Watch How You Want: Mimetic Desire and Success in ‘The Social Network’

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Like it or not, Mark Zuckerberg has been a big part of almost everyone’s lives for a while now. It only makes sense that he was going to make an appearance on our podcast. Fortunately, he’s showing up via an award-winning movie and not a tracking cookie or UFO.



Jokes aside, I’m really excited to tackle The Social Network this week. Giant of the screen and stage Aaron Sorkin wrote it, the inimitable David Fincher directed it, and it was as good as you’d expect a movie with that pedigree to be.



<iframe src="https://omny.fm/shows/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/the-social-network/embed?style=artwork" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write" width="100%" height="180" frameborder="0" title="The Social Network"></iframe>



As it turns out, this movie has a lot to teach us about what we’re interested in around here—success in life, career and personal development of all kinds. Welcome back to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/id1610463141" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SUCCESS Movie Rewind</a>, the only podcast talking about movies about Zuckerberg and not the man himself. Let’s do this.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mimetic-desire-is-a-two-way-mirror">Mimetic desire is a two-way mirror.</h2>



Most of us have seen this film by now, but here’s the basic outline of the plot: We see the formation of Facebook and the resulting litigation. Along the way, we get a lot of fictionalized insight into Zuckerberg and why he may be the way he is.



Don’t forget: Sorkin wrote this movie, so it’s going to go deep. Right out of the gate, we get struck with a philosophical concept called mimetic desire. There are whole books of philosophy about this single concept, and I recommend reading more on the subject, but here’s the basic idea: The theory of mimetic desire is that no one knows what they want, they just model what they think they want after what they see that others have.



The movie opens with a young Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) talking with his girlfriend in a bar. He doesn’t know what he wants, but he knows he wants to be someone. And he’s a bubbling cauldron of insecurity. He’s talking endlessly about how he’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brentgleeson/2022/02/03/leaders-4-tips-for-adapting-your-business-to-the-needs-of-the-world-around-you/?sh=75b1a93af4e3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">going to get ahead</a>, and his girlfriend, somewhat annoyed, says he should just focus on being the best him that he can be. The discussion only continues to unravel, and she ends up breaking up with him right then and there.



Zuckerberg was in the throes of a battle with mimetic desire, and it got the better of him. He lost his relationship as a result. That’s because of our first SUCCESS Movie Memento™ for this week: Mimetic desire is a two-way mirror—you either see yourself in the mirror or you see the person looking through on the other side. That hidden person is who you actually modeled what you want on.



Here’s the thing: <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/4-ways-luke-burgis-ideas-on-mimetic-desire-can-make-you-more-successful-and-happier-too/">Everyone experiences mimetic desire</a>. It can be ugly, but we all go through it. We have to learn to see both sides of the two-way mirror to recognize this feeling in ourselves, deal with it and keep it from becoming a problem.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-sick-systems-need-scapegoats">Sick systems need scapegoats.</h2>



Much of the plot of this movie centers around Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), including Zuckerberg’s apparent efforts to squeeze him out of the business and the lawsuit that ensues. Leading up to all the nastiness, we see Napster founder and Silicon Valley bad-boy Sean Parker (played convincingly by Justin Timberlake) swoop in and tell Zuckerberg that he has to be a jerk to get ahead.



And boy, does Zuckerberg listen to him. That sets into motion the formation of an entire hyper-competitive system that eventually chooses Saverin as the scapegoat. It was always going to be someone, and that’s because of our second SUCCESS Movie Memento™ for this film: Sick systems need scapegoats.



We get details in the plot about Saverin which suggest that he is, in fact, just being <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/what-it-really-means-to-be-your-best-self-3-tips-for-finding-positive-direction/">the best version of himself</a>—the opposite of what we see Zuckerberg doing. Saverin is good with numbers and wants to help out his friend, so he co-founds the company, invests in it and helps run it. He’s not in it to just reach the next milestone on the treadmill of mimetic desire. He’s just doing what he’s good at.



That’s what positions him as a scapegoat. The system Zuckerberg builds around Facebook is sick—it’s a system that says you have to be the best and you have to vanquish people to be the best. Saverin isn’t playing that game, but he becomes the victim of it nonetheless.



What can we all learn from this as we <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/build-your-career-and-life-with-lessons-from-the-internship/">build our careers and lives</a>? A few things: When we build sick systems, someone is going to get hurt, and if we’re caught up in a sick system, we might just end up the scapegoat ourselves.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-watch-how-you-want">Watch how you want.</h2>



<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/5-reflective-questions-to-discover-who-you-are-and-what-you-want/">What do you want</a>? If you can answer that question with clarity, you’re far ahead of many of your peers. In The Social Network, we see a Zuckerberg who doesn’t really know what he wants. Ostensibly, he wants his company to succeed. But the success of Facebook is almost never in question—it’s just that the success we see Zuckerberg have feels hollow.



That’s because he’s not watching how he wants. He would have known better if he had listened to our third SUCCESS Movie Memento™ for this week: Watch how you want.



By that, I mean you have to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/why-you-need-clarity-to-achieve-your-goals/">want things with clarity</a> and purpose. Wanting success for the sake of it or because you saw someone else experience it in a way you now want to put you squarely back on that mimetic desire hamster wheel. The next success opens up your world just enough to put a new goal on your horizon—to the point that you never end up where you want to be because you don’t want to be anywhere real.



We see Zuckerberg ultimately emerge victorious from the trials he faces, but we end the film on him sending his ex-girlfriend a friend request on Facebook. He refreshes the page over and over to see if she has accepted. Is it success? We don’t know, but we can be reasonably certain that Zuckerberg is not happy or fulfilled in that moment, despite the wild trajectory of success he has clearly embarked on. Moral of this story? Don’t do that to yourself.



That’s it for SUCCESS Movie Rewind, folks. I want to thank you for taking this journey with me, and though we won’t be seeing each other each week to do motivational movie criticism, I hope you’ll apply what we’ve learned together to your cinema experiences and life experiences years into your wildly successful future. See you around.

Everyone experiences mimetic desire. It can be ugly, but we all go through it. We have to learn to see both sides of the two-way mirror to recognize this feeling in ourselves, deal with it and keep it from becoming a problem.

Everyone experiences mimetic desire. It can be ugly, but we all go through it. We have to learn to see both sides of the two-way mirror to recognize this feeling in ourselves, deal with it and keep it from becoming a problem. | SUCCESS

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Success and Mimetic Desire in 'The Social Network

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Alex Stevens invented motivational media criticism and reinvents the genre every week on SUCCESS Movie Rewind. Alex is also a lawyer, creative consultant, and artist, sometimes all at once. Alex lives with his family in Dallas, Texas.

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Alex Stevens

How ‘The Intern’ Explores Transference and Its Impacts on Personal Growth

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Personal Development Archives

Personal Development | SUCCESS | What Achievers Read

Rewinders, you’re not having déjà vu. We’re talking about a totally different movie this week. It’s not The Internship. It’s The Intern. And it’s great.



