Why it doesn’t make sense to chase your actual idols.
We love heroes.
They are our examples, role models, inspirations. They lead our stories and influence our own.
Whether politicians, athletes, authors, artists or entrepreneurs - we want to be like them. More than that, we want to be with them. We want to be their friends, we want them to be our mentors, we want to explore life with them.
But they can’t.
They don’t have time.
Their focus is simply somewhere else.
When you’re a hero, you live a life of being a hero: having many people who value and want your time. You start surrounding yourself with other heroes, the people that you can make decisions with, share similar life stories, mindsets and interests.
We spend too much time looking for our heroes. For myself, I often take Richard Branson as a role model - a man who lives his life in playfulness, integrity, and creativity. A person who is crazy enough to cross the Atlantic in hot air balloon and who named his company “Virgin” because he considered himself a virgin in business. A human who has beautiful children and created a billion-dollar empire while always prioritizing quality time and human experiences above financial success.
While I don’t aspire to be where he is and what he has, I aspire to be and act more like him: with a desire to do good and find pure fulfillment out of it. A person who dares to dream and make dreams for others true. A person who doesn’t judge yet always gives his best.
But what would it bring me to try to spend time with Richard Branson? Apart if our interests are perfectly aligned - such as, maybe, if I would be this crazy entrepreneur who has a way to clean out oceans from plastic bags while this is Richard Branson’s number one focus - it won’t make much difference. It would definitely be an amazing time meeting him and exchange for a few minutes at his island in Virgin Islands, but we’re not going to become peers or best friends.
Hence, if we want to build a community of your own heroes, you need to start looking at the small heroes of today. Build a community of peers, not of idols. And let them become your main circle of influence.