Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema I Planet of the Apes
What happens to your sense of self when everything you’ve known is suddenly turned upside down? In this episode, we dive into Planet of the Apes, the classic sci-fi film that used a stranded astronaut’s nightmare scenario to hold a mirror up to the chaos and disillusionment of late 1960s America. This is the first episode of our special summer series, Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of Sci-Fi Cinema. We examine the film’s central crucibles, chief among them, how you muster the resilience to keep moving forward when your entire world has been inverted. What do Taylor’s struggles on screen reveal about your own capacity to survive disorientation, loss of identity, and a world that no longer makes sense? These are the questions we’re digging into this season.
Want to explore our three prior summer series about the lessons we can learn about overcoming crucibles from film?
Check out these playlists featuring every episode of each one:
LIGHTS, CAMERA, CRUCIBLES (2022): • Beyond the Crucible: Lights, Camera, Cruci…
CLASSIC FILMS, CLASSIC CRUCIBLE LESSONS (2024): • Classic Films, Classic Crucible Lessons: A…
BIG SCREEN, BIG CRUCIBLES (2025): • Back To A Better Future 2026
Have a question or comment? Drop us a line at info@beyondthecrucible.com
—
👉 Don’t forget to subscribe for more leadership and personal growth insights: https://www.youtube.com/@beyondthecrucible
👉 Follow Beyond the Crucible on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beyondthecrucible
👉 Follow Warwick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/warwickfairfax/
👉 Follow Beyond the Crucible on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beyondthecrucible
👉 Take the free Trials-to-Triumphs Self-Assessment to discover where you are on your journey of moving beyond your crucible and how to chart your personal course to a life of significance: https://beyondthecrucible.com/assessment/
Transcript
Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I'm Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond the Crucible.
Gary Schneeberger:
Perseverance without purpose, this movie makes clear, eventually burns out. But perseverance connected to meaning becomes remarkably resilient and that's something that we all need to lean into. No matter what our crucible is to match meaning to our perseverance. That's the secret sauce of putting one foot in front of the other and moving beyond this happened to me, to this happened for me, and here's my life of significance. No, your ears are not deceiving you. I'm just the guy that said the thing about secret sauce of turning trial into triumph. And on this episode, we discussed that. Would you believe that movies can be a key ingredient to creating that secret sauce? Listen as Warwick and I discuss our latest blog, three lessons from three years of discussing how movies help us move beyond crucibles and you will understand what we're talking about. In advance of our 2026 movie series that begins July 7th, Warwick and I discuss the insights into turning setback into significance we learned from three films we unpacked in previous series, The Pursuit of Happyness, Singing in the Rain, and Captain America, The First Avenger.
From these three movies, as you'll hear, we can learn how to stop being critical of ourselves, how to choose to celebrate through life storms and how we can believe we can do this all day. Welcome friends to this episode of Beyond the Crucible, and this is unlike most. This will be unlike most of the episodes of Beyond the Crucible you have watched or listened to. But I'll tell you this first before I tell you how it's going to be different. This is another of the episodes in which Warwick and I discuss his most recent blog, or let's say the most recent blog at beyondthecrucible.com. And this one has been, as I intimated a few sentences ago, this one has been recast. There's a new lead speaker in this one, you might say. It's called Three Lessons From Three Years: How Movies Help Us Move Beyond Crucibles. And our usual starring writer is taking a supporting role in this podcast episode. So let me step aside and turn it over to our supporting player, our supporting host, our co-host who's going to ask me questions because I wrote the blog.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well, Gary, thank you. I really enjoyed reading this blog. It is a terrific blog. Fantastic points. So let's start off. So Gary, what led you to write this blog?
Gary Schneeberger:
Seems so weird. Just to hear you say that to me seems weird, but I have a non-weird answer, I think. We're preparing right now to launch our fourth summer series about movies. We did it last year. We did it the year prior to that. We had something else the year prior to that and then in 2022, I believe was the first year that we did it. We have looked at films as a jumping off point to discover and talk about how to move beyond your crucible, but then also how to live a life of significance.
And since our new summer series on movies is about to launch on the 7th of July and it will go all the way through the end of August, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back over those three other years in which we did movie episodes and to see what were some key learnings from some key films. So I sort of randomly selected three films for us to go through to have this discussion. And before I say any more about that, I'd be absolutely remiss if I didn't say starting July 7th, the new summer movie series is called Back to a Better Future: The Crucibles of sci-fi Cinema, which may have been influenced just a little bit by our usual host but today co-host, Warwick Fairfax.
Warwick Fairfax:
Well said. As we'll learn this summer, I'm a big science fiction fan, so a big fan of Star Trek, Star Wars, all sorts of sci-fi movies as well as some of the great writers of science fiction, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clark who wrote the screenplay for 2001, A Space Odyssey. So we will be having a lot of fun learning, a lot of lessons about how to bounce back from your crucibles this summer, but in the future, in the world of sci-fi.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yes, good stuff. We've recorded most of it, so just got a couple more to do, but there's some really good stuff there. And again, the reason that I selected the movies that I've selected here is I wanted to sort of make the point that you can get from films in a variety of genres what we aim to do in our summer series on films. And that is here are some tips for how you weather your crucible, how you move beyond your crucible, and how you ultimately get yourself on a path to a life of significance. And the three that I picked demonstrate that wide birth of just how varied films can be that give us those insights.
