What Tom Cruise Dying Over and Over Again Can Teach Us About Excellence
Whoever thought you could learn important life lessons from an alien invasion movie? Then I saw Live. Die. Repeat. The movie is a time-bending science fiction pic starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. Originally titled Edge of Tomorrow, the story focuses on Tom Cruise’s character who gains the ability to start his day over again when he dies. This ability allows him to live and learn so he can combat the invading alien army.
Unlike Groundhog Day, the entire movie presents a lesson about how to become excellent at something. Most Hollywood movies brush over the process of the hero becoming better, showing a quick montage over a top-40 song, maybe featuring some six-pack abs, and suddenly the hero is excellent. In Live. Die. Repeat., however, the entire movie is a master class on how to develop a skill.
So if you want to become better at a new skill or better your business, here are the three main lessons Live. Die. Repeat. teaches you about the process of becoming excellent.
Improve on your performance in small steps
In the movie, Tom Cruise’s character has the opportunity to start his day over again, fresh with the memory of what he did wrong the day before. So each time he is “reborn,” he tries something new and improved so he might live a little bit longer. There is no sudden epiphany in the movie. Cruise’s character doesn’t suddenly “get it,” sweep the enemy’s leg, and limp off into the sunset with Emily Blunt.
Instead, each scene propels his character one small step forward. It’s the accumulation of these tiny steps that takes him from a completely inept soldier to a deadly warrior by the end of the film. Like Cruise’s character, it’s those tiny steps that make us all better. It doesn’t matter if you’re learning to play guitar, trying to master new software, start a business, or figuring out how to defeat an invading alien army, the journey to become excellent comes by mastering your skill one tiny step at a time.
Expect to fail a thousand times before winning
Tom Cruise’s character is the hero of the movie. But he fails constantly. In almost every scene he comes up on the losing end. When the film begins, he quickly gets demoted from a major who works behind the lines to a private combat soldier. Then he dies his first time in combat. And the second time he doesn’t fight much longer before dying a brutal death. One time he doesn’t even make it to combat; he gets hit by a truck instead.
Every scene ends with Cruise’s character failing and dying. However, he doesn’t quit. The movie finishes with Cruise’s character triumphing and defeating the enemy (and living). So it doesn’t matter how many times you fail, as long as you learn something from your failure. Eventually, you’ll learn enough to succeed.
Connect to a cause greater than yourself
If you want to become excellent at something you need the proper motivation. Tom Cruise’s character initially has life and death as his prime motivator. His character must learn to do better or he will keep dying—again and again. But he also has his greater mission. He must become better to save humanity. It’s this motivation that keeps him striving to become better after each failure.
We aren’t all so lucky to have Cruise’s life or death motivation. However, we can all become connected to a cause greater than ourselves. Many people find extraordinary resources when striving to help someone other than themselves, like a spouse, child, cause, or religion. Which is why many people feel more motivated to succeed in business if the goal is to raise money to help a family member with cancer than to just earn money for themselves.
So the next time you find yourself trying to become better at work or a hobby, remember to learn in small steps, expect to fail many times, and connect your goal to a cause greater than yourself. You might not defeat an invading alien army but you just might become excellent.
Kyle Crocco is known widely as the Content Marketing Coordinator at BigSpeak Speakers Bureau and the lead singer of Duh Professors. He regularly publishes on Medium, Business 2 Community, and Born 2 Invest.
