Leadership/Business Insights from the movie "Imagine That"

“Only those who can see such signs of life are able to find treasures”

The above quote from Paulo Coelho well acclaimed “The Alchemist” stresses the point that the signs are always around us. If we can recognize, understand them and act accordingly, then our lives will far better. Often I have found that movies are a good source of motivation and the reel lives contain many insights which is applicable in our real lives. I have always found when I watch movies (maybe, not all yet some), they depict the reality of life and the humdrum which we lose ourselves into. If we look closely enough, then there are certain gems waiting to be taken and embellish our lives.

So, here we go, with understanding some insights from the movie “Imagine that”, a 2009 American comedy film starring Eddie Murphy. It centers on the relationship between a workaholic father and his daughter, Olivia, whose imaginary world becomes the solution to her father's success.

Disclaimer: This is not a movie review, I don’t have the skills to write movie review hence if you are expecting that you can read the movie plot here. The movie bombed at box office, though let that not keep you away from the amazing insights which it had.

Insight 1: Remember to have fun, not be serious always

It is interesting to note that the main protagonist of the movie, Evan is a top financial advisor ,a job which can be as serious as it can be. The pressure to be on the top and to be perfect is very high in all our work. However, it is important to have fun as we focus on work. The metaphor in the movie where Evan accepts his daughter imaginary world and starts doing childish things like dancing to please the guarding dragon etc, is an indication that fun should be an integral part of our work lives. When was the last time you had fun/real fun with your colleagues and most importantly, spending quality time with your family too.

Insight 2: Important to package your work differently to be noticed

Evan’s competitor Johnny Whitefeather has the whole company under some spell as he shares his views which sounds like nonsensical idioms filled with Native American mumbo jumbo. While, it is important to have strong content, this aspect shows why it is important to package our content with stuff which attracts the audience attention. Packaging can mean lot of things, how you structure your content, how do you deliver it, how to brand your initiative or position it to your target members. While focusing on packaging, ensure the content is solid and has value addition, without which the process will fail, which leads to our next insight, which is.

Insight 3: Air talk doesn’t win always, hard work matter

Evan gets used to his daughter’s help with her blanket “Go-gaa” to get financial investment tips. When the golden opportunity of leading his firm comes up, he and his competitor has to crunch numbers and present their analysis. Both Evan and his rival Johnny end up looking for help from imaginary sources instead of doing the hard work. Johnny tries to impress the client by talking mumbo jumbo, which gets called out as Air talk for lacking any meaning. Fortunately for Evan, his daughter ends up spending time at her friends and isn’t available, so even though he forcibly gets the “Go-gaa”, he eventually ends up working late through night to crunch the numbers and make solid analysis, which helps him make a better impression to win the coveted deal.

Bottom line, all said and done, if you are really keen to win, ensure you don’t compromise on hard work. Hardwork after all is the secret to success.

Insight 4: Family matters, focus on quality time with family

Everyone has pressure to prove at work. And everything comes at a cost. Most often, people run behind material success, money, fame at the detriment of their family relationships. Work is important no doubt about it, and there is nothing wrong in aspiring high and working hard for the promotion. Yet, it is wise to realize that all said and done, our true (invaluable, if I can add) possessions will be our family relationships with our spouse/kids and parents, and true friends/dear ones.

It is unfortunate to see people spend their peak time of their lives in making money and not being there for their kids and when they are ready to spend time with kids, they have grown and gone out to make their own lives. Look back at your life and ask this question, how much quality time you are having with your family and dear ones.

Insight 5: Find your style, don’t copy others blindly

Johnny assumes that Evan is using a shaman technique to make hit guesses about whether to buy or sell company stock, which has led to his popularity. So, when the big moment presents itself, where both are given a task to analyze portfolio holdings of the legendary investor, Johnny resorts to forcing his son to the medium to get shamanic insights, in the process, forgets to do the required analysis of the holdings, where as if he had done it properly, he would have walked off with the prize.

At work and life, we may sometimes be amazed by others style of doing things. While it is good to derive inspiration from others, one should blindly copy someone else style, at best it will give you mediocre outcome and worst, leave you looking like a fool. In business too, this becomes important, when companies try to adopt other’s best practices without customizing it to its own culture.

Hope you found the above insights useful and relevant. What other insights have you had from the movie. Would love to hear your thoughts, leave them in the comment section.