And the films I picked were one that's based on an absolutely true story, that's The Pursuit of Happyness, one that's based on a true era in American history, but it's not a true story. And that's Singing in the Rain, which goes over, which sort of walks us through when movies change from silence to talkies and all the crucibles that caused. And then there's the far out pure fantasy of superhero films, one of my favorite genres and the movie that I picked in that case to discuss in the blog that we'll discuss in this episode was the first Captain America, Captain America, The first Avenger.
Warwick Fairfax:
So help us understand why, whether it's fantasy based on history or a true story, why even in all those three genres, can we learn a lot from how to bounce back from your worst day, your crucibles?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. I've longed to say this forever, that's a good question, Warwick. And besides just the kind of films, where they fall in the profile of the movie itself, there's also Singing in the Rain is a musical comedy. The Pursuit of Happyness is a pretty strong drama and Captain America, as I said, is pure fantasy. So it really does crisscross all the ways you can crisscross, both in the type of film in terms of the genre, but also in the type of film in terms of whether it's funny or it's musical or it's dramatic or it's fantastical. And I think the reason that that all works out is because crucibles, as we talk about on this show all the time, are universal experiences.
So if they're universal experiences for a guy like me and a guy like Warwick, who if you've been around us any period of time on this podcast, more than 300 episodes now, we're not exactly alike in a lot of ways, that's fair to say. And yet the crucibles that we've been through and the lessons we've learned from them and the lessons we've applied and how we've built the lives of significance, which are different in both of our cases, there are some similarities there.
One of the things I say all the time to guests on the show as I'm talking to them before we actually have the episode recording is one of the things I've discovered in co-hosting 300 episodes plus of the show is that even though the circumstances of a crucible are markedly different from person to person to person, the emotions that they unleash in a person, I discover week after week after week with guests and with movies to be frank the emotions that they elicit are strangely and wonderfully and revealingly similar, even though the circumstances couldn't be more different. And I think we see that in the movies that we do too that, and what we'll talk about here is you may not have experienced the crucible that, well, I can almost guarantee you haven't experienced the crucible that Captain America, Steve Rogers experiences, but you can learn some things from that. That's the beautiful universality of the difficult subject that we talk about every week on the show and that's crucible experiences.
Warwick Fairfax:
I think one of the other things about movies is that they sort of highlight in Technicolor, so to speak, to use an old movie phrase in a way that sort of highlights the severity of the crucible, the challenge, the times seeming hopelessness. In each of these movies, there's a very real challenge that certainly in the case of Captain America, that nobody I don't believe in our audience will have gone through this or will ever go through that, I think that's a fairly safe assumption. And even in the others, it may not be something that you've gone through or will go through. Certainly you won't go through going from silent movies to talking movies, technology has gone.
But yet why movies are so good is they present a protagonist with a huge challenge. Will they be defined by their worst day or not? A couple of years or so ago, we actually looked at movies where the protagonist was defined by their worst day.
Gary Schneeberger:
Correct.
Warwick Fairfax:
They in fact got worse, whether it's The Godfather or Citizen Came. So there it's really a cautionary tale of what not to do. So really the arc of their story starts at one point and just gets worse over the course of the movie. Rather than learn the lessons, they're just defined by their challenges and in various ways they get better, angry. There's not a whole lot redemptive arc there, but that's why movies are so good is it really, it makes the learning easier because the contrasts are so sharp. Does that make sense?
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh yeah, for sure. And it's also interesting, we talk about it all the time when we do a film series is that it's totally changed the way that we watch movies, right? I mean, you and I, when we're watching movies for this, for the summer series coming up and for the three that preceded this one, you're not just watching it to have like a bucket of popcorn and a soda and just sort of veg out on the couch. You're taking notes and you're observing things from everyday life that you can apply to the folks who are listening and watching. It truly does. It's totally changed the way I watch movies for sure.
Warwick Fairfax:
So let's get into kind of these three movies and the-
Gary Schneeberger:
I'm sorry, Warwick. I'll say upfront. I'm sorry that in the blog I wrote, I didn't have seven points. I only had three. I apologize, folks, if you don't get that Warwick often, but he's been breaking it a lot lately. Usually many times he's written seven points, but lately he's been really going nuts and doing eight or nine points. I just have three this time.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. It's point inflation, I'm afraid. So it goes up by three or 4% each year with CPI. So let's get started. So as we always do with these blog discussion episodes, you've extracted some insights and action steps listeners and viewers can take from the three films you selected. So let's go through these three films. So let's talk about in The Pursuit of Happyness and the first lesson you write in your blog is protect the dream. What do you mean by protect the dream and what can we learn from the movie Pursuit of Happyness?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. In that movie, Chris Gardner, who's the lead character, he faces what looks like, feels like we experience like, he certainly experienced like it's an endless avalanche of setbacks. He loses money. His wife leaves him. He becomes homeless. He sleeps in shelters and subway bathrooms with his young son beside him. Life seems determined to break him, but he keeps moving forward. We talk about it all the time, right? Warwick, you've said it and you said it more lately, you talk about we have a choice to make at the juncture of every crucible, do we hop into bed and pull the covers over our head or we keep moving forward?
