'Secret Altucher' | Negotiation lesson from Eminem, Life Lessons from Bill Murray, Choose Yourself with Mick Jagger, and Hero's Journey with Stan Lee.

[00:00:00] This podcast is brought to you by eHarmony, the dating app to find someone you can be yourself with.

[00:00:05] What makes eHarmony so special? You! No really, the profiles and conversations are different on

[00:00:10] eHarmony and that's what makes it great. eHarmony's compatibility quiz brings out everyone's personality

[00:00:16] on their profile and highlights similarities on your discovery page, so it's even easier to start

[00:00:21] a conversation that actually goes somewhere. So what are you waiting for? Get who gets you

[00:00:26] on eHarmony. Sign up today. Everyone knows therapy is great for solving problems, but getting therapy

[00:00:33] has its own problems too, like finding the right therapist, fitting into their schedule, and of

[00:00:38] course the cost. Well, BetterHelp can solve those problems. It's totally online and built around your

[00:00:44] schedule. It's surprisingly affordable too. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or

[00:00:50] online chat, all from the comfort of your home. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more and save 10%

[00:00:56] on your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P. This isn't your average business podcast and he's

[00:01:05] not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. In the movie 8 Mile, Eminem provides a great

[00:01:22] example of using cognitive biases to win the final rap battle against Papa Doc. Cognitive biases are

[00:01:30] powerful manipulative techniques that can be used to win any negotiation, close a sales deal,

[00:01:37] win an argument, even win a rap battle, even win the presidency. Cognitive biases are essentially

[00:01:46] shortcuts that the brain uses to make decisions. These shortcuts bypass normal rational thinking,

[00:01:56] and so you have to be very careful for not being used on you. Cognitive biases fight the myth

[00:02:04] that we actually have free will. A classic example is negativity bias. If a caveman heard a rustle

[00:02:13] in the leaves, they would assume the worst. It's a lion and they would run without further

[00:02:19] investigating. This is why even now newspapers often lead with negative news because they know

[00:02:27] it attracts our attention and we are likely to buy the newspaper. And even though humans are no longer

[00:02:33] running from lions, our brains can still be manipulated by the hundreds of cognitive biases

[00:02:41] that help us make quick decisions. Understanding these cognitive biases can allow people to

[00:02:47] manipulate, even control the reactions of others so they are worth learning to not only win

[00:02:54] arguments or close a sale or win a rap battle, but also protect ourselves from people using

[00:03:01] similar techniques. In this video we will look at the final battle of the movie 8 Mile. The movie is

[00:03:08] about a white rapper named B-Rabbit played by Eminem. After a series of failures in earlier

[00:03:16] battles in the movie, Eminem successfully uses powerful cognitive biases to totally vanquish

[00:03:24] his opponent. We will look at these biases to see how they can be used in almost any situation.

[00:03:31] Notice Eminem's first line. Now everybody from the 313 put your motherf****** hands up and follow me.

[00:03:38] The 313 is the area code for Detroit. And not just Detroit, it's for the blue collar

[00:03:46] black Detroit where the entire audience and Eminem is from. So he wipes away the outgroup bias that

[00:03:54] might be associated with his race and he changes the conversation to who was in 313 and who was

[00:04:01] not in 313. He puts himself in the same group as the audience based on the area code. He says

[00:04:08] put your motherf****** hands up and follow me. Everyone starts putting their hands up without

[00:04:13] thinking so their brain tells them that they are doing this for rational reasons. For instance,

[00:04:20] their brain tells them they are now following Eminem. Another example of herd behavior is when

[00:04:27] someone yells fire in a movie theater and then suddenly instead of rationally leaving, everyone

[00:04:34] irrationally clogs the exits because of this cognitive bias. Now that Eminem has established

[00:04:40] who the in-group is, it's the 313 group, we have to start putting his opponent,

[00:04:46] Papa Doc, in the outgroup. So Eminem says, now while he stands tough notice that this man did

[00:04:52] not have his hands up. In other words, even though Papa Doc is black like everyone in the audience,

[00:04:58] he is no longer in the group that Eminem has defined and commanded, the 313 group. He has

[00:05:05] completely changed the conversation from race to area code. He doesn't refer to Papa Doc by name.

