Thanks for being here, and welcome to my substack where I’m writing about meaning-making. This current series is on religion, its decline, and how we can replace some of the things we once got from it. Previous stories in this series are on Art, Architecture and Community.
We are storytellers. As far back as you can go, human beings have been crafting the art of storytelling. Whether it be hieroglyphs on ancient tombs, folk tales told by a campfire, your Linkedin, pitch deck, or latest hot Tweet. Stories are part of our everyday existence and an essential component of culture and society. More than this, storytelling is critical to our work. I don't care what you do for a living - you tell stories every day.
Saints tell the stories of who we are and who we want to be. Both as individuals and as a community. Saints are archetypes. They're models of perfect human behaviour and achievement. I say "perfect" in the sense that human beings are beautifully imperfect and to be a perfect person is to be flawed.
"We improve through proximity to conspicuously kind, human, thoughtful and gentle people. We need - to reach our full potential - to have the right role models around us." - School of Life.
Religious and non-religious people have historically looked towards Saints for inspiration and guidance on how to live well. St. Vincent de Paul is known for his kindness and humanity. Some Saints are celebrated for leading simple lives, including St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine were writers and thinkers whose work shaped Western thought for centuries.
We're losing our religion and with that goes the stories of Saints - role models who embody our communities' collective values. So, where can we look for inspiration?
If we are not deliberate in this quest, we end up with idols who are less than we ought to be - celebrities and influencers. Celebrities are known for their perfect looks, the rich lives they lead and their material successes. The problem with these qualities is that none of them generally lead to a happy and fulfilling life. Christianity very deliberately made celebrities of people who possessed qualities they believed would lead to a happy life, including the desire not to be famous.
We need new Saints. People we look up to, who we can aspire to. People whose stories provide guidance and insight when we aren't sure which way we should go. They should be almost ordinary and perfectly imperfect so that we might see ourselves in them.
One place we can look for new role models is in our work
At Blackbird, the stories we tell most frequently are those of our founders. These people provide the inspiration and the basis for our work. We tell their stories to our colleagues, our investors, and other founders and our startup community. The stories we tell are about their triumphs, their failures and the journey that threads all of this together.
As role models, founders happen to fit pretty well: They work towards something greater than themselves. They have some of the requisite qualities - ambition, courage, integrity, ingenuity. They are leaders, or if they are not, at first, they become leaders before our very eyes.
But more important than all of these noble qualities is their fallibility. Founders make mistakes, mess things up, and they often don't know what to do. They are, in the best sense, perfect in their imperfections. These are crucial qualities in the people we aspire to. Imperfect people provide a framework that is accessible and realistic. We can see ourselves in them because we, too, are flawed. The founder journey has more setbacks than successes by, I'm guessing, a factor of 10-1. Life is no different. In the search for new roles models, the founder journey provides a valuable framework, not unlike Joseph Campbells The Hero With a Thousand Faces.
My point is that we need new role models, new heroes. Saints once did a good enough job, but they're losing their relevance. The people we replace them with should be human in their imperfections. Let's look for new saints, wherever they might be, including in our work.
This is the last in my series on creating meaning at work by learning from religions. I hope you’ve gotten something out of these stories and as always, come at me in the comments.
Joel
Really liked this one Joel. I think besides Saints, traditional figures like monarchs and politicians are also failing as role models, so now more than ever we need new leaders in this challenging world.
Love this posit of how founders can be our role models.
I think you'll enjoy content from The School of Life, Plato suggested something relevant to his time too https://youtu.be/VDiyQub6vpw?t=280