And Chris Gardner keeps moving forward. And one of the most powerful moments in this film that we talked about in the episode that we did on this in our summer series a couple of years ago is he tells his young son, "Don't ever let somebody tell you that you can't do something, not even me, your dad. You got a dream you've got to protect it." That really leapt out. I remember the conversation because we played a clip that showed that and his son was all dejected, he missed a shot when he was playing basketball out just at a park and it really hit him hard. And this idea of you got a dream, you got to protect it is so critical to what we talk about on Beyond the Crucible all the time.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely. And just for a bit of background, what was Chris Gardener's dream? What was he trying to achieve that seemed like a dream that was the impossible dream? What was that dream?
Gary Schneeberger:
He wanted to be a stockbroker. He found out about this program that one person would be selected out of dozens of applicants. One person would get a job as a stockbroker. And not only not having been trained in that endeavor, that field, so there's that aspect of a crucible going on where he's up against people who've got MBAs and who've got a lot of education and a lot of experience. He has none of that. He's selling, right? If you remember at the start of the film, he's selling these kind of odd and not really useful medical devices or trying to, that he's bought in advance and he can't unload them. So he's got that going on. He's got this dream to be a stockbroker while all these other things continue to befall him and his son. So that dream would have been easy. If you watch The Pursuit of Happyness folks, that dream, his dream would have been... I mean, you could probably wallpaper a room in your house with the number of times he had the opportunity to let his dream die, but he refused to let that happen.
Warwick Fairfax:
So there could have been friends, neighbors, maybe inner voice saying to him, "People like me don't get jobs there. The system's probably rigged. I won't be able to get in." I don't know that that's spoken explicitly in the movie, but it had to be in the back of his mind. So there was all sorts of negative voices that could have been telling him, "Give up. You don't have a prayer. It's one in a million."
Gary Schneeberger:
And there were times when his voice was one of the negative voices. One of the scenes in the movie that we unpack is that he paints on his wall when he's trying to paint his apartment. He paints, "Dear Chris, you suck on the walls." And again, what that shows, I think, Warwick, is that even when our inner voice, even when what we project sometimes indicates we're starting to wobble, indicates we're close to falling down. In this film and what we can learn from this film and apply from this film is just don't give up. You can have moments of doubt, you can even express that doubt, but just keep moving forward, just keep trying. Even when Chris Gardner does that in the film, writes, "Dear Chris, you suck," he keeps pursuing the possibility that his life can be something more, that how he's living is not all there is. We've said it all the time, right? Is this all there is? Chris Gardner in this film recognizes that there's a point beyond, is this all there is for him? And he keeps pursuing it and that's the perseverance that ultimately transforms his life.
Warwick Fairfax:
Really talk about what's the purpose that keeps moving him forward when many would have just cried uncle and said, "Yeah, I'm tapping out. I'm giving up." What's the thing that kept pulling him forward?
Gary Schneeberger:
The movie makes very clear that Chris Gardner's ultimate goal, why he's trying to become a stockbroker, why he wants to do that is he wants to give his son a better life. He's not doing it for himself. He's not doing it so his alumni newsletter from his high school will indicate how great he is. He's doing it because he wants to give some security to his son who's with him and loves him unconditionally despite all of the setbacks that he has to endure with his father. So that's why Chris Gardner kept going. Perseverance without purpose, this movie makes clear, eventually burns out, but perseverance connected to meaning becomes remarkably resilient. And that's something that we all need to lean into no matter what our crucible is, is to match meaning to our perseverance because that's the secret sauce of putting one foot in front of the other and moving beyond this happened to me, to this happened for me, and here's my life of significance.
Warwick Fairfax:
I want listeners and viewers to really listen to what Gary just said because these are really profound words. What Gary wrote was, as you've just said, "Perseverance without purpose eventually burns out, but perseverance connected to meaning becomes remarkably resilient." One of the things we talk about at Beyond the Crucible is how important a life of significance is, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. Without a life of significance, without purpose, why bother getting out of the pit of despair? Why bother moving forward? Why not just give up? But when you say to yourself, "This isn't about me.
It's about my kids, my wife, my husband, my friends, my family. It's about some higher purpose of serving the people in my neighborhood or maybe starting a nonprofit or thinking differently about the company that I'm working in or the business I founded." It's when there's some higher purpose, some higher calling in which this isn't about me, it's like, "Well, I can't afford to fail because people are counting on me." That's the key point that you're making, Gary, is I don't care how much perseverance or even resilience you have, if it's not anchored to some higher purpose, something that will help others, you'll fail. Does that make sense?
