Life Lessons From <i>The Revenant</i>: Resilience and Grit Are All it Takes

We might be knocked down for a while, but we will get up again. Everyone's career has highlights and lowlights -- if it were all vanilla, we could be accused of not trying hard enough. Fulfilling our potential is all about putting ourselves out there and being ready to not quite make the grade.
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We all need a bit of recognition every now and again, but very few of us have gone to such lengths to get it as Leonardo DiCaprio.

The guy has drowned on the most famous boat in history, played a mentally disturbed Aviation pioneer and of course reveled in the debauchery of Wall Street. But he had never been given the most coveted of prizes -- the "Best Actor" statuette at the Oscars. Until recently.

In the most grueling of conditions, through bitter snow and freezing icy water, he literally dragged himself to the winner's stage. Winning three Oscars, The Revenant was the worthy stand-out film, and its central premise of "he who returns from the dead" is pretty fitting for an actor, who has been denied so many times before. Fully deserved in my view, standing ovation from me Leo, well done.

We've all been there. There was the "close but not quite" promotion, the horrific redundancy process that nearly brought you to tears, and the failing at the last hurdle to get a vital budget approved. We give it our all, but sometimes our best is not good enough.

Slipping away from Kate Winslet's hands into a freezing and unforgiving Atlantic Ocean is a feeling that many of us have experienced. So near, but yet so far.

But most of us keep coming. We might stop for a while, take stock of the situation and find the energy to carry on, but generally we are mostly a determined and resolute bunch. Evolution made us that way. Our ancestors will have taken a good few maulings from bears and various other beasts in our pre-history, and they dragged themselves back onto their feet and kept living.

Thus, as the economy threatens to take a cyclical downturn (again), where do we think that we will all be in 10 years? Will it have sapped our will to live? Will our endless thirst for self-improvement have been tempered? Will Richard Branson be taking us on trips to Mars?

We might be knocked down for a while, but we will get up again. Everyone's career has highlights and lowlights -- if it were all vanilla, we could be accused of not trying hard enough. Fulfilling our potential is all about putting ourselves out there and being ready to not quite make the grade. If we don't hit the heights, never mind, but we will have developed nonetheless.

DiCaprio is a formidable actor, but there has to be a part of him that wanted this Oscar pretty badly. He kept enthralling his audiences, and while an Oscar is rarely the sole motivation for an actor, it is certainly a benchmark by which they can measure themselves. He came back and came back, time and again, and he has finally done what he has been dreaming about.

Next time you don't quite achieve what you aimed for, remember him on that stage, and remember him immobile under that bear. Sometimes life can feel like you have been mauled, but it is nearly always possible to drag yourself back into the reckoning.

About the Author
Anurag Harsh wears many hats. He is an entrepreneur, a public company executive, a digital guru, a blogger, a McGraw-Hill published author, an angel investor, and a classical musician who has performed two sold out solo concerts at Carnegie Hall (www.carnegieconcert.com). Follow him on https://twitter.com/anuragharsh

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