Learning Tips From
Two Fictional Heroes

Super-heroes fulfill many needs that we may lack or don’t come easily through our prosaic existence, with their moral and physical strengths and altruistic dedication to better other people’s lives. Above all, we’re captivated when they beat the hell out of bad guys, save the girl in peril and blow stuff up.
Their personal narratives can also teach us a thing or two about the world of business and the leadership qualities necessary to succeed in it, according to writers Nattyb and Alex Knapp, who see valuable lessons from the lives of, respectively, billionaire Bruce Wayne, crime-fighting Batman’s secret identity, and the intergalactic U.S.S. Enterprise Starship’s Captain James T. Kirk.
It turns out, behind the adventures of these two beloved fictional heroes, there’s a whole sense of ethics and purpose that guides them through very hairy situations without a scratch on their moral rectitude. We can’t emulate their extraordinary accomplishments, but we may indeed learn how they do what they do to remain perennial lighthouses to our own paths. It also helps that neither has superpowers.
A lot of this imagined workbook of tips and practical advice for the business novice could’ve also been gathered from the bag of tricks of any successful entrepreneur in the real world, from Steve Jobs, to Warren Buffett, to Bill Gates, to Richard Branson, to that guy your own kid thinks you are. Plus, of course, exquisite costumes and a box full of wonderful toys.
The idea though, without over-psychoanalyzing the power of heroes, fairy tales and all that, is to show that anyone can don a cape, or TV makeup, and make believe they’re destined to save mankind from its wrong ways. At the end of the day, though, what few do manage to accomplish is to imprint the world with their humanity, with their generosity and, if possible, with an invention or two to boot.
CAPE-CRUSADER STRATEGY
The complicated CEO of Wayne Enterprises has chosen a path few wealthy individuals you know of would. He could easily spend all his time in parties and yachts, jet setting around the world, with supermodels at hand and million-dollar real estate deals in his pocket, as many an international playboy bachelor actually does. Instead, in the words of Lucius Fox, he spends the night ‘beating criminals to a pulp.’ Why?

It’s just business, as another fictional character would put it. What gets his adrenaline pumping is the risk involved in spending obscene amounts of money in gadgets and electronic devices no one else has, to secretly wage war against criminal networks with equal amounts of cash to spare, and everything to gain from his demise.
Plus, as Nattyb notes, as he succeeds in his undercover life, his assets benefit and multiply his wealth pretty much 24/7. He certainly dresses up for the part, all custom-made business suits and Italian ties and diamond-encrusted cuff links and the shoes, oh the shoes. So, under that logic, why worry or save your cash for another global financial meltdown?
For someone so secretive like him, Wayne is surprisingly well connected. In fact, even if he hardly shows up at the firm he owns, as far as we know, he chooses well and trusts his associates. His network of support is always at the ready to provide the up-to-the-minute strategy to either back who he thinks should run for office, or switch to a safer, more obscure supplier for his gadgets.
UNDERCOVER DRIVE
There are also two other qualities that makes Batman a suitable role model for those who’d like to follow a career in the corporate world, according to the writer: motivation and expertise choosing the right tool for the job. You never read a story when Wayne got a cold or had decided to spend the day in bed because, hey, he definitely doesn’t need to get up in the morning, right?
But he does. And that’s why. He doesn’t allow himself a moment to second-guess his chosen profession. For him, there are no rainy days, or hangover days or days that simply won’t help you out of the house. So, it’s possible that the human in him may have considered quitting at one time or another. As Batman, though, there’s no such a thing.
Also, with his legendary, and upgradable, utility belt, one that would, and it does, make any veteran of the NYPD extremely jealous, it’d be easy to think that even you would succeed with such a box of tools. But in the kind of dangerous situations that are his common currency, split-second decisions may mean the difference between life and death, most likely of those he aims to save.
Which means that, more than the number of gadgets he may own, and have personally designed according to the demands of his hazardous profession, you can bet your collection of vintage marvel comix, that the one he picks is what will save the day for him. And so should be your mindset too, when choosing which version of your biography will get you that promotion.
Many a business hopeful got tossed right out of the conference room window for not knowing which weapon is the most appropriate to go and get them tigers. For that, even donning a mask and a Teflon-insulated armor in the shape of your favorite animal, may only get you at the footstep of the door. To get in, only the right tool will do it. That, and perhaps a valuable collection of vintage comix magazines.