[00:05:13] He says quote unquote this man. In other words, there's the 313 group which we are all part of

[00:05:20] in the audience and now there is this ambiguous man who's attempting to invade us. Watch for

[00:05:26] instance any presidential campaign debate. A candidate will rarely refer to another candidate

[00:05:32] by name. Instead he might say, all of my opponents might think X but we here know that Y is better.

[00:05:40] When the brain starts to view a person with ambiguity, it gets confused and can't make

[00:05:45] choices involving the ambiguity. So the person without ambiguity wins. Because the brain wants

[00:05:52] to take shortcuts, it will look for information more from people with credentials or lineage than

[00:05:58] from people who come out of nowhere. So for instance, if one person was from Harvard and told

[00:06:04] you it was going to rain today and another person told you it was going to be sunny today, you might

[00:06:08] because of credential bias be more inclined to believe the person from Harvard. Eminem does this

[00:06:14] subtly two lines later. He says, one, two, three, into the four. This is a direct line from Snoop Doggy Dogg's

[00:06:22] first song with Dr. Dre, Ain't Nothing But A G Thing. One, two, three, into the four. Snoop Doggy Dogg and Dr. Dre is at the door.

[00:06:31] It's perhaps one of the most well-known rap lines ever. Eminem uses credential bias again when he says

[00:06:38] And now the audience goes with him and shouts out

[00:06:44] a reference from Mobb Deep, which associates Eminem with another huge rap group, this time

[00:06:51] Mobb Deep. But then he points to his opponent, Papa Doc, and he makes a gesture like his head is

[00:06:57] being sliced off and says, meaning that Papa Doc has no lineage, no credibility, unlike Eminem

[00:07:06] and the audience. One of the strongest sales or negotiating techniques is to list the objections

[00:07:14] before the other side does. If they bring up the objections before you, then it looks like you're

[00:07:19] hiding something. And if you bring up the objections first, then it looks like you're being honest

[00:07:25] and upfront and it removes their objections. So a great sales technique is to address all

[00:07:31] of the objections in advance. Listen to how Eminem does this in the next set of lines. He says

[00:07:41] And then he just lists them one by one.

[00:07:43] I am white. I am a f***ing punk. I do live in a trailer with my mom. My boy Future is an uncle Tom. I do got a young friend named Cheddar Bob who shoots himself in his leg with his own gun. I did get jumped by all six of you junks.

[00:07:58] And so on. He lists several more. And at the end of that list, there's no more criticism you can

[00:08:05] He's addressed everything and dismissed them. Eminem says

[00:08:12] And then Eminem turns to his quote unquote 313 group for emphasis as he explains what Cranbrook is.

[00:08:22] There's no way now that the audience could be on Papa Doc's side, but Eminem makes the outgroup

[00:08:27] even larger. His real name is Clarence and Clarence's parents have a real good marriage.

[00:08:33] Bam and bam. Two more things that separate Papa Doc out from the crowd. He's a nerdy guy

[00:08:41] who goes to a rich school and his parents are together. Now it's clear Papa Doc doesn't live

[00:08:48] in the 313, which was originally stated somewhat humorously, but is now proven without a doubt

[00:08:54] for the final cognitive bias scarcity. Everybody, you're all if you got me a lot of wonder when I'm

[00:09:01] out. He makes himself scarce after establishing total credibility with the audience. He says he

[00:09:07] doesn't want what they have to offer. He reduces the supply of himself by saying he's out of there.

[00:09:13] Reduce the supply of yourself. All demand is going up. Basic economics value goes up. Does it seem

[00:09:19] silly to analyze a rap song for ideas how to be better at sales and communicating? I don't know.

[00:09:24] You tell me. Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It

[00:09:39] means so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me

[00:09:44] at Alcatra at Gmail dot com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks. This podcast is brought to

[00:09:57] you by eHarmony, the dating app to find someone you can be yourself with. What makes eHarmony so

[00:10:02] special? You know, really, the profiles and conversations are different on eHarmony. And

[00:10:07] that's what makes it great. eHarmony's compatibility quiz brings out everyone's personality on their

[00:10:12] profile and highlights similarities on your discovery page. So it's even easier to start a

[00:10:17] conversation that actually goes somewhere. So what are you waiting for? Get who gets you on eHarmony.

