Moments of Conception 200: The Basketball Scene in Just One Of The Guys

January 29, 2016 1:24 PM

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

Based on my books in The Prolific Series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the basketball scene in Just One Of The Guys:

Make the choice to lean into a different future. Reinventing yourself isn’t about changing your clothes
and the way that you walk. It’s about springing yourself past a frontier and
letting the constellation of your identity expand so you can see the beginning
of a different and more courageous dream. It’s about letting go of everything
you’ve tried and built and accomplished and accumulated so far, except for the
person you’ve become, and using that as the raw material for whatever comes
next. I once wrote a letter of
resignation to myself. It was a transformative experience. And not because I
was retiring in the traditional sense. I had no intention of separating myself
from society and giving up my business and withdrawing into seclusion. Rather,
what I was retiring from was a particular way of being. What I was letting go
of was a posture and a process that had been good to me. Dylan famously said
that before you can reinvent yourself, you have to believe you have nothing
left to say. That’s exactly how I felt. That I had nothing left to say. That I
had done enough to be okay with myself. And I felt complete about that part of
my journey. At that very moment, something inside of me shifted. A threshold
was crossed. A graduation was had. And with one eye on the receding horizon of
my past, a portal opened up, inviting me to cross a new frontier. Since then,
I’ve been upgrading my operating system. Making deep changes in my life. And
I’ve never been happier. I feel like a whole new person, and yet, more like
myself than ever. What habits do you need
to jump out of to reinvent yourself?

Pursue wholeness, not perfection. Terry isn’t taken seriously because of her good
looks. And when she fails to get dream job as a newspaper intern, she remedies
the situation by enrolling at a rival high school and disguising herself as a
boy. Over the next year, she is heartbroken and humiliated multiple times over.
But by the time the semester is over, she has enough experience to write a long
article detailing her cross dressing and romantic experiences, both good and
bad. When her article is printed in the newspaper, she receives high praise
from her teachers and friends and finally earns her dream job at the newspaper
office. It’s a beautiful story about identity and creativity, but it’s also a
powerful narrative about the journey towards wholeness. Because we’re all
searching for completeness. We’re all trying to trust the soul to know its own
shape. Terry ultimately achieves this goal, but she does it on her on steam.
And she does it by embroiling herself in the confusion and struggle of being
one of the guys. But by plunging into the humbling fire of heartbreak and
humiliation and hardship, she rise from the ashes with an upgraded version of
her authentic identity. Proving, that wholeness comes
when we’re willing to admit that we’ve reached the end of ourselves. Where in your
life are you not choosing wholeness?

Burn yourself down and
salt the earth. Net worth is defined as the total
assets minus total liabilities. The term is traditionally used when talking
about the value of a company or an individual’s economic position. But here’s
an interesting experiment. Try approaching the word metaphorically, not just
monetarily. That’s what truly wealthy people will tell you. That net worth has
nothing to do with money. Rather, your net worth is what you have when
everything is taken away. Your net worth is what’s left when after the fire
department clears out all the ashes. And so, the better questions to ask are,
what are the things that nobody can take away from you? What are the assets
that truly belong to you and only you? And what have you earned the right to
own that the world can never repossess? The answer is, the person you’ve become. That’s your birthright. The perspective
you’ve gained and the wisdom you’ve earned and the humanity you’ve deepened.
Nobody can take that away from you. When I initiated my own process of
reinvention, one of my friends said something I’ll never forget. He told me
that I wasn’t starting from scratch, but letting go of everything I’d tried and
built and accomplished, except for the person I’d become. You are the only
thing you have to offer, he said, and that will be enough to reinvest into
something new. When was the last time you
reinvented yourself?