I’m excited to talk about this one for a few reasons, one of which is that the rom-com queen, Nancy Meyers, wrote and directed it. In other words, you already know this film is going to have a lot of good kitchens, beautiful clothing and real people having real, human problems.



The Intern does not disappoint in that regard. But the film also has something many viewers might not expect: a deep and enlightening exploration of transference, complete with some takeaways we can all use to develop ourselves into the people we ultimately want to become.



<iframe src="https://omny.fm/shows/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/the-intern/embed?style=artwork" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write" width="100%" height="180" frameborder="0" title="The Intern"></iframe>



Welcome back to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/id1610463141" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SUCCESS Movie Rewind</a>, the only podcast talking about how one of Sigmund Freud’s foundational concepts applies to a 2015 dramedy. Let’s do it.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-transference-is-a-tool">Transference is a tool.</h2>



First, the obligatory plot outline: Retired executive Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) gets a gig as a “senior” intern at an up-and-coming fashion website run by Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway). Ostin has some unresolved issues in her personal life and from her upbringing, and Whittaker is trying to fill a hole in his life left after his wife died and he retired.&nbsp;



As you might expect from a comedy/drama, there are a few laughs, but the two characters also learn a lot about life, themselves and each other as the plot progresses. It’s kind of a spiritual sequel to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/what-the-devil-wears-prada-teaches-about-wisdom-work-and-relationships/">The Devil Wears Prada</a>.



In a sort of opening monologue from Whittaker, which is really him applying for the internship, he mentions something Freud said: “Love and work, work and love.” This quote captures the movie so well—Whittaker wants the internship because he has lost his love and work—but I don’t think it’s an accident that the quote is from Freud.



Freud was the first to describe the term transference, which is the thing most of us associate with movies or shows that include therapists. On screen, it is often portrayed as their patients falling in love with them, and the therapist says something about it being a classic case of transference. Unfortunately, this extremely handy psychology term has been reduced by that definition.



Here’s what it really means, according to the late <a href="https://mq.academia.edu/DorisMcilwain" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Professor Doris McIlwain</a>: Transference is the operation of the past in the present moment. In other words, it’s about seeing something from your past in something (usually someone) in your present.



I want to analyze The Intern through the lens of transference because this concept plays such an important role in the film. That leads me to our first SUCCESS Movie Memento™ for the week: Transference is a tool.



We see Whittaker and Ostin bringing huge aspects of their separate pasts into this moment in time in which their paths cross. We see them attributing characteristics and features of past people and experiences to one another. Ultimately, they use transference as a tool to change and move forward.



We can all learn from that. When you’re feeling big feelings from the past, remember that you’re feeling them for a reason. And if you look inward in the way your subconscious mind is asking you to, you can use what you’re feeling as a tool to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/why-focusing-on-your-personal-growth-now-is-more-important-than-ever/">foster personal growth</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-transference-is-terrifying">Transference is terrifying.</h2>



Transference isn’t all roses. It’s also terrifying, which is our second SUCCESS Movie Memento™ for this week.&nbsp;



Ostin is this sort of archetypal hyper-CEO. We meet her while she’s buzzing through the office—on a bike, no less—going through item after item on her crowded schedule. She’s managing everything at once as if she’s the world’s most talented juggler. We’ve all known—or been—these people before.



That kind of hyper-productivity is often hard to let go of. It’s an expression of the fear of something going wrong, whether it’s in your business, your personal life or somewhere else. If you’re <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/letting-go-of-control-how-to-overcome-ego-uncertainty-and-black-and-white-thinking-with-cy-wakeman/">in control of everything</a>, you control the outcome of everything.



But we see in the film that, in order for Ostin to deal with some of the issues from both her past and her present, she has to let go of all of that and learn to stand still. For her, it’s terrifying—so much so that we see her try to get rid of Whittaker as an intern at one point because he’s, as she says, “too observant.”



It’s not fun to realize you’re <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/11-tips-for-letting-go-of-past-failures-and-embracing-the-future/">letting issues from your past</a> influence the way you interpret your present. In fact, it’s terrifying because you realize you aren’t seeing the picture objectively or even all that clearly. It’s you realizing you have some emotional work to do. But once you get past the fear and come out on the other side, you’ll be better for it—just like Ostin is in the movie.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-transference-is-an-opportunity-for-transcendence">Transference is an opportunity for transcendence.</h2>



That leads nicely into our third SUCCESS Movie Memento™ for the week: Transference is an opportunity for transcendence.&nbsp;



Think about it: When these big emotions from your past rush over you thanks to transference, you’re not just experiencing an emotion—you’re being presented with an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/how-to-let-go-of-regret/">finally deal with these emotions</a> and experiences that have been swimming around in the deep, dark pools of your subconscious mind all these years. They’ve resurfaced, and this is your chance to take care of them.



We see Ostin finally empowered to do exactly that, and it’s her transcendence that guides the film to its conclusion.



I’ll stop there for The Intern. Transference is such an important concept, particularly in the workplace, and I’m on a mission to spread the word. I hope The Intern and this podcast have taught you a lot about transference, and I hope I’ll see you next week as we break down Michael Clayton. Have a great week.

We can all learn from that. When you’re feeling big feelings from the past, remember that you’re feeling them for a reason. And if you look inward in the way your subconscious mind is asking you to, you can use what you’re feeling as a tool to foster personal growth.

We can all learn from that. When you’re feeling big feelings from the past, remember that you’re feeling them for a reason. And if you look inward in the way your subconscious mind is asking you to, you can use what you’re feeling as a tool to foster personal growth. | SUCCESS

The Intern: Exploring Transference and Personal Growth

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Build Your Career and Life with Lessons from ‘The Internship’

It’s high time we had some synergy around here, so let’s get some going this week with our parent brand, SUCCESS, by focusing on the <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/category/future-of-work/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">future of work</a>.



How exactly do you do that with a motivational film criticism podcast? By talking about a movie that’s about work. That’s why we’re looking at The Internship this week.



<iframe src="https://omny.fm/shows/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/the-internship/embed?style=artwork" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write" width="100%" height="180" frameborder="0" title="The Internship"></iframe>



It’s a great movie with plenty of personal development takeaways to sink our teeth into. So, get your teeth ready to sink in. Welcome back to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/id1610463141" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SUCCESS Movie Rewind</a>, the only personal development podcast talking about a movie Vince Vaughn wrote.



<h2 id="h-embrace-life-s-irony">Embrace life’s irony.</h2>



I won’t recount too much of the plot of The Internship, but here’s the idea: Billy McMahon (Vince Vaughn) and Nick Campbell (Owen Wilson) are 20th century salesmen in a 21st century market, and they get downsized. They stumble their way into an internship with Google, and comedy (and character development) ensues.



That’s all you really need to know about the plot. Now, take a minute and go listen to the Alanis Morissette classic “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/29YBihzQOmat0U74k4ukdx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ironic</a>.”



