Our Values Through Our Heroes

Kia Ora, from New Zealand Friends and Colleagues

Getting at Our Values

Often, an effective way of understanding our own value set, is to take stock of who our heroes are.

Many of us, may never have thought about who our heroes are, but they will be there in the sub-conscious.

We tend to choose, as our heroes, those people who display the characteristics we admire and ourselves aspire to.

It follows then, that this a potential route to identifying and establishing our personal value set.

So if we ask ourselves “who are our heroes?" we can then identify the people who have had a significant impact on the way we think and act, those figures in our life who have deeply affected us for the good, in some way.

Then we can examine, identify and capture the essence of the characteristics of these people. We identify the things that people have stood for, in our own eyes, through their deeds and the quality of their actions?

My Heroes

I have many heroes, but there are two that I look to perennially for inspiration and guidance and they could not be more different. One is very real and personal and the other is fictional and shared with countless millions.

My Fictional Hero

I will go to my fictional hero first; Batman!

Why Batman?

Chiefly, because he is one of the few 'real' superheroes. He has no super powers he is just a very determined individual who maximises his own talents and assets to help others; his strength and athleticism, honed by punishing training, and his inherited riches, applied to technologies, to enhance his effectiveness in crime fighting and protecting the people of Gotham.

But also because he is flawed and frail and we see him being subject to all the things in life that we suffer and experience in our own lives. He is a larger than life, warts and all character who is both inspiring and instructive.

My Real Hero

My real hero is the man who gave me my value set and helped me develop it my whole life.
He was not perfect by any means, he had many of those same flaws that my fictional hero had, but at his core and essence he was a kind, thoughtful man, who adored his family, who was always there for us, provided for us and was always trying to improve himself and the lot of those around him.

He was a great coach and mentor he was a true altruist, always looking to help others, less able to help themselves, and he was a true leader, who led by example through his own behaviours.

We lost my mother, as the result of a brain aneurysm, at the young age of 45 (I was 26) in 1986. He never ever recovered from that loss, it tortured him his whole life, and yet still his true character shone through until his death in 2016 when he truly believed that he was off to be with my Mother.

He was an ordinary but at the same time truly inspirational man; he was my Father.

Do you know who your heroes are and why?

Good afternoon, from New Zealand, friends and colleagues

Kia Koa, Kia Kaha

Hamish🧐