Phil Zimbardo just sent me a link to this article by Pat Lencioni of The Simple Wisdom Project. It was a 4th of July post discussing the hero of today. The mission of The Simple Wisdom Project is simply to provide common sense reminders to readers who live in a world where the most important truths are often over-complicated, forgotten or abandoned.
His conclusion is very much in line with that of the Hero Workshop and the Heroic Imagination Project:
Of course, ideally we could all come to the realization that the world needs more heroes and that it’s time to develop a stronger collective backbone. But that doesn’t happen overnight. In the mean time, maybe we could do something a little more realistic: the next time we witness someone taking a difficult stand for what is right, whether it is in the workplace, at school, in your church or little league, let’s take the time to tell them that we admire them for what they did. And better yet, let’s tell them that we wish we could be more like them, and that they’ve inspired us to try. Not only will that reinforce their heroic behavior, it will also increase the likelihood that the next time we are faced with a moment of truth, no matter how small it may seem, we choose to be a hero, too.
The Philanthropist is NBC’s new hour long action drama on Wednesday nights. It follows a mega-rich man who has found a passion for personally acting positively for his causes. I was pretty excited to see it last week and tuned in last night to watch the episode set in Myanmar (or Burma). I had wondered aloud to friends whether Aung San Suu Kyi would be mentioned.
Well, she was actually a featured part of the story. However, the scriptwriters inexplicably changed her name. I can’t imagine why they did it. That was the least of my concerns – the story treated her plight as kind of a lame side story. The protagonist snuck into her home – the one she’s been imprisoned in for more than a decade – and asked her if his company should do business with the ruling junta. Then he ran away. This is just weeks after an American man snuck into her home in real life and condemned her to another five years in prison. My hope is that some people were inspired to look up her story, but my fear is her cause was trivialized.
U2 are promoting her story as well. They’ve set up a mask you can download, print, and wear to their concert or on the bus or in the pub. Their song, “Walk On” was written for Aung San Suu Kyi. The site says, “Use your liberty to promote hers. And the liberty of the people of Burma.” I’d love to see photos of people who have done so. Send them to me and I’ll post them here. Click on the photo to download the mask.
With the arrival of our newest hero, I’ve been lax in getting some important links written about in the last week. So, here is some reading.
The biggest event was the 64th birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi. She is still imprisoned in Myanmar. Many people across the world, famous and not, have left messages of support for her at this website: http://64forsuu.org/ I encourage you to educate yourself on her story if you haven’t already. I’ve certainly written about her a few times here. Her struggle is important in comparison to other dictatorships around the world.
The Spiteful Critic website has this comparison of the hero’s journeys in Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Matrix. Nothing new, but quite a nifty way to explain the concept to someone else if you feel the need.
Third was a blog post concerning the speech Phil Zimbardo made at the First World Congress on Positive Psychology with Martin Seligman. It concerns Heroic Imagination versus Hostile Imagination. It’s good to see the ideas getting recognition.
More specifically, hero’s journeys in the NBA. There have been three events in the NBA in recent weeks that have interesting ties to the hero’s journey.
The draft was on last night and a number of players have just received their Call to Adventure. As their dreams of fame, success, glory, and money seem a step closer they will need to Cross the Threshold into the big league. That crossing is regularly a test to insure the hero is ready for the road ahead. Peter Parker (Spiderman) had a test at his crossing when his uncle was killed due to Peter’s unheroic act. This showed him that with great power comes great responsibility. Uncle Ben acted as Guardian Threshold, helping Peter get through. Similarly these rookies will have guardians in the form of senior players, coaches, owners, and others.
A superb example of the hero’s journey in the NBA is presented by Michael Del Muro at the Bleacher Report. He documents Kobe Bryant’s journey. Bryant won the championship with the Los Angeles Lakers this season, which seems to be the pinnacle of his journey. He began his journey as a high school student with an eye on the prize – glory in the biggest league in the world. His world was centered on him – he followed the same path as Peter Parker who focused his skills on benefiting himself. Also like Parker, he had a guardian – Phil Jackson. Jackson helped him become a better player, but Kobe’s path of trials included individual plaudits, clashes with his team mates, trouble with the law and fidelity, but no championship. No championship without Shaquille O’Neil that is. Then Jackson and Shaq left the team.