That concludes our first and last episode of SUCCESS Music Rewind, but it springboards us head-first into our first SUCCESS Movie Memento™ for this week: Embrace life’s irony.&nbsp;



That song is the pump-up song McMahon and Campbell are listening to before going to meet with a client and finding out that they have lost their jobs. We have a little on-screen irony playing out because they have no idea they’re about to be fired, but everyone else does.



They take the loss of their sales jobs pretty hard, but, as the movie reveals, they ultimately have to embrace the irony in order to move forward with their careers and lives. The duo doubles down on the energy that carried them far in old-school sales to land a coveted Google internship.



We could all learn from these two. As you <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/how-to-get-promoted-4-steps-to-prepare-for-the-next-step-in-your-career/">push forward in your career</a> and life, you’re almost certain to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/9-tips-for-overcoming-setbacks-from-9-resilient-entrepreneurs/">encounter a setback</a> or failure that was a long time in the making but completely unknown to you. Unlike the scenarios Alanis Morissette describes in her classic song, that’s ironic.&nbsp;



Embrace it. It doesn’t mean you can’t mourn what you’ve lost, whether it’s time, money, a job, whatever. It just means you have to accept that irony is a part of life, one you can use to move yourself forward.



<h2 id="h-sometimes-you-just-have-to-break-the-blender">Sometimes, you just have to break the blender.</h2>



At one point, we see McMahon and Campbell interviewing for their Google internship with a group of much younger, more tech-savvy candidates. The interviewers give this classic “brain buster” question: You are shrunken down to the size of a nickel and dropped to the bottom of a blender—what do you do?



The dialogue that follows is great. Campbell—who notes that he and McMahon used to sell blenders—points out that, if there’s no liquid in the blender, they can lie on their backs as flat nickels and wait when the blender turns on, safe from the whirling blade. Befuddled, the interviewer says that once it turns on, the blender is on forever. Campbell doesn’t accept that; even the best blenders in the world will break after several hours of continuous use, he says.



After that blender breaks, Campbell and McMahon would climb out and become “two nickel-sized men in the free world. Think of the possibilities!”



Possibilities, indeed. They could repair sunglasses or even go inside people’s bodies to cure diseases, they say. It’s wacky, but I love it. Here’s why: They’re <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryancollinseurope/2020/01/22/an-unusual-creative-strategy-for-thinking-outside-of-the-box/?sh=12abe357210d" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">thinking outside of the box</a>, hardly even noticing the path the interviewer laid out for them. And they’re speaking to their own truth. They were nickels who just got out of a blender. They lost their identity as salesmen and now have to remake themselves in a world that feels so much larger than it once did.



Many of us reach a point in our careers and lives where we feel that way. And that’s when it’s important to remember our second SUCCESS Movie Memento™: Sometimes, you just have to break the blender. We either have to break the blender we’re stuck in to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/10-tips-to-help-you-grow-now/">enable our own growth</a>, or the blender breaks unexpectedly and we have to reconfigure ourselves in a new setting. In any case, let the blender break.



<h2 id="h-don-t-outcast-the-outliers">Don’t outcast the outliers.</h2>



Thanks in large part to their performance during the interview, the guys get the internship. But they’re just at the start of their journey. They’re older than the other interns, and they’re less knowledgeable about stuff you would assume is important around Google HQ. Among their cohort, they’re outliers.



As we watch the movie, we see that discounting McMahon and Campbell’s value because of their outlier status would be a mistake. And that’s the inspiration for this week’s third SUCCESS Movie Memento™: Don’t outcast the outliers.



As repeat listeners of this podcast will know well, we love double meanings around here. And this Memento™ does not disappoint. We get this handy little double meaning for “outliers” in that we shouldn’t discount outliers who are people we encounter, and we shouldn’t discount outliers within ourselves.



As you <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/new-entrepreneurs-heres-how-to-get-your-business-started-on-the-right-foot/">build your business</a> or work toward whatever goal it is you’re trying to achieve, you will meet and/or work with others. Some will be different—it will be clear that they think differently, or they may come from circumstances entirely different from the norm in the environment you’re in. <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/5-tips-to-keep-an-open-mind/">Don’t discount them</a>. They could bring a new perspective or even a game-changing evolution to what you’re trying to achieve.



Then, make sure you’re not casting out the outliers inside your own mind. To a certain extent, we learn to do this as we develop. The world teaches us what we can and can’t, should and shouldn’t do, and we listen. But after you’ve matured, you may feel certain outlier thoughts or ideas that you’ve previously cast out coming back to you. If they’re coming back again and again, there’s probably a reason. Don’t just cast them out again—give them a shot.



That’s where I’ll wrap it up for The Internship. It’s a fantastic movie with a lot to teach us, and if you haven’t seen it at all or just haven’t seen it in a while, I suggest you give it a viewing. Until next week, Rewinders.&nbsp;

As you push forward in your career and life, you’re almost certain to encounter a setback or failure that was a long time in the making but completely unknown to you. Unlike the scenarios Alanis Morissette describes in her classic song, that’s ironic. 

As you push forward in your career and life, you’re almost certain to encounter a setback or failure that was a long time in the making but completely unknown to you. Unlike the scenarios Alanis Morissette describes in her classic song, that’s ironic.  | SUCCESS

Build Your Career and Life with Lessons from ‘The Internship’ | SUCCESS

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Personal Development Cinema: ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ 

Success looks different from person to person. There is no single standard for what success is. For me, one of those standards is watching every single movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as soon as it comes out.&nbsp;



That may not be one of your success metrics, but I’m about to inject a little MCU into your thinking about personal development, entrepreneurship or career success anyway. You guessed it—we’re doing another Marvel movie for SUCCESS Movie Rewind this week.



It’s a good one, too: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. It’s a classic hero’s journey tale that would make <a href="https://libguides.gvsu.edu/monomyth" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Joseph Campbell</a> smile from ear to ear. You don’t have to have seen it to understand the SUCCESS Movie Maxims (trademark pending) we’ll discuss today, but I highly recommend making time to see it.



<iframe src="https://omny.fm/shows/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/shang-chi-and-the-legend-of-the-ten-rings/embed?style=artwork" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write" width="100%" height="180" frameborder="0" title="Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"></iframe>



This is <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/id1610463141" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SUCCESS Movie Rewind</a>, the only podcast where we trust you to look up Joseph Campbell’s take on the hero’s journey without us having to explain it. Let’s dive in.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-let-your-journey-be-a-joy-ride">Let your journey be a joy ride.</h2>



The scene is present-day San Francisco, and our hero Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) is working as a valet with his close friend Katy (Awkwafina). Valet parking is not Shang-Chi’s passion, mostly because he’s on the run from an ancient criminal empire founded by his father known as the Ten Rings.&nbsp;



While Shang-Chi is ambivalent about his life living in a garage and working as a valet, his friend Katy is less so. She likes to drive the fast cars and have fun, and she brings some levity to Shang-Chi’s whole situation (although she doesn’t yet know about it). Katy and Shang-Chi kind of support each other in living in the moment and having fun.