[00:10:23] Sign up today. Bill Murray is a huge hero of mine. It just seems like his life is spontaneous. He

[00:10:34] goes with the flow and great things happen to him. He once said that in the beginning of his career

[00:10:39] that he wasn't rich, but he'll just pretend like he is. So he won't care at all. And he'll just

[00:10:45] see what happens. And he's been doing it ever since. So I just binge watched almost all of the

[00:10:54] Bill Murray movies. And he really does seem to play characters that are free and light and easygoing.

[00:11:01] The characters live the life I want to lead. I want to be like Bill Murray. I want to be

[00:11:06] unafraid. So I've gone through all of his quotes and interviews, and here are a few that have had

[00:11:11] the most impact on my life. Let's hear your story. It's hard to be an artist. It's hard to be anything.

[00:11:18] It's hard to be. What I learned from this is it's hard enough to live. And it's so easy to just

[00:11:24] slip into a boring routine every day. You wake up, you eat, you go to work, you go home, you watch TV,

[00:11:32] you go to sleep. But it's hard to give that extra push to make every day special, every interaction

[00:11:39] important, everything you do have impact. And with Bill Murray, he tries to do the push

[00:11:45] with every moment to make it special. You die in the improv set five times out of nine.

[00:11:51] So once you get over your fear of dying, nothing else really scares you. But it would be great to

[00:11:57] never care what people think. But how do you achieve it? You have to actually learn to be

[00:12:03] bad. You have to actually die at what you do. You have to actually fail over and over again until

[00:12:09] you realize it's not the end of the world. As great evidence, Bill Murray certainly failed in

[00:12:15] some of his movies. As an example, The Razor's Edge, a movie he did right before Ghostbusters.

[00:12:21] Where the hell have you been, soldier? If you make others look good, you'll look good. Bill Murray says

[00:12:27] this is the secret to his success. He started out in improv. He didn't try to make himself stand out

[00:12:32] and look the best. He was on stage with John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and others went on to enormous

[00:12:38] fame. He always just tried to make them look good. And he kept moving up the ladder of success as a

[00:12:43] result. We came, we saw, we kicked its ass. If I see someone who's out cold on their feet, I'm going to

[00:12:48] try to wake that person up. It's what I'd want someone to do for me. Wake me the hell up and come

[00:12:53] back to the planet. So he's not talking about literally waking something up. He's talking about

[00:12:58] really helping someone realize that life is special, life is interesting. Each moment can be turned

[00:13:05] into a work of art. One time Bill Murray walked up to a man on the street who was smoking. Bill took

[00:13:11] the cigarette out of the man's mouth, took a puff, then gave it back to the man and said, nobody's

[00:13:17] going to believe you when you tell them this, and then walks away. So Bill Murray views all life as

[00:13:22] an opportunity to squeeze a bit more juice out of it by improvising on that moment. And why not?

[00:13:28] The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything. The better you are with your loved

[00:13:33] ones, the better you are with your enemies, the better you are at your job, the better you are

[00:13:37] with yourself. This is the best advice ever. Whenever I'm nervous, I never perform as well.

[00:13:43] When I go to a social event, I'm nervous. When I give a talk, I'm nervous, or on a date, or in a

[00:13:48] meeting, or doing stand-up comedy. Now that I've binge watched Bill Murray's movies, I'm going to try to

[00:13:53] be more like him. Make it Santori time. I live a little bit on the seat of my pants. I try to be

[00:14:00] alert and available for life to happen to me. If you're available, life gets huge. You're really

[00:14:07] I'd like to be more consistently here, you know? I'd like to really get on a... I'd like to just...

[00:14:14] And I know it's not probably ever maybe possible, but because it's so improbable and so impossible,

[00:14:21] I'd just like to really see how long I could last as being really here, you know, really in it,

[00:14:28] really alive. This is about observation. Don't look at the ground when you walk.

[00:14:33] Look for those special moments. Look for the music in life. Really be present so that exciting

[00:14:38] things can happen. That'd be my only chance. This is not a dress rehearsal. This is your life.

[00:14:44] He's always about how you break the daily, normal routine of life that could end up being

[00:14:50] boring, and then the next thing you know, you're dead. How long are you going to wait before the

[00:14:55] real life begins? It's hard to win an argument with a smart person, but it's damn near impossible to

[00:15:06] win an argument with a stupid person. Friends talk, lovers kiss, idiots argue, but nobody wins in

[00:15:14] an argument. Bill Murray is known for cutting out immediately anyone toxic in his life. Total

[00:15:20] consciousness. It's really powerful to say no. It's really the most powerful thing you can say.

