Want to be a real hero? Uncover the best version of yourself.
You may have suffered at an early age, but you have an innate sense of your due in life, and a desire for power and prestige. In many mythic stories, this yearning comes from the experience of abandonment or invisibility (think of Oedipus as a baby left to die on the hillside or King Arthur, raised in an out of the way, unpretentious court).
As Royals move through life’s journey, you achieve not just wealth and power, but respect. You learn how to maximize your prestige, forming positive alliances with mentors who demonstrate the skills required to succeed. You also learn what not to be from Royals who undermine those around them by encouraging ways of living and working that are, or appear to be, arrogant and uncaring of others.
Don’t fritter away your life, engulfed in entitlement and oblivious to the impact of your power on others, Royal. These dragons will overcome you unless you consider what life is like for most people. Live nobly, finding your own greatness and living it to the fullest for the good of the “kingdom” — whatever that kingdom might be for you.
Finding the Treasure
A Royal’s treasure is the well-deserved pride that comes from doing the King or Queen’s job well—that is, creating and maintaining a peaceful and prosperous kingdom as well as modeling a quality of life that is elegant, beautiful, and worthy of emulation.
For a Royal to transform the kingdom, your success lies in achieving noblesse oblige—feeling a duty to give back to the community because you have been so blessed. By virtue of your status and power, you can bring about change in the world and serve as a role model who asks, to paraphrase the words of President John F. Kennedy, “not what this country can do for me, but what I can do for my country.”
Carol Pearson is the author of The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By and Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World. For more about your heroic archetype, take Pearson’s quiz.