Early in the movie, we see Katy and Shang-Chi getting drinks with some more traditionally successful friends, and one of them implies that while they’re the smartest people the friend knows, the duo has failed to “grow up” and are <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/continually-reach-your-potential/">wasting their potential</a>.



In some ways, she has a point—it’s apparent that there’s little long-term planning going on in Katy and Shang-Chi’s lives at this point. But there’s a balance to strike here, and it’s a balance many of us pursue throughout our lives. Katy likes the joy rides she can take at work, and although she and Shang-Chi are going to do something truly great in this film, they deserve the joy they have throughout their journey, these early stages included.



That’s our first SUCCESS Movie Maxim for this week: Let your journey be a joy ride. I was going to qualify that with something about letting your journey include a joy ride, but that ultimately wasn’t quite right. A joy ride is when you take a cool car and go out and have fun with it, and we should all be doing that. Whatever your journey is, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/are-you-enjoying-the-process-on-your-way-to-success/">be joyful in it</a> and consider yourself on a journey toward your joy.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-don-t-mortgage-your-life-to-pay-off-someone-else-s-balance-sheet">Don’t mortgage your life to pay off someone else’s balance sheet.</h2>



We later learn that Katy’s friends are not the only people who think she’s not living up to her potential. There’s also her achievement-oriented family.&nbsp;



We have this interesting parallel with Katy and Shang-Chi: Katy is struggling to live up to being good enough in the way her parents want her to be, and Shang-Chi is running from something he was trained by his father to be amazing at (being an assassin).&nbsp;



They end up in a similar time and place working as a team, and they’re both fighting off more than ancient assassins. They’re also pushing against the current created by their families. Every single one of us—mythical immortal ancestors or not—is the product of millenia of people who eked out an existence and survived and reproduced to eventually lead to us, right now.&nbsp;



That’s a tough current to push against, especially when your desires are at odds with those of your more immediate ancestors. That leads us to our second SUCCESS Movie Maxim for this film: Don’t mortgage your life to pay off someone else’s balance sheet.



Your life is yours, and what <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/daring-to-dream-finding-the-courage-to-follow-your-own-path/">you want to do with it</a> is your decision. That also means that failure to act—whether it’s out of fear that you won’t live up to someone else’s standards or not—only affects you and is, ultimately, your responsibility.&nbsp;



In a way, letting <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/overcome-your-fear-of-failure/">fear of failure</a> keep you from pushing forward and living the life your parents prescribed for you even when you don’t want to are both ways of mortgaging your life for someone else’s balance sheet. Don’t do that. Do you in the way only you can.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-you-ve-got-to-keep-it-moving-to-stay-in-the-pocket">You’ve got to keep it moving to stay in the pocket.</h2>



Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings revives this wacky character named Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley). He’s kind of fun to watch, and Marvel fans will remember him from Iron Man 3.&nbsp;



Without spoiling too much of the plot, I’ll just tell you that Slattery leads our heros through this extremely dangerous forest in a mythical realm. Before they enter the forest, Slattery tells them this: “​​It’s all about staying right in the pocket or the forest eats us.”



I love that, and it’s our third Maxim for the week: You’ve got to keep it moving to stay in the pocket.



In football and music, the “pocket” is this sort of moving target that changes as the quarterback and/or tempo move and shift. This one hits home when you think about Katy’s journey throughout the film—she’s not staying in the pocket because she’s standing still. If you stand still, you’re not going to be in the pocket (the place you want or need to be in to succeed) for very long.&nbsp;



That goes for all of us. In real life, most targets are moving targets. Situations change, and <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/charting-your-new-course-4-tips-when-life-doesnt-go-as-planned/">your plans should change accordingly</a>. Otherwise, the pocket will elude you.



That’s where I’ll leave it for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, but trust me when I tell you that there’s more to this film than what we discussed here. We didn’t even get to talk about the faceless, six-legged, four-winged mythical creature named Morris (more on that in the audio version). I hope to see you next week, but I also hope you’ll take the time to see this movie before we come back with another great movie discussion. Have a great week, Rewinders.&nbsp;

Katy likes the joy rides she can take at work, and although she and Shang-Chi are going to do something truly great in this film, they deserve the joy they have throughout their journey, these early stages included.

Katy likes the joy rides she can take at work, and although she and Shang-Chi are going to do something truly great in this film, they deserve the joy they have throughout their journey, these early stages included. | SUCCESS

Shang-Chi: Personal Development through Cinema

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Reason, Success and Being Yourself: The Lessons of ‘Legally Blonde’

A beautiful sorority queen who isn’t taken seriously as an intellectual defies the odds and gets into Harvard Law School. You know who I’m talking about—it’s the iconic, hilarious and endlessly fashionable Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon).



This is it, folks. We’re finally talking about Legally Blonde on SUCCESS Movie Rewind. Really, it’s long overdue, because this is the perfect personal development movie. What I left out of that basic description above is the personal development part: Elle goes to Harvard Law School after her boyfriend (who is also attending Harvard) dumps her, and along the way she learns that there’s a lot more to life than what she thought there was. Oh, and she graduates as the valedictorian.



<iframe src="https://omny.fm/shows/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/legally-blonde/embed?style=artwork" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write" width="100%" height="180" frameborder="0" title="Legally Blonde"></iframe>



Talk about some serious personal development. And that’s exactly what I’m about to do. Welcome back to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/id1610463141" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SUCCESS Movie Rewind</a>. Let’s learn what Elle Woods has to teach us about improving ourselves.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-be-serious-about-being-yourself">Be serious about being yourself.</h2>



Elle Woods is such a likable character, and I think at least part of that is down to her unflinching dedication to being herself—no matter how much pushback she receives from her family and friends, she carries on.&nbsp;



She’s trying to get into and subsequently graduate from one of the best, most competitive law schools in the world, and we get enough background in the film to see that law has not really been her “thing” up to this point. Still, she has decided this is what she wants, and she takes it seriously even when her own parents express their doubts. And, if you’ve seen the movie, you know her seriousness and dedication to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/do-these-3-things-to-get-everything-you-want/">going after what she wants</a> pays off.



It’s a perfect personal development lesson packaged with a pink bow: Be serious about being yourself. This is our first SUCCESS Movie Maxim (trademark pending) for today. But really, you’re not giving yourself the best possible chance of success if you aren’t being serious <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/6-steps-to-discover-your-true-self/">about being yourself</a>.



