Develop Your Inner Skeletor – Improve Your Life and Achieve Your Goals the Super Villain Way

By the Power of Greyskull … I have the Confidence?

One of the greatest joys of having children is the opportunity to relive my youth, and expose them to my favorite stuff from when I was their age. Granted I am not really that good at pretending the 130 episodes of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe I have sitting at home are actually for them, but I try. However this is not another "look at life through the eyes of a child" article. Today I am going to tell you about a very grown up lesson I have learned from my all time favorite TV show. First a little background for those of you who may be too young to remember this television masterpiece. He Man and the Masters of the Universe made it's debut in 1983 and ran for two seasons of 65 episodes each. The story takes place on the fictional planet of Eternia, a planet containing an interesting blend of futuristic science and old world magic.

The main Character is Adam, the apparently cowardly and lazy young prince who secretly uses a magic sword to turn into the super hero He Man, the most powerful man in the universe. He Man and his allies spend most of their time defending the mystical castle Greyskull against the evil forces of Skeletor. The show was basically an advertisement for the line up of toys from Mattel, however each episode ended with one of the heroes explaining the valuable lesson that could be learned from the previous 22 minutes of turmoil. Now of course it would be easy to point to examples of confidence from the hero of an early 80's cartoon, He Man always did what was right, and overcame evil at every turn. In watching this show as an adult I am still impressed by the greatness of the heroes, but with each episode I watch I gain more and more respect for He Man's evil counterpart Skeletor. It is this respect that has lead me to learn the lesson I am going to talk about today.

Develop your inner Skeletor. Now I am not suggesting anyone needs to move to a mountain shaped like a snake, and it's fine if purple is not your color. (I do not look very good in it either) The confidence lesson that can be learned does not require relocating or a wardrobe change. The simple fact is that Skeletor has a goal. He wants the secrets of Castle Greyskull and he is quite clear about that. It does not matter how many times he gets his ass handed to him by the good guys, each week he comes back with a new plan to reach his goal. How many of us can say the same thing? If there was a guy with unlimited strength and a magic sword standing between you and what you wanted to accomplish, how many times would you keep trying before youaveave up? I know that if I were in Skeletor's boots it would be pretty easy to convince myself that there was probably not much in the musty old castle that I really needed anyways. "Damn, I thought I had him with that diamond ray of disappearance … Oh well, maybe I'll take up bowling." Not Skeletor though, his dedication to his goal is amazing. Each week he managed to unforgettable a new magic crystal or ancient monster to help him succeeded in the face of the seemingly impossible task of defeating He Man, and each week he was defeated and went back to the drawing board to try again.

Admittedly not many of us have a magic castle in our neighborhood that contains the secret to world domination, but who among us could not be more successful if we applied even one tenth of Skeletor's passion, determination, and creativity to our own goals? Get clear on what you want to accomplish, make the goal an absolute MUST and do not accept any less. Know where you are starting from, take a good look at your current situation and start taking steps towards your goal. Track your results, research and model people who have achieved what you want to achieve, and never give up. If you know that only 1 out of 10 businesses succeed you just have to be prepared to try 10 times and learn from your mistakes.