Avengers: Endgame makes history by earning $1 billion during its opening weekend. As one of the most-anticipated movies of all time, I went to watch the 3-hour film myself to:
#1: Learn the fate of the Avengers ?
#2: Take away crucial business lessons for you ?
I can’t unveil the lessons here without spoiling some major scenes – sorry! So, if you’re a Marvel fan and haven’t watched the movie, be warned. Regardless, you’ll find a ton of insights in this article that are guaranteed to help take your business forward.
Let’s get started.
What Can Avengers: Endgame Teach Us About Running a Business?
Here are my key takeaways:
1. Connections are essential.
Iron Man, Tony Stark, drifts in space with no hope and his oxygen running out when Captain Marvel arrived just in time to save him. She gets him safely back to earth.
If it wasn’t for Marvel and Fury’s close friendship that started back in the 1990s, there would be no one to call during the real emergency – when half of the world’s population vanished.
The bottom line? Strategic and mutually beneficial connections, whether that’s with your customers or other businesses, are something that should never be ignored. Aside from the friendship that you build, connections help you to:
- Uncover business insights – It’s through constant interaction with your audience that you’re able to truly understand their needs and pain points.
- Build social proof – Other experts in your niche will be able to recommend you to their large social following.
- Gain valuable advice – Connecting with like-minded entrepreneurs allows you to exchange knowledge and gain discoveries you might not be able to find elsewhere.
As you can tell, who you know matters.
2. Knowledge and resources take your business forward.
When Ant-Man escapes from the Quantum Realm, he tells the surviving Avengers that he’s been stuck for 5 hours. But to the Avengers, 5 years have already passed.
Tony Stark’s knowledge and resources played a crucial role in figuring out how to access the Quantum Realm in order to transport the surviving Avengers through time and get hold of the Infinity Stones to undo what Thanos has done.
He may not have been born with superpowers, but his intellect is unparalleled.
Being a knowledgable business owner doesn’t always mean graduating with a degree. The key is to have a learning mentality. Your business will benefit from it at the end of the day. Learn not just your area of expertise, but also your weaknesses, how to be an effective leader, and the strategies that your rivals use.
Perhaps the most important resource that a person should have to start a business is funding. Others include your employees, premises, and equipment.
3. Take care of yourself to take care of your business.
Thor has really let himself go in Endgame. He spends 5 years being a couch potato with a huge beer belly and he wallows in self-pity.
When he volunteered to put on the Stark-made gauntlet and said, “What do you think is coursing through my veins right now?” Rhodey replies, “Cheeze Whiz?” It’s a clear indication that Thor isn’t in the right shape and state of mind which makes him more likely to get killed by the gauntlet.
Looking after oneself is something that only a few business owners do. In this fast-paced world, entrepreneurs try to prioritize everything. While you’re constantly hustling, putting out fires and planning for the future, your personal health and wellness take a backseat.
Remember that you only have one body – so don’t forget to nurture it. If you let yourself go, you would not have the mental clarity and energy to care for your business.
Take time off. Keep your work hours in check. Get more active. Get better sleep at night. Learn to deal with stress in a healthy way.
4. Time is your most valuable commodity.
Tony Stark meets his father Howard Stark when he travels back in time to retrieve the Space Stone. In a conversation, he tells his dad, “No amount of money every bought a second of time.”
These words convey the truth about time being our most valuable asset. Once you use up your time, you can never have it back. Ironically, it’s the one that we’re most wasteful of.
Maximize the time you have as a business owner. Learn how to say NO. Plan ahead what needs to be done for the day or the week. Delegate what can be delegated. Assign blocks of time for pure focus.
5. Success demands sacrifice.
It might not have been obvious at the start, but realistically speaking, it would be “impossible” to bring back the vanished Avengers without ending up making sacrifices.
Black Widow jumped to her death to produce the Soul Stone. Tony Stark died to save the universe by wielding the Infinity gauntlet while saying, “I am Iron Man.”
Every successful entrepreneur I know has placed himself out there and took chances. Sacrifices that people make for their dreams to work include a regular paycheck, comfort, control, and a lot of free time.
6. Even the best-laid plans fail.
The original plan of the surviving Avengers was to travel back to the past to retrieve the Infinity Stones. What they didn’t anticipate was 2014 Thanos finding out about their plan and sending 2014 Nebula to travel to the future. And the rest is history.
Good for you if you consider yourself a superior planner. However, you should also be mindful of the truth that anything can go wrong in a split second.
So what must you do when things don’t go according to plan? Hold a pity party? No. You open yourself to alternative solutions that will help you achieve your end goal. Reassess your strategies and create a plan B.
Related: How being paranoid saved my business multiple times (and could save yours too)
7. Some things cannot be undone.
The Infinity gauntlet didn’t bring everyone who died in Avengers: Infinity War… and we already know this because the gauntlet would never resurrect those who were gone before Thanos snapped his fingers (aka The Decimation).
This meant that Loki, Vision, and Gamora remained dead.
If you make an error in typing on the computer, you can hit the undo button or click delete. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen in real life. Accepting failures, learning your lessons, and moving on are the best things you can do to develop resilience in business.
Final Thoughts
There you have it, my 7 business lesson takeaways from Avengers: Endgame. I got inspired by the movie and realized I had to share this with you. I hope found all the things here beneficial to your success. How about you, what are your key insights? Let me know in the comments below. ?
