What are you really good at? What do you do well? Are you developing your specialized knowledge? What are you doing to become better? I don’t do my taxes and rely on a professional to take care of that work for me.īut you also need to be developing specialized knowledge yourself. First, you do not need to learn everything to reach your goal. The message of specialized knowledge is twofold. They entered the journey of the Rocket Boys to advance toward their goals when they needed answers.Īll the specialized knowledge Homer gained made him the perfect fit for the position of NASA Aerospace Engineer. Several adults help Homer with the welding of his rockets and the use of the right materials. Quentin is a wizard with math, trigonometry and the mechanics or rockets. The first is his friend Quentin, the quintessential nerd. There are several people Homer needs to enlist to help reach his goals in the film. Homer’s enthusiastic admonition that he will learn the math is a classic example of autosuggestion.įor most of us it is negative and filled with that emotion, too! Be mindful of how you speak to yourself. It needs to use the language of the subconscious mind, which is emotions. She tells him the math is very advanced, and Homer immediately and enthusiastically replies, “I’ll learn the math!”.Īutosuggestion creates faith. In the movie, Hickam’s teacher Miss Riley (Laura Dern) gifts him a book on the Principles of Guided Missile Design. What the Rocket Boys focused on was telling themselves, “there must be a way.” Certainly there are times were doubt creeps in, but they often fight that doubt with positive self-talk. There are times where they are effectively shut down.īut even during those times, what is remarkable to met in the film is the impeccability of their self-talk. Instead of feeding your fear with reasons why you cannot succeed, why not do something to grow your faith instead?ĭuring the film Hickam and the Rocket Boys are met with countless obstacles. When was the last time you fed the faith of your dream? Without the remote possibility of success, you will never take a risk. He was also willing to take risks as part of that faith. Hickam had faith he could learn and grow and become the person that succeeds. The path of faith moves us one step at a time on a foggy trial where we can only see one or two steps ahead. That seed of faith is sometimes all we need to get started. As he started down that path, he even remarked to friends their chances of winning the science fair are 1 in a Million. Hickam believed his desire to build rockets could create a path out of his mining future. Athletics was the only way for these kids to escape the future of the mine. He was an average student, with an even greater average athletic ability. Hickam didn’t know the first thing about rockets. If you listen to other and extinguish the flame of your desire, you will end up leading lives and having careers just like the people you spend the most time around. He grew up in a mining town, where his fate would have lead him to work in the mine just like his father, John (Chris Cooper). You become willing to do whatever it takes to succeed.ĭo you have a burning desire to be, do or have something more in your life? Most of us shut off our desire, as Homer almost did. When you allow yourself you be consumed by desire, you no longer focus on failure as an option. That desire pushed him to fail, over and over again as rockets continually exploded before his eyes. He studied and learned things he previously didn’t understand. That burning desire caused him to befriend the class geek. The more he thought about rockets and space, the more willing he became to learn, experiment, and grow. Right from the beginning of the story, Sputnik stirred something deep inside Hickam. Hickam eventually became a literal NASA rocket scientist. With the help of his close friends in the small mining town of Coalwood, the Rocket Boys not only were successful with their rocket hobby but it took them all the way to the national science fair. October Sky tells the experience of Homer Hickam, Jr., (Jake Gyllenhaal) a high school student who was so inspired by these global events he decided to build his own rockets. If you don’t know the story, in October of 1957, Sputnik was the first satellite launched into space. In doing so, October Sky helps communicate how these principles have universal application toward any goal we have. October Sky perfectly embodies 12 of the 13 principles of success as written in Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich. Since I am always a fan of the timely coordination of family movie night with whatever else is going on in our lives, I wanted to dust off the 1999 film October Sky. This week, my 6th grader is launching a rocket in his class.
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