Superheroes, Villains, And Friends? Tyrone Ross Meets Neils Ribeiro-Yemofio on Just Press Record

We've been so flooded with superhero franchises it's easy to forget what the original appeal is.

I knew Neils Ribeiro-Yemofio was a comic nerd long before he was a force to be reckoned with in the world of non-profits.

But when I had him on Just Press Record and introduced him to Tyrone Ross, who is not a comic nerd, but an Olympic hopeful and similarly "whole community lift" minded, I wasn't expecting to get a deep look at origin stories.

In hindsight, though, I shouldn't have been surprised.

All it took was winding the idea up for them. They see reflections of these stories all around them, every day. From their parents growing up, to families in the communities they serve, partly because they see their parents in themselves today.

The anchor point of the origin story is the killer one. Not, like, murder-y killer. I mean that in the complete clarity sense. I mean that to emphasize how I don't you to let all the Marvel movies, sequels and prequels somehow allow you to forget this idea.

It's best if I just quote Neils directly here:

You feel alone. You feel like nobody has your back except you, yourself. So you commit to never going back from that point.

Ever.

And here's the thing most of us miss: life doesn't play out in elaborate plans or continuous action. Life is smaller than that. Life is the moment-to-moment choice. The daily commitment to help instead of hoard, to lift instead of take.

Last week, Eric Pachman and I talked about accidents versus intentional actions on Just Press Record. And this week, with Neils and Tyrone, it hit differently. Accidents. Then intentional actions. But, entropy and accidents and what are you gonna do about it, smashed all up against who is in this, around you, that you have access to while it's all going down?

Two paths are always there. 16 paths sometimes, and 87 paths other times. But there are always these same two paths.

Two ever-present paths. And one is the villain's path, and it's often just the easier one to take. Because it's selfish. It doesn't require anybody else's input. But the other is the hero's path, and that's the one that requires you to show up again and again, without any respite, with minimal reward, all taking place in this great big messy of a world, full of other characters.

Tyrone reflected on ways and places he saw it in his own family. How as he got older, he could see the pain behind the stories and choices that drove actions he grew up resisting.

Introducing Neils and Tyrone won't help you save the world or fix it. But it fills me with hope - the hope of non-caped, small letter super heroes like these two men, who are committed to helping over and over again, in the name of community.

This episode is better than the Super Friends. You have to see this to believe it.