What Cobra Kai Taught Me About Mentoring
I love movies. I must confess that I spend way too much time watching Netflix. When you watch a lot of movies you start to see a pattern in the stories. It’s like every screenwriter attended the Blake Snyder “Save the Cat” writer’s workshop or read his books on story structure.
If you haven’t noticed, almost all great stories follow the same general structure. This is especially true with the great epic stories. If you look hard, you’ll notice that Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, Rocky, The Karate Kid, and every sports movie ever are essentially the same story.
The epic story structure is simply about how an ordinary person is helped by a mentor to become a hero by overcoming certain obstacles. That’s it.
When I was younger, I identified with the young protagonists in those stories. Who wouldn’t want to be the hero, right?
But as I get older and begin to lose the unrelenting battle with grey hair, I no longer relate with the young heroes in these stories. As Danny Glover would say, “I’m getting too old for this.”
One of my favorite movie franchises is The Karate Kid. I loved watching Mr. Miyagi help Daniel LaRusso overcome his Cobra Kai bullies to become a karate champion. The Karate Kid Part 2 is one of my favorite movies of all time. That’s the one where Daniel-san goes to Okinawa with Mr. Miyagi. It had everything totally awesome 80s movies are known for. Love interests, mean bad guys, cool training montage, and an awesome soundtrack that included Peter Cetera’s hit song, “The Glory of Love.” I wore out my VHS video tape watching this over and over.
After 30 years, Netflix decided to continue the story of Daniel LaRusso in a popular series called “Cobra Kai.” In the story, Daniel is no longer a fresh-faced underdog kid, but he’s now a middle-aged man. He runs a demanding business. He has arguments with his wife. He has issues raising teenage kids that barely listen to him.
Being a huge Karate Kid fan, I thought I would love the Cobra Kai show. It’s one of the most popular shows on Netflix, but I personally find it hard to watch at times. I find myself getting frustrated watching Cobra Kai. I can’t binge it like I do other shows. This has nothing to do with the quality of the show itself. It’s a good show with good writing, acting, and production.
Upon reflection, I realize that the reason this show frustrates me is that it’s hitting a bit too close to home. I didn’t realize how closely Daniel’s life tracks with my own. All the things Daniel struggles with are the same thing I struggle with. As Daniel is facing a potential mid-life crisis, he decides to make some radical adjustments to his life. He decides to put his successful but demanding business on the back burner to focus on a “passion project,” which is teaching Karate.
Daniel is still growing. While the original Karate Kid movies showed the journey Daniel had to go on to become a hero, Cobra Kai shows Daniel taking the uncomfortable leap in his epic story as he struggles to become the mentor. He tries, clumsily at first, to do for his students what Mr. Miyagi did for him.
That’s how the epic stories work. It’s a circular story in which the boy becomes a hero and the hero becomes a mentor to help other boys and girls to also become heroes. I realized that all these great stories I love hinge on the mentor, not the hero. Even though the mentor isn’t the main person in the story, there is no story without him.
Because there would be no Karate Kid without Mr. Miyagi. The mentor isn’t the hero, but he is the “hero maker.” Who would Luke Skywalker be without Obi-Wan and Yoda? Who would Harry Potter be without Dumbledore? Who would Frodo be without Gandalf? Who would Marty McFly, Katniss Everdeen, and Rocky be without Doc Brown, Haymitch Abernathy, and Mick?
They certainly wouldn’t have become the heroes we come to love on their own. Each of these heroes started as ordinary young people who faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles before they met their mentors.
The reason I can’t watch more than one episode of Cobra Kai at a time is that I find it a bit painful to watch Daniel fail and fall short of being a perfect dad, husband, or mentor to his students because it reminds me of the times I’ve made the same mistakes in my own life.
I assumed that the mentors in these stories were near-perfect characters. They seem to arrive on the scene fully formed and complete. You don’t see them struggle with doubt or make dumb mistakes. You just assumed that they were perfect.
But that’s only because the camera is focused on the struggles of the hero, not what the mentor is going through. Recently, shows and movies like Cobra Kai, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore reveal the uncomfortable, behind-the-scenes view of how our respected mentors struggled and failed. We learn that our mentors weren’t limited by their struggles, but were shaped by them. Facing and overcoming their struggle was the thing that made them great mentors.
As I get older, I realize that I don’t have to be perfect to make a difference. I’ve learned that the biggest impact I can make is not as a hero, but as a “hero maker.”
Of course, the transition to becoming a mentor is not an easy one to make. It assumes that you have already fought your own battles and defeated your own enemies. At this point, with a case full of trophies, you have the option of sitting back and enjoying your hard-earned success. This may be the biggest battle of all. They battle against selfishness and indifference.
I’m convinced that the best way to make a difference in the world today is to become a mentor to the younger generation. The younger generation is crying out for mentorship. If you find yourself being frustrated about the attitude and disposition of the younger generation, remember it’s not their fault. They had bad teachers. As Mr. Miyagi said, “No such thing as a bad student, only bad teacher. Teacher say, student do.”
If you want to make an impact in the world, mentor someone. Seek to become a “hero-maker.” But I must warn you, becoming a mentor isn’t easy. It requires an immense level of commitment, intentionality, generosity, and sacrifice.
Many of the movies I grew up with often include a “training montage” sequence. I love those scenes. It’s where Daniel-san learns karate by doing household chores. It’s where Rocky learns how to box by chasing chickens and tenderizing sides of beef. What we often fail to notice is that the mentor has to be just as committed to the training process as the student. Mick had to get up at the crack of dawn with Rocky. Mr. Miyagi was by Daniel’s side the whole time.
Learning to become a mentor is a process. You can’t skip any steps. As Mr. Miyagi told Daniel, “First learn stand, then learn fly. Nature rule, Daniel-san. Not mine.”
You will make mistakes, but you will grow and learn from them. You will experience failure after failure. But the good news is that the process of battling your own personal failure actually makes you a better mentor. I learned that the areas of my greatest struggles and my failures have made the biggest impact on the lives of those I mentor.
And as you commit to the process, you will grow and improve as Daniel LaRusso did. The challenges that Daniel LaRusso faces are the same challenges we all have to face if we want to make an impact and leave a legacy.
That’s my encouragement to you. If you want to make a difference, then invest your heart and soul in mentoring someone. You have more to give than you realize.
Don’t settle on being a hero. Become a hero-maker!
