Today, Emma and Brittany talk about what makes someone a hero and give some examples of their own heroes.
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“And to my hero, that’s who I chase. Now when I was 15 years old, I had a very important person in my life come to me and say, “Who is your hero?”. And I said I don’t know I gotta think about that, give me a couple of weeks. I come back two weeks later, this person comes up and says “Who’s your hero?” And so I thought about it and I said you know who it is, it’s me in 10 years.”
Here’s a transcript of our conversation:
Brittany: Hi, Emma.
Emma: Hi, Brittany.
Brittany: So, I wanted to have kind of a fun topic today and talk a little bit about, first of all, what makes somebody a hero. And that’s kind of subjective. I think it goes, you know, it’s different for each of us, but then I wanted to talk about our hero, some people that we really look up to, and why that matters. So let me just start this off, and this is kind of put you on the spot here for a second, Emma. And then I’ll answer like, what does a hero mean to you? Like, what does, what makes somebody a hero to you?
Emma: To me, a hero is someone who I can look to and maybe relate to a little bit myself, even if it’s not someone who has like, a similar job to me or a similar life. But someone that I see, that I can look up to and say, wow, if I was really killing it, if I was really living, living exactly as well as I could be, that’s sort of what it could look like. Yeah. And it’s someone who’s inspirational that you can be inspired by and look up to and aspire to be like them, even if your life isn’t really anything like them.
Brittany: No, I think that’s great. And I think also for me anyways, a hero is somebody who I can, and you kind of already said this, but just kind of reword it as someone that I can picture myself being right. I don’t know that I’m ever gonna be Elon Musk, even though he’s a hero to me. I like to have heroes where it’s a little more realistic, where it’s like, all right, this is somebody that I could actually, I could maybe become something close to them. So, and I have a lot of different heroes, so I’ll kind of start by naming one and one of ’em we’ve had on the show before, so I feel kind of lucky to have that. But Larry Reed, and he used to be the president of FEE, but he is somebody I look up to so much, and part of the reason I do is because of his emphasis, his, and that means like he puts a lot of special placement on the importance of character. And I don’t think we have enough of that, even in our own liberty movement, where I think there’s a lot of really great people. I think sometimes we forget how important it is to have good character. Yes. And so that’s one reason that I love Larry Reid and in a lot of his articles, and I can try to link to some, in the show notes, a lot of his articles focus on what we need to do to not just believe in liberty, but to be good ambassadors, which means like a representative to be a good representative of liberty. And a lot of that is, you know, being a good person, living your life in a certain way. And Connor and I have talked about that before. So that’s what makes him a hero to me. And we can just kind of go back and forth with heroes. So that’s my first hero.
Emma: I love that. I’ve got another one, a pretty different person, different background, but Marie Curie is someone who I have always, do you know who that is? Have you heard of her before?
Brittany: She’s a scientist, right?
Emma: Yes, she was. So she is the first female Nobel Prize winner ever. And she actually, I believe she actually got two Nobel prizes. she was a scientist way back in the 18 hundreds in Poland. she was born into a really poor family, and she was so fascinated by science and she started figuring out what radioactivity is. and that’s a crazy word, but if you’ve ever watched a superhero movie or anything that has to do with science or nuclear science, you’ll hear a lot of talk about radioactivity. And basically, it’s this crazy thing that happens to cells when they’re exposed to certain elements. And she did all of these discoveries and had all of these experiments in a field that was completely dominated by men. There were no female scientists back then, and you hear a lot of stuff nowadays like, oh, there’s no women in a stem or in science. Back then there were literally no women in science. And so she actually worked really hard to find treatments for cancer, and she’s someone who has done a lot.
Brittany: I didn’t know that part.
Emma: Yeah. Yeah. Her work is, is one of the most important beginnings into sort of the world of cancer research. But I just love that she, rather than kind of going back to some stuff that we’ve talked about in prior episodes, rather than sort of being bound by her identity and bound by, oh, I’m a woman. I can’t go out and do this stuff. She just went out and did it. And she got really involved in her field and she stood out because of her merits and because of the things that she discovered and learned. And there have been all sorts of movies about her, but one of my favorite one.
Brittany: A good one. Yeah. I was, I would a good movie about her if you have one.
Emma: Yeah. gosh, let me, there were a few of them. So there was one where it was called Madame Curie, and it was, it was released like, right after her death. So this was more of like, a documentary-type one. but I’m gonna link to the other one. I cannot remember the name of it right now, but there’s another one that’s more of like a drama, like, kind of like a fun to watch. Got it. Yeah. But she’s got some amazing quotes. this is one that I really love, and this is one that I, can draw on even in my own life, even though I’m not a scientist. She said, life is not easy for any of us, but what of that we must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained. And I just love that. I love that. I love how focused she was and how passionate she was about what she did.
