Byron's Babbles

This past week I worked in Las Vegas, Nevada and on my flight out there I watched the animated adventure centered around the pets of DC superheroes, DC League of Super-Pets. I loved it! The movie is chocked full of leadership lessons, lessons about friendship, and learning to rely on others. Every one of the pets has a story. Also, the relationship of the pet to the superhero has a story. This alone is important to note. As leaders we must understand our own story and well as the stories of those we serve. Additionally, it always comes down to relationships.

No leader works alone. They have teams, friends, and those in the organizations they serve. During my work this week I was reminded that everyone I have ever worked with has played a significant role in my success. In the movie, I was reminded of this by Batman (Keanu Reeves) refusing the to adopt Ace (Kevin Hart) from the shelter. His reasoning was that Batman works alone. Ace was the only shelter pet to work with Krypto (Superman’s dog played by Dwayne Johnson) that had not found a match with a Justice League member. In the end, Batman realized he had never really worked alone. Nothing really great has ever happened by someone working alone. We all have teams, friends, and supporters. We must nurture those relationships.

Batman also made another astute observation in the movie. He told Lex Luthor (Marc Maron), who was hoping to gain superpowers, that superpowers were overrated. How many times have you looked at the skills or talents of others with envy, or even as if they have superpowers. We don’t need what others have. We need what we have. We need to keep becoming the best “me” we can become! We don’t need to look outside for superpowers, we already have those powers within.

Everyone knows I like hard rock music and that I like reflecting on lyrics. I’ve been listening to some Falling In Reverse lately and the song Superhero has caused me to do a lot of thinking the expectations we put on others. I do a superhero activity in my leadership development facilitation, then always tell groups we should study persons, not the superhero we think they are or, more importantly, we want them to be. While I agree, we sometimes see people as superheroes, we must remember they are human. They will make mistakes and let us down. And, they are living their lives, not us. But let’s remember that none of us are the worst thing we have ever done. In the song Superhero it says, “I don’t wanna be a superhero ‘Cause I can’t save the world.” We have to watch putting people on pedestals that none of us can live up to. This is not saying we should not have heroes, role models, and mentors that we watch and learn from, but we must remember they are humans just like us.

In an interview, Falling In Reverse’s lead singer, Ronnie Radke, said this about Superhero: “Wow! That’s a radio song! That song is about people expecting you to be a certain way and when you step out of that fantasy they either go crazy or they go crazy actually. It’s what I have learned over the years is if I do something not pleasing or wrong you never hear the end of it.” Did you catch that? That was a pretty profound statement! What I called a ‘pedestal’ earlier in the post Ronnie calls a ‘fantasy.’ How many times do we expect others to live up to a superhero fantasy only to go crazy when they don’t quite live up to our version of the fantasy.

We also do this with our kids and students. Yes, our young scholars will, and should, live up to high expectations, but sometimes we forget that every path matters. For everyone in our lives we need to be careful to not create a false and unhealthy narrative about what it means to be successful. I always say we need to be helping those we serve to be significant. We are not each responsible for saving the world individually or sacrificing ourselves. As the song says: “I just wanna do better.” So let’s quit the fantasy stuff and help each other be the best we can be!