[00:15:26] We live in this FOMO world, fear of missing out, but Bill Murray has turned down starring roles

[00:15:31] for movies like Batman, Forrest Gump, Splash, Awakenings. Does he care? If you stick with the

[00:15:38] things you love, be with the people you love and say no to the rest, everything takes care of

[00:15:43] itself. Say hello. Where are you coming from? All the quotes above are from Bill Murray that I've

[00:15:48] taken from various interviews that he's given, but this next one is a line he says, I've killed

[00:15:54] myself so many times I don't even exist anymore. I'm a God. In that movie, he lives the same day

[00:16:01] for 30,000 days in a row, but that's sort of a metaphor for how we all live our lives until we

[00:16:06] realize too late what's happened. We always think maybe one day I'll be good at life, fall in love,

[00:16:14] save the world, but in the meantime, I just want to be good at being Bill Murray.

[00:16:22] This podcast is brought to you by eHarmony, the dating app to find someone you can be yourself with.

[00:16:38] What makes eHarmony so special? You! No really, the profiles and conversations are different on

[00:16:44] eHarmony and that's what makes it great. eHarmony's compatibility quiz brings out everyone's

[00:16:49] personality on their profile and highlights similarities on your discovery page, so it's

[00:16:53] even easier to start a conversation that actually goes somewhere. So what are you waiting for? Get

[00:16:59] who gets you on eHarmony. Sign up today. Now here for all of the youngsters of the country in Canada are...

[00:17:13] I have learned six important life lessons from Mick Jagger that I use all the time, every day,

[00:17:20] in every area of my life. It started out because I was really curious how did this band, The Rolling

[00:17:26] Stones, survive for 56 years? I mean they're even on tour right now and Mick Jagger has said they

[00:17:32] might go on tour again and again and again. He's 75 years old. The Rolling Stone has the same

[00:17:37] frontman, Mick Jagger, same guy on guitar, Keith Richards, same guy on the drums, Charlie Watts.

[00:17:44] They just keep going. How do the Stones keep going? What makes them different? What makes them stand

[00:17:50] out? So many times you hear a young band and they just sound like every other band. Nothing that

[00:17:55] makes you want to say, hey 56 years from now I'm still going to be listening to them. They all met

[00:18:01] and bonded because they were obsessed with the history of music, specifically the blues. In fact

[00:18:07] all their original songs were blues cover songs. Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, childhood friends

[00:18:13] who lost touch, they actually ran into each other at a bus stop and Jagger was carrying a Chuck Berry

[00:18:19] record. Richards recognized a kindred spirit and they were inseparable after that. They were obsessed

[00:18:25] with learning every aspect of the history of the blues. Always learn the full history of whatever

[00:18:32] your interest is. Someone once asked me, what is better to be good at a lot of things or great at

[00:18:38] one thing? The answer is perfectly exemplified by the Rolling Stones. They were good at every style

[00:18:45] of music but then they became the greatest at the intersection of all of those styles. While the

[00:18:51] Beatles combined pop, Elvis, early rock, the Rolling Stones covered those forms plus blues and R&B.

[00:19:00] Things like this remind me of Bobby Fischer and chess, the greatest chess player who ever lived.

[00:19:05] But when he was a kid he was considered a talented young chess player but not the best ever. So he

[00:19:11] totally disappeared. He was around the age of 18. He did a comprehensive study of all the games played

[00:19:18] in the 1800s. When he returned to play, he would play these old-fashioned openings from the 1850s

[00:19:24] but he'd throw in his own subtle improvements that he had developed on his own. Within a year or so

[00:19:29] he was easily US champion and on his way to being the world champion. By combining passions it's not

[00:19:35] as hard to be the greatest in the world at the intersections of all of those passions. People

[00:19:41] just simply did not like Mick Jagger's voice at first and reviewers couldn't stand Jagger's voice.

