How Do We Become the Heroes We Want to Be?

When I lift in the mornings, I like to listen to the Jocko Podcast. Jocko is a former Navy Seal who interviews military service members and looks at the human experience through the lens of war. The other morning, I was listening to his interview with congressman Dan Crenshaw about his book Fortitude. One of the sections they talk about is how to become the heroes we want to be. 

Dans answer: “Sanctioned intellectual property theft. No one has a patent on good habits, you can steal them. Identify your heroes and emulate the character traits that make that person more successful than you currently are.” 

I think that is an incredible way to think about habits, routines, mindsets, and attitudes. No one can own a habit or mindset. That means when we find the people that we want to be like when we grow up we can watch them, see what they do, see how they think and approach problems. 

One of the biggest things that tends to separate successful people from unsuccessful people is what goes on inside their heads. The way they think, the way they train, the way the approach adversity, the way they solve problems. That is what makes them successful, not the material things. 

You can take a successful person, pluck them from their life, and put them in a normal person’s life and it won’t take long for them to become successful again because they know what it takes. The habits, the routines, the mindsets, and the attitudes. 

If you are willing to study your heroes you can learn all of these things from them. If you are disciplined enough, and if you want it bad enough, you can implement these things and it will only be a matter of time before you begin to see results.

One final thing he talks about is that we all need multiple heroes not just one. We shouldn’t strive to be exactly like one person because we are all unique and no one is perfect. Find heroes that exist in different parts of your life, people that you admire for different reasons, and learn what gives them that trait you admire and begin to implement it in your life. 

So go out and find people that you admire, that you look up to. How do they think? What do they do when things go wrong? What are their daily habits? Learn from them, and use your new knowledge to become the hero you want to be.