They say “you should never meet your heroes”, I feel that is a generalisation which is not always correct.
I’ve experienced it on both sides and it’s fun in somewhere like this to explain what happens.
The first is when I met someone who is extremely prominent in implant dentistry in world circle and I was desperate to meet them, in fact you could say I was ‘star struck’. It was a fairly horrible experience and left with me with a bad taste in my mouth after everything that I’d followed from what I thought was a wonderful individual.
It was no reflection on their life’s work which was brilliant, but it was just a shame that they couldn’t put the cherry on top by being a decent person.
The second one was Chris Hoy, the Scottish track cyclist and Olympic legend.
I had the pleasure in 2011, a few months before the London Olympics, to go to a talk in London where Chris Hoy was speaking.
I had the even greater pleasure of being able to ask his two questions during the talk, for which he answered with the most astonishing humility and grace.
Still though, that could be a front which is presented in front of the audience.
After the ‘show’ we went to a function where Chris was happy to sign his book for people who had attended and when I got to the front of the line; I asked him a question.
Basically, Chris Hoy had talked in his speech about Gavin Hastings the former Scottish rugby player who was his hero and how star struck he was when he’d met Gavin at a coaching event.
I was explaining when I met Chris with the books that it was wonderful to see that he was so humble and didn’t consider himself to be a Scottish hero that other people would want to meet.
I found him to be one of the most genuine people that I’ve ever met in circumstances like that and it made me think that it’s just possible to be completely brilliant at what you do and an inspiration to generations and be nice at the same time.
The first meeting with the implant guy might have put me off the prospect of meeting people that I consider to be inspirational but the meeting with Chris Hoy didn’t.
Blog Post Number - 2518
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