In my other life, I’m a lawyer. I’m good at it, and I take it seriously. But I also get on this podcast and talk about Marvel movies. I’m both things, and that’s OK. Elle is a (future) lawyer and a sorority girl, and that’s OK, too. You probably experience some version of that, and it’s important that you dedicate yourself to being who you truly are. It’s the only real way to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/identifying-your-dream-is-only-the-first-step-in-pursuing-your-passion/">pursue your passions</a> to the fullest possible extent.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-success-is-a-skill">Success is a skill.</h2>



As Elle is preparing to take the LSAT—the standardized test required to enter law school—we hear from a few key figures in her life about how she’s throwing all of her success away by pursuing something that, at first glance, is not likely to be successful. After all, she was first runner-up at the Miss Hawaiian Tropics contest.



But she really throws nothing away <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/how-to-overcome-self-doubt-and-become-the-hero-of-your-story/">except her self-doubt</a>. She was successful in her life before law school, and she rises to the rank of valedictorian during her life in law school. The reason why is also the second SUCCESS Movie Maxim for this week: Success is a skill.



Skills lead to success—we’re all familiar with that way of thinking, and it has merit. But success is a skill in and of itself. It’s a set of traits that make you antifragile, resilient, ready to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/7-challenges-successful-people-overcome/">take on the next challenge</a>.&nbsp;



Career-changers or just-about-to-start-a-business people, this is for you: If you’re feeling self-doubt, remember that what led you to success before this moment can lead you to success in your next endeavor. Boil your success down to the basics—observation, planning and execution—and make it happen again.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-reason-is-worthless-without-passionately-felt-personal-values">Reason is worthless without passionately felt personal values.</h2>



If you’ve never been to law school, you may not be aware that the amount of Latin we hear in Legally Blonde is actually less than you hear in real-life law school settings. It’s just how lawyers have named things and expressed concepts. Two bits of Latin we hear in the movie are some really helpful ethics terms: malum prohibitum and malum in se.



“Malum” means “bad,” “prohibitum” means “prohibited” and “in se” means “in and of itself.” So malum prohibitum is “prohibited bad” and malum in se is “bad in and of itself.” I’m not here (or qualified) to give you a Latin lesson. I’m trying to tell you that you have to decide what your malum in se and malum prohibitum are.



I’ll explain. If you’re an American driving on the wrong side of the road when you visit the U.K., you’re pulling a malum prohibitum but not a malum in se—there’s nothing inherently wrong about driving on a particular side of the road, but you’re still breaking the law.



We get those terms now—great. Now, let’s discuss our third SUCCESS Movie Maxim: Reason is worthless without <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/identifying-your-purpose-and-values-how-to-go-beyond-happiness/">passionately felt personal values</a>.&nbsp;



The moment from Legally Blonde that I’ll use to support this one is, in some respects, the biggest moment in the film. It’s Elle’s valedictorian speech. She says, in part: “On our very first day at Harvard, a very wise professor quoted Aristotle: ‘The law is reason free from passion.’ Well, no offense to Aristotle, but in my three years at Harvard, I have come to find that passion is a key ingredient to the study and practice of law and of life. It is with passion, courage, conviction and <a href="https://medium.com/swlh/9-habits-to-become-truly-confident-and-live-from-your-authentic-self-ff1158fa8dd" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a strong sense of self</a> that we take our next steps into the world.”



She’s absolutely right: Reason without passion is worthless. Your values—the malum prohibitum and malum in se you choose to live by—dictate not just who you are, but who you will become. And we’re all trying to become someone we respect, aren’t we?



To quote Elle Woods again: “Congratulations, Class of 2004—we did it!” And by “it,” I mean we finished our discussion of Legally Blonde. Rewinders, I hope you’ll join me for more movie and personal development discussion next week. See you then.

Elle Woods is such a likable character, and I think at least part of that is down to her unflinching dedication to being herself

Elle Woods is such a likable character, and I think at least part of that is down to her unflinching dedication to being herself | SUCCESS

Lessons from 'Legally Blonde': Reason, Success, and Authenticity

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Chaos, Control and Power: What ‘Jurassic Park’ Teaches Us About Letting Go 

This week, I was so preoccupied with whether I could make an episode of SUCCESS Movie Rewind about Jurassic Park that I didn’t stop to think if I should. Well, I did, so “hold onto your butts.”



This is a fantastic film. It’s a wild ride, and you could say it defined a generation of moviegoers' expectations when it comes to big-budget sci-fi movies. My hope is that this episode of the podcast also defines your expectations when it comes to sci-fi films about dinosaurs that teach you lessons, which I’m officially going to start calling SUCCESS Movie Messages™.



<iframe src="https://omny.fm/shows/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/jurassic-park/embed?style=artwork" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write" width="100%" height="180" frameborder="0" title="Jurassic Park"></iframe>



Welcome back to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/id1610463141" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SUCCESS Movie Rewind</a>, the only podcast in podcast history to ask what dinosaurs can teach us about personal growth. Let’s do this.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-you-should-always-count-on-chaos">You should always count on chaos.</h2>



Our first SUCCESS Movie Message for Jurassic Park is “Life finds a way.”



Just kidding—that’s a little too easy, though it’s a great tagline and a driving force behind the events of the movie. And the events, as you know, are about the chaos that happens inside a giant theme park full of real, live dinosaurs.&nbsp;



But that chaos wasn’t supposed to happen, right? The dinosaurs were genetically engineered to be all female so that they wouldn’t reproduce. But the park didn’t count on the frog DNA allowing the dinosaurs to switch sexes.



As it tends to do, chaos ensues. We love to see it in films, of course, but in real life? Not so much.



The problem is that chaos always seems to happen. Whatever you have planned—whether it’s a new business, a side hustle, a new fitness regimen or something else entirely—something will go wrong. In other words, chaos finds a way.



That’s why you should always count on chaos. To “count” on chaos, you need to incorporate the principle of “antifragility,” as coined by author <a href="https://hbr.org/2013/06/make-your-organization-anti-fr.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nassim Nicholas Taleb</a>. This goes beyond <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/how-to-set-goals-amid-chaos/">designing your goals</a> and ambitions to withstand resistance; it quite literally asks you to create systems that actually become stronger when they encounter resistance.&nbsp;



That might look like an in-depth post-mortem to see <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/why-failure-is-good-for-success/">what you can learn</a> every time something goes wrong, or it might simply be a conscious effort to double down when you are faced with chaos. In any case, you should count on chaos by becoming antifragile.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-total-control-is-a-bad-goal">Total control is a bad goal.</h2>



Our second SUCCESS Movie Message kind of riffs off of the first one: Total control is a bad goal. That’s because <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/the-joy-of-letting-go-of-control/">you can’t have total control</a> of anything if you are already accepting that chaos will enter the scene at some point.



What went wrong in Jurassic Park? I’m not talking about the science-y problems—I’m talking about what they were trying to do. They wanted and required absolute control over the whole modern-day dinosaur situation. Total control was their goal, and it was a bad one. When one little thing went awry, the whole enterprise fell apart in chaotic and entertaining fashion.



In your personal development and entrepreneurial journeys, you may wish for total control. You may even picture how much easier everything would be if you had it. But don’t make it your goal. If you do, you’re not likely to find yourself staring into the big, beautiful eye of a tyrannosaurus, but you are likely to find yourself looking at the big, ugly eye of failure.



