grounding yourself
At a young age of 26, Gwyneth Paltrow won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Shakespeare in Love. Soon after that, the fame and accolades got into her head and she started acting like a diva.
At a recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Paltrow said, “My philosophy is, like, fame is actually not very good for us as people because everybody starts removing all of your obstacles, and I think friction is actually what makes you grow. And so all of a sudden, I was a pretty young woman and everyone was removing my obstacles and I got to stop waiting on line, etcetera, whatever the case was, and I think incrementally, I started just behaving a little strangely or a little weird.”
Her father, Bruce Paltrow, who was a TV producer and director, was not impressed by her behavior. Apparently, he sat her down to give her a reality check. Paltrow revisited the conversation that his father had with her, “He said, in his inimitable Brooklyn way, ‘Um, you’re kind of turning into an a**hole.’ .”
She further shared her aha moment, “It ended up being this incredibly important moment in my life, where he really burst a bubble for me where I could see, oh this is actually really dangerous that everybody is wanting to remove obstacles.”
Fellow guest Tom Hanks agreed with her and joined in, “It infantilizes you, I think that’s one of the things. You can get away with ridiculous things in life.”
No matter what level of success we attain, it’s important that we remain grounded as well. The higher we climb, the more we need to learn to ground ourselves. We have to connect with the energy around us, and do the simple tasks, the day-to-day errands and chores that connect us with our body and the rhythms of this wonderful world.
Grow in every aspect of life and achieve monumental success but let your growth and achievements be grounded in the daily life. Never lose sight of ordinary things around you and the simple, seemingly insignificant moments of life because in the end, it turns out, they matter the most.