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, for sure. Without those conditions that you just described, you will let one step forward be insufficient compared to two steps back. In other words, perseverance attached to meaning allows you to go, okay, two steps back is I'm still making one step forward. It allows you to keep taking the step forward despite how many steps back happen. It may take you longer to get where you're going, but the goal isn't to get there fast. The goal is to get there because of the meaning attached to what the goal is.
Warwick Fairfax:
And that's one of the keys to getting beyond your crucible getting out of the pit is you've got to forgive yourself and show yourself some grace. If you don't, then you just give up. You'll say, "I'm not worth it. People shouldn't count on me because I'm let them down." So yeah, talk a bit about just the importance of, and we talk about this quite a bit is when you're getting beyond your crucible, you've got to be willing to show yourself grace. Yes, learn the lessons of your crucible, learn lessons of your mistakes, but ultimately you got to let it go. You got to let it go.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. It's interesting the film, he writes, "Dear Chris, you suck on the wall" that he's painting. Well, what ends up, it's on primer on the wall, so he just paints over it and it goes away. And I think there's something instructive in that for us in that he doesn't put it on a sign that flashes by his alarm clock every day. He doesn't wake up every morning to make that part of his daily recitations of how he's going to get through the day. "Dear Chris, you suck." It's a fleeting moment. It's a passing thing. He expresses it. He feels a little sorry for himself.
He feels ashamed of himself. He's not happy with himself, but he doesn't live there. He doesn't stay there. And to your point that you make often, Warwick, he makes that decision that he's going to keep moving forward. He's going to keep taking the steps that are going to get him to where he wants to go, which is not, as we've said, not about him. It's not about dollar signs. It's about his son and providing a better life. It truly is not a life of success as the world looks at it. Chris Gardner's after a life of significance. And the beautiful part about the movie is he finds it in the end.
Warwick Fairfax:
So let's talk about the second movie, Singing in the Rain and lesson two is entitled Choose Joy in the Storm. And that is an incredible title for the second point. Choose Joy in the Storm because that's not normal. That sounds, say what? How do I do that? Why would I do that? So talk about this movie and what's the key point you're trying to make here.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. I mean, first of all, let me say when you look at... Here's three movies about how to move beyond crucibles and live a life of significance. And one of them is The Pursuit of Happyness and one of them's Captain America who becomes an Avenger and saves the world. And you're thinking, okay, those make sense, I can see there's probably good crucible moments in there that you can learn from. And then you see Singing in the Rain and you're like, what? I mean, there could be people who would look at that and think it's the outlier here. One of these things doesn't belong here, as they used to say on Sesame Street, I believe. But even though there are no world saving missions, the central message of this movie and how it plays out may be the most relevant to our discussion here of all.
Warwick, you've observed on this podcast many, many times. And frankly, in the discussion of this film in our movie series a couple years back where we talked about this, the movie embodies, and these are your exact words that I pulled from the transcript, "Having a positive attitude on almost seeing our trials and crucibles as gifts rather than something to weigh us down." That's what you're going to get if you take, again, if you watch Singing in the Rain not just... And trust me, it's easy to watch it and just want to dance around and then enjoy all of the joy that's in there. But if you watch it with Beyond the Crucible goggles on, you will see that our trials and crucibles are gifts rather than something to weigh us down, as Warwick said. And that idea matters because crucibles don't just test our endurance, they test our perspective. I'll say that again. They don't just test our endurance. Can we take it one more day? Can we go on one more step?
They test our perspective. As we're taking that step forward, what are we trying to glean? What are we trying to gather? What are we trying to do? That idea matters most, I think, because Don Lockwood, the film's hero is an example of this. He experiences, as you indicated, career upheaval. Don's a silent film actor and all of a sudden talk he's come and there are no more silent films and he's got to talk on film, which is okay for him, but not quite okay for the starlet with whom he stars in most of his movie, who has a rather unappealing screen voice, we'll say. The world around Don Lockwood changes dramatically, yet instead of becoming bitter or cynical, he adapts creatively and optimistically. That is a critical point for the way all of us can process crucibles, which is why we talked about it a couple of years ago and why we're talking about it today, because that perspective is going to help propel you forward in the midst of a crucible to help you get to the end of your crucible.
