“The Pursuit of Happyness” 2006

Christopher Gardner Jr: Hey dad, I’m going pro!

Christopher Gardner Jr: I’m going pro!

Chris Gardner: Ooh! Ok I don’t know. you know you’ll probably be as good as I was. That’s kind of the way it works. I was below average. So you’ll probably ultimately rank somewhere around there so… You’ll excel at a lot of things just not this. So I don’t want you out here shooting this ball around all day and night. All right?

Christopher Gardner Jr: All right

Chris Gardner: All right go ahead…

Chris Gardner: Hey. Don’t ever let somebody tell you you can’t do something. Not even me. All right?

Christopher Gardner Jr: All right.

Chris Gardner: You got a dream… You gotta protect it. People can’t do somethin’ themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want somethin’, go get it. Period.

In this powerful scene between a father and his son we really get a glimpse of the impact of words on a individual. In everyday life it is a lot more subtle and unlike Chris Gardner most people are never aware of the impact of their words. Chris is able to reduce the impact of his discouraging comments by offering some positive advice to his son. In all likelihood, the damage has already been done. The reality is that negative experiences have a greater impact than positive ones. Christopher’s disposition makes it quite obvious that his father’s words hit really hard. The only way to undo the negative impact would be through continuous positive reinforcement.

In my experience it is not uncommon to predict someone’s ability to complete a task based on our own abilities.

I am very guilty of this myself. Chris projects his own shortcomings as a basketball player onto his son. He uses himself as a measuring stick for his son. The result is he a he saps away all of Christopher’s enthusiasm. At this point he has very little interest in continuing shooting the basketball.

Don’t ever let somebody tell you you can’t do something.

One of most important characteristics that successful people have is that they do not accept “no” for an answer. It is their belief that anything is possible for them. Will smith teaches his son a very valuable life lesson. Sometimes those closest to us are the ones who discourage us the most. We value what they input and often take their words to heart.

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“Any Given Sunday” 1999

I don’t know what to say, really. Three minutes till the biggest battle of our professional lives all comes down to today. Now either we heal as a team or we’re gonna crumble, inch by inch, play by play, ’til we’re finished.

We’re in hell right now, gentlemen, believe me. And, we can stay here — get the shit kicked out of us — or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb outta hell one inch at a time.

Now, I can’t do it for you. I’m too old. I look around. I see these young faces, and I think — I mean — I made every wrong choice a middle-aged man can make. I, uh, I pissed away all my money, believe it or not. I chased off anyone who’s ever loved me. And lately, I can’t even stand the face I see in the mirror.

You know, when you get old in life things get taken from you. I mean that’s…part of life. But, you only learn that when you start losing stuff. You find out life’s this game of inches. So is football. Because in either game, life or football, the margin for error is so small — I mean one-half a step too late, or too early, and you don’t quite make it. One-half second too slow, too fast, you don’t quite catch it.

The inches we need are everywhere around us.

They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second.

On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch, because we know when we add up all those inches that’s gonna make the fuckin’ difference between winning and losing! Between livin’ and dyin’!

I’ll tell you this: In any fight, it’s the guy who’s willing to die who’s gonna win that inch. And I know if I’m gonna have any life anymore, it’s because I’m still willin’ to fight and die for that inch. Because that’s what livin’ is! The six inches in front of your face!!

Now I can’t make you do it. You got to look at the guy next to you. Look into his eyes! Now I think you’re gonna see a guy who will go that inch with you. You’re gonna see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team because he knows, when it comes down to it, you’re gonna do the same for him!

That’s a team, gentleman!

And, either we heal, now, as a team, or we will die as individuals.

That’s football guys.

That’s all it is.

Now, what are you gonna do?

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Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won if he’d stuck it out.
Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow –
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out –
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are –
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit –
It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.

– by Author Unknown

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I’m gonna say something that I want you to remember for the rest of your lives, okay, I want you to listen closely. I’m giving you the key to life right now. This is the key to lifeThe key to life, the key to life, is running and reading. Alright? Now listen, I’m very serious. The key to life is running and reading.

Alright, now, why running? When you’re running, when you’re out there and your running, there’s a little person who talks to you. And that little person says, “Ohh , I’m tired, my lungs are about to pop up. I’m so hurt. Ohhh, I’m so tired, there’s no way I can possibly continue.” And you want to quit. Right? That person–if you learn how to defeat that person when you’re running–you will learn how to not quit when things get hard in your life. Running–alright–that’s the first key to life.

Reading! The reason that reading is so important: There have been millions and billions and billions and gazillions of people that have lived before all of us. There is no new problem that you could have–with your parents, with school, with a bully, with anything–there is no problem you could have that someone else hasn’t already solved, and wrote about it in a book.

So, the keys to life are running and reading.

In my humble opinion, Will Smith’s speech at the 2005 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards is one of the most underrated speeches ever. The speech is perfect in that it applies to a dual audience of children and adults. My only fear is that the powerful message in his words will not resonate with children as much as it should. At this point, in most of their lives they have not faced enough challenges to truly understand and apply Will Smith’s message.

Firstly, Will Smith really gets at the importance of perseverance in life; that ability to keep going at times when we feel like we have already given all that we are physically capable of giving. This is especially true with athletes because of the physical toll their professions take on their bodies. However, it is not limited to them. The key to perseverance is the mental toughness; that is something that can be applied to any aspect of life. Most successful people achieve because they persevere with their dreams even when no one else believes.

The second piece of advice resonates with me to a much greater extent because it has a deeper meaning. On the surface, he speaks to the mere ability to read as a valuable skill to attain information. But more importantly, he speaks to the importance of shared experience. Success is not attained only through the efforts of the individual but through the experiences of the people who influence that individual. It is very rare to hear of a successful individual who achieved great things alone. Chances are if you have a problem, there is someone before you who had to deal with it. If you want to be the best at something, you can use the examples of the people before you (both the successes and the short-comings).

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