[00:19:47] One reviewer said, very ordinary. I can't hear a word Jagger's saying. Another reviewer said, fuzzy and

[00:19:53] undisciplined, complete chaos. It was also no secret that Jagger couldn't play any instruments

[00:20:00] at that time so they simply weren't the best band out there but they kept playing and they also had

[00:20:05] the extra quality of Jagger's charisma. My theory always in any career start, career change or

[00:20:12] developing a passion is that it takes one to three years to do the studying required and about

[00:20:17] two years before you're making any money at this new career, three to four years before you're

[00:20:22] making a living from it and five to six years before you are truly killing it. But it does

[00:20:27] require persistence each day no matter what you're interested in and The Rolling Stones perfectly

[00:20:32] demonstrated that. I'm always amazed at how groups of artists, businessmen, creators of any sort

[00:20:38] grow up together as a scene in their respective businesses. In writing, look at Jack Kerouac,

[00:20:45] Allen Ginsberg, William S Burroughs. In computers, for instance, look at Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

[00:20:50] In the art world, look at Jasper Johns, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg who were all living on basically

[00:20:56] the same block in downtown New York exploring the art scene of the 50s and it was no different for

[00:21:01] The Rolling Stones. One time Jagger and Richards decided they needed to start writing their own

[00:21:06] music. They had no idea where to start so Andrew Oldham was wandering around outside and ran into

[00:21:11] Paul McCartney and John Lennon and explained the problem. Lennon and McCartney went up to the

[00:21:16] apartment Jagger and Richards shared and basically they riffed out I Want To Be Your Man to help The

[00:21:21] Stones put together the release that was their first major hit. The Rolling Stones said yes to

[00:21:26] everything. They would perform 200 places a year for almost no money in the beginning of their

[00:21:30] careers even if it meant playing to crowds of just four or five people. This reminds me of when The

[00:21:35] Beatles were playing for almost 20 hours a day, seven days a week at strip clubs in Hamburg, West

[00:21:40] Germany from 1960 to 1962. It was the non-stop playing that gave them the experience and mastery

[00:21:48] but the key to a good yes is to make sure you extract as much as you can from everything you're

[00:21:55] saying yes to. Sergey Brin, for instance, one of the co-founders of Google used to interview every

[00:22:00] single potential Google employee. He explained later that he knew within seconds whether he

[00:22:04] would hire someone or not and would then spend the rest of the meeting trying to learn at least

[00:22:08] one new thing from the interviewee so the meeting wouldn't be a total waste of time. People all the

[00:22:14] time ask me how someone can make money from writing a blog or doing a podcast or writing a book.

[00:22:19] There really is no way. Most authors will tell you the fastest way to go broke is to spend years

[00:22:24] writing a book but you use the content you create as a launching pad. The Rolling Stones are no

[00:22:30] different. They don't even own most of their most successful music. They mistakenly signed

[00:22:35] away all the rights to their music without even realizing it. The songs you know like Paint It

[00:22:40] Black, Sympathy for the Devil and on and on had their rights signed away to their manager Alan

[00:22:46] Klein so they don't make any money off of those. So how do they make any money? Tours. They made

[00:22:52] over 600 million dollars on their last tour. They form a company at the beginning of each tour,

[00:22:58] collect all the revenues of that tour which includes sponsorships, tickets, clothing, record

[00:23:03] sales etc. and then they dividend out the proceeds at the end of the tour all taking home a nice

[00:23:08] paycheck. Jagger who went to the London School of Economics is very analytical even inquiring

[00:23:14] with managers about which currency would be stronger the pound or the dollar over time.

[00:23:18] All this is to say you can create your content but think of all the ways to slice it off

[00:23:24] to monetize that content. The Rolling Stones is not my favorite band. I've never bought an album,

[00:23:30] I've never seen them on tour but I'm fascinated by their longevity, the birth of their creativity,

[00:23:35] the glue that stuck them together and propelled them from despair to success and ultimately the

[00:23:39] magic of creativity that infects anyone who reaches the status they've reached. I hope one

[00:23:44] day in my own way to achieve a tiny sliver of that. This podcast is brought to you by eHarmony,

[00:24:04] the dating app to find someone you can be yourself with. What makes eHarmony so special?

[00:24:09] You! No really, the profiles and conversations are different on eHarmony and that's what makes

[00:24:14] it great. eHarmony's compatibility quiz brings out everyone's personality on their profile

[00:24:19] and highlights similarities on your discovery page so it's even easier to start a conversation

[00:24:24] that actually goes somewhere. So what are you waiting for? Get who gets you on eHarmony. Sign up today!

