The hero on (BigIdeas) mission
Introducing: BigIdeas!
What if:
You could get big ideas/insights from the world’s best books, podcasts, videos in just 10 minutes?
In delightfully designed bite-sized experience (think: Insta / WhatsApp stories)
Add a bit of AI-led personalized quizzes and TODOs!
Yes, gone are the days of reading generic book summaries - we are in a different world now and it’s time to act. Act and implement what we are learning - and which also means that this newsletter will also evolve.
Introducing BigIdeas App !
What if you we could combine the beauty of atomic (i.e. bite-sized) ideas from books/podcasts/videos/articles across a range of topics related to personal growth, present in an elegantly designed experience and put (quite) a bit of personalization to it!
Well, that’s BigIdeas 1.0 - i.e. our ground zero (covers and goes beyond existing player’s library).
We are launching with more than 120K ideas (including 5000+ books, 2000+ podcasts) and bring actionable learning to your life.
Available on both iOS and Android, BigIdeas app is now available for download, and you are the first one I am reaching out to - do give it a try and share your feedback!
With ‘No learner left behind’ being the guiding principle, I am taking upon a mission to bring upon actionable learning revolution - and make it available to all, irrespective of their location or economic condition.
I hope you will enjoy the BigIdeas experience :)
Talking about mission, sharing Big Ideas from the book ‘Hero on a mission’ (by Donald Miller).
Yeah, I am a hero on a mission 😎 and so are you!
The book, Hero on a mission focuses on the four roles we play in life - victim, villain, hero, and guide - and teaches us how to recognize when they are playing each role, with the goal of guiding readers towards playing the hero role more often.
Four primary characters
There are four characters in every story: the victim, the villain, the hero, and the guide. These four characters live inside us. If we play the victim, we’re doomed to fail. If we play the villain, we will not create genuine bonds.
But if we play the role of hero or guide, our lives will flourish. The hard part is being self-aware enough to know which character we are playing.
Playing the hero improves our stories dramatically. If we want to take control of our lives and bend our story toward meaning, we can surface more hero energy and less victim and villain energy.
The victim is the character who feels they have no way out.
The villain is the character who makes others feel small.
The hero is the character who faces challenges and transforms.
The guide is the character who helps the hero.
The hero cannot be a victim at the same time
The story's hero cannot act like a victim, as it ruins the story. Victims do not accept challenges and believe they are helpless, leading to a lack of forward movement. Heroic characters must want something difficult to achieve to create an engaging plot.
Victim energy must not surface in a successful story.
The Villain
A villain makes others small and cannot bring meaning to a story. Heroes learn from their pain and help others, while villains seek vengeance against the world. Villain energy has negative consequences in stories and should not be taken lightly.
Reducing others in our minds is akin to dancing with the devil.
A hero accepts their own agency
Agency refers to the ability we have to make our own choices. And all of us have agency.
“Victims live at the mercy of forces outside themselves.”
Heroes are not as strong as you think. They are usually unwilling to act, in need of help, filled with self-doubt, and often incompetent in the very area in which they are given a challenge.
Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.
The hero should have a want: Narrative traction
When an audience can’t determine what a hero wants, or when what the hero wants is too elusive for the audience to understand, the audience loses interest and becomes bored.
Narrative traction refers to the feeling that our personal story is so compelling that we cannot turn away, even if we do not always like it. It keeps us interested in our own lives, even if it exhausts us and we find ourselves complaining about it.
In order to create a story, we must take action and "put something on the plot" every day.