TREKKING THROUGH
There are much to be learned from the five-year tenure of Capt. Kirk as commander of the Enterprise (even though it lasted only three years as a TV series), according to Knapp. But unlike him, a lot of it may have been overlooked by those who followed the series merely for its imagined distant worlds and, of course, the stuff getting blown up all the time.
“A passion for learning,” for instance, a quality that distinguished Kirk from fellow officers at the academy, and granted him the helm of an expensively high-tech ship at a young age of 31. The point is driven home in one of the episodes, when the good captain manages to defeat a photon torpedo-wielding Gorn enemy using a rudimentary, 20th century-technology, shotgun he built himself.
Another useful piece of leadership skills, gathered from the series, is that he surrounded himself with a cabinet of advisers with divergent worldviews. It’s a quality often cited whenever Abraham Lincoln is brought into the conversation: the “team of rivals,” as a recent book on the U.S. president’s administration put it.
Vulcan Mr. Spock and human Dr. McCoy, as loyal commanders under Kirk, also represent two completely different points of view: one rational, driven by logic, and the other, more empathetical and built upon scientific curiosity. Without them, the captain’s bravery and maverick attitude would’ve led the crew, and by extension, the fate of mankind in space, to a certain ruinous fate.
Instead, they thrived for three entire years in TV land. That was surely helped by the spirit of adventure that anchors the storyline, something that could be traced back to the early days of space exploration, and even before that, to any challenging exploration of the unknown. The first requirement for such a risky endeavor is, of course, the desire to drop everything and simply go.
In a recent interview, William Shatner, the always entertaining and still very much active actor who’s portrayed Capt. Kirk on the series, did invoke early mountaineer George Mallory to compare his own drive to keep on going.
Mallory, who took part in three expeditions to Mount Everest until disappearing in 1924, his body only to be found a few years ago, half-buried on the side of the mountain, was also famous for what he replied to the question of why he insisted in climbing such impossible heights, with no apparent material gain from it: ‘Because it’s there,’ was his answer.

KNOWING THE GAME
The two last pieces of wisdom that seemed to have impressed Knapp are also quite entertaining on their own, if one thinks about. Most people consider chess the game by excellence for world leaders and strategists (and fierce competitors) in what it offers, by the way of teaching how to think in anticipation to your opponent’s moves, how important is to zero in on the Queen, not the King.
It may have been so with Medieval rulers and Middle East conquerors, as at the time, chess was really one of the only, if not the only game in town. But, as a tactician learning tool, it has been largely replaced by another parlor game, one with a much less noble origin but greater popularity, at least where high-rollers and professional gamblers dwell: poker.
So it goes that Kirk already knew about that, and was convinced that it was poker, not chess, the game that would help them deliver the annihilation of his enemies the series would present week after week. In other words, bluffs and bets may trump the elegant but rigid lines of chess, as in life one often succeeds better by playing a coy move (a McCoy?), not a scorched-earth, Gengis Khan-type strike.
And finally, after all that is said and done, we can all agree with one thing, before we go home: we watched intently Star Trek because it did blow stuff up. In this analogy, the writer characterizes Kirk’s attachment to the Enterprise as being the perfect replacement to an equally satisfying but quaint family life. The old captain did love that ship.
And yet, he did commit the ultimate sacrifice, when that was the only choice he had: he blew it up. It happened on the third movie, not on a TV episode, but in the end, it helped him to defeat the Klingon and save his crew. As far as tough choices go, that was a pretty rough one to make, but, as anyone who had to shed their sports car for a family van knows, sometimes you do what needs to be done.

THE RIGHT FOOTPRINT
And move on. Both Bob Kane, who created Batman for DC Comics, and Gene Roddenberry, who developed the basic concept of Star Trek, did move on and kept writing and inventing new characters and adventures till they died (both in the 1990s). And so did Shakespeare-trained Shatner, now star of a traveling one-man show about his life.
And so should we all. We may never know how we’re going to be remembered and, let’s face it, we better be prepared to be forgotten. In any case, it doesn’t matter now and it won’t matter then. Regardless whether we will or we won’t, though, while we’re still around, you need to know what kind of mark we’re making and not so much what kind of business we want to join, but how.
Other heroes, fictional characters, imagined worlds, and invented adventures will keep populating our lives and that of those close to us. What tends to remain the same, however, is the fact that we need to be the character that wins by being driven, knowledgeable and selfless, in our own story on this planet, and in the story of everyone we’ve known.
No one needs to be a super this or super that. Or impersonate an animal. Or pretend that their lives are made for a long-running TV series. Who needs another fictional hero? But to make this experience one worth living, we do need to dare and to excel and to create a world where people can be helped and our secret identities are actually made of good deeds and selfless acts.
Otherwise, we’re just a cartoon character, made of drawing splotches or digital pixels, all mask and no face. We certainly can do better than that.