THE SOCIAL NETWORK

I just watched the movie ‘the Social Network’ for the second time recently and this time around I decided to learn from it. The movie taught me some real life lessons that I want to share with you:

1. Life’s not fair, deal with it. Mark Zuckerberg screwed Eduardo Saverin up towards the end of the movie despite Eduardo’s early contributions to the progress of Facebook but it was necessary to attract investors.
2. Get smart. You can steal an idea only if you can face the consequences or if you can modify it and make it yours. However, don’t get caught.
3. Fight, even if you’ll end up severing some important ties. Conflict is necessary for progress. Sometimes, you’ll have to escape from some relationships.
4. Let challenges, insults and criticism motivate you to do better rather than bring you down. I love what Mark said to Eduardo when his ex-girlfriend snubbed him at the bar: “We’ve got to expand…”
5. Self-confidence is necessary (but don’t become too arrogant and proud; people will hate you for it).
6. You’re only allowed to ‘seem’ stupid, don’t ‘be’ stupid. You’ll get trampled upon.
7. Trust no one absolutely, not even your closest friend. Money can screw anyone up. It can easily damage any relationship, no matter how tight that relationship might seem.

If you haven’t watched the movie, you should. If you like slow paced movies then I encourage you to watch it. It’s nice and you won’t be disappointed (at least I wasn’t).