As per definition, role model is a person set as an example to be imitated
Practically, meaning of role model is different from the original definition. Imitation cannot last long. Imitating someone cannot give success and happiness for a longer time. That is because every individual is different.
Role model is the treasure box of qualities that we want to possess in ourself. That is the reason why we always set someone with desired qualities as role model. Sometimes we dont even know everything about role model. Even then we successfully copy. That is because, we selectively see only qualities that we want.
Role model can help in gaining happiness in several ways. Happyness is state of mind that can be attained by doing actions that we want. Watching how our role model designed actions to attain happiness can help us in designing our own actions to attain happiness. It doesnt mean we will also do same what role model has done.
Role model can also act as an anchor to direct the actions, as a guide of actions and as a source to check validity and reliability of actions. Having role model helps in ensuring the safety of our experiments.
All the great personalities have shared their philosophies with world. We can actually develop our own philosophy by learning about all of them. But the mistake we do is, we start blindly following their philosophy as if it is our own.