Warwick Fairfax:
And then the other beat in the story is there's another woman, Kathy Selden, played by Debbie Reynolds, who I think this was about her first movie, this came out in the 50s and she has an incredible voice, but she has to lip sync the singing for Lina Lamont who just cannot sing. And so the way it would work is she wouldn't get any credit. So you have all these crucibles of trying to salvage the, was it the Talking Cavalier or something? I forget exactly what the name of it-
Gary Schneeberger:
The Dueling Cavalier it was-
Warwick Fairfax:
There you go. Exactly. The Dueling-
Gary Schneeberger:
Cavalier, I believe.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So for the Dueling Cavalier to Dancing Cavalier and it had to turn a silent movie into a talking movie, deal with this controlling obnoxious Lina Lamont with the high pitched voice and deal with the fact that somebody that Don Lockwood was growing to like a lot in Kathy Selden, she wouldn't get any credit even though she was singing. So you have all these crucibles and talk about there's really a pivotal scene singing in the rain, which is really it's an incredible scene. When we first watch it's like, oh, this is just so fun, but yet there's a profound meaning that I think most of us missed in that singing in the rain scene. Talk about that scene and why it's so profound.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. I mean, again, watching the movie, watching the scene that you're talking about with our Beyond the Crucible goggles on gives you a whole different appreciation for it. Because here's what we see in the film, Don Lockwood has just with Cosmo Brown and Kathy Selden come up with an idea to really be able to make the dueling cavalier into the dancing cavalier. And Don's all happy and it's like late night. It's the next morning really in Los Angeles. And he goes to go home and sleep and it's pouring rain outside. And he decides, you know what, even with these difficult circumstances, even with this down pour, he's going to sing in the rain. He's so happy about what's just happened in his and his friends being able to identify a way to turn this crucible situation into this life of significance into a new kind of movie that will bring joy to people.
One of the reasons this scene has endured for generations, and you probably know exactly what I'm talking about folks when I'm talking about this scene, is it represents something that is deeply aspirational. The ability to maintain hope even when circumstances are difficult. Don Lockwood's life hasn't gotten perfect. He's got an idea to how to make it better, but it's not perfect. And yet he is so ebulient. He is so happy that he dances around, stomping in the rain. There's a street cop that looks at him like he's a little nuts. Don sort of slithers away. And it's important to note that what he's doing here is not denying the pain. And if we learn to process our crucibles that way, to sing in the rain of our own crucibles, it doesn't mean that we're denying the pain.
It's not that we don't think the hardship still exists, it means refusing to let hardship have the final word. And if we didn't already have a tagline for Beyond the Crucible, that could be a tagline for Beyond the Crucible work, refusing to let hardship have the final word. Too many people spend their lives waiting for ideal conditions before they allow themselves hope, joy, or movement forward. But resilient people understand something crucial that you don't have to wait for the storm to pass before choosing your attitude. You can be joyous in the rain. As Don Lockwood sings, I'm happy again, even though he's getting drenched in his nice clothes. He's a Hollywood star after all. He's able to do that. And that's a lesson we can all apply to our own lives and would be wise to.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah, it's so well said. I mean, it's worth looking at that scene, look it up. Here he is. They don't know whether this movie is going to be made, going to be able to be turned from a silent movie to a talking movie. We don't know if Kathy Selden's going to get any credit. We don't know in her singing, we don't know if they can somehow counteract or deal with the sort of egomaniac controlling tendencies of Lina Lamont. All of that is in jeopardy. All of that is uncertain. They don't know which way the movie head is going to go. They have an idea.
Gary Schneeberger:
RF Simpson.That's his name, R.F. Simpson.
Warwick Fairfax:
Exactly. Well said. Well done. So they have an idea of what they want to do, but at this point in the movie, they have no idea if it's going to work. It's all of these things that could go wrong as we've mentioned. And so here he is Don Lockwood played by Gene Kelly and he's literally dancing in the rain. He's sort of swinging around lampposts and it's like even though the storm is raging yet he's just talking about singing the rain and how happy he is. So just think about it. That's not an easy thing to do. But I'd say when you look at the guests we've had on the podcast, have been through just incredibly horrendous crucibles. They may not be able to change what happened, but they can change their attitude. I think of Johnny Eric Santarta, who we spoke about a little bit ago was one of the stories in the book.
And she was somebody that as a teenager in Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, she dove off a platform in the water and it was very shallow and she became a quadriplegic. Well, this was like in, I don't know, '67 or something like that. This is more than 50 years ago has she been living as a quadriplegic and she's a person of great faith. She's had a radio show, Johnny and Friends. She's helped disabled people all over the world. And her attitude is one of joy, despite the fact that it takes hours for people to help her get ready in the morning and hours to help her get ready for bed. And she's reframed everything to say something that's almost impossible to understand talking about her wheelchair as a passport to joy. It doesn't mean that she likes what's happened or she wants what's happened for anybody else, but she now has a ministry and a purpose that wouldn't have existed.
So she is a joyous person despite the fact that every day you could say the storms are raging. There is no hope in terms of physical recovery beyond what it's been. That won't change, but yet you can control your attitude. So if somebody like Johnny Eric Santarta can control her attitude, I mean, my gosh, it makes us think, are our storms that severe? Really what we're saying is you can't change what happened, but you can choose how you respond to it. You're going to get angry and bitter. So this is awful, but I'm going to choose hope. I'm going to choose even joy and find a way to move on. So I was going to say, does that make sense? In a way, it doesn't make sense, but yet it's true.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, it does. It's one of those things, right? I jotted a note here on my page that what Don Lockwood does and what the film invites us all to do is to allow hope to make us dance again because that's what Don Lockwood does in this film. And he has nothing to hang onto as he leaves Cosmo Brown's apartment at night. He has nothing to hold onto except the hope of what the conversation was of how they can fix this movie. He doesn't know if as you said, all those many things have to line up for it to happen, but simply that hope of being able to move beyond the crucible. He can see the light at the end of the tunnel. There's still a tunnel. He's still in the tunnel. The tunnel's still dark inside, but he's allowing hope to make him dance again, which is why he dances in the rain so wildly and so wonderfully if you recall the scene, as Warwick said, go check it out.