Stay Safe and Sound.

Lessons from the movie 'Charlie & the Chocolate factory'

Iam sure many will like this post at-least for the name ‘Chocolate’, if not for the lessons from this movie. Still, this is one such movie which has a good amount of creativity, fun as well learning integrated in it. A friend  of mine liked the movie because of the subtle messages which sensitized the audiences on finer values of life. We will see some of the learning, but before that for those who haven’t seen the movie, here is a brief description of the plot. (Of course, the suspense has been kept secretive as much as possible) 

The movie is about Charlie Bucket a kind, loving boy who lives in poverty with his mother, father, and four bedridden grandparents. Directly across the street from their house is a world-famous chocolate factory, the owner of which, Willy Wonka, has long since closed access to the factory due to problems concerning industrial espionage that ultimately led him to fire all his employees. One day, Wonka announces a contest in which five Golden Tickets have been placed in five random Wonka Bars worldwide, and the winners will be given a full tour of the factory, as well as a lifetime supply of chocolate. One ticket-holder will be given a special prize at the end of the tour.

The first four tickets are found by Augustus Gloop, a greedy, gluttonous eater from Germany; VerucaSalt, a spoiled girl from Buckinghamshire; Violet Beauregarde, a boastful, competitive gum chewer from Atlanta; and Mike Teavee, an arrogant, aggressive video-game addict from Denver. The rest of the movie details the tour of the chocolate factory (which wows the audience with every new scene) and how each of the bad children disobeys Wonka's orders after being tempted by something related to their individual character flaws. I hope that you have some idea of the movie plot. Let’s move forward with the lessons from it.

Spoiling children with too much pampering:

The movie shows in a typical way how today’s children are spoiled by too much pampering. The girl Veruca initially asks for the Golden ticket so her father buys hundreds of thousands of Wonka bars to find the Wonka ticket. After 3 days of effort, when the Golden ticket is found, he gives it to his daughter who immediately after having her desire fulfilled, asks for a new pony.

Pampering a child will lead to bigger & greater disappointements as the child's expectations grows with each fulfilled wish. The child not only begins to demand things to happen (because they want it) & expect all things to be delivered to it in a silver platter, which surely prepares it for failure later in life. The idea here is that many parents think that if they pamper their child with money, toys and other thing which they desire, the child will be happy and that they will like them. Unfortunately, that is far away from the truth. What a child truly requires is the love, care of his parent. Hence, the parents should try to instill values in their child rather than spoiling their childby fulfilling all the child's wishes.

Value Character over Champion:

The girl Violet is a very competitive person and her mom states that proudly in the interview that Violet has won more than 200 trophies till date. She says to Violet “Eyes on the prize, Violet; Eyes on the prize” to win the big prize at the end of the tour. The movie shows that her competitive & boastful character, results in her failure during the tour.

This is very prevalent in the current generation too. Parents want children to be a winner in life. There is nothing wrong with that. But the sad thing is that children have become a medium to be show cased as victory trophies. The parent proudly display their child talent in literary, sports, and arts to other people. Not to mention that the child becomes adamant, egoistic as he grows up which contributes to his downfall.  A simple look at our mythology as well as on the life of great leaders reveal that during childhood, it’s the focus on character which matters greatly rather than upbringing a child to be a winner. Winners evolve with the right values but right values don’t evolve by winning in life. (Just to clarify, Iam not advocating not to win in life, but to have a good set of values rather than just  a desire to win. If you have a good set of values, there is no way you won't win :))

Taking Chances in Life:

When Charlie gets the Golden ticket and shows it to his parents, he feels that they can sell the Golden ticket in exchange for money so that the extra money will help them in some way.(His father loses his job adding to their existing poverty).  That’s when his grandpa says “There is plenty of money out there. They print more everyday but this ticket; there’s only 5 of them. And all that is ever going to be. Only a dummy is going to leave something like this."

Extrapolating this to our lives, imagine the ticket to be our lifetime in this Earth. We get only one chance at living, still we spend all our waking hours running after money at the cost of neglecting our dreams, family etc, thinking it will provide us some security. The idea which I want to emphasize is that money is present in abundance out in the world. But your dreams, your ambitions are unique and few. Hence, don’t exchange your dreams for money. Chase your dreams/ambitions which will give you lasting happiness & peace (and unimaginable monetary surplus), rather than chasing money.