Kobe endured more tests and trials before reconnecting with his mentor and quickly became the hero. He was no longer focused on himself – knowing his talent was only one part of success. He stands now with a championship and the title of best player in the league. He is self-assured without being cocky. His personality was in contrast to that of LeBron James, who was too often focused on himself. We saw LeBron try to win games by himself and fail. We saw LeBron speaking to a reporter and repeating how amazing his last second shot was.
That leads us to the final link. Shaq has just been traded to LeBron’s team, Cleveland. Shaq’s role to Kobe was that of an antagonist and sometime enemy. He was someone to overcome. Years later he would play second fiddle to Dwayne Wade, acting as a mentor. They won the Championship on their second try.
Will Shaq help LeBron James take the next step on his hero’s journey? And will LeBron be able to move forward when Shaq leaves? It took Kobe many years and Wade is still looking for the mentor to take him forward.
I’m going to be in the hospital for the next few days welcoming my newest hero. Not sure what that will mean for the blog short term, but I thought I’d let you know
I’ve changed the blog to a green for the rest of the week to support (or bring awareness to) the incredible acts of personal heroism going on in Iran. After an obviously rigged election, enormous groups of people are protesting. Each of them is individually risking their safety after the government promised to arrest any protesters. Last night on BBC I saw tens of thousands of people calling the government’s bluff. Much of the organizing seems to be coming via the internet. Bloggers are using Twitter to communicate, frustrating the government’s attempts to close down internet communication. Twitter’s ability to be used in many ways is causing them problems. To add to that, people around the world have been changing their Twitter icons green and more importantly, changing their location and time zone to Tehran in order to frustrate any low end targeted attacks. It’s a pretty amazing event. I would suggest reading BoingBoing or following Shel Israel on Twitter if you want to know more.
Iran shows that small individual acts of heroism can add up to make a huge difference. The students at St. Mary’s in St. Louis understand that as well. The next set of papers will be up tomorrow.
Back in Michigan and eight more papers for your reading enjoyment.
Ryan Lilly – You can be classified as a hero for many different things and even if you are only a hero to one person you are still a hero. (VERY NICE ESSAY)
Sam Clancy – I learned that although most people think it is hard and time consuming to donate time to charity it can be easy. This knowledge of how easy and rewarding service can be it makes me want to sacrifice my time and talent to more worthy causes.
Scott Scholbe – Other heroes don’t even know they are heroes but do small things everyday that make others feel like helping too.
Sean Dunn – Before I did this report, I used to think of a hero as someone who wore a cape and fought bad guys. I now realize that a hero can come be anyone, anywhere.
Tony Filla – How much dedication and pride Malek puts into his culture, work, ethics, and beliefs is just astonishing to me, it amazes me at how much time and effort he’s able to give.
Will Ruzicka – That topic is consumption and waste. Our main reason this issue concerns us is because all this is happening right in front of our eyes and people just stand by and keep making it worse. It inspired us because with this topic we could actually get our hands dirty and make a difference.
Zach Politte – This issue moves me because of the effect it could have on someone’s life. I believe that with the ideas that we came up with in this project will change people’s lives.
Zach Pudlowski – I learned that it’s ok to come out of your shell and find out what other people’s lives are like and how I coul d be a hero on any given day.
The San Antonio airport has wifi, which makes it much easier for me to get this post up today. I was going to be struggling otherwise. Had a nice morning walking along the riverwalk. I’m looking forward to coming back. I’m not looking forward to flying through Chicago tonight as they tend to delay my flights 7 out 10 times.