So it is indeed, as I said at the outset of discussing this film, you can look at Singing In The Rain and just think it's a fun Hollywood musical from the really golden age of Hollywood musicals, but it's more than that from a perspective of how it can move you, how it can educate you, how it can give you the tips and the action steps to not let your worst day define you. Don Lockwood could have let his worst day, oh no, they just made these talkies and my number one co-star who's as famous as I am, everybody wants to see Lockwood and Lamont can't do talkies because their voice is really sort of hard on the ears.
He was a stuntman before he was an actor. He could have gone back to being a stuff stuntman. Who knows what he could have done, but he didn't do that. He found hope and even before that hope was fulfilled, right? That's the lesson here, folks. You don't have to wait for hope to be fulfilled, to achieve hope. Hope like, okay, I'm across the finish line. Hope has now become something good. Hope can still be in the context of a crucible, but when you have that hope, it can give you all the thrust that you need to dance again. And as Kelly sings, as Don Lockwood sings in the song in that famous clip, "Come on with the rain. I'm happy again. Keep it coming." It doesn't mean his crucible's over. Keep the rain coming, but I'm happy again. And that changes everything. How you face the crucible changes the way that you endure the crucible.
Warwick Fairfax:
So well said. Keep it coming, keep it coming rain. I'm happy again. That is words to live by. So let's talk about this third movie, Captain America, the First Avenger. And I love the title of this third point, lesson three Character Matters More Than Strength. Why did you pick Captain America the First Avenger and what's the key learning that we need to understand from this movie?
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. I mean, I feel about superhero films the way you feel about sci-fi films. So Captain America is one of my favorite films because in the Marvel cinematic universe, it does the origin story better than just about any other Marvel film does. And the origin story of Steve Rogers, who becomes Captain America is... I mean, if there was a textbook for crucibles and what they feel like and how you go through them, this is it. When we meet Steve Rogers, he's physically weak. He's repeatedly rejected by the military and underestimated by nearly everyone around him. He wants to join the fight against the Nazis, but his physical condition repeatedly holds him back. And I did something when we did this movie, Warwick. I have a boxed edition of the first of the Avengers movies and what they call the first iteration of the Marvel cinematic, phase one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And inside that DVD pack were these profiles from the government of all the superheroes who were in the Avengers. And here's what Steve Rogers said about him. And I talked about it. This is not in the film, but it's in this background stuff I got in my DVD package. So here's how unfit for duty in the military's mind he is. Steve Rogers is only 5'7" and 110 pounds. He has asthma, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, sinusitis, high blood pressure, palpitations, or pounding in his heart. He also suffers from easy fatiguability, heart trouble, nervous trouble, and has had household contact with a tuberculosis patient.
I mean, you feel bad for Steve that he's been rejected by the military to go fight the Nazis in World War II, this movie set in the World War II era, but you can kind of understand it when you read this dossier on him, but yet, it really worked. It just occurs to me as I say it, but yet. Those are some powerful words for any crucible situation we face, right? But yet. So before I talk about the but yet in Captain America, why is that such a powerful word for us as we're going through Crucible? Sorry, I'm playing co-host now.
Warwick Fairfax:
No, no. All good. Yeah. I mean, you could easily look at this guy and say, "Well, if ever there's somebody that does not deserve to wear the uniform, it's this guy." Because physically, I mean, how could he even lift a heavy pack and rifle and be there at D-Day and help his buddies? He would let the team down because he's just too weak, too small, too sickly. I mean, you might feel bad for him, but it's like he can't risk other people's lives with this guy. I mean, objectively you would say, "Look, I'm sorry. I feel bad for you, but you let down the team. You just don't physically have what it takes." But it's easy to say, "Well, we don't have what it takes. We should give up like Don Lockwood didn't or Chris Gardner, but they easily might have." It's easy to say, "Why keep trying? Just give up."
Gary Schneeberger:
It's wearying, it's wearying to keep trying.
Warwick Fairfax:
But even when it all seems hopeless, there can still be hope. Even when there seems to be no way there can be a way. Even when things seem absolutely impossible, things can be possible. That's really the essence of Beyond the Crucible is, but yet it's like, okay, things feel hopeless, well, maybe they feel that way, but maybe there's a way. Maybe we need to think outside the box. Maybe we need to approach it differently. Maybe we just need to take one more step and see what happens. But yeah, those are powerful words.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And the way in Captain America, The First Avenger is the medical official who's kind of overseeing who gets in the army, who doesn't at the place where Steve's at, even though he tries several recruiting stations to get in, there's a doctor named Erskine who sees him and sees something that's not in his medical records that offers an opportunity for Steve, that others have missed this. He recognizes that Steve Rogers' true strength isn't physical, it's moral. As Erskine explains when Steve is given a chance to take part in a top secret program to create a super soldier, this is what he says. "This is why you were chosen," he says to Steve, "Because the strong man who has known power all his life may lose respect for that power, but a weak man knows the value of strength and knows compassion." I'm getting chills saying those words. That's what Dr. Erskine sees in him and that's what we could, should, must see in ourselves if we're in similar circumstances.
