It is a well known adage, ‘Never meet your heroes, because they are sure to disappoint you.’
After the first 24 hours at Dreamforce, I can assure you that saying has no relevance in the Salesforce Ohana.
Last night at the PepUpTech karaoke fundraiser I had a chance to chat with PepUpTech co-founders Rebe de la Paz & Stephanie Herrera, VetForce founder Hector Perez, MVPs Cheryl Feldman, Toya Gatewood, & Amy Oplinger.
Today I spent time with MVPs Corey Snow, Pat Sodak, Eric Dreshfield, Ladies Be Architects founder & Certified Technical Architect Gemma Emmett, Golden Hoodie winner Sandi Zellner and a number of other amazing members of the Salesforce Ohana like dozens of fellow Trailblazer Community Group Leaders.
To a person they were all fantastic. Not in that, ‘Oh hey, great yeah, good to see you, good chat’ way that you might expect people that have incredible demands on their time and people stopping every 2 seconds to have just to make it through their day.
Instead, I found them all to be engaging, personable, and more than happy to have meaningful conversations that impressed on me that at the heart of all their collective achievements in the Salesforce ecosystem there is a common thread – they are all really incredibly great people.
I can be a cynic and wondered if all this positivity was authentic so I asked a number of people, ‘Does it ever get exhausting, all the demands, appearances, and expectation of always being ‘on’ when you are at places & events like this?’
I think Hector Perez summed it up best when he stated (paraphrased) that ‘Yeah, you would think it could be, but it really gives me more energy to keep going and do more.’
So while the ‘Never meet your heroes’ phrase is applicable in many other areas, I can assure you, it has no place in the Ohana.
The amount of time those of the ‘Salesforce celebrity’ class dedicate to giving back and helping others is truly inspiring and having the chance to interact with them over the last day has already made this Dreamforce a wonderfully satisfying & motivating experience for myself and I’m sure all the other Dreamforce attendees that have the opportunity to meet them throughout the week.