be?
Then, having the will power to just keep going, having a tenacious attitude and following through when you promise things to people, too, and making sure you deliver what you promise. To me those are some of the most important skills anybody can develop, and which I would consider a necessity to being a hero.
One other thing I think that a hero always has is they know their legacy. They know that there is some kind of a legacy that they want to leave to people. It’s a conversation that a lot of people don’t like to talk about, but I’ve thought about this for a long time: what do I want to leave to my kids?
I think if you can think what you want to leave as a legacy to the world, that that is a true hero, because all true heroes have something they want to leave, and your “In Search of Heroes” program is a true legacy that will live on forever.
The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one’s self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when it be obeyed.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Michel Fortin: If somebody goes out there and does one tiny little thing that makes some kind of a change in the world. It doesn’t have to be a huge legacy-type thing. It could be one tiny little thing. You go to, for example, an orphanage and you spend just ten minutes with an orphan or you go to a seniors’ home or you see somebody who’s trying to cross the street and has difficulty and whether it’s a person who has some kind of handicap or even a person who is fearful and you help them cross the street.
To me that means somebody who’s a hero. To me that means somebody who has impressed in that one person’s tiny little time frame of their life, that little grain of dust, something that means a lot to them. You know, there’s an old proverb, an old story of a person who was walking along the beach and saw, you know, starfishes that were beached and takes one and throws it into the ocean and the other person said, you know, “How can you make a difference when there’s so many of these starfishes on the beach?”
He said, “Well, I made a difference with that one” and that’s the point is that you don’t have to be a huge success; you don’t have to do some tremendous thing in order to be a hero. You can do something that is a blink in eternity that can mean something to someone. To me, that’s a hero.
I don’t really have one single definition, because you know, I think people can be heroes in many different ways.
If you look at, say for example, the firemen or policemen or any of the others who helped with the 9/11 tragedy for example, that’s one type of hero.
I also think that people who consistently and selflessly help others, sometimes even at high personal cost or risks because it’s the right thing to do are heroes.
For example, people who walk their talk, even in the face of adversity are also heroes in my mind, or even people who inspire or motivate others to do their best are heroes.
Children who carry on as best they can with a positive attitude even though they may have a challenging disease, I think those kids are really heroes as well.
I don’t have one definition, but I hope you can get a sense of the type of person who I think are heroes.
Most people aren’t appreciated enough, and the bravest things we do in our lives are usually known only to ourselves. No one throws ticker tape on the man who chose to be faithful to his wife, on the lawyer who didn’t take the drug money, or the daughter who held her tongue again and again. All this anonymous heroism.
- Peggy Noonan