My wife and I both saw The Guardian tonight, starring Costner and Kutcher. I’m not much for inspirational stories, especially sports or gingoistic patriotic themes, but this was neither. It was moving, had some depth, had great acting from the two men, and had lots of metaphorical situations that translate well into "lessons learned." So go see the movie, it was great, and here’s what I learned (or reaffirmed).
- The secret of being powerful is focus
- You must balance focus and excellence with enjoying life, especially family life
- To be good, you’ve got to train hard
- Competition against others is not really the best motivation when you are in the business of saving lives – you just try to be the best you can in order to save lives.
- Some people can not be saved. You need to save whom you can and leave the rest to God.
- There are always some hard questions about suffering that can’t be answered. Live with them rather than quitting, and be thankful for what you still have left.
- Sometimes, in order to keep from being pulled down, you have to stiff-arm people who are panicking
- Those who save lives train to go past the point of exhaustion, and the real strength to develop is not merely outer, but inner resolve.
- Just being strong in the most obvious areas (physical or mental) will not make you successful – it’s about strength of character and will. It’s about being rightly motivated.
- When you are in the salvation business, you may very well experience trauma. Don’t let this paralyze you – move through it.
- Know your limits – pushing past them is something you can train to do, but you still need to respect them and know when to back off.
- The work and warfare of the work is for the young men, and older men need to know when to bow out of the warfare to train others.