Brittany: I love that. Well, okay, so my next one is a girl too. So we have a good, and again, I’m not one of those people that’s like, feminism, but no, you have a girl. So mine is an entrepreneur. Her name is Sara Blakely. And I’ll link to something I wrote about her. So I love her for several reasons. One thing that I’ve admired about entrepreneurs is they always start with this question of what, how can I make this better? Now, Sara Blakely invented something weird. They’re called Spanx. They basically make you look skinnier, but if you are a woman, and if you are a young girl, you will use them someday. But they kind of revolutionize the way women dress. So this was a huge deal for a lot of women. but she was older when she invented it. And I think a lot of times we think that we have to be really young when inventing something and we have to be rich by our twenties. And she was, I think either in her very late twenties or possibly even mid-thirties when she invented this. And it was just one of those things where she saw a problem. she wanted a solution. She kind of made a, or she made a prototype, which is like when you make a rough draft of like, an invention. But the cool part about this is she had to sell her idea. And she at one point, like chased a lady into a bathroom like a CEO and was like, let me show you how great my product is. So I really admire her perseverance. she was like a door-to-door salesperson. I think she worked for Xerox, which used to be what they like copy machines. It was like a brand of a copy machine. But she wanted more out of her life. She wanted to be more than she was. She wanted to invent something for the world that would help them. And she became, I think she’s a billionaire. I might get this wrong I’ll ask myself. But she became one of the first female billionaires and she did it in her forties. And I like that. Again, it’s a good reminder to me that I don’t have to have everything figured out right now that you can become a millionaire or a billionaire later in your life. You don’t have to have it all now. So she’s one of my heroes that I look to. She’s a great entrepreneur. So that’s my second one.
Emma: That’s awesome. I first heard of her Sara Blakely when I was listening to a podcast that I love called How I Built This. Ooh. And I think we should link to that in show notes because it is a really interesting listen. She talks all about how she started her business and kind of that story of chasing the CEO into the bathroom. And I loved hearing from her. So we’ll definitely link to that. another hero of mine that I absolutely love, another woman, her name is Beverly Cleary, and I don’t know if Brittany if you’ve ever read any of her books. Yes. But they were huge when we were kids. and I have a special place in my heart for her because she also is from Portland, Oregon where I grew up.
Brittany: Oh, fun.
Emma: So I remember reading her books and she would mention the St. John’s Bridge, which is this big famous bridge in Oregon. And I was, I felt so cool cause I was like, this is my hometown. It’s in this book, And she was a really special woman. She basically went to college, was, there weren’t a lot of women in college back then. And she got a degree by working all these different jobs and paying her way through. And she was a librarian for a long time. And she started writing books and basically wrote books that were about normal kids and what normal kids talk about and think about and the things that they go through. And she talked about things that were real life things like these problems that you go through when you’re growing up and you’re having a hard time with your friends or maybe you’re fighting with your siblings. And she talked about them in a way that was very real, but that was also humorous. And it was interesting and it was lighthearted and I always just loved the stories that she wrote. And she wrote a lot of books throughout her life. Dozens and dozens of books, if you’ve ever heard of Ramona books. Yeah. Ramona the Brave, Ramona The Pest, or Henry Huggins, that’s another one. She wrote so many different books and they really just brought people together. And I really appreciate that she was such an early pioneer for female writers. It’s, really cool to see people who, again, don’t let their identity as, you know, a mother or as a woman or as a librarian. Like she wrote these incredible books and the world just loved them and enjoyed them. And she never let who she was hold her back. And she grew up in a very normal, very poor family actually, and was able to achieve so much. And throughout it all, she was very kind to children. She would do book signings and loved her community. And she lived in Oregon for a really long time. She ended up moving to California a little bit later. But everywhere I went it was, everything was named after her. She was just such an icon where I grew up and I love, just love that she talked a lot about what life is like for normal people and ways that you can push through your problem and find positivity and find growth in the midst of the everyday challenges that we all go through.
