Beyond the Spotlight: The Unspoken Cost of Being Inspirational

Or heck, we can knock it down.

Welcome to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Little, and I'm excited to welcome you inside.

Welcome to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

I am so excited to have you joining me today.

How are you doing?

Feeling good, looking good, are good?

I hope so.

Me, I'm feeling pretty darn good myself.

And so I just hope that if you're not feeling up to par, well, I'm hoping today's episode is going to be that little boost that you needed to uh put a smile on that face to have you shining your light into the world.

This is episode 186, in which we are talking about inspiration.

More specifically, people who we dub as inspirational.

But we're going deeper on the subject because we're talking about the unspoken truth of inspiration, the dark side of inspiration.

If you want to call it the dark side, that seems a little bit too doom and gloomy for me.

So we'll kind of use some other words to describe it, the dark side.

But I'm talking about the truth, the reality, the stuff that goes on behind closed doors, that's not posted on social media, that's not making the morning news programs, the stuff that happens to the people who the rest of the world view as inspirational.

That's what I'm talking about.

I know too well about this topic because I, too, myself have been called inspirational.

Now, ironically, I don't ever remember being called inspirational for the first 17 years of my life.

It was not until after I became blind that all of a sudden, Kevin Lowe, he's inspirational.

Why is that?

Why did all of a sudden I become inspirational?

Well, they say it's because I chose to not give up on life.

I chose to keep smiling, keep laughing, to keep living life despite what had happened to me.

And yeah, maybe that is inspirational.

That's cool with me.

Hey, if by me living life, doing what I do can be an inspiration to somebody else, then I see nothing wrong with that at all.

But it was through my conversation with Ryan Ray Harbuck that really got me thinking about this topic.

And it's what got me inspired to record today's episode.

Talking about the truth behind inspiration, the dark side of inspiration, the cost of inspiration.

That's what we're talking about inside of today's episode.

I don't deny that being seen as inspirational isn't a great feeling because it is.

It makes me feel good.

It makes me think, okay, wow, people notice that I am carrying on with my life, that I am continuing to live.

And maybe I'm doing so with a presence about me that people think to themselves, wow, what an inspiration.

But what I'm talking about today is what people don't see, what people don't realize.

And that is the price that I pay or that anybody else pays who is seen as inspirational.

Because being labeled as inspirational, it comes at a cost.

I can't speak for anybody else but myself.

I can assume that others may feel the same, but this, well, this is really just my perspective.

That cost of being inspirational, it's the everyday journey of navigating this world without light, without sight.

It's the blessings being taken from me that I didn't even know I had.

Like getting to see the faces of my family, getting to see my cousins who were once young, now grown.

It's not getting to see the colors in the sky from a sunrise.

It's not getting to see the shapes of the clouds on a stormy night.

It's waking up every morning and opening my eyes and seeing the same thing that I did when they were closed.

That's the cost.

For Ryan Ray Harbaugh, she has a cost to pay as well.

Every morning when Ryan wakes up, she doesn't just jump out of bed like she did.

Instead, she hoists herself into a wheelchair.

Yeah.

Has Ryan learned to adapt to this new world?

Of course.

Just the same as I have.

And as time goes by, easier and easier this world becomes.

Or, well, maybe easier isn't quite the word to use.

Maybe it's just that we become more used to it.

We adapt to it a little bit better each day that we move forward.

But the truth of the matter is that there are hard times.

That even with all the adapting that we do, even as much as we may move forward, and even though we may walk out the door every morning with a genuine smile on our face, loving life, excited about the day, that doesn't mean that there's not moments that bring us to our knees.

That doesn't mean that there's not moments when I wish so badly that I could see again.

And I can almost guarantee that there's probably moments in Ryan's life when she wishes so bad that she could just walk again, when life was a little bit simpler, when we had all of those gifts that we didn't even know were gifts, and yet they were taken from us.

And in these moments when life knocks us down, I can tell you this much.

Inspirational is the last characteristic I would ever use to describe myself.

And you have to think to yourself, all those people who don't even know me, who they just see me out in my prime, smiling, living, thriving in life, and they called me inspirational, what would they say about me now?

When they see that my life isn't glamorous like they may think, when they get a glimpse in the window to see that I'm just trying to make it in this life like anybody else, that there's nothing special about me.

I'm just living, trying to thrive, doing what I can each and every day when I wake up, hitting the grind, doing the things.

Would they still then say that I'm inspirational?

I don't know.

But I'll tell you what is inspirational.

I'll tell you what is seen as inspiring.

It's getting back up.

It's having those hard times hit, but realizing that you are bigger, you are better, you are stronger than the worst challenges.

You are bigger, better, stronger than the worst days.

And so sometimes you gotta let yourself cry.

Sometimes you gotta let yourself get angry.

Sometimes you just gotta let it all out.

