I don't lean towards Star Trek or Star Wars, I love them both but Star Trek has always explored the philosophy so much more and that's part of what makes it endearing. The Kobayashi Maru really resonates.
For those that may not know, the Kobayashi Maru is a simulation that cadets have to go through that is a "no win" scenario. No matter what you do, how you do it, or who you do it with, the captain ends up getting blown up with his crew in some horrific fashion. It shows you who you are in the face of certain defeat. Some might think, "Well, it will be easy because I'll know it's a simulation." Sure, but these people who only think about winning don't think, "It's just a loss in a simulation." They don't comprehend things that way. You have to win EVERY TIME.
After closing down a bar (purposely but against our will) a quote from Picard came to mind, "It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life."
This bar was doing everything right. Winning all the awards, amazing staff that had been there long-term and liked each other, happy customers, a beautiful space and revenue was on target. Klingons just ended up showing up en masse and blowing it all to Hell.
However, our bar was a Kobayashi Maru and just because we do it right doesn't mean it's going to turn out right. The concept of "If you have a dream you believe in, hustle until you bleed, take care of people, and surround yourself with the best that you know of" is a good one and I still believe it. Though you can make no mistakes and still lose and there are no guarantees if you follow the formula.
Am I saying we did everything perfectly? Of course not, the very concept is preposterous. Even though we had amazing partners, my wife and I had tons of experience running places, loved being behind the bar, loved everyone that walked in the door (until they gave us a reason not to love them), we really nailed it. If a fancy consultant would have come in and asked us about our pour cost, or our ongoing training, or how we helped create leaders, they would have walked away satisfied (but probably still would have billed us full price).
Learning to genuinely embrace failure might be one of the most important things I would teach someone. None of this, "It's not a failure if you learn something from it!" bullshit. When you've really lost it looks like failure, smells like failure, and sure as hell feels like failure. It hurts so much. Sometimes, like the loss of a loved one (not your best friend or anything, more like a cousin that you didn't see a lot but you REALLY liked them and knew them your whole life).
You have to mourn that loss and be bummed for it but if you want to elevate it, you're going to relish all the things you're learning about blowing up the Kobayashi Maru and the best part is that it was a simulation so you get to learn and walk away from it. You know that whole wish of, "I wish I could go back and do it again with all this knowledge?" Well, that's dumb. C'mon, do you know how time travel even works? Obviously not.
When you come out of this kind of failure that's essentially what you're doing though. You're making it so you can do it again and with all that knowledge. Yeah, you're going to be older but how is that a problem? You've gotten MUCH better looking as you've gotten older. So, now you're smarter AND good looking. Stop it already.
Failure is a pretty clear target and you know when you've taken one of the many paths towards it and hit it. Victory is a moving target so talking about that isn't super useful and maybe the concept isn't useful either. I guarantee that those that embraced the lesson of the Kobayashi Maru more quickly went on to be a lot more successful in the upper ranks.
Which brings me to an important quote from another movie, "Everybody's a loser one of these days, the trick is not acting like a loser."
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