Never Meet Your Heroes (Unless You Do)

Good morning from a cloudy morning in Venice Beach. I’m currently on a US Tour leading into Kona, as we bring our no longer quite so little company to the US. More on that another time as today I wanted to share some thoughts with you on some of my “heros”.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was on stage last week at a climate conference in New York, and the man can still work a room. He spoke like a statesman, dropped Terminator lines like they were policy proposals, and had everyone- myself included-completely dialed in. I caught him briefly afterward, thanked him for the inspiration over the years, and walked away thinking about something we don't talk about enough: how the people who inspire us are never the complete package we imagine them to be.

Arnold's the master of reinvention. Bodybuilder to actor to politician-world class at each stop. That's three separate careers where most of us are trying to figure out one. But he's also, by any honest accounting, not exactly the poster child for family values. And here's the thing: both of those truths can exist simultaneously without canceling each other out.

The old saying goes "never meet your heroes" because reality has a way of disappointing fantasy. But I just met one of mine, and it was the opposite of disappointing- precisely because I wasn't expecting a superhero. I was expecting someone who excelled at specific things during specific chapters of his life. And that's exactly what inspiration looks like when you strip away the mythology.

My parents were self-employed, which is a polite way of saying they were always working. Always hustling. Always operating with this fundamental belief that if you want something, you go and get it. Nobody's coming to save you. Nobody's handing out opportunities with a bow on top. That lesson didn't come from a motivational speech- it came from watching them live it, day after unremarkable day.

There's Haile Gebreselassie. I remember watching him push world record pace with that ear-to-ear grin plastered across his face. His running style-owed to years of carrying books to school-was distinct enough, but that smile? That was something else entirely. Everyone else grimaces, complains, broadcasts their suffering like it earns extra credit. Haile's out there redefining human limits and smiling about it.

Years later, I literally bowled into him in the Beijing Olympic Village. I was warming up, he was cooling down, and I nearly took out one of the greatest distance runners in history like some overeager amateur. Embarrassing doesn't begin to cover it. But that moment stuck with me, not because of the collision, but because of what his approach to pain had already taught me: your game face matters. How you carry suffering changes the suffering itself.

I never adopted the smile- that was his thing. But I learned that embracing your own pain, finding your own way to metabolize it without broadcasting distress signals to everyone around you, that's a skill worth developing. The pain is coming either way. How you wear it is up to you.

Here's what connects all of this: Arnold's reinvention genius, my parents' relentless hustle, Haile's poker face mastery-none of them were perfect. None of them had it all figured out. But each of them gave me something specific, something I needed at a moment when I needed it. And still do. That's what role models actually do. They're not complete blueprints for life. They're specific examples of specific excellence that resonate with something you're trying to become.

The danger isn't meeting your heroes. The danger is expecting them to be heroes in every dimension of their existence. Take what serves you. Learn from their strengths. Acknowledge their limitations without letting those limitations invalidate their gifts.

You don't need perfect inspiration. You need real inspiration. And real inspiration always comes with complications, contradictions, and the slight mess of actual human achievement.

Go find what serves you today,

Jan.