I watched a great analysis of the movie Ex Machina on YouTube the other day, and the narrator spoke about how all character growth in a movie is based on three areas: weakness, need, and desire.

He was saying that all characters have a weakness — something that is holding the character back from achieving their need. Their need is what the character must fulfill within themselves to overcome their weakness by growing or changing. A character’s desire is what the character wants in the story.

If you take those three areas — weakness, need, and desire — you can almost map out any character in any movie.

I then thought about how I coach. My job as your coach is to:

Define your desire - what you want in your career/life.
Understand your need - what areas you need to overcome to grow and change to reach what you desire.
Tackle your weaknesses - those thing(s) holding you back.

Weaknesses are the interference — those external and, more likely, internal obstacles that interfere with our growth and hold us back. Once we uncover and target each one with an action plan, hopefully, we can slowly eliminate them.

We then can serve up those areas you really need (your potential) to perform at a higher level.

Finally, once you are performing at a higher level — you move much faster and closer to your desired state.

What’s holding you back? What’s your desire?

BTW - Check out the YouTube video here - it’s quite good.