You Are Not OPRAH

There is so much information out there to consume about great people. Documentaries, biographies, TV series, Twitter accounts, Instagram brags, YouTube shows, news articles and on and on and on. Greatness is everywhere and everyone aspires to be the next greatest in a long line of greatness.

Let me be the first to tell you that watching a Michael Jordan documentary doesn’t make you Michael Jordan. Reading the Steve Jobs biography doesn’t make you Steve Jobs. Watching Oprah every day doesn’t make you a world-class interviewer and media mogul.

Nine years ago when I first read Walter Isaacson’s book about Steve Jobs I immediately believed that being like Jobs was the only way to be a leader. I started to act as he did. I began treating people the way that he did. But here’s the thing - I am not Steve Jobs. Not even close. All I did was piss people off by being an asshole.

I’m not Steve Jobs and it’s unlikely that I’ll ever achieve what he achieved in his life. I am not Oprah Winfrey and it’s unlikely that I’ll ever achieve what she has achieved in her life.

I’m comfortable now to admit this but it’s hard in your early 20’s to think that you aren’t going to be great. I have a Greek mother who constantly instilled in me a sense of greatness and I am eternally grateful for that. But it’s also a lot of pressure to believe that you deserve to be great.

Nobody deserves greatness.

Don’t feel the pressure. Don’t try to be somebody else. Don’t try to live their lives and take the same path they did.

Or, feel the pressure and do the work for yourself. Find your own path. Carve out your own chunk of greatness.

We live in a world of misalignment. We see the end results of greatness, the greatness itself. You see Apple launching products that shape the future and define the present. You see Oprah interviewing the most incredible people in the world and growing her media empire. You see Jordan winning championship after championship but you never see (or choose not to see) the work that goes into their success. The sacrifices they make to change the world. The depression, the elation, the turmoil, the loss, the pain and everything in between.

You are not Oprah. You are not Jordan. You are not Jobs. Nor am I.

You are whoever you are and whether you like it or not, that has to be enough. Jobs, Jordan, Oprah and their equals all put the work in for many, many decades to gain the kind of success we aspire to when we see them online or read about their fame and wealth. None of it comes easy. Nobody owes us anything. Nobody handed the greatest people their greatness.

Expectation is the thief of joy and if you spend your life believing that you should be as rich as Warren Buffet, as talented as Lupita Nyong'o, as smart as Oprah or as successful as Michael Jordan then you’re only going to live a life of disappointment. Their lives are extraordinary and the exception.

We all have the ability to live a great life but perhaps expectation is killing our joy.

The power of Degeneres

I was watching The Tonight Show With Jay Leno last night (I love Jay, think that he is one of the funniest and funniest looking men alive) and Ellen Degeneres was on. Her and Jay have studios literally right next door to one another (notice how I'm on a first name basis with both stars, that's just how I roll I guess).So Ellen was relaying this story which was obviously planned cause they had the prop right there for the story. The prop was a pair of Ellen boxer-shorts.The boxer-shorts -seen above- are priced on the Ellen shopping site at $24.95. Ellen's story went something like this:Ellen: You know Jay (American twang in toe) I got an email askin' me to drop the price of these little babies for a day.Jay: (Big jaw in toe) *chuckles to himself*Ellen: So, Jay I did it. I announced on my show that for one day the shorts were going to sell at $10.Jay: Well you know Ellen, that sounds really nice of you... what's the problem with all this?Ellen: (Shyly giggling to herself) Well Jay, normally the boxers cost us about $13.Jay: OK so you made a bit of a mistake on that one right?Ellen: Well yea, normally we sell about 10 to 15 pairs a day. On that day, we sold over 6000. I lost about $25,000 in one day. (Not sure about Ellen's maths on that one so don't question me)Now my big issue with this whole story is that yes, it is funny that Ellen lost $25,000 and it is funny that the sales can jump by about 400% from a simple word spoken by Ellen but how is it possible that this is the type of funny story that the rich and famous tell. As far as I can imagine this is a mild kind of story along the monetary genre.Seriously $25,000 is a boat load of cash that Ellen just smiled and kissed g'bye. Wow, what a thrill it must be to know that you can walk away from that much money with a smile and a funny story.Now just imagine what would happen if Ellen told the American people to get rid of Bush or vote against the grain. Imagine if you will, if Harpo -sorry- Oprah and Ellen and Jay and Bono and Robbie Williams and Madge and Mr's Penn, Pitt and Vaughn(hahaha) and Miss's Aniston, Jolie (hahaha) and Tyra all got together and propagated a particular party, product, ideal, moral, ethic or line of thought. The whole of the American population would follow and the rest of the world would probably join in too. Think about it. The power of the media, the power of celebrity.

Whoever controls the media controls the mind

James Douglas Morrison, aka "Jim Morrison"

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