Professional Development — Jedi Style

Training, Mentors, and Sith Lords

[Spoiler Alert] This article likely doesn’t go any further than one of the many trailers, but I know some folks are avoiding those, too. Good luck!

Star Wars VII is busy breaking box office records. Many folks believe it to be one of the best films in the series. I was struck more by what was missing. This episode had no training, no mentors, and no Sith Lords. Of course, it also has no Jedi.

While some may find that refreshing, it is certainly a blow to what has become a standard theme of the Star Wars saga— Professional Development. Each episode of the first two trilogies featured training, student-teacher mentoring sessions, and of course plenty of Sith Lord.

These themes made for great and memorable stories. They often do. They also provide a great metaphor for thinking about your personal development.

Training

When was the last time you trained? For most of you, this had little to do with your profession or career. Many of us are happy to train for physical fitness or a hobby like music. Few of us engage in real training to advance our careers.

The Star Wars movies take the concept of training farther than almost any other movie. If you are a fan of 70s & 80s action films, you are very familiar with the training montage. Rocky climbed steps and punched frozen beef. Daniel-san painted fences and waxed cars. Van Damme did splits… But only Jedi lost their souls to evil if they quit their training too early.

If you end your training now — if you choose the quick and easy path as Vader wildid — you will become an agent of evil. Yoda

The Force Awakens featured no training. There were vague allusions for certain and definite implications that this will be remedied in future episodes, but this core component of the series was just not there.

Worse still, the story line actually led down a path of accomplishment without training. Rey is portrayed as a self-sufficient loner who is somehow naturally gifted at learning skills without any instruction. For those who have read some of my other articles — Rey is to Luke as Kora was to Aang. I hope for the franchise’ sake that this works out better for Star Wars than it did for Avatar.

Mentors

Who are your mentors? Do you have one? A coach, a trainer, someone you go to for wisdom and advice? Most of us come upon our mentors and coaches more accidentally than actively. The clear exception is once again the gym, music, and when it comes to our children.

The Star Wars story line is filled with mentors — good, bad, and evil. They began with Obi-Wan in A New Hope and continued throughout. Yoda, The Emperor, Qui-Gon, Darth Sidious, and back to Obi-Wan again. Perhaps the circle completed?

Once again, the latest installment has an extreme lack of mentors. A few role models and one holographic “master” is all we are provided. This episode’s theme seems to be one of isolation. The heroes have only themselves to draw upon and only limited guidance from others. Only the ending gives us some glimmer of hope…

Sith Lords

Who is bringing out the best in you? Do you have an adversary, a nemesis, a rival? Few people appreciate the opportunity provided by adversarial relationships. These can be far more helpful to our growth and development than we know.

Here, The Force Awakens delivers. Not Sith Lords, seems we are passed them. But Kylo Ren and the First Order definitely deliver on the prerequisite set of adversaries, although as noted several times in the movie, one not completely trained.

I have written numerous articles on adversarial relationships, so I won’t bore my followers by repeating myself. If you haven’t read those other articles, please follow the links below. They may come in handy, if you are confronted by a Sith Lord in the future.

The Force Awakens will go down as a top box office draw. It will also be the first installment of the franchise to veer away from the theme of Professional Development. Personally, I hope the ways of the Jedi return in VIII.

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