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.