Warwick Fairfax:
Yeah. I mean, that's really profound, Gary. Dr. Erskine, he sees something that is not shown in the medical records. He recognizes as you say so well that Steve's true strength isn't physical, it's moral. It's really the strength of his character and Dr. Erskine captures it well. Somebody who's very strong, they don't know what it is to be weak, to feel powerless, to have compassion. But somebody who is physically weak understands compassion, understands the plight of the underdog. It's one of the things we say at Beyond the Crucible is those who've been through crucibles often have compassion for others because they know what it's like to be downtrodden, to be mistreated, to be not appreciated, to be overlooked for people to say, "Oh, you'll fail. You don't have what it takes." There's a level of compassion that somebody like Steve Rogers has. I think of, gosh, whether it's Abraham Lincoln, I think history would say his greatness was the greatness of his character, or we could look at George Washington.
We had a guest on recently Diederik Hoogstraten and he is the co-writer of a movie that's coming out July 3rd called Young Washington, looking at a young George Washington probably like 17, 50s, 60s or before just years before he became head of the continental army for the American forces and then president. And what we see in that movie and what history records is Washington's greatness was because of his character. History will tell us that Washington lost more battles than he won. He was not a strategic or tactical military genius. He was up against British generals that objectively were better strategists than he was. And he would've admitted that. They had more experience, maybe more talent, but that wasn't really his greatness. His greatness wasn't because he was the superior military strategist, which he wasn't. It was his wisdom, his character. He knew that winning the American Revolution was basically making sure his army survived.
If they could survive, then they had hope. So he had overall a lot of wisdom, but when we look at some of history's greatest leaders such as Lincoln or Washington, it was the greatness of their character. And that's really shown by Steve Rogers and Captain America. His greatness was his character and that is something that we all have the opportunity to be great at. Character is something that we can choose each day. Are we going to make the honest choice? The choice that is about others, the compassionate choice, or are we going to make the ego-driven self-centered, it's all about me choice. We can choose our character. A lot of things we can't choose in life, but character is made up of choices and that's so true here. So talk about what happens with Chris Rogers because life changes and his abilities change, but his character doesn't.
Gary Schneeberger:
Right. And before I do that, it's interesting that you brought up Young Washington and George Washington's his sort of journey to leadership because it's exactly kind of the same for Steve Rogers here. Steve is selected over more qualified candidates because the doctor sees in him kindness and humility and a never say die attitude. And Washington, even though all those things you said are true, ends up rising to the point of leading the continental army because of his character, because of that soul work stuff that we talk about all the time. Interesting part about that as Steve, because it plays out for Steve Rogers and it plays out for Captain America. He's often bullied as Steve Rogers and he tells his attackers as they're beating him up, "I could do this all day." And that's exactly the kind of perseverance he will need after receiving a super soldier serum that turns him into Captain America.
Suddenly he's not 120 pounds anymore. He's a lot bigger than that and a lot stronger than that. And perhaps even more than his chemically enhanced body though, Steve's spirit to keep meeting challenges head on, both in costume and out of costume is what makes him a hero. As we encounter our own crucibles adopting the mindset, I could do this all day, which he says throughout other Captain America movies, throughout all the Avengers movies as super villains are beating him up, not beating him up, but hitting him, he's like, "I could do this all day." That's who Steve Rogers is. And we would be wise to take that on as a mantra as we go through our lives, because crucibles, even after we've been through them and we've come out on the other side, guess what, right? Have you ever experienced any crucibles since your big one that you talk about? I have.
Warwick Fairfax:
Absolutely.
Gary Schneeberger:
They happen and having this, I could do this all day mentality. I'm going to be fine. I can get through this. It may not be easy, but I can apply myself to it. I can get through it. And that comes from character, not from strength. Steve Rogers doesn't say that. Captain America doesn't say that because he thinks he's more powerful necessarily than all the super villains he faces or all the other 1940s bad guys, mala factors that he faces. He does it because he knows his internal fortitude, I think is what Steve is at play when Steve Rogers/Captain America says, "I could do this all day."
Warwick Fairfax:
It's so well said. And you can see that in some of these other movies like Chris Gardner going to talk to that guy, a manager at the brokerage firm in San Francisco, he keeps trying to button hole him to get a shot and I'm sure he would say, "I could do this all day. I'm going to keep at it. I'm not giving up." Or you think of Don Lockwood in Singing in the Rain. "Hey, if it rains tomorrow, I could do this all day. I'm going to keep singing in the rain. We'll get there. I don't know how we'll get there." A lot of things have got to fall into place, but in each of these three movies, the main characters had a bit of a lot of a sense of, I could do this all day. Does that kind of make sense?
Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, for sure. I mean, again, if the podcast didn't already have a tagline, that could be the tagline. Beyond the Crucible, Colin, I could do this all day because that's what you need. That's what perseverance is. That's what persistence is. That's what drives you forward. And again, going back to The Pursuit of Happyness, fueled by this higher purpose, it's not just about you. Steve Rogers doesn't have, "I could do this all day" as his motto because he wants to beat people up. He does this all day because he wants to keep people safe. That's where that comes from. He dedicates his life to serving others and that's where he can do this all day so he can do that all day. He can serve others, help others. That's the reason why he can do this all day is because it allows him to do that all day.
Warwick Fairfax:
So well said. So Gary, what's the one truth? The one important thing that they can do that you'd like to leave for listeners and viewers?
Gary Schneeberger:
All right. Since we're talking about films, I'll give you a short film answer first and that is this. No one may ever make a movie about you and the crucibles you faced. But don't miss the lessons movies can teach us about how to turn your trials into triumphs. The inspiration they offer will be with you long, long after the closing credits roll through. That's the short film answer. Here's a bit of a longer form answer. If you want to pick up some insights you can learn and action steps you can follow to move beyond your crucible, start watching movies and TV shows and any dramatic undertaking, go to plays and watch those with these goggles on. Do it with what I've been calling Beyond the Crucible goggles.
Look for good counsel within the entertainment that you consume that's more than entertainment. That's an extra step beyond that, that shows you how you can weather a crucible first, but then move beyond it second. We've said many times during our summer film series and by that it's a plural series. The three that you've already seen and heard and the one that's coming up we've said that watching movies from the perspective of how to turn setback into significance unlocks great wisdom to help you not allow your worst day to define you. Even movies in which the character's worst days do define them are instructive. So films can either show you what to do or what not to do and both are powerful lessons.
Warwick Fairfax:
I think of the phrase character matters. Typically when you've gone through a crucible, it can be life changing. It can feel like life defining. You can't necessarily change what happened to you, certainly with physical crucibles. In my case, growing up in a 150-year-old family media business and fresh out of Harvard Business School, launching a 2.25 billion takeover, because my dad had died earlier that year in 1987. I felt like the company wasn't being run well or run along the ideas of the founder. So that ended up not working out. Three years later, the company had to file for bankruptcy. So the point of that story is I can't undo the mistakes I made or the incredibly challenging situation I was in. I mean, neither of us can undo the crucibles that we went through. It happened. It was life altering. You can't undo it. And that's typically the way you can't necessarily or even rarely undo the crucibles, but what you can do is change your attitude.
You can approach it with character. You can forgive those who've harmed you, which as we always say, doesn't mean condoning. But if you don't forgive, it's like sort of drinking poison. You're the one who's in prison. So you can forgive. You can find a way to, as J.S. Park said in a recent podcast who's a chaplain of a level one trauma center in Tampa Bay. He talks about with grief you move with. You can't necessarily forget everything, but you can find a way to move forward. You can find a way to care for others and live a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others. So really the key battle at these three movies show is it's the battle of the soul. It's the battle within. How do I not let this define me? How do I not live a life of bitterness?
So how do I stop endlessly replaying the movie in my head of the terrible thing they did to me or the terrible mistakes I made? How do I stop? That movie is not helpful to play in your head over and over again. How can I in a sense move on, move with that? And the key is really choices. It's a choice of the character, choice of the soul. And that's what these three movies show us. It's neither of these characters were defined by their worst day. They found a way to keep moving forward and there was a higher purpose that fueled what they did. And just really remarkable three movies that teach us so much.
Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. And let's put a bow on the package here by mashing all three of them up. Because what do we learn in our conversation today? We learned this. We learned that we can reject the feelings of, Dear Gary, I'll use myself. Dear Gary, you suck. We can choose to sing in the rain and we can decide. We can believe that we can do this all day. With that, Warwick, I'm going to switch back now to the co-host of the show and I'm going to go over the reflection questions that always end blogs. The first reflection question on what we've discussed here today, folks, is this. Have you had to protect a dream of the life you want beyond your crucible? How did you do it? Think about that for a while. Second point of reflection. When have you had to choose joy in the storm to sing in the rain?
What was the effect of you doing so? How did that work out for you? My guess is it worked out for you pretty well. Third point of reflection is this. How can you build up your character in the same way that you build up your strength? How can you do that inner work that Warwick talks about so often? And that folks is a wrap on this episode of Beyond the Crucible. We will not be with you next week because we're taking a week off. And then the week after that, July 7th, our new summer series, Back to a Better Future, the crucibles of sci-fi cinema begins and runs all through July and all through August. So we will see you then.
Welcome to a journey of transformation with the Beyond the Crucible Assessment. Unlike any other, this tool is designed to guide you from adversity to achievement. As you answer a few insightful questions, you won't just find a label like the helper or the individualist. Instead, you'll uncover your unique position in the journey of resilience. This assessment reveals where you stand today, the direction you should aim for, and crucially the steps to get there. It's more than an assessment. It's a roadmap to a life of significance. Ready? Visit beyondthecrucible.com. Take the free assessment and start charting your course to a life of significance today.