Matt Huelsing – I learned that there are many kinds of heroes. Heroes come and go in all shapes and sizes, and can do different things to help others. Not all heroes need to come from comic books or have superpowers. Society uses the term hero loosely sometime, but most of the time, people who say that someone else is their hero, they mean it.
Max Middendorf – I see more heroes in my life now that I don’t look just for the famous ones. I can find a hero on my street if I want. (GREAT REALIZATION)
Michael Hensiek – Since the beginning of time the idea of a hero has changed drastically. People used to think someone like Beowulf was an ideal hero. Since then people’s views on heroes have changed. Now people think that a hero should be an honest, caring, and unselfish person.
Nathan Vize – If everyone would have just a little concern for living creatures and would put in just a minimal amount of service to improve animals lives than we would see so much immediate change.
Nick Acinelli – Some people t hink the word hero is used freely but I feel that it’s meant to. This shows that anyone can be a hero and participate in positive actions.
Nick Sahuri – The more recent and more traditional hero is normally one who acts fast in a time of crisis. The new hero can also be a person that gives something up to help the welfare of those less fortunate than them.
After a brush with fame courtesy of Eva Longoria and some Spurs today I present the next eight papers from the St. Louis sophomores.
Kevin Brotherton – Heroes make people strive to be better than they already are. In my life, heroes have helped me form a better way of living.
Khue Nguyen – The diversity of answers to the meaning of a hero has shown that most people don’t understand what a hero truly is. It is through these multiple of definition that I believe that most people are searching for the meaning of a true hero. Different definitions of heroes have always existed. (THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST I’VE READ)
Kyle Barton – It makes us proud knowing that we aren’t rich people but we still go out of our way to raise money for people who have less money than us.
Kyle Bryan – To me a hero can be just anyone with an everyday ordinary life or someone who lives a superstar life, as long as they make a difference. Heroes need to be able to face the evil and stand up in the face of danger.
Kyle Shaw – She told me that the workers were the heroes and she wasn’t but I think both are heroes in different ways.
Marc Caola – To become a hero you cannot be afraid to be different. (GREAT STATEMENT) Also you must have certain qualities that make you different.
Mario Ruggeri – What moves and inspires me to take action against this, is the fact that a lot of people are either oblivious to it, or don’t care about it.
Matt Eike – For me the aspects of a hero include having great characteristics, ideal qualities, generosity, self-motivation, inspiration to others and many more. A hero doesn’t have to fit the life of the rich and famous, and I have learned that anybody could be a hero.
The next set of essays will be up tomorrow – time is in short supply here in San Antonio. However, the timing is great because I’ve got a guest post up at the wonderful Whitney Johnson’s blog. You can read it here.
Part three of this already popular series is here. I’m in San Antonio, so not going to type too much. Enjoy. If you’re one of the authors, please leave a comment.
Eric Benner – It was pretty pathetic that so many people feel the need to throw their trash on the ground.
Greg Sharp – My definition of a hero is an ordinary person doing an extraordinary action for the good of his/her people.
Jeremy Kolar LaRue – As I read the Wes Autry article I realized that heroes didn’t have to be people who were incredibly strong or fast; but they could be just regular people doing regular things but did something that affected another person or people in some way.
Jordan Taylor – From finding out about what this man has done made me realize I can be hero also. Just by helping others I can be considered a hero to them and a role model.
Joseph Noel – What we need to do is take action against these places that use child labor.
Josh Steffens – I think in society today we do use the word hero too loosely.
Justin Giegling – The important thing that I learned from this experience was that heroes do what they do simply because its the right thing to do, not because they are looking for glamour.
Justin Horneker – I know heroes are courageous, and are looked up to by many people. They could have outrageous strength like Beowulf, or they could have super powers like Spiderman or Super man, or they could just be an ordinary person just like Wes Autrey
Continued from yesterday’s post. The students will be reading any comments you have, so please feel free to ask questions of the individual papers.
Caleb Reininger – Everywhere you go, there are heroes of all different shapes and sizes, abilities, strengths and weaknesses, and so on. Heroes of the 21st century are just normal people like you and me.
