Who are your role models? They don't always need to be in your field.

Making a list and checking it twice; who are your mentors and role models?

Many years ago, when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to achieve with my life; I began to look at successful icons and realized a few things.  Actors have a difficult job.  Others dictate how they look; they are away from home for a long time and sometimes the accommodations suck.  They may not see their families for months at a time and even when they aren’t filming, they are working hard every day to be good at what they do.

Musicians must practice all the time, and “Money for Nothing” is actually a ton of hard work and travel.  You are constantly on the road promoting your name and face, and you are always competing with up and comers.  They need new songs that they either write or have to purchase and are constantly pushing to be in the spotlight.

CEOs are constantly under scrutiny like the aforementioned and are on call all the time.  Plus, they must be incredibly smart and over educated.  They go to work every day dressed in suits and uncomfortable shoes and can’t wear tennis shoes to the office.  They have to work with people they don’t always agree with, respect or even like.

Lawyers are always competing and are held accountable for every loss or win. Again, with the suits and shoes and they too are always on call.  They spend years getting educated and they never stop studying.

I was too fat and stiff to be a dancer and again…. Practice, practice... practice!

But in the end, they all ended up being role models for me.  Why? Because they were all dedicated to the end result, they didn’t want to do anything else.

Nothing you ever want will be easy to achieve and if you are only looking at futures that will bring the stuff you want, chances are you will be unhappy trying to get there.  That is what all my role models showed me.  They actually loved doing what they were working at, making all of the hard work easier to do.  That is why I looked to them, to understand how they could keep doing something I would never be happy doing.  How did they do it?  When I began to understand that they did like what they are doing, That is why they work so hard to be good at it.

I have goals but they are centered around what I am doing now.  It isn’t about the things I want, it is about what I am doing now.