The only difference between a hero and a villain isn’t their backstory, but the way they choose to respond to their pain. While a villain demands that the world pay for their tragedy, a hero resolves to ensure no one else has to suffer the same way. Today, April Shprintz explores how this single mindset shift separates those who live as victims from those who lead as heroes, showing you how to take radical ownership of your “plot twists” so you can finally write the ending you’ve always wanted.
—
Listen to the podcast here
The ONE Difference Between A Hero & A Villain
There is just one difference between a hero and a villain, just one. Doesn’t that seem crazy? When you think about Superman and Lex Luthor, or Batman and the Joker, or any hero and villain setup, when you look into their backstories, the same kind of thing has generally happened to both of them, some tragedy, some horrible abuse, some horrible event.
The Two Responses to Pain
The difference between the two of them is that a villain decides, “Something horrible has happened to me, I want every single person I ever interact with to pay for it.” A hero decides, “Something horrible has happened to me. I will do whatever it takes to prevent this from happening to anyone else.” It’s just a different way of looking at one situation. Dare I go so far as to say it’s just a different mindset about what happened?
A hero is looking at how he can get something good from a tragedy and protect others. Share on XA hero is looking at how he can get something good from a tragedy and protect others, and a villain is looking at it as this horrible thing that happened and everyone else should suffer too. This isn’t that far from the difference between being a hero and a victim in your own story. Yes, there probably aren’t a lot of heroes and villains in the real world. We’re all a combination of different things, and nobody’s a hero or a villain in most cases.
You could make an argument that they are, but in most cases, we are either going to be a hero of our own story or we’re going to be a victim of our own story. The same difference is that mindset. Are you going to look at life as constantly happening to you, “It’s their fault, those people did this, if this hadn’t happened, things are harder for me, it’s so unfair, it’s this, it’s that, it’s the economy, it’s politics, it’s my boss, it’s my spouse, it’s my partner, it’s my parents.”
Being the hero means you can impact how the end goes. Share on XLife: To You or For You?
Are you going to look at life as happening for you, because there is always a way to see how something happened for you? If you don’t believe me, practice this with yourself. I want you to go back to something that happened to you ten years ago, something that seemed horrific at the time. Ask yourself, were there any good things, any beneficial things that happened because of this that wouldn’t have happened if that hadn’t been the case.
You will be hard-pressed to find a single situation, no matter how horrible it was at the time, that didn’t then lead to something better. I want you to ask yourself the next time you’re really facing a challenge, “Do I want to be the victim in this story.?” Victim, again, allows you to blame other people, not take any responsibility, and complain a lot, it will get you a little bit of attention in the short term. Or, “Do I want to be the hero?”
Do you want to be the hero or do you want to be a victim? Share on XThe Daily Plot Twist
Being the hero is the better storyline. Being the hero will get you all the things you want instead of attention for complaining that you don’t have all the things you want. Also, being the hero means you can impact how the end goes. The bad things are the plot twist, and you get to impact how things end up. This is a choice that we don’t make for our entire life one time. We get to make this choice every day with how we react.
Do you want to be the hero or do you want to be a victim? It’s the same thing as choosing between being a hero and a villain. Do you want to be the person that you’ve always looked up to, or do you want to be the person that you’ve always been afraid of. Same thing if you’re a victim, because most times, being a victim is driven by the fear of taking responsibility and ownership of who you are and making choices to make your life the life you want it to be. Here’s to your success.
