John Wick’s excellently brutal and bloody lesson for high achievers

The John Wick franchise is epic on many levels and has some great lessons embedded within it.

I re-watched the first 3 films in the Wick series this last week (there's a 4th film on the way I'm pumped about). Anywho, watching those first installments again was awesome. If a cat has nine lives, then Mr. Wick has, like, ten thousand. He gets so beat up in each film that it leaves one thinking he must have bones made of titanium and skin thicker than Teflon, along with rock-solid organs that never burst from blunt-force trauma.

For those of you who haven't seen the films, John is a former assassin who had withdrawn from his brutal career, only to get pulled back in years later after experiencing a deeply personal tragedy.

This guy is a legendary killer.

He defies seemingly impossible odds at every turn, often making mincemeat out of groups of highly trained fighters that dare seek his demise.

John creatively utilizes whatever a situation gives him, turning seemingly benign props (like pencils, books, and the like) into makeshift weapons that he uses take out his opponents.

He also makes great use of firearms in his conquests. I especially love one of his greatest and oft-used targets for his wildly accurate trigger finger:

The head shot.

He must shoot several hundred people in the head throughout the first three movies in the series. To many, this probably comes across as repetitive and annoyingly over-the-top.

But I love it.

Why?

He knows that making the grave mistake of not finishing off one of his opponents could land him in the, well, grave.

After all, a person can have gunshot wounds to seven different parts of the body, including the heart, and still have enough left in them to grab hold of a pistol lying on the ground and kill him.

In order to eliminate this possibility, John takes great care to make sure he finishes people off with a shot to the one part of their body that will ensure they're incapable of doing him any harm: their head.

Brief bonus lesson: if you want to take someone out, you must destroy their mind. High achievers who don't stay on top of their mental game inevitably fall prey to the disastrous effects of a mind that simply can't support peak performance. The end result isn't pretty for their bold ambitions.

But I digress.

The real lesson I want to highlight is the symbolic representation of the internal battle we all face: the onslaught of our excuses.

Excuses come at us left and right, and often they come en masse; a barrage of excuses that attack our dreams and ambitions. They tell us everything that we can't do.

And they don't stop there. Nay... They bring a host of "reasons" to support their assertions. In other words, they're highly trained and come prepared.

Most people succumb to their own excuses sooner or later.

Death by a thousand cuts as it were.

But the John Wick mental ninjas have trained themselves to a level that mere mortals never attain: they have mastered giving decisive, perfectly placed head shots to every one of their excuses. They don't settle for dispensing a crippling leg wound. That would be lame, after all.

Instead, they finish every excuse off with a beautifully delivered, devastating head shot.

And when the next excuse gets hurled their way?

Head shot.

And then the next one?

Head shot.

And -

Head shot.

The best in the world take their excuses out with an unflinching vengeance that can only be described as brutal... Just like John Wick making short work of his would-be assailants.

So the next time an excuse rears its ugly head and tells you why you can't and shouldn't do something that is in your heart to do, deliver a beautifully placed head shot that would make John Wick proud.

And then be ready for the next one that comes your way. And the next one... And the one after that.

Does it ever end? Nope. But the word starts to get out. And once you've trained your mind that excuses will be dispatched with extreme prejudice, it gets very reluctant to send them your way. All of the sudden, the onslaught begins slowing down and the path to your dreams begins to open up.

Now, don't be fooled: excuses will still show up to test you along the way, but if you're trained and vigilant, they'll be taken out before they know what hit them. And you will be walking tall, and powerfully, with a presence that exudes confidence, whilst striking fear into the hearts of excuses everywhere.

The one thing that the Wick franchise gives a very mistaken impression of is that this can all be done by one very tough guy with an indomitable will. While this is a seductive sentiment, it is plainly false.

We all need spotters to help us navigate the battles we face; people who can help us identify excuses that deceptively portray themselves as friends there to "protect" us. Because the only thing worse than a known enemy is a hidden enemy.

This is where having other mental ninjas in our corner can keep us safe, grounded, and wise when assessing threats that arise on our mental landscape.

For those seeking such guidance, I humbly suggest the following as the perfect place to start: https://www.bergfordperformance.com/coaching

- Brian Bergford