I think on some level, role models are overrated If you require a role model who looks just like you to be something you wanna be and you can't find one, is that a reason to not be what you wanna be? No!
People always ask me who my role models are and who I want to be like, and I don't wanna be like anybody; I wanna be me. I look up to a lot of people, and they have had great influences on me, but I wanna be original and different.
I don't want to be anyone's role model. My mole models were assholes. My role models are dead. My role models never made it to 30, so I'm a bad person to ask for advice.
What we'd consider a positive role model, I think it's impossible to actually be a role model. You'll have your flaws or defects of character, regardless. You just speak like a positive role model, and that's just something that you're being conscious of, and you make the decision, "I want to say positive things."
I don't wanna be a role model. I'd like to be an inspiration.
I did gymnastics, I wanted to be like Dominique Dawes. But the good think about role models is that you don't just have them when you are kid. My role models from WWE came when I was older. When I was 27, my role models from WWE became Jacqueline and Beth Phoenix.
I think it's something much bigger than just pro wrestling and the industry I work in. It's across all media. You look at Hollywood movies: there's not the Muslim hero or the guy who looks like me and has a name like mine who is portrayed in a positive manner or in a leading role. So, growing up, I didn't have a role model that looks like me.
Man, I don't wanna do what all the other guys do. I don't wanna end up in the booth after the games telling you what I think and talking smack about the guys on the floor when they are a lot better than that. I wanna be different. I don't wanna be known as Commentator Shaq. I wanna be a doctor or something good. I wanna be Dr. Shaq, Officer Shaq, Deputy Shaq.
I wanna be strong, I wanna laugh along, I wanna belong to the living. Alive, alive, I wanna get up and jive, Wanna wreck my stockings in some jukebox dive.
A lot of people tend to glorify the role of satire and comedians. They put them up as role models, as fighters for the truth and against tyranny, and I think that's overrated.
I hope that somewhere in Small Town, U.S.A., a 15-year-old kid looks to me as a role model the way I looked at the Indigo Girls and Elton John as role models.
I didn't have a role model. My role model was Michael Jordan. Bad role model for an Indian dude... I didn't have anyone who looked like me. And by the time I was old enough to have what could have been a role model, they were my peers. Aziz Ansari is my peer. Kal Penn is my peer.
I just wanna learn and I wanna grow. I wanna consume as much information as possible. I wanna be great.
It's hard to carry a child around with you, but fortunately, in most cases, you don't have to ask a child for directions if you have a well-chosen role model ready to guide you. This is the next prescription: Take one role model, as often as needed. Set aside a few minutes today to fill this prescription so you will have it handy when you need it. Think now about who your role models have been. What do they offer? Who else do you admire, and exactly what do you admire about them? Have your roster of role models ready and waiting to help you the next time you are perplexed.
You know, I've never believed, in anything, that you had to have role models who looked like you to do something. If I'd been waiting for a black, female, soviet specialist role model, I'd be still waiting.
I think I wanna do some action stuff down the road. I wanna kill some aliens. Something real fun, you know? Just a big, fun movie.
When you speak of role models, when we talk to our kids, everybody is a role model, everyone, just as you look at a Michael Jordan to be the terrific athlete he is.