Three lessons on taking action from the Super Mario Bros. movie
Fun fact everyone, I love watching films and grabbing learning lessons from them, and watching this year’s Super Mario Bros film, it covered a great deal about taking strides toward your goal.
“You’re a joke and you always will be” these are the exact words that Mario’s former boss told him at a time when he released a brand new advertisement with his brother Luigi on the plumbing business they’re starting together.
Soon after this though, to their absolute joy - they land their very first client! Eager to do a great job, they wizz over there, but unfortunately (no spoilers), it doesn’t quite work out as expected.
You see them both depleted from the event, then to rub salt into the wound, when they join their family at the dinner table, the discussion centered around why they left their steady job for some “crazy dream”.
Mario seems sick and tired of feeling so small and is deflated that people keep saying they can’t do stuff.
During this moment of sadness, the TV comes on that Brooklyn is in trouble and he jumps at the opportunity to save it and brings his brother with him - this is where the adventure begins.
What are the key things I gathered from the film though?
Being mission-driven/knowing your why
It’s clear from even the advert they produced that their mission was to save their city, Brooklyn. No matter how tough things got, as soon as the concept of saving Brooklyn was presented to both Mario and Luigi, it drove them to take action. It lifted Mario out of his sad mood at the beginning of the film, and at the end of the film, just when Mario is about to give up, the advert he created with Luigi appears which glitches to them saying they’re going to save Brooklyn. This causes him to get up and eventually defeat the enemy with Luigi by his side.
2. Using failures as learning opportunities
One thing about stepping out of your comfort zone and taking on a new challenge is that failing at whatever degree is inevitable. I loved the scene where Mario is doing a training course (pictured) on the condition that if he manages to finish the course, then he can go to rescue his brother with Princess Peach.
Initially overconfident, he fails straight away - but that doesn’t stop him. You see that he does this course continuously, and as time goes on, he learns how to pass parts of the course from where he previously failed from it. It was a great visual way to see how he used his failures as his greatest learning lesson.
3. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway
A recurring message that is said to Mario throughout the film is that he doesn’t know when to quit. You can see at points in the film that he’s scared when he’s taking action - he just doesn’t let that stop him. He fully embraces the concept of feeling the fear and doing it anyway especially with his “why” at the forefront of his mind which is to find his brother Luigi.
Yes, I'm always talking about this - and for good reason. It can be so much easy to wait until you feel good or ready to take action toward goals - but you'll be waiting forever.
So of course, that leads me nicely to the fact I'm doing an online webinar called Start Before You're Ready on Tuesday 25th July 6:30-7:30 BST. Come and join in on the learning lessons and sign up: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/start-before-youre-ready-tickets-675793906767