You’ve probably seen the photos and the news stories of the “miracle on the Hudson” Captain Chesley Sullenberger was able to save over 150 passengers by making an emergency landing on the Hudson River after both engines of his plane failed.
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He’s received accolades from across the country, including Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York and two Presidents – President Bush who was the President at the time this happened and now President Obama who invited Sully, as his friends call him, to the Inaugural Ceremony.
The story is fascinating. We heard over and over again how calm and collected he was. His coolness kept the passengers calm and collected too.
What makes someone a hero?
The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission defines a hero as “a civilian who voluntarily risks his or her own life to an extraordinary degree while saving or attempting to save the life of another person.”
That definition fits the mission of their organization, but is it expansive enough?
We turned to Merriam Webster. Two of their definitions of a hero stand out:
- a person admired for his or her noble achievements
- someone who shows great courage
We crafted our own definition:
extraordinary for the good of someone else.
It is a gift, not a sacrifice (although it may involve sacrifice) in the mind of the hero. It is the opposite of narcissism, but it is definitely not martyrdom.
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3 steps to heroism
Do you want to be a hero? We thought about this and it seems to us that becoming a hero is a three-step process:
Heroism starts with an attitude
Almost all of us think we have a duty to prevent harm to others as long as it doesn’t cost us too much. A hero expands upon that attitude. They feel a duty to serve others – to do good – whether or not it costs them something.
It continues with preparation
This sense of a bigger duty drives them to preparation. They have a drive to be ready when the time comes.
Going back to Sully … as the pilot of a plane, he knew at some point there might be a crisis. So he gave a great deal of his free time studying everything situation he might encounter. It was his duty to be as fully prepared as possible should a crisis arise.
It completes itself with an action
The act of a hero is the manifestation of an underlying attitude. The success of that act depends on the preparation for it.
Sully had to respond because it was his duty. But his response didn’t start when the birds knocked both engines out of his plane. It began years earlier when he began studying flying.
So when the situation arose, he was ready because he felt a sense of duty and he had prepared.
Heroes, heroes everywhere
Heroism doesn’t always show itself in actions that make the news. There are heroes all around us. That’s what we’re going to talk about in our next two posts. Next time, we’ll discuss the hero behind the hero.
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