[00:24:39] Everyone has gone crazy. Stan Lee, the godfather of the modern superhero, has died. So everyone's

[00:24:46] saying Stan Lee changed my life because of Spider-Man, because of Daredevil, Doctor Strange,

[00:24:52] The Avengers, Black Panther. Sure, these are great stories but that is not the reason to admire

[00:24:59] Stan Lee. This is the reason. He was married for 70 years. His wife died in 2017 and even Stan Lee

[00:25:08] wasn't immortal. Shortly after his wife died, he died a year later. I could picture them in bed

[00:25:14] almost talking each other to sleep. It's been a long 70 years honey, maybe he would say. And nothing,

[00:25:20] not the Hulk or Doctor Strange or Daredevil or The Avengers could stop him from kissing her good

[00:25:26] night for the 25,000th night in a row as he turned out the lights. I love Stan Lee because he was a

[00:25:33] good guy and he loved what he did and he wanted to share his love of story with us and that's

[00:25:41] the secret of his success. Stan Lee, born Stanley Lieber, wanted to write the great American novel

[00:25:49] when he was a kid. He took a job at a company called Timely Comics. Comics were not in fashion

[00:25:56] then. The superheroes of the 1930s were no longer popular, it was mostly just westerns and romances

[00:26:03] and he took a job, he was willing to do anything. He would fill the ink in the empty ink wells of

[00:26:09] the people who were really telling the stories of Timely Comics. Like many Jewish people at that

[00:26:14] time, Stanley Lieber changed his name to Stan Lee. Almost reminds me of how Clark Kent was

[00:26:21] originally called Kal-El when he was on Krypton and El of course is the Hebrew word for God,

[00:26:27] effectively known by Siegel and Schuster who wrote the Superman comics. Stan Lee chose himself. He

[00:26:34] found a passion, storytelling, and he did it for free until he built up his network and his knowledge

[00:26:41] and put in his 10,000 hours of storytelling and then he was finally given a chance. Come up with

[00:26:47] a new superhero team, the boss of Timely Comics told him. At this point superheroes were just

[00:26:53] beginning to come back. The Justice League of America with competitor DC Comics had just

[00:26:59] launched but Timely Comics was still doing western comics, romance comics, and so on but those were

[00:27:05] sliding down. Stan Lee took up the challenge. He had seen the troubles of growing up in slums,

[00:27:12] he had grown up the nerdy kid, the kid who struggled, the kid who was bullied.

[00:27:18] He saw the travesty and tragedy of war when he served in World War II. He didn't want to write

[00:27:24] a superhero that was perfect like Superman or The Flash. He wanted real people with real problems,

[00:27:31] with real fears, with real insecurities, with real secrets but only people who would now use their

[00:27:38] secrets to save the world and battle their emotional dysfunctions. 30 years before mythologist

[00:27:47] Joseph Campbell popularized it, Stan Lee understood the arc of the hero which is the secret of all the

[00:27:54] stories he wrote and the secret of how to create the kind of success Stan Lee had. Joseph Campbell

[00:28:00] noticed that in every major story that survived thousands of years of time, culture, history,

[00:28:08] in every major religion, in every major pantheon of gods and heroes, the same story structure took

[00:28:15] place over and over and over. Stan Lee knew this even before Joseph Campbell and using this formula

[00:28:24] that had worked for 5,000 years of storytelling, Stan Lee created the heroes that are today's

[00:28:30] modern day pantheon of gods as evidenced 50 years later by billions of dollars of movie franchises.

[00:28:39] Doesn't matter if you're young, you're old, you're ancient, you're a man, you're a woman, everybody is

[00:28:44] paying for tickets for these movies all based on stories Stan Lee wrote using the arc of the hero

[00:28:50] in the 1960s. So let's examine the secret of Stan Lee's success in the context of how he wrote

[00:28:57] Spider-Man and how he used the arc of the hero which is also sometimes called the hero's journey.

[00:29:02] First there's the ordinary world, our hero is not yet a hero, maybe he's a nerdy high school kid.

[00:29:09] Call to action where our future hero is still ordinary but there's the call come be a hero.

[00:29:17] Refusal of the call, at first our ordinary guy doesn't want to be a hero or he has excuses.

[00:29:23] Meeting the mentor, our hero, our future hero meets the person who's going to spur him on

[00:29:29] to his adventure, crossing the threshold. Now finally our ordinary guy is forced into the

[00:29:36] world of being a hero, tests allies and enemies, he starts to meet the allies that will help him,

[00:29:43] the enemies that will attack him and he gets tests, has bigger and bigger tests along the way.