You will <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/losing-control-finding-peace-heidi-powell-on-discovering-true-strength-through-letting-go/">lose control in some way</a>, and if your goal is total control, you will fail. Don’t hamstring your goals before they even begin.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-power-needs-a-higher-power">Power needs a higher power.</h2>



The iconic Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm says it best when he spouts off with that line about scientists being so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t think about whether they should. What he’s saying is our third SUCCESS Movie Message for Jurassic Park: Power needs a higher power.



More than 30 years out from the release of this movie, I think we can all agree that bringing the dinosaurs back is a bad idea. Why did it seem like such a good idea to the fictional characters of this film? Aside from their apparent belief that billions of dollars of scientific research would be offset by the profits from theme park tickets, the answer is not really clear.



They didn’t know, and then things went bad fast. They just did it because they realized they could.



If your answer to “Why are you doing this?” is “Because I can,” you have a problem. That applies whether you’re writing a book, building a business, recording a podcast—anything. <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/what-is-my-purpose-in-life/">You need your why</a>—your higher power—to guide your power, which in this example is your ability to achieve what you’re setting out to do. Define your why, and your purpose and path become clear and (probably) dinosaur-free.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ready-for-next-week-s-mystery-movie">Ready for next week’s mystery movie?</h2>



That’s a wrap for Jurassic Park. You’ve already seen it, but maybe watch it again to see what personal development lessons you take away from it. At the very worst, you’ll come away having had a popcorn-worthy movie experience.



Next week, we’re going to do a mystery movie. This one is really exciting—I think all of you listeners are going to love it. But if not, feel free to let me know, as always. See you next time.

The problem is that chaos always seems to happen. Whatever you have planned—whether it’s a new business, a side hustle, a new fitness regimen or something else entirely—something will go wrong. In other words, chaos finds a way.

The problem is that chaos always seems to happen. Whatever you have planned—whether it’s a new business, a side hustle, a new fitness regimen or something else entirely—something will go wrong. In other words, chaos finds a way. | SUCCESS

Letting Go: Lessons from 'Jurassic Park' on Chaos and Power

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Let Your Dreams Take Shamanic Flight with Avater

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I’m feeling a little blue this week. Not so much in the emotional sense, though—I’m just really happy to be talking about Avatar with you all.



We’re going to have a great time discussing this film, and I’ll get this out of the way now: If you’re breathing, you’ve probably already seen Avatar. But if you haven’t, you should know we’re not worrying too much about spoilers for this episode. This is a great reminder to go ahead and see the movie if you haven’t already, especially because Avatar 2 is coming out in December.



If you’re wondering about that headline up top, here’s what you need to know: Avatar tells us how to incorporate the shamanic into our lives, and shamanic flight is all about personal growth



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Welcome back to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/id1610463141" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SUCCESS Movie Rewind</a>—the movie podcast where the intro hook may be vague, but the lessons you leave with will have you personally developing like you never have before. With that, let’s jump in.&nbsp;



<h2 id="h-mere-survival-is-a-self-defeating-value">Mere survival is a self-defeating value.</h2>



I won’t leave you hanging on the meaning of “shamanic flight” for any longer. Shamanic journeying is a mental technique of taking a symbolic journey to another world using nothing but your mind, often with the guidance of a therapist or shaman. It’s a way of going somewhere and experiencing something that will change you, deepen your understanding or <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/why-you-need-clarity-to-achieve-your-goals/">give you clarity</a>.



Sound a little bit like the journey of Avatar’s main character? Sam Worthington’s Jake Sully has traveled to Pandora in the place of his deceased brother, where he will control an avatar that looks like one of the Na'vi, who are native to the planet.



Each time Jake puts on the headset and controls his avatar, he goes on a shamanic flight and learns something new about Pandora. Pretty cool stuff.



But that’s not our first takeaway, exactly. Our first takeaway begins when Jake and the other humans who have come to the planet are being briefed by their commander (Stephen Lang). He’s a rough-around-the-edges drill instructor sort of guy, and he’s laying out the strict rules for survival on this new planet.



To boil down what’s said in this scene, the human visitors to Pandora have been told to treat this world as an “other” in order to survive. Fear of the unknown immediately leaves them feeling like they’re in hostile territory with few options if they hope to make it home.



As we see later, the first human character to break the rules the military commander lays out is the only human character to find his true self. That’s why I say mere survival is a self-defeating value.



Whatever your “hostile” planet is, whatever your version of a safety briefing told you to do, you need to remember that if you’re only trying to survive, you’re not going to actualize your true self. Your entrepreneurial goals aren’t about survival; they’re about wanting—and finding and achieving—something more. To do that, you’re going to need to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/taking-the-first-step/">embrace some risk</a>.



<h2 id="h-you-ve-got-to-be-to-see">You've got to be to see.</h2>



You knew this day was coming. I have not one, but two rhyming takeaways for you. It had to happen.



Here’s the first one: You’ve got to be to see. You’ve got to be still, be in the moment, be quiet, be one with the universe—whatever version of that you have in your most meditative moments, you’ve got to embrace it if you want to see beyond the external world and where you are now.



How does that come from Avatar? It happens when Jake (in avatar form) has to spend the night in the wilderness, and he is rescued by his eventual love interest, Ney'tiri. She basically calls him ignorant and says he can’t “see.” When Jake asks her to teach him to see, she says, “No one can teach you to see.”



She’s right—no one can teach you to see. Only you can do that, and you have to be to learn to see. Jake does that by being one with the breathtaking nature of Pandora, being quiet and learning about an incredible new world.



For you, that will involve a lot less glow-in-the-dark flora and a lot more aligning your external actions and desires with your internal self. To understand your inner life, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/the-science-of-self-reflection/">you have to look inward</a> during the quiet moments. Only then will you see what you truly want out of your life.



<h2 id="h-you-ve-got-to-die-before-you-can-fly">You’ve got to die before you can fly.</h2>



Here’s the second rhyming takeaway from Avatar: You’ve got to die before you can fly. I want to be clear about something here: I do not mean literal death. I mean something more like ego death. I mean you have to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/15-self-sabotaging-habits/">let go of certain aspects</a> of yourself that are getting in your own way before you can take shamanic flight and really learn or achieve.



The way you <a href="https://medium.com/curious/how-to-create-something-bigger-than-yourself-90c11fdc0c37" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">build something bigger than yourself</a> is by letting those rules about safety and self-preservation you’ve learned die. In Avatar, we see the colonel character do the exact opposite of that and—spoiler alert—it’s why he fails.&nbsp;



He fails to see that the force of Na’vi amassing for the final battle could be addressed with something other than a violent preemptive attack. He fails to let his defenses down and does not see the better, more enlightening, alternative approach. Our protagonist, Jake, does see it though, and that’s why he’s the story’s hero.



