Great Responsibility

 

With greatness comes great responsibility. That’s my own take on a quote used in a Spiderman movie but originally uttered by Voltaire that goes “with great power comes great responsibility.”

Charles Barkley was once quoted as saying “I am not a role model.” Sir Charles has since hedged on that or maybe he just clarified a misunderstanding.

We are all role models for someone. You may not choose that, but somebody, somewhere is looking at you, watching how you act, seeing how you treat other people.

I’ve told the story here before about the time that a buddy and I were doing something we shouldn’t have been doing when a young mom nearby told her child “don’t be like them.”

It’s stuck with me. Little eyes are watching. You don’t have to be a sports star or famous person. You might be just a teenager on a team. But somebody is watching you, wanting to be like you.

The whole campaign “Be like Mike” is all about that. A generation of kids started driving to the basket with their tongues wagging and wearing Air Jordans. Michael Jordan was not perfect, but he tried to always be a good role model.

Everybody wants to fit in, to be liked. But going with the crowd is easy. Being yourself can be difficult. It’s hard to be different from the crowd but all the great ones do. 

Lebron James has his detractors and people seem to argue incessantly whether he or MJ is the greatest basketball player of all time. I don’t see him getting into that much. He just lets his game do the talking.

But people like Lebron are worthy of being a role model. He’s married to his high school girlfriend and you never hear stories about him being in the wrong place doing the wrong things. He’s built schools, paid college tuition for strangers, and regularly pays it forward. Shaquille O’Neal, same thing.

When Warrick Dunn was a rookie in the NFL, he established the Homes for the Holidays program which provides homes for single parent households that are struggling. Deshaun Watson, quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, has made some mistakes in his life, but he gave his first NFL paycheck to two ladies that worked in the team’s cafeteria who were struggling.

And Deshaun still spends a considerable amount of time and money with Habitat for Humanity. Interesting fact:  Deshaun grew up in a house provided by Habitat for Humanity that Warrick Dunn paid for.

What I’m getting at is this—It’s ok to emulate positive characteristics that you see in others. If you see kindness, make that part of who you are. If you see strong character, copy that in how you behave.

But don’t copy the bad side. Don’t be selfish. Don’t be negative. Encourage. Lift up. Take bits and pieces of the good things that you see in people and make them your own.

I heard Pro Bowler Ray Lewis tell a young group “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” We become a combination of all the things that we see. And that includes the people and things that we choose to surround ourselves with.

If you want to be great in anything, you must do four things. You must be coachable. You must be mentally strong. You must exude a positive vibe. You must be a great teammate. That’s it. It’s a simple formula.

If you see those things in others, great. Be like them. But at the end of the day, don’t look around for someone to be like, be you.