Music Hero

While sipping 7-up a while ago, holding the famous Fido Dido-endorsed softdrink brand, I remembered something about the bottle. During my high school days, me and my friends used to pick up empty bottles around the school during breaks. We returned them to the canteen and redeemed one peso for each bottle. The logic is this: when you buy bottled softdrink, you price you pay includes the deposit fee for the bottle you bring anywhere in the school. So, if I get the bottle after you consume its content and returned it to the store, the store staff will return your deposit to me. That's how we basically earn some bucks during that time. And, because of that, too many students from other classes did the same and we almost ran out of bottle to pick. Whew!

A lot of times, when we do something, either good or bad, people imitate. We just love to borrow jokes, imitate celebrities, follow footsteps, or even an attempt to clone humans! I mean, life goes around with people and what we learn is from what we see and hear. As an aspiring musician back years ago, I love to watch our neighbor play his guitar because his fingers are fast. When I got home, I want to do exactly how he played that song in lead solo. Too bad, my guitar was classical and his was electric guitar with multiple distortion and effects. He was almost my guitar hero because he shared me his secret licks and guitar tablatures of popular hits in the 90's.

I've found that one of the keys to be successful in life is to be mentored by a successful person. Babies imitate what adults do. They don't have to learn it, they simply copy the actions and even words. They came to earth having nothing. So we have to feed them in all aspects- food, clothing, behavior, belief, manners, attitude and many more. So do us. After all, we have gone through the baby-talk stage. We need somebody to train us to become the person we want to be. Those person might be a friend, a parent, a boss, a colleague, an entrepreneur or a stranger. One way or another, people contribute to what we are now. I admire people I know who spends time with their successors and diligently train them to become like them. While others don't have any mentor at all thus they learn things in the most difficult way.

Do you see yourself as a mentor? Can you count your successors on your fingers? If nobody wants to be like us, maybe we haven't been at our best. Let's find out how can we bring impact to other people. What we are good at is what others will dream to have. The process continues when we pass on this virtue.