I spoke to an Executive Director last week. She was feeling depressed because she had lost her company’s major account. Her client had accounted for 38% of her company’s revenues and had been with them for the past 14 years, but due to some mis-steps her team made, the client went to a competitor.
“The whole industry knows about the loss. I don’t know how I can ever recover from this. I think my career is forever doomed.”
This got me thinking… is the world we live in a kind place for second chances?
I just had to dig in to find out… and being a Marvel Fan, where better to do my research than in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
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Case Study 1: Chris Evans as The Human Torch
We can hardly imagine Captain America being played by anyone other than Chris Evans. He seems perfect for the role, but did you know he had turned Marvel Boss Kevin Feige down multiple times? Why? Because he felt he had failed miserably as an actor in his 2005 bomb, The Fantastic Four where he played a rather unlikeable and lacklustre Johnny Storm, the Human Torch.
His performance was widely panned in that movie (which received a paltry 28% score on Rotten Tomatoes Website with critics calling it “The Fantastic Bore”).
He had to act in less-than-stellar roles and movies for 6 years before he was given a chance to play his breakout role in Captain America (2011). After that blockbuster, he was untouchable.
“I decided to make Captain America because I realized I wasn’t doing the film because it terrified me.” He once said. “It’s tempting to want to live in the past, (but) the past is the past, but if you’re overanalyzing or trying to repeat it, you’re gonna get stuck.”
Don’t let a past failure dictate your future or prevent you from moving forward. Give yourself a chance to move on to even bigger things and you will often surprise yourself!
Case 2: Ryan Reynolds and His 3 Bombs
Everyone loves Ryan Reynolds. He’s funny, self deprecating and loves joking around.
But did you know that before his most famous (and lucrative) role in Marvel’s Deadpool, he suffered not one but THREE major bombs in his career, also in Marvel movies?
In 2004, he played a shotgun-wielding vampire hunter Hannibal King in the third instalment of the Blade Movie series, Blade Trinity (25% score), as Deadpool (ver 1.0) in X-Men Origins:Wolverine (2009) which earned a paltry 38% score, and then in his biggest flop, Green Lantern (2011) rated at a disappointing 26% on Rotten Tomatoes.
He managed to lobby the Hollywood chiefs and scored Marvel’s very first R-rated Superhero Movie, Deadpool (2016) which was a runaway success which made nearly US$800m at the box office.
“Any kind of crisis can be good. It wakes you up.” He once said. “I don’t expect success. I prepare for it.”
So, sometimes, the best way to overcome a crisis is to stay around long enough, keep trying, and never giving up, until you achieve what you set out in the first place!
Case 3: Robert Downey Jr, the ex-Junkie
Many of us know him as the leading megastar of the Avengers series, getting paid over $56m per movie, while some of us older folks may remember him for his early career success in classic movies like Weird Science (1985).
But how many of us remember him as the alcoholic crack and heroin abuser who was thrown into jail and was so ‘unemployable’ that no Hollywood studio wanted to hire him as the insurance bond on him was unaffordable for any production house?
He relapsed countless times and spent 7 years in and out of rehab centres.
But he didn’t give up, and he had friends who believed in him.
Mel Gibson even paid for the Insurance Bond with his own money, many others also stepped in to help.
His life turned around in 2008 with the release of Iron Man which was a reflection of his own career story…he even got nominated for an Oscar for Tropic Thunder (2008) that year.
And look at him today! Riding high and yet still humble!
He once famously said, “The lesson is that you can still make mistakes and be forgiven.”
Wise word indeed, from the Iron Man himself.
So, you may have screwed up and made a colossal mistake. So what? It’s not the end.
Life is full of success stories of people who got it right on their second or even third try.
There are such things as Second Chances, and if you’re feeling down or if you’re facing a difficult career situation, hang in there… Things will get better.
There’s a bit of Iron Man in all of us… Just take a deep breath and snap your fingers and say, “I AM IRON MAN!”