The Star Wars Saga has been a rich source of inspiration to extract life lessons. J.J. Abrams’ The Power Awakens also contains some unique life lessons.

The first lesson: The life is a constant struggle, so be prepared for the next challenge.

The stage of success is temporary and the forerunner of a new challenge. At the end of the Star Wars VI, Luke Skywalker kills the emperor and a period of peace and tranquility begins in the galaxy.

In time Luke vanishes and in his absence, the evil First Order rises from the ashes of the Empire. First Order is trying to control the galaxy as the Emperor once did. The peace again leaves its space to terror and war. Read more Lessons from Star Wars VII: The Power Awakens ›

Masayuki Suo’s film-Shall We Dance shows the importance of breaking the routines in business and life. The main character in the film-Sugiyama is an ordinary accountant who has a routine and boring life. Every day he goes to work from the same path by using the same train, same bike, and at the same time. The only glimpse of hope to break his routine is the mysterious, beautiful young lady standing at the window of the dance school. For a long time, he has no courage to enroll at the dance school to create a reason to meet her. One evening he is able to derail; he gets off the train at the nearest station to the dance school and opens the door to a new life. Read more Shall We Dance / Director Masayuki Suo ›

The Little Red Riding Hood is an interesting material to have some inspiration on various of aspects of management.

The wolf is the protagonist of the story in my opinion. The wolf resembles of an effective manager.

First he has a clear vision: “Eat as much as you can and survive.”

He is excellent at intelligence management. While he is among the woods, he notices the woodcutters and accesses them as a potential threat, and tries to stay away from them. Read more The Little Red Riding Hood / Charles Perrault ›

Death of a Salesman is an inspirational work that makes us think in several different ways; my personal preference is thinking about confronting reality and making adjustments. The members of the Loman family in the play, don’t accept the reality, and their life is like a fake film stage. What we see, hear, or read is beautiful, but when we check what is behind it, a disappointment waits for us. Linda and Willy do not have a happy marriage, but they pretend to be happy. Happy is working as a career man, but he is the assistant to assistant, he doesn’t have a real career success. He says that he has girlfriends, but in fact some of them are fiancées of his colleagues’ and some of them are prostitutes. Read more Death of a Salesman / Arthur Miller ›

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar gives important clues about forecasting the future. Most of the classical works have a figure of soothsayer, and there are different signs that imply that the prophecy might be true. In Shakespeare’s play, in the first act a soothsayer warns Caesar about “the Ides of March”, and later Julius Caesar’s wife Calpurnia tells her worries about him because of her nightmare about his assassin.Artemidorus, one of Caesar’s supporters, also tries to warn him. Finally by not taking these warnings into consideration, Caesar confronts with his tragic end. Caesar is not alone in his insufficiency in predicting the future. In the same play Brutus, Cassius, and other conspirators can not predict the consequences of their actions. Read more Julius Caesar / Shakespeare ›

Sophocles’ Antigone is a quite interesting example of leadership. In books about leadership, the acts of leadership are generally described from the point of view of an assigned leader like a CEO, a general manager or a departmental manager. But in real life usually, leadership starts with a rebellion of a person who is not in the position of authority. The leader is a rising star who breaks the law or challenges the tradition or authority. So, in the play while the formal leader is Creon, the informal leader is Antigone. She is challenging the King’s Creon’s authority. She doesn’t want to obey Creon just because he is the king. Her name Antigone has two parts “anti” and “gone.” Anti meant against and opposed to and “gon” meant “corner, bend” like poly-gon. So, based on her name, Antigone’s role is opposing and challenging the order. Read more Antigone / Sophocles ›