Holding on to the past or a thing:

In one of the rooms where chocolate is made, the kids are told that they can eat anything they like. The girl Violet plucks a candy and to eat it, she takes the gum which she is chewing from her mouth and saves it for chewing at a later time.  Charlie asks her “Why hold on to it. Why not start a new piece.” For which she replies that if she did that, she would be a loser like him”.

I believe that most of us too hold on to something, similar to the girl Violet holding on to the chewing gum. it can be our past or a thing; The past could be an incident, experience; the thing can be your home, car or any material possession and as long as we hold onto it, we not only hold back ourselves from growing, we shut ourselves from experiencing new things in life. So, just give a thought to it. Are you holding yourselves to something which isn’t benefitting you?

The quality of your thoughts determine the quality of your life:

This is one of my favorite lessons. In the end, when Wonka proposes an offer to Charlie and he rejects it, Wonka is disappointed & hence begins to feel terrible. When wondering, why his candy isn’t tasting as good as before, he realizes that “I make the candy I feel like, but now I feel terrible so the candy I make is also terrible”.

That is so true in our life. Everything which you do in your life will be of the quality similar to the quality of your thoughts. This is similar to the law of attraction. That’s why the wise people have always said that to achieve Enlightenment ; look inside yourself. All the problems of the World can be solved by looking inside ourselves & searching for the truth. Once you attain peace within yourself, automatically you will transcend greatness. Genius is what you do and how consistently you do that, and it can be achieved by realizing your inner selves. Your thoughts create your destiny, hence always be mindful of the quality of your thoughts.

Those were the 5 learning which i had derived from the movie. I hope you found it to be useful. If you havent watched the movie, i strongly recommend you to see it once. As always, have a enjoyable time absorbing the values in your own life for a better living.

Learn, Integrate, Empower.

Happy Living!

Lesson’s from the Movie ‘Spirited Away’

If the Americans (Pixar, DreamWorks, and Disney etc) are good at making animation movies, the Japanese are the experts. Directors like Hayao Miyazaki have set high standards in terms of the animation as well as imaginative story telling. Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine (Ayan Adak) and it turned out that he also was a great fan of Anime movie, especially fantasy ones. He suggested a movie to me, Spirited Away, whose lessons I will be sharing in this article. One thing I have observed in Japanese Anime as well as Manga (comics originally published in Japan) series is that apart from a creative storyline, it represents various aspects of human behavior/ relations in a subtle manner. ‘Spirited Away’ is one such movie in which apart from the animation technicalities, the story touches you in a sweet way.

The following trivia should be good enough to increase your curiosity level. Spirited Away is the highest grossing film of all time in Japan. It is also among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14 (Source: Wiki)

Spirited Away is a story of ‘Chihiro’, a sullen ten-year-old girl who is moving with her parents to a new town when they become lost and find what appears to be an abandoned amusement park. Chihiro's father decides to explore it while a reluctant Chihiro and her mother accompany him. They soon discover a stall with food, and Chihiro's parents sample the food in-spite of Chihiro’s protest to get back. Chihiro soon realizes that she is in a magical world when she sees her parents literally turn into pigs. Chihiro finds a boy, Haku who smuggles her into a large bathhouse and tells her to find a job so she can stay there until he can help her recover her parents and escape. He instructs Chihiro to see Kamaji at the boiler room to ask for work. Kamaji, a six-armed, grumpy, but kind-hearted fellow, says he has no work for Chihiro and entrusts her to Lin to take her up to Yubaba, a cranky, elderly witch who runs the bathhouse, agrees to let Chihiro work for her, but takes all of Chihiro's name except the first character of her first name which Yubaba calls "Sen." Sen later learns that Yubaba controls her servants by taking their names. The rest of the story chronicles her adventures in a world of spirits and monsters and how she brings them back to human form & rescues them.