In your personal and professional life, you probably have more ritualized habits and circular patterns built to protect you from what you perceive as harm than you realize. And while you may not realize it right now, they may be holding you back from the next phase—the one where you achieve a long-term goal, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/new-entrepreneurs-heres-how-to-get-your-business-started-on-the-right-foot/">build a business</a> or launch a podcast—whatever your goal, it applies.&nbsp;



Before you can get there, you’ve got to let your old self die. You have to be reborn, and then you can really fly.



<h2 id="h-next-week-an-episode-65-million-years-in-the-making">Next week: An episode 65 million years in the making</h2>



That’s it for Avatar, folks. There’s a lot more to learn from this movie, but those are the personal development lessons your neighborhood shaman would want you to learn.



Next week, we’re sticking with the theme of blockbuster, big-budget, sci-fi movies. It’s an episode of SUCCESS Movie Rewind that’s 65 million years in the making—it’s the one where we talk about Jurassic Park, of course. See you there.

If you’re only trying to survive, you’re not going to actualize your true self. Your entrepreneurial goals aren’t about survival; they’re about wanting—and finding and achieving—something more.

If you’re only trying to survive, you’re not going to actualize your true self. Your entrepreneurial goals aren’t about survival; they’re about wanting—and finding and achieving—something more. | SUCCESS

Let Your Dreams Take (Shamanic) Flight with ‘Avatar’

Let Your Dreams Take (Shamanic) Flight with ‘Avatar’ | SUCCESS

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Ogres, Dragons and True Love: What ‘Shrek’ Says About Living Your Best Life 

In preparation for this week’s entry in <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/id1610463141" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SUCCESS Movie Rewind</a>, I watched one of the most important, impactful, iconic and groundbreaking films of the 21st century so far. I sat and pondered which three takeaways of the film’s nearly endless number I would share with you today.



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I would typically say I was forever changed by watching this film last week, but that would be a lie because I’ve already seen this one a few times. You probably have too, and I wish I could see you jumping for joy after you read this next sentence: We’re talking about Shrek this week.



Welcome back to SUCCESS Movie Rewind, the podcast where we believe movies are like onions—not because they make you cry and sometimes stink, but because they have layers and layers of professional development wisdom to peel back and ponder. Let’s get to peeling.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lesson-1-some-people-like-ogres">Lesson 1: Some people like ogres.</h2>



Have you ever just woken up and felt like an ogre? You’ve had it with society and people in general, you’ve been beaten down one too many times and all you want in this world is a nice, private swamp to wallow in. We’ve all been there. Shrek has been there pretty much every day for a while now—ever since he realized that people would judge him before they ever got to know him.



I won’t insult your intelligence by recounting the plot of Shrek for you. You know what happens in between those two sweet, sweet Smash Mouth soundtrack bookends. That means you know that Donkey (Eddie Murphy) comes onto the scene and really shakes things up for Shrek.&nbsp;



Among the many challenges Donkey presents for Shrek is his simple attitude toward Shrek. Much to Shrek’s surprise, Donkey just likes him. He’s not afraid of him because he’s a big green ogre. He likes him, wants to be his friend and wants to help him.



Some people just like ogres. It’s not just donkeys. When you feel like an ogre—whether it’s because you’ve faced harsh criticism, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/why-failure-is-good-for-success/">failed at something</a> or feel ostracized in some way—remember this. Some people like you for you, not for what you’ve accomplished or what you represent to them.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lesson-2-you-don-t-have-to-slay-every-dragon-you-meet">Lesson 2: You don’t have to slay every dragon you meet.</h2>



Spoiler alert: Shrek doesn’t kill the dragon before he rescues the princess, and he and Princess Fiona share a fun dialogue about this issue shortly after they first meet.



To sum it up, Fiona thinks Shrek should have killed the dragon because it’s part of the process—something that all of the valiant knights before him tried to do. Shrek points out that they all tried to slay that dragon shortly before they were burned to a crisp.&nbsp;



Shrek’s a strong-looking fellow, but I have a feeling his card might have been punched if he tried to slay that dragon. That’s his thinking, anyway.



What a lesson. You don’t always have to slay the dragon to rescue the princess. How can we apply that to our professional and <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/3-reasons-to-pursue-personal-growth/">personal development pursuits</a>? By recognizing that just because you’re on a quest doesn’t mean you have to solve every problem. In fact, if you <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/the-art-of-problem-solving-4-creative-strategies-to-tackle-your-biggest-obstacles/">try to solve every problem</a>, including the ones so many have already tried and failed to solve, you may miss the point of what you set out to do in the first place.



This concept applies across a ton of industries and pursuits, but it’s particularly easy to watch it play out in creative pursuits. Some musicians, for example, feel that they have to get everything in one take instead of recording bits of the song at a time. It’s a point of pride, but if you try to slay that particular dragon when you’re on limited studio time, you might miss your chance to fully record the song.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lesson-3-true-love-loves-the-whole-truth">Lesson: 3: True love loves the whole truth.</h2>



I already mentioned that we’re not too concerned about spoilers for this film because it was—and in many ways still is—a global phenomenon. But just in case, spoilers ahead: Princess Fiona has a big secret. She turns into an ogre at night.



She’s all wrapped up in this fairytale requirement that she get true love’s kiss and marry her true love to break the so-called curse, but she’s terrified of revealing her secret to the prince who is meant to sweep her off her feet.&nbsp;



The resolution to this problem is a tearjerker. It’s not a first-10-minutes-of-Pixar’s-Up level tearjerker, but it’s a tearjerker nonetheless. The infamous Lord Farquaad discovers Fiona’s secret and refers to her as “it,” the dragon Shrek “forgot” to slay comes back in and saves the day and Shrek and Fiona have their true-love’s kiss. Fiona remains in ogre form, and she says “But I don’t understand; I’m supposed to be beautiful.”



Good old Shrek comes in with a showstopper: “But you are beautiful,” he says.



He loves Fiona’s whole truth. And that’s our third takeaway: True love loves the whole truth. This one goes a little beyond side hustles and entrepreneurialism and reaches more into universal truths. You will <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/6-ways-to-build-lasting-relationships/">love, seek love and be loved</a> in your life. And if that love is true, it will love the whole truth.



In other words, we shouldn’t hide <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/sam-acho-let-the-world-see-the-real-you/">who we really are</a> from our loved ones. We should be confident that they will love the real us. And while oversharing is a real problem, it’s not oversharing to <a href="https://www.inc.com/rhett-power/the-power-of-being-yourself.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">be who you are</a> when you’re with someone who loves you. That’s true no matter where you are on your journey or what trials and challenges you’re currently up against.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-should-we-do-puss-in-boots-next-week">Should we do ‘Puss in Boots’ next week?</h2>



There’s more to say about Shrek, of course, and if you’re looking for a fun ride full of extra nuggets of information, go ahead and read all the Wikipedia pages surrounding the films. As for this week’s podcast, I’ll leave it there.