[00:29:49] Approach to the inmost cave where in order to defeat the ultimate problems he has to first

[00:29:56] conquer the fears, insecurities and mistakes inside of himself and then finally the hero

[00:30:03] reaches his biggest test, his biggest challenge, he conquers it and he returns to the world

[00:30:10] a changed person ready to battle and to take on all future challenges. So that's the arc of the

[00:30:17] hero, now let's look at it specifically in the context of Spider-Man. I'll present Spider-Man

[00:30:24] in the context of the arc of the hero. Peter Parker was a nerdy high school student that was

[00:30:30] bullied constantly, just like me, maybe just like you, just like 100 million other kids. Again he

[00:30:36] was an ordinary high school student but he had flaws. Then he was bitten by a radioactive spider,

[00:30:44] the radioactive spider gave him extraordinary powers but first Peter Parker didn't know how

[00:30:50] to use these powers. Instead of trying to save the world or help people he wanted to make money,

[00:30:56] he fought fights in the circus and that was his focus instead of being a hero.

[00:31:02] There was one point during this period Spider-Man could have stopped a mugger but again he didn't

[00:31:09] want to use his powers to fight evil but then something tragic happened. The mugger killed

[00:31:15] Spider-Man's mentor, his beloved Uncle Ben and in his dying words Uncle Ben whispered,

[00:31:22] with great power comes great responsibilities. We all heard those words, Peter Parker heard those

[00:31:29] words, Spider-Man heard those words and that was when he decided okay now I'm going to become a hero.

[00:31:36] He decided he's going to make his mentor, however brief, Uncle Ben proud. Peter Parker, Spider-Man

[00:31:42] enhanced his webbing, enhanced his suit, started fighting crime and soon the criminals were not just

[00:31:48] simple muggers but villains with vicious superpowers. Villains like Dr. Octopus, Mysterio,

[00:31:55] Electro, Shocker, the Vulture. Only Spider-Man could stop these villains. As he fought increasingly

[00:32:01] more difficult villains over the years he built up his allies. Sometimes he worked with the Fantastic

[00:32:06] Four, for a while he joined the Defenders, he even occasionally would work with the Avengers

[00:32:12] and soon the enemies went from villains destroying the city to villains potentially destroying the

[00:32:17] universe. Then Spider-Man, Peter Parker had his darkest moment. His arch villain, the Green Goblin

[00:32:26] threw to her death the love of Peter Parker's life, Gwen Stacy and Peter was just devastated.

[00:32:33] What was going to happen to him now? He was either going to be destroyed by his despair or he was

[00:32:40] going to rise up and become the hero that would eventually save the world time and time again.

[00:32:46] Eventually he conquered the Green Goblin just as the Green Goblin was trying to now kill Mary Jane

[00:32:53] Watson. So learning from his mistakes and learning from his 10,000 hours of mastery as he learned how

[00:33:00] to better and better use his superpowers, he started working with the other superheroes

[00:33:05] and he became the fully authentic Spider-Man we know and love today. So this was the hero's journey

[00:33:13] the arc of the hero of Spider-Man. That was the story Stanley told and he told it over and over

[00:33:19] again. He told it with Daredevil, he told it with Doctor Strange, he told it with the Hulk. These

[00:33:26] were the arcs of the heroes. These were the arcs that we want to go on with these heroes. We want

[00:33:32] to be heroes and that's what Stanley was appealing to. He wasn't writing a great story, he was writing

[00:33:38] about you and me and what we wanted in our lives. And that's the final secret to Stanley's success.

[00:33:46] The question I ask myself is, is my life the arc of the hero? Is your life the arc of the hero?

[00:33:54] We can all learn from these stories to become the heroes in our own lives.

[00:34:33] The Glad Girl Group coming at you with that throwback jam. That was Glad Force Flex Drawstring Trash Bags

[00:34:47] featuring Pine Sol Original Scent and that's better than all good, it's all glad.

[00:34:53] The living room is where you make life's most beautiful memories but your sofa shouldn't be

[00:34:58] the one remembering them. The new life-resistant high-performance furniture collection from Ashley

[00:35:04] is designed to withstand all the spills, slip-ups and muddy paws that come with the

[00:35:08] best parts of life. Ashley high-performance sofas and recliners are soft, on-trend

[00:35:13] and easy to clean. Shop the high-performance furniture in-store or online at ashley.com.

[00:35:19] Ashley for the love of home.