My heroes

For the last 35 years, my heroes have had one thing in common.  They are all people who have learned something about how to improve your life, have become passionate about what they learned, and have shared their teachings as widely as possible in the hope that the ideas will help others succeed.

It started in early high school.  I was trying to work through many issues, as most of us do in those years.  What worked best for me was to read self-help books.  Dale Carnegie (please don't roll your eyes!) became one of my early heroes, as I studied "How to Make Friends and Influence People" and "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" and would journal about my experiences trying to apply these principles.  There've been countless other books and audiotapes I've studied since then on a variety of topics from spirituality to parenting to running effective meetings.  As I've read, I've always sensed that each author has vowed to share whatever has helped them succeed in life in the hope that others also gain from it.

Some of my interest in Buddhism, apart from intellectually agreeing with most of the core principles, is that Buddha is also a hero for me.  He was just an ordinary man, but he is my hero because he struggled for years to find spiritual happiness, learned a way of life that led to happiness,  and then devoted the rest of his life to teaching others this way of living.

I write this blog to mimic, as much as I can, the behavior I admire in my heroes.  I seriously doubt I'll ever reach as many people as even the least well known of my heroes, but it feels good to do my best.