But then eventually you brush yourself off, you get back up, and you keep moving forward.

At that moment is when inspiration is how I would describe it.

To the person who is still on the ground, who hasn't gotten up, who hasn't brushed themselves off.

I hope at that moment they could see me, that somebody could see Ryan and think to themselves, wow, if they can do it, then maybe I can too.

Today's episode, it's not meant to bring you down.

It's not meant to discourage you.

It's not meant to have you rethinking any time that you start to say, wow, that person is inspirational.

No, not at all.

Please don't get me wrong.

It's just here to bring attention to something that I don't think gets talked about enough.

Because it's easy to talk about the good days.

It's easy to brag about the successes.

But what doesn't get talked about enough are the hard times, the bad moments, the sleepless nights, the middle of the night agony when you realize the depth of your situation.

Those are the things that don't get talked about enough.

Those are the dark side of inspiration.

And I believe that in this life, if we want to overcome stuff, if we want to move past stuff, we have to first acknowledge its presence.

Because once we let it be known that we see it, we acknowledge it, we know it's there.

Well, at that moment, we can jump over it.

We can move past it, or heck, we can knock it down.

And that is why I wanted to record this episode.

Because I wanted to do my part in helping us to acknowledge the cost of inspiration, the dark side of inspiration, however you want to look at it, however you want to phrase it.

It's the side of inspiration that doesn't get talked about enough.

So let's continue to celebrate those who inspire us.

Because let's face it, we all need a little bit more inspirational figures in our lives.

The inspiration to keep moving, to keep driving, to keep pushing forward, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, that is what we are talking about.

But at the same point, let us realize that their journey is not easy.

That when you see them on stage, when you see them on the TV screen, they are at their prime.

But when they go home, they're just like you and I.

They have struggles they're dealing with.

They have stuff to overcome.

And you know what?

If you think about it, that's exactly why we consider them inspirational in the first place.

Is because we know that they got stuff that they're overcoming, and yet they are still thriving in this life.

And so if you think about it, then why the heck can't you be inspirational too?

You don't have to have had some type of life-changing injury, disability happen to you.

No.

Fact of the matter is, is that if you're a human, if you're here on this earth, you've had bad stuff happen to you, and you've overcome it.

Even though you may think to yourself that you have it, you have.

Trust me, I know.

I can see it in you.

I know what life has in store for us, and it's not always easy.

It's not always a beautiful bed of roses.

No, it's a bed of roses with thorns, and it will get you.

But you figured out how to get through it.

So you know what?

Why can't we say that you are inspirational?

That you are inspiring.

Because the truth is, is that you do inspire me.

Your stories of you living, doing life, that's an inspiration.

So embrace it to understand it.

But at the same point, let's realize that there's a cost to be paid, and maybe that cost is just life.

If any of us are able to get through life, this crazy messed up world, then maybe we ought to be inspirational because this life is tough.

Every day is a challenge.

Every moment that we take a breath, it's a challenge.

There's forces at play that are trying to stop us, knock us down, keep us from succeeding, and yet you do it.

And I think that's pretty darn awesome.

So, where do we go from here?

What do we do with this?

With this idea, this concept of the cost of inspiration.

Well, what I believe we do is we take this.

Now that we've acknowledged it, we understand it, we can have empathy towards others.

We can understand that even though they're flying high right now, that they've been through some hard times to get there.

And most likely they're still going through those hard times every single day.

You just happen to be meeting them when they're on their high.

So let's be real.

Let's be honest.

Let's be inspired by one another, but encouraged by one another also, in knowing that we're all on this journey together, that we're all living this life together.

And that, my friend, is how me and you can thrive together.

We can inspire each other.

And hey, at this point, what the heck could stop us?

This is Grit Grace and Inspiration.

I am your host, Kevin Lowe, signing off for today's episode.

Now it's your turn to get out there, enjoy the day, make some memories, and hey, and maybe inspire somebody.

Hey, real quick before you go, I have one last thought to leave you with.

I of course hope that you've enjoyed today's episode, but more importantly, I want to remind you that I never want you to listen to an episode of this podcast to hear something that I have to say or that my guest has to share and think, wow, I wish I could be like them.

I wish I could overcome my own challenges and do the great things that they are doing, but I just can't.

Well, friend, that's where you're wrong.

You are capable, you are able, and you darn sure are deserving of having all that you can imagine in this life.

There's nothing special about me or any guests I have on this podcast.

We are all just normal people trying to make it in this life.

And so I encourage you to take a look at yourself in the mirror and remind yourself that you know what?

I can do it too.

Now, of course, if you would like help along that way, reach out to me.

Whether that's as a listener of this podcast, a friend, or if you'd like to work with me as a coach.

My contact information is inside of every episode's show notes, just like this one.

So go down, check out my contact information, and reach out to me today.

With that said, I encourage you to take on the day every day with great, grace, and inspiration.