We’ll be back next week with another banger of a movie to talk about. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be Puss in Boots. I’ll go ahead and spoil that one. It won’t be Puss in Boots, but I hope to see you back here next week anyway.

When you feel like an ogre—whether it’s because you’ve faced harsh criticism, failed at something or feel ostracized in some way—remember this. Some people like you for you, not for what you’ve accomplished or what you represent to them.

When you feel like an ogre—whether it’s because you’ve faced harsh criticism, failed at something or feel ostracized in some way—remember this. Some people like you for you, not for what you’ve accomplished or what you represent to them. | SUCCESS

Living Your Best Life: Lessons from 'Shrek' on Love and Adventure

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Meet Your New Personal Growth Master Class Instructor: The Batman

Welcome back to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/id1610463141" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">SUCCESS Movie Rewind</a>, the podcast where we talk about fear, masks, cages and breaking free from all of those things—this week, anyway. We’re talking about The Batman this episode, so of course fear was on the table for potential subjects of discussion.



<iframe src="https://omny.fm/shows/success-movie-rewind-with-alex-stevens/the-batman/embed?style=artwork" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write" width="100%" height="180" frameborder="0" title="The Batman"></iframe>



If you haven’t seen it yet, The Batman is definitely worth the price of a movie ticket, skyrocketing inflation notwithstanding. And you don’t have to be a Team Edward (Robert Pattinson) holdout to get something out of this movie. <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/what-is-personal-development/">If you’re a self-improver</a>, aspiring business leader, entrepreneur or anything close to those descriptors, you’re going to get a lot out of this one.



Even if this isn’t the movie we need right now, it’s the one we all deserve. Let’s do this. What can The Batman teach us? As it turns out, more than enough to turn us into growth machines.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lesson-1-don-t-be-afraid-of-your-fears">Lesson 1: Don’t be afraid of your fears.</h2>



Batman is a privileged orphan who uses fear as currency in his daily life. If that sentence sounds a little strange to you, you may need to go back and watch some of the earlier movies or read the comic books. But let’s start with that—what we always see in Batman movies is how he deals with fear.&nbsp;



Today’s first takeaway is this: Don’t be too afraid of your fears. All due respect to President Roosevelt, but the whole “nothing to fear but fear itself” bit is less valuable now than it was during the Great Depression. In The Batman, we see how a bona fide hero can use fear as a tool to further his goal of ridding the city of Gotham of its criminals. And what I’m here to tell you today is that you can <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/passion/201907/fear-is-tool-the-trade-heres-how-use-it" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">use fear as a tool</a> instead of seeing it as a roadblock.



We see this little message summed up nicely through visual metaphor in the trailer for The Batman. We get a little sneak peak of the Bat-Signal lighting up the sky, and we hear Pattinson’s Batman say this: “When that light hits the sky, it’s not just a call; it’s a warning.”



In other words, while the signal may mean that there’s trouble—which may strike fear into the hearts of Gothamites or even Bruce Wayne himself—it also tells the criminals causing the trouble that they’re about to face the wrath of Gotham’s breathiest whisperer.&nbsp;



That’s using fear as a tool, and it’s a great idea for anyone who is about to embark on a personal development journey. <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/kathy-ireland-overcoming-the-fear-of-failure/">You may fear failure</a> or public speaking or any number of things, and you know you may encounter your fear along your journey. Find a way to make that fear into a motivator, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/how-to-get-over-your-fears-and-get-on-with-your-life/">not a roadblock</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lesson-2-don-t-let-your-mask-become-a-cage">Lesson 2: Don’t let your mask become a cage.</h2>



In any Batman film or comic book, part of Batman’s journey will involve how he is going to integrate his disparate but inseparable identities of Bruce Wayne and the Batman. Catwoman (played by Zoë Kravitz) sparks that particular journey in The Batman when she rightly points out that Bruce Wayne’s perspective is inescapably one of an obscenely rich white man.&nbsp;



We see Batman running from that identity and how people view him when he is Bruce Wayne throughout the film. Meanwhile, the Riddler is seeking to reveal the truth about Gotham and Batman, and Batman retreats into his hero identity—the one behind the mask—in vain to try to solve the central conflict of this film.



Ultimately, and without revealing too much of the plot, we see Batman find some success when he returns to the identity he has been running from to use it in a new way—a way that might just do some real good.&nbsp;



Don’t let your mask become a cage. No matter who you are or what you’re pursuing, it’s likely that you have parts of your identity that you would rather keep hidden from the world as you <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/3-steps-to-manifest-your-goals-in-life-yes-it-really-does-work/">pursue your goals</a>. That’s fine and absolutely your choice, but don’t let your chosen mask become a cage from which you can’t escape. Don’t be afraid to return to other versions of yourself when you’re faced with new problems. You might be surprised at some of the solutions you’ll find.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-lesson-3-you-can-t-transcend-personal-problems-without-transpersonal-values">Lesson 3: You can’t transcend personal problems without transpersonal values.</h2>



How, exactly, do we get away from the versions of ourselves that don’t help us and become who we’re really meant to be? My third takeaway from The Batman is an answer to that question. Not necessarily the answer, but maybe it will help you along your journey.



I can’t tell you what values to have, but I can tell you with certainty that you cannot transcend your personal problems without transpersonal values, or values that transcend your own personal experience.&nbsp;



In The Batman, we see the contrast between Bruce Wayne’s search for vengeance and pursuit of justice in full color. Vengeance for Bruce has a lot to do with the death of his parents. Justice, on the other hand, is about the crimes against innocent people in Gotham.



Both justice and vengeance are about righting wrongs, but justice is about bringing the world back into balance to undo wrongful acts while vengeance is about returning the pain that befell you specifically due to someone else’s wrongful act. In blind pursuit of vengeance, you’re much more likely to become a perpetrator of injustice yourself. This isn’t a new concept in the Batman universe, but we see it play out pretty clearly in The Batman.



Batman has some blind spots because of what happened to him, and that creates one of the central thematic struggles throughout the entire series. In this third personal development takeaway, I’m positing that we all have blind spots, and we need to have values that transcend our personal experiences in order to avoid doing wrong because of what wrong was done to us.



That’s going to be important <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/how-to-get-promoted-4-steps-to-prepare-for-the-next-step-in-your-career/">as you rise to the top</a> of whatever career, industry, business or area of improvement you’re focused on. You want to reach the top and transcend your personal problems with a clear conscience, and you can’t do that without transpersonal values.



Stay tuned for next week as we cover the 2000s classic, Shrek, loved equally by fans of all ages.&nbsp;

You may fear failure or public speaking or any number of things, and you know you may encounter your fear along your journey. Find a way to make that fear into a motivator, not a roadblock.

You may fear failure or public speaking or any number of things, and you know you may encounter your fear along your journey. Find a way to make that fear into a motivator, not a roadblock. | SUCCESS

Meet Your New Personal Growth Master Class Instructor: The Batman | SUCCESS

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