Brittany: That’s great. So my next one’s actually two heroes in one, but there’s a little bit of a twist. So Matthew McConaughey, who, that’s not gonna sound, that’s kind of like a weird one cause it’s like, wait, that’s an actor. But if anyone has ever read his memoir, and if not, I highly recommend it. It’s, well, for the adults, it’s called Green Lights. But, one thing I really liked about him is he’s gotten very famous, obviously, and he is so humble and he had so many really good life lessons to teach and he grew up in a really interesting household. I don’t even know how to explain it, but he grew up with his fair amount of adversity and hardship, but he’s a self-made man. He’s somebody who works really hard to be where he is today and he’s full of good advice, which is probably cuz he listens to Jordan Peterson, one of my other heroes. So, one reason I wanted to bring up Matthew McConaughey is he has a quote that since I read it in December, has just really stuck with me. And he said, your hero should be yourself 10 years from now. And that, like, that’s one of those things that like, gives me chills every time I hear it because like, we talked about in the beginning, it’s good to have these heroes because it’s nice to have these people we want to emulate or we want to be like, but ultimately the person we should really wanna be like is who we are 10 years from now. Right. We should be working towards this person who will look to you us and be like, oh my goodness, I did it. I’m the person I wanna be. And then in 10 years from now, it should be, we should set goals to be the, you know, the hero we want 10 years later. Yeah. So I think that’s really important to remember to be your own hero.
Emma: It is. I love that. That’s so cool. I never knew that he, was so, I don’t know. He’s such an interesting thinker. I’ve watched a few clips from his podcast. I know he’s a pretty interesting guy.
Brittany: Has he had his own podcast now? I didn’t know that.
Emma: I’ve seen clips of it. I don’t know if it’s a podcast or just something he does on Instagram, but he’s had, I think he’s had Jordan Peterson on there before and all these different people.
Brittany: And he’s been on Jordan, Peter, he’s been on all these different Yeah. I was so impressed with him because you expect him to be just like a regular self-absorbed weird Yeah. You know, woke celebrity and he’s really, really down to earth a family man. He loves his kids and his wife. So yeah, I’ve always really loved that line.
Emma: That is awesome. Well, I am gonna do a complete change up here, of directions. I don’t know, I don’t think we’ve talked about George Washington on the podcast before, but he is someone who you talk about character. we’ve talked about character in a few episodes here. Just someone who throughout his life showed so much character and so much humility. And I recently actually last Christmas did a tour of his house up at Mount Vernon, which is in Virginia, a little bit outside DC and I learned even more about him and I got more fascinated and started reading more about his life. And a lot of kids have heard sort of that story of him cutting down the cherry tree Yes. With his new acts and then owning up to it and you know, being truthful and sort of that starting out his journey. I’m not sure how historically accurate that is, but honestly I don’t wanna know cause I love that story.
Brittany: So great. Sorry.
Emma: It’s so great. But throughout his life, he was just a normal guy. He was a land surveyor, which basically meant that he would go out and collect information that would be used to collect taxes and to draw maps. And he had no military experience when he was made a commander in the Virginia militia. And eventually, this led into the Revolutionary War. We can do another episode on that sometimes. Yes. That’s its whole, its own old book.
Brittany: Probably several episodes on that.
Emma: Yeah, exactly. But throughout his life, people would always talk about his character, his humility when, there was this one battle called the Battle of Valley Forge, which was a huge turning point in the American Revolution. And it was this crazy cold blizzard that was going through. And all of these men were just in horrible condition. They were really tired, they’d been fighting, they didn’t have good supplies. And George Washington had every right to, you know, go into his cozy tent and be warm and have a fire cuz he was the main guy. And instead, he stayed with the rest of his soldiers in the exact same conditions as them. And then after we won the revolution and he became the president, he was our first president ever, as most people will probably know. Yes. a lot of people wanted to make him basically king. They wanted to make him president for life.
Brittany: Was it Hamilton that wanted a monarch? I don’t know. There’s a lot of bad things with Hamilton. That’s a whole other episode too.
Emma: Oh, yes, yes. He’s one of our villains. Maybe we should do another one about that. But yeah, there were a lot of people who said, oh, this guy is so great, we need to have him in here for life. And they begged him to stay and he said, no, I want to sit under my own fig and vine. And that’s actually a reference to I think biblical scripture, but, he talked about wanting to sit under a shady tree and relax in the rest of his life and let someone else come in and take the reins. And he had this beautiful farewell speech and he is just someone who I think when you read the story of his life, there’s way too much for me to talk about on here. But if you’re interested in this, definitely go check out, you know, an article about him or even read a book about him. You will not run out of cool things to learn about that guy. He is someone who could have very easily become a really powerful person in this country. Yeah. And become the king. And he chose not to. And that’s just such a rare quality. So he’s someone that I’ve always really liked and looked up to.
Brittany: Yeah. No, I think I, we like as you said, we could talk about heroes all day, but I think that’s all I have for today,
Emma: Yes. We, could maybe even do a heroes part two at some point. That might be a fun one. But thanks for listening guys. We’ll be sure to drop some info on these people in the show notes so you can check ’em out more if you’re interested. And we will talk to you again soon. Thanks, Brittany.
Brittany: Happy soon. Bye.
Emma: Bye.
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