I've been mentored by a lot of people in my life.
I only ever chose someone when they truly inspired me, when they seemed to be walking their talk, when I felt I wanted to learn from them and, in some way, become like them. For years, in the hardest stretch of my life, I bought every course that promised a way out. And I built, without realising it, a series of beautiful pedestals, each with someone standing on top.
Many of those people, sooner or later, showed a different face. The illusion of the flawless teacher cracked. And each time it happened, it hit me hard. Disappointed, angry, cheated, hurt. Sometimes it took me months to recover.
It took me a long time to understand what was actually falling.
How do you stop putting people on a pedestal?
You stop putting people on a pedestal by noticing what you've handed them, your worth, your wisdom, your sense of being enough, and taking it back. A pedestal isn't admiration. It's a place where you store qualities you don't yet believe are yours. When you reclaim them, you can learn from anyone, fully, without needing them to be perfect.
Admiration stays. The pedestal goes. And with it goes the crash that used to follow.
Why do we build pedestals in the first place?
Because it feels safer than believing in ourselves.
When you're lost, or hurting, or not sure you're enough, meeting someone who seems to have it all figured out is an enormous relief. Here's proof it can be done. Here's someone who knows. If I stay close, perhaps some of it will rub off. That's a very human response, and in the right measure it's how we learn.
But look at what quietly happens. Imagine a sculptor trying to reveal a statue by gluing on more marble. The pedestal is marble glued on, only you've glued it under someone else. You took your own capacity, the wisdom you already have, the strength you've already shown, and built a platform out of it for another person to stand on. Then you looked up at them and felt small.
It happens with teachers and bosses. It happens very often in love, which is part of why people keep choosing the same kind of partner. And it happens with ourselves too, in reverse, when we're sure everyone else is more capable, which feeds imposter syndrome.
Why does it hurt so much when they fall?
Because they take something of yours down with them.
When a person you'd placed on a pedestal turns out to be ordinary, flawed, human, you don't just lose a picture of them. You lose the part of yourself you'd put up there too. Your hope. Your sense of direction. Your belief that someone had the answer and would hand it to you. That's why the disappointment can feel so out of proportion. You're grieving something much bigger than one person's behaviour.
And very often, underneath the anger, there's a quieter voice asking: how did I not see it? What does it say about me that I believed them? That second wound can last longer than the first.
How did I learn to feel differently about it?
Slowly, and then completely.
What changed for me was a simple understanding that took years to land properly. I only ever get to feel my own thinking about an event. My own meaning, my own definitions, my own judgments. The person who disappointed me didn't put the feeling in me. I felt my interpretation of what they did, and I'd built that interpretation on a pedestal of my own making.
When that really landed, something shifted. Nowadays, when someone I admired shows themselves in a different light, the feeling that arrives is gratitude. Gratitude for learning fast. Gratitude that I can move on sooner rather than much later. Knowing full well that my intentions were good and I did my best. That doesn't excuse anyone's behaviour. It simply means I'm no longer the one paying for it, which is the same freedom I write about in how to forgive someone who hurt you.
Were any of them worth the pedestal?
A rare few, and not because they were perfect.
Going through the ones who fell brought me, in the end, to some of the finest people I've ever known, people I still hold dear. Looking at them now, I notice they were never flawless, and they never asked to be put up anywhere. What they had was integrity, transparency, and above all, they worked from the heart. They were deeply connected with who they were and aligned inside. They walked their talk whether the world approved or not.
In many ways I became the man I am today because of them. My heart is thankful for them, and always will be. But I no longer need them to stand above me. I can admire them side by side. More of the road that led me there is on my page.
How can I tell if I'm building a pedestal right now?
Here's a quick check. Think of someone you admire strongly at the moment, a teacher, a leader, a partner, anyone. Take about two minutes.
Ask yourself three questions and answer quickly, in your head, without editing.
First: what do I believe this person has that I don't? Name it in a word or two. Wisdom. Confidence. Peace. Power.
Second: if they made a serious mistake tomorrow, how would I feel? Notice if the answer is mild disappointment, or something closer to devastation. The stronger the reaction, the higher the pedestal.
Third, and most important: when have I shown even a little of that quality myself? There'll be an example if you look. Once, somewhere, you had it too.
That last answer is the beginning of taking it back. The quality you admire in them is recognisable to you precisely because it's in you already. You can't recognise what you don't carry.
What changes when the pedestals come down?
You can finally learn from people.
Pedestals, strangely, make learning harder. You're too busy looking up to see clearly, and too invested in them being right to question anything. When the pedestals come down, you meet people eye to eye. You can take the best from anyone, a teacher, a colleague, a stranger, and leave the rest without drama. And you stop giving your power away in the hope that someone else will carry it for you.
There's another gift in it too. When you stop needing people to be flawless, you stop needing yourself to be flawless as well. The same pedestal you built for others, you'd usually built a smaller one for yourself, and you were always about to fall off it. When pedestals come down, everyone gets to be human, including you.
If you'd like help seeing what you've been handing to other people, Sara, our veteran RS Method Master Coach, holds free mentoring sessions for exactly this kind of conversation. No pitch. Just a clear look at what's yours, and how to take it back.
So here's my salute to the golden few, the ones who stayed not because they were perfect, but because they were real. May you find yours, and may you recognise, at last, the same thing in yourself.
Robert Simic, guiding the remembering.