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Tonight we're gonna hustle like it's 1987.
On October 19, 1987, the stock market dropped 500 points, which was the largest single hit in history. They called it Black Monday. The fallout was devastating. Companies slashed jobs, the real estate market crumbled, and millions of young people were left wondering:
“How on earth am I going to get ahead in this market?”
Luckily, Hollywood provided two blueprints that year for early career success, two Foxes to show people how to out-smart the entry level.
1987 was the year that The Secret to My Success (Michael J. Fox) and Wall Street (Bud Fox) hit theaters - two stories about young guys who hustle their way from the rat race to the big cheese, learning valuable life lessons in the process.
These films are worth revisiting as we race into 2009 because now is the time to get tough, be bold, and outfox the constraints of the “no phone calls please” job market.
Consider the following lessons from Success and Wall Street:
In the land of opportunity, “create” beats “wait” – Both Foxes started near the bottom and both escaped the grind by creating their own opportunities. In a tough market, you can't afford to wait your turn.
In order to get outside of the box, you might have to cross a line or two – You can’t get ahead if you don’t take risks. That said, I wouldn’t advocate selling-out your father (Bud Fox) or sleeping with your Auntie Vera (Michael J.) to get ahead.
Integrity matters - Like all good ‘80s movies, the characters in Secret and Wall Street learned valuable life lessons (during synthesizer-driven montages) before things got out of hand. The lessons from these two films can be summarized as followed:
Ambition is Good, Greed is Bad (sorry, Gordon), and Character is Paramount.
Note: Jake on Jobs does not condone sexual harassment in the work place or excessive hair gel usage, both of which were somehow deemed acceptable in 1987.
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