ChrisTrue – Jenny proved that an ordinary teenager can make a difference in this world. There will always be celebrities and fictional superheroes being labeled as “hero”, but the true heroes in this world are the people that make up the general population.
Clint Agee – In my eyes, the point of this project was to bring these things to light, and teach us about global issues. I believe I have done these things, and thus deserve a good grade. The hero project was great assignment, and accomplished its goal.
Colin Cashner – My project was fueled and inspired by this fact and it also gave me a sense of community when I was recycling. I think that in the future that this community can only grow larger and stronger.
Connor Regan – What it means to be a hero today is an ordinary person, doing something extraordinary for the better of mankind.
David Androff – My hero is just like any other person.
Drew Behrens – Everyone’s hero is unique. There is no right or wrong answer to what a Hero is. The interview changed my viewpoint on what a real hero is. Before the interview, I did not have a clear definition of a hero. I thought a hero was just someone who was successful and made a lot of money. Being a hero has nothing at all to do with that. I had no clue how hard it was to be considered a hero. I learned from this interview that a hero can be any ordinary person.
Dylan Belgeri – I believe Food Not Bombs is a heroic organization. They do what is right to help others in need. That is what it takes to become a hero in today’s society.
For the next eleven days I’ll be featuring work from a high school in St. Louis. Their teacher contacted me a while ago about the hero work going on with Phil Zimbardo and I’m pleased to be able to publish the results of his own hero curriculum. I’ll let Dan introduce the concept.
I’m an English Teacher in St. Louis, Missouri who, over the last few years, was inspired by both Matt Langdon and Phil Zimbardo’s work on understanding heroism. This inspiration culminated during the 2009 school year when the entire class of sophomores at St. Marys High School (an all boys catholic school in St. Louis) completed two assignments for my English class: the “Hero Project” and the “I-Search Hero Essay”.
The students were asked to publish one of their two ‘hero’ assignments. So some that you may read are the “I-Search Hero Essay” where students were asked to trace, in the first person, their own learning exploring the essential questions of what is a hero and what does it mean to be a hero today, an exploration aided their interviews with local heroes (people the students did not know personally, mind you). Some of the posts are students’ “Hero Project” where, after exploring the definition of a hero in the “I-Search” they then set out to be a hero in their own way by creating their own heroic act that addressed a world or local issue that concerned them.
I could blab more but I’ll let the students work speak for itself. Thanks to Matt and his Hero Workshop website, we were able to publish these essays online.
-Dan Sadicario
Each day you’ll be able to read eight of these submissions in pdf form. We start here…
AJ Warden – I believed heroes wore capes and had super human powers. I now know what a hero truly is; someone who reaches out to someone or something, in hopes of helping that person and changing their lives.
Alex Hensley – I was excited because I got to help make the places where we live better and cleaner. I hope now that people notice what we have done and begin to do the same, because it is our world.
Andy Bremer – What inspires me about this issue is that we all know how bad the problem really is, yet no one even tries to do anything about it.
Andy Sieve – After I set my three goals and then went and did them all I thought about how great the experience was. It made me feel really good to been able to help with something this important.
Ben Dalton – When I started doing this project I really didn’t believe that heroes actually existed but after doing some class discussions I believe that heroes are all around us every day. The two most important things that I learned from my interview is that you better be ready because you never know you might have you react in a situation that you don’t know how to do it also.
Brendan Dlubala – We, as a whole, put ourselves down as unable to be heroic but almost weekly there is a story in the news talking about someone doing something heroic and that someone is loved and accepted by everyone for a month and then forgotten. The people are asking for a hero, while no one realizes we can all be a hero.
Brett Westbrook – There is a hero in every one of us, you just have to dig down deep and find the courage and wait for the chance to become one.
Brian Krispin – I think it’s a very good experience to meet a real life hero in your own neighborhood. It’s also good to know that Superman and Batman aren’t the only heroes to ever cross people’s minds.