Here are the lessons from the movie… Fasten your blog belts and enjoy! ;)

1. Hope & Believe In The Best:

When Haku gets hurt and Chihiro goes to Zeniba (twin sister of Yubaba) to save Haku, Zeniba asks Chihiro to recall how she is connected to Haku in order to find a way to save him. After trying hard, Chihiro exclaims that she isn’t able to recall anything from her past. She starts crying because she is unable to save Haku, her parents are still in the pig form and she may not reach in time to save them. At that time, Zeniba says “Wait, just a little bit longer”. After sometime, Haku turns up there safely and both of them return to save her parents. The same can be compared in our lives too. Sometimes we feel that we are overburdened by many things and nothing is turning out as expected. At those moments, it is wise to just hold on for a little bit longer. Though we assume that things are not happening as we want it, they will turn out to be good eventually. So the best we can do is to hope for the best and believe that the best will happen. Having this attitude really helps.

2. Perseverance Pays Off

There is a part in the movie where Haku tells Chihiro to find a job with Kamaji, the boiler man; otherwise she will be turned into a pig. Kamaji tells Chihiro to go to Yubaba and get a job. She goes to meet Yubaba and asks her for a job. Yubaba initially refuses any job and insults her and tells her to go away. But Chihiro persists and asks for a job repeatedly. Finally, Yubaba relents and gives her the job. Albeit, a well known fact, it is worth repeating that persevering in-spite of odds makes impossible things, possible. Many of us relent at the signs of smallest obstacles. But success comes to those who not only face the obstacles but also persists until the end. As the saying goes, the difference between the ordinary and the extra-ordinary is the little “Extra”!

3. Small Acts Of Kindness Count

There is an instant in the movie when Chihiro sees ‘No Face’ outside getting drenched in the rain and leaves the door open for it to come inside the bathhouse. ‘No Face’ instantly gets a liking to Chihiro for her act of kindness. The same holds true in real life where small acts of kindness does wonders may it be our workplace or anywhere. People respect you for what you are and how you made them feel. Hence, no matter how high you go in your life, having concern for a complete stranger may benefit you in ways you wouldn’t have imagined

4. Free Money Doesn’t Stay Long:

In the movie, a character named ‘No Face’, a masked spirit enters the bathhouse and starts giving gold nuggets to the staff there. All the staff gets greedy and starts hailing and suck up to him to get the gold. Though ‘No Face’ offers gold to Chihiro, she doesn’t accept it because she doesn’t see any reason for accepting the gold. In the end, while examining the gold, the staff realizes that it was just dirt which was appearing like Gold. Hence, anything which one gets without having worked for it in the right way is bound to disappear or go away faster than it had appeared. I recall a dialogue by the Superstar Rajnikanth in a movie ‘Padaiyappa’ where he says that “Without doing hard work, one doesn’t get anything, things obtained without doing hard work, never stays in the whole lifetime”

The movie is filled with many more important insights. I have explained the major lessons which I felt would be motivating to many. I leave it to you to see the movie for yourself and enjoy it the way you would want. Finally a note of thanks to my friend, Ayan for referring this wonderful movie. Thanks mate.

Float like a Cadillac, Sting like a Beemer – Lessons from the Movie ‘Cars’

I got to see this movie quite late when compared to other animation movies. I used to think that it was another random racing car movie. But once I watched it, there was a whole new gamut of insights which the movie had. Pixar had lived up to their reputation for producing a wonderful entertainer with a human touch. As always, my learning series will just provide the important lessons in the movie and provide the broader aspects.

Before we start racing, some background detail of the movie, so to put things in perspective.

Cars takes place in a world populated by anthropomorphic motor vehicles. The film begins with the last race of the Piston Cup championship, which ends in a three-way tie between retiring veteran Strip Weathers aka The King, perennial runner-up Chick Hicks, and rookie Lightning McQueen. The tiebreaker race is scheduled for one week later. McQueen and Chick Hicks are in a race to take the King’s place in the Dinoco team, which is a highly lucrative, sought after team. So both of them want to win the Piston Cup, and the King wants to win his last race too. McQueen touted as the next star racer is ashamed of being sponsored by Rusteze as he thinks it hurts his super brand image. Lightning McQueen wants to reach Los Angeles soon so to meet the founder of the lucrative Dinoco team. He forces his big rig, Mack to travel all night along, though Mack wants to sleep. Mack starts nodding off while driving and due to mischief by a road gang, the sleeping McQueen rolls out of the back of the trailer unnoticed & he gets lost, and ends up in the run-down town of Radiator Springs. A mishap with the local sheriff causes McQueen to inadvertently tear up the town's main road. He is arrested, and is sentenced to repave the road as community service. The movie showcases his stay in Radiator Springs & ends with the final tie-breaker race which has an interesting climax. (Watch the movie to see it for yourself) Now onto the lessons.

1. Everyone has something to offer:

McQueen considers himself to be a class apart from other cars. When he lands up at Radiator Springs, he looks down condescendingly on the other cars. But gradually as he spends time with them he realizes that each of them has something to teach him, things he doesn’t know himself. He learns a new trick from Mater, the cable guy about reverse driving style. Luigi, the assistant to Guido, (the Tire shop owner) has always dreamt to be a part of the pit stop & change tires for a racing car. In the final race, Luigi changes the tires in a record time pit stop even though he is mocked initially by the other racing teams. McQueen who initially is a very self-obsessed individual gradually learns to think about others and to care for others and most importantly to respect others for their skills, however small it might be.

2. Realize the worth of your close ones:

Most often in life, we don’t realize the worth of what we have. We spend our life going after things which we perceive to be worthy. The movie stresses on the importance of having true, loyal friends. In the beginning of the movie, McQueen is a loner with no friends. He has his Sport agent who has no time for him but is only concerned about his performance. He even neglects his big rig and his pit crews as he doesn’t recognize their value. But his short stint at Radiator Springs makes him understand the importance of true friends. Everyone at Radiator Springs showcase interest in his well being and want him to win the Piston cup. He initially hates rusted cars but gradually he starts to appreciate people for what they are, rather than what they have. This is showcased in the end, when he is approached by Dinoco to be his team lead car when he politely rejects his offer and decides to remain with Rusteze, his old sponsors who had given him the first break.

3. It’s not always just money, honey!

Another aspect the movie dwells upon is the fact that money is not everything. While his stay in Radiator Springs, he keeps on cribbing about reaching Los Angeles in time for the race. He wants to win the Piston cup race at any rate, so that he could get the sponsorship of Dinoco. One day, he learns that the Doc is actually the Fabulous Hudson Hornet, a three-time Piston Cup champion who was forced out of competition after a serious accident ended his career over 50 years ago. McQueen is amazed at the Doc winning 3 piston cup, but the Doc tells him that in the end, it is nothing than a cup. The doc points out people at Radiator Springs are good folks who care about one another. McQueen realizes how artificial his profession had been, which had neglected the Hudson Hornet after an accident and had written him off. McQueen’s realization is showcased in the final tie-breaker race which makes him win the hearts of everyone.

4. Everything happens for a reason:

I felt this is one of the most important learning in the movie. Sometimes in our life, we crib about things not happening according to our plan and curse our fate for it. The movie helps one adopt an optimistic attitude towards life and believe in the best. McQueen is initially disgruntled about getting lost in the Radiator Springs. But over the course of his stay, he learns many important things, finds his true self and also ends up becoming a person loved by one and all. Hence, no matter where you are now in life, it always pays to think that it is happening for a purpose. You never know what you might end up finding which can change your life forever!

To sum it up, Iam sharing a soundtrack from the movie called “Find Yourself’ which tells about finding our self in the course of racing arena called ‘Life’.

"When you find yourself in some far off place
And it causes you to rethink some things
You start to sense that slowly you're becoming someone else
And then you find yourself

When you make new friends in a brand new town
And you start to think about settling down
The things that would've been lost on you
Are now clear as a bell and you find yourself
Yeah, that's when you find yourself

When you go through life
So sure of where you're heading
And you wind up lost
And it's the best thing that could've happened
Cause sometimes when you lose your way
It's really just as well
Because you find yourself
Yeah, that's when you find yourself

---- Instrumental Interlude ----

When you meet the one that you've been waiting for
And she's everything that you want and more
You look at her and you finally start to live for someone else
And then you find yourself
Yeah, that's when you find yourself

We go through life
So sure of where we're heading
And then we wind up lost
And it's the best thing that could've happened
Cause sometimes when you lose your way
It's really just as well
Because you find yourself
Yeah, that's when you find yourself"

Source of Soundtrack Lyric: http://www.poplyrics.net/waiguo/country/bradpaisley/057.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cars

Hope you liked the lessons. As always I suggest you to watch the movie, not only to have a fun time but also to reinforce the lessons. If any of you has watched the movie, it would be great if you can share any good aspect/insight which you had from the movie.

May the power be with you! ;)